THE MILLENARIANS AND FATIMA (No. 87)
. . . War as Programmed . . . The Great Betrayal and the Smile
I'm sure the most widely self proclaimed of the millenarians in the United States have been the Seventh Day Adventists and their offspring the Jehovah's Witnesses. I refer to Seventh day Adventists in my Letter 64, in connection with the destruction of St. Pierre and other towns of the eastern Caribbean. I quote from their book Looking For The End Of The World the following lines: "Yes, we are sure that what are regarded by most people as natural phenomena of earthquakes in the West Indies are the forerunners and sure signs of the approaching end of the earth and the second coming of Christ." This book was published in 1902. Signs of the end, so they say, but after a period of darkness our earth to be brought back to the state of Eden.
Curious reasoning, that; but not new and we will hear it in our day, even among Catholics. I think the haunting vision of paradise lost is at the root of it. The devil suggests that paradise can be regained, that we can have heaven on earth, a "golden age" to come, the Jew-Gnostic kingdom of this world. "Back to Eden" the Adventists (a protestant sect who follow Jewish observances closely) were preaching when I was young. I am not sure exactly what line they are following now -- except that I recall one of their pamphlets of a few years ago in which they had updated their millennium in line with political promisers of a good and peaceful new world order, soon to come.
On Millenarianism, in my Last Days of the Catholic Church I quote The Catholic Doctrine of the Last Things by Msgr. Joseph Phole, as follows. "Chiliasm in its two forms -- There are two forms of Chiliasm or Millenarianism. The exaggerated form is heretical, while the more moderate form is simply erroneous.
"The heretical form of Chiliasm may be traced partly to the Jewish expectation of a temporal Messias and partly to the apocryphal writings of the Old Testament, which abound in fables . . . This error in a somewhat more respectable form still persists . . . A third, still more moderate group of Millenarianists, which is not yet extinct, contents itself with asserting that an era of universal peace and tranquility will precede the second coming of Christ, to be suddenly interrupted by the great apostasy and the forerunners of Antichrist." End of quotation from The Catholic Doctrine of the Last Things.
In our day we hear variations of the expectation of an era of universal peace and tranquility. John Paul II has said that he is preparing the Church for an age beginning with the year 2000. On the kind of foundation John Paul is preparing is spelled out in his Redemptor Hominis, near the end of which he speaks of "the People of God's march towards the Promised Land in this stage of history approaching the end of the second millennium." Certain Protestant "evangelists" preach the Zionist/-Communist doctrine of an age of universal peace yet to come, as do some Catholic "Traditionalists" a "Fatima peace promise".
The widely read Counter-Reforme of the Traditionalist leader Abbe Georges de Nantes has been consistent and strong in its promotion of Fatima. Father De Nantes heads an organization which he calls the Phalange, a religious/political movement. I quote here the De Nantes publication The 150 Points of the Phalange, Catholic, Royal, Communitarian. "Towards a New Christendom: The phalangist considers that the time is not far off when Antichrists's power will fail definitively and when his rationalist and revolutionary counter-church will fail. Amid what catastrophes and at the price of what gigantic collapse? God only knows. Christ's disciple knows that he is not to be troubled whilst awaiting the advent of a new Christendom, or rather the epoch of Christendom become universal and victorious over all her enemies."
Another promoter of a new order is Professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira of Brazil who operates an international organization called Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP). He writes in his book Revolution and counter Revolution of the "present time of trial" (page 67): "Because of this way of history, the Order born out of the Revolution shall shine forth even more than in the Middle Ages, as regards the three capital points affected by the Revolution:
A profound respect for the rights of the Church and the Papacy and the sacralization to the utmost possible extent of temporal values, as against secularism, interconfessionalism, atheism and pantheism, as well as against the sequels thereof.
* A spirit of hierarchy, pervading all aspects of society and of the State, of culture and of life, as against the metaphysical equalitarianism of the Revolution.
* The diligent disclosure and struggle against evil in all its early, initial, or covert forms; the fulmination thereof by execration as well as by change of infamy and the punishment with unswerving purpose, in every instance and particularly where orthodoxy and decent customs be at stake, as against the liberal metaphysics of the Revolution and its propensity to shelter and give free rein to evil."
That much from Professor Plinio Correa.
