Folks, I am going to post something that I believe is of vital importance that is why I am posting this as a sticky.

Some or most of you know that Dr. Bob Shelton was coming to preach about end time prophecy at our church.

He did this as an admonition and has been led by the Lord to start these sermons and distribute them regardless of what happens to him. You will understand over the next few posts why this is so. His sermons were recorded at our church and will be edited for clarity by Bob Jones University. When we receive the CD's I will upload them here. That will be a few weeks from now. Until then I will post what was said here.

I have never been to a service such as this one. The power of the Holy Spirit was moving liberally throughout the congregation.

The time is short, the fields are white, we need to harvest for the glory of God.

I will post soon.

Love and warnings in Christ,

Jim

This post was last modified: Mon Jun 20, 2005 03:14 PM by Jim.

Before I start, I am going to try to stay as true to Dr. Bob’s statements as possible, my notes are scratchy but readable, by me anyway. I wanted to start by giving an explanation of some of the things the Catholic church believes, i.e. specifically about “Mary”, but first we will look at some present ideas from our “church” leaders.

We have already outlined and understood in another thread the “infallibility” of the pope according to the First Vatican Council. It basically says that anything the pope says or decrees is considered “gospel truth” and therefore, infallible. You can read this also in the Catholic Catechism in paragraph 891, from the proverbial “horses mouth”.

On May 28th 2005 an AP article states that “after centuries of debate and reformation, Anglicans and Catholics have finally reached an agreement on the belief of Mary.” This article basically says that representatives of the two “Christian” religions have finally agreed over the debate of the subject of “immaculate” Mary. I’ll let you guess whose belief dominated the agreement.

--Pope John Paul II consistently spoke of how “beliefs about Mary would have to be repaired before the church community could become one”

--Paul Crouch, a televangelist, states that “the word Protestant” will be “eradicated” from his future vocabulary, that we are ready for one religion.

--Robert Schuller, pastor of the “Crystal Cathedral” states, “It is time for Protestants to “come home” and breach the gap of religion”

--Billy Graham, speaking on the April 2 edition of CNN's Larry King Live program Dr. Billy Graham said that, “Pope John Paul II was the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world in the last 100 years.
Dr. Graham told Larry King he had the privilege of seeing the Pope on several occasions at the Vatican.
"And tonight, I have a very strange feeling of loss. I almost feel as though one of my family members has gone. I loved him very much and had the opportunity of discussing so many things with him. And we wrote each other several times during the years," Dr. Graham said.”

You may read that entire conversation here:

http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleSt...viezel.asp


On concerning these statements we must read Amos 3:3:
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?


OK. The Catholic Catechism is a rather large book. It is over 900 pages and contains 2865 numbered paragraphs. The catechism, like so many other educational books, is written so as to easily find what subject you are looking for even containing a glossary in the back. The catechism is basically the entire outlined doctrine of the official Roman Catholic Church, effectively describing what Rome believes.

Going back to what was said earlier; please remember throughout this entire thread, that the pope, and everything he proclaims, is “infallible” as believed by the catholic church.

In the Catholic Catechism, heretofore referred to as CC, if you refer to the glossary under “Tradition” it is stated as thus:

(bold emphasis mine)

In effect, this is simply saying that it is ok to add to the scriptures above and beyond the Word of God.

Will continue soon.....

This post was last modified: Mon Jun 20, 2005 03:15 PM by Jim.

As pertaining to “Pope” Peter:

Matt. 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

When we read the Greek terms for “Peter” and “rock” we get two different meanings/ And considering the comma also, we get a redirection for the conversation.

Jesus said that “thou art Peter”. The Greek word for Peter, Petros, means “little rock”.
If we look at the greek word for “rock”, Petra meaning “big rock”, we get an entirely different meaning. Jesus Christ was referring to himself in the reference to “the rock”, or Petra.

We even have evidence of this by Peter’s own words as found in 1 Peter 2:4-9

Peter clarifies that all Christians are “little rocks”

So we see that Jesus was saying that as a difference to statement. He was in essence saying (forgive the replacement for clarification, I do not presume to replace the words of Christ): Peter, you represent the “little rocks of faith, but I, the chief cornerstone, the “big rock” will establish my church. The “little rocks” will have faith in me as you have shown.

On the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary:

The first that surprised me about this, since I had not studied it, was that the “immaculate conception”, according to the catholic church, had nothing to do with Jesus!

According to the 491st paragraph of the CC, it has to do with the birth of Mary. Now some of you may have known this.

