Double Standard?

Roman Catholic priests don't just believe themselves able to call Christ away from the side of the Father. They don't just consider themselves to act in Christ's place. No, those are not the limits of their blasphemies. Priests of the Roman Whore actually claim to be another Christ. Furthermore, according to one such alter Christus, it is right and proper that they consider themselves as such Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vicegerent of Christ on earth. He continues the essential ministry of Christ - he teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ, he offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of "alter Christus." For the priest is and should be another Christ. -- John A. O'brien, Faith of Millions , Our Sunday Visitor (1938), p. 271 The supreme arrogance of the Romish priestly class does not stop at claiming the person and office of the Second Person of the Trinity. No, indeed. As a Doctor of the Church declared, citing the words of another Doctor of the Church, the Catholic priest also claims the power and office of the Holy Spirit. According to St. Ambrose, a priest, in absolving a sinner, performs the very office of the Holy Ghost in the sanctification of souls.--Alphonse de Ligouri, The Dignity and Duties of the Priest, Benziger (1888), p. 36 Now that really is blasphemy on a high level. Recall the words of Jesus to the Pharisees concerning offenses against the Holy Spirit: Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.--Matthew 12:31-32 I believe that the willingness of some in the high halls of Roman Catholicism to claim power and authority equal to the Holy Spirit speaks to the arrogance of the RCC priestly class. In the preceding paragraphs, we see Catholic priests cast in the roles of the Son and of the Holy Spirit -- two Persons of the holy Trinity, but we have yet to see the limits of their incredible arrogance. Ligouri cites two other Catholic saints, one a Doctor of the Church: "The power of the priest," says St. Bernadine of Sienna, "is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation of the bread requires as much power as the creation of the world." As the Word of God created heaven and earth, so, says St. Jerome, the words of the priest create Jesus Christ. --Alphonus de Ligouri, Op. Cit., pp. 32,33 In these words, we see the Romish priest acting as God -- yet even more. We know from Scripture that the three Persons of the Trinity are eternal: they always have been and always will be. No one, not the Father, not the Son and not the Holy Spirit was created, yet Alphonsus de Ligouri asserts that the priest speaks Jesus Christ into existence. Does this not make the priest superior even to God, at least according to RCC thinking? Was there not another who sought to be the equal of God? 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.-- Isaiah 14:12-14 Not even Lucifer, in declaring his five "I will's," sought to place himself above God or establish himself as the Creator of God. But this is not the end of the priestly arrogance. Catholic priests even place themselves above the rules of the Catholic Church. The Catholic must be ritually clean if he is to receive communion. He must be in a state of grace, according to the Catholic understanding, free of the disqualifying burden of unconfessed mortal sin, else he will be guilty of sacrilege. The first of the fundamental conditions to receive Communion worthily is that he who receives, whether priest or layman, be in the state of sanctifying grace. This obligation arises from the very nature of the Eucharist as a sacrament of the living. Once a man has committed mortal sin, his soul loses supernatural life...one who receives the Eucharist, having for his guest God Himself, cannot properly invite Him when his home -- his soul -- is corrupted by evil. To do so is a great sacrilege offered to One Who, hour after hour, deigns to dwell with loving generosity in the tabernacles of His Church.--John Gilland Brunini, What Catholics Believe -- And Why, (C) 1946 Harper and Brothers , p. 183) Brunini wrote as a lay theologian. His book, though it holds an introduction by Francis Cardinal Spellman, carries neither Nihil Obstat nor Imprimatur and cannot be validated as being faithful to the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Let us look then to the words of an active member of the RCC priesthood: To receive Holy Communion worthily, one must be in the state of grace, that is, free of having committed a mortal sin that has not been confessed and absolved in the Sacrament of Penance. To receive Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin is itself a mortal sin of sacrilege. A person who has committed a mortal sin must first cleanse his soul in the Sacrament of Penance before receiving Communion. St. Paul declares (1 Cor. 11:29) that anyone who would receive the Eucharist unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself. (The sin of sacrilegious Communion is of course forgivable in the Sacrament of Penance.)--Father Francis J. Peffley, The Catholic Church's Teaching On The Eucharist Recognizing that there are those who would argue that, though a priest, Peffley's words may or may reflect the authentic teaching of the Roman Church. For them, I offer these words of the Catechism promulgated by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum . Surely that is 'official' enough for even the most hardcore skeptic. 1415. Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.--Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). (C) 1994/1997 United States Catholic Conference, Inc Yet it has repeatedly been shown not to be outside the realm of possibility that the Catholic priest celebrating the Mass may be carrying out his priestly functions while bearing the mark of unconfessed mortal sin (in the Catholic ubderstanding) on his spiritually dead soul. As we have seen in so many recent criminal hearings and trials, the priest may be lusting after one of his altar boys or, just as sinful, may only moments before donning his priestly garments have engaged in some forbidden activity with that altar boy. Should not such a priest be guilty of sacrilege? 2120. Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating UNWORTHILY the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.[Cf. CIC, cann. 1367; 1376.]--CCC, Op. cit. And who confesses the confessor in these days of single-priest parishes? The Diocesan Vicar of Priests has that responsibility. Don't you have to wonder how many penitential Hail Mary's and Our Father's he requires of a priestly pedophile in addition to a sincere act of contrition? For that matter, can an act of contrition be considered sincere when the offending person goes to the same trough of sin over and over again? Is there a double standard of morality within the Roman Catholic Church? Certainly there seems to be. A laymen who takes communion unworthily is considered by the RCC to be guilty of sacrilege, yet a priest who must also consume a consecrated host as part of his priestly function and who may be guilty of unabsolved mortal sin apparently is unaffected by his own unworthy partaking of the sacrament. There is little truth in the Roman Catholic Cult. Seek God's truth in the Scriptures.