Holy Days, Catholic guilt, and Italian lawyers

I promise I'm not trying to make up excuses to skip Mass...

I just noticed a letter posted on X from Archbishop Filippo Iannone, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, addressed to Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, the chairman of the USCCB’s Canonical Affairs Committee. The letter addresses the question of whether the faithful have an obligation to go to Mass when the date of a Holy Day of Obligation changes and the feast is moved from Sunday to Monday.

According to the letter, Paprocki asked the dicastery, “If a Holy Day of Obligation in the Advent, Lent or Easter season falls on a Sunday and the Solemnity is transferred to Monday, does the obligation to attend Mass still apply?”

Where’s this coming from?

It seems strange that Paprocki asks this question so broadly, because in the United States (that I can think of, anyway) the only case when this question ever applies is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which normally falls on December 8. When December 8 falls on the Second Sunday of Advent (as it does this year), the feast of the Immaculate Conception is transferred to Monday, December 9, but typically the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated.

For example the Archdiocese of Boston’s list of holy days for the calendar year 2024 says (emphasis added), “December 9, 2024 (Moved from Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024; Mass obligation abrogated) – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception.”

Now, I’m not writing this in order to wriggle my way out of going to Mass on December 9. I’d planned to go anyway. The last time the feast of the Immaculate Conception fell on Monday, December 9, was in 2019. I remember because that was the day my mother died. This date, therefore, is very meaningful to me.

Why ask Rome?

The reason why I’m writing about this is because the Vatican’s reasoning does not appear to take into account the rules decreed by the USCCB back in the early 1990s.

Archbishop Iannone’s letter to Bishop Paprocki says (emphasis added):

We will only give a few clarifications below since the canonical norms relating to the subject are clear. As a matter of fact, can. 1246, § 1, establishes the feasts that must be observed as days of obligation. The canon does not provide for exceptions. For those reasons, those feasts are always days of obligation, and so, even when the aforementioned transfer of the feast occurs. Therefore, in that year, the feast must be observed as a day of obligation on the day to which it is transferred. … It is in this sense that n. 2181 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastors (for a just cause)

It may be true that “The canon does not provide for exceptions.” But for over three decades, the US bishops have provided for exceptions (with Vatican approval) regarding three holy days of obligation. In December 1991 the NCCB (which later became the USCCB) made a decree concerning holy days of obligation. It was approved by the Vatican in 1992 in conformity with canon 1246. It went into effect on January 1, 1993. Regarding these exceptions, the decree states:

Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.

It seems likely that when the prefect wrote “those feasts are always days of obligation” in his response, he failed to consider the (admittedly complicated) norms in the US. According to the rules set by the US Bishops, when certain holy days fall on certain days of the week, they are not always holy days of obligation.¹

It seems odd that Bishop Paprocki would ask Rome’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts this question, given the unusual norms in effect in the US. If this was a question requiring a solution for the entire US Church, why not deal with it in the same way it was handled in the early 1990s — by drafting a proposal, seeking the agreement of the body of bishops, and then sending it to the Vatican for approval according to Canon 1246. §2.²

The inevitable fallout

Archbishop Iannone signs off his letter with the words, “With the hope that this response may be useful.” Unfortunately the good archbishop, who is Italian, likely didn’t account for the uniquely American form of religious scrupulosity and Catholic guilt that leads countless among us every week to worry about whether we’ve committed a mortal sin because we received Communion only 58 minutes after swallowing the last of our Cheerios.

In his letter, Archbishop Iannone does mention, “The situation in which a grave cause renders it impossible to attend Holy Mass.” But that could make it even worse. Many of us read “grave cause” as, “I have open heart surgery scheduled for Monday and if I try to squeeze in the 6:00 am Mass at St. Dymphna’s on the other side of town I won’t be able to get to the hospital in time to be intubated.” And some of us only consider getting to church as “impossible” if we made a good faith effort to drive to Mass during an ice storm and didn’t survive the trip. (It’s more of a past-tense thing.)

