American Harlot

"Behold, I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast" (Rev. 17:4). She had the name, "Mystery, Babylon the Great" (17:5). There are metaphorical symbols that we may not fully understand but we are given to know that the Antichrist will find himself opposed to the Whore of Babylon just before her judgment. He will be God's instrument of vengeance against the Great Harlot. The Harlot has carried out great influence and has even gone to cause these kings who will work together with the Antichrist to overthrow the Harlot. We don't know who the Harlot is. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman has the following to say about what tradition has stated about her:

"Secondly, let it be considered, that as Babylon is a type of Rome, and of the world of sin and vanity, so Rome in turn may be a type also, whether of some other city, or of a proud and deceiving world. The woman is said to be Babylon as well as Rome, and as she is something more than Babylon, namely, Rome, so again she may be something more than Rome, which is yet to come. Various great cities in Scripture are made, in their ungodliness and ruin, types of the world itself." ("Lectures on Antichrist", Part 4)

In reading Richard Bauckham's The Theology of the Book of Revelation, he writes the following about this Mother of Harlots:

"From John's perspective Rome's evil lay primarily in absolutizing her power and prosperity. Consequently she pursued and maintained them at the expense of her victims. According to 18:24, it is not just for the martyrdom of Christians, but for the slaughter of all her innocent victims that Rome will be judged: 'in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain on earth'. There is therefore a sense in which Revelation takes a view from the 'underside of history', from the perspective of the victims of Rome's power and glory. It takes this perspective not because John and his Christian readers necessarily belonged to the classes which suffered rather than shared Rome's power and prosperity. It takes this perspective because, if they are faithful in their witness to the true God, their opposition to Rome's oppression and their dissociation of themselves from Rome's evil will make them victims of Rome in solidarity with the other victims of Rome. The special significance of Christian martyrdom is that it makes the issue clear. Those who bear witness to the one true God, the only true absolute, to whom all political power is subject, expose Rome's idolatrous self-deification for what it is." (38-39)

It is interesting that everything that Bauckham writes here can very elaborately be applied to the United States of America today. In the Harlot is found the blood of all the innocent, oppressed, prophets, and saints. It is her judgment that reveals to the world the evils of Babylon the Great and yet, the world, participating in her sins, has also become and taken part in the sins of Babylon the Great to such an extent that they mourn her death. Christians are told to join the courts of Heaven in celebrating the triumph of Heaven over the Whore of Babylon as she is ultimately devoured by even the very barbarous enemies of the Antichrist. Her sins have worn down the saints of the Most High to such an extent that those who provide faithful witness will already be in a state of desiring the ultimate triumph over the Great Harlot. They will not mourn for the rest of the world who partakes in her sins for next, the Antichrist who leveled her will also be slain.

But does this apply so strongly to Rome? Maybe the ancient readers viewed it as such but Babylon is called "Mystery" here. A "mystery", as the ancient Christians understood the term, was something that one was to be initiated into. As Newman gives us Babylon as a type, and Rome as a type, so maybe also the great misunderstanding of this Evil Harlot that extended her sins to the Heavens. On many issues, St. Augustine not only exonerated, but also proved why God allowed Rome to blossom and grow. It was not because of her wickedness, certainly not. But because she was morally superior to the other nations. Yet Rome became infatuated with its false deities and so it refused to acknowledge that it was the true God who delivered the Carthaginians and the Druids into her hands.

According to the Romans, the Carthaginians were slain for their infatuation with the evils and horrors of infanticide. There is some speculation that the Carthaginians might have even come from the same bloodlines as the Philistines and worshiped the same demons as the Philistines. This horrified the far more civilized Romans and they declared war on Carthage and subdued it. Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars, recounts the horrifying details of the Druid practice of human sacrifice. Horrified by this, Caesar, in his highest and most civil sensibilities, declared all-out war on the Druids until they put an immediate end to the practice. But Rome refused to admit that God had delivered these into her hands.

Rome's chief sin was not its immorality but its haughtiness and its self-deification.

Certainly Christians underwent many persecutions under Rome but these were at different intervals of time, with some persecutions being worse, some Emperors being more tolerable toward the Christian religion, and then settling down the next minute. These were persecution cycles they went through. Candida Moss declares it The Myth of Persecution but that is an instance of extreme nonsense from the anti-Christian world. There was persecution, but it exited at differing intervals until the Holy Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be legal. Even during and after Constantine, orthodox Christians still experienced different intervals of persecution which depended on the governing authorities of the Roman Empire. The sack in 476 A.D. spared the West and enabled Christianity to rule the Empire as Charlemagne was soon crowned as Emperor Augustus by the Pope of Rome. To the great fury of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople. But the result is clear. The subjection of the Roman Emperor, whether in the West or in the East, to the Church, proved decisive in Rome's survival. This is the argument that St. Augustine makes in The City of God. Though pride is the deadliest of all sins, it is hard to see that as extending to the offense of Heaven as greatly as the Harlot's sins. No, the sin here must be seen as unforgivable. Pride is a deadly sin but it is forgivable through the greatest acts of humility.

