Catholics Protest Book Calling
Pope
Devil's Ally

RICHMOND, Va. - Roman Catholics and some Protestants are denouncing a book published by a major Protestant evangelical denomination that claims the pope is in league with the devil.

God's Answers to Your Questions likens the papacy to the beast in the book of Revelation, an ally of Satan in the world's final days. The Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes the book and distributes it nationally door to door.

"That the seventh head (of the beast) represents Antichrist, or the papacy, there can be little doubt," the book asserts.

The book's conclusions have no biblical basis, said Catholic clergy and lay officials and a Protestant Bible scholar.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York, said he often sees anti-Catholic literature but was surprised to see it coming front a major denomination.

"For this to come from The Seventh-day Adventists and not from a splinter group makes this offense particularly egregious," he said. "This raises the ante and makes it all the more serious."

"It's typical anti-Catholic bigotry," said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the United States Catholic Conference.

Sibley Towner, professor of biblical interpretation at Union Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian institution in Richmond, said he was surprised the Adventists published the book. "It's outrageous and inflammatory and untrue biblically in any sense."

George Reid, head of the Biblical Research Institute of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said the book merely follows the lead of such Protestant Reformers as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

"We still believe that it's the reasonable way to understand these prophesies, arising from the text itself and not political correctness," he said.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is based in Silver Spring, Md., and traces its origins to William Miller of New Hampton, N.Y., who predicted that the world would end in the 1840s. The Church says it has 9 million members worldwide.

The book is published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Md., one of the denomination's main publishing houses.

Richard Coffen, vice president for editorial services at the publishing house, said he did not know how many copies of the book had been distributed.

Coffen said the book was a critique, not bigotry, and that it attacks the papacy, not specific popes. "Our position is that we are criticizing the system and not individual Catholic Christians."

Donohue said he has heard that argument before.

"It's like saying to children, 'I hate your father and I hate your mother but I don't hate you."

The book says those who follow papal teachings are Satan's allies.

"Those who acknowledge the supremacy of the beast by yielding obedience to the law of God as changed and enforced by the papacy ... worship the beast. ... Such will take the side of Satan in his rebellion against God's authority," the book says.

Linking the pope to the Antichrist springs from the days of the Reformation 500 years ago when new Protestant churches were battling Roman Catholics, Towner said.

"In the Reformation, Protestants threw the word Antichrist around a lot," he said. "But that has not been done in mainline Protestant circles for centuries"

Anti-Catholic language these days usually comes from small sectarian groups affiliated with right-wing political causes such as the 'Ku Klux Klan, Towner said.

The book comes at a time when relations between evangelical Christians and Catholics have been improving. In 1994, Southern Baptists, the country's largest Protestant denomination, and the Catholic Church endorsed a dialogue between the two denominations.

The Christian Coalition also has been trying to build ties to socially conservative Catholics.

"There have been a number of attempts to build political coalitions between Catholics and conservative Protestants," said William Dinges, professor of religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington. "Conservative Catholics who would move to the right on cultural issues might be offended by this."

Donohue said he doubts the book will influence anyone, but it concerns him nonetheless.

"This kind of anti-Catholicism cannot be discounted," he said. "It's affecting the Joe Sixpacks of this world, and these people are not unimportant, and it has to be taken seriously."