According to an editorial in The West Australian newspaper 22/4, Pope Francis was “a reformer”. We, reformed people, have always understood the term ‘reformer’ to apply to people who sought to bring the church back to the truth of Scripture and obedience to God’s Word. That’s why we call Luther, Calvin, Knox, DeCock and others ‘reformers’. For them (as it is for us), the Word of God was seen as the ultimate standard and, like the prophets of old, the reformers sought to bring people and the church back to faithful submission to the Word of God. But can that be said of Pope Francis? Did he call people back to the truth of God’s Word? Isn’t the very notion of the papacy antithetical to reformed beliefs?
The above-mentioned editorial says that part of Pope Francis’s legacy is that “he allowed Catholic priests to give blessings to same-sex couples, and later blasted critics of the move as hypocrites. He confirmed that transgender people could be baptised and serve as godparents. He said the Church should apologise to gay people rather than judge them. He allowed divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive communion.” That’s not calling people back to Scriptural obedience but caving in to world-conformity.
To be sure, caving in to world conformity is not peculiar to Roman Catholicism. Lots of ‘protestant churches’ have done the same. As secular society changes, people of the church often follow suit. Think only of what happened in our former Dutch sister churches, the GKv – now absorbed into the liberal NGK. The lesson is for us to ‘test the spirits’ lest we, too, find ourselves swept along by worldly ideas.
We can know from church history that popes and the Roman Catholic Church are not renowned for their faithfulness to the Truth. Indeed, back in the time of the Reformation, they persecuted the true Christian believers who courageously exposed the errors in the church or refused to adhere to its false teachings. Reformed people were not tolerated by the Romanists and their popes but were instead kicked out of the church which the reformers sought to bring back to Scripture. For their efforts they were persecuted and many were killed through the Roman Inquisition. Unable to subscribe to Roman Catholic deviations from God’s Word, many true believers were burnt at the stake, comforted by the knowledge of being welcomed into an eternal abode with their Lord and Redeemer.
One of these deviations from God’s Word was the Romanist claim that the pope was the head of the church. With an appeal to Mt 16:18, where Jesus tells Peter, “you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church”, Romanists claimed that: “Peter was the first bishop of Rome. There he ruled the church on earth as vicar of Christ, in the name of Jesus. We are the successors of Peter. So we are the vicars of Christ on earth. We will rule the church on earth in the name of Christ.” The term ‘The Pope’ means ‘Alone Papa!’ Even today, Romanists continue to claim that Peter was the first pope and that through the apostolic succession every pope is a descendent of Peter. 1
But this is based on a terrible misinterpretation of that text. In response to Jesus’ question, Peter had said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. It is on this confession, this ‘rock’ of fundamental truth, and not on the person of Peter, that Jesus said he would build his church. The notion that the pope has a unique, God-ordained authority and position cannot justifiably be based on God’s Word.
The true reformers also rejected the Romanist notion that in addition to God’s Word, the words of the popes and other church traditions that are not directly based on the Bible also have authority. They rejected the presumptuous idea that when the pope speaks ‘ex cathedra’, he is speaking doctrine or giving morals that are binding and infallible because, so the Romanists claim, the pope is then speaking on behalf of God.
This is the old sin of elevating people and their sayings above the Word of God. The Apostle Paul, speaking by the Holy Spirit, warns us “not to think beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6). However, the Romanists, following in the footsteps of the pharisees, put the skids under the reliability of God’s Word. The sad consequence is that it leads to people being unsure of their salvation. Uncertain and pessimistic about entering the kingdom of God, they fail to see that God gives entrance to His Kingdom, not through man’s efforts, but by grace and through Christ’s atoning work alone. The pharisees wanted, at least partly, to obtain salvation by their own efforts. And so do the Roman Catholics. Hence they not only devalue the work of Christ but they can never be sure of achieving salvation because they can never be sure whether their own achievements are good enough.
As we’re now seeing again, the death of a pope is a big event in the Roman Catholic church. Millions are said to have mourned the passing of Pope Francis. The media, too, has devoted many articles to his life and death, speaking favourably of this “man of the people”. However, whether God is enamoured by what he did, and by the position as ‘head of the church’ he and all popes arrogate to themselves, is a different matter.
John Calvin was certainly not enthralled by the institution of papacy. Indeed, with reference to 2 Thess. 2:4 he called the pope the Antichrist, saying that the papacy had usurped Christ’s authority and led believers away from genuine faith. He said that the pope “uses the name of Christ as a pretext” and, as Antichrist, the pope robs God of his honour and transfers that honour to himself. He saw the papacy as a system of tyranny that opposed the spiritual kingdom of Christ. And he completely rejected the idea that the pope had divine authority over the church. Calvin said: “Seeing then 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” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter 7, Section 25). No wonder Calvin was scathing of the institution of the papacy.
The Roman Catholic church has a distinct hierarchy and the pope is at the top of the ladder, being its spiritual leader and most powerful figure. He is the final authority on the Roman Catholic church’s doctrine and policy and speaks with tremendous influence on ethical issues such as war, climate change, poverty and human rights. Indeed, his influence often goes beyond the Roman church’s claimed 1.3 billion adherents. Little wonder political leaders seek to curry favour with the pope and that so much media attention ws given to Pope Francis’s death, perhaps also because his views have been more in keeping with some ‘woke’ ideas of much left-leaning media. Certainly his liberal views made the more conservative elements within the Romanist church uncomfortable.
We have reason to be glad that our FRCA Church Order has, in conformity with the teaching of Scripture, the reformed principle that there is to be no hierarchy, no lording over others in the Christ’s church: “No church shall in any way lord it over other churches, no office bearers over other office-bearers” (Art. 80). That is basic to our Church Order. We may also appreciate the fact that we have an avenue of appeal to major (broader) assemblies whereby “whatever may be agreed upon by a majority vote shall be considered settled and binding, unless it is proved to be in conflict with the Word of God or with the Church Order” (Art. 31). It is for us to uphold the principle that the Word of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the only Head of the church, is to be the final authority in all we do and say lest, in justly condemning the papacy, we become guilty of subscribing to an unscriptural hierarchy which, at heart, goes in the same direction as the papacy (as happened so blatantly in 1834 and in 1944). May God grant that His Word is always the Truth that governs our whole existence, in church and in our personal lives.