Simeon: I think that the question of a coming universal reign of the Church - dissolved from the subject of antichrist and timeline - is absolutely essential, given the protestant revolt and Vatican II …. I sense that the fact that these questions are not properly severed for the purpose of analysis, causes a general confusion and conflation of ideas in the minds of Catholics, absolutely blasted by Vatican II and perfectly mystified by Fatima. In the rational order, "if" comes first, then "when."

Decem: Is the Antichrist associated with the Great Apostasy or not?

Simeon: Categorically, yes.

Decem: The Antichrist and the Great Apostasy set the stage for the Second Coming, not for a "coming universal reign" on earth.

Simeon: I concede your statement to be correct. In fact, my intuitive sense is that the universal reign will precede the Great Apostasy and the antichrist; precisely because a Great Apostasy occurring subsequent to the outpouring of prodigious grace necessary to usher in the universal reign, will MERIT the antichrist. I believe it can be cogently argued that mankind has not quite yet merited the man of sin by its wickedness and infidelity. The antichrist will be a Divine judgment and chastisement for a universal apostasy. I think it can be argued that thus far only Europe has truly apostatized.

Now Fr. Michael DeSaye of MHT (and I think all the clergy of MHT) hold that we are now in the Great Apostasy. Fr. DeSaye recently gave a sermon on the topic. I beg to differ with them, admitting, of course, that they may be correct, and I incorrect.

Decem: Nay, the confusion is caused by severing the connection between the Antichrist, the Great Apostasy, the Second Coming and Last Judgment to create an intervening 1,000 year reign or Millennium that has nothing in common with the Biblical reference to it in the Apocalypse of St. John, and, as I've argued and I think demonstrated in this thread, contradicts it.

Simeon: I don’t think you are throwing out a strawman here, because you are criticizing Kramer’s/Berry’s millenarianism. I am positing the idea of a future universal reign of the Church before the end of the world – and before the Great Apostasy. I am not espousing the Kramer/Berry thesis, nor any thousand year reign. I would not be surprised if what I envision lasts mere decades. I simply do not believe that Vatican II marks the ultimate defeat and permanent eclipse of the Church Militant.

It is logically necessary to dissolve the question of a future universal reign from the question of the Great Apostasy/antichrist/timeline, in order to sever the question of a future universal reign from the taint of millenariansim. I’m trying to un-do the conflation that has materialized.

Decem: The Berry and Kramer view is a late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century resurrection in a modified form of rejected Millennial thinking, and we saw the same thing around the same time in the Prots with their rapture eschatology and modified versions of Millennialist or Chiliast thinking. And their view is far from the sensus catholicus, very far from it.

Simeon: Again, I must give you the benefit of the doubt on the strawman.  I did not affirm that the Berry/Kramer thesis is the “authentic eschatological sensus catolicus.” I made it my business to sever the millenarianism from what I intended to signify.  I explicitly said, “And by this I do not mean [their] opinions about the Jєωs and the antichrist and the timeline. I mean a coming universal reign of the Church on earth.”

I really would like to look at this question apart from both millenarianism and the timeline, et.al…..

4. Now, if I am obliged to enter somewhat into the future, I shall confine myself to tracing out a very general outline. The direct tendency of all the events we see at this moment is clearly this, to overthrow Catholic worship throughout the world. Already we see that every Government in Europe is excluding religion from its public acts.


Manning, Archbishop Henry. The Present Crisis of the Holy See . Desert Will Flower iPress. Kindle Edition.

When, I ask, was the Church of God ever in a weaker condition, in a feebler state in the eyes of men, and in this natural order, than it is now? And from whence, I ask, is deliverance to come? Is there on earth any power to intervene? Is there any king, prince, or potentate, that has the power to interpose either his will or his sword for the protection of the Church? Not one; and it is foretold it should be so. Neither need we desire it, for the will of God seems to be otherwise. But there is One Power which will destroy all antagonists; there is One Person who will break down and smite small as the dust of the summer threshing-floor all the enemies of the Church, for it is He who will consume His enemies “with the Spirit of His mouth,” and destroy them “with the brightness of His coming.” It seems as if the Son of God were jealous lest anyone should vindicate His authority. He has claimed the battle to Himself; He has taken up the gage which has been cast down against Him; and prophecy is plain and explicit that the last overthrow of evil will be His; that it will be wrought by no man, but by the Son of God; that all the nations of the world may know that He, and He alone, is King, and that He, and He alone, is God.


Manning, Archbishop Henry. The Present Crisis of the Holy See . Desert Will Flower iPress. Kindle Edition.

Decem,

Could the Berry/Kramer view have been shaped in some way by Fatima, rather than by protestants?

And what was Our Lady intimating, when She asked for the consecration of Russia? What did God, by this collegial act, intend to bring about in the world?

Simeon,

As you know, I believe the Berry/Kramer view should be prima facie rejected on the basis of their misreading of, and contradiction with, the 1,000 year Millenium of Apoc. 20.

As to your view of a period of restoration or peace after the Antichrist where the Church achieves some kind of universal acceptance which you believe hitherto lacking, though I disagree with you (since the universal acceptance is not measured in "nations" or some such numbers game, but the availability of salvation to all people in Christ - Jєω, Gentile, male, female, etc. - and has been achieved in accomplished spread of the Gospel by the Church) - I think you could formulate an argument in terms of the 45 day period after the abomination of desolation mentioned by Daniel in Daniel 12. I've quoted Haydock on this passage here:


The Novus Ordo and Daniel's 1290 and 1345 days - Crisis in the Church - Catholic Info (cathinfo.com)

Thank you, Simeon.

I guess the problem I have with the "universal reign" coming before is that implicit in that is the assumption that the universal reign hasn't come yet - I believe it has, and I think Cardinal Manning and St. Augustine would agree with me. The Church conquered the Roman empire and has gone about preaching the Gospel throughout the world. This is not about nations, but about God the Trinity reaching those whom the Father gave to His Son to save and then redeems through the action of the Holy Ghost, the elect. John 6:37, 39, 65 etc.

And the spiral is downward, to the Antichrist. There are two many signs, for me, that this is the Great Apostasy. I think Scripture, backed by the interpretation of St. Augustine, says the Great Apostasy is the time of Antichrist, and it ends with the Second Coming.

So I see no place for a universal reign as you understand it by virtue of the Great Apostasy being here now and your understanding of "universal reign" being different than my understanding.

Fatima perplexes me. I have no firm opinions on it, and would not speculate on such a huge topic without feeling some solid foundation under me, and I'm not standing on such in my thinking on it.

I view the Great Monarch and the "three days of darkness" as the Catholic equivalent of the Jєωιѕн fables referred to in Titus 1:14. I mean no offense, but that's my individual and perhaps non-persuasive opinion.

This playlist disputes some of the evidence on the Three Days of Darkness in Scripture, from Anna Maria Taigi and others:





However, there is a good deal of evidence that China and Bill Gates and MIT and others have developed technology to block out the sun.
Since we have a fake Sr Lucy, fake consecration, and fake third secret, it wouldn't be out of the question for the powers that shouldn't be to fake a miracle of the sun and the Three Days of Darkness.

Thank you, Simeon.

I guess the problem I have with the "universal reign" coming before is that implicit in that is the assumption that the universal reign hasn't come yet - I believe it has, and I think Cardinal Manning and St. Augustine would agree with me. The Church conquered the Roman empire and has gone about preaching the Gospel throughout the world. This is not about nations, but about God the Trinity reaching those whom the Father gave to His Son to save and then redeems through the action of the Holy Ghost, the elect. John 6:37, 39, 65 etc.

And the spiral is downward, to the Antichrist. There are two many signs, for me, that this is the Great Apostasy. I think Scripture, backed by the interpretation of St. Augustine, says the Great Apostasy is the time of Antichrist, and it ends with the Second Coming.

So I see no place for a universal reign as you understand it by virtue of the Great Apostasy being here now and your understanding of "universal reign" being different than my understanding.

Fatima perplexes me. I have no firm opinions on it, and would not speculate on such a huge topic without feeling some solid foundation under me, and I'm not standing on such in my thinking on it.

I view the Great Monarch and the "three days of darkness" as the Catholic equivalent of the Jєωιѕн fables referred to in Titus 1:14. I mean no offense, but that's my individual and perhaps non-persuasive opinion.