BELOW –

PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTS THAT ARE NOT OUTDATED

For unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…. 2 Thes 2:3

“The divorced and remarried, de facto couples, those cohabitating, are certainly not models of unions in sync with Catholic Doctrine, but the Church cannot look the other way. Therefore, the sacraments of Reconciliation and Communion should be given even to those so-called wounded families and to however many who, despite living in situations not in line with traditional matrimonial canons, express the sincere desire to approach the sacraments after an appropriate period of discernment.”

Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, his new book entitled, The Eighth Chapter of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia

“Discernment” between “true doctrine of the Gospels” and the “rigidity of abstract doctrine” means never letting Revealed Truth stand in the way of our love of sin.

Pope Francis denounces ‘restorationist’ orders bursting with young people

LifeSiteNews | ROME | February 9, 2017 -- Pope Francis has stated that the rise of new religious institutes that attract numerous religious vocations “worries” him because they often promote “rigidity.” Francis denounced new traditional religious orders as “Pelagians,” who want a return to asceticism and penance.

In an obvious reference to the Legionaries of Christ, he called young people in traditional orders “soldiers who seem ready to do anything for the defense of faith and morality, and then some scandal emerges involving the founder [male or female].”

“So, do not put hope in the sudden, mass blooming of these Institutes,” he added.

“When they tell me that there is a congregation that draws so many vocations, I must confess that I worry,” he said during the closed-door meeting with 140 Superiors General of male religious orders and congregations that took place November 25. The transcript of the unscheduled Q&A was published this week by the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Asked about how to fire the hearts of young people for the cause of the Gospel, the pope turned his focus to the training of “seminarians and future priests.”

Francis said that in priests’ training the “logic of black and white” that “can lead to abstract casuistry” must be avoided.

“Discernment, meanwhile, means moving forward through the gray of life according to the will of God. And the will of God is to be sought according to the true doctrine of the Gospel and not in the rigidity of an abstract doctrine,” he said.

Asked what should be done about the plummeting number of vocations to the priesthood, the pope said that while the decline “worries me” he is also worried about the rise of new traditional religious orders.

“Some are, I might say, ‘restorationist’: they seem to offer security but instead give only rigidity,” he said.

“When they tell me that there is a Congregation that draws so many vocations, I must confess that I worry. The Spirit does not follow the logic of human success: it works in another way. But they tell me that there are so many young people prepared to do anything, who pray a great deal, who are truly faithful. And I say to myself: ‘Wonderful: we will see if it is the Lord!”

Traditional orders do not simply worry Pope Francis. Within months of becoming pope in March 2013, Francis moved quickly to utterly dismantle the flourishing Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. The order, which encouraged the Latin Mass, was one of the most faithful of all of the new Catholic religious orders, especially in regard to their pro-life commitment. The move stunned faithful Catholics.

In 2015 the pope warned bishops against ordaining “traditionalist” seminarians, stating that doing so was like placing a “mortgage on the Church.”

In 2012 under Benedict XVI, the Vatican was in the process of reforming the umbrella group of American nuns and sisters for their “secularist mentality [and] 'feminist' spirit.” After Francis took over the reigns of the Church, that process concluded by offering the nuns’ group a “positive message.”

During the November Q&A Francis also admitted that there is “corruption in the Vatican” but he is nevertheless “at peace” by the “grace of God.”

Catholics who actually believe the revealed truths of God are called the “far-right,” which the Washington Post identifies as the “rot” of the Catholic Church! There is no such thing as “separation of Church and State.” That is the liberal shibboleth used to keep any other religion from competing with their own religion in the public forum. Nothing the “far-left” fears more than a national populist uprising in the West that will return to the Faith of our Fathers. Maybe they have read the prophecies of the “Great Monarch”?

How Pope Francis can cleanse the far-right rot from the Catholic Church

Washington Post | Emma-Kate Symons | February 9

Pope Francis needs to take tougher action against the United States’ most influential Catholic in Rome, Cardinal Raymond “Breitbart” Burke. The renegade cleric is not only undermining Francis’s reformist, compassionate papacy, and gospel teaching as it applies to refugees and Muslims, but the rebel prince of the church is also using his position within the walls of the Vatican to legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy, Stephen K. Bannon-style. Simply put, the Vatican is facing a political war between the modernizing Pope Francis and a conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance.

Burke was reduced to a ceremonial patron role at the Knights of Malta after a power struggle at the ancient chivalric order, won by the pope last month, following a spat over its humanitarian wing’s alleged distribution of condoms. Losing the leadership battle and prestige at the secretive society headquartered in Rome — Francis is appointing his own special delegate above Burke — was seen as a papal rap on the knuckles for the cardinal leading the charge against Francis’s writings on communion for divorcees. But the virulently anti-Islam (“capitulating to Islam would be the death of Christianity”), migrant-phobic, Donald Trump-defending, Vladimir Putin-excusing Burke is unrepentant and even defiant, continuing to preside over a far-right, neo-fascist-normalizing cheer squad out of the Holy See.

This Vatican operation, called Dignitatis Humanae, or the Institute for Human Dignity, whose advisory board includes two of the four cardinals openly challenging Francis on marriage and sexuality, is slavishly promoting Burke’s favorite American white Catholic nationalist, Bannon, with star billing on its home page. The institute’s top office-bearers, Burke and his henchman, the media-savvy Breitbart contributor Benjamin Harnwell, are also encouraging Benito Mussolini fan Matteo Salvini, of Italy’s Northern League, and Muslim-baiting far-right Catholic poster girl Marion Le Pen, the National Front “rising star” niece of party leader Marine Le Pen in France.

As the Italian press first revealed, Burke held a long meeting last week at his Vatican home with Salvini, a fierce critic of the pope who wants to push refugees back into the sea and close all mosques in Italy. It was a flagrant political intervention on the side of the extreme-right racist grouping ahead of the Italian elections. Mysterious posters also appeared around the Vatican decrying a sinister-looking pope’s “decapitation” of the Malta Knights order.

The situation facing the Catholic Church raises alarming parallels with the ideological warfare that split the Vatican in the 1930s when ethnic nationalism was sweeping Europe under Mussolini and Hitler and when fascist forces infiltrated the highest echelons of the church. In 1937, Pope Pius XI published an encyclical in German denouncing the Nazi regime and its racism. The diatribe infuriated Hitler, but the focus was more on Nazi persecution of Catholics than laws targeting Jews.

In Italy, the Vatican had long made accommodations with Mussolini for its own geopolitical gains, and Pius XI failed to quell widespread institutional anti-Semitism in the church before it was too late. When Mussolini decreed in 1938 that Italian Jews were to suffer a legal fate similar to those in Germany, Pius XI tried to prepare a fresh encyclical deploring anti-Semitism and racism, as revealed in historian David Kertzer’s book “The Pope and Mussolini,” he was double-crossed by pro-fascist forces in the Vatican working in tandem with Il Duce. Senior figures in the French Catholic Church also collaborated with fascism in France, where the Vichy regime aided the Nazis in deporting about 80,000 Jews to the death camps.

The lesson of history has not been lost on Francis. After President Trump’s inauguration, he warned that rising populism could produce a new Hitler. But now, as Europe faces historic elections that could bring extreme-right nationalists back into power across the continent for the first time since World War II, he must act. The bellicose anti-Islam invective being marshaled by figures such as Burke shares much in common with the vicious anti-Semitism many Catholic clerics adhered to in the 1930s, when they saw Jews as a danger to the Christian West whose rights must be restricted.

Burke, like Bannon, who says Islam is “the most radical” religion in the world, makes no distinction in his clash-of-civilizations frenzy between the Muslim faith’s diverse currents and interpretations, and violent jihadist movements derived mostly from Saudi-style Salafism. Unsurprisingly, Burke says he is “very satisfied” with Russian autocrat Putin’s “defense of life and family” and believes he may have “converted” since his KGB days. Yet, just as godless Communism posed an existential threat in the past, the Catholic Church has nothing to gain and everything to lose from cozying up to far-right extremists from the United States to Europe. They distort Christianity into an exclusionary ideology in defense of nation and race, and unite a new support base of Muslim-haters with historically anti-Semitic movements such as the National Front that are anything but Christian, and often neo-pagan.

The options open to the pope in dealing with Burke are limited. Excommunication isn’t in the cards; Burke is not a heretic denying the Catholic faith. Nor is Burke refusing to submit to the pontiff like French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was cast out by John Paul II after his ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X ordained its own bishops rather than take directions from the Vatican.

However, Francis, who has full authority over his cardinals, could fully remove Burke from his remaining sinecure with Knights of Malta, call him in for a pastoral correction on the issue of his unacceptable political interventions, investigate Dignitatis Humanae with a view to shutting it down for its subversive politicking, and send the rebel cardinal back home to the United States. As Burke tries to run an insurgency and rebukes the pope for his doctrinal “ambiguities,” with the backing of thousands of priests, Francis could seize the agenda. In time-honored papal tradition, he could write an encyclical on the burning questions of populism and nationalism, with specific reference to migrants, Muslims and Jews, so priests including Burke know they are in breach of church teaching when they try to act as power brokers for the international extreme right.

The stakes could hardly be higher, especially as the pope seems on a collision course with a Trump-Bannon White House that has imposed a form of a Muslim ban and disparaged him during the election campaign for daring to suggest that building a wall on the United States’ southern border was un-Christian. If the pope doesn’t put the reactionary elements such as Burke and his cronies back in their place, they could force a real schism during his papacy and leave the church open to justifiable accusations it failed to stand up to enablers of extremism and neo-fascism within its ranks.

“The surprising real reason for the hate against Donald Trump”

The election of Donald Trump and a majority of Republicans to the Senate, Congress, governorships and other positions, have left the One-Worlders reeling. To them it has been like a giant earthquake upending their world and their evil plans. They are enraged and hysterical that their expectations of a dizzying final achievement of the total power of man as god has been smashed. That is their ultimate goal - replacing God with man - the great sin of pride of Adam.

Steve Jalsevac, Life Site News, February 9, 2017

“A Dark Cloud of Fog Instead of a Head”

I saw a strange church being built against every rule.... No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above... There was only division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single Angel or a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw a laughing figure which said: 'Do build it as solid as you can; we will pull it to the ground'.... Among the strangest things that I saw, were long processions of bishops. Their thoughts and utterances were made known to me through images issuing from their mouths. Their faults towards religion were shown by external deformities. A few had only a body, with a dark cloud of fog instead of a head. Others had only a head, their bodies and hearts were like thick vapors. Some were lame; others were paralytics; others were asleep or staggering.

Blessed Anna-Katarina Emmerick, Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy

“And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?”

“Mutual respect… Freedom to practice one’s religion… Freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution,” is extended to every error under the sun but has and will never be extended by the Novus Ordo hypocrites toward Catholic tradition and truth.

Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has placed special emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation with the followers of other religions. In order to be fruitful, this requires reciprocity on the part of all partners in dialogue and the followers of other religions. I am thinking in particular of situations in some parts of the world, where cooperation and dialogue between religions calls for mutual respect, the freedom to practise one’s religion and to engage in acts of public worship, and the freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution, even after conversion from one religion to another. Once such a respect and openness has been established, peoples of all religions will work together effectively for peace and mutual understanding, and so give a convincing witness before the world.

Pope Benedict XVI, St. Mary’s University College, London, September 17, 2010

Clarity at last from the CDF – unfortunately delivered in an interview in a secular newspaper.

For example, it cannot be said that there are circumstances according to which an act of adultery does not constitute a mortal sin. For Catholic doctrine, it is impossible for mortal sin to coexist with sanctifying grace. In order to overcome this absurd contradiction, Christ has instituted for the faithful the Sacrament of penance and reconciliation with God and with the Church.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Interview, Il Timone, Feb 2, 2017

Maybe Pope Francis should look for a job at the United Nations?

Great sporting events like today’s Super Bowl are highly symbolic, showing that it is possible to build a culture of encounter and a world of peace. May this year’s Super Bowl be a sign of peace, friendship and solidarity to the world.

Pope Francis, addressing the Super Bowl audience as the under billing for Lady Gaga

Several Problems: Anglican Orders are not valid, so they have no priesthood. Next, the “Anglican liturgy” was the work of the heretic bishop, Thomas Cranmer, who hated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and denied the True Presence. The great Catholic and popular writer, Hugh Ross Williamson, published a very informative pamphlet in 1969 entitled, The Modern Mass - A Reversion To the Reforms of Cranmer, which detailed how amazingly similar the Novus Ordo was in all its particulars to Cranmer’s liturgical destruction. Cranmer was also the author of the Book of Common Prayer used by the Anglicans. Now that blasphemous production is to be performed in St. Peter. The article has not revealed if there will be any lay/cleric celebrant women and/or a homosexuals which would make the circus complete. Cranmer received his just reward at the hands of Queen Mary. He humbly repented with copious tears making a total of six recantations with which he hoped to save his life. When learned that Queen Mary would not hear of it, he then went to his death at the stake cursing and blaspheming the Catholic Faith and the pope. And now, his spiritual followers lay men everyone, will celebrate his service of evening Vespers at St. Peter Basilica. Pray God that these enemies of our holy Faith will meet their just rewards soon.

Anglican liturgy to be celebrated in St Peter’s

Historic celebration of evensong will take place next month

christopher lamb | vatican city | February 8, 2017

An Anglican liturgy will be celebrated at the heart of the Catholic Church when choral evensong takes place in St Peter’s basilica next month. The event on March 13 is an important ecumenical symbol and a sign of the growing appreciation in Rome for the Anglican choral tradition. Evensong, the equivalent of vespers, will be sung by the choir of Merton College, Oxford accordion to the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, a liturgical book initially authored by former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, a leader of the English reformation later executed by Catholic monarch Queen Mary.

Relations between Anglicans and Catholics have come a long way since then with a warm friendship between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Pope Francis, both of whom want to take practical steps towards Christian unity. Five months ago the archbishop celebrated vespers with the Pope at the Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio where Welby gave Francis his pectoral cross, in a vivid symbol of reconciliation. The cross was made out of nails from Coventry Cathedral that was destroyed in second world war and is now a symbol of an international peace-making ministry.

The 3pm evensong service will be presided over by Archbishop Sir David Moxon, the Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, while Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary at the Holy See’s liturgy office, will deliver a homily.

Permission for the service was granted by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica, during a recent meeting with Archbishop Moxon, who is also the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Personal Representative to the Holy See.

It also repays the liturgical hospitality offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dean Robert Willis in welcoming Cardinal George Pell to celebrate Solemn Mass at the High Altar of Canterbury Cathedral last July.

In recent years a number of Anglican choirs have come to sing at St Peter’s, with last month Westminster Abbey singing vespers in front of the Pope with the Sistine Chapel choir. The new collaboration grew out of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Abbey in 2010 where he was was so struck by the choir that the Dean, John Hall, sent a CD of its music to the Apostolic Palace.

FOR NOTHING DEFILED CAN ENTER HEAVEN.

APOCOLYPSE 21:27

Question: We are most grateful to God for this reply defending immutable Catholic truth but, why is Cardinal Müller answering the Dubia through a secular press interview and not through a formal CDF document?

The Pope Is Silent, But Cardinal Müller Speaks.Who Responds To the “Dubia” This Way.

L’Espresso | Sandro Magister | Feb 1, 2017

To him (Cardinal Müller), too, in addition to Pope Francis, cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra, and Meisner had sent their five “dubia” on the interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia,” seeking “clarity.”

And neither he, Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, nor much less the pope had responded until now to the questions of the four cardinals.

To make up for this, however, now Müller is bringing clarity, and how, in an extensive interview that is coming out today in the magazine “Il Timone,” conducted by editor Riccardo Cascioli and by Lorenzo Bertocchi:

>La verità non si negozia (The truth is not negotiable)

In the interview, the cardinal does not use the word “dubia,” but he says “apertis verbis” (“open words”) precisely what the four cardinals were asking to have clarified. And he does not fail to lash out against those bishops who with their interpretive “sophistries” - he says - instead of acting as leaders for their faithful are falling “into the risk of the blind leading the blind.”

Here are the key passages of the interview.

Question: Can there be a contradiction between doctrine and personal conscience?

Cardinal Müller: No, that is impossible. For example, it cannot be said that there are circumstances according to which an act of adultery does not constitute a mortal sin. For Catholic doctrine, it is impossible for mortal sin to coexist with sanctifying grace. In order to overcome this absurd contradiction, Christ has instituted for the faithful the Sacrament of penance and reconciliation with God and with the Church.

Question: This is a question that is being extensively discussed with regard to the debate surrounding the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.”

Cardinal Müller: “Amoris Laetitia” must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church. [...] I don’t like it, it is not right that so many bishops are interpreting “Amoris Laetitia” according to their way of understanding the pope’s teaching. This does not keep to the line of Catholic doctrine. The magisterium of the pope is interpreted only by him or through the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. The pope interprets the bishops, it is not the bishops who interpret the pope, this would constitute an inversion of the structure of the Catholic Church. To all these who are talking too much, I urge them to study first the doctrine [of the councils] on the papacy and the episcopate. The bishop, as teacher of the Word, must himself be the first to be well-formed so as not to fall into the risk of the blind leading the blind. [...]

Question: The exhortation of Saint John Paul II, “Familiaris Consortio,” stipulates that divorced and remarried couples that cannot separate, in order to receive the sacraments must strive to live in continence. Is this requirement still valid?

Cardinal Müller: Of course, it is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments. The confusion on this point also concerns the failure to accept the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” with the clear doctrine of the “intrinsece malum.” [...] For us marriage is the expression of participation in the unity between Christ the bridegroom and the Church his bride. This is not, as some said during the Synod, a simple vague analogy. No! This is the substance of the sacrament, and no power in heaven or on earth, neither an angel, nor the pope, nor a council, nor a law of the bishops, has the faculty to change it.

Question: How can one resolve the chaos that is being generated on account of the different interpretations that are given of this passage of Amoris Laetitia?

Cardinal Müller: I urge everyone to reflect, studying the doctrine of the Church first, starting from the Word of God in Sacred Scripture, which is very clear on marriage. I would also advise not entering into any casuistry that can easily generate misunderstandings, above all that according to which if love dies, then the marriage bond is dead. These are sophistries: the Word of God is very clear and the Church does not accept the secularization of marriage. The task of priests and bishops is not that of creating confusion, but of bringing clarity. One cannot refer only to little passages present in “Amoris Laetitia,” but it has to be read as a whole, with the purpose of making the Gospel of marriage and the family more attractive for persons. It is not “Amoris Laetitia” that has provoked a confused interpretation, but some confused interpreters of it. All of us must understand and accept the doctrine of Christ and of his Church, and at the same time be ready to help others to understand it and put it into practice even in difficult situations.

So comments Cardinal Müller, who among the “confused interpreters” of “Amoris Laetitia” cannot help but have included the Argentine bishops of the region of Buenos Aires. To whom, however, Pope Francis wrote expressing his complete approval: “El escrito es muy bueno y explícita cabalmente el sentido del capítulo VIII de ‘Amoris laetitia’. No hay otras interpretaciones.”… (“The writing is very good and explicitly the meaning of chapter VIII of ‘Amoris laetitia’. There are no other interpretations.”….)

Bishop Fellay is not just betraying traditional Catholics. He is betraying the Faith!

About Pope Francis:
“I see in our present Pope, Pope Francis, has a concern for souls, but in particular the souls that are rejected. Isolated souls, those who are set aside, or despised or who are in difficulty. What he calls ‘the existential peripheries’. Is it really the famous lost sheep? Is it that Pope Francis leaves aside the other 99 and is going to take care of that lost sheep? I think that's what he has in mind. I mean, maybe. You cannot give a global answer. (In) everything he has said, we see that he has that concern, a universal concern: migrants, those in prison, who are effectively men abandoned by others. It is a people who are in pain. Then there are the divorced, people who are also in distress. Then we are also rejected. And finally we are all in the same perspective. And then he is going to take care of those souls.”

Bishop Fellay, being interviewed by his spokesman, Father Loran, “Radio Courtoisie”, Friday, January 13 and broadcast on Thursday, January 26, 2017

COMMENT: The common opinion is that Rome has wanted to regularize the SSPX and +Fellay has resisted. Not so. +Fellay betrayed the SSPX long ago. His ongoing “doctrinal discussions” with Rome have been a farce because +Fellay and the SSPX have no greater regard for Dogma than their Novus Ordo critics. +Fellay has been willing to go to Rome since at least 2012 when he presented the “Doctrinal Preamble” (which is the 1989 Profession of Faith and the Oath of Fidelity) to the leadership of the SSPX. +Fellay even announced before this meeting that he had no objections whatsoever to the Doctrinal Preamble and hoped that the leadership would accept it. It has not been +Fellay who has resisted going to Rome but Rome has resisted accepting the SSPX. They don’t want them and in fact, have enjoyed watching +Fellay and company dangle in the wind loosing many of their priests and supporters.

What has changed? In this recent interview with prepared softball questions pitched by +Fellay’s lackey, Fr. Loran, +Fellay compares Pope Francis/Bergoglio to the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep while leaving the 99 in the desert. No one, absolutely no one, has been more marginalized in the Catholic Church over than last fifty years than those Catholics faithful to our ecclesiastical traditions and defined dogmas. +Fellay has no dogmatic problems with Amoris Laetitia and Pope Francis/Bergoglio now finds this useful in his attacks against the four cardinals and the Dubia. The reasoning will be, ‘If AL is acceptable to the conservative +Fellay and the SSPX, then certainly Cardinal Burke and the other three cardinals are out of line in their complaint.’

+Fellay is not just betrayed the SSPX and traditional Catholics. He is betraying the Catholic Faith.

COMMENT: The one and only condition established by Rome to regularize the SSPX is the Oath of Fidelity and the 1989 Profession of Faith. This is the essential part of the “Doctrinal Preamble” that Bishop Fellay presented to the leadership of the SSPX in Albano, Italy in 2012. Bishop Fellay publically affirmed that he has no problem or reservation whatsoever regarding signing this document. The 1989 Profession of Faith is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed with three additional addenda. The first two are dogmas. The third is not. This third addendum inserted into a Catholic profession of Faith calls for an unconditional submission of the “mind and will”, or as Lumen Gentium say, submission of the “soul,” to the “authentic magisterium” of the pope and the bishops. That is, it demands under oath that clerics swear unconditional obedience to another man by virtue of his grace of state alone. An oath of unconditional obedience can only be given to God. Below is taken from an interview with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in which he is asked his opinion regarding this very question.

Question: What do you think of the instruction of Cardinal Ratzinger setting up the Oath of Fidelity which includes a (1989) Profession of Faith?
Archbishop Lefebvre: Firstly, there is the Credo which poses no problems. The Credo has remained intact. And, so the first and second sections (added to the creed) raise no difficulties either. They are well-known things from a theological point of view. It is the third section which is very bad. What it means in practice is lining up on what the bishops of the world today think. In the preamble, besides, it is clearly indicated that this third section has been added because of the spirit of the Council. It refers to the Council and the so-called magisterium of today, which, of course, is the magisterium of the followers of the Council. To get rid of the error, they should have added, "...insofar as this magisterium is in full conformity with Tradition."
As it stands this formula is dangerous. It demonstrates clearly the spirit of these people with whom it is impossible to come to an agreement. It is absolutely ridiculous and false, as certain people have done, to present this Oath of Fidelity as a renewal of the Anti-Modernist Oath suppressed in the wake of the Council. All the poison in this third section which seems to have been made expressly in order to oblige those who have rallied to Rome to sign this profession of Faith and to state their full agreement with the bishops. It is as if in the times of Arianism one had said, "Now you are in agreement with everything that all the Arian bishops think."
No, I am not exaggerating. It is clearly expressed in the introduction. It is sheer trickery. One may ask oneself if in Rome they didn't mean in this way to correct the text of the protocol. Although that protocol is not satisfactory to us, it still seems too much in our favor in Article III of the Doctrinal Declaration because it does not sufficiently express the need to submit to the Council.
And so, I think now they are regaining lost ground. They are no doubt going to have these texts signed by the seminarians of the Fraternity of St. Peter before their ordination and by the priests of the Fraternity, who will then find themselves in the obligation of making an official act of joining the Conciliar Church.
Differently from in the Protocol, in these new texts there is a submission to the Council and all the Conciliar bishops. That is their spirit and no one will change them.

The SCHISM is HERE! Only the brain dead have an excuse!

COMMENT: This book provides an interpretation of Chapter 8 of Amoria Laetitia. It is addressed to bishops with a “merciful heart” and offers an interpretation that is consistent with the interpretation approved in the private letter sent by Pope Francis to the bishops of Argentina as well as with the interpretation of Cardinal Schornborn who Pope Francis has publically identified as its ‘official interpretor.’ These bishops say that the proper understanding and application is that any Catholic living in public adultery based upon their own private judgment in the internal forum can declare themselves worthy to receive Holy Communion and absolution in the sacrament of Penance and therefore cannot be denied these sacraments. It is given semi-official approval by its publication in L’Osservatore Romano.

Now in the Novus Ordo which may be nothing more than a memorial meal as initially defined by Pope Paul VI, perhaps giving the Novus Ordo communion wafer to a person in objective mortal sin is not a real problem. But what is certainly a grave sin it that these persons expect to be absolved by a confessor in the sacrament of Penance without confessing or repentance of mortal sin. Pope Francis and his CDF puppet, Cardinal Muller, will not be answering the Dubia in any official capacity. This does not represent a change in the Church’s teaching. It represents the active effort of a Francis and his minions to destroy the Catholic doctrine and morality. As we announced during the synod, the schism has long been present. It is more evident each passing day and every Catholic will have to pick sides. God cannot let an open attack upon the sacrament of marriage go unpunished. Their hypocrisy is oozing from every pore. Imagine if a Catholic with “humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it” arrives at traditional Catholicism, what kind of response can be expect from the local bishop and Rome? If you want to know read our OPEN LETTERS!

10. If, as a result of the process of discernment, undertaken with “humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it” (AL 300). a separated or divorced person who is living in a new relationship manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she are at peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (see AL, notes 336 and 351).

Bishops Charles J Scicluna and Mario Grech, Guide for the Interpretation of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia: An Invitatiion to the Bishops of Merciful Hearts. This book received semi-official approbation by being published in L’Osservatore Romano, Italian edition, January 2017

Pope says Schonborn interpretation on Communion for remarried is the final word

April 16, 2016 LifeSiteNews – On the flight returning from Greece, Pope Francis was asked if the Apostolic Exhortation (Amoris Laetitia) contained a "change in discipline that governs access to the sacraments" for Catholics who are divorced and remarried. The Pope replied, “I can say yes, period.” Adding, however, that this would be "too small" of an answer, the Pope then urged reading the presentation of Cardinal Schönborn, calling Schönborn a “great theologian who knows the doctrine of the Church.”

"In that presentation your question will have the answer," the pope concluded.

Schonborn’s presentation boiled down Pope Francis’ more than 60,000 words in the exhortation to 3000, but in that short space made sure to include the “smoking footnote” being seen as the opening of the door to Holy Communion to Catholics living in second unions where annulment from the first union was not possible. The position contradicts Pope St. John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.( as well as divine positive law and the constant immemorial universal tradition of the Catholic Church in all her rites without exception whatsoever) [……]

Pope Francis Plots to discredit Cardinal Burke –‘Replies’ to the Dubia!

Pope told Knights of Malta chief to accuse Cardinal Burke in his resignation letter

ROME | LifeSiteNews | Jan Bentz | January 31, 2017 -- A vehement backlash following attempts to fight condom distribution has shaken the foundations of the formerly sovereign entity of the Order of Malta. The controversy has resulted in one key casualty: Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), has surrendered. The optics are not good. By requesting his submission, Pope Francis has “publicly humiliated a Catholic knight for upholding moral orthodoxy,” as the Wall Steet Journal put it.

LifeSiteNews has also learned that the man at the center of the controversy, previously ousted for being responsible for the scandalous contraceptive distribution, has been reinstated by the Pope with even more authority than he previously had.

On January 25 SMOM communicated that Fra Matthew Festing, 67, met with Pope Francis and decided to resign upon the Pontiff’s request. The Vatican has since announced the sending of a delegate to govern the Order together with the ad interim chief, Fra’ Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein. Von Rumerstein will be in place until an extraordinary meeting elects a new Grand Master, as a press release dated January 28 stated.

Festing handed in his resignation after the General Council voted in favor – save one vote – of his decision and thereby ended his eight year governance of the world’s largest chivalric order. With his resignation he effectively surrendered in the struggle between the two oldest diplomatic entities in the Western world - a struggle sparked by the dismissal of Albrecht v. Boeselager, Grand Chancellor, before Christmas. The resignation of Fra’ Matthew promises to pave the way for an investigation of the order and further purging of unwanted elements; presumably those who are not in line with the re-instituted Boeselager. As veteran Vatican reporter Edward Pentin reports, the Vatican applied “very strong and direct pressure” on the Council while being unsure if the resignation would actually receive a majority.

But Festing’s head may not be the only one to roll. According to Edward Pentin, Pope Francis received Fra’ Matthew Festing in a private audience on January 24. In this audience, the Pope asked the Grand Master to write up a letter of resignation on the spot in which Festing included - by request - that the Grand Master had asked for Boeselager’s dismissal as ‘pushed for’ by Cardinal Raymond Burke, the patronus of the Order. As patronus Burke has no direct authority to govern but serves as the Pope’s ambassador to the sovereign council of the SMOM. Will the “removal” of Boeselager be “traced” back to Burke and will the Cardinal suffer punishment for his counsel?

It is curious to observe that Boeselager has been given unprecedented powers which are neither in the statutes of the Order nor that he had before his dismissal. In a letter Pope Francis announced that he will “nominate a special delegate” and he reiterated that all “acts of Fra’ Matthew Festing” are “null and void” – as a letter by Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State of the Vatican, already stated. Francis added that “Baron von Boeselager is considered a member of the Sovereign Council and from that moment on must be invited to all reunions of the Council, in a contrary case the reunion would be null.” Boeselager thus becomes a “guarantor” of the validity of the Council, in effect putting the very person who originally defied the Grand Master’s wishes in charge.

Another element is the Pope’s involvement. It was by the Pope’s recent exhortation to “rid the Order of Freemasonry” in combination with the long-standing condom scandal, which Boeselager was involved in as Grand Hospitaller, that had led the Grand Master to ask Boeselager to resign before Christmas. Boeselager – obstinate in his refusal – had to be asked under obedience to leave, and this set the stage for an onslaught extraordinaire on the government of the Order. All of this culminated in that moment wherein the Sovereign Council voted to accept Fra’ Festing’s resignation. As leader of the sovereign Vatican, the Pope has gotten himself mixed up into international diplomatic affairs, that can “under international law” be understood as “effectively the annexation of one country by another,” canon lawyer Ed Condon wrote. The interference of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin with his letter dated January 27 has been deemed unconstitutional.

Another distressing observation is this: If by his request for Fra Matthew’s resignation the Pope treated Festing as a religious rather than a statesman, Francis as supreme leader of the Church and vicar of Christ urged Festing under religious obedience to do precisely that which Festing had asked from v. Boeselager. With one difference: Boeselager never stepped down by his own accord despite grounds for morally questionable evidence; Fra’ Matthew Festing on the other hand did indeed have the integrity to follow his “superior,” the Pope. With the reinstitution of Boeselager, noncompliance wins the day.

What remains unresolved and concealed is the mysterious donation of 120 million Swiss Francs held in a trust accessible to Boeselager’s faction from a benefactor resident in France, as Edward Pentin reported, as well as German Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s involvement in the whole ordeal. According to information gathered by LifeSiteNews, Marx was visiting Cardinal Pietro Parolin along with Boeselager during his stay in Rome for the C9 meeting before Christmas to engage in the discussion with Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

What is plain to see is that Boeselager’s reinstitution means triumph for the small group of the German chapter of the Order who hold the money whip over the law and statutes of the Order. As so often in the recent Church history of the German-speaking world, it remains true that involvement in scandals – even as grave as condom-distribution – can be swept under the carpet if money is at stake. Boeselager’s term as Grand Chancellor will come to its natural end in 2019. Until then he has been given the time, stature and means to steer the Order his way.

Long gone are the days in which the Pope in respectful distance re-affirmed the sovereignty of the Order, as did Benedict XVI only days before his resignation: “The occasion that brings us together is the ninth centenary of the solemn privilege Pie Postulatio Voluntatis of 15 February 1113, by which Pope Paschal II placed the newly created ‘hospitaller fraternity’ of Jerusalem, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, under the protection of the Church, and gave it sovereign status, constituting it as an Order in church law, with the faculty freely to elect its superiors without interference from other lay or religious authorities.”

Question: We are grateful for this reply but, why is Cardinal Müller answering the Dubia without mentioning the Dubia through a secular press interview and not through a formal CDF document???

The Pope Is Silent, But Cardinal Müller Speaks.Who Responds To the “Dubia” This Way.

L’Espresso | Sandro Magister | Feb 1, 2017

And neither he, Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, nor much less the pope had responded until now to the questions of the four cardinals.

>La verità non si negozia (The truth is not negotiable)

Here are the key passages of the interview.

Question: Can there be a contradiction between doctrine and personal conscience?

Question: This is a question that is being extensively discussed with regard to the debate surrounding the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.”

Question: How can one resolve the chaos that is being generated on account of the different interpretations that are given of this passage of Amoris Laetitia?

So comments Cardinal Müller, who among the “confused interpreters” of “Amoris Laetitia” cannot help but have included the Argentine bishops of the region of Buenos Aires.

To whom, however, Pope Francis wrote expressing his complete approval: “El escrito es muy bueno y explícita cabalmente el sentido del capítulo VIII de ‘Amoris laetitia’. No hay otras interpretaciones.”… (“The writing is very good and explicitly the meaning of chapter VIII of ‘Amoris laetitia’. There are no other interpretations.”….)

Those who could have, but have not, made the First Saturday Reparation will have no excuse!

Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good, because they continue on the road of goodness, but without paying mind to this Message. The bad, because of their sins, do not see God’s chastisement already falling on them presently; they also continue on their path of badness, ignoring the Message. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way.
The chastisement from Heaven is imminent. The year 1960 is on us, and then what will happen? It will be very sad for everyone, and far from a happy thing if the world does not pray and do penance before then. I cannot give more details, because it is still a secret. By the will of the Blessed Virgin, only the Holy Father and the Bishop of Fatima can know the secret. Both have chosen, however, not to open it in order not to be influenced by it.
This is the third part of the Message of Our Lady, which still remains secret until 1960. Tell them, Father, that the Blessed Virgin said repeatedly – to my cousins Francisco and Jacinta as well as to me – that many nations would disappear from the face of the earth, that Russia would be the instrument of chastisement from Heaven for the whole world if the conversion of that poor Nation is not obtained beforehand. …

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. …

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.

Sr. Lucia of Fatima, last public interview, with Fr. Augustin Fuentes, 1957

Pope Francis Met Martin Scorsese to Discuss His New Movie About Priests

TIME | Melissa Locker | Nov 30, 2016

Acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, to discuss his latest movie, Silence, which stars Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, and Liam Neeson, (a fictional story) inspired by the real life work of Jesuit priests in 17th century Japan.

Quick history: The Catholic Church his 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ “morally offensive,” and three California bishops and two prominent nuns condemned it, according to the LA Times. The new film screened to 300 Jesuit priests at a pontifical college, an event that suggests that the church has moved past the blacklash that surrounded The Last Temptation of Christ.

Scorsese and his family had a brief, but “very cordial” meeting with Pope Francis where they discussed Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel that inspired the film, and exchanged gifts, according to The Guardian. Pope Francis gave his visitors rosaries, while Scorsese presented the Pope with framed pictures of the Virgin of Nagasaki and a portrait of the “martyrs of Japan”.

While Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ was critically acclaimed, and earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director, some in the Catholic Church took issue with the film’s portrayal of Christ as a young, conflicted man with shocking dreams about Mary Magdalene. The film was deemed blasphemous and was banned in many cinemas and countries, including, according to The Guardian Pope Francis’s homeland of Argentina.

COMMENT: The movie, Silence, is a fictional story about Jesuit missionary priests who apostatize from the faith rather than suffer martyrdom. The movie is approved and recommended by Pope Francis. Francis suggested, perhaps jokingly, to Scorsese that the leading actor, Andrew Garfield, should become a priest. There are countless historical accounts of the martyrs of Japan who made heroic confessions of Faith that would be provided excellent material for any film. Just not the kind story Scorsese wants to tell or Pope Francis want to hear.

What could be more foreign to proper “rhetoric” than Pope Francis/Bergoglio?

“Rhetoric is persuasive speech in the service of truth which should create an informed appetition for the good.”

Richard M. Weaver, author of Ideas Have Consequences, Ethics of Rhetoric, Rhetoric & Composition, Visions of Order: The Culture Crisis of Our Time, and other works.

Pope Francis says “obeying all the commandments, all of them…. is a sin against memory, courage, patience and hope.”

Not taking risks, please, no… prudence… obeying all the commandments, all of them… yes, it’s true, but this paralyzes you too. It makes you forget so many graces received, it takes away memory; it takes away hope, because it doesn’t allow you to go forward. And the presence of a Christian, of such a Christian, is like the one who goes along the street and an unexpected rain comes, and the garment is not too good and the fabric shrinks… confined souls. This is cowardliness: this is the sin against memory, courage, patience, and hope… Cowardliness and fear of everything are two sins contrary to giving up one’s life in service to others as Christ asks.

Pope Francis, homily, Casa Santa Marta, Jan 31, 2017

Catholic Church Teaches:

Council of Trent: Dogma, the formal objects of divine and Catholic Fatih!

Canon XVIII. If any one shall say, that the commandments of God are, even for a man that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.

Canon XIX. If any one shall say 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 in nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.

Canon XX. If any one shall say, that a man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if, forsooth, the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observation of the commandments; let him be anathema.

“The Newerest Liturgical Movement” –

Recovering the Art of Deconstructionalism: Corrections in Novus Ordite Mistranslations by Benedict/Ratzinger about to be Re-mistranslated!

Pope Francis has ordered a review of the new Mass translation

Pope Francis has ordered a review of “Liturgiam Authenticam,” the controversial decree behind the most recent translations of liturgical texts from Latin into English and other languages

Vatican Insider | gerard o’connell | January 27, 2017

Pope Francis has ordered a review of “Liturgiam Authenticam,” the controversial decree behind the most recent translations of liturgical texts from Latin into English and other languages. The commission, established by the pope just before Christmas, is also tasked with examining what level of decentralization is desirable in the church on matters such as this. [……]

Francis had two main reasons for setting up the commission, according to informed sources. First, in line with the Second Vatican Council, he wants to give greater responsibility and authority to bishops’ conferences. He stated this clearly in his programmatic document, “Evangelii Gaudium,” when he wrote:

The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit.” Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated. Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach (No. 32).

In this context, the question that arises in terms of the liturgy is to clarify what is the role of the bishop of Rome in preserving unity in the church, given that Liturgy, the Roman rite, creates unity in the Latin church. The commission will address this issue.

Second, some bishops’ conferences are unhappy with the translation of the Roman Missal required by “Liturgiam Authenticam.” They consider it too rigid and do not accept that there is such a thing as “sacral language.” They charge that “Liturgiam” seeks an almost literal translation of the Latin liturgical texts into the vernacular or local language of the different countries, often with unsatisfactory results. The Japanese, for example, had a long-running battle with the congregation over who should decide what is an acceptable Japanese translation of these texts. They and several other bishops’ conferences, are clearly unhappy with the directives of “Liturgiam” and the level of centralization involved in it. […..]

He explained that “dynamic equivalence” was achieved when a translator detached the “content” of an utterance from the “form in which it was expressed.” But this approach has become “outmoded,” he said. Over the last 40 years, specialists in language “have become more aware that the form we choose for an utterance is itself expressive of our purpose in speaking.” The Holy See in “Liturgiam Authenticam” opted for “the formal equivalence,” he stated.

The new commission set up by Pope Francis will review this whole matter, together with the issue of inculturation and the question of what decentralization is desirable in matters relating to the liturgy.

Pope Francis compares President Trump to “Hitler”!

Understandable! To Communist liberation ‘theologues,’ anyone who disagrees with them is another “Hitler”!

Pope warns against populism and 'saviours' like Hitler

AFP | Breaking News | January 21, 2017

Madrid (AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday warned against populism, saying it could lead to the election of “saviours” like Hitler.

In an hour-long interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais conducted as Donald Trump was being sworn in as US president, the pontiff also condemned the idea of using walls and barbed wire to keep out foreigners.

“Of course crises provoke fears and worries,” he said but added that for him “the example of populism in the European sense of the word is Germany in 1933.

“Germany... was looking for a leader, someone who would give her back her identity and there was a little man named Adolf Hitler who said 'I can do it'.”

“Hitler did not steal power,” the pope said. “He was elected by his people and then he destroyed his people.”

The Germans at that time also wanted to protect themselves with “walls and barbed wire so that others cannot take away their identity,” he said.

“The case of Germany is classic,” he said, adding that Hitler gave them a “deformed identity and we know what it produced.”

Pope Francis however underscored that it was too early to pass judgement on Trump.

“Let's see. Let's see what he does and then we will evaluate,” he said.

Francis destroys the Sovereign Order of Malta

The Pope and the Order of Malta: a Pyrrhic Victory?

Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | January 25, 2017

The resignation of Fra Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the Order of Malta, imposed on him by Francis on January 23rd, risks being a Pyrrhic victory for the Pope.

Pope Bergoglio has in fact obtained what he wanted, but had to use force, violating both law and common sense. And this is destined to have serious consequences not only inside the Order of Malta, but among Catholics from all over the world, increasingly perplexed and bewildered about the way Francis is governing the Church.

The Pope knew he hadn’t any legal title to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign Order and even less so to demand the resignation of its Grand Master. He knew also the Grand Master himself would not have been able to resist the moral pressure of a request for his resignation, even if illegitimate.

By acting in such a way, Pope Bergoglio has exercised an act of dominion openly in contrast with the spirit of dialogue established as the leit motif during the Year of Mercy. However, what is graver still, is that the intervention took place “to punish” the current in the Order which is the most faithful to the immutable Magisterium of the Church and support instead, the secularist wing, which would like to transform the Knights of Malta into a humanitarian NGO, a distributer of condoms and abortificants “for good reasons”. The next designated victim appears to be the Cardinal Patron, Raymond Leo Burke, who has the dual offence of having defended Catholic Orthodoxy inside the Order and of being one of the four cardinals who criticised the theological and moral errors of the Bergoglian Exhortation, Amoris laetitia.

In his meeting with the Grand Master, Pope Francis announced his intention “to reform” the order, that is to say, the resolve to alter its religious nature, even if it is precisely in the name of Pontifical authority that he wants to start the emancipation of its religious norms and morals. This is a plan for the destruction of the Order, which, naturally, will be able to occur solely by the surrender of the Knights, who unfortunately seem to have lost their militant spirit which distinguished them on the fields of the Crusades and in the waters of Rhodes, Cyprus and Lepanto.

In acting so, however, Pope Bergoglio has lost a lot of credibility not only in the eyes of the Knights, but of an increasing number of the faithful who see the contradiction between his captivating and mellifluous manner of speaking, and his intolerant and threatening way of acting.

From the centre we pass to the periphery, which however, is more important than the centre for Pope Bergoglio. A few days before the Grand Master of the Order of Malta’s resignation, other news along the same lines shook up the Catholic world. Monsignor Rigoberto Corredor Bermùdez, Bishop of Pereira in Colombia, by decree on the 16th of January, suspended a divinis the priest Alberto Uribe Medina, because, according to the communiqué of diocese, he had “voiced publically and privately his rejection of the Holy Father Francis’ doctrinal and pastoral teaching, most of all, as regards marriage and the Eucharist.” The diocesan communiqué adds that as a result of his position, the priest “has separated himself publically from communion with the Pope and the Church.”

Don Uribe therefore, has been accused of being a heretic and schismatic for having rejected Pope Bergoglio’s pastoral indications, which, in the eyes of many cardinals, bishops and theologians have the smell of heresy [about them], precisely for the reason that they appear to be departing from the Catholic faith. Which means that a priest who refuses to administer Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried or to practicing homosexuals is suspended a divinis or excommunicated, while those who reject the Council of Trent and Familiaris consortio are promoted to bishops, and perhaps nominated cardinals, as probably Mons. Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta is expecting, [he being] one of the two Maltese Bishops who authorized Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried, living together as man and wife. The name of this small Mediterranean island seems however to have a strange tie to Pope Bergoglio’s future, less trouble free than we can possibly imagine.

Who is orthodox today and who is heretical or schismatic? This is the great debate that appears on the horizon. A de facto schism, as the German daily Die Tagespost defined it, that is, a civil war in the Church, which the war going on inside the Order of Malta is only a pale prefiguration of.

Francis Interview: “Liberation Theology was a positive thing in Latin America,” that “One can practice religion in (communist) China,” that “he is misunderstood because of his sins,” and announces what is already common knowledge, the “beginnings of the dictator in my attitude.”

El Pais | Rome | Jan 23, 2017(excerpt)

On Liberation Theology

El Pais: Do you not think that the Church has lost many positions for the benefit of other religions and sects even after the failed attempt of liberation theology? Why is that?

Pope Francis: Liberation theology was a positive thing in Latin America. The part was condemned by the Vatican which opted for the Marxist analysis of reality. Cardinal Ratzinger issued two instructions when he was prefect of the Congregation of the Faith. It was very clear about the Marxist analysis of reality, and a second in which he came back to the positive aspects. Liberation theology had positive aspects, but also deviations, especially in the Marxist analysis of reality.

To the People’s Republic of China

El Pais: Can Vatican diplomacy soon be broadened in China?

Pope Francis: In fact, there is already a Commission working with China and meets every three months, once here [Vatican], once in Beijing. And there is a lot of dialogue with China. China has always had the aura of mystery, which is fascinating. Two or three months ago they were happy with the exhibition of the Vatican Museum in Beijing. And they will come to the Vatican in the coming year with their things, their museum.

El Pais: Will you soon travel to China?

Pope Francis: When I am invited. They know that. In China, by the way, the churches are full. They can practice religion in China.

About Paul VI and misunderstanding

El Pais: 50 years ago there was almost everything. The Second Vatican Council, the journey of Paul VI. And the embrace with the patriarch Athenagoras in the Holy Land. Some say to understand you, they should come to know Paul VI. At a certain moment he was a misunderstood pope. Do you also feel a bit like an uncomfortable pope?

Pope Francis: No, no. I think I am much more misunderstood because of my sins. Paul VI was the martyr of disagreement. Evangelii gaudium was in the framework of the Pastoral. What I want to give to the Church now is an update of Evangelii nuntiandi of Paul VI. He is a man who went forward in history. And he suffered, suffered much. He was a martyr. And many things he could not do, because he knew as a realist that he could not, and so he suffered, but he offered that suffering. And he did what he could do. And what Paul VI did best: sow. He sowed things that were later harvested in history. Evangelii gaudium is a mixture of Evangelii nuntiandi and the Aparecida document [2007 Latin American Episcopal Conference]. Things that have grown from below. Evangelii nuntiandi is the best post-conciliar pastoral document and has lost none of its topicality. I do not feel misunderstood. I feel accompanied, accompanied by all types of people, boys, old people, ... Yes, some out there are disagreeable, and that’s their right, because if I felt bad, because some disagree, that would be the beginnings of the dictator in my attitude. You have the right to disagree. You have the right to think that the road is dangerous, that it could bring bad results, that ... they have the right. But always on the condition that they enter into a dialogue, and not that they throw stones and hide their hand, not that. No man has a right to that. Throwing a stone, but hiding the hand is criminal. Everyone has a right to discuss, and hopefully, we will discuss a lot, because this is what sets us apart. The discussion unites. The discussion with good blood, not with slander and all that ...

“Everyone, above all the cardinals of the Roman Church, have the right to write a letter to the Pope. I was astonished, however, that this became public, almost constraining the Pope to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I do not like this. Also, a possible fraternal correction of the Pope seems to me very far off. It is not possible at this moment because it does not involve a danger to the faith as Saint Thomas has said. We are very far from a correction and I say that it harms the Church to discuss these things publicly. Amoris Laetitia is very clear in its doctrine, and we can make out the whole doctrine of the Church on matrimony, all the doctrine of the Church in 2000 years of history. Pope Francis asks for discernment of the situation of those persons who live in an irregular union, that is, not according to the doctrine of the Church on matrimony, and he asks for aid of these persons to find a path for a new integration in the Church according to the conditions of the Sacraments, of the Christian message on matrimony. But I do not see any contraposition: on the one hand we have the clear doctrine on matrimony, and on the other the obligation of the Church to concern herself with these persons in difficulty.”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Tgcom 24, Italian TV interview, January 8, 2017

Cardinal Müller’s TV Interview Causes Bewilderment

Vatican’s doctrinal chief criticizes making ‘dubia’ public but some critics say he is missing the point as it emerges that none of the CDF’s corrections of ‘Amoris Laetitia’ was accepted.

National Catholic Register | Edward Pentin | Jan. 9, 2017

[.....] But the cardinal’s comments have been met with bewilderment in Rome, with some arguing that the cardinal has missed the point: the question, they say, is not whether Amoris Laetitia can be read in continuity with tradition but whether it is ambiguous enough that it can be read in a heterodox way.

His remarks also come after it has emerged the CDF had clear misgivings about the document before it was published — concerns which were never heeded. One informed official recently told the Register that a CDF committee that reviewed a draft of Amoris Laetitia raised “similar” dubia to those of the four cardinals. Those dubia formed part of the CDF’s 20 pages of corrections, first reported by Jean-Marie Genois in Le Figaro on April 7, the eve of the publication of the document.

