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Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Tradition: from an Objective Truth Received reduced to a Subjective Impression of Historical Events

Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received.

St. Paul, 1 Cor. 15: 1-3

Concluding and summing up, we can therefore say that Tradition is not the transmission of things or words, a collection of dead things. Tradition is the living river that links us to the origins, the living river in which the origins are ever present, the great river that leads us to the gates of eternity.

Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, April 26, 2006

Both the Catholic and Protestant interpretation of Christianity have meaning each in its own way; they are true in their historical moment... Truth becomes a function of time... fidelity to yesterday’s truth consists precisely in abandoning it, in assimilating it into today’s truth. [.....] The truth is whatever serves progress, that is, whatever serves the logic of history.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology

All Art of Christendom has as its foundation the immemorial “received and approved rite” of the Mass, while only the most “mediocre man” could ever embrace the Novus Ordo!

ART is the remembrance of the universal presence of God.

Art is Beauty expressed in ways that can be grasped by the senses. It is the form assumed by the Ideal under the laws of the natural world.

How shall it succeed in entering this land of exile?

Time and Space guard the frontiers of our world, and seize on all that enter. Nothing escapes them. And so Art condescends to submit its infinite and gracious splendour to human limitations. It does not violate its unity; but since the finite mind of man cannot grasp it as a whole, it reveals itself in different modes.

Forced to submit to Time and Space, it begs their aid to help it to retain its beauty while it sojourns in the country which they rule. And Time lends it language, Space lends it light.

The laws of Time are summed up in arithmetic; the laws of Space in algebra. In the world of Art, arithmetic—the science of numbers—is the basis of poetry and music; for Time determines measure, and measure is rhythm. Geometry is the basis of architecture, sculpture, and painting, for it is Space which decides their proportions. Love is the life of Art, yet the arts are founded on mathematics, inflexible and absolutely exact. It is as though Love and Order, which men sometimes regard as opposed to each other, had determined to demonstrate their essential unity by the loftiest of their forms.

Art is an ascension. Its law is to rise. By its very nature it seeks the eternal types of things, and tends towards the Ideal. It may, indeed, lose sight of the Polar Star and make for a false ideal. Still, through every error we catch a glimpse of THE IDEAL, the corruption of which, in one way or another, explains the deviations of Art. Through every error we perceive the shattered form of Truth perverted.

Every artist—every artist worthy of the name—helps the human soul to breathe. Art, to a certain extent and at a given moment, is a force which blows the roof off the cave where we crouch imprisoned. What mighty levers does it employ? What massive weights have been placed at its service? Language! Music! A mere breath from human lips!

Poor fugitive notes, poor syllables caught away by the breeze! How invisible your majesty! How weak you seem! Yet you have power to shake earth to its foundations, and Heaven itself stoops to listen to you. In the solemn moments when we yield ourselves to your sway, our soul breathes a purer air; she breathes, and she is conscious of herself. She says: "Yes, my God, I am great, and I had forgotten it." [.....]

Contempt for Art is one of the commonest of sentiments, not only among ordinary men, but among artists and critics. To have a contempt for Art is to permit it to lie. The artist despises Art when he aims at anything but the realization of Truth. The critic despises Art when he pardons it for adopting an ideal which is not true.

Every day we hear this absurd expression with reference to some error clothed in brilliant language: “It is poetry.” When the mediocre man, speaking of a lie, has declared that it is poetry, he thinks he has excused the liar. On the contrary, he has brought a fresh accusation against him; for if the liar lies poetically, he has laid hold of the loftiest form of language and forced to utter a lie.

When the mediocre man desires pander to the disorderly life of another man, he says: “He is an artist.” If the man is really an artist, the disorder is most criminal. Music is founded on mathematics, poetry and painting depend on rigorous laws. Every artist should live in austere conformity to Order.

Earnest Hello, Catholic writer, 1828-1885, Life, Science and Art

Sacramental Theology for the ideological driven ecologist

The celebration of Baptism invites us to consider the importance of “water” as a source of life, not only as a tool or material resource, and it makes the community of believers responsible for guarding this element as a gift of God for the whole planet. Furthermore, since the water of Baptism purifies the baptized of all sins, its celebration allows the Christian community to adopt the value of water and “the river” as a source of purification, thus facilitating the inculturation of the water-related rites that come from the ancient wisdom of the Amazonian peoples.

Pope Francis, Preparatory document for Amazon Synod: Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology

More Timely as Time Goes By:

Excerpt from Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission Open Letter Addressed to Bishop Joseph McFadden, June 29, 2011

The recent document Universae Ecclesiae published by the Pontifical Commission of Ecclesia Dei (PCED) is the instruction on the application of Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which concerns the use of the 1962 Missal. That Missal has been variously known as the Missal of John XXIII, the Bugnini transitional Missal of 1962, the Indult Missal, and now, as the “extra-ordinary form” of the Novus Ordo expressing a single ‘lex orandi/lex credendi’ of the later Bugnini edition, which is now called the “ordinary form” of the Novus Ordo. The 1962 Missal can be identified by any number of descriptive names except, the “received and approved” immemorial Roman rite of the Mass. It is impossible that the 1962 Missal could be the “received and approved”2 immemorial Roman rite because it is impossible that the immemorial Roman rite could ever be reduced to the status of an Indult, or treated as a grant of legal privilege entirely as a matter of Church discipline subject to the free, independent and arbitrary will of the legislator, or even worse, as the proper subject matter for experimentation by “liturgical experts” staffing “liturgical committees.” The 1962 Missal has never been afforded the standing of immemorial custom by the authorities in Rome and it has proven itself to be just as unstable and transitory today as it was when first published in 1962. We agree with Pope Benedict that there exists no antithesis between the 1962 Missal and the 1970 edition of that rite.

The Masses offered at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission are offered according to the immemorial Roman rite of Mass before Rev. Annibale Bugnini, as secretary for the Commission for Liturgical Reform, overturned the principles of organic liturgical development and subjected the “received and approved” Roman rite of Mass to artificial manmade theories of liturgical innovation. These theories, that are clearly foreign to the Catholic sense of liturgical development, are of the same kind used by the Protestants in the 16th century, and later by the Jansenists in the 17th and 18th centuries, to employ liturgy as a means of changing doctrine.3 Since we do not use the 1962 Missal, we are not subject to the PCED, whose particular competency is to govern the use of that edition with its anticipated updates in the ongoing “reform of the reform,” nor are we subject to the restrictive norms established for the use of that Missal.

We have some small appreciation for the challenge facing Pope Benedict in his attempt to correct the Novus Ordo liturgical problems in the Latin rite, problems which he himself described as “a liturgical collapse,”4 but he is not without a share in the responsibility for the current state of affairs. Implementing his ‘hermeneutic of continuity/discontinuity’ by employing a Hegelian dialectic to create a new liturgical synthesis between the Bugnini Missal of 1962 and the Bugnini Missal of 1970 will only produce another artificial construct by liturgical innovators. We are not opposed to these “reform of the reform” corrections and anticipate a general benefit for all Catholics when, for example, the high altar is restored to its proper position in Catholic sanctuaries, and such abuses as communion in the hand are ended, but why should these corrections be paid for by a compromise of immemorial tradition? No one should expect Catholics who have been faithful to tradition over the last 50 years to willingly subject themselves to another liturgical edition of “musical chairs” with no idea where they will end up when the music stops. Liturgical instability has become the norm. It is for this reason that we did not consider any suggestion to become an Indult community by Bishop Rhoades.

Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission claims that by virtue of our baptism, whose character both empowers and obligates us to profess our Catholic faith and to worship God in the external forum, we have the right to the “received and approved” immemorial traditions of our Church that are perfectly consonant with that faith we hold in the internal forum and by which our faith is visibly manifested, most importantly, we possess the right to have the “received and approved rites customarily used in the administration of the sacraments” (Council of Trent). We further hold that, although these rights can be duly regulated by properly constituted authority, they can never be conditionally exercised by required concessions or compromises of Catholic faith or morals.

We further publically avow that we have made every effort to insure that our consciences, according to Catholic moral principles, have been properly formed and that they are both true and certain on these questions that pertain to faith and worship; and have made every effort to conform our actions to our conscience which we as Catholics are morally obliged to do. […..]

“Nothing is more insolent than a fact.”

Dom Gueranger

Pope Francis, like his conciliarists predecessors, endorses the pagan One World Government of the UN!
“When we acknowledge international organizations and we recognize their capacity to give judgment, on a global scale—for example the international tribunal in The Hague, or the United Nations—If we consider ourselves humanity, when they make statements, our duty is to obey … We must obey international institutions. That is why the United Nations were created.”

Pope Francis, press conference, 9-10-19 during flight from Madagascar to Rome

Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby, is losing all his friends!

Two cardinals close to Francis accused of covering up sex abuse of pope’s altar boys

LifeSiteNews | September 19, 2019 – Two high-ranking cardinals close to Pope Francis stopped an investigation of a seminarian accused of abusing multiple adolescents who serve at Pope Francis’ masses, according to extensive reports in the Italian media as well as statements made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that were published by LifeSite earlier this year.

Viganò names the two cardinals as Angelo Comastri, Vicar General of Vatican City, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, then the President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Viganò also states that Pope Francis himself was directly informed of the accusations by the main witness, but for years failed to act.

Following LifeSite’s publication of the accusations, and following an extensive investigation by the Prosecutor of Rome, the Holy See announced this week that its Promoter of Justice is officially requesting a criminal trial of the accused seminarian, now a priest, as well as the rector of the seminary at the time of the alleged abuse. It also states that Pope Francis is permitting the prosecution despite the fact that the one-year statute of limitations has been exceeded.

Cardinals nixed investigation into case, Francis never responded to complaint, Viganò says

“One of the seminarians, Kamil Jarzembowski, a roommate of one of the victims, claims to have witnessed dozens of incidents of sexual aggression,” wrote Archbishop Viganò in July.  “Along with two other seminarians, he denounced the aggressor, first in person to his pre-seminary superiors, then in writing to cardinals, and finally in 2014, again in writing to Pope Francis himself. One of the victims was a boy, allegedly abused for five consecutive years, starting at age 13. The alleged aggressor was a 21-year-old seminarian, Gabriele Martinelli.”

“That pre-seminary [St. Pius X] is under the responsibility of the diocese of Como, and is run by the Don Folci Association,” said Viganò. “A preliminary investigation was entrusted to the judicial vicar of Como, Don Andrea Stabellini, who found elements of evidence that warranted further investigation. I received firsthand information indicating that his superiors prohibited his continuing the investigation.”

“After evidence [of the sexual abuse] was collected by Don Stabellini, the case was immediately covered up by the then-bishop of Como, Diego Coletti, together with Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Vicar General of Pope Francis for Vatican City,” said Viganò. “In addition, Cardinal Coccopalmerio, then President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, who was consulted by Don Stabellini, strongly admonished him to stop the investigation.”

Viganò says that while the accused seminarian was ultimately ordained a priest, his accusers have all been expelled or have left the seminary: “The bishop of Como removed Don Stabellini from the post of Judicial Vicar; the whistleblower, the seminarian Kamil Jarzembowski, was expelled from the seminary; the two fellow seminarians who had joined him in the denunciation left the seminary; and the alleged abuser, Gabriele Martinelli, was ordained [a] priest in July 2017.”

“The signs I see are truly ominous,” wrote Viganò in July. “Not only is Pope Francis doing close to nothing to punish those who have committed abuse, he is doing absolutely nothing to expose and bring to justice those who have, for decades, facilitated and covered up the abusers.”

“The pope and many prelates in the Curia are well aware of these allegations, but in neither case was an open and thorough investigation permitted. An objective observer cannot help but suspect that horrible deeds are being covered up,” stated Viganò.

“All this happened within the Vatican walls, and not a word of it came out during the [sex abuse] summit,” he added.

Coverup accusations confirmed by extensive Italian media coverage

Viganò’s accusations are backed by coverage in the Italian media going back to November of 2017, when the story of the alleged sexual abuse by Martinelli was first revealed to the public by Gianluigi Nuzzi in his book, “Original Sin.” One of the victims was then interviewed by the television program Le Iene, which also revealed the name of the accused seminarian and rumors of a coverup. Archbishop Viganò’s statements offer confirmation of the story as well as the coverup, and bring the accusation to the attention of the global public. [.......]

And what is the sure sign of rigidity? They believe what God has revealed and keep His commandments!

“I would like to emphasize an attitude that I do not like, because it does not come from God: rigidity. Today it is fashionable, I do not know about here, but in other parts of the world it is fashionable, to find rigid people. Young, rigid priests, who want to save with rigidity, perhaps, I don’t know, but they take this attitude of rigidity and sometimes – excuse me – from the museum. They are afraid of everything, they are rigid. Be careful, and know that under any rigidity there are serious problems.”

Pope Francis, advising the bishops of Mozambique on choosing men for ministry

Do you suppose he was also talking to us at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission?

“Always refer back to your baptism. “One faith, one baptism, one Lord.” This is what Paul tells us, and then take the consequences from there. I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence. One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.”

Pope Francis the Obfuscator, August 2019, addressing a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic asking if she could receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church

Well, Maybe Not!

Francis in a clear example of psychological projection!

Pope says US critics use ‘rigid’ ideology’ to mask failings

Associated Press | Nicloe Winfield | September 10, 2019

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Tuesday he wasn’t afraid of a U.S. Catholic Church schism led by his conservative critics, but sees a “rigid” ideology opponents use to mask their own moral failings has already infiltrated the American church.

Francis said during an airborne news conference that he prays a schism in the U.S. Catholic Church doesn’t happen. He nevertheless doubled down on confronting outspoken conservatives in the U.S. and beyond who oppose his outreach to gay and divorced people and his concern for the poor and the environment.

Francis said he welcomed “loyal” criticism that leads to introspection and dialogue. Such “constructive” criticism shows a love for the church, he said. But he ideologically driven critics don’t really want a response but merely to “throw stones and then hide their hand.”

“I’m not afraid of schisms,” Francis told reporters while the papal plane was flying back from his trip to Africa. “I pray that there aren’t any because the spiritual health of so many people is at stake.

“Let there be dialogue, correction if there is some error. But the path of the schismatic is not Christian,” he added.

Francis’ comments are likely to inflame a heated debate roiling the Catholic Church in the United States and elsewhere. The pope’s mercy-over-morals emphasis irks some doctrine-minded Catholics who came of age during the conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

During his flight to Africa last week, a French journalist presented Francis with a book about the pope’s conservative critics in the U.S. Francis acknowledged his right-wing opponents and said, “For me, it’s an honor if the Americans attack me.”

The book, “How America Wants to Change the Pope,” documents the growing criticism of Francis by a small wing of U.S. Catholics who question many of his positions. Some have gone so far as to accuse Francis of heresy and warned of the risk of schism, or a formal separation from the Holy See.

Francis’ allies, including German Cardinal Walter Kaper and the head of Francis’ Jesuit order, have said the conservative criticism amounts to a “plot” to force the first Jesuit pope to resign so a conservative would take his place.

Asked about the criticism and risk of schism, Francis insisted his social teachings were identical to those of St. John Paul II, the standard-bearer for many conservative Catholics.

And he noted that church history is full of schisms, most recently after the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s church meetings that modernized the church.

A group of traditionalist Catholics led by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre rejected the reforms and grew into what Francis said was the “most well-known” of recent church schisms.

“I pray there are no schisms, but I’m not afraid of them,” he said.

Francis said all schismatics share a common trait: They allow ideology to become “detached” from Catholic doctrine and distance themselves from the faith of ordinary Catholics.

“When doctrine slips into ideology, there’s the possibility of schism,” he warned.

He lamented that many bishops and priests were already engaged in a “pseudo-schism” but said ideas won’t survive.

He claimed doctrinal rigidity, or “moral asceticism,” masked their own personal problems. It was perhaps a reference to how some of the church’s most notorious sexual predators - the late Legion of Christ leader, Rev. Marciel Maciel among them - preached a highly conservative brand of sexual morals.

“You’ll see that behind rigid Christians, bishops and priests there are problems,” Francis said, adding that such rigidity showed a lack of a healthy understanding of the Gospel. “We have to be meek with these people who are tempted to attack (because) behind them there are problems and we have to accompany them with meekness.”

Opposition to Francis in the U.S. reached a fever pitch in the last year following the publication of accusations by a former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. that Francis, and before him a long list of Vatican and U.S. prelates, turned a blind eye to the sexual misconduct of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Francis didn’t name Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano during his news conference. But he praised critics who spoke to him directly with openness to dialogue.

“At least those who say something have the advantage of honesty in saying so. And I like that,” he said. “I don’t like criticism when it’s under the table, when they smile at you and then then they try to stab you in the back.

“That isn’t loyal. That isn’t human,” Francis said.

If the teaching proposed by the Church as dogma is not actually and really the doctrine supernaturally revealed by God through Jesus Christ Our Lord, [........] then there could be nothing more pitifully inane than the work of the Catholic Magisterium. [........] This common basis of the false doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist heresy is, like doctrinal indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of Catholic dogma as a genuine supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself. It would seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous or silly enough to be convinced, on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of the Catholic Church is actually a locutio Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other hand, that he, a mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make it more respectable. The very fact that a man would be so rash as to attempt to bring the dogma of the Church up to date, or to make it more acceptable to those who are not privileged to be members of the true Church, indicates that this individual is not actually and profoundly convinced that this dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church is a supernatural communication from the living and Triune God, the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. It would be the height of blasphemy knowingly to set out to improve or to bring up to date what one would seriously consider a genuine message from the First Cause of the universe.
Fr. Joseph C. Fenton, AER, The Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism

“Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” Isaias 5:20

Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values”, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin. As the Synod Fathers put it, “factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision.”

Pope Francis the Lutheran, Amoris Laetitia

Opinions opposed to reason inevitably produce actions opposed to nature.

Louis de Bonald, (1754-1840) French counter-revolutionary, statesman, philosopher

He who does not keep the true Catholic faith whole and without error will undoubtedly be lost. He who is separated from the Catholic Church will not have life.

Pope Gregory XVI, Perlatum Ad Nos

That the Mystical Body of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same thing is a doctrine based on Revealed Truth. That we must necessarily belong to the true Church if we are to attain everlasting salvation is a statement which some people reduce to meaningless formula.

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

Nature of DOGMA - “A genuine supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself” -

and its Denial by Modernists

Thus, We have reached one of the principal points in the Modernists’ system, namely the origin and the nature of dogma. For they place the origin of dogma in those primitive and simple formulae, which, under a certain aspect, are necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear manifestation of God in the consciousness. But dogma itself they apparently hold, is contained in the secondary formulae.
To ascertain the nature of dogma (for the modernist), we must first find the relation which exists between the religious formulas and the religious sentiment. This will be readily perceived by him who realises that these formulas have no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a means of giving an account of his faith to himself. These formulas (for the modernist) therefore stand midway between the believer and his faith; in their relation to the faith, they are the inadequate expression of its object, and are usually called symbols; in their relation to the believer, they are mere instruments.
    Hence it is quite impossible (for the modernist) to maintain that they express absolute truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sentiment in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sentiment. But the object of the religious sentiment, since it embraces that absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner, he who believes may pass through different phases. Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed.
St.Pius X, Pascendi

If the teaching proposed by the Church as dogma is not actually and really the doctrine supernaturally revealed by God through Jesus Christ Our Lord, [........] then there could be nothing more pitifully inane than the work of the Catholic Magisterium. [........] This common basis of the false doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist heresy is, like doctrinal indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of Catholic dogma as a genuine supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself. It would seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous or silly enough to be convinced, on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of the Catholic Church is actually a locutio Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other hand, that he, a mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make it more respectable. The very fact that a man would be so rash as to attempt to bring the dogma of the Church up to date, or to make it more acceptable to those who are not privileged to be members of the true Church, indicates that this individual is not actually and profoundly convinced that this dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church is a supernatural communication from the living and Triune God, the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. It would be the height of blasphemy knowingly to set out to improve or to bring up to date what one would seriously consider a genuine message from the First Cause of the universe.
Fr. Joseph C. Fenton, AER, The Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism

Historical Note: Only Catholics are Christians. The Thirty Years’ War was fought between Catholics and those who rejected the revelation of Jesus Christ for a religion of their own making.

There are so many divisions among us Christians, if we look at the history of the Church! Even now we are divided. In history, as Christians, we waged wars among ourselves because of theological differences; let us think of the Thirty Years’ War. But this is not Christian. We are divided even now: we must ask for unity among all Christians, the unity that Jesus wants, because he prayed for this.

Pope Francis, General Audience, 8/27/2014

“I seek for nothing more; I have made the sacrifice of everything and of everyone to God; now I prepare to die. Now it is indeed true that nothing more remains to me, Jesus. I recommend my poor soul to Thee … Jesus!”

St. Gemma Galgani, Last Words

Both the Sacrament of Baptism and the will to receive the Sacrament are necessary for salvation!

“But God desired that his confession should avail for his salvation, since he preserved him in this life until the time of his holy regeneration.” St. Fulgentius

Thus the proper understanding of the passage from the Catechism of Trent:

Canon 4 on the sacraments in general: If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary for each one, let him be anathema.

“If anyone is not baptized, not only in ignorance, but even knowingly, he can in no way be saved. For his path to salvation was through the confession, and salvation itself was in baptism. At his age, not only was confession without baptism of no avail: Baptism itself would be of no avail for salvation if he neither believed nor confessed.” St. Fulgentius

Notice, both the CONFESSION AND THE BAPTISM are necessary for salvation, harkening back to Trent's teaching that both the laver AND the “votum” are required for justification, and harkening back to Our Lord's teaching that we must be born again of water AND the Holy Spirit.

In fact, you see the language of St. Fulgentius reflected in the Council of Trent.  Trent describes the votum (so-called “desire”) as the PATH TO SALVATION, the disposition to Baptism, and then says that “JUSTIFICATION ITSELF” (St. Fulgentius says “SALVATION ITSELF”) follows the dispositions in the Sacrament of Baptism.

Yet another solid argument for why Trent is teaching that BOTH the votum AND the Sacrament are required for justification.

“Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that not only all pagans but also all Jews and all heretics and schismatics who end this present life outside the Catholic Church are about to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the Devil and his angels.”

St. Fulgentius

“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.’” St. Eugene IV, Cantate Domino

Ladislaus, CathInfo

The Novus Ordo is “irreversible” because it lost its way long ago. There can be no retracing of its steps. The fruit of the Novus Ordo is apostasy. It is a memorial meal with an ever changing menu. Pope Francis does not possess the authority to overturn Dogma, therefore, he cannot overturn God's liturgical laws any more than he can overturn God's laws regarding Sodomy, Fornication and Adultery.

“After this magisterium, after this long journey, we can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.”

Pope Francis the Destroyer, addressing the 68th Italian National Liturgical Week, August 24, 2017

“If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church accustomed to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments may be disdained or omitted by the minister without sin and at pleasure, or may be changed to other new rites by any pastor of the churches whomsoever : let him be anathema.”

Council of Trent, Den. 856

It is erroneous to conceive of graces of state as helps which will automatically fill in for deficits of temperament, aptitude, and preparation, as if the mere fact of being assigned to a task would make us able to accomplish it, as if God were bound to grant us graces of state that would compensate for our deficiencies. The grace of state is not a guarantee of infallibility to a superior; it is not a conferment of knowledge to the ignorant to become teachers, and so on; it is not a panacea... We must prepare ourselves to receive the graces of state like all graces, to merit them as much as possible, through an entire and continual docility to the invitations of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, this would be an illusion that imagines God granting graces of state mechanically. If God always offers these graces, they would only be received in the measure of the disposition of the subject.

Dictionary of Spirituality, quoted by Fr. Olivier Rioult, The Impossible Reconciliation

"For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens." Psalm 95:5

Pope Francis the Heretic claims that the worship of devils is the positive will of God!

Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept.

Pope Francis, Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together

Francis/Bergoglio has surrounded himself with so many “crooks, creeps, and degenerates” because he himself is a “crook, creep and degenerate”!

“Bergoglio would call up those investigating, say, a pederast priest and tell them to back off,” a Buenos Aires Church insider told me. “He then would inform the offending priest of his intervention and then use that to extract total obedience from him.” Many such priests were in Bergoglio’s debt. Some have wondered why as pope Bergoglio has surrounded himself with so many crooks, creeps, and degenerates. But that is no mystery to Argentine Catholics. “He did the same as archbishop,” says one. “He uses their secrets to control them.”

George Neumayr, The Political Pope: How Pope Francis is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives

Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, Superior General of the Jesuits, claiming the “devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality”!

Question: Father Sosa, does the devil exist?

Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal: In different ways. We need to understand the cultural elements to refer to this figure. In the language of Saint Ignatius, it is the evil spirit that makes one do things that are directed against the Spirit of God. He exists as personified evil in different structures, but not in humans because he is not a person. He is a way to realize the evil. It is not a person like a human. It is a way of evil to be present in human life. Good and evil are in constant conflict in the human conscience and we have different ways to name them. We recognize God as good, as completely good. Symbols are part of reality, and the devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.

Pope Francis also has denied the existence of Hell!

“They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear.... There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

Pope Francis, interview with La Repubblica founder Eugenio Scalfari, May 2018

You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace…….Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.

Blessed Virgin Mary to the children at Fatima

Vatican Backs Court Decision to Deny Cardinal Pell’s Appeal against Child Abuse Charges

Eponymous Flower | David Martin | August 21, 2019

Catholics the world over were aghast to learn today that the appeal by George Cardinal Pell against his conviction of child sexual abuse was denied by the Australian court. Worse yet, the Vatican endorsed the court decision to deny Pell.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-08/vatican-statement-on-cardinal-pell-verdict.html

This unfortunate news about the innocent and commendable Cardinal Pell immediately calls to mind Christ's words: "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you." (Matthew 5: 11, 12)

Here the best Catholics of the Church, including the exemplary Archbishop Viganò, have respectfully attempted to elicit a response from Rome concerning its ongoing cover-up of sexual abuse and they continue to circumvent the issue, refusing to offer even a squeak of a reply. 

Worse yet, Pope Francis goes out of his way to install notorious sex-offenders like Archbishops Paglia and Maradiaga to the highest positions of the Church, thus aggravating the sexual abuse problem, but when Cardinal Pell is maliciously slammed and jailed for charges of "sexual abuse," the Vatican is right there thumping against sexual abuse, saying "Pell is guilty."

Yea, they orchestrated this whole frame job against Pell, since it covers their own sex-abuse problem while limiting any chance that Pell will expose their crimes. Today's blurb from the Vatican Press Office is typical of their Pharisaic covering of "dead men's bones" (Mt. 23; 27), which shouldn't surprise us. Let us not forget that the Vatican News Service is run by the homosexual marketing firm, Accenture, known the world over for its LGBT political agenda, which means anything they say should never be taken seriously.

And just what do they think Infallibility IS?

Let the reader accept the reasonable fact that the Pontiffs who pronounced these decrees (on No Salvation Outside the Church) were perfectly literate and fully cognizant of what they were saying. If there were any need to soften or qualify their meanings, they were quite capable of doing so..... Dogmas of the faith, like Outside the Church There is No Salvation, are truths fallen from heaven. The very point of a dogmatic definition is to DEFINE PRECISELY and EXACTLY what the Church means by the very words of the formula. If it does not do this by those very words in the formula then it has failed in its primary purpose – to define – and was pointless and worthless. ANYONE who says that we must interpret or understand the meaning of a dogmatic definition, in a way which contradicts its actual wording, is denying the whole point of Papal Infallibility and dogmatic definitions. They who insist that infallible DEFINITIONS must be interpreted by non-infallible statements (e.g., from theologians, catechisms, etc.) are denying the whole purpose of these infallible truths fallen from heaven. They are subordinating the dogmatic teaching of the Holy Ghost to the re-evaluation of fallible human documents,thereby inverting their authority, perverting their integrity and denying their purpose".

Fr. James Wathen, Who Shall Ascend?

“OFFICIAL & PREVAILING” CONSPIRACY THEORY

The FBI has published a document that concludes that “conspiracy theories” can motivate believers to commit crimes. [.....]

The FBI document says that conspiracy theories “are usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”  Note the use of “official” and “prevailing.”  Official explanations are explanations provided by governments.  Prevailing explanations are the explanations that the media repeats.  Examples of official and prevailing explanations are: Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Iranian nukes, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the official explanation by the US government for the destruction of Libya.  If a person doubts official explanations such as these, that person is a “conspiracy theorist.”

Official and prevailing explanations do not have to be consistent with facts.  It is enough that they are official and prevailing.  Whether or not they are true is irrelevant.  Therefore, a person who stands up for the truth can be labeled a conspiracy theorist, monitored, and perhaps pre-emptively arrested. [.....] Consider Russiagate.  Here we have an alleged conspiracy between Trump and Russia that was the official prevailing explanation.  Yet, to believe in the Russiagate conspiracy did not make one a conspiracy theorist as this conspiracy was the official prevailing explanation.  But to doubt the Russiagate conspiracy did make one a conspiracy theorist.

What the FBI report does, intentionally or unintentionally, is to define a conspiracist as a person who doubts official explanations.  In other words, it is a way of preventing any accountability of government.  Whatever the government says, no matter how obvious a lie, will have to be accepted as fact or we will be put on a list to be monitored for preemptive arrest.

Paul Craig Roberts, former Undersecretary of the Treasury, An Open Invitation to Tyranny, 8-8-19

A sure sign of progress: Silence is replaced by Calumny!

The conservative Catholic Pied Piper of Jew hatred and racism

Dexter Van Zile talks about E Michael Jones. He says that Jones' racist views appeal to people looking for scapegoats for society’s decline.

Anti-Semitism | Zionist Federation | Israel News Talk Radio | 09/08/19

Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon bring back Dexter Van Zile of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) to discuss a conservative Catholic E. Michael Jones extolling Jew hatred and racism via the internet misleading young millennials.

Jones has been promoting his dangerous views since the 1980s. The problem is that millennials are biting into Jones' views in droves. Van Zile first encountered Jones and his Jew hatred views in a YouTube interview with another notorious anti-Semite, Owen Benjamin.

Jones has been writing books since the 1970’s, however, his rise to prominence in podcasts, increasingly viewed by millennials, has occurred within the past decade.

He blames Jews for abortion and pornography in the US. The millennials in the US have latched on to Jones who promotes their salvation by becoming Catholics and fighting Jewish influence in America.

Van Zile says that Jones' anti-Semitic and racist views appeal to unhappy people looking for scapegoats for society’s decline.

So we are supposed to rejoice because a 'married clergy' will be tabled if we accept the Gaia cult of Earth Worship!

Pope insists Amazon Synod will focus on environment, not married priests

LifeSiteNews | VATICAN CITY | August 14, 2019 — Pope Francis has downplayed the subject of the married priesthood as a priority at an upcoming synod.

In an August 6 interwiew with Italian newspaper La Stampa, published August 9, the pontiff said the Synod on the Amazon is the “child of Laudato Si’.”

“Those who have not read it will never understand the Synod on the Amazon,” he told his interviewer Domenico Gasso, Jr.

“Laudato Si’ is not a green encyclical. It is a social encyclical, which is based on a ‘green’ reality, the stewardship of Creation,” the pontiff continued.

Gasso asked Pope Francis if the possibility of ordaining “viri probati, elderly and married men”   is a main theme of the Amazon Synod. Francis replied firmly in the negative.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“It is simply a number of the Instrumentum Laboris. The important thing will be the ministries of evangelization and the different ways of evangelizing.”

The pontiff did not expand on the subject of evangelization, however. Instead, he focused on environmental issues like pollution, melting glaciers, and deforestation.

“A few months ago seven fisherman told me: ‘In recent months we have collected 6 tons of plastic,’” he said.

“The other day, I read about a huge glacier in Iceland that melted almost completely: they built   a funeral monument. With the fire in Siberia, some glaciers in Greenland lost tons through melting,” he continued.

“The people of a Pacific country are moving because in twenty years the island on which they live will no longer be there.”

The pontiff painted his sober environmental picture with impressionist strokes. As a matter of fact, the vanished Icelandic glacier has so far been cmmemorated with a plaque, the Greenland glaciers have been affected by both a seasonal heatwave and wildfires from across the entire Arctic region, and the devoutly Christian people of Kiribati are still hopeful that they will not have to move.

“We don’t believe that Kiribati will sink like the Titanic ship,” said the nation’s president, Taneti Mamau, on a promotional video. “Our country, our beautiful lands, are created by the hands of God.”

Francis said he was even more shocked by “Earth Overshoot Day,” the day on which some people believe that human societies have used up all their proper allotment of natural materials for the year, after which point the planet Earth is not able to regenerate these resources.

“On July 29th, we used up all the regenerative resources of 2019,” the pontiff declared.

“Since July 30, we have been consuming more resources than the planet can regenerate in a year. It's very serious. It's a global emergency. And ours will be an urgent Synod,” he continued.

The pontiff stressed that a synod is based in the Christian faith. “A Synod is not a meeting of scientists or politicians,” he explained. “It is not a Parliament: it is something else. It was born of the Church and will have a mission and evangelizing dimension. It will be a work of communion guided by the Holy Spirit.”

Francis told Grasso he was focussing on the Amazon region because it is both diverse and crucial for the health of the globe.

“It is a representative and decisive place,” he said.

“Together with the oceans, it contributes decisively to the survival of the planet. Much of the oxygen we breathe comes from there. That's why deforestation means killing humanity,” he continued. 

“And then the Amazon involves nine states, so it doesn’t concern a single nation. And I’m thinking of the Amazonian richness, vegetable and animal biodiversity: it's wonderful.”

The pontiff said economic and political interests threaten this richness and the people of the Amazon and that politicians must stop their conniving and corruption and take responsibility for such ecologically dangerous activities as, for example, open-pit mining.

Asked his worst fear for the planet, Pope Francis listed a number of concerns:

“The disappearance of biodiversity. New lethal diseases. A decline and devastation of Nature that could lead to the death of the human race.”

The pontiff mentioned the activities of such “young ecologists” as Greta Thunberg and said he was struck by a placard held by young environmentalists reading, “We are the future.” He also said he believed that personal activities like household recycling are helpful because they are “concrete actions” and foster a culture of not dirtying the Earth.

During the interview, Pope Francis expressed support for the European Union and the vision of its “Founding Fathers.” He said he was concerned by a focus in Europe on sovereignty, which he called “an attitude of isolation.”

“I am concerned because one hears speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934,” he said.

Open Letter from Don Nicola Bux to Vatican reporter, Marco Tosatti
Dear Director, 

In the context of recent developments at the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Studies, it is important to note the backwardness of the Church compared to the Middle Ages, when the theological disputes and conflicts between Franciscans and Dominicans took place on the basis that of whoever had the best arguments. Meanwhile, we arrived at Stalinist methods with kid gloves. There is no argument and no more dispute in the Church. If one does not think as the boss, one is identified, cataloged and excluded. This is the damaging effect of the ideology of dialogue, which fits as long as one thinks the same as the one who preaches it.

To confirm pluralism and synodality, we now have the dismissal of ordinary professors, for ideological reasons have deprived them of their chairs.

What would happen at any other university if that happened?

What academic prestige will remain at the Institute of John Paul II? The question is not only whether it will continue to be a university institution inspired by John Paul II, but whether it will even be a university institution at all.

All this weighs heavily on the Rector as a man of the Academy, since he is in charge of this operation. He certainly did not act on it but on higher orders.

In a brutal way, or with baseless reasons, it happens in seminaries, faculties, and Roman congregations and dicasteries.

The paradox is that ecumenical and interreligious dialogue spreads outward, while the dictatorship of unified thought prevails internally.

Many ask themselves - always in the name of synodality and pluralism - should not the confrontation of all baptized be promoted, especially among all categories of theologians? A confrontation that Catholic thought has as a point of reference, according to the maxim of St. Vincent de Lerins: "Always, everywhere, and believed by all"?
Maybe the time will come when we have to get up and make our way against the whole world to St. Peter to denounce the new "Latrocinium Ephesinum". I want to explain that. The Second Council of Ephesus of 449, which became known among Catholic and Orthodox theologians as Latrocinium Ephesi or Robber's Synod of Ephesus (in Greek Ληστρική της Εφέσου), was a Christological Church meeting. Because of the resulting conflicts over the person of Jesus Christ and especially as a result of the conflicts after the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Christian churches were divided into Chalcedonian and pre-Chalcedonian churches. 

It seems that after the next synod, Jesus Christ will be outdated, because the Amazon and some other "European regions" no longer seem to need it for their salvation because it fits as it is. In the meantime, the "moral theology" of marriage and family, which John Paul II defended and propagated, and paid for it in person, is outdated. So we are in the harbingers of the Ephesian betrayal. 

So let us follow Benedict XVI, who expressed his solidarity with the deposed rector, and imagine Pope Francis, how annoyed he is, despite all his calls for pluralism, parrhesia and synodality. 

So let's take cover, especially teachers and students of the John Paul II Institute, before it's too late. All According to Saint Peter! 

Best regards
in Domino Iesu
Don Nicola Bux

COMMENT: Don Bux is no traditionalist and he does not understand that Dogma must necessarily be every faithful Catholic's proximate rule of faith. The truth of the matter is this: John Paul II and Benedict XVI were, in the essentials, indistinguishable from Francis the Destroyer. These conciliar popes are united in first principles. They are without exception Neo-modernists. Neither JPII nor Benedict could ever offer any principled objection to Francis' ways and means of destroying Catholic doctrine and upending Catholic morals. Benedict has stated this publically repeatedly yet people like Bux do not believe him. It was Benedict who said on his abdication that this marks the beginning of the "true council." However, Bux does make an important and valid point. While the Neo-modernists have one attitude to the OTHERS and preach ecumenism, plurality, receptiveness to other's traditions, non-judgmental attitude towards heterodox doctrines, the new evangelization that denies proselytism, etc., etc., to their OWN they behave like Stalinists. Bux thinks this is something new only with Francis! It is the mark of the Neo-modernists and has always been since Vatican II. When they give the appearance of a conciliatory approach to Traditional Catholics, it is for the purpose to control. Those who believe that this "control" is ultimately aimed at the beneficial welfare of the Church are willfully naive.

Benedict XVI announcing that the "virtual Council" of the "media" is over and now, with Pope Francis, we get the "real Council, " the "true Council," that will now establish "true reform, true renewal"!

We know that this Council of the media was accessible to everyone. Therefore, this was the dominant one, the more effective one, and it created so many disasters, so many problems, so much suffering: seminaries closed, convents closed, banal liturgy … and the real Council had difficulty establishing itself and taking shape; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council. But the real force of the Council was present and, slowly but surely, established itself more and more and became the true force which is also the true reform, the true renewal of the Church. It seems to me that, 50 years after the Council, we see that this virtual Council is broken, is lost, and there now appears the true Council with all its spiritual force. And it is our task, especially in this Year of Faith, on the basis of this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council, with its power of the Holy Spirit, be accomplished and the Church be truly renewed. Let us hope that that the Lord will assist us. I myself, secluded in prayer, will always be with you and together let us go forward with the Lord in the certainty that the Lord will conquer. Thank you!

Benedict XVI, to the clergy in Rome on his abdication, Feb 14, 2013

Pius XII - the man responsible for planting the seed of liturgical destruction!

Fr. Annibale Bugnini had been making clandestine visits to the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique (CPL), a progressivist conference centre for liturgical reform which organized national weeks for priests.
Inaugurated in Paris in 1943 on the private initiative of two Dominican priests under the presidency of Fr. Lambert Beauduin, it was a magnet for all who considered themselves in the vanguard of the Liturgical Movement. It would play host to some of the most famous names who influenced the direction of Vatican II: Frs. Beauduin, Guardini, Congar, Chenu, Daniélou, Gy, von Balthasar, de Lubac, Boyer, Gelineau etc.

It could, therefore, be considered as the confluence of all the forces of Progressivism, which saved and re-established Modernism condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi.
According to its co-founder and director, Fr. Pie Duployé, OP, Bugnini had requested a “discreet” invitation to attend a CPL study week held near Chartres in September 1946.

Much more was involved here than the issue of secrecy. The person whose heart beat as one with the interests of the reformers would return to Rome to be placed by an unsuspecting (?) Pope (Pius XII) in charge of his Commission for the General Reform of the Liturgy.
But someone in the Roman Curia did know about the CPL – Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the acting Secretary of State and future Paul VI – who sent a telegram to the CPL dated January 3, 1947. It purported to come from the Pope with an apostolic blessing. If, in Bugnini’s estimation, the Roman authorities were to be kept in the dark about the CPL so as not to compromise its activities, a mystery remains. Was the telegram issued under false pretences, or did Pius XII really know and approve of the CPL? [.....]

This agenda (for liturgical reform) was set out as early as 1949 in the Ephemerides Liturgicae, a leading Roman review on liturgical studies of which Fr. Annabale Bugnini was Editor from 1944 to 1965.
First, Bugnini denigrated the traditional liturgy as a dilapidated building (“un vecchio edificio”), which should be condemned because it was in danger of falling to pieces (“sgretolarsi”) and, therefore, beyond repair. Then, he criticized it for its alleged “deficiencies, incongruities and difficulties,” which rendered it spiritually “sterile” and would prevent it appealing to modern sensibilities.
It is difficult to understand how, in the same year that he published this anti-Catholic diatribe, he was made a Professor of Liturgy in Rome’s Propaganda Fide (Propagation of the Faith) University. His solution was to return to the simplicity of early Christian liturgies and jettison all subsequent developments, especially traditional devotions.
These ideas expressed in 1949 would form the foundational principles of Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. For all practical purposes, the Roman Rite was dead in the water many years before it was officially buried by Paul VI.

Dr. Carol Byrne, How Bugnini Grew Up under Pius XII

No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church is a DOGMA of Faith!

However ignorant you may be, you have the true faith if you believe, without exception, all the holy Catholic Church believes and teaches; on the other hand, however learned you may be, you lose the gift and the virtue of faith if you reject any doctrine which she teaches; for her faith is your rule. “As there is but one faith,” says St. Paul, “to wish to divide it, is to destroy it.” Heretics not only differ from the Church in faith, but they also differ amongst themselves, a proof that they have not the true faith, which is one. The holy Catholic Church never has suffered, and never will suffer, a difference of faith in regard to any article. Her faith is the same in all times, in all places, and in all her true children. Thus her faith is one and the only true faith. You should be most desirous to preserve the faith in all its purity, since without it, it is impossible to do anything which merits Heaven. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Those who do not possess it may practice all the moral virtues, justice, sobriety, chastity, alms-deeds, prayers, mortification; and not only is this the case with heretics, but it is a truth which should be borne in mind, that these good actions, unless they have faith for their principle, will never merit Heaven for them. The law of Moses, all holy as it was, could save only those who observed it through faith. 
When, therefore, you observe that those who believe not in the Church, practice some good works, offer many prayers, and lead an austere life, do not believe that they are on this account in the way of salvation, unless they have true faith; you commit an enormous sin if you believe that they can be saved outside of the Church; that they can have faith without believing in her, or that they can be saved without faith.

St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract with God in Baptism

Wisdom is only possible for those who hold DOGMA as the Rule of Faith!

