According to reports, leaders from over 30 Roman Catholic values groups have signed a statement that they will stand with the Bible rather than with their pastors and leaders – and they even mention their willingness to stand against the Pope of Rome. Called “Fidelity Pledge”, they claim that they will stand with the Bible on the issue of abortion, and not with Romish leaders. It reads:
If there is any conflict between the words and acts of any member of the hierarchy, even the pope, and the doctrine that the Church has always taught we will remain faithful to the perennial teaching of the Church.
Romish leaders who signed the pledge include the President of Associazione Famiglia Domani, Virginia Coda Nunziante, and seven other Italian leaders. Also signing it is Roberto de Mattei of the Lepanto Institute, as well as some American Catholic leaders.
The pledge saying, “If there is any conflict between the words and acts of any member of the hierarchy, even the pope, and the doctrine that the Church has always taught, we will remain faithful to the perennial teaching of the Church, sounds down-right Protestant, doesn’t it? It continues, however, “If we were to depart from the Catholic faith, we would depart from Jesus Christ, to Whom we wish to be united for all eternity.”
The Papists are willing to sign statements pledging their loyalty to Scripture over the Pope, but clarified that they were not willing to leave the Papist faith. Statement swirling around the media today from the signatories took an every stronger stance against the Pope and his blatant social liberalism.
John Smeaton, Chief Executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), said, “Indeed, over the last couple of years, Pope Francis and Vatican authorities have capitulated to the ‘culture of death’ by supporting the pro-abortion United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and by promoting the agenda of the international sex education lobby through Amoris Laetitia and the Pontifical Council for the Family’s “pornographic sex education programme.”
Smeaton said, “We must ceaselessly demand that our priests and bishops teach the fullness of the Church’s doctrine and do not collaborate, even for a moment, in the dissemination of errors that are tragically being spread by His Holiness Pope Francis and by many other senior members of the hierarchy.”
These Roman Catholics, of course, are not truly affirming Roman Catholic doctrine when it comes to the authority of the Pope.
Papal infallibility was dogmatically proclaimed at the First Vatican Council of 1869, which declares the “Petrine supremacy of the Pope,” whenever the bishop of Rome is speaking ex cathedra – in official capacity as the Pope. Before the First Vatican Council, papal infallibility was largely assumed and suggested as early as the medieval period, but the Pope could theoretically be over-ruled or even disobeyed. But now, the Pope’s interpretation of Romish doctrine is to be seen as supreme and infallible.
The First Vatican Council stated the following:
We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.
So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema. — Session IV, Const. de Ecclesiâ Christi, Chapter iv [emphasis ours]
The Pope and the Pope’s church – by dogmatic decree – are “irreformable.” Let that soak in.
We pray that our Roman Catholic neighbors will abandon the false religion of Rome altogether and become Christians, trusting in salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.
