Originally published 13 October 2022 on KoFi
19 And Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the angels of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one spirit said this, while another said that. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You shall entice him, and you will also prevail. Go and do so.’ 23 Now then, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours; and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”
1 Kings 22: 19-23
24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and will provide great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
Matthew 24:24
In these two passages from the holy bible are found the explanation about what has been happening in the fallen world concerning prophecy, apparitions and the suffering of the Church.
But I will add one more:
3 Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,
4 Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God.
5 Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6 And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him,
9 Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders,
10 And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, [a strong delusion] to believe the lie:
11 That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.
(emphasis mine)
2 Thessalonians 2:3-11
Over the last 500 years and particularly the last 70, false prophecy, false Christs and lying spirits have wrought a great work of confusion and errors.
From the beginning of the Great Commission of the Church in the world, first Jesus and then the Apostles warned of false brethren and false christs, false signs and lying wonders.
But although in its long history the Church has ejected many false brethren from its midst, it never removed all of them.
And so the body of the Church throughout time has been intermingled with a body of others who are false Christians. And just as Jesus described it in His parable of the wheat and the tares, the faithful and the faithless have grown together down the long count of years.
This was the way it was to remain until the time foretold: the time of Harvest after a moment of no going back called the Great Apostasy.
In those days, the false brethren, led by false apostles, false teachings and false prophecy would be revealed — either by openly declaring themselves or being revealed through their antichristian words and works.
It has been almost forgotten by people nowadays (including most traditional Catholics, it’s sad to say) that there are two kinds of false prophecy.
The first kind are of the works of satan that are permitted by God within the limits He has set upon the kingdom of darkness. They are diabolical lies for the most part, mingled with pieces of truth to give them the semblance of being valid, and everyone with a pulse and a little diligence can see them for what they are.
If they want to.
But the second form of false prophecy— that which is discussed here — originates from the heavens. This kind of false prophecy is far more dangerous than the former kind.
The Ahab prophecy quoted at the beginning of the article is probably the best example from the Old Testament of this kind of false message.
A spirit from heaven received permission from God in the presence of the divine council to descend to earth and be a lying spirit to king Ahab’s 400 court prophets.
The spirit told them all the same message, and they told it to the king.
‘ … and he said to them: Shall I go to Ramoth Gilead to fight, or shall I forbear?
They answered: Go up, and the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.’
The false prophecy that was sent was mostly true, but within it was an omission — it did not say which king was actually going to win.
These court prophets were people who had a genuine gift of prophecy, but who used the grace given to them to earn a comfortable living in Ahab’s court by telling the king what he wanted to hear, and avoided telling him that which displeased him.
At the insistence of the king of Judah, Ahab sends for Micaiah, one of the disciples of Elijah.
Micaiah is brought to Ahab and the king of Judah. He tells them that the divine council and God held judgment against him and sent a spirit with God’s permission to tell a prophecy that would lead Ahab into battle with his enemies, where he would be killed.
The people intended as the target audience to receive the false message and believe it as whole cloth were the ones considered to be the elect of the realm — the prophets, courtiers and the king himself.
And it worked: they were deceived because none of them loved the truth and all of them to various degrees lived lives based in falsehood and deceit.
If they had loved the truth, they would have asked the obvious question: ‘which king will have the victory?’
***
I read an article at Crisis Magazine recently called The Ahab Papacy.
Wendell Hull made an excellent and thought-provoking argument that the Francis papacy can be compared to the story of the ill-fated ship the Pequod commanded by Captain Ahab from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
“Call me Ishmael. Ahab, our captain, has called forth the fate of our ship. He has tied our fate to his, a choice the passive accept and the passionate lust.”
But you can only stretch a metaphor so far, and this metaphor of the ship of the Church as the ill-fated Pequod doesn’t quite work in the end.
Because the pontificate of Pope Francis doesn’t captain the Barque of Peter, if he ever did, but is in command of another, and now very distinctly different religion, which as a body of believers and practitioners is clearly an anti-Catholic, and anti-Church.
The Barque of Peter — the real one — is battered, but not foundered. It’s cargo of precious pearls of great price remain secure in its hold, and while it’s passengers and crew are fewer, they remain aboard in safety.
Her Captain, Whose Name is Faithful and True, is very much in command and control of her — and of the seas and storms she passes through.
