By Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI
Feast of St. Michael the Archangel
September 29, 1998
Dearly beloved in Christ,
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII (October 9, 1958), we are sadly reminded of the terrible devastation that has befallen the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II era. With the introduction of the New Mass (the Novus Ordo Missae), in 1969, the vast majority of the faithful have not only lost the concept of the Mass as a propitiatory Sacrifice (to atone for sin), but also the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. With the promulgation of the Decrees of Vatican II (especially Dignitatis Humanae, Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio), the pernicious errors of false ecumenism and religious liberty have been sown among the flock of Christ so much so, that religious indifferentism (the belief that one religion is as good as another) has replaced the Catholic doctrine that there is but one, true religion revealed by God — the Catholic Faith. During the past 40 years, we have witnessed nothing less than the Great Apostasy from the Catholic Church, which St. Paul predicted in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians:
“Let no one deceive you in any way, for the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and is exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God and gives himself out as if he were God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4).
Further, in this same Epistle, we find a very important aspect in regard to the Apostasy. St. Paul refers to the mystery of iniquity already at work in his time and to someone who restrains it:
“For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; provided only that he who is at present restraining it, does still restrain, until he is gotten out of the way. And then the wicked one will be revealed” (2 Thess. 2:7-8).
Who is this person who, in St. Paul’s time, restrained the mystery of iniquity? Who is this person who continues to restrain until he is gotten out of the way?
We find the answer in Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel (Motu Proprio, September 25, 1888), in which he prophetically warned of the devils ultimate objective:
“These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid 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 piety, with the iniquitous design that when the pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.”
Down through the centuries, the Papacy, the rock upon which Christ founded His Church, has restrained the “mystery of iniquity.” The Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, possesses the Supreme Authority to teach, to rule and to sanctify. What more effective way could Satan have devised to destroy the Catholic Church than to have his human accomplices infiltrate into the highest positions of the Church?
To confirm this even further, we need only to read the “Permanent Instructions of the Alta Vendita” in which the Italian Freemasons outline their quest to destroy the Catholic Church by means of infiltration into the Office of the Papacy. The following excerpts are from the book, Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked, by Msgr. George F. Dillon, D.D. (October 1884), which, in its Italian version, was printed with the approval and at the expense of Pope Leo XIII:
“The Papacy has at all times exercised a decisive action upon the affairs of Italy. By the hands, by the voices, by the pens, by the hearts of its innumerable bishops, priests, monks and nuns and people in all latitudes, the Papacy finds devotedness without end ready for martyrdom, and that to enthusiasm. Everywhere, whenever it pleases to call upon them, it has friends ready to die or lose all for its cause. This is an immense leverage which the Popes alone have been able to appreciate to its full power, and as yet they have used it only to a certain extent. Today there is no question of reconstituting for ourselves that power, the prestige of which is for the moment weakened. Our final end is that of Voltaire and of the French, the destruction forever of Catholicism and even of the Christian idea which, if left standing on the ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity later on.
“Now, then, in order to secure to us a Pope in the manner required, it is necessary to fashion for that Pope a generation worthy of the reign of which we dream. Leave on one side old age and middle life, go to the youth, and, if possible, even to infancy.
“In a few years the young clergy will have, by the force of events, invaded all the functions. They will govern, administer, and judge. They will form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the Pontiff who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian and humanitarian principles which we are about to put in circulation.
“Seek out the Pope of whom we give the portrait. You wish to establish the reign of the elect upon the throne of the prostitute of Babylon? Let the clergy march under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. You wish to cause the last vestige of tyranny and of oppression to disappear? Lay your nets like Simon Barjona. Lay them in the depths of sacristies, seminaries, and convents, rather than in the depths of the sea, and if you will precipitate nothing you will give yourself a draught of fishes more miraculous than his. The fisher of fishes will become a fisher of men. You will bring yourselves as friends around the Apostolic Chair. You will have fished up a Revolution in Tiara and Cope, marching with Cross and banner — a Revolution which needs only to be spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world on fire.”
Should it be any wonder why the Freemasonic principles of religious liberty and religious indifferentism have become the principles of the Conciliar Church of Vatican II?
Should it be any wonder why John Paul II called upon all the religions of the world to assemble in Assisi, Italy, to pray to their false gods for world peace?! How many more acts of false ecumenism have to take place, before the eyes of the vast majority of those who call themselves Catholic will be opened?
This terrible reality that has befallen the Catholic Church and that has brought about the Great Apostasy seems to be part of the Secret given by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Melanie and Maximum at La Salette, France. In the book on the apparition of Our Lady of La Salette, Light on the Mountain, the author, John S. Kennedy, makes reference to the seer, Melanie, as she wrote down the Secret given her by the Blessed Virgin to be read by Pope Pius IX:
“When it came to the actual writing out of her secret, Melanie temporized, burst into tears…. She sat down, took hold of a pen, began to write. Once she looked up to ask the meaning of the word infallibly… A little later she asked the spelling and the meaning of Anti-Christ” (page 131).
This terrible reality also seems to form part of the contents of the Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima, which was supposed to have been revealed in the year 1960, but was conveniently suppressed by John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council and initiated the earliest alterations in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
When we consider the disastrous consequences which have afflicted the Catholic Church during the past 40 years since the death of Pope Pius XII, there are no better words to describe this travesty than the words diabolical ingenuity.
Who else but Satan could have engineered and orchestrated so cleverly a master plan to devastate the Church of Christ?
Who else but Satan could have so deceitfully replaced the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a contemporary Lutheran Memorial of the Last Supper? Commenting on the New Mass, the Novus Ordo Missae, Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Bacci wrote on September 25, 1969:
“Despite its brevity, the study shows quite clearly that the Novus Ordo Missae — considering the new elements susceptible to widely different interpretations which are implied or taken for granted — represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent.”
Who else but Satan could have known human nature so well as to deceive the vast majority of Catholics into a false, ecumenical church that has illicit relations with all the other false religions of the world?
Who else but Satan, under the guise of charity, could have infected the flock of Christ with the pernicious doctrines of religious liberty, false ecumenism, and religious indifferentism?
These false teachings have been especially condemned by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura on December 8, 1864:
“And from this wholly false idea of social organization they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, especially fatal to the Catholic Church and to the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor of recent memory, Gregory XVI, insanity; namely that liberty of conscience and of worship is that proper right of every man and should be proclaimed and asserted by law in every correctly-established society.”
This same Pontiff reiterated the teachings of Quanta Cura when he condemned the following propositions in his Syllabus of Errors on December 8, 1864:
“15. Everyone is free to follow and to profess the religion which the light of reason leads him to judge to be the true religion.
“16. Men can find the way to eternal salvation, and they can attain salvation in the practice of any religion whatever”…
“77. In this age of ours it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other cults whatsoever.
“78. Hence in certain regions of Catholic name, it has been laudably sanctioned by law that men immigrating there be allowed to have public exercises of any form of worship of their own.
“79. For it is false that the civil liberty of every cult, and likewise, the full power granted to all of manifesting openly and publicly any kind of opinions and ideas, more easily leads to the corruption of the morals and minds of the people, and to the spread of the evil of indifferentism.”
False ecumenism was explicitly condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos on January 6, 1928:
“…to favor this opinion [ecumenism and interfaith] and encourage such undertakings is tantamount to abandoning the religion revealed by God.
“This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take part in these assemblies, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics to give enterprises their encouragement or support.
“Thus, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics.”
From all that we have considered, it should be quite apparent that “the Pastor has been struck and the sheep have been scattered,” and that the Catholic Church — the Mystical Body of Christ — is undergoing its own crucifixion like her Divine Spouse, Jesus Christ. If we would persevere in these difficult times, we must, with St. John the Evangelist, stay close to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross, and we must remember that after the Crucifixion follows the Resurrection.
In Christo Jesu et Maria Immaculata,
Most Rev. Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI