CATHOLIC PROPHECY AND HOW THIS FAITH TOLERATES FAKE PREDICTIONS

The Catholic publishing company TAN, published an extraordinary book on Catholic forecasts of the future. Written by Yves Dupont, the book is called Catholic Prophecy, the Coming Chastisement (Illinois, 1973).
  
Mother Shipton, astrology and Nostradamus are all in favour in this book which makes it so unusual. It is hard to imagine a true Catholic having this view.

The whole book can be refuted in one paragraph if Christ’s scriptural prophecy that he would come back when it was least expected is true. The prophecies describe the reign of fake popes, the counterfeit Catholic Church, persecution and the near decimation of the true Church and the murder of holy popes. This tells us we can be sure that Jesus will not come back yet when they have not come to pass yet.

Saints who made this blunder were St John of the Cleft Rock, Pope Pius IX, St Thomas Beckett, St Hildegard, St Vincent Ferrer (alleged worker of 40,000 miracles), Blessed Johannes Amadeus de Sylva, St Francis of Paola, St Anthony of the Desert, St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and St Margaret Mary. And the important mystic, Augustinian nun and stigmatist, Blessed Anna-Katharina Emmerick (1744-1824) cannot be omitted.

Page 29: St Vincent Ferrer said that Christians will eventually believe that the sacrament of confirmation is unnecessary and that these will all leave the faith to follow Antichrist’s false religion. The implication is that the sacrament is necessary for preserving you in the faith.

Such a doctrine is an insult to Protestant martyrs who were never confirmed validly in the eyes of Rome. The doctrine is false – even according to Rome - and so is the prediction.

Page 32: St Margaret Mary who had visions of the Sacred Heart said that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was the final effort of Jesus to make people love him in the last days.

This at a stroke denies the authenticity of any subsequent apparition including Lourdes which is more likely to be real and genuine than hers. The Church says that the other apparitions were a help in the effort and so her visions do not exclude further ones. Wrong. This one promoted a devotion that was not furthered by our Lady of Lourdes for example. Many other devotions have been established since.

Page 52, Jeanne le Roye, a sister of the Nativity, had revelations which she burned during a fit of doubt. Her revelations were written down by her spiritual director thirty years later. This was in 1790 and she died eight years later. She did not have to burn the prophecies at all. It is a bizarre thing to do. This is a classic excuse for making a new book full of prophecies made after the event or prophecies that are good guesses that look better if they were allegedly made years before the indications of where things are going today came about.

None of the prophecies listed in the Dupont book have been inexplicably fulfilled.

Page 69, Emmerick says that one day the Church will all into total immorality and the true faith will exist only in a few places and be reduced to handful of families. Obedience is not due to heretical bishops or even heretical popes so schism would be the result.

Jesus would not tell her such a thing for it would lead only to schism and indeed has led to the formation of many dissident Catholic Churches today – eg the formation of the True Catholic Church and the Society of St Pius V. Dupont neglected to inform us that this Lady’s revelations have been altered by her secretary Clemens Brentano (Twenty Questions about Medjugorje, page 18). Obviously, if she really had received visions from God, God would have been able to preserve them.

Chapter 4 is on Nostradamus and it approves of the astrology he used to develop his prophetic quatrains. Dupont says that a verse saying that America will reign under the sign of Libra and shall have power in the sky and land and shall stand against Asian enemy nations until seven popes have died. He assumes that the Hesperides in the original means America but there is no basis for this but Greek mythology and America wasn’t even discovered when the Greeks wrote. And the prophecy has failed for the seven pontificates have passed and America still reigns.

He says that the prophecies are extremely hard to make sense of until the events are past (page 99). So you could make them mean any number of things.

Nostradamus used symbolism a lot which confuses things further.

Nostradamus was alleged to have meant by, “at forty-five and others from forty-one, forty-two and thirty-seven” (page 99) the degrees of latitude where the Anglo-Americans went to when they landed at Salerno and Naples. But in Dupont’s comment he changes the order. Forty-five is put last. Nostradamus, if he was a prophet, would have put them in chronological order. Why do well when it only takes a few seconds to do better? The “and others” proves he was intending to be chronological. If he had given the latitudes he would have given the longitudes too. Dupont says he named Sicily but under a symbol. If he did that what would he give the latitude for?

The 41 and 42 cannot stand for latitude when they landed at Naples and Salerno which are between the two lines and not on them. Nostradamus would have said he did not mean the lines but between them.

If there are strange coincidences it does not take a miracle to explain them.

