This World of Darkness

by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 22, 2020 | New Blog

+Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary+

I don’t think there is much doubt about the times we live in or how quickly the world is descending into that abyss that is the abode of the devil himself. There are signs everywhere we care to look. Families are in crisis and chaos, despair is rampant, children are bewildered at how their world has been turned upside down and parents are at a loss regarding how to explain what is happening. Suicide and marital strife have increased, substance abuse has skyrocketed, and mental illness is on the rise.

America stands poised on the verge of a civil war and George Soros has advised his media army and ANTIFA troops that if they do not win now, the opportunity to impose the New World Order many not come again any time soon. There is talk of the three percenters, those standing in the wings ready to respond to the call to fight for their country should there be an attempt to impose socialism by force. They claim to have an army at the ready as well. All are on high alert, and the tipping point can be anything or nothing at all.

Caught in the middle is the average Joe and Jane, and those without the tools provided by spiritual awareness may believe they are prepared for what lies ahead, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is spiritual warfare, and those not fighting it in the name of Christ the King have no idea what they are fighting for or how to win this war. Listen to what St. Paul tells us about the battle we are fighting and how we must be armed to fight it:

“Be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of his power…  Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice.  And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace: In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God).

“By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints:  And for me, that speech may be given me, that I may open my mouth with confidence, to make known the mystery of the gospel. For which I am an ambassador in a chain, so that therein I may be bold to speak according as I ought” (Ephesians 6: 10-19).

These Scripture verses have never been so true for those of us in this country as they are today. It is this armor we so desperately need, not bullet-proof vests, assault weapons or other survival gear. All that will be of no use whatsoever unless their judicious employment is governed by the faith that is in us, the laws of God, and the words of the Gospel. Our faith alone will protect us from the devil, but faith in what and in whom? Only that faith in the Blessed Trinity and the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, as She always existed and will continue to exist in Heaven until the very end. We live in the evil day. And if we wish to stand in all things perfect, we must arm ourselves solely with the truth, as Christ preached it and the Church confirmed it, not someone’s idea of that truth. That truth, Rev. Leo Haydock tells us in his commentary, pertains to doctrine and leading a good life, and in keeping our baptismal promises.

What are our baptismal promises? That we love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourself. That we keep the commandments, serve God in His Church, and advance in wisdom and perfection. But primarily and most importantly, our baptismal promises are all about renouncing Satan, all his works and all his pomps, We may think that the evils that haunt us now are caused by the principalities and powers, our rulers, and they are. But as Rev. Haydock explains, these people are themselves ruled by the fallen angels, apostates all, and they are now allowed to tempt men. These apostate angels also are the cause of natural disasters and wars. Because the Church no longer visibly exists, God has unleashed his fury on earth and has allowed these evil spirits to rule over the world, since they rejected the King He sent in His only begotten Son.

We must ever be ready to be at peace even with our neighbors who wish to go to war with us; force should be our last resort. This is the Gospel of peace, the combat boots with which we must march in order to fight. Christ did not come to triumph over His enemies by use of the sword, but by spiritual means. Only when these fail must we defend ourselves, for that lively faith which is our shield works only by charity. It is true we may be called to fight God’s war in order to prevent the establishment of that evil system of Socialism condemned by the Church, but in all this we must not forget charity, which banishes any motives of revenge or malice.

We must be praying and watching; praying always that we avoid the evils of sin and resist temptation. Watching over ourselves with great care throughout the day that we not offend God in any way, sanctify all that we do and grow to love Him more and more. Praying especially for the grace of final perseverance, we must be always watchful lest death take us by surprise and rob us of our crown. The following prayer is a great guard against sudden death and a comfort to those who fear they will be deprived of their senses before they leave this earth.

No one knows the day or the hour of our death. We may die in our sleep tonight or during the cataclysms that are approaching. Therefore watch, and replenish your lamps with the oil of prayer, for we know not at what hour the bridegroom cometh.

God’s people are paying the price for neglecting interior devotion

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 29, 2020 | New Blog

+ St. Martha +

I apologize for the long delay in posting this; sometimes life just gets in the way! But I do want to continue along this theme of the Church’s existence in the end times so that no stone is left unturned in understanding and appreciating the role we must play spiritually in this time period. Many years ago, I saved some material that will help in this task and have now found additional helps from the same source. I will try to present these over the next few months, as time permits.

As explained in a comment to my last blog, during an interregnum where the hierarchy including the cardinals are truly Catholic, the ability to perpetuate the papacy continues indefinitely. When the cardinals and bishops all become corrupt and cannot provide truly Catholic candidates for the papacy, then that potentiality ceases and the election is invalidly posited. Never in the history of the Church was there ever a time when papal electors everyone believed to be Catholic elected a man who was not a Catholic himself in order to usher in a “new order” in the Church. As St. Robert Bellarmine and the Church has always taught, a man must be Catholic to be elected pope and Catholics alone can elect him. There are numerous proofs that John 23 — Angelo Roncalli — was not Catholic, was not worthy of election and violated Pope Pius XII’s papal lection law prior to the conclave that “elected” him. The Great Revolt spoken of by St. Paul did not begin with the people – it began with the hierarchy. The people simply followed them into error just as they did at the time of the Protestant re-formation, and this includes Traditionalists. As the shepherd, so the flock.

In ages past, the election of a man suspected of heresy or apostasy could not have come about without outrage and opposition on the part of those who loved the Church. Such occurrences always resulted in a disputed election and rival “popes,” until the matter was sorted out. How do we know these men were not Catholic and could not have validly elected a pope? We know because later they went on to participate in Vatican 2 and promote the Novus Ordo Missae. We cannot even call those pretending to be popes since the death of Pope Pius XII antipopes, because no one has risen up against them claiming to be a true pope canonically elected, and this is a totally unprecedented occurrence.  Instead we must call them usurpers who have taken the papal throne by force and remain unchallenged, and this can only correspond to one event mentioned in Holy Scripture: the Great Apostasy or Revolt.

