As in no other imperial rule of man has a personal name been so vital to its propaganda purposes and its power base as it has been for the Papacy. Worldly and temporal powers in all lands and in all epochs of history have relied on titles like: Emperor, Chieftain, Sultan, King, Premier, Prime Minister, Czar, Imam and President, each being a designation noting its power and legitimate preeminence over a society. The title Pope supplies this distinction of legitimacy for the rulers of the Catholic Church, but it employs the added advantage of supplying its incoming ruler-elect with a personal name that packs along with it enormous power of anticipatory political and religious expectation for that powerful and infallible ruler.

Impregnated not only with power, but defining its legends and myths concerning its origins, its leaders and its benefits to mankind, the personal name chosen by a Pope is the first order of business being an instrument for both legitimizing a ruler’s decisions and policies and announcing his authority, while projecting the hopes and promises of the things which he will earnestly pursue during his time in power. That the Papacy would, in this moment of the last days before the return of Christ, seize the hour by taking on a never before used name of a saint, is of crucial importance in understanding the purpose and goals of the current Pope, for papal names have great prophetic significance.

The urgency of the Vatican’s problems and the volatile state of world politics have prompted the Vatican to action, beginning with the name that was chosen by the current Pope. The unprecedented resignation of a Pope by Benedict XVI shows the reality of this urgency. The incoming Pontiff’s top priority was damage control; to reverse almost every conservative aspect of Church dogma because of its growing social irrelevance that lingered since the 1960’s like an old prudish woman out of touch with the realities of the modern free-thinking world. Everything from its worn out sacraments to its role in international world affairs, to its man-club organization needed to be not only reformed but overhauled.

The Papacy has long relied on the name which the Pope takes as the move that will launch him toward the greatest degree of power over the most needed areas of the vast Holy See of Popedom and beyond into world politics.

Name Value and Importance Began with Name Peter
It was not until the fourth century, after the Emperor Constantine had made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire, that historians Eusebius and Jerome retold the fabricated ridiculous myths about Peter with him ending up in Rome as a Pope, flying through the air to do battle against Simon the sorcerer and ending his life as a circus martyr. According to these absurd fictions by the Roman Church’s earliest novelists, Peter in the grandstand play of all grandstand plays supposedly insisted that he be crucified upside down. As a sidebar event it is said that Paul was also martyred under the orders of the demented Emperor Nero in 66 AD. But none of it recorded in the Bible. Really?!

All matters of godly pertinence about Rome and the part the apostles played in sharing the gospel there are recorded in two books, the book of Acts of the Apostles penned by Luke and the Book of Romans, the letter of teaching personally written to the church that was in Rome by Paul about 60 AD.

Sometime around 63 AD Paul underwent arrest and was transported under Roman guard to Rome in a perilous voyage to Rome. Paul exercised his rights as a citizen of Rome with full rights, and made an appeal to the emperor Nero himself. We are told as the last recorded event in Acts of the Apostles that Paul spent the last couple of years of his life living in an apartment in Rome under a sort of house arrest, but free to receive people and share with them the gospel without being restricted.

Tacitus, the Roman historian, relates that Nero did persecute and kill many Christians in 66 AD, using them as scapegoats for the burning of Rome, which history agrees was Nero’s own doing in order to build himself a magnificent palace and a glorious temple in honor of himself as a god.

If Paul was martyred at that time we are never told, but by historians notoriously known for fictions some 350 years later. Peter is never said by scripture to have come within a long voyage’s distance of Rome. We see him in Asia, Asia Minor, but mostly in Jerusalem. He writes to believers in the Roman province of Galatia, but he is never noted to be in Europe proper.

All of this rubbish about him being the leader of the people of the church in Rome is pure fable, and not good fable at that. The embarrassing stories did however lay the groundwork for turning the office of the Pope into a mythical seat of authority that laid claim to having rule over all that was to be called Christian. Anyone who did not accept this claim to authority over the faith was painted with the broad brush of the dreaded indictment called heresy and pulverized by the agents of the spurious throne of Peter. The fantasy was not developed and sanctioned until Christianity disastrously became the official religion of Imperial Rome under Constantine in 325 AD. The Peter hoax gained credence by the retelling of it over and over until it became believed as fact.

The Name Game Began in Earnest in the Second Millennium of the Church
By the time of the Second Millennium AD the office of Peter was being foisted upon the masses of people through the feudal system and property ownership that the Church controlled throughout Europe The Peter myth that he was the Rock upon which God had built his Church was ensconced in the minds and hearts of the common people. They were told that neither the powers of heaven or earth would prevail against the Church running the world. That meant that kings and peoples, nations and thrones, were to bow to the one who sat on Peter’s golden throne. It was all built on the name of Peter, fabricated and devised in a thoroughly bogus and ludicrous history, but powerful through centuries of propaganda ruthless oppression. The whole ruse however, was never sanctioned by God’s Word.

Peter was a ‘stone’ not ‘The Rock’
Part of the trick is that Peter’s name supposedly meant: “The Rock” (though it is best translated – ‘stone’) and that it was said by Jesus that upon this rock (Peter) the Church would be built and it would prevail. The Papacy, of course, stands even now on this fallacious stone story of misrepresentation and make-belief. This should not confuse or dissuade the honest reader of the Bible from believing the simple truth that the Messiah has always been the ‘Rock’ and that Rock is none other than Jesus, the one and only Messiah and that there could never be another one, for to have another would be a self-contradiction.

Able to see down the corridor of time, Jesus set the record straight about Peter right from the get-go.  Take note that when Jesus first set eyes on Peter he told him He was giving him a new name, a name which was to define what and who Peter was according to God’s perception of things. “You are Simon the Son of Jona and you shall be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.” Christ intentionally avoided the name Peter and any insinuation that he was the Rock. God avoided giving us the impression that Peter was to be anything but a disciple and apostle of Christ, that Christ is now and always has been the only Rock, the only foundation, upon which souls of believers have ever stood and could ever live and thrive, and the only one by which a human being can find and enter into eternal life. That Jesus is the only Rock is incontrovertible and forever true.

The point being made about names, in so far as the Papacy goes is this – names are very important to the Catholic Church for propaganda purposes. Names make declarations about truth and proclamations about spiritual and earthly authority the same way flags are symbols. They can instantly relate a wealth of meaning and impart a world of application.

A Suitable Political Name: Pope’s First Order of Business
People who did not even believe in Christ, or no longer had faith in God began to believe in the Popes. This ironic fact holds true today. Beginning with this myth of Peter, Popes supplanted God as the one that is to be believed and wholly trusted. Instead of relying on the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit to speak on matters they usurped His province and became the replacement of the Word of God. As this pretension of the Roman Bishops expanded they targeted all Christians everywhere. The Papacy began to take on names which laid claim to special spiritual wisdom and powers inherited through being part of the supernatural line of Supreme Pontiffs. They aligned themselves with the legends of certain popular political or military popes, or ones with religious credentials of supernatural power by taking their name. What amounted to Vatican press agents were adept at publicizing military victories and popularizing fabricated miracles for the masses of uneducated peasants and surfs who worked on church fiefdoms scattered throughout the various realms of the many kingdoms of divided Europe. Over time the one united force through the kingdoms was the one united under Europe’s universal Church positioned on the throne in Rome. By this growing phenomenon the throne of Peter also held the allegiance of rising numbers of tradesmen of medieval cities. Gradually, the Church managed to pass laws that made it illegal not to be Catholic thereby gaining ascendency over cities and rural towns and villages across Europe, its authority being established even above the monarchs and noblemen who technically owned and ruled a domain.

As time went on newly elected Popes began identifying themselves with the political, religious and mythical legacy of some former Pope through using a name familiar to nobles and peasants alike. The chosen name not only declared their legacy for a supposed spiritual piety they had exuded as a Cardinal, but at the same time announced the political and social aspirations, both short and long term. By the second millennium of this era the political propaganda and religious dogma which the Vatican wished to preach and promote in every corner of its domain and beyond was broadcast by the name that had been taken on by a particular Pope. First, it sent a message to the clergy. Every monastery, church or clerical order could fall into line with the themes and promises that were forecast in the political socio/economic policies of the new Papacy, whether conservative, reform, militant, radical or original.

Strong Popes with a tightly controlled lock-step Curia of archbishops had a better chance of imposing their will on church policies than those who were weak or stupid or just overwhelmed by the imposing problems of their day. Popes and Curia alike masked their ruthless secular ambitions with pious words, political slanders and libels against opposing factions of archbishops and bishops to win office. When it suited their political purposes they threatened, and often executed, excommunications against commoners, priests and kings without hesitation. All this, as if they had the god given authority to send people to Hades simply because they held the keys of Peter. Using intimidating titles with holy names they vied with the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, especially throughout the Middle Ages and into The Enlightenment and Age of Revolution, for control of the economy of Europe to win the forced obeisance of the masses of the people of Europe.

But as the 14 or 15 or 16 Crusades attest (it depends on who is counting) the Popes were not just content to rule Europe they wanted to own the world. It was they who always led the invasion of Asia, which they claimed was their god given right.

The titles used by the Church, from the names of the Popes to the names of its institutions, sacraments, teachings, catechism, saints and monastic orders were couched in biblical terms and religious niceties, disguising their graft and avarice for land and money. These they always pretended to be for the greater glory of Peter’s kingdom on earth.

Names like Benedict, John and Celestine, and in recent centuries Pius, were employed to announce conservative regimes couched in a religious bent. That meant the status quo was to be maintained or that old values church doctrinal and dogmatic values were to be strengthened and emphasized in the faith which might have been under duress due to changing times. A kinder, gentler demeanor might be the face the Papacy would pose, or a stern fatherly manner. Each name signaling the attitude and spirit of the incoming Pope. To walk softly and carry a big stick was not the only tact, a smiling face with words of benevolence were to be employed with prayer and a reassuring hand from Papa Church.

In other times, when it was believed that the throne of Peter should rule the world, or at least be among those that rule it, names were employed that suggested vigorous and righteous aggression. This usually took place when the Vatican had opportunity to impose its will on the leaders of state and governments, sometimes by arms at other times by manipulating public opinion through terror or propaganda.

Ironically the Name Innocent Stood for Imperialism and Aggression
The name Innocent is the prime example of the definition of the Papacy’s political military aggression. It is the iconic name that speaks not only of papal righteousness and infallibility, but authority over every earthly power, over believers and unbelievers. The name went on to invoke the Church’s claim, not merely for the divine right of rule over all Christianity no matter what denomination everywhere; but to claim absolute authority over armies and nations wherever he could extend his authority. That authority was over any and all religion within his sphere of influence. The name Innocent automatically rendered to the Pope the pretension that God had fully commissioned him to rule nations and kings at that Pope’s will.

This charge given from the name Innocent became a dictate to invoke the edicts of the Emperor Constantine (including the forged document called The Donation of Constantine) which vested the Church with immense power as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Eventually the Pope extended this right to rule over kings and Emperors. Innocent is the primary moniker employed by Popedom to further the imperialistic policies of the Roman Church during the 600 year period from 1130 AD to 1724 AD.

The powerful name was employed a dozen times, on average every fifty years, each time as a campaign slogan for aggression, not as the name first suggests as a declaration of gentle spiritual innocence of shepherding of a mild flock. There was nothing innocent about the regime of the men who ascended to Popedom and took on this name. The performance of their office was militant, aggressive and devious and often brutal in the repression of freedom of not only the political powers it sought to defeat, but also its own faithful.

The First Innocent – First to Rule Rome
The original Innocent was bishop of Rome at the opening of the fifth century from 401-417, a critical moment in the history of Rome when the survival of both the city of Rome and the Papacy were very much in doubt. The Goths, classic name for the barbarians of the north, besieged the city three times until finally in 410 they ransacked and plundered Rome under its ruthless barbarous leader Alaric killing nearly half of the population, mostly elite and wealthy patricians.

