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Cardinal Meisner’s Witness Concerning Fatima and the Dubia

Image credit: Dr. Michael Hesemann

As we reported earlier this week, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, one of the four dubia cardinals, passed away on 5 July. The German cardinal fell peacefully asleep while praying his breviary in preparation for offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the morning.

In the wake of the news of Cardinal Meisner’s death, Dr. Michael Hesemann – the German Church historian who had earlier provided us with an important 1918 document from the Vatican archives concerning the Freemasonic plan to attack throne and altar – wrote on his own Facebook page a tribute to the German cardinal whom he knew personally and well.

Photo Courtesy of Paul Badde

In this tribute, Dr. Hesemann quotes from a private letter which Cardinal Meisner had written to him on 29 December 2016, and these words now aptly seem to be a part of the cardinal’s own spiritual testament. (Meisner did also write a public spiritual testament to which we later shall return. But this more private testament is even more pertinent, inasmuch as Cardinal Meisner himself was the only one of the four dubia cardinals who never made public statements about his own participation and support of the dubia.) Here follow some of Cardinal Meisner’s private words in late 2016, as quoted by Dr. Hesemann:

“We live in a time of confusion, not only in society, but also in the Church,” he [Meisner] wrote to me still on 29 December 2016; how much he was right! And he added – writing it down as a message for all bishops, and at the same time, as an explanation for his signing the dubia: “The shepherd is appointed by Christ in order to preserve the herd from error and from confusion.” [emphasis added]

After quoting these memorable words about the current crisis in the Church and the intrinsic duty of the pope, Dr. Hesemann continues, by referring also to the importance which Cardinal Meisner had laid upon the message of Fatima:

He [Meisner] who is more closely connected with the message of Fatima than any other German bishop, and who had met Sister Lucia, the seer, several times, put at the time [December 2016] very much hope upon the Fatima Year 2017 and also hoped “that the Mother of God would not let us drown in confusion and sin.” [emphasis added]

How piercing these words of prayer are, can be seen when we consider Dr. Hesemann’s subsequent words:

That in the same year [2017] the Federal Government [of Germany] would easily pass and wave through the anti-Christian homo-“marriage,” he [Meisner] could not then foresee [see here for more information]. However, his last words which he then wrote to me have become now even more pertinent – yes, they sound like a testament, his last warning, for our time: “Ever since in our society, there barely exists any more the memory of creation, one has also forgotten who and what man is. And that is why everything goes topsy turvy now, and one even still thinks thereby, at most, to serve mankind.”

We are grateful to Dr. Hesemann for publishing these words of one of the courageous four dubia cardinals, and who himself had also received in the recent past much criticism for his own signing of the dubia. In December 2016, we reported on the sharp tones that came from German sources – that is to say, from the German branch of Vatican Radio and from Katholisch.de, the website of the German Bishops’ Conference – which used words such as “treason” and “renegade” with regard to Cardinal Meisner. As we reported at the time, Meisner might also have been especially singled out for such criticism for the very fact that he himself had been the driving force at the 2005 Conclave to have Joseph Ratzinger elected pope.

Paul Badde and Cardinal Meisner (Photo courtesy of Paul Badde)

Paul Badde, a German journalist, scholar, and Vatican specialist who knew Cardinal Meisner personally, and intimately, and for many years – and even had him as his counselor when writing on Church news –  also reminded us in his own very moving tribute to the German cardinal of his important role at the 2005 Conclave. Badde says that it was Meisner who “had, during the Conclave, uncovered and thwarted a plot of the so-called Sankt Gallen Group against that same election [of Joseph Ratzinger].” Badde continues, saying:

At that time, he became the “pope-maker,” next to the Holy Ghost of course. “Today, I fought as never before in my life,” he told me at the time on the way home from the Sistine Chapel to his lodging at the bottom of the Gianicolo hill. More he was not allowed to say. [my emphasis]

Let us now return to the theme of Fatima. Cardinal Meisner once described at a conference how, during his more than 40 years of life under Communism in East Germany, the Communists always had a special aversion against Fatima, and he reported that they never allowed a Catholic to travel to Fatima. “That was always denied to us.” “We were not allowed to talk much about Fatima, because it would always be interpreted as anti-Soviet propaganda,” explained Cardinal Meisner. For him personally, it was a sign that “the devil smells when he gets seriously into trouble [wo es ihm an den Kragen geht].”

