When the Traditions of Rome Meet the Words of God

The Watered Wine, the Bound Hands of God, the Blood of the Persecuted, and the Price of a Cardinal's Hat

There is something profoundly disturbing about a religious institution claiming to possess divine authority while its own history records acts that Almighty God expressly condemns. It becomes more disturbing still when that institution claims the power to offer Jesus Christ upon its altars, to appease the wrath of God through its priesthood, to pronounce upon the eternal destiny of men, and to determine which religious beliefs deserve condemnation.

For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has presented its sacrificial priesthood as an institution established by Jesus Christ Himself. Its councils have defined doctrines, its popes have issued decrees, and its theologians have explained the extraordinary powers supposedly entrusted to men through ordination. Yet when these assertions are examined against Scripture, an extraordinary pattern begins to emerge. The very things that God condemns repeatedly appear in the historical conduct of men who claimed to govern His Church, while the remedies that God Himself prescribes are displaced by an increasingly elaborate system of priestly intervention, religious ceremonies and ecclesiastical authority.

We have already investigated the astonishing claims of Michael Müller, C.Ss.R., concerning the Catholic Mass, including his declaration that the continual offering of Christ by priests means that the hands of God are bound and that humanity would otherwise have suffered the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But Müller was neither the first nor the only Catholic writer to attribute such extraordinary importance to the priesthood. His reasoning belongs to a much larger theological system, supported by papal encyclicals, conciliar decrees and centuries of ecclesiastical teaching.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether one nineteenth-century priest employed extravagant language. It is whether the entire system of authority behind such language can withstand the testimony of God's own words.

And we shall begin with a verse that appears almost insignificant until it is read in its proper context.

I. The Wine That God Condemned as Corrupted — and the Water That Rome Requires

In the opening chapter of Isaiah, God delivers a devastating indictment against Jerusalem, a city that had once been faithful but had become polluted by injustice, violence, bribery and religious hypocrisy. The accusation is not directed against a nation ignorant of religion. It is directed against people who possessed religious institutions, observed solemn assemblies, performed sacrifices and claimed to worship the God of Israel.

Isaiah 1:21–23 (KJV) declares:

How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

Why does God compare the corruption of His people to silver contaminated with dross and wine mixed with water? Because both images express the degradation of something valuable. The silver has lost its purity, and the wine has been diluted. Neither image is complimentary. Both stand within a condemnation of unfaithfulness, injustice and corruption.

Notice particularly that God is speaking about the corruption of a religious community. The faithful city has become a harlot. Her rulers are companions of thieves, her leaders accept rewards, and those responsible for administering justice have abandoned the fatherless and widow. Yet these same people continue bringing offerings before God.

Isaiah 1:13 provides His response:

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Here is a people who apparently imagined that religious observance could continue while their conduct contradicted the very commandments of God. Their ceremonies did not rescue their religion from corruption. Their solemn assemblies did not make their injustice acceptable. God was not impressed by the existence of their rituals; He condemned the iniquity of those performing them.

Now consider what the Roman Catholic Church requires of its priests.

Canon 924 §1 of the Code of Canon Law states that the Eucharistic sacrifice must be offered with bread and with wine into which a little water is mixed. This is not a custom left entirely to individual preference but an established requirement of the Roman rite.

The Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter VII, September 1562, explains that the Church requires this mixture partly because it is "believed" that Christ Himself did so at the Last Supper. It also interprets the mixture as recalling the blood and water flowing from Christ's side and representing the union of the faithful with Christ.

But where does Scripture say that Jesus Christ mixed water with the wine?

Matthew does not record it. Mark does not record it. Luke does not record it. Paul's account of the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 does not record it. Christ commands His disciples to remember Him, but nowhere in those accounts does He instruct them to add water to the cup or attach sacred significance to such a mixture.

That omission becomes especially important when we discover what Trent went on to declare.

In Session XXII, Canon IX, the council pronounces an anathema against anyone who maintains that water ought not to be mixed with the Eucharistic wine on the grounds that doing so is contrary to Christ's institution.

Consider the difference between those positions. It is one thing to say that Christians developed a ceremony intended to symbolize their union with Christ. It is quite another to make that ceremony compulsory, associate it with Christ's own actions without an explicit Gospel record, and condemn the contrary claim through ecclesiastical authority.

A Christian may reasonably ask why the ceremony should be compulsory without thereby claiming that Scripture prohibits every ordinary mixture of wine and water. Isaiah 1:22 uses diluted wine as an illustration of corruption; it does not institute a universal dietary law against dilution. Nevertheless, the contrast deserves serious examination because God deliberately employs the image of adulterated wine within His condemnation of corrupted worship, while Rome assigns a sacred interpretation to that same physical mixture.

The question is not whether a little water can change the spiritual condition of wine. It is why a Church that claims to preserve Christ's original institution insists upon a detail that His recorded institution never mentions.

The matter becomes more remarkable when we trace the historical authorities used to support the practice.

