THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Aldo Maria Valli has been trying his hand lately at fantasy-satires, and he has a very good one here... An all-purpose commentary for the situation in 'the Church' today where those at the top habitually ignore Christ's exhortation to "Let your Yes mean Yes and your No mean No" in favor of purposeful ambiguity to please 'everyone'...


A voice from the planet Ambiguous
Translated from

January 8, 2018

“To be in touch with extra-terrestrials? I don’t think that can come about soon. The problem is the great distances involved. The farther away from earth we look, the better the probability of another planet with intelligent life, but the more difficult it will be to communicate with them in any significant way”.

I confess that when I came across this statement, I had to smile. Thus, Fr. Guy Consolmagno, great astronomer, Jesuit, and director of the Vatican Observatory, while maintaining that the hypothesis of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligent beings is not entirely drawn out of thin air, says that the distances would be too great to allow contact.

To think that we, here on planet Ambiguous, have already resolved the problem, and it has been at least 1,200 years since we first came to know everything – I mean everything – about what is said and done there by you on planet Earth.

By avant-garde computers? Complicated calculations? Mega-antennae? Powerful radio-telescopes? No. Just one click on the wrist of our central arm, where Interceptor Plus is implanted, and presto! instantaneously we are able to connect to all the sources of information on Earth, in every available language, and the Interceptor Plus translates it automatically into our language, called ambiguous, of course.

What, you on Earth have never heard of the Interceptor Plus? I don’t believe it! Don’t you have implanted microchips for communications? Not even a central arm? It’s really true, as my grandmother always said, that the universe is beautiful because it is so varied.

Nonetheless, back to Fr. Consolmagno, I would have expected a more accurate analysis from someone like him. He heads the Vatican Observatory, he has three post-graduate degrees, he has given his name to an asteroid, he has written a heap of books, and he still thinks that ‘the distances are too great'.

Speaking of books, the one that has generated much attention is entitled “Would you baptize an extra-terrestrial?”, which made me think that our brilliant astronomer lacks some basic information. Because here on our planet, we have been baptizing aliens for some time now, we have even dutifully given them religious instruction, and now, they are the catechists, which relieves us of a great burden so we can therefore dedicate ourselves fully to the new evangelization, whatever that may be.

Consolmagno says it will take at least 20 years to discover anything on Mars, and what lies under the ice that covers its moons like Europa and Encelado. Further, that any answer about life [could be simple forms, but life as we know it] on other planets in our solar system will not come in for another 50 years.

Well, to think we already have explored Mars and quickly abandoned it (nothing but a big dump, if you must know) thousands of years ago, and we made expeditions to Europa and Encelado when it was all the rage to go skating on the original ‘luna parks’.

Fr. Consolmagno does not exclude the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, but he explains that terrestrials know so little that even if they found it, they would not recognize it. If he only knew that we Ambiguans feel we are quite at home here on Earth. And that it is religion which interests us the most.

Few in the universe know (and on Earth, no one does) but who do you think contributed decisively to produce the Instrumentum laboris of the last ‘family synod’? We, of course. And who provided the decisive suggestions for Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia? Who else but us?

Here on planet Ambiguous, we have information catalysts and algorithms so powerful that allow us to provide answers to every problem. And our language, ambiguous, lends itself very well to that purpose.

For example, the entire question of how to circumvent absolute moral norms is grist to our mill, produced right here on Ambiguous and immediately transferred to Earth for your benefit!

How do we do it? Now you are asking too much. Let’s just say we have a system and we know how to inculcate our ideas into the mnfs of terrestrials at the right moment.

I do not know when, but for some time now, we have been particularly successful with priests, religious, theologians, bishops. All of whom, though they speak in their respective terrestrial languages, sometimes – maybe too often – seem to speak our language, ambiguous. Quite progressive, alert and ingenious!

On the other hand, everyone on Earth who seeks to clarify ambiguity, specially in Amoris Laetitia, brings us some pain. They are so retro, so ingenuous! They cannot even imagine how much research we did here, on Ambiguous, to arrive at formulations that are authentically ambiguous such as to overcome any possibility of responding according to that obsolete Yes-No schematism!

The process was not easy. We on Ambiguous spent thousands of years to liberate ourselves from slavery to the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction and of ‘tertium non datur’ (There is no third way). But here on Ambiguous, ‘tertium sempre datur’ (Thre is always a third way), but also a ‘quartus’, ‘quintus’, ‘sextus’, and so forth. Our algorithms allow us to have abundant responses way beyond what Terrestrians have heretofore imagined.

Nonetheless, from time to time, we have succeeded in bringing you some of our intellectual richness. An operation that would be far simpler, obviously, were it not for the resistance on the part of the obscurantists.

