In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
– 2 Timothy 4:1-5
Another day, another off-the-record papal conversation. This time, the person in question is a woman by the name of Marie Kane, who was was a victim of clerical sexual abuse in Ireland.
ONE of the two Irish survivors of abuse who met Pope Francis this morning in the Vatican has described the meeting as a “huge vindication” for her.
Marie Kane, who has never spoken publicly about the abuse she suffered at the hands a curate in the archdiocese of Dublin, told the Irish Independent that the meeting with the Pope would help bring her healing.
“It was pretty amazing. There were no time constraints on the meeting and the only others in the room were Marie Collins, who came as a support to me and [Cardinal] Sean O’Malley who acted as translator,” she said.
In all six survivors of abuse, two from Ireland, two from Britain and two from Germany met the Pope individually this morning, the first official meeting the pontiff has held since his election in March 2013. The other Irish survivor was a man. His identity remains unclear at the moment.
According to Marie Kane, the Pope “listened intently” to her and “at times seemed frustrated by what he was hearing” about her experiences. Her case was covered in the Murphy Report into the mishandling of allegations of clerical abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin. Her abuser was taken out of ministry but has not been defrocked.
All of this seems reasonable, even promising.
But then came Miss Kane’s radio interview, in which she recounted her experience, and her meeting with Pope Francis (excerpts transcribed by me):
“I think I’ve been angry my whole life at the Catholic Church. I, you know, I could never sit in a Mass without feeling anger…”
[…]
“From meeting all the survivors and listening to their stories, and, they’re all unique stories, but the effects and the damage is the same. And it’s the loss of faith. You know? We all want something to hang onto in these really difficult times. And, you know, I have two children, 18 and 14, and, their faith has been affected. You know? So, I have my own beliefs, I…I’m a good person. I help a lot of people. And, you know, I think, but it has definitely, it there, there’s no replacing what was taken, you know, even for my kids. And these…these are the kids that are coming up now, and the Church will disappear if something doesn’t change.”
[…]
“I prayed for change, change in the Church. Um, maybe that’s very naïve of me, I don’t know. But when you’re sitting there and in a very small chapel and the homily was written in English so you could read what he was saying, because [the pope] speaks Spanish, so, it was very moving for me personally, and, yeah, change. That’s…you know, just, do more. Get these guys out of power that shouldn’t be there. That are guilty of coverup. And who covered up in my case as well. And they know who they are, like, you know? So yeah. Change. Change. I’ll never get my faith back. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the church. And actually the pope, I said that to him. And he said, ‘You know you don’t need, you don’t need to be in the Church, you are part of the Church, you don’t physically need to be in it, inside it you know to be part of God’s family like.’ So, little messages like that were really nice, you know. He put thought into what he said to me today. It wasn’t just answers off the cuff. So a very positive experience, for me.”
I was with her, right up until she recounted what the pope said.
“You don’t need…to be in the Church, you are part of the Church, you don’t physically need to be in it, inside it you know to be part of God’s family…”
Let’s all open our Catechisms, shall we? Paragraph 2041-2042 :
2041 The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor:
2042 The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor”) requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.
While one can certainly understand the desire of a clericial abuse victim to avoid Catholic clergy and the Mass, it’s difficult to understand how cutting a person off from the sacramental life would in any way facilitate healing or salvation.
More troubling is the formula the pope is alleged to have used in assessing the situation: “You don’t need to be in the Church” to be “part of the Church.”
Are we ready for the well-trod quote? We are? Good:
The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, and heretics, and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire “which was prepared for the devil, and his angels,” (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this Ecclesiastical Body, that only those remaining within this unity can profit from the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of Christian piety and duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”
(Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441 – Emphasis Mine)
It’s a tough quote. And yes, there’s been some development of doctrine since the 1400s. We believe that there’s something to the “Baptism of Desire” — though nobody who loves souls would ever want to count on that. We need the sacraments for heaven like a man in the desert dying of thirst needs water. Do men in the desert sometimes, against all odds, survive sunstroke and dehydration? Yes. Would you care to take a crack at that experience on the off-chance that you’ll be the outlier?
Yeah. I thought not.
We all need sanctifying grace to get to heaven. Sanctifying grace grows in the soul by means of sacramental reception. So the sacraments are really, as far as anyone knows, completely non-negotiable. If God chooses to work outside their efficacy, how He does that is his prerogative, and frankly, a complete mystery. I sometimes have a hard time believing even with them, I’ll squeak in the door of heaven. I can’t imagine trying to get there without them.
So why would a sovereign pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church tell anyone — anyone — that they don’t need to be in the Church to be saved?
Some are arguing that this is, once again, a woman who is recounting what the pope said from memory, and that it is therefore not trustworthy. One person offered this hypothesis, “Maybe a pissed off woman that was was sexually abused saw an opportunity for payback and took it?” (To this person’s credit, they later admitted it was a stretch.)
But let’s imagine that this was the case. We’d have have to add Miss Kane to the growing list of vengeful “liars” all saying that the pope told them the same thing. Also, they’d have to want to “get back at the pope” by only ticking off the small segment of Catholics who care if the pope says something so…Catholic. Because most Catholics these days, if we’re being honest, would think such a statement was positively fantastic, demonstrative of “mercy”, and even more, a sure sign of progress within the stodgy old Church.
And there really are a solid handful of these folks out there. People we’re supposed to believe are just making things up to make the pope look bad to a small handful of true believers, and awesome to everyone else.
Let’s have a look at the statements from those who have said what Pope Francis has told them:
1. “When he speaks about evangelization, the idea is to evangelize Christians or Catholics,”to reach “higher dimensions of faith” and a deepened commitment to social justice, Skorka said. “This is the idea of evangelization that Bergoglio is stressing — not to evangelize Jews. This he told me, on several opportunities.”
– Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires and close personal friend of Pope Francis
2. “Bp Venables added that in a conversation with Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, the latter made it clear that he values the place of Anglicans in the Church universal.
‘He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans.’”
– Rt. Rev. Greg Venables, Anglican Bishop of Argentina and close personal friend of Pope Francis
3. “And here I am. The Pope comes in and shakes my hand, and we sit down. The Pope smiles and says: ‘Some of my colleagues who know you told me that you will try to convert me.’
It’s a joke, I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.
He smiles again and replies: ‘Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.’ ”
– Eugenio Scalfari, Atheist founder of La Repubblica (and grantee of three papal interviews despite his habit of reporting quotes without taking notes)
4. “At lunch I asked Pope Francis what his heart was for evangelism. He smiled, knowing what was behind my question and comment was, ‘I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people to find Jesus in their own community. There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.’ ” (Of course Evangelicals do evangelize Catholics and Catholics do the same to us. However, that discussion we will raise another day.)
– Brian C. Stiller, Global Ambassador, World Evangelical Alliance
And finally, though not specifically related to membership in the Church, this anecdote, which relates to following her most fundamental teachings:
5. Pope Francis called an Argentine woman married to a divorced man and reportedly told her that she could receive the sacrament of Communion, according to the woman’s husband, in an apparent contradiction of Catholic law.
