The root of this sequence is the absence of God’s Love in our lives and in society.

The root of this sequence is the absence of God’s Love in our lives and in society. Whenever God is absent from a society, this society sooner or later falls into decay and, were it not for God’s mercy, all human efforts would be lost, misdirected as they are toward mundane glory and material wealth alone and without God’s blessing: “unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”(Ps.127:1)

God is Love and lies invisibly at the very heart of social relations and interactions. Without God, there can be no love, no friendship and no society. People would become like the planets of a universe where gravitation would have been removed: they would go their own way and would be lost in the deep space of loneliness and the darkness of social isolation, only – perhaps – to become aggregated in some inhumane cluster, one of these soulless political régimes of oppression and cruelty we saw in the XXth Century.

Actually, this is the horizon of modern politics. This is the horizon of modern politics because this is also its foundation. Its foundation is not the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of Rome. The Spirit of Rome claims to be natural and not spiritual, but the Spirit of Law reveals the Spirit of Rome as spiritual. He exposes it as the self-glorification of the terrestrial city which claims to rely on its own efforts to build a better world and inevitably degenerates into an oppressive regime imposing useless sacrifices to its citizens for the sake of its own conservation. This Spirit of Rome, as an ideal-type, has been historically realized within various contexts but most especially in the Roman Empire, where it pitilessly persecuted the first Christians. That’s why the word ‘Empire’ is often used as a synonym for the ‘Spirit of Rome.’

The pervading nature of the Spirit of Rome has been surprisingly well described by an American writer, which inspired some successful movies, Philip K. Dick. He had some weird ideas, but, at a point of his life, seemed to have had a genuine mystical experience where he became conscious of the existence of an archetypal reality underlying commonsense reality. In this reality, which was somehow the true reality, he was a Christian living in secrecy in the times of the Roman Empire and waiting for Christ’s Second Coming. For him, the Roman Empire also belonged to this archetypal reality. It was a Black Iron Prison of fear, ignorance and violence, taking “various disguised polyforms” in the modern world: “the Empire never ended” . “The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one.” Philip K. Dick also added that the supreme temptation would be to fight the Empire with its own arms. He warned: “To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.” He saw the only remedy in waging the war on a spiritual level with Jesus Christ; he also expected a temporal messianic figure, King Felix, to help renewing the desert of this loveless world into a new Arabia Felix filled with God’s spirit.

And, indeed, the system of covert lawlessness enthralling this world has two dimensions: a temporal (Rome) and spiritual (Babylon) dimension. That’s why most traditions refer to two figures fighting it, the temporal figure acting as proxy for the spiritual one. Jesus Christ is the spiritual leader, whose life was a spiritual victory which can become ours through the sacraments. And, indeed, the era of peace must be established by men of peace. As wrote Pope John XXIII: “the world will never be the dwelling place of peace, till peace has found a home in the heart of each and every man.”(Pacem in Terris, §165). And this is what Jesus Christ enables us to do – in a process which is certainly more difficult than building a materialistic civilization or nuclear weapons. The spiritual weaponry of light and love offered by Jesus Christ will be instrumental to gain victory. The spiritual role of the Virgin Mary is of equal importance, as she helps Jesus Christ to born in our souls, as she helps us to understand and practice Love and Law and, as the Queen of Peace and Woman of the Apocalypse, will comfort the believers and give victory to the faithful after the tribulations.

There is however the need for figures on the temporal plane. They are the two witnesses of the Apocalypse (Rev.11, Za.4). Their role is to witness God’s mercy and Jesus Christ’s spiritual victory to the entire world. They will be comforters and prophets, be defeated, but will come back with Jesus to build the new Era of Peace. One of them will be the legitimate pope during a schism within the Catholic Church, the other one is known in Muslim world as the Imam Mahdi. He is the Messiah son of Joseph for the Jews (the Messiah ben David being Jesus), the Great Monarch for the Catholics and the Orthodox, Lord Kalki for the Hindus and the Davidic Servant for some Mormons.

Conclusion

Mankind is in want of its political and religious unification, which can however be effected under the guidance of the Spirit of God or of the Spirit of Evil. Both are at work in contemporary globalization but, someday, their opposition will be dramatically made manifest. At that moment, our old habits of thoughts will be of no use. Moreover, it is difficult to tell in advance which nation will follow which Spirit.

For instance, the US is currently undergoing an intense purification; its next president, Barrack Obama, will certainly be more open-minded. Faith is strong there; the Evangelicals await the end of times; some Mormons expect the Davidic Servant and they have even built a fully functional replica of the Oval Office of the White House for him. As for Israel, the problem is that it is a modern State with secular ‘roman’ foundations. The Muslim world, hostile towards Israel, does not realize that it is in fact fighting the oppressive Spirit of Rome embedded within, while there is no reason per se for Jews and Muslims to fight each other. Indeed, the Quran even states that God will bring the Jews back to Israel in the end times: “and thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd.'"(Q.17:107) The problem lies in the nature of modern States.

Thus, the US and Israel have the possibility to follow the Spirit of God and they somehow prepare themselves for the coming of the Mahdi. In the future, Iran may even help the True Israel instead of fighting it: “the Messiah Son of Joseph is similar to Cyrus the Persian Monarch who encouraged the Jews to return from the Babylonian Exile and rebuild the Temple”(KolHaTor, 1.6.1), even if the ‘roman’ State of Israel itself may fall in the wrong hands before that moment. Law must also help healing the relations between nations.