The John-Henry Westen Show - Retired literary professor unpacks Russian history, explains current events in light of Fatima prophecy

00:00:00.240 Have you been wondering about whatever became of that consecration of Russia that Pope Francis did?

00:00:06.320 Why is it that Russia is not yet converted?

00:00:09.080 What about Russia?

00:00:10.240 Are we going to see a nuclear war?

00:00:13.040 Who knows?

00:00:13.660 Because that's certainly what it seems like, even though we're not hearing much from the mainstream media.

00:00:17.900 There is just as much fear right now over a nuclear war than there was during the whole period of the Cold War.

00:00:23.940 And yet, what is going on with Russia?

00:00:26.780 We have a person who you might call a Russian expert.

00:00:30.080 He is a former professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.

00:00:34.240 He's also lectured for years and is an author of several books.

00:00:39.080 You're going to want to stay tuned for this interview with Dr. David Allen White.

00:00:56.780 Dr. White, welcome to the program.

00:01:01.240 Happy to be here.

00:01:03.460 Let's begin as we always do at the sign of the cross.

00:01:06.500 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

00:01:11.180 Amen.

00:01:11.520 So, let's get right into the issue first, and then I'll back up a little bit.

00:01:17.820 Tell us about Russia right now.

00:01:19.880 A lot of people were very hopeful for this consecration of Russia that seemed to go according to the wishes of Our Lady of Fatima,

00:01:27.820 in that the Pope did it, invited all the world's bishops to do it.

00:01:30.620 Yet, people were wondering, so what's up with Russia?

00:01:35.620 We haven't seen a massive conversion yet.

00:01:38.380 We haven't seen an end even to the hostilities in Ukraine.

00:01:43.200 And this came about because the bishops of Ukraine first begged the Pope to do this consecration.

00:01:49.780 So, where are we with that?

00:01:51.460 Well, let me, let me, one small correction.

00:01:55.400 I'm, I'm a Russian expert in so far as I've had a deep love of Russian literature.

00:02:02.780 I taught literature at the Naval Academy, but my real specialty is Shakespeare.

00:02:08.600 So, I taught Shakespeare for 40 years.

00:02:11.140 But, I've read intensively and taught, especially, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn for many, many years.

00:02:22.560 I'm a fan of Russian music.

00:02:24.460 I've been lucky enough to visit Russia twice.

00:02:27.780 So, I'm not an expert, but then I am of the opinion that right now, as soon as you hear the word expert, turn and run the other way.

00:02:37.460 So, we're always hearing about the experts who are telling us things that turn out to make their opinions questionable.

00:02:46.880 So, mine probably is too, but at least I'm not an expert.

00:02:51.240 But, to get to your question, yes, there was the consecration that was done, but there have been similar consecrations in the past.

00:03:05.100 But, not yet one that fully adheres to every element in the request that was sent by God through his Blessed Mother.

00:03:20.320 And, I find it astonishing that there could have been this parade of popes who cared enough to do something, but were all reluctant and hesitant to the point of leaving out something.

00:03:37.180 Now, the thing I would say, and this is the old poetry professor talking here now, every word matters.

00:03:50.620 You know, it wouldn't be the same to say to be or possibly not to be.

00:03:56.500 That would be an entirely different way.

00:03:58.420 What the request said, God now asks the Pope to consecrate Russia to my Immaculate Heart in conjunction with all the bishops in the world.

00:04:14.580 Now, it is true, the invitation went out, you know, if you're not busy on this day, if you don't have a golf date, then, you know, please join me in the consecration.

00:04:27.220 But, that's not a command.

00:04:28.220 But, that's not a command.

00:04:29.220 It's not saying, look, at this day, at this time, we're all doing it.

00:04:34.220 So, that, and the Ukraine, the world, the people of the world were not mentioned.

00:04:42.220 It was to be Russia, and in many of, and some of the other consecrations as well, we got a small list or other things added on.

00:04:54.220 There isn't the purity of the exact words conveyed to us through our lady.

00:05:03.220 So, I think, I would say, again, nice try, but no cigar.

00:05:11.220 It just, it just didn't finally fulfill the request, the command, you know, although God didn't command it.

00:05:20.220 God, the word is, God asks the Pope, okay, which means there's still free will there.

00:05:31.220 And, it would take a real act of humility, I think, to submit to every single portion of what is asked, because they always seem to know better or hesitant about offending someone.

00:05:52.220 Certainly, nobody seems terribly worried about offending God, but that's the time we live in.

00:05:59.220 Absolutely.

00:06:01.220 If you, you can tell us a bit about what you make of prophecy generally.

00:06:05.220 It's a curious thing, and it's a fascinating thing, in that we have a collection of great and real prophets, and they're in the Old Testament.

00:06:20.220 So, I would say that T.S. Eliot, in one of his last poems, The Four Quartets, goes at length about, not mocking, but making fun of those who are going to fortune tellers, or reading tea leaves, or looking at, you know, whatever, to try to judge the future.

00:06:42.220 We don't know.

00:06:43.220 We don't know.

00:06:44.220 We don't know.

00:06:45.220 But, the Old Testament prophets did know.

00:06:48.220 They were prophesying directly from the supernatural.

00:06:54.220 They were given what they were to say, and we have that.

00:06:59.220 So, in that sense, I would call those the greatest and perhaps the only certain prophecies.

