PARALLELS BETWEEN THE APOSTASY OF ISRAEL IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE APOSTASY OF THE VATICAN 11 CHURCH

INTRODUCTION

A wise man has noted that the history of mankind is the history of repeating old mistakes. In 1962 (October) a group of Cardinals, archbishops and bishops, with the support of some modernist theologians advising them inaugurated a revolution in the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council, on the watch of Pope John XX111. We are still living the consequences of this revolution: universal apostasy from the Catholic faith, pursuit of false ecumenism, replacement of conversion with dialogue and an adaptation of Church institutions to the standards of this world. Who inspired this revolution within the Church? Satan. He is the eternal rebel, the instigator of every act of disobedience to God and His established order, the inventor and master of all deceit. He it is who always instigates man to disobey God, reject God’s governance and do things his own way. His cry before his expulsion from heaven: ‘Non serviam!’ continues to reverberate through all history.

At Vatican 11 Satan tempted Catholic leaders. We can see a parallel in this temptation with his temptation of the Israelites to reject God’s direct governance(theocracy) and accept monarchical form of government. God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and by the hands of Moses led them through the Red Sea. To achieve this He inflicted a heavy damage on the Egyptians due to the stubbornness of the Pharaoh. He led them into the promised land—a land flowing with milk and honey. He overthrew many powerful kings and nations for their sake, so that they will live in peace and security. He warned them against unhealthy associations with godless and pagan nations, so that their religion will not be contaminated, but may remain pure. He wanted them to be one, holy nation, under one God. Through them He intended to bring other nations to the worship of the one, true God. He ruled them through the judges: Moses, Joshua, Deborah (Jgs.4:4), Gideon, Abimelech, Thola, Jephte, Samson, Samuel, etc. To maintain purity of worship and unity of cult He chose priests to minister before Him in Shiloh, and later, Jerusalem. This ensured that the people had a central place where they could gather at different times of the year to participate in religious festivals.

The important point to note is that while Israel was a theocracy, religious tradition was maintained, the law of Moses was observed and the sense of God’s presence was always felt. Then the temptation came. Satan tempted them to desire a change of government: ‘Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel to Ramatha. And they said to him: Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have’(1 Kings 8:4). When Samuel complained to God about this request of the people God said: ‘Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee.  For they have not rejected thee, but Me, that I should not reign over them’(1 Kings 8:7).

Israel, God’s chosen people, rejected God reigning over them because they wanted to be like others. They reasoned: Why can we not have kings like other nations around us? Why should our ways continue to be different? Let us be like others. Let us do away with this exclusivity and apartness. When we are like others, we can enter into meaningful dialogue, cooperation and alliances with them for our mutual peace and happiness. Other nations are laughing at us because we have no kings as they do. They think we are queer. We will enjoy many advantages when we lower our standards to meet up with theirs...

To make sure that the people had a clear idea of the implications of their choice, God asked Samuel to warn them: ‘But the people would not hear the voice of Samuel, and they said: Nay: but there shall be a king over us’(1kgs8:19). God has created us with freewill. He sets fire and water before us and allows us to make a choice. If we make a wrong choice He allows us to suffer its effects. Perhaps, we might realise our errors and return to Him.

The people got their wish. Saul became the first King and he ended up in disaster, rejected by God who originally chose him, and dying in battle. David succeeded him. Although he took Uriah’s wife and had him murdered(cf. ii kings 11and 12) he was Israel’s best King. In his days there was civil war in Israel and unrest and mutiny within the royal family. A lot of blood was shed. These are all part of the consequences of Israel’s desire for a King in opposition to God’s will. There was a time of confusion, unrest, harassment and dangers for many in the land. At the death of David his son, Solomon, succeeded him. Despite all his wisdom and good qualities(such as building a temple for the worship of the true God in Jerusalem, and promotion of the Divine cult), he ended up in disgrace. He fell into disobedience to God’s laws, incontinence, idolatry and attempted murder. Again he imposed heavy taxation on his people to maintain his grandiose palace. In iii kings 11:1ff it is written: ‘And King Solomon loved many strange women besides the daughter of Pharaoh, and women of Moab, and of Ammon, and of Edom, and of Sidon, and of the Hethites. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said to the children of Israel: You shall not go in unto them, neither shall any of them come in to yours: FOR THEY WILL MOST CERTAINLY TURN AWAY YOUR HEARTS TO FOLLOW THEIR GODS. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: And the women turned away his heart. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. But Solomon worshipped Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites...’

