In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Karlo Broussard to discuss a controversial claim that Catholics are pagans infused with Christianity. Karlo responds to the caller’s objections by addressing biblical and historical contexts, aiming to clarify misconceptions about Catholic beliefs and practices.
Transcript:
Cy Kellett: Fred. Why aren’t you Catholic?
Caller: In Ezekiel, God is destroying all of the pagan nations, all of the idols. He’s furious. He’s, like, leveling the entire known planet at the time. One of those idols is the Queen of Heaven. And you guys write that off and you say, oh, that’s just a coincidence. You know, that’s just a coincidence. you know, Jesus says the way is narrow and few. We’re gonna find it. How does that equate to. Oh, actually, the way that you find me is through one of the largest, most powerful, most well organized, most well funded institutions on Earth. And then historically, later on in the time frame when the Roman Empire, adopted Christianity, all of the pagans and everything overnight had to become Christian. So if you can look at this through a long history kind of perspective, I can see how these pagans would have adopted Christian, ah, identity and aspects to them. But they’re still worshiping the same idols from Ezekiel. And you can see, like draw connections to the Freemasons. the Mormons, have a close connection to the idol known as Tammuz.
Cy Kellett: Well, let’s. I don’t want. Because the Mormons aren’t here to answer for themselves. The Freemasons are here to answer. So let’s stick it. Let’s stick with, Catholics as pagans for now. with regard to the Queen of Heaven And Jeremiah, chapter 18, if my memory serves me correctly, I dealt with this in my book, Meeting the Protestant Challenge. You are correct, Fred, that the queen of heaven there is a pagan goddess that the Israelites are worshiping. We’re told that they’re offering cakes to this pagan goddess deity, and they are condemned for that. But notice they are not condemned for calling her Queen of Heaven. They are condemned for the sacrifices offered to her as a deity. If we were to follow the logic that says we cannot call anyone queen of heaven because there was a bad queen of heaven for the Old Testament people of God, then we would have to give up, the title son of a deity or Son of God Jesus or King of the Universe for Jesus, because those are titles that were used for false deities in the past as well. Now, with regard to the Roman Empire and pagans, becoming Christian overnight had to become Christian overnight and adopt Christianity. We could debate as to whether it was prudent or not or right and wrong for secular powers to demand individuals within their community to associate themselves with a particular religious group such as Christianity. But I don’t see how that would be a Threat to the Catholic Church being the church established by Jesus Christ. All that would manifest is those who have power potentially are exercising their power in wrongful ways in relation to religion. And so that just raises a more general question as to whether it applies to the Catholic Church or not. That’s a further conversation to be had. But with regard to your point of looking at things in the Old Testament and identifying where it’s at in institutions today. Well, that’s the big claim. You’re making connections. But the question becomes, is the connection sound? Do we have good evidence to substantiate the connection you’re making? Now you gave the example of Queen of Heaven and Jeremiah, Mary is Queen of Heaven. And I gave a response to undermine that connection because we’re not saying we should be offering cakes or any sacrifice to Mary as a deity. And if a Catholic does that, they need to repent because there is only one to whom we offer sacrifice and that is God alone. with regard to the Jesus speaking of the way toward heaven being narrow, the there, if you find it. And so you see that to be in conflict with finding Jesus through, as you put it, the most powerful, largest church, namely the Catholic Church. Now, my thought in response to that, Fred, is that when Jesus speaks of the way being narrow, he’s speaking of that way toward heaven being something that is a challenge that requires great effort, moved by God’s grace and in cooperation with grace, and that it is not easy to be Christian, especially for the first Christians in the 1st century Christianity, who to be a Christian meant you’re going to die and so you’re going to have to give up your life for Christ. But even moving forward in history, throughout Christianity, whenever martyrdom is no longer on the table for becoming Christian, you have to give up many things, perhaps social status for the sake of Christ, giving up social groups for the sake of Christ, and even death to self and your own will, by submitting to the will of the Father manifested through Jesus and his church. And so that is a very narrow path because There is a lot that is required to be sacrificed to walk along that path to heaven. The path to hell is wide because you just do whatever the heck you want. There is no sacrifice being required for going to hell. There’s no love required, and love necessarily entails sacrifice. So that is the narrowness that Jesus is getting at when he speaks of that path to heaven, not with regard to how big his church was. I mean, think about this, Fred. If we were to follow that logic, brother, we would have to say Jesus himself was wrong for willing his church to be consisting of all nations. He told the apostles in Matthew 28:19, go out into all nations to make disciples. And this is in fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies of the Son of David’s kingdom being from one end of the earth to the other, of all tribes, all tongues, all nations. So according to your logic, the size of the church conflicts, the church being the means by which we come to know God and be in love with God and go to heaven. The size of the church conflicts with Jesus teaching about the way to heaven being narrow. If that’s the case, then Jesus himself would be undermining his own teaching, which. Which, of course, I don’t know if you agree with that or not to be absurd, but if you’re a Christian, that would seem to be absurd coming from a Christian perspective. So you threw out those three points there. Those are my thoughts, at least initially in response. I don’t know if you have any follow up. If you want to follow up. What are your thoughts?
