An Open Letter to a Fellow Priest

This letter was sent to a priest who forbid me (Fr. Joseph Dwight) to offer to the people, in his parish church (in Italy, 2009), printed copies of the Testimony of Gloria Polo when I substituted for him at a few Sunday Masses.


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Dear Father ... ,

How are you? I hope that you find time to pray without hurry before Jesus in the tabernacle even though we all have so many things to do.

You asked me by telephone to not offer anymore the booklet on the testimony of Gloria Polo: “From Illusion to the Truth” (http://testimony-polo.blogspot.com/). You indicated to me that it was too strong for some people that perhaps were not ready for this testimony.

If I might offer a few reflections…

It is true that we studied in pastoral theology the need to apply the “law of graduality”. But what I find is that the recent popes, in the world today, put us on our guard not so much about the lack of applying the “law of graduality” but rather the danger of the “graduality of the law”, which much be refuted in as much as it reduces the value of the law to a mere ideal.

The secretary of the Congregation for Clergy, Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, has lamented that many faithful no longer confess their sins. Archbishop Piacenza told Vatican Radio the sacrament of penance has been experiencing a "deep crisis" for decades. Piacenza, an official for the Vatican office on clergy, says fewer people distinguish between good and evil, and as a result do not go to confession. The archbishop said in an interview that if faithful do not have a sense of sin, they might "confuse" confession with "the couch of a psychologist or a psychiatrist." He says the Vatican plans to publish this year (2009) a “vademecum for confessors and spiritual directors”.

Relativism, according to Pope Benedict XVI, is "the most profound difficulty of our time." Pope John Paul II said it is a leading cause for lack of evangelistic and missionary zeal. In his homily at the Mass preceding the conclave that quickly elected him Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger said that "relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards." He warned: "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires." (http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/colson_relativism_may05.asp).

Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II said that the gravest sin is to believe that there is no sin, to loose the sense of sin; this is the great trap today for countless souls. We know that, here in Italy, less than 5% of the baptized Italians come to Sunday Mass regularly, and among these, few go to confession regularly. We have lost “the sense of sin”!

I believe that there are a great number of people, like Gloria Polo, who are in the illusion of being OK with their own conscience, or according to the standards of the world, or according to the common thought (“everybody does it”), or according to the criteria of the devil, BUT NOT ACCORDING TO THE CRITERIA OF GOD, that is, according to THE TRUTH! This is the fundamental deception of Satan from the beginning of mankind and always (Gen 3:4-5)! We human beings are very capable and astute in deceiving ourselves, WILLFULLY, and then we forget about it so easily! This is the great trap of today for countless souls. Few people go to confession today. When we die, Jesus will ask us if we sought the truth in his revelation in Sacred Scripture interpreted by his Church, or if we decided and determined ourselves, alone (like little gods!), the truth. I prefer to know the truth while I am still alive even if the truth is very strong and provokes in me great uneasiness or even to cause me to enter into a (holy!?!) crisis. If God offers me this great gift of the truth while I am alive, even in a brusque way (a lightening bolt!?!), there is still time to make a good confession and change my life. After death one cannot change anything for all eternity! I think that this testimony will help many people to make a good examine of conscience followed by a good sacramental confession.

A famous contemporary preacher in the U.S., Father John Corapi, recounted a few times that when a certain woman came to confession to Padre Pio, Padre Pio shouted at her and threw her out of the confessional. Afterwards, Padre Pio revealed that the women did not discipline her two daughters, did not say no, and in particular, did not teach her daughters to not go around in public dressed immodestly. Both daughters, who were already dead, ended up in hell.

The vast majority of Catholics do not seek anymore to conform their consciences according to the teachings of the Church. I believe that 100 years ago it would have been difficult to find a person who would have had difficulty reading a testimony similar to that of Gloria Polo. In other parts of Italy they offer this testimony also to the youth of 10 or more years and it goes well. Why is it that so many adults today have this difficulty? Have they never heard these things? If we priests help so gradually the people to discover what the Catholic Church teaches, above all regarding mortal sin and the consequences of mortal sin, how many people will die before discovering the truth of their willingly embraced subtle illusions?

Italy is dying more quickly than we want to admit. The statistics tell us that today the average couple in Italy produces only 1.2 babies; there is needed 2.1 babies for each couple to maintain zero growth. Couples want only one or two babies to satisfy the parents, like a nice doll in the house, but not for the motive for which God created us, that is, for pure and generous love for others, even for those who do not choose to freely respond to this gratuitous love of ours. With original sin, “man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good” (CCC 398). Surrounded and immersed today in a cultural of skepticism and relativism, together with the revolution of Illuminism, a great number do not believe any more that there is a true good; they do not believe anymore in a truth to guide their behavior. All of this leads us to think that the most important thing is our choices divorced from our Creator.

It is not easy to be religious or civil leaders today. But God gives more graces and help today for those in authority if they have the humility to continually ask for help from God to do His Will, even when it is very uncomfortable. Thus the judgment on bishops and priests will be very severe in the end if they do not preach the whole truth that the Catholic Church teaches, especially those truths that are uncomfortable and clearly indicate the need to suffer and to carry the cross of Christ and to avoid sin, such as the great sinfulness of artificial birth control. (“Humanae Vitae”, 1968) and abortion and other sins of egoism that are accepted today (by most Catholics) as if it were totally normal and even good. The priest must bring God to a world that has forgotten or pushed aside God and seeks only power, money and sex! I believe that one of the jobs of the priests today is precisely to shake the consciences of the vast majority of the people who consider themselves good and OK but in reality are motivated only by personal interests and pleasure, even though they often do things that seem good and holy. This job is not easy above all in our modern society!

Many Christians come to church to feel good and holy, to satisfy themselves, but not to satisfy the ONE who gave them everything they have! Regarding priests and religious, Sister Mary Gabriel in purgatory told Sister Mary of the Cross on December 8, 1879: “Alas, how many lives seem to be filled with good works and at the death are found empty. This is because all those actions that appeared to be good, all those showy works, all that conduct that seemed irreproachable - all these were not done for Jesus alone. Some will have their eyes opened when they come here to this life (in Purgatory). On earth they wanted to be made much of, to shine, to be thought very exact in religious observances, to be esteemed as perfect religious. This is the mainspring of so many lives. If you only knew how few people work for God and act for Him alone. Alas, at death, when they are no longer blinded, what regrets they will have. If only sometimes they would think of eternity. What is life compared to that day which will have no evening for the elect, or to that night which will have no dawning for the damned? On earth, people attach themselves to everything and everyone except to Him, who alone ought to have our love and to whom we refuse it. Jesus in the Tabernacle waits for souls to love Him and He finds none. Hardly one soul in a thousand loves Him as it should. You love Him and make up to Him for this guilty indifference which exists all over this world.” (http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).

