25 Mar 2017

Pope Leo XIII: “Anglican Ordinations are absolutely null and utterly void”. Francis: When Catholics can’t go on Sunday to the Catholic celebration they should go to the Anglican



Francis worshipping with the Anglicans. (See video of his recent visit to "All-Saints" Anglican "Church" in Rome HERE)


Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII: “Wherefore, strictly adhering, in this matter, to the decrees of the pontiffs, our predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by our authority, of our own initiative and certain knowledge, we pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.” (See: Does the Catholic Church recognise Anglican Ordinations as Valid?)

Francis: “...I was very friendly with the Anglicans at Buenos Aires, because the back of the parish of Merced was connected with the Anglican Cathedral. I was very friendly with Bishop Gregory Venables, very friendly. But there’s another experience: In the north of Argentina there are the Anglican missions with the aborigines, and the Anglican Bishop and the Catholic Bishop there work together and teach. And when people can’t go on Sunday to the Catholic celebration they go to the Anglican, and the Anglicans go to the Catholic, because they don’t want to spend Sunday without a celebration; and they work together. And here [at the Vatican], the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith knows this. And they engage in charity together. And the two Bishops are friends and the two communities are friends. I think this is a richness [treasure] that our young Churches can bring to Europe and to the Churches that have a great tradition. And they give to us the solidity of a very, very well cared for and very thought out tradition. It’s true, — ecumenism in young Churches is easier. It’s true. But I believe that – and I return to the second question – ecumenism is perhaps more solid in theological research in a more mature Church, older in research, in the study of history, of Theology, of the Liturgy, as the Church in Europe is. And I think it would do us good, to both Churches: from here, from Europe to send some seminarians to have pastoral experience in the young Churches, so much is learned. We know [that] they come, from the young Churches, to study at Rome, at least the Catholics [do]. But to send them to see, to learn from the young Churches would be a great richness in the sense you said. Ecumenism is easier there, it’s easier, something that does not mean [it’s] more superficial, no, no, it’s not superficial. They don’t negotiate the faith and [their] identity. In the north of Argentina, an aborigine says to you: “I’m Anglican.” But the bishop is not here, the Pastor is not here, the Reverend is not here . . . “I want to praise God on Sunday and so I go to the Catholic Cathedral,” and vice versa. They are riches of the young Churches. I don’t know, this is what comes to me to say to you. (See: Pope’s Q & A at Anglican All Saints Church ).

23 Mar 2017

Why we must stand with Bishop Williamson who was “excommunicated” by a manifest anti-pope


by Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi

Bishop Williamson
Today we see a lot of evil-doers who parade themselves as “Catholics” but are—by their actions—clearly not. You will see these evil-doers chiefly among those who adamantly and fanatically adhere to the teachings of Novus Ordoism, among the Sedevacantists, and unfortunately, even among members of the SSPX, or rather, what is now rightly called the Neo-SSPX. I don’t need to say much about these peoples. I have encountered them several times and can simply describe them as “schismatic, fanatical, and haters of truth”. It doesn’t matter whether you meet them among Novus Ordites, or Sedevacantists, or the SSPX—they are just the same, ENEMIES OF TRUTH! When they come to you for discussion on Church matters you will certainly think they’ve come to learn sincerely—BUT NO. Just like heretics do, they’ve already “fashioned” their own “Catholicism” and that’s all they’re really interested to spread! Some people think the main problem in today’s Church is just the apostasy of Church leaders. But no—there are now powerful heretics even among the “lay faithful” as well.

Vatican II of course is the cause of all this. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who ordained four bishops in 1988including great Bishop Richard Williamsonto continue his good work of propagating the true Catholic Faith, is arguably the greatest opponent of the evil council. In an interview he granted in the 1970s we read the following:

Question:

You have debated and taken part in the deliberations of the second council of the Vatican, have you not?

Archbishop Lefebvre:

Yes.

Question:

Did you not sign and agree to the resolutions of this council?

Archbishop Lefebvre:

No. First of all, I have not signed all the documents of Vatican II because of the last two acts. The first, concerned with "Religion and Freedom," I have not signed. The other one, that of “The Church in the Modern World”, I also have not signed. This latter is in my opinion the most oriented toward modernism and liberalism.

Question:

Are you on record for not only not signing the documents but also on record to publicly oppose them?

Archbishop Lefebvre:

Yes. In a book, which I have published in France, I accuse the council of error on these resolutions, and I have given all the documents by which I attack the position of the council—principally, the two resolutions concerning the issues of religion and freedom and "The Church in the Modern World.”

Question:

Why were you against these decrees?

Archbishop Lefebvre:

Because these two resolutions are inspired by liberal ideology which former popes described to usthat is to say, a religious license as understood and promoted by the Freemasons, the humanists, the modernists and the liberals.

Question:

Why do you object to them?

Archbishop Lefebvre:

This ideology says that all the cultures are equal; all the religions are equal, that there is not a one and only true faith. All this leads to the abuse and perversion of freedom of thought. All these perversions of freedom, which were condemned throughout the centuries by all the popes, have now been accepted by the council of Vatican II. (See: Archbishop Lefebvre’s ordination not also Valid?).

Carefully note his emphasis onliberal ideology which former popes described to us—that is to say, a religious license as understood and promoted by the Freemasons, the humanists, the modernists and the liberals—the very same “liberation theology” which “Pope” Francis is promoting today and is being intentionally ignored by Bishop Fellay who claims to be Archbishop Lefebvre’s “successor”!

Precisely, Bishop Williamson stands to champion the stance of Archbishop Lefebvre and that’s why he has been persecuted both by anti-pope Francis and Bishop Fellay—and that’s why all true Catholics must stand with him. Standing with him doesn’t mean senselessly declaring all Novus Ordo priests “invalidly ordained” or stupidly saying that the Church no longer exists except what we see in Sedevacantism! Rather, it means standing with the Catholic Church—standing with Truth, standing with Justice.  
Indeed, Francis-church, as many observers say, has become almost like a club, where sodomite “priests” run rampant and advance the most demonic homosexual agenda. Francis has commended Islam, prayed at the Blue Mosque in Turkey (the nation of the Antichrist), and kissed the hand of Michele de Paolis, one of the most notorious homosexual activists in Italy, and so on! Was it surprising then, that the same “pope” Francis—who has been praised and honoured by Freemasons even openly—“excommunicated” Bishop Williamson who, like Lefebvre, is an outspoken critique of the modernist agenda that has infiltrated the Church? Just like Lefebvre who defied John Paul II of unfortunate memory and went ahead to consecrate four bishops (and was falsely “excommunicated” by the same John Paul II), so Williamson, in 2015, after having been persecuted by Bishop Fellay, and even "expelled" in 2012, defied him and the anti-pope (Francis) by ordaining Fr Jean-Michel Faure, 73, a bishop without "papal approval" during a ceremony in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, on the feast of St Joseph.

Modernist Vatican “excommunicated” him, yet they are not excommunicating the multitude of corrupt and evil bishops and priests who are running rampant throughout the Church! For example, Robert L. Kincl is a canon law judge for the Vatican who was appointed by modernist Rome. He teaches that it’s okay for two men to masturbate each other, and not only this—he also defended a convicted child molester, Robert Hrdlicka. Even Novus Ordite Theodore Shoebat protested against this, in his 2015 article "Pope Francis Excommunicates Conservative Bishop, While He Tolerates Evil Priests Who Advance The Homosexual Agenda":

“I confronted Deacon Ron Walker, an official of the Vatican, asking why the Church has done nothing to punish Robert L. Kincl, a priest and canon law judge who was appointed by the Pope himself, who teaches that if two men masturbate each other they do not commit sin, and who himself defended confirmed child molester priest, Fr. Robert Hrdlicka. This is after Shoebat.com filed a complaint against Kincl after we caught him teaching us depravity.

“Deacon Ron Walker and the Bishop of Austin, Joe Vasquez, and Vicar General Daniel Garcia, did nothing to have Robert L. Kincl punished, even after they promised to take care of this evil. Why Pope Francis excommunicated Bishop Williamson, why doesn’t he also excommunicate Robert L. Kincl?

“Not only this, but we also have Msgr. Michael Yarbrough, a priest who forced himself on a young man named Hector Escelante and kissed him on the lips. Yarbrough is also a major donor to a homosexual activist group. Why hasn’t the Pope excommunicated this deviant?

“While we were doing some work in Texas we were told of a man named Msgr. Michael Yarbrough (also known as Michael Yarborough), and how he is a deviant priest who forcefully kissed a young man named Hector Escalante on the lips, and how he was supporting a pro homosexual group called Call to Action. Here is a photo of Msgr. Michael Yarbrough:

Msgr. Michael Yarbrough
“Well, we decided that we were going to bait Msgr. Michael Yarbrough. I visited him in a confessional booth where I told him my age and apparently it registered an interest and he asked me if I wanted to come and hang out with him. He fell for the bait. I found it very odd that a priest of his high position, with a very busy schedule, would all of a sudden want to spend time with me.

“I accepted his offer, and gave him a call, and asked him if we would meet at a book store. He said that he preferred that we meet in his office.

“When I did research on Msgr. Michael Yarbrough, I found a 2002 report written in the San Antonio Express which stated:

“Hector Escalante complained that Monsignor Michael Yarbrough kissed him on the lips and groped him in his office in 1998 when Escalante was 27, on his last day on the job as a St. Matthew’s Parish employee.

“Yarbrough admitted kissing him but said Escalante misunderstood the gesture, which the priest said was common among men in his family. He denied groping Escalante.

“Imagine, a man kissing another man on the lips as “common.”

“I told Msgr. Michael Yarbrough that it would be better that we meet in a book store, to which he agreed. I asked him how much time he had, and he said, as long as I wanted. After doing some more research, I also found out that on top of kissing a young man on the lips, Msgr. Michael Yarbrough is also a major donor to a pro homosexual group, called Call to Action, and I found his name on a list made by Call to Action designated as “major donors”. I took a snapshot of the list with Msgr. Michael Yarbrough’s name...

“So, we had the meeting at the bookstore, and after some conversation, I busted him on his heresies and his scandals, and also paid a visit to his church where I was eventually kicked out by his followers (who probably know nothing on how evil this heretic is)...” And so on!

We must stand with the persecuted Bishop Williamson (even if we haven’t seen him or he hasn’t visited our country), and totally reject Bishop Fellay because he is betraying Archbishop Lefebvre by mingling with modernist Rome in the name of seeking for “approval”. I myself used to tolerate the SSPX under Bishop Fellay but it was just a matter of conscience—at a point when I could no longer bear—particularly after his meeting with the anti-pope in Casa Santa Marta on October 13 2016, the very day the anti-pope went to Sweden to honour arch-heretic and blasphemer Martin Luther—my conscience said to me, STOP, and I obeyed, then wrote the following:

“Well now is the time for all SSPX faithful to put aside their sentiments and understand that this was exactly how Vatican II revolution started--gradual compromising! As Bishop Williamson warned three years ago, in his Open Letter To Priests of The Society of St. Pius X, “Blind leaders are a punishment from God”; we have to be serious with our study of the Catholic Faith and we also have to monitor seriously the activities of those leading us and be ready to challenge them whenever they mess up (doing so doesn't in any way means we hate them), “otherwise” said Bishop Williamson to the priests, “you will lose your Society without realizing it, just as the mass of Catholics lost their Church with Vatican II, and did not realize it. Then having made the disaster clear in your own mind, you must tell the truth to your Society flock, namely the danger in which your Superiors are placing their faith and therewith their eternal salvation.” 
           
“YES, Bishop Williamson was right when he warned three years ago that Bishop Fellay's leadership is leading the SSPX "away from the direction set for it by Archbishop Lefebvre, and towards the ideas and ideals of the Second Vatican Council." ” (See: OPEN LETTER TO PRIESTS of the SOCIETY of ST PIUS X, by Bishop Williamson).

As one writer comments:

“Of course we know that Bishop Williamson was unjustly expelled from the personal issues and agenda of Bishop Fellay wanting to reconcile with modernist Rome. Bishop Williamson was in the way. Or rather, any thought of Archbishop Lefebvre was in the way which is why near 60-priests have been transferred, expelled, moved over, incarcerated like Bishop Tissier who is still held in house arrest in Chicago, and some priests tried in Menzingen’s kangaroo courts admonished with bizarre ‘punishments’ to be silent. Also to mention some books of Archbishop Lefebvre quotes are banned inside the neo-sspx and legal action taken against any entity who uses quotes of Archbishop Lefebvre that Menzingen does not want to shed light on their deceits. 

“When Bishop Williamson was expelled in Oct. 2012, he wrote his last letter to Bishop Fellay as an open letter for the world to see the hypocrisy of Menzingen, its scandals, and a Catholic Bishop’s admonishment to another Catholic Bishop. In the end of Bishop Williamson’s letter, he stated:

“In brief, your Excellency, you may now go ahead and exclude me, because the arguments above are not likely to persuade you, but the exclusion will be more apparent than real. I have been a member of the Archbishop’s Society ever since my perpetual engagement. I have been one of its priests for 36 years. I have been one of its bishops, like yourself, for nearly a quarter of a century. That is not all to be wiped out with one stroke of a pen. Member of the Archbishop’s Society I therefore remain, and I wait.” OPEN LETTER TO BISHOP FELLAY ON AN “EXCLUSION”, London, 19 October, 2012, Bishop Williamson. 
www.therecusant.com/bp-w-open-letter-to-bp-f"

(See the article: Is Bishop Williamson still a SSPX Priest and Bishop?).

In short, currently to be a member of the SSPX (as championed by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) means to stand with Bishop Williamson—one of the greatest opponents of Vatican II Church. To follow Bishop Fellay is to do just the opposite! 

19 Mar 2017

Canon lawyers and theologians to hold conference on ‘deposing the pope’

by Pete Baklinski
 
St. Peter's statue at the Vatican
PARIS, March 17, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- Canon lawyers, theologians, and scholars will be meeting in Paris in two weeks to discuss a topic that has never been the focus of a Catholic conference before: How to depose a heretical pope. 

Titled Deposing the Pope: Theological Premises, Canonical Models, Constitutional Challenge, the conference seeks to explore the mechanisms that are built into the Catholic Church for dealing with a pope who openly teaches falsehood and even heresy. 

Speaking at the conference will be University of Paris Professor Laurent Fonbaustier who published a 1200 page book last year on the topic that was titled The Deposition of the Heretical Pope.

The conference includes 15 speakers who will be giving a range of talks on the subject matter with titles such as “Conciliarism and the Deposition of a Pope Through the Prism of Gallicanism,” "The Downfall of the Pope: Between Renunciation and Deposition," and "The Deposition of John XXII and Benedict XIII at Constance, 1415–1417." 
                                       Brochure from the 'Deposing the Pope' Conference

Speaking at the conference are Professors Nicolas Warembourg and Cyrille Dounot, two of the 45 Catholic academics who last June submitted an appeal to the Dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome requesting a repudiation of erroneous propositions they found in Pope Francis’ exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

The group of 45 Catholic academics said the Pope’s exhortation presented “dangers to Catholic faith and morals” since it “contains a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to Catholic faith and morals.”

The conference comes after four years of Francis at the helm of the Barque of Peter. During this time the Pope, and the people he has put into key positions, have steered the Church in a direction that would have been unthinkable to faithful Catholics under the two previous pontiffs of John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. 

Francis’ ambiguous speeches and especially his papal writings have turned cardinal against cardinal, bishop against bishop, and lay-faithful against lay-faithful. Doctrinal confusion has resulted in pastoral guidelines being issued based on his writings that allow Holy Communion to be given to those living in adultery. 


Last November Vaticanist Giuseppe Nardi reported that a 1975 theological study by the learned Brazilian layman Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira was making the rounds in the Vatican. The layman examined in his work titled The Theological Hypothesis of a Heretical Pope whether it is possible for a pope to be or become a heretic, and if so, what consequences would follow from this. 

Reported Nardi: “Three-and-a-half years after the start of his pontificate, Pope Francis is reaching his limits. The impression, given by means of gestures and words, of a latent intention to change the doctrine of the Church must at some point either take on definite form or else it must collapse,” he wrote at that time. 

“Francis finds himself cornered by means of the very atmosphere he himself is responsible for creating. It’s no longer about a spontaneous utterance on this or that, which remains improvised and non-binding. His pastoral work and his leadership skills, which demand a sense of responsibility and an exemplary character, are reaching their limits. This could cause Francis [‘s pontificate] to fail,” he added.

The conference comes three months after Cardinal Raymond Burke gave an interview in which he explained that if a pope were to "formally profess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope.”

Burke said in the December 2016 interview that there is a process within the Church for dealing with such a situation, adding his hope that “we won’t be witnessing that at any time soon.” 

Also in December American canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters addressed the question of what could be done if a pope were found to be heretical. 

Peters writes that the “crucial question” from a canonist’s perspective is “who would determine whether a given pope has fallen into heresy” since Canon 1404 states that the “First See is judged by no one.” 

He found in canonical tradition, however, the position that if a general council determined that a pope had committed heresy, by that very fact he will have effectually cut himself off from the true vine, thereby forfeiting his office.

Comments Peters: “…however remote is the possibility of a pope actually falling into heresy and however difficult it might be to determine whether a pope has so fallen, such a catastrophe, Deus vetet [God forbid], would result in the loss of papal office.”

The location for the upcoming conference is significant, reports Church Militant. It was in the 1300s the University of Paris explored the question of what could be done with the possibly heretical Pope John XXII, who denied the doctrine that the souls of the just are admitted to the beatific vision after death, a position he retracted on his deathbed. 

16 Mar 2017

Descartes and the roots of modern atheism


by Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi


Descartes

“...Many writers have commented on the way in which Descartes’ dualism has changed the whole of our subsequent thinking, creating a dichotomy which runs right through our culture, a dichotomy represented on every university campus by the divide between the science faculty and the faculties of arts and humanities...He opted for a different kind of certitude, a certitude which would very quickly enable Descartes’ successors to confront God with the doubt as to whether He really existed at all.” (Lesslie Newbigin)
               BUY HERE.

I have often spoken to friends about the much-read book The Closing of the American Mind by late Chicago classicist and philosopher Allan Bloom, a book which, indeed, touched a nerve in Western society. The process which Bloom describes, writes Lesslie Newbigin, “is being carried to its ultimate absurdity in the “deconstruction” program which is extending from literary theory to other branches of what was once thought to be knowledge and which appears to make any claim to speak of truth untenable. In fact, a claim to speak the truth comes to be regarded as only a concealed assertion of power. Nietzsche has come into his own: there is nothing left except the will, since the language of truth is no longer usable.”

In the book At the Roots of Modern Atheism, Michael Buckley, S.J., argues that the Church itself must bear a heavy responsibility for this situation. In trying to counter scepticism by calling in the help of philosophy to prove the existence of God, rather than inviting people to believe in God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, the Church abandoned its own proper ground and provided—as Buckley shows—the tools for modern atheism. In fact, as Newbigin rightly observes—regarding both Catholic and especially Protestant “missionaries”:

“...in an even surprising way, it must be said that the work of missions itself has unwittingly contributed to the relativism which Bloom complains. Most Anglo-Saxon missionaries were children of the Enlightenment. They did not make the necessary separation in their minds between the Enlightenment’s program for human unity on the basis of a universal “reason” with its vision of a single civilisation moving progressively toward universality and the gospel program for human unity based in the crucified and risen Jesus. Just as in the Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the confident program of Enlightenment rationalism stimulated a romantic countermovement which extolled human creativity manifested in the variety of human cultures, so in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the work of missionaries has been a major factor in stimulating a renaissance of cultures in reaction to the aggression of western rationalism. The modern world has become culturally and religiously plural in a way for which it is unprepared”. 

In his book, Buckley shows how the rise of atheism in the modern world is indeed a religious phenomenon unprecedented in history, both in the number of its adherents and in the security of its cultural establishment.  How did so revolutionary a conviction as this arise?

An overarching theme of Buckley’s work is that atheism is produced by the (perceived or real) internal contradictions of theism, and thus takes its shape in response to theistic claims. In order to understand atheism, then, one must examine the theism it denies. Atheism is distinct in the modern period, because only in the modern period are there atheists. In the ancient and medieval worlds, atheism was only a hypothetical position or a polemical insult—there was no group of people called “atheists”; in the modern world, on the contrary, there is a group of people who recognise themselves as atheists and are even proud to be so labelled! Buckley investigates the origins and development of modern atheism and argues convincingly that its impetus lies paradoxically in the very attempts to counter it. He traces the peculiar character of modern Western atheism to the choices made by theistic philosophers in the early modern era. At the turn of the seventeenth century, Leonard Lessius, a Flemish Jesuit, wrote De providentia numinis (On Divine Providence) to combat atheism. Yet his attacks are not against any modern atheist (they are apparently too shrewd to announce their unbelief openly) but against the classical figures associated with atheistic belief.  As Lessius’ “atheists” are drawn from classical antiquity, so are his refuting arguments. This approach makes atheism primarily a philosophical, not a religious issue.  Another Jesuit, Marin Mersenne, likewise sought to combat present atheism along classical lines. He too excuses faith, but designs an argument for God upon ancient Epicurean and Neoplatonic lines. In the distinction between faith and reason, the battle against atheism is conducted by reason in the method of philosophy. Jesus and traditional theology scarcely appear, and will continue to play only a token role through the Enlightenment. In fact, Leonard Lessius and Marin Mersenne determined that in order to defend the existence of God, religious apologetics must become philosophy, surrendering as its primary warrant any intrinsically “religious experience” or “evidence”!

Although modern atheism finds its initial exponents in Denis Diderot and Paul d’Holbach in the eighteenth century, their works bring to completion a dialectical process that reaches back to the theologians and philosophers of an earlier period—Leonard Lessius, Marin Mersenne and co.  The most influential philosophers of the seventeenth century, René Descartes and Isaac Newton, and the theologians who followed them accepted this settlement, and the new sciences were enlisted to provide the foundation for religion!

Newton
René Descartes (1596-1650) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) are the two most pivotal intellectual figures of the early modern period. Descartes is the founder of a Universal Mathematics, Newton the founder of a Universal Mechanics. Both were theists, and both insisted that the existence of God could be defended by reason alone. For them, reason is the only justifiable foundation for theistic belief. Yet, the two offer different approaches.

Descartes, a Catholic, and even a devotee of Our Lady, was not only one of the most prominent philosophers of the seventeenth century but also in the history of Western philosophy. Often referred to as the “Father of Modern Philosophy”, he profoundly influenced European thought with his writings. Best known for his statement “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am), he started the school of rationalism which broke with the scholastic Aristotelianism in two ways. Firstly, Descartes rejected the mind-body dualism, arguing that matter (the body) and intelligence (the mind) are two independent substances (metaphysical dualism) and secondly, he rejected the final causal model of explaining natural phenomena and replaced it with science-based observation and experiment. He spent a major part of his life in conflict with scholastic approach which still dominated the thought in the early seventeenth century and trying to convince the Churchly authorities that the new sciences are not challenging the traditional theological teachings.

Descartes’ scepticism argues not from the world to God but from God to the world. God is necessary as the guarantor of human reason, and then as the connection between the mind and the external world. Since we must be indubitably sure of God’s existence, and since indubitable knowledge must be gained by the geometrical method, there is no place (or need) for revelation or personal experience to establish God’s existence.

On his part, Newton takes the physical world for granted, and seeks an explanation of its predictability and order. God appears as a necessary postulate for the Newtonian universe to function as it should. Absolute time and absolute space must be necessary effects of God’s existence. He must be the one who formed great astronomical masses and determined the correct distance of the planets from the sun to ensure stable orbits. Further, Newton’s calculations revealed that the universe is not quite self-sustaining; God must periodically wind the clock to keep it from getting too out of time.

Some theologians then jumped on the chance to develop the Cartesian or Newtonian philosophies into even more rigorous “proofs”!

Today, one of the powerful effects of Descartes’ undertaking is the senseless rejection of revelation in our time. Today, revelation is not allowed as a subject for classroom teaching.  As Newbigin rightly puts it:

“It is barred from public doctrine. Human origins are a subject for classroom teaching. They are part of public truth. Human destiny is not. It is a matter of private opinion. And if there is no public doctrine about human destiny, there can be no basis for rational discussion in the public forum about what are and what are not proper ends of human endeavour. And when there are no rational grounds for this decision, the way is open for the sort of mindless fanaticism about single moral issues which is such a feature of our time.”

At this juncture, it is important to note that all the attackers of private revelation within the Catholic Church in our time—those who often insist that we must not believe in private revelations, both church leaders and the lay faithful—are in reality influenced NOT really by what the Church teaches but by this same Cartesian undertaking!

