We had hoped Pastor Pitstop had calmed down. He hadn’t. Now, our dear Protestant friend is all worked up about Martin Luther. He feels that The Catholic Church is making Martin Luther, him, and the entire Protestant clergy into second-class ministers. Pastor Pitstop is upset because The Church excommunicated Luther, and, by implication, all of them. He is demanding that the excommunication be reversed. If it isn’t, he’s going to get the Protestants organized to “make things right”.
Dear Catholic Fundamentalism:
I’ll tell you what’s not fair! You Catholics think your Church was given the keys to keep people out of Heaven! It takes a lot of gall to have the “Keys to Heaven” on paintings and statues of St. Peter. That is wrong. He does not have the Keys to Heaven. No. God loves everyone. He would not want anyone to be better than anyone else when it comes to keeping people out of Heaven.
You know what I think? No matter what Matthew 16:19 says, Jesus didn’t give Peter the Keys to Heaven. No. That’s some sort of symbolism. It can’t be real. I think that The Key to Heaven is in everyone’s heart. I told my congregation that, and they all nodded. Since they all agreed, it must be true. Now, I say it several times a sermon. I can see them nodding, silently repeating, to themselves, “My key to heaven is in my heart.” I don’t want them taking that too seriously of course. If the key to Heaven is in their heart, why to do they need me?
But, they agree. So, I know I am right. It’s wrong that you Catholics think your Church and your priests have powers that we don’t have. It isn’t fair. If I had been there when Jesus said “Thou art Peter, and on this rock, I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”, do you know what Jesus would have said?
He would have said to me and Peter, “Thou art Peter and Travis, and on these rocks, I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.”
Probably just an oversight on His part.
Now, things are clearer to me. If Martin Luther and John Calvin and Joseph Smith and all the founders of all the denominations were there, they all would have been included. “Thou art Peter and Travis and Martin and John and Joseph. . . . .’
I know what you Catholics are going to say to that. “Pastor Pitstop, there are over 34,000 individual, identifiable Protestant schisms. If all 34,000 founders were there, would Jesus have included them all? Even if some were pro-abortion and some were for polygamy? Would Jesus have said “Thou art Peter and Travis and Martin and John and Joseph” and then gone on to name all the remaining 33,996 separate founders of all the different denominations before concluding, “and on these rocks I build My Churches and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.”
And, you know what else you would be doing if you were telling me that? You Catholics would be silently snickering at me while you were talking! Thinking that you’re better. Thinking I’m not really very bright about things. Well, God loves us all, even if we aren’t very bright. He loves us, even if we weren’t there when Jesus was talking to Peter. We have just as much right to start our own churches and they’re just as good as yours. But, you just can’t understand that. You’re always coming back to His having said “Thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church.” “One church”, you say that He said, ” and one man, not more”.
Well, maybe Jesus made a mistake.
He must have made a mistake. It just isn’t fair that He would give Peter more authority than me, or any other minister in any other denomination that calls itself “Christian”. But, not to you Catholics. Equality isn’t enough for you! Thinking God is perfect, that He never made a mistake. Well, I’d think that too, if He’d included me with Peter.
You Catholics make me sick. Always thinking that you’re better. Going to Confession, receiving Communion, getting Last Rites. Well, we have things like that. They are in our hearts. So, we’re just as good.
So, what I want you to do is this: I want you Catholics to reverse Martin Luther’s excommunication. And, you should un-excommunicate everyone you’ve ever excommunicated. Everyone should be in Heaven. You say you have the keys. So, you could do it, if you wanted.
That’s what would be fair. Everyone would be equal. Wouldn’t that be better? The longer you wait, the angrier I get!
Sincerely,
Pastor Travis T. Pitstop
One of our contributors thought that Pastor Pitstop had missed the point. “Doesn’t he understand how much blood there is on Martin Luther’s hands? If he had stayed faithful to his monastic vows, the other schismatics might not have left The Church. If Europe and the Americas were Catholic, abortion would not have begun and become unstoppable. Pitstop must not understand that the blood from half a billion aborted babies is on Luther’s hands.”
When the Catholic Fundamentalism Editorial Board thought about it, we realized something else. Pastor Pitstop had exposed a hidden, underlying reason why so many people disliked, and even hated, The Church. One of our Board, a former Lutheran, said “If you worship equality, then it’s only fair that everyone get to Heaven, no matter what they’ve done.”
Another agreed. “We’re lucky to have his letter. It shows that many who call themselves ‘Christians’ actually worship equality. They don’t really worship God, but the idol of equality. They revere an idealized view of reality that makes them better than they are because it’s ‘fairer’ that they be no worse than anyone else. That, to a particularly vain sort of personality, is far more worrisome than crimes like abortion.”
All of us agreed that Pastor Pitstop’s latest letter offered more insight into that sort of anti-Catholic thinking than we’d ever seen so openly displayed.
