{"id":43665,"date":"2021-01-29T02:47:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=43665"},"modified":"2025-03-07T14:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:08:18","slug":"the-agitators-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/the-agitators-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agitators – Part II","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hatred of the brethren makes room next for Antichrist;
\nfor the devil prepares beforehand the divisions among the people,
\nthat he who is to come may be acceptable to them.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u2014St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Church Doctor, (c. 315-386)<\/span>
\nCatechetical Lectures<\/em>, Lecture XV, n.9<\/span><\/p>\n

Read Part I here: The Agitators<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE<\/strong> world watched it like a soap opera. Global news incessantly covered it. For months on end, the U.S. election was the preoccupation of not only Americans but billions across the world. Families argued bitterly, friendships fractured, and social media accounts erupted, whether you lived in Dublin or Vancouver, Los Angeles or London. Defend Trump and you were exiled; criticize him and you were deceived.\u00a0 Somehow, the orange-haired businessman from New York managed to polarize the world like no other politician in our times.<\/p>\n

His rallies and infamous tweets provoked rage on the Left as he incessantly mocked the establishment and denigrated his foes. His defense of the freedom of religion and the unborn drew praise on the Right. While his foes claimed he was a threat, a dictator and fascist… his allies claimed he was “chosen by God” to overthrow the “deep state” and “drain the swamp.” There couldn’t be two more divided views of the man \u2014 further apart than Ghandi was from Genghas Khan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Truth is, I think it is<\/em> possible God “chose” Trump \u2014 but for different reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE AGITATORS<\/p>\n

In Part I<\/a>, we saw the fascinating and incredible parallels between President Donald Trump and Pope Francis (read The Agitators<\/em><\/a>). Though two completely different men in different offices, there is nonetheless a clear role\u00a0<\/em>that each man has been playing in the “signs of the times” \u2014 I will explain why <\/em>in a moment. First, as I wrote in Part I<\/a> back in September, 2019:<\/p>\n

The daily rancour surrounding these men is almost unprecedented. The destabilization of the Church and America are not small\u2014both of them having global influence and a \"\"discernible impact for the future that is arguably game-changing… Can we not say that the leadership of both men has knocked people off the fence into one direction or the other? That the interior thoughts and dispositions of many have been exposed, particularly those ideas that are not rooted in truth? Indeed, positions founded on the Gospel are crystallizing at the same time that anti-gospel tenets are hardening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The world is rapidly being divided into two camps, the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ. The lines between these two are being drawn. How long the battle will be we know not; whether swords will have to be unsheathed we know not; whether blood will have to be shed we know not; whether it will be an armed conflict we know not. But in a conflict between truth and darkness, truth cannot lose.<\/strong> \u2014Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, D.D. (1895-1979); (source possibly \u201cThe Catholic Hour\u201d)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Was this not also predicted by Pope St. John Paul II while he was still a cardinal back in 1976?<\/p>\n

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but in a sense a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization, with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (JOHN PAUL II ), at the Eucharistic Congress, Philadelphia, PA for the bicentennial celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; some citations of this passage include the words \u201cChrist and the antichrist\u201d as above. Deacon Keith Fournier, an attendee, reports it as above; cf.\u00a0Catholic Online<\/a>; August 13, 1976<\/span><\/p>\n

This is all to say that I believe these two men have been used as instruments of God to sift\u00a0<\/em>the hearts of men. In the case of Trump, he has been used to test the \"\"foundations of freedom in the Western World, expressed in the Constitution of the United States. In the case of Pope Francis, he has been used to test the foundations of truth in the Catholic Church. With Trump, his unorthodox style and provocations have exposed those with Marxist and socialist agendas; they have come out into the open, their cause no longer in the darkness. Likewise, Francis’ unorthodox and Jesuit style of creating a “mess” has exposed the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” eager to “update” Church teaching; they have come out into the open, their intent clear, their boldness growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words, we are watching the\u00a0collapse of the remnant Roman Empire.\u00a0<\/em>As St. John Henry Newman stated:<\/p>\n

\n

I do not grant that the Roman empire is gone. Far from it: the Roman empire remains even to this day\u2026 And as the horns, or kingdoms, still exist, as a matter of fact, consequently we have not yet seen the end of the Roman empire.<\/b>\u00a0\u2014St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890),\u00a0The Times of Antichrist<\/em>, Sermon 1<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE POLITICAL RESTRAINER<\/p>\n

