Vassula Rydén: the reasons of the Church

by François-Marie Dermine O.P. (continuation - Part 3 of 4)

 

        

 

Automatic writing

(2b) Another reason for which the revelations remain unacceptable is «the suspect nature of the ways in which these alleged revelations have occurred» (Notification). I summarize hereunder what I wrote in my book on the subject.

 

How does the transmission of the messages take place ?

The beginning of the revelations is described by Mrs Ryden herself in a videotape that reports one of her meetings in Switzerland in 1991 with a group of Canadian pilgrims:

«I was making a list of expenses for a new cocktail party the same evening. At that moment I had this sheet of paper and I was writing what I had to buy for the afternoon. While I placed my hand with the pencil on the paper, all of a sudden I felt throughout my whole body some electricity that was coming into me through my fingers and especially on my right hand. Everything I held seemed like it was glued. The pencil no longer detached itself from my fingers. Even if I wanted to get rid of it, I could not lift it up anymore, I could not open my hand anymore. And the sheet of paper became like a magnet again. As if my hand was glued, I could not lift it anymore, as if my hand weighed 100 kilos, I could no longer lift it. All of a sudden an invisible force pushed my hand. I was not afraid, I do not know why. I relaxed my hand to see what would happen, and some words came, it was no longer my writing, and they said: “I am your angel [...]. My name is Dan (Daniel)”. He was soon replaced by Jesus Christ, by the Father, by the Virgin Mary or by other saints.

This first phase, caracterized by the phenomenon of the hand that writes by itself without the concourse of intelligence – nor even at times, of the will - is later followed by a second phase in which the protagonist hears an interior locution, a voice that pronounces the words that her hand is writing on its own, generally without her controlling it.

 

A mediumistic or mystical phenomenon ?

These modes of transmitting messages are and remain typical of the forms of mediumship (medium activity) present both in spiritistic circles, often disguised as “prayer groups” that make the claim of communications with the afterlife, and in neo-spiritistic New Age circles where they speak of channeling or communicating with “higher” spirits.

Mrs. Ryden’s supporters talk about her writing as “hieratic”,  “inspired”, “guided”, and the same “Jesus” would seem to have bothered himself to reassure his prophetess by telling and showing her «that this is not automatic writing» (cf. R.LAURENTIN, When God Manifests,ed. Dehoniane, Rome, 1993, p. 51).

However the ways in which the messages are transmitted correspond exactly to the definition of automatic writing offered by a New Age representative: writing that takes place «without conscious control, the source of which apparently is not the person who is writing» (J.KLIMO, CHANNELING - Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources, 1987).

Whether the phenomenon occurs with or without interior locution, whether the perceiver gives her assent and remains conscious during the dictation, changes nothing about the fact that, in the initial phase, she was forced to write by a higher power, and that, in any case, her hand moved by itself, with a handwriting totally different from the writer’s normal one.

She admits herself several times: «But I know very well that I cannot control my hand and that I lose all power when God takes it» (From L’Informateur Catholique of April 9, 1992). Elsewhere she says that "Jesus" told her to try again to control her hand: «I had in mind to write my own thing controlling my hand myself. (…) I was struggling to write but couldn’t, then He wrote: “write” and He forced my hand down writing four times “Love” while I was struggling to stop my hand» (September 4, 1987); «to remind you of My Presence, I remove your capacity to control your hand» (December 19, 1989).

To justify and explain the phenomenon, Vassula Ryden and some theologians close to her want to refer to the suspension of faculties typical of an ecstasy where the person actually loses control over its inferior faculties and some of its members. In response to the first question of Fr P. Grech, the protagonist declares: «known mystics such as Teresa of Avila experienced raptures of her body or sometimes part of her body. I believe that this is a mitigated form of rapture of my hand and trust that the Lord has his own purpose in this».

 

Spontaneous act or violent act?

The combination, certainly seductive, still denotes enormous confusion and superficiality in as much as it ignores the essential distinction between a vital or spontaneous (and therefore a human and free) act and a violent act.

The vital act obviously recalls the idea of life which, in turn, refers to the spontaneous, immanent and proper movement of a being «to which belongs, according to its nature, the faculty to move spontaneously, or at least to resolve to an action» (THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa theologica Ia, q.18, a.2) The more the nature of a being is endowed with knowledge, the more it is able to move by itself; the plant occupies the lowest level of living beings because, lacking any cognitive faculty, it has movements completely preset and largely determined by external conditions. At one level the higher animal, endowed with sense knowledge, is capable of identifying and, therefore, of pursuing certain objects with a greater autonomy of movements.

