Exciting new insights on St. Paul’s Operation of Error

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 21, 2023 | New Blog

+St Benedict of Nursia, Abbot+ 

Before we continue our series on how to best prepare for and survive the end times, I wish to bring attention to a recent post regarding the errors discovered in articles appearing on a website some may have viewed, believing that it advocates the pray-at-home position. Please do read this new post in order to better understand why these sites must be avoided and how cleverly they phrase their subtle, misleading statements to make it appear their position is correct. It is available here.

This week I am honored to introduce the first of several excerpts from a recently released work by Javier Morell-Ibarra, a pray-at-home Catholic, translator and interpreter living in Spain. Mr. Morell-Ibarra has written an excellent summary of our position today — particularly how to detect and escape the operation of error and weather the storms that yet face us as Catholics. It is a most compelling and well-written work, one which I hope will provide consolations for the faithful as well as the information and necessary graces so many desperately need in these final days to see and acknowledge the truth. Many thanks to you, Javier, for allowing these excerpts to be printed here! May those reading them receive the graces necessary to understand.

 Survival Guide and Reference Handbook During the Great Tribulation and the Operation of Error 

By Javier Morell-Ibarra

1. Dedication
2. Introduction
3. Development and exposition of the true and dramatic general situation
4. Compendium of the main fables or false logics of the Anomos spread by the false Christs and their false prophets, with their consequent refutation by the Magisterium and the Code of Canon Law of 1917
5. Where exactly are we and where are we going? Through the Great Tribulation…
6. About the world and its deceptions for the soul
7. Modus operandi of the unfathomable mystery of the Operation of error, who it hits and how to get out of it, God One and Triune willing
8. Our only possible weapon and defence to spiritually survive the Great Tribulation and the Operation of Error combined as we await the Second Coming in glory and majesty of Our Lord Jesus Christ to judge the insolent nations and all those who do iniquity
9. Conclusion. Peter is the cornerstone of the Church
10. Final thanks

1. Dedication

The author writes the following fundamental essay moved by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and following its divine instructions, always seeking the greatest honor and glory of the Holy Trinity, in order to defend the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, uphold the Papacy and its infallible Magisterium, the true hidden treasure for the last times, defend the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church. Finally, to help and guide the poor souls of faithful Catholics who are scattered throughout the orb, and who are witnessing, terrified, the increasingly rapid decomposition of everything they considered sacred and immutable, without being able to find a point of reference in the midst of this terrifying diabolical confusion that has covered everything after the death of the last Vicar of Christ Pope Pius XII.

It is my sincere hope that this work will set a humble rule and final consideration to which everyone can turn for safe haven, a reliable guide to finally understanding where we are, how we got here, and lastly, most important of all, how to deal with the perfect storm that is beating down on all of us since the death of S.S. Pius XII, in other words, how to survive the Great Tribulation and the Operation of Error and not die trying.

May God Almighty have mercy on all of us and grant us wisdom, understanding, and much humility to understand and digest what is going to be exposed here.

May the Most Holy Virgin Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit and Mediatrix of all Graces, and her blessed husband Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, give us all the help from Heaven that we will need to stand tall as we hoist the holy banner of the Cross and persevere until the very end fighting the good fight for the defense of our Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Faith, just as the Son of Man will come to look for in His glorious and terrible Parousia. (Luke 18, 8).

May the blessed Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul pray and intercede for us, arming us with the invincible swords of the Magisterium and Holy Scripture, against which no enemy can resist.

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

Ad Jesum Per Mariam!

Pro Deo et Pontifice!

2. Introduction

The “consummationem saeculi” is not the destruction of the physical world, nor the Last Day. The “consummationem saeculi” is the end of one era and the beginning of another, this period that we call the “end of the world” is a period of time that encompasses different events, from the proclamation of the Gospel to all Nations [event that has already happened], the obstacle or KATEJON [the visible Church and the Roman Pontiff, as interpreted by unanimous consent by the Church] is removed, the so-called Millennium ends (which marks the end of an era), Satan is released to seduce all nations (beginning of another era that we call the end of the world), the Great Apostasy occurs, the Operation of error is unleashed, the Abomination of desolation is placed in the Holy Temple, the Antichrist is crowned [in this very temple], the Perpetual Sacrifice is abolished, the Harlot is confused with the Bride, the flock is abandoned like sheep without a Shepherd, the Bride flees into the desert fed by Divine Graces, the false shepherds appear, that is, the false Christs with their false prophets (Matthew 24:24), who claim to know where the Christ is, and who are placed there for the Scripture to be fulfilled, etc., etc… All of these are the green shoots of the fig tree that indicate that summer is coming, that is, that the Parousia or Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ in glory and majesty is truly at hand. He that readeth, let him understand.

It is essential that our readers understand the eschatological and spiritual context in which we find ourselves, otherwise we will continue to wander aimlessly around the desert, being vulnerable to the fables of the Anomos and the sophistry of the wolves in sheep’s clothing that swarm everywhere to devour what little remains of Our Lord’s flock. In fact, all the errors that overwhelm and afflict us today, and which we will include under the name of the Operation of error or the seduction of iniquity (II Thessalonians 2, 10), originate from not having correctly understood the eschatological discourse of Our Lord in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 24, as He Himself rightly warns us at the beginning of said discourse: 4 Jesus answered them saying: “Take care that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come under my name, saying: «I am the Christ», and many will be deceived. And as is made clear to us in the comments to these verses in the Bible of Bishop Straubinger: *4 ss. To understand this discourse and the parallel accounts in Mark 13 and Luke 21, one must keep in mind that, according to the prophets, the “last times” and the events related to them that we usually designate with the Greek term eschatological, do not refer only to the last day of human history, but rather a longer period, which St. Thomas calls the preamble to the judgment or “Day of the Lord”, which he also considers inseparable from its concomitant events. (Cf. 7, 22 and note). It is not necessary that all the phenomena announced in this speech take place together and in a more or less distant future. Some of them may have already been fulfilled, especially taking into account the metaphorical character of many apocalyptic-style expressions (cf. I Corinthians 6, 2 s. and note).

