«The word of the Lord was addressed to me in these terms: Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominable crimes.» (Ez 16.1)

     This oracle of Ezekiel comes down to us across the centuries, and today it strikes at the «tribe of Juda of the New Covenant», as Saint Pius X liked to refer to France. Our bishops describe abortion as an “abominable crime”, and in this they speak truly. Like Caiaphas, they do not say this of themselves, «but being high priests, they prophesy» (Jn 11.51). They then proceed to allow three hundred thousand (300,000!) abortions to take place every year, as this is in accordance with the Veil law and they do not wish “to play politics”. Thus France is herself that unfaithful daughter against whom the anger of God is inflamed:

     «You will say: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem. By your origin and your birth, you are of the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.»

     The Word of God is incandescent. One only has to quote it for there to shine forth shafts of light which light up the whole of our history, past, present and future. «At Mount Beuvray, I saw the stone on which human sacrifice was still practised in the time of Vercingetorix, when he was confronting Caesar camped at Autun», recounted the Abbé de Nantes in his opening conference on the Sacred History of holy, gentle France (French CRC n^o 198, March 1984, p. 6). No, “our ancestors the Gauls” were not that pure race which our romantics dreamed about! and we have nothing to boast about in our pagan origins.

     «At your birth, on the day that you came into the world, there was no one to cut your navel string, or wash you in cleansing water, or rub you with salt, or wrap you in napkins. No one leaned over you to perform any of these duties out of compassion for you. You were exposed in the open fields, so abhorred were you on the day of your birth.»

     Such was France at the time of her birth: a little savage.

     «I passed close by and I saw you struggling in your blood. And I said to you in your blood: “Live and grow up like the grass in the fields”. You developed, you grew up and and you reached marriageable age. Your breasts became firm and your hair grew thick, but you were quite naked.»

     Just like Eve in the earthly Paradise, not in the first chapter, but in the third, after the original sin which made nudity something shameful (Gn 3.8-11).

     «Then I passed close by and I saw you. Your time had come, the time for love. I spread part of my cloak over you and covered your nakedness; I bound myself by an oath, I made a covenant with you – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks – and you became mine.»

     It was a veritable marriage, contracted between this savage girl who deserved nothing and the most gracious God, the blessed and merciful Lord who took her as His wife.

     «I bathed you in water, I washed away the blood that covered you, I anointed you with oil.»

     So it was in the baptistery at Rheims on Christmas day 496. On that day Clovis and his Franks received baptism at the hands of the bishop Saint Rémy and his Gallo-Roman clergy. Since 1984, month by month, we have been making progress in this history of France by following step by step this extraordinary allegory of Ezekiel’s. I believe that the Abbé de Nantes is the only person in the world to recall this allegory and to preach about it. On many occasions he has explained that this history unfolds in four parts, like the history of Jerusalem. Now, in its turn, the history of France has, over the last two thousand years, been exactly divided up, as we find in this allegory, into four epochs of five hundred years each, revealing the wonderful truth of those words of Saint Pius X who compared France to «the tribe of Juda of the New Covenant». We live by this extraordinary light, which has been inspired by God to guide us through our country’s terrible history, a history whose “orthodromic” path ends in... hope!

     Today, there is a new application of this allegory that represents a novelty every bit as sudden and radical as «the mass of increasingly revolting, alarming, stupid and incoherent news stories» which submerge the events of the day like an oil slick: «It is no longer France that I have in mind, as she is merely the daughter, but I have in mind her mother, the Church herself, the veritable spouse of God.» The allegory now rises up, swells, expands and cries out with just anger and horror:

     «I gave you embroidered dresses, fine leather shoes,  a linen headband and a cloak of silk. I loaded you with jewels, gave you bracelets for your wrists and a necklace for your throat.» What attentiveness, like that of a Husband for his Wife, full of solicitude, love and patience!

     «I gave you a ring for your nose and rings for your ears, and on your head I placed a beautiful diadem. You were loaded with gold and silver, and dressed in linen, silk and embroidered cloth. Your food was the finest flour, honey and oil. You grew more and more beautiful, and you came to be queen.»

     Applied to France, this oracle speaks to us of the 13^th century, the apogee of Christian France, the century of Saint Louis. But the Spouse crowned with the royal diadem of Christ is also the Holy Church in all her millenary glory.

     «You were renowned among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect, because I had clothed you in my own splendour – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks!»

     Applied to France, this oracle flies headlong in the face of the “royalists” who have not as yet understood the pact concluded at Rheims. They celebrate French royalty whilst refusing to recognise the sovereignty of Christ and His Holy Church, forgetting that «among us the faith is the foundation of the law, and that without it there would soon be no king», a fact which our Valois lost sight of (French CRC n^o 198, p. 131).

