Last of two parts
THANK God, He is advancing against the devil seeking to drive Him out of our world and drag humanity to hell through idolatry, pride, immorality, war and other transgressions tearing us from heaven. Really.
This is despite worldwide denial, disobedience and disregard toward the Divine, possibly prophesied in an 1884 vision of Leo XIII, whose name our current pope chose. Recounted in part 1 of this column on April 16, Leo XIII fainted after Mass when he saw Satan boasting he could destroy the Church if he had 75 to 100 years and greater power over those submitting to him, which God granted.
How exactly is our Lord advancing in the battle against Satan?
There are no hundreds of millions of conversions to Christianity, at least not yet. Nor many governments heeding the faith. Indeed, abortion and divorce have won legal assent worldwide, except in Vatican City and the Philippines.
Poverty and hunger afflict nearly a billion people, even as some 3,500 billionaires amass over $14 trillion in assets, and military spending tops $2.5 trillion annually.
And war — the devil’s weapon of mass condemnation, killing en masse sans contrition and prodding millions toward violence, treachery and other grave transgressions — continues to bloody the planet and could very well go atomic.
So, how’s God winning?
The 100-year period Satan was granted in Leo XIII’s 1884 vision suggests the turning point in the spiritual battle. In 1984, then-pope Saint John Paul II entrusted the world and the Church to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the third time after 1981 and 1982.
That may have fulfilled God’s instruction through Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 and later years for the Holy Father to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart and promote the Five First Saturdays devotion: confession, communion, Rosary and 15 minutes meditation on its Mysteries, in reparation for offenses against Mary.
John Paul II implicitly referred to Russia in his prayers and asked bishops worldwide to join, as our Lady also instructed. That and the First Five Saturdays devotion, she promised, would bring world peace and Russia’s conversion.
What’s happened since? While good and evil showed gains and losses, some global developments may have pushed the devil back big time.
First, Soviet communism, which hammered Christianity and spread atheism, statism, absolutism and other godless policies worldwide, collapsed in 1991. That stanched a satanic force tide persecuting the faith and legalizing immoral and oppressive acts, including abortion — first legalized by the Soviet Union.
Christianity has seen a revival in Russia, backed by Vladimir Putin’s government, which returned swaths of property seized by the Soviets from the Russian Orthodox Church and funded the building of churches.
Now, leading geopolitical minds, even American professors like John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs, say the US empire — third iteration of Western dominance after European colonialism and Soviet communism faded — faces defeat in Iran and decline on several fronts, including erosion of the dollar payments system, the rise of China to world-pacing economic and technological prowess, and the near-global rejection of US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Second, under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church pushed more strongly for adherence to faith and morals, reining in somewhat the liberalizing trends ushered after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
John Paul II issued major documents on catechism, canon law and the family, among other major declarations. He disciplined liberal theologians like Hans Küng. Benedict XVI continued his predecessor’s legacy through major encyclicals on faith and charity, the Eucharist and the Word of God, among other fundamental tenets. He also spoke against the relativism of our modern age, asserting absolute truths and morals, including Divine Revelation.
While Benedict’s successor Francis restarted the liberal thrust, the Church’s millennia-old doctrines, rites and institutions are now attracting adherents, especially among youth and even in Western nations long enamored of secular liberalism (https://tinyurl.com/4e2uad5f). As American television news just reported on Generation Z New Yorkers flocking to the Catholic Saint Joseph Church, reflecting similar trends in Europe, what brings in the young to the Church are established tenets and practices of the faith (https://tinyurl.com/5x55zcpa).
Third, major global developments have undercut pride and idolatry toward earthly powers and pursuits, from superpower might and skyrocketing wealth to human ideologies and technologies. Human progress has brought environmental degradation, while wealth and science faltered in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
And the half-millennium worldwide sway of Western ideologies and might facing curtains after European colonialism ended in the 1950s and Soviet communism in 1991, and America, the world’s most powerful nation ever, showing the limits of its power in the Ukraine and Iran wars.
Whom will we worship?
In sum, humanity’s worship of earthly ideologies and wherewithal, which may well be the devil’s worldwide scheme to shut out God, increasingly faces challenges and questions.
Today, the stark choice between the Kingdom of Heaven and earthly empires has grabbed global headlines, with the Vicar of Christ demanding peace as the leader of history’s latest imperial power America wages war no matter the global suffering.
The US under Joe Biden pushed Ukraine to reject a March 2022 peace treaty negotiated with Russia just weeks into the current four-year-old-plus conflict. America also backed Israel’s war in Gaza despite near-unanimous objections in the United Nations to the offensive killing tens of thousands of innocents and dislocating millions.
And now, at Israel’s prodding, US President Donald Trump mounted two offensives against Iran even as Washington and Tehran negotiated, reprising Japan’s treachery in bombing Pearl Harbor amid talks with America.
In the Leo-Trump exchange and with Israel denounced not only for decimating civilians, but also desecrating Christian images, God may be pressing humanity to choose Him and His peace, not mega powers behind conflicts now threatening our world with destruction, dislocation and destitution.
What a far cry from two decades ago when Western powers, then pushing toward Russia and ruling Iraq and Afghanistan, was largely unquestioned in their supremacy and righteousness.
And heaven is far from done.