The reader may wonder about the kind of mind which composed the foregoing sentences, especially the last one. To start with the first, the idea of a "working of history" is a manner of speaking of Communists and their sympathizers. Catholics speak of divine providence. When I first read, years ago, Plinio's "Order born out of the Revolution" I wondered, What can he mean? Could someone have gotten the original sense of the text (Spanish or Portuguese?) mixed up in translation? But then, what of that amazing long, last sentence? -- "punishment with unswerving purpose". By whom? And, as it appears, not only punishment of what are properly called crimes, but also "in any instance where orthodoxy and decent customs be at stake" -- even in their "early, initial, or covert forms". All of this is in the spirit of the Scribes and Pharisees and their descendants the Khazar converts.
Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, surely the most knowledgeable of all who have studied in detail European religious sects and movements, provides this additional information on chiliasm, page 136 of his Enthusiasm: "This was chiliasm -- the conviction that the existing world-order was about to come to an end, and that an earthly millennium, during which the 'saints' would reign, was to succeed it." By Plinio Correa the pharisaic appears in Christian garb. Present is the harsh self-righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and, of course (as do all new order movements), the Kingdom of this World as expected by the Sanhedrin.
Plinio Correa, the Abbe de Nantes and the Vatican Two popes are agreed on the desirability of a New Order, incorporating the religious and political, of which Mazzini spoke in 1849, one year after the appearance of the Communist Manifesto.
Mazzini spoke of a "General Council of the Church" to come, a council "of all believers -- a Council which will be alike Council of the Church and Constituent Assembly." The present figurehead-showman and straw boss of this operation is John Paul II who appears in photo after photo embracing, or kneeling awkwardly in front of, "Our Lady of Fatima" statues.
Another kind of person than was Mazzini is a John M. Haffert who has written a pentecostalist book Explosion of the Supernatural (1975). Opening his chapter 23 Haffert writes as follows: "Let us presume that the world-wide wave of crime and violence would indicate that Satan is fighting violently for his supremacy in the world, and that . . . in view of the miracle of Fatima and subsequent miracles the Immaculate Mediatrix is fighting with an assurance, confirmed to all the world in the Fatima miracle, for the reign of Jesus."
Here again, in this prediction by Haffert, we hear of a golden age, an age of the saints. Haffert goes on to speak of a Marian age. "Certainly the Age of Mary was fully upon us by the time of the first Vatican Council. The Immaculate Conception was defined and the world was shaken by a sequence of apparitions and miracles at ru du Bac, LaSalette, Lourdes."
Haffert's assertion that the world was shaken by these events is, to say the least, a bit far fetched. As to LaSalette, surely the most significant part of that message, was that Rome would become the seat of the Antichrist.
According to Haffert, "This Age of Mary is an age, not the flash of a few years. Its ultimate phase will be the triumph of Christianity . . . " Here is the Millenium in all its glory.
On the back cover of his book, John M. Haffert is said to be one of the celebrated lay Catholics of the world, co-founder of an apostolate of 25 million members. By chance, so it is said, he attended a Protestant Pentecostal service in London in 1973. "Sixteen months later, as the only lay speaker at the 14th International Marian Congress in Rome (opened by Pope Paul), he explained this Explosion of the Supernatural which the Pope at the same time endorsed as a sign of a great hope and joy."
Of course Paul VI was happy to endorse Haffert's vision of a Millennium, which is in line with his and Mazzini's vision of a New Age. What I would call attention to here especially, is the figure of 25 million followers of this Fatima propagandist, and that his message is contrary to the Gospel predictions of a great apostasy, to be followed closely by the End.
Others in the United States who propagate the "Fatima message" are "The Servants of Jesus and Mary" who distribute the magazine The Fatima Crusader, published in Canada. SOUL magazine of New Jersey carries on the Haffert Fatima message. From Bayside, N.Y. come updates on Fatima and defense of the Vatican Two popes. The woman who puts on this show receives, so she pretends, regular scheduled messages direct from Christ and Our Lady. In N. Dakota, a Fr. Nelson publishes Maryfaithful in which (next to his Powers Lake establishment) Fatima is his main promotion. Veritas of Louisville, Kentucky preaches Fatima. There was, perhaps is yet, a regular publication by the F.Schuckart Fatima cultists in Idaho and Washington.
Whether as carrying on the Jews' demand for a kingdom of this world (updated in New York, Moscow, and Rome), or as propagators of that second error of the Millenarianists (quoted on page one of this Letter), these publishers raise false hopes and distort the meaning of the plain-words prophecy of St. Paul.
The common or Catholic sense ought to deliver us from these fantastic notions of a good Order to arise out of apostasy from God. The fact of Christ's victory over Satan, as having been accomplished with His death on the Cross, is Catholic doctrine. Those who foolishly give ear to stories of a final battle of the Mother of God with Satan are, to say the least, in error.
Now that the Vatican Two popes have declared "a new beginning" (Paul VI), a New Order, and have radically changed Mass and Sacraments, so that they have lost their Catholic signification, when should we expect the End to come? According to a news report I read some time ago, John Paul said he was "preparing the Church for the year 2000, the beginning of the third millennium." I think he and his crowd, carrying on the Operation of Error, have prepared the End, but not as John Paul sees it.
What about conservative noises that John Paul sometimes makes, particularly a recent encyclical against Communism? This man opposed a condemnation of Communism by the Vatican Two council,saying it would be "counter productive". The time then was not propitious. But now the powers behind the Council and John Paul, seeing, as they do, nearly all Catholics welcoming their New Order, their welfare state, are ready for the final phase of the Revolution. An indication of this entry into the final phase was conveyed by photographs of John Paul's visit to the Rome synagogue, his abject and clownish posturing there.
Despite all the revolutionary commotion they stir up -- recall the street and campus riots of fifteen years or so ago, and how they suddenly ceased -- those behind the New Order are, as were the Scribes and Pharisees, hard-nose conservatives. Far, then, from neglecting to prepare for traditionalist and conservative opposition, the Revolution will be, ultimately, conservative, according to the ideas of the Rabbis behind it.
The Kingdom of This World is not to be run by a rabble, or by vain and self-seeking politicians. When Solzhenitsyn was let loose from Russia to condemn the gulags, etc., I saw this as a sign of a soft turn-around; the gnostic or intellectual revolution among the academics, the scientists, publishers and politicians being far enough advanced to establish detente. Not that the revolutionary violence will end. It is being cooked now in Central America, the Middle East, and the Philippines.
Anyway, as directed, John Paul makes occasional conservative noises.
Does Fatima lend itself to the influence of the Millenarians and other charlatans? It does, as do many private revelations. Not many Catholics will worry about the next thousand years or so, however much they may love the Church. The future is always in the providence of God -- not, by the way, in John Paul's hands, or even in those of his employers. But many Catholics, especially parents, are worried about the conditions of modern living. They see the new paganism all around them, and the foolishness and worse of the clergy. So, putting aside solid doctrine and what remains of their Catholic sense, they give ear to a promise of rescue, contrary to the prophecy of St. Paul and of Christ himself.
In Letter 41, Fatima, I assumed the apparitions to be from heaven. Later, reading the various and fluctuating opinions about what must be done to convert Russia, and about the notion that the New Order bishops would do it, I questioned the source of the Fatima phenomena, which, as St. Thomas shows, citing the destruction of Job's family and possessions, could have been from the devil. I was impressed by the heroism of the two younger children especially, their clear, simple and consistent responses to expert questioning, and the prediction that they (but not Lucia) would be taken out of this world soon, as it happened. But as time went by and the Fatima confusion and charlatanry increased, I was compelled to question the "message".
I have at hand Wm. T. Walsh's Our Lady of Fatima, which I've read carefully several times. I hold Mr. Walsh in respect, as an honest Catholic historian and writer. I have never felt the slightest suspicion that the children could be party to a deception. They undoubtedly saw and heard at the Cova da Iria, exactly what they said they had seen and heard. It could be, as I've suggested elsewhere, that Sister Lucia in her later years might have taken some thoughts of her own as having been inspired. The Fatima promoters seems to have bothered her endlessly, so as to keep their part of the show going. And I'm inclined to believe, as a small Fatima publication seems to prove, that the Sister Lucia I have shown holding hands with John Paul "in prayer" is a fake.
On page 83 of Our Lady of Fatima I read, "If they will listen to my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace." Russia was not converted, and a second world war began in the 1930s. Religion and morality continued the steep decline of the war years, and pope and council at Vatican Two brought to an end Catholic teaching and Sacraments.
On this same page 83, the "if they will listen" unaccountably disappears, and, a few lines below, we are told that "The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me (the Mother of God), and it will be converted and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world." The conditional had become unconditional. It could be argued that the peace after World War II (such as it has been), following the consecration by Pope Pius XII, is what was meant. But the Fatima professionals appear to have a greater, more perfect, universal peace in mind, requiring a collegial consecration.
