by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
FRENCH VERSION
In the quest to understand the events surrounding Feb. 11, 2013 A. D., many writers have so far explored nearly every aspect of the events leading up to and following. But one event which has not yet been explored may have been a crucial influence on the decision making of Pope Benedict XVI.
And it is this.
On October 7, 2012 just 4 months and 4 days before he read out his Declaratio, Pope Benedict XVI declared St. Hildegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Church.
That he chose to do this on the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, a. k. a., the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which commemorated in that year the 441st anniversary of the Catholic victory at the Battle of Lepanto, cannot be a mere administrative detail. Nay, it shows that the doctrine and teaching of St. Hildegard, for Pope Benedict XVI is intimately associated with Our Lady’s Mediation and Intervention in history.
Moreover, on May 10, 2012, in the Month of May, two days after the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel and 3 days before the Remembrance of the First Apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, 95 years before, Pope Benedict XVI extended the feast of St. Hildegard to the entire Church, making her a de facto Saint.
But just what this connection could be, needs to be explored.
Who was St. Hildegard of Bingen?
Lauded even by seculars as the most learned woman of the Middle Ages, St. Hildegard was born around 1098, the year before the Crusaders, at the behest of Bl. Urban II, took Jerusalem in the First Crusade. She died at the age of 81, in 1179, on September 17th, about 7 years before the birth of St. Francis of Assisi.
Her feast day, therefore, September 17th, is the same as the Feast of the Stigmatization of St. Francis, which is celebrated on that day, though it occurred on Sept. 14th.
At the age of 14 she took vows as a Benedictine Nun at the monastery of Disibodenberg, in 1112 A. D.. Twenty four years later, her fellow nuns elected her Abbess, a title and office she held for the rest of her life.
St. Hildegard was a mystic, that is, from her earliest years she experienced extraordinary mystical graces. Hers being a habitual participation in the Beatific Vision regarding that lower level of knowledge of human affairs present and future. Our Lord, as a Man, had this habitually also, but very few are the Saints who shared this carism with His Sacred Humanity. The other, I know of, is Bl. Anna Maria Taigi, a third order member of the Trinitarians.
By means of this habitual vision, St. Hildegard was helped to become one of the most learned women of her day and wrote on a large variety of topics, even though she never spoke of it and was ashamed that others would think her strange if she admitted to having it.
St. Hildegard’s Visions of the End times
But the topic which seems to have the most to do with Pope Benedict XVI is this, that she wrote more than any other Saint of her age about the Antichrist and his coming, and seems to be relating what she saw of the future. That she did this some 800 years ago, adds to the credibility of her prophecies, because there is absolutely no human way she could have known or guessed of the events of our own days, by mere human wisdom.
As a demonstration of the validity of her powers of prevision, she predicted accurately the following events which have shaken the Catholic world:
- The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
- The abolition of Catholic Monarchies by a diabolic sect which dedicated itself to the destruction of the Church
- The loss of the Papal States and the confinement of the Popes to a small territory at Rome with a number of small jurisdictions scattered round about.
- The Industrial Revolution, during which time the supply of food, medicine and sane laws would improve the daily life of the poor throughout the world.
- The rise of a world empire ruled by the Kings of England
- The rise of nation states ruled by their own leaders who are not monarchs.
These prophecies are contained in her tract on the Antichrist, in part III, Vision 5, of her monumental work, The Book of Divine Works, or the Liber Divinorum Operum.
But what she says of the Antichrist is completely astounding, and A. J. Baalman who has a copy of this book in hand, and I, will be discussing it in a series of programs at Ordo Militaris Radio, this week.
St. Hildegard prophesied the Two Popes
But for now I want to speak of only one of her prophecies, of which no one heretofore has spoken: the prophecy of 2 popes, one of whom would be a deluded servant Satan and antipope.
This prophecy is founded in the stated book, in the edition published by the Catholic University Press, on page 464, n. 29, and the words of it are as follows:
Take care too that no one dispose you to being misled in any circumstance by illusory or fantastical deeds. For only when that time has come when the Church’s sublimity has been squandered and the truth faith crushed underfoot — this is what is understood to be the revolt that will happen in the time of the accursed son whose mother is unclean, since she knows not by whom she (here begins p. 465) conceived — then he will be revealed who will be the man of sin, for he will be wholly infused from his beginning by sin, so that as a sinner he will collect and then boast of his sins. …
… For in the age of the son of perdition, the faith, already falling away from its strength, will be toppled over and enfeebled. For the one who keeps the Church’s sublimity in God and holds the right faith keeps something great, because it is through those things that he will enter the heavenly kingdom. But the one who does not keep the faith holds on to nothing, for he will go to perdition.
Here I will give an exposition, or explanation.
