Category Archives: Faith

Cardinal Marx affirms that Francis rejects the Church of Truth

Cardinal+Marx+2February 6, 2015:  In a stunning admission, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, has publicly affirmed, during an interview with the Jesuit Magazine, America, that Pope Francis rejects the Church of truth.

No less scandalous, are his own words, by which he says, the Church of truth has no usefulness for humanity.  You can read his comments in the original, through this link.  The From Rome Blog will cite, here, only the relevant point:

What challenge accompanies this new time in the church?

It is best to read “The Joy of the Gospel.” Some people say, “We don’t know what the pope really wants.” I say, “Read the text.” It does not give magical answers to complex questions, but rather it conveys the path of the Spirit, the way of evangelization, being close to the people, close to the poor, close to those who have failed, close to the sinners, not a narcissistic church, not a church of fear. There is a new, free impulse to go out. Some worry about what will happen. Francis uses a strong image: “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets,” rather than a church that is very clean and has the truth and everything necessary. The latter church does not help the people. The Gospel is not new, but Francis is expressing it in a new way and is inspiring many people all over the world, who are saying, “Yes, that is the church.” It is a great gift for us. It’s very important. We will see what he will do. He has been pope for only two years, which is not much time.

Our Critique

The words of Cardinal Marx (“The latter church does not help the people”) are without a doubt blasphemy against the Son of God and heresy.

They are blasphemy, because the Son of God became incarnate to offer THE ONLY SALVATION POSSIBLE FOR MANKIND, which salvation He conveys to mankind through the Catholic Church, which, as St. Paul infallibly teaches, is the “mainstay and bulwark of the truth”.  There can be no salvation without a church of truth, and that Church is the Catholic Church.

The words of the Cardinal are also heresy, because by saying the Church of truth does not help people, he denies that salvation is first by faith, that is by the dogmatic assent of the mind to revealed truth; and thus he denies that salvation in Christ must encompass the human mind, not only the heart, affections, or body. His words also deny that error harms the human person in his totality to such an extent that it is sufficient of itself to damn a man for all eternity.

The Catholic Church is “the Church of the Truth, Jesus Christ”, and “the Church of truth”, commissioned by Christ to teach the Gospel of salvation to all nations first by words (hence to the mind of believers), second by deeds (works of charity). To deny the usefulness of both aspects is to deny the Church as Christ gave Her to us.

That Cardinal Marx makes these statements is noteworthy, because he is not a nobody, but a close collaborator with the Pope and Cardinal Kasper — one of the alleged leaders of “Team Bergoglio” — and has been such from before the Conclave in 2013 as can bee seen even in photos.

Finally, to say that one prefers a Church which is not clean and does not have the truth to a Church which does, is to choose the former and reject the other, even if one uses language which disguises that rejection in other terms.  Thus, in the negation of the utility of “a church of truth”, Cardinal Marx authentically explains Pope Francis’ preference as a formal rejection of the Church as Christ, the Truth, gave Her to us.

But these remarks by Cardinal Marx should not surprise readers of the From Rome blog, who already know of Pope Francis’ formally heretical statement on the Solemnity of Christ the King, which we have publicly indicated as worthy of condemnation.  In that statement, Pope Francis rejected the objective character of Christ’s office as teacher to all mankind.

For a complete Chronology of reports on the Team Bergoglio scandal, from round the world, click here.

Don’t imagine for a moment you can be saved, if you don’t love the truth zealously

St Michael the Archangel, the First Defender of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ
St Michael the Archangel, the First Defender of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ

Editorial — Ever since Immanuel Kant —who asserted without foundation that the human mind could not know truth, but understood the world by imposing categories upon reality and understanding what it knew according to those pre-existing innate categories — a monstrous and apocalyptic error has spread the spirit of Lucifer, the deceiver, abroad the nations of the Earth: this is the error of voluntarism, that says that a thing is good if I will it, and evil if I do not will it.

So widespread is this error today, that nearly everything is beholden to it.  It is magnified by another demonic error, that of unbridled liberty, which transmogrifies true liberty, “the right to act free from constraint of unjust violence or threat”, into a horrible orc-like caricature, the morality of the libertine, which holds that liberty is “the right to do whatever I want, when I want it, free from constraint of all justice or the will of another”.

Together, along with innumerable other errors, voluntarism and libertinism have spawned the death and destruction of hundreds of millions of little ones in the womb, by surgical or chemical abortion, and tens of millions more in the wars with which nationalists, socialists and communists have striven to overthrow the Christian and natural order of men. But by far their worst consequence is the damnation of billions of souls, for all eternity, in the unimaginable torments of Hell.

And, in our own days, the advocates of both errors have shown great zeal for their error by exalting themselves in the courts of civil law and by dictating therefrom to man and God, saying falsely that it is licit to do every evil, engage in all manner of perversion or monstrous devilry.

In an age of so great a darkness, it is easy to veer into the void of the abyss by even small errors.  And since the abyss of our age calls for the just punishment of the eternal abyss of Hell from God’s Justice which is as inexorable as it is unbending, it behooves us miserable weak men to guard ourselves with the utmost care from veering off into the darkness.

If we do not love the truth, we should not delude ourselves: we are no longer Christians, but wannabe devils working to heap up a foul pile of merits worthy of the everlasting fires of the Inferno.

But if we do not love the truth, zealously, then we should not imagine that we can be saved, either: because being but weak men, not Angels, the course of our interior life, of our spiritual and moral life, is such that every moment takes its departure from the course we have already undertaken.  For this reason, even a small moral error inclines us to great evil; and a lack of continuity in virtue guarantees a fall.

How many who have committed 1 mortal sin, imagine themselves able to rise again when they want, simply with a good confession; when in reality the pride which gave that sin of death birth, lives still and turns their entire moral life into something undead and corrupt, such that they fall again and again in the same mortal sins for the rest of their lives, even with what they image were “good” confessions?

The same is true of the sins of omission.  While sins which we commit are easier to number, because we can remember what we did; sins of omission escape the notice, especially of those who are willfully unaware.  For this reason, Our Lord warns us sternly in the Gospel to “take heed of what you hear”!

The greatest sin of omission in our age is the lack of zeal for the truth which God has revealed to us in Christ; of studying that truth, of putting that truth into practice, of loyalty unto death no matter what sacrifice for that truth.

Without dogmatic faith, that is assent to the truths revealed by the true God, as taught by the God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, it is impossible to please God in the present moment, in life, or in eternity.  That faith requires a zealous love of the truth.  Such a love makes a man noble because it enriches him with a priceless treasure which will last forever: God.

For those who are heeding the seducing calls from Cardinals Bergoglio, Kasper, Marx, Baldissieri and Rodiguez Maradiaga, to compromise with this age of darkness, with its errors, morals and values: don’t fool yourselves. They are the pied pipers of the netherworld, whose zeal is to lead men away from truth, into eternal damnation.

Bl. Emmerich’s prophecy of Schism in the time of 2 Popes

With commentary in Italics by From Rome blog, regarding how it may apply to our own day

May 13, 1820.“Last night, from eleven to three, I had a most wonderful vision of two churches and two Popes and a variety of things, ancient and modern.

“I shall relate, as well as I can, all that I remember of it. My angel-guardian came and told me that I must go to Rome and take two things to the Pope; but I cannot now recall what they were — perhaps it is the will of God that I should forget them. I asked my angel how I could make so long a journey, sick as I was. But when I was told that I should make it without difficulty, I no longer objected. — An odd-looking vehicle appeared before me, flat and slight, with only two wheels, the flooring red with white edges. I saw no horses.

This sound uncannily like the Segway’s used at Rome, to show tourists the city.  Which only came into use in recent years. I myself noticed them in use in 2010.  You can see that some of them are read in color:

Photo by Tripadvisor.com
Photo by Tripadvisor.com

“I was gently lifted and laid on it and, at the same instant, a snow-white, luminous child flew toward me and seated himself at my feet. He reminded me of the Patience-child in green, so sweet, so lovely, and perfectly transparent. He was to be my companion, he was to console and take care of me. The wagon was so light and smooth that at first I was afraid of slipping off; but it began to move very gently of Itself without horses, and I saw a shining human figure going on ahead. The journey did not seem long, although we crossed countries, mountains, and great waters. I knew Rome the instant we reached it, and I was soon in the presence of the Pope.”

— Her “experience” of traveling on this strange mode of transportation, except for the length of the journey, is exactly that of someone riding a Segway for the first time.  This places the time of the fulfillment of her prophecy in our own days.

Pope Boniface IV
Pope Boniface IV

“I know not now whether he was sleeping or praying, but I had to say two things to him, or give him two things, and I shall have to go to him once again to announce a third. — Then I had a wonderful vision. Rome suddenly appeared as in the early ages, and I saw a Pope (Boniface IV and and an Emperor whose name I knew not (Phocas). I could not find my way in the city, all was so different, even the sacred ceremonies; but yet I recognized them as Catholic. I saw a great round building like a cupola — it was a pagan temple full of beautiful idols. It had no windows, but in the dome was an opening with a contrivance for keeping out the rain. It seemed as if all the idols that ever existed were gathered together therein every conceivable posture. Many of them were very beautiful, and others exceedingly odd; there were even some of geese which received divine honor. In the center of the building stood a very high pyramid formed entirely of those images. I saw no idolatrous worship at the time of which I speak, although the idols were still carefully preserved.

Emperor Flavius Phocas
A Coin bearing the image of Emperor Flavius Phocas

Visions are often symbolically significant, even in the details they relate. Note that she speaks of a Pope and the city of Rome under pagan influence.  When she had this vision, Rome was ruled by the Popes, but now it is under the pagan domination of the modern Republic of Italy. Note too that she says that she cannot recognize the rituals used by Catholics, they were all different. This is what a Catholic in 1820 might say of the Novus Ordo mass which arose after the Second Vatican Council.  Note too, that “Boniface” is from the Latin for “Good-doer”, it is very similar in meaning to “Benedict”, which means “Good-speaker”.  The emperor in the time of Pope Boniface IV (who reigned from August 25, 608 to May 8, 615) , was Flavius Phocas (d. Oct. 4, 610).

“I saw messengers from Pope Boniface going to the emperor and petitioning for the temple to be changed into a Christian church, I heard the latter declaring distinctly that the Pope should allow the ancient statues to remain, though he might erect therein the cross to which the highest honors should be paid. This proposal, as it seemed to me, was made not wickedly, but ” in good faith. I saw the messengers return with the answer and Boniface reflecting as to how he might in some measure conform to the emperor’s will. Whilst he was thus deliberating, I saw a good, pious priest in prayer before the crucifix. He wore a long white robe with a train, and an angel hovered by his side. Suddenly he arose, went straight to Boniface, and told him that he should by no means accede to the emperor’s proposal. Messengers were then dispatched to the emperor, who now consented to the temple’s being entirely cleared. Then I saw his people come and take numbers of the statues to the imperial city; but still many remained in Rome. Then I saw the consecration of the temple, at which ceremony the holy martyrs assisted with Mary at their side. The altar was not in the center of the building, but against the wall. I saw more than thirty wagon-loads of sacred relics brought into the church. Many of them were enclosed in the walls and others could be seen through round openings covered with something like glass.

It is interesting to note that she speaks of this Pope Boniface who would received and accepted the sound advice of a devout Catholic priest, who dressed in traditional garb, to have nothing to do with the mixing of Catholic rites with idolatry. Which Pope had the courage to confront the civil authorities of his day with the truth, even to the point of risking their disfavor.  In the time of Emperor Flavius Phocas, the capital of the Roman Empire, the Imperial City, was Constantinople, modern Istanbul. It was in Istanbul, during the Apostolic Nunciature of the future Pope John XXIII, that an international assembly of Free Masons called for an Ecumenical Council to reunite all Christians. Note, that the new church, which Bl. Anne sees consecrated, has its altar against the wall, not like the other churches she sees.  The initiation of the restoration of the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, ad orientem, facing the tabernacle was the hallmark of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, especially through his decree Summorum Pontificum, which defended the rights of the clergy and faithful to the celebration of the ancient Roman Rite, which Bl. Anne Emmerich knew as the Mass of the universal Church.

