Our Response as Christians to the Ascension of Pope Benedict XVI
by Andy Perry

Many of us have participated in church meetings where an issue under discussion was so important that one could cut the thickness of the air. And, it seems, that as a church increases in size and perspective, arriving at a meeting of the minds can grow all the harder. Now imagine your church membership numbers more than one billion and your elder board, as it were, contains 183 leaders. Additionally, one elder is afforded the privilege of being the guiding voice of the church, having the final say on all matters of faith and life. Your chief elder has just died after 27 years of service and the masses pray for guidance for the many elders who meet behind locked doors for days to elect out of their number a new guiding voice.

So it was early last week in the Vatican City as the College of Cardinals met to elect a new pope for the Roman Catholic Church as the world watched and waited. Their choice? Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Munich, Germany. He was a likely choice, having been Pope John Paul II’s theological right hand man for years.

We are Protestant evangelicals who tend to show our pride for the leaders of the 16th Century Reformation when the great break from Rome was made. Aside from our interaction with Catholic family members, co-workers, neighbors and classmates, we rarely give the Vatican much thought. The past few weeks, though, have turned our eyes in that direction. In my short lifetime I’ve witnessed the public mourning of Presidents, celebrities and church leaders, but I do not remember the degree of publicity given to any of them even approaching what we’ve seen in the wake of John Paul’s death. It simply alerts us to the global importance of the pope of Rome. Now that Rome has a new pope on its throne, what should we as evangelicals think? How should we respond to the ascendancy of Joseph Ratzinger mentally, emotionally and spiritually?

Given much of the Catholic Church’s unbiblical doctrine (e.g. justification by faith and works, the veneration of Mary and the saints, the perpetual recrucification of Christ purported in the Mass, etc.), some evangelicals could consider the ascendancy of a new pope largely irrelevant since much Catholic doctrine places its church not in the stream of biblical faithfulness but under God’s hand of judgment as no true denomination at all but an alternative, non-Christian religion. That may be so, yet I believe several factors urge us toward according the new Catholic pontiff our attention.

First, I believe there may be true, born again believers within the Roman Catholic Church who authentically look to Jesus alone for their salvation and refuse to believe the heretical teachings of the Church. The new pope is well placed to influence these believers either toward heresy or orthodoxy.

Second, the spiritual and moral influence of the Catholic Church in the wider cultures of our world is vast and should not be underestimated. The new perspectives and directives of the new pope, for good or bad, will influence the worldview and lives of millions.

Third, some cults like The Worldwide Church of God have in recent years awoken to the error of their misled doctrines and practices and returned to a more biblically faithful Christianity through the prayers and witness of evangelicals. The new pope could, through his own study of the Bible and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, experience such an awakening and lead the Catholic Church in a worldwide movement of true reformation and biblical faithfulness.

Each of these reasons point to the importance of the new pope in Rome. How then should we as evangelicals respond to the ascendancy of Joseph Ratzinger? In several ways:

First, we should thank God for His common grace revealed in the new pope. Even more than John Paul, Benedict XVI will influence the world toward a very conservative stance on abortion, euthanasia, marriage and responsible caution with arms. For all of this we should be thankful.

Second, we should fast and pray that the Lord God would regenerate the pope and awaken him to the doctrinal errors of the Church and the glory of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone. Just because Benedict is morally conservative does not make him a biblical Christian. The heretical doctrine of the veneration of the saints, for instance, led one Roman Catholic in the wake of John Paul’s death to remark, “I’m here [in Rome] not only to pray for him, but also to pray to him, because I believe he’s a saint.” Benedict strenuously upholds the veneration of the saints. The doctrinal purity of Christianity worldwide and glory of God is at stake in the direction the Catholic Church takes in the next generation. Therefore, just as Israel fasted and prayed again and again for repentance and renewal in seasons of apostasy, so we should be on our knees interceding for the same among all who name the name of Christ today.

The movement of the Holy Spirit in the heart of Pope Benedict XVI could change the entire course of history and open up a floodgate for the largest ingathering of new believers in church history. Therefore, let’s not only thank God for working His common grace through Joseph Ratzinger, let’s fast and pray for God’s saving grace to bring him new life.