BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ON THE APOSTATE CHURCH

 

What Bishop Fulton J. Sheen calls the “Counter-Church” is an

Apostate Church that will successfully deceive even the elect of God.

Almost from the beginning of the church the devil has been successful

in planting the seeds of false teachings in preparation for the

establishment of a new and Apostate Church.

 

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The devil will teach salvation without Jesus.

 

He will teach salvation without believing in God.

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Fulton Sheen Prophecy 1948: Satan will set up Counter-Church

 

 

"[Satan] will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the

[Catholic] Church. . . . It will have all the notes and characteristics of

the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content."

 

The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers.

He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident nor wave

an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the

Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more

power he exercises. God has defined Himself as "I am Who am," and the Devil

as "I am who am not."

 

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of

the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he

described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of this world,"

whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is

simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then

there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is

no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these

descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he

would deceive even the elect--and certainly no devil ever seen in picture

books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win

followers to his religion?

 

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the

Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means

to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

    . . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and

all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to

have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a

religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion--one that

renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

 

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of

freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no

one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood

without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set

up a counter church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the

Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of

the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a

mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the

mystical body of Christ. . . .

 

(Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril

Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25)

 

 

THE COUNTER CHURCH

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/counter_church.html

 

 

HOLY TRINITY CELTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com