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The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 21st century |
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No 11 |
Editor: Abbé Georges de Nantes |
NOVEMBER 2001 |
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He will return with his
immense heart, with his heart of fire, |
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One could not more openly scorn the “information” furnished by the vision of 13 July 1917 at the Cova da Iria: «You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.» And the wages of this contempt for Heaven’s unmistakable revelations is war, «provoked» by the «errors of Russia». But the salvation of souls will come about through «the blood of the martyrs». |
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I. HELL ON EARTH In May, just when Pope John Paul II had launched a new appeal for peace in the Balkans and sent an autographed message to Jerusalem for peace in the Middle East, the Cahier de l’École cathédrale de Paris no 47 (2001) gave us this oracle from the pen of Mgr Olivier de Berranger: «Peace will be history’s last word.» (Parole et silence, 154 pages) Which is of course true. Our Lady promised, «In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.» However, in ignoring the prophecies of the Blessed Virgin, the Bishop of Seine-Saint-Denis takes his stand instead on that of Paul VI when he declares: «War is not inescapable... We remember the prophetic cry addressed by Pope Paul VI to the United Nations: “No more war ever again!”» A rare blindness! It would have been more appropriate to remind us of the divine oracle read out in all the churches throughout the world where the new liturgy prescribed by Paul VI was celebrated on the first morning after his death (6 August 1978). It was the prophet Jeremiah’s reply to Hananiah, the false prophet who even then was announcing to a besieged Jerusalem that peace was “inescapable”: «Listen carefully to this word that I am now going to say for you and for all the people to hear: From remote times, the prophets who preceded you and me prophesied war, famine and plague for many countries and for great kingdoms. But as for the prophet who prophesies peace, the prophet of happiness, he can only be recognised as one truly sent by Yahweh when his word comes true!» (cf. English CRC no 132, Paul VI’s funeral oration, August 1978) Now, what did we observe after Paul VI’s trip to the United Nations (4 October 1965)? «No more war ever again»? Hardly. We had the Six Day War (June 1967), the massacres at Hué (31 January 1968), the invasion of South Vietnam, the boat people, famine, persecution, two or three million victims of the Khmer Rouge, and the Lebanese chaos. «Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, Listen carefully, Hananiah: Yahweh has not sent you; and thanks to you this people are now putting their trust in a lie. That is why Yahweh says this: I am going to banish you from the face of the earth; this same year you are going to die, for you have preached apostasy from Yahweh. And the prophet Hananiah died that same year, in the seventh month.» Thus it will fare with John Paul II the Great, prophet of the third millennium, as canonised by Bernard Balayn in a work of 768 pages and 64 colour illustrations, with a preface by Cardinal Frederick Etsou, Archbishop of Kinshasa (published by Parvis, 2000). «As a new pilgrim for peace», as Mgr de Berranger calls him, «at the junction of two millennia, his pilgrimage came to an end in March 2000 in Jerusalem, the city of peace.» And since then, this city has had no respite from this war of all against all: Hamas against Tsahal (the Israeli Defence Forces), Yasser Arafat against Shimon Peres, but also, within the Israeli government itself, Shimon Peres against Ariel Sharon... while the latter withstands President Bush. In short, chaos! If we consider no more than the fifty years following the State of Israel’s creation, the least one can say is that Jerusalem has no claim to the title of «city of peace». And we have known the reason for this for the last twenty centuries. Our Lord, a true prophet, tearfully provides us with it in the Gospel: «As He drew near and came in sight of the city, He shed tears over it, saying: “Ah! if only you in your turn had understood on this day the message of peace! But, alas, it is hidden from your eyes! Yes, a time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications around you, when they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone standing on another within you – and all because you did not recognise the time of your visitation.”» (Lk 19.41-45)
Even today, Sant’Egidio, which perpetuates «the spirit of Assisi» through its interreligious meetings for peace, «stumbles over the Middle East» (La Croix, 6 September), which has become an inextinguishable hotbed of war since the proclamation of a Hebrew State by Ben Gourion on 14 May 1948. For since 11 September 2001, the whole world has been assembling its armies against terrorism. But who are the terrorists? The Palestinians, affirm the Israelis. The Jews, say the Arabs. «To take him at his word, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not wish to destabilize Arafat, nor to cause the collapse of Palestinian authority, nor to reoccupy the autonomous sectors. His objective is “to arrest or eliminate the terrorist leaders”.» (La Croix, 22 October 2001) By entering a Palestinian sector, for example, to punish the assassins of the Israeli Minister for Tourism, despite appeals for moderation from the United States and France, and despite anguished messages from the patriarchs and leaders of the Christian Churches! As for the latter, they do not hesitate to declare that both «Moslem and Christian» Palestinians are fighting against a «terrorism similar» to that which is currently being fought by Western countries in Afghanistan. And Cardinal Etchegaray even goes one further: «One should not lay the blame for the war against terrorism on Islam.» (La Croix, 12 October) So, it will have to be laid on the Jews! And lest anyone be unaware of this, the Pope received Yasser Arafat on the morning of Tuesday 30 October. The latter offered the Holy Father a crib made of pearls – the crib of Bethlehem, the holy city occupied, ransacked, terrorized by the Israelis... «Wojtyla, Arafat, same combat!» This was already true in 1982, when John Paul II received the bloody butcher, the leader of the PLO, shortly after the terrorist attack which had cost the life of Bechir Gemayel, leader of the Catholic Lebanese Phalanges, and that of twenty of his followers (English CRC no 151, October 1982, p. 1). To rally the Arabs, will the Americans as well sacrifice the Jews? The problem is that the latter will not tolerate this. In Palestine as in Afghanistan, the Americans are punished for their past errors: at the same time as they were supporting Islamist “resistance” all over the world, they were also supplying massive stocks of arms to Israel which is not prepared to make the slightest concession, even were it to be imposed on them by the United States. The existence of the Hebrew State is now at stake. Thus the powder keg is primed, ready to set the planet ablaze. Ultimately, the only one to have shown himself a true “prophet” is Osama bin Laden, and that for a very simple reason: he himself creates the event which he prophesies. «I swear by Allah that America will never know security again until Palestine knows it.» His resolution is unwavering. Abu Zubeida, his right hand man, explained this to the Algerian terrorist Ahmed Ressam. Arrested by the FBI in December 1999, when he was about to deposit a bomb in the airport at Los Angeles, the latter admitted that he had attended a training course in the bin Laden camps: «I asked Zubeida why they wanted to attack the United States, he recounts. Answer: It was in reprisal for their support of Israel. Then I asked him why they had not chosen Israeli targets. He told me that Israel was too difficult to attack. He added that with a large number of civilian victims the American people were going to understand that they were effectively at war.» (Bulletin of André Noël, 29 October, quoting the work of Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden, the man who declared war on America, 1999) For a long time now, the target has been the World Trade Centre. Why? «Bin Laden said that he wanted to make one of the twin towers fall on the other, as the Americans did at Nagasaki. He was hoping to destroy the main girders of one of the towers.» The first attack against the World Trade Centre left “only” six people dead. But the original objective was not lost sight of; the order still had to be carried out. The FBI ignored the warning, so unworkable did this plan appear of making one of the towers fall on the other like dominos! Learning from his initial failure, bin Laden – originally a specialist in buildings – took more substantial measures. Today we know the result. Henceforth, no one is safe from the threat weighing on the whole planet. Ahmed Ressam also told the FBI about the chemical experiments carried out in his training camp. For example, they put a dog in a box filled with cyanide and then poured sulphuric acid on the cyanide, thus obtaining hydrocyanic acid: in a few minutes, the animal was dead. And the aim of the experiment? To learn how to manufacture and then exploit this cocktail by «placing it in a building’s air vents in order to kill the maximum number of people possible». Ahmed also learned how to mix certain poisons with other substances, to combine them, and to coat door handles with them, in such a way that «anyone who touched the door would very quickly be poisoned».
