Posted on 06/03/2022 9:00:24 AM PDT by ebb tide
As Christopher Ferrara described in his 2009 article in The Remnant, Fatima and Akita: A Fateful Concurrence, we have good reason to believe that the (still hidden) Third Secret of Fatima includes “essentially the same” message that Our Lady delivered in 1973 to Sister Agnes Sasagawa, in Akita, Japan:
“In [The Secret Still Hidden] I show that the former Cardinal Ratzinger, who conferred face-to-face with Bishop Ito in Rome concerning the Akita apparitions, told Howard Dee, the former Philippines Ambassador to the Vatican, that the Message of Fatima and the Message of Akita are ‘essentially the same.’ In that case, one would expect to find in the Fatima message something ‘essentially the same’ as the Akita message of October 13, 1973, the very anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima.”
Those who were charged with revealing the Third Secret of Fatima have been the same infiltrators who are attacking the Church from within.
In reading the message of Our Lady of Akita, we can understand why the popes have failed to reveal the actual Third Secret of Fatima:
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres . . . churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”
Those who were charged with revealing the Third Secret of Fatima have been the same infiltrators who are attacking the Church from within. This is what faithful Catholics have observed since Vatican II. Akita — and quite possibly Fatima, by extension — both confirm that we are seeing the reality in the Church correctly and that God wants us to combat the evils about which Our Lady warned.
This warning from Akita also includes the key to understanding the theological disasters that plague the Church: “the Church will be full of those who accept compromises.”
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how Vatican II’s progressives used the diligent efforts of the Council’s faithful bishops to advance their own objectives.
In his 1907 encyclical on Modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope St. Pius X detailed the way in which Modernists attempt to change Church teaching through the process of endless compromise. In this lengthy quote we see the blueprint for all the damage that Satan has inflicted on the Church though his anti-Catholic infiltrators:
“Hence, studying more closely the ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as resulting from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress, the other towards conservation. The conserving force in the Church is tradition, and tradition is represented by religious authority, and this both by right and in fact; for by right it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition, and, in fact, for authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs lies in the individual consciences and ferments there - especially in such of them as are in most intimate contact with life. Note here, Venerable Brethren, the appearance already of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the Church. Now it is by a species of compromise between the forces of conservation and of progress, that is to say between authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences of some of them act on the collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositaries of authority, until the latter consent to a compromise, and, the pact being made, authority sees to its maintenance.”
This process of compromise drives all the Modernists’ “changes and advances,” so we can understand why Our Lady of Akita emphasized this aspect of the crisis. While it is true that the role of the laity as a “factor of progress in the Church” has never been more pronounced than it is now with the preposterous Synod on Synodality, Satan’s progressive infiltrators achieved unprecedented victories at Vatican II through precisely the process of compromise described by St. Pius X.
Worse, the very existence of “compromise with error” in doctrinal matters undermines the immutable nature of the Faith.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how Vatican II’s progressives used the diligent efforts of the Council’s faithful bishops to advance their own objectives. Consider, for instance, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais’s biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in which he describes the orthodox clauses inserted into the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae:
“[T]he clauses included in Dignitatis Humanae on ‘the true religion’ or on the ‘just limits’ of religious liberty made it just about possible to interpret the eleven lines that strictly speaking were the declaration ( no. 2) in a Catholic manner, even if that was not the obvious meaning of the text, as the rest of the document makes clear.”
In one sense, one may argue that it is unambiguously good that the truly Catholic Council Fathers achieved the relative victory of inserting language in the document that “made it just about possible” to interpret the key passages in a Catholic manner. After all, faithful Catholics should always strive to promote truth as clearly and completely as possible, and adding some Catholic language to the document counterbalanced the heterodox meaning of the declaration’s key passages.
