THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

When a papal farce unravels instantly
What for does the Vatican have this new amped-up, overhyped Secretariat for Communications when it cannot even manage its bag of abracadabra tricks right?

Remember when Benedict XVI became the object of worldwide opprobrium - and media ridicule - because no one at the Vatican had informed him of FSSPX
Bishop Williamson's Holocaust negationism before he lifted his excommunication? Everyone assumed at the time that Williamson's record was common knowledge
to anyone who would have bothered to google him online, but the fact was that his views about the Holocaust had never been published before Swedish
TV decided to broadcast an interview with him done in November 2009 on the very eve of the day in January 2010 when the Vatican announced
that Benedict XVI was lifting the excommunication of the four FSSPX bishops consecrated illegally by Mons. Lefebvre. [I went into considerable effort
proving this at the time with screen captures of searches about Williamson's published statements before January 2010.]

My point is that the information on Williamson's Holocaust views was obviously not available from the usual sources and resources at the time Benedict XVI
decided to lift the excommunications. Knowing about it would not have stopped the pope from lifting the excommunications but it would have given the
Vatican time to prepare the public and let the whole world know that
1) having erroneous historical views is not an excommunicable sin for the Church - nor a sin at all, for that matter, because stupidity is not a sin if its
worst consequence is to hold up the stupid person to ridicule; and
2) that Williamson's denial of the Holocaust, while lamentable, had nothing to do with why he was excommunicated nor why the excommunication was being lifted.

You would think the Vatican Press Office might have learned something from that 'fiasco' in 2010. So, committing a similar and thoroughly avoidable mistake in
2018 is unforgivable. Especially since obviously there was some preparation for this 'spontaneous' event on the part of the Vatican.

One imagines that in the months preceding the visit, those coordinating the papal visit in Chile would have forwarded the couple's wish-request to the Vatican
(along with the detailed plans for the use of the Chilean airline while the pope was in Chile), and that the competent official(s) 'in charge of papal anecdotes' promptly
seized on it as an opportunity too precious not to exploit for setting yet another historic Bergoglian first.

Obviously, too, their Chilean counterparts failed to inform them (one presumes after the request had already been more or less approved by the Vatican as one of
those 'surprises' that the pope would spring during his trip) that, in fact, the excited couple had spoken about it to a Chilean newspaper (more than one, as it turns out).
Or perhaps both the Chilean papal-visit coordinators and their Vatican counterparts thought that the couple's giving away the game a few weeks before the visit would be
overlooked, given the PR force majeure of a new and unprecedented papal action!

They cannot say the pope was not briefed about it beforehand, because why and how would he know, during a routine souvenir photo session with the plane crew, that
one steward and one flight attendant had been concubines for eight years, and therefore offer to marry them then and there? Bergoglio has taken part in more serious
lies before this for anyone with commonsense to doubt he was complicit in this farce. So how does it feel for a Catholic to have a pope who, on top of all his other
faults and offenses, is also turning out to be a habitual and inveterate liar? Because this is the ultimate significance of this midair marriage farce.

How will the Vatican PR cooks explain egg all over their face with the exposure of their farce?


No, it was not a spontaneous act
nor was it the pope's idea to begin with
By Carlos Esteban
Translated from

January 19, 2018

The story of the airborne wedding celebrated by Pope Francis enroute from Chile to Peru had been presented as something spontaneous by the Vatican Press Office, even though, it turns out, it was months in the making.

As little interest as news of Church affairs may have for most people, most readers would have sat up and taken note of such a ‘touching’ headline: the pope, on a brief flight, has a routine photo session with the plane crew, and somehow learns of a common-law relationship between one steward and one flight attendant, and on the spur of the moment, the pope asks them whether they would him to marry them then and there.

What an extraordinary surprise, what excitement all around! And what a great anecdote, how human and appealing!