There are some who revel in the sins they commit and they look for ways to commit even greater sins. This is the manifestation of the sin of the Whore of Babylon. We have seen with our governors here in America how they revel and glorify in the sin of murder. One governor says, "I can kill them when they're 24 weeks in the womb!" And the next governor says, "I can kill them when they're outside the womb!" It's no longer that they are horrified by the sinfulness of their perversities but instead they go out of their way to increase the number of their sins! They bask in these sins. They raise their hearts to the skies and say, "Nothing shall happen to us! Those who criticize us are morons! Nothing to see here!" Everything of the Whore of Babylon, from persecution of the saints through murderous campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan's assaults and killings of Catholics, to the chaining of slaves, to the leveling of innocent civilians overseas, to even the slaying of infants! Everything of the Whore of Babylon is a sin of which the stench reaches to the heights of the Most High.

The religion of Antichrist is rather interesting. He will honor a god of forces and yet exalt himself above all that which is called God. Much the same, the Whore of Babylon seems to mimic or even foreshadow the religion of Antichrist in a sense. St. Hippolytus tells us that when Rome is subdued by the ten kings, these kings will hold sovereignty over democracies that resemble kingdoms. "As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms" (On Christ and Antichrist, 27). And St. John Henry Cardinal Newman remarks on the lust of the United States of America for its state religion:

"On the other hand, after having broken away from all restraint as regards God and man, they gave a name to that reprobate state itself into which they had thrown themselves, and exalted it, that very negation of religion, or rather that real and living blasphemy, into a kind of god. They called it LIBERTY, and they literally worshipped it as a divinity. It would almost be incredible, that men who had flung off all religion should be at the pains to assume a new and senseless worship of their own devising, whether in superstition or in mockery, were not events so recent and so notorious. After abjuring our Lord and Saviour, and blasphemously declaring Him to be an impostor, they proceeded to decree, in the public assembly of the nation, the adoration of Liberty and Equality as divinities: and they appointed festivals besides in honour of Reason, the Country, the Constitution, and the Virtues. Further, they determined that tutelary gods, even dead men, may be canonized, consecrated, and worshipped; and they enrolled in the number of these some of the most notorious infidels and profligates of the last century. The remains of the two principal of these were brought in solemn procession into one of their churches, and placed upon the holy altar itself; incense was offered to them, and the assembled multitude bowed down in worship before one of them—before what remained on earth of an inveterate enemy of Christ." ("Lectures on Antichrist", Part 2)

He further states of the American religion, "And further, let it be remarked, that there was a tendency in the infatuated people I have spoken of, to introduce the old Roman democratic worship, as if further to show us that Rome, the fourth monster of the prophet's vision, is not dead. They even went so far as to restore the worship of one of the Roman divinities (Ceres) by name, raised a statue to her, and appointed a festival in her honour."

Babylon is a type, Rome is a type, and currently, America is a type. If course for our history is not reversed drastically, the current state of both political affairs and religious affairs could usher in the Reign of Antichrist sooner than we imagine. Of the day and hour no one knows. And the Great Harlot shall not be revealed to us until her destruction. But we can clearly see how the United States of America fulfills so many characteristics. The question is whether it will continue to harden and claim that she is Queen, not a widow. Will she begin an even greater persecution of Christians than did even the Soviet Union? I resist speculating more for while the United States clearly fits the description of this effeminate Harlot, I do not believe any one will know until the coming of Antichrist who she actually is.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 3 - The Myth of Persecution

In order to bolster their claims that the Papacy is the Antichrist, Protestants are obliged to come up with a whole persecution legend of how the Papacy somehow rose up to persecute the "true Christians" and was in power performing this action the whole time. This is historically problematic to say the least. Numerous details are left out. Numbers from the Inquisitions, Religious Wars, and individual massacres are grotesquely inflated, context is ignored, and they'll even claim certain sects as their own. Let's just state this, it's a fictitious claim to begin with so naturally, numbers have to be inflated. One source claims that the Inquisitions killed an estimated 50,000,000-150,000,000 people! I tried to contact the author of that website in the past, ages ago, asking him what his credentials were. His health seems to be poor and at the time, his wife was also battling a serious illness. It seems she has since reposed as well. He never got back to me. I contacted him recently but have still not heard a response. I don't know if it's because he is simply so caught up in this fictitious narrative that he thinks any one who disagrees with him is a Satanic Beast or simply that he doesn't want to engage in counter-arguments. Regardless, he needs serious prayer so if you can commend him to your prayers, that would be the Christian thing to do.

But again, these numbers are grotesquely exaggerated and there is a huge context missing. Since all historicists maintain that the Papacy is a persecuting power, let's see if they can actually back those claims up. Albert Barnes, in his Biblical Commentary on the Book of Daniel states the following,

"This would be a persecuting power - "making war with the saints," and "wearing out the saints of the Most High." Can anyone doubt that this is true of the Papacy? The Inquisition; the "persecutions of the Waldenses;" the ravages of the Duke of Alva; the fires of Smithfield; the tortures at Goa - indeed, the whole history of the Papacy may be appealed to in proof that this is applicable to that power. If anything could have "worn out the saints of the Most High" - could have cut them off from the earth so that evangelical religion would have become extinct, it would have been the persecutions of the Papal power. In the year 1208, a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million of men perished. From the beginning of the order of the Jesuits, in the year 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, or buried alive, for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V, against the Protestants, to the peace of Chateau Cambresis in 1559. Eighteen thousand suffered by the hands of the executioner, in the space of five years and a half, during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the Papacy, will convince anyone that what is here said of "making war with the saints" Daniel 7:21, and "wearing out the saints of the Most High" Daniel 7:25, is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history."

