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| Pope Benedict XVI |
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| 1948 Israel Becomes nation again |
I should remind most of you of my Religious beliefs. I am now a Protestant but I was born into the Catholic church and remained one (in good standing) until I was 14 years old. Also, the majority of my rather large (by today's standards) French Canadian family is Catholic as well.
To those of you who know very little about the Catholic church and the Pope let me give you a bit of background:
When a new Pope is chosen, it's the "College of Cardinals", ( the most powerful members of the Catholic Church just below the Pope) that are also responsible for many duties in the Catholic church, meets to pray and vote on which one among their members should be the next Pope.
The belief is that God speaks directly to this group of holy men and tells them who He wished the next leader of the Catholic church to be.
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| College of Cardinals |
So, when the Pope gave his resignation to the College of Cardinals, he was actually giving his resignation to GOD (according to Catholic beliefs).
God chose him to be the Pope (by responding to the prayers of the Cardinals) and only God can "fire" him. And, in the past, the only way God fires a Pope is to remove him from the earth altogether.
So, quite frankly, Pope Benedict XVI 's reason for quiting (that he is experiencing frail health and failing in his mental and physical abilities to fulfill his "Pope-ly" duties) is absolutely ridiculous.
Every former Pope got old and sick at some point. Does Benedict think God wasn't aware that he was going to age when appointing him?
The first Pope, Peter the apostle of Jesus, got sick and old too, but he didn't quit on God or relieve himself of the responsibilities of guiding and advising Jesus followers before he died.
And if I know all this, believe me, Pope Benedict knows this too. I'm sure he's read the Bible verses:
" But he said to me, ' My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (emphasis mine)
(2 Corinthians 12:9-10)So this resignation, and the reason for it, is so obviously a ruse of some kind, I'm not going to speak or speculate any longer about it. (I'm sure there will be no end of people who will do that).
Even though I am a Christian, I have not yet spoken very much in my blog about End Time Prophecy, the book of Revelation, the Latter Days, the Apocalypse, the Tribulation, or whatever you call it.
Basically, it refers to the belief of most Bible-believing Christians that we are in a period in history that will see the physical return of Jesus Christ to the earth to reign as "King of kings and Lord of lords" at last.
At the beginning of the 1900's Christians all over the world began reading the book of Revelation in the Bible and started to comprehend it's meaning. For the previous 19 hundreds of years since it had been written, the meaning behind the images and descriptions in that book had been quite confusing (and sometimes really scary).
But as the past 100 years has gone by, the End Times prophecies have become clearer and clearer, until we've come to the point where it now feels like reading Bible prophecy and watching the nightly news are one in the same thing.
You don't need to be a great theologian or scholar (or even a Christian) to recognize the imagery in Revelation.
I myself became interested in Bible Prophecy in the early 1980's, but I didn't understand much of what I was reading. Now, it all seems so much more simple to me.
The event of Israel becoming a nation again (in 1948) kick-started a deluge of prophecy from the Bible finally being fulfilled. And one of the biggest events to happen next is the appearance of the anti-Christ. This is a person who will be the leader of the entire world and will appear to be a saviour to all the problems in our time but will actually be Satan in disguise.
But I've been expecting Jesus to return (on a daily basis) for the past 30 years and non-believers are starting to say to me,
"He's never coming back. It's just wishful thinking. There's no reason to believe that He will come now any more than any other time in history."
But things are different now! If reading the prophecies in the Bible doesn't convince you, nor the fact that everything happening in the world today was foretold and written down thousands of years ago by God. Then certainly this Pope situation should prove we are in very unique times.
It's true the Catholic Church (and therefore it's leader, the Pope) is not as powerful as it used to be, but it is still a massively powerful entity. But it will have to become even less strong and more divided before the anti-Christ is unveiled on the world stage or the Church will give him too much resistance for all the plans he has.
The fact that a Pope doesn't quit, EVER, but that the current one just has, is another piece of the puzzle to prove we are living in times never experienced before.
So, exit the Pope stage right; enter the anti-Christ stage left. But I'm waiting for when ultimately Jesus will enter from one end of the sky to the other ... never to leave nor to resign his power on Earth to anyone else again.
"For as lightening that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."
(Matthew 24:27)
How a New Pope is Selected: (from YahooAnswers)
A Papal Conclave works like this:
+ A pope dies and is buried
+ The cardinals come to Vatican City for the conclave that will elect the new pope. The word conclave (Latin, *** + clavis, literally, "locked with the key") designates:
. • The place in a locked section of the Vatican where the cardinals under the age of eighty elect a new pope.
. • The actual gathering of the cardinals.
+ The conclave begins 15 to 20 days after the pope's death.
+ The cardinals pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit during a Mass
+ The cardinals, sealed in the Sistine Chapel, vote every morning and afternoon.
+ A two-thirds majority plus one is required for election for the first 30 ballots. After that, a simple majority is required.
+ After each vote, they burn the ballots and add special chemicals to make the smoke white or black.
. • Black smoke means no new pope yet.
. • White smoke announces the election of a new pope.
+ The cardinals may elect any baptized male they wish. There have been occasions in the past where they have elected a layman. After their election, the layman has to be ordained priest and bishop.
+ They ask the one elected if he accepts. The moment he accepts, he is pope.
+ The pope chooses his “Papal” name.
+ Then the new pope is announced to the world.
For more information, see:
http://www.americancatholic.org/features…
http://www.americancatholic.org/Features…
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| Pope Smoke (issuing from the Vatican) |