“When I had witnessed this vision even in the smallest details, I saw again the present Pope and the dark church of his time in Rome, It seemed to be a large, old house like a town-hall with columns in front. I saw no altar in it, but only benches, and in the middle of it something like a pulpit. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else, and only very few attended it.

Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI

— This aptly describes not only the liturgical architecture but the rituals which prevail in the Latin rite since the time of Vatican II, the many abuses and deficiencies of which Pope Benedict XVI was noted for criticizing.

“And lo, a most singular sight! — Each member of the congregation drew an idol from his breast, set it up before him, and prayed to it. It was as if each man drew forth his secret thoughts or passions under the appearance of a dark cloud which, once outside, took some definite form. They were precisely such figures as I had seen around the neck of the illicit bride in the Nuptial House, figures of men and animals. The god of one was short and broad with a crisp head and numerous, outstretched arms ready to seize and devour all in its reach; that of another was quite small with miserable, shrunken limbs; another had merely a block of wood upon which he gazed with rolling eyes; this one had a horrible animal; that one, a long pole. The most singular part of it was that the idols filled the place; the church, although the worshippers were so few, was crowded with idols. When the service was over, every one’s god re-entered into his breast. The whole church was draped in black, and all that took place in it was shrouded in gloom.

— When the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass becomes a time for celebrating the community, then religion becomes nothing more than the self-affirmation of one’s own personal fancies, vices and idols.  Thus Bl. Anne aptly describes a form of Catholicism which has gone astray from a right and orthodox spirituality.

“Then I saw the connection between the two Popes and the two temples. I am sorry that I have forgotten the numbers, but I was shown how weak the one had been in adherents and human support, but how strong in courage to overturn so many gods (I knew the number) and to unite so many different forms of worship into one; and, on the contrary, how strong in numbers and yet how irresolute in action was the other since, in authorizing the erection of false temples, he had allowed the only true God, the only true religion to be lost among so many false gods and false religions.

Here Bl. Anne critiques the two “churches” which exist among the Catholic faithful: one which which has few members, but great zeal to overthrow false religions and establish authentic Catholic worship, suitable to the rites of many nations — this is the Catholic Church; the other which has many members, but little zeal for defending the true Religion from the false, compromising with the world — this is the Church of Modernists and the Church born of the Aggiornamento.

“It was also shown me that those pagans humbly adored gods other than themselves, and that they would have been willing to admit in all simplicity the only God, the Most Holy Trinity. Their worship was preferable to that of those who adore themselves in a thousand idols to the total exclusion of Our Lord. The picture was favorable to the early ages, for in them idolatry was on the decrease, whilst in our days it is just the contrary.

Here Bl. Emmerich gives us a key for interpreting her vision of Pope Benedict IV as applying to Pope Benedict XVI, because she says, “The picture was favorable to the early ages…” and shows that her vision of the former was a spiritual interpretation of the state of the Church under the latter.

Pope Francis
Pope Francis

— Next, she speaks of the Church of the Modernists, who in our day are lead by the followers of Cardinal Martini and Cardinal Kasper, under the aegis of Pope Francis’ protection and promotion:

“I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church; I saw it increase; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city (1). I saw the ever-increasing tepidity of the clergy, the circle of darkness ever widening. — And now the vision became more extended.

At this point in her vision, Bl. Anne seems to speak of things yet to come, an ominous persecution of the Catholic Church by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the Church of the Modernists:

“I saw in all places Catholics oppressed, annoyed, restricted, and deprived of liberty, churches were closed, and great misery prevailed everywhere with war and bloodshed. I saw rude, ignorant people offering violent resistance, but this state of things lasted not long. Again I saw in vision St. Peter’s undermined according to a plan devised by the secret sect whilst, at the same time, it was damaged by storms; but it was delivered at the moment of greatest distress.

This persecution could refer to Pope Francis’ notable persecution of Catholic Bishops, clergy, religious and laity who attend the ancient Roman Rite: for several Bishops have been removed for promoting this mass, many priests and religious and laity have been denied this mass or persecuted in Italy and throughout the world, at express direction of Pope Francis, for their loyalty to this ancient rite.  Such a persecution, according to Rev. Fr. Matthias of Corona, S.T.D. Paris, A Carmelite of Liège, is grounds for the College of Cardinals to depose the pope.  However, Bl. Anne sees the salvation of the Church by divine means:

“Again I saw the Blessed Virgin extending her mantle over it. In this last scene. I saw no longer the reigning Pope, but one of his successors, a mild, but very resolute man who knew how to attach his priests to himself and who drove far from him the bad. I saw all things renewed and a church which reached from earth to heaven.”

The Difference between the Church and a restaurant

IS THE DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN CATHOLICISM AND MODERNISM

The Miraculous Crucifix of Ferla, Sicily
The Miraculous Crucifix of Ferla, Sicily

Editorial:  I heard the most absurd thing today. A journalist was interviewing the new Roman Catholic Bishop, recently appointed by Pope Francis; and the report ended by quoting the Bishop, that he was working to make the Church what it used to be, “a happy place to be” (sic)!

When I was on pilgrimage in France in the winter of 2004, I had the opportunity to beg a ride from a Catholic layman, whose name I do not remember, who after sometime began spontaneously to talk to me of his sorrow concerning the horrible state of morals into which the Catholic Church in France had fallen in recent decades. I asked him, to what he attributed the primary cause of this decline.  He said to me, “Its the bishops! I cannot understand why Rome is appointing the worst of men to be our Bishops!” Then he “confessed” his personal sense of guilt, in having spoken thus, because he considers that as a good catholic, one should not think like that, and asked me what I thought.

I was completely honest with him: I said, “You are telling me nothing different than what the laity tell me wherever I go, whether in North America or in Europe: they all say, the problem is the Bishops; even clergy lament to me, saying, “Where on earth did they find such a man to be the bishop of such and such a diocese?”

It is remarkable, even more so, when the individuals nominated do not even understand the very nature of the Church.  The Church, it should be obvious to anyone who has read the Gospel, is not a restaurant: a happy place to be; which must sell Herself like a commercial operation, pandering to each and every opportunistic proposal or desire of its patrons.

The Church is Christ’s mystical Bride, which He founded and redeemed by His Most Bloody Passion and Death, as the Ark of Salvation for all who want to be rescued from their own perdition, merited by their personal sins and/or the sin of Adam.  The Crucifixion of Our Lord is not a source of entertainment, except for the wicked headed to perdition: for the faithful it is a most serious, grave and sorrowful thing to remember.

Hence it is, that to make of the Liturgy or a church, a “happy place to be” is tantamount to overturning the entire Catholic religion in that place. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is, yes, a “Sacrifice”, not a “celebration”. To make it the latter is not to participate in it. To approach and celebrate with the former, is to authentically celebrate.

Let us not delude ourselves: to be at mass in the latter spirit, is to spiritually adulterate the mass, is to spiritually abuse Christ, making of His most Bitter Sufferings, the occasion of my own personal enjoyment, entertainment, satisfaction. That is nothing short of perverse sadism at the highest theological level.

The Church, indeed, every Church, is a place where man rejects sin, purges himself with mortification and penance, receives the reconciliation merited by Christ’s horrible Passion and Death, is nourished by the most perfect participation in that Sacrifice, which is a humbly, contrite, penitential participation in the Sacrifice by a worthy communion and a life lived in the same spirit, in fidelity to the unchanging perennial Faith, taught by Christ, received by the Apostles, handed down in Sacred Tradition.

The trick of the Modernists has been to make us change the words we use to express our Faith, so as to make of forgetful of what the Catholic Faith is all about; and to substitute in its place the sticky-sweet terminology and philosophy of the world: of hedonism, in which personal satisfaction is placed before all other things.

Perhaps, that is why the Bishop who was interviewed by this journalist is so overweight as to no longer even have a neckline.

New Year’s Eve 2015: Let us thank God, chanting the Te Deum!

On New Year’s eve, it is a Catholic custom to thank God for all the blessings of the previous year, by singing the Te Deum. An English translation can be found here.

“Te Deum laudamus:
te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum patrem,
omnis terra veneratur.

Tibi omnes angeli,
tibi caeli et universae potestates:
tibi cherubim et seraphim,
incessabili voce proclamant:

“Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra
majestatis gloriae tuae.”

Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
te prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.

Te per orbem terrarum
sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis;
venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.

Tu rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu, ad liberandum suscepturus hominem,
non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo,
aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes,
in gloria Patris.

Iudex crederis esse venturus.

Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni,
quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine,
et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.

Per singulos dies benedicimus te;
et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum,
et in saeculum saeculi.

Dignare, Domine, die isto
sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri, Domine,
miserere nostri.

Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos,
quem ad modum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi:
non confundar in aeternum.”

Read about the History of the Te Deum in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Games which Modernists play at

Editorial

St. Michael the Archangel, the first Saint, on account of his declaration of war against Lucifer
St. Michael the Archangel, the first Saint, on account of his declaration of war against Lucifer

The persecution of Catholics by Modernists has advanced from the days of the Second Vatican Council by means of tricks, games, and deceits which were more sophisticated than the average Bishop, priest, layman or religious could understand, and so most or nearly all Catholics were fooled.

The Modernists have used these tricks to separate good Catholics who recognize the errors which Modernists promote and oppose these errors, from those Catholics who have not yet recognized them or who accept them.

The From Rome blog has spoken of this in particular, as regards centers of formation for priests and religious, previously. But now, it seems needful to address the laity in general.

4 Games Played by Modernists

What does Our Lord Jesus Christ expect of us during a doctrinal crisis in the Church, where heretics control some or a majority of the ecclesiastical structures? Does He want from us blind obedience?

In Creation and the Divine Order of things, a comprehensive theological explanation was given, to explain what true obedience and false obedience are, and there it was demonstrated that it is blind obedience which is the chief tool which Modernists use to turn good Catholics against other Catholics.

But false obedience takes many forms, and these are the tricks and games which Modernists play at.

Let us leave aside, for a moment, the lies and misinformation which are regularly given out by Modernists, since these regards words not appeals to obedience.

The first game is the “Approval Game”:  “You don’t have my approval for that!”, the Modernist says, and the Catholic who does not know his faith, not realizing or recognizing what is Catholic and what is not in practice, takes such a disapproval as the norm or rule for recognizing what is Catholic or not.  —  “Father does not approve of that, therefore it must not be Catholic!” is the mantra which the Modernists most want to hear from the pews.

The second game is the “Normal Game”:  “That is not normally done, the norm is to do such and such!” says the Modernist.  A prime example of this was given today by Michael Voris on Church Militant TV (link to video here).  The Modernist for whom the Faith is the enemy, obviously, will always call normal what is abnormal or not-Catholic, but he uses an authoritative seeming declaration to use obedience to bait-and-switch a Catholic from what is catholic to what is heretical.

The third game is the “Mercy & Rigor Game”:  “You can’t expect people now-a-days to do such things, and by doing them you show yourself to be a rigorist, addicted to paradisaical practices.”  This is a very commonly-played game in liberal parishes or in some liberal countries, such as in Argentina, where in the name of mercy, one sells out the faith lock-stock-and-barrel.

