I have to admit that I’m not surprised by the reports that The Wall Street Journal shared with its readers indicating that the Vatican is diverting funds meant for the poor to fund itself. I’m a Christian and it appalls me whenever we find a Church or a denomination misusing the hard-earned money that Christians donate to them. It feels like a slap on the face – or worse, like fraud.

What’s the purpose of the Church? For those who are not Christians, let me explain that the real Church is the one that belongs to Jesus Christ – that is, those of us who have faith in Jesus, regardless of denomination, are part of His Church. We call this the “invisible Church” (a term coined by Saint Augustine in the 4th Century), because only God knows what’s truly in our hearts and whether or not we truly trust Him. Our hearts are invisible to everybody, except God – that’s why we call it invisible. From our perspective, it is so because we cannot see other people's hearts. The visible Church, on the other hand, are the groups or denominations which profess Faith in Jesus and organize themselves under some sort of government. As such, we don’t know for sure if their members are part of the invisible Church and therefore if they will be saved, but at a minimum they’re considered official Churches.

What is the purpose of the Church? There are many roles for it:

1. To Worship God
2. To preach the Gospel: we're all sinners who need a Savior and Jesus is our Savior.
3. To evangelize – send missions to different parts of the world to preach the Gospel.
4. To help the poor – while preaching the Gospel
5. To fellowship with other Christians.

In order to do that, Churches need funding.

In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, I have to say, very many countries fund this denomination via taxation. So in most cases, the funds come from taxpayers who may or may not be Roman Catholics – they might even be atheists. The Vatican itself is funded by tourism and profits from "investments" that often times raise questions.

The idea that the Vatican also takes money from Roman Catholics and use it to fund its own budget is outrageous.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Vatican takes about $55 million in donations every year, but only as little as 10% of those donations by Roman Catholics that are specifically advertised as helping the poor actually go to the poor. About two-thirds is used to fill the Vatican’s administrative budget deficit, through Pope Francis’ annual charitable appeal, also known as Peter’s Pence. The Pope has full authority as to how this money is spent. The WSJ also reports that the assets of Peter’s Pence have dwindled since Francis became pope in 2013 from more than $775 million to $665 million. Where’s the money going?

It’s hard to say where the money is actually going, but this is what the Peter’s Pence website says about the Pope’s promise about how he uses this money: “These collections and donations by the individual faithful or entire local churches raise the awareness that all the baptized are called to materially sustain the work of evangelization and at the same time to help the poor in whatever way is possible”.

In other words, the funds are intended to evangelize and help the poor, but his holy royal highness steals it from the poor because he’s not using it for the advertised purpose. Isn’t this the very definition of fraud? If this was a private organization, i.e. a hedge fund, taking money from investors, with the promise to use those funds in a certain way and then the funds end up paying for, say, the hedge fund managers’ luxurious lifestyles, don’t the fund managers get prosecuted and thrown into jail?

I have a lot of issues with Roman Catholicism – most of which are theological. But fraud is a whole other level of sin – it’s a new low. The Pope is sinning against the poor and against God. Do you think he belongs in the “invisible Church”? What’s really in his heart? He has NO ISSUES stealing from the poor. What do you think about that? Is he hell-bound or heaven-bound?

But most importantly, how does this impact people who are currently not in Church but who could potentially be saved? The hypocrisy in this case is so severe that this is the kind of thing that pushes people OUT of Church. Who in their right mind would a) give money to the Roman Catholic Church now and b) care about whatever the Pope has to say about anything? The man is a thief!

I know what you’re thinking: “how about those wealthy pastors in the Protestant Church”? It’s true that there are many wealthy pastors in the Protestant Church. I only know a few, all of whom have built their wealth by selling books – they’re prolific authors and have made a name for themselves as authors. And while I’m sure there are thieves among the Protestant Church, I think it’s important to note that Rome has a vicious way to use their false theology to guilt people into staying in the Roman Catholic Church such that money keeps pouring in.

