Admittedly, not all of his tunes are this catchy, but I'd get a CD of this stuff if he'd ever put one out. I cannot decide if my favorite line is the one about AntiChrist not being "nice" or the one about having "no 'lectricity." Yes, meet William Tapley. The Third Eagle of the Apocalypse and Co-Prophet of the End Times. No, I don't know what those titles mean either or who bestowed them upon him. (Although, he's probably sure it was God.)
What I find most interesting about Tapley (and what keeps me checking his stuff out) is the fact that he's Catholic. This makes him unique in the fire and brimstone world of conservative evangelical doomsday preachers who all loudly proclaim that the Catholic Church is the "Whore of Babylon" from the book of Revelation. He's had to make as many videos refuting this claim as he's made warning that the end is near. (He also doesn't see Obama as the Anti-Christ, which places him at odds with many of his apocalyptic brethren.)
Stylistically, however, he has a lot in common with the fire-breathing fundies. I grew up seeing a lot of "End Times Timelines", little charts that purported to demonstrate how close we are to the Return of Christ. Here's a sample of what I'm talking about. It's the kind of thing that only a fundamentalist-literalist interpretation of the Bible can come up with. I totally love the "You are Here" and "You Could Be Here" arrows.
Tapley's vids are full of this kind of thing. He uses lots of print outs and pics and graphs and such. It is very interesting to see from a Catholic perspective. Tapley's Catholicism adds interesting elements to his Apocalypticism, as well.
For example, he has a wealth of Marian apparitions and prophecies to draw upon for imagery. Practically every time the Virgin Mary is supposed to have appeared to this or that shepherd child or nun, she left secrets and messages and hints about what was to come. It's pretty common for conservative Catholics to apply those messages to things happening in the Church since Vatican II, but not so common to see them used as Tapley uses them.
There is also his application of Catholic morals to his prophecy. Did you know that people who use condoms will not be raptured?
And, then of course, there is the reverse influence that other theorists (particularly more secular folks like Alex Jones) have on his work. I truly doubt that the messages of Our Lady of La Sallette really talk about alien abductions and zombies. (See why I love this stuff??) I kind of wonder what his local Bishop has to say about his "ministry" when I see stuff like that.
Of course, like most of these so-called prophets, he's made a few calls that have fallen short. Check his channel on YouTube and you'll see that he has declared a few times that WWIII has already begun, despite no obvious signs. He also declared that the 44th Super Bowl would be the last one. Really?
As a prophet, he makes a much better tunesmith. But that's enough to keep me watching.
Oh, yeah! He's also done his own Whitney Houston death video. However, unlike folks I was talking about yesterday, he doesn't lay the blame for her death on any shadowy parties. Rather, he believes her death is a message from God for President Obama.
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