Papal Watch 2017: Two popes, two ethical, world-views in one church yet one biblical Antichrist
Function
Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; Thd) Visiting Professor at Kyungpook
National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea. Conjoint lecturer of Avondale
College, Australia
It is the beginning of September 2017 and media is inundated with
articles surrounding two popes. Before we enter into mentioning the status quo
of the Catholic Church with a focus on these two popes: Ratzinger and Francis,
it is worth looking at Revelation 13 and the historicist interpretation of 666,
the First Beast, the Deadly Wound, the Second Beast, the recovery of the Deadly
wound and the role of the Second Beast to set up an image for the First Beast
to dominate the final scenes of World’s History.
The Image to the First Beast is not China nor is it Russia despite
their own dreams, and dreams they have, so we all understand through their TV,
their newspapers, and interpretations of it. The First Beast of Revelation 13
is the Holy Roman Empire that took over from the Fall of Rome, the real Fall in
538 A.D. when Justinian printed on his coins the emphatic public announcement
that he is now Theologian and no longer soldier. He wanted to be a papal-caesar
and troublesome years followed in which he had to build many churches to calm
the ease. But the Catholic Church became the Holy Roman Empire and for 1260
years (from Daniel and Revelation) in the historicist interpretation of a day
for a year, they ruled from 538 A.D. until 1798 when Napoleon arrested the pope
and brought him to France giving that “Title” or “Office” or “Function” a “Deadly
Wound” as the same pope in a letter cited Revelation 13 to describe his own
condition and that of the church. The papacy function during this long period
was that of caecaro-papist. There is nearly an article on every point made so
far. This much we know already. The secular World Order of the USA kicked in
and for some historicist interpreters like Uriah Smith, it was France in Daniel
11 at the end or whatever, but the USA is clearly the Second Beast of
Revelation 13 already early in Seventh-day Adventist theology. The lamb-like
beast. Soft is democracy and values of the consensus “biblical consulted”
constitution that protected all kinds of freedoms as opposed to “iron-like”
stances of dictatorships. And there are many examples of this. They do not care
for their own citizens and not for those people they colonialize due to “landgrab”
occupations since they have an never-ending thirst for war and self-enrichment
by robbery and theft and piracy, none of which their ethics consider as wrong.
Situational Ethics at play. If 50 can live better due to the theft then the
theft is better than only one living better. So they rationalize their sins
away.
Then the Vatican recover since 1923 and after Vatican II, the
adoption of many USA values embedded in the constitution, they sat with a
blueprint that could steer their Vatican political agenda helping Pope John
Paul II to gain territory like never before. In Revelation 13 the papacy has the number 666 since it refers to
their title they used since earliest times, as Edwin de Kock’s 2011 study
indicate [900 pages], showing that vicarius filii dei counts up to exactly 666
and it is not a case of a number that is “not perfect like seven is”. It is not
6999…. It is six [hundred] six [tens] one six. Not 6.6.6. This is not a
Seventh-day Adventist invention since Andreas Helwig mentioned it first in
three of his editions: 1610; 1618 and 1630. What is wrong? Vicarious of the son of God is the role only of the
Holy Spirit and no earthling can take over that position. Christ said that He
will be send to be his vicarius filii dei or also vicarius Christi. By saying that they have the bread that
becomes Christ’s body in their hands and only they can give salvation by their
hand to the believer coming to them, is blasphemy and non-biblical. Salvation
is without any human agency or intermediary. Period. To make your Bible thicker
adding some non-biblical or apocryphical writings to it, may help to reinforce
your false doctrines but the original Bible does not allow polarity or disunity
in doctrines. That is why apocrypha is left out of the Protestant Bibles. Is
this a Protestant looking for a gap to backlash against the Catholics for
whatever reason? Say what you like, we are talking about biblical exegesis with
the historicist interpretation model. Not preteristic locking the Bible up in
its own times. With Nero’s name counting to 666 and all that jargon of
preterism. Then Ratzinger took over from John Paul II and since he was a
scholar-theologian he had trouble from day one to administer comfortably. Obama
came in and this democratic liberal outlook, embrazing the LGBTQH, Woman
Ordination open stance, Islam approaching while Ratzinger was Islam hesitant as
his Regensburg talk in 2006 illustrates. On April 15, 2017, Ratzinger broke his silence and said: “The contrast between the concepts of the radically atheistic state
and the creation of the radically theocratic state by Muslim movements creates
a dangerous situation for our age, one whose effects we experience each day.
These radical ideologies require us to urgently develop a convincing concept of
the state that will stand up to the confrontation between these challenges and
help to overcome it.”( 1 ) The retired pope’s words contrast sharply with those of his
successor, Francis, who argues that “Muslim terrorism does not exist’’ and it
is not “right to identify Islam with violence’’. Now here is the point. When Ratzinger was brought down to retire a
lot of speculation surrounded this unusual action. Two sources from the USA and
Italy maintained that Ratzinger was not only forced to retire due to a LGBTQH
network in the Vatican, or the Financial Crisis of the Vatican Bank with
moneylaudering or the same, but that Obama and Hillary interfered with the
Vatican politics to get Ratzinger the conservative, pro-Russia, anti-Abortionist,
more Islamo-phobic in speeches like the Regensburg speech in 2006, replaced
with a pro-Islam pope, embracing LGBTQH, less stable on Russia, Francis in his
place.
