Steve79, I have often wondered if we would enter the “danger zone” after Pope Benedict’s death. Iow, it’s up to us if we welcome the Antichrist quickly or years from now. If you tie this into the Warning it makes sense too. We are going to be given a sort of wake up call with the Warning. I suppose like you have stated we will see.
I just saw that the readings for Pope Benedict’s Funeral Mass were released. I’ve quickly read them and they are really quite beautiful. I’m assuming these are the reading he selected himself. Given his holiness and such profound theological depth, I plan to read and reflect upon these more in coming days. I’ve copied them in here should others be so inclined. Is 29: 16-19 Your perversity is as though the potter were taken to be the clay: As though what is made should say of its maker, “He did not make me!” Or the vessel should say of the potter, “He does not understand.” Surely, in a very little while, Lebanon shall be changed into an orchard, and the orchard be considered a forest. On that day the deaf shall hearthe words of a scroll; And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The lowly shall again find joy in the LORD, the poorest rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 1Peter 1: 3-9 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time. In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of [your] faith, the salvation of your souls. Luke 23: 39-46 Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...ope_emeritus_benedict_xvi&utm_term=2023-01-03
Amazing . Wonderful. A message from beyond the grave! The bad guys are about to get their asses kicked!
Wow… just read them again.., such a reflection of a holy, humble, and faithful man. These reading speak so much to me. As Padraig said, from the grave, PE Benedict is still teaching and guiding. These readings give me hope, encouragement, and faith. Thank you God for the Servant you provided to your Church. I pray he is now with His Jesus whom with his last breath proclaimed his love.
Pleased and surprised to see Cardinal Zen will be at funeral https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14807247
https://casorosendi.com/2022/04/14/fatima-and-the-two-popes/ the writer of the above article claims that pope francis is an antipope and the vision of Fatima of the third secret doesn't mention a pope but rather a bishop dressed in white .
I believe that Pope Francis is our Pope but I was wondering if there was a change in policy to allow mentioning that he might not be. Sorry I don't mean to cause division. Just wondering.
Okay. There may have been 40 something antipopes in the history of the Church but I believe that is something for the Hierarchy and future Church to decide.
TO be honest I would not be too sure about anything at the moment. I used to be certain but these are unprecedented times. I am certain about the Truths of the Faith. However I am not the least sure about the people who are supposed to defend them, including the present Pope. I think the Church as she was for the Last 2,000 years is about to cease to exist. She will continue to exist but in different ways and forms. She is about to become small again and reenter the Catacombs. As Pope Benedict Prophicised.
I believe the Persecution will be so severe and Worldwide it will seem like the Church has ceased to exist. Ordinary Catholics will have no idea of whether there is even a Pope or not. https://aleteia.org/2016/06/13/when-cardinal-joseph-ratzinger-predicted-the-future-of-the-church/ When Father Joseph Ratzinger Predicted the Future of the Church Way before becoming pope, or even a prelate, Ratzinger laid it out in a 1969 broadcast on German radio for all to hear ... He didn’t pretend he could tell the future. No. He was much too wise for that. As a matter of fact, he tempered his initial remarks with this disclaimer: “Let us, therefore, be cautious in our prognostications. What St. Augustine said is still true: man is an abyss; what will rise out of these depths, no one can see in advance. And whoever believes that the Church is not only determined by the abyss that is man, but reaches down into the greater, infinite abyss that is God, will be the first to hesitate with his predictions, for this naïve desire to know for sure could only be the announcement of his own historical ineptitude.” But his era, brimming with existential danger, political cynicism and moral waywardness, hungered for an answer. The Catholic Church, a moral beacon in the turbulent waters of its time, had recently experienced certain changes of its own with adherents and dissenters alike wondering, “What will become of the Church in the future?” 10 Pithy and Potent Quotes from Pope Benedict And so, in a 1969 German radio broadcast, Father Joseph Ratzinger would offer his thoughtfully considered answer. Here are his concluding remarks, “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are! “How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future. “Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship. “The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. “And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death. The Catholic Church will survive in spite of men and women, not necessarily because of them. And yet, we still have our part to do. We must pray for and cultivate unselfishness, self-denial, faithfulness, Sacramental devotion and a life centered on Christ.
SO we are entering a time when all cards will be off the table, so to speak. A whole new ball game. This is what Our Lady meant when she spoke of the, 'End of Times' at Garabandal. She did not mean the End of the World but the End of an Era.
If the worst punishment God can send to the Church is bad priests then what kind of punishment level are we looking at to have no "Peter" While we are in the catacombs? No wonder Malachi Martinsaid that in such an event (the antichrist powers capturing the papacy) we must put on sackcloth and ashes and beg God to save us lest our faith be shredded. He said it would try the faith of the greatest saints.
