J.M.J.
September 15, 2019
Our Lady of Sorrows
“The Synod on the Amazon will lead to a ‘rupture’ in the Catholic Church: nothing will be as it was before.” … German Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, May 2, 2019. (Emphasis added)
Dear Friend of Our Lady,
The above quote by Bishop Overbeck is in reference to the upcoming Pan-Amazon Synod in Rome on October 6-27, 2019. The words of His Excellency – intended or not – indicate the diabolical, anti-Catholic agenda of the Synod.
To create a “rupture” in the Church, whereby “nothing will be as it was before” is to separate from the one true Church established by Jesus Christ, Who said: “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33).
To the many supporters who contact Our Lady’s apostolate and ask the question: “How much worse can it get?” (referring to the scandals and crises in the Church and the moral decline in the world), the answer remains the same: Until the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is done according to the requests of Heaven, things will continue to get worse.
The Amazon Synod’s agenda is an attempt to give the false impression that it is okay for the members of Christ’s True Church to cooperate with the goal of the New World Order whose agenda includes plunging mankind once again into pagan demonic darkness.
As the enclosed booklet, The New Paganism and the War Against Life, by John Vennari explains, the new paganism that is engulfing the world is much worse than the old paganism that dominated the world before Christ came to redeem us and free us from demonic slavery.
The booklet – published in 2014 – contains a talk given in 2011 at The Fatima Center’s Consecration Now! Conference in Rome. Five years later, we are witnessing not only secular governments continuing to “legalize” murder in the womb, but that such laws are now claiming more victims among some of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society with the legalization of euthanasia and infanticide – killing babies after they are born!
Today, the Freemasons – whose god is satan – play a large role in advocating these human sacrifices in order to appease their “god”. The Communists and others also use these pagan methods to advance their own diabolical agendas.
The enclosed booklet points out some of the differences between the pre-Christian or old paganism and the “The New Paganism”.
For example, the Old Paganism had a deep respect for tradition and culture. It revered the wisdom of ancestors, valued elders, and accepted ancestral gods and beliefs. In these ancient times, men were openly pagan.
On the contrary, the post-Christian paganism of today revolts against tradition, holding it in contempt. It forgets the wisdom of the past and ignores its elders. This directly contravenes the Catholic Faith, which is based on Tradition and Scripture. The New Paganism respects nothing – not the culture that went before it, not even natural virtues. Even worse, many of the new pagans are former Christians who have consciously turned away from Our Savior. In essence, they have rejected the One True God known and adored by their forefathers. This makes the New Paganism far more sinister than the Old Paganism could ever have been.
The central tenets of the New Paganism come from the forces of Organized Naturalism. The Popes of the past often warned of this great evil, especially Leo XIII in his encyclical against Freemasonry, Humanum Genus.
Cardinal Pie of Poitiers (France, 19th Century) explained the insidious nature of Naturalism: Naturalism is more than a heresy, it is pure undiluted anti-Christianism. Whereas heresy denies one or more dogmas of the Faith, Naturalism denies that there are – or even can be – any dogmas at all.
The goal of Naturalism is to dethrone Our Lord Jesus Christ and to drive Him from the world. “The great obstacle to the salvation of the men of our day … what hurls more people into hell than at any other epoch, is Rationalism and Naturalism… Naturalism strives with all its might to exclude Our Lord Jesus Christ, our One Master and Savior, from the minds of men as well as from the daily lives and habits of peoples, in order to set up the reign of reason or of nature…”1
By advocating Naturalism, the Pan-Amazon Synod is like a lumberjack wielding an axe and preparing for the final swing which will fell a barely-standing tree. Yet what is even more devastating to us as faithful Catholics is seeing that the man wielding this axe is the Pope himself. As Father Gruner warned many times when encouraging Catholics to heed the Message of Fatima, “God gives us leaders according to what we deserve” and “the worst punishment God gives is bad pastors.” Thus, if the greater majority of Catholics are leading sinful lives, then we are punished with bad leaders in both the secular and the religious realms.
As evidence of this, in an article entitled “Amazon Synod Poised to Wage Total War on Catholic Faith,” published in the August 2019 edition of Catholic Family News, Italian Catholic historian and author Roberto de Mattei warned:
“This2 is a clear confirmation that the revolution which is being prepared is linked to the Instrumentum Laboris (IL), the document released in mid-June [by Pope Francis, expressing his plan for the Church] which will be the focus of the work of the bishops who gather for the Synod. No document like this ‘instrument of work’ (IL) expresses the ‘new paradigm’ of Pope Francis so clearly, bringing to light many of the theses which were already implicit in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si.”