For only once in the Church’s history can it happen that She is given over to the power of Satan and her leaders fall out of their places in the Church, (stars falling from heaven in St. John’s Apocalypse — Rev. E. S. Berry), and that is during the time of Antichrist. As explained before, he who withholdeth must first be taken out of the way, as described by St. Paul in 2 Thess. 2: 6-7 and St. John in Apoc. 12: 5. Henry Cardinal Manning has identified this personage as Christ’s own  Vicar, for the Church must undergo the same Passion endured by Our Lord. Then the Great Revolt, fomenting since the Protestant Revolt and coming to a head in the early part of the last century, culminates in the election of the Man of Sin, as taught by Pope Paul IV in his papal bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. Only during an interregnum is a pope not reigning, and this means his seat is open for grabs by those who wish to establish a Church made with human hands on the ruins of the true Church of Christ. Antichrist saw his golden opportunity and wasted no time seizing it. But he had planned all this out well ahead of time and waited in the wings until his prophet prepared the way.

We were not left a default process for papal elections because it was always assumed there would be true Catholic hierarchy to elect. However, God who gave us the Church is equally capable of withdrawing it from us for sins committed. And who could ever deny that the sins committed by Catholics for the past several centuries have not pierced the vaults of heaven and so aggrieved God that He has meted out this punishment? Yes, He promised to be with us unto the consummation, and so He is with the faithful. And yes again, His Church lives on in His Mystical Body and its members, for He was always its true Head, although many forget this and have no appreciation or realization that valid priests and bishops were only a conduit through whom God’s graces flowed. True Catholic hierarchy take Christ’s place only in the sense that they are allowed to act as dispensers for Christ in His stead, but only when they have received certainly valid and licit orders. And that is just the bare minimum of what is required of them, holiness of life being above all the most important. We have been over all of this before.

It is not as though we have any lack of proof that the men responsible for electing these usurpers abandoned their faith and embraced a non-Catholic sect: it is all too apparent. Nor is there any evidence lacking that papal election law was flagrantly violated and the Church immediately plunged into “aggiornamento” or renewal as a result. In reading Catholic works regarding the Americanists and the Modernists, one will find it was all planned long ago. We lost the Mass and Sacraments for the very same reason the Israelites lost their sacrifice, as Daniel prophesied: because of sin. The Popes begged us to engage in Catholic Action and defend the papacy and we ignored their pleas. We cannot regain what we lost unless and until God wills it and He may very well not so will it. The Church had to have a pope only for as long as She lasted and there are reasons to believe She has finished her mission, at least for now. What God has planned for Her next is beyond the veil, and we cannot see it because it is a mystery known only to God.

Those who believe the Church will never fail forget that Divine Revelation itself tells us there is such a time when She will at least appear to fail temporarily, for indeed, “How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done?” (Matt. 26: 54).  We know that he who withholdeth has been taken away, and that following this event the Great Revolt began with the election of John 23. Afterwards, the Man of Sin was revealed, Paul 6, and he completed the process, begun by Roncalli, of abolishing the Mass and Sacraments. Nearly all the faithful have gone into captivity to other religions, and this may well last 70 years or more, as it did with the Jews. We are in our 62^nd year. But because to whom much is given much is expected, why should we Catholics, gifted with a Redeemer and purchased with His blood, expect that we would not be punished even more severely than the Jews, whose gifts of grace were not even close to ours?

Those struggling to understand how the Church will last unto the consummation must separate in their minds the Church as She once existed juridically and the Church as she now exists. She is the same Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, as She has always been from the beginning, She is that Church headed by Christ Himself. He may have seen fit to remove the visible and physical elements of Her existence, in punishment for our sins, but Pope Pius XII taught the Church will ever exist incorporated in His Mystical Body. We read from the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi:

“For Peter in view of his primacy is only Christ’s Vicar; so that there is only one chief Head of this Body, namely Christ, who never ceases Himself to guide the Church invisibly, though at the same time He rules it visibly, through him who is His representative on earth. After His glorious Ascension into Heaven this Church rested not on Him alone, but on Peter, too, its visible foundation stone. That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have never ceased to repeat the same. They, therefore, walk in the path of dangerous error who believe that they can accept Christ as the Head of the Church, while not adhering loyally to His Vicar on earth.”

And while that vicar is not visible to us today, we can yet adhere to all he and his predecessors taught in their lifetimes, knowing that God preserves their infallible decrees in Heaven, since He binds all that His Vicars teach. Therefore they reign together still, even though the pope is no longer visible to us on earth at this particular time, a time Christ warned us in Matt. 24 that would be like no other. We find this confirmed in Apoc. 12: 5. Why then are we surprised to find His words are true?

Those insisting they must have Mass and Sacraments are no different than the Israelites of old who were obsessed with the exterior aspect of their religion — the Temple itself, their festivals and devotions, their animal sacrifices, but not their spiritual responsibilities and the observance of God’s laws. Because of this obsession God first removed their temple from Shiloh and then removed it once again from Jerusalem following the death of Our Lord. They forget, sadly, that in Heaven there is no temple or Church per se, and that Jesus Himself is both the Altar and the Sacrifice. Nor will we receive Holy Communion or the other Sacraments in Heaven, for then we will see God face to face and will possess Him entirely. These teachings, however, are not intelligible to those who can accept and understand only exterior and material signs and an earthly existence. They see Heaven merely as a continuation of their lives on this planet, entirely excluding the supernatural transformation that will take place once we leave this earth and are finally admitted to the halls of Heaven.

