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Cleansing Fire: Welcome to the New Springtime
Cleansing Fire is a Traditional Catholic "Faction" novel about how Modernism has entered into the Catholic Church in the 20th century and dramatically undermined the authority and efficacy of the Church. It is a novel but includes over 500 end notes, cites or presents verbatim a number of papal documents, and explains, in each of the 48 chapters, significant past and anticipated future events which impact humankind.
It is a Catholic end times novel that is based on historical events, messages from selected Marian apparitions and published teachings by known Church leaders. Chapter topics include: the French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, The LaSallette, Fatima, Garabandal and Akita Apparitions, Free Masonry, Vatican II, The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, the teachings of Pope St. Pius X, the corruption of Catholic Universities, homosexual scandals in the Catholic Church, Communism, radical ecumenism, No salvation outside the Church, and other topics.
This novel has been well reviewed in the "Traditional" Catholic press and has been called a "sourcebook" for understanding the current disorder that is occurring across the globe. It presents the author's understanding of how, when the teachings of Christ's Church are placed under the cultural bushel basket, the entire world goes dark until "Cleansing Fire" is sent from Heaven to end the error of God's enemies.
It is a Catholic end times novel that is based on historical events, messages from selected Marian apparitions and published teachings by known Church leaders. Chapter topics include: the French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, The LaSallette, Fatima, Garabandal and Akita Apparitions, Free Masonry, Vatican II, The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, the teachings of Pope St. Pius X, the corruption of Catholic Universities, homosexual scandals in the Catholic Church, Communism, radical ecumenism, No salvation outside the Church, and other topics.
This novel has been well reviewed in the "Traditional" Catholic press and has been called a "sourcebook" for understanding the current disorder that is occurring across the globe. It presents the author's understanding of how, when the teachings of Christ's Church are placed under the cultural bushel basket, the entire world goes dark until "Cleansing Fire" is sent from Heaven to end the error of God's enemies.
724 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
1 person is currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Peter B. Kelly
2 books2 followersPeter B. Kelly is an attorney and scholar. Among his accreditations are that of JD, MTS, MS(nrp) and MS(ce). A devout, life-long Catholic, his works are imaginative and heartfelt, but grounded in thorough historical and religious research.
Mr. Kelly and his family make their home in a rural community in southern Wisconsin. In addition to his several vocations, he is also an avid gardener and amateur carpenter.
Mr. Kelly and his family make their home in a rural community in southern Wisconsin. In addition to his several vocations, he is also an avid gardener and amateur carpenter.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 13, 2025
This book gives traditionalist Catholics a bad name. From rejecting Church teaching on baptism to insisting that the gates of Hell have prevailed against the Holy See, this book furthers dangerous errors in the name of combating modernism.
There is deep beauty in the Eucharistic Liturgy of the pre-1962 Latin Rite, but that beauty does not make the Novus Ordo invalid.
Yes, there have been scandals. Yes, there have been many people who have deeply misrepresented how to celebrate the Mass and what can be included. But that isn't about the Novus Ordo. That is about sinners. Same as it ever was.
And one small point: the author's insistence on describing what he himself, within this very book, acknowledges to be the unimaginable signs of the apocalypse is misguided, unnecessary, and arrogant. It is sufficient to say something like "and what [the character] saw cannot be described here" -- there is no need to go into detail that will by necessity be inaccurate.
--
Regarding my earlier point about misrepresenting Catholic teachings on baptism -- from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament [...]
1258 The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.
1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament. [...]
1260 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. [...]"
Emphasis mine.
Christ calls us to go out and share the Good News, not to fearmonger.
God is not a rules-lawyer.
The point of the Church is to help people to learn how to orient themselves toward God, how to center their lives around Him, how to live out good and holy lives. We DO need to be missionaries, we DO need to baptize people. But it's not because God is checking to see if we missed a spot and He can dump us in Hell -- it's because it's *really hard* to learn, all by oneself, how to prioritize God first, it's *really hard* to learn how to live life in a way that helps everyone around oneself instead of doing "innocuous" things that destroy.
