BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI




March 22, 2017 headlines

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March 23, 2017 headlines

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St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the conversion
that makes all the difference
Though separated by four centuries and from extremely different cultures,
Patrick and Joseph have a great deal in common, spiritually speaking.
by Bishop Robert Barron

March 22, 2017

I am always pleased when the feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph roll around every year, the first on March 17th and the second on March 19th.

Joseph is especially dear to the Italian people, who celebrate him with festive meals, and Patrick, of course, is specially reverenced by my own people, the Irish, who celebrate him with parades, parties, and (often) too much drinking.

Though separated by four centuries and though hailing from extremely different cultures, Patrick and Joseph have a great deal in common, spiritually speaking. For both stubbornly situated their lives in the context, not of the ego-drama, but the theo-drama, and therein lies their importance for the universal church. [Thanks to Bishop Barron for coming up with the term 'ego-drama'! There's a famous hubristic narcissist to whom the term eminently applies, as he is playing it all the time!]

Let's consider Patrick first. A Roman Briton, born in the early fifth century, Patrick, while still a young man, was kidnapped by raiders and brought to Ireland, where he lived the brutal life of a slave.

One can only imagine the darkness of these years: torn away from family, friends, and home, compelled to learn an unfamiliar language, treated with disdain, forced to do the most disagreeable work. How often he must have wept. How often he must have cried out to God, wondering how he could have been so thoroughly abandoned.

After six years in Ireland, Patrick finally managed to escape and return home. Some accounts have it that he then sojourned in France, doing his theological studies there and becoming ordained as a priest.

Looking at this life from a purely natural or psychological perspective, one would readily conclude that still youthful Fr. Patrick would never want to journey again to the place where his life had hit rock bottom. Or perhaps, he would want to return there as chaplain to an invading army!

Instead, he decided to go back to Ireland in order to carry the Gospel to those who had enslaved and persecuted him. How can we explain this? We have to move beyond a merely natural and psychological framework and understand his life theologically.

Stated differently, we have to appreciate that Patrick, like all of the saints, saw his life as ingredient in a drama that God was directing and producing. He appreciated that the whole awful experience of being a slave was not simply dumb suffering, but was, strangely, a preparation for the work that God had for him.

During those terrible years, he learned a great deal about the history, topography, and language of the Irish; he came, perhaps, to love some of their lore and religious customs. Like Moses among the Egyptians, he came to understand the "enemy" culture from the inside and hence was able, with special skill and creativity, to engage it.

Now think of the worst moment of your life, the time when you hit bottom. How do you read it? Pointless pain— or a moment of particular grace?

Now let us look at St. Joseph. Every episode of his life recounted in the Bible is a crisis.

He discovers, to his dismay, that the woman he loved and to whom he was betrothed to marry, was pregnant. How lost and confused he must have been. The Mosaic law permitted him to hand Mary over to be stoned to death, but his native decency prevented him from taking that path. Instead, he resolved, undoubtedly with a broken heart, to divorce her quietly.

But then the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and explained the anomalous pregnancy. Placing his own fears and preoccupations to one side, Joseph understood what was happening in the context of God's providence and he took Mary as his wife.

Next, discovering that the child was in mortal danger, Joseph took mother and baby on a perilous journey, across hundreds of miles of trackless desert, to an unknown country, an unknown village, an unknown people.

Anyone who has ever been forced into exile, compelled to leave his homeland, or even obliged to move to a new city to take up a job knows the anxiety that Joseph must have felt. Now add to it the keen sense that your baby is being pursued by agents of the government, intent upon murder. But Joseph went because God had commanded him.

Finally, we hear of Joseph desperately seeking his lost twelve-year old son. Speak to any parent who has gone through a similar experience — looking for a child who has wandered away or been taken — and you will hear of a fear beyond measure. And this anxious search went on for three days.

Did Mary and Joseph sleep? Did they eat? What did they say to one another? Thus we fully understand Mary's reaction when, having finally discovered Jesus among the doctors in the Temple: "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety?" And they received that devastatingly understated response: "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father's house?"

Quietly taking the child home, Joseph once more put aside his human feelings and trusted in the purposes of God. The little we know about Joseph is that he experienced heartbreak, fear unto death, and a parent's deepest anxiety, but each time, he read what happened to him theo-dramatically and not ego-dramatically.

This shift in attitude, this re-orientation of the heart, this conversion is what made Patrick the patron of the Irish and Joseph the patron of the universal Church.

 

The Annunciation, Sandro Botticelli, 1489-1490.
Fr. Z says this is one of his favorite images of the Annunciation, and it is lovely and says so many things. My reservation is that the artist had Mary looking at least twice her age at the time (15 or 16), and the angel too looks old...

March 25 has been observed primarily as the Feast of the Annunciation, being roughly nine months from the Feast of the Lord's Nativity on December 25. I have not checked to find out why it has never been popularly called the Feast of the Incarnation because the Annunciation to Mary also marked the conception in her of Jesus the man. Father Z had two beautiful reflections yesterday on this feast...

Lady Day - The very feast of the Incarnation

Sometimes in the history of our salvation the stars line up to portend amazing events. These stellar alignments are sometimes literally stellar, as in the case of the Star of Bethlehem. I, for one, buy the arguments for the Star (which also concerns what lined up with your planet’s yellow star on that first Good Friday). [Fr Z provides the link to that reference: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2017/01/oldie-post-what-was-the-star-of-bethlehem/

Years line up, too. Take the curious situation we face this year, when many portentous anniversaries are coincident. It’s a bit unnerving.

But I digress. This is about Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation. This is the day when we celebrate the moment of the Incarnation. Mary says her “Fiat” and the Eternal Word takes our humanity into an indestructible bond with His divinity. From the instant of His conception, nothing would ever be the same again. And so we celebrate 25 March – nine months before the Feast of the Nativity – with great attention.

This is the day there occurred that which drives us of the Roman Rite to our knees with great frequency. [Apparently the current Vicar of Christ on earth has exempted himself from all that - i mean, if he cannot even genuflect when he is consecrating the body and Blood of our Lord at Mass...]

In our traditional liturgical practice, we take a knee every time in the Last Gospel of Mass Father says: et verbum caro factum est… and the Word was made flesh. [I have particularly loved the inspired idea of saying the prolog to John's Gospel to end the traditional Mass - to remind us at the end of this commemoration of Jesus's supreme sacrifice that the story of Christian redemption it all began when "the Word was made flesh".]

We genuflect every time we sing in the Creed: et homo factus est… and he was made man. The Son, consubstantial with the Father from before creation, becomes consubstantial with His human Mother, with our humanity in the instant of the Incarnation after the Annunciatory Archangel’s announcement to Mary Annunciate that she would conceive… if she agreed.

One gets the impression that God gives us clues in the mighty whirling clock of the heavens. After all, God knows how to do this stuff. Had there been tiny variations in strong and weak nuclear forces in the fractions of a second after the beginning of material creation, if the Big Bang Theory is correct, and we wouldn’t be here. God is precise. His precision in creation suggests that we should pay close attention to the celestial signs He puts in front of and above our faces.

It was the very moment when the “fullness of time” began.

How much did hang upon that momentary meeting?

The 25th of March has, through history, has been considered the most important day of the year. In ancient times it was thought that many events critical for our salvation took place on this same date. Augustine posited that that Christ’s Incarnation, His Conception, as well as His Crucifixion, His Death, was on 25 March. They also thought that God’s “Day of Rest”, the Eighth Day after Creation was 25 March. Moreover, the Hebrews crossing of the Red Sea (death and resurrection, the fall of man and his rising in baptism) and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (the two-fold prefiguring of Christ, priest and victim in one Person, ascending the hill to the altar/Cross) were on, yes, 25 March.

In other news, on this day, Frodo and Sam reached Mount Doom. You know what happened next.

One gets the impression that God gives us clues in the mighty whirling clock of the heavens. After all, God knows how to do this stuff. Had there been tiny variations in strong and weak nuclear forces in the fractions of a second after the beginning of material creation, if the Big Bang Theory is correct, then we wouldn’t be here. God is precise. His precision in creation suggests that we should pay close attention to the celestial signs – and calendrical coincidences – which He graciously puts in front of and above our faces.

Earlier in the day, he posted this:

Lady Day: The very Feast of the Incarnation
Posted on 25 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is the very Feast of the Incarnation.

Today we celebrate that moment when our Lord elevated our humanity by taking our human nature into an indestructible bond with His Divinity.

In the Incarnation God opened for us the path to our “divinization”: His sharing of something of His own divine glory with us in the eternal happiness of heaven.

In the sin of our First Parents the whole human race sinned. In justice, therefore, a human being had to correct the offense. However, such a correction was entirely impossible for a mere mortal human. Such a correction required the intervention of one who was both man and God.

In the Incarnation, the Word made flesh – made man – Jesus the Lord and Savior not only begins to save us from our sins in His earthly ministry, but begins also the mysterious revelation of man more fully to himself (cf. GS 22).

Part of the Lord’s mission was also to teach man more fully who He is in the beauty of His own Person. However, He did not begin to do this only from the beginning of His public ministry. He began this from the very moment of the Incarnation.

Remember: From the instant of His conception, the Word made flesh begins to teach man more fully who man is.

Light from Light sheds light on the dignity of man, God’s image, from the instant of conception, from man’s humblest beginning.

Here are the Collects for this beautiful Feast of the Annunciation, Lady Day. Here are the “Opening Prayers” from both the older, traditional, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and the newer, post-Conciliar, Ordinary Form.

---

COLLECT (1962MR) 9EF):
Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis utero Verbum tuum, Angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti: praesta supplicibus tuis; ut, qui vere eam Genetricem Dei credimus, eius apud te intercessionibus adiuvemur.

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who desired Your Word to take flesh from the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary the angel announcing it: grant to your supplicants; that we who believe truly in the Mother of God, may be helped in Your sight by her intercessions.

COLLECT (2002MR) (OF]:
Deus, qui Verbum tuum in utero Virginis Mariae
veritatem carnis humanae suscipere voluisti,
concede, quaesumus,
ut, qui Redemptorem nostrum
Deum et hominem confitemur,
ipsius etiam divinae naturae mereamur esse consortes.

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who wanted Your Word to take up
the truth of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
grant, we beseech,
that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man,
may also merit to be the sharers of His divine nature.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL VERSION:
O God, who willed that your Word
should take on the reality of human flesh
in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
grant, we pray,
that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man,
may merit to become partakers even in his divine nature.[/dim

---

March 24, 2017 headlines

Canon212.com


PewSitter



March 25, 2017 headlines

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The above photo, left, [the image on the right is one I cropped and enlarged from the left photo) comes from Religion Digital (rabid Bergoglian site in Spanish) about the pope's visit to three families in a Milan 'poor neighborhood' yesterday, March 25, but it is not captioned.
One assumes the pope used a portaloo set up for the crowds, but why would he have done that? OK, humility, man of the people, and all that, but he’s still the pope, and of course, even popes have to pee, but does it have to be so public?
1. Would it have not been far more ‘humble’- and completely 'unostentatious' - to have asked to use the bathroom in one of the apartments he visited?
2. Doesn’t his personal entourage have provisions for such emergencies, such as perhaps, a loo in one of the many vans that always accompany the pope, or at least, his valet should always have one of those convenient disposable pee-pouches available from any drugstore for just such emergencies?
3. But since he decided to use that very public facility, did he really leave the door open as it looks like in the photo? Why did his close-up security not close the door after him (there seem to be two of them) by the door, with one to block the window which was perfectly placed to frame the peeing pope?
4. In any case, I doubt there will ever be another photo like this in papal annals![/colore/

As I have missed at least two full days of posting, you can see how convenient these PewSitter and Canon212 headlines are to remind me what I have not done. And quite a few news items have piled up:
1. The two younger Fatima seers, siblings Francisco and Jacinta, will be canonized this year – very appropriately and opportunely, perhaps during the pope’s visit to Fatima on May 13, 2017 to mark the centenary of the Virgin’s first apparition to the three shepherd children.

Related to this is a new book published in Spain about the entire Fatima phenomenon but including a letter supposedly written by Sor Lucia, the oldest of the three seers (cousin to Francisco and Jacinta), in 1944, and said to constitute the ‘undisclosed’ portion of the Third Secret. This is not the first time that this apparently apocryphal text has appeared online – the hypothesis is that the Church has decided to suppress it because it speaks about an apostasy at the very summit of the Church, etc [which, IMHO, we are now witnessing, regardless of what the Third Secret, complete or incomplete, may have truly been.

Marco Tosatti – who has written a book about the Third Secret and its continuing ‘mystery’ - reported on this first print appearance of this apocrypha, supposedly well authenticated by the best handwriting experts, in the new book . and went to Spain for the book presentation, but the day after, he had to retract his belief in the authenticity of the letter. Antonio Socci, who has an even better-known book about the ‘untold’ part of the secret, promptly picked up to recount what is known and what is hypothesized so far about this untold part, which he calls the Fourth Secret.

