The apparent numbing of conscience in the modern era, a topsy-turvy morality which can no longer call out outrages against the Divinity due to a sort of collective compliance to relativism, is a degeneration, making our offenses even more heinous than those of the time when the revelations were first revealed to Sister St. Pierre. Writing in the 1950’s, a biographer of Sister St. Pierre recognized the peril of this universal transgression, which is surely even more apparent today:
Collective Sin As We Are Poisoned Unaware
We consider that to the blasphemies and to the multiplied individual transgressions there has succeeded a kind of collective sin, much more dangerous than the other because it is less apparent, and because, therefore, it provokes hardly a reaction. To the hostility and revolt of some, even a great number, a state of mind has succeeded, an atmosphere which one breathes without knowing it, and today’s Christians, poisoned unaware, have a tendency to minimize the gravity of the outrages against God’s very divinity, and no longer to notice their presence in the world. Fascinated no doubt by the more and more audacious freedom of habits and morals, do they not forget too much that the real origin of this laxity is to be found in certain refusal, or at least a certain forgetting, of God’s rights? The three first Commandments will always remain the first, as also the three first demands of the Father will remain the most important. And there will never be Christian life—not only in theory but in fact, a life involving not knowledge and science alone, but above all a right will—without an initial active and effective avowal of God’s Majesty, of His Universal Causality, of the Holiness of His Name.[1]
Sheen: “We Are Influencing the World Less Than the World Influences Us”
Satan seems to have succeeded in making man unaware of the dangers of denying God His rights, which amounts to a categorical difference from the offenses of previous eras. We are in a new age, one in which offenses against the Godhead are not even recognized as being wrong by the norms of society, nor by most Christians themselves, nay, even by some Church leaders. Venerable Fulton Sheen, writing (only) in the 1940’s, states that mediocrity and compromise characterize the lives of many Christians, such that there is no longer the conflict and opposition which is supposed to characterize us. “We are influencing the world less than the world influences us. There is no apartness.”[2] Our Lord revealed to Sister St. Pierre that “from the ignorance and contempt of which He is thus the object, results a social evil, so much the more pernicious and fatal to society at large and to individuals in particular, as it daily tends to become more general and more prevalent.”[3] Desensitized, man is the proverbial frog in a pot of water which has been slowly heated; he is being boiled unaware by way of his complacency and willful ignorance regarding the dangers of society’s new norms.
A Time in Which Baddies Are Not Seen As Bad
How is it that man has arrived at this time “conspicuous for an evaporation of moral certitudes by which good and bad are judged”?[4] History is full of examples of bad popes and cardinals and bishops and priests and religious and laity, but these are times in which these baddies are not necessarily seen as bad. Before, there were scandals and heresies, but there was adequate response within the Church to at least see them as such and to voice truth until there was a return to the orthodox Faith and living. But now:
Where are we to find a fourth-century Basil, or Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa? Where Athanasius of Egypt…? Where Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours, or John Chrysostom (the golden mouth)? Where Cyril of Jerusalem, or Augustine or Ambrose…? Bishops one and all. Today, where do we find such bishops…?[5]
Relativism Has Induced Silence
Relativism has reached such a climax as to induce silence by those who should not be silent. This silence is a way of affirming the upside-down morality which sees bad as good and good as bad. The warning of Isaiah seems fit to our times: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”[6] Cardinal Muller warns in his “Manifesto of Faith” that
to keep silent about … the truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, ‘the price of their apostacy’ (CCC 675); it is the fraud of Antichrist. ‘He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice; for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved’ (2 Thess 2:10).[7]
Is this the “why” of the current moral decline? Is God allowing our Church to be tested during these times in a unique way? Is this the time of the last tribulation of the Church, described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers…, a ‘mystery of iniquity,’…a religious deception, … an apostasy from the truth”?[8] Is the Church today to undergoing unbridled testing by Satan?
Vision of Pope Leo XIII Regarding 100 Year Reign of Satan in Our Time
There is the well-known, albeit persistently chilling, evidence found in the vision Pope Leo XIII received October 13, 1884, just one year prior to the same pope approving the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face for the whole world by papal brief.[9] Witnesses observed that after Pope Leo had celebrated Mass, he turned pale and collapsed as if dead. He had had a vision of Satan boasting to God that he could destroy the Church. Satan asked for, and was granted by God, one century and more power over those who would serve him. Satan remained determined, despite God reminding him that His Church could not be destroyed. The Lord then revealed the events of the 20th century to Leo XIII. “He saw wars, immorality, genocide and apostasy on a large scale.” [10] Pope Leo immediately composed the Saint Michael prayer, which was said after every Mass, until Vatican II.
Akita and the Smoke of Satan
What was foreseen by Pope Leo XIII on October 13, 1884—exactly 33 years before the miracle of the sun at Fatima—has been confirmed, not only by subsequent events, but by other credible sources. The work of iniquity which had gained much momentum outside the Church in the late 19th century and early 20th century, was about to make its way into the institutions of the Church. In fact, on June 29, 1972 Pope Paul VI confirmed just that when he addressed his audience. He said, ‘It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.’ About a year later, On October 13, 1973, Our Lady of Akita, in an approved apparition in Japan, took this point further and gave us some idea how this ‘smoke’ would take effect. She said, ‘The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops…. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.’[11]
Akita was not the first, nor the last, approved Marian apparition to forewarn of this great crisis of faith, this great tribulation for the Church.[12] In many respects, the anchor of these forewarnings is found in the revelations received by Sister St. Pierre in that Our Lord Himself therein is demanding reparation, for in His words, “in no other time has iniquity reached such a degree.”[13]
[1] Louis Van Den Bossche. The Message of Sister Mary of St. Peter. (France: Carmel of Tours, 1952), 200.
[2] Joseph Pronechen, “Did Fulton Sheen Prophesy About These Times?” National Catholic Register (January 28, 2019), www.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/did-fulton-sheen-prophecy-about-these-times (accessed February 14, 2019).
[3] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 183.
[4] George Rutler. “Satan Kills Babies, Shatters Families, Corrupts Priests and Mocks the Church.” National Catholic Register (February 19, 2019), www.ncregister.com/blog/fatherrutler/satan-kills-babies-shatters-families-corrupts-priests-and-mocks-the-church (accessed February 19, 2019).
[5] Peter D. Beaulieu. “Quo Vadis: Where are the bishops and laity of old?,” The Catholic World Report (February 19, 2019), https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/02/19/quo-vadis-whee-are-the-bishops-and-laity-of-old/ (accessed February 20, 2019).
[6] Isa. 5:20.
[7] Edward Pentin, “Cardinal Muller Issues ‘Manifesto of Faith,’” National Catholic Register(February, 2019), www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-meuller-issues-manifesto-of-faith (accessed February 16, 2019).
[8] CCC 675.
[9] Pope Leo XIII broke with tradition by not approving it incrementally, as it would usually have been only first approved for France, its place of origin; this signaled his belief in its utmost importance.
[10] Joe Tremblay, “The 100 Year Test,” Catholic News Agency (February 1, 2013), https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column/the-100-year-test-2454 (accessed February 16, 2019).
[11] Ibid.
[12] A chapter in the forthcoming book will be devoted to a lengthier discussion of these Church-approved Marian apparitions.
[13] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 159.
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