There is nothing vague about Pope Francis’ world government agenda. This series will document several sobering concerns that should trouble any true Christian. First, Pope Francis is clearly a Marxist, at least in terms of a socialist redistribution of wealth. Marxism addresses the problem on a superficial level that does not account for man’s fall. It assumes man’s heart is basically good and does not account for human sinfulness. We understand the sentiment. It is estimated that the annual income of the richest one hundred people is enough to end global poverty four times over.[i] But we believe the Christian worldview identifies poverty and oppression as primarily spiritual problems, not socioeconomic ones (Mark 10:21, Luke 6:24, James 5:1–6). What follows is a short excerpt from his May 9, 2014, address to the United Nations, “Address of Pope Francis to the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.”
Today, in concrete terms, an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods which God’s providence has placed in our hands, material goods but also intellectual and spiritual ones, and to give back generously and lavishly whatever we may have earlier unjustly refused to others.
The account of Jesus and Zacchaeus teaches us that above and beyond economic and social systems and theories, there will always be a need to promote generous, effective and practical openness to the needs of others. Jesus does not ask Zacchaeus to change jobs nor does he condemn his financial activity; he simply inspires him to put everything, freely yet immediately and indisputably, at the service of others.
Consequently, I do not hesitate to state, as did my predecessors (cf. JOHN PAUL II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42–43; CentesimusAnnus, 43; BENEDICT XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 6; 24–40), that equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society.[ii]
This is an unambiguous endorsement of the Marxist dream: the redistribution of wealth by the state. As a young Argentinian Jesuit priest, Bergoglio was steeped in the Marxist ideology of liberation theology. Atheistic by definition, Marxism condemns religion for supporting the status quo and legitimating the power of the oppressor.
Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian Christian who spent over three decades in prison for his faith and later founded Voice of the Martyrs, wrote a book demonstrating from Marx’s poetry featuring lines like, “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above”[iii] that Marx was not really an atheist after all, but rather an active Satanist. Wurmbrand cites many such lines.
Marx dreamt about ruining the world created by God. He said in another poem:
Then I will be able to walk triumphantly, Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom. Every word of mine is fire and action. My breast is equal to that of the Creator.[iv]
The words “I shall build my throne high overhead” and the confession that from the one sitting on this throne will emanate only dread and agony remind us of Lucifer’s proud boast, “I will ascend into heaven, 1will exalt my throne above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:13).[v]
It seems that Marx’s advocacy of atheism was more from spite than unbelief. According to Wurmbrand, Marx believed in God and Satan, but chose the latter.
Dave Hunt pointed out that while virtually all of our attention is directed on the ongoing apostasy and soon coming of Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3)—the “Man of Sin” or “Man of Lawlessness” (a distinction based on one’s preference in Greek manuscript traditions) is still only half the story—the other half is the False Prophet: a man who has “two horns like to a lamb, and spake as a dragon” (Revelation 13:11) leading a one-world religion symbolized by “a woman who rides the beast,” arguably (according to many Catholic scholars[vi]) the apostate Roman Catholic Church leading a one-world religion—the great harlot, in appropriately Catholic robes of “purple and scarlet”[vii] (Revelation 17:3). Hunt wrote, “Liberation Theology was spawned in Latin America by radical Catholic priests and nuns whose aroused consciences could no longer justify the oppression of the masses by both Church and state.”[viii] Communism and liberation theology have the same basic goals, but liberation theology turns to the Christian faith rather than atheism to rationalize its confiscation of private property, allegedly to benefit the less fortunate. Latin American liberation theologians contend, most often correctly, that, in addition to the sins of the past like European imperialism, their continent is still being victimized by multinational corporations (e.g., the Amazon rain forest saw a 28 percent rise in the rate of deforestation from August of 2012 to July of 2013[ix]).
