C&L's Christmas flyer, 2017: It looks like a spoof of Bethlehem and the humble birthplace of Christ.
Bergoglio, C&L, and Soloviev's Anti-Christ:
The progressive 'cancellation' of Jesus in the light
of John Paul II's dramatic prophecy of the 'Muslim invasion'
Translated from
November 26, 2017
There was some uproar recently over a school in Sicily where the images of Jesus and Our Lady were taken out, and morning prayers before class were cancelled, all in the name of secularity for schools. As the law would have it.
[Is there a new Italian law now? Did not the European Court of Justice many years ago rule that Italian public schools could display Christian images on school walls?]
For the same reason, then, all ideological indoctrination ought to be banned from public schools.
But if freedom of education were fact, then these problems would not arise. In a nation which has a variety of educational offerings, everyone could choose [or parents can for minors] the school he prefers (including a Catholic school that begins morning classes with a prayer).
But Italy does not have this freedom. And one can bet that what happened in that Sicilian school is merely the 'appetizer' for the coming polemics over Christmas which rage annually over the crèche in public places and other Christian images and practices celebrating the birth of Christ.
[Isn't it just outrageous and irrational that the whole world – even Muslims – take advantage of the Christmas season for commercial purposes, and then in the name of secularity, would seek to prevent Christians from celebrating Christmas as they have done for more than 2000 years until the dawn of political correctness?]
Should a Nativity scene be set up in public? Does Jesus's birth in Bethlehem offend anyone? Then why do schools have 15 days of vacation at Christmas time? Is a Nativity scene in a public space only a religious representation or is it not a cultural reminder of the Christian roots we Europeans have in common?
[But that is the whole point of the 'Christmas controversy' – official, institutional Europe has chosen to forget or ignore these Christian roots, leaving out any mention of it in the European Constoitution!]
Before answering these questions, one must point out something that no one has yet noted.
An occurrence of enormous importance is taking place in 'the Church' – above all, in 'the Church', not in the schools – that Jesus is either being progressively 'cancelled out' or takes only secondary importance.
The announcement of God incarnated, the announcement of salvation, has been replaced in the past five years, with a kind of social or socialist preaching centered around immigrants (preferably Muslim) and ecologist preaching on global warming.
This replacement is quantitative above all:
the obsessive insistence with which the reigning pope continuously speaks of migrants and ecology at all hours and every day, at Christmas, at Assumption, at Easter, at whatever holiday, is that with which his predecessors spoke constantly of announcing Christ, eternal life, Catholic doctrine.
But a conceptual substitution is also under way, because
the poor man, in general, and the migrant in particular (especially if he is Muslim) have become, for Bergoglio, a theological category with which he has progressively replaced the Savior.
On November 15, 2015, he even said that
"it doesn't matter if you go to Mass - what is important is if you are concerned about the poor because poverty is at the center of the Gospel".
In his view, therefore,
'social action' is more important than the Sacrifice of Christ relived in the Mass and the Eucharist. So it would seem that the models to be followed would be labor leaders, and not saints like Therese of Lisieux who lived a cloistered life.
Just a few days ago, he said in one of his catecheses that
'salvific power' lies with the poor, because "they open the way to heaven, they are our passport to Paradise". This is a direct slide into Liberation Theology which the Church has solemnly rejected.
[But which Cardinal Mueller defends tooth and nail, as long as it does not advocate fighting a literal war!]
Yet has not the Church always preached that 'Christ is the only Savior', and as Peter said,
"There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4,12).
Someone who has perfectly interpreted the new Bergoglian Gospel is the present head of Comunione e Liberazione, Julian Carron, who, throwing out the teaching of C&L founder Don Giussani (and in the process, also casting off C&L itself which has been reduced to 'minimum terms'), has come up with a Christmas flyer which has nothing about Jesus but depicts instead a refugee camp. It might be a 'beautiful, artistic picture' but Jesus is totally absent, so it represents a Bergoglian 'Christmas', not the Christian Christmas.