Let us take the case of the critics of AL, according to whom it is not acceptable that a document shuld be applied one way in one diocese, and another way in another right next to it. Poor retrogrades! They simply demonstrate that on Earth, terrestrials are still conditioned by the obsolete logic of uniformity.

On Ambiguous, it has been centuries that we have advocated, to general satisfaction, the cause of multiformity: We like everything to be polymorphous and protean. We like A but also B. We believe that A does not exclude B and vice-versa. We like to change, deviate, undulate, fluctuate. Which, on Ambiguous, is easy because we have little gravity, but also, let me repeat, because of our language which at the same time says something and does not, which says No but also Yes, Yes but also No.

Our best allies on Earth are perhaps some theologians who succeed in applying the laws of Ambiguous almost to the letter. Most specially, thanks to the word ‘discernment’, which lends itself to all purposes and allows a heap of shortcuts and circumventions. The important thing is never to say what – or who – one should arrive at through discernment.

But let me not bore you further.

To Fr. Consolmagno, I would just like to say this: Don’t be too pessimistic about finding other forms of life in the universe.

A small indicator: Who was that rather chubby cardinal who was going round the offices of the Batican Observatory with innocent (too innocent?) curiosity? And who was that young monsignor, so well-educated, who, a few days ago, in perfect (too perfect?) Oxonian English, asked you for an update on the program SETI (Searh for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence? And to the synodal fathers I ask: Were you never curious about the monsignor who preached with mercy (too much mercy?) on the need to maintain that good and bad do not exist objectively, but there is only an ethic that is adaptable to every single situation?

Well, I’ve said too much already. It is not true that distances are a problem. Believe me, my terrestrial friends, not only are there aliens, but they are among you now. For quite some time.

We on Ambiguous will never leave you alone. And know that our stockpiles of our prime resource – that so precious ambiguity – which is extracted ceaselessly from the subsoil of our planet, can deal with any question whatsoever.

Ambiguous here, to planet Earth: Transmitting, now closing.

A few days ago, Valli had this piece, which sort of recapitulates some of the weird things that took place in Europe for Christmas 2017...


A report on Christmas 2017
Translated from

January 5, 2018

On the azure door, in gold letters, is written ‘TRINITY’, below which someone has added a placard that says “Complaining allowed”.

The angel, a seraph in the Trinity’s Confidential Information Service, smiles to himself and says, “The Trinity always finds some way to surprise me”.

He has just returned from earth and is to make a report. Under one of his wings, he has a binder full of notes. He approaches the door but before knocking, he hesitates. He is thinking, “Maybe I shall be a disturbance”.

“Not at all!” from inside comes the exclamation from three voices which sound like one. “Come in, come in, we were expecting you”.

The angel enters, and even though he himself is light like fire, he is dazzled by the fulgor within.

“Praise be and blessings for the Most Holy Trinity!”, the seraphim greets the Presence.
“And blessed be the Trinity and indivisible Unity! Welcome!”

“Thank you. I was outside and I was afraid that…
“Oh, why do you always think you may be a disturbance? Have you not read the placard? How’s it going? Everything well with the Service?

"Yes, a lot off work, but everything is in place…
“And you are here to make your Report…
“Exactly.”
“But you seem to be less radiant than usual. Or are we wrong on that?
Well… The angel does not know where to begin. First the good news, then the bad?
“Don’t be afraid! Start where you wish. We are listening…

“If you will allow me then, I will start with the news that is less good… Which really amounts to just one thing: down there, they have become ashamed of Christmas.
“They are ashamed of it?
“Yes, in effect”. The angel looks through his notes: ”Consider this. In my travels, I found out that many Christmas markets in the major cities of Europe, from Amsterdam to Brussels, from London to Munich, this year changed their name to holiday market, or winter market, things like that! No mention of Christmas at all…”
“Go on…
“In a school in France, they stopped the showing of a film cartoon called ‘The heroes of Christmas’. In the name of secularism, they said.
"And?...
“Let’s see… In Denmark, a school abolished Christmas celebrations in order not to offend the minorities. In Italy, a principal prohibited Christmas carols in his school. And in Belgium, the head of the International Red Cross ordered the crucifix taken down from any Red Cross building. [I wondered at the time I read this in the news, why does not the Red Cross change its name to, I don’t know, ‘the Red Pentagram’ or something?]
“Oh great”, said the Second Person.

“But those are not the most striking cases,” the angel said. “In Norway, an elementary school decided it would keep Biblical readings for the children provided they would also be read verses from the Koran. And in Madrid, in the name of inclusion, they held an International Fair of Neo-Pagan Cultures”.
“Oh great”, said the Third Person.

