Key Text "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months." Revelation 13:5

TITLES.--In a passage which is included in the Roman Catholic Canon law, or corpus juris canonici, pope Innocent III declares that the Roman pontiff is "The Vicegerent upon earth, not of a mere man, but of very God;" and in a gloss on the passage it is explained that this is because he is the vicegerent of Christ, who is "very God and very man." see decretales domini Gregorii Papae IX (Decretals of the Lord Pope Gregory IX), Liber 1, De Translatione Episcopoum, (On The Transferrence Of Bishops), Title 7, ch. 3; Corpus Juris Canonici (2d Leipzig Ed., 1881), Col. 99; (Paris, 1612), Tom. 2, Decretales, Col. 205. The documents which formed the decretals were gathered by Gratian, who was teaching at the university of Bologna about the year 1140. His work was added to and re-edited by Pope Gregory IX in an edition issued in1234. Other documents appeared in succeeding years from time to time including the extavagantes, added toward the close of the fifteenth century, all of these, with Gratian's decretum, were published as the Corpus Juris Canonici in 1582. Pope Pius X authorized the codification in Canon Law in 1904, and the resulting code became effective in 1918.

FOR THE TITLE "Lord God The Pope" See a gloss on the Extravagantes of Pope John XXII, Title 14, ch. 4, declaramus. In an Antwerp edition of the Extravagantes, dated 1584, the words "Dominum Deum Nostrum Papam" ("Our Lord God The Pope") occur in column 153. In a paris edition, dated 1612, they occur in column 140. In several editions published since 1612 the word "Deum" has been omitted.

RECENT STATEMENTS The modern claims made by the Roman Catholic church reiterate the blasphemous statements of the past: "The leader of the Catholic church is defined by the faith as the Vicar of Jesus Christ (and is accepted as such by believers). The Pope is considered the man on earth who "takes the place" of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity."
John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 3, 1994