I’ve been reading up on Will Durant’s History of Western Civilization (an LRH recommended text) and am finding the parallels between the Protestant Reformation and what we face today uncanny. All quotations in this post are taken from that work.

What prompted Martin Luther to denounce the Curia as the “Synagogue of Satan” and the Pope as the “Antichrist”, and thus spark the social revolution that put Christianity back into the hands of the people in the 16th Century?

First, it was the Curia practice of  the selling of indulgences. The Papacy gave a pass to Heaven to big shot sinners for a price. Regardless of how suppressive they might have  been to how many, for a price they would be officially absolved.

The Pope’s Chief Reg was a fellow by the name of Johann Tetzel.  By 1517 the reging for what would become the most outlandish cathedral of all for the Pope in Rome had hit a fevered pitch. Here is what Tetzel dished out for those Patrons Maximus with Gargoyle Claws and Diamond Encrusted Buzzard Beaks who donated substantial funds for new buildings:

“May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee, and absolve thee by the merits of His most holy Passion. And I, by His authority, that of his most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and of the most holy Pope, granted and committed to me in these parts,do absolve thee, first from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they may have been incurred, and then from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they may be…so that when you die the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of paradise of delight shall be opened…”

Can anyone see the parallels to how the Church of Miscavology’s ethics and justice systems have been fixed?  But while Indulgences (and vast financial irregularities) became  the primary issue as far as mainline historians tell it, something more subtle and yet more intolerable, cut to the quick with common Christians – the undermining of Source.

The Pope further authorized Tetzel to deliver sealed letters stating “that even sins men were intending to commit  would be forgiven. The pope, he said, had more power than all the Apostles, all the angels and saints, more even than the Virgin Mary herself; for those were all subject to Christ, but the pope was equal to Christ.”

Have you seen indication that Miscavige is similarly attempting to bring the name of L Ron Hubbard down while elevating his own?   One publication (Freedom) in 2009 had seventeen photos of Miscacavige against a postage stamp size reproduction of a film cel of LRH.  I submit that since at least the 2007 Golden Age of Knowledge event, Miscavige has been positioning himself not merely as LRH’s equal, but instead as his superior.

The second major protest against the Catholic Church was its monopoly upon interpretation of Scripture and its alteration to increase its own power, wealth and comfort.

Luther referred to it as teaching with the “knowledge of popes and cardinals” in the place of the original word of Christ, and was not meek in calling it for what it was:

“If Rome thus believes and teaches with the knowledge of popes and cardinals (which I hope is not the case), then in these writings I freely declare that the true Antichrist is sitting in the temple of God, and is reigning in Rome – that empurpled Babylon – and that the Roman Curia is the Synagogue of Satan…”

The abolition of Method 9 word clearing of Source material in favor of “COB” ramblings and his IG NW Orders, the plethora of arbitraries enforced by Miscavigie and his Curia in the name of removing them, the re-orientation of Management to “COB” orders over LRH policy, all make the the Papacy’s squirreling pale by comparison.

And of course Luther and others of his ilk, were beset by endless harassment and labelling as “heretics” (read Catholic squirrels) for having the temerity to protest.

I think most of us who have had this campaign run on us would agree that Martin Luther’s  words from A Sermon on Indulgence and Grace in response to such allegations couldn’t have been better stated nor be more applicable today:

“If I am called a heretic by those whose purses will suffer from my truths, I care not much for their brawling; for only those say this whose dark understanding has never known the Bible.”

Written by Marty Rathbun