What do I mean by this? I mean the following: Rome teaches that in order for you to be saved, you need to belong to the Roman Catholic Church, which they call the “true Church”. So if you leave, they say, you won’t be saved. It’s a scam, because you won’t find anywhere in the Bible that Church membership saves you. In fact, the Roman Church wasn't founded by any of the 12 Apostles and the Apostle Paul himself had to write the entire book of Romans to correct them in their understanding of the Gospel. Yes, my friend, Rome has had theological issues since it was created. The important thing to know is that church membership doesn't save you.  What saves you, according to the Bible, is Faith in Jesus Christ.

You see, to the Pope, this false teaching of Church membership is a must to keep his business going. He's not running a Church - he's running a business. Roman Catholics are convinced that they’re saved by belonging to the Roman Catholic denomination – no different from the Pharisees who thought that their ethnicity saved them. But Jesus said in Matthew 3:9 “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children from Abraham”. In other words, don’t presume that Church denomination saves. Only Faith in Jesus saves.

Roman Catholicism is not truly Christian, because their salvation is not based on the grounds of Faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but rather on belonging to the denomination itself. While they agree faith in Jesus is needed, their emphasis on the false premise as being the true church leads its congregation to put their faith in the church itself rather than Jesus. And this is dangerous. Those Roman Catholics who put their trust in their denomination rather than in Jesus will be lost.


Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’.“

Of course, that question in the title is very rhetorical. The answer is that he does not know God. He knows of Him, of course, but does not actually know Him on a personal basis, otherwise, he wouldn’t say the crazy, wrong, and even at times, idolatrous, things that he says.
 
Saint Peter’s Square was holding the inauguration of the Vatican Christmas tree and Nativity scene last Thursday, and the Pope thanked the people of Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige, who donated the tree and the Nativity scene.
 
But in doing so, Il Papa went on a tangent regarding his favorite topic: not the Gospel, but climate change and the “emergency” that we face.
 
“Today’s meeting offers me the opportunity to renew my encouragement to your people, who last year suffered a devastating natural disaster, with the demolition of entire wooded areas. These are events that frighten us; they are alarm signals that creation sends us, which summon us to immediately take effective decisions to safeguard our common home.”
 
Don’t know about you, but it sure sounds like he believes God is not actually sovereign and that the climate depends entirely on us to survive.
 
Of course, this is far from the first time Pope Francis has said ridiculous and seemingly idolatrous things. He’s often lambasted politicians for being “weak” regarding cutting emissions, has encouraged people to “adopt more simple and respectful lifestyles”, though does not show himself to be leading by example, and encourages people to seek the “old-age” wisdom of indigenous peoples and how they treated and lived with nature. Indigenous peoples were people who worshipped nature, not God, so I can see why Pope Francis feels at home with such ideologies.
 
But to return to his quote at Saint Peter’s Square, funny enough, I have already written an article discussing what he is talking about. In an article titled: “There Is No Link Between Climate Change And Extreme Weather Events”, I talk about… well… how there’s no link between climate change and extreme weather events like what northern Italy recently had.
 
If you remember, the ultimate conclusion reached in that article is that scientists researching this very topic found that “any trend of rising ‘climate damages’ were primarily due to increased population densities and economic activity in the path of storms and that it was, at this time, not possible to determine what portion of those damages can be attributed to greenhouse gases, which is something they don’t expect to change in the near future at least.”
 
What’s more, a 2012 IPCC report called “Special Report on Extreme Weather” ultimately agreed with these scientists on their findings that there was no actual statistical connection between climate change and extreme weather events.
 
The only reason any environmentalist whacko says that hurricanes are due to climate change is to frighten people into believing the cult’s ideologies. Because hurricanes exist and because they can cause damage, even death, then there must be a scientific explanation for them (there is). The Left has hijacked science to be a political tool (look at what they are claiming about gender) and insists that these hurricanes, which are real, is a result of man-made climate change, which is not real, and they provide no actual evidence to this.
 
