The head of the German Bishop’s Conference just applauded the teachings of Karl Marx, the father of communism. In an interview published Tuesday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Cardinal Reinhard Marx claimed that the Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, helped shape Catholic social teaching.

In the lead-up to his namesake’s 200th birthday this Saturday, Marx said there is no “direct connection” between Marxism and the later ideology of Marxism-Leninism. He also said that, “without Karl Marx, there would be no Catholic social teaching.”

Specifically, Cardinal Marx deplored the “enormous social inequalities and ecological damage that capitalist dynamics” create. And he credited Karl Marx for teaching society that the “market is not as innocent as it appears in the textbook of economists, behind which are powerful interests.”

These comments on Marxism echo the pope’s thinking on the topic. When Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari asked Pope Francis in 2016 whether he was advocating for a Marxist society, the pope chose to highlight the similarities between Marxism and Catholic social teaching.

“It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the Communists who think like Christians,” the pope told Scalfari. “Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom.”

Both Pope Francis and Cardinal Marx despise the type of free-market capitalism advocated by the United States. They endorse a more authoritarian economic model that would allow the Roman Catholic Church to regulate individual behavior. So, while Catholic social teaching is not identical to Marxism, there are strong similarities.

After the feudal system of medieval Europe was swept away, two competing theories sprang up to replace it: Adam Smith-style capitalism and Karl Marx-style socialism.

Whereas capitalist philosophy called for all economic power to be in the hands of the individual, socialist philosophy called for all economic power to be in the hands of the state. Both systems weakened the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. So Pope Leo xiii penned an apostolic exhortation in 1891. His exhortation described a new economic model that became known as corporatism, derived from the Latin word for body, corpus.

This model was not really a new system. It was an updated version of the medieval feudal order. Its premise was that people are happiest when placed in a hierarchy guided by the Catholic Church. Competition is spiritually demeaning. Therefore, business, labor and the state must work together in vertically connected swathes of the economy called corporations. These corporations would control the economy by setting quotas, prices and wages. They would regulate individual behavior to protect the social order and provide a just standard of living for all.

By highlighting the similarities between Marxism and Catholic social teachings, Pope Francis and Cardinal Marx hope to drum up support for a new economic system governed by the Catholic Church. A recent Politico editorial referred to Cardinal Marx as “God’s man in Brussels.” It pointed out that Marx’s close relationships with the highest secular powers in Europe give him great influence. As one of Pope Francis’s nine closest advisers, Marx is exceptionally well placed to play a major part in reshaping Europe’s economic order.

The Bible reveals that an end-time church will forge some sort of agreement, or concordat, with a power in Europe. Revelation 17 describes this church as having power over a political-military union of 10 nations, described in symbolic terminology as a “beast.”

“In the 17th chapter of Revelation we find a beast, and a woman—a great, wealthy but fallen woman—who was riding the beast,” wrote Herbert W. Armstrong in Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? “The Bible describes the symbol ‘woman’ to mean a church (see 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7; Ephesians 5:22-27). On the other hand, ‘beast’ is a symbol of a kingdom, or empire. Let us be consistent. The beast of Revelation 13 is not the woman who rode the beast—the beast is the government, and the woman is a church.”

Later in his booklet, Mr. Armstrong explained that this particular beast is the Roman Empire and that the Bible prophesied that it would be resurrected 10 times.

“The seventh head with its 10 horns, in the 17th chapter, will be, as the 17th chapter explains, the revival of the beast, the Roman Empire, ‘out of the bottomless pit’ by a ‘United States of Europe,’ or federation of 10 European nations centered within the bounds of the old Roman Empire (Revelation 17:12-18). This is actually beginning today!” he wrote.

Youth unemployment and the euro crisis are prompting millions of Europeans to demand the type of government action that Cardinal Marx is advocating. These calls are leading toward the fulfillment of major Bible prophecies.

For more on the Catholic Church’s economic teachings and how they will soon affect Europe, read our article “Much More Than an Economic Plan” from the March 2014 issue of the Trumpet magazine.