I certainly agree with Wendell that Pope Francis is an Ahab, and shares all of the same traits and characteristics of Captain Ahab. This pontiff madly pursues the destruction of the Catholic Church with the same evil intensity as Captain Ahab pursued the great White Whale.
And without a doubt, if he doesn’t repent of his wickedness and change course, pope Francis will meet a death sentence similar to that of the rope that wound around Ahab and dragged him into the deep.
“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
But those of us on the Barque of Peter are in no way endangered by the mad course of the Bergoglian Pequod; only the few naïve (or willfully blind) Ishmaels left on board that doomed ship will likely see its fated end, to witness it and survive to tell the tale.
What Melville placed in the ears of Captain Ahab was a similar kind of false prophecy from a man called Elijah, out of which Ahab chose only what he wanted to hear.
Believing that only hemp would kill him, and ignoring the warning to repent, Ahab went straight for his own destruction and dragged a lot of people down with him.
Melville’s American Protestant view gave us a story that doesn’t cover the present crisis with whole cloth either, unfortunately.
The Pequod symbolizes the kingdom of darkness, and the anti-church. Heretics, including Melville himself ( and all of my dearly loved protestant friends and relatives), satanists, idolaters, the heathen and all of the apostates from the true Church are in there as both passengers and crew. Among the latter group, the apostates have found their captain in Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who is called pope Francis.
It’s hold is full of darkness, deceit and spiritual filth. It’s decks are rotten from vice. The sextant is rusted fast and the moral compass is broken loose and spinning wildly. The winds of false prophecy blow through her ragged sails and propel her on a reckless course to the heart of the maelstrom and her inevitable shipwreck.
The fools aboard this Bergoglian Pequod, (especially the officers) have accepted whatever appeals to their tastes of the false prophecies from dozens (perhaps hundreds) of false apparitions, false dreams and portents, and pursue the course these lying spirits led them to, just as king Ahab and his court did, and just as blindly as Melville’s fictional captain and crew.
Whether the apparitions have been officially declared valid or not by the same hierarchy is hardly the point anymore.
***
Even more recently, I read an article from the opinion section of Lifesite News called The final confrontation: Examining the end times through the lens of Fatima and Benedict XVI.
Written by someone who goes under the pen name of A Marian Soul, the article was originally published under Marco Tosatti’s blog, Stilum Curiae.
It has liberal modernist heads spinning and exploding all over the world, and if that was its main intention, then it has been a smashing success.
The author makes the argument that pope Benedict XVI, a brilliant theologian and devotee of the messages of the Apparition of Fatima, (and who had access to the third secret before it was published), stated publicly and in some of his published writings that the theological thoughts of Tyconius held the keys to understanding the correct meaning of these things.
The author of the article further suggests that based from these convictions, pope Benedict undertook a deliberate course of action to expose the false brethren and antichristian factions hidden inside the Catholic Church.
The writer suggests that by deliberately resigning his post to allow for the election to the papacy of one of their own, Benedict hoped that all the false unfaithful antichristians would be exposed for who and what they really are.
‘The bishops do, under the guise of a gift of the church, what advances the will of the devil.’
– Tyconius, ‘Commentary on the Apocalypse,’ fourth century
‘[T]he Antichrist belongs to the Church, grows in it and with it until the great discessio, which initiates the final revelation.’
– Joseph Ratzinger, ‘Observations on Tyconius’ Concept of the Church,’ 1956
‘It is not possible for the Church to survive if it passively defers the solution of the conflict that tears apart the ‘two-part body’ to the end of time.’
– Giorgio Agamben, ‘The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End Times,’ 2013
It was the first time since I was in seminary studies 26 years ago that I actually found myself reading of the theology of Tyconius, a 4th century man quoted extensively by St Augustine and the Venerable St Bede, among other worthies, in a Catholic media publication for the laity.
Maybe I just don’t leave myself enough time to read more, but it was a surprise.
I admit that at first I couldn’t remember who Tyconius was. But after reading the article and finding a few leads online, I went rummaging around my memory and my boxes of books until I found what I needed.
There’s not a thing wrong with what has survived of Tyconius’ writing as far as I can see. And the approval and use of them by such worthy and holy doctors as Augustine and Bede are reassuring that they still convey orthodoxy in them.
