BELOW –
PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTS THAT ARE NOT OUTDATED
But a resounding explicit confirmation came from Benedict XVI himself,
who, during an unexpected pilgrimage to Fatima on May 13, 2010, affirmed: “He deceives himself who thinks that the prophetic
mission of Fatima is concluded.” He added: “there are indicated future
realities of the Church which little by little are manifesting themselves… and
therefore it is the sufferings of the Church which are announced.”
But could such prophecies be found in
that text [of the vision]?
These two phrases of the Pope in that
discourse at Fatima prompt reflection: “Man has the power to unleash a
cycle of death and terror, but he is not able to stop it.” And then: “The faith
in vast regions of the earth risks being extinguished, like a flame without
fuel.”
From these words of Pope Benedict one
discerns, therefore, that there is truly something else in the Third Secret and
that it is dramatic for the world and the Church. Perhaps it is precisely due
to that visit by the Pope that this book was released, from which another
precious little piece of the truth filters out.
The volume in fact draws from the letters
of Sister Lucia and from the unpublished diary “My Way.” Impressive, among
things previously unpublished, is the account of how Sister Lucy overcame the
terror that prevented her from writing down the Third Secret.
The Unpublished Account
At around 4 p.m. on January 3, 1944, in
the chapel of the convent, before the Tabernacle, Lucia asked Jesus to make
known His will: “I then felt a friendly hand, maternal and affectionate, touch
my shoulder.”
And the Mother of God said to her: “be at
peace, and write what I have commanded you, but not, however, that which has
been given to you to understand its meaning,” intending to allude to the
meaning of the vision which the Virgin herself had revealed.
Immediately afterward, said Sister Lucia,
“I felt my spirit
inundated by a mystery of light that is God and in Him I saw and heard: the
point of a lance like a flame that is detached, touches the axis of the earth,
and it trembles: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants
are buried. The sea, the rivers, the clouds, exceed their boundaries,
inundating and dragging with them, in a vortex, houses and people in a number
that cannot be counted. It is the purification of the world from the sin in
which it is immersed. Hatred, ambition, provoke the destructive
war. After I felt my racing heart, in my spirit a soft voice said: ‘In
time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. In
eternity, Heaven!’ This word ‘Heaven’ filled my heart with peace and happiness
in such a way that, almost without being aware of it, I kept repeating to
myself for a long time: Heaven, Heaven.”
From this came the strength to write the
Third Secret.
Antonio Socci, APOCALYPTIC NEWS FROM FATIMA
(THE LATEST MYSTERY: THE SILENCE OF THE SISTERS, BUT WHO IS SILENCING THEM?, August
17, 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 “morality underlying Amoris Laetitia” does not forbid lying!
In fact I hear many comments – they are respectable for they come from
children of God, but wrong – concerning the post-synod apostolic exhortation.
To understand Amoris Laetitia you
need to read it from the start to the end. Beginning with the first chapter,
and to continue to the second and then on … and reflect. And read what was said
in the Synod
A second thing:
some maintain that there is no Catholic morality underlying Amoris Laetitia, or at least, no sure
morality. I want to repeat clearly that the morality of Amoris Laetitia is Thomist, the
morality of the great Thomas. You can speak of it with a great theologian, one
of the best today and one of the most mature, Cardinal Schönborn.
I want to say this so that you can help those who believe that morality
is purely casuistic. Help them understand that the great Thomas possesses the
greatest richness, which is still able to inspire us today. But on your knees,
always on your knees…
Pope Francis, Attributing the vulgar immorality of Amoris Laetitia to St. Thomas, interview Sept 28, 2017
Faith:
the principle cause and sign of unity in the Church; Dogma is the proximate
Rule of Faith!
The apostles and their successors are God's vicars in governing the
Church which is built on faith and the sacraments of faith. Wherefore, just as
they may not institute another Church, so neither may they deliver another
faith, nor institute other sacraments.
St. Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 64, a. 2, ad 3
Pope
Francis, the CEO of the Homosexual Lobby “will not say another word” but his C9
will issue “potential and necessary clarifications.” What is “potential” may not necessarily
become act. So, although the
“clarifications” are “necessary”, we may not in fact ever see them. After all,
it is not “Viganò’s case”, it is Viganò’s allegations of moral turpitude on the
part of Francis and his C9 club.
Incoming
“clarifications” on Viganò’s case from the Holy See
Announced in
the press release of today's C9 meeting, along with the news that the
structure and composition of the council of cardinals is about to change
andrea tornielli | vatican city
| September 9, 2018
The Holy See is preparing a response with the necessary clarifications on Viganò's case, namely the accusations raised against the last three Popes and their collaborators by the former nuncio to the United States in the dossier published on 26 August last which also includes the request for resignation addressed to Pope Francis.
This is what can be read in the communiqué that on the afternoon of Monday 10 September was released by the Vatican Press Office at the end of the first meeting of the 26th working session of the C9, the Council of nine cardinals called to help the Pontiff in elaborating the reform of the Curia and in the government of the universal Church.
The Council, reads the last paragraph of the press release, "expressed its full solidarity with Pope Francis before what has happened in recent weeks, aware that in the current debate the Holy See is about to formulate potential and necessary clarifications". Thus the Vatican, in the light of the existing documentation in the archives, is about to release some "potential and necessary clarifications".
But more emerges from the first C9 meeting, as various parties have long suggested: the conclusion of the working session on the draft of the apostolic constitution - which will redesign the face of the Roman Curia – represents in fact an opportunity for the Pope to make some changes within the Council of 9 Cardinals.
"The Council of Cardinals, in preparing to hand over to the Holy Father the proposal for the reform of the Roman Curia drawn up in the first five years of activity, and with a view to continuation, decided to ask the Pope for a reflection on the work, structure and composition of the Council itself, also taking into account the advanced age of some members". […..]
“Since one cannot help everyone, one has to be concerned with those who
by reason of place, time, or circumstances, are by some chance more tightly
bound to you.”
St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine
De Mattei: The
Church and the Men of the Church
Roberto de Mattei
| Corrispondenza Romana | September 12, 2018
The courageous
denunciation of ecclesiastical scandals made by Archbishop Carlo Maria
Viganò has generated the consensus of many, but also the displeasure of
others, convinced that everything discrediting the representatives of the
Church should be covered up by silence. This desire to safeguard the Church is
understandable when the scandal is an exception. There is the risk in that case
of generalizing, by saddling the behavior of a few onto everyone . Quite
different is the case when immorality is the rule, or at least is a widespread
way of living accepted as the norm. In this case public denunciation is the
first step towards the necessary reform of “morals”. Breaking the silence is
part of the duties of a pastor, as St. Gregory the Great admonishes: “What in
fact is the fear of a pastor to state the truth, if not the turning of his back
on the enemy with his silence? If, instead, he fights in defense of his flock,
he builds a bastion for the House of Israel against its enemies. For this the
Lord through the mouth of Isaiah admonishes: “Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice
like a trumpet” (Isaiah, 58,1).
At the origins of a
guilty silence there is often the lack of distinction between the Church and
the men of the Church, be they the simple laity, bishops, cardinals or Popes.
One of the reasons for this confusion is precisely the prominence of the
authorities involved in the scandals. The higher their dignity, the more the
tendency to identify them with the Church, attributing good and evil
indifferently to the one and the other. In reality the Good is the sole
business of the Church, whereas all the Evil is due to the men who represent
Her. For this the Church cannot be defined as sinful: “She – writes Father
Roger T. Calmel O.P. (1920-1998) – asks forgiveness to the Lord not for the
sins She has committed, but for the sins committed by Her children, insofar as
they do not listen to Her as Mother.” (Breve apologia della Chiesa di sempre,
Editrice Ichtys, Albano Laziale 2007, p. 91). All the members of the Church
whether of the teaching or student parts, are men, with their own nature,
wounded by original sin. Neither Baptism renders the faithful faultless,
nor Holy Orders render the members of the Hierarchy such. The Pope himself can
sin and fall into error, except for that which concerns the charism of
infallibility.
It must be said,
moreover, that the faithful do not constitute the Church, as happens in human
societies, created by the members that form them and dissolved as soon as they
separate. To say “We are Church” is false, since the belonging of the baptized
to the Church, does not derive from their will: it is Christ Himself who
invites us to belong to His flock, by repeating to everyone: “You have not
chosen me but I have chosen you” (John 15, 16). The Church founded by
Jesus Christ has a Human-Divine constitution: human as it has a material and
passive component, made up of all the faithful, part of both the clergy and the
laity; supernatural and divine for Her soul. Jesus Christ, Her Head, is Her
foundation and the Holy Spirit is Her supernatural propeller.
The Church therefore
is not holy because of the holiness of Her members, but it is Her members that
are holy thanks to Jesus Christ Who directs Her and the Holy Spirit Who gives
life to Her. From them comes all Good, that is, all that is “true, noble, just,
pure, lovable, honorable and worthy of praise” (Phil. 4,8). And from the men of
the Church comes all the Evil: disorders, scandals, abuse of power, violence,
turpitudes and sacrileges.
“So – writes the
Passionist theologian Enrico Zoffoli (1915-1996) who dedicated many fine pages
to this theme – we have no interest in covering up the faults of bad
Christians, of unworthy, cowardly, inept, dishonest and arrogant priests. The
intent to defend the cause and mitigate their responsibilities would be
ingenuous and useless along with minimizing the consequences of their errors,
having recourse to historical contexts and singular situations in order then to
explain away and absolve everything” (Chiesa e uomini di Chiesa, Edizioni
Segno, Udine 1994, p. 41).
Today there is great
filth in the Church, as the then Cardinal Ratzinger said during the Via Crucis
of Good Friday 2005, which preceded his rise to the papacy. “How much
filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood,
ought to belong entirely to Him! (Jesus)”.
Monsignor Carlo Maria
Viganò’s testimony is praiseworthy, since, by bringing to light this filth, he
renders the work of purification of the Church more urgent. It must be
[made]clear that the conduct of unworthy bishops or priests is not inspired by
the dogmas or morals of the Church, but constitutes their betrayal, as it
represents a negation of the law of the Gospel. The world that accuses
the Church for Her faults accuses Her of transgressing a moral order: but in
the name of what law and doctrine does the world claim to indict the Church?
The philosophy of life professed by the modern world is relativism to the
degree that there are no absolute truths and the only law of man is to be
devoid of [all] laws; the practical consequence is hedonism according to which
the only form of possible happiness is the gratification of one’s desires and
the satisfaction of one’s instincts.
How can the world,
devoid of principles as it is, judge and condemn the Church? The Church
has the right and duty to judge the world because She has an absolute and
immutable doctrine. The modern world, child of the principles of the French
Revolution, develops with coherence the ideas of the libertine Marquis de Sade
(1740-1814): free love, free blasphemy, total freedom to deny and destroy every
bastion of Faith and Morals, as in the days of the French Revolution when the
Bastille, where Sade was a prisoner, was destroyed. The outcome of all this is
the dissolution of morality, which has destroyed the foundations of civil
society and over the last two centuries has created the darkest age in history.
The life of the Church is also the history of betrayals, defections,
apostasies and insufficient correspondence with Divine Grace.
But this tragic weakness always goes along with extraordinary
faithfulness: the falls, even the most terrifying, of many members of the Church,
are interlaced with the heroism of the virtue seen in many other of Her
children.
A river of sanctity
gushes out of the side of Christ and runs flowing through the course of the
centuries: the martyrs who face the wild animals in the Coliseum; the hermits
who abandon the world to live a life of penitence; the missionaries who go to
the ends of the earth; the intrepid confessors of the faith who combat schisms
and heresies; the contemplative religious who sustain the defenders of the
Church and Christian civilization with their prayers; all those, who, in
different ways, have conformed their lives to the Divine one. St. Theresa
of the Child Jesus wanted to gather up all these vocations in one supreme act
of love to God.
The saints are
different from one another, but what they all share is union with God: and this
union, which never flags, makes it so that the Church, prior to being One,
Catholic and Apostolic, is first of all perfectly Holy. The holiness of the
Church doesn’t depend on the holiness of Her children; it is ontological, given
that it is connected to Her very nature.
For the Church
to be called holy it is not necessary that all Her children live a saintly
life; it is enough that a part, even a small part, thanks to the vital flow of
the Holy Spirit, remain heroically faithful to the law of the Gospel during
times of trial.
“And
what is most remarkable is that the enemies of the Church—the movements that
rend and crucify her—are in a sense her own offspring and derive their dynamic
force from her.” And this includes her current enemies who attach from within
the Church. In the crucible of conflict, the saint is forged and the crown is
won.
Actually, however, Christianity has never
accepted these postulates, and the Christian ought to be the last person in the
world to lose hope in the presence of the failure of the right and the apparent
triumph of evil. For all this forms part of the Christian view of life, and the
Christian discipline is expressly designed to prepare us to face such a
situation.
Christianity, to a far greater degree than
any other religion, is a historical religion and it is knit up inseparably with
the living process of history. Christianity teaches the existence of a divine
progress in history which will be realized through the Church in the Kingdom of
Cod. But at the same time it recognizes the essential duality of the historical
process—the co-existence of two opposing principles, each of which works and
finds concrete social expression in history. Thus we have no right to expect that
Christian principles will work in practice in the simple way that a political
system may work The Christian order is a supernatural order. It has its own
principles and its own laws which are not those of the visible world and which
may often seem to contradict them. Its victories may be found in apparent
defeat and its defeats in material success.
We see the whole thing manifested clearly
and perfectly once and once only, i.e. in the life of Jesus, which is the
pattern of the Christian life and the model of Christian action. The life of
Jesus is profoundly historical; it is the culminating point of thousands of
years of living historical tradition. It is the fulfillment of a historical
purpose, towards which priests and prophets and even politicians had worked,
and in which the hope of a nation and a race was embodied. Yet, from the
worldly point of view, from the standpoint of a contemporary secular historian,
it was not only unimportant, but actually invisible. Here was a Galilean
peasant who for thirty years lived a life so obscure as to be unknown even to
the disciples who accepted his mission. Then there followed a brief period of
public action, which did not lead to any kind of historical achievement but
moved swiftly and irresistibly towards its catastrophic end, an end that was
foreseen and deliberately accepted.
And out of the heart of this catastrophe
there arose something completely new, which even in its success was a deception
to the very people and the very race that had staked their hopes on it. For
after Pentecost—after the outpouring of the Spirit and the birth of the infant
Church—there was an event as unforeseen and inexplicable as the Incarnation
itself, the conversion of a Cilician Jew, who turned away from his traditions
and from his own people so that he seemed a traitor to his race and his
religion. So that ultimately the fulfillment of the hope of Israel meant the
rejection of Israel and the creation of a new community which was eventually to
become the State religion of the Roman Empire which bad been the enemy of Jew
and Christian alike.
If you look on all this without faith, from
the rationalist point of view, it becomes no easier to understand. On the
contrary it becomes even more inexplicable; credo
quia incredibile.
Now the life of Christ is the life of the
Christian and the life of the Church. It is absurd for a Christian who is a
weak human vehicle of this world changing force to expect a quiet life. A
Christian is like a red rag to a bull—to the force of evil that seeks to be master
of the world and which, in a limited sense, but in a very real sense, is, as
St. John says, the Lord of this world. And not only the individual but the
Church as an historic community follows the same pattern and finds its success
and failure not where the politician finds them, but where Christ found them.
The Church lives again the life of Christ.
It has its period of obscurity and growth and its period of manifestation, and
this is followed by the catastrophe of the Cross and the new birth that springs
from failure. And what is
most remarkable is that the enemies of the Church—the movements that rend and
crucify her—are in a sense her own offspring and derive their dynamic force
from her. Islam, the Protestant Reformation, the liberal Revolution, none
of them would have existed apart from Christianity—they are abortive or partial
manifestations of the spiritual power which Christianity has brought into
history. “I have come to cast fire on the earth and what will I, but that it be
kindled.”
Christopher Dawson, Dynamics of World History
Ben Shapiro,
in an op-ed column at Newsweek, says what many Catholics are already thinking:
NEWSWEEK | OPINION | August 31, 2018
So, did the press leap to investigate Vigano’s claims? Did they demand
answers from Pope Francis? Did we see the same type of courageous,
comprehensive coverage of Francis’ activities that we saw from the Globe team
circa 2003? Of course not.
Instead,
mainstream media outlets went out of their way to portray Vigano as a
disgruntled conservative angry at Pope Francis’ progressive interpretation of
Catholic doctrine. The New York Times headlined, “Vatican
Power Struggle Bursts Into Open as Conservatives Pounce.” Their print headline
was even worse: “Francis Takes High Road As Conservatives Pounce, Taking
Criticisms Public.”
Yes, according to
the Times, the story wasn’t the sitting Pope being credibly
accused of a sexual abuse cover-up—it was conservatives attacking him for it.
The problem of child molestation and sexual abuse of clergy took a back seat to
Francis’ leftist politics, as the Times piece made clear in its
first paragraph: “Since the start of his papacy, Francis has infuriated
Catholic traditionalists as he tries to nurture a more welcoming church and
shift it away from culture war issues, whether abortion or homosexuality. ‘Who
am I to judge?’ the pope famously said, when asked about gay priests. Just
how angry his political and doctrinal enemies are became clear this weekend…”
It wasn’t just the Times. On Wednesday, Reuters
headlined, “Defenders rally around pope, fear conservatives escalating war.” On
Thursday, Reuters doubled down with this headline: “Conservative media move to
front line of battle to undermine Pope Francis.” The Telegraph(U.K.)
reported, “Vatican analysts say the attack appears to be part of a concerted
effort by conservatives to oust Pope Francis, who they dislike for his
relatively liberal views…”
But why in the
name of God is calling on the Vatican not to defend sexual abusers a political
issue for the press? Why isn’t this something we can all agree upon?
Why aren’t the press asking the pope tough questions, instead of focusing on
the supposed motivations of the whistleblowers?
The media’s disgraceful attempts to cover for Francis because
of their love for his politics merely exposes the actual malign
motivations of many in the media: they were happy to expose misconduct and evil
inside the Catholic Church when the pope was a conservative; they’re happy to
facilitate a cover-up when the pope is a liberal.
That’s vile. And most Catholics understand that if the members of the
media—an overwhelmingly secular group of people—are steadfastly defending a
papacy accused of sexual abuse cover-ups, it’s not out of goodwill for the
Church generally. It’s out of a belief that traditionalist doctrine must be
rooted out at any cost, even including the abuse of minors and the violation of
basic canon law.
Homosexual
Lobby members are “playing the man, rather than the ball.” The Lobby’s line is that Archbishop Viganò’s
allegations have no merit because the man himself is disaffected conservative ideologue.
The charges of Archbishop Viganò are really straight forward and merit a
thorough investigation and a reply from Pope Francis irrespective of the motive
of their revelation. So the cover-up by Francis will continue but as a rule of
thumb for those watching the story unfold: those who defend Pope Francis are ipso facto members of the Homosexual
Lobby, those who call for a thorough investigation place the welfare of the
Church before personal interests, and those who say and do nothing...., being
“neither hot or cold,” and therefore, will be vomited.....
U.S. Bishops
Are Divided in a Way Rarely Seen in Public
Viganò letter
exposes ideological rift that mirrors American politics
Wall Street Journal | Ian Lovett | September 3, 2018
The crisis engulfing the Catholic Church and the papacy has exposed deep rifts in the U.S. church.
The latest trigger is a letter released last week by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò accusing Catholic Officials, including Pope Grancis, of covering up sexual abuse, allegedly by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick among others.
While U.S. bishops profess broad agreement about the need for new measures to address abuse, their responses to the letter have dramatically diverged.
Those who support the pope’s emphasis on issues like immigration and climate change have criticized the letter. San Diego Birhop Robert McElroy said the letter displays a “hatred for Pope Francis” and that “Archbishop Viganò consistently subordinates the pursuit of comprehensive truth to partisanship, division and distortion.
Meanwhile, conservative U.S. bishops who disapprove of Pope Francis’ conciliatory tone on remarriage and homosexuality in the priesthood have openly defended Archbishop Viganò.
Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, said he was “convinced of [Archbishop Viganò’s] honesty…and impeccable integrity,” and called for an investigation into his allegations.
Although theological disagreements have existed among U.S. bishops for years, they have seldom before been so openly on display.
“I fear the Catholic church in the U.S. has become divided by the same ideological forces that have roiled American politics,” said Stephen Schneck, former director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America.
The public back-and-forth also highlights the opposition Francis has faced for years from some clergy in the U.S., which has been a hub of resistance throughout his papacy.
In his letter, Archbishop Viganò claimed the pope knew as early as 2013 about allegations that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, had been sexually active with seminarians and that Pope Benedict XVI had privately disciplined him. Pope Francis, the letter alleges, lifted restrictions on then-Cardinal McCarrick, who stepped down from the College of Cardinals after allegations against him became public earlier this year.
Archbishop Viganò served as Vatican ambassador to the U.S. until Pope Francis removed him in 2016, after he set up a meeting between the pontiff and Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who refused to sign same-sex marriage certificates and became a symbol of opposition to same-sex marriage.
Following the release of the letter—which was published in the National Catholic Register, a conservative Catholic outlet in the U.S.—Pope Francis told reporters on Sunday that he would “not say one word” about the accusations and encouraged journalists to judge for themselves.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., said in an interview, “With all due respect, that response is not adequate. If I was accused of covering up for one of my priests, I would not get away with saying, ‘Just make up your own mind.’…I don’t know if [Pope Francis] realizes how serious this situation is.”
A theological conservative who has taken a hard line toward same-sex marriage in the church, Bishop Paprocki also called for an investigation, adding that he found Archbishop Viganò to be “a very credible person…who would be in a position to know.”
At the same time, officials named in the Viganò letter have directly criticized its author, in some cases pointing out that he himself has been accused of covering up sexual abuse in Minnesota.
Archbishop Viganò, through a spokesman, has denied those allegations.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, N.J, and a close ally of Pope Francis, said Archbishop Viganò’s letter was filled with “factual errors, innuendo and fearful ideology.”
At mass on Sunday, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington who was also named in the Viganò letter, said, “We need to hold close in our prayers and our loyalty our holy father, Pope Francis. Increasingly, it’s clear that he is the object of considerable animosity.”
As soon as he said those lines, a parishioner shouted, “Shame on you!” from the pews, then walked out.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, struck a more neutral tone. In a statement, he said the questions raised by Archbishop Viganò “deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence,” and asked for an audience with the pope.
The Conference of Bishops’ statement stands in contrast to more supportive remarks in recent days from clergy in other parts of the world, said Mr. Schneck, formerly of The Catholic University of America. The conference of Latin American bishops, for example, said, “We want to reinforce in these moments the communion with your person and teaching.”
Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, said the upheaval in the U.S. church was forcing officials to openly debate issues that had been shrouded in secrecy for far too long, like attitudes toward gay men serving in the clergy. But he said it was regrettable that the debate broke along ideological lines.
“In the last few weeks, you’ve seen a hardening of the lines,” he said.
Pope Francis lays the groundwork to overturn Humanae
Vitae
“The welfare of the family is decisive for the future of the world and
that of the Church… The anthropological-cultural change, which today affects
all aspects of life and requires an analytical and diversified approach, does
not allow us to limit ourselves to pastoral and missionary practices that
reflect forms and models of the past. We must be conscious and passionate
interpreters of the wisdom of faith in a context in which individuals are less
sustained than in the past by social structures, in their affective and family
life. In the clear purpose of remaining faithful to the teaching of
Christ, we must look with the intellect of love and with wisdom of realism to
the reality of the family today, in all its complexity, in its lights and in
its shadows.”
Pope Francis, in his Motu Proprio, Summa
Familiae Cura, referencing his own document which overturned all Catholic
morality, Amoris Laetitia
“Attack”? Since when does the truth constitute an
“attack”? Or rather, for whom does the declaration of truth constitute an
“attack”? “Silence and prayer” should be the permanent canonical disposition
for anyone who has aided and abetted the crime of sodomy and scandal within the
Church of Jesus Christ.
