Habemus Papam

See here

What's in a name?

The significance of Pope Leo XII provides us with a clue. See here.

On the Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael:

St. Michael the Archangel, 

defend us in battle. 

Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, 

and do thou, 

O Prince of the heavenly hosts, 

by the power of God, 

thrust into hell Satan, 

and all the evil spirits, 

who prowl about the world 

seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. .

O glorious prince St. Michael, 

chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, 

guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits, 

servant in the house of the Divine King

and our admirable conductor, 

you who shine with excellence

and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil,

who turn to you with confidence

and enable us by your gracious protection

to serve God more and more faithfully every day.

A balanced perspective here

You have a vocation from God

 

You have a vocation from God: No more excuses

"It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” - Pope John Paul II.

In an essay entitled One Solitary Life which was adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis, we are reminded about certain aspects of Jesus' life:

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13).  These words are engraved on a bracelet which I wear.  Do we really believe this?  Or do we let others define who we are?

Issue the battle cry! Let's take back our cities!

Those who walk in the Spirit know no fear. What are we waiting for? The Lord Jesus waits. He grows tired of our excuses:

I’m not holy enough:

Is 6:1-9; Lk 5:1-11

I’m afraid I will fail:

Ex 14:10-31; Lk 15

I’ve made mistakes and I’m a sinner:

Jn 21:15-23; Mt 9:9-13; Lk 7:36-50

I’m too young:

1 Sam 3:1-18; Jer 1:4-10; Lk 1:26-38

I’m not talented enough:

1 Sam 17:32-51; Lk 1:26-38

I want to have a family:

Gn 12:1-3; Mt 12:46-50; Mk 10:28-30

I’m afraid of making a permanent commitment:

Ruth 1:15-17; Mt 28:16-20

I’m afraid of public speaking:

Ex 4:10-17; Jer 1:4-10

I’m not smart enough:

2 Cor 4:7-18; Ex 4:10-17

I’m afraid of being alone:

Ex 3:4-22; Lk 1:28-38

I want to be happy:

Ps 37:4; Mt 5:1-12; Jn 10:10; Mk 10:28-31

I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. There are no obstacles we can't overcome in His holy name.  Even while others attempt to label us and dismiss us as useless, as having no worth.  I knew a young man with developmental disabilities whose father told him he was "worthless."  He was told by his father that the best thing for him would be a bullet in the head. When he asked me one day if he was worthless, I reminded him of his many gifts: his sense of humor, his ability to love others, his ability to pray to God and a litany of other gifts.  And I assured him that he is not "worthless."

We live in a sad, broken world.  There are many people who are heavily burdened with sin who are hurting. And because they are hurting, they want to hurt others.  If you could read some of the comments which have been left at this Blog you would cringe.  Sad time.  Hurting time. And we pray for such people.

But we cannot let others define who we are.  We are children of God who have access to the Holy Spirit's Gifts just by asking for them.

The Son of God loves us.  What does that suggest about those who hate us?

Francis and the watering down of the supernatural faith of Catholicism

From Les Femmes:


"Remember when Pedro Arrupe was removed as Superior General of the Jesuit Order by Pope John Paul II? No? No memory of that?

It's no use consulting the Internet for validation. It has no memory of that event. However both Wikipedia and a few articles from the leftist Jesuit magazine, America, say that Arrupe "resigned". The Jesuits won't admit that John Paul II removed Arrupe. They say that Arrupe resigned due to his failing health. They say that Arrupe was going to recommend American Jesuit Vincent O'Keefe, S.J., as his replacement when instead John Paul II "intervened" and appointed two other Jesuits, Paola Dezza and Giuseppe Pittau, to oversee the Society of Jesus until a new Superior General could be elected.

In fact, the cold hard truth is that on October 5, 1981, Pope John Paul II rightfully removed Pedro Arrupe, S.J.,  forever from the Generalate, which in turn, moved O'Keefe from his post as Vicar General of the Society and from all hope of being elected General by a subsequent Congregation. Then he (JPII) firmly and resolutely appointed Dezza and Pittau as overseers until such time (two years later, September of 1983) a new Superior General could be elected.

The Pope did this because of Arrupe's mass secularization of the Society of Jesus, the deterioration of obedience to the pope and disaffection from the papacy. The rot had spread too far and too deep. Pope John Paul II was angry. He was going to take no more of it. The Jesuits under Arrupe had set their faces resolutely against the pope, and indeed the very concept of the papacy in the Catholic Church - that is, until now with a Jesuit "pope", Jorge Bergoglio, S.J., who is one of their own.

Now the papacy is OK. Now the pope must be obeyed. Now it is we who disagree who must be dismissed - totally dismissed - removed for Francis said that if we do not obey his pagan rites we will all be in schism...like Arrupe was basically in schism from/against John Paul II.

Admitting that Arrupe was removed by John Paul II would put a blight on Arrupe's memory and definitely impact his being raised to the altar of sainthood which is already in the process - by the Jesuits. And approved - by Jorge Bergoglio, S.J. Pedro Arrupe is now Servant of God Pedro Arrupe, S.J. How do you like them apples? If we know the right people at the right time we too will be fast tracked to sainthood. But beware - don't think about becoming a saint by defying Jorge Bergoglio like Pedro Arrupe defied two popes - both Paul VI and John Paul II. We can only be a saint today by taking part in pagan rituals, bowing down to naked fertility goddesses and verbally denying the existence of hell and the divinity of Christ.

Holding pagan rituals in the Vatican Gardens and the denial of the divinity of Christ are more than equal to what Pedro Arrupe did to the Society of Jesus, for which he - Arrupe - was removed. Therefore, for his horrifying disobedience to Our Lord and His Bride, the Church, Jorge Bergoglio, S.J., also must be removed.

What Pedro Arrupe did to the Society of Jesus is step by step what Jorge Borgoglio is doing to the Catholic Church. A MUST READ on this subject is Malachi Martin's book The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church (ebook link!) If Malachi Martin lived now, he could write another book: Bergoglio: The Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church."

______________________________________

Malachi Martin, in his book “The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church,” says that, “Those who..know the history of Liberation Theology..may point out that Gutierrez’s work [Father Gustavo Gutierrez, author of A Theology of Liberation] was inspired by a 1968 Conference of Latin American bishops at Medellin, near Bogota, in Colombia, where the delegates highlighted the plight of the poor, and the needy to remedy their awful conditions…

Essentially, Liberation Theology is the answer to that summons to the Church codified so many years before by Maritain – to identify itself with the revolutionary hopes of the masses. The difference, perhaps, insofar as there is one, is that while Maritain adopted a theology of history built on a misapprehension of Marxist philosophy, Liberation Theologians adopted a theology of politics built on Soviet tactics. In essence, the propagators of Liberation Theology took the current of theological thought developed in Europe and applied it to the very concrete situations in Latin America. Suddenly, theological and philosophical theory became the pragmatic proposals and actual programs for changing the face of all social and political institutions in Latin America….