But a thorough reading of all extant texts that remain of Tyconius’ works do not convince me that from their influence, pope Benedict XVI decided one day to launch a kamikaze-style Fatima crusade to kick off the irreversible process of the Great Apostasy in hopes of cleansing the Church and restoring the former glory of the Catholic faith.
The Great Apostasy was already launched decades before, and Joseph Ratzinger was helping it along the whole time, even before he was first elected a bishop.
And if these were in fact motives that led to his dereliction, then maybe we should reassess just how brilliant his theological works are.
Because if he wasn’t as addicted to modernist theology as his published works from ordination to present day strongly suggest, then he might have used whatever talents God gave him to answer correctly all the problems that apparition theology fails to address.
Approved apparitions in the modern era no longer examine very closely — or at all — the methods used by the seer or seers.
The simple question we were once compelled to ask straight away — does the spirit confess that Jesus is the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God — is no longer even asked.
If anything, the procedures for investigation were already getting opaque since the death of Leo XIII, and are even worse since the 1960’s.
In the case of the approved apparition at Fatima, almost every original document that still exists are locked away from public view, and the official version of what actually happened and what was said that is told to the public has a history of edits in every language on earth that is so bad that it makes tabloids look reasonably true by comparison.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he had the position, the time and the manpower to investigate the problems, but he never did. As pope, Benedict XVI had even more resources and manpower.
He did nothing, except to make things worse.
What is very clear about the life and works of pope Benedict XVI is that, like king Ahab of antiquity, he chose what he wanted to read and hear, and rejected what displeased him.
Many things have been said of king Ahab over the centuries since his death, but as wicked as he truly was and as numerous as his moral failures were it is universally accepted by all that he was never a coward. The same could also be said of Melville’s fictional Captain Ahab.
Whereas the men in charge of the Vatican in our present day are a very different cut of moral fiber — the lack of moral fiber in their ranks is a universal trait of the whole lot.
Tyconius worked out from his studies of Holy Scripture and St John’s Revelation in particular that it would be apostate priests and bishops who would lead the faithless and the antichristian portion of the human race in self-excommunication and auto-schism.
His commentary was quite unique in this. The way he saw it, the surrounding of the “camp of the saints” (or in other words the city of God comprising the True Church of faithful believers) was a spiritual description of a siege that meant the faithful followers of Christ would be both unwilling and unable to “leave” and go anywhere else. And they wouldn’t have to.
Even though they might be driven out of the public spaces and churches taken over by the apostates and the beast kingdom, and be forced underground once more, they would remain in the Body of Christ, all over the world, and live under the blessings and protection of God.
The others — those who did not love the truth — would be ‘destroyed by the breath of His mouth, and the brightness of His coming,’ or to put it in another way, they would be exposed for all to see by the truth of who they really were by their own actions and words.
No matter how long they occupied the high places, and no matter what they tried to do, once the Great Apostasy started it couldn’t be stopped, and the false Christians serving themselves and the devil would not be able to hide their true identity and allegiances for long. One by one their lies and false images would be exposed to the world. Bit by bit, the false church of the antichrist would lose it’s patina of glamour and veneer of acceptability as more people realized it was a fake, and shunned it.
And this for me is the interesting part: No faithful believers— not even if they were highly placed faithful shepherds, teachers and prelates with the authority granted to do so — would be required to sit in judgement and render a verdict against any of the enemies of the Church.
The auto-separation Tyconius perceived as taking place spiritually in the time of the Great Apostasy would manifestly expose all of the false brethren clearly to the faithful true believers of every stage of human life, status and level of understanding.
Even if the apostates and antichristians had control over and commanded all of the highest places in the Church — including the papacy itself— their wickedness and falseness would be witnessed by all who loved the Truth.
Believers would stand apart from them ‘instinctively’, holding fast to what was true, as foretold in the Scripture; and the flow of money, works and support would slow, then cease. The heartfelt prayers, sacrifices and works of reparation would have the effect of causing any of them remaining stubborn in their apostasy and sins great discomfort and pain — heaping coals upon their heads, as it was said in Scripture.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Tyconius’ comments on Revelation 18:4 quoted above was that God would send this command into the hearts and souls of all the faithful in the body of Christ to turn away from wicked people and corruption.
