Still Running Off at the Keyboard

NOT SO LIGHT READING

This is the book I took along to Columbus for evening reading.

Fr. Livio Fanzaga is the director (since 1987) of Radio Maria, an Italian radio station that is now heard internationally, and the author of several books. THE WRATH OF GOD was hailed by "L'Osservatore Romano". Fr. Fanzaga earned his Doctorate in Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and a Doctorate in Philosophy at the Catholic University.

The book is about the end of the world and the Antichrist who must come before the end. Fr. Fanzaga uses Soloviev's THE ANTICHRIST and Robert Hugh Benson's THE LORD OF THE WORLD as the basis for his commentary about this subject.

According to the Introduction, the impetus to re-visit this subject came from listening to an address by Cardinal Biffi in 1992. The first section of the book takes a quotation from Soloviev and matches it to passages of Scripture and to portions of the CCC, demonstrating the prophetic nature of Soloviev's writing.

Some characteristics of the Antichrist emerge from the entire text:

- He will need an introspective Church which has lost its evangelical strength and vigor.

- He enthrones himself in God's sanctuary and claims that he is God.

- He worships himself, makes himself equal to God and sets himself up in the temple of God in place of God.

- He could easily be a person of great moral standing, intelligence, rectitude, and devoted to mankind to the point that he believes himself to be man's savior.

- His pride will be well disguised but this will be his fatal flaw.

- He will be supported by the media and will work miracles such as providing unceasing peace and unity, economic stability and prosperity for all.

- His rise to political prominence will be meteoric.

- He will teach that man must save himself in much the same way that Masonic philosophy teaches this.

The book is copyrighted 1997, well before the sexual abuse scandal broke. Yet without knowledge of the lawsuits, Fanzaga writes:

...the apparently fast approaching reckoning between Christ and His opponents will not be played out in a dramatic conflict but in an attempt to impoverish the Church from within in an attempt to liquidate it. The extermination of the Church will be sought not by means of persecution but by seduction which will result in a secularized Church. (p. 32)

Addressing the question of whether the Antichrist is a collective moment or a person, he writes:

Soloviev and Benson regard him as both. I believe that it is symptomatic that both Soloviev and Benson, who treat of this subject prophetically, hold that the person of the Antichrist is an expression of international Masonry whose plan is to rid the world of war, hunger and ignorance by making of mankind one great family ruled by the light of reason. (p. 49)

Pope Benedict has recently predicted that the Church would grow smaller. Fanzaga writes:

It is truly extraordinary how Soloviev, writing a century ago, could highlight certain currents which now pervade society but which were then nascent--for example, Satanism.

This is the position of the three churches in the first three years of the Antichrist's reign. They are marked by numerical reduction of the faithful and a strong return to evangelical origins. The Churches have become a tiny flock in which the Father causes the splendor of the Kingdom to shine. (p. 57)

Clearly Soloviev profoundly grasped many of the tendencies of modern society. This is evident...when we recall that there are one hundred thousand magicians in Italy--twice the number of priests in the country. Fifteen million Italians consult them which is more than the total of those who practice their religion. (p. 59)

By far his most significant point which he stresses repeatedly is summed up by this passage:

Soloviev helps us to discover the "the [sic] great seduction" of humanitarianism which is a religion without Christ or Cross in which man saves himself by his own intelligence. (p. 60)

He cites this theme again in the second section devoted primarily to Benson's THE LORD OF THE WORLD, saying:

While it is certain that there will be a final battle, the question remains whether it will be conducted between Catholicism and humanitarianism. In this, what role will Islam, with its millions of followers throughout the world, play? Will it preserve its faith or will it be assimilated to humanitarianism? Rather than being an enemy of Catholicism, could the day come when Islam will be its ally in affirming the transcendence of God, His primacy and His supremacy with regard to man? Islam is truly a mystery in God's plan. (p. 116)

Fanzaga calls the religion of the future Atheism, and says that "a more sophisticated form of atheism will assert that "Man is God, humanity is God, God is immanent in human history and in the lives of individuals." He says that we will adore man to satisfy the religious need. Rather than renouncing the Kingdom of God, the religion of the future will construct it on earth. He elaborates further:

