Notre Dame in flames: part of the Great Chastisement?

One of the most famous Roman Catholic cathedrals in Paris -- in the world, really -- has been severely damaged by a horrendous fire which raged through the building most of yesterday. The blaze toppled the spire and destroyed the roof, but much of the interior survived and the structure remains intact. That so much of the building was destroyed is a tragedy. That so much, including the organ and almost all of the priceless treasures and relics -- including the Crown of Thorns -- can be restored, is a miracle.

A tragedy and a miracle, occurring simultaneously, at one of the most holy sites of Western Christendom. How can that be? What does it mean? Is God trying to tell us something?

For traditional Catholics, this truly awful (in the true sense of the word) event, occurring as it did in Holy Week, the last week of Lent, can only be regarded as a clear sign of God's displeasure with His Church and His people. The mainstream Catholic Church in France is moribund. The great cathedrals and basilicas are visited almost exclusively by tourists. The parish churches are all but empty. The vast majority of nominal Catholics go to church only to for baptisms, marriages and funerals, an many ignore even those sacraments. The majority of Catholic Christians, even if they keep the Faith in their hearts, have turned their back on the Church.

God is displeased, to put it mildly, so He and His Blessed Mother (after whom the great cathedral is named) have given us yet another warning. The fire at Notre Dame can and should be seen as another installment of the Great Chastisement of which Our Lady spoke when She appeared at Fatima in 1917.

On October 13, 1917, in the moment before the great Miracle of the Sun, the Blessed Virgin said, "People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more for He is already too much offended." Our Lady warned of the gravest consequences if this warning is not heeded. The greatest consequence and ultimate chastisement for unrepentant souls is the eternal punishment of hell. It was in order to prevent the eternal damnation of souls redeemed by the Blood of Our Divine Savior Jesus Christ that His Most Holy Mother came to Fatima.

But the Blessed Virgin's request that people "amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins" was not heeded. Our Lady of Fatima told Blessed Jacinta that "wars are punishments for sins of the world." It was revealed to the holy priest Père Lamy that World War One was a punishment specifically for “blasphemy, the desecration of marriage and Sunday labour". In the apparition of July 13, 1917, Our Lady warned that "The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI." And so it -- World War II -- came to pass.

But we must remember that World War II was only the beginning of the threatened chastisements. If people do not repent and amend their lives then more severe chastisements will follow. The threatened punishment of the world "by means of war, famine, persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father" is a far more general prophetic warning that has only been partially fulfilled. Whether or not it will take place is contingent on the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of Our Lady's requests.

Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia the sign that would indicate the onset of the impending chastisement. “When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is going to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father." An "unknown light like this one, perhaps?

But the physical chastisement of which Our Lady warned -- the endless wars and natural disasters bringing about the "annihilation of nations" -- is not the most frightful aspect of the chastisement foretold in the Secret of Fatima. Even more frightful is the spiritual chastisement foretold in the Secret.

The persecution of the Church that will take place will be like none other that has ever taken place in all the history of the world. That which is seemingly impossible will take place, yet it is foretold in the unpublished part of the Third Secret and in Sacred Scripture. According to the late Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, "In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top."

We have been warned that partisans of the Devil will occupy the Roman Curia under a Masonic antipope! The late Father Malachi Martin stated that he read the Third Secret of Fatima in early February 1960. Our Lady's words, he said, foretold a future "pope" -- an imposter who would usurp the See of Rome while being completely under the control of the Devil. Thus will arise a counterfeit "Catholic" Church -- a counter-church, an anti-church -- the "dragon, whose tail swept down a third of the stars of Heaven and cast them to the earth" (Apocalypse 12:4) -- i.e. one third of the Catholic hierarchy under the leadership of a heretical antipope.

Father Martin said these "partisans of the devil" -- the "third of the stars of Heaven" -- masquerading as "Catholic" clergy are secret members of a sect consecrated to the Devil. They will gain control over the Vatican apparatus, he warned, and establish the "Catholic" branch of the established and compulsory religion of the New World Order. True Catholicism will be outlawed, and the remnant of faithful Catholics will be subjected to the most ferocious persecution that there will have ever been in the history of the world.

Father Paul Kramer wrote that Catholics will not be welcome in the new "Civilization of Love". The exclusivism of their dogmas will cause them to be viewed as dangerous "fanatics" and "terrorists" -- a mortal threat to the ecumenical unity and "peace" of the New World Order. Thus, the real Catholic Church will be treated as an outlaw organization, and a threat to world peace.

The Church's status will therefore be as it was during the Roman persecutions, when She was viewed as a subversive and criminal organization. There will be laws enacted to punish non-conformist practitioners of "outmoded" pre-conciliar forms of religion that threaten world "peace"’ (the neo-pagan ecumenical order of the Civilization of Love) by their divisive attachment to dogmatic exclusivism which leads to inquisitional "persecutions" and religious wars and crusades. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? And yet these anti-Catholic sentiments were already "trending" decades ago.

Catholics will be told that they may avoid the chastisement, with its persecution and martyrdom, by embracing "Catholicism v.2", by "engaging" with the "new and improved" Church, the "new Rome" which will be in communion with the Great Ecumenical Church that will unite all religions. Pope Francis increasingly reveals to wondering Catholics his Big Idea -- Drawing All Faiths Together, because "we all worship the same god" (which is heresy). Drawing All Faiths Together... DAFT!

Father Kramer concludes that those who will have the grace and fortitude to hold fast to their Catholic Faith will refuse to abandon the true traditional Catholic religion. For this refusal they will be regarded as incorrigible fanatics and obstinate schismatics. They will be universally despised as the enemies of the Civilization of Love, and they will be blamed for the failure of the New World Order to achieve universal peace, love, unity and harmony. Their fate is depicted in the vision of the Third Secret: for their refusal to embrace the false religion of ecumenism and religious liberty, the Pope, clergy and Catholic faithful will be systematically hunted down and brutally exterminated.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared that "the message of Fatima imposes an obligation on the Church." In view of the incalculably catastrophic consequences of non-compliance with Heaven's request, Bishop Rudolf Graber declared that to ignore the message and the requests of Our Lady of Fatima is tantamount to a "crime against humanity."

The desecration of Catholic churches and sanctuaries by pagan worship and the mingling of the true religion with false religions is the signal that the chastisement will take place in the immediate future. The desecration of the sanctuary, of God's Holy Place -- by turning it into a mere tourist attraction, for instance -- is a sacrilegious and blasphemous act of impiety that demands immediate punishment in strict justice.

The real lesson to be taken from the fire at Notre Dame de Paris is that God cannot be patient any longer in the presence of the sacrilegious abominations that are now being perpetrated in Catholic churches and sanctuaries. It is for just this kind of sin that He declares: "Therefore I also will deal with them in My wrath: My eye shall not spare them, neither will I show mercy...nor will I have pity: I will requite their way upon their head." (Ezechiel 8:18, 9:10)