These Last Days News - March 4, 2024
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‘The Church Is Always the Target’: Why Archbishop Cordileone Wants New Emphasis on the Martyrs of Communism...

TO REMOVE CHRISTIANITY
"One arm of the octopus is communism, atheistic communism. This arm of the octopus will promote discontent, revolution, death. This arm of the octopus will seek to remove Christianity from the earth. O woe unto a man who joins this force!" - Our Lady, June 10, 1978

The above Messages from Our Lord were given to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, New York. Read more

PillarCatholic.com reported on February 29, 2024:

The Archbishop of San Francisco told The Pillar this week that more needs to be done to mark the witness of heroic Catholics who oppose totalitarian regimes in countries like Nicaragua and China.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s remarks came as the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Benedict XVI Institute launches a new project to commemorate the martyrs of Communism.

Throughout the 20th century, many cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, and lay people have suffered persecution at the hands of Marxist totalitarian regimes. 

The persecution continues today in countries like China and Nicaragua, where the government places harsh restrictions on the practice of the faith, and jails Catholics for witnessing to religious freedom and to human dignity.

While many of these martyrs are commemorated nation by nation, under the categories like the “martyrs of China,” the institute says that categorization, while logical, tends to bury what these martyrs and other heroes have in common: that these men and women of faith stood up before the totalitarian ideologies that spread across the globe in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Speaking to The Pillar, Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone explained why he sees a need to recognize, commemorate and celebrate the witness of the martyrs of Communism worldwide, and what he thinks they can teach the Church about enduring persecution.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Archbishop, you're launching a project to remember the “Martyrs of Communism.” This might strike a lot of people as being a sort of 20th century thing. Is this about remembering the past?

Past and present. These Marxist totalitarian ideologies, they take different manifestations, but they're all about the state controlling and oppressing people who would voice objections. Communism is the most explicit form and it takes other forms as well. 

That's certainly going on in the world today a lot. You see what's happening in China, what's happening in Nicaragua. It's still with us today.

And do you think that this is something that's of particular impact on the Church, or does the Church have a particular role to play in witnessing against this kind of oppression?

It's both. 

There is a particular impact on the Church. The Church is always the one targeted by these regimes because the Church is willing to give voice to the voiceless and defend the poor. And poor people tend to have faith and they trust the Church. 

The power of faith can withstand, as St. John Paul II showed us, can topple these brutal regimes. It's the one thing that's in the way of these dictators so they always try to take down the Church.

When people talk about "Communism" and communist regimes, the term can become a catch-all for anything that smacks of sort of left-wing economic policies. 

But what does the Church have to say about actual Communism, and real remedies for the poor versus the sort of regimes that you're highlighting?

In our country, we have these debates about big government, small government, socialist policies, free market capitalism. The Church's answer is subsidiarity. It's that the people at the local level are the ones that know the situation best, can make the best judgments. And so they're the ones that need to be empowered to do that. When they're not able to, then the higher society then supports them in order to do that. So the bailouts during COVID for example, would be an example of that. 

I think that's the Church's response to it. It's neither all collectivism or all individualism. It's this sense of subsidiary. Let the society that's most connected to the people be the one to give the care and governance for them.

In terms of human dignity and solidarity, what to your mind is the Church's chief witness that it offers that, for example, a Marxist style government doesn't recognize and can't offer?

That people do not exist for the sake of the state — that their whole identity is not bound up in the identity of the state. 

But also, if the Church would in a social teaching favor a kind of a principled sort of a free market economy [then] it is one that's principled. If it's unshackled for principles, that also becomes dehumanizing where it ends up being the same thing where people are used as a means to an end. We do whatever we can to make a profit. 

Sadly, we see that happening in our country today that whatever makes a profit is what's good and what is done. And if people are harmed in the process, they want to get away with it anyway. We see abortion has turned into an industry in this country — it's the billion-dollar industry.

We are spiritual as well as physical beings, but we're also social beings. We work out our salvation within the context of society and the workplace is one of the privileged places we do that, where we can use our talents and our skills and our hard work to not only make money to support our families, but to contribute to the common good.

