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 On January 2, 1919, the San Francisco Chronicle carried the front-page headline: "Pope Pleads for adoption of Wilson's League of Nations." on October 16, 1919, a petition signed by 14, 450 clergymen of leading denominations was presented to the U.S. Senate, urging that body "to ratify the Paris peace treaty embodying the league of nations covenant." Though the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the treaty, Christendom's clergy continued to campaign for the League. And how was the League inaugurated? A news dispatch from Switzerland, dated November 15, 1920, read: "Opening of the first assembly of the League of Nations was announced at eleven o'clock this morning by the ringing the church bells in Geneva." 

Did the John class, the one group on earth that eagerly accepted the incoming Messianic Kingdom, share with Christendom in paying homage to the scarlet-colored wild beast? Far from it! On Sunday, September 7, 1919, the convention of Jehovah's people in Cedar Point, Ohio, featured the public talk "The Hope for Distressed Humanity." On the following day, the Sandusky Star-Journal reported that J.F. Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Society, in addressing nearly 7,000 persons, had "asserted that the Lord's displeasure is certain to be visited upon the League . . . because the clergy-Catholic and Protestant-claiming to be God's representatives, have abandoned his plan and endorsed the League of Nations, hailing it as a political expression of Christ's kingdom on earth." 

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 In what way is this symbolic wild beast full blasphemous names? In that men have set up this multinational idol as a substitute for God's Kingdom- to accomplish what God says his Kingdom alone can accomplish. (Daniel 2:44; Matthew 12:18, 21) What is remarkable about John's vision, though, is that Babylon the Great is riding the scarlet-colored-wild beast. True to the prophecy, Babylonish religion, particularly in Christendom, has linked itself with the League of Nations and its successor. As early as December 18,1918, the body now known as the National Council of Churches of Christ in America adopted a declaration that declared in part: "Such a League is not mere political expedient; it is the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth. . . The Church can give a spirit of good-will, without which no League of Nations is rooted in the Gospel. Like the Gospel, its objective is "peace on earth, good will toward men.' " 

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 This wild beast has seven heads and ten horns. Is it, then, the same as the wild beast that John saw earlier, which also has seven heads and ten horns? (Revelation 13:1) No, there are differences. This wild beast is scarlet-colored and, unlike the previous wild beast, is not said to have diadems. Rather than having blasphemous names on its seven heads only, it is "full of blasphemous names. " Nevertheless, there must be a relationship between this new wild beast and the previous one, the similarities between them are too pronounced to be coincidental. 

What, then, is this new scarlet-colored wild beast? It must be the image to the wild beast that was brought forth under the urging of the Anglo-American wild beast that has two horns like a lamb. After the image was made, that two-horned wild beast was allowed to give breath to the image of the wild beast. (Revelation 13:14, 15) John now sees the living, breathing image. It pictures the League of Nations organization that the two-horned wild beast brought to life in 1920. U.S. President Wilson had envisioned that the League "would be a forum for the dispensation of justice for all men and wipe out the threat of war forever." When it was resurrected after the second world war as the United Nations, its chartered purpose was "to maintain international peace and security. " 

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot- The Harlot Rides a Beast

 What more does the prophecy disclose as the great harlot and her fate? As John now relates, a further vivid scene comes into view: "And he [the angel] carried me away in the power of the spirit into wilderness. And I caught sight of a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast that was full of blasphemous names and that had seven heads and ten horns." - REVELATION 17:3.

Why is John carried into the wilderness? An earlier pronouncement of doom against ancient Babylon was described as being "against the wilderness of the sea." (Isaiah 21:1, 9) This gave due warning that despite all its weary defenses, ancient Babylon would become a lifeless desolation. It is fitting, then, that John should be carried off in his vision to wilderness to see the fate of Babylon the Great. She too must become desolate and waste. (Revelation 18:19, 22, 23) John is amazed, although by what he sees out there. The great harlot is not alone! She is sitting on a monstrous wild beast!

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot - Sitting on Many Waters -Conclusion

 Shinto Japan provides a notable example of this. The indoctrinated Japanese soldier regarded as the highest honor to give his life for the emper0r-the supreme Shinto god. During World War II, some 1,500,000 Japanese soldiers died in battle, almost to a man, they looked at surrender as dishonorable. But as a consequence of Japan's defeat, Emperor Hirohito was compelled to renounce his claim to divinity. This resulted in a notable withdrawing of the "waters" supporting the Shino segment of Babylon the Great-alas, after Shintoism had sanctioned the shedding of buckets of blood in the Pacific war theater. This weakening of Shino influence also opened the way in recent years for more than 120,000 Japanese, the great majority of whom were formerly Shintoists and Buddhists, to become dedicated, baptized ministers of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. 