The fourth game is the “Guilt and Re-education Game”:  Modernists, it must be remembered, are experts at emotional or psychological manipulation, since most of them are sexual perverts or moral misfits: they honed this skill in bucking the discipline their parents should have taught them.  They know how to make the good feel guilty for being good, and how to propose the proper re-education of emotions or thoughts necessary to make a good Catholic think and act like a Modernist: they say, “Love is what the Lord want’s from us more than anything else; if it harms charity or sows division, then it is not of God!”  They don’t want you to consider for a moment that love of evil is not charity, or that division from the devil is a work of holiness. Or that the Apostles and Fathers of the Church are unanimous in condemning every novelty as well as the norms and mores of the contemporary age (modernus in Latin means “contemporary”). Whereas, Modernists want the Catholic Church conformed to every aspect of contemporary culture and values, or at least accommodated to them in such wise that one can claim the name of “Catholic” without assenting to the Catholic faith or recognizing any objective moral obligation, as taught in Scripture, Tradition and the perennial Magisterium.

The Church will go down to destruction until Catholics stop playing with Modernists

The first requirement of every Good Catholic, is, as St. John the Apostle exhorts us in his letters, never to commune with heretics, never to seek their company, and not to share in their polluted affairs.

If Catholics continue to play these 4 games with Modernists, they will only succeed in destroying their own virtue, losing God’s grace, and being led to Hell.

They will also dis-empower themselves, because they will end up letting Modernists isolate them from good Catholics, from the saints of our age who recognize what Modernism is and who fight it openly.

Christ Jesus, Who by His august Sacrifice on the Cross, completely conquered this world, gave us the means to conquer every error and deceit in all future ages and to do His Will on Earth:  this victory is chiefly in the Faith, the one true Faith without which no many can be saved, for without faith it is impossible to please God or even to want to please Him.

But for Our Lord, “faith” is always understood in conjunction with the love of God and hope in God which put faith into practice.

And one puts faith into practice chiefly by rejecting every practice which is not approved by Faith, Scripture or Tradition.

Thus, the next time you are doing something which is perfectly Catholic, and a Modernist proposes otherwise, remember that you only remain faithful to Christ by ignoring him, disobeying him, resisting him, and encouraging others to do the same.

In the meantime, for your re-inspiration, a beautiful video about what the Catholic Church was, before the Modernists, should now be without them, and will always be, once good Catholics like yourself rise up against them.

Dr. Kelly Bowring, STD: an Open Letter to Pope Francis

Just Asking Questions

 

Dr. Bowring writes: Interestingly, St. Faustina wrote in her diary that her “worst day of suffering” where she felt as if she was in Gethsemane (where Jesus was betrayed by Judas) was the SAME EXACT DAY POPE FRANCIS WAS BORN. She writes:

December 17, [1936].  I have offered this day for priests.  I have suffered more today than ever before, both interiorly and exteriorly.  I did not know it was possible to suffer so much in one day.  I tried to make a Holy Hour, in the course of which my spirit had a taste of the bitterness of the Garden of Gethsemane.

Backsliding to Synod15

Yesterday, the Vatican Press office published the Italian text of the Lineamenta (Outlines) for next Year’s Synod on the Family (#Synod15). As this document has shown itself to be stained by the same errors which the From Rome blog highlighted in its own critique of the Final Relatio of this year’s Synod, it will be useful to consider in what ways the committee charged by Pope Francis with preparing for the upcoming Synod next year has embraced the errors contained in that Final Relatio.  It is for that reason, that The From Rome blog is honored to publish as a guest editorial, our own English translation of Mrs. Maria Guarini’s, Sinodalità recidiva: “Lineamenta” per il 2015, a critique of the new Lineamenta for next year’s Synod on the Family.

Mrs. Maria Guarini, being interviewed by Radio Maria (Sept 12, 2007).
Mrs. Maria Guarini, being interviewed by La Repubblica (Sept 14, 2007).

Mrs. Maria Guarini, is the editor and publisher of Chiesa e post Concilio, one of the most influential theological blogs in the Italian language and the only one of its kind in the city of Rome.  For several years, Mrs. Guarini has proved her mettle by putting on display the erroneous theological presuppositions of all those who have raised their voices against the perennial Magisterium of the Church.  She holds a Baccalareate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure (the Seraphicum) and can be considered one the members of the Roman Theological Circle which sustains faithfully still, the theological heritage of the Roman Church. She lives at Rome with her husband and son.

In our English translation, we have attempted to present the same signification as the original, but frequently on account of the many metaphors unique to modern Italian, we have had to reformulate the syntax and alter the terms to give the equivalent signification in English. In citations, even those to the Lineamenta, we have followed the Italian text quoted by Mrs. Guarini.

Backsliding to Synod15

PREMISE

We note that the “spirit of the Council”, in its own more revolutionary aspects  not to mention its negationary semantics (the horrible, deleterious effect of affirming a correct principle conjoined with an erroneous one by means of the conjunction, “but”, which has so stirred the waters of theology that the eddies are now becoming consuming whirlpools) is now transferring its bad influence, little by little, to the upcoming Synod on the Family.

We have already spoken amply about this in our blog-post, Sinodo conciliarista (see here & here).

Now, I will limit myself to the following, essential off-the-cuff reflections, as I have before my eyes the just published document, “Lineamenta” per la XIV Assemblea Generale Ordinaria: La vocazione e la missione della famiglia nella Chiesa e nel mondo contemporeaneo (Oct. 4-25, 2014) which was published on Dec. 9, 2014.

The points which should never even have been put in discussion

If I pause for a moment on these points, it is because the relative questions — among which, of themselves, should not even be put in discussion — have not been approved and nevertheless, since they have, by the will of the Holy Father, been kept in the text of the Relatio which was published, they are thereby put once again into discussion as a result of the confusion mentioned in my premise.  Not only this, but the Questionnaire which has been published along with the new Lineamenta has been redacted in such wise as to solicit a certain response, by means of assumptions which have been evidently chosen by the animus which is running the game.

So here we go, again!  The Circus begins anew and the swirl of sophistry and nonsense proceeds with its obstinate arrogance.  If one were to use the same energetic commitment to fight against error and to reaffirm the perennial Catholic truth, we would not find ourselves in this absurd crisis and on the rim of the abyss which is threatening the entire human race.  But all this is because of the obscuring, if not the out-right renunciation, of the universality of salvation which Christ came to give the world through its transmission by the Church, which, instead of being centered on Her Center and Foundation, is going out of Her mind in the worse sense of the term and appealing now to the seductive seeds of the Word which are always called into play and employed in a sophistic and inappropriate sense, in Council or in a non-council. Moreover, the Second Vatican Council is not a Gospel and, additionally, Nostra Aetate, which is cited in the text of the Lineamenta, is only a document of secondary importance, inasmuch as it is a Declaration, and thus a document of the fourth and lowest grade, among those indicated by Msgr. Gherardini [here]:1  the amount of innovations, which cannot pretend to have an infallible and irreformable character, consequently, allows the possibility of a dissent based on faith and reason.  A simple Declaration asserts itself as the fundamental principle of this new ecclesiology, based on the whims of newly-exalted barbarians, who use the excuse of praxis to get around doctrine. But Catholic doctrine and discipline are the pre-conditions of authentic encounter with Christ.  Again, pastoral praxis reigns over doctrine, and thus right praxis presupposes right doctrine.  The reversal of this order carries one easily to the affirmation that with a new reality of pastoral praxis one can develop a new doctrine.

One needs to ask oneself, in regard to n. 22 of the new Lineamenta, “What’s the purpose of the Church valuing natural marriage?” Which soon becomes a “matrimonial and familial reality of so many cultures and non-christian persons”.  What’s the point?  Do these have, perhaps, something that they can teach to those who alone have the duty to receive and transmit the fulfillment of salvation, which the Church has guarded (or used to guard) for 2,000 years, which salvation Christ worked and with the Apostles revealed and handed down to the Church, and which He continues to work despite our infidelities?  The same creation which was conceived in view of Him, awaits the revelation of the sons of God, just as all peoples do, who to be saved, must come to know of and welcome it.  In this passage, n. 22, from the Lineamenta, one hears the echo of Gaudium et Spes (nn. 12 & 24) (here).  That one is able or that one should enter into dialogue with diverse cultures for political reasons or for the sake of civil concord does not regard the sphere of the Faith or the teaching of morals which flow from It (and not from other sources, those “befouled springs and polluted cisterns”, as the Bible calls them).  This is what the Lineamenta says:

The Indissolubility of Matrimony and the Joy of living together

21. The reciprocal and constitutive gift of sacramental Matrimony is rooted in the grace of Baptism which establishes the fundamental alliance of every person with Christ in the Church.  In the reciprocal welcoming and with Christ’s grace, the spouses-to-be promise one another the total gift of self, their fidelity and their openness to live; they recognize as constitutive elements of Matrimony the gifts which God offers them, taking seriously their mutual commitment, in His Name and in the presence of the Church.  Now, in this bond it is possible to assume the goods of matrimony as well-endurable commitments by means of the help of grace and sacrament.  God consecrates the love of the spouses and confirms its indissolubility, by offering them His help to live that fidelity, that reciprocal integration and that openness to life.  Moreover, the Church turns Her gaze to the spouses as to the heart of the entire family which in turn turns its gaze to Jesus.

22.  In the same respect, making our own the teaching of the Apostle according to which the entire creation was conceived of in Christ and in view of Him (cf. Colossians 1:16), the Second Vatican Council wanted to express its appreciation of natural marriage both through the valid elements present in other religions (cf Nostra Aetate, n. 2) and in other cultures, notwithstanding their limits and insufficiencies (cf. Redemptoris Missio, n. 55).  The presence of the semina Verbi (the seeds of the Word) in these cultures (cf. Ad Gentes, n. 11) could apply, in some of its passages, even to the reality of matrimony and family in some forms outside of Christian matrimony — though founded on the stable and true relation of one man and one woman — which in every case, we judge, are orientated to this.  With Herr gaze turned to the human wisdom of nations and cultures, the Church also recognizes this family as the basic necessary and fecund cell of human cohabitation.

Will the manipulation continue on in a contrived Synod? 2

In the Questionnaire, sent along with the Lineamenta in several languages to the Episcopal conferences throughout the world, the purpose of which, according to Cardinal Baldisseri is “the deepening of understanding of the questions confronted in the debate, all of them, but above all those which have need to be discussed in a more accurate manner”, there is associated to the above cited, n. 22, this question:

Question 19:  The Second Vatican Council has expressed appreciation for natural marriage, renewing the ancient tradition of the Church.  To what extent does pastoral praxis in the Diocese understand how to value even this wisdom of the nations, as something fundamental for culture and the common society? (cf. n. 22).

Note the ever-more explicit deceit, contained in this questionnaire.  The Question just cited reveals it, by taking for granted both the appreciation of natural marriage and the valuing of the wisdom of the nations; it seeks only to verify the “how” it is to be done … You’d think that it would have been sufficient to limit itself to reorienting disoriented Catholics and in forming rightly those who are deformed.

There is a famine for formation, that is, for teaching

In a recent article published by the Italian-language blog, la Bussola quotidiana, there were proposed several interesting reflections on the expectations which laymen have regarding the openings and promises promoted during the recent Synod (at least as they seemed to progressives), expectations and motives shared by a large slice of those Catholics who are “open to the world”, by means of sleepy consciences and hearts, accustomed to consider in a positive light and according to the norm of what “everyone is doing”,  that mode of morality which has always been practiced, which it always finds tiresome.  No one remembers any longer that a moral life is possible only with Christ’s grace conveyed by the sanctifying action of His Church, prepared and accompanied by a teaching which gives sense to and makes savory the Divine Commandments founded on imperishable truth. Behold, this is what is at stake. This is what no one seems willing to speak of anymore.

For example, there are many, even among the shepherds, who recall that the indissolubility of Matrimony is derived from the Commandment of the Lord presented in the Gospel — correctly affirmed in paragraph n. 21, though with a following “but” — but they do not break open the delightful reasons which make this Commandment so acceptable to mind and heart, so worthy of being translated into life even if it’s a sacrifice, and a big one, to do so.