     But then, what should one say regarding the Church? «One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic»! The Abbé de Nantes wrote to his friends on the Feast of Saint Joseph, 19 March 1963: «The thought alone of belonging to the Church is enough to renew the rejoicing in our soul, for the Church is Holy, like her Spouse Jesus Christ from whom she has received such a likeness that there is nothing in this world so beautiful, so wise and so majestic as her face and her whole being. She is our Mother, and I must add: she is the unique and incomparable Spouse, she alone is holy, wise and sublime, leaving false religions and philosophies far behind in their delusive darkness.» It is worth reading again today this profession of faith and declaration of love written between the first and second sessions of the Council, in protest against the Reform in progress: «It is only the violent love I have for my Mother that leads me to tear, to snatch from her face and her body magnificently adorned by God Himself, these loathsome rags, the soiled and sacrilegious clothing in which the World and these Times seek to cover her.» (Letter to my Friends n^o 134)

     But in the end, «the pride of the Reformers» carried the day, a pride which was denounced in October 1967 – thirty-three years ago! – by our Father in his Letter to HH Pope Paul VI: «The sin of the Church is today. And the sin of the Church for these last five years is the Reform!» (French CRC n^o 2, p. 11)

THE SIN OF THE CHURCH IS TODAY!

     «But you have become infatuated with your beauty, you have used your fame to make yourself a prostitute, you have lavished your harlotries on every passer-by, you have made yourself his.» (Ez 16.15)

     This has become the daily history of the Church since Vatican II ended on 7 December 1965, the day when Pope Paul VI proclaimed, before the face of the world and the Face of God: «We also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of Man!»

     «You have used your clothes to make richly-coloured high places, and there you have played the harlot. You took the jewels of gold and silver that I gave you and made for yourself images of men [...] with which you played the whore», and the four Hebrew words which translators declare incomprehensible are in fact perfectly clear: «... images of men who marry not and who exist not», idols which are repugnant but nevertheless adored!

     First there was the tiara which was laid aside by Pope Paul VI, then there were the cross and the ring, so generously donated to the Burmese Buddhist U Thant in order to help the poor!

     «You have taken your embroidered clothes and put them on the images, and the oil and incense which are rightly mine you have offered to them. The bread I gave you, the finest flour, oil and honey which I used to feed you, you have now offered to them as an appeasing fragrance.»

     Thus did Paul VI by offering a chalice to Pastor Schutz and by giving the Body of Christ in sacramental Communion to Barbarina Olson, a Presbyterian, without her first abjuring her errors!

     «And you have even – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks – taken the sons and daughters you bore me and sacrificed them as food to the images. Was it not enough for you just to be a whore? You have slaughtered my children and handed them over as a burnt offering to them.»

     On 29 January 1965, Pope Paul VI handed the glorious standard of Lepanto back to the Turks. It had been snatched in a daring attack from a Turkish flagship during the naval engagement of 7 October 1571, when the West was saved from the Muslim menace. The Sovereign Pontiff accompanied this gesture with a papal Brief addressed to the authorities in Ankara, in which he declared: «The wars of religion are finished for good.» As the Abbé de Nantes immediately understood, this was «an announcement that the new-style Papacy would henceforth dissociate itself from the conflicts of those times, that it would no longer recognise anyone’s right to fight in the name of Christianity, and that it would not see in any people or state, even one that persecutes the Church, an enemy of God against which all should unite in a Crusade.» (Liber accusationis I, p. 56, English edition).

     So there are no more wars of religion then? The result of this policy was not long in coming: Islam attempted to exterminate the Christians of East Timor and, since then, the massacre has never ceased, extending to five continents, under the flag of “Islamism”. Tomorrow, Turkey will set foot in the West, thanks to the Pope, and it will do so even more effectively than under Soliman the Magnificent.

     «And in all you filthy practices and your whorings, you have never remembered your youth or the time when you were quite naked and struggling in your own blood.»

     With regard to France, this appalling betrayal goes back to 1789 and ends in the rupture of the alliance in the year 1830 (cf. infra, p. 17-18, French edition only). And how could anyone deny that the Church of Rome has followed the same path? One has only to compare her prayer of yesterday with that of today.

YOM KIPPUR AT THE VATICAN

     The “universal prayer” is an ancient tradition restored by the new ordo. In times past it used to come after the reading of the Gospel. The ordo of Saint Pius V preserved traces of it in the invitation to prayer made by the celebrant after the sermon and before the offertory, when he said Oremus. 

     The liturgical rite of Good Friday preserved a lengthy liturgy expressing the Church’s eagerness, following the singing of the Passion according to Saint John, to spread and communicate the merits earned by Our Lord Jesus Christ, her divine Spouse. Such is the charity of the Church, a charity which found its way into the heart of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus when she was only fourteen: «One Sunday, while looking at a photograph (sic) of Our Lord on the Cross, I was struck by the blood which fell from one of His divine hands. I was greatly distressed at the thought that this blood was falling to the earth without anyone being anxious to collect it, so I resolved to stand in spirit at the foot of the Cross in order to receive the divine dew that trickled down from it, understanding that I would then have to sprinkle it on souls.»