Therefore, keeping this in mind, we are going to develop in greater detail all these events that we call the green shoots of the fig tree, which unmistakably announce the arrival of summer, that is, the imminent Parousia of Our Lord Jesus Christ, placing them within the historical-eschatological context in which we find ourselves.

3. Development and exposition of the truly dramatic and general situation

On October 9, 1958, with the death of Pope Pius XII, the last Vicar of Christ, was thus removed from the Obstacle or Katejon that held back and prevented the manifestation of the son of perdition (II Thessalonians 2, 6), which was the visible Church and the Roman Pontiff, as interpreted with the unanimous consent of the Church. With the removal of the Katejon, the so-called Millennium or Christian era is concluded, in which the Mystical Body of Christ the Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, with the Popes as visible Head, illuminated and sanctified the entire orb with the salvific and overwhelming influence of the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the Holy Sacraments.

With the Church and the Papacy having been removed from the midst, the Obstacle that prevented the advent of the Antichrist was also removed, and the son of perdition effectively manifested himself in the unfortunate person of impious G. B. Montini, alias “Paul 6”, who was “announced ” by his false prophet Angelo Roncalli, alias “John 23”, preaching a false gospel diametrically different from the Gospel taught by Our Lord Jesus Christ, in which peace and security are sought (I Thessalonians 5, 3) on earth, despising life eternal until reaching absolute oblivion of the supernatural and spiritual dimension of man, which inevitably leads to the most frightening apostasy. The so-called era of Satan unchained begins, or THE TIME OF ANOMOS, that is, of lawlessness, disorder and total absence of any superior spiritual or moral authority to which one submits and by which to govern oneself, a superior authority that was always present in the Holy See, the Rock of the Papacy, the Katejon that kept at bay, repressing with the vigorous sword of the blessed infallible Magisterium, the gates of hell, which are the heresies and errors in Faith, morality and discipline, preventing time and again that they would prevail against the Primacy of Saint Peter and his Successors. In these sad times, however, Our Holy Mother the Catholic Church has been eclipsed by an abominable sect, the Great Montinian or Babylonian Prostitute, which masquerades as Her and has usurped all its external structures, deceiving the unhappy inhabitants of the earth, as prophesied by Our Lady the Most Holy Ever Virgin Mary in her apparition at La Salette, France, in 1846.

It is the time when Satan has been released to seduce all nations (Revelation 20, 7-8). through the deceits of the world, always full of vanities, and the triple concupiscence of the eyes, the flesh and pride, leading the entire world to apostasy before God. Thus we see that Antichrist Montini was, indeed, the one in charge of sowing tares in the vast field of the world that the Holy Church of God had fermented and sanctified for 2,000 years with the Gospel and the Sacraments, promoting a new “religion” that apostatizes from the eternal and immutable Catholic Religion and preaches in its place an absolute falsification of the Truth and an inversion of all Dogmas, extolling human progress and technology, indifferentism, the diabolical ecumenism that brings together all false religions and heresies existing, atheism, tolerance of any error and heresy, the false and masonic human fraternity in which there are no longer barriers or separations and all are “brothers” in chaos and deceit, the most terrifying relativism and subjectivism, in short, total chaos or Anomos.

To achieve such a perverse end, the Antichrist made use of the Great Apostasy of the entire Episcopal Body, which actually took place on the fateful day of December 8, 1965, when the unhappy Bishops and Cardinals miserably betrayed the Flock of Christ and they apostatized en masse at the moment they signed their signature on the heretical closing documents of the accursed Vatican 2 cabal, thus consummating a public and notorious act of apostasy and being excommunicated en bloc [Canon 188.4 and Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio], losing ipso facto any position and jurisdiction they had when joining a non-Catholic sect. In this way, it was fulfilled what was predicted in the book of Revelation, chapter 13, verses 5 to 7, where we read that: “And he was given a mouth that uttered haughtiness and blasphemies; and authority was given to him to do his work for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, blaspheme his Name, his dwelling place, and those who dwell in heaven. He was also allowed to make war with the saints and defeat them; and authority was given to him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.”

 Both Antichrist Montini and his infamous successors Luciani, Wojtyla, Ratzinger, and Bergoglio today, who form the mystical body of the Antichrist incarnated in the Great Whore of Babylon or Montinian/conciliar sect, have uttered and still utter arrogance and blasphemies in the form of heresy, irreverence, and other countless barbarities against the Most High God and against all His Saints, whom those supreme wretches insult and slander with their insolent impiety, falsehoods and desecrations. Montini made war on the Saints with his abominable heresies uttered during the Vatican 2 cabal, especially in the arch-heretical declarations Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate, and defeated them, since he made those who still kept the sound Catholic doctrine received in the times of Popes Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII, throw overboard all the immense work that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter or Paraclete, had worked in them and for them, thus losing its flavor and serving nothing more than to be thrown to the ground and trampled on by the disbelieving Gentile “dogs”, when they gave assent to the unusual apostasy driven and promoted from Rome and the Vatican by the son of perdition. Once the Antichrist and his minions defeated the Saints and won them over to their impious cause, it was very easy for them to impose themselves by false obedience and authority over every tribe and people and language and nation, leading the once Catholic world to the most frightening apostasy and religious indifferentism regarding the One and Triune God.

