More undermining of Marian devotion.

 As explained here:

Pope Leo XIV has approved new statutes of the Pontifical International Marian Academy that express the goal of avoiding “maximalism” in Marian devotions.

On Saturday, the Vatican published new statutes regarding the “identity and purpose” and governing composition and structure of the Pontifical Marian Academy. A few clauses of the statutes could potentially be used as a pretext for rejecting certain Marian devotions, prompting at least one commentator to describe them as an attempt to subtly alter and weaken Marian devotion.

For example, while expressing the academy’s mission of promoting, supporting, and coordinating Marian research, Article 4 of the statutes declares that this should be conducted “in view of a healthy popular piety to avoid any form of maximalism or minimalism.”

The statues also proclaim that Marian piety should not be “reduced to a sterile devotionism, but give life to Marian places that promote the well-being and integral development of the human person in harmony with the environment.” This particular clause suggests that Marian devotion has as its aim the “well-being and development” of the person and the benefit of the environment, rather than the honor of the Blessed Mother and the spiritual welfare of the person.

“While no faithful Catholic would defend superstition or doctrinal excess detached from the Church’s teaching authority, the terminology employed seems to subtly redefine what generations of saints, theologians, and popes promoted without hesitation,” remarked the Radical Fidelity Substack.

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 Revelation 12:15-16, the serpent (Satan) vomits/spews a river of water from his mouth to sweep away the woman, representing the Immaculata and her children (the faithful Remnant).

What else is this "river of water" but false doctrines aimed at undermining Our Lady.

Proximate preparation for Antichrist. 

Monsignor Michel Schooyans: Organized group undermining the Catholic Church to its very foundations

As noted here,

Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a dire warning about the current trajectory in the Catholic Church. In a paper, published on LifeSiteNews, Professor Schooyans, a member of several Pontifical Academies and Councils, writes that “the Synod on the Family has revealed a profound malaise in the Church.”

The retired professor from Belgium, now 86, speaks of the “crisis” in the Church, saying, “it is futile to close our eyes: the Church is challenged in its very foundations.”


Credited with inspiring Pope John Paul’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae with his own book on abortion, Msgr. Schooyans is warning of what he says is an organized group in the Church that operates with “backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church.”

The Synod on the Family revealed, he says, the determination of, “a group of pastors and theologians” that “do not hesitate to undermine the Church's doctrinal cohesion.” This group, he added, “functions in the manner of a powerful, international, well-heeled, organized and disciplined party.”

The active members of this party have ready access to the media; they frequently appear unmasked. They operate with backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church. The main target of these activists is Christian morality, criticized for having a severity incompatible with the "values" of our time. We must find ways which lead the Church to please, by reconciling its moral teaching with human passions. … Through this network, the neo-casuists will be able to hold sway over the wheels of the Church, influence the choice of candidates for high office, forge alliances which imperil the Church’s very existence.
Professor Schooyans warns specifically against proposals for “decentralization” of the Church. “The actions of casuists today affect not only the Church's moral teaching but also the entirety of dogmatic theology, in particular the question of the Magisterium,” Schooyans warns. “The unity of the Church is in peril where there are suggestions of biased, at times demagogic, proposals for decentralization, largely inspired by Lutheran reform.”

The celebrated philosopher whose books were praised by Popes John Paul and Benedict points to confusions in the Church around “’remarried’ divorced persons, “models” for the family, the role of women, birth control, surrogate motherhood, homosexuality," and euthanasia. The Church “has not been given by the Lord a mission to modify” the truths taught by Christ about all these matters, Schooyans says. “The Church is the guardian of this treasure.”

“The causuist,” he says, referring to a person who uses clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions, “cultivates the art of confusing the faithful. Concern for the truth, revealed and accessible to reason, is now of no interest. … Progressively, the rules of behavior proceeding from the will of the Lord and handed down by the Magisterium of the Church are languishing in decline.”

The moral assessment of an act no longer depends on whether it conforms to the will of God, as made known to us by the Revelation. It depends on the intention of the moral agent and this intention can be modulated and molded by the spiritual adviser who “supports” his followers. In order to please, the spiritual adviser will have to soften the rigor of the doctrine handed down by tradition. The pastor will have to adapt his words to the nature of man, whose passions are naturally led into sin. Hence, the progressive relegation of references to original sin and grace.
“How great is the number of pastors of all ranks who wish to make allegiance to the powerful of this world, albeit easily and without the need to swear publicly fidelity to the new “values" of the world today?” Schooyans writes. “In pushing to facilitate ‘remarriage,’ the neo-casuists are giving their backing to all those political players who are undermining respect for life and the family.”

