1. If I were the devil what would I do to destroy the Catholic Church and damn the most number of souls in this era, the year 2000 a.d. I would review the external and internal attacks I had done to the Church. In the external attacks I used heads of states like emperors. Today I would still use heads of states of nations, the greater the nation the better. I will not change this strategy. It is good past time for little out- of -work devils. But the internal attacks, i.e. attacks from within the Church, I have greatly improved through the centuries. This will be my work. I Lucifer will initiate a two-prong attack on the Church, first, will consist in keeping seminarians ignorant of the true faith either by blocking a part of Divine Revelation ( by giving them heretical teachings or omitting certain teachings) and by giving them clown Masses which will entertain them rather than inspire them to a life of suffering.
2 I will continue the external attacks …..and I will improve the internal attacks this way. Before, I had to choose several proud individual priests, transform their true knowledge of the truth into heresies and let them spread their errors. They are priests and this will make it easier for the lay to believe them. But this entailed lots of efforts in that I have to deceive several priests before they can deceive many souls.
3. Today, the devil had improved his strategy in that all he had to do is to install a priest as head of the Congregation of Catholic Education where curricula for seminaries and catholic schools are approved. A little modification in a doctrine here and there or the removal of a teaching of Christ from the curriculum and voila!! The innovation or neglect of a doctrine is enough to prevent all Catholics from making the act of Faith…..and prevent them from entering the Church unto the salvation of their souls.
4 Souls can learn the faith from two sources. First from preaching. Secondly from the sacrifice of the Mass. Preaching teaches souls the commandments of Christ and how to obey them. This is the Apostolic commission Christ gave the apostles at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel. The second is Christ’s command “to do this in commemoration of Me,” which is the Mass which consists of a summary of the life and death of Christ. This also contains all the commands of Christ and how to do them expressed in Liturgical signs. These two sources complement each other. And more often than not the Liturgy helps explain dogmatic truths. Well, the devil will have to control both the curriculum and the Liturgy and prevent them from complementing each other.
5. Through the centuries the devil had already tried to control both branches, the training of priests and the liturgy. Henry VIII tried it but failed. But the devil had learned his lesson well and had worked hard in improving his strategy. And this time his strategy is working well.
6. Let us first look at the destruction of the training of the priests. Heresies, like nominalism, had infiltrated the highest office and these in turn entered into the curriculum of seminaries and catholic schools. Nominalism would later on give birth to Luther, the Reign of terror, period of enlightenment, democracy, communism and modernism. These infiltrated all catholic schools and seminaries that Catholicism was bogged down in the Old Testament in all these places.
7. Then the Liturgy was headed by graduates of these seminaries. It no longer reflected the true dogmas of the Catholic Church. It became the experimental playground of immature souls and became a picnic ground with liturgical video games.
With Nominalism preventing seminarians from learning the spirituality of the New Testament and at the same time distorting the Mass as to be unrecognizable, the products of the seminary which would be future priests and bishops were ignorant of the complete plan of salvation. Many could not even describe the “Life of Repentance” which is Old Testament spirituality which was decried by Our Lady at Fatima. How come the thousands of Bishops, priests and nuns could not answer our Lady’s call for repentance? They, themselves did not how to do it. Many do not know that after the life of repentance, we have to live the life of the four Moral virtues as the necessary disposition before we can receive the gift of Faith …as noted by St. Thomas of Aquinas. Many do not even know how to explain how to make an act of Faith as the Fathers of the Church had described it. In short, because of the two-prong attack of the devil on the Church 200 years ago, most graduates of seminaries do not know how to enter the Catholic Church or how to make an Act of Faith. This is the crisis of Faith Pope Benedict XVI is describing. It could not be caused by anything else but by the ignorance of the clergy.
8. Knowledge of doctrine which is both acquired through studies (like in a seminary) and through the Liturgy of the Mass are the Church’s most potent instrument of sanctification and at the same time the most vulnerable areas of attack. And today, they are being attacked both from external sources as from head of governments including former staunch Catholic nations and from internal sources, from bishops and priests who hold important positions in the training of priests and in the Liturgy. One merely has to look at the list of bishops holding positions precisely on the training of seminarians, training of priests and the liturgy and will see that they are of doubtful orthodoxy. They are even well known as contradicting the Holy Father.
9. The Catholic Church is truly like a fort or a camp, St. Thomas comments, but this time besieged from the outside, and experiencing revolts from the inside. We have our backs on the wall!!!
10. It is no wonder that our captain, the Pope had been barking orders. From “Veritatis Splendor,” to “Instrumentum laboris,” to “Porta Fidei:” from his audiences to lectures, to reminders to Curial offices, he had been calling for Faith. It is one of our defensive gear. Personal Faith acquired within the Church is the only weapon when our backs are on the wall. He repeated it in his address during a plenary session of two congregations “This is your priority,” referring to bishops and priest “Faith.” It is a lopsided fight with the devil having the upper hand right now. But isn’t this the kind of fight wherein God always wins?
11. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict had been encouraging us all to have Faith, to check on our Faith if it is genuine and as of last week reminded Bishops and priests that this is their priority today. He knows that the two ordinary ways by which souls are instructed, preaching and the Mass, are not delivering the Faith souls should have. He blamed the total neglect of God as the reason. Yes, St. Thomas of Aquinas said that neglect of God brings souls to despair and that is what we see today in the world and in our Catholic priests. This is not neglect of God. This is total inability for the soul which is created to think of God to function naturally and think of God. The world had gone unnatural. Thus the need for a new Evangelization!!! Because the devil had become more powerful? No. Because man have become unnatural. He no longer acts like a man. He acts like a beast. St. Thomas states: he who does not progress regresses. Mankind had been regressing for the last two hundred years. It is difficult to find out from where to pick him up.