"Mary" Queen of Heaven and Antichrist

This is an old movie, twenty years old or so anyway, I couldn't read the date on it, all about the apparitions of "Mary" that had been increasing up to that point. I wonder how many have appeared since then. Anyway it's a very careful biblical exploration of the nature of these apparitions and the claims made for "Mary" by the Roman Catholic Church.



As I watched it I became impressed with how literally this "Mary" is Antichrist, that is, she literally puts herself in the place of Christ by all the titles and attributes "she" claims for herself, from "Mediatrix" to "Co-Redemptrix" to sufferer for our sins and so on. When it is then shown how the popes, and particularly Pope John Paul, give glory to her and point people to her and take seriously the messages from her apparitions, it puts the popes in the position of "False Prophet," much like that second beast in the Book of Revelation chapter 13 who gives glory to the first beast that has the number 666 which we identify as the Antichrist. the False Prophet causes a statue to be made to the first beast and commands that people worship it. All this very neatly fits those themes of the Book of Revelation.

Except that it's hard to connect "Mary" or the Marian apparitions with the first beast or the number 666, at least I don't know how to make that conjnection. As I've many times pointed out here, the number 666 fits the Latin title of the Pope, "Vicar," or "Substitute" for "the Son of God." And the Pope certainly does claim to be that ssubstitute in many ways.

That is one of the reasons I keep going with the Protestant Reformers in identifying the Pope as THE Anticrhist, and the Great Apostasy as first of all the doctrines of the Roman Church, though we can also see it spreading throughout the churches in these last days. In other words I don't think we need to be looking for some unknown figure to arise in the world as the Antichrist, I think he's been year for somje 1500 years. HOWEVER, it's hard to avoid the fact that Hitler was definitely an Antichrist figure too, and Hitler had a Pope that could be said to have played the role of False Prophet to him in some sense. So Hitler being a political leader although he was also in some sense worshipped, is another reason to think the Antichrist of the end days won't be the Pope but the Pope will be the False P{rophet.

The Antichrist Beast has to fulfill the 666 identifier and so far onlyh the Pope does that I know of. And very nicely since the Latin title iself contains the very Roman numerals that add up to that number. No other candidates for that number are so neatly derived.

And it's also otherwise hard to identify "Mary" with the first beast or Anticrhist of Revelation 13. In the film she is identified with teh Harlot of Revelation 17, but that isn't very convincing either. The Harlot is a clear antithesis to the Bride of Christ, in other worse she represents the false Church, which since she rides a bedast that represents the city of Rome is clearly the Roman Church. The Mary of the apparitions is certainly a Roman Church invention who is worshipped by Popes as well as millions of Catholics, but I find it hard to identify her with the Harlot which so neatly opposes the Bride of Christ..

However, as I've mentioned from time to time here, Alexander Hislop who wrote the book "The Two Babylons" which traces the pagan religion of Babylon to the Roman Church, speculated that the Beast could be "Mary." When you see in the film the millions of people who come to adore and worship the apparitions, and all the testimonies to supernatural signs and wonders that attend tha apparitions, the connection between them and the Antichrist Beast is nhot at all farfetched. It's just that there doesn't seem to be any cleare way to identify her with the characteristics of the beast of Rebvelation 13 or the number 666 which identifies it or "him." If Hislop showed a connection with the 666 I missed it.

Nevertheless the claims of the apparitions that usurp the role of Christ, its milllionbs of worshippers, its signs and wonders, the fact that Mary is worshipped by Popes, all put "her" in the role of Antichrist, certainly AN Anticrhist, but one that has enormous religious significance.
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Itg's also interesting that one of the apparitions specifically asks people to worship statues of her. The False Prophet will have an image made of the Beast and have the power to cause it to appear alive, and will command that people worhip it, and will have people killed who refuse. As Jan Markell has pointed out there are now gigantic statues in various parts of the world that have the unusual ability of representing anyone and make that person seem to be alive. I don't know who erected them or why, but they certainly sound like something that could fit right into that prophecy of Revelation 13.

At the very least all this just shows how very close the very End must be.