Vatican II "Secret Catacombs Pact" & Fr. Martin On Apostasy
On the evening of Nov. 16, 1965, quietly alerted to the event by word-of-mouth, some 40 Roman Catholic bishops made their way to celebrate Mass in an ancient, underground basilica in the Catacombs of Domitilla on the outskirts of the Eternal City.
Both the place, and the timing, of the liturgy had a profound resonance: The church marked the spot where tradition said two Roman soldiers were executed for converting to Christianity. And beneath the feet of the bishops, and extending through more than 10 miles of tunnels, were the tombs of more than 100,000 Christians from the earliest centuries of the church.
In addition, the Mass was celebrated shortly before the end of the Second Vatican Council, the historic gathering of all the world’s bishops that over three years set the church on the path of reform and an unprecedented engagement with the modern world — launching dialogue with other Christians and other religions, endorsing religious freedom and moving the Mass from Latin to the vernacular, among other things.
But another concern among many of the 2,200 churchmen at Vatican II was to truly make Catholicism a “church of the poor,” as Pope John XXIII put it shortly before convening the council. The bishops who gathered for Mass at the catacombs that November evening were devoted to seeing that commitment become a reality.
So as the liturgy concluded in the dim light of the vaulted fourth-century chamber, each of the prelates came up to the altar and affixed his name to a brief but passionate manifesto that pledged them all to “try to live according to the ordinary manner of our people in all that concerns housing, food, means of transport, and related matters.”
The signatories vowed to renounce personal possessions, fancy vestments and “names and titles that express prominence and power,” and they said they would make advocating for the poor and powerless the focus of their ministry.
In all this, they said, “we will seek collaborators in ministry so that we can be animators according to the Spirit rather than dominators according to the world; we will try to make ourselves as humanly present and welcoming as possible; and we will show ourselves to be open to all, no matter what their beliefs.”
The document would become known as the Pact of the Catacombs, and the signers hoped it would mark a turning point in church history.
Instead, the Pact of the Catacombs disappeared, for all intents and purposes.
It is barely mentioned the extensive histories of Vatican II, and while copies of the text are in circulation, no one knows what happened to the original document. In addition, the exact number and names of the original signers is in dispute, though it is believed that only one still survives: Luigi Bettazzi, nearly 92 years old now, bishop emeritus of the Italian diocese of Ivrea.
With its Dan Brown setting and murky evidence, the pact seemed fated to become another Vatican mystery — an urban legend to those who had heard rumors about it, or at best a curious footnote to church history rather than a new chapter.
Yet in the last few years, as the 50th anniversary of both the Catacombs Pact and Vatican II approached, this remarkable episode has finally begun to emerge from the shadows.
That’s thanks in part to a circle of theologians and historians, especially in Germany, who began talking and writing more publicly about the pact — an effort that will take a major step forward later this month when the Pontifical Urban University, overlooking the Vatican, hosts a daylong seminar on the document’s legacy.
But perhaps nothing has revived and legitimated the Pact of the Catacombs as much as the surprise election, in March 2013, of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — Pope Francis.
While never citing the Catacombs Pact specifically, Francis has evoked its language and principles, telling journalists within days of his election that he wished for a “poor church, for the poor,” and from the start shunning the finery and perks of his office, preferring to live in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the apostolic palace. He stressed that all bishops should also live simply and humbly, and the pontiff has continually exhorted pastors to “have the smell of the sheep,” staying close to those most in need and being welcoming and inclusive at every turn.
“His program is to a high degree what the Catacomb Pact was,” Cardinal Walter Kasper, a retired German theologian who is close to the pope, said in an interview earlier this year at his apartment next to the Vatican.
The Pact of the Catacombs “was forgotten,” said Kasper, who mentioned the document in his recent book on the thought and theology of Francis. “But now he (Francis) brings it back.”
For a while there was even talk in Rome that Francis would travel to the Domitilla Catacombs to mark the anniversary. While that’s apparently not in the cards, “the Catacomb Pact is everywhere now in discussion,” as Kasper put it.
“With Pope Francis, you cannot ignore the Catacomb Pact,” agreed Massimo Faggioli, a professor of church history at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. “It’s a key to understanding him, so it’s no mystery that it has come back to us today.”
But why did the Pact of the Catacombs disappear in the first place?
In reality it didn’t, at least for the church in Latin America.
The chief presider at the catacombs Mass 50 years ago was a Belgian bishop, Charles-Marie Himmer, and a number of other progressive Europeans took part as well. But the bulk of the celebrants were Latin American prelates, such as the famous Brazilian archbishop and champion of the poor, Dom Helder Camara, who kept the spirit of the Catacombs Pact alive — as best they could.