One day, Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta were lying prostrate on the ground saying the prayers taught them by the Angel. Suddenly Jacinta stood up and exclaimed: «Oh! Lucy! Don’t you see all these roads, all these paths and fields full of dead and bleeding people, and others who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father, in a church, praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary? And so many people praying with him?» (Francisco et Jacinta si petits… et si grands! p. 167) Eighty years later, Jacinta’s vision is being fulfilled before our eyes. At least in its first part, which lets us hope that the second is not far behind. There is no need for us to speak of the Iraqis who have had to put up with the consequences of devastating trade sanctions for eleven years, and the frequently murderous escapades of Saddam Hussein their president. Fleeing from the bombing raids and the threat of civil war, thousands of Afghans are massing on the borders of Pakistan, which continues to close its borders despite the distress of the refugees. Meanwhile famine lies in wait for the whole population as winter approaches. «The United Nations’ agencies call them “invisible refugees”. They arrive from Afghanistan in small groups, usually consisting of an elderly man followed by women and children. They cross the border through the mountains and must pay the smugglers. Arguing from the presence of two million refugees on their soil, the Pakistani government has decided to close its borders and, despite repeated requests from the UN High Commissariat for Refugees (HCR), refuses to reopen them. However, as American operations over the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Kabul have intensified, the number of illegal refugees has continued to grow. On Saturday five thousand arrived from Kandahar, making some 1800 in eight days, according to the HCR.» (La Croix, 22 October) «An Afghan, an employee of the HCR, having returned from Kabul two days ago, reports having seen numerous families on the roads, leaving the cities and making their way towards the border or the countryside, preferring to leave while they still had a little money left to pay the smugglers. On 13 October, again according to the HCR, 80% of the population of Jalalabad had fled.» France is now trumpeting her extensive involvement, both humanitarian and military, in the operations in Afghanistan. In addition to the two thousand soldiers she has committed, she could send twenty thousand men in the next forty-five days, commencing with her special forces. Is it possible to conceive of greater folly, at a time when terrorism is threatening our national territory? And when thousands of Kabyls are asking for asylum in France? We have no business in Afghanistan where ancient enemy-friends are waging a «phoney war» (see p. 4). The Abbé de Nantes observes that everything passes off as if the two protagonists, Bush and Osama bin Laden, were bound by a pact of non-aggression preventing them from directly attacking one another. In any case, France is wrestling with quite another war, and a real one this time. She has hers own refugees with whom she must occupy herself as a matter of urgency. Above all, she has a privileged partner in Islamic territory [Algeria], with which to play an irreplaceable role for the good of all, Americans and Afghans, Jews and Arabs, Christians and Moslems, and therefore for the peace of the world. |
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THE AFGHAN SYNDROME THROUGHOUT the nineteenth century, Afghanistan was the theatre of a formidable struggle between Russia and Great Britain for the strategic control of Central Asia. In 1919, after its third defeat before Kabul, Great Britain recognised Afghanistan’s independence. In 1933, Zaher, the young nineteen year old King, ascended the throne. A Francophile, a friend of Action française and a reader of Maurras, he established his position as the guarantor of the Afghan community and gave his country forty years of peace. From 1945, the Prime Minister, Mohammed Daoud Khan, the King’s cousin and son-in-law, modernized the kingdom with the assistance of the USSR, with which he concluded a treaty of assistance and military aid (1955). He adopted a policy of neutrality between the two power blocs. The Russians built roads in the north and the Americans in the south-west. But the growing influence of the Soviets worried the King and he dismissed Daoud (1963). The latter took his revenge on 13 July 1973: he overthrew the Monarchy and proclaimed a Republic for his own benefit. The King went into exile at Rome. In April 1978, Daoud was assassinated; a coup d’état, communist this time, seized power and formed a government favourable to the USSR, led by Taraki. Soviet forces immediately began to make regular incursions into Afghanistan... In December 1979, Afghanistan was invaded by the Red Army which took Kabul on 2 January 1980. Given the circumstances of the time, this was a serious reverse for the United States. President Reagan, who had been just elected, discovered with astonishment that the Soviet Union had almost the same military potential as the United States. It was imperative to halt the Soviet advance, for the strategists foresaw that, as in the game of dominos, the fall of just one country into the Soviet camp would inevitably involve that of all its neighbours. And controlling Central Asia meant controlling the whole of the Eurasiatic continent… So Reagan decided to revive the cold war. The United States renewed the arms race (Star Wars) and resumed her strategy of containment. This involved encouraging the mujahideen from the various Afghan tribes, men who described themselves as «the resistance to the infidel power», to wage a veritable guerrilla war against the Soviet occupant. The United States even gambled on the most radical factions: their Islamic fanaticism gave them a terrifying effectiveness against the Soviet army. Pakistan would play a key role in this strategy and for two reasons: firstly as an old ally already bound to Washington by defence agreements. And secondly, as a neighbour of Afghanistan, able to make contact with the Afghan resistance and ensure that American aid reached it. The United States therefore strengthened their links with the Islamist Pakistani regime of General Zia ul-Haq, and at the same time with Saudi Arabia. «Since the Soviet invasion, Pakistan wants an Afghanistan that is either under its control or else completely destroyed», declared Ahmed Shah Massoud to the Figaro (21 October 1996). This country deliberately devotes 75% of the funds allocated by the United States to financing the most fanatical Islamist groups; in particular 50% of the total is allocated to the most extremist Sunni faction: the Pashtun Islamic legions of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Islamist party Hezb-e-Islami, heavily involved in drug trafficking. In his public conferences, the Abbé de Nantes warned the French right against this insane policy and tried to dissuade young French nationalists from leaving for Afghanistan to fight the Soviets alongside the «madmen of Allah». In vain. The perspicacity of his analysis was only equalled by the incomprehension of the traditional French right! Today, the terrible consequences of American policy have proved him right. Under the title “Resistance and terrorism”, Brother Peter recalls the essence of our Father’s demonstration, in La Renaissance