Live Mike

Commentary on Apocalypse Chapter XIII by Servant of God Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo † (1882-1970)

Anti-Christianity first and then the Antichrist
Christianity, the Church of Jesus Christ, his mystical Body, is eminently the glorification of God. Satan who is against the glory of God, has waged merciless war on him since his birth. This war has continued over the centuries, and after the great defeat he had with the triumph of the Church and the kingdom of God on earth, he will resume it with great anger, knowing that he will have little time. For this reason the great voice of Heaven cried out, after the defeat that Saint Michael and his angels inflicted on Satan and his satellites: " Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil comes down to you with great anger " (Apoc 12.12). In his terrible fury he will accumulate in a single struggle all the efforts made over the centuries, and consequently the characters of the last struggle respond to those of the battles waged by the dragon during the whole life of the Church.

Satan has always used kings to break into the Church, and the false advances of science and civilization to destroy its life and paralyze its action. His struggle was subtle and continuous, and little by little he tried to secularize the Christian nations, and to dissolve the moral life of the peoples with shameless spectacles and indecent fashions, true images of the beast, animated by his spirit, and having on his lips her words.

Those who historically follow the life of the Church since its birth will find the characters of the diabolical struggle in every age, and for this reason many have identified the Antichrist with the Roman emperors, with Julian the apostate, with Luther, Calvin, Napoleon, and in our times with Stalin, Hitler and even with Mussolini. The identification is not exact, because the Antichrist, as a determined person, will arise in the last period of the life of the Church and will have a short duration; but, just as in every epoch of the life of the Church there has been antichristianism on the part of Satan, so there has also been some more fatal coryphaeus [the leader of a party or school of thought] who promoted it, and who in a certain way can be regarded as antichrist.

Thus we always have on the scene of the world the two beasts, that of the sea, anti-Christian imperialism, that of the earth, error and seduction, and a personage who makes himself eminently the subversion of peoples, an insider of Christian faith and customs, and provocateur of the apostasy of peoples, and of souls from God. [...].

Anti-Christianity and its coryphaeus, both in the political and cultural fields, has been an assault that has increasingly tightened and tightened against the Church, until it reaches the modern apostasy, which is frightening, and of which we are so little aware. , precisely because we are in an environment saturated with violence and errors that have poisoned the nations and the very souls linked to the Church.

Evil has taken over the world so much, religious error and ignorance dominate the spirits so much, the violence and persecutions against the Church are so blatant, that it is hard to see how we can get out of this abyss. Yet the Lord will also triumph on this earth at these times, and we await with unshakable faith the manifestation of the kingdom of God for the two witnesses we await, and for whom the beast will be wounded to death.

After a period of spiritual prosperity that will have profound influences also on material life and civilization, evil will resume its ascendancy, empires and kingdoms will return to apostasy, errors suffocated by the light of truth will regain their dominion, the arts of seduction souls will reach excesses never seen before, and behold on all this tide of iniquity the man of perdition and sin will rise, the Antichrist proper, the servant of Satan, who for forty-two months will triumph, torment the Church, will conquer the saints , and then he will be defeated forever. [...].

For our spiritual life: us, between the two beasts
We are already among the dangers and snares of the two beasts, that of the sea and that of the earth, since we are dominated by apostate powers, and we are seduced by false science. Apostasy is already a fact in the world, although it has not reached the peak it will reach at the time of the Antichrist. We certainly hope firmly in the triumph of God and of the Church, but in this triumph we too must cooperate with a precise stance in the face of tyranny and the seductions of evil. We cannot and must not yield in any way, bearing on the forehead and on the hand (cf. Apoc 13:16), the Christian seal in thought and works. We must be totalitarianly faithful to God and the Church, and totalitarianly uncompromising against evil. We must make no assignments to the beasts and the dragon, and we must not be so foolish and weak as to be miserably seduced.

Christian decay is always due to the easy transfers of cowardly and interested souls, as much to the secular powers as to the tyrannies of the world and the seductions of false science. We cannot in conscience support a power that disowns God or pretends to ignore him, and we cannot have the characteristics of the beast in the thought, in the words, in the uses of our life and in the very forms of clothing, which cannot and must not be inspired by the world.

Source: Le due bestie e il dragone | L’Apocalisse con Don Dolindo | cap. XIII - Il Settimanale di Padre Pio
In English

Public domain

7Like Share

Aaron-Jozef

May 14

Het is altijd het Goede, God, tegen het Kwade, de Duivel. Gelukkig wint het Goede, God, het altijd van het Kwade, de Duivel.

Ave Crux

5 May 13

Further to the Interview referenced in my earlier comment, which I will also upload as a post, Archbishop Lefebvre was asked and responded to the following two questions on the Papacy and Obedience:

"Has not the pope invited you to be reconciled? Have you accepted this invitation?"

"I requested to see the pope last August. The pope refused unless I signed a statement accepting unconditionally all the resolutions of Vatican II.

I would very much like to see the pope, but I cannot sign resolutions paving the way for the destruction of the church."

"How can you be loyal to the church and disobedient to the pope?"

"One must understand the meaning of obedience and must distinguish between blind obedience and the virtue of obedience. Indiscriminate obedience is actually a sin against the virtue of obedience.

"So if we disobey in order to practice the virtue of obedience rather than submit to unlawful commands contrary to Catholic moral teachings, all one has to do is to consult any Catholic theology books to realize we are not sinning against the virtue of obedience."

Ave Crux

6 May 13

"We must be totalitarianly faithful to God and the Church, and totalitarianly uncompromising against evil. We must make no assignments to the beasts and the dragon, and we must not be so foolish and weak as to be miserably seduced."

THIS is exactly what didn't happen at -- and following -- Vatican II, when the orthodox schemas prepared for the Council by Archbishop Lefebvre and the other Council Fathers who worked alongside him were cast aside by the Modernists when they seized control of the Council almost immediately after the Council was convened.

And ever since the Council, we see members of the Hierarchy and even Popes causing widespread confusion about matters which pertain to the Deposit of Faith. This cannot be denied, and it is precisely because these churchmen are unwilling to do what is mentioned in the quote above.

And, for the record, so it can never been falsely stated in this forum yet again, Archbishop Lefebvre did not sign two of the heterodox documents from Vatican II, a fact which he explains in this interview, in which this venerable prelate states the following in answer to the question posed:
__________

"Did you let the pope (Paul VI) know of your concern and disquiet regarding these resolutions?"

"I have talked to the pope. I have talked to the council. I have made three public interventions, two of which I have filed with the secretariat. Therefore, there were five interventions against these resolutions of Vatican II.

"In fact, the opposition led against these resolutions was such that the pope attempted to establish a commission with the aim of reconciling the opposing parties within the council. There were to be three members, of which I was one.

"When the liberal cardinals learned that my name was on this commission, they went to see the holy father (the pope) and told him bluntly that they would not accept this commission and that they would not accept my presence on this commission. The pressure on the pope was such that he gave up the idea.

"I have done everything I could to stop these resolutions which I judge contrary and destructive to the Catholic faith. The council was convened legitimately, but it was for the purpose of putting all these ideas through." Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
___________

Every faithful Catholic solicitous for the preservation of our Holy Catholic Faith against the assaults and inroads of Modernism and the destruction of our Patrimony was duty-bound to resist it -- and that includes the Popes who betrayed this mandate and punished those who would not.