The problem was that the social upheavals of 1968, plus the drama of the Cold War against communism and the rise of liberation theology — which stressed the gospel’s priority on the poor, but was seen as too close too Marxism by its conservative foes — made a document such as the Catacombs Pact radioactive.
“It had the odor of communism,” said Brother Uwe Heisterhoff, a member of the Society of the Divine Word, the missionary community that is in charge of the Domitilla Catacombs.
Even in Latin America the pact wasn’t publicized too widely, lest it poison other efforts to promote justice for the poor. Heisterhoff noted that he worked with the indigenous peoples of Bolivia for 15 years but only learned about the Catacombs Pact when he came to Rome to oversee the Domitilla Catacombs four years ago.
“This stuff was a bit dangerous until Francis came along,” said Faggioli.
Indeed, some reports say that up to 500 bishops, mainly Latin Americans, eventually added their names to the pact, and one of them, Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, was gunned down by military-backed assassins for speaking out against human rights abuses and on behalf of the poor — in the view of many, for preaching the message of the Catacombs Pact.
Francis, too, seems to have imbibed the spirit of the Catacombs Pact, though there’s no evidence he ever signed it.
READ: Pope criticizes clergy who denounced slain Salvadoran bishop Oscar Romero
As a Jesuit priest and then bishop in Argentina during the turbulent decades of the 1970s and ’80s, Francis became increasingly devoted to the cause of the poor, as did much of the Latin American church. It was no great surprise, then, that this year he pushed ahead with the beatification of Romero, which had been stalled for decades; just last week Francis used remarkably sharp language to denounce those who had “slandered” Romero’s reputation.
Francis was also familiar with the case of his fellow Argentine churchman Bishop Enrique Angelelli, an outspoken advocate for the poor who was killed in 1976 in what appeared to be a traffic accident but which was later shown to be an assassination by the military dictatorship that ruled the country at the time.
Angelelli was also a signer of the Catacombs Pact, and Francis last April approved a process that could lead to sainthood for the slain bishop.
For many in the U.S., on the other hand, the catacombs have chiefly been deployed as a symbol of persecution, and often by conservative apologists who argue that secularizing trends are heralding a return to the days when Christians huddled in the tunnels for fear of the Romans.
Heisterhoff smiles at that notion. “Here in the catacombs, it was not a place to hide,” he explained. “It was a place to pray, not so much a refuge.”
That’s a point Francis himself has made — the Roman authorities knew where the catacombs, and the Christians, were. It was no secret hideaway. The catacombs even grew as a place to bury the dead after the empire legalized Christianity in 313, as believers came to honor and pray for them in the hope of the resurrection.
What the catacombs really represented, Heisterhoff said, was “a church without power,” a church that featured what Francis has praised as a “convincing witness” — a radical vision of simplicity and service that the pope says is needed for today’s church.
So has the Pact of the Catacombs — and the true message of the catacombs themselves — re-emerged for good?
Much may depend on how long Francis, who turns 79 in December, remains pope and can promote his vision of a “church for the poor.”
Moreover, the economic message at the heart of the Catacombs Pact is just as controversial today as it was when it was signed 50 years ago. Capitalism may have won the Cold War over communism, but income inequality and economic injustice remain, or are worse than before.
“We cannot absolutize our Western system,” Kasper said in explaining the theme of the Catacombs Pact. “It’s a system that creates so much poverty, that’s not just. The resources of the world belong to everyone. To all mankind. That is what it is saying.”
Malachi Martin on the Apostasy of the Faith
Fr. Malachi Martin stated quite firmly that Popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II all failed to obey Our Lady of Fatima:
“These Popes did not carry out the
mandate of the Queen of Heaven. She said, “All you bishops, together on
one day, consecrate Russia to me. And Russia will be converted.” If this
consecration had been done, Russia would have become Catholic, Marxism
would have been finished and there would be no chastisements. But she
also said, “If you don’t do this consecration, my Son is going to punish
you all.” John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II neglected this warning
and command. …”
In explaining why the consecration still had not been
done, Martin said that the reason, “goes all the way back to Lucifer. He
simply has too much power among the prelates of the Church. He is able to neutralize the people who attempt something.”Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
In “The Tempter’s Hour”, by Triumph Communications, Father Martin discussed his recently published book, “Windswept House”; affirming that “95% of the events (related in the book) are factual, but they are cloaked in novelistic form.” He stated that the primary theme of the book is, “The Roman Catholic Church …. is in apostasy.” Father went on to discuss the often used, misused and poorly understood terms, schismatic, heretic and apostate. I’ve taken the liberty of summarizing them below:
- If you are schismatic, it means you fight over the Church’s power or jurisdiction.