Liberation Theology turned its back on the entire scope of Scholastic Theology, including what was sound in Maritain. It did not base its reasoning on papal teaching, or on the ancient theological tradition of the Church, or on the Decrees of the Church’s Ecumenical Councils. In fact, Liberation Theology refused to start where Councils and Popes had always started: with God as Supreme Being, as Creator, as Redeemer, as Founder of the Church, as the One Who had placed among men a Vicar who was called the Pope, as Ultimate Rewarder of the Good and Punisher of the Evil. Rather, Liberation Theology’s basic presumption was ‘the people,’ sometimes indeed ‘the people of God.’ ‘The people’ were the source of spiritual revelation and religious authority. What mattered in theology was how ‘the people’ fared here and now, in the social, political, and economic realities of the evolving material world. The ‘experience of the people was the womb of theology,’ was the consecrated phrase.

At one stroke, therefore, Liberation Theology unburdened prepared and restless minds from an entire panoply of ancient concepts, dogmas, and mental processes governed by the fixed rules of Thomistic reasoning, and from the directives of the authoritative voice of Rome…Liberation Theology was no theology in the Roman Catholic sense of the word. It was not primarily about God, about God’s law, about God’s redemption, about God’s promises. Liberation Theology was interested in God as revealed today through the oppressed people. In God for himself, practically speaking, no genuine Liberation Theology was interested.

The second promise of Liberation Theology was even more exciting than freedom from Rome’s theology..” (The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church, pp. 308-309).

Under the banner of “liberation,” many in the Church’s hierarchy began to enlist the Church’s resources to advance the Marxist plan of revolution. Having abandoned the Church’s supernatural mission – building the Kingdom of God, these confused clerics began to turn exclusively toward a new goal: that of building a new world centered on man, a City of Man.

Fr. Martin explains how the Jesuits succumbed to this apostasy: “Classical Jesuitism, based on the spiritual teaching of Ignatius, saw the Jesuit mission in very clear outline. There was a perpetual state of war on earth between Christ and Lucifer. Those who fought on Christ’s side, the truly choice fighters, served the Roman Pontiff diligently, were at his complete disposal, were ‘Pope’s Men.’ The ‘Kingdom’ being fought over was the Heaven of God’s glory. The enemy, the archenemy, the only enemy, was Lucifer. The weapons Jesuits used were supernatural: the Sacraments, preaching, writing, suffering. The objective was spiritual, supernatural, and otherworldly. It was simply this: that as many individuals as possible would die in a state of supernatural grace and friendship with their Savior so that they would spend eternity with God, their Creator…

The renewed Jesuit mission debased this Ignatian ideal of the Jesuits. The ‘Kingdom’ being fought over was the ‘Kingdom’ everyone fights over and always has: material well-being. The enemy was now economic, political, and social: the secular system called democratic and economic capitalism. The objective was material: to uproot poverty and injustice, which were caused by capitalism, and the betterment of the millions who suffered want and injustice from that capitalism. The weapons to be used now were those of social agitation, labor relations, sociopolitical movements, government offices…” (The Jesuits, p. 478).

In this light, we can better understand Pope Francis' speech before Congress. The Pope called on Americans to open themselves to the world and not to see things in terms of good and evil, the righteous and unrighteous.  This, of course, is unscriptural. (See 2 Corinthians 6: 14, 15 and Ephesians 5: 11 for example).

As Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., explained in his essay on Call to Action entitled “Detroit: A Call to Revolution in the Church”: “The following are some of the demands the Church simply cannot fulfill for such is not her mission: 1. Wipe out poverty, ignorance, prejudice and war. 2. Democratize the whole world. 3. Stop the sale of arms everywhere. 4. Back the E.R.A. as a constitutional amendment. Like her Saviour, the Church will not turn stones into bread, thereby becoming the Mother of Socialism or a millennium of this world..’


"..the 'theologies of liberation', which reserve credit for restoring to a place of honor the great texts of the prophets and of the Gospel in defense of the poor, go on to a disastrous confusion between the 'poor' of the Scripture and the 'proletariat' of Marx. In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the 'Church of the poor' signifies the Church of the class which has become aware of the requirements of the revolutionary struggle as a step toward liberation and which celebrates this liberation in its liturgy." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation,'" No. 10).

The supernatural faith of Catholicism is being watered down for the sake of a new humanitarian religion.  Dialogue is key for this new religion which has abandoned the notion that we must, "Let love be without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good." (Romans 12: 29).

Francis denies the divinity of Jesus?

CNS is reporting:

"In the latest edition of La Repubblica, Pope Francis' longtime atheist friend and interviewer, Eugenio Scalfari, claims that the Pope told him that once Jesus Christ became incarnate, he was a man, a 'man of exceptional virtues' but 'not at all a God.'

The teaching of the Catholic Church and most Christian churches is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was incarnated as fully man and fully God.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it. (464)"

Rome is losing the Faith.  See here.

The New Humanism: Antichrist Rising

A sober warning from Mother Miriam here.

Father Livio Fanzaga reminds us that, "Prayer is another fundamental weapon for the great battle of the end times.  When man will glorify himself and proclaim the Antichrist as God made man, the supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine presence in prayer.  These will 'experience' God, His existence, lordship, power and glory.  In the time of Antichrist, the power of suggestion will cloud reason.  Only those who intimately experience the supernatural in prayer will have the strength to acknowledge God's existence, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary...in an era marked by the seduction of the heart, of a general obscuring of the mind, and of the folly of reason, only those who have had a strong experience of God in prayer will preserve the faith.  In that supernatural experience the faith will be conserved and you will conform to it.  If you look to the sun and see the light, even if man denies the existence of the sun, what can you say?  Having seen the sun you will not vacillate in the faith.  You will be a rock in the waves of the sea." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, pp. 149, 150).

Romano Guardini, in his classic work entitled The Lord, warns us that the Antichrist's arguments, "will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost." (p. 513).