Another senior official went further, revealing to the Register last week that Cardinal Müller had told him personally that the CDF “had submitted many, many corrections, and not one of the corrections was accepted”. He added that what the cardinal states in the interview “is exactly the contradictory of everything which he has said to me on the matter until now” and he had the “impression of someone who was not speaking for himself but repeating what someone else had told him to say.” [.....]

COMMENT: “Astonished,” “bewildered”? We are all astonishment that Cardinal Müller is “astonished! We are all bewilderment that Rome is “bewildered.” Müller has never been credited with any particular intellectual brilliance, but what we now know is that he has the moral backbone of a worm. Is anyone “astonished”? Is anyone “bewildered”? In the future we will get to see Müller crawl like a worm a lot more often than see him stand like a man. Cardinal Müller says that “everyone, above all the cardinals of the Roman Church, have the right to write a letter to the Pope.” No kidding? It may surprise Müller to learn that anyone with a pen, paper and a postage stamp can “write a letter to the Pope.” It may “astonish” Müller to learn that every Catholic enjoys a right to appeal to the Pope on questions of faith and morals, AND the right to obtain a formal “judgment” from the pope on these kinds of questions. This right has been formally professed at two ecumenical councils, Lyons II and Vatican I. A right always imposes a reciprocal duty. So why should Müller by “astonished” that the Dubia was made public only after it was privately submitted and the “duty” to respond was ignored? Why should Müller by “astonished” that the Dubia were framed to be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”? That is the ordinary form customarily used in such matters. It was our Lord Jesus Christ who said, “But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.” (Matt 5:37) Our Lord’s words made such an impression on the Apostle James that he repeated them in his epistle, “But let your speech be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment.” (James 5:12) What above is “evil” and will “fall under judgment.” The dubia are designed to either affirm or deny the faith. Therein lies the problem for Francis. He denies the faith but God will not permit him to do so formally before the Catholic Church. What Francis said in Amoris Laetitia, directly affirmed in his letter to the Argentine bishops, again affirmed from the comments of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn who has been identified by Francis as its “official interpreter,” and the book published by the Maltese bishops and endorsed in L’Osservatore Romano, is “evil” and all will “fall under the judgment” of God. This has to be the last straw before the punishment of God. God will not let this direct and most assuredly evil attack upon the sacrament of Marriage go unanswered. Marriage is the metaphor used by God to represent His loving relationship with His Church and with all His faithful individually. Francis is playing the part of a harlot.

As we prepare for the 500 anniversary of the Luther’s Revolt

One day she was carried in spirit to Germany, where she saw that grand country devastated by Luther’s heresy, under the appearance of vast tracts of land filled with enormous serpents, and with imaginary terrible beasts, all engaged in tearing the land into bits, which they separated from the mother-country, as limbs might be torn piecemeal from a body. Another time the Spirit of God caused her to go successively to all the spots in Europe that the great heresy had attacked secretly. When she reached the towns of Italy, and beheld the wide spread of contagion amongst them, she sent forth a cry of horror and surprise: “O my God, if all those who are heretics at heart were to profess their errors publicly, the number of faithful would indeed be small!” The convent archives tell us that holy Church often appeared to her, covered symbolically with horrible, disfiguring wounds; and that she would then cry out, with sobs and tears: “Ah, my divine Spouse, I recommend Thy whole Church and Thy mercy! Oh, how many Judases are profaning and betraying her! Why, why should we keep silence any longer? Why not tell the truth aloud? O Lord, Lord, renew this poor Church, which belongs to Thee, but in which Thou canst now behold no form of a Church!”

Fr. F. M. Capes, O.P., St. Catherine de Ricci, Her Life, Her Letters, Her Community

St. Catherine de Ricci, 1522 to 1590; Dominican stigmatist

Baldisseri’s Doubletalk

by Christopher A. Ferrara | January 5, 2017

Remember him? It’s Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, General Secretary of the Phony Synod, who, in the process of stage-managing that fraud upon the Church, was exposed for literally stealing copies of the Five Cardinals Book which Cardinal Burke and four other cardinals defended the Church’s traditional teaching on the impossibility of admitting public adulterers in “second marriages” to Holy Communion. It was Baldisseri who ordered the book removed from the mailboxes Synod fathers at the same time he and the rest of his cabal were manipulating the Synod to undermine the very teaching the Five Cardinals were defending.

The cabal having accomplished the aim of its conspiracy with the publication of Amoris Laetitia, for which the Phony Synod was mere window dressing, Baldisseri now openly declares victory for the subversives under the rubric of that utter novelty known as “discernment,” introduced in Chapter 8 of Amoris. “Discernment,” so we are now told, means that negative exceptionless precepts of the natural law regarding sexual morality (including “thou shall not commit adultery”) can admit of pastoral “exceptions” to be “discerned” in “certain cases.” As Baldisseri states:

“Amoris Laetitia… uses the word discernment above all in Chapter 8, connecting it to two other words in the title: accompany and integrate… In fact, when love no longer corresponds to the form of sacramental marriage, the Church takes care of these wounded people, that they might rediscover the way of the Gospel…”

Notice how those involved in objectively immoral unions are depicted as “wounded people,” as if to suggest that they are the innocent victims of some sort of horrible accident rather than their own deliberate choices, and that we must provide a kind of First Aid to these “wounded people” by “discerning” their situations, meaning — as if anyone didn’t know it by now — allowing them to receive sacrilegious Holy Communion without an amendment of life.

The account of Baldisseri’s remarks continues with the deception that animated the entire “synodal journey”: i.e., that no change of moral doctrine and related practice is involved in this subversive enterprise. According to the Italian blog Sinodo 2015:

“This does not mean, the cardinal specified, that ‘the regulations and doctrine of the Church’ undergo variations that do not take account of ‘traditional moral reflections’… [but] taking account of the ‘general norm’ [!], ‘particular situations must be considered in their specificity’… [I]n certain cases it is foreseen that this also includes access to the sacraments for so-called wounded couples, in particular in the case of the divorced and remarried.”

This is classic Modernist doubletalk: the teaching has not changed but now we apply it differently to different people — a radical change! The very idea that the Church’s moral doctrine and related discipline are mere “general norms” that can vary in application according to “particular situations” destroys in practice both the doctrine and the discipline, as both are rooted in divine precepts of the natural law to which there are no exceptions. It can never, under any circumstances, be permissible to engage in the intrinsically evil act of sexual relations outside of marriage. Therefore, it can never under any circumstances be permissible to receive Holy Communion while habitually engaging in such relations, as in the case of divorced and “remarried” persons.

Accordingly, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared unequivocally during the reign of John Paul II:

“[I]f the prior marriage of two divorced and remarried members of the faithful was valid, under no circumstances can their new union be considered lawful and therefore reception of the sacraments is intrinsically impossible. The conscience of the individual is bound to this norm without exception.”

Baldisseri has to know that he is engaged in deliberate deception, for he is certainly aware that the Church has never taught — indeed cannot teach — that the precept “thou shalt not commit adultery” is variable according to circumstances. He has to know that he is attempting to defraud the faithful by suggesting that the Church can accept situation ethics, which would reduce her entire moral edifice to rubble in practice and terminate her very mission, if that were possible, by reducing her to yet another religious organization that has died the death of the sexual Zeitgeist.

Baldisseri is, quite simply, an ecclesiastical conman who is a major player in a long-running sting operation whose aim is to strip the Church of the Truth that is her wealth and her irreplaceable patrimony. My tone here is harsh, even brutal, but this is no time for undue deference to prelates of the sort that Our Lord Himself warned us would attack His Church: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matt 7:15)

Or perhaps Our Lord’s prophecy does not apply precisely to the likes of Baldisseri. For there is nothing inward about his malign intentions; they are written all over his face.

Pope frets about ‘hemorrhage’ of priests, nuns from church

VATICAN CITY | AP | January 28, 2017 -- Pope Francis says he is concerned about what he calls a "hemorrhage" of priests and nuns from the Catholic Church.

The pope on Saturday told participants at a Vatican gathering on religious life that the loss of clergy is weakening the church.

First among the factors he cited as causing nuns and priests to quit their vocations is a society that discourages lifelong commitments. Francis lamented that many conduct their lives based on "a la carte" choices.

For decades, the Catholic Church in many developed countries has seen the number of priests and nuns on the decline.

COMMENT: The Church founded by Jesus Christ was commissioned by Him to “make disciples of all nations.” Francis has diagnosed the vocation implosion as a result of modern society that “discourages lifelong commitments.” This may be indirectly true. When a person is converted to the Catholic faith, it involves a “lifelong commitment” to the revealed truths of our faith and an obligation to live according to the divine law of God by keeping His commandments. When conversions collapse, vocations will necessarily collapse because the pool to draw vocations from is diminished. The problem then is the failure to make converts to the Church or keep Catholics in the Church. This is because there has been a failure to preach the gospel message replacing it with the drivel of “dialogue” with the aim of never calling upon anyone to believe revealed truths and repent from sin. In this Francis himself has set the example by failing yet to make a “lifelong commitment” to Jesus Christ. And unless you have made the commitment, you can hardly expect to bring others to the Church founded by Jesus Christ outside of which there is neither the forgiveness of sins nor the hope of salvation. The history of Bergoglio in Argentine is one of failure. His recipe for failure is now being imposed upon the universal Church. His indifference to the salvation of countless souls is a damnable offense. If his diagnosis of the problem were correct it would be the result of the successful mission of the world to make disciples of Catholics for which Francis has no answer. Francis will be condemned out of his own mouth.

Interview with Cardinal Carlo Caffarra on the Dubia – What is at stake!

Matteo Matzuzzi: In the preamble of your letter to the Pope, you note “serious uncertainty among many faithful and great confusion concerning questions that are very important for the life of the Church.” In this specific case, what do the uncertainty and confusion consist of?

Cardinal Caffarra: I received a letter from a parish priest which is a perfect picture of what is happening. He wrote to me: “In spiritual direction and confession, I no longer know what I should say. To the penitent who tells me: ‘I am living in a marriage with a divorced woman and now I go to Communion,’ I propose a path to correct this situation. But the penitent stops me and abruptly answers: ‘But, Father, the Pope said that I could receive the Eucharist without resolving to live in continence.’ I can no longer deal with this situation The Church can ask me anything but not to betray my conscience. And my conscience opposes an alleged teaching of the Pope that would admit to the Eucharist, in certain circumstances, those who are living more uxorio (as husband and wife) without being married.” That is what this priest wrote. The situation of many pastors, especially of parish priests (the Cardinal notes) is this: they find themselves with a weight on their shoulders that they are not capable of carrying.

This is what I think of when I speak about uncertainty. And I talk about parish priests, but many lay Catholics are even more helpless. We are not talking about secondary matters. We are not discussing whether or not fish breaks a Lenten fast. These questions are extremely important for the life of the Church and for the eternal salvation of the faithful. Let us never forget: the eternal salvation of the faithful is indeed the supreme law in the Church. Nothing else. Jesus founded His Church so that the faithful might have eternal life and have it abundantly….

Matteo Matzuzzi: But is there still room today for so-called “intrinsically evil” acts? Or maybe is it time to consider the other side of the scales, the fact that everything, in God’s sight, can be forgiven?

Cardinal Caffarra: Be careful: This causes major confusion. All sins and intrinsically evil choices can be forgiven. Therefore “intrinsically evil” does not mean “unforgivable.” Incidentally, Jesus is not content to say to the adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn you”. He tells her also: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:10). Saint Thomas, based on Saint Augustine, gives a very beautiful commentary when he writes: “He could have said: ‘Go and live as you like and be sure of My forgiveness. Despite all your sins, I will liberate you from the torments of hell.’ But the Lord, who does not love or encourage sin, condemns the sin by saying: ‘Sin no more.’ Thus it is apparent how tender the Lord is in His mercy and how just in His Truth.” (Commentary on John 11:39). We are truly—and not just in a manner of speaking—free in the presence of the Lord. And hence the Lord does not cast us out from His forgiveness. There has to be a marvelous and mysterious marriage between the infinite mercy of God and the freedom of man who must convert if he wants to be forgiven….

Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop emeritus of Bologna, interviewed by Matteo Matzuzzi, Il Foglio, January 14, 2017

Prophecy of St. Francis of Assisi

“Those who preserve their fervor 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 doing 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 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 underfoot, 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 LINK

Remember the Poor Souls

PRAYER TO FREE 1000 SOULS FROM PURGATORY:

Our Lord told St. Gertrude the Great that the following prayer would release 1,000
Souls from Purgatory each time it is said. The prayer was later extended to include living sinners as well.

ETERNAL FATHER, I OFFER THEE THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD OF THY DIVINE SON,
JESUS, IN UNION WITH THE MASSES SAID THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TODAY, FOR ALL THE HOLY SOULS IN PURGATORY, FOR SINNERS EVERYWHERE, FOR SINNERS IN THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH, THOSE IN MY OWN HOME AND WITHIN MY FAMILY. AMEN

Heroic Act of Charity to Benefit the Poor Souls
O Holy and Adorable Trinity, desiring to co-operate in the deliverance of the Souls in Purgatory, and to testify my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I cede and renounce in behalf of those Holy Souls all the satisfactory part of my works, and all the suffrages which may be given to me after my death, consigning them entirely into the hands of the most Blessed Virgin, that she may apply them according to her good pleasure to those Souls of the faithful departed whom she desires to deliver from their sufferings. Deign, O my God, to accept and bless this offering which I make to Thee at this moment. Amen

There is a fitting irony that on the 500^th anniversary of the Luther’s revolt, Pope Francis, a disciple of Luther, should embrace divorce and adultery while he publically proclaims his personal belief in many heretical doctrines of Martin Luther including his errors on Justification!

By his teaching on the impossibility of continency either in celibacy or in marriage, he paves the way to the sanction of a bigamic marriage, at least in the case of the Landgrave Philip von Hessen. In union with Melanchton and Bucer, Luther acts the spiritual adviser, with counsel pertinent to the matter in hand. On account of the sensation caused by the bigamic marriage, the Landgrave is recommended to deny it, but secretly he may keep the trull—“Metze”—as a “conjugal concubine.” In principle, Luther had already enunciated these tenets after his interior apostasy from the Church. They only prove his bent and readiness with regard to lying, cunning, and deception.

Rev. Heinrich Denifle, O.P., Luther and Lutherdom

Dogmas are not Precepts – They are Divinely Revealed Truths

The dogmas of the Faith are to be held only according to their practical sense; that is to say, as preceptive norms of conduct and not as norms of believing, Condemned Proposition.

St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane

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 one’s 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

ON THE FEWNESS OF THOSE WHO FIND SALVATION

Only a few will be saved; only few will go to Heaven. The greater part of mankind will be lost forever. St. John Neumann

There are a select few who are saved.

St. Thomas Aquinas

The number of the Elect is so small - so small - that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief. One here and there, scattered up and down the world!

St. Louis Marie de Montfort

I tremble when I see how many souls are lost these days. They fall into Hell like leaves from the trees at the approach of winter.

St. John Mary Vianney

So vast a number of miserable souls perish, and so comparatively few are saved!

St. Philip Neri

How narrow is the gate and how strait the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it.

Jesus Christ, Mt. 7, 13-14

Why is John Henry Cardinal Newman regarded by Modernists as their Spiritual Father? – Because he was! So why do “Conservative Catholics” admire Newman? Because he explained how dogma can be discarded.

“Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man in England. And you will see that he will make use of the laity against your Grace. You must not be afraid of him. It will require much prudence, but you must be firm, as the Holy father sill places his confidence in you; but if you yield and do not fight the battle of the Holy See against the detestable spirit growing up in England, he will begin to regret Cardinal Wiseman, who knew how to keep the laity in order.”

Msgr. George Talbot, Papal Chamberlain, Letter to Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, after Pope Pius IX suppressed a plan for Dr. John Henry Newman going to Oxford to establish an inter-faith oratory.

An English Catholicism, of which Newman is the highest type, is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church... In one word, it is a worldly Catholicism, and it will have the worldly on its side, and will deceive many.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, on Dr. John Henry Cardinal Newman

Another influential writer during the last century was Lord Acton (Sir John Dalberg), who was famous for his critical historicism and also renowned for his friendship with (Rev. Johann von) Dollinger (a Munich priest and professor at the University, excommunicated for rejecting the dogma of papal infallibility). Acton was almost excommunicated, as Dollinger was, but managed to maintain the appearance of orthodoxy and remain in the Church. As liberal as Lord Acton was, and although he sided with Newman in fighting the dogma of Infallibility, he came to the same conclusion as (Cardianl Henry Edward) Manning regarding Newman's heterodox position. In a letter written by Acton a few weeks before Manning's death, after mentioning the 'personal aversion to Manning' displayed by Newman he said, “Many will wonder how anybody who saw much of him (Newman) could remain a Catholic — assuming that Newman really was one.” Acton, although an ally of Newman in editing the liberal journal The Rambler, was not baffled by Newman's prosaic tact. Acton went much further than Manning in his strictures on his old ally. He described Newman as “a sophist, the manipulator and not the servant of truth.” When men of diametrically opposed beliefs, as Acton and Manning, agree in their judgment of another man whom they so well knew, the assumption that they are not both in error is not unreasonable.

John Edward Courtenay Bodley, On Cardinal John Henry Newman

BREAKING: Vatican to issue stamp featuring Martin Luther

January 17, 2017 LifeSiteNews — If you happen to receive a piece of mail from the Vatican this year, don’t be surprised to see the face of Martin Luther. The Vatican office charged with issuing stamps, known as the Philatelic and Numismatic Office, confirmed Tuesday to LifeSiteNews that Luther, who broke away from the Catholic Church in a schism 500 years ago, will be celebrated with a postage stamp in 2017. The office is in charge of the annual commission of stamps, coins, and other commemorative medals.

The Vatican regularly issues such memorabilia for special events, including papal trips and holy years. Honoring Luther and the Protestant Reformation is an unlikely choice, trumping other significant events in the Catholic Church such as the 100-year anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and the 300-year anniversary of our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil [……]

True Charity is Always Allied with Truth

When the apostate Marcion met St. Polycarp at Rome, he asked the aged Saint if he knew him. “Yes,” St. Polycarp answered, “I know you for the firstborn of Satan.” These were the words of a Saint most loving and most charitable, and specially noted for his compassion to sinners. He had drunk deep of the spirit of St. John, that beloved master whose words were ever in his mouth. “Who dissolveth Jesus is not of God” (1 John 4:3). He hated heresy because he loved God and man so much.

Rev. Henry Bowden

His “Bad Dream”, Our Nightmare

I see the spirit and principles of the Revolution working their way into Christian clergy and people, just as the principles entered medieval society and produced the pseudo-Reformation. Many among the clergy have yet to see the errors of the Revolution and are still not resisting it. Others among the clergy love the Revolution as an idealistic cause, as it were, propagating it and collaborating with it. They persecute the Revolution’s adversaries, calumniating and impeding their apostolate. Most pastors say nothing. Others espouse the errors and spirit of the Revolution and support it either in public or in secret, like the pastors in the days of Jansenism… We must take note of the deadly battle being waged against the Church in every field, identify the enemy, decipher his strategy and battle tactics and observe his logic, psychology and dynamism, in order to be able to interpret every stage of this war correctly and organize a properly directed counter-offensive. For six centuries our implacable enemy... has been waging war to the death, slowly and systematically overturning and destroying nearly the whole Catholic order, actually the City of God,.. in order to construct the city of man in its place, with a whole new order of human life, a society and humanity without God, without the Church, without Revelation, based on sensuality, greed, and pride… Yet many Catholic leaders dismiss what I am saying as a bad dream.

Archbishop Gerald de Proenca Sigaud, Bishop of Jacarezinho in Brazil, Excerpt from his letter expressing his concerns to the Preparatory Commission for Vatican II, August 22, 1959. The orthodox preparatory work was thrown out at the Council onset.

It is “Unthinkable” to Question Vatican II only for those who do not Think! Those who deny Jesus Christ are not the “elder brothers” of those who worship Jesus Christ

JEWS-CATHOLICS: CARD. KOCH (HOLY SEE), “UNTHINKABLE” TO QUESTION THE COUNCIL

“Absolutely not”: the Catholic Church cannot change her position on the Second Vatican Council and the Nostra Aetate Declaration “because she cannot question the Council. That is unthinkable. And the Holy Father cannot deny his Magisterium.” Card. Kurt Koch

“Through the deceit of evil men….. (who are) most certainly going to perish forever…”

Now we come to another very fertile cause of the evils by which, we are sorry to see, the contemporary Church being afflicted. This is indifferentism, or that wicked opinion which has grown up on all sides through the deceit of evil men. According to this opinion, the eternal salvation of the soul can be attained by any kind of profession of faith, as long as a man’s morals are in line with the standard of justice and honesty. You must drive out from the people entrusted to your care this most deplorable error on a matter so obviously important and so completely clear. For, since the Apostle has warned that there is one God, one faith, one baptism, those who pretend that the way to [eternal] beatitude starts from any religion at all should be afraid and should seriously think over the fact that, according to the testimony of the Savior Himself, they are against Christ because they are not for Christ; and that they are miserably scattering because they are not gathering with Him; and that consequently, they are most certainly going to perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith and keep it whole and inviolate.

Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos

Catholic Dogma: Only the sacrament of Baptism received by those who hold the true faith can make men “children of God” and members of His Church!

In this crowd, in this range of religious, there is only one certainty we have for all: we are all children of God. I hope you will spread my prayer request for this month: That sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice. I have confidence in your prayers.

Pope Francis the Indifferent, Prayer intention for January 2016

Dogmas “are to give light, not to receive light from human reason”!

I answer: The obligation to believe what God says is a natural duty, it is a natural law, dictated by the common sense of reason which the Creator has deposited in every human soul. The Church only enforces this law, which existed before she herself existed, because from all eternity it was a truth that the creature is bound to believe the word of the Creator. If the Church allows no denial, no doubt, no alteration or misconstruction of any of her dogmas, it is because the veracity of the Son of God, who has revealed these truths, is attacked when any of His doctrines are denied or doubted. These dogmas are so many fixed stars in the firmament of holy Church. They cannot be reached by the perversity and frivolity of man. He may close his eyes against them and deny their existence; he may misrepresent them and look at them through glasses stained the color of every prejudice; but he cannot do away with them altogether, nor change in any way their natural brightness and brilliancy. Like the stars that deck the vault of heaven, they are to give light, not to receive light from human reason. They are the word of God, and what God says is truth, that cannot be made untruth. The mind that receives truth is enlightened thereby; the mind that denies or misrepresents it is darkened and corrupted.

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, world 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.” …. They are new because newly enacted, declared, defined; they are old because they contain no new revelation or any assumption of power never granted by Christ, but simply old truths under new forms, the old power exercised under new circumstances.

Rev. Joseph Prachensky, S.J., The Church of the Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Savior

Litany of Abomination. Recall that 2015 ended with the Gaia cult earth worship light show on the facade of the St. Peter in Rome on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The truth is, the “hand” of Pope Francis has been evident since his first month in office!

2016: The year Pope Francis finally showed his hand

January 18, 2016: Pope: Catholics who say “it’s always been done that way” have a “closed heart,” “will never reach the full truth,” and are “closed to the surprises of the Holy Spirit.”

January 21, 2016: Pope Francis changes Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual to include women. Christ washed the feet of his all-male apostles at the Last Supper.

February 8, 2016: Pope calls Italy’s foremost abortion promoter one of nation’s ‘forgotten greats’. In an interview with Corriere Della Sera Pope Francis praised Italy’s unrepentant leading abortionist and proponent of abortion, Emma Bonino, as one of the nation’s “forgotten greats,” comparing her to great historical figures such as Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman.

February 18, 2016: Pope Francis’ uncorrected remarks on contraception interpreted worldwide as a shift in Church teaching. On his return flight from Mexico Pope Francis was asked about “avoiding pregnancy” in areas at risk of Zika virus transmission. “Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape,” he said. After reiterating that abortion is never morally justified, he said, “On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear.”

Vatican confirms that Pope Francis was approving use of contraceptives and condoms in grave cases. (However, to do so would contradict the clear teaching of previous popes.)

March 2, 2016: Pope changes Vatican protocol to allow for Catholic Heads of State in irregular marital unions to be able to meet the Pope along with their partner.

April 8, 2016: Pope issues apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, creating an ongoing storm in the Church.

April 14, 2016: Pope Francis warns against those who resist the Spirit with “so-called fidelity to the law.”

April 16, 2016: Pope visits migrants on Greek island of Lesbos, then takes 3 Muslim families back to the Vatican, but no Christian families.

April 29, 2016: Pro-abortion U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Vatican event on adult stem cells.

May 3, 2016: Archbishop close to Pope says Pope wanted to conceal his support for communion for remarried divorcees. Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Special Secretary for the synods on marriage and family, claims publicly that Pope Francis said, “If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

May 12, 2016: Pope says the Church should study ordaining women as deacons.

May 16, 2016: Pope Francis compares radical Islam to Catholic evangelization: ”It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.”

May 29, 2016: Pope Francis gives award to Hollywood pro-abortion, anti-marriage advocates Richard Gere, George Clooney, and Salma Hayek.

June 2, 2016: Pope laments too much focus on Christ's words to adulterous woman “go and sin no more”: “Sometimes I feel a little saddened and annoyed when people go straight to the last words Jesus speaks to her: 'Go and sin no more'. They use these words to 'defend' Jesus from bypassing the law.”

June 9, 2016: Pope Francis: “Rigid… this or nothing” Catholics are “heretical” and “not Catholic.”

June 17, 2016: Pope Francis: Cohabitations are “real marriage” and “have the grace of real marriage.”

June 21, 2016: Pope Francis says there’s an absolute ban on the death penalty: “The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty…. One sign of hope is that public opinion is manifesting a growing opposition to the death penalty, even as a means of legitimate social defence... It is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person; it likewise contradicts God’s plan.”

Pope says all of Amoris Laetitia is sound doctrine: “For your own peace of mind, I have to tell you that everything that is written in the exhortation [Amoris Laetitia] – and here I refer to the words of a great theologian who once was a secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Schönborn, who presented it [Amoris Laetitia] – everything is Thomistic, from the beginning to the end. It is sound doctrine.”

June 26, 2016: Pope Francis misrepresents the Catechism on homosexuality. On the return flight from his visit to Armenia, Pope Francis said Catholics should apologize to gays. “I repeat what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: that they must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and accompanied pastorally,” said the Pope. “The problem is a person that has a condition, that has good will and who seeks God, who are we to judge? And we must accompany them well...this is what the catechism says, a clear catechism,” the Pope added. The Catechism’s teaching on homosexuality is given in three paragraphs comprising just over 220 words. The Pope’s response references only 20 words from the middle of the second paragraph, ignoring the numerous passages warning against the harmful sexual behaviour.

July 7, 2016: Pope Francis named Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich to serve as a member of the Congregation for Bishops.

Pope Francis distances himself from ‘very conservative’ bishops.

July 18, 2016: Vatican issues quick dismissal of Cardinal Sarah’s call for Mass facing East.

July 26, 2016: Pope: Martin Luther’s intentions were not mistaken, he was a reformer.

July 27, 2016: At World Youth Day, Vatican releases teen sex-ed program that leaves out parents and mortal sin and includes sexually explicit photos and films.

August 2, 2016: Pope’s deaconess commission includes women’s priesthood supporter.

August 23, 2016: Leaked e-mails show George Soros paid leftist groups to influence Pope’s USA visit. The e-mails name key papal adviser Cardinal Maradiaga as a potential contact.

September 1, 2016: Pope Francis: Go to confession for not recycling, repent of excess plastic and paper, ecological conversion and new works of mercy.

September 9, 2016: Pope: There’s “no other interpretation” of Amoris Laetitia than allowing communion for divorced/remarried in some cases.

Pope Francis: “Division is the weapon the devil employs most to destroy the Church from within.”

September 29, 2016: Report reveals that some of the 45 signatories are feeling the heat over their letter urging clarification of ‘Amoris Laetitia’.

October 1, 2016: Pope Francis says it is a “very grave sin” to try to convert the Orthodox: “There is a very grave sin against ecumenism: proselytism.”

October 2, 2016: Pope Francis calls woman with sex-change operation a “man” and calls partners “married”.

October 6, 2016: Pope: True doctrine is not a rigid attachment to the Law, which bewitches as ideologies do.

October 9, 2016: Pope to replace Cardinal Sarah for speech at John Paul II Institute’s inauguration, and the Cardinal is not permitted to speak at another event.

In “seismic shift” Pope appoints very liberal Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich and 2 more U.S. progressives among 17 new cardinals. He also appoints the liberal Belgian Jozef de Kesel as cardinal.

October 13, 2016: Pope receives a statue of Luther in the Vatican and gives a new definition of “lukewarm.” Pope Francis told pilgrims to the Vatican “it is not licit” to “convince [non-Christians] of your faith.” “You must give testimony of your Christian life; it will be your testimony that will stir the hearts of those who look at you,” he added. And he concluded: “It will be the Holy Spirit that moves the heart with your testimony – that is way you ask – and regarding that you can tell the 'why,' with much thoughtfulness. But without wanting to convince.”

In that meeting, the pope also offered a novel definition of “lukewarm,” which according to Pope Francis is when Christians “are keen to defend Christianity in the West on the one hand but on the other are averse to refugees and other religions.”

October 24, 2016: Pope Francis said '…beneath rigidity there is something hidden about a person’s life. Rigidity is not a gift of God.

October 28, 2016: Pope Francis again elevates Church progressives in a complete overhaul of the Vatican’s C ongregation for Divine Worship.

November 1, 2016: Pope proposes ‘new beatitudes for a new age’.

November 8, 2016: Pope Francis again welcomes visit from Italy’s leading abortion advocate.

November 10, 2016: Pope: Pontifical Academy for Life members no longer required to sign pro-life declaration.

November 11, 2016: Pope Francis on the young who like Latin Mass: ‘Why so much rigidity?’ Pope Francis said he wonders why some young people, who were not raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless prefer it. “And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

In an interview Pope Francis said, “What we want is a battle against inequality, this is the greatest evil that exists in the world.“
Eugenio Scalfari reports Pope Francis' response to a question, “It is the Communists Who Think Like Christians“. The Vatican, as usual, does not issue any clarification.

November 18, 2016: In wake of 4 Cardinals letter, Pope Francis rebukes ‘legalism’ of Amoris Laetitia critics.

Vatican expert: Sources say Pope Francis ‘boiling with rage’ over Amoris criticism.

November 27, 2016: Pope publicly uses the scatalogical terms coprophagia and coprophilia.

December 21, 2016: Pope launches an investigation of the Knights of Malta after they fired top official over condom scandal.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller is learning from Pope Francis to lie and smile!

Cardinal Gerhard Müller of the CDF has announced in a secular Italian TV interview that he will not answer the dubia of the four cardinals because “there is not any danger to the Faith.”

In Cardinal Müller’s mind, “Amoris Laetitia is very clear in its doctrine and [in it] we can interpret [sic] the whole doctrine of Jesus concerning marriage, the whole doctrine of the Church of 2000 years history.” Moreover, for Pope Francis, it is all about “discerning the situation of those people who live in irregular [sic] unions” and thus about helping them to “find a new integration into the Church according to the conditions of the Sacraments and according to the Christian message on marriage.” Cardinal Müller adds that he does “not see any contradiction: on the one side we have the clear doctrine on marriage, on the other the obligation of the Church to help those persons in difficulties.” (OnePeterFive).

“Very clear?” Hardly! Bishops have already admitted Catholics living in open adultery to the sacrament of Holy Communion while other bishops have refused to do so defending the immemorial teaching of the Church. Unfortunately for the wortless Müller, every Catholic possesses a right to appeal directly to the pope on any questions they have that concerns the faith. This right has been dogmatically defined and is encoded in canon law of the Church. If the four cardinals have submitted the dubia because they have “doubts” on questions regarding the faith, Cardinal Müller cannot refuse to reply on the grounds that he personally does not have “doubts.” This is in fact a gross dereliction of duty that involving a most serious obligation. It is a duty to answer because it is the right of every Catholic to ask and have their questions formally resolved by the Holy Father. So why does Müller answer the four cardinals through a clearly unofficial secular TV interview? Like a typical Pharisee, maybe he thinks this that since a formal Vatican document issued by the CDF is not involved, there is no sin?

Cardinal Gerhard Müller – the rule today may not be the rule tomorrow!

“If he [Müller] thinks it is right to criticize the authors of the dubia, then it would be fitting also to criticize those who push ahead and interpret Amoris Laetitia (AL) in opposition to Tradition, with Cardinal [Reinhard] Marx being at the head of all of them.”

Mathias von Gersdorff,the German theologian, regarding Cardinal Müller's unwillingness to criticize Cardinal Marx's hiding his pectoral cross to not offend Jews and permitting adulterous Catholics to the sacrament of Communion, alongside his willingness to publicly criticize the four cardinals who authored the Dubia.

Indultists who have accepted the 1962 Bugnini transitional Indult Missal (which is here called, “Liturgiam Authenticam”) cannot complain if their grant of legal privilege is withdrawn. That is the nature of an Indult!

Motu Proprio under Threat: Traditionalists must make so much noise no one would dare touch Summorum Pontificum

This from the latest blog post by Italian vaticanist Sandro Magister (along with Marco Tosatti, the top vaticanist in the current pontificate):

There are those who fear that after the demolition of “Liturgiam Authenticam,” the next objective, of this or another commission, will be the correction of “Summorum Pontificum,” the document with which Benedict XVI liberalized the celebration of the Mass in the ancient rite.

The time to agitate is now: Traditionalists around the world must make clear the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (which was not an act of “mercy,” but a mere recognition of justice and logic) cannot be touched.

The Gaia cult of earth worship endorsed by Pope Francis calls for a world population of 500 million which means that about 5.5 billion people must die. Paul Ehrlich has been endorsing these population goals for the last 50 years. He is famous for his wildly inaccurate predictions none of which ever came close to materializing. For the liberal, the reality that runs over their theories never ever, ever induces them reflect upon the legitimacy of their claims!

Vatican invites pro-abortion ‘Population Bomb’ author to speak at Biological Extinction conference

VATICAN CITY, January 12, 2017 LifeSiteNews — The Vatican has invited the undisputed father of the modern population control movement to present a paper at an upcoming Vatican-run conference.

Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, is scheduled to speak in Vatican City during the February 27-March 1 conference that will discuss “how to save the natural world.” The Stanford biologist has championed in his career sex-selective abortion as well as mass forced sterilization as legitimate methods to curb population growth.

Titled Biological Extinction, the conference will address what Vatican organizers call an unsustainable “imbalance” between the world’s population and what the earth is capable of producing. The event is jointly sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Organizers of the Vatican-run conference predict that if effective steps are not taken to reverse so-called man-made “global climate change,” then up to 40 percent of “all biodiversity on Earth” will be destroyed “by the end of this century,” including a “majority” of species of plants. [....]

COMMENT: The immorality of Amoris Latitia was not pulled from an empty bag. If follows from the defiled heart of Pope Francis, “For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man.” The moral system endorsed by Francis permits every evil because it overthrows all objective moral standards.

“Casuistry” is Latin word for “case” and is proper term used in Catholic Moral Theology. Moral theology is the science concerning human acts and what must be done in specific circumstance to conform these acts to God’s natural law or positive divine law. It is the science of what must be done to avoid sin. It is, in fact, what one “can and cannot do” to avoid offending God, or rather, what one must and must not do to avoid offending God. The term “casuistry” has a proper legitimate use but also, a perverse understanding. In its proper use refers to moral principles applied to specific case circumstances for the purpose of discerning the proper formation of a Catholic conscience that is both true and certain. A Catholic conscience is “True” when it conforms to the objective law of God, and “Certain” in the subjective certitude as to the correctness of judgment. In its perverse sense, casuistry is a corrupted science of morality to justify committing sin or sin committed. This was perfected by the Pharisees and repeatedly condemned by Jesus Christ. Moral theology is distinct from aesthetical and mystical theology which deals with how to become saints.

In this article shows how Pope Francis is intent upon applying the perverse meaning of casuistry to the traditional science of Catholic moral theology while calling his own Pharisaical perversion of morality, “discernment.” The nouvelle théologie refers to heresy of Neo-modernism. The heresy of Modernism attacks all dogma directly and was just as directly condemned by Pope St. Pius X. Neo-modernism is a variation of the theme, a redirection of the attack. It attacks dogma indirectly by proposing a disjunction between dogma and the words used to express it. Thus by changing the terminology, they gradually corrupt dogma and call it “development,” “progress” and “maturity.”

Bernard Häring corrupted moral theology by denying fixed principles of moral law. For faithful Catholics, the primary determinant of the moral act is the act itself. For Häring, the primary determinant is the actor, not the act. It reduces morality to situation ethics. Pope Francis calls this subjective primacy, “discernment,” while in fact it is nothing but Phariseeism. The malice of Francis is seen in this: he applies the corrupted understanding of casuistry to true Catholic moral theology in the same sense that enemies of the Catholic faith have done for hundreds of years while calling his own perversion, which is nothing other than the perverted understanding of the term casuistry, as “discernment.” To characterize true Catholic morality as “decadent scholasticism” that “his generation was educated in” is calumny incited by pure malice. Whatever Francis knows of scholasticism was delivered to him through a decadent ideological Jesuit formation in the 1960s and beyond that he is as ignorant as they come. And what could possibly be more perverse than a modern Jesuit formation?

Francis praises major Humanae Vitae dissenter in rebuke of ‘white or black’ morality

ROME, November 24, 2016 LifeSiteNews – Pope Francis has praised the 1960s German moral theologian Bernard Häring, one of the most prominent dissenters from Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, for his new morality which the pope said helped “moral theology to flourish.”

“I think Bernard Häring was the first to start looking for a new way to help moral theology to flourish again,” he said in, published today by La Civiltà Cattolica, that were given during a dialogue with the Jesuit order which was gathered for its 36th general Congregation on October 24, 2016 in Rome.

Pope Francis gave his comments while answering a question about a morality he has often spoken about based on “discernment.”

“Discernment is the key element: the capacity for discernment. I note the absence of discernment in the formation of priests. We run the risk of getting used to 'white or black,' to that which is legal. We are rather closed, in general, to discernment. One thing is clear: today, in a certain number of seminaries, a rigidity that is far from a discernment of situations has been introduced. And that is dangerous, because it can lead us to a conception of morality that has a casuistic sense,” he said.

Francis criticized what he called a “decadent scholasticism” that his generation was educated in, that provoked what he called a “casuistic attitude” towards morality.

“The whole moral sphere was restricted to ‘you can,’ ‘you cannot,’ ‘up to here yes but not there,’” he said.

“It was a morality very foreign to ‘discernment,’” he said, adding that Bernard Häring was the “first to start looking for a new way to help moral theology to flourish again.”

Fr. Bernard Häring (1912-98) was a key figure during the Second Vatican Council, where he applied the principle of the evolution of dogma (as found in the nouvelle théologie) to morality. According to Professor Roberto de Mattei, this “new morality” championed by Häring ultimately “den[ied] the existence of an absolute and immutable natural law.”

Häring was first appointed an “expert” at Vatican II and then later became the secretary of the Commission on the modern world, where, according to de Mattei, he became one of the primary architects of the document Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), part of which deals with marriage.

According to de Mattei, a vicious battle was waged during the crafting of this document between the progressive and traditional minorities over procreation in marriage.

“This battle went beyond the pill to include the ends of marriage. At issue was the very basis of natural law itself,” he said in a talk given at the Rome Life Forum in 2015.

The progressive element, backed by Häring, eventually prevailed upon Pope Paul VI to leave aside the question of contraception in the document, according to de Mattei.

“The most surprising aspect of Gaudium et Spes, however, is the lack of any presentation of the traditional order of the ends of marriage, the primary and the secondary….The institution of marriage, therefore, is defined without any reference to children and only as an intimate community of conjugal life. Moreover, in the succeeding paragraphs, conjugal love is discussed first (paragraph 49) and procreation second (paragraph 50),” said de Mattei.

After Paul VI released Humanae Vitae in 1968 where he taught unequivocally that “each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of human life” and called the use of contraception “intrinsically wrong,” Häring spent his energy in criticizing not only Paul VI, but also Pope John Paul II, for their stances on birth control and other sexual issues.

Häring was eventually investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in the 1970s for his 1972 book Medical Ethics, where he presents a concept of health would allow a couple to use contraception if they deemed it the best means to help them fulfill their total vocation, a principle condemned in Humanae Vitae.

Häring became the mentor of Charles Curran, a dissident Catholic priest who aggressively condemned the Church’s teachings on matters such as abortion, contraception, and homosexuality. Curran, who was also investigated by the CDF in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was officially prohibited by Pope John Paul II in 1986 from teaching at any Catholic school and was stripped of the title ‘Catholic theologian.’

Francis called it an “important task” of the Society of Jesus that they “form seminarians and priests in the morality of ‘discernment.’”

It was using the method of “discernment” in response to the Zika virus scare earlier this year that Pope Francis appeared to condone the use of contraception for married couples living in affected areas as the “lesser of two evils.” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi confirmed the pope’s words the following day, stating: “The contraceptive or condom, in particular cases of emergency or gravity, could be the object of ‘discernment’ in a serious case of conscience. This is what the Pope said.” Critics said the pope’s move contradicted previous Catholic teaching.

Pope Francis also spoke about the morality of “discernment” in his April exhortation Amoris Laetitia more than thirty times, using the term as a key to opening the door to Holy Communion for Catholics living in adulterous situations. Immediately following the “smoking footnote” 351, in which critics say the pope allowed the divorced and remarried to receive Holy Communion, the pope writes that “discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits.”

Four cardinals have recently asked the pope to clarify key passages in the exhortation, asking him a set of five yes-or-no questions regarding the indissolubility of marriage, the existence of absolute moral norms, and the role of conscience in making decisions. They went public with their “dubia” last week after the pope failed to reply.

During his dialogue with the Jesuits, Pope Francis noted the progress that has been made in moral theology since the days of “you can, you cannot.”

“Obviously, in our day moral theology has made much progress in its reflections and in its maturity,” he said.

Queers Always Hang Together

“Sodomy Is a Gift from God…. Those who oppose sodomy should be debarred from church seminaries.”

Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., Pope Francis’ appointment to the Pontifical Council of Justice

Pope Francis moves to overturn the system established by John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict that placed sexual abuse of minors by the clergy under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Jurisdiction is purposed to be returned to the Congregation for the Clergy and the Roman Rota.

A child abuse scandal is coming for Pope Francis

REUTERS | Tony Gentile | January 3, 2017

The Catholic Church has long been plagued by sickening scandals involving priests abusing children. And there is reportedly another scandal coming — this one of the pope’s own making.

Two people with direct ties to the Vatican tell me that Pope Francis, following the advice of his clubby group of allies in the curia, is pressing to undo the reforms that were instituted by his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI in handling the cases of abuser priests. Francis is pushing ahead with this plan even though the curial officials and cardinals who favor it have already brought more scandal to his papacy by urging him toward lenient treatment of abusers.

In 2001, the Vatican instituted a massive reform in how it handled the cases of priests who abused children. The power to deal with these cases was taken away from the Congregation of the Clergy and the Roman Rota (the Vatican’s Court), and placed in the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Subsequently, the volume and speed with which the Catholic Church defrocked abused priests went up. This was Pope Benedict’s legacy of trying to confront “the filth” in the Church.

Recently, Pope Francis had the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, request an opinion from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, led by Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, regarding the possibility of transferring competence to deal with abuser priests from the CDF back to Clergy and the Rota. Coccopalmerio’s office responded with a positive answer. […..]

COMMENT: The ‘Vocation Crisis’ is not the result of the “fetters of celibacy” any more than the clerical homosexual abuse of minors is. It is the result of the crisis in Faith which apostasy is consequent to the destruction of the Ecclesiastical Traditions that make the Faith known and communicable to others. A married clergy in Brazil cannot correct the problem. It can and will only make it worse as every Novus Ordo solution to their self-inflicted Novus Ordo wounds have done.

Brazil may soon have married priests, says Leonardo Boff

National Catholic Reporter | Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Dec. 30, 2016

Pope Francis may soon fulfill the Brazilian bishops’ special request to allow married priests to resume their priestly ministry, liberation theologian (Gaia cult earth worshiper and former priest) Leonardo Boff said in a Dec. 25 interview in the German daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

“The Brazilian bishops, especially the pope’s close friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes, have expressly requested Pope Francis to enable married priests in Brazil to return to their pastoral ministry,” Boff said. “I have recently heard that the pope wants to fulfil this request — as an experimental, preliminary phase for the moment confined to Brazil.”

With its 140 million Catholics, Brazil needs at least 100,000 priests but it only has 1,800, which is a “catastrophe,” Boff said. “No wonder the faithful are going over to the evangelical churches or to the Pentecostals in droves, as they are filling the personnel vacuum. If the many thousands of priests who have married are once again allowed to practice their ministry, that would be a first step to improving the situation but at the same time also an impulse for the church to free itself of the fetters of celibacy.” […..]

“One God, One Faith, One Baptism”

For, in truth, when released from these corporeal chains, “we shall see God as He is” (1 John 3:2), we shall understand perfectly by how close and beautiful a bond divine mercy and justice are united; but, as long as we are on earth, weighed down by this mortal mass which blunts the soul, let us hold most firmly that, in accordance with Catholic teaching, there is “one God, one faith, one baptism” [Eph. 4:5]; it is unlawful to proceed further in inquiry.

Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadam

We want to thank all the people, those little people behind the scenes that get next to no credit, in the dioceses of Harrisburg and Philadelphia, who with their worm-like petty and pedantic dedication to detail, none of this would have been possible!

By heresies, the sons of the Catholic Church are awakened from sleep as by thorns, so that they may make progress in the knowledge of Holy Writ…. There is much good in the world which would not exist were there no evils. There would be no patience of the just, for instance, were there no malice of persecutors.

St. Thomas

When the “means” are necessary to achieve the “ends”, then the “means” must be “judged” in the same “respect” as the ends, that is, they must be judged without “measure,” “within no limits.”

One must judge one way in respect to the end and another in respect to the means. With regard to the latter, there is measure; not so with regard to the end itself. Every one attains it as best he may. The commandment of the love of God, which is the end of the Christian life, is confined within no limits, as if a certain measure fell under the commandment, but a greater love came under the counsel as an achievement transcending the bounds of the commandment. Each and every one is commanded to love God as best he can, and this is evident from the form of the commandment, 'thou shalt,' etc. Each and every one fulfills it according to his capacity, one more perfectly, another less perfectly.

St. Thomas

The end of Christian perfection is charity, by means of which one is attached to God. And to this attachment by means of charity, every one, if he desires to attain salvation, is in duty hound. It is effected by keeping the commandments and by union with the will of God. Thus is everything excluded that is contrary to the essence and the habit of charity, namely mortal sin.

St. Albert the Great, Of Adhering to God

“Living Tradition,” synonym for Immanentism of the Modernist

The term, “living tradition,” a novelty of modernist construction given official standing at Vatican II, conflates the subjective understanding with the objective truth, is part of the theological justification to replace our received traditions with novelties grounded in fantasy.

The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, “comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth”.

John Paul II, explaining the problems with Archbishop Lefebvre’s consecration of four bishops from his failure to understand the novel Vatican II definition of tradition

Those men (the Church Fathers) are to be believed, moreover, in accordance with the following rule: Only that is to be held as certain, valid and beyond doubt, which either all or most of them have confirmed in one and the same sense – manifestly, frequently, and persistently, as though a council of masters stood in agreement – and which they have accepted, kept, and handed on. On the other hand, what some saint, learned man, bishop, confessor, or martyr has individually thought outside of, or even contrary to, the general opinion must be considered his personal, particular, and quite private opinion, entirely removed from the common, public and general opinion.

St. Vincent of Lerins

“Pearls of Great Price” – Every single one of our Immemorial Ecclesiastical Traditions which the “dogs” despise!

What are these mysteries? What are these good pearls? They a not only every doctrine of Jesus Christ and every dogma of His Church, but every holy sacrament, every pious practice, every rule and ordinance of the Church; every means of practicing and advancing virtue and good works; every means of conferring and increasing the sanctifying grace of God, consequently sanctity and holiness of life, which is a pearl of infinite value, and adorns the soul with such transcendent beauty that the mind of man can never conceive its inestimable grandeur and loveliness. Moreover, each of these heavenly gifts was purchased at the infinite price of the precious blood of Jesus, from which it derives all its beauty and virtue. The least of them is worth buying, even the risk of losing all that a man holds dear in this life. Even a drop of holy water or a blessed medal is to time pious believer a “holy thing,” a valuable pearl. “The sensual man, who perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God,” despise them; they are “foolishness to him.” But the true Christian believes that “every creature is sanctified by prayer and the word of God,” and when sanctified it is a “holy thing” and not to be given to dogs — that is to say, to such as would have no more respect for them than a dog, if it were given to him.

Rev. Joseph Prachensky, S.J., The Church of the Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Savior

“It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.”

Pope Francis, concluding remarks attributed to him in the Der Spiegel article on the Crisis in the Catholic Church.

COMMENT: As if that is not Pope Francis' intention and what in fact he has long been doing? The question remains as to what name in history will Francis be known? But let's leave that for later. The truth is that Conservative Catholics have never gotten anything in its right hierarchical order. They stupidly thought the “split” in the Church began when traditional Catholics were disobedient by resisting the overthrow of our Ecclesiastical Traditions by which alone the Faith can be known and communicated to others. Conservative Catholics are only now turning to face the front of this conflict but they are unarmed for the fight. Pope Francis, professing the same doctrine as his conciliar predecessors, has only driven the wedge far deeper into the Bark of Peter to “split” the Church. The Conservative Catholics are at last alarmed because the Ship is taking on massive amounts of water. Unfortunately, the poor Conservative Catholics who are raising their voices against the corruption of Francis will surely fail. Let's call them the Dubiaists. The Dubiaists have doubts but no real convictions. They will fail because they turned their backs against the literal meaning of DOGMA long ago and now have nothing from which to mount their defense for DOGMA is the one and only weapon against an abusive authority. Authority is subject only to Truth.