At the first assault the Roman Emperor, Honorius deserted the city in fear, but Innocent was able to save the day by negotiating with Alaric and buying him off with a huge payment in gold and other city riches. For this the name of Innocent became synonymous among the faithful with bravery, power and fearless opposition to worldly powers that jeopardize the people of the world and the Christian Church. The greatest propagandist of all time, St. Augustine of Hippo, the most glorious and respected saint of the Roman Catholic Church was able to sell the fiction that Rome was now the City of God. It was now established to usher in the golden age of the Church and to receive Christ in glory. The Pope was now enshrined as the rightful Supreme Pontiff (a pagan name given to the high priest of the Roman Empire and now acquired by the Christian Bishop of Rome). Rome had been freed of all pagan shrines and power. Augustine noted that the wealthy pagans of Rome had been purged, the city’s wealthy unbelieving patricians had fled or were exterminated, their homes and villas razed, their hold on Rome broken forever and they were now no longer the power brokers of the eternal city. Innocent could rule Rome for the first time uncontested in spirit, in politics, and in worldly authority. Thus the pedigree of the name Innocent was established in this crisis by the original Innocent.

Every time the name was used thereafter was with this initial pronouncement that the new Pope intended to invoke its God given commission to assert ascendency over all things on earth. Taking the name of Innocent was to be like the victory ride of the chariot of the Caesars along the street of strewn laurels through the genuflecting people, but not just of the streets of Rome, but of the entire earth.

Innocent II Added to the Legend
The first Pope to take on this pseudonym of high and mighty arrogance did not take place for seven hundred years, until 1130 when the Pope elect Gregory Papareschi became the first of twelve Popes over the next six centuries to invoke the name Innocent. Over the following six hundred years, until the middle of the eighteenth century, a Pope would take on the name Innocent on average of every fifty years, invoking its political energies and grandiose propaganda for imperialistic aims.

In the years leading up to Innocent II the Papacy had been embroiled in deadly conflicts with the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Papareschi and his party had realized they needed all the political power they could acquire. The major issue of the time was the power struggles between church and state for control of lands and revenues, for the right to crown kings and emperors, and for the ring that could appoint archbishops and bishops in the Church. Upon the death of Honorius II, before he was even buried, a minority of Cardinals met in secret and elected Papareschi as Pope. A major crisis occurred a few days later however when a majority of bishops who had been disallowed at the hurried secret vote, responded by holding a separate synod which resulted in voting in a second Pope, which was declared an Antipope by Papareschi’s party. As if that were not confusing enough, another Pope was voted in upon the death of the first ‘antipope’ so that Innocent II was never without a rival until the final years of his 13 year rule. All the more reason why he needed his pretentious pseudonym. Because his greatest threat and most intense battles lay in his intrigues and political fights with emperors and kings. The main issue was always control of Church appointments and the politico/military decisions being made concerning the Empire.

The Church’s mission in 1130 had been from the beginning to win its political battle with the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The political intrigues within the Papacy had been unexpected, but just as crucial. With the help of the greatest monk of the day, St. Bernard to whom countless miracles were attributed in support of Innocent II. Ultimately the Pope and his minority faction were able to prevail over both Church and Worldly rivals propelling the Papacy to new heights of glory thereby providing even greater spiritual influence to the legendary value of the name.

Innocent III Rules
A little more than a half century later the Roman Church was obliged to resurrect the name of Innocent. Of all the Innocents of its 700 year history in the Papacy Innocent III’s reign from 1198-1216 is the greatest and most significant because it not only gave the name its luster for centuries to come but he was the most powerful and successful in ruling the people and kingdoms of Europe, while advancing the imperialistic designs of the Vatican in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. He used the powers mandated through the name to call for what was the Christian version of Jihad, turning it upon the Muslims themselves when he called for a Crusade to retake territories in the Holy Land by armed force.

A man connected to political power by family pedigree he took the reins of government in Rome and advanced to the greatest career of any Pope named Innocent and perhaps any Pope ever. He successfully shamed Emperors, excommunicated any king and member of nobility that challenged his authority and as no other Pope made his word absolute law in the land. He added greatly to the wealth of the Papacy and annexed territories and lands in the name of the Vatican. His clever methods and political acumen was spiritual and by his boldness and risk taking he ruled through intimidation and the pen which he wielded with deadly force, which was mightier than the sword of emperors. The legacy of the great and powerful Innocent was that for twenty five years the Papacy ruled over a paralyzed Europe which was unable to contend against the edicts of excommunication of those that dared defy the Papal throne; until it was time for the Papacy to invoke once again the named of Innocent.