"Theology in crisis has become a crisis of faith in God. Private judgement has been substituted for Catholic belief. Faith in the divine foundation of the Church, in many places, has vanished.

- Cardinal Ratzinger


Our Lady said to Fr. Gobbi, in a locution, "Beloved sons, today your are calling to mind my second apparition, which took place in the humble cova da Iria in Fatima, on June 13, 1917. Even as of then I foretold to your that which you are living through in these times. I announced to you the great struggle between me, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, and the huge Red Dragon (Marxist atheism) which has brought humanity to live without God. I also foretold to you the subtle and dark work, carried out by Freemasonry with the purpose of separating you from the observance of the Law of God and thus making you victims of sins and of vices. Above all, as Mother, I have wanted to warn you of the grave dangers which threaten the Church today, because of the many and diabolical attacks which are being carried out against it to destroy it.

To attain this end, there comes out of the earth, by way of aid to the Black Beast which arises out of the sea, a beast which has two horns like those of a lamb. The lamb, in Holy Scripture, has always been a symbol of sacrifice. On the night of the exodus, the lamb is sacrificed, and, with its blood, the doorposts of the houses of the Hebrews are sprinkled, in order to remove them from the punishment which on the contrary strikes all the Egyptians. The Hebrew Pasch recalls this fact each year, through the immolation of a lamb, which is sacrificed and consumed.

On Calvary, Jesus Christ sacrifices Himself for the redemption of humanity; He Himself becomes our Pasch and becomes the true Lamb of God who takes away all the sins of the world. The beast has on its head two horns like those of a lamb. To the symbol of the sacrifice, there is intimately connected that of the priesthood; the two horns. The high priest of the Old Testament wore a headpiece with two horns. The bishops of the church wear the mitre with two horns to indicate the fullness of their priesthood.The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy.

This masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and His Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church…".
In an interview with The Latin Mass magazine, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand was asked the following question:
"You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration [within the Catholic Church], there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, 'Not another conspiracy theory!'"
To which Dr. von Hildebrand responded:
"I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican 'who were working for us.'
Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans "smell conspiracy wherever they go." But from the beginning, the Evil One has 'conspired' against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions. Rousseau has had an enormous influence in the United States. When Christ said to His apostles at the Last Supper that “one of you will betray Me,” the apostles were stunned. Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy."

"I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church..."

The staff of The Week reports:

Disgusted by waves of scandal, Ireland’s Catholics are boycotting Mass and turning their backs on the church    

June 28, 2014     

 

Ireland's Catholic Church is losing its faithful fast.   

 

 

 

How Catholic was Ireland?
It used to be easily the most Catholic country in the world. The church's connection to the island nation dates to St. Patrick's conversion in the 5th century, and the modern Irish state is explicitly bound up with the church. The constitution opens with the words, "In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority..." and continues with reference to "obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial." In Ireland, the church, not the state, runs almost the entire education system. Until recently, social life, too, revolved around the local church. In 1984, nearly 90 percent of Irish Catholics went to Mass every week. But by 2011, only 18 percent did. It's a massive cultural shift.

 

What changed?
Mass attendance began dropping rapidly during the 1990s, as Ireland began its "Celtic Tiger" economic boom. The country was modernizing, urbanizing, and taking on a more global perspective, and the local church was no longer the only nexus of community life. For the first time, the country had a vigorous debate about abortion and began teaching sex education in schools. At the same time, several long-hidden scandals began to emerge. In 1992, the Irish learned that a powerful and beloved bishop, Eamon Casey, had a fathered a son, and that the Rev. Michael Cleary, the "Singing Priest" with best-selling records and his own radio show, had a secret family with his housekeeper. But the biggest seismic jolt came over the last decade, when the priestly sex-abuse scandal horrified the entire country.

 

How widespread was the abuse?
The scale was greater in Ireland than in any other country. Across the world, the Vatican routinely protected individual priests who were raping boys and, to a lesser extent, girls, responding to complaints of abuse by transferring offenders to other parishes. Ireland had hundreds of such cases, but because of the church's enormous power there, it was not just individual priests who were involved, but large institutions. Until the 1990s, the church ran orphanages and industrial schools that warehoused 30,000 children deemed delinquents — pickpockets, or the poor, or those with unmarried parents. The 2009 Ryan Report found that thousands of children were savagely raped or molested in these homes, while thousands more were beaten and starved and forced to work. Boys described nights of terror, lying in bed waiting for priests to come and molest them. "In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine," the report said. A new scandal has rocked the church, with the recent discovery that up to 4,000 infants and children — many malnourished and poorly treated — had been buried in unmarked graves at homes for unwed mothers run by Catholic nuns.

 

How have the Irish reacted?
The string of revelations has undermined the very legitimacy of the church. To a great extent, the church's authority was premised on control of sexuality. "They made this island into a concentration camp where they could control everything — and the control was really all about sex," says Father Mark Patrick Hederman, abbot of Glenstal Abbey. "Generations of people were crucified with guilt complexes. Now the game is up." Since priests were the enforcers of sexual purity, to have so many exposed not merely as sexually active, but as sexual predators of children, has deeply shaken Irish faith. The priesthood has lost its luster, and enrollment at seminaries has plummeted.

 

Will there be a priest shortage?
There already is. In Dublin, there are just two priests under the age of 40. Across the country, two thirds of priests are over 55. Some towns are already sharing priests, having Mass at the local church only every other week. In about a decade, church authorities say, the number of priests in Ireland may decline to 1,500 — down from 4,500 a few years ago — and the church will have to start importing priests from other countries. Well over 80 percent of the Irish still identify as Catholics, but now they practice their religion privately. Tourism at Station Island, where St. Patrick had his religious epiphany in the 5th century, is way up. Disaffected Catholics are using the site as a kind of private church, a way to worship unmediated by the hierarchy.

 

What will the church do?
The Association of Catholic Priests, an Irish group, has recommended that women be ordained and that priests be allowed to marry. Surveys have found that the Irish people would support both changes by huge margins: 77 percent for women's ordination and 87 percent for married priests. Even in the unlikely event that the Vatican approved such changes, it may be too late to reverse Ireland's secular tide. "No one doubts that a growing anti-Catholic element exists in Irish society," Father Gerard Moloney wrote in The Irish Times. "The church has provided its enemies with weapons of mass destruction. It has no one to blame but itself."

 

Northern Ireland, too
Northern Ireland, which is part of Great Britain, has seen nearly as steep a decline in weekly Catholic Church attendance, from 90 percent in the 1980s to some 40 percent today. That drop is not the result of the abuse scandal alone. In fact, in Northern Ireland, the official inquiry into priestly abuse didn't begin until last fall, and it has yet to release its findings. But Northern Ireland was the center of the Troubles, the violence between Protestants and Catholics, and there Catholicism was as much a political identity as a religious one. Once the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended the armed struggle, religious adherence began to fade as political polarization eased. Now, overt religiosity is widely seen as backward — as a form of resistance to peace. "There's no stigma in not going to church," said William Crawley, a Presbyterian minister in Belfast. "In fact, there's a stigma to going. Parents need to explain why they are sending their children to church."

The situation is worse in France, where only 1 in 20 attend Holy Mass.  See here.

Some years ago, Fr. Vincent Miceli warned that: "The West has divinized Security and Technocracy; the East, Science and Revolution. But in both camps atheistic humanism has become the State religion. And both of these systems of secular humanism eclipse the person, eliminate his freedom, deny his human-divine value and subject him to the tyranny of technological impersonalism. The alarming signs of the times testify to a fierce spirit of evil advancing everywhere. It is the spirit of rebellion against God and man. Hitherto the powers of government in each country, as yet relying on God and reason, were firm and vigorous enough to restrain this rebellion. But today many agnostic countries can barely contain that lawless spirit, while many others have actually legalized the principle of lawlessness itself, the principle of license masquerading as liberty.

We are reminded of St. Paul's warning to the Thessalonians. In the last days there will be an awful, unparalleled outbreak of evil everywhere. This will be called the Great Apostasy. In the midst of this general falling away a certain Man of Sin, having the image of Satan and breathing hatred toward God and man, will appear. He will exercise frightening preternatural powers of destruction against the just. This Child of Perdition will be so special and singular an enemy of Christ that he will be called Antichrist. For just as types of Christ went before Jesus, heralding his coming, so shadows of Antichrist have already preceded him....
But compared to the final Antichrist all forerunners of him were so many mini-Antichrists. This Arch-Antichrist will orchestrate revolutions so expertly that the very framework of society will shatter into pieces under his wicked hand. In a stunningly evil way, he will knit together his totalitarian rule of heresy, sedition, revolution, schism, war - indeed of every evil movement - and hurl them effectively against the Church. Preceded by apostasy, conceived in apostasy, gestated in apostasy, born in apostasy, the Man of Sin will come to power through a General Apostasy. In other words, Antichrist could never have existed except for the decision of the majority of persons in East and West to apostatize from God and to join the forces of atheism.." (Essay entitled "Detente All Around: Prelude to Antichrist?").

Evil is indeed spreading everywhere. Men have grown weary of being men and are beginning to deny Christ more and more. Even in the Church, many are coming to accept homosexuality and abortion as good. Such persons, such enemies of Christ, may still use Christian jargon as they go through the motions of Christian worship, but at base they have opted for evil and radiate the spirit of Antichrist. More than a century ago, Cardinal John Henry Newman predicted the Desolate City which we find ourselves in today: "Surely there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it..."

Our own time is a fulfillment of the prophecy issued by St. Louis de Montfort in his Prayer for Missionaries: "Tempus faciendi, Domine, dissipaverunt legem tuam: it is time to act, O Lord, they have rejected your law. It is indeed time to fulfill your promise. Your divine commandments are broken, your Gospel is thrown aside, torrents of iniquity flood the whole earth carrying away even your servants. The whole land is desolate, ungodliness reigns supreme, your sanctuary is desecrated and the abomination of desolation has even contaminated the holy place.." (PM, 5)

The Church and the world are in crisis.  Even in the Church, however, there are deluded souls who insist that "all is well" and that anyone who sounds a prophetic warning is an "alarmist," a "reactionary," a fanatic who should be either silenced or ignored altogether.

These people would have us believe that we have begun a New Age, a Civilization of Love where man has "come of age" and is no longer in need of the "myths" of the past.

The words of Soren Kierkegaard seem prophetic on this score: "Having refused to use their freedom of thought, men claim freedom of speech as compensation."

Dr. Von Hildebrand reminds us that: "This temporal parochialism - this feeling above others who are not living in the same historical epoch - performs the same psychological function that pride in Aryan descent performed for many Germans during the National Socialist epoch. The most insignificant German, suddenly exalted by the mere fact that he was of pure Aryan descent, could now look down on the most gifted intellectual who happened to have a Jewish grandmother. There is a general tendency in human nature to seek such compensations for inferiority or to look for ways of 'putting oneself up' in pride...This epochalism existed in former times just as did nationalism, yet the revolt against tradition is especially strong today.."
And why is this revolt against tradition stronger than ever today? Dr. Von Hildebrand doesn't say. But I would like to present my theory. It hinges around prophecies given to us by an Augustinian nun and stigmatist named Anna-Katarina Emmerick - whom the Church venerates as Blessed.

In the 1820's, Sister Emmerick had visions of the Church in the future. On September 12, 1820, Sister Emmerick said:

"I saw a strange church being built against every rule....No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church nothing came from high above....There was only division and chaos. It's probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind....I saw again the strange big church that was being built there [in Rome]. There was nothing holy in it....Everything was being done according to human reason. I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: 'Do build it as solid as you can; we will pull it to the ground.'"
Is this "future church" a preparation for the Man of Sin, the Antichrist? From August to October of 1820, Sister Emmerick says: "I see more martyrs, not now but in the future....I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church. Near them I saw a horrible beast coming up from the sea....When the Church had been for the most past destroyed [by the secret sect], and when only the sanctuary and altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers enter the Church with the Beast. There they met a Woman of noble carriage who seemed to be with child because she walked slowly. At this sight, the enemies were terrorized, and the Beast could not take but another step forward. It projected its neck towards the Woman as if to devour her, but the Woman turned about and bowed down [towards the altar], her head touching the ground. Thereupon, I saw the Beast taking flight towards the sea again, and the enemies were fleeing in the greatest confusion....Then I saw that the Church was being promptly rebuilt, and she was more magnificent than ever before."

The armies are poised for battle. On the one side, Satan and his cohort (which includes many priests and religious as well as lay people) who are building a church in their own image and likeness, a "FutureChurch" where sin is not confessed (see here) but celebrated and where lying and homicide serve as ersatz "sacraments." On the other, the Immaculata and her little children who are humble and despised by the world.

Satan and his followers have their tactics which revolve around the false idols of money, power, lust, and greed all clothed in the mantle of pride. The Immaculata and her cohort have their own tactics: prayer, fasting, penance, reconciliation, humility and a smallness which is clothed in the mantle of love.

Since 1984, over 1 billion, 600 million children have been murdered in their mother's wombs.  And the world continues its slide toward the abyss as homosexual "marriage," contraception and pornography claim countless souls.  At the same time, a Pollyanna element within the Church would have us believe that things are looking up.  See here for an excellent response to such blatant stupidity.