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Can Catholics Expect a Great Monarch?

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jan 7, 2014

Copyright © 2012 by T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.)

Most Traditionalists assume the Great Monarch prophecies are strictly of Catholic origin, since many of these prophecies are presented as proof of the Church’s belief in a future deliverer who will save Catholics from complete annihilation. And certainly these prophecies are more appealing today than ever, given the dearth of leadership in this country and the world. But doctrine, not prophecy is the bedrock of belief; prophecy and private revelations are proposed for belief on human, not Catholic faith. In fact Catholics need not even profess belief in revelations of this nature, even when they come from the mouths of saints, and in doing so they commit no sin. Even though a number of saints foresaw the advent of a Great Monarch, many alternate explanations can be offered for their various predictions. Some can be categorized as affected by political interpolations of the various time periods in which these saints lived. Others may easily apply to some other personage not accounted for by the one commenting on the prophecy. A seer or “prophet” can incorrectly interpret a revelation from God or unintentionally misapply it. Mistakes can be made relaying the message and existing prejudices can affect the transmission of the message, interfering with its accuracy. Mistranslation and misquotation is not uncommon. And errors of the time may be reflected in the prophecy. Perhaps Catholics can expect a Great Monarch sometime in the future, but this is by no means certain.

The errors possible among seers are taken from Pope Benedict XIV’s teaching on how prophecy may be misunderstood, misapplied or wrongly recounted. One of the mistakes seers and prophets may make concerning their messages or visions is that a figure in what is revealed to them may appear to be something it is not. For example, St. Malachy (if all the prophecies attributed to him are actually his own) applied several mottoes to “popes” who actually were antipopes. St. Vincent Ferrar and others believed that Antichrist lived in their lifetimes. It is speculated that the man who transcribed Anna Catherine Emmerich’s visions was a Freemason at one time, although the Church has approved Emmerich’s visions. Nevertheless, some of the Traditionalist interpretations of those visions today certainly are suspect, especially when used to support the Siri thesis. Anytime the specific interpretation of a prophecy of any kind interferes with the Church’s ordinary teaching, that prophecy is not to be trusted, Pope Benedict XIV says. To properly evaluate the Great Monarch prophecies we must keep these exceptions foremost in our minds.

The Protestant historian Clinton Locke, in his work “The Great Western Schism,” (1900), relates that the legend concerning the great monarch-holy pope alliance first began to circulate during the 14^th century, in both France and Germany, independent of any then existing “private prophecies.” (Later the visionary Michel Nostradamus popularized the Great Pope/Great King prophecies, and although some believe he maintained clandestine relations with Satanic members of the royal de Medici family, Nostradamus was given Catholic burial.) Bonnie Prince Charlie’s efforts to regain the English throne and the periodic appearance of pretenders to the throne of France explain the popularity of the Great Monarch predictions. But especially in Germany, the people awaited an emperor who would bring them happiness and prosperity. The Teutonic knights, a German order modeled on the Templars is said to have secretly continued that order in conjunction with their English and French counterparts, the Knights Hospitaller. The Teutonic Knights admitted only racially pure Germans of noble ancestry and cultivated the Great Monarch legend to promote the belief that a long-awaited emperor from imperial Germany was destined to rule Europe, psychologically preparing Germans to accept Adolph Hitler. In a similar manner, a French secret society known as the Priory of Sion was said to be carefully guarding the ancient bloodlines of England and France with the help and approval of certain French prelates. The Priory used the romantic legends of King Arthur’s Court and the Holy Grail to conceal their work in wrappings appealing to the common man. It was these pseudo-Catholic prelates embroiled in the work of the Priory that Our Lady came to La Salette to warn us against.

The Priory connection

Paul Winkler, writing during World War II explains the origin of the Great Monarch legend in his “The Thousand Year Conspiracy,” (1943). Winkler quotes from Henry Heine’s work “On Germany,” where Heine, in a diatribe condemning the mindset of the Middle Ages, had this to say to the German people in the 1800s: “‘Once the blood again begins coursing through the veins of the German people…their ear will hear only the great voice of one man…He is the man whom the German people awaits…who they have so longed for in their dreams — you whom our old people have prophesied with burning desire…you who carry the divine sceptre of liberty and the imperial crown without the Cross…It is certainly more than popular legend that Emperor Frederick — the old Barbarossa — is not dead…He has taken refuge in the Kyffhaeuser mountains, hiding with his entire court until sometime in the future…'” Winkler comments: “‘The man’ expected by Heine was the subject of common tales in Germany for hundreds of years. They corresponded to a specific Germanic conception of the Messianic idea [minus the trappings of Catholic monarchy]. We can see how the popularity of Hitler in his country can be explained by his endeavor to achieve what the legends forecast…Heine failed to understand thoroughly the dangers inherent in the survival of those purely Germanic superstitions and the legends surrounding the Kyffhaeuser mountains…He did not see that some day all this would turn into a terrific diabolical avalanche running away with itself, and would end in a nightmarish conflagration spread to all parts of the world. Nor could he imagine that against this orgy of the ‘elementary spirits’ the Traditions of the Church…offered a certain resistance and protection.”

As Winkler goes on to explain, although Heine inveighed against a return to the thinking of the Middle Ages he advocated a return to such thinking in the same breath. “Today the same Middle Ages practices of which Heine spoke have placed themselves very much in the foreground,” he continues. “When the average observer speaks about ‘Middle ages practices’ in Hitler’s Germany, he does not realize that the expression he uses is much more than a simple allegorical figure — that it describes the actual comeback of a period long gone…English feudal concepts have played some part in shaping the conduct of British external and internal affairs…The survival in France of isolated feudal-minded groups was responsible for…the tragic subjection of a now feudally governed France to the sad rule of Berlin…These feudal survivals in many places, including America, constitute a certain danger. We have seen such feudal circles becoming the temporary allies of the Prussian-Teutonics…” And certainly the Priory of Sion and the Teutonic Knights guaranteed the survival of chivalry and medievalism.

Dusty Sklar traces this thinking through to Hitler’s own time in his work “The Nazis and the Occult,” (1977). Guido von List, a sometime associate of Hitler’s spiritual advisor updated Heine’s sentiments in the early part of the 20^th century: “List’s study of Jewish mysticism had taught him the importance of imbuing the people with a Messianic hope. When the world is changing and the old knowledge becomes suspect, it is necessary to herald the coming of a Messiah so that the traditional verities may be adapted to new conditions. List gave the Germans, in effect, the opportunity to become competitors of the Jews for the honor of ‘chosen people.’ The German people…were the chosen people, and soon a Fuhrer would arise among them who, in turn, would lead the Messianic nation.” List’s philosophy evolved into the creation of a secret society — the Armanen — in 1908, Sklar relates; eight years after the occultist and defrocked Cistercian monk, Jorge Lanz von Liebenfels, founded the New Templars. “Membership was often interlocking, and there was continuous feedback between the cults,” Sklar writes. “Around 1912 a number of members of both cults finally came together under one roof in the Germanen Orden, which prefigured the Nazi Party…Hitler was a reader of [Lanz’ publication] ‘Ostara,’ and met Lanz several times in that period, [a period] he later alluded to as providing him with ‘the foundations of a knowledge’ which was to become so important to him.” That knowledge was practically identical to the theosophy of Blavatsky and later the Messiah-driven British Israelism of Disraeli and others.

Ancient history is filled with examples of the anticipation of savior kings allied with holy priests, both in pagan and pre-Christian literature. But it was the Jews who in Christ’s time looked for a glorious earthly king and therefore rejected Christ as heir to the promise, even though he was of the Davidic line as Scripture foretold. This is because they preferred the “second Messiah” of their own understanding to the true Messiah sent by God. “For the Jews believed that Zacharias 1:20 foretold two Messiahs, one a suffering Messiah, descended from the tribe of Joseph, Elias and the priest Zadok, and the other a glorious messiah, son of David,” (“How Christ said the First Mass,” by Rev. James Meagher, 1906). Church historians portray the Jews of Christ’s time as a carnal people who had little use for suffering; they believed they already had suffered enough. The Jewish people longed for a return to the time of the kings of earlier Israelitic centuries — not unlike the medievalism of the German people — and their leaders obliged them by creating a projection of a second Messiah to satisfy this longing. Therefore they denied Christ as Eternal High Priest in favor of this earthly king yet to come.

It is this second Messiah the Jews now await, but British Israel/Identity teaches that European and American Gentiles, not the Jews, are heirs to the biblical promises as the Chosen People, and this would include all rights to the “second messiah.” It offers its adherents unique status as Anglo-Saxon Aryans who, along with the Nazis, they hold superior to all the other races. Anti-Catholic as well as anti-Jew, BI believers hold to the ancient liberties/continuity theory professed by the Gallicanists and their British co-religionists, neatly sidestepping the necessity of the papacy. Group apologists contend that certain European royalty are directly descended from the biblical King David, and are able to rule by Divine right. Move up a few Masonic levels and you have the rest of the story — these kings are descended from King David because they share the “bloodline of Christ,” a “bloodline” carefully preserved over the centuries by the Priory of Sion. The Priory’s King of Sion, they believe, is designated to rule from Europe, and probably from Britain, as the Merovingian heir. None of this differs much from the Masonically inspired teachings of Mormonism, which may well be a uniquely American manifestation of Priory beliefs.

Authors Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent, who chronicle the history and operation of the Priory insist that, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was not the work of some Jewish high council, but the blueprint for Priory operations,” (“Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” 1982). Members of the Rose-Croix Masons wrote the Protocols, they believe, as early as 1864. To begin with, Victor Marsden, compiler of “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” for republication in 1934, stated that they originated in Paris, and were allegedly found in the home of a Jewish gentleman by one Mlle. Glinka, a Russian citizen. From there they fell into the hands, he said, of Sergei Nilus upon Glinka’s later return to her homeland. For this reason some believe the Protocols were a Tsarist police forgery. The 1934 edition of the Protocols claimed they originated at an International Judaic Congress that convened in Basle in 1897. But Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent refute this, attributing them to one Maurice Cretineau-Joly, who they say was a well-known Rosicrucian and enemy of the Catholic Church, (although he is described in the Catholic Encyclopedia as a polemical religious-political writer who, in his writings professed “unwavering fidelity” to the Church. It was Cretineau-Joly who provided copies of the Masonic blueprint for the destruction of the Church, the Alta Vendita, to Pope Gregory XVI in 1846.)

The conspiracy author Nesta Webster relates that the Protocols later were found to be an updated and much improved version of Cretineau-Joly’s work, giving indication that it came from a source other than the Jews. “The Protocols are a vast improvement on the ‘Dialogues’ of Joly…An international circle of world revolutionaries working along the lines of the Illuminati…offers a perfectly plausible alternative solution to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Sion,'” (Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, 1924). There are passages in the Protocols to demonstrate they are the work of the Priory, the authors point out. References to the advent of a “king of the blood of Sion,” a “Masonic kingdom,” a king reigning from “the dynastic roots of David,” all culminate in the startling statement that this king of the Jews will be “the real Pope of the Universe.” Author Tim Cohen frequently refers to the connection between early American aristocrats and the bloodlines of the present British royal family, tying these connections to the Illuminati, (“The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea”). Author Frederic Haberman wrote that this great king of the Davidic line would receive his kingdom from the hands of British royalty, (Tracing Our Ancestors). His book, written in the 1940s, is dedicated to proving that all the kings of England were directly descended from the biblical King David. Will the false “Great Monarch” anticipated by a certain faction of Traditionalists be the one to accept the throne?

It is safe to say that more than any other politico-religious group in America, Traditionalists as a whole possess a medieval-ages mentality. This is demonstrated by their strong attraction to the Great Monarch legends and prophecies, also a longing to return to times when the Church was presumably free from present-day evils. They are joined by a host of like-minded Protestants of British Israel persuasion, who therefore are not opposed to the monarchic ideal. The Priory of Sion with its bloodlines and medieval trappings is the most obvious example of modern-day medievalism. But what Traditionalists forget is that the idea here, as Heine noted is to “carry the sceptre of liberty and the imperial crown…without the Cross.” There will be no re-creation of the Holy Roman Empire. And the reason there will be no re-creation of this Empire is that those promoting the false Great Monarch are determined to enjoy his reign without the guidance of the Roman See, despite their protestations to the contrary. This time travel back to the Middle Ages is intended to relocate Trads somewhere in the late 14^th century, where they can rewrite the ending of the Great Schism in favor of their Gallicanist inclinations. With this in mind from a religious standpoint, a careful reading of the above paragraph will reveal an eerie similarity to the trends in Western thought pre-World War II and those of today, only those of today are more deeply entrenched than those same trends 70-75 years ago. This is especially true seeing that many Traditionalists share a common political agenda, with Sufi overtones. As explained elsewhere, Lutheranism was the necessary preparation for Nazism, and it also has served as the chosen soil for the growth of a “Catholic” version of this same evil.

Traditionalist neo-Nazis

It was Thomas Case, in the 1990s who assayed the Traditionalist sects and found that several clergymen were markedly anti-Semitic, with definite neo-Nazi or British Israel leanings, (Fidelity Magazine, October 1992). He noted that militia groups flourish in the St. Mary’s, Kansas area, home to the SSPX, (this is reportedly known to the local sheriff there). Case flagged the Society’s Fr. Ramon Angles, “Bp.” Richard Williamson, and Fr. Gregory Post, providing specific documentation in each case. He also fingered British Israel promoter Dan Jones of Colorado and Jones’ longtime friend, “Bp.” Oliver Oravec, last known to be living somewhere in Czechoslovakia. Jones’ “Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes” publication unabashedly promoted the Aryan Nations position for years, alongside other articles written by prominent Traditional clergymen. The late Fr. Lawrence Brey, at one time, at least, also professed admiration for the 1930s radio-priest Fr. Coughlin in an article featured in “The Remnant”, and has mixed with many anti-Semitic Traditionalists over the years. Fr. George Musey of Texas expressed neo-Nazi sentiments to several colleagues and followers during the course of his lifetime, a fact witnessed by this author. The openly anti-Semitic publication “Veritas,” now defunct, pumped out anti-Jewish sentiments for decades, although it also furnished the faithful with much good information on the teachings of the Church. If any doubt exists concerning Traditionalists’ anti-Semitic orientation, a quick survey of anti-Semitic literature for sale on various Traditionalist web sites should prove that what is said here is no exaggeration. And some identification of Traditionalists with anti-Semitism has been more public than others, i.e., that of Mel Gibson and his father.

“There is a virulent sickness of hatred and Hitlerism running through the Traditional Catholic movement,” Case wrote. “Society of St. Pius X [priests] in France see Marshall Petain as a hero, and his pro-Nazi Vichy government of World War II as a paragon of virtue. Catholic Traditionalism as a whole in France is imbued with extreme right-wing politics…the historical dream of a restored Catholic Monarchy, allied with pro-Hitler, anti-Semitic fascism.” Case points out that like the Action-Francais movement in the 1930s, condemned by Pope Pius XI, (atheistic) right-wing political interests are absorbing Traditionalists and using them to promote their own hidden agenda. It is no coincidence that there have been recent civil disturbances throughout Europe, especially in France, that revolve around anti-Semitic organizations. And at least one ex-FBI agent, Mike German believes that the biggest terrorist threat in this country is not Islamo-fascism but Aryan Nations fascism. German has spoken internationally on this problem objecting that the FBI will not confront these groups unless they can produce actual evidence of terrorist activity after the fact. He believes that neo-Nazi groups are multiplying in the U.S., and with good reason. One purportedly “Catholic” web site even claimed at one time that the French Monarch has amassed a large army and is only waiting until the time is right to commence the fulfillment of his mission.

Seasoned journalist and WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah reported in his 2005 G2 Bulletins that “The danger posed by the skinhead-Islamist alliance is being compared with the fast-growing menace of Central American street gangs, such as the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, who are now the largest and most dangerous criminal group in several Latin American countries and in the U.S. MS-13, too, has been known to meet with al-Qaida operatives and is believed to be involved in smuggling some into the U.S. across the Mexican border… Law enforcement officials fear skinheads and neo-Nazis could provide not just additional numbers to the Islamic terrorist cause but also some operatives who would defy profiling efforts…What brings the groups together is a common enemy – Jews – and business interests, say law enforcement officials. Neo-Nazi skinheads are deeply involved in drug-running and human smuggling gangs – two areas of common interest with Islamists… Al-Qaida, Jamaah Islamiah and Wahabbi groups see nothing wrong in using non-Muslims to further their cause. As the origin of most anti-terror activities focuses mainly on the Middle East and Asia, it is clear a western terrorist could be more successful in penetrating a number of security and defense circles. In cases of a precision attack against individuals or institutions, European or American Caucasian terrorists will be more successful in disappearing from the radar screen…Avi Beker, the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, says in the past two years Jews around the world have experienced the worst anti-Semitism since World War II, primarily because of the effects of the Middle East conflict.” In Canada, the U.S. and Europe, Jews have increasingly been targeted for attacks, according to news reports. And true Catholics may well be next.

While some government agencies seem unwilling as yet to make the connection between Islamo-fascism and neo-Nazism, history shows a definite connection already exists. The History Channel has several times re-aired a series showing the interconnections of Islam and Hitler’s Germany from the 1930s on, with Muslims openly supporting Hitler, propagandizing for him and even sending troops to help win Hitler’s war. Rabbi David Dalin devotes a chapter to this involvement in his defense of Pope Pius XII,” (“Pope Pius XII: The Myth of Hitler’s Pope,” 2005). Dalin quotes Kenneth Timmerman who related that no less than the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini began meeting with Hitler in November 1941, the first of several meetings. “He had gone to convince Adolf Hitler of his total dedication to the Nazi goal of exterminating the Jews, and offered to raise an Arab legion to carry out that task in the Middle East,” Timmerman wrote. “The mufti’s close ties to Hitler, and his total embrace of Hitler’s Final Solution, provides the common thread linking past to present… Today’s Muslim anti-Semitism…feed[s] directly off of Hitler’s Third Reich.” Dalin quotes Adolf Eichmann’s deputy, Dieter Wisliceny, later condemned to death as a war criminal at Nuremburg, who said he was convinced that the mufti played a role “in the decision to exterminate the European Jews.” He insisted that the mufti had repeatedly suggested this “solution” to “Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler.” The mufti groomed Yasser Arafat, a distant relative of al-Husseini, for his own terrorist role, and Arafat later often referred to “our hero al-Husseini.” Egyptian leaders Nasser and Anwar Sadat also came under al-Husseini’s influence. Hebrew University’s Robert Winstrich states in Dalin’s work that there is now an anti-Jewish “culture of hatred” in the Arab Middle East permeating “books, magazines, newspapers, sermons, videocassettes, the Internet, television and radio…that has not been seen since the heyday of Nazi Germany.” Yet at La Salette, Our Lady warned that Hitler would be only a forerunner of Antichrist.

