“The Height of Hypocrisy”

By Darryl Eberhart, Editor of “Tackling the Tough Topics (TTT)” and

“Examining the Tough Issues (ETI)” (Web site: www.toughtopics.net)

(Please also visit web site: www.toughtopicspodcast.net.)

 (All emphasis is mine unless otherwise noted.)

December 3, 2006

            On November 29, 2006 I read in my local newspaper the following headline: “Pope blasts faith-based violence.”  Victor L. Simpson had written an article for The Associated Press under the above headline about Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Turkey. Here, in part, is what Mr. Simpson wrote: “Pope Benedict XVI urged leaders of all religions to ‘utterly refuse’ to support any form of violence in the name of faith…  The German pope…[told] diplomats that leaders of all religions must ‘utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of faith.’  …Benedict also said guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society, and the Vatican said he raised specific issues such as property rights of Turkey’s tiny 32,000-member Catholic community during talks with Turkish officials.  …The pope is expected to call for greater rights and protections for Christian minorities in the Muslim world.”

            Well, this editor must admit that those words by the current pope sure “sound nice”; however, do some of these “nice words”, such as “greater rights and protections for Christian minorities” apply only to Roman Catholics?  Surely “inquiring minds” would like to know!

            If my memory serves me well here, I do believe that the current Pope of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI – the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger – served at least five terms at the head of the Roman Catholic “Holy Office of Inquisition”, now known under the much sweeter-sounding euphemism of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.  Though many Americans have been the victims of a deliberately dumbed-down public education system, most should remember that the so-called “Office of the Holy Inquisition” is a Roman Catholic institution that wreaked havoc on the European continent for centuries!  The “Holy Office of Inquisition” refined torture to an art, and struck fear in the hearts of not only non-Roman Catholic Christians, but also Roman Catholics themselves.  The techniques used by the “Holy Office of Inquisition” closely resemble those used by totalitarian Communist regimes, such as the Soviet Union and Red China.  These “techniques” included having everyone spying and informing on everyone else – to include having children spying and informing on their own parents, etc. – all in the name of exterminating those who dared to question either Roman Catholic doctrine or policy – or who dared to question the absolute authority of the Papacy to rule in both secular and religious affairs!  These “techniques” also included the following: (1) interrogation by the most vicious torture; (2) “show trials” without proper defense counsel; (3) no “habeas corpus” (the right that safeguards the individual against illegal detention or imprisonment); and (4) execution by the most cruel methods, such as “slow roasting” at the stake!

            Well, some may ask: “Why bring up something [e.g., the Inquisition] from the far distant past?”  My answer is simple: The past is not so “far distant” as concerns the Inquisition!  In fact, the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia in the 1940s, in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Fascist State of Croatia, carried out a vicious religious genocide-“Holy Inquisition” against innocent Serb Orthodox Christian men, women, elderly, and children within the confines of that Fascist State’s borders!  This relatively recent historical event saw two Jesuit prelates named Monsignor Aloysius Stepinac (Archbishop of Zagreb) and Monsignor Ivan Saric (Archbishop of Sarajevo) orchestrating one of the most monstrous torture and slaughter events of World War II.  In fact, the torture and slaughter of innocent Serb Orthodox Christians was led, participated in, and urged on by, Franciscan priests, monks, and friars.  Some of them served as commandants at the cruelest detention camps.  The perpetrators of this religious genocide came from the ranks of the Roman Catholic Ustashi (initially a militia group that became the armed forces of the new Fascist State of Croatia).  (NOTE: “Ustashi” stands for “Catholic Action”.)  From 600,000 to one million innocent Serb Orthodox Christian men, women, elderly, and children were slaughtered. The atrocities included: (1) women and young girls were raped and ravished with extreme cruelty; (2) Orthodox priests were crucified to wooden doors; (3) young children were impaled alive on stakes; (4) innocents of all ages had their eyes gouged out; (5) innocents of all ages were flayed alive, buried alive, and burned alive; etc.  And all these innocent Serb Orthodox Christians were tortured and slaughtered JUST BECAUSE they were not Roman Catholic! (For more information on this brutal Roman Catholic genocide in the 1940s, please read my TTT newsletter entitled “The Vatican’s Holocaust” on www.toughtopics.net.)

