Perverted Montreal Deacon and CCCB spokesman quietly sentenced - Bishop Crosby, why do you allow his name to still appear as Director of Communications?

Previously, we reported on pervert Deacon William Kokesch of Montreal. Kokesch was arrested in 2012 on child pornography charges and convicted in March of 2015 to serve "two years less a day" meaning in a provincial, not federal, institution. Though posting on it back when he was charged, I had neglected following up on it. Sylvia's Site contains all the documentation of this violator of children and disgracer of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Canada. Whilst doing some research this morning on an unrelated matter, I found that Kokesch's name still appears on old press releases and web pages at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It took significant lobbying by Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness to then President and Edmonton Archbishop Smith to get the name of child pornograhic pervert and former Bishop of Antigonish Raymond Lahey's name off the site. 

Why does Bishop Crosby of Hamilton, now CCCB President permit Kokesch's name to still remains there? 

Has this Deacon been laicised? 

What is it about the Church in Canada and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops that manages to hide and protect such perverts such as Lahey, Kokesch and other bishops and monsignors who have suddenly disappeared from their dioceses under confusing and ill-defined circumstances?

St. Peter Damian

Three more come to mind, former Auxiliary Bishop John Knight of Toronto and former Rector of Toronto's St. Augustine Seminary and Bishop of St. Catharines, James Wingle. Then of course, there is Gordon Davies a former Dean of Studies at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto, famous there for his body-building equipment in his room at the Seminary. 

Lest you be too worried about St. Augustine's Seminary, that was a long time ago, the 70's and 80's are long gone. There were many Toronto priests ordained during that period who survived from those perilous days and are solid in their Catholicity, morality, liturgy and preaching, in spite of the days of the "Butterflies and Machos." The current crop of Seminarians are a bunch of rosary praying, scapular wearing, men on fire for Our Lord Jesus Christ. The previous Rector and Deans of Studies (two of whom I know) and the current Rector and Faculty are solidly Catholic and well formed. We have much to be thankful for under Thomas Cardinal Collins. 

Some people believe that talking about these things creates scandal. In fact, it is not talking about them and covering them up that is the real scandal. That era in Toronto under Pocock, Carter in particular were dark days before the Internet and before the awakening of Catholics to the scandal around them.

Fox and I have begun reading St. Peter Damian's classic work, The Book of Gomorrah. We've been struck by how little has really changed after a thousand years. What is also revealing was his clarity and aggressiveness in calling out the corrupt popes and clerics to their faces. Given what we've seen coming out Rome for the last while, I think he would have done the same.

If St. Peter Damian were alive today, he would have a blog.

Msgr. Alan McCormack Named New Judicial Vicar of the Canadian Appeal Tribunal

Tuesday, February 17 2004

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(CCCB-Ottawa) Msgr. Alan McCormack, P.H., of Toronto has been appointed Judicial Vicar of the Canadian Appeal Tribunal (CCCB). He succeeds Rev. Pierre Allard, S.M., who retired last October, and Interim Judicial Vicar Rev. Thomas Cassidy, O.M.I., who will continue in his function as Associate Judicial Vicar. The Tribunal is the judicial arm of the Canadian episcopacy dealing exclusively with marriage cases forwarded by “first instance” or diocesan tribunals.

Born in Toronto in 1946, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Toronto in 1978 and named chaplain to His Holiness in 1984 and then a Prelate of Honour in 2002. He has served in many capacities in the Archdiocese from 1975 to 1993, including judge of the Metropolitan Tribunal, episcopal vicar for canonical affairs and Vice-Chancellor.

He also served at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome from 1997 to 2003 and continues as a member of the CDF’s Matrimonial Commission.

Msgr. McCormack holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and has studied at the Catholic University of America, Saint Paul University in Ottawa and the University of Toronto.

The Canadian Appeal Tribunal was established by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1984, with the approval of the Apostolic See. It is a national tribunal – the only “second instance” tribunal in Canada. After thorough study and, if necessary, additional evidence, the Appeal Tribunal confirms or reverses the “first instance” decision. The work of the Tribunal is both judicial and pastoral.

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For More information Contact: Deacon William Kokesch
Director, Communications Service

Missal Launch on Advent I for the Anglican Ordinariate of the Catholic Church

Father Alan MacDonald at Southern Orders put his own honest views forward and reprints post from Father James Bradley, a priest of the Anglican Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, informative of the new Ordinariate Missal. It comes into effect tomorrow Advent I, 2015, in the the three Ordinariates, Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom, Southern Cross in Australia and Chair of St. Peter in the United States and the Canadian Deanery of St. John the Baptist. Another insight can be found at the National Catholic Register further highlighting the injustice suffered by Latin Rite Catholics who know nothing of our liturgical tradition so richly embraced by the Anglican Ordinariate parishes. When one sees the beauty and richness of this Missal one can only weep at what we in the Latin Rite have been forced to suffer.

