#ThisIsWhy Abortion Is Legal: Catholic gospel

Welcome back to This Is Why. This week we're talking about the theological system of belief that characterizes the great majority of the pro-life movement, Roman Catholicism. What follows is not meant to be an indictment against Roman Catholics as individuals, but the theological system that they hold to and the implications that system has for how they fight abortion.

At End Abortion Now, we believe there are in fact well-meaning Roman Catholics who genuinely want to see abortion ended. However, it's our conviction that the position of the Roman Catholic Church will never allow for that to happen, which is why it must be abandoned for the gospel-centered hope of the local Christian church.

Roman Catholicism and the Pro-Life Movement

Recently, one of the major pro-life news platforms, LifeSite News, posted an article with a letter from Pope Francis enclosed that stated the church would issue plenary indulgences for members who attended the 2018 March for Life.

In Roman Catholic theology, indulgences allow Catholics to escape the temporal punishment of purgatory they will receive due to their sins. The article reads, quote, Catholic doctrine on purgatory and indulgences reveals a major difference between Catholic and Protestant theology about whether one's actions, assisted by grace, can remove temporal punishment due to sin.

The Catholic Church teaches that a plenary indulgence, the kind available to Catholics attending the 2018 March for Life, frees a person from all temporal punishment due to sin. In other words, if a Catholic properly received the plenary indulgence at the 2018 March for Life and then immediately died, he would go straight to heaven rather than spend some time in purgatory, end quote.

Now this is absolutely critical and it reiterates what Roman Catholic theology.

Teaches.

Galatians and the False Gospel of Works

In Galatians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul declares that even if an angel appears and preaches another gospel than salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, then Christians are to tell that angel to go back to hell where he came from.

However,.

In the Council of Trent, the Church declares that that gospel, which gospel? The gospel of justification by faith is the one accursed by God and that grace assisted works are what make us righteous. Roman Catholicism has a false gospel.

It is a different one than the one taught in scriptures. According to Galatians chapter 5, we know that anyone who in any way tries to mingle faith and works together in order to get right with God is severed from Christ and that his atoning sacrifice has become of no effect to them.

They've fallen away from grace. But here's the real question. How does this inform the motivations of the Roman Catholic Church in fighting.

Abortion, Works, and Motivation

Abortion?

Father Frank Pavone continues in the article, quote, the opportunity to gain the indulgence reflects the fact that those who march for life are making a sacrifice motivated by love for their unborn neighbors.

Pavone explained, moreover, it reflects the fact that the pro-life movement is not simply a response to Roe versus Wade, it is a response to Jesus Christ, end quote. Now, in a system where purgatory can be bypassed for heaven due to works, can love for the unborn truly be the primary motivation?

That's the question we have to ask. And how about this one? What response is the pro-life movement making to Jesus Christ by their works righteous methodology? Well, the statement is this. Christ's vicarious death on the cross was insufficient to save sinners and that the incomplete gospel must be coupled with things like pro-life activism among a myriad of other works in order to somehow fill in the gaps.

We have to face the truth. How can the Roman Catholic Church ever be serious about ending abortion when pro-life activism has become a work of their own salvation? They must complete. Ending abortion for them just becomes another work done in the name of making themselves righteous rather than working from the finished sacrifice of Christ and his sure promise of victory over this culture of death that we live in.

The Roman Catholic Church cannot and will not ever be able to say with one unified voice that abortion is finished because they can't hear the words of Jesus on the cross saying it is finished. But wait, doesn't the Roman Catholic Church affirm the Trinity?

The True Gospel and the Christian Response

The deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the death and resurrection of our Lord? Yes, but a false gospel will still send people to hell regardless of what else they believe to be true about the true God.

The Christian church must speak into this community of people who hold to this theology of death and keep this fight centered instead on the true gospel. We will never win women's hearts to a false gospel stacked miles high with works that God sees as filthy rags.

The Roman Catholic Church and its false gospel have utterly failed to end abortion and this is why it remains legal and why the Christian church and the true gospel of Jesus Christ are the only true hope.

So please, join us, fight with us, share this message and speak to your Roman Catholic friends and family and those in your community. Share with them the only hope to end abortion and save their eternal souls.

Thank you.