What did John Paul II really believe?

Recently John MacArthur preached a message called "The Pope and and Papacy" which I highly recommend to you. In a portion of it, he talks about what Pope John Paul II really believed. Here is an excerpt from that message that documents what Pope John Paul II really believed and taught as the official representative of the Roman Catholic Church:

"There has been a lot of intense discussion in recent weeks about Pope John Paul II, his spiritual legacy in the Roman Catholic Church, and what he taught. Numerous evangelical commentators have portrayed him as a great spiritual leader whose errors were few and basically benign.

Even the secular media has shown an unprecedented interest in the passing of the pope and the selection of his replacement. Pundits and commentators on CNN, Fox News, and the major networks have all covered the changing papacy intensely. One question that has been raised or alluded to repeatedly is this: "Is the Pope in heaven?" Numerous people have asked me that question. I’m always tempted to reply: "Is the pope Catholic?"

After all, the pope was the number-one purveyor of Roman Catholic doctrine. The gospel he believed was no more sound than the gospel Rome has always taught. It is not the gospel of Scripture. Here are several significant areas where the pope’s teaching departed in significant and troubling ways from biblical truth.

On Mary:

After the death of his mother when he was eight, Karol Wojtyla developed an intense devotion to Mary. When he was made pope in 1978, he formally rededicated himself and his whole pontificate, to Mary. His extensive travel as pope was orchestrated around visits to numerous Marian shrines around the world. His example and his teachings motivated thousands of Roman Catholics to make Mary the primary focus of their prayers and devotion.

The papal crest of John Paul II was a simple coat of arms whose central feature was a large "M" for Mary. When he died, his coffin was also decorated with a large letter M. His personal slogan, which he had embroidered into all his papal robes, was "Totus tuus ego sum, Maria"—"I am totally yours, Mary."

"Totus Tuus ego sum." Those were, as a matter of fact, the opening words of his last will and testament. In the will itself, John Paul went on to say this:

"I place this moment [referring to the moment of his death] in the hands of the Mother of my Master: Totus Tuus. In the same maternal hands I leave everything and everyone to whom I have been connected by my life and my vocation. In these Hands, I leave above all the Church, and also my nation and all of humanity. "

… each of us has to keep in mind the prospect of death… . I too take this into consideration constantly, entrusting that decisive moment to the Mother of Christ and of the Church—to the Mother of my hope.

In notes included with his will, John Paul II quoted the words of a former Polish Cardinal, which he said had inspired him: "Victory when it comes will be a victory through Mary."

Anyone who closely followed the preaching of John Paul could see his intense devotion to Mary. In a message to the General Audience and published Wednesday, 7 May 1997 by the Vatican, John Paul said, "The history of Christian piety teaches that Mary is the way which leads to Christ."

When an assassination attempt on the pope failed in May of 1981, he credited Mary with saving his life. On the anniversaries of the assassination attempt in 1992 and 1994, he made special pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in order to offer ceremonial payers of thanksgiving to her.

A book of selected quotations from John Paul II about Mary was compiled and published, titled John Paul II's Book of Mary. The ad copy inside the book says the book is for people "who seek a deeper relationship with Jesus and his Mother." The Table of Contents consists of a list of titles the pope applied to Mary. They include:

• Gate of Heaven
• Mediatrix of All Graces
• Mirror of Perfection
• Mother of the Church
• Mother of Mercy
• Pillar of Faith
• Seat of Wisdom

Here’s a sample of quotations from the book:

"Mary shares our human condition, but in complete openness to the grace of God. Not having known sin, she is able to have compassion on every kind of weakness [contrast that with Hebrews 2:18]. She understands sinful man and loves him with a Mother’s love. Precisely for this reason she is on the side of truth and shares the Church’s burden in recalling always and to everyone the demands of morality. (Veritatis Splendor, 120).

"For every Christian, for every human being, Mary is the one who first 'believed,' and precisely with her faith as Spouse and Mother she wishes to act upon all those who entrust themselves to her as her children. And it is well known that the more her children persevere and progress in this attitude, the nearer Mary leads them to the `unsearchable riches of Christ'" (Redemptoris Mater, 46).

According to the belief formulated in solemn documents of the Church, the "glory of grace" [referred to in Ephesians 1:6] is manifested in the Mother of God through the fact that she has been "redeemed in a more sublime manner" (Redemptoris Mater, 10).

As Christians raise their eyes with faith to Mary in the course of their earthly pilgrimage, they "strive to increase in holiness." Mary, the exalted Daughter of Sion, helps all her children, wherever they may be and whatever their condition, to find in Christ the path to the Father's house (Redemptoris Mater, 47).

Nobody else can bring us as Mary can into the divine and human dimension of the mystery [of the gospel]. (Redemptor Hominis, 22).