In 2016, shortly after the brief meeting in Cuba between Pope Francis and the Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, Cardinal Meisner proposed at the same above-mentioned conference that this historic event could and should inspire both the Catholic and the Orthodox leaders to “consecrate us all to the Mother of God in the midst of the current difficulties, just as the seer children of Fatima proposed it.” [emphasis added] Thus he supported the idea of a Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Moreover, Cardinal Meisner showed his devotion to Fatima also on other occasions. In 2013, in a homily on the Vigil of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima on 13 May, Cardinal Meisner gave a most beautiful presentation about the importance of Fatima, and of the Rosary in particular. Remembering the year 1917, the prelate said:

The light of the Faith went out in East Europe [with the Russian Revolution], but in the West, the light of the Faith once more arose: that is, Mary’s message about the overcoming of evil with the good, about the conquering of tanks and canons through prayer. And that was in Fatima.

Meisner added that it was in Fatima – in Portugal – that Our Lady “found a bridgehead from which she helped to overcome the unbelief.” Thus, he adds: “Blessed art thou, Portugal, because you have believed!”

It was after the attempted killing of Pope John Paul II in 1981 – who strongly believed that it was through Our Lady of Fatima’s intercession that his life was saved – that the pope asked Cardinal Meisner to celebrate a Holy Mass in Fatima itself, in 1990, and on “the first Fatima Day without the Bolshevist Empire,” and to do it “in thanksgiving for the liberation from Communism.” (We shall soon come back to this 1990 homily.) In Meisner’s eyes, it was through Fatima, that the political change took place in 1989 in East Europe. “As a weapon against the godlessness, the Mother of God gave us prayer, but especially the prayer of the Rosary,” explained the cardinal.

Cardinal Meisner, who had a very vivid and warm way of giving his homilies, remembered also an encounter he once had, in 1975, as a young bishop, still in Communist Germany. There came to his Mass in Erfurt (East Germany) a group of visiting tourists which turned out to be Catholics from the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan) and who had not been at Holy Mass for 30 years! “We are homesick for the Church!” they told him after Mass. And one man put a very pertinent question to Meisner: “Could you give to me some very important information? Which doctrines of the Faith do we have to pass on to our children and to our children’s children so that they may attain to eternal life?” [emphasis added]

Cardinal Meisner was still so touched by these words when he related them again in his 2013 homily: “Such an important question had not been put to me before, nor ever thereafter,” he said. However, when he had then proposed to this man that he give to him and to each of his companions a Bible and the Catechism, the man from the Soviet Union politely declined, saying that they are not even permitted to have religious books in their own homes. When asked about taking home a Rosary, the man responded: “Yes, we can do that. But, what does this have to do with my question?” And Cardinal Meisner answered – holding up his Rosary:

At the beginning of the Rosary is the cross, where we pray the creed which contains our whole Faith. Then come the three pearls: Faith, Hope, Charity – the whole teaching for life. That is what we have to live. Then follow the other pearls, the whole gospels in a kind of secret or blind script, which can only be understood by the praying hands and hearts.

The man took the Rosary into his hands and said: “What? Then I have the whole Catholic Faith in one hand!” [emphasis added] This description of that unexpected and abiding conversation, as related by Cardinal Meisner, should be savored in full in the original homily, in German, in order to see the fuller moral beauty of this true story. Would that we could know what happened to these Catholics from Russia ever since 1975!

Cardinal Meisner holds up his rosary as he tells the story of his encounter with Catholics from the Soviet Union. (Screenshot)

Throughout this homily, for example, Cardinal Meisner used some beautiful poetic images and combinations of words that spring from his deep Faith and ardent Love of God. He said, for example: “When I reach out to the hand of God, I want to have something in my hand. That is the Rosary!” [emphasis added] And: “Whoever prays the Rosary again and again, will feel what the brethren felt on the way to Emmaus, when they asked each other: ‘Did not our hearts burn?’” And here Cardinal Meisner said: “The heart that is burning for Christ is the hope of the world. Mary brought this fire to our world in Fatima.” [emphasis added] “Not theories, but burning hearts will change the world,” added the prelate. He also used the beautiful image of the sick woman who touched the seam of Our Lord’s garment. “If I only touch this seam, I will be healed.” Thus said Meisner: “It is with the Rosary, that that seam of Jesus is given into our hands.”

For the sake of the beauty of this one homily, let me cite some other poetic images, as expressed by this prelate:

When we, along with these pearls, receive the words of His Life, then these spiritual seeds will bear fruit – 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold, unto eternal life! Each pearl is a mysterious germ of life, because it brings us the Gospel into our life and [brings] our life into the Gospel. [emphasis added]

Cardinal Meisner’s ardent love for the Rosary becomes even clearer when he makes the following public testament:

When I will have died, then the canons will come and take away my ring, my crosier […] But: I have written my testament: you have to leave me my Rosary! I want to take it into my coffin! I wish to show it to the Mother of God so that she may show me, after this exile, Jesus, the Blessed Fruit of her life!

In his fuller spiritual testament, which has now been published in Cologne, Germany, Cardinal Meisner writes a letter to Jesus Christ as a testament of gratitude to God, first for having created him as a human being, then for having made him a priest and a bishop, “formed and consecrated by your wounds,” and for having “used me at your Cross, and for having made me worthy of your wounds.” Written in 2011 – during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI – he also implores his flock always to remain loyal to Peter and thus to remain in the Faith.

Let us now consider what Cardinal Meisner had to say about Our Lady of Fatima in 1990, when he visited Fatima for the first time in his life, and upon request of Pope John Paul II. Dr. Hesemann kindly made this homily available to me which Cardinal Meisner gave to him for publication for Hesemann’s own book on Fatima (Das Letzte Geheimnis von Fatima The Last Secret of Fatima).

On 13 May 1990, Cardinal Meisner had thus stated

In our old Europe which was once the homeland of Christendom, Jesus Christ barely appears in public any more. Mary – and with her the Church – has been pushed to the margins of the European societies. Portugal, however, welcomed Mary 73 years ago – just like John under the Cross – into its own. In Fatima, this famous nation has given a realm and homeland to Mary. From Fatima, Mary could start her path in order to carry Christ back to Europe. In Russia and the other East European states, the Christian faith was nearly forbidden. The peoples of East Europe that highly venerate Mary were only able to give her very little space, since atheism had conquered almost all living space. That is why Mary came from Fatima in order to help the distressed disciples of her Son in the East European states. Fatima is, so to speak, the bridgehead of Mary from whence Mary subverted the East European people in order to bring them Christ, who truly liberates man. Europe must never forget to thank Portugal for having opened the doors to Mary so that she may convert the godless states in the East of our continent. […] In those years [of Communism], Mary was the most unassuming, but omnipresent companion in suffering and the helper of the distressed. […] Not Marx has given man greatness and dignity, but Mary.

When we read these words, we must remember that they were written under the deep impression of a final end of Communism in the East, after decades of oppression. The deep gratitude of this prelate is palpable in these words. (Let us remember that in 2016, almost twenty years later, he came to the conclusion that we still were in need of the assistance of Our Lady of Fatima.) But, there are even deeper reasons for Cardinal Meisner’s devotion to Our Lady. In a 2016 interview about his own life – he was born in 1933 under the Nazi regime, lived for more than 40 years under Communism in East Germany and then faced the challenges of cultural relativism and liberal Catholicism in the West as Archbishop of Cologne – it becomes clear that it was his own mother who taught him the love of the Blessed Mother and of the Rosary.

In 1945, his mother had to flee from the approaching Soviets from Breslau (which is today Polish) to the West, taking along with her not only her four own sons, but six other relatives – two grandmothers and four more children! (Meisner’s father was among the Fallen in Russia – die Gefallenen in Russland – and never returned home.) On their way to the West, the extended Meisner family endured terrible situations such as being abandoned in a van in a heap of snow off the main country road, in the winter, in freezing temperatures below zero. In the middle of this dramatic situation and after having even dropped down a slope in this van, the mother lifted up her Rosary, saying: “God is with us!” When later searching in vain for hours for a room at night in a little village in soon-to-be Communist Germany, the mother suddenly stood still and calmly explained to her four young sons that she, their mother, was now not able to provide for them and that thus they together now must turn to Mary for help. After saying a special German Marian prayer (Hilf Maria, jetzt ist Zeit) three times, a man came out onto the street to them, inviting them into his house with the words: “I cannot any longer watch upon a mother and her children standing out on the street at night.”

The whole story of Cardinal Meisner’s life is a story of warmth and courage. I have seldom seen such a unique combination of a warm heart and a strong conviction, which gained respect even among his professed opponents. Even Germany’s most prominent feminist, Alice Schwarzer, recently gave her tribute to Cardinal Meisner upon his death, saying: “Yes, I liked him.” She felt a friendship with him and she cherished “his humanity and child-like Faith” in spite of their differences of opinion, for example, concerning abortion, as Schwarzer wrote. She continued, saying that at their last meeting a year ago, Meisner gave her a little prayer card with a poem of St. Teresa of Avila. The lines “nothing shall frighten you, nothing scare you. Everything shall pass, God alone remains the same” touched Schwarzer especially as being quite “consoling.”

