Well, since you have been a Catholic all your life, I expect you don’t know what the other half of Christianity says about Bergoglio, and what they have been saying about Catholicism for a century. I’m talking about the premilliennial Christians, which are about 25-35%.
Premillennials believe in a pretty literal interpretation of the Bible, and that interpretation says that the world is in for some rough times, not long from now. You know the words — Armageddon, End Times, Apocalypse, the Day of our Lord, the Time of Jacob’s Trouble — basically, the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Romans, Isaiah, plus Revelation. Seven years of really nasty times on earth before Jesus’ Second Coming. [Note that I just led an 8-week men’s Bible Study on this very topic recently.]
Anyway, two of the markers preceding this nasty time — if you believe it literally — are the establishment of a one-world government and a one-world religion. Does that sound a bit like Bergoglio’s push toward ecumenicalism? Bringing all religions together in the Vatican to pray together? Even if it’s for a good cause, like world peace, should Christians ever link arms with another religion (say Buddhism) and act like we’re praying to the same God?
Protestants have long believed that it would be the Catholic Church of Rome (not all Catholics, mind you, just the official religion) who would make the compromises that would usher in the one world religion.
So the talk on the evangelical side is that perhaps Bergoglio is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy himself. A pope who is taking the first step toward making that one world religion happen.
Anyway, I’m just telling you what the other side of Christendom is talking about, among those who have a brain, and watch this disaster of a man — a socialist pretending to be a pope — destroy a religion.
THank you for your point of view. These are surreal days.