Understanding Roman Catholicism
Jan. 28, 2025
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Guest: Andy Farmer
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 1/28/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, welcome again to an exciting opportunity to share an hour together here at Stand In the Gap today. I’m Jamie Mitchell, the director of church culture at the American Pastor’s Network. Now, I’m not a prophet and I will never claim to be one, but I will make a prediction and here it is. We will have a new Pope in 2025. Now, you may say to yourself, Jamie, why are you saying that? Well, this past Christmas Eve, I happened to watch the Pope’s address from Rome from St. Peter’s and I was taken back by his physical condition, how sickly he looks, how feeble he looks. He had to be wheeled up to the balcony. Now I might be wrong, but probably the next year the Catholic Church might be mourning the loss of their leader and the world will be drawn to the fascinating process of finding and elevating a new Pope.
Now, as in the past when this happens, many evangelical Christians like myself and our guest and you listening will begin to consider what Catholics believe. How are they different from us? But most importantly, you may find yourself in conversations with Catholics talking about what they believe and maybe leading them to Christ. Most evangelicals know little about Catholicism, and here’s an amazing observation. Most Catholics don’t know much about Catholicism. Today we want to help us gain an understanding on what 52 million Americans believe or don’t believe, and to help us is a return guest to Stand of the Gap. Pastor Andy Farmer. Andy is an author, a counselor, a trainer of shepherds, and for the past 30 years he served at Covenant Fellowship in Chads Ford, Pennsylvania. Andy, welcome back to Stand in the Gap.
Andy Farmer:
Jamie, it’s great to be back on the show with you.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, Andy, like me, most of our ministry time has been in the Northeast, and for people who don’t live up here, they don’t really understand how many people that we minister to who come out of the Catholic church. As I have encountered these folks, I have come to discover that many of them don’t really know what the Catholic Church believes. Matter of fact, I’ve made this statement, if most American Catholics knew what Rome believed, they probably would leave the church. Now with all that in mind, tell us about your experience about pastoring and witnessing in a part of the country where Catholicism is so strongly influenced.
Andy Farmer:
Yeah, that’s great. Our church is probably about 60 to 70% former Catholic. We just have drawn folks. It’s part of because they’re in the Catholic world up here, but they seem to have come to our church. Most of them really are not necessarily direct converts from Catholicism to Protestantism, but they were born into Catholic families and most of them sort of wander away from the Catholic church. So we’re just seeing them come looking for something they’d be called, what I would say would be cultural Catholics or nominal Catholics. They would identify in some sense with the Catholic background, but have no real connection or really knowledge of what they believe other than that they’re Catholic. So the wonderful thing about it is they’re folks who are steeped in categories from the Bible. They’re steeped in God and sin and salvation, those kinds of things. So I talk to friends sometimes who minister in other parts of the country or in England where it’s very secular and even to talk about God is a strange thing. So it’s actually very easy to get in conversations with people because you’re talking about things that they have some awareness of, but they don’t really have any idea what the Bible says and often they’re very interested in just knowing that.
Jamie Mitchell:
Andy, what’s interesting is if you look in church history and you especially look at the Bible, one of the things that the apostles did, and really it was a model that we see throughout, is that they would go into cities and they would go to God-fearing people, people who had an openness to spiritual things, who had a respect for God and like you. That’s what I have experienced. I used to term it that they were disenfranchised Catholics, they were Catholic by name. They had a familiar obligation to their faith, but they really didn’t practice it or they just practiced it enough to not come under scrutiny or criticism. Andy, when you are talking to somebody who’s a Catholic or from a Catholic background, I want our listeners to gain some insights today because I want them to start to relate to Catholics and to approach them and be winsome to them. So how do you relate with them to have that effective dialogue with them?
Andy Farmer:
Well, I think that first of all, I relate to them like I would anybody who has spiritual needs that Jesus can meet. So it’s just basically just how I’d relate to anybody I come in contact with, but it just changed based on their orientation. So if they’re nominally or culturally Catholic, I tend to relate to them as if I would someone with any other religious background. I’m a witness of Jesus and I just want to share about Jesus as he is revealed in the Bible. Now, if there are sincerely what I would call faithfully Catholic or sincerely Catholic, their faith in Jesus and living it out is very important to them. I tend to want to relate based on our commonalities. Often we’ll talk as if we’re both Christians because that’s how they’re coming to me and interesting. My son played soccer one time with a great kid whose family was very sincerely Catholic, and in talking to them, talking to the parents, it’s very clear they had a real sense of faith in Jesus Christ that they were seeking to express it in the Catholic church and were committed to that, but the commonality we had were significant.
Now there’s going to be a line. There are certain things that I have to hold to as a Protestant that are biblical. I couldn’t, for example, ever take a mass that would be ungodly for me to do for myself. Frankly, I don’t think any real sincere Catholic would want me to take a mass based on what I believe. Then there are folks who are, I would call theologically committed Catholics. They really know the doctrine. A lot of people who are sincere Catholics have been taught that they haven’t really studied. They’re folks who are theologically committed Catholics and they really insist as does the Catholic church, that to be a true Christian, you must be a committed Catholic. They understand they affirmed the decrees and doctrines of the church, the Council of Trent back in one even, and that establishes that the teaching of the church is Catholic church is infallible and exclusive of any Protestant doctrine. They might treat me like you would if coming from Vatican two, which is a separated brother, but if they really know where they stand in the full doctorine of the church, they’re going to ultimately not consider to me to be one who is in Christ because I’m not part of the church. And so in some sense, I’ll find myself being more likely to try to find ways to engage with them. They may see me as actually somebody outside the faith, so it can get pretty complicated frankly, at
That level.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah, Andy, that is so good because that has been my experience. There are different levels of Catholics. Listen, if you’re listening today, you are a Catholic, we love you. This is not a Catholic bashing program. We want to have insights. We want to help people. We love you and believe that you probably love Jesus, and that’s why this program is important. When we come back, we’re going to talk about some doctrinal differences. What’s the difference between Protestant and Catholicism? And we’re here to help to give clarity so you can have a good witness in these very unique days. Come back in a few moments and join us here at Stand In the Gap today. Well welcome back to Stand in the Gap. Our guest today is Pastor Andy Farmer. He’s been with us before and we always enjoy having him and we’re looking at Roman Catholicism today and what they believe, how to interact with them in an intelligent and a winsome, a thoughtful in an accurate way. And one of the keys is to focus on the main things. And Andy, over the years I’ve called down some of my initial points of clarification with Catholics to focus on just a few doctrinal issues like how we get saved and inspiration, how God speaks to us and intercession how we speak to God. Andy, what are some key doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism that will hinder, let’s say a Catholic from even being open to Christ, receiving Christ coming to faith? What are some of those doctrinal variants?
Andy Farmer:
It’s interesting thinking about this, Jamie. I want to just share an experience I had this past summer that kind of illustrates it a bit. My wife and I went from our fourth anniversary to Italy and we spent some time in Rome. And the things I wanted to see there was what is called theta, which is the holy steps. It’s 28 steps that according to reliable tradition we’re brought by Constantine two Rome, which were the steps of the pretorian that Jesus actually walked up to engage Pilate. And so the steps now exist next letter in church, and for 1500 years, pilgrims have gone to those steps. They’re 28 of them, and the ritual is that you must can only climb those steps on your knees and in prayer at every step. And so we went there, I was just interested to see it and I found it a very moving experience and I was thinking, man, I would love in some sense in my faith to have something that had this ritual demonstration of faithfulness.
But I watched it, but then I walked up, I had to walk beside it on those steps. I got up to the top and I noticed these people who were going up the steps, very, very pious, get up to the top and we’re celebrating. And I came back down and I did some research and I realized that by going up to the top of the steps in the early 18 hundreds, the church declared plenary indulgence for anyone who came up to steps. So basically a ticket out of purgatory for anyone who made it up to steps. And I found myself really interesting. That’s fascinating. I recognized some of those people were on the cruise, we were on that very night. They’d be doing all kinds of crazy cruise things and they now had thousands of years of purgatory taken off of their lives by simply going up these steps.
The other thing about it’s as Martin Luther in 1510 walked up, climbed up those steps as a faithful monk and got up to the top and just said, who knows if this is true? It’s where he began to really question all the doctrines he had been taught as a Catholic priest and monk. And I use an illustration because it’s a profound sense of what differs with Protestantism. First of all, you have this merit that can be obtained by acts based on what the church tells you you can do. And so this was a merit that people were earning on the way up. And then Luther’s comment spoke to the fact that why do they get merit? Because the church says so the church has a magisterial claim over truth and they can declare what is true on equal with scripture. And so those two doctrines that merit through personal works and they would say infused by grace and the authority of the church that is co-equal doctrinally but is essentially the scripture, it says what scriptures should declares and what is extra scripture that is on equal par?
Those two doctrines are really the core differences and they both need to be addressed if you’re talking to someone who is coming from a Catholic background because that’s the underpinning of their faith. The church knows what is right and tells me what is right and my responsibility is to do what the church tells me, and that is how I stay close to God and get to heaven. That was a profound experience for me to see sincerity, but also this sense of do you really understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? So those are the two. There are other doctrine that are essential, but I think helps someone really understand the gospel and you have to deal with those two doctrines.
Jamie Mitchell:
Andy, that is a conflict point because many, many, many people who have been my friends who are Catholics, they are sincere. They are sincere people, but even like evangelicals and Protestants, we can be sincere people, but we can be sincerely wrong as well because we don’t have the truth or it’s not based on the truth. Which brings me in a second question, Andy, does a Catholic believe in the Bible? Does it hold the Bible as God’s complete revelation and what is their disposition towards the Bible? For us as evangelicals, as Christians, we hold high the scriptures and the value of the scriptures and the veracity of the scriptures. Where do they fall when it comes to the Bible?
Andy Farmer:
Well, you actually use an interesting word which is complete. Do they hold that? It’s a complete revelation. There are a lot of commonalities. I think both Catholics and Protestants, we hold to general revelation that God reveals himself because the scriptures say so in his creation and we are responsible for that revelation and we both agree that the Bible is authoritative revelation from God to mankind. That’s Catholic doctrine and we also agreed to various degrees that there is an inner witness of the spirit that God working in us does communicate to us though both in Catholicism and in Protestantism that needs to be submitted to the word of God. The difference is an additional source of authoritative revelation and that’s the teaching office in the church and the tradition of the church. That is the distinctive, that teaching office is what separates Catholicism from Protestantism in terms of the way the Bible functions.
Now, when people talk about the teaching off of the church and the Pope and authority, they sometimes misunderstand and think that anything the Pope says is therefore authoritative, which isn’t true. The teaching authority of the Catholic church is limited to official papal decree and in the ratified decisions and declarations of the councils, but those are doctrinally co-equal with scripture and authoritative alongside of scripture and they cannot be rescinded. The Council of Trent, which ized Protestantism can never be rescinded. They can’t say, well, we kind of got that wrong. No, that stands, and so right now Protestantism in all its specific doctrines is a cursed in official.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah, I teach a Bible study in a retirement community and I have a dear woman from the Caribbean who has moved in recently strong Catholic background. She even hesitated coming to our services because it wasn’t a Catholic service, but she comes to my Tuesday Bible study and I’m basically teaching through the Bible and just this week just the other day, she said to me, we don’t really talk too much about the Bible. And it wasn’t a criticism, but it was almost like her eyes were a glow to the fact that, you know what? Here I am in my eighties and I’ve never cracked open this book, Andy equal to hearing from God. What do they believe in regard to making a request known to God? And what about our ongoing relationship with him? How do they view that? We have about a minute or two left.
Andy Farmer:
Okay. Yeah. Well, I think Vatican two really tried to address this idea of how Catholics relate to God and they held up the value of Bible reading. Not many Catholics do it. They held out the value of personal prayer. That’s been a long tradition in the Catholic Church, but it doesn’t replace the various other means. The intercession of saints, the prayer to marry those other things that are mediatorial and the confession to the priest. Those are all formal doctrinal things that a Catholic must do to some degree to be able to hear from God and to be able to know what God’s will is. And so the idea that I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and direct access to Jesus Christ is only partly true within the Catholic church as far as I understand it.
Jamie Mitchell:
I was in Costa Rica a number of years ago and the missionary there, we went out to breakfast my first day there and he sat me down. He said, look, I know that you’ve dealt with a lot of Catholics in America, but the Catholics here are much more serious and when we talk about a personal relationship with God, they both don’t understand it and here’s how they view it. And he took his hand and he took his five fingers and he says, over here is the person. He said, the next finger is the priest. Then the priest prays to the next finger, which is Mary, and Mary then talks to her son Jesus, and then Jesus ultimately gets to the Father, and I said, they got to go through all of that. He said, that is one of the dilemmas when you talk about a personal relationship to a Catholic.