Thus Solomon became a great ecumenist, to the disadvantage of the true faith. He wanted to create alliances, and to be one with all people. He wanted to bridge the gap between the exclusivity of the chosen people and other nations. He was ready to trample on the sacred traditions of Israel in order to please the nations and become one with them. To achieve this he committed religious fornication, offering incense to false deities to please those who worshipped them, and to appear as a great and respected world leader.

Solomon was succeeded by his son, Rehoboam, a young man brought up in the corrupt environment of his father’s court. Under him ten Israelite tribes rebelled, forming the Northen Kingdom under Jeroboam, with a capital in Samaria. Under the reign of Rehoboam, ‘Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and provoked him above all that their fathers had done, in their sins which they committed. For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves upon every high hill and under every green tree: there were also the effeminate in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the people whom the Lord had destroyed before the face of all the children of Israel.’(iii.kgs 14:22-24). Note that during the reign of Rehoboam, homosexuality became popular(the ‘effeminate’) and idolatry spread.

Things fared worse in the northern kingdom. Jeroboam was a complete apostate and led his people into apostasy. He stopped the custom of holding Jerusalem as a centre of worship, and of going there to offer sacrifices, and set up two golden calves. For him any type of prayer is prayer, no matter what one is praying to, and any type of worship is worship, no matter what one is worshipping. Thus, Jeroboam became the father of religious indifferentism. In iii kings 12:28-30 we read: ‘Go ye up no more to Jerusalem: Behold thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan: and this thing became an occasion of sin: for the people went to adore the calf as far as Dan.’ All the 18 kings who succeeded Jeroboam on the throne continued with the apostasy.

One of the symptoms of the apostasy from the true faith was the multiplication of false visionaries in the land. When King Ahab was preparing for battle against Syria, 400 false prophets saw flattering visions for him and encouraged him to go into battle against the Syrians. Only one, Micheas, who is hardly consulted because he was a true visionary, not a praise-singing prophet, predicted disaster and warned the king against fighting the Syrians. He was ordered put in prison and fed on the bread of affliction, and water of distress. (iii kgs 22:1ff) Ahab died in battle. In 721 B.C, Salmanasar, king of Assyria, destroyed the northern kingdom and took away its inhabitants as captives. He brought in foreigners to settle in the land. Chapter 17 of the 4^th book of Kings makes it clear that this is a punishment allowed by God for their apostasy and rebellion against Him: ‘And they worshipped strange gods. And they walked according to the way of the nations...And the children of Israel offended the Lord their God with things that were not right...and they did wicked things, provoking the Lord. And they worshipped abominations, concerning which the Lord had commanded them that they should not do these things...And they rejected His ordinances and the covenant that He made with their fathers,...and they followed vanities, and acted vainly...’

God sent to them prophets and seers from the days of Jeroboam until their captivity, warning them to forsake their evil practices and return to God. But the warnings of these true prophets were rejected.

The southern kingdom of Judah did not fare better. Unlike in Israel however, some of their kings were good men: Asa, Josaphat, Hezekias and Josias. But they had bad kings such as Rehoboam, Abiam, Ochozias, Achaz, Manasseh, Amon, Joachaz, Joachim and Zedechias. (Judah had 18 kings in all) Manasseh was the worst of all the kings of Judah. He built pagan altars within the house of God in Jerusalem, including altars for all the host of heaven. He used divination and observed omens, appointed pythons and multiplied soothsayers. He also shed much innocent blood. He gave scandal and encouraged his subjects to rebel against God. In his days God promised to allow Jerusalem to be destroyed by their enemies, and punish the inhabitants of Judah. God also promised to leave only a remnant—‘the remnants of my inheritance’(iv.kgs21:14).

In 583 B.C the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon. The magnificent temple built and sumptuously furnished by Solomon was burnt to the ground, including the royal palace. Treasures of the temple were taken away to Babylon. Many lost their lives and others became captives. King Zedechias, the 18^th and last king of Judah underwent the torture of seeing his sons killed in his presence in Babylon, and then his eyes were plucked out. (cf. iv.kgs25:7) Israel and Judah ended up having false shepherds who misled them and finally brought misfortune on their subjects.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Catholic Church was instituted by Jesus Christ as the new Israel. Christ purchased her at the price of His Precious Blood shed during the passion. Organized in this world as a visible society she is governed by the pope who is the vicar of Jesus Christ, and the successor  of the apostle Peter. Just as the Israelites of old were saved from bondage in Egypt and led through the Red Sea to the promised land, so Christ has delivered us from the bondage of the devil and from sin, washed us in the waters of baptism and led us into the promised land which is the Catholic Church—a land flowing with milk and honey. The Catholic Church is the Ark of salvation. Outside the Catholic Church no one can be saved. In her is contained all that is necessary for salvation: the seven sacraments, scripture and sacred Tradition, holy doctrines, etc. As the Israelites of old constituted the kingdom of God on earth so does the Catholic Church. St. Peter speaking to Catholics says: ‘But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare His virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light’(i. Pet2:9).