On the other hand, Satan and his progressive theologians knew how the document would actually be used — as we have seen, the progressives have used it and other Vatican II documents to promote their anti-Catholic agendas. The progressives also knew that their compromise in allowing some genuinely Catholic ideas in their progressive declaration would lend the indispensable element of credibility to the document and their subsequent initiatives. ‘See,” they can (and do) say, “this is the document approved by the Council, so it is Catholic teaching!”
The debates and the resulting compromises (erroneously) signaled to the world that the Church had abandoned its insistence on the immutable nature of the Faith.
Worse, the very existence of “compromise with error” in doctrinal matters undermines the immutable nature of the Faith. Even if the progressives had not achieved any other victory at the Council, this would have sufficed to make it an absolute disaster for the Church. Thus, Fr. Yves Congar declared the success of Vatican II in overturning the “inflexibility of the system”:
“By the frankness and openness of its debates, the Council has put an end to what may be described as the inflexibility of the system. We take ‘system’ to mean a coherent set of codified teachings, casuistically-specified rules of procedure, a detailed and very hierarchic organization, means of control and surveillance, rubrics regulating worship — all this is the legacy of scholasticism, the Counter-reformation and the Catholic Restoration of the nineteenth century, subjected to an effective Roman discipline. It will be recalled that Pius XII is supposed to have said: ‘I will be the last Pope to keep all this going.’”
Congar attributed this great success to the “frankness and openness” of the Vatican II debates. The debates and the resulting compromises (erroneously) signaled to the world that the Church had abandoned its insistence on the immutable nature of the Faith.
So by “fighting the good fight,” the faithful Catholic bishops ended up making the documents somewhat more Catholic on the one hand and immensely more lethal on the other. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to discern what they could have done instead to protect the Faith. If they had walked out, the Council would have gone on without them.
We have to make it clear that we are Catholic and will not be among those about whom Our Lady warned — the vast numbers filling the Church who accept compromises with Satan’s infiltrators.
All of this has new relevance with Francis’s Synod on Synodality. Satan and the other Synod leaders want to push the Conciliar Church further away from orthodoxy, as the recent Remnant TV video illustrated. Unsurprisingly, the Synod is the cartoonish embodiment of the Modernist process of compromise described by St. Pius X above:
“Note here, Venerable Brethren, the appearance already of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the Church. Now it is by a species of compromise between the forces of conservation and of progress, that is to say between authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences of some of them act on the collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositaries of authority, until the latter consent to a compromise, and, the pact being made, authority sees to its maintenance.”
Whereas at Vatican II the “forces of conservation” were men like Cardinal Ottaviani, Archbishop Lefebvre, and Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer, those who espouse “rigid” Catholic views today are not even welcome at the Synod. What, then, can be done in the face of the universal acceptance of compromise of which Our Lady of Akita warned?
One year after the apparitions of Akita, and fourteen years before the 1988 episcopal consecrations that led to the division of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and the Ecclesia Dei groups, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre issued his famous “1974 Declaration,” which is worth quoting in its entirety because it has never been more important than it is today:
“We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.
We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.
All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.
No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.
‘But though we,’ says St. Paul, ‘or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema’ (Gal. 1:8).
Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.
It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.
The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.
That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.
That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.
By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.”
Regardless of our positions on Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX, there appears to be no better position to adopt today than the one he declared in 1974. We have to make it clear that we are Catholic and will not be among those about whom Our Lady warned — the vast numbers filling the Church who accept compromises with Satan’s infiltrators. If we could unite with one voice, with that same Faith and courage that Archbishop Lefebvre displayed in his 1974 declaration, we could drown out the cartoon madmen seeking to destroy the Church and world. If we cannot do that, Satan and his Synodal facilitators will use our silence of compromises to inflict even more damage on the Church and world. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
“‘But though we,’ says St. Paul, ‘or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema’ (Gal. 1:8).
“Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.”
__________
By “Holy Father”, is the author referring to the Vicar of Christ on Earth, or to the Bishop of Rome?
Asking for a friend.
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