Andy, let’s stop there. It’s perfect transition. Our next subject is how they view Mary. When we come back, we’re going to consider the mother of Jesus and why she is so crucial to the Catholic faith. We’re talking about Roman Catholicism here today on Stand in the Gap. Our guest today is Pastor Andy Farmer and we’re discussing Roman Catholicism. My gut tells me that within the new year, the news will be filled with stories about the Pope, his replacement, the direction of the Catholic church, and today we wanted to start getting ready for the amazing open door of opportunity of ministry that you and your church, your pastor and others will have when let’s say the Pope needs to be replaced. A lot of people are going to talk about Catholicism. You need to understand, and so Andy, when we left off our segment, we had been discussing intercession as a Catholic and how they relate to God, how they speak to God, and a big factor is Mary, the mother of Jesus and her role in the church. This is always a difficult discussion. What do Catholics do with Mary? What do they believe? What role does she play in their faith?
Andy Farmer:
That’s a great question. I mean, it’s a difficult question to answer as a Protestant because I think it takes an experience in the culture of the Catholic church to understand the role of Mary. What we do know as outsiders, we those people who haven’t grown up in that tradition is that the doctrines surrounding Mary and her state in eternity have developed over centuries. In fact, the most recent significant was 1950 in Vatican two when they settled the doctrine of her assumption into heaven that she did not die. She was assumed into heaven. And so it’s been a developing doctrine and for most of the people I talk to, it’s something of a secondary thing. I think particularly in the generation of the 20th century Catholics for various reasons, I think Mary was a huge part of their perspective of being Catholic. I think these days it’s less so not irrelevant, and certainly the veneration is there, but I don’t find that a lot of the cists I talked to have a real focus on that.
And when they think about the Catholic faith, same with prayer to the saints, it’s in some sense tradition that they operate on, not doctrine that they operate on doesn’t mean it’s important, but I don’t want to get into a lot of conversations about Mary first of all, because I don’t think I have the understanding to be able to know how to dialogue over those things other than to ask where they get it from the Bible, but also because I don’t want to miss what I think is the more important things, which is where is your confidence and your assurance of salvation in Christ and where is your understanding of God’s word and how it speaks to you and governs you. Those are the things that I try to keep in the foreground because I think if I’m talking a lot about Mary, I’m talking in areas that I don’t know into areas of culture that go generations and can be emotionally significant because they’re cultural, not physiological. That said, we know that they understand that Mary is the mother of the church. That’s John Pauli, that’s her standing. So she has a role in salvation in Catholic theology. She intercedes to the sun, as you mentioned, she is less than co redemptor, but takes on that role and certainly the way she’s venerated and in some cases worship, which the Catholic church does not approve of worship of Mary. The veneration can look like worship and actually supersede the worship of Jesus Christ himself.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah, I mean for us, and I guess this is just to warn us as evangelicals, when a person in the Catholic faith talks about Mary and talks so matter of fact about Mary, and we hear them and we say to ourselves, because our minds are trained that way, well, where is that in the Bible? It’s not in the Bible where this has come from. That’s what kind of triggers us to be a little bit more assertive, and I’ve always said to fellow believers who needed to talk to their Catholic friends, listen, please, please do not become Mary Bashers. Do not attack Mary particularly because we in who understand the Bible see Mary as a very important role. Matter of fact, a friend of mine once said, Catholics adore her Protestants, ignore her, and we all better explore her so that we can restore her to her right biblical position. I like that. I like the rhythm and the rhyme of that. But Andy, you’ve mentioned this issue of veneration of saints and the intercession of saints and this all is a part of the Maryology of the Catholic church. What is it that they believe about the saints and praying to the saints and those kinds of things that may be foreign to some of our listeners?
Andy Farmer:
Yeah, well, again, I’m not well trained in this. I’m mostly interacting with what people have shared with me who’ve come from the Catholic faith, and it varies from parish to parish and church to church and diocese to diocese. Just depends on where the church is as to how people view those things and generationally too. So there isn’t a sort of, here’s how the Catholics view this, but I think that the formal doctrine tends to build around the idea that there’s a universal church. The Catholic church is the universal church, which includes both those who are here on earth and those who have gone on and those who have lived righteous holy lives who are not in purgatory and are presently with Jesus can be elevated to the place of sainthood. There’s a process for it. And once they are though, then they acquire the intercessory capacity to be able to have people pray to them and are worthy of veneration where Catholics can differ.