Irish Solution

I wondered about how other countries handle this sort of thing. I asked a friend from England, and he said he thinks all the holy days were relegated to Sunday there. The feast of the Immaculate Conception can’t move to Sunday because it’s always in Advent, so there is no obligation to go to Mass for that Solemnity.

I spoke with an Irish friend about what happens in his country when March 17 falls on a Sunday. The feast day of their country’s patron, St. Patrick, always happens during Lent and is a holy day of obligation there. He said he wasn’t sure, so he pulled out his copy of The Liturgical Calendar for Ireland 2024.³

It turns out that in Ireland, when St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Sunday (with the exception of 2008, when it fell on Palm Sunday), it is celebrated on Sunday. The book explains:

There are clear and general rules when feasts occur on the Sundays of Lent. The Sundays of Lent, have precedence over Solemnities. Sunday is the primordial feast and the Solemnity is transferred to Monday or the next free day However an indult granted by the Holy See allows the Mass of St Patrick to be celebrated on a Sunday of Lent. This happened in 1974 when 17 March was the Third Sunday of Lent. It has occurred on another six occasions and again this year. Thus:

17 March 2024 as the Fifth Sunday of Lent/Solemnity of St Patrick, the Mass of St Patrick is celebrated, as in the Roman Missal, pp. 727-30, including the "Glory to God in the highest”.

The indult of 1974 asked for the retention of aspects of the Sunday of Lent. Thus:

the Readings for the Sunday should be used, as in the Lectionary, vol. 1, pp. 310-12, including the Lenten Gospel Acclamation.

In other words, “We’re Irish, dagnabbit, and nothing — not even Lent — can stop us from honoring the great St. Patrick.”

This is the kind of creative leadership the US Church needs. We need to better embrace the both/ands of our faith. Why the need for such a myopic focus on the Second Sunday of Advent anyway? It’s a stressful time of year, and it’s not as if the vestments and candles are a special color like the third Sunday. Why not spend it wrapped in the mantle of Our Blessed Mother?

In the US, we’re still trying to solve the eternal riddle: “If Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday and Christmas falls on a Monday, if I go to Mass on Sunday evening, does it count for both???”

Bishops, trolls, and bishoptrolls

Thanks to Bishop Paprocki’s dubia and Archbishop Iannone’s response, I can already imagine the chaos that will ensue over this in the first week of December on Catholic X and Facebook. I can only imagine the confession lines the following Saturday, filled with Catholics feeling guilty for accidentally committing a mortal sin⁴ earlier in the week.

Another friend of mine, a non-Italian living in Rome, once tried — by way of analogy — to illustrate the difference between the way Italians approach rules and the way Anglophones understand them. I’ve fleshed the analogy out a bit:

A grassy plot of land in the middle of an Italian city has a sign that says, “Keep off the grass.” A security guard stands near the sign, looking very grim and serious.

"Please Keep Off the Grass" (CC BY 2.0) by Editor B

An American approaches him, explaining that he is late for a meeting and urgently needs to go to the building on the other side of the grass. He asks the guard if it would be possible to make an exception, just this once, because it’s an emergency. The security guard says no, there are no exceptions to the rule.

Frustrated and growing visibly nervous — but trying to remain as courteous as possible — the American asks the guard if he knows how long the sign will be up, and when it might be possible to walk across the grass. The guard shrugs his shoulders and says he does not know, but that the he is free to call the company responsible for the sign and ask. But, no, the guard doesn’t have their phone number.

Still desperate for permission to cross the grass, the American then asks the guard if there is perhaps a weekly schedule or online calendar listing times when crossing the grass is allowed, maybe after hours or when there is less foot traffic.

The guard doesn’t answer this time, however. Instead he has broken into a broad smile and is waving, shouting “Buongiorno” to a fellow Italian who has begun to walk across the grass — the twentieth Italian to do so since the conversation began.