“Then we have this priest in Italy who did not say the Creed at Mass because he told his congregation that he does not believe on the Creed”.
“Now that’s really something!” exclaimed the First Person.
“Yes, but I was also told other things. Here, in Italy, many churches are being used as restaurants even as pizzerias…
“And did you take advantage of that?
“Oh no! I had to be running here and there, to be able to make this report!
“Ok, we know that those of you in the Service are irrepressible. But go on…
“Well, in Carpi, in front of the Cathedral, the Christ Child in the Nativity Scene was decapitated… And at the Vatican on Christmas Day, the solemn Benediction on Christmas Day was incomplete! Maybe it was just out of distraction? Or so they said in the news reports… Going on to content… well here, they have relaunched the idea that Christmas should generically be the feast of peace, not the festivity of the Birth of Jesus who exhorts us to welcome his peace. And of course, the tendency now to emphasize not the gift of salvation brought by Christmas, but the question of migration, all because, it is claimed, Jesus, Mary and Joseph were migrant refugees in their time, even if they came to Bethlehem only to be registered for the census…
“We know that,” said the Second Person.

“And always that other story keeps coming up…
‘Which is…?
“That Christmas is nothing but the transformation or adaptation of the pagan feast of the winster solstice…
“Oh but that is old…” the three Persons say in one voice.
“Yes but they all say that the date for Christmas was established to coincide with the winter solstice. They simply ignore that the date for the birth of Jesus was arrived at with respect to the birth of John the Baptist who preceded him by six months…

A collective sigh comes from the Three Persons, who then ask, “And the good news?”
“I must say that even if the adults do all they can to deprive them of true Christmas, children still love it and look forward to it…”
“Because of the gifts…
“Of course, but not just for that. They also really love the ‘Nativity scene’…
“Really?”
“Yes, it is they, the children, who urge their parents and tell them it is absolutely necessary that there should be a Nativity scene in the house.
“How beautiful!” The light from the Trinity is more fulgurant than ever.
“Yes, in many cases, I watched children insist: at Christmas, there must be a Nativity scene in the house.
“Did you help?
“As far as I could, yes! Obviously, with the help of my colleagues, the guardian angels – they did most of the work. Including to defeat the laziness of the elders.”
“Bravo! Any more good news?

“Well, there’s one here that I really don’t know how to classify. Il Foglio, an Italian newspaper, published a beautiful interview with a French historian… Here’s the name: Jean-Marie Salamito, who defends the historicity of Jesus against the efforts to make him nothing but a myth. I read it from beginning to end. It is where I found the confutation of the idea that Christmas is nothing but the substitution for a pagan feast.

The angel hands over a press clipping, with a couple of sentences underlined: “We can never be conscious enough of the Christian mystery of the Incarnation because it is beyond our imagination and our understanding. The Christian mystery expressed at Christmas is so extraordinary that we can live all our life trying to understand it… But the West is tired of its own culture… Probably Europe has lost confidence in herself – it is full of remorse, of complexes and of a sense of guilt. I think that the tendency to cultural self-destruction represents the West’s psychological malady”.

“Interesting,” said the First Person in rotund tones.
“Enlightening”, said the Second, with tenderness.
“Courageous,” said the Third, breathing out.

“Yes, he also says: "The contemporary illusion is to think that only be denying our own identity will it be possible to dialog with others, but dialog is not possible where one does not come to it with a definite identity and the cultural and spiritual wealth that comes with such an identity". If I may be allowed, those words about identity stuck me particularly. I think the professor explains from his elevated knowledge what children know intuitively when they insist on having a Nativity scene at Christmas.
“True… A pity that children grow up”, The Trinity sighs.
“More’s the pity..” says the angel.

“Well”, the Trinity exclaims, “this meeting has been profitable. And your report offers us, as it does very year, many points to reflect upon. Now you may go. With our thanks. Say hello from us to all your colleagues in the Service.
“Honor, glory and blessings to the Holy and Adorable Trinity forever and ever!” says the seraph in farewell.
“Amen!”

The angel leaves, still blinded by the dazzling light of God.
The azure door closes. The 'Complaining allowed" placard flutters.
“Done for the year,” he tells himself. Then from under one of his six wings, he takes out an object he had forgotten about. A little figurine of a cherub, a terracotta angel.

He imagines the boy who gave it to him on Christmas Eve, before a creche, down below, in that big city. The boy said he couldn’t sleep he was so moved by the occasion. Of course, he also seemed somewhat bratty, to tell the truth.

“How did he manage to see me? And to recognize who I am?,” the seraph asks himself. “ It is really quite mysterious. But it’s not uncommon with children”.

A radiant smile comes to his face. Caressing the little angel figurine, he tells himself, “Notwithstanding everything. There is hope. I’d say there is hope”.