In his Truth to Tell, Newbigin draws a parallel between our situation and that of St Augustine living amid the disintegration of the Graeco-Roman classical culture and remarks that the Saint faced a situation similar to ours but depended on revelation and hence was able to fight the errors of his age and indeed, conquered. He writes:

“Augustine was a rational thinker if ever there was one, but all his great rational powers could not extricate him from the disintegrating ruins of classical culture. Reason can only work with the data that it is given. The vision could be developed by Augustine only because there were new data, because through Ambrose he was brought into living contact with the church, and with the scriptures which embody the story by which the church lives. Revelation, the action of God himself in the events which the church celebrates, gave him his new starting point. From a new standpoint his massive intellect could see in a wholly new perspective the landscape through which he had travelled. As a result he was able to hand on to the following centuries a coherent and rational way of understanding the world and human history which also carried forward much that was precious in classical culture.” (Truth To Tell, p. 21).

But, says Newbigin, everything depended on the fact that there was a new starting point, a new fundamental pattern. “The parallels with our situation are, I think, instructive. The eighteenth century, the period in which our modern scientific culture became fully self-conscious and confident, called itself the Age of Reason.” (Ibid).

Newbigin says the central conviction which has inspired this unfortunate period of human history has been that the human mind is equipped with a power of reason which is capable of discovering the real “facts” and so liberating us from mere tradition and superstition. But the data upon which reason was set to work were—essentially—the data provided by the senses. He writes:

“Francis Bacon, that pioneer of enlightenment, sought to eliminate all metaphysical concepts and advised us to attend to what he called “facts”. To know the facts is to have power over them. The only one of the old metaphysical concepts which he retained was that of cause, because (according to Adorno and Horkheimer) “it alone among the old ideas seemed to offer itself for scientific criticism...’’. The idea of purpose was eliminated as a category of explanation because purpose cannot be directly observed. Bacon’s program, vastly developed in subsequent centuries, has given us what Bacon wanted—power, power over nature and, of course, over other people. If we concentrate on facts which can be known by the senses, and on causes which can be checked scientifically by observation and experiment, then human reason can obtain power over nature. This has been achieved on an unprecedented scale. The fact that it has alienated us from nature and created a widespread sense of homelessness and bereavement is one of the main reasons for a contemporary rejection of this kind of rationality and the call (in the New Age Movement) for a return to the motherly embrace of a Nature that we have so ruthlessly violated. But because human beings are also part of nature, and because the whole driving force of the movement of enlightenment has been to acquire a knowledge of nature which would confer power over nature, the whole thrust of our culture has been towards patterns of domination. Hence the clamorous calls for emancipation of dominated groups which is such a pervasive element in the contemporary scene.” (Ibid., p. 22).

For Augustine, he says, and indeed, most of the early Church Fathers, everything depended upon the data from which reasoning begins.

“But it is possible for reason to be used in another way. Everything depends upon the data from which reasoning begins. It is possible to begin with the data provided by the five senses and reasoning inductively from these. This has been the method which has created our modern scientific culture. It still uses the metaphysical category of cause, even though philosophers have questioned it. But it does not use the category of purpose. Purpose is something which is hidden in the mind of the person whose purpose it is until one or other of two things happens. Either the purpose is carried out so that everyone can see what was originally an idea in the mind of the one whose purpose it was, or that person must tell others what his purpose is. There is no third possibility. If we are considering the cosmos as a whole and the human story within the cosmos, and if we are asking whether there is any purpose which would enable us to understand it, the first option is not available. We shall not be around to observe the final moments of the cosmic story. The only available possibility is the second: that the One whose purpose it is should reveal it. If there is no revelation from God, then speech about the purpose of human life can only be speculation—the kind of speculation which Bacon advised his contemporaries to avoid in order to study facts.” (Ibid., pp. 22-23)

Again, he writes:

“There was a new starting point for Augustine, as for Athanasius and the Church Fathers before him...The question of the starting point is the fundamental one. Basic to the shaping of our culture was the attempt of Rene Descartes to find a fresh starting point for thought. Descartes lived in an age of profound scepticism...He lived in a time when beliefs which had been accepted from time immemorial were being shown to be unreliable. It seemed that certain knowledge was impossible. The work of earlier pioneers of modern science, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, had apparently shattered the world which the inhabitants of Western Europe had felt themselves at home for 1000 years. Descartes...sought and believed that he had found a fresh basis for certainty in his own existence as a thinking mind. From this standpoint he moved to the idea of God—but a God who is essentially an implicate of the human idea of perfection, and to the material world which belongs to a totally different order of existence from the mind.  In this dualistic world God could influence the human mind, but he could not act upon the material world itself...Many writers have commented on the way in which Descartes’ dualism has changed the whole of our subsequent thinking, creating a dichotomy which runs right through our culture, a dichotomy represented on every university campus by the divide between the science faculty and the faculties of arts and humanities...He opted for a different kind of certitude, a certitude which would very quickly enable Descartes’ successors to confront God with the doubt as to whether He really existed at all.” (Ibid., pp25-26; p.27).  

The tragic result of Descartes’ legacy has been that, a part of Western culture—that part in which theology usually falls—has lapsed into subjectivism:  and so Revelation, Dogma and the like become nonsense. Descartes lived in a time of great scepticism—in a time when beliefs which had been accepted from time immemorial were beginning to fall prey to man’s “diabolical reasoning”. For a thousand years before him, there had been wrought into the very stuff of European thinking belief that God is to be trusted and therefore things and people are not simply the playthings of whimsical gods and goddesses or of all-disposing Fate. Apart from that long schooling, it is hard to think that anyone could have set out on the enterprise to which Descartes set himself. The age in which Descartes lived was profoundly disturbed by the new scientific discoveries—it is true; and, as many thought, it was necessary to find something which could not be doubted, a foundation on which to build a stable home for the human spirit. But the whole enterprise rested on assumption—that is, on that famous “Act of Faith” that the cosmos is so “constructed” that that kind of certainty is available to human beings. Descartes may have had good intention in his undertaking, but by proposing a different kind of certitude instead of trusting in the faithfulness of God—as, for instance, Athanasius and Augustine did—he ended up committing the sin of Adam. The new starting point which he proposed—which has been so fundamental for all that has followed—was a small-scale repetition of the Fall. Adam was not content to trust God. He wanted to have his own certitude, based on an experimental test of the validity of God’s promise. He was the first inductive theologian.

