CAN the Catholic Church be found in the buildings — the churches, schools, colleges, social services agencies — that go today by the Catholic name and profess allegiance to Rome?
No, the Catholic Church cannot be found today in these buildings, no matter how beautiful or ancient, because they do not profess the Catholic religion, but a syncretistic, modernist faith and all their priests, bishops and popes since Vatican II have lost their offices because of heresy and apostasy. (See the bull issued by Pope Paul IV in 1559, Cum ex apostolatus officio).
Can the Catholic Church be found in churches, such as those run by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, that offer the Traditional Latin Mass and appear to accept all of Church doctrine while professing allegiance to apostate Rome?
No, the Catholic Church cannot be found in diocesan churches that offer the Traditional Latin Mass because they are in communion with heresy and apostasy and all of their priests are either laymen or clerics who have fallen from office. These alleged clerics profess by the fact of their position a syncretistic creed, not the Catholic faith.
Can the Catholic Church be found in the Society of St. Pius X, which acts in opposition to Rome while at the same time recognizes the authority of the Vatican II hierarchy?
No, the Catholic Church most definitely cannot be found in the Society of St. Pius X because its founder Marcel Lefebvre lost his office when he signed the Vatican II decrees (thereby losing his authority to ordain priests or consecrate bishops) and because the entire society represents a schismatic spirit by defying men it believes to be true popes.
Can the Catholic Church be found in “sedevacantist” or “independent” chapels run by supposed clergy who reject the legitimacy of the Vatican II popes, the modernist religion and its new worship, claiming to offer the faith in all its purity?
No, the Catholic Church cannot be found in these renegade chapels because they operate outside the authority of the Catholic Church, defiantly rejecting the government of the Church, its divine laws and the teaching of the last true pope, Pope Pius XII, who explicitly forbade such novelties during a papal interregnum. (See his apostolic constitution, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis.)
Where then can the Catholic Church be found?
The Catholic Church can be found among those who profess the Catholic faith and refuse all of the above, retaining the remaining practices available to them by Church teaching and participating in all the sacraments, except Holy Orders, by fact (Baptism and Matrimony) or desire (Spiritual Communion and Perfect Contrition), as explicitly approved by the Council of Trent and constant Church tradition.
Isn’t it absurd to claim that the Catholic Church has been reduced to such a few without any clergy at all?
No more “absurd” than to claim that God joined His omnipotent, divine nature with human nature and permitted Himself to be killed in a brutal, bloody manner despite His obvious perfection. This situation today, known as the great apostasy, was foretold by Christ Himself, the apostles and all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Three signs of the great apostasy would be a general disregard for truth, false shepherds devouring their flocks and deception even of the elect. What is absurd about it?
But how can all this be true given that Christ promised to remain with his Church forever?
He has kept his promise and his true Vicars reign in perpetuity.
Why would anyone listen to an uppity layperson like you — a raving nutcase, in fact — who has no authority and no great learning?
I suggest people with a sincere love of truth listen to the true popes of the Catholic Church instead, as well as the Bible, theologians and saints.
For a wealth of helpful information on these matters from infallible Church sources, see here. (Use a translation program to read in English.)
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Because at the consummation of the Jewish nation, Jerusalem was destroyed, which was still perceived as Jerusalem but in reality was not. At the consummation of the world, the Church will be desolate or will be desolate: that is, what is perceived as the Church, not what the Church truly was and is.
—– St. Jerome
… Rome will be the capital of the Antichrist and of his empire, the universal Babylon, cursed, but more completely so than under Nero and the pagan Caesars. Suárez, Bellarmine, Cornelius a Lapide, assure us that this is the common tradition of the Holy Fathers, and that this tradition has an apostolic origin. One of the most serious reasons that leads us to believe that we are definitively approaching these nefarious times is that no one believes it.
—– Monsignor Louis Gaston de Ségur, 1882
I warn you of one thing only: beware of the Antichrist; for you have been unjustly ensnared by the love of walls, unjustly venerating the Church of God in rooftops and buildings, unjustly introducing the name of peace beneath them. Is it doubtful that the Antichrist will sit in them? The mountains, the forests, the lakes, the prisons, and the abysses are safer to me; for in them the prophets, whether standing or submerged in them, prophesied by the Spirit of God.
