Countdown to the Kingdom

Ditto

 

I love this post. A good reminder. Thank you Quis.

 

Just a warning about a visionary featured on Count Down to the Kingdom. I think up to now I count four false visionaries in just the last few months that have been strongly featured there. Be aware and beware.

https://www.countdowntothekingdom.c...e-first-secret-given-by-our-queen-and-mother/

Sigh.

I am afraid Luz de Maria de Bonilla is false too. She has appeared in videos with another false visionary and false Stigmatic called Giorgio Bongovanni who gives every sign of being totally away in the head , he proclaims the imminent coming of Aliens from Outer Space. One interesting thing , Giorgio has a large star jewel which he wears. I always took this as Sign of Lucifer, the Morning Star, the First Born, who Fell like Lightning from Heaven. He may not be simply mad, there may be something really spooky going on here:

Luke 10:18

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.





Here is Luz De Maria de Bonilla appearing with poor, mad Giorgio Bongovanni: avoid both like the plague, 'Away with the fairies', as we say in Ireland.

 

I think very few visionaries are genuine. I’m uneasy with that guy talking about his stigmata and that picture of Jesus behind him looks ‘off’. He has a gentle demeanour and the poor guy may have no dubious intentions but he talks a lot about himself. Sad. I read that the genuine ones aren’t famous in their lifetime. I also stick with approved apparitions although I think Civitavecchia may be genuine. In times like these we look for prophets to reassure us. The best any of us can do is pray. Uniting with Cdl Burke in his 9 month novena is one thing we can all do.

 

AGREE. 100%.

 

We are at a point in history where we are seeing the full flowering of the diabolical disorientation the Blessed Mother predicted at Akita.

 

Yes. Agree.

 

I have no idea which visionaries are real too. Even now I believe that Garabandal and Medjugorje are fake. With all the problems, they don't seem to give any relevant messages and those visionaries seem to be quiet about all the troubles in the world.

 

Garabandal warned us that communism would come back, warned us about a synod, warned us about the infighting inside the Vatican, and told us the Pope would visit Moscow. If you count the Pope entering the Russian embassy as visiting Moscow, so far, Garabandal looks pretty good.

 

Medjugordje is about peace. And we need peace more than ever.

 

And the lives of the seers are exemplary.

 

CORRECTION: I wrote that the term "diabolical disorientation" came from Akita. But I was wrong. It comes from Sister Lucia of Fatima! It is a description of the coming times which Sister Lucia used many years after Fatima.

My apologies.

 

I'd bookmarked this article a while ago, and found it again. It was published just after the controversy over Fr. Rodrigue led to scrutiny of the Countdown authors, who had been Rodrigue's most prominent boosters.

Recently, two mystics vigorously promoted by Countdown have been rejected by the Church, Gisella Cardia, whose messages were deemed not supernatural, and Luisa Piccarreta, whose cause was suspended and whose writings found to contain "Christological, theological and anthropological" errors.


What Is Countdown to the Kingdom?
This prophecy-centered website has people alarmed over its predictions—so what's going on here?

Jimmy Akin • 12/14/2021

Countdown to the Kingdom is a prophecy-centered website run by Catholic authors Christine Watkins and Mark Mallett.

It anticipates the fulfillment in our day of various prophecies from public and private revelation, which it integrates into an overall scenario represented by a timeline on its website.

The scenario involves the seven seals prophecy from the book of Revelation, followed by a period called “Door of Justice—The Day of the Lord” which involves a “time of refuges,” “divine chastisements,” the “reign of antichrist,” “3 days of darkness,” followed by “the era of peace,” “the return of Satan’s influence,” and finally the Second Coming.

Christians have always found the idea compelling that the end of the world could come in their lifetimes, and they have always hungered for detailed scenarios of what dramatic events would be imminently occurring. However, all such scenarios so far have failed to materialize, so what evidence is on offer for the Countdown timeline?

The website states:

[This timeline] is based on the Early Church Fathers’ interpretation of the book of Revelation as it was handed on to them, and thus, their straight reading of chapters 19-21. This is complimented [sic] by the magisterial teachings of the popes, the approved apparitions of Fatima, and supplemented by the “prophetic consensus” of various credible seers throughout the world.

Despite these assurances, the scenario the site proposes is very uncertain and, in truth, very unlikely to unfold.

It has been built up by selecting and fitting together individual pieces of information and interpretations of them that the authors of the site find credible.

Like anything involving a large number of deductions, the chain here is no stronger than the individual links that constitute it, and detailed scenarios like this have a very high rate of failure.

