Wings of Liberty • August 14, 2026

FAUCI and THE VATICAN: THE STORY THE MEDIA REFUSES TO COVER

It is apparent that there are obvious media biases which result in coverage blackholes with both the left-wing media and the right-wing media. The leftist media avoids stories that are politically problematic for the left, and the right-wing media avoids stories which are unfavorable to the political right. Unless you are a complete partisan-loyalist-come-what-may (and these abound, to be sure) you know both sides of the media have their agendas. And they push those agendas with the issues they cover, how they cover them, or whether an issue gets covered at all. Control of information = control of people.

If you needed any further evidence that the western media is bought and sold, major broadcast networks ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC, largely ignored the stunning release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary entries leading up to his testimony, or rather non-testimony, at the Senate on July 29, 2026.[1] The Fauci diary files, which can be read here, expose a number of lies Fauci told the public versus what he recorded in private,[2] including conflicting stories about the origins of the virus and its actual versus claimed risk of fatality to the public.

Following the hearing on July 29, during which Fauci refused to answer questions and pled the Fifth Amendment 111 times, most major news outlets either gave cursory coverage to the testimony, or actively defended Fauci’s conduct. Similarly, most major news outlets failed to report the bombshell revelation that Bill Gates held Q level security clearance through the Department of Energy (equivalent to top secret clearance issued by the Defence Department) during COVID, or questions Fauci refused to answer from Senator Rick Scott related to Fauci’s involvement with Bill Gates,[3] or Gates’ funding of virus research. Bill Gates’ top level security “typically applies to positions involving nuclear weapons design, national laboratories, critical energy infrastructure and classified scientific research”.[4]

Fauci is stonewalling Congress and the American public and the world at large has yet to learn exactly what Fauci and Bill Gates were up to regarding gain of function research and the subsequent MRNA “vaccine” which was imposed and coerced so forcefully onto the public. Was this just about money? Make a virus, sell a “cure”? Or was it also about something even darker – like depopulation? The Covid shots were not only ineffective in preventing infection or transmission of Covid-19, they killed and maimed a lot of people.

In 2010, Gates said that “if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower [population] by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”[5] Despite an almost superhuman media campaign to recast this statement as benign, there just seems to be no amount of media weaseling that will make it go away. And since “reproductive health services” is often just the sleaze ball way of saying “abortion”, reasonable people have reasonably concluded that a good translation of what Gates said in the 2010 TED Talk is just what it sounds like: that if the elites abort more babies and inject people with more dangerous pharma cocktails, the population of planet earth will decrease by 10-15%. Which is a goal the Club of Rome and other elite orgs have been talking about for decades.[6]

But back to Fauci: facts are facts. Fauci knew the virus was intentionally genetically modified: he had funded that research through the NIAID. Fauci publicly pushed the narrative during the pandemic that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was natural, and evolved from a wet market, which was false. It looks just like a man covering his tracks. Analysis of the virus revealed a novel furin cleavage site found at the S1/S2 boundary of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is absent in closely related natural coronaviruses like SARS-CoV. This specific additional sequence creates the mechanism whereby SARS-CoV-2 can infect human airways by facilitating viral entry by pre-cleaving the spike protein and significantly increasing infectivity, tropism, and syncytia formation. Fauci was aware that this very mutation was the purpose of NIAID funding and gain of function efforts, all while attempting to convince the public that the virus was natural.

If you haven’t watched the full July 29, 2026 Fauci Senate hearing, you should. The link is here. And, as you may already know, in the intervening time between then and now, another shoe from the millipede has dropped. It has come to light that Fauci knew early on that the Covid vaccine could cause baby miscarriages in pregnant women, but he publicly informed the world that pregnant women should take it, and that it was safe.[7] If it looks like a depopulation agenda, and it walks like a depopulation agenda…

But there is another story which the western media, left or right, refuses to cover regarding Tony Fauci, and that is his link to the Vatican. Sometimes what is not said is just as informative, if not more so, than what is said. And that is why it is so notable that both left and right wing media avoid investigation and coverage of the Vatican’s involvement in the narratives of both Anthony Fauci, as well as another public perp named Jeffrey Epstein.[8] If you watch Fox News, you will see that it is almost as averse to criticism of the Vatican or investigation into Fauci’s connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, vax mandates, as left-wing media outlets like CNN. It’s the same with Epstein and the Vatican. Radio silence from legacy media, be they left or be they right.

Yes, its true that Fox News has turned on Fauci – but it doesn’t really have a choice at this point because the story has become too big. It’s either cover Fauci, or lose all credibility with that segment of the conservative base which smells all the dead rats under Fauci’s floorboards. So, Fox News covered Fauci’s diary and his narcissistic obsession with fame. It covered allegations Fauci misled Congress on the origins of the virus. It covered Fauci’s gross exaggeration of the fatality rate of Covid-19 in public, while privately documenting that it is actually far less dangerous. Fox News covered all of that. But Fox News is awfully quiet re Fauci and the Vatican.

And there definitely is a connection between Fauci and the Vatican that any investigative journalist worth their salt should want to dig at. It’s not just that Fauci is Catholic, and the Vatican is the civil power of the church-state union of the Catholic Church. It’s not just that Fauci is being sheltered and aided in the midst of congressional scrutiny and public exposure by the Jesuits at Georgetown University,[9] which of course he is, or that the Jesuits are the militant arm of the Papacy, which of course they are. It’s not just that Joe Biden (Catholic) gave Tony Fauci (also Catholic) an unconditional pardon for all of his crimes during the pandemic no matter how heinous, or that the popes of old used to grant such plenary indulgences for all sins to the crusaders who furthered their wars. Isn’t that how it works in the confessional, behind the scenes? “Forgive me father, for I have sinned.” “What have you done, my son?” “Do you have the internet? I killed millions of people with a genetically altered virus and then told the whole world they needed to take a poison shot to save them from the virus.” “Yes, its all forgiven, my son. Ego te absolvo. Go do 33 ‘hail Mary’s’ and keep your head down at Georgetown for awhile.”

The reality is that the Vatican and Fauci were teammates during Covid. The Vatican pushed lockdowns and Covid shots globally arguably as hard as Tony Fauci, and brought all its moral and spiritual influence to bear on the reluctant to overcome their misgivings. The Pope told every Catholic in the world that they have a “moral obligation” to take the Covid shot.[10] He told them it was “morally licit” even though derived from cell lines from aborted foetuses.[11] The Vatican even minted a coin celebrating the imposition of the Covid shot on the human family.[12] In doing so it publicly celebrated oppression, force, deception, coercion, and corruption. It celebrated everything that is anti-Christian, and anti-liberty of conscience.

And early in the rollout of the Covid shots, the Vatican held a symposium to chart a course for world governments to overcome vaccine hesitancy in the face of public reports that the shots were killing people. The event was hosted by Pope Francis, and included the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna. Opening remarks were delivered by none other than Anthony Fauci.

What did Tony Fauci say at this conference hosted by the Pope? Well, among other things, Fauci informed the crowd that moral authority needed to be brought to bear to overcome the doubters. The right voice was needed to overcome the hesitant, and those who did not want an experimental gene editing franken-shot under threat of punishment via the loss of civil liberties. Fauci said the key to overcoming current vaccine hesitancy is pairing the right medical message with the right messenger. “You have someone who’s a deeply religious person who will listen to their clergy.”[13]

Oh yes. There are plenty of dead rats in the Tony Fauci’s former office. One by one Congress will ensure that some of them are found and publicly ventilated. Fauci may take a public fall, and some media outlets will be compelled to cover some of his disgrace. But no mainstream media dares to touch the involvement of the Vatican with Fauci. And you should ask yourself what that means. And when you have thought about the implications you may know a little more about who really runs this world.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/abc-nbc-cbs-cnn-ms-now-ignore-fauci-diary-entries-reveal-fixation-fame-during-covid

[2] https://www.westernjournal.com/faucis-personal-diary-just-got-released-brutal-self-absorbed-fame-seeking-celeb-worshiping-power-mad-liar/

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=8nC3kmEHTKc&pp=ygUgZmF1Y2kganVseSAyOSBoZWFyaW5nIHJpY2sgc2NvdHQ%3D

[4] https://yournews.com/2026/07/30/7134915/doe-letter-shows-bill-gates-held-q-level-security-clearance-from/

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I&t=274s – see minute 4:30.

[6] https://twoplustwoequalsfournews.wordpress.com/2022/04/20/the-club-of-rome-the-depopulation-club-and-its-connection-to-the-world-economic-forum/

[7] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fauci-hot-seat-gop-senator-tears-truly-sick-vaccine-texts-tip-iceberg

[8] https://epsteinweb.org/pope-john-paul-ii/; https://france.news-pravda.com/en/france/2026/02/02/82765.html “The email from Brandon Thompson to Richard Kahn is dated May 14, 2015. In it, Thompson writes that he had a brief dialogue with Epstein about the restoration project.:

"He wants each column to be decorated differently. He said that when he lived in the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, he saw many different columns that were war trophies."

[9] https://today.advancement.georgetown.edu/georgetown-magazine/2023/fauci-joins-georgetown-faculty/
At the time that Fauci joined the Jesuits at Georgetown University during the pandemic, Georgetown president John J. DeGioia stated, “Dr. Fauci has embodied the Jesuit value of being in service to others throughout his career, and we are grateful to have his expertise

[10] https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/10/covid-19-vaccination-is-a-moral-obligation-pope-francis-insists

[11] https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/pope-approves-vaccines-linked-to-abortion-cell-lines-20201223-p56ps7.html

[12] https://needtoknow.news/2022/07/vatican-sells-commemorative-coins-promoting-need-to-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19/

[13] https://www.wthr.com/article/news/nation-world/vatican-conference-features-fauci-francis-aerosmith/507-cec5f095-3b08-424d-9cd0-bc1540b7f851

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Religious Liberty Comments Needed

By Wings of Liberty • July 7, 2026

TO: THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Via EMAIL: RLC@usdoj.gov RE: RECOMMENDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to the recommendations of the Religious Liberty Committee submitted to President Donald J. Trump on June 26, 2026. While we are mindful of the Committee’s labors which resulted in the 12 recommendations released June 26, certain of which we agree with, we write to voice our concerns and objections to the Committee’s first and ninth recommendations, 1 and its obviously insufficient consideration of the warnings of the Founding Fathers of the dangers of a union of church and state, or the many lessons of history regarding same. The Committee recommended that the Department of Justice “issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.” 2 At the formal release of the Committee’s recommendations on the same day, Committee Chair Dan Patrick publicly stated that, “The separation of church and state is not in the constitution, ” and that the phrase “ has no constitutional basis .” 3 As citizens and students of history, and as Christians, we are alarmed, lest the flawed and unconstitutional view of the Chair of the Committee of the so-called “ proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state”, prove influential or worse, instructive, to the Department of Justice. If the Committee’s opinion of the so-called “proper understanding” of the Establishment Clause is the same as that of its Chair, it is apparent that its understanding is not proper, but rather improper. Founding Father, “Father of the Constitution”, and fourth President of the United States, James Madison, contradicted Chair Dan Patrick’s claim that the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. Madison stated that, “ Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States , the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history." According to James Madison, the separation of church and state is in the Constitution. As to whether James Madison, who is the principle author of the Establishment Clause, or Dan Patrick, is the greater authority on this subject, we think it not difficult for reasonably minded people to ascertain. Certainly, the Founding Fathers were all aware of the persecution of the Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others in some of the colonies. They had seen first hand the ear croppings, whippings, imprisonment and hangings in Massachusetts and other colonies. In Europe, the persecution of the martyrs is well documented. Today we take the Bible for granted, but forget that William Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into the English language not by atheists, but by religious bigots. It was a union of church and state which suppressed speech and the freedom of the press in England. It was a union of church and state which prohibited the work of translation of the Bible which changed the world. It was a union of church and state which necessitated his flight to Europe. It was a union of church and state which killed him. We respectfully ask that the Department of Justice, in considering the issue of public guidance of the separation of church and state, consider the history of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, and early Founding Father, who was repeatedly jailed for his religious faith in England. Pennsylvania Colony became a haven, not from atheist persecutors, but religious persecutors who did not believe in the separation of church and state. The same is true of Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, who was ordered arrested for declaring that the civil magistrate cannot enforce the first table of the Decalogue. We ask that the Committee take into account the brutal public whipping of President Abraham Lincoln’s five-time great grandfather, Obadiah Holmes, in Massachusetts colony, for the “crime” of religious dissent. Obadiah Holmes was not whipped by atheists. He was whipped by Puritan bigots who did not believe in the separation of church and state. We respectfully request that the Department of Justice consider this history in the issuance of public guidance on the subject. We are concerned that the Committee neglected to take into account the impact of the separation of church and state on the other rights codified in the First Amendment. Free speech and freedom of the press, for example, owe their flourishing in the modern world in large part to the separation of church and state in America. Prior to the protections in the First Amendment, the Roman Catholic Church for centuries maintained a list of banned books called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The books were subject to confiscation, and the possession of them resulted in the punishment of the owner. Unfortunately, the Committee makes no mention of the censorship in this context of Galileo and Kepler, Kant and Locke, John Milton and Maimonedes, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, David Hume and Edward Gibbon, and many others, all at the behest of the Roman Papacy, which is itself a union of church and state. Free speech in the western world is the legacy of those who risked the wrath of a unified church and state, often at the cost of their lives. We would also ask that the Department of Justice consider the repeated modern calls from the papal power today for the censorship of the internet, and the suppression of free speech, contrary to the First Amendment. 4 We have no doubt that the censorship of Galileo, Kepler, Milton and others was prosecuted under the justification of the censorship of misinformation, also. The Roman Church was not alone in this persecution, either. We would ask the Department of Justice in its formulation of public guidance on the separation of church and state to remember the religious persecutions carried out at the behest of John Calvin in Geneva against religious dissenters such as Michael Servetus, who paid with his life for his writings and teachings. Servetus was executed by a union of church and state. We are concerned at the public statements of those who would create such a system in America. 5 Therefore we respectfully ask what proper guidance can the Department of Justice hope to give to the public on the “proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state” if it is directed in its object by a Committee and a Committee Chair, who has neglected to more fully analyze the reasons for the separation of church and state, or the reasons why the United States codified the disestablishment of church and state in the First Amendment in the first instance? Reference to the wall of separation between church and state is not only mentioned by President Thomas Jefferson in the letter to the Danbury Baptists, which of course it is. 6 What is often left out of the narrative is that Jefferson said that he personally believed that the principle of the separation of church and state is codified in the Constitution. Therein, Jefferson wrote: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, ¬t opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. 7 James Madison wrote, It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. 8 Lastly, we object to the recommendation of the Committee that the Johnson Amendment be removed. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are mindful of Our Lord’s words that we “render to Caesar what is Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s.” 9 Jesus Christ established the principle of the separation of church and state, and taught that what belongs to God cannot be rendered to Caesar. The application of this teaching is that religionists, ambitious for civil power, and politicians ambitious for their endorsement, are to be kept separate in the American system of politics, as the Constitution requires. The union of church and state results in the corruption of both, a result which neither should desire, and neither can afford. Madison stated that “The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State." 10 And he was right. If the Johnson Amendment is removed, religionists who want civil power will publicly stump and promise their votes and congregational dollars in exchange for political favors, and the politicians will be doubtless all too eager to reciprocate in the form of legislation which the religionists desire provided they will aid their attempts to gain office. In his anonymous treatise published in the Boston Gazette, John Adams, later the second President of the United States, wrote that canon law was a tyrannical form of government, as was feudal law, but that the worst of all forms of governments was a union of the two. 11 And it was Madison who stated that, “In the Papal System, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, & that is found to be the worst of Governments.” We respectfully request therefore that the Department Justice not adopt recommendations 1 and 9 of the Committee, and that it does adopt recommendation 1 of the Committee that it convene a public hearing, with written and oral submissions from the public, to more comprehensively study the question of the separation of church and state in history, and in American history in particular, a study which we would enthusiastically support. We remain yours truly, [THE UNDERSIGNED] ------------------------------------------------------- 1 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-trumps-religious-liberty-commission-delivers-historic-report-draft 2 Ibid, [Emphasis added]. 3 https://www.chron.com/politics/article/dan-patrick-church-state-constitution-viral-22323383.php 4 https://reclaimthenet.org/pope-francis-calls-on-social-media-platforms-to-censor-more-misinformation ; 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUkMwlWYB8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBiPIfx-UA 6 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html 7 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html - Jefferson here is clearly referring to Congress. That Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from making a union of church and state. 8 James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments 9 Matthew 22:21 10 James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819. 11 John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765. https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/PJA01dg2 Since the Promulgation of Christianity the two greatest systems of Tyranny that have Sprung from this source, are the Cannon and the feudal Law. The Desire of Dominion, however noble and useful on the whole, is however, when unawed and unrestrained by Hopes and Fears, an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable Principle. And among all the Variety of iniquitous systems that have been contrived by the great, for the Gratification of it, in themselves was never So successful, as in the Invention and Establishment of the Cannon and the Feudal Law. In the former, the most refined, sublime, extensive and astonishing Constitution of Policy that was ever conceived by the human Mind, we find was framed by the Romish Clergy, for the Aggrandisement of their own order. All the Epithets, that I have given to the Romish Policy, will be owned to be just, when it is considered, that they found it practicable to persuade Mankind, that God almighty had intrusted them with the Keys of Heaven, whose Gate they might open and Close at Pleasure—With a Power of Dispensation over all the Rules and Obligations of Morality—With an Authority to Licence all sorts both of Sins and Crimes.—With a Power of deposing Princes, and absolving subjects from their Allegiance.—With a Power of procuring or witholding the Rain of Heaven and the Beams of the Sun—With the Management of Earthquakes, Pestilence and Famine—Nay with the misterious, awful Incomprehensible Power of Creating out of Bread and Wine the Flesh and Blood of the great Creator of the Universe. And all these opinions, they were enabled to propagate and rivet in the Minds of the People, by reducing the Minds of the Common People them to a State of Sordid Ignorance and staring Timidity, and by infusing into them a religious Horror of Letters and Knowledge of every Kind. Thus was human Nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, deplorable Servitude, to him and his Subordinate Tyrants, who it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshiped. In the latter We find another System, Similar in many Respects to the former: which, altho it was originally formed, perhaps for the necessary Defense of a barbarous People, against the Inroads and Invasions of her neighboring nations; Yet for the Same Purposes of Tyranny, Cruelty and Lust, which had dictated the Cannon Law, it was soon adopted by allmost all the Princes of Europe and wrought into the Constitution of their Govt. It was originally a Code of Laws 110for a vast Army in a Perpetual Encampment. The General was invested with the Sovereign Propriety of all the Lands within their Territory—of Him the first Rank of his great officers, held the Lands, immediately, and the other subordinate Ranks, held of them, and all held by a Variety of Duties and services, tending to bind the Chains the faster on every order of Mankind. In this Manner the Common People were held together in Clans and Herds in a State of Servile Dependance on their Lords, bound by the tenure of their lands to follow them to their Wars whenever they commanded, and in a state of total Ignorance of every Thing divine and humane, excepting the Use of Arms and the Culture of the Lands. But another Event, still more calamitous to human Liberty, was a wicked Confederacy between the two Systems of Tyrany above described. It seems to have been even stipulated between them that the temporal Grandees, should contribute every Thing in their Power to maintain the Ascendancy of the Priesthood, and the Spiritual Grandees in their turn, shold employ that ascendancy over the Consciences of the People, in impressing on their Minds a blind, implicit obedience to civil Magistracy. [emphasis added]

Liberty and Healthcare in Canada

By QV.tv • July 2, 2026

The New Rome?

By Wings of Liberty • June 18, 2026

Of all the world empires of human history one name stands above all the rest for its cruel brutality and extreme public debauchery: Rome. At the height of its dissipation, up to a full third of its annual financial expenditures were made to create public spectacles for its citizens. Fights between wild beasts. Deadly gladiator battles. Gruesome public executions of religious or civil dissenters. The spectacles were more than mere entertainment – they were a political strategy to help control the overpopulated capital. Thus panem et circenses – bread and circuses. A well entertained mob is less inclined to political involvement or protest. The bloodiest place in the wicked, degenerate empire was the Roman Colosseum. It seated 50,000 people, comparable to many modern sporting stadiums. 9000 animals were slaughtered at its inauguration to pagan deities. It was inaugurated with the blood of animals. It was then soaked in the blood of men. It is almost forgotten history that it was named after the depraved and notorious tyrant Nero, who murdered thousands upon thousands of Christians, and killed the Apostle Paul. The very same Nero who killed his own mother and then his wife. History records that a giant statue of the notoriously degenerate Caesar called the Colossus of Nero once stood near the Colosseum. The bronze statue has been lost to history – but some sources say that it stood over 120 feet tall. It is fitting that the most bloodthirsty venue, in the most bloodthirsty empire in history should be named for such a man. Gladiator battles were a regular occurrence in the Colosseum, and in other parts of the Roman Empire. The fights were bloody, with real weapons, but often not deadly because gladiators were too expensive for every match to be fatal. The fighters were highly specialized, with trainers and owners. The bouts had rules and referees similar to modern combat sports and historians estimate only 1 in 8 fights ended in the death of one of the combatants. The violence was the entertainment. Gambling, or what we would call sports betting, was a central part of the entertainment experience. And the pagan mob of Rome loved every minute of it. Gladiator fighting lasted for a period of nearly 700 years, from 264 BC to 404 AD, when the fights were permanently banned by the Emperor Honorius in 404. The sudden and surprising end of the violent entertainment was the direct result of not just Christian influence, but direct Christian intervention. The story of Telemachus is the stuff of legends and was once well known in the Christian world, but like much of Christian history is being forgotten or replaced as so-called Christian culture goes back to paganism, and back to Roman paganism in particular. Telemachus was a monk who lived in a small monastic community and who spent his time studying the Bible, praying and gardening. Little is known of his quiet existence. It was his death during a trip to Rome that he is remembered for. Nothing could quite prepare a quiet Christian farmer for the shock of the capital of the ancient world. It was not just the wild debauchery and feasting, or the political corruption. At the time Telemachus arrived in the city of Rome, the gladiator games were taking place to celebrate another military victory. Rome was constantly at war with this vassal or that, or this barbarian or that, and when it wasn’t fighting external enemies its generals and its emperors were fighting each other. Telemachus witnessed the incredible excitement in the city. The citizens discussed the upcoming combats, their favorite gladiators, the placing of their bets. On that fateful day in 404 AD, Telemachus followed the mob into the Colosseum to observe what would take place. Christians for some centuries publicly opposed the games, which endeared them neither to the masses nor the government. The early church father Turtullian some two centuries earlier had written a treatise on the subject discussing the pagan origins of the spectacles, which can be read here: https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm In this treatise, Turtullian described the history of this entertainment, it's relationship to the celebration and worship of pagan gods and goddesses in various cultures, and the arguments that pagans made to justify the events in the face of Christian criticism. Tertullian's conclusions in Spectacles are stark and direct: he called the gladiator games idolatry, and murder, born out of pagan honoring of the dead, and consecrated with the costumes, rites, and names of deities of pagan religion. No Christian, he says, should have any confusion about involvement or participation in these pagan events, where men made in the image of God fought and died. A few notable and compelling excerpts are footnoted here.[1] His arguments are worth reading. On that fateful day when Telemachus entered the Colosseum, he saw the gladiators turn and salute and declare, “We who are about to die salute you!” He saw the seething masses gathered to watch the violence with breathless anticipation, and a sense of horror overwhelmed him. He could not sit quietly and passively witness the violence without doing something. As the fighting started, Telemachus climbed onto a wall, and yelled, “In the name of Christ stop this! Stop this now!” Nobody paid any attention to him. The mob was transfixed by events in the arena. So Telemachus entered the arena. And suddenly the eyes of fifty thousand people were fixed on him. He approached the warring gladiators, shouting, “In the name of Christ, stop this! Stop it!” At first they ignored him, intent on their battle. But then the crowd's cheers changed to murmuring - who was this man interfering in their entertainment? Telemachus attempted to interpose physically between the gladiators, and was pushed back. The citizens in the seats quickly grew angry. Suddenly, a voice in the crowd shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!” The rest of the mob joined in. The chant went up – “kill him!”