May 2017
1917 - 2017
The Algebra of Apostasy
THE EDITOR
| Small errors of principle have catastrophic consequences. |
| — Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP |
Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture ... The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old. ... Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. ... I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God... Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. ... Who am I to judge? |
| — Francis, Pontifex Maximus |
As the centenary countdown to the greatest public miracle in history begins, what should we expect in the coming months by way of supernatural signs, wonders and meltdowns?
(Endtime Spoiler Alert!)
In sum: not much.
This isn't to say that the signs of the times do not portend a Noah-like response from on High. On the contrary, the wickedness of Noah's day seems fairly tame compared to ours. Though overused, "apocalyptic" precisely describes a world all but daring — goading — Almighty God to smite it. In this year of all years, therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect Divine intervention. And yet, as we know from the decisions of multiple pontiffs — firstly to defy Heaven's simple request to consecrate "Russia" to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then to bury the original one-page text of the Third Secret — where Fatima is concerned, great expectations invariably give way to great frustrations.
Apocalyptic formula
Hierarchical disobedience/negligence/cowardice/lethargy/call-it-what-you-like, continues to amaze and appall. Even conservative prelates rarely promote the Five First Saturday Reparatory Devotions with any urgency. At best, all talk and no positive action sums up the hierarchical history. At worst — and overwhelmingly — it has been silence and negativity in the Modernistic process of marginalising, ecumenising and secularising Fatima by a thousand condescending cuts.
In effect, Our Lady's personal instruction of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta between May and October 1917 triggered 100 years of devotion and struggle — in roughly equal proportion: fifty years of signature Catholic devotion to Mary, followed by fifty post-conciliar years of ecumenical embarrassment apropos Marian devotion in general, and the Fatima message in particular.
Sister Lucia famously put this down to the "diabolic disorientation" that views doctrinal, moral and canonical chaos as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and the ensuing "mess" as a work of mercy.
This malign malaise appears to have reached its zenith in the person of the current pontiff. Yet we must pause to consider the plain truth of the matter: that Francis is just the latest link in the ever lengthening Modernist chain.
This struck me once again while reading an article of impending doom by a Catholic expert on Freemasonry. Therein, he laid out his case by way of lengthy arithmetic and geometric calculations based on the occult symbolism of the Lodge. Tying it all to an allegedly demonic manifestation recently photographed in a region of Italy historically rooted in occult prophecy, this blizzard of hieroglyphics finally led the author to reveal the precise "Day of God's Wrath" as 3 July 2017. (Beware 2017 travel insurance policies that don't cover "acts of God"!)
Seriously, who needs complex and incomprehensible calculations to understand the current proximity of Divine Justice! (Or further photographic verification thereof. Those lightning bolts that struck the dome of St Peter's in the immediate aftermath of Benedict's resignation put us all on notice — big time!) No, the explanation of how we fulfilled the Third Secret and consequently tremble at the prospect of God's wrath can be reduced to a simple algebraic equation:
J23 + P6 + JP2 + B16 = F1
Hegelian thread
A reproach to the wishful-thinking of Benedict XVI's "hermeneutic of continuity", that elementary formula expresses the continuing — devastating — hermeneutic of discontinuity. Hardly rocket science, it encapsulates at a glance the theological and philosophical Liberalism that has brought the Church low since the Council — to include above all the insidious 'moderate' variety peddled by John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
John XXIII and Paul VI are easy targets on the spectrum.
The former imprudently called and then corrupted the Council: firstly, by insisting it be "pastoral"and avoid solemn definitions and condemnations of error; secondly, by inviting notorious arch-Modernist theologians to participate.
The latter just as imprudently allowed the already alarming Council to continue on after John's death, then progressively signed off/set off the time-bombs strewn throughout the Council documents (in the form of "compromise formulas" deliberately "designed" for "a selective reception" so as to cause "huge potential for conflict," as Cardinal Kasper has proudly confessed).
The 'progressive' papal bridgeheads that followed were more dangerous, however. Variously mixing and masking continuity and discontinuity in their wildly uneven pontificates (e.g., Assisi abominations vs. Ecclesia Dei adflicta/Summorum Pontificum), John Paul and Benedict easily won over papolators, who turned a blind eye to their myriad scandals and deeply problematic theology and attitudes (CO passim) — out of false-obedience, false-charity, and cowardly fear of having to denounce them. But this Hegelian ebb and flow of traditional sensibilities ("thesis") and liberal leanings ("antithesis") was simply Modernist continuity in the 'moderate' guise unmasked by St. Pius X in Pascendi.