     If our Saint could say, one hundred years ago, that no one was anxious to collect the Precious Blood, what would she say today? She who read La Croix to discover the sign of repentance given by that «poor unhappy Manzini» on the morning of his execution, what would she say on discovering in today’s edition (13 March) of La Croix, for once illustrated by a magnificent crucifix, the account of this «historic act of repentance» formulated by the Holy Father in Saint Peter’s, asking for mercy «for the sins committed by the Church»!?

     The “acts of repentance” of John Paul II were formulated in seven points... like the branches of the candelabra which were formerly lit each day in the Temple of Jerusalem (menôrah) and which, following the destruction of the Temple, became the symbol of Israel’s resurrection. Reconstructed in accordance with Yahweh’s instructions to Moses (Ex 25.31-38), the seven-branched candelabra was given the place of honour in Saint Peter’s, its wicks immersed in oil in accordance with the ancient Jewish ritual.

     The formula is inspired by the prayer of Moses, the mediator between Yahweh and His people, who pleaded that the original Covenant be restored after the adoration of the golden calf (Ex 34.6). More precisely, «Our merciful Father» recalls the Jewish elegy Av ha-rahamim, «(Our) merciful Father», recited in the synagogue in memory of the pogroms perpetrated in Germany at the time of the First Crusade. As for the the expression «God who is merciful and compassionate», it is a transcription of the invocation found in the Koran: (bismi) llâhi r-rahmâni r-rahîmi.

     It is all too clear: each word has been carefully chosen to accommodate “the three monotheistic religions”, in view of the day when the Catholic Church will no longer be alone in asking for forgiveness. As a result, she had to make the two other religions a concession which passes unnoticed at a first reading, for it is conveyed by an omission: Jesus Christ is the great absentee. He is replaced by the Pope, the new Moses, who calls upon «our Father», avinou, as the Rabbis say, and not upon «the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ».

TRUE AND FALSE REPENTANCE

     The first request, pronounced by Cardinal Gantin, is imbued with the illuminism which inspires the secret pride of the Reformers, couched under the feigned humility of a false contrition: «Let us pray that our confession and repentance will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, that our sorrow will be conscious and deep, and that, humbly viewing the sins of the past in an authentic “purification of memory”, we will be committed to the path of true conversion.»

     For the last thirty-five years the Abbé de Nantes has consistently denounced this reversal of roles: «We turn back against today’s Reformers all the insults which they pour on the men of the Church of the past. If others have sinned, why not themselves also? If others have sought to impose their errors and their injustices on the very structures of the Church, what of themselves!

     «Father Congar declares: “Clearly, one of the temptations of men of the Church is effectively to equate what they do in practice with the sacred function of their office in itself.” (True and false reform in the Church, p. 118) This was true of the past, but it seems that it is no longer true nowadays! Today, more than at any other period in history, the men of the Church stamp the evidence of their sins on the structures and institutions which they impose on us. But the major difference is that the inheritance of centuries past is now purified of all sin, whereas our sad times are still under the power of the sin of the men who govern us, whose virtues are becoming ever less apparent. Each new day brings us nothing but the fallible work of people whose sanctity is not assured and who are not indefectible in everything. From this undifferentiated muddle let us exempt the solemn definitions of the extraordinary magisterium, as well as the justified reminders of the ordinary magisterium concerning the unchangeable teaching and the laws of the Church. As for the rest, we see less clearly.»

     Addressing Pope Paul VI, the Abbé de Nantes added: «And should Your Holiness and our Episcopal Colleges impose their novelties as though they were necessarily holy as well as obligatory and infallibly felicitous, such an act of violence would be no more than a sign of human sin, made into the Church’s sin [...]. The Innovators derive great excitement from being able to choose some of the ecclesiastical traditions and to reject others according to the prophetic insights of the individual conscience... and according to the current orientations of Authority. This is to turn the world upside down! If we must guard against error and sin, it can only be against those of the contemporary Church, and we can only judge such matters by referring to our holy traditions and age-old teachings.» (French CRC n^o 2, p. 11)

     The prayer pronounced by the Holy Father, in reply to the Cardinal’s petition, is Manichean. Addressing God, this prayer divides the Church of yesterday and today into «members who shine with holiness and others who, refusing to obey you, contradict the faith they profess and the Holy Gospel». This terrible suspicion shatters the unity of the family, that «city of tradition and liberty» which is the Church, where «a spirit of faithfulness reigns over all and habitually unites them in the same thoughts, the same feasts and the same labours» (G. de Nantes, Letter to my Friends n^o 135, 21 March 1963).

THE HOLY INQUISITION

     The second request is without parallel... Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger openly repents for the faults of his predecessors in the Holy Office, and presumably for that of Cardinal Michel Ghislieri, appointed Inquisitor General of the whole Christian world in 1557 before acceding to the papal throne in 1566 and taking the name of Pius V:

     «Let us pray that each one of us, recognising that the men of the Church in the name of faith and morals have themselves [but not us, not us!] sometimes used methods not in keeping with the Gospel in accomplishing their duty of defending the truth, will know how to imitate the Lord Jesus, meek and humble of heart...»

     «Lord, God of all men», pardon «the methods of intolerance» used by Saint Pius V... replies the Holy Father: «Lord, God of all men, in certain periods of history, Christians have at times given themselves up to methods of intolerance and have not been faithful to the great commandment of love, sullying in this way the face of the Church, your Spouse. Have mercy on your sinful children and accept our resolve to seek and promote truth in the gentleness of charity, in the firm knowledge that truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself. We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.»

     «Truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself»? The Abbé Freppel had already replied to this illusion which John Paul II has inherited from the liberals of the 19^th century and which today has spread everywhere:

     «Let us not fall into the trap of believing that error presents no danger, there being no difficulty in either exposing or refuting it. Whether crude or specious, error has always held a certain force because it finds in the passions a kind of connivance which serves its purpose. There are some who readily imagine that truth has only to be heard to be accepted by all in that same instant: a vain illusion which the experience of the centuries and the study of history should, it seems, have dispersed long ago. Without doubt, man is born for the truth, he experiences a natural tendency to know it and to seek it, and he experiences an inner satisfaction after he has found it. But although, on one hand, he feels inclined towards it, the evil instincts of his fallen nature cause him to stray far from it. He fears truth and flees from it, because it imposes obligations on him which make him feel uncomfortable. That is why error possesses such a hold over the human mind.» (Cf. Brother Pascal, MGR FREPPEL, vol. I, p. 151)

     And that is why we need coercive institutions to fight it: the crusades of Saint Bernard and Saint Louis, and the inquisition of Saint Pius V.

THE CONVERSION OF HERETICS, JEWS AND INFIDELS

     The third act of repentance confesses sins «which have compromised the unity of the Body of Christ», through mutual oppositions and divisions: «Merciful Father, on the night before his Passion your Son prayed for the unity of those who believe in him: in disobedience to his will, however, believers have opposed one another, becoming divided, and have mutually condemned one another and fought against one another.» As if the wrongs were equally shared!

     Contrast this with the Catholic prayer of Good Friday which asks that the erring sheep be returned to the fold: «Almighty and eternal God who saves all men and desires that none should perish, cast Thine eyes over those souls which have been seduced by the artifices of the devil, so that, breaking with all heretical perversity, their misled hearts may repent and return to the unity of Thy truth.» Truth and charity!

     The same contradiction strikes one in the fourth and fifth acts of repentance, a «confession of sins committed in relations with Israel» and a «confession of sins committed by actions against love, peace, the rights of peoples, and respect for cultures and religions».

     With all the zeal of unfeigned charity, the traditional Catholic prayers implored the grace of conversion also for the Jews and the infidels; since for them also Christ shed His blood.

     The sixth act of repentance asks pardon from the «Lord God, our Father» for sins committed by Christians against «human dignity», particularly the dignity of women, and against «the unity of the human family», sins harming an alleged «community» apparently superior to the Church and suffering from the sin of the Church in the person of these Christians.

     One has only to compare this with the Catholic prayers for the catechumens and the needs of the faithful to see that the Pope has completely lost sight of the Catholic Church’s concern to bring this whole world back into the fold, having first administered the baptism which confers the only «dignity» that lasts, that of being God’s «sons of adoption»:

     «Almighty and eternal God, who continually gives Thy Church new children, grant that the faith and understanding of our catechumens may increase, so that, reborn in the waters of baptism, they may be received amongst Thy sons of adoption. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ... Amen.»

     This derisory gesture apparently takes the place of the adoration of the Cross, the third part of the Good Friday ceremony, which goes back to the time when people honoured and kissed the wood of the true Cross, at Jerusalem in the 4^th century. Here we are far removed from Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus: «The cry of Jesus on the Cross continually sounded in my heart: “I thirst!” These words inflamed me with a keen ardour such as I had never experienced before... I wanted to get my Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls... At that time it was not as yet the souls of priests that attracted my attention, but the souls of great sinners. I burned with a desire to snatch them from the eternal fire...»

     Viewed in the light of this bimillenary tradition, what weight does Sunday’s celebration have? It bears down with all its weight as an immense apostasy. The proof? The irrefutable sign? The fact that the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary was not pronounced. She, the Mediatrix of all repentance and the Reconciler of sinners, was not once invoked! This is the mark of Satan... It is also the sign of the impending triumph of the Immaculate who will crush the head of the Serpent!

THE GREAT APOSTASY

     «And to crown you wickedness, – woe, woe to you, it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks – you have built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty place in every square. At the head of every street you have built yourself a high place and prostituted your beauty, offering your body to every comer and multiplying your harlotries. You have prostituted yourself for the Egyptians, your large-membered neighbours; you have multiplied your harlotries to provoke me to anger.» (Ez 16.23-26)

     The text becomes unbearable, untranslatable in all its crudity, in keeping with the offence committed by the unfaithful spouse. But, «in opening her legs to every comer», does she not symbolise to the letter a Church of Rome which has opened herself to «every religion», arranging at great expense for pagans to come to Rome from all four corners of the world?