La Salette and the Great Monarch

Catholics know that Our Lady appeared at La Salette, France in 1846 to deliver monumental secrets concerning the end times to two shepherds, Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud. These secrets have been the result of furious controversy ever since, and more than one version of Melanie’s secret has been circulated. A work available only in French (Découverte du Secret de La Salette, published by Librairie Arthème Fayard in 2002, recently has been circulated and quoted on this subject. This book has the Nihil Obstat from Abbaye Notre-Dame de Tournay, 13 February 2002, Dom Bernard Billet. The Imprimatur is from Èvry, le jour Pâques 2002, Mgr. Michel Dubost.) It is purporting to present the currently available version of the La Salette Secret (Lecce version) as the true version. Another work, “The Woman and the Dragon,” by Maurice Canioni, 2004, published by Delacroix on La Salette also gives the Lecce version of the secret as the authentic version. But why is both a Novus Ordo source and an apparently Traditional source pointing Catholics in this direction? What is important to remember is that:

a) The first work is the product of the Novus Ordo clergy and therefore cannot be trusted. For all its claims to scholarship and the author’s access to “Vatican Archives,” it can be nothing but fatally flawed. Its authors openly admit that the Archives did not contain the handwritten secrets of Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud to Pope Pius IX; these have been “lost.” Obviously more than is known to us today went on in the Vatican concerning this Secret.

b) The second work is the product of Traditionalists, possible Monarchists, and for these reasons alone it must remain suspect. It may contain some worthwhile information but is no more reliable than the first work.

What has been said elsewhere concerning Maximin’s secret must be summarized here. Maximin is said to have predicted that a Great Monarch will rule in the end times, yet his secret was never published; he released it only to Pope Pius IX, and now it seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Easily influenced by others but always a fierce supporter of the apparition, Maximin obviously confided some details to an acquaintance with Monarchist convictions, who then published an unofficial version of the boy’s secret. Although Maximin strongly renounced this publication and forced its retraction, the secret was published as his own by many different commentators. Rev. R. Gerald Culleton’s version of Maximin’s secret, however, mentions nothing about the Great Monarch. While Maximin obviously believed that such a Monarch would arrive, he said it would happen only in God’s good time. Melanie said many things would come about only if morals improved and the people did penance. The Fatima message also made certain assurances contingent on the people’s reform. Any deliberate staging of this king’s arrival is hardly in agreement with the spirit of Our Lady’s messages.

It is interesting that there appear to be connections between those who wrongfully published Maxmin’s secret and one of the key figures of the Priory of Sion, Abbe Berengar Sauniere of Rennes le-Chateau in the Pyrenees. Author Philip Coppens says that Sauniere and the founder of the Mariavite schism, Abbe Boullan, both Monarchists, were in contact with each other. Like Sauniere, Boullan had accumulated wealth that no one could quite account for, (“Satan in the Modern World,” Mgr. L. Cristiani, 1961). He was a follower of the Theosophist Madame Blavatsky and also frequented Rosicrucian circles according to Mgr. Cristiani. Boullan lived with a woman, Adele Chevalier, who was a former friend of Melanie Calvat’s. Sauniere, Coppens relates, was very interested in the Secret of La Salette, as was Boullan. It is even rumored that Sauniere had an affair with a distant actor relative of Melanie Calvat’s. During this same time period another Monarchist, the alleged convert Leon Bloy also was a patron of these same circles. He was obsessed with La Salette throughout his lifetime. Sauniere, Boullan and Bloy all frequented the Chapel of San Sulpice; it is impossible to believe that they never connected with each other. Bloy’s curious fascination with La Salette is confirmed by the 1908 publication of his book, “She Who Weeps,” an anthology of his writings on the apparition. Despite the defense of his friends who swore to his orthodoxy, Mgr. Cristiani calls Bloy nothing less than a Satanist: for his writings reveal that he believed the Holy Ghost and Lucifer were one and the same, (Ibid).

The association of all these figures points to one thing: the Devil was definitely determined to destroy the Secrets of La Salette, a fact that practically guarantees their authenticity. He sent his constituents Sauniere, Boullan, Bloy and others to accomplish this task. All were Monarchists and occultists. All were in a position to falsify the Secret, misrepresent it, discredit it; they did so by their very association with it. It is not too far a reach, we feel, to speculate that all were connected to the Priory. Certainly those following Madame Blavatsky were exposed to British Israel doctrines, including the idea of a pure, Aryan race, (which the Priory also promotes by the careful cultivation of its “bloodline.”) Two of these men were clerics, although Abbe Boullan was excommunicated. Bloy had applied for acceptance into a religious house but was refused. In our own day it would be Abbe Ducaud-Borget and Marcel Lefebvre, also frequenters of San Sulpice (Marcel Lefebvre sent Econe seminarians to San Sulpice on pilgrimage) who would be linked to the Priory. In Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the authors refer to these clerics as “agents provacateur.” Lefebvre, during his lifetime, never denied his membership in the Priory. Melanie had conveyed Our Lady’s warning that priests and religious would become faithless and unworthy in the site of God, and these men are prime examples. She also warned that a forerunner of Antichrist with his armies would decimate Europe, and nearly every commentator on the Secret believes this prediction was fulfilled in Hitler. Antichrist, then, or at least one of his more ardent followers could be said to resemble Hitler in some way.

The (true) spiritual Antichrist, antipope Paul 6, is said to have conspired with Genoa’s Cardinal Siri to smuggle Nazi war criminals out of Italy in the last days of the war. “Some of the most wanted Nazi war criminals passed from Rauff in Milan, to Bishop Hudal at the Anima in Rome and then on to Archbishop Siri in Genoa. Here they boarded ships and left for new lives in South America…” (“Unholy Trinity,” John Loftus and Mark Aarons, 1992). The underground channeling of these Nazis is referred to by authors Loftus and Aarons as “the Ratlines.” Rabbi Dalin denies the accusations these authors made in their work against Pope Pius XII because they brand him as a Nazi sympathizer and hold him responsible for helping the criminals escape. Those who know Montini’s treachery and Pius’ trust in him prior to 1953 when that treachery was revealed will understand that Montini’s dealings most likely extended to the smuggling operation as well. Rauff and Bp. Hudal may have handled matters for Montini but it would not be the first time that the future Paul 6 approved an operation by insinuating he acted for the Pope. The fact that Cardinal Siri is named in this operation may provide us with a clue as to why he is so revered by Monarchist Traditionalists, who falsely hold he was secretly elected Pope in 1958 (or 1963, depending on which version of this story is consulted). Many of these same Traditionalists despise Pope Pius XII for assisting the Jews, which explains why they would idolize someone who helped high-placed Nazis escape.

The genuine version (or interpretation) of the La Salette Secret places Antichrist’s coming (in all its many phases) prior to the chastisement and the coming of the true Great Monarch during the promised Fatima peace following the chastisement. (This is assuming we have not forfeited that peace and his reign by our wickedness; it seems both the Fatima and La Salette promises hinged on whether Catholics amended their lives and did penance, at least as far as any mitigation of the coming chastisements were concerned.) It is not a coincidence that many of those who promote the Great Monarch at the same time condemn the La Salette secret. It is true that a few private prophecies say the Great Monarch will surrender his crown in Jerusalem when Antichrist comes. But either these prophecies are not accurate, or they refer to a line of holy monarchs and the final assault of Antichrist’s revived system at the end of the world against “the camp of the saints,” as Ezekiel foretells. At one time, the “Traditional Catholic” web site that zealously promoted the arrival of a great monarch quoted Yves Dupont’s monograph on this topic to support its presentation, yet failed to include Dupont’s qualifying preliminary remarks. The introduction to Dupont’s piece told readers that “a few introductory lines” were omitted from his work. Dupont’s omitted preface to his Great Monarch monograph — running to three pages, not just a “few lines” — is presented below.

Yves Dupont on the Great Monarch and age of peace

“There has been a great number of reported apparitions since 1945. I know many of these and possess a fairly comprehensive documentation on most, but I do not intend quoting any here because these recent reports have either been condemned, or the Church is still examining them. It may be argued that a condemnation from an apostate bishop is worthless but, granted that apostasy has made devastating inroads in the Church, it does not follow that every bishop is an apostate. Further a condemnation issued by an apostate cannot be taken as worthless on this ground alone, for an apostate may still speak truth on occasion. Finally, it must be borne in mind that apostasy can take many forms: there are shades of grey between black and white; a bishop who ignores the decrees of the Council of Trent on the Mass, or other matters, is not necessarily a faithless renegade in all matters; there is such a thing as human weakness bowing to pressure and, if this does not exonerate the fainthearted, it does provide a measure of extenuation. It would be foolish to regard a bishop’s condemnation of a reported apparition as an additional reason to believe in it!

“It is beyond question that some of these recent reports are true, if only for the fact that Our Lady, since 1830, has never allowed a period of 28 years to go by before again visiting the world. As the climax approaches, it is only reasonable to assume that Our Lady will make her appeals more pressing and more frequent. But because the climax approaches, it is also reasonable to assume that the devil will increase his own efforts or the downfall of souls by fabricating false apparitions and working lying wonders. The devil, as we know, is cunning and clever; he may speak truth in order to draw people away from the Church or, on the contrary, he may urge obedience to a bishop or priest he already controls. His intelligence far surpasses our human understanding, and what he does and says may sometimes appear excellent on the surface. In view of this, there is a very real danger in accepting uncritically a reported apparition merely because the eyewitnesses saw extraordinary things. Our suspicion should even be stronger as the messages are the more verbose.

“Admittedly, I have formed my own opinion on some of these post-war reports, as some of my readers well know, but the purpose of this article is mainly to present a collection of prophecies that have either been approved by the Church as worthy of credence (e.g. Anne Catherine Emmerich), or given ample proof of their authenticity (e.g. Zacharias). This is not to say that I have no intention of ever writing a critical study of recent reports, (I have done so concerning Garabandal and Stich), but only that they are not within the scope of this article because they require a different treatment and approach.” (Note: The Emperor Henry who Emmerich is believed to have seen in her visions, however, is said to refer to a European monarch “lame afoot,” who reigned before her visions even began, not to some future personage.),

“Some of the prophecies given here have already been cited in my book CATHOLIC PROPHECY in which I gave a general picture of the coming upheaval. The present article bears more specifically on the glorious Age of Peace to come, under the reign of the Great Monarch. For this reason, I do not propose to quote at length the prophecies of my previous book but only the passages relating to the Age of Peace and the Great Monarch.

“Many of these prophecies are French, and they make it quite clear that Monarchy will be restored in France. But the restoration of Monarchy will not be a local affair; it will be a worldwide phenomenon. This will mark a near historical epoch and, because of this, many people are finding it hard to believe. The age of republics and Democracies will be over, Communism and Socialism a thing of the past. This age of peace will also be an age of belief and an age of plenty. It will mark the victory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and of Christ the King, the revaluation of authority and discipline, and the conversion of the entire world to the Catholic Faith (except for a few pockets of unbelief).

“These conclusions have been drawn from my study of private prophecies, which I began about 30 years ago. These prophecies were made from the very beginning of the Christian Era up to our own time. They originate from virtually every country in the world) non-Christian lands included. The concordance existing between hundreds of different prophecies is truly remarkable. It would be unreasonable to claim that the bulk of these private seers were merely repeating earlier prophecies, which they had themselves read. Such a claim is untenable for a number of reasons: firstly, because communication between various countries was very limited prior to the 19th Century. Secondly, because all writings were in manuscript form before Gutenberg evolved the printing press in the 15th Century. Thirdly, because some of these prophecies were discovered many centuries after they had been written. In a few cases, however, it is known that some prophecies were not made by those who handed them down; and in other cases it is not inconceivable that an old manuscript may have repeated the substance of an earlier one. Thus, the wording of St. Remy’s prophecy, so strikingly similar to that of St. Augustine, may be just relating what St. Remy had heard or read from the writings of St. Augustine which, even in his lifetime, were reproduced in manuscript form in the monasteries of Western Europe. St. Augustine died in 430, and St. Remy was born in 437. In his youth, St. Remy would have been conversant with the writings of St. Augustine. Such cases are few in number. But the final argument lies in the fact that many of the early prophecies have already come to pass in part. Here are some events that were predicted long ago:

1. Ireland occupied by the English for seven centuries.

2. England leaving the Catholic Church in the 16th century.

3. The discovery of the Continent of America.

4. The French Revolution and the decapitation of the French King.

5. Modern inventions: the steam engine, the motor car, the aeroplane, submarines, nuclear power, television.

6. The rise of the lower classes and the advent of Democracy.

7. Communism.

8. The development of literacy, the proliferation of pornography.

9. Low moral standards, permissiveness, deviations.

10. Crisis in the Church, new liturgy, apostasy of many bishops.

“This, I might say, is not a comprehensive listing, merely a few examples. But if the first part of these prophecies has come to pass, should we disregard the second? I do not disregard the second part. Here are the events we now can expect:

1. Civil wars, revolutions, breakdown of authority everywhere.

2. Military coups even in Western Countries.

3. An anti-pope in Rome; the developing apostasy becomes universal.

4. Persecution of the Church by Communist governments, abetted at first by many of the hierarchy and Clergy.

5. Complete destruction of the Church’s structures at the hands of the Communists and even those who collaborated with them.

6. Natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, drought, famines, epidemics.

7. Cosmic phenomenon, three days of darkness, collapse of Communism.

8. More military coups [followed by the] rise of the Great Monarch.

9. Rebirth of the Catholic Church. New Ecumenic Council, restoration of former disciplines in the Church. A Holy Pope occupies the Chair of Peter.

10. Period of peace, faith, plenty.

What comes after this is not the subject matter of this article.”

(The Great Monarch piece then begins.)

In the course of the presentation that follows, Dupont comments on these prophecies:

“The Empire of the Mohammedans will be broken up (by him).”

(Ven. Holzhauser, 17th Century)

“Greece he will invade and be made King thereof. He will conquer England.”

(Cataldus, 5th Century)

“This Prince shall extend his dominion over the whole world.”

(St. Caesar, 6th Century)

“Invade Greece” and “conquer England” must not be understood with the modern and unpleasant connotation that these terms now have. This Emperor will be anything but “imperialist”. It means, in effect, that he will go to England to help the English people out of their Communist enslavement, and he will land in Greece to expel the Mohammedans. All this will be made clear later in this article… At this stage, may I caution against dismissing the idea of a Mohammedan invasion in Europe as extravagant. I discussed this point in my first book: the Mohammedan invasion is mentioned in an exceedingly large number of prophecies, and the prophecies are true. The invasion will be made possible because,

“(a) Soviet Russia, the Beast of the Earth, will give Mohammed, the Beast of the Sea, all the military support she can, hoping thereby to avoid a direct involvement of herself in Western Europe;

“(b) because Western Europe will be in a state of utter chaos at the close of murderous civil wars.

“It was just as “extravagant” to speak of the “Revolt of the Algerians in 1938 when Algeria was regarded as being an extension of metropolitan France, but the revolt did come to pass in the sixties, and Algeria is now independent.)

“Is this the One World government which is currently advocated by Leftist elements? Most definitely not. The One World government will not come about until the revelation of the Man of Sin who, with the Jewish nation fawning at his feet, will impose his tyranny upon the whole world. The “dominion” in question here will not take the form of a centralized autocratic government. Centralization is the very opposite of the principle of subsidiarity which the Church and every genuine Catholic monarch has always supported. Subsidiarity, to be sure, does not exclude supreme authority, or arbitration, but it is undoubtedly the antithesis of autocratism. The word itself is comparatively new but the principle has always been upheld by the Church,” [but this word definitely was not understood by the Church of the past as in the same sense that it is used today by the Novus Ordo Church, nor even necessarily as it was understood by Dupont.]

In assaying what is written above, (if we return to the two 10-point lists of disasters that Dupont says are to come both remotely and proximately), it appears that while Dupont has not come out and said it in so many words, he places the coming of Antichrist prior to the arrival of the Great King and Holy Pope; he has said it without realizing it. While Dupont may have studied and been an expert in the area of prophecy, he evidently did not realize what the Church Herself actually taught concerning the Scriptural prophecies of Daniel — primarily the cessation of the continual sacrifice and the identification of the abomination of desolation. Clearly Pope Paul IV interprets the abomination of desolation as Antichrist; also heretics, apostates and schismatics parading as true Catholics. In 1559, he wrote in his infallible bull, “Cum ex Apostolatus Officio:”

“We must see attentively to driving away from Christ’s fold those who, in Our time more consciously and balefully than usual, driven by malice and trusting in their own wisdom, rebel against the rule of right Faith and strive to rend the Lord’s seamless robe by corrupting the sense of the Holy Scriptures with cunning inventions. We must not allow those to continue as teachers of error who disdain to be taught…It behooves us to give fuller and more diligent thought where the peril is greatest, lest false prophets (or even others possessing secular jurisdiction) wretchedly ensnare simple souls and drag down with themselves to perdition and the ruin of damnation the countless peoples entrusted to their care and government in matters spiritual or temporal; and lest it befall Us to see in the

holy place the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet..

“If ever at any time it becomes clear that any Bishop, even one conducting himself as an Archbishop, Patriarch, or primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, even as mentioned, a Legate; or likewise any Roman Pontiff before his promotion or elevation as a Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, [has strayed from the Catholic Faith or] fallen into some heresy, [or has incurred schism], then his promotion or elevation shall be null, invalid and void. It cannot be declared valid or become valid through his acceptance of the office, his consecration, subsequent possession or seeming possession of government and administration, or by the enthronement of or homage paid to the same Roman Pontiff, or by universal obedience accorded him, or by the passage of any time in said circumstances, [nor shall it be held as quasi-legitimate.]”

This also was the opinion of St. Bernard, the last Father of the Church, who lived several centuries before Pope Paul IV’s bull was written. He teaches that it is an anti-pope reigning as a true pope who alone can merit the terrible title Antichrist. In supporting Pope Innocent II, St. Bernard wrote to Hildebert, archbishop of Tours: “Behold, Innocent the Christ, the anointed of the Lord, is ‘set for the fall and the resurrection of many.’ For they that are of God willingly adhere to him, whilst opposed to him stand Antichrist and his followers. We have seen ‘the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place,’ (Matt. 34:15)…He has seated himself in the Chair of Peter. The holy place he covets, not for its holiness, but for its height. He has, I say, got possession of the holy place [but] not through the merit of his life. The election whereof he boasts is but a cloak for his malice. To call it an election at all is an impudent lie.” (Rev. Albert J. Luddy, “The Life and Teachings of St. Bernard”).

Commenting on the meaning of the abomination of desolation, St. Jerome writes: “It is possible to apply this text easily to either the Antichrist, to the statue of Caesar which Pilate placed in the Temple or even to the equestrian statue of Hadrian, which down to this present day stands on the very site of the holy of holies. In the Old Testament, however, the term abomination is applied deliberately to idols. To identify it further, ‘of desolation,’ is added to indicate that the idol was placed in a desolate or ruined temple. The abomination of desolation can be taken to mean as well every perverted doctrine. When we see such a thing stand in the holy place, that is in the Church and pretend it is God, we must flee…,” (Breviary Lesson for the 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost).

“The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ, and its destruction by Antichrist, may be thoughts so new to many Catholics that I think it well to cite the text of theologians in the greatest repute,” (pg. 88). If the Church’s true teaching on this subject was not generally known, it is only because her enemies (who have stated for centuries that the popes of Rome were collective Antichrist) would have used it against Her; also, the Church did not wish to prematurely confuse and alarm the faithful. Manning not only shows that the Church expected such an event; he tells us that there was a definite tradition in the Church for many centuries among scriptural commentators and theologians of great repute favoring this interpretation of end times prophecy. As he stated in his work, “The True Story of the Vatican Council,” the march towards these times already had begun even before the Council convened. Therefore, Manning simply decided that what was becoming increasingly clear no longer needed to be suppressed.