I can only imagine what may have prompted Bishop Paprocki to write to Rome for an answer to a question that clearly could have been handled better at the national (if not diocesan) level. Did he just want to turn screws tighter? He didn’t seem so interested in directives from the Vatican on the implementation of Traditionis Custodes.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter to me. Like I said, I was planning to go to Mass anyway, to pray for my mom and to venerate Our Lady along with the four or five other parishioners who happen to get the memo. But I’m beginning to think maybe I should go twice, just to make sure I don’t accidentally commit a mortal sin.

Thank you, Bishop Paprocki.

1. It’s possible that my terminology is technically imprecise, and I should have written something like “on such solemnities, the precept requiring participation in the Holy Liturgy is rendered null” or whatever, but you get the point.

2. CIC 1246 §2 “However, the Episcopal Conference may, with the prior approval of the Apostolic See, suppress certain holydays of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday.”

3. The Liturgical Calendar for Ireland 2024. Veritas Publications, 2023.

4. Yes, I know it is impossible to “accidentally” commit a mortal sin. Many Catholics don’t know that, however. Additionally, it is well known that many Catholics who suffer with scrupulosity live in constant worry that they have committed mortal sin and are not in a state of grace. This letter will exacerbate their fears.

Get behind me, Satan

Ripperger, Chaput, Maier, Strickland, Fournier, and the evil one

Disclaimer: This post is a bit more raw than usual and completely unsuitable for a respectable website like Where Peter Is. I apologize if it rubs anyone the wrong way. The real moral of the story is that I should refrain from listening to exorcists talking about demons for a long while.

Admittedly, I am still searching for spiritual equilibrium after writing an exposé of some of the more outrageous ideas peddled by celebrity exorcist Chad Ripperger over at Where Peter Is — a grueling process that involved listening to well over 100 hours of the priest drone on and on about the preternatural and demons.

Surely that can’t be healthy way to have spent my time, especially since Ripperger is a heterodox and superstitious ideologue. This man’s ideas have harmed many people, but he nevertheless has a huge audience and a fanbase that takes everything he says as wise and impeccable.

The trolls have come around to tell me that I am a potato head and a heretical dummy; especially when compared to Ripperger, who one fan described as “a theological behemoth.” When the attacks are against me, I take that as a sign that they can’t offer a reasonable response to what I’ve written, so they are forced to resort to personal insults.

Of course, Ripperger’s fans weren’t my intended audience — my hope is that my transcription of some of his most dangerous statements will be brought to the attention of ecclesiastical authorities who can put a stop to his harmful “ministry.” My secondary audience was Catholics of reasonable intelligence and good will who are curious to learn the “other side of the story” on the much-lauded Ripperger.

I worked on that article for over two weeks and I have shared with several friends that the last four or five days felt like spiritual warfare. Even though it was mostly written, the transcriptions were done, and the audio links were collected, I somehow could not make heads or tails of which transcript and which link and which chunk of text belonged where. Day after day I tried to wrap up the article but I kept getting confused.

On the final night, I decided to put it all in the Virgin Mary’s hands and it all became much clearer as I pushed through.

After all these years, I still struggle to understand the persistence of the traditionalist worldview—perhaps it could be called "traditude."

What drives this animosity — not only against the pope but towards anything in the Church that fosters joy or optimism or trust that God’s will has played any sort of meaningful role in the reforms of the Church in the past 60+ years?

Is it a result of poor formation or the overly combative nature of apologetics culture that prizes argument over understanding? Could it be the allure of seeing oneself as a rebel, standing bravely against the tides of modernism? Or is it simply poor reading comprehension? Perhaps it’s rooted in a sense of superiority or a need for control.

This brings me to figures like Archbishop Charles Chaput, who, in recent years, seems intent on cementing his legacy as an ideological opponent of the pope. At least Fr. Ripperger has a large fawning audience that eats up anything he happens to ramble on about.

