In his Fatima: A Spiritual Light for Our Times, Fr. Karl Stehlin recounted the messages of Our Lady of Fatima to the three children of Fatima on October 13, 1917:

“I want a chapel to be built here in My honor. I am Our Lady of the Rosary. Continue to say the Rosary every day. The war will end soon and the soldiers will return to their homes.”

“People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more for He is already too much offended.”

The Miracle of the Sun which occurred after the Blessed Virgin Mary delivered these messages to the three children certainly helped people trust the visions and accompanying messages reported by the three children. Their willingness to believe the latter message — that people must stop offending Our Lord — was also greatly aided by something we no longer have: a Church hierarchy that still believed and taught that Our Lord is offended by sin.

Thus, the October 13, 1962 act of rebellion to open the Council paved the way for a complete overturning of much of what most Catholics before Vatican II would have known as the immutable Faith.

We know that the Catholic Church was already under attack by Freemasonry, Liberalism, and Modernism in 1917, but most ordinary Catholics would have known that they needed to believe and practice the immutable Catholic Faith if they wanted to save their souls. As such, they would have seen the events of October 13, 1962 and October 13, 2024 described below as ominous signs of the apostasy at the top of the Church apparently foretold by the Third Secret of Fatima.

October 13, 1962

In his Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II, Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen described how the liberal Council Fathers hijacked the process to elect members to the Council’s various commissions, who were responsible for drafting and revising the Council’s official documents:

“After the Mass which opened the first General Congregation on October 13, the Council Fathers received three booklets prepared by the General Secretariat. The first contained a complete listing of Council Fathers, all of whom were eligible for office unless they already held some position. The second listed the Council Fathers who had taken part in the various preparatory commissions of the Council. This was the so-called ‘Curial’ list which had caused so much agitation among the German bishops. As the General Secretariat later explained, the list was prepared simply as an aid to Council Fathers so that they could see who already had had experience in particular fields. But since all preparatory commission members originally had been appointed to office by the Holy See, some Council Fathers resented this list. The third booklet contained ten pages with sixteen consecutively numbered blanks on each page, on which the Council Fathers were to enter the candidates of their choice. Each of the ten Council commissions was to be presided over by a cardinal appointed by the Pope, and to consist of twenty-four members, two thirds elected by the Council Fathers and one third appointed by the Pope.”

Before considering Fr. Wiltgen’s narration of what happened next, it is worthwhile to add some background details from Peter Seewald’s Benedict XVI: A Life Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965, about why some Council Fathers “resented” the list of Council Fathers who had served on the preparatory commissions. As theologian for Cardinal Josef Frings at the Council, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI) prepared expert reports on the schemas (initial drafts of the Council documents) which had been prepared by the preparatory commissions. Frings was so alarmed by Ratzinger’s highly critical reports that he arranged for an October 10th meeting at Santa Maria dell’ Anima (the “Anima”), in the Piazza Navona, for Ratzinger to present his reports to various Central European Council Fathers. Seewald described the impact of Ratzinger’s presentation on the voting for commission members:

“The coup that took shape after Ratzinger’s presentation was perhaps not planned at general staff level. However, it was far from being an impulse of the moment, as Frings wanted it to be interpreted afterwards. . . . The meeting in the Anima was not a gathering of conspirators. But all present were concerned with the question of the pre-planned approval of a pre-arranged membership list for the committees, which reinforced the Curia’s influence on the Council. Could that be blocked? And thereby also block those documents which, not only in Ratzinger’s eyes, had given the Council a wrong direction?”

With this background, we can return to Fr. Wiltgen’s narration of the vote on the membership for the Council’s commissions:

"Archbishop Pericle Felici, Secretary General of the Council, was explaining the election procedures to the assembled Fathers in his fluent Latin when Cardinal Liénart, who served as one of the ten Council Presidents, seated at a long table at the front of the Council hall, rose in his place and asked to speak. He expressed his conviction that the Council Fathers needed more time to study the qualifications of the various candidates. After consultations among the national episcopal conferences, he explained, everyone would know who were the most qualified candidates, and it would be possible to vote intelligently. He requested a few days’ delay in the balloting. The suggestion was greeted with applause, and, after a moment’s silence, Cardinal Frings rose to second the motion. He, too, was applauded. After hurried consultation with Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, who as first of the Council Presidents was conducting the meeting, Archbishop Felici announced that the Council Presidency had acceded to the request of the two cardinals. The meeting was adjourned until 9 A.M. on Tuesday, October 16.”