If I count correctly, that is a grand total of 2,280,000 Protestants killed by the Papacy. Definitely no where near the number claimed by the previous source cited. Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Book of Revelation also cites Bp. Thomas Newton saying the exact same thing. But here's the full context.

Heretics are a pestilence upon the Church. When one actually studies the context of these "persecutions", one will see that not only have Protestants committed equal crimes against Catholics throughout the years, but also that in many instances, Protestants were the instigators. Who exactly were the Waldensians, the Lollards, and the Albigensians? It's important to start with the Albigensians. The Albigensians, or the Cathar movement, was a sect that "believed the material world was the creation of an evil deity, and that the pope's church was not only corrupt, but also false and evil...[they] also believed in reincarnation and rejected the sacraments, prayers for the dead, and the veneration of images and relics" (47)

Waldensians initially sought approval for their order from the Pope, but somewhere down the line, distanced themselves even more overtly from him and began "to argue that that the ultimate supreme authority was the Bible, not the pope. In addition, much like the Cathars, the Waldenses also questioned the validity of the church's sacraments, prayers for the dead, and the veneration of saints and icons." (Carlos M.N. Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 48)

The Lollards who followed Wycliffe's sacramentarian movement gained incredible popularity in England but then showed a demonic hostility toward iconography, "On taking an image of St. Catherine [of Alexandria] from a chapel, one Lollard said to another: Aha...my dear chap, now God has sent us fuel to cook our cabbage and appease hunger. This holy image will make a bonfire for us. By axe and fire she will undergo a new martyrdom, and perhaps through cruelty of those new torments she will come at last to the kingdom of heaven." (52)

Anabaptists weren't all peaceful either. One sect, "a group of fanatics under Jan van Batenburg (1495-1538" were known as "swordsmen" and "indulged in sporadic terrorism in the Netherlands for nearly a decade after 1535" (Euan Cameron, The European Reformation, 333).

St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine highlights the fact of religious wars ongoing between Protestants and Catholics and notes that,

"St. Augustine, disputing on this citation, says in the time of Antichrist the Devil will be loosed, and hence that persecution will be much more severe than all the ones that preceded it; the Devil can do so much more cruelly loosed than bound....Hippolytus the Martyr and St. Cyril say that the martyrs whom Antichrist will kill are going to be more illustrious than all the previous ones, because the old martyrs fought against the human ministers of the devil, but these will fight against the Devil himself...we have experienced nothing like that from the year 600 or even 1000." (On the Roman Pontiff, Bk. III, ch. VII)

He then challenges the heretics, "what comparison is there of that sort of persecution with that carried out by Nero, Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, and others? Accordingly, for one heretic who is burned, a thousand Christians formerly were burned—and that was exercised in the whole Roman world, not only in one place. Furthermore, at present when the supreme penalty is given a man is merely burned, but in ancient times they exercised the most unbelievable torments." (ibid)

And this is evident when one examines the martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, the Forty Martyrs who had rocks thrown at them, the martyr Barbara who was locked in the tower by her father, the martyr Irene who escaped numerous tortures before finally laying down in a coffin having converted thousands to Christianity, St. George who was brutally tortured multiple times before finally being being beheaded, etc. And further, "the fact is that heretics killed many more Catholics in the last ten or fifteen years in France and Flanders than inquisitors burned heretics in perhaps the last hundred." (ibid)

One could even add that if one takes the date of 538 as the start of supposed "Antichrist" reign, you have to take into account the Holy Emperor Justinian's torments of a demon that caused him to turn on numerous orthodox Christians, the iconoclastic Roman Emperors who persecuted men such as St. John of Damascus, framing him for a crime that had the Muhammadans cut his hand off, the imprisonment of St. Maximus the Confessor whose tongue was cut out, and numerous Patriarchs of Constantinople who were deposed by these Emperors for upholding the orthodox Catholic doctrine. And yet it's the Papacy who is the persecuting power? Clerics don't even have the authority to kill or maim a heretic. Only the legitimate authorities of a State have that right! (St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Moral Theology, Bk. IV, 378)

Now, let's not sanitize history. Catholics have done some wretched things, especially to the Waldensians.