It is how do you understand veneration is veneration, praying to the saints or praying through the saint to Christ? That’s something that I think that it just depends on, you talk to how they understand it, but it does play a significant role because historically and traditionally different saints serve different functions in Catholic orthodoxy and liturgy. And so people, that’s how they’re trained, that’s how they grow up. And so it’s part of the culture, part of the tradition, which in the Catholic church is not like Protestant tradition, which is just something that’s developed, but it’s actually authoritative tradition of the Catholic church is authoritative even if it hasn’t always been declared in a council or by a pope.
Jamie Mitchell:
Hey, last two things before we take a final break, and that is the whole issue of the sacraments. There’s a difference between how we view things like baptism and communion and how a Catholic views it and just weigh in on that just for a few last minutes so that our people can get again a sense of what are the differences between the two.
Andy Farmer:
Well, it’s interesting because it’s not differences between the two. It’s gradations of differences. So what Lutherans who are Protestant believe about baptism and the Lord’s supper and what Anglicans believe about it and what Presbyterians believe about it and what Baptists believe about are all different. One of the critiques of the Catholic Church of Protestantism is an inability to have a clear Protestant doctrine. They say, look at all the divisions, look at all the different doctrines. If you actually had an authority in magisterium, you wouldn’t have that. So, but the basic difference is in the physical body and blood of Christ that is through transubstantiation. It is the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ in the mass Protestants don’t believe that they have different views on what is actually occurring in communion, as we would call it. And some of those have overlapped with the Catholic church. But I think when we talk about Protestants related to that and related to baptism, Lutherans are much more akin to the idea that there are salvific implications of infant baptism. Obviously Baptists would see credo baptism as the proper baptism. So we talk about these things. We have to talk about a range of differences, not simply the Catholic view. In the Protestant view.
Jamie Mitchell:
It’s so interesting. This past Sunday I was going to be overseeing communion, and I saw a woman who was coming to the service who was from a Catholic faith, and I went up to her and she said, are you having communion today? And I said, yes, I am. And she said, oh, good. I haven’t had communion since I moved here. And knowing she was a Catholic, I went to her. I said, dear, let me just say this to you that we do not practice that the cup and the bread are going to change into the body of Christ. I said, that’s different. I said, as you listen to us, you’re going to hear a whole different thing. And Andy, she looked at me, she said, I don’t believe that. Anyway, I went, really? She said, yeah, I’ve been a Catholic my whole life, but I never really believed that.
And so I was kind of taken back, but it was very, very interesting. Listen, we have one more segment and when we come back we will end up kind of where we started. We want to talk about Pope Francis and what the future may hold and what may happen in that very important office of Pope. We’ll be back in just a few moments here at Stand in the Gap today. Well, thank you for entrusting another hour to us. When we prepare these programs, our goal is always to inform and inspire and hopefully impact your life and ministry. If today was helpful, please pass it along to another beloved brother or sister or maybe especially your own pastor, and also if your church would like help on how to minister to Catholics, contact a PN, and we can get information to you. Suggest some ways to reach Catholics in your community and how to relate to those in your church in this way.
To be perfectly honest with you, when I was in pastoral ministry, I would always have prepared a class on understanding Roman Catholicism. I always had a few messages ready in the event that something were to happen in the news with the Catholic church. I was ready to respond and to be able both equip our people and answer some of the questions that were lurking in the atmosphere at that moment. So we want to be a help to you and we hope that today has been a help. Andy Farmer, pastor from the Philadelphia area has been with us today and such a great program and such insight and practical that we really hope that this has helped you today. Andy, I want to discuss how to reach Catholics and what draws Catholics from the Catholic background to maybe like a church like you. When you mentioned that Covenant Fellowship has 60 to 70 percentage former Catholics, that was an amazing number. I experienced the same when I was ministering in the New York City area. What do you do to draw people from that background and what maybe are they looking for?
Andy Farmer:
Jamie? First of all, if I can go back to something we were talking about previously on a baptism and the mass, just to mention that those things are part of the whole sacramental system, which is different than Protestantism, which doesn’t really have a sacramental system in the same way. Those are part of the required activities that produce merit and good standing in the Catholic church. So there’s a requirement for baptism. There’s a requirement for mass and other sacraments that is not part of most Protestant churches. That’s just an important distinction because people, there’s much more of a guilt for not being baptized or taking the mass than you would have in most Protestant churches. So that’s a difference. It’s good to remember when you’re talking to someone.