As Fr. Demaris explains his excellent tract, They Have Taken Away My Lord, written for those without priests or Sacraments during the French Revolution:

“As children of God, according to the witness of Sts. Peter and John, we participated in the priesthood of Jesus Christ to offer prayers and promises. If we are not entitled to sacrifice on visible altars, we are not without offering, since we can offer it in worship by our love in sacrificing Christ ourselves to His Father on the invisible altar of our hearts. Faithful to this principle, we shall gather all the graces that we would have been able to gather had we been able to assist at the Holy sacrifice of the Mass. Charity unites us to all the Faithful of the universe who offer this divine sacrifice, or who assist at it. If we lack a material altar and sensible species, there are no longer any in Heaven where Jesus Christ is offered in the most perfect manner.

“Yes, my children, the faithful who are without priests, offer their sacrifice without temple, without minister and without anything sensible. It needs only Jesus Christ to offer it. “For the sacrifice of the heart, where the victim must be consumed by the fire of love for the Holy Ghost, it requires to be united to Jesus Christ,” said St. Clement of Alexandria, “by words, by deeds and by heart.”

Where was the Catholic army, the Church Militant, that should have risen up and overthrown Roncalli, dismantled Vatican 2 and liberated the Church? The army that, to better glorify God as He is intended to be glorified, was willing to Sacrifice all for Him rather than dishonor Him? Because Catholics did not fight for the Church according to Her own laws and teachings, God has turned away His face from us. Worshipping Him at the heavenly altar is all we have left until He comes again, and surely given what is happening in this world that cannot be far away. O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell…

The Mystical Passion of the Church

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 11, 2020 | New Blog

+St. Pius I+

We modern-day Magdalenes and St. Johns, who witnessed the Church in Her death throes in our youth, now watch helplessly as Our Lord’s Mystical Body, entrusted to His Mother, fights for its very existence. For are we not held in the crossing of her arms, just as His physical Body was held, as she promised Juan Diego at Tepeyac Hill? And like the Magdalene, have we not followed Our Lord to his tomb, there to discover the sleeping Roman soldiers set to guard it, soldiers who can only represent the useless attempts of earthly principalities and powers to interfere with the designs of God, the fulfillment of prophecy? And the angel who told us He was risen, was it not perhaps St. Michael, guardian of the Church and the papacy, who in the end shall stand and fight for the people of God?

How significant that when Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb she immediately said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Who else is “they” but the Jews and their Sanhedrin, who the Holy Women and the Apostles suspected would steal Our Lord’s Body to prevent its veneration? Did they indeed steal it? No, and Catholics today should not blame them either for the passion and death of the Church. Christ Himself vacated the tomb, and left his burial cloth draped across His would-be final resting place. That winding sheet is the symbol not only of his Divinity and Infinity but is proof as well of the fact that His Church, like its Divine Founder, cannot perish or be contained for long in any earthly tomb. Members of Christ’s Mystical Body yet exist and will exist until the end of time. We exist in those three symbolic days that the early Christians believed Jesus to be gone forever, not realizing He had promised to rise again. But is it Christ Himself who shall be the one to come and restore the Church in Heaven, or will the Church be revived for a time on earth?

Where was Christ at the time the tomb was found empty? He was right there with the Holy Women, and they did not even know it. He was disguised as a gardener, hidden from them, and had undergone that spiritual transformation that prompted Him to gently warn Mary Magdalene not to touch Him, because He had not yet ascended to His Father in Heaven. Was this a prefigure of the fact that the Church in Her passion and death, following Her resurrection and subsequent triumph over that death, would exist, but not as She had formerly? Would exist in a miraculous way, just as the Resurrection was miraculous, guided by the Holy Ghost and comforted by Our Lady? Christ established the papacy before his death, but he did not give St. Peter the power of Divine jurisdiction until after His Resurrection. Christ was the Head of His Church while on earth, and that Church could not have two heads. He designated Peter as the head meant to succeed Him, but he did not grant Him the keys until shortly before the Ascension. The doctrine of the papacy and its two keys is alive and will always exist; but those keys will not be given to another pope unless and until the Church is restored.

In the meantime, Christ is Head of the Church, just as He was even after His death but before the Resurrection. He had made the apostles priests and bishops and had instituted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; He had made Peter his designated successor. But did St. Peter have the power to act, did the Apostles say Mass and distribute the Sacraments during those three days? No; they could not have done so, at least for the faithful publicly, because they had not yet received jurisdiction; their commission from Christ. This they received from Our Lord shortly before his Ascension, just as Peter received the power to exercise his commission. If Christ’s passion and death was the template for the passion of His Mystical Body, as certain spiritual writers claim, then why aren’t those who are insisting they must attend Mass and receive the Sacraments today drawing out this analogy?

There is no doubt that we are indeed enduring this mystical passion, but why is there no appreciation of the mystical significance of our current situation? One explanation, surely, is that the interior life is absent in so many today. No one “considers in the heart.” All of Holy Scripture carries a meaning deeper than many realize; St. Jerome tells us that every word of the Scriptures is rich in symbolic application. If we all are to fill up what is wanting to Christ’s Passion in our own lives, won’t that filling up follow the pattern of the Master in every particular? We are speaking of actual Church doctrine in referring to the exercise of jurisdiction and the establishment of the papacy. Certainly in this, especially, the plight of the faithful would comply in every detail.