Under-attack
Pope calls for 'silence and prayer'
Pope Francis
has so far refused to respond to allegations made last month that he for years
covered up sexual abuse allegations against a prominent US cardinal
AFP | Vatican City | September 3, 2018
Pope Francis on Monday said "silence and prayer" were the answer to those seeking "scandal and division", amid a barrage of attacks from ultra-conservative Catholics.
The pope has so far refused to respond to allegations made last month that he for years covered up sexual abuse allegations against a prominent US cardinal.
"With people who lack goodwill, with people who seek only scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even within the family: (there is nothing but) silence. And prayer," Francis said during a service at St Martha's, the boarding house where he stays.
Among some ultra-conservative Catholics, the pope is regarded as a dangerous progressive who is more interested in social issues than traditional Church matters.
His comments came after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to Washington, claimed in August that Francis ignored sexual abuse allegations against US cardinal Theodore McCarrick for five years.
The timing of the letter's release -- right in the middle of Francis's landmark trip to Ireland -- immediately raised speculation about a campaign against the Argentine pontiff.
But so far, Francis has remained silent, refusing to address the allegations and saying only that Vigano's missive "speaks for itself".
On Saturday, Vigano launched a fresh attack, accusing the pope of knowing full well that he was meeting an arch-conservative opposed to gay marriage during a 2015 visit to the United States.
The Vatican said at the time that the pope met Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who has refused to sign gay marriage certificates, during a reception along with 'dozens of other guests' at the embassy in Washington.
The Diocese of Harrisburg Commits to Never Repeat the
Sins of the Past
We,
the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have
heard some of it before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse
within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those
earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth:
it happened everywhere.”
This opening paragraph
of the Report of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury paints
a bleak and corrupt image of the Catholic Church. As hard as it may be to
accept, this report presents a view of the sinful past of some clergy in the
Harrisburg Diocese. But it does not reflect the Church of today.
The Diocese has worked
faithfully to implement safety programs since the 2002 Charter for the
Protection of Children and Young
People was approved by
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Grand Jury Report even
stated that “the bulk of the discussion in this report concerns events that
occurred before the early 2000’s,” and that “...we recognize that much has
changed over the last fifteen years.”
While much has changed
within the Diocese during the past decade and a half, there is still work to be
done. Today, we make you this pledge:
To support the survivors of child abuse by the hands of
Church clergy, employees or volunteers.
The Diocese has made it our top priority to assist
survivors and their families in their journey toward healing. We assist
survivors in obtaining outpatient counseling from mutually agreed upon
licensed, quality providers, regardless of when the abuse occurred. Our
Survivor Assistance office also maintains contact with survivors, to ensure
they are receiving the resources and assistance needed to help them heal. The
Diocese encourages those who suffered abuse at the hands of a clergy member, an
employee or a volunteer with the Diocese, regardless of when the abuse
occurred, to come forward and let their voice be heard. Please call the
toll-free PA ChildLine at 1-800-932-0313 and call the Diocesan toll-free
hotline at 1-800-626-1608.
Throughout the past several weeks, many discussions have
surfaced on Pennsylvania’s current statutes of limitation laws. While we
believe now is a time for profound remorse and heartfelt apology, the Church
strongly supports SB 261 and believes that this legislation will significantly
aid in the protection of children. We believe that the final decision with
regard to the statute of limitations and the constitutional arguments that
exist will be handled by the General Assembly in the halls of the Capitol.[…..]
Diocese of Harrisburg,
August 31, 2018
COMMENT: The first requirement in
formulating a solution to any problem is to properly define the problem. This pledge from the Diocese of Harrisburg assumes
that the problem is pedophilia. The
problem is not pedophilia and therefore, since they cannot define the problem
they cannot propose a workable solution.
In over 90% of all clerical sexual abuse, homosexual pederasts are
preying on adolescent boys and young men.
Homosexuals become priests by lying so they can use the clerical collar
as cover for their decadent lives.
Catholic doctrine and morality condemn sodomy as intrinsically
disordered act against the natural law and exclude all homosexuals as
candidates for any religious vocation.
The only solution is to remove every homosexual cleric from the
priesthood and religious orders. Those
who are guilty of obfuscating a clear understanding of the problem are part of
the problem. They are just members or
fellow travelers of the Homosexual Lobby.
Ben Shapiro,
in an op-ed column at Newsweek, says what many Catholics are already thinking:
NEWSWEEK | OPINION | August 31, 2018
So, did the press leap to investigate Vigano’s claims? Did they demand
answers from Pope Francis? Did we see the same type of courageous,
comprehensive coverage of Francis’ activities that we saw from the Globe team
circa 2003? Of course not.
Instead,
mainstream media outlets went out of their way to portray Vigano as a
disgruntled conservative angry at Pope Francis’ progressive interpretation of
Catholic doctrine. The New York Times headlined, “Vatican
Power Struggle Bursts Into Open as Conservatives Pounce.” Their print headline
was even worse: “Francis Takes High Road As Conservatives Pounce, Taking
Criticisms Public.”
Yes, according to
the Times, the story wasn’t the sitting Pope being credibly
accused of a sexual abuse cover-up—it was conservatives attacking him for it.
The problem of child molestation and sexual abuse of clergy took a back seat to
Francis’ leftist politics, as the Times piece made clear in
its first paragraph: “Since the start of his papacy, Francis has infuriated
Catholic traditionalists as he tries to nurture a more welcoming church and
shift it away from culture war issues, whether abortion or homosexuality. ‘Who
am I to judge?’ the pope famously said, when asked about gay priests. Just
how angry his political and doctrinal enemies are became clear this weekend…”
It wasn’t just the Times. On Wednesday, Reuters
headlined, “Defenders rally around pope, fear conservatives escalating war.” On
Thursday, Reuters doubled down with this headline: “Conservative media move to
front line of battle to undermine Pope Francis.” The Telegraph(U.K.)
reported, “Vatican analysts say the attack appears to be part of a concerted
effort by conservatives to oust Pope Francis, who they dislike for his
relatively liberal views…”
But why in the
name of God is calling on the Vatican not to defend sexual abusers a political
issue for the press? Why isn’t this something we can all agree upon?
Why aren’t the press asking the pope tough questions, instead of focusing on
the supposed motivations of the whistleblowers?
The media’s disgraceful attempts to cover for Francis because
of their love for his politics merely exposes the actual malign
motivations of many in the media: they were happy to expose misconduct and evil
inside the Catholic Church when the pope was a conservative; they’re happy to
facilitate a cover-up when the pope is a liberal.
That’s vile. And most Catholics understand that if the members of the
media—an overwhelmingly secular group of people—are steadfastly defending a
papacy accused of sexual abuse cover-ups, it’s not out of goodwill for the
Church generally. It’s out of a belief that traditionalist doctrine must be
rooted out at any cost, even including the abuse of minors and the violation of
basic canon law.
Homosexual
Lobby members are “playing the man, rather than the ball.” The Lobby’s line is that Archbishop Viganò’s
allegations have no merit because the man himself is disaffected conservative ideologue.
The charges of Archbishop Viganò are really straight forward and merit a
thorough investigation and a reply from Pope Francis irrespective of the motive
of their revelation. So the cover-up by Francis will continue but as a rule of
thumb for those watching the story unfold: those who defend Pope Francis are ipso facto members of the Homosexual
Lobby, those who call for a thorough investigation place the welfare of the
Church before personal interests, and those who say and do nothing...., being
“neither hot or cold,” and therefore, will be vomited.....
U.S. Bishops
Are Divided in a Way Rarely Seen in Public
Viganò letter
exposes ideological rift that mirrors American politics
Wall Street Journal | Ian Lovett | September 3, 2018
The crisis engulfing the Catholic Church and the papacy has exposed deep rifts in the U.S. church.
The latest trigger is a letter released last week by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò accusing Catholic Officials, including Pope Grancis, of covering up sexual abuse, allegedly by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick among others.
While U.S. bishops profess broad agreement about the need for new measures to address abuse, their responses to the letter have dramatically diverged.
Those who support the pope’s emphasis on issues like immigration and climate change have criticized the letter. San Diego Birhop Robert McElroy said the letter displays a “hatred for Pope Francis” and that “Archbishop Viganò consistently subordinates the pursuit of comprehensive truth to partisanship, division and distortion.
Meanwhile, conservative U.S. bishops who disapprove of Pope Francis’ conciliatory tone on remarriage and homosexuality in the priesthood have openly defended Archbishop Viganò.
Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, said he was “convinced of [Archbishop Viganò’s] honesty…and impeccable integrity,” and called for an investigation into his allegations.
Although theological disagreements have existed among U.S. bishops for years, they have seldom before been so openly on display.
“I fear the Catholic church in the U.S. has become divided by the same ideological forces that have roiled American politics,” said Stephen Schneck, former director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America.
The public back-and-forth also highlights the opposition Francis has faced for years from some clergy in the U.S., which has been a hub of resistance throughout his papacy.
In his letter, Archbishop Viganò claimed the pope knew as early as 2013 about allegations that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, had been sexually active with seminarians and that Pope Benedict XVI had privately disciplined him. Pope Francis, the letter alleges, lifted restrictions on then-Cardinal McCarrick, who stepped down from the College of Cardinals after allegations against him became public earlier this year.
Archbishop Viganò served as Vatican ambassador to the U.S. until Pope Francis removed him in 2016, after he set up a meeting between the pontiff and Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who refused to sign same-sex marriage certificates and became a symbol of opposition to same-sex marriage.
Following the release of the letter—which was published in the National Catholic Register, a conservative Catholic outlet in the U.S.—Pope Francis told reporters on Sunday that he would “not say one word” about the accusations and encouraged journalists to judge for themselves.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., said in an interview, “With all due respect, that response is not adequate. If I was accused of covering up for one of my priests, I would not get away with saying, ‘Just make up your own mind.’…I don’t know if [Pope Francis] realizes how serious this situation is.”
A theological conservative who has taken a hard line toward same-sex marriage in the church, Bishop Paprocki also called for an investigation, adding that he found Archbishop Viganò to be “a very credible person…who would be in a position to know.”
At the same time, officials named in the Viganò letter have directly criticized its author, in some cases pointing out that he himself has been accused of covering up sexual abuse in Minnesota.
Archbishop Viganò, through a spokesman, has denied those allegations.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, N.J, and a close ally of Pope Francis, said Archbishop Viganò’s letter was filled with “factual errors, innuendo and fearful ideology.”
At mass on Sunday, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington who was also named in the Viganò letter, said, “We need to hold close in our prayers and our loyalty our holy father, Pope Francis. Increasingly, it’s clear that he is the object of considerable animosity.”
As soon as he said those lines, a parishioner shouted, “Shame on you!” from the pews, then walked out.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, struck a more neutral tone. In a statement, he said the questions raised by Archbishop Viganò “deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence,” and asked for an audience with the pope.
The Conference of Bishops’ statement stands in contrast to more supportive remarks in recent days from clergy in other parts of the world, said Mr. Schneck, formerly of The Catholic University of America. The conference of Latin American bishops, for example, said, “We want to reinforce in these moments the communion with your person and teaching.”
Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, said the upheaval in the U.S. church was forcing officials to openly debate issues that had been shrouded in secrecy for far too long, like attitudes toward gay men serving in the clergy. But he said it was regrettable that the debate broke along ideological lines.
“In the last few weeks, you’ve seen a hardening of the lines,” he said.
“Attack”? Since when does the truth constitute an
“attack”? Or rather, for whom does the declaration of truth constitute an
“attack”? “Silence and prayer” should be the permanent canonical disposition
for anyone who has aided and abetted the crime of sodomy and scandal within the
Church of Jesus Christ.
Under-attack
Pope calls for 'silence and prayer'
Pope Francis
has so far refused to respond to allegations made last month that he for years
covered up sexual abuse allegations against a prominent US cardinal
AFP | Vatican City | September 3, 2018
Pope Francis on Monday said "silence and prayer" were the answer to those seeking "scandal and division", amid a barrage of attacks from ultra-conservative Catholics.
The pope has so far refused to respond to allegations made last month that he for years covered up sexual abuse allegations against a prominent US cardinal.
"With people who lack goodwill, with people who seek only scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even within the family: (there is nothing but) silence. And prayer," Francis said during a service at St Martha's, the boarding house where he stays.
Among some ultra-conservative Catholics, the pope is regarded as a dangerous progressive who is more interested in social issues than traditional Church matters.
His comments came after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to Washington, claimed in August that Francis ignored sexual abuse allegations against US cardinal Theodore McCarrick for five years.
The timing of the letter's release -- right in the middle of Francis's landmark trip to Ireland -- immediately raised speculation about a campaign against the Argentine pontiff.
But so far, Francis has remained silent, refusing to address the allegations and saying only that Vigano's missive "speaks for itself".
On Saturday, Vigano launched a fresh attack, accusing the pope of knowing full well that he was meeting an arch-conservative opposed to gay marriage during a 2015 visit to the United States.
The Vatican said at the time that the pope met Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who has refused to sign gay marriage certificates, during a reception along with 'dozens of other guests' at the embassy in Washington.
The Diocese of Harrisburg Commits to Never Repeat the
Sins of the Past
We, the members of this
grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have heard some of it
before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic
Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened
someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.”
This opening paragraph
of the Report of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury paints
a bleak and corrupt image of the Catholic Church. As hard as it may be to
accept, this report presents a view of the sinful past of some clergy in the
Harrisburg Diocese. But it does not reflect the Church of today.
The Diocese has worked
faithfully to implement safety programs since the 2002 Charter for the
Protection of Children and Young
People was approved by
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Grand Jury Report even
stated that “the bulk of the discussion in this report concerns events that
occurred before the early 2000’s,” and that “...we recognize that much has
changed over the last fifteen years.”
While much has changed
within the Diocese during the past decade and a half, there is still work to be
done. Today, we make you this pledge:
To support the survivors of child abuse by the hands of
Church clergy, employees or volunteers.
The Diocese has made it our top priority to assist
survivors and their families in their journey toward healing. We assist
survivors in obtaining outpatient counseling from mutually agreed upon
licensed, quality providers, regardless of when the abuse occurred. Our
Survivor Assistance office also maintains contact with survivors, to ensure
they are receiving the resources and assistance needed to help them heal. The
Diocese encourages those who suffered abuse at the hands of a clergy member, an
employee or a volunteer with the Diocese, regardless of when the abuse
occurred, to come forward and let their voice be heard. Please call the
toll-free PA ChildLine at 1-800-932-0313 and call the Diocesan toll-free
hotline at 1-800-626-1608.
Throughout the past several weeks, many discussions have
surfaced on Pennsylvania’s current statutes of limitation laws. While we
believe now is a time for profound remorse and heartfelt apology, the Church
strongly supports SB 261 and believes that this legislation will significantly
aid in the protection of children. We believe that the final decision with
regard to the statute of limitations and the constitutional arguments that exist
will be handled by the General Assembly in the halls of the Capitol.[…..]
Diocese of Harrisburg,
August 31, 2018
COMMENT: The first requirement in
formulating a solution to any problem is to properly define the problem. This pledge from the Diocese of Harrisburg
assumes that the problem is pedophilia.
The problem is not pedophilia and therefore, since they cannot define
the problem they cannot propose a workable solution. In over 90% of all clerical sexual abuse,
homosexual pederasts are preying on adolescent boys and young men. Homosexuals become priests by lying so they
can use the clerical collar as cover for their decadent lives. Catholic doctrine and morality condemn sodomy
as intrinsically disordered act against the natural law and exclude all
homosexuals as candidates for any religious vocation. The only solution is to remove every
homosexual cleric from the priesthood and religious orders. Those who are guilty of obfuscating a clear
understanding of the problem are part of the problem. They are just members or fellow travelers of
the Homosexual Lobby.
Pope
Francis 'outed' as the CEO of the Homosexual Lobby
Ex-Nuncio
Accuses Pope Francis of Failing to Act on McCarrick’s Abuse
In a written
testimony, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò claims Pope Francis withdrew sanctions
against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.
National Catholic Register |
Edward Pentin | August 25, 2018
In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic
nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity
in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and
has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal
McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in
Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had
“imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by
Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those
sanctions in 2013.
Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement, simultaneously
released to the Register and other media, (see full text below) that Pope
Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into
account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made
McCarrick “his trusted counselor.” Viganò said that the former
archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the
United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of
Newark.
Archbishop Viganò, who said his “conscience dictates” that the truth be
known as “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy,”
ended his testimony by calling on Pope Francis and all of those implicated in
the cover up of Archbishop McCarrick’s abuse to resign.
On June 20, Vatican Secretary of State,
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on the order of Pope Francis, prohibited former
Cardinal McCarrick from public ministry after an investigation by the New York
archdiocese found an accusation of sexual abuse of a minor was “credible and
substantiated.” That same day,the public learned that the
Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey had received
three accusations of sexual misconduct involving adults against
McCarrick. Since then media reports have written of victims of the
abuse, spanning decades, include a teenage boy, three young priests or
seminarians, and a man now in his 60s who alleges McCarrick abused him from the
age of 11. The Pope later accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the College of
Cardinals.
But Viganò wrote that Benedict much earlier had imposed sanctions on
McCarrick “similar” to those handed down by Cardinal Parolin. “The cardinal was
to leave the seminary where he was living,” Viganò said, “he was also forbidden
to celebrate [Mass] in public, to participate in public meetings, to give
lectures, to travel, with the obligation of dedicating himself to a life of
prayer and penance.” Viganò did not document the exact date but
recollected the sanction to have been applied as far back 2009 or 2010.
Benedict’s measures came years after Archbishop
Viganò’s predecessors at the nunciature — Archbishops Gabriel Montalvo and
Pietro Sambi — had “immediately” informed the Holy See as soon as they had
learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s “gravely immoral behavior with seminarians
and priests,” the retired Italian Vatican diplomat wrote.
He said Archbishop Montalvo first alerted the Vatican in 2000,
requesting that Dominican Father Boniface Ramsey write to Rome confirming the
allegations. In 2006, Archbishop Viganò said that, as delegate for
pontifical representations in the Secretariat of State, he personally wrote a
memo to his superior, then Archbishop (later Cardinal) Leonardo Sandri,
proposing an “exemplary measure” be taken against McCarrick that could have a
“medicinal function” to prevent future abuses and alleviate a “very serious
scandal for the faithful.”
He drew on an indictment memorandum, communicated by Archbishop Sambi
to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Secretary of State, in which an abusive
priest had made claims against McCarrick of “such gravity and vileness”
including “depraved acts” and “sacrilegious celebration of the Eucharist.”
Memos Ignored
But, according to Viganò, his memo was ignored and no action was taken
until the late 2000s — a delay which Archbishop Viganò claims is owed to
complicity of John Paul II’s and Benedict XVI’s respective Secretaries of
State, Cardinals Angelo Sodano and Tarcisio Bertone.
In 2008, Archbishop Viganò claims he wrote a second memo, this time to
Cardinal Sandri’s successor as sostituto at the Secretariat of State, then
Archbishop (later Cardinal) Fernando Filoni. He included a summary of
research carried out by Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and specialist in
clerical sexual abuse, which Sipe had sent Benedict in the form of a statement.
Viganò said he ended the memo by “repeating to my superiors that I thought it
was necessary to intervene as soon as possible by removing the cardinal’s hat
from Cardinal McCarrick.”
Again, according the Viganò, his request fell on deaf ears and he
writes he was “greatly dismayed” that both memos were ignored until Sipe’s
“courageous and meritorious” statement had “the desired result.”
“Benedict did what he had to do,” Archbishop Viganò told the Register
Aug. 25, “but his collaborators — the Secretary of State and all the others —
didn’t enforce it as they should have done, which led to the
delay.”
“What is certain,” Viganò writes in his testimony, “is that Pope
Benedict imposed the above canonical sanctions on McCarrick and that they were
communicated to him by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Pietro
Sambi.”
The Register has independently confirmed that the allegations against
McCarrick were certainly known to Benedict, and the Pope Emeritus remembers
instructing Cardinal Bertone to impose measures but cannot recall their exact
nature.
In 2011, on arrival in Washington D.C., Archbishop Viganò said he
personally repeated the sanction to McCarrick. “The cardinal, muttering in a
barely comprehensible way, admitted that he had perhaps made the mistake of
sleeping in the same bed with some seminarians at his beach house, but he said
this as if it had no importance,” Viganò recalled in his testimony.
In his written statement, Viganò then outlined his understanding of
how, despite the allegations against him, McCarrick came to be appointed
Archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2000 and how his misdeeds were covered up. His
statement implicates Cardinals Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio Bertone and
Pietro Parolin and he insists various other cardinals and bishops were
well aware, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl, McCarrick’s successor as
archbishop of Washington D.C.
“I myself brought up the subject with Cardinal Wuerl on several
occasions, and I certainly didn’t need to go into detail because it was
immediately clear to me that he was fully aware of it,” he wrote.
Ed McFadden, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington, told CNA
that Wuerl categorically denies having been informed that McCarrick’s ministry
had been restricted by the Vatican.
The second half of Viganò’s testimony primarily deals with what Pope
Francis knew about McCarrick, and how he acted.
He recalled meeting Cardinal McCarrick in June 2013 at the Pope’s Domus
Sanctae Marthae residence, during which McCarrick told him “in a tone somewhere
between ambiguous and triumphant: ‘The Pope received me
yesterday; tomorrow I am going to China’” — the implication being that
Francis had lifted the travel ban placed on him by Benedict. (Further evidence
of this can be seen in this interview McCarrick gave the National Catholic
Reporter in 2014.)
At a private meeting a few days later, Archbishop Viganò said the Pope
asked him “‘What is Cardinal McCarrick like?’” to which the archbishop replied:
“He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered
him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.” The former nuncio said he
believes the Pope’s purpose in asking him was to “find out if I was an ally of
McCarrick or not.”
Freed From Constraints
He said it was “clear” that “from the time of Pope Francis’s election,
McCarrick, now free from all constraints, had felt free to travel continuously,
to give lectures and interviews.”
Moreover, he added, McCarrick had “become the kingmaker for
appointments in the Curia and the United States, and the most listened to
advisor in the Vatican for relations with the Obama administration.”
Viganò claimed that the appointments of Cardinal Cupich to Chicago and
Cardinal Joseph Tobin to Newark “were orchestrated by McCarrick,” among others.
He said neither of the names was presented by the nunciature, whose job is
traditionally to present a list of names, or terna, to the Congregation
for Bishops. He also added that Bishop Robert McElroy’s appointment to San
Diego was orchestrated “from above” rather than through the nuncio.
The retired Italian diplomat also echoed the Register’s
reports about Cardinal Rodriguez Maradíaga and his record of cover-up in
Honduras, saying the Pope “defends his man” to the “bitter end,” despite the
allegations against him. The same applies to McCarrick, wrote Viganò.
“He [Pope Francis] knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was
a serial predator,” Archbishop Viganò stated, but although “he knew that he was
a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”
“It was only when he was forced by the report of the abuse of a minor,
again on the basis of media attention, that he took action [regarding
McCarrick] to save his image in the media,” wrote Viganò.
The former U.S. nuncio wrote that Pope Francis “is abdicating the
mandate which Christ gave to Peter to confirm the brethren,” and
urged him to “acknowledge his mistakes” and, to “set a good example to
cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with
all of them.”
In comments to the media Aug. 25, Viganò said his main motivation
for writing his testimony now was to“stop the suffering of the victims, to
prevent new victims and to protect the Church: only the truth can make her
free.”
He also said he wanted to “discharge my conscience in front of God of
my responsibilities as bishop for the universal Church,” adding that he is an
“old man” who wanted to present himself to God “with a clean conscience.”
“The people of God have the right to know the full truth also regarding
their shepherds,” he said. “They have the right to be guided by good shepherds.
