THE RELIGION OF ANTICHRIST by W.F. STROJIE

THE RELIGION OF ANTICHRIST (Letter No.30 - dated 27/06/1978 )
by W.F. Strojie


In many papers and "Letters" these past seven years, I have assembled some doctrine and opinions against the Vatican II "ecumenical" Council. In this Letter I try to condense the argument I have carried on, by focusing on the religion of The Antichrist. For, as it seems to me, just as we can, for all its richness and external diversity, reduce the Catholic religion to its basics of Church and Creed, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so too can we reduce the seeming diversity of Evil to its Satanic components of counter-Church and deceit, particularly as it has shown itself since the opening of Vatican II.


Error versus Truth -- with, of course, Error attempting always to put on the mask of Truth, and generally succeeding in doing so.


Heresies multiply like bad weeds. Yet there is nothing new of their kind under the sun. What we do find are new circumstances of time and place, new combinations of error and malice, new emphases on one or more of the older heresies. And a time is foretold when nearly all men will abandon God Who is all Truth and become spiritually blind, following one whom St. John called The Antichrist. What kind of man will this Antichrist be? What disorderly passion of social and economic tyranny, what false doctrine or religion will motivate him? A good starting point for those who want the truth of the matter is not the hundred of books by modern writers purporting to interpret the Apocalypse of St. John, but St. Thomas Aquinas on the signs that will precede the final judgment. I have quoted St. Thomas on this in other writings of mine. Here in part is what he has to say about The Antichrist:

Antichrist is said to be head of all the wicked not by a likeness of influence, but by a likeness of perfection. For in him the devil, as it were, brings his wickedness to a head, in the same way that anyone is said to bring his purpose to a head when he executes it.

I call attention to "likeness of influence". St. Thomas evidently does not reason to a military world conqueror. In another passage St. Thomas writes that "in the head are found three things, order, perfection, and the power of influencing," and that Antichrist "will pervert some in his day by exterior persuasion," none of which argues for a physically active tyrant. St. Thomas writes further that Antichrist "is head of all the wicked by reason of the perfection of his wickedness." Quite certainly St. Thomas derives this opinion at least in part from St. John's numerical symbol of the Antichrist, 666, the number of "perfect imperfection".


In his Eschatology of The Catholic Doctrine of the Last Things, A Dogmatic Treatise, by Msgr. Joseph Pohle, Ph.D., D.D., published by Herder book Co., 1918, page 109, there appears this sentence:

THE GREAT APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST. -- The "great apostasy", i.e., a tremendous defection among the faithful, is described partly as the cause and partly as an effect of the appearance of Antichrist.

These words, no more than do those of St. Thomas, indicate a physically violent Antichrist, the military tyrant usually imagined by nearly all who have written in late years on The Antichrist. There is this further argument in the words of St. Paul against an outwardly savage Antichrist:

Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders. And in all seduction in iniquity to them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying, that all might be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity. (2 Thess. 9, 10, 11)

As we see from this, St. Paul speaks not of violence but of seduction. He predicts the mode of operation of Antichrist, "an operation of error", which is "the working of Satan," and of "lying wonders". Since the devil is the "father of lies, a liar by his very nature", it follows that his creature, that man who will in time put himself wholly at Satan's disposal, must of necessity employ Satan's own methods of deceit rather than physical force.


Antichrist will come at a time of general weakening of faith among the Church's members, in an age inclined toward paganism, to all of which he will bring his special diabolical influence, and thus the words of Msgr. Pohle, quoted above, "a tremendous defection among the faithful, partly as cause and partly as an effect of the appearance of Antichrist". Msgr. Pohle writes:

St Paul predicted a spiritual blindness among the faithful. There is no mention of distinct heresies in St. Paul's predictions. So we need not conclude to a general deliberate following of the Antichrist, who will of course appear as an angel of light. In the words of Fr. Coleridge, S.J., in his book The Return of the King, "he will come unto his own, and his own will receive him".

