Dying Pope

The Pope may be dying. A job which is generally reserved for old men does not often see them filling it for long, though there have been notable exceptions. While Bergoglio’s ill-health elicits some sympathy within me, his death will see him stand before the Great God to answer for his lies and falsehoods. For leading a system which feeds a billion people around the globe with a counterfeit version of Christianity, his first interview with Jesus Christ, whose earthly substitute and voice he claims to be, is not one I shall envy. Almost as disturbing a prospect will be all the sycophantic sentiments and outpourings of grief from Protestant Christian leaders. Conveniently overlooking his frauds and fabrications, they will focus on his charitable deeds, his pronouncements on world peace, his charming smiles and his apparent love for progressive policies.

If the death of a pope will expose his blackened soul before Almighty God, it will also expose the ignorance of real Christians who ought to know better.

Now I saw in my dream, that at the end of this valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny the men whose bones, blood, and ashes, &c., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that PAGAN has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.

So I saw that Christian went on his way; yet, at the sight of the Old Man that sat in the mouth of the cave, he could not tell what to think, especially because he spoke to him, though he could not go after him, saying, “You will never mend till more of you be burned.” But he held his peace, and set a good face on it, and so went by and caught no hurt. Then sang Christian:

O world of wonders! (I can say no less),

That I should be preserved in that distress

That I have met with here! O blessed be

That hand that from it hath deliver’d me!

Dangers in darkness, devils, hell, and sin

Did compass me, while I this vale was in:

Yea, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets, did lie

My path about, that worthless, silly I

Might have been catch’d, entangled, and cast down;

But since I live, let JESUS wear the crown.

-John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1

Image by Annett_Klingner from Pixabay