Tightening their prophetic cooperation, the United States and the Vatican signed an agreement to exchange information to prevent money laundering and terrorism funding.
The Vatican is trying to clean up its image with regard to the Vatican bank known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR). The Vatican wants to be understood to be in line with internationally recognized banking standards. “The Memorandum of Understanding was agreed upon with the American Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which came into being after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”
The Vatican has a long history of secrecy and money laundering scandals and has been involved in shady operations throughout its history. Some of its top officials were recently brought under investigation for suspicious activity at the IOR. The bank has long operated outside of international oversight because the Holy See is an independent state. But according to the Vatican, new rules in the European Union threatened to shut the Vatican out of financial markets if it didn’t comply with international regulations against money laundering and global terrorism financing.
So, the Vatican would never have done this except that it was forced to adjust under threat of being excluded from international banking transactions. The bank and the Vatican haven’t changed in their fundamental principles, they are just changing the surface appearance in order to look good financially and be able to continue working the financial markets. How much money laundering or terrorism financing could go on underneath the appearance of clean financial transactions? Just because the IOR makes some surface adjustments doesn’t mean that it isn’t still involved in shady dealing.
Can the papal financial empire be trusted? “It is a part of [papal] policy to assume the character which will best accomplish her purpose; but beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon, she conceals the invariable venom of the serpent. ‘We are not bound to keep faith and promises to heretics,’ She declares.” The Great Controversy, page 571
How trustworthy then are papal agreements made with protestant nations? They are not worth the paper they are written on.
“This is a clear indication that the Holy See and the Vatican City State take international responsibilities to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism very seriously and that we are cooperating at the highest levels,” said René Brülhart, director of the Vatican Financial Information Authority.
Take it seriously? Sure, so long as her financial dealings are a serious issue of international scrutiny, Rome will do what she has to do in order to accomplish her purposes. She has to work much harder to disguise her real intentions under a veneer of agreements with nations that make her look sparkling clean. And she takes that very seriously.
The Vatican also takes seriously her cooperation at the “highest levels.” She must work out arrangements so that she can continue with business as usual under the appearance of cooperation. This admission of her financial cooperation and complicity with the United States (and with other nations) will seriously impact the fulfillment of prophecy when the time comes for the no-buy, no-sell law of Revelation 13:17.
The Vatican, with more than $9 billion in its bank, has similar deals with Belgium, Spain and Slovenia and is pursuing agreements with more than 20 other countries. The agreement with the United States is the most important so far.
The Bible makes it clear that the Vatican needs the merchants of the earth, the bankers, to reach her long-term religious objectives, that of imposing her worship on the whole world. See Revelation 18:3.
But the agreement with the United States also partly fulfills the prediction of Revelation 13:11, 12 that the United States and the Vatican will work closely together to achieve her ultimate religious objectives.
“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.”