St. Paul writes of the coming of the Son of Perdition and the Great Apostasy as of one piece. The apostasy is mainly that of Catholics who think themselves following Christ but who are not because of their spiritual blindness. They are instead following Antichrist. As St. Paul foretells it, they are those who have not sufficient love for the truth, but believe error. What errors would they believe? Surely, those which will be taught as by an 'angel of light' in the name of an updated religion, which religion Pope St. Pius X called Modernism which he said would bring on a universal apostasy.


To be continued...

Apostasy does not come from physical force, although many weak in the faith may from fear of torture or death deny Christ. Since only one great apostasy is foretold, the words of Holy Scripture are made confusing if we look for a great apostasy and one yet greater. There can be only one great apostasy, only one Antichrist in the Scriptural sense, St. Paul's Man of Sin.


What kind of man, then, will this Antichrist be? What office or position of influence will he occupy so as to be able to persuade a majority of the faithful? St. Paul writes that a revolt must come first, before the Man of Sin can be revealed. A revolt came with Vatican II which a "progressivist" priest, Fr. Yves Congar, a leading Vatican II theologian, approvingly called "the October revolution". This revolution is well documented in a book called The Rhine Flows Into The Tiber, by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen, a careful and objective reporter.


The revolt of the Vatican II bishops against Catholic Tradition, what they have since called their ongoing religion, has resulted in changing all forms of the Sacraments, the rite of the Mass itself, all disciplines, and canon law. ("Who sits in the holy place, changing all laws.") And nearly all the reverend clergy and the laity have joined in the revolt.


I have repeatedly quoted words of revolt of the head man (Montini), such as those he spoke on 29 June 1970 from the Vatican palace:

The rapport of the faithful with Christ has in Peter its minister, its interpreter, its guarantor. All must obey him (the Pope) in whatever he orders, if they wish to be associated with him in the new economy of the Gospel.

Later he would speak to the Cardinals of his "new style of government".


The whole method of revolt are in these words. Montini first associates himself with Peter, then he insists, as though it follows without qualification, that we must obey him "in whatever he orders", even though this be an impossible "new economy of the Gospel" or a "new style of government." By such lies is Catholic obedience obtained for the support of revolution.


"He will enthrone himself in the temple of God". St. Jerome writes in reference to St. Paul's words about the temple of God, that they mean "either in Jerusalem as some think, or in the Church, which seems to me most likely." St. John Chrysostom, "Not in the temple of Jerusalem, but in the temple of the Church", that is, in our time, the Vatican.


This new economy of the gospel is imposed in "the Spirit of Vatican II" which, it has been constantly asserted, is "a new Pentecost".


Truth about the certain assistance of the Holy Ghost has been turned into the Vatican II big lie. It is done by those who say that because a true pope does have this guarantee of divine assistance, Paul VI could not be encouraging false doctrine. In other words, heresy and apostasy cannot be heresy and apostasy when encouraged by the man in the papal chair. But in defining the truth about papal infallibility the First Vatican Council rejected the opinion of those who said that the Pope must be declared infallible in all his official pronouncements. While speaking mostly truth a false pope can give every kind of aid to destructive measures. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, to deny the self-evident truth about pope Montini and the evil fruits of his pontificate.


It does not follow that gray is white, or that three times seven is seventeen, or some other number than twenty-one, because the Pope says so. Catholic doctrine is at least as immutable as mathematics, and while it has become better understood and defined over the Christian centuries, never can we have a "new economy of the Gospel, a new Pentecost". When some men start telling us that they have a new interpretation given by the Holy Spirit, we can be sure they are lying.


To be continued...

Time and again I have received objections to my attempts to expose this fraud, from people who say that the Pope is guaranteed guidance of the Holy Spirit, which truth I have just shown as having been expressed in a talk from the Vatican palace. We find this clever use of Catholic doctrine, by slight twists, omissions, etc., in all the works of radical reform. It is as old as Satan. The devil does not deny Catholic truth but interprets it to his own purpose. "Yes, yes," he says, "I am with you in this. Let us make this gospel of love real. Too long have we been hampered by the old methods." He gives us a "higher" or "inner knowledge", that of intuition, of the Holy Spirit. This "inner vision" and appeal to the Spirit is found in Gnostic writings, including those of Theosophist Bishop Leadbeater and in the pretensions of Vatican II. It finds its popular expression in the pentecostal insanity, led by Cardinal Suenens, Pope Paul's "great souled churchman", who, amazingly, joined Paul VI when he gave his first blessing as pope from the Vatican palace.