In 1854 Pope Pious IX (remember, what the pope says is “infallible”), proclaims that from the first moment of conception, Mary was sinless, and was “preserved from original sin”.

James McCarthy, also a well known scholar on prophecy states in his book “The gospel according to Rome” that this is also stated in the II Vatican council”, p.201

When we look at Genesis 3:15 we see:

The catholic bibles, Douay-Rheims and the NAB, have changed “it” twice from “she” to “he”. The Douay-Rheims, the official bible of the RCC, states “she”.

Also, if you look at a catholic church in the Vatican, you will see on one side of the cross on the church a effigy of Jesus hanging there. If you go to the other side of the cross, you will see and effigy Mary on it! And worse still, if you look at the side of the cross, you will see Mary elevated higher than Jesus!

According to the CC, p.966 you will see Mary’s “assumption”. This states that Mary did not see “death” but ascended into heaven and is “queen over all”.

This “must be true”, because Pope Pious XIX proclaimed this in 1854, and we must remember that it is believed in the Catholic Church that everything the pope says is “infallible”.

On May 13th 1984, Pope John Paul II, made a trip to Fatima, Spain and proclaimed in front of over 200,000 people that he was “miraculously saved by Mary, and that her hand “guided” the bullet that struck him only 3 years earlier. This is significant only in that we all are probably aware of the sightings of the “Lady Fatima”.

“All of God’s grace to man, comes from Mary”
--Pope Leo XIII

They believe the succession of grace is as follows:
1) God to Christ
2) Christ to the virgin Mary
3) Virgin Mary to us

Again, coming from the pope, this is “infallible”


According to the CC, Mary has many titles above and beyond “intercessor”. Some include: “Advocate” and “Mediatrix”

Folks, according to 1 John 2:1, who is our advocate?

And who is our mediator?

And who is our intercessor?

More on the way……

“Babylon”

Before delving into this, please understand that many assumptions have to be made as according to the location and culture of the time of the building of Babylon. We have a lot of support in archaeology, but of course the bible is the final authority, which is what we will use for the framework for the people as they will be observed.

It is generally accepted and understood that Nimrod (it is not a coincidence that his name means “let us revolt”) created the first world empire. This empire was known as Babylon. Nimrod was filled by Satan to create the tower of Babel to unite all, making “a name for themselves” and keep them from being scattered among the earth (Gen. 11:1-9)

Nimrod is also attributed with creating a Babylonish religious system. The god of Babylon was called “Marduk”. Nimrod also married a woman named Semiramis. This is Semiramis I, not to be confused with the Semiramis later in the bible.

Now Semiramis I was the Queen of Babylon. Nimrod eventually died leaving Semiramis to rule exclusively. A while after his death, Semiramis had a son. This was not Nimrod’s son. Nobody knows whose son this was, and it really does not matter.

This son’s name was “Damu” meaning “blood” in Sumerian. In the Babylonian language it was “Dammuzi”, in the Hebrew it was “Tammuz”, and in Greek it was “Adonis”.

She made her son a “God” in the eyes of all the people. Tammuz died as a result of a wild boar goring in his 40th year, hence causing the people to mourn for 40 days after his death. (Remember the 40 days of Lent) The legend insists that he “ascended into the heavens” (remember the 40 days of Lent ending before Easter). Is this coincidence?

Why would Catholics observe 40 days of whatever just before Easter? Easter was never the established day of Christ’s resurrection. Why do we celebrate it as such. Just as Christmas was NOT the day of Christ’s birth. It is my conviction that His birth occurred on April 6th of our Calendar.

Is it just a concidence that 40 days are observed for Lent just before Easter, which is not Christ’s resurrection day, but Tammuz’s? I don’t think so folks.

After Semiramis’s death, she was considered to be the goddess of “fertility”, also known by many other names such as, Ashtaroth, Isshtar, Isis, Aphrodite, and Venus.

I missed a lot of info hear which Dr. Bob will clarify in the audio that I will upload later, but in essence you get the idea. We are showing that the Roman Catholic Church is none other than the original religious system established by Semiramis in ancient Babylon.

Revelation 17

Rev. 17:1
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

In this case we will use the bible as its own commentary.

The “many waters” represents “many nations”, the influence of a religious system that is upon many nations.

17:3
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

These 7 heads, if we are to look at verse 9, we see that these heads are 7 mountains. If in fact we look at the city of Rome, it is the only city in the world that sits upon “seven hills”.

The “ten horns” as we see in verse 12, are ten kings. These nations are referenced in Daniel 7:8

These ten kings will form a confederation. We must understand that this confederacy must rise out of the ashes of the ancient Roman empire.

