ASCENSION
- dkclements
- 14 hours ago
- 15 min read
IT STARTED LIKE A BAD JOKE in Las Vegas.
A professor, priest, and prophet walk into a bar….
I had spoken at a freedom event on the Strip. Tina Peters debuted free of prison irons to an adoring public. The room was full of people who wanted the truth told out loud.
After, I walked to a quiet bar for dinner.
Friendly faces gathered. The table grew. The steak came. Bourbon was poured. A man dressed in black sat a few chairs down. After visiting with those on my end of the table, I went to introduce myself feeling the Spirit’s tug. The man in black wore a white collar.
A priest.
His eyes were steady. I was astonished when he said, “I didn’t know how to approach you, but God told me I need to speak with you. And here you are, sitting next to me.” His tone was kind but urgent. He spoke of danger. That I needed the protection of the Church. I needed to take hold of the Eucharist. That an encounter with Christ was required to meet the demands that awaited my future.
What could the priest know of me? Was his warning the byproduct of a hasty internet search? Articles about me are plenty. Media Matters provided two hit pieces after I predicted Trump could terminate the entire Election Assistance Commission after the Slaughter decision. A day later, he did.
Moreover, I was already acquainted with danger of a kind. I had put murderers behind bars for life. Killers with cartel friends. I’ve listened to the jail calls. Vows made to put me in the ground. My wife and kids too. I made an uneasy peace with that years ago. The threats changed over the years. Now it was the wreckage of 2020 lawfare, reputation gutted, resources thin, or the occasional two-a.m. call saying I was watched, movements tracked, number blocked.
It is with this in mind—I stared at the priest with a mix of intrigue and irritation. I’m a believer with no doubt about my salvation. I see no defect in my absence from the Catholic rolls of the confirmed. But I know that my weekly Nicene confession of belonging to “one Apostolic and Catholic church” comes with a “disclaimer” to their rank and file. That I’m little more than a small “c” catholic missing out on the fullness of the faith, or so it goes. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. The Catholic Church’s history, its reverence, the ritual that remembers, has caused me to lament the absence of their ancient wisdom in the modern evangelical church. Smoke machines and rock music have replaced incense and Gregorian chants. Personally, I prefer the latter.
So, I’m a catholic not recognized by Catholics. But does that make me a Protestant?
No.
I reject the label, if for no other reason, Catholics paved the way on protests, reforms, and schisms, long before Luther nailed his thesis to wood.
Here is a bit of “Protestant” history within the Catholic Church:
First, leadership tension between Peter and James was evident as early as the 40s–50s AD. James functioned as the primary leader of the Jerusalem church—the mother church—while Peter shifted toward broader missionary work. Paul’s public rebuke of Peter occurred around the early 50s AD. In Antioch, he opposed Pope Peter “to his face” over hypocrisy in withdrawing from Gentile table fellowship under pressure from the circumcision party associated with James, declaring Peter’s actions not in step with the truth of the gospel (Galatians 2:11–14).
Next, you have the Novatian schism of 251. Novatianus was elected as a rival (antipope) in Rome over the question of reconciling those who had lapsed under persecution. Then, the Donatist schism was born in 311. North African Christians rejected bishops who had handed over scriptures during persecution (traditores), creating a long-lasting alternative church structure that rejected Roman reconciliation and required re-baptism.
After that, the Arian crisis fractured the church from the 320s onward. Multiple councils, imperial interventions, and repeated exiles of orthodox leaders (Athanasius of Alexandria was banished five times; others such as Hilary of Poitiers and numerous bishops were sent into exile or deposed) produced competing hierarchies and prolonged doctrinal division across the empire.
But then the biggie came.
The East–West (Great) Schism of 1054. Mutual excommunications between papal legates and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople capped centuries of growing estrangement over papal primacy, the Filioque, liturgical practices, and jurisdiction, permanently separating the Eastern Orthodox churches from Rome.
That was followed by the Western Schism of 1378. Rival lines of popes produced up to three simultaneous claimants, each with their own cardinals and obedience; the crisis lasted nearly forty years until the Council of Constance. Across the roughly 1,500 years from the apostolic age to the Reformation, the historical record documents around 30–40 antipopes—rival claimants backed by factions, emperors, or cardinals.
As a side note, the once-Catholic Martin Luther’s critique over the selling of indulgences, pales in comparison to these controversies. Even Pope Pius V agreed with Luther about the scandal and later canceled all grants of indulgences that involved any fees or financial transactions.
