“The church of Rome is in fact founded upon a political dogma. It claims that the Pope is a ruler, or more precisely, the supreme ruler of the world. Cardinal Bellarmine put it quite starkly: ‘The pontifical supremacy is the fundamental article of the Christian religion.’

In other words, the Christian religion is founded upon this, that the Pope is the first authority, ruler and monarch on earth. Nothing of this has been revoked or rescinded. Both the spiritual and the temporal supremacy of the Pope are still fundamental dogmas of Roman Catholic teaching” (David N. Samuel, European Union and the Roman Catholic Influence in Britain).

This “world’s longest surviving international organization,” in addition to her ecclesiastical influence, is, at heart, an extremely political enterprise. “Wherever Rome is at work she seeks not only spiritual but also political power” (ibid.).

In the twentieth century, the strongest evidence of this political influence of the Roman Catholic Church is its drive to support and lead the nations of Europe into a European Union, dominated by its own spiritual influence. Yet this dogged commitment of the papacy to unite Europe has roots which go way back beyond this present century of man’s history.

“A project is being mooted, which, if carried into effect, will have far-reaching consequences indeed…. It is nothing less than to erect a European Council with the Pope as president. This will be found a great stride towards grasping anew that temporal supremacy of Christendom which the pontiff wielded in the Middle Ages…. This proposal is a very specious one. It has come from the Roman side; it has been ventilated in the London newspapers by way, doubtless, of feeling the pulse of Europe. The object put in the foreground is confessedly a philanthropic one—the saving of Europe from ruinous wars. We are likely to hear more of this proposal in time to come” (Dr. J. A. Wylie, Which Sovereign—Queen Victoria or the Pope?, circa 1880).

Ancient Idea

In fact, the idea to unite Europe under the Pope’s rule goes clear back to Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. “The papacy ever since the days of Charlemagne has not ceased to lean upon the Germans in order to impose its authority and extend its influence throughout Europe” (Edmond Paris, The Vatican Against Europe).

“In the year 782, Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, became the military champion of the papacy, stepping into the vacuum created by the separation of Constantinople and Rome, and defending the papacy from the Lombards who kept threatening it. Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor in Notre Dame Cathedral in 800. The future of Europe was bound up in that event, and the alliance between the papacy and Germany has been of great significance ever since” (David N. Samuel, op. cit.).

The Protestant Reformation was a great setback to Rome’s drive to rule Europe. However, Rome is tenacious in its aim and calls upon vast experience in terms of its history of intelligence-gathering and diplomacy. As a senior CIA representative was informed when asking a Jesuit priest, “How come the Vatican’s intelligence on Poland was well ahead of the CIA’s during the Solidarity years?” “Ah!” replied the priest, “But we have 2,000 years practice behind us!”

Following World War I, the progressive liberalization of education in the West did much to lay open to question the concept of absolute law ruling an absolute universe. Einstein’s theory of relativity was seized upon by philosophers, theologians and social scientists who misused and misapplied it to the realm of moral authority. Traditional values in society were laid open to question and their authority attacked. Traditional religion, the world’s principal bastion of moral authority, collapsed into decline. The influence on society of both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches waned. Rome proved the more resilient of the two main strands of Western religion.

“Step by step, in more recent times, with infinite patience, the Roman curia [papal government], gradually and without pause, regained the influence lost, at the same time placing at the service of Germany the spiritual ascendancy enjoyed by the Vatican among the Roman Catholics in Germany and the rest of Europe. Thus Germany the Great, like the Habsburg Empire, was to serve as the secular arm in order to annihilate the influence of Orthodox Russia in the Balkans and to restore the Holy See’s authority in secular France. That game was lost in 1918 but was resumed in 1939 with the Vatican pursuing the very same end that it is still pursuing today through the European Union” (ibid.).

As a Roman Catholic French patriot of World War II experience commented, “The church seeks not virtue but herself…. Her true concern is the constant swelling of her ranks, the strengthening of her power. Are you then surprised at her predilection for Germany…. Both love themselves alone and are hypnotized by their own powers” (Edmond Paris, op. cit.). The deeper we dig into history, the clearer it becomes that there exists a traditional alliance between the Roman Catholic Church in the spiritual sphere and Germany in the civil sphere.