00:07:09.220 Now, it is an impulse, though, that God put into every human being so that you can have, for example—it can happen in history, but there are not that many cases.

00:07:25.220 I'll tell you my favorite one.

00:07:26.220 I'll tell you my favorite one.

00:07:27.220 Being a Shakespearean.

00:07:28.220 Here's my favorite one.

00:07:29.220 Act 1, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar.

00:07:32.220 Caesar is processing, and the soothsayer comes up to him and says, beware the Ides of March.

00:07:42.220 Well, he just dismisses it.

00:07:45.220 Then, when he's on his way to the Capitol, Act 3, Scene 1, the soothsayer shows up again, and Caesar mockingly says, the Ides of March have come.

00:08:00.220 And the soothsayer says, hi, Caesar, but not gone.

00:08:05.220 And, of course, Caesar goes into the Capitol and we know what happens there.

00:08:12.220 Shakespeare uses his source, Plutarch.

00:08:15.220 That is in the history of Julius Caesar, so that that is a part of actual history.

00:08:21.220 And, indeed, it was a prophecy.

00:08:23.220 We know nothing about the sooth there, although it's a great stage role.

00:08:28.220 It's one of Shakespeare's shortest parts, but, boy, you put an actor in it, it can be just spine-chilling.

00:08:35.220 Then there are, I would call them the myths, particularly the Greeks, who are among the more rational of all societies.

00:08:47.220 They had their dark side, their downside, but they were trying to figure out everything on their own.

00:08:54.220 They didn't have that divine inspiration, but they knew very well there was a divinity there, there was the supernatural there.

00:09:03.220 So in many of their myths, Cassandra, for example, brought back to Argos after the fall of Troy by Agamemnon,

00:09:11.220 who carries the curse of being able to prophesy accurately, but nobody will ever believe her.

00:09:20.220 In Oedipus Rex, we have Tiresias, the old blind prophet, who tells Oedipus certain, makes certain predictions.

00:09:30.220 In fact, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is, in a curious way, a brilliant Greek mind wrestling with that mysterious division between free will and faith.

00:09:45.220 Well, I'll just call it faith. We could call it divine providence.

00:09:49.220 Aquinas speaks about it in the Summa. A friend of mine, a bishop said to me once when I said, well, I read it, I didn't quite understand it.

00:10:02.220 He said, well, no one will fully understand it. This side of the grave is really one of God's great mysteries.

00:10:11.220 We know they both exist. We know they both exist simultaneously. And so there is that sense that to prophesy is an attempt to understand faith.

00:10:26.220 And for the Greeks, they presented mythically, which I think is really, really quite interesting.

00:10:36.220 Occasionally, things will show up in literature. There will be a prophecy in literature.

00:10:41.220 The most famous one ever is in Virgil's fourth eclogue, where Virgil talks about, and this probably would have been written about 30, 40 years before our Lord's birth.

00:10:58.220 But Virgil in the fourth eclogue speaks of the coming birth of the boy child will put an end to the age of iron and bring in an age of gold through his greatness.

00:11:13.220 Now, modern scholars poo poo it and come up with all sorts of explanations for it.

00:11:21.220 But St. Augustine and Dante and some other figures such as that believe absolutely it was that Virgil was given a vision of what was coming and set it down.

00:11:35.220 And that's a great prophecy. That's extraordinary.

00:11:40.220 There's a couple from our own time. This is one that chills me to the bone.

00:11:47.220 The greatest of all Swedish writers is named August Springberg. Nobody reads him.

00:11:52.220 Occasionally one of his plays gets done. He was really, genuinely crazy and brilliant and a great writer.

00:12:04.220 He had a conversion experience of a kind, went from being an atheist to believing in a God.

00:12:16.220 But the God demanded suffering from those of us who are mortal.

00:12:23.220 That was how we were to serve him. We were here to suffer.

00:12:27.220 And only through suffering could we attain wisdom.

00:12:30.220 His last play is called the great highway.

00:12:35.220 And it's a pilgrimage play principal characters called the pilgrim.

00:12:40.220 And it's a serious series of scenes.

00:12:43.220 And he meets individual characters along the way.

00:12:46.220 Each one of whom tells him something that he learns from.

00:12:51.220 Among the very last ones he meets is a little Japanese man. 0.96

00:13:00.220 And what the lesson is, again, is you would have suffered in your life.

00:13:06.220 That is a great good. You must suffer more.

00:13:10.220 And the pilgrim is taken and wants to talk to the Japanese man.

00:13:14.220 And the little Japanese man says, no, I've said what I need to say. 1.00

00:13:18.220 And now the time has come for me to end my life.

00:13:23.220 And the pilgrim says, I don't even know your name.

00:13:28.220 The little Japanese man says, I am known by the name of the town in which I was born.

00:13:36.220 And he steps into a furnace and says, my name is Hiroshima.

00:13:43.220 And wow, the flames explode 1909.

00:13:50.220 Wow.

00:13:51.220 1909.

00:13:53.220 When Strindberg's body was found and he was dying of stomach cancer.

00:13:59.220 He died in 1912.

00:14:01.220 He had a crucifix on his chest and asked for a simple burial.

00:14:06.220 And all he wanted over a wooden, written on a wooden cross was, Ave crux spes unica.

00:14:15.220 Pale cross our only hope.