We can ... turn to the Blessed Virgin, trustfully imploring her aid in the awareness of the singular role entrusted to her by God, the role of co-operator in the Redemption, which she exercised throughout her life and in a special way at the foot of the Cross. (General Audience, 9 April 1997).

On salvation apart from Christ:

Pope John Paul II was a modified universalist. While he stopped short of saying plainly that he believed all people would eventually be redeemed, he used the expression "universal salvation" hundreds of times, and he often expressed uncertainty about whether any human beings would really spend eternity in hell. In a message to the General Audience on 28 July 1999, the pope said,

The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy….

Eternal damnation remains a real possibility, but we are not granted, without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it. The thought of hell—and even less the improper use of biblical images—must not create anxiety or despair… .

In an encyclical titled Redemptois Mater, the pope said,

The eternal design of God the Father, his plan of man's salvation in Christ...is a universal plan, which concerns all men and women created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1:26). Just as all are included in the creative work of God ‘in the beginning,’ so all are eternally included in the divine plan of salvation, which is to be completely revealed, in the ‘fullness of time.’

In a 1995 message, he wrote,

Christ won universal salvation with the gift of his own life…. For those, however, who have not received the Gospel proclamation, as I wrote in the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, salvation is accessible in mysterious ways, inasmuch as divine grace is granted to them by virtue of Christ's redeeming sacrifice, without external membership in the Church… It is a mysterious relationship. It is mysterious for those who receive the grace, because they do not know the Church and sometimes even outwardly reject her.

The encyclical mentioned in that quote, Redemptoris Missio, is full of universalist sentiments. In it, the Pope wrote that "followers of other religions can receive God's grace and be saved by Christ apart from the ordinary means which he has established"! Here are some other quotations from the same document:

The redemption event brings salvation to all, "for each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery."

Just as "by his incarnation the Son of God united himself in some sense with every human being," so too "we are obliged to hold that the Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in the Paschal Mystery in a manner known [only] to God." God's plan is "to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10).

Nonetheless, the pope said,

Salvation, which always remains a gift of the Holy Spirit, requires man's cooperation, both to save himself and to save others…

Thus he affirmed the efficacy of human effort in salvation, but not the exclusivity of Christ:

The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ… . Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace … enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation…. Since Christ died for everyone, and since the ultimate calling of each of us comes from God and is therefore a universal one, we are obliged to hold that the Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in this Paschal Mystery in a manner known [only] to God."

One of John Paul II’s best-known books, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, was an aggressive ecumenical and universalist manifesto. In it, he declared that Muslims worship the one true God (141); that Hinduism is another means of taking refuge in the one true God (80); that Buddhists have God’s help in reaching true enlightenment (80); that there is much that is holy and true in all false religions (81); and even animism can prepare a person’s heart to receive the truth of Christ (80). In short, he said, God helps every man create his own personal salvation (195), and the Holy Spirit is in every religion (80).

On the authority of Scripture:

Of course John Paul II, like all Roman Catholics since the council of Trent, flatly denied that Scripture is the supreme authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine. In the words of Vatican II, "The [Roman Catholic] Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truth from the Holy Scriptures alone. [But] both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence."

In other words, the Catholic Church itself claims an authority equal with Scripture, and since she insists her Popes and priests determine the true meaning of Scripture, the church has in effect set her own authority over that of the Bible.

The Pope claims to be the earthly head of the church—the vicar of Christ. And John Paul II claimed no less for himself. As pope, he arrogated to himself authority that belongs to God alone. That is why he felt free to reinterpret Scripture and abandon the plain sense of those texts that teach Christ alone is the way to heaven.

The exclusivity of Christ not the only clear teaching of Scripture John Paul steered the Catholic Church away from. In a message to the pontifical Academy of Sciences, on 22 October 1996, John Paul denied that there is any conflict between the theory of evolution and the Scriptures. He told the Academy: "It is important to set proper limits to the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable interpretations… . In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research." He declared that "new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis."

In 1999, Pope John Paul had a meeting with Muslim leaders at the Vatican, during which he ceremoniously kissed a copy of the Koran.

During his reign, Pope John Paul II canonized at least 486 saints—more than all his predecessors combined. Some of the Cardinals who served under him were reported to have referred to his pontificate as a "saint factory."

One of John Paul’s earliest encyclicals was a 1979 document called Redemptor Hominis. In it John Paul described the gospel as a message about human dignity. He wrote, "Through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity." "The Redemption that took place through the cross has definitively restored his dignity to man and given back meaning to his life in the world, a meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin." That language, all about human dignity and finding meaning in life, unfortunately echoes the diluted message that comes from too many evangelical pulpits these days. I am convinced that one of the main reasons so many evangelicals now reject the notion that the Roman Catholic Church is utterly apostate is because evangelicalism itself is largely apostate. Evangelicals’ understanding of the gospel declined just when Roman Catholic ecumenism was on the rise, and the messages coming from Rome and many evangelical circles are now virtually identical.

Never has reformation been more needed than now.