Thus, the Operation of error or the seduction of iniquity is unleashed (II Thessalonians 2, 8-12), which consists in an impressive series of errors and doctrinal contradictions, false sacramental prodigies and heretical atrocities disguised as apparent Catholic orthodoxy that we will call fables or logics of the time of Anomos, but which all of them contain a deadly deception; said Operation of error being inaugurated with the advent of Antichrist Montini, and above all, with the great apostasy promoted by him which led to the massive defection of the entire Episcopal Corps, formalized on the disastrous day of December 8, 1965 on the occasion of the signing of the heretical acts of the accursed Vatican 2 bogus council. The Operation of Error is a false power sent by God to lose those who did not love Truth as it was revealed by God in Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium, but rather took pleasure in deceit and wickedness; it is a really insidious seduction and it strikes practically all the souls that have been rescued by God from the world and its many deceptions. Later on we will explain the modus operandi of this unfathomable mystery called the Operation of Error, and we will try to give a formula to get out of such implacable universal deception, God willing.

Going back to the infamous Montini, he and his impious successors in the abominable conciliar sect have implanted the Luciferian “New Pentecost”, which in reality is the large-scale spread of Satan’s filthy spirit of errors and heresies by taking advantage of the visible structures of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, thus managing to deceive the entire universe through “all power and signs and prodigies of lies, and with all seduction of iniquity for those who are to be lost in retribution for not having accepted for their salvation the love of truth. And, for this reason, God sends them powers of deception, so that they believe the lie, so that all those who disbelieve the truth, who take pleasure in injustice, may be judged”. Well, as we read in the comments to this passage in Monsignor Juan Straubinger’s Bible (Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Müenster, Germany, 1883-1956), and which I allow myself to complement with my own additions:

[* 10. Those who are to be lost: This passage (verses 9-12) is perhaps one of the most terrible in Scripture and worthy of serious meditation. God, who is mercy itself, is also the truth, whose expression he gives us in his Son Jesus Christ, who is his Verb or Incarnate Word, and who does not cease to present himself as Truth and Light. Just as there will be a tremendous revenge of despised Love (Song of Songs 8, 6 and note), so we also see here the revenge of the unheeded truth. We see in Psalms 80, 13 that God abandoned the people of Israel to their dalliances, who did not want to listen to him [just as today’s heretics and schismatics have not wanted to listen to the Popes and their infallible Magisterium, thus obstinately and criminally refusing to submit to the authority that the Vicars of Christ possess over every human creature and which must be obeyed in order to aspire to achieve eternal salvation, cf. Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctam]; He will do so here by handing them over unarmed “so that they may believe the lie, since they had no interest in arming themselves with the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God” [expressed and revealed both in the Gospel and Sacred Scripture as well as in the infallible Magisterium of the Vicars of Our Lord Jesus Christ] (Ephesians 6, 11, 13 and 17). And then that word of Jesus in John 5:43, which some interpret precisely as an announcement of the Antichrist, will be fulfilled tragically—as it has been for a long time. See also Amos, 8, 11 and note. * 12. He who is incredulous to the truth, will be pleased in wickedness for the same thing that we saw, inversely. in Ephesians 5, 9 and note.]

In this way, we then have the Abomination of Desolation placed in the Holy Temple (Matthew 24, 15), which is the coronation of the Antichrist and his minions usurping the Papacy and generating a monstrous Harlot of Babylon that eclipses the Spouse of Christ to deceive the entire world, and against which Our Lord warned us to get out of there immediately and not turn back, lamenting for those who are pregnant and those who are giving birth at that time(Matthew 24, 19), which refers to the souls who were carrying out their vocation to the priestly or religious life during the fateful moment in which Antichrist Montini was crowned as impious king, these are the ones who are pregnantbecause they had been called by the Holy Spirit for that holy vocation and were to be the salt and light of the world, but unfortunately with the advent of the son of Satan they lost all their flavor and their sacred mission, becoming propagators and accomplices of the apostasy and impiety of the Antichrist and his infamous successors at the head of the Great conciliar or Montinian Whore; while those who were giving birth and raising infants at that sad moment are to be understood as the souls chosen by the Holy Ghost to be formators and spiritual directors of many priests, seminarians, religious, novices, postulants, pastoral care of families, etc., in clear allusion to the Hierarchy , that is, the Bishops, since they had entrusted to them innumerable souls in their respective dioceses, whom they were raising, that is, spiritually feeding them with the Holy Word of God and the Holy Sacraments.