"Those in the Piedmont valleys enjoyed religious peace from 1536-1559, owing to the political dependence of the districts upon France. A contrary policy was pursued by the Dukes of Savoy; but the Waldenses at the very outset successfully resisted, and in 1561 were granted in certain districts the free exercise of their religion. In 1655 violence was again fruitlessly resorted to. Later in the same century (1686, 1699) some of them, under stress of renewed persecution, emigrated to Switzerland and Germany." (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Waldenses")

Catholics are not perfect but indeed are sinners too. That said, the Protestants have done some nasty things to Catholics. And sites that claim this exaggerated number do a grotesque disservice to Christianity in toto by claiming such egregious absurdities as it clearly leads men away from God. 2,300,000 still seems like an exaggeration but when you give about 1,260 years for "beast power" to reign, that is remarkably light. Especially when you consider how much Adolf Hitler massacred in regards to innocent non-combatants in the years of 1939-1945. Or even how much Stalin was able to kill during his great persecutions of political opponents. And one final note, we may not ever know the exact total of numbers but...

"These data and others of the same nature bear out the assertion that the Inquisition marks a substantial advance in the contemporary administration of justice, and therefore in the general civilization of mankind. A more terrible fate awaited the heretic when judged by a secular court. In 1249 Count Raymund VII of Toulouse caused eighty confessed heretics to be burned in his presence without permitting them to recant. It is impossible to imagine any such trials before the Inquisition courts. The large numbers of burnings detailed in various histories are completely unauthenticated, and are either the deliberate invention of pamphleteers, or are based on materials that pertain to the Spanish Inquisition of later times or the German witchcraft trials (Vacandard, op. cit., 237 sqq.)." (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Inquisition")

Overall, the numbers of 50,000,000-150,000,000 given by our first source are a drastically unverified claim and to insist that the Catholic Church is just covering up the true numbers to "hide itself" from being identified as "the Antichrist" is just absurd. It's a blanket statement. Protestants underwent no where near the persecution that was let loose by the Roman Empire on the faithful Christians. That's just an historic fact. Much of their claim is based on a moronic persecution complex built on inflated pride. The Waldensians clearly disturbed public peace in preaching and spreading their errors into the Church much like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons go door-knocking on everyone's house nowadays disturbing them. The State's response toward them was brutal at times, and possibly over-the-top, but no where near the level of persecution. The Albigensians weren't even Christians but were Gnostics who held to "Good-god, bad-god" ideology and other Gnostic theology. The Lollards themselves persecuted and smashed churches much like the Black Lives Matter idiot, Shaun King, commands that his demented followers destroy all images of "White Jesus". At certain points, the Protestant killings of Catholics rivaled, if not even flat-out exceeded the numbers killed by Catholics. So the "beast" is not the Papacy. The Papacy never persecuted Christians. This is just simple nonsense.

Nevertheless, keep the man who wrote the article linked in your prayers. He needs healing. Both from his heresy and from the ailments he faces. God bless his soul!

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 2 - The Four Beasts

"The Second proof [that Antichrist has not come] is taken from another sign that will precede the times of Antichrist, which will be the desolation in every way possible of the Roman Empire. At length, it must be known that the Roman Empire was divided into ten kings, none of whom will be called 'King of the Romans,' although all will occupy some provinces of the Roman Empire in the same way that the King of France, the King Spain, the Queen of England, and by chance some others hold parts of the Roman Empire; at length they are not Roman kings or emperors, but until they cease to hold those dominions Antichrist cannot come." (St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, On the Roman Pontiff, Bk. III, ch. V)

"In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in the last times, and concerning the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel, telling us that thus it had been said to him: And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet, but shall receive power as if kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and give their strength and power to the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, because He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. It is manifest, therefore, that of these [potentates], he who is to come shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed by the coming of our Lord. For that the kingdom must be divided, and thus come to ruin, the Lord [declares when He] says: Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. It must be, therefore, that the kingdom, the city, and the house be divided into ten; and for this reason He has already foreshadowed the partition and division [which shall take place]." (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. V, ch. 26)

It is clear that the beasts in the apocalyptic vision of Daniel 7 are accurately interpreted by the Protestant historicists as the succeeding Empires of the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans. I find the assertions of the Preterists to be baffling in regards to this text. For the symbolism of the third beast clearly depicts the division of the four generals of Alexander the Great and the Macedonian-Greek Empire. Further, this position is backed by St. Jerome as Bellarmine proves. Thus, Tradition establishes that the four beasts are the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and the Romans. There is no need for Catholics to dispute this in order to shake off the false and blasphemous charge that the Papacy is Antichrist because the very St. Irenaeus who admits this also speaks of Our Lady such,

"And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness (advocata) of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience." (Against Heresies, Bk. V, ch. 19)

And what anti-Papist would speak of Our Lady like that? Indeed, they blasphemy Her and state that Our Lady could not possibly advocate for anybody attempting to claim that She's dead when in fact She was raised to life again three days after Her reposal!

So yes, the last beast is the Roman Empire. And there you have it. The heretics can now go on with their histories of the ten kings except...which one is even accurate? Adam Clarke teaches that it's the Lombards, the Exarchate of the Greeks in Ravenna, the Goths, Saxons, Saracens, Burgundians, Franks, Alemans, Buns, and the Roman Senate. John Gill holds that these are the Britons, Saxons, Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Suevians and Alanes, Vandals, Almanes, Ostrogoths, Greeks (Exarchate of Ravenna, that is). Albert Barnes says that they are the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Sueves and Alans, Vandals, Franks, Burgundians, Heruli and Turingi, Saxons and Angles, Huns, and Lombards.

