Lux Lucet

Pope Francis embraces then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick during a 2015 visit to the U.S. McCarrick resigned the cardinalate in 2018 before being defrocked.
Jonathan Newton/AP

“The Catholic Church is facing its most serious crisis in 500 years,” wrote Massimo Faggioli in his October 2018 article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Catholic Church’s Biggest Crisis Since the Reformation.”

These are striking words, especially when one considers the publication where the article appeared as well as the author. Foreign Affairs in the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is without a doubt among the most prestigious and influential foreign policy organizations in the world. It’s membership role reads like a Who’s Who of the rich and famous.

To give you some idea of just how high-powered the CFR’s membership is, here are just a few of the well known names listed on the CFR’s membership page: Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State,, Bill Clinton (form US President), Chelsea Clinton (daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton), Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State), Janet Yellen (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Colin Powell (former US general and Secretary of State), Jerome Powell (current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Peggy Noonan (former speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush and noted conservative columnist for the Wall Street Journal), George Soros (globalist trouble-maker), Warren Beatty (actor), Elliott Abrams (convicted felon and regime change specialist in the Trump Administration), Stephen G. Breyer (current US Supreme Court justice).

One could go on, but by now it should be clear to the ready that the CFR is no ordinary club. It is among the premier organizations of the globalist elite. Given the status of CFR’s membership, it’s worth paying attention to the articles published in Foreign Affairs, if for no other reason than it’s reflection of what high-level movers and shakers are thinking and talking about.

Among the highlights in Faggioli’s article:

• “The new wave of sexual abuse revelations in 2018 was disturbing not only because it exposed the persistence of abuse but also because it implicated high level church officials in the abuse and its cover-up.” For example, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, among those implicated in 2018 for his sexual abuse of seminarians, was one of the leaders in the Church’s response to the 2002 sex abuse crisis.
  
• Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó wrote an open letter in August 2018 stating that Pope Francis was well aware of McCarrick’s history of abuse but chose to ignore it.
  
• Viganó’s letter was openly critical of the “pro-gay ideology” and “homosexual networks” among the Catholic clergy.
  
• The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church has fueled the current sexual abuse crisis by resisting reform, in much the same way the church’s resistance to reform in the 16th century fueled the Reformation.
  
• The uproar created by the sexual abuse scandals has brought to the surface a rift in the church between the conservative-traditionalists and the liberal-progressives
  
• This rift could, but likely will not in the short-term, result in a Church schism, with the two camps splitting into separate churches.
  
• Former White House Strategist Steve Bannon, conservative-traditionalist Catholic and critic of Pope Francis, is put forth as an example of the split. Bannon, Faggioli notes, has set up the Dignitatis Humanae Institute in Italy to further conservative thought in the church.
  

Faggioli’s article, though fairly neutral in tone, can reasonably be seen as an expression of concern by the globalist movers and shakers at the CFR. This should come as no surprise. For, in the opinion of this author, the Roman Church-State is the oldest, wealthiest, and important globalist institution of them all. To the degree that the Roman Church-State is discredited, to that same degree doubt is cast on the entire globalist program favored by the members of the CFR.

A hint of this can been seen in a paragraph from Faggioli’s article that reads,

The Protestant Reformation was the beginning of a process of political nationalization, where the faithful became subjects not only of the church, but also of nations. The rise of the nation state marked the decline of the Roman Catholic political doctrine that held the church’s (specifically the pope’s) legitimacy supreme over that of imperial rulers…

Like the Reformation, which led to the religious breakup of the Holy Roman Empire of Charles V, today’s crisis has geopolitical dimensions.

In this, Faggioli shows that he is keenly aware, in a way many contemporary Protestant’s are not, that the current conflict between Globalism and Nationalism is simply another expression of the conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The globalist New World Order is the geo-political expression of Romanism, whereas those who advocate for national independence (national sovereignty is the more common term) are arguing for the Christian, Biblical system of international relations known as the Westphalian World Order.

Just and Roman Catholicism and Christianity are incompatible, so too are the Romanist New World Order and the Christian Westphalian World Order.

By publishing this Faggioli’s article, the globalists at the CFT are, in the opinion of this author, expressing their concern that, if the Roman Curia can’t put out the fire sparked by the 2018 wave of sexual abuse scandals, the entire globalist program will be put in jeopardy.

The Plan for This Series

The scale of the sexual abuse scandals of the Roman Church-State is such that an one surely could write volumes on it and still leave out a great deal of detail. As such, this author, limited by time and resources as he is, does not claim to be in a position to write a definitive account of it.

That said, it seemed good to me to at least set down in order at least some of the evidence and, by applying the teachings of the Scriptures – that is to say, the 66 Books of the Bible – reach some conclusions about, not only the scandals, but about the Roman Church-State itself.

I anticipate that the mains sections of this series will include:

1. An overview of the recent history of Rome’s sexual abuse scandals,
   
2. A closer look at some of the larger pedophilia scandals, both in the United States and in other nations,
   
3. A consideration of some of the other sex scandals that have rocked the church in recent years,
   
4. A discussion of the underlying causes of the scandals, both what Rome herself has to say and, more importantly, what the Bible has to say, and
   
5. Final conclusions
   

In terms of the time it will take to completed this series, I don’t know at this point. Given the fact that I’m writing this series as I research it, doubtless there will be some gaps between installments. Also, with the remarkable rapidity of the eruptions of new scandals, it is likely that there will be some detours along the way as new information comes to light.

The Purpose of the Series

In his remarkable book Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins made the point that, in light of the wealth and power of the Roman Church-State, serious non-Catholic scholars have shown little interest in the goings on of the church. At least in America, Robbins noted, the study of the Roman Catholic Church was reserved for Catholic scholars only.

Robbins thought this lack of curiosity odd and suggested that it could, perhaps, be chalked up to the fear of being labeled “anti-Catholic” and the threat this posed to one’s academic career. Another possible reason, Robbins said, was Rome’s excessive secrecy.

But whatever their reason, by largely ignoring a scandal of such a scale that it threatens to split the Roman Catholic Church, American Protestant writers have substantially failed the public. This series is intended as at least a partial corrective to the thunderous silence of the Protestant pen and pulpit on this crucial subject.

Closing Thoughts

In an article on the Berean Beacon website, “The Root Cause of the Catholic Sex Scandals,” we read, “The true nature of the crisis in the Catholic Church is not pedophilia, but homosexuality. The root cause of the predicament is however much deeper.” The deeper root is the false gospel of the Roman Church-State which tells man that to be saved a sinner must cooperate with God. In Roman doctrine, sinners are wounded and need God’s help.

In Christianity, on the other hand, sinners are dead in their trespasses and sins and are unable to do anything to help themselves. Apart from God’s grace, they have no chance of ever being right with God or of entering heaven.

A second cause of the sex scandals of Rome, the article notes, is the tolerance of homosexuality within the Roman Church-State. “Were it not documented in Catholic books, one would hardly believe the utter decadence in seminaries and in colleges that train for the priesthood. The subculture of homosexuality is rampant right across the U.S.A.”

If we were to zoom out a litter further, we would see that the sex scandals of Rome, as vast as they are in scale, are but a part of a larger pattern of abuse, fraud, murder and general corruption that, far from being recent in origin, have been part of the warp and woof of the Roman Church-State for centuries.

Taken singly, any one of these patterns of behavior should be sufficient to destroy the reputation of the Church of Rome as a Christian concern. Taken together, they form a mosaic of the Mother of Harlots spoken of by the Apostle John, the woman drunk with the blood of the saints.

She is Satan’s masterpiece. The Antichrist Roman Catholic Church-State.