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by Pastor Mark Downey

As an artist, it is not difficult to appreciate Michelangelo’s monumental masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel.  It is no secret that Michelangelo’s relationship with the RCC became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church. In two places in the masterpiece, Michelangelo left self portraits, both of them depicting himself in torture. He gave his own face to Saint Bartholomew’s body martyred by being skinned alive.  Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism (not to be confused with spiritism), for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church. 

Likewise, Jesus showed great courage in identifying the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees as whited sepulchers, a practice that lost the ceremonial import of Levitical defilement around places of unclean corpses and turned into beautification projects as if to honor the prophets to whom the Lord accused them of murdering.

by Pastor Mark Downey

In Part 1, we learned that the Roman Catholic Church was not the first church in Christendom and that Peter was not the first Pope.  Most students of Christian Identity know that the first above ground church was in Glastonbury, England.  Thanks to Joseph of Arimathea, Britain was the first of all kingdoms to receive the Gospel. This was confirmed by the Church Councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1417), Sienna (1424) and Basle (1434) that maintained, "The churches of France and Spain, must yield in point of antiquity and precedence to that of Britain, as the latter church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea immediately after the passion of Christ".  The RCC was established on a foundation of lies and a corruption of the Word of God.