Is the Roman Catholic Mass / worship idolatry or not?

Why or why not?


***I am not quite sure why many struggle in answering this question, but, I hope to gain an understanding why this is so - I am not content with my speculations. So, for those who refrain from answering, please, at least explain why you won’t.***

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Chris Mangum
Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte
student, GPTS
.357 Mangum

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

When its theological foundations are understood, it is simple to give the correct answer. Romanist worship encourages idolatry in many ways, the mass being the most visible manifestation of this.

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Adam J. Myer
Back to looking for a call...
Evergreen PCA
Salem, Oregon

It is idolatrous blasphemy. The height of ignorant superstition.

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1689 Baptist Confession

Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley, Wilderness Road Baptist Assembly.
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
www.wildernessroadbaptist.org

If the mass be not idolatry, then the second commandment has never been broken.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

You sound like Mr. Knox, brother - The Mass is Idolatry (1550) by John Knox

I am not getting it, do you mind explaining what you see? I think a definition of biblical idolatry would be helpful for the discussion. Thank you.

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Bruce
PCUSA
Ocean City NJ

Ready - Fire - Aim!

Could you please give the definition of idolatry that we are measuring against?

Would this one work:

Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God. (The Catholic Encyclopedia)

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Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
I just know there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!

The Heartbeat of Heaven (blog) MySpace (Music), MySpace (Personal)
Member of Christ Presbyterian Church, Janesville, WI OPC www.christ-opc.org

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Then the mass is idolatry, as it claims that a wafer is the very person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Good suggestions. We'll start with the aforemetioned John Knox's most basic syllogism:

That Knox dude was a troublemaker.

Brother, pick any (generally held) definition you wish. The self-proclaimed *Vicar of God* meets them all including the one you just posited.

The wafer however is not worshiped is it? Believe me, I feel very weird defending anything RC. I just think it is overboard and moving beyond the biblical definition of idolotry to label the mass as such. I am looking forward to this conversation as instructional. I voted no.

It was not Knox who troubled Israel (Scotland ) but Mary Queen of Scots.

I believe without a doubt that many of the elements of the mass are idolatrous. The question I'm interested in is who are the idolaters?

Do we blame their traditions? The Vatican? The shepherds (false), The people in the pews?

My burden is for the people in the pews who are being misled, misinformed and misdirected. Therefore, as in a burning building I RUN to the sheep and not away from the sheep. The building is burning, the sheep need to be led out.

If the wafer is actually the Lord Jesus Christ then they should worship it. Moreover, let us not forget that the Romanists also worship Mary and the Saints, and are thus idolaters on that basis alone.

You are kind of off topic here. We are not shooting apart all the bad theology in RC just defining if the mass is worship of idols.

That would seem to be a question of degrees of guilt. I would not say that the people in the pews are anywhere near as guilty as the leadership.

(the following is from Spurgeon)

Where, then, did the mass come from, and of what
avail is it? The Lord's Supper was intended to be
the remembrancer to us of our Lord's sufferings;
instead of which it has been prostituted by the
Church of Rome into the blasphemy of a pretended
continual offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ, a continual sacrifice. According to the Romish
doctrine the offering upon Calvary is not enough-
the atonement for sin is not finished- it has to be
performed every day, and many times a day, in the
Catholic churches, by certain appointed persons,
so that that sacrifice is always being offered.
Oh! brethren, the mass is a mass of abominations,
a mass of hell's own concocting, a crying insult
against the Lord of glory. It is not to be spoken
of in any terms but those of horror and detestation.
Whenever I think of another sacrifice for sin being
offered, by whoever it may be presented, I can
only regard it as an infamous insult to the
perfection of the Savior's work.
Popery swarms with worshipers of the god
whom the baker bakes in the oven, and whom
they bite with their teeth.

What of the Catholic sacrament of penance?
Is not penance in its essence an offering for sin?
I do not care who it is that prescribes the penance,
nor what it is, whether it is licking the pavement
with your tongues, or wearing a hair-shirt, or laying
on the whip- if it be supposed that by the mortification
of the flesh, men can take away sin, the Scripture
is like a two-edged sword to pierce the inmost heart
of such teaching. Take off your hair-shirt, poor fool!
Wash the stones with a dish-cloth, and keep your
tongue clean. There is no need for these fooleries!
Christ has completed the atonement, you need not
suffer thus. You need not, like Luther, go up and down
the stone staircase on your knees, and think that
your poor sore knees will find favor with God.
Christ has suffered, God exacts no more. Do not try to
supplement his gold with your dross. Do not try to add
to his matchless robes, the rags of your poor penance.

How these verses shut the gates of purgatory!
It is held that there are some who die who are believers,
but who are not quite purified from sin, and in an after
state they must undergo a purgatorial quarantine to be
purged by fire, so that they may become quite complete.
Beloved, when the thief died on the cross he had but
just believed, and had never done a single good work,
but where did he go to? Well, he ought to have gone to
purgatory by rights, if ever anybody did, but instead of
that the Savior said to him, "Today you shall be with
me in Paradise." Why? Because the ground of the man's
admission into Paradise was perfect. The grounds of
his admission there was Christ's work, and that is how
you and I will get into heaven, because Christ's work
is finished. The thief did not go down to purgatory,
nor, blessed be his name, neither shall you nor I if
we trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus.

"The death he died, he died to sin once for all..."
Romans 6:10
"He sacrificed for their sins once for all when
he offered himself." Hebrews 7:27
"He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his
own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."
Hebrews 9:12
"But now he has appeared once for all at the end
of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice
of himself." Hebrews 9:26
"so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the
sins of many people...." Hebrews 9:28
"we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrews 10:10

I meant pick any definition of IDOALTRY that you wish. All of the generally held definitions of idolatry the RCC meets....that was my point.

Hence, though the other thread is closed, I would attend an RC funeral in order to be the means of leading the sheep out.

If we just stand outside screaming "THE POPE IS ANTI-CHRIST! YOUR CHURCH IS THE CHURCH OF SATAN! YOU ARE IDOLATERS! I'M A ONE NOTE MELODY!", then we will have no effect on the people inside. We are turning our backs on those in need.