A text used out of context as proof text is a pretext
ANSWERING COMMON JWS’ ARGUMENTS
Speaking by experience as a convert Catholic, I realized over and over again how utterly misinformed I had been on so many topics, whether due to the Jehovah’s Witness propaganda that I regurgitated again and again since I was born or just plain largely anti-Catholic so called “public” school education, media and rewritten History, which are all saturated by the Black Legend lies and fabricated facts that have been assimilated over the centuries as accepted “truths” that can be nowadays easily disproved with some serious impartial and honest research. Here are some examples of realities that I discovered that shocked me as I was told such a different story all along. The many references and links under RESEARCH will provide more detailed proofs of the fallacious reasoning of the below misconceptions among Jehovah’s witnesses.
“Why do Catholics worship Mary?”
Actually we don’t. We only worship God. We venerate her and give her Hyperdulia which is a special honor. In the Bible, worshipping involves sacrifice. Catholics only offer sacrifices to God, never to Mary. Bowing to anyone, human, Saint or image DOES NOT equate to worship in any form or shape. Whatever is offered to Mary is for her to adorn, purify, sanctify, cleanse and present to Her Son Jesus as a perfect offering so that He may intercede for us to the Father. SEE SECTION ON “Mary”.
MUST SEE – MINUTE 10’30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGtoybjbE1A
Watch FR. MIKE SMITH – ASCENSION PRESENTS: MOTHER MARY, SAINTS, WORSHIP? VIDEO: Do Catholics Worship Saints? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9yGNPaIcA
“We are the only true religion on earth and Jehovah has been showing the light ever since the Bible Students started studying the Scriptures carefully at the end of the XIX Century as Proverb 18:1 reads: “But the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light that grows brighter and brighter until full daylight”. “
A lot of what JWs teach and preach is actually not their own and never has been.
The teaching that Jesus is an angel is a heresy invented by a heretical Catholic priest named Arius in the IV Century. The teaching of Arianism was condemned at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. JWs did not get any new light nor did they invent anything. This heresy was unknown to first Century Christian. SEE SECTION ON “JESUS, ANGEL OR MAN”.
The teaching that The Holy Spirit is a force and not a person was likewise another invention of other heretical Catholics from the IV Century, called Pneumatomachi or Pneumatomachians, The term comes from Greek, meaning “fighters against the Spirit”. They were also called after the heretical Catholic Bishop of Constantinolple Macedonius and their group came to be known as the Macedonians. Pneumatomachianism or the Macedonian heresy was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. JWs did not invent anything nor did they have any new light coming from God. They are just recycling old heresies from heretical priests from the IV Century. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE HOLY SPIRIT” AND “THE HOLY TRINITY”.
The music used in the audio drama in the audio cassette of my childhood about the Israelites coming out of Egypt “Jehovah’s Name to Be Declared in All the Earth” is actually an extract from the “Tuba Mirum” of the Requiem of Giuseppe Verdi. That Requiem is a Catholic Mass to the Dead that Verdi premiered in 1874.
Reading the Bible at the Kingdom Hall every 3 years is nothing new. The Catholic liturgy for the mass follows a 3-year Sunday liturgical cycle (Cycles A, B, and C) which was implemented in the Catholic Church in 1969, following the Second Vatican Council. Previously Catholics had one year cycle with the Tridentine Mass. The Bible is also read at every single mass every single day of the year in 3 year-cycles. Yes, true Catholics do read the Bible and not only at mass. True Catholics are supposed to read the Bible every day at home too according to the Apsotolic Exhortation VERBUM DOMINI of Pope Benedict XVI of 2010 (See https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html) and also according to VERBUM DEI of Pope Paul VI of November 1965 (See https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html)
The name Jehovah was neither invented by nor is the property of JWs. Many Catholic Bibles use the term Yahve. The scribes “wrote the consonants YHWH using the vowel points for Adonai as a reminder to Jewish lectors to say “Adonai” instead of “Yahweh.” This custom of writing the consonants of one word with the vowels of another is where we get the English word “Jehovah.” In Latin, “YHWH” had become “JHWH,” and when combined with the vowels of Adonai—a, o, and a—it became “Jahowah,” which then became the English “Jehovah.” Some have argued that this usage began in the Christian Catholic community as early as the twelfth century, though it is often traced to 1518, when Petrus Galatinus, O.F.M. [a Catholic Franciscan Friar]—the confessor of Pope Leo X—published a book that popularized it. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE NAME OF GOD”.
The term “apostate” (or Latin variations such as apostatavit or apostata) appears in Catholic baptismal registers to denote a person who has formally abandoned, renounced, or defected from the Catholic faith. JWs did not invent anything. They are just re-using words that the Catholic church has been using for centuries.
The vows of chastity, obedience and poverty at Bethel are also copied from the vows that every nun or monk has been taking for centuries when entering a convent or a monastery.
I studied the official book of The Catechism of the Catholic Church which presents the dogmas and doctrines that the Catholic Church has held for 2 millenniums and I was shocked to find word for word some teachings that I had been taught to me as a JW about sin, the world, Satan and the flesh. I also did some research about some of the collaborators of Charles Taze Russell and evangelical trends of the XIX Century about the Millennium Reign and I was surprised to find identical teachings and similar end of the world views in other Protestant denominations. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a relatively “new” 150-year old religion but they did not invent anything really… They are just recycling and mixing some truths, invented teachings and outright heresies…
I can go on and on but this is what my website is here for…
We will all render account and answer to Jesus personally for the heresies that we were led to believe and spread without ever checking our sources, blaspheming the divinity of Jesus, sullying the Holy Name of God and staining the reputation of the Holiest woman who ever walked on earth the Holy Virgin Mary.
Insisting Bible in hand pushing the fallacious argument that Jesus had brothers while the same term “adelphoi” is also used in 1st Corinthians 15:6 saying that Jesus appeared to 500 “adelphoi” and being adamant that Mary had sex with any man and had other children is an insult, a public calumny and an outrage to any virgin woman and especially to the Holy Virgin Mary. She is right here, every day, she watches us, hears us, loves us and helps us with her intercession and JWs never asked themselves once if they are actually spreading calumnies against an innocent woman who does exist and who is the witness of the lies that have been spread against her under a false varnish of godly devotion just because JWs and other protestants never took the time to check their sources before going around staining her reputation. SEE SECTION ON “THE VIRGIN MARY”.
“The human body does not have a soul. The Bible said in Genesis 2:7 that when God breathed in his nostrils the breath of life he “became a living soul”, he “came to “be” not that he came to “have” a soul.”
Actually that is correct. JWs say that Catholics believe that bodies have a soul. That accusation is not accurately theologically founded and anyone saying the contrary does not know Catholic theology. The Catholic Church teaches that a human person is composed of 2 undissociable components: a body and a soul. The body does not “have” a soul. One does not possess the other. The body does not possess a soul and the soul does not possess a body. The human person IS the ensemble of those 2 characteristics and when Adam and Eve were created, these 2 components were undivisable, undissociable, unseparable.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the punishement was death, the separation of those 2 previouly undissociable entities and the decompositon of the human body into dirt. But originally, death – or the separation of the two – was not part of the divine plan. It is the consequence of the original sin.
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE VIDEO:
THE BODY AND THE SOUL WERE ONE BEFORE SIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqA59NVfAE
To see more on the soul and why it has never been a pagan doctrine, SEE SECTION ON “THE SOUL”.
“Why did millions of Catholics kill millions of Catholic in the two World Wars?”
Presented like this, this statement seems very convincing and JWs proudly boast to be the only religion as such who as a group opposed Hitler and that a JW never killed another JW and therefore they are the only true religion on earth, citing “by the love you have among you they will recognize you are my true disciples”, and the Isaiah 2 : 4 prophecy that in the new ‘spiritual paradise’ – as they believe they are in -, “they will turn their swords into plowshares”.
Well the truth and life is a little more complicated than those simple fallacious statements.
In the Bible there is a concept of just wars and every JW knows it. God the Father Jehovah is the same in the Old and the New Testament and He does not change. See Malaqui 3 :6. The concept of “millions of Catholics” killed “millions of Catholics” first of all is a gross misrepresentation of reality. It is the same exaggeration that Protestants and JWs use when they claim that the Catholic Inquisition killed millions of Protestants without ever even looking at historical real facts and figures and therefore they come up with ludicrous statements such as these. Catholics did not run around killing other Catholics just for fun. One has to be more precise and study each war in their context. The 2 World Wars do offer undeniable cases when on both sides Catholics were massively involved yet instead of putting all of them in the same basket and playing the ostrich policy, bury their heads in the sand as JWs do and play the strict neutrality card which would have led the world nowhere but to end up under a dictatorial worldwide nightmare under German and Nazi regimes if no one had ever had the courage to sacrifice their lives for a greater cause. This concept of just modern war is something foreign to JWs but it is very much alive in the Catholic view of God’s justice. After analyzing the issue from a righteous war standpoint, the question is therefore reduced to asking, not why all Catholics participated in the two World Wars, bur rather after establishing that the side fighting for peace and protection of life was absolutely justified, the question boils down to why some Catholic decided to participate on the wrong side and backup tacitly or actively the evil plans of the aggressor as Hitler’s. And here we go again, going back to falling in the same judging game that JWs love playing that cements the JW mentality of criticizing, judging and condemning others who made mistakes, acted out of fear or did not have the courage to stand up till death, while closing their eyes upon all the testimonies of so many Catholics who did refuse to support Hitler one way or another, many until martyrdom. The statement of Naaman shed lights also on the impossible position of some officials serving under evil rulers in 2 Kings 5:18. Each person will render account to God for their actions and JWs are no judges to condemn the Catholics who lived under the Nazi regime and did not have the courage to refuse enlisting… Only God knows. SEE SECTION “NEUTRALITY AND JUST WARS”.
“How come the General Franco, who was supposedly a devout Catholic, was the same as all the other dictators and killed millions of innocent people?”
Check your sources. Verify the facts. Study the true historical context of the Franco regime. Differentiate what truly happened from rewritten anti-Catholic History and propaganda. In 1936, the Republican government let Bolshevik Communists and local revolutionary committees take over and systematically burn Catholic churches, kill, rape and torture Catholic priests, nuns and even laity. Note that the political dynamics were very different from that of today and I was surprised to learn that the “Republicans” in Spain in 1936 had nothing to do with what we understand as “Republicans” in politics in the United States and France nowadays. In 1936 Spain, “Republicans” were the left-leaning, democratically elected government and its supporters (socialists, communists, anarchists, liberals), a broad political Coalition forming the “Popular Front,” including socialist (PSOE), communist (PCE), and anarchist groups, alongside liberal and regional parties.
I myself went to Paracuellos which is a site of mass graves outside Madrid and there are thousands of bodies of Catholics that were shot dead right before Franco managed to enter and liberate the city. The popular History books and documentaries omit to tell the atrocities that were taking place in the 30s BEFORE Franco ever got into power. In my neighborhood in Madrid, I was horrified to discover that my very church as many others in Madrid was actually burnt to the ground in 1936. The same year, the Basilica nearby was totally destroyed except the walls and the stained glass windows and it was transformed into a cinema. I was horrified to see in every church in the area pictures of martyred monks and nuns, among them Daughters of Charity, Vincentians Lazarists of the Mission, Redemptorists of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Seminarists murdered at the Cerro de Los Angeles and so many more… The Communists had the same hard line as in Russia and their goal was openly to eradicate God and the Catholic Church.
The historical facts and stories are more mitigated than what I had been told my whole life and they must be put into a specific context and need to be reconsidered by a careful study of verified truthful testimonies and not just hearsay or some anti-Catholic propaganda including one-sided popular movies.
SEE THE MANY VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES AND BOOKS IN THE SECTION “The Spanish Persecution of Catholics”.
“Why did the Spanish Inquisition kill millions of Protestants?”
It didn’t. Check your facts. Separate true History from the Black Legend. The truth is that the Spanish Inquisition was made not for protestants or people outside the church but for Catholics inside the Catholic Church who pretended to be Catholic but wanted to pervert the faith or practice other heresies under the cover of being a Catholic. The reality is that the Spanish Inquisition was the first tribunal to have court processes with written annals and was preferred by any accused person or defendant to the general state courts. In 300 years, the Inquisition condemned a great maximum of 3000 people, nothing in comparison with what Protestants did in other countries. There are court annals that can be studied today. Priests and monks did not have power to torture nor kill anyone as it is depicted in anti-Catholic Hollywood movies. After being processed, the accused who preferred not to amend their ways were given to the state courts for punishment. Great Spanish Catholic Saints themselves such as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross were prosecuted by the Spanish Inquisition so claiming that millions of Protestants were the poor victims of the Spanish Inquisition is a completely false statement. SEE THE SECTIONS “The Inquisition” AND “The Protestants”.
“Why did the Catholic Church prohibit the use of the name Jehovah and removed it from its Bibles?”
This statement is not completely true. I discovered to my great surprise that the name “Yahve” or “Yahweh” appears in many Catholic Bibles and this name is read during the Catholic mass in the reading of the Liturgy of the Word or the Liturgy of the Holy Scriptures from the pulpit! It is the case in my very own church!! “To avoid taking the Holy Name of God in vain and therefore break the 2nd Commandment”, the Catholic Church has taken the same approach as devout Jews who preferred an alternative not to sully the Holy name of God. No one is sure of the exact pronunciation of the original Tetragrammaton YHWH. The scribes “wrote the consonants YHWH using the vowel points for Adonai as a reminder to Jewish lectors to say “Adonai” instead of “Yahweh.” This custom of writing the consonants of one word with the vowels of another is where we get the English word “Jehovah.” In Latin, “YHWH” had become “JHWH,” and when combined with the vowels of Adonai—a, o, and a—it became “Jahowah,” which then became the English “Jehovah.” Some have argued that this usage began in the Christian community as early as the twelfth century, though it is often traced to 1518, when Petrus Galantinus, O.F.M. [a Catholic Franciscan Friar]—the confessor of Pope Leo X—published a book that popularized it.”
If one travels a little around the world, actually many evangelist denominations commonly use the very same name “Jehovah” while the Catholic Liturgy prefers to use “Yahweh” or “THE LORD” for the aforementioned reasons. The JWs are neither the inventors nor the keepers nor the only users of the name Jehovah or Yahweh as most of them proudly believe. For more see https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/yahweh. SEE THE SECTION “The Name of God”.
Also, JWs love to pride themselves in believing and promoting that they have some kind of primacy on God’s name and that they are the ones who restored it where it was originally in the Bible “7000 times” and therefore give due glory to God. Where the biggest fallacy resides is that they fail to realize that not only the Catholic Church, as the Jews did, always had at heart the First Commandment never to take the Holy Name of God in vain, but also that true worship and giving glory to God start with recognizing Who He is and What He says He is. Rejecting what God Himself explains of Him being a Holy Trinity, God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit and relegating the Second Person of the Holy Trinity The Logos to the mere status of an angelic creature (JWs have no idea that they are actually. recycling an old Third Century heresy from Arianism) and demoting the Third Person of the Holy Trinity to the rank of a mere force instead of a Person is nothing less than a purely demonic blasphemy and their teachings sully the very Name that they claim to glorify, not to mention the other blasphemies they spread against the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God The Son!
WATCH ¿JEHOVÁ O YAHVÉ? El increíble error histórico sobre el Nombre de Dios. El Tetragrámaton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq8xbMnR6Rk
“Why does the Catholic Church teach non biblical doctrines?”
It doesn’t. I was told and taught repeatedly that Catholics do not use the Bible, that they do not know their Bible and that they believe in pagan doctrines that came from Platonism like the immortality of the soul. This is a caricature and a misconception. What set me thinking is when I heard the National Choir of Spain sing the TE DEUM of Anton Brukner and a few month later when I got to sing as a chorist soprano the REQUIEM of Gabriel Faure, both classical works of Catholic liturgy and almost every single line is from the Holy Scriptures!!! I was amazed. That was whta got me to do some serious reserach for the first time. And later when I attended my first Catholic mass ever, I was even more schocked to see how Catholics read from the Old Testament, and then the Psalms (and also the epistles on Sundays) and then a portion of the Gospel at every single mass every single day!!! They actually cover the entire Bible in 3 years! Another thing that JWs have copied from the Catholic Church! All the doctrines of the Catholic Church are not just “based on the Scriptures” as if the Bible was some tool to manipulate to make it prove and say what we want it to say to attack and disprove those’ Catholics that are so wrong; as in JW mentality, no! The Catholic doctrines ARE THE SCRIPTURES, THEY ARE THE VERY MEANING AND APPLICATION OF THE SCRIPTURES and they flow directly from Jesus, the Apostles, the written Sacred Scriptures and also what the Apostles taught orally that came down to us throughout the centuries. It is not because the average Catholic Joe is not capable of going back and forth Bible in hand as some Protestants and most Jehovah’s Witnesses do that the Catholic teachings are pagan. If one studies carefully the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, he will realize that every single teaching of the Catholic Faith, every single line of the Credo – which summarizes the Catholic faith – stems directly from the Holy Scriptures, and there are thousands of Bible references given in the Official Catechism Reference book that I studied line by line with a priest in a special individual one-to-one catechism course, more than in any Watchtower. I was actually surprised to discover that many JW teachings have copied word for word some Catholic dogmas and Catholic line of reasoning from the Catechism book, like on the topic of the original sin for example. JWs did not invent anything. They are things JWs teach that are explained perfectly in the Catechism book and we all know that The Church was there way before. At Bethel they even copy the 3 vows of obedience, poverty and chastity that monks and nuns profess the day they take the habit. The Catholic teaching system is very different from the JWs. Because most Europe was entirely Catholic for Centuries , their focus never was for each individual to manipulate the Bible as Protestants do to disprove and convert others. When everyone is Catholic and you have the true faith, you do not need to know your Bible by heart nor do you need to go from door to door when everyone in town goes to church as you do. Also I realized how the Church has been addressing all people from its beginning, including the most uneducated and illiterate people in all parts of the world. Therefore for centuries, the Church used basic tools and techniques to teach simple people when and where for centuries there were no schools nor any books available. Imagine teaching Indians in America in the XVI century crossings lakes and rivers among hostile tribes and you get the idea. How do you carry a huge Gutenberg style Bible with you in those remote parts of the desert, Bible which cost a fortune to possess to start with? Or how did Saint Thomas go preach to people as far as modern India back in the First Century? Not on a plane nor by car, no Bible in hand which did not even exist yet as we know it today, no tablet, no books, few precious codex or papyrus scrolls available, It is easy to criticize in a modern world where everyone takes for granted the fact that everyone now can read and everybody goes to school by law. It was not the case even a century ago and even less several centuries back so imagine the level of education of common people or total lack of it way back in the first centuries of the Church! The purpose of the Church has never been to make theologians out of people, rather to save all of us, and this whatever the epoch, the social status and education level which was null for most people for centuries. That is why monks were in charge of educating people for many centuries during the Middle Age and only a few people had access or could go to those schools because the social and economic system was different. Most people just had to work manually from an early age to make ends meet. And the sheer volume of the people to teach is worth pondering on. Today the JWs are 8 millions yet Catholics are 1 300 000 000. And for centuries, almost the whole civilized world was Catholic. We are not talking about a micro teaching enterprise in the XX Century only as the JWs’ have in their kingdom halls. We are talking about catechizing entire countries and teaching thousands of people who go to one parish with one priest or a couple more available. Another example, what about the first Apostles and later disciples and missionaries preaching in the I, II, III Centuries, through 10 waves of brutal persecution, to Barbarians, Romans, Greeks, slaves, illiterate people, from Spain to India, with no books, some papyrus, a few scrolls, maybe a codex to take on those trips on dirt roads among dangers at sea, in ambush, in hostile countries whose inhabitants spoke many different languages. Nothing to do with the modern suitcases, books and tablets witnesses use from door to door. The Catholic preaching work was not born in 1879 with books and printed material available as in the time of Charles Taze Russell. It comes from a different perspective, oral teaching inherited from the very first centuries when there was no other way. That is why today, the Catholic education system is so different from that of JWs. Also it is not because a JW has studied well all his Watchtowers for decades – as I had always done my whole life – and is able to go back and forth in any book of the Bible, that he necessarily “knows the real truth”. It would equate to someone today asking AI anything and taking its word as the Word of God and thinking he knows the truth. Far from it! He was just fed lies, semi-truths or recycled unverified statements. What a JW believes as being the truth is no more than the uninspired interpretation that some human members of their “Governing Body” gives them claiming to come from God. A lot of the arguments that JWs use from door to door are just fallacies well studied and repeated blindly while they trust whoever wrote the “publication”, books such as the Reasoning book, They repeat word for word what it says without ever verifying the sources to check if that it is truly so. For example, I myself used many times the argument that Jesus had fleshly brothers because the word used in Matthew 13 : 55, 56 is ‘adelphoi’ which in Greek meant supposesly natural brothers, and I proudly read the paragraph quoting the ‘New Catholic Encyclopedia” “admitting” things between quotes as if the Catholic Church knows the truth but hides it voluntarily from the faithful, which is the same accusation that Satan used against God Himself in the garden of Eden. I had never studied the official Catechism of the Catholic Church before nor had I realized that the same term ‘adelphoi’ is used where Jesus appeared to “500 brothers” or “adelphoi” in I Corinthians 15 :6 in the original Greek text. Check any interlinear Bible. Case closed. I believe that I do not need to explain what this implies. This is how superficial and varnish thin was my knowledge and all the seemingly incredible counter-arguments and oulala Greek words JWs bring from door to door and believe in. I know. Me too, I was shocked to discover how ignorant I was while believing I knew so much having studied and read the Bible close to 20 times cover to cover in 40 years as a zealous devout JW. When the scales fall from one’s eyes, one feels very small…
“How come Catholics celebrate Halloween while it is a pagan and Satanic celebration?”
Actually true Catholics DO NOT celebrate Halloween and discovering this was a source of great joy for me. True priests will unveil the demonic character of this celebration from the pulpit and show the faithful that true Christians do not want to have anything to do with the going around in the streets dressed up as witches, devils, vampires and other demonic figures reenacting spiritistic practices in what is a Satanic celebrations. When I heard the priest in my very first parish (before I was even baptized Catholic) condemn unequivocally Halloween, I felt so proud to be studying the Catholic faith!!! The problem is that many Catholics today are only Catholics by name, they do not practice their faith, do not know the origins of most worldly celebrations and just go with the flow. That is a tragedy. Many Catholics have no idea of the treasure they have in the Holy Eucharist and they let themselves be corrupted by endless novelties and worldly practices and celebrations just to live the “normal life” as the rest of the population. This being said, the Catholic Church does not bless nor condone nor encourage and it rejects that celebration.
It is worth mentioning that the actual word “Halloween” was originally a Catholic celebration. The Church used to celebrate the “Triduum of Death”, sometimes known as Allhallowtide, three days of solemn masses, the first being the Vespers of the Day of the Saints, in old English All Hallows Eve, which is the Eve of the day the Church prays for all the Saints and martyrs that have already joined God in Heaven which is the second day of that Triduum.
The third day is All Souls’ Day, the day the Church celebrates all the departed that are believed to be in Purgatory.
In 1955, the 1st day of the Triduum was removed from the liturgical calendar and it ended up being adopted by non-Catholics to refer to a pagan celebration that has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Actually, I found out in my research that this is a great tactic of the Devil, to take former names of Catholic traditions and feasts and degenerate their meaning to make them mean something else. Ask anyone today what is a “Kermesse” and most people have no clue that it used to be “the mass” (“messe”) of the “Church” (‘Kerk’ in Dutch) for the patron saint of a village. Nowadays many people believe it is simply the end of the school year party!!!
What the devil has done to “Christmas” is even more appalling and JWs with other Protestants end up believing that it is the Catholics that adopted the pagan practices while it is the opposite: it is the demonic world that has corrupted a liturgical holy celebration and used its name to make it mean something that it is not and now in most people’s minds it equates to tons of practices that have nothing to do with the Mass of Christ celebrating His Birth into this world!!! But true Catholic Christians are not fooled and to participate with them during the Advent season in constant prayer, worship and comtemplative meditation, penitence and retreats to prepare our hearts to receive the Son of God, so far from the commercial madness of this world, is truly sobering. Nothing to do with how the world portrays Christmas and what JWs think it is. For more, SEE SECTION ON “HALLOWEEN, ALL SAINTS’ DAY, ALL SOULS’ DAY”, “CHRISTMAS”.
Also, here is a great article “History of All Hallows’s Eve” https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/10_2.cfm
“The Solemnity of All Saints is celebrated on November 1. It is a solemnity, a holyday of obligation and the day that the Church honors all of God’s saints, even those who have not been canonized by the Church. It is a family day of celebration—we celebrate the memory of those family members (sharing with us in the Mystical Body, the doctrine of the Communion of Saints) now sharing eternal happiness in the presence of God. We rejoice that they have reached their eternal goal and ask their prayers on our behalf so that we, too, may join them in heaven and praise God through all eternity. The honoring of all Christian martyrs of the Faith was originally celebrated on May 13, the date established by the fourth century. Pope Boniface IV in 615 established it as the “Feast of All Martyrs” commemorating the dedication of the Pantheon, an ancient Roman temple, into a Christian church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. By 741, the feast included not only martyrs, but all the saints in heaven as well, with the title changing to “Feast of All Saints” by 840. In 844, Pope Gregory IV transferred the feast to November 1st, timing it around the harvests to be able to provide food for the pilgrims. Some scholars believe this was to substitute a feast for the pagan celebrations during that time of year. Pope Sixtus IV in 1484 established November 1 as a holyday of obligation and gave it both a vigil (known today as “All Hallows’ Eve” or “Hallowe’en”) and an eight-day period or octave to celebrate the feast. This feast is marked with liturgical observances that have changed over the centuries. By 1955, the octave and vigil of All Saints were abrogated. Instead of a separate vigil on the calendar, the celebration begins the evening before, as mentioned in The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar“”
“Why do Catholics bless gay unions?”
True Catholics don’t and never will. Again there is a difference between what the Church teaches and what some individual Catholics going off the deep end do. That is two different things. The official Catholic Church does not and never will. In some intent to reach out to the LGBTI community and make them feel welcome in the Catholic Church the same as Jesus spoke and looked for the sinners and prostitutes in His time, the late Pope Francis had promulgated the controversial declaration of Fiducia Supplicans in 2023 that many faithful Cardinals, Bishops and laity deplore till this day. The text in itself does not go against any Church teachings per say but does open the door to double entendre, stretched applications and ambiguities, whether it was his intention or not. Pope Leon XIV has repeatedly clarified the firm stand of the Church on the question of homosexuality since his appointment. It is sad to say though, that some individual priests around the world and mostly German bishops have taken upon themselves to go ahead to bless and give directions to bless gay unions, which Pope Leo XIV condemns. The Church not being run like the JWs where nothing can be done in their organization without the approval of the World Headquarters at Warwick (formerly at Brooklyn), I was the first to wonder why all those rogue priests and bishops have not yet been excommunicated if I were to view things from a JW standpoibt . That is a new perspective I am learning in the Catholic Church. Jesus has tolerated many things up to the highest spheres of His Church, the same as He never did anything about Judas Iscariot although He knew what what going on. His very words in Revelation chapter 2 verses 2 to 4 to the congregation of Ephesus are more than ever applying to today’s church: “
“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors. 3 Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first…” Jesus sees everything, takes notes, waits and will asks each person to render account for their deeds and lack of love or zeal sooner or later. As for Him, He is still there, inside His Church, as the Head of His Church and He will never abandon Her as the JW claim. Jesus remains present in the Holy Eucharist and in every other Sacrament of the Church.
“Why don’t Catholics preach the good news as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19,20 and Matthew 24:14?”
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, the world had to wait for Charles Taze Russell to come and start the Watchtower in 1879 and start preaching campaigns with speaker phones, international travels and conferences, debates and finally door to door work for Matthew 24:14 to be finally fulfilled in the XXth Century. For us Catholics, that prophecy started to be fulfilled in the First Century when all the apostles and disciples literally preached in all the known inhabited world of that time, Saint Thomas going as far as India and Saint James as far as Spain before the end and destruction of the Jewish system in 70CE. And throughout the centuries, the good news about Jesus Resurrected and present in the Holy Eucharist in all the Catholic Churches of the world has been preached in “all the inhabited earth” so much so that anyone can have and has had access to a mass anywhere in the world, and this was before the JWs ever showed up. That has already been fulfilled centuries ago. God did not wait for Charles Taze Russell to come some 1850 years after Jesus nor did he leave the entire world in total darkness for 18 centuries. It is actually ludicrous to think that Jesus would have come to bring salvation and that the Devil would have been much stronger than Him so much so as to shut down the truth and infiltrate the first church with so much apostasy that everything after the death of the last apostle John is to be thrown away, as the JWs understand and explain the parable of the enemy sowing weeds while the workers were asleep. That is an insult to God to say that His Divine Purpose was on hold for all those centuries. It does not make any sense whatsoever. God’s actions are not subject to such human failures and consideration to leave the entire mankind without light for 18 centuries. Yes, from the first century onwards there have been apostates within the Catholic Church – like Arius whose Arianism teachings still pollute the head of millions of JWs today – who have tried to infiltrate and pervert Jesus’ true teachings to this very day but they have all failed and will continue to fail. The conciles have clarified the faith and disproved many growing heresies those apostates tried to sow and now the Church teachings remain intact. Yes, Jesus has ordained to let the weeds and the good wheat grow today and that is why throughout the centuries there have been saints alongside heretics inside the Catholic Church and paganized laity, without mentioning freemasonic and corrupt bishops and priests, but the Church still stands, the official teachings of the Catholic Church are still intact despite the attacks of the devil. The martyrdom of thousands and thousands of Catholic Christians who died for their faith and still adorn the streets, squares and churches of all Europe by their names is an undeniable testimony that the JWs either decide deliberately to throw under the carpet or for others like myself genuinely ignored as I did, never paying much attention to the origins of these traces of Centuries of Catholic sainthood all around us. These are not made up legends. These were real people who lived the Catholic faith and died preaching the good news so much so that buildings, public places and churches still bear their names today despite the ongoing efforts of socialist and communist governments to eradicate any traces of them. The historical testimony is there for who honestly wants to see and investigate.
“Why did the Catholic Pope make a pact with Hitler and did not say anything against the horrors of Nazism?”
Again the facts of the History of WWII are more mitigated that the black and white version that the JW publications have served for decades to their readers simplifying the matter to some meeting and pact that the Catholic German Vice Chancellor Von Papen signed with the Cardinal Secretary of State of the Vatican Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli in 1933 who would later become Pope Pius XII in 1939. The efforts of the Church to seek peace and save lives are never mentioned nor the heroic acts and sacrifice of courageous Catholics. The Pope did not get the approval of all the bishops in the signing of the Reichskonkordat.
Also in the Catholic Church, the Pope does not dictate people to refuse a party card and therefore be ready to be slaughtered as the JWs were in Malawi while at the same time allowing Mexican JWs to get the election card and even now in the present day after decades of strict neutrality policy and thousands of dead JWs for being strictly politically neutral, let the JWs decide to vote or not, according to their conscience. See JW WATCHOWER ARTICLE OF THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES: “Questions From Readers – How do Jehovah’s Witnesses view voting?“
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/library/r1/lp-e/all-publications/watchtower/the-watchtower-1999/november-1
“As to whether they [Jehovah’s Witnesses] will personally vote for someone running in an election, each one of Jehovah’s Witnesses makes a decision based on his Bible-trained conscience and an understanding of his responsibility to God and to the State…. In view of the Scriptural principles outlined above, in many lands Jehovah’s Witnesses make a personal decision not to vote in political elections, and their freedom to make that decision is supported by the law of the land. What, though, if the law requires citizens to vote? In such a case, each Witness is responsible to make a conscientious, Bible-based decision about how to handle the situation. If someone decides to go to the polling booth, that is his decision. What he does in the polling booth is between him and his Creator.” END OF QUOTE OF JW ARTICLE.
Absolutely incredible!!! When I was a child in the 1980’s and we were praying for the tortured and butchered witnesses of Malawi, that was not the case. There was no “according to your conscience” principle. In the JW religion you could get excommunicated for accepting a blood transfusion and not being neutral!! My cousins went to jail for not doing their military service. But the Catholic Church does not play hard line one day or in one country and then wishy washy on another day or in another country. Also, the Catholic Church is not just composed of a few hundreds of thousand people as the JWs are in many countries, we are talking about entire country blocks and millions of people. True Catholics worship and live their lives with Christ residing in their hearts and as such if all the Catholics personnally lived as Jesus did there would be no war. It is easy to criticize in the aftermath when one was not there. Many courageous Catholic martyrs did die during WWII. Each Catholic must act according to his conscience before God. But one thing is sure, the Pope does not give mandate to oblige people to do one thing or another as the World Headquarters of JWs do. The Catholic Church is NOT a dictatorship. Jesus never was. There is no diktat as in the JWs guideline that ended up in many instances equating to ask people to be martyrs and give their lives to be neutral. Also, Jesus Christ is still in the Holy Eucharist and He has not left His Church and everyone, pope, bishop or laity did and will render an account to Jesus himself for their actions. The Virgin Mary herself warned and tried to save many lives in her messages at Fatima for example. A lot of the peace on earth depends upon us and our personal actions and prayers. Good, bad or mediocre popes all did and will render account to Jesus as Peter did in all his cowardice, denials and ever later pretense with the Jews out of a recurring problem of fear. But for some reason, he was the very one Jesus chose as Pope. It is funny that when JWs commit sins, the JWs themselves say that their ” organization is perfect but made up imperfect people” Yet that very principle they only apply it to themselves dishonestly and would never understand nor admit that the Catholic Church IS pure and Holy and it is THE ONLY CHURCH JESUS FOUNDED in the First Century that He still inhabits through His presence in the Holy Sacraments and the Holy Eucharist yet He does let sinners be part of His Body The Holy Church. That equals saying the same thing as they do when they want to explain wrongdoing in their organization.
SEE SECTIONS “Be no part of the world”, “Mary – Approved Apparitions”, “Saints – Maximilian Kolbe”, “Neutrality & Just Wars”
“How come Catholics do politics while we should be “no part of the world”?”
This is a great question and one of the hurdles that I faced during my conversion process. It is funny that some of my walls came down by themselves as I realized there was a bunch of things in my JW faith that I believed just because they had told me so, and not because of any substantial proof or convincing arguments, nor actual Bible basis. For example all the interpretations of Revelation, Daniel or the end times prophecies are pretty much at the whim of some Governing Body member’s mood or opinion, which is the reason why they changed their understanding so many times. If you study some of the other 40 000 Protestant denominations (and I do say “other” Protestant denominations as, although the JWs will vehemently deny being part of any Protestant movement, you will be surprised to realize how much they ahve in common and how almost everything they believe in comes from some rebellion and protesting crtiticism against the catholic Church… As someone says, if what you believe is defined mainly by what you oppose, it shows how superficial your beliefs are…”) which reject the Pope, the Magisterium and the Catholic Tradition, you realize that they all interpret the Scriptures their way, according to the words or supposedly “divine inspiration” of their founders, some arguments being more or less convincing exactly like those of the JWs. Once you reject the fact that the main channel and approved church is the Catholic Church, anyone can say, pretend, invent or teach pretty much anything, thus the cacophony of sects and movements that came out since the Reformation.
This question of neutrality was different. I realized how core it had been to my entire life’s perspective, way of life, my childhood, my education, my rapport with the outside world. Because I was “no part of the world” as I had read over and over and over again in the New World Translation of their Bible in a spam of 40 years of my life since I was born, it was normal for me not to fit in anywhere, not to play with others at school, never to go to some schoolmates’ house, never to celebrate anything and never to receive any gift (I remember receiving once a pair of earrings when my father came back from a business trip in French Guyana, that is the only memory of a gift I have – not all JWs families may be the same but that was my personal experience). Even growing up, I remember going to do a school project at the house of a girl from my class when I was 17, first and last time in my entire life. Never voted. Never got interested in politics. Never crossed my mind to go to the Military although the idea of the discipline would have been something I would have loved. Never had a birthday, no Christmas ever, no celebrations whatsover. Never had coffee with a non witness before I was 42 years old. Never had a friend who was not a witness. In my mind we were “separate from the world” in ALL aspects. The world was bad as “the whole world is under the power of the evil one” (I John 5 : 19).
I was surprised to discover 2 different realities:
1 – The original text actually does not read “be no part of the world.” In John 17: 14 and also 15: 19 in the original Greek that appears in any interlinear, the text reads: “Not they are of the world even as I not am of the world” and “if of the world you were, the world as its own would love you, because however of the world not you are…”
That is to say that as true Christians we do not ORIGINATE from the world, we do not COME from the world, we do not find our SOURCE in the world but in God as we are HIS CHILDREN, Sons of God by our Holy Catholic Baptism. We are reborn in the Water and Spirit and the world has no hold on us. Jesus himself said that He did not ask His Father to take us out of the world and therefore we continue to live in the world and participate in its activities and bring the light of Christ to its darkest corners. In the Catholic view, this concept of originating from God is deep and this is what Jesus was trying to explain to Nicodemus when telling him that one needs to be “born again”, to be “born from above” in John chapter 3. As the JWs do not have any of the sacraments not become “sons and daughters of God” by the Holy Catholic Baptism “in the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, they have no notion of the depth of what it truly means, therefore the notion of originating from God as a new creation is not a JW concept .
2 – Many First Christians had high positions of government, in the military and they held them with honor to the peril of their lives and many died martyrs for not participating in pagan worship but holding these positions and high ranks was not absolutely incompatible with being a Christian in the first centuries and they did not automatically relinquish their employment upon becoming Christians as JWs do. Some are actually mentioned in the Bible and it is clear even in the Scriptures that they did not necessarily forsake their position upon embracing the Catholic faith: Cornelius and Sergius Paulus are respectively mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles chapter 10 and 13 and the members of “Caesar’s household” in the Epistle to the Philippians chapter 4. Also Philemon and the jailer of Acts chapter 16. Later the Catholic tradition speaks of many more such as Longinius, Saint Martin of Tours, Saint Sebastian, Saint George, Tertullian, St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, Emperor Constantine I… It seems that the early Church did not universally forbid the participation in the military. Still true Christians would not take part to any pagan practices and therefore many Christian soldiers were martyred.
SEE SECTION ON “SAINTS”, “BEING NO PART OF THE WORLD” AND ALSO THE ARTICLE “Early Christians on Pacifism and Military Force” https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/early-christians-on-pacifism-and-military-force
“Why do Catholics use Apocryphal books in their canon?”
Actually we do not. The Protestants in their Reformation decided to follow the Canon that the Catholic Church had established for Centuries except 7 books. They argued that these books did not appear in the Masoretic text that the Jews produced after Jesus. Yet these 7 books did appear the highly respected Septuagint Version that dates before Jesus and which is THE reference that Jesus and the first century Christians used in His ministry and that is quoted in the New Testament.
Protestants removed those books as they contradicted their new doctrine of “Sola Fide” and their stand on the “prayers for the dead.
The Jews removed those 7 books as for example the book of Wisdom as it had clearly prophesied the treachery of the very same religious Jewish leaders. To cover their shame, the Jews did not include them in the Masoretic text.
Catholics make a clear distinction between apocryphal books which are NO part of the divinely inspired Scriptures and are unauthenticated books and the 73 books of the Bible: 46 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. The Protestants removed 7 books and called them apocryphal yet they are not. JWs once more followed the Protestant trend and propaganda and used for decades the Anglican KING JAMES VERSION before coming up with their own NEW WORLD TRANSLATION in 1950. SEE SECTION ON “THE BIBLE”.
“Why do Catholics worship images while God hates idolatry?”
We don’t and the controversy was not invented by JWs. In the Bible, worshipping is to offer sacrifice. Catholics do not offer any sacrifices to images nor to saints. Offering flowers or bowing down in respect does not equate to worship and never will and any reasonable person understands that principle when it comes to offer flowers to a dignitary and do a reverence to the King or Queen of England for example… True Catholics are fully aware that an image of a Saint is not that Saint but a representation of him, the same as there were representations of Holy Angels in the Ancient tabernacle, Catholics show respect, honor or veneration to Saints and to the Virgin Mary but they ONLY WORSHIP GOD. This is a common misconception among Protestants, JWs and even Orthodox. The possession of an image of statue in Catholicism has nothing to do with the worship of images in paganism. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE VIRGIN MARY”, “SAINTS” and “ICONOCLASM & IDOLATRY”.
Also, the Catholic Church teaching is so deep that it is a marvel to dig into the treasures of the teachings left by Christ when he came on earth and also the jewels that He has given to many Saints throughout the Centuries. Baptized Catholics are priests by their baptism, not ministerial priests as ordained priests are, but priests by baptism. There are 2 types of priesthood: the common priesthood of the faithful, received through the Sacrament of Baptism, and the ministerial (or hierarchical) priesthood, received through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. That is why a laity person can offer the Divine Mercy Chaplet to God the Father and say: “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.” That is the sacrifice that we offer to the Father. Catholics also participate in offering the very Sacrifice of Jesus at every mass, as the Catholic mass is the central act of Catholic worship, understood as the re-presentation of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and prayer, making His Body and Blood truly present in the Eucharist(transubstantiation)for adoration, thanksgiving, atonement, and petition. It’s a sacramental offering, uniting heaven and earth, where the priest acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) to offer Jesus to God the Father, fulfilling the command “Do this in memory of me”. That is THE SACRIFICE THAT GOD WANTS, and certainly not the heretic propaganda of JW Arianism teachings spreading lies about the true Nature of God The Son and other blasphemies about The Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity of The Holy Virgin Mary, under the cover of the expression “the sacrifice of the lips” JWs refer to when quoting Hebrews 13:15 to speak about their proselytizing activities. SEE SECTIONS ABOUT “THE MASS”, “ICONOCLASM & IDOLATRY” and “THE HOLY EUCHARIST”.
“Why do Catholics worship Saints and pray to them while God hates idolatry and that He prohibits us from speaking to the dead?”
Again, we don’t and the controversy was not invented by JWs. In the Bible, worshipping is to offer sacrifice. Catholics do not offer any sacrifices to images nor to saints. Offering flowers or bowing down in respect does not equate to worship and never will and any reasonable person understands that principle when it comes to offer flowers to a dignitary and do a reverence to the King or Queen of England for example… True Catholics are fully aware that an image of a Saint is not that Saint but a representation of him, the same as there were representations of Holy Angels in the Ancient tabernacle, Catholics show respect, honor or veneration to Saints and to the Virgin Mary but they ONLY WORSHIP GOD. This is a common misconception among Protestants, JWs and even Orthodox. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE VIRGIN MARY”, “SAINTS” and “ICONOCLASM & IDOLATRY”.
Also, Catholic believe in the Communion of Saints. The same as it is proper to ask for a brother to pray for us, as the SOULS of the Saints are in heaven or purgatory, they can also be asked to pray for us. On the other hand, the Catholic Church strictly forbids to speak to demons and damned souls or make any use of spiritistic practices, necromancy and divination. But asking a soul in heaven or purgatory to pray for us living on earth is right in the line of James 5: 16, 17 encouraging us to “pray for one another”. SEE ARTICLE: The Bible Supports Praying to the Saints https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-bible-supports-praying-to-the-saints
“Isn’t there a Catholic prayer that says that Jesus went to hell? Therefore, Hell is not a place of torments but just the resting place of all mankind when we die.”
I am ashamed to have used this argument in “field service” myself, having heard it from another experienced pioneer as myself had no first hand knowledge of the Catholic faith as I was born and raised a JW. What a shame!!! JWs, even if they are ex-Catholics have no idea of what they are talking about. Even many current Catholics are not capable of explaining this sentence.
First of all it is not a song, it is the CREDO, the confession of faith that all Catholics know by heart and should have studied point by point in their catechism and RCIA Initiation program before being receiving first communion and confirmation if they were baptized as babies. Adults converts systematically study the Credo before receiving all three sacraments.
The “Hell” it refers to where Jesus went is not the place where Satan and the demons are. It is clearly explained in the official Catechism Reference Book of the Catholic Church CCC 632-637. It is rather the place where all the patriarchs who had died prior to Jesus were waiting for their Savior. It is referred to as the “Bosom of Abraham” in Jesus’ parable. Jesus did not go there because he died as if to prove that he went to the Sheol as everyone else did according to JW propaganda and that therefore Hell does not exist according to them, implying fallaciously that Catholic authority perfectly knows and fools people and that “Hell” is just the common resting place of all humans passing away. Once more, this insinuation is the same Satan used with Eve implying that God knew something and was hiding the truth from her.
Catholics recite and confess that Jesus went to the place where all the patriarchs and dead people from the Old Testament were waiting. As Jesus had not come and the Redemptionhad not been paid yet, there was no way to Heaven or salvation. The door was closed. They had to wait somewhere, but no in hell with the demons! That place of waiting is the “Hell” where Jesus went to preach to those souls awaiting, including Adam and Eve.
So again, does a Catholic prayer say that “Jesus descended into hell” and does it mean that hell is not a place of torment if Jesus went there? Yes there is such a prayer and if is called the Credo and no, it does not mean that Jesus went there just because he died as wrongly assume the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jesus went to the place where all the prophets and people who had died in the Old Testament were waiting to preach to them and empty the place and give them access to heaven. It is not the same as the “hell” defined as the place of eternal condemnation.
The official Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
“Christ Descended Into Hell
Paragraph 1. CHRIST DESCENDED INTO HELL
632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.477 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.478
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:480 “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.482
634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.”483 The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”484 Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.”485 Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”486
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. the earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”487
IN BRIEF
636 By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (⇒ Heb 2:14).
637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.”
SEE SECTION ON “HELL”
“Why do Catholics tolerate gross sins when obvious sinners keep taking the communion and pervert priests remain priests?”
The Catholic Church does not claim to control people’s lives as the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses does. There is the sacrament of confession where if a repentant sinner confesses his sins, he is absolved by the power of the sacrament of the forgiveness of sins conferred to ordained priests by the apostolic succession and therefore the repentant sinner comes back in the state of grace and can take part of the holy communion. If a sinner is not repentant, lies during his confession, continues to practice sin and takes the communion without confessing with a contrite heart or without being in a state of grace, he will render account to God Himself and has no chance to enter heaven but condemns himself to hell. Priests do not play the role of spiritual policemen as Jehovah’s Witness “elders” do but bishops can forbid communion to outright so called Catholic who profess openly other beliefs such as politicians who push for the right of abortion. As for sins regarding the private lives of people, priests do not chase parishioners nor check their behavior nor verify one by one if all have confessed their sins before partaking of the communion. Each person can go confess to whatever priest he chooses, in that parish or in another therefore when a person comes for communion, no one can tell nor judge such a person nor know the state of their relationship with God. At the end of the day, it is between each individual and God and noone can nor will fool God and at our personal judgment when we die, one thing is sure for unrepentant sinners wo played a double life, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” according to Hebrews 10 :31 and “make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows” according to Galatians 6:7.
Also, according to the Vatican’s Pontifical Yearbook 2025, there were approximately 1.406 billion baptized Catholics in the world in 2023 versus only 8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is much easier to cover and control the sins of 8 million people with a systematic delation and control system that does not exist in the Catholic Church. I have seen with my very own eyes even at Bethel and I suffered myself from abuse from people living a double life within the JWs’ organization: pedophiles, homosexuals, drunk elders, wife beaters, young people committing suicide… those facts are well covered up and not made public so throwing the stone at Catholics is plain dishonest, hypocrit or just an ignorant perspective. ““Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” – Matthew 7:1-3.
“Why do Catholics get stuck on Jesus and worship him who is the door but never get passed him to get to the Father while Witnesses worship God the Father only? Like they have the key but they never use it to open the door to get to the Father “Jehovah”…”
Interestingly, this illustration I used it myself while preaching when I was a witness. Catholics worship God as the Holy Trinity, God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. For more information go to the section on “THE HOLY TRINITY”.
While the Orthodox Church may be more Holy Spirit centered, it is true that the Western Church has more of a tendency to be Christ centered. But this is for a reason. Yes, Jesus is the door. Yes, Jesus is the key. Without Him, there is no access to God the Father whatsoever. The Witnesses say they worship the Father Jehovah but actually they don’t as they do not offer Him the sacrifice He asks, which is not just “sacrifices of lips” in evangelizing but the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist in the mass and the associated praises and prayers that His Divinity requires. Although they know it, JWs do not even offer the Our Father Prayer to God every day as for them this equates to repeating prayers… They do not offer God the prayers and praises He asks as in the Holy mass and devotions in imitation of the Holy Angels in the Scriptures. Witnesses do not speak to Jesus, do not worship Jesus, do not have a relationship to Jesus. Although they know all the stories from the gospels, they do not truly know Jesus as they do not spend time with Him in Worship of The Holy Sacrament, (they do not even know He is there in the Holy Eucharist in every Catholic Church waiting for them!!! I surely had no idea for 40 years!!!!!!), they do not eat Him and therefore Jesus does not live in them, they do not listen to Him by spending time with Him in prayer and having that “communion” with Him, “common-union”. Witnesses do not really know Jesus. Yet unfortunately without being ONE with Him, there is no access to the Father at all.
“Why do repeat sinners remain in the Catholic Church?”
Jesus taught Divine Mercy to Saint Faustina and many other saints and therefore as long as someone keeps going back to Him, the Church cannot deny them the sacraments. The Church does not condemn common people as the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses does, it only does it on canonical grounds. Jesus knew Judas was stealing from the common purse yet He let him be part of the group hoping for a change of heart till the end. People condemn themselves by their actions before God and no one can fool Him. No human needs to police another. The Church offers all the sacraments necessary for penitence, repentance and salvation and will keep offering them for the salvation of all sinners.
Interestingly, JWs love criticizing the Catholic Church for tolerating sinners yet within the organization of the JWs all the way up to the World Headquarters, I have seen cases of pedophiles and have been myself victim of witnesses who were never excommunicated although being one a child abuser and the other a homosexual, I have seen cases where the organization preferred to pay the court not to release files of pedophiles known by their elders in the United States and cases of settlements with victims to obtain their silence. Most JWs believe that the organization is “clean” because they have never heard of such scandals that are very tightly controlled in most congregations while the reality is quite different. JWs headquarters policy is to refuse to release names and information of offenders and they claim the right to have confidentiality and secrecy although they actually do not have the sacrament of confession per say as they do not believe in the apostolic succession nor absolve anyone of their sins. They do conduct “judicial committees” where sinners must tell their sins and show repentance but those “judicial” proceedings have absolutely nothing to do at all with the sacrament of confession, it is at best a parody of it and claiming the right of secrecy on the same grounds of the Catholic Church without the actual sacrament is mind boggling. They copy the Catholic Church without any content whatsoever and they have the guts to point out the sins inside the Catholic Church while covering up theirs with tight rules and schemes, 8 million JWs are much easier to control and cover that 1,4 billion Catholics with the Catholic Church making public figures while the JWs never did. Matthew 7: 1-5 says: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”
FOR EXAMPLES OF CASES INSIDE JWS, SEE SECTION “JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES”.
“Why do Catholics in power have been persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
I was surprised to discover retrospectively how much of a victim mentality the JWs have, considering themselves as the only true Christians on earth and being persecuted by the entire world, especially by Catholics. I truly believed it too!!! I truly believed that all the smear campaign against the JWs in France in the 90s had been orchestrated by Catholics who hated JWs…
The true reality is quite shockingly different. Catholicism has been from the very First Century till today the most hated and persecuted religion in the world till this day. The JWs keep honoring their few thousand dead in their short 150 years of existence yet they are completely ignorant of the tens of thousands of martyrs the Catholics have had in 2000 years!!!
Also, a clear point from my perspective: in the Antique Israel, the Israelites made no concessions to the depraved Canaanites and their blasphemous and revolting practices. False worship was not tolerated.
JWs are a heretical sect promoting heresies against the very Nature and Divinity of Jesus God The Son Almighty and blasphemies against The Virgin Mother Mary, which is a reality that hurts me more everyday when I think of it and I am ashamed of having myself participated in these preaching campaigns as JW for 40 years, but I had no idea of what I was really doing against Jesus and Mother Mary. How would any virtuous virgin woman feel if behind her back people kept spreading rumors that she had had sexual relations and had children she never had? The Virgin Mary is very well alive, She is Our Queen, She is seeing and listening to us everyday and is very hurt by all these blasphemies spread against her Immaculate Conception, Her Perpetual Virginity and Her Motherhood as Mother of Jesus as God Incarnate. That is why we Catholics offer the first Saturdays of the month Devotion and prayers as an act or reparation for all the lies Protestants and JWs spread against her. Why do you expect a child to remain silent when some liar attacks the reputation of one’s own mother or father. Would you? So why do the JWs expect true Catholic leaders in government position to let them spread their lies with impunity? It would have never been the case in Ancient Israel and the JWs know it.
“Why did Catholics adopt pagan celebrations?”
Actually true Catholics don’t and we never will. The JWs mix a lot of concepts.
One – Not everyone baptized Catholic is truly a devoted true Catholic. There are many Catholics by birth or by name who say they are yet do not know not follow Catholic dogmas, teachings and truly approved Catholic practices. Any Catholic mixed up in spiritism, Vudu, shamanism, curanderos, brujería, santería, yoga, New Age practices and anything condemned in the Bible is not a true Catholic even if they pretend they are. The Catholic Church does not excommunicate people left and right as the JWs do, People are not watched not under surveillance and priests and bishops do not do judicial committees as JWs do. The Catholic Church has the sacrament of Confession when the person himself goes and accuses oneself of wrong doing and repents. If a person practices sin or participates in other condemned activities and beliefs, the priest will not make them confess nor force them nor excommunicate them as JWs do, the person by their actions is condemning themselves before God and if they die unrepentant the only judgment they will receive is hell.
Two – True Catholics do not celebrate Halloween nor any local practices related to some spirit, deity, false god or demon. Anyone who does or say otherwise is not really a Catholic with true knowledge of his faith nor are they in a state of grace.
Three – Birthdays are not prohibited in the Bible just because the 2 birthdays mentioned in the Bible were of pagans, Pharaoh and Herod as the JWs teach. That is a ludicrous argument. History, archeology and the Catholic Tradition show that the First Centuries Christians celebrated Jesus’ birthday. SEE SECTIONS ON “BIRTHDAYS”, CHRISTMAS”, “PAGANISM”.
Four – There are some inside the Catholic Church that are trying to reconcile some pagan practices under the false misplaced banner of “ecumenism”. No one is fooled and true Catholics are revolted and in an uproar when they see highly placed priests or even bishops approve such practices, True Catholics don’t. JWs have no knowledge of what is happening inside the Catholic Church which is the field in which was sown the good wheat yet the enemy came and sowed weeds, according to Jesus parable in Matthew chapter 13. Yet the master said to leave both grow till the time of the harvest. That is why among good Catholics today, Jesus has tolerated since the first century seeds of the devil and He is very aware of it and told the Christians of the congregation of Ephesus so in Revelation chapter 2: 1 – 7 : “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false.”
“Why did Catholics adopt the doctrine of the immortality of the soul from Greek philosophy and Plato?”
They didn’t. JWs preach the heresy that the soul is life and that there is no soul that goes anywhere after death. That is not the reality of how God Himself created man. Catholics did not adopt the belief of a soul from Plato nor from any other Greek philosopher. The soul exists and has always existed from the creation of the very first man well before Plato! Even Jews believed in the soul. The body was not created with a soul as JWs say Catholic teach. That is not the proper way to describe what the soul is nor the truth about what the Catholic Church teaches, The body does not have a soul. At the beginning God created human beings composed of a body AND of a soul. These two intrinsically united characteristics are what the person is and were INSEPERABLE in the Garden of Eden. We are in-souled bodies . The soul and the body were one and were never separated. Note that what God breathed into the nostrils of man in Genesis 2:7 was not the soul but His Holy Spirit. When Adam and Eve died the punishment was the separation of the body from the soul, before that they were different but never separated, The matter and non matter, the physical and metaphysical got separated at the original sin but originally they were one, inseparable. After sin until now, at death the body goes back to the ground and decomposes until it is resurrected at the End of Times to be reunited to its soul, some for a resurrection of the righteous or of the unrighteous, i.e. some to rejoin their soul in heaven and others in hell. In Ecclesiastes 9 : 10 that the JWs love to quote to prove that we all go to the tomb and there is nothing after death, it says “Anything you can turn your hand to, do with what power you have; for there will be no work, no planning, no knowledge, no wisdom in Sheol where you are going.”
What the text is saying that there is no longer any works that can be done after death to be saved. At death each person faces their personal judgment, for hell, purgatory or directly to heaven and in hell or purgatory, there is nothing a person can do to gain merit. Jesus explains it very clearly to Saint Faustina, on earth it is the only time where one can gain merit for his salvation. Jesus told Saint Faustina: “But child, you are not yet in your homeland; so go, fortified by My grace, and fight for My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king’s child would; and remember that the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of earning merit for heaven. I expect from you, My child, a great number of souls who will glorify My mercy for all eternity (1489).”
SEE SECTIONS ON “SOUL”, “HELL”, “PURGATORY”, HEAVEN”, “SAINTS – SAINT CATHERINE EMMERICH”, “SAINT FAUSTINA”.
“Why do Catholics repeats prayers as if they were mantras on and on without any feelings, while Jesus clearly said: “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases (“vain repetitions” in KJV) as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words”, in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 : 7?”
That is a common misconception based on the poor practice of some unfortunately poorly educated Catholics or born Catholics that do things more out of tradition and routine and not faith. True Catholics do not pray as if they were rattling off words with a machine gun. This poor and regrettable practice among many Catholics has been clearly condemned by the Virgin Mary herself in several apparitions to Saints, including at Fatima and Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort is also very clear on the subject. SEE SECTIONS ON “MARY” and “THE ROSARY”.
True devout Catholics understand their faith and the importance to pray with the heart and never fall into a meaningless routine (see conferences and interview videos of Father Winston, Father Joseph Iannuzzi, Father Chris Alar and exorcists are extremely clear on the matter.)
On the other hand, Protestants and JWs think that regardless how it is prayed, the Rosary is exactly what Jesus said not to do. Wrong. The story and origin of the Rosary is fascinated.
One – The Rosary is completely biblical, word for word.
Two – The Rosary was invented as laity and working 3rd order monks wanted to accompany the daily reciting of the 150 Psalms cloistered monks did everyday but either they could not read nor had the time nor had access to a Bible in the Middle Age so the Psalms were substituted by 150 Our Father or Hail Mary by those who wanted to also offer up prayers to God. With time it became the rosary we know today. So the Rosary is a way to offer God glory and praise in a simpler way for people who cannot offer up the 150 Psalms. Therefore it is never to be recited automatically without feelings or without thinking but rather it should be done with the original purpose of being united in the praise given to God in Monasteries and Convents, and in Heavens by the Seraphim who call “Holy Holy Holy” in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, which shows that repeating words is not wrong when praising God, Holy Angels do it.
Three – Many Saints and Mother the Holy Virgin Mary herself in many apparitions stressed the importance to meditate each mystery first and / or read the Scripture first. Pope Saint John Paul II had a marvelous way to read one sentence of the Bible Mystery between each Hail Mary while offering up his personal rosary.
Four – The Rosary has been one of the most efficacious way to teach in remote lands and previous centuries when no books were available. SEE SECTION ON THE “ROSARY”
Five – The Rosary is not only agreeable but also has been specifically requested by Jesus and Mother Mary in many apparitions to Saints.
Six – All Catholics exorcists are clear on the matter: prayers repeated mechanically are not efficacious and even demons have expressed annoyance and shouted “With the heart!!!” when an exorcist said the Father Prayer mechanically. SEE FATHER WINSTON’S INTERVIEW under section “SPIRITUAL WARFARE”.
Seven – I have personally been amazed at the impact of repeating prayers from the heart and offering to God daily the Holy Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Back then when I was a devout JW, I had not concept of meditating on any mystery of any sort. Study yes. Bible reading plenty. I calculated that in 40 years of being a devout JW since birth who never missed a meeting nor an assembly and who served at the World Headquarters for 9 years, I have read the Bible cover to cover personally or as part of my meeting preparation and attendance close to 20 times. The Gospels I knew them and still can quote Scriptures by chapter and verses. Yet I had never meditated intently for hours as I do now on the cross, on the agony, on the birth of Jesus…, on every single mystery as they are presented in the Rosary. The depth of the Rosary is incommensurable and no wonder that the Virgen Mary herself asked for us to pray the Rosary in Fatima and in many other apparitions.
Eight – Also repeating decades of the phrase “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” in the Divine Mercy Chaplet has had a profound impact on me. The first months I started to pray that rosary every day I was amazed at what I was saying to God and I realized how proud I had been all my life and how humble and unworthy the Catholic Church was teaching me to become to receive mercy from God and to keep asking for it. The Latin mass has had the same effect on me. Pondering over the prayers and their meaning and some are repeated several times is a true cleansing of the heart. As Hebrews 4 : 12 says: “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” Repeating prayers from God’s Word from the heart, pondering over every word is powerful, not to mention again that the Rosary was invented so that laity and working monks could participate in some simple way to the offering of praises and prayers to God as they could not be chanting the 150 Psalms with the other cloistered monks of the 1st order, something no JW has ever done nor has any concept of doing anyway. It is a whole other level of spirituality, Not head knowledge. From the heart to heaven. At least the Rosary is a humble manner to offer to God what we can do in a little way in lieu of the 150 Psalms and the Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline and the Office of Readings that consecrated people and priests offer to God every single day and in lieu of all the neverending beautiful praises that Seraphim sing constantly to God over and over again!! God deserves so much praise!!!!
“How come the Jehovah’s Witnesses were the only ones to suffer in concentration camps as a religion?”
The Jehovah’s witnesses truly believe that they are the most persecuted religion on earth. There is nothing more false. They dismiss the thousands and thousands of Catholic martyrs around the world and across the ages from the 1st Century on who have died for their faith till this day. The First Century Christians and all the ones who died in the first three centuries under Roman persecutions were not Jehovah’s witnesses. It is an outrageous claim. They were practicing Catholics celebrating the mass and taking the communion of the Holy Eucharist and their number is unknown. Deleting the martyrdom of all those Catholic Saints murdered all around the world in 20 centuries and choosing to pretend that they never existed or preferring to ignore them – while their very names adorn our streets and public buildings all over Europe – only to magnify the 250-300 witnesses who did courageously die in Nazi concentration camps is dishonest and betrays a great ignorance of world History. All their memories should be honored whatever the creed. As for the position of the Church during the Second World War, a few names as Saint Maximilian Kolbe and Blessed Clemens August von Galen, the bishop called “The Lion of Münster” show the true position of courageous Catholics. The difference is that the Catholic Church is not managed as a dictatorship with mandates where when the top says something, everybody must comply from the top down or else… someone may “lose their privilege” or be “disfellowshipped” or “reproved”… The Catholic Church does not work this way. There is not micromanagement of individuals’ lives in the Catholic church.
Also some First Century Christians were soldiers and politicians and therefore the Catholic Church does not hold the same view on absolute neutrality as the Jehovah’s witnesses. The truth is that as a whole, Jehovah’s witnesses have no knowledge of the thousands and thousands of stories of courageous Catholic martyrs. I had no idea myself for 40 years as one born and raised as JW. SEE SECTIONS ON “SAINTS”, “HISTORY”, “NEUTRALITY & JUST WARS”.
“If the term “adelphoi” means blood brother from the same mother, clearly in Matthew 12 v 47 did not Jesus have fleshly brothers?”
No, the word “adelphoi” also appears in 1 Corinthians 15 v 6: clearly Jesus did not have 500 fleshly brothers nor would the Virgin Mary nor any other woman on earth have ever given birth to 500 sons. It is ludicrous and the most fallacious argument that appeared in the JWs’ Reasoning book and I am ashamed of having used it from “door to door”. SEE SECTION ON “JESUS’ BROTHERS”.
“Didn’t the Catholic persecute Luther, Calvin and John Wycliffe because they wanted to translate the Bible into vernacular languages and the Catholic clergy wanted to keep the common people in spiritual darkness?”
No. That is a gross lie from the Black Legend that the witnesses have adopted thoroughly as the more than 40 000 Protestant denominations. Witnesses only believe what their publications say of these 3 men. Witnesses never actually do any historical research to know the factual details of who these men were, what they believed and how they truly ended.
The truth is that JWs hold these men as “saints” and consider them as pre-JW true witnesses that had fought for the truth against the Catholic Church during what they consider the “dark ages”, (while in the Catholic Church some of the greatest Saints and doctors of the Church had visions, apparitions and mystical revelations as Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) or Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) during those exact times, in response to the attacks from inside and outside the Church – Martin Luther (1483-1546) took 10 millions out with his heresies in 1517 but 14 years later in 1531 The Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego and brought 13 Millions in), while themselves (the JWs) claim not to be part of any Protestant movement… This shows the hypocrisy of the JW position. SEE SECTION ON “PROTESTANTS” for more on the real motivations and biographies of Calvin, Luther and Wycliffe.
The Church did not want people to start interpreting the Bible each one according to its own whim, which is exactly what these 3 men opened the door to: more than 40 000 Protestant denominations and other sects, each one with a founder who declared himself illuminated by God to interpret as he wanted the Holy Scriptures, throwing away the Magisterium, the authority of the Pope and the apostolic succession as well as the Catholic Tradition with its Fathers of the Church and thousands of Saints who have continued to shed more light on the revealed truth throughout the centuries.
SEE SECTION ON “THE PROTESTANTS” AND ARTICLE “The Myth of Protestant Bible Martyrs”
https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/the-myth-of-protestant-bible-martyrs
“Are not all the teachings of the Jehovah’s witnesses proven in the Bible?”
So I thought as well for 40 years as a zealous pioneer and bethelite. I was surprised to discover with my research how much I believed out of pure credulity. Some doctrines are based on wrongly interpreted scriptures taken out of context or on manipulated original language and all the rest is actually pure personal understanding and interpretation from the Governing Body members without any Biblical proof nor backing whatsoever. Once the faith in the inspiration of the Governing Body vanishes, one realizes how much what one thought as solid faith was just hanging on belief in mere men.
“Why do Catholics believe that the Virgin Mary remained a virgin while she obviously had other sons as Jesus had “brothers” according to the Scriptures?”
The JWs believe that the term brother means blood son of the same mother according to their understanding of the Greek term “adelphoi” which appears in Matthew when talking about “his brothers”. Yet I was never told that it is the same term “adelphoi” which also appears in 1 Corinthians 15:6 where we read that Jesus appeared to 500 “adelphoi”… clearly Mary nor any other woman in History for that matter ever gave birth to 500 sons. This argument is therefore fallacious and outrageous.
But beyond bickering over Greek words – which JWs do love doing, although none or very few of them actually ever studied Ancient Greek and they just repeat what the JW publications say as I myself did for decades (interestingly I did study Latin for 3 years back in school but not Greek and I never read the Bible neither in Latin nor in Greek and it never even occurred to me to check if the word “adelphoi” appeared somewhere else in the Bible so I repeated that argument out of sheer trust in the authors of the JW publications) -, the real question that we should ask ourselves is the following: “Does anyone actually care about the reputation and the feelings of the Virgin Mary instead of quarreling over words?”
Now She is My Mother who has adopted me so generously and so very graciously despite my ignorant past spreading blasphemies against Her as a zealous witness, I am ever so conscious (to my shame) of the hurt and damage done to Her and to Her Holy Reputation in the world by people who do not even know Her nor care about HER really. That is now why I am offering up acts of reparation every first Saturday of the month, according to the approved apparitions of Mother Mary and of Jesus in Pontevedra on December 10th 1925 asking for reparation. Jesus Himself exposed the hurt done to His Mother!!! Would anyone tolerate that some people – more full of themselves than worried about the actual truth – spread false rumors against one’s own mother? Absolutely not!! The Virgin Mary is very well alive! She is here. She sees us. She listens to us. She hears every insult, lie, swear word, false teaching, stubborn witnesses with their bible in hand misleading people from door to door!!! How would you feel if someone spread the rumor in the town where you lived that your own mother, who gave birth to you and who strived her entire life to be the most virtuous and holiest woman ever, had had sex with so and so while she had not, and had had other children apart from you that she never had?? Would not that hurt you as much as it hurt her? Well that is the sad reality of the misinformation that has been going on for centuries against the Holy Virgin Mary and the faithful Catholics are the only ones left to uphold the dogmas of Her Divine Motherhood, Perpetual Virginity and Immaculate Conception (even the Orthodox only share the first 2 but do not believe in the latter). Some sully the reputation of Our Holy Virgin Mary out of sheer ignorance as I did, others attack her deliberately. Why don’t JWs ask themselves if they are truly ok in their conscience tarnishing the reputation of the holiest woman who ever walked on this earth and who made her entire life incredible sacrifices to uphold the Holiness to which She was called for yet had Her entire liberty to act according to Her Free Will the same as Eve had in the Garden of Eden, yet this time this incredibly courageous and holy woman always obeyed and did the Will of God “without ever counting the cost, nor even once”!!! (Quote from Father Chad Ripperger)
SEE SECTIONS ON “THE VIRGIN MARY”, “THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION”, “JESUS’ BROTHERS”.
“The Cross is a pagan symbol that Catholics adopted from Ancient Babylon and Egypt and Jesus did not die on the cross as according to the Greek word used in the Bible, it refers to a simple pole.”
JWs love getting caught up into debates about original Greek words. But unfortunately the reality and truth regarding how Christ died and the instrument of His death are not even a serious debate anymore for anyone who does some serious archeological research and study about the Roman tortures. Do your research. SEE SECTION ON “THE CROSS”.
This being set aside, the outstanding truth that I have discovered that wiped away for me any further doubt is that the Cross is actually the very mark that we must bear on our foreheads to be saved!!!
The Cross is the very sign of our salvation. It is not some pagan symbol that the Catholics borrowed from Babylonians or Egyptians as JWs claim.
The prophecy of Ezekiel chapter 9 reads:
“1 Then he shouted loudly for me to hear, ‘The scourges of the city are approaching, each carrying his weapon of destruction!’
2 Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. Among them was a man dressed in linen, with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze altar.
3 The glory of the God of Israel rose from above the winged creature where it had been, towards the threshold of the Temple. He called to the man dressed in linen with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt
4 and Yahweh said to him, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who grieve and lament over all the loathsome practices in it.’
5 I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city and strike. Not one glance of pity; show no mercy;
6 old men, young men, girls, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the old men who were in the Temple.
7 He said to them, ‘Defile the Temple; fill the courts with corpses; then go out!’ They went out and hacked their way through the city.
8 While they were hacking them down, I was left alone; I fell on my face, crying out, ‘Ah, Lord Yahweh, are you going to annihilate all that is left of Israel by venting your fury on Jerusalem?’
9 He said, ‘The guilt of the House of Israel and Judah is immense; the country is full of bloodshed, the city full of perversity, for they say, “Yahweh has abandoned the country, Yahweh cannot see.”
10 Then, I too shall neither give one glance of pity nor show any mercy. I shall repay them for what they have done.’
11 The man dressed in linen with the scribe’s ink-horn in his belt then came back and made his report, ‘I have carried out your orders.’ “
https://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=33&bible_chapter=9
The cross was the symbol of Jesus’ crucifixion. It redeemed us from sin and death and the cross becomes the mark of our salvation. Historically, there is ample evidence that Jesus died on a cross and not on a single pole as JWs claim. Do your research. Don’t get caught up in some empty debate resulting from a couple of dissident marginalized critics and remote historical exceptions. Also study the Shoud of Turin. Jesus died on a cross. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE CROSS” AND “THE SHROUD OF TURIN”.
In Ezekiel chapter 9 verses 3 to 4, the prophet talks about a man clothed with linen who had the writer”s ink-horn in his belt and he had to go in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and put mark, a sign, upon the foreheads of the men who sighed and mourned for all the abominations that were done in the midst of the city and anyone who did not have the mark would be killed .
In the original Hebrew text, the word for “mark” is TAW and in the Hebrew alphabet this letter is the letter T. In the ancient Hebrew language which is slightly different from modern Hebrew, it wasn’t just the letter t. The letter TAW that the scribe with the ink-horn had to write on the forehead of people for them to be saved was actually a cross: the horizontal bar was lower. It was a cross, as a sign announcing the crucifixion and the need to have faith in the sacrifice of our Redemptor Jesus Christ!! Furthermore, it also means “alliance or pact”!!!
Also this letter TAW in Hebrew is written with two characters תָּ֜ו. The first one is a cross and the second character actually represents a man, a male human being or it can also represent a nail, as a nail used to set up a tent or a nail to nail a man on a cross during an execution!!
That is the mark that is to be written on the forehead of every person that is to be saved!! This discovery for me was amazing!!!
MUST SEE: THE CROSS – The Cross: Jewish or Pagan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9FazkvsNtA
Also the cross, the shape of the cross as in 3 perpendicular lines crossing each other is actually the foundation of the universe: theologians talk about the “cosmic cross”. If we analyze the world, the universe, most solid trusctures are actually based upon some form in the shape of a cross, every house, every door post, is actually built using two perpendicular beams or boards or planks or wooden pieces that will actually make the structure stronger… any piece of furniture, a bed, a chair, a cabinet, a cupboard, a fence, all of those are actually built with elements forming crosses because it’s actually the most solid shape or form in the universe.
Light, stars, the sun, all shine with rays whose light is reflected in the form of a cross. Everything in the universe is based on a cross and therefore it is absolutely ludicrous to say, as Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, that the Catholics adopted the cross from some Egyptian or Babylonian pagan teaching or practice. The cross existed way before any civilization. It existed when God created the universe. Pagans didn’t invent the cross. The Catholic cross doesn’t come from pagan god nor civilization. God had purposed the cross to be the foundation of our salvation itself: it is the principle of the “cosmic cross”.
SEE SECTION ON “THE CROSS”.
“The Catholic Church is the Most reprehensible part of Babylon the Great, the Harlot in Revelation, the world empire of false religion and it will be destroyed at Armageddon.”
The JWs demonize the Catholic and depict it in the worst terms imaginable. They describes it as being full of sorceries and demonic practices. I myself being born and raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, I remember always passing before churches with contempt and disdain, as it being the symbol of false religion, and I was careful never to set foot in a church per se, apart from the Abbaye of Mont Saint Michel for pure tourism when I was young, until December 2021 when I attended the concert of a soprano friend of mine. When I entered that church my heart was beating like crazy and I started to sweat thinking that I was committing the worst offense against God and would be worthy of being stricken down, and I prayed internally and I asked God to make clear to me what His Will was and if it was not pleasing to Him that I shall enter, I would leave immediately. I felt a voice saying to me “Stay” and a great peace came over me and I remained the whole concert in peace and amazed to discover the decoration of the place, a beautiful pontifical basilica.
I remember that when I was a child, I was with a group visiting a French town and as we passed by a church, some went in and I followed hesitating and smelling the incense and seeing the darkness of the place my first reaction was disgust and repulsion and I immediately left. That is the vision that I was given of Catholic churches since my birth. I lived in Paris, yet I have never been to the Cathedral of Notre Dame although I only lived 10mn away, not even out of curiosity.
The way the JWs depict the Catholic Church is so negative and demeaning that I would have never EVER considered studying or joining the Catholic faith if it had not been by the pure grace of God.
For children like me born and raised as JWs, although I have always considered myself as an educated person who went to public school and later University, actually I had no concept whatsoever of what THE EUCHARIST was. I had no notion whatsoever that Jesus Christ was here waiting for us in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. I had heard how the other JWs sarcastically compared the communion as cannibalism as the bread was the bloody fleshly body of Christ and that Catholics were literally eating human flesh and that was ridiculous. I was always taught that the words of Jesus at the Last Supper were to be taken symbolically. My concept of what the Eucharist was and means was null apart from those caricatural stereotypes that Catholics were eating the body of Christ as if eating human flesh as some cannibals with blood drooling from their mouths. I had no notion whatsoever of the elevated truth that the communion is consuming Jesus himself so that we become Eucharistic Souls, we enter Christ’s Divinity, we become ONE and He feeds us eternal life into our souls and Christ comes to live IN us and we become temples of Christ: He lives in us, we become ONE. Not as in when we eat bread, our body assimilates the bread rather the contrary, Jesus makes us enter into His Divine dimension and He cures us as He penetrates all the inward parts of our body and soul and we become united as ONE.
This is the greatest treasure of all mankind. That is the Greatest Gift done to Mankind by God after the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
I am flabbergasted at the virulence of the JWs condemnation against the Catholic Church which is the ONLY CHURCH that Jesus Christ instituted when He came to the earth. The explanation of Christianity from a JWs’ standpoint is a thin varnish, a parody, of the true plan that God has set up for our salvation. JWs have not idea of what the Catholic Church teaches and when a JW says that he knows because he used to be Catholic, that person has a very shallow concept of his previous faith that he actually never studied seriously and never believed or he would have never left Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
Kingdom Halls of JWs are squeaky clean empty places with a stage, a pulpit, a microphone, chairs, and a sound system. There is nothing else to it. JWs, born and raised like me or even ex-Catholic have no knowledge of the true teachings of the Catholic faith, and they happily dismiss and condemn it alluding to some popes’ or pedophile priests’ scandals and lies from the Protestant Black Legend. They have no knowledge, the same as I did not, of the treasure buried under mounts of trash, lies and bad conduct from the weeds that the devil has sowed among the good wheat inside the church but that, for some reason, Jesus said to “let grow together and not uproot” until His Judgment when He comes back.
Preaching that the Catholic Church is pagan and demonic is a blaspheme against God The Father Himself who purposed the Church for our salvation, against God The Son who came down and became incarnate as human to graft us into His Sonship and as His Body the Holy Church brings us back to the Father as Sons and Daughters of God, and against God The Holy Spirit who lives in the Church and who imparts Its gifts through the Church and its sacraments.
Honest hearted JWs as I have known many, should carefully consider Jesus’ warning in Matthew 12:31 when the Pharisees were attributing His miracles to Beelzebub, the Chief of demons. Jesus then said to be careful, as there is one sin that cannot be forgiven, it is the sin against the Holy Spirit. Qualifying the very action and temple of the Holy Spirit on earth as demonic and rejecting God’s offer of salvation and grace through the only channel that God has instituted on earth, His Holy Church, moved and inhabited by the Holy Spirit, what a folly!
SEE SECTION ON “THE HOLY EUCHARIST”
“We are the true religion because we have a clean organization and we do not have scandals as in the Catholic Church. If one person commits grave sin and is not repentant or his sin tarnished the reputation of the organization, he is disfellowshipped. As Jesus said: “We must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.” God did not tolerate immorality within the people of Israel nor does He tolerate it today therefore the Catholic Church cannot be God’s people in the view of all the scandals that have tarnished its reputation throughout the centuries from dirty popes like the Borgias’ scandals to pedophiles priests, corruption in finances, homosexuals in seminaries: everybody knows how corrupt the Catholic Church is, has been and will be. It cannot be God’s people.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim to be God’s people because of the “purity” of their organization. The truth is far from their claim.
First of all one must be aware of the difference in size which drastically changes the perspective. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a group of 8 million people. Catholics are 1.3-1.4 billion people. Nothing alike. We will all agree that in comparison, by just a sheer volume of people, we are bound to find many more cases of corruption within the Catholic church because it is composed of more people and logically scandals end up being splashed all over the news just because of the proportion and exposure.
Also, the truth is that in the rather small organization that are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are many scandals that are carefully concealed from the Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves. I myself probably would have not believed half of it if I had not lived it and seen it with my own eyes. I was born and raised in a Jehovah’s Witness family, victim of abuse by my own father, which was covered up by my own mother, who in 2019, 10 years after calling me crazy for bringing up the matter, asked me for forgiveness and told me how sorry she was for never having protected me. She asked for forgiveness and confessed.
After a traumatizing childhood, running away from an abusive environment at home, I ended up marrying a minister with very important responsibilities at the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York who – I discovered too late – was a homosexual undercover who married me to cover his double life and who ended up dying of an autoimmune disease at the age of 47.
While I lived at the NY Bethel branch- the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York – I got to know and hear first hand about a Bethel elder, who had problems with drinking at Bethel and lost his elder statis but was not “kicked outbof Bethel” to ise their jargon… I knew another bethel elder abusive to his wife whom I knew personally, other bethelites committing immorality and adultery inside of Bethel, I heard of vulgar bethelites telling dirty stories…
While I was at Bethel, my own hair dresser was disfellowshipped for having committed adultery with another bethelite while her husband was away on a foreign assignment.
I witnessed with my own eyes a police car being parked in front of the reception at the Wallkill facility in New York and the next day in all the NY news media being announced that a Bethel Elder with some 30 years at the world headquarters and also being an elder in my own Spanish congregation had been arrested for pedophilia. He had been followed by the police for 6 years before being arrested. The police found in his bethel room boxes full of pictures and videos of abuse on minors in different airports; the police had been tracking him for 6 years in all his travels to Chicago and to the Dominican Republic and he was finally arrested at the Wallkill bethel site of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was later sentenced and deported to Mexico for felony.
I was also the witness of first-hand accounts of suicide at Bethel, one of which funeral was held in my kingdom hall under great confidentiality and the other being open news as the young Asian bethelite had thrown himself under a train in upstate NY after being disfellowshipped for committing fornication with a married bethelite. He was kicked out of bethel and his own family did not receive him so he committed suicide. This story got well known of many, as that young bethelite had played the violin in the Family Night program a few months before.
The sad truth is that the witnesses have kept secret and have refused to disclose the names of abusers and pedophiles to the justice system for years. They have preferred to pay millions of dollars of penalties and many times they have settled cases under confidential clauses with the victims paying them huge amounts of money so that these scandals would not become public.
So it is not that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ organization is cleaner than the Catholic Church, on the contrary: it does not disclose and keeps covering up the scandals that plague the reality of many witnesses.
I have had a JW close friend who told me personally of her own story: she had been abused by her grandfather who was an elder all his life and her own mother and grandmother did not believe her.
I have known another witness who was victim of rape and when later depressed and messed up by the trauma, she fell into utter depression and alcoholism, although being a witness, she was abandoned and shunned by her family as bad company and died alone. She was found dead, three days after her death, stiff behind the entrance door of her house.
I have personally known a great friend whose husband had another woman and even another child and when she brought up the case to the elders she was told to be patient and to let the Holy Spirit work in her life: they would not believe her accusation until years later when the existence of this child was made manifest to all and they had to recognize the truth of her account. By the time they recognized what she had gone through, she had lost all her hair, had thyroid problems and huge emotional sequels…
I knew another friend in Mexico who came to cry at my house telling me how her husband would disappear for 3 days and no one would not know where he was and there’s nothing the elders would do for her but to tell her to endure while in their law an unfaithful husband should be reproved and disfellowshipped.
On speaking assignments with my husband I got to go to many other congregations and got to hear of cases of brothers and sisters having been married several times within the same circuit, marrying and divorcing and remarrying and playing the game so well that they all managed never to be disfellowshipped!
Scandals, there are many, but they are well covered up and as Witnesses believe that any report that would tarnish their reputation is necessarily false or from ill intentioned apostate, they automatically dismiss such accounts as false and forged.
Another reality that I have seen is that many witnesses have had the syndrome of the “American Dream”. When I was a child, the main buildings of the World Headquarters were in Brooklyn, New York, right across Manhattan, right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was like a pride to see the big sign “Watchtower” tower over New York City. Witnesses from other countries – I experienced it myself – had an enormous enchantment and excited admiration of seeing the world headquarters in the richest capital of the world… that too was a mirage and a great illusion…
Despite the harshness of the experiences and betrayals I have personally gone through in my life, I am so grateful to have seen it all and by the grace of God survived it all, because if I had not, I am not sure that I would have been able to come from under that overwhelmingly impressive perfect reputation that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have crafted throughout the past 150 years. That illusion of perfection is so well crafted that you almost have to see the scandals from within and from the top to believe them. I am so grateful to have gone through what I went through to be able to come under that puff of smoke, the falsehood, that beautiful varnish that the witnesses have created over the years.
Thank God nowadays, through the digital world wide web and internet system, it is much easier to find Court reports of what truly happened starting from the true life character and court cases of the very founder Charles Taze Russell to more recent cases of abuse, from the United States to Australia; there is nothing covered that would not come to light sooner or later… SEE LINKS IN SECTION “JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES”
Also regarding purity, the Jehovah’s Witnesses do have the vision of a clean and pure organization with very strict morals and truly well-educated Jehovah’s Witnesses with well-behaved children who work hard in school. JWs tend to be trustworthy, good employees who pay their taxes, respectful citizens of the law, (at least that is what they encourage their followers to be in their Watchtowers and what they report being described as by many government officials around the world).
Their world headquarters and any national headquarters are extremely well maintained, perfectly painted and well kept. Where I worked at Bethel in NY was probably the cleanest place I have ever seen.
There is a constant care for perfection, and they will often quote the scripture where Jesus said: “You must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” The comprehension of this scripture by Jehovah’s Witnesses tends to prone a sort of squeaky clean perfectionism that is reflected in their perfect attire, three piece suits, jacket and tie and polished shoes at every meeting, perfect skirts under the knee for all women (which rule was apparently recently changed by for possible pants for women), impeccable Bethel facilities all around the world…
Yet if we carefully reread the scripture in Matthew chapter 5 verses 43 to 48, Jesus did not refer to a squeaky clean appearance nor perfectionist scrupulosity. In the context, Jesus was just talking about loving our neighbors, loving those who persecute us and he was comparing it to the actions of God the Father who is in heaven, “who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good”. He was highlighting the necessity to love our neighbors, love our enemies, and those who do not salute us, the Gentiles…” and therefore he concluded by saying that we “should be perfect as God is perfect.”
The entire context referred to practicing the same kind of love as God does. The term “perfect” here in Greek is “tellios” which means “whole, fully grown, final, complete” and therefore the exhortation to be perfect means to fully and completely emulate the qualities and virtues essential to a Christian Life that Jesus himself displayed when he was on Earth as he perfectly reflected the love of his father. The love of Jesus was not some kind of Pharisaic perfection tending to follow all the rules to a T and leaving Godly love behind. In the scriptures Jesus put in clear contrast the love of his Father for sinners with the very hypocrite observance and false righteousness of the Pharisees.
For example, the Pharisees would wash their hands up to their elbows whereas Jesus disciples would not.
The Pharisees would follow the Sabbath to the extreme minute exception and rule; Jesus had no problem having his disciples take some wheat grains from the fields to eat them, or sending a paralytic to pick up his cot after being healed. Jesus did not promote the strict observance of the law above love. Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. He himself said that he had not been sent for the healthy but for the sick. Jesus mingled and ate with sinners. True JWs never eat with outsiders or “worldly people” as they called them my whole life (until they started to take that expression out of their jargon a little after I left Bethel as being considered too demeaning and discriminatory).
Jesus was not among the squeaky clean of his time.
I have noticed that the Catholic Church welcomes everyone for real, whatever the appearance, whereas in the Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses, within a month of studying the Bible with them, any Bible student will understand clearly that a certain dress code must be implemented straight away if they are to attend their meetings with dignity. I am a firm defender of dignified attire for entering God’s presence in the best possible outfit as He is God Almighty, the Sovereign Lord of the Universe but if some people do not understand it yet, for some reason, the Catholic Church does not put up such drastic requirements as JWs but some simple decent instructions, for example at the entrance of the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, nothing like the detailed dos and don’ts that I was taught in Watchtower pictures for 40 years. Do I like” squeaky clean”? Personally yes I do!!! But I have learned in the Catholic Church that love is not in the dress nor in your appearance nor in the perfectly squeaky clean shininess of a place only, it is in the actions, it is in the open door, it is in the easy access to God the Son in the Eucharist given to all human beings on earth. THAT is being perfect as God the Father is perfect, as “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust”.
For some reason the JWs put more emphasis on dressing up properly at their kingdom halls and from door to door, on painting and keeping all their facilities top notch, pronouncing the name Jehovah left and right, but they have no problem whatsoever and they keep insisting on spreading the IV century arianist heretical blasphemy that Jesus was a created angel, they have no issue dirtying the reputation of the purest and holiest virgin woman who ever lived by insisting that Our Most Holy Virgin Mary had sexual relations and gave birth to other sons and they see nothing to it when preaching the IV century Pneumatomachianism blasphemous heresy that the Holy Spirit is just a force!!! Without mentioning their systematic protocol consisting in hiding under the carpet of their shallow perfect facade thousands of appalling scandals that would shock the world if their organization was the size of the Catholic Church.
Another detail that has struck me: outside of every single Catholic church I got to go the past 3 years, there has been systematically some kind of beggar asking for money whereas in 40 years of being a witness, in at least 7 countries and 16 different congregations I have belonged to and hundreds of Kingdom Halls I have visited, I have personally never seen a beggar outside any kingdom hall asking for money. Ever. That is my personal experience. It says a lot…
Jesus Christ taught and is still showing us as the Head of His Holy Church a different type of love from what we usually conceive. He had picked 12 Apostles: 2 of them were traitors and the other 9 ended up being cowards so much so that when Jesus died of a horrible humiliating death, only the faithful John stood at the foot of the cross with only 4 women including the Virgin Mary. But when He was resurrected, Jesus went to gather the same apostles (except Judas Iscariote who had hanged himself) and confirmed the foundation of the Church with the same imperfect men who overcame their weaknesses and proved their faithfulness till dying a martyr’s death. Jesus knew Judas was a thief all along and at the Last Supper he was perfectly aware that it was that apostle who was going to betray and he urged him: ” What you are about to do, do quickly.” Yet, Jesus just let him be. He did not do anything to prevent him for the time being.
In Revelations chapter 2, Jesus says to the Church of Ephesus: ““I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors. Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.”
Therefore Jesus is clearly aware of scandals, hypocrisies inside His very Church and for some reason He permits it all and lets it happen. But He does draw the attention to us that it is not a good enough reason for us faithful ones to lose our first love.
Also in Matthew chapter 13, Jesus “proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds* all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest;* then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” “
In Matthew 18, speaking about the setting up of his kingdom on earth, Jesus said: “Anyone who welcomes one little child like this in my name welcomes me. But anyone who is the downfall [“stumbling blocks” or “scandals” in other versions] of one of these little ones who have faith in me would be better drowned in the depths of the sea with a great millstone round his neck. Alas for the world that there should be such causes of falling! Causes of falling indeed there must be, but alas for anyone who provides them!”
Everything is right there. Jesus said there would be scandals, false apostles and weeds inside His Holy Church. But He is not leaving nor abandoning His Church.
Neither do I. Neither will I.
“The Trinity is a pagan teaching that Catholics adopted from Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Trinity was adopted from Babylonian and Egyptian triads. They adopted new XIX century ideas contested by arqueological finds such as the idea that Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod and mother of a child-god (often identified with Tammuz or Marduk), as presented by Alexander Hislop in his 19th-century book The Two Babylons. They also teach and happily give “Bible tours” at the MET Museum of NY and at the Bristish Museum of London, to show that the Trinity concept came from Egyptian triads such as Osiris, Isis, and Horus.
Unfortunately the truth is far from those fanciful speaculations and goes much deeper than that. Their claim attacks the very nature, the very essence of who God is and always has been, He who lives outside of time, who has been for all eternity, way before creating any creature or creation. Babylonian and Egyptian triads had not been invented yet, but God had always been for all time and for all eternity. Who He explains He is in the Holy Scriptures has nothing to do with some pagan teaching. God was, is and eternally will be a trinity, way before mankind ever existed. The Holy Trinity has always existed outside of time.
God is Love so He is a Triune God, One God in Three Persons, and We have a whole Divine Family waiting for us in Heaven in which we can be grafted in and united to already, even right here on Earth!!!
Rediscovering the nature, the essence, the very definition of what and who God is, is absolutely amazing!!! Understanding that God is a Holy Trinity, Three Persons in one God, one and only God, one only Divinity, one Essence in Three Persons: God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit.
To define God, we have to go back to 1st John chapter 4 verse 8:
“God is love”.
But how do you define love when God is infinite and we humans as so limited to grasp the deep things of God?
Well, how would you define a table to an extraterrestrial being from another system? A text with a definition might do. A picture even better…
How about cooking? We would need to show a person with some food doing some action of cutting, mixing, pouring, heating, stiring… We do agree that showing a picture of a person with a tomato in the hand would not do. We would also need to show the action of actually cutting or peeling or manipulating the tomato to convey the concept of cooking. It therefore must have 3 components: a person, some food, and the action of cooking…
Well love is also an action, love is a action verb. Not just a feeling as movies would have us believe. It is a verb. To define love, we first need a lover, a person who loves, who generates love, who gives love, and that person is God the Father.
We also need a recipient, a beloved, another person who receives love, that person is God The Son.
And because love is an action, it is an action verb, we need something to be done between them two, an action, a verb, love is embracing, giving, forgiving, gifting, protecting, caring, kissing, taking care of, feeding, providing, sacrificing, listening to, watching over, looking after, waiting, stroking, hugging, cuddling, covering, sheltering… it’s a verb and this verb is so powerful that it takes on its own identity with a will and an intellect, and as a rational individuality this person is God the Holy Spirit who is Charity, who is Love in action Itself.
SEE SECTION ON “THE HOLY TRINITY”.
In the account of the Creation in Genesis 1:27 The Holy Trinity appears for the first time as God speaks in the first personal subject pronoun of the plural form, “Let us make man in Our Image”. Who was God speaking to in such a plural form? The Three Persons cooperated as One Concert of Love in This Divine Work of Creation.
This Triad, this Trio, those Three Persons, from the very same and unique Divine nature and essence, live as One God.
They are co-eternal, they always existed, not one came before another as God lives outside of time, He created time for humans but He Himself is not subjected to time.
They are co-equal and consubstantial of the same substance, the same Essence, the same God, one Divinity in three persons.
They share the same Divine Nature or Essence. They are distinct persons, yet possess one inseparable, undivided Divine Substance.
To exemplify what God is in our little human minds and brains that are too limited to understand what the Holy Trinity is, God has tried to explain to us who He is using concepts that the human mind can grasp yet The Most Holy Trinity still remains a Mystery as God is infinite and cannot be contained nor understood by a limited mind.
The Holy Spirit has given us to understand that in the Holy Baptism we received the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. Each one gifted by a Person of the Holy Trinity.
Faith from The Father.
Hope from the Son.
Charity from the Holy Spirit.
In the Confiteor prayer, when we confess our sins we pray the following: “I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do”, the thoughts being related to The Father, the words because God The Son is the Verb, The Word, The Logos, and in works relating to God The Holy Spirit in action in our lives that we offend by our wrongdoings or by our omissions of good actions or lack of action when we fail to act upon His promptings.
Also, The Holy Trinity acts in our lives through the three sacraments of Christian Initiation.
The first Sacrament of Baptism makes us Sons of God of God the Father by adoption within the Son.
Through the Sacrament of the Holy Communion we receive God The Son in the Holy Eucharist.
In the Sacrament of the Confirmation we receive a personal downpour of God’s Holy Spirit.
The Triune God is LOVE; God The Father is the Source of Love, God The Son is the Incarnate Love and God The Holy Spirit is the Love being Poured out upon us.
God the Father is connected directly to our will and therefore we need to conform our will to the Will of God. As the Holy Mother of God The Son, the Will of God must become our own will, “Fiat Mihi Segundun Verbum Tuum” said the Virgin Mary to the Arcangel Gabriel relating to Her the Message of God. “Fiat Voluntas Tua”
said Jesus Himself to His Father when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Our will must come to be what God The Father wills, our intellect relates to God The Son and all memory to God The Holy Spirit. These are the 3 highest faculties of our Human Soul, perfectly compatible and formatted to be configured according to God in His Three Persons.
The Holy Trinity therefore consists of a Divine Family to which we are all called and predestined to belong to. God called all of us, every single human being, to become part of his Divine Family. Not all humans will respond to the call as every human has free will but all of us were called to be Sons and Daughters of God to enter into the Divine Family and to be adopted as Sons and Daughters of God.
“Easter is a pagan feast and the Easter eggs are symbols of fertility and they were adopted by the Catholic Church from pagan worship to the goddess of sex and fertility Astarte or Ashtoreth, who gave her name to “Easter” and whose statutes can be seen in the greatest museums of the world as in the MET in NY, the belly full of eggs.”
The truth about the origin of the Easter eggs is very far from this made up lie. No, they have nothing to do with the goddess of fertility Astarte or Ashtoreth as JWs claim. For centuries during Lent, Catholics, (therefore literally entire populations of entire countries in Europe before the Reformation), would fast for the entire 40 days prior to the Celebration of the “Memorial of Christ’s Death” as JWs call it, or prior to the Holy Week and its Triduum:
- Holy Thursday (Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper): Commemorates the Institution of the Eucharist and the washing of the feet or “Last Supper”,
- Good Friday (Celebration of the Passion of the Lord): A solemn day of fasting, prayer, and veneration of the cross, marking Jesus’s death.
- Holy Saturday / Easter Vigil: The pinnacle of the Triduum, held after sundown on Saturday to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus.
During the fast (only one meal a day originally), Catholics would practice abstinence of any meat or animal product, including dairy products and eggs for the entire Lent. Therefore on the last day, it was a custom to offer to each other decorated and painted eggs as on Resurrection Sunday, they would be allowed to be eaten again after 40 days of abstinence.
MUST READ: Diez cosas interesantes sobre la vigilia pascual – ORIGEN HUEVOS DE CHOCOLATE DE PASCUA
READ https://onepeterfive.com/forgotten-customs-of-lent/
“Through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, we can learn how Lent was practiced in his own time and attempt to willingly observe such practices in our own lives. The Lenten fast as mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas constituted of the following:
- Monday through Saturday were days of fasting. The meal was taken at mid-day and a collation was allowed at night, except on days of the black fast
- All meat or animal products were prohibited throughout Lent.
- Abstinence from these foods remained even on Sundays of Lent, though fasting was not practiced on Sundays.[1]
- No food was to be eaten at all on either Ash Wednesday or Good Friday
- Holy Week was a more intense fast that consisted only of bread, salt, water, and herbs.
The Lenten fast included fasting from all lacticinia (Latin for milk products) which included butter, cheese, eggs, and animal products. From this tradition, Easter Eggs were introduced, and therefore the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is when pancakes are traditionally eaten to use leftover lacticinia. And similarly, Fat Tuesday is known as Carnival, coming from the Latin words carne levare – literally the farewell to meat. These were mentioned in the “Forgotten Customs of Septuagesima” article in more detail.”
MUST READ: Easter Is Not a Secretly Pagan Holiday
‘Easter’ as a translation of the pagan goddess ‘Ishtar’ has no basis in reality.
“It’s common for skeptics of Christianity (including Jws) to claim that the word Easter comes from the name of a pagan deity called Ishtar, suggesting that the Christian faith has pagan roots. But no matter how prevalent this contention has become, it has no basis in history or reality.
In Jeremiah 44:15-17, the people of Judah reject the prophet Jeremiah’s message in preference to their idolatrous worship of an entity called “the queen of heaven”—apparently the pagan deity Ishtar. Commentators seem to be in general agreement that Jeremiah’s “queen of heaven” is Astaroth or Ashtaroth—Astarte in the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament. Literally, Astaroth means “the moon.” The moon was a Sidonian idol worshipped by the Phoenicians and worshipped as Ishtar by the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians. In nature worship, the sun and the moon were considered the king and queen, respectively, of the celestial heavens.
Some people have inferred that Easter is the English derivation of the Greek Astarte, but there is no linguistic or historical basis for this. In addition, the English word Easter is said to have derived from an Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess named Eostre. This theory was based on an incorrect conclusion by St. Bede the Venerable about the etymological origins of the English month that coincides with spring and the celebration of Easter, Eosturmonath. But, as Anthony McRoy, a fellow of the British Society for Middle East Studies, notes, there is no historical basis for this derivation. He notes that St. Bede himself said his conclusion was based on his interpretation rather than a generally held position or proven fact.
Also, there is no doubt that the focus of Easter for St. Bede and English Christians in general, was and is Jesus, the Passover Lamb who died on our behalf and rose from the dead.
Indeed, in most European countries, the name for Easter derives from the Greek word Pascha, which itself is derived from the Hebrew Pesach—i.e., the word Passover. Thus, the term paschal sacrifice refers to Jesus’ one sacrifice, and paschal candle is another name for the Easter candle.
So where did the English get their word for the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection? McRoy notes there are two main theories, both of which are plausible:
One theory for the origin of the name is that the Latin phrase in albis (“in white”), which Christians used in reference to Easter week, found its way into Old High German as eostarum, or “dawn.” The other is that Eosturmonath simply meant “the month of opening,” which is comparable to the meaning of “April” in Latin. The names of both the Saxon and Latin months (which are calendrically similar) were related to spring, the season when the buds open.
In either case, the claim that the English celebration is rooted in pagan goddess worship simply has no historical basis, even if some anti-Catholic polemicists have gotten a good deal of mileage out of it.”
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/easter-is-not-a-secretly-pagan-holiday
“The Holy Spirit is not a person, It is a force.”
The teaching that the Holy Spirit is a force and not a person was likewise an invention of other heretical Catholics from the IV Century, called neumatomachi or Pneumatomachians, The term comes from Greek, meaning “fighters against the Spirit”. They were also called after the heretical Catholic Bishop of Constantinolple Macedonius and their group came be known as the Macedonians. Pneumatomachianism or the Macedonian heresy was condemned at the Concile of Constantinople in 381AD. JWs did not invent anything nor did they have any new light coming from God. They are just recycling old heresies from heretical priests from the IV Century.
The Holy Spirit is a person, it’s not an impersonal force. It is The Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
In theology a person is an individual substance of a rational nature and so the Holy Spirit is a person, it is of the same essence of God The Father and of God The Son, it is the same Divine Essence, the same Divinity therefore it is God but it has its own intellect and will.
A careful study of the Holy Scriptures perfectly shows that the Holy Spirit speaks, the Holy Spirit says, the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going to Asia (Acts 16: 6), the Holy Spirit moves into action, the Holy Spirit is saddened…. the Holy Spirit is quoted in dozens of texts in specific action cleary proving that He is a rational person with an intellect.
A person is a substance with a will and an intellect with a rational nature is the same difference between a human person and an animal: we would never say that an animal is a person because, although it has some instinct and even feelings,it doesn’t has an intellect nor a rationality and neither an intelligent will. An animal doesn’t reflect upon itself. Most animals don’t even know that they are their own entity: a cat may mistake his own image for another cat in the mirror they don’t have this intellectual concept of their individuality, they don’t have a will, they don’t plan the future as we do, they don’t worry, they don’t study, they don’t rationalize as we do that’s why we do not consider animals as “persons”.
Yes they do have a body therefore having a body doesn’t define a person, having an intellect and a will does.
Likewise, angels are persons. Every single angel is an individual person.
Also God is one God ,only one Divine Essence, only one Divine Nature, it’s not three Gods, there is ONLY ONE GOD but in three persons:
God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit do have their own individualities within the Holy Trinity and this Divine Holy Family forms the Family we are called to belong to, to be Sons and Daughters of the Holy Trinity. They become hosts of our souls and we are to receive the Holy Trinity inside the temple of our body, blood soul and humanity. Inside each of our own human inner personal universe, we are to receive the Holy Trinity as a guest into our souls.
SEE SECTION ON “THE HOLY TRINITY”, AND ARTICLES “DEFINITION OF A PERSON” – https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35539&randomterm=false#:~:text=AND https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11726a.htm
We get to pray for the Holy Spirit to come, to enlighten us, to guide us, to impart to us His 7 gifts as recorded in Isaiah 11:1 -3. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are, according to the Catholic Tradition: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of God. Starting to develop a personal relationship with God The Holy Spirit adds a whole other dimension in our relationship with God!!!
SEE ARTICLES “The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit – What are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and why do they matter?” https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-seven-gifts-of-the-holy-spirit AND https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_gifts_of_the_Holy_Spirit#:~:text=
DEFINITION OF A “PERSON”
In Catholic theology, a person is fundamentally an individual substance of a rational nature, defined by intelligence, will, distinctiveness, and self-subsistence (incommunicability), meaning they are complete in themselves but called to communion with others. This definition applies analogously to God (the Trinity), angels, and humans, but for humans, personhood also involves being a body-soul composite, uniquely reflecting God’s image through intellect and love in relationship, and possessing inherent dignity from conception.
Core Characteristics
- Individual Substance: A complete, self-existing entity, not a part of something else.
- Rational Nature: Possesses intellect and will, enabling knowledge and love, distinguishing persons from animals or inanimate objects.
- Incommunicability: Each person is unique and distinct, unable to be completely merged into another.
- Openness to Others: While distinct, persons are made for communion, not isolation, finding fulfillment in relationships, especially with God.
STUDY OF OFFICIAL CATECHISM REFERENCE BOOK
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH