pope benedict

jesus, moth, one world religion, pope benedict, pope francis, schism

Too Many Popes Spoil the Vatican: Is there a Catholic Schism Looming?

Posted on November 3, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Left, Pope Benedict (Emeritus) and Right, Pope Francis (Current)

On February 11, 2013, it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI was resigning his position as Pope. No pope had resigned in 600 years and only 5 of the 266 popes, including Benedict, have ever resigned. I wrote about it here, quoting a news article:

Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world and left the Catholic church reeling when he said on Monday that he would resign – the first pope to do so since the middle ages. The move, announced without warning, will take place on 28 February and leave the papacy vacant until a successor is chosen

That successor is Pope Francis. He ascended the papal monarchy on March 13, 2013.

Since then, Francis has garnered worldwide praise for his personal touch, his winning smile, his emphasis on the poor, and … his liberal views.

The Vatican & Cardinals are less impressed. The Daily Beast published an interesting article today. It’s titled,

Is the Pope Catholic? Critics Rally Around Benedict As Talk of Schism Looms

Almost from the beginning, there have been rumblings of discontent about Pope Francis. While the world’s media fell in love with him, there were more conservative bishops who felt that Francis’s popular appeal came at the expense of carefully worked-out Church rituals and teachings. They saw Francis as chipping away at established Church teachings on sexuality, kowtowing to the liberal media, and acting aggressively towards conservative church leaders. Criticism of Francis has come to a head with the publication of the final report of the Synod on the Family. Despite changing absolutely nothing doctrinally, the Synod’s recommendations for a more understanding attitude to those in unconventional family arrangements have ignited a firestorm of controversy among conservative commentators. The possibility that Catholics who had divorced and remarried without receiving an annulment might be readmitted into full communion with the Church has made many apoplectic.

In his short 18-month tenure, Pope Francis has seemed to have softened the traditional Catholic stance on homosexuals, has signaled a review of the traditional Catholic stance on female clerics and priests, noted that the traditional position of celibacy of priests can change, shifted a long-held stance on evolution and Big Bang, and now this week’s seeming change of stance on divorce. The Cardinals have had enough, and looking around, they notice that there’s another pope in town. One who was very conservative and is looking pretty good to them right now.

Pope Emeritus Benedict.

But there’s a reason to pay attention to this particular breed of shrill complaint: there’s more than one Pope in town. Much like an ex-partner you keep running into in the street, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s continued presence in the church serves as a constant reminder of the way things used to be.
…
Benedict is hanging back for now, but there’s no doubt that he could easily become a figurehead for traditionalists harkening back to the good old days. In some ways, he already has. In somewhat ominous tones that have rightly been called threatening, Douthat exclaims to his “true Catholic” audience, “Remember there is another pope still living!” Having warned that Pope Francis and the Synod are leading us towards schism, does Douthat mean to imply that “true Catholics” will or should stage a coup?

The longest continuous monarchy in the world is generally accepted to be Japan’s, founded around 600BC. The Vatican records the first pope as Apostle Peter (which we know is false) but their chronological list of popes extends from Peter’s time to now with Francis, 266 in all. By that standard they are considered the second oldest monarchy in the world, and Denmark is third, founded in 935 AD.

A schism in the Vatican between liberal Francis and conservative emeritus Benedict could be very interesting. To fracture the long held power and remove the stranglehold the Vatican has on billions of false Christians known as Catholics would indeed be earth-shattering.

One does not know what the Lord is doing or will do, apart from what is recorded in the bible, but the mind reels with possibilities of how the final one-world religion predicted in Revelation 12-13 could come about.

I am reminded of a prophecy made in Hosea 5:12. The LORD promised this:

But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

Pulpit Commentary explains, “The meaning of the prophet is by no means obscure, and that is, that the Lord would by a slow corrosion consume both the people; and that, though he would not by one onset destroy them, yet they would pine away until they became wholly rotten.” The two agents of destruction here named – the moth which eats away clothes, and the woodworm which gnaws away wood – figuratively represent slow but sure destruction.”

Moths work secretly, unknowingly to the clothes owner. All one knows is that when the garment is needed, it will be full of holes and unwearable. The woodworm has been secretly gnawing out the wood and suddenly one day the ship sinks, or the building topples.

Has the Lord been working as a moth, secretly eating away at the foundations of this false religion?

We do know for sure that one day the evil false religion of harlot Babylon will fall! (Revelation 17) During the Tribulation, all peoples will worship the Beast (Rev 13:15-16) except for Christians, who will be killed for refusing.

These are exciting times to be living in, and we are grateful to the Lord for placing us here, now, to observe His mighty works and the end of all things. I believe the end is at hand, for many reasons, but one major indicator in my opinion is the collapse of Cultural Christianity and the wide apostasy infecting the church.

