POPE'S ASTONISHING POWER HAS CHANGED THE WORLD

From where I sit, Pope John Paul II is just across Lake Ontario. I'm visiting family in Niagara Falls, and from here you can nearly feel his power. It is not a political power. It's not so much a cultural force. It's a spiritual power -- a holy power. John Paul is the most powerful man on earth not because he controls an army or even because he leads a Church with more than one billion members, but because he is surrounded by the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit has descended on him because his life has been one of prayer, longsuffering, and sacrifice. Men cry in his presence -- uncontrollably. Women say they can feel his presence before he's even visible. Youths cheer as if the 82-year-old were a rock star. And the world has been changed by his presence. He has changed the world.

This is something the press doesn't like to report: that Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope John Paul II, has affected mankind more than any other person in at least a century. Although we are quick to forget, for much of the twentieth century mankind lived under the constant threat of Communist Russia (as forecast at Fatima) and it was only through the intervention of John Paul II -- who prayed, who fasted, who directed Lech Walesa -- that Communism fell. Think of this: the man who was shot on the Fatima anniversary day of May 13, 1981, and whose shooting seemed presaged by the famous third secret and who himself became instrumental in releasing the third secret then became the instrument through which Communism -- the key concern at Fatima -- was defeated (at least in Europe and at least for the time being).

The greatest nemesis to Christianity, the red dragon -- which threatened to conquer the world and which threatened to annihilate our very belief in God -- was staved off by this heroic man due to his consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart and through the purity of his life, which proves the power of celibacy.

Celibacy is like fasting and with fasting we can stop wars and even suspend the laws of nature.

This is what Karol Wojtyla, the Pope of the Fatima secret, has done, and it is a lesson to all the Church at a time when many question the issue of celibacy. Granted, one does not have to be celibate to be holy. There are married ministers and Orthodox priests who exude goodness -- and who have been heroic. There are married saints.

But the power behind John Paul II goes beyond what we see anywhere else, and as a result, he is subject to attack. There are those who dissent from him, who ridicule his age, or who defame him. This happens among radical Catholics as well as protestants (some of whom make the absurd, demented claim that he is the "anti-christ"; we saw one such radical website slip an article through our own net). In other cases, as with the media, they simply ignore his accomplishments.

But such is the power of John Paul that even those who don't attend church, or are not even Catholic, know he is the essence of goodness, a close link to God, a very close link, and he is this example to us all: that with self-sacrifice, with prayer and fasting, anything can be done, whether in our own lives or across this troubled planet. And it is through that self-immolation -- which continues with every labored step he takes -- that John Paul comes about as close as a human can to a state of perfection.

You write, "There have been many instances in the past when morals have degenerated and clergy led dissolute lives...during those times the 'Mass of all ages,' as ultima and friends label it, was the normative liturgy."

Since you mention my name twice on that post, though you don't wish an exchange, I'll answer you. Respond or not as you wish.

Your focus on the immorality which I described in passing misses my point. It is merely a symptom of something far worse: a loss of the Catholic faith. Except for the Arian crisis there has never been a time like this when the faith itself is being attacked from within the Church itself. Here is what the preeminent liturgist of the twentieth century, Msgr. Klaus Gamber, had to say in "Reform of the Roman Liturgy":

"Great is the confusion! Who can see clearly in such darkness? Where in the Church are the leaders who can show the right path? Where are the bishops courageous enough to cut out the cancerous growth of modernist theology that has implanted itself and is festering within the celebration of even the most sacred mysteries, before the cancer spreads and causes even further damage? What we need today is a new Athanasius, a new Basil, bishops like those who in the fourth century fought courageously against Arianism when almost the whole of Christendom had succumbed to heresy."

Like now, the whole of Christendom had diverged from traditional belief. Even so great a saint as Athanasius was excommunicated by a weak pope who succumbed to Arian pressures. It has all happened before. Here is how Cardinal Newman described those times in his treatise "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine.":

"The body of bishops failed in their confession of the Faith...They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicea, of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years. There were untrustworthy Councils, unfaithful bishops; there was weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless, hopeless, extending into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church. The comparatively few who remained faithful were discredited and driven into exile; the rest were either deceivers or deceived."

Many on this site have said I am not any longer a Catholic. But what if I am the one holding on to the Faith while all of you have just gone along with the flow, deceived by those in high places whom you trust? It isn't as if traditional Catholicism were buried under the detritus of a thousand years. Only a relatively few years ago these huge changes and novelties were introduced which rocked the Catholic world. If they were good, wouldn't you expect more positive results than tides of scandal and general collapse? On the other hand, go into any traditional church and you will hear the Gospel preached as it has been preached in Catholic Churches since time immemorial. If the Pope and his hierarchy move away from traditional Catholic teachings, does that make them right? Not at all.

If these were normal times, anyone would be a fool not to follow the pope rather than his own reasoning. But these are not normal times. The faith is collapsing in the West. In such a time, all we have to hold onto are the traditional truths that have been taught by the Catholic Church for 2000 years.

"If anyone, myself, or even an angel come down from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than what I have preached, let him be anathama."
--St. Paul to the Galatians.

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