1. A good wind is blowing.
There is no such thing as a bad wind. As there is no such thing as a bad weather. Things that come from God is always good; that includes winds and weathers. But this is another kind of wind. It is a book by St. Robert Bellarmine. Many of his writings had been translated in English. But these two are still in Latin as of a few months ago. But now had had recently been translated. ‘De notis Ecclesiae’ and ‘on the Popes.’
2. It is causing destruction.
Suddenly everybody is in panic.The book enumerating the 15 Marks of the true Church and the true Catholic is beginning to show that most laymen, nuns, brothers, priests, bishops and cardinals are not Catholics at all. Because they do not have the 15 Marks of Catholicity. To be a Catholic one has to have the 15 Marks. Though it is enough to have three or four signs like the ones we have discussed in the past posts but to be sure it is better to have all the 15 Marks.
Suddenly, it is noticeable that parishes and dioceses do not have the 15 Marks and, therefore, those who carry the label Catholic are not really Catholic.
Suddenly most of the Catholic groups, from the Neo-Catechumen to the Foccolare do not have all the 15 Marks of the Church.
Suddenly, the Chinese Catholics, the Japanese Catholics, the Korean Catholics and the European and Asian Catholics do not have all the Marks of the true Catholic Church. The book had caused total chaos. It is just like the times of St. Jerome. When he woke up the whole world was Arian. Today, as we woke up, got the book of St. Bellarmine, and find the whole world was not-Catholic.
3. Of course, there are a few who have all the 15 Marks of the Church. But it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
4. What is more distressing is that when we apply the 15 Marks of the true Church on the Pope, he, too, does not have any of the Marks. The poor Jesuits who translated the book are at a total lost to explain how come the Pope does not have the Marks of Catholicity. What makes it more difficult is that the poor Jesuits find themselves, also, without the 15 Marks of Catholicity. No problem. Even the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans and most religious orders do not have the 15 Marks either. The book is like the Angel of Death passing like a wind in Egypt and labeling each ‘non-Catholic’ spiritually dead. It is a good wind, like the angel of death. But it is declaring who are those who are spiritually dead……those who do not have the 15 Marks of the Church.
5. I have just discussed five Marks; antiquity, apostolicity, the spirit of prophesy, and no. 14 and 15; the latter was taken from the wise advise of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrin in Acts. With these five Marks, most Catholics have already failed; meaning they don’t have any of the sign. . But they still cannot believe it; they are still stunned. They don’t know what to make of it. Will they just set aside St. Bellarmine’s book. We cannot because the whole document ‘Lumen Gentium’ is based on the Ecclesiology of St. Augustine and St. Bellarmine. Those four visible signs recited in the Nicene Creed were expanded by St. Robert into 15 Marks. While we can fool ourselves and belief that we have the four visible signs because of their general description, it is impossible to attribute the 15 signs to anyone. All can really see they do not have most of those signs.
6. The laymen are in the most pitiable situation in that, not only are they ignorant of the Marks of Catholicity, both the four and the 15 Marks No priest or bishop could explain it to them for fear of being exposed that they, themselves, do not have the Marks.
7. But worse is the portion of the book on the Pope. First, while showing that the present Pope does not have the 15 Marks of Catholicity, it even shows that he has the opposite signs as enumerated by St. Bellarmine, as signs of Protestantism. St. Bellarmine proceeds to state that a Pope in heresy cannot be a Pope because he is not even a bishop or a priest because he is not even a Christian.
This is because of the spirit of ‘Liberalism’ prevalent among the clergy after Vatican II and more specially after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. From Bellarmine’s examples of Protestantism we can see that the present Pope is more a Protestant than a Catholic due to his ‘liberalism’ beliefs.
8. The heresy St. Bellarmine was tackling was the liberalism prevalent among the Catholic clergy and as a result contaminating the entire laity. Few escaped this heresy in Bellarmine’s time.
9, It is strange that the ones propagating the book are members of the SSPX. They have discovered that they have more Marks of the true Church than the Church of the Vatican. Evidently, they do not have all the 15 Marks due to their schismatic stand. But they have more Marks than the Catholic Church. In fact the Vatican does not have any Mark of the true Church, though individuals may have them. The signs of a predestined soul is different from the signs of the Church as a society.
. The Oriental Church is excited because they, too, have more Marks than Rome. And this is true. So why join a Church with less Marks? That is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The SSPX and the Orthodox should remain where they are until they can find the true Church with the 15 Marks of the Church. The head of Russia is more Catholic than the Pope. At least he had forbidden same sex marriage. While the Pope was proposing and encouraging same sex in the Synod and want it approved by force this coming 2015 Synod. If he does that, what do we do?
10. There are Marks that individuals can develop on their own, like ‘antiquity.’ There are signs that can only be acquired in community, like ‘holiness. There are signs that are pure gifts from God and, therefore, we just have to wait for it, like prophecy and No. 15, i.e. temporal favors and eternal life. And there are signs we should fear, like No. 14,i.e. those who oppose the true Church of Christ should expect a painful death and the flames of fire. Having all these signs will take time. The earlier we start the better or as Pope John Paul and Benedict XVI wrote in describing it in their ‘new’ evangelization, the fastest way to acquire all these visible signs of the true Church is to work it out within monastic life of the primitive observance as described by St. Bonaventure.