Pope as Bond Villain

Not The Pope

Whoo hoo! We got a new pope, and the whole world goes crazy. My church got a new pastor a while ago and the world didn't say a thing, not even mentioning the huge difference between Pastor Brimstone and  pope Francis,  (which is the fact that Pastor Brimstone has read the bible and follows it) Pope Francis looks a lot like one of my favorite Bond Villains  Elliot Carver. (Ok, he's not a great Bond villain but Tomorrow Never Dies had my favorite Bond girl, Michelle Yoeh). But what is the pope?

Simply stated the pope is the Roman catholic bishop of Rome whose office decided that Rome wasn't big enough. The term Pope comes from the Greek πάππας which means "Father" which is a familiar form of address  that is specifically forbidden by Jesus Christ Himself as recorded in Matthew 23:9 

The catholic church claims that St. Peter founded the church in Rome, which probably isn't true, because the church was there long before either Apostles Peter or Paul got to Rome, There were Romans in Jerusalem at the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2:9-11 and there's quite a lot of dispute over whether Peter ever was in Rome at all. The early bishops of Rome had no temporal power, meaning that they did their jobs running the church of Rome and did a fairly good job sheeparding their flocks for about 300 years without bothering the outside world. By 330 AD Rome had become a backwater slum, the Roman government had moved out long ago (It spent decades on the road following wandering Emperors until it established itself in Nicomedia in 285) and the city of Rome was populated by those too poor to move and wealthy landowners not holding politica office and refusing to give up their holdings. The seat of power with the church moved too, following Emperor Constantine to Constantinople. 

Everyone is familiar with the Council of Nicea and the Nicean creed, but few realize exactly what it was for (I still hear "They made the Bible") and even fewer realize that one of the most important Councils in the early church was held without a single representative from the city of Rome. Nope, the bishop of rome was too interested in building Old St. Peter's Basilica and getting involved with local politics to attend this hugely important meeting.

The first man to ever demand that he be addressed as Pope was Damasus in 366 AD and his election to office pretty much set the stage for the rest of the roman church's story. At the passing of Damasus' predecessor Liberius there were two leading candidates for bishop of Rome: Ursinus and Damasus. Both were elected bishop of Rome in separate simultaneous elections. Riots broke out and over 130 citizens were killed. Since Damasus had the support of the upper class, Ursinus was banished to Gaul, but that didn't last long and he returned and more rioting broke out. Eventually Emperor Valentinian had to intercede and declared Damasus official bishop of Rome. Once he was secure in office he sent his men out after Ursinus  and his supporters and ended up massacring 137 of Ursinus' supporters. Even though he set the standard for future papal atrocities, apostasies and heresies, Damasus was one of the more mellow popes.

The history of the papacy is rife with infighting, scandal, bribery, salacious conduct and outright thievery.  Best of all is the sin of Pride. As Pope Boniface VIII said:

,…Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

 Of course he was speaking ex cathedra, which means when he sits in the Chair of Peter what ever he says is infallible and cannot be contradicted. You gotta obey, really! As Pope Paul VI said in 1964:

Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ.

So if you reject the Pope you reject Christ? Can I get a bible reference on that? How about Pope Benedict who said

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” and added that paedophilia wasn’t even considered an “absolute evil"... It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

So a catholic can only get forgiveness for sins from a man who works for a man who declares that there's no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. Maybe the catholic bible made room for the apocrypha by deleting the Gospel of Mark from their edditions

And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18)

I have a friend that used to call the pope "the evil emperor" while referring to  Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. I told him that Emperor Palpatine lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Bond villains are here and now and will do anything to take over the world.