2. A German Vaticanista’s claim that despite all the PR gloss, with the occasional ‘sweetness and light’ photos, the current pope and his predecessor are really not on good terms at all! The Vaticanista is Andreas Englisch, who has reported from Rome for BILD for more than three decades, gave a lecture in Limburg in which he claims that the rift originated early on, from the case of the former Bishop of Limburg, nicknamed Bishop of Bling by the media, whom Francis removed from his office and who was apparently defended by Benedict XVI (at the time, Mons. Gaenswein was very public that he thought the Bishop would be cleared of the accusations, especially the exaggerated ones). Englisch, who does not hide his partiality for Bergoglio, nonetheless volunteers his information – conjecture, if you will, but why would he say something that contradicts the official Bergoglian line? I have not checked out whether Englisch has followed up with an article that confirms what he said in the lecture.

3. Those DUBIA – more than seven months now since the Four Cardinals sent their letter to the Pope and to the CDF – remain unanswered, of course, by the only person whose answers matter for official purposes. Meanwhile, Chilean bishops who met with him recently on ad limina visit claim he told them that “his objective for convoking the family synods was not to authorize communion for remarried divorcees” – which some quarters are claiming means he has not authorized this at all. You don’t need any analysis to see that he was saying only what he said, literally – it is entirely different from saying “I have not authorized communion for remarried divorcees in any way” because otherwise he would have said so, and the Chilean bishops would have quoted him saying that. Besides, has he not already told the Buenos Aires bishops that their interpretation of AL – allowing communion with discernment/accompaniment/blahblahblah – was ‘perfect’?

Anyway, going on, at a church in Virginia on March 24, Cardinal Burke was asked what would the Four Cardinals do if the pope persists in not answering their DUBIA. Fr. Z has a brief videoclip in which, he notes, “The Cardinal answers that they would have to correct the situation in a manner that draws from the constant teaching of the Church on the issues raised by the dubia, and that this teaching would be made known for the good of souls. In other words, the Cardinals would issue a public restatement of the constant teaching of the Church in regard to the issues covered by the Five Dubia. Does this mean all four of the Four Cardinals? Cardinal Burke did not say, at least in the video clip, above.” Or, in short, Cardinal Burke and/or the three other cardinals will simply re-issue their DUBIA and answer them YES, NO, NO, NO AND NO, as they ought to be answered.

4. That messy Knights of Malta situation: Sandro Magister and Edward Pentin reveal more details about the 30million Swiss francs ‘anonymous’ donation to the Order in a deal that involves three of the persons named by the pope to investigate the circumstances behind the firing of Albrecht von Boeselager as Chancellor, and about which Grand Master Fra Festing – ordered by the pope to resign his post – knew nothing about. Now the latter says that the pope told him he would not object if Festing were re-elected Grand Master.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/04/2017 00:10]

One of the stories I have not posted about is the most recent and still ongoing round of reports that finally - for the neth time - the FSSPX may soon be fully reconciled with the Church of Rome. Maybe it will really happen this time but until it does, i won't hold my breath. Meanwhile I do share Mundabor's views on what the FSSPX ought to do before it closes the 'deal' with Bergoglio - it would be an acid test of the latter's 'sincerity' in all this...

How the FSSPX can pave the way for
meaningul 'reconciliation' with Rome

March 23, 2017

The FSSPX seems – not for the first time – on the brink of “reconciliation”. I am assuming here that the reconciliation will be what every sensible person would insist on: complete control of assets, seminary and command structure. As I have written many times, nothing else would be acceptable.

However, there seems to be in some quarters some fear that the FSSPX may either “go native”, or become scandalously silent in front of this scandalous Pontificate because of the carrot being dangled in front of them.

Luckily, Mundabor comes to the rescue and suggests a very simple way for the SSPX to obtain both aims: reconciliation with both the Vatican and their mistrustful supporters.

The solution is a scathing attack against Amoris Laetitia and Francis’s heretical pontificate. I don’t care how they call it in sophisticated theological term. What I would like to see is that they hurt him badly.

[But Bergoglio appears to be invulnerable (the impression he gives to the public, anyway) to the worst criticism which he shrugs off like a duck shakes off water. No, they should - via Mons. Fellay - issue a position paper of their objections and reservations to this pope's offenses against the deposit of faith, some probably amounting to material if not formal heresy, not just those found in AL. Fellay has said a few harsh things before about AL, but a formal poisiton paper by the FSSPX before they seal any agreement with the Bergoglio Vatican would prove the society's bona fides, in both the literal and figurative terms - not just to their members but to the rest of the Catholic world which has the impression that the Lefebvrias are cutting Bergoglio a lot of slack for the sake of a deal they may belie e to be all but certain. Such compromise is not worthy of the FSSPX, and Mons. Lefebvrre would probably rise from the grave if he could to protest any such a cowardly sacrifice of principle. If they compromise on this, they will keep compromising on other things and end up enbdorsing this pope's heretical or near-heretical positions themselves - and what does that make of Mons. Lefebvre's lifework?]

After that, only one of two things can happen.
- The first is that Francis abandons the idea of the reconciliation. This shows that he only wanted to keep them silent as the carrot dangles in front of them. The SSPX sees the cards and wins the hand.
- The second is that Francis decides that his “mercy” dividend is still worth the attacks of the SSPX, and the reconciliation process moves on under the banner of “mercy”. The SSPX keeps intact credentials and wins the hand again.

What’s not to like? If Francis really has interest in the “mercy credentials”, he won’t mind the steamroller going over him; actually, the accusations will help him in presenting himself as meek and very, very Ghandian. If he closes the door to the SSPX then he didn’t have anything “merciful” in mind in the first place.

Can’t see what the SSPX has to lose if they – as I am sure they do – value Truth first. [Well, insh'Allah, to use a very convenient Muslim phrase, except that when I say or think it, then Allah is our God, not the Muslim god.]

March 26, 2017 headlines

PewSitter


Canon212.com



The pope seated during the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Milan Cathedral, March 24, 2017.

After the pope’s piddle in a public urinal, this constitutes the second photographic PR faux pas by the Vatican communications team from his
one-day visit to Milan, though obviously they don't think so. Everyone knows by now that this pope does not even genuflect when he performs
the Consecration, nor has he been shown as pope to have knelt before the Most Blessed Sacrament. In view of that -
1. Why would CTV televise at all an Adoration in which the pope is the chief participant to rub in the fact of this unpleasant and most
unprecedented papal failing? Many Catholics have probably been thinking, “If the pope does not kneel for Adoration, so can I”.
2. Indeed, why televise an Adoration at all? Most Adorations last one hour, during which ‘nothing’ occurs except the silent near-motionless
adoration offered by the participants - it is not an event meant to be televised [other, perhaps, than the eve-of-conclusion Adoration at WYD
rallies since Benedict XVI introduced the practice in Cologne in 2005]. Then, televising what is basically an event where nothing visible 'happens'
becomes counter-productive because the announcers tend to make inane and entirely gratuitous remarks throughout the event to fill up dead air.
For the pope’s PR purposes, why not film him kneeling for a few seconds at a prie-Dieu at the start of the Adoration, then take shots
of the other participants and establishing shots of the event to make into a videoclip, rather than showing him seated as above?
3. It is hard to accept the explanation that kneeling or genuflection causes this pope such physical pain that he cannot bear to do
these acts at all, when for the past four years, on Maundy Thursday (and in a few weeks, yet again), we have seen him kneeling
to wash and wipe the feet of 12 persons – something that takes at least six minutes, assuming he needs 30 seconds for each act.
Let us say he does this at the cost of extreme physical pain, then ]why can he not offer the same sacrifice to the Lord that he
shows to these persons?
4. This is probably the ultimate in Bergoglian hypocrisy. Yet few have called him out on it. Certainly not the secular media
who are still in his thrall, and much less, his legion of Bergoglidolators.

Giuseppe Nardi at 'Eponymous Flower' has these additonal observations:

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"The Pope did not visit the Blessed Sacrament on the main altar (which would have been a good and proper opportunity to provide visibility to the worthy worship of God, the climax of the liturgy and the cult), but in the crypt, almost as if it were a private act that is made in secret and in a hurry. [If only it had been kept 'secret'! But the photo looks to me like he was before the main altar.]

A prie dieu was not even provided. That is, the master of ceremonies of the cathedral had instructions not to set him one up at all. The pope does not want to use the prie dieu and apparently does not even have one on hand.

Francis did not even remove the white pileolus on his head before the Blessed Sacrament. It was once named Soli Deo (only for God) because it is only removed for God in the Sacrament.

Expression and body language, the folded hands, indicate that the pope is not taking a prayerful disposition before the Lord in prayer and worship, but just as if he were in a program and had to make an intermediate stop in the crypt which had annoyed him. The look seems apathetic as if he did not see God in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

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Prof. Fr. Joseph Ratzinger interviewed at his home in Pentling, 3/26/77, the day after
he accepted Paul VI’s nomination as Archbishop of Munich-Freising.

Thanks to Beatrice and her website for leading me to this article which was published to mark the 40th anniversary of the announcement that Joseph Ratzinger had been named the new Archbishop of Munich-Freising...It started the unlikely rise of someone who had been a professor-theologian for almost a quarter-century in the Church hierarchy, to be elected pope 28 years later.

Forty years ago, Prof. JosephRatzinger
was named an Archbishop:
“It was with a heavy heart that I said Yes”
Interview with the new Archbishop, 3/26/77
By Muenchner Kirchenzeitung
Translated from reprint on

March 25, 2017

Exactly 40 years, ago Regensburg University Prof. Joseph Ratzinger was named Archbishop of Munich-Freising by Pope Paul VI. The very next day, Münchner Kirchenzeitung [Munich Church Newspaper, official organ of the Archdiocese] sought to find out what ‘moves’ the new prelate’s soul, though many of our readers already knew for certain beforehand that he would be their new bishop.

“It was with a heavy heart that I said Yes. I had no previous knowledge of it”, he said. He had exactly one night and one day to think about whether he would accept the call to be the archbishop of his home diocese, or not.

On March 26, 1977, one day after his nomination was formally announced, he gave the
Münchner Kirchenzeitung (at the time called the Münchner Katholische Kirchenzeitung) a long interview at his private residence in Pentling. A story that would prove to be very helpful.

Of course, editor-in-chief Hans-Georg Becker and his deputy Karl Wagner wished to be able to inform their readers right away about their new archbishop. With an open heart, Ratzinger confided to the journalists that he believed “I could perhaps do more for the Church as a scholar-theologian than I would as a bishop”.

But then he thought of St. Augustine, of whom he has been a great promoter. The great Father and Doctor of the Church had also wanted nothing to do with the office of bishop. “But it went very well for him,” Ratzinger notes.

Ratzinger told of the completely unexpected visit from the Apostolic Nuncio to inform him of the nomination and to ask whether he would accept. Which he did after considering the offer overnight, though he was firmly convinced that he was not the right fit.

But the day after the appointment was formally announced, the 49-year-old professor was already thinking aloud about his coat of arms. on the day after the appointment. Even then it was clear to him that it would be "cooperatores veritatis" (coworkers of truth), that even as a bishop, he was only a "co-operator", an employee - "Not a chief, but a participant in the whole."

The newly appointed bishop also clearly pointed out the focal points of his future work: growing the priesthood, close contact with the clergy of his future bishopric, and catechesis in the family.

During the long bishopless period following the death of Cardinal Julius Dofner in July 1976, our newspaper had made a survey among our readers on who they thought would be the next archbishop. We did not publish the results, but many of the 600 letters we received named Ratzinger [Five of those who named it right were given place cards at the Cathedral for the new bishop’s consecration]. The future Archbishop said that if possible, he would like to meet with the personally, and allowed our editor to arrange this.



The photos taken during the interview were preserved in the archives of our newspaper. In the reconstruction of the rooms of the Ratzinger residence in Pentling close to what it was like when the future pope lived there with his sister, the pictures were a valuable aid.

The Regensburg-based Institut Papst Benedikt XVI, which now owns the building, sought to restore the living and working areas as close to the original as possible. To his great pleasure the director of the institute, Rudolf Voderholzer, now Bishop of Regensburg, at that time still theology professor in Trier, found these photos on a visit to the MK archive.

March 27-28, 2017 headlines

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March 29, 2017 headlines

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Mary’s little-known apparition in France
In 1519, in Cotignac, southern France, she appeared with the infant Jesus,
where in 1660, St. Joseph would also make an apparition.
by Joseph Pronechen


Two miles down the road from the sanctuary of St. Joseph in Cotignac, France, where he appeared in 1660, his spouse the Blessed Virgin Mary also appeared in a similar way, but for a different reason. Yet both of these approved apparitions have remained fairly obscure to the world in general, unlike Lourdes or Fatima.