And this book only makes that harder.
I pray that Peter B. Kelly and all who read this book come to acknowledge all truths of the Catholic Faith, that they know, love, and serve God, and that they be united forever with Him in Heaven.
There is deep beauty in the Eucharistic Liturgy of the pre-1962 Latin Rite, but that beauty does not make the Novus Ordo invalid.
Yes, there have been scandals. Yes, there have been many people who have deeply misrepresented how to celebrate the Mass and what can be included. But that isn't about the Novus Ordo. That is about sinners. Same as it ever was.
And one small point: the author's insistence on describing what he himself, within this very book, acknowledges to be the unimaginable signs of the apocalypse is misguided, unnecessary, and arrogant. It is sufficient to say something like "and what [the character] saw cannot be described here" -- there is no need to go into detail that will by necessity be inaccurate.
--
Regarding my earlier point about misrepresenting Catholic teachings on baptism -- from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament [...]
1258 The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.
1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament. [...]
1260 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. [...]"
Emphasis mine.
Christ calls us to go out and share the Good News, not to fearmonger.
God is not a rules-lawyer.
The point of the Church is to help people to learn how to orient themselves toward God, how to center their lives around Him, how to live out good and holy lives. We DO need to be missionaries, we DO need to baptize people. But it's not because God is checking to see if we missed a spot and He can dump us in Hell -- it's because it's *really hard* to learn, all by oneself, how to prioritize God first, it's *really hard* to learn how to live life in a way that helps everyone around oneself instead of doing "innocuous" things that destroy.
And this book only makes that harder.
I pray that Peter B. Kelly and all who read this book come to acknowledge all truths of the Catholic Faith, that they know, love, and serve God, and that they be united forever with Him in Heaven.
January 17, 2016
Exceptional.
August 9, 2022
Big book, Big review!
As I was reading this, I had a great sense of the arguments of the 1500s being relived in my mind. That is because for Mr. Kelly, the fires have never gone out. The arguments have been kept alive by constant study and use. He and the enclaves of traditional Roman Catholics have not allowed the intervening centuries and ever-encroaching ecumenicalism to dull the edge on their practice. This was refreshing in a way that led me to admire this book, even as I disagreed with the author on several points of doctrine.
This sizable book walks the line between fiction and fact, novel and biography, epic and dissertation. At the beginning I hesitated to call it a novel because so much of the first few hundred pages was nonfiction and citation, with a bit of fiction thrown in to “sweeten the pot”. Rather than starting from fiction and adding in nonfiction, it feels like the author has started from non-fiction and added in fiction.
I think part of the reason it’s so large is Mr. Kelly’s lawyerly thoroughness. From what I can tell, all Christian authors writing fiction run into a problem: fiction is inadequate to describe the power, law, and love of God. Instead of just blundering around for the sake of the plot like C.S. Lewis (I love the man but ick), Peter Kelly’s solution is to cover all the angles. The result is 700+ pages long, and a hefty percentage of that is quotations from church documents.
It is here that the scholarship truly shines: the author’s research was intensive and thorough, and demonstrates a deep love of God and His bride, the Church. Despite many citations, POV shifts, and quotes, I found only ONE typographical or grammatical error: a simple substitution of “threw” for “through” on page 349. For a self-published, self-edited book, that is simply unheard of.
As a reader, however, I struggled with a book that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. Partly due to my unfamiliarity with the lineage of the Popes, Church history and hagiography, I had a hard time differentiating the nonfiction, the fiction, and the fictionalized biography, and placing the timelines. THEN about halfway through I noticed he had put the year each chapter was set on the page header! DUH!!
Also as the book progressed, it became much more of a piece of fast-paced fiction. There is extensive ground work to get through first, but in the second half the “boom goes the dynamite” moments start coming with increasing frequency as the dots get connected.