In 1439, Pope Eugene IV's decree Exsultate Deo, issued at the Council of Florence, stated that water was added because Christ was "believed" to have instituted the Eucharist using wine mixed with water. Among the authorities invoked was a supposed decree of the early Pope Alexander I.

Yet the letter attributed to Alexander belongs to the collection known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, containing forged documents presented under the names of earlier popes. This identification is acknowledged in scholarly annotations to the decree itself.

Think carefully about the implications. A medieval ecclesiastical decree appealed to the supposed authority of an ancient pope, but the document supporting that particular attribution was not authentically written by the man whose name it bore.

This does not mean Christians first mixed water with Eucharistic wine in 1439. Justin Martyr described wine mixed with water in Christian worship as early as the second century. What it means is that an early custom, an unsupported inference about what Christ personally did, and a falsely attributed papal letter are not interchangeable forms of evidence.

If Jesus Christ Himself instituted the mixing of water with wine, where is His commandment? Where, in Matthew, Mark, Luke or the apostle Paul's account of the Lord's Supper, does Christ instruct His disciples to add water to the cup? Where does He declare that this mixture possesses sacred significance, or that Christians who question its necessity should fall under ecclesiastical condemnation? No such instruction appears in the biblical accounts. Yet the Council of Trent went so far as to pronounce an anathema against those who maintained that mixing water with the Eucharistic wine was contrary to Christ's institution.

But the matter becomes considerably more damning when we examine the authorities Rome invoked to justify the practice. In 1439, Pope Eugene IV, speaking through the solemn decree Exsultate Deo at the Council of Florence, declared that Christ was “believed” to have instituted the sacrament using wine mixed with water. And what evidence did he offer? Among his authorities were supposed decrees of the early popes Alexander I and Julius I, writings that historical scholarship has since identified as falsely attributed documents belonging to the Pseudo-Isidorian tradition. Two ancient papal voices were summoned to testify on behalf of a ceremony, yet the documents bearing their names were not authentic testimony from those popes at all. The deception lies in the documents' false attribution; we cannot establish that Eugene IV knowingly participated in it. Nevertheless, the fact remains that forged authorities found their way into the arguments of a solemn papal decree.

Consider the enormity of the problem. A Church claiming to be the divinely appointed guardian of apostolic tradition invoked the supposed testimony of men who had not written the words attributed to them, in support of a compulsory religious practice that Christ's recorded instructions never expressly command. If the teaching came directly from the Lord, why was it necessary to enlist the authority of falsely attributed papal letters? If Scripture supplied the command, why not quote Scripture? And if the institution rested instead upon ecclesiastical tradition, why present it as something Christ Himself was believed to have instituted, rather than acknowledge the distinction between a documented commandment of God and a custom maintained by men?

Nor can the matter be dismissed by observing that Christians mixed water with wine long before the ninth-century forgeries appeared. The antiquity of a custom does not prove that Christ commanded it, and the survival of a practice does not authenticate the forged documents later used to defend it. An ancient tradition is not automatically an apostolic commandment, and a false attribution does not become true because a pope repeats it. What right, then, has an ecclesiastical council to condemn a Christian for challenging the alleged divine necessity of a ceremony whose institution cannot be demonstrated from the recorded words of Jesus Christ?

And here the contrast with Isaiah becomes especially uncomfortable. In Isaiah 1:22, God uses wine diluted with water as an image of corruption in a city whose rulers love rewards, whose justice has been perverted, and whose religious offerings have become offensive to Him. The prophet does not prohibit every mixture of wine and water, but neither does he assign holiness to it. Rome, meanwhile, makes such a mixture compulsory in its most sacred ceremony and invokes papal authority to defend its use. By what authority does a religious institution transform a practice Christ never expressly commanded into an obligation, then pronounce ecclesiastical condemnation upon those who dispute its legitimacy?

The question is ultimately one of authority, and it is answered with devastating simplicity by Proverbs 30:6 (KJV):

“Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

Jeremiah 8:8 —

“How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.”

A document does not become apostolic because an ancient pope's name has been placed upon it. A religious custom does not become a commandment of Jesus Christ because a council has endorsed it. And the authority of Almighty God cannot be manufactured retrospectively through forged letters, however solemnly those letters may be cited. If Rome claims that Christ instituted something, let Rome produce the words of Christ. If it cannot, let it cease treating the authority of its own tradition as though it were the recorded commandment of the Lord.

II. The God Whose Hands Müller Wanted Bound

The comparison between Isaiah and Roman theology becomes considerably more serious when we examine the subject of divine judgment.

In The Holy Mass, printed page 287 of the Fr. Pustet edition, Michael Müller asks why the world has not suffered catastrophic punishment comparable to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He supplies the extraordinary explanation that Christ is continually offered by Catholic priests throughout the world and that “the hands of God are bound.”

He continues by declaring that without this sacrifice of propitiation humanity would long ago have suffered Sodom's fate.

