In his book Our Lady Speaks to her beloved priests (later changed to The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons) Fr Gobbi stated that the Marian Movement of Priests (MMP) “is not an association whose statutes, rules, etc. have been written down beforehand. It is a spiritual movement the nature of which becomes clear little by little as it is lived out”. (7th edition, p x).

The word ‘association’ is being used here to describe a group of people banded together in a so-called “spiritual movement”. People who are associated with one another in this ‘spiritual movement’, are not, by that fact, guaranteed of being associated with Our Lady. All they have is an association among themselves, which is not really an association because there are no statutes and rules to spell out the terms and conditions of their association. They are thus left in the dark about why it is important to someone that they join the ‘Movement’ and swell its numbers. They presume, of course, that this ‘someone’ is Our Lady because that is what the ‘messages’ tell them.

Fr Gobbi assured the potential members of his association that its nature “becomes clear little by little as it is lived out”. He must already know what the nature of his “spiritual movement” is in order to be able to assure people that this nature will also become clear to them. If this ‘Movement’ is so good and holy by its nature, why not spell out this nature for people in rules and statutes so that it becomes transparent to them, instead of keeping them in the dark.

When a dealer sells heroin for the first time to a prospective addict he avoids describing the ‘nature’ of heroin addiction to the buyer. He knows that the ‘nature’ of being a heroin addict will become clearer ‘little by little’ as the prospective addict ‘lives out’ his addiction. There is only one set ‘rule’ for each addict; namely, his addiction. Each addict ‘finds’ his own individual set of ‘rules’, ‘little by little’ in the process of ‘living out’ his addiction. For one it is overdose and an early death. For another a life of violent crime to feed his habit. For another a life of prostitution, and so on, until the final ruin in Hell.

In a later edition of his book, the 4th Oceania Edition (1987), Fr Gobbi further revealed that the ‘Movement’ does not have “any juridical existence” (p 15), and that “the Movement must not have an existence of its own: it can live only in the life of the Church” (p 17, Emphasis added).

An association of people, such as Fr Gobbi’s ‘Movement’, can exist only in the lives of people who join it and take on board its ‘messages’, and the ‘doctrines’ and ‘objectives’ contained therein. Otherwise it would exist only in the mind of its inventor. The fact that Catholics joined the ‘Movement’ and gave it an existence in their lives by believing the ‘messages’ does not give the ‘Movement’ a Catholic existence: an existence in “the life of the Church”, the only life Fr Gobbi stated his Movement can have, and the existence it must have before it can further qualify as an authentic Catholic Marian Association. To qualify as a Catholic and Marian Association his ‘Movement’ needs an objective set of rules and statutes which must be submitted to the Church to be judged.

Not only has Fr Gobbi stated that the rules and statutes necessary to qualify his ‘Movement’ as a Catholic and Marian Association are not to be supplied, he gave his followers this ‘reason’ for not supplying them: “the reason for the Movement not having any juridical existence ... is so that it can be easily welcomed by everyone ... having no juridical form it finds it impossible to ask for any official approval ...” (p 15).

A ridiculous claim: “having no juridical form it finds it impossible to ask for any official approval”. That is like a man saying: ‘I do not have your address therefore it is impossible for me to ask you for your address’; or ‘I do not know your name therefore it is impossible for me to ask you what is your name’. This, of course, is totally illogical and absurd; but no more so than Fr Gobbi claiming that because his Movement lacks official approval it is therefore impossible to ask for official approval ... This deception is a sure indicator that Fr Gobbi wanted to keep his ‘Movement’ away from ecclesiastical policing in order to avoid examination of the messages that initiated and sustained the existence of his ‘Movement’.

The reason that a heroin dealer has for wanting to have no “juridical form” in the eyes of the police is so that the heroin he wants to sell “can be easily welcomed by everyone” to whom he intends to sell it.

From the beginning Fr Gobbi was determined that his planned injection of his ‘Movement’ into “the life of the Church” should be the result of his book of messages from ‘Our Lady’: messages which he admitted “lack ecclesiastical approval” (p 19); but regardless of this “everyone belonging to the MMP has the duty of reading and meditating on everything contained in the little, but precious, instrument of the book” (p 25).

Everyone belonging to this ‘Movement’ that has no rules, no Church approval, and even [sic] no existence of its own is audaciously ‘made’ duty bound to read and meditate on everything in the book ... like the heroin addict is ‘duty bound’ to consume everything in the syringe.

