Update on the Heretical Ministry of Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi

Just a few days after my last blog post concerning several questionable elements of the ministry of Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi, the superior general of the Oblates of St. Joseph (OSJ), Fr. Michele Piscopo, issued a letter to clarify that he actually does have permission for a leave of absence. This letter appeared on a website run by a group called the "3rd order of Benedictine Oblates of the Divine Will", which is basically a front for the Divine Will Movement.

https://www.queenofthedivinewill.org/father-iannuzzi-slandered-our-response/

This is quite a turnaround from the email concerning Fr. Iannuzzi's ministry which was written by Fr. Giacondo Antonio Bronzini, the secretary general of the OSJ, which was sent to Prof. Robert Fastiggi of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Prof. Fastiggi has given me permission to reveal that he was the academic source who had received the below email from Fr. Bronzini, which detailed how problematic Fr. Iannuzzi has been for the OSJ during the course of several years:

Egregio Signore, pace e bene.

P. Joseph Iannuzzi ha chiesto più volte l'esclaustrazione, passando da una diocesi (o comunità religiosa) a un'altra, rendendo praticamente impossibile controllarne la condotta. Da parte sua, da anni non dà ai Superiori relazione delle sue attività. Attualmente è fuori comunità senza permesso. Distinti saluti, p. Giocondo A. Bronzini, segretario generale OSJ. 

Dear Sir, peace and goodness.
Fr Joseph Iannuzzi has asked many times for exclaustration, moving from one diocese (or religious community) to another, making it practically impossible to control his conduct. For his part, for years he has not given the Superiors report of his activities. He is currently outside the community without permission.
Yours sincerely,
p. Giocondo A. Bronzini, OSJ general secretary.

Fr. Piscopo's response to this revelation from Fr. Bronzini is rather a rather curious contradiction of the above communication received by Prof. Fastiggi, and shows that there are some mysterious goings on in the OSJ concerning Fr. Iannuzzi's problematic ministry. It is of course impossible to know what is going on behind the scenes here, but it seems likely that Fr. Iannuzzi was either only given permission in retrospect, or Fr. Bronzini was simply unaware that he was actually granted permission from Fr. Piscopo to leave the community. Either way, Fr. Bronzini's response to Prof. Fastiggi is rather telling that Fr. Iannuzzi is viewed as a major problem by the highest ranking members of the curia of his religious congregation. 

I have it on high authority that Fr. Iannuzzi is not currently on the directory of priests in the USA, so he is currently operating without faculties away from his religious congregation, and he basically answers to no one. This explains why he is promoting the works of Vassula Ryden with impunity, even though the CDF have issued a notification against her writings. There is still the glaring problem that his various books and seminars promote an heretical concept of the Millennium of Rev 20 which adopts the millenarian eschatology of Medieval Abbot Joachim de Fiore, whose works were condemned by the Church - most notably by St. Thomas Aquinas.

I answer that, The state of the world may change in two ways. In one way, according to a change of law: and thus no other state will succeed this state of the New Law. Because the state of the New Law succeeded the state of the Old Law, as a more perfect law a less perfect one. Now no state of the present life can be more perfect that the state of the New Law: since nothing can approach nearer to the last end than that which is the immediate cause of our being brought to the last end. But the New Law does this: wherefore the Apostle says (Hebrews 10:19-22): "Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the Holies by the blood of Christ, a new . . . way which He hath dedicated for us . . . let us draw near." Therefore no state of the present life can be more perfect than that of the New Law, since the nearer a thing is to the last end the more perfect it is.

In another way the state of mankind may change according as man stands in relation to one and the same law more or less perfectly. And thus the state of the Old Law underwent frequent changes, since at times the laws were very well kept, and at other times were altogether unheeded. Thus, too, the state of the New Law is subject to change with regard to various places, times, and persons, according as the grace of the Holy Ghost dwells in man more or less perfectly. Nevertheless we are not to look forward to a state wherein man is to possess the grace of the Holy Ghost more perfectly than he has possessed it hitherto, especially the apostles who "received the firstfruits of the Spirit, i.e. sooner and more abundantly than others," as a gloss expounds on Romans 8:23.

Reply to Objection 1. As Dionysius says (Eccl. Hier. v), there is a threefold state of mankind; the first was under the Old Law; the second is that of the New Law; the third will take place not in this life, but in heaven. But as the first state is figurative and imperfect in comparison with the state of the Gospel; so is the present state figurative and imperfect in comparison with the heavenly state, with the advent of which the present state will be done away as expressed in that very passage (1 Corinthians 13:12): "We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face."

