On Saturday morning, the attention of the world focused on the Vatican in Rome. Fifty heads of state, 12 reigning monarchs and 15 heads of government gathered for the funeral of Pope Francis. They were joined by 400,000 mourners—250,000 at the funeral itself, 150,000 waiting to watch the pope’s hearse drive by.

As I watched the footage, I was reminded of “The Dark Side of the Pope’s Funeral,” an article Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote the last time a sitting pope died in 2005. “Pope John Paul ii was one of the better popes,” he wrote. “He led a church of 1.1 billion people. Never has a pope or church been praised more than in the news surrounding his funeral.”

He described the way “America and Britain have been mesmerized by the pope’s funeral.” It’s not just Britain and America. The funeral was a powerful reminder to Europe of its Catholic heritage. “Today the Germans and the [European Union] are once again focusing the people’s minds on the Holy Roman Empire,” wrote Mr. Flurry. “European Parliamentarian Otto von Habsburg once said, ‘The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live.’”

A Focus to Stir Imaginations

“People need a more specific focus to stir their imaginations,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “And they are getting just that.” He continued:

Mr. Habsburg, a descendant of the Habsburg dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire for 400 years, talked about a crown in a museum in Vienna, Austria, which symbolizes a great deal to the Germans. He said, “We possess a European symbol which belongs to all nations of Europe equally; this is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which embodies the tradition of Charlemagne.” Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in a.d. 800—many call it the First Reich. Historians say he ‘waded through a sea of blood’ to convert people to Catholicism. But that was long ago, and few understand history from 1,200 years ago.

Focusing the attention of the world on 2,000 years of tradition deeply rooted in every European city and culture cannot help but stir those imaginations.

The significance of that funeral is not merely symbolic. In that same article, Mr. Flurry wrote: “Many people believe the Vatican is going to usher in world peace. However, the Vatican has an established record of causing, supporting and guiding many wars as a part of the Holy Roman Empire.”

This role as a peacemaker was displayed even more vividly at the recent funeral. The most iconic picture didn’t show Pope Francis or any cardinals; instead it was United States President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pulling up two chairs to talk about peace for Ukraine in St. Peter’s Basilica. Even without a pope, the Vatican is establishing itself as a peacemaker.

“Faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re in his funeral homily. “War, he said, results in the death of people and the destruction of homes, hospitals and schools. War always leaves the world worse than it was before: It is always a painful and tragic defeat for everyone.”

But as Mr. Flurry wrote: “Even much of the Vatican’s recent history has been nothing short of shocking. Since it professes to represent God, shouldn’t we at least examine the truth and hold it accountable, as we do other institutions and nations—many of which make no claim that they speak for God?”

His article does just that, examining the more recent history of World War ii—how the Catholic Church worked with the Nazis, helped them escape, and pushed to make the pope who oversaw it all a saint.

A Tale of Two Funerals

Revisiting Pope John Paul ii’s funeral also demonstrated some powerful changes. Some 400,000 attendees is an impressive number—but it is dwarfed by the 4 to 5 million who turned out for John Paul ii’s funeral. In the first 24 hours of displaying John Paul ii’s body, 1 million people came to see it, some waiting 13 hours. This time, only 50,000 passed in the first day, and 250,000 in total. While billions across the world have seen pictures and video clips of Francis’s funeral, how many actually watched it live? We don’t have the figures yet, but it must be well short of the 2 billion who watched John Paul ii’s.

Even years later, when John Paul ii was beatified in 2011, 1.5 million attended the mass.

Less than a year after he took office, Francis was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Media outlets gushed about the “Francis effect.”

“[W]hat makes this pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all,” wrote Time (Dec. 11, 2013).

Where are those millions now?

Some have been disillusioned by years of scandal. The next pope “will face challenges that dwarf those that confronted any incoming pope in living memory,” wrote Damian Thompson in the Spectator. “The church is mired in doctrinal confusion; its structures of government are fragmented; sexual scandals have been hushed up at the highest level; and it is staring into a financial abyss.”

Events around the funeral kept pointing back to these scandals. Its organizer, Papal Camerlengo Cardinal Kevin Farrell, was housemates with notorious sexual abuser Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was finally removed from the priesthood in 2019. Roger Mahony, who was removed from office in 2013 for mishandling clerical abuse, closed Francis’s coffin lid. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who gave mass the next day, is deeply implicated in a financial scandal that saw an archbishop admit to an English court that he “was not honest” in financial dealings.

None of the scandals on display were new. The outrage has subsided—instead the funeral was merely met with apathy.

It could get worse. “There are perhaps a dozen other scandals which swirled through the Vatican when Francis was pope that have never been fully investigated, if at all,” wrote Thompson. “For years, everyone in Rome has been saying: ‘It will all come out when he dies.’ Dealing with the fallout will be left to the next supreme pontiff.”

A New Direction

“We are about to see a massive Roman Catholic revival in Germany, in Europe and around the world!” wrote Brad Macdonald in the January-February 2025 issue of our sister publication, the Royal Vision. “Bible prophecy makes this clear. Current trends in Europe may look the opposite.”

The Catholic Church is still the biggest church in the world and the only one that commands anything like Saturday’s media attention. But as Mr. Macdonald wrote:

The church is suffering real tensions and schisms, especially in Germany where hundreds of thousands have officially left in recent years. Some have left because they no longer want to pay the church tax; many because the church and the current pope have absorbed too much leftist thinking toward homosexuality, lgbtq, migrants and other issues; many because the church hasn’t absorbed enough of that thinking; and many due to the revelation of the church’s numerous accounts of sexual abuse and cover-ups. Yet prophecy is clear that the Holy Roman Empire will rise again, dominated by the Vatican and Germany.

Europe, especially France and Germany, has been the epicenter of Catholicism for centuries, yet now it is the one place on Earth where the church is losing followers rather than gaining them. But the Bible says this trend is about to change rapidly and radically!

The Bible gives detailed and specific prophecies about the role the Catholic Church will soon play in Europe and the world. “In some ways, Pope Francis has prepared the Catholic Church to fulfill some of these prophecies,” wrote Mr. Flurry in our latest Trumpet magazine (published before the pope died). “However, I believe the changing time we live in will require a different pope. Pope Francis doesn’t quite fit the picture.”

Some in the Vatican are reaching the same conclusion.

When asked to explain the lower funeral turnout, Vatican watcher Francis X. Rocca listed the causes Francis stood for as one reason. “Advocacy for migrants, for the environment are not winning politically, even in his native Argentina, in the United States and in Europe,” he said. “Right-wing populism is on the rise.”

This lower turnout could push the Catholic Church to pick a different successor. “There might be a sense that maybe this isn’t a vote for continuity,” he said.

This funeral will mark a turning point for the Catholic Church—and all mankind. The church will revive and unite Europe as a new 10-nation superpower. Now is the time to understand exactly what the Bible says is coming so you can watch these dramatic prophecies play out before your eyes.

“In 2021, Donald Trump looked politically dead: The presidential election was stolen from him, and an impostor was in the White House,” wrote Mr. Macdonald. “Yet … Gerald Flurry said Mr. Trump would return to power because prophecies in Amos 7 and 2 Kings 14 about him had not yet been fulfilled. Four years later, that forecast was proved correct.”

You have an opportunity to see the same powerful example of fulfilled prophecy. Understand what the Bible says now, and you have the opportunity to build your faith in the living God—see that He controls world events, and prove where He is working right now. Mr. Macdonald’s free book, The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy, will help you do just that.