Issued: 07/30/22

   PLEASE NOTE:  All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.  The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

Deceptions at Medjugorje

A Bit of Background

   Medjugorje is a town located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a portion of the old Republic of Yugoslavia that dissolved following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.  It sits on hilly country at an elevation of 656 feet.  The name Medjugorje literally means “area between mountains.”

   In the 4^th century BCE, Celtic tribes moved into the area displacing other peoples.  The Celts had no written language; what is known about them comes from archaeological findings and surviving texts.  Their polytheistic religion included a father god of the dead; a male celestial god associated with thunder; a divine son; a mother goddess associated with land and fertility; and scores of minor gods of skill and craft.  A number of Celtic deities were triune; those with healing qualities were worshipped at sacred springs.  Thus the Celts, among other tribes, “seeded” this area of the Balkans with notions later incorporated into Catholic dogma as well as featured in Marian apparitions.

   There is nothing strange in these outcomes.  The Roman Empire, sponging up mythologies and religious rites from the peoples they conquered [they wiped out the Celts], assimilated them to fashion their own brand of worship.  The Phrygian Cybele [“mountain mother”] had been appropriated from Anatolia [today’s Turkey] by Greek expats and brought to Greece where, besides having a eunuch mendicant priesthood dedicated to her [sounds familiar?], she was associated with mountains, wild animals, and nature.  The Romans trounced Greece and Cybele became their Great Mother, forms of whose cult they spread throughout the empire.  When Catholicism became Rome’s religion, pagan deities were imported but given Christian veneers:  “Mary” became Cybele’s switcheroo; Helios/Apollo, the Greco-Roman sun god, became emblematic of Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2);¹ and the worship of minor gods of skill and craft became the cult of patron saints.²

   Cut to 1843-1846, a time when Franciscans had set roots in the area.  By 1881 Leo XIII sought to transfer parishes from the Franciscans to the diocesan clergy he endorsed.  Over the centuries, the Franciscans had fought hard to secure the area from Turkish domination; so they saw Leo’s intrusion both as loss of income and prestige as community leaders.  Following WWI, the region was annexed to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, both Catholic and obedient to Rome. 

   By 1923 the Vatican told the Franciscans in no uncertain terms to turn half of their parishes over to the secular clergy.  The Franciscans complied partially.  In 1975 Paul VI applied he screws and told the Franciscans to withdraw from some parishes, keeping 30 but ceding 52 to the secular clergy.  By 1980 the Franciscans still held on to 40 parishes; to this day, they have refused to comply further with Vatican orders.  By 1981 “Mary,” a self-professed messenger of peace and reconciliation, began to side with the Franciscans against her reputedly “beloved” Roman popes.

   Medjugorje is still being administered by the Franciscans.  Since the apparitions began in 1981, more than 30 million people have visited the site:  Along with Lourdes and Fátima, it ranks as one of the biggest, Marian praying centers.  There are souvenir shops, boutiques, restaurant and parks galore to help pilgrims get in sync with the spirituality of the place.³   Local currency, euros and dollars function as ‘open sesames.’  Credit cards may be honored worldwide, but are not widely accepted at Medjugorje.

   As can be seen, Mammon has scored both a niche at the site and a notch in his belt.  And the poverty-committed Francis of Assisi, who rejected worldly goods to imitate Jesus, must be turning in his grave.

The Apparitions

   On 24 June 1981, on a stony area called Podbrdo on Mount Crnica, “Mary” made her first Medjugorje appearance.  The times were post-sexual revolution/world events exhibiting a marked lack of spiritual values.  As a result “Mary” seems to have lowered her own standards regarding the spiritual fervor of visionaries:  The two first seers, Ivanka, 15, and Mirjana, 16, had gone up there for a smoke.

   Looking towards Podbrdo, Ivanka noticed a shimmering silhouette surrounded by bright light; she told Mirjana it was the Gospa [archaic Croatian for “lady,” but “Mary’s” customary appellation]; Mirjana pooh-poohed the notion; and both went down the hill.  They met shepherdess Milka, 13; all three went back up the hill and saw the apparition.  Friend Vicka, 17, came by, but ran down in panic after seeing “Mary.”  She came back with Ivan D., 16, and Ivan I., 20, who had been picking apples.  Upon seeing the apparition, Ivan I. dropped his apples and bolted.  Later, they all saw the evanescent apparition with a child in arms.