At this point I want you to understand that enough has not happened in Europe for us to draw a conclusive remark about the ten-nation confederacy, but think about this:

While we thought the ten-nation confederacy could have come from the European *nion, there were too many nations to come to this conclusion. However, at the time of this sermon, only weeks before France and others rejected the European Constitution. This makes exactly ten nations so far who will have accepted the European Constitution as awaiting the approval from Germany. Now we cannot know if others will join and/or some will drop, it is possible that this could be that ten nation confederacy. We will not say for sure and it is very unlikely, but you never know.

Know this: Since 476 AD(fall of the Roman empire), there has never been a coming together to even speak of unifying any countries of the Ancient Roman Empire until now. The EU and EC are exellent examples of this.

More to come on the Anti-Christ…….

This post was last modified: Mon Jun 20, 2005 05:37 PM by Jim.

The Anti-Christ

Daniel 7:8
I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

As we read before, these “ten horns” represent the ten nation confederacy that will rise out of the ashes of the Ancient Roman Empire becoming the confederacy that rules the Revived Roman Empire.

But in this verse we see Daniel considering the horns, i.e. ten nations. “And there came up among them another little horn”. This “little horn” is the Anti-Christ. And as we see in this verse, he will rise from among the ten nation confederacy, or the Revived Roman Empire.

When will this happen? We do not know for sure, but it is my conviction that this Anti-Christ is alive today. We do not know him as he does not even know that this will be him. We may have seen him on television, or heard him on the radio. But we do know this: He will arise out of that ten nation confederacy. So in knowing this we can eliminate a lot of the myths today who perpetrate certain world leaders as being the anti-christ.

Now back to the ten-nation confederacy. Please read Revelation Chapter 12.

These ten nations will have awesome power. The power will be greater than any nations on earth .Yes, this includes the U.S.A. Our beloved America will lose it’s sovereignty. We can already see this happening economically to the Euro.

I want to point out something in Isaiah Chapter 13:17-19

The “Medes” will come out of the north to destroy modern day Babylon. This destruction will be so complete that it is likened unto the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If we trace the physical location of Ancient Babylon and Ur of the Chaldees, we see modern day Iraq. Yes, I said Iraq.

A study has been made as according to the inheritance and lineage of the Medes. The conclusion that was arrived is that the Ancient Medes are none other than the present day Kurds! So we see that the Kurds will rise up and destroy the inhabitants of Iraq and lay waste to the entire country.

Now let’s stand back for a moment and think secularly. What regime did America just topple there? Husseins regime

What people was that regime responsible for tormenting, torturing, and killing by the thousands by horrific means? The Kurds.

What power is slowly taking over there now? The Kurds.

Now please understand that the rapture will already have occurred during this time(the destruction of Iraq). We have that hope of the glorious taking away of the church to the him in the air, so we shall remain with Him forever.

But after the rapture a time will pass, nobody knows how long, but eventually the Anti-Christ will sign a peace accord with Israel, setting in motion the countdown of the prophecy of the 70th week of Daniel. There will be three and one-half years, called “the beginning of sorrows” after which the Anti-Christ will set himself in the temple and proclaim himself “god”. A lot of eyes will be opened at that time as all religions will be forced away from their “idols” and will be required to worship him alone. After this the “great tribulation” will begin. This will be the vilest most painful persecution of Christians ever.

Now the “harlot”, called the “mother” of all religions (being all of the religions pulled together by the catholic church), will be used as a tool by the Anti-Christ for his own ends. Remember folks, the religion established at this time will be hated by the Anti-Christ. He alone wants to be worshipped, which he will establish at the end of the “beginning of sorrows”. This woman who rides the beast is none other than the Roman Catholic Church.

If we are honest and sincere to ourselves, we should see all these religious bars being lowered today under the guidance of the Catholic church. It is happening right here, right now.

Revelation 17:16
And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

This ten nation confederacy will rise against the Catholic Church and destroy her. This will give the chance of the Anti-Christ to succeed in “suggesting” that all will worship him, and him alone. God will use an evil nation to destroy an evil church.

We see this in verse 17, “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”

Folks, we are ever so near the end times. If you have not had it purposed in your hearts to teach others about Christ to add just one more for the Lord Jesus Christ’s glorification, please do so now.

Change our selfish hearts and let there be revival in the hearts of believers today!

This is the end of the synopsis of what the sermon was on. I will upload the audio sermon as soon as we get it. Until then, God Bless.

Until He Comes,

Jim

Please post now with your thoughts.

