A commentary by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
The Catholic Church, which was founded by Jesus Christ during His Life on Earth and in the Days following His Resurrection, has ever regarded the Apostles as infallible teachers of the truth.
And even if, as a Christian, you have never heard them called “infallible”, by common sense and faith you can deduce this, for after the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit, they had to be infallible, for otherwise, the teaching of Christ to the Apostles would never have been passed on correctly, and Jesus’s promise, that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against “My Church” would have been without effect.
So the infallibility of the Apostles after Pentecost is inextricably linked with the truth that Jesus is the Son of God and is both Infallible and Omnipotent.
So it should come to no surprise then, that in the Second Letter of the infallible Saint Peter, the Apostle, that he prophesied correctly about our own days and gave us sound advice about how to live as Catholics in this Year of Our Lord, in which He has, according to His Humanity, attained the age of Two Thousand and Twenty Five years.
So I will quote the third chapter of his Second Letter, presenting a New English translation from the Clementine Vulgate, and intersperse my own comments in italics. I will occasionally translate contextually in a way you might not be used to reading, to emphasize the meanings the text.
2 Peter 3
(1) Behold, dearest brothers, I write this Second Epistle to you, in which I excite you unto a sincere mind with a complete warning. (2) so that you may be mindful of those words, which I have spoken of before, from the holy Prophets and your Apostles, the Lord and Savior’s teachers. (3) Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days jokers in deception, walking according to their own lusts. (4) saying: “Where is the promise, or His Coming? for from when our fathers have fallen asleep, all things have remained in the same manner from the start of the created world.”
Here, the Apostle Saint Peter exhorts the true Christians to have “sincere minds”, that is, that they soberly and realistically admit the realities prevailing in their own days, not taking refuge in false narratives or constructions of willful ignorance; and thus he write them this Second Epistle to warn them thoroughly, so that by means of instilling holy fear of future evils, he might deter them from a course of neglect that leads to self-deception. And, thus, he immediately identifies the Anchorage where the Faithful must take refuge: the true teaching of the Prophets and Apostles, whom the Lord God has sent mankind to command and teach (teachers = preceptors, here). — From this opening explanation of his motive for writing, we can understand what are the challenges ahead: and how they are all directed at accepting false teaching and false doctrines which cloud the mind and lead Christians astray.
Second, he names and identifies who are the men who are going to attempt to lead Christ’s true faithful away, calling them “jokers in deception” (in deceptione illusores), clearly indicating that they know they are lying and that they lie to you because they hate you and wish to lead you into false conceptions of reality. The modern social media personality of “grifter” is not far from this definition, if you think about it, for they do “walk in their own lusts” wanting all to worship them whatsoever they say, in an attempt to use every sort of information to build up a cult following.
Next, Saint Peter prophesies the rise of the gravest errors which rule our day: those of materialism, which says there is nothing spiritual and hence nothing spiritual that will happen; scientists of scientism, who say there are no supernatural forces at work in the world; and evolutionists, who deny God is the cause of life, and hence that God is the Lord and creator of man.
(5) For this lies hidden to them willingly, that before the heavens were, both the dry land came forth from and through water at the word of God: (6) through which it was destroyed, the world at that time being inundated by water. (7) Moreover, the heavens, which now are, and the land, were repositioned by this same word (from God), the fires being reserved unto the Day of Judgement, and for the destruction of impious men.
Here, the Apostle recounts the history of the planet Earth and how its present state, as we know it, came to be through the intervention of God. And all this has been now accepted even by scientists — though explained thousands of years before empirical science existed: that the Earth was once covered entirely in water, without any dry land existing, and was enshrouded in an atmosphere of helium and hydrogen and cyanide gases making the stars of the night and the Sun incapable of being seen, and that at a certain time in accord with the Divine Plan, God stirred up heat in the depths of the Earth, which caused geologic forces to raise the continents above the oceans and retain the most intense fires at the center of the planet.
