After being jolted by the reemergence of Russia last month and the near-fatal collapse of America’s economy last week, Europe is fast preparing itself for dramatic changes. Watch for it! And when you see it happen, remember where you heard it first.

On Thursday, Pope Benedict xvi defended his World War ii-era predecessor against critics who say the Vatican turned a blind eye to the Holocaust. Benedict actually praised Pope Pius xii for being “courageous” in trying to save Jews. “Wherever possible he spared no effort in intervening in their favor either directly or through instructions given to other individuals or to institutions of the Catholic Church,” Benedict said.

During the mid-1990s, author John Cornwell also set out to defend Pius’s reputation, believing if the full story were told, his “pontificate would be vindicated.” Accordingly, Cornwell applied for and was granted exclusive access to the Vatican’s archives. He concluded his research in 1997 in a state of “moral shock.” The material he gathered about Pius, from the Vatican’s own library, “amounted not to an exoneration but to a wider indictment,” he wrote in his 1999 book, Hitler’s Pope.

For example, Pius had been receiving information about Hitler’s Final Solution throughout 1942. Jewish groups and Allied officials had repeatedly urged him to publicly condemn Nazi savagery. Under increasing pressure, Pius used a December 1942 radio address to refer to the many thousands who “sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race are marked down for death or gradual extinction.” That was his strongest objection to Hitler’s genocidal rampage. Yet he failed to even mention the Führer by name and made no mention of Nazis or Jews.

In October 1943, ten months after Pius’s radio address, 365 of Hitler’s ss troops entered Rome’s old ghetto and started arresting Italian Jews. They rounded up 1,060 and transported them to a building called Collegio Militare—located less than half a mile from the Vatican. According to Cornwell, Pope Pius was one of the first to be made aware of the Jewish arrests. The Jews were kept at the holding center for two days—right under the pope’s nose—before boarding cattle cars to Auschwitz, where 80 percent of them were gassed within a week.

During the Jews’ two-night confinement down the street from the Vatican, Pope Pius xii did nothing. This is the same man Pope Benedict xvi now says “spared no effort” to help Jews. “One can also come to appreciate the human wisdom and pastoral intensity which guided him in his long years of ministry, especially in providing organized assistance to the Jewish people,” Benedict said about Pius on Thursday.

With his controversial beatification held up for a number of years, Pope Pius xii may finally be inching his way closer to sainthood status, thanks to Benedict.

In other Vatican-related news, last week Pope Benedict xvi also visited French President Nicolas Sarkozy and called on France to rethink its strong position on the separation of church and state. Students of Bible prophecy will not be surprised by Benedict’s insistence on more openness between religion and politics in Europe. As the New York Times reported on Friday,

… Benedict’s insistence that religion and politics be “open” to each other … sends a direct message: the church doesn’t want European law to be at odds with church teaching, and he wants Catholics to make some noise about it.This pope is looking to reconquer Europe, if not in numbers, then at the political table.”Let’s not make mistakes, there are laws in Europe that the Vatican would like to change,” said John L. Allen Jr., a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. Benedict’s remarks in France were “not an apolitical reflection,” he said.

Later, the Times wrote, “Benedict clearly has his sights on Europe.” Electrifying stuff, prophetically speaking. For more, read what we wrote two years ago about the pope’s goal for Europe.

Another Reason for Change in Europe

Columnist Diana West asks: “Is Europe lost?” Not yet, she surmises. “But that doesn’t mean the continent isn’t hell-bent to accommodate the dictates of Islamic law, bit by increasingly larger bit.”

She’s right about Europe being invaded by Islamic culture. But Europe is not so far gone that it is incapable of defending its culture and heritage. Fact is, the Islamization of the continent is among a handful of reasons that will, even over the next few months, transform Europe from a politically inept amorphous hodgepodge of conflicting states into a streamlined federation of nations under the strong leadership of one nation.

As we wrote above, among the reasons prodding Europe to refashion itself as a united world power are Russia’s resurgence and the tanking American (even global) economy. But add the widespread emergence of Islam across Europe into the mix, and the need for a streamlined, politically and militarily empowered, less tolerant United States of Europe is readily apparent.