I enjoyed this in a weird way. Being told I’m going to Hell is a novel experience! I do appreciate the author’s courage in stating non-Christians will surely perish, even if he’s wrong about Christians who do not kneel to the Pope. (I confess the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, as does Mr. Kelly. As a Christian, I am part of the Holy Catholic (meaning “whole”) church. Not Roman Catholic, but Catholic.) It was fascinating to read the RC take on Sola Scriptura, I absolutely CACKLED when he brought up Scofield, the Syllabus of Errors was AMAZING, and the book as a whole was very interesting and informative. I’d certainly read any others he wrote, and I could honestly see myself referring to this again, as other readers have mentioned.
All in all, this was an interesting book, and as a look into the arguments and beliefs of “trad caths”, it was FASCINATING. It was obviously written by a very smart man! Regardless of any editorial or stylization refinements I could wish for, I really enjoyed taking my time reading this, and my husband has called dibs on it next. I hear Mr. Kelly’s working on a sequel! Sign me up…
Tl;dr: I laughed (Scofield!) I cried (last rites). Also, priests being Manly Men who can fight and stuff. The last few hundred pages I blazed through in a 12 hour time window.
As I was reading this, I had a great sense of the arguments of the 1500s being relived in my mind. That is because for Mr. Kelly, the fires have never gone out. The arguments have been kept alive by constant study and use. He and the enclaves of traditional Roman Catholics have not allowed the intervening centuries and ever-encroaching ecumenicalism to dull the edge on their practice. This was refreshing in a way that led me to admire this book, even as I disagreed with the author on several points of doctrine.
This sizable book walks the line between fiction and fact, novel and biography, epic and dissertation. At the beginning I hesitated to call it a novel because so much of the first few hundred pages was nonfiction and citation, with a bit of fiction thrown in to “sweeten the pot”. Rather than starting from fiction and adding in nonfiction, it feels like the author has started from non-fiction and added in fiction.
I think part of the reason it’s so large is Mr. Kelly’s lawyerly thoroughness. From what I can tell, all Christian authors writing fiction run into a problem: fiction is inadequate to describe the power, law, and love of God. Instead of just blundering around for the sake of the plot like C.S. Lewis (I love the man but ick), Peter Kelly’s solution is to cover all the angles. The result is 700+ pages long, and a hefty percentage of that is quotations from church documents.
It is here that the scholarship truly shines: the author’s research was intensive and thorough, and demonstrates a deep love of God and His bride, the Church. Despite many citations, POV shifts, and quotes, I found only ONE typographical or grammatical error: a simple substitution of “threw” for “through” on page 349. For a self-published, self-edited book, that is simply unheard of.
As a reader, however, I struggled with a book that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. Partly due to my unfamiliarity with the lineage of the Popes, Church history and hagiography, I had a hard time differentiating the nonfiction, the fiction, and the fictionalized biography, and placing the timelines. THEN about halfway through I noticed he had put the year each chapter was set on the page header! DUH!!
Also as the book progressed, it became much more of a piece of fast-paced fiction. There is extensive ground work to get through first, but in the second half the “boom goes the dynamite” moments start coming with increasing frequency as the dots get connected.
I enjoyed this in a weird way. Being told I’m going to Hell is a novel experience! I do appreciate the author’s courage in stating non-Christians will surely perish, even if he’s wrong about Christians who do not kneel to the Pope. (I confess the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, as does Mr. Kelly. As a Christian, I am part of the Holy Catholic (meaning “whole”) church. Not Roman Catholic, but Catholic.) It was fascinating to read the RC take on Sola Scriptura, I absolutely CACKLED when he brought up Scofield, the Syllabus of Errors was AMAZING, and the book as a whole was very interesting and informative. I’d certainly read any others he wrote, and I could honestly see myself referring to this again, as other readers have mentioned.
All in all, this was an interesting book, and as a look into the arguments and beliefs of “trad caths”, it was FASCINATING. It was obviously written by a very smart man! Regardless of any editorial or stylization refinements I could wish for, I really enjoyed taking my time reading this, and my husband has called dibs on it next. I hear Mr. Kelly’s working on a sequel! Sign me up…
Tl;dr: I laughed (Scofield!) I cried (last rites). Also, priests being Manly Men who can fight and stuff. The last few hundred pages I blazed through in a 12 hour time window.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews