THE TRINITY REVIEW

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare [are] not

fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts

itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And they will

be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

Number 371   Copyright 2023 The Trinity Foundation   Post Office Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692   Jan.-March.2023 Email: tjtrinityfound@aol.com   Website: www.trinityfoundation.org      Telephone: 423.743.0199         Fax: 423.743.2005

Your Land, Strangers Devour It in Your Presence: Antichrist’s Destructive Doctrine of Immigration

By Steven T. Matthews

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. These words of the prophet Isaiah are taken from the very beginning of the book that bears his name.

Israel was a nation founded on the Word of God. Yet by the time Isaiah began to write in the 8th century BC, it had gone badly astray. So much so that the Southern Kingdom of Judah faced what we today would call an existential crisis. That is, the continuation of Judah as a nation was in doubt. The combination of internal corruption and external military pressure threatened to bring the nation to an end.

There are any number of modern English translations of the Bible. Some of them are not really translations at all, but paraphrases. The New King James Version is the best of the modern translations. I use it myself and would not hesitate to recommend it to others.  But I must confess that I have a great love for the King James or Authorized Version of the Bible and am very happy to use it when opportunity presents itself. Dealing as we are with the Roman Church-State’s destructive doctrine of immigration, I’m pleased to say that the King James Bible provides the best translation of Isaiah 1:7, the verse just quoted. I use it here.

“Your land, strangers devour it in your presence,” reads the Authorized Version’s (AV) translation of Isaiah 1:7. When I hear the AV’s translation of this verse, it does something to me. It makes my ears perk up a bit. It rivets my attention. Now, the translators could have rendered this verse, “Strangers devour your land in your presence,” and it would have been perfectly good English. That’s the way we normally talk. English is what’s called a subject, verb, object language. That is, in English the subject of the sentence usually comes first, then the verb or the action word, and finally the object on which the action is performed. Billy threw the ball. Here, Billy is the subject performing the action, “threw” is the verb telling us what action Billy performed, and “the ball” is the object that received the action.  But what if I were to say, “The ball, Billy threw it”? That sentence has the same meaning as “Billy threw the ball,” but the emphasis is different. Your attention is drawn to “the ball” in a way that normal English word order would not draw it.

The AV’s translation of Isaiah 1:7 grabs our attention for this same reason. It puts the object, “your land,” in the emphatic first position in the clause. But the AV is not the best translation of this verse simply because it puts the emphasis on “your land.” The AV is the best translation, because it does the best job brining into English the original force of prophet’s words in Hebrew. For that’s exactly how Isaiah wrote it, he put “your land” in the emphatic first position in its clause. And putting “your land” in first position in the clause had the same effect in the original Hebrew as it does in the AV’s translation. It got people’s attention. The land, the land promised to the Hebrew nation by God, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land where the Israelites had lived for centuries. It was this land that was being devoured by strangers.

But what does it mean for the land to be devoured by strangers? Edward Young’s comments on this verse are helpful here. Young understands “your land” as “the fruit of the land,” what we would call the land’s economic output.[1]

And why were strangers devouring Judah’s land? As Isaiah makes clear, it was because of Judah’s sin that this was happening. In an earlier verse, Isaiah had described Judah as a “sinful nation” that had “gone away backward.” That is not only had the men of Judah veered off course, but they also were going 180 degrees in the opposite direction from which they should have been going.  Isaiah details their many sins throughout the rest of chapter one.

And not only were strangers – the Hebrew word translated “strangers” could also be rendered “foreigners” – devouring Judah’s land, but to add insult to injury, they were devouring the land “in your presence.” In English, we have this saying “in your face.” When I do something “in your face,” not only am I harming you, but I’m insulting you as well. I’m saying, in effect, “you’re so weak and cowardly, I’m going to double-dog dare you to stop me, but I know you won’t.” Now if I have respect for someone who I know may fight back, and if I seek to do him harm, I’ll do it behind his back. I won’t do it in his face. But the strangers devouring the fruits of Judah’s land, they had no respect for Judah.  Judah was weak spiritually and morally and was thus unable to defend itself against the pillaging and insults of these foreigners. The foreigners knew it, and so did the Judeans.

There is, in my opinion, a parallel between Judah’s situation in Isaiah’s day and the condition of the United States in the early 21st century. Like Judah, America was founded on Biblical principles. It was the Puritans who brought Reformed Christianity to the New World, and this set the pattern for what would later become the United States. “In the beginning all America was Protestant – 98 percent of the people,” wrote John Robbins in his Trinity Review “Rebuilding American Freedom in the Twenty-First Century.”[2] In Ecclesiastical Megalomania, Robbins quoted German historian Leopold von Ranke, who called John Calvin the “virtual founder of America.”[3] In a speech given on August 1, 1776, Samuel Adams remarked, “Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics…This day, I trust, the reign of political Protestantism will commence.”[4]

But like Judah who had “gone away backward,” America in time began to forget the Lord. The churches that had faithfully proclaimed the Gospel in colonial times, began to go apostate in the 19th century and, at least the so-called mainline Protestant denominations, were almost entirely apostate by the end of the first half of the 20th century. Think of the complete capture of the mainline Presbyterian church in the 1920s and 1930s by the liberals, despite the best efforts of J. Gresham Machen and others. As a result of this capture, a church that once gloried in the Gospel of Jesus Christ now glories in same-sex marriages.

In Deuteronomy 28, the Lord lays out in stark terms both the blessings the Israelites will receive if they obey the voice of the Lord, and the curses they can expect for disobedience:

The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. (Verses 43 and 44)

If the Israelites were punished by the Lord for their apostasy – and I take it that the disastrous picture of Judah Isaiah paints in chapter one of his book is a fulfillment of the curses outlined in Deuteronomy 28 – what about Protestant America? Can we expect anything different? Perhaps the unbelief of American Protestant churches explains the rise of political Romanism in America.

In 1928, Al Smith, a longtime member of Tammany Hall, New York City’s famously corrupt Democratic political machine, became the first Roman Catholic to run for President. Despite the apostasy of America’s Protestants that was well under way by 1928 – the notorious Auburn Affirmation dated from 1924 – Smith’s candidacy still managed to cause quite a stir. Smith’s Romanism was famously challenged by Charles C. Marshall in The Atlantic. Marshall expressed the concerns of many that the dogmas of Rome were irreconcilable with the Constitution the president “must support and defend.”[5] Marshall was right to be concerned, for the economic and political thought of the Roman Church-State as well as the claims of the papacy cannot be squared with the Constitution. John Robbins demonstrated this in Ecclesiastical Megalomania.

Al Smith lost the 1928 election to Herbert Hoover. But 32 years later in 1960, John F. Kennedy would go on to become America’s first Roman Catholic President. But even in 1960, America’s Protestants still showed enough discernment to be concerned at the prospect of a Roman Catholic in the White House. Kennedy famously gave a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, the purpose of which was to convince Americans concerned that Kennedy’s Romanism would lead him to follow the pope and not the Constitution. According to an article in Politico, the ministers gave Kennedy a standing ovation at the end of his speech,[6] which underscores the weakening of Protestant discernment from 1928. By the time Roman Catholic John Kerry ran as a Democrat in 2004, there was almost no opposition at all from any quarter in America to a Roman Catholic President.

Then in 2020, Roman Catholic Joe Biden[7] unseated nominal Presbyterian Donald Trump to become America’s second Roman Catholic President. I followed this election closely and do not recall a single objection to Biden on the grounds that he was a Romanist. In a mere 92 years, America went from great alarm at the idea of a Roman Catholic in the White House to complete indifference.

But the indifference of America’s Protestants to the specter of a Roman Catholic President is in truth a commentary on their lack of discernment and not on the lack of danger a Roman Catholic White House presents to our Constitutional Republic. The economic and political thought of Rome, sometimes called Catholic Social teaching, is opposed to what Robbins called constitutional capitalism, the economic and political teachings found in the Scriptures, that is, the 66 books of the Bible. Globalism, socialism, gun control, climate change, attacks on free speech, social justice, critical race theory, and the homosexual/transgender movement are just some of the issues Rome uses to attack the liberties of the American people. [8]

But there is another issue in which Rome is deeply involved, one that poses an existential threat to America, yet Rome’s involvement in it is almost completely unknown to the public. That issue is the main subject of this article: immigration.

It may come as something of a surprise to many people to hear that Rome is at the very heart of America’s ongoing immigration crises. While the current administration’s policies are the proximate cause of this immigration disaster, what is not appreciated is that the current administration’s immigration practice is really the practice of Rome’s destructive immigration doctrine, which is itself based on the false theology and philosophy of the Roman Church-State.

But despite Rome’s theoretical and practical involvement in America’s immigration mess, almost no scrutiny is brought to bear on Rome’s role. In American Democracy & The Vatican: Population Growth & National Security, Stephen D. Mumford went into some detail on how Rome successfully suppressed criticism of itself:

Every city editor in the United States knows of the unofficial [Roman] Catholic censorship of American news, but almost all publishers avoid discussion of the phenomenon out of fear of reprisals. The [Roman] Church frequently succeeds in intimidating the most powerful newspapers by using organized protest and boycott, even though in many cases the facts suppressed have great social significance.[9]

But despite the Church-State’s best efforts, some truth does manage to leak out to the public. One example of this is from the former administration official Stephen K. Bannon’s comments to The Washington Post in September 2017, shortly after he resigned from the Trump White House:

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, lashed out at leaders of the [Roman] Catholic Church in the United States who condemned the President’s recent decision to phase out an Obama-era program that has allowed nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children to gain temporary legal status.

Bannon, who is [a Roman] Catholic, accused the church of wanting a steady flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country to fill its church pews and make money.

“Unable to really come to grips with the problems in the Church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches,” Bannon said in an interview with Charlie Rose that will air on “60 Minutes” on CBS on Sunday. “It's obvious on the face of it.”

Bannon added: “They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”[10]

A Newsmax article reported Bannon making a similar statement,

“The pope, more than anybody else, has driven the migrant crisis in Europe,” declared Bannon, who is Catholic. “The Catholic church. I have gone after [New York Archbishop] Cardinal [Timothy] Dolan. The Catholic church is one of the worst instigators of this open borders policy.”[11]

Steve Bannon is not the only well-known Roman Catholic to criticize the Church-State for its destructive immigration practices. Noted conservative author Michelle Malkin was sharply critical of Rome in Open Borders Inc. Who’s Funding America’s Destruction? In a chapter titled “Unholy Alliance: The Pope, Catholic Bishops, and Amnesty Profiteers,” Malkin exposes the immigration hypocrisy of Pope Francis and the American Catholic Church’s grifting off the taxpayer. For example, Malkin notes Pope Francis’ remarks following his appearance in Juarez, Mexico – Juarez lies directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, TX, about which I will have more to say below. She reports how Pope Francis famously threw shade at then-candidate Donald Trump for wanting to build a wall along the US/Mexico border and quotes the Pope saying, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be located, and not building bridges, is not a Christian. This is not in the gospel, the Pope told journalists who asked his opinion on Trump’s proposals to halt illegal immigration.”[12] But this same Pope Francis who so unctuously lectures the nations of the West on their duty to take in every migrant that comes their way, himself does not practice what he preaches.  Reports Malkin,