When we examine the basis of the timeline, we are not given reasons for confidence. The website cites four principal sources: (1) the Church Fathers, (2) magisterial teachings of popes, (3) the apparitions at Fatima, and (4) a “prophetic consensus” of credible seers.

However, the Church Fathers did not inherit a single interpretation of the book of Revelation. There were very few commentaries written on it in the patristic period, views on the book diverged widely, and Countdown to the Kingdom has selected its preferred points of interpretation while ignoring others.

Magisterial teachings on prophecy are minimal, and the popes have not provided teachings supporting the Countdown timeline. They only provide teachings about points common to every orthodox Catholic view of prophecy (e.g., there will be a Second Coming).

Although Fatima is an approved apparition, the interpretation of it offered by the Magisterium holds that it dealt with events in the twentieth century, not events in our future.

And the “‘prophetic consensus’ of credible seers” is particularly problematic.

Current canon law allows people to publish reports of apparitions without prior review by a bishop, and today, anybody can set up a website and begin distributing them. So how are seers to be judged credible?

One standard would be relying only on those whose revelations have been investigated and approved by Church authorities, but Countdown to the Kingdom does not use this standard.

Instead, it uses those whom the authors of the site personally deem credible, which is a subjective test. The “prophetic consensus” to which they appeal is generated by that selection and piecing together things these seers say.

A concern I have not seen the authors of the website address is the extent to which the “consensus” may be produced by confirmation bias and feedback loops.

Do they find certain seers credible because they teach certain prophetic ideas and include them in the consensus due to confirmation bias?

Since many of the seers are active today, they are undoubtedly aware of the writings of previous seers and may be picking up ideas from these writings. A non-authentic seer can easily bolster his credibility by repeating and building on popular ideas from prior seers. Consequently, is there a feedback loop among their seers generating an inflated perception of consensus?

Countdown has chosen not to use Church approval as the standard for deeming seers credible. How reliable is its own evaluation?

The website does not show evidence that the authors have conducted detailed investigations of the seers they recommend or, if they have, that they properly applied critical thinking to their cases and objectively weighed the evidence.

If they had done so, they would not recommend some of the seers they rely on.

For example, they use locutions attributed to the Virgin Mary by Fr. Stephano Gobbi (1930-2011). However, Fr. Gobbi had a track record of false predictions. In 1995, he predicted that Christ would return in glory in the year 2000 to establish the new heavens and the new earth. The CDF subsequently advised that his messages “are not the words of our Blessed Mother, but his private meditations.”

Countdown’s page on Fr. Gobbi does not mention these facts and presents him as an authentic seer, without alerting its readers to serious issues affecting his credibility.

In 2020, I began receiving inquiries from people alarmed about claims made on the Countdown to the Kingdom website about events that would be occurring later that year.

To reassure these individuals, I decided to devote episodes of my podcast Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World to “the Warning”—an event Countdown holds is supported by the “prophetic consensus”—and to the revelations of Fr. Michel Rodrigue, a Canadian priest who purports to be “the Apostle of the Last Time” and was the most promoted seer on Countdown’s site.

I contacted key individuals at Countdown to the Kingdom and asked them to review the scripts for the episodes in advance, because I wanted to make sure the scripts were absolutely accurate and fair.

Though I arrived at conclusions they wouldn’t like, the people from Countdown were nothing but professional, cooperative, and polite, and I want to give them credit.

According to Countdown to the Kingdom and other sources, “the Warning” is held to be an event in which all people will receive an illumination of conscience, allowing them to see the state of their soul. The version of this event promoted by Countdown—as described by Fr. Rodrigue—held that it would be accompanied by other phenomena, such as airplanes stopping in mid-flight for five to fifteen minutes.

I concluded that the evidence for the Warning was not strong and that the version promoted by Countdown was very unlikely.

Continued

 

From Previous Page

Fr. Rodrigue also predicted that a series of dramatic, apocalyptic events—including a Third World War, the martyrdom of Pope Francis, and an ecumenical council being called by Pope Emeritus Benedict—would begin in October 2020.

I organized a team of volunteers to review Fr. Rodrigue’s extensive lectures and messages. I concluded that he is not to be relied upon as a seer, that his revelations are inauthentic, and that he appears to be a fabulist who either greatly embellishes or manufactures significant elements of his life story.

Fr. Rodrigue is incardinated in one Canadian diocese but lives in another, and while the episode was in production, both of his bishops published letters in which they repudiated the seer’s revelations. They, too, had received many inquiries from people alarmed by Fr. Rodrigue’s claims.

In a letter dated September 9, the bishop of Hearst-Moosonee wrote:

[Fr. Rodrigue’s] presentations may be found on various websites. Father Rodrigue even declared that his messages and prophecies were supported by Bishop Lemay, the Bishop of Amos, who strongly denied any such support.

In union with Bishop Lemay, I express TOTAL DISAVOWAL of the messages and prophecies presented by Father Michel Rodrigue [emphasis in original].

Despite this, Fr. Rodrigue’s talks and messages remain on the Countdown website.

The authors state, “We will as always . . . fully submit to any formal declarations the Church may pronounce in the future,” but they (implausibly) argue that the letters by Fr. Rodrigue’s bishops are not formal declarations and that his messages are “nevertheless not condemned” (emphasis in original).

In view of these facts, I consider Countdown to the Kingdom to be a website that presents a highly sensationalistic, speculative, and unlikely prophetic scenario that is put together from scattered pieces of information and interpretations that the authors favor.

I do not see the authors exercising the type of critical thinking and discernment that would lend confidence to Countdown’s conclusions.

 

I'm a Garabandal believer through and through. St Padre Pio's relationship with Conchita seals it for me along with the feelings in my soul.

 

I enjoy Jimmy Akin; he is clear and thorough. The only observation of his in post 2553 I have trouble with is the following:

According to Countdown to the Kingdom and other sources, “the Warning” is held to be an event in which all people will receive an illumination of conscience, allowing them to see the state of their soul. The version of this event promoted by Countdown—as described by Fr. Rodrigue—held that it would be accompanied by other phenomena, such as airplanes stopping in mid-flight for five to fifteen minutes.

A more precise reference should have highlighted the fact that Conchita [of Garabandal fame] was the one to first provide this description.

 

Responding to Countdown to the Kingdom
Here we'll take a deeper look at some of the problems with Countdown to the Kingdom's prophetic timeline and sources

Jimmy Akin • 1/11/2022

Recently, I was asked to evaluate CountdownToTheKingdom.com, and I concluded:

I consider Countdown to the Kingdom to be a website that presents a highly sensationalistic, speculative, and unlikely prophetic scenario that is put together from scattered pieces of information and interpretations that the authors favor.

Despite our disagreements, my contacts with people from Countdown have been cordial and professional, for which I gave them credit in the article.

I was heartened to see that, in his response, Mark Mallett of Countdown had words of praise for me and Catholic Answers, and he concluded, “We hope this response will continue the cordial dialogue between us and Jimmy Akin.”

I am happy to continue to dialogue in that spirit, though I remain concerned. As I wrote previously, “I do not see the authors exercising the type of critical thinking and discernment that would lend confidence to Countdown’s conclusions.”

Consider two statements from the reply:

The Timeline [on the website] is . . . self-evident that the “end of the world” is not imminent, as Mr. Akin seems to think we are saying.

Mr. Akin’s argument that a seer should only be considered believable if they are “approved” is not supported by either Scripture or Church teaching.

Neither of these is my view. Countdown promotes seers who claim that various prophetic events are imminent, but the end of the world is not one of those events. As Mr. Mallett says, their timeline makes this clear.

Similarly, I nowhere implied that a seer’s lack of Church approval means the seer is unreliable. Instead, I wrote:

Countdown has chosen not to use Church approval as the standard for deeming seers credible. How reliable is its own evaluation?

The website does not show evidence that the authors have conducted detailed investigations of the seers they recommend or, if they have, that they properly applied critical thinking to their cases and objectively weighed the evidence.

I thus indicated one can conduct independent investigations into a seer, though I find Countdown’s lacking.

By misreading what I wrote, Mr. Mallett has created a straw man and given his readers the impression he has refuted me, when he actually has refuted views that aren’t mine.

Unfortunately, a lack of careful reading and evaluation is common on Countdown—as are two additional tendencies displayed by enthusiasts of particular apparitions: the tendency to magnify the credibility and relevance of information they think supports their views and the tendency to minimize or ignore evidence that casts doubt on them.

These are exhibited in the responses to my evaluation of the extent to which Countdown’s timeline is supported by (1) Church Fathers, (2) the Magisterium, (3) Fatima, and (4) current, reliable seers.

Concerning the Fathers, Mr. Mallett disputes my claim that—in formulating its timeline—Countdown takes passages it likes from the Fathers’ divergent views on Revelation while ignoring others:

The Church Fathers most affirmatively did not “diverge widely” on their view of the proper interpretation of the Book of Revelation. Almost all of them believed firmly that it promised “the times of the kingdom” on earth, within history, during its final “millennium”—before Christ’s final coming in the flesh.