One understands and accepts this indissolubility of Matrimony, if one considers that it is linked to a faithfulness which has its fontal origin in the faithfulness of the Lord and Creator to His own creature, as something conceived, willed by, and ordered to Him, and thus in continuous dialogue with Him (and this is the only relationship which saves) by means of an exclusive relationship, which puts the Lord first and causes to descend Therefrom all which is consequent to it in true fecundity:  all this because it is a relationship which implies an intimate and profound union, one which is faithful and exclusive, in a word, “spousal”.  This kind of relationship does not only regard consecrated souls, who have chosen the better part, but every believing soul, everyone in a different measure and according to diverse situations.  One speaks of a relationship which is exclusive in the sight of God, because it implies the rejection of other gods, which can be any one of the lusts of which the world is constantly insinuating and to which the inclination to evil, remaining in us from original sin, makes us neither deaf nor immune.  We can not flee from all this except by means of grace and the choices which it enables us to make, out of a sort of second nature rather than a sense of obligation (which could be a starting point, but certainly not the destination of a Christian life).

This exclusivity regards, before all else, our relationship with God, the only one which enlarges our heart and makes it capable of embracing the reality of the other, of giving itself without expecting anything in return:  this is the true life, which can only be lived in the Lord and in His Church and which no United-Nations-of-Religions could ever make possible or acceptable.

I speak of this in regard to the anthropological alteration contained in the Lineamenta, expressed in the open by some of the Fathers of Synod 14:

n. 5.The anthropological-cultural change influences, today, every aspect of life and requires an analytic and diversified approach…

And this appears to be the new founding principle for the new praxis.  But in the real word, there has been no anthropological change.  Man, with his own needs and fundamental questions, is the same man of all times according to his essence.  The only thing that he has come to lack, today, is a metaphysical consideration of God and man, and this is what impedes our consideration of the true problem.  If we could only succeed in seeing this, we would already have made a great step forwards.  We risk becoming what has already been put into praxis, from the mentality which dominates our own day, very often in oblivion of the Council, but most of all of the Church Herself.  The true crisis is not other than the crisis of the Church inasmuch as She is a Mystery.  The true theological knot leads back to the very loss of the metaphysical concept of participation in the Church as a Mystery.  And in such wise, Theology has been reduced to Anthropology.  In fact, Theology has been, for some time now, in the process of coining a new language for itself, having put aside, more or less, that metaphysical language of the Scholastics, to make room for one which is more modern, which degenerated from the former — and we are seeing first hand the results — in the adoption of the philosophies of the Existentialists and Phenomenologists.

The epoch-shaking recognition of homosexual tendencies as “rights”

From the points in the Lineamenta which follow nn. 21 & 22, we note the incredible displacement of attention toward elements which are foreign to the Faith and away from the doctrine, which though maintained in the following proposition, notwithstanding the votes to the contrary, takes its point of departure from marginal matters, those “existential” to the heart of the discussion, without omitting putting into play, once more, the “poor nations” and the insistence of international organizations (!?).

But the Church is not a teacher of psychology or sociology, though they are certainly not to be ignored, or, moreover, undervalued as handmaids of theology, if such an expression still has any sense given the novel sense “theology” has today.

It is, in fact, the duty and function of the Church to affirm and teach. She should not recriminate nor be conditioned by pressures of any sort, nor should She pause upon secondary elements or take them as foundations by expressing them after a nevertheless — by means of which one imagines to avoid obstacles by causing to re-enter by means of another door, that which was jettisoned through the window … playing in this manner with words by mentioning what is obvious, like human respect and gentleness, but putting it in the midst of a discussion of the Church as a Church of Mercy, the True Church and not that one unhinged from the Truth and from Justice.  But the risk is — and not an improbable one on account of what has already transpired — that the mark of unjust discrimination³  ends up in appearing to be but a legal recognition of homosexual unions.  What sense has it, in fact, that we recall this in the midst of such a discussion?  And from the rest of the document, already cited, there is sufficiently clear and explicit the difference there is between respect for human persons and the masquerade, behind these words, for the instrumentalized and ideological use of them to tolerate evil, which is is, moreover, something very different from the approbation and legalization of evil itself.  It would have been better to begin with that distinction than an existentialist pastoral praxis from which it becomes possible to spin inalienable principles, at the risk of making the document something equivalent to John Paul II’s Familiaris consortio, to which it would have been better to pay attention than to look elsewhere.  Here, I am speaking of paragraph 55 of the Lineamenta, which reads:

Pastoral attention towards persons of a homosexual orientation

55. Some families live with the experience of having in their midst persons with a homosexual orientation.  In this regard, we are questioned about which kind of pastoral practices is opportune to confront this situation, in reference to what the Church teaches:  “There does not exist any foundation for likening or establishing analogies, not even remote ones, between homosexual unions and God’s design for matrimony and the family”.  Nevertheless, the men and women with homosexual tendencies should be welcomed with respect and gentleness.  “In this regard, one will avoid every mark of unjust discrimination” (CDF, “Considerations on the proposals for legal recognition of the unions between homosexual persons”, n. 4).*

56. It is entirely unacceptable that the Pastors of the Church undergo any pressuring in this matter or that international organizations condition their financial assistance to Poor Countries upon the introduction of laws which establish “marriage” between persons of the same sex.

 At this point it is legitimate to ask what ever happened to that infamous secret dossier, compiled by three 007 Cardinals, received by Pope Benedict XVI and consigned by him to his successor, which disclosed the impropriam influentiam (improper influence) which crisscrossed between the homosexual lines in the Curia and those outside the Vatican.

This topic, moreover, as I have already mentioned, is certainly one which needs to be drawn out.  But the very fact that that there has entered into discussion those elements which of themselves can never be put in dispute, justifies amply the fears and perplexity which this very thing has caused.  And there is no need to lower one’s attention, especially on the part of our Pastors, even those who are not directly involved in the upcoming Synod (see my Exhortation on this here).

A fundamental Question which needs an answer

But, here, do we not need to ask another, more fundamental question, which implies the others? A synod of Bishops, can it be considered a competent organ for treating of questions which touch upon doctrinal points, which by their nature are unchangeable, not only inasmuch as they have been already sanctioned by the definitive living discipline of the Church in the course of centuries and even by the interventions of the supreme magisterium of the Church, but in the case of sacramental Matrimony, which are derived from a Divine Commandment?  Even if the last word belongs to the Pope, and it is his duty to pronounce it, for what reason does he persist in putting into discussion such very questions?

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If you would like to financially assist the work of Mrs. Guarini through her blog, Chiesa e post Concilio, click here and scroll down for how you can make a donation via PayPal.

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FOOTNOTES

1. Considering the historical context of the moment in which this Document has been published, we understand why the Franciscans Friars of the Immaculate have been treated as outcasts and why Pd. Serafino Lanzetta has been sent into “exile”, he who is one of their most learned,  clearheaded, and good-mannered members — who have never denied the Council nor have twisted it to demonstrate a non-existent continuity with the past — who has clear ideas on noted controversial points and has documented everything from original sources [here, in the same occasion on which I have cited the intervention of Mons. Gherardini: il Convegno del 2010 sul Vaticano II] e [here, more recently].
2.The term “tarrocato” (contrived) was coined by Marco Tosatti [here], the Vaticanista from the Italian daily, La Stampa.— And at this point, I wish to add a note.  The removal of Cardinal Burke, one of the most authoritative opponents of the points raised by Cardinal Kasper, was sanctioned before the Synod but was differed, so that he could participate in the first round of talks, but not so that he could participate in the successive ones, and was consequently removed from the Apostolic Signatura which has jurisdiction over the determination of the nullity of marriages.
3. It is necessary to ask for the reason for this attention to a possible mark of discrimination in regard to homosexuals and those who live in a situation of sin — which mark the Church has always reserved for the error and not the person — and the persistence, with growing force, about the mark of disdain which breaks out in discriminatory persecution of those who love Tradition, whether towards persons (pastors and faithful) or towards their spiritual needs.  For example, since October 1st the papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore has defiantly excluded the Missa Antiquior ever since the final celebration there at 7:30 AM on that morning.
* In this regard, Cardinal Burke declared:  I refuse to speak of homosexual persons, because no one can be identified by this tendency.  One speaks of those who have a tendency, which is a suffering (qui).

Protestant Minister rebukes Pope Francis for proposing salvation without Jesus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSB25hxBAi0

 

Comment:  If the report which sparked this Video is not true, like the recent report by the UPI, then the Vatican Press Office needs to publicly respond for the sake of the salvation of souls.  And if the Vatican does not have a method for response to current misreporting, then perhaps someone in the Vatican should take notice and urge the Pope to establish something, for scandals destroy souls and obstruct conversions.  The admirable thing in this video that no one can dispute, is the deep conviction Rev. Manning has to the teaching found in the Gospel and respect for the office of the Papacy, to the extent that he understands it.  It is to be very much lamented if the conversion of such souls as Rev. Manning, who has a reputation as a sincere man, was prevented by a lack of ready response from the Vatican, in those cases where the Vatican has the responsibility not to remain silent.

No, Francis, what you just said is heresy…

ANSA699342_ArticoloIn the liturgical changes imposed by Pope Paul VI, today, Nov. 23, 2014, is the Solemnity of Christ the King.  Pope Francis gave a homily today, on the occasion of Canonizing 6 saints.  The official English text is found at Vatican Radio. In it, Pope Francis says (in the sixth paragraph):

The starting point of salvation is not the confession of the sovereignty of Christ, but rather the imitation of Jesus’ works of mercy through which he brought about his kingdom.  The one who accomplishes these works shows that he has welcomed Christ’s sovereignty, because he has opened his heart to God’s charity.  In the twilight of life we will be judged on our love for, closeness to and tenderness towards our brothers and sisters.  Upon this will depend our entry into, or exclusion from, the kingdom of God: our belonging to the one side or the other.  Through his victory, Jesus has opened to us his kingdom.  But it is for us to enter into it, beginning with our life now, by being close in concrete ways to our brothers and sisters who ask for bread, clothing, acceptance, solidarity.  If we truly love them, we will be willing to share with them what is most precious to us, Jesus himself and his Gospel.

Heresy, one must remember, is a post-baptismal denial of a truth revealed by God.  Truths can be revealed by God by explicit affirmations in any text of Scripture, or in implicit ones; since, God speaks in Scripture in a variety of ways.

One of the truths of Scripture is that Faith begins by hearing, proceeds by confession on the lips and lives in good works for the needy.  St. Paul, for example says (in his Letter to the Romans, 10:9):

For, if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

This truth is implicitly taught in the Gospel of St. Luke, when at the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel, Our Blessed Mother first believed, then went in haste to her cousin St. Elizabeth; because first She confessed Her assent & consent to the truths revealed by God through St. Gabriel, then She manifested Her consent to the message of salvation in going to St. Elizabeth.

And St. Thomas Aquinas says, in regard to the Question (Summa, II, II, 5, 3), whether one is a heretic who disbelieves 1 article of the faith:

I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.

The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will.

Hence, we can say with absolute certainty, that what Pope Francis said, namely:

The starting point of salvation is not the confession of the sovereignty of Christ, but rather the imitation of Jesus’ works of mercy through which he brought about his kingdom. 

Is heretical, because, this proposition denies the salvific merit which accrues from every confession of Christ’s sovereignty. In doing this, it denies that man’s justification begins with Faith, confessed either in mind alone or also on the lips.

This is the direct teaching of St. Paul, the infallible teacher of the nations.  Let us take a look at Romans 10:9 again:

For, if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

In the Greek* we have for “the Lord Jesus”, kurion Ihsoun, a double accusative singular, which signifies not only “the Lord Jesus”, but “Jesus as Lord”.  But to recognize that Jesus is Lord, is to recognize his Sovereignty.   And thus St. Paul links the confession of Christ’s Sovereignty to salvation.  Thus, to explicitly deny that salvation begins with such a confession, directly denies the teaching of St. Paul.  But to deny the truth affirmed in any passage of Sacred Scripture is heretical, the very definition of heresy, for one separates himself from a truth revealed by God, through St. Paul.

Thus, to the homily which Pope Francis uttered today, we must respond:  No, Francis, what you just said is heresy!

But, as St. Thomas says, at the end of the above, quote, merely to say what is heretical does not make one a heretic, unless he is obstinate in his error.

How, then, does a Catholic assist a fellow Catholic from falling into  obstinacy, regarding a heretical doctrine?

First, he should point out to his brother, his sin and the error; then, remind him, that without the truth and authentic Faith it is impossible to be saved.  Third, we should pray for the brother so long as we are not certain of his obstinacy. After that, according to the teaching of St. John the Apostle, we are not obliged to pray for his repentance; however, we may continue to do so, or instead we  may pray to be delivered from him, or for God to punish him for his sin.

Let us, in charity, rebuke the Holy Father for his error, so injurious to the very essence of salvation in Christ.

 

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Cf. the Greek-English interlinear text for Romans chapter ten at

http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/rom10.pdf

 

Cf. Also, the Petition to the Cardinals regarding the Grave Improprieties of Pope Francis

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition2CardinalsReFrancis

 

 

 

Catholics petition the College of Cardinals to judge validity of Pope Francis

imagesEditor’s note:  Here at the From Rome Blog, I have stated that it is not my interest to cover news articles.  Yet, being born and raised in the United States, I have a great appreciation for the right of citizens, subjects and the faithful, to make known to their superiors what they believe is for the common good of the society they belong to.  This is a natural right in every human society, from the family to the State, and even in the Church.  For that reason, I consider it a duty, as the editor of the From Rome Blog, and as a member of the Diocese of Rome, to make known to my fellow Catholics the existence of this petition. I also believe, that I have a grave duty to make known to the princes of the Church of Rome, our Cardinals, who are the chief members of the clergy of my Diocese, the existence of this petition.

Here is the link to the petition, where you can see how many have signed it, as of the present, and read something more about the motives and purpose of the petition.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition2CardinalsReFrancis

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Note: I previously published the text of the petition on this blog, but from my stats, it seems that many are confusing my blog post for the petition. The link contains the petition. This post is only reporting its existence.

God’s Will for Catholics in the present Crisis

Creation and the Divine Order of Things:

Truths to Fight against the Errors of our Age

 Listen to Br. Bugnolo give this talk on Audio

INTRODUCTION

If a Catholic historian, moved by and obedient to the Faith, was to take up his pen to write a history of the present age, he could do no better than entitle his book, The Age of open Rebellion against God and the Divine Order of things.

0789204037.interior03On every side we see this rebellion: in the Church against the Rule of the Faith: Tradition and Scripture: where, for example, in Catholics Universities and Pontifically recognized institutions at Rome and around the world, professors openly attack the historical and theological truths contained in the 5 Books of the Bible written by Moses; or in the liturgy, most visibly, where out of some vague necessity of updating everything, the whole Catholic world has been cajoled by the lovers of today who are attempting to reformulate Catholicism in a manner discontinuous with Tradition, without submission to the Divine Majesty’s predetermined course of worship and devotion.

But, moreso, we see this open rebellion against God and the Divine Order of things, outside of the Church: with forms of government which arrogate to themselves the prerogative of God to establish moral laws and order man and his society: which Rebellion was foreseen by the Prophet David when he wrote, They have set their mouths in the heavens, and their tongues dictate to the earth. (Ps. 73:9)

This rebellion against the Divine Order of things was foretold long ago by the beloved Apostle St. John, who in his book of the Apocalypse indicated that after a thousand years of Christ’s reign on earth, the Enemy of Christ would come forth from the abyss to wage war upon His flock.  I like personally to reckon this prophecy in regard to the end of the Age of Constantine, which I mark from the edict of Milan in February of 313 A.D. (which ended persecution of Catholics in the Roman Empire), to the vicious attack upon Pope Boniface VIII on September 7, 1303 A. D. by Sciarra Colonna and the forces of King Philip IV of France, under the command of Guilluame Nogaret, his first minister, at Angni, in Italy.

This attack, which began with the slap of a hand upon the Pope’s face, has morphed exponentially throughout the centuries, up to our own day, when governments now dare to decree the lawfulness of the most horrific abominations as good for man’s liberty.  It is in the frenetic and mad zeal of these modern rebels that is not difficult to hear the rolling thunder of the first rebel’s voice:  Non serviam! — I shall not serve! I shall not submit myself to Christ’s Magisterium.

One could trace the history of this Rebellion, from the slap of Anagni to our own age, more than 666 years later, to recent Supreme Court decisions or to the proposals of Cardinal Kaspar to open the Church to a horrifically false and apostate mercy, but I shall leave that for the historian of ideas and ecclesiastical affairs.  Rather, I wish to serve those of you gathered here today a more meaty dish, a more savory fare, and a more nutritious repast, by recalling and expounding the fundamental truths, upon which all of Creation is founded, including man and the Church, so that you might have in mind, all the more clearly, the knowledge necessary to fight against the errors of our age.  I believe this is apt, because as St. Paul the Apostle reminds us, Our is not a fight against flesh and blood, that is against merely visible powers, our is a fight against the principalities and powers, the workers of iniquity in the air, that is, the fallen angles, who were cast down to our level present of existence, and who go about seeking the ruin of souls.

Angels, as you know, are pure spirits, and when they fight, it is not as the silly and blasphemous shows on television depict them: they have no bodies and use no weapons, they rather go forth into battle with minds filled with thoughts and by striving to plunge their own thoughts into the mind of other angels who think differently, seek to overcome them to their own allegiance or repel them from their stead.

Now, ever since the ancient Deceiver, the Dragon and Satan, was cast out of Heaven by St. Michael and His Angels, the demons have no fights with other Angels that they can win any more, and, thus, are forced by necessity to wage war against the sons of Adam, mere men.

Have no fear, though, little flock, because your Faith is your victory over the world, and not only over the world, but over all the forces of darkness, because if we but assent and attend to all that God has revealed, about Creation and about the Redemption wrought in Christ, we will equip our mind and soul, and thus our bodies too, with the truths necessary to fight against the armies of disorder and against all the men, women, and alas, even children, who have taken sides with them in the hope of destroying the Divine Order of things.  Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning:

To read this entire Essay,on the theological basis upon which true and false obedience is discerned, click here to access the PDF file and continue reading from page 2.

 

Critique of Final Synod14 Document (English Text)

Now that the final document of Synod14 has been published in an official English translation — something which remarkably took much longer to do than the mid-term Relatio, which was translated into 5 languages in just 1 weekend — I will fulfill the request of many Catholics, by commenting on the document.  I shall entitle this Commentary a critique, because it is obvious from the text and its organization that it presents a profoundly distorted and non-Catholic view of the human and Christian family.

So as not to omit anything, I will proceed section by section. Official text in Dark Green, bold italics. Comments in Black

Introduction

 1.          The Synod of Bishops, gathered around the Holy Father, turned its thoughts to all the families of the world, …

 

The introduction to the final document is glaringly lacking 2 most important elements. 

First, some statement which officially reproves or distances the Synod from the interm Relatio document prepared by Cardinal Erdo’s drafting committee with the mischievous assistance of Msgr. Bruno Forte. — The lack of such a public refutation or denial, is in fact a public tacit consent or at the very least a grevious lack of Christian honesty and pastoral charity towards the billions of Catholics and non-Catholics who were led to believe that it represented Church teaching, whether they were scandalized in the right sense of the word, or were not scandalized because they hold to a perverse unChristian view of the family.

Second, the Introduction lacks an affirmation of the Synod Fathers which indicates their adhesion to the one and true Catholic Faith and the denunciation of all errors opposed to it.  This is necessary, because both the In-term Relatio and the absence of refutation of it in the Introduction to this Final Relatio, have given rise to the suspicion that some of the Synod Fathers and perhaps even the Pope do not profess the Catholic Faith at all, or are attempting to adulterate it with doctrines which are incompatible with those revealed by God.  This failure to reaffirm the Catholic Faith openly, succinctly and before all else, puts in doubt that the doctrines presented in the Final Relatio were proposed by the Synod in a Catholic manner, that is, as doctrines of the Church for the good of the Church.  This absence, in my opinion, gives every Catholic the right to regard this final Relatio as a non-ecclesiastical document: one which does not in any true or authentic manner represent the Magisterium of the Church.

_______

PART I

Listening: the context and challenges of the family

The Socio-Cultural Context

5.          Faithful to Christ’s teaching, we look to the reality of the family today in all its complexity, with both its lights and shadows. etc.

The first glaring deviation in this Final Relatio, it the confusion its authors have concerning Faith and Reason.  Faith is the habit which regards assent to revealed truths; reason is the faculty of the mind which reckons to a conclusion from the basis of affirmations or denials of propositions.  We can, using common parlance, count in the domain of reason the findings and observations of the sciences, whether philosophical or empirical or human.  The human sciences which regard the family are many: Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology etc..  The empirical: Biology, Medicine, etc.

Its obvious, to any  believer, that it is a duty of faith to believe in what God has revealed.  But where in Scripture or Tradition do we find an obligation to “look to the reality of the family today, in all its complexity” ?  If one were attempting a scientific study of the human family, it would be very useful to consider the family today in such a wise, but it has nothing or very little to do with fidelity to Christ’s teaching, any more than being a physicist, anthropologist, or psychologist is something one does because faith requires this.

Thus, we can easily see that the authors of this Final Relatio, are confused about their duty as Bishops and Pastors, who were given sacred orders to minister to the Faithful the Faith which alone saves, and the doctrine and morals which alone save.

And if they are confused about their own duty, then we can expect a document full of such confusion; because just as the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart, so the pen moves out of the fullness or emptiness of the head.

Theologically speaking, it is thus, unfaithful for a Bishop to replace phenomenological observations for clear teaching and clear affirmations of doctrine and morals.  Hence, we can conclude here, that what is contained in Part I, nn. 5-8 contradicts the essence of what those first 4 words of n. 5 should signify.

The Importance of Affectivity in Life

9.          Faced with the afore-mentioned social situation, people in  many parts of the world are feeling a great need to take care of themselves, to know themselves better, to live in greater harmony with their feelings and sentiments and to seek to live their affectivity in the best manner possible. etc.

Here, the Final Relatio, falls into its next grievous error: that of replacing the concept of morality with that of affectivity.  Morality regards the moral quality of acts and habits, that is, whether they be good or bad according to their genus, circumstances, end, and this according to right reason and the principles of revealed truth, that is according to the natural order and the Divine Law, which is the will of the One and True God, as He has revealed Himself: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Affectivity, however, is a quality or state of being which regards the having or using of the affective part of man, the sensible part of the soul: joy and sorrow, anger and hatred and fear, hope, love; in a word the passions or emotions.  (There are also theological virtues known as hope and love, but these are something different.)

Thus, to substitute the consideration of the moral order with the affective order, is to omit the consideration of morality all together.  Such a manner of proceeding follows logically and necessarily from one in which true pastoral fidelity is replaced with phenomenological observations.  You might say that the authors of the Final Relatio are trying to be diplomatic; but if diplomacy requires first of all a loyalty to the Monarch whom you are representing, ignoring His teachings regarding morality is a far greater offense than omitting a scientific observation.  It also sows confusion, and leads one to think, that the purpose of the Synod was not to teach but to philosophize or to present an ideology rather than doctrine regarding the Faith.

Pastoral Challenges

11.        In this regard, the Church is conscious of the need to offer a particularly meaningful word of hope, which must be done based on the conviction that the human person comes from God, and that, consequently, any reconsideration of the great question on the meaning of human existence can be responsive to humanity’s most profound expectations. The great values of marriage and the Christian family correspond to the search that characterizes human existence, even in these times of individualism and hedonism. People need to be accepted in the concrete circumstances of life. We need to know how to support them in their searching and to encourage them in their hunger for God and their wish to feel fully part of the Church, also including those who have experienced failure or find themselves in a variety of situations. The Christian message always contains in itself the reality and the dynamic of mercy and truth which meet in Christ.

Part I of the final Relatio closes with this (n. 11) excellent example of political hogwash.  Hogwash, because it contains bits and pieces of all kinds of things, and serves to satisfy those who have no intelligent motive to seek understanding or truth.  It might seem to be double-speak, but it is actually very faithful to its own principles, if we just unpack some key phrases.

which must be done based on the conviction that the human person comes from God

But the Church should act solely on the basis of Her Faith, Hope and Love for the one True God, no? What value does it have calling Her Faith, a “conviction”, or replacing the profession of faith in God the creator of mankind, with “human person comes from God”. Even a Platonist or Hindu can say the latter. And anyone who believes in the equality of all religious, the former.

and that, consequently, any reconsideration of the great question on the meaning of human existence can be responsive to humanity’s most profound expectations.

I do not know about you, but who was expecting this Synod of proposing a “reconsideration of the great question on the meaning of human existence”? Such a verbal expression is about as far as one can get to the proposed topic of the Family as can be conceived.  Rather, by using the term “reconsideration” and pairing it with the words “most profound expectations” (rather than “being” or “needs”) one clearly leaves the door open to the idea that the Final Relatio and indeed the entire Synod was aiming to push the envelope on certain questions regarding human nature itself, or propound entirely novel teachings which would break with the past, because clearly “expectations” regards a subjective criterion, and “reconsideration” signifies the abandonment at least in possibility of what was previously held or taught.

Since platitudes abound in what follows, above, suffice it to say that even an idiot knows that the family and marriage are not values, but Divine and human institutions.

People need to be accepted in the concrete circumstances of life.

This, is perhaps, the credo and battle cry of the progressivists and liberals who are in power today in the world.  Being materialists, they wish to replace morals with facts, and refuse to categorize as good or evil any human action or situation.  There remains for them only social injustice, which they define as a lack of money or access to power (whether they call that liberty or voting rights or equality). If the phrase meant anything objective, it would not have to be said, as it is a tautology in the common sense of the terms, namely if it was meant to signify, “Human persons, like any object of study, are to be studied as they are, and not as they should be”.  But then one would be affirming a principle of empirical science, and counter-posing that method to a philosophical or theological one; which surely a Synod of Catholic bishops, if they are professing fidelity to Christ’s teaching, would not be expected to be doing.

PART II

Looking at Christ: the Gospel of the Family

 Looking at Jesus and the Divine Pedagogy in the History of Salvation

12.       In order to “walk among contemporary challenges, the decisive condition is to maintain a fixed gaze on Jesus Christ, to pause in contemplation and in adoration of his Face. … Indeed, every time we return to the source of the Christian experience, new paths and undreamed of possibilities open up” (Pope Francis, Discourse, 4 October 2014).

Part II of the final Relatio opens with the affirmation of the principle of novelty which Pope Francis has set up as the rule for his papacy.  As he himself says, “I do not believe in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God”, and Catholics should be open to the “God of surprises”.  This God of surprises — a name for God nowhere found in Scripture, Tradition, the Fathers or Doctors of the Church, nay not even among the Saints — is the God of the Final Relatio, since the very hermeneutic employed in Part II is to read Scripture without any restraint imposed from all that has gone before.

This is not the Catholic notion of Scriptural exegesis, but is a very apt one for the eisegesis taught by Modernists.  Exegesis is the Greek term for reading the Scripture so as to find and understand the truth contained in it.  Eisegesis is that wherein one reads into the text, a meaning which one wants to find therein.  The distinction between exegesis and eisegesis is the distinction between Catholicism and all non-Catholic or un-Catholic methods of scripture reading.  Modernists have to employ eisegesis, because their fasle and novel doctrines, not being found in Scripture, must be made to appear to be found there in, so as to justify itself among those who still hold Scripture to have some authority for faith.

Indeed, in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, chapter 2, the Infallible Ecumenical Council of Vatican I, taught as follows

  • Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that
    • in matters of faith and morals,
    • belonging as they do to the establishing of christian doctrine,
    • that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one,
    • which holy mother church held and holds,
      • since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture.
  • In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers.

 

Hence, the way to the God of surprises is closed off, since Vatican I forbade that anyone read Scripture in such a wise as to attribute to it something which the Church Herself did not already hold and understand, in the time of Vatican I.

Thus, we can conclude that Part II begins with a heretical affirmation regarding the way to read Scripture.  This, undoubtedly will make it very difficulty or impossible that anything said about the Family or Marriage, which is  based on faith in Scripture, will be said in a manner conformable to the Catholic understanding of Scripture, which the Church Herself holds and receives from Christ Her Lord.

This false way of reading Scripture brings forth its first evil fruit in n. 13:

In creation, because all things were made through Christ and for him (cf. Col 1:16), Christians “gladly and reverently lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden among their fellows; they ought to follow attentively the profound changes which are taking place among peoples” (Ad Gentes, 11).

Notice how the concept of Creation is paired with the concept of “profound changes”.  In a Catholic notion of Creation, just as Christ said of Marriage, “What God has joined, let no man sunder”, so we can say that “What God has made, let no man destroy, change or alter”.  By insinuating surreptitiously that fidelity to the Creator requires some sort of discipleship to change, the Relatio introduces anew the concept that faith is loyalty to a God of surprises not a God of Immutable Constancy, and that Creation is not something fixed and past, but ongoing and ever new.  This replaces a classical Christian sense of metaphysics with one which is Hegelian at best.

In the Christian life, the reception of Baptism brings the believer into the Church through the domestic church, namely, the family; thus beginning “a dynamic process [which] develops, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God” (Familiaris Consortio, 9), in an ongoing conversion to a love which saves us from sin and gives us fullness of life.

In this sentence, which follows the one just quoted, we see this error of replacing the supernatural order with the natural order again.  Baptism is a Sacrament which makes one a member of the true Church, when it is received in the Church; but the reception of this Sacrament is not limited to newborns, even adult converts can receive it, for example. Thus it is incorrect to say that one receives this Sacrament through the Domestic Church, since being member of a family or having family members present to sponsor one at Baptism is not and never has been a requirement of the Sacrament.  How Bishops could in good conscience omit noticing this glaring error, is beyond me.

The second half of the sentence, introduces the false notion of graduality in things spiritual.  In Catholic teaching, the spiritual regards things which are not material, and hence, since the spiritual does not regard things which are separable or have parts, it does not regard but things which are simple.  Now all spirits, whether Angels or human souls, are simple things; and simple things change only according to the whole.  Thus Angels and souls are created entire, not by parts; likewise, when a soul converts, it does so in 1 instant, not by steps.  If we speak of conversion on a broad sense, that is as a preparation for conversion through progressive steps of being more and more open to the grace of conversion, we can call it a process, but to use the word “conversion” for the preparation for conversion is improper and confusing.  To misuse the term “conversion” in this manner, seemingly denies the truth that a man converts in 1 instant, and that that conversion must be total, to be true.  It thus opens the door to accepting in the Church and at the Sacraments, those who live in public habitual mortal sin, which is exactly what Cardinal Kasper is proposing.

Finally, all who have the theological virtue of Charity, have the ability to love God; and such a love is simple, when it exists; one who loves God does not need to convert, because love by nature turns the lover to the beloved; and conversion regards the turning of the soul.  Thus conversion is not an ongoing process.  The ongoing process is perfection, or rather, the pursuit of perfection by living the Christian life.  The non-Christian needs to repent and convert; the Christian who is not faithful, need to repent, not convert.  In Baptism, one receives all the gifts of God, in themselves or in seed or in promise; thus one is no more or less a Christian at Baptism than he is in Heaven.  Thus the statement regarding the “progressive integration of the gifts of God” is badly stated, in the very least.

What follows in n. 14, in no way avoids the errors which preceded.

14.       Jesus himself, referring to the original plan of the human couple, reaffirms the indissoluble union between a man and a woman and says to the Pharisees that “for your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so”(Mt 19: 8). The indissolubility of marriage (“what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” Mt 19:6), is not to be understood as a “yoke” imposed on persons but as a “gift” to a husband and wife united in marriage. In this way, Jesus shows how God’s humbling act of coming to earth might always accompany the human journey …

It in now way removes the errors previous to it, because, according to the natural principle of human language, every affirmation is to be understood not only according to what it affirms but also according to the context in which it makes that affirmation.  Note, then, how n. 14 says nothing against the false forms of marriage, but only calls the true one the “original plan”; given that the Final Relatio in its previous sections opens the way to novel readings of scripture, and new proposals, the affirmation of “original” does not close the way to a future affirmation of what is “novel”, since the novel can be seen as a new fruit of reading Scripture or Tradition, in harmony with the God of surprises, which is the god of this document.

 became the historical form of marriage among the People of God…

What follows in n. 15, while seemingly very good, contains several errors of expression which leave open the door to all the errors, which I have previously pointed out in this critique.  The description of marriage in history is faulty, in such a way as to do this; because the truth of history is that the People of God were called from among those sons of Adam who had fallen into sin and idolatry, and hence when they were called they were not living in marriages which were always in accord with God’s original plan given in Adam and Eve, which is monogamous life long marriage of 1 man and 1 woman.  By saying, contrariwise, that these sinful forms became the historical form of marriage among God’s people, the Final Relatio opens the door, by giving precedent, to the possibility that the Church Herself can embrace forms of marriage being proposed in the historical moment of today.

The Gospel of the Family spans the history of the world from the creation of man in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1: 26-27)

I paragraph n. 16, we have the error of confounding the natural and supernatural orders, affirmed again. Because, in theology, the Gospel regards the message of salvation which God alone revealed in Christ; one does not call the original order of things which God established at the beginning of the world or of our race a “gospel”, because it regards the natural order, not the order of grace and salvation.  It is also nonsensical to call the original plan a “gospel” since “Gospel” means “good news” and what is old is not news, even if it is good.

The Family in the Church’s Documents

17.       “Throughout the centuries, the Church has maintained her constant teaching on marriage and family. One of the highest expressions of this teaching was proposed by the Second Vatican Council, in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, which devotes an entire chapter to promoting the dignity of marriage and the family (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 47-52).

It is so common to find, since Vatican II, the same stupid exaggerations in Church documents, that you can almost guess that they will be there in any long-enough document.  One of these stupidities is the assertion that at Vatican II the Church taught in the best way She had ever done, as if She was ignorant and illiterate for 1929 years (1962 — 33 = 1929)!

To call Gaudium et Spes “one of the highest expressions” of Church teaching is thus as laughable as it is a-historical.  But is its laughable too, since Benedict XVI, while still a mere theologian, said of Gaudium et Spes, that it was by far the most problematic of Vatican II documents, one which is thoroughly colored by the heresy of Pelagianism, which held that the salvation and grace offered in Christ was useful but not necessary for salvation, and hence attention to things natural with little emphasis on those which are supernatural or gratuitous (i. e. of grace) is no large fault.

To take Gaudium et Spes, therefore, as the highest expression, is thus to denigrate others as lower.  But as a matter of fact, every Papal Encyclical for 200 years before Vatican II has more authority than any document of Vatican II, because as Pope Pius XII declared, what is taught in Encyclicals has to be accepted as Catholic teaching; but Vatican II and Pope Paul VI imposed no such obligation on Vatican II documents.