Teuton and Papal Politics

During World War II, as it became apparent to Germany’s top Nazis that the possibility of defeat by the Allies was in prospect, the Nazis formulated a strategy to take the movement underground in the event of an allied victory. “When, in 1943, certain top Nazis realized that there must be at least a 50:50 chance that they would lose the war, Berlin established the Nazi International Organization at the German Geopolitical Centre which was located in Madrid, with satellite branches in Johannesburg, Rome, Lisbon and Buenos Aires. The strategies developed there are known to historians…. The Nazi International developed a ‘gradualist’ (quasi-Fabian) strategy to achieve Hitler’s aims by stealth…. The time frame was governed by a 40-year framework for German occupation…. This became the accepted time frame for the development of both German and Soviet control strategies. Forty years from 1948 takes us to 1988; the Berlin Wall was removed in 1990” (Economic Intelligence Review, March 1998).

The full integration of Europe was not possible prior to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It has only emerged since the unification of East and West Germany, combined with the progressive Vatican-instigated separation of the Balkan states of Europe from Russian control. Since that emotion-soaked night, when the first fractures appeared in the concrete slabs of the dividing wall that separated East from West in Germany, the European Union has taken on a new momentum. It’s now driven by a German-led bureaucratic blitzkrieg aggressively applying pressure to member states to conform to a single monetary policy and currency and leading to the lifting of border controls between member states.

“To say that the European Community was based on the Nazi version of Europe or that there are parallels would be an understatement. The entire ‘European’ enterprise since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 (and given an enormous boost by the Maastricht Treaty on European Union) is an exact replica of the Nazis’ ideas for Europe. If there is a major difference it is that unlike Monsieur Delors, Hitler was at least elected by universal franchise, and by 1942 Hitler spoke for far more (albeit conquered) countries than does the EU today” (Treason at Maastricht, p. 133).

In their startling little book, Treason at Maastricht, Rodney Atkinson and Norris McWhirter reveal the proximity of goals that exists between Hitler’s Nazi regime and those of the European Union: “But the most significant common thread running through both the Nazi and modern versions of the European State is the contempt for ‘the English system’—i.e. a belief in democratic government based on the individual, the nation state and free international trade. The defeat of Hitler and Mussolini was far more significant for its social and economic implications than for its military triumph. The ideas of collectivism, statism, trade protectionism and corporatism are not so physically apparent as the blitz and marching armies, which is why they have so successfully re-established themselves in Europe, under the guise of the ‘European’ Union” (pp. 124-125).

Atkinson and McWhirter reveal very clearly in their book that the European Union presents a great threat to British and American sovereignty! Clearly, Germany is emerging as an increasingly powerful, bullying civil powerhouse dominating Europe, allied with a politically active spiritual power, the Vatican of Rome. Each is intent on pursuing the common goal of a united Europe. That this European combine will work to the detriment of Britain, America and their traditional allies is now readily seen by an increasingly concerned, clear-thinking and growing band of commentators, particularly in Britain. (Read the comments, at left, of Lord Tebbit, previous minister serving in Lady Thatcher’s cabinet, after Chancellor Kohl threatened war if Germany did not get her way in the European Union.)

So much for Chancellor Kohl’s aggressive brand of Euro-politics. Concerning the Vatican’s political role, though it be more subliminal in approach, it is, nonetheless, just as effective as Mr. Kohl’s politics in practice.

The influence of the Vatican on swaying the national vote to get its way has been evident in this current decade: “There is a natural affinity between the powerful state and the Roman Catholic theocratic ideal. The Church of Rome makes no bones about calling on its members to vote in a particular way, as it did in the Italian elections of 1992” (David N. Samuel, op. cit.).

Such papal influence is part of a well-considered and progressive plan for the Vatican’s dominance of Europe. A Sunday Telegraph article in 1991 had the title “Hatching a New Popish Plot” and spoke of the Pope’s plans for the “evangelization” not only of Great Britain but the whole European continent. “Karol Wojtyla [the Pope],” the article goes on, “is calmly preparing to assume the mantle which he solemnly believes to be his Divine Right—that of new Holy Roman Emperor, reigning from the Urals to the Atlantic” (Sunday Telegraph, July 21, 1991).

David Samuel goes to the heart and core of the issue: “What is on offer is not federalism at all, though it masquerades under that name, but an unelected politico-bureaucracy or Euro-Fascism. The government of Europe will be an unelected body, with the European Parliament simply to give it an air of democratic legitimacy…. Present indications are that the future of the European Union is more likely to resemble the Habsburg or Ottoman Empires than a democratic federal state” (David N. Samuel, op. cit.).