It is now understandable the serious warning of Our Lord Jesus Christ so that, when that happened, everybody was to immediately leave the Holy Place where the Abomination had been installed, since the Antichrist and his recently gestated hellish sect were going to pervert and mutilate absolutely everything, altering the Sacraments and causing them to permanently lose their Grace, changing the liturgical times and destroying the Holy of Holies, getting rid of a terrifying number of Saints, suppressing and abolishing the Perpetual Sacrifice as already predicted to us in Daniel’s prophecy, causing the Harlot to be confused with the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Christ, to the astonishment and horror of the entire universe, leaving the Flock literally as sheep without a Shepherd, and having the last chosen Catholic Faithful who make up the true Bride in the desert, keeping the Faith in the catacombs of their own homes and the silence of their hearts, led there by the Holy Ghost, the Consoler or Paraclete, who feeds them with the Divine Graces that are essential so as not to faint. And if those days were not shortened, no one would be saved; but because of the elect, those days will be shortened. *If then they tell you: “See, the Christ is here or there”, do not believe it. *Because false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will do stupendous things and wonders, to the point of diverting, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have predicted it to you! Therefore, if they say to you, “He is in the desert,” do not go out; “He is in the cellars”, do not believe it. (Matthew 24, 22-26)

Comments on these verses in Bishop Straubinger’s Bible supplemented by my own reflection: [*23. Buzy, drawing attention to the fact that Jesus constantly speaks in the plural of false Messiahs and false prophets and never of a false Messiah in singular or of an Antichrist, concludes: “that in the teaching of Jesus as in that of Saint John (I John 1, 18-23) there is no individual Antichrist; there is only one powerful and terrible collectivity of antichrists.” The same author observes in his note to II Thessalonians 2, 7.  *24. The elect will be freed from deceit because the just will be given a sure judgment as a defense (Wisdom 5, 19). Cf. II Thessalonians 2, 10 ss. and note. [And what better sure judgment and right guide to judge everything than to follow the infallible authority of the Papacy and its Magisterium! Thanks to them, as well as fidelity to Divine Grace and the gifts and lights received from the Holy Ghost Paraclete to understand and penetrate the meaning of Scripture and the Magisterium, the last elect will be able to be saved in the midst of the Great Tribulation].

At the same time, during this time of the Antichrist or the Anomos, the false shepherds appear, that is, the false Christs with their false prophets (Matthew 24, 24) who make propaganda for them, and who claim to know where the Christ is and perform great wonders to mislead even the elect if possible. These unfortunate individuals must be there for the Scripture to be fulfilled, their role is very ungrateful, comparable to that of Judas, since they must be there so that they deceive with their elaborate and perverse fables many who are going to be lost because they do not possess the love of Truth, trying to deceive also even the ones chosen by God, if this were possible.

THE FALSE CHRISTS are the representatives of the conciliar Harlot, as well as its franchises of the Anomos, which are the sects and the traditionalist – sedevacantist false clergy that emerged from the schisms engendered by Marcel Lefebvre and Peter Martin Ngô Thuc, both excommunicated for public and notorious apostasy [Canon 188.4 and Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio], who have been generating a monstrous multi-headed hydra without any control or direction, invalidly and illegally consecrating pseudo “bishops” against the provisions of the Magisterium of Pope Pius XII [Apostolic Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis] and the Code of Canon Law of 1917, which punishes with very severe penalties of excommunication ipso facto those who have the impious audacity to proceed to an episcopal consecration without permission from the Holy See [Canon 2229.3, 3º ; AAS 43, 1951, pp. 217-218; Canon 953] as well as those who presume to receive consecration from the hands of those reckless false Christs who acted without permission from the Holy See [Canon 2370].

From which it follows, then, that the spiritual offspring of these two arrogant hypocritical rebels who were disobedient to the Magisterium of Pius XII are also false christs themselves, and are thus marked with the leprosy of schism and heresy by osmosis or mutual influence with their heretical and schismatic “fathers” and “superiors”, being struck with the penalties of ipso facto excommunication and legal infamy [ Canon 2372; Pope Pius XII, AAS 42 (1950) p. 601], thus becoming dangerous heretical and schismatic intruders without mission or jurisdiction over the flock of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These must be avoided by all the faithful so as not to concur in communicatio in sacris with individuals who have been excommunicated for their adherence to schism and heresy, and whose acts are null, void, invalid, illicit, gravely sinful, in short, sacrilege and desecration, as the Magisterium and the CIC teach us. The aforementioned censorships apply to the false “clergy” arising from the sect generated by hypocritical apostate Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, the SSPX, whether they continue in that sect or pretend to function as false “clerici vagantes”, as well as to all pseudo “bishops” and “priests” emerged from the schismatic hands of the mentally deranged and simoniac Bishop Thuc and his equally impious and arrogant spiritual offspring.

Likewise, within the category of false christs we must also include all the false “religious” and the pseudo “nuns”, to whom the following censorships of excommunication and infamy by law are applied for having dared to profess religious vows in the face of intruders apostates, heretics, and schismatics without a mission or jurisdiction [Canon 646.1; Canon 2314.1] and/or have dared to found a religious congregation without the permission of the Pope [Canon 492.1 and 3; Canon 497.1 and 4]. All these false christs are authentic lepers of schism, heresy and apostasy, who are spreading their despicable pride and their disobedience to the supreme authority set by God — who is the Pope — wherever they go, infecting everything they touch. Hence Our Lord Jesus Christ has warned us expressly and repeatedly (Matthew 7, 15-20; Matthew 24, 4-5; Matthew 24, 11 and 12; Matthew 24, 24; II Thessalonians 2, 8-12) not to listen to them or have anything to do with them, since they are placed there to confuse and mislead even those chosen by the One and Triune God, if this were possible, thus fulfilling their thankless but inevitable role in Scripture.

