The mother of harlots as depicted in Revelation seventeen and eighteen is a composite of apostate Christian denominations, as well as other world religions, which are being led and directed by the oldest, and most powerful daughter of Mystery Babylon  ‑ Roman Catholicism.

In the interest of fairness and truth we must point out that Mystery Babylon’s roots run much too deep to be considered as running only the course of the Christian Era, or in the course of the Roman and Eastern churches including their various children orthodoxies of African, Russian and British nature.

Mystery Babylon is much bigger than one church or denomination.

In Revelation 17:5 she is called “The Mother of Harlots” She is dubbed Mystery Babylon and the Mother of Harlots because she has given birth and fostered the various mongrel denominations within Christianity that by the misappropriation of orthodoxy they have perverted the truth about God and Christ since the days following the Flood.

Nimrod Original Antichrist (circa 2300 BC)
False religion, and therefore Mystery Babylon’s foundations, were laid as early as the Garden of Eden and the expulsion that took place there and the subsequent Satanic conspiracy of the fallen angels of the Antediluvian Era which nearly provoked God into destroying the entire human race. From passages in Genesis six we understand that some of the fallen angels had left their first estate in heaven and had taken on the likeness of human flesh so they could cohabit with the daughters of men and create a dominant race of half‑man, half‑god supermen who would rule on earth as “gods”. As studies in comparative religion show, a belief in false religion was imbedded in the hearts of Man and established world‑wide. This worship of various gods and their connection with fertility rites and the worship of the elements of heaven and earth, like the sun, moon, water and fire, spread and became more than just a way of life in the Antediluvian world. It became the way of worship for all mankind. In the 16 centuries from Adam’s creation to the Flood polytheism completely supplanted the simple recognition and worship of God.

This abhorrent religion was at the heart of the general evil and corruption into which the Antediluvian world had sunk. The “gods” that were born out of these unholy unions, along with their mothers and their “heavenly” father’s, competed for power with the other “trinities” of their same nature. Thus Genesis says that God looked on the situation and declared that, “The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” These giants were tyrants, or Nephilim (bullies), as the Hebrew word implies about them. They are the real and living versions of what the mythological religions of Rome and Greece would enshrine and deify in the era just before Christ’s first coming. They were embellished by fable and became Zeus, Apollo, Minerva, and the rest of the menagerie masquerading spirits who had left their estate in heaven and mingled with us humans.  Pagan religions of all cultures and civilizations adopted the same legends and myths from those former days and put their own colloquial spin on them. The kingdoms and cities of these half‑breed monsters were what God, in large part, was washing away by the Flood.

But the stories were not so easily washed away as the monsters and violence had been. The legends that grew into overblown fables about these “gods” and their exploits were not lost to posterity. They would be carried into the new world of the post‑Flood Era by, of all people, Noah’s own son, Ham, and his sinister son, Cush and, it would be the son of Cush who would use the anthology of these former pseudo-gods as a basis for his own religion. Nimrod would greatly refine the blasphemous hoax of pagan religion and enshrine himself as lead deity and savior in a false trinity. He would attach to it a system of mystery rites and filthy carnal sacraments that would serve as the religious actions and conduct for “Mystery Babylon”. Like a chameleon this system could be adaptable to the vain imaginings of man and the particulars of any culture so as to suit the customs, climate or agricultural needs of any peoples anywhere. Noah’s great grandson, and the originator of this antichrist religion, of course, is the first of the Antichrist types found in Scripture, the infamous Nimrod.

Nimrod: Father of the Mother of Harlots
Fables and legends abound about this ignoble figure, called in the Hebrew tongue, Nimrod, and known universally (though by different names and identities) throughout the many and varied religions of the ancient world. An in-depth consideration of the information in the Bible shows that more than any other single person or thing, with the exception of Satan himself, this man was responsible for the religious system called Mystery Babylon. This system was cast by his legendary life and his open rebellion against God and was further developed by his wife, Semiramis, and her priests after his death. It was received by their adoring followers and, at points during history through the mediums of conquest, immigration, trade and slavery, found its way into the heart of the religion of every society of peoples on earth.

Upon the dispersion of the people by God at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) the religion of Nimrod was weakened, but by no means was it dissolved. Many of its devotees took it to their new place of abode after they were scattered from the city of Babel. Nimrod was still the object of worship (though he became known by different names because the language of the people had been diversified). The legend, the mystery rites, and the religious worship remained essentially the same. Everywhere Nimrod’s fellow rebels went they took the religion of Nimrod with them and with it the power to rule over men’s hearts and establish the thrones of kings. Monarchs took the throne because they were descendants of the gods, Nimrod had set the precedent. The age-old right of the oriental potentate to sit upon a throne, the ruling authority of the deified Pharaoh, even the authority of the modern monarch of Europe has depended upon the consent of the ruling class of mystery priests, bishops, or a Pope (Papa). They alone had the heavenly mandate to confirm and anoint kings. As Nimrod’s religion had established very early, they ruled by divine right because they had the blue blood of the gods running through their veins. Thus Mystery Babylon was born and her power solidified and protracted throughout the earth. The Book of Revelation puts it directly, Mystery Babylon is she who “reigns over the kings of the earth” Rev. 17.18.

The Rise of Nimrod
The Bible is brief, but concise, in telling us how the legend of this notorious evil doer got started. Genesis 10 says Nimrod became strong in the earth and was a mighty hunter, the world’s first great builder of cities. In Genesis 11 we are informed of a great spiritual crisis which was brought about by the force of this one man’s ego, pride and rebellion. The provocation took place in the capital city of his newly formed empire, Babel, and culminated in the incident commonly known as the “Tower of Babel”. This rebellion was so great and posed such a threat to the plan of salvation that it required God to take drastic action. The future of the entire human race was in jeopardy of being taken down a path of destruction and total annihilation, much like that of the judgment that took place before the Flood. The purpose of Mystery Babylon was to turn the hearts of the people away from God and to give them faith and trust in themselves. Nimrod gave the people what they wanted; a chance to throw off the “yoke” of God’s requirements of righteousness, and make conditions of worship more suited for their pernicious ways. Essentially, as false religion aptly does, Nimrod gave the people what they wanted – an escape from following God. The god he invented allowed for carnal lusts and earthly greed. The god of their invention would tolerate their sins and violence, and would permit them to live life as they pleased, chasing the lusts of the flesh, the deceitfulness of riches and the pride of life without regard for their fellow man, their true Creator, or the promise of the “Coming Savior”.

History agrees He is The First King, Evil Rebel, and Self-Proclaimed God 

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
   He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
   And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
   Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,
   And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.” Gen. 10:8‑12

Nimrod was the son of Cush and the grandson of Ham. Ham was the son of Noah who was cursed for his rebellious mocking of his righteous father (Gen. 9) and Cush, following in the footsteps of his father, became the leader and false prophet of the corrupt ways that were brought over the expanse of the Flood by Ham.

There are ancient stories that credit Cush with grooming Nimrod to be the world’s first king and the standard bearer for the rebellion against God. Nimrod was the founder of Babel and the architect of a chain of cities which he forged into the world’s first great empire. Accounts of Nimrod, his wife and child are not hard to verify.

The archeological monument of the Tower of Babel still stands in the desert of Iraq. There is agreement among classical historians of all ages about Nimrod’s kingdom and that he and his system, in substance, are the basis for all mystery rites of subsequent mystery religions in all the cultures that roosted on continents after the dispersal of the clans of Japheth, Ham and Shem.  Ancient historians like Hesiod, Herodotus, Homer and Epiphanius, through Christ’s contemporary, Josephus, up to Maimonides, the great Jewish Rabbi of medieval times, all accept the basic facts about Nimrod and his kingdom. Modern archeology supports the Bible record on Nimrod. The work of nineteenth century archeologists, Paul Emile Botta, Henry Austen Layard, and scholars like Sir Richard Wilkinson, George Rawlinson and Rev. Alexander Hislop, help to establish that Nimrod’s empire was the first empire formed and that it was in the region of present day Iraq, known in early times as Chaldea and Babylon. These men traversed deserts, hazarded storms, waded through ancient manuscripts and documents, fought hostile tribes and risked their lives traveling through inhospitable lands to piece together ancient historical facts that support the saga of Nimrod and the conspiracy in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as related in Genesis ten. For the most part all of these historical accounts agree, and though speculations on some of the traditions and legends surrounding Nimrod may differ, the consent is unanimous that this man was the innovator of many corrupt things post-Flood.

