Aldo Maria Valli's disenchantment with Bergoglio and his Pontificate cannot be better described by the fact that in the course of a year, he has written two books
to critique it - the first, '266', a direct account of all the things that the 266th Successor of Peter has said and done to harm the Church; and a new one
that imagines the 'church' of the future after a series of popes all named Francis, to each of which he attributes words and deeds picked up directly from the
chronicles of 'Francis I', but artfully portrayed as 'new' developments by all his Bergoglian successors. I have been remiss in not translating this earlier,
but he regaled us with two of the chapters from his new book last December. In much the same spirit, he has been alternating his serious commentary lately
with what I have called his fantasy satires. Except that all the 'fantasy' is based on, alas, the all-too-true daily chronicles of this unfortunate pontificate.
What became of the Church
Translated from
December 27, 2018
My new book has been on sale since December. It is entitled
Come la Chiesa finì (What became of the Church) and this time, it is not an essay or commentary but a dystopic narrative.
Set in an imaginary future, it describes the progressive transformation of the Catholic Church from being the bulwark of truth and freedom to becoming an entity that increasingly became a friend of ‘the world’, ready to make compromises just be able to ‘dialog’. Dialog, along with welcoming, becomes the true objective of the ‘new church’, which by doing so, falls victim to the new masters of the world and is extinguished. Or at least, so it seems. I post here two of its chapters…
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How the Church came
to rehabilitate Marcion
Dear reader, I am about to tell you how it came about that the Church decided to rehabilitate Marcion, a protagonist of Christian thought in the second century A.D. For you, it must seem to be about events that are truly very remote so allow me a brief epilogue.
A native of Sinope on the Black Sea, Marcion lived in Rome where he died around 160 AD. He was a bishop and theologian, and
the founder of his own church that was based on heresy. Indeed, he maintained that, given the radical difference between the Old and New Testaments, there was an irremediable contradiction between the two books: the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New Testament who is the father of Jesus.
Struck by the extraordinary novelty of Jesus, Marcion saw the Old Testament not as the premise for the coming of Jesus but a past that had to be completely overcome. Not by chance, he wrote a book called
Antitesi, which appears to open with exclamations of joy and surprise over the New Testament which he thought could not be compared to anything else.
Those who have studied Marcion say that the most recurrent word in his words is ‘new’. The newness of the Gospel of Jesus seems to him so overwhelming and great as to justify a clear break from the past: Christ as the new God, the new man, bringer of a new kingdom, a new doctrine, new virtues. So, on his part there was clearly a rejection of the idea of continuity and completion. It is not true, he said, that the salvific plan is unique, and that Jesus had realized this plan starting from everything that the Bible narrates since the beginning of time.
For Marcion, behind the revelations of Scripture, there is not one God, but rather two opposing visions of the Divine: one belonging to the Old Testament, the other to the New. The first God, so to speak, was the creator, but then, there was a second God superior to the first because he was merciful and a savior.
And this is what the second new God brought: his mercy, his goodness, his love. Whereas the God of the Old testament was hard, perhaps even cruel and vindictive, the God of the New Testament was a loving father, always ready to forgive. While the first God looks at the law, the second God looks at man. So we have an incurable dualism, Marcione says: on one hand, creation; on the other, salvation. On one hand, justice, on the other, mercy.
Marcione was so convinced of his hypothesis that
he ended up mutilating the New Testament: since he considered unacceptable those parts which linked to the Old Testament and which exalted the humanity of Jesus (he thought this was unworthy of a God), he simply eliminated them, considering them not ‘inspired’. [Remind you of someone?]
[BTW, everything Valli writes here about Marcion is historical fact. To begin with, just consult the Wikipedia article on Marcion. But it is hilarious how he condenses Marcion's teachings exactly the way 'Francis I' has been preaching and teaching Bergoglian thought. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jorge Marcion Bergoglio!]
Now it is easy to understand why the Catholic Church considered him a heretic. Nonetheless, many centuries later, a pope decided to rehabilitate him. This pope was Francis XVII, the Colombian Gustavo Gonzalo Sergio Paulo Ángel Guzmán. Who, after having sought the opinion of the usual commission of cardinals (this time, there were 44, the C44), he promulgated
Sic et simpliciter (Thus and simply) in which, precisely on the basis of rehabilitating Marcione’s thought, he established the following:
- God punishes no one, otherwise he would be violent and cruel. The God who punishes is a pagan god, or at most, the God of the Old Testament, but not the Christian God.
- God gives each of his creatures permission to sin freely with the certainty of impunity. Sins must be de-penalized.