What ever our state in life, we can use what we have as well as our situation in life to serve ourselves or serve our Creator who gave us all that we have. As Sister Mary Gabriel in purgatory clearly indicates, a priest or religious, even though they seem holy to others, can use all they have received from God to serve their own egoism.

I think that this situation is similar to the two poles of a battery. If the priests and the bishops preach only the positive pole that God is love and merciful, which is essential and fundamental (!), without preaching the negative pole of the reality of mortal sin and the reality of hell, the current does not flow! It is much easier and comfortable to imagine that it is almost impossible to commit a mortal sin as so many so-called “theologians” try to convince us today (Mortal Sin: CCC 1856-1861). It is certainly easier and more pleasant and pleasing to us priests and bishops to make the people happy and to say what they prefer to hear, and to preach with “our intelligence” or with our “cultural preparation”, that we believe to possess, while everyone is comfortable and they feel nice after our homilies! We priests, as well as the lay people, are happy to talk about and live Christ risen but not Christ crucified! But is there a resurrection without a crucifixion, or Easter without Good Friday?

Many say that they do not want to frighten the people! But what is true love? A nice life of a hundred years or a nice life for eternity? So many Italian parents do not know how to say “NO” to their children on earth as Padre Pio indicated! And thus they do not know how to say “YES” to eternal happiness! And then afterwards they ask themselves why their children ended up divorced and in so many other disasters? Is this true love? Love for whom? No cross, no crown! No pain, no gain! The devil seeks with all his might to convince us that he does not exist and that hell does not exist so that we do not apply ourselves to discover our great lack of love and our hidden egotistical motives. If the demons do not exist, and there is no hell, then we all go to Heaven! And thus, what do we have to fear?!? WHAT A DECEPTION! The first step of conversion it to realize that we are sinners. If the priests speak only of God love and God merciful and do not speak more about the reality of mortal sin and hell, many people end up believing that there is not very much (none at all) motive to ask for the mercy of God and thus the redemption is rendered useless and nullified. We do not need Jesus Redeemer! So many people (Catholics) today do not understand any more what a grave sin is. Precisely for this motive the Vatican will soon publish a “vademecum for confessors and spiritual directors”.

I posed a question to several people who work in the parishes: “When is the last time that you heard a priest say that it is a mortal sin to use artificial birth control and that one must confess this grave sin and throw away the IUD’s and the pill before receiving the Most Holy Eucharist, otherwise one commits another mortal sin? Or that the contraceptive mentality erodes and destroys the fundamental cell of society, the family.” ALL OF THEM SAID NEVER!

Before 1930 all mainline protestant denominations were in accord with the Catholic Church that the use of artificial birth control was a grave evil and a serious sin. When the Anglican Church changed its stance in 1930 (Lambeth Conference) the other protestants churches quickly followed suit while Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the Church’s constant teaching on this grave evil in his encyclical Casti Cannubii (1930). Church discipline can be changed, but the doctrines of the faith and morals which come from God cannot, and will not change. The Church does make progress, but not change of faith and morals which come from the immutable God.

Ultimately the contraceptive mentality of recreational sex, detached from responsibility and life, quickly led even to the point of the denial of equal dignity for a whole class of human beings and the genocide of countless millions of innocent, defenseless unborn babies (as JUST A FORM OF CONTRACEPTION!) in the place that ought to be the safest refuge in the world for our fellow human beings, their mother’s womb.

Pope Paul VI prophesied to us about the “Grave consequences of artificial methods of regulating births” in his encyclical: HUMANAE VITAE:
Consequences of Artificial Methods
17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html).

When so many countries found themselves with more wellbeing after the second world war, as well as with the discovery of the “pill” (1960), many Catholics (and non-Catholics) were expecting the Church, guided by the “ROCK” (Mt 16:18), to update itself according to the mentality of the world. And so when Pope Paul VI issued his prophetic encyclical, “Humanae Vitae” (1968), there was an incredible negative reaction not only on the part of lay men and women but also on the part of numerous so-called “theologians”, priests and bishops, even entire Episcopal conferences (e.g., the ‘Winnipeg Statement’ of the Canadian Bishops)! This brings down such darkness and hell on humanity that it is hard to believe. This has everything to do with all that we are seeing today. The basic decomposition of our beloved country and the whole western world, the melt down of western civilization, is tied into this.

When the Anglican Church first approved the use of contraception in 1930 it was only for serious reasons and only for married people who have been generous for life. However, by providing an opening for contraception, the qualifying phrase “for serious reason” was quickly ignored. Subsequently the use of contraception was viewed as virtuous behavior, and even the silent holocaust of abortion has become a private ethical choice of birth control. The unborn, unwanted babies no longer have any legal protection; they are now ripped to pieces after they are brutally murdered. What nice words! “Freedom of choice” of the woman! BABIES DO NOT CHOOSE TO DIE!

As soon as one does not see life as a precious gift but only as a commodity of convenience, our society descends into the chaos of hell in the culture of death!

Without the recognizing of sin, one does not realize the great need of the mercy of God! Why do so few go to confession today? They say that “God is good and merciful.” God, who is very respectful of our free will, waits for each person to freely ask for mercy; if not, God does not give us mercy! “Ask and it will be given … knock and it will be opened…” (Mt 8:7-8; Lk 11:10). We Catholics ask for the mercy of God by way of the Sacrament of Reconciliation! Which is the love more true and sincere: to help a person to arrive to salvation and eternal happiness, or to have only comfort and to feel good and secure (false!) during this short life?

In the four Gospels one finds from the mouth of Jesus references to the reality of hell many times, but one hears about this rarely today. Perhaps 100 years ago there were some who exaggerated in preaching about hell, fire and brimstone. But today the pendulum has swung totally to the other extreme to the detriment of so many souls. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10; Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 14:16; 15:33; Is 33:6).

Why did our Lady of Fatima show the three shepherd children a vision of hell with thousands of souls falling into the abyss everyday like sparks into a great fire? Our Lady at Oulx in Val di Suza (TO) was crying because children, even eight years old, end up in hell for all eternity! Lucy of Fatima revealed to Father Fuentes (1957) that the face of our Lady was always very sad. Our Lady sheds tears for each of her children who fall into hell for all eternity!

