Always Living Down to Expectations

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 What does the counterfeit church of conciliarism have to fear from the Third Secret of Fatima? Plenty, which is why so much time and effort have been invested by the conciliar officials into deconstructing and misrepresenting Our Lady of Fatima's Third Secret. The "official" conciliarist "interpretation" of the Third Secret of Fatima is but a deconstruction of the actual Third Secret, a fact that is very well documented in The Devil's Final Battle (compiled and edited by Father Paul Kramer and published by Good Counsel Publications in 2002).One of the key players in this deconstruction and misrepresentation is none other than the former Vatican Secretary of State, Angelo Cardinal Sodano, who had the assistance of one Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and then Monsignor (now Cardinal) Tarcisio Bertone, now serving as Sodano's successor as Vatican Secretary of State.

Here is just one passage, out of many, found in The Devil's Final Battle (which was written by authors who accept the legitimacy of the conciliarist officials whose actions they critique and document so well to be contrary to the truths of the Holy Faith and thus to the good of souls) detailing Sodano's  role in deconstructing and misrepresenting the Third Secret of Fatima:

First, as Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano is literally the most powerful figure in the Church today, given the reorganization of the Roman Curia under Pope Paul VI; and, as such, Cardinal Sodano is the de facto rule of the daily affairs of the Church, especially given the failing health of the Supreme Pontiff.

Second, owing to the same curial reforms of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Sodano stands at the head of every Vatican dicastery, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which (when it was called the Holy Office) was formerly headed by the Pope.

Third, it is Cardinal Sodano who has dictated what we have called the Party Line on Fatima: i.e., the falsehood that he Message of Fatima, including the Third Secret, belongs entirely to the past., and that no one may request any longer the Consecration of Russia. We know this because:

• it was Cardinal Sodano, not the Pope, who announced to the world on May 13, 2000 that the Third Secret would be revealed, but only after a "commentary" had been prepared by the CDF, which, again, is subordinated to him, and
• it was Cardinal Sodano's "interpretation" of the Third Secret that was cited no fewer than four times in the CDF's commentary The Message of Fatima (TMF).

Fourth, Cardinal Sodano, as the de facto ruler of daily Church affairs, has vigorously enforced the new orientation of the Church in the manner of Fatima We know this because,

• Cardinal Sodano took control of the "interpretation" of the Third Secret and its false reduction to a thing of the past, along with the rest of the Fatima Message.
• One day after the publication of TMF, Cardinal Sodano pointedly demonstrated his adherence to the new orientation by inviting Mikhail Gorbachev, the pro-abortion, ex-Soviet dictator, to the Vatican for a bogus "press conference" (no questions allowed), during which Cardinal Sodano, Gorbachev and Cardinal Silvestrini sat together to heap praise on a key element of the new orientation, developed by Cardinal Sodano's predecessor, Cardinal Cassaroli, namely, Ostpolitik, under which the Church "dialogues" with Communist regimes rather than opposing them, and observes diplomatic silence in the face of Communist persecution of the Church
• Cardinal Sodano's representative, Cardinal Cassidy, negotiated the Balamand Declaration (1993) which declares that the return of the Orthodox to Rome is "outdated ecclesiology"--as is, therefore, (according to Cardinal Sodano) the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith called for by Our Lady of Fatima. . . .

The Devil's Final Battle also discussed the role played by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in deconstructing and misinterpreting the Third Secret of Fatima:

First, Cardinal Ratzinger, in his capacity as head of the CDF, has on innumerable occasions stated his commitment to the new orientation of the Church, which he described as "demolition of bastions" in a book published after he had become head of the CDF.

Second, in accordance with this "demolition of bastions", Cardinal Ratzinger has openly declared his view that Blessed Pius IX and St. Pius X were "one-sided" in their solemn, infallible condemnation of liberalism, and that their teaching was "countered" by Vatican II. He further declares that the Catholic Church no loner seeks to convert all the Protestants and schismatics, and that it is no right to "absorb" their "churches and ecclesial communities," but must make a place for them in a "unity of diversity"--a view that is obviously irreconcilable with the consecration and conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger's view is, to say the least, suspect of heresy.

Third, one of the "bastions" Cardinal Ratzinger has sought to "demolish" is the traditional Catholic understanding of the Message of Fatima.

Fourth, Cardinal Ratzinger sought to demolish the bastion of Fatima in TMF, which he published under the control of Cardinal Sodano.

