Carlo “Magog” Vigano and his ilk have increased their attacks on Pope Francis from criticism, to accusations, to vicious accusations of heresy, and apostasy and idolatry, all the way to accusing Francis of being an antipope over a false church. Now, finally, they accuse Pope Francis of being the False Prophet associated with the Antichrist.

These accusations are heretical. The Church is indefectible. The Pope is the head of the Church, therefore the Pope is also indefectible. And this is the dogma of Vatican I: each Pope has the charism of truth and of never failing faith, and also that the Apostolic See is unblemished by any grave error. Thus, no valid Pope can fail gravely in faith; therefore, no Pope can commit apostasy, heresy, idolatry, or the like.

Is it possible that Francis is not a valid Pope? No. For the Apostolic Church is indefectible, and the body of Bishops has accepted Francis as the Roman Pontiff. If either the body of Bishops or the head of the Church had gone astray, the Church would have defected — which is impossible. So Francis cannot be an invalid Pope. He is accepted by the body of Bishops.

Did not 300 Bishops go astray into Arianism? No, that is a myth. What happened was the emperor ordered the Pope and the Bishops of his empire to gather for a meeting with him. He then tried to convince them to sign a document supporting Arianism. The Pope, Liberius, simply left. About 300 of the Bishops who remained were threatened with death if they did not sign. And it is very likely that the emperor also threatened to kill their flocks as well. These Bishops, aware that past conflicts with Roman emperors had led to persecutions of Christians and massacres of countless faithful and also aware that any document signed under grave duress is not valid, signed the document.

But these 300 Bishops did not go around teaching Arianism. They did not convert to Arianism and depart from communion with the Pope. So it is not true that they went astray into Arianism. Whether they should have chosen martyrdom, rather than signing a document in such a situation is for God to judge. But certainly they are not guilty of heresy, as that would require a free deliberate and obstinate will.

So the body of Bishops and the Pope are each indefectible, for the Church is Apostolic. Thus, the successors of the Apostles, the Pope individually and the Bishops as a body cannot defect. Therefore Francis is not the false head of a false Church.

Rather, Carlo Vigano — who some time ago was automatically excommunicated for heresy and schism — and his followers are a false Church. Their rejection of Pope Francis is schism. Their refusal to remain in communion with what they call a false Church — the Pope and the Bishops who follow the Pope — is also schism. Their rejection of the dogma of Vatican I on the indefectibility of the Church and on the never failing faith of the Pope is heresy.

And every time they accuse any Roman Pontiff of teaching or committing heresy, they express this same heresy of rejecting the dogma of Vatican I, which is also a dogma under the Ordinary Universal Magisterium, as proven here, of the unfailing faith of the Pope.

Eschatology

And now we come to another grave error, in the realm of eschatology. Since the Church is indefectible, She can never be taken over by the Antichrist or his false prophet, nor can She ever go astray and follow the Antichrist or the false prophet. And since each valid Pope has never failing faith in Christ, no valid Pope accepted by the body of Bishops can be the false prophet or be the Antichrist or follow them. And it is not possible for a Pope who is accepted by the body of Bishops to be invalid. This entirely excludes the claim that Pope Francis is the Antichrist, or the false prophet, or a follower of them, or an apostate who is a great foreshadowing of either of them (the latter being the position that Vigano retreated to, after my previous criticism of his eschatology).

Pope Francis is the valid Pope, rejected by Vigano. And therefore Vigano is a schismatic and a heretic. As for those who foreshadow future events, persons like Vigano and Schneider, who reject the Pope and attempt to set up their own competing Church (while calling the true Church “false”) are themselves weak foreshadowing of the Antichrist and the false prophet. For in the distant future, when the Antichrist is born and later comes to power, the Antichrist and his false prophet will devise a false Church based on a perversion of Catholic, Islamic, and Judaic religious elements. This is the “one world religion” that has been spoken of by many holy persons in the history of the Church (as they spoke on eschatology).