 
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
 
Ballinspittle, Moving Statues and Faith, Tim Ryan and Jurek Kirakowski, Mercier Press, Dublin, 1985
Beauraing and Other Apparitions, Fr Herbert Thurston, Burns, Oates & Washbourne, London, 1934
Believing in God, PJ McGrath, Millington Books in Association with Wolfhound, Dublin, 1995
Bernadette of Lourdes, Rev CC Martindale, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1970
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1985
Catholic Prophecy, The Coming Chastisement Yves Dupont, TAN, Illinois, 1973
Comparative Miracles, Fr Robert D Smith, B. Herder Book Co, St Louis, Mo, 1965
Counterfeit Miracles, BB Warfield, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1995
Cults and Fanatics, Colin & Damon Wilson, Siena, London, 1996
Divine Mercy in My Soul, Sr M Faustina Kowalska, Marian Press, Massachusetts, 1987
Eleven Lourdes Miracles, Dr D J West, Duckworth, London, 1957
Evidence of Satan in the Modern World, Leon Cristiani, TAN, Illinois, 1974
From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls, Walter Vandereycken and Ron van Deth, Athlone Press, London, 1996
Fatima in Lucia’s own Words, Sr Lucia, Postulation Centre, Fatima, 1976
Fatima Revealed…And Discarded, Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, Augustine, Devon, 1988
From the Visions of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, Topic Newspapers, Mullingar, undated
Garabandal, a Message for the World, Ave Maria Publications, Middleton, Co Armagh
Introduction to the Devout Life, St Francis de Sales, Burns Oates and Washbourne Limited, London, 1952
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM, London, 1969
Miracles, Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Mother of Nations, Joan Ashton, Veritas, Dublin, 1988
New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Objections to Roman Catholicism, Edited by Michael de la Bedoyere, Constable, London, 1964
Our Lady of Beauraing, Rev J.A. Shields, M.A., D.C.L., M.H. Gill and Son, Ltd., Dublin, 1958
Padre Pio, Patrick O Donovan, Catholic Truth Society, London
Please Come Back to Me and My Son R Vincnet, Ireland’s Eye, Mullingar, 1992
Powers of Darkness, Powers of Light, John Cornwell, London, 1992
Rosa Mystica, Franz Speckbacher, Divine Mercy Publications, Dublin, 1986
San Damiano, S di Maria, The Marian Centre, Hungerford, 1983
Spiritual Healing, Martin Daulby and Caroline Mathison, Geddes & Grosset, New Lanark, Scotland, 1998
St Catherine Laboure of the Miraculous Medal, Fr Joseph I Dirvin C.M., Tan, Illinois, 1984
The Apparition at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence, Fr Michael Walsh, St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, Co Galway, 1959
The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, Rene Laurentin, Veritas, Dublin 1990
The Appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Grotto of Lourdes, JB Estrade, Art & Book Company Ltd, Westminster, 1912
The Autobiography of St Margaret Mary, TAN, Illinois, 1986
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Cult of the Virgin Mary, Michael P Carroll, Princeton University Press, 1986
The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary, Kevin McClure Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1985
The Exaltation of the Virgin Mary, by Rev S.G. Poyntz, M.A., B.D., Association for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Dublin, 1955
The Holy Shroud and Four Visions, Rev Patrick O Connell and Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
The Holy Shroud and the Visions of Maria Valtorta, Msgr Vincenzo Celli, Kolbe Publications Inc., Sheerbrooke, California, 1994
The Incorruptibles, Joan Carroll Cruz, Tan, Illinois, 1977
The Medjugorje Deception, E Michael Jones, Fidelity Press, Indiana, 1998
The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, Fr Herbert Thurston, Burns, Oates & Washbourne, London, 1952
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Supernatural A-Z, James Randi, Headline Books, London, 1995
The Thunder of Justice, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL, Vancouver, 1993
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London, 1998 Twenty Questions about Medjugorje Kevin Orlin Johnson Ph.D, Pangaeus, Dallas, 1999
The Two Divine Promises, Fr Roman Hoppe, TAN, Illinois, 1987
The Virgin of the Poor, Damian Walne and Joan Flory, CTS, London, 1983   
The Way of Divine Love, Sr Josefa Mendenez, TAN, Illinois, 1980
The Wonder of Guadalupe, Francis Johnson, Augustine, Devon, 1981
To the Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons, Fr Gobbi, The Marian Movement of Priests, St Paul’s Press, Athlone, 1991