Reply to Objection 2. As Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix, 31), Montanus and Priscilla pretended that Our Lord's promise to give the Holy Ghost was fulfilled, not in the apostles, but in themselves. In like manner the Manicheans maintained that it was fulfilled in Manes whom they held to be the Paraclete. Hence none of the above received the Acts of the Apostles, where it is clearly shown that the aforesaid promise was fulfilled in the apostles: just as Our Lord promised them a second time (Acts 1:5): "You shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence": which we read as having been fulfilled in Acts 2. However, these foolish notions are refuted by the statement (John 7:39) that "as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"; from which we gather that the Holy Ghost was given as soon as Christ was glorified in His Resurrection and Ascension. Moreover, this puts out of court the senseless idea that the Holy Ghost is to be expected to come at some other time.

Now the Holy Ghost taught the apostles all truth in respect of matters necessary for salvation; those things, to wit, that we are bound to believe and to do. But He did not teach them about all future events: for this did not regard them according to Acts 1:7: "It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in His own power."

Reply to Objection 3. The Old Law corresponded not only to the Father, but also to the Son: because Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Law. Hence Our Lord said (John 5:46): "If you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of Me." In like manner the New Law corresponds not only to Christ, but also to the Holy Ghost; according to Romans 8:2: "The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," etc. Hence we are not to look forward to another law corresponding to the Holy Ghost.

Reply to Objection 4. Since Christ said at the very outset of the preaching of the Gospel: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17), it is most absurd to say that the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the kingdom. But the preaching of the Gospel of Christ may be understood in two ways. First, as denoting the spreading abroad of the knowledge of Christ: and thus the Gospel was preached throughout the world even at the time of the apostles, as Chrysostom states (Hom. lxxv in Matth.). And in this sense the words that follow--"and then shall the consummation come," refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, of which He was speaking literally. Secondly, the preaching of the Gospel may be understood as extending throughout the world and producing its full effect, so that, to wit, the Church would be founded in every nation. And in these sense, as Augustine writes to Hesychius (Epist. cxcix), the Gospel is not preached to the whole world yet, but, when it is, the consummation of the world will come.

Summa Theologica (I-II, Q. cvi, a. 4)

It was St. Thomas Aquinas who most forcefully condemned the millenarian worldview, which Cardinal Ratzinger described as the idea of an intra-historical fulfilment of the hope which lies only beyond the eschatological judgement. The most dangerous aspect of millenarianism has long been recognized as the fact that this worldview ultimately leads to the development of extreme, revolutionary types of ideologies, which ultimately culminated in the concentration camps and gulags of the 20th century. As the world-renowned millenarian expert Marjorie Reeves notes:

"... although the implicit danger was only slowly realized, once the point had been grasped that the Joachimist hope provided a dangerously revolutionary basis for action, the doctrine of the third status was attacked far more energetically than Joachim's formulation on the Trinity". (Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, p129)

It is these secular forms of millenarianism which the Catechism most forcefully condemns. Fr. Iannuzzi and his followers attempt to evade the charge of millenarianism by equating it solely with the doctrine of ancient Chiliasm. This is simply untrue, since the secular forms of millenarianism are singled out for the greatest condemnation in the Catechism. Not whether or not there will be some odd, ethereal form of the Second Coming of Christ for an earthly millennial reign, and that by posing a "spiritual millennium", that the followers of Fr. Iannuzzi can escape the charge of millenarianism. Joachim de Fiore similarly posed an "Age of the Spirit" rather than an coming of a reign of Christ in the Flesh, and was condemned for this idea long ago. 

The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism. (CCC 676)

Cardinal Ratzinger gave a detailed overview of the problems posed by the millenarian worldview in his book Eschatology, which helps to further flesh out his thought when he helped to compose the Catechism:

"The expectation of a wholly just world is by no means a product of technological thought. It is rooted, rather, Judaeo-Christian spirituality. Over against the despair that in all epochs present suffering and injustice occasioned, other cultures defended themselves by invoking such ideas as those of the eternal return or liberation in Nirvana. The contrasting idea of a definitive future salvation, while not exclusively restricted to the Judaeo-Christian sphere, received its most powerful and penetrating formulation there.

The marked intra-worldly character which this idea assumed in the Old Testament led in early Christian times to the supplementing of the transcendent hope for the Kingdom of God by the notion of chiliasm: a thousand-year-long reign of Christ and those who are first to rise with him. The question of the earthly realisation of the promise which this notion suggested became a burning issue for Western Christianity through the work of Joaichim of Fiore - whom we met at the outset of this book. Joachim was convinced that God's plan for his human creatures could triumph only if it also succeeded on earth. It seemed to follow, then, that the time of the Church, as men have experienced it since the apostles, cannot be the definitive form of salvation. Joachim transformed the earlier periodization of history, which reflected the seven days of the week, into the idea of a multiplicand: history contains three times seven days. This he did by linking the venerable inherited schema with the doctrine of the Trinity. In this way, it appeared to be possible to calculate the third "week" of history, the time of the Holy Spirit.