The Missal is an incredible blending of the Roman Missal of 1570, elements of 1970 and the English Catholic cultural character of the ancient Sarum of pre-revolution England. It is superior in every single aspect to the Roman Missal of 1970 even with its corrected English translation. The English can never be as correct as found in this Missal. Photos of the Missal's contents can be found here and here. 

The traditional Preparatory prayers may be said in the sacristy as originally done or at the Foot of the Altar. The Gradual and Tract/Alleluia may always be used in place of the Responsorial Psalm and Acclamation and the traditional Offertory is the first option. Rogation and Ember Days return as do the Gesima Sundays and the Dies Irae and the full Proper antiphons. The Roman Canon (EPI) is for Sundays and EPII is the only other option and never on a Sunday or feast day. 

It is truly a heartbreak that, at least in Toronto, the parish and Ordinariate are so little known. If I were not able to attend the Extraordinary Form, I would depart the Novus Ordo as quick as I could and get to the Ordinariate Mass. It is my view, this Missal in the not too distant future when Rome returns to sanity, will be the model for the return to a mandated and formalised Reform of the Reform that will once and for all, abrogate the disaster of 1970 to the dustbin of history.

The Toronto Anglican Ordinariate Parish of St. Thomas More worships on Sundays at 4:00PM at Sacre-Coeur Church on Sherbourne Street. East of Toronto, in Oshawa, you can find Good Shepherd Parish and west in Kitchener, St. Edmund, King & Martyr.


 You can find out more at these links:

Ordinariate in Canada http://peregrinus-peregrinus.blogspot.ca/

St. Thomas More, Toronto http://www.stmtoronto.ca/

Good Shepherd, Oshawa
https://www.facebook.com/Oshawa-Ordinariate-Page-1608127486137066/

St. Edmund, Kitchener
http://stedmund.ca/

Cantalamessa Makes a Mess

I awoke this morning aghast at a promotion by Vatican English Radio of a most scandalous and heretical speech to Anglicans by Raniero Cantalmessa, the Preacher to the Papal Household. I was not able to write it up. Our good friend Barona was justifiably apoplectic after reading it and devoted a good amount of time to develop a solid post on this scandalous speech. 

Therefore, I highly recommend a visit to Toronto Catholic Witness for Barona's argument against this preacher of heresies who has the temerity to say that "we must never allow a moral issue like that of sexuality to divide us."

Raniero Cantalamessa; are you a sodomite or just a homosexualist?

If that is not bad enough, this heretic then has the temerity to state the "Christian world is preparing to celebrate the fifth centenary of the Protestant reformation." Is this man insane? Celebrate the loss of complete countries such as Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and most of Germany along with Switzerland and England to heresy and the loss of millions upon millions of souls? I ask again, is Cantalamessa insane? This is religious indifferentism which is heretical.

Yes, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of that heretical devil Luther's tearing of the fabric of Christ. It is also the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima. Perhaps the Bishop of Rome might point out to him which is Catholic.

To show more about the danger of this betrayer of Christ and His Church, below are my comments and his homily from Good Friday 2013 which I wrote that day; the first as Jorge Bergoglio in the Chair of Peter.

He revealed then similar thoughts as to his comments before the Anglicans referred to above.

The preacher of the papal household.

A disgraceful Capuchin if every there were one.


The following is from a blog post which I wrote on Good Friday 2013 in response to this heretic's outrageous homily in St. Peter's Basilica.

Cantalamessa's Mess 1

As outlined in the post below, on the holiest day of the Church year, when Christians commemorate the brutal torture and death of Christ our Saviour; our God who came to earth to sacrifice himself for our salvation and by whose blood we are redeemed; the Preacher to the Papal Household, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM, gave the Homily on Good Friday in St. Peter's Basilica in the presence of Holy Father Francis. Father Cantalamessa, whose name ironically means "to sing the Mass,” wore again his Franciscan habit without surplice or preaching stole. Rather than devote his homily to the blood atonement of Christ and our salvation he chose instead an esoteric essay of the existentialist Franz Kafka. It's Good Friday in St. Peter's Baslica; in the presence of the Pope and with the Catholic world watching and he chooses to quote a Jewish existential writer? Someone who shares the same philosophy of Nietzsche and his death of God philosophy! He uses this obscure essay to justify his agenda -- to tear down the Church. Yes, that is what he wants. While St. Francis undertook God's direction to "rebuild my Church" this Franciscan in the presence of a Pope who took the name of the Seraphic Father wants to tear it down!