00:14:17.220 I actually visited the cemetery in Stockholm and set a rosary there in Florida.

00:14:23.220 Wow.

00:14:26.220 But to my mind, that's one of the prophecies.

00:14:31.220 How?

00:14:32.220 I mean, it can't just be an accident.

00:14:36.220 It can't just be.

00:14:37.220 Amazing.

00:14:38.220 Well, the prophecy of Our Lady of Fatima through the children, it very much speaks back to the

00:14:46.220 type of Old Testament type of prophecy because they were given words that they didn't even

00:14:50.220 themselves understand.

00:14:52.220 Right.

00:14:53.220 What do you make of the children's prophecies of Fatima?

00:14:56.220 And where are we in terms of the arc of their fulfillment?

00:15:00.220 Well, it's fascinating that they conveyed it pretty well.

00:15:08.220 But even they were taking some basic lessons.

00:15:11.220 They were they were instructed.

00:15:15.220 Our Lady being a good mother, first of all, instructed the children.

00:15:21.220 And please notice the very first thing that she instructed them on.

00:15:27.220 The first part of the three part vision was the vision of hell.

00:15:33.220 And we live in a time that dismisses hell, simply dismisses hell.

00:15:39.220 Or we hear things such as, well, there may be a hell, but we can hope it is empty.

00:15:45.220 Well, that's not what the children saw.

00:15:48.220 I mean, the description that they give is pretty chilling.

00:15:53.220 And it would be nice to get back to that kind of, and in fact, they fall on their knees screaming.

00:15:59.220 So it's a momentary vision.

00:16:01.220 She doesn't do much more than that. 0.99

00:16:03.220 But then they learned that their suffering can save.

00:16:07.220 It can help keep people out of hell, can help some who are in purgatory.

00:16:13.220 Again, just very good lessons.

00:16:19.220 What is fascinating is it's the third part of the secret that personal, my personal opinion.

00:16:28.220 I think the vision was accurate, but we weren't given the commentary.

00:16:34.220 The first two parts of the secret, it's very clear that the Blessed Mother made an explanation that the children could understand.

00:16:47.220 You know, Francisco and Jacinta did not live that long.

00:16:52.220 Sister Lucy did, and had a terrible time even writing down the third part of the secret. 0.80

00:17:00.220 It was so, it was so upsetting.

00:17:05.220 One could do one's own interpretation of that vision of the supposed third part.

00:17:11.220 We don't know if it's accurate.

00:17:12.220 We don't know what the Blessed Mother's.

00:17:15.220 So I...

00:17:17.220 It's pretty clear from bits and pieces that we've seen that...

00:17:27.220 I knew Malachi Martin fairly well.

00:17:31.220 And I remember him saying at one point that keep your eye on the Ukraine.

00:17:41.220 Keep your eye on the Ukraine and Kiev.

00:17:46.220 And when events begin to become noteworthy there, you know, that certain things have been set in motion.

00:17:58.220 Now, he knew the secret, but he couldn't give it out in full.

00:18:03.220 But that was the kind of hint.

00:18:05.220 So as soon as the Ukrainian kerfuffle started up, I've been keeping a close eye on it. 0.90

00:18:13.220 It was a totally fascinating time.

00:18:15.220 I wanted to get your perspective on Russia specifically, because we're in a strange time.

00:18:25.220 We're in a strange time.

00:18:26.220 We've seen Russia go from outright communism where they spread the errors of abortion. 0.92

00:18:32.220 They spread actually homosexuality as well. 0.98

00:18:35.220 We're talking back in the 20s when it was first legalized in Russia.

00:18:39.220 And it's obviously spread to the rest of the world.

00:18:42.220 But in some ways, particularly over the last decade or so, they've had somewhat of a turnaround.

00:18:47.220 But you go there and the Catholic Church is still very much restricted.

00:18:54.220 Basically, it's hard to find a Catholic Church at all.

00:18:59.220 And so there's a lot of confusion.

00:19:01.220 It seems in some ways they're doing better.

00:19:02.220 In some ways they're not.

00:19:04.220 And there seems to be this threat now of nuclear war coming from Russia as well.

00:19:10.220 What do you make of all that?

00:19:13.220 The first thing I would say is if the consecration of Russia had been carried out at the time it was requested.

00:19:26.220 So in the second part of the secret, given to the children in 1917, the Blessed Mother says, I will come later with the request.

00:19:38.220 So they know it was coming.

00:19:41.220 It actually occurred.

00:19:42.220 The request itself occurred in Tui, T-U-Y.

00:19:47.220 Anybody who's interested can look it up.

00:19:50.220 And it took place on June 13th in 1929.

00:19:55.220 And it was then that part of it said, you know, if my requests are fulfilled.

00:20:03.220 And this came from God through his mother.

00:20:06.220 If my requests are fulfilled, the great war will end. 0.73

00:20:14.220 Let me get this right.

00:20:17.220 If my request is fulfilled.

00:20:20.220 Russia will be converted. 0.94

00:20:22.220 Your Mecca, my Mecca.

00:20:23.220 I will triumph a period of peace.

00:20:25.220 We grant and demand time.

00:20:27.220 Well, Russia would be Catholic right now if the consecration had been done.

00:20:33.220 World War II would have been avoided. 0.89

00:20:35.220 The Vietnam War would have been avoided. 0.93

00:20:38.220 I mean, you just look at the wars that have taken place since then.

