July 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Michael O’Brien is a Catholic novelist, author, painter, and speaker. He is the author of the best-selling book Father Elijah: An Apocalypse, which has been translated into many languages. On this part 1 of a two-part episode of The John-Henry Westen Show, he talks with me about the mass apostasy in the Church, the anti-Christ, and why so many Catholics are falling away from the faith.
An author of more than thirty books, O’Brien says that the Church in the West is experiencing an “unprecedented falling away, an unprecedented rebellion.” What is unique about this rebellion is that “we are under no violent pressure in the developed nations to betray the faith.” It is more of an “interior losing of faith,” he argues.
O’Brien believes that it is not only the power of the world but also the spirit of Satan, “our ancestral enemy,” at work. “The Lord has permitted this,” he says. “By and large, we are being weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
O’Brien also speaks about what St. Paul had to say on the end times and he connects the apostasy in the Church to the current pontificate.
“There is an urgent call for the church to speak with great clarity, with great love for mankind, with great love for the truth.”
“Wherever there is confusion, ambiguity, a cloud of vagueness beginning to dissolve the actual clarity of the living Gospels…we have at least a factor that will contribute to the ultimate delusion which Satan and the anti-Christ will bring upon mankind.” We must “pray and fast for the church as we stay awake and watch.”
O’Brien also touched on the false dichotomy some claim exists between engaging in a more “pastoral” approach instead of upholding the Gospel in an alleged rigid or pharisaical manner.
“To those who have been wounded…how do we reach them?” he asked. “We cannot reach them by anything other than caritas in veritate.” Christ said “truth will set your free” not “pastoral sentiment.”
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