Julio Sabetta, from San Lorenzo in the Pope’s home country, said his wife, Jacqueline Sabetta Lisbona, spoke with Francis on Monday.
Jacqueline Sabetta Lisbona wrote to the pontiff in September to ask for clarification on the Communion issue, according to her husband, who said his divorced status had prevented her from receiving the sacrament.
“She spoke with the Pope, and he said she was absolved of all sins and she could go and get the Holy Communion because she was not doing anything wrong,” Sabetta told Channel 3 Rosario, a CNN affiliate.
A Vatican spokesman confirmed the telephone call but would not comment on the conversation’s content.
– Source
Let’s not forget that one of the pope’s closest advisors, whose theology the pope has said he greatly admires, is Cardinal Walter Kasper, who has (in)famously said:
“The only thing I wish to say is that the document Dominus Iesus does not state that everybody needs to become a Catholic in order to be saved by God. On the contrary, it declares that God’s grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, i.e. the faithful response of the Jewish people to God’s irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises.
This touches the problem of mission towards Jews, a painful question with regard to forced conversion in the past. Dominus Iesus, as other official documents, raised this question again saying that dialogue is a part of evangelisation.This stirred Jewish suspicion. But this is a language problem, since the term evangelisation, in official Church documents, cannot be understood in the same way it is commonly interpreted in everyday’s speech. In strict theological language, evangelisation is a very complex and overall term, and reality. It implies presence and witness, prayer and liturgy, proclamation and catechesis, dialogue and social work . . . which do not have the goal of increasing the number of Catholics. Thus evangelisation, if understood in its proper and theological meaning, does not imply any attempt of proselytism whatsoever.”
– Source
In light of the above, I propose five very serious questions for your consideration:
- Why should this pattern of indirectly attributed quotes, all of a piece, not be taken as a serious indication that Pope Francis sincerely believes that membership in the Church and the following of her precepts is not necessary for salvation?
- Why should we feel compelled to believe that in every case where we hear that Pope Francis has told a person something along these lines — each report entirely consistent with the last — that the person making the claim is a liar with some personal agenda, and they should neither be believed nor trusted?
- What would it possibly gain anyone to tell lies which, while they throw the pope’s orthodoxy into question, do nothing but endear him to the secular world, the leaders of non-Catholic religions, and the majority of Catholics who no longer profess all of the Church’s teachings?
- Why, if these attributions are in fact scandalously erroneous misrepresentations of the Pope’s thought, and spread as they have been by the global media, is no effort made by the Vatican to correct or refute them, or to exhort Catholics to accept and profess the Church’s true teaching on these matters?
- If what has been said truly represents the mind of Pope Francis, how can this be reconciled with the doctrine of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, as defined by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam and held as an indisputable and infallible teaching of the Church until the latter half of the 20th century?
I think the answers to these questions, taken together, provide a rather obvious conclusion. Don’t you?
There is simply not a shred of evidence that Pope Francis wants to disabuse people of the notion that he both believes and said these things. And if that is so, what a heartbreaking situation we find ourselves in.
We shouldn’t be surprised that what St. Paul prophesied in 2 Timothy is, in fact, coming to pass. But if you’re like me, it’s more than a little surprising to see it coming from the Vicar of Christ.
We need to batten down the hatches and dig in for a long haul. This isn’t going away, and talking about the latest shocking thing the pope has done is reaching a point of diminishing returns. We need to keep our eyes on the goal of eternal salvation, and focus on building a foundation that will withstand where this is all taking us.
In the next few days, I plan to announce a project I’m working on that is aimed at helping us to do just that. Your prayers for the success of this endeavor would be appreciated.
UPDATE – 7/19/2014 @ 5:48PM: Friend of the blog Codgitator submits another quote for our reference in the comments.
“I’m not expecting any of you to join the Catholic Church. Please understand that’s not what this is about. What we are talking about is a unified position to go before the world and say we are proclaiming Christ as the only hope of salvation.”
The quote is taken from this video. I’ve set it to play at the relevant timestamp:
The video is from John and Carol Arnott, who are (according to their website) “the Founding Pastors and Presidents of Catch The Fire (formerly known as the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship) and overseers of the Partners in Harvest Network of Churches. ”
UPDATE 2 – 7/20/2014 @ 8:55AM: My thanks to one of my priestly readers, who kindly pointed out my error in attributing authorship of 2 Timothy to St. John instead of St. Paul. It was the result of some incautious Googling, and the fact that I’m an absolutely terrible exegete. Something in the back of my mind told me to go back and check that before posting, but I completely forgot. It’s nice to have readers who help you correct your silly mistakes instead of exploiting them. The post has been corrected to reflect the correct author.
Excellent, Steve.
Thank you, Jeff. I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, we’re on the same team.
Happily so, Steve. God bless and keep up the good work.
Steve, you might want to add this equally eyebrow-raising quotation, too:
“I’m not expecting any of you to join the Catholic Church. Please understand that’s not what this is about. What we are talking about is a unified position to go before the world and say we are proclaiming Christ as the only hope of salvation.”
I think it is spoken around six minutes into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIHfYgRIP4s
Source: http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2014/07/salvation-is-through-faith-in-christ.html
The only thing I would caution is the realization that Bergoglio is not a departure, but a culmination, of the last half a century, with roots that actually begin in the mid-19th century. He actually does us a favor in speaking exactly what he means. We can find a multitude of clergy, the past 50 years, that sound just like him that Rome did nothing about. So many of the others use modernist sophistry. With the exception of, at times, a repentant Ratzinger, hoping to craft a hermeneutic of continuity where none could be, each of the conciliar popes all serve as the foundation of Francis. You will be met with opposition and calumny, friend. So, think in terms of crafting one’s martyrdom then in starting a movement. So we will answer with OUR LORD the query of Saint Peter’s, “Quo Vadis?” “TO ROME..TO BE CRUCIFIED AGAIN!” VIVO CHRISTO REY! Queen of All Martyrs. Ora Pro Nobis! =+)
JD, that’s just it. The old Mass isn’t going to save the Church.
The old Mass isn’t the issue nor is it the saving grace. But the FAITH – the Faith that has been eroded and eroding for centuries. The churchmen who have been nothing more than petty and ambitious toadies concerned only with power and money and status, have to be ditched. We can no longer slap a wrist then it comes to those who favor heresy or are heretics. They need to go. Fast. And far away and in a place where they can do the least amount of harm.
If anyone in the Vatican had a backbone, Francis would be gone. You don’t need a majority of men to do anything. God and you are all the majority anyone will ever need in this world and the next.
Lorra, I completely sympathize. Our senses are filled with the same sting from the same smoke. TLM is still the best way to adore OUR LORD, despite the occasional miscreant who administered the liturgy.
Friend, we are in this place where it seems are only options are to court martyrdom, choking back tears, as we say our Rosary, hearts breaking, while the majority of Church Prelates laugh at us. Revelation always preaches perseverance. We’re not going away. They’ve taken away everything. Nothing or no one is safe. We know the end of the story. We know why they chose what they did. We know how the purge is going to look like. We know The Restoration is coming, but it is likely we won’t be alive to see it. Our grandchildren will have the antichrist to fight. We live in a time where the most frightful DAY OF THE LORD could happen at any moment.