00:20:42.220 All of them avoidable.

00:20:43.220 And the folks have not yet done fully precisely what was requested.

00:20:49.220 So that a lot of people hope so.

00:20:52.220 And a lot of people take little pieces of it and say, see it happened.

00:20:56.220 But sadly, it hasn't.

00:20:58.220 So that number one, I'm not surprised it's not Catholic. 0.98

00:21:05.220 But the Russians are not Catholic yet. 0.81

00:21:08.220 But I also know that the Blessed Mother said, in the in the end, the Pope will consecrate Russia to my Michael at heart.

00:21:20.220 Though it will be late, my Michael at heart will triumph and a period of peace will be given to mankind.

00:21:28.220 But the period of peace is given to mankind.

00:21:30.220 That says to me, the world will be Catholic. 1.00

00:21:34.220 And there are many who say it will be the greatest crime of the church in its entire history.

00:21:42.220 So we look forward to that.

00:21:46.220 And I'll get into a specific literary prophecy from Russia a little later, a little later.

00:21:57.220 But what's happened if, but she also said, you know, if my if this request is not fulfilled, a second greater war will come.

00:22:07.220 Russia will spread its errors throughout the world. 0.99

00:22:10.220 There it is.

00:22:12.220 There it is.

00:22:13.220 And it's certainly the the the primary error is atheistic materialism.

00:22:20.220 And all you have to do is look around you now and realize that has spread everywhere.

00:22:26.220 It really is.

00:22:28.220 But we can look at specific aspects of it.

00:22:32.220 For example, the the abortion thing is is horrifying.

00:22:36.220 Absolutely horrifying.

00:22:37.220 All the Russia has cut back on it.

00:22:40.220 And President Putin has publicly honored large families and encouraged large families.

00:22:48.220 Something you're not seeing in Europe or or here in our own country.

00:22:53.220 But it's it is so nightmarshish.

00:23:02.220 And again, we're on the brink of seeing an explosion of animosity between the pro-life and the the and the abortion factions.

00:23:15.220 You just it started and you know it's going to get worse.

00:23:22.220 I'll go.

00:23:24.220 I'll go.

00:23:25.220 I'll go back to my primary and first love Shakespeare.

00:23:31.220 The terrible words spoken by that charming woman, Lady Macbeth, near the end of that one of Macbeth, when she's trying to get her husband to go through with the murder of Duncan.

00:23:45.220 She says, I have given suck and know how tender it is to love the baby that knows me. 0.99

00:23:56.220 I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dash the brains out. 0.99

00:24:07.220 Had I so sworn as you have done to this. 1.00

00:24:11.220 She should be the patroness of all of all the abortion people. 1.00

00:24:16.220 And what it is, is a desire for power and an attempt to control the future.

00:24:23.220 Macbeth really is one reason why we have all those witches, all the prophecies.

00:24:34.220 Macbeth is filled with it.

00:24:36.220 And there are aspects of the future that we are not to know.

00:24:39.220 By the way, let me say one other thing.

00:24:43.220 What is violated, I mean, the murder is hideous, but he was a guest in their home.

00:24:51.220 Anybody who hears this nonsense of, you know, it's my body and I can do what I want with it, simple response.

00:25:00.220 Does it have the same blood type you have? Does it have the same DNA you have? Does it have the same fingerprints you have?

00:25:10.220 Then it's a guest that you have allowed into your body. 0.77

00:25:16.220 And if you kill it now, you will basically do what the Macbeths do to King Duncan, and you can plan on not getting much sleep and sleepwalking at night, at night, trying to rub the blood out of your hands. 0.99

00:25:31.220 Out, out, damned spot. 0.99

00:25:34.220 Out, I say. 0.99

00:25:36.220 I mean, it's beautiful at all.

00:25:38.220 He really was pretty extraordinary.

00:25:41.220 So there's that divorce came from Russia.

00:25:44.220 I mean, they were the ones who legalized divorce.

00:25:48.220 They were the first to set up daycare centers.

00:25:51.220 And I was just reading recently a comment by Lennon, who said the family cannot be responsible for raising the children.

00:25:59.220 It takes the entire society to raise the children.

00:26:03.220 I didn't know.

00:26:04.220 Apparently Hillary Clinton's been reading Lennon as well.

00:26:09.220 But there are two others, I would say.

00:26:14.220 And this takes us way back in history.

00:26:21.220 In 1988, Russia celebrated the thousandth anniversary of its conversion to Christianity.

00:26:30.220 It was Saint Vladimir of Kiev, who was the Grand Prince of Kiev.

00:26:38.220 Who converted and had his people convert.

00:26:43.220 And then it, then it spread fairly quickly.

00:26:47.220 Although that was 988.

00:26:50.220 In 1054, the Great Schism took place.

00:26:54.220 So that Russia was only officially and fully Catholic for about 40 years.

00:27:03.220 At the time of the Great Schism, they rejected, they rejected the papacy.

00:27:08.220 Okay.

00:27:09.220 So it's been a long time that they, they have, they have been in schism.

00:27:15.220 And I would say that's an error that is spread because look at all the sex that have broken away over the years. 0.62

00:27:24.220 All of the, the ripping apart of the mystical body, which is a, which is a horrible thing.

00:27:30.220 And it's happening right now.

