Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The Other Holocaust

The image of an endless line before St. Peter’s Basilica this last spring was etched in the minds of those who watched around the world. However, few noticed an adjacent building, now euphemistically christened the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was previously the infamous Palace of the Inquisition where our “heretical” brothers and sisters clothed in rags, swarming with vermin, but refusing to deny "Jesus Christ of the seed of David" suffered tortures born of the abyss. From this command post , the Popes coordinated the inquisitions of Europe. In a world gone mad with papal interrogation, with believers disenfranchised of worldly possessions and left to wander "in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth," and others refusing to deny Him enduring torment, sword, and flame, or watching those they loved endure the same, it was not unreasonable to identify “the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” as a contemporary fulfillment of Revelation 17.

In 1543, the archbishop of St. Andrews made a visitation into various parts of his diocese, where several persons were informed against … for heresy. … Helen Stark was accused of not having accustomed herself to pray to the Virgin Mary, more especially during the time she was in childbed. On … respective accusations they were all found guilty, and immediately received sentence of death; the four men … to be hanged; James Raveleson to be burnt; and the woman, with her sucking infant, to be put into a sack and drowned. … The martyrs were carried by a great band of armed men (for they feared rebellion in the town except they had their men of war) to the place of execution, which was common to all thieves, and that to make their cause appear more odious to the people. Every one comforting another, and assuring themselves that they should sup together in the Kingdom of Heaven that night, they commended themselves to God, and died constantly in the Lord. The woman desired earnestly to die with her husband, but she was not suffered; yet, following him to the place of execution, she gave him comfort, exhorting him to perseverance and patience for Christ’s sake, and, parting from him with a kiss, said, ‘Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day, in which we must die, ought to be most joyful unto us both, because we must have joy forever; therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the Kingdom of Heaven.’ The woman, after that, was taken to a place to be drowned, and albeit she had a child sucking on her breast, yet this moved nothing in the unmerciful hearts of the enemies. So, after she had commended her children to the neighbors of the town for God’s sake, and the sucking bairn was given to the nurse, she sealed up the truth by her death (John Foxe, William Byron Forbush ed., Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, XV).
The endless line before St. Peter’s Basilica this last spring consisted of many who had “been fooled into thinking that if they take communion they … are saved, if they go to mass they are saved. And my friend, THEY ARE LOST! … But let us never forget that if it could happen at Thyatira it could happen here. Let’s never bring paganism into our midst.”13

13The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

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