Beast's Power From Satan

As we have already shown, the Catholic Church was shaped by the religion of the pagans. This is satanic and also very attractive to those who don't want to obey God. This is one of the ways in which Satan lent power to the beast: by creating an alluring counterfeit for the true worship of God. Most people like this counterfeit better than the original, so, they give their assent to the beast. Popularity with the people is power. Yet, Jesus said that His true followers would not be popular, because He was not popular and His religion would not be popular. Only Satan uses worldly popularity as power.

Another form of satanic power is force. Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has applied force more than any nation, empire, or system before her or since. Even the holocaust--during which millions of Jews were murdered--fades before the awful destruction of God's people through the "dark ages." The Roman Catholic Church hunted and slaughtered like animals the people of God by the countless millions. The blood used to flow in the streets like rain-water in towns where the "soldiers of the cross" had visited to murder "heretics."

Some Catholics deny that their church has killed heretics. This denial is itself flatly denied by one of their own standard writers. This man, Cardinal Bellarmine, was almost made a saint after his death in 1621 because of his great services to the Catholic Church. Because of a controversy on the subject, he betrayed himself into a confession of the truth. Luther had said that the church (meaning the true church, not the Catholic Church) never burned heretics. Bellarmine, understanding Luther to refer to the Catholic Church replied, "This argument proves not the sentiment, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther; for as almost an infinite number were either burned or otherwise put to death, Luther either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew it, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood--for that heretics were often burned by the church (meaning the Catholic Church) may be proved by adducing a few from many examples." (John Dowling, THE HISTORY OF ROMANISM, p. 547, emphasis supplied.)

Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, when referring to the attitude of the church toward heresy, remarks:

"When confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war, and all her 'horror of blood' practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious--for it is less frank--than shedding it herself." (Alfred Baudrillart, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE RENAISSANCE, AND PROTESTANTISM, pp. 182,183)

Space fails us to tell of the atrocities and methods used by the supposed "church of God" to silence her enemies as there were "almost an infinite number" of atrocities. Read FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS to find some of the stomach-turning story. As you read, ask yourself whether a loving God or Satan was motivating and empowering the Catholic Church.