It’s already happening. Even this weekend right-wing parties from a multitude of EU states gathered in Cologne, Germany, in an effort to establish what organizers called a “European right-wing party.” Here’s what German-Foreign-Policy.com had to say last week about this right-wing gathering (emphasis mine throughout):

Among the participants are organizations from Belgium (Vlaams Belang), the fpo (Austrian Freedom Party—afp) and the Italian (Lega Nord). The European right-wing party, whose German partner is yet to be determined—even the Nationalist Party of Germany (npd) is in consideration—is supposed to field candidates for the European parliamentary elections and constitute a parliamentary group once elected. The campaign focuses on the fight against Islam. This campaign is using the animosity prevalent also outside of right-wing extremist circles that is being strongly fomented in the context of the “war on terror.” This could “possibly lead to an electoral success of the prospective right-wing party,” according to Alexander Haeusler, an expert on right-wing extremism in a discussion with German-Foreign-Policy.com. The new structure, to be extended to all of Europe, is based upon the old tradition of collaboration with Nazi Germany.

The whole article is alarming. Over 100 political leaders were supposed to participate in the anti-Islamization conference. By Friday, thousands of others had gathered in Cologne to lend support to the anti-Islam movement.

On Saturday, the right-wingers became furious when Cologne officials canceled the conference out of fear that large-scale violent clashes between right-wingers and thousands of pro-Islamic protestors might send the city into chaos.

A beast is reawakening in Europe. Consider the results of a Pew Research Center poll released last week. “The analysis revealed that negative views of Muslims and Jews are particularly strong in Europe,” reported EurActiv on Friday.

Xenophobic sentiments were found to be prevalent in Spain, where Jews and Muslims were rated unfavorably by 46 percent and 52 percent of respondents respectively. … Other European countries surveyed came between these two ends of the spectrum, with negative views of Jews appearing stronger in Poland (36 percent) and Russia (34 percent), while Muslims’ image was weaker in Germany (50 percent negative answers). The survey also showed that opinions about Muslims in Europe are considerably more negative than opinions about Jews.

World events are screaming for Europe, particularly Germany—the undisputed leader of the continent—to shed its divisions and pacifism in order to transform itself into an invigorated power capable of countering Russia, leading the global economy and curbing the rise of imperialist Islam.

Europe Ridicules U.S. Meltdown

As we noted in our Trumpet Weekly on Saturday, European markets have been largely unaffected by the economic wreckage on Wall Street. Der Spiegelattributes the stability of Europe’s banks to their “more conservative banking practices” and because they have “steered clear of risky subprime-style mortgage lending.”

Added to that, according to yesterday’sLos Angeles Times, many in Europe are now ridiculing America’s misfortune:

It’s a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street.

The article also identifies one European nation that has not averted economic disaster: Britain. How prophetically important!

Among the European economies, it is Britain’s that most resembles America’s in its vulnerability. The big news of the week drove that home: an announced $22 billion rescue-takeover of the wobbling hbos bank by Lloyd’s tsb.

The Edge of Disaster

How close did America come to economic Armageddon last week? “The nation is gripped by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” the New York Times wrote yesterday. “Before Thursday night, when the Treasury secretary, the Federal Reserve chairman and leaders on Capitol Hill proclaimed their intentions to take over bad debts, the prognosis for the American financial system was sliding from grim toward potentially apocalyptic.” A former vice chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve said, “It looked like we might be falling into the abyss.”

Regarding that meeting Thursday night, the New York Times said congressional leaders sat in “stunned silence” while listening to the assessment. According to Senator Christopher J. Dodd, congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

Today’sNew York Post adds these frightening details:

The market was 500 trades away from Armageddon on Thursday, traders inside two large custodial banks tell The Post.

Had the Treasury and Fed not quickly stepped into the fray that morning with a quick $105 billion injection of liquidity, the Dow could have collapsed to the 8,300-level—a 22 percent decline!—while the clang of the opening bell was still echoing around the cavernous exchange floor.According to traders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, money market funds were inundated with $500 billion in sell orders prior to the opening. The total money-market capitalization was roughly $4 trillion that morning.

These are the alarm bells that prompted the costliest government rescue attempt in U.S. history. The president’s proposal requested “unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms,” wrote the New York Times.

In an attempt to put the stunning price tag into perspective, the Economic Times wrote, “the cost would amount to six months of economic output in a country like France.” The New York Times wrote that it “would roughly be what the country has spent so far in direct costs on the Iraq war and more than the Pentagon’s total yearly budget appropriation. Divided across the population, it would amount to more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.”

The proposal is predicted to raise the national debt to about $11.3 trillion.

The Cause of the Crisis People Won’t Face

Thanks to a gargantuan stock market rally on Thursday and Friday of last week, there is much optimism that the radical moves by Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner will prevent a total economic meltdown in the United States. These moves are the most sweeping government interventions in the economy since the New Deal.

Will these remedies work? It is important to look squarely at what caused all these problems to begin with. Any solution that fails to address the cause will only, at best, delay the inevitable.

Why is the U.S. financial system so diseased? Why is the sickness so overwhelming?

