At recent masses in Rome, the Pope has deplored war and called for a new world order. “Too much blood is still being shed on earth,” he said at one mass. “Too much violence and too many conflicts trouble the peaceful co-existence of nations.” Fine words indeed. At another mass he declared, “More than ever, we need a new international order that draws on the experience and results achieved in these years by the United Nations” – a statement that has been taken to mean that he wants the UN replaced because it did not prevent the use of force by the United States in Iraq.
His call for a new world order has been described by one commentator as “one of the most important diplomatic initiatives” of his pontificate, and as “likely to turn into a key cause” as it draws towards a close. With observer status at the UN and a network of diplomats covering 174 countries, the Vatican is in a strong position to pursue its objective.
However, we do not for a moment believe that these statements mean that there has been a change in the Vatican’s centuries-old policy of fomenting and supporting wars. Its role in the rise of the two World Wars is now part of recorded history. And its hand has been clearly seen in other wars since then – in Vietnam, for example. “The [Roman] Catholic Church,” wrote Avro Manhatten, “must be considered as a main promoter in the origin, escalation and prosecution of the Vietnamese conflict.” The present Pope complains that too much blood is being shed, but shedding of much blood is a crime laid at
the door of the papal Antichrist by both Scripture and history. Edmond Paris records that in 1948 an Italian Member of Parliament exclaimed in a speech, “The Pope’s hands are dripping with blood!”
As for a new world order, it requires no stretching of the imagination to see that the kind of geo-political body envisaged by the Vatican is one in which it will be the major player, to extend its power to every corner of the earth. Certainly there will eventually be a new world order, but of a spiritual kind, instituted by the glorious King of kings. We are therefore to pray, “Thy Kingdom come” – and this necessarily includes the petition that God will destroy that masterpiece of Satan, the papacy, by the “word of His mouth”, liberating the multitudes duped by it. NMR