Our Holy Mother Church - From Glory to Ashes, from Ashes to Triumph - the Triumph of Our Holy Mother and Glorious Queen, Mary Immaculatee

The Great Apostasy - were we warned? Have we been told? By whom? When? Why? Various works have been written about the errors of Vatican II and the false popes. This article does not specifically address these points, but rather answers the questions: has the great falling away - the Great Apostasy - been predicted; and, are we now living in those ominous times which have been foretold?

The reader may be surprised to know that this “great falling away” is one of the most predicted events in history. These predictions or prophecies are found in or derived from revelation.  Before proceeding further then, it would be prudent to say a few words to clarify what is understood by the term revelation, of which there are two kinds: Divine and private.

Divine revelation is to be found in Sacred Scripture and in the Catholic Church's Deposit of Faith. These revelations ended with the Apostles, and are infallibly certain. Therefore, as Divinely revealed Truth, must be believed by all.

Private revelation is an inspiration or revelation given by God to individuals for their own benefit or for the profit of others, as St. Paul tells us: “Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to everyone for profit.” (1 Cor. 12:7). Unlike Divine revelation, no one is bound to believe in private revelation. But if a private revelation is authentic, then to withhold belief in it would be tantamount to turning a deaf ear to God. Such an act would result in the loss of spiritual goods, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “prophecy, like other gratuitous graces, is given for the good of the Church.” (Summa, SS – 172, 4). God always has a purpose for whatever He does, and if He reveals something to us, we can be assured that He does so for our own good. Only a foolish man would ignore what the infinite wisdom of God chooses to reveal.

An example of the benefits that have come to us through private revelation can be found in the spiritual goods the Church has received through these revelations over the course of nearly 2,000 years. To name just a few: most of the Religious Orders, which have benefited the Church so much and have produced so many saints, were founded by their respective religious founders through private revelation or inspiration; prayers innumerable, including the Holy Rosary, were given to us through private revelation; the sixteen different Church approved Scapulars, including the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel, have all come to us through private revelation; devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, have come to us through private revelation; the multiple chaplets, such as Our Sorrowful Mother chaplet, the chaplet of the Angels, etc., all came to us through private revelation. The list goes on and on and is almost endless. Judging from these heavenly gifts alone, one can readily see how spiritually beneficial it has been to follow God’s guiding Hand through the medium of private revelation.

But private revelation is not free from danger, for the devil is active in this arena too and has deceived many. To be free from being deceived therefore, it is necessary to distinguish authentic revelation (that which comes from God) from unauthentic revelation (that which comes from the devil or from man himself). It is very difficult, and in some instances virtually impossible, for individuals to competently make that necessary distinction. Only the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, can safely and securely make that determination. Therefore, bearing this in mind, the revelations and prophecies cited in this article are taken only from sources authenticated by the Catholic Church before 1958 (prior to the counterfeit Vatican Council II).

We know that the Catholic Church will endure until the end of time: “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” (Matthew, 28:20) Nevertheless, the misconception that the Church will always have a large number of faithful Catholics, is not claimed in Sacred Scripture nor anywhere else. Quite to the contrary, Scripture tells us: “… yet the Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).

History has witnessed time and again entire nations (England) and even groups of nations (the Great Eastern Schism), who were once Catholic, apostatizing from the Faith. That this would happen on a larger scale, especially in consideration of a “shrinking world” due to modern technology, is not at all inconceivable, and in fact, was predicted and has happened.

This was accomplished, in part, because the enemies of the Church had become historically astute, and cognizant of the fact that external persecution of the Church actually brings about Her greater growth, as the saying goes: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Faith.” That is why for centuries they have been focusing their efforts on destroying Catholicism by infiltration.

Pope St. Pius X warned the Church of this in 1907:

“[T]hey put into operation their designs for Her [the Church’s] undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of Her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers.” – Pascendi Dominici Gregis

Pope St. Pius X was not revealing anything new; rather He was adding His own warning to that of many other Popes and to the numerous warnings Heaven had been sending for hundreds of years.

Our Lady of Good Success

In the early 17th century, a Conceptionist nun in Ecuador, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (1563–1635), was the recipient of various apparitions from the Mother of God, including many prophecies concerning the 20th century. The fact that these prophecies date back 400 years makes them especially noteworthy. Mother Mariana’s incorrupt body was discovered in 1906 and can still be seen today.

“Thus I make it known to you that from the end of the 19th century and shortly after the middle of the 20th century… It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and also that of Confirmation… The Catholic spirit will rapidly decay; the precious light of the Faith will gradually be extinguished…”

“Various heresies will be propagated in this land, then a free Republic. As these heresies spread and dominate, the precious light of Faith will be extinguished in souls by the almost total corruption of customs [morals]… The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and the virtues will suffer an unspeakably cruel and slow martyrdom…”

“In the 20th century… the corruption of customs will be almost universal and the precious light of Faith all but extinguished.”