We pray because we love the Lord Jesus and desire to have an intimate relationship with Him.  Our prayer is rooted in love.  And this love will preserve us from the Man of Sin (even if we lose our bodies to martyrdom).  This is the love that has made the martyrs, virgins, apostles and all the saints.  St. Paul assures us that because of this love, "Neither death, nor life, nor angels...nor things present, nor things to come, nor might...nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord." (Romans 8: 35).

Francis and his Manchurian inspiration for the Amazon Synod

From Lifesite News:

"A 47 year-old photograph has surfaced showing the man who would become Pope Francis standing in a small group of people, one of whom is a Brazilian Liberation-theology proponent and priest who would become laicized and who is now widely credited for being the “theologian of reference” for the upcoming controversial Amazon synod. The picture takes on significance due to the claim of the laicized priest that Pope Francis remembered their meeting in 1972 and had recently sent him the photo. 

On August 5, Leonardo Boff placed on his twitter a picture from a conference that took place in San Miguel, Argentina on February 23-29, 1972 and that shows both Boff and then-Father Jorge Bergoglio, the later Pope Francis. Boff says that the Pope had just sent him this picture, recalling their time together. 

“In an exchange of letters, Pope Francis recalled our meeting in San Miguel-AR [Argentina] from 23-29/02/1972 and sent me this photo,” Boff writes.

This incident suggests that Pope Francis and Leonardo Boff have had a friendly relationship long before Bergoglio became pope in 2013. As a matter of fact, Boff claimedin 2016 – in an interview with the Kölner Stadt-Anzeigr – that Pope Francis is “one of us. He has turned Liberation Theology into a common property of the Church. And he has widened it.” 

‘You will be astonished what Francis will achieve’

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel days after Jorge Bergoglio's papal election, Boff revealed that he knew Bergoglio personally. “Yes, [I met him] a few years ago [sic], at a conference in Argentina. He made a wise presentation there, we liked each other immediately.” (It is not clear whether Boff refers here to the 1972 conference, which took place much earlier than only “a few years ago.”)

In that same 2013 interview, Boff announced: “He [Bergoglio] is now Pope. He can [do] everything. You will be astonished what Francis will achieve.” 

“But for that,” Boff continued, “there is needed a breach with traditions. Away from the corrupt Curia of the Vatican, toward a Universal Church. And toward new, central topics: the gap between the poor and the rich, the lack of justice. It is revolutionary what has happened there in Rome: a religious from Latin American is being elected onto the Chair of Peter.” 

Boff defends Pope Francis in the Spiegel interview against the suspicion that he is an “arch-conservative,” that he is opposed to contraception, married priests and a larger role of women in the Church. “The Vatican prescribed it that way, all high-ranking prelates had to file suit there. Nothing was to be questioned. But that can change now.”

Boff also predicts the longer-range agenda of Pope Francis, and does it just a few days after his election. When asked as to whether he had indications that Bergoglio “thinks in more liberal terms,” the liberation theologian answers: “Yes. A few months ago, for example, he explicitly permitted that a homosexual couple could adopt a child. He kept contact with priests who were rejected by the official Church because they had married. And he never let himself be distracted from his own line. And that was: We have to be on the side of the poor, and if need be, also in contradiction to those in power.”

Still in the year of 2013, Boff wrote a bookabout Francis of Assisi and Francis of Rome (i.e., Pope Francis), endorsing this Pope as someone who will “rebuild the Church” after an “ecclesiastical winter” and thereby inviting his followers to drop old disagreements of detail between his own Liberation Theology and the Theology of the People as it had been developed by the Jesuit Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone, among others, one of Bergoglio's important friends and teachers. 

‘I have given him my counsel’

Pope Francis, when visiting Brazil in July of 2013, was trying to meet with Leonardo Boff in person. In a German interview, Boff confirms this fact: “Yes, but only after he had concluded the reform of the Curia. In Rio, the Pope explicitly asked to receive a book from me. It was just published and is called  Francis of Assisi and Francis of Rome: a new Church spring? The Archbishop of Rio has given it to him.” Thus, Bergoglio reached out to Boff, not long after his election. Not long after that, the Pope asked Boff to help him write his encyclical Laudato si (published in 2015). Boff also says that Francis read some of his books: “More than that [reading Boff's books]. He asked me for material for the sake of Laudato Si. I have given him my counsel and sent to him some of what I have written. Which he has also used. Some people told me they were thinking while reading: 'Wait, that is Boff!'” 

Boff, in a 2013 interview with El Pais, insists that Jorge Bergoglio himself is a liberation theologian: “Francis is a liberation theologian elaborated by Scanone, who was the one who somehow sustained some attitudes of Peronism,” Boff then explained. He reminded his interlocutor that Bergoglio had been Scannone's student in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

As a matter of fact, Scannone himself happens to be in the same picture at the 1972 conference in Argentina which Pope Francis had just sent to Leonardo Boff. (We owe this information to Giuseppe Nardi from Katholisches.info in Germany.) Scannone was at the time the rector of the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology at the Jesuit College of San Miguel, Argentina, which explains his presence in the photo. 

Scannone is counted as one of the founders of the Theology of the People, and in an interview also shortly after Bergoglio's election, in May of 2013, he said about Bergoglio that “in Argentina, he defended what I call the 'Argentine line of liberation theology,' called by some 'Theology of the People,' and I assume that he will continue to promote it, without ignoring other theological orientations.”

--------------------------------------------

On fire to build man's world.

Malachi Martin, in his book “The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church,” says that, “Those who..know the history of Liberation Theology..may point out that Gutierrez’s work [Father Gustavo Gutierrez, author of A Theology of Liberation] was inspired by a 1968 Conference of Latin American bishops at Medellin, near Bogota, in Colombia, where the delegates highlighted the plight of the poor, and the needy to remedy their awful conditions…

Essentially, Liberation Theology is the answer to that summons to the Church codified so many years before by Maritain – to identify itself with the revolutionary hopes of the masses. The difference, perhaps, insofar as there is one, is that while Maritain adopted a theology of history built on a misapprehension of Marxist philosophy, Liberation Theologians adopted a theology of politics built on Soviet tactics. In essence, the propagators of Liberation Theology took the current of theological thought developed in Europe and applied it to the very concrete situations in Latin America. Suddenly, theological and philosophical theory became the pragmatic proposals and actual programs for changing the face of all social and political institutions in Latin America….

Liberation Theology turned its back on the entire scope of Scholastic Theology, including what was sound in Maritain. It did not base its reasoning on papal teaching, or on the ancient theological tradition of the Church, or on the Decrees of the Church’s Ecumenical Councils. In fact, Liberation Theology refused to start where Councils and Popes had always started: with God as Supreme Being, as Creator, as Redeemer, as Founder of the Church, as the One Who had placed among men a Vicar who was called the Pope, as Ultimate Rewarder of the Good and Punisher of the Evil. Rather, Liberation Theology’s basic presumption was ‘the people,’ sometimes indeed ‘the people of God.’ ‘The people’ were the source of spiritual revelation and religious authority. What mattered in theology was how ‘the people’ fared here and now, in the social, political, and economic realities of the evolving material world. The ‘experience of the people was the womb of theology,’ was the consecrated phrase.

At one stroke, therefore, Liberation Theology unburdened prepared and restless minds from an entire panoply of ancient concepts, dogmas, and mental processes governed by the fixed rules of Thomistic reasoning, and from the directives of the authoritative voice of Rome…Liberation Theology was no theology in the Roman Catholic sense of the word. It was not primarily about God, about God’s law, about God’s redemption, about God’s promises. Liberation Theology was interested in God as revealed today through the oppressed people. In God for himself, practically speaking, no genuine Liberation Theology was interested.

The second promise of Liberation Theology was even more exciting than freedom from Rome’s theology..” (The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church, pp. 308-309).

Under the banner of “liberation,” many in the Church’s hierarchy began to enlist the Church’s resources to advance the Marxist plan of revolution. Having abandoned the Church’s supernatural mission – building the Kingdom of God, these confused clerics began to turn exclusively toward a new goal: that of building a new world centered on man, a City of Man.

Fr. Martin explains how the Jesuits succumbed to this apostasy: “Classical Jesuitism, based on the spiritual teaching of Ignatius, saw the Jesuit mission in very clear outline. There was a perpetual state of war on earth between Christ and Lucifer. Those who fought on Christ’s side, the truly choice fighters, served the Roman Pontiff diligently, were at his complete disposal, were ‘Pope’s Men.’ The ‘Kingdom’ being fought over was the Heaven of God’s glory. The enemy, the archenemy, the only enemy, was Lucifer. The weapons Jesuits used were supernatural: the Sacraments, preaching, writing, suffering. The objective was spiritual, supernatural, and otherworldly. It was simply this: that as many individuals as possible would die in a state of supernatural grace and friendship with their Savior so that they would spend eternity with God, their Creator…

The renewed Jesuit mission debased this Ignatian ideal of the Jesuits. The ‘Kingdom’ being fought over was the ‘Kingdom’ everyone fights over and always has: material well-being. The enemy was now economic, political, and social: the secular system called democratic and economic capitalism. The objective was material: to uproot poverty and injustice, which were caused by capitalism, and the betterment of the millions who suffered want and injustice from that capitalism. The weapons to be used now were those of social agitation, labor relations, sociopolitical movements, government offices…” (The Jesuits, p. 478).

In this light, we can better understand Pope Francis' speech before Congress. The Pope called on Americans to open themselves to the world and not to see things in terms of good and evil, the righteous and unrighteous.  This, of course, is unscriptural. (See 2 Corinthians 6: 14, 15 and Ephesians 5: 11 for example).

As Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., explained in his essay on Call to Action entitled “Detroit: A Call to Revolution in the Church”: “The following are some of the demands the Church simply cannot fulfill for such is not her mission: 1. Wipe out poverty, ignorance, prejudice and war. 2. Democratize the whole world. 3. Stop the sale of arms everywhere. 4. Back the E.R.A. as a constitutional amendment. Like her Saviour, the Church will not turn stones into bread, thereby becoming the Mother of Socialism or a millennium of this world..’


"..the 'theologies of liberation', which reserve credit for restoring to a place of honor the great texts of the prophets and of the Gospel in defense of the poor, go on to a disastrous confusion between the 'poor' of the Scripture and the 'proletariat' of Marx. In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the 'Church of the poor' signifies the Church of the class which has become aware of the requirements of the revolutionary struggle as a step toward liberation and which celebrates this liberation in its liturgy." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation,'" No. 10).

The supernatural faith of Catholicism is being watered down for the sake of a new humanitarian religion.  Dialogue is key for this new religion which has abandoned the notion that we must, "Let love be without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good." (Romans 12: 29).

Francis: This atheist was a "good man" who is in Heaven

Just recently, Francis told a young boy whose atheist father passed away, "Maybe we could cry like Emanuele when we have pain in our heart. He cries for his father who died and has had the courage to do it in front of us because there is love in his heart – he underlines – his father was an atheist but he had his four children baptized, he was a good man. It’s nice that a son says his dad was “good.” If that man was able to make children like that he was a good man, God is proud of your father. God has a father’s heart, your dad was a good man, he’s in heaven with him, I’m sure. God has a father’s heart and before an unbelieving father who was able to baptize his children, would God be able to abandon him? God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier to be a believer and to have children baptized than to be a believer and to have their children baptized. Pray for your dad, talk to your dad. This is the answer”.

Francis assured the boy in question that his atheist father was a "good man" and in Heaven.

A good man.  The Lord Jesus teaches us something quite different in the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 18-19:

"An official asked him this question, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus answered him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'"

It is true that Lumen Gentium 16 of the Second Vatican Council teaches that:

"Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience."

Through no fault of their own.  Francis cannot state with certainty that this atheist is in Heaven any more than we can state he is in Hell.  God alone is the Judge in this matter.  He alone can judge this man's soul.  He alone knows whether he was culpable for not being baptized himself or embracing Catholic truth.  Gaudium et Spes, No. 28 of the same Council: "God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts, for that reason He forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone."  But just as we cannot make judgments regarding a person's internal guilt, so too we cannot make judgments regarding a person's innocence or lack of culpability for the truths which they violate.  God alone is the "Judge and searcher of hearts." Does Francis consider himself God?

Athanasian Creed

1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;
2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.
36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;
40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. and shall give account of their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.

Professor John Rist and a Cupich of nonsense...

LifeSite News reports:

A respected Catholic historian and philosopher challenged Cardinal Blase Cupich during a lecture last week about Pope’ Francis so-called “revolution of mercy” that has caused what many are defending as a “paradigm shift” in Catholic practice.

Professor John Rist, after listening to a February 9 lecture at Cambridge University in which Cardinal Cupich praised Pope Francis’ “paradigm shift” in Catholic practice, asked the Cardinal at the end of the lecture why Pope Francis “mercilessly” insults and eliminates his doctrinal opponents.

