My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
As I speak to you today, I do so with a trembling heart – not in fear, but in awe of the time in which we live. For centuries, the saints have spoken of an hour of great trial, a moment when truth itself would be shadowed by deception, and when the Church – the Bride of Christ – would be purified in fire. It seems that we are living in such a time.
St. Paul wrote in the second letter to the Thessalonians: “Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
The Apostle foresaw not merely rebellion in the world, but within the very household of faith – a falling away from truth, clothed in the garments of piety. The revolt would not shout its defiance; it would whisper it in the language of tolerance, inclusion, and compromise.
The saints were given glimpses – moments of divine warning – to prepare us. St. Francis of Assisi spoke of “ … a man, not canonically elected,” who would be “raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death.”
We must not despair at prophecy but understand that when the Lord reveals the darkness, it is so the faithful might not be deceived by the darkness, but remain in the light instead. For as St. John wrote: “And this is the declaration which we have heard from him, and declare unto you: that God is light, and in him there is no darkness” (I John 1:5).
It is no accident that the twentieth century opened with Pope Leo XIII’s vision – that terrifying moment after offering Mass when he saw, as he later recounted, Satan challenging God for permission to test the Church for a century. The Lord, in His providence granted it – and the century that followed was soaked in blood, apostasy, and revolution. Leo XIII responded by giving us the prayer to St. Michael, commanding it to be prayed after every Low Mass. How swiftly that practice was abandoned – and how quickly the smoke of Satan entered the sanctuary.
We are now living in the harvest of that century of trial. We are the generation that stands at the threshold between judgment and renewal. This is not a time for fear, but for clarity; not for retreat, but for fidelity.
Our Lord warned us: “ … but yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). It is faith that the enemy seeks to destroy, faith that sustains us in the midst of betrayal and confusion.
My brothers and sisters, the veil is lifted. The saints saw it long ago. The Church now stands at Calvary – and though her enemies think her dying, she is nearest her resurrection.
When truth is wounded, it rarely dies by open assault – it dies by imitation. The enemy does not always destroy; sometimes he counterfeits.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, that prophetic voice of the last century, warned us in 1948: “The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail … This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I am Who am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who am not.”
And Sheen continued, “In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse, emptied of its divine content.”
Those words pierce the fog of our age. We are living in the very moment Sheen foresaw – a counterfeit church that speaks of love but denies truth, that preaches mercy but silences repentance, that promises unity while crucifying fidelity.
St. Pius X spoke of the same counterfeit spirit in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis when he condemned modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.” He saw men within the Church – not outside of her – who would seek to reshape the faith according to the world. He wrote, “It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists to present doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast.”
Do we not see that system now – in catechisms rewritten, in sacred worship stripped of reverence? The spirit of the ape-Church has infiltrated even the language of the faithful, replacing sin with “mistakes,” replacing conversation with “dialogue,” and replacing salvation with “inclusion.”
The true Church of Christ is recognized by her fidelity to the Cross, while the false church seeks to remove it. The true Church proclaims that Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life,” while the false church whispers, “All ways are paths to God.”
St. Francis of Assisi foresaw this masquerade when he warned that “there will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy; that except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God.”
His warning echoes Our Lord’s own: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).
And so it is that we find ourselves surrounded by voices within the Church that speak against her own Deposit of Faith – not always with malice, but with blindness. The ape-Church does not come from outside the walls. It grows from within, in the hearts of those who prefer the praise of men to the approval of God. Its priests smile, its theologians applaud, and its bishops remain silent, while souls perish for lack of truth.
My dear brothers and sisters, this is the hour when the true shepherds must stand apart from the hirelings. The counterfeit church will collapse under the weight of its own lies, but the true Church- the one built upon the rock – will stand purified, stripped, and radiant once again.
The Prophet Isaiah reminds us: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness … ” (Isaiah 5:20). We are witnessing this inversion before our very eyes. And yet, amid the false splendor of this shadow-Church, Christ remains – silent, suffering, and waiting to be adored.
When the true Church is mocked by her counterfeit, Christ looks upon His bishops and priests and asks, “ … Lovest thou me more than these?” (John 21:15).
St. John Bosco, that fearless prophet of the 19th century, was granted a dream that has become a map for our age. He saw a vast and violent sea; upon it, a great ship – the Barque of Peter – battered by enemy vessels. The sea foamed with cannons and chains, her hull splintered, her helmsman wounded. And then, in that vision, Bosco beheld two mighty pillars rising from the depths. Upon one stood the Eucharist, gleaming like the sun. Upon the other, the Blessed Virgin Mary, crowned with stars.
He saw the Holy Father steering toward those pillars while traitors within tried to seize the helm. Yet, when the ship was finally anchored to the pillars – the Eucharist and Our Lady – the sea was stilled, the enemies scattered, and peace returned to the Church.
Bosco’s words ring like a trumpet for us: “Only two things can save us in this tumultuous sea – devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to Mary, Help of Christians.”
Brothers and sisters, this is not allegory alone – it is instruction. When the Church is torn apart by confusion, when shepherds contradict shepherds, and doctrine is bartered like a coin, we must return to the two pillars. The Eucharist is Christ truly present – the same yesterday, today, and forever. And Mary is the Ark that carries the Word safely through the flood.
The shepherds are being tested now as never before. The question is not whether we will remain polite, but whether we will remain faithful. The prophet Ezekiel heard the Word of the Lord: “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: and thou shalt hear the word out of my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me” (Ezekiel 3:17). To be silent when souls are endangered is not charity – it is betrayal.
How many shepherds today choose diplomacy over duty? How many avoid the Cross to preserve their comforts? Yet Our Lord warned us: “The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and hath no care for the sheep” (John 10:13). The Church bleeds because too many have fled.
My brothers and sisters, we must pray for our priests, for our bishops, for the one who sits in Peter’s Chair – that they may steer the Barque toward the two pillars once more. The Eucharist and Our Lady are not devotions among others; they are the twin anchors of survival. Without them, the ship breaks apart.
As the Psalmist cries, “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it” (Psalm 126:1). So it is with the Church, unless we return to the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the Heart of Mary who points to Him. No synod, no structure, no reform will save us.
The saints have shown us the course – not to new strategies, but to ancient fidelity. The shepherds are being tested, and every soul is caught in that trial. But the pillars will stand, and the Lord of the storm is not asleep.
When the saints spoke of these times, they saw through glass darkly – but when the Mother of God spoke, she spoke with the clarity of Heaven. No age has received so luminous a warning as ours.
In 1917, three shepherd children at Fatima saw the sky open and a Lady brighter than the sun who revealed that the greatest danger was not bombs, but apostasy. The first two secrets of Fatima involved a vision of hell and a prediction of World War II. The so-called Third Secret of Fatima remains a wound of silence in the Church. Many credible voices have testified that the full text was never revealed. Cardinal Oddi once said that the secret “concerns a radical crisis of faith within the Church.” Cardial Ciappi, papal theologian to several popes, wrote that “in the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
Father Malachi Martin, who read the secret while serving Cardinal Bea under Pope John XXIII, said plainly in interviews, “What is contained in the Third Secret is horrifying – not because of wars or disasters, but because it speaks of an apostasy that begins at the highest levels of the hierarchy.” He added that it was withheld “to avoid shocking the faithful.”
If these testimonies are true, then the unrevealed portion of the message speaks directly to our time – a time when confusion is preached from pulpits, when doctrine is contradicted, and when many no longer believe that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of mankind. The silence surrounding the Third Secret may well be part of the fulfillment itself.
These are dark days, but darkness has never been the end of the story. From Bethlehem’s cave to Calvary’s hill, God has always chosen to work through what the world calls defeat. He does not abandon His Church – He purifies her. He does not silence the shepherds – He tests them, that they may speak with fire again.
Now it is our turn to bear witness. The saints have spoken, Our Lady has pleaded, the prophets have warned. Heaven has done all that love can do. The rest is up to us.
We must choose to be the light. Our Lord said, “So let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). This is our task in this hour. We are not here to curse the darkness – we are here to illumine it.
Hold fast to the Cross, cling to Our Lady’s mantle, and stay anchored to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. Do not grow weary. Do not be afraid. The same Christ who walked on the stormy sea will again calm the waves that batter His Church.
I invite you now to pray with me:
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, Light of the world,
You have never abandoned Your Church.
Through the witness of Your saints, the voice of Your prophets, and the love of Your Blessed Mother,
You have guided us through every storm.
Give us courage in this hour to remain faithful,
To speak truth in love,
To bear Your Cross with joy,
And to live as children of light in a world that has forgotten Your Name.
May Your Eucharistic Heart be our refuge,
And the Immaculate Heart of Mary our sure protection.
Purify Your Church, O Lord,
And bring her from the shadow of trial
Into the brilliance of Your Resurrection.
And may Almighty God bless you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