He was the first builder of cities after the Flood, the first one to hunt prey from horseback, first to tame wild beasts, first to enslave men, first to utilize forced labor for building projects, first to conscript men into military service, first to rule a kingdom by force through a standing army, first to fortify cities, first to wear a crown, first to demand loyalty and worship from subjects, first man to rule a nation as supreme king and lord of all, and first to declare himself god on earth. With these precedents the earth had a foundation for man to acquire and reacquire pagan religion. Nimrod’s Babel is the common source of false religion. Though shrouded in different names, with different dialects, languages and words, they provided essentially the same prescription for worship. All the different languages and spins on the occult came from the same fountain of Nimrod’s Babel.

As the fine scholar and author of Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop notes, the name Nimrod is rendered from Nimr, meaning rebel, and rod, meaning leopard. Therefore it can be interpreted as rebel leopard, and usually is by most commentators. This meaning is certainly justified because, as we see in chapter eleven of  Genesis Nimrod was the leader of the great rebellion against God that took place at Babel in the building of the tower and the gathering of the people there, into one unified group against God. But Hislop gives us a better rendering with more insight. He says the name is best interpreted as “leopard subduer”. And this, according to Hislop, is the character of the man that is being described in Genesis 10:8-9.

Nimrod: Hunter and Horseman, Military Man
Among the ancients (Ovid, Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus), Nimrod was purported to be the first man to break horses and use them in the hunt. The Bible declares that he became a “mighty hunter before the Lord”. At the time of Moses’ writing of the book of Genesis, Nimrod and his prowess as a hunter remained a proverb in the earth, “Wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.” But Nimrod apparently also employed the leopard, as it continued to be right up until modern times, as a means to hunt other animals. In India, Africa and the Middle East the leopard still symbolizes lordship and power. Even today many leaders on these continents don leopard skin hats as a sign of their royalty and ruling dignity. Nimrod was the source of this tradition. He tamed the leopard and used it to chase down his quarry. He became a symbol to all the world, after the Flood, of man’s capability to subdue the earth. He is also the Emancipator or Deliverer as some of his names under his “godhead” suggest or proclaim. His deliverance was not, however, from sin but rather from the yoke of God. Reverend Hislop tells of a folktale of Hindi origin that speaks of man having to walk hunched over because the heavens were too close to the earth. A mighty deliverer, however, came to the rescue for mankind when he pushed the heavens away from the earth in three separate stages allowing mankind to walk upright without being oppressed and weighed down by the closeness of the heavens. This story is an indication that men felt the presence of God was an intrusion and a burden. It was Nimrod who threw off the unwelcome presence of the Creator and gave them a supposedly less oppressive “god” – himself – to worship.

Hislop further points out that the title of being a mighty hunter before the Lord suggests that Nimrod even hunted men. He subdued villages and communities and forced them into his cause. It can hardly be questioned that Nimrod was a rebel, even the root of his name is connected to rebellion, but he was also a subduer of men.

The Bible tells us that, once Nimrod had gained a name for himself and the strength to enslave men, he and his army of men started westward from regions east of the land of the Tigris River (probably from a place like the plush land of Elam, southeast of the Tigris River along the northern tip of the Persian Gulf) until he and his subjects came to the area which the Bible calls Shinar. Once in this garden spot they began to build cities, including the fabled city of Babel. The saga of the Tower of Babel is one rife with suggestion of rebellion against God. It is obvious that the ringleader of this rebellion was the man named in the Bible as the builder of fortified cities along the fertile stretches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

God’s first command to Noah and his three sons was “to go forth and replenish the earth“. Genesis 9:18‑19 tells us, “And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.“