This said, while MOST of The Hierarchy has chosen to align themselves with all forces opposed to Heaven, in theory or practice, THE ONE HOLY CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH is still the ONLY ANSWER and WAY to THE MOST HOLY TRINITY and SALVATION! What we have are misguided, or evil, pharmacists dispensing opiates, or poison, when they have the cure to all diseases, but don’t care enough for folks to properly dispense them.
St. Joan-of-Arc is our model, in so many ways, these days. Remember, how she attempted to rally The King Of France by her courage, the Maid-of-Loraine. She saved Catholic France (And The Great Monarch will be French, with some mystics implying, the last great Pope, Peter-the-Roman, being French as well, but I digress, as usual.. =+) and how did the effeminate, gutless, cowardly ingrate French King reward her? By turning her over to her enemies to be excommunicated and eradicated, burned as a “witch”, while she went to her death saying nothing but THE HOLY NAME.
Love, Pray, Suffer, Renounce, Admonish, Resist…repeat! =+)
SEMPER FIDELIS (It was THE CHURCH’s before it was the Marine Corp’s) PAX CHRISTI!!!
The Latin mass is an issue at the centre of this loss of faith because the axiomatic objective fruit of faith is found in the Lex Supplicandi of The Church which propagates the Lex Credendi…the Law of Prayer is the Law of Belief which in its turn leads to the Lex Vivendi and Lex Provendi. The Latin Mass embodied The Roman Catholic Faith for the Western latin Rite Church which is why both Pope St gregory The Great and Pope St Pius V codified the same praxis and gave this Rite doctrinally infallible guarantees. It protects against heresy, schism and protestantism which are now rife throughout the Liberal modern church.
The Latin Mass is so important that no greater saint priest then Padre Pio or St Pio of Pietrelcina said that the earth would survive longer without the sun than without The Holy Mass (Latin Mass). This was Our Blessed Lord’s final Sacramental institution before he was finally crucified. The Faith meets with Christ Crucified in the Holy Mass properly said, not in a ecumenical compromise that has disembodied The faith of The Church founded by Our Great Crucified and Resurrected Lord. The Latin Mass is a matter of life in the true Roman Catholic Faith.
=+) indeed!
Thank you Steve for once again, TOTALLY nailing it. Prayers are with you.
And Joseph…..poetry my friend….poetry.
=+)
It occurred to me last night — the pope believes the Protestants were right. That would certainly square with the spirit of V2 that has been roaring about the earth for the last few generations. It would explain the upcoming events (synod, celebrating Luther with the Lutherans) and one can see the exquisite twisting of doctrine that is occurring in order to explain the transformation. The meeting with Kenneth Copeland (I watched Copeland video) was a triumphalist type of sermon. He said the protest was over. Really. Funny thing is, the latest issue of Copeland’s monthly magazine has a profile of a born-again former Catholic, Stanley Black (in fact, he’s on the cover). Copeland also mentioned other upcoming things coming from the pope that he couldn’t talk about now.
Aloha Steve and your commenters,
I read , I believe online, that war will break out after a Pope returns from a visit to the Holy Land. Now I can’t seem to find it. I would be grateful for any of your help in this.
Please keep up the good fight.
Mahalo,
@FMShyanguya
Another good’un: “Do you need to convince the other to become Catholic? No, no, no! Go out and meet him, he is your brother. This is enough. Go out and help him and Jesus will do the rest.” — August 7, 2013
And: “I knew a parish priest in Hamburg who was dealing with the beatification cause of a Catholic priest guillotined by the Nazis for teaching children the catechism. After him, in the list of condemned individuals, was a Lutheran pastor who was killed for the same reason. Their blood was mixed. The parish priest told me he had gone to the bishop and said to him: ‘I will continue to deal with the cause, but both of their causes, not just the Catholic priest’s.’ This is what ecumenism of blood is.” — 14 December 2013
Slippery Jesuits!
One can derive a certain amount amount of amusement reading the well-intentioned efforts of the Shea, Voris, Akin axis of ultramontanes trying to triangulate their way out of the ineluctable conclusions of the papal praxis of indifference that has been firmly established in our nation’s capital, Rome.
Remember the mental machinations of our still Impeached POTUS, William Jefferson Clinton, and how they were collected in to a book by the atheist, Christopher Hitchens?
It was called, No one left to lie to
At the rate he is going, The Bishop of Rome, Our Pope and Our Cross, some future ecclesiastical historian may well write a book about his works called, No one left too defend him
O, and observe that within the Hierarchy there is not one identifiable Prelate possessing a sufficient amount of Tradition such that it could be used as a force against our Inertia Into Indifferentism.
Our descent into indifferentism has increased in intensity and velocity since the Conclave resisted the Holy Ghost and elected Bergolio and it seems to ABS that the Holy Ghost has dispensed His Grace upon those who have been forming an online synaxis of traditionalists who can support and pray for one another for it is the plain and simple truth that men like us are barely tolerated by the shadow Church.
So, remember to pray for one another and do not forget those who have been beaten down to such a point that they vacated their great blogs; ABS tries to remember and pray for Mr. David Werling whose incredible Ars Orandi Blog brought such traditional substance and beauty into the souls of believer’s.
ABS has known for more than a score of years that he has been abandoned by the shadow church and so he is quite appreciative of this new synaxis.
ABS, what happened to David Werling?
Not entirely sure why he took down his great Blog and owing to his age, ABS can not recall his reasons for doing so other than that the Shadow Church simply beat him down with its heterodox nonsense.
He is a good man, a high quality convert ,who surely needs our prayers as do all of those with Traditionalist sympathies.
His great Blog is really missed and ABS has a real soft spot in his soul for Mr. Werling
Just remembered this from the redoubtable Mundabor
http://mundabor.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/ars-orandi-the-final-post/
I believe this is in Luke chapter 8 ” when the Son of Man returns will He find any faith.” are we at this point? Maranatha come Lord Jesus
Why Steve asks?
There is a perfectly natural human tendency to hope that a situation is not as bad as it really is… This goes hand in hand with the other human tendency to let the situation go on ‘cuz changing it would require a massive change in one’s thinking and assumptions. Of course, there are other factors at work. As Catholic’s we obey and love the Holy Father. If catechized, this is what we do. Forgive and charitably assume that you or they misunderstood or that something is “lost in translation”.
We also have without doubt, satanic powers at work to destroy the Church.
I also wanted to mention that I travelled 2 hours to attend an EF yesterday. The EF is not very well supported and is actually at held at a Catholic Mausoleum. The heat was terrible But, everything else was wonderful. Literally, heavenly. And, not a bad reminder to be seated surrounded by the dead.
I’m anxious to hear your plan, Steve, because if I don’t soon recover what is left of my faith, it will be too late altogether.
Your Pope Eugene infallible (and it is infallible language) pronouncement cannot be reconciled with the Church of the past few hundred years. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
As for Francis, no comment is possible any longer. He is beyond commentary.
