Three Heroic Shepherds of the Roman Catholic Church

"You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchesidech"

Three heroic Shepherds of the Roman Catholic Church...

Lest we become discouraged by the Judases within the hierarchy, we should often call to mind our faithful and true shepherds. There are good priests and bishops who truly love Christ and sacrifice for love of Him; they give a holy witness by standing faithfully beneath the cross close to Christ. These are the good shepherds who show us living examples of true followers of Christ.

How great is the debt that we owe to our priests! Consider the gratitude that they deserve, these good and holy priests who have sacrificed their lives for us. We have been baptized, married, ordained, forgiven our sins through the sacrament of Confession, received the Body of Christ, and have received comfort from Last Rites. All through the instrumentality of our good priests.

Only God Himself can give these good priests and bishops the true honor they deserve. But we would like to pay a small tribute to a living bishop and two cardinals who especially deserve praise, and who may someday be honored at the altar of God as canonized saints:

Cardinal Kung

Cardinal Kung was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shanghai, and Apostolic Administrator of Souchou and Nanking since 1950. Despite his advanced age, he retained these posts until his death. He was ordained priest on May 28, 1930, and ordained Bishop on October 7, 1949. He was the first native Chinese Bishop of Shanghai. He was created a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1979, while serving a life sentence in isolation in China. This nomination was made "in pectore," meaning that only the Pope, and no other, not even Cardinal Kung, was aware of it. The nomination was made public after Cardinal Kung was freed from prison, on June 28, 1991.

Cardinal Kung's story is that of a faithful shepherd and a heroic witness to the faith. He refused to renounce God and the Church despite the consequences of imprisonment by communist authorities. In the months leading up to his arrest in 1955, Cardinal Kung refused offers of safe passage out of China to stay by his flock. His faithful example of fidelity served to strengthen the underground Catholic Church in China.

Bishop Kung had only served 5 years as Bishop of Shanghai before his arrest. In that time, he had already become notorious to the authorities for the respect and devotion he received from Catholics. In defiance of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Bishop Kung personally supervised the Legion of Mary, a lay group that promotes the veneration of the Blessed Virgin. Hundreds of Legion of Mary members, including many students, were arrested and sentenced to 10 or more years of hard labor.

Despite these persecutions, Bishop Kung declared 1952 a Marian Year in Shanghai. For that entire year, there was a round-the-clock Rosary held before a stature of Our Lady of Fatima, which was carried to all the parishes of the diocese. At the end of the "pilgrimage," Bishop Kung led the Rosary at Christ the King Church, as armed policemen looked on. After the rosary, the Bishop prayed, "Holy Mother, we do not ask you for a miracle. We do not beg you to stop the persecutions. But we beg you to support us who are very weak."

Knowing his arrest was imminent, Bishop Kung trained hundreds of catechists to pass on the faith to future generations. The arrest finally came on September 8, 1955, when the Bishop and more than 200 priests and Church leaders were taken overnight.

Months after his arrest, he was taken to the dog racing stadium of Shanghai to publicly confess his "crimes." Thousands were present in the stadium as he was pushed to a microphone, hands bound behind his back, and wearing only Chinese pajamas. Instead of a confession, though, the authorities heard, "Long live Christ the King! Long live the Pope!" The assembled crowd responded, "Long live Christ the King! Long live Bishop Kung!" The authorities quickly removed the Bishop from the scene.

In 1960, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The night before his trial, the Chief Prosecutor offered him his freedom in exchange for his cooperation in setting up the Chinese Catholics' Patriotic Association. He responded resolutely, "I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."

Bishop Kung spent thirty years behind bars, much of it in solitary confinement. He was not permitted to receive visitors, letters, or money to buy essentials. In 1985, he was released from prison to serve another ten years under house arrest. After two and a half years of house arrest, he was officially released, though he was never fully exonerated. In 1988, his nephew, Joseph Kung (president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation), obtained permission to escort him to the U.S. for medical care.

When Pope John Paul II presented Cardinal Kung with his red hat in the Consistory on June 29, 1991 in the Vatican, the 90 year old Bishop Kung raised himself up from the wheelchair, put aside his cane and walked up the steps to kneel at the foot of the Pontiff. Visibly touched, the Holy Father lifted him up, gave him his cardinal's hat, then stood patiently as Cardinal Kung returned to his wheelchair to the sounds of a seven-minute standing ovation from 9000 guests in the Audience Hall in the Vatican.

