Part of the reason many of the clergy lived lives so incompatible with Christian
teaching was that too many of them really didn’t have a true vocation; many of
them were forced into it by their families for various reasons, most of them
social or economic. In a time when primogeniture was the rule, a second son was the “spare” in the old phrase “an heir and a spare;” a third son was superfluous. The “spare” often received the mother’s dower-lands as his share of the inheritance; there was nothing left for the third or any subsequent sons, unless the inheritor chose to give him something for his own. This left the younger sons with nothing to offer any prospective wife, so they were essentially unmarriageable. Their only option was the priesthood. It was a means of survival, rather than a vocation. It’s no wonder so many of them were bitter and cynical. Of course, this does not excuse them for their excesses; an unmarried layman is required by the Commandments to live as celibate a life as that required of a priest in the Western tradition. It is not meant as an
excuse, but only a partial explanation. It did not help that those who entered the priesthood with a true vocation often became discouraged at seeing what their comrades in Orders were getting away with.

The same was true for women. Until as late as the 1960s, a woman pretty much had two options: Marriage or the convent. In the late medieval period, a woman could
not be married without some sort of dowry, so if, for whatever reason, she did
not have one, her only choice was the convent. Many women grew embittered as a result; it’s a partial explanation of why some of the teaching Sisters of later ages went beyond strict to downright abusive.

So what’s the excuse for priests and nuns today? I blame poor religious formation in their childhood, a situation which became the norm in the heady aftermath of Vatican II, when all sorts of weird concepts that council never taught were introduced “in the spirit of Vatican II,” a phrase which wiser Catholics today have learned to run from as fast as they can. “Conscience” became the guideline, and that conscience was usually poorly formed, or, worse, misinformed. It’s the reason we have the phenomenon some
have dubbed the “cafeteria Catholic.”

In the end, this and the other problems introduced by the Reformation are still very much in evidence today. As a resident of the so-called “Bible Belt,” I see new Protestant churches springing up nearly every week, as portions of one congregation or another split off from one church to form their own because they don’t like something the preacher teaches. Drive down a country road in some counties, and you’ll find churches dotting the roadside like mile markers on the Interstate, most of them having
only two things in common: Jesus Christ, and hatred of Catholicism, two things which are mutually incompatible, yet they exist side by side in these churches.

In some form or another, the problems which led to the Reformation in the first place still exist today, fueling that hatred. Those problems will continue to exist, simply because man is a fallen creature. The resultant concupiscence is a burden against which we all must fight. Any attempt to live a life of sanctity is, by definition, a battle, one which will not end—cannot end—until death.

We have two threads of hope held out to us, if we will only take hold of them. The first and most important is Jesus Christ himself. His salvific act opened the gates of Heaven
to us, which had been closed by Adam and Eve’s fall. Throughout His life, he gave us the seven Sacraments as a source of grace, without which we are powerless even to attempt to follow Him. The second is Our Lady. The Rosary has been recognized
throughout the ages as the single most powerful prayer there is, second only to
the Mass itself in its efficacy. If you follow Our Lady, she will inevitably lead you to her Divine Son.

And this brings us to Fatima. At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin gave to three shepherd children the secret to world peace and an end to the war between culture and faith. It’s so simple that mankind cannot believe that it’s that easy to solve all the world’s problems. The biggest part of it lies in the hands of the Pope: Together and simultaneously, he and all the bishops of the world are asked to perform the Consecration of Russia. Fear has prevented a century’s worth of Popes from doing this, fear of “offending” the Russian Orthodox metropolitans and Russia in general. Fear so great that Pope John Paul II performed a consecration of the world in 1983 (or 1984, I’m not certain which anymore), a consecration which was accepted by Heaven and was enough to prevent war from breaking out when Russia, arguably accidentally, launched a missile at America. But in the prayer immediately following that consecration, the Pope alluded to the “people still awaiting”the consecration requested at Fatima. The fear was so great that he dared not name Russi aeven then! Pope
Benedict has since confirmed, indirectly, that the consecration of Russia has
not yet taken place, and that the Third Secret has not been revealed in its
entirety. Successive popes, and cardinals who have read the Secret, have attempted to hint at its contents; thus we have the belief that Vatican II was the “evil Council” mentioned by Our Lady; the statement, “The Great Apostasy begins at the top;” and the
soul-shaking statements issued by Pope Benedict in response to the question of
whether or not the recent clerical scandal was predicted in the Third Secret.

But the entire solution is not solely in the Pope’s hands. He needs our help, and Our Lady gave us the means to do that. Pray the Rosary daily. A simple twenty-minute prayer. If you can’t find the time in your day to say it all at once, say a decade here, a decade there, whenever you can grab five minutes. (I’ve known people who would go
to the bathroom just to have a few minutes alone to pray.) Hand in hand with that is to make the five First Saturdays. This means going to Confession and Communion on the first Saturday of every month for five consecutive months, with the specific intention of reparation for sin. This is so important that, if you live far enough from a church that making the extra trip may lead to grave hardship, you can commute that observance to the first Sunday. The benefits to you personally are, as one pro-Christian bumper sticker has it, “out of this world:” If you make the five First Saturdays even ONCE, Our Lady will provide, at the moment of death, all the help necessary to resist the last great temptation that the devil will foist on you. It’s a literal GUARANTEE that you will go to Heaven!

The Reformation itself was predicted in the visions of St. Mary of Agreda, just a few years before it actually happened. (So was today’s War on Terror, by the way.) The solution was given four hundred years later at Fatima. The rest is up to us.

WHAA-HOO ! ! ! I found a “Gold-Nugget”. Do you realize how exceedingly sweet it is to experience another soul who is “Tuned in” to an understanding of “Heaven’s Peace Plan” ? It’s like a tastey hors d’ oeuvre before the sumptuous banquet. Precious-Precious Truth that sets us free. Part of this sweetness is the yearning Hope, that those who have not yet partook, will nibble at Heaven’s offer and thereby add to “Thy Kingdom Come” (the throngs of souls united in Joy beyond measure). Peace on Earth begins in individual Hearts. Thank God for Archbishop Charles & Jake; They have been used to create a surge of delight in me !