In the IL, the Pope wrote: “The original Amazonian peoples have much to teach us. For thousands of years they have taken care of their land, water and forest, and have managed to preserve them to this day… New paths of evangelization must be built in dialogue with ancestral wisdom in which the seeds of the Word are manifested. The Synod of the Amazon is a sign of hope for the people of the Amazon and for humanity.”
How is it that the Catholic Church has much to learn from pagan ancestry? The Pope talks about thousands of years, but Christ’s Church is only 2000 years old. The Pope is clearly speaking of before Christ’s time; he is referring to paganism.
Moreover, “new paths of evangelization … in dialogue with ancestral wisdom” can only mean using the teachings, customs and practices of pagans to ‘enlighten’ Christ’s Church. How does this not imply that the teaching of Christ, which was handed down by His Apostles, guided by the Holy Ghost, is imperfect and incomplete?
A Conspiracy to Subvert the Catholic Church
In a website article,3 Christopher Ferrara, quoting from a LifeSiteNews interview, tells us Cardinal Walter Brandmüller’s assessment of the plans for the synod:
“[T]his Synod is a sham event designed to conceal a conspiracy to subvert the Church: ‘It is truly astonishing that… the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon will deal exclusively with a region of the earth whose population is just half that of Mexico City, that is to say, four million. This also raises suspicions regarding the true intentions to be implemented in a hidden way at the October assembly.’
“Moreover, the Cardinal asks: ‘What do ecology, economy, and politics have to do with the mandate and mission of the Church? More importantly: what professional expertise authorizes an ecclesial synod of bishops to express itself on such topics?’”
Cardinal Brandmüller warns that the Pope’s working document for the Synod presents a “very positive assessment of natural [pagan] religions, including indigenous healing … mythic-religious practices and cult forms” and “even [includes] talk about ‘dialogue with the spirits’”!
As Mr. Ferrara wrote on July 2,4 “The coming synod on the Amazon … threatens not only the integrity of the Faith but revealed religion itself as it proposes nothing less than the approval of pagan idolatry and superstition.
Citing from an article at the Remnant website, Mr. Ferrara highlighted the features of the true face of the Amazon:
- Infanticide: killing after birth twins, disabled or sick children, as well as children whose mothers died in childbirth.
- Suicide: The sad philosophy of the pagans in one of the tribes in Brazil (Zuruaha) is that suicide is the “true existence” [or path] that leads to Heaven and that ending one’s life prematurely is preferable to a long life leading to death through old age, which is considered arduous.
- Cannibalism: “One of the most shocking customs found in the Amazon is ritual cannibalism. This has been documented … even into the late twentieth century.”
- Drug Use: “The use of drugs in spiritual healing rituals is common, including the culture’s [chosen] hallucinogenic drug,” the use of which has, in several tragic cases, led to tourists murdering friends and associates while under the influence of the drug. The use of this drug “is widespread and represents the basis of traditional medicine practice for at least 75 different indigenous tribes across the Lower and Upper Amazon…”
As Christopher Ferrara wrote: “Even if only a few tribes engage in these evil practices, ‘the problem lies in the philosophy employed by these peoples to justify their actions, and the fact that the [Pope’s] Instrumentum Laboris exhorts Catholics to adopt those [diabolical] philosophies.”
Not Afraid of Schism?
During an in-flight press conference,5 Pope Francis criticized Americans and others who “attack” him as being schismatics. He was referring to conservative and traditional-minded Catholics who are doing their duty by defending the Catholic Faith against the Pope’s continual stream of statements that are inconsistent with Catholic teaching.
But the Pope’s reference to schism is incorrectly used to refer to those who are rightly resisting error within Christ’s Church. In order to do so they unfortunately find it necessary to refute errors being promoted by the Pope or permitted by his silence.
This is not the definition of schism. A schism is a formal division in, or separation from, the Church – for example, the schism of the Russian Orthodox, who formally separated from the Church by rejecting certain dogmas of the Faith, including the universal role and authority of the Pope.
Some very unsettling words by the Pope regarding schism were cited at the OnePeterFive website on December 23, 2016. It quoted the influential German publication Der Spiegel, whose Italian correspondent, Walter Mayr, reported Pope Francis’ quote as “an important new leak”:
“In a very small circle, Pope Francis is said to have self-critically further explained himself as follows: ‘It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.’”