- Original Sin is not a historical fact but a myth. God, after Original Sin, did not punish mankind, and Original Sin did not at all generate in men a tendency to sin.
- On the contrary, mankind is good. Everyone is projected towards God and are in God’s grace, even atheists. No one will go to hell, because God forgives everything and everyone.
- Sinners must not be punished, but at most, we must commiserate with them (misericordism).
- There is no moral law that is objective, unchaging and universal, but every man is free to follow his own conscience.
- Dogmas change according to human needs.
- Even moral law is necessarily changeable.
- We must never defend ourselves from the enemy or the oppressor with the use of force: better to allow ourselves to become his slaves.
- There is no just use of force. God could never wish the use of force, or he would be a violent God.
- To defend oneself from an aggressor is sin, violence and injustice itself.
- All disputes must be resolved with dialog, even when one is in a condition of objective subjugation.
- Christ is not the only Savior of mankind, and one can be saved even if is not Christian.
- A Catholic must never seek to convert non-Catholics to Catholicism: Th is proselytism, which is always reprehensible because it shows a lack of respect for diversity.
- One must firmly reject the idea that Christ had offered an expiatory or reparatory sacrifice to make up to the Father for the sins of man. God pardons freely without the need of any sacrifice.
- Therefore, the celebration of Mass is largely idolatry and superstition – to be tolerated only for the sake of those faithful who are less responsible and ill informed.
- To eliminate injustices, divine grace or religious faith are not necessary – rather, good will and good world policy.
- To be virtuous and to be saved, it is not necessary to belong to the Church. One only ahs to be honest and to belong to the human race.
- There are no supernatural virtues, only natural ones.
You can well, understand, dear reader, that
Sic et sempliciter had a shattering effect on the faith, the doctrine, and the very life of the Church. From that moment, the Church’s conformity with the spirit of the world underwent an unprecedented acceleration.
How it came about that the Church judged
it was not appropriate to judge
Dear reader,
I now wish to narrate how the Church arrived at imposing on the faithful the rule that they must not judge nor express any opinion on reality and on persons.
The initiative was that of Francis XVIII, the Brazilian Neimar Marcelo David Thiago Firmino, who convoked the cardinals in an extraordinary assembly to communicate to them his great decision:
“Enough with making judgments about the world! Enough with all the criticism! We wish to be in harmony with the world, friendly to everyone. Only that way can we have dialog with the culture in which we live. Otherwise, we will always be considered like foreign bodies. This separation must end!”
Francis XVIII was thinking of asking the cardinals to draft an appropriate document on the theme, so that he could have a basis to work on for an encyclical. But the cardinals unanimously informed the pope that they would all be taking a yearlong sabbatical, so there would be no one to draft the document.
Nonetheless, Papa Firmino was undaunted, and alone in his office, he spent the summer engrossed in writing, so that by September, he had his encyclical
De gustibus [ellipsis for the full Latin saying 'De gustibus non disputandum est' (In matters of taste, there can be no dispute)], in which
the Church promised that it would never again express any judgment on the world, because faith means prayer and not judgment, faith means welcoming everyone not rupture, faith means sharing not separation.
But since a famous Vaticanista from Uzbek wrote on his blog that to speak of welcoming and hearing was in itself a judgment, and that therefore, the pope was contradicting himself, the Vatican issued a notice through its Press Office, in which the pope expressed his great mercy for the Vaticanista for whom he was praying. After which, there was no trace left of the Vaticanista.
De gustibus was welcomed with great enthusiasm in public opinion. “Finally,” said all the headlines of the progressivist newspapers,
“Now we have a Church we like! Now we have a Church with a human face! Thank you, papa Firmino!”
The major commentators said that the papal document put an end, once and for all, to the era of the Inquisition, and that henceforth, dialog between contemporary culture and the Church would be much more agreeable and easy, opening up great perspectives of growth for everyone under the sign of reciprocal willingness and collaboration.
After all, the problems to be resolved, they said, were numerous, starting from global cooling (because after the global warming
[that everyone had predicted to be catastrophic for the planet], the world was now getting colder), to the extinction of some animal species, to which, according to some ecological associations, the Church had contributed.
The few faithful who – stunned and disoriented – remembered having read that
Jesus, although he was merciful, never renounced expressing his judgment on the realities in his time and on the persons he met, and who always exhorted men to convert in order to come closer to God, felt even more lonely and abandoned than ever. Some sought to react by coming together in groups and associations of resistance. The pope promptly let it be known that he welcomed them with great affection and mercy. After which, there was no trace left of them.