Still, the SDA heretics insist that the ten kings are the "Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, Heruli, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards" (Understanding Daniel and Revelation, 38). Barnes also gives the arrangement of Sir Isaac Newton, an Arian heretic himself, who gives the arrangement as the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa, the Suevians in Spain, the Visigoths, the Alans in Gallia, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Britons, the Huns, the Lombards, the Exarchate of Ravenna. The kingdoms are arranged differently in each narrative because none of the kingdoms actually exist. They are historical inventions of the heretics in order to indict the Papacy and justify their own blasphemies.

Is there a reason to provide further refutation at this point? The four beasts theory is solid and based in Tradition. It is given to us by men who believed in and affirmed the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady. It was not given to us by heretics. The problem as to their ten kings and why they cannot agree on an arrangement unless they plagiarize each other is that there were never ten kings who took over the western half of the Roman Empire. And there is the major problem as to their delusion. They think the Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D. That is false and it is generally upheld by secular classicists apologizing for the Pagan Roman Empire as distinct from the Christian Roman Empire. But the Roman Empire did under the Holy Emperor Constantine, declare Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. What else did Constantine do? He moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople. The "Western Roman Empire" is not what the fourth beast is. The fourth beast didn't split in half but remained whole while the ten horns reigned over it. It needs to be understood that the Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire is the Fourth Beast because it is the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire fell to the Turks in 1453 A.D. So the heretics wishing to indict the Papacy on the Tradition that the beasts are understood as the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans, invent different arrangements of the ten kings because this was not what was prophesied in Scripture but rather the fall in 1453 A.D. was what was predicted. Their historical analysis of the Roman Empire is West-centered and neglects the totality of the Roman Empire either conscientiously or deliberately forgetting that the Roman Empire was still in-tact almost a millennium longer than they think it fell. Their ten kings simply cannot be because they never were.

Of course, this also should repudiate those who think the Antichrist is imminent in today's world. Considering that Bellarmine has indicated that as long as the ten kings reign, and Tradition affirms this, Antichrist will not come. John Gill cites St. Jerome, 

"all ecclesiastical writers, that when the Roman empire is destroyed, there shall be ten kings who shall divide it among them; and an eleventh shall arise, a little king, who shall conquer three of the ten kings; and having slain them, the other seven shall submit their necks to the conqueror:"

So if England, Spain, the Netherlands, Saudis, Emirates, Jordan, Liechenstein, all have their monarchies in-tact, and if the pretenders still have supporters to their claims of legitimacy, it cannot be said that the Antichrist will come. Until they cease holding the dominions of the Roman Empire, Antichrist will not come. The Protestant attempt to indict not only ignores the historical fact that the Roman Empire did not fall until 1453 A.D., but also it neglects that the Tradition upholds that the ten kings will lose their dominion over the former Roman provinces. Which they do not uphold. Antichrist is just not coming in our lifetime it seems.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 1

Historicism is the popular Protestant interpretation of the Book of Revelation which applies all of the prophecies somehow, conveniently, to the Catholic Church. It is heretical, obviously enough, but it also has significant flaws and fails to even fit neatly into history. Historicism understands the days to be an allegorical reference to years and much of it hinges on this symbols for if these symbols aren't correct, then their whole entire theology collapses. We'll get into the problems with where the apostasy begins and the 1260 "years" in another part, but to open up, I just wanted to point out the glaring flaws in the interpretation first and foremost as well as a little bit about my own background.

When I was younger, I was always attracted to the beauty of Catholicism. I thought of the tranquility of lighting a candle during the church "service" (which I now realize is actually properly called a Liturgy in the East and more frequently called a Mass in the West). I grew up non-denominational. We were charismatic, pietistic, and Arminian. We absolutely despised Calvinists as evil for denying the obvious. But that was the only basic doctrine we seemed to have. I didn't learn things like the Trinity. I learned the basic part but I didn't learn very much in terms of systematic theology or why it was important. There was no deification of the soul through grace, no working out our own salvation. We came across the text, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord!' will make it into Heaven" but we understood it to mean "only if you say, 'Lord, Lord!' will you make it into Heaven". There was no essence of Christianity. We had people who were formerly Catholic. I wonder why now but based on the debasement of modern Catholic thought, there may be an answer to that. They felt Catholics were only really "quasi-Christian" at best. It seemed strange I couldn't get a definite answer.

Then, my senior year in high school, I discovered some very nasty interpretations of the Book of the Revelation toward the Catholic Church. Some of these interpreted the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation as being about the unfolding events of history and identified the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon. I was very shocked at this but being young and naïve, I thought it a reasonable interpretation. Though this led to an objectively good thing. I began to forge an interest in both history and historical theology and I wanted to know more about the teachings of the Catholic faith too. I am grateful for the Catholics who tolerated my silliness back then and I ask for the forgiveness of any one I led astray in all this.