We watch in awe of the Lord at work in these tumultuous times. As Timothy Larsen said in his excellent essay Cheerful Confidence after Christendom,

THANK GOD FOR GRANTING US NOW

God has granted me the privilege to live now—in my own times. To wish otherwise is not only pointless, it is ungrateful. It is also self-defeating. Every season of life has its own joys. Foolishness is to want to have the joys of adulthood when still a teenager or the joys of adolescence when middle aged and so on. Likewise, there are unique joys, privileges, and opportunities for serving God in each generation. We are called not to hanker after a different age, but rather to jump in with relish to following Christ at this moment.

And if the Lord sees fit to hugely shake Catholics to their core by creating a schism, perhaps making room in unconverted hearts for true Christianity to enter, is that not cause for celebration? Oh, to see hearts aligned with an antichrist in the form of a pope, minds blinded to the simplicity and beauty of the Gospel, tongues praying to Mary, spirits convulsed with doubt as their seeming foundation is revealed moth-eaten and worm-gobbled, converted to Jesus. A cause for celebration indeed. Peter is not the rock upon which the faith is built. The Rock is Jesus.

No matter what, the Lord is mighty, and He is always at work. Praise Him for His perfection in all He does.

This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
31For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?—
(Psalm 18:30-31)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did Pope Benedict resign to avoid an arrest?

Posted on February 19, 2013 by elizabethprata

News today from the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church & State reveals that according to the ITCCS an arrest warrant was imminently going to be issued against Pope Benedict for certain crimes.

The ITCCS claims that “on Friday, February 1, 2013, on the basis of evidence supplied by our affiliated Common Law Court of Justice (itccs.org), our Office concluded an agreement with representatives of a European nation and its courts to secure an arrest warrant against Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, for crimes against humanity and ordering a criminal conspiracy.”

“This arrest warrant was to be delivered to the office of the “Holy See” in Rome on Friday, February 15, 2013. It allowed the nation in question to detain Ratzinger as a suspect in a crime if he entered its sovereign territory.”

“A diplomatic note was issued by the said nation’s government to the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, on Monday, February 4, 2013, informing Bertone of the impending arrest warrant and inviting his office to comply.”

The organization claims that no reply from the Vatican’s Secretary of State was issued but that six days after the indictment was received, the Pope resigned. The ITCCS plans to issue a commercial lien through that nation’s courts against the property and wealth of the Roman Catholic church commencing on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. They do not name that nation.

The Pope resigned on February 11, 2013 and the resignation will take effect on February 28, 2013.

It should be noted that for all the fancy-sounding title of this ITCCS organization, it is a new organization, formed in 2010 and giving itself these stated powers. The ITCCS did not reveal which “European Nation” they are working with. The ITCCS says they were “established to enforce common law and try and convict the institutions and their officers responsible for such historic and ongoing crimes against humanity. We therefore constitute a de jure Court under common law, with full power of arrest, conviction and enforcement.”

Please note that as of now (5:15 PM on Tuesday, February 19, 2013) no official government, media, or organization has confirmed the alleged arrest warrant or proposed lien. However, saying that a warrant was issued is a monumental claim to make on a whim, incorrectly, or capriciously. And … the pope DID resign just after.

The ITCCS says that they plan to continue with the indictment against whoever Pope Benedict’s successor is, and further, that they plan to continue to put a lien on the entire Roman Catholic Church’s “property and wealth.” How much IS that wealth?

As Bill Keller stated yesterday in the NY Times, “Yes, the business of the church is saving souls, but it is nevertheless a business: a closely held conglomerate with a work force of more than a million, 1.2 billion more-or-less regular customers, 10 times as many outlets as Starbucks, more real estate than Donald Trump dreams of and lobbying clout to rival that of any secular industry.”

No one is quite sure exactly how much money in property, investments, money, and gold the RCC has. Avro Manhattan wrote an expose of the wealth and property holdings of the RCC/Vatican, and in his book titled “The Vatican Billions,” he states,

“The Vatican’s treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country. When to that is added all the real estate, property, stocks and shares abroad, then the staggering accumulation of the wealth of the Catholic church becomes so formidable as to defy any rational assessment.”

“The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars.”

As for the office of Pope himself as a man, Rachel Donadio asked, When a Pope retires, is he still infallible? She wrote, “In transforming an office with an aura of divinity into something far more human, Benedict’s decision has sent shock waves through the Vatican hierarchy, who next month will elect his successor. But it has also puzzled the faithful and scholars, who wonder how a pope can be infallible one day and fallible again the next — and whether that might undermine the authority of church teaching.”