            Indeed, the history of the Roman Catholic Church has been written in the “blood of innocents”.  The Roman Catholic Church has been torturing and slaughtering Jews, independent Bible-believing Christian groups (e.g., the Albigenses and Waldenses), Protestants, and Orthodox Christians for over a 1000 plus years!  The Roman Catholic Church also slaughtered Muslims in large numbers during several “Holy Crusades” to the Holy Land.  Through “Holy Crusades”, “Holy Inquisition”, “Holy Wars”, etc., the Roman Catholic Church has left a “trail of innocent blood” that would shame most pagan societies!  Those real Christians (such as the Albigenses and Waldenses) who dared challenge Rome’s absolute authority to rule in affairs secular and religious, or who questioned her false doctrines and practices, were labeled “heretics” by Roman Catholic prelates, who then raised armies to send against these innocent farmers and peasants to steal their property and slaughter them!  Indeed, “holy crusades” were launched by the Roman Catholic Church against the Albigensian and Waldensian Christians.  The Albigensian Crusades took place from 1208 through 1226.  Pope Innocent III ordered these bloody crusades to be launched against Christians, and these crusades succeeded in wiping out the Albigenses in southern France!  Later, in 1477, Pope Sixtus IV organized a “holy crusade” against the Waldensian Christians in southern France, and slaughtered thousands upon thousands of them!  (For more information on Roman Catholic “crusades” against Jews, Muslims, and Christians, please read these two TTT newsletters on www.toughtopics.net: “Death by Government and Death by Church” and “Bloody Hands & Wicked Hearts”.)

            Now I must ask, isn’t it surely the “height of hypocrisy” for Pope Benedict XVI, the former 5-time head of the “Holy Office of Inquisition”, who surely knows the bloody history of Roman Catholic religious genocide against Jews, Christians, and Muslims, to urge leaders of all religions to “utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of faith”?

And, I must also ask, isn’t it surely the “height of hypocrisy” for Pope Benedict XVI, the former 5-time head of the “Holy Office of Inquisition”, who surely knows how frequently the Roman Catholic Church has denied “freedom of religion” to others living under her authority, to say that “guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society”?  In fact, the Roman Catholic Church has hated “religious liberty” and “popular, representative government” for centuries, and has worked overtime to destroy both!  Little known to many Americans, the Papacy-Vatican not only hates religious liberty and popular, representative government, but also laid plans to slowly destroy our American Constitutional Republic.  These plans were made in a number of “secret” meetings held in the 19^th century: (1) the Congress of Vienna (Austria) in 1814-15; (2) the meetings at Verona, Italy in 1822; and (3) the Jesuit meetings at Chieri, Italy in 1825.  (For more information on the Vatican’s hatred of liberty, please read my TTT newsletter entitled “Vatican Hatred of Liberty” on www.toughtopics.net.)

            And, I must also ask, isn’t it surely the “height of hypocrisy” for Pope Benedict XVI, the former 5-time head of the “Holy Office of Inquisition”, who surely knows the bloody history of Roman Catholic religious genocide against Jews, Christians, and Muslims – and who knows the Roman Catholic history of confiscating the property of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Jews and Christians – to raise the issue of “property rights of Turkey’s tiny 32,000-member Catholic community”? (NOTE: The Roman Catholic crusaders also did some major confiscation of Muslim property during their crusades to the Holy Land!)

            Dear reader, did you know that the Papacy-Vatican-Roman Catholic Church has never repudiated its “right” to use the most vicious torture and deadly force (to include religious genocide on a mass scale) whenever and wherever it deems such use appropriate?  And as already mentioned, the Roman Catholic Church to this very day maintains its bloody “Holy Office of Inquisition”, although labeling it under that more benign euphemism of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.  It has been reported that Vatican records on how to viciously torture people, revive them, and torture them even still more exist to this day!

            Yes indeed – Pope Benedict XVI, former head of the “Holy Office of Inquisition”, now titular head of the Roman Catholic Church, urging leaders of all religions to “utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of faith”, stating that “guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society”, and raising the issue of “property rights of Turkey’s tiny 32,000-member Catholic community” surely surpasses the “height of hypocrisy”!

            I would like to close with several interesting quotations:

            “Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the Gospel, the papal Church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the Church of God and wasted it for centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history, the ‘dark ages’.  The kings of the earth gave their power to the Beast.” – John Foxe (or, Fox) (1516-1587; author of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs)

            “History records the appalling story of suffering and martyrdom endured by untold millions across the centuries at the hand of the PAPAL MACHINE.” – Wilson Ewin (Canadian Christian writer & author; You Can Lead Roman Catholics to Christ; Page 33)

            “For rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, Christians were burned at the stake by Roman Catholics by the hundreds of thousands.  Church historian R. Tudor Jones writes that ‘the majority of the martyrs were ordinary people, including many women…’

            …Similar records have come down of the massacres of Jews at the hands of the Roman [Catholic] Church.” – Dave Hunt (A Cup of Trembling; Page 160)

            “Roman Catholicism was born in blood, has wallowed in blood, has quenched its thirst in blood, and it is in letters of blood that its true history is written.” – Baron DePonnat (1940)