Mary arrived at this place in the heart of Provence some years earlier than St. Joseph. It was the first step linked to a major intervention she would make for a family and France.

The date was August 10, 1519. A woodcutter named Jean de la Baume climbed Mount Verdaille to begin his work for the day. Like every day, Jean began it by kneeling in prayer. Only this time, when he stood up, he was astonished to see a cloud before him, and emerging from the cloud is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was holding the Child Jesus and standing on a crescent moon. With her was St. Michael the Archangel, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Catherine of Egypt.

Mary gave a message to Jean. “I am the Virgin Mary. Go and tell the clergy and the counsels of Cotignac to build me a church on this place in the name of Our Lady of Graces and that they should come in procession to receive the gifts which I wish to bestow.”

But Jean didn’t tell anyone what he saw, thinking it was a hallucination from the summer heat. Next day, August 11, he came back to continue his work. Again the Blessed Mother appeared to him. This time Jean believes and dashes to the village to tell of Mary and her message.

The wonderful EWTN documentary, Shrine of the Holy Family: Provence, France brings out that people know Jean as a decent, responsible man with proven character. Everyone believes him. We can imagine his jubilation touching off a whirlwind of excitement among families, individuals, and the town council.

On September 14, the Feast of the Holy Cross, the villagers laid the first stone for the chapel that Mary requested. The whole of Cotignac walked in procession to the site on Mount Verdaille.

Everyone in Cotignac and indeed Provence would be familiar with the saints accompanying Mary and the Child Jesus. Back then St. Michael the Archangel was honored as protector of God’s family, the Church. St. Bernard of Clairvaux had established several monasteries, one of them only 15 miles from the village.

And martyr St Catherine of Egypt’s French connection? Because her remains were brought to France by King Louis IX, himself later canonized as St. Louis. In addition, St. Catherine, along with St. Michael, were seen and identified by Joan of Arc as two of the saints who counseled her.

“Thus, a common link among all the saints in the vision — a link to the well-being of families, national families, ecclesial families — all the communities needed for the well-being of people, communities for which God himself is concerned,” explains he Shrine of the Holy Family documentary.

Another surprise — and connection — came during the month the villagers began building the chapel for Our Lady of Graces. Digging the foundation, they uncovered the tombs of Christian martyrs that dated to the earliest centuries.

In reality, the people in Provence became converts not long after Mary Magdalene, Lazarus and Martha arrived on the southern coast. Tradition says they landed at a place known as Saintes Maries de la Mer, then went not far away to Marseille where they preached the gospel and Lazarus baptized many.

Until the fourth century, the Romans controlled the region and persecuted Christians, yet spirituality remained strong. It was strong after the 1660s when the sanctuary to Our Lady of Graces was built, and countless miraculous answers to prayers came through the intercession of Mary.

Fast forward to 1637 and a critical moment for France. By that year, the kingdom was worried. After 22 years of marriage, King Louis XIII and Queen Anne of Austria were without children. The Queen continued praying fervently for an heir to the throne, but again she miscarried in her most recent pregnancy. Louis was not of the Henry VIII mentality.

The sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces in Cotignac would soon play a big role in the answer.

On November 3, 1637, not far from the Louvre, the Blessed Mother appeared to an Augustinian monk named Brother Fiacre while he was in prayer in the monastery of the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires (Our Lady of Victories).

The cry of a toddler attracted his attention. So explains an official history given by Our Lady of Victories. It describes what happened on the first quarter-hour visitation to him as recorded in the monastery’s archives and countersigned by the vicar general and the prior.

"He turned his head to the side of the voice…and saw the Sacred Virgin surrounded by a beautiful and agreeable Light, with a child in her arms, dressed in a blue robe with stars, her hair hanging on her shoulders, three crowns on her head, sitting on a chair and saying, “My child, do not you Fear, I am the Mother of God”.

On this he threw himself into the ground to worship the child she held in her arms, thinking that it was Jesus Christ, but the Holy Virgin said to him: “My child, it is not my Son, Is the child God wants to give to France.”

Then Our Lady asked for three novenas from the Queen, and the son will be granted. Specifically, one novena prayed at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Another there at Our Lady of Victories. And the last at an unknown shrine called Our Lady of Graces.

The monk was perplexed. Mary said, “To spare any doubts, my child, to show you that I want the Queen to make three novenas to me, here is the same picture which is at Our Lady of Graces in Provence and the appearance of the church.”

The monk and his superiors still doubt, but in less than a week a baby’s cries awaken Fiacre. Again he sees Mary showing the child. Fiacre believes and begins the novenas for the queen on November 8. When the Queen is told, she too prays the novenas Our Lady requested in honor of her. Then King Louis orders Fiacre to find the sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces in Provence to pray the last novena there.

As an aside, the brother was named after a saint popular with the French, and it so happened that both the king and queen had devotion to St. Fiacre. Another providential connection.

The trip to Cotignac near the southeastern tip of France was trying. When Brother Fiacre arrived, he was unsure if he found the right shrine. Again Our Lady had already given him the way to dispel doubts. Once he entered the chapel, he saw a painting being restored — the very same image the Blessed Mother had shown him when she appeared on November 3. It was the chapel she requested.

Fiacre finished the novena on December 5. Exactly nine months later, on September 5, 1638, their first child was born to King Louis and Queen Anne. They named him Louis-Dieudonné which means “God-given.”

The miracle is for both the royal couple and France, known as the Eldest Daughter of the Church, to have an heir in the baby who will become Louis XIV.

Overjoyed, dad Louis declared a national act of thanksgiving and consecration of all of France as soon as it became known Queen Anne was with child, and seven months before the birth of Louis-Dieudonné. In thanksgiving Louis XIII decreed:

“We declare that taking the very Holy and Glorious Virgin Mary as special Portectress of our kingdom, we particularly consecrate to her our own self, the state, our crown and our subjects. And we notify the said Archbishop of Paris [and] order him that every year on the feast of the Assumption he should commemorate our present declaration at high Mass. We similarly exhort all people that have a special devotion to the Virgin on that day to implore her protection that God will be served and revered in such a holy way that we and our subjects may finally reach the happy end for which we have all been created. Such is our wish.”

The consecration continued annually.

Before we return to Cotignac, there is one more providential connection. Louis XIII named Our Lady of Victories in Paris and had it built in thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He credited her intercession for his victory over Huguenots at La Rochelle which guaranteed the stability of the kingdom.

He laid the cornerstone in 1629 the day after the first Archbishop of Parish blessed the foundation on — December 8. Then celebrated as the feast of the Immaculate or the Sacred Conception of the Virgin Mary, that date would celebrate the Immaculate Conception after the 19th century dogma). On that same December date, Fiacre would begin the novena a few years later.

Our Lady of Graces in Cotignac received royal visitors on February 21, 1660. Louis XIV, with his mother Anne, came to Cotignac specifically to give thanks for his birth. What a grateful monarch he was. The event proved the royal family was ever grateful for Mary’s intercession for them.

The year after Queen Anne died in 1666, Louis XIV, her Louis-Dieudonné, had a plaque placed in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces to honor his mother’s memory and reminding that he was given to the people by the vows Anne made. It remains there. Louis XIV would become the longest reigning of European monarchs — 72 years.

Just over 100 days after the royal visit in 1660, and two miles down the hillside from Our Lady of Graces, a royal member of the House of David appeared in Cotignac — St. Joseph.

With the members of the Holy Family appearing in such close proximity, from the beginning pilgrims to the sanctuary of Our Lady naturally walked the very short distance to the sanctuary of St. Joseph.

Just months later, in January 1661, local Bishop Giuseppe Zonga Ondedei combined both shrines under one name — Sanctuary of the Holy Family — so as to unite devotion to these two members of the Holy Family who God joined on earth.

By 1789 the havoc the French Revolution wreaked reached the shrines. They were confiscated and dismantled, and the material sold. But during the nights three young sisters risked their lives to save what they could from the sanctuaries, stashing the painting and statues in secret in the village.

Years later when some justice was eventually restored, Christian families could buy back their land and rebuild the shrines, returning the sacred objects they preserved.

Today many people make several formal annual pilgrimages and informal visits to both sanctuaries.

As one of the priest there said in the documentary, Shrine of the Holy Family, “Special to Cotignac is that people come seeking God as communities…Our role in Cotignac is to confirm to the families that they are right to see themselves as domestic churches” — imitating the Holy Family. Something Joseph and Mary planned centuries ago.

March 30-31, 2017 headlines

PewSitter


Canon212.com



April 1, 2017 headlines

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April 2, 2017 headlines

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April 3, 2017 headlines

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Quick way to 'update' on the more significant events and commentary on the Church in the past several days of my inactivity on the forum.


You may want to check this out:

https://thewildvoice.org/pope-francis-chronology-perspective/
This is an update of a chronology first published by the site in October 2016, and as with most lists chronicling the mishaps of
the current pope, it is far from comprehensive but even so, it is more than illustrative.

Vatican publishing house has book of homage
to Benedict XVI for his 90th birthday
by Michele Ippolito
Translated from
LA FEDE QUOTIDIANA
April 4, 2017

The Vatican publishing house LEV, on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Benedict XVI is publishing the book Cooperatores Veritatis: Scritti in onore del Papa Emerito Benedetto XVI per il 90◦ Compleanno (Co-Workers for the Truth: Writing in honor of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI for his 90th birthday.

The book, which was proposed by the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI, is a compendium of homages to its founder and principal inspiration, to demonstrate the task he had assigned to the Foundation: “to promote study and research in the field of theology and related sciences”.

The bilingual Preface (in Italian and English) is written by don Giuseppe Costa, director of LEV, who reviews the content of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s theological magisterium and the collaboration over the years between LEV and the emeritus Pope.

The homages are written by Richard A. Burridge, Waldemar Chrostowski, Manlio Simonetti, Brian E. Daley, Olegario González de Cardedal, Mario de França Miranda, Ioannis Kourempeles, Remi Brague, Maximilian Heim, Christian Schaller, Anne-Marie Pelletier, Nabil el-Khoury, and Inos Biffi [all are winners of the Ratzinger Prize in Theology].

I’m trying to devise a way to post as much as I can during the rare unpredictable times I am able to do it on a Forum that is increasingly recalcitrant to new posts and editing. Herewith, the last few articles by Sandro Magister on his blog. For now, I shall be posting with a minimum of remarks as that only gives rise to new difficulties… I will take a chance on errors with only the essential manual enhancement since I am doing all this on WORD first, then copying it to the Forum and hitting Reply. ‘Preview’ takes forever, and forget about trying to edit the errors!


The Four Cardinals showed the way with their DUBIA.
Now it’s the turn of the concerned laity.
By Sandro Magister
From the English service of

April 4, 2017

“Bring clarity.” With the same title-appeal with which cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner made public their “dubia” on the most controversial points of “Amoris Laetitia,” a big international conference will be held in Rome on Saturday, April 22, one year after the publication of the postsynodal exhortation.

The conference will be held at the Hotel Columbus, a short walk from Saint Peter’s Square. Presentations will be given by scholars gathered from all over the world: Anna M. Silvas from Australia, Claudio Pierantoni from Chile, Jürgen Liminski from Germany, Douglas Farrow from Canada, Jean Paul Messina from Cameroon, Thibaud Collin from France.

The first two are well known to the readers of Settimo Cielo.
From Anna M. Silvas, an Eastern-rite Catholic and an illustrious scholar of the Fathers of the Church, last June they were able to read this brilliant and exhaustive critique of the document by Pope Francis:
> Alice in “Amoris Laetitia” Land
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351311bdc4.html?eng=y

While from the Italian-Chilean Claudio Pierantoni, he too a patrologist, last November they read the instructive parallel between the disorientation of the present-day Church and that of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the fourth century, which required ecumenical councils to get through them, just as could happen again today:
> A New Council, Like Sixteen Centuries Ago
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351423bdc4.html?eng=y

The distinctive element of the conference is that all of the presentations will be given by laymen, demonstrating that the controversy that divides the Church today is by no means exclusive to a “few” reactionary ecclesiastics - as some hazard to say - but involves the whole “people of God.”

Nor for that matter are they isolated voices, the scholars who will speak on April 22. It should suffice to consider - among the many others who could be cited - two eminent figures like Stanislaw Grygiel of Poland and Rémi Brague of France, both staunch supporters of the soundness of the “dubia” submitted to the pope by the four cardinals.