God respects our primordial gift of our free will, being created in His image (Gen 1:26-27). This is true love! We are capable of saying NO to GOD! Hell exists! It is not easy to preach the whole truth today! But pastors, priests and bishops must preach both poles of the battery, otherwise there is not true Love Who is also Infinite Justice! One no longer hears anymore from the pulpit about “The Four Last Things”!

Do not worry! I will not offer this booklet nor will I speak about this testimony of Gloria Polo in your church. But I am convinced that we priests who have received more from God, will have to answer to God after death for all the people that we could have helped to discover how they were living in illusion instead of in the truth, and we did not do anything! I believe that this testimony is a gift from God to help many people to make a good examine of conscience and then a good sacramental confession.

Below (appendix) I have included some writings of the Popes and of others which regard the “law of graduality” and the danger of the “graduality of the law” with the addresses on the web if you might be interested in reading more.

Best wishes and may God bless you in your work in His vineyard!

Fr. Joseph

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A SECOND LETTER:

After you received this e-mail (above), you said to me on the phone: “Everyone goes to heaven!” You also said: “Nowhere in the encyclical Humanae Vitae does one find the words “mortal sin”!”

With all due respects, may I say to you that if I freely choose to not want to spend eternity with God in paradise, God respects my free choice, precisely because He loves me! Your statement is an insult to my dignity as a human being created in the image of God! You directly indicate that there is no one in hell, but I, with my primordial gift from God of my free will, can choose to be the first guest in hell! One of the greatest gifts that God gave to me, being created in His image, is my free will. When so many priests and bishops want to only talk about the fact that God is love and merciful without talking about the whole and integral reality and essence of man, it is a terrible injustice and has far greater negative consequences than we can imagine. This misleading pedagogy also lowers man down to the level of the animals which have not been given this great gift of free will. “Faced with a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of something common place, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal …” (“Familiaris consortio”, cfr. n. 37).

Some apparently good priests, with a seemingly big heart, offer to their parishioners a good mother but not a good father. But children need both the mother and the father. We call the Church, “Holy Mother Church”, but the Church is truly both mother and father to her children, just as a pastor must be both the mother and the father of his parishioners. If the pastor only offers the part of the mother but does not offer to his parishioners the part of the father of his flock, it is like giving a kiss, supposedly motivated by love, to many of his parishioners as they run toward an unseen cliff which they do not know about or they do not want to recognize. They are objectively in mortal sin, but the priest indicates to them in various ways the attitude: “Do not worry; God loves you!” And so they are not helped to confront the conduct and concrete actions of their lives in the mirror of God, of TRUTH, but only in the mirror of their freely accepted and developed illusions. Is this true love on the part of the pastor of souls? We must help our sheep to not follow the world with it’s immorality, backbiting, wrong behaviors. There is no longer any rules, no scruples that holds them back, they are in jeopardy, and go to meet evil without looking back to think: “But where am I going?”

A great number of priest, bishops and parents do as Peter did at the beginning of his walk with Jesus when Peter rebuked Jesus who revealed to the Apostle that He must “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed” (Mt 16:21). Peter later matured to the point of giving his life as a martyr for Jesus. Jesus would say to these numerous priests, bishops and parents, who never matured as Christians, even after many years of being a Christian and a priest or bishop, the same as He said to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mt 16:23). The principle commandment of the devil is: “Don’t suffer! You must not suffer!” Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt 7:13-14)! The narrow gate is the actual and personal presence of Christ crucified in our personal lives – suffering and pain both interior and exterior! “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).

It seems that many priests and bishops are incapable of displeasing the people. The ones who should speak are silent because they are afraid of being laughed at or mocked or being accused of not being up with the times. In this regard, even the enemies of Christ admitted: “Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men…” (Mt 22:16; Mk 12:14; Lk 20:21). In the end WE ended up crucifying Christ!

How many couples and families have we priests and bishops helped to undermine and destroy in the name of “love” by giving council that some of the teachings of Jesus, explained by the Church, are too difficult and outmoded, such as Humanae Vitae? This is false love; this is false compassion; this is false humility! This is trust in our own human wisdom and intelligence instead of trust in God Who speaks through His Church confirmed by the living Pope. Satan continues to offer to the people of the world his new subtle and destructive traps, and thus it is important to continue to read the encyclicals of the living Pope so as to be aware of these new onslaughts of Satan as well as to know how to overcome them. It is not enough to have gone through seminary training years ago. With the internet today we can easily find the documents of the Church and the writings of the living Pope and of all the popes.

A few years ago a worldwide study was done regarding the connection between divorce and having children. Millions of couples were surveyed. The results were: the couple with no children, 39% end up in divorce; one child, 19% divorce rate; 2 children, 12% divorce rate; 3 children, 9%; and 4 or more children, less than 4% divorce rate. Having children is related to marriage stability. Even Aristotle said that childless couples do not have as much holding them together; they do not have the same type of unity as those couples with more children. Childlessness is not the way to preserve happiness together and unity in marriage. God loves each of us immensely; when we heed His word pronounced by His lawful Church, things go much better!

To fight in a battle, is it not prudent and necessary to know not only your own weapons, tactics and strategy but also the weapons, tactics and strategy of the enemy? It was recounted to Pope John Paul II that the Vatican's chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, “knows too many bishops who do not believe in the Devil”. The Pope replied bluntly: “ANYONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL”. When asked “What do you see as Satan’s greatest success?”, Amorth replied: “The fact that he has managed to convince people that he does not exist. He has almost managed it, even within the Church. We have a clergy and an Episcopate who no longer believe in the Devil , in exorcism, in the exceptional evil the Devil can instill, or even in the power that Jesus bestowed to cast out demons. … And they no longer believe in the Devil. We have entire Episcopates trying to counter exorcism. We have countries completely devoid of exorcists, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. This is a shameful shortfall.”; (http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879; http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).

“From some crevice, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God” (Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972).

“CONFRONTING THE DEVIL'S POWER”; Address of Pope Paul VI to a General Audience November 15, 1972. “WHAT ARE the Church's greatest needs at the present time? Don't be surprised at Our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil.” (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6devil.htm).

“THERE IS A RISE IN SATANISM, and satanic activity and satanic ritual murders. This danger is real and should not be ignored.”; (http://www.fatima.org/crusader/cr45/cr45pg27.asp).

We are in the greatest spiritual battle in the history of the Church and of the world, and so many of our generals, the bishops, and our captains, the priests, do not even believe or want to believe that the enemy exists, let alone to understand the weapons, tactics and strategy of the enemy! WOE TO US SIMPLE BUCK PRIVATES WHO ARE ON THE BATTLE FIELD WITH SUCH UNINFORMED AND UNPREPARED OFFICERS TO LEAD US!