Fr Gobbi continued to plant booby traps for his followers to stumble on when he stated, in reference to his ‘Movement’, that “as it does not exist, it cannot be catalogued in any way” (p. 16). He then stood on his own booby trap and catalogued the spiritualities and doctrines he claimed the ‘messages’ contain, and invited the members of his Movement to take the same step: “there are gathered together in the book the doctrine of de Montfort on consecration, the way of spiritual childhood of St Therese of the Child Jesus and the fulfillment of the message of Fatima. It is for each one to confirm this for himself” (p 24). Individuals are here being deliberately told to do what Fr Gobbi carefully avoided having the competent Church Authority do: judge his messages. For its success this arrogant assertion appeals to the pride of his readers. And where pride enters Our Lady infallibly departs.

In the area of spirituality we have no safer or higher Ecclesiastical Authority than the Sovereign Pontiff to guide us in the path of Truth and protect us from deceivers. In the 1987 Marian Year which he inaugurated, Pope John Paul II gave to the Church the Encyclical Letter, Redemptoris Mater (Mother of the Redeemer) – On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life of the Pilgrim Church. Placing himself in the context of the “Mariology of the Council” which, he noted, embodied what “the Holy Spirit Himself wishes to ‘say to the Church’ in the present phase of history”, His Holiness proceeded to explain (RM # 48, emphases added):

“... the Marian Year is meant to promote a new and more careful reading of what the Council said about the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the mystery of Christ and of the Church, the topic to which the contents of this Encyclical are devoted. Here we speak not only of the doctrine of faith but also of the life of faith, and thus of authentic ‘Marian spirituality’, seen in the light of Tradition, and especially the spirituality to which the Council exhorts us. Furthermore, Marian spirituality, like its corresponding devotion, finds a very rich source in the historical experience of individuals and of the various Christian communities present among the different peoples and nations of the world. In this regard, I would like to recall, among the many witnesses and teachers of this spirituality, the figure of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort ... Thus there exist solid points of reference to look to and follow in the context of this Marian Year.” [Emphasis added.]

From the rich material available here it is emphasised that St Louis de Montfort has been singled out by Pope John Paul II as: (i) a “witness” and “teacher” par excellence of both “authentic Marian spirituality” and its “corresponding devotion”; and (ii) as a “solid point of reference” to “look to and follow” as a witness and teacher of both authentic Marian spirituality and its corresponding devotion “in the present phase of history”.

Following these Papal directives we call upon this great Marian Saint to put to the test Fr Gobbi’s claim that his messages contain “the doctrine of de Montfort” about Our Lady.

In his treatise True Devotion to Mary the first truth St Louis teaches about the Blessed Virgin is the truth about her profound humility (TD # 2. Emphases added):

“Mary was singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her Alma Mater – ‘Mother secret and hidden.’ Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on earth more powerful or more constant than that of hiding herself, from herself as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only.”

And (TD # 4. Words [in brackets] added because of what is stated in TD # 3.):

“God the Father consented [in answer to her prayers] that she should work no miracle, at least no public one, during her life, although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son consented [in answer to her prayers] that she should hardly ever speak, though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost, though she was His faithful spouse, consented [in answer to her prayers] that his Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known.”

Compare this beautiful and fundamental teaching of St Louis concerning Our Lady’s profound humility to the following ‘message’ from Fr Gobbi, dated 23 February 1974 (4th Oceania Edition, # 39, p 85. Emphasis added.):

“Even today I like to reveal myself to my children in places similar to those in which I lived with my Son Jesus ...”

The meaning of this message could not be clearer: “Even today [just like 2000 years ago] I [still] like to reveal myself”. In the light of St Louis’ Teaching it should be crystal clear that this message is spurious: it does not proceed from its pretended source.

Our Lady never did anything, and still never does anything because she [sic] “likes” to do it. Her every thought, word and action was, and still is, in perfect uniformity with the Will of God: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1: 38).

The ‘personality’ revealed in Fr Gobbi’s message is not the person of Our Lady. This message has failed miserably the fundamental examination set for it by St Louis de Montfort. The ‘personality’ behind the message does not qualify as a witness and teacher of authentic Marian spirituality. This is further confirmed by message #167 of January 1, 1979 placed at the head of Fr Gobbi’s book (4th Oceania Edition, 1987):

“In the person and the work of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, I am reflecting my great Light which will become stronger the more the darkness envelopes everything.”