“Athanasius himself is content to identify the Fall with the acceptance of a false ideology”, writes late Charles Cochrane, an Oxford professor of classics. “Such an ideology may take any one of several different forms. It may, for example, find expression in Epicureanism, which undertakes the problem of explaining the universe in terms of matter and motion, and which denies that there is any principle of discrimination in matter beyond that of physical pleasure and pain. Or it may appear as Platonism which, with its admission of a pre-existent matter, yields an inadequate idea of God by reducing Him to the status of a mere mechanic. Or again, it may emerge as one of the various types of Gnosticism which, because of their underlying dualism, deny the unity of the cosmos. But, whatever form it assumes, the results of departing from the Word are alike intellectually and morally disastrous. Intellectually, men lose the principle of understanding, and undergo a progressive blindness of perception. Morally, they lose the principle of life, and suffer a spiritual phthisis or wasting away.” (Christianity and Classical Culture—A Study of Thought and Action From Augustus to Augustine, p. 369.)

Today most modern Western theologians are heirs of Descartes and—subsequently—heirs of Adam. From Descartes onward it has been held that reliable knowledge is to be had by the relentless exercise of the critical method. Revelation is senselessly rejected, and Dogma can no longer be accepted on its own terms. It must submit to “rational criticism”. But, as Newbigin puts it, “the critical method must ultimately destroy itself.” Interestingly, Newbigin, a Protestant, laments—though indirectly—that even in the Catholic Church dogma is no longer accepted! But the statement “all dogma must be questioned”, he argues, “is itself a dogma which must be questioned.” He is right. Your basis for criticising a statement of what claims to be the truth must be based on some other truth-claim which—at that moment—you accept without criticism. But that truth-claim on which your critique is based must in turn be criticised—the critical principle must ultimately destroy itself. Reason, even the most acutely critical reason, cannot establish truth. If Christianity is all about God revealing Himself in Jesus Christ and rescuing man from his plight, then there must be some submission before a given authoritative revelation.

“We have been born blind from Adam”, Augustine would say, “and thus we have need of the illumination which comes to us from Christ.”

13 Mar 2017

The Ongoing Discussion about Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation Receives New Fuel

 
Pope Benedict XVI
The article below is indeed a good one. Nevertheless I think—with regards to Benedict XVI being forced to “resign”—that the following question is yet to be satisfactorily answered:

“As one commentator once put it—regarding Benedict XVI’s resignation: “If anyone wondered about Benedict's interest, they might have found a clue in a long interview that he gave to the German journalist Peter Seewald for his 2010 book, Light of the World”. In that 2010 interview—five years after reigning as pope—in which Benedict XVI gave his most personal account of the distress caused to him by the clerical sex abuse scandal, with particular reference to Germany and Ireland, he did not consider resigning over the crisis but does raise the possibility of a pope resigning if he were to lose his mental capacities (and the reasons he eventually gave for “resigning”, old age and deteriorating health, were similar). He said, during the 2010 interview with Peter Seewald: “If a Pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” Compare this to what he said during his “resignation” in 2013: “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry”. I think there is a correspondence here. And this, plus Benedict XVI’s visit—in fact twice—to the tomb of Pope St. Celestine in 2009, the pope who resigned in 1294, which indicates that he probably had been harbouring this thought of resignation right before 2013, perhaps right from the very day he was elected! Putting aside the other facts regarding Francis’ “election”, what do you think?” (See: Father Paul Kramer on Benedict XVI’s confusing words: ...there's much behind the scenes...).

Again, Benedict XVI’s profound silence over all the errors and heresies of “Pope” Francis calls into question the statement that he was forced to resign. Some Catholics see this silence as just "human weakness". But what sort of "human weakness" is really this—that a pope or "former pope" sees the Church clearly being destroyed by barefaced enemies but not only remains profoundly silent but in fact mingles with the destroyers? (See: Benedict XVI supporting Francis and his disastrous “pontificate”).

More troubling, still, is the fact that you can never hear most of our Catholic Faith defenders mention—let alone condemn—any error of Vatican II popes who in fact laid the foundation of all Francis is doing currently—intellectual dishonesty of many is just unthinkable! (See for instance: John Paul The Great: “Protestants can receive Communion under certain conditions”. Francis: “The divorced and remarried can come forward to receive under certain circumstances, too”. Is Cardinal Burke aware? ).


The statement that Ratzinger is an opponent of religious relativism has also been countered by me with the article, Relativism will certainly damn our souls!—where I demonstrated that quite contrarily he promoted it BUT in a subtle manner.

Nevertheless, it is certainly wrong to conclude, based on the facts above, that Benedict XVI is among those "advancing the secular agendas of the left"—as the Sedes often do rashly. 

The article:
The Ongoing Discussion about Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation Receives New Fuel






Since the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013, speculations have never fully ceased as to whether he was pressured to do so, after all, in order to make way for a more progressive-leaning pontiff. Archbishop Luigi Negri has now given new fuel to this debate in a recent 6 March interview, as reported by John-Henry Westen at LifeSiteNews: An Italian archbishop close to Pope Benedict XVI says the former pope decided to resign as a result of “tremendous pressure.”

Archbishop Luigi Negri, who says he has visited Pope Benedict “several times” since his resignation in 2013, is the only Italian bishop to have ever participated in the annual pro-life march in Rome. Negri resigned as archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio in February [2017] after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.
In an article published Monday by news outlet Rimini 2.0, Archbishop Negri said that, while he has little knowledge of the inner workings of the Curia, “I am certain that the truth will emerge one day showing a grave liability both inside and outside the Vatican.”

“It is no coincidence that in America, even on the basis of what has been published by Wikileaks, some Catholic groups have asked President Trump to open a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the administration of Barack Obama exerted pressure on Benedict,” he said. It remains shrouded in mystery for now, he said, “but I am sure that those responsible will be found out.”