“If we do not judge,” one reads in the encyclical, “then we have nothing to propose to the world, and that is exactly what we want. We must not be proposing messages. Faith is not a judgment but a way of consolation. We must not select, deciding what is good and what is bad, The Christian does not select, he welcomes everything. We must get rid of the old views that are unequivocally Manichaean [i.e., black or white]. The Church is at the disposition of everyone, and by njudging, she welocmes everyone, so that everyone can find in her a word of accompaniment, of adhesion and of sympathy. The man of faith does not judge. The man of faith lives! He lives with others, in the midst of others. The man of faith accompanies and supports others.”
Firmino suggested to theologians that to be up-to-date, they should not stop at the idea of salvation. He loved to say that
“He who loves is saved, not he who judges. Our language should be totally directed towards love”. An idea which linked to the dialoguing vision that he had about the Church’s relationship with other religions.
“The Catholic,” he explained, “cannot sustain that his faith is the only authentic faith. This is an absurdity which would hamper any dialog. Instead we wish to dialog, not to push people away. We wish to build bridges, not walls”.
In a famous speech to the University of a United World in Paris, Firmino asserted that the question about the truth of religion must be considered passe.
“Only the intolerant and the hypocrites,” he explained, “would even raise the question. We who do not judge are committed to ensure that our faith – in its desire to go forth and meet everyone – avoids transforming itself into a culture. If she does, that ti will inevitably become a faith that judges. Instead, ours is a faith that only welcomes.”
That day, the applause erupted at length, and Papa Firmino felt that he had given a decisive contribution to the ‘dialoguizing’ development of the Church.
But he didn’t stop there. Wishing to brign the Chruch even closer to the world, more merciful and more welcoming, he convoked at Assisi all the religions of the world and proposed to his brothers and sisters form other faiths to pray for peace. “One of our ancient predecessors,” he said, “was a protagonist in a similar gesture which we today are called on to renew.
But in that remote time, an authentic common prayer was not possible. Each faith prayed on its own account, in order – as they said at the time – to avoid any superpositions and confusions. But today we wish our unity to be indisputable. That is why we will all pray together, hand in hand, and pray to our one God. No one will have a pretext to justify a presumed superiority over other faiths. Faiths are either all equal to each other, or they are not faith at all. True prayer is that which happens in a visible unity”. After which, there followed a rite of asking the one God for peace, according to a scheme elaborated and executed by the Vatican’s papal liturgy office in collaboration with the heads of all the other religions.
It was a memorable day, and it is still spoken about as a moment of real change. The commentators said that this time, the ecumenical and inter-religious journey really took a great historical step forward.
I might add that today in Assisi, one can see a hologram of that common prayer. Activated on request,
it shows God as each one wishes to see him in such a way, says the label on the hologram, that no one is offended and everyone is respected.
Later, it was reported that one day, in Assisi, a friar dressed in nothing but the Franciscan cassock, stopped in front of the hologram, and suddenly started shouting: “Get away, Satan! Get out of here, Lord of evil!” Some guards stepped in and accompanied him to the local Center for Rethinking, where they would attend to reprogramming him. And now, it seems he is one of the most fervent supporters of an all-welcoming polytheism and has been giving lectures on the topic “Is Catholicism the true faith? The end to a senseless presumption!”
Valli's most recent blogpost satire has to do with the Lord's Prayer that Bergoglio apparently wishes to edit. [Well, why not? Seeing as he has been editing (mostly by omission) what the Gospels report Jesus to have said, time for him to examine - and edit - the Lord's words.
Correcting the 'Our Father'
and its obsolete text
Translated from
January 26, 2018
At that time, at the end of the council convoked to officially decree the obligation to use only the ecclesiastically correct, the reverend conciliar fathers, after long discussions, reached an agreement on the latest translation, reviewed and corrected, then re-corrected and re-reviewed, of the "Our Father", to be used in the place of the
'old formulation', judged by everyone to be inadequate.
Decisive towards arriving at the agreement was the contribution of a famous theologian who fought hard for the new translation and succeeded to convince even the most recalcitrant.
Therefore, the re-corrected, re-reviewed formulation said:
"Our father (but also mother, and in any case, without gender distinction), who are in heaven (but even in so many other places and everywhere), hallowed be your name, thy democracy come, may your opinion be heard (while respecting all other opinions and in dutiful dialog), in the world of ideals and where we are. Give us today our correct daily alimentation and be merciful about our offenses just as we may be tolerant of those who offend us, and do not abandon us to temptation, but deliver us from t which we subjectively consider evil in a given situation and considering all attenuating circumstances. Amen."
