Francis: There is no God of War and hope always comes through defeat

God, Francis assures us, "..does not like to be loved the way a warlord would like, dragging his people to victory, debasing them in the blood of his enemies....Our God is a dim flame that burns on a cold and windy day....Whoever reads the Bible will not find stories of easy heroism, blazing campaigns of conquest. True hope never comes cheap — it always comes through defeat.”

Really?  Revelation 19: 11-21:


Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was [called] “Faithful and True.” He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were [like] a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. He has a name written on his cloak and on his thigh, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then I saw an angel standing on the sun. He cried out [in] a loud voice to all the birds flying high overhead, “Come here. Gather for God’s great feast, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of military officers, and the flesh of warriors, the flesh of horses and of their riders, and the flesh of all, free and slave, small and great.” Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to fight against the one riding the horse and against his army. The beast was caught and with it the false prophet who had performed in its sight the signs by which he led astray those who had accepted the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped its image. The two were thrown alive into the fiery pool burning with sulfur. The rest were killed by the sword that came out of the mouth of the one riding the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh."

This isn't the first time that Francis has advanced a distorted notion of Jesus as some sort of moronic hippy who is a pacifist.

Last Fall, Francis asserted that, "There is no god of war."

Wrong.


Exodus 15: 3-8:

"The Lord is a warrior, Lord is his name! Pharaoh’s chariots and army he hurled into the sea; the elite of his officers were drowned in the Red Sea. The flood waters covered them, they sank into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, magnificent in power, your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In your great majesty you overthrew your adversaries; you loosed your wrath to consume them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the flowing waters stood like a mound, the flood waters foamed in the midst of the sea."

Isaiah 42:13:

The Lord goes forth like a warrior,
like a man of war he stirs up his fury;
He shouts out his battle cry,
against his enemies he shows his might."

Deuteronomy 33:27:

The God of old is a refuge;
a support are the arms of the Everlasting. He drove the enemy out of your way and he said, “Destroy!”

In Matthew 10: 34-36, Jesus explains that He will be a cause of division, because not everyone is open to Him Who is Truth:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’"

"And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his time. 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: 6-12).


This scriptural passage is most important. For here Paul emphasizes that the power of the Antichrist is one of seduction. Antichrist is a seducer who seeks to draw people away from the truth. He will work from within religion to seduce people to abandon traditional Christianity and to worship him. How effective will he be? Father Livio Fanzaga, commenting on The Antichrist by Vladimir Soloviev, writes, "So great is the Antichrist's power of seduction over believers - and they never realize it - that he will openly pose as the savior and restorer of religion and universal peace. He will deceive many."


But a tiny remnant will remain faithful. As Pope Paul VI said, "It is enough if only a tiny flock, no matter how small, survives." These words are sobering and should speak loudly to us. Father Fanzaga continues, "In Soloviev, the remnant is defined by recognition of Jesus Christ, 'Himself and all that comes from Him. This is their total horizon and the inexhaustible meaning of life. The tiny flock is not made up of the avant guard intelligentsia - the intellectuals and the theologians have joined the emperor. Neither are they defined in terms of a moral code. Rather they are those who refuse to serve two masters.' I tend to regard them as ordinary people, the humble and those who remain faithful." (The Wrath of God, p. 33).


Pope Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in an essay entitled, "A Final Reflection: Soloviev's vision of eschatological unity," reminds us that: "..the Antichrist has his followers, and always even among those occupying the highest spiritual offices.....Therefore, we should already, and always, be motivated by concern lest, with big Christian words and wrapped in a cloak of Christianity, we become servants of the Antichrist, who wants to set up his kingdom in this world and to render the future kingdom of Christ redundant."

The Antichrist will tell us that Jesus has failed to put an end to violence but that he alone can promise "universal peace."

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death.

Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

The False Prophet is doing his work.  Just as the Baptist paved the way for the God-Man Christ Jesus, so the Masonic False Prophet is paving the way for the man-god (John 5:43).

Is the Devil mocking Our Lady through Beyonce?

