PRELIMINARY NOTE

         The New Mass, enacted in 1969 as the Ordinary Rite of the Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI, was prepared by a special Commission appointed for this purpose, which was composed of six Protestant experts and three Catholics. Out of these three, Archbishop Bugnini was the President of the Commission. When his affiliation to Freemasonry was discovered beyond any shadow of a doubt, he was banished from Rome by the Pope –Bugnini was sent as Nuncio to Iran. But his work, which was carried out with the collaboration and to the satisfaction of the Protestant experts, was not modified at all. Hence, the hitherto perennial and revered Latin Mass of the Church was virtually eliminated, and a great number of centuries were left behind and submerged into oblivion.

            Among the olive trees in the Garden, during that terrible Night and before the imminence of the Passion and the Cross, the Devil was convinced of his all-encompassing Victory. Only when Jesus exhaled His last breath did the Angel of Evil realize his blunder. It was then and there when it clearly appeared that the Death on the Cross of the Son of God was the great asset that God had kept to Himself; the very one by which the Evil One was definitively vanquished. These two moments, the alleged Victory of Satan and the real Defeat by Jesus, are clearly portrayed at the beginning and at the end of the film by Mel Gibson The Passion of the Christ.

            But from that moment, the Devil already knew what to expect. If the Sacrifice of the Cross was the key, then it was precisely this sacrifice which had to be eliminated at all costs. Thus, he took upon himself the difficult task of eliminating the Mystery of the Redemption –the ideal of the Sacrificial Death of Christ on the Cross—from the minds and hearts of Christians. For twenty centuries he was not successful . . . until Modernism, which was believed to have disappeared, came alive again under the form of Neo-Modernism in the heart of the Church from the time of Vatican Council II.

            It was then that what seemed impossible, as well as unthinkable, actually happened. The concept of the Mass as a renovation of the Sacrifice of Christ –not a repetition, but a becoming present, here and now, in all its reality, the Death of the Lord—fades to almost nothing and is replaced, in turn, by the prevalent and almost single idea of the Mass as a meal of solidarity or fraternity.

            Once virtually every tenet of the Faith has been called into question and the value of the Magisterium has been weakened, then it is not too surprising that while many Catholics have deserted their Religion, others have abandoned all religious practice.

            Furthermore, despondency and confusion reign even among many Catholics who have remained faithful. The unity and the firmness of the Faith of the Catholic people which had remained intact for centuries seem to have vanished. Ours are times of desolation, well suited to recalling the words with which the Gospel of Saint Matthew describes certain sentiments of Jesus Christ: Seeing the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were battered and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd (Mt 9:36).

            All men have to endure a lifetime of work in this valley of tears. But we Christians in particular face suffering in a special way because we are called to share Jesus Christ's death. Therefore, our sorrows and anxieties are finally transformed into joy, for they are always shrouded in the Hope and in the certainty that we are going to gather with Jesus in the Father's House.

            Consequently, it would be something very sad if, in one way or another, we were to be deprived of the consolation provided by the eternal life in the manner and form promised us and for which we have always been longing.

The elaboration of this Study, which has been written in a fragmented manner as small chapters or Editorials by instalments, had as its object the Prophecy of Saint Malachi regarding the Popes. The study, moreover, has focused its investigation exclusively upon the possible significance of the motto corresponding to the current Pontificate –Of the Glory of the Olive Tree. Illness, however, from which the author has not yet recovered, has forced him to allow too much time to elapse between the last Editorial (VI) and this present continuation. Thus, he craves the understanding of his patient readers; after all, it was impossible for things to work out the way he had desired them to.

However, this has not been the only reason for the delay in writing.

The author has taken advantage of this time to reflect upon the expediency of continuing and culminating a Study which, after all, is based on mere speculation (which does not cancel the absolute truth of the foundations upon which the Study lies). In the previous Chapters (or Editorials), the corresponding motto from Saint Malachi has been interpreted as an allusion, in prophetic form, to the actual crisis the Church is suffering –something which has been done succinctly and without resorting expressly to the support of bibliographic references, given the purely journalistic nature of this Study and the natural demands of brevity. There exists, however, a most abundant and entirely reliable Documentation which may serve as proof of what is being affirmed here, and which is easily accessible to anyone who wants to asseverate the veracity of the opinions contained in this Study.

We have insistently repeated here that, in our modest opinion, the crisis to which the Study alludes is the gravest and most dangerous the Church has suffered during her entire History.

We are compelled, against our wishes, to introduce a parenthesis in this extraordinary story—more fantastic than a Dantesque narrative and more difficult to grasp in all its profound significance than any concoction of the human imagination. This interruption is necessary for the sake of clarification and for a better comprehension of the issue at hand and in order to provide some details that may facilitate a better understanding for the reader of what is being said here.

We have repeatedly said, in this explanation of the Prophecy of Saint Malachi which we are providing, that the corresponding motto of the Pontificate during which the Church is living in these moments, the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, is Of the Glory of the Olive Tree. Such motto occupies the next-to-last place on the list of all pontiffs, since the Prophecy points to a certain Petrus Romanus (Peter the Roman) who is a mysterious character about whom commentators have done much lucubration throughout the centuries. According to the Prophecy, though, it is very clear that the Pope about whom the last motto is concerned will coincide with the final moments of the History of the Church and of the entire Humankind; the very moment when Humanity will be judged by the Supreme Judge at His Second and Final Coming.

The name Petrus Romanus appears surrounded by the most profound of mysteries within the context of a Prophecy which, in the hypothesis that one may want to admit as certain, is, by itself, quite arcane and sufficiently enigmatic. It is curious to note that, throughout the History of the Church, no Pope wished to attribute to himself the name of Peter, doubtless out of respect and devotion to Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles and First Pope of the Institution of Salvation founded by Jesus Christ. This is a historical fact that eludes any type of speculation. Such name—Peter—has been virtually reserved, according to the Prophecy, to the Pope that will close History, coinciding with the Second and Final Coming of the Supreme Judge.