00:27:32.220 The animosity among various Catholic groups is, is extremely unsettling and very sad, but it's growing.

00:27:40.220 It's getting worse.

00:27:41.220 So that that schism, that, that ultimate error of Russia has entered now, I think, into Mother Church herself. 0.93

00:27:51.220 It's very frightening.

00:27:52.220 And one other one, I'll do this, but just one other one.

00:27:58.220 The, there is a, the greatest of all Russian operas is Boris Utenov by Mussorgsky.

00:28:06.220 Boris reigned, it's based on a play by Pushkin.

00:28:10.220 Boris reigned right around 1600.

00:28:15.220 He was not officially the czar.

00:28:18.220 He had had the young czar Dmitri murdered.

00:28:22.220 So he began his reign with blood on his hands.

00:28:26.220 And he was in that sense, a false czar.

00:28:30.220 In the opera, a young go getting man decides that he learns this story about the murder that's been, and it's been hidden, and decides he will proclaim himself the real Dmitri.

00:28:45.220 And therefore, he will get to be czar, and he goes out and starts, starts getting an army to follow him.

00:28:53.220 So we have the false czar, we have the false Dmitri.

00:28:57.220 We have, I mean, it's just falsehood of people who are not what they're pretending to be.

00:29:04.220 Um, let's just say that era of Russia is everywhere now. 0.99

00:29:10.220 I'll start with being rather more polite and say simply, we have economists who are, who don't know the economy.

00:29:20.220 We've got teachers who don't know what they're teaching or how to teach it.

00:29:26.220 We've got music that is banished melody and is unlistenable.

00:29:31.220 Um, we've got, you, you just run through it.

00:29:34.220 We have questions about the highest offices in the church.

00:29:39.220 We have questions about the highest rulers of our country.

00:29:43.220 Even to the point where I don't know if you followed any of this.

00:29:47.220 There are some questions about Sister Lucy.

00:29:51.220 Um, and I won't get into that now, but I will just say this notion of is anything real?

00:30:02.220 Is anybody real?

00:30:03.220 Who's false?

00:30:04.220 Who's not?

00:30:05.220 Who's true?

00:30:06.220 How we can, how can we talk?

00:30:08.220 And indeed, that's one of the errors of Russia, I think. 0.96

00:30:11.220 Amazing.

00:30:12.220 So they're everything.

00:30:13.220 Amazing.

00:30:14.220 They're everything.

00:30:15.220 They're everything.

00:30:16.220 Yeah.

00:30:17.220 That's very nice.

00:30:18.220 So what, what do you see in terms of this fulfillment, this turnaround, uh, that's prophesied to come

00:30:25.220 from Russia?

00:30:26.220 Um, how do you see that unfolding?

00:30:29.220 When do you see that unfolding?

00:30:31.220 Oh, it's a very difficult thing to try to figure timelines.

00:30:37.220 Um, I would just say everything's heating up very clearly and, and heating up rapidly.

00:30:44.220 Um, simultaneously, nobody seems to remember Sodom.

00:30:53.220 Um, we, we know that is, abortion is a sin that Christ had in for vengeance.

00:31:01.220 Um, sodomy is a sin that Christ had been to heaven for vengeance.

00:31:05.220 Not paying a living wage.

00:31:07.220 And look what's being done to the currency.

00:31:09.220 Look what's happening to decent, hardworking people trying to make ends meet.

00:31:15.220 Not taking care of the, of the poorest and, uh, and, and most helpless in your society.

00:31:23.220 Um, Canada has just, has just, I don't think passed if they're dealing with the law to, um,

00:31:31.220 take care of the elderly who no longer are leading, leading fulfilled lives. 0.83

00:31:37.220 And our great writer, Walker Percy predicted that, uh, that it was simply, it was once abortion

00:31:43.220 was unleashed, at some point they'd go for the other end of life.

00:31:47.220 So I'm, I'm surprised I'm still here.

00:31:49.220 I'm pretty useless now.

00:31:51.220 I'm just a, I'm a retired guy who reads books and listens to music and occasionally chatters

00:31:59.220 a bit.

00:32:00.220 So, but I do think pretty clearly, um, the, the other great prophecy, I think of, of the time

00:32:09.220 is from Akita, Japan.

00:32:10.220 Again, it's not surprising given what, what they've been through.

00:32:15.220 Um, but the, the nun from Akita, one of the things she said that the Blessed Mother told

00:32:25.220 her, fire will fall from the sky. 0.99

00:32:28.220 Now that may be nuclear weapons.

00:32:31.220 It's entirely possible because, um, that, that could do the job.

00:32:37.220 Or it could be the kind of fire that destroyed Sodom.

00:32:42.220 It's, it's God making very clear, um, okay, enough of this.

00:32:47.220 I'm putting an end to it.

00:32:49.220 And indeed, she, she goes so far as to say, but the punishment will be so severe.

00:32:57.220 The, um, the living will envy the dead.

00:33:01.220 Um, so, oh, it's the time, time we live in.

00:33:08.220 It's the time we live in.

00:33:10.220 It's hard.

00:33:12.220 But as I, as I occasionally remind myself, these are the easy days.

00:33:18.220 Tough as they seem to be to those of us who are used to a cushy, comfortable life.

00:33:27.220 I would, I would love to hear your take.

00:33:29.220 Um, you mentioned about, uh, Dostoevsky and, uh, his sort of prophecies as well.

00:33:35.220 Um, if you could tell us about that, how that might pertain to Russia.

00:33:39.220 Yeah.

00:33:40.220 Well, uh, the book that most people know Crime and Punishment, which is a masterpiece.

00:33:46.220 Um, other folks have read the, the Brothers Karamazov, which is one of the great novels ever.

00:33:52.220 And it's the last.

00:33:54.220 Um, the, the novel I'm going to talk about is called Demons.

00:34:00.220 And try to find the translate.

00:34:02.220 If you, if you choose to read it, it's a long book, a tough book.

00:34:06.220 Uh, first third of it is really tough reading, but then he grabs you and just calls you through

00:34:13.220 quickly to the end.

00:34:14.220 Um, so it's a great, great masterpiece.

00:34:18.220 Um, some call it greater than Karamazov, but it's a toss up.

00:34:23.220 Um, it, in it, and it was, it was serialized in 1871s, 1872 in a Russian magazine.

00:34:34.220 Well, during, at that time, Dostoevsky had already spent six years in prison for radical revolutionary,

00:34:47.220 um, I could hardly call it work.

00:34:52.220 He belonged to a revolutionary study group and were caught with banned books.

00:34:58.220 And he, he then, he was sentenced to death.

00:35:02.220 And indeed the morning of his execution was hauled out with the others, wearing hoods.

00:35:09.220 The guns were cocked.

00:35:11.220 And then they were told the czar had forgiven them that they were to spend six years in prison.

00:35:17.220 Um, it's the great Dr. Samuel Johnson line.

00:35:22.220 Nothing so concentrates a man's mind as the knowledge that he's going to die in the morning.

00:35:29.220 All right.

00:35:30.220 It's, and it, it's like, it's somehow clear Dostoevsky's head.

00:35:35.220 His mother had been very religious and read the gospels for him.

00:35:39.220 When he went into prison, there were ladies outside handing out new testaments to the prisoners. 0.83

00:35:46.220 He absorbed it during his years.

00:35:48.220 And he went from being a revolution, a Russian revolutionary, to being, um, a counter revolutionary,

00:36:01.220 with a deep understanding of what would happen if, if socialism ever took hold in mother Russia.

00:36:11.220 There is an uproariously funny scene where all the radicals get together. 0.57

00:36:16.220 And they're all arguing about everything with, I mean, it's a, it's almost like a modern committee meeting or something, but they're all crazy.

00:36:26.220 So, um, well, I guess that is.

00:36:29.220 It's a modern committee meeting now.

00:36:32.220 Yes.

00:36:33.220 So, so they're, they're arguing back and forth.

00:36:35.220 And, um, there's a character named Shikilov, and he's written this extended work.

00:36:41.220 About how to bring absolute freedom to the, to the society that they're living in and the glorious future that it will be.

00:36:50.220 And he says, my only trouble is I get, I get all bollocks up because I start with total freedom, but I end up with total despotism.

00:37:01.220 And that's exactly what happened.

00:37:03.220 And then a man who's unidentified, simply, he's simply called the lame old man who's sitting in a corner says,

00:37:11.220 I, uh, if, if, if this is going to succeed, a hundred million heads will have to roll.

00:37:20.220 Basically we'll put a hundred million of our own citizens to death. 0.58

00:37:26.220 Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag archipelago says, and they laughed at Dostoevsky, because there was a prediction he made that if socialism took place in, in Mother Russia in the next century,

00:37:39.220 a hundred million heads would be destroyed, would, would roll.

00:37:43.220 Um, Solzhenitsyn said they laughed at Dostoevsky and they were right to laugh at it because he was wrong.

00:37:49.220 It was 110 million.

00:37:51.220 I mean, it's horrible.

00:37:54.220 I mean, but again, in our own country, 62 abortions, 62 million abortions, let's talk.

00:38:00.220 And I'm sure that number is, is rising all the time.

00:38:05.220 There's another curious moment.

00:38:09.220 The novel is set in the smaller town.

00:38:11.220 So, but the mayor's wife is trying to, she's one of those learned ladies. 1.00

00:38:16.220 So she wants to keep up with the revolutionary thing. 0.97

00:38:19.220 So she's holding this big fest, this, this festival, and all of these, these great thinkers are coming and reading their works.

00:38:29.220 Well, of course it ends in total chaos, but there's a little figure that appears out of nowhere.

00:38:36.220 And Dostoevsky describes this little man as being bald in the front and the back and having a pointed beard and lifting his fist and shoving it down.

00:38:48.220 It's linen.

00:38:49.220 There's a portrait of linen.

00:38:51.220 I mean, it's a, it's a portrait of linen.

00:38:54.220 And then suddenly the whole town goes up in flames.

00:38:59.220 And the poor fire chief is standing there watching the town burn down.

00:39:04.220 And someone says, it's, it's, look at the fire.

00:39:07.220 It's, it's on the roofs of the houses.

00:39:09.220 And the, the man says, the fire is not in the roofs of the houses.

00:39:14.220 It's in the minds of the people.

00:39:18.220 And boy, that's, he was very wise.

00:39:24.220 So he saw it coming.

00:39:25.220 He knew how awful it would be.

00:39:27.220 He knew how destructive, chaotic, and deadly it would be.

00:39:33.220 And that part of the, the ones who are really to blame are parents who haven't paid attention to what's happening to their children.