Lorra, I disagree with your comment about the Church of the last 200 years. We had very solid, holy Popes until John XXIII (though Pius XII did have a few squishy moments, such as when he appointed Montini as Bishop of Milan, which made him papabile). The real issue is that Modernism, which Pope St Pius X fought so courageously, went underground only to emerge in the 30’s and 40’s in the seminaries, protected by various European bishops who were closet Modernists. Add to the the infiltration of the Church by Communists and Liberals (see Bella Dodd), and the reluctance of the Popes to fulfill the request of Our Lady of Fatima for the explicit consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, and you have the recipe for the modern apostasy that is decimating the Church today.
Well said, my friend. The problem with The Church, was not so much The Vatican, until 50 years ago, but in Catholic Academe where all manner of monsters hid, and continue to. I love the Zombie genre. It’s a great metaphor for so many things. We have a whole lot of Apostate zombies in prominence or leadership, that need to be excommunicated, before they infect us all. VIVO CHRISTO REY!!!.
Hey BYZ- I thought I was alone in thinking St. Pope John XXIII’s “miracles” were disobeying Our Lady’s request to reveal the 3rd secret in 1960 and giving us Vatican II. We stumbled on Francis’ mode of operation. He usually spreads his confusion and heresy through secondary voices, like an atheist newsman, a protestant minister, or an american cardinal. These problems have begun to come not from secular sources but from Holy Church since he became pope.
GORGEOUS!!!
Well stated. Incontrovertible.
http://twoheartspress.com/blog/how-to-respond-if-pope-francis-is-the-false-prophet-2/
http://www.thewarningsecondcoming.com
Please don’t promote that website – the Bishop of Dublin has issued the following statement about Maria Divine Mercy: http://www.dublindiocese.ie/content/statement-maria-divine-mercy. If you value your eternal salvation I would avoid that website like the plague. It would be well if you recalled that Our Lord warned of the many false prophets that would appear during the final age.
That would be “Maid of Orleans”.
For some years before and around the time of activity of Joan of Arc, a number of vague prophecies concerning a young Maid who would save France were circulating. The prophecies were attributed to several sources, including St. Bede the Venerable, Euglide of Hungary, and Merlin. Some of these spoke of a Maid who was supposed to come from the “borders of Lorraine”. Since Joan’s village was near the border between France and the Duchy of Lorraine in the Holy Roman Empire, at the time many in France believed in her.
Hey guys? Let’s not turn this into a Maria Divine Mercy thread, mmmmkay? Thanks.
They are not lying. This is what we have to live with and the confusion and embarrassment that comes with such a pope.
Steve,
In an irenic and brotherly spirit you write, “Thank you, Jeff. I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, we’re on the same team.” But this is essentially what Pope Francis has been saying to Rabbi Skorka, Rt, Rev. Venables, Eugenio Scalfari, Brian Stiller, and Tony Palmer! That is the essence of it. He begins with charity, with friendship.
This recalls a principle from Opus Dei, that would-be apostles make friends, real friends with people, and then after this friendship has been established, when one has won the right to open his mouth and to speak the truth in love with some some hope of really being listened to, then gradually to lead his friend into greater truth. Whether or not one agrees with this approach, and the dangers it obviously runs, he is the pope.
When one considers passing public judgment (assessment) on the vicar of Christ, one could ask himself, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand” (Romans 14:4). Then there is the passage, “Touch not my anointed and to my prophets do no harm.” How can one set these verses aside and in disobedience to them hope to achieve the will of God- which, after all, cannot be accomplished in disobedience?
Yes, I am familiar with Thomas Aquinas’ writings about publicly rebuking a prelate, and also with the life of Catherine of Siena who- so far as I know- never rebuked the pope publicly but wrote to him privately. Yet today there are so many “Catherines of Siena” who do not write privately to the pope with letters that begin, “My sweet Father in Christ,” but have a different and far more public and one might say instantaneous approach. In the words of John Cardinal Newman, “There is no lack of laymen who with a smattering of theology give themselves out as if they were Fathers of the Church.”
I write all this to you from the position of “having been there,” Steve. There is no blessing in pointing out the sins and failings- real or imagined- of popes, bishops or pastors. There would be, could be tremendous blessing in praying for him and making sacrifices for him, which was the truly effective and strategy of St. Catherine. All of which I write to you with the hope that at the end of the day we are still on the same page, a page written in the blood of Christ- whose vicar is presently Pope Francis.
Lee,
I appreciate what you’re saying. Unfortunately, all the men you list are not on the same team. Again, from Cantate Domino: “The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, and heretics, and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire “which was prepared for the devil, and his angels,” (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with Her…”
There is only one team, and that team consists of those who have entered the bosom of the Church established by Christ’s passion for our salvation. Telling anyone that they do not need to become Catholic to be saved is akin to telling a man he needn’t leave a burning house to live. Certainly, it *could* happen that the house will burn down around him and he will, through some miracle of fate, live to tell the story of how he left unscathed. But the likelihood of such a thing strains credulity.
We have an obligation to attempt to save souls by bringing them into the Church. This pope has repeatedly told people he feels no such obligation. This is a problem bordering on apostasy, and it absolutely profits us to bring it to light, insofar as the pope is setting the example for Catholics the world over, most of whom would rather not engage in the socially uncomfortable work of evangelization if they don’t have to.
I have a quote for you as well: “When the shepherd turns into a wolf the first duty of the flock is to defend itself. As a general rule, doctrine comes from the bishops to the faithful, and it is not for the faithful, who are subjects in the order of Faith, to pass judgment on their superiors. But every Christian, by virtue of his title to the name Christian, has not only the necessary knowledge of the essentials of the treasure of Revelation, but also the duty of safeguarding them. ” – Dom Gueranger
It occurred to me today the danger in making the argument I make in this post here. Not because it isn’t true, or because I don’t find it to be almost certainly accurate. But when one spends a lot of time defending the position that the pope is leading the flock astray, it becomes easy to feel a sort of satisfaction or triumph when the opportunity arises to prove one’s point. Vindication has a certain sweetness to it.
And yet, if I am correct, the pope is in error. And this is never something I want to take delight in. It’s truly a horrible situation. I wish it would end. I don’t want to look at the Vicar of Christ and see an enemy of authentic Catholic faith. It’s an ugly situation to find ourselves in.
And dealing with it appropriately is, I’m afraid, a tightrope act.
I do believe it needs to be pointed out, if only because so many are making such noise about how Pope Francis is perfectly orthodox, in complete denial of the facts. And most Catholics aren’t going to take the time to piece it together for themselves and figure out what’s true and what isn’t, but they have a right to know. If for no other reason than that we should all be praying for the pope to adhere to orthodox Catholicism and for the Church to be reformed of these creeping errors.
But we don’t ever want to lose ourselves in the process. There is a huge opportunity for deadly pride here.