So until the Ascension, there was no Mass and no Sacraments. At the Ascension Christ rises to rejoin His Father, but remains the invisible Head of the Church. In Apocalypse 12 we discover that the woman in labor to give birth is Our Lady, who delivered Our Lord to the world, to be pursued by the evil dragon as her children are pursued today.  But the particular child in Apoc. 12, “taken up to God and His throne” cannot be Christ, since he is “taken up.” It must be a human being then, not a Divine being, for Christ ascended to the Father by His own power and was not “taken up.” Some interpret this as a suspension of the functionality of the juridic Church on earth with Christ only heading the Church for a time. We are ripe for punishment, not favors, but none can believe God would ever be so “cruel.” They entirely dismiss the true idea of the very Sacrifice He offered for us in opening the gates of Heaven: it is suffering and deprivation that satisfies the Divine vengeance and opens the sluice gates of Divine mercy, not consolations and rewards.

If Christ’s death on the Cross is fraught with signs in the sun, moon and stars, as it was, then the climax of the death of His Mystical Body also will be fraught with the same. Could the three days in the tomb signify the oft-predicted three days of darkness? Some believe that it could. And then Christ’s Resurrection could only prefigure the resurrection of His Church on earth. And when she emerges from the tomb, She will be transformed in some appreciable way, purified by Her sufferings and sanctified by Her Divine founder. Christ will once again commission Her Popes and bishops, if not personally then by other means. When He departs, the Holy Ghost will arrive to assist in the re-evangelization of the world.

At least that is what many so ardently believe, and as mentioned in our last blog, it is a possibility. But as time rolls inexorably onward, it appears to be a seemingly remote one. Christ’s presence on earth for only 40 days following the Resurrection should tell us something: the Church, if indeed She is to be restored before the Second Coming, will remain on earth only briefly, mirroring the life of Our Lord. Those longing for this triumph and glorious restoration must understand that nowhere is it promised to us save by private revelations. In the opinion of some it is at least suggested in Scripture. But there is no guarantee that it will occur and indeed, given the way those pretending to represent Our Lord and His true Church have betrayed Him, drawing to themselves those who should be his most loyal subjects, there is no basis for supposing that we have merited such a grace from the hands of God.  We find the following words in the book of Daniel regarding the workings of Antichrist: “And strength was given to him against the continual sacrifice because of sins, and truth shall be cast down on the ground… (Dan. 8:12).” And again, we read in Dan. 9:5: “We have done wickedly and revolted.”

Do those calling themselves true Catholics have any real conception of what has happened here? Do they have the slightest idea of the enormity of their sins and the offense God has taken because of them? Sacrilege was punished in the early Church with the severest form of public penance. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Real sacrilege is the irreverent treatment of sacred things as distinguished from places and persons. This can happen first of all by the administration or reception of the sacraments (or in the case of the Holy Eucharist by celebration) in the state of mortal sin, as also by advertently doing any of those things invalidly… Sometimes the guilt of sacrilege may be incurred by omitting what is required for the proper administration of the sacraments or celebration of the sacrifice, as for example, if one were to say Mass without the sacred vestments.” Origen tells us our lot in the Latter Days will be worse than that of the Jews, and Bossuet says that seeing how severely God punished the Jews for so many centuries, we should tremble when St. Paul warns us on the part of God that our ingratitude will bring down a similar punishment.

But all believe they shall receive a reward on earth, a time of peace, without any suffering or effort, minus any sacrifice of their own will in obedience to God’s law. They do not stop to think that the Final Judgment, as terrifying for sinners as it is, would bring us to Heaven where we could worship Christ forever around His eternal altar or to Purgatory where at least we would have hope of attaining eventually to this worship. Is not this infinitely better than any earthly peace? The triumph of the Church on earth is a most wonderful and worthy event to hope for, and we must hope for it, but we must not let the representations of this event so blind us that we lose sight of God’s ultimate plan for His creation, which may be nothing like what we imagine. Because if we expect the triumph must occur in a certain way before the Last Judgment and in His infinite wisdom Our Lord determines that it will occur in some other way, or perhaps not at all, then certainly what He warned us against — that He will come as a thief in the night — will be our fate. We must expect nothing and be ready for anything.

Remember the Jews who believed the Messiah would come as a mighty earthly king and vindicate them? It reminds a person of the belief that a grand restoration of the Church and confounding of her enemies in the eyes of all will take place — a visible vindication. St. Augustine wrote, Fr. P. Huchede tells us in his History of Antichrist, that “The events pertaining to the end of the world will happen in the manner they have been foretold, but as to their accidental circumstances, God alone knows the order in which they will take place. He has revealed nothing explicitly on this point and consequently our knowledge of them is confined to mere conjecture. Experience alone will put us in possession of the desired information.” Our experience tells us that many have been greatly mistaken about the length of Antichrist’s reign, the coming of the two witnesses, the identity of he who withholdeth, the state of the Church during this time period and many other details.  Predictions about Antichrist and his exploits were all taken literally and were blown up entirely out of any reasonable proportion. This is what has led so many to believe that Antichrist has not yet come, and the Mass has not ceased.

Traditionalist ideas of entitlement to spiritual goods against God’s Holy will and their followers’ desensitization to all things sacred and truly holy amounts to presumption and resisting the known truth, the sin against the Holy Ghost which will not be forgiven if it persists until death. If only they would do penance as those inhabitants of Nineveh and Tyre did, they could hope for a stay of execution, but this this seems entirely foreign to them. Therefore, it is not inappropriate for anyone to say, seeing the world as it is today: “But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand… Watch ye therefore, praying at all times that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that are to come and to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21: 28,36).”

The Fatima Peace and Antichrist’s Reign

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 6, 2020 | New Blog

+St. Maria Goretti+

While many insist we cannot be living in the times of Antichrist, there are few infallible indicators of what that time would look like. Unfortunately, what has been left to us by those who had no real idea of what Antichrist’s reign and the Latter Days would look like is little more than a welter of opinions and speculation. And most of these come from the predictions and visions of holy people which is not equivalent whatsoever to the teachings of the Church. One thing these seers seemed to miss entirely was the age of technology and the effect it would have on the faithful. Only a few of the lesser-known seers mention this.

As noted before, very little is certain about the coming of Antichrist, and what is certain doesn’t tell us much at all. Rev. Fahey, quoting Rev. Lehmann’s Le Antichrist, lists the following as certain in his work, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation:

Things that are CERTAIN is that Antichrist will:

– be a trial for the good;

– be a human person;

– not be Satan in human form but only a man;

– have great powers of seduction;

– begin his career in a lowly manner;

– increase in power and make conquests;

– rule the entire world;

– wage a terrible war against God and the Church;

– claim to be God and will demand exclusive adoration (secular humanism);

– seek to prove he is God by false miracles (“canonization” of antipopes)

– reign only temporarily (and this certainly gives the lie to Traditionalists who insist we cannot be living in the times of Antichrist because he could only reign for three and a half years.)

It is only probable, Lemann states, that he will reign for three and a half years.  And while Lemann says it is undecided whether he will reign from the Church or the (restored?) temple in Jerusalem, Pope Paul IV seems to have solved this difficulty by writing in his 1559 bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio that the abomination would be a usurper reigning as a true pope. This also was the opinion of Dom Gueranger, who on his commentary on the liturgy for the feast of Sts. Marcellinus, Peter and Erasmus wrote: “Antichrist, with his usurped power and vain prestige, will be but the common product of political lodges and of this sect which proposes to bring back, under a new form, the ancient mysteries of paganism.” And there is little doubt both John 23 and Paul 6 were both advocates for and high-ranking members of Freemasonry.

The outstanding German priest, the Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser wrote a quasi-inspired commentary on the first fifteen chapters of the book of the Apocalypse in about 1640. The following excerpts are taken from his writings and describes almost to the “T” our present circumstances.

“The fifth period is one of affliction, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. Jesus Christ will purify His people through cruel wars, famines, plagues, epidemics, and other horrible calamities. He will also afflict and weaken the Latin Church with many heresies. It is a period of defections, calamities and exterminations. Those Christians who survive the sword, plague and famines, will be few on earth. Nations will fight against nations and will be desolated by internecine dissensions… During this unhappy period, there will be laxity in divine and human precepts. Discipline will suffer. The Holy Canons will be completely disregarded, and the clergy will not respect the laws of the Church. Everyone will be carried away and led to believe and to do what he fancies, according to the manner of the flesh…

They will ridicule Christian simplicity; they will call it folly and nonsense, but they will have the highest regard for advanced knowledge, and for the skill by which the axioms of the law, the precepts of morality, the Holy Canons and religious dogmas are clouded by senseless questions and elaborate arguments. As a result, no principle at all, however holy, authentic, ancient, and certain it may be, will remain free of censure, criticism, false interpretations, modification and delimitation by man.”

In summing up 30 years of studies into private prophecies, Australian Yves Dupont summarized them as follows:

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.”

(In Rev. R. Gerald Culleton’s The Prophets and Our Times, Venerable Madeline Porzat (died 1850) announces seven crises in 168c. that seem to tally with the La Salette message and Dupont’s predictions:

1. inclemencies of seasons and inundations;
2. diseases to animals and plants;
3. cholera over men;
4. revolutions;
5. wars;
6. a universal bankruptcy and
7. confusion.)

Dupont comments on the prophecies he mentions above:

“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)

“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.)

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

(St. Caesar, 6th Century)

“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” (end of Dupont quotes.)

The reason that this one world government is not more noticeable is because it is entirely secret. Its effects are now being felt everywhere, and yet most people believe that their own leaders in their own nations are in control. The puppet masters select the music and the puppets dance to their tunes. Just as the true status of the rulers of the church in Rome are hidden from the eyes of all, so it is also with their civil leaders. What happened to the Church in the 1950s is now being played out all across the world, but particularly in the United States. We are on the eve of everything predicted above and more, and most especially we seem to be on the brink of civil war and possibly martial law and a military coup. Some have even speculated that Trump could be the last of the truly patriotic presidents.

The true version (or interpretation) of the La Salette Secret places Antichrist’s coming (in all its many phases) prior to the chastisement and the promised Fatima peace following the chastisement. (This is assuming we have not forfeited that peace by our wickedness; it seems both the Fatima and La Salette promises were conditional, depending on whether Catholics amended their lives and did penance. Clearly they did not.) This chastisement could well be all we have experienced in a spiritual manner since Pope Pius XII’s death in 1958, although the seers explain it is a spiritual chastisement first, followed by a physical chastisement along the lines of an asteroid/meteor strike or possibly an EMP event. La Salette seer Melanie Calvat said the ensuing peace after the physical chastisement would last only 35 years, just long enough for the Church to triumph over her enemies before the final assault launched by Satan.

But again, this and the others quoted above are only private prophecies. We can rely only on Scripture to anticipate what lies ahead, and once Antichrist has come, and the withholding power, also the Continual Sacrifice, has been taken away, then all that remains is the end of Antichrist’s reign and that perpetuated by his system and “successors.” (This is why it is absurd, on so many different levels, for those seeking to “unite the clans” to be able to do this while evil reigns on this earth, for what possible foundation could they find on which to re-establish their “Church”?!) While some commentators allow for the period of peace and restoration of the Church, others do not. So who are we to believe and how should we conduct ourselves if we do not know for certain that there will ever be such a peace? Reverend E. S. Berry tells us in his The Apocalypse of St. John that there will be such a peace and restoration, and he wrote before the message of Fatima was received. Several others tend also in this direction, including Holshauzer, also writing before Fatima. The bulk of Catholic prophecies seem to suggest it. But Holy Scripture does not specifically mention any such event.

