Canon Roca was a French priest who was ordained in 1858. He promoted the occult and was eventually excommunicated. Once defrocked, Roca priest preached his message of ‘Divine Synarchy’ in Europe and the United States. As a renegade priest, he bestowed prestige on the occult circles in which he moved – among Rosicrucians, Kabbalists, Martinists and other High Secret Societies.

Roca was a friend of the infamous Satanist, Stanislaus de Guaita, and like many occultists, was one continual search for the ‘ultimate’ initiation ritual, one that would transform him into a Christ-like being. Roca specifically tried to enlist clerics into his esoteric spirituality, believing that this would lead to an ‘evolution’ of Catholicism to its, as yet unfound, ultimate status. Along with this religious evolution, there would need to be a transformation of society.

Roca thought socialism was a helpful tool which high secret societies could use to introduce Catholics to the occult. This is because its end is an earthly Utopia, which coincides with the goal of the occultists. He realised that clerics, especially within the Vatican, would need to be indoctrinated with the false ideas of Gnosticism, Masonic Universalism and superstition so they would come to believe that the Church had lost Her way.

Roca predicted that one day a Pope would embrace the ideals of Synarchy: he referred to this man as the Magus of Synarchy. According to Athanasius (book), he proclaimed the coming of a “divine synarchy” under a Pope converted to scientific Christianity.’ (Athanasius and the Church of our Time p 34) in a world of anonymous bureaucratic institutions. He predicted that the Church would undergo “Not a reform but a revolution”. “The new church, which might not be able to retain anything of Scholastic doctrine and the original form of the former Church, will nevertheless receive consecration and canon jurisdiction from Rome.” (Athanasius and the Church of our Time p 35) He also predicted an ecumenical council at which a new liturgy would be forged.

For Roca and his conferes, ‘Christ’ is a symbol of the potential perfection which can be reached by humans through the initiations of the secret societies. It is His Humanity which they worship, believing that this Christ and His power exist within everyone of us, waiting to be realised. This is the heresy of immanentism: that we need look no further than the ‘god-within’.

Roca once stated, “My Christ is not the Christ of the Vatican!” This is something to keep in mind when trying to discern what is behind comments from prominent clerics, especially those mouthpieces of the Synod on Synodality. Though their comments may sound Catholic in places, their ‘Christ’ may not be the Jesus Christ of the Gospels.