This is why I am working on a project that I hope will succeed in focusing more on what is true than on addressing what is false; on building what will last rather than on warning about what will fall apart. The storm is coming. We need to start shoring up our foundations. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
“The Catholic doctrine will have to be proposed and expressed totally and integrally: what the Catholic Church teaches about the true nature and means of justification, about the constitution of the Church, about the primacy of the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, about the only true union which is accomplished with the return of the dissidents to the only true Church of Christ, must not be passed over in silence or covered over in ambiguous words.” (Pope Pius XII, “On the Ecumenical Movement,” December 20, 1949)
“For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, the Mother and mistress of all Christ’s faithful?” (Pope Pius XI, encyclical Mortalium animos, January 6, 1928)
ONLY TRUE RELIGION
“O My children, I will not go into a long discourse now with you about charity and love for your neighbor, but you must understand: you cannot judge your neighbor. You must pray for them. However, you cannot become weak and permissive. You must stand forth as bearers of the light, carriers of the truth. You have been given by your baptism entrance into the only true religion upon earth, the Roman Catholic Church under My Son, Jesus. Though man in his arrogance and pride has forgotten His role and His rule, you must carry it forward. Retain the Faith and the truth in the hearts of mankind.” – Our Lady, September 7, 1978
MUST REMAIN ONE
“You must pray, pray much for your Holy Father. He suffers greatly from disobedience of those under him in his rule. Yes, My child, it appears now that there is a form of insanity taking place in Rome, for priests, prelates, cardinals, and bishops are all running around with their heads in a fog. They have great plans, My child, to build a new church, a church of man. But My Son has other plans. Their time is running out.
“My child, My children, this new church they are building but no angels help to build, only demons; they are building a church of man, using as a foundation the basic carnal nature of mankind. There is nothing beautiful of spirit; it is all humanistic, My child, modernistic. And what are they doing but they are building the church of man with satan as the director!
“O My children, pray much! We do not want to see a division in My Son’s House. The Roman Catholic Church must remain one! But this does not mean, as the church of man states, that you will bring all manner of heretics and separated brethren in. No, My children, that is an error, a delusion from satan. You cannot change My Son’s House and bring them in and change for them! They must change and come back to the original rule given by My Son and those who were with Him in the building of the foundation.
“I repeat, My child and My children: separated brethren must change. They have protested in the past; they have taken themselves away from the truth and the one true Church. They must reject the errors they have made in the past and come back and start again. They cannot bring their errors into My Son’s House.
“You are opening the doors now for all manner of heretics, separated brethren. They do not come to unite in good spirit and heart; they come to take over. They seek to change you, O pastors, who are being deluded. And what do I see in My Son’s House but separated brethren upon His pulpit! Even from the temples, the synagogues of satan, upon His pulpit! And for what?
“And who are My pastors now that have joined in this plan of destruction? Who ordained some of them? Not legitimate hands. They come to destroy. They come in like rats, burrowing, undermining My Son’s Church! Do you think you are not watched? Are you above your Creator that you think you can deceive the world permanently? No, I say unto you! You are being given your time, for you who have given yourselves to satan are now exposing your true nature to the world.” – Our Lady, March 18, 1977
THE SACRAMENTS
“Through countless years upon your earth, I have cried out in warning to you. O My children, keep your sacramentals about you. Accept and do not reject the Sacraments of My Son’s House: Baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. And Matrimony, My children-you reject the natural laws of your God. You are substituting a pagan way of life!
“These laws were given by your God. These rules were given by your God; they are not man-made! You in your arrogance, O pastors who rule within My Son’s House, you have rejected the supernatural. You reject the teachings the very founding Fathers of your Church gave unto you, and you reject them for a modern teaching of satan!
“My Son chose, in His earth life, those who would begin His Church that will last until the end of time, for the gates of hell shall never prevail against His Church. Though many shall come with evil in their hearts and plans of destruction to My Son’s Church, I say unto you: you will get nowhere in your pursuit, for you have set yourselves against your Almighty God.” – Our Lady, November 1, 1976
BEATIFIC VISION
“Do not judge your brothers and sisters who have not been converted. For My Father’s House, My Son has repeated over and over: remember always that My Father’s House-there are many rooms in the Mansion, signifying faiths and creeds. However, the Eternal Father, the beatific vision, is reserved for the Roman Catholic following. This it has been deemed by the Eternal Father since the beginning of time.” – Our Lady, August 14, 1979
ONE TRUE CHURCH
“My child and My children, you are all My children. I judge you not by color or race, and I do not judge you by your creed; however, should the knowledge of the One True Church be given to you, and the way to Heaven along the narrow road be given to you, you will follow it or you will be rejected.” – Our Lady, August 21, 1985
ECUMENISM
“My Son, His heart is torn asunder by His representatives in the priesthood who now are Judases in His own House. They consort with the enemies of your God. In the manner of humanism and modernism, and an ecumenism that has been designed from hell, man now is plunging fast into making ready the full capitulation of My Son’s Church and the world under a dictatorship of evil.
“When the world and My Son’s Church becomes as one, when the evil men of the cross have sought to destroy My Son within His own House, know that the end is near at hand. I say unto you, as your Mother: as you sow, so shall you reap!” – Our Lady, November 22, 1976
A LEADER
“You must not compromise your Faith, My children, by bringing in those who have separated themselves from your true Church. This Church was founded by My Son, and He set a leader, a Pope, among you.” – Our Lady, November 20, 1975
ONLY A REMNANT
“Do not be deluded, My children, by the agents of satan among you in human form who preach doctrines of devils. The truth has been given to mankind through the ages. The Holy Roman Catholic Church of My Son will stand. The members shall be reduced to few. Only a remnant, My child, shall carry the banner Faithful and True. But the gates of hell shall fight a heavy battle against My Son’s Church, but they shall not succeed.” – Our Lady, May 14, 1977
i bet if someone were to just read the above quotes (after the encyclicals), not knowing where they came from, they would be struck by how true these words sound….so i will not tell you where they came from…a quick google seach will tell you…but bear in mind that countless miracles confirmed these words…i know about the objections to them too…one famous person changed their mind about them from a negative to a positive opinion near the end of his life…
of course, if you were to open the cathechism in front of Pope Francis, he would probably laugh at you…well, maybe not openly, he would probably act like he was listening respectfully but deep down inside i think he would be laughing…remember that if youre going to successfully oppose someone or correct them, you have to know what theyre thinking and how they think…my guess (based on his homilies) is that he would say that youre following too closely the letter of the law and not the spirit of it…this is no mean objection either since its the crux of the debate b/w Jesus and the Pharisees and by extension the crux of the debate b/w traditionalists and modernists or even b/w strict Christians and the more worldly…or so they say…but the problem with this argument if applied too liberally is that Jesus didnt come to abolish the Law, not even the letter of it (“not a jot or tittle”), but to fulfill it…for example, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees b/c they tolerated divorce whereas Jesus strongly condemns it b/c it “tears asunder” what God has joined together…He therefore upholds the “letter” of the Law by saying that divorce is wrong “in spirit” and by saying divorce is akin to breaking the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery”…so fast forward to today: Kasper et al say that its not being “merciful” to deny communion to the divorced and remarried (and perhaps also to same-sex couples and perhaps also to politicians who promote abortion)…you have to know how they think…but as Bishop Athanasius Schneider pointed out in a recent article “The Fourth Great Crisis of the Church,” what kind of mercy is it that puts someone’s soul in jeopardy by encouraging them to remain in sin and almost legitimizing it?…so what kind of mercy is it? well, its a “non-judgmental” mercy…its the mercy that flows from their conception of who God is…they believe He is a God of Mercy. Period. …not a God of Mercy and Justice…or a God of Might…not a God whose Mercy trumps His Justice, a God who is loathe to punish and chastise His children (slow to anger) but is forced to when they refuse to repent…that is not the God they believe in (if they even believe in Him!, i sometimes wonder)…Father Barron summarizes their position when he says: we’re not sure that there is anybody in Hell…so you have to ask: do they even believe in Hell?…my guess is that the simple answer is no…that doesnt fit in with their conception of God…unless of course youre the Mafia since Pope Francis says that they will be going to hell…which makes me wonder too why he has singled them out more than all the other criminal organizations that support abortion…so its hell for you if youre not on the same side politically or ideologically with the pope, but a very weak reprimand if you are…dont get me wrong: im not supporting the mafia here….and i am in fact all for mercy, especially the Divine Mercy that Saint Faustina promulgates…i just think its being twisted in this case for unclear motives…so many questions raised and left unanswered…i will not be popular in saying this but only Maria Divine Mercy has provided any real insight into this pope’s mindset and agenda (MDM did in fact in her messages see it coming)…and then finally something which stuck with me from the book The Triumph of Justice by the Flynns: “around the year 2000, will be the height of ecclesiastical Masonry within the Church”
I think Pope St Leo Xiii calls this type of theology Freemasonry.