The leading proponents of Latin American liberation theology include Peruvian Jesuit Priest Gustavo Gutiérrez S. J. Leonardo Boff, a philosophy of religion professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University in Brazil, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay. As a group they are philosophically indebted to the perspectives of Kant, Hegel, and Marx. Martin wrote that Gutierrez, a Peruvian Jesuit priest, “analyzed ‘theology’ in light of the Marxist theory of class struggle.”[x] He promoted the idea that the gospel burdens the Church with liberating the world from poverty and oppression. Growing up impoverished, it isn’t difficult to be charitable concerning Gutiérrez’s sincere desire to help the poor. But, intentions aside, liberation theology really was a communist conspiracy. According to a Romanian defector, Gutierrez was under the spell of the Soviet KGB.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, was working for the Soviet secret police Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnost (KGB)[xi] under the code name “Mikhailov.” Pacepa bluntly asserts, “Liberation Theology was not invented by Latin American Catholics, but rather it was developed by the KGB.”[xii] Liberation theology was concocted by the KGB and the Patriarch Kirill promoted it. Thus, Kirill was instrumental in spreading Marxism into the Western hemisphere, an existential threat to US soil. Kirill appears to be a rather sinister character. According to investigative journalist Stephenson Billings:
The man in question is named Patriarch Kirill, a genuinely ruthless figure in the harsh world of Soviet politics. A former KGB agent and now a close associate of Vladimir Putin, he has called his leader “a god.” He has been widely condemned for spreading Stalinism and atheism to the Ukraine in a cruel bid to expand his empire. Evidence unearthed in Soviet archives has revealed that the Russian Orthodox Church has long been infiltrated and managed by the KGB as a tool of population control. This is one of the many reasons that the CIA has kept a very close watch on the secretive kingpin Kirill for decades.[xiii]
Apparently, the KGB pays well, because “Archbishop Kirill’s personal wealth was estimated at $4 billion by the Moscow News.”[xiv] Of course, this information has concerning implications in regard to the Russian Orthodox Church’s recent “holy war” declaration as well. Kirill also profited heavily from importing cigarettes duty free through church channels.
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology emphasizes that liberation theology “is for the most part a Roman Catholic theological movement.”[xv] It follows naturally that, as a former Argentine Cardinal, the Pope was profoundly influenced by this communist-inspired Latin American movement. In fact, his socialism is impossible for American Catholics to simply explain away. Especially with widespread reporting of statements like the following concerning the European refugee problem:
These poor people are fleeing war, hunger, but that is the tip of the iceberg. Because underneath that is the cause; and the cause is a bad and unjust socioeconomic system, in everything, in the world—speaking of the environmental problem—in the socioeconomic society, in politics, the person always has to be in the centre. That is the dominant economic system nowadays, it has removed the person from the centre, placing the god money in its place, the idol of fashion. There are statistics, I don’t remember precisely, (I might have this wrong), but that 17% of the world’s population has 80% of the wealth.[xvi]
According to the pope, the world’s problem is no longer sinful man’s rebellion against a holy God, but rather a “bad and unjust socioeconomic system.” The pope’s theme is reminiscent of the Marx-popularized catchphrase, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”[xvii] A British Library description of the class struggle between the proletariat and the capitalist from The Communist Manifesto contextualizes wealth redistribution as the big idea behind Marxism:
Following the proletariat’s defeat of capitalism, a new classless society would emerge based on the idea: “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” In such a society, land, industry, labour and wealth would be shared between all people. All people would have the right to an education, and class structures would disappear. Harmony would reign, and the state would simply “wither away.” (emphasis added)[xviii]
On a superficial level, it seems obvious enough that liberation theologians were deceived into a communist ideology—a conspiracy “theory” which moved into the category “fact” after having been confirmed by high-ranking communist defectors.[xix]
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The call for Christians to be champions for social justice and good stewards of the environment is valid, but it entirely misses the Bible’s description of human depravity (Romans 3:10–18) and, as a result, excludes the real point of evangelism and missions: the true gospel message that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). Theologian D. D. Webster critiques liberation theology as a postmodern construct. Actually, it is quite an alien solution to the world’s problems according to biblical theology.
A Christian understands sin and alienation from God as a dilemma confronting both the oppressor and the oppressed. Liberation theology’s emphasis on the poor gives the impression that the poor are not only the object of God’s concern but the salvific and revelatory subject.[xx]
In relation to the pervasiveness of Zionist conspiracy theories, Barry Segal explained the human condition in the following way:
Man leans more toward the evil than the good; fear and power have more control over him than reason…. All men seek power, and there is none who would not be an oppressor if he could; all, or nearly all, are ready to sacrifice the rights of others to their own interests.[xxi]
Socialism ignores man’s fallen nature and, naively, assumes the opposite. Ideologically it is at war with the gospel. In other words, in their zeal for the oppressed, many Latino priests (like Bergoglio) lost sight of the actual gospel. Recall Jesus’ response when Judas Iscariot, another son of perdition, offered his own first-century version of the liberation theology.
