Black Masses and the priests of Bel

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 17, 2021 | New Blog

+Sts. Nicander and Marcian+

It is a misunderstanding of the term “black mass” that has prevented Catholics from seeing the Novus Ordo (and Traditionalist operations) in their true light. Criminologist Henry Rhodes described a true black mass, attributed to the Cathars, as one in which “men said one thing and meant another…It was possible for a priest to introduce prayers and ceremonies into an orthodox rite without any of the congregation except the satanically initiated being aware that anything unusual was taking place.” Other occult authorities agree with Rhodes, noting that a mass said by a priest with a contrary or perverse intention also can be called a black mass. In his “History of Witchcraft,” Montague Summers defined a black mass as a “blasphemous mass in which the words of consecration are omitted.” While a substitution is not the same as an omission, it is still a fact that in substituting new words, the old formula is omitted. “The abomination of the black mass is performed by some apostate or renegade priest…shamefully prominent among the congregation of witches… (These) witches are as profoundly convinced of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the totality, permanence and adorableness of the Eucharistic Christ (and) sacrificing priesthood as the most orthodox Catholic. Unless this were the case, their result would be empty…” True perhaps until the abomination could be set up on once-Catholic altars, for then the need of pretense and secrecy would cease.

One of the best modern examples of this phenomena can be found in the Liberal Catholic liturgy celebrated by heretical Old Catholic priests, with a Gnostic emphasis on certain vowel sounds and the use of magnetized water in sacramental rites. Are not magnetized particles what is said to be in the COVID vaccines, and in our food supply and other consumer goods? Is this not black magic, the art of the would-be antichrist Simon Magus, at the very height of its development?! These New Age guru-priests very often have become the consecrators for Traditional priests and other candidates for the priesthood, on the pretext of conveying valid orders. In “Are Liberal Catholic Orders Valid,” (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, March 1958) Dr. Leslie Rumble, of Radio Replies fame, wrote: “A Catholic who lapses from the Church and receives orders from a schismatical bishop can be received back into the Church only on the understanding that such ordination, even if valid, will be completely disregarded.”

This statement needs to be burned into the brains of every reader, for several reasons. 1) Rumble is speaking here of ANY person lapsing from the Catholic faith, not just Liberal Catholic church members. 2) He makes it clear that by seeking orders from any schismatic bishop, (one not in communion with a canonically elected Roman Pontiff), one lapses from the Catholic faith. 3) Such orders will never be accepted by the Church, even if the one erring seeks reconciliation with Rome. They are to be completely disregarded, EVEN IF VALID! This by virtue of a Nov. 18, 1931 decree of the Holy Office, stating that such orders are null and void. And Catholics are ignoring this?! Dr. Rumble warned in his article that the Liberal Catholics were so thoroughly alarmed by this ruling they circulated a forgery of a Holy Office document which declared their orders to be valid. Rumble consulted the Holy Office in the 1950s, which confirmed no such decision had ever been handed down. At a later date, a Liberal Catholic historian wrote Rumble stating the original claim was based on a forgery, later attributed to a former Liberal Catholic priest in Belgium.

This shows the lengths the Gnostic church was prepared to go to in order to protect their future line of pretender priests who later deliberately infiltrated the Catholic clergy. No wonder that today we see public manifestations of satanic liturgies as punishment for such blindness and deceit. Rhodes identified the Cathars as masters of the art of secretly penetrating orthodox groups and subverting from within, a trait also peculiar to the Illuminati. This is the legacy handed down from Judas Iscariot and the Gnostic progenitors of these individuals, who St. Jude, in apostolic times described as “certain men, secretly entered in, denying the only sovereign Ruler and Our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Jude l:4). St. Paul gives the reason why so many are deceived: they do not love the truth. “Therefore, God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying,” (2 Thess. 2: l0). At La Salette Our Lady warned that religious houses would become cesspools of iniquity. She also warned that priests THEN (mid-1800s!) were no longer worthy to offer the Holy Sacrifice, and that Satan would be loosed to seduce mankind. And one of the oldest and most effective ways of blotting out the Mass was to offer it sacrilegiously with a contrary intention.

That such masses were still valid if reduced in fruitfulness until Pope Pius XII’s death in 1958 is explained by the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia as follows: “When, however, as De Lugo rightly points out, an excommunicated or suspended priest (not one excommunicated however for heresy whose Mass would be invalid – Ed.) celebrates in defiance of the prohibition of the Church, this ecclesiastical merit is always lost, since such a priest no longer acts in the name and with the commission of the Church. His sacrifice is nevertheless valid, since, by virtue of his priestly ordination, (and this must be unquestionably valid, which is not true regarding Traditional ordinations and consecrations — Ed.), he celebrates in the name of Christ, even though in opposition to His wishes, and, as the self-sacrifice of Christ, even such a Mass remains essentially a spotless and untarnished sacrifice before God. We are thus compelled to concur in another view of De Lugo, namely that the greatness and extent of this ecclesiastical service is dependent on the greater or less holiness of the reigning pope, the bishops, and the clergy throughout the World, and that for this reason in times of ecclesiastical decay and laxity of morals (especially at the papal court and among the episcopate) the fruits of the Mass, resulting from the sacrificial activity of the Church, might under certain circumstances easily be very small.” So these Masses dating from at least the time of La Salette had very small fruits indeed, given the faithlessness exhibited by “Catholic” cardinals in “electing John 23 and the apostate bishops presiding at the false Vatican 2 council.

In his Satanism and Witchcraft, the avowed Satanist Jules Michelet wrote: “The original framework of the Black Mass was elastic and could find room for a thousand variations of detail…Fraternity of man with man, defiance of the Christians’ heaven, worship of nature’s God under unnatural and perverted forms – such [is] the inner significance of the Black Mass.” Michelet explained that this abominable anti-sacrifice arose in medieval times as an offering to the “Proscribed of ancient days, the great creator of the earth, the Master that makes the plants germinate from the soil,” to deliver the serfs from their slavery. Michelet cited as “not improbable” that not only Luciferians but also the “Knights of the Temple” joined in the fomentation of these masses. Included in the “intention” in a Black Mass is the “redemption of Eve from the curse Christianity has laid upon her, [for] she is priest, altar and consecrated host.” The abominable “meal” celebrated at these infernal services was “a confareatio, the sharing of bread which has absorbed magic virtue.” Medieval monks taught that child killing and abortion was the entry point for the practice of Satanism by common folk, leaving the blasphemies and insults against God and actual dissemination of error to the ruling magicians. In one paragraph, then, can be linked all the errors of the Novus Ordo and the modern world with worship of the Evil One.