The command was that they should scatter over the face of the earth to repopulate it. Genesis ten records the genealogies of the three sons of Noah and tells where they settled. God had cleansed the world of the corrupt and violent seeds of the Nephilim by water, but it did not take man long to rebel against God’s expressed wish that they should scatter over the face of the earth, even in this new cleansed world. Instead they clumped together and conspired against God. There are many implications to be gleaned from the brief but concise accounts of Genesis given about Nimrod’s sedition. When considering these crimes in the context of their time we can easily see the precedent that was laid for all false religion and for those abominable practices that followed in their wake, and that these abominations continue even to this day though in somewhat different form. In Genesis, five primary things are revealed about the people and the condition of the world at the time of the conspiracy at Babel.

1. The whole earth was of one language.
2. They came from the east and found a place to perpetuate their rebellion.
3. They used bricks and mortar to build their tower and city
4. They wanted to make a name for themselves so they would not be scattered over the earth.
5. The people acted as one, nothing they could imagine could be restrained from them.

It must have been a terrible thing they were conspiring to do if God had to take such drastic action as to confound their ability to communicate with one another and to drive them into separate corners of the earth. But when we put together all of the components that are revealed in Genesis it becomes more clear as to why God did what He did.

The people must have been of one mind and one spirit in order for them to build a fortified place where they could plant themselves, be safe and not have to scatter over the face of the earth as God had commanded them to do. Remember, Nimrod was only two generations removed from the Flood. Ham was his grandfather. Men of his generation lived four hundred years. Shem was still alive. Nimrod and his followers knew full well that God had commanded everyone to live under patriarchal authority in small communities and to scatter across the whole earth. But Nimrod’s people came to the plains of Shinar for the expressed purpose of coming together. They left their homes in defiance of God. They built a fortress (many of the gods of false religion have “fortress” as part of their name and focus of worship) with “the bricks of rebellion” and “the slime of unity”. The first thing that Noah had done when he left the ark was to offer sacrifice to God. It was well established that man was to rely on and trust in God for everything. Noah’s obedience was an undeniable living testimony to this great fact of faith. But Nimrod and his followers gathered together for the exact opposite reason: so they would not have to rely on God. They fortified themselves against wild beasts and marauding bandits and tried to become totally self-reliant so they could disregard the necessity of relying on God their Creator.

The Scripture also says that they wanted to make a name for themselves so they would not be scattered abroad over the face of the earth. Hislop believes that this idea of making a name for themselves had less to do with fame (although that was part of it) as it was connected with living by names and signs, especially the signs of the Zodiac. Ben Adams in his book, Astrology, The Ancient Conspiracy, makes the same point, as E.W. Bullinger had perfectly done in the 1880’s in his classic work Witness of The Stars.  They all agree that the mention of the Tower reaching to heaven in the King James Version would more properly be rendered as, “depicting” the heavens, not reaching to them. Even Herodotus, the Greek historian who saw the tower after it was finished by Nebuchadnezzar, confirms this interpretation. The father of history reported in the fourth century B.C. that the top of the tower was ringed by the twelve signs of the Zodiac, each brightly painted in twelve startling colors around its seventh and final level. It is probable that they were trying to make a name for themselves, but it was the name of the god of their own invention, and it was certainly with the man in charge: Nimrod.

They had settled in the plains of Shinar, the garden place of the world, plush and fruitful in wheat, dates and figs, to carve out their own “island” paradise without God’s approval and with His exclusion. They wanted to have someone to worship other than God. Nimrod was their man. As Bullinger and Adams so deftly prove, the stars in the sky foretold the coming of the Savior. God had put them there and explained their meaning to Adam. Adam, in turn, handed them down orally, before the written word was invented, to Seth. Seth passed them on to Enoch, and so on. In this way the salvation story was known and understood by early man, including Nimrod and his followers. Even the riddle of the Sphinx, the colossal statue with the head of a woman and the body of a lion, is revealed when we understand the witness that the stars lay out for us. In the backdrop of the night sky the twinkling stars brought forth the riddle that the Sphinx reveals. It first tells us where to begin reading the story. We are to begin with the constellation Virgo, the promise that the seed of the woman would redeem the earth, and end with Leo, Jesus Christ coming back as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The ten constellations in between tell of the birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and separated ones of the Messiah.

