Fr Gobbi on the Mark of the Beast

 

As I mentioned on a previous post (The Mark of the Beast?), Fr Stefano Gobbi predicted the date by which the prophecy of the mark of the Beast would be fulfilled - in a period of history beginning in the year 1998, which is 666 multiplied by three:



666 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, expresses the year 1998, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight. In this period of history, Freemasonry, assisted by its ecclesiastical form, will succeed in its great design: that of setting up an idol to put in the place of Christ and of his Church. A false christ and a false church. Consequently, the statue built in honor of the first beast, to be adored by all the inhabitants of the earth and which will seal with its mark all those who want to buy or sell, is that of the Antichrist. You have thus arrived at the peak of the purification, of the great tribulation and of the apostasy. The apostasy will be, as of then, generalized because almost all will follow the false christ and the false church. Then the door will be open for the appearance of the man or of the very person of the Antichrist! (Message 407)


In this locution, Fr Gobbi (or if you prefer Our Lady through Fr Gobbi) associates the mark of the Beast with the idol fashioned by the False Prophet in Rev 13:


Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. (Rev 13:11-15)


Fr Gobbi makes reference to this same idol in an earlier message, and specifically relates it to modern technology, such as television:


Do not waste time before the television set, which is the most powerful instrument in the hands of my Adversary in spreading everywhere the darkness of sin and of impurity. Television is the idol spoken of in the Book of Revelation, built to be adored by all the nations of the earth, and to which the Evil One gives shape and movement so that it might become, in his hands, a terrible means of seduction and perversion. (Message 374)



We have to keep in mind that Fr Gobbi received these locutions some years before the invention of the worldwide web and WAP phones, so while the internet, computers, cell phones, etc. aren't specifically mentioned here, they are definitely part of the wider social communications technology he frequently refers to elsewhere. It is also worth noting that in the first message cited above, Fr Gobbi states that the idol wouldn't be fully established until the period in history beginning in the year 1998 - which is well outside the date of the first introduction of television during the 1930's. So clearly television isn't the sole reference point of the "idol" Fr Gobbi refers to - it must involve something else also. We can find some further evidence that this "idol" is specifically linked to the introduction of WAP cell phones in an earlier message which is part of the Fr Gobbi’s overall commentary on the mark of the Beast:


Above all, my Immaculate Heart is today becoming the sign of my certain victory in the great battle which is being fought out between the followers of the huge red Dragon and the followers of the Woman clothed with the sun. In this terrible struggle, there comes up from the sea, to the aid of the Dragon, a beast like a leopard. If the Red Dragon is Marxist atheism, the Black Beast is Freemasonry. The Dragon manifests himself in the force of his power; the Black Beast, on the other hand, acts in the shadow, keeps out of sight and hides himself in such a way as to enter in everywhere. He has the claws of a bear and the mouth of a lion, because he works everywhere with cunning and with the means of social communication, that is to say, through propaganda. The seven heads indicate the various masonic lodges, which act everywhere in a subtle and dangerous way.
This Black Beast has ten horns and, on the horns, ten crowns, which are signs of dominion and royalty. Masonry rules and governs throughout the whole world by means of the ten horns. The horn, in the biblical world, has always been an instrument of amplification, a way of making one’s voice better heard, a strong means of communication...

...If the Lord has communicated His Law with the Ten Commandments, Masonry is everywhere spreading a law which is completely opposed to that of God, with the power of its ten horns. (Message 405)



Note here that Fr Gobbi states that the "Black Beast" mentioned here, which represents Freemasonry, works its deception through social communications, which he then goes on to compare to the horns of the seven headed sea-beast. His further analogy with the biblical sense of the horn as a means of communication is highly suggestive of mobile phone use - "The horn, in the biblical world, has always been an instrument of amplification, a way of making one’s voice better heard, a strong means of communication". This portion of Fr Gobbi’s message contains a key insight as to the identity of the "idol/mark of the Beast" he mentioned previously, and explicitly associated with modern technology such as television - which coincidentally can now easily be viewed through mobile handsets via the internet. So it seems pretty clear then that Fr Gobbi directly associated the mark of the Beast with modern social communications technology - a prophecy which appears to have been fulfilled with chilling accuracy in the advent of the worldwide web (the acronym of which is the equivalent of three sixes in Hebrew), and the fact that cell phones are set to replace credit cards as a means of commerce - which will be conducted exclusively over the www.