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They have indeed "discharged their office," the whole reason for the conferring of power. They bound Satan for the 1,000 years, so that the nations would not be deceived. And now they are.

This is the promised time of Satan's loosing.

Your interpretation of Pastor Aeternus is belied by the last 60 years.

You see the historical facts and conclude the dogma is now inoperative (Modernism similarly teaches that dogmas expire, no?). The promise expired. The office completed its mission. The protection is gone. You adjust Catholic teaching to fit the facts by expiring an eternal, infallible, irreformable dogma of the Faith.

I see the same facts and conclude the dogma still holds. A true Pope's faith cannot fail. Why because it has been REVEALED from Heaven as a Dogma of the Faith at Vatican I. But the faith of certain papal claimants has manifestly failed. Therefore these men are not true Popes. I adjust the identification of the men (antipopes/usurpers/imposters/false prophets) to fit the dogma. And Jesus said to "beware the false prophets," which agrees with my position as well. As does 2 Thessalonians 2 and Apocalypse 13.

Matthew 26:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven

Apocalypse 20:2-3  And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years . . . that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.

7  And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

DR, do you realize what you just said? Let me lay it out plainly so we can both look at it.

You are saying that the papal office's power to "bind and loose" includes the binding and loosing of Satan himself. That the Popes bound Satan for a thousand years as part of their office. And that the conciliar Popes (who you think are true Popes, apparently) are now loosing Satan, also as part of their Petrine office. They are still "discharging their function," as you say.

Do you understand what that means? You are saying that true Popes, exercising legitimate papal authority as vicars of Christ, are deliberately releasing Satan to deceive the nations. The very office that Pastor Aeternus says exists to "keep the whole flock of Christ away from the poisonous food of error" is now being used, legitimately, authoritatively, as an exercise of the keys to feed the flock that poison.

You have turned the papacy into an instrument of damnation. Not through usurpation. Not through illegitimacy. Through legitimate exercise of the office of Christ's Vicar. In your theology, Christ's own appointed representative looses Satan upon the faithful. On purpose. By divine design.

That makes Christ Himself the author of the deception through His own appointed Vicar. That is blasphemy, DR.

I see the same men doing the same destructive work. But I say it proves they are NOT true Popes, because a true Vicar of Christ cannot, by the very nature of the office, be the instrument of Satan's loosing upon the faithful. You say it proves they ARE true Popes doing God's work of destruction. We both see the same facts. Only one of our conclusions is compatible with the Catholic Faith.

No man could break through that circle of omnipotence until the hour came, when by His own will He opened the way for the powers of evil. For this reason He said in the garden, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” For this reason, before He gave Himself into the hands of sinners, He exerted once more the majesty of His power, and when they came to take Him, He rose and said, “I am He,” and “they went backward, and fell to the ground.” Having vindicated His divine majesty, He delivered Himself into the hands of sinners. So too, He said, when He stood before Pilate, “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above.” [62] It was the will of God; it was the concession of the Father that Pilate had power over His incarnate Son. Again, He said, “Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me presently more than twelve legions of angels? how then shall the Scripture be fulfilled?” [63] In like manner with His Church. Until the hour is come when the barrier shall, by the Divine will, be taken out of the way, no one has power to lay a hand upon it. The gates of hell may war against it; they may strive and wrestle, as they struggle now, with the Vicar of our Lord; but no one has the power to move Him one step, until the hour shall come when the Son of God shall permit, for a time, the powers of evil to prevail. That He will permit it for a time stands in the book of prophecy. When the hindrance is taken away, the man of sin will be revealed; then will come the persecution of three years and a half, short, but terrible, during which the Church of God will return into its state of suffering, as in the beginning; and the imperishable Church of God, by its inextinguishable life derived from the pierced side of Jesus, which for three hundred years lived on through blood, will live on still through the fires of the times of Antichrist.


. . .

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.

Apocalypse 17:  And the ten horns which thou sawest in the beast: these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire. 17 For God hath given into their hearts to do that which pleaseth him: that they give their kingdom to the beast, till the words of God be fulfilled.

1 Cor. 6:15-18  Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 16 Or know you not, that he who is joined to a harlot, is made one body? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh.  17 But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit. 18 Fly fornication.

Apoc. 11:7-12  And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast, that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.  8 And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified.  9 And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half: and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres.  10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry: and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth.  11 And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them.  12 And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud: and their enemies saw them.