THE FALSE PROPHETS are all those who support and recognize a false authority and jurisdiction in the already mentioned false Christs, propagating and spreading their diverse and numerous sects founded on lies and fraud, in abject contempt for the Papacy and its infallible Magisterium and the Holy Canons of the 1917 Code of Law. All of them are blind leading the blind, who will all end up in the pit for their enormous sins of pride and disobedience to the Holy Ghost who speaks through the mouth of the Vicars of Jesus Christ. The Great Montinian or conciliar Harlot is the parent sect from which all these false Christs and their false prophets arise, who are all miasmas of the mystical body of the Antichrist, putrefying elements that walk towards their perdition while trying to deceive the greatest possible number of candid souls with little or no formation in the Faith, the Doctrine, and the Magisterium.

Hence the vital importance of knowing the perverse and twisted fables of the Anomos with which these supreme rebels disobedient to God try to deceive over and over again their own guilty conscience and the many unwary who are caught in their nets of deception; I have said rebellious and disobedient to God, because whoever disobeys Pope Pius XII also disobeys blessed Saint Peter, and so disobeys Jesus Christ Himself, Son of the living God and Second Person of the Holy Trinity, thus disobeying the Eternal Father and wanting to point out any flaws (!) to the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete who speaks through the mouth of the Supreme Pontiffs. This constitutes a very serious mortal sin for which Our Lord Jesus Christ warned us that there would be no forgiveness (Matthew 12, 31-32). Hence, I repeat, the tremendous importance of knowing about the absurd and diabolical fables that these unfortunate characters use to deceive locals and strangers, which will be dealt with in the next point.

The Mystical Body of Christ in the End Times, Pt. 2

by T. Stanfill Benns | Dec 18, 2022 | New Blog

+Fourth Sunday in Advent+

In Part I, Revs. Mersch and Gruden define the functions of Christ’s Mystical Body among its members. For ease of reference, a summary of these points is presented below.

“First [Christ’s Mystical Body] will be an empirical, concrete, visible, tangible thing… for it is a human institution, a human society. And it is a society quite visibly and tangibly. Its sociology and Canon Law can be written down, it has its clearly defined members and its definite seat. Secondly the Church will be an invisible reality; a life of thought, love and grace that is infused into souls… THE EXPRESSION ‘MYSTICAL BODY’ DESIGNATES THE MYSTERIOUS AND INTERIOR ELEMENT OF THE CHURCH… it does not designate the external aspect of body except so far as it is the outward manifestation of the interior soul which consists in such a mystery… It is a union… primarily internal and supernatural. It is the supernatural union of the sanctified soul with Christ and with all other sanctified souls in Christ… The bonds that unite Christians to Christ and to one another are organic, physical, sacramental, although supernatural and invisible…

“The communion of saints is an invisible society, a “Church” or “ecclesia” in the broad sense, a moral body. Its invisible, moral, or juridical head is the glorified or exalted Christ.

Besides the many or multiple external visible elements, clergy and laity, hierarchical structure, sacraments, sacramentals, etc., the Church must possess an inner element which, intimately united to the visible elements, must be the formal cause of the unity and identity of the organism, formal cause, too, of its own peculiar life which is supernatural and divine… The invisible elements which, figuratively speaking, we call the soul of the Church, form together with the visible elements, its body, one undivided and indivisible whole, informed and vivified by the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit. This living visible organism, of which the Holy Spirit is the soul in the real but mystical sense, is the Mystical Body of Christ, or the mystical Christ…” (end of Gruden/Mersch quotes).

What this tells us is that independent of the juridical, external aspect of the Church, it is Her inner life and the union and cooperation of Her members that is the formal cause of her unity and identity, NOT Her external attributes. This means that the Church, which IS Christ’s Mystical Body, survives in all Her essentials even without Her visible head on earth, the Pope, or the hierarchy, (although of course at all other times these elements are strictly required in the Church unless God wills otherwise, which He apparently does in these times). That She can and does so survive is Christ’s promise to us that the Church, HIS BODY, as defined by Pope Pius XII, will last into the consummation and that He will be with us until the earth is destroyed by fire and all the faithful are gathered up to Him. That the functionality of this super-naturalized state of the Church was reserved until the end times is clear from Holy Scripture, which tells us that the papacy, the Mass and hence the Sacraments will be taken way. Further proofs of this are provided below as well as a commentary on the role of the laity as apostles today.

The Formation of a Lay Apostle, Francis N. Wendell, O.P., 1954

I am the Church

“Lay people generally think of themselves as belonging to the Church. When they begin to get the concept that they are the Church they begin to be lay apostles. The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ is at the very heart of the lay apostolate. Christ is still living in the world in another body, it is true, a mystical, a mysterious body. The Catholic Church is not just an organization but an organism, a living body, a body with life that is Divine. ‘I am the vine, you are the branches.’ . . . ‘I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.’ ‘I am . . . the Life.’ The impact of these ideas is tremendous. Christ lives in me, a layman, an ordinary worker, or as a man said to me just recently, ‘Just imagine, someone asked my advice and I am only a taxicab driver.’ There is revolution here, revolution in the sense that one’s life begins to be important. Christ living in me, this is revolution. ‘We need not fear the revolution, we are the revolution.’