Besides, every dogma of faith is to the Catholic cultivated mind not only a new increase of knowledge, but also an incontrovertible principle from which it is able to draw conclusions and derive other truths. They present an endless field for investigation so that the beloved Apostle St. John could write at the end of his Gospel, without fear of exaggeration: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did: which if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.”

The Catholic Church, by enforcing firm belief in her dogmas—which are not her inventions, but were given by Jesus Christ—places them as a bar before the human mind to prevent it from going astray and to attach it to the truth; but it does not prevent the mind from exercising its functions when it has secured the treasure of divine truth, and a “scribe thus instructed in the kingdom of heaven is truly like a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.” He may bring forth new illustrations, new arguments and proofs; he may show now applications of the same truths, according to times and circumstances; he may show new links which connect the mysteries of religion with each other or with the natural sciences as there can be no discord between the true faith and true science; God, being the author of both, cannot contradict Himself and teach something by revelation as true which He teaches by the true light of reason as false. In all these cases the householder “brings forth from his treasure now things and old.” They are new inasmuch as they are the result of new investigations; and old because they are contained in the old articles of faith and doctrine as legitimate deductions from their old principles.

Fr. Joseph Prachensky, S.J., The Church of Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Saviour, on the Parable of the Scribe

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium Smears Faithful Catholics as “Neo-pelagians”:

Catholics faithful in keeping God’s moral law and believing His revealed truth are “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism [who] observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style [characterized by a] narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [which is a] manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.”

94. This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

While in the same document he has this to say about the possibility of salvation for “Non-Christinas”:

254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”, and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”.

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, this teaching of Pope Franics references the teaching of the International Theological Commission.

“By God’s gracious initiative” is pure invention. God has never revealed this fable. This is Pelagianism by definition. This is what a Pelagian heretic affirms that salvation is possible through being “faithful to their own consciences.” Catholic dogmas, formal objects of divine and Catholic faith, affirm that supernatural faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff are necessary as necessities of means to obtain eternal salvation. Pope Francis is a Pelagian heretic. So where is his source material for this error? He cites as his authority the International Theological Commission which teaches:

10. Exclusivist ecclesiocentrism—the fruit of a specific theological system or of a mistaken understanding of the phrase extra ecclesiam nulla salus—is no longer defended by Catholic theologians after the clear statements of Pius XII and Vatican II the possibility of salvation for those who do not belong visibly to the Church (cf, e.g., Vatican II, LG 16; GS 22).

Christocentrism accepts that salvation may occur in religions, but it denies them any autonomy in salvation on account of the uniqueness and universality of the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ. This position is undoubtedly the one most commonly held by Catholic theologians, even though there are differences among them.

International Theological Commission, Christianity and the World Religions, 1997

This is the fundamental doctrine of Neo-Modernism which holds that Dogmas need not be taken in a literal sense because they are man-made and thus always undergoing evolutionary development in an effort to achieve a closer approximation of truth. Catholics believe, as St. Pope Pius X said, dogmas are “truths fallen from heaven.” Pope Pius XII never denied the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Those who claim he did are simply liars. Vatican II on the other hand did, and Vatican II cites as its authority for the denial of the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, the heretical 1949 Holy Office Letter that teaches that the one and only thing necessary for salvation is the ‘desire to do the will of a god who rewards and punishes’. This can be known by natural philosophy and is simply a necessary presupposition to receiving the Gospel message. The 1949 Holy Office Letter and Vatican II are teaching Pelagianism. The very error that Pope Francis attributes to faithful Catholics who believe the revealed truths of our faith and keep our immemorial traditions. Is it any wonder that Pope Francis who denies the necessity of faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and submission to the Roman Pontiff as necessary for salvation as necessities of means would then thoroughly corrupt the definition of “genuine evangelization”?

Catholics who “observe certain rules (like keeping the Ten Commandments or believing Catholic dogma) or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style (the “received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments” Trent)” are guilty of “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism... narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [that is a] manifestation of an anthropocentric immanentism... [whereby, it is] impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.”

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

What is “Genuine evangelization”? Pope Francis said: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. ..... I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope” (Interview with Italian journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari). He also said in answer to a question from a Lutheran girl, “It is not licit that you convince them of your faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path.” On another occasion he said, “Proselytism among Christians, therefore, in itself, is a grave sin.”

How is this possible? Proselytism means to seek converts. A “proselyte” is a convert. It was the Great Commission given by Jesus Christ to His Church: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16) The goal of “preaching” is to bring other to “believe” the revealed truth and become members of the Church through “baptism” so that they may become a “proselyte,” like one of the first deacons of the Church, Nicolas in Acts 6:5, and be “saved.”

“Genuine evangelization” is the act of proselytism and the fruit of evangelization is proselytes. “By their fruit you shall know them.” In South America alone there have been more than 40 million Catholics lost to the faith since Vatican II. This is the fruit of the “new evangelization” of Pope Francis which does not seek converts at all because he sees no reason to convert.

So who in end is “self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagian”? Prometheus was eternally punished for his hubris of defying the gods while Pope Francis does the same thing by “intransigently” overturning God’s revealed truth. His heresy is the fruit of his own “narcissistic and authoritarian elitism” to believe that he is better than God. He proposes an “adulterated form of Christianity” which explains why he promotes Catholic divorce. Heretics always permit divorce because marriage is the metaphor used by God to describe His relationship to His Church and to each of His faithful. The heretic cannot stand the integrity of the metaphor and always permits divorce. This is the unmistakable sign that Pope Francis is a heretic.

The Vatican Walls were not built for decoration. Columbus sailed West because the Muslim had complete control of the Mediterranean and land routes to the East.

The background of the Islamic state occupying large areas of Europe began when Muslim crusaders, called "Moors," invaded Spain in 711 AD.

The Muslim commander was named Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad. He landed, with his 80,000-man Umayyad army, at a place where there was a large mount, for which the Arabic word is "jabal."

The place took his name "Jabal Ṭāriq," or as it was later pronounced "Gibraltar."

Moorish cavalry, wielding curved scimitar swords, "went through all places like a desolating storm."

The Mozarabic Chronicle, 754 AD, recorded that thousands of churches were burned and: "God alone knows the number of the slain."

The Moors advanced into central France until they were defeated at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel (Hammer), the grandfather of Charlemagne in 732 AD.

In 846 AD, just 46 years after Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome's old St. Peter's Basilica, 11,000 Muslims on 73 ships invaded Rome and sacked the Basilica.

They looted the historic basilica and desecrated the grave of St. Peter.

Invaders then trashed the remains of St. Paul, which were in the historic church, San Paolo fuori le Mura (St Paul's outside the Walls.)

As a result of this invasion, Pope Leo IV built a massive wall, 39-feet high, to protect the Vatican from future Muslims raids.

A miracle saved Rome from being sacked again at the Battle of Ostia in 849 AD.

The battle was memorialized in a famous fresco by the painter Raphael.

Muslim Saracen pirates set sail from Sardina with a fleet to invade Rome.

Pope Leo rallied the cities of Amalfi, Gaeta and Naples to send ships to block the mouth of the Tiber River near Ostia.

Muslims fiercely attacked and were winning when suddenly a violent storm arose, dividing the Christians fleet from the Muslim attackers.

Christian ships made it back to port, but Muslim ship were decimated by the storm, and afterwards easily captured.

The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church Biographical Dictionary (1998, Salvador Miranda) described the Battle of Ostia:

"Danger from the Saracens was always imminent ...

In 849 the Pope appealed to the maritime cities of Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta and asked them to join their fleets in a league not only in defense of Rome, but of their own trade affected by the raids of the Arab pirates ...

Command was given to Cesare, son of the duke of Naples, who arranged for the fleets to meet at the entrance of the port of Ostia. Pope Leo IV imparted a solemn blessing ...

The Christian fleet was victorious helped by a terrible and sudden storm that destroyed much of the Saracen fleet, of which many of the crews were taken prisoners.

Pope Leo IV communicated to the emperor that this was necessary to raise a new wall in Rome to protect ... the Vatican ... completely enclosing the neighborhood ... Fortification was also extended to ... all the areas affected by the Saracen raids."

Muslims warriors continued to raid.

When Pope John VIII (872-882) failed in rallying a defense, he was forced to pay the Muslim pirates an annual extortion tribute payment of 25,000 mancusi of silver.

Muslims increased their plundering of the coasts of Italy.

In 883 AD, they destroyed the renown monastery of Monte Cassino, dragging its abbot, St. Bercharius, to the altar where they killed him.

They destroyed the abbey of San Vincezo in 884, and the abbies of Farfa and Subiaco in 890 AD.

Pope John X rallied Byzantines, Lombards, Gaeta, Capua, Salerno, Beneventum, and others Italian states and personally led the troops into the field to stop the Muslims at the Battle of Garigliano River in 916 AD.

Muslim warriors captured Reggio and Calabria, selling inhabitants into North African slavery.

In 1011, Muslims killed 2,000 in Cordoba, Spain.

In 1054, the Great Schism split the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic Church, further weakening resistance to Islamic advances.

Beginning in 1045, Christianized Vikings, called Normans, sailed into the Mediterranean.

Norman Richard I of Capua took control of Calabria in the "toe of Italy," and pushed back Muslims raiders.

In 1061, Normans Robert and Roger Guiscard recaptured Sicily from Muslim Saracens.

In 1066, the same year that William the Norman conquered Britain, Muslims massacred every one of the 5,000 Jews in Granada, Spain.

In 1189, Muslims raided Libson, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000 women and children.

In 1191, Muslims attacked Silves, Portugal, enslaving another 3,000.

The Catholic Orders of Montjoie, and Calatrava, were organized to ransom back Christian slaves.

The Spanish effort to drive liberate Spain from Islamic control was called the "reconquista" or re-conquest.

In 1085, the Kingdom of Castile freed Toledo from Muslim control.

The Spanish knight Rodrigo Diaz, known as "El Cid," drove Muslims out of Valencia in 1094.

In 1119, the Kingdom of Aragon fought and freed the city of Zaragoza from Islamic control.

Finally, after 700 years, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella drove Islamic occupiers out in 1492.

Columbus wrote in his El Libro de la Primera Navegacion, as recounted by Bartolome' de Las Casas':

"After Your Highnesses had made an end to the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe, and had concluded the war in the very great City of Granada, where in the present year, on the 2nd day of the month of January, I saw the Royal Standards of Your Highnesses placed by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra (which is the citadel of the said city), and I saw the Moorish King come forth to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses."

Columbus referenced how 40 years earlier, in 1453, Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, effectively cutting off the land trade routes to travel from Europe east to India and China.

This gave rise to Columbus and other European explorers searching for a sea route.

Columbus continued in his El Libro de la Primera Navegacion:

"And soon after in that same month, through information I had given to your Highnesses concerning the lands of India, and of a Prince who is called Gran Can (Khan), which is to say in our vernacular 'King of Kings,' how many times he and his predecessors had sent to Rome to seek doctors in our Holy Faith to instruct him therein, and that never had the Holy Father provided them, and thus so many people were lost through lapsing into idolatries and receiving doctrines of perdition; and Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes devoted to the Holy Christian Faith and the propagators thereof, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said regions of India, to see the said princes and peoples and lands and the dispositions of them and of all, and the manner in which may be undertaken their conversion to our Holy Faith ..."

Columbus concluded his address to the King and Queen of Spain:

"... And ordained that I should not go by land (the usual way) to the Orient (East), but by the route of the Occident (West), by which no one to this day knows for sure that anyone has gone."

Modern-day detractors who are critical of Columbus should instead be critical of the expansionist Islamic State, for it was only after the Turks cut off Europe's use of the land routes to India and China did Columbus seek a sea route.

Columbus gave the reason for his persistence in Libro de Las Profecias, written between his third and fourth voyages:

"I spent seven years in your royal Court arguing the case with so many persons of such authority and learned in all the arts, and in the end they concluded that all was idle nonsense ... yet the outcome will be the fulfillment of what our Redeemer Jesus Christ said ... that ... all that was written by him and by the prophets to be fulfilled."

He concluded:

"The Holy Scriptures testify ... that this world will come to an end ... St. Augustine says that the end of this world will occur in the seventh millennium following the Creation ... I have already said that for the execution of the enterprise of the Indies, neither reason, nor mathematics, nor world maps were profitable to me; rather the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled.

Homosexual Heresy - The Great Vatican Silence

· “We must clearly, explicitly and reservedly say: yes, there is a strong homosexual underground in the Church ... such circles in the Church strongly oppose the truth, morality and Revelation, cooperate with enemies of the Church [and] incite revolt against Peter of our times.

· “It is for [his] accuracy of opinion that he is so vehemently opposed, or even hated by some in the Church, especially by members of the homolobby which represents the very center of internal opposition against the Pope.”

· “If homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, [in Poland] in a dozen or so years they may destroy entire congregations and dioceses — like in the USA, where priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession.”

· “The global network of the homolobbies and homomafias must be counterbalanced by a network of honest people. An excellent tool that can be used here is the Internet, which makes it possible to create a global community of people concerned about the fate of the Church, who have resolved to oppose homoideology and homoheresy. The more we know, the more we can do.”

· “This is about the Church’s to be or not to be. If homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, in a dozen or so years they may destroy entire congregations and dioceses – like in the USA, where the priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession (particularly with reference to American Jesuits), or like in Ireland, where men are hesitant about joining the emptying seminaries for fear of being suspected of suffering from some disorders.”

· “The Church does not generate homosexuality, but falls victim to dishonest men with homosexual tendencies, who take advantage of its structures to follow their lowest instincts. Active homosexual priests are masters of camouflage. They are often exposed by accident. ... The real threat to the Church are cynical homosexual priests who take advantage of their functions on their own behalf, sometimes in an extraordinarily devious way. Such situations cause great suffering to the Church, the priestly community, the superiors. The problem is indeed a very difficult one.” F. Józef Augustyn

Fr. Dariusz Oko, Ph.D., WITH THE POPE AGAINST THE HOMOHERESIES

The “Living” Magisterium

First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely evolution.

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis

Worth recalling how the Catholic universities in the U.S. were destroyed. This was orchestrated by the president of Notre Dame University, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, who divorced Catholic education from Catholic doctrine and Catholic morality at the Land O’Lakes Conference in 1967. These schools have not simply been secularized but have in fact become anti-Catholic. A Catholic student is much more likely to keep his faith in a secular university than in a “Catholic” university. This revolution by Hesburgh was unopposed by the Catholic hierarchy!

50 years later, Catholic colleges still reeling from statement rejecting Church authority

LifeSiteNews | DENVER, Colorado | July 26, 2017– On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Land O’Lakes statement on Catholic education, Lincoln Bishop James Conley likened the controversial declaration to the ultimate rejection of God.

Bishop Conley described the statement as the “the ‘non serviam’ moment of many of America’s Catholic universities.”

“Non serviam,” a Latin phrase for “I shall not serve,” is typically attributed to Lucifer’s Old Testament words expressing his rejection of serving God. The prophet Jeremiah also used it to describe the Hebrew people’s disobedience to God.

“The Land O’Lakes statement proposed to redefine the mission of the Catholic university,” Bishop Conley said. “It rejected the authority of the Church, and of her doctrinal teaching.”

“It rejected the idea that faith and reason work best in communion with one another,” he continued. “It prioritized the standards and culture of secular universities over the authentic mission of Catholic education. It was a statement of self-importance, and self-assertion.”

This self-importance “defies an authentically Catholic view of education,” he said.

The statement “declared that Catholic universities would become independent from the hierarchy of the Church, from any obligation to orthodoxy, and from the authentic spirituality of the Church,” the bishop went on to say.

Speaking July 5 to teachers and principals at the Regional Catholic Classical Schools Conference at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in Denver, Bishop Conley said, “Fifty years ago, a ‘declaration of independence’ in Catholic education transformed the Church.”

The document came from some 26 presidents and administrators from 10 institutions who convened at a retreat center in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, for the North American summit for the International Federation of Catholic Universities. Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president and head of the federation at the time, had summoned the attendees.

The meeting’s purpose was to establish a vision for Catholic higher education in the wake of Vatican II. The “Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University” was signed July 23, 1967.

It is considered by many to have devastated Catholic education because of the ensuing loss of Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities. Bishop Conley spoke about the ripple effects on the U.S. church.

“Land O’Lakes sought to make many parts of the Catholic university indistinguishable from secular counterparts,” Bishop Conley said. “And that has impacted the entire Church in the United States.”

In the 50 years since the statement, he said, secularization in Catholic universities has caused secularization in many Catholic elementary and high schools. There are textbooks that don’t reflect Catholic perspectives and, he said, “teachers who have, regrettably, not been trained to think or teach from the heart and wisdom of the Church.”

“An entire generation of bishops, priests, religious, and lay Catholics — myself included — were formed in the wake of Land O’Lakes,” stated Bishop Conley. “And we formed another generation, which now forms another, all of us doing the best we can, but regrettably, without being exposed to much of truth, goodness, and beauty of the Church’s tradition.” […..]

Catholic Feasts in Thanksgiving for Deliverance from our Enemies

On July 22, 1496, the Christian forces under the command of the great Hungarian John Hunyadi crushed the Turkish Moslem forces of Sultan Mehmet II at the Battle of Belgrade. The news of this great victory reached Rome on August 6th and in gratitude, Pope Callistus III elevated the ancient Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord to the universal Church. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary on September 12 commemorates the victory of the Christian forces at the Battle of Vienna. September 12 is also the anniversary of the Battle of Muret where Simon de Montfort assisted by St. Dominic with a force of 870 Crusaders crushed the 40,000 man Albigensian army of Raymond VI. The Feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7th, commemorates the Catholic victory at the battle of Lepanto.

The "received and approved" Roman rite of Mass 'customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments."

Who does not know that what has been handed down by Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to the Roman Church is still observed unto this day, and must be observed by all?

Pope Innocent I (402-417)

"We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic."

Now our Divine Lord, speaking to the woman of Samaria, said, ‘You adore that which you know not;’ because they were ‘an idolatrous people,’ of mixed race, partly of Israel, partly of the nations brought and planted in a portion of the Promised Land. They had intermarried with the people of Israel, they had received the books of the Pentateuch, and they had a sort of fragmentary knowledge of the old revelation; but they did not rightly know the True God; and so much as they did know of the True God, they did not know truly. Therefore they could not worship Him ‘in spirit and in truth.’ For this cause our Divine Lord said, ‘You worship that which you know not;’ and He then further said, ‘We adore that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews.’ The full and pure light of revelation is in Jerusalem. The true knowledge of the True God is with us; and yet the time is coming when ‘they that adore shall adore neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but everywhere in spirit and in truth.’

From these words I draw one conclusion, namely, that knowledge is the first and vital condition of all true worship. You will remember how S. Paul at Athens found an altar ‘to the unknown God,’ and how he commended the people for their intentions of piety, but reproved them for their ignorance. He said, ‘Him whom you ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you.’ Without knowledge there can be no adoration ‘in spirit and in truth;’ and just in the measure of our knowledge will our adoration be more or less perfect, that is, intelligent and spiritual. If our knowledge be full and perfect, so will our adoration be. From this let us draw two consequences, and then pass on.

The first is this. How great is the superstition of those who for centuries have pleased themselves by accusing the Catholic Church of teaching that ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion.’ The other consequence is: that the mother of all true knowledge relating to God, and therefore the mother of all true worship, is the Holy Catholic Church alone. Is it not a masterpiece of craft that the father of lies should have so darkened the understandings of our adversaries as to lead them into the profound superstition of believing that we keep people in ignorance in order to make them devout? My purpose, then, will be to trace out the connection between what the world scornfully calls dogma and devotion, or the worship of God ‘in spirit and in truth.’

1. Now, first of all, let us see what is dogma. In the mouth of the world it means some positive, imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church wore to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the conscience of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Glories of the Sacred Heart, Dogma the Source of Devotion, 1876

Gee, a “60-year-old plan”? Wasn't that about the time leading up to Vatican II?

And yet, now, as the October Amazon Synod draws near, and Catholic theologians increasingly find its working document a text based not on Christo-centric Christian revelation, but on observation of and respect for nature without any direct mention of Christ and his saving mission of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, this same Vigano is deeply troubled.

“Where is the Christian message here?” Vigano asks me, fixing me with his intense gaze under bushy eyebrows.

And he gives his own answer: “In fact, the figure of Christ is absent. The Synod working document testifies to the emergence of a post-Christian Catholic theology, now, in this moment. And this is very troubling. It is against everything I have worked for and believed for all my life.

“Let’s consider the history of the Jesuits,” Vigano continues. “That is something I am studying now with great care. In fact, if you would like to know the synthesis of my thought, it is this: What we are now seeing is the triumph of a 60-year-old plan, the successful execution of a well-thought out plan to bring a new sort of thinking into the heart of the Church, a thinking rooted in elements of Liberation Theology containing strands of Marxism, little interested in traditional Catholic liturgy or morality or theology, but rather focused on ‘praxis’ in the field of social justice. And now this plan has achieved one of its supreme goals, with a Jesuit on the See of Peter…”

Robert Moynihan, Inside the Vatican, after recent conversation with Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, July 30, 2019

Comments from those who have read the Third Secret of Fatima:

Ø “I cannot say anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other, logically – although I must say nothing – would have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis added] – Joseph Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated Sister Lucia about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2, 1952)[4]

Ø “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they?

Ø If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.” [5] [emphasis added] – Fr. Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian priest and official Fatima archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled access to Sister Lucia)

Ø “The Secret of Fatima speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis added] – Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, d. 2005 (former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 10, 1984)

Ø “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Silvio Oddi, d. 2001 (Vatican diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew certain details concerning the Third Secret) [7]

Ø “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]

Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.

Posted by OnePeterFive

‘A Fish Rots From the Head’

I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people (excepting traditional Catholics) to find Jesus in their own community. There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s not spend our time on those. Rather, let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.

Pope Francis, Ecumenical Dinner Meeting with garden variety of Protestant ministers, June 23, 2014

The Voters have “become so corrupt” as to “entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals.”

If the people have a sense of moderation and responsibility, and are most careful guardians of the common weal, it is right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the government of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people become so corrupt as to sell their votes, and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals; then the right of appointing their public officials is rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves to a few good men.

St. Augustine, De Lib. Arb. i, 6

Not long after becoming Pope, Bergoglio privately got in touch with one of the liberation theologians most reviled by Rome – the former Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff, who was condemned to ‘obsequious silence’ and suspended from his religions duties by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for his theology (i.e.: liberation theology and neo-pagan Gaia earth worship ecology). Pope Francis asked Boff to send him his writings on eco-theology in preparation for a major encyclical Francis is considering on environmental matters.

Paul Valley, from his book, Pope Francis: Untying the Knot, 2013

Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si, quoting, without attribution, the liberation theologian, pantheist, earth-worshiping, neo-pagan, ex-priest, Leonardo Boff’s book, “Cry of the earth, Cry of the Poor.”

God, who is the perfect and infinite intelligence—that is, the infinite and perfect reason—created man to His own likeness, and gave him a reasonable intelligence, like His own. As the face in the mirror answers to the face of the beholder, so the intelligence of man answers to the intelligence of God. It is His own likeness. What, then, is the revelation of faith, but the illumination of the Divine reason poured out upon the reason of man? The revelation of faith is no discovery which the reason of man has made for himself by induction, or by deduction, or by analysis, or by synthesis, or by logical process, or by experimental chemistry. The revelation of faith is a discovery of itself by the Divine Reason, the unveiling of the Divine Intelligence, and the illumination flowing from it cast upon the intelligence of man; and if so, I would ask, how can there be variance or discord? How can the illumination of the faith diminish the stature of the human reason? How can its rights be interfered with? How can its prerogatives be violated? Is not the truth the very reverse of all this? Is it not the fact that the human reason is perfected and elevated above itself by the illumination of faith?

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Revolt of the Intelligence Against God

All law proceeds from the reason and will of the lawgiver; the Divine and natural laws from the reasonable will of God; the human law from the will of man, regulated by reason. Now just as human reason and will, in practical matters, may be made manifest by speech, so may they be made known by deeds: since seemingly a man chooses as good that which he carries into execution. But it is evident that by human speech, law can be both changed and expounded, in so far as it manifests the interior movement and thought of human reason. Wherefore by actions also, especially if they be repeated, so as to make a custom, law can be changed and expounded; and also something can be established which obtains force of law, in so far as by repeated external actions, the inward movement of the will, and concepts of reason are most effectually declared; for when a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law, abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Just insider confirmation to what is common knowledge: Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby

Francis is the first ever pope to use the word "gay." He has LGBTQ friends, and he has appointed many LGBTQ friendly and supportive cardinals, archbishops and bishops.... Catholics who reject LGBTQ are "homophobic."

Fr. James Martin, S.J., Homosexual Jesuit priest sermon at a LGBTQ Novus Ordo celebration

US bishops claim $750K grant to pro-LGBT org does not violate Catholic teaching

LifeSiteNews | Lepanto Institute | July 5, 2019— A week and a half ago, the Lepanto Institute published an article illustrating the rampant promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism by an organization called the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN). The US Conference of Catholic Bishops' anti-poverty program, Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is providing a strategic grant of $750,000 to ISN over the next three years.

A supporter of the Lepanto Institute contacted the USCCB to ask why the CCHD is providing three-quarters of a million dollars to an organization so steeped in the promotion of grave sin and depravity. Alexandra Carroll, the USCCB's Communications Manager for Social Mission, responded by claiming that ISN had not violated Catholic teaching, and in fact asserted that ISN's pro-LGBT conferences to high school children and young adults conformed with the Catechism's admonition that "every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided" [Catechism 2358].

Carroll's response, which is provided in full at the end of this article, begins with an attempt to provide credentials that would indicate the merits of the organization itself. For instance, Carroll says:

ISN has been working … in partnership with the Society of Jesus as well as the larger Church — including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops through their core membership with the Justice for Immigrants Campaign, as well as Church leaders like Bishop Gorge Murry, SJ.

At the outset, this would seem like more of an indictment of the organization than an acquittal. But it is interesting to note that in mentioning Bp. Murry, Carroll fails to mention that another prominent Jesuit has worked very closely with ISN, and that is the notorious Fr. James Martin, SJ. The agenda in this grant is already quite evident.

But in the second paragraph of Carroll's response, she explains very clearly how the $750,000 grant will help expand ISN's push for homosexual and transsexual inclusion in the Church. She says:

Through their Strategic National Grant, ISN will be enabled to significantly expand their advocacy capacity — forming leaders, networking and animating Jesuit institutions, and building on the success of existing ISN programs such as the Campaign for Hospitality and the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

As we explained in our initial article on this grant, ISN's Ignatian Family Teach-In is the program through which ISN has been promoting homosexuality and transgender ideologies to young people. For instance, in 2018, ISN's Teach-In workshop titled, "Transgender Voices in the Church," which was convened by the Vatican-condemned New Ways Ministry, specifically states its intention to send participants away with resources for conducting transgender activism. The description for this workshop says:

Catholics increasingly face questions of transgender inclusion, intersecting with issues like race and sexual orientation that compound marginalization. This interactive session will examine how trans voices are both present and silent in our communities. Participants will leave with resources for building trans justice in their communities.

So, as it stands, CCHD fully acknowledges and admits that the $750k collected from pew-sitting Catholics is going directly to conference workshops just like this one.

And appallingly, the CCHD claims that workshops such as this are NOT contrary to Catholic teaching. [.....]

The typical bishop today has more in common with Judas than with Jesus Christ!

With the insufficient data given us by the Gospels, it is difficult to analyze the character and motives of Judas Iscariot. He is, and will remain to the end of time, a mystery of evil. It is frightening to compare the pinnacle of greatness to which he was called with the abyss of wickedness to which he plunged. What could have led him to such depths of evil?

As we have seen, Judas was a thief, as well as an opportunist who joined Christ because he believed that he was the Messias and that, as one of his earliest followers, he would assure himself an important place in his kingdom. On the one hand, Judas must have been deeply impressed by Christ’s miracles, but, on the other hand, repelled by his refusal to accept honors, by his teaching of humility, charity, and self-sacrifice, by his poverty and complete indifference to worldly goods and comforts, his revelation of a Messianic kingdom completely devoid of all that Judas imagined it should be, and, above all, his adoption of the role of a suffering and dying Messias.

In any case, the day finally arrived when Judas no longer believed in Christ or loved him. The latter period of Judas’ life is a frightening illustration of the power of the human will to resist grace. Judas looked upon Christ day after day; he talked with him and supped with him; he slept alongside him under the stars at night; he listened to him teach the lessons of his Kingdom; he watched him work miracles of compassion; he heard him denounce the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees; he trudged wearily alongside him as he climbed the steep hills of Judea to the holy city for the great feasts of the religious year; he enjoyed all the intimacies of a friend and confidant of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And yet, after more than two years of this, he refuses to open the doors of his soul to the rays of Christ’s divine grace. The evil that Judas did was compounded a thousandfold by the fact that it was conceived and born in the very presence of Jesus Christ.

Rev. Ralph Gorman, C.P., The Last Hours of Jesus

COMMENT: This article is good for a laugh if anyone is interested in reading about Archbishop Charles Caput being "convicted" as a "schismmatic." This historian is probably about as competent as Chaput in making the determination of schism. Obviously, Villanova hires incompetent historians just like the Novus Ordo church appoints incompetent bishops. Schism has canonical, doctrinal and moral implications. This historian demonstrates incompetency in all three fields, but then again, so did Chaput as demonstrated in his exchanges with Fr. Samuel Waters. This historian does not even know the theological definition of "devotion," he thinks the pope is the proximate rule of faith and therefore, whatever he says or does is what every other Catholic must say and do.

Villanova historian says Chaput, Cordileone, and Strickland are ‘devout schismatics’

CatholicNewsAgency | Denver, Colo. | Jul 18, 2019 - A Church historian at Philadelphia’s Villanova University

has said three U.S. bishops are “devout schismatics” who try to diminish the authority of Pope Francis.

“They are devout in the sense that they publicly display their preference for a traditionalist Church and its devotions, such as the rosary. They are schismatics because they openly promote the undermining of the bishop of Rome among the Catholic faithful,” Massimo Faggioli wrote in a July 16 essay for La Croix magazine.

Faggioli made specific mention of three U.S. bishops among those he called “devout schismatics”: Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, and Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas.

The historian said the “schismatic instincts” of those bishops were manifested in August 2018, when they “sided with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to Washington who called on Francis to resign.”

Viganò released on Aug. 25, 2018 a “testimony,” which, among other things, accused Pope Francis of ignoring warnings about former cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual deviancy, and then raising McCarrick’s status within the Vatican.

After the testimony was released, Strickland issued a statement calling Viganò’s allegations “credible,” and Cordileone said he could confirm that some of Viganò’s statements were true.

Contrary to Faggioli’s claim, however, Chaput did not endorse Viganò’s allegations. A spokesman told reporters in August that Chaput “enjoyed working with Archbishop Viganò during his tenure as Apostolic Nuncio,” adding that Chaput found Viganò's time at the nunciature “to be marked by integrity to the Church.”

However, the spokesman said that Chaput could not comment “on Archbishop Viganò’s recent testimonial as it is beyond his personal experience.”

In July 19 comments to CNA, Faggioli said that he “did not state that the Archbishop called on Francis to resign or that he created a schism, only that he vouched for Viganò’s integrity. That seems like siding with Archbishop Viganò especially in the context of his continued silence about Viganò’s request for the resignation of the pope.”

Faggioli added that “Viganò put pressure on the pope to resign. One would expect a bishop - and especially an archbishop metropolitan who has twice received the pallium, a sign of special unity with Christ and of communion with the Successor of Peter - to defend the pope’s integrity and to say that no one has the right to ask the pope to resign.”

Shortly after Pope Francis was elected in 2013, Chaput told radio personality Hugh Hewitt that the election had made him “extraordinarily happy, because quite honestly, he is the man I was hoping would be Pope eight years ago.”

Two years later, Chaput hosted Pope Francis in Philadelphia for the 2015 World Meeting of Families. Reflecting in 2018 on that meeting, Chaput wrote that the pope’s “time with us was filled with powerful public moments and deeply grace filled intimate gatherings hallmarked by an overarching spirit of mercy, compassion, and charity.”

“[Pope Francis] has repeatedly challenged us to bear witness to Christ through concrete action—by serving the poor, by helping immigrants, by preserving families, and by protecting the sanctity of life. It’s the kind of challenge we can and should answer with a hearty yes each day,” Chaput added.

In his essay criticizing “devout schismatics,” Faggioli wrote that “dissent against this pope has become radicalized with schismatic instincts because this kind of political devotion is more about a partisan ideology than about the Church. Catholicism was exposed to ideological manipulation by those who do not really care for the Gospel, but who are more interested in a particular conservative political culture.”

Chaput, among those identified as a “devout schismatic,” has frequently emphasized his unwillingness to align with a political party, and criticized partisanship within the Church.

In 2016 he criticized Catholics, especially politicians, who accept “the transfer of our real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new ‘Church’ of our ambitions and appetites,’ in order to achieve political or personal goals. he group of those who do so “cuts across...both major political parties,” Chaput said.

The Church's canon law defines schism, the charge Faggioli makes against the three bishops, as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”

Do not work together with unbelievers.

St. Paul, II Corinthians 6:14

The Greatest Error of Vatican II

“It was declared at the Second Vatican Council that atheists too are not excluded from this possibility of salvation… The only necessary condition which is recognized here is the necessity of faithfulness and obedience to the individual’s own personal conscience. This optimism concerning salvation appears to me one of the most noteworthy results of the Second Vatican Council. For when we consider the officially received theology concerning these questions, which was more or less traditional right down to the Second Vatican Council, we can only wonder how few controversies arose during the Council with regard to these assertions of optimism concerning salvation, and wonder too at how little opposition the conservative wing of the Council brought to bear on this point, how all this took place without any setting of the stage or any great stir even though this doctrine marked a far more decisive phase in the development of the Church’s conscious awareness of her Faith than, for instance, the doctrine of collegiality in the Church, the relationship between scripture and tradition, the acceptance of the new exegesis, etc.”

Fr. Karl Rahner, The Anonymous Christian

Once again, the Novus Order Regime in Rome endorses the United Nations call for One World Government based upon a “Genuine and Profound Humanism”!

As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago.” […….] Here, continuity is essential, because policies related to climate change and environmental protection cannot be altered with every change of government. Results take time and demand immediate outlays which may not produce tangible effects within any one government’s term. That is why, in the absence of pressure from the public and from civic institutions, political authorities will always be reluctant to intervene, all the more when urgent needs must be met. To take up these responsibilities and the costs they entail, politicians will inevitably clash with the mindset of short-term gain and results which dominates present-day economics and politics. But if they are courageous, they will attest to their God-given dignity and leave behind a testimony of selfless responsibility. A healthy politics is sorely needed, capable of reforming and coordinating institutions, promoting best practices and overcoming undue pressure and bureaucratic inertia. It should be added, though, that even the best mechanisms can break down when there are no worthy goals and values, or a genuine and profound humanism to serve as the basis of a noble and generous society.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On earth worship, global warming, etc.

Dogma - The Proximate Rule of Faith, the Formal Object of Divine & Catholic Faith

Now, first of all, let us see what is dogma. In the mouth of the world it means some positive, imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fullness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the- Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the consciences of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Glories of the Sacred Heart

The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.

Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861

St. Francis of Assisi, Prophecy on the "destroyer" pope.

The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of the wicked will increase. The devils will have unusual power, the immaculate purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be very few Christians who will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with loyal hearts and perfect charity. At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavour to draw many into error and death. Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it. There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God. Then our Rule and manner of life will be violently opposed by some, and terrible trials will come upon us. Those who are found faithful will receive the crown of life; but woe to those who, trusting solely in their Order, shall fall into tepidity, for they will not be able to support the temptations permitted for the proving of the elect. Those who preserve their fervour and adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and persecutions as rebels and schismatics; for their persecutors, urged on by the evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying such pestilent men from the face of the earth. But the Lord will be the refuge of the afflicted, and will save all who trust in Him. And in order to be like their Head, these, the elect, will act with confidence, and by their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish rather than consent to falsehood and perfidy. Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Our Lord Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.

Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis Of Assisi, (R. Washbourne, Paternoster Row, London, 1882) pg. 248-250

“My brethren, let us be ever on the watch to drive away temptations, throwing them off from our heart as we would throw off a piece of red-hot iron from our flesh. Fly even the slightest occasions of such thoughts, and at the same time strengthen yourselves by thinking on death and on hell; but above all, on the passion of Jesus Christ, and say to Him in the depth of your heart: ‘Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear’.”

St. Camillus de Lellis

Health experts: ‘Transgender’ men will bear children within next decade

LifeSiteNews — Health experts in the UK predict that men, and those who are born as males but who identify as females, will be able to receive womb transplants and bear children within a decade.

Doctors in Europe have already successfully transplanted wombs into wombless women who have gone on to bear healthy children.  

Now ‘male-to-female transgenders’ are demanding that they be able to receive womb transplants too, at the government health service’s expense.

Dr. Francoise Shelfield, an infertility specialist and lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at University College London pointed out that transgenders’ right to such medical services is “enshrined in legislation.” [....]

What is accepted by grant of privilege or Indult can be taken away at anytime for any reason and there is no moral or legal recourse! Hence, Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission refused any offer of Indult by the local ordinary for what are necessary attributes of the Faith cannot be the subject of an Indult or grant of priviledge!

Another Traditional Society Being Wrecked by Bergoglian Commissar

Traditional Society of Familia Christi by the papal commissioner in fact dissolved.
EponymousFlower | Rome | Tuesday, July 9, 2019
The Commissar appointed by Pope Francis has de facto dissolved a traditional fraternity. Not one reason for the drastic measure was mentioned. The Priestly Societt of Familia Christi is the first genuinely Italian Ecclesia Dei community. This is the name given to the traditional communities that are committed to the traditional form of the Roman rite and are therefore subordinate to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, today a division of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It also appears to be the cause of the profound aversion to the Society which progressive Italian Churches hold against them and the Archbishop, who recognized them as ecclesiastical. [....]

On December 1, 2018, the Prefect of the Roman Congregation of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer SJ, appointed the Auxiliary Bishop of Rome, Archbishop Daniele Libanori SJ, as "the Commissioner Plenipotentiary sent by the Holy See". Father Libanori, co-brother of the Pope in the Order of the Jesuits, was appointed as auxiliary bishop by Francis in November 2017.
The Commissar, with all authority, took over the leadership of the Society with the task of clarifying whether "the elements and conclusions" that had emerged in the course of a canonical visitation were well founded, and "if necessary to establish future paths for the fraternity".
What "elements and conclusions" were found, is still unknown.
Marco Tosatti wrote:

"And again the question arises: what such a serious thing can these priests have done to attract the canonical attention of a church, such as the Franciscans of the Immaculate, the Gospel of the Gospels, or the Sisters of Laval, to any kind of doctrinal and theologically approves and favors bizarre and affirms prelates without hesitating in important and delicate offices, which speak out for the gay marriage and the women's priesthood. "

[....]

Just insider confirmation to what is already common knowledge: Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby

Francis is the first ever pope to use the word "gay." He has LGBTQ friends, and he has appointed many LGBTQ friendly and supportive cardinals, archbishops and bishops.... Catholics who reject LGBTQ are "homophobic."

Fr. James Martin, S.J., Homosexual Jesuit priest sermon at a LGBTQ Novus Ordo celebration

Now to the Homophilic USCCB

US bishops claim $750K grant to pro-LGBT org does not violate Catholic teaching

LifeSiteNews | Lepanto Institute | July 5, 2019— A week and a half ago, the Lepanto Institute published an article illustrating the rampant promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism by an organization called the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN). The US Conference of Catholic Bishops' anti-poverty program, Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is providing a strategic grant of $750,000 to ISN over the next three years.

A supporter of the Lepanto Institute contacted the USCCB to ask why the CCHD is providing three-quarters of a million dollars to an organization so steeped in the promotion of grave sin and depravity. Alexandra Carroll, the USCCB's Communications Manager for Social Mission, responded by claiming that ISN had not violated Catholic teaching, and in fact asserted that ISN's pro-LGBT conferences to high school children and young adults conformed with the Catechism's admonition that "every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided" [Catechism 2358].

Carroll's response, which is provided in full at the end of this article, begins with an attempt to provide credentials that would indicate the merits of the organization itself. For instance, Carroll says:

ISN has been working … in partnership with the Society of Jesus as well as the larger Church — including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops through their core membership with the Justice for Immigrants Campaign, as well as Church leaders like Bishop Gorge Murry, SJ.

At the outset, this would seem like more of an indictment of the organization than an acquittal. But it is interesting to note that in mentioning Bp. Murry, Carroll fails to mention that another prominent Jesuit has worked very closely with ISN, and that is the notorious Fr. James Martin, SJ. The agenda in this grant is already quite evident.

But in the second paragraph of Carroll's response, she explains very clearly how the $750,000 grant will help expand ISN's push for homosexual and transsexual inclusion in the Church. She says:

Through their Strategic National Grant, ISN will be enabled to significantly expand their advocacy capacity — forming leaders, networking and animating Jesuit institutions, and building on the success of existing ISN programs such as the Campaign for Hospitality and the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

As we explained in our initial article on this grant, ISN's Ignatian Family Teach-In is the program through which ISN has been promoting homosexuality and transgender ideologies to young people. For instance, in 2018, ISN's Teach-In workshop titled, "Transgender Voices in the Church," which was convened by the Vatican-condemned New Ways Ministry, specifically states its intention to send participants away with resources for conducting transgender activism. The description for this workshop says:

Catholics increasingly face questions of transgender inclusion, intersecting with issues like race and sexual orientation that compound marginalization. This interactive session will examine how trans voices are both present and silent in our communities. Participants will leave with resources for building trans justice in their communities.

So, as it stands, CCHD fully acknowledges and admits that the $750k collected from pew-sitting Catholics is going directly to conference workshops just like this one.

And appallingly, the CCHD claims that workshops such as this are NOT contrary to Catholic teaching. [.....]

Eleison Comments # 626

Further Undermining

Catholics! Cut the electronics out!
All real reality they put to rout.

These “Comments” have more than once recommended the Internet site of the American commentator on worldwide political and economic developments, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, because he may lack the fullness of perspective provided by the one true religion, but he sees a great deal of worldly truth, and he tells it on his site – paulcraigroberts.org – to the point that one asks oneself, when is he going to be assassinated? But murder is always messy, and the murder of a messenger always risks giving credit to his message. Be that as it may, Dr Roberts’ articles are widely read all over the world, and a recent article reinforces on a very practical level the starting of Fr Calderón’s dissection of the “new man” of Vatican II (see these “Comments” of June 22) by modern man’s being cut off from objective truth by subjectivism. Read Dr Roberts’ article, slightly resumed below, for a typical advance today of that cutting off—

Dr Roberts begins by quoting a truth-telling site, Zero Hedge, which reports that “the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality. “I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the U.S.A. House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything. The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, than things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100–1.” . . . . Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events. Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what is real and what is fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leaders’ deceits, we come to believe in nothing.

