Catholic Church departs from Christ: 10 solid detours

“We are not writing these things to you so that you may not know that you have eternal life—you who believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13, WEB)

Why this tract—and why these ten points

Every so often a viewer asks a fair question: Why aren’t Protestants Catholic? Behind the question is usually something deeper. Someone grew up with the Mass, or a friend insists that leaving Rome means leaving the true Church, or a social feed claims that “Bible-only” Christianity is a modern invention.

About seventy-five years ago, a mid-twentieth-century Lutheran tract took that challenge head-on. It was titled The Split Between Roman Catholicism and Christ, and its cover asked a blunt question: Which will you choose—Man’s Word or God’s Word? Page after page, it printed Roman Catholic sources on the left and Scripture on the right. It did not invent quotations. It cited papal bulls, councils, and Catholic encyclopedias, then asked whether those claims match the Bible.

The pamphlet is public domain. An English scan is available free online (link at the end). A Spanish printing once circulated in Central America; that publisher closed decades ago, and a clean public Spanish link is hard to find today. The tract was withdrawn in many places after the Second Vatican Council, but the doctrines it measured against Scripture did not all disappear.

This article is not the whole tract. It is an invitation. Below are ten of its most relevant points for today’s audience, summarized in plain language, with the Bible open. If any of them hit home—or if you want the historical documents, remaining points, and full side-by-side layout—go read the tract itself.

1. Justification by faith alone

At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), Rome condemned the teaching that a person is justified by faith alone. The tract quotes Trent’s Session VI, Canon 12, which anathematizes that view, and notes that a leading voice at Trent called “justification by faith only” a heresy that must be overthrown.

But Paul writes:

“We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” (Romans 3:28, WEB)

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, WEB)

The gospel is not “try harder until God accepts you.” It is Christ crucified and risen, received by faith. Good works follow as fruit. They do not purchase the verdict. If Trent’s curse falls on “faith alone,” the tract argues, it falls on the apostle Paul—and on the free gift Jesus offers.

2. Tradition made equal to Scripture

Trent also elevated church tradition to equal authority with the Bible. Catholic sources the tract cites say there are revealed truths outside Scripture, and that Catholicism cannot simply be identified with the Gospel of Christ alone.

Scripture answers differently:

“Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8, WEB)

“Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17, WEB)

If the written Word thoroughly equips the believer, adding a parallel stream of binding tradition that can create new dogmas is not a small adjustment. It changes who has the last word.

3. Purgatory

The tract opens its timeline with purgatory (dated to 593 in its cover chronology). It quotes Cardinal O’Connell affirming a place where petty faults or temporal punishment are expiated, and Trent Session XIV, Canon 12, which anathematizes the claim that God always remits the whole punishment with the guilt.

The Bible never names purgatory. Jesus told the repentant thief:

“Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43, WEB)

And Hebrews says:

“For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14, WEB)

If Christ has already perfected those who are His, a long afterlife of purifying torment is not a gentle add-on. It is a different map of the afterlife than the New Testament draws.

4. Mary’s sinlessness and the Assumption

In 1854 Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception: that Mary was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her conception. In 1950 Pius XII defined the bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven, to be believed under pain of damnation. The tract notes that Catholic sources themselves admit there is no direct, categorical proof of these dogmas in Scripture.

Scripture says:

“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23, WEB)

And Mary herself said:

“My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” (Luke 1:46–47, WEB)

If Mary needed a Savior, she was not outside the need for salvation. Honoring her as the mother of our Lord is biblical. Binding consciences to dogmas Scripture does not teach is another matter.

5. Mary as mediator—or “co-redeemer”

The tract’s closing pages warned that a further dogma—Mary as mediatrix of all graces—was under consideration. Popular Catholic devotion has long used titles like “Mediatrix” and, in some circles, “Co-redemptrix.”

Paul’s words leave little room for a second saving mediator:

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5, WEB)

Even Rome has recently cautioned about the strongest of those titles. In November 2025 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published the doctrinal note Mater Populi Fidelis, which judged the title “Co-redemptrix” inappropriate because it risks obscuring Christ’s unique role as Redeemer. That warning actually underscores the Protestant concern: when Marian language starts to sound like shared redemption, the gospel gets foggy. Mary points to Jesus. She does not share His office as the one Mediator who gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6).

6. Papal infallibility

In 1870 the First Vatican Council defined that the Pope, when speaking ex cathedra on faith or morals, is infallible. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry the tract quotes admits that primacy and infallibility were not recognized in these terms in the early centuries. The decrees anathematize those who contradict.

Jesus said:

“Neither be called masters, for one is your master, the Christ.” (Matthew 23:10, WEB)

Christians honor church leaders. But a man claiming a divine guarantee that his formal teaching cannot err is a late, weighty claim. The New Testament’s Master is Christ. Apostles corrected one another (Galatians 2:11–14). Scripture, not a later office, is the measuring stick.

7. Transubstantiation and adoration of the Host

In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council defined transubstantiation: that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood in substance. The tract pairs that with the later practice of adoring the consecrated Host, noting that Catholic sources themselves say perpetual adoration has “no trace” in the early church. Trent Session XIII, Canon 4, backs the change of substance.

Paul still calls the elements bread and cup after the blessing:

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26, WEB)

And Jesus said:

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24, WEB)

Believers disagree among Protestants about how Christ is present at the Lord’s Table. What the tract presses is this: Scripture never teaches that the bread ceases to be bread in the philosophical sense Rome requires, and turning the sacrament into an object of adoration goes beyond what the apostles wrote.

8. Indulgences—and why the 2025 Jubilee still matters

The tract treats indulgences as Rome’s system for remitting “temporal punishment” from a treasury of merits, including those of Mary and the saints. It quotes Catholic Encyclopedia definitions of plenary and partial indulgences and the Pope’s power to grant them.

That system did not vanish with Luther’s protest. During the Ordinary Jubilee Year of 2025, the Apostolic Penitentiary published a decree (May 13, 2024) explaining how the faithful could obtain a plenary Jubilee indulgence—through pilgrimage, pious visits, works of mercy, confession, Communion, prayer for the Pope’s intentions, and freedom from attachment to sin—even applying it to souls in purgatory. Whatever else one thinks of that Holy Year, it showed that indulgences remain official Catholic teaching in the twenty-first century.

Scripture points elsewhere:

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7, WEB)

“None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their life is costly, no payment is ever enough.” (Psalm 49:7–8, WEB)

Christ’s blood cleanses from all sin. No human treasury tops that.

9. Mandatory clerical celibacy

The tract dates a decisive turn to Gregory VII (1075), who declared clerical marriages invalid, and to the First Lateran Council (1123), which required such marriages to be broken. It calls this a forced rewriting of family life for the clergy.

Paul’s qualifications for overseers assume marriage is honorable in ministry:

“The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching.” (1 Timothy 3:2, WEB)

And he warns against forbidding marriage:

”…forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:3, WEB)

Celibacy can be a gift (1 Corinthians 7). Making it a universal law for priests is not what the pastoral letters describe. Peter himself had a mother-in-law (Mark 1:30)—which means he had a wife.

10. Scapulars and sacramentals

Under “Scapulars” (dated about 1600 on the tract’s cover), the pamphlet quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Brown Scapular’s promised privileges: that whoever dies wearing it will be preserved from hell, and that Mary will give special Saturday help after death. Medals later substituted for cloth; the indulgences apply while the object is worn.

John’s letter cuts a cleaner line:

“My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” (1 John 2:1, WEB)

Christ is the Advocate. Trusting a piece of cloth—or any sacramental object—as a near-guarantee of escape from hell relocates confidence from the finished work of Jesus to a religious token. Wear what you will. Do not rest your soul on it.

What the tract is really asking

Taken together, these ten points are not a pile of trivia. They ask one question: Who has the final word—Christ speaking in Scripture, or a system that can add dogmas, punishments, mediators, and guarantees Scripture never taught?

Rome’s answer has often been: the Church’s living authority, tradition alongside the Bible, and obedience to the Pope. The tract’s answer is: open the Bible. Read what God has actually said. Choose God’s Word.

You do not have to hate Catholics to take that choice seriously. You only have to love the truth enough to test every teaching—including Protestant ones—by Scripture (Acts 17:11).

If you want more:

This article covered ten points. The pamphlet has more than twenty, including historical forgeries, the Inquisition, Unam Sanctam, the Syllabus of Errors, and the withholding of the communion cup from the laity. It prints Catholic sources beside the verses. It is free to read.

English PDF (Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne library scan):
https\://ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/TheSplitBetweenRomanCatholicismandChrist.pdf

If a point above unsettled you, don’t stop with a summary. Open the scan. Check the citations. Then open your Bible—World English Bible, a study Bible you trust, whatever you will actually read—and ask the only question that finally matters:

Which will you choose—man’s word, or God’s Word?

And if you have never trusted Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins, hear the invitation still standing:

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36, WEB)

Jesus is enough. His blood is enough. His Word is enough. Come to Him.