This bread “with magic virtue” was not something new to the medieval ages, for it was known even in Old Testament times. Surprisingly, it is in Scripture that we find the strongest condemnations of “bread idols” and the rites that produce them. In “The Divine Armory,” an extensive cross-reference of Scripture quotations compiled by Rev. Kenelm Vaughan, we find the following under the heading, “Names and Types of the False Christs: “bread idols, the bread of deceit, the bread of lying, bread of wickedness, wheat bringing forth thorns, profitless wheat, the two iniquities [bread and wine], unacceptable holocaust, a sin graven on the horns of the altar, wicked gifts,” and so forth, all with a corresponding Scripture verse. Vaughan even includes as a type of false Christ, (and an unconsecrated host believed to have been consecrated IS a false Christ) the name of Daniel’s unknown God, Maozim, one of 99 official names of Allah in Islam. Here also is listed as connected to this topic the sin of desolation and the abomination of desolation, both mentioned in Daniel. One of the most striking quotes Vaughan cites is the following, taken from Ezech. 13:19: “They violated Me among my people for a piece of bread, telling lies to My people that believe lies,” and this could apply to Protestants, Novus Ordo believers and Traditionalists alike. Preceding the section on bread idols is a lengthy treatment of the faithless Israelites led astray by the pastors “who have destroyed My vineyard” and “profaned My sanctuary upon earth,” (Jer. 12:10; Ps. 88:40).

And another purveyor of these sacrilegious events listed two other forms of the black mass. In his The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer described a certain “Mass of the Holy Spirit…” which was celebrated “with certain special rites.” It was believed by superstitious French peasants to have a great efficacy in obtaining the impossible. He also detailed the repulsive, undoubtedly Satanic “Mass of St. Secaire,” which is resorted to by those seeking revenge on others. “None but wicked priests dare perform the gruesome ceremony,” Frazer stated. The ceremony can be celebrated “only in a ruined or deserted church.” The priest says the mass backwards, consecrates a black, triangular host and commits other depraved acts to effect the death of the one named in the mass. These are the abominations that prefigured the institution of the open-ended Novus Ordo Missae.

Paul 6 (Giovanni Montini, who fulfills all the biblical prophecies regarding Antichrist) relied on the elasticity of ceremonial mentioned by Michelet. He knew that establishing the Novus Ordo mass would not cover all bases. The new ecumenical church was very well aware of the resistance movement among Catholics that championed the Tridentine and held to pre-Vatican II faith. To think that arrangements had not been made in advance for the perversion even of those celebrating the old rite would be failing to give the Devil his due. The demonic genius of the Novus Ordo Missae lies in its ability to be read in a Catholic, Protestant or even Satanic sense, all at the same time. Yet as stated above, a Black Mass can exist even when offered in Latin and appearing impeccably orthodox. This is how so many are deceived.

Because Catholics failed to exert the necessary effort to sort out truth from lies and truly study their faith to determine the manner of action to be taken, the fight for the Church was lost. And Catholics themselves were lost in the wasteland of unbelief, unaware that in order to retain membership in the Church, a Catholic must believe ALL the truths of faith, in the same sense the Church has always taught them, (DZ 1797, l800). In focusing on the exterior practice of religion only, they lost sight of the fact that there can be no guarantee of faith without the exercise of those powers Christ entrusted only to St. Peter and his successors. Because they did not understand, or were led astray by false shepherds, error triumphed.

And “Traditional priests and bishops” are no better than the Novus Ordo variety, for these priests and bishops cannot claim in anyway to be part of the line of direct apostolic ascent from the hierarchy established by Christ. This is demonstrated above in the Holy Office decision on schismatic orders. Traditionalists were established as a part of the Gnostic church before Vatican II was ever called and their object from the start was deception and enrichment through the donations of those calling themselves Catholics. The clean-up crew was already in position to scoop up Catholics protesting the Vatican II changes and re-channel them into less harmful cells that could be easily managed and continually expanded according to the needs of the infiltrators and the frame of mind among the people at any given time. In the wake of this controlled opposition, made possible by Catholics who failed to educate themselves, trailed every other evil imaginable. And those who cooperate with them in their evil in any way are as guilty as they are.

Public opinion won their toleration, and that opinion was long in forming. The Gallicanists, the German Nationalists, the Priory/K of M, the Liberal Catholics and Old Catholics, the Gnostics and the Illuminati among the world governments worked for centuries to bring about the downfall of the Church. They even remained at the scene of the crime to absorb whatever might be left of the true Church following Vatican II and neutralize any genuine Catholics displaying tendencies to restore the Church. And this was by design. Montini spent years learning at the feet of Felix Morlion, champion of religious liberty, the best way to successfully manipulate events and form public opinion. And having created those events in large part himself, he knew in advance what methods would be used.

It is the Old Testament story of the priests of Bel all over again. In Daniel’s time, Bel had all the appearances of a living god. The pagans, including King Nebuchodonosor, worshipped him unquestioningly. Daniel spoiled the game by telling the king that Bel was not a living god and he could prove it. He exposed the imposture of the priests who pretended to feed the god, and then secretly entered at night with their families (the “aristocracy”) to eat all that had been fed to him during the day, making it appear as though the god himself had consumed it. Montini fed the beast for decades, and one of those beasts, sadly, was Traditionalism. His successors in iniquity have continued in this role and have seduced many. All about the seat of the beast can be seen the telltale footprints of the faithless priests, who fleece their devotees and offer stones for bread. Novus Ordo and traditional masses alike are the food of Bel, offerings to the demons. And unless Christ’s Mystical Body refrains from eating this bread of damnation, they will meet with the fate of Bel’s priests and followers, who were cast into the den of lions intended for Daniel and were devoured.

And so we end where we began. “What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end” (Ecclesiastes I: 9-11). And here we are…

Conclusion

The fact that those participating in “masses” offered by ministers not in communion with a canonically elected pope are actually worshipping demons might have seemed a stretch until the events of these past few years. Now Satanism is out in the open and all can see the extent of Satanic influence, built in part on the false sacrifices offered to these idols by those calling themselves Catholic. Those unable to understand the enormity of such a crime have been so desensitized to any idea of the truly sacred nature of Mass and Sacraments — indeed of Our Lord and His Holy Sacrifice itself — that they are incapable of appreciating the inexpressable horror it represents. This began long ago when the shortage of priests caused many Catholics to confuse the minister of the Sacraments with their actual source — Christ Himself. The near worship of these “precious priests,” perceived to be the only ones who could actuate the graces needed to reach Heaven, is the root cause of many a Traditionalist affiliation. Do these people not know that Christ will never leave us orphans? That Our Lady is the Mediatrix of all graces? That the faithful Israelites who lived before Christ’s coming and never knew the Sacraments also made it to Heaven without them?!

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but there can be no fear hence no wisdom is ever possible when His laws have been trampled underfoot and the teachings of His Vicars ignored and perverted.  God must be placed first in the lives of those wishing to be Catholic. Unless His laws and the teachings of His Church are obeyed, whatever is worshipped on altars where men who have no mission to serve Him officiate — be they Protestant, Novus Ordo or Traditionalist — is offered to demons, however offensive that may seem. As the Prophet Elias once cried, “How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” (Kings I: 21).