Like Israel of old the Catholic Church received from God the mission to convert the nations from their false religions to the one true religion which is the Catholic Church(cf.Mt.28:19-20; Mk.16:15-18). Up to the time of the Second Vatican Council Catholic missionaries were to be found all over the world doing just that. She is the only true religion founded by God Himself. Therefore others are false: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Protestantism, Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, the many traditional religions, etc. Their followers, in order to be saved, must abandon these religions, repent of their sins, submit to the authority of the Catholic Church and be baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Catholics are those who are baptised, profess the same faith and submit to the Roman Pontiff as the visible head of the Church. Catholic teachings are uncompromising. She is radically exclusivist, because her divine founder is a jealous God! According to the teaching of St. Paul: ‘Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore, go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: And I will receive you; and will be a Father to you; and you shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (ii.Cor.6:14-18).

Catholics are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt.5:13-16). Christ is the Head of the Church and the pope is His vicar on earth. The gods of the heathens are devils (cf.Psa.134:15). Rome is the new Jerusalem, being the seat of the pope. The Church is divided into dioceses governed by bishops who are in union with the pope. The Roman Catholic Church is therefore a divinely instituted monarchy as well as being a form of theocracy. The pope is not an absolute monarch. He governs only in the name of Christ whose vicar he is. The bishops receive their powers from the pope. It is the best organized institution on earth and the most enduring, because of its divine origin.

VATICAN 11

The decision of Pope John XX111 to call the Second Vatican Council was a temptation; a bait offered by the devil who had already prepared the ground for his foot-soldiers to hijack the Council and re-direct the ship of the Church to a new, uncharted course. As soon as the Council convened on October 13, 1962 Satan presented his temptation to leaders of the Church through the agency of his partisans: a small but determined group of modernists. The temptation went along these lines: The world is changing, and we cannot afford to remain exclusivist and triumphalist. We must go out and meet the men and women of our age on their own ground. Let us convince others that we are one with them so that they may accept us as equal partners in the search for world peace and prosperity. We must keep away this old insistence that only us have the truth, and appear to the people of our age as enlightened Catholics who have come to realise that all men, including Catholics, are in a continual search for the truth. We must stop teaching that ‘Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.’ That is outdated theology. We must now pursue ecumenism with our separated brethren in order to achieve unity in reconciled diversity! Not conversion and return to the Catholic Church. People are generally good. So there is no need to continue the old methods of missionary zeal. What we need today is dialogue with the followers of other religions. This dialogue is more important today than conversion. Conversion shows that my religion is superior to yours. Therefore I make effort to get you abandon yours and join mine. This is antiquated arrogance which will not go down well with men of our age! We need to engage in dialogue as equals, and acknowledge all that is good in other religions. We must no longer condemn anybody. In fact, we must now become champions of religious liberty. In this way we shall be accepted as partners in progress and we can cooperate in the effort to achieve world peace. We need to do away with the teaching that error has no right to exist, to be promoted, or to be practised. Our Council must proclaim freedom of religion. Catholic states whose constitutions protect the Catholic religion as the state religion must change them. We must now acknowledge the right of everybody to worship whatever type of god he pleases. This will prove to the world that we are enlightened. This Council must change our liturgy. The traditional Latin Mass is too exclusivist and triumphalist. Why should we continue to say Mass in Latin, facing the altar? We must make it more people-centred so that we can move closer to the Protestants. This will promote ecumenism. All our religious orders and institutes need to change their constitutions and adapt them to the modern world. We need to be loved, welcomed and accepted by the world in which we live. We need to be seen as co-operators with all men of goodwill in the pursuit of integral humanism. This is the time to emphasize what unites us with other men. We must emphasize all that is positive in human culture, and avoid condemnations...

