Arrogance of Priestcraft

"EVEN the scribes, with all their self-assumption, knew that it was blasphemy for man to assume to forgive sins against God. 

Mark 2:7  Who can forgive sins but God only?
But the Catholic priest goes beyond the scribes and assumes to himself the authority which God alone possesses.

This spirit of evil, however, is the great genius of the Papacy, which, as Paul foretold, has sought to exalt itself… 2 Thessalonians 2:4 ...above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Therefore this priest says: "Who can do this for him? The priest of

God. He can rescue the sinner from hell, and make him worthy to be received in the heavens; go, therefore, where you will, to heaven or through this earth, you will find only one created being who can forgive the sinner, and that being is the Catholic priest. 

Thus we see that the priest is raised beyond the brightest spirits which God has created or ever will create, and that to him are given powers, which have been denied to the Mother of God, and to the angels in heaven. Are we any longer, then, surprised to hear our Lord addressing those solemn words of warning to the Church at large: “Beware of touching my anointed ones, he who touches them touches the apple of my eye.” Is it any wonder that St. Francis of Assisi should have exclaimed, “If I met an angel and a priest at the same time, I would first bow my knee to the priest, and then to the angel.”

And the difference between the priest of Rome and the angel of God

would be that while the angel would rebuke such adulation (Revelation 22:8-9), the priest would encourage it and even command it. Priestcraft is as arrogant and proud in its claims now as ever in the days of Tetzel and his chest of money, in which the chinking of every golden coin signaled a soul released from purgatory."

E.J. Waggoner