Pope Francis is among the false teachers that the Bible warns us about. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says the following: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
 
The Pope, much like other Leftists, hates the fact that he is not God Almighty. What the climate cult hopes to achieve is to turn mere mortals into gods, like Greta Thunberg. They seek to have the power of God, able to create and destroy, to be sovereign over all the universe. Convincing people that they have more power than they actually do, and that such power can be harmful to the environment and that this power must be controlled by the government and by the leaders (like Francis) aims to achieve what that letter to Timothy says. In order to suit their own desires, they get teachers (scientists) to say what they want to hear, instead of the truth.
 
It’s extremely obvious that Pope Francis is a false teacher, a false shepherd, a false prophet. He speaks of things he has no clue about, as evident by the fact that he insisted that extreme weather events are a result of climate change. But what is worse, perhaps, is the fact that he has the Truth available to him anytime he wishes to read it and still adamantly rejects it and perverts it.
 
Of course, he doesn’t explicitly say that he rejects the Truth of the Gospel. Doing so would get him removed from the power he has. But he rejects it every time he speaks such falsehoods. He does not trust that the Lord is in control; that He is sovereign over everything, including the weather and the climate of the world. He has no actual faith in God, so he turns to Man. He believes Man has the power to wrestle away control from God with regard to the climate – that we can turn up the temperature or cause it to severely drop if we so chose to.
 
He does not trust that, even if the climate does warm up or cool down, it is because God has created the Earth this way and because He has ordained it to be so. If God wanted to, He could make the climate completely static, utterly unchanging. He and He alone has the power to warm or cool the planet. To believe we are capable of wrestling away such control is heresy.
 
The Pope often says that we are “harming” the planet that God has given us because of the sin in our hearts. Of course, Man is capable of harming nature, there’s no disputing that. We can pollute lakes and other bodies of water. We can pollute the ground. We can pollute the air (by the way, it’s funny but not unexpected that whenever he talks about climate change, Pope Francis always attacks capitalism and does not say anything about China and their egregious polluting practices). However, being able to do that does not mean we are capable of forcing a warming or a cooling of the climate.
 
As stated in previous articles, the climate engages in a cycle of warming periods. There was the Roman Warming Period, which lasted around the same time as the Roman Empire did; there was the Medieval Warming Period and we are currently in the Modern Warming Period. Each of these Warming Periods denote a time when the Earth was abnormally warm, but even then, one can hardly call that “abnormal”. This is a cycle that appears to happen every thousand years, with one Warming Period and with no Warming Period in a millennium, so if it alternates like this, I’d say that the warming and the cooling is not abnormal at all. What would be abnormal would be any break in the cycle, either making the cycle last longer (the Warming Periods usually last 300-600 years) or making them way shorter.
 
This is the way that God has ordained the world to exist for now. One cannot realistically argue that any of these Warming Periods, particularly the Medieval and Roman ones, are a result of man-made climate change or are a result of our lifestyles.
 
The third chapter of the Westminster Confession of faith (which I recognize is a Protestant document, not a Catholic one, but I believe it to be accurate doctrine applicable to anyone who is a follower of Christ) begins with the following words: “God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and immutably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”
 
You don’t have to be a Protestant to believe these words to be true. You don't even have to be a Christian. If you believe in an all-powerful, sovereign God, you have no choice but to believe these words to be true. Whether you are a Christian, Jew or Muslim, this is something all theists believe and what all atheists do not believe. God, for all of time, by his own wisdom and holy counsel of His very own will, entirely freely and unchangingly ordains whatever happens. That means that nothing happens without His ordaining so. He isn’t caught off-guard by anything; nothing is a surprise to Him. He doesn’t look at anything and say “Didn’t see that one coming”.
 
So to assert that mere men, creation made from dirt by the Holy power of God and made in His own image, are capable of acting in a way that overpowers the will of God is an assertion made by someone whose life and heart and being do not totally belong to Christ. To believe that we are capable of wrestling away control from God in this manner is antithetical to the very belief system present in Christianity.
 
