Crisis in the Catholic Church coming to a head... as in Head (= Pope)

I am no prophet [We leave that to Poor Len Canayen. Ed.] but, dear Catholic readers, it looks to me as if we may be mere months, or even weeks away, from a revolution in the Roman Catholic Church -- a revolt of the faithful against the leadership into perdition of Pope Francis. By "the faithful", I mean not just traditional Catholics like Michael Matt, but all those who cling to what's left of the True Faith after what Mr Matt rightly calls "universal dumpster fire" that was Vatican II.

The Unholy Father calls those of us who cling to the Faith of Our Fathers, "orthodox Catholics". I'm just as proud to be an "orthodox Catholic" as I am to be a "deplorable". The appellation reminds me of a school cheer I learned in my university daze.

We are the salt of the earth, so give ear to us

No new ideas shall ever come near to us

Orthodox, Catholic, crammed with divinity

Damn the dissenters, hurrah for the Trinity.

But I digress... The news... the sad news... is that, according to a transcript published in the National Catholic Register September 11th, Francis told a plane-full of international reporters on a flight from Madagascar to Rome that if you're an "orthodox" Catholic, he doesn't want you in his church! The Pope (if such he is) is obviously smarting from criticisms from many quarters that he is a heretic and a schismatic, even that is not a valid pope. These denunciations have come from his own Cardinals and bishops, the Curia, the religious press, and devout Catholic laymen like Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara, not to mention lesser-known traditional Catholics like Yr Obdt Servant.

Francis called such attacks "the criticism of arsenic pills...throwing the stone but hiding the hand." Then he rambled on, denouncing his critics -- he mentioned the late Archbishop Lefebvre by name -- as being "schismatics". Yet it is Francis himself who is not only a heretic, but the true schismatic. The great Jesuit theologian Francisco Suarez wrote (translated): ...the pope could be schismatic, if he were unwilling to be in union and association with the whole body of the Church, as would occur if he attempted to excommunicate the whole Church, or, as both [Cardinal-Theologians] Cajetan and Torquemada observe, if he wished to overturn the rites of the Church established in Apostolic Tradition. (De Charitate, Disputatio XII de Schismate, sectio 1)

Yet that is exactly what Francis has done, in rejecting (along with every pope since Vatican II) the traditional Latin Mass and substituting for it an invalid and heretical Protestant service. Francis is the man who has destroyed the Catholic liturgy, Catholic doctrine, and Catholic morality! The "orthodox" Catholics, those who preach and practise correct doctrine (that's what "orthodox" means -- "correct doctrine") are the true Catholics. Those who don't, like the Unholy Father and his followers, are the true schismatics.

Two of the prelates who Pope Francis would judge to be "orthodox" are Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, both mentioned on WWW before. The National Catholic Register reports their call for a Crusade of Prayer and Fasting, from September 17th to October 26th, for the welfare of the Church. Their plea cites the dangers of "implicit pantheism" in the working document for the upcoming Amazon Synod, and argues against tailoring Catholic ordained ministries to the ancestral customs of the aboriginal people."

Faithful Cardinals, Bishops, priests and laypeople -- 1000s of them -- are righteously indignant over the direction in which Pope Francis is leading Holy Mother Church. He is not the good shepherd, but a false prophet leading us to the edge of the cliff at the bottom of which lies heresy, apostasy and the punishment of eternal separation from a just God.

How much longer can Francis' perversion of the Faith and destruction of the Church continue? It is not easy to "impeach" a pope, but it is possible. The opposition of the "orthodox" seems about to reach the tipping point. God bless those who stand up for the True Faith, and confound the enemies of Holy Mother Church, both without and within... even those at the very top!

Further reading: "Pope Francis: 'Need some more nails?'", WWW 1/7/19.
Further viewing: "Vatican II a "'universal dumpster fire'", video with Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, WWW 7/9/19.

VIDEO: Michael Matt on the hippification of the Catholic Church

I was listening, the other day, to Gavin McInnes chatting with Stefan Molyneux about the attack on Christmas and other seasonal topics. I hadn't realized until now that Mr McInnes is a practising Catholic. He is no traditionalist, it seems, but from what he says about the sickness in today's Church, I gather that he is distressed by the distortion of the Faith -- dare we say heresy or apostasy? -- manifest in the mainstream Church. He is not alone.