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot - Sitting on Many Waters

 Ancient Babylon sat on many waters-the Euphrates River and numerous canals. These were a protection to her as well as a source of commerce producing wealth, until they dried up in one night. (Jeremiah 50:38; 51:9, 12, 13) Babylon the Great also looks to "many waters" to protect and enrich her. These symbolic waters are "peoples and crowds and nations and tongues," that is, all the thousands of millions over whom she had dominated and from whom she has drawn material support. But these waters are also drying up, or withdrawing support. -REVELATION 17:15; compare PSALM 18:4; ISAIAH 8:7. 

Further, Babylon of old was described as "a golden cup in the hand of Jehovah, she is making all the earth drunk." (Jeremiah 51:7) Ancient Babylon forcing neighboring nations to swallow expressions of Jehovah's anger when she conquered them militarily, making them as weak as drunken men. In that respect, she was Jehovah's instrument. Babylon the Great, too, has made conquests to the point of becoming a worldwide empire. She is certainly not God's instrument. Rather, she has served "the kings of the earth" with whom she commits religious fornication. She has gratified these kings by using her lying doctrines and enslaving practices to keep the massed of the people, "those who inhabit the earth," weak as drunken men, passively subservient to their rulers. 

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot - Modern-Day "Harlotry" - Conclusion

 Such Catholic diplomacy illustrates the kind harlotry that religion has engaged in over the past 4,000 years in wooing the political state in order to gain power and advantage. Such religio-political relationships have fostered warfare, persecutions, and human misery on a vast scale. How happy mankind can be that Jehovah's judgment upon the great harlot is a hand. May it soon be executed!

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 Though a handful of priests and nuns protested Hitler's  atrocities-and suffered for it-the Vatican as well as the Catholic Church and its army of clergy gave either active or tacit support to the Nazi tyranny, which they regarded at bulwark against the advance of world communism. Sitting pretty in the Vatican, Pope Pius XII let the holocaust on the Jews and the cruel persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses and others proceed uncriticized. It is ironical that Pope John II, on visiting Germany on May 19187, should glorify the anti-Nazi stand of one sincere priest. What were the other thousands of the German's clergy during Hitler's reign of terror? A pastoral letter issued by the German Catholic bishops in September 1939 at the outbreak of World War II provides enlightenment on this point. It reads in part: "In this decisive hour we admonish our Catholic soldiers to do their duty in obedience to the Fueher and to be ready to sacrifice their whole individuality. We appeal to the Faithful to join in ardent prayers that Divine Providence may leald this war to blessed success. 

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot - Modern-Day "Harlotry"

 On July 20, 2933, the Vatican's interest in the rising power of Nazism was displayed when Cardinali Paceli (who later became Pope Pius XII) singed a concordat in Rome between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. VonPapen signed the document as Hitler's representative, and Paceli  there conferred on von Papen the high papal decoration of he Grand Cross of the Order of Pius. In his book Satan in Top Hate, Tibor Koeves writes of this, stating: "The Concordat was a great victory for Hitler. It gave him the first moral support he had received from the outer world, and this from the exalted source." The concordat required the Vatican to withdraw its support from Germany's Catholic Center Party, thus sanctioning Hitler's one-party "total state." Further, its article 14 stated: "The appointments for archbishops, bishops, and the like will be issued only after the governor, installed by the Reich, has duly ascertained that no doubts exist with respect to general political considerations." By the end of 1933 (proclaimed a "Holy Year by Pope Pius XI), Vatican support had become a major factor in Hitler's push for world domination. 

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Chapter Thirty-Three/Judging the Infamous Harlot - Modern-day "Harlotry"

 Through her meddling in politics, the great harlot has brought untold sorrow to mankind. Consider, for example, the facts behind Hitler's rise to power in Germany-ugly facts that some would like to expunge from the history books. In May of 1924 the Nazi party held 32 seats in the German Reichstag. By May 1928 these had dwindled to 12 seats. However, the great Depression engulfed the world in 1930; riding out its wake, the Nazis made a remarkable recovery, gaining 230 out of 608 seats in the German elections of July 1932. Soon after, former Chancellor Franz von Papal Knight, came to the Nazis' aid. According to historians, von Papab envisioned a new Holy Roman Empire. His own short tenure as Chancellor had been a failure, so now he hoped to gain power through the Nazis. By January 1933, he had mustered support for Hitler from the industrial barons, and through wily intrigues he ensured that Hitler became Germany's chancellor on January 30, 1933. He himself was made vice-chancellor and was used by Hitler to win the support of Catholic sections of Germany. Within two months of gaining power, Hitler dissolved parliament, dispatched thousands of opposition leaders to concentration camps. and began an open campaign of oppressing the Jews.

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