If one does not believe God to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and one does not believe that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, one cannot be considered a believer in God, because whatever god such a person believes in is not the One True God of Scripture and is nothing more than a fictitious, man-made deity, whose characteristics are created by Man, and not the other way around.
 
It is shameful that the man who is considered the head of the Church would be so lacking in faith. And even though he is far from the first Pope to not be a Christian, it is still shameful that such secular people could be put into what is considered the highest honor of Christendom in the mortal realm.
 
Ezekiel 13:9
“My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.”

Papal infallibility is a dogma defined by the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th Century during the Vatican 1 Council held in 1869-1870. Since then, Roman Catholics around the world have accepted this dogma as absolute truth. The dogma states that when the Pope speaks “ex-cathedra” (about morals or faith) Roman Catholics are to follow his words as if it was God talking. Unfortunately, man is fallible by nature and then, one day, you get a Pope like Francis who actually wants to re-open the Bible, so to speak, to add an 11th commandment that could sound like this: “Thou Shalt Not Sin Against The Environment”.

Pope Francis said on Friday, November 15th, “We have to introduce―we are thinking about it―to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the 'ecological sin' against our common home, because a duty is at stake," in a speech he gave to the 20th World Congress of the International Association of Penal Law in Rome. Some Roman Catholic scholars say that, while it’s impossible to sin against inanimate objects, just against God and those created in His image, they do insist that abusing the environment is a sin against God.

LifeSiteNews reports:

“Catholic author Dr. Peter Kwasniewski told LifeSiteNews that when human beings abuse creation, they are sinning against God or their fellow man, not the earth. ‘There is no possible sin against planet Earth,’ Kwasniewski said. ‘All sins are ultimately against God or those who are in God's image. As all theologians have explained prior to the post-conciliar decline of theology, when we abuse the natural world or animals or plants, we are sinning against God their creator, who gave them to us to use for the right purposes and in accordance with their nature and ours,’ he continued.  “

I know that, unless you’re a student of the Bible, what Dr. Kwasniewski says seems to make sense: if abusing the environment is a sin against God, wouldn’t it seem right to add another sin to the list of “you shall not’s”?

Let’s think about this for a moment: if it is true that abusing the environment is a sin against God, according to Dr. Kwasniewski, why do we need another sin? Where does Dr. Kwasniewski get the idea that abusing the environment is a sin? That it’s immoral? You would think he gets it from the Bible, correct?

Yes, my friend, he gets it from the Bible.

There are probably more than 100 Bible verses that talk about the environment, one way or the other. Here are a few examples:

Numbers 35:33-34: “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Genesis 1:26-28: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

Psalm 24:1: “A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,”

Deuteronomy 20:19: “’When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?’”

Job 12:7-10: “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

Matthew 6:26: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Deuteronomy 10:14: “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.”

Leviticus 25:23-24: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.”
 
The bottomline is that this is what the Bible says:

1. God is the Creator of man as well as the Earth and everything that exists, except Himself because He’s a self-existent, eternal Being.
2. Since He’s the Creator, He’s the owner of everything.
3. He gave man dominion over the planet.
4. Man is more valuable than animals and plants.
5. We’re to be good stewards of God’s Earth.

Now, why would we need yet another “sin” when the Bible is clear that the mandate is for us to care for the Earth?

The answer is, naturally, we don’t. The Bible is quite comprehensive and all the commandments have been spelled out. Besides, the Bible is the Word of God, not the word of the Pope. God has spoken through His written word, which is infallible. Man has no authority to add anything to the Bible. The Bible is God-breathed, therefore “adding a sin” by the Pope is NOT binding, because the New Testament, or the New Covenant, was sealed by God Himself. The Pope is not God. He’s a creature. Just like you and me.

