THE DIVINE PROMISE (No. 89)

24/02/1987


January, 1987, twenty-five years since the Great Apostasy was officially announced and acted upon.  Pope and Bishops would no longer teach and govern as Catholics, but would seek for the truth with Protestants, Jews, Pagans, and atheists.

   In Letter No. 88 I commented on John Paul's "prayer summit" at Assisi, which included even a snake worshipper.  I did this only for emphasis, for those who have no altogether closed their eyes to the "ecumenical" doings of Vatican Two, but who find it hard to follow doctrinal arguments.  Among those more or less aware of the destructive intent of Vatican Two popes, are some who need this kind of evidence.  It might seem strange that our enemies openly provide this evidence, but the Revolution is far advanced, and it is their intention to smear the Church, to make it appear as no longer divine, or as never having been divine.  This is the main work of John Paul.  His performance with youthful decadents in Australia exceeded in a way even that of Assisi.

   I see roughly five categories of acceptance of, or reaction to, the radical reforms.  Number one is comprised of those who have gone along willy-nilly, or in enthusiastic acceptance of "the changes".  "We follow the Pope", they say, disregarding that the Vatican Two popes depart radically, totally from the Popes of more than nineteen centuries.


   No. 2:  The young people, of the television age, who, living in a closed world of "teen" talk, lack entirely the Catholic sense, and even common sense.

   No. 3:  Baptized Catholics who do not like the changes, who are even aware of departures from Catholic doctrine and practice.  But with the Divine Promise of protection from error on the part of the Popes fixed in their minds -- the only Catholic doctrine they seem now to remember -- they think it all must somehow come out right in time.  That it must come out right is true, but not in the way they like to think.


   No. 4:  Those who have faced up to the falsity of the reforms, but who have set up their own little Churches, so-called Traditionalist chapels and house-Mass circuits.  The priests of these groups have no authority.  More on this presently.


   No. 5:  Scattered Catholics who, seeing that the reforms are not Catholic, reject them in simple obedience to the Divine Law.  No priest or bishop speaks for these people.


   In view of the unCatholic words and actions of the Vatican Two popes, how ought we to understand the Divine Promise of protection from error, "even to the consummation of the world"?  In this way:  It is not Christ who failed to keep His promise;  how could He?  It has therefore to be that the Vatican Two popes deliberately teach error.  I waste no time on those who say the error doesn't count because these popes were invalidly elected.

   The Promise provided only that any pope intending to keep the Faith would not lead the faithful astray because of his own moral and intellectual failings, or through simple inability to cope with the responsibilities of his office.

   In case of doubts concerning a pope's claim to be giving a new direction to the Church, a great Pope and Council taught that Popes are not always infallible, but only within strictly defined limits.  The Vatican Two popes have not made claim to infallible pronouncements;  and it is in this sense that God protects absolutely from error.  We are not required to believe in Paul VI's "revelation only at the beginning" (public audience address), or John Paul's "awareness of the Church in an utterly new way" (Redemptor Hominis).  In these Letters I have quoted dozens of other such plain expressions of error by the Vatican Two popes, and have shown how they have radically changed the Mass and the Sacramental forms by simple directives, leaving aside "infallibility" and even direct commands.


   We may sum up, then, as follows.  Christ promised the Popes protection from error, and the Vatican Two popes have not taught error within defined limits; and so the Church's teaching on her indefectibility is confirmed even in this time of the Great Apostasy.  We are not required to believe the new teachings -- or new directions or new emphasis, as they pretend.  I should add to the foregoing (what I've touched on in other Letters), that it is God himself who promised to send an Operation of Error to that generation of men who would prefer to believe lies; and that this was to be partly as a punishment, and, I believe, so that the plotters would be led to display their errors in the open.  Even so, only a few will face up to the plain lies of the new reformers, thus bearing out the truth of another prophecy about the "latter days", that in this time most men will act as they did in the days of Noe.  Especially blind are those who see the evil modern insanity as primarily economic and political.

   In Letters 79, 80, and 81 especially, I reminded our readers that God had promised the successors of Peter that He would bind or loose in Heaven what they would bind or loose on earth;  and that God could only be faithful to His promise.  We received an objection that the Power of the Keys could not be used to end the normal functioning of the Church.  But keys are not made to work in only one direction, but to both close and open;  and St. Thomas teaches that Popes hold the keys to Heaven and to Hell.  The explanation lies in the Operation of Error prophecy, which men will carry out as an inclination of the consequent Will of God, which always works for good.