     «Men give gifts to prostitutes. But it is you who have given your gifts to all your lovers and who have offered them presents so that, from all directions, they should come to you in your prostitutions. In your whoring you have done the exact opposite from other women: no one was running after you, so you went and paid them instead and no one paid you; to such depths did your perversion go.» (v. 33-34)

DAUGHTER OF SION, REJOICE!

    Then God’s anger knew no bounds:

     «Well then, whore, hear the word of Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says this. For having squandered your money and uncovered your nakedness during your harlotries with your lovers and your filthy idols, for giving them your children’s blood – for all this, I am going to band together all the lovers who have pleasured you, all those you liked and all those you hated; I am going to band them together against you from all around; I will uncover your nakedness in front of them, that they may see all your nakedness.

     «I mean to inflict on you the punishment due to women who commit adultery or murder: I will hand you over to their fury and jealousy; I will deliver you into their hands; they will level your mound and demolish your high places; they will tear your clothes off and take your jewels; they will leave you completely naked. They will then whip up the crowd against you, they will stone you and run you through with a sword, they will set your houses on fire and execute justice on you, while crowds of women look on; I will put an end to your prostitutions and no longer will you pay out wages.» (v. 35-41)

     But behold, suddenly the Heart of God softens, or rather: it is revealed. Now He hesitates to strike her.

     «I will exhaust my fury against you, my jealousy will then leave you, I will be appeased and my anger will ease.» (v. 42)

     God wearies of exerting justice, of crushing every rebellion, of having a hard Heart: «For the Lord Yahweh says this: I will act towards you as you have acted, you who despised your oath even to the extent of breaking a covenant.» (v. 59)

PARCE DOMINO! PARCE POPULO TUO!

     Is God going to abolish His covenant? Everything hangs in suspense in this verse 59. It is our future that is inscribed here. This year, will God be provoked, will He let fall on France and on the Church, which have reached the heights of apostasy, the punishment which is already at work throughout the world, involving wars, seditions and persecutions, earthquakes, epidemics and floods? and AIDS!

     «Yet I will remember the covenant that I contracted with you at the time of your youth, and I will establish in your favour an everlasting covenant.» (v. 60)

     How should we understand this? No one can do so unless he enters into the mystery of the infinite mercy of the Heart of Jesus and Mary. The hour of repentance has come, not the hour of the posturing which still prides itself on a beauty lost and a covenant one hundred times violated – an odious memory – but the hour of the repentance inspired by the Immaculate Virgin, coming from Heaven to be at Jerusalem, at Rome even, at La Salette and Lourdes, at Paris and Fatima, the source of all graces...

     «You, for your part, will remember your past conduct and you will be seized with shame when I take your sisters, both the elder and the younger, and give them to you as your daughters, even though I was not bound to do this by my covenant with you.» (v. 61) It was a conditional covenant, and it was broken by the apostasy of Rome, now become the seat of the Antichrist. Yet, this will not be the end of the matter. Jews and Muslims, heretics and schismatics, Buddhists and Shintoists, will be converted, and all the pagan nations will become daughters of the Church:

     «For I am going to renew my covenant with you, and you will know that I am Yahweh, that you may remember and be seized with shame and, in your confusion, be reduced to silence, when I have pardoned you for all that you have done – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.» (v. 62-63)

     How will this come about?

OUR MEDIATRIX

     The secret to this change of God’s Heart lies in the event of Fatima which reveals it to us. In this place, a beloved Virgin with an Immaculate Heart made us hear upon our earth the cooing of the turtledove (Sg 2.12). Loved by God, Her Father, never was there the least disagreement between Her and Her Divine Son (Jn 2.4), for She is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, His Dove, His Perfect One (Sg 5.2), «beautiful as Tirzah, fair as Jerusalem, terrible as armies» (Sg 6.4).

     So, it is towards Fatima that our hearts and eyes turn today, where the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco, this coming 13 May, will efface the shame of the apostasy of 12 March (if he does in fact go...).

     «Who is this who comes up from the desert, leaning on her Beloved?» At Lourdes, She manifested Herself, «a Dove hidden in the clefts of the rocks, in the coverts of the cliff», and She made Her voice heard: «I am the Immaculate Conception.» And at Fatima: «I am Our Lady of the Rosary.» But there, She was no longer in the clefts of the rocks. She was enthroned in the open sky, like a queen, like the Queen of Heaven and earth, controlling the sun and effecting its terrifying fall and its triumphant re-ascent with a gesture of Her gracious hands. For She has received the power to make everything put forth the green shoots and flowers of virtue, and to bear much fruit in a Church restored by Her hands.

     It is true that we have not merited the salvation which will come to us through Her, but She has merited it, for She has taken great pains over it, as She said at La Salette: «Do what you will, you will never be able to recompense Me for the pains I have taken over you.»

     He who hears these words has but one thought: to console the Heart of our Mother, in order to bring back, if at all possible, the smile on Her truly sad face. This sums up the message of the children who will be beatified at Fatima this coming 13 May and, as we would like to hope, it also forms the ultimate meaning of this famous SECRET, requested by the whole world and desired by every heart, which will bring joy to all Mary’s children...