In the photo, the encounter two days ago between Francis and one of the four, archbishop emeritus of Bologna Carlo Caffarra, former president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

Among the signers of the “dubia,” Cardinal Caffarra is the one for whom Jorge Mario Bergoglio has repeatedly manifested his esteem in the past. And he is also the one who has developed most extensively in public the arguments in support of his objections to “Amoris Laetitia,” in particular in the interview with “Il Foglio” of January 14, 2017, much of which was presented in multiple languages by Settimo Cielo:
> The Doubts of the Pope and Cardinal Caffarra’s Certainties
magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/01/16/the-doubts-of-the-pope-and-cardinal-caffarra%e2%80%99s-cert...

The encounter in the photo took place on Sunday, April 2, during the pope’s visit to the diocese of Carpi.
The conference on April 22 is promoted by the apologetics monthly “Il Timone” and by the website “La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana,” both edited by Riccardo Cascioli.


The man who ‘had to be elected’ pope
April 2, 2017

Mission accomplished. After four years of pontificate, this is the assessment that has been made by the cardinals who brought Jorge Mario Bergoglio to election as pope.

The operation that produced the Francis phenomenon arises from a long time ago, as far back as 2002, when for the first time "L'Espresso" discovered and wrote that the then little-known archbishop of Buenos Aires had leapt to the top of the candidates for the papacy, the real ones, not the figureheads.

It laid the groundwork at the conclave of 2005, when it was to none other than Bergoglio that all the votes were funneled from those who did not want Joseph Ratzinger as pope.

And it came into port at the conclave of 2013, to a large extent because many of his electors still knew very little about that Argentine cardinal, and certainly not that he would deal the Church that “punch in the stomach” spoken of a few days ago by his rival defeated in the Sistine Chapel, Milan archbishop Angelo Scola.

Between Bergoglio and his great electors there was not and is not full agreement. He is the pope of proclamations more than of realizations, of allusions more than of definitions.

There is however one key factor that meets the expectations of a historic turning point of the Church capable of making up for its emblematic lag of “two hundred years” with respect to the modern world that was denounced by Carlo Maria Martini, the cardinal who loved to call himself the “ante-pope,” meaning the anticipator of the one who was to come. And it is the factor of “time.” Which for Bergoglio is a synonym for “initiating processes.” The destination matters little to him, because what counts is the journey.

And in effect it is so. With Francis the Church has become an open construction site. Everything is in movement. Everything is fluid. There is no longer dogma that holds up. One can reexamine everything and act accordingly


Martini was precisely the sharpest mind of that club of St. Gallen which engineered Bergoglio’s rise to the papacy.

It took its name from the Swiss town in which the club met, and included the cardinals Walter Kasper, Karl Lehmann, Achille Silvestrini, Basil Hume, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Godfried Danneels. Of these only two, Kasper and Danneels, are still at the forefront, rewarded and treated with the highest regard by Pope Francis, in spite of the fact that they represent two national Churches in disarray, the German and the Belgian, and the latter even fell into discredit in 2010 for how he tried to cover up the sexual misdeeds of one of his protege bishops, whose victim was a young nephew of his.


Bergoglio never set foot in St. Gallen. It was the cardinals of the club who adopted him as their ideal candidate, and he adapted himself perfectly to their plan.

Everyone in Argentina remembers him very differently from how he later revealed himself to the world as pope. Taciturn, withdrawn, somber in expression, reserved even with crowds. Not once did he let slip a word or a gesture of disagreement with the reigning pontiffs, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. On the contrary. [That’s not true about Benedict XVI, though – through his spokesman, Cardinal Bergoglio immediately criticized the Regensburg address in September 20
06 for having ‘destroyed in 20 seconds what took John Paul II 20 years to build’.]

He praised in writing the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” very severe against the permissive “situational” ethics historically attributed to the Jesuits. He had no qualms over condemning Luther and Calvin as the worst enemies of the Church and of man. He attributed to the devil the deception of a law in favor of homosexual marriage.

But then he sent back home, “to avoid mixed messages,” the Catholics who had gathered outside of parliament for a prayer vigil against the imminent approval of that law. He knelt and had himself blessed in public by a Protestant pastor. He forged friendships with some of them, and also with a Jewish rabbi.

Above all he encouraged his priests not to deny communion to anyone, whether they be married, or cohabiting, or divorced and remarried. With no fuss and without making this decision public, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires was already doing what the popes at the time prohibited, but he would later permit once he became pope.

In St. Gallen they knew and were taking note. And when Bergoglio was elected, the world learned to recognize him right from the first moment for what he really was. With no more veils.

One crucial moment of the calculated advancement of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy was the final document of the general conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, in 2007.

The main author of the document [via ghostwriter Mons Victor Fernandez] was the archbishop of Buenos Aires at the time, who still continues today, as pope, to recommend it as a valid program for the Church not only in Latin America but all over the world.

Curiously, however, in the paragraphs dedicated to marriage and family there is no reference in the Aparecida document to the “openness” that Bergoglio would later implement as pope, and was already practicing, de facto, in his diocese of Buenos Aires.

In the almost 300 pages of the document, only a few lines concern communion for the divorced and remarried, on which he gives this guideline, in paragraph 437: "Accompany with care, prudence and compassionate love, following the guidelines of the magisterium ('Familiaris Consortio' 84; 'Sacramentum Caritatis' 29), couples who live together out of wedlock, bearing in mind that those who are divorced and remarried may not receive communion."

And in the previous paragraph it states, concerning the support given to policies against life and the family: "We must adhere to 'eucharistic coherence,' that is, be conscious that they cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals ('Sacramentum Caritatis' 83; 'Evangelium Vitae' 74, 74, 89)."

This is what Bergoglio wrote in 2007. But his mind was already elsewhere: on the conviction - criticized by Benedict XVI - that “the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” comparable to the meals of Jesus with sinners.

With the practical consequences that he had already drawn as bishop and would later draw as pope.


On the Pope’s desk, a "Memorandum" against
the Jesuit Superior-General – for near heresy[/b
March 31, 2017

Among the priests born in the diocese of Carpi, that Pope Francis will visit on Sunday, April 2, there is one who is giving him a tough nut to crack.

His name is Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini. He was formed in the school of three Jesuits of the first rank: Frs. Heinrich Pfeiffer, an art historian and professor at the Gregorian, Francesco Tata, former provincial of the Society of Jesus in Italy, and Piersandro Vanzan, a prominent writer for “La Civiltà Cattolica.” A scholar of Augustine, he is the author of books and of essays in theology journals.

Last week Fr. Bertacchini sent to Francis and to Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, a six-page “memorandum” highly critical of the ideas presented in a recent interview with the new superior general of the Society of Jesus, the Venezuelan Arturo Sosa Abascal, who is very close to the pope.

They are ideas, writes Fr. Bertacchini, “of such gravity that they cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in them,” because they threaten to “result in a Christianity without Christ.”

The complete text of the “memorandum” is on this other page of Settimo Cielo: http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/03/29/promemoria-sull%E2%80%99intervista-del-generale-dei-gesuiti-circa-l%E2%80%99inattendibilita-dei-vangeli/
An abridgment of it is presented below.

The interview with the general of the Jesuits criticized by Fr. Bertacchini is the one given to the Swiss vaticanista Giuseppe Rusconi and published on the blog Rossoporpora
http://www.rossoporpora.org/rubriche/interviste-a-personalita/672-gesuiti-padre-sosa-parole-di-gesu-da-contestualizzare.html
last February 18, after the interview subject himself reviewed it word by word.

---

MEMORANDUM
On the interview with the general of the Jesuits on the reliability of the Gospels
by Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini

In February the general of the Jesuits gave an interview in which he insinuates that the words of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage are not a point of theological stability, but rather a point of departure for doctrine, which must then be appropriately developed. This - taken to the extreme - could even lead to supporting the exact opposite, or the compatibility of divorce with Christian life. The initiative has in my view primed an explosive situation.

Of course, Arturo Sosa Abascal, SJ is very careful not to fall into outright heresy. And this, in a certain sense, is even more grave. It is therefore necessary to retrace the thread of his reasoning.

The question that he poses is whether the evangelists are reliable, and he says: it is necessary to discern. So it is not a given that they are [reliable]. Such a grave statement should be reasoned out at length and in depth, because it is indeed possible to admit error in a narrative detail; but to call into question the veracity
of doctrinal teachings of Jesus is another matter.

However it may be, our Jesuit does not get involved, but - very deftly - appeals to the pope. And since Francis, in dealing with couples that are separated etcetera, up to the time of the interview had never cited passages in which Jesus referred to the indissolubility of marriage, the implicit message of our Jesuit was glaring: if the pope does not cite those passages, it means that he has done discernment and maintains that they are not of Jesus. So they would not be binding. But all the popes have taught the opposite! What does it matter? They must be wrong. Or they must have said and taught things that were correct for their time, but not for ours.

Let it be clear: the eminent Jesuit does not say this “apertis verbis,” but he insinuates it, he lets it be understood. And so he gives a key of interpretation for the pope’s pastoral approach to the family that departs from the traditional teaching. In fact, today “we know” that very probably, or rather almost certainly, Jesus never taught that marriage is indissoluble. It is the evangelists who misunderstood.

A Christianity without Christ?
The question is of such gravity that it cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in it. The danger is that this could result in a Christianity reductive of the message of Jesus, or a Christianity without Christ.

In the Gospel for the Mass of last February 24 there was the passage from Mk 10:2-12 on repudiation. So is it acceptable to think that it is not known if Jesus uttered those words, and that they are not binding?
The “sensus fidei” tells us that the evangelists are reliable.

However, our general of the Jesuits rejects this reliability, and in addition takes no interest in the fact that Saint Paul had also received this doctrine from the Church as being of Jesus, and handed it on as such to his communities: “To the husbands I order, not I but the Lord: the wife may not be separated from the husband, and if she separates, let her remain without remarrying or let her be reconciled with the husband, and the husband may not repudiate the wife” (1 Cor 7:10-11).

The consistency of this passage with the texts of the synoptic Gospels on repudiation and adultery is perfectly clear. And it would be absurd to imagine that these depend on Paul, and not on pre-Paschal traditions. Not only that. In Eph 5:22-33, Paul revisits the same teaching from Jesus and even reinforces it. He revisits it, because he cites the same passage of Genesis that is cited by Jesus; he reinforces it, because Christ loves the Church in an indissoluble way, to the point of giving his life, and beyond earthly life. And Paul makes this fidelity the model of conjugal fidelity.

Thus it is entirely clear that there is an evident continuity of teaching between pre-Paschal and post-Paschal preaching; and also clear is the discontinuity with Judaism, which instead kept the institution of repudiation. But if Saint Paul himself founds this discontinuity on Christ, does it make sense to bring the Gospels into question? From where comes that leap which inspired the practice of the ancient Church, if not from Christ?

It should be noted that divorce was also admitted in the Greco-Roman world, and in addition there existed the institution of concubinage, which could easily result in a subsequent conjugal union, as attested to for example by the experience of Saint Augustine. And in historiography the principle applies that cultural inertia does not change without cause. Therefore, the change being attested historically, what could be the cause if not Jesus? If this then was Christ, why doubt the reliability of the Gospels?
Finally, if Jesus did not speak those words, what is the source of the drastic comment from the disciples (“But then it is better not to marry!”) in Mt 19:10? Matthew was one of those disciples, and they do not come across well: they show themselves slow to understand and attached to the traditions that Jesus challenges.

So from a historiographical point of view, the pericope of Mt 19:3-12 is entirely reliable: and as much for reasons of internal criticism as of external.

The dogmatic context
Moreover, to state that it is not known if Jesus actually uttered those words and that, in essence, they are not binding is “de facto” a heresy, because it is a denial of the inspiration of Scripture. 2 Tim 3 is very clear: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, convincing, correcting, and training in righteousness.”

“All” evidently also includes Mt 19:3-12. Otherwise it is attested that there is an “other” word that prevails over Scripture itself and over its inspiration. In fact, affirming the unreliability of some words of Jesus is like opening a fissure in the dam of “fides quae,” a fissure that would lead to the collapse of the entire dam. I illustrate:
a) If Jesus did not say those words, the evangelists are not reliable. And if they are not reliable, they are not truthful; but if they are not truthful, neither can they be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
b) If Jesus did not say those words, must he really have said all the others that we take as good? Someone who is unreliable on one innovative question can be likewise on others, like the resurrection. And if, to give the priesthood to women, “La Civiltà Cattolica” does not hesitate to bring into question a solemn magisterium invoked as infallible, will there not be chaos? To what biblical authority can one appeal, if the exegetes themselves are perennially and ever more divided? This is the sense in which the dam collapses.

And that is not the end, because in following the doubts of the Jesuit general it is not only Saint Paul who is trodden underfoot, but also Vatican II. In fact, this is what it states in “Sacrosasnctum Concilium” 7:
“Christ is always present in His Church [. . .] He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.”

Since the passages on the indissolubility of marriage are read at Mass, and to be precise: Mk 10:2-12 on the Friday of the 7th week of ordinary time and on the 27th Sunday of year B, Mt 19:3-12 on the Friday of the 19th week of ordinary time, and Mt 5:27-32 on the Friday of the 10th week, it follows that Vatican II in a certain way attributes those words to the authority of Jesus.

Thus those who follow the doubts of the Jesuit general not only disavow Vatican II, and moreover in a dogmatic constitution, they also doubt Tradition to the point of making abstract and unattainable the very authority of Jesus as teacher. So we are facing a genuine carpet bombing, before which the firmest of reactions is absolutely necessary.

In conclusion, the transition from a religiosity of the law to one of discernment is sacrosanct, but it is full of pitfalls. It requires a Christian formation of an excellence that unfortunately is rare today. And also that one have true love and deference for the divine Word.

In any case, putting on a false front for the sake of the world with the sole aim of avoiding conflicts and persecutions is not only cowardly, it is completely outside of the Gospel, which demands frankness and fortitude in the defense of the Truth. Jesus did not fear the cross, nor did the apostles.

Saint Paul, moreover, is clear:“It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Gal 6:12).
Being circumcised meant on the one hand going back to the religiosity recognized by Rome as legitimate, and on the other conforming to the mentality of the time. Saint Paul knows that the true circumcision is that of the heart, and he does not give in.

Carpi, March 19, 2017

---

One comment. In the complete text of the “Memorandum,” Fr. Bertacchini writes that on February 24, a few days after the publication of the interview with Fr. Sosa, Pope Francis “censured the positions of the Jesuit general” in dedicating his whole homily at Santa Marta - something he had never done before - to the passage of the Gospel of Mark with Jesus’s very clear words on marriage and divorce.

In the homily, according to Fr. Bertacchini, Francis contested Fr. Sosa’s doubts, emphasizing that “Jesus replied to the pharisees on repudiation, and therefore the evangelist is reliable.”
Properly speaking, however, Pope Francis’s comments on that passage of the Gospel of Mark appeared rather tortuous, to judge by the authorized accounts of the homily published by Vatican Radio and by “L'Osservatore Romano.”

At a certain point, however, the pope even went so far as to say that “Jesus does not respond whether [repudiation] is licit or not licit.”

And even where the pope argues - correctly, Fr. Bertacchini writes - against what he calls “casuistry,” a contradiction arises. Because what is different about what “Amoris Laetitia” asks when it urges case-by-case discernment of whom to admit to communion and whom not, among the divorced and remarried who live “more uxorio”?
 

I’m trying to devise a way to post as much as I can during the rare unpredictable times I am able to do it on a Forum that is increasingly recalcitrant to new posts and editing. Herewith, the last few articles by Sandro Magister on his blog. For now, I shall be posting with a minimum of remarks as that only gives rise to new difficulties… I will take a chance on errors with manual enhancement since I am doing all this on WORD first, then copying it to the Forum and hitting Reply. ‘Preview’ takes forever, and forget about trying to edit the errors!


The Four Cardinals showed the way with their DUBIA.
Now it’s the turn of the concerned laity.
By Sandro Magister
From the English service of

April 4, 2017

“Bring clarity.” With the same title-appeal with which cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner made public their “dubia” on the most controversial points of “Amoris Laetitia,” a big international conference will be held in Rome on Saturday, April 22, one year after the publication of the postsynodal exhortation.

The conference will be held at the Hotel Columbus, a short walk from Saint Peter’s Square. Presentations will be given by scholars gathered from all over the world: Anna M. Silvas from Australia, Claudio Pierantoni from Chile, Jürgen Liminski from Germany, Douglas Farrow from Canada, Jean Paul Messina from Cameroon, Thibaud Collin from France.

The first two are well known to the readers of Settimo Cielo.
From Anna M. Silvas, an Eastern-rite Catholic and an illustrious scholar of the Fathers of the Church, last June they were able to read this brilliant and exhaustive critique of the document by Pope Francis:
> Alice in “Amoris Laetitia” Land
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351311bdc4.html?eng=y

While from the Italian-Chilean Claudio Pierantoni, he too a patrologist, last November they read the instructive parallel between the disorientation of the present-day Church and that of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the fourth century, which required ecumenical councils to get through them, just as could happen again today:
> A New Council, Like Sixteen Centuries Ago
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351423bdc4.html?eng=y

The distinctive element of the conference is that all of the presentations will be given by laymen, demonstrating that the controversy that divides the Church today is by no means exclusive to a “few” reactionary ecclesiastics - as some hazard to say - but involves the whole “people of God.”

Nor for that matter are they isolated voices, the scholars who will speak on April 22. It should suffice to consider - among the many others who could be cited - two eminent figures like Stanislaw Grygiel of Poland and Rémi Brague of France, both staunch supporters of the soundness of the “dubia” submitted to the pope by the four cardinals.
In the photo, the encounter two days ago between Francis and one of the four, archbishop emeritus of Bologna Carlo Caffarra, former president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

Among the signers of the “dubia,” Cardinal Caffarra is the one for whom Jorge Mario Bergoglio has repeatedly manifested his esteem in the past. And he is also the one who has developed most extensively in public the arguments in support of his objections to “Amoris Laetitia,” in particular in the interview with “Il Foglio” of January 14, 2017, much of which was presented in multiple languages by Settimo Cielo:
> The Doubts of the Pope and Cardinal Caffarra’s Certainties
magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/01/16/the-doubts-of-the-pope-and-cardinal-caffarra%e2%80%99s-cert...

The encounter in the photo took place on Sunday, April 2, during the pope’s visit to the diocese of Carpi.
The conference on April 22 is promoted by the apologetics monthly “Il Timone” and by the website “La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana,” both edited by Riccardo Cascioli.


The man who ‘had to be elected’ pope
April 2, 2017

Mission accomplished. After four years of pontificate, this is the assessment that has been made by the cardinals who brought Jorge Mario Bergoglio to election as pope.

The operation that produced the Francis phenomenon arises from a long time ago, as far back as 2002, when for the first time "L'Espresso" discovered and wrote that the then little-known archbishop of Buenos Aires had leapt to the top of the candidates for the papacy, the real ones, not the figureheads.

It laid the groundwork at the conclave of 2005, when it was to none other than Bergoglio that all the votes were funneled from those who did not want Joseph Ratzinger as pope.

And it came into port at the conclave of 2013, to a large extent because many of his electors still knew very little about that Argentine cardinal, and certainly not that he would deal the Church that “punch in the stomach” spoken of a few days ago by his rival defeated in the Sistine Chapel, Milan archbishop Angelo Scola.

Between Bergoglio and his great electors there was not and is not full agreement. He is the pope of proclamations more than of realizations, of allusions more than of definitions.

There is however one key factor that meets the expectations of a historic turning point of the Church capable of making up for its emblematic lag of “two hundred years” with respect to the modern world that was denounced by Carlo Maria Martini, the cardinal who loved to call himself the “ante-pope,” meaning the anticipator of the one who was to come. And it is the factor of “time.” Which for Bergoglio is a synonym for “initiating processes.” The destination matters little to him, because what counts is the journey.

And in effect it is so. With Francis the Church has become an open construction site. Everything is in movement. Everything is fluid. There is no longer dogma that holds up. One can reexamine everything and act accordingly.
Martini was precisely the sharpest mind of that club of St. Gallen which engineered Bergoglio’s rise to the papacy.

It took its name from the Swiss town in which the club met, and included the cardinals Walter Kasper, Karl Lehmann, Achille Silvestrini, Basil Hume, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Godfried Danneels. Of these only two, Kasper and Danneels, are still at the forefront, rewarded and treated with the highest regard by Pope Francis, in spite of the fact that they represent two national Churches in disarray, the German and the Belgian, and the latter even fell into discredit in 2010 for how he tried to cover up the sexual misdeeds of one of his protege bishops, whose victim was a young nephew of his.
Bergoglio never set foot in St. Gallen. It was the cardinals of the club who adopted him as their ideal candidate, and he adapted himself perfectly to their plan.

Everyone in Argentina remembers him very differently from how he later revealed himself to the world as pope. Taciturn, withdrawn, somber in expression, reserved even with crowds. Not once did he let slip a word or a gesture of disagreement with the reigning pontiffs, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. On the contrary. [That’s not true about Benedict XVI, though – through his spokesman, Cardinal Bergoglio immediately criticized the Regensburg address in September 2006 for having ‘destroyed in 20 seconds what took John Paul II 20 years to build’.]

He praised in writing the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” very severe against the permissive “situational” ethics historically attributed to the Jesuits. He had no qualms over condemning Luther and Calvin as the worst enemies of the Church and of man. He attributed to the devil the deception of a law in favor of homosexual marriage.

But then he sent back home, “to avoid mixed messages,” the Catholics who had gathered outside of parliament for a prayer vigil against the imminent approval of that law. He knelt and had himself blessed in public by a Protestant pastor. He forged friendships with some of them, and also with a Jewish rabbi.

Above all he encouraged his priests not to deny communion to anyone, whether they be married, or cohabiting, or divorced and remarried. With no fuss and without making this decision public, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires was already doing what the popes at the time prohibited, but he would later permit once he became pope.[/b[/’dim]

In St. Gallen they knew and were taking note. And when Bergoglio was elected, the world learned to recognize him right from the first moment for what he really was. With no more veils.

One crucial moment of the calculated advancement of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy was the final document of the general conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, in 2007.

The main author of the document [via ghostwriter Mons Victor Fernandez] was the archbishop of Buenos Aires at the time, who still continues today, as pope, to recommend it as a valid program for the Church not only in Latin America but all over the world.

Curiously, however, in the paragraphs dedicated to marriage and family there is no reference in the Aparecida document to the “openness” that Bergoglio would later implement as pope, and was already practicing, de facto, in his diocese of Buenos Aires.

In the almost 300 pages of the document, only a few lines concern communion for the divorced and remarried, on which he gives this guideline, in paragraph 437: "Accompany with care, prudence and compassionate love, following the guidelines of the magisterium ('Familiaris Consortio' 84; 'Sacramentum Caritatis' 29), couples who live together out of wedlock, bearing in mind that those who are divorced and remarried may not receive communion."

And in the previous paragraph it states, concerning the support given to policies against life and the family:
"We must adhere to 'eucharistic coherence,' that is, be conscious that they cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals ('Sacramentum Caritatis' 83; 'Evangelium Vitae' 74, 74, 89)."
This is what Bergoglio wrote in 2007. But his mind was already elsewhere: on the conviction - criticized by Benedict XVI - that “the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” comparable to the meals of Jesus with sinners.

With the practical consequences that he had already drawn as bishop and would later draw as pope.


[colore=#ff0000On the Pope’s desk, a "Memorandum" against
the Jesuit Superior-General – for near heresy[/b
March 31, 2017

Among the priests born in the diocese of Carpi, that Pope Francis will visit on Sunday, April 2, there is one who is giving him a tough nut to crack.

His name is Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini. He was formed in the school of three Jesuits of the first rank: Frs. Heinrich Pfeiffer, an art historian and professor at the Gregorian, Francesco Tata, former provincial of the Society of Jesus in Italy, and Piersandro Vanzan, a prominent writer for “La Civiltà Cattolica.” A scholar of Augustine, he is the author of books and of essays in theology journals.
Last week Fr. Bertacchini sent to Francis and to Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, a six-page “memorandum” highly critical of the ideas presented in a recent interview with the new superior general of the Society of Jesus, the Venezuelan Arturo Sosa Abascal, who is very close to the pope.
They are ideas, writes Fr. Bertacchini, “of such gravity that they cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in them,” because they threaten to “result in a Christianity without Christ.”
The complete text of the “memorandum” is on this other page of Settimo Cielo: http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/03/29/promemoria-sull%E2%80%99intervista-del-generale-dei-gesuiti-circa-l%E2%80%99inattendibilita-dei-vangeli/
An abridgment of it is presented below.
The interview with the general of the Jesuits criticized by Fr. Bertacchini is the one given to the Swiss vaticanista Giuseppe Rusconi and published on the blog Rossoporpora
http://www.rossoporpora.org/rubriche/interviste-a-personalita/672-gesuiti-padre-sosa-parole-di-gesu-da-contestualizzare.html
last February 18, after the interview subject himself reviewed it word by word.