Currently in 2017 we sit with a Democratic party pushed out of USA
government due to internet leaks just as Ratzinger was pushed out by Vatileaks
in 2013 with the USA stopping their SWIFT4 account, blocked it, but switched it
on just when Francis was elected, it is claimed.
Trump conservative, was approached by a Catholic group to
investigate the role of Obama-Hillary in the retirement of Ratzinger and
whether their pursuit on liberal values globally has made them mess around with
the Vatican as well. Thus the media. (See 20 January 2017 “Open Letter
to President Trump”). “As Rico points out, Pope Benedict at the time stood in
opposition to President Obama’s collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood,
especially with the pope’s Regensburg address in which he criticized Islamist
fundamentalism. The U.S., as Rico along with Dottori explains, was not in favor
of a papal rapprochement with the Patriarch of Moscow which could further
support a European rapprochement with Russia. A partial basis for this desired
rapprochement could also be a rejection of the moral relativism of the West.” Rico also recalls: “Strangely, this [SWIFT] function was
re-established immediately after the resignation of Benedict XVI.” Ratzinger was on the verge of creating a Christian block by uniting
the Eastern Orthodox churches from Russia and Catholics when he was forced to
retire. The article goes on to say: “In other words, American policy was
deliberately attempting to forestall the formation of what can only be called a
"Christian bloc." If this seems farfetched, one should recall that
Russia, prior to the Soviet era, played precisely this role in European and
world geopolitics, as the protector of Orthodox Christians. The Vatican
exercised this role through proxy states, most recently through
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and various other Catholic regional powers.”
At that time Ratzinger was trying to swim against the Democratic
stream of Obama-Hillary. He said that some kind of “mystical thought” came to
his mind convincing him that he has to stop, which he ascribed to God.
Liberal pope, conservative pope, liberal USA or conservative USA,
it does not matter. There is no right or wrong since they share values mixed
anyway and Eucharist the vicarius filii dei style remains anyway unchanged.
Now the 11 cardinals who asked Francis to be pope is asking him to
resign so that another one can be pope? One scholar said that the Vatican is
experiencing a crisis that is worse than Luther and the Reformation. And this
is the year of the remembrance of Luther and the Reformation after 500 years.
For Adventism and historicistic interpretation Revelation 13
remains, unchanged. Whether leftist or rightist, any pope is functioning in the
666 space as outlined above. Can’t escape it provided they resign as Ratzinger
and in his silence secretly read Ellen White on the Life of Christ, secretly
keep the Sabbath, secretly no longer pray for Mary or images, secretly do not
take Eucharist from the hand of a priest trying to officiate in the Holy Spirit’s
space, qualifying for the 666 number.
(1)
Filip
Mazurczak, “Benedict XVI Warns of ‘Dangerous Situation’ With Radical Atheism
and Radical Islam” 15 April 2017. (2)
K.
Mansfield, “POPE Benedict XVI reveals the reasons behind his resignation that
shocked the world.” 25th of August 2016. Online at http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/703941/Pope-Benedict-XVI-reason-quit-Vatican-could-not-face-trip-Rio-age-health (3)
J. P.
Farrell, “Why did Pope Benedict XVI resign?” 4th of June 2017.
Online accessed at https://gizadeathstar.com/2017/06/pope-benedict-xvi-resign/ (4)
T.
D. Williams, “Archbishop of Italy suggest Obama caused Ratzinger to resign.” 8
March 2017. Online accessed at http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/03/08/italian-archbishop-suggests-pope-benedict-xvi-resigned-obama-pressures/ (5)
N.
Donnelly, “Pro-Pope Francis Cardinals Seek His Resignation to Avoid Schism,
Reports Times of London.” 2nd of March 2017. Online accessed at https://onepeterfive.com/pro-pope-francis-cardinals-seek-resignation-avoid-schism-reports-times-london/ (6)
George Weigel, “Review: Last Testament – In
his own words, by Benedict XVI with Peter Seewald.” Translated by Jacob
Phillips (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). See
https://eppc.org/publications/why-did-pope-benedict-resign/ (7)
J-H.
Westen, “Italian archbishop: Pope Benedict retired due to ‘tremendous pressure.’”
7th March 2017. News Catholic Church. (8)
T.
Livingstone, “Pope Benedict XVI condemns radical Islam as creating an ‘explosive
situation.” The Australian (28 April, 2017). Online accessed at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pope-benedict-xvi-condemns-radical-islam-as-creating-an-explosive-situation/news-story/ad73144c880dcab3b5bca22a2db60218 (9)
T.
Kington, “Ex-pope Benedict says God told him to resign during 'mystical
experience'.” 21st of August 2013. (10)
F. Mazurczak, “Benedict XVI Warns of
‘Dangerous Situation’ With Radical Atheism and Radical Islam.” 15th
of April 2017.
Promotional image for his 2017 trip to Egypt indicating Francis’
closeness of the cross with Islam religion and the peace dove of the Holy
Spirit hovering over both over the political zone of Egypt. “Muslim terrorism does not exist’’ and it is not “right to identify
Islam with violence’’.