By far the most outstanding event to come out of Europe in recent times has been the sudden, seemingly overnight, transition of the European Central Bank into the controlling mechanism with greatest influence on the global economy.

Pardon us if we say, yet once again, we told you it would be so.

Turn to Revelation 13 in your Bible.

What is the entity that has the controlling power over the global economy in the prophesied end of this age?

Track it through, commencing Revelation 13, verse 11. There a powerful religious entity is revealed having global influence (verse 12). The sheer deceiving power of this entity defies the imagination (verses 13-14).

The unbelievable miracles of which this entity is going to be capable are revealed in verse 15, as is its terrible destructive power.

But the real point that connects the rise of the European Central Bank (ecb) to its current extent of power with the fulfillment of these great prophecies of Revelation 13 is contained in verses 16-17.

There it is revealed that this religious power dominates a system that dictates world trade. Only by exercising the designated code that links each trade with this great controlling entity is commerce able to be effectively enacted.

Until the recent and most dramatic rise of the ecb to its current level of global power, such a process would have been unthinkable.

Now, all of a sudden, the Jesuit son of Rome, Mario Draghi, one of a threesome of Jesuit-educated, high-profile EU technocrats—Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and European Council President Herman van Rompuy being the other two—is propelled into such a position of power that, with the support of his two fellows, he is in a position to enact the spirit of Pope Benedict xvi’s encyclical on the global economy, “Caritas in Veritate.” That is the encyclical where Benedict calls for a new global economic order based on the Catholic social chapter.

La Stampa reported that as Mario Monti presented Benedict xvi’s social encyclical in Saint John Lateran on Feb. 23, 2010, he declared that “The ‘Caritas in Veritate’ document resembles a technical governing handbook for society in which economy plays a fundamental role as a natural outcome of ethical reflection, and even has the agreement of those who do not share in the Catholic ethical vision” (November 14). Monti used that occasion also to publicly declare himself “to be Catholic.” Mario Monti is a member of the EU splinter organization called “The Spinelli Group.” That group is committed to establishing a federal Europe based on the Catholic social chapter that underpins the pope’s “governing handbook for society.”

It takes a firm grasp on the reality of inerrant Bible prophecy to catch this vision of Revelation 13. But, whether you possess such an enlightened prophetic perspective or not, one thing is for sure. Most of us will live to see the day of its fulfillment.

Last week’s ecb initiatives brought that fulfillment dramatically closer to its reality.

The point here is clearly this. Though Bible prophecy speaks of a great politico/economic, military power rising at these times, designated “the king of the north,” that power is dominated by an overarching religion.

It is the religion of the world’s most powerful banker. It is the religion of Italy’s technocrat prime minister. It is the religion of the European Council president. It is the dominant religion of the largely hidden European elites who have carefully crafted today’s European Union into the world’s largest trade entity. It is that same religion that has dominated six previous resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire.

It is not the religion of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, forced to capitulate German resistance to the Draghi plan. She is chancellor now of a Germany somewhat placed at odds with Europe’s central bank and its declared policy of bond buying to bail out indebted countries such as Spain and Italy. How this effects her electoral performance in advance of the 2013 federal German elections will be interesting to see.

“The backing of Ms. Merkel comes despite complaints from within her own coalition government—and from the head of the country’s central bank, the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann. A former Merkel aide, Mr. Weidmann was the sole dissenting voice on the European Central Bank’s board against the bond-buying plan” (New York Times, September 6).

However, Mario Draghi has bigger things on his mind than German politics. His is a Europe-wide vision (ibid):

As much as Germans may complain about the indebted countries of the south, the costs to Germany of a euro collapse would be enormous. And if Spain and Italy were shut out of the debt markets, the bailout funds would be too small to rescue them. So it was crucial that the central bank step in to insure that those large countries can continue to borrow at sustainable interest rates, acting as a ready lender through bond purchases.

Draghi is a true European imperialist. As such, his decisions will bear in mind the continuing evolution of the European Union into its Holy Roman future. Germany is important, vitally important to this cause. He knows that. But Draghi also knows that he has the backing of a quiet diplomatic process of 2,000 years’ standing, based in Rome, that, though it looks like a lamb, when push comes to shove, speaks like a dragon to enforce its will.

It has the history to prove it!

It’s the only power on Earth that has the proven, historic potential to glue the fractious European nations together into their final, prophesied temporal unity as revealed in Revelation 17:12-13.

Last week’s moves by Mario Draghi just served to emphasize that, in Europe today, the actions of a son of Rome trump those of a daughter of Berlin. The Rome/Berlin axis is now dominant within the EU, and the predominant influence over all, as prophesied in your Bible, is increasingly that of mother Rome.

Watch for that religion to increasingly guide the thinking, and the decisions, of the main movers and shakers in the rise of the “king of the north.”