1. In a transcript of Pope Francis’ interview from Cuba to the U.S. he was quoted saying; a cardinal friend of mine told me that a very concerned woman, very Catholic, went to him. ….and asked him if it was true that in the Bible, they spoke of an anti-christ….and also in the Apocalypse……and then if it was true that there is an anti-pope who is the anti-christ……because I’m sure that Pope Francis is the anti-pope, she said. ….because he doesn’t wear red shoes. Then Pope Francis proceeded to claim that he is preaching the social doctrine of the Church.
Now, that was a big bundle of knotted facts. The lady concerned seems to have read much….much more than Pope Francis and his Cardinal friend. But her knowledge were all mixed up; or is this due to the poor automatic Google translation. Let us first unknot all her ideas and then explained it to her one by one. Let us begin with Pope Francis’ statement that he is preaching the social doctrine of the Church.
2. The news showed the Pope saying Mass with a huge picture of Che Guevara as a back drop. This was in Cuba on his way to the U.S. And he had been castigating Western Capitalism while being soft on Communism. He said he was just proposing the social teachings of the Catholic Church. The way he explained it, however, it was not the teaching of the Church. The teaching of the Catholic Church is to Evangelize Capitalism so it would help the poor. Where else can you get the help to give the poor except from the rich capitalist nations. The defect is not on the wealth of the capitalist nor on the poverty of the poor. The defect is that the poor are not humble enough to deserve the help and the rich capitalist are not Charitable enough to share. It is a spiritual problem, not a problem of economics. A minuscule portion of the wealth of capitalist is more than enough to uplift the poor of the whole world.
Pope Francis missed what was spiritually wrong and missed the supernatural solution because he remained totally in the natural, economic level. Or as the news noted; ‘he waved in politics.’ His solution was not the social doctrine of the Church. It was too human. So much for the teachings on economics.
3. Connected to this is his analysis and solution to the sudden immigration of refugees to Europe; it is neither the Catholic analysis nor solution. The Catholic analysis and solution are so sound and effective that they have worked very well for the last 2000 years. Today there has been no given analysis nor suggested solution to this present problem. Just a panic reaction camouflaged with public relation gestures akin to the ‘be warm, be fed and enjoy yourselves at the expense of the host country’ that is courting disaster. The solution is to help them while making them stay in their own nations. This has all its benefits besides being the cheapest. So much for his teachings on immigration.
His analysis of the problem in marriage and his solution are also not the Catholic doctrine; therefore both are wrong. The problem in most marriages is the inability of both parties to have Faith and consequently, Charity. The problem is in the spiritual life of both husband and wife. There is nothing wrong with the marriage. Pope Francis is correcting the marriage where nothing is wrong and not the defect in the spiritual lives of the parties involved. So Pope Francis’ ‘Catholic divorce’ solution in his recent two ‘Motu Propio’ is completely missing the point aside from being against the commands of God and the teachings of the Catholic Church. So much for his teachings on marriage.
He preached the abolition of capital punishment giving the impression that that is Catholic doctrine. It is not. Capital punishment is part of Catholic doctrine and the examples of Catherine of Sienna and St. Therese of Lisieux showing them not stopping the execution of criminals but in aiding them to repentance before their execution. Capital punishment is a very good reason to motivate a criminal to repentance as shown by Trappists working in death row. Emotionally it is disturbing; spiritually it is most useful. Would you rather they continue living in sin with the great chance of dying unrepentant?
That is enough for Catholic doctrines in general.
4.The anti-christ and anti-pope. Let us go to the devout Catholic woman’s next question. Is the anti-christ and anti-pope found in the Bible? Yes, it is specially found in the letter of St. John where the anti-christ is described as one who came from us but do not belong to us. The anti-christ is more vividly described in St. Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians. And both anti-christ and anti-pope is described in the two beasts of the Apocalypse.
Both the anti-christ and anti-pope go against the teachings of Christ and consequently, also, against the teachings of the Popes. To go against one is to go against the other. Both are instruments of the devil for the destruction of the Church. Their temptation is to make man disobey the commands of God.
The word anti-christ came earlier, in the Old Testament as a descendant of Dan. The word anti-pope came later around the year 600. The first anti-pope was a saint, St. Hippolitus, but he resigned and subjected himself to the true Pope, Pontian.
Later on, the word anti-christ was used only for laymen who persecuted the Catholic church, like Nero, Domitian, etc. While the word anti-pope was used only for Bishops who pretended to be Popes; we had more than 40 of them, the last one was Felix around 1400. You are right, good Lady, they are usually the same but there was a split in their image in that one was a layman, while the other was usually a bishop.
5. Then the concerned, but very Catholic woman got her points of clarification more confused. She described the anti-christ and the anti-pope as two different persons and, then the two becomes one person. Actually she got it right. For sometime the two will be two different persons but later on they will become one person.
This is an ancient image known in the Catholic Church…..the grand meeting between the anti-christ and the anti-pope. Most Catholics in good standing know about this. Saints, prophets and theologians know about this. It was popularized by Robert Hugh Benson in his apocalyptic nobel ‘The Lord of the World,’ which Pope Francis had read and commented on in a homily.
This grand meeting, like everything connected to the last four things in Catholic theology are of no interest for most Catholics. We call it eschatology. And proof of this lack of interest is that though all priests are supposed to give an eschatological aspect of the Gospel in their homilies, nobody does it. No wonder neither the Pope nor his cardinal friend could comment in the said interview.
Robert Benson, son of an Anglican bishop who converted to Catholicism and famed author in the 1900, believed that no Catholic was interested in eschatology. So he wrote Catholic eschatology in the form of a Nobel. And it worked. It was well read even by Pope Francis.
Benson described this age, year 2000, in detail. And described two personalities; a layman who was intent to rule the world in the name of peace and to destroy the Catholic religion in the name of truth. This man will rule Democratic America, would dictate on Europe and dominate the rest of the world; except temporarily the East. Benson was actually describing him as the anti-christ.
Then he described an apostate priest, tired of the old fashion religion, and heading a new liberal religion co- founded by the anti-christ with this priest as the chief liturgist. His name was Francis.
At a very specific time in Church history, these two personalities would meet to plan the final destruction of the Catholic Church. Catholics who know their Faith know this meeting and have been waiting for this to occur. Benson knew this and wrote about it because most Catholics were forgetting it. It is surprising the concerned Catholic woman knew this. yet the Pope and his cardinal bishop friend did not know it.
And the woman mentioned this because of the coming visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. For her it is the fulfillment of this biblical prophecy; the meeting between the layman anti-christ and the bishop anti-pope. The woman suspected Pope Francis to be an anti-pope, so her question. Since both are going against the teachings of Christ and against the teachings of the previous Popes, like on abortion, divorce , same sex marriage, one world religion and climate change…..the two descriptions fitted them both.
6. Then the devout catholic woman joins the two; the anti-pope who is the anti-christ becomes one person. How will that happen. Well, if the layman president steps down in office, then the anti-pope will be alone. Still an anti-pope, he becomes also an anti-Christ because they have the same goal; the destruction of the Catholic Church.
7. The red shoes, the apartment, the tiara, the King Burger, etc……can be put aside and returned in their proper context when all the essentials, like the theology of grace, the theological virtues, predestination, Divine Providence, etc…….. had been put together.