“Epiphanies” are quite often inspirations of the Holy Ghost

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jan 6, 2024 | New Blog

+Feast of the Epiphany+

According to Merriam-Webster, an epiphany, in its modern-day definition means: 1) a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; (2) an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking;  (3) an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure. While we know that the feast of the Epiphany is celebrated to commemorate the Magi’s recognition of the Messiah, His first manifestation to the Gentiles, those among us have had our own epiphanies that have led us to where we are today. The three kings saw the star in the East and came to adore Him. They somehow knew as astronomers of sorts that the star’s appearance in the heavens was the portent of an exceptional event, even though they were pagans. What they experienced was an inspiration of the Holy Ghost on which they acted. These inspirations must not be ignored, for that amounts to a rejection of a gift sent directly by God for our spiritual benefit.

Eyes wide open

Of course most people today are unaware of this because they have no knowledge of the faith. But they do know what instinct and gut feelings mean and sometimes will heed these promptings. Without any real understanding of these inspirations of the Holy Ghost I also struggled to deal with the warnings I received as a young woman yet in my teens — and mind you I did not deserve to receive such a grace! It came one lonely night while I was watching something on television about the changes in the Church. A voice simply came to me and warned me I would live through times no one had ever seen before. From that time on I began looking over my shoulder but the chaos and immorality of the 1960s was enough proof for me that what I was hearing was true.

Three or four years later I read a book called None Dare Call it Conspiracy about the influence of the Illuminati in the various governments worldwide. In the 1980s I read Solange Hertz’s works on the Masonic origins of America’s government and this would further increase my understanding of how extensively Freemasonry had infiltrated not only governments but the Church Herself. I was beginning to see that I lived in very dangerous times. After returning briefly to the Novus Ordo to confirm my suspicions that they were no longer Catholic, I began exploring the Traditional movement and spent nearly five years with the ORCM, even writing for their publications. I also began reading books of Catholic prophecies and finally realized we were definitely living in the end times. All of this was the result of my initial inspiration but it would take many years of research to find my way out of the LibTrad and conclavist rabbit holes I fell into along the way.

The invalidity issue

When praying at home as a conclavist, I believed that LibTrad clergy were illicit and lacking jurisdiction but were not necessarily invalid. That was enough to avoid their operations as sacrilegious. But the validity question begged to be resolved because as Catholics we must not base how we act or believe on anything questionable if the question can be laid to rest; this is the teaching of the best moral theologians. After leaving conclavism, I began stating in articles that I wrote on my website that all LibTrad clergy were questionably valid on several counts. And finally I discovered that a proper understanding of Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS) rendered all LibTrad clergy invalid from 1958 on and also invalidated the acts of clergy validly ordained and consecrated under Pius XII who accepted the usurpers as true popes. This is because even validly consecrated bishops must act only in communion with a canonically elected Roman Pontiff and the priests which they supply jurisdiction to cannot receive it from them if these bishops no longer possess it.

I had resolved the question of who these usurpers were early on in the game following others who already believed Paul 6 was Antichrist. To the best of my knowledge, I was the only one to point out however that John the 23rd acted as the false prophet predicted in chapter 13 of the Apocalypse. I went on to write articles and books that explained how this was so and how the role he played in creating Montini a cardinal and preparing him for his future “papacy.”

Once the invalidity issue was proven and resolved it became clear that after the death of all the bishops consecrated by Pius XII, there was no possibility of electing another Pope. The minute it became clear John 23rd was working with Paul 6 to destroy the Church these bishops were obligated to call a papal election, and because they failed in this duty, they lost the right to vote under Canon Law. They also  became heretics and were disqualified per VAS from voting in any election for recognizing both John 23rd and Paul 6 as true popes. So since 1978 when Paul 6 died,  we have been existing in a gray area mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas, a time  that he said would exist following the death of Antichrist but before the destruction of his remaining system and Rome itself. None of this would ever have become clear to me, manifest, if I had not followed my initial inspiration and all its implications to the very end.

Our time is short

Christ tells us in Matthew 24: 21: “There then shall be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor shall there be.” And this was the gist of my initial inspiration — brought home in such a way, at such a time that I felt I could not ignore it. Certainly I erred many times after receiving that revelation before finally coming to the proper conclusions. But it never left me and proof that it was clear and true is now too frighteningly obvious to deny. We spoke last week of the dangers of video debates and discussions and how the Church forbids us to engage in these. None of these videos spend much time on the perils of the end times or urge prayer and penance. But given how short our time on this earth truly is, nothing is needed more today than prayer and penance which is the very remedy urged at Fatima and prescribed for end-time Jews by Christ in Luke 11: 29. We are where we are today because not enough Catholics prayed and performed works of penance and almsgiving.

In recent social media posts (if any of these can be trusted at all) numerous individuals have reported strange happenings such as seeing hosts of angels in the skies, hearing trumpet blasts and experiencing unexplained knockings late at night. Some of the alleged trumpet blasts, if that is what these really are, are even recorded and replayed in these posts. Similar happenings occurred before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD and certain historic battles during wartime. Are we being warned? I think it is possible but then weren’t we as Catholics already warned long ago to no avail by Our Lord, the popes and our Blessed Mother? So who will take any further warnings seriously?

Warnings come even from unlikely sources

The following is taken from a work published 18 years ago by a member of the Novus Ordo sect. While I reject its basic premise — that it is neo-cons that must be watched and feared as “fascists” (since the author fails to see that both right and left work together to achieve their end-of-days Masonic goal) — the author’s warning bears repeating here because it shows how even the right observations can lead to the wrong conclusions. This book, in the end, winds up advising a la Francis’ theology (well after all he is Novus Ordo) that Americans adopt a one-world religion in order to avoid endorsing a one-world government!!!  Yet it mentions what would happen once the Church and lawful governments were destroyed, even if how this was to come about or be resolved was wrongly interpreted by the author.

“The radical… cabal in the White House answers to a “world shadow government,” a private, international, rogue network that also controls most of the world’s financial and media institutions as well other governments/intelligence agencies, etc., most notably those of England, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia (Tarpley, 2006).  This “secret government” rules through fear, terror, torture, secrecy, propaganda and lies.  The goal of this criminal syndicate is to establish a global corporate dictatorship as well as to destroy nation states, democracies, and civil liberties.  Historian Webster Tarpley (2006) identifies this “rogue network,” concluding:

We are living in the twilight of the Anglo-American world order, a system of planetary domination by the Whig financier faction since just after 1700.  This system had certain positive features, but it has now become a barrier to human progress, and it is past time for it to exit the world scene.

“The corporate-controlled media provides mass propaganda that supports the official explanation, despite its inevitable absurdities, etc. This same organizational structure has been utilized again and again by governments to fabricate synthetic terrorist attacks all over the world^{2 (}Tarpley, 2006).  Any hope of dismantling the emerging global corporate dictatorship must begin by dismantling the myths and lies, such as the official 9/11 myth, that support it… This Machiavellian… cabal is part of the same “secret government” that orchestrated the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassinations, the secret wars of the CIA, the Iran-Contra affair, the Vietnam War, World Wars I and II, and the Great Depression (Still, 2004, Schoenmann, 2004).

“I would speculate, along with Ruppert (2002), that immediate goal of the global “ruling elite” is to establish American domination over the entire world through the phony “war on terrorism.” However, this sequence of wars could easily lead us into an apocalyptic, and perhaps final, world war, accompanied by a total collapse of the world economy.  Then, they may decide to abolish most, if not all nation states, including the U.S., in order to usher their long-sought “one world government.”   They may or may not elect to utilize the structure of the U.N. as the organizational center.  This long-sought “New World Order”, if it comes to pass, would be the culmination of their centuries-old dream of creating a more or less permanent “oligarchy of the wealthy”.

“My hope and belief is that once these crimes are exposed to the light of day, this cabal will be brought to justice and humankind will be able to progress toward a more peaceful and equitable future.  Clearly, we are at a turning point in history… The only time that Jesus got angry in his entire  ministry was when he physically threw the “money-changers” out of the Temple for practicing extortion and “usury.”  Well, modern “money-changers” have now taken control not only of the Temple and the Church, but virtually all the other institutions as well (Still, 2004)…

In many ways, America has a spiritual heart, but we are now being deliberately misled by the propaganda of our religious as well as our political and cultural leaders.  Many of us are now waking up to the fact that our government has declared and is fighting a war upon “we, the people.”  This relentless class warfare pits the super-rich against everyone and everything else.  Middle class America has a distinct disadvantage in this war, because most of us do not understand that war is being waged against us…” (9/11 was an Inside Job and a “Psy-Op”, Dr. Eric T. Karlstrom, Department of Anthropology and Geography, California State University, 2006).

Conclusion

We have no time to waste on hours-long videos that cannot point us to sufficient written proofs to support their content. Nor are we permitted by the Church to participate even passively in debates posted by so-called Catholics interviewing non-Catholics. We all need to spend this time on our knees begging for the graces necessary to save our souls and the souls of those we love. We don’t know how long we may have or exactly what will happen once Antichrist’s system is defeated and Rome is destroyed. We do know what the older, more reliable scripture commentators tell us: that once these things occur, the Second Judgment is imminent. Having ignored so many warnings and inspirations already, can anyone identifying as Catholic today hope to escape all these evils unless they face their Almighty Judge with a mournful countenance, clothed in sackcloth and ashes?! 

A brief note on video gaming

Last week we warned of the dangers regarding unnecessarily lengthy videos claiming to promote praying at home which instead are devoted to rehashing Novus Ordo deviancies and challenging (only certain) LibTrad errors. We did not, however, venture into the realm of video games. The best argument offered on the use of video games for any age level, that video games should be classified under the category of what St. Francis de Sales says must be called “dangerous amusements” can be viewed here: https://thosecatholicmen.com/articles/avoid-video-games/ , but we must add an important caveat.

This apparently Novus Ordo site does not take into consideration the fact that we have no pope to decide such things. No one can render a truly educated or definitive decision on the dangers of video games in the absence of a true pope. If even Novus Ordo writers believe St. Francis de Sales would classify video games as dangerous amusements, why, as these authors advise, would we even want to limit their use to the “better” video games, with moderation, among teens? Is it logical to suggest that lesser dangers are not as harmful to older children when they could easily lead to greater ones, especially when it seems so many families today are predisposed to various addictions? Those advocating this moderation cite certain benefits to such usage, but couldn’t those benefits be better enjoyed some other way without recourse to video games?

What is puzzling here is that LibTrads, and here we include those advocating praying at home among them, will adamantly insist their women wear nothing but longer skirts to remain modest, when one pope has even stated that women wearing pants is not forbidden. Women are adults, if subject to their husbands wishes and preferences, but when it comes to those still under obedience to parents, that is something different. For the parent cannot allow or encourage the child to do something that could lead to mortal sin and would him/herself incur such sin if this was the case. Clear thinking must prevail on this matter so important to Catholic family life. Follow St. Francis de Sales then, not the opinion of some Novus Ordo or LibTrad layperson.

New pray at home converts: beware of video & CD “Catholicism”

by T. Stanfill Benns | Dec 31, 2023 | New Blog

+The Circumcision+

Prayer Society Intention for January, Month of the Holy Name

“We wish to make reparation each day, dear Jesus, for those who profane Thy Holy Name.”

A reader has recommended as excellent the sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori HERE. Video sermons are one of the ways that the wisdom of the saints can be made available to Catholics today. Such unabridged sermons  in audio form coming from saints and approved members of the hierarchy are what true Catholics should be accessing, and this is the topic we are addressing here.

An unsettling beginning to the New Year

It has come to my attention that once again, there is an ongoing effort by certain individuals also advocating praying at home to “collect” those exiting the Novus Ordo and various LibTrad sects by appealing to this younger set via videos, podcasts and other venues. The reasons for concern regarding these efforts will be explained below.

In 1990, my first work Will the Catholic Church Survive…? was released to the public, calling for a papal election. At that time I had been praying at home since 1985. The book explained in depth why Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Montini were ineligible for election to the papacy, offering proofs of their ineligibility and using Pope Paul IV’s 1559 Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio to prove they could never have been validly elected. It also provided dogmatic and canonical proofs that LibTrads possessed no jurisdiction, were at least questionably valid and were committing sacrilege by offering mass and sacraments to their followers. The case for praying at home was then presented on the basis of Bd. Pope Innocent XI’s teaching that one cannot receive questionably valid and illicit sacraments without sinning mortally against the first commandment. That was 35 years ago, when those now promoting praying at home on their blogs and social media platforms were still members of the Novus Ordo sect.

These important proofs were the fruits of long years of study, 10 to be exact, and many trips to the local seminary library to purchase books and fill my library with theological works. But it is following the inevitable consequences of these proofs made public so long ago that people find so challenging, even mind-boggling. For once it is realized that both Roncalli and Montini were heretics (Modernists not to mention Freemasons) prior to their respective elections, as even sedevacantists realized in the early 1980s, such elections were then considered non-existent, as explained in my 1990 book. This was clear from reading Pope Paul IV’s Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, first available in English in the mid-1980s. The 1990 book was the second published defense of Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, first translated into Spanish by Dr. Carlos Disandro in 1978, following the attacks of the St. Pius X Society and other LibTrads. So since the elections of these men were invalid as the Bull infallibly proclaims, nothing whatsoever which followed really happened; it was all an illusion.

 And if an illusion, there was no need to spend any time tediously refuting the errors introduced by Montini and Roncalli — ALL their acts could be dismissed wholesale. This is a truth infallibly confirmed by Pope Pius XII in his 1945 papal election constitution, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. No election of Roncalli and hence Montini means there was never a false Vatican 2 council; nor were there ever changes to the liturgy, the sacraments or Catholic doctrine. And ecumenism, condemned as a heresy by both Pope Pius XI and Pius XII was never endorsed by a true pope. All of these things were made null and void by Roncalli’s non-election and Pope Pius XII’s election law and are entirely unworthy of any consideration. THAT is the reality all have failed to grasp. It is further confirmed by St. Robert Bellarmine’s teaching that a doubtful pope is no pope, a principle evidenced in the actual practice of the Church.

So all the time spent in various debates, also constant Internet coverage and criticism of Novus Ordo events and errors has only made it more difficult to discover, address and denounce the true consequences of the vacant see, also Modernist tendencies within the Church pre-1959 that led to Vatican 2. Had the line been firmly drawn at the death of Pope Pius XII and the invalid election of Roncalli and the pre-1959 errors that LED to Vatican 2 addressed once the full extent of the damage was realized, the Traditionalist movement with all its errors would never have predominated.

St. Paul taught, “But prove all things, hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:2). The Jews of Berea “Received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so,” we read in Acts. Who among even those still calling themselves priests really did this? It was laymen, not the clergy, who uncovered Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. It was a layperson who insisted upon obedience to Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis and his teaching that the bishops are entirely subordinate to the pope. Rev. Joaquin Saenz-Arriaga may have commissioned Anacleto Gonzalez-Flores to write The Plot Against the Church, attempting to halt Vatican 2, and he did declare the see vacant and Montini the Antichrist in the mid-1970s. But what was the true value of what he did seeing that he founded the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement (ORCM) and was later discovered to be a Freemason?!

Failure to provide proofs, credit others

Any research conducted then was never followed through to its logical conclusions where jurisdiction and the necessity of the papacy was concerned. And those still muddling around in the errors of the Novus Ordo sect are only returning to the vomit that led us down the wrong path in the first place. The teachings of the Continual Magisterium must be the focus of any attempts to win souls today, and those still mucking around in the Novus Ordo or LibTrad sects simply need to be told that the burden of proof, according to Canon Law, is on THEM, not on us — no debates, no back and forth, nada. Pope Pius XII drew the line in VAS and we are merely holding that line. If they could prove that infallible document does not apply to them, THEN there might be a discussion, but that can never be the case. Signed papal documents entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis can never be contested.

Unfortunately other bloggers and social media personalities promoting praying at home today refer to these decades-old proofs but do not refer them to any source; or they act as though these proofs are self-evident or known to their audience in some other way. They do not themselves produce proofs drawn from Scripture, the continual magisterium, Canon Law and the scholastics, as Holy Scripture and the Church demands but only vaguely reference them. And what they do produce is often taken from what is quoted by others. (And my sincere thanks to those who do give proper attribution in their efforts to promote praying at home.)

And while they may warn others against practicing doctrinal minimalism or insist that one must carry the logical consequences represented by the facts through to the very end, they do neither of these things and only continue to further confuse those already swimming in a sea of confusion. This because they resort to sophistry by begging the question, assuming as true that which they have not yet proven as true to those they are addressing. They then proceed to the illogical scholastic arguments known as false induction and false interpretation, owing to the errors mixed in with their assertions.

They are thus in violation of the moral law and Catholic ethics by failing to render attribution to those before them who have resolved theological issues by quoting the popes, the councils, Holy Office decisions, Canon Law  and the works of approved authors. The collection and actual presentation of those facts in logical order, from various sources, is a product of the intellect and is considered intellectual property. And yet individuals presenting as bona fide Catholics and defenders of the faith encourage others to pray at home but do so only by accommodating the research and conclusions of previously copyrighted works written by others.

And what is even worse is their subtle addition of errors to these teachings, making it appear that other authors also endorsing praying at home are in agreement with them. All this is then passed off as THEIR OWN invention and conclusions, and this can result in grave moral and legal consequences. For this sin against the seventh commandment they are bound to make restitution, for some even sell works over the Internet based on the non-attributed works of others. Are we not justified then in questioning their sincerity, honesty and motives and in demanding an accounting?!

Not only do they fail to condemn all LibTrad clergy and their operations as invalid per Pius XII’s VAS, but they also maintain “friendships” with those in that sect and even continue to promote the writings of those who frequent or have frequented it. After a second warning, a heretic avoid is the general rule. Yet despite solid evidence readily available for review that these pseudo-clerics and lay leaders have led others astray and have been guilty of errors in their thinking and writing, these “friendships” are not abandoned. Instead, the same attitude prevalent among the LibTrads is adopted — to label anyone of that sect a heretic is a gross violation of charity. This can only be described as cooperation in heresy and a perfect example of liberal charity in action. And this we have already addressed at length before.

Do videos, podcasts etc. effectively convey the faith?

One of the requirements most crucial to theological discussion (NOT debate) is the following: “Theologians must… be able to teach effectively and clearly” as Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton notes, and any credible journalist knows the value of clear and concise verbiage in explaining complicated issues to the public. Video and Internet commentary and debate, especially if lengthy (some run into several hours!) and punctuated with unrelated queries and minutiae, often interrupts the listener’s ability to absorb the essential elements of theology necessary to understand the true teachings of the Church. Few people have time to sort through such lengthy discourses, and yet this is what they are expected to do to learn the truth.

Such presentations have even been touted as “brilliant.” But discriminating readers who want the full story, as one reader pointed out, will demand more than such disjointed presentations of the faith. They will take the time to read written works examining the various errors of the day condemned by the popes and councils and will ponder them, for this is the way taught by the theologians to truly arrive at a better understanding of the truth. Confusion is to be avoided at all costs.

Until the advent of television in the 1950s, faith was either received by hearing or in written form — study meant reviewing written notes from lectures or taking copious notes from textbooks to process or memorize.  Pope Pius XII heartily approved of the modern means to transmit the faith (movies, television, radio) in his Miranda Prorsus, but only when free from any hint of doctrinal or moral error.  And certainly he was not aware at that time of the actual mesmerizing effects of television, something that would only later be discovered. Over time, television also was linked to anti-social behavior among young people and a lowering of their IQ scores, and this is no surprise. For it is by our use of language that we communicate our thoughts to others by talking, reading, and writing, not just talking alone.

Television, videos and CDs  provide no such exchange. They are a one-way form of communication with no question-and-answer period or the ability to challenge or evaluate content. If not carefully monitored for subject matter, it is more akin to a propaganda tool than an educational vehicle. So if these mediums are employed to promote the faith it must be sparingly, and only in a judicious manner, since these means have never been properly vetted or evaluated by the Church.

One of the reasons CD, podcast and video “Catholicism” is so popular is something I will call fad Catholicism.  Written presentation is “old hat” because it requires the application of the intellect and the understanding.  Videos and podcasts are the way to go, the “in” way to get your daily dose of “truth” from a popular personality appearing on a well-traveled social media platform. It tends to the adoption of a modern-day outlook on things, the development of personality cults and the fan club mentality. It measures truth by “likes,” a nod to the opinions of the mob.

These communication methods may be used productively to summarize truths of faith and direct people to source material where everything appears in written form, confirming those truths. But the complexity of the situation in the Church today is not suited to glib video or audio presentations. Explanations of the various errors and the truths they contradict must be read, understood, studied and studied again. Notes must be taken, if one is serious about understanding it. Questions must be asked and answered by those knowledgeable about the subject, and I have answered my fair share of these. None of this can be effectively accomplished with podcasts and videos, which only produces and further encourages the practice of intellectual laziness.

Are Catholics allowed to debate non-Catholics?

We are obligated by Canon 1325 §1 and §2 to profess our faith and defend it publicly whenever silence, subterfuge or our manner of acting would indicate our acceptance of such errors; that is all. But Can. 1325 §3 must also be carefully considered: “Catholic shall not enter into any disputes or conferences with non-Catholics, especially public ones, without the permission of the Holy See, or in urgent cases, of the local ordinary” (Revs. Woywod-Smith commentary). Revs. T. Lincoln Bouscaren and Adam Ellis comment on this canon:

“This prohibition applies only to matters of faith and to public discussions viva voce; printed debates or conferences are subject only to the rules regarding books.” Dom Charles Augustine states in his commentary on this same canon: “The Sacred Congregation has often expressly forbidden [such debates] on the ground that they do more harm than good, since false eloquence may cause error seemingly to triumph over truth… When such disputations are expressly permitted, care should be taken that only capable and prudent speakers be employed to defend the Catholic side.”

No individual can be a judge in their own case of whether they are capable or prudent. Nor can anyone but the Holy See or the bishop act as judges in such cases. Some have argued that the prohibition of Can. 1385 forbids anyone to publish without ecclesiastical approval, but this is an impossible law to obey in these times since there is no hierarchy to grant such permission. Therefore the law ceases to bind. The higher law prevails, and that law is to defend the faith re Can. 1325 §1 and §2.

There is also the  obligation to aid our neighbor in extreme spiritual necessity, obey the longstanding papal command to supply for the absence of the hierarchy by engaging in Catholic Action and the catechetical apostolate and the duty to avoid the heresy of quietism, which teaches: “…the desire to do anything actively is offensive to God and hence one must abandon oneself entirely to God and thereafter remain as a lifeless body” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912). All this can be fulfilled by producing written refutations of error, which is less dangerous by far than debates.

And something else should be considered here — those watching and promoting such debates are guilty of cooperating in the sin of the one conducting them, since the Church forbids  it. Here we see the value of obedience, not attachment to our own will and the desire to engage in worldly novelties.  This is the reason for not presenting our own suppositions and opinions, to obey the teachings of the Continual Magisterium and those theologians approved by the Church and not follow those who have never been approved by the Church to instruct or debate. In this way those approved by the pre-1959 Church are still teaching us, even if we place these teachings in context regarding our current situation. Videos, CD’s and podcasts cannot successfully convey these teachings in their entirety. Readers should not confuse what I only RELAY on this site with my status as a writer or presenter. As Catholics we are obligated to defend the faith publicly — it is not an option.

Putting a price on the faith

So although I greatly appreciate and depend upon the generosity of my donors to meet maintenance costs for my site, I have not stressed the need for readers to donate or made appeals for monetary contributions. I do what I do because God requires an accounting from me. Making an actual business of defending the faith is tantamount to the moneylenders selling their goods in the Temple. Christ did not put a monetary value on what He taught, although he did say that the laborer is worthy of his hire. Therefore, while it is commendable to help support the maintenance of websites that teach the truth it is a voluntary thing. The Church has never demanded that one tithe any given amount under pain of sin.

But on the other hand Catholics should be very conscious of who they are donating their money to and where it might be going. Many people will take the comments or advice of those who they are promoting as great orators or defenders of the faith without really looking into their background and it’s essential that such a thing be done. In many cases these self-proclaimed experts sport degrees or credentials from non-Catholic (including LibTrad) sources, and these should be considered as a detriment, not a recommendation (see the article here). There are those who now promote praying at home who have inexplicably bounced around in their thinking processes and their stated beliefs to such an extent that one could justifiably question the reasoning behind their many inconsistencies. This is especially true if they advertise themselves as well-educated and well-connected.

Case in point: David Bawden once chastised me for neglecting my daily duties to my family by writing to defend the faith instead of devoting time to these duties. This even thought I was writing with my husband’s express permission and my children were nearly grown. Also, I had worked full time or part time since 1987 (retiring in 2020) in addition to my household duties and writing efforts. I felt this was quite presumptuous of Bawden, particularly since he had seldom been gainfully employed and was at the time demanding that we support him (as “pope”). I later found other instances among those claiming to defend the faith full time without a steady income of any kind, relying mainly on their supporters to fund their defense of the faith.

This certainly is not Catholic since our daily duties must always come first. And as stated above, our efforts should not be considered as optional or a service provided to others that should be compensated, but our bounden duty as Catholics commanded to profess their faith when not doing so would constitute a denial of that faith.

Spotting written or spoken red flags

Most of us have been mistaken and fallen into error at different times in matters of faith. But those who then go on to try and defend the faith after publicly renouncing their errors and making reparation for the damage they have caused (whenever possible) must then hold themselves to a certain standard, especially on the public forum that is the Internet. Recent examples of renewed efforts to attract members of the Novus Ordo sect and LibTrads to pray at home are sadly lacking in a complete grasp of the true status of Traditionalist pseudo-clergy, despite their claims to the contrary.  Prudence demands we vet these individuals carefully, especially when we detect the following:

1. Doesn’t use proper Catholic terms
2. Inconsistency in statements related to truths of faith
3. Promotion of works produced by non-Catholics
4. Cooperation or the appearance of cooperation with non-Catholics
5. Skirts issues regarding the validity of Traditionalist orders
6. Does not openly condemn Traditionalism including sedevacantism as heresy (when as one reader has aptly pointed out, Traditionalism is worse by far than the Novus Ordo sect)
7. Vague references that are not fully explained (ambiguity) or sufficiently cross-referenced
8. Failure to practice what they preachSelf-promotion, name dropping
9. Repeated appeals for financial support, especially when voluntarily unemployed
10. Failure to:

• follow scholastic form, as they are bound by the Church to do
• properly attribute sources and faithfully cite the works of others
• make the necessary theological connections
• address, correct and renounce errors when corrected (incorrigibility, pertinacity)
• renounce previous false teachings publicly and retract any errors
• advise readers of his/her non-approved Church status by insisting on adherence to the teachings of the popes, Councils, Canon Law and approved theologians.
• Refer readers to the original sources, not their commentaries or thoughts on these sources.

Conclusion

If efforts be made to attract those trapped in non-Catholic sects to the practice of praying at home are to be successful, there must first be a meeting of the minds among those promoting the practice of the faith at home regarding the dogmas on which our faith is based. I have long advocated for this united effort but I have been consistently shunned, falsely charged with teaching error, and my attempts to correct others who likewise advise Catholics to pray at home but who hold false doctrines have been ignored. What I have insisted upon is that the Church’s clear teachings regarding heresy and jurisdiction be properly understood and obeyed if one is to truly sever ties with Traditionalists and other non-Catholic sects and keep the faith at home. The Church teaches only one truth. In accord with the scholastic method, I have repeatedly offered numerous proofs from papal and conciliar documents, also Canon Law, to demonstrate what the Church teaches.

Similar proofs, however, have not been produced by those claiming to lead others to the conclusion they must practice their faith at home. Nor have they bothered, as they are obligated to do, to refute any of these proofs by producing credible evidence they are in error, even though this is required by Canon Law.  Time is a precious commodity and our time on earth is short. Christ could return at any moment, asking why we have not prayed and watched. Praying and watching does not include wasting our time “watching” hare-brained videos. Watching means setting a guard over oneself to avoid the snares of the enemy as outlined above, not credulously lapping up the visually regurgitated meanderings of those fascinated with Novus Ordo deviancy. Those considering praying at home deserve the truth; they deserve a united dogmatic front which the Church has always maintained to support them in making such a life-changing decision. They do not deserve to be led down yet another rabbit hole or diverted from verifying what is said for themselves, only later to discover they were misled and misinformed.

What all should seek is the highest possible degree of unity we can obtain among those praying at home without a visible Roman Pontiff and hierarchy. As Henry Edward Cardinal Manning wrote: “Truth goes before unity. Where truth is divided, unity cannot be. Unity before truth is deception. Unity without truth is indifference or unbelief. Truth before unity is the law and principle and safeguard of unity” (The True Story of the Vatican Council, 1877). Do those accommodating the works of others and sidestepping issues of heresy and sacramental invalidity show any respect for the truth? Are they ”consistent Catholics?” You decide.

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

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

+St. Catherine of Alexandria+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Highlights from the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Virtues to be practiced by faithful Catholics

(See entire sermon here.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

St. Thomas Aquinas refutes the errors of Joachim of Fiore

by T. Stanfill Benns | Nov 18, 2023 | New Blog

+ Dedication of the Basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul +

As mentioned in last week’s blog, St. Vincent Ferrer seems to have had some sympathy for the teachings of Joachim of Fiore, even though St. Thomas Aquinas, who St. Vincent quotes often and follows in other writings, had already condemned those who held Abbot Joachim’s and similar teachings. (The teachings of St. Vincent will be discussed in greater detail next week.) This week, we wish to address the teachings of St. Thomas, of whom one modern-day philosophy professor notes, “There comes a point, however, where Ferrer breaks with Aquinas over a central topic: the possibility of having knowledge of the end times –– those of the coming of the antichrist and the end of the world. Aquinas had written a series of rebuttals of William of Saint‐Amour and other authors who upheld the possibility of such knowledge. For Aquinas, the end times could not be known about, either through reasoning or through a revelation. Jesus of Nazareth himself appears to have denied this possibility: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” (Acts 1:7).

“He tells how a hermit has assured him that two of his companions had had a revelation that “the antichrist was already born”. Ferrer replies with the same words from the Bible (Acts 1:7) used by Aquinas to counter William of Saint-Amour, although, according to the hermit, Jesus’s words applied only to those he was addressing (the Apostles), not to those destined to undergo the tribulations brought by the antichrist. Then, in a sermon on 8 July 1411 and a letter dated 27 July 1412, Ferrer adopts the hermit’s interpretation as his own…”

So what St. Vincent was doing was basing his mission on the revelation of the hermit (and a vison he possibly attributes to himself)  — in other words, on private revelation. Or, as St. Thomas refers to it, “Human reason or conjecture.” And yet St. Vincent does make some distinctions in what he teaches regarding Antichrist. And although St. Vincent may have relied on human reason, it is clear he proved that his mission was from God by the miracles he performed during his lifetime.

St. Vincent Ferrer

“The death of Antichrist and the end of the world will occur at the same time. The shortness of the duration of the world after the death of Antichrist has led me to this conclusion, for nowhere in the whole Bible or in the writings of the Doctors can I find a longer period assigned by God for the repentance of those whom Antichrist has seduced than forty-five days after his death.

“The second conclusion I draw is that until Antichrist is actually born, the time of his birth will be hidden from mankind.

“So, even though there were the most illuminating revelations of the divine Wisdom concerning these matters, it was not necessary for the Apostles and Doctors of the first ages of the Church to know the time of the coming of Antichrist and the end of the world; but after his birth it is expedient for men, even though they be sinners, or so ignorant as to know nothing of the Apostles and Doctors, to know of this birth, so that they may be forewarned and prepared.This is in accordance with the wisdom, mercy and knowledge of God, who from the beginning of the world was accustomed to send messengers to warn men of any great tribulation about to come to pass. Noah was warned before the deluge, Moses before the liberation of Israel, Amos before the destruction of Egypt, and so on.” Before treating these predictions in light of St. Thomas’ teachings, a note is in order on what has been said previously in this blog and in site articles on Antichrist and the Second Coming.

(Clarification of these statements will be provided under the Conclusion heading.)

 Antichrist and the Second Coming

I have speculated at length on the relevance of recent events and their possible relation to the Second Coming. Prior to that, I had already written for decades on the identity of Antichrist  — the usurper Paul 6. But what I wrote took place AFTER Antichrist had already appeared, and could be credibly identified as such, not BEFORE. And while St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine definitely do teach that no one could actually predict the date of Antichrist’s appearance or that of the Second Coming, once he has actually been credibly predicted to appear and has come and gone it would seem remiss to not warn others that surely the Second Coming is not far off, particularly if signs seem to point to this.

St. Thomas could scarcely have discounted Pope Paul IV’s warning about HOW the abomination of desolation would attempt to insinuate himself into the papacy, while not predicting at exactly what time this would occur. Nor could he dare find fault with Christ’s own  Vicar, Pope St. Pius X, who warned in 1903 that Antichrist already had been born. It was common knowledge that Pope St. Pius X was gifted with precognition, and certainly this sainted pope was no mere hermit who was said to have had a vison, since his teachings were assisted by the Holy Ghost. It has been based on these two predictions, also on Pope Pius XII’s laws regarding papal election, that the identification of Antichrist’s reign became clear and was later able to be determined.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Contra Impugnantes, on the Inability to Determine the Arrival of Antichrist and the Last Judgment

Chapters 3 and 4 (These are random extracts form a very long discourse by St. Thomas)

“Hence religious, because they exercise the office of preaching in a learned manner, are regarded as the forerunners of Antichrist.

3. “I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb” (Rev. xiii. 11). On these words of the Apocalypse the Gloss remarks: “The description of the tribulation which will be caused by Antichrist and his princes is followed by a narrative of the evils which will befall the Church, by means of the apostles of Antichrist, who will travel throughout the entire world.” Again, “coming up out of the earth” signifies “ going forth to preach” (Gloss). On the words “it had two horns” the Gloss remarks: “These preachers are said to have two horns, because they will profess to imitate the innocent and spotless life of our Lord, to work miracles resembling His, and to preach His doctrine; or else because they will usurp to themselves the two Testaments.” Hence it would appear that they who go forth to preach, with the knowledge of the two Testaments, and with an appearance of sanctity, are the apostles of Antichrist. (Comment: Which is exactly what Novus Ordo and LibTrad pseudo-clergy do.)

“Julian the Apostate was the first to conceive this idea. He, as we are told in ecclesiastical history, forcibly prevented Christians from acquiring knowledge. Those therefore who imitate him, by forbidding religious to study, act in a manner opposed to the precepts of Scripture. We read, for instance, in Isaiah (v. 13): “Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge.” “Because,” remarks the Gloss, “they would not have knowledge.” Now voluntary ignorance could not deserve punishment, were not knowledge praiseworthy.

“2. In the Prophet Hosea (iv. 5) we read: “In the night I have made your mother to be silent. My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge; because you rejected knowledge, I will reject you that you shall not do the office of priesthood to me.” This text clearly shows how severely ignorance will be punished.

“3. In Ps. cxviii. 66, we read: “Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge.” On these words, the Gloss says: “Teach me goodness, i.e. inspire me, with charity; teach me discipline, i.e. give me patience; teach me knowledge, i.e. enlighten my mind. For that knowledge is useful, whereby a man becomes known to himself.”

“4. St. Jerome writes to the monk Rusticus: “Let a book be never absent from your eyes or hand.” Hence the learning of the saints is preferable to the holiness of the unlearned. In the same epistle, after enumerating the books of holy Scripture, St. Jerome continues: “I beseech you, brother, let these books be the companions of your life and the subject of your meditation. I know nothing but these, and seek no other thing. Don’t you see that in this way you may on earth enjoy the Kingdom of heaven?” A heavenly life then consists in the constant study of Holy Scripture.

“5. St. Paul points out that knowledge of the Scriptures is essential to preachers. For, he says (1 Tim. iv. 13), “Till I come attend unto reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine.” It is evident from this that a knowledge of what they are to teach, is necessary for those whose duty it is to preach and to exhort.

“6. St. Jerome writes to the monk Rusticus: “Spend much time in learning what you must later on teach.” Once more he writes to the same, “If you desire to enter the clerical state, study, in order that you may teach.” … (Comment: Catechetical teaching was greatly neglected in favor of promoting the new liturgy, as theologians writing pre-Vatican 2 observed.)

“There shall arise false Christs and false prophets” (Mark xiii. 22), the Gloss says: This verse is to be understood as referring the heretics who attacked the Church, declaring that they were Christs. The first of these impostors was Simon Magus; the last will be Antichrist.” He who preaches without, any commission to do so, or teaches false doctrine, does so inspired by some bad motive, either of covetousness, or pride, or vain glory. Such men are deprived of the grace of God; and consequently commit sins, more or less heinous. But everyone who preaches for the sake of gain or popularity is not, necessarily a false apostle or false prophet; otherwise there would be no distinction between a hireling and a false apostle. They who preach for the sake of anything save of the glory of God and the good of souls are hirelings; let their preaching be true or false, authorised or unauthorised. BUT SUCH MEN CANNOT BE CALLED FALSE PROPHETS, UNLESS THEY EITHER BEAR NO COMMISSION, OR TEACH FALSE DOCTRINE. (Comment:  Here we have a definition of LibTrads from St. Thomas own mouth!) “In the same way, every sinner who administers the sacraments, or preaches the Word of God, is not necessarily a false apostle or a false prophet. For true prelates are true apostles; although at times they may be sinful.

 Chapter 5

“1.St. Augustine says (Epist. ad Hesychium): “You say the Gospel tells us that no man knows that day or hour. I tell you, as far as my understanding will suffice, that no man can know the month nor the year of the coming of the Lord. This seems as if the words had been understood to mean that, though none can say in what year the Lord will come, it is possible to know in what septet or decade of years his coming may be expected.”

“2. Certain men were condemned in the early days of the Church for teaching, as men teach now, that the coming of the Lord was imminent. We have this on the authority of St. Jerome (De illustr. viris), and of Eusebius, (Ecclesiast. Histor.).No period, either long or short, can be determined, in which is to be expected the end of the world, or the coming of Christ or of Antichrist. It is for this reason that we are told that “the day of the Lord shall come as a thief” (1 Thes. v. 2), and that as “in the days of Noah they knew not till the flood came and took them all away, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. xxiv). St. Augustine, in his Epistle to Hesychius, speaks of three classes of men who made assertions respecting the coming of our Lord. One class expects Him soon; another later; and the third declares its ignorance of the time of His coming. This last opinion meets with the approbation of St. Augustine, and he censures the presumption of the others. Then he concludes by saying: “It is thus uncertain by what generations the final period of time, which begins with the coming of our Lord and is to end with the end of the world, is to be counted.” God has chosen, for some wise purpose, to keep this hidden. So it is written in the Gospel. St. Paul also declares that “the day of the Lord is to come like a thief in the night.”

“3. (1) They quote the words of Daniel (vii. 25) concerning Antichrist: “He shall think himself able to change times.” That is to say, according to the Gloss, “ His pride is so excessive that he strives to alter laws and ceremonies.” On account of these words the days of Antichrist are said to be at hand, because certain men try to alter the Gospel of Christ into another gospel, which they call “eternal.” The Gospel of which they speak is a certain Introduction to the books of Joachim, WHICH IS CONDEMNED BY THE CHURCH. Or else it is the doctrine of Joachim, whereby they say the Gospel of Christ is altered. But granted that this hypothesis were true, it would be no token of the approach of Antichrist. For even in the days of the Apostles, certain men tried to alter the Gospel of Christ. Thus St. Paul says (Gal. i. 6): “I wonder that you are soon removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ, to another Gospel.”

“(2) The second sign of the coming of Antichrist is supposed to be found in the words of the Psalmist (ix. 21): “Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them.” This the Gloss interprets to mean “the Antichrist, the giver of an evil law.” As the doctrine which we have already mentioned, which they call the law of Antichrist, was promulgated at Paris, it is thought to be a sign that Antichrist is at hand. But it is not true to say that the doctrine of Joachim, or that which is contained in the Introduction to the Gospel of Joachim, however reprehensible it may be, is the doctrine which will be preached by Antichrist.

“(3) The third supposed sign of the coming of Antichrist is found in the Book of Daniel (v) and in Isaiah (xxi). We read there the account of the hand that wrote Mane, Thecel, Phares on the wall of Babylon. Those who believe that Antichrist is at hand, maintain that the same prediction which formerly was written up in Babylon is now written in the Church. Mane was interpreted to mean, “God has numbered your Kingdom and has finished it”; and the Kingdom of Christ is now numbered, for it has been foretold that it is to endure a thousand two hundred and seventy years. Thecel signified, “You art weighed in the balance and found wanting”; and the “Eternal Gospel” is preferred to the Gospel of Christ. Phares meant your Kingdom is divided and is given to the Medes and Persians”; and the Kingdom of the Church is now finished and given to others.” (Comment: It may not have applied in St. Thomas’ time but certainly applies to the Novus Ordo today.)

“Thus, the writing on the wall signified both the destruction of the Church and the ruin of Babylon. (Comment: St. Jerome does say that everything written in the New Testament was foreshadowed in the Old Testament.) “This, however, seems a very foolish idea. St. Augustine tells us (18 de Civ. Dei) that certain men said that Christianity was to last for three hundred and sixty-five years, and that at the end of that time it was to cease to exist. Thus, it is no new thing to assign a limit for the duration of Christianity, since this was done even before the time of Augustine. Hence this is no reason for believing Antichrist to be at hand. St. Augustine says likewise (ibid.) that in his time some men estimated that four hundred years, others that five hundred, were to elapse between the Ascension of Christ and His second coming. Others, again, reckoned that this period was to embrace a thousand years. But the words of our Lord, “It is not yours to know the times or the moments” etc. (Acts i. 7), expose the folly of all such suppositions. St. Augustine, furthermore, blames the kind of arguments.

“(Acts i. 7), (St. Augustine, furthermore, blames the kind of arguments used in such conjectures. He compares them to the hypothesis of some that as there were ten plagues of Egypt, so there were to be ten persecutions of the Church. He says that such opinions are mere human conjectures, established on no foundation of truth. Those who interpret the handwriting on the wall as prophetic of the speedy coming of Antichrist, show their agreement with the Scripture that they reprobate; because, like the Scripture, they say that the beloved Babylon is soon to be destroyed. But there is no real similitude. For the handwriting in Babylon was divinely displayed, and it was therefore a proof of the truth; but the writing, of which these would-be prophets speak, is a figment of error, on which no argument can be founded expose the folly of all such suppositions.” (Comment: Joachim’s writings were a figment of error because he expected the world to end based solely on his own prognostications. The prophecies in Apocalypse are also divinely displayed but were not fulfilled in St. Thomas’ day.)

“6. Many false prophets shall arise and shall seduce many.” We are told that this sign is now manifested, because certain religious appear who are called false prophets. If we compare it with the Gloss on the passage in the Gospel of St. Mark (xiii), where false prophets are understood to mean heretics, or those who, after the Passion of our Lord and before the destruction of Jerusalem, seduced the Jewish nation. We have also already spoken at length on the subject of false prophets.

“7. There have been in all ages men in the Church who appeared perfect, and yet originated heresies. We may mention Pelagius, Nestorius, and Eutyches. There have also been many others of the same description. But they did not, therefore, prove that their charity had grown cold. For, although they did not follow the teaching of the Gospel, they did not persecute it. There is no need of persecution, where there is no defender of the truth. Such a persecution would revive extinct errors; and, under pretext of refuting them, would teach them to the people; and this is the greatest of dangers. Hence St. Gregory says (14 Moral.) that after Eutyches had died leaving no followers, he would not labour to exterminate his errors, lest he should again fan them into flame. (Comment: Modernism, synthesis of all heresies, fanned these flames into a conflagration.)

Chapter 6

“They assert that these seducers will be neither barbarians, nor Jews, nor Gentiles. But this opinion is contrary to the prophecy of the Apocalypse: “Satan… shall seduce the nations which are over the four quarters of the Earth, Gog and Magog” (Rev. xx. 7). On these words, the Gloss says: “Satan will first seduce these two nations; he will then proceed to deceive others.” Or, according to another interpretation, by Magog is understood all persecutors who proceeded, at first by secret, and afterwards, by open persecution. Hence barbarians are not excluded from the persecution of Antichrist, as they would persuade us.

“For St. Paul did not mean that the same men would be guilty of all the vices which he enumerates, but that some of his words would apply to some men, and that other parts of his reproof would be true of other persons. Hence it is not necessary that all those who are likely to endanger the Church should present an appearance of piety. It is merely implied that some of them will do so. In like manner, the early Church suffered persecution from believers and unbelievers alike. “In perils from the Gentiles… in perils from false brethren” (2 Cor. xi. 26).

“The emissaries of Antichrist, we are next told, will not be found among the manifestly wicked. This opinion is, however, clearly opposed to the 82nd Psalm. The Gloss explains that the whole of that Psalm treats of the persecution of Antichrist. It adds that among his other emissaries, the “Philistines” signify those who are drunk with worldly luxury… But, although some of the emissaries of Antichrist may wear an appearance of piety, it is not necessary that they shall all seem godly. Christians of the early Church were persecuted both by the impious and by the apparently pious.” (Comment: Materialism, foundation stone of the Masonic pyramid, paved the way for all other errors.)

“We are further told that the ministers of Satan will be found among those who devote themselves to study… St. Paul was referring not to men who seduce others, but to silly women who suffer themselves to be led astray. Granted, however that the words apply to men who mislead others, they can only refer to those who, in their studies, depart from the way of truth. Hence the text is often interpreted of heretics. Those who hold a contrary opinion, however, quote in support of it the following words of St. Gregory (13 Moral.) on Job xvi.: “My enemy has looked at me with terrible eyes.” “The incarnate Truth,” says St. Gregory, “chose for His preachers poor and simple men. But Antichrist will send as his Apostles men who are cunning and double-tongued and imbued with the wisdom of the world…” Therefore, the true preachers of Antichrist are learned men, who lead worldly lives and attract men to vice. But even if Antichrist were going to ruin the Church by means of learned men, it would not be by their agency alone.

“We are further told that the envoys of Antichrist will be found among those learned men whose opinion is esteemed as peculiarly weighty and valuable… St. Paul says of them, first that they will have an appearance of godliness, and then that they will be “men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith” (2 Tim iii. 5). Stress is also laid on the words, “they came forth from us” (1 John ii. 19), which means, as the Gloss says, “they shared with us in the Sacraments.” But this quotation is no argument. For St. Paul does not say of the men to whom he refers that at first they wore an appearance of piety, and that then, laying it aside, they became infidels. What he means is that while these men had a superficial semblance of godliness, they were at the same time infidels at heart.” (Comment: And here we see exactly what happened with the rot that entered into the Church and led to Roncalli’s election: the cardinals and bishops had only “a superficial semblance of godliness, they were at the same time infidels at heart.” They were pretenders who could only elect and support a master pretender.)

Summary

“1. The first error lies in defining the heralds of Antichrist as one race of men, when, as “we know by the Gloss on Ps. lxxxii, Antichrists will spring from all classes of men.

“2. The second error lies in the fact that though diverse authorities may be quoted in support of individual points, no class of men furnishes all the necessary conditions.

“3. Even were some such men found amongst religious, other such might likewise be found among men who are not religious. Hence this argument does not tell more against religious than against seculars.

“4. If some religious are to be emissaries of Antichrist, all religious will not be his adherents. Perhaps very few religious will join Antichrist, as he is to recruit his ranks from all classes of men.

“5. It is praiseworthy to be a Christian, a learned man, a prudent counsellor, and a religious. These attributes, therefore, are no reason for concluding that their possessor is to be a forerunner of Antichrist.” (End of of St. Thomas commentary)

Conclusion

Now of course St. Vincent Ferrer wrote and taught long after the death of St. Thomas Aquinas. And if there had really been anything objectionable in his writings, anything even approaching the condemned doctrines that Abbot Joachim taught, he would never have achieved sainthood. Nor would he have been noted for his miracles. So while Saint Thomas Aquinas’ teachings must definitely be honored here and taken to heart, that doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be new developments and new perspectives on the coming of Antichrist and how this would come about. It is clear from what has been written above that we are not predicting Antichrist is going to come as was St. Vincent or naming a date for anything. We are simply observing that it certainly appears that he has already come and that as St. Thomas Aquinas himself says in his own works, we cannot properly estimate the time-period between Antichrist’s death and the end of the world, when so many will believe they have nothing to fear and live “in peace and security.” We must simply pray and watch.

Neither St. Thomas nor St. Vincent Ferrer ever foresaw how everything in the Church would be so utterly destroyed. The death of Antichrist will not be complete until the final perpetrator of his system is annihilated, the last reincarnation of his imposture.  We know Antichrist and the false prophet will be thrown alive into the lake of fire and how could this be? Only if the final judgment began with their bodily resurrection and casting into that lake of fire by Christ during the Battle of Armageddon. That is the beginning of the Final Judgment, and on its heels will most likely follow all the rest.

What St. Thomas Aquinas emphasized in his writings above is the inability of forecasting Antichrist’s future coming and the Second Coming according to insufficient evidence, particularly that based primarily on human conjecture. That is not what has been done in the case of the Great Apostasy, the advent of the Novus Ordo church and the Cessation of the Holy Sacrifice. The consequences of these things St. Thomas never even considered. We are not conjecturing anything in the future here; we have witnessed it with our own eyes. St. Thomas also is denying that certain prophecies in the Old Testament can be used by his opponent William St. Amour, a follower of Abbot Joachim, to justify his case. That does not mean it could not and does not apply to the case at hand today. Basically St. Thomas believed that not much would really be known about the coming of Antichrist until the actual event.

Next week, we will see the virtues St. Vincent Ferrer advises Catholics to practice during Antichrist’s reign, and how he viewed Antichrist’s persecution and Christ’s Second Coming.

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

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

+24^th Sunday after Pentecost+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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