Fifth, TMF attempts to destroy the authentic Catholic prophetic content of the Message by the following exegetical frauds:

• Cardinal Ratzinger removed the words "in the end" from the Virgin's prophecy "In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph."
• Cardinal Ratzinger also cropped the immediately following words from the Fatima prophecy: "The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and it will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
• Having deliberately tampered with the words of the Mother of God, Cardinal Ratzinger then declared that the (predicted future) Triumph of the Immaculate Heart means only Mary's fiat, 2,000 years ago, in consenting to be the Mother of the Redeemer.
• Cardinal Ratzinger thus deliberately ignored the Virgin's prophecy of four future events surrounding the consecration and conversion of Russia, and deliberately reduced them all to one event--Her fiat in 1 B.C.
• Concerning devotion to the Immaculate Heart, which Our Lady of Fatima announced that God wills to establish in the world, Cardinal Ratzinger dared to say that devotion to the one and only Immaculate Heart of Mary means nothing more than following Mary's example by achieving an "immaculate heart" of one's own, through "interior unity" with God.
• By means of this grotesque and blasphemous "interpretation," Cardinal Ratzinger debases the Mother of God Herself in order to sever any link between devotion to the Immaculate Heart in the world, and Our Lady of Fatima's call for the conversion of Russia to the Catholic religion, which must precede true devotion to the Immaculate Heart in that nation since the Russian Orthodox religion does not recognize the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Sixth, Cardinal Ratzinger, following Cardinal Sodano's Party Line, stated in TMF that "we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: ...the events to which the third part of the 'secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past", and (according to Cardinal Sodano's "interpretation") that the Third Secret culminated with the failed assassination attempt in 1981.

Seventh, in adopting the Sodano Party Line on the Third Secret, Cardinal Ratzinger flatly contradicted his own testimony in 1984--three years after the assassination attempt--that the Third Secret is a "religious prophecy" concerning "dangers to the faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore the world", on which occasion Cardinal Ratzinger made no suggestion that the Secret pertained to the 1981 assassination attempt or any other past event.

Eighth, in furtherance of the Party Line, Cardinal Ratzinger went out of his way to criticize Father Nicholas Gruner at the press conference of June 26, 2000, advising the world press that Father Gruner "must be submissive to the Magisterium" and accept the alleged 1984 consecration of the world as a consecration of Russia. That is, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, Father Gruner must submit to Cardinal Sodano's Party Line. Cardinal Ratzinger's claim is false because there has been no binding, authoritative pronouncement of the Magisterium--not the Pope, not a Council, not the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.

Ninth, in sum, Cardinal Ratzinger, carrying out the Party Line, deliberately used his position as head of the CDF to lend the false appearance of theological weight and validity to a shameless "deconstruction" of the Message of Fatima--an effort so blatant that even the Los Angeles Times sub-headlined its coverage of TMF and the June 26, 2000 press conference as follows: "The Vatican's Top Theologian Gently Debunks a Nun's Account of Her 1917 Vision that Fueled Decades of Speculation." (The Devil's Final Battle, pp. 230-233)

 

Without wanting to hammer home the obvious too much at this juncture, this recitation of facts is a pretty clear indication that the men in the Vatican are open enemies of the Catholic Faith, over and above the doctrinal and liturgical novelties of the past forty years that they have propagated and defended to the utmost of their being. Men such as Angelo Sodano and Joseph Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone have gone to great lengths to lie about and to misrepresent the Third Secret of Fatima. Joseph Ratzinger, now posing as the Successor of Saint Peter, went so far as to disparage and deconstruct devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary which she herself told Francisco and Jacinta Marto and Lucia dos Santos to spread throughout the world. It is the very reason that Lucia dos Santos was kept alive after her cousins had died from the outbreak of the influenza. It boggles the mind how men who have proven themselves to be enemies of the Faith in this one matter, no less so many others, can continue to receive the trust and support (and recognition of their ecclesiastical legitimacy) of so many Catholics who have pointed out, eloquently and with courage, how the conciliarists have made their accommodation to Modernism and have stopped at nothing, including disparaging the words of the Mother of God herself, to impose their iron will upon Catholics worldwide.

Why is all of this relevant now? Because none other than Benedict XVI himself has made it so. Here is a story published in the April 1, 2007, issue of Zenit:

 

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 1, 2007 ( Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI named Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, as the pontifical legate to the celebrations marking the 90th anniversary of the Virgin Mary's appearance at Fatima.

Mary's apparitions to three shepherd children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, began on May 13, 1917, and occurred five more times, the last on Oct. 13 of the same year.

The celebrations of the anniversary will take place May 12-13 at Fatima.

Benedict XVI will be in Brazil at that time to open the work of the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean. ZE07040103

 

Oh, yes, you always--and I mean always--count on the conciliarists to live down their own expectations of apostasy and betrayal. Ratzinger has the unmitigated gall to send as his legate to Fatima on the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of her first apparition in the Cova da Iria his co-conspirator in deconstructing and misrepresenting the Third Secret of Fatima. This slap at the face of the Mother of God, a slap that might as well be another sword thrust through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, certainly stands to reason. Remember this and remember it well: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally approved the world premiere of The Nativity Story to be shown at the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican. The Nativity Story, as recounted on this site in three articles in December of 2006 (Easy for Blasphemers to Endorse Blasphemy, Preserved from All Sin, Filled with All Grace Conciliarism's Blindness Inducing Acid), blasphemed the Mother of God by, among other things, portraying her to be a sulky, moody, rebellious teenager, thus making a mockery of her absolutely perfect human nature as a result of the privileges of perfect integrity she enjoyed as a result of her Immaculate Conception. Men who have no regard for protecting the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception by seeing it as a minor matter, if any kind of matter at all, to portray Our Lady as suffering from the effects of Original and Actual Sin, will have no compunction about insulting her by deconstructing her Fatima Message, which is indeed about apostasy at the highest levels of the church.

How do we know that the Third Secret is actually about apostasy at the highest levels of the Church? Well, apart from the hints that Ratzinger, who lives in a world of Hegelian contradiction and paradox, making it easy for him to say one thing at one time and then contradict himself later, gave in 1984, there is this testimony given by the late Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, O.P., who was made Master of the Apostolic Palace in 1955 by Pope Pius XII:

In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top. (The Devil's Final Battle, p. 33.)

 

I met with Cardinal Ciappi, then the theologian to the household of John Paul II, in 1984 in his apartment in the Apostolic Palace (the late Father Vincent Miceli had given me a letter of introduction and recommendation). We did not speak about the Third Secret of Fatima. However, we did speak about the crisis in the Church. Although circumspect in what he said, Cardinal Ciappi made it clear that it was very concerned about the state of the Church. Much was weighing on his soul.

Far less circumspect was the avuncular and very open Silvio Cardinal Oddi, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy when I met with him at that same time in October of 1984 (and with whom I would meet on four other occasions before his death on June 29, 2001). He told a former friend of mine who is still in the conciliar priesthood (although a man who had himself ordained in the 1980s by the retired bishop, one consecrated in 1965, of his diocese in the traditional rite the day before he was "ordained' in the new rite by the older bishop's second successor, who had been "consecrated in the 1980s, thus proving that it is not only those horrible, evil, apostatizing sedevacantists who have had questions about the conciliar rites of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination) that he, Cardinal Oddi, was with John XXIII when the latter opened the Third Secret in 1960. "This is not for our time," Roncalli told those around him, including Oddi, who "gave the following testimony to Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal Il Sabato" on March 17, 1990:

It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us to apostasy in the Church. (The Devil's Final Battle, p. 33)

 

There are other accounts about the Third Secret of Fatima, including the given by Joseph Ratzinger in 1984, included in The Devil's Final Battle. What is most pertinent to note at this juncture, however, is Sister Lucia's own concern about how the devil wanted to obliterate the Fatima Message. This is part of an interview she gave to a Father Fuentes on December 26, 1957:

Father, the most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has paid any attention to Her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way, but without giving any importance to Her Message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God actually falling upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the Message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is imminent."

Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives? It will be very sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if beforehand the world does not pray and do penance. I am not able to give any other details, because it is still a Secret. According to the will of the Most Holy Virgin, only the Holy Father and the Bishop of Fatima are permitted to know the Secret, but they have chosen to not know it so that they would not be influenced. This is the third part of the Message of Our Lady, which will remain secret until 1960."

"Tell them, Father, that many times the Most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation."

Sister Lucy also told me: "Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that offends God the most, and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them."

"That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell. … The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence. He employs all tricks, even going so far as to suggest the delay of entrance into religious life. Resulting from this is the sterility of the interior life, and among the laypeople, coldness (lack of enthusiasm) regarding the subject of renouncing pleasures and the total dedication of themselves to God."

"Tell them also, Father, that my cousins Francisco and Jacinta sacrificed themselves because in all the apparitions of the Most Holy Virgin, they always saw Her very sad. She never smiled at us. This sadness, this anguish which we noted in Her, penetrated our souls. This sadness is caused by the offenses against God and the punishments which menace sinners. And so, we children did not know what to think except to invent various means of praying and making sacrifices."

 "The other things which sanctified these children was to see the vision of Hell."

 "Father, that is why my mission is not to indicate to the world the material punishments which are certain to come if the world does not pray and do penance beforehand. No! My mission is to indicate to everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain obstinate in sin."

Sister Lucy also said to me: "Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our diocese, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means, and the world has not paid attention. That is why now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul but also help to save all the souls that God has placed on our path."

"The devil does all in his power to distract us and to take away from us the love for prayer; we shall be saved together or we shall be damned together."

"Father, the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me that we are in the last times of the world, but She made me understand this for three reasons."

"The first reason is because She told me that the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. And a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. Also, from now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil. There is no other possibility."

"The second reason is because She said to my cousins as well as to myself, that God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies which signify that there will be no others."

"The third reason is because in the plans of Divine Providence, God always, before He is about to chastise the world, exhausts all other remedies. Now, when He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then as we say in our imperfect manner of speaking, He offers us with ‘certain fear’ the last means of salvation, His Most Holy Mother. It is with ‘certain fear’ because if you despise and repulse this ultimate means, we will not have any more forgiveness from Heaven, because we will have committed a sin which the Gospel calls the sin against the Holy Ghost. This sin consists of openly rejecting, with full knowledge and consent, the salvation which He offers. Let us remember that Jesus Christ is a very good Son and that He does not permit that we offend and despise His Most Holy Mother. We have recorded through many centuries of Church history the obvious testimony which demonstrates by the terrible chastisements which have befallen those who have attacked the honor of His Most Holy Mother, how Our Lord Jesus Christ has always defended the honor of His Mother."

Sister Lucy told me: "The two means for saving the world are prayer and sacrifice."

Regarding the Holy Rosary, Sister Lucy said: "Look, Father, the Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls."

"Finally, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, consists in considering Her as the seat of mercy, of goodness and of pardon, and as the sure door by which we are to enter Heaven."  Fr. Fuentes' famous interview with Sister Lucy

 

Regardless of the controversies surrounding Sister Lucia (evidence of a "second" Sister Lucia, support for the Novus Ordo Missae, claims that she endorsed John Paul II's 1984 "consecration of the world"), the interview given to Father Fuentes nearly fifty years ago speaks of her concern that the Fatima Message was being ignored by ordinary Catholics and held in contempt by others. Stipulating that Sister Lucia was not a theologian or a liturgist, she was the only person on the face of this earth who knew the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima before 1960. And in this is regard that one particular passage in her interview of fifty years ago stands out in light of how the Third Secret of Fatima has been deconstructed by Angelo Sodano, Joseph Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone:

"Let us remember that Jesus Christ is a very good Son and that He does not permit that we offend and despise His Most Holy Mother. We have recorded through many centuries of Church history the obvious testimony which demonstrates by the terrible chastisements which have befallen those who have attacked the honor of His Most Holy Mother, how Our Lord Jesus Christ has always defended the honor of His Mother."

 

Those who amassed the evidence that the Third Secret of Fatima has indeed been deconstructed and misrepresented must understand that the men with the blackened hearts responsible for this massive fraud and deceit, men who think of nothing of deconstructing devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Hart of Mary, are not interested in the restoration of the Catholic Faith. They have, as The Devil's Final Battle documented so very well, made their accommodation with "the new orientation" to the world, to the "needs" of "modern man." Anything and everything that unmasks the apostasies which they have unleashed and continue to propagate and defend must be explained away with Hegelian dialectics and/or with outright misrepresentation. This is without any precedent in the history of the Catholic Church. Since when has it been the case that ordinary Catholics have had to parse every word of Vatican officials and have accused them publicly--and repeatedly--of lies and deceit over the course of forty years?

