This is part 2 of Tom’s talk about Richard Bennett’s newsletter about Pope Francis. You can also read Richard Bennett’s entire newsletter Pope Francis the Fox from the Berean Beacon website.

Transcription

Welcome to another edition of Inquisition Update. My name’s Tom Friess and I’ll be your host for the next hour. You’re listening to FirstAmendmentRadio.com. Thanks for tuning in everyone.

If you were listening in the broadcast yesterday, you heard me reading and discussing Richard Bennett’s latest newsletter. It came out in May (2017), and because of the reading of another book, I have saved it until now. It’s a dissertation, rather Richard Bennett’s dissertation, on Pope Francis I’s recent encyclical entitled Laudato Si, Mi Signore, which means Praise Be to You, My Lord.

And Richard Bennett tactfully but firmly paints the papacy as the self-styled King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And in this encyclical, we see the Pope’s agenda for religion and for politics and for economics. And we’re reminded by the scripture that the papacy reigns over the kings of the earth. So this is a global policy.

And yesterday, we concluded under the subtitle, if I can find it here, the Pope’s agenda, Pope Francis’s agenda, and the last paragraph of which I will read for continuity purposes this morning, and then we’ll continue with the rest of the newsletter. He writes,

The emphasis on economics is such that Pope Francis mentions the concept eighty five times. This is the same Francis and his Vatican system which teach that private property is not personal as such, but belongs to all people.

In other words, the Pope just on his own, of his own authority, which he says is divine, redefined personal property, private property. It has placed upon it a prior social mortgage, they call it, a prior social mortgage, which means is you can call your private property your private property, so long as it’s being used, and so long as somebody else doesn’t need it. At which point, it can remain your private property, but it has to be taken over to the possession of the one who needs it. In other words, this is Vatican speak for theft. No one owns any private property.

All goods come with it a prior social mortgage, and so it belongs to the one who has need. So long as you have it in your possession, you’re free to use it, but the Vatican says that if someone else has need, they can come and take it, or if they know someone who has need, they can take it and give it to someone else. That’s called the redistribution of wealth in Vatican speak, but it’s theft according to the Bible.

The Bible gives private property, ownership, goods that are bought and sold at fair market value, and when one decides to keep his private property, it remains his. There is no prior social mortgage. All right.

Now, he continues,

A Vatican Council II document upholds the same principle of the “universal ownership of all goods.”

Now, I failed to mention this yesterday. I correct myself today. The word universal, as is taught by the Vatican, is synonymous with Catholic. Those two words, although they are different spelling, have exactly the same meaning. Universal and Catholic are one and the same word.

Now, while you and I hear the phrase universal ownership of goods to mean one thing, the Vatican means something entirely different. The Catholic ownership of all goods. And if it’s Catholic, Pope has jurisdiction over it, and he can redistribute it at his will. And he can also authorize the civil government to do his bidding. In other words, to take your property and give it to someone else. This is what happens when you fail to pay your taxes to the state. The state is authorized to take your property and sell it to someone else. Our whole system is built around Roman Catholic canon law. And as I said yesterday on the broadcast, taxation is theft. Government is a thief. And it is inspired and educated and authorized and empowered by the Vatican. The man of sin, the son of perdition.

It says,

A Vatican Council II document upholds the same principle of the “universal ownership of all goods” and emphatically teaches, “If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others.”

This is official teaching, Roman Catholic social doctrine. This is what is taught in the Church of Antichrist.

Pope Francis’ philosophy is simply a justification for theft, says Richard Bennett, whether on an individual level or a government level. What did Richard Bennett just do? He called government a thief. A Vatican or papally authorized thief.

The Vatican uses the government to implement Roman Catholic canon law. And never acknowledging that it’s following Roman Catholic canon law, it upholds and enforces Roman Catholic canon law without the knowledge of the people. Richard continues, he says,

The Bible states, “Thou shall not steal…. Thou shall not covet… any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”[20] Instead, people should be looking to the Father in heaven and His Word to learn biblical stewardship of their money and property.