Henry Cardinal Manning as follows: “The holy Fathers, who have written on the subject of Antichrist and of the prophecies of Daniel, without a single exception, as far as I know, — and they are the Fathers both of the East and the West. Of both the Greek and the Latin Church — all of them unanimously, — say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the holy sacrifice of the altar will cease. Manning undoubtedly was aware of St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus’ teaching that the Sacrifice would cease in the latter days. St. Francis writes: “The revolt and separation must come…the Sacrifice shall cease and…the Son of Man shall hardly find faith on earth…All these passages are understood of the affliction which Antichrist shall cause in the Church…But the Church… shall not fail, and shall be fed and preserved amidst the deserts and solitudes to which She shall retire, as the Scripture says, (Apoc. Ch. 12),” (“The Catholic Controversy”). In his “The Holy Eucharist,” St. Alphonsus stated that: “It is true [the Mass] will cease on earth at the time of Antichrist: the Sacrifice of the Mass is to be suspended…according to the prophecy of Daniel, (Dan. 12:11).” St. Alphonsus goes on to explain, however, that in reality the Sacrifice and priesthood never will cease since “the Son of God, Eternal Priest, will always continue to offer Himself to God, the Father, in Heaven as an Eternal Sacrifice.”

And the arrival of the abomination and the cessation of the sacrifice are almost simultaneous, so that one cannot happen without the other. St. Paul tells us that first the revolt must occur, which began in the 1500s and ended following the false Vatican II council. This must happen before the Man of Sin can be revealed for what he is, and it happened just this way. For when the new Novus Ordo liturgy was officially introduced, the Man of Sin was then unquestionably revealed, and those remaining with him in his schismatic Church were the ones who revolted, not those who refused to accept the changes. Just as Daniel predicted, Paul 6 changed times and laws. He sat in God’s temple pretending he was His vicar, when he was not. St. Paul speaks of he who witholdeth. Who else could this be but a true pope, who did hold in St. Paul’s time, and would later successfully be taken out of the way to allow the Man of Sin to reign?

As explained in the article Fifty Years After V2: Why Catholics Never Fought for Their Church, Catholics were in shock for many years after the destruction of the Church began and many could not bring themselves to believe that what was unfolding before them was actually the arrival of the Man of Sin. Even when irrefutable proofs of this horror were presented, they refused to re-evaluate their position that the pope was simply an antipope, or a bad pope. Choosing to ignore an infallible papal decree that identified Antichrist’s actions and their consequences, these Catholics were successfully propagandized by Traditionalist publicists and those they recognized as their clergy to place the coming of the Antichrist after the era of peace and the coming of the Great Monarch, holy pope. They also ignored the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas in this regard — that, “The wicked will think themselves to be in peace and security after the death of Antichrist and before the coming of Christ, seeing that the world was not at once destroyed as they thought hitherto,” (Summa Theol., Suppl. 73:1). Those publishing the Secret of La Salette without permission also published a version that places Antichrist’s coming after the Great Monarch’s death, and yet the version of this same secret printed by Rev. R. Gerald Culleton places Antichrist’s destruction before the peace and the reign of what appears to be a series of kings, (Reign of Antichrist).

Dupont elaborates further on his ideas about when the great king will reign in his work, “Catholic Prophecy.” There he writes: “There are two different stages within the latter days period: the first, heralding the final stage being of lesser intensity; the final stage bringing about the consummation of the world. To each of these two stages, the proximate signs of the End apply. Thus, we are now about to enter the first stage, the Great Disaster, which is imminent and which will be followed by a period of peace. He sees Communism as a forerunner of Antichrist, yet misses and the two men delivering Catholics from this, the Great Monarch and holy Pope, as a prefigure of Enoch and Elias. He bases this observation on Christ’s words in St. Matthew, Ch. 24:6: “But the end is not yet,” and in 24: 8: “But these things are but the beginnings of sorrows.” This falls into place with what St. Thomas says above. And yet the one thing that Dupont does not take into consideration here is that the Beast of the Sea, bearing the number 666 — that same beast who all commentators identify with the Abomination of Desolation foretold by Daniel, the Jewish precursor of Antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes — precedes the symbolic 1,000 years of peace in Apocalypse and the re-chaining of Satan by St. Michael. His appearance conspicuously follows that of the Woman clothed with the sun, signifying, we believe, the beginning of the great apostasy in the 1500s with Our Lady’s Guadalupe apparition and the end of the apostasy foretold at Fatima, commencing with the year 1960.

This defined figure that is Antichrist is not even mentioned in the final assault on the Church prior to the consummation; instead Apoc. 20:7 speaks of the loosing of Satan proper and the reappearance of the false prophet, prelude to and messenger for Antichrist. Perhaps Antichrist proper is missing from this final act of the end times, and only appears prior to the brief and symbolic peace, because the appearance of the false prophet this time is enough to alert the faithful and avert Antichrist’s reappearance. At any rate, he does not figure predominantly after the peace, as he would if his appearance was postponed until then. In his work, Rev. Culleton distinguishes between the “day of the Lord” and the final judgment, pointing to II Thess. 2:8. He states that there appears to be a distinction between the two events mentioned here, where Christ slays the beast with the breath of His mouth and destroys the last vestiges of him with the brightness of His coming. He believes with the ancient Fathers and the majority of theologians that a brief peace and restoration of the Church will follow Antichrist’s death and the subsequent chastisement prior to the End proper.

The Great Monarch prophecies

According to Rev. R. Gerald Culleton’s scenario:

“Three powerful but evil rulers [will] cause a ‘flesh-hewing course of warfare’ and persecute Jews and Christians. They are to overcome their enemies. Two of them, however, seem destined to be overcome by the third, and he is to fall before a good ruler visibly aided by God. This visible aid is to be in some way a type of the three days darkness…The persecutions of that time will exceed in cruelty anything the world has ever seen and in no other time shall evil have so triumphed. Very few will remain faithful to God and live. It will seem as though the Church has ceased to exist. [But then the exterminating angels will bring the three days] during the last terrible battle, when all seems lost…When the darkness lifts, there will not remain alive on earth a single unconvertible evil man. [At that time] it would seem that Christ would appear in the skies or at least that there would be some happening typical of His Second Coming, and that it would be apparent that there was a preview of the last judgment…[and of] the millennium. Would the just-martyred by Antichrist then rise from the dead, this being the first resurrection spoken of in the Apocalypse? Would an earthly reward symbolical of heavenly rewards be bestowed upon the confessors who had escaped the beast? This seems not too clear, but we are led to expect at least this: that there follows the fall of Antichrist an interval during which there will be a universal peace and union in one faith under one shepherd with Christian life marvelously exemplified in the individual and in society. How long this symbol of a millennium will last is not clear but the common opinion of the Fathers was that it would not be long,” (“The Prophets and Our Times”).

While there are definitely Traditionalists at work trying to create their own idea of a great monarch and the fulfillment of these prophecies, this doesn’t mean these prophecies are any the less true or at least potentially so. If we accept such prophecies as authentic and properly recorded/reported, there seems to be some event of this nature ahead of us for the simple reason that there simply are too many ancient and newer (pre-1959) prophecies concerning the Holy Pope and the Great Monarch to summarily dismiss them all. It seems highly unlikely that so many of these saints and holy people would all have predicted the same thing if this man was to be a false king. The counterfeit king will probably appear to deceive at least some of the faithful but he will not succeed. Instead the true king will arrive in the name of St. Michael and with his aid to stand for the people, and will put the false king to flight. The following prophecies concerning the Great Monarch are listed in Culleton’s book:

• St. Caesar of Arles: After great miseries and trial, a prince exiled in his youth shall recover the crown of lilies, He will assist a Holy Pope in reforming the entire world.

• St. Bearcan: A great king renowned for his feats of arms will sail across the sea to Rome.

• Merlin: Predicted a German antipope and that a certain Royal Monarch would be the last King of England and would root out all heresies.

• St. Odile: A great warrior assisted by God will defeat an unjust conqueror.

• Leo the Philosopher: An imperial deliverer will save the kingdom and the people.

• Monk Adso: A king of the Franks (Germany) will possess the Roman empire.

• Monk Hilarion: The Great Eagle (monarch) will travel to Rome and help bring peace between the Pope and clergy.

• St. Thomas a Becket: A knight from the West will conquer Rome towards the end of the world.

• St. Hildegarde: Peace will return to Europe when the Great King takes the throne of France.

• Old English: An Eagle (king) assisted by God shall come from the East. Universal peace shall reign in the world.

• Old Saxon: A king will be crowned, universal peace shall reign, then the end of the world will approach.

• Chronicles of Madgeburg: An emperor name Charles will rule Europe and restore the decayed state of the Church.

• Aystinger the German: A prince descended from the emperor Charles shall rule Europe and reform the Church.

• Old Italian: There shall come a general conversion to the faith of Chris• t under the Great Lion.

• Old Latin: A great French king will reign who will restore laws and religion.

• Abbot Joachim: The King of France will lend assistance to a remarkably holy pastor who will unite the East and West and crush all heresy and schism.

• Werdin Otrante: The Great Monarch will come to restore peace and the Pope will share in the victory.

• Prophecy of Orval: Predicts a holy pope and a Capetian king of France who will assist him.

• Abbot Herman of Lehnin: The people recover their king and the pope recovers his flock.

• John of the Cleft Rock: The Great Monarch will defeat the Mohammedans and God will raise up a holy pope.

• St. Bridget of Sweden: The Great Eagle will subdue the Mohammedans and people will return to the Church.

• St. Catherine of Siena: Predicts the restoration of the Church.

• St. Vincent Ferrar: When the Eagle (Great Monarch) shall capture the counterfeit king there will be a new reformation in the world.

• Fr. Jerome Votin: Heavenly dew shall fall upon the desolated earth and the Church afflicted. A son of royal blood shall govern France and the spirit of God shall be with him.

• St. John Capistran: Says a German emperor shall restore the Apostolic discipline. A great pope shall restore the Church following the death of Antichrist.

• St. Francis de Paul: A great leader of the holy militia wearing crosses on their breasts will kill all of God’s enemies and extirpate all heresies. There shall be one flock and one shepherd.

• Bd. Johannes Amadeus: Germany and Spain will unite under a great prince designated by God. Mass conversions will take place and peace and prosperity will follow.

• Nostradamus: Says the Great Monarch will reign who will return the Church to her old supremacy at about the same time a new pope is elected.

• David Porseus: A great Monarch will crush the enemies of the pope and conquer the East.

• Ven. Holzhauser: There will arise a valiant monarch anointed by God who will rule supreme in temporal matters while the pope rules supreme in spiritual matters. After a time of great upheaval and irreligion, all nations will adore God according to Catholic teaching.

• Rudolph Gekner: A great prince of the North will valiantly defend the Church of Christ and subdue the Muslims. A holy pope will reign at this time.

• Dionysius of Luxembourg: From the midst of His Church, God will raise up a great ruler who will lead erring souls back to the true faith.

• Monk of Werl: A strong European monarch will restore divine order to the Church, state and family.

• Fr. Laurence Ricci, S.J.: A great German duke (Great Monarch) will intervene by the aid of God at a time the world seems doomed. He will help the pope restore religion and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

• Capuchin Friar: A great monarch and a holy pope will reform abuses and destroy all heresies.

• Sister Marianne: The prince will reign whom people did not esteem before and there will be an unprecedented triumph of religion.

•Josefa von Bourg: Under a great monarch descended from St. Louis, the faith will spread as never before.

• Abbe Souffrand: The Great Ruler will perform great and noble deeds and these will convert unbelievers.

• Anne Catherine Emmerich: Her vision “of the holy emperor Henry” may refer to a past holy monarch, or may indicate that the Great Monarch descends from a previous German monarch.

• Bd. Anna Maria Taigi: A new pope chosen through the intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul will convert the world to Catholicism and this pope shall nominate a Christian King for the country of France.

• Bro. Louis Rocco: A great Catholic monarch shall arise after many wars and persecutions in Europe.

• Sr. Rose Adsenti of Taggia: A King will be restored to the throne of France.

• Joseph Goires: The people will be united under a powerful monarch who will make new laws and banish corruption.

Cure of Ars: The good shall triumph when the return of the king is announced. Religion shall flourish as never before.

• Brother Anthony Aix-la-Chapelle: A new German emperor is elected after many wars and travails and travels to meet the pope.

• Ven. Madeline Porzat: Our Lady will perform a great miracle and men will convert. A powerful ruler will destroy the wicked and a holy pope will reign.

• St. John Bosco: A great warrior will come from the north and meet the pope. Our Lady will appear. A true pope returns to Rome and the Church triumphs.

• Ossolinski Library Prophecy: Seems to suggest that America will assist in bringing the Great Monarch to power.

This appears to be the end of the mention of the Great Monarch in these prophecies, although many more foretell the triumph of the Church and predict the coming of a holy pope. That a king would figure in at all in modern-day affairs comes as a surprise to many people, so resigned to the rule of democratic despots and liberal prime ministers. But there is a reason that the world would turn to a monarch, and even those blind to religious truths can agree that today’s world leaders would scarcely be able to fight the Muslim forces with any success, if indeed they did not decide to embrace them. Success does not depend on numbers, but on favor with and devotion to God. Where would we possibly find this today? It would have to come from somewhere unexpected; out of the blue, just as the prophecies suggest. If a European king did reign and decided to take on an advancing army of Muslims, he would have no difficulty in finding those who would rally to his cause, even now. But especially following the expected chastisement, should the Muslims still prove to be a threat, the intent would be, as it was during the Crusades, to either convert them or utterly defeat them. It is amazing that the prophecies predict they will again pose a threat after all these years, but this only lends them more credence. If they got the Muslim part right, the Great Monarch shouldn’t be too far behind.

Many Catholics today are aware that we are in deep trouble because the Church as She once existed has disappeared from sight. While not all agree that the church in Rome is run by a usurper, many are keenly disappointed in and some are outright disgusted with the last four “popes,” even if they accept them as valid but fatally flawed successors of St. Peter. And Benedict 16 certainly isn’t getting any younger. For those who realize that the reign of these apparent successors is what stands in the way of resolving the crises in the Church, since as long as there are perceived successors a true pope cannot be elected, the advent of a Great Monarch could prove to be a crucial turning point in history. The last situation even anywhere remotely similar to our own was the Western Schism. During that tempestuous time, when three men reigned as pope, the schism was finally ended with the convocation of the Council of Constance. It was the German Emperor Sigismond and the antipope John XXIII who called the council, and when John XXIII later was deposed, it was Sigismond who rose to the occasion and kept the council moving forward. The only hope true Catholics have to resolve this crisis of authority in the Church is to find someone to champion their cause. If this could be done, with the insistence and cooperation of the people, an influential leader willing to fight for the papacy could force the deposition of the usurper, or on his death, see that a true pope was elected. But this situation would require much more.

Even in advance of such events, the valid and licit bishops and clergy either imprisoned or hiding in Communist countries or elsewhere would need to be located and freed. Some believe that a true pope (NOT the one, however, who some believe to be the “successor” of Siri) may even exist in hiding, and this is not impossible; but only a military leader who was a devout Catholic could possibly accomplish his release. Then these bishops and clergy would need to be sequestered and guarded until a true pope could be elected and installed. And if such installation in Rome or elsewhere was not possible owing to war or other catastrophes, then the new pope would need to temporarily rule in exile, under heavy guard. This is undoubtedly how the current interregnum will end. All the above prophecies inextricably link this monarch with a newly elected pope, a man described as very holy. Some attribute prodigies to his election and this may be the case; Bd. Anna Maria Taigi says Sts. Peter and Paul will come to designate the true pope. While it may dumbfound the faithful to think that such things really could occur in their lifetime, when the miraculous is so routinely scorned and discredited, it is the only real hope for an end to the imposture in Rome and the restoration of the Church.

Conclusion

The king appointed by God who reigns during the Age of Peace will undoubtedly subdue the Mohammedans, where the position held by Traditionalists would align them with the Muslims. Based on what is stated above, the king expected by Traditionalists today would be the antithesis of that king who reigns during the Age of Peace. He would not be a “genuine” Catholic monarch. The very fact that some Traditionalists holding racial and societal prejudices condemned by the Church are promoting this false king is proof enough that he cannot be the one intended by the saints and holy people who prophesied concerning his reign. This is only logical since many Traditionalists are in fact not truly Catholic, although they believe themselves to be, and therefore could be easily misled. In this present crisis, only God can restore the Church and occasion the return of the true hierarchy, necessary according to de fide Church teaching to restore the papacy and rebuild the Church. A true monarch would know where to find them, and he certainly would not be in league with Fascists. If a king sympathetic to their goals is pursued, he will not be the true but the false king, foretold by St. Vincent Ferrar. Some of those already aligned with who they believe this king to be are of the opinion that a true pope does exist in exile and are plotting his advancement once their king emerges. Unfortunately the “pope” they support is only one of many antipopes, and this alone will prove to be their downfall. As Christ said concerning Himself as the Good Shepherd, “I know mine and mine know me.” The ragged and malnourished flock in these times will be given the graces to recognize the voice of true shepherds and leaders and will know when to follow them.

More importantly, the order of all these things can be used as a sure guide to determine who the true and the false king will be. These two adversaries will likely meet each other on the battlefield prior to the chastisement or “great event,” but the actual defeat or death of the false king will come either during the chastisement or shortly thereafter. Antichrist has already reigned; the apostasy has occurred and the Sacrifice has ceased. These Scriptural prophecies already have seen fulfillment, and only those who follow the beast will deny this.

In 2004, press releases indicated that the Hinduism ecumenically tolerated by John Paul 2 during his reign had created a definite backlash against the Vatican. This toleration inspired one Muslim leader to call for a jihad against the church in Rome and a crusade by Muslim fundamentalists to seize Rome for its own political center of operations. It is not a far stretch to envision terrorists supported by neo-Fascist Traditionalists bombing Vatican City, inundating Rome and making good on their threats to establish headquarters there. As a “reward” for their support, Traditionalists would take over what was left, fulfilling Nostradamus prophecy concerning those rallying behind the Rosy Cross. So where would the new anti-Church relocate then? Incredibly, the answer to that question may have issued from the mouth of no less than the late Yasser Arafat during secret negotiations with the Vatican in 1993. According to a 1997 report issued by Barry Chamish, Arafat guaranteed JP2 perpetual control of several sites in the Holy City, including “political power over the old City of Jerusalem by the end of the millennium.” This “unwritten understanding” was first agreed upon in 1993, Chamish reported, and all further negotiations were to be kept secret. Chamish has no illusions about the Vatican’s true agenda.

“On the 10th of September, just three days before the signing of the Oslo Accords in Washington, the Italian newspaper “La Stampa” reported that then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres concluded a secret deal with the Vatican to hand over sovereignty of Jerusalem’s Old City to the Vatican and it was included in the secret clauses of the Declaration of Principles signed on September 13, 1993 in Washington, DC. In the same week that Israeli Foreign Minister and chief Oslo architect Shimon Peres signed the agreement, the Declaration of Principles with Yasser Arafat in Washington, the Israel-Vatican commission held a special meeting in Israel. Under the Vatican agreement the Israelis would give over control of the Old City to the Vatican before the year 2000. The plan also calls for Jerusalem to become the second Vatican of the world with all three major religions represented but under the authority of the Vatican. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel but the Old City will be administered by the Vatican…The Vatican is going to have everyone believe this ‘mysterious individual’ who will ‘unite the faiths’ and appear in Jerusalem, which will be under the control of an authority headed by The Vatican.” Since the publication of Chamish’s article and Arafat’s death, no additional information on the agreement between the Vatican and Arafat has become available. Have B16’s dealings with the Muslims changed this arrangement? Or, since his apology to them, can it merely be chalked up to a public display intended to make the impression that Ratzinger is other than friendly with Islam? It is no secret that as a young man B16 was a member of the Hitler Youth group. Is it possible that he would readily surrender the Vatican into the right hands, especially given recent rumors he may resign?

Rev. E. S. Berry, in his work “The Apocalypse.” wrote in 1921: “Antichrist will establish himself in Jerusalem where a great number of Jews will have gathered under some such movement as Zionism…While Rome, the seat of the false prophet is smoldering in ashes, Christ and His faithful followers go forth to give battle against Antichrist and his allied kings…A careful reading of the Apocalypse shows clearly that Antichrist will appear long centuries before the last judgment and the end of the world.” So Berry alluded to a relocation of Antichrist’s “see” to the Holy City, but only following the subsequent destruction of Rome. Haydock and others commenting on Apoc. 18:2. say this is the destruction of “idolatrous” Rome, both in the early ages of the Church and at the time of Antichrist. That some major damage to the Vatican and the city itself may accompany the fall of the antipopes is not an illogical assumption, and cannot be excluded as a possibility. Pope Pius XII said: “If ever one day (We say this as a mere hypothesis) material Rome were to crumble, if ever this very Vatican Basilica, the symbol of the one invincible Catholic Church were to bury beneath its ruins…the historical treasures, the sacred tombs…the Church would not crumble or crack…The papacy would always endure,” (Address to the Students of Rome, Jan. 30, 1949). The false prophet Berry mentions rules in Rome, which could easily be taken as a reference to one who has set himself up as “Pope” under Traditionalist auspices, further muddying the waters.

Henry Cardinal Manning agrees with Berry’s scenario, bluntly stating that Rome’s physical destruction is inevitable. “Let the Church of Christ depart from Rome and Rome will be no more in the eyes of God than Jerusalem of old. Jerusalem …was cast down and destroyed by fire because it crucified the Lord of Glory; and the city of Rome…if it become apostate, like Jerusalem of old, will suffer a like condemnation,” (“The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy”) Manning cites as his sources for this statement “…the text of theologians in the greatest repute,” including Malvenda, Lessius, Erberman, St. Bellarmine, Viegas, and Cornelius a Lapide. It is possible that the true Great Monarch will relocate to Jerusalem once Rome is destroyed, perhaps by the Mohammedans; or it could be that some will try to falsify this prophecy by moving the NO church to Jerusalem and allowing Trads to occupy and “rebuild” Rome. Any number of scenarios could be run but God alone knows what lies ahead. At some point all will be interrupted by the chastisement. We cannot allow ourselves to indulge in the very thing that has sidelined Traditionalists all these years.

What Traditionalists have fallen prey to is the “political conspiracy theory” that links Freemasonry, Vatican II, the Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Sindona affair, various elections of antipopes, moral decline, terrorist plots/attacks and other aberrations directly and exclusively to Zionist Jews. Many of these Traditionalists are imbued with a welter of various takes on the political conspiracy, depending on their own group’s beliefs and this involves religion to some extent, but is not the main focus of their concerns. Second guessing each other has become a favorite pastime as new “pieces” of the political conspiracy puzzle come to light, and this much to the neglect of the Church they claim has been the most unfortunate victim of the conspiracy. It is not for Catholics to waste time trying to unravel the inner workings of such things while ignoring the plight of the Church. Pope Leo XIII told Catholics in “Humanum Genus” that all secret societies spring from one source and all return to it. He did not identify that source specifically as Zionism, although prelates such as Msgr. Jouin were quick to point out that he intended to include them. Pope Leo identified the enemy as “a power almost equivalent to sovereignty…a state within a state.” He warned that from this power would evolve the very Godless system of politics we observe today. He did not advise anyone to participate in this political system, even in a peripheral way. His solution was simple and easily anticipated. He advised priests and bishops that “The multitude must be drawn to learn diligently the precepts of religion…the elements of those sacred truths in which Christian philosophy is contained.” Yet study of the faith is the one thing those calling themselves Catholic today seem incapable of mastering.

Pope Leo also defined the political goals of the secret societies in Humanum Genus as follows: “Power is held by the command or the permission of the people, so that, when the popular will changes, rulers may lawfully be deposed…The course of all rights and civil duties is either in the multitude or the governing authority…according to the latest doctrines.” This principle is reiterated in America’s own Bill of Rights, itself framed by Freemasons. It is the professed goal of nearly all right-wing paramilitary groups including Aryan nations and other neo-Nazi organizations, as stated in “The Turner Diaries.” A virtual bible for right-wing extremists, this novel calls for the violent overthrow of the present U.S. government, and the murder of Jews and nonwhites. This explains the militia mentality among Traditionalists. It also tells us that the groups they belong to are considered to be secret societies by the Catholic Church. And those who belong to such societies — even those who defend or support these societies in any way — are automatically excommunicated under Can. 2335, (1917 Code). All this is aside from the fact that racialism, naturalism and theosophy, three of the heresies constituting Nazism, are condemned separately by the Holy See.

If the popular will changes by gathering followers to the cause of a counterfeit Great Monarch, the U.S. government could theoretically become a despotic monarchy. He is to come from European stock, and yet here we speak of a United Europe that would be as ill disposed to accept him as the United States. He will arrive with an army. So it seems only logical given these facts that the governments of Europe and/or America first would need to topple of their own weight or by military coup. It seems most unlikely that Islam would fail to take advantage of a willing army of anti-Semites who want only to follow a fairy tale leader (who will help them elect or install yet another fairy tale “pope.”) A holy war that would annihilate Jews as well as destroy modern Rome is the ultimate dream of predominantly Protestant Identity believers. Likewise, both of these goals have topped the Islamic list for centuries. And many Traditionalists are as passionate and single-minded about this war as the Muslims themselves, believing that such a conflict is truly God’s will and the only solution to their own powerlessness and subjection to the Roman antiChurch. Such a volatile combination of kindred issues could only result in fueling a fire already white-hot in the Middle East and rapidly spreading to Western shores. As Farah reported years ago, indicators show that such a spread already had begun even then.

When journalist William Shirer first began noticing the advent of Nazism in France in 1934, it was attended by riots inspired by L’ Action Francais Monarchists, among other right-wing groups also agitating for stable government and employment opportunities. It seems the son of the current pretender to the French throne, the duc De Guise, inspired these riots at least in part. The son, then 26, felt the time was ripe to reclaim the Orleans monarchy, (“The Nightmare Years,”1930-1940, William L. Shirer, 1984). Shirer explained that France’s unstable government and political scandals, but most especially the Depression, precipitated the riots and created a favorable climate for Fascist rule, bringing in Hitler as another sort of messiah. His account of why the actual Fascist mentality triumphed and its devastating effects on France should put us on guard against similar precipitating circumstances in this country. If we fail to learn history’s lessons, we can only repeat them. Shirer’s words may one day be our own.

“In the bleak January of 1934…I was astounded by the strength of incipient fascism in [the French] democratic republic…Rowdy, antiparliamentary Fascist leagues had sprung up like mushrooms in France. Most of them appeared…to have the new and uglier quality I had seen in the Blackshirts of Italy and the Brownshirts of Germany…I could scarcely believe it — they were prowling the streets…beating up decent citizens and harmless politicians.” As for the French, “Their eyes [were] blinded to the mounting threat of Fascism, from within and from abroad…” (Ibid).

If we have not already forfeited the grace of a Great Monarch, and if such a Monarch is truly a Catholic reality, it is essential that we be on our guard against what St. Vincent Ferrar calls the “counterfeit king” (Culleton), and just as essential that we guard ourselves from being seduced by any counterfeit pope such a king would inevitably bring in his train. All in our world today is reduced to stark contrasts; good and evil, back and white, truth or lies and Christ or Antichrist. It is not surprising, then, that a possible future monarch and his accompanying pontiff would also have their mirror opposites.

About the Author

Since 1979, T. (Teresa) Stanfill Benns has written numerous articles on religious topics, focusing on exposing the conspiracy to overthrow the Catholic Church and world government, first exposed by the popes in the 18^th century. She also is the author of several self-published works on this subject, in addition to working as an award-winning community newspaper reporter in Texas and Colorado for the past 17 years. For a detailed explanation of the subversion of the Catholic Church, why it happened and how it has divided even its own members, visit her website at http:// betrayedcatholics.com/wpcms and click on the articles section.

Could the attack on Pope Leo XIII be a harbinger of an even greater evil?

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 3, 2022 | New Blog

+God Have Mercy on Our Nation+

Prayer Society Intention for July

“Eternal Father, I offer thee the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, the merits, love and sufferings of the Sacred Heart, the tears and Sorrows of His Immaculate Mother, for the return of those now opening Thy Son’s precious wounds anew by evil publications.”

My apologies for a late posting of the Prayer Society Intention. It has already been an incredibly busy month. I also would like to wish everyone a happy Independence Day, understood in the spirit of Pope Leo XIII, so greatly calumniated recently as a false pope, who wrote: “We are bound to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love with ardent soul the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever.” Please see Robert Robbins latest at https://catholiceclipsed.com/2022/07/03/thoughts-on-the-fourth-of-july/ for a wonderful commentary on true patriotism today.

It is difficult to address the broad scope of what all the denial of papal supremacy entails, but one thing is certain: it begins with the tendency to question or criticize the actions and decisions of the popes, to favor and tolerate critical accounts of them written in secular works and in the press, to allow doubts to creep in, perhaps even without realizing it, about their legitimacy or orthodoxy, or the belief that one can put limits on what they may or may not say or do in disciplinary matters. If not immediately resolved or rejected, (if one is not able to satisfactorily answer them), they then become doubts of faith in the perpetuity of the Apostolic Succession.

Those accusing Pope Leo and the other popes of heresy committed while in office — an impossibility condemned as heresy at the Vatican Council — have produced nothing even approaching real evidence to prove their miserable case. And it must be remembered: in pointing out the invalidity of Roncalli’s election on this site, he is not being judged AS A POPE. What was being judged was his pre-election disposition — whether or not he was even a Catholic, and thus qualified for election. Public statements and his behavior pre-election prove he was not a Catholic, and as St. Robert Bellarmine teaches — and all Catholics know this to be true — a man not a Catholic could never be validly elected pope. Some of those accusing Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X et al. now have even turned their venom against Pope Pius IX (oh how they would love to wipe out the Vatican Council). And this was where they were headed all along.

The individuals first beginning the campaign to defame Pope Leo XIII, an (ex?)-Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) couple living in St. Mary’s, Kansas, founded their movement by launching what appeared to be a Catholic website several years back. Some good information, interesting articles and downloads, an appealing design, but hiding beneath all that were various layers of poison. (This website no longer seems to be online although some report it is operating under a different domain name, so beware.) And forgive me if I am somewhat suspicious of the origins of this group, given its location. There could be more here than meets the eye, depending on who these “anonymous” people may be working with and what their real agenda is. They later issued a salacious and defamatory book on Fatima, mentioned in our last blog. This poison has now seeped into the minds of fringe-element Catholics praying at home, who already disbelieved in Fatima and harbored doubts about the legitimacy of various popes.

We must remember that the SSPX itself reported on its own website that its founder, Marcel Lefebvre, was the Grandmaster of the Priory of Sion, whose subtitle is the “Independent and Traditionalist Union.” Is a there yet a connection between this SSPX couple and this ideology? The Priory claims an ancient history and is known for its monarchical restoration aspirations. These aspirations could afford us a sinister reason why those defaming these popes are attempting to deceive the faithful, a reason not even yet considered. These people may be merely advance men, so to speak, sent to test the water to see what floats. The realization of this strategy explains many things and puts us on full alert about what may really be evolving among the Traditionalist sects. It has been developing for awhile, but is now showing itself for what it really is. It may be only a tendency.

A frightening scenario

The Book of Job reminds us that life is a warfare, and it is definitely spiritual warfare which we are waging. It is one thing to have doubts about the validity of the Roman Pontiff, but only IF such doubts are serious and can be sufficiently proven to have existed pre-election. Then and only then can a doubtful pope not be any pope at all. Hard proofs would need to be gathered that show Leo XIII was definitely a heretic prior to his election as pope, because he could NOT have become one if validly elected, which he undoubtedly was; this is the teaching of the Vatican Council, Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, St. Bellarmine and the theologian Capello. No proof of any sort to even suggest Cardinal Pecci was a heretic pre-election has ever been presented nor could be gathered today from anything but anti-papal sources. Has anyone bothered to draw out the logical consequences of what these defamers of Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X and now Pope Pius IX, are saying? This is not just about presenting all these venerable popes as mere heretics, thus moving forward the beginning of the Great Apostasy; far from it. Here is what we are REALLY being asked to believe:

The re-interpretation of the Vatican Council and the redefining of papal supremacy and infallibility, already begun in the last century prior to Pope Pius XII‘s death;
Lifting of the bans on Freemasonry, Americanism, definitions of the Christian state
Pope St. Pius X ‘s condemnation of the Sillon and Modernism no longer exists.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law was never promulgated, leaving the Sacred Canons in the hands of those who would like nothing better than to abolish and reinterpret them.
Pope Pius XI’s encyclicals on marriage, Communism, racism and the social order;
Pope Pius XII’s much hated infallible decrees such as his election constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, Mystici Corporis and Ad Sinarum Gentum on the authority of bishops, Mediator Dei, Humani Generis and Ad Apostolorum Principis, not to mention the hated Holy Week changes, would all be non-existent.

Perhaps this Catholic Restoration business is finally starting to make some sense! NOW we know where they are probably going with all of this, if all of them can ever agree on anything. The only way to discredit the claims made on this site is to take the axe to the root of the tree and destroy the sources from which they issue — the Roman Pontiffs. Is this their preliminary attempt to seduce pray-at-home Catholics? We believe it could well be, as we stand in the way of their success. They wish to leave no exits open for those who decide not to go along with their Great Monarch, Holy Pope, restored Gallican Church fantasy.

For this would be a dream come true for (the Independent Union of) Traditionalist and Gallicanist Monarchists wishing to completely refashion and take over the Church in yet another Vatican 2 style coup, forever redefining infallibility to suit their lust for power. This could well be what “uniting the clans” is all about — a pretended attempt to “restore all things in Christ,” while reconstructing the Church according to Gallicanist/Old Catholic plans long in the making. So what are these Pope Leo XIII defamers really up to and who else might they be working for or with? Dupes or send-ins? It may be that the Gallicanists of the 19^th century, frustrated to the max at the definition of infallibility, decided to try and make an end run to establish themselves more securely in France, as they already had in Germany. Through their pre-established “Catholic” secret societies, aligned with the Monarchists, they hoped to gain papal favor and get a leg up in order to establish a more secure base for themselves, to work under the cover of papal approval. But Leo XIII was quite savvy when it came to these societies. He instead supported the Masonic-inspired government of the French Republic and ordered Catholics there to do the same. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_16021892_au-milieu-des-sollicitudes.html

French history lesson

France had gone through a century of torments, political and religious upheaval, persecution of the faithful, exile of her clergy, the martyrdoms of her monarchs, religious, and Catholic laity, fierce infighting between Catholic factions. The battle had long been waged to restore the monarchy, but Leo could see that there was little hope of doing this, and feared a Gallicanist might even possibly come to power. He didn’t cave-in to liberalism; he merely advised Catholics to make the best of a terrible situation which he could not change or control. And for this he is condemned? How dare common peasants, totally ignorant of not only of history, but of the perspicacity necessary to govern and the inner workings of the Church judge a mere man, not to mention a pope, who was superbly well-educated, skilled in diplomacy, unbelievably intelligent and fervent in his faith, kind-hearted and talented in so many other ways; a man beset by so many difficulties and weighed down with so many responsibilities and spiritual burdens! Read his biographies! They will give the lie to everything written in that disgusting Fatima book. But we will see below exactly why Pope Leo did what he did.

Those supporting the Monarchists questioned his decision and he rebuked them, reminding them that they owed him obedience whether they agreed with him or not, and of course some of them sincerely did, while others who were secret “Catholic Freemasons” did a nod-nod, wink-wink. We have in support of this assessment the following quote:

“These two parties [those supporting the Republic called Rallies and those supporting royalist interests] were poles apart in sentiment, in personal interest, in philosophy of life. They represented two distinct and hostile views of man and society, two mutually antagonistic civilizations. Too often it appeared that religion was employed for political purposes and politicians were more intent upon destroying the Church than upon building up the state. The Catholic side was encumbered by an aristocratic group, royalist and Gallican by conviction as well as by tradition. The Church was their church, as it had been the subservient tool of their ancestors in the old regime. The anticlerical camp was Masonic, Jacobin, Rosseauvian. It exalted it’s omnipotent omni-competent state to absurd heights under any name Republic… They thought only in terms of their own peculiar type of government, of a party state, of a state controlled by gangster methods in the interests of a clique.

“In such circumstances it was difficult for Leo to make his voice heard and the valiant Frenchman who did hear him had to meet discouraging odds in their fight for order, justice and liberty when Leo declared that forms of government were relatively unimportant, Monarchists pointed to the revolutionary origins of the Republic. When he insisted that all Catholics align themselves under the constitution to combat iniquitous laws, they still clung to the phantom of kingship and disdainfully sneered at democracy. Social Catholics might argue the futility of adhering to the fetish of monarchy… There were monarchists who were anti-liberal in both politics and economics. There were now Rallies opposed to economic liberalism and, in obedience to papal instructions, neutral in politics, as well as Rallies whose economic theories were in conflict with needed social legislation; there were Progressists sincerely devoted to the Republic, who hoped to inject the leaven of tolerance into law and administration. There were Christian Democrats more democratic than Christian. There was finally the formless, inert mass of the indifferent, too discouraged and/or too indolent to deserve more than a passing glance of contempt” (The Church in the 19^th Century, Raymond Corrigan, S.J., Ph.D, 1938).

So that’s what Pope Leo XIII had to deal with; a convoluted mess long in the making that even would have defied resolution by the most skilled statesman ever born. Yet his decision that France must support their civil government, to at least attempt to enjoy some kind of political stability, is the very thing these defamers are pointing at to support their claims — that he was a liberal, that he overstepped his bounds, interfered in politics and even favored Freemasons. But no, clever man that he was, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, he decided to deal with the devil he at least knew, rather than admit seven devils worse than the first to the fray. The Gallicanists were up to no good and he knew it. They were the depository of the upper levels of Freemasonry — the Priory — and in the very time period that Pope Leo issued his decision on France, a group we have mentioned before was already moving forward with their plans.

What Pope Leo was trying to do

According to authors Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent, in their work Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Hieron du Val d’Or admitted the existence of a hidden pope and his entourage, which of course would include bishops, waiting in the wings to act either as a replacement for or an alternative to the current church in Rome: “The Hiéron’s agenda was the creation of a new Habsburg and Catholic Holy Roman Empire with a French temporal and spiritual head in the manner of the Grand Monarch, an association of Europeans bound by common law and dedicated to advancing the mission of Christ the King.” (Here they cite sources linked to the “Catholic” secret society Marcel Lefebvre reportedly belonged to, the Priory of Sion.) “They [the Hieron] claim the existence of a secret parallel Catholic tradition called l’Eglise d’Avignon (Church of Avignon), which they trace to the medieval Papacy installed in Avignon from 1309 to 1378. The claim is that it continued in secret with a Pope who represents the esoteric aspects of the Catholic Church. L’Eglise d’Avignon is said to serve as an intermediary between the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox tradition.”

Pope Leo issued his encyclical Au milieu de solicitudes to the French in 1892. Wikipedia states the Hieron organization existed from 1873-1926, when it was doubtless absorbed into other groups. “It was allied to concepts of royalism and was culturally conservative; it sought to erect a Catholic hermetic freemasonry, contrary to the anti-clerical Freemasonry of Grand Orient de France and was particularly devoted to Christ the King.” Among contributors to a publication sponsored by the group was the traditionalist Rene Guenon, later supporting Muslim philosophy and one Le Coeur, author of The Age of Aquarius, promoting New Age beliefs. So Pope Leo was pro-Masonic in not supporting the Royalists who had been infiltrated by this bunch?! Pope Leo’s personal letter of correction to Cardinal Gibbons, addressing his participation in the interfaith conference and condemning Americanism was not enough for these people? In his work The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism, 1895-1900, Thomas T. McAvoy, C.S.C, writes:

“If there was doubt about the meaning of the prohibition of congresses of religion, a chronicle of events in the United States that appeared in the Civilta Cattolica January 4, 1896 was sufficient warning that the triumph of the progressives had been short-lived and that with the shift of [Cardinal] Satolli, the conservatives were beginning to regain lost ground. This chronicle of the year 1895 in the United States claimed that year had ended a period of confusion thanks to the action of Sattoli. The evil tendencies in the United States which the chronicle says were checked by Sattolli was Pelagianism… and this has been checked by two actions: the condemnation of the secret societies and the action against the Congress of Religions. It is the second of these that the chronicle emphasized… Continuing, the chronicle said that a third element in the American scene which had grown up from a wrong interpretation of American political traditions was a kind of Gallicanism, a lack of sympathy for the Pope in his efforts to regain his temporal power. But under the leadership of Sattolli, the American Catholics had clearly demonstrated their loyalty to the pontiff in a series of public demonstrations of loyalty on September 20,1895” (page 84-85).

So Gallicanism was making its rounds in America as well, and eventually this heresy first revealed itself in the Liturgical Movement, which began in Germany. Rev. Albert Kaiser observed in his December 1953 article for The American Ecclesiastical Review: “The Gallican and Febronian pretension of limiting Papal jurisdiction in favor of episcopal equality was more or less a cover-up for an underground movement to nationalize the Church. The ‘Free from Rome’ movement in a sense dove-tailed with the Nazi political movement. As the French Revolution’s disastrous effects helped bring the dissident clergy back to the Pope, so Hitler’s providential defeat contributed to help the Pope reclaim the ‘German nationalists.’” And it is no coincidence that at the same time the Priory of Sion’s existence was revealed, by a professed neo-Nazi, a secret society affiliated with the Priory was founded in the U.S. by a friend of the Priory’s modern-day historian (Pierre Plantard) also reported to be aligned with neo-Nazi factions. Doesn’t this sound suspiciously like the Sedevacantists and other Traditionalists, many of whom are blatantly anti-Semitic and block any effort to restore the papacy?

But the antics of Traditionalists are relevant only insofar as we know their agenda and stay far away from any of their sects. What needs to be addressed here is what caused this unfortunate break with the faith in the first place and how it can be prevented in the future. The answer to this is the absolute prohibition of the Church to read anything on religious topics written by non-Catholics, especially in this day and age. Likewise the use of social media regarding religious topics or discussions and unrestricted Internet surfing for videos and articles that touch on matters of faith. There are certain sites that are relatively safe; I have listed some of these on the articles page. Traditionalists sites are to be avoided as a general rule, although they sometimes contain pertinent information. But they also can be very dangerous; the authors of the anti-Fatima book initially appeared to operate a legitimate Catholic site. Even videos that are primarily about political matters often contain defamatory and erroneous information about the Church and Her role in the worldwide conspiracy.

Because they failed to investigate the information they were being fed and reconcile what was being presented to them with beliefs of faith, they were led astray. This is how many Catholics have succumbed to error, and below an Irish priest, a beloved theologian and catechist in his own country, tells us why.

**From Our Greatest Treasure by Rev. John Kearney, 1942**

Indiscriminate reading

“Beware of false prophets,” says Christ, “they come to you in sheep’s clothing.” This is a solemn warning. A prophet is a teacher. A book is a teacher. A bad book may be attractive — the charm of the style is the sheep’s clothing. The warning of Christ applies in our days especially to books.

To realize the danger of indiscriminate reading consider the following:

Your limited knowledge of religion. A medical man has five years professional study. A priest has at least six years professional study.
The power of a clever barrister to present a bad case to an ignorant juryman. [Lawyers have 4-6 years of study].You are not experts in theology while many of the enemies of the Church are clever and the devil helps them.
The natural law which binds us to preserve our faith is supported by a law of the Church which forbids the reading of dangerous books.
Compare the Church’s law with the following: the law limiting the sale of poisons to qualified persons; the appointment of a public analyst to secure pure food and pure water; the locking up in an asylum of all who attempt suicide.

General warning against indiscriminate reading

It is a fact that cannot be denied that very many literary works are prejudicial to the faith. Their tendency is to weaken it imperceptibly. The naturalistic philosophy, irreligious views and materialistic outlook contained in them is so subtle as not to be noticed. It is like a poison that is imbibed in very small doses. But its presence in the mind of the readers are such works which will be detected later on, when a situation arises for them to which they should simply apply the truths of the faith e.g., on the occasion of a tempting offer of worldly gain, through a mixed marriage, a cleverly concealed dishonest financial transaction, an illicit friendship, etc. It will be seen that owing to false teaching assimilated through indiscriminate reading the Pearl of Great Price will be sacrificed for mere temporal advantage. And the result like unto Hymaneus and Alexander of old, they run serious risk of making shipwreck concerning the faith.

The law of the Church and dangers to face from indiscriminate reading

From what has been said it should be obvious to any loyal Catholic that the Church and her restrictive legislation concerning certain books acts as a wise mother. With maternal solicitude She warns her children against two dangerous classes of publications: those that are subversive of faith and those that are opposed to Catholic teaching regarding good morals, which teaching is based upon the faith and upon the law of God. It is a grave duty for every Catholic to obey the laws of the Church forbidding the reading of certain kinds of books (Canons 1384 and 1399). Apart from these enactments of positive law binding on all, it is the bounden duty of every Catholic to avoid all reading that would constitute a danger for the individual in question. Even though a person may feel himself firmly established in the faith it is not lawful to take risks. And such risks are inevitable. The reading, especially when habitual, of books that either by subtle suggestion, ridicule, or positive erroneous pleading advocate principles opposed to the faith cannot failed to saturate the mind so assimilative of ideas with the seeds of unbelief. Our Lord issued a solemn warning against false prophets: “Beware of false prophets” (Matthew 7:15).

Who are they in our days? They are legion in number. They are to be met with in the cinema, on the stage, on the radio, in factories and workshops, but above all in books and newspapers. These ravening wolves come very often in the clothing of sheep. They do not directly and openly attack the Catholic faith and morals but they do so indirectly in a very effective way…. In this matter of safeguarding our Catholic faith and morals no one should presume to say that his faith is so strong and his morals so firmly established as to be proof against all attack, no matter how subtly or systematically directed. Neither good intentions nor experience in life can render anyone absolutely immune to painful surprises. it may be taken as a practical rule of guidance that indulgence and evil reading will end in spiritual disaster. This is what usually happens owing to the inherent weakness of human nature. Temptations are sure to rise. Moral lapses will follow. Then the false ideas and ideals that have been imperceptibly absorbed in the reading will be appealed to in order to justify or palliate the lapses.

Indiscriminate discussions

A person who wishes to ask you for information on teachings of the Church and honestly desires to know should be answered and you should be able to answer. But you are not required to prove the doctrine from Scripture. A person who wishes to discuss religion simply for the sake of argument or for the purpose of confounding you should not be answered. All these discussions do no good. The code of Church law forbids public discussions without permission [and] you perhaps have not made the studies required for defending your religion. It is one thing to be able to know the teaching of the Church and another to be able to defend it. The danger of discussion for those whose opportunities have not permitted them to make a very profound study of their religion, is due to the fact they may find themselves in the hands of a very clever man who misrepresents things and whose errors their limited knowledge is not able to detect. Look what a clever barrister can do when he has a bad case to defend; how he can put interpretations on the facts, misrepresent their different importances and in the end completely persuade those that are ignorant. The illustrations we have given show clearly the imprudence and the disloyalty to Our Lord manifested by indiscriminate reading and discussion. From this follows the diminution of the actual graces which we need to exercise our faith.

Faults that alienate our hearts and wills

In the second place are the sins which tend to draw the heart, the will, to earth and away from God. The most deadly of these senses is the sin of pride. Pride leads many to the loss of faith. We have spoken of pride as an obstacle to the grace of faith for those outside the Church. We must now show its danger for those who have the faith. It is our will that commands our intellect to believe. We believe because we wish to believe and we wish to believe because we wish to honor God by submitting to His Word. Hence anything that turns our will away from God makes our act of faith more difficult. On the act of faith we believe a doctrine which we do not see and which we cannot prove, simply because God says it is true. This involves humility. We bend down our mind before the authority of God. We pay God the homage of our understanding. We acknowledge we are creatures and that therefore we are limited. We acknowledge that we are children of our Father in Heaven and we wish to please Him. This is humility.

Pride is the obvious opposite of humility. The proud man trusts his own mental powers and in an inordinate way he forgets his own mental limitations. He is inclined to accept only what he can see and what he can prove. He easily shuts his eyes to the evidence that God is speaking through the Church. Hence pride leads easily to the loss of faith. The loss of faith through pride appears especially in those who criticize the Church, who criticize Her laws, who criticize the actions and words of those appointed to speak and act in Her name. Many lose the faith through this sin of criticizing. In this sin they make themselves the judges of the words of the Bride of Christ. Like to the sin of criticism of the Church is the sin committed by marked want of reverence for sacred things. These sins in addition to their own malice generally involve the sin of scandal and scandal of a serious kind. It is easy to see that complacency in our superiority — pride — is at the root of all these sins. The loss of grace through pride follows frequently from positive disregard of the laws of the Church… These sins easily lead to the loss of Faith. In all this it is our will that is wrong. We do not want to submit. Submission means accepting our inferiority or dependence. Our pride resists this.

In the third place, culpable ignorance is a cause of the loss of faith. This is a special kind of disloyalty to God because man’s first duty is to know God. Ignorance evidently impedes the correct judgment of the intelligence especially when our imagination or picture making power is impressed by a difficulty. Ignorance is culpable when it is due to indolence and not acquiring knowledge when we can and should. It shows a want of esteem for the gift of Faith and this is a disloyalty to God who has given us the faith. Hence it leads to a diminution of grace. Culpable ignorance, which may injure our faith, is of various kinds:

ignorance of the motive of credibility i.e. the proofs that God has testified to the divine authority of the church;
ignorance which does not distinguish in dogma what one must believe and what one may believe;
ignorance which confounds what is essential and what is accessory in worship. Prayer is essential; certain prayers are accessory. Devotion is essential; certain devotions are accessory.
In moral matters, likewise ignorance confounds interior personal reform, which is essential, with certain external works which are only a means unless commanded explicitly.

Faith once lost is seldom regained

The gift of faith may be lost. This is an undoubted fact. It is also a fact that once lost, the gift of faith is seldom regained. God gives it once easily. It is most precious. If we lose it no doubt it may be got again but the dispositions of heart that prepare the soul for this new grace are not easily acquired. Hence it is that faith is seldom regained. Saint Paul puts this very clearly. “It is impossible,” he says, “for those who were once illuminated (the gift of faith) have tasted also the heavenly gift (the most Holy Sacrament) and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost (Confirmation and grace) have moreover tasted the good word of God (instruction) and the powers of the world become (Heaven and Hell), and are fallen away to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making Him a mockery” (Heb. 6:4-6). Impossible here means very difficult, morally impossible, impossible without a miracle of grace.

To help us understand better these words of Saint Paul we shall keep it in mind that faith is always a gift of God, but it is a gift that God gives a second time to those only who ask it with humility and perseverance. Here indeed is the difficulty of recovering a lost faith. Humble and persevering petition is not easy for those who have lost the faith. We can say it is almost impossible for them because humble and persevering petition means going back on and reversing their own pride and independence of mind which independence was the cause of the refusal to submit to God and believe His Word. In other words, this new act of faith, this new paying to God the homage of their understanding, means acknowledging that the little Catholic child was right while they were wrong. All this is difficult. It needs an extraordinary grace of childlike humility through which they cast themselves that God meet and recognize their absolute dependence on him for their present life and continued existence” (end of Rev. Kearney quotes).

Conclusion

Fr. Kearney called the faith “Our Pearl of Great Price.” But do we really think every time we reach for our phones or surf the Internet that something just a click away could rob us of this precious jewel? Do we use due discretion in using these communication tools? Or do we fall into the sin of curiosity and read or listen to things that could easily endanger our faith? In the end will we allow the Modernist hype on social media and the Internet to claim our faith after all we have done to preserve it?

Clarification on the points about Antichrist that are certain

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jan 15, 2024 | New Blog

+St. Paul the First Hermit+

(URGENT REQUEST: In light of the continuing attempts to infiltrate and divide those praying at home by various entities both known to us as well as others yet to be identified, we beg our readers to please join us in the Unity Octave novena beginning on January 18, Feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome. To recite these prayers, please scroll to the bottom of the blog HERE.)

The unanimous teachings of the Fathers on Antichrist

There has been much (unnecessary) confusion arising from the assertion on this site that Paul 6 was Antichrist. Some are suggesting that this belief is not in conformity with the unanimous opinion of the early Fathers and does not take into consideration Catholic prophecy regarding the reign of Antichrist. First, we will address the topic of the unanimous opinion of the Fathers.

The Council of Trent as well as the Vatican Council teach that whatever the early Fathers agree on unanimously regarding faith and morals must be accepted as coming from the Church Herself. Yet Pope Leo XIII wrote in Providentissimus Deus, (Nov. 1893): “Because the defense of Holy Scripture must be carried on vigorously, all the opinions which the individual Fathers or the recent interpreters have set forth in explaining it need not be maintained equally. For they, in interpreting passages where physical matters are concerned have made judgments according to the opinions of the age, and thus not always according to truth, so that they have made statements which today are not approved. Therefore, we must carefully discern what they hand down which really pertains to faith or is intimately connected with it, and what they hand down with unanimous consent; for ‘in those matters which are not under the obligation of faith, the saints were free to have different opinions, just as we are,’ according to the opinion of St. Thomas.”

In other words, only the Holy See may determine when the unanimous opinion of the Fathers has rightly been stated or understood, and the only exception to this general rule is when a highly esteemed Church official has declared that something contained in Holy Scripture is indeed the unanimous opinion of the Fathers. The one issue that so many of these so-called Catholic writers on Antichrist consistently fail to address is the cessation of the Holy Sacrifice as the very act that will allow the correct identification of the Man of Sin. So many refer to the institution of the Novus Ordo as the “abomination of desolation” but neglect to identify the one instituting it as Antichrist! Henry Cardinal Manning succinctly states in his The Present Crisis of the Holy See that: “The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist and the prophecies of Daniel — all of them unanimously — say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the Holy Sacrifice of the altar will cease.” This statement we can trust, but not the statement of those attempting to prove the unanimous opinions of the Fathers support their claims without even demonstrating that such an opinion is truly a) unanimous, as demonstrated by approved authors and b) to be believed as a matter of faith.

And Pope Pius XII writes in his encyclical on Holy Scripture, Divini Afflante Spiritu: “There are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the holy Fathers is unanimous.” We cannot take the word of lay people writing today that such texts are unanimous, for such writers often confuse the common opinion of the Fathers with their unanimous opinion. This is why we may only take the word of approved authors that a certain teaching is truly unanimous. But when a pope has himself taught infallibly on the subject of Antichrist the very fact he has thus taught demands our firm assent and obedience. Such is the case with Pope Paul IV’s 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which defines who and what is to be considered the abomination of desolation and how the abomination could enter into the Holy Place through an invalid papal election. (For those who object that Antichrist and the abomination are not the same thing, please see the article HERE.) We also have the testimony of Pope Leo XIII in his long St. Michael’s prayer that: “In the Holy Place itself… they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep will be scattered.” Popes Pius XI and Pius XII also warned that Antichrist was already within the gates. The Holy Place also is designated as the Church in St. Jerome’s commentary in the Breviary for the 24^th and last Sunday after Pentecost.

The second objection, that Paul 6 as Antichrist does not reflect the predictions contained in private revelations is not a valid accusation. Those evaluating these revelations are nearly always of the LibTrad persuasion, including the Lefebvrist and Monarchist Yves Dupont, whose The Antichrist is provided on one site to “refute” the idea that Paul 6 was the Antichrist. While Dupont’s writings on other topics are not objectionable per se, his estimation of the prophecies cannot be said to amount to anything a Catholic is required or even advised to believe regarding the advent of Antichrist. The theologian Gerson, in his Treatise on the examination of doctrines, relates that Pope Gregory XI, when on the point of death, holding the sacred body of Christ in his hands, protested before all, and warned them to beware both of men and women, “who under the guise of religion, speak visions of their own head” for that he, seduced by such, had neglected the reasonable counsel of his friends, and had dragged himself and the Church to the hazard of imminent schism, if her merciful spouse Jesus had not provided against it.” Pope Benedict XIV said these revelations: “…ought not to, and cannot receive from us any assent of Catholic, but only of human faith, ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF PRUDENCE, according to which the aforesaid revelations ARE PROBABLE, and piously to be believed.” Today we cannot even be certain these prophecies are faithfully reproduced.

Catholics must not consider such revelations equivalent to a papal pronouncement, or the unanimous consent of the Fathers and/or approved theologians. (See the article HERE.) As one theologian has remarked: “Many of these revelations are beyond the needs and the intelligence even of persons already far advanced in the spiritual life and are often clothed in language quite unintelligible. And herein precisely lies a new source of anxiety, BECAUSE A NEW DANGER, NAMELY, THE DANGER OF UNDERSTANDING THE REVELATION IN A WRONG SENSE, WHICH MAY EASILY LEAD TO POSITIVE ERROR AND SIN AGAINST THE “RULE OF FAITH.” And this is what has happened with many of these revelations regarding Antichrist. Also, some of these revelations contain errors later condemned by the Holy See, such as the teaching regarding the Great Monarch and an earthly millennium as taught by Joachim of Fiore, also others (see HERE).

Grades of certainty regarding Antichrist

Given the confusion created by these LibTrad writers, a reader has requested “a more detailed description and analysis” of the points offered on this site and attributed to the work of an approved theologian, Fr. A. Lemman’s The Antichrist. These points and their commentary can be found in Rev. Denis Fahey’s The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation, pgs. 175-190. We intended, in offering reference to this work, that readers study Fahey’s work itself for a better understanding of the topic. But to avoid any confusion for those not able to access this work, quotes will be taken from it below to better explain the basis for Fr. Lemman’s evaluation of these points.

Things that are certain about Antichrist;
Things that are probable;
Things that are undecided;
Things that have not a solid foundation

Things that are CERTAIN (that is, those things which must be believed either from Holy Scripture or the unanimous opinion of the Fatherss. These include:

He will be a trial for the good (Apoc. XIII, 7), and a chastisement for the impious and the apostates (II Thess., II, 9-11). TSB: This is all that is provided, Holy Scripture being sufficient.
He will be a man, a human person. (Lemann: “Antichrist is not a myth or a fiction, as Renan, in his silly fashion, tried to show.1 Neither must he be confused with a sect, a collection of impious men, an atheistic environment, or a period of persecution, as certain pious persons have imagined. Antichrist will be a human person, appearing in an epoch of atheism and of wicked sectaries.”)
He will not be Satan in human form but only a man (Suarez, De Antichristo, Sect. 1, n. 4 and 5). (TSB: it could be said, however, that he might be possessed by the devil.)
He will have great powers of seduction, owing to certain personal qualities. (“Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish,” II Thess., II, 9, 10).

TSB: Paul 6 undoubtedly charmed the Protestants, the Orthodox and the Jews, who he invited to the false Vatican 2 Council. He won the applause of world figures and the admiration of the “faithful” with his address to the UN. The theological world gloried in his Modernistic teachings, and nearly all accepted and taught them. He gave every appearance of being a true pope and reconciling all world religions, including Communism and Freemasonry, to Catholicism, when this was a doctrinal impossibility.)

His career beginnings will be lowly (“The horn is called small, because it will grow little by little, and because it will arrive at domination, not by hereditary right, but by fraud” Cornelius a Lapide, in Ep. ad Thess., II, II.)

TSB: Montini was sickly and studied for the priesthood at home. He initially rose through the ranks as any other cleric. He did not receive the formal position of Secretary of Vatican State but acted only as a “pro-secretary.” Owing to the deceptions he perpetrated during Pope Pius XII’s reign, he was refused the cardinalate.)

He will increase in power and make conquests. (TSB: Over time, Paul 6, as a Vatican official, secretly became involved with the British intelligence agency the OSS during WWII, and after the war ended, the CIA, preparing to align himself later with world governments. As a cardinal under the false prophet Roncalli, he continued this campaign openly until his invalid election as “pope.” See Lemann on no. 7 below.)
His rule will be worldwide. (Lemman: “With the help which will be furnished him by the anti-Christian societies, this enemy of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be able to form a gigantic empire in a short time.” Pope Leo XIII warned: “What is aimed at and what is intended is the overthrow of Christian institutions and the reconstruction of States on the basis of Pagan Naturalism” (Letter to the Sacred College of Cardinals, 1901).

TSB: Paul 6 helped prepare the way for the democratization of all Christian states by the U. S. Because he pretended to be the head of what the world perceived as the Catholic Church, his reign was universal.

8.He will wage a terrible war against God and the Church. Fr. Fahey: “Father Lemann indicates some of the measures which, to judge by the experience of past persecutions, Antichrist will enforce more thoroughly and more cruelly than ever before. Two of them are: Proscription of Christian teaching and obligatory teaching of error. We can see them already in force in the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Father Lemann adds that ‘The schools without God or rather against God are a preparation for the second measure.’ In that he is perfectly correct, for the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution, in the name of which these schools function in France, signified repudiation of membership of Christ, and was thus a declaration of war on the Divine Plan for Order.”

TSB: Christian teaching was removed from public schools in the U.S. during Paul 6’s reign. Following Vatican 2, the catechisms were all revised and error taught to previously Catholic school children worldwide. Error was officially taught by command of a pretended pope from the Holy Place with the adoption of “for all men,” first in the missalettes distributed to the faithful beginning in 1959, and later formally by the abrogation of the Latin Mass in 1969.)

He will claim to be God and will demand exclusive adoration. (Fr. Fahey: In 1903 Pope St. Pius X wrote: “So extreme is the general perversion that there is reason to fear that we are experiencing the foretaste and the beginnings of the evils which are to come at the end of time, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, has already arrived upon the earth.” (Note: Leo Panakal later pointed out that when St. Pius X wrote these ominous lines in 1903, Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Paul VI, was six years old.) “So great are the fury and hatred with which religion is everywhere assailed, that it seems to be a determined effort to destroy every vestige of the relation between God and man. On the other hand — and this is, according to [St. Paul], the special characteristic of Antichrist— with frightful presumption man is attempting to usurp the place of his Creator and is lifting himself above all that is called God. Thus, powerless to extinguish completely in himself the notion of God, he is attempting to shake off the yoke of His Majesty and is dedicating the visible world to himself as a temple, in which he has the pretension to receive the adoration of his fellow men, ‘So that he sitteth in the temple of God showing himself as if he were God.” (II Thess., II, 4 ; Encyclical Letter, E Supremi Apostolatus Cathedra, Oct. 4, 1903).

TSB: Francis teaches: “A spark of the Divine is in each of us; therefore, Man is God.” Both Paul 6 and John Paul 2 taught the same. Paul 6 taught: “Are you looking for God? You will find Him in man.” (John Clancy, Dialogues: Refelections on God and Man, 1965). Paul 6 placed himself above all that is called God by pretending to speak in His name as pope. As Pope Pius XI taught: “You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on the earth, the Vicar of Christ, which means I am God on the earth” (April 22, 1930).

By means of diabolical prodigies, Antichrist will seek to prove that he is God. (Lemman: “The question is often asked,” writes St. Augustine, “whether these expressions ‘signs and lying wonders’ are to be understood in the sense that the prodigies wrought by Antichrist will be only apparent, not real; or as signifying that the really extraordinary feats performed by him will draw on to error and falsehood those who accept them as proofs of a divine mission ?’* The great Doctor replies: ‘This will be known later’ (City of God). This hesitation has given rise to two currents of opinion (Suarez, de Antichristo). Some think that the prodigies wrought by Antichrist will be real prodigies and that they will lead to the acceptance of falsehood, that is, to belief in the divinity of Antichrist. Others hold that all the miracles of Antichrist will be false and unreal and that they will be accepted as true thanks to the action of the demon on the senses of his followers. ‘”He will come, when he comes, with all Satan’s influence to aid him: there will be no lack of power, of counterfeit signs and wonders” (The New Testament, by Mgr. R. A. Knox; also agreeing with these works as entirely false prodigies is 1 Cornelius a Lapide., II Thess., II, 9; Bern, a Piconio, II Ep. ad Thess., c. 11, 9.; also St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis de Sales).
Antichrist will cause the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to cease.

TSB: This is not contained in Fr. Fahey’s coverage of Fr. Lemman’s points. Fr. Lemman admits in the introduction to his points that “Space will permit of only a brief outline of what is contained under A, B, and C.” Henry Cardinal Manning clearly states in his The Present Crisis of the Holy See that: “The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist and the prophecies of Daniel — all of them unanimously — say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the Holy Sacrifice of the altar will cease.” I dare say that Card. Manning is a greater authority on this topic than Fr. Lemman. And not only is this a unanimous opinion of the Fathers; three notable Doctor of the Church — St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Francis de Sales — also teach this as well. St. Bellarmine is adamant on this matter, stating no one can claim Antichrist has come as long as the Mass of Pope St. Pius V is in place (De Contoversiis: on Antichrist, Ryan Grant translation, p. 67). For, having written his work in 1590, St. Bellarmine was undoubtedly referring to the Mass of Pope Pius V, since Pope St. Pius V promulgated his constitution Quo Primumin 1570.

The domination and persecution of Antichrist will be merely temporary. The Man of Sin will be destroyed (Dan., VII, 26; Apoc, XIX, 20; II Thess., II, 8).

TSB: Paul 6 died like any other man, although his system remains. Although he was a Traditionalist, Francis Panakal did support his work with solid proofs regarding Paul 6’s identification as the Man of Sin. In his 1983 work, The Man of Sin, Panakal noted that Montini died on the feast of the Transfiguration, Aug. 6, 1978, relating it to 2 Thess. 2: 9-10: “And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

During the Transfiguration, Christ’s countenance and entire Body became dazzlingly bright, signifying his identity as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. The spirit of his mouth Panakal associates with Christ actually addressing Paul 6 as he did St. Paul, asking, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecuteth me?” He opines that Paul 6 did not know he was the Antichrist until the moment of his death, and that after he learned his true identity he was destroyed by this revelation. Panakal points to one unconfirmed report in a Catholic publication which related that Paul 6 cried out and his face became contorted shortly before he breathed his last, and the putrefaction of his body began immediately after his death.

Things that are PROBABLE

First Probability: The Jews will acclaim Antichrist as the Messias and will help to set up his kingdom.

Lemman: “I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive ” (St. John, V, 43).” It is upon” this reproach addressed by Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Jews, his contemporaries and adversaries, that this belief is based, and it can be said that it is the common opinion of the Fathers of the Church, for example, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Ephraim, St. John Chrysostom, etc., etc.. . . . When we see the enormous financial power of the Jews increasing daily, when we consider their intrigues, their successful occupancy of the chief places in the principal States, their mutual understanding from one end of the world to the other, then in presence of such a preponderance, we have no difficulty in realizing that they will be able to contribute to the establishment of the formidable empire of Antichrist.”

TSB: To be accepted as the Messias, Antichrist would need to be of the Jewish race. That Paul 6 presented as a Jew and was of Jewish heritage was pointed out by Fr. Joaquin Saenz-Arriaga in the 1970s. (See the proofs HERE.) It is also a matter of established fact that both he and Angelo Roncalli, the false prophet, pandered to the Jews and absolved them of all guilt in Christ’s Passion and death on the Cross. In his de Controversiis on Antichrist, St. Robert Bellarmine teaches that it is a certainty that Antichrist will be of the Jewish race and will be received by them as the Messiah. P. Huchede teaches the same in his History of Antichrist,

Second Probability

The persecution of Antichrist will last three years and a half.

Lemman: ”And they [the Saints] shall be delivered into his hand until a time, and times, and half a time” (Dan., VII, 25). “And power was given him to do two and forty months ” (Apoc. XIII, 5). It has been pointed out previously (eleventh point that is certain), that the power and the persecution of Antichrist will be only temporary. That is certain. Is it possible to determine their exact duration? One can give only a probable, not a certain, answer, according to the two texts quoted.” (See HERE for proofs showing that belief in the literal three years and a half are not a matter of faith and Catholics should adopt an opposite view whenever reason or obvious facts would dictate otherwise.)

What constitutes true probability? The scholastic theologian Rev. A.C. Cotter, S.J., in his work, The ABC of Scholastic Philosophy defines a probable opinion as follows: “Probability admits degrees; for one motive may be better and more solid than another. Thus if ten scientists testified to the truth of the atomic theory the layman has a stronger motive for assenting than if only one scientist proposed it. Hence:

a) One opinion may be more probable than another, as happens when better arguments are had for the one than for its opposite.
b) An opinion is said to be highly probable if there are excellent reasons for it and hardly any against it.
c) An opinion is most probable if there are excellent reasons for it, hardly any for contrary opinions on the same matter.
d) An opinion is the only probable one if there are solid though not infallible reasons for it and if all other opinions concerning the same matter are certainly wrong or devoid of any solid foundation.
e) Two contradictory propositions may be probable at the same time. This happens when the motives for them are disparate so that they do not destroy each other.

Things that are UNDECIDED

(These are four points that are not based upon the unanimous consent of the Fathers or upon precise texts of Holy Writ.)

1) His name; 2) his nationality; 3) the seat of his empire.

TSB: Given that Montini corresponds to all the points that are listed above as certain, and even settles those that are probable, it can then be deduced that he does fit the description of Antichrist. The final undecided point is 4)The temple in which he will present himself. Once it is proven that a) Montini b) was of Jewish heritage and c) pretended to reign in the Church itself, from d) Rome, all four undecided points are then settled.

Things that have not a solid foundation

— The date for Antichrist’s coming (The Church forbids anyone to set a future date for his coming, but neither can anyone deny clear signs he has come. All the commentators writing on Apocalypse and the end times assume that those living in these times will be able to “read the signs of the times.”)

Conclusion

This is not intended to be an exhaustive evaluation of the Antichrist question. This study of Antichrist’s appearance has been spread out over several decades and is presented in different articles on my website. It also is addressed at length in my 2018 work, The Phantom Church in Rome. What many fail to understand regarding Antichrist is that the prophecies contained in Apocalypse are intended primarily to be taken in a spiritual or mystical sense and only secondarily in a literal sense. As Rev. Huchede points out in his work, some passages are amphibological, that is, capable of more than one interpretation. What also is not appreciated here is that some teachings even of the early Fathers were later condemned, such as that of millenarianism. The Great Monarch prophecies first taught by Joachim of Fiore were an instrumental part of this false millenarianism, and the Church later condemned his teachings. Pope Pius XII then determined that millenarianism cannot be safely taught. (See HERE).

According to Holy Scripture, Antichrist’s coming will be preceded by the Great Revolt, most often referred to by Scripture commentators as a general falling away of both the Catholic hierarchy and faithful. Henry Cardinal Manning says this began with the Reformation. This Man of Sin will be revealed only after “he who witholdeth” is taken out of the way,” most likely meaning the Pope. Pope Paul IV tells us in his 1559 bull that the abomination will be revealed following an invalid papal election. The early Fathers teach unanimously he will cause the Holy Sacrifice to cease, and will pretend to speak for God, as if he were God. Please tell me this: If Antichrist has yet to come, WHO will revolt from the Church (hardly any Catholics left anywhere), WHAT sacrifice will cease (no valid sacrifices are now being offered), and HOW would anyone ever believe such a person could speak for God in wreaking all the havoc that was Vatican 2 (since this is a privilege reserved only to a validly elected Pope?!) I have explained in the work HERE that Antichrist’s system could possibly produce a final physical and literal manifestation of Antichrist who would attempt to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. But this person would not himself be the Man of Sin in a spiritual sense.

No one has all the answers on this topic, but if they attempt to address it, they must follow all the rules in place. I have tried to do this to the best of my ability. The saints and Scriptural scholars writing on Antichrist left his final identification to those living at the time of his appearance on the world stage. St. Bellarmine writes: “All prophecies when they are fulfilled are made evident” (Ibid). Rev. Huchede agrees, writing: “The events connected with the end of the world will alone remove the mystery in which the sacred text is at present enveloped… What is mysterious [can only] be explained by the event.” For a better understanding of the situation today, in light of what was already occurring in the 19^th century, please read the works of Henry Cardinal Manning, The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ and The Present Crisis of the Holy See. Both are available for free download at archive.org.

St. Vincent Ferrer’s teaching on what to expect in the end times

by T. Stanfill Benns | Nov 25, 2023 | New Blog

+St. Catherine of Alexandria+

Some may wonder why so much space is devoted here to end-times controversies and prophecies, but there is actually a method to my madness. When I first joined the LibTrad ranks in the late 1970s, I was initially drawn to the many prophecies and private revelations concerning what I believed even then were the last days of the world. Many have confided to me that they too used this as their “starting point” for understanding what had happened to the Church and how and why it happened. And while many of these private revelations gave a credible description of what we have experienced, they also contradicted each other in many points and incorporated ideas that, as we have seen with Abbot Joachim’s work, were condemned by the Church.

So if this is what may bring people to read what is offered on this site, I want them to understand how such prophecies must be viewed and place cautions on the false ideas many of them contain. I have often been asked why it is that so many of these prophecies foresee the See as vacant, or at least temporarily filled by an antipope, yet also see that clergy and the Holy Sacrifice yet exist. And there is a logical answer for this. We know from Christ’s own mouth that even the elect will be deceived, and certainly that would include Saints and holy people gifted with these revelations. St. Thomas Aquinas warned us, as noted in last week’s blog, that Christ has kept the arrival of Antichrist a closely guarded secret. These seers over the ages were experiencing visions, and certainly it must have appeared to them that clergy were ministering to the people for they could not see (or God did not allow them to see) that LibTrads were not lawfully commissioned clergy, that they were indeed false prophets.

That this could actually happen is confirmed by both Pope Benedict XIV and Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, as Tanquerey explains here in his The Spiritual Life:

— “Many seers, intertwining their own devout meditations with the revelations they receive, give details, numbers, dates, which contradict historical documents or other revelations.

— “An incorrect interpretation of the message can mislead the seer. St. Gregory and St. Norbert both believed Antichrist lived during their lifetime; St. Paul and St. Vincent Ferrer believed they were living in the end times.

— “A revelation may be unwittingly altered by the seer himself when he attempts to explain [what he saw and/or heard], or, still oftener, by those to whom he dictates his revelations. St. Brigit realized herself that at times she retouched her revelations, the better to explain them; these added explanations are not always free from errors. It is acknowledged today that the scribes who wrote the revelations of Ven. Mary of Agreda, Anne Catherine Emmerich and Marie Latest modified them to an extent difficult to determine.”

And From the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911, on Private Revelations: “Our information concerning a revelation considered in itself or concerning the circumstances that accompanied it might be secured as follows:

“1. Is there an authentic account, in which nothing has been added, suppressed, or corrected?

“2. Does the revelation agree with the teaching of the Church or with the recognized facts of history or natural science?

“3. Have the revelations been subjected to the tests of time and discussion?”

What we are seeing in the revelations available to us today must be qualified by the above. NO, we cannot be certain that these revelations are authentic accounts; many of them were published after the death of Pope Pius XII and DO NOT agree with Church teaching, especially that of the 20^th century popes. And the tests of time and discussion (notthose conducted by LibTrads, however) have proven many of these revelations to be flawed. It is primarily the interpretation of such revelations following Pope Pius XII’s death that have led many into troubled waters regarding the coming of Antichrist and the future of the Church. We know that there will not be a lengthy peace and revival of the Church following Antichrist’s reign, although there may well be a time for repentance. And we know that once the Battle of Armageddon ensues, the Second Coming cannot be far off.

The Great Monarch — (predicted by Joachim of Fiore, at La Salette, by Marie Julie Jahenny, Anna Catherine Emmerich and Anna Maria Taigi, among others): This teaching was initiated by Abbot Joachim of Fiore and therefore can be discounted. The Great Monarch arrives with a Holy Pope, and there is no way outside of a miracle that the papacy could ever be restored according to the laws and teachings of the Church.

Three days darkness — (predicted at La Salette, by Marie Julie Jahenny, also several other seers): This may be confused with the great worldwide earthquake/pole shift that occurs during the Battle of Armageddon, if this passage of Apocalypse is to be interpreted literally. Any “peace” that is predicted following this occurrence may only mean the time after it happens allotted to the earth’s inhabitants to do penance before the Second Coming.

Restoration of the Church, time of peace — (Abbot Joachim, the Jesuit Ribera, Our Lady of Quito, La Salette, interpreted as predicted at Fatima, many others): As seen in previous blogs, this teaching was condemned as dangerous by Pope Pius XII. In any event it cannot be thought that it could happen now, since it would require a miracle to restore the papacy, and Holy Scripture nowhere indicates such a restoration, far less a miracle will occur. All commentators prior to the emergence of the Modernist heresy taught that the Second Coming would directly follow the Battle of Armageddon and casting of Antichrist and his prophet into hell.

And yet there are those who at this moment are calling for a papal election. This time it is Eberhard Heller, editor of the German publication Einsicht, who in a 1990 article in his publication refused to support any suggestion made by this author that a papal election should be held. Of course his efforts would be totally rendered null and void by Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis but there is this to consider as well: All the “bishops” he promotes as candidates for the office were created by a man who, in his very declaration that the Holy See was vacant, incredibly signed himself as a titular archbishop appointed by the very man he was reputedly renouncing — Paul 6! That man of course was the Vietnamese bishop Peter Martin Ngo dinh Thuc, notorious for his indiscriminate ordinations and consecrations of numerous unqualified and scandalous bishops and priests. There is no doubt that he signed himself as the Archbishop of Bulla Regiae, as the documents in his own handwriting below attest:

(A clearer image of this document is available on request.)

And as Traditionalist Clarence Kelly rightly documents in his The Sacred and the Profane, there were grave doubts from the beginning that Thuc had ever separated himself from the Novus Ordo and was even sufficiently mentally competent (owing to his advanced diabetes) to have the proper intention to ordain or consecrate anyone. So the promotion of this “election” is yet another rabbit hole now being created to trap unwary Catholics. Below, we see that St. Vincent Ferrer warned us we would be plagued by learned men shall abandon the truth and will fail to preserve the Apostolic Succession.

Highlights from the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer

“By study of Holy Scripture and by factual experience we know that when any great and heavy affliction is about to come on the world, often some warning sign is shown in the sky or in the upper air. And this happens by the mercy of God, so that people forewarned of impending tribulation by means of these signs, through prayer and good works, may obtain in the tribunal of mercy a reversal of the sentence passed against them by God the judge in the heavenly courts; or at least by penance and amendment of life, may prepare themselves against the impending affliction… So, before the coming of any great mortality, phantom battles are seen in the sky; before famine there are earthquakes; and before a country is laid waste dreadful portents are seen.

“In my text there are four clauses in which we are warned of the four ways in which Antichrist will deceive Christians… (1) The first clause tells us that there will be signs in the sun in the time of Antichrist… The Sun of justice will be obscured by the interposition of temporal goods and the wealth which Antichrist will bestow on the world, inasmuch as the brightness of faith in Jesus Christ and the glow of good lives will no longer shine among Christians…How do the peoples of the world sin against God today? They sin in order to gain honors, dignities and riches. Therefore, by honors, riches and dignities, God permits that Antichrist shall deceive them. If therefore you do not wish to be deceived, now with all your hearts contemn and despise all earthly goods, and long for those of heaven, considering that the goods of this world are transitory and empty, while heavenly and celestial goods are eternal. In this way you will be strong. Saint John gives this counsel: “Love not the world nor the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world the charity of the Father is not in him. And the world passeth and the concupiscence thereof” (1 Jn 2:15-17).

“(2) The second clause says that there will be signs in the moon… In the Holy Scriptures the moon signifies our holy Mother the Universal Church, which implies the world-wide union of Christians… The Church is signified by the moon and its five phases: …The waning moon typifies the inability of men to preserve what the Apostles had acquired. The old moon, because the horns are reversed, typifies that the Church is no longer in the state in which Christ founded it. Christ founded the Church in great lowliness and poverty; now all this is turned round to pride, pomp and vanity, as may be easily seen in every rank of the Church… Nothing is now left to make matters worse but an eclipse which is caused by the interposition of the earth between the sun and moon such as only occurs at full moon. As Isaiah says in 59:2: “Your sins have put a division between us.” In the time of Antichrist, the Church, typified by the moon, will be eclipsed; because then she will not give her light, since Christians will no longer work miracles by reason of their sanctity; but Antichrist and his followers will work miracles, not true miracles, but false ones having the appearance of true miracles, in order that they may deceive the people, as Saint John says in the Apocalypse (13:13)…

“(3) The third clause says that there will be signs in the stars. In the Sacred Scriptures “star” signifies “light-giving”; and so it is the appellation of Masters, Doctors, and Licentiates in Theology. This signification is found in Daniel (12:3) : “And they that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.” In these stars, that is learned men, there will be signs in the time of Antichrist; because, as Christ says in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (24:29) : “Stars shall fall from heaven”; and this is the third combat waged by Antichrist, that of disputation. Then stars, that is the learned, shall fall from heaven, that is, from the truth of the Catholic Faith…

“(4) The fourth clause tells us: “And on earth distress of nations by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves.” Behold these are the tortures which Antichrist will inflict, and on the earth distress of nations by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves. That is the preparations for battle, the sanding of the arena before the combat, which will be the work of the lords who are already on the side of Antichrist; because then no one will dare to name Christ nor the Virgin Mary under pain of death; and the waves are those of torments which have never in the past been so dreadful as those which will be inflicted by Antichrist. In Saint Matthew, Christ warns us (24:21): “For there shall then be great tribulation such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.” (See St. Vincent ‘s entire sermon on The End of the World and the Final Judgment HERE.)

As to no. 1, we have seen strange signs in the skies and have heard strange noises. We have seen the many earthquakes, most likely preceding a coming famine. And other portents also have been seen before nations have been invaded and destroyed. Most certainly we have witnessed the devastating effects of materialism, which has turned everyone form the love of God to the love of earthly goods. This is what prepared the way for the coming of Antichrist.

Regarding no. 2, we have seen this total eclipse of the Church since the death of Pope Pius XII. It is no longer the Church Christ founded because it has no head, only false prophets, thieves and hirelings at its helm. Notice that St. Vincent does NOT interpret this eclipse to mean that the Church will be renewed once this eclipse is past. Holiness has gone out of the Church and She is no longer one.

(3) The fall of the theologians is quite evident, and this began long before the death of Pope Pius XII. What St. Vincent and St. Thomas do not envision is the actual fall of the hierarchy, although St. Vincent insinuates it when he says the Church will no longer exist as Christ constituted it. Note here that Antichrist wages his war by “disputation,” which most certainly refers to the Novus Ordo “dialogue” process but also to the many bitter quarrels and disagreements among the LibTrad crowd.

(4) Antichrist prepares the way for the Battle of Armageddon here. The tortures mentioned are always interpreted as physical and this may well be experienced toward the end by many, but we know from experience that they are primarily mental and emotional, which is why they are so terrible. And these torments have been inflicted for far longer than any three years and a half, which is the length of time St. Vincent and others believe Antichrist will reign, (but as explained elsewhere, this refers only to the HEIGHTH of his reign).

Had St. Vincent’s and St. Thomas Aquinas’ teachings been included in these prophetical works circulating today, Catholics might have had a better understanding of the Church’s total dissolution and the violation of Her constitution. But for obvious reasons, they became available only with the advent of the Internet. Antichrist’s powers of deception far exceeded anything that even the more devout among the faithful ever anticipated.

Virtues to be practiced by faithful Catholics

(See entire sermon here.)

St. Vincent extracts five virtues from Holy Scripture that most become Christ’s sheep: “simple innocence, ample mercy, steadfast patience, true obedience, and worthy penance.” By simple innocence is meant that a person “lives simply, nor hurts anyone in his heart, by hating, nor by defaming in speech, nor striking with hands, nor by stealing. This life “is called simple innocence, which makes a man a sheep of Christ… If you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you should strike no one with horns of knowledge or of power, for lawyers strike by the horns of knowledge; jurists, advocates, or men who have great knowledge. Merchants by deceiving others. Lords and bullies strike with the horns of power, plundering or injuring, and extorting, using calumnies and threats, and the like.

“Listen to what the Lord says by the mouth of David: ‘And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted’ (Psalm 74:11).” A neighbor’s reputation is defamed by saying “…nothing good; praising someone, but only the bad… Defamers are not the sheep of Christ, but wolves of hell.” He also warns, “Children, do not hate your parents; nor parents, children; nor young people, old folks; nor the healthy, the sick; nor rich, the poor; nor masters, their servants; nor prelates, their clergy; and vice versa. It is clear what is simple innocence.”

“The second virtue, ample mercy, is when goods, both temporal and spiritual given to you by God, are given out and distributed to the needy. This is how one becomes a sheep of Christ. St. Vincent tells us that this is because, “Among all the animals a sheep is the most beneficial of animals. For the sheep by growing wool, shows us mercy and benefits of mercy, because how many poor people does a sheep clothe? Also it gives us milk, and lambs to eat. We imitate and give love this way: our wool is “external and temporal goods, bread and wine, money and clothes and the like.” Milk means “interior and spiritual goods, by giving good teaching to the ignorant… If you have the milk of knowledge, of devotion, or of eloquence, you should give to those not having them.” For Jesus told the sheep, “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink… naked, and you covered me” (Matthew 25:35-36).

Third, steadfast patience comes in different forms, such as when someone “suffering from injuries inflicted or spoken to him does not want to concern himself with taking revenge. Rather he loves everyone in general and prays for them all.” This because, “The sheep is a most patient animal, for if harassed while eating, or if struck, it does not defend itself, but goes elsewhere, nor does it avenge itself like a dog or a goat would do, but humbly yields. O blessed is the person, man or woman, who has such patience, and takes no vengeance for injuries, but forgives, as God forgives him.”

Fourth, true obedience means ordering all thoughts, words and actions according to God’s will, not ours, just as sheep are so obedient that a child with a staff easily “can easily guide 30 or 40 sheep.” If therefore on the day of judgment you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you will be obedient to the shepherd, namely to him who said: “I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me,” (Jn 10:14). Let us see now, what this shepherd commanded. First that we live humbly. Matthew 11: “Learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart,” (Mt 11:29). “Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God,” (1 Pt 5:6), namely of your shepherd etc. Whoever therefore wishes to go by the path of pride, is not a sheep of Christ but a goat of the devil.” As pointed out here so many times, God’s signified will is found in his laws and those of His Vicars. If we are not following ALL of these, we are not obeying His holy will.

“The fifth virtue is worthy penance, for sins committed. Because no one can be exempt from sins. And so it is said: “For there is no just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not,” (Eccl. 7:21). Therefore worthy penance is necessary, by sorrowing for sins and proposing not to relapse, confessing, and making satisfaction. And in this way penance makes a man a sheep of Christ. Reason: For a sheep and goat differ. Because a sheep covers its private parts with a tail, but not so a goat. Rather it shows everything. Now you know who is a sheep and who a goat. All– how many we are – have “private parts” of sins, which, although they are not now apparent, nevertheless on the day of judgment all evils and sins will be out in the open… But if the private parts of sins are covered here with the tail of penance, then they will not be revealed to your confusion, nor to your shame… “But if the wicked does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, and does judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done,” (Ez 18:21-22). So David says in Psalm 31: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered,” (Ps 31:1).”

So St. Vincent tells us here how we must conduct ourselves during Antichrist’s reign and beyond. We mut be as wise as serpents yet as guileless as doves, keeping to ourselves and keeping the Commandments. We must share what we have and know with others, that they too may come to know the truth. We must suffer wrongs patiently and pray for our enemies, although as St. John Chrysostom also says, “He who can never love Christ enough will never give up fighting against those who hate Him.” We must do God’s will in all things and this means avoiding heretics, hirelings and thieves — false prophets who seek to poison our minds that they might destroy our faith. And finally, we must do penance, and what better penance could we offer to God than to obey His laws in order to avoid the Novus Ordo and LibTrad sects with their parodies of the Mass and Sacraments, their false teaching and their pretended piety? Doesn’t Holy Scripture tell us that obedience is better than sacrifices, and a contrite heart God will not despise?

Joachim of Fiore’s heresy used to target those praying at home

by T. Stanfill Benns | Nov 12, 2023 | New Blog

+24^th Sunday after Pentecost+

It never fails to amaze me how many different ways the enemy can attempt to confuse and defuse those who are trying to defend the faith and obey the laws of God. And this time, while standing next to an oversized portrait of St. Thomas Aquinas, no less! This attack comes from a Novus Ordo apologist, Taylor Marshall, who, ever so slyly insinuates that those praying at home are adhering to an old heresy that has been defended and advanced by some Novus Ordo theorists, but mainly LibTrads and other schismatic sects, for decades. (His video can be viewed HERE.) Of course he makes his accusations based on the assumption that those praying at home actually have valid and licit sacraments available to them but choose instead to forego them in favor of approaching God directly, when no valid Sacraments save marriage and Baptism are available to us today. And needless to say, he is inviting us to receive the infernal parody of the Sacraments offered by the counter-church. When pigs fly.

The heresy Marshall refers to is that of “Bl.” Joachim of Fiore, a 13^th century Capuchin abbot, but he fails to inform his viewers that Joachim’s status as a beatus is one arbitrarily assigned to him by his admirers, not by a true pope, (see here). He even gives his feast day as May 29, which can be found in none of the beati listed with the saints in Butler’s Lives of the Saints or elsewhere. Marshall never really classifies the abbot’s teachings as heretical, when in reality Pope Alexander IV, in 1256, condemned Joachim for his teachings and those of his followers, (but this was after his death). The Lateran Council and Pope John XXII also condemned his followers for teaching the same errors. But even before this, his teachings had been condemned by St. Thomas Aquinas and other theological schools, although St. Thomas Aquinas was aware that “…however dangerous the abbot’s doctrines were, the Joachites [his followers] had gone far beyond them” (Bernard McGinn; see Conclusion below for citation). So what was it that Joachim of Fiore taught? We read from the Catholic Encyclopedia, followed by my comments:

“There are three states of the world, corresponding to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. In the first age the Father ruled, representing power and inspiring fear, to which the Old Testament dispensation corresponds; then the wisdom hidden through the ages was revealed in the Son, and we have the Catholic Church of the New Testament; a third period will come, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit, a new dispensation of universal love, which will proceed from the Gospel of Christ, but transcend the letter of it, and in which there will be no need for disciplinary institutions. Joachim held that the second period was drawing to a close, and that the third epoch (already in part anticipated by St. Benedict) would actually begin after some great cataclysm which he tentatively calculated would befall in 1260. After this Latins and Greeks would be united in the new spiritual kingdom, freed alike from the fetters of the letter; the Jews would be converted, and the “Eternal Gospel” abide until the end of the world.”

Comment: No need for disciplinary institutions? Wasn’t this precisely the goal of the Modernists, and wasn’t that goal largely realized in the1983 revision of Canon Law and the rule of LibTrad pseudo-clergy, minus any need for a true pope? Isn’t it indeed the Novus Ordo that has introduced the “Novus Ordo Missae” and the new age of the “Holy Spirit” by sanctioning charismatic “Catholicism”?

“The sect of the “Joachists” or “Joachimists” arose among the “spiritual” party among the Franciscans, many of whom saw Antichrist already in the world in the person of Frederick II, nor was their faith shaken by his death in 1250. One of their number, Fra Gherardo of Borgo San Donnino, wrote a treatise entitled “Introductorium in Evangelium Aeternum”, of which the contents are now known only from the extracts made by the commission of three cardinals who examined it in 1255. From these it is clear that the Joachists went far beyond what the abbot himself had taught. They held that, about the year 1200, the spirit of life had gone out of the two Testaments and that Joachim’s three books themselves constituted this “Eternal Gospel,” which was not simply to transcend but to supersede, the Gospel of Christ. The Catholic priesthood and the whole teaching of the New Testament was to be rendered void in a few years.”

Comment: Well it may have taken them a little over 700 years but isn’t that exactly what they have accomplished?!

“This work was solemnly condemned by Alexander IV, in 1256, [DZ 458, regarding Abbot Joachim’s follower and champion, William of St. Amour] and the condemnation involved the teaching of Joachim himself. His central doctrine was confuted by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica (I-II, Q. 106, a. 4), and its Franciscan exponents were sternly repressed by St. Bonaventure. Another blow was given to the movement when the fatal year 1260 came, and nothing happened.” So what exactly does St. Thomas Aquinas have to say about St. Joachim’s teachings? From Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 106, a. 4:

“On the contrary, Our Lord said (Mat. 24:34): “I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all (these) things be done”: which passage Chrysostom (Hom. lxxvii) explains as referring to “the generation of those that believe in Christ.” Therefore the state of those who believe in Christ will last until the consummation of the world…

“I answer that: Therefore no state of the present life can be more perfect than that of the New Law, since the nearer a thing is to the last end, the more perfect it is… We are not to look forward to a state wherein man is to possess the grace of the Holy Ghost more perfectly than he has possessed it hitherto, especially the apostles who “received the first fruits of the Spirit, i.e. sooner and more abundantly than others,” as a gloss expounds on Rom. 8:23… As Dionysius says (Eccl. Hier. v), there is a threefold state of mankind; the first was under the Old Law; the second is that of the New Law; THE THIRD WILL TAKE PLACE NOT IN THIS LIFE, BUT IN HEAVEN.

“Reply to Objection 3: “The Old Law corresponded not only to the Father, but also to the Son: because Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Law. Hence Our Lord said (Jn. 5:46): “If you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of Me.” In like manner the New Law corresponds not only to Christ, but also to the Holy Ghost; according to Rom. 8:2: “The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” etc. Hence we are not to look forward to another law corresponding to the Holy Ghost.”

“Reply to Objection 4: Since Christ said at the very outset of the preaching of the Gospel: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat. 4:17), it is most absurd to say that the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the kingdom. But the preaching of the Gospel of Christ may be understood in two ways. First, as denoting the spreading abroad of the knowledge of Christ: and thus the Gospel was preached throughout the world even at the time of the apostles, as Chrysostom states (Hom. lxxv in Matth.). And in this sense the words that follow—“and then shall the consummation come,” refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, of which He was speaking literally. Secondly, the preaching of the Gospel may be understood as extending throughout the world and producing its full effect, so that, to wit, the Church would be founded in every nation. And in these sense, as Augustine writes to Hesychius (Epist. cxcix), the Gospel is not preached to the whole world yet, but, when it is, the consummation of the world will come.”

According to Rev. R. Gerald Culleton’s The Prophets and Our Times (1941), Abbot Joachim also taught: “After many prolonged sufferings endured by Christians… a remarkable Pope will be seated on the Pontifical throne under the special protection of the angels. Holy and full of gentleness, he shall undo all wrong, recover states of the Church, reunite the exiled temporal powers and shall… recover the Kingdom of Jerusalem. All men will return to the primitive Church and there shall be only one pastor, one law, one master — humble, modest and fearing God (the Pope). The true God of the Jews our Lord Jesus Christ will make everything prosper beyond all human hope because God alone can and will pour down on the wounds of humanity this oily balm of sweetness….

“This angelic Pope will preach the gospel in every country. Through his zeal and solicitude, the Greek church will be forever reunited to the Catholic Church. The dispersed nation of Jews shall also enjoy tranquility… At the beginning, in order to obtain these happy results, having need of a powerful temporal assistance, this holy pontiff will ask the cooperation of the generous monarch of France, the great monarch. At that time a handsome monarch, a scion of King Pepin will come as a pilgrim to witness the splendor of this glorious pontiff whose name shall begin with R… The temporal throne becoming vacant, the Pope shall place on it this king whose assistance he shall ask.”

And all the above might have been a possibility if the papacy had not been usurped unopposed by a canonically elected pope for 65 years, until a certainly valid election became impossible. (According to the Catholic Encyclopedia under Antichrist, Abbot Joachim foresaw this usurpation but not its consequences.) Below we will read at greater length from the essay Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence, by Paul Ziolo, Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, 2017) regarding the far-reaching implications of Abbot Joachim’s teachings.

“1) Human history is divided into three successive Ages (in Joachimite terms, the Ages or Status (Lat. status (pl.) in the sense of epochs, aeons or psychospiritual ‘conditions’) of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit). Humanity is currently situated in the Second Age – the age of struggle and transition, while the Third will be the ‘New Age’, bringing the resolution of all conflict and an endlessly static ‘spiritualised’ state of human perfection. Sometimes (as in the Marxist interpretation), time and distance bring about a re-evaluation, so that the age of struggle and transition is transposed to the Third – (modes of production based on hunter-gatherer economies, feudal slavery, then Capitalism as an age of struggle and illumination) – which will finally culminate in a Fourth Age of stasis and perfection (the Marxist ‘withering away of the State’).

2) The New Age will heralded by the victorious struggle of the God-anointed ‘World Emperor’ in alliance with the ‘Angelic Pope’ over the ‘Beast of the Apocalypse’ (the evil, secular power) and the Antichrist ( the Antipope or the incarnation of the secularised Papacy).

3) The New Age will be ushered in or ‘catalysed’ by two new monastic orders – one engaged in the active life, the other – the ‘spiritual order’ – in the contemplative. In later interpretations (e.g. by the Jesuits and modern totalitarian philosophies) these two orders became fused into one.”

Ziolo then provides four illustrations representing the Trinity and the three different phases. The final phase actually points to the establishment of the Novus Ordo church, a fact that conveniently escapes Taylor Marshall. Ziolo continues, and the comment on the title of Fig. 4 is entirely his own:

“Fig.4 is entitled DISPOSITIO NOVI ORDINIS – the Configuration of the New Order (note the somewhat sinister implications of this title). This image depicts the social structures of the Third Status, laid out in the form of the human body (representing the ‘Body of Christ’) and, at the same time, the Cross of Jerusalem (the new Civitas Dei or City of God)… The lowest (and largest [social structure]) is that of the Sheep (Ovis) – i.e. the People. Democracy still has a long way to go.

“For romantics and reactionaries of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the medieval ‘Abbot of Calabria’ [Joachim] had become a remote, mysterious, almost legendary figure whose cryptic prophecies, vast systematisation of history and brilliantly illuminated figurae began to exercise that fascination created by distance in time. The passing centuries had seen an increasing extension, generalisation and abstraction of the Joachimite program within the broader context of the traumatic collapse of the Christian group-fantasy… Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries therefore, the Joachimite visions are found embedded in the writings of a dense network of European literati, feminists, visionaries, reformers and revolutionaries… These fantasies were always latent in European history, given form through the immanence of dynamic trinitarianism and canonical endorsement by the Joachimite prophecies…

“The main vehicle for the diffusion of Joachim’s ideas remained the Eternal Evangel, compiled by Santo Donnino in 1252. Although this work occasionally inspired searches for and scholarly work on, the primary sources, as well as encounters with the hypnotic figurae, it became the main emotional ‘mirror’ through which visionaries sought to re-interpret the present in terms of the past. This European network included such personalities as George Eliot, Pierre Leroux, George Sand, Ernest Renan, Matthew Arnold, John Addington Symonds, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Pater, Joris-Karl Huysmans, W.B. Yeats, D.H Lawrence, the painter Wassily Kandinsky, the metahistorian Arnold Toynbee and the psychoanalyst, C.G. Jung…” (Marshall explains in his video that a modern psychoanalyst, Jordan Peterson, has stated he is a member of the church of “St.” Joachim of Fiore, so beware — especially given what follows below.)

“Three of these figures deserve special mention in view of their relevance for psychohistory,” [but here we will mention only one of these]. “Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1891 novel Là-Bas (‘Down There’) is a psychohistorically interesting work — parts of which have actually been transcribed onto psychohistory websites. The novel is a study of Satanism, child abuse and human sacrifice in the form of what is in fact an autobiographical novel (part of a series). Two narratives, displaced in time, are intertwined in the text – the protagonist Durtal’s involvement with Parisian Satanic cults of the late 19th century (the era of the notorious so-called Mass Priests) and a biography of the early 15th century child rapist, mass murderer and Satanist Gilles de Rais. Through this double narrative Huysmans develops his main thesis – that archaic, infanticidally-based psychoclass structures, ever latent but hidden and held in check during periods of comparative social stability (such as the earlier Middle Ages), may re-emerge during times of pronounced social anomie and disintegration. The novel is threaded with Joachimite ideas.

“[But] The darkest fruits of the Joachimite tree were the archaist and futurist totalitarian systems of the 20th century – in which Joachim’s viri spirituales became transformed into the brutal SS and communist party ‘cadres’. How did this happen? As I have stated, the wandering Fraticelli had played a major role in the dissemination of pseudo-Joachimite ideas… from the 13th-14th centuries, thus preparing the ground for the heretic and reformist movements that were to culminate in the Reformation itself. Lutheran reformers in turn transmitted the revolutionary ideas of Joachimism via Bohemia and Poland to Russia… In Russia, the ancient conception of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’, dating from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, was a natural product of purely Trinitarian (rather than apocalyptic) thinking. After the increasing ‘self-divinisation’ of the Russian Monarchy, beginning with the assumption in 1547 of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV (‘The Terrible’), and especially after the Nikonian Reforms of 1652, apocalyptic movements began to proliferate and acquire a distinctly Joachimite tinge.

“By the late 19th century, philosophers, writers and visionary historians such as Soloviev, Merezhovsky, Dostoievsky and Danilovsky displayed a thorough acquaintance with the Joachimite program and had incorporated it into their own visions of Russia’s ‘destiny’. The ground was therefore well prepared for the Marxist conception of history as comprising three economic phases: primitive communism, class- structured society and the ‘new communism’ (with the Third International inaugurating the transition to the communist version of the Third Status) as well as the later Leninist-Stalinist formulations of the Party as the ‘vanguard of the Revolution’. The ideological ‘cadres’ were to become Joachim’s ‘contemplative’ order while the GPU-NKVD-KGB were to assume the role of the ‘active’ order.

“In Germany, where the seeds of the Joachimite tree had been planted by reformers and long watered by generations of conservative Lutherans, the Third Status was clearly envisaged in terms of the Third Reich (it should be remembered that it had been the Emperors of the ‘First’ Reich that had served as the original prototypes for Joachim’s ‘Worldly Emperor’). Under Nazism, the two orders at first coalesced into the SA, then later into the SS (neither the SD nor the Gestapo served any specifically ideological function). The most poisonous fruit of the tree came to flower after the division of the SS into the Waffen-SS and the Totenkopfverbände (‘Death’s Head’ Guards) in 1936, with the latter specifically entrusted with the engineering of the Holocaust.

The Joachimite vision continues to influence modern conceptions of the future. One of its most specific ‘translations’ is found in [Isaac] Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy…. This vision continues to colour all political and economic visions and policies that conceive of human destiny as a march towards some form of paradise, as unilinear progress or as the realisation of some ‘Manifest Destiny’… Apocalyptic thought will always be part of any re-envisioning of world culture promulgated by the alliance between the Euroamerican scientific-technological establishment and global corporations. In seeking to establish a New World Order built on global capitalism, such entities still strive to realise Joachim’s Dispositio Novi Ordinis in terms of the present…” (End of Ziolo quotes).

The above is confirmed by no less than Novus Ordo “Cardinal” Henri de Lubac, S.J.:

“Joachimism exerted a significant influence upon the thinking of people, de Lubac maintained, as far apart in their views as the once-liberal then utopian-socialist Henri de Saint-Simon, the Nazi racial theorist Alfred Rosenberg, and, above all, Karl Marx and associated Marxist theorists such as the German philosopher Ernst Bloch. Underpinning all these ideas, de Lubac held, was a type of laicized millenarianism which conveyed the sense that a new age was about to dawn as history inevitably progressed toward some type of this-worldly utopia… In his Mémoires sur l’occasion de mes écrits, de Lubac wrote:

“Under the various forms it has assumed, I consider Joachimism to be a still-present and even pressing danger. I recognize it in the process of secularization, which, betraying the Gospel, transforms the search for that Kingdom of God into social utopias. I see it at work in what was so justly called the “self-destruction of the Church” [after Vatican II]. I believe that it can only aggravate the misery and cause the abasement of our humanity.” (See complete article here). It is no surprise that according to Wikipedia and other works by Novus Ordo authors, the condemned Modernist Ernesto Buonaiuti, declared a vitandus heretic by Pope Pius XI, was one of the first researchers in the modern-day application of Joachinism. Buonaiuti was the Modernist seminary professor Angelo Roncalli befriended, and this friendship was the reason Roncalli himself was labeled by Pope Pius XI as a suspected Modernist.

So finally we know the actual origins of this Great Monarch, Holy Pope business and where it is now headed — Heaven on earth with technocracy as its god. LibTrads embracing it today have no clue that this is actually a neo-Modernistheresy they are committing themselves to, although their pseudo-clergy at the top most likely do know. Even the secular world understands this as the following quote demonstrates: “Joachim has always had a double reputation, as saint and as heretic, for cautious Christian thinkers and leaders have seen his writings as HIGHLY DANGEROUS. The debate as to whether he was orthodox or heretic continues today” (Encyclopedia Britannica). But of course there can be no such debate on the part of Catholics in view of the papal condemnations listed above. And while LibTrads may object that it is a spiritual revival they are anticipating, not a secular one, they need to heed the teaching of the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas and other Church Fathers, as will be explained below.

Conclusion

“The nature of this third age explains why Joachim’s views can be characterized by the term “radical eschatology.” All medieval thinkers were eschatological in the sense that they accepted the Christian understanding of history that looked forward to the definitive event of the return of Christ and the end of time. Joachim’s sense of the imminence of his third age does not of itself make his thought distinctive; from Gregory the Great to Norbert of Xanten, popes and saints had been convinced that all things were fulfilled and they themselves would live to see the end. But Joachim saw the terrors of the time of the Antichrist as presaging an age of completion within history and not outside it; after the persecutions of the man of iniquity, God would initiate the age of the Holy Spirit, the perfection of the divine action within history. Only after the third age would come the final tribulation and the sabbath rest of eternity.” (The Abbot and the Doctors: Scholastic Reactions to the Radical Eschatology of Joachim of Fiore, Bernard McGinn, 1971).

McGinn explains in his work that theologians post-Vatican 2 were divided on the intent of Abbot Joachim, some believing that this age meant nothing more than a restoration of the Church, retaining all its institutions and Sacraments, and yet others — de Lubac among them — who saw the abbot’s intent as a church excluding the papacy, the sacraments and the hierarchical order. Whether this was actively intended by Abbot Joachim or whether his followers were the culprits in advancing this notion is anyone’s guess. But the final results leave no room for doubt. They all too clearly point out the failure of the Novus Ordo and LibTrad sects to reject the notion of a spiritualized version of Abbot Joachim’s “New Age” (such a telling term!) and adhere to the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure and St. Augustine — relying on private prophecy whose works were condemned as heretical versus Church teaching.

If we carefully consider what St. Thomas teaches in the quotes above, several things will become clear.

— “I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all (these) things be done”: which passage Chrysostom (Hom. lxxvii) explains as referring to the generation of those that believe in Christ.” Therefore the state of those who believe in Christ will last until the consummation of the world…” Notice that here St. Thomas says nothing about the ”fact” held by LibTrads that the hierarchy, meaning the cardinals, bishops and priests headed by a canonically elected pope, must be among those who still believe in Christ. As pointed out in other blogs, 70 years is counted as a generation in the Old Testament. And in 2028, it will be 70 years since the death of Pope Pius XII.

— “There is a threefold state of mankind; the first was under the Old Law; the second is that of the New Law;THE THIRD WILL TAKE PLACE NOT IN THIS LIFE, BUT IN HEAVEN… Hence we are not to look forward to another law corresponding to the Holy Ghost.” This excludes any possibility of an “age of peace,” or of “the Holy Spirit,” as Joachim imagined. Joachim believed in two Antichrists; one before the third age and another at the end of the Third age, Gog and Magog, before the Second Coming. Holy Scripture teaches that there will be only one, “the MAN of sin, the SON of Perdition” (2 Thess. 2). The very fact that the papal seat is now vacant and that according to the laws and teachings of the Church there is no way competent electors could elect a true pope should convince those anticipating the age of peace. Truly the Great King and Angelic Pastor “revelation” was only a figment of Joachim’s overactive imagination.

— It is St. Augustine who insists in his City of God “That the thousand-year period of a “first resurrection” (Apoc. 20.4-6) cannot be taken to apply to an earthly future, as is well known. For Augustine (City of God 20.7-10), and for all medieval commentators following him until Joachim, the thousand-year kingdom of Revelation was meant to be understood figuratively as the spiritual resurrection of the elect reigning in the Church in the present.” (Antichrists and Antichrist in Joachim of Fiore, Robert E. Lerner Speculum, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jul., 1985).

— “The preaching of the Gospel may be understood as extending throughout the world and producing its full effect, so that, to wit, the Church would be founded in every nation… And in this sense, as Augustine writes to Hesychius (Epist. cxcix), the Gospel is not preached to the whole world yet, but, when it is, the consummation of the world will come.” Was not the Church “founded in every nation” before Her demise, then, if only imperfectly? So should we not then expect the consummation?

— As St. Thomas teaches in the Supplement to the Summa (73:1), “Although men be terrified by the signs appearing about the judgment day, yet before these signs begin to appear the wicked will think themselves to be in peace and security after the death of Antichrist and before the coming of Christ, seeing that the world is not at once destroyed as they thought hitherto.” And these seem to be the times in which we live. As stated in an earlier blog, it is most likely that the first to be judged at the Final Judgement will be Roncalli and Montini, whose resurrected bodes will then be cast into the lake of fire.

The final nail in Abbot Joachim’s coffin is Pope Pius XII’s decision on even mitigated millenarianism. In this decree binding on the faithful the (AAS 36, 1944, 212) Pope Pius taught:

“In recent times on several occasions the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office has been asked what must be thought of the system of mitigated millenarianism which teaches, for example, that Christ the Lord before the final judgment, whether or not preceded by the resurrection of the many just, will come visibly to rule over this world. The answer is the system of mitigated millenarianism cannot be taught safely” (Denzinger’s Sources of Catholic Dogma, DZ 2296). Notice that Pope Pius XII uses the word “for example.” This can only mean that there are several other aspects of this teaching. And the teaching referenced can only be that of Manuel Lacunza, who is identified in the official notice of the Holy Office condemnation as the author of this system (see here). So what was it that Lacunza taught?

“Upon his [Antichrist’s] death, the Church, and the whole world, shall begin to breathe again, everything reverting to a perfect calm, and a universal joy. The Bishops, who had concealed themselves in mountains, shall return and resume their sees, accompanied by their clergy and some other Christian families, who had followed them in their voluntary exile. At this time shall come to pass, the conversion of the Jews, according to the universal spirit of the converters” The source for this information adds: “’End of the age’ and ‘end of the world’ refer to two different times. He understood the ‘end of the age’ or “day of the Lord” as merely the end of a phase of human history… If the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse is to be literally understood, Jesus Christ himself with all his saints now risen, ought actually to reign in Jerusalem over the whole orb of the earth, and that for a thousand years… The dragon will once again be loosed and will return to deceive the whole world… “ (see here). And then shall come the Final Judgement.

So much for the LibTrad’s “return of the bishops,” which is among the many things Lacunza erroneously taught in his writings. Didn’t even de Lubac warn that Joachim would eliminate the need for the hierarchy? Why doesn’t Lacunza mention the pope? Because clearly he is a follower of Abbot Joachim, as the entirety of his works easily show. And as we know, Abbot Joachim’s writings were already condemned by the popes before Lacunza wrote. But most importantly, while in past blogs we have spoken of the end of the Church’s age on earth, or consummation of the age at the death of Pope Pius XII, this is not to be taken to mean there could be another or third age. All it means is that Christ is allowing a lengthy interval to elapse between Antichrist’s actual death and the destruction of his system, followed by the Final Judgment. This is in accord with St. Thomas’ own teaching on this subject, as noted above.

So on this the 24^th Sunday after Pentecost, when the Gospel of St. Matthew announces the arrival of the abomination of desolation, let us not forget that he has already arrived (although his system is still with us). Surely we must exist in that indeterminate time period following the consummation of the age of the Church described by St. Thomas, awaiting the Second Coming. Next week we will see how even a great saint ran afoul of St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching and erroneously taught that Antichrist already had been born by relying too heavily on private revelations.

« Older Entries

Can Catholics Expect a Great Monarch?

The Priory connection

Traditionalist neo-Nazis

La Salette and the Great Monarch

Yves Dupont on the Great Monarch and age of peace

Conclusion

Could the attack on Pope Leo XIII be a harbinger of an even greater evil?

+God Have Mercy on Our Nation+

Prayer Society Intention for July

A frightening scenario

French history lesson

What Pope Leo was trying to do

**From Our Greatest Treasure by Rev. John Kearney, 1942**

Indiscriminate reading

General warning against indiscriminate reading

The law of the Church and dangers to face from indiscriminate reading

Indiscriminate discussions

Faults that alienate our hearts and wills

Faith once lost is seldom regained

Conclusion

Clarification on the points about Antichrist that are certain

+St. Paul the First Hermit+

The unanimous teachings of the Fathers on Antichrist

Grades of certainty regarding Antichrist

Things that are PROBABLE

Things that are UNDECIDED

Things that have not a solid foundation

Conclusion

St. Vincent Ferrer’s teaching on what to expect in the end times

Highlights from the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer

Virtues to be practiced by faithful Catholics

Joachim of Fiore’s heresy used to target those praying at home

+24^th Sunday after Pentecost+

Recent Posts

Menu

Blog Archives by Year

Can Catholics Expect a Great Monarch?

The Priory connection

Traditionalist neo-Nazis

La Salette and the Great Monarch

Yves Dupont on the Great Monarch and age of peace

Conclusion

Could the attack on Pope Leo XIII be a harbinger of an even greater evil?

+God Have Mercy on Our Nation+

Prayer Society Intention for July

A frightening scenario

French history lesson

What Pope Leo was trying to do

From Our Greatest Treasure by Rev. John Kearney, 1942

Indiscriminate reading

General warning against indiscriminate reading

The law of the Church and dangers to face from indiscriminate reading

Indiscriminate discussions

Faults that alienate our hearts and wills

Faith once lost is seldom regained

Conclusion

Clarification on the points about Antichrist that are certain

+St. Paul the First Hermit+

The unanimous teachings of the Fathers on Antichrist

Grades of certainty regarding Antichrist

Things that are PROBABLE

Things that are UNDECIDED

Things that have not a solid foundation

Conclusion

St. Vincent Ferrer’s teaching on what to expect in the end times

Highlights from the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer

Virtues to be practiced by faithful Catholics

Joachim of Fiore’s heresy used to target those praying at home

+24th Sunday after Pentecost+

Recent Posts

Menu

Blog Archives by Year

**From Our Greatest Treasure by Rev. John Kearney, 1942**

+24^th Sunday after Pentecost+