The continued antagonism of Chaput, however, feels not only dishonest but out of touch and unnecessary. What a shame for someone who once commanded significant respect within the Church to become little more than a cantankerous grouch.

His most recent article in First Things is a masterwork of passive-aggression against the Roman Pontiff. Who imagined that he would spend his last years playing the role of Debbie Downer in the Church?

Even more sensational than Chaput is the beyond-absurd Bishop Joseph Strickland, whose latest “pastoral letter” could have been written by the sedevacantist Dimond brothers, so paranoid and apocalyptic is its tone. Honestly this is virtually indistinguishable from Vigano’s ideology (but it’s eminently more readable).

Of course everyone knows that Strickland doesn’t write his own material. The consensus is that Deacon Keith Fournier is the brains behind the Strickland operation, and perhaps the person most responsible (besides Strickland, of course) for the Texas bishop’s ouster from the See of Tyler and descent into heresy and schism.

Chaput has his own right-hand-man-slash-ghostwriter, Fran Maier, who has recently come into his own as one of the more petulant critics of the Holy Father out there.

These men are making the devil’s job easy. As people who have spent their entire adult lives in important roles in the Church, they should know better.

The reality is that Pope Francis has consistently led and taught the Church with a message that is both compassionate and deeply rooted in the Gospel. His teachings resonate with the spirit of Christ in ways that often seem far more relevant, wise, and faithful than the spiteful, arrogant voices of those who oppose him.

The contrast is stark: on the one hand, we have a pope who emphasizes mercy, inclusion, and care for the marginalized; on the other, we see a faction clinging to their preconceived notions of Catholicism. All they can do is distract and mislead the faithful and they seem content to do so.

As these critics dig in their heels, they only further isolate themselves from the Body of Christ and they make the devil’s work easier.

Pope Francis continues to lead the people of God with the heart of a true pastor, while Ripperger continues his grift without guardrails and while stale and rigid churchmen seem to miss the point entirely. Their loss, I suppose.

What to make of Akita

Was the message of this alleged Marian apparition in Japan plagiarized?

Our Lady of Akita has garnered renewed attention recently, spurred by the passing of Sister Agnes Sasagawa, the alleged seer of the apparition, and the recent impassioned exhortations by Bishop Joseph Strickland to heed its warnings. Given these developments, it is timely to take a closer look at this reported Marian apparition, examining its message, status, and the ongoing discussions surrounding its authenticity and relevance within the Catholic Church.

I do not intend to provide an extensive analysis of the Akita apparition here, but I would like to raise three issues that lead me to doubt its authenticity: its unclear and somewhat convoluted approval process, the origins of the statue connected to the apparitions, and the text of the messages attributed to Our Lady of Akita.

Because it is a private revelation, no one is required to believe Akita is authentic, nor does anyone have to pay attention to its messages. That said, there is no official condemnation of the apparition (in fact, it received the approval of a past diocesan bishop), and many sincere Catholics believe it to be a truly miraculous phenomenon.

Backstory

The discussion centers around the reported apparitions and messages received in Akita, Japan, in 1973 by Sister Agnes Sasagawa, a sister of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist. Over the course of several months, Sister Agnes claimed to have witnessed a series of miraculous events, including hearing the voice of the Virgin Mary emanating from a wooden statue. These phenomena were accompanied by three “messages” from Mary that warned of future trials and divine chastisement if humanity did not amend its ways. She also claims to have received three messages from her guardian angel — two in 1973 and a third in 1981.

Beginning in late 1973, the same statue reportedly wept human tears, bled, and perspired. The statue is said to have stopped weeping in 1981, after 101 occurrences. The statue's tears were observed and documented by numerous witnesses, and the events have been a subject of both veneration and scrutiny within the Catholic Church.

No new revelations were reported until Sister Agnes said that an angel appeared to her on October 6, 2019, and told her, “Cover yourself in ashes, and please pray a Rosary of reparation every day. Become like a child. Please offer sacrifices every day.”

Is it approved?