Pope Francis further counsels every other sovereign nation to implement a program of open-ended hospitality for “welcoming the stranger” in the spirit of Saint Benedict. To date, however, the pontiff has not instituted such a policy in his own nation-state and thrown open the gates of Vatican City to any and all strangers seeking refuge…Pope Francis himself – the loudest preacher of “welcoming the stranger” – has yet to resettle a single refugee inside the walls of the Vatican. A few families brought by the pope to Rome from a Greek detention center for a widely disseminated photo op in 2016 were dumped in the community of Sant’ Egidio outside the Vatican walls and are given living expenses “every now and then.”[13]

In my own research, I have found over two dozen Roman Catholic organizations openly working to assist the breaking of American immigration law. One of the most egregious examples in this regard is Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV). Headed by a nun named Norma Pimentel, this organization has recently attracted scrutiny from two outside groups, Judicial Watch and Catholic Vote Civic Action, that have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit requesting all communications between the US Customs and Border Protection and, among others, CCRGV and Sister Norma Pimentel in her capacity as the Executive Director of CCRGV. In classic cry bully fashion, the Jesuit publication America published “Two nuns have a message for Catholics angry about their ministry to immigrants: ‘We don’t have any intention of stopping.’”[14] The article goes on to complain about how the “sisters” have been receiving harassing phone calls as a result of the FOIA lawsuit but will persevere in doing what they’ve been doing all along. Now as a Christian, I don’t advocate making harassing phone calls to people – that is, if there really were any harassing phone calls; after all, we’re dealing with the Jesuits here – but these nuns and CCRGV are not the victims. They are the perpetrators, guilty of working to subvert American immigration law for the benefit of the Roman Church-State and to the harm of the American people.

To give you some sense of how grossly inappropriate CCRGV’s activities are, it was reported in August 2021 – this was while the so-called “pandemic” was raging and around the time Joe Biden was lecturing Americans who refused to take the experimental Covid shot and threatening them with losing their jobs if they didn’t take it – that CCRGV was paying to house Covid-19 positive illegal aliens in Weslaco, Texas hotels. When confronted with this by Bill Melugin of Fox News and asked how many Covid positive migrants CCRGV was housing in local hotels, Pimentel’s response was, “I have been advised not to comment.”[15] That answer is really all you need to know about Norma Pimentel and CCRGV.

To drive home how serious things are on America’s southwest border, I’d like to add a personal note from a friend of mine and someone familiar to many who follow The Trinity Foundation, Tim Shaughnessy. Tim lives in El Paso, Texas, which is in the extreme western tip of the state, right on the Rio Grande, across the border from Juarez, Mexico. Tim co-pastors a reformed Baptist church in El Paso that’s been meeting at a local homeless mission and sent me a text message a few weeks back. It turned out that he received a call on a Saturday from a chaplain at the mission telling him that his church wouldn’t be able to use the facility the next day for services because the city was dropping off migrants at the homeless shelter and the place was packed. As Tim put it to me, “Our city is overwhelmed right now.”

In another message, Tim told me that one of his firefighter colleagues in El Paso told him that the city is processing 600-1000 people a day and bussing them to Chicago and New York City.  Every day, El Paso is sending 7-9 busses filled with migrants to these destinations and each bus is costing $30,000. This is madness, and it must stop.

Before moving on to address the economic and political theory that undergirds the disastrous Roman Catholic immigration practice being implemented by the Biden Administration, I would like to clarify the term Antichrist used in the title of this paper. When I use the term “Antichrist,” I am using it in the sense as defined historically, if not presently, by the Westminster Confession of Faith. The original 1647 Westminster Confession had a clear definition of Antichrist found in Chapter 25.6:

There is no other Head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.

This definition, once known to all Reformed believers, has largely been forgotten and relegated to the dustbin of theological history. To the degree it is remembered, it is generally scorned as nasty and unfair, a bit of embarrassing church history best not mentioned.

It's important to note that the identification of the papacy as Antichrist is not some isolated doctrine, but part of a larger school of eschatological thought known as Historicism or the Protestant view of prophetic interpretation. Another important aspect of Historicism is recognizing the Roman Church-State’s desire for civil power. Just like its predecessor, the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church-State seeks to rule the nations. In the centuries following the Protestant Reformation, Rome was largely stripped of its temporal power. But as Robbins noted, Rome in the twentieth and twenty-first century is an institution recovering from a mortal wound. Robbins added, “What the Roman Church-State did on a small scale in the Middle Ages is what it desires to achieve on a global scale in coming millennium.”[16]

It is my contention that the immigration disaster we are witnessing in the United States under the current President is the evil fruit of the Roman Church-State’s drive for global empire. This makes it critical for Christians to understand and to refute the ideas that support the current disastrous immigration practice we see under the current President and his handlers in the Church of Rome.[17]

The Universal Destination of all Goods

Two key ideas drive Rome’s push for mass welfare migration. First, Rome’s flawed economic principle, the universal destination of all goods. Second, Rome’s globalist political agenda.

In Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church, Robbins argued that the Thomistic principle of the universal destination of all goods is so important in Catholic thought that all rights are subject to it.[18]

This principle, the universal destination of all goods, is the idea that when God created the world, he gave it to man collectively. Robbins calls the universal destination of goods “original communism” (38).

One of the implications of the doctrine of the universal destination of all goods is that property rights are not absolute but can be overridden by other concerns. In Rome’s social teaching, need is the ultimate factor in determining rightful ownership. Robbins explains it this way, according to Rome, “Whoever needs property ought to possess it. Need makes another’s goods one’s own. Need is the ultimate and only moral title to property” (32).

The Roman Church-State is fine with private property up to a point, but when things get serious, need is all that matters. If your neighbor needs something, and you have a surplus of what he needs, he can take it, and it’s neither a sin nor a crime for him to do so.

Robbins quotes Pope Paul VI from his encyclical On the Progress of Peoples:

…each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council [Vatican II] reminded us of this: “God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.” All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.[19]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also speaks to the issue of the universal destination of all goods:

2403 The right to private property, acquired by work or received from others by inheritance or gift, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise.

2406 Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good.

The term “common good” is frequently used in official Roman Catholic documents and is a term that Robbins described as “the great fiction used by the Roman Church-State to justify government control of society and economy” (187). The universal destination of all goods is the controlling principle behind Rome’s collectivist economic policies.

In 2017, National Catholic Reporter published an article about a speech given by San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy. In his speech, McElroy gave a clear statement on the universal destination of all goods.  He said,

This stance of the church’s teaching flows from teaching of the Book of Genesis, that creation is the gift of God to all of humanity. Thus, in the most fundamental way, there is a universal destination for all of the material goods that exist in this world. Wealth is a common heritage, not at its core a right of lineage or of acquisition.[20]

Let’s now look at how the universal destination of all goods bears on Rome’s immigration doctrine.  In a document titled “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples” written by Catholic priest Thomas Betz, Director of Immigration and Refugee Services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we find a list of three basic principles of Catholic social teaching on immigration.

The first principal Betz notes is “People have a right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.” As the article goes on to explain,

This is based on biblical and ancient Christian teaching that the goods of the earth belong to all people. While the right to private property is defended in Catholic social teaching, individuals do not have the right to use private property without regard for the common good.[21]

This is the universal destination of all goods applied to immigration. Put a bit more bluntly, if a migrant from a foreign country needs your stuff, he has a right to take it. And if he doesn’t have the ability to take your stuff himself, it’s right and proper for the government to forcibly take your stuff by direct taxation or by indirect means such as inflating the currency and give it to him via the myriad welfare programs in this country, which themselves were set up in large part due to the efforts of the Roman Church-State.[22]

This application of the universal destination of all goods to migrants is not original with Betz. In his article he notes the source of his ideas, the 1952 apostolic constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana (The Émigré Family of Nazareth) by Pope Pius XII, a man deemed “Hitler’s Pope” by author John Cornwell on account of the Pope’s close connections with the leader of the Third Reich.

While Exsul Familia[23] can be found online, I like to refer to a hardcopy edition I have edited by Giulivo Tessarolo.[24] It has the Church’s official nihil obstat and imprimatur on it, so no one can claim it’s not an official publication of the Roman Church-State. One of the reasons why I like it is a comment found in the Editor’s Remarks section.

When you read immigration statements by Roman Catholic writers, you’ll often find them speaking in vague and flowery terms about the “obligation” nations have to migrants (their term) or illegal aliens (the proper term in US law). Take this passage from another major Roman Catholic immigration document, Strangers No Longer Together on the Journey of Hope, a letter issued by the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States in 2003: “Pope John XXIII placed limits on immigration, however, when there are ‘just reasons for it.’ Nevertheless, he stressed the obligation of sovereign states to promote the universal good where possible, including an obligation to accommodate migration flows. For more powerful nations, a stronger obligation exists.”[25]

Note the repeated use by the bishops of the term “obligation.” It sure sounds expensive. I’d hate to be the guy who had to foot that bill. Newsflash, if you live in the United States, you’re that guy. Only the bishops are too clever to make that explicit.

But not the Rev. Giulivo Tessarolo:

In undertaking this work, I took cognizance of a signficant (sic) social fact of our time; that, due to enormous financial implications, the phenomenon of emigration will find some relief only in the English-speaking countries. The vast influx of immigrants into Canada and Australia confirms that fact.[26]

Note Tessarolo’s comment about the “enormous financial implications” of the mass migration called for in Exsul Familia. Note also that Tessarolo mentions Canada and Australia as the receiving countries of this “vast influx of immigrants.”

Tessarolo does not mention the United States.  The reason for this is that the Immigration Act of 1924 was still in effect, an act that brought an end to the Ellis Island era and essentially ended immigration into the United States from its inception until it was replaced with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.[27] This act, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, was pushed through the Senate by Roman Catholic Senator Edward Kennedy and subsequently led to a huge increase in legal immigration.

In Exsul Familia, Pius XII expressed the universal destination of all goods in the following language, “For the Creator of the universe made all good things primarily for the good of all.”

But this is not what the Scriptures teach at all. In “Ronald Sider-Contra Deum,” Robbins sharply criticized Sider, a purportedly Evangelical writer, for his Romanist economics.