It is surprising he cites the Fathers’ understanding of the millennium, for the Fathers famously disagree on this.

In support of Countdown’s understanding, Mr. Mallett cites early sources such as the Letter of Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian on the millennium.

Yet he fails to mention that patristics scholars recognize each of these sources as supporting millenarianism—the view that there will be a physical resurrection of the righteous, after which they will reign with Christ on earth for a lengthy period before the final judgment (both the Church and Countdown reject millenarianism).

Countdown’s authors unambiguously pick and choose when they accept things they like that these sources say about the millennium and simultaneously reject things they don’t like on the same topic by the same authors! (See Barnabas 15:5, 7-8; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5:32:1 [on himself], 5:33:3-4 [on Papias]; Justin, Dialogue 80-81; Tertullian, Against Marcion 3:24-25.)

Concerning the Magisterium, there is no easy way to say this, but the authors of Countdown do not appear to have a clear understanding of what constitutes a magisterial act or a Church teaching. (For a thorough treatment, see my book Teaching with Authority.)

• The Magisterium consists only of bishops teaching in union with the pope, and no statement made by a non-bishop is magisterial.
• Except for the pope, bishops speaking alone are able to issue teachings only for members of their own dioceses.
• Even when a bishop or pope speaks, he must do so in a way that authoritatively conveys a teaching for it to be an exercise of the Church’s magisterium. This is not the case when he merely expresses a hope, wish, fear, opinion, or speculation—or when he gives an interview or has a conversation.

Statements that do not fall in these categories don’t exercise the Church’s teaching authority. This includes statements by theologians, catechisms not authored by bishops, etc.

The only statements that engage the Church’s magisterium are made by men who are currently bishops (including the pope) to those they have authority over and when they declare a teaching authoritatively.

Yet in his section dealing with the Magisterium, Mr. Mallett cites, among others, statements by:

• Karol Wojtyła (not yet pope) in which he expresses an opinion in a talk outside his diocese
• Charles Arminjon (not a bishop)
• Paul VI in which he speculates in a private conversation
• Leo XIII in which he speculates
• Pius X in which he speculates
• Benedict XV in which he speculates
• Pius XI in which he speculates
• Canon George D. Smith (not a bishop)
• Louis de Montfort (not a bishop)
• Pius XII in which he speculates
• Joseph Ratzinger (not yet pope) in an interview in which he mentions a speculation of John Paul II

If Countdown thinks there are abundant Church teachings supporting its timeline, it would be because Countdown doesn’t have a clear grasp on what is and isn’t Church teaching.

Also, Countdown takes statements out of context to make them fit the timeline’s future scenario. When Benedict XV speculated in 1914 about wars arising in his day, he was talking about World War I, which had started a few months before. And when Pius XII speculated in 1944 about a hoped-for new era beginning, he was talking about the end of World War II, which concluded in Europe a few months later.

My original statement that “magisterial teachings on prophecy are minimal, and the popes have not provided teachings supporting the Countdown timeline” is true.

Countdown generates a contrary impression by citing statements made by people (a) who aren’t bishops; (b) who are bishops but aren’t pope and aren’t speaking to their subjects; or (c) who are popes but are expressing hopes, fears, or speculations rather than teachings—and by taking statements out of context and applying them to its timeline rather than the historical circumstance being addressed.

Continued

 

Continued

When it comes to Fatima, I stated that “the interpretation of it offered by the Magisterium holds that it dealt with events in the twentieth century, not events in our future.”

In response, Mr. Mallet cited a statement by Benedict XVI: “We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.” By this, the pope merely meant that Fatima has lessons to teach us about how to live our lives. This is not the same as saying the fulfillment of its prophecies still lie in our future, and the Vatican interpretation—authored by Joseph Ratzinger—states:

Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed.

This would reject an attempt to back up future events on Countdown’s timeline using Fatima.

When it comes to current seers, I stand by my assertion that Countdown has not exercised proper critical discernment and, had it done so, it wouldn’t promote some seers it does.

Countdown’s pages on why it supports particular seers offer one-sidedly positive evaluations and ignore important evidence readers need to arrive at informed opinions.

The “Why Father Stephano Gobbi?” page makes no mention of his predictions tied to specific dates that failed to materialize or the opinions officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressed about him.

The “Why Servant of God Luisa Piccaretta?” page makes no mention of her bishop’s decree, which is still in force and states:

I must mention the growing and unchecked flood of transcriptions, translations and publications both through print and the internet. At any rate, “seeing the delicacy of the current phase of the proceedings, any and every publication of the writings is absolutely forbidden at this time. Anyone who acts against this is disobedient and greatly harms the cause of the Servant of God (emphasis in original).