It seems no one is willing to admit the real reason. The government’s interventions certainly do not address it.

As theTrumpet.com has pointed out repeatedly over the years, the financial breakdown has come about fundamentally as a result of a moral breakdown. Look again at Robert Morley’s column from a couple weeks ago:

[T]here is plenty of greed and wrongdoing to go around, and not just on the part of homeowners trying to ditch their underwater mortgages. Queue the thousands of buyers lying on their mortgage applications; appraisers inflating valuations; lenders knowingly overlooking suspect documentation because they were just going to sell the mortgage to someone else anyway; credit-ratings agencies providing triple-A ratings to risky subprime mortgages even though they knew many were up to 10 times riskier than similarly rated investments; and the National Association of Realtors telling people it is always a good time to buy and vigorously denying the existence of a housing bubble—even as the bubble was clearly popping.

In his article last year, “The Con That Turned the World Against America” (one of the most-read articles we have ever posted on theTrumpet.com), Mr. Morley pointed out how such corrupt practices undermined the entire housing industry and crippled America’s financial reputation worldwide.

Trust in America is quickly disappearing. Why? Because America single-handedly brought the international financial system virtually to its knees by foisting off fraud-ridden subprime debt on an unsuspecting world, which resulted in the ensuing credit crunch.

America will not escape unscathed. You can’t cheat the very people you rely upon to lend you money without a backlash.

What is the cause of the problem? The breaking of God’s law!

The Ten Commandments forbid coveting and greed—which has been at the very heart of the problem. They prohibit lying and deceit—such as what we have seen at all levels in this financial crisis. They proscribe stealing—another alarmingly common practice. Across the board there have been people trying to work the system to get all they can—regardless of right and wrong, regardless of the non-monetary cost, regardless of who gets hurt.

It has all been caused by the way of get. As Proverbs 28:20 says, “He that makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” The love of money, it surely is true, is the root of terrible, terrible evil.

The fact is, no financial system can stand for long when its foundations are compromised by such corruption.

The market is hopeful that disaster has been averted by the government’s latest interventions. But in reality, the government itself is compromised with the same fundamental problems. Its own debt is approaching $10 trillion. An enormous amount of that is owned by foreign nations that, you can be sure, are looking intensively for a way to get their money out as quickly as possible without jeopardizing it completely.

As much as the U.S. government pretends it has the resources to fix these problems, the reality is that it too is a hair’s breadth away from requiring outside intervention itself.

Its solutions to the crisis are no solutions at all.

Bomb Rocks Popular Hotel in Islamabad

A suicide bomb in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, killed at least 53 people and injured more than 260, including a dozen or more foreigners, yesterday evening. The bomb hit the Marriott Hotel, leaving a 20-foot crater, at a time when the hotel was packed with guests. The blast, thought to have been caused by more than a ton of explosives, destroyed the entire front section of the hotel and brought down the ceiling of the banqueting hall. While there have been no claims of responsibility so far, the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies are considered the most likely suspects. bbc News reports:

Analysts say the attack is the most serious in the Pakistani capital to date and will spark fears about the country’s stability in the face of a growing Islamist insurgency.

Pakistan has been a key ally of the U.S. in its “war on terror,” but relations have become strained over tactics.

In recent months Pakistan has voiced growing disquiet over U.S. raids targeting militants in its territory, launched from neighboring Afghanistan.

Stratfor reported yesterday that the bombing is “perhaps the largest in the latest wave of attacks, going back to about November 2006.” It says this will give the Pakistani government the opportunity to change public opinion to support a tougher stance against Islamist terrorism and closer cooperation with the United States. It remains to be seen how effective it will be in doing this. What is clear is that the Islamist extremists are gaining strength and boldness, and Pakistan is far from stable. Editor in chief Gerald Flurry asked in January whether the U.S., by pushing former President Musharraf out of power, was helping push Pakistan into the hands of radical Islam.

Olmert Steps Down

After nearly three years in office, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert officially submitted his resignation today. His successor in the Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, now has six weeks to forge a coalition ruling party. Should she fail, a general election would be set for early 2009, approximately 18 months ahead of schedule.

Livni told her party earlier today, “If it soon becomes clear that a coalition cannot be formed, we will go to elections and we will win.” The Jerusalem Post adds,

Livni indicated difficulties had been raised by Labor chairman Ehud Barak over coalition-building efforts. “I expect our coalition partners to act accordingly. I intend to decide quickly, even if it seems that time is working in our favor in the coalition negotiations. We must make a decision and take the country out of this position of uncertainty.”

Barak, who, aides say, may prefer to form a national emergency government with the Likud, met [Benjamin] Netanyahu Saturday night at the Defense Ministry and the opposition leader urged Barak to help initiate a new general election rather than join Livni’s government.

Polls show that in the event of a general election, Kadima would be in a tight race with the right-wing Likud leader.

Mbeki Forced Out

South African President Thabo Mbeki has been forced to resign by his own party, the African National Congress (anc). Mbeki, who has ruled South Africa since 1999, was asked to resign following allegations that he had interfered in a corruption case against Jacob Zuma, his likely successor. The bbc reports,

Thabo Mbeki’s demise can be traced back to the ANC’s congress at Polokwane last December.

Up against the controversial but charismatic figure of Jacob Zuma for the position of anc president, his defeat at the time now looks like the beginning of the end.

In the months that followed, Mr. Zuma’s supporters have replaced Mr. Mbeki’s men throughout the anc. It left Mr. Mbeki isolated and emasculated.

anc Secretary General Gwede Mantashe made the announcement Saturday, and parliament is expected to select a successor to Mbeki within 30 days.

That new president will then complete Mr. Mbeki’s term in office until an election expected in April next year.

Jacob Zuma is the anc’s chosen candidate for the election but is unlikely to take over now.

The new president must be a member of parliament, which Mr. Zuma is not, and it is thought that he would prefer to wait for an election and the popular mandate he is almost certain to receive.

TheTrumpet.com wrote in March about how Zuma’s election to the leadership of the anc did not represent a step forward for South Africa. Neither will his anticipated election to president of the country. “Watch South Africa,” we wrote. “In state after state on this aged continent, the transfer of power from colonialists to local rule, hailed as a victory for black Africans, has produced devastating results.” Read South Africa in Prophecy to find out what is in store for this country.

Fascism Goes Mainstream in Italy

Italy has swung dramatically to the right over the past year. On Friday, the Financial Times wrote about the shocking comeback of fascism in the Italian nation:

With the shift to the right in the make-up of Silvio Berlusconi’s third coalition government that swept April’s elections, including victory for Rome’s first right-wing mayor since the war, more serious attempts to reappraise fascism are emerging as politicians on the right flex their muscles.

Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has already passed a law that bans criminal investigations on the president, the prime minister and the speakers of the Senate and Lower House. Three thousand troops now patrol the streets in Italy’s biggest cities. And Rome’s new mayor, according to the Financial Times piece,

was quoted as saying fascism was a “complex phenomenon” and that it was the 1938 racial laws imposed by Mussolini that were the “absolute evil” rather than the ideology itself.

Italy’s defense minister also sparked controversy recently when he praised Italian soldiers who continued fighting against the Allies even after Italy surrendered in 1943. “They deserve respect as they fought for their homeland,” he said.

Federico Iadicicco, a leader of the National Alliance’s youth movement, made it clear that his party would never oppose fascism, saying, “We can’t be, we don’t want to be and we never will be anti-fascist.”

These are not a few leaders from a right-wing fringe party. The National Alliance is in the process of merging with Berlusconi’s Forza Italy to form the People’s Liberation Party.

In Italy, fascism has gone mainstream.

Elsewhere on the Web

You might salute Niall Ferguson’s enduring but unfounded optimism, but the more important point here is how many serious people are asking not how Wall Street will get through this financial crisis, but whether or not America as a major power will survive at all.

As the Japanese look for their third prime minister in two years, candidates are handling ties to the U.S. gingerly. “The Japan-U.S. relationship stands at a crossroads in terms of both political and economic ties,” one Tokyo political analyst said.

“I’m wondering whether this augurs the end of the United States as a major power,” one small business owner says. “This is the kind of financial instability that can pull a country down.” It’s a sentiment shared by many, especially those who are watching their nest eggs become worthless, and they have good reason.

Over here, the Washington Post discusses the ways in which moral breakdown caused America’s economic collapse.

Many Americans have decided churchgoing just doesn’t do it for them anymore, but with the church experience being what it is, how much can you blame them?

South Dakotans are challenged with the question of whether or not to ban most abortions. But meanwhile the Washington Post betrays its own bias on the issue by introducing the subject with a super-rare abortion case.

Also at the Washington Post, a politician begins the fight for his Senate seat at the same time he tries to make his case against corruption charges. Would you believe God forecasted the United States of America’s dearth of honorable leaders?

And Finally …

Thanks to our readers for making traffic on theTrumpet.com last week the third-busiest of the year. The top two weeks, by the way, occurred during an advertising campaign in April, which significantly boosted our numbers. In recent weeks, we haven’t done any advertising.

In addition to the heavy traffic, last week was our best week ever for returning visitors.

Thanks again—and spread the word!