Sider would have us believe that when God put man on Earth, he gave the Earth to men corporately, not severally. Nowhere does he present any evidence for this idea. God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument for this may be found in the works of the seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer, of whom, presumably, Sider has heard. God is not, as Sider believes, impartial. He does not have “the same loving concern for each person he has created.” God does not intend for the “earth’s resources” “to be husbanded and shared for the benefit of all.” On the contrary, he prefers certain persons above others; he loves Jacob and hates Esau. He ordered the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites. His remnant is the apple of his eye, and he governs the universe for the particular good of the Church. Sider offers no proof for his global egalitarianism for a very good reason: There is none. Rather, the Bible protects private property from the larcenous and the covetous, from those who, like Jezebel, would take private property by force. [28]

If the universal destination of all goods is a fiction, and it is, then Rome’s case for the sort of mass, taxpayer subsidized, illegal immigration of the sort we see on our southwestern border falls apart. There is no “obligation” on the part of Americans to foot the bills of foreigners who have zero claim on the property of the American people. By invoking the universal destination of all goods, what Rome calls for is not Christian charity, but the mass violation of the eighth commandment.

But as devastating as the refutation of the universal destination of all goods is to Rome’s case for flooding our nation with welfare migrants, we’re not yet done critiquing Antichrist’s destructive doctrine of immigration.

Globalism

“The Vatican calls for One World Government. Really.”[29]Thus read the nearly the breathless headline of a 2011 article by Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher, who by this time was an ex-Catholic,[30] seemed genuinely shocked, SHOCKED, to find globalism in the Roman Catholic Church.

Wrote Dreher,

Here is news about a new economic policy statement from the Vatican. Lots of good stuff (sic) in the document about abuses in the neoliberal world economy, and the need for reform. But then there’s this, from Reuters:

The Vatican called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.

Such an authority should start with the United Nations as its reference point but later become independent and be endowed with the power to see to it that developed countries were not allowed to wield “excessive power over the weaker countries”.[31]

Note well that the Vatican’s use of the globalist terms “supranational authority” and “universal jurisdiction,” which are meant to keep developed countries from wielding “excessive power over the weaker countries.”

Commenting on the Reuters report, Dreher continues,

World peace can be ours if we only submit to a one-world government that manages our lives and our finances. But who will lead this new international order to guarantee peace and prosperity? Who, oh who?

Lord have mercy. What was once only in the febrile prophetic imagination of Jack Chick and Hal Lindsey is now a press release from the Vatican. A friend (who is not Evangelical) writes:

This is going to FREAK the evangelicals out. But it makes me wonder what the heck is going on in the minds of these Vaticanites! Don’t they have a clue how the world will preceive (sic) this? One world authority?? Really?

Count me with the Evangelicals. It freaks me out too and will freak out many Orthodox Christians. I bet it has the same effect on not a few Catholics as well. Maybe Malachi Martin wasn’t such a conspiracy freak after all….

Obviously, Dreher lacked an Historicist understanding of Revelation, in particular its teaching about the identity of the pope of Rome as the Antichrist, man of sin, and son of perdition. Had Dreher read Revelation with Historicist glasses and understood a short article on the Vatican’s website about the papal tiara, he would not have had to ask the question “Who, oh who?” would lead the one-world government proposed in the Vatican’s press release.

According to the Holy See Press Office, “the Papal Tiara…symboliz[es] the triple power of the Pope: father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ.” [32] It also tells us, “Use of the Tiara, a ritual during solemn ceremonies, was abandoned during the Papacy of Paul VI.” But while we are told that the use of the Tiara has been abandoned, we are not told that the popes of Rome have abandoned their claims to “the triple power” symbolized by the Tiara.[33] Semper eadem, always the same, is the motto of Rome. And at least in this case, we should take Rome at her word.

The question now before us is this, how do the megalomaniacal claims of the popes of Rome to rule the world tie in with Rome’s destructive doctrine of immigration? To answer this question, let us return to a document we’ve already looked at, “[Roman]Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples” by Catholic priest Thomas Betz.[34]

Betz noted that there are, “three basic principles of [Roman] Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration.” Principle one we’ve already looked at, “People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.”

The second principle of [Roman] Catholic social teaching on immigration is, “A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration.” Now like many statements of the Roman Church-State, this principle appears to concede ground, in this case too it seems to acknowledge the authority of national governments to set immigration policy. But as is so often the case, what Rome gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. Just as Rome sometimes appears to support private property rights, but in reality, she subverts them with her doctrine of the universal destination of all goods, so too does Rome appear to acknowledge the authority of national governments while at the same time undercutting the very authority she seems to support.

Rome’s third principle of Roman Catholic social teaching on immigration is “a country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.” What does this mean in practice? Betz continues,

A nation may not simply decide that it wants to provide for its own people and no others. A sincere commitment to the needs of all must prevail…Justice dictates that the world community contribute resources toward shelter, food, medical services, and basic welfare…. Even in the case of less urgent migrations, a developed nation's right to limit immigration must be based on justice, mercy, and the common good, not on self-interest…. Moreover, immigration policy ought to take into account other important values such as the right of families to live together….[35] Undocumented immigrants present a special concern…. The [Roman] Catholic Church teaches that every person has basic human rights and is entitled to have basic human needs met—food, shelter, clothing, education, and health care….[36]

So “a country must regulate its border with justice and mercy” (note the imperative “must,” there is no ethical option not to do this) turns out to mean that national governments must force their citizens to pay for the “food, shelter, clothing, education, and health care” of however many migrants “justice dictates.” But justice doesn’t speak for itself. So, we are led to echo Rod Dreher’s question, who, oh who determines what “justice dictates?” Who says whether a nation is regulating its borders with “justice and mercy?” It’s fascinating how officials of the Roman Church-State can make sweeping statements about what nations must do, while at the same time seeming to never explicitly state who determines whether national governments are behaving properly. But in truth, Rome has made very clear who has the final say. Pro tip, he’s the same guy who claims to be, “the father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ.” When a pope tells mere kings, presidents, and prime ministers to jump, their only proper response in the eyes of Rome is to ask, “how high your holiness?”

