JUST THE FACTS — MAKE OF THEM WHAT YOU WILL!
Read these 3 significant apocalyptic-related actions that (Pope emeritus) Benedict XVI did just before he retired (with excerpts from the book – “The Great Battle Has Begun”):
I. BENEDICT XVI BEATIFIED MYSTIC PROPHETESS BL. ELENA
EXCERPT FROM PAGE 96-97 OF “THE GREAT BATTLE HAS BEGUN”:
Sr. Elena Aiello was declared Blessed by Pope Benedict XVI on September 14, 2011, Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross.
Blessed Elena was a Mystic, Stigmatist, Victim Soul, Prophetess, and Foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. She died in the 1960s. Her prophecy includes the following:
Russia will march upon all the nations of Europe, particularly Italy, and will raise her flag over the Dome of St. Peter’s. Italy will be severely tired by a great revolution, and Rome will be purified in blood for its many sins, especially those of impurity! The flock is about to be dispersed and the Pope must suffer greatly!…
If the people do not recognize in these scourges the warnings of Divine Mercy, and do not return to God with truly Christian living, ANOTHER TERRIBLE WAR WILL COME FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST. RUSSIA WITH HER SECRET ARMIES WILL BATTLE AMERICA; WILL OVERRUN EUROPE…
Oh, what a horrible vision I see! A great revolution is going on in Rome! They are entering the Vatican. The Pope is all alone; he is praying. They are holding the Pope. They take him by force.
Interestingly, confirming this, the visionaries of the reported apparitions of Garabandal (Spain) said in 1965 that all of these apocalyptic-like events would come to pass “when Communism comes again.” They who would still be alive to witness these events (they are in their 60s today) said:
In the Great Tribulation, there will be a “sudden and unexpected tribulation of Communism, led by Russia… Russia will rule the world… The Church will be on the point of perishing and will pass through a terrible trial, that of Communism… it will be very hard to practice religion… priests will have to go into hiding… the Pope will not be able to be in Rome either. He was being persecuted too… when Communism comes again, everything will happen (they said this in 1965, long before Communism first fell in 1989)… These difficult events will take place before the Warning because the Warning itself will take place when the situation will be at its worst.”
This of course reminds me of the Church-recognized prophecy (with imprimatur) of LaSalette: “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist… all the universe will be struck with terror, and many will let themselves be misled.”
II. BENEDICT XVI ELEVATES MYSTIC PROPHETESS ST. HILDEGARD TO DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH – HIS LAST SIGNIFICANT PAPAL ACT BEFORE RETIRING
EXCERPT FROM PAGE 82-83 OF “THE GREAT BATTLE HAS BEGUN”:
St. Hildegard, the newest (35th) Doctor of the Church, was raised to this status by Benedict XVI in October 2012, shortly before his retirement. She discusses prophecies concerning the false prophet, the comet, and the antichrist.
She explains about the rise of the false prophet, saying:
When the great ruler exterminates the Turks almost entirely, one of the remaining Mohammadans will be converted, become a priest, bishop and cardinal, and when the new pope is elected (immediately before Antichrist) this cardinal will kill the (newly elected) pope before he is crowned, through jealousy, wishing to be pope himself; then when the other cardinals elect the next pope this cardinal will proclaim himself anti-pope, and two-thirds of the Christians will go with him.
EXCERPT FROM PAGE 143-144 OF “THE GREAT BATTLE HAS BEGUN”:
More Prophecies from Saint Hildegard, Newest Doctor of the Church, discuss the comet (possibly related to the Warning):
Before the comet comes, many nations, the good excepted, will be scourged by want and famine. The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent will be devastated by earthquake, storm, and tidal wave. It will be divided and, in great part, submerged. That nation will also have many misfortunes at sea and lose its colonies.
[After the] great Comet, the great nation will be devastated by earthquakes, storms, and great waves of water, causing much want and plagues. The ocean will also flood many other countries, so that all coastal cities will live in fear, with many destroyed.
All seacoast cities will be fearful, and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed, and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of those cities does a person live according to the Laws of God.
A powerful wind will rise in the North, carrying heavy fog and the densest dust, and it will fill their throats and eyes so that they will cease their butchery and be stricken with a great fear.
EXCERPT FROM PAGE 100-104 OF “THE GREAT BATTLE HAS BEGUN”:
St. Hildegard, the newest Doctor of the Church, also prophesied about the antichrist as follows:
The son of perdition (the Antichrist), who will reign very few of times, will come at the end day of the duration of the world, at the times corresponding to the moment just before the sun disappears from the horizon…
After having passed a licentious youth among very perverted men, and in a desert, she being conducted by a demon disguised as an angel of light, the mother of the son of perdition will conceive and give birth without knowing the father. In another land, she will make men believe that her birth was some miraculous thing, seeing that she had not appointed a spouse, and she will ignore that, she will say, how the infant she had brought into the world had been formed in her womb, and the people will regard it as a saint and qualified to the title.
