Thursday 18th to 25th January is designated as Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which was started 110 years ago within the Roman Catholic Church and has since become an international ecumenical act of observance.

In Liphook, Anglican, Methodist and Catholic churches each sent a representative to the next church in that sequence to say the morning prayers during yesterday’s services. In our Church Centre, after leading the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray, Catholic Richard T opened his prayers for unity by praying for the Pope and all church leaders.

I added personally that Pope Francis have a direct revelation of the Lord’s heart for and of holy writ concerning Jerusalem because his recent actions have left a great deal to be desired. It certainly appears he’s either ignorant of the scriptures, or has an entirely different agenda, notwithstanding apparently benign intentions.

Were Pope Francis a Bible-believing Christian he’d need to abide by that church’s own teachings on scripture’s authority. His predecessor Leo XII’s famous encyclical of 1893  ‘Providentissimus Deus‘ on ‘the importance for Catholics to study the Holy Scriptures solemnly affirms that the entire Bible is God’s Word, holy and true’. Fifty years later Pope Pius XII in his encyclical ‘Divino Afflante Spiritu’ notes how Leo’s program for scriptural studies bore great fruit so that “confidence in the authority and historical value of the Bible..among Catholics is completely restored”!  [The Holy Family Bible, 1956]

Thus, Pope Francis has no excuse for failing to stand upon even the very few scriptures covered in this blog on the centrality of Jerusalem in Divine Providence, or for lending support to teaching and doctrines opposed to God’s Holy Word!

POPE FRANCIS’ REACTIONS

Friday 19th January’s Koenig’s Eye View From The White House lists events under the sub-head ‘Pope Francis siding with Muslims over Jerusalem, supports an Arab State in Judea and Samaria, meeting with Muslim leaders‘:

December 6, 2017: Pope supports UN Resolutions on Jerusalem

“Everyone should be committed to respecting the city’s status quo, in accordance with the pertinent UN resolutions …I pray to the Lord that its identity to be preserved and strengthened for the benefit of the Holy Land, the Middle East and the whole world and that wisdom and prudence prevail to prevent new elements of tension from being added to a global context already convulsed by so many cruel conflicts.”

December 25, 2017: Pope supports two-states and asks for peace in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. supports UN borders

“We see Jesus in the children of the Middle East who continue to suffer because of growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. On this festive day, let us ask the Lord for peace for Jerusalem and for all the Holy Land. Let us pray that the will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two States within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders.”

January 19, 2018: Pope renews call to maintain Jerusalem status quo

Referring to “the unique nature of Jerusalem” in a letter to Egypt’s top Muslim cleric, Ahmed al-Tayeb, Francis said that “only a special status, guaranteed by the international community, can preserve its identity, (and) unique vocation as a place of peace.”  Only that “would allow a future of reconciliation and hope for the entire region,” he said. “The Holy See will not cease from urgently calling for dialogue to resume between Israelis and Palestinians for a negotiated solution aimed at the peaceful coexistence of two states,” the letter continued.

As that cleric should be treated with the utmost suspicion, the pontiff’s dealings with him could be regarded as the height of stupidity or duplicity!

Koenig is of the opinion that, in his continued support for an Arab State in Judea, Samaria and E Jerusalem, the Pope needs to read the Bible’s prophecies, especially Zechariah chapter 12.  Also that, having met with Jordanian leader King Abdullah II, Francis will – along with Turkey’s president Erdogan on February 5 – call on President Trump to reverse his Jerusalem declarations.  Not forgetting that last month Erdogan cited the Pope’s statements in support of his outrage against Trump and Israel!!

DUPED PONTIFF & MENDACIOUS IMAM?

Not taking a stand upon the Word of God leaves Rome’s Pontiff the fall-guy to ‘the most influential Muslim in the world’ (2013 survey).  The Kingdom’s expectation of high levels of personal honesty expected of disciples and knowledge of ‘The Father of Lies’ makes Christians blithely ignorant of religiously sanctioned lying in order to protect or promote Islam.

As I stated in Catholic and Orthodox Churches Choose Fealty to 7th Century Muslim Edict,  deception and dissimulation are sanctioned in the Qur’an under the doctrine of  taqiyya. According to a former Islamic studies professor at the American University of Beirut, Sami Mukaram, “Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era”.

“There’s nothing like knowing Arabic—that is, being privy to the Muslim world’s internal conversations on a daily basis — to disabuse oneself of the supposed differences between so-called “moderate” and “radical” Muslims.”  (Raymond Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader.)

Pope Francis gave a noble speech upon meeting Ahmed Al-Tayeb last April (read his 12 Key Points) – and has since met him a third time – but author Raymond, of Coptic Christian parents, thoroughly demolishes the facade in documenting the cleric’s history of adherence to all the extreme demands and nuances of Islam in ‘The Real Bomb is in Islam’s Books‘ and Dr Ahmed al-Tayeb: Meet “the World’s Most Influential Muslim”, published 2017 and 2016 respectively.

So, let’s pray for the scales to fall from the pontiff’s eyes and for him to hear our Father in Heaven on this whole issue. Also, for Ahmed al-Tayeb to have a ‘Damascus road’ experience of his supposed prophet Jesus being The Son of God…AMEN!

Further Reading:

• Raymond’s eye-opening analysis, How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War.
• On Al-Azhar university from previous Professor of Islamic History Mark Gabriel in Cameron: A War Against Al-Qaeda Could Last Decades…