Given that the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, today, one can consider Western civilization as both a blend of its Christian\/political roots. Today, the two forces that restrain<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>the complete collapse of the foundational principles of that Empire \u2014 and hold back the tide of the empire of Communism \u2014 are the Catholic Church and America; \"\"Catholicism, through its unchanging teachings, and America through its military and economic might. But just over a decade ago, Pope Benedict XVI compared our time to the decline of the Roman Empire:<\/p>\n

\n

The disintegration of the key principles of law and of the fundamental moral attitudes underpinning them burst open the dams which until that time had protected peaceful coexistence among peoples. The sun was setting over an entire world. Frequent natural disasters further increased this sense of insecurity. There was no power in sight that could put a stop to this decline… For all its new hopes and possibilities, our world is at the same time troubled by the sense that moral consensus is collapsing, consensus without which juridical and political structures cannot function. Consequently the forces mobilized for the defence of such structures seem doomed to failure<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then, in words which were clearly prescient, Benedict spoke of the “eclipse of reason” (or as I wrote just two months before that, the “eclipse of truth\u201d<\/a>). Today, it has become literal as scientists, religious, and conservative voices are literally being purged<\/a> from social and mainstream media and ejected from their careers for holding “ideas” contrary to leftist dogma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake<\/em>.<\/strong> \u2014POPE BENEDICT XVI, Address to the Roman Curia, December 20th, 2010; cf. vatican va<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that Day [of the Lord] will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The early Church Fathers further explained this Gobal Rebellion<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

This revolt or falling off is generally understood, by the ancient Fathers, of a revolt from the Roman empire, which was first to be destroyed, before the coming of Antichrist. It may, perhaps, be understood also of a revolt of many nations from the Catholic Church which has, in part, happened already, by the means of Mahomet, Luther, etc. and it may be supposed, will be more general in the days of the Antichrist.<\/b>\u00a0\u2014footnote on 2 Thess 2:3,\u00a0Douay-Rheims Holy Bible<\/i>, Baronius Press Limited, 2003; p. 235<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a sense, the removal of Trump from office is the fruition of this revolt or revolution\u00a0insofar<\/em> as the newly elected President is intent upon codifying the culture of death and \"\"paving the way for the United Nations’ “Global Reset<\/a>” under the monicker “Build Back Better” \u2014 which President Joe Biden curiously adopted as his own slogan (the website buildbackbetter.gov<\/a> actually redirects to the official website of the White House). As I have explained in several writings, this programme of the UN is nothing but neo-Communism in a Green hat<\/a>, promoting transhumanism and a “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” which is ultimately man “proclaiming himself to be God.”<\/p>\n

\n

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is literally, as they say, a transformative revolution, not just in terms of the tools that you will use to modify your environment, but for the first time in human history to modify human beings themselves.<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014Dr. Miklos Lukacs de Pereny, research professor of science and technology policy at Universidad San Martin de Porres in Peru; November 25th, 2020;\u00a0lifesitenews.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the Antichrist has thus far been held back, both by a political edifice (Roman Empire) and spiritual restrainer (explained in a moment).<\/p>\n

\n

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed. (2 Thess 2:3-4)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What does The Coming Collapse of America <\/em><\/a>and the West have to do with the rest of the world? Cardinal Robert Sarah gives a lucid and succinct answer:<\/p>\n

\n

The spiritual crisis involves the entire world<\/em>. But its source is in Europe. People in the West are guilty of rejecting God\u2026 The spiritual collapse thus has a very Western character… Because [Western man] refuses to acknowledge himself as an heir [of spiritual and cultural patrimony], man is condemned to the hell of liberal globalization<\/em> in which individual interests confront one another without any law to govern them besides profit at any price… Transhumanism is the ultimate avatar of this movement. Because it is a gift from God, human nature itself becomes unbearable for Western man. This revolt<\/em> is spiritual at root.<\/strong> \u2014Catholic Herald<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>April 5th, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE SPIRITUAL RESTRAINER\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clearly, the rebellion against God is in full swing. North America has completely fallen now to radical anti-Gospel agendas while Australia and Europe have abandoned their \"\"Christian roots, save for Poland and Hungary who remain engaged in the “final confrontation.” But who is left to defend Christianity against the rising Beast<\/a>? Suddenly, the apocalyptic prediction of St. John Paul II is taking on startling proportions as the new U.S. Administration has promised to codify\u00a0<\/em>abortion into law.[1]<\/sup><\/a>“Statement from President Biden and Vice President Harris on the 48th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade”, January 22nd, 2021; whitehouse.gov<\/a><\/span><\/span>