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MEMORANDUM
On the interview with the general of the Jesuits on the reliability of the Gospels
by Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini

In February the general of the Jesuits gave an interview in which he insinuates that the words of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage are not a point of theological stability, but rather a point of departure for doctrine, which must then be appropriately developed. This - taken to the extreme - could even lead to supporting the exact opposite, or the compatibility of divorce with Christian life. The initiative has in my view primed an explosive situation.
Of course, Arturo Sosa Abascal, SJ is very careful not to fall into outright heresy. And this, in a certain sense, is even more grave. It is therefore necessary to retrace the thread of his reasoning.
The question that he poses is whether the evangelists are reliable, and he says: it is necessary to discern. So it is not a given that they are [reliable]. Such a grave statement should be reasoned out at length and in depth, because it is indeed possible to admit error in a narrative detail; but to call into question the veracity of doctrinal teachings of Jesus is another matter.
However it may be, our Jesuit does not get involved, but - very deftly - appeals to the pope. And since Francis, in dealing with couples that are separated etcetera, up to the time of the interview had never cited passages in which Jesus referred to the indissolubility of marriage, the implicit message of our Jesuit was glaring: if the pope does not cite those passages, it means that he has done discernment and maintains that they are not of Jesus. So they would not be binding. But all the popes have taught the opposite! What does it matter? They must be wrong. Or they must have said and taught things that were correct for their time, but not for ours.
Let it be clear: the eminent Jesuit does not say this “apertis verbis,” but he insinuates it, he lets it be understood. And so he gives a key of interpretation for the pope’s pastoral approach to the family that departs from the traditional teaching. In fact, today “we know” that very probably, or rather almost certainly, Jesus never taught that marriage is indissoluble. It is the evangelists who misunderstood.
A Christianity without Christ?
The question is of such gravity that it cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in it. The danger is that this could result in a Christianity reductive of the message of Jesus, or a Christianity without Christ.
In the Gospel for the Mass of last February 24 there was the passage from Mk 10:2-12 on repudiation. So is it acceptable to think that it is not known if Jesus uttered those words, and that they are not binding?
The “sensus fidei” tells us that the evangelists are reliable. However, our general of the Jesuits rejects this reliability, and in addition takes no interest in the fact that Saint Paul had also received this doctrine from the Church as being of Jesus, and handed it on as such to his communities: “To the husbands I order, not I but the Lord: the wife may not be separated from the husband, and if she separates, let her remain without remarrying or let her be reconciled with the husband, and the husband may not repudiate the wife” (1 Cor 7:10-11).
The consistency of this passage with the texts of the synoptic Gospels on repudiation and adultery is perfectly clear. And it would be absurd to imagine that these depend on Paul, and not on pre-Paschal traditions. Not only that. In Eph 5:22-33, Paul revisits the same teaching from Jesus and even reinforces it. He revisits it, because he cites the same passage of Genesis that is cited by Jesus; he reinforces it, because Christ loves the Church in an indissoluble way, to the point of giving his life, and beyond earthly life. And Paul makes this fidelity the model of conjugal fidelity.
Thus it is entirely clear that there is an evident continuity of teaching between pre-Paschal and post-Paschal preaching; and also clear is the discontinuity with Judaism, which instead kept the institution of repudiation. But if Saint Paul himself founds this discontinuity on Christ, does it make sense to bring the Gospels into question? From where comes that leap which inspired the practice of the ancient Church, if not from Christ?
It should be noted that divorce was also admitted in the Greco-Roman world, and in addition there existed the institution of concubinage, which could easily result in a subsequent conjugal union, as attested to for example by the experience of Saint Augustine. And in historiography the principle applies that cultural inertia does not change without cause. Therefore, the change being attested historically, what could be the cause if not Jesus? If this then was Christ, why doubt the reliability of the Gospels?
Finally, if Jesus did not speak those words, what is the source of the drastic comment from the disciples (“But then it is better not to marry!”) in Mt 19:10? Matthew was one of those disciples, and they do not come across well: they show themselves slow to understand and attached to the traditions that Jesus challenges. So from a historiographical point of view, the pericope of Mt 19:3-12 is entirely reliable: and as much for reasons of internal criticism as of external.
The dogmatic context
Moreover, to state that it is not known if Jesus actually uttered those words and that, in essence, they are not binding is “de facto” a heresy, because it is a denial of the inspiration of Scripture. 2 Tim 3 is very clear: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, convincing, correcting, and training in righteousness.”
“All” evidently also includes Mt 19:3-12. Otherwise it is attested that there is an “other” word that prevails over Scripture itself and over its inspiration. In fact, affirming the unreliability of some words of Jesus is like opening a fissure in the dam of “fides quae,” a fissure that would lead to the collapse of the entire dam. I illustrate:
a) If Jesus did not say those words, the evangelists are not reliable. And if they are not reliable, they are not truthful; but if they are not truthful, neither can they be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
b) If Jesus did not say those words, must he really have said all the others that we take as good? Someone who is unreliable on one innovative question can be likewise on others, like the resurrection. And if, to give the priesthood to women, “La Civiltà Cattolica” does not hesitate to bring into question a solemn magisterium invoked as infallible, will there not be chaos? To what biblical authority can one appeal, if the exegetes themselves are perennially and ever more divided? This is the sense in which the dam collapses.
And that is not the end, because in following the doubts of the Jesuit general it is not only Saint Paul who is trodden underfoot, but also Vatican II. In fact, this is what it states in “Sacrosasnctum Concilium” 7:
“Christ is always present in His Church [. . .] He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.”
Since the passages on the indissolubility of marriage are read at Mass, and to be precise: Mk 10:2-12 on the Friday of the 7th week of ordinary time and on the 27th Sunday of year B, Mt 19:3-12 on the Friday of the 19th week of ordinary time, and Mt 5:27-32 on the Friday of the 10th week, it follows that Vatican II in a certain way attributes those words to the authority of Jesus.
Thus those who follow the doubts of the Jesuit general not only disavow Vatican II, and moreover in a dogmatic constitution, they also doubt Tradition to the point of making abstract and unattainable the very authority of Jesus as teacher. So we are facing a genuine carpet bombing, before which the firmest of reactions is absolutely necessary.
In conclusion, the transition from a religiosity of the law to one of discernment is sacrosanct, but it is full of pitfalls. It requires a Christian formation of an excellence that unfortunately is rare today. And also that one have true love and deference for the divine Word.
In any case, putting on a false front for the sake of the world with the sole aim of avoiding conflicts and persecutions is not only cowardly, it is completely outside of the Gospel, which demands frankness and fortitude in the defense of the Truth. Jesus did not fear the cross, nor did the apostles. Saint Paul, moreover, is clear:
“It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Gal 6:12).
Being circumcised meant on the one hand going back to the religiosity recognized by Rome as legitimate, and on the other conforming to the mentality of the time. Saint Paul knows that the true circumcision is that of the heart, and he does not give in.
Carpi, March 19, 2017

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One comment. In the complete text of the “Memorandum,” Fr. Bertacchini writes that on February 24, a few days after the publication of the interview with Fr. Sosa, Pope Francis “censured the positions of the Jesuit general” in dedicating his whole homily at Santa Marta - something he had never done before - to the passage of the Gospel of Mark with Jesus’s very clear words on marriage and divorce.

In the homily, according to Fr. Bertacchini, Francis contested Fr. Sosa’s doubts, emphasizing that “Jesus replied to the pharisees on repudiation, and therefore the evangelist is reliable.”
Properly speaking, however, Pope Francis’s comments on that passage of the Gospel of Mark appeared rather tortuous, to judge by the authorized accounts of the homily published by Vatican Radio and by “L'Osservatore Romano.”

At a certain point, however, the pope even went so far as to say that “Jesus does not respond whether [repudiation] is licit or not licit.”
And even where the pope argues - correctly, Fr. Bertacchini writes - against what he calls “casuistry,” a contradiction arises. Because what is different about what “Amoris Laetitia” asks when it urges case-by-case discernment of whom to admit to communion and whom not, among the divorced and remarried who live “more uxorio”?

Steve Skojec at 1Peter5 recently gave vent to the low state of mind that often overcomes him on account of the state of the Church today under the current Successor of Peter. But as dire as that state is, I do not share many of his reservations about the seeming futility and hopelessness of keeping one’s faith, and soldiering on to live worthy lives as all good Catholics have been raised to do – which we can all do, regardless of who happens to be reigning in the Vatican. We know abundantly by now that we can stop hoping Bergoglio will ever be someone who can confirm his flock in the faith, because he has broken with that faith. It is up to us, ourselves, individually and collectively (however few or many there may be if us), to keep the faith.

Quite simply, I have come to detest the individual who happens to be pope right now, but he is still the pope, and while I cannot love him, I can continue praying for him whenever I pray for the Church, of which right now, he is the official leader, whether we like it or not. My respect for the institution of the papacy has not diminished because I have lost respect for the individual who is now called pope.

That said, the letter Skojec shares from someone who declares that we who oppose this anti-Catholic pope are now ‘practical sedevacantists’ expresses what I have said a few times before in this space – nothing prevents us from continuing to live Christian lives the best way we can and as we have been raised, as if there were no pope at all, as if the See of Peter were actually vacant.

After all, there are enough bishops and priests – orthodox Catholics, competent and good men - who can minister to our sacramental needs, and we have the untrammelled deposit of faith from 2000+ years of the Church to draw upon. And even Skojec , of course, advises, “Stand fast!”

Stand fast: The storm will break
By Steve Skojec

April 3, 2017

[I shall omit his introductory paragraphs…]

…We wonder how to help people and not just discourage them. We ask if maybe we should talk less about what is going on, and more about what should be, because to tell the truth right now is almost to administer a beating to the fallen man; the darkness within the Church is so profound that simply to shed light on it seems, at times, as though it risks scandalizing people right out of the Mystical body of Christ and into clutches of despair.
One commenter here recently put the sum total of these things quite poignantly:

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I think really for all intents and purposes we must be practical sedevacantists. I myself am not one formally, but the daily business of working out our salvation and picking up the pieces of faith and moving on is one which must decidedly exclude any place for Francis in our lives, other than the nod that he is the one in Peter’s see.

With John Paul II I could spin most of what he said as orthodox. Much the same with Benedict XVI. But this guy…I got nothing. And so all I can do is render him nothing in my life. For me, the see is empty practically speaking because it is devoid of what ought to be there – orthodox catholic leadership. It really is up to us finding good priests on our own, if possible, and God bless the small remnant who can find a Catholic Bishop in America who stands by tradition. There are a few, but not in my life. The See may be occupied physically, but my heart is vacant, devoid of any earthly shepherd and must rely on the one true shepherd and bishop of our souls.

I don’t know whether to thank God that I have lived to see such times or to curse the darkness for the confusion it rains upon millions who want to be of goodwill. I don’t know whether I will ever see the Church restored to her former glory, or if I am doomed to watch the bishops all topple like bowling pins, the fall of each spinning and knocking over his fellows.

When did we imagine that we would look upon a Pope and wish that God would take him from our lives? When did we imagine that we would cringe to hear the voice of Peter, knowing it was Judas, fearing to say it aloud. This is what it must have been like to be gathered around the campfire in the courtyard on that dark night, knowing Peter, waiting for him to defend his master, and to hear him not once, not twice but three times deny the man he swore he would die for.

“Get thee behind me Satan, for you are an obstacle to me.” Get thee behind me, Francis. You are an obstacle to me. Your thoughts are not his thoughts neither are your ways his ways. I want to be Catholic and you want me to sing the praises of Luther, I want to be Catholic and you would hand me over to the Greeks, I want to be Catholic and you will not genuflect before the Eucharist, I want to be Catholic and you curse the Roman Rite, you mock the faithful, you call us heretics, you open the doors of heaven to unrepentant Jews and grant the grace of baptism to those who have separated themselves from Holy Mother Church.

What have I to do with you? And what can you be to me? How can I help but be tempted to declare the see vacant when you have vacated Christ? What is there in you or the exercise of your office that would inspire the faithful to greater fidelity?
But sweetest Christ, though you hang dead upon the cross, lifeless in the arms of your mother I believe, I believe, I believe and confess that there is no flesh but this flesh that will grant us life, that there is no body but this which will be our salvation and that only in the tear stained face of your Immaculate Mother will my tears find their purpose… h Jesus meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine.

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Note the important qualifier, “practical.” We are not sedevacantists. Not sedeprivationists. These things would be easier. It is a far less traumatic thing to believe that the reason a pope is doing these things is because he is not really a pope at all than to believe that somehow he can be the legitimate successor of Peter but take on the mantle of Judas. We are instead forced to accept that there is an emptiness in the See of Peter that the formal reality of papal legitimacy cannot wipe away.

So we scan the horizon for something, anything, that will encourage us. Last week, I watched the video of Cardinal Burke talking about — still after all this time — the mere possibility of a “formal correction” of the pope. As if it isn’t already long past due. As if, in addition to Amoris Laetitia, which is itself now almost a year old and metastasizing through the Church like a theological tumor, there weren’t dozens of other things that Francis has said or done that demand correction. As if we don’t need quite a good bit more than to have a small handful of cardinals and bishops consider a public re-statement of what the Church believes.

Last year, I remember candid conversations with friends and family and colleagues. “There can be no human solution to this,” I told them. “I think that God is going to let things get so bad that when He at last intervenes, there will be no question that it’s from Him.” I had been staring at the darkness long enough, and I saw no way out.

