Prelude to Antichrist: Guerra’s Lesson for Us All by Fr. Nicholas Gruner

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Prelude to Antichrist:
Guerra’s Lesson for Us All

Fr. Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D.
Fr. N. Gruner is the founder and Director of the International Fatima Rosary Crusade. He is the founder and publisher of the Fatima Crusader magazine and hosts the website The Fatima Network.

It is incredible that a Catholic priest who has taken the Oath Against Modernism, who studied during the time when Pius XII was Pope, who grew up in a country as Catholic as Portugal, should now — 50 years later — have the audacity to promote the worship of pagan idols, pagan gods. Yet this act of infidelity is precisely what Fatima Shrine Rector Msgr. Luciano Guerra did when on May 5, 2004, he allowed, and encouraged, the Hindu ritual at the Fatima Shrine.

At the altar of the Fatima shrine, the Hindu priest, the Shastri, recites the Shanti Pa, the prayer for peace.

The Hindu ritual desecrates the Fatima Shrine

Msgr. Luciano Guerra speaks approvingly about the Hindu worship at Fatima.

Msgr. Guerra receives a shawl covered with verses of a "sacred book" of Hinduism. Pictures by John Vennari

Hinduism is a religion that worships idols. Perhaps you’ve never been to India or other pagan countries. Once while in India, I was in a taxi, the driver of which had on his dashboard a pagan idol. This graven image did not represent a saint, or some member of his family, but was a false god. I asked the driver, "Do you believe that this is a deity, that this is some sort of powerful figure that you worship, that you adore, that you consider more important than yourself, than your family; do you believe this little piece of clay is god?"

The Hindu taxi driver said, "Yes."

Our Lord in the Old Testament condemned those who would worship a piece of wood or piece of clay, or golden image, believing it was not a representation of their "god" or representation of something holy, but it was the "holy god itself".

Yet Rector Guerra allowed such pagan worship at Fatima. After almost fifty years of priesthood, of seeing the devotion of millions of Catholics at Fatima, of having the privilege of talking to Sister Lucy, of talking to witnesses of the great Miracle of the Sun, this is the un-Catholic condition that Rector Guerra has allowed himself to be reduced to.

It is also hard to believe that any intelligent person with all the graces, with all the opportunities, with all the training that he has received, could be so faithless and yes, even so stupid. Yet, it is a fact.

Let Rector Guerra’s blindness and fall from grace be a lesson for all of us.

Let us remember the wise, humble example of Saint Philip Neri who once saw a criminal being led to the gallows to be executed for some horrible crime. Saint Philip Neri said to himself in all truth, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Let each of us tremble. Let each of us realize that just as Rector Guerra has despised God’s grace and despised God Himself by inviting, welcoming and approving the presence and the worship services of these Hindus at the Catholic altar, at the very spot where Our Lady appeared at Fatima six different times, without the grace of God we could do the same.

And worse yet for Rector Guerra, he not only authorizes the lending out of our Catholic sanctuary to Hindus, he also attacks those who seek to point out to him the most grave errors of his ways, that he is in danger of going to hell for his apostasy. Rector Guerra is over 75, and there is probably not much time left before he goes to meet the just Judge, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who holds in abomination the worship of devils, the pagan worship of idols. One would think that a person who draws close to death would never do such a thing. Yet a man — priest or layman — who is struck with spiritual blindness will do such things. Yet, just as St. Philip Neri said of himself, we too could say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Let us pray then, first of all for ourselves, that we have the humility to not think ourselves self-sufficient, that we would never do such a thing by our own strength. God has permitted the blindness of Rector Guerra to serve as a lesson to us all to not follow his bad example.

Historic magnitude

At the same time, it is also important for us to reflect upon this historic event. The magnitude of this crime is hard to exaggerate.

First of all, it is against the First Commandment, "Thou shall not have strange gods before Me". Yet, Rector Guerra approves the putting of these strange gods at Catholic Shrines and altars!

God, in the Old Testament, punished severely and publicly the worship of false gods by people who have made a covenant with the One True God; with people of the Old Covenant who agreed with God to serve Him only, and later engaged in the worship of false gods.

There is the famous case of Phinees. (Num. 25:6-13) Phinees killed two people – one of whom was an Israelite – while they were worshiping the false god. God was pleased with Phinees for killing the Israelite who was participating in the worship of a false god. There had been a plague visited on all the people because of this false worship. But when Phinees killed the man doing it, the plague stopped.

