“Obedience is owed to the pope, but the pope owes obedience to the word
and the apostolic tradition. We have to obey the pope, but the pope
himself must obey the written word. He must obey the tradition. He must
respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Obedience is owed to the
pope, but it is the duty of the pope to give the character of
possibility to this obedience. The pope has to facilitate our obeying
him, by himself being obedient to the Word of God. Pope Felix III told
us, ‘an error that is not resisted is approved. A truth that is not
defended is suppressed.’ So we have an obligation to resist error, and
we must do everything that we can to promote the truth.”
Cardinal Manning
"The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its
destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics,
that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest
repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as
the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and
Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar
of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. ...Then the Church shall
be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it
was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in
mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were
from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the
Fathers of the early Church.”- Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The
Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861, London: Burns and Lambert, pp.
88-90)
Cardinal Manning delivered a series of lectures in 1861 under the title
“The Present Crises of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy” in which Manning
he foresaw a future crises in the Roman Catholic Church initiated by a
false ecumenism and progressivist theology that many orthodox Catholics
have loathed following the Second Vatican Council. Manning believed that
this progressivist current would undermine the authority of the Church
and ultimately result in a departure from the true faith by the nations
together with the displacement of the true pope by a false prophet, thus
ushering in the Antichrist and global apostasy. Manning also believed
secret societies like the Freemasons were part of this conspiracy. “The
secret societies have long ago undermined and honeycombed the Christian
society of Europe, and are at this moment struggling onward towards
Rome, the center of all Christian order in the world,”he wrote. But when
he looked at the prophecy in Revelation 18 concerning the end-time
destruction of Mystery Babylon, Manning saw it was the hand of God in
judgment of worldwide apostasy emanating from Rome:
"We read in the Book Apocalypse, of the city of Rome, that she said in
the pride of her heart, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and sorrow I
shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day: death, and
mourning, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire, because God is
strong who shall judge her.” Some of the greatest writers of the Church
tell us that…the great City of Seven Hills…the city of Rome will
probably become apostate…and that Rome will again be punished, for he
will depart from it; and the judgment of God will fall…"
Manning explained how many of Catholicism’s greatest theologians agreed with this point of view:
"The apostasy of the city of Rome…and its destruction by Antichrist may
be thoughts so new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the
text of theologians, of greatest repute. First, Malvenda, who writes
expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus,
Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius, that Rome shall apostatize from
the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to its ancient
paganism. Malvenda’s words are:
'But Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its
ancient idolatry, power, and imperial greatness. It will cast out its
Pontiff, altogether apostatize from the Christian faith, terribly
persecute the Church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever,
and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater
than it had under its first rulers.'
Lessius says: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be destroyed, as we
see openly from the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse;' and again:
'The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath kingdom over
the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such
as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the
world.'
And Bellarmine: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and
burnt, as we learn from the sixteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter
of the Apocalypse.' On which words the Jesuit Erbermann comments as
follows: 'We all confess with Bellarmine that the Roman people, a little
before the end of the world, will return to paganism, and drive out the
Roman Pontiff.'
Viegas, on the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse says: 'Rome, in the
last age of the world, after it has apostatized from the faith, will
attain great power and splendor of wealth, and its sway will be widely
spread throughout the world, and flourish greatly. Living in luxury and
the abundance of all things, it will worship idols, and be steeped in
all kinds of superstition, and will pay honor to false gods. And because
of the vast effusion of the blood of martyrs which was shed under the
emperors, God will most severely and justly avenge them, and it shall be
utterly destroyed, and burned by a most terrible and afflicting
conflagration.'"
It was Saint John Bosco who prophesied, "And to you, Rome, what will
happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached
such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in
your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands
upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his
word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.
Rome! To you I will come four times.
The first time, I shall strike your lands and the inhabitants thereof.
The second time, I shall bring the massacre and the slaughter even to your very walls. And will you not yet open your eyes?
I shall come a third time and I shall beat down to the ground your
defenses and the defenders, and at the command of the Father, the reign
of terror, of dreadful fear, and of desolation shall enter into your
city.
But My wise men have now fled and My law is even now trampled underfoot.
Therefore I will make a fourth visit. Woe to you if My law shall still
be considered as empty words. There will be deceit and falsehood among
both the learned and the ignorant. Your blood and that of your children
will wash away your stains upon God's law. War, pestilence and famine
are the rods to scourge men's pride and wickedness. O wealthy men, where
is your glory now, your estates, your palaces? They are the rubble on
the highways and byways.
And your priests, why have you not run to 'cry between the vestibule and
the Altar,' begging God to end these scourges? Why have you not, with
the shield of faith, gone upon the housetops, into the homes, along the
highways and byways, into every accessible corner to carry the seed of
My word? Know you that this is the terrible two-edged sword that cuts
down My enemies and breaks the Anger of God and of men?"
In our own time, the germ ideas of a one-world religion are already
being sowed. And this false humanitarian religion will burst into
poisonous flower when enough hearts have grown cold and have abandoned
the true religion. As Jane Le Royer explained in prophecy: "When the
time of the Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will
be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the
greatest schism the world has ever known."
Fr. Hesse: Vatican 2 gave us a New Religion
Can you not see the emerging signs? How do we find the Church today? The
Mystical Body of the Crucified One - the Holy Catholic Church - is
climbing Calvary, carrying a heavy cross. She is experiencing the hour
of abandonment and betrayal. Her body is being tormented by the scourges
of sin which strike at it and by numerous sacrileges which open up deep
wounds in it.
But too many are proud. Their eyes blinded by sin and egoism. Like the
Pharisees before them, they are incapable of reading the signs of the
times because their spiritual eyes are closed. They cannot hear the
Spirit because their ears are closed. They cannot feel the promptings of
the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus because their hearts are closed. Such
people cannot endure sound teaching but have itching ears and will
continue to accumulate teachers who suit their own likings, teachers who
will cater to their lusts by providing them with myths (2 Timothy 4: 3,
4).
And still so many of our shepherds remain silent like mute dogs. They
have not begged God to end these scourges. They have not wept between
the vestibule and the altar. They have not taken up the shield of faith
to protect their flocks. Their judgment will be all the more severe, for
God expects more from His ministers (Luke 12: 48).
Lessius says: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be destroyed, as we
see openly from the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse;' and again:
'The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath kingdom over
the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such
as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the
world.'
It was Saint John Bosco who prophesied, "And to you, Rome, what will
happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached
such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in
your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands
upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his
word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.
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