The hermeneutic of continuity between Liberation Theology and the Gaia Cult of Earth Worship demonstrates that they are of one and the same provenance! Is any faithful Catholic really surprised? Should anyone be surprised that Pope Francis finds in Boff a kindred spirit?

Liberation Theologian Boff: “Francis is One of Us”

OnePeterFive | Maike Hickson | December 26, 2016

On 25 December 2016 the Brazilian Leonardo Boff, one of the most prominent theorists and operatives of Latin American Liberation Theology, gave a candidly revealing and manifoldly informative interview to the German regional newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. Due to his confident, if not presumptuous, openness, the 78-year-old Boff (b. 14 December 1938) speaks about several matters of moment which we otherwise would not so easily hear about.

For example, he reveals the following:

1. How and why Pope Francis did not meet Boff in Rome, as planned, on the day before the second Synod on the Family in 2015 – because the pope was angry at the Thirteen Cardinals’ Letter and was trying to quiet the situation (and himself?) ahead of the Synod;

2. How Cardinal Walter Kasper recently told Boff that Pope Francis has some “big surprises” planned;

3. How Pope Francis intends to allow the Catholic Church in Brazil to permit married priests, as his friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes has been requesting now for some time;

4. How Pope Francis had requested from Boff material for the writing of his own encyclical Laudato Si and how the pope thanked him afterwards;

5. How Boff considers Pope Francis to be “one of us,” meaning one of the supportive sympathizers with liberation theology.

In the following, therefore, I shall translate parts of this important interview. The words of Leonardo Boff will speak for themselves. Important to note in this context, however, is that Boff himself was publicly criticized and silenced in 1985 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) – for his unorthodox writings that boldly go quite far against Church doctrine. Thus, in 1992, he both formally left the Franciscan Order to which he had belonged and he also then publicly left the Catholic priesthood.

QUESTION: Liberation Theology of Latin America – one of whose most prominent representatives you certainly are – has now received new honors [and encouraging support] from and through Pope Francis. [Is there now to be] A rehabilitation also for you personally, after your years-long struggles with Pope John Paul II himself and with his highest defender of Doctrine, Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI?

Francis is one of us. He has turned Liberation Theology into a common property of the Church. And he has widened it. Whoever speaks today of the poor, also has to speak of the earth, because it, too, is now being plundered and abused. “To hear the cry of the poor,” that means to hear the cry of the animals, the forests, of the whole tortured creation. The whole earth cries. Also, says the pope – and he thus quotes one of the titles of one of my books – we have to hear simultaneously the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. And, for sure, both need to be liberated. I myself have dealt in the recent past with this widening of the Liberation Theology. And that [this environmental dimension] is also the fundamentally new aspect in Laudato Si.

QUESTION: ….which is now in the “ecological encyclical” of the pope promulgated in the year 2015. How much Leonardo Boff is in Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

The encyclical belongs to the pope. But he has consulted with many experts.

QUESTION: Has he read your books?

More than that. He asked me for material for the sake of Laudato Si. I have given him my counsel and sent to him some of what I have written. Which he has also used. Some people told me they were thinking while reading: “Wait, that is Boff!” By the way, Pope Francis directly told me: “Boff, don’t send the papers directly to me.”

QUESTION: Why not?

He said: “Otherwise, the Sottosegretari (the employees of the Vatican administration, editors [of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger]) will intercept them and I will not receive them. Rather, send the things right to the Argentine Ambassador [at the Holy See] with whom I have a good connection, then they will safely land into my hands.” For that, one needs to know that the current Ambassador at the Holy See is an old friend of the pope from his time in Buenos Aires. They have often drunk together mate [a special drink from Argentina, a sort of tea]. Then, one day before the publication of the encyclical, the pope had someone call me in order to thank me for my help.

QUESTION: A personal meeting with the pope is still outstanding?

He [Pope Francis] has sought a reconciliation with the most important representatives of the Liberation Theology: with Gustavo Gutierrez, Jon Sobrino, and likewise with me. I have said to him with respect to Pope Benedict – respectively Joseph Ratzinger – “But that other is still alive, after all!” He did not accept this. “No,” he said, “Il Papa sono io” – “The pope, that is me!” We were welcomed to come. That is where you see his courage and his decisiveness.

QUESTION: Why then has your visit not yet worked out?

I had received an invitation and I even had already landed in Rome. But just that day, immediately before the beginning of the [second] Synod on the Family in 2015, 13 cardinals – among them the German Cardinal Gerhard Müller – rehearsed a rebellion against the pope with a letter addressed to him which then, o surprise!, was published in a newspaper. The pope was angry and he told me: “Boff, I have no time. I have to establish calm before the synod begins. We will see each other another time.”

QUESTION: But also with the hoped-for calm, that did not really work out, either, did it?

The pope feels the sharpness of the headwind from his own ranks, especially coming from the U.S. This Cardinal Burke, Leo Burke, who now – together with your retired Cardinal Meisner from Cologne – has already written another letter [to the pope]; he is is the Donald Trump of the Catholic Church (laughs). But, unlike Trump, Burke has now been neutralized within the Curia. Thanks be to God. These people really believe that it is up to them to correct the pope. As if they are above the pope. Something like this is unusual [sic!], if not unprecedented in the history of the Church. One may criticize the pope, one may have discussions with him. That is what I have often done. But, that cardinals publicly accuse the pope of the spreading of theological mistakes or even heresies, that is – I think – too much. That is an affront with which a pope cannot put up. The pope cannot be judged, that is the teaching of the Church.

QUESTION: With all your enthusiasm for the pope – what is it with these Church reforms which so many Catholics have expected from Francis; but where, in fact, not so much has yet happened?

You know, as far as I understand, the center of his interest is not any more the Church – and certainly not the internal operation of the Church – but, rather, the survival of humanity, the future of the earth. […] I believe that there is a hierarchy of problems for him. When the earth perishes, all the other problems have also been taken care of. But, with regard to the questions within and about the Church: wait and see! Only recently, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a close confidant of the pope, told me that soon there will be some great surprises.

QUESTION: What do you expect?

Who knows? Perhaps a diaconate for women, after all. Or the possibility that married priests may be again engaged in pastoral care. That is an explicit request from the Brazilian bishops to the pope, especially from his friend, the retired Brazilian Curial Cardinal Claudio Hummes. I have heard that the pope wants to meet this request – for now and for a certain experimental period in Brazil. This country with its 140 million Catholics should at least have 100,000 priests. But, there are only 18,000. Institutionally, this is a catastrophe. No wonder that the faithful now go in droves to the Evangelicals and the Pentecostals, who fill this personal vacuum. If now all these thousands of already married priests might again exercise their office, this would be a first step toward an improvement of the situation – and, at the same time, it would be an impulse [and a sign] that the Catholic Church now loosens the fetters of obligatory celibacy. [my emphasis]

QUESTION: If the pope were to make a decision in this sense and direction – would you yourself, as a former Franciscan priest, also again undertake priestly duties?

I personally do not need such a decision. It would not change anything for myself because I still do what I have always done: I baptize, I give Christian burials, and if I happen to come into a parish without a priest, then I also celebrate Mass together with the people.

QUESTION: Is it very “German” to ask whether you are permitted to do that?

Up to now, no bishop whom I know has ever either criticized it or forbidden it. The bishops, on the contrary, are happy and tell me: “the people have a right [sic] to the Eucharist. Just keep doing it!” My theological teacher, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns – who just died a few days ago – was, for example, of a very great openness. He went so far that, when he saw married priests sitting in the pew during Mass, he had them come to the altar and he then concelebrated the Eucharist with them. He did it often and said: “You are, after all, still priests – and you will remain so!”

Comment by Maike Hickson:

In the context of this blunt interview – and with Boff’s apparently newly discovered “orthodox” criticisms of those people who now even dare to criticize a pope – it might be worth recalling and reading what Leonardo Boff had earlier said, back in 2001.

For, in that 2001 interview with the Internet site Communità Italiana, he also spoke bluntly concerning both Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself – then Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II – and Ratzinger’s own putatively provocative defense of certain traditional positions and doctrines of the Catholic Church:

“What I can say is that the dominant tendency in the Vatican under this pontificate [of John Paul II] is highly fundamentalist. A Cardinal like J. Ratzinger who publishes an official [Vatican] document in which he says that the only true Church is the Catholic Church and that the rest are not even churches, that the only legitimate religion is the Catholic religion and that the others have no faith (they are only convictions and beliefs) – he commits religious terrorism [sic] and is in grave theological error, as well.” [my emphasis]

The poignancy – and irony – of these Boff comments increases when one considers that, in 1970 in Munich, it was Cardinal Ratzinger himself who was one of the committee of select professorial guides of Leonardo Boff’s own doctoral dissertation de Ecclesia: concerning “the Church as Sacrament” in light of some of the world’s purported experiences. The main title of Boff’s dissertation, in German, was: Die Kirche als Sakrament im Horizont der Welterfahrung.

In the larger context of this recent 25 December 2016 interview with Leonardo Boff, we also would like to remind our readers of the work of the Vatican specialist, Dr. Sandro Magister, who has repeatedly pointed to the possibility, even the probability, that Pope Francis himself will grant Brazil the permission to allow for married priests. We also remember that we ourselves earlier reported how – right after the publication of the 13 Cardinals Letter by way of Dr. Magister himself – there also came trustworthy reports about Pope Francis’ own outburst of anger over that polite, but firmly orthodox, initiative of the cardinals. Thus in his confident bluntness, Leonardo Boff now unexpectedly confirms the earlier work of journalists, both of Dr. Magister himself and, in a small way, of mine own.

San Gennaro’s blood didn’t liquefy--so pray anyway, abbot says

Catholic News Agency | Naples, Italy | Dec 19, 2016 - Prayer was the response to a rare failure of a saint’s blood to liquefy in Naples, an occurrence some believe to portend misfortune. “We must not think of disasters and calamities. We are men of faith and we must pray,” said Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, the Abbot of the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, ANSA reports. The blood belongs to St. Januarius, Patron of Naples and former bishop and martyr of the city.

Known in Italian as San Gennaro, his bones and a reliquary of his blood are preserved in Naples’ cathedral. He is believed to have been martyred during the infamous persecution of Christians during the rule of the Roman emperor Diocletian, who retired in 305.

The reputed miracle is locally known and accepted, though has not been the subject of official Church recognition. The liquefaction is believed to happen at least three times a year: the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, Sept. 19, which is the saint’s feast day, and Dec. 16, the anniversary of the 1631 eruption of the Mount Vesuvius volcano.

During the miracle, the dried, red-colored mass confined to one side of the reliquary becomes blood that covers the entire glass. In local lore, the failure of the blood to liquefy signals war, famine, disease or other disaster.The blood did indeed liquefy on Sept. 19, 2016.

Historically, the vial has sometimes changed upon the visit of a Pope. On March 21, 2015, Pope Francis met with priests, religious and seminarians at the cathedral and gave a blessing with the relic. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples then received the vial back from the Pope and noted that the blood was still solid ….. The last time blood liquefied in the presence of a Pope was in 1848 when Pius IX visited. The phenomenon didn’t happen when St. John Paul II visited the city in October 1979, or when Benedict XVI visited in October 2007.

More Papal Eisegesis – This Time, on St. John the Baptist’s “Doubt”

OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | December 15, 2016

In biblical studies, there are two similar-sounding terms of particular importance: exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis is defines as “an explanation or critical interpretation of a text,” and is the standard method of examining and understanding the Scriptures. Eisegesis, on the other hand, is “the process of interpreting a text or portion of text in such a way that the process introduces one’s own presuppositions, agendas, or biases into and onto the text.”

In today’s homily, Pope Francis engaged, as is often the case, in the latter. And just as he has accused the Blessed Mother of wanting to call God a “liar” when faced with the suffering of her Son — twice — he is now preaching that St. John the Baptist doubted the identity of Jesus while in prison:

Although John was great, strong, secure in his vocation, “he still had dark moments,” he had his doubts,” said Francis. In fact, John began to doubt in prison, even though he had baptized Jesus, “because he was a Saviour that was not as he had imagined him.” And so he sent two of his disciples to ask Him if He was the Messiah. And Jesus corrects the vision of John with a clear response. In fact, He tells them to report to John that “the blind see,” “the deaf hear,” “the dead rise.” “The great can afford to doubt, because they are great,” the Pope said.

Of course, this is not the Church’s understanding of the text. In St. Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea, we see a “discussion” of Matthew 11 amongst the Church fathers. St Hilary of Poitiers affirms:

It is indeed certain, that he who as forerunner proclaimed Christ’s coming, as prophet knew Him when He stood before him, and worshipped Him as Confessor when He came to him, could not fall into error from such abundant knowledge. Nor can it be believed that the grace of the Holy Spirit failed him when thrown into prison, seeing He should hereafter minister the light of His power to the Apostles when they were in prison.

The great biblical scholar, St. Jerome, adds:

Therefore he does not ask as being himself ignorant. But as the Saviour asks where Lazarus is buried, [margin note John 11:23] in order that they who shewed Him the sepulchre might be so far prepared for faith, and believe that the dead was verily raised again—so John, about to be put to death by Herod, sends his disciples to Christ, [p. 406] that by this opportunity of seeing His signs and wonders they might believe on Him, and so might learn through their master’s enquiry.

St. John Chrysostom offers:

Yet whilst John was with them he held them rightly convinced concerning Christ. But when he was going to die, he was more concerned on their behalf. For he feared that he might leave his disciples a prey to some pernicious doctrine, and that they should remain separate from Christ, to whom it had been his care to bring all his followers from the beginning.

And St. Hilary again concludes:

John then is providing not for his own, but his disciples’ ignorance; that they might know that it was no other whom he had proclaimed, he sent them to see His works, that the works might establish what John had spoken; and that they should not look for any other Christ, than Him to whom His works had borne testimony.

No, Your Holiness. St. John the Baptist did not doubt.

Francis, of course, has his own gloss on the text — predicated upon his eisegesis — and it is entirely unsurprising:

The great can afford to doubt, and this is beautiful. They are certain of their vocation but each time the Lord makes them see a new street of the journey, they enter into doubt. ‘But this is not orthodox, this is heretical, this is not the Messiah I expected.’ The devil does this work, and some friend also helps, no? This is the greatness of John, a great one, the last of that band of believers that began with Abraham, that one that preaches conversion, that one that does not use half-words to condemn the proud, that one that at the end of his life is allowed to doubt. And this is a good program of Christian life.” [emphasis added]

As is so often the case with Francis, he passive aggressively uses the occasion of commentary on the scriptures, or various anecdotes, to fire thinly veiled assaults at his critics and opponents. Make no mistake: his commentary on Matthew 11 has been weaponized and aimed at the authors and supporters of the dubia. Which is, perhaps, why irony meters around the world today exploded when Francis said this of St. John the Baptist:

He preached forcefully, he said some ugly things to the Pharisees, to the doctors of the law, to the priests, he didn’t say to them: “But dear friends, behave yourselves!” No. He said to them simply: “You race of vipers!” He didn’t use nuance. Because they approached in order to inspect him and to see him, but never with open hearts: “Race of vipers!” He risked his live, [sic] yes, but he was faithful. Then to Herod, to his face, he said, “Adulterer! It is not licit for you to live this way, adulterer!” To his face! But it is certain that if a pastor today said in the Sunday homily, “Among you there are some who are a race of vipers, and there are many adulterers,” certainly the Bishop would receive disconcerting letters: “But send away this pastor who insults us.” And he insulted them. Why? Because he was faithful to his vocation and to the truth. [emphasis added]

He’s toying with us. He must be. Nobody can be this devoid of self-awareness.

And speaking of eisegesis: for the record, Your Holiness? The miracle of the loaves and the fishes was a real miracle, too.

COMMENT: Eisegesis is the result of reading sacred scripture in the light of a determined and determining ideology. It is in fact Pope Francis, who accuses of faithful Catholics of following ideological imperatives, who is himself the worst of ideologues. In his pretended “humility” he is not bashful about interpreting scripture contrary to every Church father, doctor, pope and sainted theologian who has come before him. He clearly does not possess the Catholic faith without which there is no possibility of true charity or salvation.

Pope Francis Turns 80 – The Possibility of a Resignation

Roberto de Mattei | December 17, 2016

Pope Francis is crossing the threshold of 80: Ingravescentem aetatem (advanced age), as the motu proprio of 21 November 1970 by Paul VI declared, which, by reaching this age, requires all cardinals to put their tasks to an end, and deprives them of the right to participate in the conclave. Paul VI. established this rule to create a new “Montinian” curia. Moreover, he introduced a fundamental contradiction in the Church’s more than a thousand years of practice.

If the advanced age is an impediment to the direction of a diocese or a dicastery, and even prevents a cardinal from choosing a pope, how can we imagine that a cardinal who has become a pope, even after the age of eighty? Can he bear the burden of the world church?

It was not, however, such considerations that urged Pope Francis on 12 March 2015 to say:

“I have the feeling that my pontificate will be short, 4, 5 years. Perhaps it is not so, but I have the feeling that the Lord has set me up for a brief cause. But it is a feeling, so I leave all possibilities open.”

The real reason for a possible abdication does not seem to be a decline in capability, but Pope Bergoglio’s awareness, not two years after his election, to be penetrated into what Antonio Socci in the newspaper on November 20, 2016 Libero describes as the relentless “decline of a pontificate.”

The project of Pope Francis to “reform” the Church with the help of the bishop’s synod and various collaborators, is well in place, and the record of the Holy Year is more than disappointing. On November 21, 2016 Marco Politi wrote in the daily Il Fatto quotidiano:

“Pope Francis closed the Holy Door, but his message is accompanied by the rumbling of a subterranean crisis. There is a civil war in the Church.”

The dispute was whether consciously or unconsciously, unleashed by Pope Francis himself, especially after the Apostolic Letter Amoris laetitia, the Church no longer moves forward, but is sinking into a terrain riddled with deep crevices.

The failure of the pontificate of Pope Francis has already been compared to that of Barack Hussein Obama. In three years in Rome, what has taken place in Washington in eight years: the transition from an initial euphoria to a final depression, because the set goals were completely missed. It would be wrong, however, to read the pontificate of Pope Francis only from a political point of view. Pope Francis could never have pronounced Obama’s “yes, we can”.

For a pope, as opposed to a politician, everything is not possible. The Pope has a supreme, full, immediate, and universal authority, but cannot alter the Divine Law that Jesus Christ gave to the Church, nor change the natural law which God has imprinted in the heart of every man. He is the vicar of Christ, but not his successor. The Pope cannot alter either the Holy Scriptures or the tradition which form the far-reaching rule of the Church’s faith, but must submit to them.

This is the impasse in which Pope Bergoglio is today. The Dubia that four cardinals (Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra and Meisner) have laid before the CDF have forced him upon a dead track. The Cardinals expect a clear response from the Pope on the Apostolic Letter Amoris laetitia with a yes or a no to the following questions:

Can divorced persons who have once again married once and who do not want to give up their objectively sinful situation in which they find themselves, rightfully receive the sacrament of the Eucharist? And more generally: Do the Divine Law and Natural Law still have absolute validity, or do they tolerate exceptions in some cases?

The answer concerns the foundations of morality and the Catholic faith. If what was valid yesterday is no longer valid today, then what is valid today, will not be valid tomorrow. If, however, morality can change according to time and circumstances, the Church is destined to perish in the relativism of today’s fluid society. If this is not the case, Cardinal Vallini must be exempted from his office, who stated in his speech at the pastoral meeting of the diocese of Rome last September 19 that newly married divorced persons may be admitted to the communion in accordance with an “assessment which is appropriate case by case.” His position set out on 2 December in the daily newspaper Avvenire, a media organ of the Italian Bishops’ Conference as his own, that according to the Amoris laetitia contains “very clear words” upon which “the Pope has set his imprimatur”.

But can the Pope confer on the shepherds’ “judgment” the authority to transcend the law of God and the right of nature, the preserve of which is the Church? When a pope tries to change the faith of the Church, he explicitly or implicitly renounces his mandate as vicar of Christ, and sooner or later he will be compelled to renounce his pontificate. The possibility of such an explosive result cannot be ruled out in 2017. The self-imposed abdication would allow Pope Francis to abandon the field as a misunderstood reformer, and to attribute to the responsibility for his failure upon the “severity” of the curia. If this is to happen, it will be more likely to happen after the next consistory, which allows Pope Francis to once again plant a new group of cardinals near him to influence the Holy College, thereby influencing the choice of his successor. The other possibility is the fraternal reprimand by the Cardinals, which, as soon as it becomes publicly known, corresponds to a determination of errors and heresies.

Nothing is more erroneous than the sentence of Cardinal Hummes, in reference to the total number of cardinals: “They are only four, we are 200”. Apart from not counting on numbers to demonstrate the fidelity to the Gospel, what are the 200 Cardinals, who are 227 to be exact, to whom Hummes has referred, who have distanced themselves from their four confreres. Have they actually distanced themselves by their silence from Pope Francis? The first observations in support of the Dubia by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, and Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Economic Secretariat, are meaningful. Some are beginning to break their silence. There are not 200, but certainly more than four.

“In history the violence of the arrogant takes its toll, but God does not leave us.”

Pope Francis, playing the part of Balaam’s Ass, August 15, 1915

“Evil Forms of Resistance.” Pope Francis addresses Roman Curia

COMMENT: Pope (“Whom am I to Judge”) Francis, in his own inimitable style, has publicly replied to the Dubia submitted by the four cardinals. “Resistance” to his dictates can only be “open, hidden or malicious.” The “hidden” have “hardened hearts” and the “malicious” are inspired by the “devil.” With regards to the authors of the Dubia and their supporters, take your pick. One thing is certain: the Dubia is not “open resistance born of goodwill” because in “open resistance” there is “sincere dialogue” and Pope Francis has not entered into “sincere dialogue” with anyone!

Pope Francis said resistance to the process of reform is healthy, provided it does not come from ill intentions. Describing three types of resistance, the Pope said open resistance is “born of goodwill and sincere dialogue” and hidden resistance comes from “hardened hearts content with the empty rhetoric of a complacent spiritual reform”, while malicious resistance springs up “in misguided minds and comes to the fore when the devil inspires ill intentions… [which] hides behind words of self-justification and often accusation”.

Pope Francis, addressing the Roman Curia, December 22, 2016

“Whoever thinks that persistent adultery and the reception of Holy Communion are compatible is a heretic and promotes schism. We are, according to the Apostle St. Paul, administrators of the mysteries of God, but not holders of the right of disposal.”

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the four cardinals submitting the Dubia to Pope Francis, reported by DER SPIEGEL

“Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth!” Psalm 123:8

I could go on for ever, if I began to quote here all the texts from Holy Scripture in which God commends to you the virtue of trust. It seems as if He were not satisfied even with the thousand instances in Holy Scripture by which He proves how dear and delightful this holy virtue is to Him, and how much He loves and favors those who place their trust In His goodness and abandon themselves entirely to the fatherly care of His Divine Providence. You may read in the third book of Intimations of Divine Piety, by St. Gertrude, that Jesus once told her that the filial confidence of a Christian soul is the eye of the holy spouse, of which the Divine Bridegroom says in the Canticle of Canticles: Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa: vulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum. “Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse: thou hast wounded my heart by one of thine eyes” (Cant. 4, g). In other words, the soul that has firm confidence in Christ, and trusts that He can and desires to help it faithfully in all things, pierces His heart right through with an arrow of love; and such confidence does such violence to the piety of Jesus that He can in no way absent Himself from it. St. Mechtilde’s Book of Special Grace tells us that Jesus said to her also: “It is a special delight to Me when men trust in My goodness and rely upon Me. And so, whoever shall have great trust in Me, yet always with humility, shall be favored by Me in this life, and in the next receive more than he deserves. The more anyone trusts in Me and avails himself of My goodness, the greater will be his gain, since it is impossible for a man not to obtain what he believes with holy conviction, and hopes to gain because it has been promised him. And so it is most advantageous to a man to have firm trust in Me when he hopes for great things from Me!” And again, when St. Mechtilde asked God what was the main thing she should believe of His ineffable goodness. He replied: “Firmly believe that after death I will receive you as a father receives a dear son, and that no father ever so faithfully and lovingly gave all his possessions to an only son, as I will make you a sharer in all that is Mine. Whoever shall believe this of My goodness firmly and with humble charity, will be happy indeed.”

St. John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus

COMMENT: All morality is derived from doctrine. There is no doctrinal disagreement between Pope Francis and his Novus Ordo predecessors. Pope Francis has only applied the new doctrine to old moral questions in an aggressive manner which has stirred the four cardinals to submit their doubts for a formal judgment from the Chair of Peter. But the four cardinals have already compromised doctrine repeatedly over their clerical careers. They have already taken a giant step away from the only solid ground to stand upon in the confrontation with an abusive authority, that is, DOGMA. Where will their protest end? Unless they stand upon the DOGMAS of our Faith, they will be dismissed as backward “fundamentalists.” Let us pray, by God’s divine light, that the four cardinals are beginning a return to the purity of the Catholic faith which will end in defending every divinely revealed truth of our holy religion. We are not far away from the point where the Novus Ordo Church will be asking civil authorities to prosecute and punish “fundamental” Catholics for hate crimes against humanity and heretical sins against the Gaia religion.

Five “Dubia”

Four Cardinals obliged a Pope to tell –His deep convictions come from deepest Hell.

In a scandal of a gravity unprecedented even in Pope Francis’ scandal-ridden reign as Catholic Pope since 2013, when challenged by four honourable Cardinals on his seeming denial of the very basis of the Church’s teaching on morals, he has just given answers in public which virtually affirm the freedom of man from the moral law of Almighty God. With this papal affirmation of the Conciliar religion of man as opposed to the Catholic religion of God, a schism in the Universal Church draws that much closer. For half a century since Vatican II, the Conciliar Popes have managed to remain in a way the one head of two opposing religions, but that contradiction could not last indefinitely, and it must soon result in a split.

In 2014 and 2015 Francis held Synods in Rome to consult the world’s bishops on questions concerning the human family. On March 19 of this year he published his post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on “Love in the Family,” the eighth of whose nine chapters raised controversy from the very start. On September 15 four Cardinals in particular sent to the Pope a private and perfectly respectful letter in which they asked him as Supreme Pontiff to clear up five “dubia” or doubtful points of doctrine, left unclear in the Exhortation. Here is the essence of the five points:—

1. From the Exhortation’s #305, can a married person living like husband and wife with a person not their lawful spouse from now on be given sacramental Absolution and Communion while they continue to live in their quasi-married state?

2. From #304, need one still believe that there are absolute moral norms which prohibit intrinsically evil acts, and which are binding without exception?

3. From #301, can one still say that a person living in violation of one of God’s commandments, e.g. in adultery, is in an objective state of grave habitual sin?

4. From #302, can one still say that the circumstances or intentions surrounding an act intrinsically evil by its object can never change it into being subjectively good, or acceptable as a choice?

5. From #303, must we still exclude any creative role of conscience, so that conscience may still never authorize exceptions to absolute moral norms which forbid acts intrinsically evil by their object?

To these five designedly yes-or-no questions the answer of the Catholic Church from Our Divine Lord onwards has always been clear, and has never changed: Communion may not be given to adulterers; there are absolute moral norms; there is such a thing as “grave habitual sin”; good intentions cannot make evil acts good; conscience cannot make evil acts lawful. In other words, to the five yes-or-no, black-or-white questions, the Church’s answer has always been, 1 No, 2 Yes, 3 Yes, 4 Yes, 5 Yes.

On November 16, just ten days ago, the four Cardinals made their letter public (cf. M t.XVIII, 15–17). On Nov. 18, in an interview given to the Italian newspaper Avvenire, Pope Francis gave the exact opposite yes-or-no answers: 1 Yes, 2 No, 3 No, 4 No, 5 No. (He did affirm each time that “Such things are not black-or-white, we are called to discern,” but he was merely attempting thereby to confuse the unmoving questions of principle with moving questions of application of principle, which come after the questions of principle.)

All credit to the four Cardinals for obtaining light and truth for many confused sheep that wish to get to Heaven: Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra and Meisner. They may be immersed in the Novus Ordo, but they have obviously not lost all courage or sense of their duty. There can be no question of their having acted out of any but the best of motives in pressing the Pope to make himself clear. And where does that clarity leave the Church? It must be on the brink of schism.

Kyrie eleison, Bishop Richard Williamson

COMMENT: Liberal Americans did not vote for Hilary Clinton in spite of her crimes - but because of them! Half the population of this country is committed to evil. Only a small minority of the other half is strong in its commitment to good. If good is to prevail it will only be by the merciful grace of God for which we must pray and offer many sacrifices.

Trump’s Election

For Trump we must pray. Since last month’s election, He will be needing Heaven’s own protection.

The essential thing to say about the election last month of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States is that it is a God-given reprieve from years and years of liberal government, but unless the American people themselves turn back seriously to Almighty God, then the reprieve will be swept away by a return of the liberals in force to destroy the United States once and for all, as Hilary Clinton would have done, had she been elected.

Now it is true that not many people today think of politics in terms of Almighty God, but that is exactly the problem. To shut him out of life, especially out of politics, has been a crusade for Freemasons and liberals ever since the end of their 18th century. Liberty from God has been the crusade of their substitute religion, secular humanism. Similarly in the 20th century Communism with or without the name has triumphed against nature all over the world because it acts like a religion, being, as Pius XI calls it, the messianism of materialism. And liberalism and Communism are why the entire Western world has been tilting to the left for hundreds of years.

And that is no doubt why a large number of voters in that American election voted for the candidate who lost. She was known all over the nation for her lying, immorality and treason. Her criminal record was notorious, including the suspicion of her having been responsible with her husband for the murder of well over fifty men and women who had got in the way of their ambition and careers. How could anybody halfway decent have even thought of voting for her, let alone more than half of all Americans who voted (she did not win the Electoral College)? Paul Craig Roberts himself, excellent commentator on the American political scene, is baffled by that question. The missing answer is surely that that woman incarnated the war against God. For liberals, liberty is their religion. That she proudly broke all of God’s commandments was an argument not against her, but for her. She is a Saint of liberalism.

Now her conqueror, Donald Trump, is not, to all appearances, a specially godly man, and he is still liberal in various ways – who is not? – but he has within him a good dose of that old-fashioned decency and generosity which used to be typical of the best in America and Americans. Therefore he is instinctively against ungodly people, and after years and years of self-righteous liberals under a series of liberal Presidents trampling all over decent Americans, he had had enough, and he stepped into politics “to give back to this country some of what it has given to me.” And after the same years and years of what had in fact been a one-party System, because there had not been since Governor Wallace’s time “a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats,” Trump bucked the System, gave voice to the people’s frustration, and a host of decent souls voted him into office. But the System is furious.

Therefore he must now think hard. He has become President-elect on the strength of decent instincts against liberal ideology. But that is a flash in the pan, because to fight against ideology with instincts is like fighting tanks with a pea-shooter. To fight a false ideology one needs a true ideology, and to fight against war on God one needs peace with God, which will be on God’s terms and not on man’s. Now God is all-powerful and infinitely good, and he can undo the worst that his enemies can attempt to do against him with the merest flick of his little finger, so to speak. But he is not going to grant victory over the Synagogue of Satan if he knows that the people that he is saving are going to go straight back to Satan. The people must come away from Satan and turn back sincerely to God, who is not deceived.

At the very least Donald Trump himself must pray – ACTS – with Adoration, Contritio n, Thanksgiving and Supplication. God has been with him, to grant this reprieve. Let us all include him and President Putin in our own prayers, to prolong the reprieve. Otherwise it could soon be over.

Kyrie eleison, Bishop Richard Williamson

Vatican now calls upon the heretical and immoral Orthodox, who permit divorce and remarriage three times, to come to the defense of Francis the Lutheran!

Over the last months, there have been many commentaries and evaluations on this significant document. People have wondered how specific doctrine has been developed or defended, whether pastoral questions have been reformed or resolved, and if particular rules have been either reinforced or mitigated. However, in light of the imminent feast of the Lord’s Incarnation -- a time when we commemorate and celebrate that the “divine word assumed human flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1.14) -- it is important to observe that Amoris Laetitia recalls first and foremost the mercy and compassion of God, rather than solely the moral rules and canonical regulations of men.

What has undoubtedly smothered and hampered people in the past is the fear that a “heavenly father” somehow dictates human conduct and prescribes human custom. The truth is quite the opposite, and religious leaders are called themselves to remember and in turn to remind that God is life and love and light. Indeed, these are the terms repeatedly emphasized by Pope Francis in his encyclical, which discerns the experience and challenges of contemporary society in order to discern a spirituality of marriage and family for today’s world.

Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Orthodox Patriarch, endorsing Amoris Laetitia which was published in L’Osservatore Romano

Pope Francis the Barbarian

The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marvelling that civilization, should have offended him with priests and soldiers.... In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.

Hilaire Belloc

When a law is enacted contrary to reason, or to the eternal law, or to some ordinance of God, obedience is unlawful, lest while obeying man, we become disobedient to God.

Leo XIII

There is a time when those who obey, obey to their own condemnation.

St. Catherine of Siena

The devil has the Bible but he is in Hell. It is Tradition what will bring you to Heaven.

St. Maximilian Kolbe to Fr. Victor Mrosz, who was “excommunicated” for being faithful to Tradition

“Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine...”

I reproached a woman some months ago in a parish because she was pregnant with her eighth child, after having had seven C-sections. But does she want to leave the seven as orphans? This is to tempt God. I speak of responsible paternity. This is the way, a responsible paternity. [......] Therefore, the key word, to give you an answer, and the one the Church uses all the time, and I do too, is responsible parenthood. How do we do this? With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do carry out a responsible parenthood. That example I mentioned shortly before about that woman who was expecting her eighth child and already had seven who were born with caesareans. That is an irresponsibility. That woman might say ‘no, I trust in God.’ But, look, God gives you means to be responsible. Some think that – excuse the language – that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood.

Pope Francis, remarks from his “authentic magisterium” during return flight from the Philippines, January 19, 2015

“As regards the bishops, very few of them possess genuine zeal for souls … So we have to pray to Jesus Christ that he would give us as head of the Church one possessed of more spirit and zeal for the glory of God than of learning and human prudence. He should be free of all party attachments and devoid of human respect. If, by chance, for our great misfortune, we should get a Pope that does not have the glory of God as his sole purpose, the Lord will not help him greatly and things from their present condition will go from bad to worse.”

St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori, excerpt from letter commenting on the Papal Conclave, October 24, 1774

Pope Francis the Lutheran wants to show the world that he can be just as foul-mouthed as Luther by displaying his “tendency” toward, and “morbid fascination” with, homosexual proclivities! He may go down in history as Francis the Scatologian! “Fake News” is the next liberal agenda and Francis has jumped on board the effort to silence his critics. Francis, the master of ‘fake views’!

Pope warns media over ‘sin’ of spreading fake news, smearing politicians

By Philip Pullella | December 7, 2016

VATICAN CITY | Reuters - Media that focus on scandals and spread fake news to smear politicians risk becoming like people who have a morbid fascination with excrement, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Francis told the Belgian Catholic weekly “Tertio” that spreading disinformation was “probably the greatest damage that the media can do” and using communications for this rather than to educate the public amounted to a sin.

Using precise psychological terms, he said scandal-mongering media risked falling prey to coprophilia, or arousal from excrement, and consumers of these media risked coprophagia, or eating excrement.

The Argentine-born pontiff excused himself for using such terms in order to get his point across while answering a question about the correct use of the media.

”I think the media have to be very clear, very transparent, and not fall into - no offence intended - the sickness of coprophilia, that is, always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true,” he said.

“And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, a lot of damage can be done.”

That section of the interview, all of which was distributed to reporters in an Italian translation of the interview in the pope’s native Spanish, contained some of the most blunt language the pontiff has ever used about the media.

He also spoke of the danger of using the media to slander political rivals.

“The means of communication have their own temptations, they can be tempted by slander, and therefore used to slander people, to smear them, this above all in the world of politics,” he said. “They can be used as means of defamation...”

“No-one has a right to do this. It is a sin and it is hurtful,” he said.

He described disinformation as the greatest harm the media can do because “it directs opinion in only one direction and omits the other part of the truth,” he said.

The pope’s comments on disinformation followed widespread debate in the United States over whether fake news on the internet might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.

“The fear of God sets us free from the fear of His enemies.”

St. Ambrose

On the other hand, it is certain that the Jewish Cabalistic tradition was one of the principal mediums through which Eastern occultism (which has so many times come to the surface in European history) has been transmitted to modern Europe; and that many, if not all, of the recognized founders of the eighteenth century Illuminism (including Weishaupt, Pasqualis, and Cagliostro) were initiated into its secrets by Jewish Cabalists or drew their inspiration and their methods from the Jewish esoteric writings. The Jewish apologist, Bernard Lazare, states that “there were Cabalistic Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry, as certain rites still in existence conclusively show.”

Rev. Edward J. Cahill, S.J., The Truth About Freemasonry

“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.”

Matthew 10:32-33

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity – Even JPII did not deny this dogma!

Pope Francis Teaches:

We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom.11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the Sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom. 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes. 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

The Church officially recognizes that the People of Israel continue to be the Chosen People. Nowhere does it say: “You lost the game, now it is our turn.” It is a recognition of the People of Israel. Pope Francis, On Heaven and Earth

The Catholic Church Teaches:

Hebrews 7:18: “On the one hand, a former commandment is annulled because of its weakness and uselessness…”;

Hebrews 10:9: “Then he says, ‘Behold, I come to do your will.’ He takes away the first [covenant] to establish the second [covenant]…”;

2 Corinthians 3:14: “For to this day when they [the Jews] read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away”;

Hebrews 8:7: “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another”;

Colossians 2:14: “Having canceled the written code, with its decrees, that was against us and stood opposed to us; He took it away nailing it to the cross”;

Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, para. 29: “…the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished…but on the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross”;

The Catechism of the Council of Trent: “…the people, aware of the abrogation of the Mosaic Law…”;

Council of Florence: [This council] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosiac law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Cantate Domino

Council of Trent: “but not even the Jews by the very letter of the law of Moses were able to be liberated or to rise therefrom”;

Cardinal Ratzinger: “Thus the Sinai [Mosaic] Covenant is indeed superseded” (Many Religions – One Covenant, p. 70).

St. John Chrysostom: “Yet surely Paul’s object everywhere is to annul this Law….And with much reason; for it was through a fear and a horror of this that the Jews obstinately opposed grace” (Homily on Romans, 6:12); “And so while no one annuls a man’s covenant, the covenant of God after four hundred and thirty years is annulled; for if not that covenant but another instead of it bestows what is promised, then is it set aside, which is most unreasonable” (Homily on Galatians, Ch 3);

St. Augustine: “Instead of the grace of the law which has passed away, we have received the grace of the gospel which is abiding; and instead of the shadows and types of the old dispensation, the truth has come by Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also prophesied thus in God’s name: ‘Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…’ Observe what the prophet says, not to Gentiles, who had not been partakers in any former covenant, but to the Jewish nation. He who has given them the law by Moses, promises in place of it the New Covenant of the gospel, that they might no longer live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit” (Letters, 74, 4);

Justin Martyr: “Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law – namely, Christ – has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy…Have you not read…by Jeremiah, concerning this same new covenant, He thus speaks: ‘Behold, the days come,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…’” (Dialogue with Trypho, Ch 11).

John Paul II: “Christ fulfills the divine promise and supersedes the old law.” (Redemptoris Mater)

Taken from Robert Sungenis, The Old Covenent: Revoked or Not Revoked?

Nothing is more evident than this –

Pope Francis knows nothing of the Mother of God, he knows nothing of the spiritual life!

The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not... She was silent, but in her heart, how many things told the Lord! “You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I seen him there!” Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: “Lies! I was deceived!”

Pope Francis, sermon December 20, 2013, published by Vatican News Service

His friends just call him “Bergoglio”

We were close for a few days, the three daily meals and have shared other moments both public and private. We talked about everything: about dialogue, but also about the journey that we will do together to Israel [.....] Together we have celebrated the beginning of Shabbat, he was by my side when I recited the Kiddush and has broken challah, which Zion Evrony, the Israeli Ambassador, brought to the Holy See. They were unforgettable days and I think that they have a value that goes beyond the affection and confidence that has always connected us [.....] “Important signal”: “I see great value in Bergoglio’s comments against proselytism. It is a point on which he insists with a special emphasis and gets even more weight when we think of the evangelizing framework within which these statements were made...... But now, the Pope speaks of it (of evangelization) only to introduce Catholics to the faith.

Rabbi Abraham Skorka from Argentina, interview for the Jewish monthly Pagine Ebraiche, which was reproduced in Osservatore Romano November 25, about his visit to the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome as a “personal guest of Bergolio in Santa Maria.”

Castro was not reconciled to the Church, only to his fellow revolutionary, Pope Francis

Pope Francis grieves, prays for atheist revolutionary Castro

VATICAN CITY | Reuters | November 26, 2016 - Pope Francis said the death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro was “sad news” and that he was grieving and praying for his repose.

Francis expressed his condolences in a Spanish-language message to Fidel’s brother, President Raul Castro on Saturday.

The pope, who met Fidel Castro when he visited Cuba last year, said he had received the “sad news” and added: “I express to you my sentiments of grief.”

Fidel Castro, who was a professed atheist, was baptized as a Catholic and educated in schools run by the Jesuits, the religious order of which the pope is a member.

COMMENT: On the day of the U.S. elections, Pope Francis met again with and publically praised the notorious Italian advocate of divorce, abortion and euthanasia, Emma Bonino. The first meeting on February 8, 2016 was excused by the mindless on the grounds that Pope Francis may not have known about the public crimes of this unrepentant agent of Satan. This act is a grave scandal. Remember that true scandal requires an act that is objectively sinful and thus becomes a cause or motive for others to commit sin. This act makes Pope Francis morally an accessory to Bonino’s sins. We can contribute to the sins of others by command, by consent, by concealment, by praise, by partaking, by defense of the ill done, and by silence. Take your pick. Our Lady of LaSalette said that “Rome would lose the faith and become the seat of Anti-christ.” Conservative Catholics have for years attributed this quote to a mentally unsettled Melanie seeking personal fame rather than faithfully reporting the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is absurd to suppose that the Mother of God would choose a liar to convey her warnings to “all her people.” According to the New York Times, Francis has already appointed a third of the cardinals who will elect his successor and he is in the process of appointing many more like minded prelates. The schism is already here. Every Catholic must now choose where he will stand. We can be sure that God will soon be cleaning house and those who are not standing with Him will perish.

Pope receives Emma Bonino

Former foreign minister is cancer survivor

Redazione ANSA Vatican City 08 November 2016

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 8 - Pope Francis had an audience with former Italian foreign minister Emma Bonino on Tuesday for talks about asylum seekers and the integration of migrants, the Vatican said.
Bonino, 68, is a former leader of the Radical Party and was involved in domestic campaigns for divorce and abortion in the 1970s. She was the European commissioner for health and consumer affairs from 1995 to 1999 and foreign minister during the centre-left government of Enrico Letta in 2013 and 2014.
Last year she said she was in remission after treatment for lung cancer.

Pope calls Italy’s foremost abortion promoter one of nation’s ‘forgotten greats’

LifeSiteNews | February 25, 2016 -- In a February 8 interview with one of Italy’s most prominent dailies, Corriere Della Serra, Pope Francis praised Italy’s leading proponent of abortion – Emma Bonino -- as one of the nation’s “forgotten greats,” comparing her to great historical figures such as Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman. Knowing that his praise of her may be controversial, the Pope said that she offered the best advice to Italy on learning about Africa, and admitted she thinks differently from us. “True, but never mind,” he said. “We have to look at people, at what they do.”

At 27, Bonino had an illegal abortion and then worked with the Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion which boasted over 10,000 abortions. There are famous photos of Bonino performing illegal abortions using a homemade device operated by a bicycle pump. Arrested for the then-illegal activity she spent a few days in jail and was acquitted and entered politics.

When she was appointed Italy’s foreign minister in 2013 there was a general outcry from life and family leaders at the appalling situation.

Responding to the Pope’s praise of Bonino, pro-life leaders in Italy expressed disbelief. ”How can the pope praise a woman that is best known in Italy for practicing illegal abortion and promoting abortion?” commented Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, who was until last year the head of the Rome office of Human Life International.

Luca Volonte, an Italian politician and the president of the pro-life Novae Terrae Foundation, told LifeSiteNews he believed the Pope “was not really informed about how much Mrs. Bonino has done in Italy and at the international level to promote abortion and euthanasia.”

Pope Francis: “It is the Communists Who Think Like Christians”

One Peter Five | Steve Skojec | November 11, 2016

During this week where Americans have been distracted by the unexpected upset of a presidential election that could very well change the course of our collective future, Pope Francis has been busy making political statements of his own.

In yet another interview with Eugenio Scalfari this exchange was reported to have taken place:

Scalfari: You told me some time ago that the precept, “Love your neighbour as thyself” had to change, given the dark times that we are going through, and become “more than thyself.” So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the programme of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?

Pope Francis: It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom.

One of the most hotly contested criticisms of Pope Francis is that he is ideologically aligned with Marxists. …... What seems fair to say is that this is the most direct admission yet that Francis identifies his program of social justice as something compatible with Communism – itself an intrinsic evil. […...]

The Fall of Simon the Magician and his “lying wonders”

For there shall arise false Christs, etc. Signs, wrought by art magic, by the power of the devil, whom many heresiarchs have had as a familiar spirit, as I have shown in I Tim. 4:1. Such was their great prince Simon Magus (Simon the Magician), who deluded Nero and the Romans, so that they erected a statue to him at Rome; but at length he himself, flying through the air by the aid of the devil, was dashed down to the earth by the prayers of St. Peter, and falling upon a stone, broke his knees “so that he who had attempted to fly was not able to walk; and he who had taken wings, lost his legs,” as S. Maximus says (Hom. 5, de SS. Petro et Paulo).

Cornelius a Lapide, The Great Commentary, Matt 24:24

Pope Francis dismisses critics of his teachings

David Gibson | Religion News Service | Nov. 18, 2016

Vatican City -- Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic Church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”

The pontiff’s lengthy interview in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian hierarchy, was published Friday and followed days of news coverage of demands by four hard-line cardinals who have grave concerns about Francis’ approach.

The four say that focusing on ministering to people in their particular circumstances is eroding the church’s doctrinal absolutes and that Francis must dispel any ambiguities or face serious consequences.

The four critics, led by U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a Rome-based prelate and longtime opponent of the pontiff’s policies, had written privately to Francis in September.

They asked the pontiff to state whether passages in a landmark document on ministering to families that he had issued in April could be interpreted to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some cases.

On Monday, the cardinals went public with the letter because they learned that Francis was not going to respond to their demands that he answer five specific questions about the document, an exhortation called Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love.”

The cardinals said he had to answer their questions in order to clear up their doubts about whether the document undermined the church’s teaching on sin and the permanence of marriage.

Then in an interview published Tuesday in the National Catholic Register, Burke raised the stakes by saying that if Francis did not offer a clarification, the next step would be to make “a formal act of correction of a serious error” — a phrase that some believe is tantamount to accusing the pope of heresy.

Avvenire’s interview with Francis focused largely on ecumenism and Catholicism’s relations with other churches.

But the pope also took the opportunity to push back against his critics — he did not name them — who view the faith through the lens of “a certain legalism, which can be ideological.”

“Some people — I am thinking of certain responses to Amoris Laetitia — continue to misunderstand,” Francis said. “It’s either black or white [to them], even if in the flow of life you have to discern.”

Asked about critics who accuse the pope of “Protestantizing” the Catholic church — an objection often raised by conservative Catholics in the U.S. — Francis said, “I don’t lose sleep over it.”

He insisted that he is following the model of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s that set the church on a path to internal reform and greater engagement with the world.

“As for opinions of others,” he said, “we always have to distinguish the spirit in which they are given. When not given in bad faith, they help with the way forward. Other times you see right away that the critics pick bits from here and there to justify a pre-existing viewpoint; they are not honest, they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”

“You see right away that a certain ‘rigorism’ is born out of a lack of something, from a desire to hide inside the armor of one’s own sad dissatisfaction,” he said.

The papal document Amoris Laetitia was Francis’ summation of two extraordinary Vatican meetings of the world’s bishops, held in 2014 and 2015, that sought to reorient the church’s approach away from a focus on doctrinal formulations and the reiteration of rules and toward accompanying people in difficult or unusual circumstances.

But the document has become a flashpoint for an increasingly open struggle between old guard hard-liners and supporters of Francis.

One of the three American prelates that Francis is to elevate to the rank of cardinal on Saturday — along with 14 other churchmen — pushed back against Burke’s campaign in unusually strong language, calling the effort “troublesome.”

Cardinal-designate Joseph Tobin, who is going to head the Archdiocese of Newark, told The Tablet of London that Amoris Laetitia cannot simply be reduced to a question of ‘yes or no’ in a specific pastoral situation.”

He said that the challenge by the four cardinals “is at best naive.”

One big cowardly Begging of the Question! Since the objections are given in “bad faith” they need not be answered!

As for opinions of others, we always have to distinguish the spirit in which they are given. When not given in bad faith, they help with the way forward. Other times you see right away that the critics pick bits from here and there to justify a pre-existing viewpoint; they are not honest, they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions. You see right away that a certain ‘rigorism’ is born out of a lack of something, from a desire to hide inside the armor of one’s own sad dissatisfaction.