Bishops and priests who have not obeyed the living Pope will have to answer for all of the souls under their care at the moment of death. A subtle mistake of a jet pilot can kill all the passengers; a passenger changing his seat to the other side of the plane affects the flight very little. On May 29, 1969 the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship issued “MEMORIALE DOMINI”, containing the Instruction on the Manner of Distributing Holy Communion, which is still in vigor and could be summarized as follows: the prohibition of receiving Holy Communion in the hand remains in vigor in the universal mode and the bishops, priests and faithful are heartily exhorted to diligently follow this law newly reasserted. Nonetheless, WHERE THIS USE MAY HAVE BEEN ENTRENCHED AND INTRODUCED IN AN ILLICIT MANNER, there is provided the possibility to concede to those sectors which are NOT DISPOSED TO OBEY THIS EXHORTATION.
“POPE BENEDICT Sets the Norm for Receiving Communion”; “In other words, it is an exception to the norm, and Pope Benedict is making it clear what the norm has been and still is: Communion on the tongue while kneeling.” (http://homilysun.blogspot.com/2010/03/lent-3c.html).



So many bishops and priests today believe they know more than the Pope, especially the living Pope, and even accuse those bishops and priests who seek to follow the directives of the Pope, in particular the established Church norms of how to receive Holy Communion and the guidelines regarding sexual conduct, as full of pride because those who follow the directives of the Pope are in the minority today. Which is true humility here and which is false humility? And moreover, what is true charity toward God and toward the faithful: to offer to the faithful the teachings of the Church approved by the Popes, or to offer to the faithful what the majority of bishops and priests promote which are divergent from these official Church teachings in fundamental and very important issues of faith and morals? And then we wonder why the Church and the world are in their present condition and we wonder why Our Lady at Fatima and at so many other places around the world in the last 150 years warns us of incredible catastrophes that will happen if we do not convert according to God’s criteria of conversion! Who is right, our Lady, or we intelligent and wise leaders of the Church? The truth shall set you free (Jn 8:32), even though we will have to suffer as Christ suffered on the cross and we will have to adore the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist as Jesus wants to be adored, explained by the authoritative teachings of the Church.

We Catholics have the nuclear spiritual bomb: the Eucharist! We have received many more “talents” to multiply for the Kingdom of God and for the good of the whole world. Receiving the Most Holy Sacrament in the hand, standing, results in the decrease of the faith even to the point that many of the faithful today see the Eucharist as a Sacred Object, but not as the Divine Person. The graces received personally and for the whole Church and for the whole world are greatly diminished! Our nuclear spiritual bomb to be able to support the world in this “cosmic struggle” (John Paul II) is reduced to a fire cracker!






How many times in the history of the Church the majority of the bishops and priests were against the pronouncements of the Pope, such as during the Arian heresy or after the encyclical Humanae Vitae? I am sure Saint Athanasius was accused of pride by the majority of the priests and bishops because he proclaimed that Jesus is divine during the Arian heresy and thus was not in accord with the majority of the great leaders in the Church at the time; St Athanasius even had to flee for his life! “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will” (Mt 11:25; Lk 10:21)!


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Good parents often must tell their children to do things that are difficult and even painful. Some children trust their parents, while other children rebel. Our culture today tells us and brainwashes us, through powerful and sophisticated means, that the Ten Commandments and the Church’s teachings are a big NO. But for the children who trust God, the Ten Commandments and the Church’s teachings are a big YES, a big yes to true freedom (Jn 8:32) and eternal salvation!

Where do we find this saving and liberating truth from God here on earth? From Fr. Joe, from you, from who? The vast majority of people today have freely chosen to enter into the deep trap of relativism and thus each person makes himself the source of truth, which leads to horrible slavery. I prefer to seek the truth from the “Rock” that Jesus left us here on earth (Mt 16:18), the living Pope!

If you say to people: “You are living in sin!”, how many listen to you? Perhaps one in four hundred?! How many couples “live together” today in the sin of “free sex”?! Where there is sin there cannot be peace and true love. Where sin is, there “lives together” the other “god”, the “god I”, and that god is made to measure, made for self and based on self; it is stamped by the seal of the devil. Oh, it is true that for them God cannot command them in anything, but they do not even believe in the existence of the devil and thus they are in his arms and he maneuvers their minds leading them to abominable acts. God gives Love; the devil gives death! Jesus tells us to follow Him every day with our cross and offers us true freedom and eternal happiness; the devil tells us to avoid suffering at all costs here on earth and convinces us that everyone goes to heaven after death.

It is truly ironic that precisely the things that our hedonistic culture offers to us as freedom ends up being dreadful slavery and destruction! “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34). It is not easy today for couples to trustfully follow the Church’s teaching on human sexuality in our rebellious culture which seeks pleasure as one of it’s gods. “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26). Do pastors encourage couples to seek help in the sacraments and the Rosary so as to be able to live the prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, or do they give them a “loving kiss” as they lead couples gently to succumb to the mentality and strong currents of our modern world today which leads to their destruction? The objective reality of the world and the universe and of human existence was created by God, not by you or me! Thus the rules of the game of life are determined by Him, not by the very numerous relativistic gods on the earth today (Gen 3:4-5)! God’s instruction manual, found and explained in Sacred Tradition, the Magisterium of the Church and Sacred Scripture, offers “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6) which shows us how to avoid disasters and to find true freedom and happiness not only in heaven but also here on earth. They say that God forgives all the time, and that man forgives sometimes, but NATURE NEVER FORGIVES.

After the war and depression, many people said: “I do not want my children to have to suffer what I had to suffer.” It is normal to want to avoid suffering. But Christians follow Christ crucified in order to rise with Him after death. True love of God and neighbor always entails some kind of suffering. Saint Raymund of Penyafort wrote: “I should hope that you would not be counted among their number. Their homes are peaceful and complacent. They live in security and never feel the touch of the Lord’s rod. They pass their days in plenty and in the end go straight to hell.” (Office of Readings; Jan. 7)

In my country, the U.S., there are over 30,000 independent protestant groups all interpreting divine revelation in their own way. Jesus knew well that there would be many opinions and confusion about the most important topic of eternal salvation and so he gave to us the Church with the ROCK as our guaranteed and divinely protected guide (Mt 16:18). Are we promoting and teaching the religion of the Gospels explained by the one true Church, the Catholic Church with the Pope as the visible head, or are we promoting and teaching a nice comfortable “Christian” religion without the cross, while rendering the consciences of our parishioners insensitive and numb? Are we truly good shepherds of our flocks to protect the sheep from the very numerous and subtly ingenious wolves of today? Or have we slipped into the comfortable and self-satisfying role of the hireling who gratifies himself with the applause of the sheep with his nice words that the sheep want to hear, but then when the sneaky shrewd astute sly wolf comes, he abandons the flock, not being ready or willing to give his life for the sheep due to the fact that he did not preach the uncomfortable truths which would make him unpopular or even be rejected by the majority of the self-seeking sheep (Jn 10:7-18)? “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2Tim 4:3-4).