There are many issues with this Pope and with the Roman dogma. This is a denomination that teaches that membership to the Roman Catholic Church saves – trust is, therefore, put in the Church itself rather than in Jesus Christ. Since the Pope is the head of the Church, Roman Catholics believe he’s the absolute authority placed by God, and equate him to a semi-god. This is, of course, a violation of the first commandment “You shall have no other gods but me”.

Are we commanded to be good stewards of the planet? Yes. Do we need to add anything to the Bible? No. Not just because the Bible is clear, but because no CREATURE has the authority to add anything to what the CREATOR has already revealed.

Galatians 1:8
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!”

For those of you who have been reading my articles for some time, you know pretty well that I do not like Pope Francis. I mean, sometimes he says the right things, but most of the time, his socialist self can’t help but come out of him and use God to perpetuate the idea that socialism is good, as often do many Leftists who have absolutely no idea about the character of God and only use Him as a political weapon when they can all-the-while they treat Him like He is, at best, an imaginary friend for people who are “stupid”.
 
Pope Francis isn’t all too different, and recently, in a message for the third annual World Day for the Poor, the supposed head of the Catholic Church disparaged the idea of countries building walls, claiming it was to keep those poor, defenseless, oft-exploited immigrants out. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth as the purpose of walls is to PROTECT THE CITIES AND NATIONS THEY SURROUND! Just look at Israel. Is it wrong that they want to protect themselves from radical Islamic terrorists who daily promise they will destroy, sack, pillage and rape the nation of Israel until there’s nothing left?
 
But in any case, here’s specifically what the Pope said:
 
“We can build any number of walls and close our doors in the vain effort to feel secure in our wealth, at the expense of those left outside. It will not be that way forever… The ‘day of the Lord,’ as described by the prophets, will destroy the barriers created between nations and replace the arrogance of the few with the solidarity of many.”
 
Okay, a few things here. First of all, while I already talked about Israel’s wall, there is one wall that is close to home for Il Papa. Vatican City itself is surrounded by a wall. Technically, Vatican City is its own nation, as well. So why isn’t the Pope suggesting they tear down that oppressive and wealth-separating monstrosity that separates Vatican City from the rest of Rome? And if wealth disparity is as big a deal to this guy as he says it is, why doesn’t he open the doors of the Papal Palace (or Apostolic Palace, if you wish to call it that) and let all those poor, starving immigrants in?
 
Of course, the answer is obvious: he’s a socialist. Socialists don’t believe they have to live by the rules they set up. Other people have to take care of the less fortunate, not they themselves. Bernie Sanders doesn’t have to give up any of his three huge homes to any poor person because he’s a socialist. Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore and all these other environmentalist wackos don’t have to reduce their carbon footprint, one of the biggest “threats” to the planet, because they are socialist themselves. They tell other people they have to reduce their carbon footprint, so they don’t have to do it themselves! See? It’s only logical and equal! (Legit, I’ve seen that argument be made that they don’t have to do anything about their own carbon footprint because they are talking about other people doing it, completely missing the irony in that hypocritical acknowledgment).
 
But I believe there are a couple of Bible verses that ought to speak to the Pope’s heart if he truly is a Christian. First, Matthew 7:5: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
 
I’ve used this one plenty of times when talking about hypocrites. But of course, hypocrites don’t think of themselves as hypocrites. When called out on it, they will vehemently deny it, thinking they are doing the right thing.
 
But this next verse really ought to make the Pope think, especially considering where he gets to live: Romans 2:3: “Do you suppose, O man – you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself – that you will escape the judgment of God?”
 
You see, the Pope doesn’t gain the Grace of God by telling other people they are selfish and should be more welcoming of immigrants when he himself LIVES IN A LITERAL PALACE PROTECTED BY THE VERY WALLS HE SUPPOSEDLY IS AGAINST!
 
The Pope is the Holy Book definition (was going to say “textbook”, but thought this made more sense) of a hypocrite: he lives in a palace, a house that an elite and wealthy few can claim they have lived in, in a city that is technically its own sovereign nation and surrounded by walls.
 