The new ideas proposed by the liberals triumphed at the Council. There were voices of reason who warned about the implications of these new orientations for the Catholic faith. But like Prophet Samuel of old, they were shouted down. Again, like in the case of the old Israelites, God allowed human freewill which rejected Him to run its course. This liberal orientation became official policy in December 1965 when pope Paul V1 signed the ambiguously-worded documents of Vatican 11. In 1969 he effectively suppressed the Tridentine Mass and imposed the Novus Ordo Mass.

CONSEQUENCES

Since then we have seen the multiplication of evils within the Church. The hierarchy has led the way in the apostasy of millions from the Catholic faith. We have seen popes shying away from teaching the integral Catholic faith. We have seen them pray together with Jews in their Synagogues, Moslems in their Mosques, Protestants in their prayer—houses, and pagans in their shrines. We have seen them defend morality based on natural law without defending the Catholic faith which acts as a strong motive to keep the natural law in the first place. We have read their encyclicals in which they had spoken in general terms without defending the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation, baptism, and submission to the Roman pontiff. We have witnessed popes, bishops and priests celebrate scandalous masses: facing the people, with one altar cloth instead of three, without relics on the altar, no crucifix but an empty cross with the image of the Risen Christ, lay readers, altar-girls, indecently-dressed men and women, communion received standing and in the hand, hugging and kissing at mass, or exchanging handshakes. We have witnessed the lack of reverence, loss of the sense of the presence of God, poor catechetical formation. We have listened to their empty sermons designed to offend no one. We have seen them use doubtful words of consecration, and equally doubtful matter. We have seen priests and their congregations singing choruses, clapping and dancing to the beating of drums and gospel band.

Like in the time of King Manasseh of Judah, we have seen tables set in opposition to the traditional Catholic altar in our Churches. Abominations are effected on this new altar of the people, set up in opposition to the one altar of God.

We have also witnessed the multiplication of false teachers, false prophets, false apparitions and false visionaries, just like in the days of the apostate, King Ahab. In the days of Pope John Paul 11(1978-2005) they mushroomed all over the world. Claiming to be inspired by God or Our Lady, they sang the praises of John Paul 11, promoted the cult of his personality, presented him as ‘Mary’s pope,’ ‘the chosen one,’ ‘Our Lady’s beloved son,’ etc. Such false visionaries included Veronica Lueken of Bayside, New York, Dr. Mary Jane Even of Lincoln, Nebraska, the two Patricks in Ireland, Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests and a host of others. They encouraged adherence to the teachings of John Paul 11 and presented him as a great missionary pope. All these were lies. We all know that John Paul 11’s papacy was the most scandalous in the Vatican 11 period. He was the first pope to enter a Mosque and pray with Moslems, having removed his shoes as in Islamic custom. He was the first pope to pray with Jews in the Synagogue and bowed his head as they prayed for the coming of their Messiah. He scandalised Catholics further by giving communion in the hand, allowing altar girls and having them serve his mass, inviting the leaders of all religions to Assisi, 1986 to pray to their various deities for world peace! He celebrated masses which incorporated pagan rituals and boasted about worshipping a snake-god in Togo.

During the reign of the apostate, King Rehoboam of Judah, homosexuality grew in the land. So too homosexuality invaded the Catholic priesthood, secular and religious, during the pontificate of Pope Paul V1. Good priests were punished and the bad ones were promoted. Breaking of priestly and religious vows became commonplace. Thus we have witnessed the loss of priestly identity, closing of convents, monasteries and Catholic schools, and the drying up of vocations, especially in the affluent West. In Africa and Asia we have seen the growth in vocations, and the poor quality of formation given which produces modernist clergy lacking the qualities characteristic of a sacrificing priesthood in the Catholic sense.

We have seen Catholics and Protestants praying together. We have seen Catholics who do not accept Church teaching on contraception, abortion, sodomy, purgatory, hellfire, sacrifice, mortification, etc. We have seen the new rites instituted by Paul V1 for celebrating all the sacraments. These new rites have a watered-down Catholicism. Concepts like pains of hell, sins of thought, mortification of the senses, fires of purgatory, merits of the saints, judgement of God, detachment from the world, sacrifice of the Mass, transubstantiation, eternal punishment, infirmities of soul, our weak will, enemies of soul and body, etc have disappeared. In their places we have new concepts that are neither pleasing to God nor helpful to man’s salvation; concepts intended to offend no one.

