Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser:
An Age of Tribulation & Heresy

As readers of this series know, we are looking at Scriptures and approved prophecies that present a certain time line that proposes we are in the Latter Times, which will be followed by a time of conversion and peace. Only after that will come the End Times and the Final Judgment.

The three points, which are confirmed by the prophecies of Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauzer, are essentially these:

• God will send a severe chastisement to punish the sins of the Revolution against the Church and Catholic Civilization;
  
  
• There will be a restoration led by a great Leader and a holy Pope, who will usher in a long period of peace when all mankind will give glory to God through Our Lady, a time we call the Reign of Mary;
  
  
• Only after this period will come the final decadence, which will be the dissolution of the Reign of Mary and the Final Judgment.

Model Priest & Prophet

Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser is an important, although not well-known, prophet for our times. He was born in 1613, the son of a shoemaker near Augsburg in Germany. Gifted with intelligence and zeal, he was ordained in 1639 in the Diocese of Salzburg where he founded the Bartholomites (United Brethren), a religious Institute to correct the already lax customs and lukewarm faith of the secular clergy of those times.

Due to revolutionary influence already in the Hierarchy, the Order did not endure. But what has surfaced and found renewed interest in recent years are the remarkable prophecies of this holy man, who was described by reliable theogians as a man without guile, incapable of fabrications. Those same theologians declared his prophecies contain nothing contrary to Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition. (1)

He correctly identified the Protestant Revolution as the end of one Era and the start of the first Revolution. Further he predicted with the French Revolution and other revolutions of the 19^th century that sought to topple the monarchies and implant the Masonic principles of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity.

“During this period," he correctly foretold, "many men will abuse the freedom of conscience conceded to them. It is of such men that Jude the Apostle spoke when he said: 'These men blaspheme whatever they do not understand; and they corrupt whatever they know naturally as irrational animals do… They feast together without restraint, feeding themselves, grumbling murmurers, walking according to their lusts; their mouth speaketh proud things, they admire people for the sake of gain; they bring about division, sensual men, having not the spirit.'" (2)

He also showed the error of the Enlightenment and false science that would soon dominate society: “They will ridicule Christian simplicity; they will call it folly and nonsense, but they will have the highest regard for advanced knowledge, and for the skill by which the axioms of the law, the precepts of morality, the Holy Canons and religious dogmas are clouded by senseless questions and elaborate arguments. As a result, no principle at all, however holy, authentic, ancient, and certain it may be, will remain free of censure, criticism, false interpretation, modification and delimitation by man.” (3)

But it is his great work, the Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John, that concerns us here. "I was like a child, whose hand was led, while I wrote," he later commented about the time when he was writing. The sublime work – which theologians of the time declared far beyond the natural talents of the German priest – was only printed in 1784, 134 years after his death. (4)

He interpreted the book of the Apocalypse as follows: The seven stars and the seven candlesticks seen by St. John signify seven periods of the History of the Church, from her foundation to her consummation at the Final Judgment. To these periods correspond the seven churches of Asia Minor, the seven days of Creation, the seven ages after Christ and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.

A central feature of this apocalyptic commentary concern the Strong Ruler and the Holy Pope who would arise at the end of the revolutionary Fifth Period to usher in the Sixth Period, a time of peace when all nations will be united in the Catholic Faith.

The Fifth Age

Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser names the Seven Ages of the Church in this way: The First Church Age is the Apostolic Age which begins with Our Lord Jesus Christ and lasts until the first persecutions. The Second is the Era of Persecution with the martyrs, which lasted from Nero to Constantine the Great; the Third Age is the Era of Illumination from Constantine to Charlemagne.

The Fourth Era, the Period of Peace, is the glorious Middle Ages, when the Church and society gave rich fruit beginning with Charlemagne up to the heresy of Luther.

And so we reach the Fifth Age, which concerns us. It is the Time of Tribulation, which he identifies as beginning with Protestantism. We are in this Era now, although it would seem its end is rapidly approaching.

“This,” says Holzhauser, “is a state of trouble, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. We may with just reason call it a state of purification, in which the Lord Jesus Christ has sifted His wheat, and will sift it again by wars, seditions, famines, epidemics and other scourges, by the tribulation and the poverty which He will suffer to weigh on the Latin Church, by means of heretics and bad Christians, who will take from her the greater part of her bishoprics and countless monasteries, especially the wealthier ones.

"She is oppressed even by Catholic Princes, and despoiled by means of taxes, imposts, and other extortions. ... The Church is become poor and miserable, because she hath been calumniated by heretics, because her ministers are despised by bad Christians, who render her neither honor nor respect. By all these means God will sift His wheat; He will cast the chaff away to be burnt and will gather the wheat into His barns.

"This fifth state of the Church is the state of tribulation, the state of apostasy, full of miseries of every kind. Few will be spared by the sword, by famine and by pestilence. We shall see kingdom rise against kingdom; empires will be divided in themselves, and brought to desolation; principalities and monarchies will be overturned, and almost the whole world will sink into poverty. The greatest desolation will reign over the earth.

"All this has in part been already accomplished (1656 AD); a part remains yet to be accomplished. These things will come to pass by the very just judgment of God, because of the accumulated mass of our iniquities, whereof our fathers and ourselves have filled up the measure, at the moment when the mercy of Almighty God awaited our doing penance." (5)

Ven. Holzhauser likes this fifth period of tribulation to the fifth day of Creation, on which the earth brought forth birds, fishes and beasts of the field, Why? Because the men of this period will "give themselves up to license, sink to the level of the brute and wallow in lust.

"In this lamentable state of the Church divine and human laws are without force, and made of light account. The doctrines and precepts of the Church are despised; ecclesiastical discipline is not observed by the priests, nor political order maintained by the people. Every one, like the beasts of the field, believes what he pleases, and does what he wills.“ (6)

Infiltration inside the Church

It is interesting to see that Ven. Holzhauser predicts an infiltration of the enemy into the Holy Church, something he could have never imagined could happen in the 1600s, but which did, actually, take place during the 19^th century and did triumph in the 20^th century at Vatican Council II.

These times – our times – would be "evil times," he predicted, "a century full of dangers and calamities. Heresy is everywhere, and the followers of heresy are in power almost everywhere. Bishops, Prelates and priests say that they are doing their duty, that they are vigilant ... all are seeking excuses.

"God will permit this great evil against His Church. Heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly. They will break into the Church while Bishops, Prelates and priests are asleep. They will enter Italy and lay waste Rome. They will burn the churches and destroy everything." (7)

What will happen at the end of this Age of Affliction? God will make a Judgment of Nations, a great chastisement, where a good portion of the people will die.

But this great chastisement will not signify the End of the World; rather it will signal the end of the Fifth Era and the beginning of better time. For from this age of misery and perturbation – in which Ven Holzhauser had placed himself and his generation in the 17^th century – will come the complete and glorious triumph of Christ's Church on earth.

We will look at this Sixth Age in the next article.

Continued