Meanwhile, he dislikes the idea of other countries building walls? Trump shouldn’t build a wall at the southern border so as to not keep out the dangerous criminals that take advantage of the poor infrastructure and traitorous Democrat legislators? Israel shouldn’t have a wall so as to not keep out the radical terrorists who wish to destroy them?
 
And what’s more, God is supposedly going to destroy those walls come judgment day? Not evil, not the unrighteous, not Satan, but the walls? That’s the other thing I wanted to talk about with that quote about the day of the Lord.
 
Hey, here’s another Bible verse for you, Frankie: Matthew 15:7-9: “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
 
Often it is that we see people like Pope Francis doing this sort of thing – teaching the commandments of men as though they were doctrine from God.
 
Now, let’s move on to what the guy said about the poor in particular. For the sake of time, I will only quote a few things that are important:
 
“The marginalization painfully experienced by millions of persons cannot go on for long. Their cry is growing louder and embraces the entire earth… The inequitable distribution of wealth created a significant number of poor people, whose condition appeared all the more dramatic in comparison with the wealth attained by a privileged few… the poor are always poorer, and today they are poorer than ever.”
 
Just what in the world is he talking about? Wealth did not create poor people. PEOPLE ARE POOR BY NATURE! When born, someone’s net worth is zero. They don’t get money until they either start working or they are lucky enough to have parents who will give them an allowance. People create wealth, not the other way around. Out of poverty comes wealth if a person works smart and hard for it.
 
The Brookings Institution reported late last year: “2019 will start with the lowest prevalence of extreme poverty ever recorded in human history – less than 8 percent. In all likelihood, this level will set the ‘ceiling’ for a new era of even lower single-digit global poverty rates for the foreseeable future.”
 
The international poverty line defines someone as living under extreme poverty as being someone who lives on less than $1.90 per day or its equivalent. Today, less than 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty compared to just 30 years ago (1990), where around 37% lived in extreme poverty and compared to 200 years ago when almost EVERYONE lived in extreme poverty. Beyond that, poverty itself ($10 a day) is lower today than it ever was. So the poor are not getting poorer, they are becoming fewer.
 
Pope Francis is not only a massive hypocrite for telling other people to take care of poor, little immigrants when he doesn’t have to make any adjustments for himself to live by that very example, but he is also completely wrong and inaccurate in his claims.
 
Not that I think any of this will change his mind. I sincerely don’t think this guy is a Christian, just says he is out of convenience. He focuses far more on the works of Man than the works of God. Being socialist, he views governments as the solution to things like poverty, etc. He thinks it’s up to the government of other nations to take in these immigrants who will take advantage of the economic opportunities and not care to even try to assimilate into a new society and culture, clinging to their old ones and bashing the countries that take them in, harming its citizens, etc.
 
Newsflash: we are called to serve, not to be abused. I’d rather prioritize poor Americans over poor and ungrateful immigrants who are in all likelihood here illegally.
 
James 1:26
“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.”
 
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​Ok, I won’t go so far as to actually say that he is the devil himself. But why do I ask that question? Most, if not all, of you readers probably believe in God. As such, you also probably believe in Satan. The Bible often speaks of Satan, calling him the great dragon and snake and deceiver of the world. But when you think of Satan, what do you picture? Probably a 6’ tall red guy with horns and legs like a goat, wielding a trident.
 
By that description, he seems rather silly. Who would believe that such a being could exist? That’s part of the reason why so many people today don’t believe that Satan exists. The Bible doesn’t describe him that way, though. In fact, aside from being described as a snake and a great dragon, he is never really described physically. All the Bible says of him in terms of physical attributes is that he was “perfect in beauty”, according to Ezekiel 28:12.
 