This long ago spoken command is His guiding Hand in our souls to seek Him in uncorrupted and unchanging Truth. It is implied that this compulsion from the Holy Ghost is in force from Before creation until the end of time, but it will be especially effective at the time of the Great Apostasy. That is to say, right now.
Today.
Traditional Catholics today are not going to be excommunicated and will not be initiating a schism by holding to the faith of our fathers. You cannot be excommunicated for refusing to do, say or practice what is evil. That is impossible.
The corrupted and apostatized clergymen and prelates currently in control of the titles, properties, positions, money and chattels have no recognized authority from God in heaven to excommunicate anyone. They have lost the legal and spiritual authority to do so because of their persistence in adhering to heresies and their stubbornness in remaining in a state of mortal sin.
If they were to try, it would be like Jack the Ripper excommunicating Saint Peter. It would be unbelievable and absurd.
Brothers and sisters in faith, please let your ears hear the teachings of Jesus and His Church and believe that they are true:
No matter how elaborately they dress themselves in costume and titles to look like Catholic prelates and clergy, they fool no one who looks closely at their words, deeds and works. Over time, even their ability to fool themselves and their lickspittle acolytes will fail, and this bizarre, decades long parody of Hallowe’en will end.
Every lie, every calumny and every blasphemy from their mouths excommunicates them over and over in the eyes of all with eyes to see and ears that hear who know the Truth and believe in Him. Unless they repent of their evils, and recant their heresies, they will remain in a state of self-inflicted schism, apart from the Body of Christ.
They are thieves and brigands squatting over spoils of war, spiritually filthy and drunk, claiming to themselves authority and dominion by right of violent conquest, when in actual truth, the war is far from over and the treasures that they stole for themselves are nothing compared with the fabulous treasures forever out of their reach.
As Sun Tzu wrote wrote many centuries ago, the Art of War is about deception. In the case of the war against the Church, our Divine Commander’s strategy has made a most brilliant use of camouflage that has drawn the enemy and his forces into deceiving themselves and walking right into a trap.
Faithful Catholics are not in harm’s way. The spiritual exercises, sacramentals and practices that have arisen over the centuries inspired by or asked for by the apparitions of saints, especially our Holy Mother Mary, are just as effective as ever in inspiring faithful souls to reach for perfection, healing and spiritual growth.
The scapulae, the Holy Rosary, the First Friday and First Saturday devotions — they are all doing good. If you love them and practice them, don’t stop.
These and any other acts of love, faith and reparations for sin that are in unity with and obedient to the teachings of Jesus in the Holy Scripture and the traditional teachings of the Church are pleasing to God.
Don’t let the confusion and anxiety of these other messages intended for someone else detract from your love of Mary, the angels and the saints, and above all God Almighty. Open your eyes and recognize that the messages are not targeting you. They’re targeting the false apostles, heretics and antichristians, and it’s working on them.
Matter! Form! Intention!
The three things essential to properly confect all seven Sacraments are also found in the sacramentals like the Scapulars and the holy rosary.
Matter, form and intention are at the heart of properly performing every virtuous action. Their lack is how we go about identifying our moral defects and our sins.
The three secrets of the Apparition at Fatima are very different from the message of the request for the Five First Saturdays devotion:
“Behold, my daughter, my Heart encircled with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Give me consolation, you, at least; and make known on my behalf that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all who on the First Saturday of five consecutive months confess their sins, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart.”
Look at it carefully from the lens of faith, hope and charity. The matter, form and intention of this message could never have come from a demon!
The exhortation to repent of sins and go to confession, receive Holy Communion and recite the Rosary are exactly in keeping with the Gospels, traditions and the orthodox teachings of Holy Mother Church.
I don’t care how many people you have read or listened to and how many gallons of theology they’ve guzzled, the devil and his minions from the kingdom of darkness will never send anyone from their side with a message to deceive you or anyone else into becoming more faithful and more Catholic!
Let’s compare this message to the two most read and publicized versions of the so-called Third Secret.
This is the ‘official’ version released in 2000 (from the Vatican website):
“The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fátima, on 13 July 1917. I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine. After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God, something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it, a Bishop dressed in White. We had the impression that it was the Holy Father. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.
Tuy-3-1-1944.”
And this one, which I found on three different websites among dozens of others:
“Now I am going to reveal the third fragment of the secret;
This part is the apostasy in the Church!