In "Mission" magazine in 1957, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote: "The West has its Mindszenty, but the East has its Kung. God is glorified in his saints."

Cardinal Kung died on March 12, 2000, at the age of 98.

His Eminence, Paul Cardinal Shan, S.J., Bishop of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, has officially given permission to the Cardinal Kung Foundation to establish a depository to collect information for supporting the cause and process for the canonization of His Eminence, Ignatius Cardinal Kung.

Cardinal Mindszenty

Cardinal Mindszenty on the cover of the February 14, 1949 issue of Time magazine

Joseph Mindszenty was born in Hungary on March 29, 1892. He was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12, 1915, and was consecrated Bishop of Veszprem on March 25, 1944. From November 27, 1944 to April 20, 1945, he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Pope Pius XII appointed him Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary on October 2, 1945. Just a few months later, on February 18, 1946, the Holy Father raised him to the Cardinalate. As Pope Pius XII placed the Cardinal's hat on his head, the Pope said: "Among the thirty-two, you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom whose symbol this red color is."

This saintly Cardinal suffered imprisonment and torture in his home country of Hungary, speaking out and trying to defend his flock first from Nazism (when he was a bishop) and then from the ravages of communism. In fact, Cardinal Mindszenty suffered torture at the hands of the communists for 39 consecutive days and nights, consisting of sleep-deprivation and every conceivable outrage. In 1956, as communism tightened its grip on the Church in Hungary, Cardinal Mindszenty was given asylum at the American Embassy in Budapest by President Eisenhower. The Cardinal languished there for fifteen years, unable to leave the building. Communist agents awaited him day and night, to assassinate him should he leave the embassy.

Cardinal Mindszenty understood communism very well. He wrote, "In an atheistic state, a Church that does not keep its independence can only play the role of a slave." He also stated, "The persecution of the Church is like the head of Janus, it has two faces: one face bears the praiseworthy features of freedom while the other reveals the glare of the triumphal, impatient despot. Human rights and freedom are heralded at the gates but later, within those closed gates, the most merciless deprivation of rights is carried out." Within his Memoirs he made this chilling warning: "If I am making all this public, it is only so that the world may know the fate that communism is preparing for it."

On September 28, 1971 the world heard that Cardinal Mindszenty had arrived in Rome at the invitation of Pope Paul VI. He was received with real joy and tenderness by Pope Paul. The Holy Father embraced Cardinal Mindszenty and hung his own pectoral cross around his neck. They both concelebrated Mass and the Holy Father spoke of the Cardinal as "a guest we have awaited with longing ... a symbol of unshakeable strength rooted in faith and in selfless devotion to the Church."

On October 23, 1971 Pope Paul VI again concelebrated Mass with Cardinal Mindszenty. Pope Paul gave Mindszenty his own cardinal's mantle and told him in Latin, "You are and remain Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary. Continue working and if you have difficulties, turn trustfully to us!"

The Cardinal returned to his pastoral tours around the world. But on February 5, 1974, something unbelievable occurred: he received a letter from the "Pope" declaring the See of Esztergom vacant. The Vatican announced to the world that Cardinal Mindszenty had "retired." The Vatican had lied to the world in a public statement. In profound sorrow Cardinal Mindszenty had to make clear that he had not abdicated, but had been deposed. His Memoirs end with the words: "This is how I arrived at complete and total exile."

The Vatican was flooded with protests and the free world's press attacked the deposition of Cardinal Mindszenty with fury. Our Lady of the Roses message give clues as to what really happened during this period, that it is highly probable that a letter concocted by Cardinal Villot (forging the name of Pope Paul VI) was responsible for the "deposition" of the great Cardinal Mindszenty.

He died in Vienna, Austria at the age of 83 on May 6, 1975. Today, Cardinal Mindszenty is buried in the Church of the Assumption, the Basilica of Esztergom, Hungary, where pilgrims visit daily and pray for his intercession in their needs.

Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise

One must look outside the United States to find a bishop who has taken action against the sacrileges that occur with Communion in the hand. Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise of San Luis, Argentina (now retired) banned Communion in the hand in his diocese. He also wrote a book on the subject which has been translated into English and French.

