Apocalypse is the Greek word for Revelation, which is why the final book of the Bible goes by both names. But there is much in a name, of whatever language. Apocalypse, unlike the more prosaic ‘revelation’, conjures up all the chaos of the end times – the antichrist, the inexorable rise in evil, the loss of faith and calamities galore, from earthquakes, to the very heavens being shaken, with fire coming down from on high, and all things being destroyed as Christ comes on clouds descending.
Prescinding from these more dramatic elements, both apocalypse and revelation also imply judgement – that we will face our Creator at the end of our lives, to give an account of how we have lived them. Even that is not quite accurate, for it’s more that what we have done, and not done, and why we have done, will all be revealed, whether we ourselves like it or admit to it or not. There will be no pleading the Fifth at the judgement.
Still, for all his silence, Fauci is being raked over the coals, his ‘diary’ – a series of emails he wrote to various people – on full display. Almost everything he claimed as the ‘voice of science’ is now doubtful if not fully discredited, from the masks to the jab, the lockdowns and the origins of Covid, along with the media-hyped mass hysteria that fueled it all. So many were drawn into this vortex, untold millions suffered.
Aaron Kheriaty compares the hubristic fallen physician to Icarus, not realizing, and not admitting, that his wings were made of melting wax. The harm Fauci and his policies wrought will only be known at the final judgement. As Kheriaty puts it:
In the days leading up to the hearing, Sen. Paul released Fauci’s “diary” (not personal journals but government records created on a government computer by a federal employee), which makes for astonishing reading. They reveal, for example, that Fauci not only was wrong, but knowingly deceived the public about Covid’s origins, lockdowns, vaccine efficacy, and other public health topics of global consequence.
As with all suffering and humiliation, this is an opportunity for grace, repentance and conversion. Many are not offered such, but live lives of not-so-blissful insouciance, ignoring the guilt of their own conscience, whether wittingly or not. Many who perpetrated grave evil in the name of some ideology or another – Nazism and Communism being the worst offenders, but there many others – escaped justice here on earth, but not when they shuffled off this mortal coil. It may well have been better had they been caught, for the judgement they faced here would have prepared them for the real judgement before their Maker.
Fauci been granted a total and absolute pardon from Joseph Biden for all crimes, past, present and future – an odd and likely illegal precedent, which may (or may not) preserve Fauci from earthly punishment, but not divine.
But the same may be said for us all, for we’re all guilty of some sort of evil, or participation therein, and may count it a grace if we too have such a preparatory apocalypse here in this mortal coil, so the one at our own death goes well. And if that goes well, things shall be very well indeed. In fact, each examination of conscience, and especially sacramental confession is such an ‘apocalypse’, an unveiling of who we are, beneath the façade we present to the world. As Saint Philip Neri quipped, what we know of the saints is the least part of them. Much of what we don’t know of them is locked up in that little penitential box, of which I hope we all take full advantage. Every saint has a past, and every sinner a future.
There is nothing – nothing – so important in this life as maintaining a good conscience, one that is at least free of grave evil. Heaven awaits us all, if we but say the word of the prodigal: Forgive me Father, for I have sinned…
Fauci could only do what he did because he had innumerable accomplices and adulators, politicians, pundits, and, yes, even clergy – so many of whom seemed just to go along to get along or kowtowed to the uncertain ‘god’ of science, or whose only good seemed to be to live another day. That’s before we get to ‘conspiracy’ theories about the whole Covid debacle being a test case for global totalitarianism, which half a decade on does not seem that far off the mark. What we witnessed was the imposition of a secularist ideology, and what’s most tragic, perhaps, is that so many in the Church mysteriously went along, suppressing even the most necessary sacraments – confession, Holy Mass and communion – for months, even years on end. Many died alone, bereft, unshriven, without the Last Rites, and many were prompted to see Sunday obligation as ‘optional’, with televised Masses in empty churches. Too many in the Vatican, even at the highest levels, promoted these policies, even the mandated mRNA ‘vaccine’, whose efficacy is doubtful and whose grave harm proven beyond reasonable doubt. Sure, the Church’s official documents maintained human autonomy and freedom, but they were often a dead letter in the face of such on-the-ground coercion. So much truth was suppressed, so many falsehoods supported. As John Gronielski asks this in an article this morning, when will there be a ecclesial review of these distinctly, which wrought so much spiritual harm?
It was, to say the least, disconcerting, and one’s mind still reels. We may take some comfort that, as Christ said, all will be exposed, even our most hidden words and actions and our very thoughts will be shouted from the rooftops (Lk 12:3). We see a small part of that in Fauci’s interrogation, and we pray he opens his soul to this opportunity for grace.
May we all learn from what has transpired, to discern more clearly what is good and evil, true and false, and so conform our minds and wills to Christ, the only Way to Truth and Life.
