When the pope speaks, the world listens—global leadership and secular humanity alike. Little wonder that Pope Francis’s much-anticipated encyclical, released Thursday of last week, garnered so much international attention.

Laudato Si (Praise Be to You): On Care for Our Common Home has been lauded as an unprecedented pontifical statement on the environment. But it is so much more than that. In the words of the New York Times, it calls for “a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles”—nothing less than a painful overhaul of the entire global system.

Only 10 days earlier, the Group of 7 announced its joint declaration on decarbonization. Can it be mere coincidence that the Vatican encyclical, several years in the making, perfectly dovetails with this G-7 commitment? Both are clarion calls for urgent, dramatic and unified global action to change the status quo.

As mainstream media debates the papal pontifications, the role of one G-7 member’s strategic play warrants closer examination—a nation that venerates its close historic ties to Rome.

Diplomatic Coup

Spearheaded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the G-7’s joint statement on global decarbonization was without question the most publicized achievement of its recent summit in Bavaria. Merkel’s agenda was considered ambitious, especially the commitments she was seeking from G-7 partners to work to cut emissions by almost 70 percent by 2050 (from 2010 levels). A consensual outcome was not expected. Yet all G-7 leaders signed on to the fossil fuel pledge, agreeing that a global response of “urgent and concrete action” was needed. In an unprecedented show of unity on this issue, the G-7 members jointly agreed to phase out fossil fuels by the end of the century.

Germany even persuaded perceived climate recalcitrants Japan and Canada to comply. As the Guardian Unlimited described it, this was nothing short of a “diplomatic coup” for Chancellor Merkel. She took the “G-7 by the scruff of the neck,” according to Ruth Davis, a political adviser to Greenpeace.

While it lacks the instruments to enforce any agreements, the G-7 is recognized as a highly significant means of steering global attention and formulating global agendas. According to the German Finance Ministry, the G-7 functions “as a catalyst within the G-20.” A recent German Council on Foreign Relations analysis recognizes that the G-7 sets the G-20 agenda in order to safeguard the G-7’s international “leadership role.” The report confirms the G-7 is a kind of “steering committee” for global policy, “setting the global agenda.” As such, Germany has all but ensured that decarbonization will be a key topic at the G-20 summit in November, ratcheting up the diplomatic pressure ahead of the UN’s drive for an internationally binding deal in Paris in December.

This “diplomatic coup” illustrates the extent to which Berlin’s power projection has expanded beyond its traditional European sphere of influence. Merkel’s move was a “big play” and “more aggressive than you would have expected,” observed Tom Burke, an environmental adviser to Shell, Rio Tinto and Unilever. He added that “the G-7’s primary function was to send signals to other countries and to markets and that the [decarbonization] announcement today would shift things significantly” (Guardian Unlimited, June 8).

Trumpet writers have long detailed Germany’s ascendancy in various supranational institutions including the European Union, the Financial Stability Board (that regulates all major world economies) and nato. The postwar stratagem of German elites, using multinational institutions to progress their agenda, sees Germany punching well above its weight in the global arena. The G-7 decarbonization statement is a prime example. Such diplomatic successes illustrate the “thoroughness” of Germany’s “plans for winning the battle of the peace,” as predicted by Herbert W. Armstrong as far back as 1945.

Within the G-7, another factor greatly amplifies Germany’s diplomatic weight.

Non-enumerated Members

Many assume that the Group of 7 means just that—seven member nations. However, there are two additional non-enumerated members of the G-club: the European Commission and the European Council, each represented by their respective presidents (as this year’s annual “family photo” clearly shows).

The EU—obviously not a single nation-state—has progressively come to hold all the same privileges and obligations of membership in the G-7 as do the nation-states, and is included in all summit working sessions and decision-making.

Unsurprisingly, this is something the Europeans have sought to de-emphasize. At one point former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing recommended that the issue of European representation in the G-group not be raised. “We don’t want to draw attention to the fact that there are four EU members at the G-8 table [as it was prior to Russia being expelled last year] and that the EU is there as well,” he said.

“Overall, the informality of the G-8 has tended to play to the EU’s strengths,” according to The European Union in the G-8, edited by Marina Larionova. It “has meant that the question of what exactly the EU as such is doing at the summit can be safely ignored. … [T]he G-8 reinforces the international legitimacy of the EU and also provides a forum where the EU can develop its international standing.”

With Germany universally acknowledged as the EU’s dominant nation—politically and economically—its position of strength in the G-7 is undoubtedly far greater than its single seat indicates. In addition to the two EU seats, Germany has the two Continental members of the G-7 firmly on its side. Considering Italy is beholden to Germany financially and France has all but surrendered to German leadership, Deutschland can either command or coerce five out of the nine G-7 seats—and thereby gain a key role in setting agendas for the G-20, as indicated above.

Germany’s undeniable influence within the G-7 fits a pattern we see playing out across the board as the United States, rapidly retreating from global leadership, pushes Germany to take on a greater role in the world.

The Catholic-German Connection

Using its political clout, we currently see Germany pushing its global climate policy. At the very same time, the Vatican is using its widely accepted moral authority to drive the same policy. Surely the timing here is more than coincidence.

On February 21, Chancellor Merkel made a trip to Rome exclusively for a private audience with the pope. The primary purpose of that trip, Merkel said, was to discuss the agenda for the G-7 summit in June. Following the meeting, the Vatican issued a press release saying that “in view of the upcoming G-7 summit to be held in Bavaria, special attention was paid to various questions of an international nature,” including “the protection of creation.”

To what extent did the “climate pope” steer the “climate chancellor” during their unusually long meeting? Remember, the pope released his encyclical mere days after the G-7. These twin June pronouncements surely indicate some level of collaboration.

The measures to combat climate change that the Vatican and Germany are pushing, regardless of credence, will demand massive global economic upheaval. Whenever the Fatherland, in concert with the great “mother” church, is pushing a global agenda, the world needs to beware. Both history and prophecy warn that a Catholic-guided European power is not a force for peace.

If there was one warning prophecy for which Herbert W. Armstrong was especially known, it was the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire. Mr. Armstrong continually warned about this coming empire that will be “led by Germany and guided by the Catholic Church. He lived through World War ii, and the sixth of seven prophesied resurrections of that empire. Then he warned that the Holy Roman Empire would start World War iii” (Gerald Flurry, The True History of God’s True Church).

The German voice is growing louder and the world is paying attention. Watch Germany’s efforts to steer the global agenda—and for that agenda to be increasingly in sync with Vatican policy. Discern the papal state taking hold of the European reins. As Mr. Flurry urges in his personal in our May-June Trumpet, “Keep a close watch on Europe. Events are pointing to a dramatic change that will shock the world.”