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Just as Jesus was crucified, and the Church is the body of Christ, the Church must carry its cross, and then be crucified by the whole world, and finally Jesus will come back at the final Resurrection.

This is partly why we portray Jesus on the cross in our crucifixes, because Jesus is still on the cross in the Church, which is his body. And we are the church, and he tells us to pick up and carry our crosses daily.

At the last supper, Peter, James, and John were all there. When Jesus was arrested, James was gone. During the night trial, Peter left. Only John remained, just as he alone remained as the Last Apostle.

Peter represents the priesthood, and especially the Popes. James represents the martyrs. John represents mystics, those who see the true reality most clearly through their intense suffering.

So in the end times, first the Church will run out of Martyrs. Then, the priesthood will be gone. The last ones remaining will be the mystics through intense suffering.

I don’t dare say we have no Pope, because Pope Francis is a valid Pope, and Vatican II was a valid council, and anyone who disagrees is a heretic and on the path to Hell, and their morals clearly show this.

I think it means that the priests and popes of the end times will try to make peace with the world, just as Peter tried to make peace with the enemies of Christ by denying that he knows Jesus. Fulton Sheen prophesied this in The Fourth Great Crisis of the Church when he said:

20 years ago, 30, 40 years ago it was easy to be Christian. The atmosphere was Christian. Morals were Christian. There was no great problem in adapting ourselves to a Christian society. But now, when everything is turned around, these are days in which the masks have got to come off! And we reveal ourselves just as we really are! Then, we could float, float with the current. Today, the current’s against us! And today the mood of the world is, “go with the world, go with the spirit.” Listen, dead bodies float downstream! Only live bodies resist the current!

I do see priests who have made peace with the world. It looks to me like Pope Francis is doing the same. People love him. This is not what Jesus wants. I’ve debated this within myself, and listened to external arguments from both sides, for a long time. I am now convinced we should not try to make the world like us, or be likeable to the world.

It’s one thing for us to speak the language of the people. This is what the Apostles did, this is how Paul became all things to all people. It’s entirely another thing, and the wrong thing, to try to convince the world that we are good by becoming worldly. The whole point of reaching them is to show them that the path they are on is deceitful and self-destructive! How is it possible then that we should say that they are not doing wrong, not doing something inherently counterproductive and harmful to themselves!

This is not the same as preaching hellfire and brimstone, as SSPX and sedevacantists and most traditionalist Catholics say that we should do. They only want peace on earth, they want people to stop persecuting them, so that they can live a peaceful and quiet life. They want to have paradise on earth, they don’t want to get there through the Cross.

No, we can only rise from the dead if we die first. We must be good, we must believe the truth, we must do our duties.

This doesn’t mean we will all be martyrs. For most of us, dying just means dying to our own will, our corrupt desires, the distorted and corrupted will of the world, of the devil, and of our flesh, and instead, doing God’s will, which is always reasonable, good, holy, rooted in reality and truth, properly ordered toward natural cause and effect, and in every way useful. It’s the difference between fruit and thorns.