In order to be able to trust them and love them, they have to know them openly,
in transparency and truth, as they really are. A priest should always be a
light on a candle, everywhere and for all.”
After requests from EWTN News for comment, the Vatican press office has
declined to give immediate response to Viganò's letter
Pope Francis
Knew About McCarrick, Covered for His Sexual Crimes
Former papal
nuncio offers written testimony incriminating Holy Father, says pope must
resign
ChurchMilitant.com | Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D. | VATICAN
CITY | August 25, 2018
In
spite of knowing about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual assaults,
Pope Francis lifted sanctions from him that had been imposed by Pope Benedict.
LifeSiteNews is reporting that
Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò, former papal nuncio to the United States, has
written an 11-page statement testifying that Pope Francis was aware of
McCarrick's homosexual predation but "continued to cover him," even
making him "his trusted counselor" in naming bishops for appointment,
including Cdl. Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey (McCarrick's former diocese)
and Cdl. Blase Cupich of Chicago, Illinois.
"In this
extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he [Pope Francis] must
acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero
tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for
cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with
all of them," Viganò writes.
"The appointments
of Blase Cupich to Chicago and Joseph W. Tobin to
Newark were orchestrated by McCarrick, Maradiaga and Wuerl,"
says the former papal nuncio, "united by a wicked pact of abuses by the
first, and at least of cover-up of abuses by the other two."
"Regarding Cupich,
one cannot fail to note his ostentatious arrogance, and the insolence with
which he denies the evidence that is now obvious to all," he
continued, "that 80% of the abuses found were committed against young
adults by homosexuals who were in a relationship of authority over their victims."
Cdl. Viganò on Wuerl:
The Cardinal lies shamelessly and prevails upon his Chancellor, Monsignor
Antonicelli, to lie as well.
Viganò also insists Washington, D.C. Cdl. Donald Wuerl was well aware
of McCarrick's sexual misconduct and "lies shamelessly":
His recent statements that he knew nothing about it, even though at
first he cunningly referred to compensation for the two victims, are absolutely
laughable. The Cardinal lies shamelessly and prevails upon his Chancellor,
Monsignor Antonicelli, to lie as well.
Cardinal Wuerl is denying the allegations, claiming he "did not
receive documentation or information from the Holy See specific to Cardinal
McCarrick's behavior or any of the prohibitions on his life and ministry
suggested by Archbishop Vigano."
Viganò makes clear the
pope was immediately notified in 2000 of McCarrick's crimes as soon as the
nunciature became aware.
"I will immediately say that the Apostolic Nuncios in the United
States, Gabriel Montalvo and Pietro Sambi, both prematurely deceased, did not
fail to inform the Holy See immediately, as soon as they learned of Archbishop
McCarrick’s gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests," he
said.
He says Richard Sipe’s
public letter to Pope Benedict in 2008 (published on Sipe's website) "had
had the desired result":
Pope Benedict had imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to
those now imposed on him by Pope Francis: the Cardinal was to leave the
seminary where he was living, he was forbidden to celebrate [Mass] in public, to
participate in public meetings, to give lectures, to travel, with the
obligation of dedicating himself to a life of prayer and penance.
When McCarrick was
summoned to the nunciature and told the news of his sanctions, "a stormy
conversation, lasting over an hour" ensued, and "the Nuncio's voice
could be heard all the way out in the corridor."
A number of other
cardinals and bishops are implicated in the cover-up, including
Cdls. Pietro Parolin (current secretary of state), Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio
Bertone, William Levada, Lorenzo Baldisseri and Francesco Coccopalmerio, among
others.
Viganò accuses Coccopalmerio and Abp. Vicenzo Paglia of belonging to
"the homosexual current in favor of subverting Catholic doctrine on
homosexuality." He also named Cdl. Edwin O'Brien as belonging "to the
same current" — whom Church Militant has revealed was a homosexual
ringleader in New York and deliberately underreported homosexual priestly abuse
in the military.
Viganò accuses Coccopalmerio and Abp. Vincenzo Paglia of belonging
to 'the homosexual current in favor of subverting Catholic doctrine on
homosexuality.'
Coccopalmerio came
under scrutiny last year when his secretary, Msgr. Luigi Capozzi, was busted by
Italian police during a drug-fueled gay orgy in the Vatican apartments.
Coccopalmerio, head of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and
close adviser to the pope, had once recommended Capozzi for bishop.
Viganò also implicates
Cdls. Kevin Farrell and Sean O'Malley, saying of Farrell, "Given his
tenure in Washington, Dallas and now Rome, I think no one can honestly believe
him."
On Fr. Marciel
Maciel's homosexual predation, he says, "If he were to deny this, would
anybody believe him given that he occupied positions of responsibility as a
member of the Legionaries of Christ?"
Church Militant
reported last month that a former Legionary priest, J. Paul Lennon, close
friend of Farrell's brother, Bp. Brian Farrell, when all were in the Legion of
Christ, contradicted Farrell's claims that he had only met Maciel "once or
twice" during his years in the Legion. Farrell had in fact been a member
of Maciel's trusted inner circle and held a position of high rank in the
Legion, necessitating multiple meetings with his founder.
On O’Malley’s denials
of knowledge, Viganò wrote, "I would simply say that his latest statements
on the McCarrick case are disconcerting, and have totally obscured his
transparency and credibility."
The former papal
nuncio also calls out homosexualist Jesuit Fr. James Martin as "nothing
but a sad recent example of that deviated wing of the Society of Jesus."
Viganò ends with a
plea to the bishops to purge the Church of the gay lobby.
The homosexual
networks present in the Church must be eradicated, as Janet Smith, Professor of
Moral Theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, recently wrote.
"The problem of clergy abuse," she wrote, "cannot be
resolved simply by the resignation of some bishops, and even less so by
bureaucratic directives. The deeper problem lies in homosexual networks within
the clergy which must be eradicated." These homosexual networks,
which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc.,
act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus
tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are
strangling the entire Church.
I implore everyone,
especially Bishops, to speak up in order to defeat this conspiracy of silence
that is so widespread, and to report the cases of abuse they know about to the
media and civil authorities.
De Mattei: “I
will not say a single word about this”
Roberto de
Mattei | August 28, 2018
With this sentence,
uttered August 26th 2018, on his return flight from Dublin to Rome, Pope Francis
responded to the shocking revelations made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,
which involve him directly. To the journalist Anna Matranga (NBC) who had asked
him whether the things the former Nunzio to the United States had written were
true, the Pope in fact replied: “I read that statement this morning, and I must tell you sincerely
that, I must say this, to you and all those who are interested: Read the
statement carefully and make your own judgment, I will not say a single word on
this. I believe that the communiqué speaks for itself, and you have enough
journalistic skills to draw the conclusions. It’s an act of trust (confidence):
after a while when you have drawn your conclusions, perhaps I will speak. But
I’d like your professional maturity to do this work: it will be good for you,
truly. Fine like that.”
A bishop demolishes
the atmosphere of conspiratorial silence and connivance, naming names and
giving precise circumstances of a “pro-homosexual current in favor of
subverting the Catholic doctrine regarding homosexuality” and the presence of
“homosexual networks, now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious
orders etc.,” that “act covered by secrets and lies with the tentacle-like
power of an octopus crushing innocent victims, priestly vocations and
strangling the entire Church.”
Confronted with this
courageous voice which breaks the silence, Pope Francis remains silent and
entrusts the mass-media with the task of judging it, according to their
political and worldly criteria, so very different from that of the religious
and moral judgment of the Church. A silence which appears even graver than the
scandals brought to light by Archbishop Viganò.
This leprosy developed after the Second Vatican Council, as the
consequence of the new moral theology which denied absolute morals and claimed
the role of sexuality both heterosexual and homosexual, thought of as a factor
in the growth and realization of the human person. The homosexualization of
the Church started to spread in the 1970s and 1980s, as the meticulously
documented book by Father Enrique Rueda reveals: The Homosexual Network:
Private Lives and Public Policy, published in 1982.
In order to understand
the situation at that time, it is essential to read the study dedicated to Homosexuality
and the Priesthood. The Gordian Knot – of Catholics? by Professor Andrzej
Kobyliński of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.*
Kobyliński cites a book entitled The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A
reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul, by Donald Cozzens, Rector of the
Cleveland Seminary in Ohio, wherein the author states that at the beginning of
the 21st century the priesthood became a “profession”, exercised predominantly
by homosexuals and we can even talk about “a heterosexual exodus from the
priesthood.”
Kobyliński
reports an emblematic case: that concerning the Archbishop of Milwaukee
(Wisconsin), Rembert Weakland, acclaimed exponent of the American progressive
and “liberal” current. “Weakland has, for decades, covered up cases of sexual
abuse by priests, sustaining a vision of homosexuality contrary to that of the
Magisterium of the Catholic Church. At the end of his tenure, he effected a
gigantic embezzlement of about half a million dollars from the funds of his
archdiocese, to pay his former-partner who was accusing him of sexual
molestations. In 2009, Weakland had his “coming out”, by publishing his
autobiography entitled: A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, wherein he himself
admitted to being homosexual and of having had, for decades, continuative
sexual relationships with many partners. In 2011, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee
was constrained to declare bankruptcy, for the high profile of compensations
due to the victims of pedophile priests.”
In 2004 The John Jay
Report appeared, a document prepared at the request of the American Episcopal
Conference, in which all the cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests and
deacons, from 1950 to 2002, were analyzed. This document of almost 300 pages is
of extraordinary informative value – writes Kobyliński. The John Jay
Report “demonstrated the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse of
minors by Catholic clergy. According to the report of 2004, in the overwhelming
majority of cases of sexual abuse it is not about pedophilia, but ephebophilia,
that is, a degeneration that consists not only of sexual attraction towards
children, but towards adolescent boys, at the age of puberty. The John Jay
Report demonstrated that about 90% of the priests condemned for sexual abuse
with minors are homosexual priests.”
The McCarrick scandal
is therefore not the last act in a crisis that goes way, way back. Yet, in the
“Letter of the Pope to the People of God, and throughout his trip in Ireland,
Pope Francis has not once denounced this moral disorder. The Pope retains that
the main problem in sexual abuse by the clergy is not homosexuality but
clericalism. Referring to these abuses, the progressive historian Alberto
Melloni, writes that “Francis finally deals with the crime on the ecclesiastical
level: and he entrusts it to that theological subject - the people of God. To
the people Francis says without mincing words, that it is “clericalism” which
has incubated these atrocities, not an excess or lack of morality” (La
Repubblica , August 21, 2018).
«Le cléricalisme,
voilà l’ennemi!». “Behold the enemy - clericalism,” The famous phrase
pronounced on May 4th 1876 in the French Chamber of Deputies by Léon Gambetta
(1838-1882), leading exponent of The Grand Orient of France, could easily have
been made Pope Francis. This phrase, however, was considered the watchword by
the Masonic secularism of the 19th century, and by applying it, the governments
of the French Third Republic, carried out in the following years, an
“anti-clerical” political program which had its stages in the secularization of
the school, the expulsion of religious orders from the national
territory, divorce and the abolition of the concordat between France and the
Holy See. The clericalism Pope Francis speaks of is apparently different,
but deep down he identifies it with that traditional conception of the Church
which over the centuries was fought against by the Gallicans, the
Liberals, the Freemasons and the Modernists.
To reform the Church and purify Her of clericalism, the Italian
sociologist Marco Marzano suggests the following to Pope Francis: “For example,
a start might be to remove parish priests completely from the running of the
parishes, depriving them of those monocratic and absolute governing
functions (financial and pastoral) of which they benefit today. It might be
possible to introduce an important element of democracy, making bishops
electable [by popular vote]. It might be possible, by replacing them with open
and transparent structures, to close the seminaries, institutions of the
counter-reform in which clericalism as a “spirit of caste” is still exalted and
cultivated today. It might above all, be possible to cancel the norm upon which
clericalism is today mostly based (and which is also the basis for the overwhelming
majority of sexual crimes by the clergy) and that is, - obligatory
celibacy. It is precisely the chastity presumed in the clergy, with all the
consequences of the purity, the sacredness and superhuman [aspects] that go
along with it, which establish the main basis of clericalism”. (Il Fatto
Quotidiano, August 25th 2018).
Those who wish to
demolish clericalism, want to destroy the Church. And if instead clericalism is
meant as an abuse of power that the clergy exercise when they abandon the
spirit of the Gospel, then there is no worse clericalism than that
of those who forsake stigmatizing extremely grave sins like sodomy and forget
that the Christian life must necessarily attain Heaven or Hell. In the
years following Vatican II a great part of the clergy abandoned the idea of the
Social Reign of Christ and accepted the postulate of secularization as an
irreversible phenomenon. But when Christianity is subordinate to secularism,
the Kingdom of Christ is transformed into a worldly kingdom and reduced to
structures of power. The militant spirit is replaced by the spirit of the
world, And the spirit of the world imposes silence on the drama the
Church is living through right now.
COMMENT: Pope Francis the Homosexual Lobby CEO, is asking the help of
his great ally, the secular press, to misdirect the question to obfuscate
truth. The sexual abuse problem in the Catholic Church is almost entirely a
problem of the homosexual clerics infesting the Church who have established a
network of control and cover-up to use the Church for the gratification of
their own degraded decadent passions. The secular press knows this. They have
no objection in principle to sodomy and the hate Jesus Christ and His Church.
Therefore, they must misdirect the understanding of the problem. The sexual
perversion from clerics is always referred to as pedophilia by the secular
press when it most certainly is not. The cause of pedophilia is then claimed to
be "clericalism" which Roberto de Mattei very nicely defines and describes
in this article. The prescription to cure pedophilia then becomes forcing the
clergy to become undistinguishable from the laity which is a prescription to
destroy the Catholic priesthood. Pope Francis the Homosexual Lobby CEO may or
may not be a homosexual himself but he is using the Lobby as a weapon against
God's Church. He is the destroyer and he must be opposed by all the faithful
who keep Dogma as their rule of faith.
The customs of God’s people and the institutions of our ancestors are
to be considered as laws. And those who throw contempt on the customs of the
Church ought to be punished as those who disobey the law of God.
St. Augustine, Ep. ad Casulan. xxxvi
More Timely as Time Goes By:
Excerpt from Ss. Peter &
Paul Roman Catholic Mission Open Letter Addressed to Bishop Joseph McFadden,
June 29, 2011
The recent document Universae Ecclesiae published by the Pontifical Commission of
Ecclesia Dei (PCED) is the instruction on the application of Pope Benedict XVI’s
Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which concerns the use of the 1962
Missal. That Missal has been variously
known as the Missal of John XXIII, the Bugnini transitional Missal of 1962, the
Indult Missal, and now, as the “extra-ordinary form” of the Novus Ordo
expressing a single ‘lex orandi/lex credendi’ of the later Bugnini edition,
which is now called the “ordinary form” of the Novus Ordo. The 1962 Missal can be identified by any
number of descriptive names except, the “received and approved” immemorial
Roman rite of the Mass. It is impossible
that the 1962 Missal could be the “received and approved”2
immemorial Roman rite because it is impossible that the immemorial Roman rite
could ever be reduced to the status of an Indult, or treated as a grant of
legal privilege entirely as a matter of Church discipline subject to the free,
independent and arbitrary will of the legislator, or even worse, as the proper
subject matter for experimentation by “liturgical experts” staffing “liturgical
committees.” The 1962 Missal has never been afforded the standing of immemorial
custom by the authorities in Rome and it has proven itself to be just as
unstable and transitory today as it was when first published in 1962. We agree with Pope Benedict that there exists
no antithesis between the 1962 Missal and the 1970 edition of that rite.
The Masses offered at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman
Catholic Mission are offered according to the immemorial Roman rite of Mass
before Rev. Annibale Bugnini, as secretary for the Commission for Liturgical
Reform, overturned the principles of organic liturgical development and
subjected the “received and approved” Roman rite of Mass to artificial manmade
theories of liturgical innovation. These
theories, that are clearly foreign to the Catholic sense of liturgical
development, are of the same kind used by the Protestants in the 16th century,
and later by the Jansenists in the 17th and 18th centuries, to employ liturgy
as a means of changing doctrine.3 Since we do not use the 1962 Missal, we are
not subject to the PCED, whose particular competency is to govern the use of
that edition with its anticipated updates in the ongoing “reform of the
reform,” nor are we subject to the restrictive norms established for the use of
that Missal.
We have some small appreciation for the challenge
facing Pope Benedict in his attempt to correct the Novus Ordo liturgical
problems in the Latin rite, problems which he himself described as “a
liturgical collapse,”4
but he is not without a share in the responsibility for the current state of
affairs. Implementing his ‘hermeneutic
of continuity/discontinuity’ by employing a Hegelian dialectic to create a new
liturgical synthesis between the Bugnini Missal of 1962 and the Bugnini Missal
of 1970 will only produce another artificial construct by liturgical
innovators. We are not opposed to these
“reform of the reform” corrections and anticipate a general benefit for all
Catholics when, for example, the high altar is restored to its proper position
in Catholic sanctuaries, and such abuses as communion in the hand are ended,
but why should these corrections be paid for by a compromise of immemorial
tradition? No one should expect
Catholics who have been faithful to tradition over the last 50 years to
willingly subject themselves to another liturgical edition of “musical chairs”
with no idea where they will end up when the music stops. Liturgical instability has become the
norm. It is for this reason that we did
not consider any suggestion to become an Indult community by Bishop Rhoades.
Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission claims that
by virtue of our baptism, whose character both empowers and obligates us to
profess our Catholic faith and to worship God in the external forum, we have
the right to the “received and approved” immemorial traditions of our Church
that are perfectly consonant with that faith we hold in the internal forum and
by which our faith is visibly manifested, most importantly, we possess the right to have the “received and approved
rites customarily used in the administration of the sacraments” (Council of
Trent). We further hold that, although
these rights can be duly regulated by properly constituted authority, they can
never be conditionally exercised by required concessions or compromises of
Catholic faith or morals.
We further publically avow that we have made every
effort to insure that our consciences, according to Catholic moral principles,
have been properly formed and that they are both true and certain on these
questions that pertain to faith and worship; and have made every effort to
conform our actions to our conscience which we as Catholics are morally obliged
to do. […..]
Failed
to Mention: Novus Ordo Church receives massive federal handouts for supporting
illegal immigration!
“The Catholic Church has been terrible about this [immigration issue]. The
bishops have been terrible about this. By the way, you know why. You know why.
Because [they're] unable to really – to come to grips with the problems in the
church, they need illegal aliens. They need illegal aliens to fill the
churches. It’s obvious on the face of it. … They have an economic interest.
They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal
immigration.”
Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart and former chief
strategist for President Trump, faulted the Catholic bishops for their stance
on immigration, interview 60 Minutes, 9-10-17 with Charlie Rose
Response: “That's insulting and that's just so ridiculous that it
doesn’t merit a comment.” Cardinal
Timothy Dolan
You
get what you pay for!
Catholic
Church collects $1.6 billion in U.S. contracts, grants since 2012
The Washington
Times | Kelly Riddell | September 24, 2015
Not to be lost in the pomp and circumstance of Pope Francis’ first
visit to Washington is the reality that the Catholic Church he oversees has
become one of the largest recipients of federal largesse in America.
The Church and related Catholic charities and schools have collected
more than $1.6 billion since 2012 in U.S. contracts and grants in a
far-reaching relationship that spans from school lunches for grammar school
students to contracts across the globe to care for the poor and needy at the
expense of Uncle Sam, a Washington Times review of federal spending records
shows.
Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York once famously noted in
1980 that the government funded 50 percent of Catholic Charities ‘budget,
commenting “private institutions really aren’t private anymore.” Today, those
estimates remain about the same, according to Leslie Lenkowsky, who served as
the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community
Service under George W. Bush.
Catholic Charities USA, the largest charitable organization run by the
church, receives about 65 percent of its annual budget from state and federal
governments, making it an arm of the federal welfare state, said Brian
Anderson, a researcher with the Manhattan Institute.
The federal government came to increasingly rely on the church to help
it with Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” and the charities “imbued with
their new faith in the government’s potential to solve social problems, eagerly
accepted government money,” Mr. Anderson wrote in an essay for the Manhattan
Institute.
Catholic Charities received nearly a quarter of its funding from
government by the end of the 1960s, more than half by the late 1970s and more
than 60 percent by the mid-1980s, the level where it has remained ever since,
Mr. Anderson said.
The
Source of Protestant “Infallibility”!
What do I care whether the Popes cry out “The Church! The Church! The Fathers
The Fathers!” The Prophets and Apostles have erred. With the word of God we
judge both the Church and Apostles. ….. I do not care for a hundred texts of
the Bible and if you find that my doctrine is contrary to that of the Church
and of the Fathers, you must know that I care not for all that. … My words are
the words of Christ, my tongue is the tongue of Christ – I am certain that I
cannot err.
Luther, taken from History of the Protestant Reformation (in four
volumes), first volume, History of the Life, Works and Doctrines of Luther,
Jean M Vincent Audin, 1845
Pope
Francis - A radical revolutionary who hates everything Catholic!
“The
break with the past became the categorical imperative of a generation.”
The term “categorical imperative” was coined by Immanuel Kant who St. Pius X
identified as the philosophical and theological source for the heresy of
Modernism.
“Christians
never give up dreaming of a better world”
The Pope at
the Rimini Meeting: “We are going back to erecting walls instead of building
bridges. We tend to be withdrawn, rather than open to others who are different
from us”. But “authentic faith always implies a profound desire to change”
Andrea Tornielli | Vatican City | August 19, 2018
“Christians can never give up dreaming of a better world”. Also this year, through the Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis sends a greeting to the participants of the Rimini Meeting. The message addressed to the bishop of the city in Emilia Romagna, Francesco Lambiasi, was read during the opening mass of the 39th edition of the Rimini festival.
The message reads: “The title of the Meeting – ‘The forces that move history are the same ones that make man happy’ – resumes an expression of Don (Luigi) Giussani (founder of Communion and Liberation) and refers to that crucial turning point occurred in the society in 1968, the effects of which are not yet exhausted, fifty years later, so much so that Pope Francis affirms that ‘today, we are not living an era of change but a change of era’”.
“The break with the past – continues the message – became the categorical imperative of a generation that placed its hopes in a revolution of structures capable of ensuring a greater authenticity of life. Many believers yielded to the charm of this perspective and turned faith into a moralism which, taking the Grace for granted, relied on the efforts for a practical realisation of a better world”.
This is why “it is significant that, within that context, Don Giussani said to a young man completely absorbed in the search for the ‘forces that dominate history’: ‘The forces that move history are the same ones that make man happy’. With these words, he challenged him to verify what forces can change history, raising the bar with which to measure his revolutionary attempt”.
What happened to this attempt? What was left of that desire to change everything? “This is not the place to draw a historical balance – the papal greeting reads – but we can find some symptoms that emerge from the current situation of the West. We are going back to erecting walls instead of building bridges. We tend to be withdrawn, rather than open to others who are different from us. Indifference is spreading, rather than the desire to take initiative for change. A sense of fear prevails over trust in the future. And we ask ourselves whether in the last half-century the world has become more of a place to live in”. (?)
A question, the Pope observes,
that “also concerns us the Christians, who have gone through the turmoil
of 1968 and urges us to reflect – together with many other protagonists – and
to ask ourselves: what have we learnt? What can we take in? Man’s temptation
has always been to think that his intelligence and abilities are the principles
that rule the world; a claim that can be fulfilled in two ways: ‘One is the
attraction of Gnosticism, […] which ultimately keeps one imprisoned in his or
her own thoughts and feelings. The other one is the neo-Pelagianism […] of
those who ultimately trust only in their own powers’ (Apostolic
Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 94)”.
