“Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist” is an infamous quote from Melanie Calvat, seer of the Apparition of La Salette used by traditional Catholics in an attempt to prove that an apparition supports the resistance movement against the Vatican 2 popes.
The 1846 apparition of La Salette was endorsed by St. John Vianney and Pope Pius IX. It was later endorsed by Pope’s Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. The original secrets from the apparition were recorded by church officials in 1847 and submitted by the children directly to Pope Pius IX in 1851, the year the apparition was approved by the Church.
After joining a convent in 1851, Melanie became disturbed, and her behavior became progressively worse. When surrounded in public, she began making up strange stories about her childhood, such as playing with the Christ child and leading wolves, foxes, and snakes in procession through the woods chanting praises to God, with the wolf carrying the cross. However, it was well-known that she had been completely irreligious as a child and woods didn’t exist where she lived. She became hysterical and had fits when people refused to believe her. For instance, she refused to eat for a couple of days and once tried to bite the Reverend Mother.
She was never allowed to take her vows and become a sister.
When she was sent to England in 1855, she claimed to hear voices, witness miraculous events, and began to make apocalyptic prophecies. Her bishop forbade to make prophecies, but she considered herself over his authority.
When told that she didn’t have a vocation, she reacted by attacking the convents. She was later sent back to France and broke promises with the authorities. She was finally sent to Italy for the next 17 years. There she spent time reading apocalyptic books and the lives of the illuminati.
In 1878, new religious orders were being established in La Salette. Melanie claimed she was authorized by God to provide their rules and habits, but her bishop rejected her. She appealed to Pope Leo XIII who in an interview with Melanie also denied her.
At this point, she wrote her new version of the La Salette secret in 1879, which contained the infamous quote about Rome becoming the seat of Antichrist. This tract was approved by a bishop and was circulated under the title of Apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette. However, in 1880 the Holy Office forbade her to write further tracts. After 3 printings, Rome finally placed the tract on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1923. [1] Her new version of the secret of La Salette was forbidden.
In 1903, Pope St. Pius X implied that the universe and not Rome will be the seat of Antichrist. [2]
Case closed.
Footnotes:
[1] The decree of the Holy Office reads:
DAMNATUR OPUSCULUM: “L’APPARITION DE LA TRÉS SAINTE VIERGE DE LA SALETTE”
DECRETUM
Feria IV, die 9 maii 1923
In generali consessu Supremae Sacrae Congregationis S. Officii Emi ac Rmi Domini Cardinales fidei et moribus tutandis praepositi proscripserunt atque damnaverunt opusculum: L’apparition de la trés Sainte Vierge sur la montague de la Salette le samedi septembre 1846.—Simple réimpression du texte intégral publié par Mélanie, etc. Societé Saint-Augustin, Paris-Rome-Bruges, 1922;
Acta Apostolicae Sedis (1923) pp. 287-288
[2] Pope St. Pius X’s pivotal teaching in E Supremi, (On the Restoration of All Things in Christ), Oct. 4, 1903:
5. When all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks (II. Thess. ii., 3). Such, in truth, is the audacity and the wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of the faith, in brazen effort to uproot and destroy all relations between man and the Divinity! While, on the other hand, and this according to the same apostle is the distinguishing mark of Antichrist, man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God; in such wise that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has contemned God’s majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored. “He sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (II. Thess. Ii., 2).
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