The name that the people were going to “make” was by means of attributing all of these prophecies of the coming Savior to Nimrod, his wife, Semiramis, his son Tammuz – and themselves as their followers. Nimrod intended to not only lift the story from God, but lift himself up as the Messiah, to exalt himself as the one who could save the people of the earth. With the help of Satan he tried to turn the tables on God and steal away with the worship of man. Instead of holding God’s name above all others he rallied the people behind him and planned to exalt his name as the one to be trusted, and the one that should be unquestionably obeyed.

Shem Judges Nimrod
Now the plot thickened. At the heart of Nimrod’s religious conspiracy was the supplanting of the Trinity. By a depraved and carnal version of himself, his wife and his son, Nimrod dared to defy God by preaching that man could be master of his own destiny. In a definitive way this hits at the core of the antichrist conspiracy down through the ages. Knowing the threat to mankind’s salvation, God stepped in and put a stop to the conspiracy. After the people were supernaturally dispersed by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, Nimrod’s power must have been greatly compromised, if not entirely broken. Shem, who the Bible says lived 500 years after the Flood, was still alive at this time, and likely the most universally respected and influential man on earth. He had seen the Flood and it was common knowledge that he was the heir to Noah’s blessing and the “keeper” of the knowledge of righteousness and true religion. Legend has it that these two men, Nimrod and Shem, became the great protagonists in the infant days of the post Flood era. It was Shem, as “the priest of the most high God” (Shem is almost certainly the mysterious figure called Melchizedek in the Bible) who brought Nimrod to judgment.

The Bible does not speak of Nimrod after his rebels were scattered abroad over the face of the earth, only Shem, with his new name, Melchizedek, appears again in Scripture many years later during the lifetime of Abraham.

An ancient legend of Egypt reports that Shem led a tribunal of 76 judges who tried, convicted and sentenced Nimrod to death for blasphemy and heresy against the one true God. The sentence they passed was that Nimrod should be cut into pieces and his parts sent into all the cities of the earth as a testimony and a terror to those who would dare to institute a false way of worship. Rev. Alexander Hislop, in The Two Babylons, points out that in Scripture there are two such incidents (Judges 19 & 20 and 1 Samuel 11) that show the precedent for this type of action in the ancient world. In both cases the intent was to instill reverential fear in the people and unite them in a common cause for righteousness. In the case of Nimrod’s judgment it was to serve notice to all peoples wherever they had been dispersed, that any continued irreverence or mischief concerning such blasphemy and heresy in this newly formed religion meant certain judgment by God.

The effect was that the religion developed by Semiramis was not eradicated but only forced underground. And so it became full of secrecy and mystery rites. In subterranean vaults and hidden temples its “mystery rites” were developed. Only the initiated knew the full meaning of the dual symbolism of MYSTERY BABYLON’S cryptic rituals. It found life and vigor in the mystery rites of Egypt and later was passed on to Greece and beyond where it found glorious life in the later Roman Empire. Eventually, after Shem was gone, the religion was accepted throughout the world with different spins and twists to suit a particular culture and the land’s own climate and culture. Pre-Flood stories from each tribe and peoples were also incorporated into the basic body of mystery religion that had been established by Nimrod the original antichrist.

Her Offspring
Upon the death of Nimrod, the priests of Semiramis represented him as having returned to heaven to become the Father and representative of the godhead. He was declared to be reincarnated in his son, Tammuz, and Semiramis became both the wife and mother of “god”. Nimrod’s personal “qualities” were deified and institutionalized as objects of worship. Tammuz would be known as the savior of the world, in Greece he was known as Orpheus and elsewhere by other pseudonyms. Semiramis was mother of all life. The mystery system drew on the polytheism of the Pre-Flood world as well. Thus names like Bacchus (Bar‑Chus, which is none other than Son of Cush) are derived from the original worship of Nimrod. Bacchus, of course, is the Greek and Roman god of wine, revelry and fertility, but is really none other than one aspect of Nimrod’s all pervasive character and personality. His worship was celebrated in rites of debauchery and orgiastic festivals that have their present day manifestations in seasonal celebrations, like May Day festivals and religious observances like The Mardi Gras.

The original conspiracy lives on and will not be put down entirely. The unholy trinity started out as Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz, but took on other names in different societies; as Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt, for example. In Christianity it took the form of mother-child worship by the deification of Mary in doctrines like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption . Note 1

With Nimrod gone back to heaven, Semiramis and Tammuz were the powers on earth. Semiramis took to herself the exalted position of being both wife and mother of God and therefore became the focal point of all worship and arguably the most powerful deity of the three. She had a connection with the “father” in heaven and the “anointed reincarnation” of god on earth. She was the “Queen of Heaven “, mother of “god” and the real power to be reckoned with. What position could be more exalted than being mother and wife of “god”? The Roman Catholic Church has given her just such an exalted position in spite of the fact that it has no Scriptural basis for it. Mother and child worship sprang out of this abominable form of worship. The child was deified in all cultures, as was the mother. Mary worship in Christianity has its roots in the pagan religion of Semiramis and Nimrod. The ludicrous, unbiblical worship of the infant Jesus has its origins in Tammuz worship. In Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome mother/child worship became a blasphemous mainstay of its religion and connected with all kinds of lewd and immoral rituals so shameful that most historians are embarrassed to detail them in print. Sadly, mother/child adoration is one of The Whore’s greatest intoxicating mysteries that have made billions of believers drunk on the wine of false religion. This abomination has become a primary institution in Christianity’s largest denomination; its roots are unquestionably traced to the very beginnings of Mystery Babylon.

Nimrod had promised to throw off the shackles of God for the people. And they were of one accord. Their power must have been immense. It is the reason why God made one of the most dire statements of the entire Bible when he said, “now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do“. For thousands of years this statement may have seemed a mystery to the faithful. What could God have possibly meant? Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear in the twentieth century can understand this without much of a problem. Man can travel underwater and into outer space; he can blow the world to smithereens in a single hour; he can replace a man’s heart or give him an artificial limb. And now he can duplicate a living creature with nothing more than a test tube and an available womb. The male of any given kind, including man, is no longer necessary for the procreation of the species. Creation is turned upside down by the combined efforts of man and his wonderful intellect and knowledge. All this is made possible by the enormous power of man’s God-given mind and when he comes together for unholy purposes. That is why God was alarmed when He saw the people come together and decided to split them apart for the sake of salvation.

The work of Botta and Layard found the sites, and in some cases unearthed the ruins, of the four cities, Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh, mentioned in Genesis ten as being the foundation of Nimrod’s empire. The site of Babel became the mighty Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar which ruled the world for a brief time but lay in total ruin for centuries until Saddam Hussein’s recent attempts to excavate and revive its fortunes. Erech, the second of the cities mentioned, eventually became known as the city of Warka and its ruins sit along the old course of the Euphrates River. They are six miles in circumference and still had earthen ramparts as high as forty feet circling the city. Evidence of Calneh was found north of Erech and though the ruins rise some sixty or seventy feet above the level of the sandy desert and descend in a long gentle slope down to the plain, they are not as impressive as the ruins at Warka, though it must have been a large fortified city.

The Bible calls Nimrod’s empire the land of Shinar from the words Shi, meaning two and Nahr, meaning River. The Jews called this land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, Aram-Naharaim, “Syria of the two rivers”; the Greeks and Romans called it Mesopotamia, “The between river country”; and the Arabs dubbed it, Al-Jezerem, “The Island”.

Note 1 Many Catholics and most Protestants do not realize that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not about Jesus’ perfect birth, but has to do with Mary. It claims that Mary’s soul was born without sin, giving her divine status. Though this doctrine was preached in the Catholic Church for centuries it was not declared official Papal dogma until 1854 under Pope Pius IX. The bodily assumption of Mary, like that of Jesus, giving her further divine qualities, was proclaimed by the Catholic Church in 1950 by decree of Pope Pius XII.