Devotees of Our Lady of Akita will be quick to note that it received the official approval of Bishop John Shojiro Ito of the diocese of Niigata, Japan in 1984. Given that the documents remain hidden from the public, the history of the Church’s investigation into the phenomenon is largely shrouded in mystery. What we do know is pieced together in a series of anecdotes, many of which are provided by a rather one-sided source — Bishop Ito’s letter of approval.

According to Bishop Ito, this is the chronology of events:

I went to Rome to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1975 where I consulted Archbishop Hamer, deputy secretary of this Congregation, and whom I already knew. He explained to me that judgment regarding such a matter falls under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary (bishop) of the diocese in question.

In 1976, I asked the archbishop of Tokyo for the creation of a commission of inquiry. This first commission declared that it was not in a position to prove the supernatural events of Akita. In 1979, I presented to the Congregation a request for the formation of a second commission of inquiry. This second commission permitted us to examine the facts still more in detail.

In 1981, a letter of the Congregation, unfavorable to the events, was sent to the nunciature in Tokyo. But this letter contained some misunderstandings. Esteeming it my duty to restore the exactitude of the facts, I re-examined all the facts in 1982 at the time that the mysterious events, seemingly, came to an end. Through the intermediary of the Apostolic Nuncio in Tokyo, I sent the complete dossier, augmented with the new facts, to Rome.

At the time of my trip to Rome in the month of October last year (1983) I was able to meet with three officials charged with the matter in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At the end of this meeting we had decided that the dossier should remain under examination.

So in Bishop Ito’s own words, the first commission of inquiry (created by the Archbishop of Tokyo in 1976) “declared that it was not in a position to prove the supernatural events of Akita.” He asked the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for a second commission in 1979, submitted the results to the CDF, and the CDF replied with a negative judgement in 1981.

In 1982, Bishop Ito undertook another round of inquiry and submitted a new dossier, “augmented with the new facts,” to Rome. He then says that in 1983, he and three CDF officials “decided that the dossier should remain under examination.”

That the bishop was strongly convinced of the authenticity of the apparitions is clearly evident in the letter. Regarding the tears that flowed from the statue, he wrote, “I twice tasted this liquid. It was salty and seemed to me truly human tears.” He goes on to list conversions and healings attributed to Our Lady of Akita.

It seems that the bishop acted unilaterally in April 1984 in approving the apparition. The previous month, he turned 75 — the age at which bishops are required to submit their retirement letters to the pope (his would be accepted just days before his 76th birthday the following year). At the beginning of the letter he admits that his support for the apparitions in Akita were “a preoccupation” for him.

Based on his own account, he laid down the law on his authority as local bishop alone, overruling the results of the commissions set up by the archbishop of Tokyo and the CDF:

I hand down the following conclusions in my position as Bishop of Niigata:

1. After the investigation conducted up to the present day, I recognize the supernatural character of a series of mysterious events concerning the statue of the Holy Mother Mary which is found in the convent of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist at Yuzawadai, Soegawa, Akita.

I do not find in these events any elements which are contrary to Catholic faith and morals.

2. Consequently, I authorize, throughout the entire diocese, the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita, while awaiting that the Holy See publishes definitive judgment on this matter.

To the bishop’s credit, he adds:

And I ask that it be remembered that even if the Holy See later publishes a favorable judgment with regard to the events of Akita, it is a question only of a private Divine revelation. Christians are bound to believe only content of public Divine revelation (closed after the death of the last Apostle) which contains all that is necessary for salvation.

Later developments

There are several anecdotal accounts suggesting later developments regarding Our Lady of Akita. I have been unable to track down official or original sources for each of these, but they are widely circulated and are worth noting.

The first anecdote is a claim that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the CDF, personally approved the message in 1988. Here is how this is framed on one pro-Akita website:

In June of 1988, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, imparted the definitive judgment regarding the events and messages of Akita, judging them to be trustworthy and worthy of faith. The Cardinal observed that Akita is a continuation of the messages of Fatima.

