A mysterious prophecy regarding a future Pope named Joseph

“He is in fantastic health, fantastic health, and his mind is as sharp today and perhaps even sharper than when he was the great theologian and the great pope that we knew him as.." (Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo, speaking about his recent meeting with Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI).

When he was installed as Pope on April 19, 2005, the Holy Father requested our prayers. "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another."

On April 9, 1993, Our Lady told Father Gobbi that Jesus' passion "is being renewed by you, my beloved children.  And so I have called you time and again to enter, by your consecration, into the Gethsemane of my Immaculate Heart.  This is in order to form you for your priestly immolation and to give you the strength to go forward without fear to the Calvary of your martyrdom, close to me, the sorrowful Mother, who has begotten you beneath the Cross upon which my Son Jesus has been put to death.  The time of your painful passion has now arrived.  You too will be persecuted and stricken, rejected and condemned, imprisoned and killed.  But do not let yourselves be seized with apprehension or fear.  I am close to you, as I was beneath the Cross.  I am at your side at the hour of the painful passion which is being renewed by you, my beloved ones, because today also it is beneath the cross that I am fulfilling my role as Mother of the new times, which are coming to birth from your painful suffering."

The Church is approaching Calvary.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.  This persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.  The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC, 675).

We are now in the final hour before the bloody persecution.  The Church finds herself surrounded by many enemies. Even now the Man of Sin readies himself to enter the world stage openly.

Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, while giving an audience for the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order in 1909, fell into a mystical trance and prophesied:

"I have seen one of my successors, of the same name, who was fleeing over the dead bodies of his brethren.  He will take refuge in some hiding place; but after a brief respite, he will die a cruel death.  Respect for God has disappeared from human hearts.  They wish to efface even God's memory.  This perversity is nothing less than the beginning of the last days of the world."

While in a mystical trance, Pope St. Pius X observed a time when many people would desire to "efface even God's memory."  An accurate description of our own time.

And who is this successor on the throne of Peter who will possess the same name as Pius X and who will have to flee Rome, eventually facing "a cruel death"?  Only time will tell.  But it should be noted that Pope St. Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835.  Pope Benedict XVI was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927.  Giuseppe is Italian for Joseph.

Now is the time for the entire Church to prepare for persecution the likes of which the Church has never seen.  In the words of Father Charles Arminjon: "..this persecution will be the most severe and violent of all because it will be inspired not by superstition or fanaticism, nor by a blind attachment to the worship of idols...It's purpose will not be to assuage pride, or to satisfy an unbridled lust for power...It will be a persecution inspired solely by hatred of God, in which God and His Christ will be directly challenged, and its sole objective will be the extermination of the divine kingdom, the complete annihilation of Christianity and of all positive religion." (The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, pp. 63-64).

The corruptors of souls are the great strength of the demon

The Eponymous Flower reports:

(Rome) The Pontifical Council for Culture  is preparing an "opening"  towards women priests?  Pablo d'Ors, appointed papal Consultor  of the Council for Culture since July, 1st, is convinced of a realignment. "While orthodox Church representatives are being kicked out from the Vatican,   heretics are being brought in," said Messa in Latino about the Spanish priest, novelist and "Zen Buddhist" and his interview in the daily newspaper La Repubblica .

The Pontifical Council for Culture, headed by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, seems to deal not only with culture and sports, but also with the Doctrine of the Faith, and ground filled with land mines.   Anyway, if you can believe the words of the Spanish Claretian priest,   Pablo d'Ors.   In an interview with La Repubblica on 5 November, he said that for "the next General Assembly" of the Pontifical Council for Culture is for common ground, which will be convened in 2015 on the topic of "female culture", an "opening" in the direction of women priests.  He will attend and is "absolutely sure".  Pablo d'Ors added: "And I am not alone." Last July 1, Pope Francis appointed   Pablo d'Ors as Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Culture .

Ecclesiastical Cultural Understanding only B-Class: No Longer an Alternative to the World, but "Dialogue" with the World

Father Pablo d'Ors describes himself as "erotic, mystical and weird". His life had been "full of loving relationships, reading and travel, also reckless". This helped him in his appeal that he discovered at the age of 27. "Knowing  human love, divine love helps to better understand" said the Claretian. "Could be. If indeed  so many chaste young men and young women  also apparently have dedicated themselves in the course of Church history with all their souls and with all their bodies God?" Said Messa in Latina about that.
The Church's understanding of culture is especially  "inappropriate" today for Father d'Ors.  Compared to the high culture,   this understanding is only B-Class. It was necessary to adjust, stop trying to be an "alternative", but a Christianity in "dialogue" with the living world.

Priests are better living with a woman: "The time has come"

He has written several novels and is considered the "most German" among living Spanish writers. In one of his novels, the main character, a Slovak woman, goes to bed  with all the great writers of the 20th century. Pablo d'Ors said in an interview, a priest lives better with a woman at his side. Why? "Because the time is now ripe."  But that was only his "personal opinion".
Realignment of the Church Planned in Terms of Women Priests?

The Pontifical Council for Culture "can't  talk about it". There you will, however, talk about women priests. "I think there will be a  realignment at the next General Assembly"

He has also written some non-fiction books, including his most successful book Biografía del silencio (Biography of Silence), in which he says, each "should create a work of art". In line with this premise seems to be his default setting: "An important criterion to measure the spiritual vitality of a person is their willingness to change. To resist life is a sin, because life is in constant development ,"  according to the ancient Greek aphorism Panta Rhei .

It was Father Livio Fanzaga, the famed Radio Priest, who warned that, "The corruptors of souls are the great strength of the demon. In the contemporary world, they occupy very significant and visible positions in various fields such as culture, science, politics or economics, including the realm of the mass media. They have learned the vernacular of flattery and lies from their teacher. Despising truth and exalting error, they disparage good and virtue while exalting evil and vice. They are the faithful servants of Satan, and they will go with him to his kingdom of death in recompense.

Watch out for such people, even if they are very close to you and united to you by bonds of affection. You show your worthiness as a human being by saying no to evil, even if the one who proposes it is most dear to you. If Adam had said no to Eve, he would have undoubtedly saved himself and perhaps even her. No human respect, no bond of friendship, no reason of human nature, nor any interest must ever cause you stay with anyone who proposes evil. It is much better to lose a friend or family member than to lose God for all of eternity."

Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:

"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)

And again:

"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." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)

The false church Our Lady refers to was also foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a German Augustinian nun, stigmatist, and miracle-worker, who subsisted entirely on water and Holy Communion for many years. Venerable Emmerich received numerous visions of the future crisis in the Church and the infiltration of the Masons. In her visions, she describes men in aprons destroying the Church with a trowel, The Masons wear aprons and their symbol is the Mason's trowel. The following excerpts are from page 565 of the Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 1, by Rev. K.E. Schmöger, Tan Books, 1976:


"I saw St. Peter's. A great crowd of men was trying to pull it down whilst others constantly built it up again. Lines connected these men one with another and with others throughout the whole world. I was amazed at their perfect understanding.

"The demolishers, mostly apostates and members of different sects, broke off whole pieces and worked according to rules and instructions. They wore WHITE APRONS bound with blue riband. In them were pockets and they had TROWELS stuck in their belts. The costumes of the others were various.

"There were among the demolishers distinguished men wearing uniforms and crosses. They did not work themselves but they marked out on the wall with a TROWEL where and how it should be torn down. To my horror, I saw among them Catholic Priests. Whenever the workmen did not know how to go on, they went to a certain one in their party. He had a large book which seemed to contain the whole plan of the building and the way to destroy it. They marked out exactly with a TROWEL the parts to be attacked, and they soon came down. They worked quietly and confidently, but slyly, furtively and warily. I saw the Pope praying, surrounded by false friends who often did the very opposite to what he had ordered..."

Make of your home a spiritual fortress. Pray every day to the Immaculata to protect your faith.  Have nothing to do with those who advance "another gospel" (Galatians 1).

These are dangerous times for the Church.

The Saints are not confined to museums

"The church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners."

We've been hearing this maxim ad nauseam ever since Pope Francis was quoted as having said in the Jesuit magazine La Civita Cattolica, that, "the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle."

The notion that the Saints are somehow "relics of the past," stored in a museum, and that sainthood is to be dismissed as stuffy and remote and of no practical use with regard to warming the hearts of the faithful here and now and that the Saints and the vocation to sainthood are not proximate to Catholics, but rather are things which are remote, is disturbing.

On November 1, 2006, during the Solemnity of All Saints, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the Vatican Basilica.

In his homily he highlighted the fact that "saints are not an exclusive caste of the chosen few, but a countless multitude towards whom today's liturgy encourages us to direct our gaze. That multitude contains not only officially-recognized saints, but the baptized from every age and nation who have sought to enact divine will with love and faithfulness."

"Contemplating the shining example of the saints," said the Holy Father, "awakens within us the great desire to be like them: happy to live near God, in His light, in the great family of the friends of God. ... This is the vocation of us all, clearly reiterated by Vatican Council II, and today solemnly brought to our attention once again."

"In order to be saints," he continued, "it is not necessary to accomplish extraordinary actions and works, nor to possess exceptional charisms. ... What is above all necessary is to listen to Jesus and then to follow Him without losing heart in the face of difficulties."

"The experience of the Church shows that all forms of sanctity, though following different paths, always pass along the way of the cross, the way of self-renouncement. The biographies of the saints describe men and women who, compliant to the divine plan, at times faced indescribable trials and suffering, persecutions and martyrdom."

"For us, the example of the saints is an encouragement to follow the same footsteps and experience the joy of those who entrust themselves to God; because the only true cause of sadness and unhappiness for mankind is to remain distant from Him."

Sanctity, said the Holy Father, "requires a constant effort, but it is a possibility for everyone because, more than being the work of man it is, primarily, a gift of God, thrice Holy."

"In Christ," he concluded, "God gave us all of Himself, and He calls us to a personal and profound relationship with Him. Thus, the greater our intimacy with Jesus, and the more united to Him we are, the more we enter into the mystery of divine sanctity. We discover that we are loved by Him with an infinite love, and this encourages us in turn to love our brothers and sisters. Loving always involves an act of self-renouncement, the 'loss of self', and it is precisely for this reason that it makes us happy."

Sanctity is a possibility for everyone.  Sainthood is man's primary vocation.  Not the relic of a bygone age.

Pope Francis, hatred of truth and the vocation to defend life

Several years ago, the President of a pro-life ministry, who is also a priest, said that, "Abortion is a demonic industry...Abortion is blood sacrifice of innocent blood to the devil. The clinics are like temples, the doctors are like priests, the medical table is their altar. It's a ritualized sacrifice...Abortion is a spiritual evil..if we are to beat it, we can't just fight it in the political realm. It derives its power from below. To confront a force this strong, you need a massive amount of prayer...Exorcism requires prayer and fasting.."

Now I've been saying this for more than twenty years.  I have been routinely insulted in the past for speaking this spiritual truth: that some demons will only be driven out through much prayer and fasting. Jesus has said it. Shall we argue with Him?

Fasting must accompany our prayer. Why? Because Fasting helps subject our bodies to our spirits (1 Cor 9:27), because fasting disciplines the body, mind, and spirit (Prov. 25:28), because fasting subordinates our flesh with its desires to the desires of the Spirit (Gal 5:17), because fasting helps us to set priorities in our lives. (Mt 6:33) and because fasting is really longing after God. (Ps 63:1-2). The power of fasting is a mystery. Which is probably why those who deem themselves "intelligent," "reasonable" and "rational" cannot understand its importance. But whether such people accept it or not, fasting breaks demonic strongholds and demonic attacks and helps us to walk in the spirit rather than the flesh, to sow to the Spirit, not to the sinful nature.

But getting back to the evil of abortion, which is clearly (unless you're losing your faith) satanic: Pope Benedict XVI rightly noted that abortion and same-sex "marriage" Are the two greatest evils threatening society today.  But Pope Francis has asserted that the Church has been obsessing over these evils.

While Pope John Paul II said that, "To defend and promote life, to show reverence and love for it, is a task which God entrusts to every man..." (Evangelium Vitae, No. 42), this current Pope refers to this task entrusted to us by Almighty God as an "obsession."

Today there is a demand for sex without love, for a licentiousness in sex which has wrought a heartless society in which individuals do not care for anyone but themselves. The fruit of this demonic theology is the slaughter through abortion and euthanasia of human beings created in the Imago Dei. It is a theology of violence which is rooted in hatred of truth. For at the heart of immorality is falsity, the hatred of truth. Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, in an essay entitled "The Taproot of Violence," explains:

"...violence entered creation from the rebellion of Lucifer. This rebellion arose from the heart of pride. But the sin of pride is the offspring of the vice known as hatred of truth. Hatred of truth is the result of the creature's attempt to rearrange God's hierarchy of beings and values into an order which the creature prefers to the plan of God. This attempt immediately produces the violence of disorder, the chaos of falsity and immorality. For hatred of truth is really hatred of God who creates all things wisely and governs them lovingly. Lucifer, the Morning Star, was instantly deformed into the Prince of Darkness because he attempted to live a lie. He wanted to dethrone God and become God himself..."

We live in an environment where there is a "violence of disorder" because we have abandoned truth.  And hatred of truth leads to violence.  It is the very root of violence.  Jesus said to the Pharisees, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own account, but he sent me.  Why do you not understand what I say?  It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.  You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." (John 8: 42-45).

It is rejection of truth which leads to violence.  And so we read in verse 59 of the same Chapter, "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple."  If there is exaggerated rhetoric and violence across our society, it is because many have rejected God's created order.  But there is a consequence to this rejection of truth.  As Dorothy Sayers reminded us, if we will not have Christ, we will have chaos.

Perhaps that's what Pope Francis wants: chaos.  Did he not say that Catholics

should make a mess?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, protect us from the Father of lies (John 8:44) and his disciples.

Are dark forces behind the neglect of this prayer?

In a previous post, I said that, "More than ever faithful Catholics need to pray for the Holy Father and for those Bishops, priests and religious who remain faithful to the Magisterium. There is in preparation a schism the likes of which few can imagine.

Ecclesiastical masonry seeks to build a counterfeit church within the true Church, one which is based on a humanitarian religion which will serve the Antichrist. Our Lady told Fr. Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests, 'When there will have entered into her the man of iniquity, who will bring to fulfillment the abomination of desolation which will reach its climax in the horrible sacrilege, as the great apostasy will have spread everywhere, then my Immaculate Heart will gather together the little faithful remnant which, in suffering, in prayer and in hope, will await the return of my Son Jesus in glory.' (May 13, 1994)."

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich warned that the faithful, "must pray above all for the Church of Darkness to leave Rome.."  Venerable Emmerich was a true mystic and was shown the dark forces which are constantly attempting to undermine the Church in Rome [the Magisterium] and that the ultimate goal of ecclesiastical masonry was to infiltrate the highest levels of the Church in preparation for the entrance of the Man of Sin upon the world stage.

Could this explain why the longer version of Pope Leo XIII's exorcism prayer has been largely abandoned in our own time?  For this longer version of the prayer was clearly intended to invoke God's protection against those same dark forces which intend to seduce Rome and to corrupt it from within so that it will be in eclipse.  The longer version of Pope Leo XIII's prayer is as follows:

O Glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in his own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.


Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan, who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of his Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.

Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and Patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.

Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the root of David.

Let thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

As we have hoped in thee.

O Lord, hear my prayer.

And let my cry come unto thee.

Let us pray.

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon thy holy name, and as suppliants we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St. Michael, thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls.

Amen.

Are dark forces behind the neglect of this prayer?  At La Salette, Melanie Calvat was told that "Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.  For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.  The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay...Now is the time; the abyss is opening.  Here is the king of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the savior of the world."  Pope Leo XIII, a great champion of marian spirituality and the Holy Rosary, was concerned enough about certain forces which have an "iniquitous design" to strike the Pastor [the Pope] and to scatter the sheep that he composed this beautiful prayer.

Why then has it been largely abandoned in our post-conciliar Church?

The Rosary is the remedy for the evil facing the Church....what are you waiting for?

 The German magazine Stimme des Glaubens reported years ago that Pope John Paul II had commented on the Third Secret of Fatima during a conference in Fulda, Germany in 1980. In this report, Pope John Paul II said, "...it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired."

The relevant text of the Fulda conference reported in Stimme des Glaubens:


The Holy Father was asked, "What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?"

Pope John Paul II replied: "Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves.
"On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired."

The Pope continued: "Many wish to know simply from curiosity and a taste for the sensational, but they forget that knowledge also implies responsibility. They only seek the satisfaction of their curiosity, and that is dangerous if at the same time they are not disposed to do something, and if they are convinced that it is impossible to do anything against evil."

At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: "Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God."

The Holy Father was then asked: "What is going to happen to the Church?"
He answered: "We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary."

In his book "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way," Pope John Paul II was really calling upon the Church to ready itself for Calvary. He wrote, "Beginning with Abraham, the faith of each of his sons represents a constant leaving behind of what is cherished, familiar, and personal, in order to open up to the unknown, trusting in the truth we share and the common future we all have in God. We are all invited to turn toward the God who, in Jesus Christ, opened Himself to us, 'breaking down the dividing wall of enmity' (Eph. 2:14) in order to draw us to Himself through the Cross. In Jesus Christ we see: fidelity to the Father's call, an open heart for everyone He meets, a constant journeying that provides 'nowhere to lay his head' (cf. Matt. 8:20), and finally the Cross, through which to attain the victoryof the Ressurrection. This is Christ - who goes forward boldly, allowing nothing to stand in his way until all is accomplished, 'until He ascends to His Father and our Father' (cf. John 20:17), the One Who is 'the same yesterday, today, and for ever' (cf. Heb. 13:8).


Faith in Him, then, is a ceaseless opening up to God's ceaseless overtures into our world, it is our movement towards God, Who for His part leads people towards one another....When 'His hour' had come, Jesus said to those who were with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, to Peter, James, and John, His closest disciples: 'Rise, let us be on our way' (cf. Mark 14:42). Not only He must 'be on his way' to fulfill His Father's will: they, too, must go with Him....Even if these words indicate a time of trial, great effort, and a painful cross, we must not allow ourselves to give way to fear. They are also words of peace and joy, the fruit of faith. On another occasion, to the same three disciples, Jesus said: 'Rise, and do not be afraid!' (Matt 17:7). God's love does not impose burdens upon us that we cannot carry, nor make demands of us that we cannot fulfill. For whatever He asks of us, He provides the help that is needed." (pp. 214-215).


Why was our beloved Holy Father writing these words at this present time in our history? To prepare the Church for Calvary. Our Lady told Father Gobbi that, "The hour of Calvary has arrived for the Church, called to offer herself in holocaust and to be immolated on the cross of her bloody martyrdom...The hour of Calvary has arrived for you, my beloved ones, because you have now entered into the conclusive time of the great tribulation. As Mother, I am leading you each day to the fulfillment of your priestly immolation." (Message 519).
We read in 675 of the Catechism: "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth." And in 677: "The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Ressurrection.."
This is the reality which we Christians must prepare for through prayer, and especially through the Rosary of Our Lady.

It is a grave error to imagine that the highest authority is the Pope

I thought I would publish this excellent article without comment.  I believe Mark Mallett could benefit from reading it prayerfully.  Then again, maybe not.


It Just Doesn't Matter Anymore
Written by  Megaera Erinyes



Dear Miss Erinyes

I'm just wondering what your opinion is. Do you think that Francis really is pope? I cannot imagine the real pope doing and saying the things that Francis is doing and saying.

Do you think that it is possible that the last conclave was rigged, making Francis' election illegitimate?

Fr. M
_

Dear Father,

The truth is that I have no idea. I am not a canonist; I have no training in theology or Church history and have no special ability to discern between the various arguments now being commonly bruited about the internet. I can see that we have a very large problem, one in the person of Francis that seems to equal the horrifying problems in the world. He seems to me to be, indeed, an intrinsic part of those external problems, a product of them, one might even say.
Unfortunately, I also have no special knowledge, other than what can be found out on the internet, about what happened in the Vatican in the last 2 years. I know what I have seen, and what I have heard, and it is obviously going to go down in Church history (if there is going to be anyone to write such things down in what is left of our future) as one of our most dangerous and inexplicable periods. Other than that, I know what anyone knows; rumours and counter rumours.

What I can see as a simple observer is that we are in a situation, with the Church and the world as a whole, that is apparently totally unprecedented in our long history. I hope you will forgive a long answer, since your question, as simple as it seems, encompasses quite a lot.

I suppose it is possible, and has probably happened in the past, that a pope has been brought out of illicit elections who really is pope, and has gone on to do his duty as perfectly as any pope. I don't think that the nature of the election process is so crucial, though given our situation I can see why it is an attractive answer. We have a serious problem with Bergoglio, and it is one that an irregular election would solve, if it could be proved. What a relief it would be to simply shrug off his strange speeches by saying, “Oh, just more anti-pope talk.”  Tempting indeed.

But I think there is a more generally useful answer that can be taken on board by any Catholic who still believes: If the pope is not a Catholic, and is pursuing goals contrary to those of Christ, does it matter if he is canonically an anti-pope? Does it matter if the election process was violated in this or that way?

Since the Ascension of Our Lord, we Christians have been charged with the conversion of the whole world. I do not find it surprising that it has taken us 2000 years to accomplish this, particularly since at the time the charge was given we still had much of the world left to discover and were dependent upon others to invent things like sailing ships and oceanic navigational tools. Given distractions like the human love of making war and the Black Death, I find a time frame of two millennia to be fairly reasonable. But in the end, by the end of the 19th century or thereabouts, I think we have done as well as we could be expected to do.

Christ is known throughout the world, even to people who, in the age of iPhones still live in round tents made of reindeer skins. There are Christians in every jungle, in every city, in every university, in every prison, every mine, every desert, and the blood of the martyrs has soaked with equal ubiquity into every soil and sand on earth. I think, though of course there are still millions unconverted, in general terms we have done what we were told to do. That He has also been rejected, again, by the majority of those who have heard Him, is not something we can control today any more than His friends could control it then.

My own ancestors were brought into the Faith a long time ago, while there was still an Emperor in Rome. But I have a good friend whose country did not see a Christian missionary until the 15th century. I met a bishop some time ago who said the first Catholic missionary didn't arrive in his country until the 1950s. But now, in the age of the internet, moreover, there can only be a handful of people left on earth (North Korea?) who have had no exposure at all to Christ and His truth.

So the Big Job we were given by the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, for Whom and through Whom all things were made, appears to be mainly done. Everyone has heard it, and those who are going to respond have done so. Which realisation came home to me shortly after that distressing night last March: the one communal task we have as human beings and as Catholics, is complete, so what comes next?

And now looking at the precedent, which is something quite natural to Catholics, I find that I cannot discover any precise parallel. We have a pope... a pope! who is capable of uttering complete nonsense, like "Corruption is a worse evil than sin," who not only appears to believe that it makes some kind of sense but who is instantly lauded and praised by millions of people, Catholics included, for having said it.




Have we ever in all our long history had the great mass of the Catholic faithful know so little of the doctrine of the Faith while at the same time positively believing so much that is directly opposed to it? We have converted the world to the Faith, indeed, but it seems that immediately after the completion of this great task, through a strange and inexplicable confluence of social and historical factors, the world has instantly lost it again.

Could we ever imagine another time in which millions of Catholics believe it is possible to be a "pro-choice Catholic"? Or who could possibly believe themselves to be good Catholics who accept concubinage as a moral good? Or even worse, unnatural perversions? And these, perhaps even more importantly, never definitively corrected by either bishop or pope?

But apparently we look to Rome in vain, for we have now seen, before all the eyes of the world in the first two weeks of this month, that these beliefs are not held only by the vast masses of Catholic laity, but are equally the belief of a plain majority of the men who attended the Synod as successors of the Apostles! What kind of precedent do we have for a Church, in the person of its most senior ministers, which has lost its own reason for existence, its own Faith? What does God say is to be done with salt that is no longer salty?

The approved prophets of the Catholic Church, all those visionaries who had visits in their little stone huts from the glorious Queen of Heaven, have all conveyed more or less the same message: that a time will come, soon, indeed is even upon us, of a "great apostasy," when there will be a vast loss of the hard-won Faith, and a terrible darkness will descend upon the world as a result. And the one historical reality that I cannot help but think of is the indiscriminate slaughter of, by now, perhaps billions of human beings before birth, with barely more than silence as a response from those consecrated to the service of God. All those holy prophets have said that this time of apostasy, that I cannot help but believe is upon us now, will be followed, and ended, by the most terrifying supernatural chastisement the world has ever seen. And looking at the abortion statistics it seems just, since evil on such a scale cannot go unanswered forever.

So, returning to your question, my answer is that I believe it to be moot. We are looking to the past for precedent in the answer to the conundrum of this strange and obviously intellectually corrupted man, Bergoglio. But if precedent is not helping us with any of the other strangenesses of the modern Church why do we look to it for the answer to this pope? Have we ever had a situation in which, after doctrine has been settled for two millennia, the pope opens it to questioning and "debate" at a Synod of bishops? And that Synod of bishops did not instantly shout him down and denounce him as a heretic? Could we possibly imagine that such a body would close its session leaving such issues to remain unanswered, and that swiftly, as to whether we should condone public concubinage or even the bizarre legal fiction of "homosexual unions"?!

I ask you, if the pope is not a Catholic, does it matter if he is an anti-pope? Do such canonically defined categories, dependent upon longstanding precedent, apply to this? How can they?

I do not know what Bergoglio is. But I know that nothing he says makes any sense. I know that he cannot be followed or obeyed, not because of his heresies, which are growing more manifest by the hour, but because of the incomprehensibility, the sheer nonsense of his utterances. There are two kinds of orders a soldier cannot obey: those that contradict the law and those that cannot be understood.

In such a situation, the lower ranks of an army must look to more obviously lawful and mentally competent leadership. And if that fails, which it does in many cases throughout the Catholic world, he is left to follow the law and his duty as best he can with the last intelligible, coherent and explicit orders has been given. He knows in general what the goals of the war are and he knows he has a duty to continue fighting that war until his last breath or until it is won.

If a pope is not a Catholic, does it really matter if he is an anti-pope? I don't pretend to know what really goes on inside the obviously confused and contradictory mind of Jorge Bergoglio, whether his oddness and confusion is a deliberate ruse or if it is simply a sign of dementia or if it is merely illustrative of what happens to a mind formed by Jesuits in the 1960s, but judging strictly from what he says and does, I know that he cannot be prosecuting the same goals in this war that we have been charged with. Two and two do not equal five, even if it is a pope who asserts it. And no solider is bound to follow orders that are contrary to the goals of the war he is in.

It is a grave error to imagine that the highest authority is the pope. He receives his authority from the Head of the Church, and if he begins to stray from his orders, he cannot be obeyed. I cannot determine what he believes, certainly not from what he says, but if he cannot be understood, believed or obeyed within the confines of the Faith we have received, I think I don't care very much whether Francis was elected illicitly or not.

______________________

Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:

"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)

And again:

"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." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)

A funeral Mass for Mayor Thomas Menino, promoter of abortion and sodomy

The website ontheissues.org notes that:

"Since an abortive run for Congress in 1992 while still a City Councilor, Menino has supported legal abortion and the public funding of abortion. In his first campaign for Mayor in 1993, he indicated that he would continue the practice of taxpayer finance abortions at Boston City Hospital."  See here.

As Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino marched with homosexuals, promoted same-sex "marriage," and expressed his desire to keep the restaurant chain Chick-fil-A out of Boston because of its adherence to Biblical values.  See here.

Now WCVB is reporting that this confused soul who railed against Catholic moral teaching will now receive (as did Senator Ted Kennedy before him), a funeral Mass, to be held at Most Precious Blood Parish in Hyde Park.

When the same Archdiocese of Boston scandalized the faithful with a funeral Mass for Senator Kennedy (where this enemy of the Church was hailed as "our brother and our friend) John-Henry Westen, writing for LifeSiteNews, in an editorial entitled, "The Kennedy Funeral - A Golden Opportunity or Capitulation for the Catholic Church," said that:

"Saturday's grandiose Catholic funeral for Senator Ted Kennedy has the potential to be a scandal that will make Notre Dame's Obama Day a walk in the park. With all four living former Presidents in attendance and an address from President Barack Obama, the funeral is set to be a royal crowning, right inside a Catholic Church, of a man who betrayed the most fundamental moral teachings of the faith.

What example will this give to Catholics and the rest of the world looking in? It will surely belie the Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life and sexuality. 'Surely,' they will say, 'if one of the most vociferous proponents of abortion and homosexuality in politics is so feted in the Church, the Church cannot possibly regard abortion as murder.' Would anyone so honor one who so advocated what the church officially considers an 'unspeakable crime'?"

The same could be said here.  But don't expect the Archdiocese of Boston to do the right thing.  This local church has a history of genuflecting before the world and scandalizing the faithful.

This is what happens when spiritually and psychologically healthy heterosexual men are excluded from ministry and the Chancery is staffed by weak, effeminate and morally depraved individuals.

Evil celebrates evil.  This is why the Archdiocese of Boston will fete Thomas Menino as brother and friend.

Mark Mallett: Manipulator?

Several days ago Mark Mallett, who claims to receive special revelations from Heaven, asserted that those who are concerned about Pope Francis and his words and actions or who ask difficult questions are motivated by a demonic spirit of suspicion.  See here.

Mr. Mallett was so upset that some Catholics have concerns that he made the claim that if Francis were an anti-Pope, it would mean the Gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church.  I refuted that asinine claim by noting that the Church has had more than 30 anti-popes.

Now Mr. Mallett has written: "Tonight, the words came to me.... "Even if an anti-pope were to someday take the seat of Peter, I would not fear or be anxious, because my Lord is still building the house."

(And Francis is not.)"

Recognizing that his first attempt at manipulation failed, now Mr. Mallett is saying that even if Francis were an anti-pope, it would not be a matter for concern.  Wait a minute, I thought it meant the Gates of Hell had prevailed?

These voices Mr. Mallett is hearing, are they from Heaven or are they merely the result of an active imagination and a super-sized ego?

When cornered, claim to hear voices which indicate you are right.

How convenient!

Is Pope Francis' "God of Surprises" simply the Prince of this world?

Father John Hunwicke writes, "The Holy Father has criticised  the fault of 'wanting to close oneself within the written word, and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises; within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve'. (He went on to make balancing criticisms of other and contrary attitudes.)

When the first wave of Ordinariate clergy were being 'formed' at Allen Hall, our teaching was solidly, insistently, based upon the Conciliar and post-Conciliar Magisterium. This meant the written words of Vatican II and, mainly, the Magisterial documents of our recently canonised S John Paul II. Written documents like Veritatis splendor and Familiaris consortio. Is the Holy Father now telling us that we ought not to be 'closed within' such written words? Heaven help us; it's only a couple of years since we learned all that stuff from expensive written texts provided for our education by funds which, I think I understood, the English Bishops generously made available! Making a bonfire of them seems a bit premature!

Of course, those written words did not represent the end of the Magisterium. There must be development! But, surely, any developments cannot just ignore or rubbish the teaching of those documents? S Vincent of Lerins and B John Henry Newman analysed the difference between change and development. A human foetus cannot develop into an octopus, nor an acorn into a lemon tree..."

I have heard it suggested that rhetoric like the Holy Father's is a danger to his own authority, rather like cutting off the branch that one is sitting on. If the magisterial documents, the written words of a predecessor are now of negligible consequence, how, people wonder, is his own authority any greater? When Pope Francis issues some written words which he desires to be seen as having Magisterial authority, what would be his answer to the naughty little boy who said "Ah, Holy Father, I'm not going to close myself within your written word. Give me the God of Surprises any day..." See here.

It is intrinsic to the Catholic religion, that before one can become a member, he must satisfy himself that the answers to all questions of faith or morals are contained in a Deposit of Faith which has been revealed by God and entrusted to a Custodian established by God Himself and endowed with infallible protection against any change or error.  There are many who consider themselves to be "Catholic" even as they reject the Church's teaching while striving to erect a church in their own image and likeness.  One such deluded soul left a comment at this Blog accusing Catholic bloggers who are faithful to the Church's Magisterium of representing "a Puritan sect" anxious to "excommunicate" other Catholics.

This sophomoric soul should reflect very carefully on the words of Pope Paul VI, in a discourse given to a general audience on September 1, 1971: "...He who thinks he can remain a Christian by his own efforts, deserting the institutional bonds of the visible and hierarchical Church, or who imagines he can remain faithful to the mind of Christ by fashioning for himself a Church conceived according to his own ideas, is on the wrong track, and deceives himself.  He compromises and perhaps ruptures, and makes others rupture, real communion with the People of God, losing the pledge of its promises."

The Church is a communion of persons with the Living God, brought about by the Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit. And, as Pope John Paul II teaches in Christifideles Laici, No. 64, "..an awareness of a commonly shared Christian dignity, an ecclesial consciousness brings a sense of belonging to the mystery of the Church as Communion. This is a basic and undeniable aspect of the life and mission of the Church. For one and all, the earnest prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, 'That all may be one' (Jn 17: 21), ought to become daily a required and undeniable program of life and action."

When we understand what is meant by the Church's communion, the words of Pope Benedict XVI make perfect sense: "..In order to remain in unity with the crucified and risen Lord, the practical sign of juridical unity, 'remaining in the teaching of the apostles' is indispensable." (Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, p. 69, Ignatius Press).  But the false prophets of the "new morality," which is neither new nor morality, continue to insist that we are now living in a new era in which men have "come of age."  These mental and moral midgets, anxious to baptize abortion, homosexuality, contraception and a host of other evils, argue that there is now before us a new way, an easy way of following God which permits all things in the name of "love."

As these sons and daughters of Hell raise their angry voices against the Church, demanding that she "update" her teaching so that it will be more palatable for "modern man," the Church reminds us all in her authoritative voice that, "They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a 'bodily' manner and not 'in his heart.' All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged." (Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

If Francis is taking his direction from a "God of surprises" who is telling him to change doctrine, I've got news for him: this "god" is the Prince of this world, he who surprised Eve and assured her that there was a better way" than God's Way.

And we all know where that led.

Pope Francis believes the Church needs to mature to better approach man "come of age."  Related reading here.

He will deceive even some of the elect

Mark Mallett has a new post defending Pope Francis and asserting that a "spirit of suspicion," a demonic spirit, is focusing on Francis. Mark says that if it were true that Francis were an anti-Pope, that would mean that the gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church.

This is nonsense. The Church, pay attention here folks, has already had more than THIRTY ANTI-POPES! Are you shocked?

If so, it is because you are ignorant of Church history:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/ANTIPOPE.TXT

It was Pope Paul VI who said, back in 1977, "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. Luke: '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.."

And this was 35 years ago when, compared with today, things were far better. Pope Paul VI also said, "What strikes me, when I think of the Catholic world, is that within Catholicism, there seems sometimes to predominate a non-Catholic way of thinking, and it can happen that this non-Catholic thought within Catholicism, will tomorrow become the stronger. But it will never represent the thought of the Church. It is necessary that a small flock subsist, no matter how small it might be." (The Secret Paul VI, by Jean Guitton).

It was Fulton J. Sheen who wrote, "The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himsel as "I am Who am," and the Devil as "I am who am not."

    Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of this world," whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect--and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect.
 

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

    . . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion--one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

    In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .
    . . . But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism.

(Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25)

    The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

    . . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion--one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

    In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a

counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .
    . . . But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism."

(Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25)

Before he became Pope, Francis downplayed the necessity of Holy Mass?

"The Man who would one day be Pope Francis had come to hold a service far from the grandeur of the great cathedral of Buenos Aires. He had travelled – taking the subway train and then the bus – to arrive in one of the shanty-towns, which Argentines call villas miserias – misery villages. He had picked his way down crooked and chaotic alleyways, criss-crossed with water pipes and dangling electricity cables, along which open sewers ran as malodorous streams when the rain came. There, amid ramshackle houses of crudely- cemented terracotta breezeblock, he fell into conversation with the middle-aged mother.

She told him of life in an impoverished slum, terrorised by gangs peddling paco – the cheap chemical waste product left over from processing the cocaine sent to Europe and the United States, or sold to the affluent middle classes of the Argentinian capital. Dealers mix the residue with kerosene, rat poison or even crushed glass and sell it for a dollar a hit to the people of the slums. So addictive is the drug that one day’s free supply is enough to get hooked, creating a short-lived high followed by an intense craving, paranoia and hallucination. The dealers target the children of the poor and adolescents who hang around because there is no work to be had.


The woman looked at the prince of the Church and apologised to him for the fact that her son, amidst all that, had stopped going to Mass. The man, who as Pope was to take the name of Francis – the great saint of the poor – looked into her eyes as though she were the only person in his world. “But is he a good kid?” the priest asked.

“Oh, yes, Father Jorge,” she replied, eschewing the grander titles of the cardinal archbishop. “Well,” pronounced the prelate, “that’s what matters.” See here.

It goes without saying that such is pure nonsense. As Manuel Garrido, O.S.B. explains:

"The moral obligation to participate in the eucharistic sacrifice on Sundays dates from the very beginning of Christianity, although it did not become a definite law of the Church until the fourth century. The meaning, the scope and the application of this law have been the subject of much research and study, not to mention considerable controversy, in the years following the Second Vatican Council. The matter can be studied from the vertical point of view, in that there exists the obligation to worship God, and also from the horizontal viewpoint, which involves all the anthropological aspects of every shade and hue. Both of these approaches are legitimate and easily lead to a solution, so long as they are integrated, and the conclusions drawn from each are given their proper place in the scale of values. But trouble begins when the proponents of one approach refuse to recognize the validity of the other. And here, as in so many other manifestations of the Church's discipline, the strength of our faith is all-important, and so is the regulating of all our acts by a truly religious conscience. Something similar happens in hospitals and schools, or in any institution with a set of rules that must be followed. Typical is a fixed schedule for meals, which people with a good appetite find no difficulty in obeying, while those with poor appetites regard it as an imposition to be avoided.
The obligation to attend Sunday Mass exists. It is a commandment of the Church which binds under the penalty of grave sin. It exists for a specific reason and should be known and loved, so that the soul feels a need to fulfill it. The fact that it is a law helps to create a religious consciousness of this need, which, in turn, makes it easier to fulfill the obligation.

Although they refer to another subject, the following words of Msgr. Escriva de Belaguer sum up admirably what I am trying to say: "In direct opposition to the faith which we find a mistaken interpretation of freedom, a freedom with no end in sight, with no objective standards, without law, without responsibility; in a word licentiousness. This unfortunately, is what some people propose, and it is nothing but an excuse to attack the faith." ("Friends of God", no. 32) Like any other society, the Church has her own laws, which should be followed in the light of her proper aims, especially when it is a matter with some bearing on the third Commandment. In order to appreciate a law and fulfill it conscientiously and enthusiastically, it is first necessary to know it properly.

The Day Of The Lord

The Second Vatican Council reminds us that "apostolic tradition of the Church is, from the very day of the resurrection of Christ, to celebrate the Pasch every eight days, on the day which is called the day of the Lord" ("Sacrosanctum Concilium", 106). Modern scientific investigation also proves that this custom is from the time of the apostles.

The first mention of this is to be found in Sacred Scripture is in St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, written in the year 57. The Apostle refers "to the first day of the week" (16, 1-2) as the most appropriate for the collection for the poorer communities. About two years later the Acts of the Apostles tell of the celebration of the eucharist in Troas: "on the first day of the week" (20, 7-8). Here we are given to understand that the celebration takes place in the evening or the night of the day before. This custom was observed in the Church until the last century and has been restored since the Council. From the foregoing it is clear that in Greece, Galatia, Bithynia, and consequently in Palestine and Syria, during the first half of the first century, the celebration of the eucharist on the first day of the week was a common establishment among Christian communities.

We first hear of this day being referred to as the Lord's day in the Apocalypse of St. John, 1, 9-10: "I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day". In Latin it is called "Dominica" or "Dies Dominicus", a name which is retained in the Latin languages: "domingo, domenica, dimanche, domineca", etc.; while in the Germanic languages the pagan name is retained "dies solis" (sonntag, Sunday), in Russia it is called "voskresenie," after the resurrection of the Lord; the Armenians call it "haruthjan" and "deruni," which means "the Lord's Day."

In Didache, 14, I the Sunday celebration seems obligatory: "On Sundays, get together and break the bread and give thanks, confessing your sins in order that your sacrifice may be pure." This testimony pertains to the second half of the first century. In the second century, St. Justin, writing to a pagan, gives us a striking description of Holy Mass being celebrated every Sunday, referred to by him as "dies solis"; and he goes on to explain that those who live in towns and villages attend this sacred assembly ("Apologia" I, 67). During the same period we have Dionisius of Corinth speaking of the first day of the week as a "holy day" ("PG", 20, 388). From here on we can find numerous descriptions of the Sunday eucharistic celebration and also of the Christians' obligation of participating in the same."

In Luke 18:19, Jesus responds to a young man who calls Him "Good Master,":

"Why dost thou call me good? None is good but God alone."

Apparently these words are lost on Francis.  As are these words from Jesus related in John 6:53:


“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."

And some insist that orthodox Catholics have nothing to worry about? Really?

Who's kidding who?

The Rosary: Spiritual weapon for men

At any time, and especially during dark days of spiritual warfare such as those we are living through, Catholic men must pray the Rosary for support.  This prayer is critical for both men and women.  But this excellent article explains why it is so necessary for men.

“God has established not just one enmity but ‘enmities’, and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.

But Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ.” (Treatise On True Devotion To The Blessed Virgin, 54).

I have always viewed the sling which David used to slay Goliath as a harbinger, a sort of figure or sign pointing to the Holy Rosary which would be given to the faithful by Our Lady and by which they would “crush the head of Satan” – “the very seat of his pride” as Montfort puts it. We read in 1 Samuel 17:

“With his shield-bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff?’ Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him, ‘Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ David answered him: ‘You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the Lord shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he shall deliver you into our hands’…David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone..” (1 Samuel 17: 41-47, 49-50).

The Devil is the adversary of faithful Christians. And, like Goliath, he seems to cast a big shadow. But when we approach him on the battlefield [“For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens,” Eph 6:12] we have our own sling as a weapon – the Holy Rosary. And every bead, every Hail Mary prayerfully recited, is hurled as a weapon against the Devil’s head, the seat of his pride. Therefore, Montfort exhorts us, “So arm yourself with the arms of God, with the holy Rosary, and you will crush the devil’s head and stand firm in the face of all his temptations. That is why even a pair of rosary beads is so terrible to the devil, and why the saints have used them to fetter him and drive him from the bodies of those who were possessed.” (The Secret of the Holy Rosary, 85).
Related reading here.

Related article here.