Is this not a true Catholic witness who stands firm in the truth and reaches out in charity with Christ’s touch to his own opponents? Is this not also the combination of Our Lord and Our Lady? The Truth and Love combined?

Some of the added inspiration for Meisner’s own courage and Catholic witness comes from none other than Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty himself, the great Hungarian martyr of Communism. It was on 6 May 2017, not long before he died, that Cardinal Meisner gave witness to this great man. In a homily in Budapest, Hungary, Meisner recounts how he as a 13-year-old boy happened to see a picture of Cardinal Mindszenty in a Communist Courtroom under accusation. Meisner was so touched by this image – which reminded him immediately of Our Lord’s own being so falsely accused – that he fastened this image at the wall of his bedroom and thus always looked upon this cardinal before he fell asleep, and when he woke up. “He was the model of a bishop for me,” explained Cardinal Meisner in his homily. He adds:

And in me grew the desire that I, one day, wished to be like the cardinal, a Witness of Christ who has the courage also to stand up against the Powerful of this world. [emphasis added]

Later, Cardinal Meisner happened to find the same picture of Cardinal Mindszenty again. He put this image then into his breviary – “so that I am connected with him in prayer every day” – and it was that same breviary which lay in Cardinal Meisner’s hands when he died. “When we bishops are not any more confessors, then the people of God are not in a good situation,” Meisner added, after first speaking about Mindszenty’s own courageous witness and engagement for mankind. Meisner showed himself especially grateful for Mindszenty’s compassion and solidarity with the 9 million Germans who had to flee their homeland after World War II – among them the Meisner family. “Except for Cardinal Mindszenty, no other bishop then defended us,” [emphasis added] added Meisner. “Bishops have not only to pay attention to a good response from the media, but especially to the proclamation of the truth which has been entrusted to them.”

Cardinal Meisner did not only challenge his own fellow bishops. He also challenged all of us Catholics when he once said, in 2016, that now is the “great chance to become a full Christian – half-Christians will perish!” “Now one responsibly has to hold up one’s head [den Kopf hinhalten], or one will lose it.” He saw a “great chance truly to witness that we are Christians!” And this witness – which we have also learned now from Cardinal Meisner and from his life and his final act of signing the dubia – we can only accomplish with the help of Mary, rooted in the love for Christ.

Cardinal Meisner and the Holy Face of Manoppello (Photo courtesy of Paul Badde)

On 4 April 2005, Cardinal Meisner – significantly just before the upcoming 18-19 April 2005 Conclave in which he played such an important role – visited together with Paul Badde the Holy Face (Volto Santo) of Manoppello. The Cardinal was so deeply touched by the loving Face of God that he made a little, once more poetic, inscription in the shrine’s own guest book, an inscription which should inspire us all to a deeper love of Our Lord:

The Face is the Monstrance of the Heart. On the Volto Santo, the Heart of God becomes Visible. + Joachim Card. Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, Pax Vobis! 4/4/2005 [emphasis added]

Love helps overcome fear, as Professor Josef Pieper once explained and exemplified to my husband, Dr. Robert Hickson. The Latin word cor – heart – can also be found in the word courage. Love makes one courageous, like Cardinal Meisner’s mother fighting for her own little ones. May we all learn to love Our Lord and Our Lady so much that we will fight like lions for them. May we pray for the repose of the soul of Cardinal Meisner, and may we also fittingly hope that he soon will also intercede for us. And may thus his 2016 words about Fatima and the dubia also reach the heart of Pope Francis.

81 thoughts on “Cardinal Meisner’s Witness Concerning Fatima and the Dubia”

  1. Truly beautiful and inspiring. Thank you Maike for taking the time to share this powerful story with us. May these words challenge us to a greater conversion of our hearts, so that we not only speak the truth of Christ but we live that truth.

    “Cardinal Meisner did not only challenge his own fellow bishops. He also challenged all of us Catholics when he once said, in 2016, that now is the “great chance to become a full Christian – half Christians will perish!” “Now one responsibly has to hold up one’s head [den Kopf hinhalten], or one will lose it.” He saw a “great chance truly to witness that we are Christians!” And this witness – which we have also learned now from Cardinal Meisner and from his life and his final act of signing the dubia – we can only accomplish with the help of Mary, rooted in the love for Christ.”
    Yes, amen.