- If you are a heretic, you deny one or more doctrines taught by the Church. If you believe a heresy, it doesn’t mean you completely lost your faith, but it does mean you are very dangerously positioned to lose your faith.
- But if you are an apostate, you deny basic truths of the Church, such as hell, divine grace, or personal sin, such as in reducing sin to merely social offenses.
“At the present moment (1997) a
sizable majority of Catholics are in apostasy. They have been led into
apostasy by churchmen in apostasy. At least a sizable minority of
cardinals, bishops, priests and religious are in apostasy. They no longer profess the basic truths of Christianity, let alone Catholicism.”
Now, nearly a generation later, it is clear that the “sizable minority” of apostate cardinals and bishops has become a majority.He then compared the present situation with the heresies of the Protestant Revolt, noting that that neither Luther nor King Henry VIII denied truths such as heaven, hell, sanctifying grace or divine revelation. Their main error was claiming to be the magisterium.
“Today’s apostasy is worse
than the Arian heresy … We are in a terrible situation where churchmen
do not believe that Jesus is in the Blessed Sacrament. They don’t even
believe that Jesus is God. And they go even further than that. A famous
French Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin, held that God didn’t become man, but
that man is going to become God. … Some Cardinals hold that idea. They
no longer believe in the Incarnation as we know it or the Resurrection
as we know it. They are apostates and yet they are in charge. They are
in charge of the Church!”
Father then noted that the majority of Catholics “are being lead by
the nose out of the true faith and they don’t even know it. The bishop
and his priests often say that it is alright if you are a homosexual, or
are divorced and (civilly) re-married and come to the sacraments.” Once
again, this was in 1997, and see how appropriate that is in light of
the recent Kasperian synod.The interviewer, Bernard Janzen, remarked that “one of the characteristics of the hierarchy is that they do not openly deny the doctrines and dogmas of the Faith; they simply act as though the doctrines do not exist. Father Martin confirmed that, “They live their lives as if the teachings don’t exist any longer.”
Father Martin then explained that a sub-theme of Windswept House is that,
“in a short time, humanly
speaking, there will be no visible holy Roman Catholic Church
organization.” He then repeated, for emphasis, “There won’t be any
organization.” Further, “This is referred to as auto-demolition. [See here for more on this.]
In the 1960’s there was this diabolcal consecration, this enthronement
of Satan within the Vatican. … It is a historical fact. … done by
Luciferians from all over the world and therefore, in a certain sense,
Lucifer has power in Rome. He doesn’t own Rome yet, but I’m sure he
hopes to own some future Pope so that the house will be truly his. The
only man who can expel Lucifer from Rome is the owner of the house. And
that owner is the Pope. It is the Pope that must carry out the exorcism,
the cleaning of the house.”
Thus, in 1997 Fr. Martin could say that Lucifer did not yet ‘own the
house’ but now that Francis/Danneels has the papacy, who can say ….Father Martin then explained that although Father Gabriel Amorth and his team of exorcists are very good, there are limits to what they can do, since authority rests with the owner of the house, that is, the Pope.
Now, in his book, Windswept House, Father Martin states that the Enthronement of Lucifer occurred June 29, 1963 and elsewhere he stated that the follow-up Enthronement must be performed at the Vatican within 50 years of that date, which would have been June 29, 2013, I believe. In other words, shortly after Jorge Bergoglio took over the Vatican, and moved in with his dear friend, Msgr. Ricca.
Nine years to the day after that enthronement, that is, on 29 June, 1972 Pope Paul lamented,
“We
believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of
sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day
of clouds and storms, and of darkness … “And how did this come about? We
will confide to you the thought that maybe we ourselves admit in free
discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a
power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It
is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some
crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.”
In his book, The Kingdom of Darkness, Father Martin
describes what is meant by “the smoke of Satan”, describing an interview
Pope Paul Vi gave to his close friend, Jean Guitton not long before he
died. When Guitton asked the Pope about his often-quoted remark
regarding the smoke of Satan, Paul VI replied,
“Yes, the smoke of Satan is
in the sanctuary. Due to the presence of Satan, Catholics are destined
to become an infinitesimally small part of humanity.”