Again, referring to the 20th century:

“How the Church will suffer on that occasion – the dark night of the lack of a Prelate¹ and Father to watch over them… The lukewarmness of all the souls consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will delay the coming of this Prelate and Father.”

Our Lady of La Salette

In 1846, the Mother of God appeared to two shepherd children in La Salette, France. She gave them many warnings about how God is going to punish mankind if mankind did not stop sinning. She also made some startling predictions.

“Lucifer, with a great number of demons will be unchained from Hell. By degrees they shall abolish the Faith, even among persons consecrated to God.”

“In every place there will be extraordinary prodigies, because the true Faith has been extinguished.”

“[T]he abomination shall be seen in holy places, in convents, and then the demon shall make himself the king of hearts.”

“Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of Antichrist.”

Regarding the veracity of this apparition, which some modernist authors erroneously challenge, the Bishop of the diocese of La Salette published in 1851 a mandate which in part said: “[The apparition] has within itself all the characteristics of the truth, and that the faithful are justified in believing it is beyond doubt and for certain.” This mandate was sent to Rome and received the approval of Pope Pius IX.

Our Lady of Fatima

3rd Secret of Fatima - “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved…

Even setting aside those portions of the 3rd Secret that Modernists are wont to ignore, the segment “in Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved” is admitted by all. This partial sentence speaks volumes. What a strange statement to make at a time when essentially every country on the face of the earth had the dogma of the Faith. The implication is clear: Our Lady was, at the very least, forecasting that entire countries would lose the dogma of the Faith, Portugal being an exception.

“Satan rules even in the highest positions and determines the direction of things. He will succeed in worming his way even into the highest summits of the Church…”

“But this will be a time of great trials for the Church. Cardinals will oppose cardinals. Bishops will oppose bishops. Satan will walk in their ranks. In Rome, there will be great changes. What is rotten will fall and what will fall will never rise again. Darkness will envelope the Church and the world will be thrown into a panic.”

The quote given above is taken from a German periodical published in 1963, Neues Europa, and received unofficial approbation in the 1960’s by several Church officials who had read the original 3rd Secret text hand written by Sister Lucia. Among these Church officials was the respected Cardinal Ottovani. The new and “official” version put out by the Vatican in 2006 has been demonstrated to be utterly false.

As the pleas, requests, and warnings sent to mankind by a merciful God through His Immaculate Mother at La Salette and Fatima went unheeded, He sent that same loving Mother once again to warn a prideful world in 1946 at Marienfried, a small town in Germany.

As the pleas, requests, and warnings sent to mankind by a merciful God through His Immaculate Mother at La Salette and Fatima went unheeded, He sent that same loving Mother once again to warn a prideful world in 1946 at Marienfried, a small town in Germany.

“The Star of the infernal regions (Lucifer) will rage more violently than ever and will cause frightful destruction, because he knows that his time is short, and because he sees that already many have gathered around my sign.”

"And the churches too will wail with a mighty lamentation, because neither oblation nor incense is attended to, nor a service acceptable to God; but the sanctuaries of the churches will become like a garden-watcher's hut, and the Holy Body and Blood of Christ will not be shown in those days. The public service of God shall be extinguished.”

“The Church will be punished because the majority of Her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until She will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, She will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.”

“There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church.” [1862 Prediction]

The Venerable Anna Katerina Emmerick was a German mystic who was favored with extensive revelations. Six weeks after her death, upon a rumor that her body had been stolen, she was disinterred and found to be incorrupt. She came to international fame when Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” was acknowledged to have been based upon her revelations.

“I saw also the relationship between the two popes… I saw how baleful (evil; harmful) would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size;² heretics of every kind came into the city (of Rome)³ … Once more I saw the Church of Peter was undermined by a plan evolved by the secret sect (Masonry), while storms were damaging it.”

“I saw a secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church… When the Church had been for the most part destroyed (by the secret sect), and when only the sanctuary and the altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers (of the secret sect) enter the Church with the Beast.”

“I saw an apparition of the Mother of God, and she said that the tribulation would be very great. She added that these people must pray fervently with outstretched arms… They must pray above all for the Church of Darkness to leave Rome.”

“The Church is in great danger… I see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there will hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction, even the clergy. The great devastation is now at hand.”

“When I saw the Church of St. Peter in ruins, and the manner in which so many of the clergy were themselves busy at this work of destruction – none of them wishing to do it openly in front of others – I was in such distress that I cried out to Jesus with all my might, imploring His mercy. Then, I saw before me the Heavenly Spouse… He said, among other things, that this translation of the Church from one place to another meant that She would seem to be in complete decline. But She would rise again; even if there remained but one Catholic, the Church would conquer again because She does not rest on human counsels and intelligence. It was also shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word.”⁴

“The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away.”