But should Christians give up their desire for change in order to avoid these two temptations repeatedly condemned by the Pontiff? “No, it is not about withdrawing from the world – Francis replies – to avoid the risk of making mistakes and to preserve a sort of pristine-pure faith, because an authentic faith always implies a deep desire to change the world, to move history, as reads the title of the Meeting. Many will wonder: is it possible? Christians can never give up dreaming of a better world. It is reasonable to dream of it, because a profound conviction is at the root of this certainty, that Christ is the beginning of the new world”.
A certainty that Francis summarises with these words: “His resurrection is not a thing of the past; it contains a life force that has penetrated the world. Where it seems that everything is dead, the buds of the resurrection come back to light from every part. It is an unparalleled force. In the midst of the darkness, something new always begins to blossom”.
“Who will save today – the message continues – this desire that lives, even if confusedly, in the heart of man? Only something that comes up to its infinite yearning. In fact, if desire does not find a suitable object, it remains blocked, and no promise, no initiative will be able to move it. No effort, no revolution can satisfy the human heart. Only God, who made us with an infinite desire, can fill it with his infinite presence”.
The very nature of Christianity “consists in recognising the presence of Jesus and following him. This was the beautiful experience of those early disciples who, meeting Jesus, were fascinated and full of amazement before the extraordinary figure of the One who spoke to them, and in the way in which He treated them, giving answers to the hunger and thirst for life of their hearts”.
“The Holy Father – concludes the message signed by Cardinal Parolin – wishes that this year’s Meeting be, for all those who participate, an opportunity to deepen or to welcome the invitation of the Lord Jesus: ‘Come and see’. This is the force that, while freeing man from the slavery of ‘false infinities’ that promise happiness without being able to deliver it, makes him a new protagonist on the world scene, called to turn history into a place where the children of God meet their Father and brothers meet among them”.
Comment,
St. Pius X replies:
In the maze of current opinions, these priests [dedicated to the works
of Catholic Action] should not allow themselves to be led astray, attracted by
the mirage of a false democracy. They should not borrow from the rhetoric of the worst enemies of the
Church and of the people, high-flown phrases full of promises, as high-sounding
as they are unattainable. They should be convinced that the social
question and social science did not arise just yesterday; that the Church and
the State, in harmonious accord, have always raised up fruitful organizations
to attain this end; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of
the people by consenting to compromising alliances, does not need to free
herself from her past.
All that she must do is to
retake, with the help of true workers for the social restoration, the organisms
shattered by the Revolution, adapting them in the same Christian spirit
that inspired them to the new environment created by the material development
of today’s society. For
the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but
traditionalists.
Pope St. Pius, X, Norte Charge
Apostolique, 1910
“Woe
to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and
light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” Isaias
5:20
Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any
“irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of
sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A
subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding
“its inherent values”, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him
or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin. As the
Synod Fathers put it, “factors may exist which limit the ability to make a
decision.”
Pope Francis the Lutheran, Amoris
Laetitia
“The end of
the way of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has
already been achieved by
the risen Christ, fulcrum
of the universal maturation…. The
final end of other creatures is not in us. Instead, all advance, together
with us and through us, toward the common destination, which is God, in a transcendent fullness where the
Risen Christ embraces and illuminates everything. The human being, in fact,
gifted with intelligence and love, and attracted by the fullness of Christ, is
called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.”
[Note: This is my own translation, as the Vatican’s English translation is not
faithful to the original Italian, including the key phrase fulcro della
maturazione universale — “fulcrum
of the universal maturation.”]
With all due respect, what
sort of nonsense is this? Christ has not “achieved the fullness of God”
with the Resurrection. Christ is God, and He rose by His own power. Nor is Christ any sort of
“fulcrum” of a “universal maturation,” according to which “all creatures” are
“advancing” “through us” toward some nebulous “transcendent
fullness.” This is nothing other than de Chardin’s bogus notion of
Christ as the Omega Point, or end, of the evolution of all things. And, indeed,
Francis at this point in the “recyclical” cites none other than de Chardin:
“Against this horizon we can set the contribution of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin…”
Contribution? What
contribution? In terms of science, Teilhard contributed two frauds: the
alleged “missing links” Piltdown Man and Peking Man, the former withdrawn in
disgrace by the British Museum and the latter consigned to oblivion when
evidence emerged that this so-called evolutionary ancestor of man was simply an
ancient man.
Christopher Ferrara, On Laudato
Si, the papal encyclical on earth worship
“Things can be known
because they are created.”
The fundamental statement about the “truth of all things” is found in
St. Thomas’ Questiones disputatae de veritate; it reads: res naturalis inter
duos intellects constituta (est); whatever is real in nature is placed between
two knowing agents, namely – so the text continues – between the intellectus
divinus [God’s mind] and the intellectus humanus [human mind].
These “coordinates” place all reality between the absolutely creative,
inventive knowledge of God and the imitating, “informed” knowledge of us humans
and thus present the total realm of reality as a structure of interwoven
original and reproduced conceptions.
Based on this twofold orientation of all things – so Thomas continues
his reasoning – the concept of the “truth of all things” is also twofold:
first, it means “thought by God”; second, it means “knowable to the human
mind.” The statement, “All things are true,” would therefore mean, on one hand,
that all things are known by God in the act of creation and, on the other hand,
that all things are by their nature accessible and comprehensible to the human
mind.
All things can be known by us because they spring from God’s thought.
Because they originated in God’s mind, things have not only their specific
essence in themselves and for themselves, but precisely because they originated
in God’s mind, things have as well an essence “for us.” All things are
intelligible, translucent, clear and open because they are created by God’s
thought, and for this reason they are essentially spirit related. The clarity
and lucidity that flows from God’s knowledge into things, together with their
very being (more correctly: as their very being) – this lucidity alone makes
all things knowable for the human mind. St. Thomas, in a commentary on
Scripture, remarks: “A thing has exactly as much light as it has reality.” And
in one of his late works, in his commentary on the Liber de causis, we find a
profound statement that expresses the same thought in almost mystical terms:
ipsa actualitas rei est quoddam lumen ipsius; “the reality of a thing is itself
its light”– and “reality” is understood here as “being created”! It is
precisely this “light” that makes a thing visible to our eyes. In short: things
can be known because they are created.
Josef Pieper, Catholic Philosopher
He who does not keep
the true Catholic faith whole and without error will undoubtedly be lost. He who is separated from the Catholic Church
will not have life.
Pope Gregory XVI, Perlatum
Ad Nos
That the Mystical Body
of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same
thing is a doctrine based on Revealed Truth. That we must necessarily belong to the true
Church if we are to attain everlasting salvation is a statement which some
people reduce to meaningless formula.
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis
Nature
of DOGMA - “A genuine supernatural
message or communication from the living God Himself” -
and
its Denial by Modernists
Thus,
We have reached one of the principal points in the Modernists’ system, namely
the origin and the nature of dogma. For they place the origin of dogma in
those primitive and simple formulae, which, under a certain aspect, are
necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear
manifestation of God in the consciousness. But dogma itself they apparently
hold, is contained in the secondary formulae.
To ascertain the nature of dogma (for the modernist), we must
first find the relation which exists between the religious formulas and the
religious sentiment. This will be readily perceived by him who realises
that these formulas have no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a
means of giving an account of his faith to himself. These formulas (for the
modernist) therefore stand midway between the believer and his faith; in their
relation to the faith, they are the inadequate expression of its object,
and are usually called symbols; in their relation to the believer, they
are mere instruments.
Hence it is quite impossible (for the modernist) to maintain that
they express absolute truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the
images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sentiment in its
relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must
therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious
sentiment. But the object of the religious sentiment, since it embraces
that absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects of which now one, now
another, may present itself. In like manner, he who believes may pass through
different phases. Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be
subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the
way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of
sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able,
but ought to evolve and to be changed.
St.Pius X, Pascendi
If the teaching proposed by the Church as dogma is not actually and
really the doctrine supernaturally revealed by God through Jesus Christ Our
Lord, [........] then there could be nothing more pitifully inane than the work
of the Catholic Magisterium. [........] This common basis of the false
doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist heresy is, like doctrinal
indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of Catholic dogma as a genuine
supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself. It would
seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous or silly enough to be convinced,
on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of the Catholic Church is actually a
locutio Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other hand, that he, a
mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make it more
respectable. The very fact that a man would be so rash as to attempt to bring
the dogma of the Church up to date, or to make it more acceptable to those who
are not privileged to be members of the true Church, indicates that this
individual is not actually and profoundly convinced that this dogmatic teaching
of the Catholic Church is a supernatural communication from the living and
Triune God, the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. It would be the height of
blasphemy knowingly to set out to improve or to bring up to date what one would
seriously consider a genuine message from the First Cause of the universe.
Fr. Joseph C. Fenton, AER, The Sacrorum
Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism
Whether
in the Ordinary or Extra-ordinary flavor: The “Assembly…Celebrates.”
General
Instruction on the Novus Ordo Mass
The Lord’s supper or Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the
people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, in order to
celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For
this reason, Christ’s promise applies supremely to such a local gathering of
the Church: “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their
midst.”
Article 7(1969)
COMMENT: “Almost any believing Protestant of whatever denomination would be
able to assent to such a definition.”
Msgr. Klaus Gamber
The Cross was necessary not
just to redeem from sin,
but to make those redeemed,
by grace, “share in the friendship of God,”
the “power to be made the sons of God.” John 1:12
He is known to have shed,
not a little drop of blood,- though this would have sufficed for the redemption
of the entire human race, because of the (Hypostatic) Union with the Logos, -
but streams of it, like unto a river… That the mercy involved in such a large
effusion (of blood) be not rendered vain, empty, and superfluous, He laid up
for the Church militant a copious treasure, which the good Father desires to
dispense to his children, in order that it may become an infinite store-house
for men, and that those who make use of it may share in the friendship of
God.
Pope Clement VI, Unigenitus, 1343
Only
non-dogmatic truths can be ranked in order of importance. All Catholic dogmas
rank equally, because to deny just one is to deny God’s authority which is
behind them all.
Bishop Richard
Williamson
At
least we won't have to hear about the “Cardinal
Keeler Center” any more, but do not
expect it to be renamed in honor of Rev. Enrique Tomas Rueda who warned the
Church about the “Homosexual
Network” in 1982. Does the bishop have a plan to cleanse the
diocese from all the homosexual clerics?
Bishop Gainer
Makes Building Naming Policy Retroactive
Bishop Ronald W. Gainer announced on Wednesday, Aug. 1, that a new Building Naming Policy has been approved, effective immediately, for the Diocese of Harrisburg. Under the new policy, the name of every Bishop since 1947 will be removed from any building, facility, room or other position of honor in the Diocese. This move is in response to the extensive investigation by the Dioceses into reports of and inadequate response to allegations of child sexual abuse.
The investigation caused the Diocese to take a frank look at its past as well as its present. Part of that assessment was an evaluation of whether any lingering symbols of the sad history revealed in the investigation should remain.
Bishop Gainer directed a “Committee on Names” be formed, to advise him on whether any of the persons criticized in the investigation should have their names removed from the Diocese’s facilities.
As a result of the investigation, it was clear the leadership of the Church did not in every case take adequate measures when handling matters related to offending clerics. This information was reviewed by the Diocese’s legal counsel and along with the unanimous recommendation of the “Committee on Naming,” the decision was made to approve the new policy.
“I agree with the recommendations that I have received from my advisors on these matters and have instructed Diocesan Staff to begin efforts to change names, effective immediately,” said Bishop Gainer.
Bishop McDevitt High School will not have its name changed because there are no records of these matters during the tenure of Bishop McDevitt and the investigation only extended back to 1947, twelve years after his death.
Truth
always bears repeating. Unless the problem is properly defined, there can be no
solution!
Cardinal
Bertone correct in linking clerical sex abuse and homosexuality, says
psychiatrist
West Conshohocken, Pa., Apr 16,
2010 / 04:38 pm (CNA News)
Following Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s comments in Chile about a link existing between homosexuality and pedophilia in cases of clerical sexual abuse, both Church officials and secular figures clarified his statement. But Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist with experience treating sexually abusive priests, told CNA that the cardinal’s statement is accurate.
At a press conference last Monday evening at the Pontifical Seminary of Santiago, Chile, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said, “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia.” Instead, they have found a “relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia,” he added.
Many gay rights organizations reacted vehemently to Cardinal Bertone’s statement, leading Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press office, to assert that “it obviously refers to the problem of abuse by priests and not in the population in general.”
A statement from the French Foreign Ministry calling the linkage “unacceptable” was followed by a statement by Fr. Marcus Stock, the General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. “To the best of my knowledge, there is no empirical data which concludes that sexual orientation is connected to child sexual abuse,” he said.
“The consensus among researchers is that the sexual abuse of children is not a question of sexual ‘orientation,’ whether heterosexual or homosexual, but of a disordered attraction or ‘fixation,’” Fr. Stock added.
However, a U.S. psychiatrist with experience in treating priests with
pedophilia disagrees that there is no link between homosexuality and sexual
abuse of children. “Cardinal Bertone’s
comments are supported completely by the John Jay study report and by clinical
experience,” Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons told CNA. “In fact, every priest whom I
treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in
adult homosexual relationships.”
Fitzgibbons, who has been the director of Comprehensive Counseling Center in West Conshohocken, Penn. since 1988, has worked extensively with individuals suffering from same sex attraction (SSA) and priests accused of pedophilia. He also presently serves as a consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Holy See.
In his 2002 “Letter to
Catholic Bishops,” Fitzgibbons identified priests prone to sexual abuse as
having suffered “profound emotional pain” during childhood due to loneliness,
problems in their relationships with their fathers, rejection by their peers,
lack of male confidence, and poor self image or body image. Fitzgibbons said
that these experiences lead priests especially to direct their sadness and
anger towards the Church, her teachings on sexual morality, and the
Magisterium.
He also noted that priests who
have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors suffer from a “denial of sin in
their lives.” “They consistently refused to examine their consciences, to
accept the Church’s teachings on moral issues as a guide for their personal
actions, or regularly avail themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation.
These priests either refused to seek spiritual direction or choose (sic) a
spiritual director or confessor who openly rebelled against Church teachings on
sexuality,” the letter said.
When asked what sort of new
information has become available since the publication of the letter,
Fitzgibbons put an emphasis on narcissism. “This epidemic personality weakness
in the west predisposes individuals to excessive anger, the worship of self,
rebelliousness against God and His Church particularly in regard to sexual
morality and sexual acting-out,” he said.
The psychiatrist also
reviewed the findings of the John Jay researchers, who reported that 81 percent
of the victims of clerical sexual abuse were male, 51 percent of whom were age
11-14, 27 percent were aged 15-17, 16 percent between 8-10, and 6 percent were
under 7 years of age, emphasized Fitzgibbons.
For priests who do suffer from SSA, “I would recommend that they become more knowledgeable about the emotional origins and healing of same-sex attractions, as well as the serious medical and psychiatric illnesses associated with homosexuality,” advised Fitzgibbons. “We have observed many priests grow in holiness and in happiness in their ministry as a result of the healing of their childhood and adolescent male insecurity, loneliness and anger and, subsequently, their same-sex attractions.”
Because of the link between homosexuality and clerical sexual abuse mentioned by Cardinal Bertone, priests and seminarians with same sex attraction have a solemn responsibility to seek help and to protect the Church from further shame and sorrow, said Fitzgibbons.
According
to Francis the Most Merciful, the Catholic Church has approved, as morally
permissible for the last two thousand years, the 'intrinsically evil' act of
capital punishment!
Heresy in the
Catechism. Wolf in the Vatican. No Shepherds in Sight.
OnePeterFive | Steve Skokec | August 2, 2018
Just as the latest round of homosexual network and sex abuse allegations in the Church are reaching a fever pitch, Pope Francis – who has been eerily quiet of late – dropped a nuclear theological bomb into our midst.
From CRUX:
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the death penalty now is no longer admissible under any circumstances. The Vatican announced on Thursday Pope Francis approved changes to the compendium of Catholic teaching published under Pope John Paul II.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the
inviolability and dignity of the person,” is what the Catechism of the Catholic
Church now says on the death penalty, adding that the Church “works with
determination for its abolition worldwide.”
As I have previously attempted to demonstrate, this is simply theologically wrong. There’s no way around that. But I wanted the opinion of an expert – which I am not – so I reached out this morning to a trustworthy theologian who is well versed in the finer distinctions of Magisterial authority and its limits. This was the response I received:
“The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on the intrinsic
morality of the death penalty is irreformable dogma. To deny this or assert the
contrary is formally heretical. Catholics remain obliged to believe and accept
this doctrine regardless of any changes to the Catechism.” [.....]
COMMENT: This is just further proof that
the doctrine of Religious Liberty is heresy and, like all heresy, leads to
objective sin. Religious Liberty is
based upon the belief that the dignity of man is so great that he is free to
ignore the truths God has revealed and disobey His commandments. It leads to the moral error of religious
indifferentism in the practical order. This teaching on capital punishment is
just another extension of this doctrinal error.
Here Francis/Bergoglio claims that the dignity of man is so great his
life cannot be forfeited regardless of his crimes. If this were true
understanding of natural law, which in creation is a manifestation of the mind
of God, it would apply to God as well.
This explains why the modernist Novus Ordo heretics who profess
religious liberty deny the eternal punishment of hell. Unfortunately for them, this denial will only
provide them with the opportunity to learn by experience.
Francis/Bergoglio
in practice affords greater right to life to the abortionist than his victim!
What's Going
on in Bergoglio's Pontifical Academy for Life Anyway?
Is there no end to the anti-life scandals at Pontifical Academy for Life? Or is it Death?
Karolinska Institute is NOT a “Medical University.” It’s a Big Auschwitz for unborn children.
In the selection of its members, the Vatican must also consider the institution that the member represents. In the case of Katarina Le Blanc that institution is the Karolinska Institute – one of the world’s foremost promoters of abortion and abortifacients. The Institute also is involved in non-therapeutic fetal experimentation and the provision of fetal tissues from aborted babies. Its eugenic mind-set is illustrated by its pioneer promotion of human embryo pre-implantation diagnosis and in-vitro Fertilization.
Either remove Le Blanc and all the other anti-life characters which infest the “academy” or just shut the growing hell-hole down! Enough is enough!
Randy Engel, U.S. Coalition for Life, July 19, 2017
Building
Bridges to Hell – The homosexual agenda does not seek to be left alone in their
vices but rather seeks to have their vices recognized and approved as normal
moral behavior!
Many of the gay persons who I met that week
revealed a deep spirituality and faith. And most interesting of all, the people
I met asked that we, as ministers of the Church, be people of compassion and
understanding, and not be afraid to teach the message of the Gospel and the
Church with gentleness and clarity even in the midst of ambiguity of lifestyle,
devastation, despair and hostility. As a Church and as pastoral ministers, we
still have a long journey ahead of us as we welcome strangers into our midst and
listen to them.
Over the past weeks, I read many of the critical comments of Jesuit Fr.
James Martin’s book, Building a Bridge. I shook my head in bewilderment several
times as I read venom and vitriol in some of the critiques. It is one thing to
critique and raise questions. It is another to condemn, disparage and dismiss.
I sensed palpable fear and anger in some of the negative commentaries. I made
it a point to read the book in one sitting last weekend. I was astounded that
what I read in commentaries, blogs, some bishops’ messages, had very little to
do with what I considered to be very mild, reflections offered by a well-known
Jesuit priest who simply invited people to build bridges with those who are on
distant shores. Fr. Martin’s book is not dogma or doctrine. It is by no means
revolutionary. It is merely an invitation to sit down and talk, face-to-face
with people we consider to be different.
Whereas Fr. Martin and Pope Francis invite us to build bridges and
become instruments of dialogue, critics of both Fr. Martin, the Pope, and many
of us who support Pope Francis thrive in erecting high, impenetrable walls and
noisy echo chambers of monologue.
Fr. Thomas Rosica, Vatican spokesman for English speaking people,
addressing the homosexual haven Most Holy Redeemer Church in San
Francisco. Fr. Rosica is defending to
homosexuals the homosexual friendly book by the Jesuit, Fr. James Martin. Homosexuals cannot praise each other too
highly. Martin’s book does not endorse
any Catholic ministries that support conversion, repentance, chastity. He endorses only those organizations that
reject Catholic morality, such as, New Ways Ministry.
The National Catholic Reporter said:
It was a real-life horror story that galvanized Martin to write this
manuscript. Just weeks after the massacre of 49 people at Pulse, a gay
nightclub in Orlando (by a conflicted Moslem Homosexual), he was offered the
Bridge Building award from New Ways Ministry, a longtime Catholic advocacy and
ministry organization for LGBT Catholics and their families. Building a Bridge
is an expansion of his acceptance speech. […..] Part of what motivated Martin
to accept the Bridge Building Award was the inadequate response offered by
Catholic bishops to the Pulse tragedy. Although many church leaders expressed
both horror and sorrow, only a handful of the more than 250 Catholic bishops
used the words gay or LGBT,” Martin writes. “I found this revelatory.”
I am glad that we are talking about “homosexual people” because before
all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people
should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that
God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love.
Pope Francis
It is not the position of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope is
incapable of leading people astray by false teaching as a public doctor…. He
may be the supreme appeal judge of Christendom… but that does not make him
immune to perpetrating doctrinal howlers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so
surprisingly, given the piety that has surrounded the figures of the popes
since the pontificate of Pius IX, this fact appears to be unknown to many who
ought to know better…. (There is now) a danger of possible schism… (but, not as possible as) an immediate danger
as the spread of a moral heresy.
Fr Aidan Nichols, O.P., author of over 40 books of philosophy,
theology, apologetics and criticism who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge
and the Angelicum in Rome, speaking at the annual conference in Cuddesdon of an
ecumenical society, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, to a largely
non-Catholic audience
All
this applies as well to the Deep State, that thinks itself a king, that
President Trump has exposed.
A Power without limits is an essentially Anti-Christian Power and it is
simultaneously an outrage done the majesty of God and the dignity of man. A
Power without limits can never be a ministry or a service, and political Power
under the imperatives of Christian civilization can never be anything less.
Unlimited Power is also an idolatry lodged within both subject and king:
idolatry in the subject because he adores the king; idolatry in the king
because he worships himself.
Donoso Cortes, Catholic diplomat and apologist
“The words of Jesus Christ,” says (Bishop Jacques) Bossuet, “reflect something of the divine in their
simplicity, in their depth, by a certain gently authority with which they issue
forth. Never has man spoken like this man, because man has never been God, like
him. Nor has man had over all spirits that natural authority which pertains to
truth, and which speaks to the soul so sweetly and so intimately.” But this
Word, absolutely divine - divine by its own character, divine by its effects,
always subsisting - whose should it be if not Jesus Christ's? Who should be the
inventor of the wisdom of Jesus Christ? At a distance of nearly two thousand
years the Word of Jesus Christ remains the only true light of man on himself an
don God. It upholds the Catholic world, encompassed by fanatical enemies; it
sustains the natural law, infested and crushed by a man philosophy; it upholds
human reason, subject to madness and error; it not only preserves and repairs,
but it brings forth; it begets both priests and saints; it begets faith, and
from the most stony and sterile hearts it wrests admiration and love. Who could
have invented this Word?
Louis Veuillot, The Life of Our
Lord Jesus Christ
Opinions
opposed to reason inevitably produce actions opposed to nature.
Louis de Bonald, French counter-revolutionary
statesman
Harrisburg
Diocese Releases Names of Over 70 Priests Accused of Abuse
OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | August 1, 2018
The Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has just released the names of over 70 members of its clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse in cases spanning back to the 1940s.
At a news conference this morning, Bishop Ronald Gainer of Harrisburg released the list, revealing that since becoming bishop in 2014, he has overseen an effort to “verify the status of priests” accused of abuse going back more than half a century. He told the York Daily Record that he wanted to release the list sooner but that the office of the attorney general had requested that the diocese refrain from doing so to avoid interference with the state investigation of clerical abuse throughout Pennsylvania.
