John Paul II's praise of Pope Pius IX is very enlightening. Many Evangelicals, such as Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and Jack Van Impe, have praised Pope John Paul II. We have documented this in our book Evangelicals and Rome. Yet John Paul II is NOT a Bible-believing Christian. He exalts the papacy as "the sweet Christ on earth," calls himself "His Holiness" and "Holy Father," prays to Mary and gives glory to her for his protection from an attempted assassination and has dedicated himself wholly to her, believes in evolution, denies that Hell is a place of fire, claims that salvation is by faith plus sacraments and good works, etc. John Paul II believes what his predecessors believed, one of whom was Pius IX who was pope from 1846 to 1878.

In November 1846, Pius IX issued an encyclical letter in which he denounced all opponents of Roman Catholicism, among which he included "those insidious Bible Societies." He said the Bible societies were "renewing the crafts of the ancient heretics" by distributing to "all kinds of men, even the least instructed, gratuitously and at immense expense, copies in vast numbers of the books of the Sacred Scriptures translated against the holiest rules of the Church into various vulgar tongues..." What a horrible crime! Distributing the Scriptures freely to all people! Pope Pius closes his encyclical by giving blasphemous praise to Mary: "let us have recourse to the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, our most sweet mother, OUR MEDIATRIX [Mediator], OUR ADVOCATE, OUR FIRMEST HOPE, the source of our confidence, and WHOSE PROTECTION IS MOST POWERFUL AND MOST EFFICACIOUS with God."

Pius IX was a persecutor of Bible-believing Christians. In 1849, Count Guicciardini and several other Protestants in Florence, in central Italy, were arrested "for no offence whatever but that they wished to read the word of God, and hear it preached" (Dowling, The History of Romanism, p. 730). After being imprisoned for some time in a loathsome cell, in which the stench and the vermin made it almost impossible even to sleep, Guicciardini was banished from Italy. In the spring of 1852, Rosa and Francesco Madiai were arrested in Tuscany, in northwest Italy, "for no other crime than that of reading and inviting others to read with them the blessed word of God, and to love and trust in that Saviour whom it reveals." After several weeks of imprisonment, their trial was conducted in June. One of the charges was that the Madiais had given a 16-year-old boy "a prohibited copy of the Bible, in French and in Italian" and that they had taught their 20-year-old servant girl how to read so she could understand the Italian Diodati Bible. For these and similar "crimes," Francesco Madiai was sentenced to 50 months imprisonment at hard labor, and Rosa, to 45 months imprisonment. They were also fined 300 livres. After several months of cruel imprisonment, the Madiais were released and banished from Italy; but though they regained their freedom, Francesco's mental and physical health was permanently broken.

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX issued the bull Ineffabilis Deus, which proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In 1899 the Pontifical Press published a book entitled Manual of which proclaimed: "The Virgin Mary, immaculate and always pure, never required to expiate even the shadow of an imperfection, having been always more holy than Cherubim and Seraphim." Though the Vatican press was busy publishing books glorifying Mary, it was doing nothing to publish the Holy Scriptures.

Writing in 1903, Alexander Robertson, who long resided in Italy, made the following observations:

"On May 18, 1849, some three thousand copies of the New Testament, according to the Martini version, were seized and destroyed in Tuscany. Priests have told me that even they were not allowed to possess a Martini Bible without the Papal consent, and that the very fact of applying for such consent would bring them under suspicion, and so damage their prospects in the Church. Therefore, they said, 'WE HAVE NO BIBLES.' . . . Students are not taught the Bible in the Papal seminaries. They have many text-books-Alfonso de Liguori's especially-but no Bible. Count Campello, ex-Canon of St. Peter's, was trained in the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, the highest training college in Rome (to which once only men of noble birth were admitted, but into which now not one such can be induced to enter), and yet DURING ALL HIS YEARS OF STUDY HE NEVER EVEN SAW A BIBLE" (Alexander Robertson, The Roman Catholic Church in Italy, 1903, pp. 211-215).

Bibles were also being destroyed in South America during the reign of Pius IX. The following is an eyewitness account of the burning of Spanish New Testaments in Chili:

"Soon after my arrival in this place, some persons informed me that the New Testament had been taken from them as a proscribed book, and that several copies were to be burned in the public square on the following Sabbath. Letters had been received, I was further informed, FROM THE POPE HIMSELF, cautioning the bishops and priests against spurious editions of the New Testament printed in England, and circulated gratuitously in South America, for the purpose of creating divisions and heresies in the church. ... the clergy resorted to the old objection, that ALL EDITIONS OF THE BIBLE AND TESTAMENT WITHOUT NOTES ARE PROHIBITED BY A DECREE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. On Sabbath evening, the time fixed for the sacrilegious conflagration, a procession was formed, having the curate at the head, and conducted with the usual pomp, the priest kneeling a few moments at each corner of the square, and placing a large crucifix upon the ground. During the afternoon a fire had been kindled for the purpose, I was told by several bystanders, of burning heretical books which ridiculed the mass and confession; and among the number was mentioned the New Testament. A guard of soldiers prevented me from examining them separately, but I stood sufficiently near to discover that the greater part were copies of the New Testament issued by the American Bible Society. As the flame ascended, increasing in brightness, one of the clergy shouted 'Viva Deos' (Let God reign), which was immediately echoed by the loud acclamations of a large concourse of people. ... The Scriptures burned were of the approved Spanish version, translated from the Vulgate by Spanish Roman Catholic bishops. Further, they were New Testaments, so the plea that the Apocrypha was excluded could not be urged. They were portions of their own acknowledged word of God, because in the vulgar tongue and without popish notes, solemnly committed to the flames!" (John Dowling, The History of Romanism, 1853, p. 625).