[Actually not totally absent, because he is mentioned in the text that goes with the flyer. Or is it supposed to be a Christmas card?]
Forgetting that someone who had perfectly interpreted the Christian announcmenet was Francis of Assisi who loved the poor and poverty far more
[because genuinely] than Bergoglio or Carron. Indeed, ge invented the whole idea of a Nativity scene to celebrate and adore God-made-man, not the poor or migrants.
[Bergoglio's rationale is that we should literally see Christ himself in every poor man and every migrant.]
Mother Teresa lived like Francis of Assisi, and she considered Liberation Theology a plague.
Yet the drift towards secular 'socialisticizing' humanitarianism began in the Church in the 1970s. Cardinal Giacomo Biffi wrote at the time:
"The great danger for Christianity in our day is that it is gradually being reduced – perhaps by the generous desire to be pleasing to all – to an aggregate of humanitarian commitments and the exaltation of those values which are marketable in the world".
Don Giussani, who was a friend of Biffi and shared this concern - and in order to make C&L members understand the poisonous insidiousness of
the degeneration of Christianity into humanitarianism – exhorted them to read and disseminate "A short tale of the Anti-Christ' by Vladimir Soloviev which dealt with just such a distortion of Christianity.
The protagonist of the story, the Emperor, said he esteemed the figure of Jesus, but
believed he was better than him [Does that remind you of someone???] because he would finally bring peace and love to the world:
Christ was the reformer of mankind, preaching and showing moral goodness in his life. But I will be called the benefactor of mankind… (because) I will give to all men what they need.
Christ, as a moralist, divided men into good or bad, whereas I will unite them with benefits which are needed equally by good and evil men. I will be the true representative of that God who makes the sun rise for the good and the bad, and brings rain to both the just and the unjust.
Christ brought the sword, I bring peace. He threatened the world with a terrible Last Judgment. But I will be the ultimate judge, and my judgment will not simply be justice but also mercy.
[Soloviev wrote his short tale in 1900. I am sure he never imagined that his emperor would be incarnated 113 years later in an actual pope!]
With this claim, the Emperor promised Christians – provided they prostrated themselves before him – whatever they wished: a Christian culture, social and moral values… But the response came from a saintly monk, the
starets [wise elder] Ivan:
"Great sovereign, what we treasure most in Christianity is Christ himself. He and everything that comes from him, since we know that the fullness of divinity swells in him… Confess Jesus Christ, here and now, to us!"
Ivan represents the true Christian in the face of the seduction of power manipulating the faith, don Giussani explained.
Yet today, it seems the Emperor is triumphant – if at Christmastime, it is Catholics themselves who replace Jesus with the humanitarian value of solidarity manifested with any and all refugees.
Moreover, the poor migrants of Bergoglio or of Carron's Christmas card are not even 'the poor persecuted Christians' who are truly the most derelict because they seem to have been abandoned by everyone (starting with the Vatican).
The objects of their mercy are, rather, Muslim migrants – and it is not by chance that when Bergoglio visited the refugee camp on Lesbos, where there were many Christian refugees, he chose to bring back a Muslim family to Rome with him.
This Bishop of Rome does not see any problem whatsoever with the Muslim migrant waves washing over Italy and Europe, even if there are enormous problems.
We recently learned that John Paul II, who had mystical experiences – had a dramatic vision about the future of Europe. Back in March 1993, he confided to a friend:
Remind those whom you will meet in the church of the third millennium. I see the Church afflicted by a mortal scourge. More profound and more sorrowful compared to those of the 20th century. It is called Islamism. The Muslims will invade Europe. I saw hordes of migrants coming from Morocco, Libya and Egypt, and from the East. They will invade Europe. And you, the church of the third millennium, must stop that invasion. Not with weapons - which will not suffice – but by living your faith with integrity.
Replacing Jesus with migrants is hardly integral faith. It is total surrender of the faith.