Nancy Pelosi pays a visit to her boss, Pope Francis, for a private audience, on October 9, 2021. (CNS/Vatican Media)
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.
2 Thessalonians 2:8-9
It was on March 13, 2013, that Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Pope, taking the name Francis I. Francis’s election was notable for several reasons. First, his predecessor, Benedict the XVI, had just left office, becoming the first Pope in 600 years to resign.
Second, Bergoglio was the first Pope to take the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi. Assisi, according to Pope Francis, “‘was the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation, the same created world ‘with which we don’t have such a good relationship.’” This is significant because Francis has aggressively pushed globalism under the aegis of care for the environment. An example of this can be seen in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Siˊ. In this letter, Francis, “commands the nations to confess their collective sins of exploiting the environment with capitalism.” He also noted, “there is an urgent need of a true world political authority,” to ensure conformity with his call for globalist environmentalism.
Third, Francis is the first Jesuit Pope. This is not a small thing, as the Jesuits have a well-earned reputation for dishonesty, subversion, and murder that has gotten the order kicked out of many nations over the centuries and even officially suppressed by Pope Clement XIV. It was Bergoglio’s Jesuit background that caused former Roman Catholic Priest turned Protestant Evangelist Richard Bennett to call Francis the most dangerous Pope we’ve faced in our lifetime.
Many people, both Christian and non-Christian, would agree that the past several years have seen a rise in many dangerous, anti-liberty trends and that those trends seem to be intensifying and not abating. While these trends did not begin with Francis’s pontificate, they have certainly grown stronger since he took office. Is it possible that there is a connection between the pernicious social, political, and economic trends we’ve seen over the past 10 years and the rise of this Jesuit Pope? In my opinion, I believe there is a connection. Let’s look at the evidence.
Do these bank failures and rumored bank failures signal an imminent collapse of the financial system? I don’t know. I’ve learned to be careful about predicting such things. The Wall Street/Washington/Central Banker establishment has thus far shown itself both dedicated to and capable of kicking the can down the road to a degree that many financial observers, myself included, did not think possible.
In my opinion, these bank failures and possible future bank failures stem from the 2008 financial crisis, which itself was never properly dealt with. The problems in the financial system that cause the Great Recession were never faced squarely and were only papered over with the “untampered mortar” of money printing, bailouts, and accounts tricks. Instead of dealing with our problems honestly, we tried to cheat our way out of the financial crisis. So it should come as no surprise that it appears to be coming back.
So what is a Christian to make of all this? How are we to respond? The Bible has a lot to say about ideas such as prudence, wisdom, and discernment. These traits were highly prized at the time of the Reformation and in the following centuries by the heirs of the Reformation.
Those with a financial or business background may be familiar with the prudent man rule. According to one definition I found, the prudent man rule is, “a rule giving discretion to a fiduciary and especially a trustee to manage another’s affairs and invest another’s money with such skill and care as a person of ordinary prudence and intelligence would use in managing his or her own affairs or investments.” According to this, not only are fiduciaries to manage the financial affairs of others in a prudent fashion but the notion of prudence is also tied to how they would manage their own affairs. That is, the prudent man standard encompasses the golden rule, whereby we are to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated.
Prudence in financial and other matters served our Protestant forebears well, as it enabled them to build the greatest civilization in history. But as Christianity faded from the scene in America and other nations formerly under the influence of the Reformation, a new ethic took hold. No longer did prudence govern the thinking of men, but a sense of entitlement and instant gratification.
John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist in the past 100 years, hated the Christian ethic of financial prudence demonstrated in the 19th century and railed against it. In his 1920 book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Keynes wrote,
And on the other hand the capitalist classes were allowed to all the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice. The duty of ‘saving’ became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion. There grew round the non-consumption of the cake all those instincts of puritanism [n.b. the Puritans are universally despised by unbelievers such as Keynes] which in other ages has withdrawn itself from the world and has neglected the arts of production as well as those of enjoyment. And so the cake increased; but to what end was not clearly contemplated. Individuals would be exhorted not so much to abstain as to defer, and to cultivate the pleasures of security and anticipation. Saving was for old age or for your children; but this was only in theory, – the virtue of the cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor by your children after you.
Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, pp. 19-20.
With a mindset like this, it should come as no surprise that Keynes was an apostle of deficit spending and government debt, both of which he mistakenly saw as necessary for ending the 1930s Great Depression, which itself was caused and prolonged by the interventions of central bankers and governments. Asking central bankers and politicians to fix a depression or a banking crisis is like inviting an arsonist to put out your house fire.