00:39:44.220 A mother who is overindulgent of, of her, of her son.

00:39:50.220 And lousy teachers who are filling the students' heads with this nonsense and turning them into revolutionaries.

00:40:00.220 And in fact, the worst of the revolutionaries, his own father is a professor who wises up during the course of the novel. 0.74

00:40:10.220 And comes to a very different understanding.

00:40:13.220 I could actually do this now.

00:40:18.220 I need to read just a bit of this because it's the epigraph for the novel.

00:40:24.220 Epigraph is a little quotation at the beginning that tells you really how to.

00:40:29.220 It's from the Gospel of the Luke.

00:40:34.220 I'm sure you know it.

00:40:36.220 I'll just get to the beginning of it.

00:40:38.220 A large herd of swine was feeding on the hillside.

00:40:41.220 They begged him to let them enter these.

00:40:44.220 It's our Lord.

00:40:45.220 So he gave them lead.

00:40:47.220 The demons came out of the man and entered the swine. 0.98

00:40:51.220 And the herd rushed down the ski bay into the lake and were drowned.

00:40:56.220 Okay.

00:40:57.220 That's the epigraph.

00:40:59.220 Near the end of the novel.

00:41:01.220 I hate to give away plot, but I have to do it.

00:41:04.220 The old radical, the liberal professor has produced this group of crazed revolutionaries.

00:41:13.220 And he's coming to realize it's been his fault.

00:41:18.220 And he loses everything.

00:41:20.220 And it's almost Lear-like.

00:41:22.220 He walks out into a storm.

00:41:24.220 Just holding an umbrella, not knowing where he's going, what's going to happen.

00:41:28.220 Becomes very ill.

00:41:30.220 And is taken into a little inn along the way.

00:41:36.220 But he meets up with a woman who's appeared a couple of times earlier in the book, who is called the Bible Lady.

00:41:44.220 And she's handing out New Testaments.

00:41:48.220 And she remembers him and goes and sits by him as he's dying.

00:41:54.220 And these are his final words.

00:41:56.220 He requests that that passage from the Gospel of Luke be read.

00:42:03.220 These demons who come out of the sick men and enter into swine.

00:42:08.220 It's all the sores, all the miasmas, all the uncleanness, all the big and little demons accumulated in our great and dear sick man in our Russia for centuries, for centuries. 0.96

00:42:24.220 This Russia that I have always loved.

00:42:28.220 But a great will and a great thought will descend to her from on high as upon that insane demonite.

00:42:37.220 And out will come all these demons, all the uncleanness, all the abomination that is festering on the surface. 0.85

00:42:44.220 And they will beg of themselves to enter into swine. 0.88

00:42:48.220 And perhaps they already have.

00:42:50.220 It is us, us and all of them.

00:42:54.220 And I perhaps first at the head.

00:42:58.220 And we will rush insane and raging from the cliff down into the sea. 0.97

00:43:05.220 And all be drowned and good riddance to us.

00:43:10.220 Because that's the most we're fit for.

00:43:13.220 But the sick man will be healed and sit at the feet of Jesus.

00:43:19.220 And everyone will look in amazement.

00:43:27.220 Consecration.

00:43:28.220 Russia will be converted. 0.94

00:43:30.220 Russia will be Catholic. 0.99

00:43:32.220 Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph.

00:43:34.220 There it is.

00:43:35.220 1872.

00:43:37.220 I mean, it's just.

00:43:44.220 Truly, truly astonishing.

00:43:46.220 Oh, yeah.

00:43:47.220 Yeah.

00:43:48.220 No, no.

00:43:49.220 It's, it's, it's quite, it's quite, quite remarkable.

00:43:54.220 Let me, let me, let me just add this.

00:43:59.220 I don't want to go on too long.

00:44:02.220 What Russia has produced among its writers is extraordinary.

00:44:08.220 Over the last couple of centuries.

00:44:12.220 Turgenev, good writer, I'm not crazy about it.

00:44:17.220 Um, the great Nikolai Gogol.

00:44:21.220 Who wrote some of the funniest and most moving short stories ever written by anyone.

00:44:28.220 If you don't know the nose, read the nose.

00:44:32.220 Ah.

00:44:33.220 Ah.

00:44:34.220 Ah.

00:44:35.220 Ah.

00:44:36.220 Ah.

00:44:37.220 A nobleman wakes up one morning and his nose is missing.

00:44:40.220 And a baker bites into his roll in the morning and there's a nose in it.

00:44:45.220 And then the nose starts leading a life of its own.

00:44:48.220 And it's going to parties and balls. 0.56

00:44:51.220 I mean, it's just, it's so crazy.

00:44:53.220 Yeah.

00:44:54.220 But it's, it's, it's brilliant.

00:44:56.220 A story called Diary of a Madman.

00:44:59.220 And a wonderful story.

00:45:01.220 Heartbreaking.

00:45:02.220 Very funny.

00:45:04.220 Beautiful.

00:45:05.220 Called The Overcoat.

00:45:06.220 That some will call, I, I've seen it called the greatest short story ever written.

00:45:11.220 Um, in a tall story, a great writer, although a nutcase in that, um, he was touched by Christianity, 0.79

00:45:25.220 but didn't believe in an afterlife.

00:45:28.220 So that his whole notion was peace and brotherhood and we can all love each other, which is a hideous temptation.