Later that afternoon, Cardinal Frings gathered together like-minded cardinals — including Lienart, Frings, Alfrink, Dopfner, and Konig — to formulate their “international list” of suitable candidates. As Seewald described, their efforts paid off: “In the end the coup succeeded: 79 of the 109 candidates on the ‘international list’ were elected.”

Ambongo reassured his audience that they could triumph over the Evil One by using their special “weapons of synodality”: “which require unity, walking together, discernment in prayer, mutual listening and what the Spirit has to say to us.”

To appreciate the staggering impact of this coup, we can simply consider the reactions of four of the Council’s most influential liberals, including Ratzinger:

Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens. “This was indeed a brilliant and dramatic turn of events an audacious infringement of existing regulations! . . . To a large extent, the future of the Council was decided at that moment. John XXIII was very pleased.” (Suenens, Memories and Hopes)

Fr. Yves Congar. “This little point was important. To begin with, all points of procedure are important: they involve the work of a group. In this case, the principal importance rests in the fact that THIS IS THE FIRST CONCILIAR ACT, a refusal to accept even the possibility of a prefabrication.” (Congar, My Journal of the Council)

Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. “The Council had shown its resolve to act independently and autonomously, rather than be degraded to the status of a mere executive organ of the preparatory commissions.” (Benedict XVI, Theological Highlights of Vatican II)

Fr. Henri de Lubac. “This dramatic little episode is spoken of as a victory of the bishops over the Holy Office. Other victories will no doubt be more difficult.” (de Lubac, Vatican Council Notebooks Volume One)

Thus, the October 13, 1962 act of rebellion to open the Council paved the way for a complete overturning of much of what most Catholics before Vatican II would have known as the immutable Faith. If those who had witnessed the Miracle of the Sun in 1917 had been granted a vision of what transpired forty-five years later at the beginning of the Council, many would have understood that the Church was being eclipsed by its enemies.

October 13, 2023

In his February 14, 2013 farewell address to the clergy of Rome, Benedict XVI recounted the fateful coup to begin Vatican II:

“So off we went to the Council not just with joy but with enthusiasm. There was an incredible sense of expectation. We were hoping that all would be renewed, that there would truly be a new Pentecost, a new era of the Church . . . . On the programme for this first day were the elections of the Commissions, and lists of names had been prepared, in what was intended to be an impartial manner, and these lists were put to the vote. But straight away the Fathers said: No, we do not simply want to vote for pre-prepared lists. We are the subject. Then, it was necessary to postpone the elections, because the Fathers themselves wanted to begin to get to know each other, they wanted to prepare the lists themselves. And so it was. Cardinal Liénart of Lille and Cardinal Frings of Cologne had said publicly: no, not this way. We want to make our own lists and elect our own candidates. It was not a revolutionary act, but an act of conscience, an act of responsibility on the part of the Council Fathers.”

In this same address, Benedict spoke admiringly of Congar and de Lubac, both of whom had been suspected of heresy under Pius XII; both of whom had applauded the October 13, 1962 coup inspired by Ratzinger’s talk a few days beforehand. Was Benedict XVI  simply naive in thinking that his fellow enthusiasts for change — including Lienart (a Freemason) — had good intentions?

Until Vatican II, the Church appeared stable in its doctrines — as the true Church must always be — much to the displeasure of men like Congar, de Lubac, Suenens, and even Ratzinger.

Eight years later, Benedict XVI’s successor also spoke admiringly of the heretic Congar. In his October 9, 2021 address to open the Synod on Synodality, Francis announced to the world his intention to create a different church:

“Dear brothers and sisters, may this Synod be a true season of the Spirit!  For we need the Spirit, the ever new breath of God, who sets us free from every form of self-absorption, revives what is moribund, loosens shackles and spreads joy.  The Holy Spirit guides us where God wants us to be, not to where our own ideas and personal tastes would lead us.  Father Congar, of blessed memory, once said: ‘There is no need to create another Church, but to create a different Church’ (True and False Reform in the Church).  That is the challenge.  For a ‘different Church,’ a Church open to the newness that God wants to suggest, let us with greater fervour and frequency invoke the Holy Spirit and humbly listen to him, journeying together as he, the source of communion and mission, desires: with docility and courage.”

For the next two years, the Synod on Synodality process did indeed lay the foundation and framework for a “different church,” such that on the eve of the October 2023 Synodal gathering the following features were clearly visible:

• The different church is called the “Synodal Church.”
• All baptized Christians — most of whom are not Catholics — are members of the Synodal Church.
• Whereas the Catholic Church safeguards the beliefs Our Lord entrusted to it, the Synodal Church discovers its beliefs from the “living consensus of the whole body.”
• The Synodal Church refrains from imposing Catholic moral judgments about sin, instead “walking together” with people and telling them God loves them “as they are.”