Why does Jesus exhort us so often in the Gospels to pray always (Lk 18:1; 21:36, etc.)? Why does Jesus tell us: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7; Lk 11:9)? Is it not precisely because God is very, in fact totally, respectful of our free will? Do you really believe, according to your statement to me on the phone, that God will force everyone, even kicking and screaming, to spend all eternity with Him? The devil does not want to respect our freedom at all and he would be happy to force us into his eternal dwelling even if we are kicking a screaming, just as his human followers on earth try to do in their forceful terrible arrogance.

God has given us human beings an incredibly great dignity, like the angels! We are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), and thus we can freely say YES or NO to God! Our relativistic culture of today wants to tell us that there is no truth, and that one opinion is as good as another, and that it does not matter what you do… But this way of believing and doing ends up with the law: “Might makes right”! Our culture wants to say to us that we have very little dignity, if any, and thus we have no responsibility for our actions. Is this not a resurgence of the old heresy of Gnosticism which sees all material things as evil and thus we can do with our bodies as we like without consequence? Saint Columbanus explains very clearly our great dignity made in the image of God as well as our great obligation of preserving this awesome image (Office of Readings; Nov. 23).

When a woman commits an abortion, she must face the whole truth of the tremendous gravity of the sin committed as well as the infinite mercy of God! If she is not helped by others to acknowledge the truth of the sin committed as well as the offer of the infinite mercy of God, she will have even greater problems psychologically as well as other problems. If all go to heaven as you say, there should be no consequences or repercussions, psychologically or otherwise, since there is no responsibility, just like the animals which do not experience these consequences or repercussions. The statistics show that in our sexually free society, the occurrence of depression among females is three times higher than that of depression among males who have sexual relations about as freely as shaking hands or playing a game of tennis. Pope John Paul II did not tell women that everyone goes to heaven and so they can forget about the act of abortion!

EVANGELIUM VITAE; March 25, 1995; Pope John Paul II:
No. 99: I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life. (http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__P10.HTM).

The devil wants to lower human beings down to the level of animals, or worse, down to his level which is far lower than innocent beasts! Today he is succeeding in this endeavour more than at any other time in the history of mankind. Even the animals do not kill their offspring or kill their old!

It is so much more convenient and self satisfying to see ourselves in our own constructed, subjective mirror rather than seeing ourselves in the mirror of God who created us and has imprinted the truth in our very being! At death we will see our whole life and how we sought and lived the truth or how we accepted and freely embraced so many convenient illusions offered to us by the world or by the devil or by ourselves.

Relativism not only reduces us human beings, but reduces and even denies the incredible sacrifice of Christ! The whole redemption is nullified! Christ came for sinners not for those who automatically go to heaven. Christ went around with the sinners, not with the self-justified! The very first step in our walk toward Christ is to recognize our sinfulness, to repent and to ask God’s forgiveness. As we say on Ash Wednesday, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!” If everyone goes to heaven, why did Jesus Christ suffer such a horrible death? Who is stupid here, Christ or we presumptuous relativists? Who determines the criteria of salvation, me, you, or Jesus who speaks through His Church?

It is interesting that socialists do not succeed in accepting that individuals have this remarkable capacity that we call free will, free choice. Socialism cannot deal with this issue of free will!

The more and better Satan succeeds in coming close to the real thing, to the truth, to virtue, and then to pervert it, the more souls he succeeds in leading astray, especially among those who have received more grace and truth and responsibility from God such as parents, priests and bishops. Thus Satan proclaims that God loves us and is merciful etc., while denying our responsibility since “God who is love and merciful, would never sends anyone to hell”. Satan tells us in fact “God probably did not even create hell and the devil really does not exist!” But God does not send anyone to hell; those in hell freely chose to go there and God confirms their choice! Does not the devil disguise himself as an “angel of light” (2Cor 11:14)? The more steps one takes in the direction of these convenient illusions when confronted with the difficulties and decisions in life, it becomes more difficult to confront reality and truth, and can become a major shock and almost impossible to understand and accept truth when it comes to us as a harsh and strong reality.

Sister Lucy of Fatima said to Father Agostino Fuentes, the postulator of the cause of beatification of Giacinta e Francesco (December 26, 1957): “Our Lady is very displeased because it is not taken into account her message of 1917. Neither the good nor the bad have held them in consideration. Believe me my Father, the Lord will punish the world very soon; the punishment is immanent! Many nations will disappear from the face of the earth, many nations will be annihilated. … The devil knows that the religious and the priests, not living up to their beautiful vocation, drag many souls to hell. … We have at our disposition TWO EFFICACIOUS MEANS: Prayer and Sacrifice. … The third time she said that, the other means exhausted and despised by men, He will give with trembling the last anchor of salvation which is the Most Holy Virgin in person, signs of tears, messages of seers spread in all the parts of the earth. Our Lady said that if we do not listen and if we still offend we will not be pardoned. Father, it is urgent that we realize this terrible reality. We do not want to fill the souls with fear, but only it is urgent a recall to reality. From when the Holy Virgin gave such a great efficaciousness to the Rosary, there does not exist any material, spiritual, national or international problem that cannot be resolved with THE HOLY ROSARY AND WITH OUR SACRIFICES. To recite it with devotion will be to consol Mary and to wipe away so many tears from her Immaculate Heart. … Our Lady expressly said: “We are approaching the end times”.”

Every time we fall into sin, it is a nail, it is a thorn embedded in the Heart of the Sorrowful Mother’s Son, and She cries out to us: “have pity, have mercy!”

How many priests today trust more in their own opinions (like relativists) rather than in the teachings of the Church which include the writings of the popes? What was Pope John Paul II trying to tell us with his visits to Fatima and with the beatifications of Jacinta and Francesco of Fatima? Why did Pope Benedict chose Cardinal Biffi to give the annual Lenten retreat to the Pope and the top members of the Vatican (Feb. 27, 2007)? The Times of London reported in 2004 that the Cardinal described the Antichrist as “walking among us”. The Lenten retreat did not disappoint. Cardinal Biffi picked up on his oft repeated theme of the Antichrist, basing his remarks on the works of Vladimir Soloviev, a Russian religious philosopher who has received praise from Pope Benedict prior to his elevation to the pontificate. Quoting Soloviev, the Cardinal said "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist." The cardinal said he believes that this is "the danger that Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality." The preacher of the Spiritual Exercises added that "there are relative values, such as solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature. If these become absolute, uprooting or even opposing the proclamation of the event of salvation, then these values become an instigation to idolatry and obstacles on the way of salvation…." (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07030101.html).

Today we are like fish habituated to dirty water; we have become totally used to the dirty and cloudy waters of relativism and we are happy with it. Thus we judge so many things from this dirty water prospective. But the Creator of the material and the spiritual worlds has imprinted His laws in these created realities. Thus even if we feel that everything is basically OK within our dirty water, that is, our unawareness and blindness of our relativistic point of view, we do not seem to understand why things end up so badly.

It is interesting that we tell our child to cover himself up in the winter when he goes outside because there are the laws of nature, as well as counseling our child regarding so many other natural precautions. But we do not tell the child anymore to follow God’s laws on sexual morality, who then ends up in bad relations and ends up destroying his life on earth and after death. We say: “You can’t fool mother nature”, but it is open season to shoot at the teachings of the Church even though these teachings are for our good, from a mother who loves us, from Holy Mother Church. If everything is basically OK, as so many insinuate, even though we water down or totally push aside Humanae Vitae and ignore the message of Fatima, what was the real cause of World War I, World War II, the breakdown of the family, abortion, euthanasia, socialism quickly replacing government and civil structures which used to respect the very important Church principle of subsidiarity, etc.?

Seven times in the book of judges alone the people of Israel went through the cycle of sin, suffering, supplication to God, salvation from God, and then silence about God, and then they began all over again to sin again. The world is about to enter into the second part of perhaps the greatest such cycle in the history of the world, “suffering” (tribulation!) which will help many to call out to God and to recognize and to repent of their sins. It is interesting that when the Israelites were tired of deciding and doing things on their own and experienced how much better it is to follow God’s chosen ones, they finally pleaded with Gideon to “rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also...” (Judg 8:22). How many Christians have also become TIRED OF BEING THE POPE and have made this same wise choice to follow God’s chosen one, the living Pope to whom Jesus promised that “the gates of hell would not prevail” (Mt 16:18)? This promise was made to Peter and to his successors, not to the bishops, or to conferences of bishops or to theologians of whom many have set themselves up as a second magisterium after Humanae Vitae was written!

Just before disaster struck seven times in the Book of Judges, the people of Israel did not expect it because they did not realize how far they had drifted from God in their hearts and in their actions and thus they felt that everything was OK and normal similar to the days of Noah and Lot (Gen 6:5-8; 7:6-24; Lk 17:26-30; Mt 24:37-39). God sent prophets but the people did not heed the words of the prophets. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had no idea that their cities were about to be destroyed; they could have cared less, as long as they could revel in their destructive pleasures. Today many heads of state are promoting homosexuality and abortion and so many will have no idea why a “punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before” is about to be unleashed (Akita, Japan). As Lucy of Fatima told Padre Fuentes: “The other means exhausted and despised by men, He (God) will give with trembling the last anchor of salvation which is the Most Holy Virgin in person, signs of tears, messages of seers spread in all the parts of the earth. Our Lady said that if we do not listen and if we still offend we will not be pardoned.”

How many wives (or husbands) suffer greatly because their husbands (or wives) are so insensitive and indifferent!? A female dog does not suffer because a male dog is insensitive or indifferent! Our culture today which has instilled in so many that sex outside of marriage is like shaking hands or playing a game of tennis, lowering or totally denying our dignity and human nature given by God, has great difficulty explaining why do so many girls fall into depression due to having sex so easily outside of marriage without any kind of restraint! God has given us an extraordinary dignity made in His image and likeness. Thus our lack of living up to this incredible dignity is incomprehensible to our culture which has lowered human beings to such a low state. We tend to bring God down to our level, to the level of human love, not divine love, so that it is easier to not have to respond to such great love from God. This is similar to a child who says to his loving mother to stop loving him so much so that his conscience does not bother him due to his lack of response to his mother’s love. But God loves only in a total way, not 50% or 95%!

Very often there is a tendency to not consider very much the possibility of offending God, much less to cause great pain to God due to our insensitivity and indifference. We say: “After all He is God; He does not need us and besides He is far above all these things!” We forget that the greater the love is, the greater is the pain due to insensitivity and indifference. God who loves each one of us immensely, suffers more than we can imagine due to our indifference. One might say how can this be if Jesus already died 2000 years ago? We must remember that for God there is no past or future but only the eternal present. Jesus suffered (“suffers”) not only for the sins of those who lived before and during his crucifixion, but also for all of the sins after his crucifixion. We slough off so easily this fundamental indifference of not responding to love. This is the fundamental definition of sin. That is why Gloria Polo said: “You know, the first thing that we render account to God, even before the sins, are the omissions! They are so grave! You do not imagine how much!” God is love; he freely created us out of love and then suffers and dies on the cross in the eternal present for our not responding to this immense and personal love for each of us. I have begun to say these things at every funeral Mass since the great majority of the people present at the Funeral Mass do not come each week to Sunday Mass to thank Jesus in the Eucharist (which means “thanksgiving”) for all that he has given them, not only material things, but also for all spiritual blessings, including his incredible sacrifice he paid on the cross for their sins of outright, cold, inhuman indifference! They feel a little sorrow for the lost relative or friend in the coffin, but the One who gave them everything!?! How can we pretend to spend eternity with Jesus if we do not have even one hour a week for him? Do they not realize that the greatest pain in hell and in purgatory, far greater than the torments of the horrendous fire, is the absence of God?

Not only at the funeral Masses, but also at the Christmas and Easter Masses, when the great majority of those present do not go regularly to Mass, I have begun to say just before giving out Holy Communion: “I do not want to offend anyone, but especially I do not want to offend Jesus, my Savior. The Church has always taught us that to not go each week to Sunday Mass offends and causes Jesus to suffer so intensely that one must go to confession to confess this horrendous sin of indifference before receiving Jesus, the infinite Son of God, in Holy Communion, so as not to offend and embed another thorn into the Heart of Jesus due to a sacrilegious Holy Communion.”