“I am reflecting my great light ...”. A mirror reflects light, but no mirror reflects its own light – as Fr Gobbi has here stated - but only the rays from a light source that shines upon it. Our Lady reflects only the Light of Christ, “Who is the Light of the world”. In the Second Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary we meditate upon God’s Revelation of Our Lady to us in Sacred Scripture, in Her Canticle of Praise and Adoration: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” (Luke 1: 46) These profound words reveal to us that Our Lady’s soul magnifies God alone, to the exclusion of every creature – even Herself. The Old Testament prepared the People of God’s Covenant for the fullness of Revelation – Our Lord Jesus Christ - contained in the New Testament with awe inspiring passages such as the following (Wisdom 7: 25 – 26, emphases added):

The words Fr Gobbi makes ‘Our Lady’ speak in the message placed at the head of his book – that ‘she’ is reflecting ‘her’ own light – reveal their utter absurdity in the overwhelming Eternal Light of Divine Revelation, of which Our Lady is the untarnished mirror. Lucifer (Light-Bearer) claimed that ‘I am reflecting my great light’: the absurdity which led him to adore himself instead of prostrating himself before the God Whose Light he was created to reflect (bear).

From our assessment of this message we have confirmed that the trait of self adulation and self promotion - so clearly manifested in this spurious, pride-filled unholy portrait - is the foundation of the ‘spirituality’ being offered through Fr Gobbi’s messages. It is wholly consistent with the first message that failed St Louis’ examination: “Even today I like to reveal myself ...”

We heard the Holy Father state in Redemptoris Mater that he was speaking “not only of the doctrine of faith but also of the life of faith, and thus of authentic Marian spirituality”. By using the word ‘authentic’ to specify the Marian Spirituality his encyclical was devoted to proclaiming, the Holy Father has implied that even though he is not dealing with it in his encyclical there are ‘spiritualities’ that are paraded as being Marian but which are not authentic. He further noted that authentic spirituality “has a corresponding devotion” and he referred us to the True Devotion of St Louis. It is logical to conclude that ‘marian spiritualities’ which are not authentic Marian Spirituality also have corresponding false devotions associated with them, especially when St Louis speaks against false devotions with great force in his True Devotion to Mary (#90. Emphasis added):

“Today, more than ever, we must take pains in choosing true devotion to Our Blessed Lady, because more than ever before, there are false devotions to Our Blessed Lady which are easily mistaken for true ones. The devil, like a false coiner and a subtle and experienced sharper, has already deceived and destroyed so many souls by a false devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that he makes a daily use of his diabolical experience to plunge many others by this same way into everlasting perdition; amusing them, lulling them to sleep in sin, under the pretext of some prayers badly said or of some outward practices which he inspires. As a false coiner does not ordinarily counterfeit anything but gold or silver, and very rarely other metals, because they are not worth the trouble, so the evil spirit does not for the most part counterfeit other devotions, but only those to Jesus and Mary – devotion to Holy Communion and to our Blessed Lady – because they are among other devotions what gold and silver are among metals.”

Pope John Paul II designated St. Louis de Montfort’s writings as “authentic Marian spirituality”, and St. Louis as a “sure guide” to “look to and follow” in the “present phase of history”. Thus if so safe a guide as St. Louis de Montfort holds up to us that by a false devotion to Our Blessed Lady, the devil has already destroyed so many souls, and “daily succeeds” in destroying so many more “into everlasting perdition”, then it is high time that Cardinals, bishops, priests and layfolk sit up and take notice.

The Holy Father taught us in Redemptoris Mater that Vatican II was a Marian Council, and that its teaching on Our Lady is indissolubly tied to the “mystery of Christ and of the Church”. It is not possible to separate Our Lady from either Christ or from His Church, as the following quote from the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) will show. This quote is taken from the concluding chapter of Lumen Gentium, Chapter VIII “Our Lady”:

“By reason of the gift and role of her Divine Motherhood, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with her unique graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united to the Church. As St. Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity, and perfect union with Christ. For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion. (#63)”

We keep this Catholic Teaching firmly in mind as we continue our investigation of Fr Gobbi’s messages.