    Reply
    • It’s already Sunday afternoon here in NZ. This morning, the local priest at our NO parish preached from the pulpit that ‘Jesus had to gradually come to the realization of who he was’ – that we can come to Church ‘grubby’ and that is ‘an old outdated concept that we need to come to Church squeaky clean’ – and that ‘we come to Mass to offer ourselves to God grubby and all’.

      Enough is enough. Immediately after Mass he saw me zeroing in on him like a Spitfire with a 109 in it’s cross-hairs – and tried to flee into the sacristy. I gave him the equivalent to an eight gun revelation that he won’t ever forget. It was precise stuff, right on-target with the minimum of words and blew him up like a cornered rodent. Not matter how he turned and twisted I stayed right on his tail

      It wasn’t by my own strength that I did that. Someone in Heaven is praying for us………………..

      Reply
      • “Come as you are; that’s how I want you …….” or: “never mind the fact that you’re [spiritually] dressed in tattered, filthy stinking rags; I like you that way..” Don’t worry about this “state of grace” crap; we don’t believe that anymore. We’ve moved on; we’ve progressed. We’re an ‘Easter people’.

        Reply
        • Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the sinless, the grace filled Virgin Mary……her Immaculate Conception, her sinlessness was necessary to provide a suitable place for God. To permit people with the mortal sin of adultery on their souls to receive Christ is an implicit denial of the dogma of the .Immaculate Conception.

          Reply
          • The Immaculate Conception was when Our Lady was preserved free from all stain of original sin in the womb of St. Anne. Cf. Ineffabilis Deus.

            When Our Lady said Fiat… to the Archangel Gabriel and consented to the Incarnation, the eternal Son of God assumed human nature in her all-chaste and immaculate womb.

            Vespers, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

            O Mother of God, because of You David the Prophet
            became an ancestor of God;
            he foretold and sang a joyous hymn of praise
            and cried out to Him who worked wonders in you:
            “The Queen stood at your right hand.”
            God revealed you as a life-giving mother,
            when He chose to be incarnate of you without a father.
            He renewed in man His image which the passions had corrupted.
            He found the lost sheep in the mountains, carried it on His shoulders,
            offered it to the Father, generously numbered it among the powers of heaven,
            and saved the whole world, since He is Christ of great and rich mercy.

            Last Sunday’s Vespers

            In Tone 3, Now…

            O Lady most honourable,
            how can we but be rapt in wonder
            at you giving birth to the Incarnate God
            who, without a mother, was born of the Father before all ages?
            You gave Him birth in the flesh without a father,
            without a man instrumentality. (sic)
            He is God and man whose two natures are intact,
            neither one losing any of its properties.
            Therefore, O Virgin Mother,
            intercede with Him to save the souls
            of those who believe and confess in true faith
            that you are the Mother of God.

          • Glory be to God for the gift of Mary to us. Of her, the Son of God was born. The words of Vespers inspire one soul to be lifted up to God.

          • The point is that SINLESSNESS is necessary for Christ to come into a soul …if this is not so then the Immaculate Conception becomes unnecessary and meaningless. AL implicitly denies the dogma by permitting unrepentant adulterers to receive Holy Communion.

          • Agreed; however, I’d also include the denial of 1) the Divinity of Christ, 2) the Real Presence, and 3) Hell.

            If Catholics realized that when they receive Holy Communion they become for a few minutes like Our Lady in the sense that they bear within them the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.

            They would dress modestly for church, prepare themselves by a good confession, be awestruck by the fact that God Himself is coming to them, and spend some time after Liturgy/Mass in thanksgiving. The best time to ask God for your spiritual and temporal wants is 1) during Liturgy/Mass and during one’s thanksgiving, when one still has Our Lord within himself or herself.

            AL denies and/or questions these dogmas of the Faith as well.

            Blessed Tarsykia, pray for us!

          • That’s true Margaret but let’s not forget AL is also an attack on the sacrament of Penance (no longer necessary), the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (encourages scariligeous reception) the sacrament of Holy Matrimony (adultery permissible) and indirectly on the sacrament of Holy Orders (forcing priests to give Holy Communion to public adulterers)
            Love your comments.

          • Absolutely! That’s what St. James said in chapter 2 of his Epistle (footnote included):

            [10] And whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all.

            [10] “Guilty of all;”: That is, he becomes a transgressor of the law in such a manner, that the observing of all other points will not avail him to salvation; for he despises the lawgiver, and breaks through the great and general commandment of charity, even by one mortal sin. For all the precepts of the law are to be considered as one total and entire law, and as it were a chain of precepts, where, by breaking one link of this chain, the whole chain is broken, or the integrity of the law consisting of a collection of precepts. A sinner, therefore, by a grievous offence against any one precept, incurs eternal punishment; yet the punishment in hell shall be greater for those who have been greater sinners, as a greater reward shall be for those in heaven who have lived with greater sanctity and perfection.

            [11] For he that said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, said also, Thou shalt not kill. Now if thou do not commit adultery, but shalt kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

            ****

            Thank you for your kind words. I’ve learned a lot from your posts as well. ????

          • Back in the mid 1960’s, I clearly recall (I was 5 in 1965) that for a whole hour before each Sunday Mass, there was a priest hearing confession. Once a month there were three (these included visiting priests from the local Religious Orders as my Dad told me). It was a big church building, newly constructed in 1963 with three confessionals. Everyone went to confession regularly back then…….very sad that this does not happen today (you’re lucky to find a priest for half an hour on a Saturday morning – and there’s only half a dozen people or so attending).

          • Such wonderful memories make us dangerous to those infected by Modernism…..prepare to be marginalized…if it hasn’t happened already.

          • In my diocese, most if not all of the parishes have confessions for half an hour before every Mass, daily and Sunday. Usually though, if you really need to go you should get there precisely 30 minutes before Mass because the line is usually long enough that some people can’t go by the time Mass starts

            I suppose it’s a good problem to have…

          • That is amazing! I know of only 1 parish (FSSP) that has confessions before every Mass. The cathedral has daily confessions at 4:00-5:00 PM, and one parish that has confessions for 30 minutes AFTER every daily mass (of which there are 3 because they have 3 priests), but not on Sunday (do not ask me to explain that logic!)

          • If AL is to be taken as it is being interpreted, Christianity has no purpose. If true, Christ did not need to come in the flesh to die for our sins… in fact, there are no sins. So go and be a hedonist.

          • The Blessed Virgin was free from the stain of ALL sin. We are only required to be free from MORTAL sin to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.

            And thank God for it!

          • You are right…venial sin does not completely remove sanctifying grace from the soul.
            Mortal sin does that.

          • mortal sin is like complete nudity and venial sin is like wearing rags/ jesus will accept us in rags but is not too keen on nudity in the community

          • Scandalously, that fact seems to be incomprehensible to the majority these days, including many of our bishops and priests. “Whosoever shall eat and drink unworthily …….. etc” has long gone out the window. We are now “inclusive” and all must be “welcomed”. In fact, it seems to me that in these times of greatest confusion and apostasy, it is those who are living the most publicly sinful lifestyle are the most welcome. Leprosy in the Gospels is symbolic of sin. After healing the lepers, Jesus first admonished those who He had healed to “tell this to no-one, but first, go and show yourselves to the priests.” This anticipated the Sacrament of Penance. The lepers recognising their own state of uncleanliness, had to first present themselves to the priests. But now, the prevailing wisdom of Novus Ordoism is ……”Come as you are ……..”. The Father will soon demand justice for the Son. There is going to be an accounting for all of this before very much longer, and it’s not going to be pleasant.

        • Stewart…..I assume yours is a sarcastic entry? “Come as you are” is totally protestant, and it’s also the heretical basis of this terrible Argentine papacy. We are called to convert to holiness now… not in ten years time.

          Reply
          • I’m sorry, I had presumed that my sarcasm was glaringly obvious. According to the pernicious and destructive pseudo-philosophy of ‘new church’, contrition and penitence are unknown concepts.

          • Thought it was! – but the malformation of many liberal Novus Ordo (non ) Catholics, such opinions are in fact, widely held.

      • That priest is a total fool. I’m sure we wouldn’t turn up for an interview in his dirty jeans and joggers. But be has the courage to preach that it is Ok to meet the Top Boss of the Whole Universe rabidly dressed. Oh dear. Well done GriffonSpitfire! Good on you!

        Reply
        • Thanks Pavel. With whatever resources God wills to send my way, I’m going to continue to push for a return to the Traditional Latin Mass with every fibre of my being. There, the broken Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ is offered to Our Father in Heaven in reparation for our sins, our weaknesses and our self-centred pride.

          Reply
          • Well said. I have to congratulate you for bringing up the subject of courage, even in public or still more forcefully vis-a-vis with the erring priest or Church official. May the good Lord protect and guide you and give you (so to say) support from the back!

      • With spiritual aviators like you,
        count me as one of your ground crew.

        A decade of my afternoon Rosary for Griffon Spitfire.

        Keep flying guns blazin’

        Reply
        • Thank you for your Rosary intention Tim – it’s a privilege to make the acquaintance of another good Catholic who appreciates the wonderful gift of Our Mother Mary from Our Truly Amazing God, whose Generating Generosity never ceases to amaze me in so many breathtaking ways!

          Reply
          • You are so right. Our Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver was designated as a place of pilgrimage by JPII. I love to go there to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet and pray the Rosary. But one day I went when I had a cancer scare and I couldn’t think straight. My face was burning and my head really hurt. But 2 things happened. First I walked past the large picture of the Jesus the Divine Mercy and the words at the bottom stood out brightly “Jesus I trust in you.” Then I crossed over to my precious Mother and sat empty handed. I told Our Lady that I was very sorry but I couldn’t pray to her today , I was too distraught but, I’d just like to sit quietly with her and say nothing. I don’t remember how long I sat but eventually I realized that my face was cool; my awful headache had gone and I was filled with a sense of well-being, peace and pure joy. THEN I thanked Our Lady with deep and heartfelt gratitude said my Rosary and other prayers, THEN I chatted to her as usual, after then stepped out into the street feeling as though I could climb Everest! As you said – BREATHTAKING!

      • how sad the state of affairs in my old country with that nice shepherd Cardinal Dew. I remember back in 2001 a circle of marxist “liberation theology” feminists with me present within the heart and home of the catholic centre adjoined to the palace plotting ways to get him his red hat. They liked him so much and amused that he was so easily manipulated by them. At the time I was part of it all- the move to usher in a new subversive wave of “gradualism” into catholic education. There were to be groups within catholic school which undermine any remnant of catholic culture. They were organised and had their networks in nearly every catholic school.

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        • Though the apostles of apostasy may appear to have the upper hand at present, they cannot prevail for long – for they have as their father, satan – a finite and rebellious spirit who destroyed himself long ago through pride and vanity.

          Have no fear for Our Mother Mary is near and as a motor engineer these sweet words I hear: From the Eternal One True Church: “God keeps all created things in existence”. De Fide.

          That’s enough for me to understand – we would have nothing if it were not for God. May He be worshipped and praised forever.

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  2. How we need men like that now. How many are left, I have to wonder, and what does it bode for the near future?

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  3. What a lovely tribute to this courageous man of God. His quotes here make one nostalgic for the way Cardinals and Bishops once sounded, in love with God.
    Grant him peace O Lord, and have mercy on him. He did his best to feed the sheep and we are grateful.

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  4. What a rich reflection, it will require yet another reading or two.
    But I was very struck by a sentence of Cardinal Meisner’s toward the beginning of the article: “Ever since in our society, there barely exists any more the memory of creation, one has also forgotten who and what man is.”
    Is that not at the heart of it, this madness in church and society? We are made in the image and likeness of God – without knowing that, without acknowledging that reality, how can we live and act in the world? Deprived of this knowledge, or even worse, jettisoning it as a pious thought unworthy of the superior contemporary intellect exhibited in philosophical and neo-theological speculation – how can we know our dignity and that to which we are destined?
    Without this knowledge, or this understanding abandoned, no wonder the church and society are so eager to accommodate infidelity, divorce, abortion, homosexuality and all manner of gender theory – all that debases the human person.
    It appears that the contribution of National Socialism to world history and thought has tragically been far more successful than we thought. Has not fascism been far more successful than we ever imagined? The concentration camp appears to have found its place in geography of human consciousness.
    The life and thought of Cardinal Meisner stands against this tragic reality. HIs birthplace, Breslau, was forty-one years earlier also that of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
    How appropriate.

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    • That’s exactly my opinion. This where the intellectual pride of a lot of jesuits wants to bring our Church.

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    • Peter Wilders, who occasionally writes for the Remnant and posts on their website, would give you 1000 upvotes. He’s been saying and writing for years that the denial of creation and especially that God created man in His image and likeness, and that we lost the likeness through original sin, is at the root of the problems that we have today.

      His articles are really good. I highly recommend them.

