In a historic moment for the Catholic Church, the College of Cardinals elected the first American pope in the church’s 2,000-year history. Roughly an hour after white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel chimney earlier today, Cardinal Robert Prevost addressed the world as Pope Leo xiv. His first words to the crowd were, “Peace be with you all!”

Before today, many people said the idea of an American pope was unthinkable. The rationale was that European cardinals would never support one hailing from the world superpower. Yet Cardinal Prevost, who served as head of the Vatican department tasked with advising Pope Francis on picking new bishops around the world, obviously had many friends in the Catholic hierarchy. He was elected on the fourth ballot in an unusually fast and efficient conclave.

United States President Donald Trump congratulated Cardinal Prevost after his election, saying, “It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American pope.” Many U.S. citizens share President Trump’s enthusiasm. Yet just because Cardinal Prevost is an American citizen does not mean Pope Leo xiv will govern as a pro-American pontiff.

“I think a lot of us had a question mark when they elected an American, and then he selected the name Pope Leo xiv,” said Dr. Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Manhattan University. “It really means to me he will continue the work of Leo xiii.”

What was the work of Leo xiii? Primarily it was to unite the world against the free market. Grieved by what he saw as the twin evils of Protestant capitalism and atheistic socialism, Pope Leo xiii penned an apostolic exhortation in 1891. This exhortation, “On Capital and Labor,” described an economic model that soon gained wide acceptance as a “Third Way.” In reality, however, this model wasn’t new. It was an updated version of the medieval feudal order.

The basic premise of Catholic corporatism (as described by Pope Leo xiii) is that the goal of equality is actually a cruel illusion: People are happiest when placed in a hierarchy guided by the Roman Catholic Church. Competition is spiritually demeaning; therefore, business, labor and the state must work together in corporations that control quotas, prices, wages, individual behavior and the entire economy. And corporations are controlled by Roman Catholic elites.

Francis was a strong advocate of Leo xiii’s economic policies, so Prevost’s decision to call himself Pope Leo xiv is likely a signal that he intends to continue Francis’s crusade against the free market in general and the U.S. in particular.

Even though Prevost was raised in Chicago, Illinois, he joined an Augustinian mission in Peru when he was 30 years old and has spent 18 out of the past 20 years outside the U.S. He was the bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, from 2014 to 2023. So he shares many of Pope Francis’s Latin American ideas about ministering to the poor and helping illegal immigrants.

In my April 21 article “The Real Legacy of Pope Francis,” I wrote: “Expect Francis’s successor—even if he does end up taking a firmer stance against woke policies—to continue his predecessor’s crusade against the free market and to be instrumental in America’s demise.” Now we have a new pope, and Leo xiv is well placed to continue Francis’s agenda.

We cannot know whether or not Leo xiv will be the last pope. It is certainly possible there could be another conclave before Jesus Christ’s return. But we can know that the Vatican will continue attacking America. Do not be deceived into thinking that the election of the first American pope is a sign that the Vatican is pro-America. The election of the first American pope may signal that the Vatican wants to attack America’s economic system from the inside.

In his book Isaiah’s End-Time Vision, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains Bible prophecies about how the world economy will be dominated by three power blocs in the end time: Tyre, Tarshish and Kittim. Tyre, he explains, represents the commercial center of the modern-day European Union; Tarshish is modern-day Japan; Kittim is modern-day China. Isaiah 23:1-3 say that the merchants of Tarshish will mourn when Tyre is overthrown. This shows that Japan and China will be in a close economic partnership with a German-led superstate that dominates world trade.

Other passages such as Revelation 17 and 18 show that the European economy will be dominated by a church ruling from a seven-hilled city. It so happens that Pope Francis died on April 21, the 2,778th anniversary of the founding of Rome. This is interesting, considering that Rome is the seven-hilled city spoken of in the book of Revelation. The Roman Catholic Church will lead a great “mart of nations” against the United States in the end time.

Pope Francis probably did more than any pope in history to turn global sentiment against free-market capitalism and its primary proponent, the U.S. Yet his efforts may soon be eclipsed by his successor, Pope Leo xiv of Chicago. Bible prophecy forecast thousands of years ago that the bishop of Rome would wage war against the U.S. So while we cannot be sure whether Leo is the last pope, we can be sure he will fulfill Bible prophecies about the Vatican.

To learn more, read our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.