Last updated Feb 5, 2018
The Prediction
For centuries papal Rome was involved in immorality, corruption, wars, torture, murder, and intrigue. Most Protestants and some Catholics of yesteryear therefore concluded that the papacy had to be the antichrist of prophecy, and with that opinion Ellen White agreed.
Ellen White identified the deadly wound of the beast (Rev. 13:3) as being the papacy’s loss of power in 1798 at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte. The later healing of that wound she predicted would be the papacy’s regaining of its lost supremacy, and she claimed that Rome was actively trying to regain her lost power:
The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done.—Great Controversy, pp. 565, 566, bold added.
God’s word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. . . . Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.—Ibid., p. 581.
Really? Is the Vatican bent on regaining control of the world and rekindling persecution?
Before we continue, one thing should be pointed out. Daniel 8:24 says that the little horn’s “power shall be mighty, but not by his own power.” Through the centuries the papacy controlled the minds of men by getting others to do her bidding. While her power was indeed “mighty,” it was only so because of the might of the kings and nations that supported her. Thus, any regaining of its previous power would likely involve control of world leaders and their policies, not direct ownership of the entire globe.
How was this fulfilled?
The first Catholic priest in the United States to be reinstated because of a loophole in the church’s zero-tolerance policy on sexual behavior with minors is headed back to Michigan, the Archdiocese of Detroit said Tuesday. . . .
In February, the Vatican reinstated the priest to active ministry, saying the charge against him — sex with a 16-year-old boy in the 1970s — wasn’t a crime under church law at the time. That ruling cast a national spotlight on Bjorklund because it opened a major loophole in the get-tough, zero-tolerance policy on abusers that Catholic bishops in the United States adopted in 2002.—“Accused priest heads to Michigan,” bold added.
When was a priest having sex with a 16yr old boy NEVER a crime?
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Unless according to Catholic Church, a man can sleep with a boy but not a man? Wait, are priests not to be celibate? Whichever way you look at it….well…it wasn’t a crime in 1970s for priests to sleep with boys.
In [the] eyes [of groups like “Adventists, Baptists and Evangelical sects”], their regard and respect for democratic principles impose upon them the obligation—the religious, as well as the civil and political obligation—to defend every person’s right to be wrong. Every person must have the right not only to believe in Hell of the Damned and Heaven of the Saved. Every person must literally be assured the right to choose Hell over Heaven. That obligation carried to that extreme not only sets the Minimalists apart from John Paul; it sets them against him, as well.
It sets them apart from the Holy Father, because democratic principles can never take precedence over divine revelation. No one can be forced to believe in Heaven or Hell, or to choose the one over the other. Nevertheless, it is axiomatic for John Paul that no one has the right—democratic or otherwise—to a moral wrong; . . . .—p. 287. The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul, Mikhail Gorbachev & the Captialist West by Vatican insider Malachi Martin.
“Malachi Martin served three popes as diplomat and spy, speaks seventeen languages, is a renowned Biblical scholar and a professor at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. He helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls.—Decline and Fall of the Roman Church.
Martin thus calls freedom of conscience an extreme, and says that groups that advocate such a freedom are “against” the pope. In other words, Martin claims that, similar to the popes of yesteryear, today’s papacy still does not believe in freedom of conscience, and would not allow such a freedom to be a part of the new world order it seeks to create.
“The papacy contrived murder and massacred on the largest and also on the most cruel and inhuman scale,” he wrote, referring to the Inquisition. “They were not only wholesale assassins, but they made the principle of assassination a law of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.”—“Lord Acton—Political Power Corrupts.” Lord John Acton, a Roman Catholic
Boastful huh?
And let it be remembered, it is the boast of Rome that she never changes. The principles of Gregory VII and Innocent III are still the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. And had she but the power, she would put them in practice with as much vigor now as in past centuries. Protestants little know what they are doing when they propose to accept the aid of Rome in the work of Sunday exaltation. While they are bent upon the accomplishment of their purpose, Rome is aiming to re-establish her power, to recover her lost supremacy. Let the principle once be established in the United States that the church may employ or control the power of the state; that religious observances may be enforced by secular laws; in short, that the authority of church and state is to dominate the conscience, and the triumph of Rome in this country is assured.—Great Controversy, p. 581.
Something curious right?
Roman Catholic practice is not to take back what the Church has said in the past, but to update teaching and to give new interpretations of doctrine. Hence we cannot expect that a pope or council will rescind offensive statements made in the past.—“Is the Pope the Antichrist?”
The Catholic Church will not backtrack but ‘update’. So they won’t say they were ‘wrong’, they will say they ‘were’ right but in a softer way…just without killing millions-at least not yet.
Between 1823 (death of Pius VII) and 1846 (when Pius IX was elected), almost 200,000 citizens of the papal states were severely punished (death, life imprisonment, exile, galleys) for political offenses; another 1.5 million were subject to constant police surveillance and harassment.
There was a gallows permanently in the square of every town and city and village. Railways, meetings of more than three people, and all newspapers were forbidden. All books were censored. A special tribunal sat permanently in each place to try, condemn, and execute the accused. All trials were conducted in Latin. Ninety-nine percent of the accused did not understand the accusations against them. Every pope tore up the stream of petitions that came constantly asking for justice, for the franchise, for reform of the police and prison system. When revolts occurred in Bologna, in the Romagna, and elsewhere, they were put down with wholesale executions, sentences to lifelong hard labor in the state penitentiary, to exile, to torture.—Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, p. 254.
