Babylon Now

 

THERE is a startling passage in the Book of Revelation, one that could easily be missed. It speaks of “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth” (Rev 17:5). Of her sins, for which she is judged “in an hour,” (18:10) is that her “markets” trade not only in gold and silver but in humans.

The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her, because there will be no more markets for their cargo: their cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; fine linen, purple silk, and scarlet cloth… and slaves, that is, human beings. (Rev 18:11-14)

Addressing this passage, Pope Benedict XVI said quite prophetically:

The Book of Revelation includes among the great sins of Babylon — the symbol of the world’s great irreligious cities — the fact that it trades with bodies and souls and treats them as commodities (cf. Rev 18:13). In this context, the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world — an eloquent expression of the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind. No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart — and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, On the occasion of Christmas Greetings, December 20th, 2010; http://www.vatican.va/

In Mystery Babylon, I noted how several factors point toward the United States as a strong candidate for what St. John describes as “the mother of harlots.” It goes back to its Masonic roots and the U.S.’s role in spreading “enlightened democracies” through “ideological colonization.”

I mention this because of a startling statistic that emerged at the end of Sound of Freedom, a new movie highlighting the tragic truth of human trafficking, particularly that of children. According to the film, human trafficking is a 150 billion-dollar global criminal enterprise and the United States is #1 in trafficking.

Other facts:^[1]cf. https://www.angel.com/blog/sound-of-freedom

• More than 500,000 children a year go missing in the US alone

• More than 50% of victims are between the ages of 12 and 15

• 25% of child pornography is created by a neighbor or family member

• Over 500,000 online sexual predators are active each day 

• Over 80% of child sex crimes begins on social media

• As of 2021, there are 252,000 websites containing images or videos of children sexually abused

• And globally, 27% of human trafficking victims are children

In fact, the film states that there are more slaves today than at any other time in human history — even more than when slavery was legal.

 

Rotten, to the Core

Of the explosion in child trafficking, Benedict said in that powerful speech:

In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today. —On the occasion of Christmas Greetings, December 20th, 2010; http://www.vatican.va/

In other words, we have to recognize that nothing will change so long as truth remains subject to the ego rather than absolutes.

Hence, we are passing through a “dictatorship of relativism”^[2]“…a dictatorship of relativism that recognizes nothing as definite, and which leaves as the ultimate measure only one’s ego and desires.” —Cardinal Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI) pre-conclave Homily, April 18th, 2005″ that is being imposed now at the highest levels of governance. The United Nations and the World Health Organization are collectively pushing a mandatory radical sex education agenda that would begin to sexualize children by the age of four or five.^[3]International technical guidance on sexuality education, cf. pg. 71 On page 40 of the “Standards for Sexuality Education”, schools are instructed to teach four-year-olds about “same-sex relationships.” In the International technical guidance on sexuality education, nine-year-olds are taught to masturbate. It only gets more graphic from there (see all NGO resources here). This has led to accusations that the United Nations is essentially “grooming” children for sex with adults. On the local level, this is supported by educational facilities actively promoting “story time” for children by gay and transgender men dressed in drag.^[4]cf. Diabolical Disorientation

Sound of Freedom is pushing back against this diabolical trend. One of its enduring lines is that “God’s children are not for sale.” Pope Benedict’s predecessor was well aware that our “progressive” generation was not moving toward human liberation but precisely the opposite — and he framed it in equally apocalyptic terms:

This marvelous world — so loved by the Father that he sent his only Son for its salvation — is the theater of a never-ending battle being waged for our dignity and identity as free, spiritual beings. This struggle parallels the apocalyptic combat described in (Revelation 12). Death battles against Life: a “culture of death” seeks to impose itself on our desire to live, and live to the full. There are those who reject the light of life, preferring “the fruitless works of darkness” (Eph 5:11). Their harvest is injustice, discrimination, exploitation, deceit, violence…. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Homily, Cherry Creek State Park Homily, Denver, Colorado, August 15th, 1993; vatican.va

The central character in the movie, which is based on a true story, is played by Catholic actor Jim Caviezel. At the end, he makes an emotional appeal for everyone to spread the word of these present-day horrors. Yes, I think this is absolutely necessary, and I hope you will join me in urging everyone you know to see this film. But will it be enough for a culture that appears rotten to the core, a generation to whom the Blessed Mother now regularly says:

You are living in a time worse than the time of the Flood, and the moment has come for your return. —June 27, 2023, to Pedro Regis

Sin has become institutionalized, what we could call “structures of sin” due to the prevalence and apathy toward it.^[5]“Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. ‘Structures of sin’ are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a ‘social sin.’” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1869 Yet, it remains that sin is a personal choice — there is a personal responsibility for each of us to repent of it and to oppose it, according to our capacity:

It is a case of the very personal sins of those who cause or support evil or who exploit it; of those who are in a position to avoid, eliminate or at least limit certain social evils but who fail to do so out of laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence, through secret complicity or indifference; of those who take refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world and also of those who sidestep the effort and sacrifice required, producing specious reasons of higher order. The real responsibility, then, lies with individuals. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, n. 16

 

Purification is Inevitable

As an American reader said to me years ago:

We know that America has sinned against the greatest light; other nations are just as sinful, but none have had the gospel preached and proclaimed as America has. God will judge this country for all the sins that cry out to heaven… It’s shameless flaunting of homosexuality, murder of millions of pre-born babies, rampant divorce, lewdness, pornography, child abuse, occult practices and on and on and on. Not to mention the greed, worldliness, and lukewarmness of so many in the Church. Why has a nation that was once a bastion and stronghold of Christianity and so wonderfully blessed by God… turned its back on Him? —from Mystery Babylon

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She has become a haunt for demons. She is a cage for every unclean spirit, a cage for every unclean bird, a cage for every unclean and disgusting beast… Alas, alas, great city, Babylon, mighty city. In one hour your judgment has come. (Rev 18:2, 10)

Is this “doom and gloom”? Yes, in fact, it is doom and gloom (especially for those who are sexually enslaved). These words, and that film, should make you and I very uncomfortable. For the entire West is experiencing a moral collapse akin to that prior to the collapse of the Roman Empire. 

As during the fall of Rome, elites are only concerned to increase the luxury of their daily life and the peoples are being anesthetized by ever more vulgar entertainment. As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West! The barbarians are already inside the city. The barbarians are all those who hate human nature, all those who trample upon the sense of the sacred, all those who do not value life, all those who rebel against God the Creator of man and nature. —Cardinal Robert Sarah, Catholic Herald, April 5th, 2019; cf. The African Now Word and The Enemy is Within the Gates

We didn’t arrive here overnight. We didn’t build a culture that celebrates nudity and sodomy in its streets in a single day. It began with apostasy in the Church, with the loss of her sense of mission, of truth, of the sanctity of the priesthood, such that the popes were already lamenting our present state at the end of the 19th century:^[6]cf. Why Aren’t the Popes Shouting?

…he who resists the truth through malice and turns away from it, sins most grievously against the Holy Ghost. In our days this sin has become so frequent that those dark times seem to have come which were foretold by St. Paul, in which men, blinded by the just judgment of God, should take falsehood for truth, and should believe in “the prince of this world,” who is a liar and the father thereof, as a teacher of truth: “God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying (2 Thess. ii., 10). In the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and the doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. iv., 1). —POPE LEO XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, n. 10

Today, the fruits of this apostasy are increasingly everywhere, as headlines such as this become the norm: “Over 1,000 clergy accused of pedophilia in Spain’s Catholic Church”

We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility. But neither can we remain silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light. There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society. The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, On the occasion of Christmas Greetings, December 20th, 2010; vatican.va

Indeed, as my wife and our sons watched Sound of Freedom, I found myself begging Jesus to come quickly and purify this world. And He responds to each and every one of us living on the face of the earth in this hour — we who are living in this Babylon:

Depart from her, my people, so as not to take part in her sins and receive a share in her plagues, for her sins are piled up to the sky… (Revelation 18:4-5)

Sound of Freedom is not just another “social justice” movie. It is a trumpet blast from Heaven.

The threat of judgment also concerns us,
the Church in Europe, Europe and the West in general…
the Lord is also crying out to our ears…
“If you do not repent I will come to you
and remove your lampstand from its place.”
Light can also be taken away from us
and we do well to let this warning ring out
with its full seriousness in our hearts,
while crying to the Lord: “Help us to repent!” 
—POPE BENEDICT XVI, Opening Homily, 
Synod of Bishops, October 2nd, 2005, Rome

 

Related Reading

The Fall of Mystery Babylon

The Coming Collapse of America

 

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