It was in studying history, I realized soon enough that the historicist interpretation of the Scriptures was a whole bunch of garbage. It was an exercise in eisegesis of the Scriptures and an abuse of shoehorning history to fit an agenda. Namely, the agenda to remain anti-Catholic and in error. We'll get into more detail later but first, I want to focus on the more asinine interpretations of the historicist school to show how contradictory and what a load of bull-hockey it truly is.

The first one to take note of is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's (WELS) statement of faith that the Pope is the Antichrist based on the teaching of the Man of Sin appearing in the Scriptures. You can read their full statement here. Obviously, this is ludicrous for multiple reasons. The first of which is that said "Man of Sin" will proclaim himself as God in the Temple of God and direct worship toward himself. Even if we do not understand the Temple of God as the Jewish Temple as it would have been understood at the time St. Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians, if the Man of Sin is standing in the Christian Churches showing himself to be God, then it is better to remain Catholic. For to abandon the Church is to abandon Christ. So WELS refutes its own doctrine on the subject. Secondly, the Pope never shows himself to be God but always directs the faithful's worship to the true God. So for WELS to say the Papacy fulfills this is nuts.

The second one to take note, and we'll be going after this one throughout this series, is the Seventh Day Adventist doctrine which can be found on multiple official SDA websites and SDA off-shoot websites. They teach that the four beasts in Daniel 7 are the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Roman Empire. That the 10 horns are 10 Barbarian tribes that sacked the Western portion of the Roman Empire. That Justinian's crowning of the Pope in 538 (source???) started 1260 years until Napoleon Bonaparte's abuse of the Papacy in 1798 resulted in the "fatal wound". This theory can be guffawed at so badly that one wonders why waste a series of blog posts writing a refutation of it? Because it's fun and riveting to write about actual history as an historian. I'll go over the flaws more in-depth obviously but to begin with...

1. The 10 horns are on the beast's head. They cover symbolically the whole beast by being on his head. The Roman Empire did not collapse in 476 A.D. as modern Pagans claim but in 1453 A.D. as historians claim. Therefore, there was no rooting up of three horns that could have even possibly happened in 538 A.D.!

2. The fatal wound came before the beast's 1260 day reign so to insist that a fatal wound occurred after is just forcing historical data to match your heretical theology.

3. The SDA position also insists that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the woman that is ultimately devoured by the beast and the 10 horns. So how can the Catholic Church be both Antichrist and then devour itself?

It was probably the absurdity of the SDA position being forced into my head to consider so much that made me break away from it. But the more and more I consider, the more I realize that there is an agenda behind those who back this ludicrous interpretation. When I was an Arian heretic, I claimed this interpretation because it did justify my Arian beliefs. I fell back on this interpretation in debates with Catholics online because I didn't want to accept the teachings of the Church. As this series continues, I hope people realize and can see what I eventually realized myself about this historicist nonsense. It is nothing more than a mask to keep you from seeing and realizing the beauty of Holy Mother Church. But as this mask is removed, as real history is discovered, we will eventually say with St. John Henry Newman, "To be steeped in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

Honor Your Father and Mother

St. Habakkuk's mother pleads for him to convert to
Islam to extend his earthly life.

That's not a question. There is no dispute about it. Our Lord even states that for those who do not honor their father and their mother, God has commanded that they be put to death (Matt. 15:4). But it is not so easily done for those whose parents are not even Christians. My parents made a bad decision. They bring this text up to me every time they see me depart further and further away from their decisions. Am I to follow them in their bad decision? Is that honoring my mother and father? Actually, it is a dishonor to my mother and father. The same Lord who said, "honor your father and mother" also said, "my mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it in practice." (Luke 8:21)

It is difficult for people to live with non-Catholic parents. Sometimes parents who can be overtly hostile to the Catholic faith. I discussed this once with a priest at my parish who converted from irreligion to the Catholic faith last Summer. We talked about how it is difficult for people to grasp sometimes that being a Catholic does not entail that one does not practice their faith in public discourse. Far from it. Public discourse is the very means by which the faith is practiced. It is where people can examine as to whether you are a hypocrite or not by your actions. When you are a Catholic, you have a spiritual mother and a spiritual father whom you heed. The Church becomes your mother. God adopts you as His son through baptism. St. Cyprian tells us that "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the church for his mother." Our Lady, the Mother of Our Lord and the archetypal image of the Church, becomes our mother through the Church.

It must be noted, according to St. Symeon the New Theologian that, "[The enemy] often uses this one means, attachment to one's kinsfolk, like a lasso to drag them off." (The Discourses, VII.2) Many times people perceive family get-togethers as beneficial times to honor their parents but care must be guarded not to become attached to one's kinsfolk. This means that obedience must always be yielded to the Lord first and foremost. Obedience can never be yielded to the parents or to the kinsfolk for when the human authority that God has subjected you to is opposed to the spiritual life, one must oppose them as well. It is a difficult subject when people live with non-Christian family members and yet practice Christianity. One need not parental permission to go to Church and observe the Feast Days. One need not partake in blasphemous activities with Pagan or heretical relatives either. And Pagan and heretical kinsfolk may attempt to lure you inward. My godfather advises me that as long as they are not worshiping a dragon, I can partake in the things they do. Obviously, if my lesbian sister were to attempt to "marry", I would inform my kinsfolk that I will not attend nor give credence to such a blasphemous mockery of the sacrament.

