The Church's ultimate trial, and the final unleashing of evil

Detail of The Deeds of Antichrist, by Luca Signorelli, c. 1505

The much-beleaguered Catholic faithful woke up this week to a jarring and heartbreaking new reality at the Vatican—namely, the inexplicable banning of individual Masses at the dozens of side altars in St. Peter’s Basilica. Countless priests, century after century, have reverently said Mass upon these altars, among them generations of simple, pilgrim priests from around the world, awestruck and grateful for their once-in-a-lifetime chance to offer the Holy Sacrifice at the very heart of the universal Church, over the bones of St. Peter himself.

But now the glorious side altars have fallen silent, by decree.

The circumstances surrounding the suppression are bizarre and even cruel, with no reason forthcoming from the hierarchy. The biblical promise of an “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15) makes more sense and becomes more real by the day.

However, in the midst of what seems to be the ongoing, orchestrated deconstruction of our Catholic patrimony, tradition, and treasures, we should neither despair nor lose our interior peace. After all, we know enough of prophesy and eschatology to realize that as we approach the final triumph, the Body of Christ has to pass through a very dark time, imitating the Passion of our Savior.

In fact, for a few years now, I have been referring everyone to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 675-677. I have memorized the numbers and much of the content, and I suggest you do the same. You’ll feel strangely better about what we are enduring, and you’ll begin to understand that this crisis in the Church, even at the highest levels, is to be expected. Now, this knowledge won’t magically remove the suffering of this cross; however, you’ll find consolation in knowing that things are not actually out of control. God is in control, and His plan is being realized.

I am no expert, but the Catechism is meant for all of us, and we are perfectly capable of reading and recognizing what the Church has put before our eyes. Let’s take a look at these three paragraphs, then discuss:

The Church's ultimate trial

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.

I’m sure those words strike many of you as hauntingly familiar. Boil it down:

The faith of many will be shaken in the final trial of the Church.

Via the persecution that comes to the faithful, the mystery of sin will be unveiled (dare we say “unmasked”?).

Something that looks and feels just like true religion will deceive many souls.

This false religion seems to offer man a solution to his earthly problems.

The cost of this “solution”? Apostasy from the truth.

Man will put himself at the center of all things, glorifying himself while displacing God.

Man will work to fix and “save” all the things of this earth (think: social justice utopia), forgetting the transcendent.

There will be no historical triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy.

The true Church will be humiliated, beaten, crushed, and crucified by the world—just like our Lord.

God will claim the victory only after the final unleashing of evil on this earth.

The Final Judgment will be fearsome. The Resurrection will come.

Get ready.

Let’s discuss all of this in the comments. But first, to get a feel for what the religious deception and a man-centered existence looks like, watch and listen to Jeffrey Sachs, a secular humanist, pro-abortion, population control advocate, proponent of the New Word Order—and a special and repeated guest at the Vatican. His speech should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. And the creepy prelate on his right? I have no words.