Do we believe in the Catholic doctrine that at the time of death the soul travels to purgatory, a place of suffering or purification, before entering heaven? Apparently, some of our pastors have no objections to the idea of souls being purified in purgatory. On February 26, 2023, the official magazine of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ragusa, Sicily, called “Insieme,” published a story about an interfaith celebration that took place at a Catholic church called Chiesa delle Anime del Purgatorio (Holy Souls in Purgatory Catholic Church).
Inside of the Holy Souls in Purgatory Catholic Church.
The Catholic publication characterized the gathering as “an opportunity for spiritual growth and fraternity between churches of different denominations.” The churches that attended this ecumenical event were as follows, according to the news report: “the Catholic Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Lutheran Evangelical Community of Sicily, the Romanian Orthodox Church (Santa Melania parish), the Pentecostal Christian church of Santa Croce Camerina, the Scoglitti New Creation Pentecostal Christian Church, and the Gospel Forum Pentecostal Christian Church in Vittoria.” [1]
Raising their hands in unity.
The purpose of this meeting was to promote and strengthen the Vatican-led campaign for church unity. That’s what many of the speakers expressed, including Pastor Daniele Passaretta of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Roman Catholic dioceses highlighted some of the main points of the speakers, who publicly argued for the need for the various denominations to come together as one.
Roman Catholic Archbishop La Placa hosted the event.
• Catholic Archbishop: “Archbishop La Placa said: ‘In the end God will ask us if we have succeeded in loving, in realizing God’s dream, the dream of unity. Tonight I ask that unity between the churches become the breath of humanity.'” [1]
• Seventh-day Adventist Pastor: “Daniele Passaretta said: ‘If we want to build something we have to demolish the barriers, build with peace. It is Jesus who gives solidity to our project: to realize Christ’s plan: that all may be one’.” [1]
• Pentecostal Pastor: “Mario Bassotto invited us to ‘open our hearts to the spirit that spreads joy in our hearts and makes us live as brothers’.” [1]
• Catholic Priest: “Don Salvatore Converso compared the unity between the different churches to the work of a musical orchestra, where “different instruments they each perform melodies that make up a single harmony, harmonies that captivate the heart.” [1]
Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Daniele Passaretta spoke about the need to demolish barriers.
It’s not the hearts that are being captivated; it’s the souls that are being ensnared into the arms of God’s chief adversary – Rome. How could any Seventh-day Adventist pastor stand in a Roman Catholic church and urge us to “demolish the barriers” that divide us from one another? How can he claim that Jesus wants us to do this? Pastor Daniele Passaretta is calling for a closer and more intimate relationship with the beast power of Revelation, the principal opponent of God on earth. Some Adventists are seeking “to narrow the gulf” which separates “the reformed churches from Rome” (Great Controversy, p. 289). There is a great gulf that has been fixed between Seventh-day Adventism and the papacy.
“Those who engage in the solemn work of bearing the third angel’s message, must move out decidedly, and in the Spirit and power of God, fearlessly preach the truth, and let it cut. They should elevate the standard of truth, and urge the people to come up to it. It has been lowered down to meet the people in their condition of darkness and sin. It is the pointed testimony that will bring up the people to decide. A peaceful testimony will not do this. The people have the privilege of listening to this kind of teaching from the pulpits of the day. But God has servants to whom he has entrusted a solemn, fearful message, to bring out and fit up a people for the coming of Christ. There is as great a difference in our faith and that of nominal professors, as the heavens are higher than the earth” (Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 2, p. 299).
They are all following the same script.
Tragically, we are seeing our own pastors “stretching their hands across the gulf” and reaching over the “abyss abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power” (Great Controversy, p. 588). This effort to bring the various churches under one umbrella poses several threats to our faith and mission. Unfortunately, the ecumenical movement leads to doctrinal compromises. It silences all conversations that have to do with error, heresies and false doctrine. That is why our pastors can walk into the Holy Souls in Purgatory Catholic Church and call for the removal of the barriers that separate us from each other.
The ecumenical movement also seeks to erase our personal identities and replace them with the idea that we are all one and the same. This diminishes the need for having a remnant church that is calling people to come out of Babylon because ecumenism teaches that all denominations, with their various conflicting traditions, are special and unique and should be embraced and celebrated. These interfaith ideologies are replacing the pure biblical Three Angels’ Messages with a watered-down version of Adventism that lacks the fullness of truth.
No ecumenical event is complete without the Virgin Mary.
This global movement that is helping the churches overcome divisions by promoting greater cooperation and understanding originated in the Vatican. Tragically, this is causing many of our own pastors to tolerate and even promote Catholic errors and traditions. What is happening in Italy, as well as in many other places across the world, presents a serious threat to our people. And if we continue down this path, we will end up, not in the imaginary place called purgatory, but in the lake of fire:
“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” Revelation 19:20.
Sources
[1] https://www.insiemeragusa.it/2023/02/26/lunita-tra-le-chiese-diventi-il-respiro-dellumanita/
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You overlooked the obelisk with the sundial and square in the middle that is behind the speakers.
The church that holds to the word of God is irreconcilably separated from Rome. Protestants were once thus apart from this great church of apostasy, but they have approached more nearly to her, and are still in the path of reconciliation to the Church of Rome. Rome never changes. Her principles have not altered in the least. She has not lessened the breach between herself and Protestants; they have done all the advancing. But what does this argue for the Protestantism of this day? It is the rejection of Bible truth which makes men approach to infidelity. It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy. – ST February 19, 1894
It is souls like Luther, Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and the thousands of noble men who were martyrs for the truth’s sake, who are the true Protestants. They stood as faithful sentinels of truth, declaring that Protestantism is incapable of union with Romanism, but must be as far separated from the principles of the Papacy as is the east from the west. Such advocates of truth could no more harmonize with “the man of sin” than could Christ and his apostles. In earlier ages the righteous felt that it was impossible to affiliate with Rome, and, though their antagonism to this system of error was maintained at risk of property and life, yet they had courage to maintain their separation, and manfully struggled for the truth. Bible truth was dearer to them than wealth, honor, or even life itself. They could not endure to see the truth buried under a mass of superstition and lying sophistry. They took the word of God in their hands, and raised the standard of truth before the people, boldly declaring that which God had revealed unto them through diligent searching of the Bible. They died the cruelest of deaths for their fidelity to God, but by their blood they purchased for us liberties and privileges that many who claim to be Protestants are easily yielding up to the power of evil. But shall we yield up these dearly bought privileges? Shall we offer insult to the God of heaven, and, after he has freed us from the Romish yoke, again place ourselves in bondage to this antichristian power? Shall we prove our degeneracy by signing away our religious liberty, our right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience? – ST February 19, 1894
The voice of Luther, that echoed in mountains and valleys, that shook Europe as with an earthquake, summoned forth an army of noble apostles of Jesus, and the truth they advocated could not be silenced by fagots, by tortures, by dungeons, by death; and still the voices of the noble army of martyrs are telling us that the Roman power is the predicted apostasy of the last days, the mystery of iniquity which Paul saw beginning to work even in his day. Roman Catholicism is rapidly gaining ground. Popery is on the increase, and those who have turned their ears away from hearing the truth are listening to her delusive fables. Papal chapels, papal colleges, nunneries, and monasteries are on the increase, and the Protestant world seems to be asleep. Protestants are losing the mark of distinction that distinguished them from the world, and they are lessening the distance between themselves and the Roman power. They have turned away their ears from hearing the truth; they have been unwilling to accept light which God shed upon their pathway, and are therefore going into darkness. They speak with contempt of the idea that there will be a revival of the past cruel persecution on the part of Romanists and those who affiliate with them. They do not recognize the fact that the word of God fully predicts such a revival, and will not concede that the people of God in the last days shall suffer persecution, although the Bible says, “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” – ST February 19, 1894
Satan’s masterpiece of deception is popery; and while it has been demonstrated that a day of great intellectual darkness was favorable to Romanism, it will also be demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is also favorable to its power; for the minds of men are concentrated on their own superiority, and do not like to retain God in their knowledge. Rome claims infallibility, and Protestants are following in the same line. They do not desire to search for truth and go on from light to a greater light. They wall themselves in with prejudice, and seem willing to be deceived and to deceive others. – ST February 19, 1894
But though the attitude of the churches is discouraging, yet there is no need of being disheartened; for God has a people who will preserve their fidelity to his truth, who will make the Bible, and the Bible alone, their rule of faith and doctrine, who will elevate the standard, and hold aloft the banner on which is inscribed, “The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” They will value a pure gospel, and make the Bible the foundation of their faith and doctrine. – ST February 19, 1894
For such a time as this, when men are casting aside the law of the Lord of hosts, the prayer of David is applicable,—“It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law.” We are coming to a time when almost universal scorn will be heaped upon the law of God, and God’s commandment-keeping people will be severely tried; but will they lose their respect for the law of Jehovah because others do not see and realize its binding claims? Let God’s commandment-keeping people, like David, reverence God’s law in proportion as men cast it aside and heap upon it disrespect and contempt. – ST February 19, 1894
This pastor sounds like a Jesuit.
No, they need to demolish their relationship with the ecumenical movement.
This pastor has lost his vision. This is what ecumenism leads to. He’s not alone.
We have to preserve the spirit of Protestantism, not demolish it. What has happened to these pastors? Where are they getting their training?
To the adventmessenger.org admin, Keep up the good work, admin!
We need to build a bigger wall, not demolish it.
I am pastor Daniele Passaretta, I invite you to examine everything before writing false articles about people. No one asked me if those words were true, no one asked me for explanations, no one sought the truth through me. Yet you took the liberty of writing an article about me without investigating. You are not serious people.
Is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ragusa lying? They published the images and quoted you. We simply reported what revealed.
What were you doing at the meeting promoting ecumenism