Posted 9th June 2014
ROME –
On the same day his wife took 300 schoolchildren to the Bronx Zoo, Joel Osteen, the pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church, was meeting Thursday with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Osteen said Friday it was a great honor to represent the pastors of America in the meeting with the pontiff, whom he described as warm, personable and full of joy
According to reports, Osteen was part of a delegation organized by the International Foundation in an effort to encourage interfaith relations and ecumenicism.
Utah Senator Mike Lee (R), a Mormon, Gayle Beebe, the president of the interdenominational Westmont College in California, and Pastor Tim Timmons, founder of South Coast Community Church also in California, were among those who who greeted the pope, along with Osteen.
“I just felt very honored and very humbled,” Osteen told local television station Click 2 Houston. “It was amazing. And even to go back into that part of the Vatican—there’s so much history there, the place that they took us through. You feel that deep respect and reverence for God.”
The Lakewood leader also met with other Vatican staff during his visit, including Cardinal Pietro Paroli, Secretary of State for the Vatican, and had dinner with an unspecified staff member.
Osteen attended mass in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday prior to the meeting in the midst of a crowd of 100,000 people.
“Afterward, [the pope] spent an hour and a half going through the crowd with the Popemobile, greeting people,” he recalled to the Houston Chronicle. “It was very heartwarming to see him caring for people.”
Osteen told reporters that he believed the pope’s message and focus is one of unity.
“I love the fact that’s he’s made the Church more inclusive,” he said. “Not trying to make it smaller, but to try to make it larger—to take everybody in. So, that just resonates with me.”
But others have expressed sadness about Osteen’s recent meeting at the Vatican, stating that ecumenicism is far from biblical.
“Joel Osteen has joined the rank of all other popular ministries in bowing his knee to the anti-Christ system, and those that blindly follow his leadership will be the first ones in line with their hand out to be marked by the beast,” Pastor Mark Herridge Sr. of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Livingston, Texas told Christian News Network.
“Any Protestant ministry that links up with the pope and Catholicism is betraying the sacrifice of millions of faithful Christians that have died at the hands of this brutal, dictatorial and oppressive religion that has never represented the Church of the Living God as outlined in New Testament teaching,” he said.
Amy Spreeman of Stand Up for the Truth said that it is important that Christians take note of these developments.
“You might be saying to your evangelical self, ‘Who cares what Joel Osteen does, or what the pope does, or what a Mormon senator does? These things surely don’t apply to my faith, do they?’” she wrote. “[P]erhaps it’s time to stop focusing on those audacious dreams and life tips and start paying attention to your Bible and to those pesky news headlines that threaten to wake us from our slumber.
Interview with Joel Osteen talks with Local 2’s Dominique Sachse about visit with Pope Francis.
I love Joel’s previous statement that the Pope is taking everybody in – and indeed he is!
Coercion Code - "Dark Times are upon us" 
well one wolf meets another. Love to know what illuminati plans they discussed for the coming new world order and the building of the one world religion. But God Almighty knows and heard every word. And there is no escaping his wrath come judgement day. The apostate church is working hand in hand with Rome to bring in the antichrist. There are some pastors involved in the apostate movement, who have been deceived. But there are some who are the deceivers sent in my satan and his men, to deliberately take the church where its gone. The catholic church never has been christian. its always been the wolf in sheeps clothing to fool the masses into worshipping satan instead, whilst they believe they are worshipping the Lord. And if any church who doesn’t see that, cant be of God themselves. Because you only have to look at the doctrines and rituals of the church, to know who is really the head of that church. Nothing they teach lines up with true biblical doctrine. And if any pastor believes it does, then he simply does not know his bible, or just doesnt know what the catholic church really teach, believe and do . And as far as the vatican goes. U couldn’t get a more occultic place on earth than that.
I would nice if Joel would just stop and think, before endorsing a bigger is best mentality. But as they say ‘birds of feather flock together’