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” (John 12:4–8)
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The liberation-theology movement was partly inspired by the Second Vatican Council that was called by Pope John XXIII[xxii]—the famous patriarch of Venice, a city famous for its streets of water, that the Malachy prophecy foretold as a Pastor & nauta (“pastor and sailor”). It is rumored that in response to studying Malachy’s Prophecy of the Popes and to show himself as the fulfillment of his line in the prophecy, “he hired a boat, filled it with sheep and sailed up and down the Tiber River in full view of the conclave.”[xxiii] He codified Rome’s curse of “saved by faith alone” by confirming that the precepts of the Council of Trent continue to the modern day, a position that was confirmed by his successor.[xxiv] The first post-Lucifer enthronement pope—John XXII—famously advocated a “public authority with power,” and the means co-extensive with these problems, and “a world-wide sphere of activity” in his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris.[xxv]
His successor Pope Paul VI was the pope installed during the luciferians’ parallel enthronement ceremony in 1963. Calling the satanic cabal a “superforce,” Martin wrote:
Most frighteningly for [Pope] John Paul [II], he had come up against the irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops’ chanceries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called the “superforce.” Rumors, always difficult to verify, tied its installation to the beginning of Pope Paul VI’s reign in 1963. Indeed Paul had alluded somberly to “the smoke of Satan which has entered the Sanctuary”…an oblique reference to an enthronement ceremony by Satanists in the Vatican. Besides, the incidence of Satanic pedophilia—rites and practices— was already documented among certain bishops and priests as widely dispersed as Turin, in Italy, and South Carolina, in the United States. The cultic acts of satanic pedophilia are considered by professionals to be the culmination of the Fallen Archangel’s rites.[xxvi]
By this time, Vatican II was being praised in Latin America and, rather than criticize the fledgling liberation theology movement, Paul VI, in his encyclical Octogesima Adveniens, equivocated socioeconomic ideologies as unilaterally weak.
Today moreover the weaknesses of the ideologies are better perceived through the concrete systems in which they are trying to affirm themselves. Bureaucratic socialism, technocratic capitalism and authoritarian democracy are showing how difficult it is to solve the great human problem of living together in justice and equality.[xxvii]
He should have condemned socialism as being derived from an atheistic Marxist ideology. Instead, the penultimate-parallel-enthronement pope advised one to discern between various overlapping “levels” of socialism:
Distinctions must be made to guide concrete choices between the various levels of expression of socialism: a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society, historical movements with a political organization and aim, and an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man. Nevertheless, these distinctions must not lead one to consider such levels as completely separate and independent. The concrete link which, according to circumstances, exists between them must be clearly marked out.[xxviii]
Socialism fails because it naively gives mankind too much credit. While social justice is a noble pursuit, one does not achieve it through redistribution of wealth. People are not basically good and there is no authority but Jesus Christ who can decide what is equitable. While socialism is an idea foreign to Scripture, social justice is a prominent eschatological theme. Jesus said, “Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20b). Considering He also said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24), a brief life of earthly poverty may turn out to be an immortal blessing in the value system of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 6:20). In other words, chances are strong that being rich now will turn out to have not been worth it from an afterlife perspective (James 5:1). Nevertheless, more by what he failed to say, than what he actually said, Paul VI encouraged Latin American liberation theology. During his papacy, a Frenchman named Vicomte de Poncins may have put two and two together as to who the real players in the game of words were, and in so doing exposed a Masonic cabal.
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[i]Jeremy Hobbs, “Annual Income of Richest 100 People Is Enough to End Global Poverty Four Times Over,” Oxfam International, January 19, 2013, https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four accessed October 7, 2015.
[ii] Pope Francis, “Address of Pope Francis to the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination,” LibreriaEditriceVaticana, May 9, 2014, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/may/documents/papa-francesco_20140509_consiglio-nazioni-unite.html , accessed October 7, 2015.
[iii] Karl Marx, “Des Verzweiflenden Gebet” (“Invocation of One in Despair”), Archiv fur die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung (Archives for the History of Socialism and the Workers’ Movement), MEGA, I, i (2),30.
[iv] Karl Marx, Ueber die Differenz der Demokritischen und Epikureischen Naturphilosophie Vorrede (The Difference between Democritus’ and Epicurus’ Philosophy of Nature, Foreword), 10.
[v]Richard Wurmbrand, Marx and Satan (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1985), 12–13.
[vi] Prominent examples include Cardinal Henry Edward Manning the Lord Archbishop of Westminster as discussed in Petrus Romanus, 438, and the revelation commentary by Father Francisco Ribera S. J. discussed in Petrus Romanus, 274.
[vii] “Its colour for cardinals is ordinarily red, and for bishops violet,” from “Cope” in Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04351a.htm, accessed October 12, 2015.
[viii] Dave Hunt, A Woman Rides the Beast, (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1994), 56.
[ix] BBC Latin America, “Brazil Says Amazon Deforestation Rose 28% in a Year,” BBC News, November 15, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-24950487 accessed October 7, 2015. Also see: Alonso Martinez, Ivan de Souza, and Francis Liu, “Multinationals vs. Multilatinas: Latin America’s Great Race,” Strategy + Business, Issue 32 Fall 2003, http://www.strategy-business.com/article/03307?gko=85c85, accessed October 7, 2015.
[x] Martin, The Jesuits, 132.
[xi] Tony Halpin, “Russian Orthodox Church Chooses between ‘ex-KGB Candidates’ as Patriarch,” The Times (of London), January 26 2009, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article2100100.ece, accessed October 12, 2015.
[xii]Ion Mihai Pacepa, “The Secret Roots of Liberation Theology” National Review, April 23, 2015, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417383/secret-roots-liberation-theology-ion-mihai-pacepa?target=author&tid=901039, accessed October 8, 2015.
[xiii]Stephenson Billings, “Should the CIA Stop Patriarch Kirill, The Murderous Billionaire Cult Leader Leading the Soviets to Satanism?” http://christwire.org/2012/04/should-the-cia-stop-patriarch-kirill-the-murderous-billionaire-cult-leader-leading-the-soviets-to-satanism/ accessed January 4, 2016.
[xiv] Pacepa, “The Secret Roots of Liberation Theology.”
[xv] D. D. Webster, “Liberation Theology” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology: Second Edition, A. W. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: 2001), 686.
[xvi] “Francis: Refugees Are the Tip of the Iceberg, Europe Must Welcome Them,” Vatican Insider, September 14, 2015, http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-profughi-43342/, accessed October 7, 2015.
[xvii] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Manifesto of the Communists (International Publishing Co., 1886), http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/methods1/bourgeoisie1/bourgeoisie.html; also see Kory Schaff, ed., Philosophy and the Problems of Work: A Reader, (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 224.
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] Greg Tomlin, “Defector: ‘Liberation Theology’ a Soviet Plot of the Cold War,” Christian Examiner, May 6, 2015, http://www.christianexaminer.com/article/defector.liberation.theology.a.soviet.plot.of.the.cold.war/48895.htm, accessed October 7, 2015.
[xx] “Francis: Refugees.”
[xxi] B. W. Segel, A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 99.
[xxii]Bishop B. C. Butler, “Pope John’s Announcement of an Ecumenical Council,” Vatican II—Voice of the Church, http://www.vatican2voice.org/91docs/announcement.htm accessed October 12, 2015.
[xxiii]Petrus Romanus, 50.
[xxiv] John XXIII, Address of October 11, 1962, states, “In truth, at the present time, it is necessary that Christian doctrine in its entirety, and with nothing taken away from it, is accepted with renewed enthusiasm, and serene and tranquil adherence delivered to the exact words of conceiving and reducing to the form, which especially shines forth from the acts of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council.” “ALLOCUTIO IOANNIS PP. XXIII IN SOLLEMNI SS. CONCILII INAUGURATIONE,” Section 6 final paragraph translated from Latin by C. D. Putnam, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/speeches/1962/documents/hf_j-xxiii_spe_19621011_opening-council_lt.html (emphasis added).
[xxv] Pope John XXII encyclical Pacem in Terris, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, April 11, 1963, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.pdf, p. 15.
[xxvi] Malachi Martin, Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 632.
[xxvii] Point 17, Pope Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, May 14, 1971, http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-vi_apl_19710514_octogesima-adveniens.html ,accessed October 7, 2015.
[xxviii] Pope Paul VI, OctogesimanAdveniens, LibrerianEditricenVaticana, May 14, 1971, http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-vi_apl_19710514_octogesima-adveniens.html , accessed October 7, 2015.
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