Never mind all the guff: it is a rare thing indeed for atheists and agnostics to be genuinely impressed and inspired by religious leaders. Speaking personally – as a man who is but two drinks short of atheism – although I try to view such leaders with respect, the reasons informing my lack of faith temper the depth of my admiration.

Traditionally, only the Dalai Lama, with his peculiar brand of cuddles, giggles and Gucci, has attracted such widespread acclaim. However, in the brief time since his selection, Pope Francis has attracted a remarkable level of affection from both the faithful and the faithless. Attacks from the Guardian and others have largely failed to stick; instead, the Pope has received a remarkable amount of accolades from a wide variety of sources.

It is all relative, of course. Francis's position on the Falklands has seriously irritated Britons – as the possible inauguration snub by our Royals and officials indicated – and campaigners for gαy rights remain sceptical. But on the whole, in a short period of time he has become unusually well regarded, especially given the general unpopularity of the Catholic Church.

The reason is simple. This is a man who pays his own hotel bills, travels by bus and jeep, wades out into the crowds unguarded, and makes his own telephone calls. (Yesterday, he telephoned the main number of a Jesuit residence in Rome. The receptionist, upon hearing the identity of the caller, responded "yeah, and I'm Napoleon".) This might seem like no great shakes, but given the luxury normally showered upon his office, it takes guts.

In other words, whatever one may think of his views, the Pope has genuine humility. This is such an unusual quality these days that it is like a beacon, outshining our reservations about him. Indeed, the term "Jesuit", formerly associated with tyrannical school regimes and sadism in the public imagination, has started to be rehabilitated.

False humility can be spotted a mile off, of course, and we are all used to doing that. But Pope Francis has proved that authentic humility can be just as immediately visible. This most straightforward of qualities has been absent from public life for so long that we have almost forgotten it were possible. If our politicians had a bit of this to offer, the world would be a very different place.

I think the Anti-christ will be a Jєω who will claim to be the messiah and who will be a worldly leader, not an anti-pope. But what do I know?

Ven. Rev. Fr. Bartholomew Holzhauser in his famous commentary upon the Apocalypse of St. John [Venerabilis servi Dei Bartholomaei Holzhauser, Instituti Clericorum juxta SS. Canones in Germania restauratoris, Interpretatio in Apocalypsin (Vindobonae [Vienna]: Typis Congregationis Mechitharisticae, 1850)] held that Apoc. cap. xiii. 11-18 is to be interpreted as pertaining to the turpidissimo et sceletissimo idolo Antipapa: the second beast shall be an anti-Pope who shall persecute the Latin Occident and nearly destroy it, whilst the anti-Christ persecutes the Orient and seeks to control Jerusalem.

Here is a very loose transliteration of a small portion of the pertinent text:

Quote

Regarding the most disgraceful and iniquitous idolater, the anti-Pope, who shall waste the Western Church, and shall make it adore the first beast.

Cap. XIII. v. 11-18

And I saw another beast coming up from the earth: and he had two horns, like to a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. The beast coming up from the earth is the false Prophet, and the herald of the son of perdition […] he shall be an apostate Christian and rise forth secretly and fraudulently, and shall congregate the Jєωs, who in those days shall be exceedingly multiplied everywhere, and shall adhere unto him in one spirit, and shall enter unto the sacerdotal land [the Roman Church] with a great army, and shall occupy the See of Peter, and shall slay the latest Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and shall pour forth the blood of Christians, especially those who rule [as Prelates], like unto the water round about Jerusalem, and shall scatter the Church throughout the desert, and in the wildernesses, and forests, and mountains, and in the rocky caves, for the Shepherd shall be stricken and the sheep scattered; it shall be like unto the day of the Passion of Christ, wherein the Church was seen to be beheld unto the utmost desolation, when it said: for it is written, I shall strike the Shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered; then the Latin Church shall be wasted, and there shall be a total departure from the faith, and the son of the perdition shall be revealed by this false Prophet, as if he would be Christ. […]

The aforementioned Rev. Fr. Berry adds in his own commentary that the anti-Christ would avail himself of Zionism to achieve this end. So, the anti-Christ through the Zionists shall take temporal primacy in the Orient and shall thence prepare to subjugate the Occident, having been already devastated by the anti-Pope.

The Holy Roman Empire has been obliterated and Christian Europe is but a memory: the Zionists and internationalists have advanced to take on the Orient as seen in the latest campaigns against the anti-Zionists nations in the Middle East. Already the American Republic is a now more than ever a disgraceful whore to Israel, thanks now to neo-socialist sociopathic Obama-drama.