We must appreciate the magnitude of this assertion. Müller is not merely saying that Christians ought to pray for mercy. He is claiming that the continual sacrificial presentation of Jesus Christ by the Catholic priesthood is the reason God has withheld devastating judgment from mankind.

But let us return to Isaiah, because in the very chapter that condemns polluted wine, corrupt religious observances, bribery and the abandonment of the fatherless, God tells us precisely why His people were not destroyed as Sodom.

Isaiah 1:9 (KJV):

Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Who preserved the remnant?

The LORD of hosts.

The verse attributes their survival to God's own preservation. It does not introduce an earthly priesthood continually offering the Messiah to restrain the Father's anger. It does not describe divine judgment being prevented by a sacrificial ceremony performed throughout the nations. Instead, it declares that the Lord Himself left a very small remnant, without whom His people would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Müller invokes the same catastrophic example but supplies an additional explanation that Isaiah does not give: the preservation of the world through the Mass.

And then comes the verse that makes the contrast even sharper.

Isaiah 1:25 (KJV):

And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

Notice whose hand is acting. It is God's hand, and He declares that He will turn it upon His people in order to purge away their corruption.

Now compare Müller's language.

Müller celebrates the supposed binding of God's hands through priestly sacrifice, whereas Isaiah describes God turning His own hand upon His people to remove their impurities.

Isaiah 1:27 then declares:

Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

There is an immense theological difference between God mercifully restraining deserved destruction and the suggestion that His judgment must continually be prevented by the presentation of a sacrificial victim. In Isaiah, divine judgment is not simply an evil from which the faithful must escape. God's righteous action against corruption forms part of the restoration of Zion.

The surrounding verses establish this unmistakably. God promises to restore judges and counsellors, reclaim the faithful city, and destroy transgressors who persist in rebellion.

The comparison therefore raises an unavoidable question: If God Himself declares that His hand will purge corruption and that Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, why would a priest celebrate the supposed power of a religious ceremony to bind that hand?

Does God need to be restrained from performing the righteousness He has promised?

Or is the problem not divine judgment itself, but the wickedness that makes judgment necessary?

The same principle appears again in Isaiah 4:4:

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

Here judgment is explicitly associated with washing away filth and purging bloodguilt. God is not describing a defective or excessive wrath that requires human intervention to correct it. He is describing the means by which He will cleanse His people.

And Isaiah 26:9 adds a further explanation:

for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

This is what makes Müller's explanation so troubling when tested against Scripture. Isaiah teaches that God's judgments reveal righteousness and purge corruption, while Müller's devotional argument treats the continued withholding of catastrophic judgment as a benefit secured through Catholic priestly sacrifice.

The distinction matters. Scripture certainly speaks of mercy, intercession, repentance and the postponement of punishment. Abraham interceded for Sodom, Moses pleaded for Israel, and God spared Nineveh when its inhabitants repented. None of this makes divine judgment an injustice that must be neutralized. Rather, it shows that mercy and judgment belong to the righteous purposes of God.

Why, then, should the survival of mankind be attributed specifically to a perpetual Eucharistic offering when the prophets repeatedly identify God's mercy, patience, preservation of a remnant and righteous purposes as the reasons for His dealings with humanity?

III. Another Christ, Another Sacrifice — and the Judge Who Needs No Earthly Substitute

Müller's language becomes still more important when placed beside the formal teaching of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, 20 December 1935.

In paragraph 12, Pius XI describes the priest as “another Christ.” In paragraphs 15–16, he explains that the priest possesses power over the body of Christ and offers Him as a victim pleasing to the Divine Majesty.

These are not merely the romantic expressions of a Victorian devotional author. They appear in an official papal document concerning the dignity and authority of the Catholic priesthood.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1367, further teaches that Christ's sacrifice and the sacrifice of the Mass are one single sacrifice, with the same victim and only a different manner of offering.

A Catholic theologian will respond that Rome does not teach that Jesus dies again at every Mass. The Church maintains that Calvary was sufficient, that the Eucharist makes that single sacrifice sacramentally present, and that the priest acts through Christ's authority rather than independently of Him.

That distinction should be acknowledged because our argument must confront what Rome actually teaches, not a distorted substitute for it.

Nevertheless, the explanation does not end the investigation. The central question remains whether Scripture institutes a perpetual sacrificial offering of Christ through a distinct earthly priesthood and whether the continuing presentation of that offering is necessary to restrain God's judgment.

Consider what Jesus Himself said in John 5:22:

For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

Christ is not merely the victim offered for sins. He is also the Judge to whom judgment has been committed.

And John 5:30 declares:

I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

His judgment is just because He acts in perfect accord with His Father's will.

Why, then, should we imagine a religious arrangement in which the continued offering of the Son through earthly priests is presented as the means of preventing the judgment of God?

What exactly is being restrained? Is it unjust anger? Christ says His judgment is just. Is it a reluctance to forgive? Scripture declares the mercy and longsuffering of God. Is it a deficiency in Christ's original sacrifice? Catholic doctrine itself acknowledges that His sacrifice was sufficient.

The additional claim that priests bind God's hands therefore requires an explanation beyond the assertion that the Mass sacramentally represents Calvary.

If the Judge has obtained redemption, if His judgment accords with the Father's will, and if His intercession continues, what scriptural necessity remains for an earthly priest to offer Him in order that mankind should escape destruction?

Revelation 19:11 describes Christ at His appearing:

and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

The Lamb is not an unwilling victim whose sacrifice must be brought repeatedly before a reluctant Judge. He is the righteous Judge Himself, exercising the authority committed to Him.

To call an earthly minister “another Christ” may be defended by Catholics as a description of representation, not equality with the Son of God. But such language still deserves examination when it is accompanied by claims of sacrificial power over Christ's body and participation in the administration of divine forgiveness.

It becomes infinitely more troubling when we examine what some holders of this supposed sacred authority actually did with the power entrusted to their offices.

IV. The Sacrifice of the Wicked — What God Refuses to Accept

Proverbs 21:27 presents a sentence of devastating simplicity:

The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?

God does not say that a religious offering automatically becomes pleasing to Him because a duly appointed official presents it. The verse condemns the sacrifice brought by the wicked, especially when accompanied by wicked intention.

Now consider Rome's position that the validity of the Eucharist does not depend upon the personal holiness of the priest. Catholic theology distinguishes the efficacy of a sacrament from God's judgment upon the minister's own sins; it does not claim that wickedness becomes virtuous through ordination.

But this distinction raises a moral question which cannot be dismissed by an appeal to sacramental validity.

If an ordained priest performs a sacramental ceremony while participating in oppression, extortion, corruption, persecution or child abuse etc does the fact that the ceremony is considered valid answer God's condemnation of the wicked man presenting it?

Of course not.

A ritual's supposed sacramental efficacy and God's approval of the person performing it are different matters, and Scripture refuses to allow religious ceremony to conceal unrighteous conduct.

This is especially significant when we consider the historical exercise of Catholic ecclesiastical power.

For Isaiah 66:3 declares:

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.

This passage must be read alongside verse 2, where God looks favourably upon the poor, contrite person who trembles at His word, and alongside the remainder of verse 3, which condemns those who have chosen their own ways and delight in abominations.

The prophet is not declaring that every animal sacrifice under the Mosaic law was inherently wicked, nor that incense could never be acceptable to God. Those things had been prescribed under the law. He is declaring that outward religious acts become offensive when separated from humility, obedience and righteousness.

That distinction is fatal to the idea that elaborate religious ceremonies can excuse the moral corruption of their ministers.

What good is incense rising from a sanctuary if the helpless are being oppressed outside its doors? What good is an offering upon an altar if those claiming authority over it have made a trade of religious appointments? And how can men appeal to the holiness of their ceremonies while exercising cruelty against people whom Christ commanded them to love?

The prophet Amos expresses the same principle.

Amos 5:22–24:

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

The demand could scarcely be clearer. God rejects their offerings and songs while injustice continues, and He demands judgment and righteousness.

He does not instruct them to increase the number of sacrifices so that their injustice may continue without consequences.

He commands righteousness.

This distinction becomes especially uncomfortable when we leave the sanctuary and enter the records of the medieval Inquisition.

V. The Inquisition: When Men Claimed to Defend God Through Torture

For centuries, inquisitorial tribunals operated under ecclesiastical authority to investigate and punish alleged "heresy". The procedures varied considerably across regions and periods, but the historical record includes imprisonment, confiscation of property, coercive interrogation, torture and the handing over of condemned prisoners to secular authorities for execution.

These are not merely accusations made by enemies of Rome. The Vatican's own historical account of the Holy Office acknowledges the use of torture and the possibility of death by burning, with execution ordinarily carried out by civil authorities.

In 1252, Pope Innocent IV issued the bull Ad extirpanda, which authorized secular rulers to compel accused heretics to confess and identify others through coercive methods, including torture, subject to restrictions against causing death or permanent bodily injury.

Consider the reasoning behind such a decree. Men accused of so-called religious error could be treated as dangerous offenders, imprisoned, tortured and compelled to confess or denounce others under the threat of further suffering. But was the real offence always religious error, or was it frequently the refusal to submit to Roman ecclesiastical authority? 

Who had appointed Rome the judge of every Christian conscience, with the power to determine whose understanding of Scripture deserved punishment, imprisonment or death? The distinction is crucial, because opposition to an institution's authority is not automatically opposition to Almighty God. Indeed, there is a disturbing historical parallel with the Roman occupation of Judaea in the time of Christ, when imperial power oppressed the Jewish people and religious accusations could become matters of political authority. Jesus Himself was delivered to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and crucified under Roman authority, despite Pilate declaring, “I find no fault in him” (John 19:4). When the chief priests sought His execution, they invoked Caesar's authority, declaring, “If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend” (John 19:12). How extraordinary, then, that centuries later a Church governing from Rome should claim the authority to condemn people as heretics and employ coercive tribunals against those who rejected its doctrines and jurisdiction. The circumstances were not identical, but the question of power remains: since when has refusing to submit to Rome been proof of rebellion against God? 

Christ never commanded His disciples to establish tribunals of torture to enforce belief, nor did He appoint an earthly empire to compel men's consciences through fear of imprisonment and death. The Roman governor possessed the legal power to crucify Christ, but that power did not make his judgment righteous. Likewise, the ability of an ecclesiastical tribunal to condemn a person cannot establish that its sentence reflects the judgment of Almighty God.

Yet what does Scripture say concerning those who use accusation and judicial authority to ensnare others?

Isaiah 29:21 (KJV):

That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.

Isaiah condemns those who manipulate accusation, testimony and judicial proceedings to ensnare others and deprive the righteous of justice. The passage is not a technical description of the medieval Inquisition, but its moral principle is directly relevant to any tribunal that punishes the innocent or uses legal authority dishonestly.

And here is the central question: At what point did disagreeing with ecclesiastical authority become an offence for which a man could legitimately be tortured in the name of Jesus Christ?

Where did Christ command such conduct?

In Luke 9:54–56, James and John proposed calling down fire upon a Samaritan village that refused to receive Jesus. The Lord rebuked them, and the account records His declaration that the Son of man had come not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

Yet centuries later, men "claiming" to govern His Church presided over a man-made system in which condemned heretics could be surrendered to authorities who burned them alive.

John 8:44 (KJV)

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

The distinction between an ecclesiastical court pronouncing judgment and a secular official carrying out the execution is historically important, but it does not remove the moral question. When an institution knowingly transfers a condemned person to authorities expected to execute that sentence, can its responsibility be dismissed merely because its own officers did not personally ignite the fire?

The records of Bernard Gui, inquisitor of Toulouse in the early fourteenth century, provide concrete evidence of the punishments administered through this system. His surviving sentencing record for 1308–1323 contains hundreds of judgments, including extensive imprisonment, forty-two entries involving prisoners handed over to secular authorities, and sixty-nine cases ordering the exhumation and burning of remains.

Not every person brought before Gui was executed, and it would be historically false to suggest that every inquisitorial proceeding ended in death. The record nevertheless establishes that severe penalties and the surrender of prisoners for capital punishment formed part of this institution's actual work.

And we have evidence of abuses within its own administration.

In 1340, Pope Benedict XII ruled against Menet de Robécourt, an official associated with the Inquisition of Carcassonne, after proceedings involving Giraud Coll of Albi. The case arose in the context of complaints about inquisitorial abuses. The offending proceedings were overturned, Coll was restored to his rights, and Menet was removed from his inquisitorial functions and ordered to provide financial redress.

This papal intervention demonstrates that abuses could be recognized and corrected within the institution. But it also exposes the dangers of a system in which accusations of religious error could become instruments of retaliation against those who complained about its officers.

The disturbing question is not whether every inquisitor was wicked. It is whether the methods officially authorized by the institution were consistent with the commandments of Christ.

Proverbs 17:15 declares:

He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.

What becomes of a religious court that condemns a just person through fabricated accusations? What becomes of an ecclesiastical official who uses his authority to persecute a complainant? What becomes of a tribunal that accepts testimony obtained through unbearable suffering, when such suffering may induce a terrified prisoner to confess whatever his interrogators wish to hear?

The solemnity of a judicial proceeding does not transform injustice into righteousness.

And a church court is not exempt from God's commandments because its judges wear religious garments.

Revelation 18:4 (KJV)

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

Indeed, in 2004, Pope John Paul II expressly associated the tragedies of the Inquisition with past methods incompatible with the Gospel, recalling the Church's request for forgiveness in the Jubilee of 2000.

But this admission makes the historical question even more serious.

If methods used in the service of religious truth were contrary to the Gospel, whose authority permitted them to be used in the first place? When a pope authorized torture and later popes acknowledged that such methods were incompatible with Christ's teaching, which judgment should Christians regard as authoritative?

The papal office cannot make cruelty righteous merely by authorizing it, because the commandments of God remain above the decrees of men.

VI. The Price of a Cardinal's Hat — When Religious Office Became a Source of Revenue

Return now to Isaiah 1:23, where God condemns rulers who love gifts and follow after rewards.

The history of the Renaissance papacy provides a particularly revealing comparison.

We possess the diary of Johann Burchard, papal master of ceremonies, who served at the Roman court during the pontificates of several popes, including Alexander VI. His Liber Notarum, or Diarium, preserves invaluable evidence of appointments, ceremonies, political dealings and the administration of papal government.

Burchard was not writing as a Protestant critic centuries after the Reformation. He was an official working at the centre of the Roman ecclesiastical establishment.

On 28 September 1500, Alexander VI created twelve new cardinals. Burchard recorded the appointments alongside substantial financial sums associated with their advancement. The eleven recorded amounts total approximately 150,000 ducats (around €62 million in gold at November 2026 prices)..