Other websites don’t go as far as saying Ratzinger gave a “definitive judgement,” but many report that he privately affirmed his belief in the authenticity of the apparition during a meeting with the retired Bishop Ito. Another popular account repeated in multiple publications is the claim that Ratzinger told Howard Dee, the former Ambassador to the Vatican from the Philippines, that the messages of Fatima and Akita are “essentially the same.”

These accounts do not correspond, however, with a September 13, 1988, article in UCA News. In it, Bishop Ito clarified that Cardinal Ratzinger’s “limited remarks only indicated that he did not object to the pastoral letter which the bishop wrote in April 1984.” In other words, there is no indication that Ratzinger ever affirmed the message, much less the alleged supernatural events at Akita.

Three other widely circulated anecdotes lend support to the position that the official position of the Church is, at most, one of toleration of the Akita phenomenon. All are listed on the Miracle Hunter website and are quoted nearly verbatim in publications and on other websites.

The first is from April 1990, and reaffirms the 1988 UCA News article:

The apostolic nuncio in Japan, Bishop William Aquin Carew in an interview with 30 DAYS, a Catholic Magazine, noted of Cardinal Ratzinger that: “His Eminence did not give any judgment on the reliability or credibility of the ‘messages of the Virgin.’ According to the transcription of the meeting, he simply affirmed that ‘there are no objections to the conclusions of the pastoral letter.’”

The second is from July 1990:

The president of the Japanese bishops’ conference, Peter Seiichi Shirayanagi, told 30 DAYS,” that, “The events of Akita are no longer to be taken seriously. We think they do not now have a great significance for the Church and Japanese society.” (30 DAYS Magazine, July - August 1990, “The Tears of Akita,” by Stefano M. Paci, p. 45).

The third is from December 1999:

The Apostolic Nuncio in Tokyo, Ambrose de Paoli, in response to a query from the editor of a British Catholic magazine Christian Order, stated: “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has asked me to respond to your query re: Akita. ... The Holy See has never given any kind of approval to either the events or messages of Akita.” (Christian Order, December 1999, p. 610.)

If the now-renamed Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) releases a statement rejecting the Akita apparitions in the near future, it will not have been unprecedented. On July 11 of this year, the DDF issued a press release publicizing the CDF’s assessment of “The Lady of All Nations” apparitions in Amsterdam, which took place from 1945 to 1959. In 1974, the CDF issued a judgement of “constat de non supernaturalitate,” a negative judgment.

Prior to the press release this year, however, the status of the Amsterdam apparitions remained in question due to conflicting statements from Rome and from Dutch bishops, with one local bishop even declaring the apparitions to be “of a supernatural origin” in 2002.

The problem of the statue

In addition to the questions surrounding the approval process, the events at Akita are not an “apparition” in the same sense as Lourdes and Fatima, but involve a statue of Mary speaking to Sister Agnes.

Although talking icons are not foreign to the Catholic tradition (Christ on the San Damiano Cross speaking to St. Francis of Assisi comes to mind), the specific statue in Akita is a bit problematic: it is modeled after The Lady of All Nations.

Oops…

The history of the confusion surrounding the Amsterdam apparitions was recounted in the 2024 norms:

An example worth recalling is a case involving alleged apparitions from the 1950s. In 1956, the Bishop issued a final judgment of “not supernatural,” and the following year, the Holy Office approved the Bishop’s decision. Then, the approval of that veneration was sought again. In 1974, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared the alleged apparitions to be “constat de non supernaturalitate.” Thereafter, in 1996, the local Bishop positively recognized the devotion, and in 2002, another Bishop from the same place recognized the “supernatural origin” of the apparitions, leading to the spread of the devotion to other countries. Finally, in 2020, at the request of the Congregation, a new Bishop reiterated the Congregation’s earlier “negative judgment,” requiring the cessation of any public disclosures regarding the alleged apparitions and revelations. Thus, it took about seventy excruciating years to bring the whole matter to a conclusion.