  

"There is a short story by Franz Kafka that is a powerful religious symbol and takes on a new meaning, almost prophetic, when heard on Good Friday. It's titled "An Imperial Message". It speaks of a king who, on his deathbed, calls to his side a subject and whispers a message into his ear. So important is that message that he makes the subject repeat it, in turn, into his hear. Then, with a nod, he sends off the messenger, who sets out on his way. But let us hear directly from the author the continuation of this story, characterized by the dreamlike and almost nightmarish tone typical of this writer: "Now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end.  If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door.  But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate—but never, never can that happen—the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment.  Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man.  But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself”…We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris. In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery."As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church". "Who could ever be up to this task?" wondered aghast the Apostle before the superhuman task of being in the world "the fragrance of Christ"; and here is his reply, that still applies today: "We're not ourselves able to think something as if it came from us; our ability comes from God. He has made us to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; because the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Cor 2:16; 3:5-6). May the Holy Spirit, in this moment in which a new time is opening for the Church, full of hope, reawaken in men who are at the window the expectancy of the message, and in the messengers the will to make it reach them, even at the cost of their life."

Is Father Cantalamessa trying to influence the Pope or is he trying to tell us of decisions already made? 

What part of the building does he wish to “knock down” and return to what “simplicity?” Do we need more "antiquarianism" in the liturgy so condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei?

Did we not go through this already with a hermeneutic of rupture due to a false interpretation of the Second Vatican Council or have we already forgotten? 

When he says that we need to discard the “residue of past ceremonials” to what is he referring?

Did the Church not rid those of the Papal Court after Vatican II or is he referring to something else? 

Will the Church further debase Her liturgy after eight years of attempted restoration? Is the Preacher to the Papal Household calling for an end to Summorum Pontificum?

Do they think that we are going to stand-by while the Church of Christ enters another period of “auto-demolition?”

It will be so much fun!

From the National Schismatic Reporter:

It's still not clear if Francis has decided to replace him at the press office with another member of their order, 49-year-old Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro, or if he's opted to name Basilian Fr. Thomas Rosica, 56, to the post.

Spadaro is the editor of Civiltà Cattolica and is the man who conducted the blockbuster interview with Pope Francis that was published simultaneously in September 2013 by Jesuit publications around the world. The pope has given Spadaro freedom to help shape his message and clearly values his younger confrere's advice.

"Spadaro has the pope's ear," it is often said in Vatican circles.

On the other hand, Rosica has used his fluency in several languages, an impressive theological education (he has a doctorate in Scripture) and extensive experience in developing and running a top-flight communications network (Salt + Light in Toronto) to be a highly effective Church representative in the media. A native of Rochester, N.Y., with dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship, he is already an at-large English attaché for the Vatican press office. And the pope has known him for several years.

Oh, my. That will be so much fun.

Turkey setting stage for conflagration

Turkey has no business in NATO. It has no business as part of the European Community. It has aided and abetted ISIS and has blocked attempts to destroy it. ISIS fighters enter Syria and Iraq through Turkey and the oil comes out to it.

Today, the Turks shot down a Russian military jet which later crashed in Syria. They say it was over Turkey. It was a reckless, dangerous action.

May God rest the Christian soul of the Russian pilot.

Now, if NATO wishes to go to war with Russia over this then heaven help us. 

Never did I think that I would side with Russia on so many things in the last few years. We should be allied with Russia. Vladimir Putin issued a statement saying:

“Our pilots and our plane never threatened the Republic of Turkey in any way. This is an obvious fact,” Mr. Putin said ahead of a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. “Today’s loss is a stab in our back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists. I cannot find another wording for what happened today.”

The Globe and Mail reports that Syrian rebels, funded by the United States of America, chanted that their "god is greatest" which as Father Thomas J. Rosica has reminded us, is not a call to war.

Turkey has been the nurturer of ISIS in its own desire to restore its Ottoman Caliphate. The Turks have been the cause of much suffering throughout history. It continues.

At the end of the day, this is the fault of Francis, Benedict XVI, John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI, John XXIII and even Pius XII.