catholique no 92 (November 2001). If the mujahideen had a fierce hatred of the atheist Soviets, they also harboured a secret resentment against their temporary protectors, the deeply materialist United States of America, followers of the Cross and supporters of Israel! All the more so in that the Afghan resistance had early on accepted the support of a number of Moslem countries throughout the world, particularly from the very wealthy petrol monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Anxious to widen the anticommunist front, Washington supported the entry into Afghanistan of the most extremist Islamists. This was the reason why, only two weeks after the arrival of the first Soviet forces in the Afghan capital, a young Saudi of twenty-one arrived in Pakistan. The rich heir to a billionaire father who was the King of Arabia’s Minister of Public Works, and a highly devout Moslem, he was strongly influenced during his studies at Jeddah in Jordan by one of his professors called Azzam, a member of the most radical branch of the Islamist organization of the Moslem Brothers. Having broken with Yasser Arafat’s PLO which he considered pusillanimous, Azzam was already advocating the jihad: «No negotiations, no conferences and no dialogue». His name? Osama bin Laden. Taking it upon himself as a volunteer to repulse what he saw as the West’s aggression against Islam, he went to Pakistan where he set up a recruitment office, financed and conveyed weapons to the Afghan resistance, including stinger missiles whose devastating effects were well known to the Soviet air force. With the help of the American and Pakistani secret services, the Saudi prince Turki ibn Faisal, son of the founder of the World Islamic League, established the famous Islamic Legion of the Afghan mujahideen, one of whose acting chiefs is Osama bin Laden. The latter created a veritable army and built training camps attended by soldiers from throughout the Middle East, who subsequently came to be called “Afghan Arabs” or “jihadists”. Moslems of various nationalities, but principally from the Arab world, they make the holy war their raison d’être. In 1989, the Soviets evacuated Kabul. Bin Laden created Al-Qaeda, an organization intended to be the “base”, as its name indicates, and the nerve centre of his Islamist network. Over the next ten years, civil war managed to destroy everything which the “resistance” to the Soviets had left standing. But the collapse of the USSR inspired the Afghan Islamists with a powerful sense of victory. Since they had beaten one of the two world superpowers, they now felt able to take on the second. Unconscious of the threat, the Americans continued their policy of exploiting Moslem fanaticism. The USSR had disappeared, but Russia remained. And to the Americans there was no real difference! In their eyes, Russia was still a rival power to be beaten back! For this objective all means were good. They would therefore continue to make greedy use of the Afghans. From the beginning of the Nineties, Chechens as well as other Moslem groups who had infiltrated the old Soviet Republics of Central Asia, were supported – this is no secret to anyone! – by the United States. The goal was to destabilize these States in order to detach them from Russia and bring them under American influence. In this way they would undermine the power of Russian competition by cutting off access to its oil-producing regions and by seizing its hydrocarbon deposits. Furthermore, the Americans wanted to counter the threat of the Iranian Shiites, by encouraging the rival Sunni fundamentalism of the Taliban and the Wahhabites... Lastly and above all, they knew all too well that control of Central Asia guaranteed control of the whole of Eurasia! That is why they would then go on to make very elaborate defence agreements with each of the Central Asia Republics. One understands why Vladimir Putin immediately turned his attention to Chechnya! During this time, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero. In August 90, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; bin Laden offered King Fahd the protection of his «Afghans». The King prudently refused, preferring the assistance of the United States. For bin Laden the Americans were «infidels» like the Soviets but with this aggravating circumstance: they were the chief supporters of Israel. For the disciple of Azzam, this was intolerable. In his eyes, the Americans would only «soil the Holy Land». He therefore left Saudi Arabia with all his weapons and baggage. As Afghanistan was involved in full-scale civil war, he was received in Sudan where the Islamic National Front of Hassan Al Tourabi held power. From there, he set up his networks and committed his first anti-US attacks. After the 1993 attack against the World Trade Centre, Washington succeeded in getting Riyadh to strip him of his Saudi nationality. In 1996, Washington put pressure on Sudan to expel bin Laden. As the Taliban had just come to power in Afghanistan, they received him as their guest. Thereupon, the export of the Islamic revolution would receive a formidable boost throughout the world... until 11 September 2001. Brother John Duns of Saint Anne |
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II. «FRANCE, AND FRANCE ALONE!» You may not know it, but «on the night of 14 September, a “tower” was burned down in France. A tower with a cross on top and a church below. The Church of Saint Bernadette in Limoges was deliberately set on fire. Nothing remains but the walls. Apart from a few laconic paragraphs, did anyone speak about it? Did anyone protest? Did the Minister of the Interior and Religion say anything? If it had concerned a mosque, several districts of our cities would have been set alight – and blood might have flowed – the very next day. This attack is a first and is highly ominous.» (Figaro-Magazine, 29 September 2001, correspondence) So much for this attack that went unnoticed. But there was even more brewing: Interrogated and imprisoned in Paris on Monday 1 October after having been extradited from the United Arab Emirates where he had been arrested at the end of July, Jamel Beghal, a French Algerian of thirty-five, declared that Abu Zubeida, Osama bin Laden’s right hand man mentioned above, had ordered him last March to carry out attacks in Paris against the United States embassy and an American cultural building. As for the Turkish truck driver who caused the Saint Gothard “accident”, according to the Belgian press he only possessed a short-term tourist visa which did not authorise him to work in the European Union. The Belgian inspectors were hoping to investigate the head office of Gul Transport, the company which employed this truck driver, but found the doors closed. The company, created at the end of August, does not have the required licence to operate trucks (La Croix, 2 November). New York, Limoges, Toulouse, Saint Gothard, Bethlehem... Tomorrow: Rome and Paris? In 1962, commemorating the victory of Islam against Saint Louis at Mansourah, President Nasser said: «The Crescent threw the Cross into the mud. Only a Moslem invasion will restore to us the glory of yesteryear. We will only succeed in recapturing this glory when the horsemen of Allah trample underfoot Saint Peter’s in Rome and Notre-Dame in Paris.» (Correspondance européenne no 67, 20 September 2001) We have been warned! To tell the truth, we have been warned for almost fifty years, ever since the bloody All Saints’ Day of 1 November 1954.
In France, terrorism does not date from 11 September 2001: in the French departments of Algeria it led to sixteen thousand victims among Moslem civilians between 1954 and 1962. Father de Foucauld wrote to Captain Pariel in 1912: «In fifty years time, this African empire will be a magnificent extension of France. However, if we treat these peoples, not as our children, but as objects to be exploited, the unity that we will have given them will be turned against us, and they will hurl us into the sea»! This prophecy – for such indeed it is! – was fulfilled to the letter: 1912 + «fifty years» = 1962, the year of the “Evian Agreements”, signed on 19 March, and of the handing over of French Algeria on 1 July to the demons from hell who put it to fire and the sword without taking any account of the signed “agreements”. An “independence” or “liberation” which, like that of the liberation of 1944 in the metropolis, was translated into the massacre of one hundred and fifty thousand harkis. But the true break, which precipitated Algeria into a hell from which it has never since escaped, dates not so much from 1 July as from 11 October 1962, the opening of the «disastrous Council» Vatican II, the Council of the cult of man, religious freedom and ecumenism, with their inescapable consequence: the end of the Catholic missions. Here, it is no longer Father de Foucauld whom we must quote, but his disciple. On 12 November 1995, at the Mutualité, our annual gathering was devoted to asking «FOR FRANCE IN PERIL, A CATHOLIC LEADER!» An appeal more relevant than ever on the eve of the approaching elections. In his sermon at the High Mass, the Abbé de Nantes exclaimed: «Islam is God’s punishment on an apostate world. “Ah! so you would be a people without God! I will send you men who will be quite unlike recycled Catholics, men who will be capable of dying for their god, who will kill you like dogs, since you yourselves have no God!”» Words that are truly prophetic, at a time when the suicide attacks on New York and Washington were already being organised, for one does not learn to pilot a Boeing in three days! Ever since the proclamation of the cult of man by Pope Paul VI in the aula of Saint Peter’s, two absolutely irreconcilable worlds have been confronting one another: on one side, there are the Moslems of tradition with their Holy Book, their imams and their minarets, and on the other there are the “roumis” sans priests, cemeteries or church towers to testify to their religion on Islam’s soil. But with their profaned Bible, the Bayard edition! Father de Foucauld wore the cross and heart of Jesus on his scapular. But since the Council, priests, monks and nuns no longer wear a costume or distinctive badge, and no longer preach the love of Jesus and Mary; they appear to be as atheist as everyone else, devoted to “humanitarianism”. And when they are assassinated, they are no longer martyrs. They die in the service of man! In this confrontation between the Moslems of tradition on the one hand – who are not all necessarily “integrists”, “extremists” or terrorists like the Kabyls – and the franco-FLN atheistic materialists on the other hand, no agreement is possible. There is nothing to do but kill one another. It is terrifying! Unless they return to our holy religion... In 1916, the year of his martyrdom, Father de Foucauld wrote to the Duke of Fitz-James: «My thinking is that if the Moslems of our colonial empire are not converted, there will be a nationalist movement similar to that in Turkey. If we cannot make Frenchmen of these people, they will drive us out. The only way for them to become French is for them to become Christian...» It will be «through an elite educated in our schools» that they will drive us out, he went on to say. That is exactly what the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale, FLN) was. Its leaders were strict products of our state education system, trained in our schools to despise God, to be ignorant of the Catholic Church and to war against her. If only we had listened to Father de Foucauld! If only we had persevered in the spirit of Charles X and Bourmont who had undertaken to conquer Algeria and convert it! If they had become Christian, they would have remained faithful and won the salvation of their souls. All this was certainly possible. The proof? Read on:
«One day, they closed the Koran and opened the Bible. Unofficially, there are supposed to be seven thousand Moslems who have recently converted to Christianity. More precisely to Protestantism, and primarily in Kabylia. Jesus became their brother, their healer, their God.» Is this a dream? One insists on seeing before believing, but the photographs are there, illustrating an exclusive report by Bruno Hadjih, written by Mina Kaci and published by Marie-Claire this November. Hands and faces are raised towards Heaven, as the neophytes sing hymns «in Kabyl, French and sometimes Arabic». «The congregation, mainly young males, come from all social levels. Although there are numerous women converts, they seldom come to the temple and only go there when accompanied by a man, a father, husband, brother or cousin... Moslem or Christian, Algerian men brook no compromise on this point.» The article goes on to observe that, whether Christian or Moslem, the women «all preserve their virginity before marriage. This is sacred.» «Although one cannot speak of a Christian conquest of Algeria, a country in which Islam is established as the State religion, nevertheless the extent of the phenomenon is starting to worry the government. Last March, it ordered a census to be taken of these new converts. An ambiguous measure: was it the simple recognition of a religious fact or a preparation for repression?» This census «has instilled fear in certain converts who say they are “aware that persecution is likely”. In the Young Independent for 19 April 2001, the integrist deputy Hocène Aribi demanded that the Ministry of the Interior intervene “to counter any attempt at apostasy, for to deny one’s religion can only lead to anarchy”. Estimating that the rate of conversions was six people per day, and that the number of copies of the Gospel brought into the country was around thirty thousand, the deputy warned: “It is illegal. The charia condemns apostasy to death.” It is open war and on Fridays certain imams preach against Christians in the mosques.» But that does not shake their resolution, on the contrary. «The Lord is back in Algeria after fourteen centuries of abandonment. Today He is asking us to pray for our country», declared Saïd, fifty-one, an unemployed executive. The new converts are proud to take up the Christianity of Saint Augustine again. Saïd is not reluctant to argue with the Islamists, his former co-religionists, outside the mosque: «They went off to find a copy of the Koran, and I contradicted what they said, Bible in hand. They did me no harm. They simply insulted Jesus.» And the Catholics? What are Catholics doing? «In Algiers, there are still one hundred and ten Catholic priests and one hundred and seventy nuns. But the majority of the churches have been turned into mosques. The Algerian government officially recognises Catholicism. It is very careful over its relations with the Vatican. It is a presence that is tolerated provided that “citizens do not follow the way of the Bible”, comments Saïd.» As in Orthodox Russia and the People’s China... Thus the remarks of Mgr Henri Tessier, bishop of Algiers, are coloured by the «infinite prudence» demanded by this pact which binds him to the devil: «We are in contact with Moslems, particularly with young Kabyls, who have a greater need to benefit from our libraries and other cultural structures than to embrace the Christian religion.» What «need» is he talking about? Surely not that of «mercy», the object of the prayer taught to Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta on 13 July 1917 by the Blessed Virgin, anxious to save souls from hell and to lead them all to Heaven: «Algerians read the Bible, the Gospel. This is all bound up with the general evolution of society, with globalisation», he explains. «Many people watch the religious broadcasts on France 2 on Sunday mornings. They are getting used to a different presentation of religion. And then, during the terrorism, several people approached us, not in order to become Christians, but because they reject an extreme interpretation of Islam.» The bishop seeks in vain to justify his incredible pastoral indifference, wholly dictated by the pact concluded with the government. Here are the true facts: «Pastor Kader situates the beginning of the conversions from 1988, when the riots in Algiers led to five hundred deaths, primarily among young people. The event also allowed society to shake off the rule of the only political party, the FLN (National Liberation Front). Political groupings and associations of all kinds came out of the shadows. “After these events, people felt more at liberty to preach the Gospel”, Kader recalls.» Alas! only the Catholic Church failed to take advantage of the opportunity! «“Every week, the temple sees new faces, new followers”, declares Kader. Amar, thirty-two, a senior IT technician, emerges from the baptismal bath [where he has just been baptised by immersion], a happy smile on his lips: “I did a year of spiritual research. I studied the various religions. I was a Moslem, but I was completely thrown by terrorism. They have plundered the whole country. I know many people who were put off Islam because of its fundamentalism and its crimes.”»
III. SALVATION THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS The report concluded with this observation by a Moslem: «One hundred and thirty years of French colonisation failed to make Christians of us... Now, one sees young people following this path. I know not what I shall do if one of my children turns to Jesus.» The threat was not a dead letter. In its edition for 29 July last, Le Quotidien d’Oran announced that sixteen young people aged between twenty and thirty-one had been arrested at Cape Falcon, close to Oran, by the gendarmerie of Ain El Turck «for the possession of books and other propaganda documents of the Christian religion». Just as in Kabul! The Algiers newspaper went on to specify that «the investigation had made it possible to determine that these young people came from a Christian church established in a city in the centre of the country».
On 21 September 1912, Father de Foucauld wrote to Madam de Bondy: «Pray also for all the Moslems of our north-west African empire now so vast. The present hour is extremely grave for their souls as it is for France. For the eighty years that Algiers has been ours, we have been so little occupied with saving the souls of the Moslems that one might say that we have not been occupied with it at all. Nor have we taken the trouble to manage them well or to civilise them. We have kept them in submission, nothing more. If the Christians of France fail to understand that it is their duty to evangelise their colonies, it is a fault for which they will have to render an account, and it will result in the loss of a vast number of souls who might have been saved.» Notice that these lines express exactly the same concern as that of Our Lady of Fatima in Her apparition of 19 August 1917 at Valinhos: «Many souls go to hell because they have nobody to sacrifices themselves and pray for them.» But Father de Foucauld never imagined that a time would come when the Pope himself would refuse to proclaim the Gospel! Or, to be more precise, that he would proclaim a «NEW EVANGELIZATION» by inviting people «TO PRAY EACH ACCORDING TO HIS OWN RELIGIOUS TRADITION, WITHOUT CONFUSION AND IN MUTUAL RESPECT, EACH PRESERVING HIS OWN CREDO IN AN UPRIGHT (!) AND ROBUST MANNER.» (cf. Resurrection no 10, October 2001, p. 3) The thinking of Mgr Ricard, the new president of the French Episcopal Conference, is in perfect accord with that of John Paul II when he declares: «Today Islam must be recognised as one of the religious components of our society.» (La Croix, Friday 9 November 2001) In that case, a class of catechism children ask, «Is Mohammed one of our prophets?» La Croix of Thursday 8 November, which conducted its survey «in the parish hall of Raincy (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the Paris suburbs», does not say what reply was given to this question put by the «seven children of CM 2» who had come together for the Wednesday morning «lesson» – the quotation marks are those of the article’s authors – about «All Saints’ Day and the different religions in the world». At the annual assembly of the Bishops of France which met at Lourdes, Mgr Michel Dubost, Bishop of Évry-Corbeil-Essonne and President of the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and the Catechumenate, «answered the troubling question, “How to proclaim it” [proclaim what? no one knows!], with this very stylish acronym “E3i”, which stands for “evangelisation, initiation, intelligence [i.e. understanding] of the faith, and incorporation into the community”. In other words, four stages of a program which only remains to be put into effect. Except that, for the moment, the bishops have only just begun their reflection on it. They will devote two years to this workshop.» In the year 2000 last, «they had talked about the “new times for the Gospel” and had instigated a workshop to promote initiatives in the dioceses. Today, at the Conference, they acknowledge that this workshop had received no real backing at grass roots level.» (La Croix, 2 November) So will they be any happier this year with their new “workshop”? «We do not wish to proceed too quickly», says Mgr Dubost in self-justification. «Before we make a clear pronouncement, we must stand back and take note of the catechetical situation and the cultural changes.» He notes, in passing, one of these cultural changes: «THE REJECTION OF THE AUTHORITY OF INSTITUTIONS AND OF WHAT SOME CALL DOGMATISM». But that is to reject the sacraments and the «dogma of the faith»! It is the end of the Church! Apparently not. It is, on the contrary, «a beginning», specifies the Bishop of Évry, as though to silence all objections. «Our outlook is one that is resolutely positive. We rule out fear or a policy of wait-and-see. Our Church is one of a beginning.» «Talking of beginnings, there was one yesterday morning in Lourdes», continues Jean-Marie Guénois. «Mgr Jean-Pierre Ricard, the new president of the Episcopal Conference, presented his pastoral approach.» It is all quite worthless, as we know already. We reported last June in Resurrection no 7 how Mgr Ricard, Bishop of Montpellier, had organised a “Party for the people of God” on Pentecost Sunday 2001. This was the programme for Pentecost of the year 1 of the new millennium: IN ORDER THAT THE CELEBRATION MAY BE COMPLETE, HE HAD ASKED THAT THERE BE NO OTHER MASS IN THE PARISHES THAT PENTECOST SUNDAY OTHER THAN THAT «CONCELEBRATED» BY HIM AND MGR DIARRA, Bishop of Mali. And there we have an example of «the rejection of the authority of institutions»: the obligation to hear Mass is suppressed in all the parishes of the Montpellier diocese on Pentecost Sunday! And now