Whenever the thought and writings of Karol Wojtyla came up in our private conversations, Father Paul Crane would often mutter disapprovingly: "Too much Hegel." The liberal thread binding all the post-conciliar pontiffs, I once explained Hegelianism by way of John Paul II's dire appointments:
Preening apostates like Cardinals Lehman, Kasper, Mahoney et. al. have been introduced to the sacred college to keep the runaway post-conciliar train careering on. The papal rationalisation seems to be that they act as a political stabiliser: helping maintain a desirable “balance” and “tension” between opposing viewpoints. Through this Hegelian dialectic, the conservative likes of Sydney’s new Cardinal George Pell (thesis) are supposed to be offset by the liberal likes of Scotland's Cardinal Keith O’Brien (antithesis) giving rise to a purer form of Catholicism (synthesis).
That was in 2003, by way of pointing out our no-win predicament — viz., "slow ‘liberal-conservative’ decay, or rapid ‘liberal-liberal’ dissolution" — since, I argued,
the Conciliar milieu of liberalism and quasi-liberalism-masquerading-as-conservatism that has corrupted Keith O’Brien and contaminated George Pell, has already fashioned the next Hegelian pontiff. Thesis + antithesis = John Paul III.
Catastrophic consequences
In the event we got Benedict, who immediately aped John Paul II's failed and passive stratagem ("let error destroy itself") by inviting heretical Hans Kung to Castel Gandolfo: not to dispense his marching orders, but for several hours of futile "dialogue."
He then embraced the syncretic Assisi franchise he had once questioned. His brave offering, if not enforcement, of Summorum Pontificum only highlighted the Hegelian "tensions" at play during his 8-year pontificate of ongoing liberal-conservative decay that eventually ground him down, wore him out, and saw him off.
Inexorably, Jorge Bergoglio followed: spectacular living proof that far from destroying itself, Kung-like errors left unhindered grow like topsy, levelling every Godly thing, including the papacy.
As Karol Wojtyla's professor at the Angelicum University, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange OP, warned: "Small errors of principle have catastrophic consequences." Wojtyla and his 'progressive' peers ignored that wise Thomistic counsel, preferring their prideful New Theology and its "errors of principle" which have corrupted Catholic faith and life and led us to the mother of all "catastrophic consequences": Pope Francis. After all, the post-conciliar "mess" beloved of Francis is simply Hegelian "synthesis" writ large: reflecting the incompatibility of immutable Catholic truth with the evolutionary dialectic of competing opposites.
Egged on by his heretical placemen, Francis has taken the dialectic to the next level: sanctioning different doctrinal/moral strokes for different folks, depending on the thesis or antithesis of local ordinaries. Despite their apparent Hegelian conviction that 'creative' theological 'tensions' lead inexorably to positive outcomes, neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI went that far. But they paved the way for the unadulterated Modernism of Francis, for whom a new "synthesis" of autonomous national Churches beckons: the next logical contribution to Big Tent religion of the syncretic Assisi variety. "This is the beginning of a Church with an organisation that is not just top-down," he crowed at the outset of his reign, "but also horizontal."
Top-down apostasy
Which is to say a Church of "top-down" enforcement of the "horizontal" apostasy facilitated by the same heretical types who rigged his election. For, if our papal algebra explains the reality of the apostasy (aka "mess") we are living through, it also confirms part of the Third Secret as revealed by Cardinal Ciappi: that "the apostasy begins at the top."
The very top, in fact, as Msgr Mario Boehm, a former leading editor of L’Osservatore Romano, informed Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand in June 1965, six months before Pope Paul closed the Council. "The topic of Fatima came up," Alice told Fr Brian Harrison:
My husband raised the question, "Why was the third secret of Fatima not revealed?" For the Holy Virgin had said it should be shared with the faithful in 1960. Don Mario: It was not revealed because of its content. My husband: What was so fearful about it? Msgr. Boehm (as a well-trained Italian) did not say that he had read it, but intimated that the content was fearful: “infiltration of the Church to the very top”. It shattered us but confirmed my husband’s fear that the way Vatican II was interpreted was going to expose the Church to terrible dangers. Alas, this fear was well founded.