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      • Thank you, Margaret.
        Over the past few years the “simple” truths contained in the initial sections of the Baltimore Catechism have been knocking on my door as I watch the world plunge ever deeper into a state of disorientation fueled by a self-contempt masked as freedom.
        It was 1John 3:2 “…but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him…” sparked the recollection. It is such a profoundly promising but at once disorienting statement. And of course there is Genesis 1:27, and our Lord’s admonition to “…be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect..,” and any number of other phrases in the Gospels and the Epistles. God is so perfectly present and immediate to us, and in us. Our self-desecration makes us blind to what is so apparently and manifestly True, God Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
        It seems this wonderful Reality is so frightening to our personal identity that we prefer our infirmity to its remedy. Even the very Church itself. It is a great mystery.

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  5. Thank you so very much, Maike.
    Your story of Card. Meisner’s life testimony touched my heart.
    Now it’s up to all of us to carry on, from every little corner of the world.
    No easy task ahead.
    May Cardinal Meisner’s guiding words and Virgin Mary’s rosary give us strength.

    JLM – Argentina

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  6. When I look into his eyes and upon his face and trace the cross on his forehead, I stare and what do I see? Kindness, nothing but deep kindness, like his Master.

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  7. Cardinal Meisner is a potential saint for our times. He actually believes in the Catholic faith. How very rare! Hopefully, he will help us by imploring God through Mary to bring an end to the corruption of our faith by those responsible for teaching it. Personally, I am hoping for some kind of divine intervention during the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima.

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    • “Cardinal Meisner is a potential saint for our times. He actually believes in the Catholic faith.”

      Sadly, this is the measure for heroism in today’s clergy. It’s like saying that the CEO of GM is doing a great job because, although sales are down 70%, he drives a Cadillac! Give the man a 7-figure bonus.

      I get that constantly from my Novus Ordo friends. “Fr. _____ is such an AWESOME priest!” And granted, the men they are talking about seem to be good, holy men who genuinely hold the faith, but as shepherds, and *guardians* of the faith, they are strictly run of the mill. They are heroes merely in comparison with other clergy who, as Ann Barnhardt says, “don’t believe a word of that b—s—.”

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  8. It’s July 2017 and the consecration has not yet been made. Watch out for October folks, stay in a state of grace, pray your rosary, try at this point to get to mass every morning, time is short. Purple and blood red sunsets and sunrises aren’t “normal”, keep your eyes on the skies as the late Fr. Malachi Martin wrote. Chastisement approacheth.

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    • Purple and blood red sunsets and sunrises aren’t “normal”,
      Wow! where do you live?
      The good cardinal is an inspiration. I pray that he is happy in heaven and if he is in purgatory:

      Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,

      and let perpetual light shine upon him.

      May he rest in peace,
      Amen.

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  9. Thank you for the article. Very inspirational. His cause for sainthood needs to be opened but I do not think that it’s going to happen under this…cough, cough…regime.

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  10. Beautiful tribute of a holy servant and prince of the Church. On a good note, today I attended a beautiful TLM offered by a young diocesan priest near our nation’s capital…he thanked God for SP in its tenth year and reminded us of the duty to persevere in charity towards our neighbors for love of God. Let’s see the good as well as the bad and realize the Lord is not mocked.

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  11. “When I will have died, then the canons will come and take away my ring,
    my crosier […] But: I have written my testament: you have to leave me my
    Rosary! I want to take it into my coffin! I wish to show it to the
    Mother of God so that she may show me, after this exile, Jesus, the
    Blessed Fruit of her life!” Such a beautiful love for the Blessed Mother, and a sure sign of predestination, as per Her promises of those who pray the Rosary.

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  12. A beautiful tribute to a great man of God, thanks. I believe this holy cardinal died of a broken heart, in this sense, he is a martyr for the faith.and he died peacefully praying for her, the Church. Cardinal Meisner is a great example for all Catholics.

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  13. Several years ago a good Catholic friend passed away and as I sat in the funeral home the Spirit impressed upon me how blessed he was to go home before things would get very bad. As I read this wonderful article on the holy Cardinal Meisner, I could not help but wonder if Our Lady of Fatima did him the favor of taking him home before the destruction of Rome, as prophesied by the Saints.

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  14. may the words of our Blessed mother at Fatima be fulfilled on or before October 13th, 2017 and before the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution that has led the world to error and sin, which the late Pope Paul ! cried out at the UN….”war, no more war……..as war is the result of man’s sins !”

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