From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part twenty-one of a series. Read part twenty.

How do former Roman Catholic priests who have been converted to Christianity answer this question? Let us hear from several of them in their own words.

When God the Holy Spirit brings a Roman Catholic priest to saving faith in Christ, something radical happens. As he passes from death to life, he also passes from being a tradition-driven, authority-driven servant of the Roman Catholic system to being a Scripture-driven servant of Jesus Christ. The regenerating Spirit changes the man's entire view of Scripture, sin, salvation, and church authority. The following are excerpts from Far From Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Catholic Priests (Banner of Truth, 1997).

Another Christ

My ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood was at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in Washington, D.C., the seventh largest church in the world. When Bishop John M. McNamara imposed his hands on my head and repeated the words from Psalm 110:4: 'Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek', I was overwhelmed with the belief that I was now a mediator between God and the people. The anointing and binding of my hands with special cloths signified that they were now consecrated to changing bread and wine into the real (literal) flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, to perpetuate the sacrifice of Calvary through the Mass, and to dispense saving grace through the other Roman Catholic sacraments of baptism, confession, confirmation, marriage and the last rites. At ordination a Roman Catholic priest is said to receive an 'indelible' mark: to experience an unending interchange of his personality with that of Christ, that he may perform his priestly duties as 'another Christ' or in the place of Christ. People actually knelt and kissed our newly consecrated hands, so sincere was this belief.

- Bartholomew F. Brewer, "Pilgrimage from Rome", page 18

Finished Sacrifice

Anyone who has attended Mass in the Roman Catholic Church will remember the prayer said by the priest, 'Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father.' This is a very serious prayer. The people respond saying the same thing, asking that the sacrifice may be acceptable to God. But this is contrary to the Word of God because the sacrifice has already been accepted. When Jesus was on the cross, he said, 'It is finished' (John 19:30), and we know that it was completed because Jesus was accepted by the Father and rose from the dead and is now at the right hand, of the Father. The good news that we preach is that Jesus has risen from the dead, that his sacrifice is completed, and that he has paid for sin. When by God's grace we accept his work as the finished sacrifice for our sins, we are saved and have everlasting life.

A memorial is a remembrance of something that someone has done for us. Jesus said, 'This do in remembrance of me.' So anyone who is reading this, or any priest who is saying Mass, must seriously consider the error of the prayer, 'Let us pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice may be acceptable.' The sacrifice has been accepted. We are to have the communion service in memory of what Jesus has done. The sacrifice that Jesus offered on the cross cannot be added to or re-enacted.

Can the Mass Atone for Sin?

The Roman Catholic Church says that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice effective to take away the sins of those on earth and those who have died. That is why, to this very day, even though some people will say that the Church in some places does not believe in purgatory, still virtually every Mass that is said is for someone who has died. It is believed that the Mass will shorten their time in purgatory. That is why it is said for dead people. When a person dies, judgment immediately follows, 'It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment' (Heb. 9:27). If they are saved, they go directly to heaven; if they remain in their sins, they go to hell. There is nothing to change one from hell to heaven. The Roman Catholic Church believes that the Mass, being a propitiatory sacrifice, will decrease the time in purgatory. But all the suffering and all the atonement that was ever made for sins was accomplished by Jesus on the cross, and we need to accept this truth. We need to receive everlasting life and to be born again while we are still alive. There is no biblical evidence to support the idea that after death we can experience any kind of change.

To Be Right Before God

We then began to study what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on salvation. It is a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that we can be saved by being baptized as infants. Present-day canon law says, 'Baptism is the gate to the sacraments, necessary for salvation, in fact, or at least in intention, by which men and women are freed from their sins, reborn as children of God, configured to Christ' (Canon 849). This teaches that when a baby is baptized, it is saved and has everlasting life by virtue of baptism. But that is not true. Jesus never said anything like that, neither is there a word in the Bible about anything like that happening. There is no limbo! Jesus said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.' The Bible always says we are saved when we accept that Christ Jesus totally paid the price of our sin so that his right standing with God becomes ours. 'For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Cor. 5:21).

Christ's Works or Our Works?

The Roman Catholic Church then goes on to say that in order to be saved you must keep its laws, rules and regulations. And if these laws are violated (for example, laws concerning birth control or fasting or attendance at Mass every Sunday), then you have committed a sin. The Roman Catholic Church says in canon law of the present day that if you commit a serious sin, that sin must be forgiven by confessing to a priest. 'Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary way by which the faithful person who is aware of serious sin can be reconciled with God, and with the Church' (Canon 9609). The Roman Catholic Church says that this is the way sins are forgiven, the ordinary way that sins are forgiven. The Bible says that if we repent in our heart and believe on Christ's finished' sacrifice we are saved. We are saved by grace, not by our works. The Roman Catholic Church adds works, in that you have to do these specific things in order to be saved, whereas the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9 that it is by grace that we are saved, not by works. The Bible makes it very clear that we are saved by grace. It is a free gift given by God, not because of any works we do. 'For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works; lest any man should boast' (Eph. 2:8-9). 'And if by grace then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work' (Rom. 11:6).

- Bob Bush, "Once a Jesuit, Now a Child of God", pages 73-76

A Family and a Pastor

Thinking that the best way of knowing who the Protestants were would be to observe their lives and customs, I went to visit a Protestant family. I told them that I was a teacher and would like to know their doctrine to teach my pupils better what Protestantism was.