Pope Francis, his reply to the four cardinals critical of Amoris Laetitia, published in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian hierarchy

COMMENT: Pope Francis, it has been reported, was visibly angered by the election of the pro-life Republican, Donald Trump, as president of the U.S. In an effort to push his Gaia cult of Earth Worship, Pope Francis is calling for an implementation of the Paris “climate agreement…. without delay.” Trump has already declared that he does not worship the Gaia god of Pope Francis.

Francis: Paris climate agreement must be implemented without delay

In a message to participants of the COP22 Climate Change meeting taking place in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, the Pope urged all to act in a manner as free as possible from political and economic pressures, setting aside particular interests and behaviour

VATICAN CITY | iacopo scaramuzzi | November 11, 2016

“Continual political support and encouragement” are needed in order to implement the climate agreement reached in Paris last December (COP21), in the interests of the world’s poorest and future generations. It is our “responsibility to act without delay, in a manner as free as possible from political and economic pressures, setting aside particular interests and behaviour”. The Pope wrote this in the message he sent to participants of the COP22 Climate Change meeting taking place in the Moroccan city of Marrakech. The meeting runs from 7 to 18 November. Francis had supported the agreement signed in the French capital, from the moment he published his “Laudato Si’” encyclical.

In light of the election of new US president, Donald Trump - who during his election campaign had talked about the need to “cancel” the Paris agreement -, the US special envoy on climate change, Jonathan Pershing, said: “Heads of state can and will change but I am confident that we can and we will sustain a durable international effort to counter climate change.”[……]

funny.pho.to_clown_face_in_hole.jpg Another Creepy Clown sighting!

“He was born a female, a girl, and he suffered greatly because he felt that he was a boy but physically was a girl. He told his mother, when he was in his twenties, at 22, that he wanted to have an operation and so forth. His mother asked him not to do so as long as she was alive. She was elderly, and died soon after. He had the operation. He is a municipal employee in a town in Spain. He went to the bishop. The bishop helped him a great deal, he is a good bishop and he “wasted” time to accompany this man. Then he got married. He changed his civil identity, he got married and he wrote me a letter saying that it would bring comfort to him to come see me with his bride: he, who had been she, but is he. I received them.”

Pope Francis the Weird, comment during in flight press conference from Azerbaijan, October 2, 2016

Head of Greek Bishops Accuses Four Cardinals of Heresy, Apostasy, & Schism

One Peter Five | Steve Skojec | November 22, 2016

The number of attacks on the four cardinals for their presentation of dubia on Amoris Laetitia are mounting rapidly. Two out of three of the new American Cardinals — Joseph Tobin of Newark and Cardinal Cupich of Chicago — spoke out just yesterday against the four cardinals. Tobin, described the dubia as “troublesome” and went on to say:

The Holy Father is capturing the work of two synods, so if four cardinals say that two synods were wrong, or that somehow the Holy Father didn’t reflect what was said in those synods, I think that should be questioned. … just to simply reduce it to a ‘dubium,’ I think it is at best naive.

Cardinal Cupich took a more direct line of attack:

I think that if you begin to question the legitimacy or what is being said in such a document, do you throw into question then all the other documents that have been issued before by the other popes. So I think it’s not for the pope to respond to that, it’s a moment for anyone who has doubts to examine how they got to that position because it is a magisterial document of the Catholic Church.

That these newly minted cardinals so openly question the naivete and prudence of those who are by many years their senior is indicative of the power they feel as personal appointments of Francis. That they pose questions which seek to place the four cardinals at odds with the magisterium means that there is in an implication, at least, of schism – and even heresy.

But one bishop has now made those charges openly.

Fragkiskos Papamanolis, the bishop emeritus of Syros, Santorini, and Crete, and head of the Greek Bishops Conference, has now written an open letter to the four cardinals. Its language is striking and direct, and the accusations made therein are incredibly serious.

It is, to be blunt, the kind of language so many Catholics had hoped to see from the faithful prelates of the Church, sent in the direction of Rome.

Let it not be said that the commissars of the Dictatorship of Mercy are not men of conviction. Our translation of the full text of the letter follows.

Dearest brothers in the episcopate,

My faith in our God tells me that He cannot fail to love you. With the sincerity that comes from my heart I call you ‘dearest brothers.’

The letter you have sent to the Congregation to the Doctrine of the Faith and that was published last Monday on the site of L’Espresso has even made it to Greece.

Before publishing the document and, still more, before you drew it up, you ought to have presented yourself to the Holy Father Francis and requested that he remove you as members of the College of Cardinals.

Further, you should not have made use of the title of “Cardinal” to give prestige to what you have written, and this on account of coherence with your conscience and to alleviate the scandal you have given by writing privately.

You write that you are “deeply concerned about the true good of souls” and, indirectly, you accuse the Holy Father Francis “promoting some form of politics in the Church”. You ask that “that no one will judge us, unjustly.” He who would say the opposite of what you explicitly write would be judging you unjustly. The words you use have their meaning. The fact that you boast of the title of Cardinals does not change the meaning of the gravely offensive words for the Bishop of Rome.

If you are “deeply concerned about the true good of souls” and moved by “an impassioned concern for the good of the faithful”, I, dearest brothers, am “deeply moved by the true good of your souls”, for your double most grave sin: the sin of heresy (and of apostasy?) This, in fact, is the way schisms begin in the Church. From your document, it appears clearly that, in practice you do not believe in the supreme magisterial authority of the Pope, strengthened by two Synods of Bishops coming from the whole world. It seems that the Holy Spirit inspires only you and not the Vicar of Christ and not even the Bishops gathered in Synod, and also the more grave sin of scandal, given publicly to the Christian people throughout the whole world. Concerning this Jesus has said, “Woe to the man by whom scandal comes” (Mt 18:7). “It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6).

Impelled by the charity of Christ, I pray for you. I ask the Lord to enlighten you to accept with simplicity of heart the magisterial teaching of the Holy Father Francis.

I fear that your mental categories will find sophisticated arguments to justify your work, so as not even to consider it a sin to be subjected to the Sacrament of Penance, and that you continue to celebrate every day the Holy Mass and to receive sacrilegiously the Sacrament of the Eucharist, while you are scandalized if, in specific cases, a divorced and remarried person receives the Eucharist, and you dare to accuse the Holy Father Francis of heresy.

You know that I participated in the two Synods of the Bishops on the family and I heard your interventions. I also heard the comments that one of you made, during the break, about an affirmation contained in my intervention in the synod hall, when I said, “To sin is not easy.” This brother (one of you four), speaking with his interlocutors, modified my affirmations and put in my mouth words that I didn’t say. Further, you gave my declaration an interpretation that could not be gathered in any way from what I had affirmed.

Dearest brothers, may the Lord enlighten you to recognize as soon as possible your sin and to repair the scandal you have given.

With the charity of Christ, I greet you fraternally.

+ Frankiskos Papamanolis, o.f.m. cap

Bishop emeritus of Syros, Santorini, and Crete
President of the Episcopal Conference of Greece

COMMENT: The schism has been here for some time. It is becoming more evident each day! Bishop Papamanolis is guilty of the great corruption of the Faith by making the person of the pope the Rule of Faith. This is the common practice in the Church of the New Advent. Not so in the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, the Rule of Faith is Dogma, the formal object of divine and Catholic faith. Whenever anyone, including the pope, deviates from the Rule of Faith they must not be obeyed, they must not be followed.

[The Ancient Doctors] knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, they 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 which 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 as if the innovators pretended that they always intended to present the alternative passages, especially to those of simple faith who eventually come to know only some part of the conclusions of such discussions which are published in the common language for everyone's use. Or again, as if the same faithful had the ability on examining such documents to judge such matters for themselves without getting confused and avoiding all risk of error. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor Saint 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.

In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every
century, no other method is required than the following: WHENEVER IT BECOMES NECESSARY TO EXPOSE STATEMENTS WHICH DISGUISE SOME SUSPECTED ERROR OR DANGER UNDER THE VEIL OF AMBIGUITY, ONE MUST DENOUNCE THE PERVERSE MEANING UNDER WHICH THE ERROR OPPOSED TO CATHOLIC TRUTH IS CAMOUFLAGED.

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, condemning the Gallican and Jansenist acts and tendencies of the Synod of Pistoia (1786).

The “received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the sacraments…”

…..Because, as we will see, Catholics must celebrate only the “received and approved rites” of the Church as a matter of Divine Law.

God revealed this truth in Scripture through St. Paul. Before St. Paul teaches the Corinthians liturgical and theological details concerning the Holy Mass (consecration formula, Real Presence), he prefaces his teaching by affirming: “For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you…” (I Cor 11:23). St. Paul says again: “For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received” (1Cor 15:3). In these and other verses, St. Paul emphasizes that we must believe and practice only what we have “received” from Christ and the apostles which has been “delivered” unto us, and which includes the liturgical rites of the Church. This is a divinely revealed truth and a matter of Faith.

The Church has taught this divine truth throughout her history. For example, in the Papal Oath of Coronation, which originates at least as far back as Pope St. Agatho in 678 A.D. (and which was set aside by Paul VI), every Pope swore to change nothing of the “received tradition.” Pope Pius IV’s Tridentine Profession of Faith, which is binding on the souls of all Catholics, likewise expresses this principle by requiring adherence to the “received and approved rites of the Catholic Church used in the solemn administration of the sacraments.” The “received and approved rites of the Church” originate from the Spirit of Christ and the traditions of the apostles which have been handed down to us through the ages.

Because the “received and approved rites” are part of the Church’s infallible expression of the unchanging Deposit of Faith, as inspired and nurtured by the Holy Ghost, they cannot be set aside or changed into new rites. This is why the Ecumenical Council of Trent (1545-1563) infallibly declared:

“If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at their pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.”

Because the Council declares anathema (that is, condemned, or severed from the Body of Christ) anyone who would set aside or change into new rites the already “received and approved rites” of the Church, proves that adherence to the “received and approved rites” is a matter of Divine Law. The absolute necessity to preserve the substance of the Church’s ancient liturgical rites is a requirement of the Faith because the rites preserve and express that Faith. To hold that the Church’s rites can change implies a belief that the Church’s doctrines can change, because the rites preserve and express the doctrines. Hence, those who do not preserve the Church’s rites (by omitting or changing them) are objectively anathema because they sin against the Faith itself.

In light of the foregoing condemnation, the Holy Council of Trent directed that the Roman Missal be restored so that the faithful would know once and for all what is the “received and approved rite” of Mass. To that end, Pope St. Pius V issued his papal bull Quo Primum Tempore to legally codify “the decrees of the Holy Council of Trent” and render a definitive application of the Divine Law dogmatized by the Council. This judgment mandated a single usage of the Roman rite for the Latin Church, with some minor exceptions for usages greater than 200 years old, “in order that what has been handed down by the most holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the rest of the churches may be accepted and observed by all everywhere.” Hence, the sainted Pope declared the oft-called “Tridentine Mass” to be the “received and approved rite” of the Church, and which precluded the creation of any “new rite” of Mass in the future. Further, because Quo Primum is an infallible application of Divine Law (that is, we must use only the “received and approved rites”), St. Pius V rightly declared the decree to be irreformable and valid forever.

This brings us to the inevitable and troubling question: Is the Novus Ordo a “new rite” of Mass that comes under the anathema of the Council of Trent, as definitively interpreted by St. Pius V in Quo Primum? The name of the rite itself (Novus Ordo which means “new order” or “new ordinary” of the Mass) certainly suggests the same. More importantly, so do the words of Pope Paul VI. In his November 19, 1969 General Audience address, Paul VI refers to the Novus Ordo as a “new rite” of Mass several times, for example: “We wish to draw your attention to an event about to occur in the Latin Catholic Church: the introduction of the liturgy of the new rite of the Mass.” He also says, “In the new rite you will find the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist...”

We also consider the statements of the members of Paul VI’s liturgical commission that created the New Mass, such as the secretary and head of the commission, Fr. Annibale Bugnini, who said: “It is not simply a question of restoring a valuable masterpiece, in some cases it will be necessary to provide new structures for entire rites…it will truly be a new creation.” Bugnini’s assistant, Fr. Carlos Braga, also stated that the New Mass has “an entirely new foundation of Eucharistic theology” and whose “ecumenical requirements” are “in harmony with the Church’s new positions.” Fr. Joseph Gelineau, one of the most influential members of the commission, also said: “To tell you the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman rite as we knew it no longer exists.” Therefore, both Paul VI and his appointed authors of the Novus Ordo admitted that the New Mass is not the rite “received” from tradition, but rather a rite created by innovation – an entirely unprecedented act in the history of the Church.

But we should not rely on these statements alone. While they may reveal the intent of the innovators, it is still necessary to look at the substance of the Novus Ordo rite itself. As we have seen, the Council of Trent and St. Pius V intended to preserve the substantial identity of the Roman rite forever. If the New Mass does not preserve this identity, then it cannot be considered the “received and approved rite” of the Catholic Church no matter what anyone says. Even the Second Vatican Council, which did not (and could not) mandate the creation of a new rite of Mass, recognized this truth by directing that the rites “be revised carefully in the light of sound tradition” with “due care being taken to preserve their substance.”

The Council of Trent’s condemnation of omitting or changing the “received and approved rites” into “new rites” is best understood by referring to one of the oldest maxims of the Church’s sacred theology: “legem credendi statuit lex orandi.” This is a Latin phrase which means “the rule of prayer determines the rule of faith” (often referred to as “lex orandi, lex credendi”). In other words, the way we pray determines what we believe. If a liturgical tradition which expresses a doctrine of the Faith is altered or removed altogether, the underlying doctrine will necessarily be compromised. This is why the “received and approved rites” must be faithfully preserved and never transformed into “other new ones” as declared by Trent.

…… However, the Novus Ordo Missae deviates from the Roman Missal of St. Pius V to such an extent that it no longer retains the substantial identity of the Roman rite. Even before the introduction of such abuses as audible canons, vernacular and versus populum (toward the people) celebrations, lay ministers, Communion under both species, Communion in the hand to standing communicants and the like, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci advised Paul VI that “the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.” Consequently, Cardinal Ottaviani (who, as head of the Holy Office, was responsible for safeguarding the doctrine of the Faith), in his famous intervention, concluded that the Novus Ordo was indeed a different rite of Mass.

For example, Ottaviani says: “To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, and to replace it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division – a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith – is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an incalculable error.” He also says, “It is obvious that the New Order of Mass has no intention of presenting the Faith taught by the Council of Trent. But it is to this Faith that the Catholic conscience is bound forever.” Accordingly, Ottaviani appealed to Paul VI “not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the integral and fruitful Missal of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness, and so deeply venerated by the whole Catholic world.” Therefore, both the critics and the creators of the New Mass, including Paul VI himself, agree that the Novus Ordo differs in substance from the Tridentine Missal and, hence, constitutes a “new rite” of Mass.

John Salza, J.D., The Novus Ordo Mass and Divine Law, excerpt from Catholic Family News

“(Beware) false prophets that exploit fear and hopelessness to sell magical formulas of hate and cruelty.”

Pope Francis, cryptic warning before the U.S. election of Donald Trump as their next president

And now, addressing the “false prophets that exploit fear and hopelessness to sell magical formulas of hate and cruelty,” Pope Francis again insults the Catholic Faith as known and practiced by all our forefathers!

COMMENT: Pope Francis again references St. Vincent of Lérins as if his understanding of Tradition is in accord with that of the great Church Father. It most certainly is not which is evident to anyone familiar with his writings. This corruption can only be attributed to malice. Francis the Lutheran and St. Vincent the Catholic do not profess the same Faith and only one of them is the Faith without which it is impossible to please God. Francis characterizes faithfulness to the revelation of God as “rigidity” which is itself attributed to deeper psychological and moral failings of traditional Catholics. “Love is not rigid,” claims Francis while he counsels the overthrow of God's commandments, but St. John the Apostle of Love and devotee of the Sacred Heart reports a very different Gospel of Jesus Christ:

· If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15

· If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father' s commandments, and do abide in his love. John 15:10

· He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21

· Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. John 14:23

· In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. 1 John 5:2

· And by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. 1 John 2:3

Love is never lax or slothful in its pious attention to duty. The laxism and sloth of Pope Francis is because without Faith, he has no true love of God.

IMPORTANT: In interview, Pope Francis questions Traditional Catholics and their motives and Ends the “Reform of the Reform” for good

The excerpt is translated by Rorate Caeli from the interview published in the past few days in Italy -- the interview was conducted by the editor of the official journal of the Holy See (Civiltà Cattolica), Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SI, as part of a book containing homilies of the Pope when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Fr. Spadaro: The simplicity of children makes me also think of adults, with a rite that is direct, participated intensely [translator's note: reference to notion of 'actuosa participatio'], of parish masses experienced with so much piety. What comes to mind are proposals that encourage priests to turn their backs to the faithful, to rethink Vatican II, to use Latin. I ask the Pope what he thinks of this. The Pope answers:

Pope Francis: “Pope Benedict accomplished a just and magnanimous gesture [translator's note: the motu proprio 'Summorum Pontificum'] to reach out to a certain mindset of some groups and persons who felt nostalgia and were distancing themselves. But it is an exception. That is why one speaks of an 'extraordinary' rite. The ordinary in the Church is not this. It is necessary to approach with magnanimity those attached to a certain form of prayer. But the ordinary is not this. Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium must go on as they are. To speak of a 'reform of the reform' is an error.”

Fr. Spadaro: “Other than those who are sincere and ask for this possibility out of habit or devotion, can this desire express something else? Are there dangers?”

Pope Francis: “I ask myself about this. For example, I always try to understand what is behind those individuals who are too young to have lived the pre-Conciliar liturgy, and who want it nonetheless. I have at times found myself in front of people who are too rigid, an attitude of rigidity. And I ask myself: how come so much rigidity? You dig, you dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, at times perhaps something else... [sic] The rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

Fr. Spadaro: What about tradition? Some understand it in a rigid way.

Pope Francis: “But no: tradition blooms!” he responds. “There is a Traditionalism that is a rigid fundamentalism: it is not good. Faithfulness instead implies a growth. Tradition, in the transmission from one age to the next of the deposit of the faith, grows and consolidates with the passage of time, as Saint Vincent of Lérins said in his Commonitorium Primum. I read it always in my breviary: 'Ita etiam christianae religionis dogma sequatur has decet profectuum leges, ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate' (Also the dogma of the Christian religion must follow these laws. It progresses, consolidating with the years, developing with time, deepening with the age.)”

In Pascendi, St. Pius X’s condemnation of the heresy of Modernism, the word novelty occurs twelve times always in a severely critical sense. As we approach the 47^th anniversary of the Modernist Novus Ordo Missa, Paul VI was right in that “This novelty is no small thing.”

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.

Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for Greater Apostolate, General Audience, November 26, 1969

COMMENT: Without firstly defending DOGMA as DOGMA, which is the ‘rule of Faith’ that constitutes the ‘formal object of divine and Catholic faith’, there is not the authority of Truth to confront Pope Francis! How is it possible to affirm the truth that “Ecclesial authority exists only in service of the Tradition” when they have cooperated in the overthrow of all Tradition over the last fifty years degrading it to the category of mere human discipline? At least this action is a beginning that we may hope will bring about a true understanding of the authority of Tradition and a restoration of the Catholic Faith.

Cardinal Burke says if Pope won’t clarify ‘serious error’, Cardinals must make ‘formal act of correction’
LifeSiteNews | ROME | Patrick B. Craine | November 15, 2016 – After joining a group of four cardinals in releasing a call for Pope Francis to clarify grave errors in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Cardinal Raymond Burke has now indicated the cardinals are contemplating a “formal correction” should the pope fail to address their concerns.
The cardinals had written to the pope with their concerns on September 19, but after failing to receive a response for nearly two months, they released the letter publicly on Monday morning.
Now, in an interview with the National Catholic Register’s Ed Pentin, Burke discusses the next steps should the pope fail to address the cardinals’ concerns. Here is Pentin’s question and the cardinal’s response:

What happens if the Holy Father does not respond to your act of justice and charity and fails to give the clarification of the Church’s teaching that you hope to achieve?
“Then we would have to address that situation. There is, in the Tradition of the Church, the practice of correction of the Roman Pontiff. It is something that is clearly quite rare. But if there is no response to these questions, then I would say that it would be a question of taking a formal act of correction of a serious error.”

CHAMPAIGNE, Philippe de skull.jpg Burke goes on to insist that in a case of conflict between the pope and Church Tradition, the Tradition is binding. “Ecclesial authority exists only in service of the Tradition,” Burke explains. “I think of that passage of St. Paul in the [Letter to the] Galatians (1:8), that if ‘even an angel should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema.’”
Historically, in the rare cases where popes have taught heresy, Burke explains, “It is the duty…, and historically it has happened, of cardinals and bishops to make clear that the Pope is teaching error and to ask him to correct it.”
The September 19 letter, signed by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner, asked the pope 5 short questions which call for ‘yes or no’ answers that would immediately clarify the meaning of the confusion-plagued document on precisely those points where theologians, priests and even bishops have offered contradicting interpretations.
In the interview, Burke emphasizes that the cardinals have sought to act for “the good of the Church,” which, he says, “is suffering from a tremendous confusion” on the points they have raised especially. He notes, for example, that priests in different dioceses are being given contradictory directions on how to handle the question of access to Communion for those in adulterous unions.
“We, as cardinals, judged it our responsibility to request a clarification with regard to these questions, in order to put an end to this spread of confusion that is actually leading people into error,” he says.
“For us to remain silent about these fundamental doubts, which have arisen as a result of the text of Amoris Laetitia, would, on our part, be a grave lack of charity toward the Pope and a grave lack in fulfilling the duties of our own office in the Church,” he adds.

Pope Francis calls Catholics who request Catholic worship “sectarians”!

We must strive to be together with others. Catholics and sectarian are two words of contradiction. This is why at the beginning (of my trip to Lund to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the Lutheran heresy), I was not willing to celebrate the (Novus Ordo) Mass for the Catholics on this trip. I wanted to insist on an ecumenical witness.

Pope Francis the Lutheran, regretting his conciliation to Catholics to offer the Novus Ordo Mass they requested

The Gravity Of The Sin Of Liberalism

Liberalism is a mortal sin. But Catholic theology teaches us that all sins are not equally grave, that there is even a distinction of degree in venial sins. There are also degrees in the category of mortal sin, just as there are in the category of meritorious works. The gravity of sin is determined by the object at which it strikes. Blasphemy, for instance, which directly attacks God Himself, is a sin of much graver character than theft, which directly attacks man. With the exception of formal hate against God, which constitutes the deadliest of all sins and of which the creature is rarely culpable-----unless he be in Hell-----the gravest of all sins are those against faith. The reason is evident. Faith is the foundation of the supernatural order, and sin is sin in so far as it attacks this supernatural order at this or the other point; hence that is the greatest sin which attacks this order at its very foundations. To destroy the foundations is to destroy the entire superstructure. To cut off the branch of a tree will not kill it; but to lay the ax to the trunk or the roots is fatal to its life. Henceforth it bears neither blossom nor fruit. St. Augustine, cited by St. Thomas, characterizes sin against faith in these words: Hoc est peccatum quo tenentur cuncta peccata. “This the sin which comprehends all other sins.”

The Angel of the Schools [St. Thomas Aquinas] expresses himself with his usual clearness on this point: “The gravity of sin is determined by the interval which it places between man and God; now sin against faith, divides man from God as far as possible, since it deprives him of the true knowledge of God; it therefore follows that sin against faith is the greatest of all sins.”

When sin against faith is simply a culpable privation of the knowledge of God, it has not the same gravity as a direct and formal attack upon dogmas expressly defined by Divine Revelation. In this latter case sin against faith, so grave in itself, acquires that degree of gravity which constitutes heresy. It then contains all the malice of infidelity, and becomes an express protestation against the teachings of faith or an express adhesion to a teaching which is condemned as false and erroneous by the faith itself. Besides the deadly sin against faith itself, it is accompanied by hardness of heart, obstinacy, and the proud preference for one’s own reason over the reason of God Himself.

Hence heretical doctrines-----and works inspired by them, constitute the greatest of all sins with the exception of the formal hate against God, of which only the demons in Hell and the damned are capable. Liberalism then, which is heresy, and all the works of Liberalism, which are heretical works, are the gravest sins known in the code of the Christian law.

Liberalism is, therefore, a greater sin than blasphemy, theft, adultery, homicide, or any other violation of the law of God, save in such case as where one acts in good faith, in ignorance, or without thought.

Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin

Ecumenism of St. Paul, Apostle

Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who cause dissensions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and to avoid them; for they that are such serve not Our Lord Christ, but their own belly, and by pleasing speeches and good words seduce the hearts of the innocent (Rom. 16:17).

Ecumenism of St. John, Apostle

Look to yourselves that ye lose not the things that ye have wrought, but that you may receive a full reward. Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor say to him, God speed you: for he that saith to him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works (2 John, ver. 8).

Ecumenism of Pope Pius XI

Meanwhile they (the heretics and schismatics) affirm that they would willingly treat with the Church of Rome, but on equal terms, that is as equals with an equal: but even if they could so act. it does not seem open to doubt that any pact into which they might enter would not compel them to turn from those opinions which are still the reason why they err and stray from the one fold of Christ. This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Mortalium Animos

Ecumenism of Pope Benedict XVI

In our troubled world, so frequently marked by poverty, violence and exploitation, dialogue between cultures and religions must more and more be seen as a sacred duty incumbent upon all those who are committed to building a world worthy of man. The ability to accept and respect one another, and to speak the truth in love, is essential for overcoming differences, preventing misunderstandings and avoiding needless confrontations…. A sincere dialogue needs both openness and a firm sense of identity on both sides, in order for each to be enriched by the gifts of the other.
In this spirit, then, I encourage you to persevere in your important work with patience and renewed commitment.

Address to the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations

Ecumenism of Pope Francis

Proselytism is a sin against ecumenism.

The “faith” of Martin Luther, A Spirituality Without Grace

A person that is baptized cannot, thou he would, lose his salvation by any sins however grievous, unless he refuses to believe. For no sins can damn him but unbelief alone. Martin Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides... No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Martin Luther, The Wittenberg Project; The Wartburg Segment, translated by Erika Flores, from Dr. Martin Luther’s Saemmtliche Schriften, Letter No. 99, 1 Aug. 1521

COMMENT: This is a brief encapsulation of the philosophy of Pope Francis. He is a pure Modernist who presupposes the Hegelian evolutionary “process” as a given. All things, including doctrine, are in a state of constant flux including the morality that doctrine determines. Francis admits to being a “utopian” dreamer who believes that the “processes” created by Vatican II will ultimately yield good fruit in the “utopian future”. The rotten swill we are currently consuming is only an unfortunate but necessary part of normal development; ‘you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs’. Like all liberals, it is always the theory that is normative, the facts keep going askew. Whatever problems we are currently enduring is because the theory has not been applied correctly in its purity with sufficient rigor for enough time, something like the Elizabethan racking of Catholic saints. The prescription is always more of the same rotten swill to “enhance human fullness”. But the truth is that Francis has no idea where his “processes” are going. He is confident that some future “history” will judge his worth. We are confident of that as well. Unfortunately for Francis, if he dies without repenting of this heretical folly, he will not save his soul. On the 500^th anniversary of Luther’s revolt, he stands with the heresiarch without the Catholic Faith.

“Time is greater than space: A constant tension exists between fullness and limitation. Fullness evokes the desire for complete possession, while limitation is a wall set before us. Broadly speaking, “time” has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself. Here we see a first principle for progress in building a people: time is greater than space.

This principle enables us to work slowly but surely, without being obsessed with immediate results. It helps us patiently to endure difficult and adverse situations, or inevitable changes in our plans. It invites us to accept the tension between fullness and limitation, and to give a priority to time. One of the faults which we occasionally observe in sociopolitical activity is that spaces and power are preferred to time and processes. Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back. Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces. Time governs spaces, illumines them and makes them links in a constantly expanding chain, with no possibility of return. What we need, then, is to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events. Without anxiety, but with clear convictions and tenacity.

“Sometimes I wonder if there are people in today’s world who are really concerned about generating processes of people-building, as opposed to obtaining immediate results which yield easy, quick short-term political gains, but do not enhance human fullness. History will perhaps judge the latter with the criterion set forth by Romano Guardini: ‘The only measure for properly evaluating an age is to ask to what extent it fosters the development and attainment of a full and authentically meaningful human existence, in accordance with the peculiar character and the capacities of that age’.

“This criterion also applies to evangelization, which calls for attention to the bigger picture, openness to suitable processes and concern for the long run. The Lord himself, during his earthly life, often warned his disciples that there were things they could not yet understand and that they would have to await the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 16:12-13). The parable of the weeds among the wheat (cf. Mt 13:24-30) graphically illustrates an important aspect of evangelization: the enemy can intrude upon the kingdom and sow harm, but ultimately he is defeated by the goodness of the wheat.”

Pope Francis, Evangellii Gaudium

Andrea Tornielli masquerades as a journalist. He is nothing but a Vatican shill. This article is not from his dull wit but the published at the behest of the Vatican. Apparently, now that the “year of mercy” is coming to a close there will be no more “Mister Nice Guy” from Pope Francis the Destroyer. Good! Nothing would be better than to have Pope Francis end his cowardly habit of indirect calumny where he never names those he insults, where he never identifies the nature of his objections with specific citations.

Pope’s favored journalist publishes ‘most wanted’ list of Francis’ alleged enemies

LifeSiteNews | October 21, 2016— On October 16, Italian Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli published an article headlined “Those Catholics against Francis that adore Putin” in the Turin newspaper La Stampa, presenting a “hit list” of conservatives considered to be opposed to Pope Francis.

In the article, Tornielli, along with another Vaticanista, Giacomo Galeazzi, calls out alleged “enemies” of Francis. The groups, seemingly assembled arbitrarily, appear to have two things in common: They are not progressive and they have chosen to criticize the Pope publicly.

As the author of a book based on an interview with Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy, Tornielli is well known in Italy and abroad. He also runs the English language site Vatican Insider, and in January will release another book based on an interview with Francis. Many consider him the “official Vaticanist” of Pope Francis.

In his article, Tornielli states that “the galaxies of dissidents against Bergoglio reaches from the Lefebvrians – who have decided to anticipate ‘a more traditional Pope’ before they return to unity with Rome – to the ‘Lega-Catholics’ who see in Francis a contradiction to his predecessor Ratzinger and started a campaign called ‘My Pope is Benedict.’”

Tornielli lists the “ultra-conservative” Lepanto Foundation run by Italian historian, Roberto De Mattei. De Mattei, a traditionalist deeply loyal to Rome, has called out the “confusion” in the Church subsequent to the publication of Amoris Laetitia and has expressed his wish for the Pope to clarify.

Italian website “La Bussola quotidiana” (“The Daily Compass”) and the publication “Il Timone” are listed. Also included is the site of the Italian Vaticanist, Sandro Magister, published as “Il Settimo Cielo.”

In addition, the blogosphere is presented as an imminent threat to the Pope. “Chiesae Postoconcilio” is among the suspects as well as “MessainLatino,” “Radio Spada,” “Unavox,” “Lo Straniero,” “Roscossa Cristiana,” and “Corrispondenza Romana.” All are important for Italian language Catholicism along with “Rossoporpora” and “Libertàe persona.”

Tornielli goes on to point a finger at two initiatives. First, the forty-five signatories who requested clarification from the Pope on some theological issues. This group has already felt some heat before their inclusion in Tornielli’s galactic hodgepodge – something that will certainly recur with the other names associated.

And second, the 80 prelates and lay people who signed a “Filial Appeal” pledging their fidelity to the unchanging teaching of the Church on family. The Filial Appeal Association already collected 900,000 signatures (among them 211 prelates) during the two Synods of Bishops in 2015 asking Francis clarification on the subject.

The “universe of dissent” against the pope (displayed in a portrait with planets representing each group or website) is topped by the Priestly Fraternity of Pius X, which is present in 35 countries but lacks regular status in the Church.

Also considered problematic is the journalist Antonio Socci, who has raised concerns about the Francis’ election.

In Socci’s 2014 book, It is Not Francis – The Church in a Great Tempest, he explains that the election of Francis was rigged and he believes that this is supported by the remarks of Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who said the Papacy has two elements: an active member (Francis) and a contemplative member (Benedict XVI).

Recent news reports have surfaced that Bishop Bernard Fellay of SSPX met Pope Francis at Santa Marta on October 13 for further doctrinal discussions. These ongoing meetings along with the decree of Francis himself that the SSPX priest could validly absolve in confession for the duration of the Holy Year of Mercy give a very different impression from the perception that SSPX is leading a worldwide revolt against the Pontiff.

To give the article more oomph, it is headlined “Putin-lovers.” This implies a general political line, perhaps even financial backing, that those groups hold in common. These kinds of allegations become borderline silly when one thinks about how the various origins of the groups in question are quite contrary to these accusations. What it does invoke is an antiquated understanding of the “cold war” with Russia standing against the civilized world.

At least Tornielli acknowledges that “the dissidence against the Pope unifies people and groups that are very different and not comparable.”

The question remains then: What was the intention in publishing an article presenting the jumble of groups if not to discredit them? Yet, at the same time, they miss the point. It should be safe to say that an article of this kind seems unworthy of a senior Vaticanist such as Tornielli.

Protestantism naturally begets toleration of error. Rejecting the principle of authority in religion, it has neither criterion nor definition of faith. On the principle that every individual or sect may interpret the deposit of revelation according to the dictates of private judgement, it gives birth to endless differences and contradictions. Impelled by the law of its own impotence, through lack of any decisive voice of authority in matters of faith, it is forced to recognize as valid and orthodox any belief that springs from the exercise of private judgement. Therefore does it finally arrive, by force of its own premises, at the conclusion that one creed is as good as another; it then seeks to (16) shelter its inconsistency under the false plea of liberty of conscience. Belief is not imposed by a legitimately and divinely constituted authority, but springs directly and freely from the unrestricted exercise of the individual’s reason or caprice upon the subjectmatter of revelation. The individual or sect interprets as it pleases, rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience. Accepting this principle, Infidelity on the same plea rejects all revelation, and Protestantism, which handed over the premise, is powerless to protest against the conclusion; for it is clear that one, who under the plea of rational liberty has the right to repudiate any part of revelation that may displease him, can not logically quarrel with one, who on the same ground repudiates the whole. If one creed is as good as another on the plea of rational liberty, on the same plea no creed is as good as any. Taking the field with this fatal weapon of Rationalism, Infidelity has stormed and taken the very citadel of Protestantism helpless against the foe of its own making.

Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin

A Catholic Reply to Pope Francis the Lutheran

The Ecumenical Fiasco in Lund: A Game of Let’s Pretend
by Christopher A. Ferrara | November 1, 2016

And so Francis has completed his “ecumenical journey” to Lund, Sweden, where the long-planned fiasco elicited nothing but yawns from the post-Christian Swedish populace. The press laughably reported that “hundreds” greeted Francis upon his arrival at the airport.
At Lund, in the very cathedral Lutheran rebels stole from the Catholic Church centuries ago, the one who is supposed to act as the Vicar of Christ participated in a joint “ecumenical prayer service” with pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-divorce, pro-homosexual, pro-women’s “ordination” Lutheran laymen and laywomen masquerading in clerical costumes. The cast of clerical fakes that Francis dignified with the presence of a Pope included a lady “archbishop” — what a joke — by the name of Antje Jackelen.
The whole affair, like ecumenism in general, was a game of let’s pretend. Let’s pretend that Saint John, following the mandate of Our Lord Himself, never “forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christ’s teaching,” to quote Pope Pius XI, who condemned the “ecumenical movement” at its origin and forbade Catholic participation in it — for reasons that should be obvious today.
Let’s pretend that there can be “Christian unity” with people who trample on the Gospel of Christ; deny the papal primacy; deny the existence of seven sacraments, the sacrificial priesthood and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; flout fundamental moral precepts and condone abominable violations of the natural law, including abortion and sodomy, which cry out to Heaven for divine retribution.
And above all, let’s pretend that Catholics are just as blameworthy as Lutherans — if not more so! — for “divisions” between the one true Church founded by God Incarnate and the ever-more-corrupt and ridiculous human organization whose origin lies in the rebellion of a maniacal, drunken, foul-mouthed, libidinous monk from a late medieval backwater known as Wittenberg.
Going along with the game, therefore, Francis uttered this preposterous prayer during the service: “O Holy Spirit: help us to rejoice in the gifts that have come to the Church through the Reformation, prepare us to repent for the dividing walls that we, and our forebears, have built…”
Nonsense. “We” have built no walls whatsoever. The doors of the Catholic Church are always open, and she is always ready and willing to admit to the religion that Christ established any Lutheran who repents of Luther’s errors, which have only been compounded infinitely by the errors of his supposed heirs in the Lutheran World Federation. It was Luther who put up the original “dividing walls,” and it is only his successors down through the past five centuries who have added to those walls layer after layer of heresy and immorality. But this is a game of let’s pretend, so the “ecumenist” must pretend that the Catholic Church has cruelly built walls against the Lutherans.
Nowhere is the Ecumenical Game of Let’s Pretend more apparent than in Francis’ prepared homily for this disgraceful gathering. Herewith some examples from the text:
“As Catholics and Lutherans, we have undertaken a common journey of reconciliation.”
False. Catholics do not have to be reconciled with Lutherans. Lutherans must be reconciled with the one true Church, whose teachings they defy, and the Christ whose Gospel they have mutilated and corrupted.
“Now, in the context of the commemoration of the Reformation of 1517, we have a new opportunity to accept a common path, one that has taken shape over the past fifty years in the ecumenical dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church.”
False. There is no “common path” that Catholics and Lutherans can walk together. There is only the path that Christ established in His Church, which Lutherans have lost and must find again. That path leads only to Rome, and from there to Heaven for those who persevere in the grace of the Sacraments. As Pius XI declared, “For 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, for in the past they have unhappily left it.”
“Nor can we be resigned to the division and distance that our separation has created between us. We have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.”
False. We cannot “move beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” It is the Lutherans who lack an understanding — of the truths that Christ revealed. And their ignorance or willful rejection of those truths does not involve mere “controversies and disagreements” but rather fundamental matters of Divine Revelation as well as precepts of the natural law that guide the conscience even of pagan savages on hypothetical deserted islands.
“Certainly, there was a sincere will on the part of both sides to profess and uphold the true faith, but at the same time we realize that we closed in on ourselves out of fear or bias with regard to the faith which others profess with a different accent and language.”
Not only false, but absolutely intolerable. There can be no “sincere will to profess and uphold the true faith” on the part of those who not only adamantly deny dogmas of the true religion but condone even sodomy and the murder of innocent children in the womb. To reduce the differences between Catholicism and the various Lutheran sects to “accent and language” arising from “fear or bias” is an outrageous deception.
I could go on for pages more, but the point is made. The ecumenical escapade in Lund, like the “ecumenical venture” as a whole, is a fraud — a fraud not only upon the Catholic people, but upon Lutherans who so desperately need the helps that only the Catholic Church can provide.
Ecumenism is, in fact, a form of almost unbelievable spiritual cruelty, which ruthlessly determines to leave in darkness those who cannot see the light of the Gospel, refusing to tell them what Pius XI told the Protestants of his day with all the solicitude of a true spiritual father, a mere 34 years before Vatican II supposedly ushered in a “new ecumenical orientation” of the Church:
“Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, ‘the Mother and mistress of all Christ’s faithful’?
“Let them hear Lactantius crying out: ‘The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind.’”
May God deliver us — Catholics and Lutherans alike — from the scourge of ecumenism and restore the Church to the sanity and true mercy of her perennial approach to those lost in error. Let the ecumenical game of let’s pretend come to an end for the eternal welfare of souls. Let the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart that Our Lady promised at Fatima set right all that has gone wrong in our beloved Church over the past fifty years, and in the world as a consequence.

For Kasper, it is “not the admission (to Holy Communion of those living in adultery) but the denial of the sacraments (that) is creating scandal.”

Cardinal Kasper: Can the ‘remarried’ now receive communion? ‘Yes. Period.’

LifeSiteNews | October 24, 2016— In a recent publication of the German journal Stimmen der Zeit (Journal for Christian Culture), Cardinal Walter Kasper published an article calling Amoris Laetitia a “paradigm shift” in the Church’s teaching.

“Amoris Laetitia: Break or Beginning” is the title of a recent scientific article by Kasper in which he analyzes the post-synodal exhortation and provides his opinion on the right hermeneutic in reading it.

In the first part called “Discussion regarding the binding character,” Kasper critiques Cardinal Raymond Burke for his statement that post-synodal documents by the Pope are not necessarily binding. Instead, Kasper states, “This position is refuted by the formal character of an Apostolic Exhortation as well as its content.”

According to Kasper – and indeed he is right, as evidenced by the post-synodal discussions concerning the document – critiques of Amoris Laetitia boil down to the question of “remarried” divorced Catholics receiving Communion.

As Kasper points out, the question is addressed by two different camps: One opinion is held by “conservatives,” some of whom (including German philosopher Robert Spaemann) see Amoris Laetitia as a break from the tradition of the Church, whereas others (including Cardinal Gerhard Müller) say the publication does not change the position of the Church.

Another (held by Italian theologian Rocco Buttiglione) says the doctrine of the Church is developed further but not on the line of Pope John Paul II. Yet others acknowledge a “careful development” that is paired with a lack of “concrete guidelines.” The last position among the “conservatives” is Norbert Lüdecke (Canon Law, Bonn, Germany) who says it is up to the individual conscience of the remarried divorced person to decide if he or she may receive Communion or not.

Kasper goes on to cite Buttiglione that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn presents the “decisive interpretation.” This citation refers back to a publication in L’Ossevatore Romano. The same position is taken by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ in La Civilta Cattolica, among whom Kasper wants to count himself.

Kasper critiques the “alleged confusion” as having been caused by a “third party” who has “alienated themselves from the sense of faith and life of the people of God.” He continues to say that “behind the pastoral tone of the document lies a well thought-out theological position.”

The Cardinal praises the “realistic, open, and relaxed way of dealing with sexuality and eroticism” in Amoris Laetitia that does not seek to “indoctrinate or moralize.” “With a grain of salt, one can say that Amoris Laetitia distances itself from a primarily negative Augustinian view of sexuality and turns toward an affirming Thomistic view on creation.” Kasper repeats his opinion that the moral ideal is an “optimum,” yet is unreachable by many. “Oftentimes, we have to choose the lesser evil,” he states, “in the living life there is no black and white but only different nuances and shadings.”

“Amoris Laetitia does not change an iota of the teaching of the Church, yet it changes everything.” The text provides ground for believing – so says Kasper – that the Pope, and with him the Church, moves away from a “legal morality” and toward the “virtue morality” of Thomas Aquinas.

Afterward, the Cardinal presents his own complex interpretation of Thomistic teachings concerning virtue and moral law in concrete situations. He bases his opinion on prudence as the “application of a norm in a concrete situation.” “Prudence does not give foundation to the norm, it presupposes it,” Kasper writes. He draws the conclusion that the “norm” is not applicative mechanically in every situation, but prudence is needed as fits the case.

With reference to Familiaris Consortio (No. 84), Kasper states that “remarried” divorcees are not anymore punished with excommunication but instead are “invited to participate as living members of Church life.”

Instead of choosing the path of John Paul II and Benedict XVI (“who had adhered to John Paul II’s decision”) to not allow “remarried” divorced Catholics to receive Communion and instead to insist that they practice abstinence in their sexual relations, Pope Francis “goes a step further, by putting the problem in a process of an embracing pastoral [approach] of gradual integration.”

“Amoris Laetitia envisages which forms of exclusion from ecclesiastical, liturgical, pastoral, educational, and institutional services can be overcome,” Kasper explains. He posits that when John Paul II gave permission for remarried divorced to receive Communion – if they lived as brother and sister – this was “in fact a concession.” The Cardinal reasons this by saying, “Abstinence belongs to the most intimate sphere and does not abolish the objective contradiction of the ongoing bond of marriage of the first sacramental marriage and the second civil marriage.”

Kasper further denies the magisterial content of the provision: “This provision obviously does not have the same weight than the general norm; anyhow it is not a final binding magisterial statement.” In Kasper’s eyes, John Paul II’s request opens up a “playground” between the “dogmatic principle” and the “pastoral consequence,” which Amoris Laetitia tries to widen.

Another argument Kasper tries to use to justify allowing “remarried” divorcees to receive Communion is the distinction between “objective mortal sin” and “subjective culpability.” He insists that Pope Francis “emphasizes the subjective aspects without ignoring the objective elements.” Kasper also alludes to the fact that sometimes people are not able to be convinced of an “objective norm” because it seems to them to be “as insurmountably estranged from world and reality.”

“The conscience of many people is oftentimes blind and deaf to that which is presented to them as Divine Law. That is not a justification of their error, yet an understanding and mercifulness with the erroneous person.”

Therefore, Kasper states that “Amoris Laetitia lays the groundwork for a changed pastoral praxis in a reasoned individual case.” Yet he also says the “Papal document does not draw clear practical conclusions from these premises.” According to Kasper, the Pope leaves the question open, and the very fact of leaving it open is “in itself a magisterial decision of great consequence.”

Kasper explains that the direction of Pope Francis is clear: “One does not need to focus on footnotes. Much more important is that the gradual integration, which is the key topic in question, is directed essentially towards admittance to the Eucharist as full-form of the participation of the life of the Church.”

Kasper quotes Francis’ statement from an in-flight press conference on April 16 wherein he responded to the question if in some cases remarried divorced can receive Communion with the poignant words: “Yes. Period.” This answer is not found in Amoris Laetitia but ‘corresponds to the general ductus.’”

According to Kasper, this statement is in full accordance with Canon Law (915 CIC/1983) because it does not negate that “obstinacy to remain in mortal sin” can supposedly be judged in individual cases, and in some cases be excluded. It is even up for discussion whether an objective mortal sin is present in the given case.

He adds that the cause of scandal is not necessarily having a person who lives in a second civil marriage receive Communion. Rather, in such a situation, “not the admission but the denial of the sacraments is creating scandal.”

Pope Francis the Lutheran, will formally renounced the Council of Trent and its dogmatic condemnation of the Lutheran heresy while celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant revolt against God and His Church!

A statue of Luther in the Vatican and a new papal definition of ‘lukewarm’

LifeSiteNews | October 25, 2016— Pope Francis will travel to Lund, Sweden, next week to assist in the launch of a yearlong commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses to the door of the castle church of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517.

In a lead-up event at the Vatican on October 13, the Pope received a group of 1,000 Lutherans and Catholics from Germany in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall and addressed them from the stage where a statue of Luther was erected. The sight came as a shock to many Catholics because Luther was excommunicated and his theses rejected by Pope Leo X in 1520. The split he caused in Christianity remains as one of the most damaging in the Church’s 2,000-year history.

At the meeting, Francis reinforced his admonition from earlier this month against converting people. Weeks after saying it is a “very grave sin against ecumenism” for Catholics to try to convert Orthodox Christians, Pope Francis told the pilgrims “it is not licit” to “convince [non-Christians] of your faith.” In that meeting, the pope also offered a novel definition of “lukewarm,” which according to Pope Francis is when Christians “are keen to defend Christianity in the West on the one hand but on the other are averse to refugees and other religions.”

The word ‘lukewarm’ has significant meaning to Christians because of the words of Christ revealed in St. John’s Revelation (3:15-16): “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” The common interpretation of the verses was to condemn the practice of picking and choosing among the Christ’s teachings rather than holding to all of them. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says, “Half-hearted commitment to the faith is nauseating to Christ.”

In answer to a question about what he likes about the Lutheran Church, the pope said, “I really like good Lutherans, Lutherans who really practice their faith in Jesus Christ. What I don’t like are lukewarm Catholics and lukewarm Lutherans.” Italian daily La Stamps’s Vatican Insider quotes the pope as saying it’s a “contradiction” when Christians “are keen to defend Christianity in the West on the one hand but on the other are averse to refugees and other religions.”

The Pope’s application of Christ’s strong condemnation to those who would be averse to other religions is perhaps a warning to those who would object to his coming praise for Luther scheduled for October 31. Swedish Catholic professor Clemens Cavallin points out in an essay on the upcoming celebration with Pope Francis in Lund that the common prayer service to be used has a very positive view of Luther.

“The text,” he says, “paints a picture of Luther as a religious hero who found the way to a more true form of Catholicism.” Cavallin notes that in the liturgical guide, the Common Prayer, a section called Thanksgiving, is intended to express, “our mutual joy for the gifts received and rediscovered in various ways through the renewal and impulses of the Reformation. After the prayer of thanksgiving, the whole assembly joins in singing thanks for and praise of God’s work.”

“The ecumenical journey enables Lutherans and Catholics to appreciate together Martin Luther’s insight into and spiritual experience of the gospel of the righteousness of God, which is also God’s mercy,” the text says.

The section concludes with the following prayer of gratitude:

Thanks be to you, O God, for the many guiding theological and spiritual insights that we have all received through the Reformation. Thanks be to you for the good transformations and reforms that were set in motion by the Reformation or by struggling with its challenges. Thanks be to you for the proclamation of the gospel that occurred during the Reformation and that since then has strengthened countless people to live lives of faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Warning to Indult Catholics: What is received by grant of Indult or legal privilege can be taken away. And when it is taken away, those who have accepted the grant have no legal or moral grounds for complaint. After all, no one possesses a right to a privilege. By “Magisterium” this local ordinary means obedience to whatever the “authentic magisterium” dictates. The “authentic magisterium” is nothing more than a term describing the person that holds the office of the papacy. Everything the pope does is an act of the “authentic magisterium”!

New Italian bishop condemns ‘false altars’ facing away from people, ‘nostalgia for the past’

LifeSiteNews | October 26, 2016 — The little Albenga-Imperia diocese in northern Italy can expect to see dramatic changes instituted by the new bishop, Guglielmo Borghetti.

The former bishop, Mario Olivieri, was a conservative who led the diocese from 1990 and was famous for being a pillar of faithfulness to Rome. Bishop Olivieri was a member of the Pontifical Congregation for the Liturgy as well as a collaborator with the Congregation for Clergy in the Vatican.

The seminarians under Bishop Olivieri were educated in both forms of the Roman rite and many of them celebrated the extraordinary form regularly. The bishop also made it possible for some traditionally minded groups to open apostolates in the diocese – for which he received much flak from a group of liberal-minded priests who stirred media campaigns against him.

Now news has surfaced that the newly instituted Bishop Borghetti wants to get rid of orientation to the East during the Mass. With this pronouncement, the bishop will “turn the altars and stop the nostalgic and excessively traditionalist temptations,” reports La Stampa of Savona, Italy. This decision was announced by Bishop Borghetti on October 20 when he met with the clergy of his diocese to present new “guidelines and the new course of the diocese.”

This new “course” will not have much space for “nostalgia for the past.” And at the same time, the bishop urged the clergy to not seek counsel from the retired bishop but follow Borghetti’s authority.

Bishop Borghetti stressed that for him the distinctions between “traditionalists” and “modernists” do not exist, but only “the Magisterium of the Church.” Setting himself firm in that Magisterium, he explained, “Everything that is approved by the Magisterium of the Church will be permitted in Albenga, while all that is not or is not anymore considered will also not be part of this diocese.”

He went a step further and said: “I don’t like going into the parishes and celebrating Mass on a false altar: all Churches must have altars facing towards the people.” [.....]

For those Catholics who have placed their hopes in the Novus Ordo theory of Religious Liberty, you won’t get to have your cake or eat it!

Belfast bakers lose appeal in discrimination case after refusing to bake ‘gay marriage’ cake

LifeSiteNews | BELFAST, Northern Ireland | October 25, 2016– Defeated but undeterred, Belfast baker Daniel McArthur stood in front of the British Court of Appeal building and asserted that the Equality Law under which he had been convicted of discrimination against homosexuals “has to be changed.”

Then the evangelical Christian made an unusually fervent declaration of faith as he stood with wife Amy and parents Karen and Colin McArthur, the owners of the small chain of seven bakeries he manages. “We are thankful to God who has been faithful to us through everything. He is still on the throne of Heaven and of Earth. He is our God and we worship and honor him.”

In 2015, the McArthurs were convicted in a Belfast court of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake ordered by homosexual activist Gareth Lee showing two Sesame Street characters and the message: “Support Gay Marriage.” [......]

What is the difference between the Democratic Party and Boko Haram?

After vision of Christ, Nigerian bishop credits Rosary for victories against Boko Haram

LifeSiteNews | MAIDUGURI, Nigeria | October 10, 2016 – A Nigerian bishop whose diocese has been a land of terror says that Boko Haram militants responsible for the violence have been suppressed thanks to many who prayed the Rosary for the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession.

Two years ago Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri says he was inspired by a vision of Jesus to call for Catholics to pray the Rosary for deliverance from Boko Haram’s terrorism, which has taken the lives of more than 11,000 Nigerians, the bulk from the Maiduguri area and most of them Christians, since 2011.

Now, as the Nigerian army boasts it has rooted the insurgents out of their last strongholds and pushed them into the Sambisa forest, Bishop Dashe Doeme is claiming credit for Mary.

“Before, Boko Haram members were everywhere. But now they are not everywhere,” he told the Catholic Herald. They have been pushed to the forests. Boko Haram will soon fizzle out, mostly because of the prayers of the people.”

The bishop experienced his vision in 2014. In it Christ gave him a sword, which immediately turned into a rosary. Christ then said, “Boko Haram is gone.” The bishop said he took Jesus’ message to be, “In order to console his people, that His Mother is there for us.”

So he told the people of his vast diocese in Muslim-controlled Northern Nigeria to believe “that the rosary would ultimately give us victory over this evil. Boko Haram is evil, ISIS is evil. So as long as we go to a place with His Mother, especially by praying the rosary, which is the most pronounced form of Marian devotion, we will be victorious.” […….]

Whenever the Holy Spirit speaks, it is infallible. The document Amoris Laetitia is not infallible and makes no such pretensions. This is admitted indirectly by Pope Francis in the document itself. Francis says, “‘time is greater than space,’…. the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth, until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does.” Obviously, Francis makes no claim to possess the “truth.” He in fact claims to be seeking “truth” because he does not like the truth that the Holy Spirit has already revealed. Pope Francis arrogantly believes that he has a greater understanding of truth than any of his predecessors because he has traveled further along the road that leads to the “entire truth.” The Holy Spirit does not “seek” the “truth” but is the Truth. The Holy Spirit has already revealed that a person who receives the Blessed Sacrament while living in objective mortal sin “eateth and drinketh judgment to himself” incurring his own damnation. Cardinal-designate Kevin Farrell has received his reward.

New Cardinal Farrell: Amoris Laetitia is ‘the Holy Spirit speaking’

Cardinal-designate Kevin Farrell says he has a hard time understanding why some bishops have reacted negatively to Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love.”) In an NCR interview, the prelate said he plans to use the exhortation as the “guiding document” for the new Dicastery of Laity, Family and Life

Vatican Insider | joshua mcelwee | 15/10/2016

The Catholic prelate Pope Francis recently appointed both as a cardinal and the head of the Vatican’s new centralized office for laypeople says he considers the pontiff’s apostolic exhortation on family life inspired by the Holy Spirit and plans to make it his department’s guiding document.

Speaking in an NCR interview Thursday, Cardinal-designate Kevin Farrell said he has a hard time understanding why some bishops have reacted negatively to Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love.”)

“I honestly don’t see what and why some bishops seem to think that they have to interpret this document,” said Farrell, the head of the new Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life and who last Sunday was announced as one of 17 prelates selected by Francis to join the church’s elite College of Cardinals.

“I believe that the pope has spoken,” said the cardinal-designate, referring to news last month that Francis wrote a letter praising a group of Argentine bishops who had drafted concrete guidelines about circumstances in which divorced and civilly remarried couples might eventually be allowed to receive Communion.

The issue of the church’s ministry to divorced and remarried people is addressed in the exhortation, which calls for pastoral accompaniment of such persons and a recognition that priests can no longer make blanket moral determinations about so-called “irregular” situations.

The exhortation, issued in April, was the pope’s response to two Synods of Bishops he held at the Vatican in 2014 and 2015 focused on issues of family life.

Farrell, an Irish native who had previously served as bishop of Dallas, said he understood that the U.S. bishops’ conference will be discussing Amoris Laetitia at its annual meeting in November.

“I think that’s very important that they have discussion,” said the cardinal-designate. “But at the same time I think it’s very important that we all understand that this is the Holy Spirit speaking.”

“I think that the document Amoris Laetitia is faithful to the doctrine and to the teaching of the church,” said Farrell, referring next to a 1981 exhortation on family life written by one of Francis’ predecessors: “It is carrying on the doctrine of Familiaris Consortio of John Paul II. I believe that passionately.

“Basically this is the Holy Spirit speaking to us,” the cardinal-designate continued.

“Do we believe that the Holy Spirit wasn’t there in the first synod?” he asked. “Do we believe he wasn’t in the second synod? Do we believe that he didn’t inspire our Holy Father Pope Francis in writing this document?”

“We need to be consequential here,” said Farrell. “I firmly believe this is the teaching of the church. This is a pastoral document telling us how we should proceed. I believe we should take it as it is.”

The cardinal-designate said divorced and remarried people should be included “in all the ministries of the church.”

“That doesn’t mean that I’m telling you that they should receive Communion,” said Farrell. “That’s a process of discernment and of conscience.”

“It is a journey,” he said. “Not something that’s to be taken lightly but something that we need to accompany people in difficult circumstances -- the priest, the pastor needs to accompany people in difficult situations.”

“I believe that that’s what we need to do,” he continued. “But it has to be taken seriously. It’s not just walking in and sitting down with a priest and talking with him. It’s a journey. It’s discernment.”

The cardinal-designate also said he expects the exhortation will be the basis of his work at the new dicastery.

“That will be the guiding document without a doubt for the years to come,” said Farrell.

“I think that we all need to read that document many, many times,” he said. “I have read it probably seven or eight times and I find every time I’m reading it as if I’m reading it for the first time. There’s something new.” […..]

Francis and “Saint” Martin Luther: Perfect Together

by Christopher A. Ferrara

Our series on the font of error that is Pope Francis continues with his performance before an audience of Lutheran “pilgrims” from Germany at the Vatican on October 13. That date was the 99th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima; but Francis [.....] devoted the day to celebrating the memory of Martin Luther in the Paul VI Audience Hall.
A statue of the arch-heretic shared the stage with Francis during the event, at which two male Lutheran ministers, one sporting an earring, placed into his hands a mammoth ceremonial copy of the 95 Theses, commonly viewed as the landmark for the beginning of the so-called Reformation. One of the ministers quoted Luther to the effect that he wished his work to be delivered to others who had never read it. Never in his wildest dreams did Luther ever foresee that one of the recipients would be an approving Pope. Francis spent most of the audience wearing two scarves, one yellow the other blue, knotted together to symbolize the “unity” between Lutherans and orthodox Catholics that exists only in his imagination. Or perhaps Francis had in view the unity that does indeed exist between Lutherans and the liberalized Catholic majority, who have effectively become Protestants thanks in large measure to the ruinous novelty of “ecumenism.” [.....]

But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed. Now a hyper-ecumenical Pope is personally engaged in destroying the foundations of the Catholic faith precisely in the name of ecumenism, carpet bombing the Church with cocky latitudinarian utterances, usually delivered with a sneer and a tone of indignant irritation at the orthodox Catholics who would differ with the crowd-pleasing bromides he appears to regard as authentic Catholic spirituality.
Indulging in his customary heretical blather in response to questions put to him by members of his Lutheran audience, Francis declared that Catholics and Lutherans belong to the “one body of Christ.” [.....] In the Gospel According to Francis, the ultimate Catholic ecumenist, there are no crucial differences between Lutherans and Catholics. We are all Christians. We all follow the Gospel, including those who think the Gospel allows for divorce, contraception, sodomy and abortion in “difficult” situations. For Francis, the rank heresy and immorality promoted by Luther’s progeny, including the woman “bishop” Francis warmly greeted, are irrelevant. Catholics have their saints and Lutherans have theirs, including the degenerate maniac who founded their man-made religion, whose statue Francis dignified with his presence beside it.
Far from the mind of Francis is the reality that there is no “Lutheran Church” and never has been. Nor does he seem to notice that Lutheranism itself is fractured into numerous opposing sects whose corrupted doctrines more or less reject the infallible dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church on numerous points as well as precepts of the natural law written even on the hearts of faithless pagans, let alone people who profess to be Christians. Francis’s performance on October 13 effectively denied the salvific necessity of the Church, a denial thematic of his entire pontificate. His hyper-ecumenism, of which the spectacle on October 13 is but the latest demonstration, also effectively denies the function of the Petrine office as the sine qua non of Christian unity. The papal bully pulpit, however, is a most suitable vehicle for the worldwide promulgation of Bergoglianism, a religion Lutherans find entirely agreeable, as their delighted applause in the audience hall indicated. And Francis will confirm their delight when he travels to Sweden at the end of this month to commemorate the beginning of the Protestant rebellion and participate in a joint liturgy with Lutheran lay people masquerading in clerical costumes, thereby confirming them in all their abominable errors, none of which matter in the least to Francis. [.....]

The Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

and other “highly reductive ideological views”

Bishop Guido Marini, Pope Benedict’s Master of Ceremonies, said that there is no difference in the traditional Church before Vatican II (1962-1965) and after. He stated: “Terms like ‘preconciliar’ and ‘postconciliar,’ belong to an outdated language, and if they are used with the intention of indicating a discontinuity in the Church’s journey, I maintain that they are mistaken and typical of highly reductive ideological views.”

Cardinal Kasper teaches:

“… today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being Catholics. This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper, Prefect of Vatican Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Feb. 26, 2001

The Church Infallibly Teaches:

“… 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

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives….”

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Cantate Domino

Cardinal Kasper teaches:

“The old theory of substitution (of the New Covenant for the Old) is gone since the Second Vatican Council… Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, that is, the faithful response of the Jewish people to God’s irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper, Prefect of Vatican Council for Promoting Christian Unity, May 1, 2001

The Church Infallibly Teaches:

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic Law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time (the promulgation of the Gospel) observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors.”

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Cantate Domino

Looming ahead is the Great Apostasy predicted by St. Paul to the Thessalonians when the Antichrist, “the man of sin” (2 Thess. 2: 3), will engage mankind in wholesale flight from God and reality. From him can be expected perfect acquiescence to the three temptations by which the devil failed to seduce Christ in the desert. Turning stones into bread by substituting false teaching for true doctrine, he will confirm the satanic religion by false miracles, (that is “lying wonders”), as it were casting himself down from the pinnacle of the temple to be borne up by spiritual hands. Given “all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory” (Matt. 4: 8-9) in return for falling down and adoring Satan, Antichrist the King will establish a universal empire in the fallen angel’s name. Aping as closely as possible Christ’s consummation of the law and the prophets, he will capitulate in his person the whole of the world’s apostatic tradition.

Solange Strong Hertz, Apostasy in America

“Revelation manifests itself more and more each day… it’s always moving.”

It is a dogma of divine and Catholic faith that Revelation was completed at the death of the last Apostle!

Ideologies are bewitching; and so Paul says: “Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?” Those who preach with ideologies: everything’s right! They are bewitching: it’s all clear! But look, God’s revelation isn’t clear eh? God’s revelation manifests itself more and more each day; it is always moving. Is it clear? Crystal clear! It is Him, but we have to find it along the way. Those who think they possess the whole truth are not just ignorant, Paul goes as far as to call them ‘foolish’ for letting themselves be bewitched.

Pope Francis, sermon, October 6, 2016

COMMENT:

What does St. Paul really have to say to the Galatians (and to us as well)?

O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, that, whereas you began in the Spirit, you would now be made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so great things in vain? If it be yet in vain. He therefore who giveth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you; doth he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of the faith?

As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. Know ye therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing, that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, told unto Abraham before: In thee shall all nations be blessed. Therefore they that are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law, are under a curse. For it is written: Cursed is every one, that abideth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them.

But that in the law no man is justified with God, it is manifest: because the just man liveth by faith. But the law is not of faith: but, He that doth those things, shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus: that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. Brethren (I speak after the manner of man,) yet a man’ s testament, if it be confirmed, no man despiseth, nor addeth to it.

To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, And to his seeds, as of many: but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. [.....] For you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’ s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3: 1-29

You can only surmise that Pope Francis has never read Galatians, chapter 3. Whatever he has learned about the text could only have been derived from secondary sources attempting to indoctrinate by an exegesis that is ideologically driven. The liberation theologians Pope Francis admires routinely used these methods. Suffice to say, St. Paul is not berating the Galatians because they claimed to “possess the whole truth,” but because they did not “obey the truth.” They could not be chastised for failing to “obey the truth” if they in fact did not “possess the whole truth.” They have been “bewitched” by Judaizers whose purpose in persecuting the Catholic Church was to reduce it to a Jewish sect and destroy it. The Galatians were called “foolish” for turning away from the “whole truth,” which they had received from St. Paul, and following the Judaizers. Perhaps the “bewitching” was the fault of the first pope, St. Peter, who was guilty of Judaizing by his “dissimulation” when he “walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel.”

But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that some came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision. And to his dissimulation the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them into that dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We by nature are Jews, and not of the Gentiles sinners.

Galatians 2: 11-15

St. Peter was guilty of the same sin that Pope Francis regularly commits, Judaizing. It is the sin that characterizes Protestantism, particularly the Calvinist variety. Pope Francis has claimed that the Old Testament is still valid and has performed Old Testament rituals. Suffice to say, Pope Francis is as ignorant as a stick in his understanding of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The Catholics he addresses were “bewitched” because, they were led by the “dissimulation” of St. Peter, and like him, “walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel.”

Pope Francis says that “Ideologies are bewitching.” True. And no one is more “bewitched” than Francis/Bergoglio himself who, like our first pope, must be “withstood to the face.” Perhaps someday he will repent as St. Peter did. Pray that the grace of God may prevail upon him. Until then, whenever this “senseless” man is quoting scripture let the listener beware!

“Time is Greater than Space: A constant tension exists between fullness and limitation. Fullness evokes the desire for complete possession, while limitation is a wall set before us. Broadly speaking, “time” has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself. Here we see a first principle for progress in building a people: time is greater than space.”

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, “Time is Greater than Space”

“God manifests himself in historical revelation, in history. Time initiates processes, and space crystallizes them. God is in history, in the processes. We must initiate processes, rather than occupy spaces.”

Pope Francis, Interview with Anthony Spadaro

Since “time is greater than space,” I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral, or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does. Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs. For “cultures are in fact quite diverse and every general principle…needs to be inculterated, if it is to be respected and applied.”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

“Time is Greater than Space” is the metaphor employed by Pope Francis for his belief in the Modernist doctrine of the Hegelian evolution of revealed truth that is always in the process of becoming while never reaching its term in substantial being. It is the audacity of those who prefer their own searching for truth to its actual possession. St. Pius X in Pascendi condemned the heresy of Modernism providing for all faithful Catholics for all time a detailed exposition of Modernist errors as well as the source for these errors, the most important of which is an insufferable pride. Since doctrine drives morals, a changing doctrine causes a change in morals. The encyclical cannot be sufficiently reflected upon because all who do not regard dogma in its nature as the direct revelation of God that constitutes the immutable formal objects of divine and Catholic faith are infected with this disease to some degree. Catholic dogma is the only defense against the Modernists corruption of Catholic morals as seen in the current attack upon marriage and the family and the distribution of Holy Communion to those in objective adultery.

Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. […..] For amongst the chief points of their teaching is this which they deduce from the principle of vital immanence; that religious formulas (dogma), to be really religious and not merely theological speculations, ought to be living and to live the life of the religious sentiment….. Hence it comes that these formulas, to be living, should be, and should remain, adapted to the faith and to him who believes. Wherefore if for any reason this adaptation should cease to exist, they lose their first meaning and accordingly must be changed. And since the character and lot of dogmatic formulas is so precarious, there is no room for surprise that Modernists regard them so lightly and in such open disrespect. And so they audaciously charge the Church both with taking the wrong road from inability to distinguish the religious and moral sense of formulas from their surface meaning, and with clinging tenaciously and vainly to meaningless formulas whilst religion is allowed to go to ruin. […..] First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself, and the penalty of disobedience is death. [……] If we pass from the moral to the intellectual causes of Modernism, the first which presents itself, and the chief one, is ignorance. [….] They recognise that the three chief difficulties for them are scholastic philosophy, the authority of the fathers and tradition, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. ……

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi

Peace Plan of Our Lady of Fatima

1. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA REQUEST?

At Fatima Our Lady said that God wished to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady said that many souls would be saved from Hell and the annihilation of nations averted if, in time, devotion to Her Immaculate Heart were established principally by these two means:

A) the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope together with the world’s bishops in a solemn public ceremony,

B) the practice or receiving Holy Communion (and other specific devotions of about 1/2 hour in duration) in reparation for the sins committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months--a practice known to Catholics as “the First Saturday” devotion.

2. HAVE THESE REQUESTS OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA BEEN HONORED?

No, not entirely. A number of the Faithful practice the “First Saturday” devotion, but Russia has yet to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a solemn public ceremony conducted by the Pope together with the world’s Catholic bishops.

In 1982 the last Fatima seer, Lucia, when a cloistered nun living in Coimbra, Portugal, was asked if an attempted consecration by Pope John Paul II had sufficed. She replied that it did not suffice, because Russia was not mentioned and the world’s bishops had not participated. Another attempted consecration in 1984 likewise did not mention Russia or involve the participation of many of the world’s bishops, and Sister Lucia stated immediately afterwards that this consecration, too, had failed to meet Our Lady’s requirements.

3. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA WARN?

It warns that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the Consecration of Russia and the First Saturday devotion are not honored, the Church will be persecuted, there will be other major wars, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated. Many nations will be enslaved by Russian militant atheists. Most important, many souls will be lost.

4. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA PROMISE?

The Message of Fatima promises that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima are carried out “My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will Consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to mankind.”

Comment: In a brief article, Pope Francis denies the dogma that there is ‘no salvation outside the Catholic Church’; He denies that the West has any right to cultural integrity; He demands the importation of cultural and pagan aliens within the West while saying nothing about how and why these aliens have become refugees, and who is responsible for this crime; He correctly says that Catholic proselytism for the salvation of souls and ecumenism, that promotes religious indifferentism, are mutually exclusive; Pope Francis declares that he is an admirer and follower of the heresiarch, Martin Luther!

Is the purpose of his pilgrimage to Sweden to make a profession of faith in the Lutheran heresy and an abjuration of Catholic truth?

Pope: Those who defend Christ but turn away refugees are hypocrites

During today’s audience with around a thousand Lutherans, two weeks ahead of his visit to Sweden for the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Reformation, Francis reiterated that proselytism is “the most powerful poison against ecumenism”

Vatican Insider | Iacopo Scaramuzzi | October 13, 2016

It is hypocritical for “someone to call themselves Christian and then go and turn away a refugee”. Those who “defend Christianity in the West on the one hand but on the other are against refugees and other religions” contradict themselves. On the day Francis’ message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees is published, he returns to the migration issue in an audience with a group of Lutherans who came on an ecumenical pilgrimage to Rome, two weeks ahead of the Pope’s visit to Sweden for the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation (31 October – 1 November). Proselytism, said Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is “the most powerful poison” against ecumenism. “The saints” are the greatest reformers. And the Church must always be reformed.

“You said there are many things you like about the Catholic Church, others not so much. What do I like about the Lutheran Church and what do I not like?” the Pope said in his off-the-cuff responses to questions put to him by five young Germans. “I really like good Lutherans, Lutherans who really practice their faith in Jesus Christ. What I don’t like are lukewarm Catholics and lukewarm Lutherans”. It’s a “contradiction” when Christians “are keen to defend Christianity in the West on the one hand but on the other are averse to refugees and other religions. And one doesn’t read about this in books; newspapers and news programs talk about this every day. The sickness, one may also say the sin that Jesus condemns the most is hypocrisy. A Christian cannot be a Christian unless they live like a Christian. A Christian cannot be a Christian without practising the Beatitudes. A Christian cannot be a Christian if they do not do as Jesus asks of them in Matthew chapter 25. Jesus urges his disciples to avoid this sin, this act of hypocrisy: “Beware of the leaven of hypocrisy.” It is hypocritical for a Christian to call him or herself such only to then turn away a refugee, someone who is hungry, someone who needs help. If I call myself a Christian but act this way, then I am a hypocrite. I mentioned Matthew chapter 25, this is important because it is the criteria against which we shall be judged. But Jesus taught us the Christian coherence in that beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan. That poor man was in need, a priest saw him and walked off, then a sinner approached him, felt mercy toward him and consoled him. This is the path we need to follow, the ecumenical path amongst ourselves, helping others, the needy, our brothers and sisters who are among us. And praying.”

In the speech he addressed at the start of the audience to participants of the Lutheran ecumenical pilgrimage, Francis – who spoke in Italian, with an interpreter translating into German – said amid applause: “What unites us is much more than what divides us!” He reminded those present that at the end of October he will be visiting Lund, in Sweden, to “commemorate” the Lutheran Reformation, 500 years on, together with the Lutheran World Reformation: “The witness that the world expects from us is mainly that of making visible the mercy that God has toward us through service to the poor, the sick, those who have left their homeland to seek a better future for themselves and for loved ones. In being of service to the most needy we experience already that we are united: it is the mercy of God that unites us,” Francis said, attracting fresh applause.

“Medieval theologians used to say in Latin, that the Church is always in need of reform,” Ecclesia semper reformanda, the Pope said, receiving waves of applause that rippled through the Paul VI Hall where around a thousand Lutheran pilgrims were gathered: “This is what progress and maturing is about and the Church progresses, matures and so many small and not so small Church reforms moved, wanted to move along this path, some reforms were not successful, they were too much. Human things never are but reformation is an ecclesial process, that is what I mean. The question was: ‘who do you see as the Church’s the Churches’ and history’s greatest reformers?,” Francis said repeating the question. “I would say,” he continued, “that the Church’s greatest reformers are the saints, in other words the men and women who follow the Word of the Lord and practice it. This is the path we need to take, this is what reforms the church and they are great reformers, they may not be theologians, they may not have studied, they may be humble but these people’s soul is steeped in the Gospel, it’s full of it and they are the ones who successfully reform the Church. Both in the Lutheran and Catholic Churches there are saints, men and women with a holy heart who follow the Gospel: they are the Church’s reformers.”

The Pope picked up on a question put to him by a girl from Saxony-Anhalt, about the fact that 80% of locals do not belong to any Christian denomination: “Should I convince these friends - who are good and happy people - of my faith?” Francis said, repeating the question. “What should I tell them to convince them? Listen,” he said, “the last thing you should do is ‘tell’. You should live as a Christian who is chosen, forgiven and forging a path. It is not right to convince them of your faith, proselytism is the most powerful poison against the path of ecumenism,” the Pope underlined, reiterating what he recently told the Orthodox during his visit to Georgia. “You must bear witness to your Christian life, testimony stirs the heart of those who see you. And this restlessness triggers the question: why does this man or woman live like this? This prepares the terrain for what the Holy Spirit, which is the one that sets to work in people’s hearts and does what it needs to do: but it is he who needs to tell, not you. Grace, Francis continued, referring to a theme the Protestant Reformation is big on, “is a gift and the Holy Spirit is God’s gift, the source of grace, it is the gift Jesus sent us with his death and resurrection. It will be the Holy Spirit that will move the heart through your testimony and that is where you can subtly explain the reason. But without seeking to convince.”

“Historical & Cultural Reasons” for schism and heresy-

Justin Welby is not the “Anglican Primate.” He is a layman, who heads a state church who, along with women and homosexuals, masquerades as a “bishop.” His church was founded upon the moral principles of divorce, adultery and the looting of the Catholic Church property – that is, lust and avarice are its twin pillars. The false theology followed to justify the crimes. It is to this whore Pope Francis seeks to be “united in a common cause to uphold and defend the dignity of all people?”

“The world must see us witnessing faith in Jesus together”

Although the joint declaration signed by Francis and the head of the Church of England, Justin Welby, does not hide the differences and difficulties that exist between the two Churches, a new missionary season begins: “We can, and must, be united in a common cause to uphold and defend the dignity of all people”

Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | 05/10/2016

“We can, and must, be united in a common cause to uphold and defend the dignity of all people.” A little before 7 pm on Wednesday 5 October, in the Church of Sts. Andrew and Gregory on the Caelian Hill in Rome, Pope Francis and the Anglican Primate, Justin Welby, signed a joint declaration heralding a new missionary season. The religious leaders came together to say the vespers in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Paul VI’s meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey in 1966 and the establishment of the Anglican Centre in Rome. The location is significant. In his homily Francis said it was from here that “Pope Gregory sent Augustine to evangelise the Anglo-Saxon people” beginning a new chapter in the history of evangelisation, which is a common history and inextricably binds the Churches together.

Commenting on a reading containing the words of the prophet Ezekiel, Francis said God is depicted as a Shepherd, who “desires the unity of His people, and he especially desires those appointed as Shepherds under him to spend themselves in pursuit of unity”. This is despite “the darkness of incomprehension and suspicion and, overhead, the dark clouds of disagreements and disputes, gathered around us – often formed for historical and cultural reasons and not only for theological reasons”. [……]

CATHOLIC PROPHECY: “The two popes..... this false church.... strange big church..... heterodox church.... nothing holy in it..... “

May 13, 1820: 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.

Once more I saw that the Church of Peter was undermined by a plan evolved by the secret sect, while storms were damaging it. But I saw also that help was coming when distress had reached its peak. I saw again the Blessed Virgin ascend on the Church and spread her mantle [over it]. I saw a Pope who was at once gentle, and very firm. . . I saw a great renewal, and the Church rose high in the sky.

September 12, 1820: I saw a strange church being built against every rule. . . No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above. . . There was only division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind. . .

I saw again the strange big church that was being built there (in Rome). There was nothing holy in it. I saw this just as I saw a movement led by Ecclesiastics to which contributed angels, saints and other Christians. But there (in the strange big church) all the work was being done mechanically (i.e. according to set rules and formulae). Everything was being done according to human reason. . .

I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single Angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: “Do build it as solid as you can; we will pull it to the ground.”

Blessed Anna Katherina Emmerich, Catholic Prophecy by Yves DuPont

“If you love me you will keep my commandments… He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him… If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father’ s commandments, and do abide in his love… In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments.” (John 14:15; 14:21; 15:10; 1 John 5:2)

Pope Francis will learn that souls are “condemned for ever” who teach the Lutheran heresy of justification and deny the Catholic dogma that to abide in “true charity” is “conditional” upon keeping the commandments!

The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for ever; it is to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart… For true charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous….

It is a matter of reaching out to everyone, of needing to help each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial com-munity and thus to experience being touched by an “unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous” mercy. No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, paragraphs 296 and 297

Pope Francis is fond of “creating a mess.” Mission accomplished.

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, R.I.

“Abstract things” like divorce, and purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception, and papal universal jurisdiction, and infallibility, and the necessity of being Catholic for salvation, and etc., etc., etc.

And now one last thing. The problem of Ecumenism. Never fight. Let’s leave that to theologians who study the abstract things of theology. What do I need to do with a friend or neighbor who is Orthodox? Do I have to do everything to convert them. There is a grave sin against ecumenism - proselytism. One must never proselytize the Orthodox.

Pope Francis to the faithful Chaldean, Armenian, and Assyrian Catholic religious in Tbilisi, Georgia, 10-1-2016

Jews have persecuted the Catholic Church from the time of Jesus Christ to this very day!

[The Jews are] a people who, having imbrued their hands in a most heinous outrage [Jesus’ crucifixion], have thus polluted their souls and are deservedly blind. . . . Therefore we have nothing in common with that most hostile of people the Jews. We have received from the Savior another way . . . our holy religion. . . . On what subject will that detestable association be competent to from a correct judgment, who after that murder of their Lord . . . are led… by. . . their innate fury?

Council of Nicaea, 325 AD

Why do Jewish leaders overwhelmingly support homosexual “marriage” for the U.S. (and Europe) and not for Israel? Is this what is meant by “hostility” and “innate fury”?

On May 21, 2013, Vice President Joseph Biden “praised Jewish leaders in the media... crediting them with helping change American attitudes on gay marriage.” In a speech at a Democratic National Convention reception celebrating Jewish Heritage Month, Biden claimed that the Jews were responsible for changing peoples’ attitudes on gay marriage: “It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ “said Biden, referring to an NBC sitcom that went off the air nine years ago. “It was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage..... I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry... The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

The liberal Jewish magazine Tikkun agreed with Vice President Biden’s assessment: gay marriage was a Jewish creation. As Amy Dean put it: “In a few short years, same-sex marriage went from being an untouchable political hot potato to a broadly accepted civil right in eighteen states and the District of Columbia. Jews, and their social justice organizations, helped make that happen.” [.....] The victories in the states around marriage equality owed much to local and national Jewish social justice groups who looked beyond the political consensus of the time. Even five years ago, many of these groups stood behind same-sex couples who wished to marry. National Jewish social justice organizations such as the National Council of Jewish Women, the Religious Action Center of reform Judaism, and Bend the Arc (on whose board I currently serve as co-chair), helped to galvanize the American Jewish community to support pro-marriage equality bills in the states. In fact, Jews can claim a fair share of the credit for bringing Americans to a tipping point of accepting marriage equality.

E. Michael Jones, Why we Lost the Culture Wars

The Inevitable Pope – He makes the radical pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI look sober!

The media is awash with positive fascination with Pope Francis. Secular blogs known for their hostility to the Catholic Church are effusive in their approval of Papa Bergoglio in whom they see as the man who will transform the Catholic Church into a religious version of liberal secularism. But whatever adjectives one applies to Pope Francis, the most apt is really “inevitable”. That the Church should have a Pope like Francis was inevitable, for he is the first Pope who is a product of the post-Vatican II Church. His two predecessors, Blessed Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, were products of a pre-Conciliar Church. They were trained for the priesthood and were ordained immediately after World War II. They were formed by what one could call a classical preparation for the priesthood. While it is true that both of Pope Francis’ predecessors played significant roles in the Second Vatican Council, they were not formed by the Council. They were the last Popes to have an institutional memory of the Church before Vatican II. And so it is not surprising that both John Paul and Benedict made doctrinal continuity an important aspect of their respective papacies.

Pope Francis is the first Pope who was ordained priest after the Second Vatican Council. His whole ministry in the Church has been in the post-Conciliar time. He was ordained in 1969, four years after the close of the Second Vatican Council. Thus the beginning of his ministry in the Church took place in that decade after the Council that was marked by upheaval, confusion, and rapid change both in the Church and in the Western world. The Jesuit order, of which he was and is a member, was in many ways an icon of that tumultuous time in the Church’s history. Under Pedro Arrupe, named Father General of the Jesuits in the year the Council closed, the Jesuits cast off their image as the brilliant soldiers of the Pope to take on an image of revolutionaries, both in the ecclesial and worldly sense. Their espousement of liberation theology, their active involvement in opposing oppressive governments, and their anti-authoritarian attitudes gained them the admiration of some, as well as the public rebuke of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Like so many religious orders, they experienced a real decimation in their ranks, from which they still have not recovered.

Pope Francis’ inevitability is not merely temporal, that sooner or later someone ordained after Vatican II would become Pope. His inevitability has a deeper meaning: that the foment and confusion and both spiritual and ecclesial amnesia that marked the decades of the 60s and 70s are once again present. It is back to the future in many ways. The church leaders of those heady days are coming back out of hiding. In Rome, a city having an uncanny sense of shifts in direction, those who found the last two papacies oppressive with their insistence on St. Augustine’s dictum, “Love and do what you will”, think that they can again act according to their own version of the great saint’s directive: “Do what you will and call it love”. Those who chafed under the insistence on continuity and Tradition of John Paul and Benedict now can proclaim what they have always believed: that the last two papacies were mere aberrations, just a temporary holding back of the inevitable apotheosis of the Zeitgeist of Vatican II that will usher in an age of peace, joy and love without the encumbrances of doctrinal and moral authority....

Fr. Richard Cipolla, D. Phil.

In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.

Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, personal theologian to four Popes

Top philosopher: Pope must revoke ‘objectively heretical’ statements to avoid schism

LifeSiteNews | September 21, 2016 — Josef Seifert, Austrian Catholic philosopher and close friend of the late Pope St. John Paul II, said in a new interview that he hopes Pope Francis revokes the “objectively heretical” statements in Amoris Laetitia to avoid “schism,” “heresy,” and “the complete split in the Church.”

Speaking to Gloria.TV about a letter he wrote Pope Francis and an essay he penned outlining some of his concerns with the exhortation, Seifert explained that there are four conclusions one can draw from Amoris Laetitia.

These four conclusions “are radically distinct and therefore I think one must clarify which is the true answer,” he said. [.....]

Seifert will speak up ‘even if I am murdered for it’

Pope Francis would only “grow in esteem and respect in the world” if he retracted the statements in Amoris Laetitia that seemingly contradict Catholic doctrine, Seifert said. If he “persists in it,” then there is the “danger of schism.”

“To avoid schism and to avoid heresy and to avoid the complete split in the Church, I think it is necessary that the pope … be told [these] problems” and revoke them, Seifert said.

Seifert pointed out that he is not the only Catholic academic raising the alarm about Amoris Laetitia. Professor Robert Spaemann, a leading German philosophy professor and close friend of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and Dr. Jude P. Dougherty, the dean emeritus of the School of Philosophy at Catholic University of America, both raised serious concerns with the exhortation. The former called it a “breach” with Catholic tradition and the latter wrote that Pope Francis’ ambiguity means “what was certain before has become problematic.”

“Even if I am murdered for it, I think I have to speak up because one cannot remain silent if one feels that important truths which are also very important for the eternal salvation of the faithful are obscured … in the document,” Seifert said.

In essentials, there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Benedict and Francis!

Benedict XVI Is Pleased With ‘New Freshness in the Church, a New Joy’

In Benedict XVI’s own words in new book, he sees ‘no breach anywhere’ between his pontificate and that of his successor.

NCR | MUNICH — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has said he is satisfied with the papacy of Pope Francis and sees “no contradictions” between their pontificates.

“Yes, there is suddenly a new freshness in the Church, a new joy, a new charisma that addresses the people, which is something beautiful. Many are thankful that the new pope now approaches them in a new style. The Pope is the pope; it doesn’t matter who it is,” Benedict said in his newly published collection of interviews.

The collection, published as Last Testament, consists of his interviews with journalist Peter Seewald. Seewald had previously interviewed him for Salt of the Earth, God and the World and Light of the World.

Archbishop George Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary of Benedict XVI, took part in the latest book’s Sept. 12 launch with Seewald in Munich. Archbishop Ganswein’s remarks excerpted and interpreted the former pope’s words to Seewald.

In Benedict XVI’s own words, he sees “no breach anywhere” between his pontificate and that of his successor.

“New accents, yes, but no contradictions,” he told Seewald. “He is a man of practical reform. And that is the courage with which he addresses problems and searches for solutions.”

Benedict praised Francis’ “direct affection for the people.”

“That is very important. He is definitely a man of reflection — and a thoughtful person — but at the same time, someone who is used to always being with people,” the emeritus pope said. “And perhaps I was actually not with the people enough.” [......]

Benedict still delights in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, during which he was a theological consultant. But he also sees problems with that epochal event.

“We thought then overly theological [about issues] and did not consider what public image these things would have,” he said. There were also “many destructions and delusions.”

Benedict saw himself as a progressive at the time, when others would denigrate him with claims he was a freemason, or incapable, or heretical.

The former pope says he is frequently astonished by his “naïveté” and the “brazenness” with which he spoke at the time.

At the same time, he now describes himself as a “true fan of John XXIII” and the “total unconventionality” of the canonized pope who called the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. [....]

Or is this just an indirect declaration that there is not any difference between the Novus Ordo communion and the Lutheran communion service?

Pope Francis in a letter to the hierarchy of Argentina has unambiguously declared that the proper understanding of Amoris Laetatia permits the reception of the communion at the Novus Ordo by divorced and remarried Catholics living in adultery. To all the idiots who were extending him the benefit of interpreting his ambiguities in an orthodox sense let it be known that the purpose of the papal office is to teach the divinely revealed and received truths with absolute clarity. It is the failure to teach with clarity from which all evils come. Pope Francis is an enemy of the faith and Catholics must now decide if they want to follow him to hell or in opposing him, save their souls.

Pope Francis, Arch-heretic, you are not welcome in Orthodox Georgia! Vatican is a Spiritual Agressor!

Orthodox greeting for Pope Francis in Georgia

After careful consideration the Vatican has decided to lay hands upon Francis and send him to Mars so he cannot proselytize the Martians which would be a sin against ecumenism! Anyway, do Martians have original sin?

Pope Francis Says He Would Baptize Martians, Asks ‘Who Are We To Close Doors?

Antonia Blumberg | Associated Religion Editor | Huffington Post | May 2014

Pope Francis said in his morning Mass on Monday that if Martians came to him asking to be baptized he wouldn’t turn them away, Vatican radio reports.

The pope’s message was one of inclusion, saying the Holy Spirit is not always predictable. He told a story from the Acts of Apostles in which Peter observes a group of non-Christians receiving the Holy Spirit. Other Christians later criticize Peter for consorting with these people, to which Pope Francis responded:

“That was unthinkable. If – for example - tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”

Pope Francis would not be one to turn away someone seeking baptism — even if they were an alien. He urges clergy to foster an open door policy for all to receive church teachings.

“Who are we to close doors? In the early Church, even today, there is the ministry of the ostiary [usher]. And what did the ostiary do? He opened the door, received the people, allowed them to pass. But it was never the ministry of the closed door, never.”

Pope Francis is not the first one to hint at alien baptism. Vatican scientist Guy Consolmagno suggested in 2010 that aliens might have souls and could be baptized if they asked for it.

“Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has – has a soul,” Consolmagno said in a talk preceding the British Science Festival in Birmingham.

“Sustainable Development Goals” - ultimately call for a world population of 500 million! Five and half billion people have to go!

Pope Francis “gratified” by UN goals that demand “universal access to sexual and reproductive health”

Voice of the Family | September 2, 2016

Pope Francis has said that he is “gratified” by UN goals that call on member states to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health” by 2030. The term “sexual and reproductive health”, as generally defined, includes access to contraception, including abortifacient methods, and, often, other forms of abortion. In a message entitled “For the celebration of the world day of prayer for the care of creation” Pope Francis stated that he was “gratified that in September 2015 the nations of the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, and that, in December 2015, they approved the Paris Agreement on climate change”.

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by nation states in September 2015, consist of 17 goals and 169 targets, which will determine the direction of international aid and action until 2030. These goals were endorsed by the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Sustainable Development Goals call on member states to:

“ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programs” (Goal 3 Target 7)

The term “sexual and reproductive health care services” is defined by United Nation bodies as including contraception, including forms that have an abortifacient mode of effect. The United Nations Population Fund states that “sexual and reproductive health” includes access for all to “the safe, effective, affordable and acceptable contraception method of their choice”. Furthermore it is used by many international governments, including that of the United States, and by agencies such as Planned Parenthood, to include other forms of abortion.

The World Health Organization also considers abortion to be integral to “sexual and reproductive health”. The WHO:

· “develops norms, tools and guidelines on reproductive health in general and abortion services in particular, and supports countries in reforming their health systems. Its role includes:

· distributing existing evidence on abortion;

· assisting Member States in evaluating health systems’ response to the needs of women with unwanted pregnancies;

· promoting methodology in quality control of abortion services; and

· training of trainers in, for example, counselling and abortion care.”

The WHO, as part of its work to promote “sexual and reproductive health”, actively works to “improve access to abortion and the quality of their abortion services” in “countries such as Ireland”, which currently have restrictive abortion laws.

The implementation of the SDG’s call to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services” will necessarily involve the further extension of attempts by UN agencies and international organisations to radically increase contraception use and access to abortion worldwide. It will be instructive therefore to consider what is already being done in the name of “universal access to sexual and reproductive health care”.

The “Maputo Plan of Action for the Operationaliation of the Continental Policy Framework for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” aimed at “Universal Access to Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Africa”. It was produced in 2006 following a special session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health in Maputo, Mozambique.

The document specifically identified “Abortion Care” as an integral part of sexual and reproductive health. It’s plan of action for “Implementing the Continental Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy Framework” included the following resolutions:

5.2.1a Train service providers in the provision of comprehensive safe abortion care services where national law allows

5.2.2 Refurbish and equip facilities for provision of comprehensive abortion care services

5.3.1a Provide safe abortion services to the fullest extent of the law

5.3.2 Educate communities on available safe abortion services as allowed by national laws

The “Maputo Plan of Action” targets for attaining “universal access to sexual and reproductive health” explicitly included access to “family planning” and “emergency contraception”. The document also specifically targets children, stating that “Addressing the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents and youth” is a key component of sexual and reproductive health.”

The “Maputo Plan” is one of many projects in which the promotion of abortion and contraception is integral to efforts to achieve “universal access to sexual and reproductive health” around the world. The implementation of the SDGs will lead to the further spread of abortion and contraception worldwide, bringing about the deaths of countless numbers of unborn children and causing immense harm to individuals and societies.

Pope Francis has professed himself ”gratified” by international targets that will result in unimaginable devastation and suffering for an untold number families around the world.

This is perhaps the most tragic example of the now well-entrenched collaboration between the Holy See and the world’s leading proponents of abortion, contraception and population control, under the guise of promoting sustainable development. A selection of Voice of the Family’s commentary on this collaboration can be found below.

It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.

Josef Stalin

Catholic parents using Catholic schools that they paid for thereby lose their parental rights?

U.S. bishop makes ‘erotic’ sex-ed mandatory, cites Vatican sex-ed to parents wanting opt-out

LifeSiteNews | NASHVILLE, Tennessee | September 19, 2016

A U.S. Catholic bishop has explicitly refused to allow parents to opt their kids out of a diocesan-run school’s sex-ed program deemed by parents to be “erotic” and “salacious,” calling the program a “legitimate requirement” for graduation.

Instead of listening to the parents’ concerns, the bishop has cited the Vatican’s newly minted and problematic sex-ed curriculum as a way to evaluate the school’s program. In a letter dated September 2, Bishop David Choby of the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, told parents opposing the sex-ed program that while he “wholeheartedly support[s]” their right as “primary educator,” nevertheless, when they send their children to school, they no longer exercise that right when it comes to school “requirements.”

“Thus, in choosing Father Ryan High School as the place to engage your son in formal education, you have agreed to observe its legitimate requirements relating to the ultimate goal of your son receiving a diploma from the school,” the letter, obtained by LifeSiteNews, states.

But the Catholic Church teaches that the rights of parents over their children is “irreplaceable and inalienable and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others.” With respect to sex education, the Church specifically calls it the “basic right and duty of parents” that “must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.” [....]

“Have confidence, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

We have here a prophecy of four great facts: first, of a revolt, which shall precede the second coming of our Lord; secondly, of the manifestation of one who is called “the wicked one”; thirdly, of a hindrance, which restrains his manifestation; and lastly, of the period of power and persecution, of which he will be the author. [.....] It seems to need little proof that this revolt or apostasy is a separation, not from the civil, but from the spiritual order and authority; for the sacred writers, again and again, speak of such a spiritual separation; and in one place St. Paul seems expressly to declare the meaning of this word. He forewarns St. Timothy that in the later days, “some shall depart or apostatise from the faith” ; and it seems evident that the same spiritual falling away is intended by the apostasy in this place. The authority, then, from which the revolt is to take place is that of the kingdom of God on earth, prophesied by Daniel as the kingdom which the God of heaven should set up, after the four kingdoms should be destroyed by the stone cut out without hands, which became a great mountain and filled the whole earth; or, in other words, the one universal Church, founded by our Divine Lord, and spread by His Apostles throughout the world. [....] The three notes (of the apostasy) will be schism, heresy and the denial of the Incarnation. [....] The theory, that politics and religion have different spheres, is an illusion and a snare. For history can only be truly read in the light of faith; and the present can only be interpreted by the light of revelation: for above the human wills which are now in conflict, there is a Will, sovereign and divine, which is leading all things to fulfil its own perfect end.

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

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph! “ Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima

In giving up the empire of faith as dead, and in proclaiming the independence of the reason and of the will of man, society has rendered absolute, universal, and necessary the evil which was only relative, exceptional, and contingent. This period of rapid retrogression commenced in Europe, with the restoration of paganism—philosophical, religious, and political. At this day the world is on the eve of the last of its restorations—the restoration of socialist paganism. [....]

European society is dying. The extremities are cold: the heart will be soon. And do you know why it is dying? It is dying because it has been poisoned; because God made it to be nourished with the substance of Catholic truth, and the empirical doctors have given it for food the substance of rationalism. It is dying because, like as man does not live by bread only, but by every word which comes out of the mouth of God, so societies do not perish by the sword only, but by every word which comes out of the mouth of their philosophers. It is dying because error is killing it, and because society is now founded upon errors. Know, then, that all you hold as incontrovertible, is false.

The vital force of truth is so great, that if you were possessed of one truth,—one alone,—that truth might save you. But your fall is so profound, your decline is so radical, your blindness so complete, your nakedness so absolute, that even this one truth you have not. For this reason the catastrophe which must come will be in history the catastrophe above all. Individuals may still save themselves, because individuals may always be saved; but society is lost, not because it is yet in a radical impossibility of being saved, but because it has no will to save itself. There is no salvation for society, because we will not make our sons to be Christians, and because we are not true Christians ourselves. There is no salvation for society, because the Catholic spirit, the only spirit of life, does not quicken the whole; it does not quicken education, government, institutions, laws, and morals. To change the course of things in the state in which they are, I see too well would be the enterprise of giants. There is no power upon earth which, by itself could reach this end, and hardly all the powers acting together could attain its accomplishment. I leave you to judge whether such cooperation is possible, and to what point, and to decide if, even admitting this possibility, the salvation of society would not be every way a true miracle.

Donoso Cortez, Spanish ambassador to Paris, writing in 1849 Letter quoted by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning who calls Cortez “a man of great intelligence and great faith.”

The Real Source of Division in the Church

Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | September 14, 2016

Information, disinformation, truths, half-truths and lies all seem to be jumbled up in the communication strategy of the Holy See. The history of the Church is being written through interviews, improvised discourses, articles on semi-official blogs and media-rumours, leaving the field wide open to all interpretations possible and giving rise to the suspicion that the confusion is deliberate.

Two recent examples.

The first regards the expulsion of the President of the IOR (the Vatican Bank), Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in 2012. In Benedict XVI’s latest book “Last Conversations” with Peter Seewald, the “Pope Emeritus” takes responsibility himself for Gotti Tedeschi’s dismissal, due to what he says was the need to “renew the management” of the Vatican Bank. Yet Monsignor Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict’s secretary, at one time stated that Benedict XVI knew nothing of this dismissal and “was surprised, very surprised at the motion of no confidence in the professor.” Andrea Tornielli, on October 22nd 2013, refers to it in an article entitled: Benedict XVI was very surprised at the expulsion of Gotti Tedeschi. On September 9th 2016, the same Vatican reporter, without indicating any contradiction, presents the new version, with the title: Ratzinger: it was my idea to change the management of the IOR in 2012. What’s the truth then? Most certainly someone is lying and there confusion remains.

Graver still is the second case. On September 5th 2016, a letter was published on the site Infocatolica which Pope Francis sent to the bishops of the Buenos Aires pastoral region– in response to the document Criterios básicos para la aplicación del capítulo VIII de Amoris laetitia (Fundamental criteria for the application of Chapter VIII of Amoris laetitia). In the document, which intends to provide the clergy with some criteria in relation to the eighth chapter of the exhortation, the Argentinean bishops assert that, on the basis of Amoris laetitia, the divorced and remarried, can be admitted to sacramental Communion even if they are in a common-law marriage, with no intention of practicing chastity. Pope Francis expressed his appreciation of this proposition, by writing to the prelates that “the text is very good and explains Chapter VIII of Amoris laetitia in an excellent way. There is no other interpretation. And I’m sure it will do good.” This triggered off immediate controversy and the pontifical letter mysteriously disappeared from the site, in such a way that many began to have doubts about its existence, until the Osservatore Romano confirmed its authenticity.

“There is no other interpretation”. Pope Francis’ position on the divorced and remarried - already expressed on his return flight from the Isle of Lesbos, at this point, seems definitively clear. Yet if this is his thought, why commit it to a footnote in Amoris laetitia and to a private letter not intended for publication, instead of stating it in a clear, explicit way? Perhaps in this way, the contradiction of the perennial Magisterium of the Church would be public and formal, whereas the intention is to arrive at changing the Church’s doctrine in an ambiguous and surreptitious way?

The impression is that we find ourselves faced with a manipulation of information which creates precisely those tensions and divisions inside the Church that the Pope complained about in his discourse at Santa Marta on September 12th: “[…] ideological, theological divisions that lacerate the Church. The devil sows jealousy, ambitions, ideas, but to divide! […]Divisions make you see this part, this one against the other. Always against! There is no oil of unity, the balsam of unity”. (Zenit)

Divisions however, have their source in the two-forked language of the Devil and are defeated most of all by the truth: the truth of the Faith and morality, but also the truth of language and behaviour, which means renouncing all lies, falsification and reserve, following the teaching of the Gospel “[...] let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of the evil one.” (Matthew, 5:37)

Teilhardian Claptrap from the “Preacher of the Papal Household”

Christopher A. Ferrara | Fatima Network | September 6, 2016

During Vespers on the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the aged Modernist who has been “Preacher of the Papal Household” for the past 36 years, uttered this gibberish during his so-called homily:

How long has the universe had to wait, what a long run-up it has had, to reach this point! It took billions of years during which opaque matter evolved toward the light of consciousness like the sap that slowly rises from under the ground to the top of the tree to flow into its leaves, flowers, and fruit. This consciousness was finally attained when “the human phenomenon,” as Teilhard de Chardin calls it, appeared in the universe. But now that the universe has reached this goal, it expects that human beings perform their duty and take on the task, so to speak, of directing the choir and to intone, in the name of all creation, “Glory to God in the highest!”

This, of course, is rank pantheism: the “universe” gave rise to human consciousness, not the personal Triune God by the special creation of Adam and Eve with their rational souls. So much for the Genesis account of creation and the infallible teaching of the Church on the descent of the whole human race from two first parents who fell from grace in Paradise. No, according to “the preacher of the papal household,” human consciousness just sort of bubbled up from “opaque matter” — a crude superstition worthy of pagan idolaters in the jungle.

And now, declares the “preacher of the papal household,” the universe
“expects” that man will lead the way in “caring for creation,” thus giving glory to “God.” Note the confusion between the universe and God, redolent of the heresy of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) which earned him excommunication even from the synagogues of the Netherlands. As Spinoza declared in his Ethics: ”God, or Nature”, Deus, sive Natura: “That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists.”

“The preacher of the papal household” is spouting the evolutionary nonsense of the infamous Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, whose theology is warmed-over Spinoza dressed up in pseudo-Catholic, semi-poetic musings disguised as a bold reconciliation of Scripture and the supposed “science” of neo-Darwinian evolution.

One need only recall the Holy Office Admonition of June 1962 regarding the writings of this theological and scientific fraud, who was implicated in the “discovery” of two fake fossils: Piltdown Man and Peking Man. As the Holy Office warned only weeks before the commencement of Vatican II:

Several works of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin… abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine.

For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.

After more than three years of the “Francis revolution,” however, it should come as no surprise that Francis, a liberal Jesuit formed in the Sixties, is also a devotee of de Chardin’s heretical babbling. In fact, it was Francis who rehabilitated de Chardin with a favorable reference in his “recyclical” Laudato si’.

But such is the crisis in the Church today: yesterday’s condemned heretic is today’s “authority” in Catholic theology. This is what Lucia of Fatima meant by “diabolical disorientation.” Heresy is in, orthodoxy is out. The Vatican pursues worldly projects while ignoring man’s eternal destiny. We are exhorted to “care for creation,” but no one in Rome is exhorting us to care for the immortal soul, which even the pagan philosopher Plato knew is man’s most precious possession.

The Church is upside down and only God, through the intercession of His Blessed Mother, can set it right again — as the world will see in the light of Fatima.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn sold out Europe long ago!

Austrian cardinal warns of ‘Islamic conquest’ of Europe

A Catholic cardinal tipped to be the next Pope has warned that Muslims want to eradicate Christianity and to conquer Europe.

TheLocal | Austria’s English Newspaper | 13 Sep 2016

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn made the warning on Sunday during the church festival “Holy Name of Mary”, which was first introduced 333 years ago in gratitude for the victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna.

According to the Archdiocese of Vienna, the cardinal said: “Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe? Many Muslims want that and say: Europe is at the end.”

He asked God to have mercy on Europe and to show mercy to its people, which he said “are in danger of forfeiting our Christian heritage”.

Schönborn explained that people could already feel this loss, “not only economically, but above all, in human and religious matters”.

The cardinal’s statement came as many places across Austria commemorated the 333rd anniversary of the Battle of Vienna. During the battle on 11-12th September 1683, combined Christian forces defeated over 100,000 soldiers from the Ottoman Empire.
The battle was fought by the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire against the invading Muslim Ottoman Empire. Polish King John III Sobieski famously commanded the Christian army toward its victory.
The Ottoman soldiers had already started to take the Austrian capital Vienna which was defended by only 10,000 Habsburg soldiers when Polish horsemen attacked them from the rear and devastated the Turkish army – which was forced to retreat.
The battle is often seen as a turning point in history, which slowly led to the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
The Catholic Church in Austria was not the only one to commemorate the event. The far-right Austrian Freedom Party held a controversial event, stressing the need to defend the “Western World” from invaders. [….]

It is true that “doctrine and pastoral care must not contradict each other.” Therefore, if communion for Catholics living in adultery does not “deny the indissolubility of marriage” then it denies the validity of the Novus Ordo Consecration. Is anyone surprised?

Schockenhoff: To allow communion for the divorced is not to deny the indissolubility of marriage

The theologian from Freiburg says the Eucharist is so rich in meaning, nothing can destroy it. Doctrine and pastoral care must not contradict each other. The term “official Church” is misleading and bishops do not live in a “parallel society”

Vatican Insider | Iacopo Scaramuzzi | 10/ 7/2014

The indissolubility of marriage is “not seriously called into question” by those who believe remarried divorcees should be allowed to receive communion. Eberhard Schockenhoff, Professor of Moral Theology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet in Freiburg, is adamant about this. The German theologian underlined that too often, the concept of “natural law” was interpreted statically, reducing the “deep meaning of human sexuality” to a mere act of “procreation”. He disagrees with the term “official Church” (bishops are not “some kind of parallel society within the Church” that is detached from the people). He also stressed that although doctrine and pastoral care are two different things, they cannot contradict each other: “Failure to deal with problems that remain unresolved on a doctrinal level, will simply lead to the Church’s teaching being seen as rigid and lacking in credibility.”

“No one in the Church is seriously calling the indissolubility of marriage into question, not even those who are asking for the Church to remove its ban on communion for divorced Catholics who contract a civil marriage. The ideal of a successful marriage based on mutual faithfulness and trusting love is not called into question when one takes stock of the reality of a failed marriage, which many faithful face. Why should the Church betray Jesus’ teaching on marriage while remaining faithful to its mission of proclaiming God’s mercy to everyone, offering the possibility of reconciliation to remarried divorcees as well?” The Eucharist, the German theologian explained, “has many aspects to it which must not be separated so bluntly or seen in such sharp contrast: it is the enactment of Jesus Christ’s work of salvation, a sign of the Church’s unity, a personal encounter with Jesus and the outstretched hand with which God reaches out to sinners, inviting them to be reconciled with God. The Eucharist, which is so rich in meaning, loses this if it seen as a mere reward for those who respect single moral norms.

If many Catholics do not understand the concept of natural law, Schockenhoff says, explaining the rules better is not enough. “The concept of natural law, which Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI often focused on in the texts he published on the subject, is misunderstood. In the field of sexual ethics, for example, reproduction has often been presented as the natural end point of human sexuality.” But “reducing the deep meaning of human sexuality to an act of procreation, does not take into account some perspectives offered by the humanistic disciplines,” which have revealed the existence of different dimensions of sexuality (the relational dimension, the pleasure dimension and the procreational dimension).The Extraordinary Synod on the Family should therefore “make it clear that the Church offers a positive outlook on issues relating to sexuality, love and marriage, which takes into account all these dimensions and takes the real experiences of faithful seriously. It is not enough therefore to simply offer better explanations of existing rules, as this would confirm suspicions that the Church is static and cut off from reality.” As far as the Humanae Vitae encyclical is concerned, “the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control has prevented people from receiving the positive messages the Gospel has to give about every human being’s vocation to love.”

Is there a risk of the Church splitting into two Churches? A Church of mercy and a Church dominated by rules, an ideological Church and a Church that acts as a “field hospital”, a Church that comforts and a Church that punishes? “It is possible to make a rational distinction between the requirements of Church teaching and those of a pastoral care programme that only takes human needs into account, ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’ as the saying goes.” “But there must be no contradiction between pastoral care and doctrine,” Schockenhoff said. “It is not enough to try to eliminate doubts over single problems linked to the Church’s moral doctrine by adopting a more flexible interpretation in the pastoral ministry. Failure to deal with problems that remain unresolved on a doctrinal level, will simply lead to the Church’s teaching being seen as rigid and lacking in credibility.” In reference to those who speak of a growing gap between the so called institutional Church and the Church of the faithful, the German theologian said that the term “official Church” should be done away with. The term suggests that there is a real Church with official members and that faithful form part of a different circle outside the Church. The idea that in some countries bishops are detached from the faithful and form part of some kind of parallel society within the Church, is not in tune with their mission or with Pope Francis’ calls for the focus to be on questions that really concern faithful.”

A religious error is the main root of all social and political evils.

Pope Leo XIII, Inscrutabili Dei Consilio

The term nature is not abstract. Human nature is the essence of man, that is what he is before being a person. Man is a person, a holder of inalienable rights, because he has a soul. And he has a soul given that, unlike any other living being, he has a rational nature. Natural is not what originates from the instincts and desires of man, but what corresponds to the rules of reason, which must in turn, conform itself to an objective order and immutable principles. The natural law is rational and immutable,[thus]because it is immutable inasmuch as it is spiritual, it is the nature of man. All individuals of the same nature act or should act in the same manner, since the natural law is written in the nature not of this or that man, but in human nature regarded in itself, in its permanence and stability.

Professor Roberto de Mattei, defending Natural Law against Cardinal Kasper

A Word on the Origin of the Saying: “Roma Locuta, Causa Finite”

Pope Zosimus, in the presence of the Roman clergy, recognized as orthodox the heretical statements of Pelagius, which had been condemned by Pope Innocent I and the two Councils of Carthage. Pelagianism, which denied the doctrine of Original Sin and man’s need for grace, was a virulent heresy of the time, against which St. Augustine wrote numerous tracts (The Remission of Sins and the Baptism of Children, The Spirit and the Letter, Letter to Hilary, Nature and Grace, Perfect Justice, The Acts of Pelagius, The Grace of Christ, and Original Sin). The Pope condemned those who held the orthodox Catholic faith as calumniators (Letter Postquam nobis, November 21, 417; Letter Magnum pondus) and demanded a formal retraction from the orthodox African bishops, St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Aurelius of Carthage. In response, St. Augustine and St. Aurelian took a solemn oath with God as witness (obtestatio), affirming that the prior Catholic doctrine prevailed over the judgment of the Pope, which was upheld by a plenary council of all Africa assembled. Confronted with resistance to his part in perpetuating heresy, Pope Zosimus finally recanted and renewed the excommunication of the heretic Pelagius. It was around this time that St. Augustine uttered the famous words: Roma locuta est; causa finita est, in a Sermon CXXXI of September 417. Pope Zosimus was waffling on his predecessor’s, Pope St. Innocent I’s, anathema against the heretic Pelagius. St. Augustine meant by his statement since Rome had already spoken on the matter (a reference to Pope St. Innocent I’s anathema against Pelagius), the case ought not to be reopened, even by Pope Zosimus, who ought to give his assent to the solemn judgment of his predecessor. St. Augustine made his statement, then, at a time when a Pope was in the process of lending aid and comfort to heretics, when he should have been holding fast to what his predecessor had decreed. The great Saint was not saying that every decision of Rome must be blindly obeyed; otherwise, he would have supported the reigning Pope. He was warning people, the Pope included, that Rome had already spoken on this matter and that it would be gravely wrong for anyone (even, presumably, a Pope) to attempt to reverse a solid and sound judgment on a matter of Catholic doctrine.

Taken from: www.traditio.com

Conservative Catholics: Some at least recognize that unqualified obedience is non-Catholic.

The power that Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism. […..] To put this question into sharp relief: the feet of whom should be washed in the Mass of Maundy Thursday? Those of men or of women? The feet of Christians or non-Christians? Why? With all due respect I submit that any answer based solely on “. . . because the pope did it” is insufficient if not downright ultramontane. Such reasoning will not do. Such positivism is simply foreign to the Catholic faith. Papal preference is not the arbiter of the church’s liturgy: sound liturgical and theological principles are. The Bishop of Rome exercises his authority rightly when, in liturgical matters, he bases his judgments on these principles. If he ignores them in his judgments or personal practice he risks causing confusion, scandal, and disunity. The exercise of authority in respect of the sacred liturgy and the personal liturgical behavior of all popes, prelates, other clergy, and laity are rightly evaluated according to these criteria.

Dom Alcuin Reed, 2014

Pope Francis, in corrupting the Sacrament of Matrimony, has perpetrated a terrible injustice to countless Catholics!

Many Catholic families had hoped that the Synod on the Family would address the serious problem of the divorce epidemic and its long-term damage to youth, innocent spouses, the sacrament of marriage, the culture, and the Church. (It did not!) The divorce plague has inflicted severe pain upon Catholic families worldwide. Married couples need to be encouraged by the Church not to give up on their marriages during stressful, unhappy times, and to persevere in loyalty to their marital vows. [.....] Over the past forty years, I have never worked with a Catholic marriage in which both spouses wanted a divorce. In the majority of marriages under stress, one spouse remains happy with the marriage, believes the conflicts can be resolved and is loyal to the sacramental bond.

The spouses who are not happy and who want to pursue divorce and a decision of nullity most often refuse to address their own weaknesses. Instead, they portray themselves as victims of insensitive treatment or emotional abuse.[......]

The majority of spouses who pursue divorce — in our experience with several thousand couples — have never worked on these issues. This explains, in part, why the national survey of divorced men and women, conducted by the Office of Survey Research at the University of Texas at Austin, found the honest response that only one in three divorced spouses claimed that both they and their ex-spouses worked hard enough to try to save their marriage. There is reason to be hopeful about the resolution of marital difficulties. In a major study from the University of Chicago among spouses who rated their marriages as very unhappy, 86 percent of those who persevered reported themselves as happily married five years later.

One grave danger to Catholic marriages and families from the changes made in canon law made by the Holy Father (without a careful study by a commission of experts) is that spouses will not be motivated to engage in the hard work of addressing personal psychological and spiritual weaknesses. Instead, they will pursue divorce and with a belief that they are entitled to a decision of nullity if they can meet the criteria cited, including the new one, “etcetera.”

With all due respect, the determination of nullity by only one priest or by a bishop after 30 to 45 days, is seriously flawed because they lack the proper mental health training to uncover and evaluate the numerous complex psychological conflicts that lead to a decision for divorce. This new process is a grave injustice and, therefore, a manifestation of a severe lack of mercy towards the sacrament of marriage, innocent spouses, children, and Catholic families.

In his closing talk at the Synod, the Holy Father criticized bishops and priests, whom he claimed hide behind rigid doctrines and ignore wounded families. In fact, his radical change in canon law in regard to annulments, made prior to the Synod, will weaken and harm Catholic marriages and families. [.....]

Rick, Fitzgibbons, Psychological Science and the Evaluation of Nullity, published by “The Catholic Thing”

Apparently, the Homosexual Lobby is running the Vatican!

Psychiatrist: Archbishop behind Vatican sex-ed should be evaluated by sex abuse review board

LifeSiteNews | September 2, 2016 — A renowned psychiatrist who has worked with victims of priestly sexual abuse and priest abusers has strongly condemned the Vatican’s new sex education program as abusive and “the most dangerous threat to Catholic youth” he has seen in the past 40 years.

The gravely concerned psychiatrist is Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons, a counseling center director who has been a consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican and has served as adjunct professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America. In an essay published today by LifeSiteNews, Fitzgibbons warns that the material found in the Vatican’s newly-released sex ed program The Meeting Point “constitutes sexual abuse of Catholic adolescents” and contains pornographic images “similar to those used by adult sexual predators of adolescents.”

“In a culture in which youth are bombarded by pornography, I was particularly shocked by the images contained in this new sex education program, some of which are clearly pornographic,” Fitzgibbons wrote. “My immediate professional reaction was that this obscene or pornographic approach abuses youth psychologically and spiritually. … As a professional who has treated both priest perpetrators and the victims of the abuse crisis in the Church, what I found particularly troubling was that the pornographic images in this program are similar to those used by adult sexual predators of adolescents.”

Fitzgibbons called for Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who oversaw the development and release of the program when he was head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, to be evaluated according to norms adopted by the United States Catholic Bishops in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.

Paglia “should be required in justice to go through an evaluation by a review board as described in the Dallas Charter norms for placing youth at risk,” Fitzgibbons wrote. “Such a review is particularly important as he is now been put in charge of further teaching regarding sexuality and marriage at the John Paul II Institute for Family Studies.” [……]

Is this why Archbishop Chaput cannot distinguish any moral difference between Clinton and Trump?

The Money Trail: Why Catholic Bishops Are Silent on Hillary

Remnant | Elizabeth Yore | September 6, 2016

[….] And then there’s the Catholic Church’s golden calf of federal funds, Catholic Charities. According to USASpending.gov, the federal government’s website of federal contracts and grants, the Catholic Bishops around the U.S. garnered some hefty contracts. Overall, for FY16 Catholic Charities collected:
$84,339,422 as Total Prime Recipient
$118,008,202 as a Total sub-award transaction

Total Award:
$202,247,624 FY16

But there’s More! The Catholic Bishops landed even more federal goodies to carry out the massive refugee migration resettlement agenda of the Obama Administration. Mass migration of Syrian refugees provides a lucrative business model for the Catholic Church but they might want to ask the Catholics in the pews about this highly controversial policy of putting Muslim refugees in U.S. towns.
The International Catholic Migration Commission(ICMC) headquartered in Boston also joined in on the federal refugee goodies. In FY 2016, according to the USASpending.gov, the International Catholic Migration was awarded:
$17,715,636 Total as Prime Recipient
The U.S. Department of State doled out $17+ million to ICMC grants. The sole purpose of the grants is stipulated for U.S. Refugee Resettlement.
Wake up, Catholics! The USCCB and its partners are quietly assisting the Obama administration in resettling into the United States, tens of thousands of Muslim Syrian refugees. Where are the photos? Why the secrecy? Curiously, only a tiny fraction of persecuted Middle Eastern Christians are included in the refugee population. Perish the thought that the Catholic Church would demand that Christian refugees be given priority over Muslims. That controversial stance might jeopardize their federal contracts. [……]

Vatican Council I listing the beneficial Fruits of the Council of Trent which are in every detail exactly the opposite which we have seen from Vatican Council II, in every detail!

Now this redemptive providence appears very clearly in unnumbered benefits, but most especially is it manifested in the advantages which have been secured for the Christian world by ecumenical councils, among which the council of Trent requires special mention, celebrated though it was in evil days.

Thence came:

1. a closer definition and more fruitful exposition of the holy dogmas of religion and

2. the condemnation and repression of errors; thence too,

3. the restoration and vigorous strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline,

4. the advancement of the clergy in zeal for

· learning and

· piety,

5. the founding of colleges for the training of the young for the service of religion; and finally

6. the renewal of the moral life of the Christian people by

· a more accurate instruction of the faithful, and

· a more frequent reception of the sacraments. What is more, thence also came

7. a closer union of the members with the visible head, and an increased vigour in the whole Mystical Body of Christ.

Thence came:

A. the multiplication of religious orders and other organisations of Christian piety; thence too

B. that determined and constant ardour for the spreading of Christ’s kingdom abroad in the world, even at the cost of shedding one’s blood.

While we recall with grateful hearts, as is only fitting, these and other outstanding gains, which the divine mercy has bestowed on the church especially by means of the last ecumenical synod, we cannot subdue the bitter grief that we feel at most serious evils, which have largely arisen either because

o the authority of the sacred synod was held in contempt by all too many, or because

o its wise decrees were neglected.

First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Faith, listing the manifold beneficial fruits from the Council of Trent!

Let everything that conflicts with ecclesiastical tradition and teaching, and that has been innovated and done contrary to the examples outlined by the saints and the venerable Fathers, or that shall hereafter at any time be done in such a fashion, be anathema.

Second Council of Nicaea

Pope Francis renews his call to restore public pagan cult of earth worship!

Francis asks Christians to add new works of mercy in push for climate change action

Vatican City | Joshua J. McElwee | September 1, 2016

Pope Francis has suggested that Christians around the world add two new items to the traditional fourteen spiritual and corporal works of mercy in a push for “simple daily gestures” to combat ecological destruction and the continued warming of the planet. In a message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, celebrated Thursday, the pontiff says members of the faith community should consider adding “care for our common home” to the traditional set of works first described by Jesus as part of the criteria used to determine who will go to Heaven.

The pope also calls on individuals in the various countries of the world to push their governments to make good on recent international agreements aimed at halting the warming of the atmosphere and encouraging sustainable development.

Repeating his call from his June 2015 ecological encyclical Laudato Si’, opens the letter stating: “Global warming continues, due in part to human activity: 2015 was the warmest year on record, and 2016 will likely be warmer still.”

“This is leading to ever more severe droughts, floods, fires and extreme weather events,” the pope continues. “Climate change is also contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis. The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact.”

“Human beings are deeply connected with all of creation,” he states. “When we mistreat nature, we also mistreat human beings.”

Asking that the continuing Jubilee year of mercy might summon a “profound interior conversion” among individuals for better treatment of the environment, Francis says it is time for humanity to “repent of the harm we are doing to our common home.”

“Examining our consciences, repentance and confession to our Father who is rich in mercy lead to a firm purpose of amendment,” says the pontiff. “This in turn must translate into concrete ways of thinking and acting that are more respectful of creation.”

“Economics and politics, society and culture cannot be dominated by thinking only of the short-term and immediate financial or electoral gains,” he states. “Instead, they urgently need to be redirected to the common good, which includes sustainability and care for creation.”

Season of Creation marks month of eco-contemplation for Christians

NCR | Brian Roewe | September 1, 2016

Christians across the globe Thursday joined in celebrating the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, but for many the day only marks the beginning of a longer contemplation on the planet the pope regularly refers to as our common home.

The Season of Creation is a month-long prayerful observation of the state of the world, its beauty and the ecological crises that threaten it and all its inhabitants. It runs from Sept. 1, the World Day of Prayer for Creation, through Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.

For many Catholics, the day of prayer for creation landed on their radar for the first time last year after Pope Francis officially placed it on the Catholic liturgical calendar. Because of the timing -- Francis instituted the annual prayer day just three weeks before Sept. 1 -- many Catholic groups scrambled to piece together small celebrations with an eye toward larger, more coordinated events this year.

At the Vatican Thursday, Francis helped kick off the Season of Creation by celebrating the World Day of Prayer for Creation with a message that urged Catholics to view care for creation among the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

The Season of Creation comes as the planet continues its own season of sizzling temperatures. [……]

Does this mean that Pope Francis can now be called an “Integrist?”

“Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development” established!

Since 2014 the merging of four Pontifical Councils -- Justice and Peace, “Cor Unum”, Health Care Workers, and Migrants and Itinerant Peoples -- into a “super-Congregation” had been widely expected. The super-Congregation was initially expected to be named the “Congregation for Charity and Justice”.

On August 31 the new body was formally established through the Apostolic Letter Humanam Progreeeionem. It was named, not after “Charity and Justice” (which at least are the names of virtues), but as the “Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development” -- a name that can only be described as unmistakably secular.
The first paragraph of Humanam Progressionem duly mentions the Gospel, but is marked by this secularized, “NGO” tone:

In all her being and actions, the Church is called to promote the integral development of the human person in the light of the Gospel. This development takes place by attending to the inestimable goods of justice, peace, and the care of creation. The Successor of the Apostle Peter, in his work of affirming these values, is continuously adapting the institutions which collaborate with him, so that they may better meet the needs of the men and women whom they are called to serve.

Rorate Caeli

The faithful are asking the Pope for clarity against the attacks of evil -- where is he?

Roberto de Mattei | Il Tempo | August 14, 2016

During the month of August, ‘Casa Santa Marta’ in the Vatican is emptied of its guests, but Pope Francis will spend the entire month in the Vatican, just like the past three years.

Francis has announced he will forego a traditional papal appointment - the National Eucharistic Congress to take place this year in Genoa from the 15th to the 18th of August, while on the 19th of August the Pope will go to Assisi to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the encounter among religions, organized by the Community of St. Egidio. The Vatican Press Office did not communicate this however, but the ‘Imam’ from Perugia, Abdel Moh’d in an interview to TV 2000 (The Italian Bishops Conference TV).

Pope Bergoglio will then be in Georgia and Azerbaijan from September 30th to October 2n with the Orthodox and the Muslims, and then in Lund, Sweden, on October 31st to commemorate the five hundred years of the Protestant Reformation. Ecumenical initiatives are the compass to his pontificate, which seems to suggest the intent in building a common platform among religions, with the risk, noted by many, of emptying Catholicism and favouring the creation of a ‘super syncretistic religion’.

The lunch on August 11th with 21 Syrian refugees, all Muslims, who arrived in Italy following the papal trip to the Isle of Lesbos, enters this view of ‘preferential option’ for non-Catholics. Such a strategy demands the denial of the existence of religious wars. And yet the Church is suffering persecution all over the world.

Monsignor Dominique Lebrun, Archbishop of Rouen, voiced his intention of starting the process of beatification which will lead to the recognition of Father Jacques Hamel’s martyrdom - killed ‘in hatred of the Faith’ like so many Christians of our times. Will a word of approval come from Rome?

Will a sign of support come for the three Spanish bishops taken to court for having criticised the law, just passed in Madrid, which promotes trans-sexuality? The Spanish Osservatore against LGBT-phobia, denounced the Bishop of Getafe, Monsignor Joaquin Maria López de Andújar, his auxiliary, José Rico Pavés and the diocesan titular of Alcalà, Monsignor Juan Antonio Reig Pla ‘for incitement to hatred and discrimination towards the homosexual community’.

But the worst is yet to come. A public black mass has been organized for August 15th by an American Satanist group at the Civic Center in Oklahoma City, with the permission of the local authorities. The city’s Archbishop, Monsignor Paul Coakley, has called on the faithful to ask the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel, Our Lady and all the Angels and Saints ‘that the Lord may take care of our community and protect us from evil and its many destructive and violent manifestations’.

Today, however, it is not only an American diocese suffering the attacks of evil, but the entire Church. The disoriented faithful turn to the Vicar of Christ, asking him to show his paternity not only towards those distant, but also to those closest to him, more than ever in need of clarity and encouragement in this tempestuous, historical period.

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

The novel theory that Dogma contains “perennial truths” and contingent accretions!

My fundamental impulse, precisely from the Council, has always been to free the very heart of the faith from under any ossified strata, and to give this heart strength and dynamism. This impulse is the constant in my life.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth

The steps taken by the Council towards the modern era which had rather vaguely been presented as ‘openness to the world’ [aggiornamento], belong in short to the perennial problem of the relationship between faith and reason that is re-emerging in ever new forms.... The Council had to find a new definition of the relationship between the Church and the modern age.... Here I shall cite only John XXIII’s well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes “to transmit the doctrine pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion”. And he continues: “Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our age demands of us…” It is necessary that “adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness…” be presented in “faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another…”, retaining the same meaning and message.... It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking upon it and a new relationship with it.

Pope Benedict XVI, speech to Roman Curia on Dec 22, 2005, outlining his papal agenda

Catholic teaching: Dogma once defined is the irreformable formal object of Divine and Catholic Faith!

For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed like a philosophical invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity; but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence, also, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our holy Mother the Church has once declared; nor is that meaning ever to be departed from, under the pretence or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.

Vatican Council I

If anyone shall assert it to be possible that sometimes, according to the progress of science, a sense is to be given to doctrine propounded by the Church different from that which the Church has understood and understands; let him be anathema.

Vatican Council I, Canon III, on Faith and Reason

The “Spirit of Assisi” is clearly a demonic spirit! There will be no peace until the requests of the Blessed Virgin of Fatima are met!

Francis in Assisi for the 30th anniversary of the Interreligious Assembly

The Pope in Umbria for the third time, on 20 September. With him Bartholomew I, Mattarella and more than 400 religious, political, and cultural leaders, all together for “peace among the peoples”

VATICAN CITY | domenico agasso jr | Aug 18, 2016

Pope Francis will return to Assisi on 20 September, for the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the “interreligious assembly for peace among the peoples.” The news was communicated by the Prefecture of the Papal Household to the Custos of the Sacred Convent in Umbria, Father Mauro Gambetti. With the Pope, says the Franciscan site, there will be Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic and more than 400 religious and political leaders and cultural figures. [.....]

The Pontiff, together with numerous religious leaders from around the world, will celebrate 30 years of what is known as the “Spirit of Assisi.”

“We rejoice together with the Franciscan Family,” is the first comment from Gambetti.

In particular, while in Assisi, Pope Bergoglio will attend the international meeting between religions for peace, which this year has the theme “Thirst for Peace. Religions and Cultures in Dialogue.” The event is promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, by the Franciscan families, by the Umbrian Episcopal Conference and the Diocese of Assisi. [.....]

Catholics in Africa are being killed by Islamic terrorists armed with the weapons taken from Libya after its unjust overthrow by Obama and Clinton!

Villages ‘obliterated’ as Christian persecution grows in eastern Congo

by Staff Reporter | 19 Aug 2016

Pope Francis and the UN have called for action after at least 36 Christians are hacked to death

The persecution of Christians has escalated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), prompting fears that a jihadist group is gaining strength in the region.

At least 36 people were killed in the North Kivu region on Saturday. It is the deadliest attack there since November 2014, with some saying that casualties might be nearer to 50. The victims were reportedly tied up and hacked to death.

The Islamist Allied Democratic Forces-National Association for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU) have targeted Christians in the north-east of the DRC for several years after their attempt to overthrow the Ugandan government failed.

The United Nations has urged the Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate the massacre. A statement from the UN’s high commissioner on human rights said the death toll from the group since 2014 had risen to 645.

On Monday the Pope condemned the “shameful silence” over the violence in the region.

At his Angelus for the feast of the Assumption, he said: “My thoughts go to the people of North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who have been recently hit with fresh massacres, which have for some time been perpetrated in shameful silence, without attracting even as much as our attention. Unfortunately, they are part of the too many innocent people who have no weight on world opinion.”

The charity World Watch Monitor said the weekend’s killings were part of ongoing weekly attacks including rape, looting and kidnapping.

One observer who works for Open Doors International told Christiantoday.com: “Signs of recent attacks are visible everywhere on buildings dotted along the road. Smaller villages have been obliterated and hardly any civilian life is visible.

“Eighty per cent of the households here farms, but they cannot access them because is it simply too dangerous. This means no food and no revenue. They have become vulnerable to starvation,” one official told the charity.

“We do not understand why this is happening to us,” said one pastor. “The rebels just take people into the bush to kill them or kidnap them. They attack one place for a while and cause people to run away. Then they strike the places people run to.”

What every normal right minded person already knows!

Gender Ideology Leads to Child Abuse: Pediatricians

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. | August 18, 2016

NEW YORK, August 19 (Center for Family & Human Rights) “Facts – not ideology – determine reality,” the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) said in a warning to legislators and educators about the dangers of surgical and medical sex change operations to children.

“Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse,” the physicians said, “Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBTQ – affirming countries.”

The group, which aims at getting parents involved in their children’s health and education about health, said, “Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one,” and that, “A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.”

To the contrary, the group maintained that human sexuality is a “binary trait” and said the XY and XX chromosomes that determine female or male sex are “genetic markers of health” not “genetic markers of a disorder.”

“No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex,” the statement said.

The American Academy of Pediatricians, the larger professional society from which the ACP broke away in 2002, has surgical and medical interventions in youth to suppress the hormones that naturally cause girls to grow into women and boys to men.

The ACP says this change in position has put American teens at higher risk for physical and mental illness. ”Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous…as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty,” the ACP pointed out, and noted that children who use puberty blockers to “impersonate the opposite sex” will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence that in turn can cause dangerous health risks such as high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.

One of the statement’s authors is psychologist Paul McHugh. Drawing upon his clinical work with LGBTQ persons as chief psychologist at Johns Hopkins hospital and research as distinguished professor at the university’s medical school, McHugh has criticized what he sees as the American Psychological Association’s embracing of gender ideology at the expense of sound medical practice. McHugh authored an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned man-woman marriage laws in the U.S. last year.

Pro-LGBT groups criticized the ACP statement saying it would incite discrimination; one group called it an “attack on transgender children”. A public interest law firm labeled the ACP a “hate group” when it filed an amicus brief with the Alabama Supreme Court which favored exceptions to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling knocking down U.S. laws protecting marriage as between a man and a woman.

Activists similarly criticized Pope Francis’ recent remarks to Polish bishops where he identified gender “ideology” as a form of “ideological colonization” and linked it to government corruption. He said, “Today children – children! – are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. Why are they teaching this? Because the books are provided by the persons and institutions that give you money. These forms of ideological colonization are also supported by influential countries. And this is terrible!”

Pope Francis is increasingly seen as a utopian idiot!

#NotMyPope trending in Europe as Church handles Islamic crisis worse than sex abuse crisis

JihadWatch | August 16, 2016 6:21 pm By Robert Spencer

“The Pope and others in the Church are not telling the truth about Islam. Some think they are doing so deliberately as part of a strategy to prevent further radicalization. Some (myself included) think they are doing so out of sheer naïveté. In either case, if they continue to defend Islam as a peaceful religion, it is bound to result in a crisis of trust and a crisis of faith.”

I think they are doing this out of a false and misguided understanding of Christian charity that is so welcoming to “the stranger” that it won’t stop welcoming him even at the point of civilizational suicide. This foolishness combined with the globalist agenda of the political and media elites has the Church and the West in the fix they’re in. As millions of Muslims stream into Europe, and mainstream politicians and the Church demonize opposition to this suicidal madness as “hatred” and “bigotry,” millions of Christians stream out of the Church that has abandoned them, and the free world, at the hour of greatest need. [....]

As I have noted several times in the past, the Church’s handling of the Islamic crisis may prove to be far more scandalous than its handling of the sex abuse crisis. The main scandal surrounding the revelation of priestly sex abuse was that it was covered up for a very long time by priests, pastors, and even bishops. By their silence, many Church officials were, in effect, denying that there was a serious problem. The effect on Catholic morale was profound. In those places which were most seriously affected by the scandals, such as Massachusetts and Ireland, church attendance dropped off dramatically. Disaffected Catholics didn’t necessarily lose their faith in God but they did lose faith in the Catholic Church. [....]

The problem is that there has been no abjuration of heresy!

Evangelical Lutheran Assembly approves ‘historic’ statement of accord with Catholics

CatholicWorldNews | August 16, 2016

America’s largest Lutheran organization has announced that “Church-dividing issues” have been resolved, and the path is clear for unity with the Catholic Church.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved a statement entitled “Declaration on the Way,” which lists agreements that have been achieved with the US Catholic bishops’ conference on issues including the nature of the Church and the Eucharist. The statement was approved by an overwhelming 931- 9 vote at the Churchwide Assembly in New Orleans. [....]

THE POPE’S BOSS – Wikileaks: Pope and Soros, An Unholy Alliance

Elizabeth Yore | August 23, 2016

Among the many smoking guns uncovered in the Wikileaks data dump, lurks documents that should give Catholics great concern. The latest Wikileaks data dump of internal documents from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation exposes the most shocking of all his political alliances. According to the leaked Open Society Foundation documents, George Soros funds efforts to promote his radical socialist agenda of income inequality by using the bully pulpit of Pope Francis. Soros seeks to “engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues” by lobbying the Vatican.

The unholy alliance and stategic plan is exposed in the leaked Open Society U.S. Board Meeting May 2015 book on page 16:

Pope Francis Visit - $650,000 (USP)

Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States in September will include a historic address to Congress, a speech at the United Nations, and a visit to Philadelphia for the “World Meeting of Families.” In order to seize this moment, we will support PICO’s organizing activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues, including using the influence of Cardinal Rodriguez, the Pope’s senior advisor, and sending a delegation to visit the Vatican in the spring or summer to allow him to hear directly from low-income Catholics in America.

The purpose of the Soros/Vatican collaboration skewers political to influence the 2016 U.S. Elections, thus securing the presidency for Soros’ handpicked candidate, Hillary Clinton:

The grant will also support FPL’s media, framing, and public opinion activities, including conducting a poll to demonstrate that Catholic voters are responsive to the Pope’s focus on income inequality, and earning media coverage that drives the message that being “pro-family” requires addressing growing inequality. By harnessing the Papal visit to lift up the Pope’s searing critique of what he calls “an economy of exclusion and inequality” and his dismissal of “trickle down” theories, PICO and FPL will work to build a bridge to a larger conversation about bread-and-butter economic concerns and shift national paradigms and priorities in the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Soros’ foundation clearly views Pope Francis as an important ally in the Soros income inequality socialist movement and in the run up to the 2016 U.S. election. Notice how the radical leftists in the Soros reframe the words pro family as “growing inequality.” This grant description highlights how the left hijacks language and exploits it for its own radical political advantage. Its partner in promoting the transformational lang uage is the leftist media.

Another fascinating nugget in the Soros board meeting notes exposes its cozy relationship with Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, the Vice Pope, and close confidante of Pope Francis. Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga of Honduras is described by the Soros operatives as ‘using his influence’ within the Vatican to promote the Soros radical economic inequality narrative. Clearly, Maradiaga has been identified by the Soros empire as a key player in the global radical income redistribution movement. Soros’ team knows that Maradiaga will happily promote this initiative within the Vatican and, most importantly, with Pope Francis, his close friend.

Who is PICO, the $650,000 grant recipient who will organize activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice activities? According to KeyWiki, PICO is:

PICO, a progressive national network of faith-based organizations. Like health care reform, this newest PICO initiative aims to redistribute wealth by demanding that “faith leaders step into the big banks’ boardrooms.”
PICO National Network received a $600,000 grant from Soros’ Open Society Institute. PICO was founded in 1972 by John Baumann, a Jesuit priest trained in Saul Alinsky community organizing in Chicago in the 1960s. It was later patterned after COPS, a San Antonio, Texas project of Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation.
The Open Society Institute describes PICO as “a network of congregation-based community organizations which brings the voices of people of faith and faith leaders to the public debate on national priorities,” and mentions other Soros funding beyond the main grant.

Soros tracks and funds its Vatican influence through PICO, among others. Open Society Foundation(OSF) recognizes that money spent at the Vatican is money well spent toward the global socialist Soros agenda. They’ve identified Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga as a sympathetic and willing promote the globalist cause. He will be a powerful ally and sympathetic ear to the Soros agenda.
Another key organization that is financially supported by Soros is the FPL standing for Faith in Public Life. FPL is given its marching orders in the grant. It also reveals the manipulation and stagecraft employed by the Left to skewer public opinion. OSF shockingly admits that the polling results by FPL are preordained by Soros, as set forth in the grant:

FPL’s media, framing, and public opinion activities, including conducting a poll to demonstrate that Catholic voters are responsive to the Pope’s focus on income inequality, and earning media coverage that drives the message that being “pro-family” requires addressing growing inequality.

There you go. FPL got its marching orders from its funder to conduct a poll and demonstrate that Catholic voters support Pope Francis on income inequality. Would you ever trust a poll again after seeing the collusion and connivance of the Leftist Soros philanthropy?
Who is FPL, otherwise known as Faith in Public Life? The innocuous and religious sounding organization is another radical leftist Soros funded organization that drives the left’s agenda in the faith community. In 2011 the American Thinker exposed the individuals behind FPL and their leftist organization.
Who could be against an organization that innocuously calls itself “faith in public life.” FPL is yet another of hundreds of Soros funded satellite organizations masquerading as well-meaning philanthropies which in reality promote a radical economic agenda of anti-capitalism and global redistribution.
How fortunate for Soros that he has a new found popular partner, who will promote the leftist agenda using the merciful strong arm tactics of the papacy. Catholics serve as a huge and influential voting block in the U.S. election. For Soros, using the head of the Catholic Church to influence this key voting block is reflecting in the OSF strategic planning notes. This is not the first time that the unholy alliance of Soros and the Vatican successfully collaborated on a political project.
In 2015, the Soros operatives, embedded in the Vatican, directed Pope Francis’ Environmental Agenda, by delivering for Soros and the UN, an Apostolic Exhortation on Climate Change, and a prized papal endorsement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Pope’s apostolic blessing on the Paris Climate Treaty. Soros won the environmental trifecta sealed and delivered by Pope Francis.
With the Soros-driven Environmental Deliverables now achieved by Pope Francis, it is now time to turn to item #2 on the Soros radical socialist agenda: global redistribution of wealth. Apparently, Soros knows that once again Pope Francis will assist in promoting the Soros socialist agenda.
Stay tuned, Catholics, for contrived polling data that reflects your overwhelming support for more global and carbon taxes to redistribute your income more equally. Soros will use the Vatican to promote Hillary, his hand-picked presidential candidate.
You’ve been forewarned.
Remnant columnist, Elizabeth Yore, served on the Heartland Institute Delegation that traveled to the Vatican in April 2015 to urge Pope Francis to re-examine his reliance on UN population control proponents who promote climate change.

More on “Pope’s Boss” – Jewish money to impose abortion on Catholics!

For George Soros, Ireland abortion fight may be first step against Catholic countries

By Kevin Jones

Dublin, Ireland | Aug 18, 2016 | CNA - Wealthy abortion backers could use Ireland as a model to change pro-life laws in other Catholic countries, an apparent leaked three-year plan for George Soros’ Open Society Foundations suggests.

“With one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, a win there could impact other strongly Catholic countries in Europe, such as Poland, and provide much needed proof that change is possible, even in highly conservative places,” the document says.

It also cites support for pro-abortion efforts in Mexico, Zambia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, and other parts of Latin America and Europe. The document particularly targets constitutional protections for the right-to-life from conception.

The New York-based Open Society Foundations’ proposed 2016-2019 strategy for its Women’s Rights Program appears to be among the documents published by the website DCLeaks.com. The website claims the documents are from the globally influential foundations begun by billionaire financier George Soros. In 2015 Forbes magazine estimated Soros’ net wealth at $24.5 billion, ranking him the sixteenth wealthiest man in the U.S.

One of the program’s three themes is enabling access to legal abortion, including through efforts to repeal Ireland’s Eighth Amendment to its constitution.

The amendment, passed by voters in 1983, acknowledges “the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

The Open Society Foundations’ apparent strategy proposal says that it will fund the Abortion Rights Campaign, Amnesty International Ireland, and the Irish Family Planning Association “to work collectively on a campaign to repeal Ireland’s constitutional amendment granting equal rights to an implanted embryo as the pregnant woman (referred to as ‘fetal personhood’).”

Cora Sherlock, deputy chairperson of the Ireland group the Pro-Life Campaign, reflected on the strategy document.

“This is devastating news if true,” Sherlock told CNA Aug. 18. “One thing is certain. Those pushing abortion in Ireland have vast resources that they didn’t have just a few years ago. The money is not being raised from ordinary Irish citizens. That is for sure.”

“The idea that an outside body would fund and organize groups in Ireland to dismantle Ireland’s protection for the unborn child would represent a gross interference and total contempt for the Irish people.” […..]

“Strengthen Our common hope in God”??? – Society lost “its humanity” after Vatican II

96% of Jewish Leaders Support Abortion

The study also found that on a variety of issues involving sexual morality that have roiled other religious groups, Jews are much more liberal than other Americans. Jews take a less critical view of homosexuality, abortion, birth control and pornography than do Gentiles,” the study found. In each case, Jewish leaders are even more tolerant than the Jewish public.

For example, 48 percent of non-Jews say homosexuality is wrong, compared to 23 percent of Jews and 7 percent of Jewish leaders. And while 56 percent of non-Jews support abortion rights, 88 percent of Jews and 96 percent of Jewish leaders do.

Only 38 percent of Jews support allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, compared to 65 percent of non-Jews; 39 percent of Jews would allow the teaching of creationism, compared with 63 percent of non-Jews; and 22 percent of Jews would support vouchers that could be used at religious schools, compared with 43 percent of non-Jews.

Pew Charitable Trusts, examining the contemporary role of religious groups in the United States

According to LifeSiteNews, the Republican platform is the most pro-life political statement ever while the Democratic platform calls for unrestricted abortion to the very moment of birth, and yet, Archbishop Chaput cannot distinguish between good and evil!

This is depressing and liberating at the same time. Depressing, because it’s proof of how polarized the nation has become. Liberating, because for the honest voter, it’s much easier this year to ignore the routine tribal loyalty chants of both the Democratic and Republican camps. I’ve been a registered independent for a long time and never more happily so than in this election season. Both major candidates are – what’s the right word? so problematic – that neither is clearly better than the other.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, Philadelphia, August 12, 2016

Charity seeks not its own convenience. We must give the spur to this jade of a body of ours, to make it trot on and get forwards. The good soldier dies in battle, the good sailor on the sea, and the good minister of the sick in the hospital.

St. Camillus of Lellis

“Rights Founded Upon Duties” - In the conflict of Law - The “Ends” Determine which Law Must be Followed

Let us examine these words of Aquinas. First, he says that “since a precept of law is binding, it is about something to be done.” This is a truth to which we seldom if ever advert, namely, that although right and duty are correlatives, duty is ultimately the basis of right - not vice versa. And this is so because right and duty are grounded upon law. Law, as we saw, is a directive norm of action which carries with it an obligation. It binds us to do or avoid something. The Eternal, Natural and Positive Laws are ordinations, commands of reason. The fundamental notion of law then is obligation - not the concept of right. We have rights because we have duties. Since a precept of law is binding it is about something to be done.

Secondly, “that a thing must be done arises from the necessity of some end.” Whenever a man does anything, i.e., whenever he acts as a reasonable being, he acts for an end - to obtain some good; and so the necessity of his doing anything as a man must come from the end. However, because man is a rational being he is free and consequently the necessity exercised by any particular end or good cannot be psychological; it must be moral. That is, man’s will remains free but he is obliged morally, he has a duty to seek the end - and that because a precept of law binds him to do so.

Rights, therefore, are founded upon duties, duties are grounded upon Natural or Positive Law, and because these laws are themselves based upon the Eternal Law all rights and duties have their ultimate source in the same Eternal Law.

Rev. John A. Driscoll, O.P., S.T.Lr., Ph.D., Rights and Duties - Their Foundation

Remembered Ecumenical Outrages as we approach the 500th anniversary

Pope Benedict greeting the spiritual sons of Luther the Liar

As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting representatives of Council of the Lutheran Church of Germany here in the ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt. This is where Luther studied theology. This is where he was ordained a priest in 1507. Against his father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine. On this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life’s journey. “How do I receive the grace of God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle. For him theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God. “How do I receive the grace of God?” The fact that this question was the driving force of his whole life never ceases to make an impression on me.

Pope Benedict to the Lutherans in Germany, September 22, 2011

Luther, the “raging... liar”!

What harm could it do if a man told a good lusty lie in a worthy cause and for the sake of the Christian Churches?...

To lie in a case of necessity or for convenience or in excuse—such lying would not be against God; He was ready to take such lies on Himself.

Martin Luther, Lenz: Briefwechsel, vol. 1, page 373 & 375

Rage acts as a stimulant to my whole being. It sharpens my wits, puts a stop to the assaults of the Devil and drives out care. Never do I write or speak better than when I am in a rage. If I wish to compose, write, pray and preach well, I have to be in a rage.

Martin Luther, “Table Talk,” 1210

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

What “Religious Submission” to the ‘Ordinary Authentic Magisterium’ Actually Means

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent just because in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power [i.e., extra-ordinary magisterium] of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary Teaching Authority [ordinary and universal magisterium], of which it is true to say: “He that heareth you, heareth Me.” [Luke 10:16].

Pius XII, Humani Generis, par. 20.

COMMENT: This quotation taken from Pope Pius XII is now referenced to support the Novus Ordo Church’s claim that every Catholic must give unconditional submission of his “mind and will to the authentic magisterium” of Pope Francis. Pope Pius XII in his encyclical is referring to the “ordinary and universal magisterium” and this can be clearly seen for two reasons: The examples provided by Pope Pius XII that follow this statement in his encyclical refer specifically to modern theological novelties that reject, for example, the infallible teaching of the Church on the inerrancy of sacred scripture, the identity of the Church and the Mystical Body of Christ, and the nature of Original Sin. These are all examples of the “ordinary and universal” magisterium that Vatican I dogmatically defined as “infallible.”

The other reason is God cannot bind the authority of His Truth to what can and have in the past contained errors. Fr. Joseph Fenton, in an article published in the AER in 1949 entitled, On the Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals, documents specific historical errors published in those documents. Whenever the pope teaches by virtue of his grace of state from the ‘authentic ordinary magisterium’, his teaching must be accepted by a religious submission which is always and necessarily a prudent and conditional submission to the personal teaching authority of the pope. Such conditional acceptance of the word of God is not possible when the pope teaches infallibly by engaging the “extra-ordinary magisterium” or the “ordinary and universal magisterium” of the Church from which alone it can be said without qualification whatsoever, “He that heareth you, heareth Me.” [Luke 10:16].

The modern encyclical by Pope Francis on global warming/earth worship is wholly conscribed within a very narrow and tenuous ideological framework that has little or nothing to do with Catholic doctrine or morality. This document has nothing to do with the “ordinary and universal” magisterium. It is entirely a product of the personal authentic ordinary magisterium of Pope Francis teaching by his grace of state. Anyone to whom the document is addressed is free to toss the document in the trash along with the junk mail if he, upon mature consideration, finds it to be an ideological screed in its overall tone divorced from natural truth.

“Who am I to judge?” Arf, arf, oink, oink! Pope Francis cannot distinguish what is “holy” and what is not!

Judge not, that you may not be judge. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again...... Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you. (Matt. 7:1-2, 6)

How I hate this folly of not believing in the Eucharist (and other mysteries of our faith)! If the gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there?

Blaise Pascal

There is nothing “gay” about a homosexual cleric!

Quite a lot has been published about the gay lobby. I have yet to find someone who introduces himself at the Vatican, with a ‘gay ID card.’ In these situations, it’s important to distinguish between a gay person and a gay lobby, because having a lobby is never good. If a gay person, is a person of good will who seeks God, who am I to judge? The catechism of the Church explains this very beautifully. It outlines that gays should not be marginalized.

Pope Francis on homosexual clerics in the Vatican

“Vices against nature are….. more grievous than the depravity of sacrilege.”

Wherefore just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as determined by nature. [. . .] just as the ordering of right reason proceeds from men, so the order of nature is from God Himself, wherefore in sins contrary to nature, thereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature. Vices against nature are also against God, as stated above, and are so much more grievous than the depravity of sacrilege, as the order impressed on human nature is prior to and more firm than any subsequently established order.

St. Thomas, ST, II-II, Q 154, a 12, ad 1& 2

What God Do They Worship?

Here we limit ourselves briefly to the obscuring of one of the two core articles of the Catholic Faith, namely the existence of the Most Blessed Trinity. We observe that recent Popes refer but rarely to this dogma, preferring to speak simply of ‘God’ – as though as a gesture towards paganism and heresy.

As we have explained in detail in our short work: ‘The Destruction of the Roman Rite’, the prayers of Adoration of the Triune God have been almost entirely abolished from the Novus Ordo. The Doxology Gloria Patri… which appeared thrice in the Old Rite has been entirely removed; the Trinitarian formula per Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum… which concluded many of the prayers in the Old Rite has been removed in all cases except one; the prayer at the Offertory Suscipe Sancta Trinitas and the prayer at the end of the Mass Placeat Tibi Sancta Trinitas have been excised; the Preface of the Holy Trinity which was used in the former rite almost every Sunday of the year now appears only once, that is on the respective Feast-day.

Furthermore the invocation of the Most Blessed Trinity (Pater de caelis Deus…) at the beginning of the public litanies was officially eliminated by Pope Paul VI in Lent 1969. Similarly one observes that the Trinitarian doxology has been removed from the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus (at least in the Italian version), thereby incidentally reducing the number of verses from the symbolic 7 to 6.

Fr. Pietro Leone, Apostasy, from Rorate Caeli

On the other hand, it is certain that the Jewish Cabalistic tradition was one of the principal mediums through which Eastern occultism, which has so many times come to the surface in European history, has been transmitted to modern Europe; and that many, if not all, of the recognized founders of the eighteenth-century Illuminism, including Weishaupt, Pasqualis, and Cagliostro, were initiated into its secrets by Jewish Cabalists or drew their inspiration and their methods from the Jewish esoteric writings. The Jewish apologist, Bernard Lazare, states that “there were Cabalistic Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry, as certain rites still in existence conclusively show.”

Rev. E. Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement, 1930

Without the Faith the French will soon have their throats cut!

France is Demolishing Thousands of Churches, Building Mosques

EUTimes | August 8, 2016

According to a report of the Franch senate, 2,800 churches across the country, many of them centuries old, will be demolished as restoration costs exceed the cost of demolitions over the next years. This church, Église Saint-Jacques d’Abbeville, a Neo-Gothic masterpiece in Abbeville, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie dating back to 1868, was demolished for a total cost of 350,000€ in 2013. The reasoning: It was much cheaper to demolish it than it would cost to restore.

As the number of Frenchmen in France continues to decline due to record-low birth rates, high emigration and Muslim immigration, so do the members of Catholic faith, who are now at an all time low. For many cities in France, especially cities in which Christians are the minority, the lack of interest and high property value on which the buildings stand simply does not justify the cost of restoring the churches. Many mayors choose the cheaper demolitions over costly restorations. Thousands of churches are to be demolished over the next years and replaced with shopping malls, stores, apartments or parking lots.

Mosque on the other hand, flourish. The Grand Mosque of Paris recently got a modern, fully retractable Roof, as it is usually only found in football stadiums and hundreds of new Mosques are built every year for the hundreds of thousands of new Muslims born or immigrating into French society, often with taxpayer money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8pXJWVszNM

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

Admission from a Vatican Member for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Vatican II does not bind the Catholic conscience!

Abp. Pozzo on SSPX: Disputed Vatican II Documents Are Non-Doctrinal

By Maike Hickson on August 9, 2016

In a recent interview published by the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Italian Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (PCED), made some important statements concerning his qualitatively progressing negotiations with the Society of Saint Pius X — negotiations which fall under the purview of the PCED. His comments make it clear that the process of formal inclusion of the SSPX is advancing, and that Pope Francis has offered a personal prelature to the SSPX – similar to the structure under which Opus Dei operates.

There is a section in the interview that is especially worth noting, inasmuch as it may facilitate proper doctrinal discourse among a wide range of conservative and traditional Catholics. In it, Archbishop Pozzo explains why it may be possible for the SSPX to be fully integrated into the structures of the Catholic Church without their previously accepting some of the documents of Vatican II, namely Nostra Aetate, about interreligious dialogue; the decree Unitatis Redintegratio, on ecumenism; the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, on religious liberty; and, finally, other texts relating to the question of the relationship between Christianity and Modernity. While saying that “the Council is not a pastoral superdogma, but part of the completeness [sic]of tradition and the continuous Magisterium,” Pozzo makes clear that there are some texts of the Council that are not doctrinal and are thus not binding on the Catholic conscience. Pozzo stresses that “the Church’s tradition is developing, but never in the sense of a novelty – which stands in contrast to the previous teaching – but which is a deeper understanding of the Depositum fidei, the authentic deposit of the Faith.” Pozzo continues, by saying that

In this [same] sense, all [the] Church’s documents have to be understood, also those of the Council. These preconditions, together with the obligation to affirm the Creed, the recognition of the Sacraments and of the papal primacy are the basis for the magisterial declaration which the Fraternity has been given to sign. These are the preconditions for a Catholic, in order to be in full communion with the Catholic Church.

In discussing the question of the specific documents of Vatican II, Pozzo insists that certain documents are indeed binding upon Catholics for them to affirm and to accept, such as:

the teaching on the sacramentality of the Episcopal office and its consecrations as the fullness of Holy Orders; or the teaching on the primacy of the pope and of the college of bishops in union with its head [sic], as presented in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, and as interpreted by the Nota explicativa praevia which had been requested by the highest authority.

With regard to the earlier-mentioned documents above – Nostra Aetate about interreligious dialogue; the decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism; and the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty – Pozzo explicitly says:

They are not about doctrines or definitive statements, but, rather, about instructions and orienting guides for pastoral practice. On can [thus legitimately] continue to discuss these pastoral aspects after the [proposed] canonical approval [of the SSPX], in order to lead us to further [and acceptable] clarifications.

When asked by the journalist as to whether the Vatican has now come to the idea that the varied Council documents have different dogmatic weights, Pozzo very importantly states:

This is certainly not a [later] conclusion on our part, but it was already clear at the time of the Council. The General Secretary of the Council, Cardinal Pericle Felici, declared on 16 November 1964: “This holy synod defines only that as being binding for the Church what it declares explicitly to be such with regard to Faith and Morals.” Only those texts assessed by the Council Fathers as being binding are to be accepted as such. That has not been [later] invented by “the Vatican,” but it is written in the official files themselves.

In response to a possible critique that important Council declarations such as Nostra Aetate could thus be more fully and openly denied, Pozzo declares:

The secretary for the Unity of Christians said on 18 November 1964 in the Council Hall about Nostra Aetate: “As to the character of the declaration, the secretariat does not want to write a dogmatic declaration on non-Christian religions, but, rather, practical and pastoral norms.” Nostrae Aetate does not have any dogmatic authority, and thus one cannot demand from anyone to recognize this declaration as being dogmatic. This declaration can only be understood in the light of tradition and of the continuous Magisterium. For example, there exists today, unfortunately, the view – contrary to the Catholic Faith – that there is a salvific path independent of Christ and His Church. That has also been officially confirmed last of all by the Congregation for the Faith itself in its declaration, Dominus Jesus. Therefore, any interpretation of Nostrae Aetate which goes into this [unfortunate and erroneous] direction is fully unfounded and has to be rejected.

Pozzo concludes that the ongoing SSPX discussions should always now be about “a hermeneutic of the documents on the background of the continuous tradition.” He adds: “Tradition certainly is not a lifeless fossil, but it certainly also does not mean an adaptation to any kind of contemporary culture.”

Pozzo even shows his understanding and sympathy for the Society of Saint Pius X when he politely concludes his interview with these words:

In such a difficult moment of confusion and lack of orientation as we have it today, it is the task of those who want to remain loyal to the tradition of the Church to promote the re-strenghtening of the Christian faith and of the mission. I hope that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X – when fully integrated – will also thus be able to make its contribution to this missionary apostolate and to the strengthening of the Catholic Faith in our society and in our world.

Even the secular world is discovering the Pope Francis is naked!

Dennis Prager: Pope Francis And The Decline Of The West

Investor’s Business Daily | Opinion | 8/09/2016

Pope Francis made comments last week that reveal the most important single thing you need to know about the modern world: The most dynamic religion of the last hundred years has been leftism. Not Christianity, and not Islam, but leftism.

Leftism has taken over the world’s leading educational institutions, the world’s news media and the world’s popular entertainment, and it has influenced Christianity (and Judaism) far more than Christianity (or Judaism) has influenced anything.

On July 26, two Muslims slit the throat of a French Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, while he was saying Mass in his church.

Five days later, during his flight returning to Rome from World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, Pope Francis gave a press conference. He was asked about the French priest and Islam by Antoine-Marie Izoard, a journalist with I.Media, a French Catholic news agency.

Izoard said:

“Catholics are in a state of shock -- and not only in France -- following the barbaric assassination of Father Jacques Hamel in his church while he was celebrating Holy Mass. Four days ago ... you told us once again that all religions want peace. But this holy priest, eighty-six years old, was clearly killed in the name of Islam. So I have two brief questions, Holy Father. When you speak of these violent acts, why do you always speak of terrorists but not of Islam? ... And then, ... what concrete initiative can you launch or perhaps suggest in order to combat Islamic violence?”

Pope Francis responded:

“I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence because every day when I open the newspapers I see acts of violence, here in Italy: someone kills his girlfriend, someone else his mother-in-law...and these violent people are baptized Catholics! They are violent Catholics...If I spoke about Islamic violence, I would also have to speak about Catholic violence.”

The pope of the Roman Catholic Church, when asked about Islamic terror and the slitting of the throat of a Roman Catholic priest by Islamic terrorists, responds that there is also Catholic terror -- that a man who was baptized Catholic who “kills his girlfriend” is the moral and religious equivalent of Muslims who engage in mass murder in the name of Islam.

How can anyone compare:

· A person who happens to have been baptized Catholic as a child -- and may have no Catholic identity as an adult -- with an adult who affirms a religious identity?

· The murder of a girlfriend (most likely a crime of passion) with the ritual murder of a Catholic priest because he was a priest?

· Individual murders that have nothing to do with any ideology with mass murders committed in the name of an ideology?

Pope Francis then added:

“Terrorism is everywhere! ... Terrorism ... increases whenever there is no other option, when the global economy is centered on the god of money and not the human person, men and women. This is already a first form of terrorism. You’ve driven out the marvel of creation, man and woman, and put money in their place. This is a basic act of terrorism against all humanity. We should think about it.”

Terrorism grows “when there is no other option”? The implication that Islamic terrorism is a desperate act arising from poverty is widely held on the left. But it is false. Most Islamic terrorists come from the middle class or above. In the recent case of the Bangladeshi terrorists, for example, nearly every one of them came from some of the wealthiest families in Bangladesh. And, as is well-known, most of the 9/11 hijackers came from middle- and upper middle-class families.

Islamic terrorism doesn’t come from economics; it comes from its theology.

Terrorism grows “when the global economy is centred on the god of money”? The pursuit of money and terror have nothing to do with each other. Terrorism grows only when some ideology preaches it. All this statement does is provide an excuse for Islamist terror by blaming the “global economy” and the “god of money” instead of the terrorists and their god of death.

A “first form of terrorism” is when “the global economy is centred on the god of money”? It is a bad thing when money becomes a god, but there is no comparison between the “god of money” and the horrors of Islamic terror. Yazidi women weren’t gang raped and burned alive because of the “global economy” and its “god of money.”

The only explanation for these statements is that Pope Francis has inherited his theology from Catholicism, but unlike his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, he has inherited much of his moral outlook from leftism.

The Western combination of Judeo-Christian morality and political liberalism -- with its doctrine of moral accountability, moral absolutes, confronting evil, and political and social freedom -- has produced the most moral societies in world history.

The pope of the Roman Catholic Church should be its greatest advocate. But because of leftism, he isn’t.

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

For, as the Vatican Council teaches, “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith.” Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church’s ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption into Heaven-----which surely no faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is concerned-----is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, “all those things are to be believed by Divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as Divinely revealed truths which must be believed.”

Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, Defining the Dogma of the Assumption

There are three things that render death bitter: attachment to the world, remorse for sins, and the uncertainty of salvation. The death of Mary was entirely free from these causes of bitterness, and was accompanied by three special graces, which rendered it precious and joyful. She dies as she had lived, entirely detached from the things of the world; she died in the most perfect peace; she died in the certainty of eternal glory.

St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori on the Assumption

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

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is an “ordinary and universal” magisterial document – INFALLIBLE!

Francis institutes commission to study female deacons, appointing gender-balanced membership

Francis has fulfilled a promise made last May in what could constitute an historic move towards ending the Catholic Church’s practice of an all-male clergy

joshua mcelwee | vatican city | 02-08-2016

Pope Francis has created a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, following up on a promise made last May in what could be an historic move towards ending the global institution’s practice of an all-male clergy. The Pontiff has appointed an equal number of male and female experts as members of the commission, which will be led by Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria, a Jesuit who serves as the second-in-command of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation. The Vatican said in a release announcing the commission Tuesday that the Pope had decided to create the group “after intense prayer and mature reflection” and wanted it particularly to study the history of the female diaconate “in the earliest times of the Church.” […..] Francis’ openness to studying the possibility of women serving as deacons could represent an historic shift for the global Catholic Church, which does not ordain women as clergy. Pope John Paul II claimed in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that “the Church has no authority whatsoever” to ordain woman as priests, citing Jesus’ choosing of only men to serve as his twelve apostles. Many Church historians have said however that there is abundant evidence that women served as deacons in the early centuries of the Church. The apostle Paul mentions such a woman, Phoebe, in his letter to the Romans. […..]

We cannot be sure if we are loving God, although we may have good reason to believe that we are, but we can know quite well if we are loving our neighbor. And be certain that, the farther advanced you find you are in this, the greater the love you will have for God.

St. Teresa of Avila

Pope Francis, Could he really be this ignorant of Catholic history? Of any history?

Pope: “It isn’t right to call Islam a terrorist faith”

In the interview on board the papal flight from Poland, Francis speaks about repression in Turkey: “I am examining the situation. Prudence is required, but not at the cost of truth”. About his fall at Czestochowa, he said: “I was busy gazing at the Madonna and I forgot about the little step!”

Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | July 31, 2016 | On the flight from krakow to rome

“It isn’t right to say that Islam is a terrorist faith, I don’t like talking about Islamic violence.” Speaking to journalists on the return flight from Krakow to Rome, Francis said this in response to a question about the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel, the elderly French priest who was slain while he was celebrating mass.
Question: Catholics are in shock following the barbaric murder of Fr. Hamel. You told us that all religions seek peace, yet he was killed in the name of Islam. Why do you never mention the word Islam when you speak about terrorism?
Pope Francis: “I don’t like speaking of Islamic violence because I come across violence every day when I leaf through the newspapers here in Italy: you read about someone who’s killed his girlfriend or his mother-in-law and these are violent baptised Catholics. If I talk about Islamic violence should I speak about Catholic violence too? Not all Muslims are violent. It’s like a fruit salad, you do find some violent people in religions. One thing is certain: there is always a small group of extremists in practically every religion. We have them too. And when extremism goes as far as to kill - you can kill with your tongue, the apostle James says so, not me, and you can kill with a sword - it is not right to identify Islam with violence. I had a long conversation with the grand imam of Al Azhar: they seek peace and understanding. […..]

Donald Trump signs first-ever presidential anti-porn pledge

LifeSiteNews | WASHINGTON, D.C. | August 1, 2016 – Donald Trump has become the first presidential candidate to sign an anti-pornography pledge, promising to crack down on obscenity after an eight-year-long hiatus at the federal level.

Although he signed the pledge on July 16, the release is just making the news today, after the Republican and Democratic National Conventions dominated the news cycle for two weeks.

“Mr. Trump’s leadership and commitment to uphold the rule of law is demonstrated by his signing of the Children’s Internet Safety Presidential Pledge,” said Donna Rice Hughes, the president of the anti-porn group Enough is Enough, which drew the vow up. “Making the internet safer for children and families is a critical step in making America safe again.”

The heart of the promise requires the president to prosecute existing obscenity laws by “appointing an Attorney General who will make the prosecution of such laws a top priority in my administration.” […..]

“All the gods of the Gentiles are devils” Psalm 95:5

Murdered French priest’s last words: ‘Begone, Satan!’

LifeSiteNews | ROUEN, France | August 4, 2016 — Father Jacques Hamel’s last words before two Islamic State terrorists slit his throat, after forcing him to his knees before the altar where he had been saying morning Mass, were “Go away, Satan!” And as the 85-year-old priest tried to push the attackers away with his feet, he repeated again, “Begone, Satan!” recounted the archbishop of Rouen during his homily for Father Hamel’s two-hour funeral Mass on Tuesday. […..]

‘It’s not right to equate Islam with violence,’ says Pope Francis

The Pope spoke to reporters on the flight back to Rome from Kraków

CATHOLIC HEROLD-- Speaking to journalists aboard his return flight from Kraków, Poland, on Sunday, Pope Francis said that violence exists in all religions, including Catholicism, and it cannot be pinned to one single religion.

”I do not like to speak of Islamic violence because everyday when I look through the papers, I see violence here in Italy,” the Pope told reporters. “And they are baptised Catholics. There are violent Catholics. If I speak of Islamic violence, I also have to speak of Catholic violence,” he added. Spending about 30 minutes with reporters and responding to six questions, Pope Francis was asked to elaborate on comments he had made flying to Poland on July 27 when he told the journalists that religions are not at war and want peace.

The Pope’s initial comment came in speaking about the murder July 26 of an elderly priest during Mass in a Catholic church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, France. Two men, armed with knives, entered the church during Mass. The attackers murdered 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel, slitting his throat. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the murder.

Although the death of the French priest was committed in the name of Islam, the Pope said that it is unfair to label an entire religion violent because of the actions of a few fundamentalists.

“One thing is true. I believe that in almost all religions, there is always a small fundamentalist group. We have them, too,” the Pope said. “When fundamentalism goes to the point of killing — you can even kill with the tongue. This is what St James says, but (you can kill) also with a knife. “

He added: “I do not think it is right to identify Islam with violence. This is not right and it is not true.”

Instead, the Pope said, that those who choose to enter fundamentalists groups, such as the ISIS, do so because “they have been left empty” of ideals, work and values. […..]

COMMENT: On November 30, 2015 Pope Francis, who has repeatedly identified traditional Catholics as “fundamentalists,” spoke about the “disease” of Catholic “fundamentalism” that afflicts “many... in the Catholic Church.” Francis defined Catholic fundamentalism as the “disease” of Catholics who believe in “Absolute Truth.” Francis likened these Catholics to the Islamic murderers who indiscriminately slaughtered French citizens in the “Paris attacks” that had recently occurred. He said that Catholic “fundamentalists,” who “go on sullying others through slander and defamation,” are “idolaters” whose “disease” leads to “crimes” and “ends in tragedy.” Francis concluded his remarks by saying that Catholic “fundamentalists,” for whom “God is lacking, must be combated” because they are a “bad thing.”

Once again Pope Francis draws a direct comparison between the Islamic murderers, who killed an 81-year-old Catholic priest while offering Mass as commanded by their religion, to traditional Catholics who believe the “Absolute Truths” revealed by God and keep His commandments.

What can be said regarding this calumny? It is not possible by rational argument to convince and remove a psychologically damaged mind from opinions that were not rationally derived! What can be said is that the mind that makes such irrational allegations is very, very sick. Maybe the next pilgrimage of Pope Francis will be to Mecca?

“Want a mess... great disorder... trouble in the dioceses,” Take a Look Around!

I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses! I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!

Pope Francis at World Youth Day, Brazil

Pope Francis claims Church owes him an apology; that faithful Catholics should beg for his “forgiveness”!

Pope says Church should ask forgiveness from gays for past treatment

Philip Pullella | Reuters | 6-26-16

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they had treated them.

Speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia, he also said the Church should ask forgiveness for the way it has treated women, for turning a blind eye to child labour and for “blessing so many weapons” in the past.

In the hour-long freewheeling conversation that has become a trademark of his international travels, Francis was asked if he agreed with recent comments by a German Roman Catholic cardinal that the Church should apologise to gays.

Francis looked sad when the reporter asked if an apology was made more urgent by the killing of 49 people at a gay club in Orlando, Florida this month.

He recalled Church teachings that homosexuals “should not be discriminated against. They should be respected, accompanied pastorally.”

He added: “I think that the Church not only should apologise … to a gay person whom it offended but it must also apologise to the poor as well, to the women who have been exploited, to children who have been exploited by (being forced to) work. It must apologise for having blessed so many weapons.”

The Church teaches that homosexual tendencies are not sinful but homosexual acts are, and that homosexuals should try to be chaste.

Francis repeated a slightly modified version of the now-famous “Who am I to judge?” comment he made about gays on the first foreign trip after his election in 2013.

“The questions is: if a person who has that condition, who has good will, and who looks for God, who are we to judge?”

FORGIVENESS, NOT JUST APOLOGY

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said that the pope, by saying “has that condition”, did not imply a medical condition but “a person in that situation”. In Italian, the word “condition” can also mean “situation”.

“We Christians have to apologise for so many things, not just for this (treatment of gays), but we must ask for forgiveness, not just apologise! Forgiveness! Lord, it is a word we forget so often!” he said.

Francis has been hailed by many in the gay community for being the most merciful pope towards them in recent history and conservative Catholics have criticised him for making comments they say are ambiguous about sexual morality.

He told reporters on the plane “there are traditions in some countries, some cultures, that have a different mentality about this question (homosexuals)” and there are “some (gay) demonstrations that are too offensive for some”.

But he suggested that those were not grounds for discrimination or marginalisation of gays.

The pope did not elaborate on what he meant by seeking forgiveness for the Church “having blessed so many weapons”, but it appeared to be a reference to some Churchmen who actively backed wars in the past.

In other parts of the conversation, Francis said he hoped the European Union would be able to give itself another form after the United Kingdom’s decision to leave.

“There is something that is not working in that bulky union, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, let’s try to jump-start things, to re-create,” he said.

He also denied reports that former Pope Benedict, who resigned in 2013, was still exercising influence inside the Vatican.

“There is only one pope,” he said. He praised Benedict, 89, for “protecting me, having my back, with his prayers”.

Francis said he had heard that when some Church officials had gone to Benedict to complain that Francis was too liberal, Benedict “sent them packing”.

IT is a grave sin to be the accessory to another’s grave sin!

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.

St. Paul, Rom. 1: 21-32

Nine Ways of Being Accessory to Another’s Sin

1. By Counsel

2. By Command

3. By Consent

4. By Provocation

5. By Praise or Flattery

6. By Concealment

7. By Partaking

8. By Silence

9. By Defense of the ill done

Priests, my Son’s ministers, priests, by their evil life, by their irreverences and their impiety in celebrating the holy mysteries, love of money, love of honor and pleasures, priests have become sewers of impurity. Yes, priests call forth vengeance, and vengeance is suspended over their heads. Woe to priests, and to persons consecrated to God, who by their infidelities and their evil life are crucifying my son anew! The sins of persons consecrated to God cry to heaven and call for vengeance, and now here is vengeance at their very doors, for no longer is anyone found to beg mercy and pardon for the people; there are no more generous souls, there is now no one worthy of offering the spotless Victim to the Eternal on the worlds behalf…. Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.

Our Lady of La Salette to Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud

“Would to God that this had always been done with the proper vigilance and constancy.”

Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: 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 ( Singulari nos, 7 Kal. Jul. 1834).

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and plunge it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and an occasion to flaunt itself in all its aspects. It is pride which fills Modernists with that confidence in themselves and leads them to hold themselves up as the rule for all, pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, inflated with presumption, We are not as the rest of men, and which, to make them really not as other men, leads them to embrace all kinds of the most absurd novelties; it is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty; it is pride that makes of them the reformers of others, while they forget to reform themselves, and which begets their absolute want of respect for authority, not excepting the supreme authority. No, truly, there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic laymen or a priest forgets that precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Jesus Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, ah! but he is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism. Hence, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to thwart such proud men, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices; the higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that their lowly position may deprive them of the power of causing damage. Sound your young clerics, too, most carefully, by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride among any of them reject them without compunction from the priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done with the proper vigilance and constancy.

St. Pius X, Pascendi

It is ridiculous and abominable disgrace that… we suffer the traditions we have received from the fathers of ancient times to be infringed at will.

Pope Nicholas I

The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thought 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

A man, ignorant of contemplative spirituality, who smashed the Franciscans of the Immaculate, will now cure religious women of the “disease of self-absorption”!

Francis mandates wide changes for contemplative women religious, requests revision of all constitutions

In a new apostolic constitution titled Vultum Dei Quaerere (“Seek the Face of God”) and addressed to Catholic women religious in contemplative communities, the Pope calls for changes to be implemented in 12 diverse areas from prayer life to work habits.

joshua mcelwee | vatican city | July 22, 2016

          Pope Francis has issued a new wide-ranging set of guidelines for how the tens of thousands of Catholic women religious living in contemplative communities around the world should regulate their lifestyles, calling on them to implement changes in 12 diverse areas from prayer life to work habits.
          The Pontiff has also mandated that each of the global communities of contemplative women religious will need to adapt their various governing constitutions or rules to the new changes and send new versions of their documents to the Vatican for approval.
          Francis makes the changes in a new apostolic constitution released Friday titled Vultum Dei Quaerere (“Seek the Face of God.”) The document is addressed only to Catholic women religious in contemplative communities, such as those that live in cloisters or whose lives are marked by a lifestyle devoted mainly to prayer instead of evangelical outreach or work.
          While the Pontiff uses the new document to issue effusive praise for such women -- especially lauding their ability to serve as an example of stability in a contemporary world often marked by temporary commitments -- he also calls for them to begin to institute changes particularly in their prayer lives.
          In one example, the Pope mandates that all contemplative women religious communities should practice Eucharistic adoration. He also stresses the use of Lectio divina, the traditional Benedictine practice of scripture reading, meditation, and prayer.
          Addressing his reason for writing to the women with the new norms at this time, Francis states: “In these past decades, we have seen rapid historical changes that call for dialogue. At the same time, the foundational values of contemplative life need to be maintained.”
          “Through these values -- silence, attentive listening, the call to an interior life, stability -- contemplative life can and must challenge the contemporary mindset,” the pope continues.
          The Pontiff then calls on the women worldwide to implement changes after reflecting upon 12 aspects of the monastic tradition: Formation, prayer, the word of God, the sacraments of the Eucharist and reconciliation, fraternal life in community, autonomy, federations, the cloister, work, silence, the communications media and asceticism.
          The Pope ends the document with 14 articles establishing new canonical norms for how contemplative women religious should live, saying he is setting aside any canons from the Code of Canon Law that “directly contradict any article of the present Constitution.”
          Among the most direct changes are orders that every contemplative community:
          Review its prayer life “to see if it is centered on the Lord” and “set aside appropriate times for Eucharistic adoration, also inviting the faithful of the local Church to take part;”
          Be a part of some sort of federation with other communities, unless obtaining Vatican permission to not do so;
          Request Vatican approval “whenever a different form of cloister from the present one is called for;”
          Disallow “recruitment of candidates from other countries solely for the sake of ensuring the survival of a monastery,” stating it should be “absolutely avoided”;
          “Wait for further instruction from the Vatican’s congregation for religious life on how to implement changes in the 12 specified areas of life and “once they have been adapted to the new regulations, the articles of the constitutions or rules of individual institutes are to be submitted for approval by the Holy See.”
          Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said at a press conference presenting the new document Friday that his office would now be working on drafting a new instruction to specify how communities are to make the changes in their lifestyles.
          The new document will replace the congregation’s 1999 instruction Verbi sponsa and will regulate the “formation, autonomy and seclusion” of contemplative communities, Rodriguez said. [.....]

But Francis also warns the contemplatives from becoming too isolated in their own autonomy from others. “Autonomy favors the stability of life and internal unity of each community, ensuring the best conditions for contemplation,” states the Pope. “But autonomy ought not to mean independence or isolation, especially from the other monasteries of the same Order or the same charismatic family.”
“Take care to avoid ‘the disease of self-absorption’ and to preserve the value of communion between different monasteries as a path of openness towards the future and a means of updating and giving expression to the enduring and codified values of your autonomy,” he exhorts.
[.....]

Vatican statement accuses Polish politicians of whipping up fear against Muslims

Bishops’ spokesman stresses Church in Poland has welcomed refugees as country prepares to welcome Francis for World Youth Day

christopher lamb | vatican city | July 23, 2016

          Just days before Pope Francis’ visit to Poland a Vatican statement has denounced an “artificially created fear of Muslims” which it says is being fed by some political parties in the country.
          The press release, released by the Holy See but written by a spokesman for the Polish Bishops, describes Poland as “ethnically homogenous” and that immigration is a relatively new phenomenon seen as strange to the average Polish person.
          “For this reason, even through the official statistics relating to foreign citizens legally resident in Poland show that they make up just 0.4 per cent of the population as a whole, great fears exist”, Fr Pawel Rytel-Andrianik writes in a statement issued just before the beginning of World Youth Day in Krakow and which he stressed was a summary of the media debate in Poland.
          These fears, Fr Rytel-Andrianik explains, are due to a lack of public debate, complicated migration procedures and no public programme of teaching people in the country Polish about diversity of religion, race and culture. [.....]
          The press release will, however, be read as trying to address tensions between the Polish hierarchy and Francis: this Pope has made welcoming migrants a key part of his pontificate and has called on Europe’s leaders to find better ways to integrate new arrivals to the continent. [.....]

And with Amoris Laetitia, his document released following those gatherings, the Pope has opened up the possibility for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion. By contrast many Polish bishops remain loyal to John Paul II who ruled against such a move.

“Positive Contributions to Italian Culture” like abortion, same-sex “marriage”, etc., etc., etc.

Anti-semitism and other prejudices in Italy: an alarming report

Negative reactions to Francis’ visit to Rome Synagogue are symptoms of widespread malaise

lisa palmieri-billig | rome | July 19, 2016

Some alarming and rather unexpected facts regarding the state of prejudice in Italy were recently revealed during a Rome press conference organized by the Parliamentary Alliance against Intolerance and Racism of the Council of Europe. The results of an updated report on anti-Semitism in Italy by the Observatory of CDEC (Milan Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation) and on the Map of Hate on Twitter 2015 by Vox – Observatory on Rights (in cooperation with the universities of Rome, Bari and Milan), revealed that Italy is the most anti-Semitic country in Western Europe.

Offhand no one would imagine that every fifth Italian harbors anti-Semitic convictions (21% of the population), over twice as many as Germany which totals “only” 9% (less than one in ten), the UK and France totaling 7% and 7% each, and Spain coming in second at 17%. Yet a Pew Poll registers these figures.

The second startling revelation concerned the surge in anti-Semitic tweets following Pope Francis’ visit to Rome’s main synagogue last January, and his words regarding “Jews and Christians in one sole family”. This necessarily leads us to question the validity of present educational methods in teaching the precepts of the Second Vatican Council such as “Nostra Aetate”, whose 50th anniversary was nationally and internationally celebrated last year, as well as the validity of currently used techniques of teaching appreciation of and friendship between people with different cultural and religious traditions. In fact, we could almost say, these methods have largely failed our expectations.

According to the Vox statistics, Italy’s most intolerant regions are Lombardy, Lazio and Umbria – the least intolerant being Valle d’Aosta (only 37 negative tweets), Molise, and Basilicata . The anti-Semitic words found in 2.2% of 6,754 of the derogatory and racist tweets, included, next to “Jew” (“ebreo”, “giudeo”) and “rabbi”, were “Zionist” (revealing the influence of biased anti-Israel propaganda) , “strozzino” (loan-shark”, “usurer”. “swindler”) – words that reveal deeply rooted, historically populist stereotypes based on ignorance and a lack of education towards tolerance plus a lack of knowledge regarding the positive contributions of Jews to Italian culture and society through the centuries. [......]

Vatican II - Fruits of the Great Apostasy

“The great civilizations do not express from within the great religions as a species of cultural by-product; the great religions are the base upon which the great civilizations rest. A society that has lost its religion is destined sooner or later to lose its culture.”

Christopher Dawson

2016 Republican Party platform hailed as most pro-life, pro-family ever

CLEVELAND | LifeSiteNews | July 20, 2016 – Gathered in Cleveland, the Republican Party has adopted what is being described as the most pro-life platform in the 162-year history of the GOP.

The 2016 Republican Party platform strengthened its pro-life plank to call – for the first time – for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, banning dismemberment abortion, opposing assisted suicide, halting the Obama administration’s transgender restroom edit, restoring the traditional definition of marriage, and recognizing pornography as a public health hazard.

The bustling crowd inside Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland approved the official statement of the party’s policy prescriptions by voice vote on Monday, drawing praise from pro-life and pro-family leaders nationwide.

MORE PRO-LIFE THAN EVER

The 2016 platform reiterates the GOP’s support for a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, clarifying that the 14th Amendment protects unborn children from being deprived of life, liberty of property without due process of law. That plank has been part of every Republican platform since 1980, when the Grand Old Party met in Detroit to nominate Ronald Reagan for president.

However, the party made history by encouraging states to defund Planned Parenthood – the nation’s largest abortion provider – by name, as well as further penalizing the sale of fetal organs. The platform reads:

We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare. We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts. In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation. We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage.

The GOP also backs efforts “to exclude abortion providers from federal programs such as Medicaid and other healthcare and family planning programs so long as they continue to perform or refer for elective abortions or sell the body parts of aborted children.”

The platform, which mentions “abortion” 37 times, formally supports state and federal laws prohibiting “the cruelest forms of abortion, especially dismemberment abortion procedures, in which unborn babies are literally torn apart limb from limb.” [.....]

Why Trump has a Catholic voter problem

ReligiousNewsService | By John Gehring | July 20, 2016 - Donald Trump takes pride in rattling the GOP establishment, but he faces a major roadblock on the way to the White House.

Catholic voters, who have been key to picking the winning ticket in almost every modern election, reject Trump decisively. In 2012, President Obama won the overall Catholic vote 50 percent to 48 percent. Hillary Clinton now leads 56 percent to 39 percent, a sizable gap unlikely to close much by November. [......]

Dr. Ben Carson: Abortion is ‘evil’ and transgenderism is ‘absurd’

LIFESITENEWS | CLEVELAND | July 20, 2016– Former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson stood by his comment slinking Hillary Clinton to Lucifer this morning, adding that the policies she espouses – like abortion-on-demand and changing the definition of marriage – are “evil.”

At a separate event, he called redefining sex based on one’s preferred gender identity “the height of absurdity.”

In his nationally televised address to the Republican National Convention last night, Dr. Carson alluded to the fact that Hillary Clinton had looked up to Saul Alinsky, the godfather of left-wing community organizers.

Alinsky dedicated his best-known book, Rules for Radicals, to “Lucifer.”

On CNN this morning, Carson told Christopher Cuomo the book advised protesters to unleash “controlled anarchy in order to change us from a democratic republic to a socialist society,” a philosophy that is not “consistent with the principles” of the United States.

Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Alinsky, with whom she maintained a friendly correspondence, in 1969.

Cuomo repeatedly asked Dr. Carson if he had gone “too far” in mentioning Clinton and Lucifer in the same breath, adding that he had never heard Clinton “mention” Alinsky as a mentor in public.

“She was on a first-name basis with Saul Alinsky,” Dr. Carson replied. “He offered her a job.”

“You have to also use your brain,” Carson said. “Look at her actions, you look at what she advocates. The killing of babies, the dissolution of the traditional family” are “pretty consistent” with Alinsky’s socialist worldview. [....]

For the idiots who trust in “Religious Liberty”

Macy’s fires Catholic employee for questioning transgender bathroom policy

LifeSiteNews | FLUSHING, New York | July 21, 2016 – Macy’s department store has fired a Catholic employee because he questioned their transgender bathroom policy, even though he says he told his employer he would enforce the policy.

Back in May, Javier Chavez, a senior store detective at Macy’s Flushing, New York, location got a phone call about a male accessing the ladies room along with a female.

A female customer and her daughter were afraid to enter the restroom due the male’s presence there, and a security guard reporting to Chavez directed the man to leave and use the men’s room. The man left, claiming to be a female, before then complaining to the store officials about being asked to leave.

Chavez was later informed by a Macy’s assistant store manager that certain males can use the ladies restroom, something he had not been made aware of prior to the incident. Then an assistant security manager told Chavez that transgender individuals can use the bathroom of their choosing.

Chavez responded that he had just become aware of the policy. He said it was contrary to his religion and the Bible, but said that even so, he would enforce Macy’s policy.

“Macy’s would not leave this alone,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue stated, “and this is where it crossed the line.”

Chavez was then called to a meeting with his human resources manager, who suspended him, and he was subsequently fired.

According to a legal complaint, the retailer terminated Chavez even though he had not previously been made aware that Macy’s allowed transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their choice, and also in spite of the fact Chavez had promised to uphold the policy while working. His case is now before the New York State Division of Human Rights.

“After my employer learned that I was a practicing Catholic, with religious concerns about this policy, I was terminated because of my religion, in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law,” Chavez states in his complaint. [......]

Amazing how a man with nothing to say cannot stop saying nothing!

Still emblematic is the answer Pope Francis gave on November 15, 2015, on a visit to the Christuskirche, the church of the Lutherans in Rome (see photo), to a Protestant who asked him if she could receive communion together with her Catholic husband.
The answer from Francis was a stupefying pinwheel of yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out. Which it is indispensable to reread in its entirety, in the official transcription:
“Thank you, Ma’am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid! I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: ‘Do this in memory of me’. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord’s Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last. Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: “Is sharing the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together? I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand. It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: don’t we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism. When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive. When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same. The question: and the Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond the same, you see. ‘This is my Body, this is my Blood’, said the Lord, ‘do this in memory of me’, and this is a viaticum which helps us to journey. I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord’s Supper. Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man. I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond. A pastor friend of mine said to me: ‘We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference?’ – ‘Well, there are explanations, interpretations…’. Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: “One faith, one baptism, one Lord”, as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more.”

Sandro Magister

And just would a cloistered nun want to hear on “social media”? Pope Francis?

As nuns’ numbers fall, pope says OK to use social media

AP | VATICAN CITY | July 22, 2016 — A Vatican official says the number of nuns who dedicate their lives to prayer and contemplating God is dwindling, even as Pope Francis has written a new document praising their relevance in the world.

Monsignor Jose Rodriguez Carballo told reporters Friday that from 2000 to 2014, their numbers, including novices, plunged from some 55,000 to some 43,000. Spain and Italy have the highest number of them. Some of these nuns choose strictly cloistered lives.

Francis writes that the “large part” of the world that’s dominated by “the mindset of power, wealth and consumerism” has immense need of the “hidden mission” of these nuns. He says because digital culture influences how we relate to the world, contemplative communities of nuns can use social media, but warns against time-wasting.

We wish to have this law of the ancients held in reverence and that law is, “Let nothing new be introduced but only what has been handed down.” This must be an inviolable law in matters of Faith.

Pope Benedict XV, 1914

Oops! Cardinal Sarah should have known better! The immemorial Roman rite is the sacrificial worship of God while the Novus Ordo, “the work of human hands,” is the worship of man. They can never face the same direction!

“It is very important that we return, as soon as possible, to a common direction, the priests and the faithful facing the same direction, towards the east, or at least towards the apse, towards the Lord who comes. I ask you apply this practice wherever possible.”

Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship

Vatican Correction:

“Clarification is appropriate following media reports which circulated after a conference held in London by Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, a few days ago. Cardinal Sarah has always been rightly concerned about the dignity of the celebration of the Mass, in order to adequately express the attitude of respect and adoration of the Eucharistic mystery. Some of his expressions were, however, misinterpreted, as if they were to announce new indications that differ from those which are given so far in the liturgical norms and in the words of the Pope on the celebration facing the people and the ordinary Mass rite.

“Thus, it is good to remember that the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (General Instruction of the Roman Missal), which contains the rules for the Eucharistic celebration and is still in full force, states in paragraph 299: ‘Altare extruatur a pariete seiunctum, ut facile circumiri et in eo celebratio versus populum peragi possit, quod expedit ubicumque possibile sit. Altare eum autem occupet locum, ut revera centrum sit ad quod totius congregationis fidelium attentio sponte convertatur’ (ie: ‘The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. The altar should, moreover, be so placed as to be truly the centre toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns.’).

“For his part, Pope Francison the occasion of his visit to the Dicastery of Divine Worship, specifically mentioned that the ‘ordinary’ form of the celebration of Mass is that which is intended by the Missal promulgated by Paul VI, while the ‘extraordinary’ form, which was allowed by Pope Benedict XVI for the purposes and in the manner which he explained in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, must not take the place of the ‘ordinary’.

“Thus, new liturgical directives as of next Advent are not foreseenas some have wrongly inferred from some words of Cardinal Sarah, and it is best to avoid using the expression ‘reform of the reform’, referring to the liturgy, as it has sometimes been a source of misunderstanding. This was mutually expressed during a recent audience granted by the Pope to the same Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship.”

Fr. Federico Lombardi, S. J., Vatican Spokesman, July 11, 2016

“Amoris Laetitia.... scandaalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous...”

Catholic academics and pastors appeal to the College of Cardinals over Amoris Laetitia

A group of Catholic academics and pastors has submitted an appeal to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome, requesting that the Cardinals and Eastern Catholic Patriarchs petition His Holiness, Pope Francis, to repudiate a list of erroneous propositions that can be drawn from a natural reading of the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. During the coming weeks this submission will be sent in various languages to every one of the Cardinals and Patriarchs, of whom there are 218 living at present.
Describing the exhortation as containing “a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to Catholic faith and morals,” the signatories submitted, along with their appeal, a documented list of applicable theological censures specifying “the nature and degree of the errors that could be attributed to Amoris laetitia.”

Among the 45 signatories are Catholic prelates, scholars, professors, authors, and clergy from various pontifical universities, seminaries, colleges, theological institutes, religious orders, and dioceses around the world. They have asked the College of Cardinals, in their capacity as the Pope’s official advisers, to approach the Holy Father with a request that he repudiate “the errors listed in the document in a definitive and final manner, and to authoritatively state that Amoris laetitia does not require any of them to be believed or considered as possibly true.”

“We are not accusing the pope of heresy,” said a spokesman for the authors, “but we consider that numerous propositions in Amoris laetitia can be construed as heretical upon a natural reading of the text. Additional statements would fall under other established theological censures, such as scandalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous, among others.” [......]

Socci: It appears the Bergoglian Inquisition is winning (at the moment)

Antonio Socci | Facebook | July 10, 2016

I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is no longer one single counter-current voice in the [Italian]mass-media which reports truthfully what is happening under the Bergoglian regime in the Church. We are under an oppressive Argentine dictatorship.

Those who disturb the Bergoglian Power would appear not to have any right to speak in the media. Even the most important Catholic intellectuals, who criticised Amoris laetitia severely (such as Spaemann, Grygiel and Seifert, close collaborators of John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have remained invisible in the [Italian] media. Their severe criticisms have been silenced. Even the explosive discourse of May 21st by Monsignor Gaenswein – Benedict XVI’s secretary and right-hand man – is virtually unobtainable in the media. Just like the critical voices of some theologians, bishops and cardinals.

TOTAL CENSURESHIP. SOMETHING NEVER SEEN BEFORE. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WE HEAR NO VOICE RAISED IN DENOUNCING THE DICTATORSHIP IMPOSED IN PRAISE AND GLORY OF THE “MERCIFUL” ARGENTINE?

We still have the net – it’s true. Thank heaven here it’s still possible to write and read the factual truth. And already some Bergoglian clerics are launching anathemas at the net itself, since they are unable to control it and impose their muzzle there as well.

A friend has observed that it’s very sad indeed as this Argentine dictatorship is being imposed without the least critical reaction, not even on the part of the laity.

Yet, this is an ingenuous observation as it’s precisely the lay secular-media that are the most unrestrained supporters of Bergoglio. They have finally found the one in whom they can realize their dream: the destruction of the Catholic Church. So it is quite obvious they are skinning their hands in applause and in support of him as they silence the opposing voices of the Catholic Resistance.

There is, however, some news to add to this: the Resistance shall win, because Christ shall win. You can be sure of it. It shall not be heresy and apostasy that prevail. Even if they have all the earthly power today.

Today it seems those who want to liquidate the Catholic Faith are winning hands down, but the King of Heaven will make visible the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

For this reason, today, we appeal to Our Mother also for the conversion of those who are oppressing the Church and collaborating in the destruction of God’s work. We pray for the persecutors, for the salvation of their souls.

And let us pray to Our Lady, that She may protect our souls from falsehood and cowardice. Let our entire life and selves be under the mantle of Her Maternal gaze. We entrust everything to Her, She, Who is the Help of Christians and the Queen of Victories.

Excommunicated Priestesses Invited to the Vatican?

Katholisches.info | Rome | July 14, 2016

Last Friday to representatives of militant women’s association Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) have been received in the Vatican. The organization calls for the introduction of women to the priesthood by the Catholic Church.

According to a WOW spokesman, the excommunicated Pole, Janice Secre-Duszynska, had been received by a “senior official” of the Vatican Secretariat of State, together with other WOW “priestesses”. They wished to leave a petition with which they begin a dialogue and the lifting of the excommunication against persons called by Pope Francis, who work for women priests in the Catholic Church.

Ambiguous wording of Pope Francis may have been conceived as “openness” to several controversial issues. But women priests are not part of his agenda. Pope John Paul II had uttered with the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994, a definite no to women priests. His affirmation of the sacrament instituted by Christ is considered canonically a pronouncement ex cathedra. The dogmatic character leaves the question out of further discussion.

Last month, however, Francis announced towards the Superiors General of Catholic women religious that he wanted to form a commission to study the role and task of the early Christian deaconesses. The deaconesses of antiquity had no part in the sacrament of Orders, they were not ordained female deacons. Feminist and progressive Church circles have focused, since Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, increasingly on the “women’s diaconate” on the grounds that John Paul II may have indeed explicitly excluded women priests, but not women deacons. Of this quibble the defender of the Sacraments spoke: There is only a sacrament of orders, which cannot be split. John Paul II had affirmed what the Church has always taught that the sacrament, no matter at what level, whether deacons, priests or bishops, is reserved for men. […..]

Translation posted from Eponymous Flower

The “Abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, in the holy place” refers to heresy or negligence in the papal office.

In assessing Our duty and the situation now prevailing, We have been weighed upon by the thought that a matter of this kind [i.e. error in respect of the Faith] is so grave and so dangerous that the Roman Pontiff, who is the representative upon earth of God and our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fullness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith. Remembering also that, where danger is greater, it must more fully and more diligently be counteracted, We have been concerned lest false prophets or others, even if they have only secular jurisdiction, should wretchedly ensnare the souls of the simple, and drag with them into perdition, destruction and damnation countless peoples committed to their care and rule, either in spiritual or in temporal matters; and We have been concerned also lest it may befall Us to see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, in the holy place. In view of this, Our desire has been to fulfill our Pastoral duty, insofar as, with the help of God, We are able, so as to arrest the foxes who are occupying themselves in the destruction of the vineyard of the Lord and to keep the wolves from the sheepfolds, lest We seem to be dumb watchdogs that cannot bark and lest We perish with the wicked husbandman and be compared with the hireling.