The first word 'Our' is marked by an asterisk indicating a footnote in which one reads:
"We decided to maintain the old version and to continue saying 'our', but with this possessive adjective, we do not by any means intend to advocate the claim that the father is such only for those who call themselves Christians. The father is, in reality, 'ours', in the sense that he is the father of all mankind,of all the peoples on earth, with no exclusion, because the Church, besides being universal and welcoming, is inclusive."
There were two asterisks after 'those who offend us' indicating another footnote that says:
"We decided to maintain the old version and to continue referring to 'those who offend us', but in doing so, we do not mean to offend anyone. Whoever feels that he is among such 'offenders' must know that no judgment is thereby expressed against him".
One conciliar father, although he declared himself in agreement with the necessities of ecclesial correctness, noted that the footnotes were longer than the entire prayer, and thus pointed out the disproportion. But
the majority said that often, it is precisely in the footnotes that the most authentic significance of a text emerges, as was the case, one ought to recall, with the revolutionary Amoris laetitia years earlier. So the asterisks for the new 'Our Father' were approved.
And so, the re-reviewed and re-corrected version was published. But a strange phenomenon occurred. As much as the national bishops' conferences sought to impose the new version, the people – strangely - continued to pray the old version. And during Masses, this resulted in some strange turns. Because though the celebrant, mindful of his duty, would start out with the new version, he would have to go back to the old because the people continued to pray the old version.
"But all this is unacceptable!" thundered the famous theologian.
"Every man prays according to the language of his time, whichch is the expression of a given culture, and that is why we should change the words of our prayers. If Jesus really prayed as we were taught in the past (but we cannot know this for sure because there were no tape recorders then), nothing prevents us from adapting his text to new exigencies and to new sensibilities".
But nothing could be done. Notwithstanding all the effort to impose the new version (even the Cagtechism had been duly corrected), the people continued to pray:
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdome come, they will be done on earth as it is in heavne. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."
"Incredible!" the theologian fumed. "They are still saying 'lead us not into temptation' – and to think we had started correcting the prayer precisely on that line!"
One day, the theologian – who was not so old but had rather precarious health - felt ill and ended up in the hospital. He was in a state of near-unconsciousness but he understood what was happening and saw that the doctors were shaking their heads.
"So it's the end!" he thought. And started to pray. So he began:
"Our Father, but also mother…" but he could not go on.
As much as he tried to apply the rules of the ecclesially correct that he himself had determined, the words that came from his heart were those of the old prayer as he had learned it when he was a child - the prayer never reviewed, corrected nor re-corrected. "How strange!", he thought. Which was his last thought before he died.
When, right afterwards, he found himself before God to be judged, the theologian was rather surprised. He would never have thought it – but God truly was an older man, with a beard, like the iconographies that he, the theologian, had always thought naïve! And God was truly seated on his throne, and to his right was the Son! This was truly the moment of judgment.
"Incredible, who would ever have thought it?" he told himself.
The God asked him to recite the Our Father, and the theologian had a dilemma. Should he pray the new formulation that he himself, as an expert on the matter, had helped to formulate, or should he just say the old prayer?
God seemed to read his mind. He said, "Son, don't stop to think. Whether you say it in Latin or the vernacular, it's all the same."
Latin or vernacular! God thought that was his dilemma, but that wasn't it at all. Yet he could not stall indefinitely because other souls were waiting in line to be judged. And that is when, once more, the old prayer came from his heart…
"Well!" God said, stroking his beard and turning to his Son with an expression of feigned surprise, "But weren't we made to understand that that text has been replaced?"
The Son said nothing and smiled.
"Have mercy on me!" cried the theologian. And broke into tears…
Two angels came to escort him towards the place intended for him. He could not believe his eyes and ears It was a very beautiful garden. And there, immersed in a melody of indescribable sweetness, thousands of children were chanting the 'Pater noster' incessantly. With the old formula.
Valli has also posted a critique much in the same vein in which he attributes to 'Francis VII' a lexicon for the 'welcoming church'. Clearly Valli has been honing his skills as a satirist. I shall post a translation ASAP...Meanwhile, I have translated an interview with Valli from the site called lettore.org, in which he is very clear about where he stands today about this pope and his pontificate.
Interview with Valli
on his new book
Translated from
Sir, you wrote the new book Come la Chiesa finì published by Liberilibri, which is a dystopic novel about the progressive dissolution of the Catholic Church. How did you come up with this book?
I think it is always difficult for an author to say exactly how a book is born, especially if, as in this case, it is not an essay or commentary but a narrative. In general,
it was born in the climate that I breathe in daily, since it is my occupation to report about the Catholic Church daily as the Vaticanista for RAI (Italian state TV)'s TG-1.