Rist asked the Cardinal:

Your Eminence, In view of your account of the sunny, caring and holistic features of Pope Francis’ revolution of mercy – described disturbingly by the leaflet for this meeting and by your Eminence as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the presentation of Catholicism – and of the Pope’s call for free and frank discussion of his challenging proposals and policies, I would like to ask why Pope Francis acts so mercilessly in insulting and eliminating doctrinal opponents:

Cardinal Burke removed from the leadership of the Roman Rota; Three loyal priests from the CDF dismissed without explanation, followed by the abrupt termination of Cardinal Mueller himself; The denial of a Cardinal’s hat to the much loved champion of the unborn, Archbishop Chaput; The removal of most of the original members of the Academy for Life;
The apparent selling-down the river of Cardinal Pell, who may have been framed; And more recently the banishment from Rome of the Professor of Patristics at the Lateran and editor of the challenging book Remaining in the Truth of Christ;

The list goes on and on, but I stop there  to ask again whether harsh actions of this sort — combined with the well-documented rigging of the Synod on the Family — indicate that the Pope’s 'paradigm shift' should be recognized as an attempt — under cover of offering solutions to genuine social problems in Western society — to impose on the Church radical changes of doctrine, developed not by laity but largely in Germany by a group of relativist Hegelian theologians?
Cupich sidestepped away from the question, replying that those who have such concerns should ask themselves: “Do we really believe that the Spirit is no longer guiding the Church?” reported the Catholic Herald.


The professor said after the event that if he had been given the chance to reply, he would have told the Cardinal that “the Church is indeed guided by the Holy Spirit, via good Catholic souls such as Cardinal Burke and many others.”

Rist is a Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Toronto and now holds a Chair in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. A native of the United Kingdom, Rist is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He is also a convert to Catholicism from agnosticism, thanks to his study of Plato, the Gospels and other ancient texts.

Rist, whose career as a philosopher and a classicist spans fifty years and three continents, has written 16 scholarly books and over a hundred journal articles on ancient and Christian philosophy or the Gospels. He also contributed to Remaining in the Truth of Christ, the defense of Catholic teaching that was “intercepted” at the Synod on the Family.

Rist told LifeSiteNews that he regards the Francis papacy as a “disaster.” 

“I regard this papacy as a disaster and Bergoglio as possibly — because of his tampering with established doctrine — as possibly the worst pope we have ever had,” he said. 

“Cupich's attempt to defend him [at Cambridge] was itself dependent on misrepresentations, the evading of legitimate questions, and in at least one case — that of my charge of the Synod on the Family being rigged — of downright lying. I was teaching in Rome at the time, and contributed to Remaining in the Truth of Christ, so I know about what happened firsthand,” he added.

The professor said that one of the principal difficulties in the Church today is when people confuse the Church with the person of the Pope.

"One of the basic problems we have is that too many Catholics (and others) confuse the pope with the Church,” he said. “Cupich tried to play that card by suggesting that Amoris Laetitia — even in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis — is de fide [i.e. doctrine that must be believed], which it manifestly is not.”

Rist suggested that Pope Francis is not doing his job well.

“It is the function of the Pope to provide unity in the Church by scrutinizing new ideas to see if they are compatible with the inherited regula fidei [rule of faith],” the professor continued. “Instead of unity Pope Francis has caused massive confusion and division – and many sad clergy are afraid of being sanctioned if they speak out.”

Father Linus Clovis makes the point that,“Obedience is owed to the pope, but the pope owes obedience to the word and the apostolic tradition. We have to obey the pope, but the pope himself must obey the written word. He must obey the tradition. He must respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Obedience is owed to the pope, but it is the duty of the pope to give the character of possibility to this obedience. The pope has to facilitate our obeying him, by himself being obedient to the Word of God. Pope Felix III told us, ‘an error that is not resisted is approved. A truth that is not defended is suppressed.’ So we have an obligation to resist error, and we must do everything that we can to promote the truth.”  Father Clovis made this remark in response to the crisis in the Church and the role of Pope Francis in this crisis.  See here.

The Pope has no authority to change the Deposit of Faith.  See here.

Jeffrey Bond on Lenten ashes...

Tammy Ziegler makes the point that:

"You never know who might be touched by your quiet witness of ashes on Ash Wednesday. Last year, I really wasn’t that busy but I convinced myself I didn’t have time to go to Church in the morning. At work, I passed a surgeon in the hall who had ashes. Knowing his schedule was more hectic than mine, I reluctantly admitted to myself my problem wasn’t my schedule, my problem was laziness. He will never know he inspired my eagerness to be at morning Mass on Ash Wednesday.

The Eucharistic Minister who gave me ashes got me good; my forehead had a big cross and loose flakes of ash landed on my cheeks and nose. Before I cleaned the lower part of my face, I snapped a selfie for social media. The photo sparked conversations about the experiences we have in our secular world and sparked my own memories of past experiences on Ash Wednesday."

Imagine my surprise and disappointment when a Facebook friend, who is supposed to be Catholic, posted this:

Supercilious?  Really?

"su·per·cil·i·ous
ˌso͞opərˈsilēəs/
adjective
Behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others."

A witness to faith is viewed by this sad individual as "arrogance" or "elitism."

Our sad, broken world is in dire need of more such witness.  Not less.

Pope Saint John Paul II:

“Today the Church lays great stress on this truth, confirmed by the history of every man. Remember that 'to dust you shall return'. Remember that your life on earth has a limit!… Therefore the message of Ash Wednesday is expressed with the words of St. Paul: 'We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God' (2 Cor 5:20-21). Collaborate with him!”

We are called by the Lord Jesus to be His ambassadors.  We are called to give witness.  If we are ashamed of Him, we have been warned:

"For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty, and that of his Father, and of the holy angels." Luke 9:26, Douay-Rheims.

Witness is not elitism or arrogance.  It is fidelity.

The Flight from God: Building a New Tower of Babel

As noted here:

"Change the Catechism. If its doctrine does not coincide with the new desired orthodoxy concerning homosexuality, it will be better to adopt the solution of Alexander the Great, who with one stroke of his sword decided to untangle the Gordian knot in his own way: by cutting it in two.

In the same way, in order to accept and definitively clear the way for homo-erotic practice, it is necessary to address the fundamentals, and from there everything will be easier. Now that an attitude of laxity and acceptance of homosexuality as a natural variant of human sexuality is becoming increasingly common, there remains only one small obstacle to adding a full affirmation of LGBT rights as an ingredient in the “Christian salsa” – to remove the Catechism of the Catholic Church, considered the last obstacle to be overcome.