The cruicifix or Statue of liberty choose today before its to late
ps The weeds are in need of pruning
The CRUCIFIX or the 5 or 6 pointed star, indeed! The MATER DEI or isis, the goddess of license. We must LOVE one MASTER and Mistress and DESPISE the other! SALVE REGINA. MATER DEI, ORA PRO NOBIS! VIVO CHRISTO REY!!!
Steve,
Thanks for your cool headed analysis, which is so necessary, because so many find it very emotionally upsetting to consider that perhaps Pope Francis does not have the Catholic Faith. There are others, on the other hand, who have quite made up their minds that he does not, and do not regard him as pope, since a man without the faith cannot be validly elected pope, since he is not even a member of the Church. Yet there is a Catholic via media even in this: if a man who were pope do and act in such a manner as to be canonical capable of being judged not to have the faith, it is an established principle that the College of Cardinals has the right to judge the matter. I think that we have reached the point where a formal canonical case can be preprared and brought to the College to formally ask them to judge this question. Until the College publically makes such a judgement, we are bound to hold Francis as pope. I for one agree that many specific instances and the whole total of what he has said and done are not compatible with one who holds the faith, and that such a case should and ought to be brought. This obligation falls more upon the members of the hieararchy and teologians, than on us laity who seem to understand the faith better than some others….
There is too much despair in these comments. Don’t obsess too much on what the Pope may have said. Rely fully on what Jesus did say: “Upon this rock I wll build my church and even the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Believe that fully and the sayings of any Pope, Bishop, layperson, etc. become less important. This is HIS church and it is secure for all time. No person, in any position, can seriously treaten the existence of His church.
Steve, have you ever encountered anyone angry at the Church over abuse? And if so what did you say to bring them bam to the Faith? Maybe you have some magic ability or skill that Pope Francis lacks….you expected the Pope tell her she must forgive and continue to attend Church? Really?
You know, the biggest problem with Catholics today, is they lack the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, and always seem to have the answers. A straight read from CCC is meant to solve all of our Faith problems.
This is an unrealistic, naive and condescending attitude to have. You don’t know the extent of the hurt someone who has left the Faith feels. You don’t know their hearts. Only God does. Through the Popes prayers she will find her own way back to God. No prompting by you or the Pope is going to enforce this.
Stop judging others. Including the Pope. You have no right to hold him or anyone to your standards, because you have not walked in their shoes. And this continued attitude will only make those struggling with their Faith, become more hostile and alienated from the Church.
Enough already!
Who cares what the Pope says? Those of us who know the truth can simply ignore him and go on our way. Nothing has changed in the faith. Those who are ignorant get a warm fuzzy feeling and are friendlier to Catholics and gush over popular magazines. No harm done. I’m not worried about babbling, vacillating Francis. It’s that Gang of 8, oh, 9, oh now 10, that worries me.
And who is responsible for this terrible committee of cardinals, lots of appointments of bishops, etc., who attack the law of God and Church doctrine, for the persecution of FFI, FSI and countless traditional priests and laity? No harm done. People all around are turning explicitly to evil and think they have the blessing of the Pope. Blessed Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle . . .
What the Pope says to a person in a private conversation applies only to that individual. For example, the woman who was the victim of the sexual abuse may not be required to be physically in the Church to gain salvation. That would not be the case for other Catholics, only for her. If she has lost her faith due to the actions of a priest as a child, then God can work with that. Years ago, my mother was told she did not have to attend mass because of an anxiety disorder that she would experience with so many people around her during mass. So for my mom not to attend mass was not a sin. She did not lose her salvation. But that dispensation did not apply to me, because my circumstances are different. Context is everything.
Some year ago, Edwin Faust compared the contemporary Church to ‘a mad mother who has abandoned her children’. Observing this pope, we can see that in much starker colors than one might if it were just the local ordinary who was troublesome (as Faust’s was, along with the pastor of his parish, which is why he was putting 100 miles on his car every Sunday to take his family to an independent chapel).
If we’re fortunate, the ravages of age will persuade Cdl. Kasper and the Pope to exit stage right before they do anymore damage than they have already.
Bad Pope. It was bound to happen at some point after being solidly blessed for the past 40 years. Hunker down and hope he does no lasting damage before his term expires. He has totally misread the world situation. The world scoffs at “mercy” because they do not believe they need it. What they want is for the Church to tell them they are not sinners after all; that what God has proscribed is no longer forbidden. They think / hope Francis will give them that. What the world needs to hear at this point are the first words of Jesus’ public ministry in the Gospel of Matthew – “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And the words of St. Peter to the crowd in Jerusalem on the morning of Pentacost: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” He is preaching mercy first, hoping that it leads to repentance. Jesus had it the other way around. He offered his mercy, but not without repentance.
Perhaps this is the way Christ is bringing in unity to his church. Remember the Lord desires mercy not sacrifice. The Pope is speaking as Christ would and the Pharisee’s I read about in this blog amaze me. Are you so afraid your empire is going to collapse ? Its about the love of Christ for all and the blood he shed on our behalf. If you really believe that the church has the keys then you know she will survive by the act of Christ and not you. By the way I am a Catholic who loves the Pope and is grateful that he is reaching out in love and not with the law !!!!
So I guess that means you’re going to just completely ignore the questions I asked in the post? Because unless you can posit a plausible theory that makes sense of this situation as I’ve presented it, your objections ring rather shallow.
We ARE to be one SO THAT THEY MAY BELIEVE–and FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS is what saves, period: good works may be evidence of salvation; but they are not salvation, because all our works are as filthy rages–our righteousesses even. Per the Bible confirmed by the Catholic Church! Per Jesus-the-Word.
