Lux Lucet

The past five days have seen the citizens of the United States subjected to a most extraordinary propaganda campaign. As the result of pope Francis’ visit to Washington D.C., New York and Philadelphia, the airwaves and newspapers of our nation have been filled with countless images of and reports on the pope’s activities, nearly all of which serve to cast Francis and his church in the most positive light possible. If it wasn’t clear before, it should now be abundantly evident to anyone, Catholic or not, that the mainstream media in this country is more than willing to prostitute itself as a megaphone for the Man of Sin. This shouldn’t be surprising. The Roman Catholic religion is designed and built to appeal to the flesh, and papal pomp certainly makes for good television.

But for all its gaudy appeal, Rome lacks that most important mark of a true church of God: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Justification by Faith Alone. All Rome’s smells, bells, mitres, and masses put together cannot save a single soul. They cannot do so much as remit the guilt of a single sin. It is the righteousness of Christ alone imputed to believers by faith alone that saves sinners from death eternal. But this Rome flatly denies. And not only that, but it actually curses and damns all who believe this simple truth. The Roman Catholic Church-State is a false spiritual harlot of a church, teaching a false faith plus works non-gospel, presided over by the Son of Perdition himself. And yet this Babylonian Harlot-drunk-with-the-blood-of-the-saints institution is lifted up by the American press as representative of the best of Christianity. Watching this spectacle is enough to prompt any thinking Christian to repeat the words of the apostle John, who, when confronted with the vision of the Whore of Babylon, was astonished, declared, “And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.”

The Economics and Politics of Antichrist

Rome’s false gospel, as if that weren’t bad enough by itself, also serves as the basis for the freedom killing politics and wealth destroying economics that have long been the hallmark of the Church of Rome. Below are a few of the lowlights of Roman Catholic social teaching that were on display during the pope’s stay in the US.

The Call for One World Government

World government, for good reason, has long been one of the great fears of the American Liberty Movement. But for all that, very few people in the Liberty Movement seem to be aware of Rome’s long, well-documented history of seeking to introduce a new world order that sees the end of national sovereignty as we know it. Writing in The American Conservative magazine, columnist Rod Dreher seemed completely shocked at the Vatican’s 2011 statements in favor of world government. Citing a report from Reuters that quoted the Vatican as calling for, “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic decisions, Dreher exclaimed,

Lord have mercy. What was one only in the febrile prophetic imagination of Jack Chick and Hal Lindsey is now a press release from the Vatican. A friend (who is not Evangelical) writes:

This is going to FREAK the evangelicals out. but it makes me wonder what the heck is going on in the minds of these Vaticanites! Don’t they have a clue as to how the world will preceive (sic) this? One world authority? ? Really?

Count me with the Evangelicals. It freaks me out too, and will freak out many Orthodox Christians. I bet it has the same effect on not a few Catholics as well.

Of course, had Dreher been paying closer attention to Vatican statements, he would have realized that this was not the first time the Vatican has called for world government, nor would it be the last. Just this year in his encyclical Laudato Si, pope Francis became the latest pontiff to flack for world government. Wrote Francis,

[I]t is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy: to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago” (Laudato Si, emphasis added).

Here we have the current Antichrist citing Antichrist emeritus Benedict XVI, who himself was quoting a previous Antichrist, in an explicit call for world government.

Notice that in Benedict’s statement quoted approvingly by Francis, one reason adduced for world government is, “to guarantee the protection of the environment.” And Francis had much to say about the environment in his talk to the UN. During his address, Francis actually stated that, “a true ‘right of the environment’ does exist,” and went on to throw his support behind the UN’s new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on the clear call for world government found in his environmental encyclical Laudato Si, implicit in Francis’ approval of the 2030 Agenda is also his support for a supranational authority to enforce the provisions of this latest liberty destroying initiative from our globalist masters of the universe.

