Who is the Holy Father? Is it God or is it the Pope in Rome? Former Priest Bennett

Former Roman Catholic priest for 22 years Richard Bennett (website: http://www.BEREANBEACON.ORG) on the question "Who is the Holy Father?" Richard is joined in studio by Pastor Bill Mencarow of Reformation Church Texas (website: https://worldunderchrist.wordpress.com/) located in Boerne, Texas.

Under the title of Holy Father, Pope Francis is due to visit the USA in September 2015. Thus, we ask the question, “Who truly is your Holy Father?” A Christian’s relationship with the Holy Father is crucial. Thus, Jesus Christ prayed, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” Only those who have been placed in Christ Jesus by God’s grace alone have the right and privilege to call Holy God their Father. Nevertheless, the Vatican both teaches a different gospel and, on its website, claims a successive chain of 266 “holy fathers,” or popes, from St. Peter to Pope Francis.

The great visible center of religious life is the Pope and the Vatican. Papal Rome enjoys its apparent worldly pre-eminence and exercises an authoritarian dominion over the political and religious thinking of hundreds of millions. However, the true Kingdom of God in the spiritual body of Christ continues its triumphant growth under the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit. Hidden from the view of the world and not perceptible as an institutional force, the true Church remains the ultimate fact of human history yet to be fully revealed at the Lord’s return. Of these two contemporary entities, the Vatican has, according to the revealed will of God, unhappily proven itself to be the most dominant.