Scripture tells us that Phinees’ memory is held in benediction to the end of time for this act of executing the promoter and practitioner of idol worship.

It should be said, lest we be misunderstood, that we do not advocate violence against those who worship false gods. We merely tell this story because it illustrates how the one true God loathes such pagan worship.

Julian promoted worship of false gods & was struck down by God

There are many other cases in Sacred Scripture. Even Church history carries the story of Julian the apostate. Julian was the ruler of the Roman Empire after it had converted to the Catholic Faith. Julian apostasized and promoted, with the power of the state, the worship of false gods, idols. The people were forced to worship pagan gods. Julian was struck dead by God Himself and his last words were, "Thou hast won, O Nazarene."

The martyrs of the first centuries went to their martyrdom for one reason: they refused to worship the pagan idols. The Roman Martyrology has thousands of examples of Catholic saints who suffered exile, torture, mutilation, imprisonment and execution for one reason and one reason only — because they refused to worship pagan idols.

The saints and missionaries throughout Church history suffered untold sufferings and went to cruel deaths in order to save the pagans from the darkness of their false religions. For example, our own North American Martyr St. Isaac Jogues had both his index fingers bitten off as part of the torture his pagan captors used to discourage and stop his missionary efforts. Yet because he wanted to save them from hell, he persisted in returning to them — even though he had been rescued from them. He was martyred while preaching the Gospel — while preaching against paganism. Now, so-called "Catholic" leaders, such as Rector Guerra and the Bishop of Fatima, welcome these pagan religions and rituals into Catholic churches.

It should be noted that the worship of pagan gods is not forbidden to Catholics only. No, the First Commandment forbids ALL of mankind to worship false gods. Hindus thus live their lives in gross violation of the First Commandment, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

Unprecedented!

We live in an unprecedented period of history. Never before — never before our time — have Catholic authorities willfully invited pagans to worship their false gods in Catholic churches and Shrines. Not even during the Arian heresy in the 4th Century, which was the worst crisis of Faith in Church history before our own day, not even during the Protestant revolt in the 16th Century would Christian churches be turned over for pagan worship of idols. It is reserved for our time for Catholics to be tearful witnesses of this abomination of desolation.

Sacred Scripture tells of the coming of the Antichrist, the man of sin who will persecute Catholics worldwide, who will not allow anyone to buy or sell in the whole world without his permission; the Antichrist who exalts himself above all holy things, even above God Himself. He is called the son of perdition. He is the most evil man that will ever exist in the entire history of mankind — worse than Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, worse than anyone else you can think of currently living or who has lived in the past.

And the coming of Antichrist is preceded by the Apostasy.

The Antichrist will set up pagan worship in the holy place, the abomination of desolation; that is, the worship of satan himself. Obviously this abomination of desolation is preceded by setting up idol worship, and this is done in the holy place.

We are thus at a most frightful historic moment. We are beginning to see this apostasy before our very eyes. We see it promoted by Catholic priests such as Rector Guerra, by Catholic bishops such as the Bishop of Fatima, and by the silence and/or connivance of other bishops of Portugal. It also continues to take place due to the silence, connivance and promotion of weak, bad, or misguided bishops, archbishops and Cardinals, by officials in the Vatican itself.

More than two months have passed since this great scandal, which was broadcast to the Portuguese nation on May 5, the same day it took place. Yet to this day, neither the Pope, nor the Cardinals, nor the bishops, nor the priests have spoken out against it.

They have not removed Guerra, have not removed the Bishop of Fatima, have not made public reparation, have not called the faithful to prayer and penance for the great outrage to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The great Father Frederick Faber said, "Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness." Yet what took place at Fatima is worse than heresy, it is apostasy. And those in the highest echelons of the Church either do nothing to prevent it, or actually encourage it themselves. They have no hatred of heresy; they have no hatred of apostasy.

This shows that the Church is in deep crisis. This scandal at Fatima, and the fact that it is permitted by the highest offices in the Church, demonstrates the truth of what Cardinal Ciappi told us. He said, "In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top." When a person says the apostasy he refers to the apostasy predicted by the Holy Ghost in Sacred Scripture.

We know that this apostasy is upon us now:

We know from our research that the Third Secret is a prophecy. We know this from Cardinal Ottaviani in 1955 and Cardinal Ratzinger in 1984, and others.

