Leader of Gobbi movement explains prophecies and foresees anti-christ
by Michael H. Brown
@copyright spiridaily.com
We called Father Albert G. Roux, national director for the Marian Movement of Priests, for a story we'll be carrying Wednesday on the prophecies of another priest, Italian locutionist Stefano Gobbi (whose literature the Marian Movement distributes), and Father Roux made some remarkable comments. Among them was his speculation about the anti-christ. Father Roux believes the "man of inequity" will enter the scene only after the death of John Paul II.
"The Blessed Mother keeps saying that when the Pope dies the Church will be projected into a dense darkness and it's going to be a great confusion, where people will be dropping out of the Church," said Father Roux of St. Francis, Maine. "There is a man of inequity who is supposed to be entering the Church. To me that is the anti-christ and his false prophet, and my understanding is that the false prophet will be a false pope who will empty the Church of her spirituality and her doctrine, and will create the abomination of desolation by declaring that the Gospels are not historical and that the divinity of Christ is questionable and the Eucharist is just a symbol. Then he's going to raise the anti-christ, which is going to happen before Jesus's return."
Many who follow Father Gobbi believe that such apocalyptic events will conclude by the end of the year, but Father Roux said this is unlikely, since much must occur leading up to it. He said Gobbi's prophecy that the "triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart" would occur by the year 2000 pertained not to apocalyptic events but to completion of the Virgin's spiritual preparation for events that will occur in the future.
For those of you who aren't Catholic or aren't familiar with Father Gobbi, he's a 70-year-old priest from Milan who allegedly began to receive messages from the Virgin Mary in 1972 while praying in the Chapel of the Apparitions at Fatima, Portugal. The spread of his locutions (whereby a voice is heard, as opposed to a full-scale apparition) took the world by storm in the 1980s, with tens of thousands of priests joining what is known as the Marian Movement of Priests. Father Roux is in charge of the American chapter, which has nearly 4,000 clergy and 60,000 lay persons.
In 1996 Father Gobbi announced a message stating that the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart -- which many interpreted as being the end times -- would occur by the end of the millennial year.
The messages have received imprimaturs but not formal Church approval as supernatural events. Like all locutions, there are parts that have been hotly debated, which we'll discuss in the Wednesday article.
"This year the Jubilee Year indulgence seems to be a last opportunity for the great mercy and it's a time of purification," said Father Roux. "The Holy Father seems to be thinking like the messages Our Blessed Mother has been saying to Father Gobbi and he's preparing the Church for that. He is calling us to come back to the sacrament of Confession and the Holy Eucharist that will purify us and make us grow. Our Blessed Mother says that by the end of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, which to me is Christmas, the triumph will have occurred, but we need to understand what that means. The triumph of Mary in my understanding is that whatever mission was given to her by the Father in the preparation of the people for the coming of Jesus will be practically accomplished, and the mission she has been assigned by the Father was to bring back people to Jesus, especially those who have been baptized, members of His mystical body. The anti-christ can not come on the public scene until John Paul dies. Something is holding the anti-christ from coming out and I believe this is the papacy of John Paul II. John Paul is not afraid of anyone and he would face up to the anti-christ and unmask him publicly and [the anti-christ] would lose his clout. He would be humiliated, and Satan is not about to let this happen, so he's got to wait till John Paul dies for the anti-christ to appear on the public scene."
"It's very close because we know John Paul cannot live much longer," continued Father Roux. "I think the United Nations is preparing for the anti-christ's coming to the public scene. He's going to govern the world through the United Nations. Now is the time that Jesus is separating the goats from the sheep. What He's going to do is send Mary to advise and to send events for us to make decisions when we face them. Either we stand on the right hand of Jesus or the left hand side. When Jesus comes in glory He's going to destroy His enemies and then He's going to recreate the earthly paradise that Adam and Eve had. Those on the right hand side will go into this new promised land."