Retreatants (Papal Household) Hear of Guises of the Antichrist

Zenit News Agency ^ | February 28, 2007

[NYer]

Preacher Draws On Work of V.S. Solovyov

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Antichrist is the reduction of Christianity to an ideology, instead of a personal encounter with the Savior, says the cardinal directing the retreat which Benedict XVI is attending.

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, retired archbishop of Bologna, delivered that message during a meditation Tuesday, drawing on the work of Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov.

The cardinal's meditation came during the weeklong Spiritual Exercises being attended by the Pope and members of the Roman Curia. The retreat ends this Saturday. The Holy Father suspended his usual meetings, including the general audience, in these days.

According to Vatican Radio's summary of his preaching, the cardinal explained that "the teaching that the great Russian philosopher left us is that Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values. At the center of being a Christian is, in fact, the personal encounter with Jesus Christ."

Quoting the work "Three Dialogues on War, Progress and the End of History," Cardinal Biffi told his listeners that "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."

"He will convoke an ecumenical council and will seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions, granting something to each one. The masses will follow him, with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants," he said.

The cardinal added that Solovyov says in that work: "Days will come in Christianity in which they will try to reduce the salvific event to a mere series of values."

No cross

In his "Tale of the Antichrist" Solovyov foresees that a small group of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants will resist and will say to the Antichrist: "You give us everything, except what interests us, Jesus Christ."

For Cardinal Biffi, this narrative is a warning: "Today, in fact, we run the risk of having a Christianity which puts aside Jesus with his cross and resurrection."

The 78-year-old cardinal said that if Christians "limited themselves to speaking of shared values they would be more accepted on television programs and in social groups. But in this way, they will have renounced Jesus, the overwhelming reality of the resurrection."

The cardinal said he believes that this is "the danger that Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality."

However, "this does not mean a condemnation of values, but their careful discernment. There are absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty," Cardinal Biffi said. "Those who perceive and love them, also love Christ, even if they don't know it, because he is Truth, Beauty and Justice."

The preacher of the Spiritual Exercises added that "there are relative values, such as solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature. If these become absolute, uprooting or even opposing the proclamation of the event of salvation, then these values become an instigation to idolatry and obstacles on the way of salvation."

Cardinal Biffi affirmed that "if Christianity -- on opening itself to the world and dialoguing with all -- dilutes the salvific event, it closes itself to a personal relationship with Jesus and places itself on the side of the Antichrist."

[Quix]

Yup. Caught it. Thanks.

[Maeve]

Jesuits: the Maryland Province is entirely insane, the cutting edge of demonic rage. However, the Chicago province is pretty straight up.

Franciscans of the Holy Custody are theologically orthodox within Catholic standards. The Franciscans in Assisi are heretics. The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration are for the most part Saints. The Poor Ladies themselves are likewise Saints. But there are so many orders of Franciscans it is hard to number them all. The Franciscans of Mary Immaculate are magnificently faithful as are The Franciscans of the Renewal in New York. The Franciscans (Conventual) out of Chicago that I knew where homosexuals and heretics.

[ArrogantBustard]

The looneys should be laicized, and their orders suppressed.

IMO.

[NYer]

Look what I found:

His eyes were drawn to the central figure of the image, a figure of Christ. How strange, he thought, to see a representation of the Lord with the figure of Satan whispering in His ear, and his arm penetrating His robes. Is that Christ's hand or the devil's that emerges from the folds of cloth?

It was not a literal depiction of a scriptural scene, he concluded; although it might be the artist's imaginative rendering of the temptation in the desert? But there was something out of character in the way Christ leaned into Satan's embrace and listened with such attention.

He stared at it for a long time. Suddenly, the meaning of the mural became clear, like a scene viewed through lenses revolving into focus. The blurred shapes of reality drew together into a sharp, piercing landscape of moral disaster.

The figure held in the devil's embrace was not Christ but Antichrist.

FULL TEXT

[topcat54]

No thanks. The futurists in the RCC can duke it out with the dispensationalists.

[Patriotic1]

bump

[Dr. Eckleburg]

He who calls himself Pontificus Maximus, from Nero to the Bishop of Rome, is certainly suspect...

(1) Martin Luther: There sits the man, of whom the apostle wrote (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4), that will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God. That man of sin to be revealed, the son of perdition . . . He suppresses the law of God and exalts his commandments above the commandments of God (LeRoy Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2, 281).

We here are of the conviction that the Papacy is the seat of the true and real antichrist (Froom, 256).

(2) John Calvin: I deny him to be the vicar of Christ. . . . He is the antichrist —- I deny him to be the head of the Church (John Calvin Tracts, vol. 1, 219–20).

(3) John Knox: That tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church, the very antichrist and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks (The Zurich Letters, 199).

(4) Philip Melanchthon: It is most manifest, and true without any doubt, that the Roman pontiff, with his whole order and kingdom, is very antichrist. . . . Likewise, in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul clearly says that the man of sin will reign in the church by showing himself above the worship of God (Froom, vol. 2, 296–99).

(5) Sir Isaac Newton: But it [the Papacy] was a kingdom of a different kind than the other kingdoms (referred to in Daniel 7:7–8) . . . and such a seer, prophet, and king is the church of Rome [referring to the little horn of Daniel 7] (Sir Isaac Newton, Observations of the Prophecies, 75).

(6) John Wesley: Romanish papacy, he is, in an emphatical sense, the man of sin (John Wesley, Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms, 110).

