Commentary by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

You can hear and read the psychological turmoil in the souls of professional grifters in this report from CatholicVote, the GOP “get the Catholics to vote for us” political non profit, formerly headed by the nominee for U. S. Ambassador to the Vatican.  — If you have hopes that Trump might help clean up the Vatican, you can let them be dashed with this horrendous piece of sycophantry which mimics the most horrid caricatures of the Catholic Faith regarding the Pope. — Would that this were a comedy piece. But alas, its masonic politics.

In the most luridly twisted fantasies of what pedophiles expect of their victims in response to being abused, a text like this has probably been imagined numerous times.  But this is psychotic, not Catholic.

Catholics know that many popes have been corrupt and evil men, but that our Holy Faith not only does not require us to respect these men, as men, but to pray and work to convert them, and if they refuse, to oppose and/or ignore them in their wicked or evil policies. For example, Pope Julius II ordered his armies to squash a rebellion at Bologna, Italy, since he wanted to acquire it for the Papal States. More than 10 thousand Catholics were butchered in the streets, in a horrific crime against humanity. No sane Catholic has ever praised Julius II for this. And we would not be faithful if we failed to condemn him for this, as a man.

None of this has to do with violating the precept of judging others, since we are obliged to apply the moral judgements of Christ against all who violate them, even if they be Popes. God alone knows if a man is to be saved or damned, and whether he has been or not. But it is sane and perfectly Catholic, as well as necessary to uphold the moral order and a spiritual life, to say that this or that Pope by his deeds certainly looks to be headed for Hell or is most likely damned.

Saint Alphonsus dei Liguori is even more strict: for he says that he regards as damned every Bishop who is not canonized as a Saint, because of the great dignity and awful and tremendous responsibility of such an office.

Nor does this violate the addage, that the Pope can be judged by no one, but Christ: because this refers to the juridical order, not the moral order: the juridical order in which no authority on earth can put him on trial for is personal behavior and remove him from office for being a sinner, if he not be a heretic or schismatic.

But Christ in the moral order has judged every Pope already in that He has established a moral law which is equally binding upon all men, regardless of what office they hold. Holding the office of the Papacy is not a license to lie, cheat, steal and commit any sort of immorality, though many occupants of that office have lived as if it were.

Catholic Vote, which is not an ecclesiastical organization of any kind, but rather a political action group of pro-Masonic Republican Party members, has thus once again betrayed the Catholic Faith in groveling before a wicked man who claims the papacy, rather than out of common sense taking a moment to realize that since Christ is King, one must publicly denounce Pope Francis for his egregious behavior in violating the King’s Law and question whether he has a valid claim to be the Vicar of that Holy One of Israel.