The Revival of Baal Worship

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 5, 2021 | New Blog

+St. Boniface+

By the time Jesus’ Public Life began, ancient Rome had achieved an uneasy truce with the Jews, more out of necessity than concession. The Assassins, a faction of the Jewish sect known as the Zealots or Sicarii, were particularly dedicated to wreaking havoc. Many believe they were Pharisee extremists, identified by some historians as the secret avenging arm of the Essenes, determined to force political change. It is more likely, however, that the Essenic sect was put to service by faithless Pharisees to redirect the people into rabbinic, man-centered channels. The Jewish religion had become a caricature of its former self. Shot through with priestly graft and the political intrigues of the Saduccees; weakened by the various Pharisee sects determined to use them as a political vehicle and seedbed for their own hybrid Gnosis, the Chosen People were at cross-purposes with one another. Having lost much of their ancient sense of mission, they were merely ripe fruit waiting to fall. In short, their factionalization, fragmentation and doctrinal deviations were not unlike the Church’s situation today. Ruled from afar by a quasi-democratic authority already experiencing the first symptoms of sociological decline, even political conditions then were not unlike our own.

In 68 A.D., the Jewish Zealots, ever the political adversaries of Rome, turned the Temple into a fortress, engaging the Roman armies and generally creating havoc. Chaos ensued for the next two years. The Temple was stormed and set afire by Caesar’s armies and destroyed in 70 A.D. as foretold by Christ in Matt. 24:2. Following its destruction, the factionalized Pharisee-led Jews were hard-pressed to present a united front. Decimated by conversions to Christianity and Roman persecution, they sank into the shadows for a time, fed only by their antagonism to Christianity, there to reorganize. Turning inward on themselves, they held fiercely to what was left of their religious teachings and traditions, concentrating on community and family life. As was also the custom among early Christians, the Jews held religious services in their homes. Some Jewish sages tarried with the Mandean, Essene, Ebionite, Docetic and Gnostic sects, imbuing these heresies with Jewish, latter-days teachings on the end of the world and the coming of a second (warrior) Messiah-King. Also attenuated, it seems was Christian doctrine concerning the Trinity. Before the birth of Christ, the Jews had conceived a rudimentary idea of the Trinity already, as their ancient manuscripts reveal. Because they vehemently denied that Christ was the true Messiah, they could scarcely accept Him as part of their pre-conceived Trinity. Systematically, Pharisee scholars began to reconstruct this teaching, drawing heavily from the most ancient of their oral traditions and pagan myths theorizing how the Godhead manifested itself. These sources were summarized in the pagan (falsified) version of the Kabbala, a detestable book that was nothing less than the history and practice of Baal worship.

The sun gods occupied a place of honor in the ceremonies of the Egyptian mystery religions that fueled Gnosticism because the sun’s warmth and light was so necessary to crop growth. The feverish multiplication of Gnostic sects and Rome’s attempts to gain allegiance by introducing polytheism, (which allowed any and all pagan gods to be worshipped without injuring loyalty to the emperors and Jupiter) all succeeded in synthesizing (combining and intertwining) pagan worship. Osiris, Ammon-Ra, Baal, Dionysius, Jupiter, Mithra — all became connected in some way with fertility rites and crop rituals. They also were carried into and mingled with the cults of Northern Europe. Jupiter or Jove is described in St. Augustine’s “City of God” as “king of all gods and goddesses.” Reverencing the god’s “sacred oak,” a symbol of strength in warfare, was an important part of Jupiter worship. The Greeks worshipped Jupiter Ammon as the ram- headed sun god in Aries, (April). In a Cretan legend, Dionysius or Bacchus, the god of wine, was said to be Jupiter’s son, mutilated by his enemies. In another legend, New Age author Immanuel Velikovsky portrayed the goddess Venus as a separate planet issuing from the “head” of Jupiter, and tied Jupiter to the sun god Horus, Babylonia’s Ishtar and the “owner of all” god Baal, mentioned in previous chapters.

The Romans designated Jupiter god of the wine crop, Frazer said. Jupiter Capitoline was worshiped as the god of thunder, lightning and rain, while Baal is styled as the “storm god.” Thus the Druidic rituals with their sacred oaks, Thor, god of thunder and other similar deities, all emanate from the same source. John B. Noss in “Man’s Religion,” stated that one of the earliest forms of idol worship involved tribute paid by the Canaanites to their Baal farm gods, indicating these gods owned or possessed the soil they planted. Worship of these Baal was carried out on hillocks, high places or in strongholds where fertility symbols were usually deposited. (The kissing of the soil on arrival in a new locale or custom of tossing the soil of newly acquired ground in the air or over one’s shoulder is reminiscent of this pagan belief.) The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) identified Baal as “genius lord of the elements,” and in Osee 2:6 it is Baal who “gives bread, water, wool, flax and drink.” In his “Idol Worship of the World,” Dobbins identified this god as “Baal of the Covenant.” Josephus Flavius related that the Essenes were known as “Sons of the Covenant,” and also worshipped the sun.

As previously noted, Frank Dobbins, in his “Idol Worship of the World,” writes: “Baal’s temple was a fortress” where the money left him by devotees was kept hidden in order to be worshipped alongside the god, demonstrating that power and money were as closely connected in those days as in our own. (This is reminiscent of the Vatican banking scandals and the rumored wealth of both the Templar and Hospitaller sects, also the Masonic commitment to advance sect members financially through occult contacts in business and finance.) The Israelites worshipped Baal up to the time of Samuel, desisted for a time, then resumed their idolatry, as stated earlier. Elias slew the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. Today that mighty prophet would find Baal’s priests and devotees more numerous than ever before.

And Baal worship is intricately connected with the coming of Antichrist, also referred to by St. Jerome, St. Bernard Clairvaux, Pope Paul IV and other commentators as the abomination of desolation. Francis Gigot says regarding the abomination, under this heading in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “The most recent interpretation which has been suggested of these Hebrew words is to the following effect: The phrase shíqqûç shômem stands for the original expression bá` ál shámáyîm (Baal of heaven), a title found in Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions, and the semitic equivalent of the Greek Zeus, Jupiter, but modified in Daniel through Jewish aversion for the name of a Pagan deity. While thus disagreeing as to the precise sense of the Hebrew phrase usually rendered by ‘the abomination of desolation,’ Christian scholars are practically at one with regard to its general meaning. They commonly admit, and indeed rightly, that the Hebrew expression must needs be understood of some idolatrous emblem, the setting up of which would entail the ultimate desolation of the Temple of Jerusalem (I Mach. i, 57; iv, 38). And with this general meaning in view, they proceed to determine the historical event between Our Lord’s prediction and the ruin of the Temple (A. D. 70), which should be regarded as “the abomination of desolation” spoken of in St. Matthew, xxiv, 15, and St. Mark, xiii, 14.” This however, does not address our own times, although it is plain to see that a connection exists.

Paul Winkler, in his “The Thousand-Year Conspiracy” related that the celebration of communal meals replaced human sacrifice as an offering to the gods to obtain good weather and bountiful crops. Frazer’s description of the green-faced Osiris, crowned with laurels, brings to mind the Jolly Green Giant of TV and grocery-shelf fame. A television movie, “Children of the Corn,” portrayed the revived custom of sacrificing human victims to the corn god. Winkler explained that the wheat or corn and wine in the communal meal replaced the flesh and blood in these sacrifices. Patai ranked Moloch as synonymous with Baal and Holy Scripture tells us it was to the god Moloch that the pagans sacrificed their children. Winkler reported that this worship of agriculture carried with it it’s own moral system, based on a code of peaceful co-existence as opposed to the divide and conquer mentality. From this “share the earth’s goods” philosophy, which Winkler referred to as “ground life” came the primitive idea of communism, passed down through the Egyptian mystery cults to the Pythagoreans, then to Plato and his students, who carried it, in turn, into Essenism.

In his “Tracing Our Ancestors,” a work said to be favored by one-time Pilgrim Society propagandist William Allen White, Frederic Haberman stated that the planting, sowing, reaping and preserving cycle of agriculture applied also to the regenerative cycle of man. Proof of this is easily found in Masonic ritual and manuals. It is applied not only to the children man creates, but also to his handiwork and thought processes. The Catholic Encyclopedia attributed this to the identification of Baal as the “male fertility principle.” That secular humanism was involved in this worship is verified by the Encyclopedia author, who wrote that pagan homage to Baal could be given by devotees kissing their own hands. This practice could have reference to the signing of Antichrist’s servants on their hands or foreheads, and “foreheads” could indicate the practice of Masonic baptism described by Madison Peters in his “The Masons as Makers of America.” It also could apply to Novus Ordo baptism.

To ensure the adequate sustenance of man needed to guarantee his fertility and productivity, this communal meal celebrating crop worship became “a literal enactment of the cycle of the passion of the solar deity,” Haberman wrote. It also is repeated in Rosicrucian rituals of initiation. This in gross imitation and direct opposition to the Church’s own liturgical cycle. What is offered for consecration in the NO, then, is not validly consecrated and can become an offering to the sun god. When the Novus Ordo liturgy was established on Holy Thursday, 1969, Montini, so appreciative of man’s vast “creative” abilities left the bulk of this bastard liturgy open to interpretation, substitutions, adaptation and combinations according to the desires of the people and the celebrant. Only the new offertory was fixed in stone in this ghastly service so devoid of any reference to the renewal of Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary. This service was diametrically opposed — reversed, in Satanic fashion — as compared to the Tridentine Mass, where every word, every motion was prescribed by Tradition.

Lest some spurn the identification of Novus Ordo rites with Baal worship, the following account taken from Tito Casini’s The Last Mass of Paul VI might be of interest. According to reports published by a Catholic news service in Belgium in 1970, a theological congress was held that year in the Belgian capital to reformulate the Creed. The congress was attended primarily by youths and the designated church was “transformed for the occasion into a hippie temple,” according to the news service. The attending youths indulged in suggestive dancing, smoking, drinking and so forth, which puts one in mind of Rev. Haydock’s commentary on the Douay-Rheims passage describing the contest between the prophet Elias and the priests of Baal, (3 Kings Ch. 18:26). Haydock noted: “The prophets of Baal acted in a foolish manner…The pagans were accustomed to dance around their altars.” Casini then described what would seem to any true Catholic to be a horrifying outrage to God. At the heighth of the event, “from behind the altar there rose up an enormous phallus in transparent plastic.” Casini comments that although one Church prelate actually protested this monstrosity, no interdict of the church or excommunications were forthcoming.

This perfidious liturgy capable of the very abuses observed above is nothing more, nothing less than the institution of a new “sacrifice” honoring a false god, in actuality a demon; a sacrifice observed on an altar set in front of the main altar once reserved exclusively to consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ. While the entire Novus Ordo liturgy can be termed only as abominable, ironically it is the new offertory that reveals the true orientation of this service. As one Catholic author has noted, Adam and Eve were the first humans to participate in the consumption of forbidden fruits while yet in the Garden. Their son Cain offered second-hand “fruits of the earth,” and slew his brother Abel for offering a pure sacrifice pleasing to God, the only acceptable sacrifice capable of satisfying for the sins of men. Cain’s defective offering, today, is the only offering made in Novus Ordo “masses.” This offertory was foretold by Moses in Deut. 31:29-30, where the prophet proclaims: “For I know that after my death you shall do wickedly and will quickly turn aside from the way that I have commanded you: and evils shall come upon you in the latter times, when you shall do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him by the work of your hands.”

It is no surprise, then, that this offertory never varied. Out of all the other variables, from service to service, it is worded as it is in the Novus Ordo Missae: “Blessed are you, Lord God of the Universe, because from your bounty we have bread, which we offer you, fruit of the earth, the work of human hands. It will become for us the bread of life.” This same formula is repeated for the wine: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.” This “God of the Universe,” according to the 18th dogma of the Kabbala, is the Devil! While this phrase could conceivably suggest a Catholic interpretation, the very fact that it is capable of being interpreted in this other manner renders it not only ambiguous (DZ 1177) but also highly suspect. Interesting that the offering of the wine mentions man’s divinity, especially since one of the symbols used by one Masonic sect is the grapevine. If the Body and Blood of Christ is not worshipped on Novus Ordo altars, something or someone must take His place.

Montini first introduced his cult’s sacrificial parody in the very month the pagan god Jupiter is worshipped as Jupiter Ammon, sun god — in April, when the sun is in Aries. Thus does the mighty sun god offer his son Dionysius, crop god, to mortals to immolate once again. His pandering to the U.N. self-appointed “guardians of peace” worldwide smacks of Priory (Masonic) lingo and peaceful coexistence, a precept he preached almost exclusively during his 1965 speech to the U.N. “Whoever loves peace loves mankind, without distinction of race or of color. You must serve the cause of peace.” It was this speech and other comments from Montini that inspired the peace-not-war protests, and contributed to the popularity of the upside-down crosses worn by the peaceniks. The symbolism behind this generational talisman will not escape those who remember the nature of St. Peter’s martyrdom. Whether conscious of the fact or not, those wearing this symbol were proclaiming the downfall of the papacy – indirectly supporting Masonry — while endorsing the moral and spiritual decline that accompanied it. Since Montini could not possibly claim to promote the moral system taught by Christ’s Church, another system was necessary to inculcate amorality.

In direct contradiction to Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, Montini gave his blessing to this “ground life.” Pope Leo had written: “God has granted the earth to mankind in general…the limits of private possession have been left to be fixed by man’s own industry and the laws of individual peoples…The main tenet of socialism, the community of goods, must be utterly rejected…Our first and most fundamental principle must be that of the inviolability of private property.” Montini heretically asserted, in accord with his true (Communist/socialist) beliefs, “God has destined the earth and all it contains for the use of all men and all peoples, so that the goods of creation must flow in just proportion into the hands of everybody, according to the rule of justice. All rights of whatever kind, including those of private property and of free trade, must be subordinated to it,” (Popularum Progresso). If it sounds like what’s being promoted today, the source is the same.