When you speak of the martyrs of communism in the Church, who for you comes particularly to mind?

Do you have a particular saint or martyr, or class of saint or martyr to which you’re particularly devoted?

Most of the ones I think of are not ones who actually died, but were severely persecuted. 

One of my great heroes has always been Father Walter Ciszek. I've read his accounts with God and Russia. He inspires me with what he went through. 

The great bishops and cardinals during the Soviet regime and under the Nazis as well — Nazis, let us remember, we like to call it a “right-wing” ideology, but remember what it's a contraction for: national socialism. So again, it's essentially the same thing. 

So people like the [Clemens] von Galen's, Cardinal Mindszenty’s, the Karol Wojtyła’s, those have always been great heroes of mine. A couple of years ago I was preaching about Fr. Anton Lull, an Albanian priest. I heard him give his testimony in the Paul VI Audience Hall in 1996. That's the year John Paul celebrated his 50th anniversary of priesthood and he invited all the priests in the world ordained that year to celebrate it with him.

A friend of mine from the diocese I was from was in that class, so he came so I was able to be at these events. And it was Fr. Anton Lull, he was ordained in ‘46, right before Christmas. He was arrested by the communist regime in Albania and put into prison. And that was where he spent his second Christmas as a priest. And for the next about 20 years, he was in solitary confinement most of that time. 

It's just horrendous, the stories they had to share, but he was nonetheless a man of great joy. He was beaten, he was persecuted, he was tortured. He slept in basically a bathroom, feces on the floor. Then he said after he was released, he ran into one of the guards who persecuted him on the street, and he said, “I embraced him and forgave him.” 

These are the heroes who have always inspired me, and those are the ones that come to mind when you ask for who I think of.

You've asked the Benedict XVI Institute, which is an institution you created, to look at a multi-year project, telling the stories of these martyrs. Is this about encouraging pious devotion? Or is it also about public education? 

I know there was a poll you have cited that suggested that something like 30% of “Gen Z” now have a favorable view of Marxism. That must be alarming to you.

It is alarming. I just heard yesterday some young people being interviewed on NPR about their attitudes, about what's happening in the political world. And one of the concerns was [against] parents having a say in what their children are taught in school. So yes, it is alarming to me. 

So devotion, yes. But I'd say primarily it's about education. We need to keep these memories alive and we need to appreciate these legacies. We can't let these memories die. Otherwise, as the saying goes, “We're doomed to repeat it.” 

So we want to keep it alive and we want to honor them. These are such heroes of the faith. And so yeah, we want to educate people about this.

How do you see this program of education taking shape? The Benedict XVI Institute is primarily a center for the arts and for liturgy. 

Yes. Well, we're going to use all the different areas of the arts. The first one will be a Mass I'm celebrating in Miami on March 15th. 

This sort of evolved from something we commissioned at the B16 Institute as a working Mass for the Homeless, that our composing residents wrote. Then James Matthew Wilson, our poet in residence, wrote a poem that became lyrics for a hymn for the martyrs of Ukraine. So we expanded the project into a requiem Mass for the Forgotten — people who are forgotten by society, either because they're poor and outcasts, like the homeless, or they're persecuted by governments, or they're drug addicts, or whatever the situation might be, it's a Requiem Mass for the Forgotten. And we will be premiering this hymn to the Ukrainian martyrs at that mass.

And for Catholics who have their interests piqued by all of this, how can they support or take part in what you’re doing?

I would like them to stay connected with our Benedict XVI Institute, we're still in the planning stages. This is the first sort of launch of it, of the whole project. But they can go online at benedictinstitute.org and follow the news of our “Martyrs of Communism” project.

People might think it's strange to look at it this way, “Martyrs of Communism,” but this is what's unique, right? The Church has always categorized martyrs by their nationality. the Korean martyrs, the Vietnamese martyrs, Chinese martyrs, the Mexican martyrs. But this is a little different. We're grouping them because they're all victims of this kind of ideology that persecutes the Church and persecutes the leaders in the Church who are willing to speak out against those who are being harmed by the regime. 

These different kinds of Marxist ideologies in the 20th and now 21st century, this is what they all have in common.

It's a legacy we need to remember to honor, and we need to emulate their example of courage.

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Your country, America the beautiful, shall know hunger. Your country, America the beautiful, shall know revolution.  The just shall be crucified.  Evil shall run rampant, My children.  This curse upon mankind is allowed for the redemption of those few who shall be saved.  My children, I have warned you through countless visitations upon earth to mend your ways that offend the Eternal Father very much.” – Our Lady, June 1, 1978

INTO SLAVERY
"My children, My Son has given you the way. He is the way. The rules were simple. Pastors in My Son's churches, you do not read your Book of life, the Bible. You are too busy committing yourselves to pleasure; you are too busy indulging your mortal appetites; you are too busy being deluded by satan with all rules of modernism and humanism and secularism-all of the 'isms,' My children, that are leading you to communism.
   "O My children, recognize, I repeat, the signs of your times. You are fast selling yourselves into slavery." - Our Lady, July 25, 1977

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ENSLAVED
"My children, no country now shall be free from the evils of communism. My heart is torn, for I have come to you in countless appearances upon earth to warn you as Our children to avoid compromise with the enemies of God, though they come to you with smooth tongues, rationalizing their behavior. And because man has fallen out of grace, he will accept these lies and become enslaved." - Our Lady, May 13, 1978

FIFTH COLUMN
"There is, My children, a great conspiracy of evil now throughout your world-the forces, the columns of evil. Man has given them many names-the fifth column. They have been broken up into political parties, including communism. O My children, they are but small arms of the octopus, the gigantic conspiracy of evil that will unite your world and My Son's Church under the rule of despots!
   "There is in Rome, My children, a great struggle for power, a political machine controlled by satan. There shall be a war of the spirits. It shall be bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal." - Our Lady, May 15, 1976

TO REMOVE CHRISTIANITY
"One arm of the octopus is communism, atheistic communism. This arm of the octopus will promote discontent, revolution, death. This arm of the octopus will seek to remove Christianity from the earth. O woe unto a man who joins this force!" - Our Lady, June 10, 1978

ONE PLAN IN MIND
"There is now a plan in the national and international seat of satan . . . . It is a group, My child, that is united with other groups throughout the world. They have one plan in mind: to bring about the fall of all nations and the introduction of communism to all nations, by destroying the young with drugs and all manners of debasity." - Our Lady, June 18, 1987

IN THE MILLIONS
"My child and My children, prayer has not become a way of life for many. That is why communism has got such a foothold in your country and in other countries of the world. The prayers given to you in your childhood will be remembered always, I know, My children; but there are those who have not received these prayers in their schools, for prayer has been outlawed in many areas of your country and the world. It took but a few without faith to bring down the flag, for even your country's flag is being defiled, My children. I speak both of the United States and Canada, for when the great tribulation falls upon them, they will have to hold each other up; for they cannot escape through the waters to get help. They will not escape through the skies, but the number of dead will be counted in the millions." - Our Lady, October 2, 1987

COLD DAY
"The Eternal Father has the Ball poised in His hand; your end can come by day. It will come upon you quickly, and how many shall be prepared? Do you have your candles? Do you have your water, your canned food, and your blankets? It will become an extremely cold day with the start of the Tribulation, and you will welcome having these on hand, My children. Do not take this lightly, but abide by Our direction and you shall not be caught short of provisions."  - Jesus, November 1, 1985

"I PROMISE TO PROTECT"
"The hours, the holy hour I requested of you will continue on the Lord's Day. This will continue until the great tribulation. I promise to protect all those who are upon My grounds when this great tribulation comes upon you." - Our Lady, December 30, 1972

U.S. SHALL KNOW PHYSICAL HUNGER AND WANT
"My children, do not be concerned of any worldly possession, for soon many shall know hunger. There is a spiritual hunger now in your world and in your hearts, but soon your country, the United States, will join other nations in knowing physical hunger and want.
     "My children, can this be avoided? What price must you pay before you will listen and awaken from your lethargy and realize what has been happening to your country and many countries of the world, as you go along like ducks upon the waters following leaders who have become paganized in their lust for power.
     "Pray, My children, for your governments, your government leaders; and pray always for your clergy, for many have become weak and have given themselves over to material gain, and also a lust for power through pride. Pride is truly a more formidable barrier against holiness and piety than even outright licentiousness. Pride is a sin, and shall keep many from entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.” – Our Lady, November 24, 1979 

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL SHALL KNOW HUNGER AND REVOLUTION
"Your country, America the beautiful, shall know hunger. Your country, America the beautiful, shall know revolution. The just shall be crucified. Evil shall run rampant, My children. This curse upon mankind is allowed for the redemption of those few who shall be saved. My children, I have warned you through countless visitations upon earth to mend your ways that offend the Eternal Father very much.” – Our Lady, June 1, 1978 

EAGLE PLUCKED BARE BY MISREPRESENTATION
"Terror shall grip the nation. I have tried to warn you, My children, that the United States is as like the eagle plucked bare by its enemies, plucked bare by misrepresentation, plucked bare by sin. Your country is very sick, My children.
"You ask Me, My child, why this cannot be stopped? You must now trust in My Son, Jesus. And when you become affrighted, you will say: My Jesus, my confidence!
    "Yes, My child, no war has ever made a pretty picture.” – Our Lady, March 26, 1983

LEADERS: LAX AND CORRUPT
"Women have become immoral; men have debased their bodies. Homosexuality is rampant throughout your country and all the nations of the world. Your leaders are lax and corrupt. There are very few voices with authority crying out against the sins that shall bring destruction upon your nation and many nations of the world.” – Our Lady, July 14, 1979

PRAY FOR LEADERS
"The leaders of your country and the leaders throughout the world have taken upon themselves a measure of sin creating insanity.
     "In the light of the Spirit descending from Heaven, you shall be given the knowledge of truth, My children. Accept it and take it as your candle, for you must now go throughout your world saving your brothers, preparing them for what lies ahead.” – Our Lady, September 13, 1975 

COMPLETE CAPITULATION
"Yes, My children, there are forces now gathering to dim the light in your world, to turn your world over to satan. Already in your country, America the once beautiful, the once strong—America, the United States, that has chosen to cast aside the light and go into darkness—yes, already many of the leaders of your country are falling in with the plan for the complete capitulation of your country to satan and world slavery under a one rule and a one religion. And this religion will have no resemblance to that given to you by My Son.” - Our Lady, February 10, 1978

BEAR ATTACKING THE FALLEN EAGLE
Our Lady - "The eagle is plucked. He will not rise again."
Veronica saw in vision an eagle stretched out flat on his stomach, with his head hanging weakly to the side, struggling to get up. His feathers were all about him, plucked out. There were three creatures by him. Two of them were leaving his vanquished form. These two had the forms of a dragon and a lizard. The lizard had a most unusually long tongue. There was the other creature, the third, that looked like a bear, still beating on the fallen eagle. – July 15, 1970

Directives from Heaven... https://www.tldm.org/directives/directives.htm

D47 - United States (Part 1) PDF
D48 - United States (Part 2) PDF
D103 - Communism   PDF
D104 - Invasion   PDF
D158 - America the Beautiful PDF
D313 - American Cities PDF
D328 - Famine and Hunger  PDF
D329 - Revolution  PDF
D348 - Fall of the Nations  PDF
D356 - U.S. Headed for Destruction  PDF
D368 - Highest Places of Government PDF

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Your names have been written in Heaven... "It is not by accident that you are called by My Mother, for your names have been written in Heaven.... But with this great grace you have great responsibility to send this Message from Heaven throughout the world, for if you are able to recover just one more for Heaven, an additional star shall be placed in your crown." - Jesus, August 5, 1975

A great obligation to go forward... "It is not by accident that you are called by My Mother, for it is by merit and the prayers that have risen to Heaven for your salvation.  For those who have received the grace to hear the Message from Heaven, you have a great obligation to go forward and bring this Message to your brothers and sisters.  Do not expect a rest upon your earth, for you will have eternal rest very soon." - Jesus, June 12, 1976

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