The real purpose of this article is something even more grave and serious, as it is a crisis that threatens the Church and its witness. Back around 2001 or so, there were a number of scandals of priests who had committed sexually deviant acts against others, and this made the news at that time. It was a shameful and embarrassing thing, and the unfortunate truth of the accusations even cost the Church some of her people, who became so disillusioned with her that they left. It also provided fodder to both the secularists and Protestant Fundamentalists, who in lieu of the controversy were like "Aha!" and preyed upon the opportunity to see some of their own claims all of a sudden appear true. At that time, a traditionalist Catholic journalist published a book entitled Goodbye Good Men which dealt with the scandals and the reasoning behind them, one of which he points out was the rise of a new militant gay subculture in certain seminaries. Another factor Rose cites less often but others have noted is the Vatican II Council. Vatican II has been blamed for a lot of things, and it is important from the outset to clear something up about that. First, Vatican II was meant to be a pastoral Council rather than a doctrinal Council, and what that essentially means is that the Magisterium was still affirmed by the Council Fathers and doctrinal orthodoxy was still maintained. Second, the first point leads to this one: the problem with innovations since Vatican II, I strongly believe, is not due to Vatican II itself but rather to faulty implementation of some things the Council proposed. In reading the Vatican II documents myself, as I did for many courses I had in my Master's program at Steubenville over the past four years, there is actually a lot of good stuff in them, and some of the documents such as Lumen Gentium are actually very orthodox in content. As my good friend, Catholic traditionalist and fellow Monarchist Charles Coulombe stated on a broadcast of his weekly program some months back, at least 80-85% of the documents of Vatican II are very sound and affirm prior Councils and the Magisterium, and the 15% that doesn't is not worth really quibbling over - the answer, as Coulombe notes, is simple on that, mainly just reject what doesn't line up with the Deposit of Faith. As I have examined the evidence, the current sex crisis in the Church has little, if anything at all, to do with anything related to Vatican II, and therefore that would need to be ruled out. As we examine this further, I want to first rehash some of the news about what is going on at present to shed some light on what we are talking about here, and then I have some insights I want to share from a book I use extensively for reference, that book being Desmond Birch's Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph (Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship Publishing, 1996). Birch's volume is an encyclopedia of various prophetic insights that many saints and visionaries of the Church have received over the years, and many of them have a lot to say about this current crisis. After that, I want to then offer some reflections and encouragement to disillusioned Catholics who may be contemplating leaving the Church, as at this point in time those are needed.
Social media (particularly Facebook) is right now buzzing about this issue - I have been monitoring the Archdiocese of Baltimore's Facebook page for the past couple of days, and there is a lot of feedback on this issue there. To kind of give a little background on what happened, a Grand Jury in Pennsylvania recently released a report documenting that approximately 300 priests in several dioceses primarily in Pennsylvania had been involved in sexual abuse scandals in which over 1,000 victims were identified. These incidents took place over an extended period of time going back several decades, and some of the offending priests have actually passed on, and there were cardinals and bishops even involved in the mess. It seems that this is also connected to the events of the early 2000's too, when a similar scandal that necessitated Michael Rose's book created a media feeding frenzy. Add to that this whole recent #MeToo movement, and what we see is disturbing - it indicates a culture which as a whole has lost its way, and sex has become a tool of abuse, intimidation, and manipulation. Of course, when you have a society that has been in moral terpitude for at least 50 years if not longer (note some of that in my article tackling the transgender issue yesterday), it is inevitable that the Church would be affected as well. When you have sin, and you also have a Christian witness which has been weakened (this involves the faulty implementation of Vatican II reforms in this case), the unfortunate consequence is that you will have churches who are adversely affected. And, it is not only Roman Catholics - Protestants have had their share of these scandals too (the most recent and high-profile one has been former NAE head Ted Haggard) and there are even statistics that note that pornography usage has been unnaturally high among married Protestant pastors of all denominations. This indicates that these bad fruits have a bad root somewhere, and until the root is dealt with, the fruit will continue to manifest. Fortunately for us, many great visionaries of previous generations were given a special charism by the Holy Spirit to warn about these things coming, and I want to document some of that now here to give an idea that what we have seen is not something we were not warned would happen.
