The open letter to Catholic bishops
Its context is the pope's iron-fisted will
to 'irrevocably alter the Church'
by Julia Meloni
May 1, 2019
On the eve of the 2013 conclave, Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga busily phoned cardinal voters from the Honduran embassy in Rome. He was one of the conclave’s key kingmakers — and he was vigorously promoting then-Cardinal Bergoglio for pope.
That same day, Maradiaga attended a private meeting of Bergoglio supporters, including key revolutionaries from the St. Gallen mafia. Together, they tallied at least twenty-five votes for Bergoglio — who later opened, notably, with twenty-six. On the conclave’s second day, Maradiaga was back at work, shooting down a rival group’s lunchtime rumor that Bergoglio had only one lung. Four days later, the newly elected Pope Francis asked Maradiaga to head his powerful new Council of Cardinals.
Six years later, the pope and his “vice pope” are both accused of perpetuating “one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.” A new open letter addressed to the bishops of the Church accuses Pope Francis of being “guilty of the crime of heresy” and says “a heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil.”
The authors, many of whom are prominent priests and scholars, argue that Francis has now “publicly and pertinaciously” demonstrated belief in seven “interconnected” heresies — including one that legitimizes “many kinds of sexual activity outside of marriage.”
The 20-page letter asserts a crucial “link” between the pope’s “rejection of Catholic teaching” and his “protection and promotion” of dissident and immoral clerics. As the authors continue:
Canon law has traditionally considered that protecting, promoting and helping heretics can itself be evidence of heresy… By choosing heretical prelates for the most important posts in the Roman Curia, [Pope Francis] manifests an intention to impose these heresies upon the whole Church. By protecting clerics who are guilty of immoral and criminal sexual acts even when this protection causes grave scandal to the Church and threatens to lead to calamitous action by the civil authorities, he manifests disbelief in Catholic teaching on sexual morality…
The pope’s words and actions, the authors say, “amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, on the moral law, and on grace and the forgiveness of sins.”
Affirming that Amoris Laetitia allows Communion for adulterers; claiming that conscience can discern that God is “asking” one to break the sixth commandment (AL 303); naming Cardinal Danneels to the family synod even though he protected a pedophile bishop; favoring Cardinal Coccopalmerio despite his call to emphasize the “positive elements” in homosexual relationships; promoting a cleric who reportedly got “trapped in an elevator with a male prostitute” — all these words and actions of Pope Francis (and more) are marshaled as evidence against him.
In particular, the authors note that “Pope Francis has protected and promoted homosexually active clerics and clerical apologists for homosexual activity. This indicates that he believes that homosexual activity is not gravely sinful.”
As one part of its voluminous evidence, the letter cites the papal favor enjoyed by Maradiaga, a revolutionary accused of fiercely covering up for a protégé bishop, Juan José Pineda Fasquelle. Pineda ultimately resigned amidst allegations that he sexually abused seminarians and embezzled over $1.3 million to “pay for sexual favors” and “maintain a network” of homosexual lovers.
According to Martha Alegría Reichmann’s book
Sacred Betrayals, Maradiaga ferociously ruined the careers of at least six priests who spoke out against Pineda. She claims that the Vatican then “maneuvered so that Maradiaga would not be officially implicated as Pineda’s concealer.”
Maradiaga has also attacked seminarians reporting homosexual misconduct and downplayed the gravity of Theodore McCarrick’s homosexual predation on seminarians. According to Archbishop Viganò, both men were behind the meteoric rise of Cardinal Cupich, a top revolutionary on homosexuality. Maradiaga has himself repeatedly pushed for groundbreaking “pastoral care” for those in same-sex relationships.
Despite the scandals surrounding him, Maradiaga was recently in the media hailing a curial reform document that he helped draft. The overhaul will, reportedly, downgrade the CDF —five years after Maradiaga loudly rebuked the CDF’s then-head, Cardinal Müller, for defending the Church’s ban on Communion for adulterers.
According to Paul Vallely, that high-charged clash between Müller and the vice pope signified that the CDF “was supreme no more.” Now, any further downgrading of the CDF — critics fear — could
pave the way for doctrinal and moral “anarchy.”
[What 'pave the way'? There already is enough doctrinal and moral anarchy inherent in and fomented by Bergoglianism, the best-placed sect in all of Protestantism.]
Like an emissary of entropy, Maradiaga has knowingly courted that chaos. In a 2013 blueprint for this pontificate, Maradiaga glowingly announced that Vatican II “meant an end to the hostilities between the Church and Modernism, which was condemned in the First Vatican Council.” It was an astonishing admission from the vice pope himself: this pontificate would promote pacific accommodation with the super-heresy of Modernism.
Indeed — as one signatory of the 2017 filial correction soon warned — Amoris Laetitia’s underlying premises expose the revolutionaries’ Modernist view “that doctrine is basically changeable.”
Another signatory of the 2017 filial correction, Roberto de Mattei, once described an ominous “new wind” blowing in our times: “Instead of construction there is destruction. Instead of rebuilding there is demolition.” He was speaking broadly of the “nihilism” of “the new left,” but his diagnosis hauntingly fits the Church’s hardcore revolutionaries, intent on burning down the Church’s moral tradition like “spiritual arsonists.” Blazing moral anarchy — that is what the St. Gallen mafia and its allies plotted to ignite under this pontificate.
In “so grave and unprecedented an emergency,” the authors of the open letter write:
We … request that you take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation of a
heretical pope. We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.
[We] believe that it will no longer suffice to teach the truth as it were abstractly, or even to deprecate “confusion” in the Church in rather general terms. For Catholics will hardly believe that the pope is attacking the faith unless this be said expressly; and hence, merely abstract denunciations risk providing a cover for Pope Francis to advance and to achieve his goal.
[We appeal to you] publicly to admonish Pope Francis to abjure the heresies that he has professed… If —which God forbid! — Pope Francis does not bear the fruit of true repentance in response to these admonitions, we request that you carry out your duty of office to declare that he has committed the canonical delict of heresy and that he must suffer the canonical consequences of this crime.
It is an extraordinarily grave request, but it must be assessed in the context of the revolutionaries’
iron-fisted will to irrevocably alter the Church. As Maradiaga himself said in 2015:
“The pope wants to take this Church renovation to the point where it becomes irreversible.”
The two men heading Ignatius Press have released a video in which they both articulate what ought to have been among the first reactions to anyone who read the Open Letter to the bishops of the world, whether or not they agreed with the accusation of heresy against the reigning pope I confess I thought about it briefly but quickly discarded the idea as I have been so conditioned by this pope's adamant refusal to answer direct accusations or questions hat place him in a negative light... Nonetheless, will his communications spinmeisters advise him to answer the charge sheet and if they do, would he?
Ignatius Press bosses suggest Rome reply
to open letter accusing Francis of heresy
SAN FRANCISCO, May 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Both the founder and the CEO of the leading U.S. Catholic publishing company have issued a statement saying that an open letter released this week accusing Pope Francis of heresy should not be ignored by Catholic leaders in Rome.
On April 30, Fr. Joseph Fessio and Mark Brumley of Ignatius Press published a short video expressing their opinions on the importance of the “Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church”. About 20 prominent clergymen and scholars issued the open letter accusing Pope Francis of being "guilty of the delict of heresy." They asked that the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to "take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation" of a pope committing this crime.
“It’s an important document,” Fessio said, mentioning that it had been published that morning by LifeSiteNews. “I think something needs to be said about it. There’ll be time for reflection later.”
Ignatius Press CEO Mark Brumley said that his first reaction was that the letter was “something that someone of some significance at the Holy See should address.”...
Mundabor continues with his commonsense commentary on the Open Letter. Bear in mind that he is unable to refer to the reigning pope in other than contemptuous terms- but that does not detract from the plain common sense of what he says here.
That Open Letter:
What is not going to happen
May 2, 2019
The Open Letter is, thankfully, making waves. Secular media like Reuters reported on it (remember, reader:
it does not matter much how much the message is distorted: every time the news is reported there are a lot of people who start to reflect that a Pope accused of being a heretic can’t be a good Pope), and Catholic commenters of every colour and stripe (even those who aren’t actuall even Catholic in the proper sense) are going into the fray with all they have.
It is striking that almost no one (the only exception might be Father Fessio) seems to think that the next step might be what, in former times, would have been the most obvious one to expect: a total and complete reaffirmation of the faith, in unmistakable terms, on all points concerned, coming straight from the Pope, and putting an end to every talk of heresy.
The fact is, everyone knows this Pope is a pertinacious heretic. Everybody is so persuaded by it that
the discussion is not about whether heresy has occurred, but whether the Pope is authorised to propagate is because he is the Pope, or whatever.
Therefore, faced with a public accusation of pertinacious heresy, no one thinks that the Pope himself will react saying: “You are mistaken. I will now dispel any doubt and reaffirm, in the strongest terms, the Catholic Truths you have mentioned in order to dispel all doubt”.
It really is as bad as that.
[On second thought, what if the pope and his advisers decide that they will 'answer' the charge sheet by holding a mega-event at which the reigning pope and his cardinals and as many bishops as they can gather in Rome make a Profession of Faith - but a general one, about believing everything the Church teaches, such as the CDF formulated years ago for bishops to make. Which they would think ought to suffice for everyone - as much as Bergoglio saying "I am a son of the Church" after saying "Who am I to judge?" about homosexuals in the Church, to avoid having to say to the journalists whom he admonished to read what the Catechism says about homosexuality what it does say wHich can be reduced to 10 words - "homosexuality is a disorder and homosexual acts are sinful". But he didn't say so, because obviously, he does not believe that statement at all. In the same way, by making a General Profession of Faith, he and his followers do not have to deny that Bergoglio and Bergoglianism do profess and propagate the seven heresies detailed in the Open Letter. They would merely be mouthing their 'Profession of faith' pro forma, which is as blasphemous a show as when Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden receive Communion.
Alternatively, one could read any such mass Profession of Faith by Bergoglio and company as a Profession of Faith in Bergoglianism, not in Christianity and Catholicism - and therefore, the formal inauguration of the church of Bergoglio.]
This discussion is not about whether the Pope is a heretic.
This discussion is between those who state an elementary truth and those who think that the new heresies are “Christ-like” in some perverted way, a way only they (having a perverted mind) can imagine.
The heretics’ strategy is, in the long term, self-defeating. Every heresy claims to be a better interpretation of the truth, a position nearer to Christ. But this makes it just that:
a heresy just for stating the claim! The game is up the moment the New Scribes and Pharisees stop defending the Pope by defending the Truth!
They have already lost. We have already won. They can enjoy their circus tool as much as they like. Everybody who cares for his salvation knows where the truth lies.
He had a second post today about the authors and original signatories of the Open Letter...
Nineteen Brave Men
May 2, 2019
The Open Letter accusing Pope Francis of pertinacious heresy was released with only nineteen signatories.
Stop a moment to reflect that these brave men chose to publish the letter well knowing that the wrath of the Vatican would be focused on their little number, and that Francis would have a fit of vulgar rage including both several crude swear words and the demand that they are hit whenever the Vatican can, in every way it can.
In particular, but without in any way diminishing the courage of the others, think of Aidan Nichols. Nichols is likely the most prestigious theologian alive in the United Kingdom. He is a member of the Dominican Order. Francis will try to go after him with the wrath of one thousand very stupid suns.
Pray for the Nineteen Brave Men; that any measure taken against them may spectacularly fail and, if it is God’s will that they get to suffer for their testimony, their suffering may greatly increase their glory in Heaven.
So far, I have only seen one Bergogliac reaction to the Open Letter - and it is worse than I could have imagined - even from hyper-ueber-super-ultra-Bergoglio-ultramontanist Austin Ivereigh. Thanks to Lawrence England, here is Ivereigh's tweet likening Bergoglio to Jesus himself...
And the reactions to Ivereigh:
I wonder if the official Vatican media have even acknowledged the Open Letter at all - it's not as if it were not legitimate news,and history-making
news at that. When was the last time Catholics formally urged their bishops to denounce a pope's heresies???
I did come across a second 'defense', if that is what it is. Because the Bergogliac's main argument seems to be 'no one can judge the pope' and 'he deserves the benefit of the doubt' (Come on, after six years and repeated transgressions, does anyone still deserve 'the benefit of the doubt'???] About the heresies themselves,he admits he is 'not clear' whether the citations rise to the level of material heresy. He's a Dominican, BTW, so he might want to argue it all out with Fr Nichols, one of the authors of the Open Letter.
These were the first reactions - before the first pro-Bergoglio one was posted - from a priest who said an accusation of heresy is a very serious technical charge that is difficult to prove. 'Technically difficult' to prove is used when there is an Actual tribunal hearing to determine if heresy was committed or not. No one is talking tribunal hearings here [because who would constitute the tribunal, and by what authority, etc - that's an unresolvable tangle no one wants to get into]- just the bishops' individual personal opinion if they think, from the charge sheet presented, that Bergoglio has been committing repeated acts of heresy, and if they do, why can't they call him out on it? BUT HE MUST ANSWER.
Are the Bergogliacs going to argue their side exclusivelyy on Twitter? That way, they don't have to think more than 145 characters at a time!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/05/2019 06:22]