Pope Paul IV, Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio

Dogma IS the Magisterium explaining “clearly what is contained in the Deposit of Faith”!

God has given to his Church a living Teaching Authority [i.e. Magisterium] to elucidate and explain clearly what is contained in the Deposit of Faith only obscurely and implicitly... If the Church does exercise this function of teaching, either in the ordinary (and universal) or the extraordinary way, it is clear how false is a procedure which would attempt to explain what is clear by means of what is obscure. Indeed the very opposite procedure must be used.

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

From the attribute of God’s GOODNESS follows His Mercy/Justice!

In the true Religion, justice and mercy not only do not, but cannot exist without one another. This is why all this vague and amorphous talk of “accompaniment, reconciliation and integration” emanating from the recent Synod’s progressivist party is so very diabolical. It is not directed to setting people right with God. It is therefore neither just nor merciful. The mercy lauded in Holy Scripture is either a divine attribute or a human virtue. As a divine attribute it is perfectly in conformity with God’s justice. In fact, in God, justice and mercy are attributes that can only be logically distinguished; they have no real distinction in the divine essence Itself which is perfectly simple and not composed of parts. As a virtue of men, mercy is not a mere sentiment or emotion. The pure, unchecked emotion of mercy can lead us to be unjust, in the same way that any unchecked emotion can. Here, “conformity to reason” — a touchstone of perennial wisdom on the virtues — is of utmost importance. God Himself shows us mercy by giving us His grace. That grace, in turn, makes us “just,” or right with Himself. In Christ, “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed” (Ps. 84:11). And Our Lord enjoins us to imitate Himself by offering sublime divine promises: “He that followeth justice and mercy, shall find life, justice, and glory” (Prov. 21:21); and “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

Br. Andre, MICM

No sense in mincing words!

My only source for Luther was Luther himself. [….] Luther was so vile that he could not possibly be an instrument of God. [….] this so-called reformer made no discovery at all in the theological realm. [....] He was not only a liar, but an ignorant liar.

Heinrich Seuse Denifle, O. P., (1844-1905), the great scholar and historian, who was beloved by Leo XIII and St. Pius X, wrote important studies on the history of medieval universities, history of the University of Paris, medieval mysticism, history of the Hundred Years War, many works on philosophy and theology always searching for primary documentation throughout the archives in Europe. He was a conductor of the Cardinalitial Commission of Studies, a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (Vienna), and of those of Paris, Prague, Berlin, Göttingen, honorary doctor of the Universities of Münster and Innsbruck, member of the Légion d’honneur, of the Order of the Iron Crown, etc. He died on his way to Cambridge, where he was to be made Honorary Doctor of that university. He easily defended his condemnation of Luther’s teachings and personal immorality against the most eminent Protestants.

No Catholic can ignore the “Supernaturally Good,” ordering “everything toward the highest Good as his Final Aim”!

Whatever a Christian does, even in worldly affairs, he is not at liberty to disregard what is supernaturally good, but he must order everything towards the highest good as his final aim, in accordance with the precepts of Christian wisdom. All his actions, however, as far as they are morally good or bad, that is to say, as far as they are in accord with or transgress the natural and divine law, are subject to the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church.

Pope St. Pius X, Singulari Quadam

The Cause of Homosexuality? It has been revealed in Sacred Scripture.

Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.

St. Paul, Rom. 1: 21-32

Francis: “All Christians have Jewish roots”

The Pope meets participants of a meeting held by the International Council of Christians and Jews on the 50th anniversary of the Council document “Nostra Aetate”, which “marks the irrevocable rejection of anti-Semitism”. “We are no longer strangers but friends, brothers and sisters”

ANDREA TORNIELI | vatican city | 06/30/2015

“Christians, all Christians have Jewish roots”. Pope Francis reminded people of this in his audience with the participants of an international meeting organised by the International Council of Christians and Jews on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Council declaration, “Nostra Aetate”, which laid down new premises for the relationship between Catholics and Jews.

The Pope was glad that Rome was chosen as the city to host the meeting. Rome is the city “where the Apostles Peter and Paul are buried and both of these figures are essential reference points for all Christians: they are like “pillars” of the Church. And Rome is home to the oldest Jewish community in Western Europe, whose origins date back to the Maccabean period.”

“So Christians and Jews have been living together in Rome for almost 2000 years,” Francis pointed out. “Though that is not to say there have been no tensions between them through the course of history.” The Pope explained that a “real fraternal dialogue” was able to develop “from the Second Vatican Council on, after the promulgation of the “Nostra Aetate” declaration. This document marked the definitive acceptance of Christianity’s Jewish roots and the irrevocable rejection of anti-Semitism.”

Francis went on to mention the “rich fruits it produced,” adding that an appraisal of Jewish and Catholic dialogue can be made with gratitude… Our fragmentary human nature, our mistrust and our pride were overcome thanks to the Spirit of God the Almighty, so that trust and fraternity would continue to grow among us. We are no longer strangers, but friends, brothers and sisters,” who “believe in the same God, Creator of the universe and Lord of history, despite our different perspectives”.

“Christians, all Christians,” Francis continued, “have Jewish roots. For this reason, ever since its creation, the International Council of Christians and Jews has welcomed all the various Christian denominations. Each of these, in their own way, is connected to Judaism, which in turn is characterised by different currents and sensitivities.” The phrase about Christianity’s Jewish “roots” echoes in some way the words used by Pius XI during an audience he had with a group of Belgian pilgrims on 6 September 1938: “anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are Semites.”

This is how Pope Francis summed up the differences between Christians and Jews: “Christian denominations are unified through Christ; Judaism finds its unity in the Torah. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh in the world; for Jews, the Word of God is to be found above all in the Torah. Both religious traditions have as their foundation, the One God, the God of the Alliance, who reveals himself to mankind through His Word.”

Finally, the Pope recalled that in its reflections on Judaism, the Second Vatican Council “took the ten points of Seelisberg into account. These were drawn up in this Swiss location, in 1947. And these points were closely linked to the foundation of the International Council of Christians and Jews. We can say that an initial idea for a co-operation between your organisation and the Catholic Church was already budding.

COMMENT: Any profitable discussion between Jews and Catholics must be grounded upon truth and not tripe. The term “Judeo-Christine,” repeatedly used by Pope Francis including his ecology encyclical to the world, was coined at the beginning of the 20th century for the purpose of gaining support in predominantly Christian nations for Zionism. It has no historical foundation. Zionism is the religious/political theory which holds as a first principle that the Jewish people together constitute the promised Messiah. It is not the first false Messiah to whom the Jews have turned. Hebrews faithful to the old testament religion who accepted Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah became Catholics. Those who followed the traditions of the Pharisees that were eventually codified in the Talmud rejected the claims of Jesus Christ and are known today as Jews. The Jews today and Catholics do not share common “roots” nor do Catholics and Jews “believe in the same God” because the Jews and the Catholics are not derived from the same old testament religion. Never is this sophistry from Pope Francis heard from a Jew because Jews are not stupid. Nostra Aetate does not “mark the irrevocable rejection of anti-Semitism” because the Catholic Church has never been “anti-Semetic.” It is nothing but calumny for Pope Francis to suggest otherwise. Anti-Semitism is the hatred of the descendents of Sem, a son of Noe, because of their genetic make-up. It is hatred based upon race. There are at least a dozen or more ethnic peoples in modern Arabia, the Levant and extending into modern Iraq whose languages are Semitic in origin and many members of these ethnic groups now and throughout history have become Catholics. That includes many ethnic Jews. According to PEW research over 95% of Jewish leaders are in favor of abortion and homosexual “marriage.” Morality is derived from doctrine. How is it possible that the doctrinal revelation of the same God can produce an entirely different morality? Historical conflicts between Catholics and Jews have been ultimately based upon specific Jewish behavior within Catholic communities. It is calumny to suggest that these conflicts are due to a mindless hatred of Jews because of their race without any provocation whatsoever. Jewish power today is only ascendant because nominal Catholics are faithless. When the faith is strongly held by Catholics, Jewish power is marginalized. Pope Francis is faithless and cannot defend what he does not believe.

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

Pope Francis, once again, has to have his foot pulled out of his mouth!

Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests

CNA/EWTN News | Rome, Italy | Jun 16, 2016

Updated June 17, 2016 to include a clarification by the Vatican: Pope Francis approved a revision to the official transcript to say that “a portion” of sacramental marriages are null, instead of “the great majority.”

Pope Francis said Thursday that many sacramental marriages today are not valid, because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment.

While he initially said in unscripted comments that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null,” he later approved a revision of these remarks.

When the Vatican released its official transcript of the encounter the following day, they had changed the comment to say that “a portion of our sacramental marriages are null.” […..]

IN HIS OWN WORDS - “The great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” and “a lot of cohabitations” are “real marriages” because of their “fidelity.”

It is impossible for a faithful Catholic to utter such tripe!

“We live in a culture of the provisional. I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said ‘I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years.’ It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life. It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say ‘yes, for the rest of my life!’, but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know. …. [In Argentina] they prefer to cohabitate, and this is a challenge, a task. Not to ask ‘why don’t you marry?’ No, to accompany, to wait, and to help them to mature, help fidelity to mature…. [When they become grandparents] they get married religiously…. It’s a superstition, because marriage frightens the husband. It’s a superstition we have to overcome. I’ve seen a lot of fidelity in these cohabitations, and I am sure that this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because of their fidelity, but there are local superstitions, etc.”

Pope Francis/Bergoglio, interview, June 16, 1916

Source Material for Laudato Si!

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

The Opposition to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Very Public Plan for World “Peace and Prosperity”

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity.”

David Rockefeller, whose is called a philanthropist because he donates a small portion of his personal and family wealth generated from the sin of usury, addressing the 1991 Bilderberg Meeting 25 years ago. The 101 year-old David Rockefeller was not able to attend this year’s meeting due to health concerns. The implementation of his vision of “peace and prosperity” has necessitated a lot of war and impoverishment for most of the world’s peoples. David Rockefeller had his sixth heart transplant at the age of 99 at his private estate and quipped after the operation, “Every time I get a new heart, it is like the breath of life is swept across my body. I feel reenergized and alive.” No comment was offered regarding the philanthropist donor or how the donation brought him “peace and prosperity.”

Pope Francis/Bergoglioisms - The mouth with nothing to say but just can’t stop talking!

· Jesus only pretends to be angry with his disciples;

· The child Jesus “probably had to beg forgiveness“ from Mary and Joseph for his “little escapade” at the Temple;

· Saint Paul declared “I boast only of my sins“ (apparently confusing Saint Paul with Martin Luther);

· When Mary was at the foot of Cross “surely she wanted to say to the Angel: ‘Liar! I was deceived’“;

· When we go to confession “it isn’t that we say our sin and God forgives us. No, not that! We look for Jesus Christ and say: ‘This is your sin, and I will sin again’,”

· The “Tower of Babel was a “wall“ symbolizing xenophobia;

· When we appear before Him for judgment, God will not ask us if we went to Mass;

· Priests should grant absolution even to people who are “afraid” to disclose their sins because the “language of gesture“ suffices (thus encouraging invalid absolutions);

· Matthew resisted his calling by Christ and clung to his money—”No, not me! No, this money is mine”;

· The Gospel is merely a “reflection” on the “gestures” of Christ, because the Church “does not give lectures on love, on mercy“ (that’s Francis’s job!);

· Christ’s miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is “more than a multiplication, it is a sharing, animated by faith and prayer.”

Pope Francis/Bergoglioisms - Political “correctness” and predictable liberal alignment!

· Francis’s warm relations with socialist dictators;

· His lauding of pro-abortion and pro-”gay” politicians;

· His abuse of the papal office as a platform for globalist enviornmentalism (thus advantaging the same transnational corporations he professes to deplore);

· His refusal to intervene in opposition to the legalization of “gay marriage” because “the Pope belongs to everybody, he cannot enter the concrete, domestic politics of a country. This is not the Pope’s role”;

· His demand—flatly contradicting his professed abstention from domestic politics—for universal abolition of the death penalty (while declining to demand the abolition of abortion), open borders in Europe and America, and policies of environmental regulation and wealth redistribution;

· His conspicuous failure to identify government policy, particularly in socialist countries, as a primary cause of the poverty he attributes entirely to the greed of the wealthy.

Compiled by Christopher Ferrara

Few in the world today have the Blessed Sacrament so available. God forbid that this grace be wasted!

Julian wasted away through a disease of the stomach, which prevented her taking food. She bore her silent agony with constant cheerfulness, grieving only for the privation of Holy Communion. At last when, in her seventieth year, she had sunk to the point of death, she begged to be allowed once more to see and adore the Blessed Sacrament. It was brought to her cell, and reverently laid on a corporal, which was placed over her heart. At this moment she expired, and the sacred Host disappeared. After her death the form of the Host was found stamped upon her heart in the exact spot over which the Blessed Sacrament had been placed.

Rev. Henry Bowden, Lives of the Saints

Contrition, Confession & Satisfaction

By the virtue of contrition our sins be forgiven, by confession they be forgotten, but by satisfaction they be so done away that no sin or token remains in any condition of them, but as clean as ever we were. We are shown and warned that it is not enough just to be contrite and confess our offences, but we must also be active in doing good works to make satisfaction for them. For if we are negligent in this third part of penance, which is satisfaction, it is to be feared that some sort secret guile or fault is left in us by which we are deceived. When we see a tree bringing forth buds and flowers but afterward no fruit, we think that there must really be some fault in that tree; even so, in a man’s soul that has first brought forth the bud of contrition and afterwards the flower of confession, if at last it douse not bring forth the good works of satisfaction, it is to be dreaded that some secret guile or deceit still remains. That is to say, the soul is not really contrite and truly confessed.

St. John Fisher

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.

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

Pope’s rhetoric against ‘fundamentalist’ Catholics could help pave way for active persecution.

LifeSiteNews | John Henry Westen | June 15, 2016

It’s one of the most frequent talking points of Pope Francis. It’s definitely part of his appeal for the media and simultaneously one of the most hurtful things for those inside the Church for whom the faith means everything. I’m speaking of the Pope’s penchant for castigating faithful adherents of the Catholic faith as “obsessed,” “doctors of the law,” “neo-pelagian,” “self-absorbed,” “restorationist,” “fundamentalist,” “rigid,” “ideological,” “hypocritical,” and much more.

The effect of the all-too-frequent barrage from the lips of the Pontiff himself is potentially deadly. It confirms the prejudice of the world against faithful Christians as the media constantly portrays them – as hypocrites and worse. Moreover, it permits the false categorization of adherent Christians with fundamentalist Islamic radicals who need to be suppressed to ensure public safety.

Who can blame the media for such comparisons when the Pope has made them himself? “Fundamentalism is a sickness that we find in all religions,” said the Pope in November while flying home from Africa. “Among Catholics there are many, not a few, many, who believe to hold the absolute truth,” he added. “They go ahead by harming others with slander and defamation, and they do great harm. … And it must be combated.” […..]

· From the September 19, 2013 Jesuit magazine interview: “If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing... Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.”

· Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) released November 26, 2013: “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. … Since it is based on carefully cultivated appearances, it is not always linked to outward sin; from without, everything appears as it should be. But if it were to seep into the Church, it would be infinitely more disastrous than any other worldliness which is simply moral.”

· June 2014 interview with Spanish-language magazine La Vanguardia: “The three religions, we have our fundamentalist groups, small in relation to all the rest. A fundamentalist group, although it may not kill anyone, although it may not strike anyone, is violent. The mental structure of fundamentalists is violence in the name of God.”

· In his October 19, 2014 closing address to Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Pope Francis spoke of “traditionalists” with their “hostile inflexibility,” and their failure to allow themselves to be “surprised by God.”

· In the January 2015 book-length interview, The Name of God is Mercy, Pope Francis says “scholars of the law” are “the principal opposition to Jesus; they challenge him in the name of doctrine.” And he adds, “This approach is repeated throughout the long history of the Church.”

· In a September 2015 radio interview with Radio Milenium, Pope Francis said, “Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol. … No religion is immune from its own fundamentalisms. In every religion there will be a small group of fundamentalists whose work is to destroy for the sake of an idea, and not reality.”

· In his closing address to the Synod on the Family in October of 2015, the Pope condemned “the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”

· Pope Francis’ homily on January 18, 2016 reads: “Christians who say ‘it’s always been done that way,’ and stop there have hearts closed to the surprises of the Holy Spirit. They are idolaters and rebels who will never arrive at the fullness of the truth.”

· The official Vatican radio report on his homily of June 9, 2016 reads: “Pope Francis warned on Thursday against an excessive rigidity, saying those within the Church who tell us ‘it’s this or nothing’ are heretics and not Catholics.”

Pope Francis identifies new “heretical” doctrine! Whoever says, “or this or that” instead of “this and that” – Anathema Sit! Such as, we cannot say, ‘Pope Benedict or Pope Francis’ but rather, ‘Pope Benedict and Pope Francis’?

How many times do we in the Church hear these things: how many times! ‘But that priest, that man or that woman from the Catholic Action, that bishop, or that Pope tell us we must do it this way!’ and then they do the opposite. This is the scandal that wounds the people and prevents the people of God from growing and going forward. It doesn’t free them. . . . This (is the) healthy realism of the Catholic Church: The Church never teaches us the ‘or this or that.’ That is not Catholic. The Church says to us, ‘this and that.’ . . . This is not Catholic, this is heretical.

Pope Francis, June 9, 2016, Vatican Radio

Religion at the Service of Ecology
Francis’ Laudato Si and the Boff Connection
CATHOLIC FAMILY NEWS | By John Vennari
          The purpose of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si is to promote “ecological awareness,” “ecological conversion,” and to advance responsible “ecological citizenship”. Everything else in the document – everything else – is meant to serve this final goal.
          Even the most “Catholic parts” of the document at the end – where there is mention of the Eucharist, the Blessed Trinity, Our Lady, St. Joseph – are not for the sake of leading people in devotion to these Divine goods as ends in themselves, but to provide a basis to spur us toward ecological awareness and ecological conversion.
Laudato Si is a blatant case of religion at the service of humanity, religion at the service of ecology.
          The spirit of the neo-pagan Leonardo Boff also pervades Francis’ text, which we will spell out below.
          Those who take excessive comfort in the “Catholic elements” of Laudato Si miss the point of the document, which is clearly laid out by Pope Francis himself.
          In the beginning of the Laudato Si, #15, Francis establishes the six-point plan that explains the document’s central goal: to increase ecological awareness, and the ecological conversion of all planetary citizens.
          “It is my hope,” writers Francis, “that this Encyclical Letter … can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face. I will begin by briefly reviewing several aspects of the present ecological crisis, with the aim of drawing on the results of the best scientific research available today, letting them touch as deeply and provide a concrete foundation for the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows.” It is here that Francis accepts uncritically – in an alleged magisterial document – the questionable science of climate-change alarmism.
          In other words, unlike John XXIII, Francis urges us to listen to the “prophets of doom.”
          Francis continues explaining the purpose of his eco-text: “I will then consider some principles drawn from the Judaeo-Christian tradition which can render our commitment to the environment more coherent.”
          Please observe what I noted, the religious and scriptural citations in this document are for one reason: “to render our commitment to the environment more coherent.”
          Francis goes on, “I will then attempt to get to the roots of the present situation, so as to consider not only its symptoms but also its deepest causes. This will help to provide and approach to ecology which respects our unique place as human beings in the world and our relationship to our surroundings. In light of this reflection, I will advance some broader proposals for dialogue and action, which would involve each of us as individuals, and also affect international policy. Finally, convinced as I am that change is impossible without motivation and a process of education, I will offer some inspired guidelines for human development to be found in the treasures of Christian experience.” In other words, all references in Chapter 6 to the Eucharist, the Trinity, Our Lady, are actually motivations for ecological action.. […….]

I cannot help but look at this approach as a process of manipulation. Nothing Francis says in the final “Catholic section” of Chapter Six leads the soul to conversion from sin, toward the life of sanctifying grace, towards acceptance of perennial Catholic doctrine, toward true devotion to these Catholic goods as ends in themselves.

Rather, these holy images: the Eucharist, the Trinity, Our Lady, Saint Joseph, are mentioned by Francis to urge us toward the naturalistic end of ecological awareness and ecological conversion. This manipulation of supernatural treasures is an abuse of the Papal Office, and indicates the man presently holding the office does not know what the Papacy is. [……]

The “nightclub,” a hangout for homosexual assignations; the murderer, a jaded Muslim homosexual with mujadeen family connections; the victims, homosexuals cut off from the grace of God. Any Comment?

Francis: Orlando killings ‘new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred’

Joshua J. McElwee | NCR Today | Rome | June 12, 2016

The killings of at least 50 people at a nightclub in Orlando, FL, have left Pope Francis with “the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred,” the Vatican said in a statement Sunday.

The pontiff, the statement said, “joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion.”

The full statement made by Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, Sunday evening in Rome:

“The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred. Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort. We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity.” [....]

The “new ecclesial realities,” that corrupt doctrine and worship, must be “respected” avoiding “juridicial straitjackets that deaden novelty”! It is tradition that must be ‘straitjacketed’!

Vatican’s doctrinal congregation calls on bishops, lay movements to respect each other

Joshua J. McE.wee | Vatican City | June 14, 2016

The Vatican office responsible for overseeing the doctrine of the global Catholic church has issued its first major document since the March 2013 election of Pope Francis, reflecting on the relationship between the church’s bishops and so-called “charismatic movements” that emphasize new styles of evangelization or wider Catholic life.

In the letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia (“The Church Rejuvenates”), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says the prelates and the new groups have specific obligations to one another and should above all recognize each other as “co-essential” to the life of the global Catholic community. The bishops, the letter states, must respect “the particularity of individual charismatic groups, avoiding juridical straitjackets that deaden the novelty which is born from the specific experience.” [....]

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.

These “sacred symbols” are necessary attributes of the Faith that make it known & communicable!

In the actual life of the Church, most sacred symbols are not understood by most believers in an explicit, intellectual way, but are nonetheless apprehended as having meaning…. The total effect of these symbols is to sustain a strong belief in God, even though specific symbols may not always convey specific religious meanings.

James Hitchcock, The Recovery of the Sacred, 1974

The Love of God is Conditional Upon Believing His Revealed Truth and Keeping His Commandments!

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 form of Christ’s 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.’ (II John 10).

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, Jan. 6, 1928

What Is Monsignor Ganswein Up To?

by Christopher A. Ferrara | May 30, 2016

During his recent presentation of the book Beyond the Crisis in the Church: The Pontificate of Benedict XVI, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, who serves as personal secretary to “Pope Emeritus” Benedict XVI, inexplicably and quite mysteriously provided new depth, and thus new impetus, to the novel idea that Benedict’s renunciation of the papacy was qualified by a “changed understanding” of the papacy, according to which Benedict retained a “passive” aspect of the Petrine office while turning over its active exercise to Francis.

In the course of the book presentation Ganswein made remarks that surely reflect Benedict’s own understanding of his situation, including the precise meaning of the text of the renunciation, carefully phrased to refer to “the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, successor of Saint Peter”. It is inconceivable that Ganswein would merely have offered his own opinion on the matter without having consulted Benedict.

According to Ganswein, while “there are not two Popes” as a result of the renunciation, there is nevertheless “a sort of exceptional state willed by heaven” according to which “the papal ministry is no longer what it was before…” Rather, Benedict “has profoundly and lastingly transformed it” such that “he has not abandoned the office of Peter [but] has instead innovated this office” so that there is “de facto a broadened ministry — with an active member [Francis] and a contemplative member [Benedict].”

Antonio Socci notes that only two conclusions are possible here: one nonsensical and the other of momentous significance. The first conclusion, as Socci writes, is that Benedict has created a “momentous turning point that in fact involves a radical mutation of the papacy, which today has become a collegial organ (but this is impossible according to Catholic doctrine).” Indeed, it is impossible, and so the very contention is absurd. No matter what Benedict thinks he has done, no Pope has the power to change the nature of an office established in perpetuity by God Incarnate. That is, no Pope has the power to alter the divine constitution of the Church. As even John Paul II remarked when he was about to undergo major surgery: “You have to cure me because there is no room for a pope emeritus.”

The other conclusion, says Socci, is that “this discourse [by Ganswein] brings into view the ‘nullity’ of the renunciation by Benedict XVI.” Indeed, if Benedict’s renunciation of the papacy was premised on his false opinion that he would remain a “contemplative member” of a “broadened” Petrine office by way of an innovation he himself had just originated, then how could the validity of that qualified renunciation not be called into question? Is it not the case that Benedict still regards himself as the Pope in some sense? And if that is so, how can he be said to have renounced the papacy unequivocally?

Indeed, as Ganswein observed: “For this reason, Benedict has renounced neither his name, nor the white cassock. For this reason, the correct appellation by which he refers to himself, even today, is “Holiness”; and for this reason, moreover, he did not retire to a remote monastery, but within the Vatican…”

I offer no answer to the question how this utter novelty affects Benedict’s renunciation of the papacy. That is something history will have to judge — if indeed there is anything to judge. I offer only another question: Why is Monsignor Ganswein pressing this point now, three years into the tumultuous pontificate of Pope Francis? Surely these remarks were well considered beforehand. So what is he up to?

A clue is found in Ganswein’s startling reference to the treachery at work in the conclave of 2005, during which the so-called “St. Gallen mafia,” including the infamous Cardinals Danneels and Kasper, contrived to elect Cardinal Bergoglio. Amazingly, Ganswein refers to this development as simple historical fact, observing that the 2005 conclave involved “a dramatic struggle between the ‘Salt of the Earth’ party [of Ratzingerian orientation], revolving around Cardinals López Trujíllo, Ruini, Herranz, Rouco Varela and Medina, and the ‘Saint Gallen group’, revolving around Cardinals Danneels, Martini, Silvestrini and Murphy-O’Connor…”

Ganswein then ties the struggle at the conclave to two other telling facts: First, Cardinal Ratzinger’s homily at the conclave’s inception wherein he decried the “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and views as the ultimate measure its own self and its own will.” Second, Pope Benedict’s request, immediately after his unexpected election, that the faithful pray for him that he not “flee in fear of the wolves.”

This is really quite remarkable: All in all, Ganswein’s remarks suggest that Benedict’s papacy was under attack by evil forces from beginning to end. He makes that clear when he scoffs at the idea that anything as trivial as “Vatileaks” could have forced Benedict out of office: “That scandal was too small for a thing of that kind and something much greater [prompted] the carefully considered step of millennial historic importance that Benedict took.”

Make of it what you will. But do not underestimate the significance of Ganswein’s remarks in the midst of what is clearly the most disturbing papacy in the living memory of the Church: that of Benedict’s successor under mysterious and unprecedented circumstances.

Prophetic Warning from Saint Francis of Assisi:

“... 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 endeavor 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...

...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. ...”

Müller Out, Schönborn In. The Pope Has Changed Doctrine Teachers

For Francis, the right interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia” is not that of the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, but that of the Austrian cardinal. Here, for the first time, is his complete text
by Sandro Magister | ROME | May 30, 2016

The prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith is still the same, German cardinal Gerhard L. Müller.
Who diligently continues to carry out his task, most recently with the monumental address he gave in Oviedo on May 4 for a correct understanding of “Amoris Laetitia,” in harmony with the previous magisterium of the Church on the family:
But it is increasingly evident that for Pope Francis, it is not Müller but another cardinal who is the teacher of doctrine authorized to shed light on the post-synodal exhortation: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn.
On May 19, in meeting at the Vatican with the two cardinals and three bishops who make up the presidency of the Latin American episcopal conference, when asked about “Amoris Laetitia” Francis responded as follows, according to the website of the CELAM:
“The pope responds that the heart of the exhortation is chapter 4: love in family life, founded on chapter 13 of the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. While the most difficult to read is chapter 8. Some, the pope say, have let themselves get trapped by this chapter. The Holy Father is fully aware of the criticisms of some, including cardinals, who have been unable to understand the evangelical meaning of his statements. And he says that the best guide for understanding this chapter is the presentation of it made by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, O.P., archbishop of Vienna, Austria, a great theologian, member of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, highly expert in the doctrine of the Church.”
Already on April 16, questioned by the journalists on the return flight to Rome from the island of Lesbos, Francis had indicated Schönborn as the right interpreter of the document, recommending that his presentation be read and rewarding him on the spot with flattering titles, even mistakenly promoting him to former “secretary” of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. [.....]

Cardinal Müller Expects SSPX to Recognize Disputed Council Teachings

by Edward Pentin 05/24/2016

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said he expects the Society of St. Pius X, which has always opposed the Second Vatican Council’s declarations on religious freedom and ecumenism, to “unreservedly recognize” freedom of religion as a human right, and an obligation to ecumenism.

In an interview in the June edition of the German publication Herder Korrespondenz, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that if one “wants to be fully Catholic, one must recognize the Pope and the Second Vatican Council.”

Cardinal Müller said he expects a recognition of all the Council declarations that deal with these issues, according to the interview, reported on the Austrian Catholic website, Kathpress, May 24.

His comments come after reports that the Society of St. Pius X, which continues to oppose key teachings of the Second Vatican Council regarding ecumenism, freedom of religion and aspects of liturgical reform, may be close to being recognized by the Holy See. […..]

COMMENT: “Obligation to ecumenism”? “Unreservedly recognize Freedom of Religion as a human right”? Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission’s “Open Letters” page is loaded with attempted “dialogue” with the Novus Ordo Church concerning serious matters of Doctrinal, Moral, Liturgical and Canonical questions. There is not one intelligent reply from the dioceses of Harrisburg, from Philadelphia or from the Vatican CDF over the last fifteen years. Why? One reason may be that ecumenism as a first principle requires that first principles be set aside. It requires firstly that any claim to Truth is never mentioned. It is the effeminate accommodation of error by those in error. So the only reply we have received is empty accusations of “schism” and “heresy.” You see, “religious freedom” does not apply to the faithful keeping of the Catholic faith. This is nothing but rank hypocrisy of the lowest form.

Thou art who is not, I am He who am; if thy soul is deeply penetrated with this truth, the enemy cannot deceive thee and thou wilt avoid all his snares; thou wilt never consent to do anything against My commandments, and thou wilt acquire, without difficulty, grace, truth, and peace.

Jesus Christ addressing St. Catherine of Siena, patroness of Third Order Dominicans

Modernists are Deconstructionalists - the deny the intentionality of words and thus destroy the ability of language to convey truth! They are our modern “sophists.” They attack the revelation of God at its very source.

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 pseudorealities 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, 1974

“Only take heed to yourself and guard your soul diligently.” (Deut 4:9)

If men are “obligated” to a “right faith” then “Religious Liberty” is necessarily a lie!

That by Divine Law Men are obliged to a Right Faith

As sight by the bodily eye is the principle of the bodily passion of love, so the beginning of spiritual love must be the intellectual vision of some object of the same. But the vision of that spiritual object of understanding, which is God, cannot be had at present by us except through faith, because God exceeds our natural reason, especially if we consider Him in that regard under which our happiness consists in enjoying Him.

a.) The divine law directs man to be entirely subject to God. But as man’s will is subjected to God by loving Him, so his understanding is subjected to Him by believing Him,—but not by believing anything false, because no falsehood can be proposed to man by God, who is the truth: hence he who believes anything false does not believe God.

b.) Whoever holds an erroneous view about a thing, touching the essence of the thing, does not know the thing. Thus if any one were to fix on the notion of irrational animal, and take that to be man, he would not know man. The case would be otherwise, if he was mistaken only about some of the accidents of man. But in the case of compound beings, though he who errs about any of the essentials of a thing does not know the thing, absolutely speaking, still he knows it in a sort of a way: thus he who thinks man to be an irrational animal knows him generically: but in the case of simple beings this cannot be,—any error shuts out entirely all knowledge of the thing. But God is to the utmost degree simple. Therefore whoever errs about God does not know God. Thus he who believes God to be corporeal has no sort of knowledge of God, but apprehends something else instead of God. Now as a thing is known, so is it loved and desired. He then who errs concerning God, can neither love Him nor desire Him as his last end. Since then the divine law aims at bringing men to love and desire God, that same law must bind men to have a right faith concerning God.

Hence it is said: Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. xi, 6); and at the head of all other precepts of the law there is prescribed a right faith in God: Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one Lord (Deut. vi. 4).

St. Thomas Aquinas, Of God and His Creatures

“Vatican II was a pastoral council by its teachings, that is, its doctrines. In a word, Vatican II was pastoral by being doctrinal.”

Fr. John O’Malley, Jesuit “historian and theologian,” author of What Happened at Vatican II, speaking at Caritas International Conference, “Vatican II, Remembering the Future: Ecumenical, Interfaith and Secular Perspectives on the Council’s Impact and Promise.” The event was co-hosted by Georgetown, Marymount University in Arlington, Va., and the Washington National Cathedral.

COMMENT: This is an admission of the necessary relationship between Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice. It is a Truth of our Faith that has been constantly denied by the Modernists since Vatican II because, if this Truth had been admitted, no one would have accepted the Council’s novel teachings which were imposed by a corruption of practice. Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission has affirmed that every Catholic possesses a right to the immemorial traditions of our Church because we have a duty imposed by God to profess our faith openly and publicly which these traditions perfectly signify. And thus, these immemorial traditions constitute necessary attributes of the Faith because without them, the Faith cannot be known or communicated to others. And now, those who have foolishly adopted the novel practices dictatorially imposed after Vatican II are to understand that they in fact do signify a new doctrine, that “Vatican II was pastoral by being doctrinal.” The Modernists want the new doctrines to be professed that the new practices signify. No Catholic is bound by any novel doctrine, therefore, no Catholic is bound by any novel practice which signifies these new doctrines. The only reason that Fr. O’Malley is now admitting this Catholic truth is to impose formally the novel doctrines which the Novus Ordo practice signifies.

Archbishop Gänswein: Benedict XVI Sees Resignation as Expanding Petrine Ministry

Prefect of Pontifical Household also recalls “dramatic struggle” of 2005 Conclave.

National Catholic Register | Edward Pentin | 05/23/2016

In a speech reflecting on Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Archbishop Georg Gänswein has confirmed the existence of a group who fought against Benedict’s election in 2005, but stressed that “Vatileaks” or other issues had “little or nothing” to do with his resignation in 2013.

Speaking at the presentation of a new book on Benedict’s pontificate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome May 20, Archbishop Gänswein also said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another, but represent one “expanded” Petrine Office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”

Archbishop Gänswein, who doubles as the personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus and prefect of the Pontifical Household, said Benedict did not abandon the papacy like Pope Celestine V in the 13th century but rather sought to continue his Petrine Office in a more appropriate way given his frailty.

“Therefore, from 11 February 2013, the papal ministry is not the same as before,” he said. “It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and yet it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed by his exceptional pontificate.”

Reflecting on Benedict’s time as Pope, Archbishop Gänswein said that although he was “a classic ‘homo historicus’, a Western man par excellence who embodied the richness of the Catholic tradition like no other,” at the same time he was “so bold as to open the door to a new phase, for that historic turning point that five years ago no one could have imagined.”

Gänswein drew attention to “brilliant and illuminating” and “well documented and thorough” passages of the book, written by Roberto Regoli and entitled Oltre la crisi della Chiesa. Il pontificato di Benedetto XVI — “Beyond the Crisis of the Church, The Pontificate of Benedict XVI.”

[......] Such assumptions that they did have something to do with it, he said, “have little or nothing to do with reality”, adding that Benedict resigned because it was “fitting” and “reasonable”, and quoted John Duns Scotus’ words to justify the decree for the Immaculate Conception: “Decuit, potuit, fecit” — “He could do it, it was fitting that He do it.”

Various reports have suggested that pressure was exerted on Benedict to step down. One of the latest came last year from a former confidant and confessor to the late Cardinal Carlo Martini who said Martini had told Benedict: “Try and reform the Curia, and if not, you leave.”

But in his speech, Gänswein insisted “it was fitting” for Benedict to resign because he “was aware that the necessary strength for such a very heavy office was lessening. He could do it [resign], because he had long thought through, from a theological point of view, the possibility of a pope emeritus in the future. So he did it.”

Drawing on the Latin words “munus petrinum” — “Petrine ministry” — Gänswein pointed out the word “munus” has many meanings such as “service, duty, guide or gift”. He said that “before and after his resignation” Benedict has viewed his task as “participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry’.

“He left the Papal Throne and yet, with the step he took on 11 February 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, something ”quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”

Instead, he said, “he has built a personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a communal ministry, as if he had wanted to reiterate once again the invitation contained in the motto that the then-Joseph Ratzinger had as Archbishop of Munich and Freising and naturally maintained as Bishop of Rome: “cooperatores veritatis”, which means ‘co-workers of the truth’.”

Archbishop Gänswein pointed out that the motto is not in the singular but in the plural, and taken from the Third Letter of John, in which it is written in verse 8: “We must welcome these people to become co-workers for the truth”.

He therefore stressed that since Francis’ election, there are not “two popes, but de facto an expanded ministry — with an active member and a contemplative member.” He added that this is why Benedict XVI “has not given up his name”, unlike Pope Celestine V who reverted to his name Pietro da Marrone, “nor the white cassock.”

“Therefore he has also not retired to a monastery in isolation but stays within the Vatican — as if he had taken only one step to the side to make room for his successor and a new stage in the history of the papacy.” With that step, he said, he has enriched the papacy with “his prayer and his compassion placed in the Vatican Gardens.”

Archbishop Gänswein repeated that Benedict’s resignation was ”quite different” to that of Pope Celestine V.

“So it is not surprising,” he said, “that some have seen it as revolutionary, or otherwise as entirely consistent with the gospel, while still others see in this way a secularized papacy as never before, and thus more collegial and functional, or even simply more humane and less sacred. And still others are of the opinion that Benedict XVI, with this step, has almost — speaking in theological and historical-critical terms — demythologized the papacy.

COMMENT: Because the Petrine Office, which Archbishop Georg Gänswein calls the “foundation of the Catholic Church,” was instituted by Christ Himself, Benedict/Ratzinger does not possess the authority to change the nature of the office. The perennial realist philosophy (scholastic philosophy), on which all Catholic theology stands, cannot be rejected because its terminology has been incorporated into definitive dogmatic definitions. This philosophy affirms the first principles of the understanding, the principles of identity and non-contradiction: A thing is what it is; A thing cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same way.

Understanding the problem with Modernism begins with recognizing that all modern philosophical systems have overthrown the first principles of the understanding. The in fact deny the very meaning of the word substance. Benedict/Ratzinger does not believe in the traditional Catholic understanding of substance which he overthrows with the accident of relationship. All “truth” is found in the changing dynamics of relationships. Therefore, he believes that the Petrine Office is not a thing once established by Jesus Christ for His Church but rather an Office that is undergoing an evolutionary flux of becoming something else.

Either Benedict/Ratzinger has quit the Petrine Office or he has not. There is no middle ground. If he has not quit the office, Francis/Bergoglio is an anti-pope.

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

READ CARFULLY: Benedict/Ratzinger does not possess the power to alter what Christ established! Now who is the pope? Did Benedict/Ratzinger resign or not?

Completeness or not of Fatima message is beside the point: what matters is that what is known is unfolding

Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | May 25, 2016

The centenary year of Fatima was opened on Pentecost Sunday to news that caused quite a sensation.

The German theologian Ingo Dollinger revealed to the “OnePeterFive” site that after the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima, Cardinal Ratzinger had confided to him: “Das ist noch nicht alles!”, “We didn’t publish everything”. The Vatican Press Office intervened with an immediate denial in which it stated: “Pope emeritus Benedict XVI declares never to have spoken with Professor Dollinger about Fatima’, clearly affirming that the remarks attributed to Professor Dollinger on the matter ‘are pure inventions, absolutely untrue’, and he confirms decisively that ‘the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima is complete.”

The denial doesn’t convince those like Antonio Socci who had always sustained the existence of an undisclosed part of the secret, which would refer to the abandonment of the faith by a part of the Church’s hierarchy. Other scholars like Dr. Antonio Augusto Borelli Machado, think the secret disclosed by the Vatican is complete and tragically eloquent. On the basis of the information at our disposal, today we cannot affirm with absolute certainty, either the entirety of the Third Secret text nor its incompleteness. What appears absolutely certain is that the prophecy of Fatima is unfulfilled and that its fulfilment concerns an unprecedented crisis in the Church.

Regarding this, an important hermeneutic principle needs to be borne in mind. The Lord, through revelations and prophecies, which add nothing to the deposit of the faith, at times offers us some “spiritual direction” to guide us through the darkest periods of history. Yet if it’s true that the Divine words cast light on dark times, the opposite is also true: historical events, in their dramatic unfolding, help us to understand the significance of prophecy.

On July 13th 1917, when Our Lady announced at Fatima that if humanity didn’t convert Russia would have spread its errors throughout the world, these words appeared incomprehensible. It was the historical facts that revealed their significance. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, it was clear that the expansion of Communism was the instrument God wanted to use as a punishment to the world for its sins.

Between 1989 and 1991, the evil empire of the Soviet Union apparently crumbled, but the disappearance of its political packaging allowed for the diffusion all over the world of Communism, which has its ideological nucleus in philosophical evolution and moral relativism. The “philosophy of praxis” which according to Antonio Gramsci sums up the Marxist cultural revolution, has become the theological horizon of the new pontificate, outlined by theologians like the German Cardinal, Walter Kasper and the Argentinean Archbishop, Victor Manuel Fernàndez, inspirers of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

In this sense it’s not the Fatima Secret we need to start from in order to understand the reality of a tragedy in the Church, but from the crisis in the Church[itself]in order to understand the ultimate meaning of the Fatima Secret. A crisis which goes back to the 1960s, but with Benedict XVI’s abdication and Pope Francis’ pontificate, has seen a shocking acceleration.

While the Vatican Press Office was making haste to defuse the Dollinger case, another bomb exploded with an even greater impact. During the presentation of Prof. Don Roberto Regoli’s book, Oltre la crisi della Chiesa. Il pontificato di Benedetto XVI (Lindau, Turin, 2016) held in the auditorium at the Gregorian Pontifical University, Monsignor Georg Gänswein highlighted Pope Ratzinger’s act of renunciation with these words:

“From February 11th 2013, the papal ministry is not the same as before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and yet it is a foundation that Benedict has profoundly and lastingly transformed by his exceptional pontificate”.

According to Archbishop Gänswein, the Pope’s resignation is “epochal” as it introduced into the Catholic Church the new institution of “Pope emeritus” transforming the concept of munus petrinum - “the petrine ministry”. “Before and after his abdication, Benedict intended and intends his task as a participation in a “petrine ministry” such as this. He left the Papal Throne and yet with his step on February 11th 2013, he did not entirely abandon this ministry. Rather he integrated the personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a shared ministry (...). From the election of his successor, Pope Francis—on 13 March 2013—there are not then two Popes, but de facto an enlarged ministry with an active and a contemplative member. For this reason, Benedict has not renounced either his name or his white cassock. For this reason, the correct title with which we must refer to him is still “Holiness.” Furthermore, he has not retired to an isolated monastery, but [has retired]within the Vatican, as if he had simply stepped aside to make space for his Successor, and for a new stage in the history of the Papacy.(...). With this act of extraordinary boldness he has instead renewed the office (even against well-meaning and undoubtedly competent advisors) and in a last endeavour has strengthened it (as I hope). This certainly will only be demonstrated by history. However, in the history of the Church, 2013 will remain the year that the renowned Theologian on the Throne of Peter became the first “Pope Emeritus” in history.”

This discourse is of an explosive nature, and, by itself, demonstrates how we are not “over” the crisis in the Church but more than ever in it. The Papacy is not a ministry that can be “enlarged”, since it is an “office” given personally by Jesus Christ to a sole Vicar and a sole successor of Peter. What distinguishes the Catholic Church from every other church or religion is precisely the existence of a unitary and indissoluble principle in the person of the Supreme Pontiff. Monsignor Gänswein’s discourse(it is difficult to understand where he wants to go with it) suggests a two-headed Church and adds confusion to a situation already far too confusing.

One sentence connects the second and third part of the Fatima Secret: “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be kept.” Our Lady is talking to three little Portuguese shepherds and assures them that their country will not lose the faith. But where will the faith be lost? It has always been thought that Our Lady was referring to the apostasy of entire nations, but today is seems increasingly clearer that the greatest loss of faith is occurring among churchmen.

A “bishop dressed in white” and “various other bishops, priests and religious” are at the centre of the Third Secret, in a setting of death and ruin, legitimate to imagine as not only material, but spiritual. Before writing the Third Secret, the revelation that Sister Lucia had at Tuy on January 3rd 1944 confirms this, and is hence indissolubly linked to it. After the vision of a terrible cosmic catastrophe, Sister Lucia recounts that she had heard in her heart “a soft voice that said: ‘in time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy Catholic, Apostolic. In eternity Heaven!’!”

These words represent a radical negation of any form of religious relativism which the heavenly voice contradicts with the exaltation of Holy Mother Church and the Catholic Faith. In history the smoke of Satan can invade the Church, but whoever defends the integrity of the Faith against the powers of hell will see, in time and in eternity, the triumph of the Church and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, definitive seal of the dramatic but fascinating Fatima prophecy.

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 the Apocalypse

Vatican institutes policy to prevent any religious societies from being established without approval from the central commissars. It creates bureaucratic structures that will suffocate any traditional infant in its cradle.

Full Text of new Rule demanding Bishops consult with Vatican before erecting Diocesan Institutes

The Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, aware that every new Institute of Consecrated Life, even if coming into existence and developing within a Particular Church, is a gift made to the entire Church, seeing to the need of avoid that new Institutes be erected in the diocesan level without the sufficient discernment that will confirm the originality of the charism, which defines the specific characteristics that the consecration through the profession of the evangelical counsels will have in them and that specifies the real possibilities of development, has ascertained the opportunity of better determining the necessity, established by Can. 579 CIC [Code of Canon Law], of requesting its opinion before proceeding to the erection of a new Diocesan Institute.

Therefore, following the opinion of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts,

the Holy Father Francis in the Audience granted to the undersigned Secretary of State, on April 4, 2016, has established that the prior consultation of the Holy See shall be understood as necessary ad validitatem [for the very validity] for the erection of a Diocesan Institute of Consecrated Life, under pain of nullity of the Decree of Erection of the Institute itself.

The present Rescript will be promulgated through publication on L’Osservatore Romano, entering into force on June 1st, 2016, and thereafter published on the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Card. Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, Vatican, May 11, 2016

Papal spokesman praises radical pro-abortion, pro-divorce politician

Yesterday, on word that “bisexual,” atheist, radical politician Marco Pannella had died, Fr. Federico Lombardi praised -- in a written statement, not off the cuff -- the man who helped lead Italy in the 1970s to legalize divorce and abortion.

A fan of Pope Francis, Pannella was sent a copy of the pope’s book by Francis himself, and the pope had even called Pannella asking him to end a hunger strike.

“I remember him with esteem and in friendship. I think he has left a human and spiritual legacy of some significance; candid relations, free expression and generous civic and political commitment towards others, especially for the weak in need of solidarity” said the Pope’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. Pannella was a person with whom, in the past, we were often in disagreement. However, his complete, disinterested commitment to noble causes cannot but be appreciated.”

Father Lombardi: “He had great admiration for the Pope.” [Mutual] interest in the conditions of prisoners created a bond between Marco Pannella and Pope Francis. Father Lombardi on Vatican Radio recalls: “With regard to this – the director of the Vatican press office says – Honorable Pannella on several occasions wanted to tell me enthusiastically in person of his great admiration for Pope Francis, his interest in the imprisoned, his respect for their dignity – in the same way as for all people whose rights are being violated.”

Rorate Caeli, May 19, 2016

“Deeply troubled, sad and angry”? Gee, maybe Rosica needs to see a doctor?

“The character assassination on the Internet by those claiming to be Catholic and Christian has turned it into a graveyard of corpses strewn all around. Often times the obsessed, scrupulous, self-appointed, nostalgia-hankering virtual guardians of faith or of liturgical practices are very disturbed, broken and angry individuals, who never found a platform or pulpit in real life and so resort to the Internet and become trolling pontiffs and holy executioners! In reality they are deeply troubled, sad and angry people.”

Rev. Thomas Rosica, CEO Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, Canada, and English-language attaché to the Holy See Press Office at the Vatican, during a speech in Brooklyn, NY for World Communications Day, May 11, 2016. Rosica, an aggressive defender of the homosexual lobby and its agenda, is now attempting to “psychologically profile” traditional Catholics. Unfortunately for Rosica, it is homosexuals that are often “deeply troubled, sad and angry” people. After all, when you worship yourself, disappointment and disillusionment necessarily follow.

Pope Francis compares the Great Commission of Jesus Christ with Mohammad’s Jihad. Is it any wonder why Francis does not take the Muslim threat seriously? Or perhaps, his ignorance of European history is as great as his ignorance of sacred Scripture!

La Croix: The fear of accepting migrants is partly based on a fear of Islam. In your view, is the fear that this religion sparks in Europe justified?

Pope Francis: Today, I don’t think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.

Interview La Croix, May 9, 2016

Modernists and Neo-Modernists are willfully blind to what is “essential”, that is, willfully blind to Essence. They are in the end, the most heartless of all!

Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTS THAT ARE NOT OUTDATED

Pearl of York | Mass Schedule | List of Closed Parishes in the Diocese of Harrisburg |

| Announcements |

Why Move to Central Pennsylvania? | Canned Answers to Stale Objections