. The gladiators turned and began to stab Telemachus. History records that some of the Roman citizens pelted him with rocks. He was mortally wounded and collapsed on the sand, dying. Telemachus looked up at the gladiators, and with his dying breath said once more, “In the name of Christ, stop.” And then he lay still. A hush fell over the crowd which a moment before had been seized with the spirit of violence and murder. The gladiators stood over the body of Telemachus. Silence overtook the arena. Soon one citizen quietly left the Colosseum. Then another. Every person who had witnessed the death of the innocent man was forced by the Holy Spirit to feel that their blood lust and love of violence had been the cause of his death. Soon afterward, and as a result of that day's events, Emperor Honorius banned the gladiator games permanently. Fast forward to our day, to the modern western world. To our Christian modern world. On June 14, 2026, an arena was set up on the White House grounds and an event dedicated to everything that the Roman Colosseum stood for was held for the viewing pleasure of the supposedly Christian nation. Men made in the image of God bloodied each other before the politicians and soldiers of the new Rome. People cheered. Wagers were made. Millions changed hands. The event was streamed on Paramount+ and while there has been no official release of the number of viewers, commentators speculate the event drew a Super Bowl size online crowd. Tell me, Reader, as you think about these things. Does the Christian west love Christ and the principles of His kingdom? Does it love mercy and kindness and peace and good will toward all men? Or does it love violence, blood and debauchery? What does it mean when the leaders of the supposedly Christian nation sit mere feet from the violence and the blood, in the midst of the maddened throng? When Telemachus gave his life to stop the gladiatorial games, Christianity in its simple, self-sacrificing power stopped the frenzied pagan mob. But who will rebuke the blood thirsty mob when it gathers under the pretended cloak of Christianity? Revelation 13 says that the power which looked like a lamb will speak like a dragon. The dragon was Rome. Look around you and consider. Are we not living in the new Rome? ======================== Tertullian's Letter on Spectacles www.pseudepigrapha.com https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm [1] Now let us also point out that the other characteristics of the things which are going on at the spectacles are all opposed to God. God has given us the command both to deal with the Holy Spirit in tranquillity, gentleness, quiet, and peace, inasmuch as, in accordance with the goodness of His nature, He is tender and sensitive, and also not to vex Him by frenzy, bitterness of feeling, anger, and grief. How, then, can the Holy Spirit have anything to do with spectacles? There is no spectacle without violent agitation of the soul. For, where you have pleasure, there also is desire which gives pleasure its savor; where you have desire, there is rivalry which gives desire its savor. And where, in turn, you have rivalry, there also are frenzy and bitterness of feeling and anger and grief and the other effects that spring from them, and, moreover, are incompatible with our moral discipline. For, even if a man enjoys spectacles modestly and soberly, as befits his rank, age, and natural disposition, he cannot go to them without his mind being roused and his soul being stirred by some unspoken agitation. No one ever approaches a pleasure such as this without passion; no one experiences this passion without its damaging effects. These very effects are incitements to passion. On the other hand, if the passion ceases, there is no pleasure, and he who goes where he gains nothing is convicted of foolishness. Since, then, frenzy is forbidden us, we are debarred from every type of spectacle, including the circus, where frenzy rules supreme. Look at the populace, frenzied even as it comes to the show, already in violent commotion, blind, wildly excited over its wagers. Accordingly, from such beginnings the affair progresses to outbursts of fury and passion and discord and to everything forbidden to the priests of peace. Next come curses, insults without any justified reason for the hatred, and rounds of applause without the reward of affection. You have, therefore, the theater prohibited in the prohibition of uncleanness. Again, if we reject the learning of the world's literature as convicted of foolishness before God, we have a sufficiently clear rule also concerning those types of spectacles which, in profane literature, are classified as belonging to the comic or tragic stage. Now, if tragedies and comedies are bloody and wanton, impious and prodigal inventors of outrage and lust, the recounting of what is atrocious or base is no better; neither is what is objectionable in deed acceptable in word. Now, if you maintain that the stadium is not mentioned in the Scriptures, I will admit at once that you have a point. But as for what is done in the stadium, you cannot deny that it is unfit for you to see--punches and kicks and blows and all the reckless use of the fist and every disfiguration of the human face, that is, of God's image. Never can you approve the foolish racing and throwing feats and the more foolish jumping contests ; never can you be pleased with either harmful or foolish exhibitions of strength nor with the cultivation of an unnatural body, outdoing the craftsmanship of God; you will hate men bred to amuse the idleness of Greece.