And I’ve left off dozens more fractures and parallel communities: the Meletian schism, the Nestorian and Monophysite separations (producing the Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox). In summation, long before 1517, the institutional history of the church that later called itself Catholic already displayed repeated patterns of contested authority, rival hierarchies, doctrinal splits, exiles, and fragmentation.
So, if I may be so bold, Catholics were the OG Protestants.
At present, excommunications are rampant for the faithful that contend the Church continues to be in error since Vatican II. More on this in a moment. If the argument of unity is to be won by use of an authoritative cudgel, or by Holy See pen, I suppose Catholics could claim the victory here. But as I fellowship with lay Catholics, one thing has been made clear. They remain Catholic not because of Pope Benedict, Francis or Leo, but oftentimes, in spite of them.
So, in my best schoolyard tone I mutter—"I’m not a Protestant, you are”—or my creed of belonging to “one Catholic and Apostolic Church” means nothing.
Back to priest in front of me.
He couldn’t know I carried this dialogue in my head for years. Or that I know the antichrist is coming, and its spirit had taken up a residence in the Vatican in the 1960s. But something told me, he already knew.
I would soon learn the priest had been defrocked for naming errors inside the Church. Its sexual depravity. The abuse of children. The knowledge of secret blackmail files that kept the Vatican a whorehouse, with popes too afraid to expose what it held. That he performed an exorcism in the White House after the Obama administration.
Proximity to Trump made the priest a pariah amongst captured leaders in the Catholic Church, and evangelical witches offering spiritual advice to the President. They bid their time. When Trump was ousted in the 2020 soft power coup, they seized the opportunity and invented a tale of financial impropriety. Enough to stain his name and confuse his parish. Now he sat in a bar telling a stranger that the same Church offered safety. I could sense he meant “the divine Church” and not the corruption of the Vatican. Still, the irony was thick enough to cut.
This won’t be a short record. Church unity wasn’t my problem until I met the priest. His pain affected me. Now, I’m presented with an intellectual and spiritual mountain to climb. 2,000 years of fragmentation. Is there an answer? To look at the pitch of that mountain, to feel the scorching heat of modern-day Pharisees, is to desire quitting before taking the first step. But since I write about the things that burden my mind, up we must go.
And that’s the topic for today.
ASCENSION
Let’s ask the question. Why is church unity important? Because Christ and His Church have enemies. The antichrist. Maybe you’ve heard of him.
2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 declares:
“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day [Christ’s return] will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God….”
The temple of God.
A church.
The Church?
A Muslim prayer room has been established in the Vatican's Apostolic Library. A religion that denies the divinity of Jesus can now worship within the very walls of Catholic intellectual power. I believe Islam is the official religion of the antichrist, though it permeates in other godless circles. The spirit of the antichrist took a seat in the Temple, or Catholic Church in 1965. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre would not sign off on Vatican II—over the opaque expansion of religious liberty. He saw the naivety in it. Nostra Aetate (Vatican II, 1965), §3: Official Catholic Church teaching “regards with esteem.”
Now compare this statement with the Muslim Mahdi who would take the head of every unbeliever---especially Catholic heads. Pastor Josh Howerton explains:
"So in Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi will emerge as a charismatic messianic leader during global chaos. He will take control of the world and destroy everyone who resists him. He will invade many nations. He will rule and reign for seven years. He will broker a seven year peace treaty with the Jews. He will conquer Israel and massacre the Jews. He will establish a one world government headquartered in Jerusalem. He will establish Islam as the only acceptable religion. He will come on a white horse with supernatural power doing signs and wonders. He will be assisted by a powerful prophet. Now, if all of that sounds familiar, it is because it is a precise description of the Bible's antichrist."
Archbishop Levebvre predicted this day and warned of the Islamic hordes to come. Spain was just invaded by 60,000 muslim men. Lefebvre ordained bishops against Rome’s order and they cut him off. Excommunicated. His St. Pius society worked on in the cold places with the old Mass and the old lines. Later Archbishop Viganò wrote the same later in the open and called Vatican II the root of what followed. Excommunicated in 2024. Now the Muslim men cross into Spain. In New York there is Mamdani. The numbers rise in Dallas and Dearborn. The Church’s infiltration and the proliferation of Islamic terrorism is no coincidence. The City of London is the root. We are merely witnessing two of its most powerful arms in action. Rome is one. The House of Rothschild holds the Holy See through its loans. Iran is the other, the agent that spreads the fire.
Trump and Bessent press hard. The syndcate's answer comes in directed energy attacks over Spokane, Washington. Then you have the cyber strikes on water systems. Notice how Trump will not name Iran as the media tries to redirect our attention away from the money men. Trump says "I heard in Minnesota there was a new cyber attack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I think Iran should be so lucky. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."
