The Great City Devastated

 Passion-Arousing Wine

The mighty angel next calls attention to the bread extent of the harlotry of Babylon the Great, proclaiming:  "For because of the passion-arousing wine of her fornication all the nations have fallen victim, and the kings of the earth committed fornication with  her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich du to the power of her shameless luxury." (Revelation 18:3)  She has indoctrinated all nations of mankind in her unclean religious ways.  In ancient Babylon, according to Greek historian Herodotus, each maiden was required to prostitute her virginity in temple worship. Revolting sexual corruption is portrayed to this day in war-damaged sculptures at Angkor Wat in Kampuchea and in the temples at Khajuraho, India, which show the Hindu god Vishnu surrounded by  disgusting erotic scenes. In the United States, the disclosures of immorality that shook the world of TV evangelists in 1987, and again in 1988, as well as the revelation of the widespread practice of homosexuality by ministers of religion, illustrate that even Christendom tolerates shocking excesses of literal fornication. Yet, all the nations have fallen victim to an even more serious kind of fornication. 

 We have already reviewed the illicit religio-political relationship that catapulted Hitler into power in Nazi Germany.  Other nations also suffered because of religion's meddling in secular affairs.  For example, in Fascist Italy, on February 11 ,  1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed by Mussolini and Cardinal  Gasparri, making Vatican City a sovereign state.  Pope Pius XI  claimed that he had "given Italy back to God, and God back to Italy."  Was that the truth?  Consider what happened six years later.  On October  3, 1935, Italy invade  Abyssinia, claiming that it was "a barbarous land which still practices slavery."  Who, really, was being barbarous?  Did the Catholic Church condemn Mussolini's barbarity?  While the pope issued ambiguous  statements, his bishops were quite vocal in blessing the armed forces of their Italian  "fatherland."  In the book The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, Anthony Rhodes reports: 

"In his Pastoral Letter of the 19th  of October [1935], the Bishop of Udine [Italy] wrote:  'It is neither timely nor fitting for us to pronounce on the rights and wrongs of the case.  Our duty  as Italians, and still more as Christians is to contribute  to the success of our arms.'  The Bishop of Padua wrote on the 21st of October, 'in the difficult hours through which we are passing, we ask you to have faith in our statesman and armed forces.'   On October 24th, the Bishop of Cremona consecrated  a number of regional flags and said:  'The blessing of God be upon these soldiers who, on African soil, will conquer new and fertile lands for the Italian genius thereby  bringing to them Roman and Christian culture.  May Italy stand once again as the Christian mentor to the whole world.

Abyssinia was raped, with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Clergy.  Could  any of these claim, in any sense , that they were like apostle Paul in being "clean from the blood of all men"? - ACTS 20:26. 

Add to Germany, Italy, and Abyssinia another nation that has fallen victim to the fornication of Babylon the Great -Spain.  The Civil War of 1936-39 in that land was sparked in part, by the democratic government's taking steps to reduce the huge power of the Roman Catholic Church. As the war got under way, the Catholic Fascists leader of the revolutionary forces, Franco, described himself as "the Christian Generalissimo of the Holy Crusade." a title that he later dropped.  Several hundred thousand Spaniards  died in the fighting. Apart from this, according to a conservative estimate, Franco's  Nationalists had murdered 40,000 Popular Front members, while the later had murdered 8,00 clerics-monks, priests, nuns, and novices.  Such is the horror and tragedy of civil war, illustrating the wisdom of heeding Jesus' words: ""Return your sword to its place, for all those take up the sword will die perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)  How disgusting that Christendom gets involved in such a massive bloodshed. Her clergy have indeed failed utterly to "beat their swords in plowshares" - ISAIAH 2:4. 

Next time: The Great City Devastated - The Traveling Merchants 

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