At the time of this, I found that three more countries are going ahead with the ratification making 13 Constitution members, while anything can happen, it is likely they will approve the E.C.:

Estonia
Belgium
Cyprus

Wow. That's relevant enough I think I'll share it w/all my friends. I love following the (future and past) rise and fall of nations, empires, reichs, etc.

On Europe.

Europe was united by the treaty fo ROME.

The European flag of twelve stars is said to be taken from a stained glass window of Strasbourg Cathedral. It is also very like ths stars you. will see round the head of the images, said to be Mary, in catholic countries such as France. These in fact come from the book of Revelation,

The statues show Mary with a halo, the sun, the 12 stars round her, and the moon her feet. Rome appropriates this verse. But the statues have one other thing at the feet, A Serpent. I can only guess the significance of that, unless it is taken from Gen 3:15. I think that Hislop in his 2 Babylons says that the serpent is the true God of the pagans.

On another matter. On ambulances and para-meds around the world there appears a strange blue cross. (I once saw it was red in a film from S Africa.) This is like an X with a vertical line through it, sometimes with a serpent and sometimes without. In France, where I first noticed this on ambulances, it is without, but here in England, where it appeared later, it was with the serpent. The serpent is said the represent Aesculapius, the Roman god of medicine. Again, Hislop says that Aesculapius means, "The life giving, or knowledge giving, serpent” ie Satan.

Just an observation

From The Spectator -

Render unto the Pope...

Adrian Hilton says that the EU is a means of undoing the Reformation and extending Vatican sovereignty over Britain

'This realm of England is an Empire ...governed by one Supreme Head and King.’ So proclaimed Thomas Cromwell in his most critical piece of legislation, the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1533. By calling England an empire, he designated it a sovereign state, with a king who owed no submission to any other human ruler and who was invested with plenary power to give his people justice in all causes. Interestingly, the Act’s critics in Parliament were not so much concerned by its doctrinal corollaries, as by the fear that the Pope might retaliate by organising a European trade embargo against England. The Pope, of course, laid claim to the ultimate divine right. He was, after all, the Vice-Christ, appointed to establish one unified empire under one emperor, belonging to one Church under one God.

England finally rid itself of papal interference in the Bill of Rights of 1689, which declared that ‘no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.’ It may have taken 440 years from Cromwell’s foundational declaration, but entry in 1973 to the ‘European Economic Community’ brought England back into the Catholic fold, and exactly 460 years after the English monarch was declared sovereign, the present Queen was reduced to vassal status under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, which rendered her a European citizen and thereby subject to ‘foreign princes and potentates’.

The issue of European religious union is one that has been concealed even deeper than the plans for political union, but the ratchet towards a Catholic Europe is just as real. The Pope’s recent demand that ‘God’ be featured in the emerging European constitution has been echoed by many leading Catholic politicians and bishops. While on the surface such a reference may offend only Europe’s atheist and humanist contingent, it must be observed that when the Vatican refers to God, she sees herself as God’s infallible vice-regent upon earth, the leading organ of divine expression; indeed, according to its publication Dominus Iesus (5 September 2000), as the only mediator in the salvation of God’s elect, insisting that all other Churches, including the Church of England, ‘are not Churches in the proper sense’.

The Roman Church is founded on a political dogma claiming that the Pope is ‘supreme ruler of the world’; superior to all kings, prime ministers and presidents. These spiritual and temporal claims remain very much fundamental dogmas of Catholic teaching, permitting the Pope, through Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to issue clear directives to Catholic politicians on how they should vote. Since their obedience is considered a ‘moral duty’, devolve everything to the overwhelmingly Catholic European Council of Ministers, Commission and Parliament, and the ultimate Caesar is the Pope.

Such would be the fulfilment of a Sunday Telegraph article (21 July 1991) which stated: ‘Karol Wojtyla 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.’ The Catholic Church is achieving this through its political wings — the Christian Democrat and Christian Socialist parties — with the EU’s ‘Founding Fathers’ now reaping the ultimate reward: sainthood. The Pope has beatified Alcide De Gasperi, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer for founding the Union ‘on Roman Catholic principles’. A supporter of their canonisation said it shows that Europe ‘was built upon a rock’, adding, ‘I think that the European Union is a design not only of human beings but of God.’ The very act of bestowing sainthoods on politicians is purposely designed to inculcate that European unification is God’s will, and that those who lead it govern by divine right.