For instance, two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke. On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-16/hedge-fund-cio-i-dont-think-public-aware-whats-coming Dr Roberts goes on, Why is it that tech geeks take pride in developing technology that makes truth even harder to find? What is wrong with their character as humans that they create methods of destroying the ability to know truth? How is this different from releasing an undetectable substance into the air that wipes out life? The only use of this technology is to allow the police state complete control. It is now possible to put words and deeds into the mouths and actions of anyone, and to use the faked evidence to convict them of the simulated crime. Without truth, there is no liberty, no freedom, no independent thought, and no awareness. There is only The Matrix. How has America so lost its way that corporations, investors, and scientists are motivated to develop truth-destroying technology? Aren’t these mindless idiots our real enemies? The most difficult thing in the world today is to ascertain the truth. And Dr Roberts’ article ends with a plea for support, which he surely deserves.

Readers, hold on to truth for dear life, because it is being undermined fast, as the world is putting liberty in front of truth, and fantasy in front of reality. The consequences will be humanly disastrous for us all.

Kyrie eleison

Bishop Richard Williamson

Feminism Unmasked

It’s called ‘She Guardian,’ by Russian artist Dashi Namdakov who spent the last two years sculpting the towering figure out of four massive tons of bronze. The statue measures 36-feet high. Mr. Namdakov says the attention-grabbing piece is intended to express a sense of “maternal protectiveness.” The feminist work is “symbolic of female strength and a desire to care for the young.” But, with a mother like this, it is not surprising that there are no pups being cared for in the sculpture for the vast majority of feminists are sterile. The demonic statue by an odd coincidence has been erected in a place of precedence at the Marble Arch located opposite the North-East corner of Hyde Park in London (Buckingham Palace opposite the South-East corner of the park). The Marble Arch is where the infamous Tyburn gallows was located for the public execution of common criminals along with faithful Catholics. It is to Tyburn that Catholic recusants, such as St. Edmund Campion, Blessed Ralph Sherwin, Blessed Alexander Briant, St. Oliver Plunkett, etc., etc., etc., were literally dragged from Newgate Prison to be ‘hung, drawn and quartered.’ This rabid feminist bitch is directly overlooking the hallowed ground of Catholic martyrs. It only needs a sign warning the public not to pet or feed the animal.

A Lesson in Mercy, Purity, Defense of Truth and the Reward of those who trust in God

St. John Gualbert, a Florentine soldier of nobility, forgave the murderer of his brother who had pleaded for mercy in the name of Jesus Christ. John then went to the church of San Miniato which was near at hand, and as he was adoring the image of Christ crucified, the head of Christ turned toward him. He immediately laid aside his military clothing and embraced the monastic life to become a soldier for Christ. St. John would eventually become the great reformer of monastic life when he laid the foundations of his Order under the Rule of St. Benedict at Vallombrosa as directed by St. Romuald of Camaldoli under divine inspiration.

St. John, having denounced the simoniac bishop of Florence, Peter of Pavia, led the people of Florence in refusing to have communion with him. Peter responded by killing all his opponents including every one of the monks at San Salvi during their Night Office. During the next four years the case was appealed to Rome and St. Peter Damien conducted the investigation with full authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, Alexander II. St. Peter Damien, invoking the principle that no inferior has the right to depose their superiors sided with the cause of Peter of Pavia.

Taking the defense of the monks was none other than Hildebrand, later to become Pope St. Gregory VII. Since the majority of bishops sided with Peter of Pavia, Pope Alexander would not depose him, but took the monks under his personal protection. Still the matter was unresolved because the Florentines refused to accept Peter of Pavia.

In Lent 1067 under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, St. John gave his consent to a trial of fire as a means to provide testimony of the truth of the accusation brought by him against the Bishop of Florence. One of St. John’s monks, Peter by name, and since then known as Peter Igneus, walked slowly before the eyes of the multitude through an immense fire without receiving the smallest injury. Heaven having spoken, the bishop was deposed by Rome and ended his days a happy penitent in the very monastery of St. John at Settimo where the trial of fire took place.

Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of St. John Gualbert

The attack against the Catholic Faith through the corruption of architecture has been going on for a long time!

“There is no higher act in the Christian religion,” says Father Le Brun, “than the Sacrifice of the Mass; the greater portion of the other sacraments, and nearly all the offices and ceremonies of the church, are only the means or the preparation to celebrate or participate in it worthily.” Such being the case, it is but natural that the place where this most holy sacrifice is to he offered up, should be set apart and railed off from less sacred portions of the church, and we find this to have been the case in all ages, in all styles, and in all countries professing the Catholic faith down to a comparatively very recent period, when in many places all feelings of sanctity, tradition, and reverence, seemed to have been superseded by ignorant innovation and love of change.

It will be shown in this work that the idea of room-worship, and the all-seeing principles, is a perfect novelty. Those indeed who would make the mass a sight, are only to be compared to the innovators of the l6th century, who made it essential to be heard; those who compiled the Book of Common Prayer converted the mass into all-hearing service ; this was the great object of the vernacular change, that people might hear the priest; they were to be edified by what he said, more than what he did; the sacrificial act was merged into the audible recitation of prayers and exhortations; for this reason the altars, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, were to be moved down from their eastern position to the entrance of the chancel, to enable the people to hear ; this led to the demolition of stone altars and the substitution of tables. For this reason the whole congregation crowd into the choirs of the cathedrals, leaving the rest of the church deserted. For this reason, in large parochial churches, the chancel has been often entirely cut off, and a portion of the nave glazed in and reduced to such a size that the people could hear the clergyman; these were all natural consequences of the change of principle consequent on the translation of the mass, and the altered nature of its celebration. That churches are now built after the old tradition for the service of the separated portion of the English Church, is purely owing to an internal revival of Catholic feelings and traditions in that body: the cause is a return to Catholic truth and reverence; the effect is the erection of churches in accordance with those feelings, it has been a charge and reproach made by Catholics against their separated countrymen, that the old fabrics were unsuited to their service, and unquestionably, on the principle that it was essential for every one to hear, they were so. But I will ask these new-fashioned men if it is indispensable for every one to see, how much better are they adapted for modern Catholic rites? They become as unfit for one as the other, for it is unquestionable, that comparatively very few persons in these cruciform churches could obtain a view of the altar, and this independent of any screen-work, the disposition of the pillars intersecting and shutting out all those who are stationed in the aisles and transepts.

I have always imagined that one great distinction between the Protestant and Catholic services was this, that the former was essentially a hearing service, at which only a comparatively few persons could assist, while at the latter many thousands, or, indeed, hundreds of thousands could unite in one great act of adoration and praise, concentrating their thoughts and intentions with the priest who is offering at God’s altar, although he is far shut off from their vision. [……]

Christians of the present time have but little idea of the solemnity of the ancient worship of the Catholic church; ordained ministers were alone permitted to fill the humblest offices about the sanctuary, every object connected with the sacred rites were considered deserving of the most loving care; even in the very early ages, the vessels of the altar were usually of precious metals, and studded with jewels. The books of the holy gospels were written in golden text on purple vellum, bound in plates of silver encasing ivory diptychs, and deposited in portable shrines, like relics. Though all this should fill us with admiration, there is nothing to excite surprise, when we reflect on the very sacred nature of the Christian mysteries—no sign typical and prophetic, as under the Mosaic law, but our blessed Lord truly present and abiding in the temple in the holy sacrament of the altar, - it is by no means wonderful that the Christian worship should assume a form of solemnity formerly unknown, and we are only astounded that with the perpetuation of the doctrine the practice of external solemnity should have so lamentably become decayed in the latter times; indeed, so sacred, so awful, so mysterious is the sacrifice of the mass, that if men were seriously to reflect on what it really consists, so far from advocating mere rooms for its celebration, they would hasten to restore the reverential arrangements of Catholic antiquity, and instead of striving for front seats and first places, they would hardly feel worthy to occupy the remotest corner of the temple. The form and arrangement of the ancient churches originated from the deepest feelings of reverence; the altar, or place of sacrifice, was accessible only to those who ministered, it was enclosed by pillars and veils; the sanctuary was veiled, the choir was enclosed, and the faithful adored at a respectful distance. All this, and the custom of every succeeding century, is in utter opposition to the modern all-seeing principle, and which, if it is carried out, ends in an absurd conclusion; for if it be essential for every worshipper to see, even a level room would not answer the purpose, and the floor must be raised like an amphitheatre to elevate the receding spectators, for unless the people be thus raised, they form a far greater barrier than any screen-work; and even at St. Peter’s itself, when the Pope celebrates, there is a living screen of Swiss troops and noble guards that effectually shuts out the sight of what is going on, except to those taking part in the functions, or a favoured few, who by means of gold or interest are seated in raised loggia. If religious ceremonies are to be regarded as spectacles they should be celebrated in regular theatres, which have been expressly invented for the purpose of accommodating great assemblages of persons to hear and see well. It has been most justly said, that there is no legitimate halting-place between Catholic doctrine and positive infidelity, and I am quite certain that there is none between a church built on Christian tradition and symbolism and Covent Garden Theatre with its pit, boxes, and gallery. It is only by putting the question in this forcible contrast that persons can really understand the danger of these new notions, or the lengths to which they may eventually lead; and I trust it may be the means of raising a feeling of the greatest repugnance to them in the hearts of every true Catholic.

Augustus Welby Pugin, famous neo-gothic restoration architect, A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts: Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic Signification, 1851

Pope Francis ignored ‘terrifying dossier’ on top Vatican official’s sex abuse: Abp. Viganò

LifeSiteNews | July 4, 2019 – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador who has accused Pope Francis of covering up sex abuse, has stated that the Vatican’s third most powerful prelate, Archbishop Peña Parra, was never given an “open and thorough investigation” for troubling accusations of sex abuse that date back decades. Archbishop Viganò said the high-ranking prelate was not investigated despite the existence of what he calls a “terrifying dossier” sent to Pope Francis that gives names and dates regarding his alleged misbehavior.

Archbishop Viganò told the Washington Post in an unpublished section of an interview that was recently obtained and published by LifeSiteNews that Pope Francis "essentially ignored" the dossier on Archbishop Peña Parra while appointing the Venezuelan to a top position in the Vatican.

Viganò states that one accusation, involving Peña Parra seducing two candidates for the seminary in 1990, was reported by the alleged victims’ parents to the police, and the veracity of the accusations were confirmed in writing to the Secretariat of State by both the rector of the major seminary and by seminary’s spiritual director. Viganò told the Post that “I have seen these documents with my own eyes,” and the documentation as well as that of other accusations should still be on file in the Holy See, “if it has not been destroyed.”

Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who was installed in October of last year as the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, the second in charge of the most influential Vatican dicastery, has been under a cloud of suspicion following reports in the Italian media in 2018 of an investigation made by his bishop in the 1980s regarding accusations of homosexuality made against him anonymously. However, the accusations mentioned by Archbishop Viganò are far more serious, including sexual predation against seminarians, adultery, and even a deadly sex game.

“This might even be a scandal surpassing that of McCarrick, and it must not be allowed to be covered by silence,” says Viganò.

LifeSiteNews reached out to Archbishop Peña Parra for comment but did not receive a reply.

'Terrifying dossier' on Archbishop Peña Parra

According to reports in the Italian media, in 1985 a letter was sent from Peña Parra’s then-bishop mentioning anonymous accusations of homosexuality against him as a seminarian, and calling him a “sexually sick person.” The letter was sent by Domingo Roa Pérez, Archbishop of Maracaibo, to Pío León Cárdenas, Rector of the Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Palmira, Venezuela, where Peña Parra had been a student. Roa Pérez expresses concern about the accusations and asks if León Cárdenas can confirm or deny them.  No further correspondence has emerged to indicate the outcome of the investigation. LifeSiteNews has obtained copies of the anonymous letter containing the accusations as well the letter of inquiry written by the archbishop in response.

However, according to Archbishop Viganò, the Vatican for decades has been in possession of much more damning accusations against Peña Parra, information which has never been revealed publicly. Viganò mentions a “terrifying dossier” sent to Francis by a group of faithful Catholics from Peña Parra’s home diocese of Maracaibo in Venezuela, led by one “Dr. Enrique W. Lagunillas Machado.” The document was titled: “Who really is Msgr. Edgar Robinson Peña Parra, the New Substitute of the Secretariat of State of the Vatican?”

Viganò says that the accusations made in the letter have been known by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State since 2002, and that Viganò himself learned of them while he served as a Delegate for Pontifical Representations. LifeSiteNews has obtained a copy of the dossier from a trusted source and can verify that its contents match Archbishop Viganò’s descriptions.

In addition, Viganò claims that a journalist from Maracaibo, Gastón Guisandes López, made “serious accusations” implicating Peña Parra and other priests of the diocese in the sex abuse of minors and other “possibly criminal” acts, in 2000. He says that the following year, Guisandes López went to the apostolic nuncio in Venezuela, Archbishop André Dupuy, and although the nuncio refused to receive the journalist, he reported to Rome that he had made hair-raising accusations against Peña Parra, accusations that were partially confirmed by a diocesan official.

The nuncio reported that Peña Parra was accused of seducing two students from the minor seminary (a high school that prepares students to study for the priesthood), in September of 1990. The accusation included the specific location of the sexual abuse, which was a parish church led by a friend of Peña Parra’s, Fr. José Severeyn. Viganò says that the abuse was reported to the police and confirmed by the seminary rector, Enrique Pérez, to the Secretariat of State, adding “I have seen these documents with my own eyes.”

Even more horrifying was a second accusation reported by the apostolic nuncio, who says that Peña Parra and Severeyn were vacationing on an island together in Lake Maracaibo when they were involved in the death of two people, both presumably males, who were killed by electrical shock. The Maracaibo dossier also mentions this accusation, and adds that “the two corpses were found naked, with evidence of macabre homosexual lewd encounters,” in the words of Viganò.

Although the accusations were “grave,” writes Viganò, “not only was Peña Parra not required to face them, he was allowed to continue in the diplomatic service of the Holy See” – an accusation that would apply to the curia of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Viganò considers the case of Peña Parra to be so bad that it “might even be a scandal surpassing that of McCarrick,” and notes that the archbishop is a close associate of the scandal-ridden Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, and the cardinal’s now-disgraced former auxiliary bishop, Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, having formed a strong friendship with the latter while serving in the apostolic nunciature in Honduras from 2003 to 2007.

Viganò writes that these accusations were reported to the Secretariat of State in 2002 by the then apostolic nuncio in Venezuela, Archbishop André Dupuy, and they have remained on file both in Venezuela and in the Vatican ever since, accessible to high officials of the Holy See. Viganò names “the Cardinals Secretaries of State Sodano, Bertone, and Parolin and the Substitutes Sandri, Filoni, and Becciu,” among those with access to the information, “if it has not been destroyed.”

Viganò regards Cardinal Parolin as particularly culpable in the matter, given his earlier assignment as Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela.

“Particularly egregious is the behavior of cardinal Parolin who, as Secretary of State, did not oppose the recent appointment of Peña Parra as Substitute, making him his closest collaborator,” he writes. “Even more: years earlier, in January 2011, as apostolic nuncio in Caracas, Parolin did not oppose the appointment of Peña Parra as archbishop and apostolic nuncio to Pakistan. Before such important appointments, a rigorous informative process is made to verify the suitability of the candidate, so these accusations were surely brought to the attention of cardinal Parolin.”

Viganò adds that “cardinal Parolin knows the names of a number of priests in the Curia who are sexually unchaste, violating the laws of God that they solemnly committed themselves to teach and practice, and he continues to look the other way.”  He regards Pope Francis’ as having even more “grave” responsibility, for “having chosen for an extremely important position in the Church a man accused of such serious crimes, without first insisting on an open and thorough investigation.”

Modernism vs. Neo-Modernism: What is the Difference?

The overarching principle of post-conciliar theology is not modernism, properly speaking. Let us get our terms straight.
Modernism is the idea that there are no eternal truths, that truth is the correspondence of the mind with one's lifestyle (adaequatio intellectus et vitae), and that, therefore, old dogmas must be abandoned and new beliefs must arise that meet 'the needs of modern man'. This is a radical denial of the traditional and common sense notion of truth: the correspondence of the mind with reality (adaequatio intellectus et rei), which is the basis of the immutability of Catholic dogma.
No, the post-conciliar theological principle is neo-modernism, and the theology that is based on it is known as the nouvelle theologie.  It is the idea that old dogmas or beliefs must be retained, yet not the traditional 'formulas': dogmas must be expressed and interpreted in a new way in every age so as to meet the 'needs of modern man'.  This is still a denial of the traditional and common sense notion of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei (insofar as it is still an attempt to make the terminology that expresses the faith correspond with our modern lifestyle) and consequently of the immutability of Catholic dogma, yet it is not as radical as modernism.  It is more subtle and much more deceptive than modernism because it claims that the faith must be retained; it is only the 'formulas' of faith that must be abandoned--they use the term 'formula' to distinguish the supposedly mutable words of our creeds, dogmas, etc. from their admittedly immutable meanings.  Therefore, neo-modernism can effectively slip under the radar of most pre-conciliar condemnations (except Humani Generis, which condemns it directly) insofar as its practitioners claim that their new and unintelligible theological terminology really expresses the same faith of all times.  In other words, neo-modernism is supposed to be 'dynamic orthodoxy': supposedly orthodox in meaning, yet always changing in expression to adapt to modern life (cf. Franciscan University of Steubenville's mission statement).  
Take extra ecclesiam nulla salus as a clear example of a dogma that has received a brutal neo-modernist re-interpretation: they claim that the old 'formula' that ”there is no salvation outside the Church” must be abandoned; rather it is more meaningful to modern man to say that salvation is not in, but through, the Church;  people who are not in the Church may still be saved through the Church; thus, to them the dogma that “there is no salvation outside the Church” means that there is salvation outside the Church.  Hence see Ven. Pope Pius XII condemning those “reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.” (Humani generis 27).

Yet this mentality of reinterpreting everything anew in order to 'meet the needs of the times' is generally tends to be found in different degrees among different post-conciliar sources:  

It tends to be  (1) rampant in men like De Lubac, Von Balthasar, Congar, etc.: it is the ultimate goal of their writings, teachings, and activities as churchmen.   To achieve this end, they employ the technique of 'resourcement', the neo-modernist strategy of fishing for the few dubious, questionable, or idiosyncratic teachings of some Fathers of the Church and other authoritative writers, and gather them into a massive, heterodox theological argument against the traditional understanding of the faith (which they like to relativize by giving it names such as “Counter-Reformation” Theology, “Tridentine” Theology, or “Scholastic” Theology, instead of just admitting that it is Catholic Theology plain and simple).  This technique accomplishes three things that go hand-in-hand: (a) offers a refutation of traditional Catholicism, (b) defends an interpretation that meets the needs of modern times, and (c) gives it a semblance of being traditional, because it appears to be based in the Fathers et al.  This type of argument is used, for example, by Von Balthasar in his nearly heretical book, Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved? to 'prove', not that Hell does not exist (that is a dogma), but that it is empty.  But this technique and its neo-modernistic underpinnings is not only practiced in almost all of these men's writings; it is also defended in theory by many of them, particularly in Von Balthasar's daring little book, Razing the Bastions, where he demonstrates that “Tridentine” theology must be rejected in our times because it is 'boring'.

It also tends to be (2) present in a more moderate way in the non-binding statements by post-conciliar popes, since they themselves were deeply involved in the developing of the nouvelle theologie.  Just to give one of a million possible examples, see Pope Benedict's evolutionistic re-interpretation of the Resurrection of Our Lord.  Nothing here obviously contradicts  the dogma of the Resurrection (it may be interpreted as a simple analogy, even if a bad one, and nothing more), but it is a novelty that can be easily understood as claiming that the Resurrection is part of the natural development of nature (thus giving credence to some of the nouvelle theologie's pet doctrines, such as De Lubac's heterodox notion of the supernatural and De Chardin's pantheistic evolutionism).   This happens almost on a daily basis in what comes out of the Vatican, not to mention what comes from local bishops.

And finally, neo-modernism tends to be present (3) mostly implicitly or behind-the-scenes in the Council, the Catechism, etc., even though it seldom comes out more explicitly.  Things are done at this level under the pretext of 'aggiornamento', a euphemism for neo-modernism.  That is usually all the justification provided since at this authoritative level, there is no need to justify things theologically.  Hence, Vatican II and the Catechism are not outright neo-modernistic.  Rather, they (like most of post-conciliar doctrine) tend in that direction and/or are inspired by that mentality.  In other words, most of the time these documents do not explicitly teach neo-modernist errors (the kind of errors you hear explicitly from neo-modernist theologians and priests). Rather, they are full of dangerous ambiguities: statements that in a technical sense could be interpreted as being in harmony with the traditional faith, but that, in their natural, non-forced, interpretation are heterodox.  One clear example of this is Dignitatis humanae, par. 2; entire monographs have been written in order to prove that, despite appearances, this document does not contradict previous teaching.  Maybe in fact it ultimately does not, but it is obvious that the prima facie meaning does; otherwise there would be no need to write so many volumes to prove it.
It must be noted that these are general tendencies, and that in some documents (cf. Gaudium et Spes) and every now and then in papal and episcopal statements neo-modernist principles come out more explicitly.    

For a more detailed philosophical and theological critique of neo-modernism, and how it is nothing but a re-hashing of modernism, see Garrigou-Lagrange's Where is the New Theology Leading Us? and his The Structure of the Encyclical Humani Generis.

Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Philosophy

The Four Sins that “Cry to Heaven for Vengeance” are protected acts under U.S. Law

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.

The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.

Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Francis attributes evil to God!

The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings..... An insincere stance of openness to the other, as well as a corporatist attitude, which reserves salvation exclusively to one’s own creed, is destructive of the same creed. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus explained this to the inquiring lawyer. Love lived in any religion pleases God. “Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.”

Pope Francis' approved Abu Dhabi document

COMMENT: “For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Ps. 96:5). Pope Francis is affirming that the worship of idols is “willed by God in His wisdom.” This is blasphemy but not a surprising blasphemy from Francis the Blasphemer. What Pope Francis calls a “corporatist attitude, which reserves salvation exclusively to one's own creed” is the denial of a revealed truth of God that has been dogmatically defined by the Catholic Church on three separate occasions. It is a dogma that there is “no salvation outside the Catholic Church.” The denial of this dogma is heresy by definition and anyone holding this heresy cannot be saved. Furthermore, membership in the Catholic Church also dogmatically requires profession of the true faith and reception of the sacrament of Baptism.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus may very well have had in mind a specific Samaritan man who received him as the Messiah through the calling by the Samaritan Woman at the Well. Be that as it may, are good works alone sufficient for salvation? Those that affirm this are Pelagian heretics which is a favorite calumny that Francis mindlessly smears Catholics faithful to tradition. But unlike Francis, who accuses traditional Catholics of Pelagianism without a shred of evidence, our accusations are supported with the bile that flows routinely from Francis' mouth. The recognition of Logos, “which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9), leads to the regulation of life according to the natural law and is an essential prerequisite to receiving the truth of the Gospel and the sacrament of Baptism, but of itself, it with all the good works in the world, insufficient for salvation. Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan Woman itself destroys this heretical claim of Francis. According to Francis, the Samaritan Woman could have been saved in her idolatrous and adulterous state.

What every faithful Catholic must know is that the faith is the necessary and sufficient cause of and the sign of unity in the Catholic Church. The pope is only secondarily and accidentally the cause and sign of unity in the Catholic Church. When the pope falls from the faith he is to be opposed to his face as St. Paul did to St. Peter (Galatians 2:11). Those who make the pope their proximate rule of faith will follow Francis in his heresy and eventual apostasy. Those who keep dogma as their proximate rule of faith will save their souls.

“And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matt. 10:22).

Pope Francis thinks the miracle of Transubstantiation is a “Magic trick”!

Surprisingly, the account of the multiplication of the loaves does not mention the multiplication itself. On the contrary, the words that stand out are: “break”, “give” and “distribute” (cf. Lk 9:16). In effect, the emphasis is not on the multiplication but the act of sharing. This is important. Jesus does not perform a magic trick; he does not change five loaves into five thousand and then to announce: “There! Distribute them!” No. Jesus first prays, then blesses the five loaves and begins to break them, trusting in the Father. And those five loaves never run out. This is no magic trick; it is an act of trust in God and his providence.

Pope Francis the Destroyer, Homily on Corpus Christi, 6-23-2019

Dogma - The Proximate Rule of Faith, the Formal Object of Divine & Catholic Faith

Now, first of all, let us see what is dogma. In the mouth of the world it means some positive, imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the- Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the consciences of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Glories of the Sacred Heart

The Absolute Necessity of “Prayer And Penance”

However, in the face of this satanic hatred of religion, which reminds Us of the “mystery of iniquity” [Thess. 2, 7] referred to by St. Paul, mere human means and expedients are not enough, and We should consider ourselves wanting in Our apostolic ministry if We did not point out to mankind those wonderful mysteries of light, that alone contain the hidden strength to subjugate the unchained powers of darkness. When Our Lord, coming down from the splendors of Thabor, had healed the boy tormented by the devil, whom the disciples had not been able to cure, to their humble question: “Why could not we cast him out?” He made reply in the memorable words: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” [Matth. 17, 18-20]. It appears to Us, Venerable Brethren, that these Divine words find a peculiar application in the evils of our times, which can be averted only by means of prayer and penance.

Mindful then of our condition, that we are essentially limited and absolutely dependent on the Supreme Being, before everything else let us have recourse to prayer. We know through faith how great is the power of humble, trustful, persevering prayer. To no other pious work have ever been attached such ample, such universal, such solemn promises as to prayer: “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened” [Matth. 7, 7]. “Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in my name He will give it you.”

And what object could be more worthy of our prayer, and more in keeping with the adorable person of Him who is the only “mediator of God and men, the Man Jesus Christ” [I Tim. 2, 5], than to beseech Him to preserve on earth faith in one God living and true? Such prayer bears already in itself a part of its answer; for in the very act of prayer a man unites himself with God and, so to speak, keeps alive on earth the idea of God. The man who prays, merely by his humble posture, professes before the world his faith in the Creator and Lord of all things; joined with others in prayer, he recognizes, that not only the individual, but human society as a whole has over it a supreme and absolute Lord. …..The Divine Heart of Jesus cannot but be moved at the prayers and sacrifices of His Church, and He will finally say to His Spouse, weeping at His feet under the weight of so many griefs and woes: “Great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou wilt” [Matth. 15, 28.].

Pope Pius XI, Charitate Christi Compulsi, On the Sacred Heart

Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary. O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which Yours is aflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be united with Yours. Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things. May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions. Amen.

St. Gertrude the Great

“Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.”

Jesus Christ, (John 15:20)

Ecclesia Dei Communities – Faithful Geldings

I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader (Modernist) Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole.

Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Letter to bishops regarding the lifting of the SSPX excommunications, March 10, 2009

St. Paul says that Antichrist “sitteth in the temple of God” . . . This is not the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, nor a temple like it built by Antichrist, as some have thought, for then it would be his own temple . . . this temple is shown to be a Catholic Church, possibly one of the churches in Jerusalem or St. Peter’s in Rome, which is the largest church in the world and is in the full sense “The Temple of God.” [.....] This false prophet possibly at the behest of Antichrist usurps the papal supremacy… His assumed spiritual authority and supremacy over the Church would make him resemble the Bishop of Rome… He would be Pontifex Maximus, a title of pagan emperors, having spiritual and temporal authority. Assuming authority without having it makes him the False Prophet… Though he poses as a lamb, his doctrines betray him.

Fr. Herman B. Kramer, The Book of Destiny, interpretation of Apocalypse

Baptism alone unites the individual Faithful to Christ

The death of Christ is the universal cause of man’s salvation: but a universal cause has to be applied to particular effects. Thus it was found necessary for certain remedies to be administered to men by way of bringing Christ’s death into proximate connexion with them. Such remedies are the Sacraments of the Church. And these remedies had to be administered with certain visible signs: -- first, because God provides for man, as for other beings, according to his condition; and it is the condition of man’s nature to be led through sensible things to things spiritual and intelligible: secondly, because instruments must be proportioned to the prime cause; and the prime and universal cause of man’s salvation is the Word Incarnate: it was convenient therefore that the remedies, through which that universal cause reaches men, should resemble the cause in this, that divine power works invisibly through visible signs.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book IV, Chap. 56.

Psychologist gives searing critique of Vatican’s new gender doc: a compromise with ‘neo-paganism’

LifeSiteNews | ROME, June 14, 2019 — A Catholic psychologist has denounced the latest Vatican document on gender theory as containing “not one sentence of sound advice for parents who try to educate their children towards the virtues necessary for a Christian life.”

In a searing critique, Dr. Gerard J.M. van den Aarweg, a Dutch psychologist and psychoanalyst specializing in the treatment of persons with homosexual tendencies, condemned the recent Vatican document on gender theory, saying “the aggressive neo-pagan sexual ideology of the world has no wisdom we might share. The task of the Church is not dialoguing but teaching and correcting, there is a relentless spiritual war going on in the field of sexuality, marriage, and the family.”

The (non-magisterial) document, titled “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education,” was published by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education on June 10.  

Addressed to Catholic schools and those involved in the formation of children and young people, the document has provoked admiration and consternation and drawn considerable attention in the Catholic and secular media.

Catholic media on the whole have shown a favorable response. The New York Times focused on the document’s rejection of the idea of gender fluidity. And “LGBT” activists criticized the text for its clear affirmation that human persons are either “male” or “female,” saying it keeps the Vatican “in the dark ages, promoting a false teaching that relies on myth, rumor, and falsehoods.”

In the midst of these conflicting opinions, LifeSite spoke with Dr. van den Aarweg — author of “The Battle for Normality” (Ignatius press) and “Science says NO: The gay ‘marriage’ deception” — about his view on the document.

The Dutch psychologist did not mince his words. 

Here below is our interview with Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg.

LifeSite: Dr. van den Aardweg, what are your general impressions of the Vatican’s new document on gender theory?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Basically, it is an ideological document. It is not specifically Catholic, in spite of some lip service. It essentially makes a plea for a kind of atheist-humanist/socialist sex education, presented as more or less Catholic. It gushes over the boons of a social model of sexual education monitored by “professional experts” on the basis of naively supposed ever-deepening insights into sexuality in the current human sciences. It represents the kind of illusionary and sentimental talk about education and “affectivity” characteristic of the immature and superficial humanistic psychology of the 1960s, but now proclaimed as ‘higher wisdom’ by a Vatican Congregation whose members run half a century behind the times. It is ‘dialogue’ and ‘listening’ and ‘openness’ all over again. But no listening to the divine teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality, marriage and the family (for these seem in need of ‘restructuring’). Teaching and preaching them to a pagan world is not, it seems, the way forward. The great dream is an “alliance” with the neo-paganism of the sexual, marriage, and family ideology of the UN and the anti-Christian EU countries. 

“Listening.” Well, listening attentively to the document’s vague and ambiguous formulations and suggestions in order to discern what it drives at, one can discern its lead motive: revolutionary change.

LifeSite: What is your view on its analysis of gender theory?

Dr. van den Aardweg: The observations on gender theory are ambiguous and unclear, and that makes them suspect. At face value, some phrases seem correct and “orthodox,” such as the denials that sexual “identity is not a choice of the individual,” and platitudes such as “sexuality [a person’s sex] is a fundamental component of personhood” or “every cell in the body is male or female.” However, they are simultaneously undermined by statements such as (I abbreviate): “The approach to gender theory [is] the path of dialogue.” Why would that be so? No answer, because we are in the domain of ideology. What is there to dialogue about? We know the effects of dialoguing from the experiences with the Communists. The enemies of Christianity will dialogue with you in their way, on their terms. The outcome is none other than dialoguing with the devil. The aggressive neo-pagan sexual ideology of the world has no wisdom we might share. The task of the Church is not dialoguing but teaching and correcting, there is a relentless spiritual war going on in the field of sexuality, marriage, and the family.

Another example: “Human sciences … [present] other work … which tries a deeper understanding.” There follows a vague reference to works about the “sexual difference between men and women in a variety of cultures.” Here as everywhere in this document, only suggestions or insinuations are given, without a shadow of proof. So, which allegedly better “work” is meant here? I surmise the authors refer to the once-popular writings of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, the lesbian feminists who attempted to show the relativity of sex roles and functions in non-Western societies. But their contentions have long been refuted as being based on false, partly even fraudulent, evidence. 

The relativization of the unpopular Biblical view of man-woman relationships and social “roles,” in apparent support of feminist (and gay?) indignation, also appears in the glib contention about “unjust discrimination,” which is “a sad fact of history” also “within the Church.” The Church would have violated the “equal dignity of men and women” in consequence of a “masculinist [sic] mentality veiled by religious motives.” If this is not a sneer at the Catholic teaching about man as the head and woman as the heart of the family, and the woman’s duty to obey her husband etc., what else is being suggested? Or, looked at from a different angle, who can believe the authors of this text are still capable of transmitting the unchangeable divine teachings of the Apostles, St. Augustine, and the Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI? Probably, these authors, blinded by the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist), do not even understand them anymore, nor do they seem to know and understand the correct anthropological and psychological insight of St. Edith Stein that “woman is by nature mother and the companion of the man.” For any Catholic who knows and understands this truth would have made it the cornerstone of a discourse on the equal value of man and woman. 

Equally disquieting is the authors’ dubious appreciation of the natural family: “To qualify it [the family] with ideological concepts which are compelling at only one moment in history, and then decline … is a betrayal of its true significance.” Do the aforementioned apostolic teachings belong to the category of temporary historical “ideologies” about male and female? If not, why didn’t they recommend them at all; and what false ideological concepts have been attached to the family that are not essential? For example, has the traditional concept of the Christian family in the light of the present enlightened insights been narrowed by our cultural prejudices? In sum, give a clear, unambiguous definition of the natural and God-willed family and unambiguously reject the political definition of, among others, the Christian Democrats.

LifeSite: The document frequently cites Pope John Paul II. What do you think of its use of his writings?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Pope John Paul II is quoted but fairly hypocritically. His prestige is abused to create the impression of orthodoxy, a characteristic the writing as a whole has no right to claim. The authors have even the evil courage to recall the name of Don Bosco, whose teachings and efforts were diametrically opposed to theirs and were therefore truly exemplary.

LifeSite: Does the document presume that sex-education should always be made available in schools? Is the position the document takes in this regard consistent with the constant teaching of the Church?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Parental rights in education are professed with words, but the whole, and in essence, socialistic-bureaucratic organization to educate the “sexuality and affectivity” of children and youngsters about which these utopians are dreaming will no doubt soon squeeze the parents’ rights into extinction. The proposed educational “professionals” within and outside the school, with their “permanent education” coming from “universities” etc., with their close association with the secular organizations (“local, national and international”!), with their new “programmes, instruction materials, and reference books,” and paid by who else but the State, will guarantee politically-correct sex ed. It proposes an idealistic “educational alliancebetween family, school, and society”: come to Holland, Germany, or Great Britain and see how smoothly it functions… No one who objects, no school, no collective of Catholic parents, only a rare Catholic teacher, a loner, a few exceptional Catholic parents, who refuse to cooperate with these cheerful “programmes” that violate their pupils’ and children’s innocence. Indeed, as this Vatican document remarks, “the family is not left to face the challenges of educating the young on its own.” And the “authorization” of the parents is a good principle, but “to a certain degree.” 

LifeSite: Do you have any other comments?

Dr. van den Aardweg: The conclusion of the document, though still evading honestly straightforward and unambiguous language, helps in grasping its real meaning and purposes. Consider these high-falutin’ declarations: “The (educational formators) have the mission to teach them [young people] sensitivity to different expressions of love, mutual concern and care, loving respect (sic) and a deeply meaningful communication”; “Train young people to be open and interested in the reality that surrounds them, capable of care and tenderness.” This has been precisely the sales pitch of the neo-pagan Sexual Reform Movement for at least a century. All kinds of sexual or “love” relationships fit into this ideal, unmarried as well as gay ones. There is nothing in the Vatican text about sexual sin, the fight for chastity, masturbation, unfaithfulness in marriage, unmarried cohabitation, chastity in marriage; not one sentence of sound advice for parents who try to educate their children towards the virtues necessary for a Christian life and against the pressure of the neo-pagan environment, school, and even church; nothing about contraception, sterilization, and abortion. 

Finally, the style of the piece is terrible: it is permeated by pompous and sentimental language, hypocritical unctuousness. The intellectual level is substandard. No concept that is used is defined, no statement proved or even supported by some argumentation; the references and remarks relative to anthropology and psychology (“the human sciences”) are misplaced or outright nonsensical, and yet they are solemnly presented as ‘superior wisdom.’ 

A Vatican congregation which dares to produce and issue such a document should seriously consider closing up shop.

Pope Francis the Destroyer resurrects the myth of the 'Noble Savage'!

The Amazonian Church of Pope Francis

 Roberto de Mattei | Aldo Maria Valli blogspot | June 20, 2019

"Will the bishops, successors of the Apostles be silent? Will the cardinals, the Pope’s advisors in the governing of the Church be silent, in the face of this political-religious manifesto which perverts the doctrine and praxis of the Mystical Body of Christ ? "

The first reactions in response to the Instrumentum Laboris for the Amazon Synod were focused on its opening to married priests and the insertion of women into the sacramental orders of the Church. But the Instrumentum Laboris is something more: it’s a manifesto for liberation eco-theology which proposes a pantheist, egalitarian “cosmo-vision” , unacceptable for a Catholic. The gates of the Magisterim, as José Antonio Ureta, rightly highlighted, are being thrown wide open “to Indian Theology and Ecotheology, two Latin American derivatives of Liberation Theology. After the collapse of the USSR and the failure of “real socialism”, the advocates of Liberation Theology (LT), on the Marxist style, attributed the historic role of revolutionary force to indigenous peoples and to nature”.*

In the document, published by the Holy See on June 17, the Amazon “bursts” into the life of the Church like a “new entity” (n.2). But what is the Amazon? It is not only a physical place and a “complex biosphere” (n.10) but also “a reality full of life and wisdom” (n.5), which ascends to a conceptual paradigm and calls us to a “pastoral, ecological and synodal” conversion (n.5).  In order to carry out its prophetic role, the Church must heed “the Amazon peoples” (n.7). These people are able to live in “intercommunication” with the entire cosmos (n.12), but their rights are threatened by the economic interests of the multinationals, which, as the natives of Guaviare (Colombia) say “have slashed the veins of our Mother Earth” (n.17).

The Church listens to the “cry, of  both the people and the earth (n.18), because in the Amazon “the land is a theological place by which the faith is lived. It is also a unique source of God’s revelation” (n.19). So then, a third source of Revelation has been added to Holy Scripture and Tradition: the Amazon, the land where “everything is connected” (n.20), everything is “constitutively related, forming a vital whole” (n.21). In the Amazon, the ideal of Communism is fulfilled, given that, in tribal collectivism, “everything is shared and private spaces – typical of modernity – are minimal.” 

The native peoples have been liberated from monotheism and have restored animism and polytheism.  Indeed, as is written in no. 25: “the life of the Amazonian community has not yet been influenced by Western civilization. This is reflected in the beliefs and rites regarding the action of spirits and the divinity – named in  many different ways – with and in the territory, with and in relation to nature. This cosmo-vision is picked up in Francis’s ‘mantra’: “everything is connected” (LS 16, 91, 117, 138, 240)».

The document insists on asserting that the Amazonian “cosmo-vision” encompasses an “ancestral wisdom, a living reservoir of spirituality and native culture (n. 26). So, “the native people of the Amazon have much to teach us(…). The new paths of evangelization must be constructed in dialogue with these ancestral wisdoms in which the seeds of the Word are manifested” (n.29).  

The wealth of the Amazon [then] is in not being monoculture, but of being “a multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious world” (n.36) with which we need to  dialogue. The peoples of the Amazon, “remind us of the past and the wounds inflicted during long periods of colonization. For this Pope Francis has asked  ‘humbly for forgiveness, not only for the offences of his own Church, but for the crimes against the native populations during the so-called conquest of America’. In the past the Church has at times been an accomplice of the colonizers and this has suffocated the prophetic voice of the Gospel” (n.38).  

“Integral ecology” includes “the transmission of the ancestral experience of cosmologies, of spiritualities and theologies of the indigenous peoples, in the care of our Common Home” (n.50). “In their ancestral wisdom – these peoples- have cultivated the conviction that all creation is connected, that it deserves our respect and our responsibility. The Amazonian culture, which integrates human beings with nature, becomes a point of reference for the construction of a new paradigm of integral ecology” (n.56). 

The Church must divest itself of its Roman identity and adopt “an Amazonian face”. “The Amazonian face of the Church finds its expression in the plurality of its peoples, cultures and ecosystems. This diversity requires an option for an outward-bound and missionary Church, incarnated in all its activities, expressions and languages” (n.107). “A Church with an Amazonian face in its multiple nuances, seeks to be an “outward-bound” Church (cf. EG 20-23), which leaves behind a colonial mono-cultural, clerical and domineering tradition and knows how to discern and adopt without fear, the diverse cultural expressions of the peoples” (n.110).

The pantheist spirit animating Amazonian nature is a leitmotif of the document.  “The Creator Spirit which fills the universe (cf. Wisdom 1,7) is the Spirit that for centuries has nurtured the spirituality of these peoples even before the proclaiming of the Gospel and spurs them onto accepting it, from the base of their [own] cultures and traditions”(n.120). Hence, “we need to grasp what the Spirit of the Lord has taught these peoples over the course of the centuries: faith in God, Father-Mother-Creator; the sense of communion and harmony with the earth; the sense of solidarity with their fellow-man; the project of “living well”; the wisdom of a thousand-year old civilization the elders possess and which has effects on the health, cohabitation, education and cultivation of the land; the relationship with nature and Mother Earth; the capacity of resistance and resilience of the women in particular; the religious rites expressed; the relations with their forbearers; their contemplative stance and sense of gratuity;  the celebration and festivity and the sacred sense of the land” (121).   

Again, in the light of a “healthy decentralization” of the Church, “the communities ask that the Episcopal Conferences adapt the Eucharistic Rite to their culture”. “The Church needs to be incarnated in the Amazonian cultures which possess a great sense of community, equality and solidarity, thus clericalism is not accepted in its various forms of manifestation.  The indigenous peoples possess a rich tradition of  social organization, where authority is in rotation and has a profound sense of service.  On the basis of this experience in organization, it would be opportune to reconsider the idea that the exercise in jurisdiction (power of government) must be connected in all spheres (sacramental, judiciary, administrative) and in a permanent way to the Sacrament of Holy Orders” (n.127).

On the basis of the premise that “celibacy is a gift for the Church” a request is being made that “for the most remote zones in the region, a study be made about the possibility of priestly ordination for elderly people, preferably natives, respected and accepted in their communities - even if they may have already a constituted and stable family - as a means of guaranteeing the Sacraments which accompany and sustain Christian life” (n.129). Furthermore, we need “to guarantee leadership to the women, along with more extensive and relevant spaces in the field of formation: theology, catechesis, liturgy and schools of faith and politics” and “identify the type of official  ministry  that can be conferred on women, keeping in mind the central role they play today in the Amazonian Church.”

What more can be added?  Will the bishops, successors of the Apostles be silent? Will the cardinals, the Pope’s advisors in the governing of the Church be silent, in the face of this political-religious manifesto which perverts the doctrine and praxis of the Mystical Body of Christ ?