Rome has made no secret about its desire for world government, but hardly anyone in the Liberty Movement seems to notice. Instead of fretting about the Bilderberg Group or the Rockefellers, perhaps folks interested in the preservation of liberty should take a closer look at the Rome.

Immigration

Americans who are concerned about the financial burden and cultural issues associated with the constant flood of immigrants from Mexico and South America will find no solace from the pope. During his address to Congress, the pope scolded the assembled representatives, and indirectly the American electorate, for their lack of support for immigration reform – read amnesty – in so many words unctuously lecturing them to quit their griping and pay up. Francis commented,

On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.

According to a recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies, “51 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal or illegal) reported that they used at least one welfare program during the year, compared to 30 percent of native households.” What a great deal for hard-working, over-burdened American taxpayers! How dare they question their responsibility not to stop until every person from Central America has been added to the rolls of the American welfare state.

The pope doesn’t seem very much interested in the basic question of why, after 500 years of dominance by the Roman Catholic Church, the economies of the nations of Central and South America are in such a shambles that millions of their citizens feel compelled to come to America and go on the dole rather than build lives for themselves in their own countries.

Rather than lecturing Americans about their immigration policies, the pope would be better served encouraging the nations of South America to embrace the constitutional-capitalism that made the US a free and successful nation. Of course, Rome’s incompetent distributivist economics makes it impossible for him to do this. But that is not the fault of America.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that pope that many of those coming to the US as immigrants also happen to be Roman Catholic. A predominantly Protestant, economically strong and politically independent United Sates is a great impediment to the papacy’s ultimate goal of world domination. This is one reason why the pope supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

During the American Civil War, the pope favored the Confederate government, for they both opposed capitalism; and they both favored feudalism; that is, they were both medieval. The pope saw the war as a way to end the threat that America, a large, free, Protestant nation, posed to the political ambitions of Rome for world domination: Divide and conquer (John Robbins, Slavery & Christianity, n.4, p. 11).

But what the pope failed to do during the Civil War in the 19th century, he is attempting to accomplish by mass immigration in the 20th and 21st. In his article Romanizing America through Illegal Immigration, Ralph Ovadal quotes Roman Catholic priest Paul Marx as saying,

America is a dying nation. I tell the Mexicans when I am down in Mexico to keep on having children, and then to take back what we took from them: California, Texas, Arizona, and then to take the rest of the country as well.

If Paul Marx and pope Francis get their way, not only will Americans be burdened with the cost of importing a whole new welfare class, but for all their trouble Protestant Americans also will be rewarded with the privilege of making themselves a religious minority in their own nation. The popes may be evil, but they certainly aren’t stupid.

Rewarding Brutality

Although the Son of Perdition had a busy time of it hectoring the world in general and Americans in particular on their need to line up behind his globalist program, he did somehow manage to squeeze in the opportunity to mint a brand new saint while visiting our fair shores, Junipero Serra. This represented the first time a saint had been canonized in the United States. Serra, it turns out, was an excellent choice for sainthood. Not only does his elevation give the Vatican a new saint they can market to gullible Americans, especially to the growing primary target audience of Hispanic Catholics filling the Catholic pews in the US, but it provides the Roman Catholic Church-State with yet another opportunity to trumpet to the world the sterling Christian character of its leading figures. Writing in Religion News Service, Mark Pinsky comments,

Without question, Serra (1713-1784) was an agent of empire, literally carrying the cross that accompanied the sword of Spanish conquest along North America’s West Coast.

For decades, Serra has been criticized for being part of a system that seized the Indians’ choice California farmland for his Franciscan order.

He and priests under his leadership then compelled these Native Americans to build and support a series of picturesque missions along the California coast. Incidentally – and unintentionally – the Spanish carried with them devastating diseases that dramatically reduced the native population.

Serra and other missionaries were also accused of heavy-handed conversions. The Spanish Franciscans were stalwart conservative shock troops of the Counter-Reformation who saw it as their duty to defend orthodoxy. The friars compelled the Indians to give up aspects of their culture, ranging from veneration of nature to wearing particular dress to divorce.