The immanence of this third age created the obligation to work towards it: something Joachim tried to do through his monastic foundations. The mingling of rational planning with suprarational goals, already observable in the Old Testament and in Judaism, now receives systematic form. It will soon slough off the spiritual dreams of Abbot Joachim and emerge into the political history of Europe, where it will take the form of the messianism through planning. Such planned messianism became ever more fascinating as the potential of planning waxed and religion waned, through continuing, inevitably, to form human motives and hopes. Hegel's logic of history and Marx's historical scheme are the end products of these beginnings. These messianic goals in which Marxism's fascination lies rest upon a faulty underlying synthesis of religion and reason. For planning is now directed to goals which are quite disproportionate to planning methods. And so both the goal and the planning suffer shipwreck.

"As early as the patristic Church, steps were taken to eliminate chiliasm through an effort to preserve biblical tradition in its proper form. The Joachimist dispute filled the thirteenth century and, in part, the fourteenth also, ending with a renewed rejection of this particular form of hope for the future. The present-day theologies of liberation belong in this context. But just why did the Church reject that chiliasm which would allow one to take up the practical task of realizing on earth parousia-like conditions. The rejection of chiliasm meant that the Church repudiated the idea of a definitive intra-historical fulfilment, an inner, intrinsic perfectibility of history. On the contrary, it affirms the impossibility of an inner fulfilment of the world. This is, indeed, the common content shared by the various fragmentary pictures of the end of the world offered us by Scripture. The biblical representation of the End rejects the expectation of a definitive state of salvation within history. This position is also rationally correct, since the idea of a definitive intra-historical fulfilment fails to take into account the permanent openness of history and of human freedom, for which failure is always a possibility. In the last resort, such neo-chiliasm expresses a profound anthropological perversion. Human salvation is not to be expected from the moral dignity of man, from the deepest level of his moral personality. Rather we are to set our hopes for it on planning mechanisms, marginal to the authentically human though these may be. The values which sustain the world are turned upside down. A planned salvation would be the salvation proper to a concentration camp and so the end of humanity.

Faith in Christ’s return is, therefore, in the first place the rejection of an intra-historical perfectibility of the world. Precisely in this negative aspect, it is also the preservation of humanity against those who would dehumanize man. Of course, if this thesis-which in itself is, in any case, rationally evident-were to stand alone, then the last word would be with a posture of resigned acquiescence. And so, over and above this preliminary statement, we must add that faith in Christ’s return is also the certitude that the world will, indeed come to its perfection, not through rational planning but through that indestructible love which triumphed in the risen Christ. Faith in Christ’s return is faith that, in the end, truth will judge and love will conquer. Naturally, this victory is won only when we take a step beyond history as we know it, a step further for which history itself yearns. The historical process can only be perfected beyond itself It is where this insight is accepted, where history is lived in the direction of its own self-transcendence, that in each and every case the process of history is thrown open to its fulfilment. Thereby, reason receives its due place, and the duty to act according to measure. Simultaneously, hope also enters into its proper realm, and is not exhausted on the laboratory counter.

The world’s salvation rests on the transcending of the world in its worldly aspect. The risen Christ constitutes the living certainty that this process of the world’s self-transcendence, without which the world remains absurd, does not lead into the void. The Easter Jesus is our certainty that history can be lived in a positive way, and that our finite and feeble rational activity has a meaning. In this perspective, the “antichrist” is the unconditional enclosure of history within its own logic – the supreme antithesis to the Man with the opened side, of whom the author of the Apocalypse wrote:
Behold he is coming with clouds,
And every eye will see him."
(Ratzinger, J. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Hope, pp211-214)

Dealing with the millenarian eschatology espoused by Fr. Iannuzzi remains the single greatest problem which Fr. Piscopo is still duty-bound to address. Explaining the existence of his various business interests and dealings in property is only a secondary issue, and one which I have only recently brought to light. The fact is that Fr. Iannuzzi is widely revered as the intellectual guru of the Divine Will Movement. His ministry is a serious problem which has long since spiralled out of control, and his writings now need to be properly condemned by the Church as millenarian heresy.

The false idea that I am writing under a pseudonym, and various other strange allegations made against me are a bizarre attempt to discredit my work. The fact that I studied divinity at a secular institute cannot be used against me at all. I simply didn't have the time nor money to travel all the way to Maynooth to study theology. My degree is a Batchelor of Divinity (which includes the study of biblical languages), not Batchelor of Arts. The page posted on the website "Benedictine Oblates of the Divine Will" is just a very weird ad hominin attack against me to distract from my very serious findings on the destructive priestly ministry of Fr. Iannuzzi, which now looks like it could turn into one of the biggest scandals to hit the Catholic Church in several years.