Like in the days of King Jeroboam 1, we have seen Catholics worship at the altars of the gods of the new age: the flesh, money, power, transcendental meditation, yoga, eastern mysticism, freemasonry, liberalism, indifferentism, agnosticism, etc. We have seen the disappearance of the Catholic sanctuary, abominations committed in the churches and the triumph of pentecosto-charismatic sentimental religion over reason and commonsense.

In the days of the apostate, King Ahab, his wife Jezebel, became more powerful than the king himself. The king became weak and appeared effeminate while his wife took decisions, demanded and got her wishes, and became a terror in the kingdom. Following the implementation of the apostate agenda of the Second Vatican Council we have also witnessed Catholic clergy become effeminate; sacrificing their manly qualities on the altar of lay participation and democracy. Women have taken over many chanceries, sacristies, rectories, priories, lord it over bishops and priests, formed pressure groups to get their wishes and have become a power to be reckoned with in the conciliar Church. They have requested for and obtained many concessions to grease their feminine pride. Today women serve Mass, teach in seminaries, distribute communion, act as lay readers in church, give retreats and days of recollection to novus ordo priests and seminarians, take communion to the sick in hospitals and at home, conduct communion services and run parish offices. Some of them have formed pressure groups asking to be ordained priests. This de-masculinization of the Catholic priesthood is one of the symptoms of the apostasy. As Jezebel persecuted Elijah and the true prophets of God, so these new women in today’s church persecute true Catholics who wish to restore Tradition. They see in this an attempt to deprive them of their newly acquired power over the hierarchy and faithful. Many Episcopal conferences today have women in positions of power and influence. This is unprecedented. Even the pope has joined in this surrender of authority to women in the church by appointing women to some important posts. The effects of this feminization of the conciliar church has been the loss of true masculine authority, the turning of the clergy and male faithful into puppets, the effeminization and emasculation of the priesthood, the loss of priestly vocations, the sentimentalization of authentic worship, giving way to group delusions and frenzies.

It is not my intention to disparage women. Surely women have made and will continue to make valuable contributions in the life of the Church. Examples of such women includes the Virgin Mary Herself, Mary Magdalene, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, Jane Frances de Chantal, Elizabeth of Hungary, Theresa of Avila, Joan of Arc and a host of others. But they always worked in deference to men and without usurping masculine authority. They were true Catholic women who recognised the natural differences between the sexes and the complementarity of men and women. In living within the order established by God they attained sainthood and their praises are sung for all ages. Today’s takeover of the church by women however is motivated by pride, new age ideas of sexual equality, a mistaken reading of church history which pretends that women were somehow ignored and maltreated in the past,  a sense of feminine emancipation and new political ideas of democracy and women empowerment. In other words, it is not inspired by God. It is a truncation of a sense of order within the church caused by the raging apostasy inaugurated at Vatican 11.

In the fourth book of Kings 11:1ff, Athalia, mother of Ochozias king of Judah, seeing that her son was dead, got up and killed every member of the royal family and reigned for 6 years as queen. Only Joas was spared because he was hidden by his nurse during the massacre. This intemperate and unscrupulous woman was the sister of Ahab. Her crimes and her six years reign of terror is another consequence of the disobedience of Judah in rejecting God’s ordinance under which their fathers lived. Today we have seen women also promote every imaginable abomination in the novus ordo church where they hold authority. Just like in the case of Eve, it is always easy for Satan to deceive a woman who is proud, filled with a sense of her own importance, prey to vain curiosity and intemperate. Then having deceived her he uses her to destroy an institution. Thus, like in the cases of Jezebel and Athalia, Satan is using women today in his battle against the Catholic Church. Have we not seen some of them ganged together to champion an ‘inclusive church,’ inclusive language in liturgy, ordination of women, artificial contraception, gay unions and other forms of the apostate agenda?

RESTORATION

It is due to their infidelity to the covenant they entered into with God that the Israelites were conquered by their enemies and led into exile. While they were suffering the effects of their apostasy some of them reflected on their condition and what led to it. They repented and did penance. And God accepted them and allowed them to return to the Holy Land, and to rebuild it during the reign of King Cyrus of Persia. These returnees were the remnants of God’s inheritance as He promised. (cf. iv.Kgs21:14)

Today we are suffering the effects of our apostasy from the true religion. Many shepherds have turned into wolves, and a great part of the sheep is scattered in the wilderness of heresy, apostasy and schism. Many churches have become empty shells, abandoned by true worshippers; deserted vineyards. But even now God is preparing a remnant. He is preparing them in silence, meditation, mortification, penance, sacrifice, withdrawal from the world and above all, fidelity to the Roman Catholic faith and Tradition, and the immemorial Latin Mass that expresses this faith. When the time comes, these remnant Catholics, now ignored, laughed at, pushed aside, reprimanded, cajoled, mocked, excommunicated, and treated as a band of integrists and fanatics, out of touch with the modern world, will be the ones to restore the Church. These will be the remnant which will survive modern Babylon—represented by the modern world and the new churchmen who support it—to rebuild and restore the new Jerusalem; the Catholic Church.