From the outset, I want to mention Pope St. Leo XIII, who at the turn of the previous century was grieved with great concern about this. Reminiscent of the Book of Job in Scripture, it is reported that Leo had a vision in which Satan asked God for a time to tempt the Church, and God told him specifically the end of the 20th century. For the faithful Remnant, St. Michael the Archangel would be a protector, and the Holy Spirit gave to St. Leo a prayer to entreat St. Michael's help during those trying moments. The prayer went something like this:
Pope St. Leo XIII (1810-1903)
It certainly seems that Pope Leo was on-point regarding what he saw, as the recent crises illustrate. Another important visionary, Jacinta of Fatima, also had some insights given to her by the apparitions at Fatima in the early 1900's when it is recorded as this: "'The devil knows that when religious and priests fail in their beautiful vocations they carry along with them many souls into hell.'" (Birch, p. 393). Think about that for a moment - when a trusted individual, a shepherd of the Church no less, violates that trust by taking immoral liberties with a vulnerable child, it has devastating consequences. For one, it causes the child to turn their backs on Christ and His Church, and many a militant atheist has been created from those situations. But then, think of when the scandal becomes public - it disillusions other faithful, and they leave the Church. That is what this revelation Jacinta had at Fatima is telling us. The untold havoc wreaked by wayward clergy also becomes the fodder of secular comedians and media, who now ridicule and make sport of the Church due to scandals like this - one, an otherwise humorous comedian and ventriloquist by the name of Jeff Dunham, has now even incorporated such ridicule into his comedy acts. That is something to think about. Another visionary, Sister Elena Aiello, was visited by a vision of the Lord on April 16, 1954, and the Lord spoke to her saying this: "'So ungrateful have they become towards My Sacred Heart and abusing My graces they have converted the world into a scene of crimes. Innumerable scandals carry souls to their ruin, especially the souls of the youth. They have given themselves, without restraint, to the pleasures of the world which have degenerated into perversions.'" (Birch, p. 389). Another visionary, Sister Marianne de Jesus Torres (who is associated with the prophecies entailed in Our Lady of Good Success) had this to say based on what Our Lady revealed to her: "'The Demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them. These {corrupted priests} who will thus scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all the priests. This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings to the good pastors of the Church, to the great majority of good priests, and to the Supreme Pastor and Vicar of Christ on earth {meaning the current Pope}, who...will shed secret and bitter tears in the presence of his God and Lord, beseeching light, sanctity, and perfection for all the Clergy of the world, of which he is the King and Father.'" (Birch, p. 327). There is much truth in this statement, but it also begs a question - as Pope Francis, the current Pontiff, is also somewhat controversial in some of his positions (thankfully not in matters of Magisterial authority!), does this mean that perhaps Francis may have a sort of revelation of his own and maybe will be the Pope to address and correct some of this mess? One can only hope. Sister Marianne then elaborates further these revelations, and this is quite eerie in its accuracy: "'Know, moreover, that Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations, not only for sins of the people but for those of Priests and religious persons. For the latter are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt and light of the earth, the masters of truth, and the deflectors of the Divine Ire. Straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they are the ones who quicken the rigor of the punishments. Because, detaching themselves from me, they end up living only a superficial life of the soul, maintaining a distance from Me that is unworthy of my Ministers. With their frigidity and lack of confidence, they act as if I were a stranger to them.'" (Birch, pp. 398-399). Apparently, due to this crisis in the priesthood foreseen by Sister Marianne, the Holy Spirit will then raise up faithful laypeople to be the intercessors for both the wayward priests to pray for their conversion and salvation, as Sr. Marianne continues: "'I am greatly pleased by religious souls that take upon themselves the sublime task of sanctifying the Clergy by means of their prayers, sacrifices, and penances. Throughout time I will choose for Myself such souls so that, uniting themselves to Me, they will labor, pray, and suffer for the attaining of this noblest end, with a special glory awaiting them in heaven.'" (Birch, p. 399). Interesting - the laity being called to intercede on behalf of the clergy! I see this as being twofold - first, the prayer for the