By the time the Synod on Synodality reconvened in Rome in October 2023, most attention was focused on whether the Synod would take steps to promote the LGTBQ agenda or allow the ordination of women. As a general matter, many Traditional Catholics did not pay much attention to the fact that the Synod had essentially created the “different church” announced by Francis two years earlier.

As such, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo’s homily at the Mass in St. Peter’s on October 13, 2023 did not receive much attention from Traditional Catholics. However, we can try to consider how the simple Catholics who had witnessed the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima in 1917 would have reacted to these words from Cardinal Ambongo’s homily:

• “Today's responsorial psalm invites us to give thanks to God; and we have many reasons to thank (give thanks) to God. One of the reasons is undoubtedly the grace of this synodal path, which we are traveling as a Church, guided by the Holy Spirit. This synod on synodality is the new Pentecost, which will certainly renew the Church in the communion of its members and in the active participation of all in the life and mission of the Church.”
• “Dear brothers and sisters, if we have the courage to look at our current reality as a Church, it will not be difficult to see to what extent the Evil One is at work and influences our way of being and acting. The Evil One wants to see us divided, he might even use some of us for his cause.”
• “This is why we must courageously fight the Evil One, using in particular the weapons of synodality, which require unity, walking together, discernment in prayer, mutual listening and what the Spirit has to say to us.”
• “We are called to fight this powerful adversary with an equally powerful weapon at our disposal, which is the Holy Spirit, protagonist of this new way of being Church - the synodal Church.”
• “May the Eucharist that we offer here at Peter's tomb open us to listening to the Holy Spirit. May it move the synodal Church from dream to reality, from words to concrete life where we will be able to walk together in communion, participation and mission.”

According to Cardinal Ambongo, the Synod on Synodality is a “new Pentecost” that will “move” the Synodal Church “from dream to reality” so that the members of that new church can “walk together in communion, participation and mission.” But, according to Ambongo, the “Evil One” uses some (including perhaps some gathered in St. Peter’s) to cause division in the Synod: by this he evidently had in mind those, like Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who criticized the Synod. But Ambongo reassured his audience that they could triumph over the Evil One by using their special “weapons of synodality”: “which require unity, walking together, discernment in prayer, mutual listening and what the Spirit has to say to us.”

Now, with Francis, we see something truly terrifying: by openly partnering with the demonic globalists to wage war on Catholics and civilization, the Synodal Church now resembles the blood red sun advancing threateningly upon the earth to destroy us.

All of this would be blasphemous even if the Synod was led by those who otherwise held to immutable Catholic teaching; the fact that it is instead led by anti-Catholic heretics makes it absolutely diabolical. If simple Catholics in 1917 had been shown a vision of what transpired in St. Peter’s on October 13, 2023, they would have seen evidence of the great apostasy at the top of the Church, as apparently foretold by the still hidden Third Secret of Fatima. Perhaps they would have been equally horrified to realize that relatively few Catholics seemed to even notice the blasphemies from an important Cardinal in St. Peter’s.

In a certain sense, we are experiencing something resembling the terrifying portion of the Miracle of the Sun, as described by one of the witnesses, Dr. Almeida Garrett:

“Then, suddenly, one heard a clamor, a cry of anguish breaking from all the people. The sun, whirling wildly, seemed all at once to loosen itself from the firmament and, blood red, advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was truly terrible.”

Until Vatican II, the Church appeared stable in its doctrines — as the true Church must always be — much to the displeasure of men like Congar, de Lubac, Suenens, and even Ratzinger. All that began to change dramatically on October 13, 1962 with the coup carried out by Lienart and Frings. From that point, the Church appeared to “dance around,” following the whims of the anti-Catholic world rather than anchored in the immutable truth God entrusted to His Church. Now, with Francis, we see something truly terrifying: by openly partnering with the demonic globalists to wage war on Catholics and civilization, the Synodal Church now resembles the blood red sun advancing threateningly upon the earth to destroy us.

Just as it was terrifying on October 13, 1917 to see the sun falling from the sky, it is terrifying now if we see the situation in the Church with eyes of the Faith. But, as the Miracle of the Sun ended with the sun restored to its normal position, we know that Our Lady of Fatima told the children that Her Immaculate Heart would eventually triumph. We should not lose hope or courage. Now is the time to truly do all we can to comply with Our Lady of Fatima’s requests, especially by avoiding sin, faithfully reciting the Rosary, and avoiding everything — including the Synodal Church — that offends God. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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