If you were really smart, you would know what the definition of a "cult" really is. Why are you so bitter, anyway?
Robert01,
Do you know the defintion of a cult?
Webster.com
Main Entry: cult
Pronunciation: 'k<
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate -- more at WHEEL
Date: 1617
1 : formal religious veneration : WORSHIP
2 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
Consider the following, to at least know where the guy is coming from:
Dr. Bill Jackson, president of the Association of Fundamentalists Evangelizing Catholics (AFEC), prepared the following, "The Marks of a Cult," as applied to the Roman Catholic Church:
1) Extra Biblical Revelation. Dr. Ludwig Ott, probably the most readable and conservative Roman Catholic theologian, has written in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma: ?Theology, like faith, accepts as the source of its knowledge Holy Writ and Tradition ... and also the doctrinal assertions of the church ? this latter means the day by day teaching ministry of the Church through the pope and the bishops united with the pope.? (This latter is referred to as the Magesterium.)
2) False Basis of Salvation. From Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), #16: ?the ways of reaching beatitude?through right conduct, with the help of God?s law and grace, through conduct that fulfills the twofold commandment of charity, specified in God?s Ten Commandments.?
3) Uncertain Hope. A very complimentary article in The Philadelphia Inquirer stated of the late Cardinal Krol: ?He doesn?t have to worry about food, clothing, shelter. What are his worries? ?My salvation, getting to Heaven? says the Prelate.?
4) Presumptuous Messianic Leadership. If the pope is NOT the Vicar of the Messiah (Christ), he is presumptuous in thus identifying himself. Jesus Christ knew His church would need an infallible Head, so He Himself chose His Vicar in John 14:26, 15:26 and 16:7-15. This Vicar is not only infallible, He is infinite. He is the Holy Spirit.
5) Doctrinal Ambiguity. From the New Catholic Encyclopedia: ?The Bible as a literary work had traditions that included myth? (Vol. 10, p. 184); ?Some of the miracles recorded in Holy Scripture may be fictional and include imaginative literary exaggerations. The episode of Noah and the Ark is imaginative literary creation? (Vol. 9, p. 887); ?The Gospels are not biographies of Jesus and still less scientific history? (Vol. 12, p. 403).
6) Claims of Special Discoveries. These, in Catholicism, are numberless. They go from the Letter of the Oration, a ?true letter? of Jesus found in the Holy Sepulchre to the revelations at Fatima (an apparition approved by the Vatican). In between are countless appearances of Mary to Catherine Laboure, Simon Stock, the visionaries at Medjugorje and Bernadette Soubirous, etc. Add a few of Bob and Penny Lord?s ?Eucharistic Miracles? and you have more special discoveries than all the other cults combined.
7) Defective Christology. Pius XII?s encyclical, Mediator Dei: Christ ?has offered and continues to offer Himself as a victim for our sins.? Hebrews 9:25 says, ?nor yet that he should offer himself often.? Hebrews 10:14, ?For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.?
8) Segmented Biblical Attention. ?The Seven Verses of Scripture Authoritatively Interpreted by Rome? (from the Denver Catholic Register, 3/29/90, p. 10): ?Father (Francis X.) Cleary (S.J.), scripture scholar and professor in the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University, writes, ?Many people think that the Church has an official ?party line? about every sentence in the Bible. In fact, only seven passages have been definitively interpreted.??
9) Enslaving Organizational Structures. This may not be as evident in contemporary ?liberated? American Catholicism, but it was very much a fact for Europe?s millions in past centuries. All were taught that there was no salvation outside of the Catholic Church, which through her bishops could impose anathemas or excommunication seemingly at will. The masses of people were controlled by that system. Even the kings of Europe quaked at the possibility of papal displeasure.
10) Financial Exploitation. The coins ringing in the coffers of Tetzel have ceased, and exorbitant payments for early purgatorial release can be relegated to previous centuries, but the very fact that any Mass stipend is expected for Masses to remit fictitious purgatorial suffering is a case for financial exploitation.
11) Denunciation of Others. Priest Lawrence Feeney of the Boston Heresy Trial believed ?extra nullus salus ecclesia? (no salvation outside the church). He was approached by Bobby Kennedy, who complained that Feeney was sending his Protestant friends to hell. Feeney replied, ?I?m not sending them to hell, but I am telling them where to come if they want to get to Heaven.?
12) Syncretism. From Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), #846: ?Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try by their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience?those too may achieve eternal salvation.?