salvation and conversion of the wayward clergy, but also for encouragement and protection of dedicated faithful clergy who may face a lot of opposition from corrupt Church leadership, some of whom warrant a conversion and repentance as well. That kind of relates to this current crisis in that some Cardinals and bishops have been covering up the misdeeds of their priests for decades, and some of them are so apostate themselves that they actually punish committed orthodox clergy who take their vocations seriously. Michael Rose notes several instances of this happening in Goodbye Good Men, where often orthodox candidates for Holy Orders are blackballed from certain seminaries. Conspiracy theorists and circulated rumor aside, it does seem as if some of this activity does go on, and if it is as prevalent as some say it is, then there needs to maybe be a pruning of the vine to trim off the "dead wood" of apostate clergy who are unrepentant of their sins. It also seems that there may be some merit to these allegations anyway, as a former communist, Bella Dodd, who later converted to the Catholic faith revealed something very disturbing, as is seen from her quote in the illustration below:
In other words, what St. Leo XIII saw was true, and Bella Dodd's confession of it is a confirmation. Thankfully, Dodd repented (via the ministry of Bishop Fulton Sheen) and was received back into the Church, and her story should be an encouragement, which we will get into shortly. However, first we need to see also where Scripture stands on this whole issue.
It is the Apostle St. Paul who instructed extensively, especially in the Thessalonian epistles, about the coming apostasy in the Church. One thing he notes is about a "great falling away" that would happen in the latter times, in which many would apostatize and the "son of perdition" would be revealed (II Thessalonians 2:3). That passage has been traditionally understood as referring to the Church specifically, and it also notes that this apostasy would precede the coming of an Antichrist. It also lines up with several of Jesus's own parables in the Gospels, in particular those which talk about sheep/goats, wheat/tares, good fish/bad fish, etc. The implication here, and as traditionally understood by the Church, is that the good and bad would exist together within the Church until a time when God would separate His faithful Remnant from the apostates. I have said in past things I have written about this that "Laodicea is on the broad road to Babylon," and what I meant by that is that complacency in spirituality inevitably leads to apostasy of faith. It combines and synthesizes several key areas of Scripture - Jesus's teaching about the "narrow way" of righteousness, as well as His rebuke through the Apostle St. John of the lukewarmness of the Laodicean church in the opening chapters of Revelation, followed by a discourse later in Revelation 17 I believe on the "whore that rides the Beast," as representing an apostate religious system called "Mystery Babylon." I may have understandably taken some eisogetic liberty with that, but it does concur with the context of the whole discussion in that it only takes compromise on a small area to lead to abandonment of faith on a large scale. Many Protestant Fundamentalists have capitalized on the "whore of Babylon" imagery to villify the entire Roman Catholic Church, and although of course they are wrong for the most part, there are actually some warnings to maybe take seriously. The Catholic Church, at least the Church embodied in the Magisterial teaching, is the Body of Christ, and therefore it is not the "whore of Babylon" described in Revelation. Rather, that allegorical imagery refers to an apostate religious system that may have the facade of the true Church externally, but it is at its core corrupt. No doubt many of its adherents will be apostate former Roman Catholics, but I also guarantee a number of equally apostate Protestants will also be part of it too - although the current crisis focuses on the Catholic Church, Protestants are by no means immune from this scandal either, as there have been many indiscretions committed by Protestant ministers over the years who have lost their way - I have seen it myself actually, being a former Protestant myself, and I grieve at some people I went to undergraduate studies with who at one time were passionate about their Christian faith but now have completely turned their back on it. Some of these former classmates of mine have turned to substance abuse, some have divorced their wives, and even a couple of them have embraced the homosexual lifestyle, which in itself is tragic - one in particular, a former classmate named Lance, even broke up his marriage to a beautiful lady who really loved him in order to pursue his own selfish lusts as a "gay" man, and he still masquerades as a minister today. People like these need prayers on a major scale. And, that leads to my concluding thoughts of encouragement and a challenge for us who are faithful Catholics to do the right thing in these trying times.
In reading the famed Parable of the Prodigal Son as found in Luke 15:11-32, one thing that sticks out is that unconditional love fosters a grace that can forgive anyone of anything. Despite how heinous one's sins are, what Jesus looks for is a contrite heart that seeks Him, and when someone displays that, Jesus can then extend His supernatural grace to elevate, heal, and perfect them. In noting the conversations I have seen on social media, a couple of things concern me. First, although many are understandably disillusioned with what has happened, I am distressed to hear professed Catholics saying that offending priests are not entitled to forgiveness. I am sorry, but that is NOT what the Church teaches nor is it what Scripture tells us - the Scriptural record actually says "seek, and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you..." (Matthew 7:7). We are also taught about forgiveness, and although that can be hard at times, there is a way that we can extend forgiveness. For one thing, it starts inwardly with prayers for those who come against us - we say that in one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, remember? As we pray that, we also pray for the grace to heal our own hurt, and as we do, we begin to have an attitude of forgiveness which must precede the action. No one logically expects someone to run out and shout to the top of their lungs "I forgive you!" as forgiveness must be received as well as forgiven. The person who is to receive forgiveness must want it and must accept it in other words, and it's up to the Holy Spirit to transform that person. Our duty is to work on ourselves, and we need to engender a culture of forgiveness that is first manifested in attitude, and then in action. A second thing that concerns me is the level of rumor and speculation you hear from professed Catholics - now, conspiracies are being bandied about that every bishop is somehow corrupt, and that every priest is a child molester, etc. That does a serious disservice to the thousands of faithful clergy who are sincerely carrying out their vocations, and we need to be careful not to break the Commandment that says "don't bear false witness." Our longsuffering faithful clergy are catching enough persecution from the secular press and a skeptical and increasingly anti-religious public, and they don't need people in the Church adding to that nonsense. Therefore, if you are one of those reading this who are giving into speculation and gossip, stop it, in Jesus' name!! By engaging in that, you are as guilty as the pedophile priests who are abusing others, and if you don't have a change, you too will face eternal damnation, especially if you partake of the Eucharist with that mentality. Instead of wasting time gossiping and speculating about priests and victims, you should be praying for both. That was a sharp kick in the groin I know, but it's necessary at this point. It is OK to be angry, and indeed justice must be done both to vindicate the innocent victims of these atrocities, but also there needs to be a level of grace and mercy we communicate to both perpetrators and victims in that they need to know Jesus loves them, and what has happened grieves Him as well. Mostly though, let's stick to facts and dismiss speculations and gossip, as it will do the most good to view these issues as objectively as possible. That being said, if one of the offending priests or bishops does have a conversion experience and expresses sincere contrition for what they have done, the Blood Christ shed is sufficient to cover all sins, and forgiveness is always given by Him to all who seek it. Although it also means that said offender must undergo a rehabilitation process - for instance, they should not be performing the duties of a priest or any other activities that may pose a potential problem - at the same time this will be a time of healing for them as well, and they must have our prayers too. As for the victims, they need to be reached out to in compassion and understanding, as there are many wounds that need healing. Some may be bitter against the Church, and in their condition, it is perfectly understandable. However, this is where our vocation as laity, in particular, comes into play, in that it is up to us to represent the true witness of the Church to such people in order to assure them that the Church itself is not the enemy and that she is there to embrace and heal the hurting as well.
I hope that my insights will help people have more clarity in these trying times for our Church, and also will both aid in straightening out speculation while at the same time encouraging a Christlike attitude toward both perpetrators and victims in this whole mess. I have my indignation as well at what has happened, and we are all working through this together as a Church, and it is our responsibility as faithful Catholics to support each other in these times, even when there are frank and uncomfortable discussions concerning events that have taken place. God bless until next time.