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The above situation led to the papacy losing its territory once again in 1848, but it regained it again in 1849. Then it lost it one last time in 1870.
For 59 years, from 1870-1929, the papacy complained about this loss of territory. Why should it? No other church in the world has its own little country. Why should the papacy care?
In 1870 multitudes of Catholics thought that the loss of all temporal power was a good thing. Divested of all civil power, the popes could concentrate on spiritual things for a change and leave worldly things alone. Why then did the papacy insist on having its own little country?
The answer concerns a point of papal dogma, and has a direct bearing on the papacy’s plans for regaining world dominion. The Vatican teaches that the pope replaces Jesus Christ on earth, and holds on this planet the place of God Almighty. It follows logically that if you can’t tell the Father and the Son what to do, then you really can’t tell the pope what to do either.
But that leaves us with a big problem: If the pope is a mere citizen of a country such as Italy, then he must be subject to the authorities of Italy like the Bible commands (Rom. 13:1). However, if he is the head of his own country, then he answers to no one whatsoever and can do as he pleases. Thus the possession of his own sovereign state is of vital importance.
Moreover, it serves as a base of international operations that no other church can match. The fact that the Vatican is considered a sovereign country aids its objective of exchanging ambassadors with as many nations as possible. It can then through its ambassadors influence the legislation and policies of the entire globe, more than any other denomination.
It was in 1867 that the U.S. Congress ceased funding the U.S. diplomatic mission in Rome, which caused its closure. The reason for the cessation of funding was that Congress had heard that the papacy had forbidden Protestant religious services to be conducted in the city of Rome.
In 1939 Franklin Roosevelt began some sort of diplomatic relations with the Vatican by sending his personal representative. In 1984, Ronald Reagan established formal diplomatic ties, and regular ambassadors were exchanged between the Church of Rome and Washington.
But the question must be asked, Does the Vatican now allow Protestant worship services to be freely conducted on its soil? If not, then why were diplomatic ties ever re-established?
Does the Vatican discriminate on the basis of religion in its hiring practices for positions in its government? Sure, churches should be allowed to hire only those of their own persuasion, but for a country to do that seems totally unacceptable. The U.S. Constitution forbids religious tests for office, and it should. Because of that provision, Catholics today hold numerous offices at all levels of government. Should not the Vatican do likewise in the name of religious freedom, and thus demonstrate that no one has anything to fear about its rapid rise in popularity and power since 1929?
Financing for World Take Over
If Ellen White’s prediction about the papacy regaining its lost supremacy was ever to come to pass, the papacy was going to need a lot of money. And the papacy is quite wealthy today, but how did it amass its great wealth in its amazing comeback since 1929?
Given the secretive nature of Vatican goings on, and its lack of public disclosure laws, that’s hard to tell for sure. But Joe Coffey, a Catholic detective from New York City, can tell you where he knows some of the wealth came from.
Along with the founding of the “state” of Vatican City in 1929, the papacy got its own bank, its own radio station, and its own post office. The bank is what we want to look at for a moment.
Joe Coffey describes what happened in a 1982 book called The Vatican Connection. His job was to investigate the mob, and in doing so he followed around a fellow named Vincent Rizzo, which took him to Munich, Germany in February 1972. There he was with some other cops listening in on a bug to the conversation going on in Rizzo’s hotel room, when the Vatican came up (p. 74).
Turns out that Vatican officials had contracted with the American mafia to purchase $950 million in counterfeit securities, securities such as stocks and bonds. The Vatican and the bank of Italy would pay the mafia $625 million for these securities, and the mafia would in turn give a kickback to the prelates of $150 million, leaving the mafia with $475 million for their trouble (p. 212).
Why would the Vatican want counterfeit stocks, you ask? The way modern banking works, you can loan out and invest in proportion to the amount you have on deposit. In actuality, you can loan out more than what you are holding on deposit. So if the Vatican Bank’s policy was that it could loan out ten times its reserves, a billion dollars of phony stocks on deposit would allow it to make ten billion dollars of investments.
When Cardinal Tisserant first asked swindler Leopold Ledl to get him the counterfeit stocks, Ledl was concerned about what would happen if the deal ever came to light.
Tisserant waved that away. He was not at all concerned, he said, nor were any of those he had discussed this with. They all agreed that the American government would never accuse the Vatican of knowingly dealing in counterfeit stocks and bonds. In fact, if it was discovered that such paper existed in the Vatican, the United States would undoubtedly believe the church had been taken by some unscrupulous swindlers and so would secretly step in and make good the losses.—p. 212.
Ten years later another Vatican bank scandal broke after the president of Italy’s largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano, was found swinging by his neck beneath a London bridge. The story made headlines, for the scandal involved multiple banks in multiple countries. Banco Ambrosiano was near collapse because of $1.25 billion in unsecured loans to Latin American subsidiaries, loans that had been guaranteed by the Vatican Bank. But the Vatican claimed to have a letter from the dead bank president releasing them from that pledge (pp. 309, 310).
Years later, while listening to an international news broadcast on shortwave, we heard the conclusion of that case. After mentioning the various individuals who had been convicted, the reporter added, “The Vatican was exempted from prosecution.” Adapted from Ellen White Fulfilled Predictions
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