They shouldn’t be looking to the Pope. Neither the government nor the people should be looking to the Pope for direction on these issues.

He continues, he says,

Catholics, and now nations across the world, are being exhorted to look to Pope Francis and his encyclical as a sure path for resuscitation of the international economy.

So we brought this international economic crisis so that the world will turn to Pope Francis for direction. So that the governments of the world will turn to Pope Francis for direction. That means the Antichrist of the Bible is now going to direct the world on international economic subjects. It’s going to be a global economy dictated by the Pope.

It’s going to be a global religion, a global government, and a global economic system headed up by the man of sin. The author continues, Richard Bennett says,

Biblical principles of divine justice, property rights, and equivalent value exchange economics needed for stability and well being of nations, are negated by Francis’s economic policies.

Biblical principles and divine justice are negated by Pope Francis’s economic policies. And what else would we expect from the Antichrist? Now this is where we continue, or this is where we concluded yesterday. We’ll continue now with the next portion of this newsletter. It’s entitled, Real Legal Power to Implement the Pope’s Agenda.

Now just stop and realize the Vatican is 108 acres. There’s only a thousand people or so living there. And they humanly can’t possibly manage every aspect of human life. They cannot implement all the rules that they promulgate, all the laws and these encyclicals, without the help of the governments of the world. As many times as I’ve said before, if the kings of the earth, which the Bible recognizes as those who served the Pope, if they all walked away from him, the Pope could legislate until the cows come home and there would be no one to implement his rules and regulations. There would be no one to put into practice his government. The Pope would find himself overnight a vagabond in the Vatican.

So the papacy depends on the governments of the world to implement the Pope’s agenda. The Pope’s just one man. The Vatican doesn’t contain enough people in it to manage itself, let alone the whole world. So it depends upon the governments of every nation. And that’s why the kings of the earth serve the Antichrist, as revealed in the Bible.

Now he says,

Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, called for “a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. T-E-E-T-H.”

So the god of this world, the Antichrist of the Bible, the counterfeit Christ in Rome, presumes to reform the United Nations, a global government, and to dictate to the world economic institutions of this world, and also direct international finance, so that a global family of nations can acquire real teeth. In other words, enforcement power. And as we read before in The Global Vatican by Francis Rooney, the papacy does indeed rule over the United Nations, as well as our own individual national and international governments.

And he wants the governments of the world to have real teeth to enable them to implement the Pope’s agenda for economics, for global warming, for international finance, and for the civil laws of the nation and the world. He says,

Social and religious dominance, upheld and maintained by means of civil law throughout the European nations, is what the Catholic Church enjoyed and thrived on throughout the Dark Ages and Middle Ages. It is to that same end which Francis now moves.

And what did he just tell you? The complete and total control of the European nations over social and religious aspects of life, as well as the civil laws of Europe. This is exactly how the Pope ruled during the Dark and Middle Ages. That system, that rule of the Pope, was uprooted by the Protestant Reformation, and now that the Protestant Reformation has capitulated to Rome, the Vatican is simply reinstating that old world order. And they dare to call it new.

There’s nothing new about the new world order. It’s simply the recreation on a global scale of the power and influence and control exerted by the papacy prior to the Protestant Reformation. He continues,

It is to that same end which Francis now moves. Listing global warming, pollution, poverty, global inequality, over-consumption by first world nations and like issues, he states,

“These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.

Who is that singling out? May I ask? He’s making reference to the last 200 years. The United States of America. Right? Listen.

“These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.

So who’s going to have to make the changes? The United States of America. And how will that change be made? Industry’s got to disappear, because industry is the polluter. Industry is the one who has caused harm to Sister Earth, according to the Antichrist of the Bible.