Caller: Yeah, so, it’s definitely a, you know, a lot to reflect on and I think ultimately I’m trying to get to the truth of the matter and.
Karlo Broussard: Good.
Caller: You know, this is why I don’t mind having a conversation with you guys.
Cy Kellett: Thank you.
Caller: But I think too, I think to just throw the baby out with the bath water because you guys aren’t making cakes, but you guys are praying to the Queen of Heaven. You are burning candles. You do have images of Mary everywhere. And you know, there’s something to the effect as well of images and how you’re not supposed to, you know, I forget the exact what was happening. But it, reminds me a lot of like the Orthodox, Catholics, I think, you know, there’s all these images and you know, graven images and they’re looking up to the saints and praying to all these people and, and I don’t think any of that being commanded anywhere in the Bible. It’s kind of the same thing. It just has a modern twist on it. Yeah.
Cy Kellett: Okay, now, now, Fred, that’s actually good that you brought those things up because that indeed furthers the conversation. you’ve presented reasons why you think there is a connection between the idolatrous practices of the Israelites in Jeremiah and what you perceive to be idolatrous practices of Catholics in relation to Mary. So that raises the question, Fred, are these pious activities in and of themselves independent of what somebody might interiorly want or desire with the activity? Are they idolatrous?
Caller: So.
Cy Kellett: So you brought up praying to the Queen of Heaven. I assume you’re referring to Mary there. If you mean by praying to the Queen of Heaven, we worship Mary or we request help from Mary as a deity, we would deny that wholeheartedly, 100%. All we mean by praying to the Queen of Heaven is imploring her help, recognizing her to be within the created order, at the top of the created order. Nevertheless, we. But within the created order, seeking her help as a spiritual mother, not as a deity. You brought up images. We would argue, as I do in my book, the Saints Pray for You, that having images of the Queen of Heaven is not an idolatrous act. The Bible has plenty of religious imagery, including angels representing heavenly beings on the Ark of the Covenant and within the Temple, we have images of this heavenly being, Mary, the Queen of Heaven. And so that doesn’t necessarily entail worship candles. Well, that’s just a sign of her perpetual, Our perpetual request for her help if we have a candle burning in front of her statue. You brought up images. I already addressed that. So those would be particular items that you think are idolatrous practices, but that we can offer, in my estimation, a plausible explanation as to why those particular pious actions are not idolatrous practices in and of themselves, such that if somebody were to employ them and engage with them with a proper disposition, referring to Mary as our Queen Mother, our spiritual mother, not as a deity, then it would be appropriate honor. Now, if a Catholic were to do those things with the intention of worshiping her as a deity, they would need to repent, because that would indeed be idolatry. So thank you so much, Fred, for that conversation. It was. I think it was fruitful, hopefully for the listeners. And God bless you, my friend.