Fr. Gruner: “We are in the time of the Apostasy”
The following are excerpts from an interview with Father Nicholas Gruner (may he rest in peace) from the Fatima Crusader issue 82:
The Blessed Virgin gave a Message in 1917 and a very important part of the Message is in that Secret. She wants us to have the Secret so we can save our souls.
The basis of our salvation, among other things, is the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is being undermined and the Blessed Virgin knows that. She sees us in danger and She speaks up. But where does She tell us this? Its in the Secret. She sees that our eternal salvation is in great jeopardy and if She can give us the knowledge that we need to know, we would be alerted. We would be on our guard.
The fact is, She's telling us that one-third of the clergy are working for the devil. We know that from what John Paul II said on May 13, 2000. The Secret talks about the apostasy in the Church being led from the top, which snares one-third of the Catholic clergy to work for the devil. As a result of those clergy working for the devil, many souls are going to go to hell that would not otherwise go to Hell.
If the faithful knew that the Secret said that, they would at least be on their guard to not listen to everyone just because they have a collar on. Now someone might ask, “Well, what about you, Father Gruner?” My answer is simple: “Just measure if what I'm telling you is the same as what the Catholic Church has always taught.”
Are there Cardinals, bishops and priests saying things against the Faith? It would seem so. For example, Cardinal Kasper said in February 2001 “... today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return by which the others would be ‘converted’ and return to being ‘Catholics’. This was expressly abandoned at Vatican II.” This teaching of Cardinal Kasper is directly contrary to the thrice-defined infallible Catholic dogma, “outside the Church there is no salvation.”
This and other statements are scandalous. Cardinal Kasper should be defrocked, never mind just be demoted as a Cardinal. He should be reduced to a layman for the things he's saying. But it's not happening.
That is why Sister Lucy tells us: “We should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means and the world has not paid attention.”
Too many Catholics think, well, I'm okay; I'm doing what the Catholic clergy are telling me to do. In these extraordinary times, sadly, this is not the criteria to follow. In today's apostasy, do not measure what are acceptable Catholic statements and behavior by what people are doing in the chancery office, or in the Vatican. Our criteria, rather, must be to measure all things by what the Catholic Church has always taught.
We are in the time of the apostasy and Cardinal Ciappi identified that the Third Secret talks about the apostasy in the Church beginning at the top. He says, “the" apostasy. There's only one “the" apostasy which is talked about in Sacred Scripture. And we are living in that time right now. We've had Sacred Scripture for 2000 years, but Our Lady of Fatima is saying that prophecy applies to today.
This is why you, particularly at this time, have to be on guard. Its not that the Catholics of previous ages didn't have to be on guard; but today, now that the apostasy is upon us, we must be on guard. Sister Lucy herself, in her interview with Father Fuentes on December 26, 1957, before she was silenced said, “the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle."
The Holy Bible tells us one of the four sins crying to Heaven for vengeance is the sin of sodomy, the sin of homosexuality. The fact that the devil has been able to succeed in getting a number of clergy to practice this despicable lifestyle shows how strong he has been. And the fact that they've been able to hide themselves for this long while spreading the corruption within the clergy, shows how much we are in danger.
Some priests are confused or mistaken and are not necessarily working for the devil, but one-third of them are. And so we have to distinguish between them. We cannot follow anyone who teaches false doctrine, even if they are of good intent, even if they are ignorant.
Its not inconceivable that even a Pope can teach false doctrine. And this is not against the teaching of infallibility. Pope John XXII, in the years 1330-1334, preached heresy; but he didn't teach it to the whole Church. He did not invoke his infallibility. In fact, John XXII was corrected over several years by concerned theologians who were faithful to perennial Catholic truth. He recanted and disowned his prior false teaching before he died in 1334. Can a Pope teach false doctrine? Yes, it can happen. It has happened in the past, and not in the case of John XXII alone. Its rare, but it does happen.
In this time of Apostasy, since 1960, we're living in the period of the Third Secret, and Cardinal Ciappi tells us that the Third Secret warns us of the Apostasy. Apostasy is a Greek word which means “rebellion”. A Scripture scholar pointed out to me that the great apostasy predicted in Scripture will be a widespread falling away from both belief in the Catholic Faith as well as the refusal to live as good Catholics.
Having false doctrine in the place of the true Faith leads you to Apostasy. But some will say, “Well, I'm a good person, I don't understand all this doctrine stuff, I believe what I believe. As long as we're good people, we'll go to Heaven. What do we need all these little doctrinal points for?”
In answer, remember Our Lord said to Pilate, “Its for this reason I came into the world to witness to the truth.” The point is that Our Lord died as a witness to the truth. So the truth is important. Doctrine, that is, the truth revealed by God, is important.
Why is it the people of our age are falling into Apostasy? Because they have not loved the truth. So God, Himself, is sending a deceiving influence among the people, because they do not love the truth. (2 Thess. 2:10) The truth is a primary value. If we do not love the truth, then everything else we do counts for nothing. We have to love the truth. We have to seek the truth.
Bishop Amaral, the former Bishop of Fatima, after consulting Sister Lucy, speaking about the Third Secret, said it does not concern 55-20 missiles but rather, it concerns the Faith. So what does the annihilation of nations mean? The physical annihilation is a terrible thing and I don't wish to minimize it, but it cannot begin to be compared with the eternal loss of souls.
So if a country, for example, gets annihilated by missiles, certainly people die and they suffer a horrible death; but if they're in a state of grace, they go to Heaven and have achieved their destiny for all eternity. On the other hand, if they've apostatized, that is, those who have been baptized and accepted Christ and then they deny Him, refuse his teaching, and say it doesn't matter; then their soul will go to Hell for all eternity.
And so, the apostasy of a nation is much worse than the annihilation of a nation. And the apostasy of a continent is worse than the apostasy of a nation. The Third Secret talks about entire nations apostatizing and losing the Faith. I've worked at this for 28 years to save nations from being annihilated; but much more so, for the salvation of souls, so they don't apostatize.
As it is, mostly everyone is sliding gradually into apostasy, with no one raising their voice; except the Blessed Virgin Mary. She came to Fatima to warn us. She sees us in danger of losing our souls. She sees that the very basis of our salvation is being undermined. Yes, She raises Her voice, but the very people She entrusts it to, have silenced it.
That is why, according to Malachi Martin, She came to Garabandal. Now, while the bishop of Garabandal said he did not believe the apparitions were supernatural, he nevertheless said there was nothing in the message of Garabandal that was contrary to the Faith and morals, and that it promoted pious practices approved by the Church such as, praying the Rosary, wearing the Scapular of Mount Carmel, visits to the Blessed Sacrament and of praying for Catholic priests. And since Malachi Martin knew the Third Secret and knew the Message of Garabandal, he is telling us the Third Secret is contained in the Garabandal message. The most stunning thing in Garabandal is the statement that “many Cardinals, bishops and priests are going to Hell and dragging many more souls with them”.
Today, modernism has run rampant. According to St. Pius X, modernism is the amalgamation of all the heresies. It is the sewer of all the heresies, all coming together against us, and we are living through this attack right now and as a result modernism has entered into many members of the Church today and they don't even know it.
Some of them are in good faith and some of them are in bad faith, but don't be surprised that you find somebody, even in good faith, spewing off some modernistic heresy. We are surrounded by it. We need a special inoculation; Our Lady gave us the inoculation. She says, “Here's a prescription, pray your Rosary every day.”