Those who believe in the True Presence and consider themselves Catholics are thus cruelly tricked into worshipping the very idol of Jupiter under the guise of bread, as well as the present Jupiter now ruling Rome, (whose name is included in the “canon” of the Novus Ordo liturgy). It is the same idol Antiochus set up in the Temple, the abomination of desolation, and those who claim this does not fulfill Scriptural prophecy will not see. If those who read could only understand, the plain words of the Novus Ordo offertory would be seen for what they really are: Satanic ritual. For as St. Paul teaches, all the gods of the pagans are demons. “But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils” (I Cor. 10: 20). Having worshipped at the Devil’s altar for decades, is it any wonder Satan is openly reigning today?

The triumph of black paganism

by T. Stanfill Benns | May 23, 2021 | New Blog

Introduction

Holy Scripture tells us there is nothing new under the sun, and Catholics would do well to ponder the wisdom of this passage:

“What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end” (Ecclesiastes I: 9-11).

This is a stunning condemnation of “Progressivism” and a pointed reminder to us in these times that regardless of all the knowledge we think we have accumulated, we have not perceived the instruments of our own destruction being wielded against us, nor have we formulated any clear idea of the origin of such instruments or a truly workable plan to escape these evils that have plagued mankind from the beginning. That the very same blueprint for the seduction of God’s people goes back to the beginning of time would be an idea scoffed at even by those considering themselves spiritually minded and yet given the above, and the many warnings of Our Lord, His Vicars, the Saints and holy people, it cannot be denied. Of course all know that the devil roams the earth, seeking whom he may devour, but exactly what agents and means he employs and the cloaks these agents and their minions garb themselves in is largely unknown and unappreciated. What is even more frightening is that the destruction continues before our eyes and we cannot quite comprehend its source in order to marshal our defenses against it.

Ever since Lucifer fell from his place of honor in heaven, the demons at work among us have been busy trying to regain what their master lost. It is their sole mission on earth. What they cannot successfully destroy they set out to imitate in such a cunning way that the majority of men will be deceived and will take their diabolical fabrication for the genuine article. Their greatest asset in accomplishing this work is the lack of piety and ignorance of those they prey upon, making them unable to successfully connect the dots in order to detect their deceits. What follows below is an attempt to at least give a bare outline of their plan and to alert the faithful to Satan’s many triumphs in the 20^th century and today. This content first appeared in the book Imposter Popes and Idol Altars © 2004; revised 2007 by T. Stanfill-Benns; some text has been added to the original. This series will be presented in three parts for the next several weeks. It seems to be a necessary follow-up to the discussion regarding Antichrist, since many are not convinced that Paul 6 fulfilled that scriptural role. That is because so many fail to fully absorb the extent of the evil he perpetrated and its true source, explained below.

False Gods Spell Destruction

Ba-al proper was the storm god of heaven; his father’s name was El, or Al, the Phoenician nature god. Man’s Religion, by John B. Noss, defined El as a “superhuman being or divinity” used to address “major and minor divinities alike. It also was applied to demons,” or fallen angels. The Mason Pike falsely claimed that the el-al endings were used in the names of the archangels to commemorate the Al god, (the Gnostics name seven archangels, but the Church officially recognizes only Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.) In Muslim belief, Al refers to the three daughters of Allah — Al-Lat, Al-Manah and Al-Uzzah. The Catholic Bible Dictionary, by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, ranked Baal as “identical to the sun” and synonymous with Bel. Other works identify the god with the symbol of a bull, and connect him to Bel, Belial, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Amun, Baal-Tsaphun, Baal-Peor, Moloch, the Persian Mithra and other gods. In Greek and Roman mythology, numerous gods can be linked to “parent” gods, primarily Baal, who also can be linked to Jupiter. In Scripture this is demonstrated by the use of the plural ‘baalim,’ referring to the multitude of gods Baal can represent.

In Canaan, where the cult first gained popularity, baals were farm gods unique to each region; the pagans believed these idols lent fertility to the land, their animals and themselves. The Bible confirms this, describing the unfaithful Israelites’ false belief that Baal, not the true God, gave them their “bread, water, wool, flax and drink,” (Osee 2:5). They worshipped these gods on hills, in groves of trees and ideally near bodies of water. In his Idol Worship of the World, Frank S. Dobbins explained that temples to Baal were referred to as high places, strongholds, “fortresses,” where the money left by the god’s devotees was worshipped along with the god. This can be referred to the prophet Daniel’s description of the priests of Bel and their coffers. Baal worship has the dubious distinction of being the first crude form of secular humanism — its devotees were said to kiss their own hands to worship their god, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. This same article stated that anything and anyone could be worshipped as a Baal. In Semitic etymology the word Baal means “to possess sexually,” giving some idea of the depravity involved in the god’s cult. Scripture relates the self-abuse, self-mutilation and homosexuality that accompanied Moloch and Baal worship, reminding the Israelites of the punishments associated with these crimes.

Rev. Martin Scott, S.J., in his Credentials of Christianity related that the pagans in Christ’s time evidenced secular humanism in the worship of their idols, dating this heresy to pre-Christian times. “Paganism flattered man and gratified the passions,” Scott wrote. “Generations of self-indulgence, living only for self, for pleasure, for every gratification within reach had made man a god unto himself.” Scott credited the degradation occasioned by idolatry as the source of pagan cruelty to women and children, noting that children were “offered as victims to Baal…and many other idols like the frightful idol Moloch, who had a man’s body and a bull’s head.” Both Plato and Aristotle advocated laws to compel women past their prime to practice birth control in order to prevent the birth of defective children. Today the depravity of those times is considered an inalienable right!

The first reference to the actual worship of Baal is made in Leviticus 18:21, where he is referred to as Moloch, one of his many names: for as we shall see, they are legion. The first reference to Baal by name is found in Judges 3:7, where the Israelites are described as engaging in forbidden marriages with pagans and worshipping their gods, “Baalim and Ashteroth.” (Ashtereth, Asherah, Ashtorah, Ishtar, Astarte all refer to the goddess-mother of Baal, often symbolized by a tree trunk.) Another reference to Baal is found in 3 Kings 14:24, where King Solomon is chastised for offering worship to Moloch and Astarte, often identified with Anath, Baal’s wife. This infidelity God the Father attributes to Solomon’s intermarriage with pagan wives, who demanded their gods be worshipped after the same fashion as the true God was worshipped in Solomon’s Temple. Solomon’s sins, so grievous in the eyes of God, hastened his death. His son, Rehoboam, installed an Asherah in the Jerusalem Temple, despite the warnings given to his father. Later King Ahab and his infamous wife Jezebel established Baal and the tree-trunk symbol of Asherah in a temple in Samaria. For this sacrilege Elias the prophet confronted the king, inviting Baal’s priests to the contest on Mt. Carmel. Elias condemned and confounded the Baal priests, (3 Kings 18:30-40), ordering their death. In restoring the purity of worship in his day, King Josias destroyed all these same idols in Jerusalem, but their worship was later reintroduced after his death. Dobbins stated that idolatry continued in Israel until the time of Samuel.

Eager to win the souls of those Israelites not subjected to idol worship, the Devil first removed them from their own land to other nations. He then preyed upon their carnal appetites to make the daughters of their Gentile captors more appealing as wives than the limited choices available among those of their own faith. With wives who did not accept or understand the ways of Israel, the faith then became easy enough to water down. During the Babylonian Captivity, the Jews feasted on the democratic doctrines of Hellenism and reveled in the pleasure principal. Shortly thereafter, the sacrifice ceased during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. This Jewish version of the Antichrist was opposed by one family, that of Judas Machabeus. The descendants of this family waged many battles against Antiochus, eventually defeating him. But one battle was lost because certain soldiers had concealed miniature Baals beneath their cloaks. The cult of the stones was yet alive.

Rev. Bernard Kelly, in his work God, Man and Satan, acknowledged the relationship between Jewish mixed marriages and idolatry prior to Israel’s downfall. “The temptation to idolatry (and) impurity…were often linked by Satan in view of their common purpose, for he found in impure love a powerful incentive to the abandoning of the austere religion of the true God.” Before the death of the saintly little Fatima seer, Jacinta Marto, Our Lady revealed to her that more souls go to hell for sins of impurity than any other sin. Mixed marriage, licentiousness and the hatred of women promoted in advertising, pornography, birth control — all spelled the Church’s doom long before the fateful 1960s. Always Satan has known that the seduction of women guarantees the ruin of mankind. This may be why he approached Eve, not Adam. Paraphrasing Ven. Mary of Agreda, Kelly remarked: “The Old Testament is the story of Satan’s attempt to pervert the Chosen People that the woman and her seed would never come into existence.” Satan lives in daily fear of the Genesis promise that the Woman will crush his head. Forever inspired to a hatred of all women by this fear, he projects his hatred on those who might also bring forth Christ mystically — devout women raising God-fearing children. His plan, however, did not succeed with the Chosen People who accepted Christianity, and it will not succeed now. But Baal and Ashtorah are yet with us in ways we cannot fully comprehend.

The “evil and adulterous generation” we are forced to view each day was systematically paganized and perverted by Kabbalistic, Masonic propaganda for decades. We agonize over the death of innocence, not realizing that our philosophy and thinking, our community and family life are but reflections of an anti-God system still celebrating the rites of Moloch. As a goddess, Ashtorah may be relatively unknown. But in principal, she rules from more hearths today than at any time in the past. In reality, we as a society have been impenetrated by pagan beliefs to such an extent that we are blind to our own seduction, thanks to the film and music industry, television and the secular media. Our ignorance of the serpent’s perverse ways fulfills the words of Scripture, “For the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,” (Luke 16:8). The Devil has succeeded in destroying belief in the Holy Trinity while establishing acceptance of an accursed false “quatrinity” fashioned after his own evil likeness, just as Wisdom prophesied. The Fathers taught that this denial of the Trinity would be the primary predicator of Antichrist’s reign. What has never, to our knowledge, been addressed before are the terrible blasphemies that would likewise be leveled against the Most Holy Mother of God, destined to crush the serpent’s head. St. John Eudes has revealed that because Our Lady’s own heartbeat for Her Son’s in the womb, the Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary constitute ONE Heart. How, then, can this cruel denial of the Trinity not affect Our Blessed Lord and His holy Mother profoundly?

To finalize their triumph, the neo-pagans must not only pervert and defile womanhood — they must destroy the model on which it was created. Our Lady’s demotion to one of the many “mother goddesses” must be revived and appreciated anew, that today’s moderns may be worshipped as their own gods and goddesses without feeling the slightest discomfort. A new paganism more virulent, even, than that known in Roman times plagues us today, and we must learn to identify the resurgence of this ancient heresy in our own environment. It is the “current of black paganism,” which Pope Pius XII defined as hedonism, immodesty, individualism and rationalism. Another author, Msgr. L. Cristiani, pointed out that this “black” paganism is really quite different than the type of paganism practiced by those living before the time of Christ. Then at least, pagans recognized powers superior to themselves and assumed an inferior position to these powers, preparing the way for acceptance of Christianity after a fashion. Although all idol worship is defined by St. Paul as the worship of demons, an opinion unanimously held by the early Fathers, Cristiani makes the distinction between those who worship Satan unknowingly, such as the early pagans, and those who worship themselves as possessing magical powers attributed to Satan. And making such fine distinctions and identifying these themes and patterns is crucial to understanding the neo-paganism that reigns triumphant in society today.

In his June 26 radio address to the people of Minneapolis, Minn. Pope Pius XII wrote: “Early explorers record in their relations their utter amazement at the mighty current that sweeps down the Mississippi River.  There is a stronger current of black paganism sweeping over peoples today, carrying along in its onward rush newspapers, magazines, moving pictures, breaking the barriers of self-respect and decency, undermining the foundations of Christian culture and education.” No less than the New York Times ran this headline on the front page that day, covering the Pope’s speech: “Pope Pius warns ‘black paganism’ is world menace; its flood engulfs newspapers, magazines, films, he tells eucharistic congress Christianity endangered [and] calls for self-sacrifice to combat evil.”

Earlier in Divini Redemptoris, 1937, Pope Pius XI taught: “At the same time the State must allow the Church full liberty to fulfill her divine and spiritual mission, and this in itself will be an effectual contribution to the rescue of nations from the dread torment of the present hour. Everywhere today there is an anxious appeal to moral and spiritual forces; and rightly so, for the evil we must combat is at its origin primarily an evil of the spiritual order. From this polluted source the monstrous emanations of the communistic system flow with satanic logic. Now, the Catholic Church is undoubtedly preeminent among the moral and religious forces of today. Therefore the very good of humanity demands that her work be allowed to proceed unhindered.

“Those who act otherwise, and at the same time fondly pretend to attain their objective with purely political or economic means, are in the grip of a dangerous error. When religion is banished from the school, from education and from public life, when the representatives of Christianity and its sacred rites are held up to ridicule, are we not really fostering the materialism which is the fertile soil of Communism.? Neither force, however well-organized it be, nor earthly ideals however lofty or noble, can control a movement whose roots lie in the excessive esteem for the goods of this world. With eyes lifted on high, our Faith sees the new heavens and the new earth described by Our first Predecessor, St. Peter. While the promises of the false prophets of this earth melt away in blood and tears, the great apocalyptic prophecy of the Redeemer shines forth in heavenly splendor: ‘Behold, I make all things new.‘ Venerable Brethren, nothing remains but to raise Our paternal hands to call down upon you, upon your clergy and people, upon the whole Catholic family, the Apostolic Benediction.”

God alone, not man, can truly make all things new. Next, we will examine how Baal worship was established in the very heart of what many believed to be the Catholic Church.

The Sad Consequences of Ignoring Papal Teaching

by T. Stanfill Benns | May 12, 2021 | New Blog

+St. Robert Bellarmine+

This post will examine why the commentaries on Antichrist in Daniel and the Apocalypse are not always as helpful as they could or should be. Most of the theologians who commented on the Apocalypse were forced to address issues owing to the Protestant heresy that the Popes individually and the papacy as a whole constitutes Antichrist and his system. Among the commentators most devoted to this fight, the refutation of the papal antichrist heresy bled over into practically all of their commentary, sometimes to the extent that it prevented them from considering many things that might have helped us today.