Among the figures recorded were 25,000 ducats for Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 22,000 for Giovanni Battista Ferrari, and 20,000 each for several other appointees.

These sums were vast, and the relationship between ecclesiastical promotion and papal finance was no secret to contemporary observers.

The Venetian chronicler Marino Sanudo (Sanuto) connects the promotions with the financial requirements of Cesare Borgia's military campaigns in Romagna. His account describes the desire to obtain money for that enterprise through the creation of cardinals.

A later report by the Venetian ambassador Antonio Giustinian estimated that another series of cardinal appointments in 1503 yielded between 120,000 and 130,000 ducats, with additional income associated with the creation of curial offices.

And Francesco Guicciardini, writing about the period, accused Alexander VI of choosing cardinals according to the money they offered rather than their merit.

These figures and accusations require historical care. Not every payment associated with an ecclesiastical promotion was necessarily recorded or classified identically, and hostile chroniclers could exaggerate personal allegations against popes. But the financial arrangements surrounding these appointments are well documented, and contemporary testimony repeatedly connects the advancement of churchmen with the pursuit of papal revenue.

Now consider what Peter said when Simon attempted to purchase spiritual power.

Acts 8:20 (KJV):

Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Peter did not ask Simon how much he was prepared to contribute. He did not establish a fee for the administration of spiritual authority. He did not offer the purchaser a higher religious rank in exchange for a more generous payment.

He condemned the very idea of purchasing the gift of God.

And Christ instructed His disciples in Matthew 10:8:

freely ye have received, freely give.

What an extraordinary contrast with a papal government whose records contain the financial assessments of men elevated to the cardinalate.

Imagine attempting to explain the September 1500 appointments to Peter himself. Would he have regarded enormous payments attached to religious advancement as evidence of apostolic holiness? Would he have approved of ecclesiastical revenues financing dynastic military campaigns? Would he have considered the possession of a cardinal's hat evidence that the Holy Ghost had selected a man for spiritual leadership?

We are not required to speculate about Peter's response to the purchase of spiritual power. Acts 8 supplies it.

The apostle condemned Simon for imagining that divine gifts could be obtained through money.

Yet in Rome, the institution claiming succession from Peter developed a political and financial system in which high ecclesiastical advancement could be accompanied by payments of staggering magnitude.

There is an irony here that deserves careful consideration.

The same religious hierarchy that claimed authority to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy, to impose penances and condemn false teaching, also contained officials who profited from ecclesiastical advancement. Men could be investigated for religious error by an institution whose own upper administration was deeply entangled with wealth, patronage and political ambition.

Was spiritual authority being exercised for the salvation of souls, or had it become an instrument through which earthly power could be accumulated, purchased and distributed? The record becomes even more damning when we remember that the Roman Church itself eventually acknowledged the depth of corruption within its government. But how many centuries of wrongdoing, followed by solemn admissions, expressions of regret and carefully worded apologies, must pass before the whole spectacle begins to resemble a mockery of repentance? How many times can an institution claim divine authority for its actions, exercise that authority to enrich its rulers or persecute those who challenge it, and then, generations later, acknowledge the injustice while continuing to insist upon the sacred authority of the institution responsible?

At what point do repeated apologies cease to inspire confidence and begin to sound like an admission that the institution's own claims to righteousness cannot withstand the evidence of its history? Repentance, according to Scripture, is not merely the acknowledgment of wrongdoing after its victims have long since perished. It requires a turning away from evil. As God declares in Isaiah 1:16–17, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” What use are grand declarations of sorrow if the underlying claims of authority that enabled such abuses remain beyond serious examination? And how can an institution demand unquestioning submission to its religious judgments while repeatedly asking forgiveness for the terrible consequences of judgments made in its name? God did not command His people to perfect the art of apologising for wickedness.

He commanded them to cease doing evil.

Pope Adrian VI, addressing the German imperial diet in 1522 through his representative, acknowledged grave abuses within the Roman court and the need for reform. A Vatican historical document summarizes his admission of entrenched abuses and corruption extending from the leadership downward.

So the accusation of ecclesiastical corruption cannot simply be dismissed as an invention of hostile outsiders. A pope himself publicly acknowledged the disease within the Roman administration.

Now place these records beside Isaiah 1:23 once more:

Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

The similarities are painfully obvious. God's indictment concerns rulers who corrupt their offices through rewards and abandon justice.

What possible authority could an ecclesiastical title possess to exempt its holder from that condemnation?

VII. The Offering God Does Not Want — and the Righteousness He Requires

We must now return to the question of religious sacrifice, because Scripture repeatedly dismantles the notion that outward offerings can substitute for justice, mercy and obedience.

Psalm 50:13–15 asks:

Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

God is exposing the absurdity of approaching Him as though He depended upon sacrificial provisions supplied by human beings. His complaint concerns the mistaken attitude of worshippers who treat sacrifice as sufficient while neglecting obedience.