Do you know how to pollute the Earth according to the Bible? False doctrine. False religion. Idolatry. Pedophilia. Sodomy. Sin. Idolatry is what defines the Roman Catholic Church. The papacy being the principal idol of the Roman Catholic Church, let alone all the statues and paintings and iconography within the Roman Catholic Church.

I maintain that God put us on an Earth that was able to sustain a whole world of men and women and children. Enough resources to support the creation that He created 6,000 years ago. And this whole idea that the Earth can no longer sustain us, and that we’re polluting ourselves and poisoning our environment to the degree that it threatens that creation, I believe is all a lie. It’s failure of the Vatican to understand what truly pollutes both the mind and the world. And in that basis, on that interpretation, the biblical interpretation, the greatest polluter in the world today is the Vatican. That’s where all the false doctrine, that’s where all the sexual perversion, that’s where all the idolatry and all the other ills of this life reside. He’s chief among sinners. He’s anti-Christ.

And if we wish to clean up the world, we must clean up the pollution. All right? He says again,

These situations have caused Sister Earth, along with all the abandoned of the world, (that’s the poor Roman Catholic Third World nations,) to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home, the Earth, as we have in the last 200 years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what He desired when He created it, and correspond with His plan for peace, beauty, and fullness.

Correspond with His plan for peace, beauty, and fullness? Where’s that in the Scripture?

The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis.”(Says Pope Francis.)

After personifying the earth, Francis moves smoothly to state, “[To commit] crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God.”

Again, I ask my listeners, where is that written in the Bible?

He then calls for the establishment of a legal framework, which can set clear boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems, and has become indispensable.

We must have a legal framework to implement the Pope’s agenda!

His solution of changing the culture by his enforced legal prescriptions, rather than evangelizing the world with true gospel of grace, is absolutely unbiblical, but it fits seamlessly into the ongoing papal agenda.

See how familiar we must be with our Bibles, in order to interrogate, and to examine, and to come to the right conclusions about what this papacy dictates? It’s by the reading of the Bible, and the careful reading of these encyclicals, that we come to the determination, the infallible interpretation, that he’s an antichrist. The emphasis isn’t on Jesus Christ, it’s all the emphasis is on the Pope’s power, and his solutions for the world’s problems. When in fact, this Vatican mentality, is the cause of all the world’s wars, and all the world’s ills.

Richard Bennett continues, he says,

has much influence in the formulation and implementation of national and international laws, particularly in the nations in which she has papal nuncios as ambassadors.

We’ve talked about the political power structure of the Vatican, papal nuncios residing in each nation, and assemblies and the synods of the bishops throughout the nation, that gather together in synod, and propose legislation to govern Catholics, and when that legislation has been introduced, it is sent to the Vatican for approval, and once it obtains the Vatican’s approval, then it is sent back to be written up in the Jesuit universities, law professors, law schools, and once this legislation is written up, then it is put in the docket for passage by all legislative bodies, the House and the Senate of the United States, and when these civil laws are passed and become law, that is the implementation of the Vatican’s agenda through civil law.

And again, I refer my listeners to the wonderful YouTube video by Richard Bennett entitled, Vatican Control Through Civil Law. And you’ll find what he says very consistent with many of the books that we’ve read here on Inquisition Update, Rome and Civil Liberty, and The Papacy and the Civil Power, and many other books, such like books.

This is how the Vatican rules. The Vatican rules through civil law, through the civil laws of the land, and it is Washington, D.C., and your state government, and your county government that implement the Pope’s legislations. So you’re being made to be Roman Catholic without your knowledge. This is how the Vatican controls the peoples of the world, and it’s so not just in the United States of America, but all over the world, especially the European Union.

Now, at present, says Richard Bennett,

At present, she maintains diplomatic relations with one hundred seventy-four countries at embassy level. Expediency, deceit, and cunning have always been defining elements of the Roman Church’s geopolitical pronouncements.