This is especially true in the case of St. Robert Bellarmine, who of course lived during the heighth of the Reformation and was most involved in combatting those heresies. Bellarmine could not have known what we know today or have learned over the course of the past nearly 500 years how the Church’s teaching on various subjects would develop. While Protestants eventually gave up the papal Antichrist theory for a time, it has resurfaced with renewed vigor over the past several decades since the usurpers in Rome have become increasingly more liberal. This is especially true given the sex scandals that have rocked the Novus Ordo church. Although statistics show Protestant churches are just as plagued by these scandals as the Novus Ordo; they simply are more successful in keeping it quiet, since these incidents happen in numerous Protestant sects and are not attributed to Protestantism as a whole.

What is perplexing to us today is why Bellarmine did not make use of Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio to quell the papal antichrist heresy, since this bull seems to have been especially written to refute it. True, he was only a teenager when the bull was written, but in his later career it seems that given his work on heresy, he might have had occasion to refer to it. If such a reference exists in his works, it is not known to us. But a consideration of the possible consequences of using this argument might explain why it was never put forth. To begin with, Paul IV, who was an avid reformer, was not a popular pope. As a cardinal he had advised Pope Paul III to call the Roman Inquisition and when it convened he was placed in charge of it. As a pope he set out to reform clerical and religious life and even the Roman Curia, something not appreciated by the cardinals, who he considered untrustworthy (Philip Hughes, A Popular History of the Catholic Church, p. 176). Hughes relates that he managed to reform clerical life in Rome to such an extent that even into the 20^th century “Rome bears…something of the appearance of a monastery… [after] worldliness had dulled the achievement even of good popes.” Pope Paul IV “broke and broke forever… all the long tradition in which worldliness in the highly placed cleric was taken as rather in the nature of things” (Ibid., p. 173).

When Paul IV died, a Roman mob tore down the statute they had erected to him earlier and rioted for 12 days. But as Hughes notes, despite his rigidity and austerity — also his failings in not ridding himself soon enough of his nephews who damaged relations with the Papal States Paul IV had entrusted to them — his accomplishments in banishing worldliness stood. His campaign against heresy was no less ruthless as Cum ex… reveals. And it was one of his own cardinals, accused of promoting himself as a future pope and of sympathizing with Lutheran heretics, that prompted him to write Cum ex… But given the inroads already made by Luther and the other Reformers, it came too late. According to the bull, it was issued specifically to correct a false interpretation of Holy Scripture, which the papal antichrist heresy certainly was. It reads:

“The Apostle’s office entrusted, to Us by God, though beyond any merit of Ours, lays upon Us the general care of theLord’s flock. Hence We are bound, to watch over the flock assiduously, as a vigilant shepherd, with faithful protection and wholesome guidance. 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… And lest it befall Us to see in the holy place the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, We wish, as much as possible with God’s help, in line with our pastoral duty, to trap the foxes that are busily ravaging the Lord’s vineyard and to drivethe wolves from the sheepfolds.”

What better corrupts the sense of Holy Scripture than the heresy of Luther and other Protestant sects who pretend the popes are Antichrist? That was the prevailing heresy that consumed the commentators of that time and centuries afterward, even into the 1800s. And how could one more effectively explain the nuances of this outrageous claim than by simply pointing out the truth of how it could APPEAR to occur, and how it might be in danger of appearing to occur, if Paul IV’s bull was not issued? The Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article on Antichrist, makes the same distinction made by Pope Paul IV in the following:

“The defenders of the Papal-Antichrist theory have made several signal blunders in their arguments; they cite St. Bernard as identifying the Beast of the Apocalypse with the Pope, though St. Bernard speaks in the passage of the Antipope; they appeal to the Abbot Joachim as believing that Antichrist will be elevated to the Apostolic See, while the Abbot really believes that Antichrist will overthrow the Pope and usurp his See; finally, they appeal to Pope Gregory the Great as asserting that whoever claims to be Universal Bishop is Antichrist, whereas the great Doctor really speaks of the Forerunner of Antichrist who was, in the language of his day, nothing but a token of an impending great evil.”

In several councils the Church herself has called antipopes antichrists just as St. Bernard called the antipope Anacletus antichrist, so this is nothing new. Joachim of Fiore had the right idea because this is exactly what Pope Paul IV explained in defining a usurper pope as the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place. As for the universal bishop quote, that could be compared to the schismatic Coptic and Russian Orthodox sects who indeed have set their own popes and patriarchs up against the true popes as “universal bishops.” In any case, these are the answers to the “blunders” in the papal antichrist theory and it was Pope Paul IV who explained that the only way such a person could appear to be pope and actually teach heresy (when Protestants were saying a duly elected pope was guilty of teaching error ex cathedra) is if he were actually a heretic pre-election. But there seems to be little appreciation for what Pope Paul IV actually did.

Not only did he explain how a heretic could insinuate himself into the papacy, but he also outlined in great detail how such a person would be invalid from the start, would have no power whatsoever, would be incapable of effecting any valid or licit acts of any kind, spiritual or temporal, and need only be gotten rid of even if this required the aid of the temporal power. Such an abomination could ascend but could NEVER be a valid pope. Therefore no one could ever say that such a one was ever a true pope in any way, meaning no canonically elected pope could ever become Antichrist. Only if an invalidly elected individual succeeded in being accepted as legitimate and no attempt was made to cast him out could it only APPEAR that one teaching error from that seat was a true pope. The very dissemination of such error, Pope Paul IV teaches, either before or after any pretended assumption of office results in “ipso facto[excommunication]… Without need for any further declaration, [they shall] be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office and power.”

What might have happened if St. Bellarmine had invoked Cum ex… and had actually used it as a weapon to disprove the papal antichrist heresy? First it would have provided the Protestants with a new axe to wield for they would first claim Paul IV to be no authority in the matter and secondly, they would claim that he had admitted that what they were proposing could actually happen. The distinctions made above in the Catholic Encyclopedia article would be easily swept away, although we wish these distinctions had been addressed by St. Bellarmine in his works on Antichrist for our edification. But had he pushed the point that only a heretic invalidly elected and appearing to be pope could qualify as Antichrist then another argument would have erupted, since the papal election laws were issued by the popes themselves and the Protestants do not and will not recognize him. It was a no-win situation and trying to prove it would only have complicated matters.

It is possible that the early Christians knew quite well that Antichrist would be a false pope, and this can be surmised from 2 Thess. 2: 5-8. After reminding his flock that a revolt would come first before the Man of Sin was revealed, St. Paul added: “Remember you not that when I was with you, I told you these things? And now you know what withholdeth that he may be revealed in his time. For the Mystery of Iniquity already worketh; only now that he who now holdeth do hold until he be taken out of the way. And then the wicked one shall be revealed…” Henry Cardinal Manning interprets this what withholdeth as the papacy and the who withholdeth as the pope, and other commentators have considered it a possibility. It may be that what St. Paul refers to was an oral Tradition not written down because of the possibility of scandal to the weak and to catechumens. By the Mystery of Iniquity he may have been referring to Simon Magus who already had attempted to purchase the papacy and to the Gnostics and Judaizers who then threatened the early Church. Protestants may have somehow divined that he who withholdeth was the papacy and deliberately distorted it to suit their own purposes. Pope Paul IV tried to set the record straight but by that time the heresies of the Reformation were too far advanced to allow a correction by theologians, even doctors like St. Bellarmine.

Although the prophetic nature of the bull was not appreciated nor remembered, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio became the basis for nearly all the laws written into the 1917 Code of Canon Law on heresy. As such it retained its status as a law under the new code (see the Archives section of the site for these articles). Try as they might to pretend it was abrogated by the Code and no longer is applicable to us today, those eager to dismiss its significance for us in these times have failed to produce one scintilla of evidence that Cum ex… is not an infallible bull that continues to bind us all. In his The Question Box, Rev. Bertrand Conway differentiates as follows between a disciplinary decree and an infallible one. “A disciplinary decree prescribes what one must DO, and not what one must BELIEVE…” Conway notes that in infallible decrees, there is clearly “an intention to propose a doctrine to be held by the universal Church,” adding from another source that the pope must “speak in person” for a definition to be considered infallible. Clearly Pope Paul IV speaks in person in his bull, and there can be no doubt that he is speaking infallibly, given the quote from Cum ex… below:

“Upon advice and consent concerning such as these, through this Our Constitution, which is to remainforever effective, in hatred of such a crime the greatest and deadliest that can exist in God’s Church, Wesanction, establish, decree and DEFINE, THROUGH THE FULLNESS OF OUR APOSTOLIC POWER [that those] who in the past have, as mentioned above, strayed or fallen into heresy or have been apprehended, have confessed or been convicted of incurring, inciting or committing schism …or who, in the future, shall stray or fall into heresy or shall incur, incite or commit schism or shall be apprehended, confess or be convicted of straying or falling into heresy or of incurring, inciting or committing schism, …[are] also automatically and without any recourse to law or action, completely and entirely, forever deprived of, and furthermore disqualified from and incapacitated, for their rank …” Clearly Pope Paul IV is teaching what one must believe in such matters in a solemn bull issued in his own name. This appears in paragraph three of the bull, having been preceded by the statement in paragraph one regarding Pope Paul IV’s definition of the abomination of desolation in Holy Scripture as capable of penetrating the “Holy Place.” This he later defines as meaning even the Holy See, by stating that the Roman Pontiff also could become a heretic pre-election. So by not believing that two men who clearly intended to create an entirely new church were incapacitated for office and therefore could never be what they appeared to be, the hierarchy and educated laity disobeyed an infallible papal bull and failed to provide the Church with a true pontiff.  It is as simple as that.

We have been over this same ground many times before, but not necessarily in relation to the coming of Antichrist. Although it is assumed above that Cum ex… was not a disciplinary decree, even had it been entirely disciplinary, to deny that it binds Catholics would be heretical, according to Pope Pius IX. The argument against Cum ex… revived in the 1800s when one bishop proclaimed in a celebrated work, refuting the contentions of the Old Catholics, that disciplinary decrees are not infallible, (Bishop Fessler against the Old Catholic Dr. Schulte). The case against the bull hinged on the Old Catholic claim that the anathemas issued by Paul IV against heads of state were an attempt to assert power over civil officials and excommunicate them.  Of course in the 1500s, the majority of the monarchies in the world were Catholic so this is something the Church could legitimately claim to do, Both Bp. Fessler and Henry Cardinal Manning, answering accusations by British Prime Minister Gladstone, refuted this argument, explaining that today, since there are no Catholic monarchs subject to the Church, all jurisdiction to excommunicate them and seize their possessions no longer exists. So this was a black eye given the bull to further discredit it, following the definition of infallibility and revived claims that Rome intended to take over the world. This made it even more unlikely to gain any credence in the future or shed its reputation as a mere disciplinary decree.

But Pope Pius IX, in a seeming response to the general dismissal of disciplinary decrees, wrote the following in Quartus Supra after Fessler’s book was published: “Discipline is often closely related to doctrine and has a great influence in preserving its purity. In fact, in many instances, the holy Councils have unhesitatingly cut off from the Church by their anathema those who have infringed its discipline… Nor can the Eastern Churches preserve communion and unity of faith with Us without being subject to the Apostolic power in matters of discipline. Teaching of this kind is heretical, and not just since the definition of the power and nature of the papal primacy was determined by the ecumenical Vatican Council: the Catholic Church has always considered it such and abhorred it.” (On the Church in Armenia,1873).

And in Quae in patriarchatu: “In fact, Venerable Brothers and beloved Sons, it is a question of recognizing the power (of this See), even over your churches, not merely in what pertains to faith, but also in what concerns discipline. He who would deny this is a heretic; he who recognizes this and obstinately refuses to obey is worthy of anathema” (Pope Pius IX, September 1, 1876, to the clergy and faithful of the Chaldean Rite). Both of these documents were written after Fessler died in 1872; Fessler was not saying that anyone should deny that the bull had its effect; he merely said it was not a teaching on faith or morals, but this was even then debated by others. Since that time a greater development of the doctrine of infallibility has clarified much — all documents issued by the Roman Pontiff now are considered binding if recorded in the Acta Apostolica Sedis. Certainly a bull as solemn as Cum ex…would merit inclusion in the Acta. Especially given the subject matter and its undeniable application to our own situation, it seems the bull deserves a more elevated rank than ever before. Manning, in his work The Vatican Decrees and their Bearing on Civil Allegiance wrote on much the same topic as Fessler, but five years after Fessler’s work. He fully holds, with Pope Pius IX, that the Vatican Council included disciplinary decrees within the scope of infallibility. He also defends certain bulls as infallible as well, even though Cum ex… is not named among them.

So what is the point of this blog? The point is that had more thought been given by the commentators to the actual mission and character of Antichrist rather than the claims of the Protestants; if Catholics in the 1800s had followed the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs and actually comprehended what Paul IV was trying to explain to the people — instead of going on the defensive and worrying about what the general population thought about the rights of the nobility — faithful cardinals and/or bishops might have been able to reverse this situation and elect a true pope in the 1960s. But the theologians valued their own opinions and arguments as superior to the popes’ and minimized papal authority. They also let prejudice regarding Pope Paul IV blind them to the true value of Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. When that bull is taken in its full context, given the circumstances that prompted its publication and in light of what we have encountered in our lifetime, no other conclusion could be drawn. We were given a great grace and we squandered it. And this is why now we have no idea what the future holds for the Church. Obviously it was God’s will that all this should happen, but it was never His will that we ignore the commands of His Vicar. We know only that wherever all this is going, either the Church will triumph briefly on earth, or Christ will reign with the Saints as king in Heaven following the Final Judgment. His will be done.