There is a startling passage in the Book of Revelation, one that could easily be missed. It speaks of “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth” (Rev 17:5). Of her sins, for which she is judged “in an hour,” (18:10) is that her “markets” trade not only in gold and silver but in humans.
The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her, because there will be no more markets for their cargo: their cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; fine linen, purple silk, and scarlet cloth… and slaves, that is, human beings. (Rev 18:11-14)
Addressing this passage, Pope Benedict XVI said quite prophetically:The Book of Revelation includes among the great sins of Babylon — the symbol of the world’s great irreligious cities – the fact that it trades with bodies and souls and treats them as commodities (cf. Rev 18:13). In this context, the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world — an eloquent expression of the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind. No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart — and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, On the occasion of Christmas Greetings, December 20th, 2010; http://www.vatican.va/
to continue:Babylon Now