Pope Francis and his Vatican desire to maintain official diplomatic relationships. Their understanding is that political civil power is subordinate to the spiritual control of apostate Rome. Pope Francis, the present necessary and willing instrument, is seeking to fulfill these aspirations and objectives.

So, who really rules the world? Is it the Rothschilds? Is it the Bilderbergers? Is it the Council on Foreign Relations? Or are all these people just agents of the papacy? Who rules the United States? The Democrats? The Republicans? Or do they both get their agenda from Rome? That’s the assertion here at Inquisition Update, and you’ll find if you study it, it’s the only one that makes sense.

Now, Richard Bennett is going to give us the conclusion.

That Francis and his encyclical are intent on ruling religious, political and economic activities worldwide should not be surprising. Papal arrogance tallies well with Scripture’s prediction for such claims, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” There can be but one Vicar of Christ who is infinite, supreme, omnipotent, and all sufficient; namely, the Holy Spirit. The Papacy is a demonically energized apostate system that will be judged and utterly condemned by the Lord. Biblical insight apprehends that “the whole world lies in wickedness” and, “the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand.”

The Papal program is wicked and willful, and its genius in means and method, satanic. From the beginning, the Lord God purposed to glorify Himself “in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, Amen.” He created the world and formed man for this purpose. His all-wise design was not defeated when Adam and mankind fell, for Jesus Christ the Lord was the Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world.”[30] Almighty God’s will is from eternity, and reigns supreme in time. He sovereignly orders, directs and controls all events. He it is “who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Satan and his present neo-Babylonian empire (that is the Roman Catholic empire) cannot resist Him. It is written, “The Lord reigns; let the people tremble.”

Please join us in prayer that many people will understand this, and that they also would be drawn by God’s Spirit to seek His grace. Grace is unmerited, divine favor. By mercy alone, He saves hell-deserving sinners, demonstrating that all the glory of redeeming power is His alone. Since God works all things after the counsel of His own will, Papal Rome’s modern manipulation of civil power, false ecumenism, and unbiblical economic policies are merely instruments that God for His sovereign purposes has allowed.

We can be sincerely thankful that Almighty God in His supreme wisdom has set limits to the intrigues of Rome. Pope Francis and the Roman Church will be punished for their willful rejection of the Lordship of Christ. The Lord’s people will not be deceived by the powerful delusion that has descended on the world. Rather they “should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” True believers are those who adhere only to God and His written Word: these know that they are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and that to God solely is due all glory and praise.

And I will add obedience. Now, that’s the end of the newsletter. I would suggest that since we know the papacy is the counterfeit Christ on the earth, the anti-Christ, and that he proposes unbiblical laws and doctrines, false doctrines, false ecumenism, that he’s a lying wonder who deceived the whole world.

And we also know from Scripture that he reigns over the kings and the governments of the world. He’s a liar and the father of lies in this world. He’s Satan’s emissary in the world. He’s the god of this world, according to the Bible. He’s not the God of heaven. He’s the god of this world.

And the kings of the earth, the governments of the earth, are his vassals, whether they be national governments, as the government in Washington, D.C., or the United Nations, an international government. They are all servants of the man of sin. The counterfeit Christ.

What obedience do we owe them? Does Romans chapter 13 require us to serve an ungodly government? Does the Bible instruct us to obey an ungodly government? Ask the question, did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego obey an ungodly government? We should obey God and not men. God’s instrument for the exercise of righteousness in this world was supposed to be the civil government. God placed in the hands of the civil government the power to enforce the second table of the law, man’s relationship man, so that the earth wouldn’t be destroyed by sin.

But when that government decides not to obey Christ and to enforce his divine law, and chooses, rather, to promulgate, pass into legislation, impose upon the people, and enforce upon the people an ungodly set of laws, what is our responsibility to that government but to condemn it for what it is?