Archbishop Negri is referring in this interview to the 22 January 2017 Open Letter to President Donald Trump, as published by the traditional Catholic newspaper The Remnant. Part of that letter reads, as follows:

“We were alarmed to discover that, during the third year of the first term of the Obama administration your previous opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other government officials with whom she associated, proposed a Catholic “revolution” in which the final demise of what was left of the Catholic Church in America would be realized. Approximately a year after this e-mail discussion, which was never intended to be made public, we find that Pope Benedict XVI abdicated under highly unusual circumstances and was replaced by a pope whose apparent mission is to provide a spiritual component to the radical ideological agenda of the international left. The Pontificate of Pope Francis has subsequently called into question its own legitimacy on a multitude of occasions. […]
“We remain puzzled by the behavior of this ideologically charged Pope, whose mission seems to be one of advancing secular agendas of the left rather than guiding the Catholic Church in Her sacred mission. It is simply not the proper role of a Pope to be involved in politics to the point that he is considered to be the leader of the international left.” [my emphasis]

Among The Remnant‘s trenchant questions put to the President of the United States, the following can be found: “What other covert operations were carried out by US government operatives concerning the resignation of Pope Benedict or the conclave that elected Pope Francis?” [my emphasis]

This Open Letter has subsequently, after its publication, found international interest, even some notoriety, and has now been spreading much more than some ideological circles in the U.S. and in Europe might have desired. Archbishop Negri’s own reference to it is the best proof of the wide circulation of that Remnant document. The reason for this strong interest in the Remnant’s Open Letter might be that many people in the world – and I do not even talk only about Catholics; for I have likewise heard, as well, from secular people in Europe about this same story – realize that something has gone wrong in Rome ever since Benedict’s abdication.
Important to note is that the former head of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J. immediately released a statement denying Archbishop Negri’s claims about Pope Benedict’s resignation, calling Negri’s words “untenable” and even “a strange proof of friendship” toward Benedict.

However, there have now also come to us other voices joining the one from Archbishop Negri, and they are supportive of his claim with regard to the pressure that had been put on Pope Benedict to resign. In the following, we shall therefore present translations from two texts as composed by two distinct lay witnesses.
One is an 8 March interview with the former President of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was forced to resign not long before Benedict’s own resignation. As the Vatican expert, Dr. Sandro Magister, had put it in February of 2016: “And they drove him [Tedeschi] out in short order, in 2012,” even though he was committed to reforming the bank. Tedeschi most of all admires the cardinals Robert Sarah, Carlo Caffarra, Gerhard Müller, Raymond Burke, and George Pell. Tedeschi, in book excerpts published last year by Sandro Magister (see above link), then also criticized Pope Francis’s Encyclical, Laudato Si, for allowing certain dubious people to work on this papal text. Tedeschi wrote last year, as follows:

“But what surprises me the most is to see that neo-Malthusian environmentalists were called to work on the encyclical itself. Fortunately the spirit of the magisterium remained intact, even if it took no little effort for most observers to find it, or rather, to give it the benefit of the doubt that it was [actually] there.”
These older quotes from Tedeschi might help us to get a sense of this man who has now again raised his voice, in the here translated 8 March interview, and this time with regard to the discussion about the resignation of Pope Benedict in 2013.
The second text here presented in translation, entitled “Ratzinger Eliminated by Hypocritical Do-Gooders” (“Ratzinger eliminato dal buonismo ipocrita”) is written by the Italian scholar, book author, and journalist, Dr. Rino Cammilleri, and it has been published on 10 March by Professor Roberto de Mattei’s website Corrispondenza Romana.

But, before I present to you more fully these two translations, let me repeat my report of an important article written by Antonio Socci, which I published back in the summer of 2016. It would be fitting to reconsider his own earlier insights and findings in this new context:

“In this context, it might be worth referring to a 12 June post written by the Italian journalist and Fatima expert, Antonio Socci. Socci tries to clarify the matter of two putative popes – Francis and Benedict – in light of the recent confusion caused by the speech by Archbishop Georg Gänswein. Socci thus attempts to put this claim into a larger geopolitical perspective. Although I myself cannot fully follow parts of Socci’s reflections here, one part seems very striking and sobering – and if true, it is also gravely shocking. Socci claims that, while still in his papal office, Benedict XVI was given an “opportunity” – a proposition. To him it was “proposed to accept an ‘ecumenical re-unification’ with the Protestants of North Europe and/or North America in order to create a kind of ‘common religion of the West.’” For the Catholic Church, says Socci, this would have meant to “enter the unified politically correct thought soup” and to become an “irrelevant folk museum within a ‘multicultural’ Europe.” Socci continues: “To this ‘dictatorship of relativism,’ Benedict XVI said ‘no!’ He answered: ‘As long as I am here, this will not happen.’”

“The Italian journalist then adds that, subsequently, Pope Benedict “was forced to give up the ‘active exercise’ of the Petrine Office (only half-way?).” Later on, Socci puts the further development of Bergoglio’s election as pope into the larger context of the hegemonic reign of relativism in the West, which we now see to be growing. Moreover, he says: “Bergoglio has made the Obama agenda his own.” And Socci then refers to a speech by United States President Obama in May in front of the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., where he said that the Church should abandon “divisive terms” such as abortion and “gay” marriage and that she should rather “dedicate herself to the problem of poverty.” Socci thus concludes: “The empire wants the Church to be a ‘social worker’ who comforts the losers in the field hospital of the strong powers, but does not disturb the handlers.” Additionally, according to Socci, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton herself had proposed a year ago, at a conference of pro-abortion feminists, that “the deeply rooted cultural codes, religious beliefs and the structural bias must be changed.”

“Socci then piercingly and ironically says: “The churches must therefore surrender to the ‘liberal’ secularism of the imperium. In fact, Bergoglio has already abandoned the ‘non-negotiable principles [such as those found in Amoris Laetitia!].’” It is in this same context, that Socci sees the upcoming 31 October 2016 papal trip to Sweden, in order to “celebrate Luther and to ‘stitch up’ the 500 years exactly since the schism – evidence of a new imperial religion?”[my emphasis added]
These earlier insights from Antonio Socci might become more weighty in our judgments when we now consider and incorporate the new developments coming to us from Italy.
Let us now first consider Ettore Tedeschi’s interview, and, subsequently, then the text written by Rino Cammilleri.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, Former President of the IOR (Institute for the Works of Religion – Vatican Bank) from 2009 to 2012, Interview with IntelligoNews.it, 8 March 2017

