According to CNN, Pope Francis is being “Obamified.” One headline read: “Pope Francis is the Catholic Church’s Obama — God help us.” Often the pope is accused of being a socialist, the Antichrist, or an illegitimately elected leader trying to create a “New World Order.” While most of them have no clue that the Bible predicts these very things, yet, the allegations actually have prophetic merit.
Here are three ways the pope is being Obamified.
First, his comments on faith and finance have ignited a theological firestorm. He said that the right to labor, lodging and land are “sacred rights.” He called for the poor to rise up against a “new colonialism,” including corporations, loan agencies, free trade treaties and austerity measures. Rush Limbaugh accused the pope of being a Marxist. Others accuse him of being a secret socialist, or a “stealth Marxist in religious garb.” And Fox News business show host Stuart Varney warned that the pope may align with Obama to gang up on the rich. “Will Francis and Barack reshape the world by taxing the rich, taxing fossil fuels and redistributing the wealth?” Varney asked. “That’s exactly what they are trying to do.”
While his critics rant about his economic appeal, the church says the pope’s message is not any different from his predecessors. And that is the key. Francis has put more emphasis on the social justice of the economic system. He’s more aggressive than his predecessors, perhaps because the time has come for the Papacy to rise to more power in economics. Economics professors don’t normally understand Bible prophecy, but the Bible says that socialism is the future of western nations (see Revelation 13).
Denise McAllister, a senior contributor to the Federalist, a conservative online magazine, wrote that the greatest vehicle for alleviating poverty and deprivation is the very institution of free market capitalism that [the Pope] now denounces. So, there has to be another reason for the papal economic spin. That reason is power. The papal spin on economics is really aimed at generating political support among the masses.
Second, Pope Francis is the Antichrist. Some Catholics believe that Pope Francis is a diabolical and dangerous figure in papal clothing. But isn’t that true of all popes? Some claim that neither the pope nor the American president is legitimately elected; the pope on technical reasons, and Mr. Obama on the allegations that he is not a born American. They are “perfect dictators” and the similarities justify calling Francis “Popama.” After publishing his encyclical on climate change Lou Dobbs, of Fox News said he was describing “a new world order” and “a new global organization.”
The chatter comparing the two men is rooted in the alignment of their economic policies, which was predicted in Bible prophecy. See Revelation 18:10-17 and Revelation 13:11-12.
Thirdly, an “Apology Tour”? Just like President Obama apologized “too much” for America’s past sins according to some critics, the pope apologizes for the Catholic Church’s treatment of Native Americans in Bolivia, and for that matter, the brutal persecution of Italy’s Waldenses and Pentecostals. The apologies irritated Adam Shaw, a FoxNews.com editor, so much that he wrote an opinion entitled “Pope Francis is the Catholic Church’s Obama – God Help Us.”
Carl Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, says the pope seems to ignore the struggles of ordinary middle class people who work, raise families, pay the taxes and “keep society afloat while chaos and madness swirls around.”
Some even think that Pope Francis has an Islamic agenda, an allegation similar to criticisms directed at President Obama. Jenifer LeClaire, Charisma magazine senior editor said in an article, “Meanwhile, Francis has warmed up to Islam like no other Pope before him. In a historic first, Francis opened the door to Muslim prayers and Quran readings at the Vatican last year. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres joined the pontiff in the Vatican gardens for a prayer meeting.”
But the real issue behind it all is ecumenism and power. The more the pope can bring people together to collaborate on a global scale, whether Jews, Muslims, Catholics or Protestants, the more influence the pope will have with governmental leaders world-wide. It strengthens the institutions and political muscle of Rome. It isn’t that popes are too concerned about the everyday working people. It is about global positioning. And popes have to express powerful emotional and motivating sentiments so that the masses respect him in order to create that.
The United States and the Vatican are prophetically destined to work together and force the nations to worship the papal way. Pope Francis is right on track.
“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” Revelation 13:11-12
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