   St. Paul foresaw the Operation of Error as judicial.  If men would lose their love for the truth, "they will be permitted to believe lies."  The Operation of Error has to be something in particular, coming after error is already widespread, a disease of the mind and soul.  It will set itself up in "the Temple of God. . . changing all laws", and so on.  Pope St. Pius X surely had it in mind when he warned of the "reforming mania" of those he called Modernists, or Gnostics.  Vatican Two satisfies in all respects St. Paul's prophecy of an Operation of Error, and the prevision of Pius X of a reforming mania.

   Perhaps if we apply the foregoing information to the Mass it will be seen more clearly.  At the first session of Vatican Two was proposed a rite of worship for all religions in common.  There was no objection from Pope or Council fathers.  The 'Mass' of Paul VI was imposed on a clergy apparently ready to accept it.  It signified falsely, and the Act of Consecration was changed to narrative, a mere recital of words.  There could be no question about the wrong intention of the innovators;  and that the change from Act to narrative (plus false signification of the words) resulted in a false Mass, a Gnostic simulation of the true Mass.  Thus did God "take away", according to the prophecy of Daniel.  Our enemies can rage against us and do much harm, but it is only from the papal chair that the mass can be taken away.


   Paul VI legislated for the whole Church;  there could be no question of loose ends, of various rites, Eastern or other, being excepted.  The same reasoning applies to individual priests of the Roman rite.  All come under the same loving design of the Creator, who gives and who takes away, who permits wars, plagues, famine and other disasters which the just suffer alike with the unjust.  What matters is the spirit in which individuals accept their sufferings.  Holy Job comes to mind; and the Good Thief.

   It is objected that a priest is a priest forever, having received the "character" with ordination.  This is true.  But he is not an independent agent.  He exercises the powers of his priesthood only as the Church's minister -- powers delegated to him by his bishop who receives his office from a Pope.  It was to Peter that Christ spoke the words, "Feed my sheep", and so on.  The Popes hold the supreme power on earth, which Paul VI used even while casting it aside.

   The Quo Primum decree of Pius V made it certain that no priest could be commanded to perform a radically changed rite of Mass, but the decree could not give priests a right to go out on their own.  A few charlatans have quoted St. Thomas' "necessity knows no law", presuming to decree as necessary what God himself had said He would, near the end, "take away".

   So what is a faithful priest to do since Paul VI imposed his radically changed 'Mass'?  In simple obedience to a higher law, the Divine Law, refuse to perform the new rite.  And let his parishioners know why he may not conform to the new, ambiguous and constantly changing Vatican Two reforms.  If he has talent and access to a little money, he might, as a spiritual work of mercy (to counsel the doubtful) extend his influence outside his old parish.  It is remarkable that no priest or bishop has spoken out in this way.  The time is past when any one of them is likely to do so.


   What about Marcel Lefebvre?  As an outstanding example of priestly disobedience, this man has no right to a hearing from Catholics.  He has publicly, scandalously defied those he upheld as true popes, and continues to do so by ordaining his own clergy.  Bishops (as much as we others) come under the Divine Law.  They do so to a greater degree because of their office, and because they have made special, solemn vows of obedience.  Lefebvre knows all this, of course, so that we must look for another motive than his "saving the Mass of all time".

   Certain "Traditionalists" make much of epieikia, or "mind of the Church" arguments, said to be contained in Canon Law.  But I have noticed that each one's "mind of the Church" interpretation closely reflects the mind of the particular interpreter, who always tries to justify illicit Mass arrangements.

   They say we must use the "ordinary means" to salvation, by which they mean valid Mass and Sacraments.  But these "Traditionalist" interpreters themselves complain that these are extraordinary times in which Mass and Sacraments are not ordinarily available.  From where we live it is seven-hundred miles to a few places where the traditional rite is performed.  And if we are to think about the mind of the Church, we must think about the mind of God who, as said above, willed that one day the perpetual sacrifice be taken away.

    The mind of God is not entirely contained in Canon Law; how could it be?  So far as we need to know it, it is to be found in all that God has revealed to His Church; and for our time in the Scriptural predictions for the "latter days" are quite complete and include a "Son of Perdition", on who will, in a unique way, oppose himself to God.  Even so, he can do only what God permits.

