For the first 3 centuries, there were 10 great pagan persecutions of Christianity, culminating in the longest and bitterest under Emperor Diocletian. It is called the Era of the Martyrs, and the bishops and deacons were always the first to be arrested and executed. In Roma, it is known as the Era of the Catacombs, when the life of the Christians consisted of persecutions above ground . . . and prayer underground. Persecution kept the Congregation pure and nobody lifted up his head above his brothers, or sought preeminence.
Pope Pius I (140–155) never existed! |
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Emperor Antoninus Pius (86–161). Emperor from 138 to 161. |
Antoninus Pius is famous for building the Antonine Wall in Caledonia . . . which later was the birthplace of Saint Patrick....He was an enlightened pagan who despised Mars . . . but was piously devoted to Jupiter and Minerva.
Pope Pius II (1405–1464). Pope from 1458 to 1464. |
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The Sultan needed no encouragement for that . . . only more money and advisors from the Vatican....Western Europe was ripe for conquest because the Black Death had reduced the population by 50 million souls.
Pope Pius III (1439–1503). Pope from Sept. 1503 to Oct. 1503. |
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Pope Julius II. Pope from 1503 to 1513. |
"Warrior Pope" Julius II was also a great patron of the arts, and he commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. He was succeeded by the infamous Pope Leo X, who excommunicated Saint Martin Luther.
Pope Pius IV (1499 – 1565). Pope from 1559 to Dec. 1565. |
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French Knight Jean de la Valette (1495–1568). |
If the Terrible Turks had captured the strategic island of Malta, the entire Mediterranean would have been a Turkish lake. The last time Western Europe faced such an ominous fate was during the pontificate of Gregory III in 732.
Pope Pius V (1504–1572). Pope from 1566 to 1572. |
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As early as 1575, British agents were sent incognito to Constantinople to prepare the groundwork for formal diplomatic relations. They had some vital inducements to offer the Terrible Turks: military and naval advisors with arms and ammunition.
Just prior to the pontificate of Pius VI, the Jesuits were banned permanently and perpetually by Pope Clement XIV.
Pope Pius VI (1717–1799). Pope from 1775 to 1799. |
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The barbaric beheading of King Louis XVI, Jan. 21, 1793. |
King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were both sent to the guillotine. The Reign of Terror lasted from 1792 to 1794 and thousands were sent to the guillotine.
Pope Pius VII (1742–1823). Pope from 1800 to 1823. |
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Tsar Alexander I (1777–1825). Tsar from 1801 to 1825. |
When the great Tsar reached Paris, he forced the British to sign the Treaty of Ghent, putting an end to the British attempt to conquer the Louisiana Territory!
The Russians have always retreated before overwhelming force. They did so before Napoleon, then Hitler in 1941, and again at the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Against overwhelming odds, Russia has always made a spectacular comeback and saved Christian civilization!
Pope Pius VIII (1761–1830). Pope from 1829 to 1830. |
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Pope Gregory XVI (1791–1846). Pope from 1831 to 1846. |
The next Pope named Pius was even more reactionary that Gregory XVI. Today, he is mostly remembered for the publication of his Syllabus of Errors, his infallibility decree, and the Fall of the Papal States in 1870.
Pope Pius IX (1792–1878). Pope from 1846 to 1878. |
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General Raffaele Cadorna (1815–1897) led the liberating army into the city. |
In September 1870, Roma was liberated by Italian troops led by general Raffaele Cadorna.
All the Bible commentaries on Daniel and the Apocalypse predicted that 1866 would see the downfall of the Papal power in Italy. When that date passed and nothing happened, Pius IX relaxed, and called an Ecumenical Council in 1870. Then the blow from heaven fell like a stroke of lighting, and the Papal States were finally gone with the wind (Daniel 2:35).
Pope Pius X (1835–1914). Pope from 1903 to 1914. |
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Pope Pius X lowered the age that a child can receive the "Holy" Child Jesus to 7. |
During his pontificate, a tremendous struggle ensued to get back the lost Papal States. With the blessing of Pope Leo XIII, King Umberto I was assassinated by the British Secret Service on July 29, 1900. King Umberto I adamantly opposed the restoration of the Papal States.
His son and successor, Victor Emmanuel III, was a physical and mental midget, and the next to the last king to misrule Italy.
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Pius, with the help of his successor Eugenio Pacelli, negotiated a Concordat with Nazi Germany in 1933.
Pope Pius XII (1876–1958). Pope from 1939 to 1958. |
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An Adolf Hitler doppelgänger was Führer from 1933 to 1945. |
Pius was not too distraught by the great Russian victory because Cardinal Spellman and the Pentagon was his new ally!
In 1950, Pope Pius declared that the Virgin Miriam was assumed bodily into heaven immediately after her death. It was Saint Paul was was assumed bodily into heaven . . . not the Virgin Miriam.
Will the Last Pope be Pius XIII???
To most people in the world, the number 13 is considered "unlucky" . . . but not to the Vatican....The Book of Esther contains a fantastic end of the world scenario. Haman, a type of the Papacy, was determined to destroy all the Jews in the Persian empire. He consulted his horoscope for 12 months to find the lucky day for the Final Solution:
In the first month, that is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus (Xerxes), they cast Pur, that is the horoscope, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is the month Adar (Esther 3:7).
The Persian word Pur means casting a horoscope or divination by astrology:
You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from what shall come upon you (Isaiah 47:13).
The English word prognosticate, from the Latin prognosticum, means to augur, foretell, or vaticinate. Before Galileo "discovered" that the earth was rotating and not the center of the universe, horoscopes were all the rage at the Vatican.
Haman's horoscope told him that the 13th day of the 12th month would be the "lucky day" for the Jewish holocaust:
And the letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey (Esther 3:13).
After just 3 days of fasting and prayer, our Great JEHOVAH frustrated all of Haman's wicked plans so that he ended up hanging from the gallows which he had constructed to hang Mordechai:
JEHOVAH is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked are snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah (Psalm 9:16).
Pope Pius XII may not be the last Pius in the dynasty which began with Pope Julius I. The best way to rescue Catholics . . . and Muslims . . . from the Babylonian system is to present a true history of the Papal dynasty:
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity, for it is the time of JEHOVAH's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense (Jeremiah 51:6).
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Apocalypse 18:4).
Vital links
References
Mac Smith, Denis. Italy and its Monarchy. Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1989.
Norwich, John Julius. Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy. Random House, New York, 2011.
Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Scrivener