INTRODUCTIONWe introduce this commentary by reproducing a letter of protest written to Mr David Kehoe, the editor of the Perth Archdiocesan Catholic weekly newspaper The Record; in which the gross corruption of Our Lady’s Fatima message highlighted in the title at the top of this page was printed on page 2, and given a front page ‘neon sign’ pointing readers to it. The offending article is titled “Former hijacker says real Fatima secret to come”, and it was written by a staff journalist on The Record, Peter Rosengren. 7 June 2000 Mr David Kehoe, The Editor Sir, Lawrence James Downey: A man
gets front page billing in The Record; but those who object to this charade get very short shrift from you, the editor. No wonder people all over the world turn to the Internet to read up about the truth. And we shall ensure that you, the editor, will be prominently portrayed as being in agreement with the five points listed above and in disagreement with Catholics who strongly object to your and Downey’s scenario. In Domino |
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From the Introduction above we get a good idea of what the editor of ‘The Record’ calls “interesting”: Downey’s actions and opinions contrary to Catholic Faith and morals. One of the interesting bits came when, in an attempt to have the Third Secret of Fatima released, he hijacked Irish Aer Lingus Flight EI 169 from Dublin in 1981 and ordered it to land at Heathrow Airport in London. Note the flippant manner in which ‘The Record’ introduces Downey’s terrorist activities by calling them an “interesting bit” of information. Last Friday, 19 May, Mr Downey told The Record in a faxed response to questions that he was surprised by Pope John Paul II’s decision to release the text of the Third Secret of Fatima. So the soliciting for a statement contrary to Pope John Paul’s release of the Third Secret of Fatima came from the editor of ‘The Record’, and was directed to an ex(?)-hijacker to give him a so-called ‘catholic’ forum. Mr Downey’s connection with the secret goes back decades. In light of what follows next in The Record’s ‘report’ as seen in the Introduction, to claim that Downey has a “connection” with Our Lady’s Fatima message is the height of arrogance and audacity. To call a totally contrary view, ‘sustained for decades’ against the Secret of Fatima, a connection with that Secret is absurd. When he hijacked the Irish flight he threatened to set fire to himself and blow up the plane, together with the 113 people who were on board. Perhaps the most startling thing about his hijacking, however, was what he wanted. We can be sure that the passengers on this plane could not have cared less about “what Downey wanted”, and found the threat to their lives “the most startling thing about his hijacking”; whereas this hijacking is being presented here as an example of the “decades old connection” ‘The Record’ claims Downey has with Our Lady’s Fatima message. Since the most important request put by Our Lady to the whole world at Fatima was to “stop sinning”, it is evident from the interest ‘The Record’ shows in the sins of an ex(?)-hijacker that this foremost request by Our Lady is wasted on the editor. Mr Downey, who lives these days in a quiet northern Perth suburb, did not want jailed Red Brigades or PLO terrorists set free - the sort of demand authorities might initially have expected from a hijacker. Instead, he said he would blow up the plane unless the Pope released the Third Secret’s text. The plane eventually landed at Le Touquet in France where it was stormed by French special forces. For his troubles Mr Downey subsequently spent five years in several French jails. The Fatima children were kidnapped by the Civic Administrator of Ourem, threatened with being thrown in boiling oil, and were actually jailed for a number of days because they would not reveal to this cowardly despot the secret Our Lady had confided to them. Our Lady later told the children that because of this act of terrorism against them, i.e. because of this grave sin, the miracle to be performed on October 13 would not be as great. Downey’s attempts to extort the secret from the Holy Father are on a par with the actions of the aforementioned civic administrator against Our Lady and her chosen instruments. The Vatican refused to release the secret, waiting nearly 20 years before Pope John Paul II unveiled part of its content at Fatima last week when he beatified Jacinta and Francisco, the two shepherd children who had visions of Mary in Portugal in 1917. The timing for the release of the secret is not determined by evildoers, as is being portrayed here by the use of the words “waiting nearly 20 years” to imply a reaction from Pope John Paul II to Downey’s attempted extortion. Downey’s terrorist activities are here being sensationalised to give the illusory appearance that they had some bearing on what Pope John Paul did with the secret. As can be seen from the occasion that the Holy Father actually chose for releasing the secret, the beatification ceremony at Fatima itself, it is the heroic virtue manifested in the saintly lives of Jacinta and Francisco Marto which have inspired the Holy Father. Downey does not fit into the context of the Holy Father’s release of the Third Secret. However Mr Downey disputes the meaning attributed to the text by the Pope in a statement after the beatification ceremony from his top aide, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. In the statement, Cardinal Sodano said the Pope believed the secret referred to the assassination attempt on his life made by Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981. By its flippant portrayal of Downey’s terrorist activities, and by the subsequent pains that ‘The Record’ has taken to present these activities as having a bearing on the Holy Father’s release of the Third Secret, we must conclude that ‘The Record’ is hiding its own views behind the convenient Downey, and that it too “disputes the meaning attributed to the text by the Pope in a statement after the beatification ceremony”. The US’s Catholic News Service later reported that the last remaining visionary, Sr Lucy, confirmed the meaning of the secret in a meeting at Fatima between herself and the Pope. However Mr Downey is still working hard on getting out what he says is its real meaning. No wonder ‘The Record’ is highlighting what Downey has been “working hard on”. It too, for many years now, has also been “working hard on” getting out what it thinks is “the real meaning” of Marian devotion: Medjugorje, Garabandal, Fr Gobbi, etc. In a word, by promoting false and unapproved ‘apparitions and messages’. He told The Record last Thursday, 18 May, he believed Pope John Paul II had not revealed the real Third Secret. This, apparently, is also the belief of ‘The Record’; going by the way it has latched onto Downey as a much needed life-saver to cover over the fact that the release of the Third Secret has completely destroyed the illusion created by all the false ‘messages’ (with their attendant ‘secrets’), that it has published and promoted over so many years. Although the words may have been those of the secret consigned to the Pope by Sr Lucia, one of the three Fatima seers, its real meaning could only be found in the “between-the-lines” meaning, he said. By use of the words “may have”, Downey’s umbrella is now being conveniently used to cast doubt upon what Sr Lucia “consigned to the Pope” because the “real meaning” of that “can only be found by reading between the lines”. Lines, which Downey was so desperate to see that he resorted to terrorism in a vain attempt to have them disclosed. In a letter to the New York Times newspaper sent by email on Monday 15 May this year, Mr Downey said the secret had “nothing to do with the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981. The Pope’s recent message at Fatima is a ‘cover up’ because the secret is bad news for the Church of Rome,” he wrote. Asked if the information released so far by the Pope matched what he believed to be the Third Secret he said he was waiting for the full text to be released by the Vatican. So, “the Pope’s recent message at Fatima is a ‘cover up’ because the secret is bad news for the Church of Rome,” ... This must be classed as a barefaced lie; but it is convenient for ‘The Record’ to use it as its own ‘cover up’ of the fact that the “Pope’s recent message at Fatima” exposes what ‘The Record’ has been printing under its own umbrella of bogus ‘marian devotion’ as spurious. Also note that Catholics do not refer to the Catholic Church as the “Church of Rome”. That description is generally employed by non-catholics. Has Downey, along with leaving the Trappists, also left the Catholic Church? ‘The Record’ does not provide information on that score. So, on both its own and Downey’s advice, we read between the lines. In his written response to The Record, Mr Downey said be did not believe that the Pope knew what the secret was. “In his written response to The Record” .... So, ‘The Record’ is desperate enough to chase this loser and unashamed to publicise his claim that the Pope does not know the secret. But he refused to comment on what he thought its real meaning was. Because then readers of ‘The Record’ would be relieved of the need to pay money for Downey’s forth coming book in order to satisfy their idle curiosity. Mr Downey is currently working on a book entitled The Holy Hijacker which, he said in his letter to the New York Times, will be published later this year and, “contains the Secret which concerns the Parousia.” Here we see Downey canonising himself and his act of terrorism: “The Holy Hijacker”. This self-canonisation is being presented here as being inspired by Our Lady of Fatima: ‘The Record’s’ highlighted example of a “decades old connection” with Her. Those 113 people Downey hijacked, detained and threatened to “blow up”, have something in common with the Fatima children who were also hijacked, detained and threatened with boiling oil for the exact same reason. And just as the Administrator of Ourem by his violence showed himself to be totally opposed to Our Lady, so too must Downey be taken as being totally opposed to Her. The term ‘Parousia’ refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ foretold by the Book of Revelations in the New Testament. And The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#673), referring explicitly to Christ’s coming in glory, also bases itself on the New Testament when it declares: “it is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority”. (Acts 1:7, Mk 13:32). As can be expected ‘The Record’ did not even pay lip service to this in its ‘report’. But a guess can be made as to something of the secret’s meaning in Mr Downey’s thinking. The pastime of idle curiosity seekers, and fully in line with what all the other false messengers promoted in ‘The Record’ offer: guesswork. By now ‘The Record’ and Downey have given us enough evidence to conclude that Downey is way off beam with regard to Fatima and its Secret, and that it no longer matters two hoots if his “thinking” on it ever did matter. In a press release issued last December, he said, the booklet he had written contained the “missing essentials” and dealt “with the (spiritual) Fall of Rome and the Conversion of Russia. Both of which events form part of the overall picture of the Fatima Revelations.” The “spiritual fall of Rome” .... Here we must refer readers to our comment after the next, and final, paragraph in The Record’s ‘report’. Mr Downey says the book tells of his mission in life, which he discovered while in the monastery - the mission was “to introduce an incorruptible form of government administration into the world as the forerunner to the establishment of an hitherto utopian ideal of a Churchless and Stateless society in accordance with the Biblical prophecy and promise of a millennium of Peace.” Mr Downey’s “mission in life” up until now has only been a “utopian ideal”; but he is working towards turning this “utopian ideal” into a reality: “the establishment of a Churchless society” ... And the most important step in achieving this goal is the “spiritual fall of Rome” - the destruction and abolition of the Catholic Church from the face of the earth. The meaning that Downey wants to give to the Third Secret by “reading between its lines”, and which “forms part of the overall picture of the Fatima Revelations” is being made to work for “the establishment of a Churchless society”. After this shocking revelation and its reporting in “The Record” of Downey’s “mission in life”: to work for “the establishment of a churchless society”, and to link this establishment with “the fall of the Church of Rome”, we no longer have to read “between the lines” to find out if Downey and ‘The Record’ have indeed left the Church. To see one’s mission in life as to work hard for the establishment of a churchless society on earth; and to see that ideal fully reported by way of approval in a so-called ‘catholic’ periodical, is solid proof that both the ‘visionary’ and his ‘encouragers’, those who find this mission and its inspiration ‘interesting’, have left the Catholic Church as such an enterprise and its approval can never come from a Catholic or Marian inspiration. Since Our Lady is the beginning of the Church founded by Christ, we must conclude that “working hard towards a churchless society” is synonymous with working hard towards a millennium without Mary. As can now be fully appreciated, we used the question mark in ex(?)-hijacker advisedly because Downey is currently employed in a far greater hijack: the hijack of the Catholic Church, in order to make the utopian vision of so many non-Catholics and ex-Catholics the reality they so ardently want it to be: “a churchless society on earth”. For a better appreciation of such concerted efforts, readers are referred to the next article in the New Age ‘church’ section of this web site. Pentecost, 11 June 2000 |
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