The son of perdition is this very wicked beast who will put to death those who refuse to believe in him; who will associate with kings, priests, the great and the rich; who will mistake the humility and will esteem pride; who will finally subjugate the entire universe by his diabolic means.
He will gain over many people and tell them: “You are allowed to do all that you please; renounce the fasts; it suffices that you love me; I who am your God.”
He will show them treasures and riches, and he will permit them to riot in all sorts of festivities, as they please. He will oblige them to practice circumcision and other Judaic observances, and he will tell them: “Those who believe in me will receive pardon of their sins and will live with me eternally.”
He will reject baptism and evangelism, and he will reject in derision all the precepts the Spirit has given to men of my part.
Then he will say to his partisans, “Strike me with a sword, and place my corpse in a proper shroud until the day of my resurrection.” They will believe him to have really given over to death, and from his mortal wound he will make a striking semblance of resuscitation.
After which, he will compose himself a certain cipher, which he will say is to be a pledge of salute; he will give it to all his servitors like the sign of our faith in heaven, and he will command them to adore it. Concerning those who, for the love of my name, will refuse to render this sacrilegious adoration to the son of perdition, he will put them to death amidst the cruelest torments.
But I will defend my two Witnesses, Enoch and Elias, whom I have reserved for those times. Their mission will be to combat the man of evil and reprimand him in the sight of the faithful whom he has seduced. They will have the virtue of operating the most brilliant miracles, in all the places where the son of perdition has spread his evil doctrines. In the meanwhile, I will permit this evildoer to put them to death; but I will give them in heaven the recompense of their travails.
Later, however, after the coming of Enoch and Elias, the Antichrist will be destroyed, and the Church will sing forth with unprecedented glory, and the victims of the great error will throng to return to the fold.
St. Hildegard elaborated on the life of Antichrist in her book – Heptachronon:
The Man of Sin will be born of an ungodly woman who, from her infancy, will have been initiated into occult sciences and the wiles of the demon. She will live in the desert with perverse men, and abandon herself to crime with so much the greater ardor, as she will think she is authorized thereby to by the revelations of an angel. And thus, in the fire of burning concupiscence she will conceive the Son of Perdition, without knowing by what father. Then she will teach that fornication is permitted, declaring herself holy and honored as a saint.
But Lucifer, the old and cunning serpent, will find the fruit of her womb with his infernal spirit and entirely possess the fruit of sin.
Now when he shall have attained the age of manhood, he will set himself up as a new master and teach perverse doctrine. Soon he will revolt against the saints; and he will acquire such great power that in the madness of his pride he would raise himself above the clouds; and as in the beginning Satan said: “I will be like unto the most high,” and fell; so in those days, he will fall when he will say in the person of his son, “I am the Savior of the World!”
He will ally himself with the kings, the princes and the powerful ones of the earth; he will condemn humility and will extol all the doctrines of pride. His magic art will feign the most astonishing prodigies; he will disturb the atmosphere, command thunder and tempest, produce hail and horrible lightning. He will move mountains, dry up streams, reanimate the withered verdure of forests. His arts will be practiced upon the elements, but chiefly upon man will he exhaust his infernal power. He will seem to take away health and restore it. How so? By sending some possessed soul into a dead body, to move it for a time. But these resurrections will be of short duration.
At the sight of these things, many will be terrified and will believe in him; and some, preserving their primitive faith, will nevertheless court the favor of the Man of Sin or fear his displeasure. And so many will be led astray among those who, shutting the interior eye of their soul, will live habitually in exterior things…
After the Antichrist has ascended a high mountain and been destroyed by Christ, many erring souls will return to truth, and men will make rapid progress in the ways of holiness.
St. Hildegard gave more details about the Antichrist in her Vision X:
Nothing good will enter into him nor be able to be in him. For he will be nourished in diverse and secret places, lest he should be known by men, and he will be imbued with all diabolical arts, and he will be hidden until he is of full age, nor will he show the perversities which will be in him, until he knows himself to be full and superabundant in all iniquities.
He will appear to agitate the air, to make fire descend from heaven, to produce rainbows, lightning, thunder and hail, to tumble mountains, dry up streams, to strip the verdure of trees, of forests, and to restore them again. He will also appear to be able to make men sick or well at will, to chase out demons, and at times even to resuscitate the dead, making a cadaver move like it was alive. But this kind of resurrection will never endure beyond a little time, for the glory of God will not suffer it…
From the beginning of his course many battles and many things contrary to the lawful dispensation will arise, and charity will be extinguished in men. In them also will arise bitterness and harshness and there will be so many heresies that heretics will preach their errors openly and certainly; and there shall be so much doubt and incertitude in the Catholic faith of Christians that men shall be in doubt of what God they invoke, and many signs shall appear in the sun and moon, and in the stars and in the waters, and in other elements and creatures, so that, as it were in a picture, future events shall be foretold in their portents.
Then so much sadness shall occupy men at that time, that they shall be led to die as if for nothing. But those who are perfect in the Catholic faith will await in great contrition what God wills to ordain. And these great tribulations shall proceed in this way, while the Son of Perdition shall open his mouth in the words of falsehood and his deceptions, heaven and earth shall tremble together. But after the fall of the Antichrist the glory of the Son of God shall be increased.
As soon as he is born, he will have teeth and pronounce blasphemies; in short, he will be a born devil. He will emit fearful cries, work miracles, and wallow in luxury and vice. He will have brothers who are also demons incarnate, and at the age of twelve, they will distinguish themselves in brilliant achievements. They will command an armed force, which will be supported by the infernal legions.
After the Son of Perdition has accomplished all of his evil designs, he will call together all of his believers and tell them that he wishes to ascend into heaven.
At the moment of his ascension, a thunderbolt will strike him to the ground, and he will die.
The mountain where he was established for the operation of his ascension, in an instant will be covered with a thick cloud which emits an unbearable odor of truly infernal corruption… At the sight of his body, the eyes of great number of persons will open and they will be made to see their miserable error.
After the sorrowful defeat of the Son of Perdition, the spouse of my Son, who is the Church, will shine with a glory without equal, and the victims of the error will be impressed to reenter the sheepfold.
As to the day, after the fall of Antichrist, when the world will end, man must not seek to know, for he can never learn it. That secret the Father has reserved for Himself.
EXCERPT FROM PAGE 215 OF “THE GREAT BATTLE HAS BEGUN”:
About the mark of the Antichrist, St. Hildegard comments:
The mark (of Antichrist) will be a hellish symbol of Baptism, because thereby a person will be stamped as an adherent of Antichrist and also of the Devil in that he thereby gives himself over to the influence of Satan. Whoever will not have this mark of Antichrist can neither buy nor sell anything and will be beheaded.
He will win over to himself the rulers, the mighty and the wealthy, will bring about the destruction of those who do not accept his faith and, finally, will subjugate the entire earth.
III. BENEDICT XVI HINTED OF HIS OWN FUTURE RETIREMENT (AND POSSIBLY FUTURE FATE)
Back on April 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI did something rather striking, but which went largely unnoticed.
He stopped off in Aquila, Italy, and visited the tomb of an obscure medieval Pope named St. Celestine V (1215-1296). After a brief prayer, he left his pallium, the symbol of his own episcopal authority as Bishop of Rome, on top of Celestine’s tomb!
Fifteen months later, on July 4, 2010, Benedict went out of his way again, this time to visit and pray in the cathedral of Sulmona, near Rome, before the relics of this same saint, Celestine V.
Few people, however, noticed at the time.
And to mark the 800th anniversary of Celestine’s birth, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed the Celestine Year from 28 August 2009 through 29 August 2010.
Only now, we may be gaining a better understanding why all this is significant. These actions were probably more than pious acts. More likely, they were profound and symbolic gestures of a very personal nature, which conveyed a message that a Pope can hardly deliver any other way.
In the year 1294, this man (Fr. Pietro Angelerio), known by all as a devout and holy priest, was elected Pope, somewhat against his will, shortly before his 80th birthday (Ratzinger was 78 when he was elected Pope in 2005). Just five months later, after issuing a formal decree allowing popes to resign (or abdicate, like other rulers), Pope Celestine V exercised that right. And now Pope Benedict XVI has chosen to follow in the footsteps of this venerable model. (FACEBOOK – 2/11/13 – COMMENTS OF DR. SCOTT HAHN)
BOWRING’S ADDITIONAL NOTE: After retiring, Pope Celestine’s successor, Pope Boniface VIII had him imprisoned in a suffocating cell, where he died 10 months later. Some have even considered that he may have been directly murdered, as a hole was later found in his skull.
It is interesting that this whole thing about Benedict and Celestine reminds me of the prophecy of St. Pius X, who early in the twentieth century revealed some detail about a future retired pope, saying:
I saw one of my successors taking to flight over the bodies of his brethren. He will take refuge in disguise somewhere; and after a short retirement he will die a cruel death.
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What was Benedict XVI trying to tell us by these 3 significant actions he did before retiring?
For those who have eyes to see, let them see! And let us pray for the Church in these days, trusting all to God’s Providence.
