According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Volume 4, under the article Dagon, there is a perspective on the Philistine fish god Dagon as an abomination to the God of Israel. God warns His people not to make, wear, or use any symbol, image, icon, or emblem to represent Him or His church, explicitly rejecting symbols like the cross, the fish, and the Triquetra.

The Roman Catholic Church changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, and Catholic sources freely admit it. Cardinal Gibbons states that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, contains not a line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday, that the Scriptures enforce Saturday, and that the Church, not Christ, changed the day. Catholic catechisms and writers say the Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday by her own power, without Scriptural authority, and that this power to institute holy days is proved by that very act. Catholics do not accept the Bible alone as the rule of faith; they add the living Church and her authority, which they say may change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. The change belongs with other Church laws such as Friday abstinence and the unmarried priesthood, and one writer claims the same authority for Sunday as for Purgatory. Catholic voices say that Protestants, who hold to the Bible alone, should logically return to the seventh-day Sabbath, and that their keeping of Sunday contradicts them and is laughable. One writer has the Church declaring that by her divine power she abolishes the Sabbath and commands the first day, and the civilized world obeys. Even Protestant witnesses acknowledge Sunday rests on Church authority, and one Anglican bishop says the change was made on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church. This substitution came decades after the apostles, through a politico-religious system.

Catholic doctrine has for centuries taught both that hell exists as eternal punishment and that the soul is immortal. The catechism affirms hell's eternity, describing it as eternal separation from God, and says the human person is endowed with a spiritual, immortal soul. Benedict XVI reaffirmed in 2007 that hell exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to Christ's love. When Pope Francis was reported as saying there is no hell and that unrepentant souls simply disappear, the Vatican disowned the quotation as Scalfari's reconstruction, while Cardinal Nichols said no Catholic teaching places any particular person in hell and that the fire-and-brimstone imagery belongs to Catholic iconography, not doctrine. Our own view is that the unrepentant will be burned up in the Lake of Fire and disappear, not burn forever, so Francis may be onto something, though this is not exactly what we teach. Catholic leaders sense serious holes in the doctrines of hell and the soul's immortality, but they lack God's Spirit and the courage to follow the truth, because correcting these doctrines would dismantle most fundamental Catholic beliefs. Catholic theology is a house of cards, and removing the immortal soul would force many other changes. To protect it, the church created the Inquisition, now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is led by a hardline orthodox prelate such as Cardinal Ratzinger, once known as "God's Rottweiler," and now Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer. Francis has been accused of fostering confusion, demeaning doctrine, appointing bishops with dubious teaching, intimidating objectors, and eroding Catholics' confidence in their shepherd, which shows the church is shaky.

The Catholic Church has been a formidable force throughout the history of Western civilization, from the Medieval period through the Reformation and Renaissance, up to the present age, influencing the world in ways that all informed individuals must acknowledge. Its considerable impact is evident in historical novels such as *The Three Musketeers*, where the main antagonist is the sinister Cardinal Richelieu, and in *Les Miserables*, set amidst the turmoil following the French Revolution, where the Church plays a more subtle but significant role. With a worldwide membership of 1.2 billion people, the Catholic Church is the largest organized religious entity unbound by national borders, guided instead by the beliefs of its adherents. Many of these followers look to it for political and social guidance, making it not merely a religious organization but a powerful political and economic force, comparable to a large nation rather than a traditional church. The Vatican, officially recognized as a state, is the smallest in the world, occupying just a few square miles, yet its demographic strength, with a population three times greater than that of the United States, rivals even the largest nations like China and India. Historically, the Church has been morally conservative, generally teaching biblical morality, though it does not engage in warfare directly but often takes sides in conflicts, leading to numerous clashes with European royalty. It maintains a state department and an intelligence service, regarded by some experts as the world's best, to closely monitor global events and protect its interests, deeply intertwining it with worldly affairs. In recent decades, the Catholic Church has been viewed as a conservative organization, traditionally anti-Communist, anti-dictatorship, and supportive of republican forms of government and capitalism. However, under the current Pope Francis, this stance appears to be undergoing a dramatic reversal. Reports indicate that Pope Francis is steering the Church toward what he calls a church for the poor, embracing liberation theology, a movement that was previously condemned as heresy by Pope John Paul II and systematically targeted for eradication under Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger, a conservative German and strict disciplinarian, headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's internal investigation group, and during his papacy, removed or forced the resignation of around 500 priests worldwide for heresy related to liberation theology or involvement in sexual abuse scandals. Following his unprecedented resignation, the first in Catholic history, Pope Francis assumed office, seemingly ushering in a liberal shift. The address *Evangelii Gaudium*, recently delivered by Pope Francis, marks a significant leftward swing in Church policy, potentially indicating the direction of future challenges as global events unfold.