There are some who say we haven’t had a “real Pope” since Paul VI. When reading the web site http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com one is left with the impression The Church has gone off the rails.
The web site says that their organization is a Benedictine Monastery. One can’t help but respect the Benedictines, so I started reading some of what was on their site. I was utterly struck with their position on Sr. Lucy and the Miracles at Fatima. It’s impossible to be a Catholic without considering Fatima, where the greatest miracle since The Resurrection took place on October 13, 1917. The miracle of The Holy Mother appearing, and the sun dancing in the sky, was witnessed by 70,000 people. Prominent atheists and anti-Catholics had come to Fatima to make fun what they were sure was a delusion taken seriously by only the stupidest of Catholics. What they saw with their own eyes was so staggering that many who came to mock stayed to pray.
One of the three children to whom The Blessed Mother had begun to show Herself six months earlier became a nun. Mary entrusted Sister Lucia with a great secret, which she obediently wrote down and passed on to the Pope. The clear instructions of The Blessed Mother were that “Russia must be consecrated to me by the Pope and Bishops and the message must be read by 1960.”
There are three positions on the Fatima aftermath:
- The most well-known is put forth by Fr. Gruner. The writings on the subject that he and his associates have put forth are incredibly voluminous and boil down to: “The Consecration of Russia to Mary never took place and the entire message was never publicly read.”
- The Church’s position seems to be that the required Consecration to Russia did take place, and that the message is “not appropriate”.
- Most Holy Family Monastery has a whole new take on the proceedings. They agree with The Church that the Consecration did take place, but have developed the theory that Sr. Lucy was replaced by another real or purported nun who would support the Church’s position on the purported release of the Fatima message. They have pictures that they say are of Sr. Lucy, who had very crooked teeth, and of the “later, fake Sister Lucy”, whose teeth were perfectly straight. There are other facial differences. They seem to agree that the “third secret” has not been disclosed.
Frankly, after having read Fr. Gruner’s writings and re-writings on the Fatima Message for several years, I found myself almost instinctively and immediately agreeing with Most Holy Family Monastery’s thoughts on “fake Sister Lucy”. “Finally!”, I said to myself. “Bizarre as their theory is, it makes more sense than other writings on the subject.”
Sedevacantism, Not so Much
Most Holy Family Monastery does believe in Sedevacantism, the theological theory that the last few Popes have not been “real” Popes. Sedevacantists believe that all the Popes since Paul VI or John XXIII have been pseudo-Catholic imposters, and cannot have been “real” Popes. That’s a position with which I’m very uncomfortable. My feelings on this are based on something that John Paul II did, I believe in 1994.
At that time, the United Nations was near success in establishing abortion/birth control facilities throughout the third world. The Pope simply did not have the power to stop the U.N. Either The Catholic Church had deteriorated so that it lacked the political clout to stop them, or the secularists had become too powerful to for The Church to control. So, the Pope successfully appealed to some Moslem leaders, also pro-life and anti-abortion, for help. Together, they were able to stop the U.N.
Popes have had good reason to unite with other religions and other religious leaders. It is the only way they can slow down or stop the world-wide organizations of secular statists from destroying all religion. “Listen up, guys.”, one can imagine the Pope saying individually and collectively to leaders of all faiths: “If we don’t put aside some of our differences and stand up to government power, they’ll kill us all, as well as killing or enslaving those of our faiths.” As the world’s leader in the fight for individual dignity, it makes sense that our Pope would reach out to others to protect individual believers from states gone mad.
Some of the ceremonies at which these necessary alliances are celebrated do border on the ridiculous. But, it may be reasonably believed that they are helpful in coalescing those who will fight for human dignity against the drive for more slaves and fewer people that are the hallmarks of the other side.
Sedevacantism seems to be of the opinion that such political maneuverings are beneath contempt. That tends to drive a dangerous and unnecessary wedge between Catholics. Those who have read of St. Augustine’s long battle with the “holier than the Pope” Donatists realize that the split caused by Donatist self-righteousness allowed North Africa to be invaded and conquered by the Vandals. Their ongoing “we’re better than Catholics” kept Christians divided so effectively that, two centuries later, after mostly recovering from the Vandal invasion, Moslem invaders had an easier time taking over and entirely destroying North Africa’s Christians, both Catholics and Donatists.
Self-righteousness casts long shadows, so dark that demons can move among them appearing to have more light than they do.