A few excerpts from a traditional Catholic website that also refers to an interview with Msgr. Georg Gänswein by La Repubblica: Ezio Mauro asked: in the years of Benedict XVI's pontificate, the years of Vatileaks, the abuse scandal, the Vatican Bank IOR, "did you feel the presence of the devil?" "I felt him very much in the opposition to Pope Benedict," Gänswein replied. ...The Repubblica interview, published under the title "In the Vatican, the devil acted against Benedict XVI"...Gänswein stresses above all, and for the umpteenth time, that Benedict XVI's resignation did not take place under any kind of blackmail. His resignation from office was "free" and was dictated by a personal assessment of Ratzinger, who was no longer physically able to continue in office. Many of Benedict XVI's friends did not agree at all with this decision, not even Gänswein himself, as he says in the same interview. The election of Pope Francis in the 2013 conclave, convened to end the sedis vacante following Benedict XVI's resignation, was repeatedly described as revenge by that "party" that had been defeated in the 2005 conclave, if you can call it that. Msgr. Gänswein himself said Benedict XVI's election was the result of "a dramatic struggle between the so-called 'salt of the earth' party around Cardinals López Trujíllo, Ruini, Herranz, Rouco Varela and Medina and the so-called St. Gall group around Cardinals Danneels, Martini, Silvestrini, Kasper, Lehmann and Murphy-O'Connor" https://katholisches.info/2023/01/03/diese-teufel-im-vatikan-greifen-benedikt-an/
https://www.voanews.com/a/benedict-aide-s-tell-all-book-will-expose-dark-maneuvers-/6901858.html Benedict Aide's Tell-all Book Will Expose 'Dark Maneuvers' VATICAN CITY — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's longtime personal secretary has written a tell-all book that his publisher on Monday promised would tell the truth about the "blatant calumnies," "dark maneuvers," mysteries and scandals that sullied the reputation of a pontiff best known for his historic resignation. Archbishop Georg Gaenswein's Nothing but the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI is being published this month by the Piemme imprint of Italian publishing giant Mondadori, according to a press release. Benedict died Saturday at age 95 and his body was put on display Monday in St. Peter's Basilica ahead of a Thursday funeral to be celebrated by his successor, Pope Francis. Gaenswein, a 66-year-old German priest, stood by Benedict's side for nearly three decades, first as an official working for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then starting in 2003 as Ratzinger's personal secretary. Gaenswein followed his boss to the Apostolic Palace as secretary when Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005. And in one of the most memorable images of Benedict's final day as pope Feb. 28, 2013, Gaenswein wept as he accompanied Benedict through the frescoed halls of the Vatican, saying goodbye. He remained Benedict's gatekeeper, confidant and protector during a decade-long retirement, while also serving until recently as the prefect of Francis' papal household. It was Gaenswein who performed the anointing of the sick last Wednesday, when Benedict's health deteriorated, and it was he who called Francis on Saturday to tell him that Benedict had died. According to Piemme, Gaenswein's book contains "a personal testimony about the greatness of a mild man, a fine scholar, a cardinal and a pope who made the history of our time." But it said the book also contained a firsthand account that would correct some "misunderstood" aspects of the pontificate as well as the machinations of the Vatican. "Today, after the death of the pope emeritus, the time has come for the current prefect of the papal household to tell his own truth about the blatant calumnies and dark maneuvers that have tried in vain to cast shadows on the German pontiff's magisterium and actions," the press release said. Gaenswein's account would "finally make known the true face of one of the greatest protagonists of recent decades, too often unjustly denigrated by critics as 'Panzerkardinal' or 'God's Rottweiler,'" it said, referring to some common media nicknames for the German known for his conservative, doctrinaire bent. Specifically, the publisher said Gaenswein would address the "Vatileaks" scandal, in which Benedict's own butler leaked his personal correspondence to a journalist, as well as clergy sex abuse scandals and one of the enduring mysteries of the Vatican, the 1983 disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, Emanuela Orlandi. The book appears to be just part of what is shaping up as a postmortem media blitz by Gaenswein, including the release Monday of excerpts of a lengthy interview he granted Italian state RAI television last month that is to be broadcast Thursday after the funeral. According to the excerpts published by La Repubblica newspaper, Gaenswein recounted how he tried to dissuade Benedict from resigning after the then-pope told him in late September 2012 that he had made up his mind. That was six months after Benedict took a nighttime fall during a visit to Mexico and determined he no longer could handle the rigors of the job. "He told me: 'You can imagine I have thought long and hard about this, I've reflected, I've prayed, I've struggled. And now I'm communicating to you that a decision has been taken, it's not up for discussion,'" Gaenswein recalled Benedict saying. Gaenswein also referred to the struggles, scandals and problems Benedict faced during his eight-year pontificate, recalling he had asked for prayers at the start to protect him from the "wolves" who were out to get him. Gaenswein cited in particular the "Vatileaks" betrayal, which resulted in the butler being convicted by the Vatican tribunal, only to be pardoned by the pope two months before his resignation. "Anyone who thinks there can be a calm papacy has got the wrong profession," he said.