The Antichrist and the false prophet are not in the world today. Many events must occur before that time, including the successive rise and fall of kingdom after kingdom (the beasts that rose out of the sea in Daniel). And after the rise and fall of successive kingdoms, the last of these before the Antichrist will be the kingdom of the ten kings, spoken of by our Lady at La Salette, who alone with rule the whole world. That kingdom reigns for about a century before the Antichrist comes to power. Has the world been divided into ten kingdoms only yet? No. Well then, the Antichrist is not in the world. Here is the sequence of events:

current time period
first part of the tribulation
25 years of peace
inter-tribulation period
kingdom of the ten kings
kingdom of the Antichrist during the second part of the tribulation
Return of Christ

As for Francis being a foreshadowing of that future time of the false prophet, that is absurd. He is a valid Pope, having been accepted by the body of Bishops. There is no Antichrist, whom he follows. He has the charism of never failing faith, so he is necessarily, by dogma, not guilty of apostasy, heresy, or idolatry. And even his non-infallible teachings are free from grave error. This means he is not a foreshadowing of the Antichrist, nor of the false prophet.

Carlo “Magog” Vigano is a weak foreshadowing of the false prophet. He is trying to devise a false religion, one that rejects the Pope and the body of Bishops. The future false prophet assists the Antichrist devising a formal structure for his false religion. Vigano attacks the true Pope and the true religion, just as the false prophet will attack the true Church during that future time. Vigano tries to control the faithful, scaring them away from the true Church, with talk of the mark of the beast (which he seems to think is the vaccine). The future false prophet will use the mark of the beast, a literal mark on the forehead or hand, to control the people through fear (anyone without the mark is threatened in various ways).

By the way, the “mark of the beast” in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, is not a vaccine or a microchip. It is a literal mark on the forehead or on the hand. And the “number” of the beast is described in Revelation as a man’s number. The common interpretation is that the number relates to the name of the Antichrist (not any other of a myriad of bad interpretations). There is no Antichrist or false prophet in the world today, so there is no mark of the beast. (By “false prophet” I mean the false prophet who assists the Antichrist).

Gog and Magog are terminology used to refer to the last rebellion before the General Judgment, in which many persons reject the true Church and the true faith, out of pride, and they fight against the true Church, just as Vigano does now (though much more weakly does he fight, compared to that future time). Revelation: “Satan shall be released from his prison, and he will go out and seduce the nations which are upon the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog….And they climbed across the breadth of the earth, and they encompassed the camp of the Saints and the Beloved City.” Similarly, Vigano and his followers, who are but a weak foreshadowing of that future event, climb across the breadth of the earth, using the internet and modern media. And they both seduce and are seduced by heresy and schism. And they surround the beloved City, the Holy See, with lies and accusations. And they seek to destroy all who love the Roman Pontiff and the faithful successors of the Apostles.

“And fire from God descended from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and sulphur, where both the beast and the false prophetess shall be tortured, day and night, forever and ever.”

Those who disagree with Pope Francis might have a sincere but mistaken conscience. But those who vomit malicious accusations of heresy, apostasy, and idolatry, and who take every opportunity to attack the Pope and his supporters in any way cannot have a sincere but mistaken conscience. Some acts are beyond the ability of a person in their right mind to choose without grave sin. Many of these papal accusers are filled with malice and rage, which they display openly. They publicly reject not only Pope Francis, but multiple other Popes, including Pope Saint Paul VI, Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Saint John XXIII, the First and Second Vatican Councils, and they even accuse Saint Peter. These Catholics cannot be in a state of grace while uttering so many unrestrained exceedingly malicious accusations. They even commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by accusing the Church, the body of Christ, with Christ the Son of God as Her head, with the Holy Spirit as Her soul, of being possessed by Satan. They are devoid of love, faith, and hope. If they do not repent, they will suffer very severely forever in Hell.

And Carlo Magog Vigano is one of their primary leaders, along with Athanasius Schneider, Taylor Marshall and others.

Ronald L Conte Jr
pray for Pope Francis and for the holy Church