(7) Samuel Lee (a seventeenth-century Rhode Island minister):

It is agreed among all main lines of the English Church that the Roman pontiff is the antichrist (Samuel Lee, The Cutting Off of Antichrist, 1).

(8) The statement from the Westminster Confession of Faith of the Church of England, which was also adopted by the Presbyterians, is significant.

"There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God" (The Westminster Confession of Faith, Section 6, Chapter 24).

(9) The Helvetic Convention of Switzerland mentions the Papacy as the predicted antichrist. The Lutheran statement contained in the Smalkald Articles refers to the pope as the very antichrist who exalts himself and opposes Christ. The 1680 New England Confession of Faith states that Jesus Christ is the head of the church and not the pope of Rome, who is identified as the antichrist and the son of perdition.

Further, as John Calvin wrote in the Institutes IV:7:25...

"To some, we seem slanderous and petulant when we call the Roman Pontiff Antichrist. But...Paul says that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God (2 Thessaonians 2:4). In another passage, the Spirit...says that his reign would be with great swelling words of vanity (Daniel 7:25).

This calamity was neither to be introduced by one man, nor to terminate in one man...(2 Thess. 2:3; Daniel 7:9) Moreover, when the mark by which he (Paul) distinguishes Antichrist is that he would rob God of His honour and take it to himself...it is certain that the Roman Pontiff has impudently transferred to himself the most peculiar properties of God and Christ. There cannot be a doubt that he is the leader and standard-bearer of an impious and abominable kingdom."

[P-Marlowe]

Wow.

Maybe you should invite this John Calvin guy to be a member of the GRPL. He doesn't pull any punches, does he?

Looks like this Wesley guy could be a viable candidate as well. :-)

[1000 silverlings]

If the big hat fits...

[xzins]

I like the Wesley guy a lot, and am normally hesitant to say he's just flatout wrong, but the "papacy" is not the son of perdition. The son of perdition is not a system or an office, it is an individual.

John speaks of "antichrists" already gone into the world. That is a more likely way to pin this on the papacy.

But, "THE" son of perdition is a particular historic man.

[Campion]

He who calls himself Pontificus Maximus

You can't even get the title right.

And then you quote a lot of foolish men, all of whom are wrong.

But look at the bright side. Every one of them now knows the truth.

[Campion]

Oh, and one more thing. Your post is 100% an appeal to manmade tradition, which -- ironically enough -- is where you guys always end up.

[Campion]

John speaks of "antichrists" already gone into the world. That is a more likely way to pin this on the papacy.

John also tells you how to identify those antichrists.

"He who denies the Father and the Son ..."

IMO, that's someone who denies the Incarnation and the Divinity of Christ. No Pope (yet) meets that qualification.

[Quix]

Sorry Dear Heart Dr. E and gang . . .

I feel like slapping some fingers or faces . . .

There was plenty in the document that was solidly Biblical that we could all cheer on in good conscience.

Yet now we have the typical screeds that are well known to all of us on all sides. I don't see such adding a thing redemptive to the thread. The RC's will understandably take offense and feel reasonably that the screed is unwarranted, if not off the wall.

Those on the other side will feel quite likely very sanctimonious and justified in STANDING UP FOR TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS against all the horrors of RC-dom.

And I don't see God being glorified in any of such a microgram's worth. And there's not a shred of BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES--THAT YOU HAVE LOVE ONE FOR ANOTHER.

I personally think the hostile screeds on this thread are out of place; missed it by a light year and are not very Spirit-led at all.

just imho, of course.

[livius]

Thank you, Quix.

[Quix]

You are most welcome.

Christian integrity, to me, means telling it like it is when it's sunny and when it's not.

The truth in Love is a high standard I fall short of. But I earnestly try to measure up to it.

The thread's original doc is a good exhortation. It is Biblical. It is Christian. It is accurate. It is life-giving. It is edifying. Believers of all flavors ought to be able to see that and agree with it. imho.

If they can't, perhaps it says more about them and their tidy little boxes than it does about some other things.

[Quix]

So many churches have gone astray by ignoring the absolute values and exalting the relative values, which cease to exist and even become dangerous once you remove the absolute to which they refer.
= = = =

TRue.

Thankfully, folks are not bothering to attend such congregations in increasing numbers. Those where the raw unmitigated CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED is still preached are growing.

[Quix]

join the discussion, yes.

Wasn't necessary to bring several buckets of rocks. No call for it.

[HarleyD]

Maybe you should invite this John Calvin guy to be a member of the GRPL. He doesn't pull any punches, does he?

Actually, those are the rather tame quotes. :O)

[visualops]

On still another level, the artist is reaching for the deepest organs of perception in the soul. The artist wants us to hear a soundless cry, an alarm, a warning."

"That might be stretching it. Were those fifteenth-century painters such sophisticated theologians?"

"Some of them were. Some were mystics as well. In those days, the civilized world was Catholic. Life was short, eternity was always just a breath away. Salvation and damnation saturated the normal atmosphere of life. Even so, the painter was compelled to attempt a most urgent warning. I think he's saying that if we can be so easily deceived by a few strokes of the brush, by art, which of its very nature is a medium of illusion, how vulnerable are we to the power of the senses? Couldn't a flesh-and-blood Antichrist far more effectively create the appearance of goodness, while hiding his attachment to evil?"

"Theoretically. But he'd have to be quite a conjurer."

"This Antichrist resembles our traditional images of Christ. What if he should also imitate Christ in his public actions?"

"Granted, it's possible. But I can't believe a man who's that evil would be able to fool the whole world for long."

"What if the world desired to be fooled?"