Human beings, however, have the advantage of a clearly higher conscious life, resulting from their spiritual knowledge, which enables them to choose the goal to be achieved and the appropriate means with an “indifference” or freedom absent in animals, whose instinct obey only stimuli identified through sense knowledge.

However, each of these living beings has a capacity of movement proportionate to its proper nature and which has its principle in the subject itself that moves. In plants movement comes down to preset bio-chemical processes; in animals it is an instinctive response to the stimulus identified through sense knowledge, in human beings it is an expression of a free choice mediated and directed by reason and the will.

The violent or at least mechanical movement instead has its principle outside of the subject that moves and, in the case of human beings, does not stem from reason and the will which are precisely bypassed. And it is exactly what happens to Mrs. Ryden, not only at the beginning of the phenomenon when the violence was evident, but even afterwards, every time that the hand, whether or not accompanied by the interior locution, moves anyway not by virtue of an internal principle, namely an impulse coming from the mind, but rather by virtue of a mechanical movement coming from outside.

But, someone could object, all this is irrelevant and even understandable, granted that our protagonist has become an instrument of God, to whom – after the initial violence – she has freely and spontaneously submitted and surrendered the control of her own hand …

Now, to prove the inconsistency and the unfounded nature of the objection, it is sufficient to recall that when He uses one of His creatures, the Creator does not ever deny Himself; He always chooses a suitable instrument, He respects its inner nature and - in the case of a human being - the vitality or the capacity of self-determination. As Karol Wojtila rightly says,

«It is never allowed to treat the person as a means. This principle has a totally universal scope. No one has the right to take advantage of a person, to use a person as a means, not even God its Creator. From God this is, on the other hand, absolutely impossible, because by endowing the person with a rational and free nature, He has granted him the power to assign by himself the purpose of his actions, thereby excluding every possibility of reducing him to being nothing more than a blind instrument to be used for the purposes of others» (“Love and responsibility” in Metaphysics of the person-All essays and integrative philosophical works, Bompiani, Milan 2003, p.478).

We must point out that it would be precisely contradictory on the part of God to override the reason of a human being just at the moment when He is communicating with him. In the case that concerns us, the protagonist is not the “secretary of God” as she defines herself, in so far as she is not found transcribing a dictation grasped by her own mind; at most, she is his typewriter or telex activated from the outside.

Regarding the above mentioned reference to the suspension or rapture of the faculties in mystical saints, that has nothing in common with the phenomenon of Vassula Ryden’s writing. It is not a case of a force or a paralysis imposed on the faculties or members from outside, since the suspension of the faculties here comes from an intense absorption of the consciousness or of the mind in things divine. It is the hyper-activation of her spiritual faculties to cause the hypo-activation of her lower faculties. It is a little more like what happens when a distracted person stops spellbound and whose limbs act in a disconnected way because the mind is absorbed elsewhere… Once again, we are faced with vital acts, which have their origin in the intrinsic principle of the spontaneous movement of its members which is the mind. The words of Saint Teresa of Avila leave no room for doubt: «While the soul is searching so much for her God, she feels like fainting from the power of a most sweet enjoyment: she loses her breath, her bodily powers disappear, to such an extent that without a great effort she cannot even move her hands, etc» (Autobiography, c.18, 10).

 

Vassula: another Catherine of Siena?

Contrary to what is affirmed by some of Mrs Ryden’s supporters, the ways of the transmission of these messages do not have any precedent in the history of spirituality and mysticism. There are no similarities with Teresa of Avila or other mystical saints. Furthermore, an attempt at trying to identify the writing of Vassula Rydén with that of Catherine of Siena is out of place.  Despite being illiterate, St. Catherine wrote some letters in her own handwriting. In both cases, according to the protagonist’s followers, we would have the writing “guided” by a hand that would move by itself… Nothing could be more mistaken, since the Saint (as also happened to Rose of Lima) started to write and read in an instant, as if she had always been able to do so without her hand needing to be continually “guided” by an external movement. Like the lame man healed by Jesus, who started walking on his own two feet, moving them by himself as if he had always been walking: he was not transformed into a puppet that walks by virtue of the extrinsic action of someone who is pulling ropes…