MAGNIFICAT ANIMA MEA!

     After Ezekiel, who accompanied his people into Exile, a prophet nicknamed the deutero-Isaiah, whom our Father prefers to call “the Unknown of the Exile” (Is 40-66), announced Israel’s astonishing restoration:

«Arise! Shine out, for your light has come,
And on you the glory of Yahweh is rising,
although night still extends over the earth
and darkness over the peoples!» (Is 60.1-2)

     They waited for him, therefore, for five hundred years...

     In the fullness of time, this hope began to burn in the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, at Nazareth, and in the hearts of several of the «poor of Israel».

     On the day of the Annunciation, She heard Herself being greeted by the Angel Gabriel with the title designating Her the Mother of the Saviour: «Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.» Having conceived by the operation of the Holy Spirit, She brought Her son into the world, the firstborn of the new creation, with a joy that certainly matched the gracious greeting of the angel and the radiance spread by the the song of the old Simeon. However, She had also heard this latter prophesying pain and suffering:

     «Behold! this child is set for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be contradicted, – and Thy own soul will also be pierced by a sword! – in order that the secret thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare.»

     Which is to say that She Herself, along with Her Son, would be «a sign which would be contradicted». When the work of the world’s salvation had been «consummated» (Jn 19.30) by the sacrifice of Jesus offered by Mary on Mount Calvary, the Church, developing rapidly, applied the fruits of this sacrifice to all men, the Jews first and then the Greeks, and Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled. When the Apostles spoke, hearts were revealed: one was either for or against Jesus and Mary. Those in the first group would be saved, those in the second condemned to eternal hell.

     After Mary’s Assumption, Saint John saw Her again in the sky above Patmos, a «great sign», confronted by the «sign of the Dragon», the adversary of the human race, the secret artisan of this «contradiction», the mystery of iniquity in which the darkness struggles against the light in order to put it out.

     Two thousand years later, our century has been graced to see this marvellous sign again in the Sky above Fatima: the sign of the Woman clothed in the sun, and the sign of the dragon, the vision of hell which lay wide open before the eyes of the three children. The eldest, who became Sister Mary-Lucy of the Immaculate Heart, today ninety-three years old, testifies to these events, and we know that her testimony is true (cf. Jn 21,24).

     There is still another matter, something which she has made the Pope aware of, but which she cannot publish because it is a “secret” that the Pope has so far refused to divulge, even though Our Lady has been insistently requesting him to do so for the last forty years.

THE “SECRET” REVEALED

     This text, of which the holy Carmelite of Coimbra is the guarantor, certainly does not favour the conciliar reform announced by John XXIII in 1959, otherwise it would have been published in 1960, as Our Lady had requested!

     Furthermore, on 26 December 1957, Our Lady’s messenger confirmed this with the deepest sadness to Father Agustin Fuentes, then postulator of the causes of beatification of Francisco and Jacinta:

     «Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance.» Adding that neither should we expect such an appeal for penance to come «from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations», she added the following words, which elevate Sister Mary-Lucy of the Immaculate Heart to the rank of a prophet of the Most High, equal to the inspired author of the “Yahwist” account in the Book of Genesis (Gn 3.15) and to Saint John the Evangelist, author of the Book of the Apocalypse (Ap 12-13):

     «The Most Holy Virgin made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She told me that the devil is currently engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. And a decisive battle is a final battle where one knows on which side lies victory and on which side defeat. Hence, from now on: either we are for God or we are for the devil; there is no middle way.»

LEPANTO

     Saint John Bosco had foreseen this battle in one of his prophetic dreams, and he had given it a name: that of LEPANTO, a name which is inscribed on the façade of the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians in Turin. It is fully spelt out on a banner displayed by Saint Michael on the left bell-tower, along with the date of this victory, “1571”, on the cartouche on the same side, a victory over the Muslim fleet which belongs to a Christendom of the past, but which, in the mind of Saint John Bosco alive with the spirit of prophecy, announces another such battle... one that is still to come! Like the first, it will be due to the sovereign intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady Help of Christians, Our Lady of Victories.

     When will this be? Not long ago our Father surmised 1996 (English CRC n^o 262, November 1993, p. 17).

     1996 has passed and nothing has been seen – so say the sceptics always quick to denigrate without reflection. They fail to observe that our Phalange of the Immaculate did not sink with all hands on board that year. Yet, attentive readers were able to follow the events of this battle in the CRC, and to admire how our Phalange came together, seven hundred pilgrims all told, at the feet of their Queen, on 13 October, in Fatima, standards unfurled... I say that this was a great miracle... A prelude to that which we are still waiting for. For Saint John Bosco clearly predicted it and everything must have a fixed time period:

     «These events will inevitably take place one after the other. Things may take place extremely slowly, but the august Queen of Heaven is at hand. The power of the Lord is in Her hands. She will disperse her enemies like clouds.»

