The Prophetic Vision of Leo XIII Is Coming True in the Church Today. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

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church, leom xiii, profecy, viganò, vision

Marco Tosatti

Dear StilumCuriali readers, we would like to bring to your attention the homily delivered by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Enjoy reading and sharing it.

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DILIGIS ME?

On the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul

Si diligis me, pasce oves meas.

Non enim pascit oves qui non diligit Christum.

Mercenarius est qui non diligit, sed suum quærit,

non quæ Jesu Christi.

If you love me, feed my sheep.

For he who does not love Christ does not feed the sheep.

He is a hireling who does not love, but seeks his own interest,

not that of Jesus Christ.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

On today’s Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the Holy Church places before us the awesome mystery of the mandate entrusted by Our Lord to the Prince of the Apostles. To make amends for the threefold denial in the Praetorium, He asks Simon Peter for a threefold profession of love after appearing to the disciples on the Sea of Tiberias. Do you love me? Feed my lambs, feed my sheep (Jn 21:15–19). It is upon these words of the Master—together with those spoken at Caesarea Philippi, “You are Peter” (Mt 16:17–18)—that the Catholic Papacy is founded.

The Lord builds His Church upon Peter, commanding him to tend His flock and to love His Mystical Body and its Divine Head with the same supernatural love—Charity—that is unconditional and extends to laying down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:13). This is an intrinsically heroic mandatum, making Peter and his Successors the legitimate Vicars of Christ on earth; given its implications for the governance of the Church and the salvation of souls, it requires—as an indispensable condition—the consistent union of Truth and Charity. Such is the power God grants to a man; such is the royal and priestly authority Christ pours into the Papacy. Yet, the more the Supreme Pontiff distinguishes himself through his own individuality—the “good pope,” the “smiling pope,” the “globe-trotter pope,” the “theologian pope,” the “pope of the peripheries”—the less the voice of the Master echoes in his words.

Today, the order that the Divine Lawgiver willed for the Roman Papacy and His Church is being subverted by the very people sitting in the highest places of the institution. This betrayal is not concealed but brazenly flaunted, driven by the mad conviction that their goal is within reach, that they are but a short distance from their disastrous objective of dissolving the Catholic Church and replacing Her with a Masonic entity subservient to the Antichrist. As Pope Leo XIII wrote in his Exorcism: Ubi sedes beatissimi Petri, et Cathedra veritatis ad lumen gentium constituta est ibi thronum posuerunt abominationis et impietatis suæ; ut, percusso pastore, et gregem disperdere valeant – Where the Lord established the See of the Most Blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth to enlighten the nations, there His enemies have set up the throne of abomination and their own impiety, so that, having struck the Shepherd, they might scatter the Flock.

The prophetic words of Leo XIII’s vision may well have left his contemporaries dismayed and incredulous, and indeed so it was until the time of Pius XII. Yet, a century later, they are proving to be as unsettling as they are precise, complementing the warning given by the Most Holy Virgin at La Salette: Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist. And what is this, if not the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) and the Gospel itself (Mt 24:15 and Mk 13:14)? What is this abomination, if not the desolation of the Holy City (Rev 11:2) and the Great Harlot (Rev 17:1–18), seated upon the seven hills, drunk with the blood of the Saints, who symbolizes every form of apostasy and false religion that allies itself with political power against the Church?

Who else but the seat of the Antichrist and the throne of abomination would hurl excommunication at those Bishops who refuse to endorse Rome’s betrayal and who have been denouncing the Conciliar revolution for over sixty years? Could we Catholics ever conceive of a Pope, a Vicar of Christ, imposing canonical sanctions on those who challenge the heresies of Vatican II? Or of the entire episcopate endorsing and encouraging doctrinal and moral deviations, rather than vigorously opposing them?

