by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 22, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Mary Magdalene+
Having viewed certain segments of the Republican National Convention this past week, I need to once again caution Catholics about the attitude they should adopt concerning voting choices this coming November. From comments viewed in social media forums, it appears that some of those identifying as Traditionalists and even pray-at-home Catholics have fallen into the trap of believing that they are justified in their ardent support of the alternatives to Democrat candidates, meaning the Trump/Vance ticket, when this behavior is not in keeping with Catholic teaching.
Overall, last week’s convention was reminiscent of high school pep rallies highlighted by surprise guest speakers, with a smattering of Masonic play-acting and revelry thrown in. The rival sports teams were facing off, with all the hoopla that entails and the rah-rah-siss-boom-bah was deafening. Jock-style egos swelled and audiences applauded. Rock bands wailed in the background and candidates and attendees alike clapped and swayed to the tunes. It was the perfect example of a largely middle-class crowd that never matured intellectually beyond their high school or (liberal) college days, hence the convention’s appeal. And a good number of Catholics, who should be more intelligent and dignified, (given the very nature of the faith they profess), instead seem to have climbed on the bandwagon fueled by Trump’s attempted assassination and his underdog status as a (falsely) convicted criminal.
If Catholics were cheered and attracted by what they saw at the convention, then they are woefully lacking in the education department — Catholic education, that is. This, of course, is not easily obtained, yet is still available to those who care enough to inform themselves. The popes, also Catholic clergy and laypersons writing in the 1940s and 1950s stress the necessity of Catholics to educate themselves in these matters. The superficial attitude of those attending the RNC is absent from the solemn evaluations written by these men. Rather a sober and somber attitude is encouraged that weighs the common good and our bounden duty to best promote it. Levity and recreation have their place, but given the dangers facing Catholics today, it is best minimized or put aside to make way for in-depth, serious discussion of the issues. To understand the Church’s teaching on voting for the less worthy candidate, visit: https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/a-voting-primer-for-catholics-why-pius-xiis-directives-must-be-obeyed/
And now have a situation where the president has withdrawn from the race and may very well resign his presidency. VP Harris, already the presumptive nominee to run against Trump, could then become president, a nightmare waiting to happen. Yet Harris could become tripped up by campaign financing regulations and state laws dictating the assignment of delegates. Federal lawsuits could be filed that would complicate matters even further, perhaps even delay the election. We are standing in the path of a runaway train and anyone on the tracks is bound to be mown down. Where this goes, no one can be certain, but all should be prepared for the twists and turns that lie ahead. And education is key to rightly judging this situation, whatever the outcome may be.
Democracy and the Catholic
While Democrats have accused Republicans of destroying democracy and vice versa, some Republicans have pointed out that this country was meant to be a republic, not a democracy. Yet those speaking at the convention typically referred to our form of government as a democracy, and while Catholics may think they know what that term means they most likely are not seeing it through the eyes of the Church.
A series of articles written in the 1970’s-1980s by the French Traditionalist Solange Hertz, later assembled into books, readily shows that from its inception, America was a Masonic nation, and democracy an “experiment” that clearly has gone awry. While the Church does not condemn the right kind of democracy as a viable form of government, the popes have repeatedly warned Americans that Catholics cannot endorse the liberal principles of democracy, nor the nationalistic excess known as Americanism, condemned by Pope Leo XIII, that now permeates the conservative atmosphere. Pope Leo wrote: “The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from Her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith… They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state… From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some ‘Americanism’” (Testem benevolentiae, 1899).
Of course Americanism, spawned by “Catholic” liberalism, later gave way to Modernism and ecumenism. And it is ecumenism that dominates Protestant evangelical teaching today, with so many expressing non-denominational beliefs. Trump himself lists as non-denominational, although his family religion was largely that of the anti-Catholic Norman Vincent Peale and his positivism, Protestant teaching the Church ruled as Quietistic, psychologically damaging and out of touch with reality. Trump also was an admirer of Billy Graham.
Despite its condemnation, Americanism was officially revived by Paul 6 even before he usurped the papal chair. Those who have read the opening chapters of The Phantom Church in Rome will know that Giovanni Montini, Paul 6, worked secretly as an OSS operative during World War II, and without the knowledge of Pope Pius XII, forged secret alliances with the newly formed CIA in the late 1940s which later guaranteed his election as “pope.” The CIA funded state elections and other causes in Italy following the war and actively worked to secure the election of John 23 in 1958, in direct violation of Pope Pius XII’s infallible election constitution, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. This is documented by correspondence and FOIA requests published by international attorney David Wemhoff, in his 800-page work, John Courtney Murray, Time Magazine and the American Proposition. The book reveals the fact that psychological warfare was implemented against Catholics for two decades to accomplish the establishment of ecumenism in the Church through the invalid elections of John 23 and Paul 6, in the name of democracy.
As a result, the false Vatican 2 council adopted the heresy that all men have the inherent right, (as taught by the renegade Jesuit John Courtney Murray and vehemently opposed by Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, Rev. Francis J. Connell and a few others), to follow the dictates of conscience and that governments must recognize that right by suppressing any opposition to this belief. This is opposed to the Church’s God-given right to preach that the Catholic Church alone holds the truth and all other religions are false. Basically the formal endorsement by Vatican 2 of this proposition, which directly contradicts the necessity of the hierarchy to defend the Church’s rights, as expressed in Pius XII’s infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, is what accomplished the downfall of the Church.
Ever since this event, there has been an effort by non-Catholics to unify into one amorphous mass as “Christians” and usurp the place of the Church as the sole proponents of the Bible and Gospel teaching, a new “Holy Roman Empire” of sorts, founded through revolutionary means on the ruins of Roman democracy resurrected in France and America. This union must be accomplished before one-world government is established, in order to place everyone on the same religious page, just as Freemasonry had to destroy Catholic monarchies before establishing American and French democracy. The roots of what such a Protestant mimicry of the Church’s empire can be found in the creation of the Sillon in France in the late 1800s, a purportedly Catholic effort to “Christianize” democracy. “Le Sillon (“The Furrow” or “The Path”) was a French political and religious movement founded by Marc Sangnier (1873–1950), which existed from 1894 to 1910. It aimed to bring Catholicism into a greater conformity with French Republican and socialist ideals, in order to provide an alternative to Marxism and other anticlerical labor unions” (Wikipedia). Just as he had done with Modernism, Pope St. Pius X thoroughly routed the Sillonists, as seen below.
Our Apostolic Mandate
“[In its early days], the Sillon did raise among the workers the standard of Jesus Christ, the symbol of salvation for peoples and nations. Nourishing its social action at the fountain of divine grace, it did impose a respect for religion upon the least willing groups, accustoming the ignorant and the impious to hearing the Word of God. And, not seldom, during public debates, stung by a question, or sarcasm, you saw them [young people] jumping to their feet and proudly proclaiming their faith in the face of a hostile audience. This was the heyday of the Sillon; its brighter side accounts for the encouragement, and tokens of approval, which the bishops and the Holy See gave liberally when this religious fervor was still obscuring the true nature of the Sillonist movement.
“For it must be said, Venerable Brethren, that our expectations have been frustrated in large measure. The day came when perceptive observers could discern alarming trends within the Sillon; the Sillon was losing its way. Could it have been otherwise? Its leaders were young, full of enthusiasm and self- confidence. But they were not adequately equipped with historical knowledge, sound philosophy, and solid theology to tackle without danger the difficult social problems in which their work and their inclinations were involving them. They were not sufficiently equipped to be on their guard against the penetration of liberal and Protestant concepts on doctrine and obedience.
“The truth is that the Sillonist leaders are self-confessed and irrepressible idealists; they claim to regenerate the working class by first elevating the conscience of Man; they have a social doctrine, and they have religious and philosophical principles for the reconstruction of society upon new foundations; they have a particular conception of human dignity, freedom, justice and brotherhood; and, in an attempt to justify their social dreams, they put forward the Gospel, but interpreted in their own way; and what is even more serious, they call to witness Christ, but a diminished and distorted Christ… No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker — the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work…
“[The Sillon’s] brand of Catholicism accepts only the democratic form of government which it considers the most favorable to the Church and, so to speak, identifies it with her. The Sillon, therefore, subjects its religion to a political party. We do not have to demonstrate here that the advent of universal Democracy is of no concern to the action of the Church in the world; we have already recalled that the Church has always left to the nations the care of giving themselves the form of government which they think most suited to their needs. What We wish to affirm once again, after Our Predecessor, is that it is an error and a danger to bind down Catholicism by principle to a particular form of government…religion ought to transcend all parties…
“This organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations… has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
“Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train. We fear that worse is to come: the end-result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men who become brothers and comrades at last in the “Kingdom of God”… [For they say]: “We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind.
“We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The leaders of the Sillon have not been able to guard against these doctrines. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Saviour” (St. Pius X, Our Apostolic Mandate). We urge readers to study this entire document. For more on democracy and the situation today, go to: https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/dr-disandro-redefines-government-today-and-pope-pius-xii-on-the-obligation-to-vote/
Implications of St. Pius X’s condemnation of the Sillon
The false pope John 23, as a nuncio under Pope Pius XII, would later exonerate Sangnier in a letter sent to his widow in 1950, which is no surprise. What is described above by Pope St. Pius X, who some say had the gift of foresight, is what Christian conservatives hope to achieve under Trump. And it could well be the foundation laid for a one-world “Christian” church, excluding true Catholics. Yet the Church, and her members alone have the right to rebuild the City spoken of by St. Augustine, if now it can be rebuilt at all. And given the above, certainly it cannot be rebuilt on existing democratic principles. Pope Pius XII believed for a time this was possible but was rewarded by his pro-secretary Montini with an attempted poisoning. This lest the pope discover that his teachings and plans were being sabotaged by his enemies, who were even falsifying the Fatima message to promote their democratic ideals.
Following a vision of Christ that occasioned his recovery from the illness brought on by this poisoning, Pope Pius XII all but shut down the Vatican, and so it remained until his death. If Catholics must choose Trump as the lesser of two evils, let it be an informed decision. Modern-day democracy is not the Catholic ideal. Catholics are to remain politically impartial, meaning that whenever possible, strictly speaking, they should avoid all party affiliation and register as Independents, wherever this is allowed by the State. Any perceived religious affiliation with non-Catholics must be led by the Catholic parties, since the Church alone has the right to rebuild the City, as the popes have always taught. Catholics should avoid at all costs joining in the misplaced zeal of the masses for any particular candidate, given the nature of the democracy that is being proposed and the danger it poses to the faith. They should never forget that it was the falsified ideal of democracy that was used to destroy the Church, which means their loyalties must be adjusted accordingly.
In summary, Catholics must realize in the end that this type of democracy is aligned with the secret societies, as Pope St. Pius X observes, and they can never lend their enthusiasm, public approval or seeming acknowledgment of such principles. After all, the Liberty, Equality and Fraternity promoted by the Sillon and often cited by both parties as the underpinnings of democracy is the credo of Freemasonry, and any seeming approval whatsoever of this pernicious system has been repeatedly condemned by numerous popes. Any support for an unworthy candidate should be a restrained and reluctant one, one not openly celebrated on the Internet. It must be viewed as a forced position taken reluctantly to avoid even greater evils.
Conclusion
Those more-or-less forced to vote for such a candidate who is then elected have the right to hold his feet to the fire on crucial issues and insist on upholding campaign promises and working for the moral good of the nation. Trump has claimed that election fraud is being committed on a large-scale basis, and there are reasons for believing that may well be the case. As a reporter I witnessed this first-hand and fought to put an end to it in the community in which I then lived. Trump also has promised to “drain the swamp,” to upend and reform the intelligence agencies and Department of Justice as well as other agencies, a task proposed by President John F. Kennedy that may well have led to his assassination. If this is truly his intent, let him begin with The Central Intelligence Agency, as it is said Kennedy intended to do.
If elected, it should immediately be brought to Trump’s attention that owing to election interference by the CIA, and a proven campaign to wage psychological warfare on Catholics via propaganda and public opinion tools — a campaign that makes the attempt to vilify Trump pale in comparison — an entire Church was destroyed and incalculable harm done to the religious liberty of hundreds of thousands of Catholics, in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. As president, proof of this egregious act should be brought out in the open and every attempt should be made to remedy it — by exposing it, giving a voice to those affected by it and making amends to those who suffered such a tragic loss.What is sauce for the goose is sauce also for the gander; the elite should not be the only ones who are able to rectify the wrongs of election interference and its devastating consequences. Let him then live up to his claims as a victim and rectifier of election interference and fraud, a constitutionalist and a champion of religious liberty. Then, perhaps, he could be counted as a more worthy candidate.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 15, 2024 | New Blog
+Our Lady of Mt. Carmel+
It never fails to amaze me how LibTrads resort to the same fallacious arguments, over and over again, to try and convince people that valid priests and bishops still exist. They don’t care who or what is falsely characterized in the exercise of their mad obsession, and that would include St. Thomas Aquinas and his teaching. Certainly in this last foray they have once again proven their disregard even contempt for scholasticism, although of course they will insist that this is not the case and continue to promote error. But anyone who knows their true motives will understand their capacity for deception once the following is addressed.