Vatican all but wipes out conservative order of nuns for ‘too much prayer’

LifeSiteNews | June 7, 2019 — All but five of the 39 Little Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, a conservative French religious order, have

been relieved of their vows by the Vatican after refusing to submit to a group of Vatican-appointed commissioners led by a habitless liberal nun who wanted to impose “modern orientations” on the group, in the sister’s words.

The 34 nuns, who dress in traditional habits and care for the disabled and elderly in four different nursing homes, have been asked to relinquish their facilities and their religious dress now that they are no longer considered members of their institute. The fate of the nursing homes and their residents is now in question.

The ruling comes from the Holy See’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which oversees religious orders and institutes, led by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz. Previous attempts by the sisters to overturn the congregation’s rulings against them by appealing to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura have failed, with the court reportedly dismissing their case without allowing them to fully present their arguments.

“Having looked to remaining faithful, as much to the Church as to the charism granted by Our Lord to Mother Marie de la Croix, having tried to find, many many times, a path of dialogue with Rome, having offered peaceful solutions, no agreement having been found, the authorities in Rome in charge of the Consecrated Life have now decided to choose to release us from our religious vows,” the sisters announced on June 3, following the issuance of the decision on May 23.

“Whilst it is true that in the context of the moral pressure and the impasse that we found ourselves in, we were driven, last October, against our profound wishes, to ask to be released from our vows, since no other solution had ever been offered to enable us to remain in communion with the Church: we are profoundly wounded by this and remain sadly surprised that Rome has preferred to accept that request rather than accepting the peaceful solutions which we had put forward and which were possible,” the sisters added.

The lay-led Association in Support of the Little Sisters denounced the decision as a “grievous injustice” and blamed the bishop of the Diocese of Laval, Thierry Scherrer, for a personal vendetta against the group’s conservative mother superior that has now led to the destruction of the order.

“Mgr Scherrer wanted the head of the Superior General on a platter,” wrote the association. “An entire Congregation has been destroyed!”

“This unjust and violent decision gives rise to grave damage both moral and material to the Little Sisters of Mary who have given their lives in the service of the Church, in perfect fidelity to their religious vocation,” they add.

According to their lay supporters, the sisters were accused of a variety of offenses against modern sensibilities, including engaging in “too much prayer,” the use of the traditional habits, “deviant authoritarianism,” being “too classical” in their thinking, and being “unmoving” in their adherence to the charism of their institute. They also say the commissioners tried to turn the sisters against each other, offering prestigious positions in the order if they would conform to the commissioner’s authority, but their tactics failed. When the nuns refused to admit the commissioners, they were threatened with excommunication and requested to be relieved of their vows to avoid that outcome.

The support association says the decision to relieve the sisters of their vows instead of working out a solution with them came at the behest of Sr. Geneviève Médevielle, the principal apostolic commissioner named by the Vatican. Médevielle is a religious sister who dresses in lay clothing and wears a short haircut without a head covering. She is a professor of ethics at the Catholic Institute of Paris and the author of the recently published book Migrants, Francis, and us. Médevielle writes in defense of Amoris Laetitia against “conservatives and traditionalists” who criticize it.

The nuns were also reportedly under attack by the archbishop of Toulouse, Robert Le Gall, who prohibited one of the nuns’ houses from attending their more traditional form of Mass in their community chapel, apparently following their refusal to participate in Le Gall’s mass at the nursing home chapel due to their rejection of his liturgical practices.

Click here to read LifeSite’s November article detailing the conflict.

“Authoritarianism” and “moral harassment” from Church authorites led to destruction

The sisters’ support association is threatening to undertake legal measures against those who have brought about the destruction of the institute as an act of “moral harassment,” which is actionable under French law. The association promised that “as a matter of justice legitimate actions will be undertaken against those responsible, whatever their involvement, to obtain redress and to reveal the entire truth about this affair.”

The French Catholic newspaper La Croix further reported yesterday that the sisters “today are threatening Sister Geneviève Medevielle with a lawsuit for moral harassment.”

“It was with an authoritarianism and in a context of moral harassment, initiated by the Bishop of Laval, Mgr Scherrer, that the ecclesiastical authorities preferred to reduce the Little Sisters of Mary the Redeemer to the lay state, on 23rd May 2019, rather than opting for a peaceful solution, repeatedly proposed by the Little Sisters, but never really considered by the Congregation in Rome!” the support association declares on its website.

Our suffering enables us to live our vocation more fully, say sisters

The sisters, for their part, say they will continue to live their life of prayer and see their suffering as enabling them to live their vocation even more deeply.

“Certainly, we have not lived through these two sorrowful years in order to lose the treasure which is for us the charism received from Mother Marie de la Croix. We want to continue to live together, in a life of prayer and service. Ecce!” the sisters write.

“Paradoxically and mysteriously, we live perhaps more than ever perhaps what is at the heart of our vocation: following in the way of Our Lady, to take our part of suffering in the fulfilment of the plan of our Redemption, in reparation, for the saving of souls, for the sanctification of priests, for the Church so damaged by all sorts of scandals, for the world. If Christ, our souls’ spouse, judges us worthy of carrying such a Cross, we must render thanks to him, in all things.”

Requests for comment from the Holy See were not answered by publication time.

[Catholic] “fundamentalists, have a nostalgia for returning to the ashes.... Tradition is the guarantee of the future and not the container of the ashes,.... Tradition is like roots [of a tree], which give us nutrition to grow,... You will not become like the roots. You will flower, grow, give fruit. And the seeds become roots for other people..... The tradition of the church is always in movement.... The tradition does not safeguard the ashes”

Pope Francis the Destroyer, another high altitude, hypoxic babble on a flight to Rome

COMMENT: Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the grand-daughter of the French National Front founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently applied a quotation of Gustav Mahler in a new context, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.” Tradition is not the “root” of the tree, it is the tree itself, and trees are not “always in movement.” They are in fact ‘rooted’ and stable. 

Tradition is firstly as a noun refers to content of divine revelation. This content is incarnate in our immemorial Catholic traditions which are the perfect images of the Catholic faith. These images are the means by which the faith is known and communicated to others. The Neo-iconoclasts destroy these images as the means to destroy the faith itself. For Francis, Tradition is obstacle that must be overcome if he is to overthrow the Catholic faith. He therefore considers how tradition has always been understood by the Church as “ashes.”

The verb form of tradition refers to the actual handing-on of the content of divine revelation to the next generation of Catholics. As St. Paul said, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread” (I Cor. 11:23).  What St. Paul “delivered” is exactly the same as what he first “received,” and this is Catholic Tradition. 

“Have in mind therefore in what manner thou hast received and heard: and observe, and do penance. If then thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee” (Apoc. 3:3). This is the warning to the Church in Sardis. What was their sin? They had not kept the traditions they received and therefore St. John continues, “And to the angel of the church of Sardis, write: These things saith he, that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars: I know thy works, that thou hast the name of being alive: and thou art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. For I find not thy works full before my God” (Apoc. 3:1-2). The Catholics of Sardis were not faithful to what they had “received.” When the faith is corrupted by corrupting its images, the corruption of morals necessarily follows, therefore, their “works” were “dead,” that is, they had fallen from the grace of God.

By the light of Francis, tradition received is not what is passed on. What is passed on is different and no longer shares an identity between father and son with every generation. Francis is a Neo-modernist Neo-iconoclast. Those that follow him will lose their souls because “without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). And without the images of the faith it is impossible to have the faith. Therefore, faithful Catholics today, unlike those of Sardis, must “watch” lest their traditions be trampled into ashes by Francis the Destroyer.

Catholic prelates call upon the Faithful to do what we have been doing at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission for the last 19 years!

Our time is characterized by an acute spiritual hunger of the Catholic faithful all over the world for a reaffirmation of those truths that are obfuscated, undermined, and denied by some of the most dangerous errors of our time. The faithful who are suffering this spiritual hunger feel themselves abandoned and thus find themselves in a kind of existential periphery. Such a situation urgently demands a concrete remedy. …

We are aware of our grave responsibility as Catholic bishops according to the admonition of Saint Paul, who teaches that God gave to His Church “shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:12–16).

In the spirit of fraternal charity, we publish this Declaration of truths as a concrete spiritual help so that bishops, priests, parishes, religious convents, lay faithful associations, and private persons as well might have the opportunity to confess either privately or publicly those truths that in our days are mostly denied or disfigured. The following exhortation of the Apostle Paul should be understood as addressed also to each bishop and lay faithful of our time, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:12– 14).

Before the eyes of the Divine Judge and in his own conscience, each bishop, priest, and lay faithful has the moral duty to give witness unambiguously to those truths that in our days are obfuscated, undermined, and denied. Private and public acts of a declaration of these truths could initiate a movement of a confession of the truth, of its defense, and of reparation for the widespread sins against the Faith, for the sins of hidden and open apostasy from Catholic Faith of a not small number both of the clergy and of the lay people. One has to bear in mind, however, that such a movement will not judge itself according to numbers, but according to the truth, as Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said, amidst the general doctrinal confusion of the Arian crisis, that “God does not delight in numbers” (Or. 42:7).

Excerpt from the introduction to the “Declaration of the Truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time” published by:

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Cardinal Janis Pujats, Archbishop Emeritus of Riga

Tomash Peta, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Karaganda

Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

Archbishop Viganò speaks up: Washington Post interview – “This archbishop called on the pope to resign. Now he’s in an undisclosed location.”

For the record of events of the current pontificate, we post the main excerpts of the article published this Monday by the Washington Post:Rorate Caeli

TheWashingtonPost | Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli | June 10, 2019

ROME — In the instant he became one of the most controversial figures in modern Catholic Church history, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò went dark.

The retired Vatican ambassador to Washington wrote a bombshell letter last summer calling on Pope Francis to resign on the grounds that he had tolerated a known sexual abuser. As that letter was published, Viganò turned off his phone, told friends he was disappearing, and let the church sort through the fallout.

Nine months later, in his first extended interview since that moment, Viganò refused to disclose his location or say much about his self-imposed exile. But his comments indicate that, even in hiding, he is maintaining his role as the fiercest critic of the Francis era, acting either as an honorable rebel or, as his critics see it, as an ideological warrior attacking a pope he doesn’t like....

The Vatican has had little official response to Viganò. A communications official declined to comment for this story. But Francis last month responded for the first time to Viganò’s summer letter. The pope said he knew “nothing, obviously nothing” about the misconduct of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and could not remember if he had been personally warned about McCarrick by Viganò in 2013. Viganò claimed to have told Francis that McCarrick had “corrupted generations of seminarians and priests.”

“How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?” Viganò wrote to The Post....

Viganò wrote that he has become “more careful about whom I meet and what I say.” He said questions about him were “irrelevant to the serious problems facing the Church.”

“My life is quite normal, thank you for asking,” he wrote.

Viganò wrote “n/a” in response to questions about where he was living, whether he believes his safety is under threat, and how his actions last August have otherwise altered his life.

Viganò wrote that he has not been contacted by the Catholic Church since his accusations were initially published by several conservative church news outlets. He described himself as an “old man” who “will be appearing in front of the Good Judge before too long.”...

“My silence would make me complicit with the abusers, and lead to yet more victims,” he said....

Viganò wrote last year that both Benedict XVI and Francis had known about McCarrick’s misconduct. But he portrayed Benedict as attempting to take quiet disciplinary action against the then-cardinal and Francis as patently ignoring those sanctions.

Last month, private letters disclosed by a former McCarrick aide supported Viganò’s claim that McCarrick was told by the Vatican to retreat from public life during Benedict’s papacy. But it is also clear that McCarrick swiftly ignored his orders from Rome, even while Benedict remained pope. No documents have surfaced showing whether Francis knew of the sanctions against McCarrick by the time he became pope in 2013.

Viganò said the “truth will eventually come out” for Francis, as it had for Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former archbishop of Washington who portrayed himself last summer as being unaware about complaints against McCarrick — a claim that documents subsequently proved false. Viganò suggested to The Post that Francis is covering up other cases, “as he did for McCarrick.”...

Viganò, in his responses to The Post, made it clear he is watching even smaller moments inside the Vatican. He cited an exchange from a Vatican press conference in February in which a journalist asked Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a church abuse czar, about a case in Argentina. Scicluna began to answer, and the Vatican spokesman cut in, saying the press conference — held during a landmark abuse summit — was not a time to “focus on individual cases.” Results of an investigation into the case would later be released, the spokesman assured.

“One may be forgiven for wondering whether the results of an honest and thorough investigation really will be released, and in a timely fashion,” Viganò wrote. “There is a certain irony here: This exchange happened while [the summit organizers] were discussing what they themselves called transparency.”

“The results of an honest investigation would be disastrous for the current papacy,” Viganò wrote to The Post. He also acknowledged that such an investigation may harm the reputations of more traditionalist pontiffs, Benedict and John Paul II, who presided over McCarrick’s rise.

“But that is not a good reason for not seeking the truth,” Viganò said. “Benedict XVI and John Paul II are human beings, and may well have made mistakes. If they did, we want to know about them. Why should they remain hidden? We can all learn from our mistakes.”

Viganò did not respond directly to a question about whether he has documents to back up his claims.

“The time has not yet come for me to release anything,” Viganò said, instead calling on the pope and other Vatican officials to release documentation, “assuming they have not yet destroyed it.”

Viganò also spoke in detail about one of his most contentious beliefs: that the sexual abuse crisis would be “far less severe” if the “problem of homosexuality in the priesthood were honestly acknowledged and properly addressed.”

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is mind-boggling that the word ‘homosexuality’ has not appeared once, in any of the recent official documents of the Holy See” on events dealing with abuse and youth, Viganò wrote.

He said a “gay mafia” among bishops, intent on protecting themselves, was “sabotaging all efforts at reform.”

Viganò referenced only two regrets about his letter last summer. He said he wished he had spoken out sooner. He also said, “in retrospect,” he would have softened the call for Pope Francis to resign — a demand even Viganò’s supporters said was far-fetched and distracting.

Viganò now leaves open the possibility that Francis could repent, and says the pope should step down “if he refuses to admit his mistakes and ask for forgiveness.”

This is why the key phrase for responding is one which the Church constantly uses, as I do: it is ‘responsible parenthood’.  How does this work?  With dialogue.  Each person with his or her pastor has to try to exercise this responsible parenthood.  The example I mentioned just now, about the woman who was expecting her eight child and already had seven caesarean births: this is a form of irresponsibility.
[Some might say:] ‘No, I trust in God’. ‘But, look, God gives you the means, be responsible.’  Some people believe that -- pardon my language – in order to be good Catholics, we should be like rabbits.  No. Responsible parenthood.
Pope Francis the Homosexual Lobby CEO

Archbishop Viganò to Washington Post: “Pope Francis is Deliberately Concealing the McCarrick Evidence”

OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | June 10, 2019

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is in the news again today after the release of a new, 8,000 word interview with the Washington Post. According to the post, the interview was conducted via email over a period of two months, with the former US papal nuncio providing answers to some 40 questions.

Those who have read previous Viganò testimonies will find much that is familiar in the interview, but in greater depth. Archbishop Viganò declined to answer questions about his own personal status, which, he says, he considers “irrelevant to the serious problems facing the Church.”

He begins with an assessment of the sex abuse summit in Rome in February 2019, which echoes closely the concerns he shared with the National Catholic Register before the summit opened.

“Unfortunately,” Viganò tells the Post about the summit, “that initiative turned out to be pure ostentation, for we saw no sign of a genuine willingness to attend to the real causes of the present crisis.” He highlighted the lack of credibility of Cardinal Cupich, who was picked to be a leader at the summit after referring to Viganò’s accusations about abuse coverup as a “rabbit hole.” He also lamented the lack of transparency with journalists who sought information about specific cases:

To cite just one example, Archbishop [Charles] Scicluna, caught by surprise with a question about the pope covering up in the scandalous case of Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta — “How can we believe that this is in fact the last time we’re going to hear ‘no more cover-ups’ when at the end of the day, Pope Francis covered up for someone in Argentina who had gay porn involving minors?” — uttered these embarrassing words: “About the case, I’m not, I’m not, you know, I’m not authorized…” Scicluna’s inept response gave the impression that he needed to be authorized — you may wonder by whom — to tell the truth! Vatican interim press office director Alessandro Gisotti quickly intervened to assure the reporters that an investigation had been launched, and that once it was completed they would be informed of the results. One may be forgiven for wondering whether the results of an honest and thorough investigation really will be released, and in a timely fashion.

Viganò observs that one of the key problems of the summit was the way in which it “focused exclusively on the abuse of minors.”

“These crimes are indeed the most horrific,” he adds, “but the recent crises in the United States, in Chile, in Argentina, in Honduras, and elsewhere have to do mostly with abuses committed against young adults, including seminarians, not only, nor mostly, against minors. Indeed, if the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood were honestly acknowledged and properly addressed, the problem of sexual abuse would be far less severe.”

Viganò strikes out at Pope Francis, whom he says is not only “doing close to nothing to punish those who have committed abuse” but also “doing absolutely nothing to expose and bring to justice those who have, for decades, facilitated and covered up the abusers.” He cites the example of Cardinal Wuerl, who despite lies and coverups of the abuses of “McCarrick and others for decades” about which he has offered “repeated and blatant lies” and who was forced to resign in disgrace was nevertheless praised by the pope for his “nobility.”

“What credibility has the pope left after this kind of statement?” Viganò asks.

On the matter of McCarrick’s laicization, Viganò questions why it happened five years after he gave the information to Pope Francis about McCarrick, and why it was done, “after more than seven months of total silence,” through an administrative rather than judicial procedure.

Viganò notes that because of the nature of the procedure, McCarrick was “deprived of any opportunity to appeal the sentence,” and was deprived of due process. “Having made the sentence definitive,” Viganò adds, “the pope has made it impossible to conduct any further investigation, which could have revealed who in the Curia and elsewhere knew of McCarrick’s abuses, when they knew it, and who helped him to be named archbishop of Washington and eventually a cardinal. Note, by the way, that the documents of this case, whose publication had been promised, have never been produced.”

“The bottom line,” Viganò says, “is this: Pope Francis is deliberately concealing the McCarrick evidence.”

On the question of the unusual intervention by the Holy See into the US Catholic Bishops Conference meeting last November, in which the pope ordered the assembled bishops not to vote on two sex abuse measures they had prepared, Viganò says that Holy See was trying to prevent an examination of “the problems of episcopal corruption, episcopal cover-ups and mendacity, episcopal sexual misdeeds, both with minors and adults — any of which would intolerably implicate and embarrass the Holy See.”

Asked about the “notable lack of denials” on the matter of his original testimony — the question was asked before Francis finally came out and denied that he knew anything, which Vigano has said previously was “a lie” — the archbishop argues that the accusations can’t be denied because they are true. “The cardinals and archbishops I named do not want to be caught lying, and they apparently think they are so powerful as to be untouchable if only they stay quiet and lie low,” he said.

In an addendum to the interview after the long-delayed denial made by the pope last month was released, Viganò says that the pope’s statements cannot be reconciled with one another. “He first says that he has already replied many times; second, that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing about McCarrick, and third, that he forgot about my conversation with him. How may these claims be affirmed and sustained together at the same time? All these three are blatant lies,” he says.

Of the most obviously false claim made by the pope — that he had replied to the testimony “many times,” — Viganò asks, “for nine long months he did not say a word about my testimony, and even bragged and continues to do so about his silence, comparing himself to Jesus. So, either he spoke or he kept silent. Which is it?”

“We are in a truly dark moment for the universal Church,” Viganò laments. “The Supreme Pontiff is now blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds! But the truth will eventually come out, about McCarrick and all the other cover-ups, as it already has in the case of cardinal Wuerl, who also ‘knew nothing’ and had ‘a lapse of memory.'” Here the archbishop refers to the revelation that Wuerl knew about the illicit sexual activities of his predecessor, McCarrick, even after many denials.

Other than his sadness over the dishonesty of the pope, Viganò seems most concerned with the failure of journalists to dig into the story he has laid before them. “I cannot imagine that they [the media] would have been so timid had the pope in question been John Paul II or Benedict XVI,” he says, adding, “It is difficult to avoid concluding that these media are reluctant to do so because they appreciate Pope Francis’ more liberal approach to matters of Church doctrine and discipline, and do not want to jeopardize his agenda.”

On the issue of homosexuality in the priesthood, Viganò signals his disbelief that the connection is being ignored. “Heterosexual men obviously do not choose boys and young men as sexual partners of preference, and approximately 80 percent of the victims are males, the vast majority of which are post-pubescent males.”

“It is not pedophiles but gay priests preying on post-pubertal boys who have bankrupted the U.S. dioceses,” he later adds.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is mind-boggling that the word ‘homosexuality’ has not appeared once, in any of the recent official documents of the Holy See, including the two Synods on the Family, the one on Youth, and the recent Summit last February.”

Viganò goes on to claim that the so-called “gay mafia” in the Church are “bound together not by shared sexual intimacy but by a shared interest in protecting and advancing one another professionally and sabotaging all efforts at reform.” He says that though Pope Benedict XVI initiated an investigation of the seminaries, nothing new was discovered, “apparently because various powers had joined forces to conceal the true situation.”

“Is there a single active bishop in the U.S. who admits he is actively homosexual? Of course not. Their work is constitutionally clandestine.”

On the question of whether he could ever reconcile with Pope Francis, Viganò replies:

The premise of your question is incorrect. I am not fighting against Pope Francis, nor have I offended him. I have simply spoken the truth. Pope Francis needs to reconcile himself with God, and the entire Church, since he covered up for McCarrick, refuses to admit it, and is now covering up for several other people. I am grateful to the Lord because He has protected me from having any sentiments of anger or resentment against Pope Francis, or any desire for revenge. I pray for his conversion every day. Nothing would make me happier than for Pope Francis to acknowledge and end the cover-ups, and to confirm his brothers in the faith.

There’s a great deal more to the interview with Archbishop Viganò that I have not touched on here. Read the whole thing at The Washington Post.

“Dimensions of Dialogue”:

The Spirit of Vatican II

A Repudiation of Bergoglianism

What is at stake after the European elections of May 26

Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | May 29, 2019

The elections of May 26th were an important episode in a conflict that goes way beyond the destiny of the European Parliament or any national government. In fact, a lobby exists that has as its aim, the destruction of Christian identity and the construction of cosmopolitan organisms that are assuming sovereign power of life and death over its European citizens. An example of this plan is what has just happened in France, where the Paris Court of Appeals handed over to the United Nations Organization, the ultimate decision on the life of Vincent Lambert, the French paraplegic condemned to death by his wife and the doctors at Rheims Hospital, where he is a patient.      

It is clear that power of legislation on the life of Lambert does not pertain to the French judges, nor those of Europe or the United Nations. Positive laws, both national and international, do not have their source in the entities that emanate or apply them, but in a divine law that is preexistent to the laws of men and by the laws of men cannot be changed.   Now, the natural and divine law prohibits the killing of the innocent and any human law claiming to establish the contrary must be considered a non-law, invalid and iniquitous. Further, inasmuch as the only guardian of the divine and natural law is the Catholic Church, it is first of all up to the men of the Church to proclaim the inalienable right to life.  But today the voice of the men of the Church is gone.  The only problem  the leaders of the Church seem to be interested in is that of hospitality to migrants from outside of Europe. An absolute, unconditional, total hospitality. We are not dealing here with the ancient virtue, whether Christian or secular, of hospitality, but of an ideological choice, wherein the philosophy of hospitality is presented, in reality, as a theory of renouncing European identity, or rather, its replacement.

The concept of “the great replacement” introduced by Renaud Camus (Le Grand Remplacement, David Reinharc, Neuilly-sur-Seine 2011) was developed by Professor Renato Cristin in his book I padroni del caos [The Lords of Chaos] (Liberlibri, Macerata 2017).  By way of a rigorous analysis, the author, who teaches philosophy at the University of Trieste, explains how this theory aims at substituting European populations with other populations (Africans, Arabians, Asians, for the most part Muslim) [thus] producing chaos as a concrete historical prospect. Cristin refers to the existence of a 2001 United Nations project in which “replacement migration” is explicitly addressed, in order to deal with the European demographic decline. 

The flows of populations are not only an ethnic transplanting, but a toppling of civilization, a “counter-colonization”, in which migrants are seen as bringers of a hybrid civilization or mixed race,  opposed to the Christian one which built Europe. The destruction of the national States passes thereby through a policy of replacement, whether it be ethnic or cultural. The cultural replacement consists in the negation of any identity rooted in European Christian tradition; the ethnic replacement occurs with the entry of a human mass of immigrants that substitute the European population, decimated by abortion and contraception. The anti-birth mentality is the biological expression of the cultural and moral suicide of the West. 

The results of the European Elections rewarded the political parties that most openly invoke national identities. Of particular importance is the sweeping victory of Matteo Salvini’s Lega, which attained 34.3% of the votes in Italy. But Italy, however, has been the country where the push for immigration has been the strongest, with not only the Episcopal Conference entering the field, but even Pope Francis who has been presenting himself as the leader of the leftwing political spectrum. The front-cover of the weekly L’Espresso, May 26th, portrays Pope Francis with the mask of Zorro, the vigilante, and defines him as the voice of “the people’s protest” against Salvini. On May 27th,in his Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees”, Pope Francis affirmed that “the motto of the true Christian is ‘the last’ first’, reiterating: “ this is not only about migrants: it is about putting the ‘last’ first”. That same morning, the Pope met with the Chief of the Kayapo Indios of the Amazon, Raoni Metukire, to re-launch revolutionary indigenism, in view of the Synod on the Amazon in October. 

The Bergoglian theology of the “last” represents open encouragement for the “replacement migration” strategy.  It is not clear who ‘the last’ are, but it is clear who those that must be replaced are, in the new “preferential option.” The Gospel exhorts us to love our neighbor as ourselves: “there is no greater commandment than this” (Mark 12, 29-31). St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (question 26, part II-II), explains however, that love for our neighbor is not a generic and indiscriminate sentiment, but has a precise gradation, which he calls the ‘order of charity’, whereby love must progressively extend itself from those closest to those farthest away. God must be loved more than our neighbor (a.2) and more than ourselves (a.3). Man must love himself more than his neighbor (a.4) and among our neighbors, some are to be loved more than others (a.6). The closest to us are those who gave us life and those we gave it to: our parents and our children. It is from them that love for our neighbor begins. 

It would make no sense, for example, to throw our parents out in the street in order to bring a couple of immigrants into their room. Further, the love that we owe our neighbor is primarily of a spiritual nature. What we must desire more than anything else, is the salvation of those we love. And loving means desiring their salvation. In the case of immigrants this consists in desiring their conversion to the true faith.  But today there is no pastoral care of evangelization for immigrants underway, in Italy or in Europe. Multiculturalism is presented as a much higher value than the monocultural Christian identity.

The dogma of hospitality is being proclaimed furthermore, by a society that takes the life of innocent human beings, unborn babies and old people; the former condemned to death by abortion, the latter, by euthanasia, without any real opposition to these crimes by the men of the Church. In reality, those who are scandalized by the display of a crucifix in schools or by a rosary kissed by a political leader, not only want to extirpate every public expression of Christianity, but also expect to snuff out the light of the divine and natural law still existent in our consciences, compelling us to defend innocent human life. And those who still have a Christian conscience, cannot but reclaim the vivid presence of the Crucifix, not only in private life, but also in public life and in the collective identity of European nations. 

Hence, we call upon the political parties in Italy, Hungary, France and many other countries that won the elections, thereby defeating “immigrationism”, not to limit themselves to a generic or superficial call to Christian roots, but to express this identity concretely in the institutions and laws of Europe, starting with the uncompromising defense of life and the family. The “Lambert case”, after that of Eluana Englaro and Alfie Evans, is the example of a battle that must be conducted in the upcoming months. This will perhaps raise the level of the conflict, but today we are battling for the life or death of our civilization. This battle, prior to being in parliament, is to be conducted in [our] culture and mentality. Yet, the electoral results have the function of revealing the deep tendencies of public opinion and in the case of May 26th, the electoral test demonstrates a European population that is not about to capitulate.

Originally posted on Rorate Caeli

“Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus Christ, Matt. 10:32-33

“The Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men.”

St. Paul, I Thessalonians 2:15

“The Jews are enemies of God and foes of our holy religion.”

St. Pio of Pietrelicina

[American Jewish Committee’s interfaith affairs director Rabbi David] Rosen said. “Those who said Benedict was the last pope who would be a pope that lived through the Shoah, or that said there would not be another pope who had a personal connection to the Jewish people, they were wrong,” Rosen said.... Israel Singer, the former head of the World Jewish Congress, said he spent time working with Bergoglio when the two were distributing aid to the poor in Buenos Aires in the early 2000s, part of a joint Jewish-Catholic program called Tzedaka.... Bergoglio also wrote the foreward of a book by Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a Buenos Aires legislator, and referred to him as “one of my teachers.”.... Bergoglio attended Rosh Hashanah services at the Benei Tikva Slijot synagogue in September 2007.... Last November, Bergoglio hosted a Kristallnacht memorial event at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral with Rabbi Alejandro Avruj from the NCI-Emanuel World Masorti congregation. He also has worked with the Latin American Jewish Congress and held meetings with Jewish youth who participate in its New Generations program.... In his visit to the Buenos Aires synagogue, according to the Catholic Zenit news agency, Bergoglio told the congregation that he was there to examine his heart “like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers.”....

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 13, 2015

From Adam to this day, divine worship that is acceptable to God has always been, without exception, the creation of God.

Christ chose the Cenacle In which to celebrate the Passover, because there lived, died, and were buried Melchisedech, David, Solomon and all the kings of David’s family till the Babylonian Captivity.

Melchisedech comes into history under this name in the account of the four Mesopotamian kings, who went into Palestine, captured Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and started for home. Abraham roused his servants, fell on them at night, rescued Lot, took their spoils, and returning passed by Salem, as Jerusalem then was named.

“But Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was a priest of the most high God, blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be the most high God by whose protection thy enemies are in thy band.’ And be gave him tithes of all.”

Here for the first time in Holy Writ we find a priest “of the most high God” offering the “bread and wine” of the Passover and Mass. Eight centuries of silence pass, and 1,100 years before Christ, David wrote of Christ’s priesthood: “Thou are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.” Then this great pontiff-king appears no more, in Holy Writ, till St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews mentions him eight times as a type of Christ. [.....]

But here for the first time in history, comes forth another order of priests, this mysterious Melchisedech offering bread and wine of the Last Supper and Mass. To him Abraham offered tithes—the tenth part of the fruits of his victory. Therefore Melchisedech’s priesthood was higher than that of Abraham; it was to be eternal; it pointed to Christ’s priesthood of the Last Supper and of the Catholic Church. The whole prophetic scene in that vale beside the sacred city was emblematic of the future.

[.....] Who was Melchisedech? St. Paul says: “Without father, without mother without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever.” [.....] Melchisedech was the patriarch Sem, sole survivor of the flood, eldest son and heir of Noe, king and high priest of the world. Noe established the right of primogeniture, that the eldest son should succeed the father in his property, kingship and priesthood, a custom coming down to our day.

Fr. James L. Meagher, D.D., How Christ Said the First Mass

Iconoclasm Revisited: The Great Neo-Modernist Heresy – The belief that there exists a merely accidental relationship between the “revealed truths” and the dogmatic “manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines.”

Students must learn to distinguish between on the one hand revealed truths, which all require the same assent of faith, and on the other hand the manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines. As far as the formulation of revealed truths is concerned, account will be taken of what is said by, among others, the declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Mysterium Ecclesiae, n. 5: “The truths which the Church intends actually to teach through its dogmatic formularies are, without doubt, distinct from the changing conceptions proper to a given age and can be expressed without them, but it can nonetheless happen that they will be expressed by the magisterium, in terms that bear traces of those conceptions. Account having been taken of these considerations, it must also be said that from the beginning the dogmatic formularies of the magisterium have always been appropriate for communicating revealed truth and that, remaining unchanged, they will always communicate it to those who interpret them properly”. Students should therefore learn to make the distinction between the “deposit of faith itself or the truths which are contained in our venerable doctrine”, and the way in which these truths are formulated; between the truths to be proclaimed and the various ways of perceiving them and shedding light upon them; between the apostolic Tradition and strictly ecclesiastical traditions, and at the same time they should learn to recognize and respect the permanent value of dogmatic formulations. From the time of their philosophical formation, students should be prepared to appreciate the legitimate diversity in theology which derives from the different methods and language theologians use in penetrating the divine mysteries. From which it follows that different theological formulations are often more complementary than contradictory.

The Ecumenical Directory

“It is beyond question that the Pope can err even in matters touching the faith.... Many pontiffs were heretics... The last of them was Pope John XXII (1522-1523).”

Pope Adrian VI, quoted by Fr. Paul Trinchard, One, Holy Catholic, Apostolic

To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high respect for those who are doing this. But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not for the average Christian. I would say that people must do what is possible in their situation. We cannot as human beings always do the ideal, the best. We must do the best possible in a given situation.

Cardinal Kasper, interview with Commonweal, May 7, 2016

If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation? [.....]

Cardinal Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family

Pope Francis makes the error of Kasper his own!

49. In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others.”

122. We should not however confuse different levels: there is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and his Church, for marriage as a sign entails “a dynamic process…, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God.”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

As already said: Francis will end Conservative Catholicism; they are forced to choose sides!

Priest: Pope’s ambiguity a ‘true blessing’ because it draws false Church out of shadows

LifeSiteNews | ROME, May 24, 2017 -- Pope Francis’ influence in the Catholic Church has been a “great and true blessing” since his ambiguous teachings have drawn the “anti-Church” out of the shadows into clear view for all the faithful to see, a priest told a gathering of pro-life and pro-family leaders in Rome last week. 

“The advent of Pope Francis has, in the divine order of things, proved a great and true blessing,” Fr. Linus Clovis of Family Life International said in his talk at the Rome Life Forum on May 18. 

“A hidden conflict has been raging in the Church for over one hundred years…Under Francis, the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas and the first pope whose priestly ordination was in the New Rite, it is now full blown, with the potential of rendering the Church smaller but more faithful,” he added. [……]

Council of Trent, Session VI, decrees on Justification

· CANON XVIII -If any one saith, that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.

· CANON XIX -If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.

· CANON XX -If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.

· CANON XXI -If any one saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey; let him be anathema.

· CANON XXII -If any one saith, that the justified, either is able to persevere, without the special help of God, in the justice received; or that, with that help, he is not able; let him be anathema.

COMMENT: Conservative Catholics recognize the heresy of Pope Francis/Bergoglio and his lapdog, Cardinal Walter Kasper, only in the practical moral application of their doctrinal errors. They apparently never recognized that Kasper was just as much a heretic during his curial days with John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He has been promoting situation ethics in an effort to overturn Catholic doctrinal and moral truths for a long, long time. How is it that they now find the moral relativism of Francis/Bergoglio so offensive while never complaining about the doctrinal relativism of the Assisi Prayer Meetings and the interfaith events in Jewish synagogues invoking their “common god”? Now they muse about the good-old-days under less radical conciliar popes as if that offers a safe-harbor. To invoke the concilarist popes, John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio and Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis against Francis/Bergoglio’s corrupting the sacrament of Marriage is not just futile, but stupid, for all of them, without exception, embraced the heresy as a first principle of their Modernist faith that Catholic dogma does and must necessarily evolve. Francis/Bergoglio has done nothing that could possible offend John Paul/Wojtyla or Benedict/Ratzinger. Are we expected to employ the same Novus Ordo salami techniques that were used by concilarists to corrupt the Catholic faith in order to help conservative Catholics recover it? It does not work that way. Either conservative Catholics will repent and conform themselves to the “rule of faith” which is Catholic dogma or they will continue to do what they have done over the last fifty years – that is, nothing beyond attacking those whose acts condemn their effeminacy. They, along with Francis/Bergoglio and Kasper need to understand that when God abandons anyone to their “reprobate sense” they will no longer be able to recognize Truth.

Pope lashes back against faithful Catholics who defend DOGMA

So we are faced with two groups of people. The group of the apostles who want to discuss the problem, and the others who go and create problems. They divide, they divide the Church, they say that what the Apostles preached is not what Jesus said, that it is not the truth.

There were many [councils], up until Vatican II, which clarified doctrine: for example, when we recite the Creed, it is the result of councils that have defined doctrine… It is a duty of the Church to clarify doctrine so that what Jesus said in the Gospels is better understood, what is the Spirit of the Gospels….

But there were always those people who, without any commission, go about disturbing the Christian community with speeches that upset souls: ‘Eh, no, someone who says that is a heretic, you can’t say this, or that; this is the doctrine of the Church.’ And they are fanatics about things that are not clear, such as these fanatics who go about there, sowing discord in order to divide the Christian community. And this is the problem: when the doctrine of the Church, that which comes from the Gospel, that which the Holy Spirit inspires – because Jesus said, ‘He will teach us and remind you of all that I have taught’ – that doctrine becomes an ideology. And this is the great error of these people.

Pope Francis the Fanatic, open confession of his ideological driven obfuscation of doctrine, May 19, 2017

Reprint from 2008: Thoughts on the recent papal visit... by John Vennari

The Kingdom of God vs. the Civilization of Love

Post-conciliar Church leaders have succeeded in creating new categories that eclipse true categories established by 2000 years of Catholic teaching. One such instance is a new dichotomy that distinguishes between the “Civilization of Love” (the good guys) vs. the “Culture of Death” (the bad guys). This terminology, and the interreligious ideology that shapes it, is foreign to our Catholic patrimony. It is a rupture with the past, not continuity. The true Catholic teaching on this matter is found in the perennial Catholic doctrine of the two Kingdoms: the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of Satan
According to the magisterial teaching of Pope Leo XIII, who reiterates the doctrine of Saint Augustine:

1. The world is divided into two opposing camps: the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of Satan;

2. Every human being belongs to either one or the other of these two camps;

3. Since the fall of Adam, these two kingdoms have been in conflict with one another, and will continue to be in conflict with one another until the end of time.

The eminent theologian Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton explains that the Kingdom of God is the Catholic Church; for this is what the term “church” actually means. It is the Kingdom of God on earth, the people of the Divine Covenant, the one and only social unit outside of which salvation cannot be found. The word ‘church’ has a distinct definition not applicable to any other religious body.
The Kingdom of God, Fenton elaborates, is the Church Triumphant in Heaven; the Church suffering in Purgatory; and the Church Militant on earth. This “supernatural kingdom of God” is the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
Opposed to this Kingdom, Fenton explains, is another kingdom, a kingdom of evil. “We must not lose sight of the fact”, writes Fenton, “that people in the condition of aversion from God, in the state of original or mortal sin, belong in some way to the kingdom or an eccleisa [church] under the leadership of satan, the moving spirit among the enemies of God.”
It is the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church that those who are not part of the true Church of Christ: heretics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and all other pagan religions, are not part of the Kingdom of God. Jews and members of pagan religions, speaking in the objective order, are still in the state of original sin. Heretics (Protestants, etc.), in the objective order, are outside the Church of Jesus Christ, as defined infallibly by the Council of Florence. It must be reiterated that everything said here is stated in the objective order.
All those outside the Kingdom of God stand in need of being saved. The Catholic concept of salvation, explains Msgr. Fenton, “involves necessarily the transfer of an individual from the one social unit to another, from the kingdom of satan to the true and supernatural Kingdom of God.”
But along comes Vatican II and its new policy of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. The 2000-year-old Catholic categories of “Kingdom of God” vs. the “kingdom of satan” will no longer do, as they stand in the way of the new social order based on religious pluralism.
So new categories are invented: the “Civilization of Love” vs. the “Culture of Death”. The Civilization of Love may contain members of all religions provided that each member of this new civilization strives to incorporate moral virtues in themselves and in society. The “Culture of Death” is the work of the baddies, the anti-life forces of abortion and eugenics, the homosexual collective, the purveyors of pornography, and those who advance social injustice and physical evil.
Yet the “Civilization of Love” is a utopian dream born from the modernist revolution of Vatican II. It eclipses the true dichotomy between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan. It wants members of the Kingdom of God and kingdom of satan to downplay the primacy of salvation, of baptism, of sanctifying grace, in order to work together to enhance mutual understanding and to serve society at large.
The new pan-religious civilization of love stands condemned by the perennial magisterium of the Church. In 1910, Pope St. Pius X condemned the notion of “an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion [the Catholic Faith]: it is a proven truth, a historical fact.”
By “moral civilization”, Pius does not mean simply the Catholic religion as a dynamic contributor to a secular state, but the establishment of “Christian civilization”, of the “Catholic city”; in other words, the Social Kingship of Christ.
According to all appearances, Pope Benedict XVI came to the United States primarily as an emissary for the Civilization of Love.
Benedict’s April 17 Address to non-Christian religious leaders encouraged interreligious activity. He also called upon Jews, Muslims, Jains, Hindus, Buddhists and others to join with Catholics to “bear witness to those moral truths which they hold in common with all men and women of good will” so that “religious groups will exert a positive influence on the wider culture, and inspire neighbors, co-workers and fellow citizens to join in the task of strengthening the ties of solidarity.”
Pope Benedict then said, “In the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: ‘no greater thing could come to our land than a revival of the spirit of Faith’.”
This is a rallying cry for the pan-religious civilization of love, not the Kingdom of God. Yet the theme of interreligious solidarity was repeated time and time again in his recent US trip, including the Papal Address to interreligious Leaders, the Address to the United Nations, the Address at the Ecumenical Prayer Service, and the visit to the Synagogue.
Nowhere in any of these speeches did Pope Benedict indicate that members of false religious are in danger of damnation by clinging to their false sects. Nowhere in his speech to the collection of non-Christian religious leader did he quote Jesus Christ. Instead, he chose to quote the Freemason Franklin D. Roosevelt whose definition of the “spirit of Faith” comes straight from the Masonic lodge – a generic spirit of religion allegedly common to practitioners of every opposing creed. In all this, as in most other areas, Benedict XVI showed himself to be first and foremost a man of Vatican II.
Granted, it is not easy to preach the Social Kingship of Christ. It is not easy to tell non-Catholics they can only save their souls by abandoning their present position and joining Christ’s one and only true Church. Yet how can a faithful Vicar of Christ do anything else but preach these truths, which flow not from changeable law, but from the very essence of God and of the Faith itself?
The more our Church leaders promote a pan-religious “healthy secularity”, the more difficult it will be for a future Pope to stand up for Our Lord’s Kingly rights in the social order. Thanks to modern Papal trips and statements that constantly endorse ecumenism and interreligious collaboration, present and future generations will regard the true doctrine of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as alien to their understanding of Catholicism; as something “un-Catholic”.
Despite the thousands who cheered and wept during the latest Papal visit, there can be no lasting hope except in a return to the perennial magisterium of the centuries. Heaven cannot bless a religious camaraderie between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan. The new spirit of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue is foreign to the spirit of Catholicism and to the consistent teaching of the Church. It will only bring about more chaos and ruin.
Let us pray for Pope Benedict XVI. Let us also pray fervently that God will soon grant us a Pope who will resurrect the true teaching of the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of satan, and discard the counterfeit “Civilization of Love vs. Culture of Death” dichotomy.

Note:

Pope Leo XIII explains in his magnificent encyclical against Freemasonry, Humanum Genus: “The race of man after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of Heavenly gifts, ‘through the envy of the devil,’ separated into two diverse parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other for those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the Kingdom of God on earth, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it so as to gain salvation must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God. This twofold kingdom St. Augustine keenly discerned and described after the manner of two cities, contrary in their laws because striving for contrary objects; and with subtle brevity he expressed the efficient cause of each in these words: ‘Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching even to contempt of self, a Heavenly one.’ At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other…” [emphasis added]. Even if post-Conciliar Church leaders use the term “Kingdom of God”, they never define it as did Pope Leo XIII; and they simultaneously advance the new pan-religious “Civilization of Love”. http://www.cfnews.org/cfn.htm

Rene Descartes, the Catholic, and Immanuel Kant, the Protestant, are the twin pillars of modern philosophical atheism!

I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flip of His thumb; after that he had no more use for God.

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Since the Year of Mercy is long gone.... No more Mr. Nice Guy!

The Cardinal who sustains this, is a disillusioned man, inasmuch as he wanted power and lost it. He thought he was the highest authority in the United States.... He is not the Magisterium: the Holy Father is the Magisterium, and it is he who teaches the entire Church. The other just states his own ideas, and they deserve no further comment.  These are the words of a poor man..... The Catholic right-wing wants power and not truth.  If they say they find some “heresy” in Francis’ words, they are greatly mistaken, since they think like men and not as the Lord wills.

Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga’s petty insults against Cardinal Raymond Burke, Only the Gospel is Revolutionary

“Not to resist an error is to approve of it – not to defend a truth is to reject it.”

St. Augustine’s dictum, codified in the Decretum Gratiani

Prophecy and our times!

An unhappy time is coming of revolt and dissension in the Church.  Oh my children, do not let yourselves be led astray by innovations.  Rally and hold fast.  Stay on the same road, the same footpaths as your pious fathers trod.  Preserve and maintain what they have taught you.  It will be enough if you resist the attacks, the tempests, the hurricanes that will arise with such violence.

The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted.  The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the Apostles to have expired.  But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.

St. Nicholas of Flu, 15th Century

During the fifth period, we saw only calamities and devastation; oppression of Catholics by tyrants and heretics; execution of Kings, and conspiracies to set up republics . . . Are we not to fear, during this period, that the Mohammedans will come again, working out their sinister schemes against the Latin Church? . . . During this period men will abuse the freedom of conscience conceded to them . . . there will be laxity in divine and human precepts.  Discipline will suffer.  The holy canons will be completely disregarded, and the clergy will not respect the laws of the Church.  Everyone will be carried away and led to believe and to do what he fancies, according to the manner of the flesh. . . But, by the hand of God Almighty, there occurs so wondrous a change during the sixth period that no one can humanly visualize it.

The sixth period of the Church will begin with the powerful Monarch and the holy Pontiff . . . and it will last until the revelation of Antichrist.  In this period, God will console His Holy Church for the affliction and great tribulation she has endured during the fifth period.  All nations will become Catholic.  Vocations will be abundant as never before, and all men will seek only the Kingdom of God and His justice.  Men will live in peace, and this will be granted because people will make their peace with God.  They will live under the protection of the Great Monarch and his successors.

All nations will come to worship God in the true Catholic and Roman faith.  There will be many Saints and Doctors on earth.  Peace will reign over the whole earth because God will bind Satan for a number of years until the days of the Son of Perdition.   No one will be able to pervert the Word of God since, during the sixth period, there will be an Ecumenical Council which will be the greatest of all councils.  By the grace of God, by the power of the Great Monarch, by the authority of the Holy Pontiff, and by the union of all the most devout princes, atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth.  The Council will define the true sense of Holy Scripture, and this will be believed and accepted by everyone.

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, holy priest of the seventeenth century

In the twentieth century there will be a time of great corruption of customs, and this devotion will be the safeguard of this land during the times to come when it will no longer be a colony, but a free and libertine republic.  Let us weep, pray, and do penance so that this time will not be of long duration.

The secular clergy will leave much to be desired because priests will become careless in their sacred duties.  Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain.  How the Church will suffer during this dark night!  Lacking a Prelate and Father to guide them with paternal love, gentleness, strength, wisdom and prudence, many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger.  This will mark the arrival of My hour.

Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring the Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those Ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate who will restore the spirit of its priests. . . [When all seems lost, it will be] the happy beginning of the complete restoration.  This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Good Success, to Venerable Marianne de Jesus Torres (1563-1635)

It was revealed to me that through the intercession of the Mother of God all heresies will disappear. The victory over heresies has been reserved by Christ for his Blessed Mother… The power of Mary in the latter days will be very conspicuous. Mary will extend the reign of Christ over the heathens and the Mohammedans, and it will be a time of great joy when Mary is enthroned as Mistress and Queen of hearts.

Venerable Maria of Agreda, seventeenth century

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Catholic Church Teaches:

“That the mystical body of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same thing, is a doctrine based on revealed truth.”

Pius XII, Humani Generis

(Modernism teaches that) “the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.”

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi, 1907

With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race. Thus it falls into very serious errors, which are even more serious when they concern sacred authority, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith. The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmas which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas.

Pope St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, 1907

The Vatiacan II Church Teaches:

“Church of Christ… subsits in the Catholic Church.”

Lumen Gentium, Vatican II

NOTE: The author of this term, “subsist in,” was Pastor Wilhelm Schmidt, a Protestant minister who made the suggestion to Cardinal Augustin Bea, the ecumenist, modernist biblical scholar, patron of Fr. Annibale Bugnini, and confessor to Pope Pius XII, who in turn recruited the support of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger who then convinced Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne to bring the matter to the Council. This story was personally verified by Fr. Franz Schmidberger, First Assistant to the Superior General of the SSPX, by directly contacting Pastor Schmidt.

The problem remains if Lumen Gentium strictly and exclusively identifies the Mystical Body of Christ with the Catholic Church, as did Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. Can we not call it into doubt when we observe that not only is the attribute "Roman" missing, but also that one avoids saying that only Catholics are members of the Mystical Body. Thus they are telling us that the Church of Christ and of the Apostles subsistit in, is found in the Catholic Church. There is consequently no strict identification, that is exclusive, between the Church of Christ and the "Roman" Church. Vatican II admits, fundamentally, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the Mystical Body and not merely ordered to it.

Yves Cardinal Congar

Church of Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities. (Bold face in original).

Avery Cardinal Dulles, a member of the International Theological Commission

It is difficult to say that the Catholic Church is still one, Catholic, apostolic, when one says that the others (other Christian communities) are equally one, Catholic and apostolic, albeit to a lesser degree. ---- at Vatican Council II, the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion.

Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx

Concretely and actually the Church of Christ may be realized less, equally, or even more in a Church separated from Rome than in a Church in communion with Rome. This conclusion is inescapable on the basis of the understanding of Church that emerges from the teaching of Vatican Council II.

Fr. Gregory Baum

And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio) the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Offers Clarification (?):
QUESTION: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?
RESPONSE:
Christ “established here on earth” only one Church and instituted it as a “visible and spiritual community”, that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted. “This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic […]. This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him”.
In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.

REPLY:

Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, and many other Protestant groups recite the Nicene Creed professing a belief in the “one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church.” They clearly do not define the word “catholic” in the same sense as Roman Catholics do. Is the CDF giving a Catholic or Protestant meaning to the word “catholic” when it explains the word “subsist”? Is the comment of Cardinal Congar explaining the significance of the failure to use the word “Roman” important to our understanding of the CDF’s response? Is this a cleaver corruption of dogmatic truth through corruption of language? Should we be grateful to Cardinal Congar for his open and honest comments? Since the “ecumenism of return” is rejected then, do Protestants that do not have to “return” to the Roman Catholic Church already belong to the “Church of Christ”? Is there salvation in the “Church of Christ” separated from the Roman Catholic Church?

Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.

James 1:17
For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.

Matt 5:18

Paradoxically precisely because one remains [in the Church], precisely if one is faithful, one changes. One does not remain faithful, like the traditionalists or the fundamentalists, to the letter. Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth. The Lord brings about a change in those who are faithful to Him.

Cardinal Bergoglio, interview with Stefani Falasca, 2007

More distantly, this view comes from the German transcendental philosophies that value becoming more than being and therefore value perennial doubt more than certainty and seeking more than finding..... The mistake in this position lies in regarding as humble an attitude that is really an intense form of pride. What is someone really preferring when he prefers searching for the truth to truth itself? He is preferring his own subjective movement and the activity of the Ego more than the good that his powers of acting are given him to attain. In short the Object is being valued less than the subject and an anthropocentric view is being adopted that is irreconcilable with religion, which seeks the creature's subjection to the Creator and teaches that in being thus subjected the creature finds its own satisfaction and perfection. The false view that values searching more than the truth is really a form of indifferentism.
Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, The Virtue of Faith

“The Devil is fighting a decisive battle”
Sr. Lucy also told me:

“Father, the Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them.
“Also, Father, tell them that my cousins Francisco and Jacinta made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. …”
Referring to the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed her and Jacinta and Francisco, she said:
“For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments that will certainly come over the earth if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin.
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.
“Father, the Blessed Virgin did not tell me that we are in the last times of the world, but I understood this for three reasons:
“The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.
“The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others.

“And the third, because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother.
 If we despise and reject this last means, Heaven will no longer pardon us, because we will have committed a sin that the Gospel calls a sin against the Holy Spirit. This sin consists in openly rejecting – with full knowledge and will – the salvation that is put in our hands.
 “Also, since Our Lord is a very good Son, He will not permit that we offend and despise His Blessed Mother. We have as obvious testimony the history of different centuries where Our Lord has shown us with terrible examples how He has always defended the honor of His Blessed Mother.
 “Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is - be it temporal or above all spiritual - in the spiritual life of each of us or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations.
 “I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.
 “Then, there is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, holding her as the seat of mercy, goodness and pardon and the sure door to enter Heaven. This is the first part of the Message referring to Our Lady of Fatima, and the second part, which is briefer but no less important, refers to the Holy Father.”

Sister Lucy of Fatima to Fr. Augustin Fuentes in 1957

"He does not send answers from heaven. 'He sends the Holy Spirit.'" Pope Francis the Destroyer

COMMENT: As if the Holy Ghost does not provide "answers from heaven." It is true that Jesus did not give his apostles answers regarding the "Jewish law," but he did promise to send the Holy Ghost and said, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth." At the Council of Jerusalem, Pope St. Peter under the direction of this same Spirit said, "It seems good to us and the Holy Ghost" that the Jewish law should be definitively set aside. And so it was. God had revealed His truth giving a "clear rule" that one might describe as being a very "efficient" addressing of the question. Is this what Francis means by the "temptation of efficientism." As to Francis' claim that "Jesus does not want the church to be a perfect model" does not reconcile well with Jesus command that we to "Be ... therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." Or again, that we are to "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby, is a stranger to grace, and thus a stranger to the possibility of true sanctity. Every dogma of our faith is a "answer from heaven." Unfortunately, Francis will not hear them.

Pope Francis: Church Must Learn to Abandon Old ‘Traditions’

It is a mistake for the Church to try to hold onto old traditions or to have clear answers for everything, Pope Francis said Thursday.

Breitbard | Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. | May 23, 2019

Jesus intentionally omitted telling his disciples many things so that the Church would learn to renounce the desire for clarity and order, the pope told participants in the 21st general assembly of Caritas Internationalis, the Church’s global charitable outreach.

When pagans first embraced the Christian faith, the question arose as to if they would have to abide by all the precepts of the Jewish law, something Jesus never spoke of, the pope noted.

By not always giving “clear rules” that would quickly resolve issues, Jesus was protecting the Church from the temptation of “efficientism,” Francis said, which is the desire for the Church to have everything under control, avoiding surprises, with its agenda always in order.

This is not the way the Lord acts, he continued. He does not send answers from heaven. “He sends the Holy Spirit.”

“Jesus does not want the church to be a perfect model, satisfied with its own organization and able to defend its good name,” he said. “Jesus did not live like this, but on a journey, without fearing the upheavals of life.”

Living like Jesus demands the “courage of renunciation,” the pontiff said, a willingness to abandon traditions that are dear to us.

Changing and adapting is not about imposing something new, he said, “but leaving aside something old.”

Those early Christians had to learn to leave behind “important religious traditions and precepts, dear to the chosen people,” he said, by which their very “religious identity” was at stake.

In the end, they did not need a bunch of doctrines and traditions. but the simple announcement that “God is love,” Francis said, and in the face of this great truth, “even convictions and human traditions can and must be abandoned, since they are more of an obstacle than a help.”

“God often purifies, simplifies, and makes us grow by taking away, not by adding, as we might do,” he said.

“True faith cleanses from attachments,” he said. “As a church, we are not called to corporate compromises, but to evangelical enterprise.”

Critics of the pope have often complained that he intentionally sows “ambiguity,” and the pontiff’s words Thursday would seem to suggest that he owns this criticism as a badge of honor because he sees a desire for doctrinal clarity as anti-evangelical.

Francis famously refused to answer four cardinals who presented him with five questions or “dubia” to clarify certain purportedly unclear teachings in his 2016 teaching letter, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love).

In 2017, the former doctrinal chief of the U.S. Bishops Conference (USCCB) wrote a powerful letter to the pope, criticizing his “intentionally ambiguous” teaching, derision of conservatives, and resistance to constructive criticism.

The Capuchin priest, Father Thomas Weinandy, whom Pope Francis himself named to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission in 2014, listed five points that illustrate the “chronic confusion” that seems to characterize the Francis pontificate, namely, intentional ambiguity, disdain for doctrine, the naming of heterodox bishops, sowing division in the Church, and vindictiveness in the face of criticism.

The Pope’s guidance “at times seems intentionally ambiguous,” the theologian stated, leaving the faithful confused and spiritually adrift. “To teach with such a seemingly intentional lack of clarity inevitably risks sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth,” the priest said.

While the pope accuses his critics of making doctrine into an ideology, “it is precisely Christian doctrine that frees people from worldly ideologies and assures that they are actually preaching and teaching the authentic, life-giving Gospel,” Weinandy said.

Other observers have attributed the Pope’s habitual vagueness to his training in the Jesuit order.

“For those unfamiliar with Jesuits,” wrote Dominic Lynch in The Federalist, “vague and porous doctrine is almost their raison d’être. Indeed, it is so baked into the order that finding a conservative Jesuit is more difficult than finding a liberal in West Texas.”

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Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

A Illustrative Example of the Heresy of Neo-Modernism

It is not enough to find a new language in which to articulate our perennial faith; it is also urgent, in the light of the new challenges and prospects facing humanity, that the Church be able to express the ‘new things’ of Christ’s Gospel, that, albeit present in the word of God, have not yet come to light.

Pope Francis the Destroyer, Address, October 11, 2018

A Illustrative Example of the Catholic Faith

If there are any present-day teachers making every effort to produce and develop new ideas, but not to repeat “that which has been handed down,” and if this is their whole aim, they should reflect calmly on those words which Benedict XV proposes for their consideration: “We wish this maxim of our elders held in reverence: Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum — let nothing new be introduced, but only what has been handed down; it must be held as an inviolable law in matters of faith, and should also control those points which allow of change, though in these latter for the most part the rule holds: non nova sed noviter—not new things but in a new way.”

Pope Pius XII, Si Diligis, Allocution to Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops on the Canonization of St Pius X, May 31, 1954.

Canonical Problems with the election of Pope Francis may render election invalid!

The LGBT Political Campaign Behind Pope Francis' Election, By David Martin

With theologians and bishops aghast over what some are calling ‘the most terrible schism the world has ever seen,’ it behooves the Catholic hierarchy to take a closer look at the 2013 papal election since it appears to have raised to the Chair of Peter “a man, not canonically elected.”

To recap, on the eve of the 2013 conclave, Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga who was one of the key kingmakers for the papal election was busily on the phone with cardinal electors from the Honduran embassy in Rome. His frenzied phone effort was the tail end of an intense lobbying campaign to secure votes for the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as pope.

That same day, Maradiaga attended a private meeting of Bergoglio supporters, which included key players in the “St. Gallen Mafia,” and together they garnered pledges for up to twenty-five votes for Bergoglio. Not surprisingly, Bergoglio opened with twenty-six votes on the first day of the conclave, though that number would rise to 77 on the second day indicating that this campaign effort was gaining ground. Three days later the newly elected Pope Francis asked Maradiaga to head his powerful new Council of Cardinals, known as the “Council of Nine.”

Six years later, the pope and his “vice pope” are accused of perpetuating “one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.” A recent open letter addressed to the bishops of the Church accuses Pope Francis of being “guilty of the crime of heresy” and alleges that “Pope Francis has protected and promoted homosexually active clerics and clerical apologists for homosexual activity” indicating “he believes that homosexual activity is not gravely sinful.”

The letter cites the papal favor enjoyed by Maradiaga, a revolutionary accused of covering up for homosexual bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle. Pineda was forced to resign amidst allegations that he sexually abused seminarians and embezzled over $1.3 million to “pay for sexual favors” and “maintain a network” of gay-lovers. Reports have it that Maradiaga has brutally ruined the careers of at least six priests who spoke out against Pineda.
Fruits of Vote Canvassing

Hence Francis - who has abetted anti-life forces, betrayed the underground Church in China, sacked loyal priests, empowered homosexuals, rewarded abortionists, praised Luther, blessed adultery, denied the miracle of the loaves, and professed manifold heresy—occupies the Papal Chair today because of this LGBT canvassing campaign that made the difference in determining the outcome of the 2013 papal election. On August 27, 2018, Vatican correspondent Edward Pentin tweeted concerning this political campaign:

“Cdls Danneels & Ex-Cdl McCarrick campaigned for Bergoglio to be Pope, as did ++Maradiaga on eve of Conclave, phoning up various cardinals from the Honduran embassy in Rome. Despite their pasts, all 3 prelates have since been special advisors of Francis or rehabilitated by him.”

As we know, the late Cardinal Danneels was a public advocate of “gay marriage” and McCarrick was defrocked of his bishopric last February after being indicted for homosexual predation of seminarians and for covering up the sexual-abuse of numerous seminarians perpetrated by some 300 priests under his jurisdiction.

San Gallen’s Mafia

Danneels confessed on video in September 2015 that he and several cardinals were part of the notorious St. Gallen’s Mafia that had conspired for the ouster of Benedict XVI and the election of Cardinal Bergoglio, and it was this very group that culminated its campaign effort just before 2013 conclave, showing clearly that conspiracy played a key role in the outcome of the election. Danneel’s confession alone stands as irrefutable evidence.

Austen Ivereigh's book, The Great Reformer, brings to light how Cardinal Murphy O'Connor (a homosexual) along with several key cardinals had spearheaded this intense lobbying campaign, through which they secured pledges from nearly 30 cardinals to get Cardinal Bergoglio elected as pope. https://fromrome.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-great-reformer-francis-and-the-making-of-a-radical-pope/

According to Ivereigh, "they first secured Bergoglio’s assent" and then "they got to work, touring the cardinals’ dinners to promote their man." This was confirmed, in the case of Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal O'Malley, in the Wall Street Journal report from August 6, 2013. As the conclave neared, they held a series of closed meetings, known as congregations, one of which featured Cardinal Bergoglio as the keynote speaker, thereby proving that Bergoglio was colluding in this plan.

Ecclesiastical Law Violated

The foregoing warrants episcopal inquisition into Pope Francis’ election since it contained multi-violations against Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution Unversi Dominici Gregis, which governs papal elections. The Constitution makes it clear that political vote canvassing on the part of cardinal electors is forbidden and incurs automatic excommunication upon those involved. Consider the following:

“The Cardinal electors shall further abstain from any form of pact, agreement, promise or other commitment of any kind which could oblige them to give or deny their vote to a person or persons. If this were in fact done, even under oath, I decree that such a commitment shall be null and void and that no one shall be bound to observe it; and I hereby impose the penalty of excommunication latae sententae upon those who violate this prohibition. (81)

Unwritten Rule

While the pope here speaks of the election itself, we should not rule out that this prohibition also applies to that time before the election when preparations are underway, since it is during this time that illicit political activity would exert its greatest influence on the vote. "Any form of pact" obliging electors "to give or deny their vote to a person" would be secured before the election.

We should also consider that violations not mentioned in the Constitution could also criminalize the election. Crimes like extortion or LGBT bribery committed before the election would certainly render the election illicit if their influence carried into the election.

The pope also says in his Constitution:

“Confirming the prescriptions of my Predecessors, I likewise forbid anyone, even if he is a Cardinal, during the Pope's lifetime and without having consulted him, to make plans concerning the election of his successor, or to promise votes, or to make decisions in this regard in private gatherings.” (79)

A clique of cardinals did “make plans” to force Benedict XVI’s resignation and to campaign for “the election of his successor,” with up to 25 cardinals “promising votes” the day before the election, this having come about through “private gatherings,” thus revealing the illicit conduct of those cardinal electors to be.

Under the pain of excommunication latae sententiae, the pope forbids “each and every Cardinal elector, present and future, as also the Secretary of the College of Cardinals and all other persons taking part in the preparation and carrying out of everything necessary for the election” to allow “all possible forms of interference, opposition and suggestion whereby secular authorities of whatever order and degree, or any individual or group, might attempt to exercise influence on the election of the Pope.” (80)

It was through Judas cardinals that are allied with the infamous LGBT network and who were "taking part in the preparation" of the election that the secular powers were enabled to "exercise influence on the election of the pope."
Section 76 of John Paul II's Constitution states:

“Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected." (76)

There is much being said at this time concerning Francis’ errors and heterodoxy but little is said concerning the election that launched his revolution. Has it not occurred to Catholics that his election could have been null?

It indeed behooves the Church’s episcopal body to take a closer look at the 2013 papal election, since we may very well be witnessing the fulfillment of the prophecy of St. Francis of Assisi concerning a false shepherd:

"At the time of this tribulation, a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error…. Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true pastor, but a destroyer." (1226)

(Taken from Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, R. Washbourne Publishing House, 1882, pp. 248-250, with imprimatur by His Excellency William Bernard, Bishop of Birmingham)

“Humility restrains the appetite from aiming at great things against right reason, while magnanimity urges the mind to great things in accord with right reason. Hence it is clear that magnanimity is not opposed to humility, indeed, they concur in this, that each is according to right reason.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

Humility in human relations:

“In man, two things have to be considered: that which is of God, and that which is of man. . . But humility in the strict sense means the awe in virtue of which man subjects himself to God. Consequently man, with regard to that which is of himself, must subject himself to his neighbor with regard to that which is of God in him. But humility does not require that one subject that which is of God in himself to that which seems to be of God in the other. . . Humility likewise does not require that one subject that which is of himself to that which is of man in the other.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

“No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

While St. Francis Jerome, S.J. (1642-1716, feast day May 11) was preaching to abandoned women in the streets of Naples, one of their number insulted him from her window and ridiculed his discourse. The Saint warned her that within eight days God would punish her, and on the eighth day he invited his audience, who had assembled at the same place, to visit the woman that had interrupted him. She was found by them lying dead upon the floor of her room. 'Catherine,' said the Saint, addressing the dead body, 'for the greater glory of God and the edification of those standing by, answer me, Where are you?' The departed soul returned for an instant, and gave an answer distinctly heard by all present - 'In hell, for eternity.'

Rev. Henry S. Bowden, Miniature Lives of the Saints

Novus Ordo “Saint” John Paul II taught the novel doctrine that by the Incarnation, when the “Word was made flesh,” all men became “Son(s) of the living God” regardless of faith or reception of the sacraments. The Catholic Church teaches that only by incorporation with Jesus Christ by faith and baptism does a person become an adopted child of God.

It all began from his belief that all men were defied by the Incarnation and not by the grace of Baptism!

All of you who are still seeking God, all of you who already have the inestimable good fortune to believe, and also you who are tormented by doubt: please listen once again, today in this sacred place, to the words uttered by Simon Peter. In those words is the faith of the Church. In those same words is the new truth, indeed, the ultimate and definitive truth about man: the son of the living God— “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

John Paul II, first homily, October 27, 1978

“Erroneous judgment… unjust accusation…rebellion”

For you, the former rite of Mass is a sign of your false ecclesiology and a matter on which to assail the Council and its work of reform. You take as pretext or as your alleged justification that only in the former rite are the authentic sacrifice of the Mass and the authentic ministerial priesthood preserved, their meaning unobscured. We reject out-of- hand this erroneous judgment and unjust accusation; we cannot permit the divine Eucharist, sacrament of unity, to he made the source of division (1 Cor 11:18); we cannot permit you to make use of it as an instrument and symbol of your rebellion.

Pope Paul VI, addressing Archbishop Marcel Lefèbvre, October 2, 1976. Six months before this remark, in April 1976, Paul VI removed Archbishop Bugnini, the primary author of his Novus Ordo (now called the “Ordinary Form”) as Secretary of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy, he then dissolved the Consilium, and exiled Bugnini to the post of papal nuncio to Iran because the Pope had seen convincing evidence that Bugnini was a Freemason.

A “miracle” was attributed to the intercession of Paul VI by the Congregation for the Cause of the Saints. The miracle? Premature rupture of amniotic fluid in a five month fetus did not result in health problems as doctors had predicted. The “miracle” then is that a doctor's diagnosis and/or prognosis was incorrect.

“Thank you very much, thank you very much, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me…”

The noble simplicity of Paul Vl’s funeral at Piazza S. Pietro, emceed by my former mentor Archbishop Virgilio Noè, was the epitome of the conciliar liturgical reform’s sobrietas romana and noble simplicity that his papacy championed with clear vision and firm determination. The coffin was slightly raised above the ground. It was draped in plain white cloth with the Book of the Gospels on top and the paschal candle nearby. The rite was carried out with dignity, gravity, and noble simplicity. The spontaneous applause of the people as the coffin was carried inside the basilica for interment was a moving tribute to the pope who successfully steered the Church through the calm and tempest of Vatican II’s aggiornamento.

Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB, Modernist Liturgical Expert and admirer of Paul VI, What, Then is Liturgy?, Commenting on the funeral of Paul V

Old Evangelization vs. New Evangelization

The old evangelization holds that any man, like all men born with original sin and an enemies of God, if he believes what God by His Son, Jesus Christ, has revealed and repents from his sins, can be raised by the sacrament of Baptism to the dignity by being a “child of God” and heir to eternal life with God in heaven because the sacrament of Baptism with the desire to receive it marks his soul with an indelible character and removes all guilt of sin and punishment due to original sin and actual sins.

The Novus Ordo Church holds the novel doctrine of Religious Liberty which is the belief that the natural dignity of man is so great that he possesses the right NOT to believe what God has revealed and NOT to do what God commands. Oddly, the Novus Ordo Church holds that Baptism actually lowers the dignity of man because it takes away his right of Religious Liberty, makes him a slave to the arbitrary whims of the pope, and if he should, for some reason, become a Traditional Catholic, well then, he would be so undignified as to become a “heretic” and “schismatic.”

Satan’s Primary Target: The Family

“The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.”

Sr. Lucia, letter to Cardinal Carlo Caffara

It is no accident that this Heresy which denies the Catholic doctrine concerning Supernatural Charity is to be found in a document which purports to encapsulate the teaching of the Synod on the Family.

Continuing the metaphor employed at the beginning of this article, we may rightly say that, if the Catholic truth concerning Charity is the “Hub” of the wheel of all true Catholic life, then the family is the lynch-pin which holds this wheel in place as the foundational institution incarnating this Charity in the life of both the Church and the world. The family is the place where Charity is received through baptism. It is the place where it is nourished through love. It is where it receives its foundations and bulwarks through the educational process, and the place of support and protection where it endures through the sufferings of this life. It is the Family, and the question as to whether it is constituted as either a place of Charity or its denial, which determines whether we live in a Christian civilization, or a civilization turned away from God to the worship of Evil.

It is also therefore no accident that the chapter of Amoris Laetitia (Chapter VIII) which attempts to enshrine this heresy within its teaching on the family is called “Accompanying, discerning and integrating weakness.” The “weaknesses” specifically addressed in this chapter are Catholics couples living in objective mortal sin through cohabitation, those in a civil marriage without the sacrament, and those who have gone through the process of civil divorce and remarriage. Each of these are designated as “weaknesses” in this document, but are in reality situations of objective mortal sins which are primary attacks upon the family and the institution of marriage upon which it is founded. To therefore speak of integrating such sins into the Church is to speak of integrating evil into the very lifeblood of the Church, thereby violating the entire Christian idea of what constitutes Charity within the family.

The key to this satanic strategy is the word “integration”. It is a word which is absolutely central, not only to the agenda of a totally anti-Christian occult worldview which now worships the evolutionary progress and “salvation” of the entire world through an “integral ecology”, but also the theology now dominant within the Church through the theology of Teilhard de Chardin and Pope Benedict, and which is now being implemented through the words and pastoral policies of Pope Francis and his supporters in the hierarchy. It views Christian Revelation not as immutable and finished upon the death of the last Apostle, but rather as an ongoing historical progression (containing no fixed absolutes,) toward the Omega point of Teilhardian evolution in which the truth will be fully revealed and incarnated.

James Larson, Excerpt from, A Love That Maketh a Lie: Amoris Laetitia and the Teilhardian Agenda

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

As Pope Pius XII explained in Humani Generis, it is impossible to affirm the Catholic dogma of that “Lord Jesus Christ... is consubstantial with the Father” or the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation if the concept of “substance” is rejected in the same sense used by scholastic theologians found in the perennial realist philosophical tradition and fixed forever by its usage in dogma.

Benedict/Ratzinger denies the meaning of “substance” and then, necessarily, denies the dogma of the True Presence. Benedict/Ratzinger’s entire “hermeneutic of reform” vs. the “hermeneutic of rupture” is predicated upon accepting his Neo-Modernist philosophy. There is no philosophical difference between Benedict/Ratzinger and his chosen replacement Francis who marks, as Benedict/Ratzinger predicted in December before his abdication, the “beginning of the new Church and the end of the old.” The only difference between the two, apart from superficial style, is that Francis is wholly formed by the Novus Ordo Church and suffers no misgivings of conscience about the direction he is dragging the Church because he knows no other way. Those conservative Catholic who are nostalgic for a return of Benedict/Ratzinger or John Paul II in the face of Francis’ infidelities are even more superficial than Francis!

Some even say that the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance, should be so modified that the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism, whereby the consecrated species would be merely efficacious signs of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with the faithful members of His Mystical Body.

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

“…the medieval concept of substance has long since become inaccessible to us. In so far as we use the concept of substance at all today we understand thereby the ultimate particles of matter, and the chemically complex mixture that is bread certainly does not fall into that category.”

Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future, p. 14

“Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout in church must not be thought of as a conversation with God. This would assume that God was present there locally and in a confined way. To justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the Christological mysteries of the very concept of God. This is repugnant to the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. To go to church on the ground that one can visit God who is present there is a senseless act which modern man rightfully rejects.”

Joseph Ratzinger, Die Sacramentale Begrundung Christliche Existenz

Book read and approved by Pope Francis

“(Most of the homosexual clergy interviewed) have a sexuality that is sublimated and repressed... All the stories of cover-up are intrinsically linked to homosexuality. In 90 percent of the cases the bishop who covers up is himself homosexual. When something happens, he is afraid of the scandal, he is afraid of the ‘mediatization’, he’s afraid of the trial because he fears that his own homosexuality may be revealed.... There is a lot of blackmail.”

Frédéric Martel, Inside the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy

Note: This author of this book is no friend of the Church. He believes that if all the homosexual clergy openly admitted their perverse appetites that then alone would insure that they would no longer sexually prey upon Catholic adolescent boys and thus could function as priests. That is hardly possible. Homosexuality is a state incompatible with the grace of God. It constitutes the abandonment by God of the person to the slavery of his perverse passions. As a slave of perverse passions, the hypothesis that the homosexual can rationally control and direct his perversity because is common knowledge among Catholics is an oxymoron.

At the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail stands the Loretto Chapel. Inside the Gothic structure is the staircase referred to as miraculous, inexplicable, marvelous and is sometimes called St. Joseph’s Staircase. The stairway confounds architects, engineers and master craftsmen. It makes over two complete 360-degree turns, stands 20’ tall and has no center support. It rests solely on its base and against the choir loft. The risers of the 33 steps are all of the same height. Made of an apparently extinct wood species, it was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails. It was built by an unknown carpenter in 1852 after a novena by the nuns to St. Joseph. The church and its staircase were sold and is now a non-denominational chapel used for secualr weddings.

Modernism and Neo-Modernism, built upon linguistic Deconstructionism which denies the intentionality of language, “fabricates a fictitious reality.” The Novus Ordo Church can only offer just another “pseudo-reality” to modern man and not the Absolute Truth of God's revelation. The worst thing of all is that most Novus Ordo Catholics are “satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language.” No wonder Pope Francis hates the “Absolute Truth” and declared it to be “idolatrous” and “godless”!

Plato's literary activity extended over fifty years, and time and again he asked himself anew: What is it that makes the sophists so dangerous? Toward the end he wrote one more dialogue, the Sophist, in which he added a new element to his answer: “The sophists,” he says, “fabricate a fictitious reality.” That the existential realm of man could be taken over by pseudo-realities whose fictitious nature threatens to become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet this Platonic nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language. This, says Plato, is the worst thing that the sophists are capable of wreaking upon mankind by their corruption of the word.

Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language - Abuse of Power

Christ the King

As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, “What are we to do?”... The only possible answer is “Look for a cure”. Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure. But if the faith communicated by the Church to Christian humanity is a living faith, and if the grace of the sacraments is an effectual grace, the resultant union of the divine and the human cannot be limited to the special domain of religion, but must extend to all Man's common relationships and must regenerate and transform his social and political life.

Vladimir Solovyov, Minding the Monarchical Church, Russian Philosopher and Orthodox convert to the Catholic Church, friend of Dostoyevsky, died 1900, pauper and homeless.

Pope Francis equates illegal immigrant crisis with the Sin of Abortion!

Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned..... Some Catholics consider it [migrants] a secondary issue compared to the 'grave' bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian, for whom the only proper attitude is to stand in the shoes of those brothers and sisters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their children.

Pope Francis, Gaudette et Exsultate, On a Call to Holiness in Modern World

DOGMA is the Proximate Rule of Faith!

St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are, therefore, two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics. The subject-matter of both faith and heresy is, therefore, the deposit of the faith, that is, the sum total of truths revealed in Scripture and Tradition as proposed to our belief by the Church.

Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907

The very best (or worst) of “Brave New World” and “1984” rolled into one utopian nightmare!

The Novus Ordo Church always plays ‘catch-up’ with modern trends but this should force even them to do a little sober reflection before getting on board with the new political correctness. They don’t want to be accused of “systemic violence” in peddling the insensitive “biblical worldview” of “transphobic misinformation” but still, changing “gender identity… daily” might even make them sick. The up-side to this, Feminism is dead. Feminist theory is based upon “fixed binaries” and “biological essentialism” that intentionally “misgender” half the population. The whole thing will just have to go!

Harvard: Students can change gender daily, saying otherwise is ‘violence’

LifeSiteNews | CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts | April 24, 2017 -- One of the world’s premier academic institutions has published a student guide that states one’s gender can “change from day to day” and merely saying that’s not true “is a form of … violence.”

Homosexual activists in the Harvard University office of “LGBTQ Student Life” passed out a school-sponsored guide that urges students to “fight transphobia.” Among other claims presented as facts, the guide decrees that “there are more than two sexes.” “Gender is fluid and changing,” the guide instructs. Using carefully worded transgender phraseology, the guide refers to biological gender as one’s “sex assigned at birth.” “How are you supposed to write a law that protects against gender or sex discrimination if a person’s ‘gender identity’ can change daily?” Chris Pandolfo at the Conservative Review asks. “James Madison might’ve said something important about ‘mutable’ or constantly changing government and ‘incoherent’ laws once.”

Furthermore, the Harvard guide admonishes students that “fixed binaries” (in other words, referring to the two sexes of male and female) and “biological essentialism” (in other words, considering a boy to be a boy and a girl to be a girl) “threaten(s) the lives of trans people.”  

Calling a male by a male pronoun is considered gender assault. “Misgendering someone” is considered life-threatening. The biblical worldview is characterized as “transphobic misinformation.”

“Transphobic misinformation is a form of systemic violence,” the guide claims. Critics say the most dangerous claim of the Harvard encyclical is that opposing views are “a form of systemic violence.” In other words, “traditional understandings of the roles of men and women and the distinctions between male and female are ‘violence.’”

“If you follow this line of thinking, then when, for example, Jesus says in Matthew 19, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female’…  — that’s violence,” Pandolfo pointed out.

Campus Reform reports that several Harvard students expressed outrage about the misuse of tuition money for the politically correct student guide, but “all declined to comment on the record due to concerns about potential repercussions from the school.”

Pandolfo opined, “One wonders if Harvard’s administration has paused to consider whether they are providing a ‘Safe Space’ for students who think that men are men and women are women.”

“This is the sad state of affairs at colleges and universities, “Pandolfo concludes.  ”Traditional values are called violent. Mob violence to silence free speech is called justice.”

Love therefore alone distinguishes between the sons of God and the sons of the devil. Let them all sign themselves with the sign of the cross; let them all answer, Amen; let them all sing, Alleluia; let them all be baptized, let them enter churches; let them build the walls of the basilicas: the sons of God are not distinguished from the sons of Satan - except by charity. Those who have charity are born of God: those who have not, are not born of God.

St. Augustine

“If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is enough — follow me!”

St. Joan of Arc, rallying French troops to capture the bridgeworks before the city of Orleans which was captured the following day. St. Joan had captured in four days what a seven-month siege could not.

Jewish owned international news service defends Pope Francis against the charge of heresy!

Reuters dismisses ‘extremists’ who accused Pope Francis of heresy

LifeSiteNews | ROME, Italy | May 2, 2019 – International news service Reuters has dismissed the “Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church” in which prominent clergymen and scholars accuse Pope Francis of committing heresy as the work of “extremists.”  

On May 1, Reuters produced a news article about the “Open Letter” about the appeared, among other places, in The New York Times. Reuters and its clients titled the piece “Conservatives Want Catholic Bishops to Denounce Pope as Heretic.” Labeling the signers of the open letter as "conservatives" instead of faithful Catholics was the first in a number of labels used to undermine the signers' initiative, thus suggesting Reuters' bias. 

In their article, author Philip Pullella and his editor William Maclean mischaracterize the original signers of the “Open Letter” accusing Pope Francis of heresy as “ultra-conservatives.” They called the document “the latest ultra-conservative broadside against the pontiff over a range of topics from communion for the divorced to religious diversity.”

The Reuters article does not address the central issue – whether or not Pope Francis has broken with at least seven teachings of the Church – instead painting the letter as an “attack” on the pontiff for “allegedly softening the Church’s stance on a range of subjects.”

Speaking of the Open Letter’s authors, the article erroneously claimed that “they say he has not been outspoken enough against abortion and has been too welcoming to homosexuals and too accommodating to Protestants and Muslims.”  

In fact, the Open Letter accused Pope Francis of having, through his words and actions, advanced the following seven heretical positions:

1. A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law, as though any of the commandments of God are impossible for the justified; or as meaning that God’s grace, when it produces justification in an individual, does not invariably and of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin, or is not sufficient for conversion from all serious sin. 

2. A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action.

3. A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience. 

4. Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right, or requested or even commanded by God. 

5. It is false that the only sexual acts that are good of their kind and morally licit are acts between husband and wife.

6. Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.  

7. God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.

Reuters also did a little armchair theology by describing Amoris Laetitia, perhaps Pope Francis’ most divisive work, as “a cornerstone of Francis' attempt to make the 1.3 billion-member Church more inclusive and less condemning.”

In reality, Amoris Laetitia plunged the Church into a doctrinal crisis of which the “Open Letter” is only the most recent attempt at a resolution. 

The news bureau also gave an exclusive platform to Villanova University’s Massimo Faggioli. Faggioli, one of Pope Francis’ staunchest defenders, suggested that the “Open Letter” was the work of “extremists.” 

"There is overwhelming support for Francis in the global Church on one side, and a tiny fringe of extremists trying to paint Francis as a pope who is heretic. The problem is that there is very little legitimate, constructive critique of Francis' pontificate and his theology," he told Reuters in an email.

Faggioli’s claim was in stark contrast to the opinions of Ignatius Press founder Fr. Joseph Fessio and CEO Mark Brumley that the “Open Letter” was clearly not the work of “extremists.” They agreed that the document should be taken seriously, both because of its reputable authors and because of its carefully laid out arguments.

“... As a matter of fact, these authors ― some of them, anyway ― are quite reputable,” Fessio said. “And even if they were, perhaps, extremists, even extremists can sometimes make good points.” 

The founder of the USA’s most important Catholic publishing house said that each of the heresies attributed to Francis was “clearly stated” and “backed up by previous Church teaching, either councils or popes.” Fessio also noted that the authors had illustrated where the pontiff has made statements “that seem to contradict these Church teaching” and how his actions had underscored what look like his novel doctrines. 

Responding to the “Open Letter” and Massimo Faggioli’s statement to Reuters, Robert Moynihan published an editorial saying that there seems to be a communications problem in the Catholic Church. 

“It does seem clear that there has been certain breakdown in communication,” he wrote.

Like Fessio and Brumley, he credited those who have questioned Francis’ novelties as deserving of a serious response. 

“Serious, well-meaning Catholics — including cardinals — have expressed perplexity about some of Francis’s words and actions, yet Francis has not sought to address these ‘perplexities’ in a wide-ranging, serious, effective way,” he continued. 

“Consequently, ‘perplexities’ which might have been dispelled have instead festered. And now a certain spiritual disease has not only incubated, but has begun to metastasize. That is worrisome.”

Moynihan, the editor of Inside the Vatican, believes that there would be less “polarization” in the Church if Pope Francis “and his inner circle” taught more clearly but also if the pontiff’s “critics” discerned “still more profoundly their understanding of Francis, and of his mind and teaching, and of the needs of the Church at the present moment.” 

A platform for attacks on the pope?

The Reuters article also referred to LifeSiteNews as “a conservative Catholic website that often is a platform for attacks on the pope.” 

Steve Jalsevac, the co-founder of LifeSiteNews, rejected Reuters’ description of LifeSiteNews, saying it  “appears to be one made to fit a desired narrative.”

“To mainstream media people we seem to be 'extreme' or 'far right' simply because they are hardly ever exposed to objective, well-informed reporting on the issues we cover,” he said. 

“Rather than being a 'conservative Catholic website', LifeSite is an international news service focusing on issues of life, family and related cultural issues. It came out of the pro-life movement and now reports on a wide variety of interconnected issues that have generally been poorly covered, if covered at all, by the mainstream media,” he said. 

He added that most of the LifeSiteNews staff are “exceptionally well-informed and faithful, rather than ‘conservative,’ Catholics. Several have Catholicism-related Masters degrees and at least one has a PhD and another is working on his PhD.” 

“We have never seen ourselves as ‘attacking’ Pope Francis,” Jalsevac continued.  