A foolish shortsightedness leads many conservatives to take refuge in the precedents found in manuals written and conceived during times of normalcy, seeking there a solution to a crisis that is unique, Biblical, apocalyptic, and eschatological; and to categorically rule out the possibility that a heretic could lose the Papacy, and that one might merely resist him while still acknowledging his authority and power. They fail to grasp that the Divine Redeemer’s promise to Saint Peter – Portæ inferi non prævalebunt – presupposes a terrible conflict in which the Synagogue of Satan will seem to prevail, and the Catholic Church will be deemed dead. It presupposes a general apostasy affecting not only the lambs – that is, the neophytes and fragile, insecure Catholics – but the entire flock, with its shepherds maliciously replaced by hirelings and ferocious wolves. And it is terribly true: the powers of hell will certainly not prevail against the Church of Christ, yet they demonstrate that they have already taken over another church – or rather, another religion – that claims to be founded not on Peter, but on an ecumenical and synodal reinterpretation of the Papacy inspired by the Bergoglian document “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogues and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint.”

When Simon made his profession of faith – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16) – the Lord immediately replied: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17). Truth belongs to God, and only those who think and act according to God speak words of Truth. That is why Peter is blessed. Yet he is also homo peccator –a sinful man – by his own admission (Lk 5:8), deserving to be treated by the Lord just as the tempter in the desert was: “Get away from me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you do not think according to God, but according to men!” (Mt 16:23). And the primary way of thinking according to men is to reject the Cross: “Lord, may such a thing never happen to you!” (Mt 16:25).

But is it not precisely “thinking according to men,” contradicting the Cross and the Redeeming Sacrifice of Our Lord, to assert that all religions are paths leading to God? Is it not “thinking according to men” to claim, with Amoris Lætitia, that morality must adapt to human desires, and, with Fiducia Supplicans, that the Church must sanction the vilest vices rather than pointing out to souls the narrow path that leads to Heaven? Does it not render Our Lord’s Passion void to advocate for a “universal brotherhood” that disregards the Divine Fatherhood revealed in Christ?

The Church is certainly Holy and Indefectible. The Chair of Most Blessed Peter is Holy and Indefectible. But the indefectibility of the one invested with the Supreme Pontificate is not a sort of “autopilot” that compels the Pontiff to do and say what Our Lord wills. Free will allows him to respond to and cooperate with the action of the grace of state, but also to withdraw from it, refusing to fulfill God’s will and usurping His sacred authority for a purpose contrary to that established by Jesus Christ. This renders odious the authority of bishops who demand from the faithful an obedience that is good and legitimate only if the one exercising it is, in turn, submissive and obedient to the Head of the Mystical Body, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Making an idol out of obedience – that is, turning an ordained means into an end – represents an intolerable abuse by those who demand uncritical and servile assent from their subjects, precisely while they themselves evade the supreme authority of God and arrogate the right to decide which parts of the Depositum Fidei deserve preservation and which parts may be altered. Synodality – as articulated by Prevost in his numerous interventions – lays the doctrinal groundwork for the permanent revolution that will carry Vatican II to its ultimate consequences: the dissolution of the Catholic edifice as we know it. This is yet another battle being won by the gates of Hell, in a war where, in the end, those gates shall not prevail; where, in the end, the Immaculate Heart will triumph; where, in the end, the Antichrist will be slain by Saint Michael the Archangel; and where, in the end, Our Lord will cast Satan into the abyss. In the end. Yet in the meantime, while cowards lay down their arms and surrender to the enemy, others are achieving the final victory under the banner of Christ the King.

Who would not condemn a general who, possessing the arms and troops to defeat the adversary, deliberately prevented their use, abandoned his soldiers to their fate, and allowed the fortress to be sacked and devastated after throwing wide its otherwise impregnable gates? How could he be considered the legitimate representative of a sovereign whom he has utterly betrayed and whose royal titles he denies in order to curry favor with his enemies?