I was surprised that they were polite with me. I was astonished to see that they knew the Bible better than I. I was ashamed when I heard them speaking to me about Christ with a conviction that I, priest that I was, never felt.

They answered some of my questions and invited me to speak with their Baptist pastor. I met him the next day, but my first words were: 'Do not try to convince me, because you will waste your time. I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one. I would only like to know why you are not a Roman Catholic.'

He invited me to meet every week and to study the New Testament, discussing in a friendly way our different points of view. We did so.

The pastor answered all my questions with texts from the New Testament. My arguments were always the sayings of the popes and the definitions of the councils. Although I did not accept his arguments externally, in my own mind I realized that the words of the Gospels had more value than the decisions of the councils, and that what Peter and Paul said was of more authority than the teaching of the popes.

As a result of our conversations I began reading the New Testament assiduously in order to find some arguments against the Protestant doctrine. I wanted not only to show that the pastor was mistaken, but even to win him for the Roman Catholic Church. But after each one of our interviews, I carne back to my school feeling that he had defeated me in argument.

For a long time I was very concerned, reading the New Testament and praying that God would increase my faith and dispel my doubts so that I should not make a mistake. But the more I read and prayed the more confused I became. Could it be possible that the Roman Catholic Church might not be the Church of Christ? Could I be wrong in my faith? If so, what had I to do?

I heard that other priests and monks became Protestants by studying the Bible, but I could not imagine myself doing the same. Be a Protestant? Be a heretic? Be an apostate from my faith? Never! What would my parents, my pupils and my friends say? My eleven years of study would be declared invalid. What would I do for a living? . . .

God's Grace

Three months later I left the Roman Catholic Church because I could not go on doing things and pretending to believe doctrines that deep in my heart I knew were wrong. I thought of all the possible difficulties, but I decided to follow Jesus Christ in spite of them.

The most important thing that could have happened to me was my personal encounter with Jesus Christ, when I came to know him as a personal Saviour.

It is not enough to be a good Roman Catholic: the important and necessary thing is to be born again in Christ. This has been my experience. When I entered into Christ, I experienced that he not only liberated me from my sins, but also from the heavy load I had to carry being in a monastic order. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace' (Eph. 1:3,7).

Thank God for the many who have sought and found that grace. The same God who transformed the life of Saul the persecutor on the way to Damascus, and transformed the life of Father Borras in the cell of a monastery, is able to transform your life wherever you are.

'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness' (Isa. 61:10).

- Jose Borras, "From the Monastery to the Ministry", pages 133-137

Theology Not the Bible

During my four years of theological studies, I had never seriously read the Bible. For me, the Holy Scriptures were only consulted as a reference book in the study of Roman Catholic dogma. I knew only those parts of the Bible which were included in the Mass and in the texts of the Roman breviary.

Salvation, the Roman Catholic Church said, depended on absolution from sins by a priest, and whoever refused to confess his mortal sins to a priest was eternally condemned. But I could not find in Acts or in any other New Testament book any statement that this was so. All the sacred writers insisted that man must go directly to God for forgiveness.

On the other hand, in Hebrews I read very clearly that Christ had been offered once for all for the sinner. 'Then,' I said, 'how dared the Council of Trent declare in 1562 that in the Mass Christ offers himself by the hands of the priest as a true and real sacrifice to God?'

Faith Alone

I also found that justification was only by faith, and I asked myself whether, if I had not found peace of soul in the Roman Catholic Church, it could perhaps be because I had expected to gain it as a reward for my own efforts? 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness' (Rom. 4:5).

In such a manner, I suddenly understood that Jesus Christ asked nothing of me, and I relinquished all my own effort to gain salvation. So Jesus Christ became my only Lord and Saviour.

- Enrique Fernandez, "I Discovered the Word of God", pages 139-140

God's Word Is Sufficient

I was still preaching that the Bible is not a sufficient rule of faith but that we need the tradition and dogmas of the Church to understand the Scriptures. But again a voice within me was saying, 'You preach against the Bible teaching; you preach nonsense. If Christians need the Pope to understand the Scriptures, what do they need to understand the Pope? I have condemned tradition because everyone can understand what is necessary to know for personal salvation. "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31).

Who Forgives Sin?

Where my doubts were really tormenting me was inside the confessional box. People were coming to me, kneeling before me, confessing their sins to me. And I, with a sign of the cross, was promising that I had the power to forgive their sins. I, a sinner, a man, was taking God's place, God's right, and that terrible voice was penetrating me, saying, 'You are depriving God of his glory. If sinners want to obtain forgiveness of their sins they must go to God and not to you. It is God's law they have broken. To God, therefore, they must make confession; to God alone they must pray for forgiveness. No man can forgive sins, but Jesus can and does forgive sins.'

These Scripture verses were constantly in my mind: 'And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins' (Matt. 1:21). 'Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved' (Acts 4:12). 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9). 'My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous' (1 John 2:1).

One Master: The Lord

I could not stay any longer in the Roman Catholic Church, because I could not continue to serve two masters, the Pope and Christ. I could not believe two contradictory teachings, tradition and the Bible. I had to choose between Christ and the Pope, between tradition and the Bible; and by God's grace I have chosen Christ and the Bible. I left the Roman priesthood and the Roman religion in 1944, and since I have been led by the Holy Spirit to evangelize Roman Catholics and urge Christians to witness to them without fear.

- Joseph Zacchello, "I Could Not Serve Two Masters", pages 201-203

Selections are from Far From Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Roman Catholic Priests (Edinburgh, Scotland and Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 1997). Reproduced by permission.

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