Here's a new video from The Remnant in which Michael Matt recounts his experience at a recent Novus Ordo "Gathering Rite". That leads him to ask a lot of very good questions, such as: What is neo-Catholicism? What is the New Mass? Why are Jimmy Fallon, Bill Murray, Sting and Bianca Jagger readily admitting that which the neo-Catholics insist on denying: The Catholic Church is going through an all-out revolution that kicked into high gear at the Second Vatican Council. If you're one of the millions who have left the Church because of what the liberals, the progressives and the hippies have made of it, listen up, because Michael Matt is speaking for you!

Judgment Day - 19 September 2016 ???

3 portents of the coming Armageddon, published here a week ago, is drawing considerable interest. And why not? End-of-the-world questions and prophecies have been on people's minds and lips since about 90 seconds after Our Lord's Resurrection.

When is Jesus going to return in glory? How much longer will God tolerate the wickedness and perversity of His people? When will be the awful day of judgment? How long do we have to get ready?

These questions were perhaps even more real, more urgent to the people of the mid-14th century than they are to us, six-and-a-half centuries later. The 14th century was a time of terrible turmoil, with people from kings to commoners suffering from the Black Death and constant wars and pillage. The Church was even more corrupt and dissolute than it is today, held captive in "Babylon" (Avignon, France), then torn in the latter part of the century by the Great Schism.

In her monumental work A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century (Ballantine, 1978), historian Barbara Tuchman tells us that the people of that time were fascinated and entertained by liturgical plays (such as the Passion Play, which survived in parts of Europe until the end of the 20th century) and "miracle plays and mysteries", whose subject matter was religious, but scripts and presentation more like secular drama.

She goes on to describe "The Day of Judgment" and "The Harrowing of Hell", which may have been performed at the historic entertainment in Paris of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, by Charles V, King of France. Read carefully her synopsis of these plays of prophecy.

"Apocalypse...was enacted in the Day of Judgment and the Harrowing of Hell, when Christ goes down to lead Adam and the prophets out to Paradise. Anti-Christ appears at his appointed time, traditionally fixed at three and half years before the Last Judgment. Born of Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon, and instructed in all the demonic arts, he gains such power that kinds and cardinals pay him homage until he is overthrown at Armageddon in the triumph of good over evil. The saved are separated from the damned, and angels empty the vials of wrath." [My emphasis. Walt]

Now let us suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that Pope Francis is the Antichrist, the devil wrapped in a cloak of gentleness and humility. Francis was "inaugurated" -- the Church doesn't "consecrate", "crown" or "enthrone" popes any more -- on 19 March 2013. Add the "traditional" three years and six months and you get 19 September 2016. That's the date. Don't say Walt didn't warn you!

I'll give you that it's hard to see in Pope Francis the "Peter the Roman" named in the prophecy of St. Malachy as the last pope. But hold on. Francis has been rumored for some time to be in poor health. Since being "installed", he has cancelled several audiences and appearances, and the Vatican has press office has denied he is sick, which means he probably is. Suppose he dies? Then all bets are off and we will look for some "Petrine connection" in his successor.

What about "the woman of Babylon"? Ask any evangelical Protestant preacher and he'll tell you the Church of Rome is the "whore of Babylon" spoken of in the 17th and 18th chapters of the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (or Revelation).
"I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters (17:1)... on her forehead a name was written: A mystery; Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth. (17:5)"

The mystery plays speak of "Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon". Has the devil seduced and perverted the Church of Rome, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ when He walked among us? Don't take Walt's word for it. Heed the words of Pope Paul VI, who, following Vatican II and towards the end of reign, said publicly that "the smoke of Satan has entered the Church". He knew it full well, having been the pope who held open the window.

So there you have it. 19 September 2016. Walt isn't about to paint a placard saying "The end of the world is nigh" and go stand in front of the cathedral. Not just yet. But neither would I recommend turning a blind eye to the signs and portents.

What I do recommend, if this talk of Judgment Day is making you a bit nervous, is that you read Crucial Truths to Save Your Soul, by Father Nicholas Gruner, reviewed here last month.