Do we have the faith enough in Christ to stand up in His behalf and proclaim Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Or do we try to save our own keisters and obey the civil power and disobey God? The Bible teaches us not to fear those who can destroy the body, but rather, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were right to point their finger in Nebuchadnezzar’s face and say, we will not bend, we will not bow, and we will not worship your image. And even if you burn us in the fire, we will not bend, bow, or worship to your image.

I think that’s the right course for God’s people today. Who are we going to serve, Christ or Antichrist? Is Christ really the one behind this ecumenical movement to unite all Christians under the authority of the man of sin in Rome? Are we supposed to follow their lead, though they outnumber us thousands and thousands to one? I choose to go alone with Christ. If that brings me persecution, if that costs me materially in any other way, I know Christ will reward me when it’s over. I think that’s a decision each and every one of us need to make.

Now, Richard Bennett, as most people know, I don’t spend a great deal of time here on Inquisition Update endorsing other ministries. I’ve learned from long and hard experience to be very choosy about who I endorse because life has taught me that I’ll probably regret it eventually. But I don’t hesitate to endorse Richard Bennett. He knows God’s Word inside and out. He was a Roman Catholic priest for many, many years. He knows Rome inside and out. And it was his Bible who converted him. It was God’s Word who converted him, who reformed him, and made him what he is today in his old age, a saint of Almighty God.

He preaches the truth no matter how much it hurts. He’s not appreciated by many, but he’s appreciated by me. And I trust him, and I endorse him, and I suggest that my listeners ought to try him on for size. Go to his website, bereanbeacon.org, and take a look at the information that he presents there. I think you’ll find him second to none. He’s a humble man, much more humble than I am.

And if you find my style objectionable, if you don’t like my passion, if you don’t like my direction, if I were to suggest someone else that you might seek the truth from, it would be Richard Bennett. Richard is failing in health, and he’s soon to go the way of man. (Richard passed away in 2019.) And I pray for him, pray for his health and for the health of his wife, and hope that God can replace him in this ministry and keep the truth coming forward.

Now, one thing you’ll notice about Richard Bennett’s website and about Richard Bennett himself, his principal ministry is toward Roman Catholics and former Roman Catholics. And many Roman Catholics and former Roman Catholics listen to him and depend on him. And they’ve given their lives to Christ and serve him only.

His ministry has produced great fruit for the kingdom of heaven. That’s the test of any ministry. But there’s plenty there for true Bible-believing Protestants. Any true Bible-believing Protestant would be thoroughly impressed with Richard Bennett and his ministry. And I also highly recommend that you go to youtube.com and type in Berean Beacon, and watch all of Richard’s videos. And subscribe to his channel. And support him financially, if the Lord leads. And to share his ministry with others, as many as you possibly can. I admire him, I trust him, and I support him and promote him. God bless you, Richard Bennett.

Now, many of you know and many of you do not know that 2017, or specifically October 31st, 2017, is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church, protesting the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk who fell out of favor with Rome because he read his Bible. And he decided not to obey Rome anymore. And he wrote against the Roman Catholic Church. And he began the Protestant Reformation, what is generally regarded as the starting of the Protestant Reformation, October 31st, 1517.

And this year is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. What Rome intends to do, post-Vatican Council II, is to organize what is going to appear on its face to be a celebration of the Protestant Reformation. Rome’s got to be very careful. She’s almost totally deceived the Protestants into coming back to the Roman Catholic Church, or at least subjecting their Protestant churches to papal authority and uniting all of quote-unquote Christendom. So they’re going to have to be very tactful in their means of celebrating this 500th anniversary because Martin Luther is regarded by the Roman Catholic Church and by the papacy especially as a rebellious heretic and a troubler of Christianity, a troubler of Christendom. And that what resulted from Martin Luther and the rest of the Protestant Reformers of that time was the complete destruction of the old world order when the Pope ruled supreme over the kings of the earth and they did his bidding and enforced Roman Catholic canon law and made all of Europe Catholic whether they were Protestant or not. Same thing the papacy’s doing today.