In the latter times right up to the Reign of Antichrist, the enmity between the children of Mary and the children of the Devil will intensify. St. Louis de Montfort: "Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day. He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others.

It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti-Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil. 'I will place enmities between you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel' (Gen. 3:15).

God has established only one enmity - but it is an irreconcilable one - which will last and even go on increasing to the end of time. That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers of Lucifer.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments." True Devotion, Nos 50 - 52).

The Spotless Virgin, the Immaculata, has a special "ingenuity" in exposing the Devil's plans and tactics. Which is why the Devil often uses others - sometimes other Catholics - to try to influence us to abandon our devotion to Mary, or at least to water it down under the pretext that it is "excessive" or "harmful to ecumenism."

The Devil knows that those consecrated to the Immaculata will be protected in a special way in this time of Apostasy. Which is why he attacks their true devotion. Again St. Louis de Montfort: "Since Mary alone has crushed all heresies, as we are told by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Office of B.V.M.), a devoted servant of hers will never fall into formal heresy or error, though critics may contest this. He may very well err materially, mistaking lies for truth or an evil spirit for a good one, but he will be less likely to do this than others. Sooner or later he will discover his error and will not go on stubbornly believing and maintaining what he mistakenly thought was the truth." (True Devotion, No. 167),

In other words, those who practice true devotion to Mary will be better disposed toward the truth and will receive special graces against error.

The Devil knows this. So he tries desperately to undermine such true devotion: "It's harmful to ecumenism," "It is excessive," "It is too pre-Vatican II," "It is Medeival." Don't you believe the lies. Consecrate yourself daily to the Immaculata. Pope John Paul II, in a General Audience of November 15, 1995, said that to honor Mary is to go to Jesus. How then can our devotion to Mary be said to be "excessive"? During the same General Audience, the Holy Father places "such as Lourdes, Fatima, Loreto, Pompei, Guadalupe and Czestochowa" [this list is not exhaustive]...are "a wonderful testimony to God's mercy, which reaches man through Mary's intercession.."

Yes the Devil knows this too well.  And so he persecutes the faithful servants of Mary (as opposed to those whose devotion to Mary is not authentic - see True Devotion to Mary, 188).  In my own parish, I cannot even participate in the Rosary without being attacked.  I am not permitted to participate in parish ministry.  I cannot even have a Mass said for my father.  St. Louis de Montfort explains, "...sinners continually hate and persecute the elect, openly and secretly.  The elect are a burden to them.  They despise them, criticize them, ridicule them, insult them,, rob them, deceive them, impoverish them, hunt them down and trample them into the dust; while they themselves are making fortunes, enjoying themselves, getting good positions for themselves, enriching themselves, rising to power and living in comfort." (True Devotion to Mary, 190).

Infected by a self-centered spirit and a silly parochialism, even some within the Church would exclude those with a true marian devotion, decreeing thereby that there is not room for such within the Mystical Body of Christ.  And in so doing, they make themselves enemies of Christ Jesus Himself!

And outside the Church, the Devil uses his disciples to attack Our Lady, to undermine devotion to the spotless Virgin and even to mock God's Perfect Creation Whom he fears.

Is Beyonce a servant of the Devil committed toward mocking the Immaculata?

You decide:

Pray.

Our Lady warned us: the Church will go through a dark night for lack of a Prelate and Father to watch over it with love, gentleness, strength and prudence

In Venezuela, a food crisis has gripped the nation.

"When he broke open the third seal, I heard the third living creature cry out, "Come forward." I looked, and there was a black horse, and its rider held a scale in his hand. I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures. It said, "A ration of wheat costs a day's pay, 6 and three rations of barley cost a day's pay. But do not damage the olive oil or the wine." (Revelation 6: 5,6).


Our Lady told Mother Anne of Jesus (at Quito, Ecuador) that, "..the Church will go through a dark night for lack of a Prelate and Father to watch over it with love, gentleness, strength and prudence, and numbers of priests will lose the spirit of God, thus placing their souls in great danger...Satan will take control of this earth through the fault of faithless men who, like a black cloud, will darken the clear sky of the republic consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of my divine Son.  This republic, having allowed entry to all the vices, will have to undergo all sorts of chastisements: plagues, famine, war, apostasy, and the loss of souls without number.."