Dr. Scott Hahn, Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville (http://www.scotthahn.com/), said a simple statement that struck me the more I thought about it. He said that the crisis in the Church began when Catholics began to see the Eucharist as only a SACRED THING and no longer as the DIVINE PERSON! Perhaps this seems like an explanation too simple or even naïve! But we so easily forget that the source and summit of our Christian life is the Eucharist. This is also directly related to how we Catholics began to come to church TO RECEIVE RATHER THAN TO GIVE, first of all to God in adoration, and then to Jesus in each neighbor. The angels and saints in heaven adore their infinite God, prostrate before Him. Do we seek to discover the way that God desires to be adored, in particular, at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or do we decide by ourselves how or even if we should adore God?

We Catholics have the greatest weapon to defend and fight against the onslaughts of Satan and his followers. When Catholics slip into this subtle default, seemingly simple and insignificant, the whole world suffers more than we can possibly imagine. In this greatest of battles against Satan and his followers, we Catholics have the greatest weapon, like a spiritual nuclear bomb, but the great majority of Catholics do not even go to Sunday Mass each week, and those who do, the great majority see the Eucharist as a nice sacred thing but not as the divine Person, to know, to love and to serve in a personal, intimate relationship. This seemingly insignificant default reduces our spiritual nuclear bomb to a firecracker. Even Satanists believe in the Eucharist; they try to acquire the consecrated Hosts in order to desecrate them at their black masses despite the fact that in the major basilicas in Rome and in other churches, there is a guard next to the priest who distributes Holy Communion to make sure that the people put the Body of Christ into their mouth and do not take it out of their mouth!

Sister Mary Gabriel in purgatory told Sister Mary of the Cross (1880): “Preachers and directors of souls do good only in proportion to their union with Jesus. In their spirit of prayer and in watching over their interior, they must always have their eyes directed towards Jesus, sacrificing all for the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care.” (http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).

When Pope John Paul II replied bluntly in response about many bishops who do not believe in the Devil: “Anyone who does not believe in the Devil does not believe in the Gospel”, the Vatican's chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, was asked in his interview of 2001: “Again, ARE YOU SAYING THAT MANY BISHOPS AND PRIESTS ARE NOT, CONSEQUENTLY, CATHOLIC?” Amorth replied: “Let us just say that they do not believe a Gospel truth. So, if anything, I would stop them propagating a heresy. But, to be clear about this, a person is officially a heretic if he or she is accused of something and persists in the error. No one today, given the situation in the Church, is accusing a bishop of not believing in the Devil, or in demonic possession or of failing to appoint exorcists because he does not believe. And yet I could give you the names of so many bishops and cardinals who, on their appointment to a diocese, stripped exorcists of their faculty to perform the rite. Or there are bishops who openly say they don’t believe, that these are things of the past. Why is that? Unfortunately, we have had the insidious influence of certain biblists and I could mention some illustrious names. We who are in daily physical contact with the ‘other world’ know that this influence is evident in numerous liturgical reforms. (For example?) The Second Vatican Council asked that some texts be revised. Disobeying this command, they set about re-writing them completely with no thought for the danger of making things worse instead of better. So many rites came off badly from this mania to throw out the old and start from scratch, as if the Church to date had always conned us and as if only now the time had at last come of the great geniuses, the super theologians, the super-biblists and the super-liturgists who know what the right thing is for the Church. This is a lie: the last Council simply asked that the texts be revised, not destroyed.” (http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879; http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).

Cardinal Cañizares Llovera is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship said: “THE "MOST URGENT ISSUE" IS THAT "THE SENSE OF THE LITURGY BE TRULY RECOVERED”. Some of his recent remarks made in an interview with the newspaper Catalunya Cristiana suggest that the "reform of the reform" is alive and well, even while the process is slow and arduous: … “People believe that the liturgy is a matter of forms and external realities, and what we really need is to restore a sense of worship, i.e. the sense of God as God. This sense of God can only be recovered with the liturgy. … THE LITURGY ALWAYS LOOKS TOWARDS GOD, NOT THE COMMUNITY…” (http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/10/cardinal-ca%C3%B1izares-the-most-urgent-issue-is-that-the-sense-of-the-liturgy.html).

After I finish celebrating the Holy Mass each day, I often go with the other resident priest to the local bar in Italy for a cup of coffee with milk (cappuccino!). I often talk and joke with the bartender, Robert, who by now I know well. The other day I said to him that this year many people in the world celebrate the invention of the “pill” fifty years ago. I briefly said that the great majority of Catholics fell for this very alluring temptation of separating the marital act from life, from responsibility, which poisoned so many families, the fundamental cell of society. This is the root of the crisis today. Robert responded casually that he uses the pill and everything works out fine for him. I simple replied that today the great majority of people do not even know the difference between love according to the world and love according to Jesus Christ. I said that what is even worse, much worse, is the fact that the great majority of people do not want to know the difference! Ignorance is Bliss!

In our human way of talking here on earth, many people, who have willingly accepted and embraced so many times in their life the great but convenient lies of relativism, will say to Jesus when they die: “I did not know this or that or …” And Jesus will say: “Yes, you did not know, but you willingly chose not to want to know, you did not want to discover the truth or the difference between love according to the world, with so many hidden egotistical motives, and true love that I explained while I was on earth leaving my Church, the Catholic Church with the Pope as the head, to explain true love more clearly through the ages to the end of time.”

With love according to the world, even outward works that seem praiseworthy, there is always a hidden personal profit or advantage. With love according to Jesus Christ, it is free, even for our enemies, for the undesirable ones, for the weak, for the unwanted, unborn babies, especially with physical defects, for the old people no longer autonomous and who are often a burden to us and to society, etc.

We so easily tend to be self-centered and do not think of how much Jesus suffered (“suffers”) for us. A good mother suffers more than her child when her child chooses what will hurt her child. So too God “suffers” more than we do when we choose evil rather than good. I truly believe that when Jesus cried out on the cross “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34), he suffered (and suffers) more than all the suffering and pain of all the souls combined on earth, in hell and in purgatory for all time! Jesus said to St. Faustina: “My daughter; know that your ardent love and the compassion you have for Me were a consolation to Me in the Garden [of Olives]” (Diary, No. 1664). Jesus told St. Faustina regarding the lukewarm and indifferent souls: “These souls cause Me more suffering than any others; it was from such souls that My soul felt the most revulsion in the Garden of Olives. It was on their account that I said: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass Me by.” The last hope of salvation for them is to flee to My Mercy” (Diary 1228).

