THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Sixteen days into 2018, I finally find a Canon-212 headline summary that is minimally useful for the purpose I originally intended these headline summaries
to be - to give us a sense of what is happening day-to-day in what passes for 'the Church' these days. The past two weeks merely saw C212 posting
repetitive and pejorative headlines on stale commentary not worth noting.




Thanks to LifeSite, we now have a written account on Father Gerald Murray's recent disquisition on AL with Raymond Arroyo in EWTN's 'The World Over'... Even if
Fr. Murray's suggestion for the pope to withdraw Chapter 8 of AL is logical to anyone else but Bergoglio and his paladins, it is also most unrealistic (after the
lengths Bergoglio has gone to in order to institutionalize his most outrageous anti-Catholic propositions in AL, does anyone really expect him to admit he is wrong?).
But Fr. Murray's arguments are always clarifying in a way Bergoglio is inherently incapable of, so read on...

Fr. Murray calls for the pope
to withdraw Chapter 8 of AL
by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman



January 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Fr. Gerald Murray, a regular commentator on EWTN’s news program 'The World Over', told show host Raymond Arroyo in a recent interview that the infamous Chapter 8 of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia is in “error,” and that he hopes it will be “withdrawn” by the pope.

Murray, a canon lawyer, also condemned the interpretation of AL published by the Argentine bishops of the Pastoral Region of Buenos Aires last year, and recently republished by the Pope himself in the official Acts of the Apostolic See. He called this interpretation - now formally described by Bergoglio as his 'authentic magisterium' - an “overthrow of the moral order” and called for its withdrawal as well.

Critics say that both AL and the Bergoglio-backed Argentine interpretation of it appear to excuse the sin of adultery and to permit Holy Communion to those who are living in adultery in invalid second 'marriages.'

“Catholic doctrine about the nature of marriage the indissolubility of marriage, about the intrinsic evil of adultery – that can’t change,” Murray told Arroyo in the January 11 interview. “What’s happened here is that the Argentine bishops have given an interpretation of AL which I believe and so many others do, that contradicts the clearly enunciated teaching of all the previous popes.”

“By speaking out we’re not attacking Pope Francis, we’re simply saying: 'Pope Francis we think that you’ve made an error, we think that the reasoning you’ve given in Amoris laetitia is faulty, and we think that these bishops, by saying that it’s sometimes undoable for people to observe the sixth commandment, are teaching something that is contrary to the gospel and should be withdrawn,” said Murray.

“Indeed, my hope and prayer is that Amoris laetitia chapter 8 would be withdrawn, because I think it’s causing huge problems in the life of the Church,” he added.

“The crisis is prompted by the fact that the Argentinean bishops justify this by saying that in some cases it is not feasible for remarried divorees to avoid committing adultery - and that introduces into Catholic theology a completely contradictory notion that is completely alien to the faith, that somebody could not or would be incapable of observing virtue, and that if they’re incapable of refraining from adultery, they’re not really guilty,” Murray told Arroyo.

“So we kind of have here something very serious under the guise of pastoral charity, and that is the overthrow of the moral order. What is intrinsically evil – adultery is intrinsically evil – can never be turned into something good by claiming that, well, people can’t avoid that sin.”

Arroyo agreed, adding, “I am very upset with the notion and I think that it is in ignorance – I’m going to write it off, in mercy, to ignorance – among some of the people that I’ve been reading, because they don’t seem to understand that the Catholic Church is not a political institution where, when you get a new pope, everything is changed, you suddenly change everything. No, no, no, it is built on a continuity – historical, theological, canon law – all of this builds, one thing upon another, and flows naturally from it.”

“So you do have to square or reconcile what went before with what is being proposed today, and if there is a rupture there is going to be reaction. That is normative," said Arroyo.

Arroyo illustrated the effects of the progressive breakdown in Catholic moral teaching by citing various news stories, including a recent LifeSiteNews article about a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life who has said that contraception is “required” under certain circumstances.

Arroyo and Murray discussed the consequences that are beginning to arise from the theology contained in Amoris laetitia, as the logic of justifying the mortal sin of adultery is applied to other mortal sins by theologians and even bishops.

Murray blasted a lead German bishop who recently said that the Church should discuss blessing homosexual unions because there is “much that is positive” in such relationships.