One reader pointed out recently that some of those new to the pray-at-home position are suffering the excessive zeal that is common to new converts. They want to come into the fray and make their mark, make their point, render some sort of meaningful contribution. They think that they can make things better, fix things, rectify what has happened within the Church, unify the faithful and I understand that — I was there at one point myself. But when I was experiencing these things, I was in my 30s and that was several decades ago. This site may seem very daunting in the beginning but I want those new to betrayedCatholics to understand that it is really based on some pretty simple principles.
Those principles have been stated many times on this site, in many different places. First of all we do not owe obedience to anyone but lawful pastors and Canon Law and Church teaching insists that anyone claiming to be a lawful pastor must first prove that this is truly the case (Can. 200). Having said this we all know if we’re praying at home that the reason we’re doing it is because we cannot be certain that these men are valid and not only can we not be certain but those who wish to study and consider the matter can achieve total certitude regarding their invalidity if they would only accept and obey the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs, particularly that of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, an infallible constitution written by Pope Pius XII in 1945. LibTrads cannot present proofs of their certain validity no matter how hard they try given the preamble and first three paragraphs of this constitution. To understand this more completely please see the explanation here and note that in presenting this explanation I am not interpreting anything; I am using other sources to interpret what this document says, sources that were imprimatured prior to the death of Pope Pius XII.
NO interpretation of papal documents on this site
What finally seasoned my over-zealousness and subdued my excessive zeal was dedication to study, meditation and prayer, also a heady and humiliating dose of experience with duplicitous LibTrads. Another reader contacted me recently, stating that those who accept sede vacante and pray at home are all basically interpreting papal documents, this author included, so all their (our) opinions could be more or less equally valid. I took issue with this immediately because as I have explained before on numerous occasions, I do not proceed in the same way these other individuals proceed in these matters but do my utmost to proceed only as the Church Herself has directed.
- Papal documents registered in the Acta Apostolica Sedis are considered binding on all the faithful. Numerous encyclicals and constitutions of the popes that pertain to both their liciety and their validity as well as their proper function are entered into the Acta. This teaching on binding documents was promulgated by Pope Pius XII in his infallible encyclical Humani generis, which itself is duly registered in the Acta Apostolica Sedis.
- VAS, an infallible, hence binding document entered into the Acta, clearly states that all acts which violate Canon Law during an interregnum are null and void. This would include Canons 18, 20, 104, 147, 1812 and others, all of which provide the basis for determining the meaning of the law, the mind of the lawgiver, the possession of offices to which jurisdiction is attached and when acts constitute fraud. (See HERE.)
- In determining the applicability of any law whenever there is doubt, Can. 18 must be followed. This law states one must have recourse to the meaning of the terms of the law considered in their context, parallel passages of the Code, the purpose of the law and the intention of the lawgiver.
- Any attempt to present one’s analysis, opinion or interpretation of any papal document regardless of the value it is assigned is presumptuous to say the least but cannot be admitted because it does not follow these rules. VAS declares such attempts to presume the mind of the Roman Pontiff as null and void and this is clearly stated. After all, everything that issues from the Roman Pontiff amounts to papal law or papal legislation.
- Even then, no personal opinion save those of the approved canonists and theologians can be admitted. And if the document is entered into the Acta, all that is left is for the faithful to obey.
And from this second reader also came a request that proof be provided to help refute
LibTrads who say, based on the commentary of one Spanish writer, a Fr. Scio, that the Holy Sacrifice will never cease because St. Thomas Aquinas indicates it will last till the Second Coming. No direct reference to the St. Thomas Aquinas text was given unfortunately, so exactly which of his writings — and these are voluminous as we well know — was a mystery. So a search had to be conducted and there was some indication that it might have referenced a particular scripture quote, so this was used as the basis for the search. An English commentary was found in the Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corinthios lectura — Commentary On the First Epistle to the Corinthians by Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated by Fabian Larcher, O.P. There St. Thomas writes on 1 Cor. 11: 26:
“686. – Then when he says, As often as, he explains the Lord’s words, which said: “Do this in memory of me,” saying: For as often as you eat this bread. He says bread on account of the appearances that remain. He says this on account of the numerically same body signified and contained. And drink the cup, you will proclaim the Lord’s death, namely, by representing it through this sacrament. And this, until he comes, i.e., until His final coming. This gives us to understand that THIS RITE OF THE CHURCH will not cease until the end of the world: “I am with you always to the end of the world” (Matt 27:20); “This generation,” namely, of the Church, “will not pass away, till all has taken place” (Lk. 21:32).” This is St. Thomas’ own commentary, and no interpretation of what he is saying is offered by the translators of this text.
A rite of the Church and the Holy Sacrifice itself is not necessarily synonymous. If the rite is interpreted as the Holy Sacrifice itself, it would refer to only on rite when the Church recognizes several as valid. And in another place, St. Thomas states that the world will not end immediately on the death of Antichrist but will continue on for an indefinite time. So the end of the world could mean at any time during or even after Antichrist’s appearance, since the majority of the Fathers and Doctors teach the Final Judgment comes shortly after Antichrist’s death. Time, of course, is measured differently by God than by man. Notice that St. Thomas does not say until the consummation here, although he does in other places. And while he first says that the Lord will be proclaimed in the Sacrament “until the final coming,” he later says this sacramental rite itself will not actually cease until the end of the world.
Now saying that this rite of the Church will not cease until the end of the world cannot be interpreted as meaning or implying there will be those available to administer that rite. We have the St. John’s Mass and every time we recite the prayers of the Consecration we, as Catholics, commemorate Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. Having said our Perfect Act of Contrition prior to reciting these Mass payers, we participate in Spiritual Communion as many of us have for decades and will do until we die. That the sacrament of the Eucharist is necessary for salvation was denied by Saint Thomas! So if he denies the sacrament of the Eucharist is necessary for salvation it would be difficult to understand how and why he would teach that there must be priests and bishops until the very end to administer them; this is a contradiction in terms, as St. Thomas shows in his Summa below, Pt. III, Q. 73, Art. 3.
Whether the Eucharist is necessary for salvation?