we will see an example of «what some call dogmatism»: in Église de Montpellier for 23 May, Mgr Ricard invited Catholics «to be a people united above all with our Jewish brothers with whom we celebrate at Pentecost the indefectible fidelity of God to his Covenant through the GIFT OF HIS WORD (TORAH) and that of his Spirit.» So for Mgr Ricard, the Catholic bishop of Montpellier, is the Word of God, His Verb, identical with the Torah? we asked (Resurrection no 7, July 2001, page 11). Apparently, our scandalized indignation was not taken up by anybody and the only reply it would receive would be the vote – unanimous? – of our one hundred and eleven French bishops raising this apostate bishop to the presidency of their majestic assembly, at Lourdes, in the sanctuary of Mary! Once upon a time, the Roman Catholic Church condemned the infidelity of «our Jewish brothers» to the divine Covenant of which they had been the depositories since the time of Abraham. Today, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has overstepped all limits by denying the Word made flesh in order to re-engage in “dialogue” with them in «mutual rivalry». Furthermore, by suppressing the celebration of Mass in his parishes, Mgr Ricard had no hesitation in depriving his people of the cup of blessing which had been given them by their God as a wine of celebration, the new wine of the definitive Covenant in His Precious Blood. This is the ultimate misfortune announced in the Third Secret of Fatima where one sees the ministers of the Sacrament disappearing «one after the other», until there is nothing left but a mysterious rite of aspersion for the remission of sins through the blood of the martyrs: «Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.»
John Paul II’s message
substituting “the spirit of Assisi” and interreligious dialogue for the
former apostolic and missionary zeal of the Roman Catholic Church, was
received loud and clear by Patriarch Alexis II. He took full advantage of it
to push his demands:
The struggle between the Virgin and the demon here attains its paroxysm, allowing us to glimpse its imminent outcome. And at the centre of the combat is the heart of the Pope. He wants to go to Moscow. But the Virgin wants something else: the conversion of Russia, which Alexis II does not want. However, it is the Virgin who will carry the day; nothing is more certain: Russia will be converted when the Pope consecrates her to Her Immaculate Heart. For the moment, therefore, the obstacle is not Alexis II who will be unable to obstruct the miracle of Russia’s conversion at the hour of Mary, but John Paul II who seeks to please Alexis II more than the Blessed Virgin, and for that reason evades the consecration She requires of him. How long will this go on? One thing is sure: «In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted and a certain period of peace will be given to the world.»
As for the second condition set by Moscow, it incurs the condemnation of the Uniates, and therefore of the martyrs, whose defence Mgr Slipyi took up some while back before a dismayed, shaken and ashamed Synod, in 1971: «Out of fifty-four million Ukrainian Catholics, ten million have died as a result of the persecutions! The Soviet regime has suppressed all the dioceses! The bodies of the dead would build a mountain and yet there is nobody, even within the Church, who will so much as defend their memory. Thousands of the faithful are still imprisoned or exiled. But Vatican diplomacy desires that we should keep silent about them for they interfere with its negotiations. We are back in the days of the Catacombs. Thousands upon thousands of the faithful of the Ukrainian Church have been deported to Siberia, even to the polar circle, but the Vatican ignores this tragedy. Could it be that we have become an embarrassment for the Church?» (Georges de Nantes, Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, 1973, p. 83) Cardinal Slipyi did not know at the time that the answer to his anguished cry lay in the Third Secret: «the blood of the martyrs» was the ultimate value guaranteed to save «souls making their way to God». As regards the Chinese martyrs, the denial is even more explicit. In a message addressed to the Conference held in Rome regarding the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, Pope John Paul II expressed «the hope that concrete forms of communication and cooperation between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China may soon be established.» The Pope asked forgiveness for the «errors» of the past: «I feel deep sadness for these errors and limitations of the past» which may have given «the impression of a lack of respect and esteem for the Chinese people (…). For all of this I ask the forgiveness and understanding of those who may in some way have felt hurt by such actions on the part of Christians.» At a press conference, the spokesman for Peking’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sun Yuxi, described the Pope’s repentance for the «errors» committed by missionaries as a «positive sign». And he asked for this to be followed up with action: «We hope that the Vatican will take concrete measures to remove obstacles and so create a climate favourable to the resumption of contacts and negotiations». He then proceeded to set out his conditions: «We have two principles. Firstly, the Vatican must break its diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognise the government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representative for the whole of China. Secondly, the Vatican must not intervene in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of questions of religion.» In other words, the Pope is not authorised to appoint Chinese bishops (La Croix, 26 October). «But, added Sun Yuxi, we have also pointed out that in the Pope’s speeches there were still no clear reasons given for the canonisation of the martyrs, an event which has greatly offended Chinese feelings. We regret this point.» La Croix did not dare to reproduce the whole of this impudent statement. However, it had no hesitation in describing as a «blunder now recognised by Rome» the fact of «having beatified (sic) on 1 October 2000 – the Chinese national holiday! – one hundred and twenty Chinese and Western martyrs». Thus, according to John Paul II, the «errors» for which repentance is needed are not those of Russia, even though Our Lady in the Second Secret reveals these to be the rod of God’s anger: «Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church». Contradicting the Blessed Virgin, Pope John Paul II imputes the «errors» not to communist China but to the Church of the past: «I feel deep sadness for these errors and limitations of the past.» And in this way he makes himself the accessory of those who incite war and persecution against the Church. This diabolical inversion of alliances is a matter of public notoriety: «As regards the underground Catholics [the Church faithful to Rome]», considers Fr Anthony Lam, a research specialist on Catholics in China at Hong Kong’s Holy Spirit Study Centre, «the hardest thing is to make them understand that the world has changed [a lie! the world has not changed and is still the Church’s enemy; it is the Church that has opened herself up and surrendered to a world which has «espoused» her, as Mgr Couëdic, the bishop of Troyes, said on his return from the Council; that is what has changed!], that official Catholics [belonging to the patriotic Church, docile to the demands of Peking’s communist regime] are not evil, and that they themselves are not the only ones who are “good and faithful”. After all the sacrifices they have made in withstanding the Communists, one can understand their difficulties. But it is clear that the Vatican is not going to disown [sic!] the official Church to the advantage of the underground Church; that would be impossible, quite unrealistic.» (La Croix, Friday 12 October) By disowning «the martyrs» canonised on 1 October 2000, to the benefit of Matteo Ricci whose beatification he is preparing, the Pope is betraying today’s martyrs in the hope of regaining Peking’s ear. The tactics of Judas! «When John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia (1998), paid a vibrant homage to the Italian Jesuit of whom he said, “IN OUR OWN DAYS WE MUST REVIVE THIS PENETRATING INSIGHT INTO PEOPLES AND CULTURES”, his words found a certain echo in communist China: “At that time”, the historian Gu Yulu writes, “Ricci and the foreign missionaries were able to live and evangelise in China because they followed the local customs and adapted Catholicism to the context of the China of that time”.» (ibid) Thus, «Ricci’s masterpiece», according to Bruno Chenu, «is his apologetic work of 1603, The true Meaning (of the doctrine) of the Lord of Heaven. He tries to show that Christianity is in agreement with the thinking of Confucius. He argues the point rationally [?] on the basis of the virtue of humanity, which is central to Confucianism. Only fifteen biblical quotations appear in the text. No mention is made of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection or the Trinity.» Matteo Ricci is a true precursor of John Paul II. On the other hand, he
has nothing in common with Father de Foucauld who wept over Algeria,
that poor «French soil which is dying under Islamism». Islamism «rests on a
crude deception. It does not stand up to examination. History and
philosophy provide its indisputable refutation… All souls are made for
Jesus, all are His inheritance, and none, providing it possesses goodwill, is incapable of knowing and loving Him.»
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One can only read with astonishment the following lines taken from a letter addressed by the Holy Father to Mgr François Blondel, Bishop of Viviers, on the occasion of Father de Foucauld’s ordination to the priesthood (9 June 1901): «DOES NOT BROTHER CHARLES, WHO TO TRANSLATE THE GOSPELS LEARNED THE LANGUAGE OF THE TUAREGS AND COMPOSED A LEXICON AND A GRAMMAR, CALL THOSE WHO DRAW THEIR INSPIRATION FROM HIS CHARISM TO ENTER INTO DIALOGUE WITH THE CULTURES OF THE MEN OF TODAY, AND TO PURSUE THE PATH OF ENCOUNTER WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS, PARTICULARLY WITH ISLAM?» No, Most Holy Father, that is not the case at all, far from it! On the contrary, when Brother Charles of Jesus saw Moussa, the amenokal of Hoggar, trying to islamise the Tuareg people with a Koranic school and the construction of a mosque to boot... it literally made him ill (English CRC no 296, May 1997, p. 18)! Hence the cry of victory he let out the following year, in June 1908! «Moussa’s efforts to organise the Hoggar into an official, fervent Moslem kingdom have been turned by the Beloved to the good of souls, he writes. His efforts have failed totally and pitifully. Not only failed, but produced the opposite effect: he appointed a cadi and entrusted him with significant sums of money to build a mosque and a zaouia, and had a religious tithe levied through the whole of Hoggar. In three months his cadi had made himself hated by everyone, squandered all the funds entrusted to him and ended up building nothing. «The levying of the tithe upset everyone, so much so that all that remains now is the memory of an unpleasant incident and a horror of cadis and tithes. Let us pray and do penance.» (René Bazin, Charles de Foucauld, 1921 edition, p. 357; 1959 edition , p. 305; quoted in the English CRC no 296, p. 18) These Tuareg pagans were not mistaken about this! They knew the difference between an emissary of the Good God and an emissary of Mohammed! Today, the Lord is opening a door before us (cf. Ap 3.8) in Kabylia. The statistics of the Church of France reveal that in 1999, one hundred Algerian immigrants asked to receive baptism in the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. «Have you not got a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Well, I tell you: Look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for the harvest.» (Jn 4.35) The seed which fell to the ground under the bullets of the Senoussis on 1 December 1916 will bear its fruit through the grace of Our Lady of the Rosary who appeared in the sky above Fatima on 13 October 1917. «It will never be too late to undertake what God wants, for no one will undertake it in our place, and certainly no predatory nation will ever be capable of restoring to these people the civilization, order and spiritual salvation of which we Europeans, we Latins and Catholics, are the bearers.» (Georges de Nantes, For a new Christendom, English CRC no 62, May 1975, p. 12) For this new Crusade, Our Lady is, as on the day of Lepanto, 7 October 1571, the “Auxilium christianorum”, the Help of Christians. She is at all times and more than ever “Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary”. It is She who will win the final victory. Her apparition of 13 October 1917 shows Her mighty «as an army ranged in battle», and the name She gave Herself is that which inspired in Pope Saint Pius V the vision of the miraculous Victory: «Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary». A way of saying at that time, and again in 1917, and for us today also: “In hoc Signo vincetis”, “it is in this NAME that you will win victory”! Brother Bruno of Jesus |
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THE LEAGUE
THE CONSOLATION OF ALL SAINTS For the feast of All Saints on 1 November 2001, Maison Saint-Joseph was literally submerged by an invasion of three hundred phalangists, all eager to pray together and to understand what is taking place in the light of Sacred Scripture and the Secret of Fatima, while our poor world founders in the diabolical disorientation of a war of all against all. Sacred Scripture is given us for this purpose, but few have ears to hear it… As for the Secret of Fatima, it seems to have become our exclusive privilege, as no one else sets any store by it… We must return to its teaching in a future editorial, please God. May we hear the message transmitted to the Angel of the Church of Pergamum, «You have held firm to my Name and you have not disowned your faith in me.» And so come to be rewarded with the «hidden manna» and the mysterious «white stone». To those who remain faithful, the Lord promises: «I shall impose no further burden on you.» And here is the reward: «To those who prove victorious and keep working for Me until the end… I will give the Morning Star.» The session opened with a review of our phalangist year, the first of Resurrection, year 1 of the third millennium. Brother Gerard powerfully and enthusiastically recalled the unique object of the task undertaken fifty years ago by our Father: «To arouse our pastors and to hold on to the faith.» In this we have the example of Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu, a Chinese Benedictine, faithful to the underground Church. We also have the example of Albino Luciani, martyred by this brothers, and that of Sister Lucy of Fatima, who never ceases to revive our hope in the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: «Yes! I actually see it! she said to Canon Barthas who expressed doubts on the matter. I see it!»
