How the Church Got To Where It Is Today pt.5 of 7

Fred Whitman is a missionary supported by our local church. He is the Founder and president of a fundamental radio station in Italy. He also planted and pastors a Baptist church there as well. The following is a booklet that he wrote and gave away to those who wanted it. I am presenting it here essentially untouched and unedited. It may take several installments. My hope is that others will find his thoughts insightful and be blessed. Pray for Brother Fred and his family as they ministers to those in Italy.

In His fellowship,
Brother John

How the Church Got To Where It Is Today
By Fred Whitman

The Pope proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary to be dogma, so a person claiming to be a Catholic absolutely has to believe it. There was a struggle then in church because there was another problem in Italy. Garibaldi! He had a thousand soldiers, and they were marching up to Italy, defeating all the independent states, because they wanted a unified Italy. One of the biggest obstacles was the Papal States of the Roman Catholic Church. They owned about a quarter of all the landmass of Italy. Right in the center, they owned the whole thing. Abraham Lincoln sent money, a ship, and troops to help Garibaldi in his fight against the Pope. As you know, a little bit of history, in 1865 the Civil War had ended. The only foreign government that ever officially recognized the confederate states was the Vatican. Among other things, there was a plot on the life of Abraham Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, he was murdered. Most of the people directly involved in that assassination were Roman Catholics. Many of them escaped into French Quebec and never faced Justice, and so it would seem to link Pope Pius IX directly with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

I was just there at Ford's Theater/ and I was talking to the orator who just retired, I said, "In all your reading/ did you ever find anything that talked about Pope Pius IX involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?" He replied/ "Oh, yes." In 1871, the Roman Church was in danger of a seism over the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, so Pope Pius IX called the first Vatican Council. It's interesting, there was a separate council being held at that time, too, by a bunch of dissidents, and I actually have a copy of the letter that Giuseppe Garibaldi actually wrote to these dissidents that were meeting, encouraging them in their fight against the Roman Church on this point What came out of the first Vatican Council? One thing: the Pope is infallible. This is dogma. Anything he says about religious, spiritual, or moral things cannot be wrong. He is infallible. And why do you think he had to do that? Well, because so many of the people were ready to leave this church and Pope Pius IX because they didn't follow this thing about the Immaculate Conception of Mary. To prove he was right and to defend himself, he said, "You have to believe that because I said it," and he proclaimed himself infallible. That's what came out of the first Vatican Council.

(To be continued)