Our Lady showed us a Church, but this was a
Church of hell, and an individual who I describe as the 'holy
Father' leading a multitude that was praising the devil,
but there was a difference from a true holy Father, the gaze,
this one had the gaze of evil.
Then we saw the same Pope entering a Church,
after some moments, but there is no way to describe the
ugliness of that place, it looked like a gray cement fortress
with broken angles and windows similar to eyes;
it had a beak in the roof of the building.
Next, we raised our eyes to Our Lady who
said to us: You saw the apostasy in the Church.
Because the dogma of the faith is not conserved in Rome, its authority
will be removed and delivered to Fatima. The cathedra [or chair] of Rome will be
destroyed and a new one built in Fatima.
In the kingdom of John Paul II the cornerstone of Peter's tomb
will be removed and transferred to Fatima.
This letter can be opened by the holy Father, but it must be
announced after Pius XII and before 1960.
If 69 weeks after this order is announced, Rome continues its
abomination, the city will be destroyed.
Our Lady told us that this is written, [in] Daniel 9:24-25 and Matthew 21:42-44.
(thumbprint)”
Examined from the lenses of matter, form and intention, do either of these messages inspire you to be a better Catholic with advice and direction?
Are they actually talking about you or any other faithful, orthodox Catholic laity or clerics that you know?
If either of these texts were received from an actual spirit from heaven by a human being with the genuine gift of one of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and are the unembellished authentic true words given, then are they directed at you in any meaningful way?
In three weeks of reading and studying everything I could find from Tyconius, and re-reading what I have from Augustine and Bede, I cannot find anything in them that would inspire Benedict XVI to take the actions he did.
In his own published books, lessons and sermons I find only Benedict justifying his actions and words by Benedict himself, and no other.
If any of these three messages I quoted above attributed to being written by Sister Lúcia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, O.C.D. influenced him in his decisions and the actions he took, it seems unlikely that the message about the Five First Saturday devotions had any effect or impact.
Both of the other messages alleged to be the authentic Third Secret mention a city that has no resemblance to the City of God described in the Holy Bible or the teachings of the Church.
They are clearly directed to someone living in the other city — Babylon. And the messages are directed at those who live in it.
Not. You.
Are you prepared to sell what you have, and give to the poor, take up the Cross of Christ and follow Him? Even if it means losing all of the cathedrals and cloisters? Driving hours from your home to find a good confessor and the real Holy Mass?
Are you suffering more than that right now, and still practice your faith with everything you have?
Do you still find room in yourself for thinking — even after living through the last 3 years — that you could have done more?
Yes?
Then don’t worry. And for goodness sake, stop being afraid! The threat of Chastisements are not against you!
If God makes your your life hard, it’s to help you grow and get better. He promised He would never put a burden upon you that is beyond your strength to bear, and God doesn’t lie.
The Great Chastisement is coming for the enemies of the One True Faith, not you! Unless you give up in despair and join their ranks like a fool, you are not in anything near to the danger that they’re about to be in.
The endless arguments about sede vacantis and whether Jorge Mario Bergoglio was properly elected pope or not is just a pointless distraction. The Church has always had Jesus Christ as its head since the beginning, and that has never changed.
No mortal man, no matter how saintly and faithful can ever compare to Jesus Christ, Faithful and True.
Stop letting things that don’t concern you make you confused, anxious and upset. The Fatima secrets, if they are in fact true, are not your problem.
The message from Fatima of the Five First Saturdays are for us. And everything I was taught about Jesus and Mary, His teachings and this beautiful Catholic Church tell my heart that it’s true.
Leave the rest for the drunkards of Ephraim to figure out on their own.
It’s been over a year since pope Francis published Traditionis Custodes, and in the article that I wrote back then, I warned that the road was going to get bumpier, and events were going to accelerate. They have, in both magnitude and tempo.
There have been other bad times somewhat similar to our own in the long history of the Church, but never has it been so global. Never have so many perished, and never, even in the days of the Arian heresy, have so many laity and clergy been so corrupted and false, and caused such destruction of souls.
There were two periods in the history of the Church that were called Pornocracies because they were so bad, but there is nothing in them to compare with what is truly global and so universally harmful to the entire human race in our days.
But.
When it ends, there will be no next time. When this moment passes, so will the city of Babylon, and all of its antichristian denizens.
The Chastisement that they were warned about is immanent.
And permanent.