Update: Catholic scholar says that the official persecution of faithful Catholics under Francis has begun. See here.
An example of this persecution here.
"For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord (Jesus) will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming, the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie, and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved. Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned." (2 Thessalonians 2: 7-12).
Philip Johnson, in his book "Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture, tells a story which is both amusing and frightening at the same time. He writes: "I am convinced that conscious dishonesty is much less important in intellectual matters than self-deception...The German biologist Bruno Muller-Hill tells a memorable story to illustrate his thesis that 'self-deception plays an astonishing role in science in spite of all the scientists' worship of truth':
When I was a student in a German gymnasium and thirteen years old, I learned a lesson that I have not forgotten...One early morning our physics teacher placed a telescope in the school yard to show us a certain planet and its moons. So we stood in a long line, about forty of us. I was standing at the end of the line, since I was one of the smallest students. The teacher asked the first student whether he could see the planet. No, he had difficulties, because he was nearsighted. The teacher showed him how to adjust the focus, and that student could finally see the planet and the moons. Others had no difficulty; they saw them right away. The students saw, after a while, what they were supposed to see. Then the student standing just before me - his name was Harter - announced that he could not see anything. 'You idiot,' shouted the teacher, 'you have to adjust the lenses.' The student did that and said after a while, 'I do not see anything, it is all black.' The teacher then looked through the telescope himself. After some seconds he looked up with a strange expression on his face. And then my comrades and I also saw that the telescope was nonfunctioning; it was closed by a cover over the lens. Indeed, no one could see anything through it.'
Muller-Hill reports that one of the docile students became a professor of philosophy and director of a German TV station. 'This might be expected,' he wickedly comments. But another became a professor of physics, and a third a professor of botany. The honest Harter had to leave school and go to work in a factory. If in later life he was ever tempted to question any of the pronouncements of his more illustrious classmates, I am sure he was firmly told not to meddle in matters beyond his understanding.'" (pp. 156-157).
Do we honestly believe that this herd mentality is not to be found throughout our society and even in the Church? If so, we deceive ourselves. Pope Benedict XVI has warned of a liberal notion of conscience which is nothing less than a retreat from truth. In a keynote address of the Tenth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Catholic Conscience: Foundation and Formation," he says that liberalism's idea of conscience is that: "Conscience does not open the way to the redemptive road to truth - which either does not exist or, if it does, is too demanding. It is the faculty that dispenses with truth. It thereby becomes the justification for subjectivity, which would not like to have itself called into question. Similarly, it becomes the justification for social conformity. As mediating value between the different subjectivities, social conformity is intended to make living together possible. The obligation to seek the truth terminates, as do any doubts about the general inclination of society and what it has become accustomed to. Being convinced of oneself, as well as conforming to others, is sufficient. Man is reduced to his superficial conviction, and the less depth he has, the better for him."
Is there really any difference between Harter's classmates, who insisted that they could see a planet and its moons when such was impossible, and those who succumb to social conformity and insist that an unborn baby is not really a human being when all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise?
Where will radical subjectivism ultimately lead us? It was Romano Guardini [in his classic The Lord, p. 513] who reminded us that: "One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence witout Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower."
More than forty years ago, when things were much better than they are today, Pope Paul VI said, "There is a great uneasiness, at this time, in the world and in the Church, and that which is in question is the faith. It so happens now that I repeat to myself the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Like: 'When the Son of Man returns, will He still find faith on the earth?' It so happens that there are books coming out in which the faith is in retreat on some important points, that the episcopates are remaining silent and these books are not looked upon as strange. This, to me, is strange. I sometimes read the Gospel passage of the end times and I attest that, at this time, some signs of this end are emerging."
If Pope Paul VI were still with us today, he would be alarmed at the growth of these emerging signs. Under Francis, the perennial teachings of the Church are not simply in retreat, they are under full assault as those who adhere to them are silenced or demoted. See here and here for example.
The Church is splitting into two camps: The Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist.
The choice is ours as to which camp we identify with. But there are consequences in the next life.
Yes, what we have many of us sensed for years is coming about, there can be no serious denial of it. We are now the frogs in the pot, with the water simmering, and we find that the hands that turns the dial belong to our own pope and church leaders and political leaders and fellow human beings.
ReplyDeleteI alternate between saying it will be today, and saying, it will be after we are gone, that we will see the Lord bring about whatever it is He will bring about.
Oh, that we had even one man such as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen today! It is a matter of real curiosity to wonder if even HE would be complicit in this Bergolio Church! Surely he would not be just another one of the frogs, or God forbid, one of the hands on the dial.
People are so like sheep, so willing to go along for the sake of self-preservation. But to wreck God's church for that reason, for cowardice...do these men not fear God at all??
There are so many cowards within the Church today, both priests and laity. It is more important for them to be popular than to be loyal to Christ and His Church.
ReplyDeleteThe sheep and the goats are being separated, the remnant is being gathered.I see much prophecy being fulfilled, and it is accelerating daily. All these things must come to pass before we see our Lord. I pray we are granted the supernatural endurance and fortitude to weather the persecutions that are surely coming to us as faithful Catholics who adhere to the Truth, handed down from Christ Himself. Many otherwise "good", practicing Catholics appear to be lulled into a false sense of security regarding this "papacy".It's as if they are sleepwalking They either do not see, or they refuse to see what is being done by Francis to undermine the Church. But I take comfort in the words of our Lord: "The gates of hell shall NOT prevail". Prayers and reparation. Thank you Paul, for your unwavering faithfulness to the Truth.
ReplyDeleteThank you Cyn for that kind note. I have updated this post with a link to an article which cites a Catholic scholar to the effect that the official persecution of faithful Catholics under Francis the false prophet has begun.
Deletehttps://onepeterfive.com/catholic-scholar-official-persecution-orthodoxy-within-church-begun/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Onepeterfive+%28OnePeterFive%29
ReplyDeleteThank you for this critical update mom.
DeleteYes, the persecution under Francis has indeed begun. And will intensify. I, with Kathleen have felt in my spirit the 'change' in spiritual energy since as early as 2006. This is also intensifying. My prayer is that we may all remain faithful to Christ in His real Church, come what may to us. May God give us tremendous amounts of GRACE, and may we constantly look to our Blessed Mother to guide us! We now have an anti Church right inside Christ's Church that is struggling for complete POWER.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU for this EXCELLENT article. Just hearing someone say this was healing and seems to open a decisive path for those who wish to recognize the dire truth of the times we live in, the very real crisis we are now faced with, and CHOOSE to remain in the Mystical Body of CHRIST.....
ReplyDelete@ Kathleen 1031
ReplyDeleteYou are asking if these men do not fear God at all.
If they believed, they would fear.
Belief in the theory of evolution, unquestioning acceptance of Teilhard de Chardin's idea of progress, and religious indifferentism have made them convinced that if God exists, He is some kind of impersonal force, as are we.
For them to fear God's judgment is the greatest heresy of all.
I admit - this way of thinking can be attractive. Yet it is not Catholic.
I wonder - Had these people been honest, had they left the Church due to inability to believe what she teaches, instead of causing rot, would they now see through the inconsistency and clear deception, as I do? One should not be habitually duplicitous. It makes one unable to discriminate between truth and lie.
I pity them.