How widespread is the influence of Keynesian economics? A famous 1971 quote from then-President Richard Nixon is a clue. “We are all Keynesians now,” said the President. It was true then, and it remains true today. All, or nearly all, economists working in academia, on Wall Street, in corporate America, and in Washington are Keynesians of some sort or another. The baleful influence of Keynesian economic thought is substantially responsible for the sorry economic predicament of America and other western nations. What is Keynesian economics? Without delving into a lot of technical details, it’s the idea that you can deficit spend yourself rich. The “puritanical” prudence demonstrated in more Christian centuries said that hard work, savings, and investment were how you built wealth and financial security in the long run. But Keynes famously said, “In the long run we are all dead.” Various apologists for Keynes have tried to rehabilitate this statement by arguing that Keynes really wasn’t saying he had no regard for the future. But when you consider Keynes’s “in the long run we are all dead” comment in the context of his other statements such as the extended quote above, it seems entirely fair to see it as a Keynes’s dismissing the future for gratification in the now.
So back to our earlier question, how is a Christian to respond to the ongoing financial crisis? Proverbs 22:3 quoted at the top of this post provides good guidance. Notice that the prudent man does two things, he foresees trouble coming and then hides himself.
The first thing you and I need to do is to recognize that there is trouble coming. Many people, even many Christian people, do not realize the serious economic danger America and other western nations are in. The United States is over $30 trillion in debt. And that’s just federal debt. It doesn’t include state, municipal, corporate, or individual debt. And the debt keeps growing. In fact, given that our financial system is based on debt, the debt must keep growing to sustain the system. Obviously, debt cannot expand infinitely and forever. God has so constructed the universe that all debts must be paid. Just look at the chart at the top of this post. Do you think debt can continue to grow faster than income? If not, the current financial system must come to an end. It’s a matter of when, not if, we have a system-down event. The timing of the collapse is uncertain. But in my opinion, it’s probably sooner rather than later.
Second, as Christians, we must hide ourselves. What does this mean in the context of a financial crisis? A lot of those old-fashioned “puritanical” ideas, the sorts of things that Keynes and others of his ilk hated and made war on a century ago, are a good place to start. Eliminating debt and building savings is wise counsel. And when I say savings, I mean at least some of that savings should be held outside the financial system. That means having some ready physical cash at home. It also means holding some savings in dollar alternatives. The best dollar alternatives are physical gold and silver, but there are other options as well.
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A friend of mine who works for an insurance company recently commented that he just received his annual 2022 bonus. It was down from what he’d expected. The reason, according to his employer, was that there were record death claims in the life insurance line of business.
Wait, what?
Record death claims in the life insurance division? What could possibly be causing that?
I think I know. And if you’re reading this blog post, I think you probably know as well.
It’s the jab. The poison death shot. The mRNA special. That’s what’s killing so many people.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour….
Ephesians 4:25
What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth? Answer: About six months. Or so runs the joke.
I thought about this when I say the Wall Street Journal Headline (WSJ) “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says.” The WSJ, as you probably know, is a mainstream publication and not given to promoting “conspiracy theories.” Less than two years ago, one could be banned from Facebook and other social media platforms. But here in February 2023, what was called a “conspiracy theory” not so very long ago, is trumpeted in the headlines of the WSJ.
In my opinion, the headline in the WSJ doesn’t go far enough, for it implies that the Covid scamdemic was a tragic accident. In my view, the Covid virus was not a lab leak, but a lab release. What’s my evidence for saying this? It’s admittedly circumstantial, that is to say, it is indirect. I don’t have a quote from Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, or some other globalist megalomaniac saying, “release the virus!” And yet, when you consider the amount and quality of the circumstantial evidence supporting the lab release theory, the case, in my view, is compelling.
In retrospect, Jesuit-trained Anthony Fauci’s comment at Jesuit-founded and Jesuit-run Georgetown University is among the most interesting and compelling bits of circumstantial evidence. In a report dated 1/11/2017, just days before Donald Trump took office, Dr. Fauci was quoted as saying “no doubt” Donald Trump would face a surprise infectious disease outbreak while president. How did Fauci know this? It appears he was involved in funding the research on the virus contrary to American law. Did he know the end to which the virus was going to be put?
This man does not deserve to die. For he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God.