But then the dubia came, and there was a flicker of hope. Whispers of formal correction fueled that hope further. The prospect of a reconciled SSPX shed light on a possible source of encouragement and strength. A spreading metanoia began taking root in more mainstream Catholic media outlets, seemingly indicating that at last, reinforcements had arrived.

But in their turn, each of these things has disappointed. While far from worthless, each of these things has, in practical terms, been little more than the furtive ping of a pellet gun against the thick, dense armor plates of an on-rushing tank. Or as one friend of mine always puts it, “Like fighting a dragon with a toothpick.” And each time these initiatives have been revealed as something far less than the answer we were looking for, hope burned a little less brightly in our chests. [I do not join the chorus of those who protest that the Four Cardinals and their DUBIA have been largely ineffectual and futile. They laid down the essential lines that AL appears to have crossed doctrinally and did have the courage to call the pope's attention directly to their DUBIA. It is not their fault that they have the misfortune to be addressing an immovable hubristic obstacle to the faith!]

The chorus of, “The [insert your favorite group/cleric/initiative here] will save us!” has grown fainter and fainter, the exuberant idea that help was coming having diminished to nothing but a bitter, embarrassed memory of wishful thinking.

At some point, the foxhole grew quiet as the realization set in: help was not coming. But in the soul-crushing darkness that has fallen heavy and rueful across the faithful, a thought re-emerged like a pinprick of light: There can be no human solution to this. God is going to let things get so bad that when He at last intervenes, there will be no question that it’s from Him.

All of these hopes were false hopes. All of these saviors were false saviors. [It is uncharitable to think for a moment that the Four Cardinals, in articulating the DUBIA, were offering any false hopes, much less that they thought of themselves as 'saviors' in any way! They did what they had to do and what they could do, given the authority structure in the Church. It's more than what their peers in the Church have done! What do their critics - who do share the DUBIA - propose they ought to do?]

And all of this was according to His plan. There is only one Messiah, one hope, and His name is Jesus Christ — a name which sounds not like a timid whisper, but a peal of thunder, before which “every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:10-11)

I wish I had wisdom to offer you. I wish I had answers. I wish I could tell you what is next. But the fog of war has grown so thick that we are stumbling forward in total darkness. We are being forced to “walk by faith, and not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7)

Nevertheless, there is no question: He will lead us. He will show us what we need to see when it is time for us to see it. He has pushed us, continuously, beyond our comfort zone, forcing us to grow, stretching our faith to the breaking point. It may be longer than we think we can endure — in truth, it already has been — but we we continue to trust because He is God, and for Him, all things are possible and already pre-ordained. It is His Church, and He will restore it as He sees fit. When He sees fit. Until then, we stand firm upon the counsel of Peter, the first of his see, in the passage from which we have drawn the name of this apostolate:

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So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed. Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory. Likewise you that are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
– 1 Peter 5

---

By coincidence, Mundabor had similar reflections on his blogpost yesterday:


You Are Not Alone

APR 5, 2017
Posted by Mundabor

It pains me to read of the devastation that Francis is causing, and of the feeling some have that all is useless because Amoris Laetitia will inevitably metastasise (I agree with that, though) and we have already entered an age of unprecedented confusion and de facto schism from inside the Church.

Whenever such thoughts assault me, I reflect on the following:
1. The Church today is not a photograph of those alive in 2017. It is a community of believers spanning 2000 years. Francis and his ilk are not even on the radar screen. You are not only right, but you are with the vast majority.
2. If you think these times apocalyptic, you need to read history more. We live in a time of unprecedented peace and wealth, which inter alia means that you can comfortably access two thousand years of Catholic wisdom and digest them from the comfort of your couch. Francis is absolutely powerless against Truth so easily accessed. Never has it been so comfortable to work on your salvation.

Francis cannot deceive anyone certainly,
[not any Catholic who knows better]. He will merely provide an excuse to those who want to be deceived.

If you told me that you would prefer to live in the time of the Black Plague but with an orthodox Pope I would not believe you. Actually, I would consider you an armchair warrior with a great penchant for whining from a very high level of comfort, and not knowing what he is talking about.

3. Yes, the devil is tempting you. He always does. One generation is tempted to lose the faith because of a huge pestilence; another because of so many young men who died in the trenches; a third one because of an open schism with two or three pretenders to the papal throne; and a fourth one, because an Evil Clown is the Pope. The devil's ways are different. The intention is always the same, and is the real unchangeable story in the history of humanity. Nihil sub sole novi. (There is nothing new under the sun).

4. The Lord in His Goodness has decreed that our generation should be punished with the metastasis of the cancer of Vatican-II. We endure the chemo without questioning His wisdom. We submit to His will and make the best of the time given to us. We know this for an absolute certainty: that the means of salvation are given to everyone of us irrespective of how disgraceful Francis or any of his successors may become.

5. You don't need the Pope to save your soul. You don't even need the approval of the astonishingly tiny minority – compared with 2000 years of Catholic Church – of 2017 FrancisCatholics. You are not alone. Actually, almost everyone – and absolutely every single one who was right these last twenty Centuries – is on your side.

This pope is [may be] a cancer, but neither the Church nor your faith can die of it. Sixty-five generations of Catholics in heaven look at you and approve. What do you care about Francis's insults!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/04/2017 18:04]

April 5, 2017 headlines

PewSitter


Canon212.com


April 5, 2017 headlines

PewSitter


Canon212.com

I am frankly surprised - most pleasantly and gratefully - at this initiative from RAI....

Italian state TV produces
a tribute to Benedict XVI
on his 90th birthday



On the occasion of the 90th birthday this month of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, RAI-Cultura is presenting a special documentary “Benedetto XVI un rivoluzionario incompreso”, which first aired on Tuesday, April 4 and will air again on Tuesday, April, 11 on RAI-Storia.

The full documentary can be accessed on this page by clicking on the video image:
http://www.raistoria.rai.it/articoli/benedetto-xvi-un-rivoluzionario-incompreso/36908/default.aspx

To understand the papacy of Joseph Ratzinger, the documentary takes off from his revolutionary gesture of renouncing the office, a move he had meditated and prayed upon for some time and which he announced on February 11, 2013. Why did he do so on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, which is a day now dedicated by the Church as a worldwide day of prayer for the sick? Why did he announce this at a routine consistory of cardinals present in Rome? And why did he decided to live out his retirement in a monastery within the Vatican?

Resource persons who speak in the documentary, which uses material from the RAI archives, includes historians Elio Guerriero, Andrea Riccardi and Don Roberto Regoli [both Guerriero and Regoli wrote post-retirement biographies of Benedict XVI], Vaticanistas AndreaTornielli and Sandro Magister, Cardinals Gerard Ludwig Muller and Gianfranco Ravasi, Fr. Federico Lombardi, Antonio Paolucci (former director of the Vatican Museums) and Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

Benedict’s resignation was not an act or rebellion, nor devoid of pain and sorrow, but it was a prophetic gesture. Elio Guerriero underscores, “For him, it came naturally. He said to me, ‘I was a bit surprised myself because I had under-estimated the impact of what I did. Possibly an excessive impact”.

With his resignation, Benedict XVI in effect entrusted to his successor the legacy of his reformatory moves. Sandro Magister noted, “He placed his trust on whoever his successor would be as someone who would be able to govern the Church, a task which is tremendously demanding and one that he himself felt he no longer had the strength to continue doing.”

But the documentary also shows us Jospeh Ratzinger as the brilliant theologian who was a professor for a quarter-century at four German universities, then Archbishop of Munich-Freising, and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctirne of the Faith for 23 years.

“He served John Paul II, and avoided public interviews, to keep the pope in focus. But he always supported the pope even in the cases where they did not have a completely identical viewpoint,” says Andrea Tornielli.

On April 19, 2005, when the cardinals elected the German theologian as John Paul II’s successor, they sent a message to the world – that it was, above all, in Europe, where the Church should begin to find herself.

“He gave two explanations for choosing Benedict as his papal name,” says Roberto Regoli. “First, because of Benedict XV who was the pope during the First World War, and then, of course, for St. Benedict of Norcia, father of medieval Western culture who had preserved it through his network of Benedictine monasteries. In which we can see the importance for Benedict XVI of the cultural roots of Europe”.

But the center of Benedict XVI’s entire pontificate was the crisis of the faith, insisting on the centrality and the beauty of faith in Christ, even writing the three-volume JESUS OF NAZARETH (in his private capacity as a theologian).

“It is an original and extraordinary event that a Pope wrote a Christology text,” says Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, “which is not only a classic in Christology, but one focused on the person of Jesus as we know him from Biblical testimony”.

In the eight years of his pontificate, in light and shadow, Benedict XVI taught and indicated important paths to salvation for everyone, believers and non-believers alike.

But there was no lack of misunderstanding and of difficult moments. Yet with courage and determination, the Pope confronted head-on the problem of clerical sex abuses without allowing himself to be discouraged by unwarranted criticisms from the media nor by episcopal inadequacies.

“Benedict XVI followed a very consistent path, “ says Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ, head of the Center for Child Protection begun under Papa Ratzinger. “He gave free rein to all the possible processes to confront the problem in order to condemn the culprits and help the victims, having met with many of these victims himself.”

“I believe that this [approach to the clerical sex abuse problem] will remain one of the great historical merits of his pontificate,” adds Fr. Federico Lombardi, “a time during which he gave an ineradicable contribution to the history of the Church in our time”.

Also contributing material to the documentary were KTO (the Frehcn Cahtolic TV channel), the Cortile dei Gentili, the Centro Televisivo Vaticano, the Biblioteca Ratzinger (Ratzinger Library based at the German College in the Vatican), the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI, and the archive of l'Osservatoro Romano.

On her blog, Lella posted this after watching the documentary on Tuesday.

About the RAI documentary homage
to Benedict XVI on his 90th birthday

April 5, 2017

Dear friends, last night I watched the documentary of Pope Benedict produced by RAI-STORIA (for replay today, 4/5, at 9:25) – and my impression was decisively positive. Unfortunately, it was only one hour long, which did not allow for a detailed analysis of his pontificate.

Nonetheless, certain issues were confronted objectively: from the anti-Nazism of the fiture pope and his family to his collaborative relationship with John Paul II, to the strenuous fight against clerical sex abuse in the Church, along with beautiful images from the World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne and Madrid.

A very moving testimonial was by Prof. Antonio Paolucci, who was the director of the Vatican Museums in Benedict XVI’s time, who recalled the greatness – including cultural – of the now emeritus pope.

We can also see the beautiful description of Joseph Ratzinger by Sandro Magister, in effect, as a transparent man who always spoke clearly without uncertainties, reservations of hidden calculations. I agree completely.

Of course, the documentary is too short but we appreciate the initiative of RAI.

The only wrong note was a statement by the founder of a well-known community [Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant’Egidio Community] - he still speaks of the Regensburg lecture as an error, and that is certainly too much!

I think that there are very few these days who have failed to appreciate the prophetic nature of that lecture. Indeed, he went so far as to say that the lecture caused a ‘divorce’ between public opinion and the pope. When was this ever so?

The ‘divorce’ was with the media (certainly not with the faithful), and not because of Regensburg, but because of the characteristics described by Magister: that Benedict XVI was always crystalline in word and thought, who had no fear of speaking clearly. And this annoyed many because he was at odds with the homologous and homogenizing way of thinking that ‘the world’ would impose on everyone.

Quite apart from that out-of-place statement, the documentary is well worth watching and re-watching.


Beatrice transcribed Magister’s statement from the documentary:

---

Benedict XVI as pope had to endure many criticisms, much controversy – unwarranted in most cases – which amounted to pitiless attacks. But he was a much-beloved pope, much more than most people think. The impression this pope left is that he was a man who always said what he meant – everything he said was without uncertainties, reservations or hidden calculations.

---

Lella also updated the list of recent books about Benedict XVI:

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Mimmo Muolo, Il Papa del coraggio - Un profilo di Benedetto XVI, Ancora 2017

Cooperatores veritatis - Scritti in onore del Papa emerito Benedetto XVI per il 90° compleanno, Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2017

Giovan Battista Brunori, Benedetto XVI - Fede e profezia del primo Papa emerito nella storia, Paoline 2017

Benedetto XVI, Io credo - Le pagine più belle, San Paolo 2017

Card. Raymond Leo Burke, Card. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Il Motu proprio «Summorum Pontificum» di S.S. Benedetto XVI. Volume 4 - Una speranza per tutta la Chiesa, Fede & Cultura 2017
[Note that in the first three months of 2017 alone, four books have been published about him.]