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 Him, 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, Rev. James Meagher). The Jews of Christ’s time were 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.

Christ warned us He would come as a thief in the night. He told us no one would know for certain when the Final Judgment will take place. We must be ever mindful of believing only what we wish to believe and not what may actually be the truth of the matter. True Catholics must prepare for either eventuality — the imminent Second Coming or a terrible physical chastisement followed by a miraculous restoration of the Church and a brief peace. But in insisting on the Church’s rescue and return without also acknowledging that Antichrist has come and only the resounding victory of his destruction will result in this restoration is not supported by Holy Scripture. Reverend Berry places the peace after the death of Antichrist as all those holding this position do, and it is only logical that this is what may well take place. But it is just as logical to believe Christ will come suddenly without warning.

And rather than distress the remnant, they should instead be resigned to His will and reason that if there is no period of peace, it is better by far to be worshipping at the heavenly altar than any restoration of that altar on earth. For although the Holy Sacrifice on earth has inestimable value, no earthly sacrifice could ever compare to the offering of Christ to God His Father at the Eternal Altar in Heaven.

Perpetual Indefectibility and the Latter Days

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 28, 2020 | New Blog

+Our Mother of Perpetual Help+

A reader has asked for a better explanation of the Vatican Council Decree: “Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy,” wondering how it is that the Church could ever be without a true pope. The answer is that this is a matter of Divine Revelation; as Henry Edward Cardinal Manning teaches, St. Paul seems to indicate in 2 Thessalonians that the withholding power restraining Antichrist’s coming is the papacy. How could Antichrist be “revealed in his time,” as St. Paul explains in 2 Thess. 5-6, unless the pope was first removed from the scene? This withholding power was not to be understood until our own day. And only the appearance of the Man of Sin would itself demonstrate that the event had come to pass. We would not believe it if we had not witnessed it with our own eyes. But now we know what St. Paul warned the early Christians about regarding what would happen to those who lived during the time when the day of the Lord was at hand.

Rev. E.S. Berry in his work The Church of Christ, (1910), provides a comprehensive explanation of perpetuity in its relation to indefectibility below.

Perpetuity

“The general notion of indefectibility is indicated by the word itself, which is derived from the Latin in (not) and deficere(to fail). Hence indefectibility is inability to fail, to fall short, to perish. Applied to the Church, it means that she cannot be deprived of any essential power or quality SO LONG AS SHE CONTINUES TO EXIST… The Apostolic See of Rome is the only particular Church to which the promise of perpetual indefectibility has been made. Perpetuity is indefectibility of existence. Strictly speaking, indefectibility pertains to the essential qualities of the Church; perpetuity to Her existence. These two attributes, though really distinct, are so closely related it is difficult to treat them separately. If the Church is indefectible in her essential qualities and perpetual in Her existence, she must be perpetually indefectible in all essential qualities. Therefore the two attributes may be combined as perpetual indefectibility” (pgs. 56-57).

 The Church of Christ is perpetually indefectible in all its attributes and properties

“The proposed thesis does not determine the attributes and properties of the Church; it simply states that whatever they may be, the Church can never lose a single one of them, nor fail in her existence…” (DZ 1686, Pope Pius IX: “each one of these marks so clings to the others that it cannot be separated from them…. ” Rev Kinkead states in his catechism that the four marks cannot exist without the three attributes: authority, infallibility and indefectibility — Q. & A. 519-520, which have primary reference to the papacy.) Rev. Berry continues: “It still must be perpetually and indefectibly one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. In other words, it means that the Church founded by Christ must exist until the end of time without any essential change… [for] if the Church could fail in any of its essentials, even for a time, it would lose all authority to teach and govern because the faithful could never be certain at any time that it had not failed — that it had not ceased to be the Church of Christ, thereby losing all authority. But an authority that may be justly doubted at all times is NO AUTHORITY; it commands neither obedience nor respect as is evident in churches that reject the claim to indefectibility.

“Perpetuity of the powers of the Church is a necessary consequence of her perpetual indefectibility. It follows also from the very purpose for which the Church was instituted, namely, the glory of God and the salvation of souls.The power of Orders is directly concerned with both; therefore, it must exist so long as there are men on earth to attain salvation through the proper worship of God. The power of jurisdiction is ordained for the government of the Church, a visible society that must endure until the end of time; therefore, this power itself must be perpetual. Finally, Christ has promised to convey perpetual powers to His Church: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (p. 263; end of Rev. Berry comments).

Comments

“May God give you the grace necessary to defend the rights of the Sovereign Pontiff and the Holy See; for without the Pope there is no Church, and there is no Catholic Society without the Holy See.” — Pope Pius IX, (Allocution to religious superiors, June,1872)

 In the book advertised on this site, The Phantom Church in Rome, irrefutable proofs from the popes and Canon Law are given regarding the invalid election of John 23 in 1958. These proofs were first presented in rudimentary form in 1990. They are taken from infallible teachings of the Church and Canon and papal laws. Once Angelo Roncalli, the false prophet, usurped the papal see, he paved the way for Paul 6’s reign — Montini, the Antichrist. None of those elected after John 23 were true popes or could ever be true popes. What we have now in Rome is what Pope Paul IV identified as the abomination of desolation — Antichrist — standing in the Holy Place where he ought not to be. (See Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio on the Articles page of the website.)

Traditionalists cannot possibly claim to be in the right with their stance of recognize and resist. By resisting they admit they doubt the authority of Francis, for no one could remain a member of the Church and resist a true pope. And as St. Robert Bellarmine teaches and Rev. Berry with him says above, doubtful authority is NO authority. The Church cannot be deprived of any essential power or quality SO LONG AS SHE CONTINUES TO EXIST… The Apostolic See of Rome is the only particular Church to which the promise of perpetual indefectibility has been made.” But she no longer exists. As Pope Pius IX taught, “Without the Pope there IS no Church.” and no Catholic society. Traditionalists must prove a true pope exists so that they may exist as members of that church, and they can prove neither premise.

For as long as the Pope ruled the Church, Peter’s faith never failed; the Church was indefectible. The only time identified as a prophesied break in the established order of things was during the reign of Antichrist and his abominable system, and this is where we find ourselves. Those who disagree must do one of three things: 1) Accept Francis and his five predecessors as true popes; 2) Demonstrate that for the last 62 years no doctrines of the Church have been violated by the apostate church or Traditionalists and 3) Prove that the Church as Christ constituted it can exist with a doubtful or absent head. Yet they can do none of these and remain Catholic.

We have had no true pope for 62 years. The end of time for the Church was 1958. We now live in the period predicted by St. Thomas Aquinas as that time existing after the death of Antichrist and before the coming of Christ. But Rev. Berry does not classify this coming of Christ necessarily as the Second Coming and Final Judgment. First, he writes concerning the verse in Holy Scripture, “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive, if possible, even the elect”:

“Christ is here warning the faithful against the prodigies that the agents of Satan will produce in the days of Antichrist, to deceive them if possible. Such prodigies are not miracles, but as St. Paul says, “signs and lying wonders.” This very warning on the part of Our Lord presupposes the power of miracles in the Church, for otherwise there would be no reason for Satan to attempt such counterfeits. There can be no counterfeit coins where there are no genuine coins to counterfeit. The prophecies of the Apocalypse show that Satan will imitate the Church of Christ to deceive mankind; he will set up a church of Satan in opposition to the Church of Christ. Antichrist will assume the role of Messias; his prophet will act the part of Pope, and there will be imitations of the Sacraments of the Church. There will also be lying wonders in imitation of the miracles wrought in the Church.”

 Comment: So he anticipates precisely the position we are in and what we have experienced since Pope Pius XII’s death. Bp. Fulton Sheen and others predicted the same. How can such obvious signs and lying wonders NOT be the fulfillment Rev. Berry describes? He continues:

“The mystery of iniquity mentioned by St. Paul grows apace with the spread of the Church, and will culminate in the coming of Antichrist, when Satan will make a last supreme effort to prevent the universal reign of Christ in His Church. After a short but desperate struggle, the Church will emerge victorious, Antichrist will perish, and the powers of Satan will be curbed, so that he should no more seduce the nations. After the defeat and destruction of Antichrist, all nations will flow into the Church, the Jews will enter her fold, and the universal reign of Christ will be established over all peoples, tribes, and tongues. Then shall the words of Christ be literally and completely fulfilled: I have overcome the world. After a long period of time, symbolically designated as a thousand years, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth to seduce the nations which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle for a final persecution of the Church. By special intervention of God, these hostile nations shall be quickly defeated, and the Church shall stand forth once more victorious. Then will the day of judgment be near at hand.

“[Berry FOOTNOTE]: “The interpretation of the prophecies regarding the time of Antichrist and subsequent events is given as an opinion to be accepted for what it is worth. So far as we know, there is no pronouncement of the Church on this question. In fact, no doctrine is involved. It is generally held by Catholic theologians that the Church will be completely Catholic after the days of Antichrist. This doctrine is not materially affected by the further consideration concerning the time of his appearance. This is merely an interesting speculation, of which the above solution seems probable to us. It might be objected that Christ Himself places the end of the world immediately after the attainment of complete Catholicity by the Church: This gospel shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come. (Matt, xxiv, 14.) And St. Paul connects the coming of Antichrist with the second coming of Christ: And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus . . . shall destroy with the brightness of his coming (2 Thess. ii, 8). Neither objection has any weight; in the first Our Lord was simply assuring the Apostles that there would be sufficient time to carry the gospel to all nations, since the consummation will not come until that has been accomplished. He does not say that it will come immediately upon its accomplishment. In the other case, we see no reason why ‘His coming’ …must be taken to mean the personal coming of Our Lord at the last day rather than a metaphorical coming in manifest judgment against Antichrist.” (pgs. 137-38).

“Christ has either failed in His promises, or the Church must ever preserve and teach all truths committed to her through the ministry of the Apostles. In other words, the Church must be Apostolic in her doctrine [also, Berry says, Her origin and ministry] even to the consummation of the world” (p. 143).

Comment: As Berry notes, the Church has never decided on any of these matters. Christ tells us no one knows the day nor the hour of His Second Coming and the Church says that no one was to predict who would be the Antichrist in advance of his appearance. But the faithful were carefully instructed by the Apostles on how to recognize and resist him once he came. Only a remnant would be selected out of grace and if possible, even the elect would be deceived. Christ says when He comes He will find few on earth who have preserved their faith. The greatest deceit perpetrated by the apostate Church in Rome and Traditionalists is to make it appear that a) the Church yet exists, and in the case of Traditionalists is able to exist without a true pope; b) that, in the case of Traditionalists, Mass and Sacraments are still available to the faithful and c) that we are not living in the end times; that Antichrist has not yet reigned and is yet to come.

Many point to the fact that Christ promised He would be with His Church, as it was constituted, until the consummation, so this means that the hierarchy would exist until the very end. This can be true only if there is a brief peace and the papacy is miraculously restored. For already the Church as Christ constituted it no longer exists, since its most important constituent element — the Roman Pontiff —has been absent for 62 years! And once again, Pope Pius IX says without the pope there can be no Church and no Catholic society. Paul IV teaches that the abomination of desolation (Antichrist), who he then feared would gain the papacy, would reign as a falsely elected pope. This man would hold heretical beliefs and would be nothing more than a usurper who would have no authority whatsoever to rule the Church. This is the entire gist of his Bull. Traditionalists condemn it as a disciplinary decree voided by the 1917 Code of Canon Law as part of the old law, but this is an absolute falsehood.

Abp. Amleto Cicognani wrote in his Canon Law: “The Code is exclusive, excluding and declaring abolished all former laws and customs excepting those explicitly or implicitly contained in the Code and… laws… reserved in the Code. The Code is therefore not to be considered absolutely exclusive of all other laws … Outside the Code there still remains in force law… in accordance with the Code or with the old law at least implicitly contained in it… In a commentary on the Canons the footnotes must never be neglected” (pgs. 432-433). Pope Paul IV’s Bull can be found in the footnotes to the Code in a number of different places and is the basis for nearly every canon in the 1917 Code regarding heresy. (See https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/canonical-proofs-cum-ex-apostolatus-officio-is-retained-in-the-1917-code-of-canon-law/).

Have all the signs predicted by St. Paul regarding the end times and Antichrist’s coming been fulfilled? Before any of these signs can appear, he who withholdeth must first be taken out of the way (2 Thess. 2: 6-7). Cardinal Manning teaches that this means the Roman Pontiff will be removed from his throne. Apocalypse 12: 5 seems to indicate that the pope intended to reign either dies or is unable to ascend the throne for whatever reason; and therefore God removes him to heaven or at least suspends his power and reserves it to Himself. And no, this cannot apply to Cardinal Siri who signed Vatican 2 documents, endorsed the false popes and con-celebrated the Novus Ordo with his buddies. (See photos and article at https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/articles/a-catholics-course-of-study/traditionalist-heresies-and-errors/errors-in-matters-of-faith-and-morals/siri-engages-in-communicatio-in-sacris/)

Once Pope Pius XII died, the following signs predicted by St. Paul took place:

• First will come the revolt, then the Man of Sin is revealed (2 Thess. 2: 3). The hierarchy revolted by embracing ecumenism, Americanism and other heresies even before the death of Pope Pius XII. The cardinals revolted by electing John 23, an unworthy candidate, to the papacy and attending the false Vatican 2 council. Half of the faithful revolted by remaining within the Novus Ordo church; the other half rightly rejected the false council and left the NO in the 1960s,1970s following the abrogation of the Latin Mass.
• He shall sit in the temple of God, showing himself as God, (2 Thess. 2: 4). Some thought it would be the temple in Jerusalem, others the Church. Obviously it is the Church, and Paul 6 received the usual “papal adoration” following his invalid election as prescribed in the papal election law. But it is clear from Pope Paul IV’s Bull, which interprets an actual verse of Holy Scripture, that he will be a usurper reigning as a true pope. This interpretation is binding on the faithful). As Pope Pius XII taught, the Pope is Christ on earth; he is Christ’s own Vicar. He may bind and loose and Christ confirms these decisions in Heaven. Did Paul VI purposely take this name to transpose the Roman numerals of Paul IV’s name, indicating a reversal of papal teaching as well as a fulfillment of all his predictions?
• The coming of Antichrist will be “according to the working of Satan,” exercising Satan’s power, signs and lying wonders (2 Thess. 2: 9). How but by the power of Satan could Paul 6 have managed to appear to secure papal election, reconvene the false Vatican 2 council, promulgate false rites of the Sacraments, close the council and abrogate the Latin Mass, all within the space of six years?
• He will cause the Continual (Perpetual) Sacrifice to cease: “And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary. And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper” (Daniel 8: 11-12). And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honor shall not be given to him: and he shall come privately and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud… And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall defile the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the continual sacrifice: and they shall place there the abomination unto desolation” (Daniel 11: 21, 31).

St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori both teach that the Sacrifice will 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 it is only at this altar, in the privacy of their homes, that those who strive to keep the faith without recourse to unlawful pastors choose to honor Him.

• Take away the papacy and you take away the Mass, and vice versa. The Mass is called continual or perpetual, yet it is taken away. Peter shall have perpetual successors, and yet Cardinal Manning says he who withholdeth, the Holy Father, shall be taken out of the way and then Antichrist will come. Because those who succumb to Antichrist will not love the truth, they will not believe these things will happen. They shall be seduced by the operation of error, and will be judged (2 Thess. 2: 10-11).

Pope Paul IV defines the abomination of desolation as a person; Scripture commentators tend to identify it as the cessation of the Continual Sacrifice, which happened in the time of the Maccabees under Antiochus. But St. Jerome tells us in the Breviary the term abomination can just as easily be applied to Antichrist himself, and that “of desolation” refers to a “ruined temple’ where the Sacrifice to idols (Holy Scripture refers to them as bread idols) is set up. And so the person and the false Sacrifice are linked one to the other, just as Adrian Fortescue says in the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding the Mass and the papacy: “As union with Rome is the bond between Catholics, so is our common share in this, the most venerable rite in Christendom, the witness and safeguard of that bond.”

None of us know when or how all that we are witnessing today will end. It may end with Christ coming briefly to inflict the long-expected chastisement and a restoration of the Church or Christ could easily come for the Final Judgment; commentators are divided on this subject. The Fatima apparitions seem to indicate that there will be a brief peace after the death of Antichrist and before the last persecution and final judgment. But that was predicated on whether enough Catholics said the Rosary and performed penance for the conversion of sinners; also whether or not the Pope consecrated Russia to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart in the manner in which she requested. We have no way of knowing if this was actually the case. Praying and watching is what Our Lord asked us to do; for the Master comes when He is least expected, and only those awaiting Him with their lamps aglow will avoid being cast into the external darkness.