Bishop Laise cuts to pieces all the propaganda regarding Communion in the hand. He cites a letter of October 12, 1965 that the Consilium wrote to Cardinal Alfrink: "The Holy Father ... does not consider it opportune that the sacred Particle be distributed in the hand and later consumed in different manners by the faithful, and therefore he vehemently exhorts [that] the Conference offer the opportune resolutions so that the traditional manner of communicating be restored throughout the world."

Bishop Laise emphasizes that "It would be to deceive the faithful to make them think that receiving Communion in the hand would identify them more with the spirit of the primitive Church."

For those who say that the early Church permitted this practical, Bishop Laise responds, "... to say that 'Communion in the hand is not a novelty', that 'we will only do it as the Apostles, as the first disciples did, and as the Christians did for almost one thousand years' with the purpose of 'dispelling fears', is not a valid argument. It is not true that we will 'only' do it as the Apostles did. As we have just seen [referrring to Pius XII's Mediator Dei encyclical], the return to an ancient manner is not in itself a reason for tranquility. Even less so when that manner was first abandoned and finally forbidden, due to its imperfection."

For those ignorant of Church history, he reminds them that the ban on Communion in the hand was maintained for almost 1000 years: "the strict forbiddance of the 10th Century which was maintained for almost a millennium...."

For those who would say that the practice is widespead so it must be OK, he responds: "It is true that the practice spread but this was due only to the fact that the Episcopal Conferences allowed its introduction without the demanded conditions being in existence and without taking into consideration the exhortation of Paul VI."

Bishop Laise blames the spread of Communion in the hand on the bishops: "If the legislation did not change, the obvious conclusion is that the only reason for the extension of the rite [of Communion in the hand] is that the bishops did not listen to the vehement exhortation of Paul VI to diligently submit to the law in force and again confirmed."

Disobedience to the Pope and propaganda, notes Bishop Laise, are what spread Communion in the hand throughout the world: "Knowing the history of this clandestinely reintroduced rite, and spread based on equivocations and confirmed through incessant disobediences, we cannot doubt that 'the fundamental sense of the ecclesiastical' is what was lacking in those who, throughout twenty-seven years [as of 1997] have been imposing a practice that the Pope did not want to authorize because he considered it dangerous for the good of the Church (MD 12), until they finally achieved the spreading of it throughout the world."

He also says that loss of sacred Particles is virtually inevitable with Communion in the hand, and that is why he banned the practice: "With Communion in the hand, a miracle would be required during each distribution of Communion to avoid some Particles from falling to the ground or remaining in the hand of the faithful."

Bishop Laise explains why Communion on the tongue is the law of the Church, and why holy Communion should be received in this manner: "Let us speak clearly: whoever receives Communion in the mouth not only follows exactly the tradition handed down but also the wish by the last Popes and thus avoids placing himself in the occasion of committing a sin by negligently dropping a fragment of the Body of Christ."

Bishop Laise's successor has also banned Communion in the hand in the Diocese of San Luis. Bishop Laise starts every day praying in reparation for the sins committed against the blessed Sacrament throughout the world.

Deo Gratias for the gift of shepherds such as these!

Email this page to a friend.

The amazing Bayside Prophecies...
These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

NO CHANGE
"Man and the hierarchy must not change the wording of the Bible to suit mankind's instincts. No! The hierarchy must lead the sheep upon the road to Heaven through the plan of the Eternal Father, and this plan has been written in His good Book, the Bible. If you choose to strike out on your own and form a new Bible and a new way, you are doomed to disappointment and destruction. And worst of all, it will be soul destruction!"- Our Lady, July 15, 1978

FAR GREATER
"So few do pray for the clergy. The general idea, My child, is that they have a special passport to Heaven. But that is not true. Their temptations are far greater than yours. Therefore, they are to be pitied. For hell opened up would show unto you the numbers of mitres that have fallen in the past earth-years."- Jesus, April 14, 1984

DEDICATED
"The young children must be taken by their parents to the temples, the houses of My Son throughout your world. They must learn by habit a good example of cleansing of their soul by confession.
"The good priests of earth, those who have been dedicated and received this consecration from My Son, must take these tender souls and nurture them in their Faith." - Our Lady, November 20,1975

LIFE OF PRAYER
"My Son has chosen from the world many to represent Him in His House. It saddens Our hearts to know that many now prefer life among the human race. They do not prefer to stand forth as an example of My Son. Unless My Son’s representatives return to their life of prayer, they will be led farther from the path." - Our Lady, December 24, 1972