We know that the prophecy began to be realized openly by 1960. (This we know from Sr. Lucy and Frère Michel. Sister Lucy said that Our Lady wanted the Third Secret revealed to the Faithful at the latest by 1960, because it would be clearer then. Frère Michel pointed out that a prophecy is clearer when it starts to be realized. So he correctly deduced that the prophecy started to be openly realized in 1960.)

We know that we are living in that period between 1960 and the end of the prophecy, which will take place when the Holy Father, the Pope, finally consecrates Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as specified by Our Lady of Fatima. (We know this because the Third Secret ends with the words "In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be given to mankind.") The Third Secret prophecy tells us that the apostasy in the Church begins at the top. We are living through the apostasy which has begun and continues to spread because of at least the silence, if not the connivance and the actual promotion of the apostasy from the Vatican. The apostasy has been carried forward from the Vatican itself by the two things that we know are in the Secret:

The Fatima Crusader

We know that Vatican Council II is that evil Council because pagan worship at Catholic Shrines is now encouraged in the "interreligious spirit of Vatican II". It is the new orientation of Vatican II that Rector Guerra relies on to promote, approve and defend pagan worship at Fatima. The fruit of the Council is there for all to see. The fact that Guerra has not been removed, that Guerra defends himself by the words of the Council and defends himself by the present administration and activities of Vatican officials — even including the Pope — shows the two ideas of religion, that two religions are struggling for your souls:

1. The Catholic Faith/Church, the true Catholic Church — which will bring you to Heaven.

2. The conciliar religion, the conciliar church, the false Catholic church — which will bring you to hell.

The true Catholic religion holds on to the teaching of Jesus Christ, (Apoc. 12:17) holds on to the teaching of the apostles and to the examples of the apostles and the saints in adoring and honoring God exclusively, in despising and rejecting false religions, and in especially rejecting paganism and its false gods and idols.

The false religion pretends to be Catholic. Its practitioners occupy many of the offices, the buildings, the trappings, the garments, the names and titles, the appearance to the casual observer of being Catholic. But they have lost the faith. Objectively, they are not just guilty of heresy, which entails a denial of one or two dogmas, but of apostasy. They promote devil worship. Sacred Scripture teaches infallibly, "The gods of the gentiles are devils" (Psalm 95:5).

They work at the service of the devil. (1) Either willingly or unknowingly, they work for Freemasonry. Some of them have conducted Masonic worship services in secret in which they worship the devil. Masonry is a pagan religion. Masonry has acknowledged in court cases that it, itself, is a religion. It was Pope Pius VIII who said of Freemasonry, "Their god is the devil." (2) Their religion is basically the same, false religion as the pagan Canaanites who also had the same false gods as the Masons.

The Canaanite religion called for human sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of infants. This is why we have abortion today, because of the Masonic influence in our governments.

It is to the Masons that a number of Cardinals and bishops belong. They have apostasized, they appear to be Catholic prelates, but they serve the devil. It is Masonry and/or Masonic ideals that prelates such as Cardinal Kasper, and others, serve. Even if Rector Guerra is not a Mason, he still serves Masonic ideals by his syncretistic approach to religion. It is this new conciliar religion that claims the name Roman Catholic, but is not Roman Catholic at all. It is a false religion which says: to be Catholic, we must allow pagans to worship in our Catholic sanctuaries; to be Catholic, we must not insist on the dogma that "Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation."

The apostates claim to be Catholic while they wish to silence true Catholics from speaking. They claim to be obedient sons of the Catholic Church. They claim to be faithful Catholics. They claim the dignity of the offices that they have usurped. Anyone who questions them, who points out their apostasy and questions their denials of Catholic Dogma, they attack personally, rather than answer these legitimate questions. Nonetheless, we must continue our resistance. To defend the Faith and to defend souls, we must question their good will and point out their hypocrisy when they claim to be Catholic, while denying Catholic dogmas.

We have the example of Father Fox, who has become a modernist defender of the false religion de facto promoted by Vatican II. He also defends the false ideals of Ecumenism wherein he promotes the idea that the Orthodox are converted to Christ by belonging to the "Orthodox Church". This idea of Fox's is based on heresy. (3)

In 1951, Pope Pius XII sent Father Schweigl to speak with Sister Lucy. Here Father Schweigl learned the basic content of the Third Secret and reported it back to the Popes. Because Pope Pius XII learned, at this point, that the Third Secret warned against a bad Council, he always, after that, rejected the proposal that he hold an Ecumenical (universal) Church Council.