The Church, however, has a certain, clear and much more authoritative document on Marriage and the Family: the Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII, Casti Canubi, Dec. 31, 1930 A.D., the text of which is still available at the Vatican Website.  In paragraph nns. 5-6, the Church teaches:

5. And to begin with that same Encyclical, which is wholly concerned in vindicating the divine institution of matrimony, its sacramental dignity, and its perpetual stability, let it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed, and hence these laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact even of the spouses themselves. This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture;[2] this is the constant tradition of the Universal Church; this the solemn definition of the sacred Council of Trent, which declares and establishes from the words of Holy Writ itself that God is the Author of the perpetual stability of the marriage bond, its unity and its firmness.[3]

6. Yet although matrimony is of its very nature of divine institution, the human will, too, enters into it and performs a most noble part. For each individual marriage, inasmuch as it is a conjugal union of a particular man and woman, arises only from the free consent of each of the spouses; and this free act of the will, by which each party hands over and accepts those rights proper to the state of marriage,[4] is so necessary to constitute true marriage that it cannot be supplied by any human power.[5] This freedom, however, regards only the question whether the contracting parties really wish to enter upon matrimony or to marry this particular person; but the nature of matrimony is entirely independent of the free will of man, so that if one has once contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its divinely made laws and its essential properties. For the Angelic Doctor, writing on conjugal honor and on the offspring which is the fruit of marriage, says: “These things are so contained in matrimony by the marriage pact itself that, if anything to the contrary were expressed in the consent which makes the marriage, it would not be a true marriage.”[6]

Why this Encyclical was not quoted in this section of the Final Relatio, is a very grave question; the omission of it puts in doubt the honesty of the intention of the Synod Fathers to hold fast to Catholic teaching.

The Erroneous Definition of Family in the Final Relatio

is found in paragraph n. 17, of the same, where it says in the official English translation, speaking of the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes:

This document defined marriage as a community of life and love (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 48),

Every human being with some intelligence can see immediately that this definition is insufficient.  Because, a human being can share a community of life and love with many other human persons, not just those in his family; and a community of human love can exist between any number or gender of persons; a community of the human affection of love can also exist, unilaterally, between a human person and a pet, such as a dog.  Hence, this definition of a family, after all the scandals of Synod14 is remarkable in its insufficiency.  It allows every error regarding the Family and Marriage, which Catholics supposed the Synod was convened to refute!

This error is not corrected in nns. 17-20, because NO WHERE does it exclude all the possible notions of family which could fall under such a loose definition.  Nor do affirmations regarding the family formed by man and woman, logically exclude these other concepts of family and marriage.  Let us not be stupid, as to suppose otherwise; those who wrote this document have degrees in theology and philosophy, they understand logic and its rules, and cannot be exculpated from the open door to perversion and immorality which they left wide open in the very heart of the final text of the Relatio.  To cite this most loose of definitions, when Pius XII had given a very good one in Casti Canubi, nn. 5-6, is simply beyond belief and renders void of all credibility the ecclesiological value of the Final Relatio.

I will end my critique here, since I believe that the reader can continue reading the Relatio and find the same errors repeated, the same open doors open, etc. and reasonably conclude, that the Final Text of Synod14 is a Trojan horse in the city of God.

___________________

Br. Alexis Bugnolo holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida, where he was nominated to Phi Beta Kapa; he is a graduate of Our Lady of Grace Seminary (cum laude), Boston, and has studied at three Pontifical Universities at Rome: the Angelicum, Santa Croce, and the Seraphicum.  He is in the midst of studies for a Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology.  For a list of his publications, see The Franciscan Archive and his personal page at Academia.edu.

Bergoglio’s Past Catches up with him, with a vengeance

I have intently watched the Papacy of Pope Francis, from the first day of his election as Roman Pontiff.  Though I am a resident in Rome, I did not go to St. Peter’s square to see who would be elected, since I had a chest cold, and did not want to make it worse.

But, I confess to be one of the many who were enthused by his election, especially of his name selection, “Francis”, after the saintly founder of my Order, St. Francis of Assisi.  So much was my confidence, that I am among the first to write him a letter, which he received on the first day of his Petrine ministry, and which one of his secretaries confirmed by calling me — Though I never got a response to my request.

With the loud and clamorous and scandalous happenings at Synod 14, I became more certain that if there were anything about his background which was untoward, that some journalist would reveal it.  Indeed, from the first day of his election, the media have been exceedingly supportive of Bergoglio, and thus there have been almost no reports about his background, childhood, family, upbringing.

Today, on October 14, Sandro Magister, one of the leading Vaticanistas (that is, journalist who reports on Vatican affairs), published a very telling exposé of Pope Francis, with specific reference to the kind of pastoral practice he promoted at Buenas Aires as Archbishop.  You can read the official English translation of that article, here.

The really damning evidence is referred to in this paragraph of Magister’s report (Bold Facing and Coloring not in the original):

On communion for the divorced and remarried, it is already known how the pope thinks. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he authorized the “curas villeros,” the priests sent to the peripheries, to give communion to all, although four fifths of the couples were not even married. And as pope, by telephone or letter he is not afraid of encouraging some of the faithful who have remarried to receive communion without worrying about it, right away, even without those “penitential paths under the guidance of the diocesan bishop” projected by some at the synod, and without issuing any denials when the news of his actions comes out.

The entire affair is outrageously sacrilegious and offensive.  Because to put Our Lord, Who is truly, really, and substantially present in the Sacrament, into the hands or mouth of someone in mortal sin, is to crucify Him anew.  And to order such a thing done, is a horrendous monstrosity.

But, I am particularly troubled that Magister seems to have indicated, in the text I have highlighted in red, that this was done with the omission of any encouragement to attend confession, nay, with the apparent implication that omitting confession was encouraged.

This is particularly grievous, because such a doctrine and teaching such a practice was condemned by the infallible and Ecumenical Council of Trent, in its 13th session, and XI canon, which is found here, the text of which is:

CANON XI.-lf any one saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and condemnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares, that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burdened with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated.

I do not see how Bergoglio as Archbishop could habitually conduct such a practice in his Archdiocese if he did not teach or preach to his clergy at least, that such a practice was licit, allowed, or proper, all of which would have put him under the pain of excommunication from the day he first began to teach such an omission of penance before reception of communion by public sinners.

Obviously this needs to be investigated and the testimony of the faithful in the Archdiocese needs to be heard.

Also, experts in canon law need to be questioned, whether this excommunication imposed by Trent is latae sententiae or ferendae, that is, whether one falls immediately under this punishment when committing the act condemned, or whether the Pope would have to impose it.

This is important, because in the decree of Pope Paul IV, Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, an Archbishop who was under the sentence of excommunication could not be validly named a Cardinal, and such a Cardinal could not be validly elected Pope (cf. in particular, n. 2, especially in its final paragraph; n. 6).

It is another, thornier question, whether a Pope saying that communion can be given to impenitent public sinners, without the requirement of confessing their sins and repenting, would be excommunicated by the excommunication handed down in Trent, Session 34, Canon XI.  If he has counseled this even over the telephone, then he would, according to the norms of canon law, certainly be subject to suspicion for its violation.  But the canon established by Trent regards discipline, the mere practice is not heretical, but makes one suspect of heresy, because if one were to do such, either he does not believe in the dogma of transubstantiation or he does not believe in the ecclesiological and theological necessity of faith and penance as prerequisites to receive a Sacrament, any of which is heretical.

 

If you have doubts about the Synod, doubt again!

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Here is the troubling story of how 1 Franciscan brother petitioned Cardinal Napier of South Africa, urging him to see that the final version of the Synod’s document would not contain any deviation from Christ’s teaching regarding the absolute necessity of repentance and faith as criteria of membership in the Church and directives for pastoral praxis.

I wrote this petition in response to the now infamous 3 paragraphs in the Relatio post deceptationem (the Report after received responses) which was published at the Extra-Ordinary Synod of the Family, at Rome, on Monday morning, October 13, 2014, by the drafting committee headed by Cardinal Erdo.  Which paragraphs, regarding the unspeakable vice, sodomy, where subsequently attributed in the press to Bishop Bruno Forte (famous for his book on Christ, in which he declared that if the body of Christ crucified were found, he’d still believe in the Resurrection!).

However, when it was reported in the UK press that the revised document contained something worse, the explicit affirmation of the value of a vice, namely the requirement that Catholics “value the homosexual orientation”, I was utterly shocked.

In those paragraphs, there was an obvious and intentional attempt to introduce the language of the homo-agenda and homo-heresy into the Synod’s final document.  The homo-heresy is a term coined recently to refer to the political and ideological doctrine that homosexuality is a good to be appreciated, valued, accepted in all human society, even in the Church.  It is a heretical doctrine, because it contradicts the clear teaching of Moses and St. Paul that this vice and its practice are abominations to God and contrary to nature, and because it directly contradicts the teaching of Our Lord and Master, Christ Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, the Lord of the Ages, the Creator of Man, the Author of Scripture, the Most High, Eternal, All Holy God of Israel! In that He teaches that the fundamental rule or requirement for membership in His Church and for communion with Him is that one first repent of his sins and then believe all his teaching.

These were Our Lord’s first words, when He opened His Mouth and began His own public ministry:  Repent and Believe!  The Apostles, His faithful and infallible disciples after the Pentecost Day of grace, taught clearly in all their writings, gathered now in the New Testament, that these words are to be understood as the utter repudiation of carnality, immorality, and all that is contrary to the moral precepts of the Mosaic Law and of the Evangelical Law, and of the natural, moral, and divine laws implicit in these.

For this reason, and because by my vocation as a son of St. Francis of Assisi, I deemed it necessary to speak out against the tide of grave, manifest, public scandal given to the faithful throughout this world.  Especially since as an Italian citizen, resident at Rome, I consider it a duty as a member of the Diocese of Rome, which shall never loose the Faith, to speak boldly in favor of Christ’s Magisterium against the false magisterium of the flesh being proposed in the Relatio post deceptationem.

When the Holy Father, in response to the outcry against the patently racist and very insulting remarks of Cardinal Kasper against the Synod Fathers from Africa, appointed Wilfrid Cardinal Napier, OFM, the Archbishop of Durban, South Africa, (Cardinal-Priest of San Francesco d’Assisi ad Acilia, at Rome), as member of the drafting committee, I was encouraged on account of the reports showing that he was a faithful Cardinal and fighting to protect the faith.

You see, according to the Rule of Saint Francis of Assisi, we sons of St. Francis are bound to give and receive remonstrations in the Lord, so that as brothers in one family we might assist the salvation of one another.  Seeing that Cardinal Napier was before his elevation to the episcopate on Feb. 21, 1981, was a member of the Order of Friars Minor of the Leonine Union, I saw this as an opportunity and sign from God to plead with him to fight the good fight and see to it that the final draft of the Synod Document not contain any approval of the abomination of sodomy, whether in act or in vice, directly or indirectly, or even in some sort of linguistic construction whereby the Church would seem or in fact, be bound to surrender to the homo-heresy of our age.

This is the historical background to the exchange which now follows.

 

The Petition sent to Cardinal Napier

The petition sent on Thursday, October 16, 2014, via twitter to Cardinal Napier.  His Eminence had followed me on Twitter the very night before, which enabled me to send him a private message.  First I wrote the petition, then I presented in in a series of Direct Messages.

First, the petition, which contains several tweets, in this order:

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522747781589774337

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522747939341758464

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522748132057448448

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522750346419245057

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522750862725509120

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522751235716571136

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522751639175049217

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522751823674097664

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522755466796236800

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522762879947530240

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522866935340748800

This final tweet was favorited by Cardinal Giuseppe (@vaticanvalet) who, however, unlike @CardinalNapier, seems to be someone feigning to be a cardinal.

My Presentation of the Petition to Cardinal Napier

After tweeting the petition, I presented it in a Direct Message to His Eminence, since, as I have said, he had followed me the night before, and I was already following him. On twitter those are the 2 necessaries for sending and receiving Direct Messages; these are a form of private, non-publicized communication.