After this purifying introduction and the recitation of the Rosary, Brother Gerard repeated his masterly conference on our canonical situation, previously given in Canada and then at the Congress a month ago. Supported by numerous quotations from volume II of Pour L’Église, it is an extraordinary demonstration of the strength of our position, of the legitimacy of this combat for the faith… and of the heroic courage of our Father who has held to this highroad for thirty-five years despite the cost to himself. During this time, our Father tirelessly received the young people who wished to ask his advice, put their questions to him, and confide their worries, difficulties and trials. After the festive ceremonies, came the moving prayers of the Church for our dead who have departed to join the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nor did we forget to pray for so many poor anonymous victims killed in attacks or wars, «so many dead people» lying everywhere throughout the world, that our good God might have mercy on them and take them all, if possible, to Paradise. The study of current events, summarised above (p. 1-10), in the light of Fatima, unmasks all the lies from whatever side they come. Once again the conclusion is inescapable: the peace of the world is in the hands of Our Lady and of Her alone. While the «errors of Russia» continue to spread like a cancer «throughout the world», it is to HER that we must pray, and it is Her demands that the Pope will finally have to obey. As for Brother Gerard, he held his audience spellbound with his moving parallel between Sonia [a character in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment] and Saint Maria Goretti (p. 22-26, French edition). The comparison makes Catholic holiness shine out in all its radiance. One does not know who to admire most, the mother who knew how to bring up her child with such consummate wisdom, or Maria who responded to this grace in such a holy way amidst the severest trials, or her assassin who, through her intercession, made such a beautiful conversion. But the best thing is to read the book by Sister Françoise of the Holy Dove (in French only). Taking up again the symbolic figures found in the Book of Esther, Brother Bruno applied them to the work of our Father. It is remarkable! and fascinating, for we have reached that very same point where everything seems to be lost. Surrounded by the dark night of apostasy, we draw from this inspired book the certainty that one day soon «the people will be saved by their Queen». Our beloved Queen, Our Lady of Fatima, has already announced Her triumph to us. At that time, She will give us a new John Paul I. «He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire.» This beautiful conference, sprinkled with learned observations taken from the musical critique to appear in the next number, prepared us for the performance: the projection of Brother Henry’s Oratorio onto a large screen in our municipal hall now transformed into an auditorium. Quite wonderful! Our Father concluded: «I am happy, and the Brothers and Sisters with me, to see us united under the sign of faith, hope and charity. Nothing is more beautiful than a community that resembles a family, a family that resembles a community, where mutual charity reigns. And when this extends to art, to comedy, to tragedy, it is marvellous. Then, I tremble. Not out of superstition, no! But it is the fear felt by the old man that I am, filled with a feeling of extreme frailty. One year from now, where will we be? While barbarity submerges everything, we are here, tranquil in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, with the Child Jesus. May God be so good as to keep us there...» |
HAVING
burst into
eruption on 13 July 2001, the anniversary of the vision of hell seen by the
seers of Fatima (13 July 1917), Etna became calm again after faithful
Catholics had implored the divine protection by praying and
organising public processions under the direction of the Sicilian
clergy. But the threat remains. It is a sign! The recent eruption, quite
atypical, is one of the giant’s most serious: «Dozens of craters
have opened up and they reveal a terrifying hyperactivity», explains
Franco Barberi, head of the Italian civil protection agency and a
vulcanologist of renown. «Usually, the eruption begins with a fissure at
the top of the mountain. Then its vents open up further and further down
while the higher ones become less active.» This was not the case last
July, explains Stefano Gresta, another vulcanologist: «Two systems could
be observed at work in the rising of the magma, one classical, from the
summit, the other lower down and totally unprecedented for Etna.
Moreover, the extremely rapid thrust of the magma has brought to the
surface minerals which have not been found for more than fifteen
thousand years.»
This
did not stop the archbishop of Catania from having the courage
to celebrate Mass a few hundred metres away from the lava flow, «to
ask God to arrest the flow of lava pouring from the most active
volcano in Europe» (La Croix, 30 July). That was on Sunday
afternoon. And on 7 August, we learned that the volcano had become calm
again. According to the experts, Etna had already thrown up thirty
million cubic metres of magma, but it was still thought to contain a
reservoir of one billion! Thus, on 13 July, we were reminded, in a
striking
manner, that hell exists and that we could fall into it,
contrary to the statement made by Father Brocard in Reflets
comtois, which “reflects” a widespread view in the Church: «If
anyone says that hell exists, he flatters himself in possessing
information which Christians do not in fact possess.» (no 225, April 2001)
LET US RAISE OUR EYES TO HEAVEN