+St. Clotilda, Queen+
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Divine Revelation and the demise of the Church
Even after ad hominem attacks fail because they have no scholastic arguments to defend themselves,Traditionalists continue to point fingers at members of the laity who dare question the credentials of Traditionalist “clergy.” But there is a notable difference between these purported clerics calling themselves Traditionalists and those who rightfully challenge their authority, as pointed out recently by a reader in Australia.
Lay critics of the Traditionalist movement didn’t go out and pretend to become priests and bishops, appropriate false credentials and pose as authorities who must be listened to and obeyed, then present themselves as the channels through which Christ transmits HIS Sacraments and renews HIS sacrifice. They never used this false authority as a tool to solicit money from people, involve themselves in their marriages and the lives of their children or become privy to their innermost secrets in “confession.” All they have done is study the papal encyclicals, ecumenical councils and Canon Law then warned others of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who are stalking them, something they are obliged to do in these times in order to defend the faith. They have presented the teachings of the one, true Church prior to Pope Pius XII’s death and for this they are demonized and ridiculed.
Little do Traditionalists know how different things might have been if these men had truly intended to follow God’s will and obey His laws. They had the necessary information, but they failed to provide it to their followers in accordance with the laws and teachings of the Church. So what did they know and when did they know it? That is the question that so many people fail to ask themselves regarding the origin and operations over the years of Traditionalist “clergy.” If these men truly wished to save the souls of their followers, they would have assayed the situation at hand and done their due diligence before seeking ordination or running after a mitre, even if it meant admitting they had been wrong before. They would have valued the truth above all else and set out to learn it and accept it at any cost. It was right before their very eyes; they even acknowledge that they knew many of its aspects. But they did not love the truth, because it interfered with their plans. They wanted to put it together in a way that fit into their agenda, and that is exactly what they did. But this haphazard mess of pottage they fed to their followers was not in keeping with Holy Scripture and the teachings of the continual magisterium, no matter how much they would like it to be.
All the signs were there in the 1970s, for the most part. There already were questions about Paul 6 being the Antichrist. In 1970, a Fatima publication which went into several printings published the fact that the Fathers unanimously taught the Mass would cease, and according to the Vatican Council, this must be accepted as a rule of faith. A devout study of Holy Scripture would have revealed nearly all the rest, had it been used to gauge what was happening within the Church and in the world. The gist of these prophecies is presented below, but many more could be cited. And scriptural commentary can be used to figure out the rest.
- The shepherd shall be struck and the sheep scattered — Zach. 13:7; Matt 26: 31.
- He who withholdeth shall be taken out of the way — 2 Thess. 2: 6-7. (Henry Cardinal Manning teaches that this means the Roman Pontiff.)
- The Temple shall be utterly destroyed (also the Church in Rome, eventually, according to the common opinion of scriptural commentators and theologians) — Matt. 24: 2.
- This time shall be like no other, but it will resemble the time of Noe — Matt. 24: 21; 37-39.
- Many false prophets shall rise and seduce many (Protestant Reformation and what followed) — Matt. 24: 24.
- When the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel shall stand in the Holy Place, he who readeth let him understand. (This is interpreted by Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio as a heretic obtaining the see by fraud, not canonically) — Matt. 24: 15.
- The abomination of desolation is also interpreted as the substitution of a false sacrifice or idols to whom one must render adoration (Haydock Commentary, Matt. 24:15).
- False christs (false popes) and false prophets shall show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect. Behold, I have told it to you beforehand (in other words, you’ve been forewarned!) — Matt. 24: 24-25.
- First will come the revolt, then the Man of Sin is revealed. — 2 Thess. 2: 3.
- He shall sit in the temple of God, showing himself as God, (some think the temple in Jerusalem, others the Church. But it is clear from Pope Paul IV’s Bull that he will be a usurper reigning as a true pope, and this interpretation is binding on the faithful) — 2 Thess. 2: 4.
- The coming of Antichrist will be “according to the working of Satan,” exercising Satan’s power, signs and lying wonders — 2 Thess. 2: 9.
- Because those who succumb to Antichrist will not love the truth, they shall be seduced by the operation of error, and will be judged — 2 Thess. 2: 10-11.
Especially intended as abominable in the Scripture texts is any unclean or unworthy sacrifice, or any sacrifice offered before idols. St. Jerome wrote as follows on this topic: “It is possible to apply this text easily to either the Antichrist, to the statue of Caesar which Pilate placed in the Temple or even to the equestrian statue of Hadrian, which down to this present day stands on the very site of the holy of holies. In the Old Testament, however, the term abomination is applied deliberately to idols. To identify it further, ‘of desolation,’ is added to indicate that the idol was placed in a desolate or ruined temple. The abomination of desolation can be taken to mean as well every perverted doctrine. When we see such a thing stand in the holy place, that is in the Church and pretend it is God, we must flee…,” (Breviary Lesson for the 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost).
Why would St. Paul specifically state the Man of Sin could not come unless and until the withholding power was first removed? And why would Pope Paul IV refer to this advent of the abomination of desolation in a papal bull dealing nearly exclusively with heresy reigning even in the highest ranks of the Church, including the papacy, if this was not the interpretation the Church had always held regarding the abomination? St. Bernard, last Father of the Church, demonstrates this was the case with Innocent II. The very reason Pope Paul IV made this important distinction was to refute the Protestant error that legitimate popes had reigned as antichrists throughout history, clarifying that if such a thing appeared to happen, such a man could never be a true pope. In fact, he further clarified that if such a man ever did succeed in this, he would be the Antichrist. But no Traditionalist clergy ever connected this Scripture passage with the papacy, for they couldn’t admit the Mass had been taken away and still serve their self-assigned purpose.
I remember the debates about who the withholding power was, and only Sedevacantists thought it might be the papacy. There was never sufficient interest to even continue the discussion. But the Scripture prophecies stand. The Church has been completely destroyed as a spiritual organization, the times began to become what they are today in the 1960s, the usurpers have reigned, abrogating the Latin Mass and sending out their false ministers to seduce the faithful. The abomination (the NOM) was set up by Antichrist, and many left the Church. Traditionalist clergy pointed to the new mass itself and Vatican 2, but not to the men pretending to be Christ’s Vicars as the linchpin to explain what had really happened to the Church. The elect were deceived but some later regained their senses and began questioning the legitimacy of the papacy and even the Traditionalist movement itself. But they did not go far enough. They failed to draw the logical conclusions from what Our Lord and St. Paul said, or perhaps they simply could not bring themselves to acknowledge it.
The juridical Church ceased to exist, (although Christ’s Mystical Body will exist until the consummation). This very event was prophesied in Holy Scripture, despite the ridiculous Traditionalist claims that to deny the Church could ever disappear is to deny Her indefectibility. 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 — is absent. This false Traditionalist claim must be dismissed, once and for all. Either we accept Francis as a true pope (an impossibility; even necessity cannot demand we commit ourselves to anything evil) or we accept the reality that, as is prophesied in Apoc. 13:7, Antichrist has overcome the saints, the Mass has ceased and we live in those times following the death of Antichrist, although we are still chafing under the Satanic succession to the papacy established in his successors.
If we look at it from the perspective that we can measure the end by the Church’s non-existence and Antichrist’s arrival, then it corresponds to this statement by Rev. E.S. Berry in his The Church of Christ: “The Apostolic succession cannot fail in the Apostolic See so long as the Church Herself continues to exist, for although the See be vacant for many years, the Church always retains the right to elect a legitimate successor, who then obtains supreme authority according to the institution of Christ.” But without the necessary means to canonically elect an unquestionably valid successor (valid cardinals and bishops), how can the ends be achieved without the means?! Only by a miracle, as stated above, could the situation we find ourselves in today be remedied. And while Scripture commentators and holy seers hint at such an event, we cannot be so certain they are correct that we exclude the possibility that the Final Judgment may be the conclusion of all this, which many scriptural commentators also teach.
Meditate, for just one moment, on these words of Pope Pius IX: “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.” — (Allocution to religious superiors, June 1872). Do you truly believe that the successors of St. Peter are the Vicars of Christ, speaking in His name, and that Pope Pius IX, teaching on the very issue of the necessity of the papacy, was telling us the absolute truth? Do you believe without a doubt that Pope Pius XII was the last true pope, which even most Traditionalists teach? Since the answers to all these questions must be yes, then WHY IS ANYONE DOUBTING THE CHURCH NO LONGER EXISTS? And if the Church no longer exists, how can there possibly be true and valid bishops and priests functioning in Her name?! Obviously not enough religious or members of the hierarchy prayed for or received the graces necessary to defend the rights of the Sovereign Pontiff and the Holy See as Pope Pius IX requested. Pope Pius XII also commanded in his 1945 election constitution Vacantis Apotolicae Sedis that these rights be defended by the cardinals.
Also, in Vol. I, The Catholic Encyclopedia defines Antichrist as (a) one directly opposed to Christ (b) “one resembling Christ in appearance and power” and finally (c) “a king who reigns during an interregnum” (!) Neither Roncalli nor Montini ever ascended the papacy, as “Cum ex…” demonstrates, yet they reigned supreme over Rome and the world. This is clearly a revival of pagan Rome and the powers of the ancient Caesars.
The mystical body of Satan
Christianity was still in its infancy when the early councils began anathematizing heretical sects. The Gnostics were among the first to be condemned and many others would follow over the centuries. Always the mystery of iniquity existed in that irresistible force that draws men to embrace evil and abandon that which is good. It was of course Satan and his fallen angels who enticed men to abandon truth and nothing has changed in two millennia. What has changed, however, is the definition of Christianity, defined and redefined numerous times since the Reformation in the 1500s split what was intended to be Christ’s indivisible Church into a thousand splintered factions. What was willed by God to be one Mystical Body united to its head, Christ, was effectively dismembered and reduced to thousands of pieces despite what many believe. All call themselves Christian, yet none can find one set of truths on which they all agree. It would be, in analogy, as if the liver was rejecting the very blood it filtered, or the heart, not agreeing with the blood vessels, refused to pump its life-giving force throughout the body.
It is interesting to note that the Latin word for six is “sex,” symbolizing division or differentiation. If we thus interpret 666 as “divide-divide-divide,” we must come to the conclusion that this number of which Giovanni Montini, Paul 6, was so fond must truly symbolize the destruction that was so blatant during his reign as “pope,” including what has been reported as his sexual deviancy. For what is more precisely opposed to unity than fragmentation? How more perfectly could the enemies of the Church have opposed all that Our Lord ever meant to establish in Peter than by scattering the very lambs and sheep He told Peter and the Apostles to gather? While Christians believe they possess a certain species of unity, it is only of the negative sort — unity in diversity. Isn’t that what we keep hearing day and night on television? The great wonders and advantages of our country’s diversity? But it has nothing to do with the unity Christ prescribed for His Mystical Body. Diversity is even in evidence among the numerous Traditionalist factions today, who pretend they can “unite the clans” without obedience to a canonically elected pope, the ONLY center of all true unity in the Church.
It was St. Thomas Aquinas who best described the nature of this negative unity:
“There are two mystical bodies in this world: The Mystical Body of Christ and the mystical body of the Devil or of the Antichrist. To one or another every man belongs. The Mystical Body of Christ is the Holy Church, His pure and faithful Spouse …The mystical body of the Devil is the ensemble of impious men. Like an adulterous wet nurse, it nourishes this ensemble. The Devil is its head, and the evil persons are its members … “The body of the Devil,” says St. Gregory, “is composed by all the impious men.”
“Just as Christ, in Himself and through His disciples, always seeks to cut off the members of the Devil and incorporate them to Himself …. so also does the Devil. By his efforts and those of his cohorts, the Devil aims to amputate the members of Christ to unite them to the sordid members of his prostitute. ‘Know you not, that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, taking the members of Christ, make them the members of a harlot?’ (1Cor 6:15). And St. Paul answers: ‘God forbid.’ St. Augustine writes: ‘They cannot be at the same time members of Christ and members of a prostitute. Many receive the Body of Christ in the Sacrament, but not in their souls. By failing to receive Christ spiritually and leading bad lives, they reduce the members of Christ, making themselves members of the Devil, so they greatly diminish the Body of Christ.’” (www.Traditioninaction.org, Feb. 10, 2007; St. Thomas Aquinas, De venerabile Sacramenti Altaris, Marietti, 1931, 114 (This attribution in no way indicates support for the content of this website.)
Reverend Paul Furfey, in his Mystery of Iniquity, wrote: “It is not too much even to speak of a mystical body of Satan, united to the devil in a most intimate union.” This diabolical entity, Furfey explained, reverses the order of all truths in the Church, works to destroy Her and constitutes a negative sort of unity actively serving the forces of Antichrist. Furfey warns that true to its perfect opposition to Christ’s Mystical Body, the mystical body of Satan in action is not easily discernable. Unlike the Church, known by Her attributes and four marks, Furfey observed:
“It is useless to expect to find the Kingdom of Satan, the world, embodied in an organization as definite and as clearly outlined as the Church…What will be found is a group of forces which, at first glance, appear separate and independent but which on closer examination prove to be interlocking, so that in spite of their seeming separateness, they actually cooperate surprisingly well together” (The Mystery of Iniquity, Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, Wis., 1945, p. 24).
The coming of Satan’s “son” — Antichrist
Satan was cast from the heights of Heaven because of his disobedience, which proceeded from his all-consuming jealousy of God. He most envied God’s ability to create, a power he did not possess. After his fall he determined to pervert everything good God had created for the attainment of salvation in order to secure man’s eternal damnation. To best imitate that which he hates and cannot have, Satan as “father” devised his own trinity, consisting in his son, Antichrist, and the false prophet who precedes him, disseminating the evil spirit of his diabolical system.
One Protestant site depicts Satan’s trinity as the devil [the unholy, diabolical spirit], the sea beast [Antichrist], and the land beast [the false prophet] — (Apoc.16:13) — and his church as, “the synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9). He also has his own ministers, “ministers of Satan” (2 Corinthians 11:4-5); his own system of theology “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1); his own sacrificial system; “The Gentiles…sacrifice to demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20) and his own communion service, “the cup of demons…and the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). These ministers proclaim the gospel of Antichrist “a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you” (Galatians 1:7-8). He has established a throne for himself in opposition to that of Christ and His Vicar (Apoc. 13:2) and boasts own worshipers (Apoc. 13:4).
Thus he has established a counterfeit church featuring false christs and self-constituted messiahs (Matthew 24:4-5). False teachers present as specialists in Antichrist’s “theology,” to introduce “destructive heresies, even denying the Master who brought them” (2 Peter 2:1). They are experts at the art of diluting truth with error, attenuating truth just enough to make error palatable. They carry on their teaching surreptitiously and often anonymously. He sends out false prophets [even among those who pretend to oppose him]. “And many false prophets will arise and will mislead many” (Matthew 24:11). He introduces false brethren into the church, who “had sneaked in to spy out our liberty…in order to bring us into bondage” (Galatians 2:4); false apostles who imitate the true (2 Corinthians 11:13).” One could also add that he is attempting to create his own imitation of man by cloning, artificial intelligence, robots, drones and by other means, with science as the new theology.
Above can be seen all too clearly the exact modus operandi of the Novus Ordo and Traditional sects, described in this Scriptural word picture of the end times by no less than a Protestant. Catholics should be ashamed. But this event in history was foretold in detail by Bp. Fulton Sheen shortly before the death of Pope Pius XII:
“[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church … It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. We are living in the days of the Apocalypse, the last days of our era. The two great forces – the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of the anti-Christ – are beginning to draw battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The ‘false prophet’ will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions…or a politics which is a religion, one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s…There will be a counterfeit ‘Church.’ Christ’s Church, the Catholic Church, will be One; and the false ‘prophet’ will create the other.
“The false ‘Church’ will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of ‘churches’ and religions, forming some type of global association. A world parliament of ‘churches.’ It will be emptied of all Divine content; it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The Mystical Body on Earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false ‘prophet.’ Satan will recruit him from our bishops. The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I Am Who I Am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who I am not.’
“In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity, and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret, which he will tell to no one. He will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch… a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ.”
Anyone with even a basic idea of what happened following Vatican 2 will be able to recognize the establishment of this counterfeit church in Rome beginning with the reign of the usurper “pope” John 23rd, the false prophet. Then we have his successor the false Christ — Paul 6 the Antichrist — made “cardinal” by John 23rd against the wishes of Pope Pius XII. And lastly we have Antichrist’s system and successors, in diametric opposition to the divine establishment of the papacy and its perpetual succession unto the end of time (which may well have been post-1958, in regards to the Church’s existence on earth.)
This is the only possible way Satan could imitate in most perfect fashion Christ’s Church on earth and appear to destroy it by Antichrist’s usurpation of the papacy. It is the only plan that could ever satisfy his aspiration to the Divine heights, allowing as it were the closest possible resemblance of Satan to God the Father and Antichrist to His Son, perversely replacing creation with destruction. As The Catholic Encyclopedia author of the article on Antichrist observes: “Since Antichrist simulates Christ, and the Pope is an image of Christ, Antichrist must have some similarity to the Pope, if the latter be the true Vicar of Christ.”
For only after he who withholdeth was taken out of the way could the Continual Sacrifice itself be abolished and replaced — the abomination of desolation, prophesied in Daniel. It was the Roman Pontiffs who were ever the guardians of the Deposit of Faith. Once that guardianship was removed, the truths of faith were without any protection and fell into the hands of devils. Theologians are divided on whether the consummation and Final Judgment will come immediately after the destruction of Antichrist or whether there will be a brief period of peace and restoration of the Church before the very end. The latter is the more common opinion, but this does not mean it will actually transpire.
This period is spoken of by St. Thomas Aquinas as follows: “Although men be terrified by the signs appearing about the judgment day yet before those signs begin to appear the wicked will think themselves to be in peace and security after the death of Antichrist and before the coming of Christ, seeing that the world is not at once destroyed as they thought hitherto.”
Either Paul 6 was the most perfect incarnation of a prelude to Antichrist that could possibly be imagined, or he was Antichrist himself. All evidence points to the latter. There can be no explanation for why the papacy was destroyed and no one took notice until the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice was abrogated. And there is no excuse, especially on the part of any remaining clergy, why the alarm was not sounded once the Novus Ordo Missae, with its heretical consecration of the wine, replaced the Latin Mass. No true pope could have allowed Christ’s words to be falsified and instinctively those who left the Novus Ordo knew this. Until they became Traditionalists, that is. Then it was either implicit or explicit recognize and resist, accompanied by the material formal hypothesis, a false teaching that a man can legitimately occupy the papal see even while teaching error. This teaching is in direct contradiction to Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. These tactics have been successful in destroying the idea of the reverence owed the papacy and papal infallibility.
Traditionalists behaved as though the Mass had not been taken away and had never ceased. Refusing to admit that this had actually happened despite clear evidence and the fulfillment of all St. Paul’s prophecies regarding the Great Apostasy and Antichrist’s coming, they denied then and to this day continue to deny Divine Revelation regarding the cessation of the Sacrifice while pretending to champion it in regards to their “right” to minister to their followers — “the salvation of souls is the supreme law.” Do they not substitute damnation for salvation? Are they not part of Satan’s plan to deceive the elect by offering them those things most sacred to all Catholics — Mass and Sacraments — when God’s signified will tells us His gifts are not available to us in these times? If Holy Scripture and papal teaching is not enough to convince those believing themselves to be Catholic that they must choose Divine Revelation over the teachings of men, then the operation of error has triumphed and Apocalypse 13:7 has been fulfilled. “Watch ye therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord will come” (Matt. 24: 42).