For this reason, St. John Chrysostom tells us, "when parents oppose us in the spiritual life, we must not even know them, so when they do not hinder us, we ought to give them their due, and prefer them to others, because they gave birth to us, raised us, and endured a thousand sorrows for us." (Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 85) Our Lord in fact backs the Gold-mouthed Preacher on this and says, "Do not suppose I have come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother...a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Matt. 10:34-36). Yes, there are times in the spiritual life where the members of your own household will oppose your spiritual development. It is wonderful when they assist your spiritual development, but when they do not, opposition to their will is owed. This is why I always hold my godparents in higher regard than my biological parents. For as long as my biological parents remain opposed to the Christian faith, there will be times when they oppose my spiritual growth.

St. Alphonsus de Liguori teaches us the precepts and the limitations of obedience that is owed to our parents.

"It must be here observed that the Apostle says, 'obey your parents in the Lord,' that is to say, in those things that are pleasing to the Lord, but not in those that are displease Him. If, for example, a mother were to command her son to steal, or to injure another, would he be obliged to obey? Certainly not....Again, St. Thomas teaches that children are not obliged to obey their parents when there is a question of the choice of a state of life." (St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The School of Christian Perfection, ch. 7)

In all obedience, we must ultimately obey God. As long as our biological parents instruct us to hold fast to morals in accordance with the Divine mandate, we may follow them and ought to follow them. But if they ever tell us to disregard the Faith for the sake of our lives or social standing, we must, with St. Habakkuk of Belgrade, say, "My mother, thank you for your milk, but for your counsel, I thank you not: a Serb is Christ's; he rejoices in death!"

St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, Monarchy is the Best Form of Government

Much time is typically spent by monarchists refuting and countering the arguments of democracy. With good reason. Democracy is a sham system of government that has proven to divide people. But perhaps it is also best to provide a strong argument for the case of monarchy. St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, in his massive work, On the Roman Pontiff, covers the topic of monarchy first. He spends a devoted amount of time addressing John Calvin's arguments against monarchy because the Catholic Church holds to the doctrine of papal primacy. The Pope reigns and governs supreme over the entire Catholic Church as God's visible head. He argues that this must be so because God wanted His Church to be modeled after the best form of civil government: monarchy.

"Among the Greek [Fathers], blessed Justin teaches that the rule of many is harmful, and on the contrary, the rule of one is more useful and beneficial: 'The rule of one is freed from wars and dissensions and is usually free.' Also St. Athanasius, 'Truly we have said that a multitude of gods is a nullity of gods: so also, necessarily a multitude of princes makes it that there should appear to be no prince: however where there is no prince, there confusion is born.

"Among the Latin [Fathers], St. Cyprian teaches the same thing, and he proves it best and most eminently from the very fact that monarchy should be the best and most natural government, because God is one. 'For the divine authority, let us borrow from an earthly example: In what way has an alliance of power ever begun with trust, or ended without blood?' St. Jerome says: 'One emperor, one judge of the province. When Rome was built, she could not have two brothers as kings at the same time.' Lastly, one can consult St. Thomas." (Bk. I, ch. II)

He continues his argument citing the classics. According to Plato, "One dominion has been arranged for good laws, the law of these is best; that governance in which not many command, we ought to esteem as the middle: the administration of many others is weak, and also frail." Aristotle, who was Plato's student, repeats, "[a] kingdom is the best of these, a republic the worst." Seneca, commenting on the assassination of Caesar, "[T]he best state of citizenry is to be under just one king." Bellarmine is able to recruit the moral philosopher Plutarch, "[i]f the choice of electing were conceded, one should not choose anything else than the power of one." Finally, Homer's statement that "[i]t is not good that there be many; in war there must be one chief and one king." These philosophers build the rational argument to the case for monarchy that Bellarmine makes but Bellarmine is a theologian first and foremost. He doesn't stop with the human but ascends to the divine.

In accordance with the Divine law "God made from one every kind of man, as the Apostle says." He draws from this the same conclusion made by St. John Chrysostom "that this is so that there should not be democracy among men, but a kingdom." Not only that but in nature, we see that monarchy is the most natural form of government. For St. Cyprian tells us that "[t]here is one king for bees, one leader among flocks, and one rule among rams" and St. Jerome adds that "cranes follow one by the order of the litter."

We observe in Scripture how easily a monarchy formed.

"He did not (as Calvin says but cannot prove), make the government of the Hebrews an aristocracy, or a government of many, but was plainly a monarchy. The princes among the Hebrews were first of all patriarchs, as Abraham, Jacob, Jude and the rest; thereupon generals, as Moses and Joshua; then judges, as Samuel, Sampson, and others; afterwards kings, as Saul, David, and Solomon; thereafter again generals, as Zerubbabel and the Maccabees."

And Bellarmine is not without evidence or examples of this. The confusion is of course is a titular confusion. People think monarchy means having a king but a monarch need not be a king but any sort of ruler. Bellarmine points to the examples set by Abraham, Judah, Moses, and the Judges of Israel. Abraham waged war against four kings with no consultation from any senate, Judah judged his daughter-in-law accused of adultery, with fire, and consulted no senate. Moses commanded thousands of the Jews to be killed for idolatry with no consultation from any senate. The judges only answered to God.

Monarchies have provided untold stability in leadership in countries throughout history. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine states, "[t]here cannot be any doubt, whether that form of ruling the multitude would be better that more fittingly and easily acquires its proposed end. The end of government, however, is the unity of the citizens among themselves, and peace, which that union appears principally to be centered on that all might think the same, wish the same and follow the same." Of the four greatest Empires of the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, only the Romans did not emerge to power under a monarchy. But there was much civil war going on inside the Roman Empire until the Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus, and Mark Antony. After Caesar’s assassination, the Empire was left entirely to his son Augustus. Under Augustus began the Pax Romana (peace of Rome) as the civil wars and strife were ended. The monarchy of the Assyrians lasted 1240 years, the Scythians were the oldest monarchy in Bellarmine’s day, and the Roman monarchy lasted for 1495 years until the Turks toppled Constantinople. We might also add the longevity that was experienced by the Persians and the Ethiopians. Republics evaporate and if they survive, are typically held hostage to civil wars and strife as we observed in the Roman Empire.

There cannot be a doubt, Bellarmine, in one fell swoop, provides the most extensive and comprehensive argument in favor of a simple monarchy.

Jesus Christ, King of Republics?

Abp. Marcel Lefebvre's contributions to the Catholic Church's theology cannot be underestimated nor tossed to the side. Though many neo-conservatives and liberals will cringe up to this, he is among the most important theologians of the 20th century and his orthodoxy is unquestionable. His comments and challenges to Vatican II cannot be easily dismissed when looked at. He is the Great Enunciator of the Faith and his intercession will guide us through the most confusing time in the Church. To toss him aside would be an egregious error to commit. One of the resounding condemnations Abp. Marcel Lefebvre gives is against the democratic ideology that has sprung up in the world today. Especially when we see a so-called Catholic President claiming so much devotion toward this democratic ideology, it has become a form of modern day idolatry.

Lefebvre differentiates between the democratic ideology and the democratic regime. Rousseau's doctrines is summed up subsequently as a "total transfer of every associate, with all his rights, to the whole community" (They Have Uncrowned Him, 47). It is this "liberal postulate of the individual-king...the necessary popular sovereignty" which illegitmizes "every regime that does not have as a basis the popular sovereignty, or that in which governors assure them that they receive power from God" (ibid). Stemming from this comes a crusade to establish the democratic ideology and to do away with the "old regime". It is an ideology that is inspired against, not just monarchical rule, but against the sovereignty of God. Catholic political doctrine acknowledges that all government has been instituted by God to govern and exercise the sword of His wrath (Rom. 13:1-4). This does not mean government is owed unswerving obedience for if the government goes against the divine prerogative, then it must be resisted. This is because government comes from God that it is not an act of rebellion to resist such a government.

Lefebvre shows that this idea of popular sovereignty has been condemned by the Church. Citing Pope Leo XIII, "[a] good number of our contemporaries, walking in the footsteps  of those who, in the last century, bestowed upon themselves the title of philosopher, pretend that all power comes from the people; that, as a consequence, authority does not properly belong to those who exercise it, but only by virtue of a popular mandate....Catholics separate themselves from these new teachers; they want to seek in God the right to govern, and they make it derive from Him as from its natural source and its necessary principle." (Diuturnum). Government derives its full authority from God, not from the people who are governed. It is this ideology which Pontius Pilate first invoked. St. Philaret of Chernigov writes, "Pilate now acted in a way that was a clear insult to common sense: he asked for a decision from the people, who had no right to make such a decision." (Homily 41 On the Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ) Jesus did not say the people were given authority over Him but that Pontius Pilate was given authority over Him!

The democratic ideology is the ideology of popular sovereignty. This does not mean the democratic regime is necessarily anathema. The democratic regime is the idea of "the participation of the people in the power" (They Have Uncrowned Him, 49). "Without preferring democracy, the [St. Thomas Aquinas] considers that concretely, the best political regime is a monarchy in which all the citizens have a certain part of the power, for example in choosing those who govern under the monarchy. This is, says St. Thomas, 'a government that combines monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy." (ibid)

So what would be an approved democratic regime? The Great Enunciator provides the following considerations: the principle of popular sovereignty is limited to the democratic regime and respects the legitimacy of a monarchy, never asserting itself as the derivative of all power as in the Rouseauist philosophy but acknowledging that God is the final source of authority and the rulers only governing as vicars of the people in accordance that the idea is the people who choose them are choosing them for the reason that they themselves cannot govern. The rights of God and the decalogue are the principle basis of the Constitution and are set down in the Constitution. The government is instituted by God and rules according to the laws of God. Ultimately, democracy "must, all the same, have a King: Jesus Christ" (50-51).