Not everyone IS AT THE SAME PLACE. Jesus himself tells us that some are outside when the disciples asked him after rebuking those who were not “with them”; there are two occasions of this–one in which Jesus says those who do not gather to him scatter which we commonly ‘use on’ ‘protestants’/the other in which Jesus says let them alone; he who is not against us is for!!! THESE are the guys WHO ARE Recognized by Jesus AS BEING ON OUR PART. THESE ARE THE GUYS FOR WHOM JESUS IS THE DOOR OF THE SHEEP. They must believe–that way they area believers outside the walls, the same way we have unbelievers inside the walls.
We are ALWAYS to be one–not ‘later’ when we have finally crammed into the roofed-STRUCTURE!!! What a witness.
THAT–Jesus said so–the world will believe.
Victim needs TO BELIEVE–before BEING EXPECTED TO DO WHAT BELIEVERS DO. You do NOT tell an unbeliever, “you must sit in a church-building on Sundays.”
We are NOT to convert “to church-walls,” IS THE POINT when spoken in Truth–and we should ACCEPT THAT Truth-without-losing-our-guard-about-speaker.+<3–follow NO MAN but JESUS CHRIST and him CRUCIFIED; seek THE TRUTH; the Truth will make you free 🙂
Lest we forget, back in February Pope Francis said in his Wednesday audience “If you do not feel in need of God’s mercy, if you do not feel you are a sinner, then it’s better not go to Mass, because we go to Mass because we are sinners and we want to receive the forgiveness of Jesus, to participate in His redemption, His forgiveness.”
Is it really unsurprising that he said this? Hardly.
I too am deeply troubled by what you and your estimable commenters have described. I recall reading that someone said Pope Francis had “love without love’s wisdom” and fear this may be true.
My wishful thinking on this issue is that Francis, like St Paul on Mars Hill, is just trying to get certain people to take baby steps toward Christ. These would be people who are not yet ready for the fullness of Christ and His Church, but who might just take the first steps toward Our Lord. Of course, it would be nice if Pope Francis reassured us that this is what he is doing.
Get behind me Satan your thinking like men (freemasonry)
The popes warned us about this sect it has such demonic hold on us
example father of Rock music allester Crowly
Darwinism father freemason
The central banks need I say more
Behind the lodge door book ( judges and School )
ST Leo XIII warn us
SAy your Rosary
How do these universalist-style statements square with the pontiff’s other statement about the dangers of spiritualizing the faith and one needs the Church to have a relationship with Christ?
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/06/seeking-jesus-outside-church-pope-francis-says-dangerous-and-harmful/
The internal inconsistencies are maddening. You could write a companion article to this one exploring the two trains of thoughts that we see with this pope. This is such an odd place to be in as a faithful Catholic.
I just see many second-hand quotes. How do we know he really said these things?
Senteniaedeo,
I believe that is the point of this article. We cannot be certain he said this or that, but why would there be such a string of troubling statements that are consistent but from very different sources that are not interconnected.
When you have a growing body of secondary evidence, if you can call eyewitnesses secondary evidence, then you start to paint a picture of the crime scene without actually being there.
If one sees smoke, smells smoke and starts to inhale smoke – rest assured something is on fire.
Are they not interconnected? A very tiny number of people controls the global media.
Beware the ever prevailing normalcy bias!
Sadly, this line of argumentation assumes that it’s more likely that a recondite and unverifiable cabal of secularists has Control Of Everything, versus the simple deduction, from numerous data, that the current vicar of Christ is in large part a quasi-Modernist fool.
All I’m saying is that we can make a judgement based not upon hearsay but upon the (quasi-)official pronouncements like the “Apostolic Exhortation” Evangelii Gaudium‘s §247, where he says the Jewish covenant has never been revoked.
True enough, but this vicar seems to love to double down on the indifferentist confusion of our age.
Certainly, he is contributing to the confusion.
If Francis believes that the Mosaic covenant can still help the Jews get to Heaven, he needs to reread the Book of Hebrews. Today’s Catholic(?) ecumenists need to be much more charitable to non-Catholics because objectively, each non-Catholic is outside the Church, including the Eastern Orthodox faithful. Maybe Francis forgets that Our Lord warned ancient Jews that, if they didn’t admit the He was the Messiah, they would die in their sins.
Bill, the Catholic Church centuries ago sacrificed its spiritual patrimony on the altar of wealth, power, secular prestige, political influence, monarchistic trappings, arcane intellectuality and institutional arrogance. Pray tell, how do any of those things reflect “the fullness of the Gospel,” the phrase with which Catholics who think like you brag about the Church?
Joseph Dreamcoat is right: Francis is not some sui generis phenomenon. He is the logical consequence of Catholic history. But that history goes back farther than the 19th Century. It goes back at least to the “papal pornocracy” of the early medieval period.
The Church itself will die in its own sins if it does not repent from all of the above, put on the modern equivalent of sackcloth and ashes and return to its first love.
15. Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated ghese men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God
Has anyone reported on how Pope Francis responds to people who have not needed healing of some sort? We see a lot of his responses for people in trouble of some sort, for example here with an abuse victim. The telephone person was in a marital situation.
Has he said similar things to say for example to a couple that comes up to him for a blessing for their marriage, “Oh, you really do not need to be married in the Church”?
I am trying to square these what seem to be personal conversations with other more public statements like the Church being a field hospital or the Christian without the Church is really no Christian at all.
What do Pope Francis’s comments imply about what modernists and modernist-leaning prelates believe Vatican II means when it says that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church? To me, they suggest that the Church of Christ is distinct from the Catholic Church, bigger than it, or both. It seems to that Canon Gregory Hesse makes some excellent points in a fascinating interview called “Vatican II Ain’t a Council.” If I understand his argument, I can sum it up with this argument:
To be an ecumenical council, a supposed one needs to define dogma, condemn heresies, condemn other falsehoods, or do all three of these things.
Vatican II did none of them.
_________________________________________________________________________
So Vatican II was not an ecumenical council.
Maybe I should have mentioned that Pius XII teaches that the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are “one and the same thing.” Please see his encyclicals Mystici Corporis Christi and Humani Generis.
1. Pope Francis should be put up against a wall and shot.
2. As for this:
““The only thing I wish to say is that the document Dominus Iesus does not state that everybody needs to become a Catholic in order to be saved by God. On the contrary, it declares that God’s grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, i.e. the faithful response of the Jewish people to God’s irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises”
– this is a gross distortion of the meaning of the document. It totally ignores the minor detail that grace is given in order that men may be converted. There is no salvation w/in Judaism as such – it is a dead cult, with no sacrifice, b/c it has been fulfilled in and superseded by the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ. If Jews are ever saved, it is despite their Judaism and because of the Atonement made by Christ. But this denial of supersession by Ratzinger is Modernist filth, plaion and simple.