When St. Hildegard of Bingen speaks of the future she does so in very abbreviated manner placing emphasis as she does on virtues and vices. Though she speaks in chronological order, she is thus more interesting in spiritual causes.
In this passage she uses a phrase which needs to be understood properly to unlock the meaning of her text. And this is, the phrase the “sublimity of the Church” or the “Church’s sublimity” as it is here translated. In Latin, that which is sublime is that which is most exalted, highest and most superior. As such it is a term which refers to the supreme order of dignity in some measure or office.
So in one sense, this term can refer to the exalted nature of the Church’s virtue or grace. But in another sense it can refer to the highest hierarchical office, that of the Papacy.
In the passage above. St. Hildegard is explaining the text of the Letter of St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 2 to 4, which regards St. Paul’s own prophecy regarding the Antichrist and his coming. So since St. Hildegard is commenting on this precise passage of St. Paul we can be sure that she is referring to the end times and not merely commenting on corruption in the Church at any time.
So, in this sense, when the Saint speaks of “the Church’s sublimity has been squandered and the truth faith crushed underfoot “, she can be understood to be speaking of the seizure of the Papal Office, since to squander a thing, is to misuse a precious thing, and all who have no right to a thing, misuse it inasmuch as they use it without the right to hold and posses and exercise it.
The Saint then ties this to the great revolt, spoken of by St. John in the Apocalypse, when the tail of the Dragon will strike out of the heavens a third of the stars therein — a passage that the Fathers of the Church refer to the mass apostasy of the Clergy at the end of time.
Now this is what we have seen precisely in these 8 years and more manifestly in these last 15 months. Because all the clergy have followed the antipope, being deceived willingly or not by liars, who are the sons of the Dragon. In fact, in exorcisms, Satan has called Freemasons his “beloved children”, and so Freemasons in the Hierarchy can rightly be understood to be his tail. Moreover, at the request of Bergoglio, all the clergy of the world stopped offering public mass, which is the sign of the times of antichrist foretold by the Prophet Daniel when he speaks of the cessation of public sacrifice.
And the truth of the Faith has most certainly been crushed underfoot during this time in which Bergoglio has squandered the sublimity of the Faith.
Then, after speaking of the Antichrist and his mother, the Saint speaks of our own age clearly, when she says, For in the age of the son of perdition, the faith, already falling away from its strength, will be toppled over and enfeebled. — This is a most accurate description of the post Vatican II era. The verb, toppled, means to knock over or strike down, and this is clearly what Vatican II did. And the Aggiornamento clearly weakened the faith everywhere.
Then she speaks of 2 popes, the true and the false. First of the true:
For the one who keeps the Church’s sublimity in God and holds the right faith keeps something great, because it is through those things that he will enter the heavenly kingdom.
Here she is speaking, in my opinion, of Pope Benedict XVI, who as pope is at the sublimity of the Church’s earthly hierarchical order. He keeps the right faith, not the false preached by others, and keeps something great, that is the petrine munus. And his meek suffering of persecution and imprisonment as Pope, will merit him eternal salvation.
But then she speaks of the antipope:
But the one who does not keep the faith holds on to nothing, for he will go to perdition.
Here, in identifying Bergoglio with the masculine singular , “the one who” and ” does not keep the faith” — as is obvious to everyone who believes — does NOT hold the petrine munus, (“holds on to nothing”), and will go to damnation for his usurpation.
Pope Benedict XVI and St. Hildegard
Clearly Pope Benedict XVI was cogniscent that the Faith had been gravely weakened and damaged after Vatican II. In fact, he spoke precisely about this on Feb. 14, 2013, just 3 days after reading his Declaratio.
He declared St. Hildegard a Doctor of the Church, for which we can be certain that he not only had read these words of the Saint which we just read, but that he had the greatest appreciation for them.
Finally, as a theologian who had written many articles on the Petrine munus, as a thing held, and the Petrine ministry as a thing to be done, we can say with a high probability that Pope Benedict XVI may have understood this same passage in the way I have proposed, as referring to a future time in which there would be 2 popes. One with the Petrine Munus and the Catholic Faith who was promised by God through St. Hildegard of eternal salvation, and one without the Munus and the Faith, who would go unto perdition.
So is Pope Benedict XVI by declaring St. Hlidegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Church on the feast of our Lady of Victories, sending a sign to the whole Catholic world — in this distinction between munus and ministerium, of a Pope who remains faithful and retains the former, and a false pope who has neither — that he has found in her writings the great stratagem by which he will overthrow the work of Freemasonry? unmask it to the world? and protect Holy Mother Church in Her truth faithful ones, and separate Her from the corrupt College of Cardinals and Bishops who have preyed upon children and faithful for some many decades?
Seeing that Pope Benedict XVI as a theologian was a firm supporter of the necessity of the Church in the end times to separate herself from the church of the Antichrist, this possibility appears to be something which we can no longer ignore.