Countdown appears to violate this decree by publishing excerpts from her writings (e.g., here).

These “Why?” pages are linked on Countdown’s homepage and are thus where it directs readers to go to learn about and form opinions on these seers. Yet the pages omit important information and cautions and provide a one-sidedly positive portrayal.

Concerning approval of seers, Mr. Mallett states:

Mr. Akin further asserts that we have chosen seers who are not approved by the Church. On the contrary, nearly every seer here has some form of ecclesiastical approval to one degree or another.

When I refer to seers being approved, I mean that the competent authority has investigated and approved their apparitions under the CDF’s norms.

Almost none of the seers Countdown promotes have this approval, as illustrated by the claim that they merely have “some form of ecclesiastical approval to one degree or another.”

Like many enthusiastic supporters of unapproved apparitions, Mr. Mallett inflates the “approval” they have. Having a priest, bishop, or cardinal say nice things about a seer is not approval. Neither is putting an imprimatur on a book. (That just means it doesn’t contain doctrines the Church has declared false.) Nor does being declared a saint mean that the person’s visions have been investigated and approved.

The worst case of Countdown’s lack of critical thinking is its promotion of Fr. Michel Rodrigue.

I won’t here go into whether his bishops’ recent repudiations constitute formal condemnations, but this man is simply not credible. As I wrote, “he appears to be a fabulist who either greatly embellishes or manufactures significant elements of his life story.”

Fr. Rodrigue claims that on Christmas Eve 2009, he was saying Mass in Montreal when a woman suffered cardiac arrest and was verified as dead by doctors. Then Fr. Rodrigue miraculously raised her from the dead and sent her by ambulance to the local hospital to be checked out. The woman arrived back from the hospital before the end of Mass and came through a door that miraculously opened by itself. Upon seeing her return, the congregation applauded.

This is not credible. Anyone who goes into a hospital reporting that he even thinks he might be having a heart attack—much less someone who has just been revived from full cardiac arrest—will spend hours being tested and observed. There is no way the woman in Fr. Rodrigue’s story would get back to the church by the end of Mass.

Similarly, Fr. Rodrigue claims that, when eating in a Banff restaurant, he was infected by a Russian bio-weapon and that this was verified at a local hospital. But instead of the restaurant being closed and there being an immediate investigation by Canadian military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, he was allowed to make a five-day road trip back to Montreal.

For the full context on Fr. Rodrigue’s non-believable tales, including audio recordings in his own voice and exact transcripts, see this episode of Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. If amazing events like these had happened, there would be extensive documentation, and there isn’t. Absent documentation, one must conclude that either Fr. Rodrigue is not capable of separating fantasy from reality or that he is telling self-aggrandizing lies.

Either way, Countdown is not showing the kind of critical thinking and discernment with its sources that would lend credibility to its timeline.

 

This is helpful Christy. Thanks for posting.

 

"And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible."

This type of going back and forth about credible or not credible this or that drives me nuts. Who is correct in what they say? For example the woman who arrived back at Mass; did Mr. Akin try to find her and ask her about the episode? Did Mr. Mallett? I'm not taking sides at all, but what is the point of going through this and that if it's just "my opinion vs your opinion" in regard to credibility? Show some receipts, or there's really not much to say except "I think" whatever.....

With the part about Fatima, it no doubt was about how we should live our lives.....but guess what? And this of course, is my own opinion, we didn't listen to the message. So while I don't believe anyone would be at all disappointed if apocalyptic things did not happen, looking around at the world right now, it seems to me that we are on the cusp of something........possibly something even apocalyptic.

Luz de Maria reminds me of the one from years ago called "locutions to the world". Same thing over and over again. Just dulls the senses if you stay there......

Finally, this part to me is beyond:
"If amazing events like these had happened, there would be extensive documentation, and there isn’t. Absent documentation, one must conclude that either Fr. Rodrigue is not capable of separating fantasy from reality or that he is telling self-aggrandizing lies."

Now I am not stepping in to the ring of whether Father is credible or not, it's beyond me to do so. But given how much documentation there was around Fatima, witnesses etc etc, yet still it was more or less ignored, how do you even make a statement saying a priest may be telling self aggrandizing lies or has mental issues? To me, that just goes beyond Christian charity. Even the Bishop never said that in the disavowal letter.

So in the end, imho, it all of a sudden becomes discerning who is more credible in their discernment, Mr. Akin or Mr. Mallett? And this is a problem that points right back at the ones who have the charism but do not do their jobs ~ the Bishops.

Sorry or the rant