I was born on April 28, 1930 in Somosiera, Madrid (Spain), the eighth child in a Roman Catholic family.
I felt called to the priesthood when I was thirteen, during the sermon at the liturgy (March 19, 1943). For financial reasons, I did not enter the diocesan seminary in Madrid until the 1945/46 school year.
In the first five years of school I studied Latin and Greek. The next three years were devoted to philosophy, theology and ethics as secondary subjects. In September 1953 I began to study theology and ethics as my main subjects.
During the first eight years of study, no one was allowed to possess or read the Bible. On my 21st birthday, a woman who later became the godmother of my first liturgy gave me a Bible. To her great surprise, she had to take her home again until I turned 24 and began my theological studies. Thus, my interest in learning more about the Bible was due to curiosity rather than a real need.
My first liturgy
I was ordained a priest on July 14, 1957, and on the 18th of the same month I held my first liturgy in my hometown.
On August 23, 1957, I started working in my first parish in La Neriuela, Madrid. I remained there until 1959 when, due to the health of my parents, I asked to be transferred. I was given a position as vicar in the parish of Canillejas, Madrid.
I took my parents and sister with me to the new post, where both the parish priest and the parishioners welcomed us with open arms. But after a while, the relationship between me and the priest gradually began to deteriorate because of his fundamentalist and conservative attitude toward the content of sermons, the administration of the sacraments, the liturgy, and devotion to Mary and the saints.
Why did I have to preach what the parish priest wanted? Why did I have to listen to the confession of the penitents before the liturgy was held, as if this would atone for sins? Why did the priest allow Mary and the saints to be especially revered during the liturgy? Why did I have to speak Latin during the liturgy and the administration of the sacraments, when the parishioners could not understand this language? In my first parish I had spoken Spanish in certain parts of the liturgy, as well as at funerals and baptisms. This was so well received by the vast majority of parishioners that their participation in worship increased.
Reforms in the parish
After two years in my new parish, I told the priest that I had used Spanish and the Bible in my previous work. He later informed me that, from now on, with the permission of the bishop, we would hold a large part of the liturgy and sacraments in Spanish. But the sermons on Sunday and during the great holidays will have to remain unchanged, even if I thought them too moralizing and therefore not too biblical. The themes and structure of the sermons were chosen by a group of conservative priests so that all diocesan prelates could preach on the same theme in the Sunday liturgy. Even so, I was able to "process" the proposed themes, giving them a new direction to Christ. This also reached the ears of the priest of my parish, and, to my great surprise, he told me that he would replace me at the pulpit whenever he could,
In those difficult days, I used the Bible as a cover book and researched it thoroughly to discover in it the true, deep, and eternal message of salvation, both for myself and for the rest of the world.
The Lord answers
One day the Lord gave me the answer to all my questions by making me read and understand chapter 3 of the Gospel of John. From this day on, God's love and promises have been my only standard, power, authority, and mirror. But hadn't they always been that way for me? Yes, but now they were like this in a whole new way, because God had reborn me through His Word and Spirit:
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). That is why God became my Father, and Jesus Christ my only perfect personal Savior. This was something completely new to me. A great change had taken place in my heart.
In the summer of 1964, I asked the Lord to show me what to do with my life. I could no longer remain in the Roman Catholic Church, because its hierarchy forced me to preach "another gospel," different from the message of salvation by divine grace and faith, which is found only in Christ.
But how and when should I leave my position as a priest? And who will financially support my parents and sister? Would I find understanding and support for the bishop if I gave up my fast for reasons of faith and conscience? How would Protestants receive me, whom I was thinking of going to for advice?
In the spring of 1965, I heard about the "desertion" of a priest, also from Madrid, who had been the director of a seminary. With the help of an evangelical preacher, he left the Roman Catholic Church and went abroad to study Protestantism at a European Protestant university. The behavior of my colleague gave me the answer to how to leave the Roman Catholic Church and learn more about the gospel of God's children's freedom.
To this end, I contacted the German Church, La Iglesia de los Alemanes in Madrid, by phone, and they gave me the telephone number of Pastor Luis Ruiz Poveda. As soon as I told him that I was a priest with faith and conscience, he advised me to stop the conversation on the phone immediately and set up a day and a meeting place instead, because his phone was often overheard by the police. That's what I did.
Sin of death or new life?
During this time, I often felt that I was collapsing both spiritually and mentally. From the point of view of Roman Catholic doctrine, I lived incessantly in a state of "mortal sin," because I doubted my faith openly and did not seek forgiveness for this sin and others in the sacrament of confession; because I was looking for the biblical truth in Protestants and not in my bishop and my theology teachers; because I rejected the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the Roman Catholic authority; because I rejected the doctrinal authority of my Church concerning the Bible; for I felt that the confession of sins made in confessional deprived God of the right and power which He alone has in His Person and through the work of His Son Jesus Christ; because we consider the liturgy a deceptive substitute for the merits of Christ on the cross.
Did all these reasons mean an end in my pastoral work? The Lord told me in His Word no. But this produced a conflict with the will of the Lord, with the Roman Catholic mentality and with my stubborn pride. This inner battle affected my health and sleep and caused many fears. In the end, I had to give up everything for the sake of love for Christ and my own eternal salvation.
My answer to the grace of the Lord
At the end of the tunnel of anxiety and fear, the Lord Jesus invited me to answer Him as the apostle Peter had done for the third time by the lake. These were the same words I had already chosen as the motto of my life before I was ordained a priest: “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love you ” (John 21:17).
Thus the Lord led me from the shadow of the Roman Catholic Church in the light of the gospel of grace: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. “ (Ephesians 2: 8-9).
Juan Sanz lives in Madrid. He worked for many years at The Editorial Foundation for Reformed Literature . He is the director of the Spanish branch of the Scottish publishing house The Banner of Truth . His love for the truth and his effort to explain the truth clearly are expressed in his work as a translator of books based on the Bible from Dutch to Spanish. Together with José Borrás he edited the book Catolicismo: Una fe en crisis.
(Translator: Olimpiu S. Cosma)
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/ro/stii-ca-te-iubesc/]
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