I am Protestant, baptized and raised, but I do not ever hear about Protestant pastors driving out demons in exorcisms. We know the spiritual world is real, so exorcisms have to be real by default. Demons can call out our sins to accuse us and drag us down with them, so that is also universal between Catholics and Protestants.
So what is the defining difference that gives Catholics the power to do the exorcisms and not Protestants?
Do they teach in a way that gives more divine authority? Are we doing something wrong? Or is it withholding information within the Catholic church?
I’m glad I saw this, thanks.
u/winn , there’s your theory’s proof. Definitely one of them, as it exists today.
I still won’t be saying “I’m against it” as that doesn’t strike me as being beneficial toward getting people to reconsider things, and there are still portions that I do admire.
I seek awareness and correction (where I can help), more than casting blame or labels.
Thank you for taking the time to read the entirety of the study.
Reading your answer, the following (2-part comment!) might prove insightful to the points that you italicized. And u/winn, read the next (2!) parts that both begin in bold if you were seeking for other evidences and histories on the "666" title of VFD. You should find something useful for whatever work you are compiling.
And please, never think of such comments as the casting of blame or the labeling of shame, but think of it as a desperate plea cried out in tones of love. If people do not know the truth of the system which they find themselves in, then how will they know that they have to separate themselves from it? Only when people are made aware of a problem will they then go seeking for its solution.
And only in seeking, with a conscious decision that comes from the heart, will they find.
Because nothing good will be accomplished by force, as force is what paralyzes the will.
So how can you present an uplifted Jesus? By, in all meekness and lowliness, with all love and tenderness, bringing a knowledge and understanding of that which lifted Him up. Set right the character of God as He wrote, with His finger in stone, in His law. Then He will do the uplifting. Show that love is married to duty, that justice is married to mercy, and that obedience is a free-will offering of faith, even as the fruits of faith; for to be free is to be in the image of Christ, and to accept the free gift of salvation is verily to accept the gift of the character of God.
And law, just as character, can never be forced, for to force a law is to force a character is to force a kingdom is to force a king. Especially in these times, it is necessary to share with people the love of the truth, which is found in the law (Psalm 119:142) just as it is found in Jesus (John 14:6), so that they will not be deceived once another law, even another character, is presented as being of God despite verily being in-the-place-of God. Any man, or any system, that seeks to legislate morality, is seeking to legislate God.
Now do you want to read something even more amazing on the title of VFD?
In Leviticus 24:18, the grammatical substitute, being the word used to replace a previously used word, here being the substitute for the word “beast”, is “vicarium” in the Latin. In the Greek, the grammatical substitute used in the stead of "vicarium" is “anti”. Therefore in the Latin, the title of “Vicarius Christi” can be seen as directly analogous to the Greek title of “Anti-Christos”.
Look back to 1871 and you will find that the Ladies of the Royal Court of King Leopold II of Belgium, as a show of fealty, gifted a papal mitre to Pope Pius IX (which he accepted). On it is written “Regnum Atque Populorum Patri; Orbis Supremo In Terra Rectory; Iesu Christi Vicario Infallibili”. The title of “Antichrist”, in the form of “Christi Vicario”, has even been worn atop the crown of the Pontifex Maximus.
Now the title of VFD adds up to, using the Roman numeral system, 666. But the numbers themselves also have a meaning in Koine Greek, which is the language mostly used in the original writing of the New Testament of the Bible. The number "666" is the transliteration of χξC, or “chi-xi-stigma”. In Strong’s Concordance, these root words, used as numbers, are the 22nd, 14th, and an obsolete letter that is transitory between the 5th and 6th. Let us unpack this.
Now the Roman numeral system came from the Greek practice of isopsephy. Used as a method of divination, isopsephy assigns numbers to individual Greek letters then counts the sum of its values. This method, used widely in astrological worship, was copied and adopted by the Romans. Any system primarily invoking "divination" or "prophecy" through the matching of numbers comes from a heathen form of sun, moon, and star worship (see: Baal worship as in 2 Kings 23:5).
When the number “666” was assigned to the beast (Revelation 13:18), the practice of isopsephy was daily used and widely adopted as a cultural norm rather than an esoteric understanding. The numbers would not only represent objects of worship, such as Saturn and Jupiter, but in times of religious persecution, such as when the Revelation was written, isopsephy was used to keep the intents of a message hidden behind a numerical number. What is absolutely fascinating is that the writer of the Revelation, John, softly confirms these conditions in his third epistle, 3 John, verses 13-14. Paul provides a second witness to this in 2 Thessalonians 2:5-7 when describing the system of Roman Catholicism in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
In a time where no letter would escape the prying eye of Roman intelligence, where at times even mentioning the very name of Jesus could warrant persecution unto death, the counting of “666” would be used to ensure that the letter would not be confiscated so that the message would not be cut short.
The isopsephy of 666, being the number of a man who represents the system of the beast, was cleverly communicated as the persecuting power of the beast of Rome. Back then, this was the common understanding with Pagan Rome still visibly being in charge, but through tactics such as the Roman learning-against-learning that seek to make a people deficient in doctrine but full of words, it is no longer as common knowledge as it should be.
In case you may have been looking for other titles to affirm these things, please continue reading:
In “Extravagantes Viginti Johannis Vigesimisecundi” there is a Gloss. A Gloss is a separate commentary alongside a work that contains support from canon law. It says:
The very specific title of “Our Lord God the Pope”, “Dominum Deum Nostrum Papam” (DDNP) in the original Latin, is a very direct claim to being the replacement of Jesus Christ the Lord God of creation (Genesis 2:4) and of redemption (Exodus 20:2). The Sabbath, not as kept by Jewish tradition but as kept in harmony with the Bible, is the visible marker which identifies Jesus Christ as the Creator and the Redeemer of all things, so would not the mark of the beast be a counterfeit claim to some other day? Just some seeds for planting. Let us continue with the title of DDNP.
The historian and priest Antonio Pereira de Figueiredo, a priest whose existence has even been denied by the Vatican Library, wrote the following on the Gloss:
The edition of the official, revised, and authoritative collection of Church Canon Law being referred to is “Corpus Juris Canonici”.
So how does the literature of Rome define the word "pope"? Here is a definition from an Ultramontanist (Jesuit) Encyclopedia, the Prompta Bibliotheca:
Wonder who taught them those ideas?
Now Augustinus Triumphus is a non-Jesuit and is here quoted just to ensure that this is the entire system and mindset of Rome. In his “Summa de Potestate Ecclesia” he writes:
Augustinus was an Augustiniun just like the current Pope Leo XIV.
Returning to the origin of VFD, using the name of Constantine, the Donation of Constantine was written some centuries after his death. Proven by Lorenzo Valla to be fraudulent, this forged document was used by 10 popes over a period of 6 centuries to assert not only their ecclesiastical supremacy over all the churches, but also their political sovereignty over what became known as the Papal States. One title in particular, first written in the Donation, made it into the Decretum Gratiani: “Vicarius Filii Dei”. Distinció 19 of the Decretum states that “these decretal epistles are to be co-enumerated with canonical Scripture”. This means that the works of Valla are found in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum while the Decretum Gratiani, which claims forgery as truth, is to be treated with the same authority as the Bible. Even the bible which they sanction, which is based off of the “Versio Septuaginta Interpretum”, or the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters”, is based off of a forged letter, this time being of a letter written by Aristeas.
To support their claim to “Peter” as “the rock” or the "VFD", the system of Roman Catholicism uses the Greek interpretation of Matthew 16:18. But the book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, and the Greek language lacks the flexibility of this Semitic language in the use of conjunctions. The Greek “καί” (kai), typically translated into the english “and”, is a rendering of the Aramaic ו (waw). Waw is a neutral term that must be interpreted in the context in which it is written.
With these things in mind, the meaning of the name “Peter”, which is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic name “Kepha”, is “a pebble” or “a small stone”. This translation from “Kepha”, to “Peter”, to “a stone”, was perhaps given in John 1:42 with the foreknowledge that the name of “Peter” would be perverted in the future. Therefore, in the context of Matthew 16:18, the Aramaic “waw” is used to contrast Peter “a stone” to Jesus Christ “the Rock” (1 Corinthians 10:4). By contrasting with the position of Peter as man, the emphasis is then put on the position of Jesus as God and as the Foundation of faith to be built upon, even as the Rock to be built upon one small stone at a time.
Marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the current Pope, Pope Leo XIV, even reaffirms the consequences of the council. In his letter titled “In Unitate Fide”, Leo XIV declares the Council of Nicaea as “the first ecumenical gathering in the history of Christianity.” He affirms the implications of “Vicarius Filii Dei” and the Gnostic Greek origins of Papal Rome when he states that “Saint Athanasius explains that the Son of God became man so that man might be deified. [5] This enlightening understanding of divine revelation was prepared by Saint Irenaeus of Lyon and Origen, and then further developed with great richness in Eastern spirituality. [...] Divinization, then, is true humanization". Divination, just as the Greek and Roman use of isopsephy, is true humanization. Esoterically, this is a reference to the "666" and a claim that true humanization is in harmony with the forgeries of the Devil.
Going back to Genesis 3:4, the word for “die” is translated from the word “mûṯ”, a verb referring to a permanent death “by neglect of wise moral conduct”. The question of life and death is a question of what is wise moral conduct, and therefore who is the moral authority in life. This is the most important question to have a reasonable answer for, for this very question of morality and conduct is the greatest weapon which Satan has. While the teaching of soul immortality, of inherent god-hood, and of the ability to be your own moral authority, was presented as wise moral conduct, such teachings were, and still are separating man from living in the very image of God, even from being children and stewards of His life. If the question of wise moral conduct was the decisive question presented in the very Garden of Eden, how much more-so will it be presented to the world today.
Wew, lad. That’s gonna take some chewin.