There are few labels more horrible than being called ‘enemy of the pope’. And I know that very well because for some time now ‘the pope’s men’ have launched themselves with vengeful joy against anyone who expresses any doubt or objection to the direction which this pope wishes to give ‘the Church’, or to any of his ad-lib statements.

Because today, we have the curious paradox that those who had been most vocal in the past about their ‘doubts’, to say it kindly, on the infallibility of the pope when he speaks ex cathedra on faith and morals, have now become fervent believers in it, even when he speaks of the weather or tells a joke.

According to that curious viewpoint, a ‘friend of the pope’ would be a sycophant, one indulgent to whatever defects or faults he may have – which such a friend would never notice nor question – but will rather celebrate anything the pope does, good or bad.

The friend, in the case we are speaking of, would be anyone who repeats, while wearing a dunce’s cap, the touching anecdote of the midair marriage, underscoring how ‘informal’, good-natured and spontaneous our Holy Father is, and applauding him as at a children’s party.

Ever since bonhomie has been considered an obligatory virtue for the powerful of the world, everyone turns it on fullblast, relentlessly, as if to always do whatever occurs to you when it occurs to you was an extraordinary merit and not self-indulgence. To bypass protocol has become so ‘common’ that following it is what appears extraordinary nowadays and proof of extraordinary self-control.

I wonder if there is not a secret office in the Roman Curia that corresponds more or less to ‘in charge of papal anecdotes’, because one expects Catholic journalists today to swallow anything that is told to them, convinced that their mission is to maintain a fairytale image of everything that has to do with the ecclesial world.

Otherwise, those in the Vatican Press Office [and their counterparts in Chile preparing for the pope’s visit] would have known that in the newspaper La Tercera de Chile on January 11, under the news item entitled ‘The newsman who became a plane steward and who will serve on board the papal flights while in Chile', the now most-famous 'newlyweds' on earth had expressed the hope that their religious wedding “would be realized on the plane and officiated by no less than Pope Francis himself”.

Well! When I had believed [along with everyone else who read the first reports of the mid-air marriage] that the idea came from the pope himself, just like that, to convince the couple that they should take the transcendental step which he would gladly perform for them!

And that background story that they could not have their church wedding as planned because their church was damaged in an earthquake? It becomes laughable when one learns that the earthquake happened in 2010. I know I am not familiar with the state of the church in Chile, but I do not think it is in the same desperate situation as those of Saudi Arabia or North Korea, such that in the intervening 7 years, it was impossible – or even very difficult – for the couple to find a priest who would marry them or a church or chapel where the wedding could take place.

Moreover – and despite the defense to the death of the apologists for AL – it would seem that this pope himself does not take his own writing seriously because he certainly did not give time for the Church to exercise any pre-matrimonial ‘discernment’, nor did he refer the couple to their parish priest so they could do everything properly for a sacramental marriage, nor any other of the prudential measures that AL recommends as necessary to prepare for the sacrament of matrimony.

Perhaps he thinks that for a couple who have cohabited for eight years and had two children without showing any urgency to have a sacramental marriage, a minimum period of reflection was not even necessary. Who knows?


A WORD ABOUT INFOVATICANA FROM ITS SELF-DESCRIPTION ONSITE:
It is a website in Italian and Spanish that considers itself

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"a free and independent medium of communication intended to serve the Catholic Church and society as a ‘cooperator of Truth’ in questions affecting the life of the Church, especially of Catholic lay faithful in the Western world, and the Church’s defense of the non-negotiable principles enumerated by Benedict XVI. Our commitment is therefore primarily the defense of life from conception to its natural end; the defense of the natural family; the defense of the parents’ inviolable right to decide on the education of their children; and in support of policies oriented to the common good without ever losing sight of the true Good News which fills us all with hope: Jesus Christ".]

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Now that we do get 'half-fake' news,
no one calls it that!
Translated from

January 20, 2018

That mid-air marriage performed by the pope? It is half fake news, badly cooked and badly served. Because all Chie had been speaking abut that ‘improvised’ marriage ‘spontaneously’ proposed by the pope for a month before it happened.

Last night, a dear friend of mine who follows Church affairs around the world (apparently through a planetary network of friends) sent me the link to an article in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio one month ago, about an interview with the captain and the crew of the plane that would ferry the pope while in Chile. It includes a brief interview with the steward and the flight attendant who were married by the pope, in which Carlos and Paula say they have been together eight years, married civilly, with two children (6 and 3), and had planned to be married in church on February 27, 2010, but an earthquake destroyed the church where they were planning to do it. Then it became postponed because of work and the children. But they said, “And so both of us hope that next January this delayed plan will finally be realized on the plane and performed by no less than Pope Francis himself. We would love that. [The airplane] is our workplace, our second home, where we feel safe and sure”.

It is quite probable that at the time of that interview, the pope had no idea whatsoever of who Carlo and Paula were. But it is equally probable that someone (singular or plural) already knew something like this was in the works and let the couple know, because otherwise, how could the couple have hypothesized so freely about an inflight wedding?

So what about everything we have read about the spontaneity of the occasion, of the couple’s dialog with the pope that gave rise to the pope’s ‘inspired’ improvisation, etc? Judge for yourself.

Moreover, a canonist friend points out to me that the pope cannot overrule, no matter how he prefers to ignore rules [that are not his], are the canonical requirements for a sacramental marriage. Proof that both spouses are Catholic (their baptismal certificates), the certainty that neither of them have other marital bonds, [not to mention that they have gone to confession before contracting the sacrament of matrimony]… i.e. Even a pope must make sure that all the required elements are in place [not just a handwritten marriage contract signed by four or five prelates who happen to be around] before he can marry them properly]. [Ah, but I can now see the orchestrators of this farce coming forward to say, “Well, we checked out beforehand that the couple had been both baptized and confirmed in the Church; we advised them to make sure they go to confession before going on the papal flight; and back in 2010, when they were thinking of getting married in church, they said they already took part in the pre-nuptial preparations required by the Church. So yes, everything was in order for the pope to marry them.” Which, of course, gets them out of that jam, but squarely makes them guilty of pre-planning this ‘spontaneous’ event.]

Yet anything goes, it seems, to further embroider the image of a pope very much on the ball, a pope of the people, and thus carry out the scenario that Pezzo Gross yesterday called something straight out of a telenovela.

Deception and banalization
in that midair marriage
by Riccardo Cascioli
Editorial
Translated from

January 20, 2018

When he holds that inflight news conference returning to Rome from Peru, Pope Francis will perhaps have a chance to explain better what he meant by performing a marriage ceremony of sorts for a couple of Chilean plane crewmembers who had been living together for eight years.

The more so because he must also justify that the ‘express’ marriage he performed – about which the whole world learned instantly – had really been amply prepared for beforehand. A December 19, 2017 article in El Mercurio featured an article about the plane crew that would serve the pope while he was in Chile, in which Carlos Ciuffardi and Paula Podest say they hope to be married by the pope on the plane during one of their flights with him. Which is exactly what happened.

One can therefore imagine that the couple had previously made such a request ‘officially’ in some way to those who were organizing the pope’s visit, that the Vatican approved their request, and therefore, that which the Vatican had sought to present as a totally spontaneous impulse from the pope hand instead been planned and prepared for.

It is a disconcerting and incomprehensible concoction which makes not just the present Bergoglian court at the Vatican ridiculous but the papacy itself. Whoever directed this scenario, because it was a staged event, there is more reason to think that this literal coup de theatre was meant to convey a message.

After all, it has been the mark of this pontificate to insist that actions speak louder than words. We must therefore ask – beyond the intentions of the architects of this farce – what impact and what message was intended in this staged gesture of the pope that has been seen and reported across the globe?

Unfortunately, the first impression is that the sacrament of matrimony is not to be taken too seriously, in which sentiment decisively prevails over reason, and in which it is the spouses who are the principal protagonists rather than God. Not very different therefore from the quickie marriages performed in Las Vegas.