This papal musing is gravely troubling, especially in light of his recently having asserted that he “is not afraid of schisms”. That quote was made during his 2019 September visit to Madagascar and was cited by various sources, including the National Catholic Register.
Perhaps the Worst Church-Undermining Synod Agenda Items
Yet perhaps of greatest concern to all Catholics are certain items on the Synod’s agenda which will directly, and possibly quite immediately, affect our parish life, rupture our tradition, and leave nothing as it was before. These include:
(1) The end of priestly celibacy with the introduction of priestly ordination for married men.
Contrary to what some think, this will not help solve or end the homosexual, pedophilia and other scandals in the Church. These diabolical evils will only be eliminated by men cooperating with God’s grace so as to live purely and by a generous, joyful fidelity to the priestly vow of celibacy.
Many also argue that ‘celibacy is only a discipline’; yet much scholarship and sound theology argue that celibacy is in fact an apostolic discipline instituted by Christ Himself, and which the Church may therefore not eliminate.
(2) A new form of priestly ordination limited to the administration of the sacraments, thereby tampering with the Sacrament of Holy Orders established by Our Lord Himself.
Following a press conference held in January 2019, Italian journalist Sandro Magister reported that Francis is contemplating the ordaining of indigenous “elders” who have no theological formation or seminary training and thus would not be qualified to teach or govern.
Cardinal Sarah has recently explained that it is a theological impossibility to divorce the priestly power of administering the sacraments from the priestly powers of teaching and governing.
(3) Opening the door to future ordination of women to the priesthood by first beginning to ordain female deaconesses.
Creating different forms of priesthood (see #2 above) and allowing married priests (see #1 above) will make it nearly impossible to resist the ordination of women.
The Sacrament of Orders has three grades: deacon, priest, and bishop. If women are allowed to receive the Sacrament of Orders as deaconesses, it will logically follow that they should be made priests. Yet this contradicts infallible Church teaching!
John Paul II decided upon this issue with a declaration binding upon all present and future Catholics. He decreed the following:
“… Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 2:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, explicitly confirmed that this teaching of Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (May 22, 1994) is infallible, not only on account of the Pope’s authority, but even further, by virtue of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of the Church.
And finally, as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., recently stated: “We are witnessing creation of a ‘new church’” (quoted at LifesiteNews, September 13, 2019).
Although all this is terribly unsettling, it is important to remember that it is the MESSAGE OF FATIMA that holds the key to the solution for all the problems in the Church and, subsequently, the world.
Heaven expects that, in return for the gift of knowing Our Lady’s Message, we will do our part by heeding Her requests: leading Catholic lives, staying in the state of grace – which includes resisting the errors already in the Church and the errors that the Pope and others are trying to introduce – offering sacrifices for sinners, praying the Rosary every day, making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary especially by making the Five First Saturdays Communion of Reparation, and wearing Our Lady’s protective mantle – the Brown Scapular. We are also expected, to the best of our ability as our duty of state allows, to spread this Message to others, so that they too can do their part.
Ultimately, it is about the salvation of souls. Keep praying and please remember me and the work of Our Lady’s apostolate in your prayers. You are remembered in ours.
For copies of the booklet The New Paganism and the War Against Life, call us at 1-800-263-8160 or return the enclosed reply form.
In the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts,
Joanna Swords
P.S. We will have a web page dedicated to the Amazon Synod and will be posting video reports from our Rapid Response team in Rome. The page is: https://fatima.org/event/2019-amazon-synod-rome/.
P.P.S. Check out our new series of articles on the Bible by Catholic high school teacher Kennedy Hall, posted on our www.fatima.org News and Views section, beginning on September 5. The first article in the series addresses the question: “Where Does the Bible Come From?”
(https://fatima.org/news-views/basic-catechism-on-the-bible/)
1 John Vennari, The New Paganism, page 3.
2 Referring to the words spoken by Bishop Overbeck, quoted at the top of page 1 of this letter.
3 Christopher Ferrara, “The Final Skirmish of the Final Battle?,” Fatima Perspectives #1314, June 28, 2019, www.fatima.org, News and Views section.
4 Christopher Ferrara, “Ecclesial Rabies in the Amazon,” Fatima Perspectives #1315, July 2, 2019, www.fatima.org.
5 As reported by the National Catholic Register.