FAR SUPERIOR
"A true legally-ordained priest is far superior than any man, as he represents Me in the Godhead." - Jesus, May 23, 1979

GATHER
"Clergy, followers of My Son, you who have sought a vocation and were graced to be chosen from among mankind, will you not gather Our straying sheep? Will you not gather My lilies from the field and give them the waters of life for Us?" - Our Lady, July 24, 1976

MOTHER OF LOVE
"My child and My children, I speak to you and I come to you as your Mother, a Mother of love. If only you could be as one with Me and My Son. How grateful We are for those who have chosen to dedicate their lives and give up all the attachments that bore into the human spirit and destroy it." - Our lady, September 7, 1985

SUFFER GREATLY
"You will make it known to the world that those whom I have chosen to be shepherds of My flock will suffer greatly in the days ahead." - Jesus, September 7, 1974

NEED PRAYERS
"Many priests, bishops, cardinals in My Son’s House need prayers from the laity that they may be strong enough not to fall into the plan of the third-worlders, who are also known, My child, as the one-worlders. They seek to destroy My Son’s Church and build one on the creation of man." - Our Lady, October 6, 19 76

RESPECT
"I repeat, My children, as I have told you in the past, that the great Council of Vatican II was manipulated by satan. He sat there among you and he worked you like a chessboard.
"What can you do now to recover? It is simple, My children: turn back and start over with the foundation given to you. You must bring respect back to your priesthood." - Our Lady, May 1 5, 1976

NO EQUAL
"My child, make it known to Our priests in My Son’s houses upon earth, churches, that We want Our priests to shine forth as pure examples of chastity and holiness.... "The example that must be shown and given to the children of earth by Our priests must set them apart as representatives of My Son. They do not have any equal upon earth, for their vocation is a special gift of God." - Our Lady, June 18, 1974

FOR LIFE
"When a man has given himself, and chosen from out of the world as a priest of his God, he will be a priest for life." - Our Lady, March 18, 1973

REWARD
"The simple life, My child, is the best for the dedicated. The dedicated, those who have accepted a vocation, must live only as human beings in the world, but must accept the spiritual.... Discipline must be returned to the Orders. Many must now retire from the world that has been given to Satan. Know now, my brothers and sisters of religious orders: you will be mocked, you will be scorned, but you will please the Eternal Father and receive your reward in the Kingdom." - St. Francis of Assisi, May 28, 1975

ETERNITY
"Additional graces I give unto you, My dedicated. Those who remain true to your teachings know that there is none whom you will answer to but the Father. Eternity is forever. Do not bargain your soul for the few years you have on your planet earth." - Jesus, September 13, 1974

Directives from Heaven...

D3 - Communion in the Hand PDF
D76 - Faithful and True PDF
D103 - Communism PDF
D123 - Catholic Church, Part 1 PDF
D124 - Catholic Church, Part 2 PDF

Outside Links…

Cardinal Kung Foundation http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/

Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation http://www.mindszenty.org/

Your names have been written in Heaven… "It is not by accident that you are called by My Mother, for your names have been written in Heaven.... But with this great grace you have great responsibility to send this Message from Heaven throughout the world, for if you are able to recover just one more for Heaven, an additional star shall be placed in your crown." - Jesus, August 5, 1975

A great obligation to go forward... "It is not by accident that you are called by My Mother, for it is by merit and the prayers that have risen to Heaven for your salvation. For those who have received the grace to hear the Message from Heaven, you have a great obligation to go forward and bring this Message to your brothers and sisters. Do not expect a rest upon your earth, for you will have eternal rest very soon." - Jesus, June 12, 1976

The sin of omission... "The sin of omission shall condemn many to hell, be they layman or Hierarchy. I repeat: not the sin of commission, but the sin of omission will commit many to hell." Our Lady of the Roses, October 6, 1980

We encourage everyone to print or email copies of this web page to all the Bishops and all the clergy. Also, email or send this web page to the news media and as many people as possible.

Email this page to a friend.

The electronic form of this document is copyrighted.
Quotations are permissible as long as this web site is acknowledged with a hyperlink to: http://www.tldm.org
Copyright © These Last Days Ministries, Inc. 1996 - 2007   All rights reserved.
P.O. Box 40                   616-698-6448
Lowell, MI 49331-0040
Revised: July 26, 2018