Father Martin continued,
“We must remember this. A new assault
has been launched. The assault is very simple. The temptation is: ‘Just
be like the rest of men. Adore a general god. Be good. Be
compassionate. Be humanitarian. Join the rest of humanity in building
man’s earthly world’ “.
“In Rome, there is a force which at
the present moment is immovable. It cannot be dislodged by ordinary
human means. This is where, again, one’s faith in Our Lady of Fatima
comes in because she said that only she can save the Church because that
is what her Son has willed. It is not so because it was her own choice,
but because it what Christ has chosen. Christ chose that His Mother
should be the one to come and finally save the Church. If you read
carefully what Our Lady told Sister Lucia, you get a strong message that
things are going bad. Many of the elect will lose their faith.”
One more quote:
“The Luciferians have a very tight
schedule. They have an inner Luciferian prophecy that says that unless
the prince is properly installed in the citadel, namely in the Vatican,
they have lost. Now in order to install the prince and complete the
enthronement, they have to get rid of this Pope.”
Note that Martin said this in 1997. So you can see how impatient the
Danneels/Kasper faction must have been when not only did Pope John Paul
II hang on, but then Benedict got in and did what he could to resist
them, namely issue his Moto Proprio for the perpetuation of the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass. Thus, they had to force Benedict to resign.In the same interview, Janzen asked Father Malachi Martin if it was possible for the Cardinals to elect a heretical Pope, Father Martin responded,
“Yes,
we could have an apostate as Pope. In that case, we would be into
something terrible. We would be into something which is nightmarish. It
would test the faith of the greatest saint. … Your faith would be
battered to pieces. If that happens, they (The Kingdom of Darkness)
would have the prize and everything would have to go underground. We
are, indeed, Bernard on our way to becoming, as Paul VI described in his
misery, an infinitesimally small part of humanity. “
And so, we are here today, in this post-synodal church.
Remember Father Amorth’s warning: unless the Pope and Bishops consecrate
Russia as requested by the end of October, the Chastisement will occur
soon after. Now, also remember that the Chastisement has been unfolding
for years now, although faithless and lukewarm Catholics were unaware.
The initial Chastisement was the withdrawal of grace from the Popes,
hierarchy and priests which occurred as a result of the Popes’ refusal
to obey the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Message of Fatima. Unfortunately, that
falling away from the faith was not perceived as the horrendous
Chastisement that it was, because so many Catholics had lost their sense
of the faith and were no longer shocked by the corruption of doctrine
and practice or even the perversions that began to be so prevalent
among the clergy.Therefore, since the vast majority of Catholics do not respond to the Chastisement of the faith, nor now, even the open and outright apostasy of the faith in this post-synodal Church of Mercy®, the “New Church” instituted by Pope Francis, God will most likely begin the final stages of the Chastisement. This will be the Chastisement of the material world, with immense suffering and in which the few survivors will envy the dead. But it will take most men by surprise because, since they refuse to follow the command of Our Lady for penance and prayer, their intellects and spirits are darkened. Caught up in worldly affairs and intellectual curiosity, they ignore their Mother’s call to the Rosary, First Saturdays of Reparation and Total Consecration.
In previous postings, we have attempted to show a few of the prophecies of this. But we all know that what is necessary for this time is to hold fast to Our Blessed Mother, maintain a contrite and generous sacrificial heart and above all, trust in His merciful love. We must pray for others, especially priests at this time!
in the aftermath of the synod, the Pope and his backers, the “St. Gallen Mafia” will proceed with the dismantling of the hierarchical Church through “decentralization” and the corruption of marriage, penance and the Holy Eucharist. As October and November pass and the faithful do not see immediate evidence of “fire from heaven” or entire countries vanishing, their itching ears will continue to distract them from the hard and humbling work of prayer and penance. Meanwhile, the forces calling forth the Chastisement will continue to build. And when many are unaware, the long-awaited final Chastisement will sweep across the world.
At the present time, the scene is being set for a massive war, far worse than any ever before seen on earth. In its aftermath, the Church will be almost totally annihilated. This has been the goal of the modernists in the Church for many generations now, but they will be destroyed and the Church will survive. And then, God will once again demonstrate that He is Lord of heaven and earth and by His command the forces of nature will respond to eradicate the usurpers and purify the earth, to make way for the restoration of the faith. This will be the brief age of peace before the coming of the anti-Christ.
Each of us has to prayerfully decide what path to take. My own decision has cost me nearly all I hold dear. Pray for the Church, pray especially for our priests and hierarchy.
Holy Family, bless our families!
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Please, pray the Rosary and confound satan in all his works and pomps.