Our Readers' Opinions
October 12, 2007
The Pope acts on Christ’s behalf

12.OCT.07

Editor: I will attempt one last time to draw reason and logic from Mr. Rogers. Is it reasonable to insist that the Devil encourages faith in Jesus and avoidance of sin? The answer is no, it is not reasonable. In his previous letters, Mr Rogers takes great pains to explain that the term anti means substitute. This is yet another gross inaccuracy, which I had hoped he would correct for himself.{{more}} In the Oxford Dictionary, the word “anti” means opposed to. It is time Mr Rogers begins using the correct definition of this word. It might clear up quite a bit of confusion for him. Could you imagine the confusion of a person who believes anti means substitute when confronted by words such as anticlockwise, antiapartheid, and antiaircraft? Look in any dictionary, Mr Rogers, you will see that everyone’s understanding of the term antichrist is that of opponent of Christ; get with it! The Christian World has always understood the antichrist to be the Devil. The lengths to which Mr Rogers will go to avoid being reasonable is truly a wonder.

The official titles of the pope are: Pontifex Maximus, Supreme Pontif; Servus Servorum Dei, Servant of the servants of God; Successor Petri, Successor of Peter; and Vicarius Christi, Vicar of Christ. No one in the Catholic Church, including the Pope himself, thinks of the Pope as replacing Christ or his teaching. Like any other pastor, the Pope acts on Christ’s behalf for the benefit of Christ’s flock. In John 21:15-17, Jesus asks Peter three times to feed his sheep. In writing about the Pope, Mr Rogers has pulled every dirty trick in the book, including using semantics to support his simply being unreasonable, incorrectly defining words, plagiarism, quoting biased second hand sources, and taking statements out of context. What is next? I must say that for a Christian, Mr Rogers certainly uses a lot of dirty tricks. I certainly hope he won’t resort to flat out fabrication.

One fabrication that has made the rounds is that one of the Pope’s titles is “Vicarius Filli Dei”. This is not now, nor has it ever been a title of the Pope. The point behind this deception is to say that if letters in this fake title are converted to numbers, using roman numerals, and then summed, they amount to 666. What if the pope did have a title that added to 666 when converted and summed; is it reasonable to assume that this indicated he was the Devil? Do you know that Ellen Gould White, founder of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination, also has a name that comes to 666? In roman numerals I=1, V=U=5, W=2V=10, X=10, L=50, C=100, D=500 and M=1000. Table 1 below is a break down of the value letters found in the name Ellen Gould White.

Table 1
3L U D I W Sum Tot
150 5 500 1 10 666

Is it then reasonable to assume that because of the rather providential coincidence displayed in Table 1 that Ellen Gould White was the Devil? Of course it is not reasonable! All anyone can ask us is that we at least be willing to be reasonable. The above illustration was taken from Patrick Madrid’s series Pope Fiction. As for Mary, the Ever Virgin Mother of God, She deserves a page all of her own.

Salt