Recognizing the legitimacy of one who is usurping the Papacy in order to demolish it and destroy the Church along with it, transforms the Pontificate into a self-referential monstrum, turning it into the throne of abomination and every impiety, using the words of Leo XIII. It also contradicts Sacred Scripture, given that Our Lord Himself, in order to restore Peter to the role he had lost through his denial, required of him a threefold profession of Faith and Charity. If the apostasy of the lapsi during times of persecution could entail their exclusion from the ecclesial body and severe lifelong penance, what penance ought to be imposed upon popes and bishops who betray the Mandate they have received and apostatize from the Catholic Faith?

The Society of Saint Pius X is entirely justified in invoking the state of necessity to confer episcopal Consecrations without a papal mandate. And were their revered Founder still among us today, he would certainly regard these Consecrations as indispensable, not only for the survival of the Society but also, and above all, for the defense, on behalf of the whole Church, of the Depositum Fidei, the Priesthood, and the Catholic Mass, thereby ensuring an Apostolic Succession untainted by doubtful rites or heretical doctrines. Indeed, it would hardly be Catholic to show greater concern for one’s own Institute than for the entire ecclesial body, and the state of necessity invoked for the good of souls would lose its legitimacy were it to concern merely the salus Fraternitatis.

If Archbishop Lefebvre was already denouncing conciliar deviations during the time of John Paul II, today he would undoubtedly denounce the synodal apostasy with even greater vehemence. Yielding to Rome’s threats or blandishments has already proven to be a ruinous and losing course of action; the defectors who left for the Fraternity of St. Peter know this well, as the promises made to them before they departed Ecône have been largely left unfulfilled.

In the wake of Traditionis Custodes – which remains fully in force – it would be even more reckless to heed the call made by Cardinal Müller at the recent Consistory to replicate the coercive mechanism of the Ecclesia Dei Motu Proprio, which grants liturgical freedom in exchange for doctrinal and moral submission to Vatican II and its synodal iteration.

Once again, the fifth column of neo-modernism, represented by the Ratzingerian conservatism of certain well-known Princes of the Church, insists on the acceptance of the Council and the Montinian Mass as a conditio sine qua non for ecclesial communion. This echoes the words of Leo, who just a few days ago acknowledged that the threatened excommunication of the Society of Saint Pius X is not motivated by a canonical issue, but rather by a non-negotiable doctrinal reason: the acceptance of Vatican II and the synodal path. “All this I will give you, if you prostrate yourself and accept Vatican II and the Novus Ordo”

Saint Augustine comments on the words of the Gospel as follows: “Si diligis me, pasce oves meas. Not dixit: Pasce tuas, sed meas. Pasce ergo meas, si me diligis: non sicut tuas, sed sicut meas. Quære in eis Gloriam meam, non tuam; dominion meum non tuum; lucra mea, non tua.” – If you love me, feed my sheep. He did not say: Feed your sheep, but rather my sheep. Therefore feed my sheep, if you love me: not as if you considered them yours, but as mine. Seek in them my glory, not yours, my lordship, not your dominion; the souls I have redeemed, not your personal advantage.

Let us pray, dearly beloved brethren, for the Holy Church. Let us pray and prepare ourselves to fight for her, confronting the enemies who have infiltrated Her ranks and who today hold the wheel of the ship, steering the Barque of Peter toward the rocks. Let us publicly support those who are waging this battle with courage, often facing persecution and ostracization as a result. Let us not cease to proclaim the Gospel in its entirety, for the silence of so many, far too many, timid souls amounts to complicity and differs little from Peter’s denial: “I do not know Him.” May the Princes of the Apostles, in whose honor today we offer the Immaculate Victim to the Divine Majesty, accompany us during this time of trial and unveiling. Sancti Apostoli Petrus et Paulus, de quorum potestate et auctoritate confidimus, ipsi intercedant pro nobis ad Dominum. Amen.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Viterbo, 29 June MMXXVI

Ss.rum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum