You can read my posts on the first two lectures by clicking on the links below. Cardinal Manning's lectures are particularly appropriate as we end the liturgical year. I hope you'll read them in toto and not just my excerpts. He was a prophet and much of what he describes is directly applicable to our own time.
Lecture 1 - Introduction to the Crisis: the Revolt
Lecture 2 - Discussion of the Antichrist
The main point of Manning's third lecture is to expand his explanation of the obstacles to the rise of the Antichrist already alluded to in the previous talks. He presents two obstacles, a person and a system. He begins by further describing the nature of the Antichrist with additional details:
First of all, let us consider more particularly what is the character of “this wicked one,” or Antichrist, who shall come. The word used by St. Paul in this place signifies “the lawless one,”—the one who is without law, who is not subject to the law of God or of man, whose only law is his own will, to whom the license of his own will is the sole and only rule which he knows or obeys. The Greek word is ô àvopos, the lawless, or licentious one. Now, in the book of the prophet Daniel, there is a prophecy, almost identical in terms, where he foretells that there shall arise in the latter ages of the world a king “who shall do according to his own will,”* who shall exalt himself above all that is called God, who “shall speak great words against the High one.”1 This is almost word for word the prophecy of St. Paul, which shows us that St. Paul was literally quoting or paraphrasing the prophecy of Daniel. Now, inasmuch as this wicked one shall be a lawless person, who shall introduce disorder, sedition, tumult, and revolution, both in the temporal and spiritual order of the world, so that which shall hinder his development, and shall be his direct antagonist after his manifestation, must necessarily be the principle of order, the law of submission, the authority of truth and of right. We therefore have got what I may call an indication to enable us to see where this person, or system which opposes, hinders, or holds the revelation of the man of sin until the season shall come, is to be found.The first of the "systems" Cardinal Manning discusses which is holding back the Antichrist was pagan Rome, interesting point given the persecution by so many tyrannical emperors. But their iron control held back the rebellion and lawlessness that would be a mark of the Antichrist:
There is no doubt that so long as the Roman Empire continued in its strength, it was impossible for the principle of revolution and disorder to gain head, and therefore these early Christian writers were perfectly correct in interpreting the hindrance to this spirit of lawlessness to be the spirit of order, of government, of authority, and of an iron justice which ruled the nations of the world. But, secondly, it was not the Roman Empire, or Rome alone, but the kingdom of God which descended upon the whole earth, and from the day of Pentecost spread throughout the circuit of the Roman Empire, with an authority higher than the authority of Rome... This new principle of order, of authority, of submission, and of peace, entered into this world, possessed itself, as I may say, of the material power of the old Roman Empire, and filled it with a new life from heaven. It was the salt of the earth. It prolonged its existence until a certain period, which was foreseen in the predestination of God. It is, therefore, perfectly true that this hindrance signifies also the Holy Ghost; for the Church of God is the presence of the Holy Ghost, incorporated and manifested to the world in the visible body of those who are baptised into the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ.
The cardinal goes on to describe how the temporal and spiritual powers "met together" and held back the rebellion:
There they stood, at first face to face, in conflict, then side by side, in peace. For these two mighty powers—the one from earth, and the other from heaven, the one from the will of man, and the other from the will of God—met together as it were in the arena of contest, and for three hundred years the Empire of Rome martyred the pontiffs of the Church of God. For three hundred years the Roman
Empire strove to extinguish this new and strange visitant, coming with a superior jurisdiction and with a wider circuit. It strove to destroy it, to quench it in its own blood; and for three hundred years it struggled in vain; for the more the Church was martyred, the more the seed of the martyrs was multiplied. The Church expanded and grew in vigour, in strength, and in power, in proportion as the heathen Empire of Rome strove to extinguish and to destroy it. And this mighty conflict between the two sovereignties at last ended in the conversion of the empire to Christianity, and, therefore, in the enthronement of the Church of God in a supremacy over the powers of the whole world.
He concludes this thought saying:
We have now come nearly to a solution of that which I stated in the beginning, namely, how it is that the power which hinders the revelation of the lawless one is not only a person but a system, and not only a system but a person. In one word, it is Christendom and its head; and, therefore, in the person of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and in that twofold authority with which, by Divine Providence, he has been invested, we see the direct antagonist to the principle of disorder. The lawless one, who knows no law, human or divine, nor obeys any but his own will, has no antagonist on earth more direct than the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who bears at one and the same time the character of royalty and of priesthood, and represents the two principles of order in the temporal and in the spiritual state. — the principle of monarchy, if you will, or of government, and the principle of the apostolic authority.
Cardinal Manning gave these lectures several decades before World War I which had the effect of eliminating the European monarchies. The papal states were gone already lost in the Freemasonic revolt against Rome in the early 1870s. The Holy Roman Empire which lasted almost a thousand years (as did the papal states) had been gone for a century. The idea of kingship was lost in the temporal world and that impacted the outlook on the reign of Christ the King here on earth. Think of the No Kings rallies held recently and consider that the king really rejected by the godless is Jesus Christ. Even many Catholics consider Christ's kingship to mean only His reign in heaven, a mistaken notion. Christ is King over all the earth. He tells the crowds, "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth." [Matthew 28:18] Nations that recognize Christ as King are truly blessed, but they have almost completely disappeared from the face of the earth.
Basic to the principle of Christ as King over all the earth is the Incarnation. He came to the earth in the womb Mary as Creator and King, the Word Made Flesh. The wise men came seeking the newborn King, not in heaven, but in the earthly stable where His throne was a manger. What is the effect of the denial of the incarnation? Manning explains:
We have already seen that the third and special mark of Antichrist is the denial of the Incarnation ; and if the nations of the world have been constituted by faith, upon the basis of the Incarnation, the national act which admits those who deny it to a social and political unity, is in fact a removal of the order of social life from the supernatural to the natural order: and this is what we see accomplishing....If it is become impossible to maintain this Christian order over a people separated by schism or infected by heresy, or who are mingled with those who deny the Incarnation of God, all that I can say is this, we are reduced to the miserable state of abandoning the true Christian society. This is the dire necessity which falls upon the governments of the world when they depart from the unity and the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ. If such a state cannot be maintained without force, it must be given up. Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine. It is not the spirit of the Church to enforce political problems by sanguinary laws, or to compel unwilling men by the application of physical power. But more is the misery for a people which has so lost faith in the Incarnation, that it is necessary to give up the Christian order instituted by the providence of God. But such is the state of the world, and to this end we are rapidly advancing.
Wow! Is Manning not describing our "miserable state" with the rise of a society not only hostile to faith, but to reason itself? Consider the condition of the world at the end of the 19th century and then our own in 2025. Can we claim to be better? Has our "progress" made us holier? Then remember Mary's warnings at Fatima in 1917. Have we listened and repented? Not that I can see. Now consider about Mary's warning to Sr. Agnes in Akita in 1973 -- terrifying visions of chastisement. Does anyone care?
Cardinal Manning compares the lawlessness of the world of his day to a volcano with many mouths which spew lava and ash over the world. The Church rests, he says, on natural society and that society in his day was collapsing everywhere. Are we not in the same situation today, even worse in fact? Here's the grim picture the cardinal presents:
...the Christian and Catholic civilisation is giving way before the natural material civilisation, which finds its supreme perfection in mere material prosperity; admitting within its sphere persons of every caste, or colour of belief, upon the principle that politics have nothing to do with the world to come, – that the government of nations is simply for their temporal well-being, for the protection of persons and of property, for the development of industry, and for the advancement of science; that is to say, for the cultivation of the natural order alone. This is the theory of civilisation which is becoming predominant every day. Catholic piety also is becoming weaker and weaker, and to such an extent, that there are nations still called Catholic in which the proportion to the mass of those who frequent the Holy Sacraments is hardly calculable : according as our Divine Lord has said, “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.”1 Again, the Christian society is everywhere becoming weaker—that is, the true Christian spirit and principle of society.
In other words, the forces holding back the Antichrist are dissolving. And if that was true in 1892 when Cardinal Manning died, how much truer is it today? He does not praise democracy but points out how it becomes the "will of the people," not God's will, not really the enshrinement of liberty, but the enshrinement of license! "My body, my choice." And who is on the ascendence? - those, who, like Joshua, choose to serve the Lord or the many who choose to serve the prince of this world?
The cardinal ends this lecture pointing out the factors making way for the Antichrist:
These things are fulfilling fast, and it is good for us to keep them before our eyes: for the for runners are already abroad—the weakness of the Holy Father, the murder of his armies, the invasion of his States, the betrayal of those who are nearest to him, the tyranny of those who are his sons.
Obviously, Manning is addressing the attacks on Pope Pius IX whose secretary of state was assassinated and the assaults on his person to the point he had to flee Rome and live in exile. Our challenges in the Church today mostly come from within. Many of the pope's "sons" who wield the most power in the curia have betrayed the flock rather than the pope who enables them. Our time is, indeed, different but the results are the same. The men ruling the Church and the system of governance they are creating cannot be said to be holding back the reign of the Antichrist. In fact, many have become his enabler preparing the way for him.
I hate to end on a grim note so I will add that even when societies are lost, individuals are not unless they choose to be. We all have choices that work for the salvation or damnation of our souls. Our disposition at the moment of death is the only thing that really matters. To know what the Antichrist will look like and not be fooled when he comes is an act of prudence, but it should not lead us to be afraid or discouraged. Civilizations and societies have collapsed in the past. Life goes on. But it is a tragedy that the collapse of society takes so many souls with it.
So what are we to do? In today's reading from St. Matthew's gospel, chapter 24, about the end times (TLM readings), we are called to be the eagles gathered "wherever the Body shall be." Some commentators call the body a corpse, but the Latin corpus is used in many hymns celebrating the Eucharist. At the consecration the priest says "Hoc est enim corpus meum." He's not talking about a dead body, a corpse, but the living body of Christ. So who are the eagles gathered around the body? We are! And what do eagles do? They soar high above the landscape and see the entire surroundings which is what we are called to see. As eagles we don't get caught in the weeds. With keen eyesight we see clearly. And that's what we need to do in these difficult and challenging times. By keeping the faith of our Fathers and refusing to embrace novelties and errors so often being promoted at synods and in faulty modernist documents we will stay the course and be an anchor for others.
So let's be eagles flying high with the Holy Spirit confident that nothing can separate us from the love of God including the Antichrist.
May Jesus Christ be praised, now and forever!
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