On February 10, 1978, in message # 147 (d) (e) (f), Fr. Gobbi alleged Our Lady told him that:

“Darkness will descend upon the Church and will become even more dense after your heavenly Mother has come to get the soul of the first of her beloved sons, Pope Paul VI, who is consummating on the cross his supreme sacrifice. As long as he lives, thanks to his grievous martyrdom, I can still hold back the arm of God’s justice. But after his death, all will come crashing down. The Church will be, as it were submerged in error which will be embraced and propagated, and thus apostasy ... will reach its peak.” [Emphasis added]

This ‘message’ contradicts the solemn promise Our Lord made to the first Pope, St Peter: “I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” (Mt. 16:18).

Pope Paul VI died 6 months after this ‘message’. He was succeeded by Pope John Paul I. Pope John Paul II was elected on 11 October 1978, and within a few days Fr Gobbi had revised his prediction for the Church to come “crashing down”, in message (#162) of October 17:

“Today you have prayed for the new Pope whom my Immaculate Heart has obtained from Jesus for the good of the Church. He is a son especially loved by Me because He has consecrated himself to my Heart from the beginning of his priesthood. ... With the Holy Father whom Providence has today given you, I bless you, my beloved sons throughout the whole world, chosen by my Immaculate Heart for the hour of its great triumph.” [Emphasis added.]

From a message that says “all (which by definition includes the Church and the Papacy) will come crashing down” with the death of Pope Paul VI (Feb, 1978), Fr Gobbi jumped to a message that contradicted this by saying that the new Pope was elected for the “good of the Church” because he is “the Holy Father whom Providence has today given you” (Oct, 1978). On New Year’s Day 1979 (message # 167) this contradiction became even more glaring after Fr Gobbi had familiarised himself a bit more with the recently elected Pope John Paul II, and with the Marian Devotion for which this Holy Father has become well known. Refer again to the message of Jan 1, 1979:

“... after God had accepted the sacrifice of Pope Paul VI and of John Paul I, I obtained from God for the Church the Pope who had been prepared and formed by Me. ... In the person and the work of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, I am reflecting my great Light [sic] which will become stronger the more the darkness envelopes everything.” [Emphasis added.]

Here it is being proposed that light increases at the same time as it decreases, or as darkness increases. A thing and its contradiction are both held up as being equally true at the same time and in the same sense.

Under the camouflage of the this absurd ‘principle’ which has no true reality because it contradicts the Principle of Contradiction, Fr Gobbi held up the Queen of Prophets as one who did not know that at the time of saying that with the death of Pope Paul VI when it was stated that “all will come crashing down” that barely six months later ‘she’ would obtain from God “the Pope who had been prepared and formed by Me”.

Fr Gobbi never abandoned his fixed idea that “all will come crashing down”, he simply postponed it. After Pope John Paul had been in office for ten years and with the visible signs of intense suffering increasing on his countenance and in his body, Fr Gobbi may have thought that John Paul II would “come crashing down” by 1998 when he reintroduced in 1989 his real agenda in words more alluring to those initiated into the secret ‘knowledge’ of his ‘cenacles’, than the words he used in Feb 1978. This is what he ‘prophesied’ in message # 407 of June 17, 1989:

“666 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, expresses the year 1998, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight. In this period of history, Freemasonry, assisted by its ecclesiastical form, will succeed in its great design: that of setting up an idol to put in the place of Christ and of his Church. A false christ and a false church.”

No surprise that this ‘prophecy’, to coin one of its author’s sayings, came crashing down. According to St. John the number 666 refers neither to the year 1998 nor to any other year; but refers to a man:

“Here is wisdom. He that has understanding let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred and sixty six.” (Apoc. 13:18).

Fr Gobbi claimed the Antichrist was supposed to begin his reign in 1998. St. John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, assures us that the Antichrist will reign for three and one half years. In Fr Gobbi’s estimation the reign of Antichrist would finish sometime in 2000 or 2001. What, according to this false prophet, was supposed to happen then? The contents of message # 532 (i) of December 5, 1994 make it very clear:

“I confirm to you that, by the great jubilee of the year two thousand, there will take place the triumph of my Immaculate heart, which I foretold to you at Fatima, and this will come to pass with the return of Jesus in glory, to establish his reign in the world. Thus you will at last be able to see with your own eyes the new heavens and the new earth.”

Fr Gobbi stated that Jesus would return to earth to establish his reign in the world in the year 2000AD. This is proved to be false on three accounts. (1) It never happened, and never will happen because (2) Jesus established His reign in this world 2000 years ago when He Redeemed mankind by His Holy Death on the Cross to conquer Sin and Death and establish His One True Church, the beginnings of His Kingdom, from where in the Blessed Sacrament He has ruled the world ever since, and (3) when Jesus comes again it will be in Glory on the last day, to judge the living and the dead, to reveal the Kingdom, and to take the just who make up the Kingdom with Him to Heaven where He will hand over the Kingdom to His Father.

Fr Gobbi retained his fixed idea that the Church would be destroyed and Jesus would return to earth to reign over a ‘new church’. This anti Catholic concept and its consequent agenda have been explicit from the days of his early messages. For example take message # 166 (e) (h) of Christmas Eve, 1978:

“His second coming, beloved children, will be like the first. As was his birth on this night, so also will be the return of Jesus in glory, before his final coming for the last judgment, the hour of which, however, is still hidden in the secrets of the Father.” ... “He will come to establish his kingdom in the world, after having defeated and annihilated his enemies.”

And message # 279 (j) (k), again on Christmas Eve, five years later in 1983:

“Prepare yourselves for the return of Jesus in glory. His second birth is close at hand.”

The doctrine of millenarianism proposes that Christ will return to earth, either by physical birth or glorious appearance, to reign on the earth for a period a time. This is a false teaching that surfaced in the first century, and is condemned by the Holy Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states (# 675, 676):

“Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.”

“The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the ‘intrinsically perverse’ political form of a secular messianism.”

A simple comparison of these quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to Fr Gobbi’s previously quoted messages 407, 532, 166 and 279 yields the following facts:

• Fr Gobbi proposed that Our Lord would return to earth to rule over a ‘new Church’ after the one Catholic Church He founded 2000 years ago had been destroyed. From the above quoted words of the Catechism we see that this ‘prophecy’ is a “religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems”. (ie. Christ will come again to terminate the Apostasy that His Catholic Church propagated by wiping out the evil doers and ‘save’ the members of the MMP who have been waiting in the wings for this ‘glorious triumph’ which is “the fulfillment of the message of Fatima”.)

• Fr Gobbi proposed, in the above quoted words of the Catechism, “to realise in the world that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement”. This proposal, according to the Catechism, is “the Antichrist’s deception beginning to take shape in the world”.

When confronted by unapproved and spurious messages, like those of Fr Gobbi, we must do what Our Lord commanded:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.” (Mt. 7:15-20)

St John assures us that there will be a second beast, a ‘religious’ beast, that looks like the Lamb but speaks like the dragon. This beast will do everything in its power to make the world worship the first beast, a political beast; and accept his number either in the hand or on the forehead. (Apoc 13: 11-18.) The messages of the false prophet Fr Gobbi are clearly preparing ‘catholics’ to run after the second beast, when he makes his appearance, in the illusion that he is Christ returned to earth to establish the “new church”. Refer to message #161, October 13, 1978:

“I was preparing secretly, in my Heart, the new Church, all of light.”

This message comes from the same personality that said “I am reflecting my great light”, and is consistent with it. That personality does not reflect the Light of Christ but regurgitates its own darkness in order to exclude the Light of Christ. The “new church” of message # 161 is not the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is not a new Church even though She is perennially youthful due to her continual sharing in the Divine Life of Christ. So this “new church” is not “all of light” but excludes the Light of Christ by spreading its own darkness, just as Pope St. Pius X taught us it would (Our Apostolic Mandate, 1910):

“What has become of their Catholicity? Alas, this organisation (i.e. the SILLON, composed of well-meaning social Catholics in France) which formerly afforded such promising expectations, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent, feeding THE GREAT MOVEMENT OF APOSTASY, being organised in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church, which shall have neither dogmas nor hierarchy neither discipline of the mind nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world the reign of legalised cunning and brute force and of the oppression of the weak and of all those who toil and suffer ... We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated those mischievous doctrines which ought not seduce clear thinking minds.”

The Sillon is long dead, but the other realities described here are very active:

... dark workshops like the ‘cenacles’ in which are elaborated the mischievous doctrines found in Fr Gobbi’s book, but which ought not seduce clear thinking minds ... mischievous doctrines like the doctrine that the gates of Hell will prevail over the Catholic Church and cause it to come “crashing down” ... mischievous doctrines like the doctrine that Our Lady is reflecting her own light and forming the “new church” ... mischievous doctrines like the doctrine that Christ will return to earth to rule over this “new church” ... mischievous doctrines preparing the ‘marian’ Movement to move with the Great Movement of Apostasy into the One World ‘Church’ of Darkness.

F. Calneggia
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 2002.