Thus the battle will now move to a doctrinal level, but everything must be prepared with an affected and reassuring language which only a certain attitude of clericalism knows how to do. Above all, there must first be sent forth pioneers who make themselves interpreters and spokesmen of this line of thought. A small group of theologians and priests, a few bishops and even so-called pastoral workers, who lead a solitary battle outside of all restraint [from the Magisterium], but who place themselves prominently in view in their dioceses, while the silent majority is dozing.

The last shot, chronologically, is given to certain lay people, according to the precisely-ordered tapestry of the tearful cause. So reports Repubblica, telling the story of two parents who have accepted their lesbian daughter and have now joined the team put together by the Bishop of Civitavecchia, Luigi Marrucci, who himself belongs to the so-called Christian LGBT movement. “We were firmly convinced that homosexuality was a sin,” they say. And now? “We prayed and read the parable of the Prodigal Son, and we came to understand that Lord accepts all without judging. Martina is living in the truth and we love her as she is.” What truth are they speaking about? Certainly not the truth of the Gospel or the story of Sodom in the Bible nor the truth of the Catechism, to which they make a little peep towards the end of the story: “The problem is with the Catechism, which says that homosexuality is an intrinsically-disordered orientation.”

Here we have found the stumbling stone. This is the key observation necessary in order to “finally” clear the way for the homo-heresy in a Catholic tone. In fact this interview did not just happen by chance, rather, it was initiated from afar. Above all, to affirm the incompatibility of the Catechism, i.e., Catholic doctrine, with the world as it is experienced to be, which would be a worldview based on immanent experience and thus not based on truths of the Divine Law. But so it is.

Chronologically, [those who want a Catholic revolution] must now put in doubt the truth about homosexuality as taught by the Catechism, as Avvenire observed here with a well-laid out editorial by Luciano Moia: “There are those who, recognizing the Catholic Tradition contained in the Catechism, maintain the necessity of an affective life conducted in chastity. But there are also those, including bishops and theologians, who ask the Church to make a more profound reflection on the significance of sexuality, not excluding a [permissive] revision of moral theology.”

Who is right in this flirtation with moral relativism? The latter group seems to understand. Look at how here they are laying the groundwork to consider the Catechism no longer untouchable, introducing the virus of revision, as if the truth about man and the divine plan for the human race was merely a social construct subject to changing opinions."

Those of you who follow this Blog know full well that I have been warning for years this was coming.  See here, here and here for example.

In his powerful classic entitled, "The Flight from God," the eminent Swiss philosopher Max Picard writes: "In every age man has been in flight from God. What distinguishes the Flight to-day from every other flight is this: once Faith was the universal, and prior to the individual; there was an objective world of Faith, while the Flight was only accomplished subjectively, within the individual man. It came into being through the individual man's separating himself from the world of Faith by an act of decision. A man who wanted to flee had first to make his own flight. The opposite is true to-day. The objective and external world of Faith is no more; it is Faith which has to be remade moment by moment through the individual's act of decision, that is to say, through the individual's cutting himself off from the world of the Flight. For to-day it is no longer Faith which exists as an objective world, but rather the Flight; for every situation into which man comes is from the beginning, without his making it so, plainly a situation of flight, since everything in this world exists only in the form of the Flight." (The Flight from God, Gateway Editions, 1951, pp.1-2).

Picard goes on to explain in this critically important work that, "The man of the Flight cannot bear the feeling that there is one thing and one thing only: the Flight. He needs something wholly other, something, now threatening, now friendly, which is above him, like a heaven beneath which he can make his journey...This is Art...The very existence of Art in a sphere of its own already means that it is 'wholly other,' and from the beginning it is other than reality itself. The strange thing about Art is that a work of art is indeed made by man, but that once it is made it stands there independently of man. This gives it a semblance of otherness." (The Flight from God, pp. 138-139).

This is of the utmost importance for "modern man" as he flees from his God Who is Wholly Other. Nature abhors a vacuum after all. And so, in his flight from the Divine Other, man in the flight substitutes "Art" for the Divine Being as the Wholly Other." Picard explains that the cinema "..is the perfect Flight" and that here is where "men may learn how best to flee." For this reason, "..cinemas are everywhere erected, examples of the Flight. The figures on the screen are fashioned only for the Flight, they are disembodied. Like one in a hurry who drops his luggage, the figures have laid down their bodily substance somewhere in the background, while they themselves make off in the foreground of the screen, outlines only of their bodies. Sometimes they are still for a moment, looking backwards fearfully, as if there was one who pursued them. Alas, it is only a game, they do but pretend to be afraid. No one can reach them, these things without being. And now, as if they want to fool the one who pursues them, they move more slowly, they even translate a movement which ought o be fast into a slow one; they demonstrate slowness in the Flight, so sure are they that nothing can reach them, these things without being. Here in the cinema it is as if there were no more men, as if the real men were somewhere in safety, had for long been in safety, and as if these shadows had been left behind simply to flee in place of the real men. They only pretend to be in flight and even the men who sit in front of the screen in order to gaze at the shadows there seem nothing but dummies, arranged to complete the illusion,while the real men have long since departed." (pp. 8-9).

Dr. Von Hildebrand was right when he said that, "Modern man has lost that consciousness of being a creature which even the pagan possessed, and he lives in the illusion that by his own powers he can transform the world into a terrestrial paradise." (The New Tower of Babel, Sophia Institute Press, 1994, p. 21).

Having decided against God, "modern man" has embraced the Flight. This flight from the Divine Other has led to the decline of man's confidence in the powers of human reason to attain reality and truth. Man in the Flight has concluded today that all truth is relative. In the same way that Pilate asked Our Lord, "What is truth?" and hastened in his flight to the judgment-hall without waiting for an answer (John 18:38), so "modern man," in his embrace of relativism, joins the flight without any thought of inquiring for the truth. Instead, he settles for illusion, rejecting the permanent authority of truth as founded by the Divine Other in reality, reason and revelation while setting himself up as the autonomous source of all truth:"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).

The Antichrist is behind the Flight, urging "modern man" to hasten in his Flight and not to look back. How will this Flight end? In the words of Romano Guardini:"One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence without Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower." (The Lord, p. 513).

Are we not approaching the Reign of Antichrist? "Modern man" strives to build a godless world where he is subject to no one but himself. Having eliminated God from this world, "modern man" deifies and absolutizes himself. Having rejected his place as a creature dependent upon God, "modern man" is moving, "..not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, p. 248).