This also implies that Church requirements for the proper celebration of a sacramental marriage are merely a useless frill and a obstacle for all those who wish to be married in church. Indeed, there is no state of necessity that justifies not getting married in church, within a nuptial Mass, after adequate pre-nuptial preparation in the Church, after the announcement of banns, and after presenting a series of documents attesting to the baptism and confirmation of the prospective spouses and to the fact that neither of them has any existing marital bonds.

So if the pope shows the world that all these things are superfluous, how can a parish priest now claim all those requirements from a couple who wish to be married in his church? We can now expect increasingly difficult situations for priests whose parishioners will demand a quick marriage without wasting time on the canonical requirements for it.

Just as now, after AL, there are persons who, while remaining in a chronic state of mortal sin for living in adultery, claim that they are absolved of sin “because the pope said so”, or simply [and perhaps, more typically], just go straight to communion without even bothering to go to confession. Not that the pope had said so explicitly, but this is the common perception now, the message that has been disseminated to the faithful because of AL.

Speaking of which, we must consider as nothing more than scrap paper all those parts in which it insists on ‘adequate preparation for marriage’. When it was precisely this pope himself who had said that half of all Catholic marriages are invalid because of the lack of preparation and ‘knowledge’ on the part of couples who say Yes to their marriage vows – to the point that he published two motu proprio that would facilitate and speed up the annulment process for Church marriages [what some canon lawyers have called Bergoglio’s ‘quickie Catholic divorce’].

At the same time, he says in AL that there should be greater responsibility so that young people who wish to get married in church are adequately prepared to do so, and that already existing preparatory courses should be carefully reviewed and carried out to the degree that such preparation is needed.

Not that these instructions in AL have been heeded, because it seems that almost everyone has simply considered that the document is all about giving communion to remarried divorcees. But now, the objective need for couples to arrive at matrimony with full awareness and knowledge of the duties and responsibilities it imposes on them seems definitely cancelled by the pope’s ‘spontaneous’ gesture for the Chilean couple. It would seem that such a preparation is no longer necessary. That all that was needed was for him to ask them, “Are you sure [you want to be married]?” and for them to answer “Yes”. And done! [Did he even say “I now pronounce you man and wife’?”]

[However, as I remarked earlier, the Vatican apologists can always claim that the pope’s handlers made sure all the canonical requirements for a religious marriage had been met by the couple before they got on the papal flight! So there!]
P.S. Even though this 'spontaneous' event was planned, it certainly took all of the media oxygen and effectively 1) replaced the Ploumen case in the headlines; and 2) distracted from the remarkably poor attendance at papal events in Chile.

Finally, for today, Valli's satirical takeoff...

'Welcome aboard Wedding Airlines!'
Translated from]

January 20, 2018

The taxi drives up right in front of Terminal One. A man dressed as pope gets off and walks towards the security gate. They allow him to pass – after all, he is carrying just his usual single briefcase – so he can get on board right away.

“Welcome, Holiness”, says the grinning plane steward. “Today we have six – two in economy, three in business, and one in business-plus”.
“Ummm,” the man dressed as pope feigns to moan. “There are more and more. This is getting to be quite demanding. And where are we going this time?”
“Amsterdam, Holiness. We must hurry. Would you like a whiskey?”
“Thanks, that’s exactly what I need!”

In effect, since Wedding Airlines began its service, requests have multiplied. You cannot imagine how many couples wish to 'get married' in midair, with a pretend pope as an extraordinary celebrant. ‘Marriages on the fly’, they are called, with a nice play on words. So what if the ceremony has neither legal nor religious value? The important thing is to have fun and great souvenir photos!

“Put wings on your marriage!”, says the airline’s slogan. “Put on your seat belts and prepare your rings!”

