Thursday, May 27, 2010

Pope Leo XIII - The Oldest Footage of a Pope

This is the oldest known footage of a Pope in existence. This film of Pope Leo XIII was created in 1896. The audio portion is the oldest known audio recording of a Pope, also of Pope Leo XIII recorded in 1903. The audio is Pope Leo XIII chanting the Ave Maria in Latin.

Pope Leo XIII (2 March 1810 - 20 July 1903), born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903 in succession to Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind his immediate predecessor Pius IX and John Paul II. He is known for intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his encyclical Rerum Novarum and his attempts to define the position of the Church with regard to modern thinking.




Popes Leo XIII's Scheme Comes to Fruition

(Excerpts) - The emergence of the Religious Right in the United States can be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the vision of Leo XIII...it was Rome's objective to "gain favor among Protestants, and not to be suspected as propaganda."

A letter from the Vatican outlining the plans of Pope Leo XIII respecting the United States was published in the New York Sun, July 11, 1892, and contains the following significant statement:
     "What the church has done in the past for others, she will now do for the United States....He [the pope] hails in the United American States, and in their young and flourishing church the source of new life for Europeans....If the United States succeed in solving the many problems that puzzle us, Europe will follow her example." - "New York Sun," July 11, 1892; quoted in "Liberty," 1907, No. 4, p. 10.

How remarkably this coincides with the prophetic prediction: "His deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Rev. 13:3. Yes, it is true that "as America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the Papacy in forcing the conscience and compelling men to honor the false sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example." - "Testimonies," Vol. VI, p. 18. This country led the world from despotism to liberty, and it will lead the way back.  Christian Edwardson in  Facts of Faith, (published in 1943) p. 260, emphasis added.

A. T. Jones and Christian Edwardson, whose careful research exposed the master scheme conceived by Pope Leo XIII and followed relentlessly by his successors.  From one of  A. T. Jones' sermons at the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference session of 1895 we quote:

The papacy is very impatient of any restraining bonds; in fact, it wants none at all. And the one grand discovery Leo XIII has made, which no pope before him ever made, is that turn which is taken now all the time by Leo and from him by those who are managing affairs in this country--the turn that is taken upon the clause of the Constitution of the United States: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Leo has made the discovery that the papacy can be pushed upon this country in every possible way and by every possible means and that congress is prohibited from ever legislating in any way to stop it. That is a discovery that he made that none before him made and that is how it is that he of late can so fully endorse the United States Constitution.

We all know of course that that was intended to be the expression of the American people always, that religion should have no place in governmental affairs and no connection whatever with it. But the papacy is never satisfied without taking possession of everything in the government and running it in the interests of the church and Leo XIII has found out that this can all be done under the cover of that constitutional statement which was intended to prevent such a thing forever.

Thus the papacy in plain violation of the Constitution will crowd herself upon the government and then hold up that clause as a barrier against anything that any would do to stop it. And every one that speaks against this working of the papacy, behold! He "is violating the Constitution of the United States" in spirit, because the constitution says that nothing shall ever be done in respect to any religion or the establishment of it. When a citizen of the United States would rise up and protest against the papacy and all this that is against the letter and the spirit of the constitution, behold! He does not appreciate "the liberty of the constitution. We are lovers of liberty; we are defenders of the constitution; we are glad that America has such a symbol of liberty" as that.  Indeed they are.
That is why Pope Leo XIII turns all his soul, full of ideality, to what is improperly called his American policy. It should be rightly called his Catholic universal policy. (A. T. Jones in his sermon "The Papacy," Third Angel's Message 3, 1895 General Conference, emphasis added)

A letter from Rome, dated October 14, 1894, says:

"The United States of America, it can be said without exaggeration, are the chief thought of Leo XIII....A few days ago, on receiving an eminent American, Leo XIII said to him: 'But the United States are the future; we think of them incessantly.'...That is why Leo XIII turns all his soul, full of ideality, to what is improperly called his American policy. It should be called his Catholic universal policy." - "Catholic Standard and Times" (Philadelphis), Nov. 3, 1894; quoted in "Protestant Magazine," Oct., 1913, p. 441.

Now the "Catholic Action" is focused on America, not in an antagonistic way, but quietly, in wisely planned, systematically organized, and well directed efforts along numerous lines, so as to gain favor among Protestants, and not to be suspected as propaganda. And, remarkable as it may sound, Protestant leaders and people are totally asleep on the Catholic question, even more so than the Huguenots were in France before the St. Bartholomew's Massacre. 

Guided by the light of prophecy, notable Church leaders like A. T. Jones and Christian Edwardson laid the groundwork for our understanding of current events.   From the Bible these men received the wisdom to discern the conception in the mind of Leo XIII of the original grand design to subvert and destroy the Constitution of the United States of America. They discerned the future workings of papal policy in the politics of this nation.    Source

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