With the pending release of an interim grand jury report detailing findings of some 300 priests accused of abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses, including Harrisburg, the diocese decided to move forward with disclosure of the names. According to the Record:
“Gainer said he has learned that some survivors who had confidentiality agreements with the diocese have felt constrained by those agreements. He is waiving those confidentiality agreements. This is expected to be huge for survivors who want to tell their stories.” [....]
Stand in the
multitude of ancients that are wise and join thyself from thy heart to their
wisdom: that thou mayst hear every discourse of God.
Ecclesiasticus
6:35
Homosexual
network has infested the entire Church hierarchy to the very top. The only way to clean house will be a divine
fumigation, a cleansing from God which will separate the hirelings from the
shepherds. One thing is certain,
McCarrick's network of those who protected him and those he protected will
expose a host of perverts that has been covered up for years.
Revelations of
US cardinal sex abuse will force pope’s hand
VATICAN CITY (AP) | Nicole Winfield | July 21, 2018— Revelations
that one of the most respected U.S. cardinals allegedly sexually abused 
both
boys and adult seminarians have raised questions about who in the Catholic
Church hierarchy knew — and what Pope Francis is going to do about it.
If the accusations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick bear out — including a new case reported Friday involving an 11-year-old boy — will Francis revoke his title as cardinal? Sanction him to a lifetime of penance and prayer? Or even defrock him, the expected sanction if McCarrick were a mere priest?
And will Francis, who has already denounced a “culture of cover-up” in the church, take the investigation all the way to the top, where it will inevitably lead? McCarrick’s alleged sexual misdeeds with adults were reportedly brought to the Vatican’s attention years ago.
The matter is now on the desk of the pope, who has already spent the better part of 2018 dealing with a spiraling child sex abuse, adult gay priest sex and cover-up scandal in Chile that was so vast the entire bishops’ conference offered to resign in May.
And on Friday, Francis accepted the resignation of the Honduran deputy to Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is one of Francis’ top advisers. Auxiliary Bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, 57, was accused of sexual misconduct with seminarians and lavish spending on his lovers that was so obvious to Honduras’ poverty-wracked faithful that Maradiaga is now under pressure to reveal what he knew of Pineda’s misdeeds and why he tolerated a sexually active gay bishop in his ranks.
The McCarrick scandal poses the same questions. It was apparently an open secret in some U.S. church circles that “Uncle Ted” invited seminarians to his beach house, and into his bed.
While such an abuse of power may have been quietly tolerated for decades, it doesn’t fly in the #MeToo era. And there has been a deafening silence from McCarrick’s brother bishops about what they might have known and when.
Fraternal solidarity is common among clerics, but some observers point to it as possible evidence of the so-called “gay lobby” or “lavender mafia” at work. These euphemisms — frequently denounced as politically incorrect displays of homophobia in the church — are used by some to describe a perceived protection and promotion network of gay Catholic clergy.
“There is going to be so much clamor for the Holy Father to remove the red hat, to formally un-cardinalize him,” said the Rev. Thomas Berg, vice rector and director of admissions at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, the seminary of the archdiocese of New York.
Berg said the church needs to ensure that men with deep-seated same-sex attraction simply don’t enter seminaries — a position recently reinforced by the Vatican at large and by Francis in comments to Chilean and Italian bishops.
Berg said the church also needs to take action when celibacy vows are violated.
“We can’t effectively prevent the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults by clergy while habitual and widespread failures in celibacy are quietly tolerated,” he said.
McCarrick, the 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington and confidante to three popes, was ultimately undone when the U.S. church announced June 20 that Francis had ordered him removed from public ministry. The sanction was issued pending a full investigation into a “credible” allegation that he fondled a teenager more than 40 years ago in New York City.
The dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, New Jersey, simultaneously revealed that they had received three complaints of misconduct by McCarrick against adults and had settled two of them.
Another alleged victim, the son of a McCarrick family friend identified as James, came forward in a report in The New York Times and subsequently in an interview with The Associated Press. James said he was 11 when McCarrick first exposed himself to him. From there, McCarrick began a sexually abusive relationship that continued for another two decades, James told AP.
“I was the first guy he baptized,” James told AP. “I was his little boy. I was his special kid.”
McCarrick has denied the initial allegation of abuse against a minor and accepted the pope’s decision to remove him from public ministry.
Asked Friday about James, a spokeswoman said McCarrick hadn’t received formal notice of any new allegation but would follow the civil and church processes in place to investigate them.
Even now, Francis could take immediate action to remove McCarrick from the College of Cardinals, said Kurt Martens, a canon lawyer at the Catholic University of America.
He recalled the case of the late Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who recused himself from the 2013 conclave that elected Francis pope after unidentified priests alleged in newspapers that he engaged in sexual misconduct. In 2015, after a Vatican investigation, Francis accepted O’Brien’s resignation after he relinquished the rights and privileges of being a cardinal.
O’Brien was, however, allowed to retain the cardinal’s title and he died a member of the college.
“I think that is totally unsatisfactory,” Martens said, noting that just as the pope can grant the title of cardinal, he can also take it away. “O’Brien resigned, the pope accepted it. Isn’t that the world upside down that someone picks his own penalty?”
O’Brien was never accused of sexually abusing a minor, however, as McCarrick now stands.
The stiffest punishment that an ordinary priest would face if such an accusation is proven would be dismissal from the clerical state, or laicization.
The Vatican rarely if ever, however, imposes such a penalty on elderly prelates. It also is loath to do so for bishops, because theologically speaking, defrocked bishops can still validly ordain priests and bishops.
Not even the serial rapist Rev. Marcial Maciel was defrocked after the Vatican finally convicted him of abusing Legion of Christ seminarians. Maciel was sentenced to a lifetime of penance and prayer — the likely canonical sanction for McCarrick if he is found guilty of abusing a minor in a church trial.
The
Ties that B(l)ind
McCarrick has long been said to be close to
Francis. As I wrote the other day, McCarrick's longtime friend and protege,
Bishop Kevin Farrell, was made a cardinal by Francis and made head of the
Vatican's office in charge of family policy for the worldwide church. Farrell
has endorsed Father James Martin's book advocating affirmation of LGBTs in the
Catholic Church, and is overseeing next month's world family meeting in Dublin,
where Father Martin will give a keynote speech. ..... And what about Cardinal
Tobin? As I wrote the other day, McCarrick's influence with Francis is believed
to have been behind the swift rise of Archbishop Joseph Tobin on (sic)
Indianapolis, who was created a cardinal by Francis, then moved to Newark,
McCarrick's old see..... Farrell, Tobin, and one more big one. Cupich.
McCarrick is a main reason Cupich is in Chicago. The last three American
cardinals all owe something to the patronage or intervention of McCarrick.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
Rome,
under Novus Ordo Saint JPII, was warned about McCarrick long ago!
Back then (in 2000), I received a tip from a priest who had gone on his
own dime to Rome, along with a group of prominent US Catholic laymen, to meet
with an official for the Roman Curial congregation that names bishops. It had
been rumored at the time that Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Newark, was
going to be moved to Washington, DC, and to be made a cardinal. This group
traveled to Rome to warn the Vatican that McCarrick was a sexual harrasser of
seminarians. The story this priest shared with me was that McCarrick had a
habit of compelling seminarians to share his bed for cuddling. These
allegations did not involve sexual molestation, but were clearly about unwanted
sexual harassment. To refuse the archbishop’s bedtime entreaties would be to
risk your future as a priest, I was told.
Rome was informed by these laymen — whose number included
professionally distinguished Catholics in a position to understand the kind of
harm this would cause –that McCarrick was sexually exploiting these
seminarians, but it did no good. McCarrick received his appointment to the
Washington archdiocese in 2000.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
“It will never
be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking
sufficiently progressive.”
Charles Péguy,
French poet and Catholic apologist
Fr.
Enrique Rueda, who helped in the formation of our Mission, wrote about the Homosexual
Network and its infiltration of the Catholic Church back in 1982. That was 36 years ago and he was persecuted
by the Homosexual Network in the Church for the rest of his life. Don't expect
his canonization under Pope Francis/Bergoglio.
Veteran Catholic
Journalist: All Bishops Involved in Sex Abuse Scandal Must Resign
OnePeterFive | Maike Hickson | July 17, 2018
Christopher
Manion, a veteran journalist and political analyst, makes the striking call
that all U.S. bishops should resign who knew about the ongoing abuse crisis
within the U.S. hierarchy for years and yet did not intervene. He also now
reveals some painful aspects of the role of Rome in this regard – namely, the
lame response from Pope John Paul II to this crisis.
Writing on 30 June for the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer, Dr. Manion picks up on the McCarrick scandal and the fact that the gravely immoral behavior of this prelate had been known to many in the U.S. hierarchy for many years. As an example, he refers to the work of Paul Likoudis, the now deceased courageous editor of The Wanderer, who was among the first to reveal the homosexual network within the U.S. episcopacy. (Here we might also remember Father Enrique Rueda’s early 1982 book on the homosexual network in the Church.) In a cutting tone, Manion comments, as follows:
Long before The Boston Globe published its “exposé” in early 2002, Paul reported on one instance after another of abuse and cover-up in chanceries nationwide. For his yeoman efforts, he was ridiculed, hectored, threatened, bullied, and, above all, studiously ignored whenever possible by one guilty bishop after another.
When, in 2002, the crisis became better known, says this journalist, the U.S. bishops claimed to have it “under control.” “‘It’s over,’ Auxiliary Bishop (now Vatican Cardinal) Kevin Farrell told the Knights of Malta in February 2002.”
In one of the most pertinent parts of his article, Manion speaks about the role of Rome (emphasis added):
That April [of 2002], USCCB officials told the Vatican not to worry. Our bishops could handle the situation themselves, they insisted. Days later, Pope John Paul summoned every American cardinal to the Vatican. He could have demanded serious changes, but he didn’t. Nor did he condemn the profound malfeasance of America’s hierarchy. Instead, he accepted the plaintive excuses that they had been repeating for years. They had been misled by “clinical experts” who thought that homosexual child rape was an illness, not a crime. It wasn’t their fault.
The cardinals then went home, Manion adds, promising “to do better.” Cardinal Mahoney went home “to spend a billion dollars of the faithful’s money to cover up for abuse and evading prosecution (he even insisted that priests’ personnel files were protected by the secrecy of the confessional!).” This comment alone revealed how ineffective the papal words were. “Not one of the American prelates offered his resignation. Nor did any demand the resignation of any of their colleagues in the bishops’ conference.”
Before continuing to present Manion’s article, we should consider this summary of the handling of the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in America as a scandal in itself. It shows the deep failure of the whole Church’s hierarchy, beginning at the top, to punish and eradicate abusers from the ranks of the clergy. It is heart-rending, especially considering the damage to so many souls. (In the new Austrian scandal, there is one woman who was sexually harassed by a priest. He is still active, even though he left his parish. She has now left the Faith, blaming the priest and his responsible bishop, Alois Schwarz.)
Continuing with Manion’s history of the abuse scandal in the U.S., in June of 2002, when meeting in Dallas, the U.S. bishops were confronted with an article that showed that half of them had been involved in the cover-up of abuse cases. “Thus, when they issued their ‘Protection’ charter,” Manion says, “they exempted themselves on national TV and went home to circle the wagons. Not one [of them] quit (Cardinal Law, now deceased, fled to Rome).” One wonders why Cardinal Law was even received in Rome.
Concerning Rome, Manion reveals the painful fact that McCarrick received from Pope John Paul II the red hat, in spite of the fact that by then, there was sufficient information sent to Rome against such a decision. Manion writes:
Another prelate attending the meetings in Rome and Dallas 2002 was Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. In his previous posts in Newark and Metuchen, he had already privately settled two lawsuits involving his sexual assaults on adult males. Rod Dreher reports that a group of Catholics had gone [in 2000] to Rome to warn the Pope about McCarrick – to no avail: Pope John Paul appointed him archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, and named him a cardinal the following year.
It is after this painful description of sustained unworthy conduct, in light of a history of many cover-ups, that Manion calls for the resignation of every single bishop who was somehow involved in it. After first quoting a Jesuit who explains that “[b]ishops do not fraternally correct one another, because they do not want to be fraternally corrected,” he asks, “So what is to be done?”
Now is the time. The laity has to set those wagons on
fire. The bishops have followed Ben Franklin’s adage – “either we hang
together, or we hang separately.”
Enough! Every bishop who covered up for McCarrick and other abusers so they could all stay in power has to quit – right now. Their credibility is shredded – why do they stay?
In light of these strong and much needed words from a veteran journalist who has witnessed the last decades of episcopal failure with regard to the abuse crisis, it is noteworthy that now one of the victims of Cardinal McCarrick speaks up in public, for the New York Times. In that article, the New York Times refers to Boniface Ramsey as another source – a priest who now reveals that he had, early on in 2000, warned Rome about McCarrick. With this revelation, we shall end this piercing report:
At least one priest warned the Vatican against the appointment [of McCarrick]. The Rev. Boniface Ramsey said that when he was on the faculty at the Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in New Jersey from 1986 to 1996, he was told by seminarians about Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual abuse at the beach house. When Archbishop McCarrick was appointed to Washington, Father Ramsey spoke by phone with the pope’s representative in the nation’s capital, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the papal nuncio, and at his encouragement sent a letter to the Vatican about Archbishop McCarrick’s history. Father Ramsey, now a priest in New York City, said he never got a response.
Update: In light of the serious effects this McCarrick case has had on many Catholic faithful in the U.S., we shall quote here the witness of Bart Aslin, a former priest who left the priesthood because of this scandal:
“The things I witnessed in the seminary and as a priest
ultimately led me to leave the priesthood after five years. It was the
hypocrisy of McCarrick and my fellow (gay) priests that led me to leave. In
some ways, I was forced out because I did not fit the mold of a Newark diocesan
priest. It was difficult enough to live a celibate life, but knowing that my
‘brothers in Christ’ were not following the Church’s teachings caused me great
strife and spiritual pain. […]
“I conclude by saying that it pains me that the Church took over 30 years to remove this reprehensible man. They knew all about his actions and turned a blind eye. I observe each Sunday how few young people and families attend Mass. Is there no wonder? The sin and hypocrisy of its servants has turned off and away its people. How the Lord must weep!”
“Anyone can be born a
pedophile”, The
Homosexual Network wants to normalize all sexual perversion. They want your
children! The admission fee for a TED talk is $6,000.00. That’s the price liberals pay to have their groupthink
validated.
TEDx speaker:
‘Pedophilia is an unchangeable sexual orientation,’ ‘anyone’ could be born that
way
LifeSiteNews | WÜRTZBURG, Germany | July 18, 2018 – A German medical student sparked online backlash after she was filmed telling an audience that “pedophilia is an unchangeable sexual orientation, just like… heterosexuality.”
Mirjam Heine gave a lecture in defense of pedophiles during the “independently organized” TEDx Talk at the University of Würtzberg in Germany in May. The title given to Heine’s talk was “Why our perception of pedophilia has to change.”
Introducing her theme with the “story” of “Jonas,” a 19-year-old pedophile who studies law and plays soccer, she asked her listeners to put aside their revulsion for pedophiles.
“Anyone could be born a pedophile,” she told them.
According to the medical student, pedophilia is just another “unchangeable sexual orientation just like, for example, heterosexuality.” Heine asked her audience to differentiate between sexual attraction to children, which she believes should be accepted and tolerated as involuntary “feelings,” and child sexual abuse, which she underscored was always wrong.
“The difference between pedophilia and other sexual orientations is that living out this sexual orientation will end in a disaster,” she said.
Meanwhile, Heine made the surprising assertion that “scientific studies” show that only 20 to 30 percent of all child molesters are pedophiles.
“The vast majority of perpetrators are not pedophiles but are sexually interested in adults,” she stated. Her example was a man who sexually abuses his step-daughter because he’s angry at, or jealous of, her mother.
At times Heine’s ideas were confused. She said heterosexuality and pedophilia were both orientations, while saying pedophilia can be “heterosexual,” “homosexual,” and “bi-sexual.” She intimated that a non-pedophile could sexually abuse a child, but also included within her definition of pedophiles people attracted, to a lesser extent, to adults. And although she seems to think people are “born” pedophiles, she also said pedophilia has biological, social, and psychological factors.
For Heine, pedophilia is not something that someone actually does but something that someone would like to do, as a sexual preference that they would “live out freely,” if only it weren’t contrary to leading “an upright life.”
Heine stressed that social isolation of pedophiles is an important factor in how likely they are to sexually assault children. But to her, “social isolation” didn’t mean being without parents or friends – it meant the pedophile’s reluctance to tell them about his sexual inclinations.
“For example, they can’t tell their children they can’t go to the beach because children in swimsuits may be there as well,” Heine said. “They can never be completely frank with someone else.”
Openness about one’s sexual feelings is crucial to Heine. She believes that a pedophile’s ability to be “frank” and have his “orientation” acknowledged, tolerated, and accepted is key to preventing child sexual assault.
“We shouldn’t increase the sufferings of pedophiles by excluding them, by blaming and mocking them,” Heine said. “By doing that, WE increase their isolation and WE increase the chance of child sexual abuse.”
Central to Heine’s argument is that pedophiles are not to blame for their feelings and thoughts, only for their actions. She does not, however, address the topic of deliberate fantasizing or the use of pornography. And, at the same time, while arguing that pedophiles cannot change their “feelings,” she encouraged her audience to change their own feelings of revulsion for pedophiles.
“Just like pedophiles, we are not responsible for our feelings,” she said. “We do not choose them...but it is our responsibility to...overcome our negative feelings about pedophiles and to treat them with the same respect we treat other people with.”
According to Breitbart, once it was posted to YouTube, Heine’s lecture resulted in a massive online backlash. In response, the organizers of the independent TEDx event removed the video, and the founding TED Talks media organization has been trying to remove “illegal copies” from the internet. Representatives for TED Talks made a statement defending the censorship.
“After reviewing the talk, we believe it cites research in ways that are open to serious misinterpretation. This led some viewers to interpret the talk as an argument in favor of an illegal and harmful practice,” they wrote.
TED Talks continued, “Furthermore, after contacting the organizer to understand why it had been taken down, we learned that the speaker herself requested it be removed from the internet because she had serious concerns about her own safety in its wake.”
“Our policy is and always has been to remove speakers’ talks when they request we do so. That is why we support this TEDx organizer’s decision to respect this speaker’s wishes and keep the talk offline.”
The springs of action are to be found in belief, and conduct ultimately
rests upon conviction.
St. Francis of Assisi
There are many who if they commit sin or suffer wrong often blame their
enemy or their neighbor. But this is not right, for each one has his enemy in
his power, - to wit, the body by which he sins. Wherefore blessed is that
servant who always holds captive the enemy thus given into his power and wisely
guards himself from it, for so long as he acts thus no other enemy visible or invisible
can do him harm.
St. Francis of Assisi, on mortification
How much interior patience and humility a servant of God may have
cannot be known so long as he is contented. But when the time comes that those
who ought to please him go against him, as much patience and humility as he
then shows, so much has he and no more.
St. Francis, on patience
And let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin
or offence is committed.
St. Francis of Assisi, Letter to all the Faithful
Pius
XII - the man responsible for planting the seed of liturgical destruction!
Fr. Annibale Bugnini had been making clandestine visits to the Centre de
Pastorale Liturgique (CPL), a progressivist conference centre for liturgical
reform which organized national weeks for priests.
Inaugurated in Paris in 1943 on the private initiative of two Dominican priests
under the presidency of Fr. Lambert Beauduin, it was a magnet for all who
considered themselves in the vanguard of the Liturgical Movement. It would play
host to some of the most famous names who influenced the direction of Vatican
II: Frs. Beauduin, Guardini, Congar, Chenu, Daniélou, Gy, von Balthasar, de
Lubac, Boyer, Gelineau etc.
It could, therefore, be considered as the confluence of all the forces
of Progressivism, which saved and re-established Modernism condemned by Pope
Pius X in Pascendi.
According to its
co-founder and director, Fr. Pie Duployé, OP, Bugnini had requested a
“discreet” invitation to attend a CPL study week held near Chartres in
September 1946.
Much more was
involved here than the issue of secrecy. The person whose heart beat as one
with the interests of the reformers would return to Rome to be placed by an
unsuspecting (?) Pope (Pius XII) in charge of his Commission for the General
Reform of the Liturgy.
But someone in the Roman Curia did know about the CPL – Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the acting
Secretary of State and future Paul VI – who sent a telegram to the CPL dated
January 3, 1947. It purported to come from the Pope with an apostolic blessing.
If, in Bugnini’s estimation, the Roman authorities were to be kept in the dark
about the CPL so as not to compromise its activities, a mystery remains. Was
the telegram issued under false pretences, or did Pius XII really know and
approve of the CPL? [.....]
This agenda (for liturgical reform) was set out as early as 1949 in the
Ephemerides Liturgicae, a leading
Roman review on liturgical studies of which Fr. Annabale Bugnini was Editor
from 1944 to 1965.
First, Bugnini denigrated
the traditional liturgy as a dilapidated building (“un vecchio edificio”),
which should be condemned because it was in danger of falling to pieces
(“sgretolarsi”) and, therefore, beyond repair. Then, he criticized it for its
alleged “deficiencies, incongruities and difficulties,” which rendered it
spiritually “sterile” and would prevent it appealing to modern sensibilities.
It is difficult to understand how, in the same year that he published this
anti-Catholic diatribe, he was made a Professor of Liturgy in Rome’s Propaganda
Fide (Propagation of the Faith) University. His solution was to return to the
simplicity of early Christian liturgies and jettison all subsequent
developments, especially traditional devotions.
These ideas expressed in 1949 would form the foundational principles of Vatican
II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. For all practical purposes, the Roman Rite was
dead in the water many years before it was officially buried by Paul VI.
Dr. Carol Byrne, How Bugnini Grew
Up under Pius XII
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
“Muslims adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful
and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.”
Vatican II, Nostra Aetate
“Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of
idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and
Kingdom of God.”
Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart before Vatican II
Wisdom
is only possible for those who hold DOGMA as the Rule of Faith!
Besides, every dogma of faith is to the Catholic cultivated mind not
only a new increase of knowledge, but also an incontrovertible principle from
which it is able to draw conclusions and derive other truths. They present an
endless field for investigation so that the beloved Apostle St. John could
write at the end of his Gospel, without fear of exaggeration: “But there are
also many other things which Jesus did: which if they were written every one,
the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should
be written.”
The Catholic Church, by enforcing firm belief in her dogmas—which are
not her inventions, but were given by Jesus Christ—places them as a bar before
the human mind to prevent it from going astray and to attach it to the truth;
but it does not prevent the mind from exercising its functions when it has
secured the treasure of divine truth, and a “scribe thus instructed in the kingdom
of heaven is truly like a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of
his treasure new things and old.” He may bring forth new illustrations, new
arguments and proofs; he may show now applications of the same truths,
according to times and circumstances; he may show new links which connect the
mysteries of religion with each other or with the natural sciences as there can
be no discord between the true faith and true science; God, being the author of
both, cannot contradict Himself and teach something by revelation as true which
He teaches by the true light of reason as false. In all these cases the
householder “brings forth from his treasure now things and old.” They are new
inasmuch as they are the result of new investigations; and old because they are
contained in the old articles of faith and doctrine as legitimate deductions
from their old principles.
Fr. Joseph Prachensky, S.J., The Church of Parables and True Spouse of
the Suffering Saviour, on the Parable of the Scribe
Hermeneutics of
Continuity/Discontinuity
Pope
Francis in Evangelii Gaudium Smears Faithful Catholics as
"Neo-pelagians":
Catholics faithful in keeping God's moral law and believing His revealed truth are "self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism [who] observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style [characterized by a] narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [which is a]
manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity."
94. This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
While
in the same document he has this to say about the possibility of salvation for
"Non-Christinas:
254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”, and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”.
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, this teaching of Pope Franics references the teaching of the International Theological Commission.
