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'Truth is power, lies are weakness'
[And yet in the church of Bergoglio,
deception and untruth rule with
the supreme authority of the pope]
By Steve Skojec
July 27, 2017
A reader wrote to me earlier this week and said, “Here is a link to a ‘financial’ article that maps very closely to what is going on in our Church.” I read it, and I found it to be excellent. Here’s an excerpt of the most relevant bits:
Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness.
When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we’ve reached the perfection of dysfunction.
You know the one essential guideline to “leadership” in a doomed dysfunctional system: when it gets serious, you have to lie. In other words, the status quo’s secular goddess is TINA – there is no alternative to lying, because the truth will bring the whole corrupt structure tumbling down.
This core dynamic of dysfunction is scale-invariant, meaning that hiding the truth is the core dynamic in dysfunctional relationships, households, communities, enterprises, cities, corporations, states, alliances, nations and empires: when the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.
Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness. What lies, half-truths and cover-ups communicate is: we can no longer fix our real problems, and rather than let this truth out, we must mask it behind lies and phony reassurances.
Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent.
The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what’s broken before the system reaches the point of no return.
We are already past the point of no return. The expediency of lies has already doomed us.
Honest accounts of hugely successful corporations that implode share one key trait: in every case, managers were pressured to hide the truth from top management, which then hid the truth from investors and clients.
This is the key dynamic in failed oligarchies as well: if telling the truth gets you sent to Siberia (or worse), then nobody with any instinct for self-perservation will tell the truth.
If obscuring the truth saves one’s job, then that’s what people do. That this dooms the organization is secondary to immediate self-preservation.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Which was Skojec's perfect intro to his second post that day, in which he puts together a timeline that led to the Vatican's last 'haw' after hemming and hawing over something they were loath at first to acknowledge...
The 'alleged' Vatican Commission on Humanae Vitae:
Is there really nothing to see here?
by Steve Skojec
July 27, 2017
Back in May, we shared a report from veteran Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, who had gotten wind of an alleged Vatican commission formed to study — and possibly to revisit — the teachings on contraception found in Humanae Vitae (HV). Within a month’s time, the existence of this commission was confirmed by Professor Roberto de Mattei in a piece for Corrispondenza Romana.
De Mattei cited words from Msgr. Marengo himself — the man who had been identified as the leader of this new commission on HV - and they were troubling indeed. They indicated that he favors an approach to the question of contraception that is reminiscent of the way Amoris Laetitia dealt with communion for the “remarried”.
In a more recent article in the same outlet (Vatican Insider, March 23rd 2017) with the significant title, "Humanae vitae and Amoris laetitia", Monsignor Marengo asks if: “the polemical game – the pill yes/the pill no, like today’s 'Communion to the divorced' yes or no – is only an appearance of discomfort and strain, [which is] much more decisive in the fabric of ecclesial life.” [What does that mean, exactly????]
Marengo, in turn, cited the pope in this context, quoting Francis as speaking of an “excessive idealization, above all when we have reawakened trust in grace” that “has not made marriage more attractive and desirable, but quite the opposite.”
As I said in my commentary at the time: The key takeaway here is that - just like we’ve been told over and over again that Christian marriage is an all-but-unattainable ideal, so if you messed up, no big, enjoy your adultery and, by the way, here’s some Holy Communion - this is a mapping of that same “you’re never going to be able to live this way, so why even try” ethos onto the question of contraception.
Interestingly, months later, certain media outlets began pushing back against the idea of this commission, relegating reports like ours to the realm of conspiracy theory. Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service had a story yesterday in which she confirmed that “Four theologians specializing in marriage and family life are studying Vatican archival material with a view of telling the whole story of how and why Blessed Paul VI wrote his encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ on married love.”
Wooden continues:
Msgr. Gilfredo Marengo, leader of the group and a professor of theological anthropology at Rome’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, spoke to Vatican Radio about the study July 25, the 49th anniversary of the encyclical’s publication.
Some bloggers, writing in the spring about the study group, alarmingly presented it as an initiative of Pope Francis to change the encyclical’s teaching against the use of artificial contraception.
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, chancellor of the John Paul II Institute, categorically denied the bloggers’ reports.
In reply to an email, Msgr. Marengo told Catholic News Service July 26 that the study “is a work of historical-critical investigation without any aim other than reconstructing as well as possible the whole process of composing the encyclical.”
“Anyone who imagined any other aim should have simply done their work and verified their sources,” he said.
Interestingly, Archbishop Paglia had also denied that such a commission even existed — and, according to Luciano Moia of Avvenire, that Msgr. Marengo was even associated with it. (More on that in a moment.)
Inés San Martín, the intrepid Vatican correspondent for Crux, takes a more sarcastic tone in her piece today entitled, “No, Virginia, there’s no ‘secret commission’ on Humanae Vitae“.[Eyeroll galore! She gets the prize for most original title!] The executive summary at the top of her commentary tells you most of what you need to know:
Rumors of late, circulated by mostly conservative blogs, have suggested that Pope Francis and Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia have created a secret commission to re-evaluate the teaching of ‘Humanae Vitae,’ Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on birth control. As it turns out, establishing the truth of the matter is even easier than generating the conspiracy theory in the first place.
San Martín continues:
Paglia has denied that any such commission exists. Speaking recently with Argentine journalist Andrés Beltramo Álvarez, Paglia said, “There’s no commission, that’s all been made up.”
This interview was published online on July 13 in the Spanish Alfa y Omega. Paglia himself provided a translation into English via Twitter.
Yet on Tuesday, Vatican Radio published a separate interview with Father Gilfredo Marengo, a professor of theological anthropology at the St. John Paul II institute in Rome. Responding to questions, he said he leads a “research group” on Humane Vitae.
That raised some eyebrows, since Marengo is precisely the man the rumors had identified as leader of the alleged “reinterpreting-the-document” commission. So, I picked up the phone, called the John Paul II Pontifical Institute, and asked to speak with him.
He wasn’t there, but the person on the other side of the line happily gave me his email. I wrote, and not ten minutes later I had a response.
Marengo told me that, together with colleagues, he’s part of a research group on Humane Vitae, but it “has nothing to do with ‘reforming the encyclical’.”...
Based on the Marengo interview with Vatican Radio, it would have been easy enough to whip up a piece claiming it proves Paglia was lying, that there really is a secret cabal planning to gut HV, slap on a click-bait headline, and presto: A new Internet sensation is born.
As it turns out, though, picking up the phone to get the actual facts of the situation was just as easy... [BRAVA, BRAVISSIMA!]
For Wooden and San Martín, it seems that the fact that the group not only exists and is headed up by the very people who were claimed to be running it months ago is irrelevant. You see, it’s just a research group! Nothing more. The word “commission” is nowhere to be found! And why would anyone believe that such a group might suggest some changes in pastoral application of HV’s guidelines on contraception?
Surely, something as unchangeable as the Catholic teaching on contraception has never been overturned by pastoral guidelines issued as a result of a working group set up to study a matter of established doctrine.
I suppose we’re meant to believe that it’s more plausible that this group has been set up under the guidance of a man who has publicly stated — recently — that he views contraception through the same lens as Communion for the “remarried” simply because he has nothing else to do with his time. It’s not like there’s a priest shortage or anything. “Humanae Vitae: The Untold Story” is obviously a top priority in 2017.
Here I will return to the man who broke this story three months ago: Marco Tosatti (who, I’m fairly certain, has been practicing Vatican journalism for longer than the young Miss San Martín has been alive, in case she’s interested in any pointers of her own). In his post today, he engages in a bit of a “connect-the-dots exercise”, but we’ve decided (with his permission) to reproduce a translation* of it in full below all the same:
On 11 May, we wrote that “In the Vatican, good sources tell us that the pontiff is about to nominate — or has even already formed — a secret commission to examine and possibly study changes to the Church’s position on contraception, as it had been settled in 1968 by Paul VI in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. It was the last document of this type signed by Pope Montini, and it was the formalization of what the Second Vatican Council had elaborated on this issue.
So far, we have no official confirmation of the existence and composition of this body; but a request for confirmation or denial has been issued to the competent headquarters and so far has not been answered. This could be a signal in itself, in the sense that if the news were completely unfounded, it would not be difficult to say so.”
A few days later, the US Catholic site OnePeterFive reiterated the report. And on June 14, Prof. Roberto de Mattei, on Corrispondenza Romana, provided some details. De Mattei wrote: “It will be Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute, [who will act as] the coordinator of the commission nominated by Pope Francis to “re-interpret” the encyclical Humane Vitae by Paul VI, in the light of Amoris laetitia, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the former’s promulgation, which falls next year.
The initial rumors of the existence of this commission, still secret, reported by Vatican reporter Marco Tosatti, were from a sound source. We can confirm that there is a commission, made up of Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, Head of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute, Professor Philippe Chenaux, Lecturer in Church History at the Lateran Pontifical University and Monsignor Angel Maffeis, Head of the Paul VI Institute in Brescia. The coordinator is Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, Lecturer in Theological Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute and member of the Steering Committee of the CVII-Center Vatican II Study and Research magazine.”
On 4 July, in the Italian bishops’ newspaper, Avvenire, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, released an interview with Luciano Moia. As writes Lorenzo Bertocchi today for La Nuova Bussola Quotidana: “The journalist [Moia], committed to the renewal of moral theology established by Amoris Laetitia, asked the prelate if certain ‘media manipulations’ about a secret commission for the ‘revision’ of Humanae vitae, the encyclical of Pope Paul VI on contraception and human love, corresponded to reality.
Not only that; Moia also cited a supposed list of experts and theologians — from Pierangelo Sequeri to Gilfredo Marengo — who would be involved in this project. And then the fateful question: ‘Is there something true in all this?’
‘Just nothing’, Paglia replied, rather, ‘it is a good time for the Church to help everyone re-invent the force of generativity while the world risks sterility’.”
Two days ago, Vatican Radio hosted an interview with Mgr. Gilfredo Marengo, in which he says that there is indeed “a research group on the Encyclical, in view of the 50th anniversary”. The report also named the members of the group involved in the work: Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, head of the Pontifical Institute John Paul II, prof. Philippe Chenaux, professor of Church History at the Pontifical Lateran University and Msgr. Angelo Maffeis, head of the Paolo VI Institute of Brescia. The very names same indicated by Prof. De Mattei.
In substance: the news is confirmed, and even a certain secrecy — let’s call it that — about the existence of this group. So much so that neither the institutional sources that we had contacted in May, would reply, nor apparently Archbishop Paglia, who would have adjusted his denial in a different way, nor our colleague Moia, a specialist in these issues for the bishops’ daily, knew about it.
As we said, there are things here that I find satisfying. Which confirm my great trust and respect - while holding sound and profound reservations - towards official denials.
Why must we constantly play this cat and mouse game with the truth?
- Why, when we have a Vatican (and collaborators) that can’t be trusted — going so far as to change the wording of published translations and transcripts in a way that gives cover to controversial papal remarks (something John Allen of Crux defended) — should we believe these denials of reports that have been proven to be so close to the mark?
- Is it that the “reconstruction” isn’t quite right? Is that enough to justify saying that a thing isn’t true? It’s not a “commission,” it’s a “research group,” so despite the fact that all the other details match up, it’s a conspiracy theory or a fabrication?
- Certainly, it’s within the realm of possibility that this “research group” will work diligently on a “historical-critical investigation” that will reconstruct “as well as possible the whole process of composing the encyclical.”
But without any other aim? No searching for loopholes? No examination of what possible equivocations Pope Paul VI might have considered before deciding against them? No exploration of Pope Francis’s own deeply troubling statements and gestures regarding the permissibility of contraception? No progress made in working toward the Francis’s belief that “We must always go forward. Always forward!”, and his goal of accomplishing “irreversible reform“?
Mark me down as skeptical.
Earlier today, I posted an excerpt of an essay pertaining to institutions in the secular sphere, and how when lying becomes necessary to maintain the status quo, the organizational goose is cooked. One part stands out:
Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent. The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what’s broken before the system reaches the point of no return.
The truth also has a name: Jesus Christ. And it is Him whom we serve. The present ecclesiastical system does indeed seem to have reached a point of no return, but Our Lord has guaranteed us that the Church He founded will never succumb to the enemy.
I long for the day when those in power in the Church lose the fear of confronting evil or of telling the whole truth, and instead work courageously to defend Christ’s teachings rather than constantly revisiting them in the hopes of finding a way around them.
The next day, July 28, Skojec saw fit to reprint a February 2017 article by Matthew McClusker for VOICE OF THE FAMILY - which I had posted at that time (page 564 of this thread) - which examined, with appropriate documentation, this pope's statements and actions so far about artificial contraception and Humane Vitae. Skojec's note says he was re-posting the article
"...in light of dismissals by some media outlets that the Vatican would ever consider a new, contraception-friendly pastoral “re-interpretation” of Humanae Vitae. The nature of the statements and gestures below — and the sheer number of them — should put any confidence that Humanae Vitae could never get the Amoris Laetitia treatment to rest.
The list below is, of course, not comprehensive. One could add to it the Vatican’s collaboration with global population control advocate Jeffrey Sachs, and the choice to invite pro-abortion advocate Paul Ehrlich, “father” of the modern population control movement and author of the 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, to speak at the Vatican. Ehrlich’s talk took place after this article was written.
Unfortunately, Skojec, like too many other commentators, appear to overlook this pope's open support of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which he endorsed unconditionally when he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2015. Significantly, even McClusker's rather comprehensive review below does not mention it either.
That blanket endorsement by the pope necessarily covers the notorious Article of the UN Declaration on its SDGs which asserts 'reproductive rights' for everyone. That is, of course, UN- and liberal-speak for contraception, abortion and population control in general, not just as 'fundamental human rights' [even if they are not included in the UN's own Declaration of Human Rights, which was drawn up two decades before the advent of 'the pill' and has not been amended since then] but as objectives to be pushed actively - and perhaps, to be universally mandated - by the UN and its member states, i.e., the governments of the world.
Bergoglio's support of the UN-SDGs which has the impossible objective of ending world poverty and hunger by 2030 - for which population control is an essential element - really underlies the Vatican's initiatives to host the world's most notorious advocates of population control - and must not be overlooked at all. Because right now, it is the most compelling reason to believe that Bergoglio does plan to amend or rescind Humanae Vitae, however he can canonically do that.
Where does Pope Francis
really stand on contraception?
by Matthew McClusker
VOICE OF THE FAMILY
February 1, 2017
The circumstances surrounding the resignation of the Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and the appointment of a “papal delegate” to assist in the “renewal” of the order, raises further questions about the extent to which Pope Francis assents to the teaching of the Catholic Church on questions of sexual ethics. In this article we will revisit previous concerns regarding Pope Francis’s position on contraception, in the light of recent events.
At the heart of the crisis in the Order of Malta is the distribution of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs, over a number of years, by Malteser International (MI), the humanitarian arm of the order. Edward Pentin has provided details of MI’s programmes in his comprehensive article on the subject. An investigation by the Lepanto Institute provides further information about MI’s work promoting condoms and abortifacient drugs worldwide. Amongst their findings the following facts stand out:
- MI distributed 52, 190 condoms in Burma (Myanmar) in 2005 and 59,675 in 2006.
- A World Health Organisation report from 2006, entitled Reproductive Health Stakeholder Analysis in Myanmar 2006 includes “family planning” among MI’s “areas of expertise”, “contraception” amongst its “activities” and “birth spacing” amongst its “future plans”. The report also reveals that MI provided oral contraceptives to 2,500 women in one Burmese township.
- In 2007 MI received a four year grant of $1.7 million from the Three Disease Fund, for whom they distributed over 300,000 condoms in Burma.
- In 2012 MI entered a partnership with Save the Children to carry out a joint project, for which they received $2.1 million from the Global Fund, to distribute yet more condoms in Burma during the period from 2013-2016.
Malteser International was headed throughout this period by Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager. An internal investigation by the Order of Malta found that von Boeselager was ultimately responsible for the programmes that involved the distribution of condoms and abortifacient drugs. His role at MI was one of the major factors that resulted in his dismissal from the role of Grand Chancellor by the Grand Master, Fra Matthew Festing, on 6 December 2016, after he twice refused to resign.
Von Boeselager appealed to the Vatican. A commission was appointed to investigate his dismissal. [Mofe accurately, the pope named a commission to investigate the dismissal - an action that was clearly completely illegal because the Vatican has no right to intervene in an internal act of governance by the Order of Malta, which is a sovereign state in its own right.]
Edward Pentin has provided extensive, and disturbing information, about the make-up of this commission, which seems to have consisted largely of von Boeselager’s friends and associates. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which is a sovereign entity, refused to accept the legitimacy of this interference into their internal affairs.
On 24 January 2017 Fra Matthew Festing was asked to resign by Pope Francis and acceded to this request. The following day Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, stated that Pope Francis was declaring null and void all Fra Festing’s acts since 6 December, thus nullifying the dismissal of von Boeselager. Fra Festing’s resignation was accepted by the Sovereign Council of the Order of Malta on 28 January and it was announced that von Boeselager was restored to his position as Grand Chancellor of the order.
In short, Pope Francis has restored to office a man ultimately responsible for the distribution of condoms and abortifacient drugs, while removing from the office the man who tried to ensure that Malteser International remained faithful to Catholic teaching.
In the light of this, and of his decision not to confirm that he accepts Catholic teaching on the existence of intrinsically evil acts, it is reasonable to review other concerns regarding Pope Francis’s position on the morality of using contraceptive methods. The list below draws readers’ attention to important incidents of which we are aware; it is not intended to be exhaustive.
5 March 2014 – Pope Francis is interviewed by Corriere della Sera. He is asked “At half a century from Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, can the Church take up again the theme of birth control? Cardinal Martini, your confrere, thought that the moment had come.” In his reply Pope Francis stresses that “Paul VI himself, at the end, recommended to confessors much mercy, and attention to concrete situations”. The pope also stated that “the question is not that of changing the doctrine but of going deeper and making pastoral (ministry) take into account the situations and that which it is possible for people to do. Also of this we will speak in the path of the synod.” The full implications of these words will become clearer during the two year synodal process.
13 October 2014 – The heterodox relatio post disceptationem of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family is published, after having received the personal approval of Pope Francis. This document adopts an ambiguous approach towards contraception, and an approach to conscience and the natural law of a kind that will inevitably undermine the Church’s moral teachings. The alternation between orthodox restatements of Catholic doctrine and ambiguous and erroneous statements will be followed in all succeeding synodal documents.
19 October 2014 – The final report of the Extraordinary Synod makes the approach of the above relatioits own in its treatment of contraception and the natural law; (This were examined in detail in Voice of the Family’s analysis of the document.)
16 January 2015 – Pope Francis makes reference to Humanae Vitae in an address to families in the Phillipines, once more laying emphasis not on the central doctrine of the encyclical but on his contention that Paul VI “was very merciful towards particular cases, and he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding in dealing with particular cases. But he also had a broader vision: he looked at the peoples of the earth and he saw this threat of families being destroyed for lack of children.” The implication of this passage, especially in light of the comments of 19 January below, is that contraception might be tolerated in particular cases, and that the Church’s teaching is a “broader vision” or ideal. This would reflect the “gradualism” adopted in the synod documents and in Amoris Laetitia.
19 January 2015 – Pope Francis, during a press conference on his return flight from Manila, tells journalists that the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, was not about “personal problems, for which he then told confessors to be merciful and understand the situation and forgive, to be understanding and merciful” but rather about “the universal Neo-Malthusianism that was in progress”. Thus he frames Humanae Vitae not as being principally about a universally binding norm but rather as a political response to an ideological movement. During the same press conference he criticises a mother who had eight children by Caeserean section and accuses her of being guilty of tempting God. He goes on to say that Catholics should practice “responsible parenthood” and shouldn’t “breed like rabbits”.
17 June 2015 – Pope Francis appoints climate scientist Hans Schellnhuber to the Pontifical Academy of Science. Schellnhuber believes that there is a “population problem” and has previously stated that the “carrying capacity of the planet” is “below 1 billion people”. Schellhuber’s positions were analysed in more detail by Voice of the Family at the time.
18 June 2015 – Pope Francis promulgates the encyclical letter Laudato Si endorsing the theory of climate change and the environmentalist agenda. The encyclical makes no direct reference to contraception despite the close interrelationship between the environmental and population control movements. This connection is exemplified by the Vatican’s selection of Hans Schellnhuber and Carolyn Woo, then President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, an American organisation that has funded groups that promote abortion and contraception, to present the document at its launch.
23 June 2015 – The Instrumentum Laboris of the Ordinary Synod is published. This document, which was approved by Pope Francis prior to its release, gravely undermines the Church’s teaching on contraception, and her moral teachings in general. This is explained in detail in Voice of the Family’s analysis of the document.
10 September 2015 – 65 academics appeal to the fathers of the upcoming Ordinary Synod to reject “the distortion of Catholic teaching implicit in paragraph 137” of the Instrumentum Laboris. They write: “Paragraph 137 addresses a key document of the modern Magisterium, Humanae Vitae, in a way that both calls the force of that teaching into question and proposes a method of moral discernment that is decidedly not Catholic. This approach to discernment contradicts what has hitherto been taught by the Magisterium of the Church about moral norms, conscience, and moral judgment, by suggesting that a well-formed conscience may be in conflict with objective moral norms.”
24 October 2015 – The final report of the Ordinary Synod continues to adopt a gravely problematic approach to the moral law, and to the issue of contraception in particular.
30 November 2015 – Pope Francis asserts, in the context of a question regarding the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV, that there could be a conflict between the fifth and sixth commandments. A German journalist asked: “Is it not time for the Church to change it’s position on the matter? To allow the use of condoms to prevent more infections?”
In his response Pope Francis stated: “Yes, it’s one of the methods. The moral of the Church on this point is found here faced with a perplexity: the fifth or sixth commandment? Defend life, or that sexual relations are open to life?”
In fact there can never be any conflict between the commandments of the decalogue. Pope Francis further implies that the Church’s teaching on this matter is not a priority:
“This question makes me think of one they once asked Jesus: ‘Tell me, teacher, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Is it obligatory to heal?’ This question, ‘is doing this lawful,’ … but malnutrition, the development of the person, slave labor, the lack of drinking water, these are the problems. Let’s not talk about if one can use this type of patch or that for a small wound, the serious wound is social injustice, environmental injustice, injustice that…
I don’t like to go down to reflections on such case studies when people die due to a lack of water, hunger, environment…when all are cured, when there aren’t these illnesses, tragedies, that man makes, whether for social injustice or to earn more money, I think of the trafficking of arms, when these problems are no longer there, I think we can ask the question ‘is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?'”
10 December 2015 – Cardinal Turkson suggests that the world might be overpopulated and states that “this has been talked about, and the Holy Father on his trip back from the Philippines also invited people to some form of birth control, because the Church has never been against birth control and people spacing out births and all of that.” He later stated that he should have used the term “responsible parenthood” rather than “birth control.”
18 February 2016 – Pope Francis seems to suggest that condoms are a “lesser of two evils” that can be used to prevent the transmission of the Zika virus and again makes the erroneous assertion that there can be “conflict between the fifth and sixth commandments” of the decalogue. He also seems to suggest the question of contraception is a “religious problem” rather than a “human problem”. This incoherent approach to the moral law was already predicted by Voice of the Family, in our analyses of the synodal documents.
19 February 2016 – The Vatican press office confirms that Pope Francis intended to approve the use of condoms in certain cases in his remarks of the previous day.
8 April 2016 – The Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia is promulgated. This document builds on the erroneous approach adopted in the synodal documents towards conscience and the natural law and pursues false approaches to moral theology, including gradualism, situation ethics and fundamental option.
1 September 2016 – Pope Francis states that he is “gratified” by the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include “universal access to sexual and reproductive health”. These terms are understood to include contraception and abortion by UN agencies, national governments and international agencies.
Archbishop Mupendwatu, of the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers, had earlier told the World Health Assembly in Geneva that the Holy See welcomed the SDGs unreservedly and that Goal 3, on the two goals that calls for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health” was the key to achieving all the other goals.
The pope’s assertion that he is “gratified” by goals that will lead to further killing of unborn children threatens to destroy the credibility of the strong statements that he has made in opposition to abortion during his pontificate. [As I have often remarked on this Forum, I have personally found Bergoglio's unconditional endorsement of the UN's SDGs - which he enunciated starkly when he addressed the UN General Assembly - the clearest evidence that all his seeming praise and endorsement of Humanae vitae has been mere pro forma lip service. It has also been, surprisingly and rather outrageously, one of the most under-commented of his anti-Catholic positions.
19 September 2016 – Four cardinals write to Pope Francis asking him to resolve five dubia they have about the doctrine of Amoris Laetitia. These dubia, which raise questions regarding the nature of conscience and the existence of intrinsic moral evils, are of great relevance to the Church’s teaching on contraception.
24 October 2016 – Pope Francis praises Bernard Häring, a moral theologian and influential dissenter from Humanae Vitae. He told the 36th general Congregation that Häring was the “first to start looking for a new way to help moral theology to flourish again” and that “in our day moral theology has made much progress in its reflections and in its maturity”.
14 November 2016 – The four cardinals make the text of the dubia public after Pope Francis informs them that he does not intend to give an answer. The pope’s decision not to explain clearly the meaning of his own text strengthens the common perception that his teaching is deliberately ambiguous and intended to undermine the Catholic faith. [I call his objectionable teachings anti-Catholic pure and simple.]
The examples listed above demonstrate the extent to which the pontificate of Pope Francis has caused widespread doubt and confusion concerning the teaching of the Church on questions, such as contraception, relating to moral law.
In this hour of great crisis for the Church we must turn to God, with ever greater confidence, offering prayer and penance that he will soon manifest His almighty power and bring deliverance to His Church.
In the 2/2/17 issue of La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, editor Riccardo Cascioli offers further facts on the extent of Boeselager's promotion of contraception when he was in charge of Malteser International. (I shall post a translation). One cannot underscore enough how outrageous it is that one of the consequences of Bergoglio's power grab at the Order of Malta was to reinstate Boeselager who had declared last December that he allowed the distribution of condoms and contraceptives 'as a liberal Catholic'.Originally published at Voice of the Family. Reprinted with permission.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/07/2017 05:35] |