For us, I think it’s interesting. I don’t think we feel that Protestant, our churches, for most Catholics who have a view of a Protestant church being sort of a sparse, ours is we just have an auditorium. And so it doesn’t present itself as a big leap. It’s almost like someone coming back to something that’s religious but isn’t clearly Protestant. We’re Protestant in our, we’re Protestant in our gospel, but we don’t feel that way. And it doesn’t have that sense that a lot of times Catholics will say, I thought when somebody said this is a Protestant church, it would be blank, and you’re not really blank. They don’t have a category for us, which actually helps people to explore a little bit. And then just an emphasis on the Bible and the gospel. You mentioned earlier, when you actually sit down and start opening the Bible with people and they’re reading it for the first time or reading it without someone telling them what it means, the power of the scriptures, the truth of the scriptures starts to hit them, and they begin to wonder, how have I been able to live a life of faith without this?
And the hunger for the scriptures becomes very, very important to them, as well as the gospel. The free grace of God is a liberating doctrine.
It produces assurance in people. It gives us confidence that it’s not up to us. It’s what it did for Luther. It’s what it’s done for process throughout the century if held correctly, not a doctrine of license or legalism. It’s a doctrine of saved by grace, living a joyful life in response and obedience to what Jesus has done for us, which is a finished work. And that is like water to people, Catholic, other religious faith where they’ve lived their religion based on morality or required activities. So I think that’s what people find. And then the ability, we also, we have a course that modeled along the alpha course, which has been very effective with former Catholics and Catholics because a lot of people just ask questions. They’re not getting thrown dogma. You ask questions, you dialogue, and then you go to the scriptures and say, what does the Bible say? And that ability for an individual to go to God’s word for themselves, to seek out answers, to recognize that as Protestants, we are aware of what we don’t know, and we’re always seeking to find what God has for us in the scriptures as a course of our life is a very appealing thing.
Jamie Mitchell:
Andy, I mentioned before deterioration of Pope Francis and the likelihood that his life could end very quickly very soon, and then everything starts to move in the Catholic church. The Pope has a significant role. He’s not just a religious leader. I mean, the Vatican is a country. I mean, he’s viewed as a political leader as well. Why do Catholics take great comfort in a Pope or don’t they? Or does it really matter you think to a Catholic person?
Andy Farmer:
Oh, that’s probably from person to person. I think the dogma is he is the vice region on earth and he can speak for Christ. And he does oversee the church in a way as he’s the head bishop of the church. And that’s very important. So they all have a recognition of the role of the Pope, and there’s essentiality to what it means to be Catholic. But from person to person, they may have different views. Sometimes it’s based on their own, whether they’re conservative or liberal, how much they think about the Pope in its function day in and day out in leading the church, I think. But certainly there is a great affection in most Catholics for the Pope because he does represent the embodiment on earth of the head of the church. And that’s very significant.
Jamie Mitchell:
I got myself in trouble a couple of years ago when Pope John Paul passed away and I wrote an editorial asking this question, and it was simply this. It was really an innocent question, but an observation. And that was, as I listened to his funeral proceedings, there was two things that struck out to me. Number one, when I learned that the Pope, this vicar of Christ on Earth, this number one man in the Catholic church needed to have the last rights administered to him, which is one of those sacraments to take care of some sins that may have been overlooked. But the second thing was a local priest calling on every Catholic to come to church that Sunday and light a candle and prayer a prayer so that Pope John Paul would not spend a long time in purgatory. And Andy, I’ve got to tell you, my heart broke for Catholics as I heard that because that alone told me there was just no assurance of clear redemption and salvation and eternal security found in Jesus Christ alone. And it was heartbreaking. Andy, thank you for joining with us today. It’s been just a joy to have you again on standing the gap.
Andy Farmer:
Thank you, Jim. It’s been the life to be with you, and hopefully this has been helpful.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for listening. These are interesting days we live in. We hope that we properly equipped you and to talk to your Catholic friends and to share the gospel and to be clear and have clarity. We’ll take courage and as I leave you every time, live and lead with courage, we’ll see you back here tomorrow for another stand in the gap today.
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