"By
God's gracious initiative" is pure invention. God has never revealed this
fable. This is Pelagianism by definition. This is what a Pelagian heretic
affirms that salvation is possible through being "faithful to their own
consciences." Catholic dogmas, formal objects of divine and Catholic
faith, affirm that supernatural faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church,
and subjection to the Roman Pontiff are necessary as necessities of means to
obtain eternal salvation. Pope Francis is a Pelagian heretic. So where is his
source material for this error? He cites
as his authority the International Theological Commission which teaches:
10. Exclusivist ecclesiocentrism—the fruit of a specific theological system or of a mistaken understanding of the phrase extra ecclesiam nulla salus—is no longer defended by Catholic theologians after the clear statements of Pius XII and Vatican II the possibility of salvation for those who do not belong visibly to the Church (cf, e.g., Vatican II, LG 16; GS 22).
Christocentrism accepts that salvation may occur in religions, but it denies them any autonomy in salvation on account of the uniqueness and universality of the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ. This position is undoubtedly the one most commonly held by Catholic theologians, even though there are differences among them.
International Theological Commission, Christianity and the World
Religions, 1997
The
is the fundamental doctrine of Neo-Modernism that holds that Dogmas need not be
taken in a literal sense because they are always undergoing evolutionary
development in an effort to achieve a closer approximation of truth. Catholics
believe, as St. Pope Pius X said, dogmas are "truths fallen from
heaven." Pope Pius XII never denied the dogma that there is no salvation
outside the Catholic Church. Those who
claim he did are simply liars. Vatican II on the other hand did, and Vatican II
cites as its authority for the denial of the dogma that there is no salvation
outside the Catholic Church, the heretical 1949 Holy Office Letter that teaches
that the one and only thing necessary for salvation is the 'desire to do the
will of a god who rewards and punishes'. This can be known by natural
philosophy and is simply a necessary presupposition to receiving the Gospel
message. The 1949 Holy Office Letter and Vatican II are teaching Pelagianism. The very error that Pope Francis attributes
to faithful Catholics who believe the revealed truths of our faith and keep our
immemorial traditions. Is it any wonder that Pope Francis who denies the
necessity of faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and submission to
the Roman Pontiff as necessary for salvation as necessities of means would then
thoroughly corrupt the definition of "genuine evangelization"?
Catholics who "observe certain rules (like keeping the Ten Commandments or believing Catholic dogma) or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style (the "received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments" Trent)" are guilty of "self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism... narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [that is a] manifestation of an anthropocentric immanentism... [whereby, it is] impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity."
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
What
is "Genuine
evangelization"? Pope Francis said: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.
We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our
knowledge of the world around us. ..... I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize
but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope"
(Interview with Italian journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari). He also said
in answer to a question from a Lutheran girl, "It is not licit that you convince them of your
faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path."
On another occasion he said, "Proselytism
among Christians, therefore, in itself, is a grave sin."
How
is this possible? Proselytism means to seek converts. A "proselyte"
is a convert. It was the Great Commission given by Jesus Christ to His Church:
"Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He
that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall
be condemned." (Mark 16:15-16) The goal of "preaching" is to
bring other to "believe" the revealed truth and become members of the
Church through "baptism" so that they may become a "proselyte,"
like one of the first deacons of the Church, Nicolas in Acts 6:5, and be
"saved."
"Genuine
evangelization" is the act of proselytism and the fruit of evangelization
is proselytes. "By their fruit you shall know them." In South America
alone there have been more than 40 million Catholics lost to the faith since
Vatican II. This is the fruit of the "new evangelization" of Pope
Francis which does not seek converts at all because he sees no reason to
convert.
So
who in end is "self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagian"? Prometheus was
eternally punished for his hubris of defying the gods while Pope Francis does
the same thing by "intransigently" overturning God's revealed
truth. His heresy is the fruit of his
own "narcissistic and authoritarian elitism" to believe that he is
better than God. He proposes an
"adulterated form of Christianity" which explains why he promotes
Catholic divorce. Heretics always permit
divorce because marriage is the metaphor used by God to describe His
relationship to His Church and to each of His faithful. The heretic cannot stand the integrity of the
metaphor and always permits divorce.
This is the unmistakable sign that Pope Francis is a heretic.
Why are
Eastern Europeans hostile to Islam? Look at history
American Thinker | July 18, 2018 – Why have several Eastern European nations been so adamant against taking in Muslim migrants? Most recently, when Polish lawmaker Dominik Tarczyński was asked earlier this month how many "refugees" Poland has taken in, he flatly responded: "Zero."
When the British interviewer, whose nation has taken in millions of Muslim migrants, scoffed, "And you're proud of that?," he said: "We will not receive even one Muslim, because this is what we promised [to voters] ... this is why our government was elected; this is why Poland is so safe, this is why we have not had even one terror attack."
Considering that "thousands of Catholics formed a human chain along the borders of Poland" late last year "to pray for peace and 'against the Islamisation of Europe,'" it is clear that the Polish government is acting on behalf of the people.
What accounts for this staunchly anti-Islamic response? The answer rests in history. Unlike most Western European nations, which, thanks to their geographical proximity, have for centuries been out of the reach of – and thus have forgotten all about – Islam, Eastern Europeans are intimately acquainted with it.
Indeed, an event that occurred this week in history sheds much light on the current situation. On July 14, 1683, the largest Islamic army ever to invade European territory – which is saying much, considering the thousands of invasions preceding it since the eighth century – came and surrounded Vienna, the heart of the Holy Roman Empire and de facto nemesis of Islam.
Some 200,000 Muslim combatants, under the leadership of the Ottomans – the one state in nearly fourteen centuries of Islamic history most dedicated to and founded on the principles of jihad – invaded under the same rationale that so-called "radical" groups, such as the Islamic State, cite to justify their jihad on "infidels." Or, to quote the leader of the Muslim expedition, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, because Vienna was perceived as the head of the infidel snake, it needed to be laid low so that "all the Christians would obey the Ottomans."
This was no idle boast; sources describe Mustafa as "fanatically anti-Christian." After capturing a Polish town in 1674, he ordered all the Christian prisoners to be skinned alive and their stuffed hides sent as trophies to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad IV.
Such supremacist hate was standard and on display during the elaborate pre-jihad ceremony presaging the siege of Vienna. Then, the sultan, "desiring him [Mustafa] to fight generously for the Mahometan faith," to quote a contemporary European, placed "the standard of the Prophet ... into his hands for the extirpation of infidels, and the increase of Muslemen."
Once the massive Muslim army reached and surrounded the walls of Vienna on July 14, Mustafa followed protocol. In 628, his prophet Muhammad had sent an ultimatum to Emperor Heraclius: aslam taslam, "submit [to Islam] and have peace." Heraclius rejected the summons; jihad was declared against Christendom (as enshrined in Koran 9:29); and in a few decades, two thirds of the then-Christian world – including Spain, all of North Africa, Egypt, and Greater Syria – were conquered.
Now, over a thousand years later, the same ultimatum of submission to Islam or death had reached the heart of Europe. Although the Viennese commander did not bother to respond to the summons, graffiti inside the city – including "Muhammad, you dog, go home!" – seems to capture its mood.
So it would be war. On the next day, Mustafa unleashed all Hell against the city's walls, and for two months, the holed up and vastly outnumbered Viennese suffered plague, dysentery, starvation, and many casualties – including women and children – in the name of jihad.
Then, on September 12, when the city had reached its final extremity, and the Muslims were about to burst through, Vienna's prayers were answered. As an anonymous Englishman explained:
After a siege of sixty days, accompanied with a thousand difficulties, sicknesses, want of provisions, and great effusion of blood, after a million of cannon and musquet shot, bombs, granadoes, and all sorts of fireworks, which has changed the face of the fairest and most flourishing city in the world, disfigured and ruined [it] ... heaven favorably heard the prayers and tears of a cast down and mournful people.
The formidable king of Poland, John Sobieski, had finally come at the head of 65,000 heavily armored Poles, Austrians, and Germans – all hot to avenge the beleaguered city. Arguing that "it is not a city alone that we have to save, but the whole of Christianity, of which the city of Vienna is the bulwark," Sobieski led a thunderous cavalry charge – history's largest – against and totally routed the Muslim besiegers. (See Sword and Scimitar for a detailed recounting of this pivotal battle.)
Although a spectacular victory, the aftermath was gory: before fleeing, the Muslims ritually slaughtered some 30,000 Christian captives collected during their march to Vienna, raping the women beforehand. On entering the relieved city, the liberators encountered piles of corpses, sewage, and rubble everywhere.
It is this history of Islamic aggression – beginning in the fourteenth century, when Muslims first established a foothold in southeastern Europe (Thrace), and into the twentieth century when the Ottoman sultanate finally collapsed – that informs Eastern views on Islam.
As one Pole, echoing the words of Sobieski, said during last year's human chain demonstration, "a religious war between Christianity and Islam is once again underway in Europe, just like in the past."
Whereas Western nations cite lack of integration, economic disparities, and grievances to explain away the exponential growth of terrorism, violence, and rapes that come with living alongside large Muslim populations, Eastern nations see only a continuity of hostility.
Homosexual Heresy - The Great Vatican Silence
·
“We must
clearly, explicitly and reservedly say: yes, there is a strong homosexual
underground in the Church ... such circles in the Church strongly oppose the
truth, morality and Revelation, cooperate with enemies of the Church [and]
incite revolt against Peter of our times.
·
“It is
for [his] accuracy of opinion that he is so vehemently opposed, or even hated
by some in the Church, especially by members of the homolobby which represents
the very center of internal opposition against the Pope.”
·
“If
homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, [in Poland] in a dozen or so years
they may destroy entire congregations and dioceses — like in the USA, where
priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession.”
·
“The
global network of the homolobbies and homomafias must be counterbalanced by a
network of honest people. An excellent tool that can be used here is the
Internet, which makes it possible to create a global community of people
concerned about the fate of the Church, who have resolved to oppose
homoideology and homoheresy. The more we know, the more we can do.”
·
“This is about the Church’s to be or not to be.
If homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, in a dozen or so years they may
destroy entire congregations and dioceses – like in the USA, where the priestly
vocation is more and more now called a gay profession (particularly with
reference to American Jesuits), or like in Ireland, where men are hesitant about
joining the emptying seminaries for fear of being suspected of suffering from
some disorders.”
· “The Church does not generate
homosexuality, but falls victim to dishonest men with homosexual tendencies,
who take advantage of its structures to follow their lowest instincts. Active
homosexual priests are masters of camouflage. They are often exposed by
accident. ... The real threat to the Church are cynical homosexual priests who
take advantage of their functions on their own behalf, sometimes in an
extraordinarily devious way. Such situations cause great suffering to the
Church, the priestly community, the superiors. The problem is indeed a very
difficult one.” F. Józef
Augustyn
Fr. Dariusz Oko, Ph.D., WITH THE POPE AGAINST THE HOMOHERESIES
Cardinal
Theodore McCarrick, formal archbishop of Washington, removed from ministry
after Archdiocese of New York found that "the allegations credible and
substantiated" that he had sexually abused teenage boys. Cardinal
McCarrick was replaced in the Archdiocese of Washington by the equally
homosexual friendly cleric, Cardinal Donald William Wuerl.
John Vennari: According to a news
report, a Catholic attorney in Florida recently said, “The good priests who
keep in contact with me say that 70 percent of the U.S. bishops are
homosexual.” That statement would have shocked many Catholics, but I am sure it
did not shock you.
Randy Engel: No. The existence of a
large and dominant homosexual contingent in the American hierarchy and within
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (formerly the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference) in
Washington, D.C. is one of the dominant themes of my book.
The rise of this phenomenon, that is, the emergence of a large number of
homosexual cardinals and bishops in AmChurch (American Church), has been a
gradual process covering more than 100 years and closely parallels the rise of
the secular Homosexual Movement in the United States and abroad. It is the
presence of the Homosexual Collective within Am-Church’s hierarchy that has
made possible the wholesale homosexual colonization of many dioceses in the
United States, and the subsequent cover-up of clerical sexual abuse cases by
the American hierarchy with the co-operation of the Holy See. When shepherds
turn into wolves, not only are seminarians, priests and religious under their
care at risk, but their flock as well.
John Vennari: Is there a difference
between the Homosexual Collective within the Church and the secular Homosexual
Collective?
Randy Engel: Generally speaking, no.
Catholic homosexual clergy and religious toe the secular party line. They use
the same language, promote the same rhetoric and advance the same political
agenda. This becomes startling clear in the chapter devoted to the so-called
Catholic pro-homosexual organization New Ways Ministry.
I think there are many Catholics who think that a self declared “gay” bishop,
priest or religious doesn’t behave like other homosexuals, that is, he’s not
into sodomy, porn, drugs, or sexual seduction, etc., but this is just wishful
thinking. The odds are that he is.
Catholic Family News, excerpt of interview of Mrs. Randy Engel, author
of The Rite of Sodomy, Homosexuality, Satanism, and the Roman Catholic Church,
interview published in April 2011
The
one and only hope for Europe is to return to the Faith that formed her!
I desire you to remember that we are Europe; we are a great
people. The faith is not an accident
among us, nor an imposition, nor a garment; it is bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh: it is a philosophy made by and making ourselves. We have adorned, explained, enlarged it; we
have given it visible form. This is the
service we Europeans have done to God.
In return He has made us Christians.
Hilaire Belloc, Open Letter on the Decay of Faith, 1906
Worth recalling how the Catholic universities in the U.S.
were destroyed. This was orchestrated by
the president of Notre Dame University, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, who divorced
Catholic education from Catholic doctrine and Catholic morality at the Land
O’Lakes Conference in 1967. These
schools have not simply been secularized but have in fact become
anti-Catholic. A Catholic student is
much more likely to keep his faith in a secular university than in a “Catholic”
university. This revolution by Hesburgh
was unopposed by the Catholic hierarchy!
50 years later, Catholic colleges still reeling from statement
rejecting Church authority
LifeSiteNews | DENVER, Colorado | July 26, 2017– On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Land O’Lakes statement on Catholic education, Lincoln Bishop James Conley likened the controversial declaration to the ultimate rejection of God.
Bishop Conley described the statement as the “the ‘non serviam’ moment of many of America’s Catholic universities.”
“Non serviam,” a Latin phrase for “I shall not serve,” is typically attributed to Lucifer’s Old Testament words expressing his rejection of serving God. The prophet Jeremiah also used it to describe the Hebrew people’s disobedience to God.
“The Land O’Lakes statement proposed to redefine the mission of the Catholic university,” Bishop Conley said. “It rejected the authority of the Church, and of her doctrinal teaching.”
“It rejected the idea that faith and reason work best in communion with one another,” he continued. “It prioritized the standards and culture of secular universities over the authentic mission of Catholic education. It was a statement of self-importance, and self-assertion.”
This self-importance “defies an authentically Catholic view of education,” he said.
The statement “declared that Catholic universities would become independent from the hierarchy of the Church, from any obligation to orthodoxy, and from the authentic spirituality of the Church,” the bishop went on to say.
Speaking July 5 to
teachers and principals at the Regional Catholic Classical Schools Conference
at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in Denver, Bishop Conley said, “Fifty years
ago, a ‘declaration of independence’ in Catholic education transformed the
Church.”
The document came from some 26
presidents and administrators from 10 institutions who convened at a retreat
center in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, for the North American summit for the
International Federation of Catholic Universities. Holy Cross Father Theodore
Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president and head of the federation at the time, had
summoned the attendees.
The meeting’s purpose was to
establish a vision for Catholic higher education in the wake of Vatican II. The
“Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University” was signed
July 23, 1967.
It is considered by many to have
devastated Catholic education because of the ensuing loss of Catholic identity
in Catholic colleges and universities. Bishop Conley spoke about the ripple
effects on the U.S. church.
“Land O’Lakes sought to make many parts of the Catholic university indistinguishable from secular counterparts,” Bishop Conley said. “And that has impacted the entire Church in the United States.”
In the 50 years since the statement, he said, secularization in Catholic universities has caused secularization in many Catholic elementary and high schools. There are textbooks that don’t reflect Catholic perspectives and, he said, “teachers who have, regrettably, not been trained to think or teach from the heart and wisdom of the Church.”
“An entire generation of bishops, priests, religious, and lay Catholics — myself included — were formed in the wake of Land O’Lakes,” stated Bishop Conley. “And we formed another generation, which now forms another, all of us doing the best we can, but regrettably, without being exposed to much of truth, goodness, and beauty of the Church’s tradition.” […..]
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 Edward Henry Manning, The
Revolt of the Intellect Against God
SSPX
leadership has betrayed every Catholic faithful to Tradition!
Regina Einig: Do you personally trust the Holy Father Pope Francis?
Bishop Fellay: We have a very good
relationship. If we let him know that we are in Rome, the door is open to him.
He is always helping us on a smaller scale. For example, he told us, "I have
problems when I do something good for you. I help Protestants and Anglicans -
why can not I help the Catholics? "Some want to prevent the agreement. We
are a disruptive factor in the church. The Pope stands in between.
(He smiles and shows a handwritten, French-written letter from the Holy Father to him beginning with the address Cher frere, cher fils - dear brother, dear son).
Bp Fellay interviewed by Regina Einig, German newspaper “Die Tagespost”
on June 28, 2018
"We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic
Church always has been and always must be dogmatic."
Now our Divine Lord, speaking to the woman of Samaria, said, ‘You adore that which you know not;’ because they were ‘an idolatrous people, of mixed race, partly of Israel, partly of the nations brought and planted in a portion of the Promised Land. They had intermarried with the people of Israel, they had received the books of the Pentateuch, and they had a sort of fragmentary knowledge of the old revelation; but they did not rightly know the True God; and so much as they did know of the True God, they did not know truly. Therefore they could not worship Him ‘in spirit and in truth.’ For this cause our Divine Lord said, ‘You worship that which you know not;’ and He then further said, ‘We adore that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews.’ The full and pure light of revelation is in Jerusalem. The true knowledge of the True God is with us; and yet the time is coming when ‘they that adore shall adore neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but everywhere in spirit and in truth.’
From these words I draw one conclusion, namely, that knowledge is the first and vital condition of all true worship. You will remember how S. Paul at Athens found an altar ‘to the unknown God,’ and how he commended the people for their intentions of piety, but reproved them for their ignorance. He said, ‘Him whom you ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you.’ Without knowledge there can be no adoration ‘in spirit and in truth;’ and just in the measure of our knowledge will our adoration be more or less perfect, that is, intelligent and spiritual. If our knowledge be full and perfect, so will our adoration be. From this let us draw two consequences, and then pass on.
The first is this. How great is the superstition of those who for centuries have pleased themselves by accusing the Catholic Church of teaching that ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion.’ The other consequence is: that the mother of all true knowledge relating to God, and therefore the mother of all true worship, is the Holy Catholic Church alone. Is it not a masterpiece of craft that the father of lies should have so darkened the understandings of our adversaries as to lead them’ into the profound superstition of believing that we keep people in ignorance in order to make them devout? My purpose, then, will be to trace out the connection between what the world scornfully calls dogma and devotion, or the worship of God ‘in spirit and in truth.’
1. Now, first of all, let us see what is dogma. In the month of the world it means some positive, imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.
It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church wore to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the conscience of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Glories
of the Sacred Heart, Dogma the Source of Devotion, 1876
Just
when we thought at last, a homosexual predatory bishop would finally spend time
behind bars, they will seriously consider giving him "home
detention."
Pedophilia,
bishop in Australia sentenced to 12 months
Archbishop
Philip Wilson of Adelaide might be able to avoid imprisonment after the
Newcastle tribunal, north of Sydney, will evaluate his eligibility for home
detention
vatican insider | staff | rome |
July 4, 2018
Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide might be able to avoid imprisonment after the Newcastle tribunal, north of Sydney, will evaluate his eligibility for 12-month home detention. The decision will be taken on 14 August. The Prelate will be eligible for parole after serving six months.
Wilson, 67, who suspended himself but did not resign as Archbishop of Adelaide and Vice President of the Australian Bishops' Conference, was sentenced for covering up serious crimes - the sexual abuse of children committed by priest James Fletcher in the 1970s, when both served in the diocese of Maitland, near Newcastle. Fletcher died in prison at the age of 65 in 2006, one year after being sentenced to almost eight years for nine paedophile crimes committed between 1989 and 1991.
"The whole community is devastated in so many ways by decades of abuse and its concealment," magistrate Robert Stone said over pedophile abuse within institutions, in his sentencing. Given the seriousness of the offence and the need for general deterrence, only a custodial sentence can be imposed, whereas a suspension of the sentence would not correspond to this need, he said. The only option is therefore to serve a sentence in prison or at home. Given the age, mental and physical condition of the defendant and the absence of any criminal record, also 12 months of home detention would be an appropriate punishment. [.....]
Vatican
pushing Gaia cult earth worship as Novus Ordo One World Religion
Cardinal warns
of ’possible collapse’ of Earth’s livability at Vatican event
Pietro Parolin
cites ’clear urgency’ in Vatican push for climate action
Vatican Insider | Joshua J. McElwee | vatican city | July 5, 2018
The Vatican’s secretary of state warned July 5 that humanity is facing a “possible collapse” in the Earth’s ability to sustain life, as part of a two-day conference hosted by the Catholic Church to urge global leaders to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change.
In an address opening the “Saving Our Common Home” event, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said there is a “clear urgency” to the task and that people around the world, “as members of the common household, need to come together.”
The Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development is hosting the July 5-6 event among some 400 global faith leaders, scientists and politicians with hopes to influence separate meetings later this year of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
The conference is pegged to the third anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home.” [....]
Comments
from those who have read the Third Secret of Fatima:
· “I cannot say anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other, logically – although I must say nothing – would have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis added] – Joseph Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated Sister Lucia about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2, 1952)[4]
· “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they?
· If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.” [5] [emphasis added] – Fr. Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian priest and official Fatima archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled access to Sister Lucia)
· “The Secret of Fatima speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis added] – Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, d. 2005 (former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 10, 1984)
· “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Silvio Oddi, d. 2001 (Vatican diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew certain details concerning the Third Secret) [7]
· “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]
Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The
Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.
Posted by OnePeterFive
God, who is the perfect and infinite intelligence—that is, the infinite
and perfect reason—created man to His own likeness, and gave him a reasonable
intelligence, like His own. As the face in the mirror answers to the face of
the beholder, so the intelligence of man answers to the intelligence of God. It
is His own likeness. What, then, is the revelation of faith, but the
illumination of the Divine reason poured out upon the reason of man? The
revelation of faith is no discovery which the reason of man has made for
himself by induction, or by deduction, or by analysis, or by synthesis, or by
logical process, or by experimental chemistry. The revelation of faith is a
discovery of itself by the Divine Reason, the unveiling of the Divine
Intelligence, and the illumination flowing from it cast upon the intelligence
of man; and if so, I would ask, how can there be variance or discord? How can
the illumination of the faith diminish the stature of the human reason? How can
its rights be interfered with? How can its prerogatives be violated? Is not the
truth the very reverse of all this? Is it not the fact that the human reason is
perfected and elevated above itself by the illumination of faith?
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The
Revolt of the Intelligence Against God
All law proceeds from the reason and will of the lawgiver; the Divine
and natural laws from the reasonable will of God; the human law from the will
of man, regulated by reason. Now just as human reason and will, in practical
matters, may be made manifest by speech, so may they be made known by deeds:
since seemingly a man chooses as good that which he carries into execution. But
it is evident that by human speech, law can be both changed and expounded, in
so far as it manifests the interior movement and thought of human reason.
Wherefore by actions also, especially if they be repeated, so as to make a
custom, law can be changed and expounded; and also something can be established
which obtains force of law, in so far as by repeated external actions, the
inward movement of the will, and concepts of reason are most effectually
declared; for when a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a
deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law,
abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Do not work together with
unbelievers.
St. Paul, II Corinthians
6:14
The
Greatest Error of Vatican II
“It was declared at the Second Vatican Council that atheists too are
not excluded from this possibility of salvation… The only necessary condition
which is recognized here is the necessity of faithfulness and obedience to the
individual’s own personal conscience. This optimism concerning salvation
appears to me one of the most noteworthy results of the Second Vatican Council.
For when we consider the officially received theology concerning these
questions, which was more or less traditional right down to the Second Vatican
Council, we can only wonder how few controversies arose during the Council with
regard to these assertions of optimism concerning salvation, and wonder too at
how little opposition the conservative wing of the Council brought to bear on
this point, how all this took place without any setting of the stage or any
great stir even though this doctrine marked a far more decisive phase in the
development of the Church’s conscious awareness of her Faith than, for
instance, the doctrine of collegiality in the Church, the relationship between
scripture and tradition, the acceptance of the new exegesis, etc.”
Fr. Karl Rahner, The
Anonymous Christian
Planned
Parenthood pledges $1.5 million to protect pro-abortion Pennsylvania governor
LifeSiteNews | PENNSYLVANIA | June 21, 2018
– Planned Parenthood has announced it intends to spend heavily to ensure that
pro-abortion Democrat Tom Wolf remains the Governor of Pennsylvania.
“With nearly 75% of the Pennsylvania legislature opposed to safe and legal abortion, Governor Tom Wolf is critical to Planned Parenthood’s survival,” Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates & PAC declares in its solicitation for online donations. The group plans to spend $1.5 million toward his reelection this fall, the Tribune-Review reports.
The money will also support other pro-abortion candidates in the state, and finance door-knocking, phone calls, text messages, direct mail campaigns, and digital advertising.
Wolf “is a brick wall against efforts to roll back health care access and rights of Pennsylvanians,” Sari Stevens, the PAC’s executive director, said. Republicans control both chambers of the Pennsylvania legislature, meaning the fate of pro-life legislation currently rests entirely with the governor.
Wolf and his wife Frances are both former Planned Parenthood volunteers, and the governor has dutifully continued to serve the abortion giant in office.
He has used his veto pen to block legislation that would have banned late-term and dismemberment abortions, and has promised to veto legislation banning abortions that target Down syndrome children and abortions on babies with detectable heartbeats.
Pro-lifers have also hit Wolf for refusing to hold the abortion industry accountable for its treatment of women, noting that he praised a Planned Parenthood facility which has repeatedly failed state health inspections, and nominated for Virginia Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, a man who failed to take action against notorious Philadelphia abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell while holding the same office in a previous administration.
In 2015, the government data analysis site InsideGov named Wolf the most liberal governor in America, as well.
“It's no surprise that Tom Wolf is setting records for donations taken from special interests. He is bought and paid for by those filling up his campaign coffers,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Wolf’s Republican challenger Scott Wagner, responded.
The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation says Wagner, currently a state senator, holds a 100% pro-life voting record. Wagner sponsored the late-term abortion ban Wolf vetoed, as well as legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. As “governor he would continue to fight for the rights of the unborn, which would include supporting the heartbeat bill,” Romeo said last month.
Current pro-life laws in Pennsylvania include requiring parental consent for abortion, a 24-hour waiting period, informed consent requirements including fetal development and abortion risks and alternatives, and abortion facility standards and inspections enacted in the wake of the Gosnell scandal.
“The
True Challenge of the Pontiff is the Heresy of Homosexuality”
“The Holy Father has confirmed that which everyone had known for many
years. I think that the wall of omertà
that has existed for a long time is destroyed.
But now, how to demolish that other wall of omertà that exists inside
the seminaries? Who is concerned with the revolution of Benedict XVI who
forbade the ordination of homosexual priests?
The problem of the gay lobby in the Vatican is important, but
marginal. The true challenge of the
Pontiff is the heresy of homosexuality, what I call the ‘homoheresy’, that is,
the rejection of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, whose
defenders are in favor of priesthood for gays. The Holy Father must combat this
heresy that has spread throughout the Church.
Who, in Italy, is interested in the current situation of the
seminaries? And there is where the
future of the Church is decided! The only way forward is to continue the revolution
of Ratzinger, who wished to ‘free’ the seminaries from gay educators and
homosexual seminarians.” ...
Fr. Dariusz Oko, theology professor, Pontifical University John Paul
II, Krakow, who has denounced the gay lobby in the Vatican
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.
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
Consecration
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus composed by St. Margaret Mary
Adorable Heart of my most loving Jesus, what good have You found in me
to make You love me without limit, even though my heart, stained by a thousand
faults, was so cold and indifferent toward You?
The great proofs of love which You have shown me, even when I did not
love You, give me hope that You will now find acceptable the proofs of my
love. Receive then, my loving Savior, my
desire to consecrate myself entirely to the honor and glory of Your Sacred
Heart; accept the gift of all that I am.
I consecrate to You my person, my life, my actions, my pains and
sufferings, desiring to be in the future a victim consecrated to You glory, on
fire at this moment, and one day to be entirely consumed by the holy flames of
Your love. I offer You then, my Lord and
my God, my heart with all its desires, that during my whole life it may be
perfectly conformed to Yours. I belong,
then, wholly to Your Heart, I am entirely Yours. O my God, how great are Your mercies toward
me!
My adorable Savior, accept my consecration also in reparation for the
offenses which I have not ceased to commit against You until now, by
corresponding so badly to You love. I am
giving You very little, I know, but at least I wish to give You all that is in
my power and all You wish, for that You desire from me; therefore, by
consecrating my heart to You, I give it to You never to take it back.
Teach me, O loving Savior, perfect forgetfulness of self, for that is
the one way by which I can enter Your adorable Heart; and since in the future I
shall do everything for You, grant that all I do may be worthy of You. Teach me what I must do to arrive at the
purity of Your love, but also give me this love, give me a most ardent,
generous love. Give me that profound
humility without which no one can be pleasing to You, and accomplish in me all
Your holy will.
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.
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
Modernism vs. Neo-Modernism: What is the Difference?
The overarching principle of post-conciliar
theology is not modernism, properly speaking. Let us get our terms straight.
Modernism is
the idea that there are no eternal truths, that truth is the correspondence of
the mind with one's lifestyle (adaequatio intellectus et vitae), and
that, therefore, old dogmas must be abandoned and new beliefs must arise that
meet 'the needs of modern man'. This is a radical denial of the traditional and
common sense notion of truth: the correspondence of the mind with reality (adaequatio
intellectus et rei), which is the basis of the immutability of Catholic
dogma.
No, the post-conciliar theological
principle is neo-modernism, and the
theology that is based on it is known as the nouvelle theologie.
It is the idea that old dogmas or beliefs must be retained,
yet not the traditional 'formulas': dogmas must be expressed and
interpreted in a new way in every age so as to meet the 'needs of modern man'.
This is still a denial of the traditional and common sense notion of
truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei (insofar as it is still an
attempt to make the terminology that expresses the faith correspond with
our modern lifestyle) and consequently of the immutability of
Catholic dogma, yet it is not as radical as modernism. It is more subtle
and much more deceptive than modernism because it claims that the faith
must be retained; it is only the 'formulas' of faith that must be
abandoned--they use the term 'formula' to distinguish the supposedly
mutable words of our creeds, dogmas, etc. from their
admittedly immutable meanings. Therefore,
neo-modernism can effectively slip under the radar of most pre-conciliar
condemnations (except Humani Generis, which condemns it
directly) insofar as its practitioners claim that their new and
unintelligible theological terminology really expresses the same faith of all
times. In other words, neo-modernism is supposed to be 'dynamic
orthodoxy': supposedly orthodox in meaning, yet always changing in expression
to adapt to modern life (cf. Franciscan University of Steubenville's mission
statement).
Take extra ecclesiam nulla salus as
a clear example of a dogma that has received a brutal neo-modernist
re-interpretation: they claim that the old 'formula' that ”there is no
salvation outside the Church” must be abandoned; rather it is more meaningful
to modern man to say that salvation is not in, but through, the
Church; people who are not in the Church may still be saved
through the Church; thus, to them the dogma that “there is no
salvation outside the Church” means that there is salvation outside
the Church. Hence see Ven. Pope Pius XII condemning those “reduce to a meaningless
formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal
salvation.” (Humani generis 27).
Yet this mentality of reinterpreting everything anew in order to 'meet the needs of the times' is generally tends to be found in different degrees among different post-conciliar sources:
It tends to be (1) rampant in men like De Lubac, Von Balthasar, Congar, etc.: it is the ultimate goal of their writings, teachings, and activities as churchmen. To achieve this end, they employ the technique of 'resourcement', the neo-modernist strategy of fishing for the few dubious, questionable, or idiosyncratic teachings of some Fathers of the Church and other authoritative writers, and gather them into a massive, heterodox theological argument against the traditional understanding of the faith (which they like to relativize by giving it names such as “Counter-Reformation” Theology, “Tridentine” Theology, or “Scholastic” Theology, instead of just admitting that it is Catholic Theology plain and simple). This technique accomplishes three things that go hand-in-hand: (a) offers a refutation of traditional Catholicism, (b) defends an interpretation that meets the needs of modern times, and (c) gives it a semblance of being traditional, because it appears to be based in the Fathers et al. This type of argument is used, for example, by Von Balthasar in his nearly heretical book, Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved? to 'prove', not that Hell does not exist (that is a dogma), but that it is empty. But this technique and its neo-modernistic underpinnings is not only practiced in almost all of these men's writings; it is also defended in theory by many of them, particularly in Von Balthasar's daring little book, Razing the Bastions, where he demonstrates that “Tridentine” theology must be rejected in our times because it is 'boring'.
It also tends to be (2) present in a more moderate way in the non-binding statements by post-conciliar popes, since they themselves were deeply involved in the developing of the nouvelle theologie. Just to give one of a million possible examples, see Pope Benedict's evolutionistic re-interpretation of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Nothing here obviously contradicts the dogma of the Resurrection (it may be interpreted as a simple analogy, even if a bad one, and nothing more), but it is a novelty that can be easily understood as claiming that the Resurrection is part of the natural development of nature (thus giving credence to some of the nouvelle theologie's pet doctrines, such as De Lubac's heterodox notion of the supernatural and De Chardin's pantheistic evolutionism). This happens almost on a daily basis in what comes out of the Vatican, not to mention what comes from local bishops.
And finally, neo-modernism tends to be
present (3) mostly implicitly or behind-the-scenes in the Council,
the Catechism, etc., even though it seldom comes out more explicitly.
Things are done at this level under the pretext
of 'aggiornamento', a euphemism for neo-modernism. That is
usually all the justification provided since at this authoritative level, there
is no need to justify things theologically. Hence, Vatican II and the
Catechism are not outright neo-modernistic. Rather, they (like most of
post-conciliar doctrine) tend in that direction and/or are inspired
by that mentality. In other words, most of the time these documents do
not explicitly teach neo-modernist errors (the kind of errors you hear
explicitly from neo-modernist theologians and priests). Rather, they are full
of dangerous ambiguities: statements that in a technical sense could be
interpreted as being in harmony with the traditional faith, but that, in their
natural, non-forced, interpretation are heterodox. One clear example of
this is Dignitatis humanae, par. 2; entire monographs have been written
in order to prove that, despite appearances, this document does not contradict
previous teaching. Maybe in fact it ultimately does not, but it is
obvious that the prima facie meaning does; otherwise there would be no
need to write so many volumes to prove it.
It must be noted that these are
general tendencies, and that in some documents (cf. Gaudium et Spes) and
every now and then in papal and episcopal statements neo-modernist principles
come out more explicitly.
For a more detailed philosophical and theological critique of neo-modernism, and how it is nothing but a re-hashing of modernism, see Garrigou-Lagrange's Where is the New Theology Leading Us? and his The Structure of the Encyclical Humani Generis.
Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, Ph.D.,
Professor of Theology and Philosophy
If
men are “obligated” to a “right faith” then “Religious Liberty” is 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
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
Prophecy of St. Francis of Assisi
“Act bravely, my brethren; take courage and
trust in the Lord. 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 obey the true Supreme Pontiff and the Roman Church with
loyal ears and perfect charity.
“At the time of this tribulation a man, not
canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning,
will endeavour to draw many into error and death. Then scandals will be
multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely
destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.
“There will be such diversity of opinions
and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those
days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would
be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion,
by the immense mercy of God….
“Those who persevere in 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 rendering a great service to God by destroying
such pestilent men from the face of the earth…
“Some preachers will keep silent about the
truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will
be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days
Our Lord Jesus Christ will send them, not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.”
St. Francis of Assisi, Works of the
Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, published in 1882 by the London-based
Catholic publishing house R. Washbourne, 1882, pp. 248-250.
“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 a
remarkable 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.
The Church again is victimized by homosexual clerics and
their lobby!
Pedophilia, Clergy abuse victims settle with US diocese
The church of St. Paul and Minneapolis will deliver $210 million to 450
people sexually abused by members of the clergy. Money to be placed in a trust
fund for the claimants
vatican insider staff | turin | June 1, 2018
Record compensation was provided by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the United States, which announced a 210 million dollars settlement for about 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse. This is the second largest reparation for the scandal that has shaken the Catholic Church of the United States, after that of 2007 when the archdiocese of Los Angeles liquidated cases of clergy sexual abuse of 508 victims paying 660 million dollars.
Most of the funds, about $170 million, will come from insurance companies, the rest from parishes, a pension fund and the sale of real estate.
The victim's lawyer, Jeff Anderson, said that the money - a total of $210,290,724 - will go in a trust fund for the claimants, survivors of the abuses perpetrated by several priests in past decades. During the conference the lawyer also showed the sole of his shoes where the phrase "Rise up and claim the truth" was written.
"The victims of the abuses will have their payments made as soon as the court approves the plan", Archbishop Bernard Hebda assured, from 2016 at the head of the diocese hit by the scandals, which in 2015 filed for bankruptcy.
The prelate said he was "grateful to all those who courageously presented themselves to denounce what had happened". "The Church", he added, "has disappointed you and I am very sorry: the abuses have stolen so much from you, from your childhood, from your innocence, from your security, from your trust and in many cases from your faith".
The Homo-Lobby is so deeply imbedded it can only be
removed by persecution!
Chile, the Pope’s words on gays and Wojtyla’s forgotten directives
The Chilean case demonstrates the existence - not only in the South
American country - of serious problems of discernment in vocations in
seminaries, and in the processes of episcopal nomination
Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | vatican city | May 31, 2018
The case of Chile and the emergence of new scandals, following the renunciation of the entire episcopate who has placed their fate in the hands of the Pope, shows how deeply rooted is the disease that afflicts the Chilean Church and not only. Yet, it also shows how much the teachings of the Popes, published in recent decades, have been considered dead letters by the bishops.
Last week, speaking behind closed doors with the General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Pope Francis, though expressing all his concern for the decline in priestly vocations, had invited the bishop to focus more on the quality of future priests than with quantity, citing the case of homosexual persons who wish to enter the seminary: “If you have even the slightest doubt, it is better not to let them in”. Francis spoke in the wake of two documents published in recent years by the Holy See: the first is of 2005, at the beginning of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, the second is of 2016 and was promulgated during the pontificate of Bergoglio. In both, while deeply respecting the people in question, it is argued that it is not possible to admit to seminary and sacred orders “those who practice homosexuality” or “have deeply rooted homosexual tendencies”.
In a note of the document given by Pope Francis to the Chilean bishops who arrived in Rome, one could read a criticism for having entrusted the leadership of the seminaries to “priests suspected of practicing homosexuality”. The existence of branched and organized networks of priests who lured their prey via the web, as well as cases of abuse of minors involving eminent priests, clearly indicate that the criteria of discernment were not well applied.
Already in 1992, therefore more than ten years before the 2005 publication of the Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education on the theme “Criteria for the discernment of vocations with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to the seminary and to holy orders”, and more than twenty years before the publication of the Ratio Fundamentalis of the Congregation for the Clergy entitled “The Gift of the Presbyteral Vocation” (these are the two documents that invite those who have a deeply rooted homosexual tendency or practice homosexuality not to enter the seminary), John Paul II made known the apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis on “the formation of priests in the circumstances of the present day”.
In that document, we read: “Since the charism of celibacy, even when it is genuine and has proved itself, leaves one’s affections and instinctive impulses intact, candidates to the priesthood need an affective maturity which is prudent, able to renounce anything that is a threat to it, vigilant over both body and spirit, and capable of esteem and respect in interpersonal relationships between men and women. A precious help can be given by a suitable education to true friendship, following the image of the bonds of fraternal affection which Christ himself lived on earth”.
Pope Wojtyla also affirmed: “Human maturity, and in particular affective maturity, requires a clear and strong training in freedom, which expresses itself in convinced and heartfelt obedience to the “truth of one’s own being, to the “meaning” of one’s own existence, that is to the “sincere gift of self” as the way and fundamental content of the authentic realization of self. Thus understood, freedom requires the person to be truly master of oneself, determined to fight and overcome the different forms of selfishness and individualism which threaten the life of each one, ready to open out to others, generous in dedication and service to one’s neighbor”.
The problem that has emerged from recent scandals is not only that of pedophilia: in many cases it is the abuse of children who have already entered adolescence. The widest and deepest problem to which no adequate answer has yet been given concerns the affective immaturity of candidates for the priesthood, who, if they are not men mature in their affectivity - whether heterosexual or homosexual - will be conditioned by their affective immaturity in relations with others. […….]
READ CARFULLY: Benedict/Ratzinger does not possess the
power to alter what Christ established!
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.
Land of the Lemmings
Ireland votes to legalize abortion: ‘a tragedy of historic proportions’
LifeSiteNews | IRELAND | May 26, 2018 – Irish citizens voted to legalize abortion
on Friday, ending Ireland’s legacy as one of the world’s most pro-life nations.
The votes are still being officially
counted, but the pro-abortion campaign is declaring victory and pro-lifers are
calling this a “tragedy of historic proportions.”
“The 8th amendment did not create a right
to life for the unborn child – it merely acknowledged that such a right exists,
has always existed, and will always exist,” the pro-life Save the 8th campaign
said in a statement. “What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic
proportions. However, a wrong does not become right simply because a majority
support it.”
Ireland has one of the lowest maternal
mortality rates in the world. The Eighth Amendment of its Constitution
guaranteed equal rights for pre-born babies and their mothers.
Repealing the Eighth Amendment was a
decades-long goal of the abortion movement. The Irish voted by 67 percent to
add the Eighth Amendment to their constitution in 1983, making the Emerald Isle
a uniquely safe place for pre-born babies in contrast to the rest of the West’s
liberal abortion regimes.
There have been five previous votes on
repealing the Eighth Amendment, all of which failed. One was in 1983, three
were in 1992, and one was in 2002.
More people in Dublin, where the majority
of residents supported the “repeal” campaign, voted in this referendum than in
2015 on same-sex “marriage” and in their general election.
One students’ union in Dublin created a
safe space-like “chill zone” where students could “de-stress” as the results
were counted. It became apparent that abortion advocates had won and only 14
students utilized the room, The Guardian reported. Exit polls showed around 87
percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for abortion.
In early 2018, the Irish government
approved putting the Eighth Amendment to a vote in May with the promise that if
passed, legislation allowing abortion on demand would be introduced. The
proposed legislation – which may be introduced next week – is expected to be
abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for healthy babies
and later throughout pregnancy for nebulous “health” reasons, for babies with
disabilities, and babies conceived in rape.
Pro-life activists responded to the
referendum with a massive canvassing and public awareness campaign about how
many lives have been saved by the Eighth Amendment, how one in five babies in
England is aborted, the fact that abortion kills a living human being, and the
many harms to women and society that come with legalizing it.
“The unborn child no longer has a right to
life recognised by the Irish state,” the Save the 8th’s defeat statement
continued. “Shortly, legislation will be introduced that will allow babies to
be killed in our country. We will oppose that legislation. If and when abortion
clinics are opened in Ireland, because of the inability of the Government to
keep their promise about a GP led service, we will oppose that as well. Every
time an unborn child has his or her life ended in Ireland, we will oppose that,
and make our voices known.”
The country once known for its strong
Catholic heritage and identity voted in 2015 to amend its constitution to
permit same-sex “marriage.” Despite Ireland’s move toward secularism and
approval of redefining marriage, polls on how the Eighth Amendment vote would
go were extremely close toward the end of the abortion vote.
In 2012, a woman named Savita Halappanavar,
who was 17 weeks pregnant, died of sepsis (blood poisoning) at Galway
University Hospital. Three official investigations found that the 31-year-old
died of a blood infection caused by “extremely virulent bacteria,” E. coli
ESBL. Under Ireland’s abortion laws, the woman would have been permitted an
abortion had doctors realized how sick she was when she came to the hospital.
They didn’t, and her death was due to medical negligence, not lack of abortion,
official investigations revealed. According to the Health Information and
Quality Authority, which investigated her death, doctors missed 13
opportunities to save her life. Irish
abortion activists exploited Savita's case and lied about her death,
culminating in Friday’s vote.
COMMENT: Ireland, forever to be known as the
land of the Lemmings, ranks close to the bottom for intelligence of all the
nations of Europe: https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country
This vote to introduce legalized abortion,
which naturally follows fast upon their legalization of homosexual “marriage”
three years ago, confirms these findings, for whom, after seeing the
demographic destruction of Italy, Spain, France, England and Germany, all who
have so decimated their populations by abortion that they cannot replace their
own and must import Muslim workers who will soon dominate and destroy their
native cultures, would follow them in their national folly? Yet Ireland is
the only country to legalize these perversions by popular vote. The nations of Poland and Hungry are far more
intelligent and possessing a clearer moral sense are moving to restrict as much
as possible this satanic crime. They had
abortion imposed upon them by Communism and are working to reverse this policy
of national suicide. But Ireland has no
excuse. Having kept the faith through
hundreds of years of persecution they have now returned to their Druid past
where ritual murder including that of children was part of the routine worship,
for abortion in the end is a form of ritual murder. The dog that returns to its vomit is far
different than one trying to restore their Catholic culture after years of communist
rule. Ireland is through and will suffer
a punishment that will make its inhabitants pine for the good old days of
imposed English famine. All of this is
no problem for the Catholic Novus Ordo Irish Church that has been so thoroughly
infiltrated by homosexual clergy that it can only wonder how they will
establish ecumenical relations with their Druid counterparts.
A patron in high places at last!
Medjugorje, the Pope appoints Hoser as permanent visitor
The Polish archbishop had carried out a pastoral survey on behalf of
the Pontiff. Now he will be in charge of accompanying the faithful on a
permanent basis but without entering into matters relating to the authenticity
of the apparitions
Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | vatican city | May 31, 2018
There
is still no pronouncement regarding the supernatural nature of the Marian
apparitions that have followed one another over decades, but a significant
decision that shows Francis’ priorities: the accompaniment of the many faithful
who go to Medjugorje from all over the world.
On 31 May 2018 Pope Bergoglio appointed Monsignor Henryk Hoser, Archbishop Emeritus of Warszawa-Prague in Poland, as “ special apostolic visitor to the parish of Medjugorje, for an indefinite period and ad nutum Sanctae Sedis”, that is, at the disposal of the Holy See.
The Vatican Press Office informs that it is an “exclusively pastoral task, in continuity with the mission of the Holy See’ special envoy of the parish of Medjugorje, entrusted to Monsignor Hoser on 11 February 2017 and concluded by him in recent months”.
“The mission of the apostolic visitor - the communiqué concludes- is to ensure a stable and continuous accompaniment of the parish community of Medjugorje and of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage, whose needs require special attention”.
The director of the Vatican Press Office Greg Burke stressed the “pastoral, not doctrinal” character of Hoser’s mission and therefore, today’s decision “does not enter into the doctrinal questions” concerning the truthfulness of the Marian apparitions of Medjugorje. The appointment therefore represents “not the conclusion” of the Medjugorje affair, “but the next step” to Hoser’s first mission. The prelate, moreover, “will have residence in Medjugorje, for a tighter collaboration with the bishop and the local Franciscans”.