During the 1975 referendum campaign, Shirley Williams unambiguously associated the vision of Europe with Rome’s goal of assuming political and religious authority over the lives of all Europeans. She observed, ‘We will be joined to Europe, in which the Catholic religion will be the dominant faith and in which the application of the Catholic Social Doctrine will be a major factor in everyday political and economic life.’ While the EU has adopted many symbols of nationhood (a passport, flag, anthem and currency) and is now moving towards the attributes of government (a president, foreign secretary, global ambassadors at the UN and G, it follows that, since Europe has no unified demos, a ‘deeper’ cohesive force is necessary to hold the whole project together. When Cardinal Maria Martini of Milan addressed the European Parliament in 1997 in a symposium on Remembering the Origins of the Process of Integration, he identified this ‘deeper’ something — effectively a common state religion — reminding the Parliament that its true foundation was a religious one. He outlined the importance of a single faith (Catholicism), and emphasised that religions must not support nationalisms (i.e., the Church of England must not defend the English constitution), and Europe must recognise the ‘primacy of the divine’ (i.e., the primacy of the Pope). His address included demands for a new welfare state, in accordance with Roman Catholic social doctrine, and his contention that European integration was never about economic and monetary issues alone. He said, ‘The Europe we must build is a Europe of the spirit.’

When divinity rules, it is, of course, infallible. According to canon law, the Pope claims immunity from all moral and civil authority: ‘The First See is judged by no one.’ This is precisely the spirit in which the EU governs, with the Court of Justice deeming that political criticism of its leaders is akin to the most extreme forms of blasphemy. It is therefore possible to suppress it without violating freedom of speech, affording the EU an undefined and seemingly unlimited power to restrict political criticism. Like the Papacy, the Court is supreme, accountable to no one, and the sole arbiter of citizens’ ‘rights’. Lord Shore, in his book Separate Ways, observed that the Commission acts precisely ‘like a priestly caste — similar to what it must have been in pre-Reformation days, when the Bible was in Latin, not English; the Pope, his cardinals and bishops decided the content of canon law’.

Accordingly, any decision of the people which does not accord with the divine will has to be corrected. The very notion of ‘destiny’ is simply a euphemism for government by divine right, and this is the teleological explanation for three referendums in Denmark on the Treaty of Maastricht, two referendums in Ireland on the Treaty of Nice, and the suspension of democracy altogether in Belgium and Italy in order to ratify treaties or force through budgets. In each referendum, there is a ‘wrong’ and a ‘right’ outcome. It also accords with the EU’s sanctioning and funding of ‘acceptable’ political parties, i.e., those who ultimately accord with its own aims. When the United Kingdom votes no to the euro, the wrath of God will be poured out again and again until the people repent and accept their predestined fate.

Such a destiny can be foisted upon recalcitrant nations only when they are weakened. The Roman principle of divide and rule is resurrected in the ‘Europe of Regions’ strategy, which encourages each ‘region’ of Europe to look directly to Brussels for policy and funding, bypassing national parliaments in the process. This is a recreation of a mediaeval Europe of small, ineffectual states which can be easily dominated. The ecumenically minded Church of England has been complicit in the fracturing of England, with its bishops chairing regional conventions, but the Ecumenical Movement is in reality a parallel front to Rome’s divide-and-rule strategy. When Cardinal Bea stated that ‘no concessions in dogma can be made by the Church for the sake of Christian Unity’, he was simply reiterating Rome’s belief about itself. Any movement or concession is only ever on the part of the subsidiaries, since the centre is infallible.

There are significant structural parallels between the Roman religious system and the political subsidiarity principle, which is itself a concept of papal origin. In the theory of ecclesial authority, an important part is played by the concept of the representation of One Christ, who combined in himself all the offices for the dispensation of salvation (prophet, priest and king). If the Church is ruled by God, then God must necessarily flow down from above, step by step, so at the apex of human order there must be a single channel, directed by God himself, and only at the lower levels could the streams of God’s will begin to branch into subsidiary levels. Subsidiarity was designed not to permit the tributaries to ‘claw back’ what may best be performed at a lower level, but to permit the infallible centre to decide what freedoms to grant the subsidiary levels. Whether it be termed federalism or centralism, ‘subsidiarity’ denotes the downward devolvement of certain powers for the practical outworking of the Supreme Power’s objectives.

There is much debate about whether the EU is a democracy, a theocracy, an oligarchy or a collective dictatorship, but at root it is none of these. It is an amphictyony — a confederation of states established around a religious centre. A Catholic EU will inevitably result in the subjugation of Britain’s Protestant ethos to Roman Catholic social, political and religious teachings. The Queen’s coronation oath ‘to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom according to their laws and customs’ and ‘to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion established by law’ is negated by the process of deeper European integration. It is almost a symbolic confirmation of the Queen’s vassal status that a 20p coin of Gibraltar bears an engraving of Mary crowned ‘Our Lady of Europa’ — the suzerain spiritual authority — while the Queen is stripped of her usual titles DG, REG., FD — Queen by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith.

Under the constitution for Europe, the EU will have a Catholic Caesar presiding over the Protestant monarch. The former Belgian prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak once made a plea for ‘a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people’ and added, ‘Be he God or the Devil we will receive him.’ The allegiance of the Queen’s subjects is usurped by the demand for allegiance to the suzerain power; a spiritually unifying allegiance which is primary, for without the unity of the demos, the European vision will die. Accession to the constitution for Europe would finally confirm that the United Kingdom yields to the suzerain European Ecumenical Community — an empire in which everything belongs to Caesar, and where Caesar is God. Rendering the euro unto him would be all that remains for this vassal state to perform.

Adrian Hilton is a former parliamentary candidate and author of The Principality and Power of Europe. He teaches Philosophy and Religious Studies. He is an approved candidate for the Conservative party.

The price of liberty
http://www.spectator.co.uk/

Adrian Hilton says that the Act of Settlement must not be repealed, because a Roman Catholic monarchy would destroy our religious and civil liberties Across the whole gamut of constitutional issues that have preoccupied New Labour, many consider that the only justifiable reform would have been the repeal of the Act of Settlement 1701, to remove the discriminatory anti-Catholic provisions; to eliminate the institutionalised bigotry of the constitution.



In recent years there have been numerous such calls from Roman Catholic members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, the Archbishop of York, and also from many politicians — notably Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who described the Act as Britain’s ‘grubby little secret’. The Guardian adopted the mission, challenging the Act as being incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, and, according to Lord Ashdown, the Prince of Wales is also known to want the religious restrictions on the monarchy changed.

So maybe this is a cause whose time has come. After three centuries, the Protestant monarchy will finally be abolished by the ecumenical/multifaith/secular Parliament that swears allegiance to it, and by a complicit Church of England, which, devoid of all conviction, has developed a total distrust of anything mildly dogmatic. Now that all creeds and moral codes are perceived as being equal and should be treated as such, none should be regarded as being superior to the others, and the law should not discriminate between them. To do so is to risk being labelled bigoted, sectarian or authoritarian, and therefore a threat to tolerance, peace and unity.

New Britain is, after all, a modern 21st-century multifaith nation. But as the Act is attacked by Muslims, Hindus and those of no religion, the consensus for reform begins to fracture. While these groups cry ‘repeal’, Roman Catholics and High Church adherents cry ‘amend’. The vast legislative complexities of repealing the Act are a deterrent for any government, since our forebears made the Protestant constitution so watertight that it would be immensely difficult to undo; indeed, one clause declares that the terms of the Settlement are ‘for ever’. Repeal of the Act would demand the consequent repeal of nine further Acts. On top of this, 15 Commonwealth countries of which the Queen is head of state would also have to enact similar legislation. Even with minimal opposition, the parliamentary time involved would be colossal. Amendment, however, would be infinitely easier, and would leave the throne and an established Church intact for re-absorption into the Catholic fold.

Such an amendment would demand that the monarch must be ‘Christian’ but not necessarily Protestant. This would unfortunately perpetuate the objections of the Muslims, Hindus, atheists and agnostics, leaving yet another complex constitutional issue resolved in the inimitable Blairite half-baked fashion, but it would be a prized Roman goal. Since canon law requires that all children of Roman Catholics be brought up in that faith, such a proposed amendment would eventually create an exclusively Catholic royal dynasty, whose primary allegiance would be to the higher spiritual and temporal authority — the Papacy.

Only those ignorant of history or the complex checks and balances of the constitution would be persuaded of this course of action. If one bothers to read the Act, it is evident that it is not the result of some irrational prejudice or blind bigotry. It represents the effort of people who had experienced oppression to preserve their successors from having to suffer autocratic and despotic government. It is one of those foundations on which British liberties rest. In that regard it is inseparable from other pieces of legislation that have the same objective: the Bill of Rights (168; the Coronation Oaths Act (168; the Crown in Parliament Act (1689); the Act of Union (1706); and the Royal Marriages Act (1772).