     That is why we can confidently repeat to Her, to Her above all! what our Father wrote to Pope Paul VI – may God receive his soul! – on 11 October1967:

     «We are your faithful and obedient servants in everything that concerns the holy reform of morals and the condemnation of the errors which infest the Body of the Church in her Head and in her members, and in all of us, sinners. And more still, we are Your affectionate and trusting sons in the great work of the Counter-Reformation which will characterise the restoration and the miraculous progress of the Church in this the second half of the twentieth century.»

     We do not have much time to wait, therefore, since «this second half of the twentieth century» will be over... next Christmas! «He who stands firm to the end will be saved.» (Mt 10.22)

OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS

     The dreams of Saint John Bosco are «genuine visions», said the Blessed don Rua, his first successor, «for the things foretold to him symbolically have always been realised and are still being realised unerringly». The Abbé de Nantes demonstrated this in his interpretation of two of his premonitory dreams (The hour of our deliverance draws near, English CRC n^o 263, December 1993, p. 1-10). One hundred years later, they have a dazzling clarity...

     It is extraordinary that, one hundred years ago, Saint John Bosco could have prophesied the triumph of Our Lady as a new Lepanto, that is to say a victory over Islam.

     It is no less extraordinary that he could have announced that «War comes from the South.» One hundred years later, it threatens in fact to set the world ablaze starting with Yougo-slavia (Slavia of the South): it is there that the frontline of the Third World War is being drawn.

     He went on to say that «France, Spain, Austria and a power from Germany would be chosen by Providence to halt the collapse of society and to give peace to the Church which had been beleaguered for so long and in so many different ways» (English CRC n^o 263, p. 10).

     France? Can it be true? At any rate, in the three other countries things are making good progress: we have the triumph of Aznar in Spain, the admission of Haider’s party into the Austrian government, and the upsurge of Bavarian conservatism combined with the collapse of the CDU, the fifty-eight year old Edmond Stoiber having become minister-president of the Land of Bavaria: «Bavaria (comprising twelve million inhabitants) has become the anchorage point of a vast political group of nearly forty million inhabitants, made up of Baden-Württemburg, Hessen, Saar, as well as Thüringen and Saxony, both Länder of the former GDR, which are themselves sympathetic to nationalist ideas.» (Valeurs actuelles, 11-17 February)

     In Bavaria, «things are controlled without recourse to complex immigration laws, and people take great pride in their southern and Catholic identity.»

     But in France? «France is no longer governed – nor for that matter presided over – in accordance with its genuine interests, but is at the mercy of a presidential campaign that has become endemic» (Charles Pasqua). So France lacks a foreign policy, just as she lacks a policy of employment or of the family. Nevertheless, there exists an orthodromy of which our soldiers, placed in an impossible situation by a crypto-stalinist government, are, unknown to them, the docile instruments. This was clearly seen when the American soldiers left north Mitrovica in a hurry in February, to be replaced by the French who had come to extract them from a difficult situation and were cheered by the Serbs as their defenders against the Muslim terrorist KLA.

     Already, in the spring of 1999, there had been a naval skirmish between France and the USA in the Adriatic... not far from Lepanto! The Americans wanted the French to vacate the area and leave it under their control. France refused to comply with this demand, forcing the American command to keep the French navy and the allied fleets continually posted regarding the schedule of the Tomahawk missiles launched by its B52 bombers and its surface vessels.

USA - KLA... FIGHTING THE SAME CAUSE

     The headline comes from France-Soir (23 February)! «Accused on several occasions of protecting the interests of the Serbs who controlled the north side of the town and of the region, French senior officers willingly presented themselves as the victims of an Albanian disinformation campaign secretly sponsored by... the Americans.

     «In their eyes, the Americans, whom they reproach for their “opacity” and “their lack of co-operation” with the other military forces making up the KFOR, are waiting for the Europeans, and in particular the French, to fail in their mission, so that they might finally impose themselves as the only force protecting Albanian interests.»

     The French considered it their duty to protect the last of the Serbs in Kosovo: «We did not go to war against Milosevic only to allow the Albanians to “cleanse” Kosovo today!» But standing behind the Albanian aggression, the French see the emergence of an American strategy to dominate the Balkans. «And the proof? The recent permanent construction at Giljane in the south-east of a huge military base capable of housing 6,500 soldiers.»

     And what about Russia? What will Russia do confronted with this town surrounded by barbed wire which will soon serve as an airbase for the Americans in central Europe? She already has to deal with her own Islamists in Chechnya, who are taking refuge in Kosovo where they have already sheltered their families and their belongings, via the Crimea and Albania.

     There has even arisen a genuine comradeship in arms between the French and the Russian soldiers, for Mitrovica is not the only black spot in the region. For example, a Russian soldier died on Thursday 2 March 2000 having been shot two days earlier in the town of Srbica, in the heart of Drenica, the stronghold of the Albanian separatists of the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

     For now, Russia finds itself seriously threatened by the Atlantic Alliance: «An American operation to divide Yugoslavia could begin in March-April 2000 with the deployment of NATO troops in Montenegro», indicated the Russian Ministry of Defence, quoted by the Iter-Tass press agency, on 30 December last year. No one is sure what preparations Russia is making to confront this new danger. The secret has been well kept and we will not be so presumptuous as to try and fathom it. This is something even the best analysts do not attempt. One thing is for sure: the “secret” of Russia is very closely related to that of Our Lady’s, for She has Her own plans:

IN THE END MY IMMACULATE HEART WILL TRIUMPH. THE HOLY FATHER WILL CONSECRATE RUSSIA TO ME AND IT WILL BE CONVERTED.

     The promise is certain and unconditional, even though it may seem incredible. Our Lady’s words cannot fail: salvation will come from Her and from Her alone: «In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph (over) the Holy Father, (who) will consecrate Russia to me...» the Abbé de Nantes translates. He then goes on to explain the only sequence of events that makes sense:

     «It will be prodigious, but in a certain way it will be right, just and fair, proper and salutary that this grace should fall on a people who are without doubt victorious and powerful, proud of their heroism and sated with their conquests, a people who have returned to their traditions. In a word: they will have remained in a good physical, mental and even moral state through the grace of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to Whom they have been particularly entrusted. Even though Russia in its turn should be vanquished, should be exhausted and wretched, her stunning conversion will be a source of amazement and an instrument of salvation for all other peoples who have fallen into anarchy, immorality and apostasy like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will be all the more wonderful in that this conversion will be awaited with an immense curiosity from the day the Pope proceeds with the consecration requested by Mary, with the whole world looking on. Everyone will see the miracle and everyone will understand!

     «It will be the direct and miraculous achievement of the Virgin Mary alone in the omnipotence of Her Immaculate Heart. It is to Her that the applause, the thanksgiving and the praise will rise in an immense outpouring of devotion, expiation, contrition and conversion by the whole world.» (English CRC n^o 245, January 1992, p. 7)

     That was written in 1992. Commenting on the final known words of this divine secret, «And the world will know a certain time of peace», the Abbé Georges de Nantes continued: «When will this be? The insistence with which Pope John Paul II predicts universal happiness for all men of good will for the year 2000 as well as other convergent signs, encourage me to think that the Secret kept hidden from us makes it possible to date the end of this final struggle between Satan and Christ and the ultimate victory of the Virgin Mary. And certainly, our path is not that of Pope John Paul II, but the date of Mary’s victory is the same: the year 2000, that is in ten minus one years. It only remains for us to make our way there by the right path, sheltered beneath the wise protection of Her who said, “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that will lead you to God.”»

Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard     

STOP PRESS, on the Feast of Saint Joseph, 19 March 2000

THE LORD’S RETURN

     A friend has sent us a news item from AFP found on the internet, dated Wednesday 15 March 2000:

     «The Holy Shroud of Turin which, according to Catholic tradition, wrapped the body of Christ before his resurrection, still retains an element of mystery despite the special scientific studies seeking to determine its origins.

     «The shroud, which will once again be on public display from 12 August to 22 October in the Cathedral of Turin for the Jubilee, clearly bears the imprint of a real human body – at least that is the verdict of the scientists meeting at a symposium between 2 and 5 March, whose conclusions were made public in Paris on Wednesday, at the Italian Cultural Centre.

     «This multidisciplinary symposium, which brought together about forty scientists from ten different countries in the Piedmontese capital was organised by the International Centre of Sindology (sic) of Turin, whose sole object is to study the famous shroud.

     «Studies by physicists, chemists and computer experts have established that the human image visible on the cloth is not a painting, but is the result of the oxidation and surface dehydration of a body (sic!!!), remarked Gian Maria Zaccone on Wednesday, the vice-president of the International Centre of Sindology (sic). On the other hand, scientists have not been able to explain this phenomenon.

     «Furthermore, the cloth bears traces of human blood, as well as the pollen of plants that grow in the area around Jerusalem.

     «As for its age, the carbon 14 dating carried out in 1988 which took it back to the Middle Ages has not ended the controversy: even though the symposium came to the conclusion that the test was carried out in a proper manner, it did not rule out the possibility that contamination of the cloth could have distorted the results.

     «However, there are no plans for a further carbon 14 test until all the hypotheses regarding the interpretation of the first test have been exhausted, indicated Gian Maria Zaccone.

     «Historical studies are also underway to determine whether there were references to the shroud’s existence before its definite appearance in the fourteenth century in France. For example, a cloth depicting a face was already the object of veneration in 944 at Constantinople, and this might have been the shroud folded up, according to historians.

     «The shroud has been kept in the Piedmontese capital since 1578. Even though Catholic Church has not erected the authenticity of the shroud into a dogma, she encourages the popular devotion which is shown to it.»

     Under a harmless appearance, this briefing constitutes a new attack against the Holy Shroud, as we will demonstrate on Easter day. The trial of the forgers has been opened. Let the guards at the tomb tremble!