The Secrets of La Salette    203 

    In every age there have been some priests and religious who fell away 

from the Faith. But in that terrible future time, several religious groups and 

organizations will, on the whole, lose faith in God and in Christ Jesus. 

Many souls will be harmed because these religious communities will have 

abandoned their faith in God. 

    In that time, even whole communities of religious will be lost to sin and 

malice and heresy. When Christians join together in religious communities 

they can exercise much influence over one another. They can strengthen one 

another in faith and in holiness greatly. But they can also influence one 

another to fall away from Christ, for they are like oxen who share the same 

yoke and so travel in the same direction. Also, some few members of such 

groups which fall away from the Church will leave the group rather than 

abandon Christ and His Church. 

12.   Bad books will abound on earth, and the spirits of darkness will spread 

everywhere a universal slackening in all that concerns the service of God; 

they will have a very great power over nature: there will be churches to serve 

these spirits. Some persons will be transported from one place to another by 

these bad spirits and even some priests, because they will not be guiding 

themselves by the good spirit of the Gospel, which is a spirit of humility, 

charity and zeal for the glory of God. The dead and the just will be made to 

revive.   [That is to say that these dead will take the appearance of just souls who 

had lived on earth, so as to better mislead men: these so called resurrected dead, who 

will be nothing other than the demon under these appearances, will preach another 

Gospel contrary to the one of the true Christ Jesus, denying the existence of heaven, or 

they may also be the souls of the damned. All these souls will appear as if united to 

their bodies.]   There will be in all places extraordinary wonders, because the 

true faith is dying out and because false light enlightens the world. Woe to 

the Princes of the Church who will not be occupied except to pile riches 

upon riches, to safeguard their authority and to dominate with pride.  

    This last sentence could also be translated,  Woe to the Princes of the 

Church  who will be busy only with piling riches upon riches, with 

safeguarding their authority and dominating with pride.  The former 

translation is more literal than the latter. 

    Melanie added the comment (in brackets and italics above) about the dead 

and righteous who will appear to be brought back to life. In a letter to Abbe 

Combe, the editor of the 1904 edition of Le Secret De Melanie, she states that 

she made this comment  according to the Vision which I had in the moment that 

the very Blessed Virgin was speaking of the resurrection of the dead.  

40

    As Melanie explains, the Virgin Mary is clearly not saying that the dead 

and righteous will be resurrected during that evil time. Rather, it is a