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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEB-SITE - http://www.takeheed.co.uk |
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ROME’S RESURGENCE 'Take Heed' Ministries - 22 January 2002 |
Let me state at the outset of this article that it is intended purely as a commentary upon the current religious trends in the United Kingdom and no underlying political motives should be read in to what I have written. Christ’s Kingdom 'is not of this world' [John 18:36] and like the heroes of ‘faith’ we believers focus upon our great ‘heavenly hope’ [Hebrews 11:16] as we pass through this world’s kingdoms. To demonstrate the resurgence of the influence of the Roman Catholic religion in the highest echelons of authority in the United Kingdom I am setting out excerpts from recent bulletins issued by the Roman Catholic Zenit News Agency beginning with events involving the Queen and the Monarchy.
LONDON, DEC. 5, 2001
(Zenit.org).- In a historic gesture, Queen Elizabeth has invited the
Catholic primate of England and Wales to stay at the Sandringham country retreat
house and to preach to the Royal Family. The invitation to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O´Connor
marks a formal end to 500 years of antagonism and suspicion between the monarch
as supreme governor of the Church of England and the Catholic Church, the Telegraph
newspaper reported. Cardinal Murphy-O´Connor will be the first Catholic archbishop
of Westminster to stay with the Queen at her Norfolk estate and to preach at
the Sunday morning service. It is expected that Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth
the Queen Mother and other members of the Royal Family will be staying at Sandringham
on the same weekend of January 12 and 13.
LONDON, DEC. 12, 2001
(Zenit.org).- Queen Elizabeth II´s historic invitation to Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O´Connor to preach at her residence in Sandringham is an obvious sign
of a decisive change in English society, the monarch’s best-known biographer
said. In an interview December 9 with the Italian newspaper Avvenire, Ben Pimlott,
rector of Goldsmiths College, said that the Church of England is no longer perceived
as England’s religion, given the growth of Catholicism and other religions,
such as Islam… Regarding the unprecedented invitation of the queen to the archbishop
of Westminster to preach in her residence, biographer Pimlott said that the
gesture has two obvious connotations: the sovereign’s ecumenical sensitivity,
and the desire to reinforce national unity.
LONDON, JAN. 14, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s historic visit to Queen Elizabeth II over the weekend is a sign that anti-Catholic prejudices in England are "anachronistic," Vatican Radio said today. The archbishop of Westminster, primate of the Catholic Church of England and Wales, delivered a homily in the sovereign’s country residence during the Anglican morning service on Sunday. There were some 200 Catholics and Protestants present, in addition to the queen and her family. It was the first time since the Reformation that a Catholic bishop was invited by an English monarch to deliver a sermon. "Important transformations in the relation between the Catholic and Anglican Churches and, more generally in society, have made this historic visit possible," Vatican Radio acknowledged. Elizabeth II received John Paul II at Buckingham Palace in 1982. In 1995, she was the first British monarch since Henry VIII to participate in a Catholic liturgy. According to Vatican Radio, "the last decades have revealed the growth of the role of the Catholic minority in British life. Leaders of the Conservative and Liberal-Democratic parties are Catholics, asis Tony Blair’s wife."
These excerpts from Zenit testify to the Queen’s continued breaking of solemn oaths that she made before God prior to and at the time of her coronation. She vowed publicly -
‘I do solemnly, and in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant and that I will according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the throne of my realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my power according to the law’.
The fact is that the Queen by her visits to the Vatican, attendance at Roman Catholic Cathedral celebrations and ecumenical overtones in various speeches has signalled that the Monarchy would probably raise no objections to a rethink on ‘the Protestant succession’. The next excerpt illustrates exactly how Rome is thinking.
LONDON, DEC. 19, 2001 (Zenit.org).- A Labour member of Parliament will introduce a private member’s bill today to try to repeal the 300-year-old Act of Settlement which bars Catholics from succession to the British throne, the Guardian newspaper reported. Kevin McNamara’s 10-minute rule bill would also amend the 153-year-old Treason Felony Act to make it no longer a criminal offence to call for the abolition of the monarchy.
This item relating to a Roman Catholic member of Tony Blair’s Labour Party leads nicely to the next excerpt from Zenit relating to the Prime Minister himself -
LONDON, DEC. 16, 2001 (Zenit.org).- After naming a drug czar, then a homelessness czar, Prime Minister Tony Blair has created the first "faith czar" to watch over the religiously minded among his flock. Blair has appointed John Battle, the former Foreign Office minister and a former Catholic seminarian, as his personal envoy among the Christian denominations and faith groups in Britain, the Telegraph reported. Battle, the Labour member of Parliament for Leeds West and a practicing Catholic, will advise the Prime Minister on religious issues ranging from the disestablishment of the Church of England to faith schools.
The Roman Catholic influence in the sphere of politics is further seen in the fact that the leaders of the main opposition parties, Charles Kennedy [Liberal Democrats] and Ian Duncan Smith [Conservatives] are both Roman Catholics. An example of the spiritual poverty of so-called ‘evangelicalism’ in England was seen when in November 2001 Ian Duncan Smith addressed the ‘Evangelical Alliance Conference’ where he ‘outlined the importance of his Catholic faith’. According to the report on the ‘Evangelical Alliance’ web site, Mr Duncan Smith ‘revealed that 'the enduring truths of Christianity' ?Baptismal regeneration: ?Auricular confession: ?Transubstantiation: ?Papal Infallibility: ?Mariolatry: ?Purgatory etc] inspired him to look beyond himself to the needs of the wider world and was a pivotal influence in his decision to go into politics after careers in both business and the Army’. I think much of the ‘credit’ for the rise in the Roman Catholic influence in the UK is due to the successive weak [spiritually and biblically speaking] leadership of the National Anglican ‘Church’. Recent Archbishops of Canterbury have paid [often humiliating] visits to the Vatican and it came as no real surprise when Zenit reported the following item -
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 11, 2001 (Zenit.org).- An Anglican prelate attending the Synod of Bishops announced that the communion he represents accepts the primacy of the Pope, although its application must be subject to further study. Bishop Peter Forster of Chester, England, ecumenical delegate of the Anglican Communion to the ongoing Synod of Bishops, addressed the assembly this morning, as did representatives of the Orthodox and Armenian Churches and the World Lutheran Federation. "Anglicans have come to accept the wisdom and need of a universal primacy, exercised by the Bishop of Rome," the Anglican said. "It is recognized that such a need, for the mission of the Church, will grow discernibly as the process of globalisation progresses. Agreement remains to be reached over the precise rights and responsibilities to be attached to a renewed and fully ecumenical primacy." Recognition of the unique role of the Bishop of Rome in Christianity was agreed by the Anglican Communion in a 1999 document entitled "The Gift of Authority," of the Anglo-Roman Catholic International Commission.
The current incumbent at Lambeth Palace, George Carey, has recently announced his intention to retire [early] later this year. In a frantic effort to say something positive about his tenure of office, the best that most commentators could come up with was the fact that he successfully [in their view] oversaw the introduction of the unscriptural office of women priests into the Church of England. Mr Carey was no friend of either the Lord Jesus Christ or His gospel and his utterances in Bahrain in November of last year mark him down as one of those 'enemies of the cross of Christ' [Philippians 3:18] that Paul referred to.
In his address in Beit Al-Qur’an Mr Carey said ‘I can say unreservedly that Muhammad was clearly a great religious leader whose influence on millions has been for good. We can acknowledge too the ways in which his teaching and that of Jesus Christ and of the Hebrew scriptures have so much in common'. What ‘good’ will Muhammad’s followers bring to mind as they spend eternity in hell, having died without Christ and what precisely has Muhammad in common with Jesus Christ who said 'I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me' [John 14:6]? God’s word to Mr Carey and to other influential but blind professing ‘Christians’ like him is found in Isaiah 5:20 'Woe unto them who call evil good'.