The wording of the Bill of Rights explains, ‘And whereas it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a Popish Prince or by any king or queen marrying a Papist....’ Ignoring what many consider to be unacceptable terms, such as ‘Popish’ and ‘Papist’, the key word is clearly ‘experience’. Parliament went to great lengths to make the Act foundational because the nation had learnt that when a Roman Catholic monarch is upon the throne, religious and civil liberty is lost. In reading the Act, it is interesting to note how often its purpose in settling the succession of the Crown is intrinsically linked to defending the ‘rights and liberties’ of the people. It states in no uncertain terms that it is ‘absolutely necessary for the safety, peace and quiet of this realm’.

Religio-political institutions invariably adapt to the cultures in which they reside; thus the face of Nigerian Anglicanism is a world away from its North American counterpart in both dogma and expression. Rome, on the other hand, does not change her dogma — her motto is, after all, Semper Eadem — but the face certainly changes. In England, she represents a high moral stability where other Churches are perceived to compromise. Unpalatable papal dogma such as Humanae Vitae, banning artificial contraception, or Dominus Iesus, dismissing the Church of England as not being a ‘proper’ Church, are played down. In countries where Rome’s grip is surer — Uganda, Haiti, the Philippines — there is concerted effort to control government departments, the media and education, which many papal encyclicals have stated rightly fall under Rome’s aegis. Religious freedom in such countries is virtually non-existent. In Croatia, for example, any expression of Christianity other than Catholicism is viewed with official suspicion, and legislation has been proposed to filter out all non-Catholic Churches, including strange Protestant ‘sects’ and ‘cults’ such as evangelicals and nonconformists.

The Papacy is, by its own admission, a political institution, and still claims universal legislative authority or jurisdiction. It would be intolerable to have, as the sovereign of a Protestant and free country, one who owes any allegiance to the head of any other state. It may take decades to realise, but if the monarch, the supposed guardian of the liberties of the people, owes allegiance to the very power intent on limiting those liberties, we will have undone centuries of common law.

It is for this reason that ‘the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England’. It needs to be tested in law the right under which Acts of Parliament may override the common law, and to what extent such laws may be impliedly repealed. What is certain, as the Act states, is that if the monarch is ‘reconciled to the See of Rome’ or ‘marries a Papist’ ‘...in all and every such Case or Cases the People of these Realms shall be and are thereby absolved of their allegiance’. Herein lie the very means by which republican MPs or terrorists such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness may refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown while legitimately taking their seats at Westminster. This would be the end of the Crown-in-Parliament.

It is not possible to discuss the removal of the bars on Catholics and the monarchy without at the same time discussing the constitutional position of the Church of England; and therein lies the principal division among Catholics. There are many who regard the establishment of the Church of England as a great advantage for the faith because it perpetuates Christianity as the ‘official’ religion through its presence in Parliament. For those who hold this view, a minor historical relic of anti-Catholic discrimination is a lesser evil to be tolerated than the alternative. For when the protective barrier of Anglican establishment is torn away, Christianity would lose a political voice and Britain its cultural governmental foundation as a Christian nation.

The Act therefore demands that the sovereign must ‘join in communion with the Church of England as by law established’. While earlier monarchs have come from Calvinist and Lutheran traditions and have not been prevented by their own Church discipline from receiving the Eucharist, the position of Rome is quite different. These difficulties do not emanate from the Church of England but from the Roman Catholic Church, which prohibits its adherents from receiving Holy Communion at Anglican services. To forbid an Anglican Eucharist to a Roman Catholic monarch who remains Supreme Governor of the Church of England is not only absurd but plainly regressive.

Further, since Rome does not recognise the Church of England as a Christian Church in the full and proper sense of that term, it does not recognise the Holy Orders of Anglican clergy, which Pope Leo XIII condemned as ‘absolutely null and utterly void’. The present Pope has reiterated this view. A Roman Catholic monarch who followed the teaching of the Mother Church would therefore have to regard the archbishops, bishops and clergy of the Church of England (and, incidentally, of the Church of Scotland) as lay people, lacking the ordained authority to preach and celebrate the sacraments. And further still, a Roman Catholic monarch would be unable to be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. As long as the coronation service involves a priestly anointing, no ‘utterly void’ Anglican could administer it. Presumably a future Roman Catholic monarch would receive the crown from the Pope, and the wheel would have come full circle.

When talking of the Act being in contravention of human-rights legislation, it is easy to overlook the fact that no one is prevented by its terms from following whatever faith they wish, or marrying whomsoever they choose. The only restriction is in succeeding to the throne or continuing to occupy it, and this is no one’s ‘human right’. The United Kingdom is not alone in maintaining religious restrictions on its monarchy: Sweden and Denmark demand that their monarchs adhere to the Lutheran faith; the Netherlands stipulates that succession must be through the Protestant house of King William, Prince of Orange; and the constitutions of Spain and Belgium demand succession through strictly Roman Catholic houses.

One of the most interesting observations in this debate is that no mention is ever made of the fact that the ‘King of the Vatican’ must be a Roman Catholic. Certainly, as head of his Church, it seems perfectly reasonable to demand his adherence to the Catholic faith, but as a head of state, as he also is, the limitations are certainly an infringement of his human rights. In fact, in a further infringement, the King of the Vatican is not permitted to marry at all, let alone marry a Protestant.

When religious restrictions are lifted on the Papacy to permit a Protestant succession, then the time will have come to question whether the British sovereign, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, may be a Roman Catholic or married to one. However vehement the ecumenical dialogue, I fear this may take quite some time.

CATHOLIC NEWSPAPER DESTROYS CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE

MICHAEL HOWARD DISMISSES TORY CANDIDATE FOR DISPLEASING THE CATHOLIC HERALD - A NEWSPAPER WITH IMPECCABLE FASCIST CREDENTIALS.


Dateline 27th March 2005

The Tory candidate for Slough, Adrian Hilton, has been dismissed (subject to an appeal not to an independent body but to those who helped to dismiss him!) by an increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic Tory leader because Hilton's books (pointing out the historic and present support of the nation-destroying European State by the Vatican remains a threat to the freedom of the British people) displeased The Catholic Herald newspaper. On the board of that newspaper is the euro-corporatist anti British and anti American JOHN SELWYN GUMMER surely one of the most obnoxious politicians in any British political party. It was Gummer who demanded Hilton's dismissal.

The Catholic Herald should never be taken seriously by any democrat in Britain for it was a leading supporter of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. The Herald wrote on 19th June 1938 that the policy of the British Union of Fascists 'is the nearest approach to the social theory of the encyclicals that we have yet been offered by any prominent political party'.

The Catholic Herald also strenuously opposed war against fascism even in 1939 – after Hitler’s rise to power, after the concentration camps, after the march into the Rheinland, after the Nuremberg Race laws and after the 1938 Kristallnacht attacks on the Jews. Nor does the bigotry of this newspaper stop there for more recently they produced the following gems of religious intolerance:

‘Protestantism, once the foundation of our "glorious constitution in Church and State", is now something preached in small, back-street chapels and among the fanatic fringes of Northern Ireland's criminal classes. It has become the battle cry of murderers.’ 13th November 1993 (and this from a Church some of whose priests were directly involved in IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland)

'The days of the Anglican Church are numbered, and most of its worshippers will return to the true faith of their distant mediaeval forebears.' December 1993 (The Faith of course is Christianity, not Roman Catholicism The latter's rule of tyranny in England has not been forgotten) The Catholic Herald regards attacks on the imperial political aims of the Vatican (historically and in today's European Union) as "bigotry". But look at these central tenets of Roman Catholic belief:

The Pope is not subject to any temporal power (Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct. xcvi. can. Vii).

World leaders ought to obey, not command, the Pope (Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct. xcvi. can. Xi).

If one needs proof of the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the creation of the European Union (and hence the destruction of the democratic nation state) we need only look at the 30 year war waged by the Vatican against the embryo Italian nation state at the end of the 19th century, its historic support of every attempt to destroy the British nation - and quote the Catholic Herald itself:

‘We will be joined to a Europe in which the Catholic religion will be the dominant faith and in which the application of Catholic Social Doctrine will be a major factor in everyday political and economic life’.

It is perfectly obvious that Michael Howard has become not only a tyrant but he is a dangerous, historically ignorant dupe, oblivious of the desperate danger in which our nation finds itself.

PLEASE COMPLAIN TO CONSERVATIVE CENTRAL OFFICE (0207 222 9000) AND WRITE TO GUMMER AND HOWARD. SUPPORT ADRIAN HILTON AND THE SLOUGH CONSERVATIVE ASSOCIATION.

Two Points

It is generally thought that Europen federation and union was conceived after WW2.

This is not true. A book written during WW1 mentions European Federation.

2nd Point

Jim Wrote

This was fulfilled exactly by Cyrus. If you read Xenophon's Cyropaedia, you will find that Cyrus, leading the Median army, was not interested in Gold. He did not extract taxes or tribute. Every thing was voluntary. One officer said they needed some dosh for something. Cyrus said "Go and tell so and so, that Cyrus needs some cash, and anything left is yours." When the officer returned, he said "Cyrus, you have made me rich." Even Herodotus who said Cyrus was a Tyrant admits that Cyrus did not inpose tribute. Cyrus called fimself a father of the people.