Once baptized, they were not permitted to leave the missions. When they did, they were forcibly returned in chains and subjected to flogging.

When it comes to sainthood, Serra’s quite obviously the right man for the job. In his address to Congress, the pope seemed to acknowledge the controversy surrounding the elevation of Serra when he stated,

Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present.

Of course, there is nothing here about the culpability of the Roman Catholic Church-State for the brutal treatment of the California indians. And by the pope referencing the apology as coming from the “heart of American democracy,” it is as if he is attempting to put the onus for Serra’s brutality on the American nation rather than where it belongs, on the man who carried it out and the Church who sent him.

The Abject Failure of the Evangelical Church

At this point, it would be worth asking why Antichrist has succeeded so wildly in advancing his cause in the United States. The answer lies, I believe, in the weakness of the Evangelical church. As far back as the 19th century, R.L. Dabney remarked that Protestantism was in sorry shape. And things haven’t gotten any better in the intervening 150 years. If fact, they’ve gotten significantly worse.

The feminization of the churches that took place in the 19th century has been followed by greater and greater confusion in the 20th and 21st centuries. Liberalism destroyed the mainline Presbyterian church in the first three decades of the 20th century. And the ecumenism of the neo-Evangelicals in the post-war period saw large swaths of the Protestant church compromise with Rome in a vain attempt to regain relevance in a culture that had largely relegated them to the sidelines.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Forum in Des Moines, Iowa, September 19, 2015. REUTERS/Brian C. Frank

As a result, we are now treated to the strange sight of a Southern Baptist minister stupidly defending the Spanish Inquisition on national television. Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister and current presidential candidate, couldn’t so much as bring himself to utter a word against the papal Antichrist running rampant in Washington D.C., but he did find time to whine on Twitter about Barak Obama’s choice of house guests. Tweeted Huckabee,

@POTUS insults more than just @Pontifex w/ @WhiteHouse guest list.

I welcome @Pontifex to America & offer my apologies that @POTUS will not offer him the warm, respectful welcome he deserves.

O what dreadful days these are when a mere president can diss His Holiness! Thank goodness Mike Huckabee’s on the case, primed and ready to defend all that’s righteous. Why, he even wrote a whole op-ed piece, in which he continued groveling at the feet of the Man of Sin, all but saying, “I for one welcome our new papal overlord.”

And lest anyone suppose I’m picking on Southern Baptists, Presbyterians are no better. In some ways they’re actually much worse. Many of our most conservative denominations can’t even get Justification by Faith Alone right anymore, let alone have the juice to do serious battle with the papal Antichrist.

Wood, Hay and Straw

The fawning reception pope Francis received in the US was an embarrassment. This Jesuit is an opportunistic uber socialist, with a set of beliefs, religious, political and economic that are radically at odds with those of the historic American nation. Yet none of that seemed to matter during his visit. The pulpits of America’s Protestant churches had nothing to say about the false Gospel of Rome, the historic brutality of Rome, or the Bible’s identification of the papacy as the great Antichrist. To the extent that American Evangelical ministers have turned a blind eye to the pope’s predations, or, what is worse, actively encouraged the ministry of Antichrist, to that degree they have failed in their responsibility to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the people he placed under their care.

In I Corinthians 3 we read that the work each minister does will be tested by fire on the day of judgment. Paul writes, “Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire” (I Corinthians 3:12-15).

From my observation, one would have to look for a long time to find so much as a single American Evangelical minister willing to publically speak out against the harlot Roman Church-State and its Antichrist papal head. Evangelicals at the start of the 21st century show a strong preference for wood, hay and straw over against the more solid building materials. As things stand, come judgment day many a shame faced American Protestant minister will see his reward literally go up in smoke for his compromises with the Roman Catholic Church-State. And that is a great shame.