The Oxford Union is the most famous debating society in the world. It was established in 1823 as a forum for Oxford University students and has hosted international guests like Malcolm X, the Dalai Lama, and Mother Teresa. In November of 1967, Dr. Ian Paisley was invited to debate the relevance of the Roman Catholic Church to the 20th century. The debate was televised live to millions throughout the United Kingdom and King Paisley argued to the taunts of thousands of students. His refusal to take points of information caused anger in some, but enabled him to preach the truth relatively unhindered. Listen now as Dr. Paisley gives his side of the argument against St. John Stivas, a Roman Catholic member of the British House of Commons. It is now a very great pleasure indeed that I call upon the Reverend Dr. Ian Paisley, moderator of the Pre-Presbyterian Church, to speak first. Mr. President, sir, I'd like to say how very delighted I am to know that I am at the bottom of the rung in the previous speaker's estimation. She started off, of course, putting her fellow Catholics first, and then some people a little lower down, as separate at Brennan, then heretics, and then Paisley last. And then at the end, she had to add to that the term of bigot or bigotry. I'd like to say, first of all, that anything that I say here tonight is not said to insult any individual Roman Catholic. Some people, of course, think that the language of denunciation is bigotry. But I would remind you that the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Cathead and King of the Church, used a very strong language in denouncing the false prophets of his day. He didn't call them beautiful liars or lovely sepulchers. He described them the way they were. Well, there has been another intervention that he didn't call them harlots. I think if the speaker read the seventeenth chapter of Revelation, he would think that Something else which I might use by way of preface, and that is this, that I would like to define my attitude towards this motion. dissociating myself from the one who proposed it. I want to speak against the claims that the Church of Rome makes, and those claims are threefold. First of all, she claims to be the holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church, the mother and mistresses of all churches. And then she claims that the Pope is the successor of St. Peter and the vicar or substitute for Jesus Christ on earth. And then she claims that outside the Catholic faith There can be no salvation. Is this a point of order? Well, if it's a point of order, I will give way. If it's only a point of information, I'll give the information not. And the last section of the Creed of Pope Pius IV states clearly that outside the Catholic faith there can be no salvation. So that's an infallible pope speaking. I'm sorry, I can't take points of information. If I'm going to stick to my timetable, I will have to continue. Order. Now, I want to say this. Associate members, thank you. I want to say that against these claims that wrong me, But I must reject these claims because, first of all, the central act of Rome's worship is idolatry and blasphemy. Now, this language is not my language. This is the language of the historical tweet of the Protestant churches. The Church of England in her articles of religion states clearly that masses are blasphemous evils and dangerous deceits. The Westminster Confession of Faith which is the creed of the Presbyterians, states that the sacrifice of mass is most abominably injurious to Christ's one only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of the elect. By the Heidelberg Catechism states that the mass at bottom is nothing else than a denial of the one sacrifice and passion of Jesus Christ and an accursed idolatry. I am simply stating here this evening what historical Protestantism has stood for, a Protestantism agreeable to the Word of God. In the mass, I brought a whiffer with me. I might say, do you want to see it? Oh, I'll hold it up for you. I want to say, I want to say here this evening, these people say it's a shame to bring this biscuit here, I want to say that this whiffer After it is consecrated, the Church of All Teachers is the actual body, bones, blood, hair, muscles, and DNA of Jesus Christ. I'm calling from the cannons of the Council of Trent, and this is their ship, and they believe that this should be worshipped. They believe that it is the whole Christ to be carried along and to be worshipped. I want to say this evening that we believe no such thing. And it was against the idolatry of the mass that the Reformers made their great protest. against the system of Romanism. The Lord Jesus Christ offered on the cross one full, complete, and never-to-be-repeated sacrifice for sins, and He does not come down from heaven at the whim of a bachelor priest to re-enlighten us. It's a point of information. A point of information. Well, you'll get something of information in a moment. The speaker is perfectly limited of you to take points of information. Thank you. Would you continue, George? Thank you. I want to emphasize this evening that Protestants believe that this is as is set out in the creed of the Church of England, the Presbyterian Church, and the other Reformed churches, that this May I ask that you consolidate, all of you gentlemen and ministers, to speak in the morning. It doesn't matter what we say about the Romans coming over here, there's more to come. It's not a sign, there's more to come as you can see. It is evident. It is a point of order. It is not a point of order. I supply you. It is a point of order. Instead, to allow Mr. Painter, I would insist on your original relationship. It is indeed a point of order, and I do apologize, Mr. President. Mr. President, Dr. Ian Paisley. And I'd like to inform our friend not to believe all that's written in the paper which is being circulated. And I'd like to say that I