More confusion from Pope Francis as the Diabolical Disorientation spreads

"So often [people ask]: 'But do you believe?': 'Yes! Yes! '; 'What do you believe in?'; 'In God!'; 'But what is God for you?'; 'God, God'. But God does not exist: Do not be shocked! So God does not exist! There is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they are persons, they are not some vague idea in the clouds ... This God spray does not exist!" - Pope Francis; See here.


In his powerful classic entitled, "The Flight from God," the eminent Swiss philosopher Max Picard writes: "In every age man has been in flight from God. What distinguishes the Flight to-day from every other flight is this: once Faith was the universal, and prior to the individual; there was an objective world of Faith, while the Flight was only accomplished subjectively, within the individual man. It came into being through the individual man's separating himself from the world of Faith by an act of decision. A man who wanted to flee had first to make his own flight. The opposite is true to-day. The objective and external world of Faith is no more; it is Faith which has to be remade moment by moment through the individual's act of decision, that is to say, through the individual's cutting himself off from the world of the Flight. For to-day it is no longer Faith which exists as an objective world, but rather the Flight; for every situation into which man comes is from the beginning, without his making it so, plainly a situation of flight, since everything in this world exists only in the form of the Flight." (The Flight from God, Gateway Editions, 1951, pp.1-2).

Picard goes on to explain in this critically important work that, "The man of the Flight cannot bear the feeling that there is one thing and one thing only: the Flight. He needs something wholly other, something, now threatening, now friendly, which is above him, like a heaven beneath which he can make his journey...This is Art...The very existence of Art in a sphere of its own already means that it is 'wholly other,' and from the beginning it is other than reality itself. The strange thing about Art is that a work of art is indeed made by man, but that once it is made it stands there independently of man. This gives it a semblance of otherness." (The Flight from God, pp. 138-139).

This is of the utmost importance for "modern man" as he flees from his God Who is Wholly Other. Nature abhors a vacuum after all. And so, in his flight from the Divine Other, man in the flight substitutes "Art" for the Divine Being as the Wholly Other." Picard explains that the cinema "..is the perfect Flight" and that here is where "men may learn how best to flee." For this reason, "..cinemas are everywhere erected, examples of the Flight. The figures on the screen are fashioned only for the Flight, they are disembodied. Like one in a hurry who drops his luggage, the figures have laid down their bodily substance somewhere in the background, while they themselves make off in the foreground of the screen, outlines only of their bodies. Sometimes they are still for a moment, looking backwards fearfully, as if there was one who pursued them. Alas, it is only a game, they do but pretend to be afraid. No one can reach them, these things without being. And now, as if they want to fool the one who pursues them, they move more slowly, they even translate a movement which ought o be fast into a slow one; they demonstrate slowness in the Flight, so sure are they that nothing can reach them, these things without being. Here in the cinema it is as if there were no more men, as if the real men were somewhere in safety, had for long been in safety, and as if these shadows had been left behind simply to flee in place of the real men. They only pretend to be in flight and even the men who sit in front of the screen in order to gaze at the shadows there seem nothing but dummies, arranged to complete the illusion,while the real men have long since departed." (pp. 8-9).

Dr. Von Hildebrand was right when he said that, "Modern man has lost that consciousness of being a creature which even the pagan possessed, and he lives in the illusion that by his own powers he can transform the world into a terrestrial paradise." (The New Tower of Babel, Sophia Institute Press, 1994, p. 21).

Having decided against God, "modern man" has embraced the Flight. This flight from the Divine Other has led to the decline of man's confidence in the powers of human reason to attain reality and truth. Man in the Flight has concluded today that all truth is relative. In the same way that Pilate asked Our Lord, "What is truth?" and hastened in his flight to the judgment-hall without waiting for an answer (John 18:38), so "modern man," in his embrace of relativism, joins the flight without any thought of inquiring for the truth. Instead, he settles for illusion, rejecting the permanent authority of truth as founded by the Divine Other in reality, reason and revelation while setting himself up as the autonomous source of all truth:"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).

The Antichrist is behind the Flight, urging "modern man" to hasten in his Flight and not to look back. How will this Flight end? In the words of Romano Guardini:"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 without 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." (The Lord, p. 513).

Are we not approaching the Reign of Antichrist? "Modern man" strives to build a godless world where he is subject to no one but himself. Having eliminated God from this world, "modern man" deifies and absolutizes himself. Having rejected his place as a creature dependent upon God, "modern man" is moving, "..not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, p. 248).

Father Brian O'Toole engages in legalism

Father Brian O'Toole on left

Most of you are aware of the controversy caused by a Synod document (which has since been rewritten because of its flawed theology) which made the asinine claim that we should "accept and value" the homosexual orientation and not simply the homosexual person.  I explained here why this load of bovine scatology is unacceptable.

Father Brian O'Toole, the "Pastor" of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish in Gardner, Massachusetts, disagrees.  This intellectual giant and lover of souls assured the laity in attendance at the 10:30 AM Mass at Sacred Heart Parish (also in Gardner-  the parishes have merged) that Pope Francis is only trying to be more "pastoral" and implied that opposition to the original draft of the Synod document in question is rooted in Pharisaism, in hypocrisy.  He used the word "legalism." Fr. O'Toole implied that orthodox Catholics who actually accept Our Lord's exhortation to, "Go and sin no more," are legalistic in the same way that the Pharisees were with their 613 "rules" (he mistakenly put the number at 618.

Ironically, it is Father O'Toole who has succumbed to legalism without realizing it.

Dr. Germain Grisez, in a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium held in Philadelphia, had this to say:

"Theologians and pastors who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church's contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."


Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium that, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices. Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."

Dr. Grisez then went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law..They will explain that while one sometimes must choose contrary to positive laws and cannot always meet their requirements, one always can choose in truth and abide in love. They will acknowledge the paradox of freedom - that we seem unable to resist freely choosing to sin - the paradox that Saint Paul neatly formulates: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). But they also will proclaim the liberating power of grace, and help the faithful learn by experience that when one comes to understand the inherent evil of sin and intrinsic beauty of goodness, enjoys the support of a community of faith whose members bear one another’s burdens, begs God for His help, and confidently expects it, then the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead raises him from his sins, and he discovers that with the Spirit’s grace one can consistently resist sin and choose life."

I nominate Father Brian O'Toole for this year's Walter Duranty Award.