“Among the strangest things that I saw, were long processions of bishops. Their thoughts and utterances were made known to me through images issuing from their mouths. Their faults towards religion were shown by external deformities. A few had only a body, with a dark cloud of fog instead of a head. Others had only a head, their bodies and hearts were like thick vapors. Some were lame; others were paralytics; others were asleep or staggering.”

“I saw what I believe to be nearly all the bishops of the world, but only a small number were perfectly sound…”

“Then I saw that everything that pertained to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence…”

“In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars.”

“I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church…”

“I heard that Lucifer (if I am not mistaken) will be freed again for awhile fifty or sixty years before the year 2,000 AD.”

“These most crafty enemies [the devils] have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.”

Pope St. Pius X

“… there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days.

“We believe that the present hour is a dread phase of the events told by Christ. It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world. Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis.”

“Mankind must prepare itself for sufferings such as it has never before experienced.” This comment comes from the Pope who lived through World War I and World War II! He expressed dismay at what he saw facing humanity in the not so distant future, describing those times as “the darkest since the deluge.”

“I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a Divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the true Faith of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past.”

“A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, ‘Where have they taken Him?’”

The red lamp burning in Catholic Churches signifies that God is really present before them in the Most Blessed Eucharist – Pope Pius XII is here prophesying that the Most Blessed Sacrament will no longer be able to be found in the ‘Catholic’ churches, a reality which took place shortly after his death as a result of Vatican Council II.

* Melanie Calvat was one of the two seers of La Salette. The following extract is taken from the book “The Secret of Melanie and the Actual Crisis” by Abbot Combe, 1906:

“The Church will be eclipsed. At first, we will not know which is the true pope. Then secondly, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will cease to be offered in churches and houses; it will be such that, for a time, there will not be public services any more. But I see that the Holy Sacrifice has not really ceased: it will be offered in barns, in alcoves, in caves, and underground.”

“The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. ...Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”- Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861, London: Burns and Lambert, pp. 88-90)

“Some prophecies seem to warrant the inference that the true Catholic Church will disappear completely for a while as an organization; but although disorganized, it will survive in the persons of the faithful members of the clergy and laity who will go underground.”

The above quotes are but a sampling of the many prophecies foretelling a great apostasy, i.e., a large scale falling away from the Catholic Church. Prophetically, we know that such an event is not only possible, but inevitable. Doctrinally, we know for a certainty that the current usurpers in Rome cannot possibly be Catholic, and therefore they cannot be the leaders of a Church of which they are not members. They may be in possession of the buildings once belonging to the Catholic Church, but they are not in possession of the Catholic Faith, and that is what really matters. For Faith is the life and heart of the true Christian, not just buildings or possessions.

“If there should ever come a day – We say this as a matter of pure hypothesis – when the physical reality of Rome were to crumble; if ever this Vatican Basilica, the symbol of the one, invincible, and victorious Catholic Church, were to bury beneath its ruins the historical treasures and the sacred tombs it enshrines, even then the Church would not, by that fact, be overthrown or undermined; the promise of Christ to Peter would always remain true, the Papacy would continue unchanged, as well as the one, indestructible Church founded on the Pope alive at that time.”

“Thus it is: Rome the Eternal in the supernatural and Christian sense, is superior to the Rome of history. Her supernatural and eternal truth are superior to and independent of the historic City.”

Our Lady of Good Success

“When I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under My feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church and Country will finally be free of his cruel tyranny….Then, joyful and triumphant, like a tender child, the Church will be reborn…”

Our Lady of La Salette

“Eventually water and fire will cleanse the earth and the works of human pride will be destroyed and all will be renewed. Then will all serve God and glorify Him.”

“The new kings will be on the right hand of the Church which will grow strong, and which will be humble, pious, poor, zealous and followers of the virtues.”

“Everywhere the Gospel will be preached, people will make great progress in the Faith; there will be unity among the laborers of Jesus Christ, and people will live in the fear of God.”

“Jesus Christ will be served, adored, and glorified. Everywhere love of neighbor will begin to flourish.”

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

Mary, Immaculate Queen of the Universe, Spouse of the Holy Ghost, Mediatrix of All Graces, triumph and reign, in the Name of Jesus and for the love of Jesus, now and forever. Amen.

Beloved Mother Mary, Our Lady of Good Success, I give myself completely to thy Immaculate Heart. Please replace my poor and sinful heart with thy Pure and Immaculate Heart, now and forever. Amen.

Our Lady of Marienfried Traditional Catholic Church