00:45:36.220 It got echoed clearly.

00:45:38.220 I mean, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. were all very much attracted to Tolstoy.

00:45:45.220 But Tolstoy was a brilliant writer because his depiction of the world around him and what he lived in,

00:45:53.220 his ability to write those battle scenes of war and peace, his ability to get inside the characters in Anna Karenina.

00:46:01.220 I mean, just, he, he was a genius.

00:46:03.220 He was a genius.

00:46:04.220 Dostoevsky is just transcended.

00:46:09.220 Just unbelievable.

00:46:11.220 And then comes Solzhenitsyn, goes into the camps, an atheist, and in the slave labor camps,

00:46:22.220 discovers the faith.

00:46:25.220 And then, um, I don't know if you know the story, but, but he developed cancer.

00:46:32.220 Was taken to the camp hospital and they told him, you're going to die.

00:46:37.220 Um, there's nothing we can do.

00:46:39.220 He had a cancer tumor in his stomach.

00:46:41.220 It was huge.

00:46:43.220 He went back, knelt down and said to God, if you cure me, I will use every remaining day in my life to tell the truth.

00:46:51.220 About my country and what happened to it.

00:46:55.220 The tumor shrank, went away, disappeared, never came back.

00:46:58.220 He lived to be eight at nine.

00:47:00.220 And he kept his part of the bargain.

00:47:02.220 The Gulag Archipelago is the great work of the age. 0.99

00:47:06.220 Um, very few read it.

00:47:09.220 It's long.

00:47:10.220 It's tough reading.

00:47:11.220 But I would say this.

00:47:12.220 It's a book you can pick up.

00:47:15.220 It's a three-parter.

00:47:16.220 Make sure you get all three parts.

00:47:18.220 You can read a couple chapters, put it down.

00:47:21.220 You'll probably have to put it down and take a breather and then go back to it.

00:47:26.220 You know, some, some time later and try again.

00:47:31.220 But there's a beautiful moment.

00:47:34.220 Um, the center of the book is called the soul and barbed wire.

00:47:39.220 And again, it's what we've already talked about.

00:47:42.220 The absolute need for suffering.

00:47:46.220 I go back to, to Aeschylus, you know, where Cassandra appears.

00:47:51.220 Orestes near the end of the Aristaia says, I have suffered into wisdom.

00:47:57.220 Um, the greatness of Dante's Purgatorio.

00:48:01.220 Most people just read the Inferno.

00:48:04.220 Um, ignore the, the, the Purgatorio and very few make it to heaven.

00:48:12.220 Very few ever read the Paradiso.

00:48:15.220 But, uh, the whole point of it as, as Dante sees it and understands it is the need for that suffering, that purification.

00:48:26.220 It's what King Lear is about.

00:48:29.220 It's what Lear is about.

00:48:31.220 The poor old man, you know, um, only comes to wisdom through suffering.

00:48:38.220 And we get it again then from, um, Solzhenitsyn, the writer of our age.

00:48:46.220 The great Greek writer was Homer.

00:48:48.220 The great Roman writer was Virgil.

00:48:50.220 The great writer of the middle ages was Dante.

00:48:54.220 The great writer of the Renaissance era, the shift from the medieval world into our modern world was Shakespeare.

00:49:03.220 The great writer for our age is a Russian named Alexander Solzhenitsyn, because his topic is totalitarianism, the loss of freedom, the hatred of God, and the, the blood on blood on the hands of the mass murderers.

00:49:22.220 Um, with, with a full and deep and rich understanding that the only hope left for us, the only hope that remains is, um, I'll quote the end of this Harvard commencement address from 1978.

00:49:41.220 Mankind has no other way to go upward.

00:49:46.220 We have to, we have to be willing to recognize God, begin trying to raise ourselves up and do penance for what we've done.

00:50:00.220 So, um, he's, he's, uh, the great Malcolm Muggeridge said, um, the great Malcolm Muggeridge, the modern student could do no worse than to read the entire works of Solzhenitsyn.

00:50:15.220 So there's a contemporary, a modern writer worth reading.

00:50:19.220 But of course they're dumping all the great writers of the past and reading these pipsqueaks that pretend to be writers in our own time.

00:50:28.220 I just learned there's a, there's some sort of, uh, contest going on.

00:50:34.220 I'm glad I retired in the English department at the Naval Academy.

00:50:38.220 Dropping Shakespeare is a requirement for English majors.

00:50:43.220 And one reason is in a survey of the 50 leading universities in America, only four require a Shakespeare course from their English majors.

00:50:57.220 Wow. Wow.

00:50:59.220 Dr. White, I want to thank you so much for sharing with us your love of literature, your love of the faith, your understanding of Russia, and amazingly, the evidence of prophecy, not only in spiritual works of the scriptures, but also in the works, great works of literature.

00:51:19.220 And I'm sure you've whet the appetite, uh, for many to get back to the great works.

00:51:25.220 Thank you so much for being with us.

00:51:27.220 My pleasure. Thank you.

00:51:29.220 And we'll see you next time on The John Henry Weston Show.

00:51:32.220 Thank you.

00:51:34.220 Thank you.

00:51:35.220 Thank you.

00:51:37.220 You

The John-Henry Westen Show - May 20, 2022

Retired literary professor unpacks Russian history, explains current events in light of Fatima prophecy

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