The airline’s chief competitor, Two Rings, was not too happy, and instead of having a pretend-pope, they only had a pretend-cardinal. To thonk it was they who had first used that line about the seatbelts and rings!

Hardly had the plane lifted off for Amsterdam then it was time to get to work. The first flying couple was a man of 50 and a woman of 40, who had been living together for 20 years, and had three children. They had an economy rite, therefore in narrower space but also faster.

The ‘pope’ smiled, recited his formula, asked the ritual questions and gave his blessing. Then kisses and photos. Done!

The ceremony in business class was a bit more complicated because it also included a brief homily from the ‘pope’. And in business-plus, it also included champagne afterwards – and on special request, the presence of a few newsmen who pretended to be surprised.

After 2 hours and 35 minutes, right on schedule, the Wedding Airlines plane landed in Schiphol, and the ‘pope’ could finally relax. He would see the return flight to catch up on his sleep. Since he agreed to play pretend-pope, he found it increasingly tiresome to go up and down the aisles. Actually, he minded having to give up his regular viewing of some South American telenovelas of which he was a protagonist in the role of the Beautiful Prince of Darkness. But Wedding Airlines paid well.

“All this is blasphemy, to say the least”, wrote two aged cardinals (true ones) in a traditionalist newspaper. But no one minded them.

Things went well until the day – Wedding Airlines was flying from Rome to Tallinn, Estonia – when a Puerto Rican couple in Business-Plus presented themselves for the ceremony.

The pretend-pope was ready with his final blessing, “I pronounce you man and wife, but beware of the turbulence!”, and the situation appeared to be going well when the about-to-be-husband said No instead of Yes.
“Excuse me?”, the pretend-pope asked, with a half smile.
“Excuse me?,” the about-to-be-wife said, with a strained smile.
“NO!” the man repeated.
Without yet understanding what was happening, all 90 relatives of the bride descended on the bridegroom, while his 80 relatives attacked the woman’s relatives.

For a moment, the crew thought that this too was a fake fight, a variation on the theme. But it was not! Anything but mere turbulence! The encounter became so violent that the flight was in serious danger of crashing. And that, decided air control authorities, put an end to these fake marriages inflight.

"Which demonstrates,” the two aged cardinals wrote, “that this whole thing made no sense!” To which the principal progressivist newspaper replied that those two cardinals must be pitied because they failed to understand the logic of ‘image’.

And Wedding Airlines? It changed itself to an airline specializing in divorces with three possibilities: economy (fast), business (very fast), and business-plus (instantly, with champagne).


I apologize...Valli did have an immediate straight commentary on the papal wedding stunt...

My 'dubia' on that midair marriage
Translated from

January 19, 2018

The marriage Pope Francis ‘performed’ on an airplane while travelling from Chile to nearby Peru, was quickly known [and seen] around the globe and elicited great sympathy for the happy and ‘much moved’ couple, and for the pope himself for a gesture that was considered ‘beautiful’ because it was ‘spontaneous’ and ‘anti-conformist’. [Two adjectives which describe this pope’s attitude towards the sacraments in general - as generously displayed in AL and his record of sacramental permissiveness in Buenos Aires before he became pope. Yet what is there for a bishop – much less a pope – to be proud of in ‘spontaneously’ innovating on the Sacraments of the Church which, by definition, ought to conform to prescribed ritual and tradition?]

I think that the pope’s action was quite questionable in the light of the value fo the sacrament of Matrimony. Obviously I will be called obscurantist, legalist, pharisaic for what I am about to write. I don’t care. As a baptized Catholic, I care about the Sacraments.

Many will ask: And who are you to judge? That’s easy: I am a baptized Catholic, and as such it is my duty to be on the side of the truth of the faith.

