I finally know why the Catholic Church is called the Whore of Babylon in Revelations.
I think you’ve been ready too many Jack Chick tracts, Laz. ;-)
If you look at the Scriptures referenced for this (Rev. 17:1-6) John says that the heads he saw "are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come." If five of these kings had fallen in John’s day and one of them was still in existence, then the Whore must have existed in John’s day. Yet Christian Rome and Vatican City did not.
However, pagan Rome did have a line of emperors, etc.etc. and without getting too windy, the passage altogether is directed at pagan Rome.
I don't blame you for bad information, Laz. You may well have gotten it from somebody who doesn't know jack chick about this particular Scripture.
“...Catholic Church ... Whore of Babylon...Revelations”
It is actually Jerusalem that is being referred to in Revelations as the Whore of Babylon, not Rome a/k/a the Catholic Church. Proof? - Revelation 11:8 “the great city which is allegorically called Sodom and Egypt, WHERE THEIR LORD WAS CRUCIFIED”. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem.
There is plenty of precedent of Jerusalem being personified as a harlot in the OT when she disobeys God - Isaiah 1:21 - just for starters.
Also Jerusalem sits on seven hills and the Vatican does not - it is across the Tiber from Rome itself and does not sit on seven hills.
That being said - this Pope is almost certainly an anti Pope and it is a bit scary as he theoretically could be a signal of the end times, although I am not particularly a millennialist type.
He could just be a screwed up anti-Pope. The Church has dealt with such in the past. He has not pronounced anything ex cathedra yet (declared an infallible doctrine) and he had better not ...