This is why Our Lady told Sister Lucia that the Secret would be "much clearer" after 1960.
In the event, diabolically disoriented like all their Conciliar brethren, the recent Bishops of Rome became happy captives of post-1960 "pastoralism."
Even today, as local Churches continue to sink in that swamp of pastoral fudge, both Benedict and Francis declare themselves loyal sons of the Second Vatican Council.
"Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium must go on as they are," Francis insisted during another interview last November. "To speak of a “reform of the reform” is an error," he added, as if at odds with his predecessor. But don't be fooled. The "progressive" anti-spirit of Vatican II that unites them is greater than the degree of Liberalism that separates them.
This is why Benedict is unperturbed by the heightening "mess" and the frightening Apostolic Exhortation produced by his brother-in-arms. As his secretary Archbishop Gänswein recently confirmed during a mid-April interview, Francis sent Benedict an autographed copy of Amoris Laetitia and Benedict "read it thoroughly, but he does not comment in any way on the content."
Never mind that it is convulsing the Catholic world! That prelates of the highest orthodox calibre insist it turns the Magisterium on its head! Benedict is aware of the controversy, said Ganswein, but is not bothered by it. "He has decided to keep quiet.... He has no intention of entering controversies that feel far away from him." Lolling about in his Roman retirement pad, he is, we are assured, "serene, quiet, and in a good mood," and still plays the piano to boot.
The comparison is irresistible: Nero fiddled as Rome burned, then blamed the Christians; Benedict tinkles the ivories as Rome burns with apostasy but lays no blame, even as his successor napalms the Church!
Spiritual annihilation
Meanwhile, amid wars and rumours of wars, the Daily Express informed its readers of the latest apocalyptic prediction. A self-designated Spanish mystic pinpoints 13 May as the date "a deadly international war will be triggered — on the 100th anniversary of the visitation of Our Lady of Fatima."
Since the guy's a Catholic, I might send him my algebraic equation: to calm him down and alert him to the primary threat — as prophesied by Our Lady and finally scribbled down on that small slip of paper by Lucia, on 3 January 1944. For, as Bishop Amaral first put it in 1984:
Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.
Later, in 1995, the Bishop added this comment: "Before I asserted in Vienna (in 1984) that the Third Secret concerned only our Faith and the loss of Faith, I had consulted Sister Lucy and first obtained her approval." Thus, Lucia had once again confirmed that apostasy in the Church is the real Wrath of God.
In other words, conventional notions of apocalypse hog the headlines, but the algebra of apostasy is no less apocalyptic. Indeed, papal Armageddon surely precedes and facilitates (by way of doctrinal and moral confusion) nuclear Armageddon. The devilish embodiment of Paul VI's lament about the "veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking", it is Francis, not the destruction of iconic 'indestructibles' like the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia, that should fill us with dread. — Which is not to say that such momentous material events are not disturbing!
Reduced to a pile of rubble during last year's earthquake, for centuries the great Benedictine shrine in Italy had survived every calamity. Speaking about it last November during a Polish conference he gave at Katowice cathedral, Father Leon Knabit OSB referenced the devastation of Jerusalem (Lk 21:20-28), and wondered if the tragedy and other recent disasters and events signalled the Endtimes. "Some say it's a sign that our Christian culture is falling apart. That it has already collapsed," he said.
It does seem that way. And yet the far greater sign is the manifest cause of that collapse, as spelt out in this commentary by Father Paul Kramer:
One of the great differences between the Arian crisis and the current crisis in the Church is that the Virgin Mary not only gave us a warning many years in advance of the current crisis, but also the means to avoid it by following Her requests at Fatima. To have deprived the Church of the warning contained in the Third Secret, to have covered up the prophecy of apostasy that implicates the very men who have imposed a ruinous new orientation upon the Church and allowed Her to be invaded by the enemy, to have thus prevented the faithful from understanding the cause of it all and arming themselves against it, is another key element of the great and terrible crime in question here. [The Devil's Final Battle]
The sting in the tail of all this, if we are brutally honest, is that, pontifically, we deserve worse than we've got. And without doubt, "F2" is in the algebraic offing! True, "F1" is about to canonise the Fatima seers. Deo gratias! But as a deeply worried friend, a priest, exclaimed: "He is also filling the Curia with his men and promoting archetype bishops. He must be taken up soon!"
Saint Jacinta, Saint Francisco, Sister Lucia, ora pro nobis.