Father Zuhlsdorf gets to the crux of the controversy over Amoris laetitia: Christ or Chaos?

“You must do your duty and make chaos all night..." - Francis to Krakow, Poland youth.

Father John Zuhlsdorf, referring to Francis' Amoris laetitia, gets to the crux of the matter:

"If the unrepentent sinner, unshriven and without a firm purpose of amendment, can officially be admitted to Holy Communion, it’s game over for discipline in the Church.  It’s over for authoritative teaching on faith and morals.

If Christ was wrong about marriage and divorce, then He isn’t God and everything we are doing is pointless and idolatrous."

Lumen Gentium, No. 25, referring to the Pontiff's infallibility, teaches clearly that, "...this infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals, extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded."

Got that?  Pay attention now.  The Pope's infallibility "extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends."  It does not surpass or supercede Revelation, a Revelation from the Lord Jesus which must be "religiously guarded and faithfully expounded."

The Pope is the Custodian of the Deposit of Faith, not its Master.

Pope Saint John Paul II, in Familiaris Consortio, No. 84, taught authoritatively that:

"The Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples." —Familiaris Consortio, “On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World”, No. 84.

There is confusion in the Church because Francis isn't satisfied with being the Custodian of the Deposit of Faith.  He wants to be its Master.

Francis: Change the Catechism, which Pope Saint John Paul II called "a sure norm," because I prefer my own understanding

Lifesite News is reporting that:

"Pope Francis may have begun a new phase in his pontificate: doctrinal change, a priest and former philosophy professor has written.

Italian Fr. Giovanni Scalese, the local Ordinary for Afghanistan, wrote a post titled 'Fase B' (Phase B) on his blog 'Antiquo robore,' arguing that Pope Francis laid out his new plan for doctrinal evolution in the Church in a recent speech.

The October 11 speech to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, in which Pope Francis presented his views on the death penalty, has a 'programmatic' character, Scalese said. It represents a 'turning point.' By concentrating on the details of Francis’s speeches, Scalese argued, some might miss the bigger picture of what the Pope is doing.

In his speech, the Pope challenged previous Catholic teaching by calling the death penalty 'contrary to the Gospel.' He said he would like the Catechism of the Catholic Church to change according to a 'new understanding of Christian truth,' saying that only a 'partial vision can think of ‘the deposit of faith’ as something static.'"

Change the Catechism of the Catholic Church according to a "new understanding of Christian truth"?

The First Vatican Council:

"For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."

In his Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, Pope John Paul II said that, "The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith. May it serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the kingdom!"

A sure norm for teaching the faith!  But Francis believes himself wiser than all those who worked on this Catechism. And just who was that?

Again, Pope (Saint) John Paul II:

"It can be said that this catechism is the result of the collaboration of the whole Episcopate of the Catholic Church, who generously accepted my invitation to share responsibility for an enterprise which directly concerns the life of the Church. This response elicits in me a deep feeling of joy, because the harmony of so many voices truly expresses what could be called the symphony of the faith. The achievement of this catechism thus reflects the collegial nature of the Episcopate: it testifies to the Church's catholicity."

We are witnessing a pontiff who forgets that we stand on the shoulders of giants.  A man who believes it is the Church which must change and that this is so because he is "wiser" than all previous Popes, Saints, Doctors and Fathers of the Church - as well as the entire Episcopate combined.

A regular font of humility!

Islam supporting Bishops have a death wish for the Church

From New Oxford Review:

"Why is it that Catholic bishops seem to be plumping for Muslims? Why do they issue statements about Islam that are dishonest and misleading? Why do they appear to be so intent on protecting the image of Islam? If you’ve asked yourself these questions, you’re not alone. Given current events and the historical record of Islam’s aggressive campaigns against the Christian West, the rational thinker could be forgiven for believing that the leaders of the Christian world might just want to pay a bit more attention to contemporary anti-Christian violence — thousands of terror attacks, beheadings, stabbings, kidnappings, rapes, torching of churches and Christian-owned businesses — committed by Muslims, in the name of Islam.

Instead, most of the world’s Catholic bishops (with some heroic exceptions, such as Ignatius Joseph III Younan, patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch, and Jean-Clément Jeanbart, Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo), when they’re not extolling the virtues of Islam as a “religion of peace,” can be found counseling their flocks against so-called Islamophobia — anti-Islam sentiment, bias, or violence — typically in the immediate aftermath of a Muslim-perpetrated act of terror or instance of anti-Christian persecution.

For example, in May, after Muslim militants in the Philippines burned down the Cathedral of Mary Help of Christians, murdered more than a hundred Catholics, and held a dozen others hostage, Bishop Edwin de la Peña y Angot of the Marawi prelature worried out loud that the ensuing anti-Muslim sentiments might damage interreligious dialogue. “Some of the natural biases that Christians have against Muslims will be stirred up again,” he said in an interview (Zenit, June 9). “Interfaith dialogue is a very fragile process and these incidents can destroy the foundation that we have built.” About anti-Christian sentiments among Muslims, the bishop was silent.

While Christians in Muslim countries are being slaughtered, exiled, subjugated, or forced to convert in numbers never before seen, some U.S. bishops and those who work for them have actually moved to demonize priests and Catholic teachers who speak out against Islam — in many cases, for merely stating facts about anti-Christian persecution. They have accused those who point out such inconvenient truths of spreading hate."

Writing for the Canada Free Press some years ago, Daniel Greenfield noted how, "Obama [and the U.S. Bishops are largely following his example] has made the case for Islam in America, on the grounds that America’s religious diversity promotes the religious freedom of all. Islam no less than any other belief system. Yet if introducing Islam into America promotes religious freedom, then why is there no religious freedom in the Muslim world? Why are churches firebombed in Malaysia because Christians presumed to use the word Allah? Why are non-Muslims forbidden to enter the city of Mecca, from which Jews and Christians were ethnically cleansed by Mohammed? Why are Coptic Christians being oppressed and humiliated by the Egyptian government? Why are Muslims murdering Buddhist teachers in Thailand? There are a thousand examples, all of which add up to a single conclusion—Muslims demand religious freedom, yet are not willing to give it to others.

Jews are fleeing European cities in record numbers because of Muslim persecution This has ominous implications for the prospects of religious freedom in America. Nor is this a theoretical issue. Jews are fleeing European cities in record numbers because of Muslim persecution. The recent case of Malmo, highlights the fact that Islam actually threatens religious diversity. Simply to protect themselves, Malmo’s 650 Jews were forced to spend half a million Kronor a year. The situation is much the same across Europe, as Jewish institutions are forced to become fortresses. What the Nazis did not succeed in accomplishing in Europe, the rise of Islam seems to be doing.

Nor are Christians safe, they are simply in the majority for now. But Christians and other religions were once in the majority in the Middle East. Until they were massacred and repressed by the tidal wave of Islam. Today the religions that were once a majority, whether it is Jews in Israel, Christians in Byzantium or Zoroastrians in Persia, have become oppressed minorities. Some may take comfort in the notion that “It can’t happen here.” But the fate of Europe’s Jews, shows that it can happen here. And that it is happening here.

Religious freedom requires that the religions which enjoy it, agree to tolerate each other. If they do not, instead of religious freedom, there is a religious war.

Looking at the religious map of the world today, Islam has grown in non-Muslim countries, while non-Muslims continue to dwindle in Muslim countries. And even the number of non-Muslim religious believers in non-Muslim countries dwindles, when Muslims are introduced into the equation. If Islam were a fish in a fish tank, it’s clear that it would be a piranha. If you put it into the fish tank, very soon you have a lot of Islamic piranhas and only a handful of other fish that survive, only because the piranhas need to keep some of them alive in order to feed on them. If you don’t like that picture, take an honest look at the Muslim world, with its dominant Muslim caste and inferior non-Muslims living in the cracks of their walls, and draw a better one.

Over and over again, the rise of Islam has meant the eradication of religious freedom The question is do we want to import this into the United States? Because history and current events show that there is no better way to insure the end of religious freedom in the United States, than to introduce Islam into the picture. Over and over again, the rise of Islam has meant the eradication of religious freedom. And those who fail to learn from that past, will be doomed to repeat it.

Obama attempted to position his remarks as being against religious intolerance, but yet he spoke in defense of religious intolerance. Because what greater act of religious intolerance could there than building a mosque in a place where Muslims had previously murdered 3000 Americans? Nor are such actions unique on the part of Muslims, who have routinely hijacked other people’s sacred areas and structures to make a statement about Islamic supremacism. If Islam were truly as tolerant as Obama claims, its adherents would not attempt to build a massive mosque complex that they do not actually need in this place." (Islam Means the End of Religious Freedom, Canada Free Press, August 15, 2010).

The Bishops who issue dishonest statements about Islam have a death wish for the supernatural faith of Roman Catholicism.  They desire a false irenicism in pursuit of a perverse religious amalgam: Chrislam.

See here.

Related reading here.

Facebook: The Father Hunwicke article you attempted to share contains abusive content

Just this morning, I attempted to post an article written by Father John Hunwicke on Facebook.  Twice I was prevented from doing so and received this message:

Then, a friend tried and received this message:

So, Facebook is once again banning content which pro-Francis folks deem "objectionable."  This isn't the first time Facebook has blocked me for posting material which they object to because it is deemed "too Catholic." See here for example.

The social media network, Which permits all manner of filth and violence, including jihadist videos which depict graphic violence, has a problem with moral objections to Amoris laetitia.

The New World Order, with its humanitarian religion, will not tolerate any dissent.  The supernatural faith of Roman Catholicism must be stamped out.

This video found its way onto my Facebook Page after this episode.  I deleted it.

The Masonic Francis advances a pacifist "Gospel": Proximate preparation for Antichrist

Francis, the Masonic infiltrator foretold by Nubius, is now openly calling for a Luciferic one-world order while advancing a false pacifist "Gospel" of peace.

Advancing a pacifist "gospel," the Masonic Destroyer asserted that, "There is no god of war."

Really?

Exodus 15: 3-8:

"The Lord is a warrior, Lord is his name! Pharaoh’s chariots and army he hurled into the sea; the elite of his officers were drowned in the Red Sea. The flood waters covered them, they sank into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, magnificent in power, your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In your great majesty you overthrew your adversaries; you loosed your wrath to consume them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the flowing waters stood like a mound, the flood waters foamed in the midst of the sea."

Isaiah 42:13:

The Lord goes forth like a warrior,
like a man of war he stirs up his fury;
He shouts out his battle cry,
against his enemies he shows his might."

Deuteronomy 33:27:

The God of old is a refuge;
a support are the arms of the Everlasting. He drove the enemy out of your way and he said, “Destroy!”

In Matthew 10: 34-36, Jesus explains that He will be a cause of division, because not everyone is open to Him Who is Truth:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’"

"And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord (Jesus) will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming, the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie, and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved. Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned." (2 Thessalonians 2: 6-12).


This scriptural passage is most important. For here Paul emphasizes that the power of the Antichrist is one of seduction. Antichrist is a seducer who seeks to draw people away from the truth. He will work from within religion to seduce people to abandon traditional Christianity and to worship him. How effective will he be? Father Livio Fanzaga, commenting on The Antichrist by Vladimir Soloviev, writes, "So great is the Antichrist's power of seduction over believers - and they never realize it - that he will openly pose as the savior and restorer of religion and universal peace. He will deceive many."


But a tiny remnant will remain faithful. As Pope Paul VI said, "It is enough if only a tiny flock, no matter how small, survives." These words are sobering and should speak loudly to us. Father Fanzaga continues, "In Soloviev, the remnant is defined by recognition of Jesus Christ, 'Himself and all that comes from Him. This is their total horizon and the inexhaustible meaning of life. The tiny flock is not made up of the avant guard intelligentsia - the intellectuals and the theologians have joined the emperor. Neither are they defined in terms of a moral code. Rather they are those who refuse to serve two masters.' I tend to regard them as ordinary people, the humble and those who remain faithful." (The Wrath of God, p. 33).


Pope Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in an essay entitled, "A Final Reflection: Soloviev's vision of eschatological unity," reminds us that: "..the Antichrist has his followers, and always even among those occupying the highest spiritual offices.....Therefore, we should already, and always, be motivated by concern lest, with big Christian words and wrapped in a cloak of Christianity, we become servants of the Antichrist, who wants to set up his kingdom in this world and to render the future kingdom of Christ redundant."

The Antichrist will tell us that Jesus has failed to put an end to violence but that he alone can promise "universal peace."

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death.

Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

The False Prophet is doing his work.  Just as the Baptist paved the way for the God-Man Christ Jesus, so the Masonic False Prophet is paving the way for the man-god (John 5:43).

The hidden hand* of Luciferic ecclesiastical masonry has revealed itself.

*  See here