With this in mind, we can answer the question we posed earlier, how do the megalomaniacal claims of the popes of Rome to rule the world tie in with Rome’s destructive doctrine of immigration? The answer is that the popes seek to use immigration as a way of asserting control of a nation’s immigration policy and use it as a wedge to then assert control over other aspects of national policy. Put differently, Rome is attempting to use immigration as a means of regaining the control of the nations of the Earth that it lost following the Protestant Reformation. Put still another way, Roman Catholic social teaching on immigration is designed to weaken independent nation states and to advance globalism, which is alternatively known as the New World Order or the Great Reset.

There is perhaps nothing in all the world that the popes of Rome hate more than nations that do not jump when they tell them to. When the Peace of Westphalia, the treaty that settled the Thirty Year’s War, was signed in 1648, it ended the tyranny of papal rule in much of Europe and instituted a whole new system of international relations known as the Westphalian World Order. Just what is the Westphalian World Order? When I tell you, you’ll probably say it’s common sense. But understand, it took the Protestant Reformation and a thirty year-long pan-European war to bring it about. The Westphalian World Order is “A global system based on the principle of international law that each state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country’s domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large of small) is equal in international law.”[37] Put more simply, the Westphalian World Order tells nation states to mind their own business and not to interfere in the domestic matters of other nations. President Millard Fillmore captured the spirit of the Westphalian World Order in his 1850 State of the Union address where he argued, “The great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application. We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us.”[38]

As you may expect, Innocent X, the pope at the time of the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, did not appreciate having his authority in international affairs so greatly reduced. The papal Antichrists love lording their power over the nations.  Writing in his papal Bull Zelo Domus Dei (“Zeal of the house of God”) Pope Innocent X thundered that the Peace of Westphalia was, “null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time.”[39] As the saying goes, now tell us what you really think.

Some have argued that the Westphalian World Order in which each nation state is treated like a legal person in international law is not a necessary deduction from the Scriptures. But in the opinion of this author, the Bible does imply such a system of international relations. Consider that it was the Lord himself who broke up the first globalist empire when he scattered the people at the Tower of Babel. Why did the Lord do this? The Apostle Paul gave one reason in his famous Mars Hill address: “And He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:26-27). Note well, God divided the world up into nations, “so that they should seek the Lord.” It seems that there is something about worldwide empires that makes men more impressed by their own accomplishments than with their Creator. Perhaps limiting the power of human government helps to drive men to seek for God. Now the phrase “every nation of men” can be understood to mean what we today would call “people groups” rather than nation states in the Westphalian sense. But what is a nation state if not the political expression of a people group? If we accept that definition of nation state, then the Westphalian World Order serves the purpose of God as a means of helping men to seek the Lord rather than relying on their own strength and cleverness or being overly impressed with the own accomplishments. The Westphalian World Order also helps serve as a bulwark against tyranny, as it sets up multiple, completing centers of power in contrast with an empire, in which a central authority dictates what everyone should think and how everyone should live.

It was mentioned above that the logic of Rome’s three basic principles of [Roman] Catholic social teaching imply that the pope of Rome will have the final say in determining whether a nation is regulating its borders with “justice and mercy.” In effect, this allows the popes to override the decisions of a nation’s elected officials in favor of Rome’s own policies, meaning that Antichrist, not Congress, not the president, and not the American people is in charge of American immigration policy. This is globalism; this is the New World Order; this is the rise of Antichrist.

There are many examples of Pope Francis attempting to impose the Church-State’s costly and destructive welfare migrant agenda on the nations of the world. Recall that Giulivo Tessarolo admitted to the “enormous cost” of the Church’s migration policy called for in Pius XII’s apostolic exhortation Exsul Familia, a cost that is paid for by national governments robbing their own citizens to pay for the “food, shelter, clothing, education, and health care” of foreign migrants.

One example of this phenomenon is from recent United States history. In response to the 2014 invitation from then Speaker of the House John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both of whom are Roman Catholics, Pope Francis came to the United States in September of 2015 and became the first pope to address Congress.[40] During his speech, he lectured Congress, and by extension the American people, that they must “not be taken aback” by the numbers of illegal aliens coming across our border, whom the Roman Church-State’s social teaching obligates the American people to support with their tax dollars. Francis attempted to cloak his call for robbing the American people in the Christian language by appealing to the Golden Rule. But government welfare is not Christian charity. Christian charity is the voluntary giving of one’s own things; government welfare is the forceable taking from one man and the giving of his property to another. It would seem as if Pope Francis got his wish with the inauguration of President Biden, whose policies immediately began to flood America with illegal aliens almost as soon as he took office, a flood which shows no sign of abating nearly two years later.

Hungary is another example of Rome targeting a nation with its destructive doctrine of immigration. So far, it is one of the few nations in the world to successfully resist the Roman Church-State’s demands to allow mass welfare migration, and the reason for its success is, in my opinion, due to the Calvinism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.  It is not widely known that Orbán is a Calvinist, [41] and it is his Calvinism that drives his understanding of his role as head of state. Orbán has the now nearly unheard-of idea that his job as head of state is to manage the affairs of Hungary for the benefit of the Hungarian people and not for the globalists who seek their destruction. In short, Orbán is among the few world leaders who believes in the principles of the Westphalian World Order, and this is the reason he is hated by the Western globalist elite.

Naturally, Orbán’s views of the role of the nation state put him at odds with Pope Francis on the issue of immigration. In September 2021, Pope Francis visited Hungary and, as he did the United States in 2015, he proceeded to lecture Hungary on its need to “extend its arms toward everyone.”[42] Put in less metaphorical terms, Francis was demanding that Orbán allow Hungary – a nation with a long Protestant heritage dating back to Jan Hus in the 15th century – to be overrun with Muslim migrants and to force the Hungarian people to foot the bill for their own and for their nation’s destruction in the same manner as many other European nations have done.

Orbán’s successful resistance to the pope’s demands that he destroy Hungary with a Muslim welfare migrant flood is one of the few encouraging examples of Christian statesmanship in an otherwise very dark time. Here in the United States, we daily witness the practice of Rome’s destructive immigration doctrine, a doctrine that has been put into effect by a Roman Catholic president with close ties to the Jesuits.[43] May the Lord grant his people in the United States the eyes to see what is being done to them and the wisdom to take effective action to put a stop to the evil and destructive immigration policies of the Roman Church-State and of Antichrist.

Nothing written here is to be construed as lobbying, or as endorsing or opposing any candidate for any office whatsoever. This is a religious commentary on the religious policies of the United States Government, and our commentary on them is protected by the Word of God and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Notes

[←1]

Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, volume 1, 54.

[←2]

John W. Robbins, “Rebuilding American Freedom in the Twenty-First Century,” The Trinity Review, January, February 2009, 7.

[←3]

John W. Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church, The Trinity Foundation, 2006, 22.

[←4]

Samuel Adams, “American Independence,” August 1, 1776, Boston History and Architecture, accessed January 9, 2023, http://www.iboston.org/mcp.php?pid=samAdamsIndepSpch&laf=rg.

[←5]

Charles C. Marshall, “An Open Letter to the Honorable Alfred E. Smith,” April 27, 1927, accessed October 24, 2022 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1927/04/an-open-letter-to-the-honorable-alfred-e-smith/306523/.

[←6]

John Huntington, “The Kennedy Speech that Stoked the Rise of the Christian Right,” Politico, March 8, 2020, accessed January 9, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ 2020/03/08/the-kennedy-speech-that-stoked-the-rise-of-the-christian-right-123369

[←7]

It’s worth noting that all four Roman Catholic presidential candidates have been Democrats.  In 1884, Presbyterian minister and Union Civil War veteran Dr. Samuel D. Burchard famously called the Democrats “the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.”

[←8]

Many 19th century American writers recognized the danger that political Romanism posed to the Constitution.  There is an entire body of literature from this period that is nearly forgotten today. In 1835, a book by Samuel F. B. Morse, famous as the father of the telegraph, was published with the title Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States. Morse, the son of a Calvinist minister and himself a Calvinist, was deeply concerned about a Roman Catholic plot against American liberty that he believed originated in Austria.

[←9]

Stephen D. Mumford, American Democracy & The Vatican: Population Growth & National Security, 1984, chapter 7.

[←10]

Jenna Johnson, “Bannon: Catholic Church needs ‘illegal aliens to fill the churches,’” The Washington Post, September 7, 2017, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.washington post.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/07/bannon-catholic-church-needs-illegal-aliens-to-fill-the-churches/.

[←11]

Cathy Burke, “Bannon: [Roman] Catholic Church One of ‘Worst Instigators of Open Borders Policy’,” Newsmax, June 17, 2018, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.newsmax. com/politics/bannon-immigration-family-separation-law/2018/06/17/id/866627/

[←12]

Michelle Malkin, Open Borders Inc. Who’s Funding America’s Destruction? 2019, 85.

[←13]

Malkin, 86.

[←14]

Kevin Clarke, “Two nuns have a message for Catholics angry about their ministry to immigrants: ‘We don’t have any intention of stopping,’” America, February 16, 2022, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/02/16/catholic-charities-catholic-vote-migrants-242408. While many lay Catholics object to Biden’s border policies, the Church’s hierarchy does not.

[←15]

Bill Melugin, @BILLFOXLA, August 2, 2021, accessed October 23, 2022, https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/ status/1422247796715970562?s=20.

[←16]

Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 187.

[←17]

Joe Biden has significant Jesuit connections. The Jesuit publication America ran a story in June 2021 noting that Joe Biden attends Holy Trinity Church, a Jesuit-run parish in Washington D.C.  Michael J. O’Loughlin, Joe Biden’s Jesuit-Run D.C. parish says it ‘will not deny the eucharist’,” America, June 30, 2021, accessed September 4, 2022, https://www. americamagazine.org/faith/2021/06/30/joe-biden-communion-holy-trinity-240955. The Jesuit priest Kevin O’Brien spoke at Biden’s inauguration in January 2021.

[←18]

John W. Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church, [1999] 2006, 38.

[←19]

Robbins, 38. Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, On the Progress of Peoples (1967), 22.

[←20]

Brian Roewe, “In powerful speech, Sand Diego bishop challenges organizers to disrupt, rebuild,” February 19, 2017 accessed October 24, 2022 https://www.ncronline.org/ powerful-speech-san-diego-bishop-challenges-organizers-disrupt-rebuild. In August 2022, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Robert McElroy was “elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis on Saturday in Vatican City,” Phillip Molnar, “Newest U.S. Cardinal, San Diego’s Robert McElroy, on why he thinks he was chosen,” August 27, 2022, accessed October 24, 2022, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/story/2022-08-27/robert-mcelroy-cardinal-qa. Socialist birds of a feather flock together.

[←21]

Thomas Betz, USCCB, “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples” accessed October 24, 2022, https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/catholic-teaching-on-immigration-and-the-movement-of-peoples.

[←22]

Timothy Dolan, “We, the bishops of the United States - - can you believe it – in 1919 came out for more affordable, more comprehensive, more universal health care,” December 4, 2013, interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Politifact, accessed October 28, 2022, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/ dec/04/timothy-dolan/us-bishops-have-supported-universal-health-care-19/.

[←23]

Pius XII, Exsul Familia Nazarethana (1952), accessed October 24, 2022, https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius12/ p12exsul.htm.

[←24]

Exsul Familia: The Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants, Giulivo Tessarolo, editor, St. Charles Seminary, 1962.

[←25]

USCCB, “Strangers No Longer Together on the Journey of Hope,” January 22, 2003, accessed October 24, 2022, https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/strangers-no-longer-together-on-the-journey-of-hope.

[←26]

Exsul Familia: The Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants, Giulivo Tessarolo, editor, 13.

[←27]

Jennifer Ludden, “1965 Immigration Law Changed the Face of America,” May 9, 2006, “All Things Considered,” NPR, accessed October 24, 2022 https://www.npr.org/templates/ story/story.php?storyId=5391395.

[←28]

John W. Robbins, “Ronald Sider-Contra Deum,” The Trinity Review, March, April 1981, 5.

[←29]

Rod Dreher, “Vatican Calls for One World Government. Really,” The American Conservative, October 24, 2011, accessed October 25, 2022, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/vatican-calls-for-one-world-government-really/.

[←30]

Dreher is a bit of a religious chameleon. According to his Wikipedia entry, he was raised a Methodist, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, and then later moved on to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2006.

[←31]

Philip Puella, “UPDATE 2-Vatican urges economic reforms, condemns collective greed,” Reuters, October 24, 2011, accessed October 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUKL5E7LO1LS20111024

[←32]

Holy See Press Office, “Tiara” updated March 4, 2001, accessed October 25, 2022, https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/documents/sp_ss_scv/insigne/triregno_en.html This article notes, “the bronze statue of Saint Peter [in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome] is crowned [with a Tiara] every June 29th, the feast day of the Saint.”

[←33]

The crowning of Saint Peter’s statue in Rome every June 29th with the Tiara (see note 4), seems to imply that all Peter’s successors who sit in his chair also wield the triple power symbolized by it.

[←34]

Thomas Betz, “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, accessed October 25, 2022, https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/catholic-teaching-on-immigration-and-the-movement-of-peoples.

[←35]

This makes clear where all the cries about “family separation come from.”

[←36]

During a debate of democratic presidential candidates in 2020, a show of hands question was posed to all the candidates asking them if their government healthcare plans would provide care for “undocumented immigrants” (i.e., illegal aliens). All ten candidates, including eventual winner Joe Biden, raised their hands to the thunderous applause of the audience, “All Democrats Say Their Health Plan Would Cover Undocumented Immigrants,” NBC News 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate, June 27, 2019, accessed October 25, 2022, https://youtu.be/aMSmoNOZJ9Y. On June 30, 2022, Jesuit educated California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill, to make all low-income adults eligible for the state’s Medicaid program by 2024 regardless of their immigration status,” Adam Beam and Don Thompson, Associated Press, June 20, 2022, accessed October 25, 2022,    https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-06-30/california-first-to-cover-health-care-for-all-immigrants.

[←37]

Course Hero, Boundless World History, “Nation-States and Sovereignty,” accessed October 26, 2022, https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/nation-states-and-sovereignty/.

[←38]

President Millard Fillmore, in office from 1850 until 1853, is often the butt of jokes. Perhaps his name has something to do with it. Perhaps it’s because, for whatever reason, he is considered “uninspiring.” In any case, his 1850 State of the Union address contains one of the best statements on foreign policy this author has seen. Fillmore wrote, “The great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application. We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us,” Uri Friedman, “Ron Paul invokes the…Millard Fillmore doctrine?” Foreign Policy, January 17, 2012, accessed October 26, 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/17/ron-paul-invokes-the-millard-fillmore-doctrine/.

[←39]

World Religions and Democracy, edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Philip J. Costopoulos, Johns Hopkins Press, 2005.

[←40]

Jake Sherman, “Boehner, Pelosi Extend Invite to Pope,” Politico March 14, 2014, accessed October 28, 2022, https://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/john-boehner-pope-francis-congress-104635.

[←41]

Capstone Report, “Viktor Orbán is the World’s Most Powerful Calvinist,” January 20, 2020, accessed October 28, 2022, https://capstonereport.com/2020/01/20/viktor-orban-is-the-worlds-most-powerful-calvinist/33756/.

[←42]

Chico Harlan, “Pope Francis, during visit, urges Viktor Orbán’s Hungary to ‘extend its arms toward everyone,’” The Washington Post, September 12, 2021, accessed October 28, 2022, https://wapo.st/3FJNZdN.

[←43]

Ralph Ovadal, “Romanizing America though Illegal Immigration,” April 10, 2006, accessed October 28, 2022, https://www.pccmonroe.org/romanizing-america-through-illegal-immigration.html accessed 10/28/2022.

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