“He wants us to bless sodomy? He wants the Catholic Church to say to two people who are sodomizing each other: ‘you’re doing something that is pleasing in the sight of God’ and we want God to bless, meaning, we want God to favor this type of activity?” asked Murray.

“This, and this is quite simply a statement of fact, this is a total rejection of Catholic doctrine on the immorality of homosexual activity,” Murray said. “For this bishop to say that is a major scandal. He should repent of it and turn away from it because he’s leading people into sin.”

“If I seem angry it’s because I am,” added Murray. “This is infuriating. A shepherd is sent out to lead the sheep to the pure waters of Catholic truth and this man is saying that immoral activity should be blessed? He needs to repent of that teaching.”

Murray also condemned public statements recently made by Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who has recently claimed that contraception may be morally obligatory under certain circumstances, noting that Chiodi is basing his claim on Amoris laetitia.

“Fr. Chiodi has done a tremendous disservice to the Church and it’s really a disgraceful performance on his part in a lecture at a Catholic university to state that some couples should, as a matter of virtue, as a matter of doing what’s right, use artificial contraception,” said Murray.

“Artificial contraception is intrinsically evil, it’s a moral disorder, it’s a mortal sin,” Murray continued. “For a priest to be telling people to do that is encouraging them to commit sin.”

Chiodi “precisely takes Amoris Laetitia chapter 8 as his launching pad to say that what was taught in the past no longer has relevancy given the changing circumstances. This is wrong,” said Murray. “No priest can contradict Catholic teaching and thereby change it. Catholic teaching remains. What it does is it scandalizes the faithful, weakens the faith, and it’s an invitation to commit sin.”

[In other words, AL Chapter 8 with its outrageous anti-Catholic propositions is serving what Bergoglio must have intended it to do - to be the 'Open Sesame' for all anti-Catholic cardinals, bishops and priests to get all aboard his 'mercy bus' and begin 'un-sinning' mortal sins of every kind, starting with the chronic state of mortal sin in which adulterers and active sexual deviants live. Abortion and artificial contraception are already getting the wink-wink nod from Bergoglio, who also happens to be the prime sinner right now against the Eighth Commandment (Thou shalt not bear false witness - in other words, thou shalt not lie). I cannot now imagine how he will try to get around the sin of killing others. Perhaps he will next 'un-sin' not going to Sunday Mass (a commandment of the Church, after all, not one in the Decalogue).]

Murray praised the bishops of Kazakhstan for issuing a statement defending the Catholic Church’s doctrines on the grave sinfulness of adultery and condemning the giving of Holy Communion to those who practice it.

“The Kazakh bishops deserve praise in my opinion because they’re raising this discussion precisely to the appropriate level, which is what has Catholic doctrine always been? It needs to be defended and if it’s being misstated or misinterpreted, that needs to be rejected,” said Murray.

“This is in no way an attack on the person of the pope,” he added. “I see it precisely as an act of loyalty to the pope and to the See of Peter that we would say ‘Peter, we need clarity here.’”

Murray rejected the claim made by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, that Amoris laetitia has introduced a “new paradigm” into the Church. [A news report I had fully intended to post, but it somehow slipped away. So this man whom Sandro Magister sees as the 'only' plausible candidate right now to succeed to Bergoglio as pope, is showing his bona fides as a trueblue Bergoglian to all Bergoglian cardinals and potential cardinal electors at the next Conclave. And all those previous forays at seeming to spin Bergoglio's words and actions into something more moderate were his attempts to appeal to the more orthodox cardinals so he can get his vote from both sides of the ideological aisle! Beware of Parolin! ]

"A paradigm is basically a political category, for like a government policy that we’re going to look at things in a different way, you know, Richard Nixon’s shift on China, things of that sort,” said Murray. “But in the Catholic Church, Catholic doctrine is not subject to paradigm shifts. Catholic doctrine is a treasure given by Christ and entrusted to the Church to be promoted, defended, explained.”

EWTN’s The World Over is viewed by millions of Catholics weekly. The network itself reaches an estimated 250 million households worldwide.

Fr. Murray’s remarks were partially in reference to his recent article for The Catholic Thing, in which he discusses the “crisis” in the Church provoked by the pope’s publication of the Argentinean bishops’ interpretation of AL in the Acts of the Apostolic See. Murray has been denounced bitterly by partisans of the pope for writing the article.