hold a Doctor of Divinity degree from Bob Jones University. Just a minute now. A large fundamentalist school in the United States from which Dr. Billy Graham got his name. Now having said that, let me continue on this subject that evidently is raising the ire of the Romanist in this meeting. It is of absolute importance that I underline and stress this this evening, that as far as we are concerned, we reject the Mass as a blasphemous feeble and as a dangerous deceit on any worship that is given to this week. And any worship that is offered to it is indeed a mockery of the one, plenty sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sins offered once and for all on the cross. Are you or not? Because the Bible tells me that Jesus Christ offers one sacrifice for sins forever. And never in the New Testament are the preachers instructed that if something happens when this wafer is put into a person's mouth and that person happens to be sick, no instructions are given in the New Testament that this wafer is to be separated, that the vomit is to be gathered up and done away with as is instructed by the Roman Catholic Church. If you would like, I'm not going to read you the instructions given to a Roman Catholic priest, but you go and get them and read them for yourself, and you will see that this is absolutely true. Now the second reason that I must support this motion is this, that priestcraft is a rebuttal to the Christian faith. and that leads to deceptions and to arrogance. I have two. I have, for example, two catechisms. One, of course, is given to the children in Ireland, because the size of Ireland is predominantly a Roman Catholic country. And we have the commandments listed here, and the first commandment, it says, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have three gods before me. This, of course, is in a Roman Catholic country, and a second commandment condemning idolatry is not mentioned. But here is a catechism given to the children in England. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things which are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. But this, of course, is lay left out of this catechism in the predominantly Roman Catholic south of Ireland. Why? Because anyone going into a Roman Catholic church can see that they're coming down with graven images, and they're coming down with these things that are forbidden. So the Roman Catholic church Now, in the Church of Rome, there is the confessional. And the confessional, I would say, is the spyhole of the Freemasons. Right into the hearts and right into the homes of the people. And in this confessional, the priest will question the penitent upon all sorts of things. I heard tonight a quotation from Charles Tavis. I want to give a quotation from another ex-Roman Catholic priest, Charles Chiliquette. And in his book, The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional, Chiliquette deals with the personal interference of the priest. in the family. I want to say that I do not believe that any priest of Rome or any other man should force himself onto the martyr's bed on his own. Schenegge says in the Church of Rome through the confessional, The priest is much more the husband of the wife than the man to whom she was wedded at the foot of the altar. I see that I have four minutes more, and I must come to this last point. Could you allow me to finish the speech in your time, please? That's asking too much of an audience that the previous speaker said was characterized by Christian tolerance. The last point I would like to make is, of course, the very important point that the people say is the worst form of dictatorship. And it is important, when we hear all the talk about change in the Roman Catholic Church, to find out that Rome's change is not a doctrinal change, it's only a change of strategy. The previous speaker talked about that matter. of Rome and that country. Now let me say this, that Pope Paul himself had something to say, the present one. He said recently that the keys of Peter's figure everywhere. The presence of the Pope, the visible head of the church, reminds everyone that there exists in the Church a supreme power which is of personal prerogative, having authority over the entire community, united in the name of Christ. A power that is not only purely external, but is capable of creating and unknowing internal obligations of conscience, and not indeed something left to the optional choice of the faithful, but necessarily to the structure of the Church, and not derived from the letters, but from Christ and from God. Here is a declaration of the Roman Catholic He claims to have a power that can annul internal obligations of conscience. And the greatest dictatorship in the world is the dictatorship of the people. No wonder. No wonder the reformers wrote into the Thirty-Nine Articles The Pope of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm, and one may not be full of this realm of ours. I wonder what it's at. The speaker of the Church of England no longer obeys 39 Articles. Well, if they want to obey their own Articles, that's their sin, not mine. And that is the reason why we turned Archbishop Ramsey a quitter when he went to start his unity talks with the Roman Catholic Church. So these three points. First of all, that the Mass is a blasphemy and a dangerous deceit. Secondly, that priest's craft is arrogant interfering with the right of the individual, and the right of the family, and the right of the husband and the wife to make their own decisions. And lastly, that the Roman Catholic Church in the papacy is a dictatorship, and in this twentieth century two wars were fought to deal with dictatorship, and here we have a dictatorship which claims to be a dictatorship that can absorb a conscience from the conscience of litigation to his fellows. I support that this house believes that the Roman Catholic Church has no place in the 20th century.