Benedetto XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), Opera Omnia "L'insegnamento del Concilio Vaticano II, Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2016

Benedetto XVI, Ultime conversazioni, with Peter Seewald, Garzanti

---

I must express my protest at the flyer issued for the presentation of the Festschrift (commemorative publication) to mark the 90th birthday of Benedict XVI I hope it is not the book cover design as well. First, it is so blah it looks improvised, but most of all because the book has nothing to do at all, nothing whatsoever, with his successor, and I see no reason for the choice of the photograph. (Especially because Bergoglio is certainly no ‘cooperator in the truth’). And shame on those who run the Fondazione Vaticana JR-B16 that they agreed to this design and photo.

‘Cooperatores veritatis’:
A birthday gift for the Pope Emeritus

April 6, 2017

To mark Pope emeritus Benedict XVI's 90th birthday, the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI has edited a special Festschrift volume of essays by Ratzinger Prize-winning theologians, which was presented on Thursday afternoon at the Augustinianum Patristic Institute of Rome

Titled Cooperatores veritatis: Tributes to Pope emeritus Benedict XVI on his 90th Birthday, assembled under the editorship of Pierluca Azzaro and Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, and published by the Vatican Publishing House, the volume is at once a testament to the profound influence of the thought of the Pope emeritus across intellectual disciplines, and a genuine contribution to scholarship and intellectual endeavour.

Its main title, Cooperatores veritatis [co-workers in the truth], is taken from Pope emeritus Benedict XVI’s episcopal motto.

In remarks to Vatican Radio ahead of the presentation, the President of the Ratzinger Foundation, Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, explained that the choice of the motto as the volume’s main title encapsulates the life, work, and legacy of the man who became the 264th Successor to St. Peter.

“It is a[n episcopal] motto that came from his whole life prior [to consecration as a bishop], and represented his identity, his commitment as a theologian and as a servant of theology in the Church,” Fr. Lombardi said.

Joseph Ratzinger was born in the Bavarian town of Marktl on the morning of April 16th, 1927 – Holy Saturday of that year – and baptised the same day. He was ordained a priest in 1951, and was present at the II Vatican Council as a theological advisor to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Cologne, Josef Frings. He became Archbishop of Munich and Friesing in 1977, was made a Cardinal later that year, and participated in the two conclaves of 1978. He came to Rome in 1981 to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and served in that office until the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, after which Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to the See of Peter and reigned from April 19th, 2005 until 8:00 PM Rome Time on February 28th, 2013.

In retirement, he lives a live of quiet prayer in a refurbished monastery within the walls of Vatican City.

Cooperatores veritatis brings together contributions from Msgr. Inos Biffi, the French philosopher Rémi Brague, the Anglican Biblicist Richard Burridge, the Polish theologian Msgr. Waldemar Chrostowski, the American Jesuit Brian E. Daley, the Brazilian Jesuit Mario De França Miranda, the Spanish theologian Olegario González de Cardedal, the Cistercian abbot of Heiligenkreuz in Austria Maximilian Heim, the Lebanese scholar Nabil el-Khoury, the Greek theologian Ioannis Kourempeles, the French theologian Anne-Marie Pelletier, the German theologian Christian Schaller [actual editor of the Opera Omnia of Joseph Ratzinger, published by the Regensburg-based Institut Papst Benedikt XVI headed by Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, nominal publisher of the series], and the Italian patristics scholar Manlio Simonetti.
 

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/04/2017 04:10]

April 6, 2017 headlines

Canon212.com


PewSitter

This pope said in a recent homily at Mass
that ‘Jesus became the Devil’ for our sake
Yet everyone feigns not to notice his progressively
erroneous if not blasphemous statements about Christ
Translated from

April 6, 2017

In the Church today, many are shaking their heads because things never before seen or heard have been happening. There have been all kinds of popes in the past 2000-plus years but there has never been a pope who, during a homily at Mass, says things that, from any other person, would be considered blasphemous.

The other day, for instance, Papa Bergoglio, at Casa Santa Marta, said something that ought to have sent a shiver down the spines of his listeners even if no one has dared say anything.

Commenting – in a totally absurd way – on the Biblical passage about the bronze serpent raised by Moses in the desert (Numbers 21, 4-9)* this pope said that Jesus “became sin, became the Devil, for us”. [Textually! ‘Gesu si e fatto peccato, si e fatto diavolo, per noi’.] .

*[Of course, I had to look this up: God had sent a plague of serpents to afflict the Israelites – those who were bitten by the snakes died - because of their endless complaints while wandering in the desert after having crossed the Red Sea miraculously. To cure those bitten by the snakes, God asked Moses to create a serpent of bronze and mount it on a pole, so that anyone who was bitten could look up to it and be cured. The evangelist John would later use this image to say: “Just as Moses lifted up* the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,j15* so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”. (Jn 3,14-15)]

But how can any Christian [much less the pope] say that Jesus ‘became the devil’? In Christian doctrine, Jesus took upon himself all the sins of the world to pay for everyone as the spotless sacrificial lamb, such that St. Paul wrote: “For our sake he [God] made him to be sin who did not know sin, n so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2Cor 5,21).

But to say that Jesus ‘became the devil’ is something else entirely, something that sounds gnostic. The Son of God became man to redeem mankind – he did not become the devil to redeem devils, who, one must recall, are totally distinguished by their inextinguishable hatred of God. So it is unimaginable for a pope to say that Jesus ‘became the devil for us’.

But there has been a four-year-long series of such incredible sallies with which Bergoglio has been bombarding his poor flock, most of whom are increasingly disoriented and misled.

He told Eugenio Scalfari that “there is no Catholic God”. [Yet the Trinitarian God distinguishes Christianity significantly from the two other monotheistic religions which moreover do not recognize Jesus Christ as divine!]

On June 16, 2016, opening the diocesan convention in Rome, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, he affirmed that in the episode with the adulterous woman who was being stoned for her sins, Jesus ‘played the fool somewhat’, adding that in this case, “he failed to be moral” (‘ha mancato verso la morale’), and finally, that Jesus himself was not ‘clean’ (‘non era un pulito), by which one cannot even guess what he meant.

To his ‘perplexing’ [un-Catholic and un-Christian] statements, one must add his ‘magisterium of gestures’, such as the fact that when blessing the faithful, he never does so by imparting the sign of the Cross with his hands . [Really? Shows that I have not been watching any video of this pope since the first few weeks – the last time was probably when he visited Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo eight days after he became pope] , or his obstinate refusal to kneel before the Tabernacle and before Jesus in the Eucharist (whereas he kneels repeatedly to watch the feet of a chosen few on Maundy Thursday).

One could add his various other ‘shots’ against the faith, especially about morals, for example, what he told Scalfari: “Each of us has his own view of good and evil. We must encourage each one to proceed to do what he thinks is good” – a perfect manifestation of relativism which is the death knell for Catholicism.

But that which is most striking is the progression of his statements – always more incredibly unheard before – about Jesus which has culminated in the statement that “Jesus became the devil” for our sake.

What explanation can we find?

The first that comes to mind is theological ignorance. It is true this pope is not culturally equipped and is one of the rare persons in modern times who became a cardinal and then pope without a doctorate in theology.

But for more reason, if one is so unprepared in theology and can be so imprudent as to make statements that are blasphemous, then it is not right to take on the supreme doctrinal function in the Church because it is like having a boy who cannot even drive to pilot a Boeing jet. At the very least, such a person should avoid speaking off the cuff [on anything that has theological implications, much less about Jesus!]

In the second place, the lack of academic degrees in theology does not explain the jawdropping statements this pope makes, because one can pick out any Catholic parish priest who only had seminary training, without special degrees, and one can be sure he would never say things like ‘Jesus became the devil for us”. Nor would any Catholic who has received proper catechism!

The fact is that Bergoglio has literally theorized the idea of ‘incomplete thought’ [i.e., something that is ever-changing, according to circumstance, ergo, once again, supremely relativistic]. So that he disqualifies and denounces anyone who continues to manifest solid thinking as doctrinaire, fundamentalist and rigorist.

He said so in one of his interviews with Fr. Antonio Spadaro when criticizing the ‘educated’ past of the Jesuit order: “They lived within closed thought, rigid, more instructive-ascetic than mystic”.

Then in Evangelii gaudium, he takes issue with “those who dream of a monolithic doctrine defended by all without regard for nuances” (EG 40), adding, “At times, listening to language that is completely orthodox – that which the faithful receive – the language used is something that does not correspond to the true Gospel of Jesus” (EG 41).

So now we have a pope who instead of being the custodian of doctrinal orthodoxy, criticizes ‘completely orthodox’ language.

Some say he does so in order to justify the ‘howlers’ that he says and wishes to continue disseminating. But this obstinate will – which has been constant over the past four years – makes one think that it is a systematic decision to destroy Catholic doctrine, or at least, to subject it to such delegitimization in order to propagate the idea among Christians that anyone can now say, think and believe whatever he wants.

It is the imperial rule of relativism. And a Barnum circus [ [i.e., not faith at all].

But perhaps, to better understand fundamentally what is happening, it is well to recall the ‘dramatic struggle’ in the Church referred to by Mons. Georg Gaenswein one year ago, in an address at the Pontifical Gregorian University, to describe the context of the 2005 Conclave which had elected Joseph Ratzinger as pope over Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was the candidate of the preogressivist cardinals. He said:

---

“In the Conclave of April 2005, Joseph Ratzinger – after one of the shortest conclaves in Church history, was elected pope after only four ballotings, after a dramatic struggle between the so-called ‘Salt of the Earth’ party which had formed around Cardinals López Trujíllo, Ruini, Herranz, Rouco Varela and Medina Estevez, and the so-called Sankt-Gallen Group around Danneels, Martini, Silvestrini and Murphy-O’Connor…

The election was certainly the outcome of a [wider] confrontation – whose key Ratzinger himself, as Dean of the College of Cardinals, had provided in his historic homily on April 18, 2005, in St. Peter’s Basilica [before the Conclave began] – in which ”a dictatorship of relativism does not recognize anything as definitive and whose only measure is the individual ‘I’ and its wishes” opposed the measure that it is “the Son of God as true man who is the measure of true humanism”.

---

One of the leading Catholic philosophers living today, Robert Spaemann, who is also a personal friend of Benedict XVI, struck the note last year in an article for Die Tagespost with the eloquent title, “Even in the Church, there is a limit to what is supportable”.

Another important Catholic philosopher, Josef Seifert, who worked with both John Paul II and Benedict XVI,
has made critical statements about this pope, noting that, “The pope is not infallible unless he speaks ex cathedra [formally]. Some popes (like Formosus and Honorius I) were condemned for heresy. It is our sacred duty – for love and mercy towards all souls – to criticize our bishops and even our dear pope if they should deviate from the truth and if their errors damage the Church and the souls in her care”.

We have never had such an explosive situation in the Church as we have today.


leave it to Mundabor, however, to be scathing about the all but en-masse failure of the Church hierarchy to at least mount a serious and systematic defense of the faith from the assaults of the Bishop of Rome. Sure, we have the Four Cardinals' DUBIA, but they are simply emblematic of all the questionable points of doctrine, theology and pastoral practice that this pope has proliferated and keeps proliferating daily. That does not mean we should not pay attention to each of these individual points which are just as important in principle as are the Five DUBIA!

Stupidity vs Cowardice

APR 7, 2017

The Evil Clown has now publicly praised the two FrancisBishops of Malta for releasing their notorious guidelines on sacrilegious communion.

We keep notice the same tactics here: one hushed word to the Chilean Bishop in private and a praise of the Maltese bishop in public. No answer from him to the Dubia, but the head of the CDF stating that no answer is due. Deception, confusion, hypocrisy on steroids below which is, as every intelligent mind understands, a deep desire to destroy everything Catholicism has always represented.

It astonishes me that some people keep calling this a clever master plan. It isn't. It is the stupid behaviour of a very stupid man. It is as predictable and as easy to see through as the excuse of the child found with his hands in the cookie jar. In a sane world it would not work for more than a quarter of an hour.

The reason why Francis is getting his way is not a supposed clever mind. It is the astonishing cowardice of bishops and cardinals who very well see what the man is doing and prefer to shut up in front of such an open attack to everything that is Catholic.

Francis'S papacy has exposed not only the inevitable consequenceS of the VATICAN-II nonsense. It has also exposed the astonishing weakness of the Church hierarchy, whose several thousand bishops are unable to muster any meaningful resistance to a man who would make Luther – and certainly makes Satan – proud.

It is very clear now that the once so strong Catholic hierarchy, influential and feared by local politicians almost everywhere, has been hollowed from the inside for more than fifty years; leaving little more than a skeleton, a fragile house of card unable to withstand even the open, public proclamation of heresy and praise of sacrilege from her very top. Whilst the Church is and remain indefectible and it will never be wiped out of the earth, this is a barque that is now rotten in every plank, and keeps floating only because of Divine assistance.

In the battle between stupidity and cowardice, the evident stupidity of Francis is being clearly surpassed by the astonishing stupidity of our shepherds.

May they get, all of them, the treatment they have deserved when they die.