   The seers later described “Mary” as a 20-year-old young woman, with black hair, blue eyes, and a crown of stars around her head [a reprise spin of Revelation 12:1].⁴  She was wearing a white veil and bluish-grey robe.  No roses at her feet this time around:  They were hidden by a white cloud over which she was hovering.  The rosary appears to have been left behind, maybe inconvenient while baby-cradling; but though the idol on Podbrdo does not show one, the idols of devotion at Medjugorje shrines have it.  Satan knows that every mind-game of omission elicits human responses of sinful commission.

   The visionaries reported the apparition to their respective, meaningful adults, who told them to remain mum not to incur the wrath of their godless state [at the time, Yugoslavia was officially atheistic].  But out of the bag was the cat and Apparition Hill—as Mount Crnica came to be known—was the place to be at.  Thus on the second apparition [no baby this time], a small group of people gathered before the appointed hour.  Two of the original seers were AWOL:  Ivan I. and Milka, the latter because her mom kept her home tending the garden; instead her sister Marija and 10-year-old Jakov subbed for the other two. “Mary” promptly nixed the absentee duo:  They never saw or heard “Mary” again.  The prerequisite sextet had been reshuffled and firmly conscripted, which is why—at “Mary’s” bidding—the official anniversary of the apparitions takes place on 25 June rather than the 21^st.

   “Mary” argued for the need to believe even without the apparitions, a commendable suggestion immediately preempted by special effects:  Seers made to dash up the hill through brambles and weeds that did not scratch their skins; and over time a spinning, kaleidoscopic sun, or as luminous background for superimposed figures like hearts and crosses.  Rosaries too are alleged to have changed color.  A Jesuit priest who claims to have witnessed these luminotechnics counters criticisms of collective hysteria with his personal assurance that he was not and is not given to hysterics.  That should settle doubts once and for all.

   On the third apparition [26 June], “Mary” said the world could only be saved through peace, assuring that if men found God, peace would ensue [not God’s objective and the reason why Jesus’ predictions as well as Revelation’s are all about world destruction and upgrading].⁵  Because ten years later—to the day—the brutal Balkan War broke out, “Mary’s” warning was viewed as both premonitory and confirmation that the conflict, ethnic and religious in scope, meant that God had not been heeded and appeased.  On the one hand there was “Mary” appealing for brotherly love; on the other not the forgiving and loving God of Jesus, but the vengeful Moloch of the Old Testament calling for human blood.

   On the fourth [27 June], the state stepped in:  For Communists religion is the opium of the masses, but for themselves the odium that never passes.  The seers, by then branded as impostors, delusional, and troublemaking rebels, were summoned to the local nick, interrogated, and submitted to medical/psychiatric tests.  After being let go, they ran to Apparition Hill to keep their appointment with “Mary” who, in her plea that priests must remain firm in the faith while protecting the people’s own, parted company with God’s and Jesus’ stance that priests as middle-men to divine truths were unreliable and expendable (Jeremiah 5:31; Ezekiel 34:7-10; Malachi 2:7-8; Luke 16:6; John 16:13; 1John 2:27).

  On the fifth [28 June], “Mary” looked happy, prayed with the seers and answered all their questions.   Returning from a trip, the parish priest of Medjugorje was amazed at the news that 15,000 people had gathered for the occasion.  He feared it was all a state ploy to discredit the church [as if the historical record were not discrediting enough].  He interviewed the six visionaries and was won over by their guilelessness; yet following Vatican MO, he opted for prudence rather than full-fledged support.

   The sixth [29 June] coincided with feast of Peter and Paul, a big to-do with Catholic Croatians.  The seers were picked up by police and taken to a psychiatric ward for more tests to determine mental illness.  The physician in charge, a Muslim woman, declared the seers to be sane and sincere; in her opinion if anybody was crazy, it was those who had brought them.  Amongst the crowd on Apparition Hill was a 3-year-old very ill with septicemia.  The parents asked for a miracle cure; “Mary” consented only if the parents and the community at large prayed, fasted, and lived an authentic—i.e., Catholic—faith. Healing was effected over the long haul:  The child had to wait until summer’s end to be able to walk and talk.  Such a protracted cure contradicts the Scriptural norm of immediate faith-cures mediated by divinely-appointed beings, be them Jesus’ (Luke 13:16), the Apostles’ (Acts 3:2-8, 14:8-10), or Elisha (2Kings 5:10,14).  But then the latter were into undoing Satan’s handiwork rather than extorting worship for services rendered.

   On the seventh [30 June] and eighth [July 1] apparitions, more state shenanigans:  Attempts were made to keep the seers from meeting “Mary” at the appointed hour.  Two female agents driving them around the area witnessed some luminous phenomenon in the horizon approaching their car:  Though they could not see “Mary,” the seers got down and prayed with “Mary.”  Next day their parents were summoned by police and accused of abetting their children’s deception.  Vicka, Ivanka and Marija were later picked up with the pretext of going to the church rectory; upon by-passing the church, the girls somehow extruded themselves and had a fleeting vision of “Mary” telling them not to be afraid.  Jakov, Mirjana and Ivan were visited at home and similarly encouraged.

   These are the official apparitions, at least the ones the Vatican feels comfortable endorsing due to the “abundant fruits of grace” springing from them.  Of course the quality of the fruit lies in the eye of the Appraiser: “’What do you see, Jeremiah?’” I said, “Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, that can’t be eaten, they are so bad” (Jeremiah 24:3); so what appears edible to the Vatican may be regarded as rotten by the Heavenly Father.  Problem is that according to the seers, “Mary” keeps visiting them to this day relaying further communiqués.  Francis, the current Bishop of Rome, who understands that too much of a good thing cheapens novelty, is OK with the pastoral productivity of the original visions but declares all others of dubious value.

An exercise in divide and conquer

   Like most Marian visitations, Medjugorje did not break new ground:  It reaffirmed long-standing Catholic dogma concocted by men, as always in contradiction to written Scripture.  The messages themselves were old issues rehashed:  Praying the rosary; self-identification as the Blessed Virgin Mary [a bit un-modest (Proverbs 27:2)]; offers of conditional peace [predicated on compliance to given instructions]; appeals to priests to live up to their duties; and the de rigueur building of a shrine at another high place.

   Whereas Jesus’ objective is unity in God through shared faith (Ephesians 1:3-10, 4:1-6), Satan’s is divisiveness through competing and irreconcilable creeds/agendas.  Thus at Madjugorje the ultimate goal was fomenting acrimony between the diocesan clergy and the Franciscans, which has been at play since 1981 to the present day.  Following the completion of the Mostar Cathedral of Mary in 1980, it was decided to split the Franciscan parishes of Saints Peter and Paul to create the cathedral parish.  The Franciscan chaplains in charge of the former refused to obey a papal decree ordering relocation; they appealed to higher authorities and were declined.  In September 1981, after suspending their priestly faculties, Bishop Ẑ. informed the pope about the situation.  That same month the ousted chaplain of the Saint Paul parish, with the help of loyal congregants, forcibly expelled diocesan clergy from their domains.

   On 15 January 1982 Bishop Ẑ. interviewed the seers to ask how “Mary” felt about events.  Prompted by a priest wishing to safeguard the integrity of the apparitions, the seers were instructed to deny any further instructions.  But on 3 April 1982 the seers came back with reports that “Mary” had scolded them for not telling the truth; that the Franciscan chaplains were not guilty of anything; and that they should be allowed to remain in Mostar celebrating masses and hearing confessions.  Having been made the villain in the matter, Bishop Ẑ. became skeptical of apparitions undermining obedience to church and pope, let alone monkey-wrenching hierarchy by siding with upstart, excommunicated priests. 

   According to Ivan D., “Mary” followed through with a later message [21 June 1983] telling Bishop Ẑ.  to recant his negative stance regarding the apparitions or he would be judged by her court (?) as well as Jesus’ court—yet another glaring contradiction of written Scripture.  What did Jesus say?  “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22).  Where does the Bible say that Jesus would share that duty with Mary?  Nowhere; so the apparition—or the seer—was lying.

   Bishop Ẑ. by then was in full defensive mode.  From 1982 to 1986, he set up diocesan commissions to investigate the apparitions.  Needless to say, Bishop Ẑ. believed the apparitions to be a con perpetrated by the Franciscans to further their pastoral agendas and to damage his reputation in the diocese.  In 1984 Bishop Ẑ. sent a report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, which was then headed by the future Benedict XVI, claiming the apparitions to be false:  His “Lady” could not be a partisan to such shenanigans.

   In typical fashion, the Vatican shelved the report; and nixed Bishop Ẑ.’s request that Medjugorje pilgrimages should be abolished, endorsing instead individual pilgrimages properly supervised and catered with appropriate sacraments.⁶ Finally in 1987-1991 a conference of Yugoslavian bishops reached the opinion that, based on the evidence at hand, the apparitions were not of supernatural origin; that pilgrimages could not be organized on the supposition that apparitions were supernatural; and that final confirmation pro or con would be left to future commissions.

  From 2010-2014 an international commission, to be headed by Cardinal Ruini, was set up by Benedict XVI to settle the matter.  This so-called Ruini Commission involved secular and religious participants/disciplines; thus the findings were more nuanced and ‘rational.’⁷   The official apparitions were green-lighted:   The seers had not then been under the influence of Franciscans or self-vested interests; and their behavior under state duress was consistent and inspiring.   The hypothesis of demonic influences was rejected—how could it have been otherwise?  The rest of the apparitions were seen as contaminated by the tug-of-war between Bishop Ẑ. and Franciscan rebels—hence unreliable.  Since the seers kept reporting Marian visitations until 2014, the Ruini Commission deemed them “pre-announced and programmed.”

   Francis, the Bishop of Rome [Benedict XVI had abdicated the papacy], received the final report in 2014.  In the fall of 2015 it was announced that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, while regarding the Ruini findings authoritative, stated that more work needed to be done in order to fully authenticate the apparitions.  In 2017 Francis expressed doubts about non-stop Marian visitations [which continue to this day, or so the originals seers say], arguing that the Madonna was not the head of a telegraphic office sending messages every day.  Likewise the Croatian president, Zoran Milanović, in a meeting with Francis in November 2021, criticized the commercialization of Medjugorje and gave the opinion that if would be best if the Gospa stopped appearing every day.  Maybe Mr. Milanović thought that Francis was in a position to ask Jesus to stop “Mary’s” commuting in the area.

The region’s rich tradition in religious bloodshed

   The 1980 appeal contesting the split of Franciscan parishes was decided on 27 March 1993 by the highest judicial court in Rome on technical grounds:  The Franciscans had a right to appeal but the underlying issues were never resolved.  Some commentator wrote that were it not for the region’s rich and long religious tradition, the appeal would not have succeeded as it did.  Let us dedicate a few words to that rich and long tradition.

   In 1941 the Ustaše proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia [NDH, a Serbo-Croatian acronym], a Nazi puppet regime led by Ante Pavelić.  For him Croatia was a bastion of Catholicism waging war against Orthodox Serbs, Islam, and Communism.  He saw himself as a “staunch fighter” for traditional Catholic values, rallying his comrades-in-arms to ruthlessness:  “We have no right to be humane”—a historical Catholic stance but hardly evocative of Jesus.

   The area under his rule included most of modern-day Croatia, the whole of modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the eastern part of modern-day Serbia.  Back in 1936 Mr. Pavelić had blamed the national chaos on Jews, whom he accused of turning Croatia into a Jewish El Dorado.  Germany invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941; on 10 April the Ustaše came to power; on 30 April Mr. Pavelić issued racial discrimination laws; deprived Jews and Roma (Gypsies) of citizenship rights [25,000, virtually the entire population was eventually exterminated]; and beat the Nazis to the punch by making Jews wear yellow insignias, usually Stars of David.  By May 1941 concentration camps were up and running; out of the 32,000 estimated total of Jewish victims, between 12,000 and 20,000 perished in the concentration camps.

   Jews and Roma were not the only targets:  Muslim Serbs were added to the mix.  It is estimated that 320,000-340,000 Serbs out of a total population of 1.8 million were killed throughout the NDH.  On 22 June 1941 in a joint statement with the Minister of Education and Cults, one Mile Budak, Mr. Pavelić outlined his “final solution” for Croatian Serbs:  One third was to be killed; one third to be forcibly converted to Catholicism; and one third was to be expelled; for which in order to accomplish that agenda, three million bullets had been allocated.  Mr. Pavelić turned the River Drina into his own personal version of Styx:  Serbian corpses were set adrift in the direction of Belgrade “for King Peter [II]”; while plates carrying severed children’s heads were routed to the Belgrade market.

   Pius XII turned a deaf ear to reports of these atrocities:  The Vatican favored skepticism regarding negative information about Croatia.  The lone Vatican protestor, a theologian named Eugène Disserant, was given the standard character-assassination treatment (Jeremiah 38:4; Luke 7:33-34, 23:1-2) by being branded an idiot who could not be trusted.  Pius was impressed by Mr. Pavelić’s zeal both in spreading the true faith whilst eradicating the Vatican’s Balkan rival, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and by his brutal determination to create a firewall against “the socialist menace.”  When WWII ended and American intelligence officers were hunting for Mr. Pavelić for war crimes, Pius XII insisted on his deportation.  Exiled in Argentina Mr. Pavelić listened to mass every day.

   God knows what measures Pius XII would have endorsed against socialist-minded Jesus had he lived in Jesus’ time:  The only difference between socialist ideology and Jesus’ is that the latter preached socialist-styled behaviors not as a political ploy but as means of exalting and worshipping God.  Perhaps Pius’ abhorrence of communism stemmed from “Mary’s” Fátima warnings that Russia would spread her errors worldwide unless stopped.  “Mary” was proposing to achieve that on grounds of iffy worship correctives; but Pius knew that when in Rome, it is best to follow Caesar’s lead to get timely results:  Go, mow, and conquer.  Even he knew that heaven’s timelines and men’s goals require different approaches (Isaiah 55:8).

The Catholic clergy militia

   The predicted WWII had broken out; Russia had not been consecrated to “Mary’s” heart as instructed; so maybe the tables could be turned if true and tried methods like killing religious non-conformists were reactivated.  Surely the means justified Catholic ends—Jesus had warned of that mind-set in John 16:2 and Vatican Rome had practiced it for millennia (Daniel 7:25, 8:24; Revelation 13:7).  The Inquisition had tortured bodies in order to save souls.  Jews had been persecuted for centuries on grounds of crucifying Christ—the kind of anti-Semitic animosity expressly denounced by Paul in Romans 11:16-24.  So when on 31 July 1941 Aloysius Stepinac, the Archbishop of Zagreb, called for the accelerated Catholic conversion of Orthodox Serbian “renegades,” the good, old slays were on the way. Sometimes after conversion, the Catholic-synergic Ustaše locked newly-baptized Serbs in their churches either to burn them alive or riddle them with bullets, explaining that their bodies were no longer needed once their souls had been won for God. ⁸

   In 1943 Mr. Stepinac boasted to the Vatican that 240,000 Serbs had been converted in Croatia; whether as many remained alive after conversion is another issue.  At home Mr. Stepinac played Goebbels’ role to Mr. Pavelić’s Himmler’s as propagandist and administrator covering up Pavelić’s crimes.  As de facto leader of the military clergy committing heinous crimes, Mr. Stepinac awarded icons and crosses instead of excommunicating murderers.  At war’s end he was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor, only 5 of which he served exempted from penal servitude, ultimately being confined to house arrest in his native village.  In time he was declared a martyr and victim of Communism; in 1998 John Paul II beatified Mr. Stepinac; and Francis followed suit by canonizing him in 2015.

   As Proverbs 29:12 says, when a ruler deals in falsehoods, all his officials become wicked; and like King Rehoboam did in 1Kings 12:14, they will surpass the atrocities of their predecessors.  The same way Hitler gets the rap for the Holocaust without having killed a single person, Mr. Stepinac gets the rap for the Croatian genocide.  True that both men were the inspiration for dogs willing to kill:  Ideological leaders they incontestably and shamefully were; but no execrable leader, secular or religious, can do anything on his own without hordes of abettors on board to shed human blood.  All wars are fought on this principle; all religious persecutions are rooted on this mind-set; all genocides are carried out by Satan’s seed as giddy with killing as he is (John 8:44).

   Nuns, monks and Catholic priests participated in the genocide of Orthodox Serbs.  Catholic nuns ran the Stara Gradiška Concentration Camp for children and women, where about 70,000 people were exterminated—allegedly by using knives, hammers, and axes.  Franciscan monks carried out the mass executions of 2,000 Serbs in the villages of Drakulic and Sargovac.  On 6 August 1941, near the Franciscan monastery in Medjugorje, 600 Serb women and children were taken to a precipice overlooking a quarry and killed by being pushed into the pit.

   A priest named Dionizije Juricević told the residents of the village of Staza that he was committed to the religious-reorientation program proven effective in other areas.  He argued there was no sin in killing seven-year olds impeding the progress of Ustaše policies in sync with Catholic objectives:  Blow Serbs away; God would ostensibly choose the worthy amongst victims.  Mr. Juricević wanted everyone to be clear where he stood:  No one was to be fooled by the priestly vestments he was wearing [the poster case of wolves in sheep’s clothing], for if need be he could wield a submachine gun and mow down the recalcitrant.

   The notorious Jasenovac Concentration Camp, where 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed, was home to a Franciscan priest—second in command—named Miroslav Filipovic.  According to a 2018 international conference on events at that camp, Mr. Filipovic is alleged to have left his house every night and return every dawn soaked in blood.  At dinner one night, he allegedly stood up from the table, murdered the prisoner that had been brought before him, sat down to finish his dinner, and then called for a grave digger—shades of 2Kings 9:33-34?

   About 1,400 Catholic priests, roughly two-thirds of their total number at Jasenovac, are reported to have been involved in the genocide carried on there.  It is said that even the Germans were horrified at their barbarous cruelty.  They tried to nip such egregiousness in the bud:  A priest named Mata Gravanovic was executed along with several Ustaše apparatchiks for mass atrocities against Serbs.  After the war some priests were arrested, prosecuted, and many of them executed.

Adding insult to injury

   While all this took place under his watch, Pius XII, Vicar of the Son of God [translate it into Latin and do the math], chose to look the other way.  He did not excommunicate any of his murderous rank and file, settling instead for the symbolic gesture of excommunicating all Communists in 1949.  In his infallible reasoning, the sin of murdering hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians would be “written off” by the war:  Victors are never judged; and losers…well, they can be chalked up to God’s will.  If push came to shove, the Vatican could dissociate from the savagery of Croatian nationalism.

   In 1967, nine years after Pius’ death, Paul VI set his canonization ball rolling.

   In 1990 John Paul II declared Pius a “servant” of God.

   In 2009 Benedict XVI raised the ante for Pius’ canonization by declaring him “venerable.”  [When Pius became pope in 1939, the 12-year-old Benedict thought him his favorite pope].

   The next step in Pius’ canonization is to ascribe two miracles to his intercession.  One exuberant priest claims there are numerous miracles already under Pius’ belt, one of them bordering on “extraordinary.”

   In 2013 whispers came down the clerical grapevine that Francis was considering canonization without miracles by the formula of “certainly in knowledge.”  If as Jesus taught any person’s spiritual condition is known by his deeds (Matthew 7:16), Francis’ formula must be based on imaginary variables.

   No matter; there are always the apologists.  A Vatican spokesman said that Pius is a person to admire and recognize as a model of Christian virtues, having guided the church in difficult times.  As to heroic virtues, the classification Pius XI denied Fátima seer Francisco Marto, Pius XII must be evaluated from a historical standpoint, not so much by the impact of his decisions [ignoring Croatian genocide; endorsing Mr. Stepinac’s actions; helping Mr. Pavelić escape prosecution], as to Pius “intense relationship with God and his continuous search for evangelical perfection.”

   Now we know what Proverbs 24:24 and Matthew 7:21-25 are driving at.

¹ “But for you who fear My name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings.”  Wings here has a double-meaning:  The figurative one alluded to in Isaiah 53:5; and the literal one suggesting the angelic nature of Yahweh’s proxy God, Yahweh of hosts.

² The Pantheon in Rome, originally dedicated to Jove (Greek Jupiter) and all the gods was re-consecrated by Boniface IV to the Virgin Mary and all the saints.  At Catholic shrines, often built on sites where pagan shrines or temples had stood, saints invoked for particular favors were analogs to their pagan counterparts previously worshipped at such places.

   At Medjugorje there is a church named after the Apostle James, who is the patron saint of pilgrims.  James’ mortal remains are said to be buried beneath the silver shrine at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.  The Way to Santiago is one of the most revered pilgrimages; though before Catholics appropriated it, it had been trekked for millennia by pagan wanderers, among them the Celts, who had a solar altar there to worship the setting sun.

   Compostela is at the proverbial land’s end, the Celtic gateway to a land where there is no suffering and everyone is immortal.  The gatekeeper was a goddess, Naimh, who was a beautiful young woman surrounded by golden light, and wearing a pale blue garment festooned with stars.  Sounds familiar?

³ As we can see from John 2:13-16, Jesus was not a fan of mixing business with the sanctity of worship.  “Mary” seems to be OK with free market enterprising at her shrines.

⁴ As per Genesis 37:9, the twelve stars were emblematic of the tribes of Israel.  Joseph’s dream counts only eleven stars:  his brothers.  Joseph was the twelfth.

   Because the woman clothed with the sun symbolizes the Heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26), and thus interchangeable with Jesus and his Church (Revelation 12:5,17), it has nothing to do with Mary:  Her appropriation to fit this symbolism is the typical human shenanigan of cherry-picking Scripture to suit pet dogmas.  Catholicism has been so single-mindedly committed to resurrecting the reviled cult of the queen of heaven that anything feminine and exalted in the Bible is attributed to Mary, no matter how abstruse the extrapolation—as for example, Proverbs 8:22-23, where the subject under discussion is wisdom.

   The notion of Revelation’s symbolic woman as emblematic of the Heavenly Jerusalem is further reinforced by Revelation 21:12-14, where the doors of the city bear the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; and the city itself rests on foundations bearing the names of the twelve Apostles.  Now, if we extrapolate from the chronology illustrated in Nebuchadnezzar’s statue in Daniel 2:31-45, which is God’s plan of attack from the Babylon in Mesopotamia to the Babylon of end-times, we can posit a parallel chronology from the tribes of Israel liberated from Egypt en route to the Promised Land, to the Judeo-Christian nation being transported into Heaven and introduced into a kingdom that will stand forever—in both instances with Jesus leading the way (Exodus 13:21, 14:29; Micah 2:12-13; 1Thessalonians 4:14-17).

In this sense the Red Sea = the chasm that separates Heaven from earth (Genesis 1:6-8; Luke 16:26).

⁵ Or as Paul summarized it, “the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain” (Hebrews 12:27).

⁶ Behind the scenes, the Vatican was providing support to the United States for overthrowing communism in Eastern Europe.

⁷ The single quotation is to highlight that the faith pleasing to God and preached by Jesus is, by its very nature, irrational.  Any commission set up to determine divine interventions by examining facts in evidence negates—by default—the essence of faith, which is conviction without proof (Hebrews 12:1).

   Jesus, who exalted believers of the unseen (John 20:29), was at loggerheads with a priesthood insisting on signs confirming his claims; naturally, Jesus gave none:  It defeated the purpose of faith which, on the basis of God’s written word, is to separate the wheat from the chaff, believers from unbelievers.

   Now, Marian dogma is not part of that testimony, but an addition in violation of divine commands (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32; Proverbs 30:6; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Matthew 5:18-19; Revelation 22:18).  So it stands to “logic” that if truly inspired by Heaven, no commission investigating Marian apparitions for the purpose of confirming them is legitimate.  And the fact that they presuppose “Mary” to be who they champion her to be puts them already in Satan’s bag.

⁸ During the Cathar massacre of 1209, a French Cistercian monk, envoy of Innocent III [what’s not in a name?], is reputed to have told the commanding army officer—Innocent had promised he could keep the lands of any heretic he killed—to kill everyone in sight, for God would recognize His own.

   To this day scholars are doing the “Athenian thing” (Acts 17:21) discussing whether Cathars existed or not; nevertheless, they have come down in history as Christian, anti-papist, and heretical by rejecting key aspects of Catholic dogma.  Cathar priests lived simply, imposed no taxes, eschewed worldly possessions and treated women as equals—Jesus’ clones to the core!  But as was Jesus’ case in regards to the Pharisees, that made bon vivant Catholic priests look bad, so the Cathars had to go.

   The Cathars missed their calling by believing most Old Testament books were inspired by Satan, a preposterous notion given that the Old Testament gives Satan his most negative and damning profiling, the very exposure Jesus told us all evildoers abhor (John 3:20).