We have seen that as the apostate kings of Israel and Judah promoted syncretism—mixing true worship of God with false worship borrowed from the false religions of the nations, and putting the true faith on the same level with false faiths—so have the post-Vatican 11 popes, their bishops and priests attempted to reconcile light and darkness, to marry Christ with Belial and to achieve unity between the temple of God and the synagogue of Satan, and to enter into a compromise between the followers of Christ and the partisans of Satan. But this scheme is already doomed to fail, because God cannot be mocked. He has granted to the Blessed Virgin Mary the final victory over Satan. ‘In the end,’ She said to Sister Lucia of Fatima, ‘My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.’(Our Lady of Fatima, July 13, 1917)

Just like in the days of King David we now have civil war within the Church. We have cardinals pitted against cardinals, bishops against bishops, priests against priests and lay people fighting among themselves. All are divided on what is the authentic Catholic teaching on many issues. The pope is not spared thanks to the checkmate which Vatican 11’s  collegiality has instituted. We have dissident theologians adding to the confusion by giving conferences and publishing works in opposition to the perennial Magisterium. We have traditionalists pitted against Novus Ordo conservative Catholics and liberal neo-Catholics, and Novus Ordo conservative Catholics fighting against traditionalists and leftist Catholics. We also have devotees of our Blessed Mother Mary pitted against the Charismatics. All these battles are being fought within the Church. This is a consequence of the rebellion against God and Roman Catholic Tradition openly adopted at Vatican 11. Like in the days of King David, many souls are lost, confused, harassed and exposed to many spiritual dangers.

In the days of King David, a certain rebel named Seba, the son Bochri, rose up against the king and started a rebellion in which he attempted to divide the kingdom. When the army of King David led by Joab was pursuing him, Seba took refuge in a city named Abela. Joab gave the order to throw down the walls and destroy the city. While the soldiers were engaged in trying to break the city walls, a wise woman from the city whose name is not mentioned called to Joab, spoke peacefully with him and interceded for the city. She promised to deliver to Joab the head of the rebel, Seba, in exchange for the life of the city. Joab agreed. This woman went and spoke to the elders of the city who accepted her counsel. The rebel was caught and beheaded and his head thrown out of the city walls into the hands of Joab’s men. This ended the rebellion and the city of Abela was saved from destruction. (Cf. ii.Kgs20:1-2,13-22)

This unknown woman whose intercession saved the city of Abela from destruction is a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today the archenemy of mankind, the eternal rebel named Satan has been allowed into the walls of the city of God on earth which is the Catholic Church. Thanks to the general acceptance of his temptation to give up the yoke of the Lord, relax disciplinary rules and become one with the world, he is now cuddled and treated as an honoured guest within the walls of the city of God.

However, like the unknown woman of David’s day who is referred as ‘a wise woman’(ii.Kgs20:16), the Blessed Virgin Mary, Seat of Wisdom, has perfected plans to finally crush the head of Satan. Like Her scriptural figure She has already interceded for the Church with Her angry Son in heaven and has obtained the terms of a truce. But the elders of the city of God on earth must cooperate with Her, (that is the Pope and the bishops). On July 13, 1917 at Fatima in Portugal She said:

I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

On June 13, 1929 at Tuy, Spain, Sister Lucia had a vision of the Most Holy Trinity and Our Lady of Fatima who said to her:

The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.

The pope and the bishops are yet to obey this command from God. Therefore the havoc inaugurated by Satan at the Second Vatican Council continues to claim casualties. Perhaps, unlike the elders of the city of Abela, the leaders of the Church today are yet to wake up to the reality of a looming chastisement against them and the Church they govern. As soon as they do, Our Blessed Mother will fulfil Her own part of the bargain. She will personally overthrow Satan and inaugurate a new Pentecost which will see the conversion of the nations to the Catholic faith and a new era of peace.

                                                                                              

Rev. Fr. Gregory Chukwudi Obih, March 29, 2011.