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Short of a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion (‘Jorge, Jorge, why persecutest thou Me?’), there is absolutely nothing that will deflect Bergoglio
one iota from the course he has taken to demolish the Catholic Church and impose Bergoglianism as the model and prototype for the one
world religion he seeks to found. But a Damascus conversion is a singular event for which the Lord chose Saul of Tarsus – there has been
nothing like it since then – and the Lord is not likely to bestow this grace on anyone who is a potential anti-Christ. Yet the supposed Vicar
of Christ on earth is anti-Catholic in the most basic sense of 'catholic' as universal.
So we must continue to live with the revolting reality the Church has had to contend with in the past four years. The Four Cardinals,
and other cardinals, bishops and laymen, may continue to write passionately to protest Bergoglianism, and Bergoglio will continue not to
give a damn what his opponents think, say or do. But we cannot just shrug him off because his poison is bound to infiltrate throughout
the Church, whether we like it or not - it will because he is still ‘the pope’, which still counts for very much in the world.
So we protest him best by leading our lives according to the deposit of faith that continues to be intact for as long as the legacy lives on,
not just in an infinite treasury of consultable truth, but in the ministers of the Church and all the faithful who continue to uphold the one
true Church of Christ, against whom the gates of Hell will not prevail. Our Catholic faith is the antidote that protects us from
Bergoglianism.
The pope’s silence is incomprehensible
[Or rather, is it all too comprehensible as a coward’s recourse]
by Riccardo Cascioli
Translated from
20-06-2017
It is with great bitterness that we publish the letter sent two months ago to the pope by Cardinal Caffarra requesting for an audience with him by the four cardinals who sent their now famous letter on the FIVE DUBIA regarding Amoris laetitia last September 16. There was no response then. There hasn’t been any to this recent letter so far.
A pope who does not deign to acknowledge a formal communication from his cardinals, who does not respond to their letters and to their requests for an audience: I think there are no precedents for this, at least not in Church history in the past few centuries.
This silence is even more serious when one thinks of the telephone calls, letters and audiences that this pope has been vestowing spontaneously on so many persons, of every kind. It is difficult not to read the pope’s attitude toward the DUBIA cardinals as a desire to mortify and humiliate eminences who are perceived as an obstacle to the pope’s reform designs.
But the reason is incomprehensible: The pope can certainly disagree with the four cardinals and even find it difficult to digest their insistence on pointing out the incongruities in Amoris laetitia and of its multiple interpretations. But why not tell them so directly, and why appear to totally ignore their existence?
Is it because he thinks that a cardinal, any cardinal, may not entertain any questions about any papal act or statement? And because of this does not even have the right to receive an answer when he requests to meet with the pope?
Yes, we know there is the usual Hallelujah choir exalting Bergoglio and his ‘revolution’, from Cardinal Maradiaga to Alberto Melloni and Eugenio Scalfari, who do not miss a chance to ridicule the Four Cardinals and to describe them as ‘totally isolated’. But even if this were so – which is not the case at all – don’t they have the right to meet with the pope as cardinals?
The DUBIA cardinals are certainly not isolated in their position. Cardinal Caffarra, in the May 6 letter, in citing specific facts, speaks for all those in the Church who have expressed their uneasiness and disorientation – to say the least – in the past year over what is happening in the Church, exemplified in the controversial propositions of AL, which are perceived as an attack against the sacraments and the very pillars of the Catholic Church.
That the DUBIA are not limited to a handful of aged isolated cardinals is shown by the fact that on the occasion of the consistory for new cardinals next week, for the second time on such an occasion, this pope has not called for the usual ‘secret consistory’ held with all the cardinals present in Rome for the consistory for the purpose of a frank exchange of ideas on the situation of the Church including specific pressing topics thereof.
[In fact, such secret consistories – so-called because they are not open to the public or to media coverage – constitute the one occasion when the cardinals collectively and individually function as they are supposed to be: the pope’s Senate, not necessarily to ‘advise and consent’ but at least to address the pope directly and perhaps get some answers.
Considering that it was at such a secret consistory in February 2014 that Bergoglio launched via Cardinal Kasper what would end up as Amoris laetitia – at which consistory, BTW, not a few cardinals reportedly took the floor immediately to oppose the ‘Kasper proposal’ - one can only view his subsequent decision to hold no such secret assemblies after the personal fiasco for him of the two ‘family synods’ (whose results went against him on the question of communion for remarried divorcees, but which he overrode anyway in AL) as outright COWARDICE, an inability/unwillingness to personally stand up to dissent, which gives the lie yet again to all his lip service to collegiality, synodality and parrhesia (yes to all this but only if their exercise upholds his personal positions and papal agenda)…
The best adjective I can think of for him in this regard is ‘lily-livered’ – for which Merriam-Webster lists the ff synonyms: “chicken, craven, dastardly, gutless, poltroon,pusillanimous, recreant, spineless,unheroic, yellow” as opposed to “brave, courageous, daring, dauntless,doughty, fearless, gallant,greathearted, gutsy, hardy, heroic, intrepid, lionhearted, stalwart, stout, stouthearted, valiant,valorous”.]
Even this is unprecedented in recent Church history. The impression is that he wishes to avoid any confrontation with any cardinals or with all the cardinals [except, of course, those who are part of the Bergoglian court of certified sycophants].
Moreover, this dismissive [if not contemptuous] attitude of the pope towards the DUBIA cardinals contradicts much of his preaching.
Consider his recent audience with the Congregation for the Clergy when he advised that bishops must always keep close to their priests:
How many times have I heard priests complain – ‘I called my bishop – he was out and the secretary tells me he is out. I asked for an appointment, and I am told ‘His schedule is full for the next three months’. And that priest remained ignored by his bishop.
But if you, as bishop, know that your secretary has told you that a priest has asked to see you but your schedule is full, then that every day, in the evening or the following day - not any longer - call him on the phone and ask him what he wants, discuss together whether it is urgent or not… But the important thing is that the priest feels and knows he has a father who is close by. Closeness. Closeness to your priests. You cannot govern your diocese without this. You cannot help a priest to grow, to be sanctified, without your paternal nearness.
[Yet another instance of how Bergoglio always sees the mote in others’ eyes but never the enormous beam that sits astride his mind and heart.]
So if such closeness is a bishop’s duty to his priests, does the rule not apply also to a pope and his bishops???
If the dubia go unanswered,
the consequences could be catastrophic
It is dangerous to the credibility of the Church,
that what should be considered good in Germany
should be considered wrong in Poland
[Worse, it destroys the very catholicity of the Church – yet Bergoglio does not
seem to realize that his willful divisiveness is doing that, to begin with]
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
June 20, 2017
The Four Cardinals show no sign of giving up, and neither should they. It might at this point be useful to present a chronology of the Four Cardinals and the dubia. It goes like this.
• On 19th September 2016, four Cardinals – Caffarra, Burk, Brandmueller and Meisner – present 5 dubia or requests for clarification to the Pope concerning certain ambiguities in Amoris Laetitia.
• On 19th November 2016, having received no answer, the four Cardinals publish their dubia.
• On April 25th 2017, the four Cardinals write to the Pope asking for an audience, enclosing an “audience sheet” setting down what they wish to discuss with him.
• On June 19th 2017, the letter of the four Cardinals, which has received no response, is published.
So what is going on here? It is really very simple. The Pope does not want to answer the five dubia, all of which are simple yes or no answers. The reason for this is equally simple.
- If the Pope answers one way, he contradicts the Magisterium of his predecessors.
- If he answers another way, he effectively destroys what he has tried to do with Amoris Laetitia, that is, introduce a change of practice in the Church which per se means a change of doctrine.
So, the Pope continues to sit on the fence, trying to have it both ways, while the four Cardinals try to push him off it, one way or another, hoping, or knowing, that if forced off the fence there is only one possible way for him to jump.
Interestingly, by refusing to answer the dubia, the Pope has in a certain sense given an answer of sorts. His refusal to answer effectively means that he is not endorsing, at least not officially, the guidelines of the Maltese bishops and others. [Likewise, he is not endorsing the positions of those who choose to interpret AL as if it were, in fact and not in merely casuistic words, ‘in continuity with what the Church has always taught’. So, in what way is Bergoglio carrying out his duty as pope to be the symbol of unity in the Church and ‘to confirm his brethren in their faith’? Obviously, one cannot unify if one causes divisiveness deliberately, and it is not possible to confirm an equivocation or an ambiguity!]
What the Maltese bishops say remains a local pronouncement, not official Church teaching, even if it may have been published in the Osservatore Romano. [But don’t the bishops exercise magisterium on their own?]
[Of course, even if Episcopal magisterium must be cum Petro and sub Petro, that never stopped bishops like Cardinal Martini and most notoriously Cardinal Bergoglio (with his ‘communion for everyone’ practice in Buenos Aires) from striking out on their own – and apparently with impunity – doctrinally and pastorally!]
What the Maltese bishops teach in their guidelines can be nullified by the Pope or his successors in the Chair of Peter. [Yeah, but only God knows when! Meanwhile, the poison has started to take hold and spread.]
But here we run into the chief concern of the Four Cardinals. It is confusing, indeed more than confusing, it is intolerable, for it is dangerous to the credibility of the Church, that what should be considered good in Germany should be considered wrong in Poland. This is not Catholicism - it is rather national churches on the Anglican or Orthodox model. [QED!] If this ambiguity is allowed to continue, the consequences will be catastrophic. [They already are!]
Furthermore, it simply cannot be the case, for it has never been the case before, that one Pope can contradict the Magisterium of his predecessors. Amoris Laetitia has to be read in continuity with Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor. [We can all say that until we are blue in the face, as Cardinal Mueller has been trying, sort of, but that does not alter the fact that, allowable or not, unthinkable as it might have been, Bergoglio has indeed contradicted his predecessors’ Magisterium.]
If AL somehow “replaces” Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor, are people like me, whose teaching in seminary was based on those two documents, now to “unlearn” them? Have they been corrected? Were they for a time only? Or were they of permanent significance? But if Amoris Laetitia is to replace the previous magisterial documents, then what may replace Amoris Laetitia twenty years from now?
As the dubia make clear, one interpretation of Amoris Laetitia strikes at the heart of Catholic moral teaching as everywhere and always understood. In a sense there can only be one answer to the dubia, and that is that the traditional teaching must stand, and that Amoris Laetitia must be read in the light of that teaching alone.
Anyone who has been reading what I have written on this subject knows by now that I stand with the four Cardinals. So do many others, Cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons and laity.
Holy Father, answer the dubia! For the good of the Church, and for the good of the papal office, please answer the dubia! [And what would we all do if he did muster the moral courage to answer the DUBIA and answer them honestly – i.e., not with the right orthodox Catholic answers? Set up a rump court somehow to declare him an apostate and a heretic?
Surely, no one expects Jorge Bergoglio, image-conscious narcissist par excellence, to say or write anything which he can technically and incontrovertibly be declared ‘in material heresy’! Does anyone doubt this will all be a futile senseless exercise of 'waiting for Ber-GODOT-glio?]
I think this most instructive post belongs here...
Who is the anti-Christ?
A test from the First Epistle of John
by Tim Capp
June 20, 2017
Right from the USCCB website from their own Bible translation is the last word on everything we are usually talking about here in the woodlands. Just ask yourself one simple question to know who is with us and who is against us as Christians. Ready?
The First Epistle of the Apostle John is an interesting, largely overlooked, epistle. It is a short, but difficult read, due to its lack of logical organization and what may seem on first sight to be contradictions. It repays careful study, however …
The Bear thinks of it like a sentry, issuing a series of challenges to test those claiming to be of the Christian family. It as an excellent examination of conscience…
In 1 John, there is first the Sin Challenge, then the Love Challenge, followed by the World Challenge.
Then there is the subject of this important message from Bear HQ: The Antichrist Challenge
Yes. The Antichrist Challenge. There are antichrists operating in the world today. There have been since the time of Christ. As long as we are in these Last Days (the period between the Incarnation and the Second Coming) there will be Antichrists.
How are we to recognize them? We would expect them to be smooth and subtle, like the father of lies. We would expect their status to be mutually promoted by their co-conspirators who have risen to the heights of power in a perverse and wicked generation.
Since Christ promised us only a cross and persecution in this world, we would expect them to speak a world-pleasing message that would gain them personal popularity, especially as they are contrasted with "outmoded" and even "harsh" previous ideas.
Are you prepared to take the God-breathed words of Holy Scripture seriously? Or chuck it into the doublespeak trash can like the new top Jesuit Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal from Venezuela? (The words of the Randy Newman song "Political Science" keep coming to mind: South America stole our name so... What is up with South American churchmen, anyway?) The Bear will give Fr. Abascal equal time in the very next piece, never fear.
I invite you to read this Gospel passage… Let it speak to you, and listen closely, for it has more than one warning for our times.
The First Epistle of the Holy Apostle John
Chapter 2 verses 18 through 26
18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.
20 But you have the anointing that comes from the holy one, and you all have knowledge.
21 I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.
22 Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.
23 No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
24 Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father.
25 And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life.
26 I write you these things about those who would deceive you.
The Apostle John had things pretty simple. Christians knew the truth. Anyone who tried to change what they knew to be the truth had gone out from among them. Of course, that is far too simple for today. Right?
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/06/2017 00:19] |