Jeremiah 26:16
Today, I saw the meme above in a tweet from, of all people, Elon Musk. It’s funny, but there’s a serious aspect about it that requires comment. And that’s the connection between the liberties historically enjoyed in the West and the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, I have in mind the relationship between the First Amendment guarantee of free speech in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Protestant Reformation.
Americans rightly believe that the right to free speech is one of the defining characteristics of our nation. It’s our birthright, given by God and guaranteed by our Constitution. But as is often the case, and I include myself here, it becomes easy to take our birthright for granted.
But in the past few years, beginning in 2018 and accelerating with the tyrannical Covid hoax in 2020, the ability of Americans, and of Westerners generally, has increasingly come under pressure.
I mention 2018 because it was in August of that year that the first big strike against free speech on the internet took place with the rapid-fire banning of Alex Jones and his Infowars website from nearly every major social media outlet. It gave every appearance of being a coordinated attack and was extensively covered in the press. I wrote about it myself in this space at that time. Worth noting is that Infowars has as its tagline, “There’s a war on for your mind.” That’s true, and it has always been true. And that war is fought with words and with propositions. If we believe the truth, we live. If we believe the many lies out there in the world, we perish.
In Romans, Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But what if people never hear the truth of the gospel. How can they believe? This was a major problem in the Middle Ages, ruled as it was in Europe by the Roman Church-State. Rome and her innovations such as the real presence of Christ in the mass blinded people to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Antichrist popes enforced the people’s blindness by torturing and murdering those who dared speak out against Rome’s evil system.
One might say it was Antichrist’s version of cancel culture.
The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
Proverbs 15:14
This week saw a raft of additional stories showing the deadly results of the poison death shot, i.e., the Covid vax. Let’s take a look at them.
What funeral directors know that you don’t
Among the best sources for Covid news is the discerning and hard-hitting Steve Kirsch, whose work I’ve cited in this space several times before. Just yesterday, he released a story on his Substack titled “What funeral directors know that you don’t.” It’s a must-read story, in which Kirsch cites an unnamed owner of multiple funeral homes about the unusual patterns of deaths he’s noticed post Covid vax rollout. Here are a few highlights.
Overall, their business is up by 50% after the vaccines rolled out and it’s not proportional…young people are a greater portion of the deaths.
Pre-vaccine rollout, the source said they’d see 1stillbirth/month. After the vax rollout, it’s as many as 12 stillbirths a month.
In the 78 years they’ve been in business, they can’t recall ever having seen a 15-year-old die from a heart attack. In December 2022, they had 1 a week for three weeks straight.
A very experienced nurse Kirsch consulted said she never had heard of a 15-yer old die from a heart attack. Now she hears about them on a regular basis.
The funeral homes are seeing strange rubbery clots they’ve never seen and have verified them with the medical examiner.
Basically, ever since 2021, they have been seeing very strange things: stillbirths, a number of “found dead,” healthy people having heart attacks and strokes, blood clots, etc. They’ve never seen anything like that before; it’s a “noticeable” difference.
Pilot deaths at Southwest airlines used to average 1 or 2 a year. Now they are dying at a rate of around 1 a month.
Kirsch concludes, “Bottom line: everyone knows what is causing this, but they are all afraid to speak out. For the few who do speak out, their stories are never covered in the mainstream media.”
You can say this for the migrants demanding more free stuff from City Hall: They’re fast learners about the new American ethos of endless entitlement.
Schooled and led by far-left activists, they arrive here within days of illegally crossing the southern border and claiming asylum, then start agitating for better accommodations in pricey neighborhoods.
The only thing I would add to Goodwin’s statement is that this is simply the umpty-umpth example of Roman Catholic immigration/economic/political theory in action. Get ‘em in, keep ‘em in, put ‘em on the dole. That’s Rome’s game plan for “Romanizing America through Illegal Immigration.”
Note what Goodwin says about “demanding more free stuff from City Hall.” Whenever Rome starts in with one of its sentimental sob stories about standing in solidarity with asylum seekers and migrants of one sort or another and talking about a nation’s “obligation to accommodate migrant flows,” what they mean is that you have an obligation to fork over your hard-earned money to support people who trash your city and protest they’re not getting enough free stuff from you.
This in no way, shape, or form is Christian charity. Christian charity is about giving one’s own goods. Rome, on the other hand, traffics in stolen virtue. The Pope, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, etc. all love to talk about humane they are while spending your money to support demanding people who have contempt both for you and your home country., people who are taught by these same bishops, cardinals, and popes that they are entitled to your goods.
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