It already is. Italians are already despondent and doubting.
“The pontiff has long been the one stable element for Roman Catholic Italians in a modern state that has become a byword for political instability and flawed politicians. All that changed a week ago when Benedict announced he would be the first pontiff in 700 years to resign, causing alarm and despondency among many faithful in a country whose history has been shaped by the presence of the headquarters of the Church for 2,000 years.”

The world desperately seeks a strong leader, someone that they can count on to be there to bring the world through troubling times. And now 1.2 billion people have been rendered leaderless, the rug pulled out from under their feet. They have all been made more ripe to receive someone, anyone, whom they perceive to have answers and solutions.

Interestingly on February 15, Reuters reported that the Pope will be allowed to live inside the Vatican walls. The Vatican is a sovereign nation. The reasoning was that first, it is easier to guard the Pope inside the Vatican since the Guard already knows his habits, second, that if he retired say to a German monastery, for example, it might become a pilgrimage site, and third, a distant third the Vatican said, is that he’d be protected from prosecution.

In hindsight that distant third reason might not be so distant after all.

The conclave of 117 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church is expected to start between March 15 and 18, about two weeks after Pope Benedict’s resignation Feb 28. Under the church rules, the conclave is to begin between 15-20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, to give cardinals time for the arrival in Rome, reports Zee News in India.

Scandal is not new to the Church. The pedophilia claims won’t go away. And last March 2012 it was noted by International Business Times that the Vatican was charged with money-laundering. The IB Times reported, “The Vatican bank is facing a possible money-laundering scandal after it emerged JP Morgan was closing one of its accounts due to a lack of information about the source of deposits, Italian newspapers report.”

The most interesting part of all this are the prophetic implications. First, the Lord our God is taking down leaders at an amazing rate. The Pope is the world’s most powerful man. He really is the most powerful and influential man on the entire planet, presiding over a sovereign nation (Vatican), having billions of subjects, immeasurable wealth, is said to be THE substitute on earth for Jesus (a claim to divinity), and being infallible in all his decisions.Yet he resigned abruptly,so suddenly the whole world was shocked. Just like Libya’s Qaddafi being deposed after 40 years and Egypt’s Mubarak after 30. Men who have been in power and seemingly held on to their position through many upheavals, suddenly caving in like a house of straw.

Secondly, it’s critical to watch the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) at this juncture in world history. If there is a scandal of magnitude that brings down the Vatican, it would leave a vacuum of unimaginable proportions. Make no mistake, the pope’s resignation, though not illegal in Vatican law, is definitely unprecedented. His decision opens the floodgates to all sorts of traditions being broken and doubts and questioning to begin. If compounded by a scandal, the effects will be very interesting to see.

Will the next pope (maybe the last pope) be the antichrist? The false prophet? None of the above? Will the Vatican be reduced in power and influence to such an extent that Islam becomes the dominant religion in the last days? Or will it be something else that prior to February 11 the world would never have suspected could or would happen?

Very interesting developments. Even if the arrest warrant turns out to be bogus, just the fuel it added to the very large fire is worth noting in itself. Please keep watching, These events in and around the Roman Catholic Church is without a doubt supernatural work of God. He is doing something. I praise Him for all His work and plans, known and mysterious!!

end time, end time. prophecy, pope benedict, two-state solution, vatican

It’s come to this…Vatican says to Israel, stop using the bible as a basis

Posted on October 23, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I am at a loss to decide whether the Muslim religion represents the false religious system of Revelation, or Roman Catholicism as expressed by the Vatican. I am not at a loss as to how or why the Vatican has gotten to the state of disbelieving the bible. Satan. Time will tell as to who or what amalgam of religious ideas or organizations form the basis for the False Prophet’s launch (Revelation 13:11-15; 16:13 and 19:20), but meanwhile, this just out in Israel’s Yedioth News simply astounds me:

Vatican body asks UN to ‘end Israeli occupation’
“Israel cannot use the Biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new “settlements” in Jerusalem or territorial claims, a Vatican synod on the Middle East said on Saturday. … “We have meditated on the situation of the holy city of Jerusalem. We are anxious about the unilateral initiatives that threaten its composition and risk to change its demographic balance,” the message said. Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable,” the document said.” [emphasis mine] Worse, they state: “We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.”

The document is an endorsement of the so-called “Two-State solution“, dividing Israel to carve out a Palestinian State in attempts to appease the Arabs. “The Holy City of Jerusalem will be able to acquire its proper status, which respects its particular character, its holiness and the religious patrimony of the three religions: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. We hope that the two-state-solution might become a reality and not a dream only.”

It cannot be said that the Vatican is even nominally Christian anymore. The Holy Bible tells us that apostasy shall abound in the latter days.

Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

1 Timothy 4:1-3 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

Pray for Israel!
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