Spiritual Influence

On January 16, 1604, at the Hampton Court Conference in England, John Rainolds presented to King James I the motion that the Bible be translated into the English language and thus made accessible to the common man. The very next day the king gave his assent to the motion, which led to the publication of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

In their Epistle dedicatory, to be found printed in every edition of the AKJV since, the translators point to the Vatican’s resistance to making the Bible generally accessible to the populace. Anticipating Roman Catholic resistance to their published efforts, the translators state: “…So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced [slandered] by Popish Persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God’s holy Truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness.”

The Vatican fathers were not successful in their resistance to having the word of God made available to the public. However, their efforts to use episcopal power for political control have continued to this day.

To understand the Roman Catholic Church, one needs to realize that historically it has, from its earliest beginnings, been both a religious and a political body. “Wherever Rome is at work she seeks not only spiritual but also political power and influence. One experienced commentator has written, ‘No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of the Vatican’s part in it. And no significant world political situation exists in which the Vatican does not play an important implicit or explicit part.’ If this be true of world politics, how much more must it be true of the politics of Europe which is in the Vatican’s own backyard, so to speak” (David N. Samuel, op. cit.).

Bearing this in mind, it should not be surprising to hear voices of concern being raised in relation to the politico-spiritual specter on the rise in Europe. “The predominant religion of the confederation will be Roman Catholicism, and its spiritual head will be the Pope, to whom all who profess the Catholic faith owe allegiance—it is possible that the papacy and the Vatican could re-acquire political power at the same time…. The European Community, from its inception, was an idea in the mind of the Vatican to re-Catholicize Europe…” (The Monarchy in Peril—Ecumenism and the Throne, Spirit of 88, pp. 4-5).

The rule of the papacy, the cardinals, bishops and local priests, is extended down through the laity. The Vatican imposes upon its laity the duty to enlarge “the orbit of the apostolic light of the hierarchy. Thus wherever a Roman Catholic layman is placed, at any level in society, he must see it as his duty to extend the influence and authority of the Roman Catholic priests and bishops and ultimately, of course, the Pope, for this, it is claimed, is the same as extending the Kingdom of God” (David N. Samuel, op. cit.).

Having this in mind, it is interesting to note the high-flying Roman Catholics who have been influential in the evolution of the European Union. The generally recognized instigator of the Franco-German coal and steel production plan, launched in the 1950s, upon which the European Community was founded, was Robert Schumann. Born in Luxembourg, Schumann was a devout Catholic, now being considered by the Vatican for elevation to sainthood.

Jacques Delors, principal architect of the Maastricht Treaty and past president of the European Commission, had, at the roots of his Euro-federalist agenda, an ardent commitment to the furtherance of Roman Catholicism.

Here is what Boris Johnson wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: “Few…imagined there could be any connection between the Commission president’s enthusiasm for religion and his Euro-federalism. Few, that is, apart from a handful of his closest advisers, including a Belgian ex-priest, who believe there is now a spiritual void in Britain and other EEC countries; and that Mr. Delors should fill that void by subtly turning European federalism into a semi-religious crusade.

“Religion—or at least some kind of peculiar new Euro-spirituality inspired by Brussels—is the answer to the Community’s spiritual crisis” (Feb. 28, 1993).

Delors is Jesuit educated, as is former Netherlands Prime Minister Rudd Lubbers, another dedicated champion of the Maastricht agenda. Together with Germany’s Chancellor Kohl and Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales, these leaders, all devout Catholics, hail from the Roman Catholic social movement which believes that the most noble of tasks is the unifying of the European continent.

Konrad Adenauer, a contemporary of Robert Schumann and zealot for European unity, in addition to his office as a post-war chancellor of Germany, was privy chamberlain [personal aide] to the Pope. Mr. Adenauer declared in 1953 that “Germany has a divine mission to save Western Europe.” From its inception, the European Community has been a vehicle to unite Europe under a common religion—Roman Catholicism, the glue that has traditionally bound together the Holy Roman Empire in its various resurrections.

Just as Britain is the thorn in the flesh of the European Union today, so it was in the past. Never conquered by empirical Rome, Britain was historically resistant to the Vatican’s influence till “relativism…[and] tolerance stretched the bounds of morality beyond the limits of Scripture” (ibid.).

Until the time of George V, when the concepts of moral relativism and German rationalism began to raise their heads (both concepts having their genesis in German intellectual thought), the coronation oath of British monarchs specifically prohibited adherence to Roman Catholic mysticism. The old coronation oath stated: “I do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous” (The Monarchy in Peril—Ecumenism and the Throne, p. 6).