“With all this there come two clear, distinct revelations. First, I am related to Christ, He is the Head of the Body and I am a member of His Body, the Church. He is my friend, I walk and talk with Him as Adam walked and talked with God in the cool and shade of the evening, as a friend. The doctrine of grace. Friendship with God — playing, as someone has said, in a league that is over one’s head. The second realization for the layman is almost as important. I am related to all the other members of the body… either actually or potentially, the good and the bad. We are all one in Christ Jesus our Head. I must love them all. The good I must love for their goodness which they get from Christ. The bad I must love for their need. The Jew I must love because God made him and he might someday enjoy membership in the Body. There is no color in the Mystical Body, the yellow, the red, the black and the white are all one in Christ.

“The discovery of this doctrine opens up a tremendous field for the lay apostle. He begins to see — I am responsible for others because I am related to them. I have the greatest gift in the world, actual membership in Christ’s Body, but that Body must grow and I must help it to grow. Therein lies my apostolate… I must exercise my apostolate as a layman, doing all the things that I am required to do as a layman. Yet it is not my apostolate but His…

“’What is needed,” said His Holiness Pope Pius XII in 1949, in speaking of the Young Christian Workers, ‘is the active presence in factories and work places, of pioneers who are fully conscious of their double vocation — as Christians and workers — and who are bent on assuming their responsibilities to the full, knowing neither peace nor rest until they have transformed the environment of their lives to the demands of the Gospel. The Church, by this positive, constructive work, will be able to extend her life-giving action to the millions of souls for whom she has a maternal and ardent solicitude.’ The lay person must be apprised of the fact that it is in the very accomplishing of the ordinary things of life that he becomes holy. The traveling to work, the making of the baby’s formula, the rendering of an honest day’s work, all these are the warp and woof out of which lay sanctity is woven.

“Mary [is the] Mediatrix of All Graces… All graces come into the world through her as through a channel. He ties this up with his knowledge, also growing, of the Mystical Body and he suddenly realizes that she also plays a part in that Body. Christ is the Head, we the members, and she, as one of the Fathers of the Church pointed out, is the neck uniting the Head to the members.”

The Path of Mary, Mother Mary Potter, 1878

“In a remarkable French work, a beautiful explanation of [the Mystical Body] may be found…: “According to the explanation of some of the Fathers, the first man that is born in Mary is the man-God Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption. If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, the predestinate who are the members of that head ought also to be born in her by a necessary consequence. One and the same mother does not bring forth into the world the head without the members nor the members without the head, for this would be a monster of nature. So in like manner, in the order of grace, the head and the members are born of one and the same mother; and if a member of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is to say one of the predestinate, was born of any other mother than Mary, who has produced the Head, he would be simply a monster in the order of grace. Saint Augustine affirms that all the predestinate, in order to be conformed to the image of the son of God, are, in the world, hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that great Mother until she has brought them forth to glory after death. God the Son wishes to form Himself, and, so to speak, to Incarnate Himself every day by His dear Mother in His members.”

The Theology of the Mystical Body by Emile Mersch S.J., 1951

“We do not say that explicit submission to the external teaching authority is the only condition that makes an act of supernatural faith possible. If this were so, the souls of good will that are outside the Catholic Church could have no faith. Nor do we say that attachment to the bishops and the Pope regarded as persons who exercise an external office is enough to establish us formally on the immovable rock of truth. What we are trying to bring out is that this point of view is not adequate. The Church is Christ and Christ is God. When the Church as such speaks, we need not pursue our investigations further. All we have to do is believe, and the one we believe is God. Since the time of the Incarnation, God is not other than Christ and since Pentecost Christ is not other than the Church; on the one side hypostatic unity, on the other side mystic unity. But in both cases the unity is real… We should think with Christ, in Him and in dependence on Him. He stands before us very near, real and attentive in the magisterium of the Church. He is there to deliver to us the data of our undertaking to sustain our effort to correct our wanderings if the need should arise and to approve the result. What more could we desire? If we approach the work with a craven or irresolute spirit, the fault is none of His, for we ought to perform the task in Him.

“The part played by man in the vitality of Christian teaching is very great and we do well to assure ourselves on that point. To appreciate the fact better, have we noticed how important it was in the very founding of the Church? Jesus came to establish the Catholic Church on earth, but the ones who actually established it were men. Christ himself hardly preached to anyone except the lost sheep of the House of Israel and during His mortal life He sent his disciples nowhere except to the villages of Palestine, directing them not to travel the roads of Samaria or to cross over to the pagan districts. He himself apparently wished to do no more than train the apostles and to make ready to see that later, under His hidden action and His bidding, would [the seed be sown] to spread the gospel over all the earth. In point of fact, truly Catholic preaching, the diffusion of the true doctrine, is the work of the Church, not of Christ. Or better it is the work of Christ in the Church. The body of Christ has built itself up; as Saint Paul says it has achieved its own construction and growth. But it was able to do so because it was attached to the Head and possesses the real, though invisible, power of the Head.

“A Christian is a member of the Mystical Body not by his own effort but through Christ. On the other hand the act of knowing, which is a function of being, is construed as the being that knows. Consequently, although the Christian truly knows, he knows not of himself but through Christ. But Christ who lives in souls by His anointing and His living truth does not express Himself outwardly and authentically except in the teaching authority of the Church. Therefore this anointing, this living truth, in a word this Christian life, appeals to the teaching authority when it appeals to Christ and its voice is lifted up in the councils: ‘Peter, teach us; you have the words of eternal life and you have them for me’” (end of Mersch quotes).

The Mystical Christ, Rev. John C. Gruden, S.T.L., 1938

“The supreme visible pastor of the Church is the successor of St. Peter, the bishop of Rome. He is head of the episcopal body just as St. Peter was head of the apostolic college, and, being head of the hierarchy of jurisdiction, he is also juridic head of the Church. This honor and dignity belongs to him because he is bishop of the see which St. Peter had chosen as his own and occupied at the time of his death.

“The bishop of Rome is vicar of Christ and as such possesses primacy of jurisdiction, that is, he has supreme and immediate jurisdiction over the universal Church. It is his right and privilege to feed and to shepherd, to teach and to rule, Christ’s whole flock. This position of the pope as visible, juridic head of the Church is in no way derogatory to the honor of Christ as invisible head of his visible Mystical Body. Christ is head of the Church in the full and proper sense (sensu pleno et proprio) because he is head as both priest and pastor. The pope, on the other hand, is head of the Church, the Mystical Body, not because he is visible high priest but because he is supreme visible shepherd. The bishop of Rome possesses no more of Christ’s priesthood than other validly consecrated bishops of the Christian world. In fact, the pope in his capacity as supreme visible pastor need not be a priest at all.

“The immediate or proximate purpose of the priesthood and the pastorate is the sanctification of the members of the Mystical Body. The ultimate or remote purpose is the same as that of the mystical organism of which they are constituent elements and of all creation, namely, to give honor and glory to God by leading men from a life of grace here below into a life of glory in the kingdom of God in the world to come. When this purpose will have been realized, when this present order will have passed away and the destinies of men will have been forever sealed for weal or for woe, THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE PASTORATE OF THE CHURCH WILL ALSO PASS. THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST IS NOT AN ETERNAL FOUNDATION; IT WILL LAST ONLY UNTIL THE WORK WHICH IT HAS BEEN FASHIONED TO PERFORM HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. When the created grace of Christ the head, measured out by the hand of the heavenly Father, will, as it were, have been exhausted, when the pleroma of Christ of which the apostle speaks will have been achieved, THEN THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH WILL CEASE TO EXIST. Then will the kingdom of God on earth — the mystical, visible, body of Christ, the Church — with its multiple functions and its variously articulated offices cede to a new order, the kingdom of God in the world to come.

“Multiplicity will give way to simplicity. The various visible sacramental accommodations by which men were brought into the pure vision of an all-holy God, will disappear. Of sacraments and of the Eucharistic sacrifice there will no longer be any need, for grace will have been brought to full, verdant fruition in the light of glory. For a complicated hierarchy of jurisdiction with its twofold authority of magisterium and imperium there will likewise be no more need, for men will see the Light, the heavenly magnetism of which will prevent them from ever wandering from its thrall; they will see God ‘even as He is.’ ‘Then shall the just,’ says our Lord, ‘shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’

“The kingdom of God will enter upon its final phase on the day of judgment when in the sight of all men the good will be separated from the bad, the just from the wicked, as men separate wheat from darnel, sheep from goats. The final judgment is certain although no one knows the day and the hour, ‘but the Father alone’; it will come at an unexpected time as a thief in the night. The day of the judgment will see the inauguration of the new kingdom of God in the world to come. The New Jerusalem will then have sprung into being. The old Jerusalem, the city built of living stones, the Church, the mystical Christ, will have done perfectly the work appointed; redemption will have been fully accomplished even to the resurrection of the flesh, and God will be all in all” (end of Gruden quotes).

And Henry Cardinal Manning says much the same. He writes in his Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, written in the late 1800s: “Yet the event may come to pass that as our divine Lord after His three years of public ministry were ended, delivered Himself of His own free will into the hands of men and thereby permitted them to do that which was before impossible; so, in His inscrutable wisdom, He may deliver over His Vicar upon earth as He delivered Himself, and that the providential support of the temporal power of the Holy See may be withdrawn when its work is done. What that work is we know from Holy Scripture: it is the support and maintenance of the present Christian order of the world during such time as the grace of God is gathering out His people until the whole number of those whom He have chosen to the eternal life is filled up. It may be that when that is done and when the times of Antichrist are come that He will give over His Vicar upon earth and his Mystical Body at large” (for a certain time).

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “The state of the New Law is intermediate between the state of the Old Law… and the state of glory, in which all truth will be fully and perfectly manifested. Then there will be no more sacraments; but now, inasmuch as we see only through a glass darkly, we have to enter into spiritual things through sensible signs” (Summa Theologica, Part 3, Q. 61, Art. 4; Necessity of the Sacraments after Christ’s Coming). We must learn to love and adore God in these times without the sacred means He provided us for nearly two millennia, the Mass and the Sacraments. It is not a deprivation and should never be interpreted as such, although we believe the cessation of the continual magisterium and the continual Sacrifice was in part a punishment for the sins of those who neglected to take advantage of the rich treasury of Eucharistic graces and properly thank God for the ability to do so.

St. Thomas enlightens us further on this subject by explaining that there are five reasons why God sends us chastisements: “To try and to test, to preserve humility, to purify, to give glory to God and to punish the wicked,” (H. B. Kramer’s The Book of Destiny, pg. 109). If we have been wicked, (and through the sin of communicatio in sacris, this can be said to be true of all of us), yes, it is a punishment. But it was also a trial and a test, to see if we would repent and remain faithful to Our Lord. And it was sent to help us arrive at humility by admitting our mistakes and sins; to purify us and give glory to God by accepting and promoting the truth. Only in Heaven will the truth be fully known, but we must use the gifts and graces God has provided us to determine it as far as we are able on this earth, according to the teachings of His Vicars.