“Professionally reporting uncomfortable truths is not an ‘attack’. LifeSite simply and very accurately reports what the Pope says and does that is newsworthy and provides the necessary historical, theological or other context for each of those reports. We constantly ask critics to point out any inaccuracies in our allegedly ‘fake’ news reports on Francis, but very rarely ever receive a credible response to that request.”

In a recent podcast, LifeSiteNews’ editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen explained why reporting on Rome has become so difficult in the Francis pontificate. 

“For the past six years LifeSite has been experiencing many difficulties in our reporting on what's going on in Rome. For 22 years now we've reported on the Vatican and especially the statements of the Popes focusing most on life and family,” he said. 

“With John Paul II and Pope Benedict it was relatively easy. Since they would say so many pro-life and pro-family things, it was a joy to report. It was a real encouragement to pro-life and pro-family leaders all around the world - to hear the words of Popes who it seemed really had your back even when sometimes your local Bishops did not,” Westen continued.

“But things changed with the election of Pope Francis. After a year of trying to explain away his confusing statements, and sometimes statements that went directly against his two predecessors, we knew at LifeSite we had to just report straight what was happening and let people know what was going on.”

Reuters ended its hit piece on the Open Letter signers with another statement revealing its bias: "Conservatives say the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one and that members are called to convert others to it." It is not "conservative" Catholics who hold that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus, but the Catholic Church herself holds this along with all those who are faithful to her teachings.

Pope Francis, as all the conciliar popes before him, calls for one world government while paying meaningless lip service to Catholic social teaching. Francis supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which impose mandatory birth control and abortion on all nations.

Pope Francis calls for new ‘supranational’ authorities to enforce UN goals

LifeSiteNews | ROME | May 2, 2019 — Pope Francis made a strong push for globalism on Thursday, calling for a “supranational, legally constituted body” to enforce United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and implement "climate change" policies. 

Speaking to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the Pope said: “When a supranational common good is clearly identified, there is need for a special legally constituted authority capable of facilitating its implementation.” 

“Think of the great contemporary challenges of climate change, new slavery and peace,” he told members of the Pontifical Academy, who are meeting this week at the Vatican for a May 1-3 plenary session themed: “Nation, State, Nation-State.” 

Featured speakers included German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who spoke on: “Peace Stemming from Justice. Theological Reflections Between Men, Communities and Nations”; Archbishop Roland Minnerath of Dijon, France, who delivered the opening talk on day two, themed: “Nation, State, Nation-State and the Doctrine of the Catholic Church”; and German climatologist and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who addressed the Pontifical Academy on “The State of the World.”

In his address, the Pope said that while “the principle of subsidiarity” requires that “individual nations must be given the power to operate as far as they can,” still “groups of neighboring nations — as is already the case — can strengthen their cooperation by attributing the exercise of certain functions and services to intergovernmental institutions that manage their common interests.”

The thrust of the Pope’s remarks focused on growing trends toward nationalism, which he said threaten migrants, the “universal common good” and the power of the United Nations and other transnational bodies to implement the Sustainable Development Goal agenda. 

The Church “has always exhorted men to love their own people and homeland,” he said. “At the same time,” he added, “the Church has warned persons, peoples and governments about deviations from this attachment when it is about excluding and hating others, when it becomes conflictual nationalism that builds walls, indeed even racism or anti-Semitism.”

“The Church observes with concern the re-emergence, almost everywhere in the world, of aggressive currents towards foreigners, especially immigrants, as well as that growing nationalism which neglects the common good,” Pope Francis continued.

“There is a risk of compromising already established forms of international cooperation, undermining the aims of international organizations as a space for dialogue and meeting for all countries on a level of mutual respect, and hindering the achievement of the sustainable development goals unanimously approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 25 September 2015,” he told members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

SDGs: eliminating poverty or children?

Many are concerned the some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while billed as aimed at eliminating poverty, are really about eliminating children. “Reproductive health services” for example, which are referred to in the SDGs, are often a euphemism frequently employed to mean abortion in UN debates. 

As Steven Mosher, Population Research Institute, explains:

Developing nations who adopt the SDGs will be pressured to legalize abortion, even though the word abortion never appears in the document. They will be told, falsely, that there is an “international consensus” that reproductive rights includes a right to abortion. They will be instructed that laws protecting the unborn violate this consensus and must be replaced with new laws permitting abortion on demand. And they will be threatened with the withholding of international aid unless they comply.

Pope Francis did give some recognition to concerns about “ideological colonization” of socially and morally conservative countries in the developing world in his remarks:

Multilateral bodies were created in the hope of being able to replace the logic of revenge, domination, oppression and conflict with that of dialogue, mediation, compromise, harmony and the awareness of belonging to the same humanity in the common home. Of course, these bodies must ensure that States are effectively represented, with equal rights and duties, in order to avoid the growing hegemony of powers and interest groups that impose their own visions and ideas, as well as new forms of ideological colonization, often disregarding the identity, customs and traditions, dignity and sensitivity of the peoples concerned. The emergence of such tendencies is weakening the multilateral system, with the result of a lack of credibility in international politics and a progressive marginalization of the most vulnerable members of the family of nations.

[.....]

Whoever then gainsays these Apostolic and Catholic determinations, first of all necessarily insults the memory of holy Celestine, who decreed that novelty should cease to assail antiquity; and in the next place sets at naught the decision of holy Sixtus, whose sentence was, “Let no license be allowed to novelty, since it is not fit that any addition be made to antiquity.”

St. Vincent Lerins, Commonitory

“If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is enough — follow me!”

St. Joan of Arc, rallying French troops to capture the bridgeworks before the city. Orleans was captured the following day. St. Joan had captured in four days what a seven month siege could not.

COMMENT: Faith is believing the truths God has revealed on the authority of God the Revealer. We know God by faith and the greater our knowledge, the greater our charity because you cannot love what is not known. The purpose of evangelization is to make proselytites. A proselytite is a person who has heard the Gospel message, has believed, and then, through the sacramental grace of baptism, becomes a child of God, a temple of the Holy Ghost, and a heir to heaven. God who is Truth cannot dwell in the soul of anyone who rejects His reveal truth because in rejecting the revealed truth, they necessarily reject God.

Now comes the New Evangelization of Pope Francis who says that “proselytism is solemn non-sense.” He forbids the teaching of revealed doctrine as the basis of evangelization replacing it with God knows what. Whatever it is, it cannot lead to the grace and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul because only in the act of knowing the revealed truth do we share in the knowledge that God has of Himself. Only in knowing the revealed truth is it possible to enter into the life of grace in the blessed Trinity. Only in knowing the revealed truth and life of grace can the soul be “dead” and its “life buried with Christ in God.”

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without preaching the revealed truth, there is no knowledge of God and therefore, no faith. To place the “New Evangelization” above the doctrine of the faith is to invert the hierarchy of truth which is the Devil’s principle method of deception and destruction. Since the “New Evangelization” is not directed by God’s revealed truth, it must necessarily be directed by some worldly ideology. Francis believes that doctrine divides and if we can only get rid of doctrine then a new syncretistic religion will emerge. With Pope Francis, who aspires to be head of the New World Order religion, that ideology will be easily recognized by all the faithful.

Pope proposes radical shakeup of the Roman Curia

New constitution means all work of the curia comes under a mission to evangelise, clipping wings of the powerful CDF

The Tablet | Christopher Lamb | Rome | April 22, 2019

Pope Francis’ reforms of the Roman Curia will see the creation of a new “super ministry” dedicated to evangelisation that will take precedence over the once-powerful Vatican doctrinal body. 

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition, is the oldest institution in the Curia and known as “La Suprema.” For years, it policed theologians, set out the red lines of Catholic doctrine and gave its rubber stamp to all major Vatican documents. 

But according to Vida Nueva, the respected Spanish Catholic publication, the congregation will no longer hold the number one spot in the curia. Under Francis the CDF has already lost significant influence, and the new constitution formally sets out that it now comes under the new mission statement of spreading the Gospel.   

The changes are contained in the new Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium (“Preach the Gospel”) drafted by the Pope and his council of cardinal advisers over the last five years, and which could be published on 29 June, the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul. 

The whole thrust of the constitution puts evangelisation at the heart of the Roman Curia’s mission, meaning that every aspect of Catholicism’s civil service, must flow from this. 

“Pope Francis always emphasises that the Church is missionary. That is why it is logical that in first place we have put the Dicastery for Evangelisation and not the Doctrine of the Faith,” Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the co-ordinator of the council of cardinals, told Vida Nueva for an article to be published in the magazine on Saturday and seen by The Tablet.  

“In this way the Holy Father has sent a significant message of reform to the People of God.”

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, another member of the council of cardinals - which is now made up of six members - stressed that this new department will become the “first dicastery.”

He explained: “The key point in the new apostolic constitution is that the mission of the Church is evangelisation. It [the constitution] puts it [evangelisation] in the centre of the Church and of everything that the curia does. It will be the primary dicastery. The title of the text shows that evangelisation is the number one objective, taking priority over anything else.”

In practical terms, the super dicastery on evangelisation will come from a merger of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, set up by Benedict XVI in 2010 and the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, which oversees the Church in the old mission territories. Known as Propaganda Fidei it is a powerful part of the Curia with a large budget and influence over appointment of bishops. Its prefect is known as the “Papa Rossa” (“Red Pope”).

Another reform set out by the constitution includes the establishment of the Pontifical Council for the Protection of Minors as part of the curia which would give the Pope’s child protection body greater authority and make it more effective. One of the difficulties the commission has faced has been a lack of any legal status in the Vatican.

Along with its theological work, the CDF oversees the church trials of priests accused of clerical sexual abuse, although it is not clear how the protection of minors body will work with the doctrinal one on this matter.    

Meanwhile, Vida Nueva reports that a new dicastery which carries out charitable works in the name of the Pope could also be created in the new constitution. 

Francis has already bolstered the charitable office of the papal almoner by making its current incumbent, Konrad Krajewski, a cardinal, although his role is Rome-based and could be expanded. A department based on charity would also demonstrate that bringing the Gospel means words must be accompanied by actions.  

“After evangelisation, has to come charity,” Cardinal Maradiaga said. 

Founded in 1542, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was set up to spread “sound Catholic doctrine.”

Under the 23 year leadership of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI - it gained a reputation for investigating and disciplining theologians and played a major role in the Church’s internal doctrinal battles.  

During the Francis pontificate, the investigations of theologians by the congregation have dried up and the CDF has taken a back seat under a pastoral Pope who wants doctrine applied to the Church’s mission rather than drifting into ideology.

But Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who served as prefect of the congregation under Francis until his dismissal in 2017, argued that his role meant he was responsible for “theologically structuring” the Francis papacy because the first Latin American Pope was “more pastoral.”

This, however, appeared to be an overstatement of his role given that up until 1965 Popes acted as prefects of the doctrine congregation, and it is the Roman Pontiff who has “supreme, full, immediate and universal” power in the Church. […..] Cardinal Maradiaga told Vida Nueva that a synod of bishops could be called to apply the “practical ecclesiology” envisaged by the new constitution. 

“The Holy Spirit continues to blow,” he said. “It does not take a siesta or go on holiday.”

Only the grace Jesus Christ can free a man from slavery to his passions that are controlled by others.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. 

Edward Bernays, Jewish founding father of the science of public relations and advertisement who was the double nephew of the Sigmund Freud, father of psychobabble. Bernays extended Freud's psychological control of one patient at a time to large social masses.

As yet we see not Christ; but we see the Church: therefore let us believe in Christ. The Apostles, on the contrary, saw Christ; but they saw not the Church except by faith. They saw one thing, and they believed another: so, likewise, let us do. Let us believe in the Christ, whom as yet we see not; and by keeping ourselves with the Church which we see, we shall come at length to see him, whom as yet we cannot see.

St. Augustine

Easter present from Muslim Brotherhood! Catholics martyred during Easter Mass!

Witnesses describe horrific aftermath of Sri Lanka church attacks

Explosions reported in churches and hotels in the capital and across the country

Tablet | Liz Dodd & James Roberts | April 21, 2019

More than 200 people were killed and 450 people injured in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka today that targeted Catholics and other Christians attending Easter Sunday Mass and services, and foreign tourists in expensive hotels.

The churches attacked were St Anthony’s Shrine in the capital Colombo, St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, 20 miles north of Colombo, and Zion Church in the eastern city of Batticaloa. News of the blasts quickly spread to other churches, which halted or cancelled their Easter services.

The Colombo hotels attacked were the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury. Blasts were also reported near the Near Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala Mount Lavinia and at a house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda.

Dr Samiddhi Samarakoon, a deputy director of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, said in the afternoon that the death toll had risen to 189. She said 11 foreigners were among the dead. According to unconfirmed police reports American, British and Dutch nationals had lost their lives.

The Foreign Office said it was “urgently seeking” information from authorities in Sri Lanka. A spokesman said: “We are aware of reports of a number of explosions in Sri Lanka, including Colombo, and we are urgently seeking information from the local authorities. “British nationals in Sri Lanka should follow the instructions of the local authorities and check FCO travel advice for updates.”

Harsha de Silva, the country’s minister of economic reforms and public distribution, said he visited the church in Colombo’s Kochchikade district [St Anthony’s Shrine] and the Shangri La hotel.

He tweeted: “Horrible scenes. I saw many body parts strewn all over. Emergency crews are at all locations in full force … We took multiple casualties to hospital. Hopefully saved many lives.”

“It was a river of blood,” said N. A. Sumanapala, a shopkeeper near St Anthony’s who said he had run inside to help. “The priest came out and he was covered in blood.” Alex Agileson, a witness who was in the vicinity, said buildings in the surrounding area shook with the blast.

The Archbishop of Colombo called for those responsible for the Easter Sunday blasts to be punished “mercilessly”, according to Associated Press. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith called on Sri Lanka’s government to launch a “very impartial strong inquiry” and to punish those found responsible “mercilessly because only animals can behave like that”.

With President Maithripala Sirisena away on an overseas trip, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was running the government’s emergency meetings. Mr. Wickremesinghe was conferring with top military officials and tweeted earlier that “the government is taking immediate steps to contain the situation”.

According to AFP, Sri Lanka’s police chief made a nationwide alert 10 days before today’s bomb attacks warning that suicide bombers planned to hit “prominent churches”. Police chief Pujuth Jayasundara sent an intelligence warning to top officers on April 11 setting out the threat, AFP said.

“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama’ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” said the police chief’s alert.

The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that came to notice last year when it was linked to vandalism of Buddhist statues. […..]

Benedict/Ratzinger breaks his silence or rather, he just can't shut-up!

COMMENT: Benedict/Ratzinger muses, "What I could contribute to a new beginning?" How about to stop blaming everything but yourself. Repentance begins with acknowledging guilt. And that is just the beginning. Even Judas did that. Benedict/Ratzinger nowhere comes close in this self-serving attempt to clear his own name even when he admits to having been in a "position of responsibility as shepherd of the Church at the time of the public outbreak of the crisis, and during the run-up to it."

Indeed! Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller offering his trademark insipid two-cent comment said, “He (Benedict/Ratzinger) made an excellent analysis of this issue. It was better than other explanations and it was very deep because it comes from someone with great experience, who has been in Church government for over 50 years.”

"In Church government for over 50 years." Benedict/Ratzinger's culpability for the current collapse in Catholic faith and morals is evident to every faithful Catholic who has defended tradition, but apparently lost on himself as well as his former CDF shill, Müller.

He will never figure out that the Church was established to convert the world, not the other way around. The "egregious event" that occurred in the 1960s on a scale unprecedented in history" was Vatican II that reconciled the Church to the Revolution of 1792. The destruction of Catholic dogma and Catholic morality only striped the faithful of their defense against the "collapse" of the "normative standards regarding sexuality." This public letter is like Judas at the Pharisees' feet casting down his thirty pieces of silver. Just a worthless gesture. "What I could contribute to a new beginning"? Well, since you asked, nothing. You have nothing to contribute whatsoever. You are not the solution, you are the problem. Please just get out the way and tend to your own spiritual problems because at 92 years of age you haven't much time left before a strict accounting must be made before your Creator and Judge. If you haven't time for that, then you might as well go hang yourself with a halter. Benedict/Ratzinger did not "run from the wolves," he runs with them.

Since I myself had served in a position of responsibility as shepherd of the Church at the time of the public outbreak of the crisis, and during the run-up to it, I had to ask myself - even though, as emeritus, I am no longer directly responsible - what I could contribute to a new beginning......

My work is divided into three parts.

In the first part, I aim to present briefly the wider social context of the question, without which the problem cannot be understood. I try to show that in the 1960s an egregious event occurred, on a scale unprecedented in history. It could be said that in the 20 years from 1960 to 1980, the previously normative standards regarding sexuality collapsed entirely, and a new normalcy arose that has by now been the subject of laborious attempts at disruption.

In the second part, I aim to point out the effects of this situation on the formation of priests and on the lives of priests.

Finally, in the third part, I would like to develop some perspectives for a proper response on the part of the Church......

(1) Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms....

Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ’68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.....

(2) At the same time, independently of this development, Catholic moral theology suffered a collapse that rendered the Church defenseless against these changes in society. I will try to outline briefly the trajectory of this development.....

In the end, it was chiefly the hypothesis that morality was to be exclusively determined by the purposes of human action that prevailed. While the old phrase “the end justifies the means” was not confirmed in this crude form, its way of thinking had become definitive. Consequently, there could no longer be anything that constituted an absolute good, any more than anything fundamentally evil; [there could be] only relative value judgments. There no longer was the [absolute] good, but only the relatively better, contingent on the moment and on circumstances. [....]

All this makes apparent just how fundamentally the authority of the Church in matters of morality is called into question. Those who deny the Church a final teaching competence in this area force her to remain silent precisely where the boundary between truth and lies is at stake. [.....]

Initial Ecclesial Reactions

(1) The long-prepared and ongoing process of dissolution of the Christian concept of morality was, as I have tried to show, marked by an unprecedented radicalism in the 1960s. This dissolution of the moral teaching authority of the Church necessarily had to have an effect on the diverse areas of the Church. In the context of the meeting of the presidents of the episcopal conferences from all over the world with Pope Francis, the question of priestly life, as well as that of seminaries, is of particular interest. As regards the problem of preparation for priestly ministry in seminaries, there is in fact a far-reaching breakdown of the previous form of this preparation.

In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood and candidates for the lay ministry of the pastoral specialist [Pastoral referent] lived together. At the common meals, seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together, the married among the laymen sometimes accompanied by their wives and children, and on occasion by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary could not provide support for preparation to the priestly vocation. The Holy See knew of such problems, without being informed precisely. As a first step, an Apostolic Visitation was arranged of seminaries in the United States. [.....]

Benedict/Ratzinger, Op/Ed Musings

And now, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris goes down in flames!

Vandals, arsonists target French Catholic churches

CatholicNewsService | Simon Caldwell | March 28, 2019

Vandals and arsonists have targeted French churches in a wave of attacks that has lasted nearly two months.

More than 10 churches have been hit since the beginning of February, with some set on fire while others were severely desecrated or damaged.

St. Sulpice, the second-largest church in Paris, after Notre Dame Cathedral, had the large wooden door on its southern transept set ablaze March 17.

Investigators confirmed March 18 that the fire was started deliberately, according to the website of the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, an independent organization founded with the help of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences.

In early February, in the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Enfants in Nimes, near the Spanish border, intruders drew a cross on a wall with excrement then stuck consecrated hosts to it.

The tabernacle was broken and other consecrated hosts were destroyed, prompting Bishop Robert Wattebled of Nimes to issue a statement Feb. 8 to say that the desecration was so severe that the church building could not be used until penitential rites of purification had been carried out.

Carmelites, Cistercians and Poor Clares of the diocese offered fasting and prayer to atone for the desecration, and the rite of penance and purification occurred Feb. 13.

In a statement posted on the diocesan website to mark the occasion, Wattebled said purification was necessary because “the deepest meaning of the church … has been for a moment abused, scorned and profaned,” adding that the penitential rite did not absolve the perpetrators of their culpability....

The Church of St Nicholas in Houilles, in north-central France, was targeted by intruders who destroyed a statue of Mary and threw the altar cross to the floor, according to La Croix International, a Catholic daily.

Statues of saints were broken and an altar cloth set on fire in Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, in south-central France, while hosts were stolen from the Church of Notre-Dame in Dijon, in eastern France, and scattered on the ground.

Five of the attacks took place in just one week, leading French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to denounce them on Twitter.

“In our secular republic we respect the places of worship,” he tweeted. “Such acts shock me and must be unanimously condemned.”

French media reported a 35-year-old man has confessed to police to carrying out the attack in Houilles, but the mystery surrounding the identities of other culprits has fueled speculation that the offenses might have been carried out by Islamic extremists, secularists or radical feminists....

Major fire ravages Paris’s iconic Cathedral of Notre Dame

CRUX | Inés San Martín | Rome Bureau Chief | April 15, 2019

ROME - A massive fire engulfed Notre Dame, Paris’s famed cathedral, Monday evening Paris time, with firefighters struggling to control the flames and the mayor of the city going to Twitter to ask people to stay away from the area.

Mayor Ann Hidalgo also said that the city was working on the spot “in close connection” with the archdiocese of Paris. A dramatic video, live-streamed on social media, showed the cathedral’s main spire collapse from the blaze.

Over four hours after the fire began, firefighters said they might be able to save the structure.

The blaze collapsed the cathedral’s famous spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers. A spokesman said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too.

“Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame,” Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot told French media.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, but local media are citing police sources calling it an accident, “potentially linked” to the renovation works. [.....]

There is one that humbleth himself wickedly, and his interior is full of deceit: And there is one that submitteth himself exceedingly with a great lowliness: and there is one that casteth down his countenance, and maketh as if he did not see that which is unknown: And if he be hindered from sinning for want of power, if he shall find opportunity to do evil, he will do it. A man is known by his look, and a wise man, when thou meetest him, is known by his countenance. The attire of the body, and the laughter of the teeth, and the gait of the man, shew what he is.

Ecclesiasticus 19: 23-27

Pope Francis standing before the Blessed Sacrament!

Pope Francis kneeling and kissing the feet of the political emissaries from South Sudan!

Pope Francis kissing the hand of a Jewish rabbi!

Pope Francis refusing his hand to faithful Catholics!

Pope Francis offering his hand to circus performers!

Now it can be said briefly that those who defend blindly and indiscriminately any judgment whatsoever of the Supreme Pontiff concerning every matter weaken the authority of the Apostolic See. They do not support it; they subvert it. They do not fortify it. Peter has no need of our lies; he has no need of our adulation.

Fr. Melchoir Cano, O.P., First Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca, Theologian at the Council of Trent

Religious Liberty: The belief that the dignity of the creature voids the First Commandment

The great achievement of the Second Vatican Council and those who deny it Fabrizio Mastrofini, Rome 3-21-13

The Austrian theologian Jan-Heiner Tück, born in 1967 and professor of Dogmatic Theology in Vienna, has cut short the debate on whether the Council has brought continuity to the Church or not.…. What is the Council’s fundamental achievement? The clear, precise and irrefutable affirmation of religious freedom and freedom of conscience as basic human rights. Tück insisted: “Above all the Council explicitly recognized the right to freedom of religion and conscience, that not even 100 years before had been listed as one of ‘the errors of our time’ by Pius IX”. The Austrian theologian explained further: “One of the greatest achievements of the Council is to recognize freedom of religion and conscience as human rights.” This is what is at stake in the negotiations with the Lefebvrians and in the relations with all ultra-conservative Catholic groups. However the achievement of the Second Vatican Council cannot be doubted and this ought to be the starting point for the Church to look to the future and to stop looking backwards to the past.

Neo-Modernism of the Novus Ordo shares a common end with Modernism!

The opening of Vatican II John XXIII declared that there existed a disjunction between dogma and its "external formula or terminology"!

Modernism is condemned because it virtually destroys Christian dogma by denying that the dogmas of faith are contained in the revelation made by the Holy Spirit to the Catholic Church and subsequently defined through the supreme authority of the same Ecclesia docens^{1}. Once the Holy Spirit, speaking through the supreme magisterium^{2} of the Church, defines a doctrine as de fide^{3} the dogma in question remains, both in se^{4} and in its external formula or terminology, unchanged and unchangeable, like God, Whose voice it communicates to us, in the shape of definite truth. Modernism tells us quite the reverse.

{1} Ecclesia docens -- i.e., 'the teaching Church.'

{2} Magisterium = 'teaching authority.'

{3} De fide = 'what is of faith.'

{4} In se = 'in itself.'

Rev. Father Norbert Jones, C.R.L., Old Truths, Not Modernist Errors, Exposure of Modernism and Vindication of its Condemnation by the Pope, 1908

True Doctrinal Development

If you sow wheat, you get an increase in wheat; if you sow lies, you get an increase in lies.

The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infants limbs are small, a young mans large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children.

This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant... In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits...

This rather should be the result,--there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind--wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same.

St. Vincent Lerins, Commonitory

St. Paul says, If we judge ourselves we shall not be judged. If we examine and search into our conscience, submitting it to a rigorous trial, and if, when we discover any sins, we wash them away with tears of contrition, we shall not be judged by God; in other words, we shall escape punishment at His awful judgment.

Rev. Cornelius a Lapide, The Great Commentary

The Novus Ordo Church by any other name would smell the same!

Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, was addressed primarily to members of the “sons and daughters of the Church.” So, exactly what Church is this that he was addressing? Not once does the word “Roman” appear in the letter. Not once does the word “Catholic” occur. The letter is addressed to the “Church of the New Advent.” This Church is referenced by name four times in the document. The Church of the New Advent traces its roots to Vatican II Council. Pope John Paul II said in the letter that, “I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council.” The Church of the New Advent in “an utterly new way, quite unknown previously” has its own worship, doctrines, morality and traditions which are entirely foreign to the Roman Catholic Church. This Church of the New Advent has not “struck deep roots.” In fact, it has no roots at all. We should be thankful to God that Pope Francis, who is entirely divorced from any Catholic teaching and tradition formation that might mask his actions, should make evident to all the “utterly new” moral implications of the Church of the New Advent’s “utterly new” doctrines in a manner in which no faithful Catholic can fail to recognize as utterly foreign to the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

Vatican Confirms what is Common Knowledge!

Pope Francis reveals his thought by his actions, gestures, attitudes, and omissions.

One cannot say that Pope Francis did not actually answer the cardinals Dubia, at least indirectly. His actions, gestures, attitudes and omissions reveal his thought as much as explicit words. And the support he has given to bishops conferences that interpret Amoris Laetitia as a permission, at least in principle, for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive sacramental absolution and Communion makes clear his own interpretation of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.

Francesco Cardinal Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts

“In time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.”

Around four oclock in the afternoon on January 3^rd 1944, in the convent chapel of Tuy, in front of the Tabernacle, Our Lady urged Sister Lucia to write the text of the Third Secret and Sister Lucia recounts:

I felt my spirit inundated by a mystery of light that is God and in Him I saw and heard the point of a lance like a flame that is detached touch the axis of the earth and it trembles: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The sea, the rivers and clouds exceed their boundaries, inundating and dragging with them in a vortex, houses and people in a number that cannot be counted; it is the purification of the world from the sin in which it is immersed. Hatred, ambition, provoke the destructive war. After I felt my heart racing and in my spirit a soft voice that said: In time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. In eternity, Heaven! This word Heaven filled my heart with peace and happiness in such a way that, almost without being aware of it, I kept repeating to myself for a long time: Heaven, Heaven!!

A Path Under the Eyes of Mary (Um Caminho sob o olhar de Maria), published in 2013 by the Carmel of Coimbra

COMMENT: Pope Francis repeatedly corrupts the meaning of sacred Scripture in the service of his heretical ideology with novel interpretations foreign to every Church Father and Doctor. In the same vein, he quotes St. Vincent of Lerinsas if this great Father of Church's writings would approve of his novelties. They in fact condemn the man and his every act. Unfortunately for Francis, St. Vincent of Lerins' writings are available on-line which even a casual reading will make Pope Francis look not only vicious, but stupid.

Pope defends changing death penalty teaching, says Church has grown in understanding

LifeSiteNews | ROME | April 2, 2019 “ Pope Francis aroused more controversy this week, making even more explicit his apparent belief that the death penalty is always and everywhere wrong, while frankly acknowledging that the Church has not taught this in the past. 

He sought to justify this change by invoking the ancient theologian, St. Vincent of Lerins, and his doctrine of development in the Church.

During the inflight press conference on his return from Morocco on Sunday, March 31, a journalist asked the Pope if he were concerned that Muslims who convert to Christianity thereby risk imprisonment or even death in some Muslim countries.

In Morocco, as in many Muslim countries (such as the United Arab Emirates which the Pope also recently visited), conversion to Christianity is banned.

I can say that in Morocco there is freedom of worship, there is freedom of religion, there is freedom to belong to a religious creed. Then freedom always develops, it grows, the Pope responded. Think about us Christians, 300 years ago, if there was the freedom that we have today. Faith grows in awareness, in the ability to understand itself.

The Pope expounded on the point, invoking the ancient saint whose thought played a pivotal role in Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newmans classic work, On the Development of Christian Doctrine. He told journalists aboard the papal plane:

A fifth-century French monk, Vincent of Lerins, coined a beautiful expression to explain how one can grow in faith, explain things better, and also grow in moral [understanding] but always being faithful to the roots. He said three words but they indicate the road: he said that growth in the explaining [esplicitazione] and awareness of faith and morals must be ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate, that is, growth must be strengthened through the years, expanded over time, but it is the same faith that is exalted over the years.

This is how we understand, for example, that today we have removed the death penalty from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he said. 

Three hundred years ago, heretics were burned alive. Because the Church has grown in moral understanding, and in respect for the person, he added. 

This is not the first time Pope Francis has invoked St. Vincent of Lerins. 

In an interview with the Jesuit-run La Civilt Cattolica six months into his pontificate (September 2013), the Pope argued on the basis of the aforementioned statement from the fifth-century monk that the thinking of the Church must.....understand how human beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen the Churchs teaching.  

In November 2016, he cited the same passage as he questioned why young Catholics would be drawn to the traditional liturgy. 

And in his 'God of Suprises' homily, on May 8, 2017, he again had recourse to St. Vincents words, inviting Catholics to pray for the grace of discernment so as not to fall into immobility, rigidity and a closed heart.

Inflight press conferences have no magisterial weight. Nonetheless, LifeSite asked one of leading experts on the Catholic Churchs teaching on the death penalty to weigh in on the Popes latest remarks and invocation of St. Vincent of Lerins.

An expert weighs in

Renowned Catholic philosopher Edward Feser, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California, is one of the foremost contemporary writers in the Thomistic tradition, and a leading expert on the Churchs teaching on the death penalty. 

He is the author of numerous works, including By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed (with Joseph Bessette) and the forthcoming Aristotles Revenge.

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed is a study and defense of the perennial Catholic teaching on the death penalty as legitimate in principle and often advisable in practice even in contemporary social conditions.

In comments to LifeSite, Feser said:

It is odd for the pope to cite St. Vincent of Lerinsin defense of the recent change to the Catechism, because St. Vincent was the opposite of sympathetic to innovative and ambiguous theological formulations of the kind represented by the new language. Indeed, his major theme was precisely to condemn, in harsh and unmistakable terms, all novelties in doctrine, by which he meant teachings that were not true developments but reversals of what the Church has taught in the past.

Feser then explained that development is only legitimate if it logically follows what has already been taught in the deposit of faith. It is therefore is a legitimate development if it’s a logical conclusion of what the Church has taught in the past. If a given teaching is not a logical conclusion, it cannot be legitimate. 

He said: Suppose, to take an artificial example, that the Church had taught that All men are mortal and Socrates is a man. If she later explicitly taught that Socrates is mortal, then this would not be a novelty in the sense condemned by St. Vincent, because this follows logically from what she had earlier taught.

Even if she had not taught it explicitly, she did teach it implicitly. Simply making this explicit would be a true development of doctrine, he added.

The noted philosopher continued: Suppose instead, however, that the Church later taught that Socrates is not mortal. This would be a novelty, a corruption of doctrine and not a true development at all, because it would contradict what was implicitly taught earlier.

Feser insisted that not only does St. Vincent of Lerinsnot support logical rupture but he is preoccupied with preventing such novelties. He said: 

Now, St. Vincent absolutely hammers on the theme that Catholics must avoid novelties or even reinterpretations of past doctrine, and that when some new teaching or reinterpretation seems to conflict with antiquity, we must cling to antiquity. Quite rigidly, you might say. He is very, very insistent on this and very harsh even on people who would try to use ambiguous formulations to smuggle in novelties, let alone those who brazenly propose them.

The author of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed told LifeSite: 

Now, in the case of capital punishment, things are far less ambiguous even than my artificial example, because scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and previous popes have all already explicitly taught, over and over and over again, that capital punishment can be legitimate at least in principle and in some circumstances. They already explicitly considered the suggestion that capital punishment is per se contrary to justice or to the Gospel, and explicitly rejected that claim as heterodox.

So, for the Church now to teach that capital punishment is always and intrinsically immoral would be a crystal-clear example of a novelty in St. Vincents sense, Feser argued. 

This is why it is the Popes duty clearly and explicitly to reaffirm the traditional teaching that capital punishment is not always and intrinsically wrong, even if he also wants to recommend against its actual use in modern circumstances, he explained. This is exactly what his predecessor St. John Paul II was careful to do, and there can be no doubt that it would be exactly what St. Vincent would urge.

Sanctuary of truth vs. brothel of error

A Dominican theologian who spoke with LifeSite on condition of anonymity said regarding Pope Franciss recent comments on the death penalty: On capital punishment Pope Francis unfortunately continues to talk as if he can justify putting himself in contradiction with the teaching of the Church by speaking of development.  

As Bishop Athanasius Schneider has recently said, Pope Francis is contradicting a bi-millennial doctrine, he added, referring to Schneiders essay on what the Church should do about a heretical pope.

With regard to religious freedom, the theologian continued, the Church has a God-given power of using sanctions against her delinquent members, including punishing crimes such as heresy. As modern canon law still teaches, these sanctions can be either spiritual, like excommunication, or bodily, like confinement to a monastery.  

In a Catholic country which officially recognizes the Churchs authority, the Church can call on the civil power to help enforce these sanctions, he said. No pope or council can strip this right from the Church, though they may decide not to use it, he said. 

Unfortunately, the Dominican sighed, as often with this pope, his words savor strongly of the heresy of modernism, which denies that the dogmas of the Church keep the same meaning from one generation to the next.

He noted that St Vincents great concern is that we should believe only what has always been believed” as he puts it, that we must in no way depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers (Commonitorium Primum, chapter 2).

He insists that development must be in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning, he explained. Otherwise, he says it is like a change from a man to a monster.

The Dominican offered the following example: St. John said, the Word became flesh, and 600 years later a council of the Church defined that Christ had two wills. That is an example of what he means. If 600 years later, another council said that Christ had 3 wills, that would be corruption.

Citing the same work from the ancient saint of Lerins, the theologian concluded:

St. Vincent warns against false development, writing: If what is new begins to be mingled with what is old, foreign with domestic, profane with sacred, the custom will of necessity creep on universally, till at last the Church will have nothing left untampered with, nothing unadulterated, nothing sound, nothing pure; but where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors. This is the danger today (ch. 58).

Summing up St. Vincent of Lerins

The authentic doctrine of St. Vincent of Lerinsmight best be summed up in the words taken from him with which the First Vatican Council concludes its dogmatic constitution on the Catholic Faith, Dei Filius. The passage reads:

That meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding. May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding [Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium primum 23].

And Jesus said to them: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” Mark 16: 15-16

Pope Francis warns Moroccan Christians against proselytism

LifeSiteNews | RABAT, Morocco | April 2, 2019

“Pope Francis has asked Christians in Morocco not to actively seek converts to their faith.

In a headline-grabbing homily in Rabats Cathedral of Saint Peter this Sunday, the Bishop of Rome told the congregation that although they found being a minority uncomfortable, he did not see it as a problem, suggesting that Christians are meant to be a minority in the Arab world. 

What are Christians like, in these lands? To what can we compare them? he asked. They are like a little yeast that Mother Church wants to mix in with a great quantity of flour until all of it is leavened, he continued. 

For Jesus did not choose us and send us forth to become more numerous! He called us to a mission. He put us in the midst of society like a handful of yeast: the yeast of the Beatitudes and the fraternal love by which, as Christians, we can all join in making present his kingdom.  

Francis stated that the Christian mission does not consist in baptizing more Christians but in generating change and awakening wonder and compassion. He said that Christians do this by the way they live with their non-Christian neighbours. The pope condemned proselytization” the attempt to bring others into the Christian community” and cited the words of his predecessor.

In other words, the paths of mission are not those of proselytism. Please, these paths are not those of proselytism! Let us recall Benedict XVI: the Church grows not through proselytism, but through attraction, through witness, he said. [....]

De Mattei on the Francis Pontificate: Six Years of Hypocrisy and Lies

Aldo Maria Valli: Professor: De Mattei, not a day passes without this pontificate causing new confusion and doubts for many of the faithful. The declaration about other religions made at Abu Dhabi has provoked a great amount of concern. It seems there is no way of avoiding the fact that it is problematic. How do you interpret it?

Professor Roberto De Mattei: The Abu Dhabi declaration made on February 4, 2019, signed by Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar affirms that the pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This affirmation contradicts the teaching of the Church, which says the one true religion is the Catholic religion. In fact, it is only by Faith in Jesus Christ and in His Name that men can attain eternal salvation (cf. Acts 4:12).

On March 1, during the ad limina visit of the bishops of Kazakhstan to Rome, Bishop Athanasius Schneider expressed his perplexity to Pope Francis about the Abu Dhabi declaration. The pope replied to him that the diversity of religions is only the permissive will of God. This answer is deceptive, because it seems to admit that the plurality of religions is an evil permitted by God but not willed by him, but the same is not true of the diversity of sexes and races, which are positively willed by God. When Bishop Schneider expressed his objection to him, Pope Francis admitted that the phrase could be understood erroneously. Yet the pope never corrected or rectified his affirmation, and in fact the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, at the request of the Holy Father, directed all bishops to see to the widespread diffusion of the Abu Dhabi declaration so that it may become an object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of education and formation.

The interpretation which is thus being spread is that the plurality of religions is a good thing, not an evil that is merely tolerated by God. It seems to me that these deliberate contradictions are a microcosm of the entire pontificate of Pope Bergoglio.

How would you, as a historian of the Church, summarize the past six years?

As years of hypocrisy and lies. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen because he appeared to be a bishop who was humble and profoundly spiritual (thus did Andrea Tornielli salute him in La Stampa), one who would reform and purify the Church. But none of this happened. The pope did not remove the most corrupt prelates either from the Roman Curia or from individual dioceses. He has done so only when, as in the McCarrick case, he was forced to by public opinion. In reality, Francis has revealed himself to be a political pope, the most political pope of the last century. His political persuasion is that of left-wing Peronism, which detests, in principle, every form of inequality and is opposed to Western culture and society. When transferred into the ecclesiastical realm, Peronism joins with liberation theology and leads to an effort to impose synodal democratization on the Church, which strips her of her essential nature.

The summit on sexual abuse seems as though it has already been forgotten. It was full of nice-sounding expressions which the mainstream media trumpeted, but it did not lead to anything new. In general, how do you judge the way in which the Holy See is addressing this crisis?

In a clearly contradictory way. The anti-abuse norms that have just been approved by Pope Francis circumvent the real problem, which is the relationship between the tribunals of the Church and the civil courts, or, seen more broadly, the relationship between the Church and the world. The Church has the right and duty to investigate and judge those accused of crimes that violate not only civil laws but also ecclesiastical laws, established by canon law. In this case, it is necessary to open a regular penal trial in a Church tribunal that respects the fundamental rights of the accused and is not conditioned by the results of any civil trial.

Today, instead, in the case of Cardinal Pell, the Vatican has said it will open a canonical trial, but first it needs to wait for the outcome of the [civil] appeals process. In the case of Cardinal Barbarin of France, condemned to six months in prison with probation and also awaiting an appeals process, there has similarly been no announcement of any canonical trial. When Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was called to testify in the Barbarin case by the judges in Lyon, the Vatican invoked diplomatic immunity, but it did not do this for Cardinal Pell. This policy of different standards for different people is part of the climate of ambiguity and duplicity we are living in.

During this pontificate, new norms have been introduced for monastic life, and in particular for the cloister. Some monastic communities are very worried, because they consider these new norms a threat to contemplative life. Do you share this concern?

Yes, it seems as though there is a plan to destroy contemplative life. I very much appreciated the articles you have dedicated to this theme on your blog. The constitution on womens contemplative life Vultum Dei Quaerere of June 29, 2016, and the Instruction Cor Orans of April 1, 2018, suppress every form of juridical autonomy and create federations and new bureaucratic organisms as structures of communion. The obligation to be part of these structures means that monasteries lose, de facto, their autonomy, which is dissolved into an anonymous mass of monasteries that are all moving toward the dissolution of traditional monastic life. The modernist normalization of the few monasteries that still resist the revolution would be an inevitable consequence. The juridical suppression of contemplative life we are moving toward does not, however, signify the end of the contemplative spirit, which is becoming ever stronger in response to the secularization of the Church. I know monasteries that have succeeded in securing juridical indepedence from the Congregation for Religious Life and maintain monastic life, supporting the Church in this crisis with their intercessory prayer. I am convinced that, as it once was said, the prayer of the cloisters rules the world.

The sixth anniversary of the election of Pope Bergoglio has passed, even if it felt a bit subdued. One has the impression that even people who once supported him are beginning to distance themselves from him. Is this impression mistaken?

We know that there are forces that want to destroy the Church. Freemasonry is one of these. Yet an open battle against the Church is never productive, because, as Tertullian wrote, the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. And this is why, for at least two centuries, a plan was formulated by anti-Christian forces to conquer the Church from within.

We know that in the 1960s, the Soviet Union and communist regimes of Eastern Europe infiltrated many of their men into the seminaries and Catholic universities. Some of these climbed the ladder and became bishops or even cardinals. But such intentional complicity and activity is not necessary to contribute to the self-destruction of the Church. It is also possible to become unknowing instruments of someone who manipulates from the outside. In this case, the manipulators chose the most suitable men, men who displayed doctrinal and moral weakness, influenced them, conditioned them, and at times even blackmailed them. The men of the Church are neither infallible nor impeccable, and the Evil One constantly places before them the temptations which the Lord renounced (Mt 4:1”11).

The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio was directed by a clerical lobby, behind which may be seen the presence of other lobbies or strong powers. I have the impression that the ecclesiastical powers and powers outside the Church that worked for the election of Pope Bergoglio are not satisfied with the results of his pontificate. From their point of view, there have been many words but few practical results. Those who sponsor Pope Francis are ready to abandon him if radical change does not take place. It seems he is being given one last chance to revolutionize the Church in the Amazon Synod this coming October. It seems to me that they have already sent signals indicating this.

What signals are you referring to?

To what happened after the summit on pedophilia, which was an obvious failure. The large publications of the international press, from Corriere della Sera to El Pas, did not hide their disappointment. It seems to me that the announcement made by the German Bishops Conference by its president, Cardinal Marx, that they will convoke a local synod that will make binding decisions about sexual morality, priestly celibacy, and the reduction of clerical power, should be understood as an ultimatum. It is the first time that the German bishops have expressed themselves with such clarity. They seem to be saying that if the pope does not cross the Rubicon, they will cross it themselves. In both cases we would find ourselves facing a declared schism.

What consequences would such a separation have?

A declared schism, although evil in itself, could be guided by Divine Providence toward the good. The good that could arise is the awakening of so many people who are asleep and the understanding that the crisis did not begin with the pontificate of Pope Francis but has developed for a long time and has deep doctrinal roots. We must have the courage to re-examine what has happened in the last fifty years in the light of the Gospel maxim that a tree is judged by its fruits (Mt 7:16”20). The unity of the Church is a good that should be preserved, but it is not an absolute good. It is not possible to unite what is contradictory, to love truth and falsehood, good and evil, at the same time.

Many Catholics feel discouraged as well as betrayed. Our faith tells us that the forces of evil will not prevail, and yet it is difficult to see a way out of this crisis. Humanly speaking, it seems that everything is collapsing. How will the Church come out of this crisis?

The Church is not afraid of her enemies, and she always wins when Christians fight. On February 4 at Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis said there is a need of demilitarizing the heart of man. I believe, on the contrary, that there is a need of militarizing hearts and transforming them into an Acies Ordinata, like the one who stood in prayerful protest at Piazza San Silvestro in Rome on February 19 and confirmed the existence of a Catholic resistance against the self-destruction of the Church. There are many other voices of resistance that have made and are making themselves heard.

I believe we must overcome the many misunderstandings that often divide the forces of good people. Instead, we must seek a unity of intention and action among these forces, while maintaining our legitimate different identities. Our adversaries are united in their hatred of the good, and so we ought to be united in our love for the good and for the truth. But we must love a perfect good, a good that is whole and without compromise, because He Who sustains us with His love and power is infinitely perfect. We ought to place all our hope in Him and only in Him. This is why the virtue of hope is the one we ought to cultivate the most, because it makes us strong and perseverant in the battle we are fighting.

Professor Roberto De Mattei, President of the Lepanto Foundation, interviewed by Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli, translated and published by OnePeterFive, April 4, 2019

The IRISH Famine: 1845-1852 “ or tricks of political persecution the English taught Uncle Joe Stalin

FOOD for APOSTASY: What Our Catholics Ancestors Suffered to bring the Holy Faith to Us.

Throughout the entire period of the Famine, Ireland was exporting enormous quantities of food. In Ireland before and after the famine, Cormac OGrada points out, “Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. But that was a money crop and not a food crop and could not be interfered with.”

In History Ireland magazine, Christine Kinealy, a Great Hunger scholar, lecturer, and Drew University professor, relates her findings: Almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men, women and children died of starvation and related diseases. She also writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the Famine. This food was shipped under British military guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland; Ballina, Ballyshannon, Bantry, Dingle, Killala, Kilrush, Limerick, Sligo, Tralee and Westport. A wide variety of commodities left Ireland during 1847, including peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue and seed. The most shocking export figures concern butter. Butter was shipped in firkins, each one holding 9 imperial gallons; 41 litres. In the first nine months of 1847, 56,557 firkins (509,010 imperial gallons; 2,314,000 litres) were exported from Ireland to Bristol, and 34,852 firkins (313,670 imperial gallons; 1,426,000 litres) were shipped to Liverpool, which correlates with 822,681 imperial gallons (3,739,980 litres) of butter exported to England from Ireland during nine months of the worst year of the Famine. The problem in Ireland was not lack of food, which was plentiful, but the price of it, which was beyond the reach of the poor.

Celil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation. [ ..... ..... .]

(Protestant) Landlords were responsible for paying the rates of every tenant whose yearly rent was £4 or less. Landlords whose land was crowded with poorer tenants were now faced with large bills. They began clearing the poor tenants from their small plots, and letting the land in larger plots for over £4 which then reduced their debts. In 1846, there had been some clearances, but the great mass of evictions came in 1847. According to James S. Donnelly Jr, it is impossible to be sure how many people were evicted during the years of the famine and its immediate aftermath. It was only in 1849 that the police began to keep a count, and they recorded a total of almost 250,000 persons as officially evicted between 1849 and 1854.

Donnelly considered this to be an underestimate, and if the figures were to include the number pressured into voluntary surrenders during the whole period (1846-1854) the figure would almost certainly exceed half a million persons. While Helen Litton says there were also thousands of voluntary surrenders, she notes also that there was precious little voluntary about them. In some cases, tenants were persuaded to accept a small sum of money to leave their homes, cheated into believing the workhouse would take them in.

West Clare was one of the worst areas for evictions, where landlords turned thousands of families out and demolished their derisory cabins. Captain Kennedy in April 1848 estimated that 1,000 houses, with an average of six people to each, had been leveled since November. The Mahon family of Strokestown House evicted 3,000 people in 1847, and were still able to dine on lobster soup.

After Clare, the worst area for evictions was County Mayo, accounting for 10% of all evictions between 1849 and 1854. The Earl of Lucan, who owned over 60,000 acres (240 km²) was among the worst evicting landlords. He was quoted as saying he would not breed paupers to pay priests. Having turned out in the parish of Ballinrobe over 2,000 tenants alone, the cleared land he then used as grazing farms. In 1848, the Marquis of Sligo owed £1,650 to Westport Union; he was also an evicting landlord, though he claimed to be selective, saying he was only getting rid of the idle and dishonest. Altogether, he cleared about 25% of his tenants.

[ ..... ..... ] Calcutta is credited with making the first (relief) donation of £14,000. The money was raised by Irish soldiers serving there and Irish people employed by the East India Company. Pope Pius IX sent funds and Queen Victoria (head of the Church of England) donated £2,000..... .. (About one brass farthing for every Irish Catholic who starved to death). Wikipedia

The Jewish question of our time does not differ greatly from the one which affected the Christian peoples of the Middle Ages. In a foolish way it is said to arise from hatred towards the Jewish tribe. Mosaism in itself could not become an object of hate for Christians, since, until the coming of Christ, it was the only true religion, a prefiguration of and preparation for Christianity, which, according to Gods Will, was to be its successor. But the Judaism of the centuries [after Christ] turned its back on the Mosaic law, replacing it with the Talmud, the very quintessence of that Pharisaism which in so many ways has been shattered through its rejection by Christ, the Messiah and Redeemer. And although Talmudism is an important element of the Jewish question, it cannot be said, strictly speaking, to give that question a religious character, because what the Christian nations despise in Talmudism is not so much its virtually non-existent theological element, but rather, its morals, which are at variance with the most elementary principles of natural ethics.

La Civilt  Cattolica, The Jewish Question in Europe ; Series XIV, Vol. VII, 23 October 1890

Novena to our Lady of Sorrows in preparation for her feast and the welfare of the Mission and the Church begins this Wednesday and ends on the Thursday in Passion Week on the eve of her feast.

NOVENA TO THE SEVEN SORROWS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

V. Incline unto my aid, O God.

R. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, etc.

1. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate thee, in the grief thy tender heart underwent when the holy old man Simeon prophesied to thee. Dear Mother, through that afflicted heart obtain for me the virtue of humility and the gift of the holy fear of God. Hail Mary, etc.

2. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate those afflictions which thy most sensitive heart endured during the flight into Egypt and the dwelling there. O beloved Mother, by that afflicted heart obtain for me the virtue of liberality, specially toward the poor, and the gift of piety. Hail Mary, etc.

3. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that intense distress which thine anxious heart experienced in the loss of thy dearest Jesus. O beloved Mother, by that deeply troubled heart obtain for me the virtue of chastity and the gift of knowledge. Hail Mary, etc.

4. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate the consternation which thy maternal heart experienced when thou didst meet Jesus bearing His cross. O beloved Mother, by that deep distress of thy tender heart, obtain for me the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude. Hail Mary, etc.

5. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that martyrdom which thy generous heart endured in witnessing the last agony of Jesus. O beloved Mother, by that martyred heart obtain for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of counsel. Hail Mary, etc.

6. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that wound which thy mournful heart endured from the lance which tore the side of Jesus and wounded His most lovely Heart. O beloved Mother, by thy heart then pierced through, obtain for me the virtue of fraternal charity and the gift of understanding. Hail Mary, etc.

7. O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate thee, for the anguish felt by thy loving heart when Jesus body was laid in the sepulcher. Dear Mother, by all the bitterness of desolation thou didst then know, obtain for me the virtue of diligence and the gift of wisdom. Hail Mary, etc.

V. Pray for us, most sorrowful Mother.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us Pray

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy Mother, may intercede for us before the throne of Thy mercy, now, and at the hour of our death; through whose most holy soul in the hour of Thine own Passion the Sword of sorrow passed. Through Thee, Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost forever and ever.

Amen

Prayer to Our Lady of Sorrows

Most holy and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, thou stood beneath the cross, witnessing the agony of thy dying Son. Look with a mothers tenderness and pity on me, who kneel before thee. I venerate thy sorrows and I place my requests with filial confidence in the sanctuary of thy wounded heart.

Present them, I beseech thee, on my behalf to Jesus Christ, through the merits of His own most sacred passion and death, together with thy sufferings at the foot of the cross. Through the united efficacy of both, obtain the granting of my petition. To whom shall I have recourse in my wants and miseries if not to thee, Mother of Mercy? Thou who have drunk so deeply of the chalice of thy Son, thou can compassionate our sorrows.

Holy Mary, thy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow at the sight of the passion of thy divine Son. Intercede for me and obtain from Jesus Christ this grace, if it be for His honor and glory and for the good of my soul.

Amen

Against any and all enemies of the Christian name

Truly in these tumultuous times, in this revolutionary upheaval, all good men must join the burdensome struggle against any and all enemies of the Christian name. [ ......] For in fact, when a leader of Gods holy Church, under the name of Priest, turns the very people of Christ away from the path of truth toward the peril of an erroneous belief, and when this occurs in a major city, then clearly the distress is multiplied, and a greater anxiety is in order.

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, addressed to all the faithful

Pope Francis “his most gentle manner”!

They (our most holy predecessors) knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, the innovators sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith that is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error. Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual “ such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor St. Celestine, who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity. Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed.

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, 1794 papal bull addressed to all the faithful condemning 85 propositions from the Council of Pistoia, 1786

True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness.

But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors.

Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them.

He was as strong as He was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body.

Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to ones personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

Pope St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter, Our Apostolic Mandate

Situation Ethics: PEW POLL: 95% of Jewish Leaders support abortion and same-sex marriage for the U.S. but not for Israel!

The Jewish question of our time does not differ greatly from the one which affected the Christian peoples of the Middle Ages. In a foolish way it is said to arise from hatred towards the Jewish tribe. Mosaism in itself could not become an object of hate for Christians, since, until the coming of Christ, it was the only true religion, a prefiguration of and preparation for Christianity, which, according to Gods Will, was to be its successor. But the Judaism of the centuries [after Christ] turned its back on the Mosaic law, replacing it with the Talmud (ii.), the very quintessence of that Pharisaism which in so many ways has been shattered through its rejection by Christ, the Messiah and Redeemer. And although Talmudism is an important element of the Jewish question, it cannot be said, strictly speaking, to give that question a religious character, because what the Christian nations despise in Talmudism is not so much its virtually non-existent theological element, but rather, its morals, which are at variance with the most elementary principles of natural ethics.

On the Jewish Question in Europe; La Civilt Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, 23;10; October 1890

That fabled (Judeo-Christian) tradition does not exist, nor does the Judeo-Christian ethic. Though sharing a common origin in the Hebrew Scriptures, the two faiths read the scriptural texts differently. They believe in God, but view Him through different lenses. They each have a story, but they are not the same. They each have a concept of man, but they are not the same. They are both ethical religions, but with separate ideas of mans nature, salvation and destiny.

Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australia. Published in Jerusalem Post

Council of Constance on the Papacy:

Since the Roman Pontiff exercises such great power among mortals, it is right that he be bound all the more by the incontrovertible bonds of the faith and by the rites that are to be observed regarding the Churchs sacraments. We therefore decree and ordain (the following oath):

I, N., elected pope, with both heart and mouth confess and profess to almighty God, that I will firmly believe and hold the Catholic Faith according to the traditions of the Apostles, of the General Councils and of other Holy Fathers. I will preserve this faith unchanged to the last dot and will confirm, defend and preach it to the point of death and the shedding of my blood, and likewise I will follow and observe in every way the rite handed down of the ecclesiastical sacraments of the Catholic Church.

Council of Constance, quoted by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in published article March 20, 2019

Bishop Athanasius Schneider

COMMENT: It is refreshing to hear a Catholic bishop refer to a Catholic dogma, especially, a dogma touching upon the nature of the Divine Liturgy. Bishop Schneider did not quote the Council of Trent that was more direct and explicit:

If anyone says that the received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments ..... can be changed into other new rites by any pastor of the churches whomsoever: Let him be, ANATHMA.

This is an excellent article and recommended reading with a serious exception. Bishop Schneider addresses and effectively opposes the opinion of St. Robert Bellarmine that a heretical pope would ipso facto loose his office. But in so doing, he defends a position that no one whomsoever can judge the pope on any matter whatsoever. That is not so. The great John of St. Thomas, who also opposed St. Robert Bellarmine, holds and admirable defends the common opinion of many notable theologians that the Church can judge a pope when it is a question of heresy even quoting Gratian, the father of canon law, from the Decretum, that the First See is judged by no one excepting for heresy.

On earth, no mortal should presume to reproach (redarguere) any faults to the Pontiff, because he who has to judge (judicaturus) others, should not be judged (judicandus) by anyone, unless he is found deviating from the Faith.

Gratian, the Father of Canon Law, Decree of Gratian, (Pars I, D 40, c. 6)

The Judgment of the Church against a Heretical Pope

Further we declare that there are two wills and principles of action, in accordance with what is proper to each of the natures in Christ, in the way that the sixth synod, that at (6) Constantinople, proclaimed, when it also publicly rejected Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, those uninterested in true holiness, and their like-minded followers.

To summarize, we declare that we defend free from any innovations all the”written and”unwritten ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us.

Seventh Ecumenical Council, reaffirming the condemnation of Monothelitism and the monothelite heretics by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, including Pope Honorius

Further, we accept the sixth, holy and universal synod (6 Constantinople III), which shares the same beliefs and is in harmony with the previously mentioned synods in that it wisely laid down that in the two natures of the one Christ there are, as a consequence, two principles of action and the same number of wills. So, we anathematize Theodore who was bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, the unholy prelates of the church of Constantinople, and with these, Honorius of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria as well as Macarius of Antioch and his disciple Stephen, who followed the false teachings of the unholy heresiarchs Apollinarius, Eutyches and Severus and proclaimed that the flesh of God, while being animated by a rational and intellectual soul, was without a principle of action and without a will, they themselves being impaired in their senses and truly without reason. [ ..... ..... ]

Eight Ecumenical Council, reaffirming the condemnation of Monothelitism and the monothelite heretics by the Sixth Ecumenical Council which included the Councils judgment and condemnation of Pope Honorius

Catholic Churches Are Being Burned Across France And Nobody Knows Why

Shoebat | Andrew Bieszad | March 24, 2019

Once upon a time, the nation of France was referred to as the eldest daughter of the Church. However, this has not been the case for some time, as beginning in the 18th century but after a series of events for centuries before that preceded it the nation has formally rejected God and the Faith as a part of her formation and identity in modern times and for the foreseeable future.

The hatred of God and religion has showed its face again with a rash of Church burnings across the nation which is being reported that nobody knows who has done this according to a report:

France has seen a spate of attacks against Catholic churches since the start of the year, vandalism that has included arson and desecration.

Vandals have smashed statues, knocked down tabernacles, scattered or destroyed the Eucharist and torn down crosses, sparking fears of a rise in anti-Catholic sentiment in the country.

Last Sunday, the historic Church of St. Sulpice in Paris was set on fire just after midday mass on Sunday, Le Parisien reported, although no one was injured. Police are still investigating the attack, which firefighters have confidently attributed to arson.

Built in the 17th century, St. Sulpice houses three works by the Romantic painter Eugene de la Croix, and was used in the movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.

Last month, at the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houilles, in north-central France, a statue of the Virgin Mary was found smashed, and the altar cross had been thrown on the ground, according to La Croix International, a Catholic publication.

Also in February, at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, in south-central France, an altar cloth was burned and crosses and statues of saints were smashed. The attack prompted Lavaur Mayor Bernard Canyon to say in a statement: God will forgive. Not me.

And in the southern city of Nimes, near the Spanish border, vandals looted the altar of the church of Notre-Dame des Enfants (Our Lady of the Children) and smeared a cross with human excrement.

Consecrated hosts made from unleavened bread, which Catholics believe to be the body of Jesus Christ, were taken and found scattered among rubbish outside the building.

Bishop Robert Wattebled of Nimes said in a statement: This greatly affects our diocesan community. The sign of the cross and the Blessed Sacrament have been the subject of serious injurious actions.

This act of profanation hurts us all in our deepest convictions, he added, according to The Tablet, which reported that in February alone there had been a record 47 documented attacks on churches and religious sites.

The Vienna-based Observatory of Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, which is linked to the Council of European Bishops Conferences (CCEE), said there had been a 25 percent increase in attacks on Catholic churches in the first two months of the year, compared with the same time last year.

Its executive director, Ellen Fantini, told Newsweek that while in many cases the motive for the attacks was not known, France faced growing problems with anti-Christian violence, especially by anarchist and feminist groups.

I think there is a rising hostility in France against the church and its symbols, but it seems to be more against Christianity and the symbols of Christianity.

These attacks are on symbols that are really sacred to parishioners, to Catholics. Desecration of consecrated hosts is a very personal attack on Catholicism and Christianity, more than spray-painting a slogan on the outside wall of a church.

She said that while France had a long tradition of secularism, it was seen as a culturally Christian country, and so any attack on the church as a symbol of religion was also an attack on authority and patrimony.

The pressure is coming from the radical secularists or anti-religion groups as well as feminist activists who tend to target churches as a symbol of the patriarchy that needs to be dismantled, she added.

On February 9, the altar at the church of Notre-Dame in Dijon, the capital of the Burgundy region, was also broken into. The hosts were taken from the tabernacle, which adorns the altar at the front of the church, and scattered on the ground.

Last month, the Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe met French church leaders and said in a statement: In our secular Republic, places of worship are respected. Such acts shock me and must be unanimously condemned.

Senior Figures within the French Catholic Church expressed their sorrow at the rise in attacks on symbols of their faith.

Last month, the secretary general of the Bishops Conference, Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, told France Culture that desecration of a church was not the same as a common burglary.

To open the tabernacle, to take the hosts and to profane what for us is the basis of our faith, that is to say the presence of Jesus Christ in the hosts is something that is terrible for us.

Now the immediate answer that many are going to have it that this is Muslims. Indeed, this is a crucial factor that cannot be ignored, for approximately 75% of the attacks against Christians and Christian targets in the world has been done in modern times at the hands of Muslims, and these numbers have generally remained consistent. Given how France is almost ten percent of persons who are of North African/Middle Eastern descent, of which he majority of those people are Muslims, the violence is a natural product of the increasing power of Islam. This is not a surprise at all, but a pattern that is also consistent with historical reality, which is that as Islam rises, Christianity becomes more persecuted. [ ..... ..... ]

The 14 promises revealed to Brother Estanislao by Our Lord for those who pray the Way of the Cross

· I promise Eternal Life to those who pray from time to time, The Way of the Cross.

· I will grant everything that is asked of Me with faith, when making The Way of the Cross.

· I will follow them everywhere in life and help them, especially at the hour of death.

· Even if they have more sins than blades of grass in the fields, and grains of sand in the sea, all of them will be erased by praying The Way of the Cross.

· Those who pray The Way of The Cross often, will have a special glory in Heaven.

· I will deliver them from Purgatory, indeed if they go there at all, the first Tuesday or Friday after their death.

· At the hour of death I will not permit the devil to tempt them; I will lift all power from him in order that they shall repose tranquilly in My Arms.

· If they pray it with true love, I will make of each one of them a living Ciborium in which it will please Me to pour My grace.

· I will fix My Eyes on those who pray The Way of The Cross often; My hands will always be open to protect them.

· I will bless them at each Way of The Cross, and My blessing will follow them everywhere on earth and after their death, in Heaven for all Eternity.

· As I am nailed to the Cross, so also will I always be with those who honor Me in making The Way of The Cross frequently.

· They will never be able to separate themselves from Me, for I will give them the grace never again to commit a Mortal sin.

· At the hour of death I will console them with My Presence and we will go together to Heaven. Death will be sweet to all those who have honored Me during their lives by praying The Way of the Cross.

· My Soul will be a protective shield for them, and will always help them, whenever they have recourse.

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Modern Novel Opinion:

Archbishop Di Noia explains the fundamental change, the major shift, the new concept that Traditionalists will not be able to accept immediately.

The Churchs deep commitment to reconciliation with the Jewish People is personified today by Benedict XVI. The Ecumenical Council wrought a fundamental change. Then John Paul II, above all others, brought home Pauls message that Judaism and Jews have a unique place in salvation history. Nobody can deny that Karol Wojtylas Pontificate marked a major shift in the theological understanding of Judaism within the Catholic Church. [....] Vatican II repudiated anti-Semitism and presented a positive picture of Judaism. John Paul II took us further in recognizing the significance of the Jewish People for Christianity itself. This is a new concept which we know the Traditionalists will not be able to accept immediately. Convincing them will take time, and in this respect we will have to be patient.

Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, Adjunct Secretary for Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith & Vice-Prefect of Ecclesia Dei

Catholic Dogma:

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people yielding is fruits.”

Jesus Christ, Matt. 21:43

The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with her; and that so important is the unity of this Ecclesiastical Body, that only those remaining within this unity can profit from the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of Christian piety and duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.

Council of Florence

The most holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the Mosaic Law cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. Every one, therefore, who observes circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the Law, the Church declares not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation.

Council of Florence

Now in saying a new, he hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end.

St. Paul, Heb. 8:13

As we suffer under the moral and doctrinal Novelties of Pope Francis, it is evident why he wants the Novelty Master, Paul VI, to become another novel Novus Ordo saint. Montini is the man who defined the Spirit of Vatican II in one word: NOVELTY! And for what purpose? In order to please men and conform the Church to the world.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

St. Paul, Galatians 1, 8-10

Blind that they are, and leaders of the blind, inflated with a boastful science, they have reached that pitch of folly where they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of the religious sentiment; with that new system of theirs they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself.

St. Pius X, Pascendi

A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the fruit outside the Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error.

Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari nos, 1834, quoted by St. Pius X in Pascendi

It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilisation.

Leo XIII, Jan 27, 1902, quoted by St. Pius X in Pascendi

... We wish to make our own the important words employed by the Council; those words which define its spirit, and, in a dynamical synthesis, from the spirit of all those who refer to it, be they within or without the Church. The word NOVELTY, simple, very dear to today’s men, is much utilized; it is theirs... That word... it was given to us as an order, as a program... It comes to us directly from the pages of the Holy Scripture: “For, behold (says the Lord), I create new heavens and a new earth.” St. Paul echoes these words of the prophet Isaiah; then, the Apocalypse: “I am making everything new.” And Jesus, our Master, was not He, himself, an innovator? “You have heard that people were told in the past ... but now I tell you”…. repeated in the Sermon on the Mount.

It is precisely thus that the Council has come to us. Two terms characterize it: RENOVATION and REVISION. We are particularly keen that this spirit of renovation “according to the expression of the Council” be understood and experienced by everyone. It responds to the characteristic of our time, wholly engaged in an enormous and rapid transformation, and generating novelties in every sector of modern life. In fact, one cannot shy away from this spontaneous reflection: if the whole world is changing, will not religion change as well?

Between the reality of life and Christianity, Catholicism especially, is not there reciprocal disagreement, indifference, misunderstanding, and hostility? The former is leaping forward; the latter would not move. How could they go along? How could Christianity claim to have, today, any influence upon life?

And it is for this reason that the Church has undertaken some reforms, especially after the Council. The Episcopate is about to promote the renovation that corresponds to our present needs; Religious Orders are reforming their Statutes; Catholic laity is qualified and found its role within the life of the Church; Liturgy is proceeding with a reform in which anyone knows the extension and importance; Christian education reviews the methods of its pedagogy; all the canonical legislations are about to be revised.

And how many other consoling and promising novelties we shall see appearing in the Church! They attest to Her new vitality, which shows that the Holy Spirit animates Her continually, even in these years so crucial to religion. The development of ecumenism, guided by Faith and Charity, itself says what progress, almost unforeseeable, has been achieved during the course and life of the Church. The Church looks at the future with Her heart brimming with hope, brimming with fresh expectation in love... We can say... of the Council: It marks the onset of a new era, of which no one can deny the new aspects that We have indicated to you.

Paul VI, General Audience, July 2, 1969

Pope Francis, being part of the World, has been silent as well!

World remains silent as Muslim terrorists kill hundreds of Christians in Nigeria

LifeSiteNews | LAGOS, Nigeria | March 21, 2019 “ Muslim terrorists continued to descend on Nigerias Middle Belt region, killing more than 140 people in predominantly Christian localities since February while much of the world was focused on the isolated murder spree by a deranged shooter at a New Zealand mosque on March 15.

Scores are believed to have died Monday in Michika, a small town in Nigerias eastern Adamawa State, a predominantly Christian area. Fleeing residents told local media that the attack was unleashed by the extremist Muslim sect known as Boko Haram, which continues to wreak havoc in Nigeria. Added to attacks by Muslim Fulani herders elsewhere in Nigeria, the death toll among Christians at the hands of Muslim extremists may have surpassed 100 since the beginning of March alone.

Boko Haram has continued to raid Christians for several years despite Nigerian army efforts and the presence of foreign military advisers. Nigeria is the 12th worst country in the world for persecution of Christians, according to Open Doors USA's 2019 World Watch List. Besides attacks committed by Boko Haram, Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed thousands of Christians in central Nigeria in 2018.

Local media reported that homes and businesses were bombed and burned by Boko Haram insurgents in Michika. Residents fled to Adamawas state capital, Yola, or nearby Mubi and Uba. A witness identified as Bala said his aunts husband and their daughter were killed.

I also know of a retired soldier and local businessman that were killed in front of their houses, said the witness.

Another witness, who declined to give his name out of fear for his safety, said the number of people lost or injured is uncertain. He added that many are stranded in the bush after fleeing. Relatives have been unsuccessful in reaching them, he said.

While the Nigerian military statement did not provide the number of civilian casualties, it stated that Boko Haram militants were completely routed..... and many neutralized. [....]

Wisdom is the most perfect knowledge, of the most important things, in their right order of reference. Without the right order of reference, Wisdom is impossible. Pope Francis has no Wisdom. He does not even know the greatest commandment in the law !

Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.

Matt. 22:36-38

Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christs disciples: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (Jn. 15:12).

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, (161) On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Todays World

Pope Francis comments on the Resistance to his Heresy

But when I realize that there is real resistance, of course it displeases me. Some people tell me that resistance is normal when someone wants to make changes. The famous weve always done it this way reigns everywhere, it is a great temptation that we have all faced. ..... I cannot deny that there is resistance. I see it and I am aware of it. There is doctrinal resistance, which you all know better than I do. For the sake of mental health, I do not read the websites of this so-called resistance. I know who they are, I am familiar with the groups, but I do not read them, simply for my mental health. If there is something very serious, they inform me so that I know about it. You all know them..... It is a displeasure, but we must move ahead. Historians say that it takes a century before a Council puts down roots. We are halfway there.

When I perceive resistance, I try to dialogue, when dialogue is possible. But some resistance comes from people who believe they possess the true doctrine and accuse you of being a heretic. When I do not find spiritual goodness in these people, because of what they say or write, I simply pray for them. It pains me, but I do not dwell on this feeling for the sake of mental hygiene.

Pope Francis the Destroyer, addressing a private meeting with ninety fellow Jesuits, January 16, 2018, Santiago de Chile. Their conversation was transcribed by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, editor of La Civilta Cattolic, and was published in Italian with the Popes approval.

COMMENT: True doctrine is possessed by all faithful Catholics who hold DOGMA as their rule of faith. Pope Francis does not. He believes that he is the rule of faith. Whatever he says and does is what every Catholic must say and do. Francis rejects DOGMA and that is why he is a heretic. He judges those who hold DOGMA as their rule of faith as a sign that these people are without spiritual goodness. What is evident is that Francis, who babbles that time is greater than space, cannot be dissuaded from his commitment to destroy. He will not listen to those who offer filial correction and he does not accept evidence of the rotten fruits from Vatican II because it takes a century before a Council puts down roots. We are supposed to believe that in another fifty years we will really see the springtime of Vatican II? Unfortunately, at the current rate of decline there will not be a Catholic Church in another fifty years. God being God, this will not happen. Unfortunately for Francis, since he cannot repent, he will pay awful price for all eternity.

If anyone wanted to clear their reputation, they would not be seen with Pope Francis!

Bishop under investigation for sexual misconduct is on spiritual retreat with Pope Francis

Catholic Herald | Christopher Altieri | 11 March, 2019

Bishop Zanchetta joins the Pope and senior Vatican officials on the retreat despite being under investigation for sexual and financial wrongdoing

The Catholic Herald has learned that a bishop currently under investigation for sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement, including claims he had naked selfies and gay pornography on his phone, is on retreat with Pope Francis and other senior members of the Roman Curia.

The bishop is Gustavo Zanchetta, emeritus of Or¡n, Argentina, and currently Assessor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA). The bishop confirmed by phone to the Herald that he was on retreat.

The week-long Lenten retreat at the Casa del Divin Maestro began Sunday afternoon.

A January 4 statement from the Press Office of the Holy See said that Bishop Zanchetta would abstain himself from work during the investigation. If the elements to proceed are confirmed, the January 4 statement said, the case will be referred to the special commission for the bishops.

The Press Office of the Holy See had not responded by press time to requests from The Catholic Herald for information regarding Bishop Zanchettas current status.

Pope Francis allowed Zanchetta to resign from in August 2017. The Press Office of the Holy See gave no reason for Zanchettas resignation, but the bishop cited ill health. In December of 2017, Pope Francis appointed Zanchetta to a position in the APSA specially created for him.

Reports based on interviews and documentation show Pope Francis had seen evidence of Bishop Zanchettas ambiguous behaviour “including photographic evidence and complaints he sexually harassed seminarians” as early as 2015.

When news reports of the investigation into Bishop Zanchettas conduct emerged in early January, the Press Office of the Holy See issued a statement saying Zanchetta had resigned his see because he could not govern the clergy, and that the accusations of sexual misconduct were not lodged until the Fall of 2018. At the time of his resignation [in 2017], Press Office Director Alessandro Gisotti said in the statement, there had been accusations of authoritarianism against [Zanchetta], but there had been no accusation of sexual abuse against him.

Later, it emerged that Or¡ns former Vicar General, Fr Juan Jos© Manzano, sent evidence of Bishop Zanchettas behaviour to the Vatican in 2015 and 2017.

Fr Manzano told the Associated Press, “In 2015, we just sent a digital support with selfie photos of the previous bishop [Zanchetta] in obscene or out of place behavior that seemed inappropriate and dangerous.” Fr Manzano explained, “It was an alarm that we made to the Holy See via some friendly bishops.”

The nunciature didnt intervene directly, Fr Manzano told the AP, but the Holy Father summoned Zanchetta and he justified himself saying that his cellphone had been hacked, and that there were people who were out to damage the image of the Pope.

Argentinas El Tribuno de Salta newspaper later published documents showing the first complaint in 2015 reported that Zanchetta had on his cell phone naked images of himself masturbating, and gay porn involving young people engaged in homosexual sexual activity.

The documents published by El Tribuno also contain statements from the rector of Orans seminary, to the effect that he was so concerned over Bishop Zanchettas behaviour that he informed the nunciature in 2016 that his first-year students “who had classes in the bishops residence” required urgent measures for their protection.

That 2016 complaint lists strange behaviours including, watching [seminarians] at night, walking through their rooms late at night with a flashlight, or asking for massages, or going into their rooms and sitting on their beds, or encouraging them to drink alcoholic beverages, or [showing] certain preferences for some more handsome (Sp. Agraciados, literally graceful ) [seminarians].

Cardinal Marx: Issues of Celibacy & Sexual Orientation Will Receive Synodal Clarification

OnePeterFive | Bree A. Dail | Ligen, Germany | March 14, 2019

“Issues of celibacy and sexual orientation will receive clarification within a binding synodal path in Germany,” says Cardinal Reinhard Marx in remarks to katholisch.de after the conclusion of the spring conference of German Bishops, Thursday.

Emphasizing the need for more theological discoveries while integrating modern humanities, he added that the intimate personal significance of sexuality in modern day culture had yet to be fully understood by the Church.

We feel how often we are unable to speak in questions about todays sexual behavior, he said while commenting on whether the sex abuse catastrophe in the Church was connected to the rigors and sacrifice needed for priestly celibacy. While for the Cardinal, it seems, the notion of celibacy is a valued expression of religious commitment to God, the issue of sexual freedom is intrinsic to the inner freedom of faith and orientation to the example of Jesus Christ . In other words, the issue of whether or not clerical celibacy is realistic to answer to modern challenges in the German church is now one open to debate in the spirit of synodality.

The German Cardinal further proposed that through such synodal paths , the clericalism  that has been proposed by the Vatican (including Pope Francis) as the catalyst of the catastrophic sex abuse scandal rocking the Church, would be rectified. What needs to be done is to achieve the necessary power reduction”in order to build a more just and legally binding order to clear the synodal path for special ecclesial courts to address cases of sexual abuse, Cardinal Marx surmised. The spirit of synodality, however, did not mean that such measures would involve the canonical application for an assembly of actual synods. To do so would mean an application to Rome, and as Cardinal Marx explained, We have not yet started that process, but we do not want to wait anymore (to enact solutions). Considering the strong influence of the German Bishops Council, in the Vatican and beyond, such synodal paths as proposed by them will surely find reflection in other Bishops conferences in the months ahead.

According to Cardinal Marx, more on what these synodal paths and solutions will look like will be addressed in further conferences for the German Bishops, this year, but three forums have already been confirmed. Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of Speyer will be responsible for the forum Power, Participation, Separation of Powers; Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabr¼ck will head the forum for Sexual Morals and Bishop Felix Genn of Minster will head a forum for Formation of Priestly Life .

Commenting on how many Catholics are deeply disturbed by the little actionable solutions following the recent Vatican Summit on Sex Abuse, the German Cardinal seemed to echo the theme declared by many of his brother Cardinals, including Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich” that of radical listening . We see and hear you, your criticisms, worries, needs, doubts and your demands. I sincerely tell you: We understand.

Friends of Pope Francis claim those who oppose sodomy are “corrosive and repugnant.”

We have to face the fact that there is a group of people across all religious views that are particularly antagonistic to LGBT people. That comes from deep within the human soul, and it’s really corrosive and repugnant.

The Jesuit trained and Pope Francis appointed San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, who endorsed the book by the Sodomophile James Martin. S.J., author of the book, Building a Bridge, that endorses the LGBT agenda claiming that God created homosexuals as they are and that chastity is not required of them, that Catholics should reverence gay marriages and support transgenderism in children. He even endorses the aberrant displays of homosexuals kissing at the sign of peace during Novus Ordo services.

Dogma is the proximate rule of faith. The great modern error of making the pope the rule of faith leads to this absurdity. But then again, with the Novus Ordo, it may make no difference.

Proposal at Vatican to change Eucharist would create a new religion

LifeSiteNews | ROME, March 5, 2019

Experts including Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider are sounding the alarm over a shocking proposal at the Vatican to consider changing the matter of the Eucharist.

Such a move, critics warn, would invalidate the Sacrament and create, in effect, a new religion.

Jesuit theologian Father Francisco Taborda last week raised the possibility that the upcoming Amazonian Synod scheduled for next October might consider changing the matter of the Eucharist, allowing the use of a South American vegetable called yuca rather than wheaten bread.

Fr. Taborda told Crux on Feb. 28 that climate issues and inculturation warrant the change. Intense humidity during the Amazonian rainy season turns wheaten hosts into a pasty mush, he said, adding that in the Amazon, bread is made out of yuca, a shrub native to South America from which tapioca is derived.

Taborda, a professor of theology at the Jesuit university in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, was a featured speaker at a study seminar held at the Vatican on Feb. 25-27, in preparation for the October synod on Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology.  

Key figures at the two-day seminar included Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a principal proponent of married priests in the Latin Rite. Also in attendance were presidents of Pan-Amazonian bishops conferences and other prelates and experts from Amazonia and other geographical regions.

While Fr. Taborda acknowledged that a change to the matter of the Eucharist is a very complex question, he said he believes it should be decided by local bishops.  [ ..... ..]

Once Again, Pope Francis Corrupts the Literal Meaning of Holy Scripture. This time to overthrow all Catholic Morality!

He set out from there and went into the district of Judea [and] across the Jordan. Again crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom, he again taught them.  The Pharisees approached and asked, Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife? They were testing him. He said to them in reply, What did Moses command you? They replied, Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.  But Jesus told them, Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.  In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. He said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

Mark 10:1-12

Commentary of Pope Francis on Mark 10, 1-12:

“Jesus does not answer whether it is permitted or not. He does not enter into their [the Pharisees’] classic casuistry. Because they [the Pharisees] thought of faith merely in the framework of “one may not” or “one may” – up to which point one may, up to which point one may not. Thus logic of casuistry: Jesus does not enter into it. And He Himself poses a question: “Now, what did Moses command you? What is written in your law?” And they explain the permission which Moses gave to write a divorce certificate and to dismiss a woman from marriage; and it is they who went into a trap, yes. Because Jesus calls them “hard hearted”: “only because you are so hard hearted, he has given you this law,” and He spoke the truth. Without casuistry, without permissions. The truth. ….

“This is the way of Jesus – it is quite clear – it is the path from casuistry to truth and mercy. Jesus leaves aside the logic of casuistry. To those who wanted to test him, to those who thought of this logic of ‘it is possible’, he termed them – not here, but in another passage of the Gospel – hypocrites. Even with the fourth commandment, they denied assistance to their relatives with the excuse that they had given a good offer to the Church. Hypocrites. The casuistry is hypocritical. It is a form of hypocrisy. ‘You can – you cannot’ … which then becomes more subtle, more evil: I? I can up to this point but from here to here, I cannot. This is the deception of casuistry.”

Pope Francis, commentary on Mark 10:1-12

Commentary on Pope Francis Commentary on Mark 10, 1-12:

It is hardly possible to be this ignorant. Even a person without faith simply reading the words of this scripture passage and reporting on the literal meaning would articulate a better understand than Pope Francis. The only alternative possible is a willful corruption of the text to bring it into the service of a perverse ideology.

Firstly, Jesus does not beg the question of the Pharisees. He answers it directly and forcefully on a much higher plane. The simple answer is, it is lawful in your law because Moses permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts. But the higher answer is given by Jesus wherein He indirectly declares his divinity to the Pharisees by asserting His authority to set aside the law of Moses and reestablish the original intent of God for His creation. Only God can give this answer to the Pharisees' question. The reason Francis does not find an answer in Jesus' reply is because he does not believe that Jesus is God any more than the Pharisees did. Divorce was an indult granted by God through Moses to the Jews because of their hardness of hearts. His followers would by the grace of God rise above this hardness of heart and will be able to keep the law of God. Therefore, the indult granted by Moses is made void by the Word of God. The final answer is divorce is not permitted by the law of God and those who divorce and remarry are guilty of adultery.

Secondly, the science of moral theology concerns what one must do or not do to avoid sin. It is the science of limits which cannot be crossed without offending God either venially or mortally. The science of mystical and aesthetical theology deals with what one must do or not do to become a saint. Casuistry is a scholastic method of case study to help understand and apply the actual principles of moral theology in particular cases where conflicting obligations exist. Casuistry, like all human acts, can be perverted from its proper end which is to avoid sin. When its end become to permit sin it becomes the science of the Pharisees which can be studied today in the Jewish Talmud. Francis morality is Talmudic and not Catholic. The example provided by Francis of the perverse Jewish casuistry that permitted the Jews to break the 4th commandment by claiming that their personal wealth could not be used to support their needy parents because it was set aside for the temple is analogous to what Francis has done by permitting Catholics to live in unrepentant adultery and receive the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. In both cases, the law of God is overturned. The hypocrisy of Francis is oozing from his every pore. That is what a perverted casuistry is. Francis the Hypocrite is characterizing all good and necessary moral inquiry as a perverted casuistry which he opposes to truth and mercy. He is making war on all morality. There is no opposition between truth and mercy and its practical application in moral theology. The very science of moral theology deals with what one may not or one may do to keep the friendship of God. It was Jesus who said, If you love me, keep my commandments. The sign of the love of God is the keeping of His commandments. Francis by trashing the entire field of moral theology is heaping contempt on the law of God. He embodies everything that Jesus condemned so severely in the Pharisees. The condemnations that Jesus leveled at the Pharisees can be heaped upon this most perverse man.

Lastly, this is the morality of Martin Luther and his sect. Luther taught that it was impossible to keep the law of God and no one should even try. This was specifically condemned at the Council of Trent.

Open Apostasy from the Top!

Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the rights, and saw that it was good also.

Excerpt from document signed and endorsed by Pope Francis, Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, during his pilgrimage to the United Arab Emirates

Francis Besmirches and Humiliates our Spotless Mother, the Holy Catholic Church

The technique is old: the criminal accuses the innocent in order to create the impression that all are to blame. “In this they are accusing the Church of something for which their own conscience plainly reproaches them,” as Saint Pius X warned about the Modernists in Pascendi.

In a meeting with the clergy of Rome in the Lateran Basilica yesterday, the Bishop of the City, Francis, had the temerity to say this while discussing the abuse crisis, of which he is surely a protagonist:

It is saving us from hypocrisy, from the spirituality of appearances. He is blowing his Spirit to restore beauty to his Bride, surprised in flagrant adultery. (“Ci sta salvando dallipocrisia, dalla spiritualit delle apparenze. Egli sta soffiando il suo Spirito per ridare bellezza alla sua Sposa, sorpresa in flagrante adulterio.”)

No, the Church is not and cannot be compared to unfaithfulness of the Old Testament chosen people, whose infidelity warranted even a writ of “divorce” (cf. Jeremiah, ch. 3). She is spotless and without wrinkle, as Saint Paul explained to the Ephesians:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church: Because we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church.

The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, our Holy Mother Church, is spotless, without wrinkle and without blemish. She is holy, immaculate, absolutely untouched in her purity washed by the Blood of the Lamb by the unfaithfulness of the laity and of the clergy, in particular of the careless popes of the past few decades, who let the hierarchy be taken by a volcanic wave of immorality and debauchery.

She remains spotless! Those who besmirch her accusing her of adultery when they are the adulterers themselves -- may Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, who calls her “my sister, my love, my dove, my Undefiled,” punish them mightily for their horrid defamation!

Posted from Rorate Caeli

Good Questions, Interesting Answers!

De Mattei interview in La Verit: Dear Church, quit being gay friendly and go back to being sovereign

On Monday March 4, the daily newspaper La Verit published an interview Professor Roberto de Mattei gave to Ignazio Mangrano.  It carried as its headline Dear Church, quit being gay-friendly and become sovereign. Below we report the full text of the interview. 

Dear Church, quit being gay-friendly and become sovereign. 

Professor Roberto de Mattei, President of the Fondazione Lepanto and director of the journal Radici Cristiane, is one of the promoters of the Acies ordinate demonstration that lined up a hundred Catholics from all over the world in Piazza San Silvestro on February 19th, for a silent protest against the Vatican summit on sexual abuse.  

Professor, was the Vatican summit a success or a failure?

I believe it was a failure. The major media outlets exposed it as such, by reporting that the message was weak and by underlining the dissatisfaction of the victims. I, however, believe the failure was due to something else.

What?

It focused on the symptoms, not the causes of the evil.

Please explain.

The central point, which was already revealed in the Vigan testimony was neglected: the diffusion of homosexuality in the Church as an organized phenomenon.   

Is there a gay lobby in the Church?

Yes, there is. It seems to me quite evident.

Evident?

Most of the abuses by the clergy concerned adolescent males, not children. So, if homosexuality wasnt mentioned at the summit, the only explanation is that there is extremely strong pressure to ensure that the subject be avoided.

Pressure outside or inside the Church?

Both outside and inside. The mass-media want to stop the Church from reaffirming Her traditional doctrine on homosexuality.  

Why?

Because pedophilia is a crime acknowledged by all the modern secular States. But these same States that condemn pedophilia, promote homosexuality.

They promote it?

Yes, they do. So much so that they want to introduce homophobia as a crime “  thus outlawing  any criticism of homosexuality.    

So has the Church succumbed to the LGBT propaganda?

The Church ought to assume a prophetic position in challenging the world, by condemning not only what the world condemns, that is, the sexual abuses, but also what the world doesnt condemn, that is, homosexuality.

What about the internal pressures?

In the clergy today, there is an atmosphere of omert  and complicity in being gay friendly as the saying goes. It seems that the word homosexuality cannot even be mentioned.

Really?

Monsignor Charles Scicluna said that it isnt legitimate to condemn homosexuality, since this word indicates a generic category and a category  of people cannot be generalized.

And can it be then?

But isnt pedophilia also a category?  Or is pedophilia a sin as such, whereas homosexuality is no longer?

Father Federico Lombardi spoke of concrete measures taken at the end of the summit.  Is he mistaken?

The presumed concrete measures are appeals to the indications of the World Health Organization, which promotes contraception, abortion and sexual education. I was taken aback by how the summit fell into line with the agenda of an international organization which has long been against the teachings of the Magisterium.  

What should the Pope have done?

You know, there is nothing more concrete than referring to the moral law of the Church, which is not an abstract rule, but the natural law engraved in the heart and conscience of every man.  It is this, most of all, that was missing at the Vatican summit: a supernatural vision of todays problems which allows space for words like: grace, sin, moral law and natural law.

And instead?

And instead those words are absent in the final document. This is why the summit was a failure. Which the exploding of the  Pell case is a symptom of.

Regarding the matter of Cardinal George Pell  -  what do you make of it?

I think that when there are accusations involving churchmen, since the Church has its own Canon Law, its own tribunals, and is capable of carrying out investigations, it cannot simply say: Lets wait for the results of the investigation carried out by the secular tribunals.

Should we not rely on the secular courts?

I find such manifestation of trust in the secular tribunals troubling.

Why?

In the Vatican they are in shock over the Pell affair, as they know he is innocent. And they are embarrassed because the Pope had appointed him Prefect to the Secretariat for the Economy. But if a decision has been made to rely on the secular tribunals, you have to bear the consequences .....

Should it be up to the Church then to investigate abusive priests?

The Church which has its own penal law and tribunals needs to have the courage to challenge the judgment of the worlds tribunals, convinced that it is not the world that judges the Church, but the Church that judges the world. The Church should reclaim Her sovereignty.

Does the Church then also have to become sovereign?

Yes indeed. I find it extremely serious that the Church has renounced Her sovereignty. The Church is a sovereign society, like the State, even if Her purpose, unlike the State, is supernatural.   

And so?

If the Church is a sovereign society, it has all the instruments to achieve its own ends of justice. It is not only a purely ethical organism, which strips itself of its judicial dimension, allowing the State to decide everything. The renunciation of sovereignty is a dangerous development.

A dangerous development?

The secular tribunals can even get to Pope Francis .....

What has the Pope got to do with it?

Let me explain. When the Church renounces sovereignty, it becomes a kind of moral enterprise [Translators note - as in a business company]. And this making the Church [like] a business company, risks rendering the entire Church, starting from the top, responsible for the acts of its subordinates. Something which will not happen if it is considered a sovereign society.

Meaning - if it acts like a State?

Precisely. If an Italian citizen commits a crime, the Prime Minster is not held responsible.  If this continues, instead, there will be a persecution of the Church.

A persecution?

Im afraid so. By renouncing sovereignty, the Church loses its freedom and is forced to submit to the State or be persecuted. Today we are under a regime of submission. If at one time the State was the secular arm of the Church, now the Church is becoming the secular arm of the powers that be, the politicians and the media.

In what sense?

In the sense that the Church is obeying the indications coming from national and international organizations which hold an antithetical vision to the Christian one.

And what has persecution got to do with this?

If the Church decided to evade this mechanism, there would be a clash with the political powers. Now the Church doesnt dare do this. But if forced to, it will find itself in great difficulty, as it has renounced its main line of defense i.e. the exercise of its freedom and judicial independence.   

Lets go back to Pell for a second. Somebody observed that the accusations of sexual abuses came after the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy had discovered a million Euros deposited in secret accounts .....

Its possible that the two things are connected.  Furthermore, it is rumored that the source of the accusations that put him in the dock was not in Australia, but in the Vatican .....

When you said that the Church lacks reference to the supernatural, what did you mean?

The Church is renouncing its mission - which has as its end the salvation of souls - by changing into a company for the material well-being of people. The Churchs very nature is being perverted .....

Its nature is being perverted?

Its abdicating the mission entrusted by Jesus Christ, the Founder. Thus, it will become a revolutionary organism .....

Meaning?

When the vertical relationship with God fades, the Church becomes a political society. This is the principal characteristic of the present Papacy, which is a political Papacy, as opposed to a religious Papacy.

So  is Francis Papacy a political one?

Yes, it is. And his leitmotif is immigration. On February 14, when meeting representatives of indigenous populations at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Pope called for a cultural miscegenation among  the so-called civilized populations. Which signifies the elimination of the Christian roots which John Paul II and Benedict XVI had [both] insisted upon.

And what is miscegenation for him?

Miscegenation for Francis is not only cultural, but ethnic. It seems his project is that of an ethnic replacement of the European population - in stark demographic decline - with the new waves of African migrants .....

But why all this?

Francis has an ideological vision that originates from his cultural formation.

And what would that be?

That of a man who has absorbed progressive theology through the mediation of Liberation Theology. It is the utopia of the brave new world . Except that he is reintroducing it 30-40 years after its failure.   

How then would you define Pope Francis?

Calculated ambiguity is the sum of his personality. And this is also the cause of his problems. At this point though, let me ask a question.

Please.

Benedict XVI, who was also opposed in his homeland, made three trips to Germany. John Paul II made nine visits to Poland. How come, in the six years of his Papacy, Francis has been everywhere, even in the United Arab Emirates, but never to his own Argentina?

Ha! Why then?

The question itself is already an answer .....

Posted from Rorate Caeli

It is a contrivance of Gods goodness that the more we advance, the less we think ourselves advancing.

St. Bernard

But it did not last long.

I saw many pastors cherishing dangerous ideas against the Church. . . . They built a large, singular, extravagant church which was to embrace all creeds with equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, and all denominations, a true communion of the unholy with one shepherd and one flock. There was to be a Pope, a salaried Pope, without possessions. All was made ready, many things finished; but, in place of an altar, were only abomination and desolation. Such was the new church to be, and it was for it that he had set fire to the old one; but God designed otherwise.
Blessed Anna Katherine Emmerich

I saw also the relationship between the two popes.... I saw how baleful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; heretics of every kind came into the city of Rome. The local clergy grew lukewarm, and I saw a great darkness... Then, the vision seemed to extend on every side. Whole Catholic communities were being oppressed, harassed, confined, and deprived of their freedom. I saw many churches close down, great miseries everywhere, wars and bloodshed. A wild and ignorant mob took to violent action. But it did not last long.
Blessed Anna Katherine Emmerich, May 13, 1820

Why are those responsible for this disaster on the fast-track to canonization?

Certainly the results (of Vatican II) seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI: expected was a new Catholic unity and instead we have been exposed to dissension which, to use the words of Pope Paul VI, seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. Expected was a new enthusiasm and many wound up discouraged and bored. Expected was a great step forward, instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence which has developed for the most part under the sign of a calling back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting it for many. The net result therefore seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 1984

In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the Great Apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.

Cardinal Luigi Ciappi

We have to admit . . . that the testimony of the Fathers, with regard to the possibility of salvation for someone outside the Church, is very weak. Certainly even the ancient Church knew that the grace of God can be found also outside the Church and even before Faith. But the view that such divine grace can lead man to his final salvation without leading him first into the visible Church, is something, at any rate, which met with very little approval in the ancient Church. For, with reference to the optimistic views on the salvation of catechumens as found in many of the Fathers, it must be noted that such a candidate for baptism was regarded in some sense or other as already Christianus, and also that certain Fathers, such as Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa deny altogether the justifying power of love or of the desire for baptism. Hence it will be impossible to speak of a consensus dogmaticus in the early Church regarding the possibility of salvation for the non-baptized, and especially for someone who is not even a catechumen. In fact, even St. Augustine, in his last (anti-pelagian) period, no longer maintained the possibility of a baptism by desire.

Rev. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume II, Man in the Church

Heretics & Schimatics Always Attack the Sacrament of Matrimony - Because It is the Metaphor used by God to Describe His Union with His Church and with each of His Faithful.

Cardinal Burke: I cannot accept that Communion can be given to a person in an irregular union because it is adultery. On the question of people of the same sex, this has nothing to do with marriage. This is an affliction suffered by some people whereby they are attracted against nature sexually to people of the same sex.

Question: If perchance the pope will persist in this direction, what will you do?

Cardinal Burke: I shall resist, I can do nothing else. There is no doubt that it is a difficult time; this is clear, this is clear.

The Bergoglio Business Plan! Now that apologetics is nothing more than subtle theoretical discussions over opinions and proselytism is solemn nonsense, how do they measure strong Christian witness, effective evangelization, fruitful ecumenical spirit, and constructive dialogue ? If the Mission of the Church in the World is the supreme law.....the salus animarum, how does any of this contribute towards fulfilling this Mission ? It is never easy to achieve such a goal under the best of conditions because to obtain salvation is to enter by the narrow gate. Now that every material sign to measure success toward this goal has been destroyed by the modern Church how can they possibly have any idea what they are doing?

Today we will present a summary of the work done in recent months to develop the new Apostolic Constitution for the reform of the Curia. The goal to be reached is always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various Dicasteries and Offices, in order to achieve a more effective collaboration in that absolute transparency which builds authentic synodality and collegiality.

The reform is not an end in itself, but a means to give a strong Christian witness; to promote a more effective evangelization; to promote a more fruitful ecumenical spirit; to encourage a more constructive dialogue with all.

The reform, strongly advocated by the majority of the Cardinals in the context of the general congregations before the conclave, will further perfect the identity of the same Roman Curia, which is to assist the Successor of Peter in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the good of and in the service of the universal Church and the particular Churches. This exercise serves to strengthen the unity of faith and communion of the people of God and promote the mission of the Church in the world.

Certainly, it is not easy to achieve such a goal. It requires time, determination and above all everyones cooperation. But to achieve this we must first entrust ourselves to the Holy Spirit, the true guide of the Church, imploring the gift of authentic discernment in prayer.

It is in this spirit of collaboration that our meeting begins, which will be fruitful thanks to the contribution which each of us can express with parrhesa, fidelity to the Magisterium and the knowledge that all of this contributes to the supreme law, that being the salus animarum. Thank You.

Pope Francis, on the agenda of the Consistory for the Reform of the Roman Curia

Gee, what do you suppose happened in the 1960s that started this erosion of the Catholic Faith in Germany ?

One notes in particular in traditionally Catholic regions a very strong decline in participation at Sunday Mass, not to mention the sacramental life.  Where in the 1960s everywhere just about all the faithful still participated at Holy Mass every Sunday, today there are often less than 10 percent.  Ever fewer people seek the sacraments.  The Sacrament of Penance has almost disappeared.  Ever fewer Catholics receive Confirmation or contract Catholic Matrimony.  The number of vocations to priestly ministry and the consecrated life has sharply diminished.  In consideration of these facts, one can speak truly of an erosion of the Catholic Faith in Germany.

Pope Francis, addressing the German bishops, Nov. 2015

Many of the actions of worldlings, which at first sight may appear innocent, have a natural and fatal tendency to pervert the morals of the just; and therefore, we must keep as much as possible at a distance from their society. --- Ismael was a figure of the synagogue, which persecuted the Church of Christ in her birth.

Fr. George Leo Haydock, scriptural commentary, Genesis 21, upon Abraham sending away Ismael with his mother, Agar.

Only those who wish to be trampled upon, ridiculed, humbled, who bear their cross daily after Jesus, who walk in his footsteps after his example, who imitate him will be saved.

St. Charles of Mt. Argus, C. P. (John Andrew Houben)

New Survey Shows Disparity of Beliefs Between Latin Mass, Novus Ordo Catholics

OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | February 25, 2019

A new survey conducted by Fr. Donald Kloster of St. Marys Catholic Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, in cooperation with a statistician and Brian Williams of LiturgyGuy.com, has highlighted some interesting data from an underrepresented group of Catholics: those who regularly attend the traditional Latin Mass.

The priest who initiated the survey has offered both the Novus Ordo Mass (NOM) and the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) for over twenty years and states in the introduction to his findings that he has observed variations between the people attending the two different Masses within the Roman Rite.

Noting that American Catholics attending the NOM have been surveyed repeatedly in terms of their beliefs and practices (Pew Research and Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University [CARA]), he also observes that the body of research does not appear to include a description of Catholics who attend the TLM who comprise an estimated 100,000 Catholics attending at least 489 Sunday Masses nationwide. Surveys were taken both in pew and online for a total of 1,773 respondents.

The findings on key questions were informative:

· 2% of TLM-attending Catholics approved of contraception vs. 89% of NOM Catholics.

· 1% of TLM Catholics approved of abortion compared to 51% of NOM attendees.

· 99% of TLM Catholics said they attend Mass weekly vs. 22% of NOM.

· 2% of TLM goers approved of gay marriage as opposed to 67% of NOM.

Also of note was the rate of giving among TLM Catholics, which was nearly six times the amount of giving (at 6% of income) as NOM parishioners (at 1.2%). TLM Catholics also had a fertility rate of 3.6 vs 2.3 for NOM “ indicating a nearly 60% larger family size .

As the study authors state in their analysis, the differences between the two groups were dramatic when comparing beliefs, church attendance, monetary generosity, and fertility rates.

The initial survey, conducted over a number of months in 2018, was brief, but Fr. Kloster intends to engage in the study of additional topics in his next survey “such as propensity toward vocations” which he intends to launch this year.

The findings will likely come as little surprise to Catholics who regularly attend Mass at TLM chapels across the country. They indicate that these chapels are fertile ground for Catholic orthodoxy, large families, and an authentic practice of the faith and will continue to provide growth and nourishment to the Church for the foreseeable future.

Pope Francis is the CEO of the HomoLobby. The entire synod on the clerical pederast crisis refused to so much as mention the word, “homosexual.” The entire lot is guilty of the felonious complicity in facilitating and covering up the endemic sexual abuse of minors. For Francis, “it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).

Cardinal decries Vatican silence on homosexuality at abuse summit

LifeSiteNews | ROME, February 27, 2019 “ Organizers of the recent Vatican sex abuse summit deliberately avoided the issue of homosexuality in order to advance a homosexual agenda in the Church and protect homosexual networks that thrive in climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence, a cardinal has said. 

In a new interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register, German Cardinal Walter Brandm¼ller said that discussing the problem of homosexuality would have become dangerous for them, because it’s evident there is a network of homosexuals within the Vatican.  

That’s the problem, theres no question, he said.

This is a silence that calls out to be broken, the cardinal added. He said the work of journalists plays a crucial role in breaking through this wall and therefore urged journalists to continue to be strong, decisive, and clear in exposing scandals, even when they meet with no concrete consequences or punitive measures.

Cardinal Brandm¼llers remarks come one week after he and US Cardinal Raymond Burke co-signed an open letter to bishops attending the Vatican summit on the protection of minors in the Church to end their silence on moral corruption in the Church and return to upholding the divine and natural law.

The two cardinals, who also signed the 2016 dubia asking Pope Francis to clarify his moral teaching in Amoris Laetitia, called on bishops to raise their voices against moral corruption in the Church.

A decisive act now is urgent and necessary, they said, calling for an end to the plague of the homosexual agenda in the Church, organized networks of protection, and a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence.

In his Feb. 25 interview with the Register, Cardinal Brandm¼ller said he was very disappointed at the outcome of the meeting, and that the root causes were not discussed.

Weve said all that needs to be said, he said. It all depends on what will be done now, but the silence about homosexuality is a real problem.  We have written our letter as observers from the outside; neither Cardinal Burke nor myself are involved.

Asked how much of the problem is due to a collapse in the Churchs moral doctrine, Brandm¼ller said the lack of moral doctrine is the root and can be traced back decades. 

In the late 1960s early 1970s, the teaching of morals at the [Pontifical] Gregorian University [in Rome] was heretical, he said. That was the time of [dissenting] lecturers: [Jesuit Father Josef] Fuchs, [Father Bernard] H¤ring, and [Father Charles] Curran. They were offering their teaching, the boys listened to these lectures, and then began practicing [homosexuality].”

The North American College at that time was a center of homosexuality, Cardinal Brandm¼ller said.

The cardinal praised lay initiatives like last weeks silent protest in Rome, which brought together 100 men and women to oppose the Vaticans policy of silence about homosexuality, ahead of last weeks Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse.

Everyone is authorized to express his opinion, and this was a good protest, he said. We live in hope and trust in divine Providence.  

Ecumenism, Love, Hatred, and St. John the Evangelist

In his encyclical Mortalium Animos, Pope Pius XI makes notable appeal to the teaching of the Apostle and Evangelist John to distinguish between true and false charity toward non-Catholic Christians:

These pan-Christians who turn their minds to uniting the churches seem, indeed, to pursue the noblest of ideas in promoting charity among all Christians: nevertheless how does it happen that this charity tends to injure faith? Everyone knows that John himself, the Apostle of love, who seems to reveal in his Gospel the secrets of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress on the memories of his followers the new commandment Love one another, altogether forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christs teaching: If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you.  For which reason, since charity is based on a complete and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united principally by the bond of one faith. Who then can conceive a Christian Federation, the members of which retain each his own opinions and private judgment, even in matters which concern the object of faith, even though they be repugnant to the opinions of the rest? And in what manner, We ask, can men who follow contrary opinions, belong to one and the same Federation of the faithful? For example, those who affirm, and those who deny that sacred Tradition is a true fount of divine Revelation; those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy, made up of bishops, priests and ministers, has been divinely constituted, and those who assert that it has been brought in little by little in accordance with the conditions of the time; those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist through that marvelous conversion of the bread and wine, which is called transubstantiation, and those who affirm that Christ is present only by faith or by the signification and virtue of the Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize the nature both of a sacrament and of a sacrifice, and those who say that it is nothing more than the memorial or commemoration of the Lords Supper; those who believe it to be good and useful to invoke by prayer the Saints reigning with Christ, especially Mary the Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who urge that such a veneration is not to be made use of, for it is contrary to the honor due to Jesus Christ, the one mediator of God and men. How so great a variety of opinions can make the way clear to effect the unity of the Church We know not; that unity can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief and one faith of Christians. But We do know that from this it is an easy step to the neglect of religion or indifferentism and to modernism, as they call it.

No one understands charity better than St. John, but he understood that the theological virtue of charity must be founded on the theological virtue of faith, and therefore anything that undermines the faith of necessity undermines charity. And therefore he commands us to avoid contact with those who would undermine the faith.

In general one can see that love necessarily cause the one loving to hate anything which threatens to destroy what is loved. Thus, since we naturally love health, therefore we naturally hate disease; since we naturally love life, we naturally hate anything that destroys our lives, and so on. And charity is no exception the supernatural love of God above all things necessarily implies hatred of sin, which is directly opposed to that charity, and error which is opposed to the faith on which it is founded.

But ecumenists have difficulty seeing this. Even if they would perhaps hesitate to use such strong words, they would probably agree with the non-Catholic New Testament scholar Gerd L¼demanns judgement on St. John, in his critique of Benedicts Deus Caritas Est:

[The] Johannine communities fell far short of exhibiting the love that [Pope Benedict XVI] recommends to the contemporary church. For not only does the First Letter of John”from which the encyclical takes its theme and exhortation”restrict brotherhood to those of orthodox belief, but the Second Letter of John, which quite predictably is not mentioned in the encyclical, takes the same approach and pushes it even further. In verses 9 through 11 of this very brief letter, its author, who identifies himself only as the Elder, commands the community to receive into their homes only those brothers who confess Christs coming in the flesh. Any present or former brothers who have a different opinion concerning Christ’s incarnation should be spurned. Indeed, John forbids the members of his communities even to greet them. He deems this precautionary measure necessary, lest the community of right belief become infected by the evil doctrines and consequent guilt of its dissident brothers. How strange it is to encounter such harsh and hate-filled expostulations in a letter overflowing with assurances of mutual love and attesting to a communitys unanimous recognition of sacred truth!

L¼demanns reasoning is precisely the sort of thing that one is likely to hear from contemporary ecumenists. And the reason is clear: they are not motivated by the supernatural virtue of charity, founded on the one true faith, but rather by a vague benevolence, founded on modernism and indifferentism. And like every kind of love, this vague benevolence causes a hatred of everything that threatens the object of love; they do not (like St. John) hate heresy, rather they hate fanaticism and fundamentalism. In other words they hate the perennial claim of the Catholic Church to teach the truth.

COMMENT: This was copied from the conservative Catholic blog, Rorate Caeli. It is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, because what it says concerning the virtues of Faith and Charity is what every traditional Catholic already knows and has defended over the last fifty years but, nevertheless we do not tire of hearing it repeated from time to time. It is also interesting because it politely affirms that Pope Benedict, and a fortiori, Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II, by professing the heresy of ecumenism, are not motivated by the supernatural virtue of charity, founded on the one true faith and therefore hate the perennial claim of the Catholic Church to teach the truth. It is a hopeful sign that younger conservative Catholics recognize that it is first and foremost the Faith that must be defended by keeping the immemorial ecclesiastical traditions that make that Faith known and communicable to others. At this time, established publications who claim to be traditional are content with the crumbs offered by Benedict XVI and continually heap praise upon him and his Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, they fail to recognize that the battle has always been and will continue to be the Faith itself that Modernists and Neo-modernists aim to destroy. These younger conservative Catholics will hopefully become the radical traditionalists that are so desperately needed at this time for the Church militant. The Novus Ordo Church keeps two fast days during Lent and abstains on Fridays and has gutted liturgical prayer. Let us keep faithfully the traditional penances and practices during Lent as an act of reparation for our own sins and the welfare of the Church. If traditional Catholics do not do it, it will not be done.

Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus

Jesus covered with blood and with much sadness said to Mother Pierina: See how much I suffer. I am understood by so few: what ingratitude on the part of those who say they love Me! I have given My Heart as a sensible object of My great love for man and I have given My Face as a sensible object of My sorrow for the sins of man. I desire that It be honored by a special feast on Shrove Tuesday. The feast will be preceded by a novena during which the faithful will make reparation to Me, uniting themselves with My sorrow.

[This year, the feast occurs on March 5 (Shrove Tuesday). The Alpha-Omega novena beings today, Sexagesima Sunday]

“I firmly wish that My face reflecting the intimate pains of my soul, the suffering and love of My heart, be more honored! Whoever gazes upon Me already consoles Me.” Our Lord to Sister Pierina

“All those who, attracted by My love, and venerating My countenance, shall receive, by virtue of My humanity, a brilliant and vivid impression of My divinity. This splendor shall enlighten the depths of their souls, so that in eternal glory the celestial court shall marvel at the marked likeness of their features with My Divine countenance.” Our Lord to St. Gertrude

OFFERING OF THE HOLY FACE TO APPEASE GOD'S JUSTICE AND DRAW DOWN MERCY UPON US

ETERNAL Father, turn away Thine angry gaze from all guilty people whose faces have become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy face of Jesus Christ, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises, in reparation for the crimes of our age, in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His head all the sins of His people that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. Amen.

O Jesus, who in Thy bitter Passion didst become “the most abject of men, a man of sorrows”, I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead; but now it has become for me as if it were the face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy infinite Love and I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men. The tears which well up abundantly in Thy sacred eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, whose adorable face ravishes my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy divine image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in

Heaven. Amen

Promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ to Those Devoted to His Holy Face

1. I will give them contrition so perfect, that their very sins shall be changed in My sight into jewels of precious gold .

2. None of these persons shall ever be separated from Me.

3. In offering My Face to My Father, they will appease His anger, and they will purchase as with celestial coin, pardon for poor sinners.

4. I will open My Mouth to plead with My Father to grant all the petitions that they will present to Me.

5. I will illuminate them with My light. I will consume them with My love. I will render them fruitful of good works.

6. They will, as the pious Veronica, wipe My adorable Face outraged by sin, and I will imprint My divine Features in their souls.

7. At their death, I will renew in them the image of God effaced by sin.

8. By resemblance to My Face, they will shine more than many others in eternal life, and the brilliancy of My Face will fill them with joy.

These inestimable promises are drawn from the works of St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde and from the writings of Sister Marie de Saint Pierre, a Carmelite who died at Tours, in the odor of sanctity.

The Punishment Is Well Under Way

 Father, the Most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has paid any attention to Her message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way but without giving any importance to Her message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God actually falling upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is imminent. Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives? It will be very sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if beforehand the world does not pray and do penance. I am not able to give any other details because it is still a secret. ... Tell them, Father, that many times the most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation. Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus, the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.

Sister Lucy of Fatima, to Father Augustine Fuentes at her convent in Coimbra, Portugal, December 26, 1957

Modernism vs. Neo-modernism: A difference in method, an agreement in ends!

The heresy of Modernism denies dogma directly. Neo-modernism is a more subtle heresy. The end remains the denial of dogma but the method of denial is indirect. Dogma, the revelation of God that forms the formal objects of divine and Catholic faith, is formulated in categorical propositions that are always and everywhere true or false. There are two methods the Neo-modernist employs to destroy dogma. The first method is to change the category of dogma from truth-falsehood to the category of authority-obedience. They treat dogma as if it were laws, commands, precepts, injunctions, etc., etc., etc., and then limit the universal truth with all the moral restrictions that apply to laws, etc. For example, the dogma that the sacrament of baptism is necessary for salvation is treated as a law and therefore as a law, it does not bind in cases of impossibility, necessity, unreasonable burden, psychological impediment, etc., etc.

The second method is to corrupt the dogmatic proposition be changing the meaning of the terms OR altering the universality of the copula. An excellent example of this corruption of terminology can be seen in Benedict/Ratzingers treatment of the word, substance.

..... the medieval concept of substance has long since become inaccessible to us. In so far as we use the concept of substance at all today we understand thereby the ultimate particles of matter, and the chemically complex mixture that is bread certainly does not fall into that category.

Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future, p. 14

It is impossible to affirm the Catholic dogma that Lord Jesus Christ... is consubstantial with the Father or the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation if the concept of substance is rejected in the sense as used by scholastic theologians found in the perennial realist philosophical tradition. And so we have Benedict/Ratzinger writing:

Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout in church must not be thought of as a conversation with God. This would assume that God was present there locally and in a confined way. To justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the Christological mysteries of the very concept of God. This is repugnant to the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. To go to church on the ground that one can visit God who is present there is a senseless act which modern man rightfully rejects.
Joseph Ratzinger, Die Sacramentale Begrundung Christliche Existenz

The Catholic Church infallibly teaches:

By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. Council of Trent, Session XIII, chapter IV

If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, let him be anathema. Council of Trent, Session XII, Canon I

Benedict/Ratzingers affirmation of these dogmas is done within the corrupted context of mutilating the meaning of the terms. The entire hermeneutic of discontinuity/rupture vs. the hermeneutic of reform proposed by Benedict/Ratzinger is predicated upon accepting or rejecting his false philosophy which ultimately elevates the accident of relationship to overthrow the concept of substance. Reciting the Credo is no longer evidence of the Catholic faith without clearly defining every term.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning-

The true Revelation of God is both a “Definite and Certain participation in God’s own knowledge.” IT is this fundamental truth of revelation that our Neo-Modernist hierarchy reject!

What, then, is the knowledge which God has restored to man through revelation but a definite knowledge, a participation of His own? The truth which has been revealed, what is it in the mind of God who reveals it, but one, harmonious and distinct? What was that know ledge as revealed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, but one, harmonious and distinct? What was the conception of that knowledge in inspired men, but one, harmonious and distinct also? And what was that knowledge when communicated by those who were inspired to those who believed, but one, harmonious and distinct as before? And what is this unity and harmony and distinctness of knowledge, which God revealed of Himself through Jesus Christ, but the faith we confess in our creed? Our baptismal faith, its substance and its letter, the explicit and the implicit meaning, article by article, is as definite, severe, and precise, as any problem in science. It is of the nature of truth to be so; and where definiteness ends, knowledge ceases. Observe, then, the distinction between finite knowledge and definite knowledge. Is not science definite? And yet it is also finite. The theory of gravitation, definite as it is, it is finite too. [ ..... ..... ] Go through the whole range of physical sciences, what is it but an example of the same condition of knowledge, definiteness in conception with finiteness of reach? [ ..... .] If we have not a definite knowledge of what we believe, we may be sure we have no true knowledge of it.

But, further, it is evident that knowledge must also be certain. When we speak of certainty, we mean one of two things. Sometimes we say, that a thing is certain; at other times, that we are certain. When we say a truth is certain, we mean, that the proofs of that truth are either self-evident, or so clear as to exclude all doubt. This is certainty on the part of the object proposed to our intelligence. But when we say we are certain, we mean that we are inwardly convinced, by the application of our reason to the matter before us, of the sufficiency of the evidence to prove the truth of it. In us, certainty is rather a moral feeling, a complex state of mind. As light manifests itself by its own nature, but sight is the illumination of the eye; so certainty means truth with its evidences illuminating the intelligence, or, in other words, the intelligence possessed by truth with its evidences.

This we call certainty. I ask, then, is there not this twofold certainty in the revelation which God has given? Was not the revelation which God gave of Himself through Jesus Christ made certain on His part by direct evidence of the divine act which revealed it? Is it not also certain on our part by the apprehension and faith of the Church? Was not God manifest in the flesh that He might reveal Himself? Did not God dwell on earth that He might teach His truth? Has not God spoken to man that man might know Him? Did not God work miracles that man might believe that He was present? What evidence on the part of God was wanting that men might know that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God? And if there was certainty on the part of God who revealed, was there not certainty also on the part of those that heard? Look back into the sacred history. Had not Prophets and Seers certainty of that which they beheld and heard? [ ..... ..] What, then, is the first condition of faith but certainty? He that has not certain faith has no faith. We are told that to crave for certainty implies a morbid disposition. Did not Abraham, and Moses, and Daniel, the Apostles and Evangelists desire certainty in faith, and crave to know beyond doubt that God spake to them, and know with definite clearness what God said? Was this a morbid craving? Surely this is not to reproved. But rather the contrary disposition worthy of rebuke. How can we venture to content ourselves with uncertainty in matters where the truth and honour of God and the salvation of our own souls are at stake? This truly is not without sin. [ ..... ..] And yet, what is the very idea of Revelation but a Divine assurance of Truth? Where faith begins uncertainty ends. Because faith terminates upon the veracity of God; and what God has spoken and authenticated to us by Divine authority cannot be uncertain.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Grounds of Faith

Dogma is the Proximate Rule of Faith!

Grasping these authentic notions relating to the preservation, elucidation, and transmission of Catholic doctrine, both on questions of dogmatic Faith and Christian morals, is absolutely essential in our day, when wicked or ignorant ecclesiastics seek to undermine the Sacred Deposit. Learning and treasuring these truths will help us to accomplish what St. Jude exhorts the faithful to do in his canonical epistle: To contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). If this seems like an impossible task in our day, we should take heart and recall that St. Jude is, along with St. Rita, the patron saints of the impossible.

Br. Andre Marie, MICM

Human problem..... Inflated expectation, such as, permit ourselves to say, the Church hierarchy might actually identify the cause of the sex abuse problem which everybody already knows is a homosexual clergy problem, that they might then adapt effective policies to prevent homosexuals from entering the religious state, and implement effective procedures to get the homosexuals out of the clerical state. Unfortunately, Pope Francis, as CEO and standard bearer of the HomoLobby, is running the Synod! Therefore, our expectations were never inflated.

I permit myself to say that Ive perceived a bit of an inflated expectation. We need to deflate the expectations to these points that Im saying, because the problem of abuse will continue. It’s a human problem, but human everywhere.

Pope Francis, commenting on the upcoming sex-abuse synod

The people that Pope Francis has placed in charge of the Catholic Church in China!
The Nightmare of Human Organ Harvesting in China
Transplants far outnumber official donors. Prisoners of conscience evidently account for the difference.
Wall Street Journal | Benedict Rogers | Feb. 5, 2019
China stands accused of a gruesome trade in human organs. Its difficult to prove, because the victims bodies are disposed of and the only witnesses are the doctors, police and prison guards involved. Even so, the evidence supports a damning verdict.
The charge is that many prisoners of conscience”Falun Gong members, Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and underground Christians”have been subjected to medical testing and had their organs forcibly removed. Those organs have fed an enormous trade in organ transplants. [ ..... ..... .]

At last Pope Francis and this Mission have found common ground where we are in complete agreement: Francis says his heretical “document did not go one millimeter beyond the Second Vatican Council” and it was done “in the spirit of Vatican II.”

Papal theologian never saw final draft of controversial doc with Muslims, contrary to Popes claims

LifeSiteNews | ROME | February 7, 2019 “ Informed sources have confirmed that the papal theologian, Dominican Father Wojciech Giertych, was consulted but did not see the final draft of the controversial Document on Human Fraternity that Pope Francis signed this week with a Grand Imam. 

The news, reported by the National Catholic Register on Wednesday, runs contrary to Pope Franciss claim that the papal theologian officially read and approved the document, which even some within the Vatican are calling heretical.

The Pope came under fire early this week for signing the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together with Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Cairos al-Azhar Mosque, during an interreligious meeting in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4. 

The document incited controversy among Christians for asserting that the pluralism and the diversity of religions are willed by God in His wisdom “ a statement many believe contravenes the Catholic Faith.

While some have sought to downplay the controversial passage, saying it must be read in context, one Dominican has argued that in its obvious sense [the statement] is false, and in fact heretical. A respected Catholic historian has also said it overturns the Gospel.

Who approved it?

During an in-flight press conference on his return from Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis sought to allay concerns over the document, telling reporters: I want to say one thing and repeat it clearly: from the Catholic point of view, the document did not go one millimeter beyond the Second Vatican Council. Its even cited there several times. Nothing. The document was done in the spirit of Vatican II.

The Pope continued: Before taking the decision to finalize the document, I had some theologians read it, and also officially the Theologian of the Papal Household, who is a Dominican with the beautiful Dominican tradition “ not to go on a witch hunt but to see where the right thing is. And he approved it.

The current Theologian of the Papal Household, Father Wojciech Giertych, O.P., was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. The post, which has been held by Dominicans since the Middle Ages, is tasked with providing advice to the Pope on theological issues, as well as checking papal texts for theological clarity.

In light of news that Fr. Giertych never saw the final draft, several questions arise: Who are the other theologians who read and counselled the Pope the document? Was the papal theologians advice heeded, and if so, to what extent? And if he did not see and approve the final draft, who did?

On his return from Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis said the document was prepared with much reflection and prayer, adding that both the Grand Imam with his team, and me with mine, prayed a lot in order to make this document.  He added that it took almost a year to write. It needed to ripen, to remain somewhat confidential, he said, so as not to give birth to the child before the proper time.

Pope Francis told reporters that if someone feels bad about the document, he understand[s].

Its not an everyday thing, and its not a step backwards. Its a step forward that comes from 50 years ago, from the Council that must unfold and develop. Historians say that it takes 100 years for a Council to take root in the Church. Were halfway there.

The Pope said he can also understand how the Document on Human Fraternity might seem shocking to some. It happened to me, too, he said. I read a sentence, and I said to myself: This sentence is a little..... I dont know if its sure. Instead, it was a phrase from the Council! It surprised me, too.

This is not the first time Pope Francis has argued that an apparently new (and what some consider heterodox) teaching is actually a development of doctrine.

When he changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty (n. 2267), Francis said the new wording expresses the progress of the doctrine of the most recent pontiffs as well as the change in the conscience of the Christian people, which rejects a penalty that seriously harms human dignity.

And when Amoris Laetitia was presented at the Vatican, its new teaching on Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics was described as an organic development in the spirit of Blessed John Henry Newman. 

Responding to the Popes in-flight remarks on his return from Abu Dhabi, an anonymous Dominican told LifeSite: With respect, the Pope needs to remember that his duty is not to conform only to the teaching of Vatican II, but also to that of all the councils.

Moreover, the theologian added, nothing in Vatican II states that non-Catholic religions are willed by God, so when Pope Francis tells us that nothing in his Document on Fraternity goes beyond Vatican II, he is telling us something that is not true.

The First Expulsion from the Temple

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. Genesis 3:15

Vatican II and the Leap of Faith Facing the Hermeneutics of Continuity

1. ON CATHOLIC UNITY

Vatican II pastoral opinion:

“And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio) the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.  On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject ones own faith history. Absolutely not!”

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005

Catholic Doctrine:

“ ..... the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it .....”

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos

2. ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Vatican II pastoral opinion:

“The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person... This right to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right.”

Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae

Catholic Doctrine:
“And from this wholly false idea of social organization they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, especially fatal to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by our predecessor, Gregory XVI, insanity, namely that the liberty of conscience and worship is the proper right of every man, and should be proclaimed by law in every correctly established society... Each and every doctrine individually mentioned in this letter, by Our Apostolic authority We reject, proscribe and condemn; and We wish and command that they be considered as absolutely rejected by all the sons of the Church.”

Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura

3. ON SALVATION

Vatican II pastoral opinion:

“The separated churches and communities as such, though we believe they suffer from the defects already mentioned, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.”

Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio

Catholic Doctrine:
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the Devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with her...“

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence

4. ON ACCOMODATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH TO THE WORLD

Vatican II pastoral opinion:
“May the faithful, therefore, live in very close union with the men of their time. Let them strive to understand perfectly their way of thinking and feeling as expressed in their culture. Let them blend modern science and its theories and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and doctrine.... Thus their religious practice and morality can keep pace with their scientific knowledge and with an ever - advancing technology...”

Decree on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes

Catholic Doctrine:

“The Roman pontiff can and must reconcile himself with human progress, with liberalism and with modern and human culture.” condemned.

Blessed Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors

5. ON RELATIONS WITH FALSE RELIGIONS

Vatican II pastoral opinion:

“Upon the Moslems, too, the Church looks with esteem...They adore the one God...though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God they revere Him as a prophet.... In addition they await the day of judgment when God will give each man his due.... and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”

Decree on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate
Catholic Doctrine:
“...that false opinion which considers all religions more or less good and praiseworthy... Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to naturalism and atheism...from which it clearly follows that one who supports those who hold on these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.”

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos

Bugnini himself, then secretary to the Congregation of Divine Worship, was not spared. He was a systematic person who programmed the liturgical reform and courageously pushed its implementation against all opposition. I remember that in one of his visits to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute he declared, I am the liturgical reform! In more ways than one his self-assessment was correct. The postconciliar reform would not have progressed with giant steps had it not been for his dauntless spirit and tenacity.

Fr. Anscar Chupungco OSB, former president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome, from his book, What, Then, Is Liturgy? Musings and Memoir

True piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads. (Ch. 6) ..... ..... ..

Such is the insanity of some men, such the impiety of their blinded understanding, such, finally, their lust after error, that they will not be content with the rule of faith delivered once and for all from antiquity, but must daily seek after something new, and even newer still, and are always longing to add something to religion, or to change it, or to subtract from it! (Ch. 21)

St. Vincent of Lerinss Commonitory

Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer, and now assemble in the deserts a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid the most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To all this they submit, because they will have no part in the wicked Arian leaven.

St. Basil the Great, Letter 242

“An Astonishing..... Extraordinary..... Innovation and yet, the same!” - Paul VI

This change has something astonishing about it, something extraordinary. This is because the Mass is regarded as the traditional and untouchable expression of our religious worship and the authenticity of our faith. We ask ourselves, how could such a change be made? What effect will it have on those who attend Holy Mass? Answers will be given to these questions, and to others like them, arising from this innovation.....

It is not an arbitrary act. It is not a transitory or optional experiment. It is not some dilettantes improvisation. It is a law. It has been thought out by authoritative experts of sacred Liturgy; it has been discussed and meditated upon for a long time. We shall do well to accept it with joyful interest and put it into practice punctually, unanimously and carefully.

This reform puts an end to uncertainties, to discussions, to arbitrary abuses. It calls us back to that uniformity of rites and feeling proper to the Catholic Church, the heir and continuation of that first Christian community, which was all one single heart and a single soul (Acts 4:32). The choral character of the Churchs prayer is one of the strengths of her unity and her catholicity. The change about to be made must not break up that choral character or disturb it. It ought to confirm it and make it resound with a new spirit, the spirit of her youth......

The Mass of the new rite is and remains the same Mass we have always had. If anything, its sameness has been brought out more clearly in some respects (sic).... So do not let us talk about the new Mass. Let us rather speak of the “new epoch” in the Church's life.

Paul VI, general audience, Nov 19, 1969, Introducing the Bugnini Missal of 1969

“This novelty is no small thing..... We are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance!” - Paul VI

We ask you to turn your minds once more to the liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass ..... ..

This change will affect the ceremonies of the Mass. We shall become aware, perhaps with some feeling of annoyance, that the ceremonies at the altar are no longer being carried out with the same words and gestures to which we were accustomed”perhaps so much accustomed that we no longer took any notice of them. This change also touches the faithful. It is intended to interest each one of those present, to draw them out of their customary personal devotions or their usual torpor.

We must prepare for this many-sided inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We shall notice that pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this respect.

So what is to be done on this special and historical occasion? First of all, we must prepare ourselves. This novelty is no small thing. We should not let ourselves be surprised by the nature, or even the nuisance, of its exterior forms ..... ..

We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.

We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church's values?

The answer will seem banal, prosaic.....

Paul VI, general audience, Nov 26, 1969, Introducing the Bugnini Missal of 1969

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