It is Catholic doctrine that a true pope could not go far astray -- that at the least he will not teach error ex cathedra, as we say -- because the papal office is guaranteed the guidance of the Holy Spirit to those who do not deliberately reject this guidance. It is also Catholic truth that all men have free will, and that like Judas all can betray Christ. The greatest of these rejections and betrayals will of course be that by the one Holy Scripture speaks of as The Antichrist.


Right from the start, when Pope John XXIII announced his "Inspiration" to call a Council, Catholics have been directed by an "Inner vision" or Spirit of Vatican II. This by an arrogant claim of the reformers to an enlightenment which transcends the teachings of the popes and other doctors of the Church prior to Vatican II. This pretension is simply that of the old Gnosticism, the devil's own thing by which he plays the ape of God. It is certain that from the Gnostics comes the Antichrist.


In A Catholic Dictionary, 1884, the writer on Gnosticism tells his readers that

Gnosticism means no more than 'knowledge', but even in the Epistles of St. Paul (1 Cor, xii, 8 xiv. 6) it begins to acquire a technical significance, and implies a peculiar insight into the depths of Christian doctrine.

We find this element in the Vatican II reformers' constant appeal to "the experts", rather than to defined dogma.


Donald Atwater's Catholic Dictionary contains information that "the Gnostics were pre-Christian in origin, and had come into contact with the religions of Egypt and India as well as with Judaism." This relationship helps to explain the "Hinduism in the Seminaries" a priest recently wrote about in National Catholic Register. I am sure it was this kind of thing which impelled a popular monk-writer to go to Asia, to study Asiatic monasticism, where he was electrocuted by accident. Gnosticism or Modernism are of the same package, what Pope Pius X called a "synthesis of all heresies."


As I've mentioned several times in my writings, the Gnostic "ecumenical" program of Vatican II can be found in detail in the writings, before 1920, of Theosophist Liberal Old Roman Catholic Church, which I shall refer to at least once more in this Letter. Here I only quote a few lines from the Bishops Leadbeater and Wedgewood, from Peter Anson's Bishops at Large:

A Church that is Catholic, must include all sects, creeds, and religions. It should be a universal brotherhood, for the link joining all men is Divine Love. "Religion is life", not a creed. The eternal principles were laid down by our Lord of Nazareth, and the other great World Teachers.

Notice the persistence of Gnosticism, which the dictionary writer tells us was known in the early centuries of the Church, and even before that time -- that "it had come into contact with the religions of Egypt and India as well as with Judaism", and which is clearly discernible in the twentieth century occultist writings and in the program of Vatican II. This persistence shows it to be Satan's own special religion, using "religion" in the sense given in a dictionary at hand: "belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed or worshipped as the creator(s) or ruler(s) of the universe." As Satan's own, it will of course be the religion of The Antichrist.


To be continued...

PROTESTANTISM AND GNOSTICISM


What of Protestantism? This question came to mind as I wrote the last part of the sentence ending in "synthesis of all heresies". I thought of an article I had read in the 1870 Catholic World, a commentary on a paper written by one Abbe Martin, Paris, 1869, a paragraph from which follows:

Protestantism differs essentially from all the heresies that have previously rent the Church. It is not a particular heresy, nor a union of heresies; it is simply a frame for the reception of errors... It is a circle capable of indefinite extension, of being enlarged as occasion requires, so as to include any and every error within its circumference. A new error arises on the horizon, the circle extends further and takes it in. Its power of extension is limited only by its last denial, and is therefore practically unlimited. What it asserted in the beginning it was able to deny a century later; what it maintained a century ago it can reject now; and what it holds today it may discard tomorrow. It may deny indefinitely, and still be Protestantism. It can modify, metamorphose, turn and return itself without losing any thing of its identity. Grub, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, it is transformed, but does not die.

So wrote this French priest, Abbe Martin, in Paris, 1869. He would perhaps be amused to read the sign I saw last Sunday on a nearby Protestant church, one of two in the same town with a six-point intertwined triangle star in the main window. The sign, "NOT RELIGIOUS. YET CHRISTIAN". Someone delving into the matter in England lately has turned up the number of 7,000 Protestant sects. That is perhaps a bit too neat, yet we know how these divisions inevitably increase, what little of belief is required for membership.

What follows is from the commentary on Abbe Martin's paper, just quoted, an article by an American priest, a convert from Protestantism.

All this is very true. Protestantism undoubtedly differs essentially from all the particular heresies of former times, such as the Arian, Macedonian, Nestorian, Eutychian, Pelagian, etc.; but we think it bears many marks of affinity with ancient Gnosticism, of which it is perhaps the historical continuation and development. Gnosticism was not a particular or special heresy, denying a particular article, dogma, or proposition of faith. The Gnostics held themselves to be the enlightened Christians of their times. ...they looked down with contempt on Catholics remaining in the outer court, knowing nothing of the Spirit.

Each of the Protestant 'reformers', leaders of the many and various sects, claimed that his own special insight, his reading of Scripture, where he departed from Catholic teaching, and from the other Protestants, was of divine inspiration. In other words, these men claimed to be "the enlightened Christians of their times", as our priest-writer in The Catholic World put it, which claim he identified as that of the Gnostics. Certainly the Gnostic name must be applied to the leaders of secret societies, such as Freemasonry, who pretend to a higher, esoteric knowledge and a "broader, more encompassing faith", as we find it expressed in Mr. Robert Welch's JBS Bluebook. Gnostics certainly are those who claim the special enlightenment they call "the Spirit of Vatican 2". We hear less about this today, as the fruits of Vatican 2 are shown to be rotten. Nevertheless the counter-Church of Paul 6 continues to make its appeal to Vatican II as its doctrinal source and inspiration, rejecting the popes. In this Vatican 2 is at one with the Protestant "reformers", which oneness is openly shown in every way possible, including the common "liturgy for all Faiths" proposed at the First Session of Vatican 2, which became reality in Pope Paul's Novus Ordo, the "new mass" now generally called the "Eucharist" or "Assembly".


More on Protestantism from our priest-writer in The Catholic World. I do not have his name; editors seem not to have published the names of their contributors those days.

The real character of contemporary Protestantism, we apprehend, is to be sought in the ascendancy acquired in the fifteenth century, and which has invaded Catholic nations hardly less successfully than Protestant nations. Protestantism is the child of this ascendancy, and its legitimate tendency to place the world above heaven, the supremacy of the secular over the spiritual. ... This spirit was not originated by the Reformation. It has preceded it, it had caused the carnal Jews to misinterpret the prophecies and to expect in the promised Messiah a temporal prince instead of a spiritual redeemer and regenerator. It had even entered the garden and induced the fall of our first parents. It has always subsisted in the world; it is what St. Augustine called the City of the World as opposed to the City of God. It is the purely secular spirit emancipated from the spiritual, and substituting itself for it.

The spirit and program of Vatican 2 and Paul 6 is contained in those sentences. The Vatican 2 opening to the world, the secular spirit substituting itself for the spiritual, which achieves ultimate and spectacular fulfillment in Paul 6, abjectly surrendering to the powers of this world at the United Nations. You hadn't thought of it that way? Read more carefully what the bishops have been saying, in line with what they are doing. Real Maryknoll and other so-called Catholic magazines, especially those of orders which were once mainly engaged in missionary work. Actually, most any so-called Catholic publication you might pick up contains evidence of the secular spirit and latter days Gnosticism.

Incidentally, if I write of heresy and apostasy, of Gnosticism and of Gnostics, I certainly do not mean to apply in this modern age of confusion about religion, such terms to individual Protestants or Catholics. I am not fudging any Catholic whose words and works do not show outwardly his full acceptance and promotion of the new religion. Many are disturbed and do not know where to turn. So it has been these past eighteen years or so with Catholics; centuries for the western world in general. However, I would suggest to those Catholics who, ignoring doctrine and evidence, thoughtlessly defend Paul 6, that they consider the case of the Jew Pierleone, who, as Anacletus II, occupied the Chair of Peter for eight years, yet whose name does not appear in the list of popes, but as an Antipope.


To be continued...