Objection 1: It seems that this sacrament is necessary for salvation. For our Lord said (Jn. 6:54): “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you.” But Christ’s flesh is eaten and His blood drunk in this sacrament. Therefore, without this sacrament man cannot have the health of spiritual life.
Objection 2: Further, this sacrament is a kind of spiritual food. But bodily food is requisite for bodily health. Therefore, also is this sacrament, for spiritual health.
Objection 3: Further, as Baptism is the sacrament of our Lord’s Passion, without which there is no salvation, so also is the Eucharist. For the Apostle says (1 Cor. 11:26): “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until He come.” Consequently, as Baptism is necessary for salvation, so also is this sacrament.
On the contrary, Augustine writes (Ad Bonifac. contra Pelag. I): “Nor are you to suppose that children cannot possess life, who are deprived of the body and blood of Christ.”
I answer that, Two things have to be considered in this sacrament, namely, the sacrament itself, and what is contained in it. Now it was stated above (A[1], OBJ[2]) that the reality of the sacrament is the unity of the Mystical Body, without which there can be no salvation; for there is no entering into salvation outside the Church, just as in the time of the deluge there was none outside the Ark, which denotes the Church, according to 1 Pet. 3:20,21. And it has been said above (Q[68], A[2]), that before receiving a sacrament, the reality of the sacrament can be had through the very desire of receiving the sacrament. Accordingly, before actual reception of this sacrament, a man can obtain salvation through the desire of receiving it, just as he can before Baptism through the desire of Baptism, as stated above (Q[68], A[2]).
Yet there is a difference in two respects. First of all, because Baptism is the beginning of the spiritual life, and the door of the sacraments; whereas the Eucharist is, as it were, the consummation of the spiritual life, and the end of all the sacraments, as was observed above (Q[63], A[6]): for by the hallowings of all the sacraments preparation is made for receiving or consecrating the Eucharist. Consequently, the reception of Baptism is necessary for starting the spiritual life, while the receiving of the Eucharist is requisite for its consummation; by partaking not indeed actually, but in desire, as an end is possessed in desire and intention. Another difference is because by Baptism a man is ordained to the Eucharist, and therefore from the fact of children being baptized, they are destined by the Church to the Eucharist; and just as they believe through the Church’s faith, so they desire the Eucharist through the Church’s intention, and, as a result, receive its reality. But they are not disposed for Baptism by any previous sacrament, and consequently before receiving Baptism, in no way have they Baptism in desire; but adults alone have: consequently, they cannot have the reality of the sacrament without receiving the sacrament itself. Therefore this sacrament is not necessary for salvation in the same way as Baptism is.
Reply to Objection 1: As Augustine says, explaining Jn. 6:54, “This food and this drink,” namely, of His flesh and blood: “He would have us understand the fellowship of His body and members, which is the Church in His predestinated, and called, and justified, and glorified, His holy and believing ones.” Hence, as he says in his Epistle to Boniface (Pseudo-Beda, in 1 Cor. 10:17): “No one should entertain the slightest doubt, that then every one of the faithful becomes a partaker of the body and blood of Christ, when in Baptism he is made a member of Christ’s body; nor is he deprived of his share in that body and chalice even though he depart from this world in the unity of Christ’s body, before he eats that bread and drinks of that chalice.”
Reply to Objection 2: The difference between corporeal and spiritual food lies in this, that the former is changed into the substance of the person nourished, and consequently it cannot avail for supporting life except it be partaken of; but spiritual food changes man into itself, according to that saying of Augustine (Confess. vii), that he heard the voice of Christ as it were saying to him: “Nor shalt thou change Me into thyself, as food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be changed into Me.” But one can be changed into Christ, and be incorporated in Him by mental desire, even without receiving this sacrament. And consequently the comparison does not hold.
Reply to Objection 3: Baptism is the sacrament of Christ’s death and Passion, according as a man is born anew in Christ in virtue of His Passion; but the Eucharist is the sacrament of Christ’s Passion according as a man is made perfect in union with Christ Who suffered. Hence, as Baptism is called the sacrament of Faith, which is the foundation of the spiritual life, so the Eucharist is termed the sacrament of Charity, which is “the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14). (End of Summa quote)
The importance of cross-referencing
The above underscores the necessity of further study or cross-referencing St. Thomas’ teaching to discover what else he may have taught on these topics. This is very important because it helps the student to better understand the specifics of what the author himself understands about the subject and other points that must be taken into consideration to completely comprehend what the author is saying. Failure of LibTrads to do this in the case of St. Robert Bellarmine was what initially led early traditionalists to think that he taught that an heretical Pope could be deposed, which was never the case. Bellarmine later clarified his views, stating that no, a Pope could never commit heresy in office and could not be deposed as explained in the article HERE. LibTrads’ failure to cross reference what they’re trying to prove has resulted in making it appear that St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that we will have Mass hence the Eucharist until the Second Coming and that Christ will remain with the hierarchy until the very end. It implies that Catholic standing themselves minus the hierarchy as is the actual reality cannot constitute the church and that the promise was given only to the hierarchy and not the faithful but that is not true.
As can be seen in the above, St. Thomas denies the statement of the author making the third objection, which is basically the position of LibTrads. And that third objection is based on the very scripture text in question here: 1 Corinthians 11: 26. So if St. Thomas really thought that that scripture quote meant that this sacrament had to be received from the hands of the hierarchy till the very end, he certainly would not have replied as he did above to this question regarding the necessity of the Eucharist for salvation. And if actual reception of the Eucharist is not required, how can LibTrads twist the meaning of 1 Cor. 11:26 to mandate the existence of the hierarchy to consecrate and administer it, a moot point, since Traditionalist pseudo-clergy never became members of the hierarchy in the first place! But of course Traditionalists are not going to refer you to that particular part of the Summa; they’re only going to quote St. Thomas’s commentary on the Vulgate regarding this text. For from what St. Thomas says on the Eucharist, this rite can also exist spiritually in the desire for receiving the Eucharist especially when we are reciting the words of the Consecration, having made a Perfect Act of Contrition and Spiritual Communion. And in the absence of the Eucharist all the theologians teach that such a desire suffices just as St. Thomas teaches it here. The same is true of confession regarding the Perfect Act of Contrition when there is no priest available.
We see the same problem with Feeney and his insistence that baptism by water only be received — it’s the same type of thing, just a different variation. And as stated before, I believe that Feeney was the prototype traditionalist. Another text not quoted here which directly addresses the problem is found in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Catena Aurea. There St. Thomas teaches Christ promised to be with ALL the faithful, not just the apostles and the disciples, just as stated in previous refutations of those who erroneously teach “there will always be bishops” (see HERE).
Catena Aurea (Matt. 28:20)
Chrys.: And because what He had laid upon them was great, therefore to exalt their spirits He adds, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” As much as to say, Tell Me not of the difficulty of these things, seeing I am with you, Who can make all things easy. A like promise He often made to the Prophets in the Old Testament, to Jeremiah who pleaded his youth, to Moses, and to Ezekiel, when they would have shunned the office imposed upon them. And not with them only does He say that He will be, but with all who shall believe after them. For the Apostles were not to continue till the end of the world, but He says this to the faithful as to one body.
Raban.: Hence we understand that to the end of the world shall not be wanting those who shall be worthy of the Divine indwelling.
Chrys.: He brings before them the end of the world, that He may the more draw them on, and that they may not look merely to present inconveniences, but to the infinite goods to come. As much as to say, The grievous things which you shall undergo, terminate with this present life, seeing that even this world shall come to an end, but the good things which ye shall enjoy endure forever.
Bede, Beda in Hom., non occ.: It is made a question how He says here, “I am with you,” when we read elsewhere that He said, “I go unto him that sent me.” [Jon 16:5] What is said of His human nature is distinct from what is said of His divine nature. He is going to His Father in His human nature, He abides With His disciples in that form in which He is equal with the Father. When He says, “to the end of the world,” He expresses the infinite by the finite; for He who remains in this present world with His elect, protecting them, the same will continue with them after the end, rewarding them.
Jerome: He then who promises that He will be with His disciples to the end of the world, shews both that they shall live forever, and that He will never depart from those that believe.
Leo, Serm., 72, 3: For by ascending into heaven He does not desert His adopted; but from above strengthens to endurance, those whom He invites upwards to glory. Of which glory may Christ make us partakers, Who is the King of glory, “God blessed forever,” AMEN. (End of Catena quote).
Truth matters here, and in order to prove that the Holy Sacrifice will NOT cease at the time of Antichrist, those misquoting St. Thomas need to ante up and present proofs that overcome the authoritative truth professed by approved authors — the unanimous opinion of the Fathers which both the councils of Trent and the Vatican state must be accepted as a rule of faith — that indeed the Mass will cease at the time of Antichrist. They try to cunningly wrest this interpretation from St. Thomas because they have no other proofs but even then, his opinion would be that of only one doctor regarding the Sacrament of the Eucharist. While even the opinion of one doctor as great as St. Thomas is enough to make an opinion truly probable, we are forbidden to follow a probable opinion regarding the valid reception of the Sacraments, which LibTrads try to infer as a necessity in interpreting this verse. What these pseudo-clergy teach on the cessation of the Sacrifice would never be accepted as proof of anything by the Catholic Church or even in classes of logic on secular campuses.
Fallacies in logic — again
Rev. Joseph B Walsh S.J., in his Fordham philosophy series on Logic, (imprimatured in 1940) lists several types of false arguments under the heading of ignoratio elenchi. And among these are “an appeal to the ignorance of the hearers, tricking them by statements they are unable to test.” Not everyone knows how to cross-reference the Summa, even online, to find out what else St. Thomas might have to say on this topic. And even if they do find it, not everybody is able to put together what it takes to disprove what these LibTrads are saying, and they trade on this. this can be easily seen as a deliberate attempt to take advantage and misinform. And there are other forms of ignoratio elenchi LibTrads use to make it appear that they are presenting proofs from a credible source when in fact they are assuming as proven that which they have yet to proven or assuming that a certain proposition is implicitly contained in the one to be proved.
LibTrads assume St. Thomas proves their case when in fact they have yet to prove (a) that the rite Saint Thomas refers to in his Vulgate commentary references the Holy Sacrifice, not the Eucharist; (b) that the unanimous opinion of the Fathers on the meaning of Holy Scripture, determined to be a rule of faith at Trent and the Vatican Council and hence a matter for belief by the faithful, is not binding in this case or can be overturned by other discoveries they have made; (c) that they are indeed validly able to confer the sacraments even if what Saint Thomas said was applicable in this case, for to do this they would need to overturn Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis which is impossible, because the Pope has the last word in all these things; (d) that Saint Thomas teaches Christ spoke only to the hierarchy in promising to be with dialect unto the consummation. This of course we have already shown above they will not be able to do.
LibTrads have managed to create yet another distraction, another perversion of the truth and that’s all that’s happened here. They wished to make themselves indispensable and to create fear in the faithful that unless they receive the sacraments from their hands, they cannot possibly acquire the graces necessary to attain eternal salvation. This very concept is contradicted by Saint Thomas Aquinas above so we know that they are not presenting all of the truth to their followers and to those that they may be discussing this was on the Internet. They would even go so far as to falsify the teachings of the Church on what Christ said about including the elect in the promise to be with them unto the consummation. And that is a truly sad thing to contemplate because it demonstrates that truth does matter to them, only retaining their power, position and followers. What St. Thomas says matters and what the Church teaches and has always taught must take precedence over any of this nonsense that is bandied about through e-mail, on the Internet, over the telephone, whatever.
The one thing that causes them to continually gnash their teeth is the fact that in the absence of the hierarchy Pope Pius XII taught that the laity must take up all their responsibilities and duties. And this is what we have tried to do. But until they admit the full implications of this statement, which is duly registered in the Acts of Apostolica Sedis, there will be no unity among those praying at home and there will be no admission of guilt or cooperation among traditionalists regarding what has happened since the death of Pope Pius XII.
Conclusion
We may be a rag-tag bunch, those brought to the marriage feast from the ditches and the highways, but WE are the Church. LibTrad pseudo-clergy, too, were called to obey the laws and teachings of the Church but they had better things to do; they had hidden agendas, they had dreams of creating a need for their services that would result in a tidy little income. They also are laity, but because of their disobedience and their refusal to accept the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy, they are laypersons who exist outside the Mystical Body. For they have not only refused to obey the Church they professed to love — they have betrayed Christ and his vicars every bit as much as the Novus Ordo church they love to hate.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 11, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Elizabeth of Portugal+
by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 5, 2024 | New Blog
+Sts. Peter and Paul+
+ Prayer Intention for the Month of July, dedicated to
the Most Precious Blood of Jesus+
“Eternal Father, by the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, glorify His most holy Name according to the desires of his adorable Heart.” (Raccolta, 1936)
Please forgive the lateness of this post which can be attributed to technical difficulties with the website that have now been resolved. I still wish to honor Saints Peter and Paul with this post so I have retained the date of their feast day. I hope to be back at work soon and will then address some issues that have arisen recently overseas and here at home that have been called to my attention. I should be able to get to these things no later than the end of July if not sooner. Thank you for your patience and wishing you a blessed summer vacation season.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 14, 2024 | New Blog
Saint Anthony of Padua religion faith holy illustration. St. Anthony. Patron Saint of Lost Items. With Child Jesus
What follows for the next several weeks are a series of meditations on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, since this is His month. They are taken from Rev. Peter J. Arnoudt, S.J., The Imitation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, (1904, Benziger Bros.), a lengthy book of meditations. These visits with the Sacred Heart are remarkable for the love they inculcate and the deeper understanding of Christ’s love for us which they offer the reader. These selections have been chosen to reflect the times in which we find ourselves, with the hope that they will help the reader better appreciate the value of suffering in the light of Our Lord’s own sufferings, and the joy sharing in these sufferings should bring to us, since they unite us with Christ on the Cross.
Wishing all a peaceful and spiritually productive summer!
by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 1, 2024 | New Blog
Prayer Society Intention for the Month of June, Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
“Divine Heart of Jesus, convert sinners, save the dying, deliver the holy souls in Purgatory.” (Raccolta)
As Henry Cardinal Manning has explained in his Temporal Power of the Vicar of Christ: “Antichrist and the antichristian movement has these marks: first, schism from the Church of God; second, denial of its Divine and infallible voice;and thirdly, denial of the Incarnation.” On pgs. 85-86, Manning describes schism as “revolt from authority… the one and universal Church.” Denial of infallibility he characterizes as “the rejection of the office and presence of the Holy Ghost… This necessarily involves the heretical principle of human opinion as opposed to Divine faith; of the private spirit as opposed to the infallible voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church of God” (p. 166). As for denial of the Incarnation, Manning notes on page 161: “The dethronement of the Vicar of Christ is the dethronement of the hierarchy of the universal Church and the public rejection of the Presence and Reign of Jesus…” And on page 91: “If heresy in the individual dissolves the unity of the Incarnation, heresy in the nation dissolves the unity of the Church, which is built on the Incarnation.”
This should be something quite obvious to the average Catholic as a logical consequence of Manning’s first two points, but unfortunately it is not. For “rejection of the office and presence of the Holy Ghost” is a denial of the necessary presence of the Third person of the Blessed Trinity, and the Trinity is one and undivided; deny one of its members and you deny all. Christ’s Vicars speak in His name; they are His living voice on earth. Ignore and demean that voice and every bit of the light of sanctifying grace disappears. There are now so many ways the Incarnation is being denied on earth it is difficult to evaluate them all. But as we have been examining in our last several blogs, the institution of the Novus Ordo Missae was one of the major contributors to this denial, falsifying the meaning of Christ’s very words in instituting the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass on Catholic altars. For what it actually represented was the ability of man to dictate to God the meaning and wording of the Divine establishment of the Eucharist, recognizing only His humanity and changeable human nature, NOT HIS DIVINITY, just as they would later change all the other Sacraments.
All this, of course, emanated from Protestantism and its concept of Christ as a loving, merciful God — our friend, our brother — with no reference to the suffering Christ, the righteous judge, the exactor of Divine vengeance. True Catholics watch in sorrow when they see Protestants and Novus Ordo adherents alike swaying and dancing in scandalous attire to guitar-accompanied “Christian” and secular music, after the manner of pagans, and calling it “worship”; speaking in tongues and effecting “healings” at charismatic/ holy roller services and welcoming non-Catholics into what is commonly believed to be “Catholic” churches, in the spirit of ecumenism. That God would be pleased with the scurrilous amusements of man is a sacrilege and a travesty, a denial both of his Divinity and His Kingship. Traditionalism denies His divinity as well, for those attending the services of Traditionalist pseudo-clergy are just as pagan, offering worship to bread idols never consecrated by those who are not valid successors of the apostles.
When silence falls
One shudders to think what will happen to these non-believers on the day Christ comes as King to judge us all. For those who have not been converted by the many chastisements preceding Christ’s coming I envision, on beholding Him in all His Divine majesty, an all-pervading and electrified silence, electrified, that is, by the first inkling of fear inspired by this most awesome and Almighty Lord God of Hosts. For He will be nothing as they imagined. There will be no kindly smile on His anguished face, no open arms to embrace those who believe they can continue sinning without ever amending their lives and doing penance, because His blood covers them all. For standing there behind Him and at His side will be all the Saints they refused to believe in, including His Blessed Mother, who they never cease to defile, and her retinue of angels, who many dismiss as figments of the imagination. They will look frantically to find any among that faithful band appearing with Him who they hailed as ministers, prophets and “saints” among their ranks on this earth and will recognize no one. And then will confusion and dread overtake them, and the weeping and gnashing of teeth begin.
Listen to what St. Alphonsus de Liguori tells us about Judgment Day:
“The Redeemer has appointed a day of general judgment which is called in the Scriptures ‘the day of the Lord,’ on which Jesus Christ will make known the greatness of His Majesty. Hence that day is called not a day of mercy and pardon but ‘a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery.’ Yes, for then the Lord will come to repair the honor which sinners sought to take from Him on this earth. Let us examine how the judgment of that great day will take place…The just will stand on the right and the wicked will be driven to the left. How great would be the pain that you would feel at being driven away from the party of pleasure or at being expelled from the Church! But how much greater will be the pain of those who are banished from the society of the saints. What, think you, says the author of The Imperfect Work, must be the confusion of the wicked one after being separated from the just? They will be abandoned. This confusion alone would, according to Saint John Chrysostom, be sufficient to constitute a hell for the reprobate. The son will be separated from the father the husband from the wife and the master from the servant. One shall be taken and one shall be left as in Holy Scripture.
“’Tell me my brother, what place do you think will fall to you? Would you wish to be found at the right hand? If you do, abandon the life which leads to the left.’ The witnesses against the reprobate will first be the devils, who according to Saint Augustine will say: ‘Most just God declare, him to be mine who was unwilling to be yours.’ Secondly, they will be their own consciences, ‘Their own conscience bearing witness to them.’ The very walls of the house in which they have offended God with their testimony will cry for vengeance against them. ‘The stone shall cry out of the wall.’ Finally, the Judge himself, who has been present at all the insults offered to Him, will give evidence against the Sinner: ‘Depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire’” (Preparation for Death).
But no one believes this could happen to them, that the end is so very near. And even those who admit it cannot be far off, are not worried they will be counted among the reprobate. And yet it seems that this event could be at our very doors.
Nearness of the Judgment
We read From Fr. E. Sylvester Berry’s The Apocalypse of St. John, (1921), Ch. 20:
“St. John now beholds our Lord seated upon His throne to judge the living and the dead. Heaven and earth fleeing before His face expresses the terror that shall seize upon the wicked: ‘Men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved.’ Our Lord’s coming with power and majesty, and the signs that precede it were not revealed to St. John, probably because they had been sufficiently announced by Christ Himself in the Gospels. ‘Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together.’ In like manner at the coming of Christ the dead arise and come to judgment. The books are now opened and all are judged according to their works which are written either in the book of life or in the books of the dead.
“The books of the dead (wicked) are many while there is but one book of life because ‘many are called, but few are chosen.’ The sea represents the nations opposed to the Church in the last days. Its dead are the people of those nations whom Christ shall find living at His coming. They are dead in sin and their works are written in the books of the dead. Death and hell must give up their dead, the wicked who die before the second coming of Christ. Their souls, condemned to hell, are now united to their risen bodies to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Thus do death and hell give up their dead.
“The order of events immediately preceding the last judgment can be fairly well established from various passages of Scriptures. The revolt of Gog and Magog will be punished by a deluge of fire from heaven which will probably occasion the conversion of great numbers. At some time after this the signs foreboding the coming of Christ will strike terror into all hearts, and the day of judgment will be near at hand; ‘When these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand’; ‘But of the day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.’ St. Paul says that ‘The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night;’ men will be found in the midst of their occupations as happened at the deluge of the days of Noe.
“At length there ‘shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all tribes of earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with much power and majesty. And He shall send His angels with a trumpet and a great voice, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds of heaven, from the farthest parts of the heaven to the utmost bounds of them.’ At the sound of the trumpet the dead shall arise. The just found living upon earth in that day and the just who arise from the dead shall be caught up into the air to meet Christ and be united with Him forever. ‘The dead who are with Christ shall arise first. Then we who are alive, who are left shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ into the air and so shall we be always with the Lord.’
“Shall those found living at the second coming of Christ undergo death before the judgment? The Church has decided nothing in the matter, but Sacred Scripture seems to indicate that they will not. St. Paul says: ‘We who are alive shall be taken up;’ Again he says: ‘In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet . . . the dead shall arise again incorruptible; and we shall be changed.’ He evidently makes a distinction between those who are dead and those who remain alive at the coming of Christ. In the preceding verse the Apostle writes: ‘We shall all indeed rise again; but we shall not all be changed.’ This indicates that all must undergo death but the Greek text reads: ‘We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.’ It must be admitted that this reading agrees better with the context than the one found in the Vulgate.
And from Fr. Charles-Marie Arminjon’s The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, (1881), said to have been read and esteemed by St. Therese of Lisieux:
“As for the manner of this Second Coming, it will be like the first: it will be the same Christ and the same man and His features and appearance will be the same as during His mortal life. It will be enough for those who lived and spoke with Him to set eyes on His person in order to recognize Him. However this second manifestation will not come in weakness and humiliation but in majesty and glory. St. Matthew’s gospel says: ‘I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven.’ In other words, Jesus Christ will appear surrounded by the pomp and apparel of divine kingship. The glorified elect and the multitude of angels will form a resplendent court around His throne such as no mind could portray. Those who fought with the greatest constancy, who have followed Him the most closely in the arena of his sufferings, will be the nearest to his person.
“’Then shall the just stand with great constancy,’ says the book of Wisdom, ‘against those that have afflicted them and taken away their labours.’ We can imagine the regrets and despair of the damned by virtue of the picture which the same inspired author draws of them.
- “These seeing it shall be troubled with terrible fear and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation.
- “Saying within themselves, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit. These are they whom we had some time in derision and for a parable of reproach.
- “We fools esteemed their life’s madness and their end without honor.
- “Behold how they are numbered among the children of God and their lot is among the Saints. • “Therefore we have erred from the way of truth and the light of justice hath not shined unto us and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us.
“The apostles, martyrs, doctors and thousands of the just who have fought for the honor of God and for the interests of the faith will unite with their leader in proclaiming the truth of His sentences and the equity of His judgments. This judgment is rightly called universal because it will be exercised over all members of the human race, because it will cover every crime every misdemeanor and because it will be definitive and irrevocable.
All will be revealed
“Only then will human history begin. In the clarity of the light of God all the crimes, public and secret, which have been committed in every latitude and in every age will be seen clearly and in detail. The whole life of each human being will be laid bare. No circumstance will be omitted, no action, word or desire will remain unknown. We shall be reminded of the different periods we have gone through; the lustful man will have his disorderly living and libertine speeches set out before him the, ambitious man his devious, Machiavellian ways. The judgment will unravel and bring out all the strands and the duplicity of those intrigues so cleverly hatched. It will set out in their true light all those base repudiations of principles those Craven acts of complicity which men invested with public authority have sought to justify, whether by invoking the specious pretext of reasons of state or by covering them up with the mask of piety or disinterestedness.
“The Lord, says St. Bernard, will reveal all those abuses which people conceal from themselves; all those unknown dissipations, those planned crimes where the only thing lacking was the actual commission. Those pretended virtues and those forgotten secret sins blotted out from the memory will appear suddenly like enemies starting out from an ambush. Without doubt, there are men so hardened in evil that the thought of this terrible manifestation has little effect upon them. Being familiar with crime, they treat it as a subject of amusement and boasting. And without they fondly imagine that they will assume some effrontery at the Judge, the same effrontery at the judgment and by their cynical, arrogant attitude defy the majesty of God and the conscience of the human race.
“Vain hope! Sin will no longer be viewed from the opinion of carnal man, ready to excuse the most violent outbursts because they do not harm any neighbor, either in his goods or in his life. The foulness and disorder of sin will be revealed in the ineffable clarity of the light of God. Sin, says Saint Thomas, will be judged as God Himself judges it.”
And finally this, written by Rev. Herman Bernard Kramer, The Book of Destiny, 1956, Ch. 20:
“After the defeat of Gog and his armies, Satan is cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, hell proper, into which Antichrist and his prophet were cast alive with body and soul. They may not appear at the Last Judgment. Satan was confined to the bottomless abyss during the millennium and then released to seduce Gog and his followers, whose number is as the sands of the sea. Thereby he fills up his measure of iniquity and merits to be sunk into the deepest chasm of the pool of fire. The final judgment is pronounced and executed upon him as on his two principal agents and with them he is locked up in the burning pool. Here we must understand that this is how Antichrist and the False Prophet re cast ALIVE into this pool: They are the first to be resurrected at the Final Judgment and then thrown into Hell, for “ALL shall rise”…
“This verse (10) suggests another epoch of peace between the destruction of Gog and the end of the world. Perhaps the signs of the approaching end foretold by our Lord will then gradually appear. There is no “day and night” in eternity after the Last Judgment. According to the Greek text, the “day and night” seems not to be identified with the “forever and ever” of eternity. Hence if Satan is tormented together with the Beast and False Prophet day and night, it must be while day and night still continue on earth. Those who shall have forgotten God’s judgments upon Antichrist or view them as doubtful legends and have drifted into indifference at the end of the THOUSAND YEARS shall in the destruction of Gog come face to face with the truth of the Church’s teachings and a manifest proof of the everlasting punishments on the wicked. As in the Old Testament, so at all times men discount and underestimate in the course of ages the value of God’s revelations and treat the Gospel today as fairy tales, deny the reality of the miracles of Christ and even doubt His existence. Many will estimate the history of Antichrist and the miraculous manifestation of Christ’s power in the Church and particularly in the Holy Eucharist as far distant fables and will imagine in their overweening pride that men were deceived in those days of ignorance.
“Verse 10 refutes with striking clearness all explanations that the Beast and the False Prophet are institutions or organizations, for they are not only cast into the same pool of fire with Satan, whose personal existence no one tries to torture into an institution but are also “tormented” together with him. No institution, organization, kingdom or empire is “tormented” in hell. But even brilliant minds after taking an impossible view will try to hold on to it. Verses 11-end: This verse follows the foregoing without any connecting particle and without any introduction to the succeeding vision. The One sitting upon the Great White Throne before whose face heaven and earth flee away is Christ coming in the clouds to judge the world. He comes for the Last Judgment. No place is found for heaven and earth anymore. The world and all its glory shall pass away, and the Church shall exist on earth no longer.
A time for penance
“Between this verse and the foregoing a period of time is obviously passed over, during which the wicked may repent and do penance. Verse eleven following the final judgment upon Satan without the insertion of a connecting word proves nothing about the proximity of the judgment to his condemnation.
“The ‘seven years’ of Ezechiel may be and probably are a symbolic number. Ezechiel indicates (39: 22-29) some lapse of time from Gog to the end of the world and likewise a speedy arrival of the end after the last war of Gog (38: 8). The prophets commonly write new prophecies verse after verse without any conjunctions and without any indication of long spaces of time between the verses. In one verse they promise the end of the Babylonian Captivity and in the next the glories of Christ’s reign, as if the coming of Christ were simultaneous with the return from Captivity. And they connect His Coming immediately with the glorious future days in terms of the millennium, although another couple of thousand years must pass away added to the five hundred from the end of the Captivity to His Coming.
“Christ steadfastly refused to reveal the nearness of the end of the world, although the apostles evinced the keenest desire to know this. He said to them that the Father had kept this knowledge in His control (Mt. 24: 36; Mach.13: 32). The time for the career of Antichrist shall be known when the signs appear and also that of the last enemy of the Church, Gog; there is nothing in the Apocalypse, however, to indicate the nearness or remoteness of the end of the world after these other prophecies have been past history. The wisdom of God withholds this knowledge from the human race.”
Battle of Armageddon
If we take Apoc. Ch. 16 literally, it would seem that it coincides with the beginning of a third world war, and the advent of a possible pole shift, and/or meteor strike — accompanied by the destruction of Babylon described at length in chapters 17 and 18-19. It also segues smoothly into Ch. 20, which aligns this battle with the last persecution of the Church — the battle of the forces of good with Gog and Magog. Chapter 20 of Apocalypse indicates Satan himself will descend on the “camp of the saints” and inspire what Rev. Leo Haydock describes as “the last persecution of Antichrist” by Gog and Magog, which some believe is Russia and its leader in league with China and other nations. If we live in the time after Antichrist described by St. Thomas Aquinas, which I believe that we do, Satan and his hordes will come quickly and the battle of Armageddon will be waged as described in Chap. 16 of Apocalypse.
The article here discusses the battle of Armageddon that seems to be instigated by those of the Orient — China, Russia, et al; “Gog and Magog” (Apoc. 20:7; Ezech. 38: 2-3) and coincides with the fall of Babylon. As Rev. P. Huchede explains in his book History of Antichrist (1884), Gog and Magog can be identified with the Scythians, who the Encyclopedia Brittanica identifies as “…members of a nomadic people, originally of Iranian stock, known from as early as the 9th century B.C., who migrated westward from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.” Clearly, this is now a distinct possibility. Some speculate on the web that these forces shall overcome us and enslave us, but if this is true, it may not be true everywhere or for all. We must remember what Fr. Hunolt says in his sermons, recently quoted here, that on the contrary: ““This shall be done at the end of the world, when all creatures are to be set at liberty and released from slavery, and then like a mighty army they will all rush in a body against the wicked to put them to shame, as we read in the Book of Wisdom…”
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
However brief it may be, there will be time to do penance before the Final Judgment as Fr. Hunolt agrees; won for mankind, I believe, by Christ’s Blessed Mother. As we noted in our last blog, how many have defamed and blasphemed Our Lady when they so desperately need her intercession. Will there not be a great silence among these blasphemers, when they stare with incredulity as Our Lady comes to crush the head of Satan? Is it not possible that the Miracle of the Sun was a portent of a future intervention on mankind’s behalf by Our Blessed Mother, to save her children from evil men who not only try to obliterate all belief in her Divine Son, but obscure the sun itself, created by God the Father, and rob us of its light that we may all the more quickly perish? Yes, that is when the great silence will fall, when they realize that all they have been taught was a lie, and they have no way to defend themselves before the throne of God.
Such a great mercy, sadly, will not be taken advantage of by all. That the Final Judgment is imminent is not a certainty, although it is definitely a serious probability. For as we have seen over the ages, many things anticipated in Apocalypse have either missed the mark or have been taken in the wrong direction entirely. We can see things more clearly now as the time grows nearer. But it is likely that we will never know, until the battle of Armageddon commences and Antichrist’s diabolical system is destroyed, exactly what God has planned for us. And this, as Rev. Kramer states above, is his express will. That is why Christ tells us He comes as a thief, for each of us when we end our earthly exile; and for all of us, when the days of this weary world are done.