Monsignor Negri says that “Obama’s hand was behind the resignation of Benedict XVI.” The former archbishop of Ferrara speaks of an “American conspiracy” against the Pope. Is this plausible?
“The plot appears to be American only because they have had the leadership of the New World Order. You see, the conspiracy, if we can so call it, was aimed at trying to solve some problems caused by the failure of the famous New World Order of the ’70s, gnostic, neo-Malthusian and environmentalist. This project of the New Order was openly intended (among other things) to relativize the most dogmatic religious faiths and clearly proved to be so opposed to the Catholic faith as to publicly state – and by the highest authorities at the U.N., WHO…. – that Christian ethics could no longer be applied and that religious syncretism is to be required to create a new universal religion (thanks also to processes of immigration). Even the U.S. President, Obama specifically, in 2009, personally declared that, for healthy bio-psycho-social well-being, free access must be given to abortion without restrictions, euthanasia due to rationing of care, and denial of the rights of conscience. Well it is not difficult to understand that, in this context of opposition to the Catholic faith, the Pope, the highest moral authority in the world, could become the subject of attention for his disposition or else his willingness ‘to understand the needs of the global world.’ Now, Pope Benedict XVI insisted, instead, on re-proposing the anthropological problem according to the Catholic vision (ergo man is a creature of the Creator-God), he combatted relativism, bringing God to the center of the cultural debate, especially closing the gap between faith and reason, and he affirmed the need to return to evangelizing, explaining that the failure of Western civilization was due to the rejection of Catholicism, etc. Why are we surprised that such a restorer Pope should not be considered ‘out of play’? A famous secularist philosopher wrote, as reported by Il Fatto Quotidiano, on November 26, 2009: ‘When the Church of silence will take the floor, the ‘reconquista’ of Ratzinger will vanish, like dreams and vampires at daybreak.’”
If the Americans had been able to make a Pope resign, could they have had the strength also to make them elect someone else to their liking?
“The Americans were able to ‘fire’ Clinton/Obama and get Trump elected. I am thinking that they have great capacity to react…. One day I would like to explain to the Pope my Vatican experience with American circles which are directly and indirectly influential. But returning to Monsignor Negri, I think that it is difficult to understand how it can be decided to no longer take seriously a priest of his character. Neither is it even comprehensible to me how people like him and the four cardinals who have raised the dubia, demonstrating just how much they love Church, can be ignored and put aside. I find it not only incomprehensible but also unwise, because thereby we are deprived of their expertise, which does not seem to me so easily replaceable. Monsignor Negri, who will certainly continue to serve the Church, will do so with many worthy Catholics who are nearby. It is a sin that the current leaders of the Church close to the Pope, threaten to deprive him of his loving and prestigious help, expertise, and energy. Someone suggested yesterday that one could think of putting Monsignor Negri in charge of the [Ecumenical Monastic] Community of Bose, in order to ‘enhance it,’ as was already done with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.”
Could his removal and the resignation of Ratzinger be connected?
“How should I know? Certainly Negri was a favorite ‘spiritual son’ of Ratzinger, certainly with an extraordinarily strong personality and character, typical of great ‘saintly’ personalities in the history of the Church. They also tell me that, apart from everything else, we are only at the beginnings of the attack on our holy Church. But I can also assure you that the Church will be defended, unto martyrdom, by people just like Monsignor Negri. This is the difference between a saintly man like him and the many rampant ‘boot lickers.’” [my emphasis added]
(Translation kindly provided by Andrew Guernsey)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rino Cammilleri, “Ratzinger Eliminated by Hypocritical Do-Gooders,” Corrispondenza Romana, 10 March 2017

If it was not a plot, then it certainly is very similar to one. We speak about the resignation of Benedict XVI on 11 February (the Lourdes Day) four years ago [2013].
The former Archbishop of Ferrara, Msgr. Luigi Negri, wanted to get rid of a stone in his shoe which has bothered him for quite a while: “I am certain that the truth will emerge one day showing a grave liability both inside and outside the Vatican.”
He declared, to be sure, that there was put upon Benedict XVI an enormous pressure. From whom? From Obama?
Negri reminds us that: “It is no coincidence that in America, even on the basis of what has been published by Wikileaks, some Catholic groups have asked President Trump to open a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the administration of Barack Obama exerted pressure on Benedict.”
The one concerned himself has denied [the existence of such pressures] in a recent book of conversation with Peter Seewald, saying: “Nobody has attempted to blackmail me.”
Maybe. But, one may ask how much credibility these above-quoted Ratzinger words should have since they contradict his earlier words. At the time of his resignation, he announced that he would retire into silence and prayer, and that he wished to make himself “invisible to the world.” Since when, however, does someone who wishes to retire into silence and prayer, give bestseller-interviews? Thus remains the fact that he never gave a convincing reason for his resignation. After all, this is not about just anything that one could take lightly.
A pope who resigned is an epochal event for the Church, even more so when he still dresses as a pope and lets himself be called pope (emeritus). And moreover: such a thing has never happened before.
Another additional fact is: through him and his resignation, the Church has come to face a new pontificate which is out to do always the opposite from the previous one. Just as Trump now dismantles Obamaism.
The dark marks which have lain on the resignation of Benedict XVI remain. The fact that it is mostly traditional Catholics who have doubts about this case does not change any iota of the assumption. Yes – and exactly because one judges the trees by their fruits, as the Gospel teaches us and it is also basic common sense.
As much as Ratzinger was reviled by those who truly have influence, just as much Bergoglio is now being celebrated by those same people. Ratzinger was blocked from speaking at the State University of Rome; but, for Francis, the red carpet was laid out in front of that same university. And surely not because Francis has held there any epochal speeches as did his predecessor in Regensburg. No, he [Francis] spoke spontaneously; and more: he kept on talking as if he were among friends in the bar. Most of all, this was really a political speech, that is to say, a politically correct speech. Also, his insistence – whether appropriate or not – upon the undifferentiated reception of the migrants fosters the further suspicion of those who are now convinced of a plot.
The Catholic teaching is seen to be too strict for the “New World,” which gnomes like Soros want to create: a hybrid, flowingly amorphous, homosexualized and individualized world of uprooted consumers. Therefore: away with the theologian-pope and move forward with the pastor-pope who attenuates the doctrine of the Faith and who pleases, so much, the masters of political correctness. Moving on in the direction of a Jovanotti [Italian rapper] Church, which can best be inserted into the coming Brave New World.
As I said: It will not be a conspiracy. Of course not. Only: If it turns out to be one, after all – would the results then look different? [my emphasis added]
(Translation Maike Hickson)


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