Just as the Catholic religion tries to unite all men under a supernatural principle represented in the person of the Vicar of Christ, so too, humanitarianism strives to unite all men and to conciliate all religions. It seeks to institute universal peace by recognizing the supreme unifying authority of the Antichrist--perfect image of the immanent god in the world, the man-god. God did not become man. The man-God is the savior of the world. (p. 119)

He predicts that "Churches and abbeys will be transformed into temples of the new religion of humanitarianism and the Mass will be displaced by the celebration of the new rites." (p. 120)

And further:

I have encountered Catholics who will calmly announce that they have arrived at a "superior form of religion" which corresponds to humanitarianism. They no longer have faith in God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and in grace. Instead of praying, they search for unknown forces and the vital powers of the occult. Transcendental meditation substitutes for prayer. Through introspection, which it facilitates, they search for the traces of God in themselves." (p. 121)

That comes very close to a description of the centering prayer movement. It also describes the nuns seeking "empowerment."

Fanzaga further notes this emphasis on a religion of this world:

If we think of other forms of what Paul VI described as the smoke of Satan that had entered the Catholic Church, we discover attempts to empty Christianity of its supernatural dimension and to reduce it to a humanitarian religion. In all this, little importance is attributed to sin, grace and the transcendent. Insistence is placed on the corporeal works of mercy alone. The Sacraments are abandoned. The supernatural is relegated to the margins. The Church is considered to be democratic and the Magisterium is contested. (p. 128-129)

In describing the reign of Antichrist, Fanzaga writes:

Poverty will be eradicated from the face of the earth and all men will enjoy prosperity in virtue of the "poverty laws" instituted by a grand alliance of communism and Masonry in the name of progress and class collaboration. These will be times of great peace and justice at the cost of apostasy from the truth. They will be accomplished by the proud presumption that man does not need God. (p. 135)

There is a passage that describes the use of euthanasia in the religion of the future. It will be invoked to deal with the problems of boredom and fear of death expected to arise when peace and prosperity becomes the status quo.

In a society dominated by the "great religious deception" a sacrament of euthanasia will be instituted to solve the problem of boredom and death. Those who so desire will be able to ask for "sweet death" and expire without pain. Special clinics, bound to absolute secrecy, will be set up. In complete anonymity, unknown even to their families, people will be able to request death. Before asking for this "sacrament" they will have to reflect for a week on whether to live or die, after which they will be able to administer to themselves, or receive from nurses who are called "sisters," the sweet sacrament of suicide. (pp. 139-140)

Fanzaga suggests this "sweet death" will replace the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. What it sounds much more like, however, is the sacrament of the Cathars called "consolementum." Though the consolementum did not bring about death, death frequently followed it by design, though not necessarily painless death.

Fanzaga proposes that in the future those who hope to see heaven will have to accommodate themselves to the real possibility of martyrdom, and must cling to the Pope who will be an unshaken pillar of truth who will guide the few remaining Catholics to Christ. He writes:

Neither persecution nor seduction, however, can corrode the Chair of Peter and the apostolic college united with it--even if some of its individual members should defect. Christ's promise that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" remains valid until the end of history. (p. 186)

He also offers us a sure test: "Any denial of the human and divine nature of Christ indicates a work in favor of the kingdom of the Antichrist." (p. 68)

It's certainly a most thought provoking analysis of the subject. There is, however, one disturbing aspect of the book. Fanzaga is inclined to look favorably on the prophetic work of Maria Valtorta. He cites passages from her "Poem of the Man God", a book that was on the Index when the Catholic Index still existed. The publisher has included a qualifier. As a footnote to Fanzaga's "I have always esteemed Maria Valtorta. Her life of Jesus has merits as a source of edification for the faithful and has been helpful for the simple faithful in conserving the faith. THE POEM OF THE MAN GOD has been enormously successful and has been translated into ten languages" the publisher notes: "This is not to be construed as our endorsement. The Vatican has disapproved of THE PEOM OF THE MAN GOD."

His use of this condemned work casts a shadow over the entire book which otherwise is faithful to the teachings of the Church and to Scripture and a good exploration of the subject of the Antichrist.