What can one possibly say to help those who have allowed themselves to slowly drift far away from the realities and criteria established by God and no longer understand the seriousness of their situation in regards to their habitually cultivated and embraced lack of love and habitual indifference above all toward the One who gave them everything, God, and then to Jesus who hides himself in each of their neighbors, especially in “the least of these my brethren” (Mt 25:40)? Many people have taken many steps in their life away from the Truth, Who is Jesus, without sorrow or repentance, and now find themselves in spiritual blindness without even realizing anymore their real situation. Jesus truly identifies himself with the unwanted, unborn babies and with the non-autonomous old people and with all the unwanted and rejected outcasts! If somehow these people, who have freely chosen to become cold-hearted and calloused, might hear these admonitions and might be confronted with their great egoism freely embraced countless times in their life, most of them would refuse and would reject this confrontation immediately or they would think that this idea comes from another planet, outside of the real world, the “real world” of today that they see on TV, etc. When these people, who have freely chosen to make so many steps during their life in ignoring the needy, especially the most defenseless and unwanted, are somehow forced, before they die, to confront their chosen egotistical behavior with the objective reality (which includes their consciences) created and established by the Creator, the reality which St. Frances of Assisi simply expressed as: “Love is not loved”, it is a great shock to these people, like a lightning bolt that struck Gloria Polo! Sister Lucy of Fatima said to Padre Fuentes: “Father, it is urgent that we realize this terrible reality. We do not want to fill the souls with fear, but only it is urgent a recall to reality.”

Men are inconsistent beings; they foresee catastrophes everywhere but a direction of “spiritual help” they do not seek! Of course when the great chastisement hits, these indifferent egotistical people will blame God, just as Gloria Polo did before the lightning bolt struck her! Many others will be in total confusion as to why! In the final message of the Blessed Virgin, October 13, 1973, on the anniversary of the last apparition and of the miracle of Fatima, at Akita, Japan, she said to Sister Agnes Sasagawa: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms that will remain for you will be the Rosary and Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars sacked, the Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of My sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them.” (http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/akita.htm).

How many priests of good will and heart will cry bitterly in the end because they fell into these various traps of relativism or soft-heartedness (false compassion) and did not warn their children of the truth of the infinite love of God and the consequences of not responding to this Infinite Love? Why did Jesus cry when he looked at Jerusalem (Lk 19:41)? Why does our heavenly Mother cry or is so sad in many of her apparitions? We have a difficult time understanding a God who is love, is also infinitely Just! Due to our great dignity, there is no place in heaven for the mediocre, only for saints!

Jesus gave Gloria Polo this mission: “You will go back, to give your testimony, that you will repeat not a 1000 times, but a 1000 x 1000. Woe to the one, listening to you, who will not change, because he will be judged with greater severity. And this applies also to you, in your second return, for the religious who are my priests, and for whoever else that does not listen to you: because there is no greater deaf person than the one who does not want to hear, nor a worse blind person than the one who does not want to see”.

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APPENDIX:
(To read the rest of the articles and references, visit the Web addresses indicated.)

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION; FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO; OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
34. The Moral Progress of Married People (see also no. 9)
Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral life, with the support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better knowledge of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They must also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. "And so what is known as 'the law of gradualness' or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with 'gradualness of the law,' as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for different individuals and situations. In God's plan, all husbands and wives are called in marriage to holiness, and this lofty vocation is fulfilled to the extent that the human person is able to respond to God's command with serene confidence in God's grace and in his or her own will."(95) On the same lines, it is part of the Church's pedagogy that husbands and wives should first of all recognize clearly the teaching of Humanae vitae as indicating the norm for the exercise of their sexuality, and that they should endeavor to establish the conditions necessary for observing that norm. …
Uniquely important in this field is unity of moral and pastoral judgment by priests, a unity that must be carefully sought and ensured, in order that the faithful may not have to suffer anxiety of conscience. (cfr. Humanae Vitae, 28).
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html)

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HUMANAE VITAE; No 28:
To Priests
28. And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of individual men and women and of families—We turn to you filled with great confidence. For it is your principal duty—We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology—to spell out clearly and completely the Church's teaching on marriage. In the performance of your ministry you must be the first to give an example of that sincere obedience, inward as well as outward, which is due to the magisterium of the Church. For, as you know, the pastors of the Church enjoy a special light of the Holy Spirit in teaching the truth. (39) And this, rather than the arguments they put forward, is why you are bound to such obedience. Nor will it escape you that if men's peace of soul and the unity of the Christian people are to be preserved, then it is of the utmost importance that in moral as well as in dogmatic theology all should obey the magisterium of the Church and should speak as with one voice. Therefore We make Our own the anxious words of the great Apostle Paul and with all Our heart We renew Our appeal to you: "I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment." (1Cor 1:10)
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html)

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VERITATIS SPLENDOR
104. In this context, appropriate allowance is made both for God's mercy towards the sinner who converts and for the understanding of human weakness. Such understanding never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances. It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy. An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole, since it encourages doubt about the objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and it ends up by confusing all judgments about values.
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html)

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JOHN PAUL II
GENERAL AUDIENCE
Wednesday 28 July 1999
3. The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (n. 1033).
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_28071999_en.html)

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NO “GRADUATING” OF GOD'S LAW
3. The difficulties which the spouses encounter to be faithful to God's law cannot be ignored, and these difficulties have been the subject of your reflections. It is necessary to do all that is possible to help married couples in an adequate way.
Above all, it is necessary to avoid graduating God's law to the measure of the various situations in which the spouses find themselves. The moral law reveals to us God's plan regarding marriage, the total good of conjugal love; the desire to diminish that plan is a lack of respect towards man's dignity. The law of God expresses the demands of the truth of the human person: that order of divine Wisdom “which, if we observe in this life, will lead to God and unless we observe it, we will not reach God", as St. Augustine says (De ordine 1 9,27, CSEL 63, 139).
In fact, we can ask ourselves if the confusion between the "graduality of the law" and "the law of graduality" does not have its explanation also in a scanty esteem for God's law. The view is held that it is not suitable for every man, for every situation, and so it is desired to replace it with an order different from the divine. …. (Read more at: http://www.federaciocristians.org/metges/4_publicacions/3_video_cd/25_anys_sant_pare/angles/seccio_1/christian%20vocations.htm)

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If you might want to see an article that explains briefly and clearly that we are dealing with mortal sin in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, you might visit the following website, translating it into English from Italian with Google: (http://www.cavmelzo.it/Articoli/concezione_e_contraccezione.htm ).