IV Continued Imperial Legacy of the Name
In 1243 Sinibaldo Fieschi took the name Innocent hoping to follow up what Innocent III had accomplished. He immediately sought to enhance the prestige of the Papacy in the both the temporal and spiritual governments of humanity.

The sixth Crusade had won back Jerusalem from the Muslims but it had been taken back again by Muslim forces less than two years into Innocent’s reign. He preached another crusade, and though none of the European powers were interested he was able to induce Louis XI of France ‘to take up the cross’.

The results were disastrous and ended in total humiliation and defeat, but Sinibaldoi Fieschi had been true to the name. He had kept the name’s mystic going.

The Innocents That Followed Could Not Duplicate the Success
But All Had Imperialism and Religious Control As Their Agenda
Over the next four and a half centuries, from 1276 to 1721 the Papacy had need nine times to resurrect the name of Innocent to declare its claim to be ruler of temporal and religious matters on earth. On average of every fifty years the Vatican and its Curia decided on the title Innocent to empower the authority of Imperialism Church dictatorial powers. At times it was to reassert the claim over temporal thrones. At other times it was to reform the Church who had lost control of subordinates to rule as the “Vicar of Christ on Earth”, a title often used by Innocent III Insisting that he – and he alone – had the right to remove bishops from office.

Innocent V (1276) died within his first year but he had heavy-handed plans to bring the clergy under control of the Vicar of Christ.

Innocent VI (1352-62) took the Papal crown fifty years later. His was elected by those who wanted to decentralize the Papacy and make the Pope just another Cardinal subject to control of the house of cardinals. He immediately reneged on his approval and ascended to the heights of his taken name. The Papacy had lost rule over the Papal States of Italy so a primary cause of his reign was to reimpose Papal dictatorship in Italy.

Innocent VII (1404-06) the so-called schism in the Papacy, the seat having left Rome for Avignon, France, still raged. A military rule was needed to bring it back to Rome. Though a patron of the arts and an intellectual in his own right his reign was marked by murder, intimidation and political intrigue with King Rupert of Germany and Charles VI of France.

Innocent VIII (1484-1492) of all the Popes who took on the name Innocent, Giovanni Battista Cybo was the least up to the task. The issue of the Curia at his election was whether the Papacy should continue fighting wars to enlarge the Papal States or whether to sue for peace despite terms that would lose temporal powers. Like so often happens in Papal elections an alliance was made where Cybo would become Pope, but another Cardinal would become the real power behind the throne. The name was taken to appease the losing side and to give them an impression that temporal aggression would be the policy of the Vatican. Innocent however promulgated the corruption by which he had ascended to the throne. All of his dealings with the kings and majesties of Europe were some kind of money scheme, whether to buy or sell a throne or to block advances of the Ottomans or a prince in Naples. The name Innocent, announcing the intention to shore up the temporal and religious powers of Rome, was lost in laziness, greed, corruption and political intrigues. It was not for a hundred years, the longest gap, that the name Innocent would once again be invoked by the Curia of Rome.

Innocent IX (1591) it was not for a hundred years before the Papacy saw fit to revisit the long revered name. It was not at all fortuitous for Giovanni Antonio Fachinetti for the 230th Pope died before a year was up. In keeping with calling of the name he had been elected to meddle in temporal affairs by following up on the previous Pope’s intervention in the French Civil War. He immediately did so, but was in the midst of conducting the war militant aggression when he suddenly died.

Innocent X (1644-1655) fifty-three years later it was again necessary to invoke the name of Innocent. The biggest problem he faced was the ongoing Thirty Years War which his administration was able to help settle by being involved in the Peace of Westphalia which ended the wars between Catholics and Reformation Protestants. His imperialistic policy was tipped in his religious commitment to converting heathens in the Far East.

Innocent XI (1676-1689) twenty years later Papal power and influence had alarmingly slipped. The Papacy needed an assertive military and political administration to be announced. It used the old faithful name of Innocent to do it. He initiated the Holy League in defense of Vienna which was under assault by the Ottoman Turks who were menacing the whole of Europe. The action gave the Papacy some badly needed positive political successes. On the religious front Innocent XI did not fare as well. Louis XIV of France forced the French clergy to pass the Four Gallican Articles that the Pope did not have authority over secular matters, and that the Pope would be subject to church law himself, that he would be subject to General Councils and that bishops and other in authority would interpret and advise on the meaning of things and not the Pope. This was intended to strip the Pope from being above the law of Church and secular authority. Obviously it was an intended blow at everything the name Innocent stood for in history.

Innocent XII (1691 -1700) amidst the declining political fortunes of the Papacy was obliged to strengthen the Papal States for economic reasons and spent his ten year reign trying to shore up Vatican finances by siding with France’s Louis XIV against a Grand Alliance of Britain, Spain, Austria, Portugal and The Holy Roman Empire. For siding with Louis XVI Innocent won the repeal of the Four Gallican Articles allowing the Papacy to assume its previous role as the infallible dictator of the Roman Catholic Church and wherever it was given ascendency over Reformed Churches as well. He was successful in reasserting Papal influence in the politics of Europe and helped in shoring up the badly needed finances of the Papacy.

Innocent XIII (1721-1724) he chastised the Jesuits for non-compliance of Papal directives. They were supposed to have actively been integrating pagan customs into Christian life. On the purely political front he meddled into the Catholic Spanish Succession controversy and tried to stir up strife between Protestant monarchs hoping to lead them back into the Papal web.

Three Names, Clement, Pius and Benedict in Our Time
After Innocent XIII’s reign the name became obsolete and fell into disuse. Papal strategy for influence took on a different tact. The names Clement, Pius and Benedict accounted for thirteen out of the sixteen Popes for the next two hundred years, right up until the drastic change of times of the Post World War II era. The three names are tell-tale to the needs and objectives of the Papacy. The Papacy had lost much of its secular power, if not all. It began to fight for its economic life; its temporal power and political life was all but dead. It was put on the defensive, without any military might it was obliged to appeal to God’s name to ask for respect and adherence from profane earthly powers.

The name Clement had always been associated with peace-making and in that vein it would be invoked seven times, nearly half the time in the Modern Period.

In the 150 years from 1800-1950 seven of eleven Popes used the name Pius. The period dictated patience from the Pope in the face of public hostility and enmity from the kings and emperors that intimidated Popes and at times enacted imprisonment and corporal punishments. Pius was the name invoked to deal with the French Revolution, Napoleon, the disillusion of the Papal States, the movement to keep the Papacy out of politics, and the friendship of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini. All of this done with an intellectual philosophical outlook while looking down the barrel of a gun.

The less used Benedict has been summoned three times in the modern era. Popedom has used it to strike a conservative pose when they have felt they needed to put the brakes on modernism in the Church. The “Papa” of mankind, loving and thoughtful and one able to officiate at disputes uses it to demand respect for the conservative ways of old. As a father, gentle and kind, he was supposed to be the resolver of disputes, the voice of reason, honoring the old respected ways of the fathers.

It is telltale that in the Modern Age, since the Age of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Nationalism, just three names were used by thirteen of sixteen Popes of the Modern Ear. The intellectual Pius being used to confront the empirical sciences and news born philosophies of realism. Clement to fight against the throwing off the shackles of Papal lordship by the rise of nationalism and political libertarianism. Benedict to try to get the people to hold on to unquestioned loyalty, reference and devotion to the old grip that Church had on the minds and souls of its oppressed masses. What power in a name, what assertion of platforms and doctrines, threats and powers, what dominion over souls a name can grab.

The radical use of the name Francis by the current Pope is unprecedented pointing to the nature of his desperate aims and to the extraordinary times of today. Francis is determined to overcome the many problems facing the authority and credibility of the Papacy and to restore the Church authoritarian role over its own people and the politics of the world.

The various paradigms of prophecy are converging in these last days. The Bible clearly states that a false prophet will arise who will give the coming Antichrist credibility and support by preaching and even miracles. In modern terms he will be his propaganda minister. While in his presence, this false prophet will even be able to do incredible things, even supernatural miracles of impressive power. This False Prophet may or may not be a Pope, even this new-styling Pope with the unprecedented name.

One thing is certain however, just as the Antichrist is coming, so too the False Prophet is coming, and is likely already here – somewhere?.