All these things the first Apostle knew and understood 2000 years before modern science discovered them by the most laborious observations of the relics of evidence scattered all over the face of the earth and depths of the seas! — Thus, when the Apostles, the true teachers sent to us by the Lord Jesus, have taught us so accurately about things of the Earth, which only God and His Angels observed happen, how much more should we hold fast to their teachings about the Teaching of the God Who wrought them! For in this they have proved their credentials as Ambassadors of the Most High Creator of all things.
(8) Let this one thing, however, not lie hidden to us, dearest brethren, that in God’s presence one 24 hour day is as a thousand solar years, and a thousand solar years are as one 24 hour day. (9) God does not delay His promise, as certain men claim: but acts patiently on your account, not wanting any to perish, but that all turn back to penance. (10) Moreover, the Day of the Lord shall come, as I said: in which the heavens will pass away in one great collapse, indeed, the elements will be dissolved in heat, but the earth and the works which are in her, shall be burnt up. (11) Therefore, since all these things are to be dissolved, of what kind must you be holy conversations, and pious works, (12) expecting, and making haste unto the Advent of the Lord’s Day, through which the heavens, burning, will be dissolved, and the elements melt by the ardor of the fire? (13) But we expect new heavens, and a new Earth, according to His promises, in which justice dwells.
Here, the Apostle having proven his credentials as an Ambassador of God the Creator, by recounting correctly the billions of years of history of the planet Earth, now shows he is also the appointed Ambassador of the God Who will put an end to His own handiworks, when the purpose of this world has been achieved. In this most radical of prophecies, the Apostle emphasizes with the most dramatic effect, that we are not made for this world, but for life in the world to come, and that therefore all endeavors in this world are as naught in comparison with preparing to pass with Christ and in Christ thought death to eternal life. He also, therefore, gives the key to that passage: that we turn back from focusing on this world and its allurements, and do penance, that is, commit ourselves to a radical change of life, directing our attention back to God and to preparing for the hour of our own death, the ultimate moment of judgment in this life.
(14) On which account, dearest brethren, as you expect these things, you have plenty to do to be immaculate, and to be found for him inviolate in peace: (15) and We bear witness to the long-suffering salvation of Our Lord: just as our dearest brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, (16) as also in all his Epistles, speaking in them of these days in which there are certain things difficult to understand, which uncatechized and unstable men deprave, just as they do all the other Scriptures, for their own destruction of themselves. (17) Therefore, you, brothers, knowing thee things beforehand, guard yourselves, lest thoroughly mislead by the error of fools you fall from your own strength: (18), but grow in grace, and in knowledge of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.
The Apostle Saint Peter ends his letter, where he began, warning us of the jokers of deception and how being untrained in the Catholic Faith they seek to seduce the Faithful into their own self destructive errors. This Apostle, whose title and name were shared with him by The Rock, Jesus Christ Our God, reminds the Faithful that their firmness and stability requires that they remain founded upon the Rock of Christ and the rock of Saint Peter’s authority. This is why all jokers of deception will aim to lead us astray from this rock built upon Rock. — How much do we see this in real time, in our own days, especially since 2013, and most particularly in 2025, when so many “Catholic” influencers speak as if the Papal Law on Conclaves did not exist and continue to pretend that the illegally elected partisan of error, Francis Prevost, is Christ’s Vicar, as if God Himself would sully His Divine Name with their own folly, of preferring praise from men, to the praise which is from God the Father of all Truth.
Saint Peter clearly indicates who are the enemies of God and who are the enemies of the Faithful. And from this we can also understand who are the enemies of Saint Peter and of the Papacy.
I hope from this brief Bible Study, you can see, how important it is for Christians to hold fast to the validly elected successors of Saint Peter, if we want sure guidance in our own days to eternity and if we want to avoid the jokers of deception in our own days. We can be sure that if we do reject uncanonically elected Popes and hold fast to validly elected men, we can at the very least, avoid following an antichrist, who has the demonic gall and presumption to fake being a Successor of this great Apostle of the Truth, and not the charism of truth which this great Friend and Chief Ambassador of Jesus Our Lord, and Holder of the Keys of Heaven, left as an inheritance to the legitimately elected Bishop of Rome alone.