So the Vatican carries a grudge against Martin Luther and against all the Reformers. So they launch the Counter-Reformation initiated at the Council of Trent designed as I’ve said so many times to annihilate Protestantism by whatever means necessary and to reestablish the papacy as the king of kings and the lord of lords in the world, the governor of the world. And to subject all the kingdoms of the world once again to his authority as vassals on a slave ship.

Martin Luther stood in the way of the man of sin. The son of perdition. It was God’s Word that liberated him and it was Martin Luther’s word and God’s Word together that liberated all of Europe and reformed the governments to serve the people and not the Pope.

Rome thinks we ought to celebrate that 500th anniversary and to do it in such a way as to recognize the Protestant Reformation but at the same time tactfully to denounce Martin Luther a heretic and the entire Protestant movement heretical. Remember Vatican Council too declared the Vatican, the papacy, and the Roman Catholic Church to be the victor in the war that was established at the Council of Trent.

Vatican Council II was an assembly of the combating parties and a signing of a peace treaty between the Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. Unconditional capitulation, unconditional surrender. That’s what Vatican II represents.

You’ve got to be asking yourself what has got to be the motive of the Roman Catholic Church to support a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther? You’re going to have to be able to read between the lines when this celebration comes forward.

It’s going to pretend for all intents and purposes to be the object of unity. Rome must have unity for her own purpose to increase her power, prestige, and authority among all these once rebellious Protestant churches. The papacy seeks to unite all the nations into a family of nations underneath the authority of the papacy and that once again the governments of the world will serve him and him alone. What is the objective but to subtly but positively label the Protestant Reformation as a failure and Martin Luther as a heretic.

In the next series of broadcasts I’m going to be reading some of Martin Luther’s writings and you can see for yourself whether or not Martin Luther was a heretic or whether his eyes were opened by the Scriptures to understand who was the man of sin the son of perdition the little horn of Daniel the antichrist of the Bible and what did Martin Luther teach? Was it heretical? Or was it scriptural? We’re talking about the legitimacy of the Protestant Reformation. Was it a move of God? Or was it rebellion against the self-styled legitimate throne of God on earth the papacy? Was Martin Luther a troubler of Christendom? Or was he a liberator of Christendom? That’s something all my listeners are going to have to decide for themselves but I’m going to read Martin Luther’s works and you can compare it with the King James Version of the Bible and make that determination on your own.

I know what I believe and though I don’t agree on every count with Martin Luther for what he taught I am admonished rightfully by those who listen to Inquisition Update that Martin Luther was a recently reformed Roman Catholic. (Webmaster: Recently in the sense from the time he understood the Gospel to the time he nailed his 95 theses to the church door.) He had a life of indoctrination by the Roman Catholic Church and he had lived the life of a Roman Catholic a monk and he wasn’t reformed overnight. He didn’t come to truth overnight. It took the rest of his life and he learned until the day he died.

So if we find some controversy, some error in his teaching, we should take it with a grain of salt, and we should examine the Protestant Reformation and what it taught after a more mature period of advancement and reform.

And I think you’ll find as I do that Martin Luther was a man of God, a sinner saved by grace through faith, abandoning the works of the Roman Catholic Church, the sacraments, whereby grace according to Rome is earned. Martin Luther eventually believed the sovereign will of Almighty God. He believed as did John Calvin, God sovereignly calls, He sovereignly chooses, He sovereignly sanctifies, He sovereignly justifies, and He will sovereignly glorify those that He has called and chosen and sanctified and justified. Salvation is not the will of man nor any works that a man can perform, and salvation does not come through a man, and especially not the papacy.

And so, Inquisition Update will be an instrument for exonerating Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation and what they believed and taught, and we’re going to examine Rome’s so-called 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and expose the lies. 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and we’re going to do due diligence to the Scriptures and to the Reformers and to the Protestant Reformation and we’re going to condemn Vatican Council II and the Council of Trent and the papacy and uphold the Protestant belief On Inquisition Update.