Trump keeps his eye on the money men in London. When he tells Iran to brace for the decapitation strike, he speaks to the lenders. "I wanna give them every last chance before decapitation," he says. The syndicate's blows are the last thrashings of a dying order. The bridge from London to Iran falls. The bridge from London to the Vatican falls. In the midst of it all, Senator Grassley posts a picture of a vacuum cleaner on social media. The meaning? Trump is done cleaning the Justice Department. The ODNI is emptied.
What has restrained the antichrist spirit thus far is the Body of Christ. Case in point, 2020 brought us to the brink of lawlessness. Could you imagine how much more so if Christians were not present to fight for truth? A day will come when Christ takes His bride, and no restraint remains. When we are taken, those that have chosen Rebellion and Hell will have it. Unity matters because the condition of His bride matters. When Christ returns, His bride shouldn’t be dressed in tatters, smoking, hair tangled in curlers, or making out with the best man. And that is what our disunity looks like with marauders at the gate.
Before I sat next to the priest, I left the side of a prophet on the other end of the table.
My Romanian friend that saw communism fall in a single day. I mentioned his story in Ep. 21. From an evangelical fellowship that prayed 24 hours a day for our nation, his work moved across every line-- Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, the ones who had left, or never belonged. He spoke of the cracks in the Church with the same quiet sorrow the priest carried. Both men were godly. Both saw the same broken places. One had been cast out for naming them from inside the old walls. The other had never lived inside those walls and still served with fidelity.
Weeks after the event the prophet calls me on the phone. I pick up. “Hello pastor.”
He responds, “God gave me an understanding. There is only one city of “The Crosses.” Everything was won at the Cross. Your hometown Las Cruces is the next assignment.” With authority, he declared, “We will meet on the 4th of July at the Cross.”
For context, I live in one of the poorest counties, in the poorest state, in the United States. We trade spots with Mississippi for dead last in education and a dozen other categories. We are the late term abortion capitol of the world. We had breadlines in the freezing cold during Covid-19. The Prophet concluded, “God told me you know where we need to meet, and will know who needs to be there.”
As soon as he said it, I knew the place.
A high place. Tortugas Mountain.
I battled irritation. I love my friend. His accuracy as a prophet was beyond reproach. His boldness challenged me. But this was my home. My sanctuary in the wilderness. The one place I could control, where I could rest. I felt vulnerable. To invite friends to leave their families on the day most known for celebrating with loved ones was a test of faith.
With less than one week from the 4th, I would need to discern who should come to my little wilderness, and risk looking like a giant idiot. “I don’t know quite how to say this, but God told me you need to come climb a mountain in triple digit heat in Las Cruces on the 4th of July.”
One thing was for certain, if God wasn’t behind the prophet, there were abundant reasons to decline the invitation. I could hear the excuses in my mind. “That sounds fun but I can’t swing the airfare to travel across the country on such short notice.” Or, “I’m the designated grill-master, and the one who launches fireworks at our house. Sorry.”
Deep down I knew the purpose of the assignment. We can’t celebrate independence from our government tyrants, and keep it, unless the Church starts mending fences. And fast. The exiles like Vigano get it. His entire 2020 open letter to President Trump is in the drops, reading like a prophetic declaration of the storm we find ourselves in. Trump feels it too, posting a picture of himself kissing a very Catholic Crucifix.
Could we remember what makes us image bearers of Christ and rise above the theological noise? Could we remember the DNA in our cells that makes us human? Could we ascend above the antichrist’s plan to change our code? The MRNA injection to change us, kill our connection with the creator, or kill those in the womb?
Could we see the AI interface that awaits? That an antichrist is so close to plugging in to a demon infused network, that his knowledge will seem like that of a god, and that a temptation will exist for us to plug into him? A counterfeit of our connection to Christ.
A United States requires a United Church. Especially against the evil of Islam.
I started my invitations. The prophet. That was a given. But the rest? God said, “Have faith.”
The priest came into my mind’s eye. I reached out. “Priest, God led me to invite you to Las Cruces to climb a mountain for an encounter on the 4th of July.” The priest would eventually say, “Yes.” He would drive 9 hours and bring his ministry team. Two patriots from Dallas would fly in. Three Taiwanese Americans from Washington D.C. that have fed the homeless for 16 years out of their personal fortunes would find coverage and be there. They wanted to blow their shofars from the mountain top. An EMT from Oklahoma who played harp and led worship would drive. He wanted to play his harp on top of the mountain. A Roman Catholic from Baton Rouge fighting for election integrity would come. The prophet’s son would join from Bucharest. Every person who took the journey came from a slightly different denomination.
July 3rd they came. My home was opened. Each shared why they accepted the invitation. Catholics and Protestants showed each other love, grace, and mercy. We spoke of unity, corruption, the Eucharist, Mary, and the return of our Lord Jesus. Each held the other’s vulnerability with sacred trust. No apologetic debates. No extraction evangelism. Rather, each recognized the room was full of spiritual peers. Holy men and holier women. That night, many in the group had dreams, visions, and prophetic downloads.
On July 4th my house was transformed into a Church. An unspoken symphony would emerge. The mass was held in my living room. The liturgy was read in Aramaic in the words of Jesus. Incense. Bells. Candles were lit. The Priest would sing with the voice of an angel. The harpist sang psalms as old as David in Hebrew. The priest asked the prophet to give a homily.
The next thing that happened may scandalize you.
The Eucharist was administered to exiled and unconfirmed believers.
Under a rare exception. Catholic Canon 844, Section 4, it was permitted. The exact requirements are as follows:
(1) The recipients are to be baptized. We were.
(2) There is a grave and pressing necessity. Our purpose was to accomplish unity for the survival of the Church, with the knowledge that Christ’s return is not only imminent, but we are accountable for our readiness or lack thereof. Check.
(3) The recipients cannot approach a minister of their own community. As an unconfirmed exile in the faith, hosting Christians from different parts of the country, this too was satisfied.
(4) The person must spontaneously ask for the sacrament. The priest does not invite or pressure them. Upon receiving the teaching of the sacrament from the priest, the prophet agreed that the teaching was without error. I offered my personal belief that the Catholic view required the most faith to believe. That I believed the Real Presence was in the sacrament, and that if the priest could administer without violating his own Canons, I would receive it.
(5) The person manifests Catholic faith regarding the sacrament — meaning they believe what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharist (Real Presence / that it is truly the Body and Blood of Christ). All evangelical recipients examined their own consciences and had the option of taking or declining the sacrament.
(6) The person is properly disposed (in a state of grace, free from serious sin, approaching with reverence, etc.).
Bread and wine were set out. The words were spoken. Christ was received by everyone invited in strict adherence to the canons.
Only one defect could be argued, though I am not persuaded that it would carry the day in the Courts of Heaven. But here it is. An exiled priest cannot feed others with the sacred bread of the presence.
Matthew 12:3–4 is my response: “Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?”
A miracle happened in my living room.
We turned back the clock and lived a reality that the Church practiced for 1,000 years. Satan hates what we did. We were supposed to debate and divide. We didn’t. The modern day pharisees will recoil back in indignation at hearing what I just shared. Those who harbor hate for the Catholic, their hackles are up. “The table isn’t theirs to guard.” Those who loathe the Protestant, are enraged at the Priest’s audacity.
Later that day we climbed Tortugas Mountain. The triple digit heat came down as a cloud covered our steps, and a gentle breeze cooled our skin. On the mountain we held a joint service at an altar left by those who gave pilgrimage to the spot over a hundred years ago. An old slab was in the shadow of a giant telecommunications tower covered in satellite dishes. An antenna to the world. At the end of the service, a gust of wind howled. Without any prompting, the harp player and I instinctively knew to lift his instrument into the air. The wind ripped through the harp strings, amplifying a sound out of this world.
We ascended the mountain for vision. We got it. Fireworks rose from the valley below. I thought again of the Eucharist as we stood there. The early Church had not needed every philosophical distinction to confess the same reality. Christ gave Himself. He was received. If the modern Church could recover even that much common ground, the fractures might not widen under the coming strain.
On the mountain the gift was made manifest with palms anointed and clasped in friendship. If a technical defect could be surmised by squinting at what took place in my home, just know there are millions of Catholics that hold to the old ways. The Church could restore Vigano, the St. Pius Society, my friend the priest, and the millions they have faithfully ministered to. I am still a small “c” catholic. But if the big “C” Catholic church had wisdom enough to restore these faithful priests that confronted its errors, that’s a Church I could belong to. Until that day, I’ll defend the Church from outside the walls. We came down from the mountain as the last fireworks faded. The encounter had begun. The campaign ran forward from the Crosses, Las Cruces, toward the end of the end days.
David K. Clements is a seasoned attorney, former law professor, filmmaker and dedicated advocate for election integrity and constitutional rights. If you think he's on to something, consider being a monthly sponsor of his independent journalism at:
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