Obviously, only God can see into the hearts of his creatures, and in this case, my judgment is not about the persons involved. I know that the ‘newlyweds’, a plane steward and a flight attendant, deserve maximum respect. As a baptized Catholic, my concern is for the sacraments. Therefore I ask the following questions:

The reports say that the couple had been planning to be married in Church since 2010, but it didn’t happen because their church was destroyed in an earthquake. But eight years have passed since then during which they have been cohabitating and had two children. [One assumes neither child was baptized – because if the parents had thought of baptizing them at all, they could easily have arranged to get married first before the baptisms.] Since both are gainfully employed, I do not think the impediment was financial. Did the pope even ask them why they had to wait eight years? [Obviously he did not because he probably was provided a briefing paper about the couple to prepare him for his ‘spontaneous’ offer to marry them inflight, and one must assume the briefing paper did not think some such basic questions were even necessary.]

Before ‘performing’ the ceremony, did the pope give them confession and absolution first? [The briefing paper probably assured Bergoglio that yes, both persons were duly baptized and confirmed in the Church, they have no other conjugal ties that would prejudice a religious wedding for them, and that yes, they were told by the trip-coordinators they ought to make sure they went to confession before going on the papal flight.]

We were told that the idea of marrying the couple then and there was a spontaneous offer made by Bergoglio. What is this pope’s idea of matrimony, then? Something that can be done ‘on the fly’ as it were, out of emotion and sentimentalism, and in the name of spontaneity? [Certainly not what he so solemnly wrote in the ‘orthodox’, non-controversial parts of AL! Now you can see what a deceptive sugarcoating all the ‘orthodox’ ballast was for the poison in Chapter 8.]

Celebrating a sacrament the way he did, was he not banalizing it? Did he allow sentimentalism and superficiality to override faith and reason?

The news report said the pope asked each of the partners, “Are you sure?... Then OK!” Does he really think that a sacrament can be thus simplified and, if I may be allowed the word, parodied?

Did he not thereby transform matrimony into nothing more than a sort of happening [Valli uses the English word], a triumph of improvisation, for an occasion that demands, by canon law and tradition, maturity, responsibility and sacredness?

Did he not thereby devalue a sacrament of the Church and reduce it to an extemporaneous event?

Does such a performance not involve elements of protagonism and narcissism – even if unconsciously – on the part of the spouses and the celebrant himself?

In all of this, did the presence of God not become merely an accessory to the fact that could just as well have been ignored?

Would it not have been more advisable – given that the event was pre-planned – to have asked the couple to come to the chapel of the Nunciature in Santiago where a proper sacramental marriage could have been celebrated, Mass and all, in a way worthy of the dignity of the sacrament in which the two spouses are considered to be co-ministers?

Has the pope’s performance preserved and guaranteed the dignity of the sacrament of marriage as the Catechism calls on the ministers of the Church to do for a sacrament which, by its very nature, is intended to be a source of sanctifying grace?

“God himself is the author of marriage”, the Catechism tells us. That being so, was it at all legitimate – even for the pope – to perform a marriage without a nuoptial Mass when there was no urgent reason to do so? [Other than a PR coup of yet another historic Bergoglian ‘first’ that was guaranteed to drive the scandalous Ploumen case out of the headlines!]

Does the Catechism not say that sacramental marriage is a liturgical act that ought to be celebrated with the public liturgy of the Church?

And since the Church, as a concerned mother, recommends to all Catholics intending to marry their participation in a parish course intended to prepare them for marriage, did Carlo and Paula do that? [That’s probably one of the points covered in the briefing paper for the pope – assuming there was one, and if there was none, he should have asked for one when he was briefed about the ‘spontaneous’ gesture he was to come up with - to assure him that he could legitimately go ahead with his act since ‘all the I’s were dotted and the t’s crossed’ to make sure that all canonical requirements (outside of performing the ceremony in church and within a Mass).]

Otherwise, are we then to think that such a pre-nuptial course is really just a formality that would only be a waste of time?

So, the above are the ‘dubia’ that have arisen in this simple Catholic who is not trying to be a killjoy - I am just a poor creature who has in his heart the faith, the Catholic Church, and the sacraments instituted by Christ.