   Many say that our enemies have brought the Church down; that in our time there has existed a terrible plot against the Church.  This is true.  Satan is always at work, and our materialistic age with its technical developments makes far easier than ever before the spread of lies.  The Devil is well served by a generation concerned mainly with the things of this world, putting aside thoughts of eternity.  That apostasy has grown with the growth of the money power can easily be demonstrated.  We cannot serve God and Mammon.


   I have set down briefly my observations of what is to happen in the last years.  But what are we to do?  The Gospel instruction on that is brief:  "Watch and pray."  Elsewhere in the Gospel we are admonished to be "as wise as serpents, but as simple as doves."  Heaven has no place for the angry and defiant, however wise they might have been in their time.


   There was enacted at the entrance to the Garden of Gethsemane a scene which was surely intended to teach this lesson.  The Roman soldiers and the temple guards had come to seize Jesus.  "And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached out his hand, drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

   "Then Jesus said to him, 'Put back thy sword into its place; for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Dost thou suppose that I cannot entreat my Father, and He will even now send twelve legions of angels'."

   As we know, the Church is not pacifist in the sense of forbidding the use of force altogether, and Popes have spoken in no uncertain terms against those who have attacked the Church and oppressed the poor.  There are times when the demand for justice must be placed foremost; at other times we think only of resignation.  Clearly, ours is a time for resignation.

   At hand is a monograph from France in which the Vatican Two revolt is blamed mainly on John XXIII.  It ends with this cry:  "O God, grant us a Pope."  This is a wail from an "ultrasupernaturalist" (Msgr. Knox's term) which takes no account of present reality; and that not even God will produce a miracle against the free will that He has ordained for the governance of His Church.  That we are to look for a good pope from among the present crowd of New Church clergy, and that this pope will then miraculously turn the Apostasy back, is a weird notion which I leave to those who go in for that kind of thing.


   The Catholic religion is, before all, a doctrinal religion.  Whether we be Saint or mystic or genuine seer, Pope or peasant, we may not put aside doctrine and a down-to-earth sense of reality.  So, when Pope and Council announce and put into practice a doctrine and policy which departs radically from Catholic doctrine, a virtual total denial of it, we must not look for the resumption of the officiating Church through some miracle, program of prayer, election of a good pope, or otherwise.  The apostasy of Pope and Bishops is a sure sign of the Great Apostasy, the only Catholic explanation possible.


   "Watch and pray".  This "watch" surely does not mean that we should do as one who might stand idly watching the traffic go by.  We are to think about what we are seeing, pray to understand it, and beg to be delivered from the evils consequent on it.  But he looks in vain who hopes to see the Great Apostasy reversed.


   God knows all, foresees all.  And while He leaves it to men who because of the Fall are prone to sin and to every kind of error to carry out His work of salvation, God remains in control.  He does not leave His Church to simply fizzle out, but Himself decides when it shall end.  As Fr. Fernand Pratt, S.J. in the second volume of his Jesus Christ expresses it:  "Through Him (Christ) the whole body, well organized and solidly knit together, thanks to the mutual aid of its members, which operate each according to its measure, increases and builds itself up in charity.  And so it will be up to the consummation of the ages, up to the limit fixed by God for the expansion of His Church."  (My emphasis.)


   God is perfect.  The imperfection of man cannot make His works less perfect.  He fits it all in, and only in Heaven (perhaps even in Hell) will we be given an understanding of how the Divine Justice flows from the Infinite Goodness.  And, quite surely, how God has woven His pattern of Redemption and Salvation to fit a given period of time.



AN ADDITIONAL NOTE:  And after that Satan must be let loose for a time. Apoc. 20.  The complete way in which God's decrees are fulfilled in regard to evil are shocking to the modern mind, which has trivialized all that pertains to religion.  The evil insanity which has come upon Catholic clergy and laity alike in our time, leaves many not so affected baffled and angry.  Something of this feeling appears at one place in the Gospels.  In shocked disbelief when told by Christ of His forthcoming suffering and death, the apostles protested that it must not happen.  Peter spoke for them to Christ, who said to Peter:  "Get behind Me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto Me."  So it is in our day when the ancient Enemy is permitted to do his worst against the Church.


   Woe to the world because of scandals.  For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom scandal cometh. See below.




Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
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