A lesson from History

Catholics who think a Council cannot err or be bad, sadly demonstrate their lack of knowledge of Church history. The Second Council of Constantinople — held in 553 — was a similar kind of Council. (4) In 1934, the Catholic historian Phillip Hughes called it, "the strangest of all Councils".

St. Gregory the Great: Ignore the 2nd Council of Constantinople

While Constantinople II was not as bad as the Second Vatican Council, it was ambiguous and confused people as to what Catholic doctrine was. So Pope Gregory the Great, who died in 604 AD, counseled bishops to ignore the Second Council of Constantinople and its ambiguous teaching. "Just pretend it never took place," was his advice.

That is what Catholics should do with Vatican II.

We must first adhere to what the Church has always taught through its infallible teaching and through its consistent teaching of the centuries. We must listen to the Secret of Fatima, and embrace Our Lady’s warning to protect ourselves against the bad Council. In the practical order, we must ignore its false teachings and not base any decisions on the Second Vatican Council, but rather, base our decisions on the Church’s teaching prior to the Second Vatican Council.

So, if the Second Vatican Council upholds what the Church has always taught, then you can follow it safely. But if the Second Vatican Council teaches things which are unclear, then simply ignore them. And if the Second Vatican Council teaches things that are contrary to what the Church has always taught, or if it initiates a new orientation that is different from what the Church has always taught and practiced, then we must reject those bad teachings and practices and embrace whole-heartedly what the Church has always taught prior to Vatican II.

The same goes for all the teachings of the Popes since October 1958 to the present. We must remember that the dogmatic Vatican Council I taught infallibly that not even a Pope may change Catholic teaching. (5)

Thus, when the Conciliar Popes have taught what the Church has always taught, then it is safe to follow them in those matters. That is, when Pope John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, have taught what the Church has always taught, then we are safe in following those teachings.

If these Popes, however, have taught things which are unclear — that seem to contradict the papal teachings of the past — then we are better off to ignore these teachings. This is especially true if these new papal teachings are based on the new orientation of the Second Vatican Council.

And yes, if the post-Conciliar Popes have taught anything contrary to what the Church has always taught, then you must reject those teachings and embrace whole-heartedly what the Church has always taught prior to Vatican II.

That is our very simple program, and that is what Our Lady of Fatima would have us do. This is why the present administration in the Vatican has hidden deliberately, with lies and half truths, the full Fatima Message, the full Third Secret of Fatima.

And now that we have this act of apostasy promoted by the Bishop of Fatima and Rector Guerra of Fatima, the whole plan of the false Catholics is exposed. The enemies of Christ and His Church, who occupy positions of Cardinals, bishops and archbishops and Vatican officials, work to destroy the Church from within by getting people to become involved in Ecumenism, which is another way of leading people out of the Church. It leads Catholics away from the dogmatic teachings of the Church, away from converting non-Catholics to the Catholic Faith.

Their policies work toward perverting Catholics from their Catholic Faith, into believing something that looks Catholic but is not Catholic at all. And Catholics are being led into apostasy in stages, in little or large steps.

Many have never noticed before where this new conciliar religion is leading: to pagan worship inside the Church, as if this was willed by God Himself. There is nothing further from the truth. It should be evident to any Catholic of good will, and it should be evident to any person, even to non-Catholics, that this is a contradiction of what the Church has always taught and stood for.

And so, we find ourselves at this historic moment when the Antichrist appears to be ready to come on the public stage of the world, proclaiming himself to be savior of mankind, proclaiming himself that he will bring peace to the world, proclaiming that he is the only way, with his one world government and with his one world religion which will encourage pagans to be pagans, Hindus to be Hindus, Muslims to be Muslims, and Catholics to become false Catholics.

But the Antichrist will not tolerate the true Catholic religion as taught by Jesus Christ and His apostles, outside of which there is no salvation. That is why he is Antichrist, he is ANTI — that is, he is against all that Jesus Christ stands for.

The Antichrist and his many followers will be intolerant only of those who claim that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father; that Jesus Christ is true God and true Man; that Jesus Christ founded one religion, one Church; and that we cannot go to God except through the Church that Jesus Christ founded. The Church that Jesus Christ founded is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.

The Antichrist, who opposes everything of Jesus Christ, will not tolerate Christ’s one true religion.

We need to rouse ourselves by our prayers, by our Rosaries, by our acts of virtue, by our reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by praying the prayers that the angel taught the children at Fatima, and by especially and frequently fervently praying the Rosary.

We must choose sides. We cannot sit on the fence. We are either for God or otherwise we are against Him. Sister Lucy said, "From now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil. There is no other possibility." We must not look to the Vatican or to the bishops or to the religious orders for guidance in this matter since they have been bamboozled worldwide into following this false look-a-like "catholic" direction from the Vatican.

Sister Lucy, in this regard, said: "We should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul but also help all the souls that God has placed on our path."

Points to consider

In conclusion, we will recap some important considerations from what we know of the Third Secret:

1. We have it from sources inside the Vatican that the Third Secret warned against the coming of an evil Council and against changes in the liturgy.

2. We also know that Cardinal Ciappi, the personal theologian to all the Popes since Vatican II, said, "In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top."

3. This explains why the apostasy has spread throughout the entire Church – because it comes from the highest authorities in the Church. This apostasy is not much resisted because most people are taken in by the ill-deserved prestige of Vatican II.

4. The apostasy is spread by means of the novel teachings of Vatican II, the novel practices that the Council inaugurated, and by the New Mass, which was written with the help of six Protestant ministers.

5. The old Latin Liturgy contained within it barriers against heresy. The New Mass has cast aside these barriers. Cardinal Ottaviani, the head of the Holy Office, the Public Defender of the Faith, lamented that the New Mass, "represents, both as a whole and in its details — a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The ‘canons’ of the rite definitively fixed at that time an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery." (6)

Our Lady of Fatima
The implementation of the New Mass was a way to "demolish the bastions" against heresy that the Old Mass contained, the bastions that protected the Faith. Cardinal Ottaviani has been replaced as head of the Holy Office by Cardinal Ratzinger. Readers of the book The Devil’s Final Battle will recall that the present "Public Defender" of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, has approved of the efforts to "demolish the bastions." (See The Devil’s Final Battle, page 77.)
Thus heresy is able to spread through the implementation of the New Mass, and by the deficiencies that the New Rite contains. This is one of the many reasons why tens of thousands of Catholic priests and laity throughout the world have chosen never to celebrate or to attend the New Mass.
6. For those who believe a Council could never be bad, there is the historic example of the Second Council of Constantinople, which was a source of confusion. Thus, it is not against the Faith to say that a Council can be bad. In fact, it might be said that God allowed the disaster of the Second Council of Constantinople to take place as a lesson for us not to repeat this error, and not fall into the mistaken notion that a Council can never be a source of confusion for the Church.

It also must be remembered that Vatican II is not a dogmatic Council, but a pastoral one. It primarily set a new direction for the Church, and the new direction is disastrous, culminating in pagan worship being permitted inside of Catholic sanctuaries.

"He who perseveres to the end ..."

Let us then follow a rule of life that is completely Catholic. We pray for Shrine Rector Guerra, and pray for ourselves too, that we may not fall into similar sins. We publicly protest the outrages now underway at Fatima, and call upon the Pope and the Vatican to correct them, even if it seems our voices are not welcome. We adhere to what the Catholic Church always taught regarding doctrine and practice, and resist the novelties inflicted upon the Catholic world since Vatican II. We pledge ourselves, like never before, to fulfill Our Lady’s requests at Fatima to make reparation for the outrages inflicted in an unprecedented manner upon Her Immaculate Heart.

1. See Windswept House, pp. 7-20 and Keys of this Blood, p. 632, both by Malachi Martin.
2. Encyclical Traditi, May 21, 1829. Quoted from Papacy and Freemasonry by Rector Jouin, p. 14.
3. See Christopher Ferrara’s "Father Fox’s Modernist Assault on Fatima," available for free from The Fatima Crusader.
4. See "An Ambiguous Council, On the Second Council of Constantinople," Thomas Woods, Ph.D., Catholic Family News, March 2002. See also Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (The Remnant Press, Minnesota, 2002) pp. 326-333.
5. When Vatican I defined papal infallibility, it taught: "The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by the revelation of the Holy Spirit they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the Apostles and the deposit of Faith, and might faithfully set it forth." (Vatican I, Session IV, Chapter IV Pastor Aeternus.)
6. From the Letter of Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani to Pope Paul VI, September 25, 1969. The Ottaviani Intervention, (Tan Books)