Either we are being offered a foretaste of life in our Eternal Home, and the Church will eventually be restored, (although the prospects of this appear dim); or we are being prepared for the end of the world proper and the commencement of the life to come in a very intimate way. The latter could very well be true  since St. Thomas Aquinas also says: “Although men be terrified by the signs appearing about the judgment day, yet before those signs begin to appear the wicked will think themselves to be in peace and security after the death of Antichrist and before the coming of Christ, seeing that the world is not at once destroyed as they thought hitherto” (Summa Theologica, Supplement, 73: 1). If it is true that Paul 6 was the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, and we cannot see how it could be otherwise, then it is very likely that we live in this time-period St. Thomas describes.

Conclusion

So in summary, if the assessment of Rev. Gruden is taken seriously, at any time Christ can decide that the time allotted to the Church He established on earth has come to an end and its work on earth is completed. And that time could only naturally coincide with the coming of Antichrist, because this is the only time in Holy Scripture when the saints are said to be utterly crushed and overcome. In Matt. 24:21, Christ warns us these times would be like no other in history. Despite what Traditionalists say, there can be no comparison of this interregnum to the Western Schism, because a true pope reigned all along in those times, although his identity was unknown to the faithful. Only by ignoring Christ’s warning, the prophecies found in Holy Scripture and the teachings of the Church can Catholics dismiss the clear signs that we are living in the end times. That they cannot dismiss their prejudices, fueled by the deliberate diffusion of disinformation and overreliance on private revelations, fulfills the predictions involving the operation of error.

One Vatican Council teaching often cited as proof this could not be the case is that regarding the Church’s perpetuity. The Vatican Council in 1870 taught that “…Blessed Peter has (not “will have”) perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church — Si quis ergo dixerit, non esse ex ipsius Christi Domini institutione seu iure divino, ut beatus Petrus in primatu super universain Ecclesiam habeat perpetuos successores; aut Romanum Pontificem non esse beati Petri hi eodem primatu successorem; anathema sit.” (DZ 1825). Habeat = he has (present tense — subjunctive because it follows dixerit according to sequence of tenses). Future tense (he will have) = habebit. He must have = debeat habere. (This was first pointed out by Hutton Gibson in his The War is Now.) Gibson observed: “The Church can oblige us only to Scriptural prophecy (such as St. Paul’s revolt).” The Church WILL last until the very end; precisely HOW She will last has never been specifically defined by the Church.

And Henry Cardinal Manning’s translation of the Vatican Council documents found in the appendix to his work The Vatican Council Definitions is even less clear: “If then, any should deny that it is by the institution of Christ the Lord, or by divine right, that Blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the Primacy over the Universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Blessed Peter in this primacy; let him be anathema.” Should, as found in Webster’s 7th Collegiate Dictionary, is defined as “owed or obliged to; used in auxiliary function to express a condition, “if he shall” (1), or what is probable or expected (4). Again, why is this not clearly expressed as “will have”? Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton also wrote: “This Church is meant… to endure until the end of the world” (Laying the Foundations, A Handbook of Catholic Apologetics and Fundamental Theology, 1942). It will endure as a spiritual entity, but in God’s way, not ours.

This has to do with the dogma regarding free will. How could this dogma ever be upheld if it was once granted we could always be assured that a Church left dependent by Our Lord on the good will of men for its continuance would never betray Her? Was not He Himself betrayed? And even aside from this, how could the Scriptures regarding the cessation of the Sacrifice, the taking away of he who withholdeth and the overcoming of the saints during Antichrist’s reign ever be fulfilled unless the Church was “taken way,” as St. Victorinus says? Prejudices regarding the fulfillment of these prophecies is what keeps Catholics from realizing their fulfillment, as Rev. Goffine explains below.

Rev. Leonard Goffine, Quinquagesima Sunday

(Gospel commentary on Luke 18: 31-43)

Why did Our Saviour so often predict His sufferings to His apostles?

1. To show that He already knew of them, thereby indicating His omniscience; and that,
2. He desired to suffer.
3. In order that His disciples should not be scandalized at His humiliation, nor think evil of Him as if He had deceived them, but, by remembering His words, be rather confirmed in their belief in Him as the Son of God and Redeemer of the world.

Did not the apostles understand anything of what He thus predicted in regard to His sufferings?

They may have known that He was to suffer, for St. Peter undertook to dissuade Him from it (Matt. xvi. 22), but they could not reconcile these predictions with their expectation of a future glorious kingdom. Nor would we be able to cast off our prejudices, and understand the truths of the faith, however plainly taught, were we not enlightened by the Holy Ghost.”

All this is also explained in Matt. 26 and John 18-19, regarding Christ’s arrest, Passion and death. Scripture must be fulfilled, and all that is now being done on this earth must fulfill it — this is the passion of Christ’s Mystical Body. And yet the anticipation of a glorious rebirth of the Church has blinded many to the reality of Antichrist’s reign, and all the signs that the Second Coming is undeniably near. In celebrating Christ’s birth this 2,022nd year of our Lord, let us not forget that He must first be born anew in our hearts in order that, joined to His Mystical Body, we may be gathered up, (Matthew 24:26-31; Luke 21:25-28): “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. And the stars of heaven shall be falling down, and the powers that are in heaven, shall be moved. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.”