It is well known that Monsignor Hoser, who was not in charge of overseeing the apparitions as such, but of the pastoral care of the faithful, was personally very much in favor of the recognition of the apparitions. [.....]
COMMENT: The apparitions on
demand to the visionaries at Medjugorge
are not from God. Either they are
demonic, from the demented, or a mere financial scam or a combination of all
three. They have been going on since
1981 and the show is from time to time taken on the road. The messages have contained heretical
judgments since the beginning. The
alleged apparitions have been investigated by the local bishop and the national
bishops conferences numerous time and have never been approved as from heaven.
In Pope Francis they find a patron for Dogma means nothing to him and the
messages are sympathetic to his world vision.
Pope Francis tells gay man: 'God made you like this'
Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused, says pontiff told him God
did not mind that he was gay
The Guardian | Stephanie Kirchgaessner |
Rome | May 20, 2018
Juan
Carlos Cruz said some of Chile’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert
as they accused him of lying about abuse.
A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the abuse.
“He told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are,’” Cruz told Spanish newspaper El País. [.....]
Pope Francis,
an ideologue for the "new barbarians."
As Russell Kirk
wrote, ideology is political religion. And the dogmas of the political religion
by which we are increasingly ruled have displaced the teachings of Christianity
and tradition.
Since the
Stonewall Riot of 1969, homosexual relationships have gone from being seen as
indecent and immoral, to being tolerated, to being accepted, to being on the
same plane as traditional marriage, to being a constitutional right.
And if you do
not accept the new morality, you are a deplorable bigot. And if you act on your
disbelief in the equality of homosexuality, you will be ostracized and
punished.
The truths
being jettisoned built the greatest civilization known to man. Will the invented
truths of our new egalitarianism survive the arrival of the new barbarians?
It’s not looking all that good right now.
Pat Buchanan,
Can the Pope Change Moral Truth?
All Chilean bishops offer their resignation over sexual abuse cover-up
It is not yet clear whether Pope Francis will accept resignations of 34
bishops
Guardian | Harriet Sherwood | May 18, 2018
The scandal
has damaged the credibility of the church in Chile. Photograph: Vincenzo
Pinto/AP
Chile’s bishops have offered to resign en masse over a sexual abuse and cover-up scandal that has embroiled Pope Francis and has been highly damaging to the Catholic church.
Thirty-one serving bishops and three retired bishops signed a letter of resignation on Friday. “We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” they said. “We want to ask forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the pope, to God’s people and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed.”
There was no immediate indication of whether the pope would accept their resignations.
The bishops’ move came after Francis said the Chilean church hierarchy was collectively responsible for “grave defects” in handling sexual abuse cases and the resulting loss of credibility suffered by the church.
He accused them of destroying evidence of sexual crimes, putting pressure on investigators to downplay abuse accusations and showing “grave negligence” in protecting children from paedophile priests.
“No one can exempt himself and place the problem on the shoulders of the others,” Francis said in a letter to the bishops.
Francis summoned the bishops to a three-day emergency summit in Rome after he was forced to admit he had made “grave errors in judgment” in the case of Juan Barros, a bishop who had been accused of covering up alleged abuse by a Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and 90s.
The Chilean church has been rocked by the allegations of abuse by Karadima and others, and by claims that senior figures knew about or even witnessed what was going on.
Now 87 and living in a nursing home in Child, Karadima has always denied the allegations. Barros has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing.
Francis strongly defended Barros during a visit to Chile in January, accusing Karadima's accusers of slander, in remarks that shocked Chileans and others around the world. “There is not one piece of evidence against [Barros]. It is calumny,” he said.
Francis’s comments were seen as highly damaging to his reputation, compounding a widespread view that he has failed to take a robust stance on the issue of clerical sexual abuse since becoming pope.
The Vatican later sent two expert on sexual crimes to investigate claims of widespread abuse and cover-up in Chile. They delivered a 2,300-page report.
In a 10-page letter commenting on the report, which was handed to the Chilean bishops at the start of the summit, the pope said the church authorities had minimised “the absolute gravity of their [priests’] criminal acts, attributing to them mere weakness or moral lapses.”
Priests accused of abuse were moved but “were then welcomed into other dioceses, in an obviously imprudent way, and given … jobs that gave them daily contact with minors.”
Francis said he was “perplexed and ashamed” by the report’s evidence that pressure was put on church officials tasked with investigating sexual crimes, “including the destruction of compromising documents on the part of those in charge of ecclesiastic archives”.
He said: “The problems inside the church community can’t be solved just by dealing with individual cases and reducing them to the removal of people, though this – and I say so clearly – has to be done.
“But it’s not enough, we have to go beyond that. It would be irresponsible on our part to not look deeply into the roots and the structures that allowed these concrete events to occur and perpetuate.”
In an attempt to limit the damage caused by his comments in January defending Barros, the pope met and apologised to three Chilean abuse survivors at his Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta.
The Fruits of Vatican II - the apostasy extends to
Ireland
Ireland votes to legalize abortion: ‘a tragedy of historic proportions’
LifeSiteNews | IRELAND | May 26, 2018 –
Irish citizens voted to legalize abortion on Friday, ending Ireland’s legacy as
one of the world’s most pro-life
nations.
The votes are still being officially counted, but the pro-abortion campaign is declaring victory and pro-lifers are calling this a “tragedy of historic proportions.”
“The 8th amendment did not create a right to life for the unborn child – it merely acknowledged that such a right exists, has always existed, and will always exist,” the pro-life Save the 8th campaign said in a statement. “What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions. However, a wrong does not become right simply because a majority support it.”
Ireland has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. The Eighth Amendment of its Constitution guaranteed equal rights for pre-born babies and their mothers.
Repealing the Eighth Amendment was a decades-long goal of the abortion movement. The Irish voted by 67 percent to add the Eighth Amendment to their constitution in 1983, making the Emerald Isle a uniquely safe place for pre-born babies in contrast to the rest of the West’s liberal abortion regimes.
There have been five previous votes on repealing the Eighth Amendment, all of which failed. One was in 1983, three were in 1992, and one was in 2002.
More people in Dublin, where the majority of residents supported the “repeal” campaign, voted in this referendum than in 2015 on same-sex “marriage” and in their general election.
One students’ union in Dublin created a safe space-like “chill zone” where students could “de-stress” as the results were counted. It became apparent that abortion advocates had won and only 14 students utilized the room, The Guardian reported. Exit polls showed around 87 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for abortion.
In early 2018, the Irish government approved putting the Eighth Amendment to a vote in May with the promise that if passed, legislation allowing abortion on demand would be introduced. The proposed legislation – which may be introduced next week – is expected to be abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for healthy babies and later throughout pregnancy for nebulous “health” reasons, for babies with disabilities, and babies conceived in rape.
Pro-life activists responded to the referendum with a massive canvassing and public awareness campaign about how many lives have been saved by the Eighth Amendment, how one in five babies in England is aborted, the fact that abortion kills a living human being, and the many harms to women and society that come with legalizing it.
“The unborn child no longer has a right to life recognised by the Irish state,” the Save the 8th’s defeat statement continued. “Shortly, legislation will be introduced that will allow babies to be killed in our country. We will oppose that legislation. If and when abortion clinics are opened in Ireland, because of the inability of the Government to keep their promise about a GP led service, we will oppose that as well. Every time an unborn child has his or her life ended in Ireland, we will oppose that, and make our voices known.”
The country once known for its strong Catholic heritage and identity voted in 2015 to amend its constitution to permit same-sex “marriage.” Despite Ireland’s move toward secularism and approval of redefining marriage, polls on how the Eighth Amendment vote would go were extremely close toward the end of the abortion vote.
In 2012, a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant, died of sepsis (blood poisoning) at Galway University Hospital.
Three official investigations found that the 31-year-old died of a blood infection caused by “extremely virulent bacteria,” E. coli ESBL. Under Ireland’s abortion laws, the woman would have been permitted an abortion had doctors realized how sick she was when she came to the hospital.
They didn’t, and her death was due to medical negligence, not lack of abortion, official investigations revealed. According to the Health Information and Quality Authority, which investigated her death, doctors missed 13 opportunities to save her life.
Irish abortion activists exploited Savita's case and lied about her death, culminating in Friday’s vote.
COMMENT: Ireland, the land of the Lemmings, ranks close to the bottom for intelligence of all the nations of Europe.
https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country
This vote to introduce legalized abortion,
which naturally follows fast upon their legalization of homosexual "marriage"
two years ago, confirms these findings, for whom, after seeing the demographic
destruction of Italy, Spain, France, England and Germany, all who have so
decimated their populations by abortion that they cannot replace their own and
must import Muslim workers who will soon dominate and destroy their native
cultures, would follow them in their national folly? Yet Ireland is
the only country to legalize these perversions by popular vote. The nations of Poland and Hungry are far
more intelligent and possessing a clearer moral sense are moving to restrict as
much as possible this satanic crime.
They had abortion imposed upon them by Communism and are working to
reverse this policy of national suicide.
But Ireland has no excuse. Having
kept the faith through hundreds of years of persecution they have now returned
to their Druid past where ritual murder including that of children was part of
the routine worship, for abortion in the end is a form of ritual murder. The dog that returns to its vomit is far
different than one trying to restore their Catholic culture after years of
communist rule. Ireland is through and
will suffer a punishment that will make its inhabitants pine for the good old
days of imposed English famine. All of
this is no problem for the Catholic Novus Ordo Irish Church that has been so
thoroughly infiltrated by homosexual clergy that it is looking forward to establishing ecumenical relations with their
Druid counterparts.
The Same Standard
Applies to Conciliar Heretics!
Before
answering the accusation (that Popes Liberius and Honorius were heretics and
formally taught heresy), we must once more remind our opponents that, in order
to overturn our thesis (of papal infallibility), they must prove not merely
that Liberius or Honorius has spoken or written what is contrary to faith, or
denied it, but that he did so as Pope, teaching in matters of faith or morals,
and thereby binding the Universal Church.
If they cannot prove this, they prove nothing, for the fallibility would
then be only personal and private, and would no more affect the infallibility
of the Pope as Universal teacher, than the denial of Peter in the Court of the
High Priest injured his infallibility as Prince of the Apostles. They must, then, first produce good,
historical evidence of the fact; secondly, they must prove that it was a
definition or teaching contrary to truth in matters of faith; and, thirdly,
that the Pope intended, by his teaching, to bind the Universal Church to
believe it.
Rev. F. X.
Weninger, S.J., D.D., On the Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope,
when teaching the faithful, and on his relation to a General Council
Vatican and Cardinal Dolan participates in Catholic
mockery
Pro-LGBT Vatican advisor Fr. James Martin: They called me ‘sexy’ at Met
Gala
LifeSiteNews | NEW YORK, New York
| May 10, 2018 – Fr. James Martin, a Vatican advisor and Jesuit priest
who has established himself as an 
advocate
of LGBT causes, tweeted from the Met Gala on Monday that a fellow attendee told
him “I love that you got dressed up as a sexy priest.”
Martin listed other comments he received, including, “Funky outfit,” “I love your costume,” and “Is that, like, for real?” in reference to his priestly suit and collar.
Martin also “praise[d]” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City, for attending the event, opining that it “was wonderful that the local ordinary supported this historic exhibit on Catholicism.”
The Jesuit priest has made a name for himself in recent years by making repeated public statements undermining the Catholic Church’s doctrines on sexual morality, particularly with regard to homosexual relations, which the Church condemns as “intrinsically disordered.”
Martin has spoken positively of homosexual relationships and claims that gay couples should be able to kiss each other during the sign of peace at Mass. He claims the Bible has been “taken out of context” in its condemnation of homosexual acts, and has re-tweeted a complaint that Catholic priests can’t bless same-sex unions. Hispanics condemned him in 2017 for re-tweeting an immodest image that seemed to parody Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The Met Gala is an annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. Numerous celebrities attend every year dressed in often immodest and sexually provocative costumes corresponding to that year’s theme.
This year, the Met Gala’s theme was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, and included a number of women’s outfits in the style of bishops’ liturgical vestments or sporting sacred symbols of the Catholic faith.
Pop star Rihanna dressed in a sexually-provocative outfit made to look like papal vestments, and Madonna Ciccone wore a dress with a cross shape carved in front of it to reveal her chest.
The exhibit included a sadomasochistic bondage mask covered in rosaries.
But rather than condemning the event, the Vatican supplied vestments for an accompanying clothing exhibit, and sent the boy’s choir of the Sistine Chapel to sing for partygoers. Cardinal Timothy Dolan called it a “great evening” and “the social event of the year.” He later denied that the event was blasphemous.
However, many Catholics condemned the event for blaspheming and insulting the Catholic religion, as well as for its poor taste. Among them was the British journalist and fallen-away Catholic Piers Morgan, who asked, “What the hell was the Vatican thinking?” Others included Raymond Arroyo, Ross Douthat, Laura Ingraham, and Matthew Schmitz at First Things.
Joseph Sciambra, an ex-gay and former porn star who returned to the Catholic faith of his youth, said that Martin’s apparent desire for attention is “sad and desperate.”
“Something very sad and desperate going on here,” wrote Sciambra on his Facebook page. “James Martin, this doesn’t mean anything. Every time I outreach in the gay community, I get hit on and hear meaningless compliments. But I’ve never felt the need to reveal that fact; except now. That someone said such a thing to Martin is not important, that he recounts the incident in detail - is very telling.”
“Who didn’t hug Martin when he was a boy?” asked Sciambra, who added, “It seems he needs constant praise and reassurance – for now, he has found a deep well in the Catholic LGBT community. . . . Too bad whatever is going on inside his mind had to play out on the world-stage. Sometimes, I just feel kind of sorry for him.”
“Anyone shocked that James Martin was mixed-up in the whole Met Gala?” asked Sciambra in another Facebook post. “That's part of the plan, and has been for a long time - get a few gullible and greedy Bishops to mix with wealthy/well-connected members of the LGBT community at $30,000 a pop cocktail parties - meet the same-sex partner, listen to how uncharitable the RCC is to gay couples, approve the dissident ministry, go back to the chancery feeling good about yourself. We just changed the Church. It worked with Cardinal Schonborn. Easy.”
Sciambra lamented the loss of the sense of the sacred in the Catholic Church, and believes that this has brought about an inversion of the sacred and the secular.
“When the RCC [Roman Catholic Church] lost a sense of the sacred, the secular world, in a desperate need to experience transcendence - made the sacred into something profane. I've noticed this for many years in the gay community,” said Sciambra.
Once in our
culture, common knowledge - “None is good
but God alone.” (Luke 18-19)
There is no
wisdom in sneering at him who truly studies words. Words, even the idlest, are
signs, and signs of things, realities, which things, realities, are to be come
at only through the signs. The term God and the adjective good, are one and the
same word; and from this we learn that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called by one
and the same name, the supreme being, and that which it is proper to be, to
desire, to do, or to possess. Therefore, say our wise modern philosophers, our
Anglo-Saxon ancestors believed that the supreme being is good; thus proving
that Balaam’s ass, or rather that Balaam himself, yet liveth and speaketh. Say,
rather, therefore, they believed and incorporated into their every-day speech,
the great truth, the foundation and spring of all heroism, that nothing is
proper to be sought after, to be done, or possessed, which is not Godlike, or
divine. They found not God in good; but good in God. What shall I be? A
God-man, God-like. What shall I do? That which is God-like. What shall I prize?
A God-ly soul. They did not conceive of Good, independent of God,—make that
conception the standard, and bring God to it, as before a tribunal, to
ascertain whether he conformed to it, or not; but they regarded God himself as
the standard, and whatever conformed to him, they called good, and said, That
be, do, possess, live for, die for,—nothing else is worth a wish or a thought.
Orestes
Brownson, The Present State of Society
The Times of St. Athanasius:
De Mattei: The religious war of the IV Century and of our times
Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza
Romana | April 25, 2018
The
Church advances through history forever victorious, in accordance with the
marvelous plans of God. The first three centuries reached their peak under
Emperor Diocletian (284-305). All appeared to be lost. Discouragement was a
temptation for many Christians and among them there were those who lost the
faith. But those who persevered had the immense joy, not many years later, of
seeing the Cross of Christ blazing on the banners of Constantine at the Battle
of Saxa Rubra (312). This victory changed the course of history. The
Milan-Nicomedia Edict of 313, granting liberty to Christians, overturned Nero’s
senatus consultum, which had proclaimed Christianity a “superstitio
illicita”. The public Christianization of society had its beginnings in a
climate of enthusiasm and fervor.
In
325, The Council of Nicaea, would seem to mark the doctrinal rebirth of the
Church, with the condemnation of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Word. At
Nicaea, thanks to the decisive role of the Deacon, Athanasius ( 295-373),
subsequently Bishop of Alexandria, the doctrine of the “consubstantiality” of
the nature among the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity was defined.
In
the years that followed, between the orthodox position and the Arian heretics a
“third party” made its way in: that of the “Semi-Arians”, in turn divided
amongst themselves into various currents, which acknowledged a certain analogy
between the Father and the Son, but denied that He had been “begotten, not
made, of one Being with the Father” as was affirmed in the Nicene Creed.
They substituted the word omousios, which means “of the same
substance” with the term omoiusios, which means “of similar substance”.
The
heretics, the Arians and the Semi-Arians, had understood that their success
would be dependent on two factors: the first was to remain inside the Church;
the second to obtain the support of the political powers, hence of Constantine
and afterwards his successors. And indeed it happened so: a crisis, until then
unprecedented, inside the Church which lasted for more than sixty years.
Nobody
has described it better than Cardinal Newman in his book The Arians of
the IV Century (1833), wherein he gathered all the doctrinal nuances of the question.
An Italian scholar, Professor Claudio Pierantoni has recently outlined an
enlightening parallel between the Arian controversy and the present debate on
the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris laetitia. * However, even in 1973, Monsignor
Rudolf Graber (1903-1992), Bishop of Regensburg, when recalling the figure of
St. Athanasius, on the XVI centenary of his death, had compared the crisis of
the IV century to that following the Second Vatican Council (Athanasius und die
Kirche unserer Zeit: zu seinem 1600 Todestag, Kral 1973).
Athanasius
was harshly persecuted even by his confreres for his fidelity to orthodoxy, and
between 336 and 366 was five times forced to abandon the city in which he was
Bishop, thus spending long years in exile and strenuous combat in defense of
the Faith. Two assemblies of bishops, at Caesarea and Tyre (334-335) condemned
him for rebellion and fanaticism. Further, in 341, while a Council of fifty
bishops in Rome had proclaimed Athanasius innocent, the Council at Antioch, in
which more than ninety bishops took part, ratified the Acts of the Synods of
Caesarea and Tyre and put an Arian in the place of Athanasius as bishop.
The
subsequent Council of Serdica, in 343, ended with a scission: the Western
Fathers declared the deposition of Athanasius illegal and reconfirmed the
Council of Nicaea: those from the East condemned not only Athanasius, but also
Pope Julius I, (afterwards canonized), who had supported him. The Council of
Sirmium in 351, sought a middle ground between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism.
At the Council of Arles in 353, the Fathers, including the legate representing
Liberius, who had succeeded St. Julius I as Pope, signed a new condemnation
against Athanasius.
The
bishops were forced to choose between the condemnation of Athanasius and exile.
St. Paulinus, Bishop of Trier, was almost the only one in the battle for
the Nicene Creed and was exiled to Phrygia, where he died following
mistreatment at the hands of the Arians. Two years later, at the Council of Milan,
(355), more than three hundred bishops of the West, signed the condemnation of
Athanasius and another orthodox Father, St. Hilary of Poitiers, was banished to
Phrygia for his intransigent fidelity to orthodoxy.
In
357, Pope Liberius, overcome by the sufferings of exile and at the insistence
of his friends, but also driven by “a love for peace”, signed the Semi-Arian
formula of Sirmium and broke communion with St. Athanasius, declaring him
separated from the Roman Church, for his use of the term “consubstantial” as is
testified in four letters transmitted to us by St. Hilary (Manlio
Simonetti, La crisi ariana del IV secolo, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum,
Roma 1975, pp. 235-236).
Under the pontificate of the same Liberius,
the Councils of Rimini (359) and Seleucia (359), which constituted a Great
Council, representative of the West and the East, abandoned the term
“consubstantial” of Nicaea and established an equivocal “middle way” between
the Arians and St. Athanasius. It seemed as if rampant heresy had conquered
the Church.
The
Councils of Seleucia and Rimini are not numbered by the Church today in the
eight ecumenical councils of antiquity: there were, nonetheless, as many as 560
bishops present, almost the totality of the Fathers of Christianity, who were
defined as “ecumenical” by their contemporaries. It was then that St.
Jerome coined the phrase wherein "the whole world groaned and woke
astounded to find itself Arian” (Dialogus adversus Luciferianos, n. 19, in PL,
23, col. 171).
What
is important to underline is that it wasn’t about a doctrinal dispute limited
to some theologian, nor a simple clash between bishops where the Pope had to
act as an arbiter. It was a religious war in which all Christians were
involved, from the Pope down to the last faithful. Nobody closed
themselves up in a spiritual bunker, nobody stood looking out the window, a
mute spectator of the drama. Everyone was down in the trenches fighting on both
sides of the battle-lines.
It
wasn’t easy at that time to understand whether your own bishop was orthodox or
not, but the sensus fidei was the compass to orient oneself. Cardinal Walter
Brandmüller while speaking in Rome on April 7th 2018, recalled how “the ‘sensus
fidei’ acts as a sort of spiritual immune system, through which the faithful
instinctively recognize or reject any error. Upon this ‘sensus fidei’ rests
then – apart from the Divine promise – also the passive infallibility of the
Church, or the certainty that the Church, in Her totality, shall never be able
to incur a heresy.”
St.
Hilary writes that during the Arian crisis the ears of the faithful who
interpreted in an orthodox sense the ambiguous affirmations of the Semi-Arian
theologians were holier than the hearts of the priests. The Christians who for
three centuries had resisted emperors, were now resisting their own Shepherds,
in some cases even the Pope, guilty, if not of open heresy, but to say the
least, of grave negligence.
Monsignor
Graber refers to the words of Joseph von Görres (1776-1848), in his book
Athanasius (1838) written at the time of the arrest of the Archbishop of
Cologne, but it is even today of extraordinary veracity: “The earth is shaking
under our feet. We can foresee with certainty that the Church will emerge
unscathed from such ruin, but nobody can say and conjecture who and what will
survive. We, then, in advising, in recommending and raising our hands, would
like to impede the evil by showing its signs. Even the mules who carry the
false prophets, bristle, pull-back and with human language throw back the
injustice in the face of those striking them; those who do not see the
sword drawn (by God) which closes off the way to them (Numbers, XXII, 22-35).
Work then while it is day, since at night nobody can. It serves nothing to
wait: waiting has done nothing more than aggravate things.”
There
are times when a Catholic is obliged to choose between cowardice and heroism,
between apostasy and holiness. This is what happened in the IV century and it
is what is happening even today.
OnePeterFive | May 3, 2018
Michael Winerip | December 2, 2012 
In another interview with his longtime
atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist
and that condemned souls just "disappear." This is a denial of the
2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and
the eternal existence of the soul.
Scalfari says to the Pope, "Your
Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear
in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create
new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and
will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of
good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls?
Where are they punished?"
Bishop
Vincent Guo Xijin had reportedly refused to concelebrate Mass with an
excommunicated government-backed bishop
They
(our most holy predecessors) knew the capacity of innovators in the art of
deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, 
8
to
the “self-absorbed promethean neo-Pelagianism of those who ultimately trust
only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe
certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style
from the past.”
Breitbart | Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. | 23
Feb 2017
Reuters | HONG KONG | February 9, 2018 -
LifeSiteNews | CAMBRIDGE, England |
CNA/EWTN News | Vatican | February 7, 2018 