by Raniero da Fiore, published at El Wanderer, July 3, 2026
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| from the visions of St. Hildegard of Bingen |
The episcopal consecrations of the FSSPX and all the arguments for or against them have once again brought to the fore an old ecclesiological conviction held by Lefebvre’s followers: the opposition between a supposed “Eternal Rome”—traditional and orthodox—and a “Conciliar Rome”—modernist and heretical. This expression is hardly compatible with Catholic doctrine on the unity and indefectibility of the Church. No matter how great and profound the present crisis may be, it requires some serious theological juggling to justify it. However, it is not entirely without foundation. Its strength stems from a true intuition that, unfortunately, is often trapped within an inadequate doctrinal framework.
That intuition consists in recognizing that the final crisis of the Church will not come exclusively from outside it. The mystery of iniquity will not manifest itself solely in the form of external persecution, a pagan emperor, or a power hostile to Christianity. Biblical and patristic tradition has always contemplated the possibility of internal corruption—a trial that would affect the Church itself in its historical existence.
Many contemporary Catholics seem uncomfortable with this perspective. Accustomed—since Trent—to a defensive apologetics that equates any reference to ecclesial apostasy with a concession to Protestantism, they prefer to deny the problem rather than confront it. But the issue does not disappear simply by ignoring it. On the one hand, Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church. On the other hand, St. Paul foretold a great apostasy and the appearance of the Man of Lawlessness before the end of time. Both statements belong to Revelation, and neither can be sacrificed for the sake of the other.
Fr. Julio Meinvielle articulated this tension through the well-known image of a Church of the Promises and a Church of Propaganda. The former remains founded on the unfailing word of Christ; the latter designates that historical dimension of the Church where human miseries, compromises, ambitions, and infidelities become visible. The importance of this insight lies in the fact that it does not attempt to resolve the problem through an artificial separation between a true Church and a false one. The mystery remains open, precisely because both dimensions coexist within the same visible reality.
It is here that one of the most extraordinary figures in Christendom takes on particular significance. Saint Hildegard of Bingen was neither a marginal visionary nor a popular prophetess of uncertain reputation. A Benedictine abbess, advisor to emperors and popes, and author of theological, scientific, and musical treatises, she occupied an exceptional place in the intellectual and religious life of the twelfth century. Despite her immense authority throughout Christendom, during the Protestant Reformation the Lutherans used her figure to attack the papacy: indeed,some of the saint’s exegetical visions suggested a profound connection between the Church and the Antichrist. This led to her being ostracized for centuries, during which her work was relegated to obscurity on suspicion.
However, in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI rescued her from this Lutheran ostracism by canonizing her and proclaiming her a Doctor of the Church.
It is worth pausing for a moment to consider this fact, as it is not merely an honorary distinction. Through this act, the Church recognizes in an author a doctrinal eminence particularly worthy of being presented to the faithful. It is difficult to imagine that Joseph Ratzinger, one of the greatest modern scholars of patristic and medieval tradition, was unaware of one of the most famous and unsettling visions in Scivias: the one in which the Antichrist is born of the Church.
It is worth bearing this in mind, especially for those who diagnose “antipapism” with the same certainty with which medieval doctors diagnosed imbalances of the humors. The idea that the Church will undergo a profound eschatological crisis born from within does not stem from some traditionalist blog, a conspiracy theory, or a contemporary apocalyptic fantasy. It is part of the work of a Doctor of the Church whose teaching was explicitly proposed by Benedict XVI to all Christians. It is a pity that the Lefebvrist world cannot rely too heavily on Hildegard precisely here, where it would be most beneficial to them, since the saint’s authority depends on canonizations whose validity they are in the habit of setting aside.
The vision that interests us appears in Book III of the Scivias, dedicated to the history of salvation and the consummation of the ages. Hildegard contemplates an immense female figure representing the Church. The woman appears crowned and glorious, clothed in heavenly dignity. However, as the gaze descends from the navel downward, the image begins to transform. There she sees wounds, scales, blemishes, and deformities that symbolize the accumulated sins of the Church’s children throughout history. And then something unheard-of occurs. Precisely at the place “where the woman is distinguished,” a monstrous black head emerges, with eyes of fire, donkey’s ears, and a lion’s jaws: the Man of Lawlessness.
The miniature accompanying the vision—created under Hildegard’s own supervision and featured at the top of this post—possesses even greater visual power. The Ecclesia remains crowned, continues to sit on her throne, and remains the Bride of Christ. Yet from her very bowels emerges the monstrous head of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist does not appear as a reality entirely external to the Church. This observation is decisive because it allows us to simultaneously understand both the merit and the error of certain contemporary traditionalist analyses. Their merit lies in recognizing that the crisis can incubate within the very heart of the visible Church. Their error becomes apparent when they attempt to resolve that intuition through an overly simplistic division between two distinct Churches: Eternal Rome versus Conciliar Rome.
The solution possesses an irresistible appearance of clarity, but ultimately reproduces a logic deeply alien to Catholic tradition. Classical Protestantism proceeded in exactly the same way, identifying the Antichrist with the Papacy. Wherever it observed corruption, it concluded that the true Church must be found elsewhere. Hildegard’s vision is far more unsettling because it precludes such simplification. The crowned woman remains the Church; her wounds do not transform her into something else. Corruption does not give rise to a second Church; the Antichrist emerges from her wounds without destroying her identity.Father Leonardo Castellani also understood the importance of this issue. In Does Christ Return or Not?, he insisted on the need to recover certain traditional insights that modern Catholic exegesis had abandoned as if suspected of Protestantism.
In particular, the insight that allows us to understand the dramatic relationship between the historical Church and the figure of the Great Harlot:
“This would be the truth that Protestantism took captive and that we must free, just as we freed Lucía Miranda” (2004, 30).
Not because the two realities can simply be equated, but because the history of the Church can be seen as mysteriously entangled in a chilling proximity to that very thing which opposes Christ.
Castellan’s image of Dulcinea helps us understand this mystery. Although the Argentine priest uses her as a symbol of the homeland, she can just as easily be understood in relation to the Church of the end times—at once decayed and prostituted, yet at the same time innocent and holy. The temptation of bad theology always consists in choosing one of these two aspects and denying the other. A certain anti-intellectual bias that characterizes the FSSPX may, perhaps, lie at the root of this. However, the Catholic exegetical tradition compels us to contemplate both realities simultaneously.
At its core, the entire history of salvation seems to unfold according to this same pendular, cyclical movement—a sort of succession of purifications and catastrophes that builds in crescendo, as Tolkien teaches us in his Letters. Adam receives paradise and falls, along with his descendants, who must be purified in the Great Flood. Noah’s sons, preserved in the ark, end up repeating those actions and are ultimately scattered at Babel. Finally, and in a paradigmatic way, God establishes Israel, heir to the Covenant, which ultimately crucifies the Messiah. Those to whom God grants the greatest privileges become the protagonists of the greatest betrayals.
Castellani says in his Apokalypsis of St. John:
“When Christ came, those were confusing and sorrowful times. Religion had been perverted by its leaders and, consequently, by part of the people. ‘Do whatever they tell you, but do not act according to their deeds.’ Christ did not abandon the Synagogue for that reason, but rather allowed himself to be put to death in order to purify it. From his open heart was born the Church, which was originally Jewish. When Christ returns, the situation will be similar. Only Pharisaism—the sin against the Holy Spirit—is capable of producing that great apostasy which He foretold: ‘the greatest tribulation since the Flood’ will be brought about by the worst corruption—the corruption of the best” (2005, 209).
From this perspective, a final crisis arising from within the Church does not constitute an anomaly, but quite the opposite: it appears rather as the culmination usque ad summum of a dynamic that runs through all of sacred history.
However, here we also encounter the insurmountable limit of this exegetical tradition. Neither Hildegard, nor Castellani, nor Meinvielle ever teach that the gates of hell will prevail against the Church. Nor do they maintain that the Church will disappear to take refuge in a community of the pure (“Christ did not abandon the Synagogue for that reason”).
Much less do they imagine a sort of “true Church” subsisting exclusively in small groups of resisters who go so far as to proclaim themselves the “ark of salvation”, as Fr. Benoît de Jorna, FSSPX, has written.
It is precisely here that Meinvielle’s insight takes on its full depth. The Church of the Promises and the Church of Propaganda do not constitute two distinct societies. They do not have two hierarchies, they do not have two pontiffs, they do not exist as separate realities. Both remain mysteriously united under the same visible head.
The very same Pope who presides over the indefectible Church may simultaneously find himself at the head of an ecclesiastical structure riddled with errors, compromises, and confusions that favor the advance of the mystery of iniquity. The tragedy lies precisely in the fact that both dimensions coexist.
If the faithful Church could simply separate itself from the corrupt Church, the problem would be relatively straightforward. It would suffice to abandon the decadent structure and gather around the small remnant of the elect. That was, in essence, Luther’s solution. And it also constitutes the constant temptation of every form of traditionalism that ends up imagining itself as a substitute for the Church.
Catholic exegesis is far more demanding. The faithful Church remains within the visible Church. It remains under the same Pope. It remains within the same institutional structure that, at the same time, may be being used by men whose actions contribute to preparing the historical conditions for the manifestation of the Antichrist. Of course, this seems paradoxical, but paradoxes are the customary language of Sacred Scripture. To understand them, obviously, one needs the intelligence and the clarifying flexibility of symbolism. If we attempt to extract from the sacred text the same categorical univocity as in the Summa, we will inevitably end up distorting it.
Herein lies the true scandal. The final test will not consist in choosing between two Churches. It will consist in remaining faithful to the one Church precisely when its wounds are visible to all. Even when those in the highest ecclesiastical offices collaborate, consciously or unconsciously, with the advance of processes contrary to the Kingdom of God, the Church of the Promises will continue to exist solely under Peter.
Hildegard’s vision does not foretell a false Church destined to replace the true one. It foretells something far more unsettling and far more difficult to accept: the Passion of the Church itself. A Passion in which the Bride remains the Bride even when many of her children become instruments of the mystery of iniquity. The monstrous head emerges from her very depths, but it never takes her place. For the Antichrist may be born alongside Peter, may make use of Peter, and may even benefit from Peter’s errors; but he will never be Peter. And as long as Peter remains—even amid the shadows of the final temptation—so too will the Church of the Promises remain.
