Nazism

Chick makes the bizarre claim that not only was Pius XII sympathetic to Nazism (as some in the popular press have claimed) but that Hitler and his cohorts were trying to conquer the world in order to bring about the "Millennial Kingdom" under Pius XII. This doesn't pass the common sense test since Catholics view the Millennium as a present rather than a future reality.

Further, Pius XII was not sympathetic to Hitler at all. On April 28, 1935, four years before the war started, Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII) caught the attention of the world press. Speaking to an audience of 250,000 pilgrims in Lourdes, France, Pacelli stated that the Nazis "are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult."[70] It was talks like this—in addition to his private remarks and numerous notes of protest that he sent to Berlin as Vatican secretary of state—that earned Pacelli a reputation as an enemy of the Nazi party.

Other Christs

Chick periodically rails against Catholics worshiping multiple Jesuses, as in this picture:

Let us see if Chick's charge of idolatry holds up:

* Images of the Baby Jesus: Catholics do not worship these. They worship Jesus by venerating images of him, just as one might kiss a photo of a departed loved one.

* Crucifixes: First, who says that Jesus on the cross is dead? He is depicted being crucified, and there is no reason to suppose that crucifixes depict only the brief time between when he died and when he was taken down from the cross. Second, we worship the real Jesus in heaven by venerating his image on earth. The crucifix is an image of the most important thing he did for us on earth.

* The Pope: The pope is not "Jesus on earth," and Catholics don't worship him. He is the vicar (representative) of Christ. What is wrong with treating one of Christ's representatives with respect?

* Priests: Priests aren't worshiped, but they do represent Christ as his ministers. Don't Protestants treat their own ministers with respect (1 Thess. 5:12)?

* The Eucharist: The Eucharist is worshiped, but since it is Jesus himself it does not amount to worshiping "another" Jesus. Many other Christians, including Lutherans, believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (although they do not in fact have the Real Presence in their churches) and recognize that Jesus is to be worshiped wherever he is.

* The "Angry Jesus" in Heaven: Literal anger is not compatible with being in the beatitude of heaven. In keeping with the language of Scripture one can speak of God being "angry" with our sins (Eph. 5:6), but Catholics recognize this as a metaphor for divine justice.[71] It is far less clear that Chick understands the concept of divine wrath as a metaphor, and his Jesus sometimes seems very angry. In any event, the Jesus ruling in heaven is still the real Jesus, not another one.

Paganism/Idolatry

One of the major themes of Chick tracts is the attempt to portray Catholicism as a form of paganism. According to Chick's mythology, ancient Babylonian paganism spread all over the world, with deities taking new names in different cultures but remaining fundamentally the same. He holds Catholicism to be one of its expressions and devotes many pages to showing that the Catholic Mary is actually the ancient Babylonian queen Semiramis and that the Eucharist is based on the worship of ancient sun gods.

Unfortunately, Chick gets his mythology all wrong. For example, he claims that "in ancient Babylon, they worshiped the sun god, 'Baal.' Then this religion moved into Egypt using different names."[72] In reality, ancient Babylonians worshiped the sun god Shamash. Baal was neither a Babylonian deity nor the sun god. In fact, he was the Canaanite storm god. Chick could not have had his ideas more muddled.

The source Chick depends on for his mythological ideas is The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop, an eccentric nineteenth-century Anglican clergyman. Chick essentially recycles Hislop's central thesis of Catholicism being a revival of Babylonian paganism. This allows him to identify the Catholic Church with the Whore of Babylon.

Yet the book lacks credibility. Hislop was writing when anthropology and archaeology were in their infancy, and the idea that all world religions spring from a common source (especially one in Babylon) has been completely disproven. We have knowledge of multiple mythologies from all over the world that are unrelated to Babylonian paganism. Fundamental differences between them are easy to illustrate. For example, Indo-European paganism (to which Babylonian mythology is related) typically has the sky deity being male and the earth deity as female. But in Egyptian mythology this is reversed: The sky deity is female and the earth deity is male.

The most thorough refutation of The Two Babylons was written by one of its chief twentieth-century popularizers. As a young man, Ralph Woodrow wrote a book called Babylon Mystery Religion, which introduced many to Hislop's ideas. It was very popular in Fundamentalist circles. Yet with time Woodrow realized that Hislop's claims and logic were deeply flawed, and he wrote a new book—The Babylon Connection?—to refute them.

Pope

Chick's problems with the pope seem to be as follows: (1) The line of popes is a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of there being many antichrists, and the final pope will be the Antichrist. (2) The popes have been engaged in a global conspiracy spanning centuries, with tendrils in almost every major world event. (3) There is no biblical basis for the office of the pope.

It is very clear in Scripture that Jesus told Peter, whose name means "rock," that "you are Peter [rock], and on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:18). To undermine this, Chick makes the familiar claim that two different words are used here in Greek—petros and petra—and that the first means a small stone or pebble while the latter means a huge rock or boulder.[73]

This simply is not true. The difference in meaning can be found only in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—a different dialect. In Koine, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." The argument shows a faulty knowledge of Greek.[74] Further, Jesus' native language was Aramaic, not Greek, and in the Aramaic underlying this passage, the same word—kepha—would have been used in both instances.

Purgatory

Chick claims: "Purgatory is NOT in the Bible! It was created by the Vatican as one of the greatest sources for money ever invented. Billions have made 'the Whore' rich from poor Roman Catholic survivors who paid to get their loved ones out of purgatory."[75]

What Chick is referring to (as he makes clear in context) is the paying of Mass stipends when a priest says Mass for a departed loved one. This does not make the Vatican rich. A typical Mass stipend is five dollars, and if a priest gets an occasional five dollars for saying Mass for someone's loved one, it doesn't make him or the Church rich. The priest himself keeps the stipend, and the practice is closely regulated to prevent abuse.[76] As a moneymaking scheme, purgatory leaves a lot to be desired.

But then that isn't what it is. It has been part of the Judeo-Christian tradition since before the time of Christ. Judah Maccabee and his men prayed for and took up a collection for an offering (the Old Testament equivalent of a Mass) for men who, although they "fell asleep in godliness" (2 Macc. 12:45), nevertheless needed to be purified from the consequences of their sins. Similarly, Paul tells us: "The fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:13–15). Even common sense tells one that, since we will be totally pure in heaven, we must be purified if we are still impure at our deaths. Purgatory is the name the Church gives to this purification.

Rapture

"The Rapture" is the name given in Evangelical circles to an event where living and dead Christians are caught up in the air to be with Christ. When this term is used, it usually is assumed that the event will occur shortly before the Millennium, conceived of as a period in which Christ reigns in person on earth, before the end of the world. This idea dates back to around 1830, when it was popularized by John Nelson Darby and by a school of thought called "Dispensationalism," which stems from his work. Chick is a big believer in the Rapture, and it appears in his tracts.[77]

Though it does not use the term Rapture, the Catholic Church acknowledges that Christians will be gathered to Christ (likely not with exploding graves), but at a different time. The Church's view is like that of traditional Protestants: The dead in Christ will be raised and caught up together with him and living Christians at the Second Coming, at the end of the world. Thus Paul speaks of the event happening in the time of those who "who are left until the coming of the Lord" (1 Thess. 4:15, cf. 4:16–17).

Repulsive Catholics

A typical tactic in Chick tracts is to portray Catholics as being unpleasant or revolting in various ways. They drink. They smoke. They cuss. They are mean-tempered. They may even be willing to kill non-Catholics. Some are eager to do so. Frequently, Catholics are drawn to be physically ugly as well. The only good Catholics in Chick tracts are ex-Catholics—those who have left the Church to become Fundamentalists. (Apparently becoming a Fundamentalist helps your appearance, too, because the ex-Catholics are better looking than their former co-religionists.)

When you see this in Chick tracts, recognize it for what it is: an attempt to avoid calm and rational discussion by substituting emotional manipulation, making Catholics "look bad"—literally and figuratively—so that you won't like them and will transfer this dislike to their beliefs. This is a prejudicial way of presenting Catholics, and it illustrates the prejudice Chick harbors against Catholics.

Tradition

Chick makes the typical charges against tradition, for example, quoting Matthew 15:3—"Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?"[78] What Chick fails to note is that the Bible does not condemn all tradition, only traditions of men that are contrary to the Word of God. Traditions of men that are not contrary to the word of God (e.g., having carpeting in churches) are not a problem.

Then there is a whole other ****of tradition: apostolic ones, traditions coming from the apostles. These not only are not problematic, but the keeping of them is praised and commanded by Scripture. Thus Paul tells the Corinthians, "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:2). He commands the Thessalonians: "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).

Vatican Riches

Like many, Chick faults the Catholic Church for having too much money.[79] It is true that the Church does have a lot of money invested in churches. You need a lot of churches for a billion Catholics to worship in. It also is true that many of these churches are beautiful and ornate, but it is the natural impulse of Christians to honor God by making the places where he is worshiped beautiful and ornate. This same impulse is reflected in the Old Testament, where God actually ordered his house to be made of costly materials, down to gold clasps for its curtains (Ex. 26:6).

In terms of its liquid assets, the Vatican has a remarkably small budget and regularly runs deficits. For example, in 2002 it spent $260 million but only took in $245 million, with a deficit of $15 million.[80] This budget—much of which is devoted to human relief efforts—is quite modest on the scale of world affairs. Many individual dioceses have budgets this size, and it is dwarfed by numerous companies and by every state in the U.S.

Whore of Babylon

Chick identifies the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon described in Revelation. He frequently cites Revelation 18:4 as a biblical imperative to leave the Church—"Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues."[81] This would be a good proof text—if the Catholic Church were the Whore of Babylon. But it isn't.

When the Whore falls we read, "Rejoice over her, O heaven, O saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her! . . . And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth" (Rev. 18:20, 24). This shows that the Whore persecuted not just Christians but apostles and prophets. Apostles existed only in the first century, since one of the requirements for being an apostle was seeing the risen Christ (1 Cor. 9:1). Prophets existed as a group only in the Old Testament and the first century (Acts 11:27–28, 13:1, 15:32, 21:10).

Since the Whore persecuted apostles and prophets, the Whore must have existed in the first century. This demolishes the claim that Christian Rome or Vatican City is the Whore. Rome was not a Christian city at that time, and Vatican City did not even exist, so neither of them could be the Whore. Furthermore, Chick (wrongly) claims that Catholicism itself did not exist in the first century but was created by the emperor Constantine.[82] This means that on his very own argument Catholicism could not be the Whore.

Who is the Whore? Most likely first-century Jerusalem, which was renowned for persecuting both apostles and prophets. The fall of the Whore is likely a depiction of the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70.