After the Cardinal’s initial shocking response to the petition, I captured the DM in a jpg image, to preserve the historical record.  Here is that image:

 

Direct Message from @BrAlexisBugnolo to @CardinalNapier on Twitter, presenting the Petition re Fidelity to Christ
Direct Message from @BrAlexisBugnolo to @CardinalNapier on Twitter, presenting the Petition re Fidelity to Christ

 These direct messages make clear the intent of the Petition and my grave concerns about the dangers to the Faith and to the  Church, inherent in the revised version of the Relatio, which Relatio emanated from the drafting committee of which Cardinal Napier was the newly appointed member, “representing” the Synod Fathers who came from Africa.

 

The Stunning Replies of Cardinal Napier

Now it is obvious to anyone, who knows anything about the Catholic Church and what it means to be a member of Her, that the above cited petition is most respectful, serious, and one made fully in accord with the norms of Canon Law, which regard the rights of the faithful to petition members of the Sacred Hierarchy. By the time Cardinal Napier replied, 30 members of the faithful from Europe, Africa and North America had signed it.  Subsequently, at least 6 more signed it that night.

But to this sensible, sane, calm, fully catholic, dutiful, honest and zealous petition, Cardinal Napier chose to respond with this tweet, which I have captured in a jpg image:

Cardinal Napier's First Response to the Petition
Cardinal Napier’s First Response to the Petition

Moved by my love for Cardinal Napier in Christ, and mindful that if I were silent, I would consent to his scandalous remarks, I replied with a series of tweets:

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522838929821556736

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522840207570116608

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522842979141050368
To These tweets, the Cardinal surprised me, by replying a second time:

Cardinal Napier's second reply to the Petition, remonstrating with Br Alexis Bugnolo
Cardinal Napier’s second reply to the Petition, remonstrating with Br Alexis Bugnolo

You can see my own subsequent replies, in that image, but for ease of reading, I recite them here:

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522845783733706752

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522846362035949568

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522846853767761920

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522847921424039936

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522848070778621952

 

 If it might seem that I am being to bold in my “dialogue” with the Cardinal, remember that we are both sons of St. Francis, and are obliged to this give and take, according to the Rule of St. Francis: also, because of his membership on the drafting committee Cardinal Napier has a direct capability to have his own input and correct errors.  In addition, seeing the grave scandal going on at the Synod, I considered it morally necessary, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, to speak to His Eminence with boldness.

The Cardinal, however, chose to reply to me again, here is the jpg image.

 

Cardinal Napier's Third Reply to the petition of Br Alexis Bugnolo and 30 other faithful.
Cardinal Napier’s Third Reply to the petition of Br Alexis Bugnolo and 30 other faithful.

It was clear from this response, that in the Cardinal’s mind there was some confusion, so I replied with a series of tweets to explain and attempt to remove that confusion, spurred by my zeal for God and for the Cardinal’s soul.

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522851218729607168

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522852088791834625

And thus, I boldly asked:

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522852498919268354

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/522852691777581056

At that point, I shut down my computer, for it was very late, and the Cardinal seems to have done likewise; in the morning, upon waking early around 5 AM Rome time, he tweeted me 1 last time:

Cardinal Napier's 4th reply to the Petition submitted to him by Br. Alexis Bugnolo and now 36 members of the faithul
Cardinal Napier’s 4th reply to the Petition submitted to him by Br. Alexis Bugnolo and now 36 members of the faithul

As you can see, the Cardinal was taking the Petition totally out of context, and twisting scripture to oppose it.  I have seen this tactic on many a street-corner, but it is one used by non-Catholics who are insisting in their perverse or erroneous doctrines against the teaching of the Catholic Faith, so I recognized it immediately, and replied thus, on Friday Morning, when I logged on Twitter and saw it:

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/523017192838017024

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/523017351974100992

https://twitter.com/BrAlexisBugnolo/status/523019250815234049

 

Final Remarks from Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Throughout this exchange of tweets with His Eminence Cardinal Napier of Durban, South Africa, many members of the faithful tweeted, retweeted, replied, or favorited the Petition, his replies or my replies to him.  I have omitted these in the course of this report, since they had no bearing upon the exchange between the Cardinal and myself.

Let me remind the faithful of 2 great truths.  First, that we must always remain faithful to Christ Jesus and His Magisterium, as it has been recorded in the Gospels, explained by the Apostles, handed down in Tradition by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, explained in the perennial, perduring, constant and unchangeable Magisterium of the Church, which expresses Herself in an infallible manner only when our Sacred Pastors, who have the authority, teach in harmony with Christ, the Apostles, Scripture and Tradition.

Secondly, even when our Sacred Pastors might not live up to what we expect of them in Christ, or up to what Christ expects of them, we should remain respectful in our discourses, even if we might at times have to be bold (So long as they do not become pertinacious, public heretics, because if they did we’d be obliged by faith, hope and charity to no longer regard them as members of the Church).  We are Catholics not stoics, so we do not hold it to be a sin to be passionate or emotional about our Faith, rather we repudiate all the false morals of the world, the errors of Modernism which would reduce faith to sentimentalism, to the errors of Freemasonry which want to return mankind to the slavery of the idols of Egypt and Babylon, and the false and so-called wisdom of the flesh in our own day, which would have us be so polite as to offend God, not man.

Let us pray for Cardinal Napier and all the Fathers at the Synod; resolving to reject the final document if it deviates from the Faith in any particular. And finally, I ask your prayers, that I might give a humble an zealous witness to the faith, expecting as I do to suffer for the witness I have given here today.

A leading Vatican journalist, on the Synod: We have a problem!

marco-tosattiWhat follows is an unofficial English translation of an article, entitled, Un Sinodo un pò tarrocato, which appeared today in La Stampa, in Italy, written by Marco Tosatti, one of the leading Catholic journalists who specialize in Vatican affairs. The bold face is not in the original.

When the speaker – a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church – more or less expressly disclaims authorship of a report that bears his signature, there is a problem.
When the cardinal himself, in reference to a passage from the text certainly very interesting and a harbinger of trouble, asked for an explanation, and the answer turns to an archbishop Deputy Secretary (rather than the Pope) at the Synod because he is the author, there is a issue.

When many bishops and cardinals from Poland to Africa to Australia, they complain because the Relatio as it has been written and presented to the press does not reflect what they said in the hall, and adds things that have never been said, there is a problem.

When the text is declared “unacceptable” by Cardinals and Bishops, “irredeemable” by another, and when the Circuli Minores it is said that “we are working to revise the text, set aside some expressions and so on, but it is a sick-text and not you know how the proposals will be accepted,” there is a problem.

When there are bishops – and more than one – who say they no longer want to come to any future Synods, if they are conducted like this, because it is turning into a farce, there is a problem. When the South African Cardinal Napier said via twitter, that is, in public, that “while it is possible that some elements are trying to adapt to the opinion of the world, the majority wants to remain firmly with the truth”; which says exactly the opposite of the thesis that some journalists for various reasons, try to credit to the Synod, there is a problem.

When among the choices of leaders for the Synod, an entire continent in which you are making the greatest growth of Christianity and Catholicism, in terms of the faithful (unlike Europe and North America, or Latin America where millions of evangelicals swallow up ex-catholics), namely Africa, is forgotten, there is a problem.

The regime governing the Synod has decided not to make public the activities of the participants, compared with a decade of practice, transparency and the right of Christians to know; and then has decided to make public a working document in which many do not recognize, and in which the phrases are the most controversial and debated with great probability the expression of a few theologians and bishops. It’s hard not to think in an attempt to drive and manipulate the course of the Synod.

When, following the publication of the document, you are forced to back down, and “Voice of the Family”, which brings together millions of Catholics around the world in fifteen different organizations defines it as open “treason”, and states that “Those who control the Synod have betrayed Catholic parents. The report is one of the worst official documents ever written in the history of the Church,” there is a problem.

The Synod of Bishops on the Family is the first official event of the Church of the reign of Pope Francis. And it is proving to be a success, under any point of view, if not that of confusion. Unfortunately, the Pope does not appear, as it might be more prudent and desirable to reassure Catholics, above and outside the party. Cardinal Kasper, one of the fiercest protagonists of the battle, merely repeats that he spoke to the Pope. The one choosing Archbishop Forte, author of the report, according to many in recent days, as Deputy Secretary, is the Pope. As well as those of additional members of the Commission will draw up the final report; all of whom are oriented in one direction, but – according to what Cardinal  Napier says, it is not only him, who does not represent the common sense and majority of the assembly.

And this is not a good thing, if you search for unity of feelings, and not what the card. Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, called a “single thought in the Church.” If it is true that the Church is not a democracy, and you do not go forward with the hammer blows of a majority, you certainly cannot, however, submit all believers to a theological and doctrinal little-clique.

Like nature, the Church does not like leaps or earthquakes.

Eminent Vatican theologian faults Kaspars Proposals

What follows is my unofficial translation of Monsignor Antonio Livi’s criticisms of the Synod on the Family, which were published in Italian on October 10th.

 

The Divorced: the ambiguous solutions of  the “pietists”

Alongside the discussions which preceded and now accompany the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (Oct 5-19), one needs to observe the continuing and growing interventions of “false teachers” and of “false prophets” who announce a new Church as already arrived, no longer in subjugation to the chains of the moral law, open to the insistence of the “base” and ready to tear down the “historical fences” which separate Catholics and Protestants and the Orthodox.

Many scholars have already highlighted the “anti-dogmatic”, or better “a-dogmatic” aspect of these discourses, received (naturally) with the enthusiasm of the secular media, from La Repubblica to il Sole24Ore and La Stampa (especially Gianni Vattimo, the philosopher of the “weak thought”, who already 25 years ago quipped aloud that “a Christianity without a pope and without dogma”).  I have already spoken in detail about this in my book on True and False Theology (2014).  But even Pope Benedict XVI wisely commented that “pastoral praxis and dogma intertwine in an indissoluble manner; it is the truth of Him who is in time  “Word” and “Shepherd”, as primitive Christian art has profoundly understood, which presents the Word as Shepherd and in the guise of the Shepherd makes flow the eternal Word which for man is the true direction for life”.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, returned to this argument.  In a book length interview which was published simultaneously a month ago in Italy, Spain and the United States (published in Italian by Ares, and entitled La speranza della famiglia), the German cardinal clearly showed the a-dogmatic character of the proposals for change in ecclesiastical praxis in regard to marriage and the family.

In announcing the impossibility of accepting these proposals — which, according to Walter Kasper and many others, would be justified on the basis of current social changes and in the inability of many faithful to live up to Catholic morals — Cardinal Müller, has expressed himself with great theological precision:  “A simple ‘adaptation’ of the reality of marriage to the expectations of the world bears no fruit, rather, it has counterproductive results: the Church cannot respond to the challenge of today’s world with a pragmatic adaptation.  As ones opposing a facile, pragmatic adaptation, we are called to choose for ourselves the prophetic audacity of the martyr. With this, we can testify to the Gospel of holy matrimony.  A tepid prophet, with an adequation to to the spirit of the age, would seek to save himself, but not by the means of salvation which comes from God alone “.

There were many Cardinals (besides the just mentioned Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller; I recall Carlo Caffarra, Velasio de Paolis, Walter Brandmüller, Thomas Collins and Raymond L Burke) who wanted to publish their some writings to oppose, with serene and above-all pertinent argumentations, the attempt to pressure the Synod in the hope to obtain a pronouncement from the majority of the 120 fathers of the Synod, and even, from pope Francis, in favor of changing the pastoral practice of the Church.

Which, however, cannot ever possibly happen, because it would constitute a substantial change in the Church Herself, or rather the advent of a new a-dogmatic Church as so many evil masters such as Hans Kung and so many false prophets as Enzo Bianchi have announced and prepared for (preparing by announcing it), shamelessly attributing their revolutionary plans to pope Francis.  The implementation of such designs, as much as regards the pastoral practice concerning matrimony and the family, would lead to the abolition of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae (of Pope Paul VI) and of the Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris consortio (of Pope John Paul II), besides, naturally, the cannon of the Ecumenical Council of Trent on the Sacraments of Matrimony, Eucharist and Penance.