Pontifical Documents of Pope Saint Gregory XVII the Very Great INTRODUCTION SAINT GREGORY XVII, BLIND THROUGHOUT HIS PONTIFICATE Words of His Holiness Pope Peter III: “We would like to defend and highlight the great Pope Gregory XVII the Very Great, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez in the world. This great Pope was blind throughout his whole Pontificate. Observing someone blind, you can imagine his suffering, and putting yourself in his place, you can see how hard his life must be: to see nothing, to depend on others for everything, always needing help, unable to do anything alone; not even celebrate Holy Mass alone, nor read nor write. Blindness is a burdensome cross and surely a very dreary one. Saint Gregory XVII suffered the cross of blindness with incredible resignation. How can the Church’s enemies censure and condemn a poor blind man as they do? They should put themselves in his place, and then they would say no more!” CLEMENTE DOMÍNGUEZ BECOMES BLIND: On the 29th of May 1976, on one of his tireless apostolic journeys, Bishop Father Clemente Domínguez lost his two eyes in a car accident. Father Clemente Domínguez was on his way back from France by car occupying the seat beside the driver. On the Behobia- Bilbao motorway, at kilometre 32.2, before reaching Zarauz, the car went into a skid due to the rain, and crashed against the barrier dividing the centre of the motorway, overturned and came to a stop with the front wheels over the barrier. Some of the passengers who remember the way the accident happened in greater detail, besides the natural circumstances which caused the accident, were aware of other inexplicable elements, as though some superhuman force had acted on the vehicle. The accident took place at 8.20 in the morning. Father Clemente received a heavy blow on the upper part of the nose and in both eyes, and was transferred to the Residencia Sanitaria de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu in San Sebastian. On the way he shed blood continuously and saw nothing. In the Residence, shortly after entry, both eyeballs were extracted, since one was completely shattered by the blow, and the other was full of glass shivers, paint and the like, and it was not possible to save it, as on attempting to clean the eyeball it disintegrated. Despite his unimaginable sufferings, he continued his journeys through Spain, other European nations and America with the same apostolic intensity. This great Apocalyptic Pope spent his whole Pontificate deprived of bodily sight. He had offered his blindness for the good of Holy Church, and in the last years of his life no longer had any interest in recovering his sight. SERMONS OF POPE GREGORY XVII: “We lost Our eyes, as you well know, on the 29th of May 1976, when We were Bishop and Father General of the Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face in Company with Jesus and Mary, and had recently reached thirty years of age; We had turned thirty on the 23rd of April, a little over a month before becoming blind. It is a terrible experience to lose one's 1 eyes at thirty, to become blind after having seen so very many things for thirty years. And to come to the Pontificate blind is quite daunting; and to continue blind in the Pontificate is to make one tremble; but the pulse of this blind man does not tremble, even though he has a heart complaint. Gregory XVII's spiritual pulse is good and strong and steady; this pulse does not cease, it is the spiritual pulse of Gregory XVII, the pulse of one who is on the watch and wide awake in his God-given mission.” “We were elected Pope directly by Christ when we had no bodily eyes, so that the prediction of the young Clemente Domínguez y Gómez before he became a religious, be fulfilled. In the Brazilian capital Rio de Janeiro, at the airport, We assured the then Carmelo Pacheco Sánchez, later Fr Elias Mary of the Holy Face, that one day We would become blind, because at twenty-two years of age We had offered Our eyes to the Lord in order to become chaste. We had the complete conviction that Christ would fulfil this wish of Ours. We did not know how or when or what manner; but We had the full guarantee in Our soul that one day We would be blind. And We therefore said to the young Carmelo Pacheco Sánchez: “If one day I am left blind, will you be prepared to be my guide?” And he asked: “Why do you say that?” We replied: “Because when I was twenty-two, I offered Christ my eyes in order to become chaste; I know that Christ heard me and that one day I will become blind. I do not know exactly how, but I will become blind.” And he burst into tears, because he took those words seriously, since We had spoken quite straightforwardly, quite clearly, without hesitance, assuring that Christ would give Us that grace, the grace of blindness, to obtain spiritual graces.” “Look, beloved children so dear to Our priestly soul, when the Church is experiencing one of her best periods in history, insofar as it is the period in which doctrine shines out most brightly, the period when the sacred truths of our Faith shine out most brightly, our Catholic, Apostolic and Palmarian Faith, previously Roman; never in all the history of the Church has there been doctrinal teaching so extensive and so thorough as in these times: this has occurred when the Holy Church of God is ruled by a blind Pope. It is true that other Popes also governed the Church blind, in one case because his eyes were torn out by his enemies, in other cases because over the years they wholly lost their sight; but the case of Gregory XVII is different from these revered Popes who preceded Us in the government of the Church and who were blind.” “O St Lucia, protectress of the blind! Now more than ever We feel interpenetrated with you, because recently We, by means of a Sacred Apostolic Decree, have renounced the promised miracle of the recovery of the eyes. Now We feel closer to your protection, O glorious St Lucia! Your name indicates light, your name indicates lucidity, your name indicates peace, the peace of heavenly light. Why should We need bodily eyes if We see better all the time with spiritual eyes? Now, more than ever, We intensely love bodily blindness, because this bodily blindness of Ours will be the guarantee of continuing on in the light of God, since the obstacles that the perishable things of this world represent will not make such an impression on Us, though We know by personal experience that ears too are doors to sin, and all the other senses of the body; but We can only renounce the eyes, because if We lacked hearing We would then be quite lost. We believe that the Lord does not ask that much, since each person's cross is made to measure. Christ will never impose a cross heavier than the person’s strength can bear. We have preached that insistently: Christ never imposes a cross that weighs more than the strength to support it. Our cross, beautiful, is blindness surrounded by multiple crosses, all of them bearable, because the yoke of Christ is easy and 2 His burden light. Christ never imposes a burden above the strength of the person who has to bear it.” PONTIFICAL DOCUMENTS: With great joy and deep pain at the same time, We say this sublime phrase: Blessed be this blindness, since it will be the sure way and path to attain sanctity. We say with courage and audacity, but trusting in the infinite mercy of God: Blessed a thousand times be that sublime hour in which We lost those nauseating and repugnant eyes that sinned so much and caused so many people to sin. We also wish to say that We desire with intense ardour the miracle of the eyes, if God should be glorified by it, if not an obstacle to our eternal salvation, and if it should mean the conversion of innumerable sinners. We say, and wish you all to know, that We fully submit to the will of God; may it be done as best suits the Church… We, bearing in mind Our papal name of Gregory, do not want the meaning of this name to lose its known fame; since as you know Gregory means: ‘on the watch and wide- awake’. Thus God writes History, for the confusion of those held to be wise and prudent; for the Holy Church of God is shepherded by a blind Pope, with the prodigious miracle that this blind Pope is on the watch and wide-awake, for with the soul's eyes We can see very much better than with bodily eyes. You can ascertain Our extensive activity through Our Pontifical Documents. As We lack material eyes, We can see spiritual things without the hindrance of the vision of material things. Thanks to Our lack of physical eyes, We can contemplate the perspective of the world with loftiest vision, without the terrible veils produced by the distraction of material things. Surely blindness implies a terrible and dreadful cross, a cross which is at the same time suave, light and sublime, because We, by God's infinite mercy, accept this dolorous cross; and not only do We accept it, but We love it, We fondle it and We kiss it in a profound ecstasy of love for God, since by this cross We can interpenetrate with Christ ever further.