Today I see a church trying hard to please the world and to be accepted by it, more concerned about dialog than about defending the eternal divine truths. A church that is mostly dominated by the politically correct and not by the truth of Jesus. I am particularly struck by the language of this church which I would call neo-modernist. Thus, starting out with language, the initial nucleus for the book became a chapter.
Then, asking myself how I could develop my arguments without becoming too weighty or tedious for the reader, nor losing incisiveness, I opted for a dystopic narrative set in
a future in which all those that I consider to be the evils in the Church today reach their extreme consequences.
Stylistically, I resort great deal to irony but also a good dose of sarcasm. I am aware that doing so, I could hurt some sensibilities, but
I wanted to be honest all throughout and not to dilute the fundamental content of the book, which is a passionate denunciation.
In your account, we see the conversion of the Catholic Church into the New Anti-Dogmatic Church and the proclamation of the Superdogma of Dialog. Is this already going on?
I think it is, even if not in a uniform way, and perhaps, not always consciously.
When the Church seeks to present herself as friendly to 'the world', with its hierarchy preaching that no one is going to be judged, and that God himself, being merciful, does not judge but only welcomes, and when the hierarchy does not call for goodness in the objective sense but for a generic individual discernment, then I already see that New Church at work, one which appears to be afraid of the divine truths and therefore, abandons the dogmatic way to descend to the level of dialog which is actually a rejection of the depositum fidei.
How can we forget the words of Jesus, who said:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law..." (Mt 10,34-35).
Then,
the question of justice cannot be eliminated or circumvented in the name of a generic 'misericordism' [an ideology of mercy]. Pastors who do that do not confirm their brothers in the faith, but only confirm those who have gone afar in their distancing. I think this is a devastating strategy.
The Church, when she is much applauded in the secular and pagan world, instead of rejoicing in this, should instead ask herself seriously about what she is now teaching and about what line she is now following. Indeed the Gospel warns us: "Woe to you if all speak well of you..." (Lk 6,26).
The events in the book which lead to the 'end ' of the Church as we know it take place through a succession of popes all named Francis. What do you think will be the principal legacy of Papa Bergoglio?
I make an open denunciation here. The church of the future, that I imagine in this book, would have
previously established that all popes should call themselves Francis in homage to Francis I, champion of mercy and dialog, the humble pope so very much loved by the media, by leftist intellectuals and by progressivists.
So the decision to make the papal name Francis obligatory is born out of sycophancy, conformism, and again, the desire to pander to public opinion and to the 'masters' of thought.
I speak like a jilted lover, in the sense that initially, I believedd in this pope and his ability to give the Church an authentic springtime, but little by little, I had to change my view, and after Amoris laetitia, a document characterized by ambiguity, I finally opened my eyes to a pontificate in which man appears to take precedence over God, and Church teaching on man's need to be converted at heart appears to have been replaced by a magisterium which has come to proclaim a sort of human right or entitlement to divine mercy.
As to Bergoglio's legacy, although I hve written a book set in the future, I do not give myself prophetic attributes. A lot will depend on who succeeds him. If gthe cardinals choose one in line with this pontificate, then the Church will continue to have a magisterium that is ever more 'liquid', more 'soft', ever more 'lite', which might attract some non-Catholics but will be increasingly disorienting for the faithful. If instead, we get a new pope who is attentive to the truth and respects doctrine, the Church will set off on a course that will doubtless be arduous but which will once more reaffirm her fundamental principles, especially on morals.
In the first case, we will have a church praised greatly by the dominant thought and the secular media, but that would become even more disconcerting for the faithful who continue to be anchored to the eternal truths. In the second, we will have a church attacked by 'the world' and the continual target of the media, but faithful to Truth and to Tradition.
Jesus,when he said "Non praevalebunt…' promised that the Church would always survive. In your narrative, does the Church really come to an end?
In the novel, I imagine there will be a last pope, taken into custody by emissaries of the mysterious world regime which at that point, no longer facing the ultimate obstacle of a Catholic Church that has been effectively dissolved, will have full freedom to subjugate all of mankind in the name of a false brotherhood which is really absolute domination and total denial of freedom.
The pope will be abducted and taken away from the Vatican after having made
some atrocious decisions which he thinks ought to demonstrate his desire to dialog with the world, but which the regime interprets as a death certificate for the church, the last act of a church that no longer has a reason to exist.
Of course, I cannot get into the details. I can only say that there will be a final
coup de theatre from which the reader can sense that
the Church, in truth, does not come to an end, but mysteriously will resume her course, with tiny flocks of the faithful, keeping the faith in true humility despite persecution and martyrdom.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/02/2018 22:25]