According to the Pew Research Center, today there are between 1.3 and 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. They are the largest Christian religion, and Protestants are not far behind, with approximately 1.1 billion Protestants throughout the Earth. The Protestants include evangelicals, Pentecostals, and other historical denominations as well as non-denominational churches.

Historically, Catholics, whose church did not begin until the third century, rely more on patristic teachings, papal statements, ex cathedra, and things of that nature rather than the Bible or, as Protestants say, the Word of God.

Catholics tend to see the Pope as the ultimate authority. Protestants feel, largely speaking, that he has no authority at all, or at least no more than an average preacher or a Sunday school teacher.

But certainly, when it comes to revelation, Protestants believe that the Bible is God revealing his will and counsel to the whole world. Most Protestants don't accept any authority other than the Bible. With the Bible and the Pope contradict, the Pope is absolutely disregarded.

• In fact, it was these kinds of differences that started the Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther. The idea of selling indulgences to get out of hell

• The idea of Mary being The Queen of Heaven

• Mariology

• Canonization of saints

• Making prayers to saints

• Masses

• Confessionals

All of these practices are generally considered to be unbiblical and not given to mankind by revelation, that is, directly by God himself. They are rather considered to be the products of religion, patristic teachings, and the works of the church fathers, but they are not given to us by God in the eyes of worldwide Protestantism.

Biblically grounded Protestants understand that this is why the Pope probably was critical of President Trump and the Iran war.

No one who's even casually read the Bible would dare say that God has never supported men in particular wars, or, as they say, a just war.

Not only has God defended his people in war many times against Egyptians, Philistines, Ammonites, and other enemies in the region where he was dealing with them, but who hasn't heard of the wars of David, of Solomon, of many biblical figures and patriarchs?

Gideon is a perfect example of God not only protecting a man at war but showing him how to go to war with the least number of warriors, because he was going to show him how he would protect him and be his defense, in that war, rather than the numbers of men that he had behind him. Gideon is the perfect biblical example.

In fact, the Bible says that the “Lord is a man of war.” This passage is found in Exodus 15:3. It is part of the Song of Moses, also called at times the Song of the Sea. It was sung by Moses and the Israelites after God delivered them from the Egyptian army, after he parted the Red Sea and drowned the forces of Pharaoh's armies. It is a victory hymn. We can hardly say that Moses' forces, Israelite forces, won this war against Pharaoh, because in fact they fired no arrows, and used no swords. All they did was run away. God beat the army down all by himself.

Does Jesus have any involvement with war?

Were the Pope more biblically grounded, he would understand that at least twice in the entirety of the Scripture Jesus is said to be the maker and the finisher of war.

“And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” Rev 19:15

“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army” Rev 19:19

The Pope's use of the term "just war" borders on absurdity as it pertains to criticizing President Donald Trump.

It is a recurrent biblical theme and a deep teaching of the scriptures that all of God's people should be in the business of trying to relieve oppression and mistreatment of all other human beings.

To say, that what President Trump started in Iran is unjust is to ignore the fact that we're dealing with a country that has killed over 40,000 of its own citizens for just protesting their misuse of deadly nuclear power, funds and money, and hatred of Jews that nobody even knows at this point, why they continue to hate.

If 40,000 people are shot down in the streets of Washington, D.C., we would all, as Americans, hope that somebody like Trump would stand up and come in and hold those who did such a thing accountable.

Here we can safely say, not for criticism's sake, but in reality, the Pope is getting a little pompous.

It is not because we are not Catholic that we don't side with the Pope. It is because Catholicism often has little to do with scriptures. It is also not because we know what is going to happen to Rome in the last days. We also know that Catholicism will be no more in the coming kingdom. But we stick with our President because we do know these things and we do know him and his record, and we're quite proud of him. Being the Pope is one thing, but criticizing our top man is not something we are going to cotton to.

Sorry, Leo, we're going to stand with President Trump.

Picture: Grok

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