After having just now re-read my Letter 41, I would leave it stand as written. Here I only mean to emphasize that Fatima fits in nicely with the false promises of a Catholic renewal as proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council.
Fatima, as we get it from its chief propagandists, fits in with Vatican Two "inspiration" -- non dogmatic but you must nevertheless believe in it. Vatican Two takes in the majority of those who want a relaxed moral code and discipline, Catholics inclined toward a comfortable Lutheranism. For the more restless spirits -- what an amazing number there are of them! -- every kind of social activism, an explosion of religiosity. For the sentimentally pietistic, as well as for many who simply want the old parish back, a return to Catholicism and sanity, there is provided the "Fatima message" of the professional promoters.
It seems to me that seemingly orthodox preachers of a peaceful millennium soon to come, will be listened to most readily by pious persons who see only too well the sinful condition of the world. And never will there be lacking leaders of their kind who will offer them something similar to the "Fatima peace plan".
War as Programmed
In 1914 President Wilson gave assurance that the nations "over there" -- meaning Europe -- were "all tarred with the same stick", and bade the people to be neutral not only in deed but in thought. Fr. Gillis, editor of the Catholic World, quoted this from Wilson. He commented on a youth group who in one month were crying for peace, but who a month later howled for war.
Shortly before World War II, President Roosevelt assured American fathers and mothers that their sons would not be sent into foreign wars. "Again, and again, I say, they will not be sent abroad." But they were.
The first time it was to "make the world safe for democracy". What was it the second time? The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; "the Jap threat", so it was said and believed. But war was declared also on Germany and nearly all of the men, ships, war supplies were sent into the Atlantic, to England and Russia. And long before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt had been sending to England and Russia "aid short of war." Two American destroyers were sunk while convoying this aid, before war had been declared.
It was not said that we were going to war to save Christendom. Such a notion, spoken out loud, could only have provoked mirth. But there were some, including many Catholics, who held that we were somehow, in supporting England, on the side of the angels. What was known for sure was that we were on the side of the Bolsheviks. We were on one side of the two parties of the Ashkenazi.
Apparently the struggle still goes on, with the losing party more or less isolated in South Africa.
But I'm not so much concerned to produce a 'whodunit' here (generally useless labor, often misleading), but to take note of how well Propaganda works in our time. Certainly the American people were 90% opposed to each of the two world wars. But we got in just the same.
The Great Betrayal and the Smile
My first purpose in writing these Letters was to warn a few friends and relatives that Vatican Two was not what it pretended to be. But I also meant to caution those who might read my papers, not to blame the Church, which we may not do. God who does not allow a sparrow to fall without His knowledge and permission, does not permit that a world war or evil Council will take place against His will. We must look to men for the fault. That certain men of spiritual pride and arrogance, the Scribes and Pharisees, would work against the Divine Will was indicated by Christ himself, by these words: "You are of your father, the devil . . . whose works you will do." These are men who will have the world as they want it, not as God willed it, and their evil doctrines, being of the devil, as Christ said they were, will be passed on down through the centuries.
But it is not entirely to the plotting, lying and foul deeds of such men -- far from it -- that the final great apostasy comes about, but to a gradual weakening of the Catholic faith, especially among the clergy. The salt has lost its savor.
As usual in the Gospel, the lesson is not one which applies only at the time of writing, but to all ages. And it is according to the will of God that some day the Church's time will run out, when most men will give in to the things of this world, as happens in our time, more than in any age of the past. We may say that some few of us are not part of the Apostasy, but we are all part of the human race; and as Adam acted as a spiritual head of the race of men, so it was ordained by God that Paul VI would act also, even as Caiphas as head of the Sanhedrin and spiritual leader of his time.
There is no question about free will in all this. Paul VI was simply that man who, having taken into his mind and soul certain ideas, became the elected representative of a corrupted clergy and, to say the least, an indifferent laity who, if they attend the Vatican Two churches at all, reduce the Son of God to simply a nice fellow in their own image. The ecumenical smile becomes the mark of the reformed Catholic, especially of the clergy and religious. The false doctrine of those who turn up offering themselves and their 'Remnant churches' as saviors in an emergency, or even promising a millennium of peace and a new and pharisaic Christianity to arise from the ruins, has been obscured by their clamorous piety.