Satan was created as the perfect creation. Not the perfect BEING, mind you. That title belongs to God and only God. But Satan was God’s masterpiece. His perfect creation. He was given the most wisdom, talent and beauty out of all the angels. On top of that, he was given the highest honor and greatest job an angel could have: guarding and protecting God’s throne. His job was to protect the very holiness of God! That’s the best and most honorable job anyone could hope to have, but Satan wanted more.
 
He wanted to be ABOVE God. And so, he rebelled against Him. That’s how Satan became a fallen angel.
 
So you see, Satan was created not as the ruler of Hell and a disgusting creature in terms of physical looks. He was created to be God’s GREATEST ANGEL! He doesn’t look like a half-goat half-man mix with a fancy pitchfork and some serious skin problems. He was created to be PERFECT! But even the most perfect of creations is still just that, a CREATION. Satan wanted to be a CREATOR. To be ABOVE GOD.
 
So we know that Satan doesn’t look the way people usually picture him looking like. In fact, Satan started to be described this way during the Middle Ages. Back then, the Church was very aware of the presence of Satan. They were deathly afraid of him. So they decided to ease their worries by attacking Satan. How, you may ask? Well, it wasn’t going to be a battle with weapons. It was going to be a psychological battle. Knowing what they knew about Satan, they knew that he is a proud being. So, they decided to make fun of him. After all, someone who is prideful can’t stand public ridicule and humiliation.
 
And so, they had artists draw Satan as an ugly, inhuman-looking creature that represents the evils of the world. But that’s not what he looks like. That’s the thing about it.
 
And that’s why I ask the title question, is the pope the Anti-Christ? Well, first, I have to explain my reasoning as to why I’m picking on the pope as opposed to, say, Obama or Hitler or Stalin. All were evil in their own right. All wanted to, like Satan, be kings of this world. All thought they could be higher than God. But they were all too obviously evil. Their evil could easily be recognized. Yes, they all had followers that loved them and those followers didn’t think they were evil. But we, who follow Christ, all know that the three are evil (though, with varying résumé’s of evil actions).
 
Satan, however, will not be seen as evil by a large majority of the world. And he will appear as though he is God Himself. In fact, the Bible speaks of this. Revelation 13:4 “And they (the world) worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, saying ‘Who is like the beast? And who can fight against it?’”
 
He will perform miracles and signs and the world will worship him. The point I’m trying to make here is that Satan won’t one day emerge and kill millions upon millions of people. He won’t destroy anything in this world. He’s not like a comic book villain that appears out of nowhere, laughs evilly and makes buildings explode. He will appear to be the world’s SAVIOR. It’s one of the ways he intends to BECOME LIKE GOD!
 
So he won’t be someone that is clearly evil and will kill and destroy people and civilizations. He will appear like an angel of light, ready to lead his followers to greatness. He will say the right things at the right times. People will love him, all throughout the world. He’s basically a politician. But in all seriousness, his evil won’t be painfully obvious to the world. People will actually believe he is God. And so, I ask: is the pope the Anti-Christ?
 
The pope is the head of the Catholic Church. He is, in many people’s eyes, the representative of God and light and goodness. He is, after all, called “His Holiness”. And we all know he's just a man like you and me. The title "His Holiness" can only be attributed to GOD. 
 
Pope Francis is a notorious climate change believer, so he doesn’t trust that God is in control, but rather believes Man is in control of the climate. He is also rather lenient when it comes to gay or lesbian Christians (which is rather oxymoronic) - the Bible is very clear on this. Practicing gays or lesbians by definition cannot be Christians, while former gays or lesbians can be if they repent.
 
And now, to answer the title question: no, he’s not the Anti-Christ. He doesn’t fit the physical description of the devil nor is he a clear God-like figure that the majority of the world follows. That doesn’t mean, however, that this pope is not a tool for the devil to use. This pope is as far from God as I’ve seen a pope be. He doesn’t trust God. He trusts Man. He may not be the Anti-Christ, but he certainly is no Christian.
 
Sorry to any Catholic readers on here, but that’s the truth.
 
2 Corinthians 11:3
“But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”