Yet within Britain, the idea of Europe becoming a spiritual entity under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, leading to a revival of its temporal power, is being subtly developed. The British Cardinal Basil Hume, in his book entitled Remaking Europe, points out that there exists a spiritual vacuum at the heart of Europe. He then expounds on Roman Catholic social and political theory, warmly advocating the idea of a European (non-sovereign) citizenship, as proposed in the Maastricht Treaty. This is in direct line with the Pope’s public assertion, while visiting Austria in 1983, that Europeans should work for the tearing down of all “national and artificial borders all over Europe…. Europeans should overcome the menacing international confrontations of states and alliances and create a new United Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.”

Pagan Origins—Pagan Mark

This is the church that has historically overseen and commanded the slaughter of those who would not bend the knee to its will. The church that silenced Galileo and which ordered the assassination of Elizabeth Tudor. It is a church that has its roots in the pagan mother-son relationship of Nimrod and Semiramis of ancient Babylon—rooted in superstition, mysticism and anti-God paganism.

“Superstition, the granting of supernatural powers and agencies to natural things, is the most striking feature of Roman Catholicism, quite absent from the Protestant world view. The veneration granted to images, holy water, holy oil, buildings, vestments, and the Host; the place given to dead saints for intercession and help; the absurd regard for such pointless miracles as weeping statues—these are as animistic, and as savage, as the beliefs of any illiterate Polynesian” (The Herald [Glasgow], August 26, 1995).

This is the church that has raised, educated and molded the spiritual focus of the most influential political leaders and bureaucrats in the European Union. It is this Catholic mind that dominates Brussels! Writing for the Glasgow-based newspaper, The Herald, John Macleod bemoans the loss of a purer religion that “has supernatural elements: belief in an unseen God, who has revealed Himself through inerrant Scripture, and who gave His Son for sinners of mankind, identified by His miraculous birth, death, and resurrection. But it is free of superstition, and founded on Scripture alone; a church of which Christ was head and not the Pope, a church in which… the function of ordained ministers was to preach in the common tongue, not to conduct bizarre rituals in a dead language.”

Macleod fears that the loss of scriptural knowledge that once underwrote a system of law, jurisprudence, education and economy, that generally produced a more decent society, is being destroyed by an unwelcome alternative being subtly forced upon Britain.

Already the mark of this church is bound in European law, awaiting its enforcement. It was upon a German-Catholic initiative that Sunday was legislated as a “day of rest” by the Brussels bureaucrats, and received the approval of the EU states.

“It was for obeying God’s FOURTH Commandment—keeping the Sabbath—that millions were put to death. The local Council of Laodicea, in A.D. 363, passed this decree: ‘Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But, if any be found to be Judaizing, let them be declared anathema from Christ.’

“The church caused them to be killed. When the church branded one ‘anathema’ [a heretic], the state police of the Empire began torturing him. Unless he recanted, he was tortured until he died!

“Laws became so strict no man could hold a job, or engage in business, unless he worked on Saturday and rested on Sunday.

“This is the ONLY COMMANDMENT which was altered by the Roman Empire! In Daniel 7:25 we read the prophecy of this ‘BEAST’ and the little horn (papacy) rising up, which was to think to CHANGE ‘times and laws.’ That is, change God’s LAW in respect to TIME—the time for the Sabbath!” (Herbert W. Armstrong, The Mark of the Beast, p. 13).

Could such a state of affairs resurrect and establish itself in a Europe, dominated increasingly by the Vatican and its old ally Germany, in these “enlightened” times? Your Bible guarantees it.

The relocation of Germany’s seat of government from Bonn to historic Berlin will have deeply symbolic meaning to the German populace. Berlin, traditional seat of the Kaisers. Berlin, city of celebration of Germany’s past glory. Berlin and Rome, ancient cities each possessing a historic past which has had profound impact on world history.

“By the year 2000, a huge new government complex, including the Chancellery and the remodeled Reichstag, will occupy the eastern edge of the city’s Central park, the Tier Garten” (Condé Nast Traveler, February 1998, p.102).

The countdown to the year 2,000 ticks away, a year in which the Vatican will lead global celebration of its almost 2000-year history, a year in which Europe’s largest construction site, the city of Berlin, will light up as the reborn capital of a reborn Germany. Stay attuned to the spirit of prophecy behind today’s world news (Rev. 19:10). Grasp the vision of the meaning of the climactic events which will usher in a genuine new age; an age of global peace, harmony and unity under the supreme authority of the one true God, which He will bestow upon the shoulder of His only begotten Son (Isa. 9:6-7).