If The Lady of All Nations apparition has been deemed false, then it would seem very odd that a statue based on it would deliver authentic messages. It seems logical that the two apparitions would fall together.

Plagiarism of a fake Fatima secret?

Finally, many have noticed the striking similarities between the messages of Akita and a text purporting to be the third secret of Fatima,¹ which was published in the German Magazine Neues Europa in 1963. Both strike an apocalyptic tone and warn of severe chastisements. Both messages speak of fire falling from the sky and a large part of humanity being annihilated. Both messages also predict infiltration of evil within the Church.

The two messages do not merely share thematic parallels, however, but some strikingly similar predictions.

Here are some examples of concordances between the two texts:

Akita 1: “The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge.”

Neues Europa 1: “God will punish men still more powerfully and harshly than He did by means of the Flood.”

Akita 2: “Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad … The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”

Neues Europa 2: “Then fire and smoke will fall from the sky … Millions and millions of men will lose their lives from one hour to the next, and those who remain living will envy those who are dead. … The good will die with the wicked.”

Akita 3: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church.”

Neues Europa 3: “Even in the highest positions, it is satan who governs and decides how affairs are to be conducted. He will even know how to find his way to the highest positions in the Church.”

Akita 4: “one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops.”

Neues Europa 4: “Cardinals will be against Cardinals and bishops against bishops.”

Although some Fatima conspiracists will argue that the general thrust of the Neues Europa text rings true, most concede that the document itself is a fabrication — if for no other reason than the fact that it predicts, “The greatest World War will happen in the second half of the 20th Century.”

And if it is a fabrication, what are we to make of the oddly specific assertions it shares with the Akita message (that the coming chastisement will be greater than the great flood, that the living will envy the dead, “cardinals against cardinals”)?

My hunch — which seems plausible given the convent’s devotion to The Lady of All Nations — is that Sister Agnes and her community were not strangers to apocalypticism and apparition-chasing, and she had read and (consciously or otherwise) retained the substance of the false Fatima message.

I will be interested to see if the DDF makes a ruling on the Akita phenomena. If a positive judgement is given, I will study the matter further. At the moment, however, I very much doubt its authenticity. And given its harsh and violent messages about the future, I have trouble imagining what spiritual fruits it might yield.

1. This is a link to the Fatima Center website, which promotes outlandish conspiracy theories regarding Fatima and other apparitions. I added this link because it provides the full text of the false Neues Europa secret. I do not endorse or recommend anything else on the Fatima Center site.

What we carry

Living with grief

My sister Kate died three years ago today. In some ways, all the time since that day has been a blur. Yes, life has changed. My wife and I have had to face new challenges as our kids have continued to learn and grow and mature. The work of WPI continues. But the grief is still so raw.

A week after Katie died, we found out my wife was pregnant. A glimmer of light in a sea of loss. A couple of months later, the miscarriage. Mid-May is hard: Mother's day was last week, then today's anniversary, tomorrow would have been dad's 76th birthday.

Every day is a day of mourning, but most days I try to push it down. Anniversaries are hardest, but the truth is that I always feel the weight of all this loss in some way.

Last year I had my own brush with death — I went into anaphylactic shock one Saturday night. We never found the cause. When I lay vulnerable as the team of medical personnel worked to save me in the noisy and hectic ER — as I heard the voice off to my right shouting, “he’s fading, he’s fading,” over and over again — I began to wonder if my life was really going to end right there, in that room.

I could tell I was going in and out of consciousness, and when I was conscious, I realized that these might be my closing thoughts. Rather than panic, I was surprised that interiorly, I was quiet and calm. Just me with my thoughts and a chance to talk to God. There were no heavenly messages or visions, and God’s voice remained silent, a it had been for some years.

Devout Catholic I am, I made an act of contrition and asked God to forgive my sins. In my state, that was all I could do. I talked to God in the silence and asked him to watch over and protect my wife and kids, I spoke to him in silence about the work I hoped to accomplish in the future, but found myself at peace even if my work here was done.

I thought about Dad, Mom, and Kate, I wondered if I would see them soon. I also thought about Patrick and Mary, who would be the only two left if my time was up.

Obviously I survived but my thoughts routinely turn to the fragility of life. I’ve found it difficult to think ahead more than a few months, let alone make plans for the long term.

I don't know why I'm sharing all this publicly, but I imagine that many of you feel broken, bottled up, and in need of healing. Know you are not alone. My Catholic faith is built on the hope that someday the lost and broken pieces of ourselves will be healed.

Archbishop Vigano is a sedevacantist

A smoking gun

I’m just making a quick post because I want to clarify something.

In a recent article on the conflict between the nuns of the Carmelite Monastery in Arlington, Texas and Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, I described Archbishop Vigano with these words:

“the disgraced former apostolic nuncio to the United States, the sedevacantist Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.”

I received a couple of messages asking me if Vigano had “officially” stated that he is a sedevacantist, or if there was any concrete proof that he is. In a sense it seems silly or irrelevant to analyze Vigano’s statements to find if he has ever explicitly said “I do not believe Francis is a valid pope.” After all, Vigano always refers to Pope Francis as “Bergoglio” and puts the word “pope” in scare quotes (a popular tendency for sedevacantists). Vigano has made many unhinged statements about Pope Francis, such as calling him “the ape of the pope,” “the useless figure head pontifex maximus of the Satanic one-world government,” “one who acts as the servant of Satan’s servants,” and “the prophet of the New World Order and the main enemy of the Church of Christ.”

Honestly, it’s difficult to distinguish much of what he says about the pope from the rhetoric of the most virulent anti-Catholic Protestants. Despite this, he’s been mostly careful not to say the “magic words” that some seem to think he needs to say in order to make it official.

There is one speech from last year, however, where he states his belief explicitly. It was a video message that he delivered for the Catholic Identity Conference in Pittsburgh. It was cancelled, however, by conference organizers.

Journalist and Vigano collaborator Robert Moynihan explained in a newsletter:

Viganò prepared and videotaped a talk not only highly critical of Pope Francis (Viganò has been highly critical of Francis for five years now, since his first Testimony dated August 22, 2018, link, in which he called on Francis to resign his office) but which goes beyond his previous critiques to argue that Pope Francis‘s 2013 acceptance of his election may have been invalid due to a defect in the consent Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave to the College of Cardinals at the moment he was elected as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI on the evening of March 13, 2013.

    Viganò was to deliver this new talk to a conference of conservative Catholics in the United States: the Catholic Identity Conference, sponsored by The Remnant newspaper, meeting in Pittsburg this past weekend (September 30 and October 1st, 2023, link), but his delivery of the talk was canceled at the last minute, he writes on his web site (link).

    In his prepared talk, Viganò made a series of assertions about the actions and decisions of Pope Francis which Viganò judges to be arbitrary, objectionable and in stark contrast with the lofty duty of the papal office to protect the orthodox teaching of the faith.

Yet the text of the speech itself, which appears below the newsletter, goes beyond what Moynihan describes as an argument that Francis’s papacy “may have been invalid.” Vigano explicitly says that he believes that Francis’s “acceptance of the papacy is invalidated”:

    Some may object: But even if Bergoglio acted with malice, he still accepted what the Cardinals offered him: his election as Bishop of Rome and therefore as Roman Pontiff. And so he assumed office and must be considered to be the Pope. 

    I believe instead that his acceptance of the papacy is invalidated, because he considers the papacy something other than what it is, like a spouse who gets married in church but excludes the specific purposes of marriage from his intention, thus making the marriage null and void precisely due to his lack of consent.

Unless he explicitly retracts this statement, I think it’s accurate to describe Vigano as a sedevacantist — someone who believes there is currently no valid pope.

(Not that we didn’t already know that.)