Don Bosco warned in a prophecy:


"Now Heaven's voice is addressed to the Shepherd of shepherds. You are now in conference with your advisors. The enemy of the good does not stand idle one moment. He studies and practices all his arts against you. He will sow discord among your consultors; he will raise up enemies amongst my children. The powers of the world will belch forth fire, and they would that the words be suffocated in the throats of the custodians of my law. That will not happen, they will do no harm but to themselves. You must hurry. If you cannot untie the knots, cut them. If you find yourself hard pressed, do not give up but continue until the head of the hydra of error is cut off. This stroke will make the world and Hell beneath it tremble, but the world will be safe and all the good will rejoice. Keep your consultors always with you, even if only two. Wherever you go, continue and bring to an end the work entrusted to you. The days fly by, your years will reach the destined number; but the great Queen will ever be your help, as in times past, so in the future She will always be the exceeding great fortress of the Church.

"Ah, but you, Italy, land of blessings! Who has steeped you in desolation! Blame not your enemies, but rather your friends. Can you not hear your children asking for the bread of faith and finding only those who smash it to pieces? What shall I do? I shall strike the shepherds, I shall disperse the flock, until those sitting on the throne of Moses search for good pastures and the flock listens attentively and is fed.

"Of the flock and over the shepherds My hand will weigh heavy. Famine, pestilence, and war will be such that mothers will have to cry on account of the blood of their sons and of their martyrs dead in a hostile country.

"And to you, Rome, what will happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.

"Rome! To you I will come four times.

"The first time, I shall strike your lands and the inhabitants thereof.

"The second time, I shall bring the massacre and the slaughter even to your very walls. And will you not yet open your eyes?

"I shall come a third time and I shall beat down to the ground your defenses and the defenders, and at the command of the Father, the reign of terror, of dreadful fear, and of desolation shall enter into your city.

"But My wise men have now fled and My law is even now trampled underfoot. Therefore I will make a fourth visit. Woe to you if My law shall still be considered as empty words. There will be deceit and falsehood among both the learned and the ignorant. Your blood and that of your children will wash away your stains upon God's law. War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men's pride and wickedness. O wealthy men, where is your glory now, your estates, your palaces? They are the rubble on the highways and byways.

"And your priests, why have you not run to "cry between the vestibule and the Altar," begging God to end these scourges? Why have you not, with the shield of faith, gone upon the housetops, into the homes, along the highways and byways, into every accessible corner to carry the seed of My word? Know you that this is the terrible two-edged sword that cuts down My enemies and breaks the Anger of God and of men?"

In our own time, the germ ideas of a one-world religion are already being sowed. And this false humanitarian religion will burst into poisonous flower when enough hearts have grown cold and have abandoned the true religion. As Jane Le Royer explained in prophecy: "When the time of the Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known."


Can you not see the emerging signs? How do we find the Church today? The Mystical Body of the Crucified One - the Holy Catholic Church - is climbing Calvary, carrying a heavy cross. She is experiencing the hour of abandonment and betrayal. Her body is being tormented by the scourges of sin which strike at it and by numerous sacrileges which open up deep wounds in it.

"Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism..."

It was Jacques Maritain who said, “Christianity must inform or, rather, transpenetrate the world; not that this is its principal aim (although it is an indispensable secondary end), and not in order that the world become right now the kingdom of God, but in order that grace may be more and more effective in it, and in order that man may better live there his temporal life.”


If grace is to be more and more effective in the world, if a new Christendom is to arise from the ashes of our morally-bankrupt, sin-sick society which subjects mankind to constant and ever-growing threats of degradation and destruction, then saints will have to arise in the midst of our broken world. These saints will be, according to St. Louis de Montfort in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, “..like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God.” (True Devotion, 57).

Such disciples will not be “part-time Catholics” or “Chicken-Catholics,” devoting only one hour a week to their Creator and Redeemer while retreating in fear from any and all conflict during the spiritual battles ahead. St. Montfort insists that, “..we know they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not be troubled, nor will they show favor to anyone; they will not spare or heed or fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior.” (True Devotion, 59).

George Weigel, weighing in on the supreme crisis which faces the Catholic Church in the United States in the wake of President Obama’s re-election, asserts (correctly) that: “..the opportunity embedded in this crisis..is nothing less than to be the Church of the New Evangelization, full-throttle. Shallow, tribal, institutional-maintenance Catholicism is utterly incapable of meeting the challenges that will now come at the Catholic Church from the most aggressively secular administration in American history. Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism, winsomely proposing and nobly living the truths about the human condition the Church teaches, will see us through the next four years. Radically converted Christian disciples, not one-hour-a-week Catholics whipsawed by an ever more toxic culture, are what this hour of crisis..demands.” (The crisis of a second Obama administration).

Sadly, the militant evangelical Catholicism described by George Weigel is not encouraged - or even tolerated - in some corners of the Catholic Church here in the United States. In some dioceses, the Cult of Softness has all but crippled an authentic, militant evangelization and replaced it with a sacharrin-spirituality which sugar-coats sin while leaving Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.  As part of the Ecclesia Militans, I am persona non grata in my own diocese - the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts.  New Age advocates, dissidents who rail against the Magisterium and those who engage in radical homosexual agitprop are welcome.  But an orthodox Catholic who vigorously promotes and defends the teaching of the Magisterium is deemed "rigid" and "too pre-Vatican II."

This is our moment as Catholics: We can choose to take a courageous stand for the Faith of our Fathers, witnessing to Gospel truths with the whole of our lives and even unto death; or we can fall back into the shadows and thereby cooperate in the spiritual destruction of a once-great nation.

Along with the Church’s other martyrs, St. Thomas More was confronted with the same choice. While remaining a loyal servant of the King, he chose to be God’s servant first. Will we?

Advancing the New World Order through propaganda and censorship...

"The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, who slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind.........the slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. The one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a personal policy secures."


Adolf Hitler from "Mein Kampf"

As this website explains:

"Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.


During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not to be read.

The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told of the book burnings, she responded: "Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a clear violation of freedom of speech, in public rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas. While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and antisemitism. After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party. In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power."

Today, censorship is beginning to be used against Christians to silence moral opposition to abortion and homosexuality.  Today's censors do not have to gather up thousands of books, march by torchlight in nighttme parades and throw books into huge bonfires.  They have merely to strike a few keys from the comfort of their offices.

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death. Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

On September 15, 1992, Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that, "..It is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, my dearly beloved Daughter.  How grievously the Church is suffering in these times, as she carries her great cross and climbs the bloodstained Calvary of her passion and her bloody immolation!  Never before, as today, has the Church been made so utterly like my Son Jesus.  She is like Him in solitude and abandonment; she is like Him in denial and betrayal; she is like Him in contempt and condemnation; she is like Him in her crucifixion and in her agony.  This is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, because the hour of her redemptive passion has come.  It is the gour of my great sorrow for humanity, so ill and so reduced to slavery by the spirits of evil.  The diabolical powers are ruling the earth and producing everywhere the wicked fruits of their dark reign.  And thus this humanity has again become pagan, after almost two thousand years of its redemption and of the first announcement of the Gospel of salvation.  Faithlessness and impiety again cover it; sins wound it; evil poisons it; pride rules it; impurity seduces it; egoism and hatred enchain it; Satan reduces it more and more to slavery and reigns over you with his diabolical power...This is the hour of my great sorrow for all of you, my poor children, because the time of your great suffering has come.  Take refuge in me.  Hasten to the sure refuge of my Immaculate Heart, because we must live together through the hour of the greatest trial, which has now come for you, for the Church and for all humanity."

Some will accuse me of playing the prophet of "doom and gloom."  But what happened to Fr. Donat Gionet when he spoke out against homosexuality?  How about Fr. Michael Rodriguez? 

Related reading here and here.