In conclusion, it seems to me that the phenomenon placed under examination here would have a lot to share with mediumship in its New Age version of channeling. As Allan Kardec (1804-1869), the theoretician and popularizer of spiritism and mediumship in the West, said: «the medium [. . .] is the instrument of a foreign intelligence; he is passive, and what he says does not come from him» (Le livre des médiums, p. 2, c. 14, par. 172). I have no doubt whatsoever that our protagonist gets her messages from a «foreign intelligence». Just as I also entertain no doubts about its identity, strengthened by the admissions of Mrs. Ryden who recognizes that the devil has the ability to take over the phenomenon, using the same writing called “hieratic”, that is, holy, divine, inspired, to slip in errors or to add inappropriate words (cf. messages of January 8, 1987, February 19, 1987, March 6, 1987, April 17, 1987, July 22, 1987, September 9, 1987. We include hereunder photocopy n.20 as an example).

These are very disturbing and disarming admissions. How can you call holy and divine, a writing that can be used indiscriminately both by God and by the devil?

Photocopy n. 20 - Example of a message where the devil intervenes using the "hieratical" writing attributed to God (from: "Aha its her again...).

 

 

The ambiguous attitude of Mrs. Rydén toward the Church

(2c) Another reason that could explain the substantially negative attitude of the Congregation derives from the fact that the protagonist seems to flutter over and above the Church, be it the Greek Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church.

 

The Orthodox Church

For instance in August 2005, His Eminence Abba Seraphim, Metropolitan of Glastonbury, stated in a General Memorandum to the clergy of the British Orthodox Church that:

«In receiving the sacraments at altars other than those of the Orthodox Church [justifying this by quoting the Decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum of Vatican II], Mrs. Ryden is disregarding canonical Orthodox discipline which forbids it. Mrs. Ryden should seek the permission and blessing of the local Orthodox hierarch having jurisdiction in each place, prior to addressing public meetings, rather than act in the face of their sometimes expressed opposition and criticism (cf. http://britishorthodox.org/glastonbury-review-archive/glastonbury-review-archive-issue-113/3/ )». This means that she does not obey the rules of her Church.

Moreover in 2001, the Committee for heresies of the Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church concluded that the pseudo-visionary has estranged herself (or was she expelled?) from the Orthodox Church, even if she continues officially to be a part of it. Mrs. Rydén denounced the Rev. Dr Kyriakos Tsouros, Secretary of the Committee for heresies for defamation, but decided later on to forgo legal action.

Always referring to her participation in the Catholic Church’s sacraments, it is useful to stress how far-fetched is her justification which mentions ecclesiastical documents such as Vatican II’s decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum, John Paul II’s  encyclical Ut Unum Sint and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n.1399). In fact all these documents insist on the exceptional nature of this participation, which has nothing of normal or customary. This orientation has been emphasized by Benedict XVI in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis of February 22, 2007.

Therefore, the following  declaration of the 1995 Notification does nothing less than asserting the consolidated teaching of the Church:

«By habitually sharing in the sacraments of the Catholic Church even though she is Greek Orthodox, Mrs. Ryden is causing considerable surprise in various circles of the Catholic Church. She appears to be putting herself above all ecclesiastical jurisdiction and every canonical norm, and in effect, is creating an ecumenical disorder that irritates many authorities, ministers and faithful of her own Church, as she puts herself outside the ecclesiastical discipline of the latter.»

A declaration, needless to say, that shows towards the Orthodox Church a respect and a sensitivity we would like to see in the protagonist herself.

 

The Catholic Church

As for the Catholic Church, neither Vassula’s words nor behavior are reassuring, despite her actual incitement to recognize the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

1. First of all because she does not speak at all about the nature of this primacy: «Although the message confirms the primacy of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, known in both Orthodox and Catholic tradition, it does not speak of questions of jurisdiction. I believe I have not been called to speak on this issue and so I refrain from doing so in any way» (letter of response to father P. Grech). We are then back to the starting point, in as much as this position reflects that of the Orthodox Churches, ready to recognize in the Bishop of Rome a primacy not of jurisdiction but only of honor.

2. It must also be reminded that the Church presented in the messages is in a way deprived of her institutional dimension: «you will be nourished directly by Me» (August 29, 1989); «Yes, indeed, My Spirit of Grace will be poured out on all mankind, and your generation shall be fed directly by Me, you shall be taught and guided by Me and even My saints and My angels from above shall meet you at each street-corner» (December 4 or 6, 1989, depending on the editions). It is as if human authority was overcome: «I have chosen you to show the world that I need neither authority nor holiness» (February 21, 1987) (and before, one needs to ask, from whom was the authority coming?). It even suggests that the Church, so far, was not in the hands of God: «My vineyard is being cared by My Own Hand now» (August 22, 1989)… Converts «will be called priests of the Living God, priests of the Amen, and in this priesthood I shall rebuild My Church» (October 29, 1991)

3. Moreover, the figure of the Pope is not at all intended as that safe and unshakable reference point willed by Christ and typical of the Catholic tradition. And here I am not referring primarily to the message of April 18, 1988, later on corrected, in whom it is said: «Peter, take My Hand, Satan has digressed you from the truth!». I am referring rather to every time doubts are expressed about the loyalty of Pope John Paul II, a loyalty we read between the lines, linked to his opening or less to the messages of Mrs. Ryden: «Beloved, I, the Lord am standing at your door, knocking, will you hear Me calling, will you open the door (…)?» (October 27, 1987); «Peter, be My echo! Feed My lambs Peter. do not deny Me again beloved» (December 1, 1987). «To Peter I will give entirely back his Seat enthroning him», and asks him: «I, the Lord [...] am at your door knocking, will you let Me in?» (May 7, 1988).

4. Finally, several messages from this same period, spoke of the Pope’s imminent death: «Peter is trapped and stands helpless in their midst. [...] Peter’s end is near» (July 26, 1988). As if it were not enough, writings and rumors go around in the circles close to our protagonist regarding the existence of a conspiracy led by the Vatican entourage and by prelates linked to Freemasonry, whose scope is to neutralize the Pope and his nearest collaborators. It is said that this conspiracy has clashed with the openness towards Vassula of John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope, imposing on them the ecclesiastical documents hostile to her. In this regard, an article quite spread in TLIG circles bears an emblematic title: Why Is The Vatican Afraid of This Woman? What does this woman reveal that scares certain Vatican bureaucrats that they even defy the Pope in order to silence her?

The thesis is taken forth by a series of questions: «Is there something contained within True Life in God concerning the Vatican, that both Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger are willing to give their endorsements and support for it, hoping that others would discover it as well, but would not dare mention anything in public themselves?». Are the persons responsible for this plot «the same men within this institution that covered up the criminal, immoral, and outright evil sexual abuse of innocent people by members of their own clergy around the world for many years?». These men are said to act with deceit and in open disobedience to the Pope.

As already mentioned, they are said to be the authors of the 1995 Notification and also of the 1996 press release referred to in the following assertion: «Whether out of fear of losing their control of the situation or just trying to save face, those behind the first Notification against Vassula and True Life in God attacked once again by publishing a second Notification [sic!], which claimed to reinforce the validity of the original Notification», therefore inducing to believe that cardinal Ratzinger fully endorsed it cleared its publication in the Holy See’s official organ Acta Apostolicae Saedis with his signature and that of the Secretary of the Congregation. Regarding the Congregation’s January 2007 letter, it is asserted that «not only does Cardinal Levada defy what Cardinal Ratzinger has said and done in this situation, the new Prefect for the Congregation even defies and contradicts Pope John Paul II».

As the reader may ascertain, the authors of this theory attribute to the Vatican conspirators to have a gigantic power, capable of muzzling the Pope and the Prefect, and of inventing or producing official documents signed in their place. But these same authors contradict themselves when they attribute to cardinal Ratzinger the authorship of the 2004 letter, which they consider a recognition capable of cancelling the ill-famed Notification of 1995. In regard to cardinal Levada, they forget to what extent he is a “creature” of the present Pope who, taking everyone off guard, chose him personally as his successor at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

These theories, always present in circles close to Mrs. Rydén and whose scope is to demonize her adversaries, do not appear by accident or out of the blue, but find their foundation in the protagonist’s behavior and in the very messages of True Life in God, representing one of its most visible “fruits”.

This demonization is applied first of all to any kind of objection expressed inside the TLIG organizations. In this case, the protagonist or the priests instructed by her, accuse the dissidents of belonging to the “clan of Cain” or of being the instruments of the “spirit of Jezabel”, linked to idolatry, or of the “spirit of Achab” which, according to them, is a spirit of cowardice and confusion. The remedy prescribed to these dissidents dragged by Satan to the gates of hell, consists in deliverance or healing prayers accomplished by at least two or three priests during a whole year.

The fate of external adversaries is not more enviable. The smallest criticism is considered as «lacking any Christian charity whatsoever»; those were the words of father O’Carroll – one of the main theologians who defend Vassula together with René Laurentin – to father Mitch Pacwa, an American Jesuit to whom the seer had requested to make a theological assessment of her revelations. Fr. Pacwa had expressed a negative judgment which was published in the magazine Catholic Twin Circle in August of 1993.

But in most cases, the opponents’ activities are directly attributed to the demon, eventually through the mediation of freemasonry. In photocopy n.1 we read that «Satan (…) uses father Philip Pavitch [sic] who collaborated with father Mitch Pacwa» and who is guilty of having circulated the original version of the messages with all the modifications. Father O’Carroll considered that it was his duty to send a letter to the Minister General of the Friars Minor asking him to take measures against father Pavich in order to silence him.

Photocopy n. 1 - Extract from the fax sent by Vassula Rydén to Elena Carvalho on October 14, 1993, in which she writes that the demon is using father Pavich (guilty of having circulated the original messages which are a proof that they had been modified) and tries to justify the eliminated passages. For more details, see the chapter: "Disappearance, cancellation, censuring and modification of messages".

 

A crowded Mass of reparation was celebrated in a church of Milan after the publication of one of my critical interventions in the Italian magazine Il Sabato of October 24, 1992.

The “Sacred Heart” in person took the trouble to once again thunder against his “secretary’s” accusers in a threatening message of March 2, 1993: «My Justice will rise at its peak with these traders, for indeed they are those traders who apostatized My Church». In the footnote n.3 [n.4 in some editions of the messages], Mrs Rydén defines the word “traders” as her: «Canadian accusers (…) persecutors of the Holy Spirit (…) symbolically meaning: ‘the jackals’ working by ‘night’ (…) can represent the second beast of the Ap.13, meaning ecclesiastical freemasonry (…) the rationalistic spirit, apostatized and dry».

Who are these “traders” of apocalyptic dimension and instigators of apostasy? Perhaps father Signori, ex-professor at the Major Seminary of Montréal and then generous minister of one of the city’s parishes? Or Marie-France James, author of several books that expose the deception of esotero-occultism, New Age and freemasonry? For many years a prestigious collaborator of the Informateur Catholique, Mrs James became the victim of a journalistic lynchage after taking a critical stand on True Life in God, and especially after the publication of her book Le phénomène Vassula (Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris 1992). Or Mrs Daria Klanac, a housewife in charge of the Croatian community of Montréal and responsible for the Corporation des Messages pour la Paix (which at that time spread the Medjugorje messages in Canada)? She too was the victim of a “scorched-earth” campaign after her courageous interventions on our protagonist. Finally, considering my nationality and the message’s date – scarcely five days after my intervention on the Italian broadcasting station Radio-Maria – I too probably belong to the ill-famed club of the “Canadian traders” instigators of apostasy.

But obviously, the only victim is Mrs Rydén, on whom “God” Himself bestows the aureole of the martyrized prophetess: «Was there any prophet who was not persecuted, threatened or attacked?» (June 30, 1990). “Jesus” goes as far as to declare that: «If they persecute you, they will be persecuting Me, if they mock you, they will be mocking Me» (September 13, 1987); «Your accusers are in reality My accusers, your condemnors are My condemnors, your persecutors are My persecutors» (September 13, 1989). In reality, very little is needed to deserve the title of persecutor. A simple objection is sufficient: «So if anyone has objected, he has not been objecting to you, but to Me, I who have given you My Holy Spirit of Truth» (October 24, 1991).

All this is truly ridiculous, particularly if one considers the definition of the word “persecution” given by any dictionary: «unfair and cruel treatment inflicted with rage»… So one must consider as pertinent the comment written by the journalist of Il Sabato in answer to the complaints of a Mrs Rydén's supporter: «Please do tell us, do explain publicly to us: Has Vassula been imprisoned? Tortured? Exiled? Sentenced to deportation? Is she pursued by the secret services? The only news we have about her, tell us that she lives peacefully in Switzerland as the wife of a FAO officer, that her books are published by important Catholic editors, that she travels all over the world, welcomed and venerated as a saint by enthusiastic churchmen (including bishops) and crowds of fans» (A.SOCCI, in Il Sabato of December 5, 1992).

Since none of the critics mentioned above have ever worked for a Roman Congregation, they cannot belong to the deprecated “Vatican masonry”. One can therefore assert without fear of error that the opposition to Vassula originated from simple churchmen and faithful, therefore from the base of the Church and not from its top, and that this opposition did not wait for the 1995 Notification to start acting. The sensus fidelium truly exists!

But the messages insist on giving the protagonist more “noble” and highly placed adversaries: «My church is filled up with Cains enthroning themselves in My sanctuary» (May 13, 1989); «the Enemy would be enthroned, in the end of times, into My Sanctuary» (January 24, 1991).

It seems that these highly placed enemies are to be connected with some satanic or Masonic sect: «These idols are placed, with the power of the dragon, into high places; then they appointed priests out of their own number for the high places who officiate today in the heart of My Sanctuary: and they are not worshipping Me; they pretend to do so; they go out masqueraded as high priests, worshipping and serving the beast itself and its production which is conformed to the world; they are worshipping alien and lifeless gods.» (August 1990); in a footnote the seer comments: «Power obtained by the power of black masses; Here Jesus is referring to the false prophet masked as an angel (Rev 13.11; 16.13)».

And above all a particularly important figure stands out within the Church: «Oh, Cain! (…) here you come masquerading and dressed up as a High Priest, you have garbed yourself in My clothes, in gold and silver, to hide your dark-robes, given to you by the Black Beast. [...] He will deceive many and people will be blinded, blinded because of the imposter’s garments[...] With his glorious disguise, he will bring a Great Apostasy upon all My Church, he will bring desolation, but everything will be disguised by miracles, by great portents and signs in the skies» (January 30, 1989).

We are not dealing here with symbolic language, as we can deduce from the messages themselves: «This Rebel and his clan are thriving now, concealed in robes of High Priest, concealed as lamb, concealed as the Truth, to deceive many and lead them all to their death; I am not speaking in parables now but in direct words; the Times are here, those Times foretold in Scripture, when My enemies will be conferring a title that does not belong to Me and is not Me.” (September 12, 1990). But, then, who is that rebel concealed as the High Priest? Without doubt it refers to a bishop, since he “ordained [himself] as priest as well as others » (August 1990).

In an interview published in The Sign of the Supernatural in November 1994 p.32, the journalist, a certain Dante Scolari says: «Vassula makes us understand that the world is already governed by Freemasonry, which has by now knit strong ties with many eminent personalities of the Church. I tell her, because of what I heard in a prayer centre linked to a visionary that I know, that in the Vatican there are already some thirty cardinals registered in masonry. “Oh non, bien plus!” (“No, many more”) was her answer, calm, but determined».

In the same magazine in January 1995 comes the denial that Mrs. Ryden herself wanted to publish. After attributing the misunderstanding to the fact that «Both I and my interviewers were speaking in a foreign language», she asserts, among other things, «The Lord has never provided me with names or numbers, about the serious situation facing the Church today. Therefore, I cannot have spoken of “bien plus” than thirty cardinals entered into masonry, much less has the Lord ever provided me with data to identify “the high personalities of the Church” linked to Freemasonry, nor has he ever specified whether these personalities live and work in the Vatican or elsewhere».

This denial, only partial since it does not cover all contents of the interview, is not reliable. First of all, because the linguistic problem did not exist. Mrs Ryden – for years a resident in the French-speaking part of Switzerland – as well as Scolari –through his very long residence in Lausanne – know well French (the language used during the conversation). And secondly, because some of her statements («the Lord has never given me… names, …data “to identify high personalities of the Church” linked to Freemasonry») are in open contradiction with note number 3 of the already quoted message of August 29, 1990 which reads literally: «God revealed their names to me». [In some language editions, this footnote appears as number 5 of the message of August 5-29, 1990.] Even though here the protagonist does not openly use the term “cardinal”, it is obvious that it refers to them, since the “High Priests” are «enthroned», have «highly placed positions»; and that is how her followers understand it. At this point, it becomes impossible to suppress the spontaneous reaction of the mind, suspiciously reviewing the list of cardinals…

Always from the interview cited above, we learn that «at the death or disappearance of this Pope, the Antichrist will begin to reign». At a distance of almost 13 years after this prophecy, someone might feel compelled to ask if the Antichrist is not Pope Ratzinger himself…