They have not done what they should have done and you all know what that is. Russia's evils have already been spread, it is not something yet to come. Its evils of communism have infiltrated the Church and the West socially and culturally. It is Masonic, it is Satanic. The Russia today, is not the Russia of the past. Russia is the last religious and cultural bulwark against radicalist Islam. The Consecration of Russia must be done, it must be done without delay. It is the Consecration that will pour forth the grace and heavenly intercession that will cause Russia to embrace completely its Christian heritage and unite it with the West with "both lungs" under the Church of Christ Catholic to evangelise Europe and the world and free us from the evil scourge facing us.

Our Lady of Fatima, intercede for us. Amen.

Christ is not how horror can be overcome - Vatican Radio

The modernist and heretical and masonic liars free under Jorge Bergoglio to run amok in the Church and to lie to the world have done it again. "It is through education that horrors can be overcome." No, you filthy liar, it is through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Monsignor Charles Pope writes about the "special resistance to Christ" that is worth a click to the link as he highlights some comments from a book he is reading by the late Joseph Sobran of National Review. It highlights the secular world's hatred of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The world hates Our Lord and is embarrassed to mention His Holy Name. When His Church does it, is there any doubt how many sodomites, communists, satanists, Freemasons and heretics have infiltrated Her?

O LORD Jesus Christ, tarry not and purify Thy Holy Church given for the salvation of man through You and Your sacrificial Blood.

Thank you Barona for helping to out these filthy Christ haters in His Church.

http://torontocatholicwitness.blogspot.ca/2015/11/descent-into-darkness-how-spirit-of.html

Pope Francis; The Classic Modernist

More killing in the name of the false god - whom do you believe?

Once again we awake to the news that more people are slaughtered in the name of the Islamic god and its false prophet, Mahomet. This time, the victims are in Mali. Reports indicate as in the mall Islamic hordes attack in Kenya, if one can recite a Koranic verse, one is set free.

Yet, we are told by Cardinal Parolin that the Year of Mercy is for Muslims too and from Tom Rosica that their vile chant that their god is greater is not a call to war. Whom do you believe; them, or Aquinas? 

How about a Catholic and Islamic Scholar Andrew Bieszad who reads and speaks Arabic; would his views make sense? Did you know that Mohammed admitted that Satan influenced him and his Satanic verses?

Is Aquinas too long ago? Then perhaps Parolin and Rosica might want to consult a contemporary and a Jesuit!

Although it can be persuasively argued that ISIS is an aberration of Islam and only followed by a minority, “it is Islamic,” said Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir, a scholar of Islam and pro-rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.  ISIS’ first aim, he stressed, is to re-create the caliphate of Baghdad — that is, make it into a single, theocratic, one-world government, as proposed by many devout Muslims.
“Muslims who say this has nothing to do with Islam are simply trying to liberate their consciences to say they disagree with them,” he told the Register. “That they disagree is fine, but to say ISIS are not representing Islam is wrong. They are not representing the whole Islam; no one represents the whole Islam. The same could be said for Christians. But what is for sure is that they do have a fundament in the Islamic tradition, sometimes clearly taking instructions from the Quran, such as when they kill a nonbeliever.”
What ISIS is doing can, therefore, be “found in the original Muslim tradition,” Father Samir added. Although elements of the Old Testament are “unacceptable” to Catholics today, if interpreted literally, for Muslims, “the Quran, or everything which Muhammad did, is divine.” And whereas Catholicism and other religions reinterpret texts for today and read them in context, that is not the case with Islam.

Read more:http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/how-islamic-are-islamic-terrorists/#ixzz3s4iY3iiJ

Ah, dhimmitude. Ignoring reports that the Muslim monsters in Paris disemboweled people whilst still alive at the theatre but you are told that chanting that their "god is greater" before they disembowel doesn't mean what it means.

Seriously?

Look, there are only two choices. You must either be Christian and specifically Catholic or you must become Muslim. Secularism cannot win this fight. It will eventually succumb because the Muslim will is greater. Only robust and evangelical Catholicism can repel this existential threat. 

Not every Muslim is a murdering terrorist; but nearly every murdering terrorist is a Muslim.

There are good Muslims, but it is not because of their false religion and its false prophet, it is in spite of them both.

The Pope is wrong. Parolin is wrong. Tom Rosica is wrong. They are not even reading the Documents of the Second Vatican Council when it comes to salvation. They prefer instead the finely nuanced language that Muslims believe in "one" god and that they "profess" it to be the God of Abraham. If it is the One True God of Abraham as best, it is a severely distorted view and at worst is is the devil himself.

Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door. -Ad  Gentes 7, Vatican Council II.

Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism (124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church.- Lumen Gentium 14, Vatican Council II

Imagine that. They can't even follow the Council that they have set up as their god. Why do they not do what the Second Vatican Council taught?

We are reaping this whirlwind because the Church has not followed the Fatima message. Rome will be attacked. St. Peter's will be sacked. The Pope will walk over dead bodies and will be killed. This Pope? We cannot be sure. This, the Church has already acknowledged in the parts released. What has not been released? Is it who the perpetrators actually are due to their ecumaniacal, religious indifferent and inter-faith heresy of Freemasonry?

What else can it be when we look back on the last 60 plus years?

Russia has a great role to play in all of this. The Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary must be done. It will be done, but it will be late. 

Russia is the only nation that has the potential because of its culture, strength, knowledge of history and reviving Christian faith to lead. The Consecration of Russia will "convert" Holy Mother Russia back to Catholic unity. Then grace will flow and it will be Russia that will then cleanse Europe and the West and beat back these Islamist hordes one final time. It is absurd to think of Russia as our, the West's enemy. We have a common faith, a common history, a common culture and a common enemy. Nobody wants to see war with Islamists, but we cannot sit by any longer and become victims of this existential threat.

May we live to see the dawning of the thousand years and the era of peace under the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

If Christmas is such a charade why don't you send the tree back to Bavaria?

The home of Vox and Fox will put lights on and candles in the windows. It will have a Nativity and a Christmas Tree. We will have parties. We will sing songs. We will sacrifice in Advent to eat our fill in Christmastide. We will rejoice with friends in the coming of the Word Made Flesh as a babe and long for His Second Coming. We will remember, whilst we do this, all of those who are suffering from persecution and religious indifferentism. We will not bury our light under a bushel. We will weep for the suffering but we will rejoice for the Coming of the Lord and the New Jerusalem.

We will not cower and mourn, but we will raise our heads to the Light.

Maybe the malls and the secular world's rejoicing in the coming of the almighty dollar, pound, euro and shekel, but real Catholics will rejoice in the Truth. For us, it is not a "charade."

Dear Bishop of Rome; if you really believe what you say then send the tree back to Bavaria, do not erect the Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square and cancel the whole thing.

But I have a better idea.

Why don't YOU, tell the whole world every day in your little homilies and from the window of the Apostolic Palace this:

• There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.
• Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of Mary is the only Way, Truth and Life and that nobody sees God the Father but through Him.
• That Protestantism, Freemasonry, the Exaltation of Man and globalism are anti-Christian heresies that have brought the world to the state in which it is in.
• That while we respect all peoples. those who follow Mahomet, Buddha, Zoroaster, Gurak Nana and the pantheon of Hindu deities are following the Evil One and must come to the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
• Then you could ask all the Bishops of the world to join you in Consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

After you've done all of this, then you will have ended the real "charade".

"God bless us, everyone."

Pope claims Christmas is a 'charade' due to continued war across the world

The Pope said that the lights, parties, Christmas trees and nativity scenes of the season are a charade with so much "war and hate"

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Christmas festivities will seem empty in a world which has chosen "war and hate", Pope Francis said Thursday Photo: Rex

By Agencies

7:16PM GMT 19 Nov 2015

Christmas festivities will seem empty in a world which has chosen "war and hate", Pope Francis said Thursday.

"Christmas is approaching: there will be lights, parties, Christmas trees and nativity scenes ... it's all a charade. The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path," he said in a sermon.

"There are wars today everywhere, and hate," he said after the worst terror attack in French history, the bombing of a Russian airliner, a double suicide bombing in Lebanon, and a series of other deadly strikes.

"We should ask for the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognise the path to peace. To weep for those who live for war and have the cynicism to deny it," the Argentine pontiff said, adding: "God weeps, Jesus weeps".

He continued: "Those who make war are damned, they're delinquents. War can be 'justified' for many reasons. But when the whole world is at war, as it is today ... there is no justification."

The sermon threw a shadow over the start of the festive season at the Vatican, where a giant Christmas tree was unveiled.

A crane lifts a Christmas tree in St Peter's square at the Vatican  Photo: AFP

The 25-metre (82-foot) high pine hails from former pope Benedict XVI's homeland, the German state of Bavaria.

The tree, which will be decorated in time for the start of the Vatican's Holy Year on December 8, will be festooned with ornaments made by children from cancer wards in hospitals across Italy.

This year's nativity scene will be made up of 24 life-size figures, sculpted from wood and hand-painted.

In a nod to Pope Francis's humble style, alongside the figures from the story of Jesus's birth will be sculptures of ordinary people, including a man supporting an elderly person in need.