When the wife of an Anglican clergyman died at Rome during the reign of Pius IX, the following epitaph was prepared by her husband for her tombstone: "To her to live was Christ, to die is gain. ... She is gone to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, till the day break, and the day dawn," etc. This was submitted to the Roman Catholic censor and was struck out. An appeal was made to Pius IX himself, and he confirmed the censor's decision on two grounds: First, "it was unlawful to express the hope of immortality over the grave of a heretic." Second, "it was contrary to law to publish in the sight of the Roman people any portion of the Word of God" (Wylie, The Papacy, p. 188).

On December 8, 1864, Pius IX issued a Syllabus of Errors, in which he again condemned Bible societies, lumping them together with Communism, secret societies, and other evils, labeling them "pests of this kind" (Latourette, Europe in the Nineteenth Century, p. 276).

Pius IX had himself and his fellow popes proclaimed "infallible" at the Vatican I Council in 1870. This Council "ratified generally the decrees of Trent on Revelation, and renewed a curse on all who 'shall not receive as holy and canonical all the books of Holy Scripture with all their parts, as set forth by the holy Tridentine Synod [this included the Apocrypha], or shall deny that they were divinely inspired'" (Jacobus, Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles, p. 237). At Vatican I a pageant was held in which the Catholic authorities professed their submission to the pope. As the various groups of priests approached the papal throne in their turn, they bowed low, and the cardinals kissed the hand of the pope; the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops kissed his right knee; and the abbots kissed his foot (Shelton, History of the Christian Church, V, p. 62).

Following is an excerpt from the Vatican I declarations:

"We teach and declare that by the appointment of our Lord THE ROMAN CHURCH POSSESSES A SUPERIORITY OF ORDINARY POWER OVER ALL OTHER CHURCHES, and that THIS POWER OF JURISDICTION OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; to which all, of whatever rite and dignity, BOTH PASTORS AND FAITHFUL, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, ARE BOUND, by their duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, to submit not only in matters which belong to faith and morals, but also in those that appertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world, SO THAT THE CHURCH OF CHRIST MAY BE ONE FLOCK UNDER ONE SUPREME PASTOR through the preservation of unity both of communion and of profession of the same faith with the Roman pontiff. THIS IS THE TEACHING OF CATHOLIC TRUTH, FROM WHICH NO ONE CAN DEVIATE WITHOUT LOSS OF FAITH AND OF SALVATION."

"And since BY DIVINE RIGHT OF APOSTOLIC PRIMACY THE ROMAN PONTIFF IS PLACED OVER THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH, we further teach and declare that HE IS THE SUPREME JUDGE OF THE FAITHFUL, and that in all causes the decision of which belongs to the Church recourse may be had to his tribunal, and that NONE MAY REOPEN THE JUDGMENT OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE, THAN WHOSE AUTHORITY THERE IS NO GREATER, NOR CAN ANY LAWFULLY REVIEW ITS JUDGMENT."

"IF THEN, ANY SHALL SAY THAT THE ROMAN PONTIFF HAS THE OFFICE MERELY OF INSPECTION OR DIRECTION, AND NOT FULL AND SUPREME POWER OF JURISDICTION OVER THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world: or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not all the fulness of this supreme power; OR THAT THIS POWER WHICH HE ENJOYS IS NOT ORDINARY OR IMMEDIATE BOTH OVER EACH AND ALL THE CHURCHES AND OVER EACH AND ALL THE PASTORS AND THE FAITHFUL; LET HIM BE ANATHEMA."

"We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed; that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith and morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, IS POSSESSED OF THAT INFALLIBILITY with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore SUCH DEFINITIONS OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF ARE IRREFORMABLE OF THEMSELVES, and not from the consent of the Church. But if any one-which may God avert-presume to contradict this our definition: LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Vatican I).

The Catholic Vatican I Council therefore placed the pope on the same level with Almighty God and bestowed upon him prerogatives which belong solely to the Lord Jesus Christ-who alone is supreme judge of the faithful and who alone can infallibly define doctrine. To claim infallibility is to exalt oneself to the level of Almighty God and the Holy Scriptures. The proclamations of Vatican I, therefore, were an attack upon the perfection and sufficiency of the Word of God.

A fascinating incident which occurred at the Vatican I Council illustrates Rome's historical relationship with the Bible:

"A curious thing happened at the so-called Ecumenical Council, held in the Vatican in 1869-70, at which the infallibility of the Pope was decreed. Dollinger and Dupanloup, in supporting their arguments against the insensate proposal, wished to refer to some passages of Scripture; but NO ONE HAD A BIBLE IN THE WHOLE COUNCIL, nor could one be procured for them within the bounds of the Church, so one had to be borrowed from the Protestant chaplain of the Prussian Embassy!" (Alexander Robertson, The Roman Catholic Church in Italy, 1903, p. 216).

At the time Rome was made the capital of Italy in 1870, a papal law required that copies of the Bible found in the possession of visitors to the papal city be confiscated (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, VI, p. 727).

My friends, the Roman Catholic Church hasn't changed, except superficially. The blasphemous and heretical declarations of the Council of Trent and of the first Vatican Council have not been abrogated. In fact, John Paul II recently reaffirmed Rome's headship over and supremacy above all churches and denominations. Beware of the ecumenical movement which attempts to rob churches of their protection against heresy by convincing them that they do not have the right to judge doctrine and to reject and separate from error.

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