The psalm does not deny the sacrifices God Himself had commanded under the old covenant. It reveals that their true purpose was never to supply God with something He lacked.

Now consider the language of a continuing priestly offering made to appease the Divine Majesty.

If the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was sufficient, what is the theological necessity of continually presenting it through earthly priests? If Christ's intercession is living and effective, why must His intercession be administered through an institution that claims a special power to offer Him? And if God has already declared the kind of worship that pleases Him, why should believers imagine that elaborate ceremonies can take precedence over His express requirements?

Hosea 6:6 declares:

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

And Micah 6:8 states:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

These are not obscure philosophical statements requiring centuries of theological explanation. They are direct declarations of what God requires.

It is not necessary to purchase an ecclesiastical office in order to do justly. It is not necessary to administer an inquisitorial tribunal in order to love mercy. And it is not necessary to possess the title of pope, cardinal or priest in order to walk humbly with God.

The simplicity of these commandments is precisely what makes the elaboration of ecclesiastical power so disturbing.

How does a religious institution travel from the command to love mercy to the authorization of torture? How does it move from the condemnation of purchasing spiritual power to enormous payments associated with ecclesiastical promotion? How does it advance from Christ's commandment to remember Him to elaborate assertions that priests can offer Him as a victim upon their altars and thereby restrain the judgment of God?

And why should these developments be accepted merely because the institution that created or formalized them claims authority to interpret Scripture?

The apostle Peter warned in 2 Peter 2:3:

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you:

The warning is not limited to one century or one institution. It concerns the enduring danger of turning religious authority into an opportunity for gain.

But the application becomes particularly pointed when the historical records actually contain enormous payments associated with the distribution of religious offices.

The spiritual authority Christ entrusted to His followers was not a commodity, and His flock was not a marketplace.

VIII. When the Lord Comes to Judge the Religious Establishment

There is one final passage that brings these threads together with remarkable force.

Malachi 3:2–3 declares:

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Notice how closely this corresponds to Isaiah 1.

The image is once again that of silver requiring purification. But now the people being purified are specifically the sons of Levi, members of the ancient priestly order.

And who purifies them?

The Lord Himself.

He does not place an earthly religious hierarchy beyond judgment merely because it possesses sacred responsibilities. He subjects the ministers of worship to purification so that their offerings may be made in righteousness.

This passage is particularly revealing because it completely overturns the idea that religious office confers immunity from God's scrutiny.

The priesthood is not the body appointed to restrain God's righteousness. Those who perform sacred duties are themselves among those who must answer to His judgment.

Now continue to Malachi 3:5:

And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.

What an astonishing list of offences.

False swearing, adultery, oppression, injustice and the mistreatment of the vulnerable are precisely the kinds of wickedness God declares He will judge.

The Lord does not suspend these commandments when the offender possesses an ecclesiastical title.

And although Malachi directly addresses the priesthood and community of ancient Israel, the moral principle is applicable to anyone who claims to serve Almighty God while practising the very things He condemns.

Imagine placing this passage beside the inquisitorial proceedings of men who knowingly manufactured accusations, or beside documented abuses involving false testimony, or beside a papal court whose appointments were intertwined with political ambition and immense financial considerations.

Would God be impressed by the official titles of the men responsible?

Would the wearing of a religious garment change the nature of their conduct?

Would their participation in elaborate sacrificial ceremonies reverse His judgment concerning oppression, falsehood or corruption?

Scripture supplies no such exemption.

And the irony becomes almost unbearable when the institution that claims to protect humanity from God's judgment is itself confronted by the very standards through which God declares that He will judge.

Perhaps the question should never have been how priests might prevent God from judging the world.

Perhaps the far more serious question is how those claiming priestly authority expect to stand when the Lord comes to judge the conduct of men who have ruled in His name.

IX. The Religion Christ Described, and the Empire Men Constructed

It is worth remembering that the Roman Catholic Church today acknowledges many of the historical wrongs associated with coercion, religious intolerance and ecclesiastical corruption. Pope John Paul II's request for forgiveness in 2000 was an acknowledgment that members of the Church had acted contrary to the Gospel.

But repentance cannot transform a former wrong into a former righteousness. If torture, persecution and coercion were contrary to the Gospel when they were later condemned, they were contrary to the Gospel when they were first committed.

The Gospel does not change its moral character according to the century in which a pope happens to read it.

Nor can a declaration that the Church remains holy despite the sins of its members settle every historical question concerning the origin, development and exercise of ecclesiastical power. That distinction may explain Catholic theology's understanding of the Church's holiness, but it does not establish that every doctrine, compulsory ceremony, claim of jurisdiction or exercise of institutional authority came from Jesus Christ.

Such claims must still be examined against His words.

And there is a passage in James that provides an extraordinary conclusion to our investigation.

James 1:27 (KJV):

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Consider the immense difference between that description and the historical activities we have examined.

James does not describe pure religion as the accumulation of ecclesiastical wealth, the sale of prestigious religious appointments, the prosecution of dissenters, or the authority of ordained men to administer a continuing sacrificial offering of Christ.

He identifies practical compassion, care for the vulnerable and separation from worldly corruption.

This does not mean that Christian worship consists only of charitable works. It means that Scripture does not permit outward religion to replace obedience to God.

Isaiah condemned rulers who abandoned the widow and fatherless. Malachi condemned those who oppressed the vulnerable. Micah commanded justice and mercy. James identified care for the afflicted as a mark of pure religion. The agreement between these passages is unmistakable.

The God who spoke through Isaiah did not subsequently develop a fondness for oppression because the oppressors adopted Christian titles. The Lord who condemned the purchase of spiritual power through Peter did not grant later religious rulers permission to turn ecclesiastical advancement into an instrument of political finance.

And the Christ who rebuked His disciples for wishing to destroy an unwelcoming village did not command later generations to torture people into religious conformity.

These are the standards against which claims of religious authority must be examined.

We began with a cup of watered wine, an apparently insignificant verse buried within Isaiah's denunciation of a corrupt city. Yet the deeper we have examined that chapter, the more remarkable the connections have become.

Isaiah condemns corrupted wine, vain oblations, bribery, rebellious rulers and the neglect of the fatherless. He declares that God Himself preserved a remnant from Sodom's fate, that the Lord will turn His hand upon His people to purge away their dross, and that Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness.

These are not unrelated statements. They belong to the same divine indictment and the same promise of restoration.

Set them beside the claims of a priesthood that must continually present Christ as a sacrificial victim to avert divine anger, a hierarchy that historically claimed jurisdiction over dissenting consciences, tribunals that employed torture, and a papal administration whose own records reveal immense financial transactions associated with religious promotion.

The contradiction in moral priorities is profound.

God demands righteousness, yet men elevate ritual. God commands mercy, yet men authorize cruelty. God condemns purchasing spiritual power, yet religious offices become entangled with money. God declares that His judgments teach righteousness, yet a priest celebrates the supposed binding of God's hands through a continuing sacrificial ceremony.

And still the institution claims divine authority for its traditions.

It is not enough to answer these questions by saying that the Church has interpreted Scripture in a particular manner for centuries. The duration of a tradition does not establish that Christ commanded it. The antiquity of a ceremony does not demonstrate its divine institution. The existence of a papal decree does not make an act righteous, and the title of a priest does not transform a man's words into the voice of Almighty God.

We must finally ask whose authority is being defended.

Is it the authority of Jesus Christ, whose commandments are recorded in Scripture?

Or is it the authority of an ecclesiastical institution claiming the right to prescribe ceremonies, define the powers of priests, impose judgments upon consciences and perpetuate its own government?

No pope, however magnificent his title, no cardinal, however wealthy his benefices, and no priest, however elaborate his vestments, is the Almighty God.

No man may purchase His gifts, monopolize His mercy, prevent His righteous judgment or declare himself exempt from the commandments that God has placed upon every soul.

And no institution can demonstrate that it possesses the authority of Christ merely by insisting that its own authority is divine.

The most revealing words in this entire investigation may therefore be the simplest.

Isaiah 1:27:

Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

Not with purchased ecclesiastical offices. Not through the torture of men accused of religious error. Not through the accumulation of gold beneath the authority of a supposedly sacred government. And certainly not because earthly priests have acquired the power to prevent Almighty God from carrying out His righteous purposes.

Zion's redemption belongs to the Lord.

If we are to recognise His people, we must look for what He Himself has commanded: righteousness, mercy, truth, humility, justice and faithfulness to His word.

For it is God who judges the Church. It is not the Church that sits in judgment over God.

Historical sources and documents

The principal Catholic doctrinal sources are the Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapters II and VII and Canons III and IX; Pope Pius XI, Ad Catholici Sacerdotii (1935), especially paragraphs 12–16; the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1366–1368; and Canon 924 of the Code of Canon Law.

For the historical documentation concerning ecclesiastical coercion, see the Vatican's history of the Holy Office; Edward Peters' subject as examined in Judicial Torture in Canon Law and Church Tribunals; E. Vacandard, The Inquisition: A Critical and Historical Study; and Pope John Paul II's 2004 letter concerning the Inquisition.

For the financial records surrounding Alexander VI's cardinal appointments, consult Johann Burchard's Diarium, volume III, page 77, and Marino Sanudo's Diarii, volume III, page 855, discussed alongside Giustinian's reports in Machiavelli and the Profession of Arms: Cesare Borgia as a Mercenary Prince. See also the British Library's description of the Burchard diary manuscripts.

For the papal acknowledgment of broader ecclesiastical abuses, see the Vatican's historical-theological document Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past (2000), particularly its discussion of Adrian VI's admission concerning the Roman court.

For Michael Müller's own words, see The Holy Mass: The Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead, Fr. Pustet edition, printed pages 287–289, particularly the explanation of God's supposedly bound hands and the preservation of the world from Sodom's destruction.