3. “This touches the problem of mission towards Jews, a painful question with regard to forced conversion in the past. Dominus Iesus, as other official documents, raised this question again saying that dialogue is a part of evangelisation.This stirred Jewish suspicion. But this is a language problem, since the term evangelisation, in official Church documents, cannot be understood in the same way it is commonly interpreted in everyday’s speech. In strict theological language, evangelisation is a very complex and overall term, and reality. It implies presence and witness, prayer and liturgy, proclamation and catechesis, dialogue and social work . . . which do not have the goal of increasing the number of Catholics. Thus evangelisation, if understood in its proper and theological meaning, does not imply any attempt of proselytism whatsoever.””
## It is deceitful and wicked to use language in this confusing way. Either these apologies for Catholics intend to preach the Gospel, and want people to be converted to Christ, Who is the Only Saviour – or they do not. I do not care a damn how complex the notion of evangelisation may be – no appeals to complexity can be allowed to divert attention from the Church’s God-given mission to preach the Gospel to all mankind. I despise with all my heart the sort of thinking people engage in when they appeal to complexity, rather than finding words that express, clearly and and unambiguously, what the man ikn the street understands by (in this case) “evangelisation”. Is Kasper the Unorthodox Ghost so ignorant that he’s never heard of evangelism ? These people make me sick. I notice that whereas strongholds of uinbelief like the C of E & the Vatican are unable to express themselves clearly and briefly, people in bodies like the SSPX & the Free Church of Scotland, both of which are missionary-minded, never have any difficulty in making their meaning plain. Only in the La-La Land of Deceitful Ecumenical Obscurity & Polysyllabic Balderdash do writers write as though they were swimming through a sea of Superglue.
1. Pope Francis should be put up against a wall and shot.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was ill-considered sarcasm. I’m not even sure where to search for “willing the murder of a prelate” in the old moral manuals, but I’m pretty sure it carries some hefty ontological penalties with it.
Please let’s use better sense in expressing our frustration, shall we?
I have yet to find a case of a cleric who “consent[s] to the doers” of “such things” (Romans 1:32) as acts of sodomy who is also 100% completely orthodox.
I have yet to find a case of a cleric who “consent[s] to the doers” of “such things” (Romans 1:32) as acts of sodomy who is also 100% completely orthodox. Even the supposedly traditional Fr. Urrutigoity is not 100% orthodox. The issue is not Catholicism but those who pretend to be Catholic.
Excellent on every level. THANK YOU and GOD BLESS You.
You know, you are all missing the point. What is that point? The priests who molested these victims and the bishops who protected them destroyed faith not just in Catholicism, but in the Triune God Himself!!! Those evil bastards took God’s name in vain! You don’t think that a holy, righteous God will judge such evil miscreants? Do you seriously think He cares more about “ecumenism” than about the profanation of His reputation by leaders of a Church that claims to bear “the fullness of the Gospel”???
You are all so proud of your knowledge of encyclicals and Traditionalist Catholicism, and your sense of theological correctness, yet you have absolutely no idea about the moral and psychological damage these evil prelates did to the innocent.
If I actually believed in reincarnation (which I don’t), I would swear that you lived previous lives as Pharisees and Sadducees back in first-century Judea.
Your attitude reflects the fundamental reason why I left Catholicism: It tolerates evil and doesn’t care about the innocent. Whether it’s clerical sex abuse, the Muslim persecution of Christians, or justice for murder victims and their families, the issue makes no difference. Whether the clerics are liberal, conservative, Progressive or Traditionalist makes no difference. They are all evil. They condone evil. They prefer intellectual gymnastics to divinely inspired truth. They prefer words to action. They are moral cowards. They are all going to Hell!!!! Some of them probably are there, already. Remember St. John Chrysostom: The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.
Truer prophetic words have rarely been spoken.
“You know, you are all missing the point. What is that point? The priests who molested these victims and the bishops who protected them destroyed faith not just in Catholicism, but in the Triune God Himself!!!”
## On the contrary – *because* that is the case, the crimes committed turn out to be even more serious than they seemed before. It’s appalling that Catholics sin; that a mortal sin should be committed, is worse; that a Catholic priest should commit is worse yet; that the sin should be an assault is worse yet; that it should be a breach of trust is even worse than that; that it should be against the weakest members of the Church, is worse yet; that the sinfulness of men should cause loss of faith in God, is worst of all.
These horrible events are proof of the wickedness of man – they are no objection to the Goodness of God, or to His Holiness within His Church. These sins, like all sins of Christians, are sins against the Church, not just against God. A Catholic can only say these things on condition that he is content to condemn himself along with those he criticises – Christ does niot stand over against us, condemning us; so neither can we do so.
The problem with leaving the Church because of the abominations – one uses the word advisedly – within it, is that to do so is to stand in judgement upon the Church; but that is to deny that one has any fellowship with one’s fellow-sinners. To be in the Church, is to be united with others regardless of their sins or one’s own – just as Christ shared fully in the human condition of sinful men even though He is the Holy One of God.
So if these modern scandals are enough to “unChurch” the Church – it must have been able to be “unChurched” when the first sin by a Christian was committed. It is either totally “unChurchable”, no matter what – or even the least sin can destroy it. For all sins, whether horrendous to men or highly approved by men, are equal in this, that they “fall short of the Glory of God”. Sin is sinful, whether the sin is a single swear-word, or the genocide of dozens of millions. And by the same logic, all sins can be forgiven, as Christ Himself says – including those that we find most horrendous. Christians are not entitled to regard as unforgivable sins those sins that Christ does not regard as unforgivable; for there are no such sins. Therefore, there cannot be any sins so grave that they “unChurch” the Church, which is His, if it is to be a Church at all. He is the One All-sufficient Reason to be Catholic – there is good in the Church only because He is the Good God from Whom all good comes. That puts all scandals, every single one, in their place.
FWIW, it seems to me that to be a “cradle Catholic”, who has known no other religion, almost causes people to leave the CC. A depressingly large number of people claim to have had “12 years of Catholic school”, & to be ex-Catholics. It might be better for Catholics if they were baptised in adulthood, after deciding they wanted to be Catholic. The present practice of infant baptism allows the Church to be filled with millions of semi-believers & Catholic agnostics – hardly a healthy state of affairs.
Christ Has Revealed through His Life, His Passion, and His Death On The Cross, that Perfect Love is desiring Salvation for one’s beloved.
“I give you a new Commandment, Love one another as I Have Loved you.” – Jesus The Christ.
The Sacrifice of The Cross, Is The Sacrifice of The Most Holy, The Blessed Trinity, for God so Loved us, that He sent His only Son…”
“The only thing I wish to say is that the document Dominus Iesus does not state that everybody needs to become a Catholic in order to be saved by God. On the contrary, it declares that God’s grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all.”
## What His Eminence fails to notice, is that grace is given to all men so that all men should become Catholics. Christ does not give us grace, in order to help us to disobey Him by *not* becoming and remaining members of His Church, the Catholic Church He founded, that is built on the Apostles & is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Doesn’t Cardinal Kasper believe the Faith professed by the Church in the Creed ?
Cardinal Ratzinger obviously made the mistake, in composing “Dominus Iesus”, of imagining that Catholic clergy knew & believed the Catholic Faith; otherwise he would have made explicit the point that Cardinal Kasper misses. Cardinal Kasper is gravely in error, which is appalling for a man in his position.