A Nigerian Catholic Priest Asserts that Nations can Dispense with their Legislative Bodies and Simply Enforce the Catholic Church’s Interpretation of the 10 Commandments

During the reign of papal supremacy, when the power of the Roman Catholic Church was at its highest, the church claimed that it had authority over all secular rulers on matters of civil law. This concept stems from the notion that the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, has spiritual and temporal authority that transcends earthly law. We are seeing a revival of this aggressive claim of religious superiority as Nigerian Catholic Priest John Damian Adizie claims that the 10 Commandment law of God governs all laws, and if ratified as a Constitution, paid political legislators would no longer be necessary.

On March 3, 2024, the Independent, a news source in Nigeria that claims to be the most read newspaper among the political and business elite, published an article by the Roman Catholic Priest John Damian titled “The Significance of the Ten Commandments.” The article said, in part:

• “The Ten Commandment is our guiding principle. It is the Law that controls every other law. It is the Constitution of all constitutions. If people were to embrace the Ten Commandment as their Constitution they will not need to spend all the money they are spending on law makers (furniture allowances, seating allowances, etc). The Ten Commandment covers all!” [1]

•“The book of Exodus 20:1-17 presents us with the Ten Commandment.” [1]

• “The Third Commandment states, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work.” The Sabbath Day is not just a day of rest, it is also a day of worship, a day we worship the Lord our God.” [1]

Here we see a Catholic agent advocating for a system of government where religious doctrine is considered supreme. This also implies that religious leaders should have the primary influence over political decisions. This is a dangerous proposition because there is no separation of powers. Whenever you concentrate the authority of church and state into one, this always leads to the erosion of individual freedoms and rights. Nevertheless, the coming mark of the beast crisis requires this scenario, in which the church rules over the state.

We also see how the law of God has been modified. The Sabbath is part of the Fourth Commandment in the ordering of the Ten Commandments as contained in Exodus 20:8–11. But here we see that the Roman Catholic Church has its own version of the 10 Commandments. Catholics list the Sabbath as the Third Commandment. They deleted the Second Commandment, which forbids the making of graven images. Then they split the Tenth Commandment into two in order to make up for the loss of the second, and they shifted the Sabbath commandment from the fourth to the third. Additionally, Rome also changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. In fact, the papacy boasts of the right to alter the law of God. In other words, Catholics stand guilty by their own admission:

• “Sunday is our Mark of Authority …the church is above the Bible, and the transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” (Catholic Record, Sept 1, 1923).

• “Sunday is a Catholic Institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles … From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first” (The Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August 1900).

• Question: “Have you any other way of proving that the (Catholic) Church has power to institute festivals or precepts (to command holy days)?”

Answer: “Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her: She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority ” (A Doctrinal Catechism, Stephen Keenan, page 176).

• “Protestants accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change…but, the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that, in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.)

• “We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday” (A Doctrinal Catechism, Peter Geiermann, CSSR, 1957 edition, page 50).

• “Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Roman Catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath” (American Catholic Quarterly Review, John Gilmar Shea, January 1883).

The “little horn” of Daniel 7:25 was not only to “speak great words against the Most High” and to “wear out the saints of the Most High;” he would also “think to change times and laws.” The papacy could only “think” to do so because the law of God is an expression of the very nature of God and is therefore as unchangeable as the Lawgiver, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). The psalmist declared: “All His commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness” (Psalm 111:7, 8). Solomon said that to “fear God, and keep His commandments” is “the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14).

Since the 10 Commandments are the divine standard for the judgment, and therefore, the rule of life and conduct, to make even a change so small as to alter the crossing of a “t” or the dotting over an “i” would be characterized as becoming the least of the creatures in the universe (Matthew 5:17–19). In God’s eyes, Rome is indeed the least in the universe engaged in a rebellion against the government of heaven. On the other hand, the truly great ones are those who practice and teach all the commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath, Saturday.

Sources

[1] https://independent.ng/the-significance-of-ten-commandments/