Some say that the sedevacantist thesis is "absurd," that is is "impossible" for there to be series of five antipopes over the course of forty years, that such a thing has never happened in the past and is not happening at the present time, that there is no precedent for such a thing. Fine. Show me the precedent for Catholics publicly calling Vatican officials liars and blasphemers? Show me the precedent for priests of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church (leaving aside priests who belong to orders with their own Missals) refusing to offer the same Mass as offered by the pope. Show me the precedent for priests deciding that they can pick and choose those things than come from the Vatican and their local chancery offices at will on a regular, unbroken basis over the course of forty years. Show me the precedent for ignoring these plain words of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

 

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

 

Yes, the Fatima Message is not part of the Deposit of Faith. There is no new revelation in the Deposit of Faith following the close of the Era of Revelation with the death of the last Apostle, Saint John the Beloved. However, the Fatima Message does touch upon the integrity of the Faith and asks us to beseech the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world. The efforts by conciliarist officials to deconstruct the Fatima Message thus speak volumes about the necessity of silencing any message (and messenger) that gets in the way of promoting the errors of ecumenism and religious liberty and the new ecclesiology. This is why no one who still stands fast in the "recognize and resist" camp where I found myself for a while can take satisfaction in the forthcoming issuance of the motu proprio "liberating" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. What good is having "recognition" from men who believe in condemned propositions on matters that are not open to debate and discussion who go to great lengths to misrepresent the words of the Mother of God. To use a line from Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's June 8, 1978, commencement address at Harvard University:

The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

 

No, the sending of Angelo Sodano to Fatima on May 13, 2007, should be a reminder to all Catholics that the enemy is within the walls of the Vatican. He wants to continue to convince Catholics that the Church has "changed," that there is a need to "dialogue" with  those of different religions and cultures, that the Church no longer has a mission to seek with urgency the conversion of all men in the world to her maternal bosom, that it is "enough" for the Church to have a "voice" in the marketplace of ideas rather than being recognized as the true Church, that "elements of truth" are to be found in all religions, whose essential goodness comes from God Himself. No matter that those who believe in these things behind the Vatican's walls think that they must do these things to adapt to the alleged "needs" of "modern" man. The objectively evil nature of these novelties and errors is part and parcel of what Our Lady came to warn us about in Fatima. It is why she wants us to make reparation for our sins and for those of the whole world. No amount of pretending that the change of a few phrases in the conciliarist jargon here and a slap on the wrist to a theologian there represent anything other than ringing the dinner bell once again on the Titanic.

Each of us is responsible for the events that resulted in Our Lord's betrayal by Judas Iscariot, His mockery of a "trial" before the Sanhedrin, His denial by Saint Peter three times, His imprisonment overnight in the early morning hours of Good Friday, His scourging at the pillar and being crowned with thorns, His condemnation to death, His carrying of the Cross, His falling three times en route to Calvary, His Crucifixion and Death. Each of us has much to make reparation for this week--and, indeed, every day of our lives. The fact that those believed by most Catholics to be the official representatives of the true Church on earth can foment apostasy and blasphemy and sacrilege is itself a significant chastisement for our own sins and infidelities.

We must fly, therefore, unto the patronage of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to help us to remain faithful to the fullness of the Catholic Faith without making any concessions whatsoever to the ethos of conciliarism or to the legitimacy of the conciliar shepherds who think nothing, nothing, of spitting on Our Lady and distorting her own words and misrepresenting devotion to her Immaculate Heart. We must recognize that this kind of treatment of the Mother of God is without any precedent in the history of the Vatican and that is is a sign of the larger loss of Faith that has enveloped so many in the past four to five decades. However, we must remain faithful to the Deposit of Faith and recognize our situation for what it is without recrimination, praying all the while for the conversion of those who are so steeped in their revolutionary agenda that it is nothing to do them to disparage the words of Our Lady and devotion to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Let us resolve in these days of prayer and penance to make the Way of the Cross each day (either before or after Holy Mass) and to pray as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, meditating also on the Seven Dolors of Our Lady. She will indeed have the Triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and it will be glorious beyond all telling. May we, cooperating with the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of her Divine Son's Most Precious Blood and that flow into our souls through her own loving hands, trust that Our Lady wants to use us weak vessels of clay to plant at least a few seeds, despite our own unworthiness, for the restoration of the fullness of the Catholic Faith in the lives of all Catholics and the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of herself, Our Immaculate Queen.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

Viva Cristo Rey!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Paola, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.