Roman Bishop Bergoglio is a blasphemer - God is "unjust, he sent his Son to a cross!"

In what has provoked in my gut the urge to vomit not unlike that which I felt that evening in March 2013 when Jorge Bergoglio emerged on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the Bishop of Rome has blasphemed God the Father; accusing Him of being "unjust" for sending "His Son to a Cross!"

In rambling statements filled with incoherent blather upon a visit with patients and staff to the Paul VI Audience Hall from Rome's Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Bergoglio not only blasphemed the Most Holy Trinity, but insulted doctors insinuating "corruption" stating in front of children dying of cancer that, "corruption is the worst form" of that terrible disease, thus not only insulting the doctors but ridiculing the children's own suffering.

La Stampa's Vatican Insider has the full report:

"The Pope responded to three more questions in his speech. Answering a question put to him by Valentina Vanzi, a nurse in multi-speciality paediatrics, who asked why children suffer, he said: “I have no answer to this question. Nor has Jesus given an answer to these words. There is no answer to this question, all we can do is look at the crucifix and let it give us the answer”. The Pope added: “is God unjust? He was unjust with his son, he sent him to the cross, if we follow this logic then we have to say this. But it is our human existence, our flesh, that suffers in that child and when one suffers, people do not speak, they weep and pray in silence.” Francis then focused on the precious role nurses play, telling a personal joke: “ When I was 21 I had very serious pneumonia and we didn’t know what it was, we thought it was the flu, then I had very high fever so I was taken to hospital and they drew a lot of fluid from my lung. The doctor prescribed one million units of penicillin and 500 thousand units of streptomycin and then left. But the nun who was a nurse, told the other nurse: make it three million and one million, because she had a good nose for what the situation was. You have a good nose for illness, I’m not criticising doctor’s, they are great eh? But because of their closeness to the patient, nurses have a special ability to accompany and heal, because of their closeness.”

How does one even start?

Could he, with his decades as a priest, not answer a simple question on why people suffer? 

Is he that stupid? Is he that uneducated?

Perhaps, by looking at Holy Scripture, we can best rebuke this disgusting blasphemer on the matter of his commentary on God the Father.

St. Paul in Philippians chapter 2: 5-11 makes tells us:

⁵ For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: ⁷ But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.
⁸ He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.
⁹ For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names:
¹⁰ That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth:
¹¹ And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.  

Our Lord Jesus Christ "humbled himself!" He "took on the form of a servant." 

He. Took. It. On!

St. Paul tells us that, "every knee should bow!" He did not say, "every knee but Jorge Bergoglio's!" This man grovels on the floor to wash the feet of men and women and non-Christians in a liturgy reserved for washing the feet of his priests. He grovels for man, but he refuses to genuflect to the the Most Blessed Sacrament at the Mass!

Bergoglio is a scandal to the Faith! He defies St. Paul and the Holy Spirit while speaking of a "god of surprises," and whilst his minions tell us that every word emanating from his mouth and every expulsion of intestinal vapour smells of Frank-incense and is from the "spirit."

Holy John the Apostle and Evangelist tells us exactly what Our Blessed Lord said in his Gospel, 10: 11-13:

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³ The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

Our Lord is clear, "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." The remainder about the "hirelings" are these disgusting Romans, these popes and prelates and the\ sycophantic effeminates that surround him. These filthy hirelings who desire sacrilege with the Blessed Sacrament to adulterers and soon, protestant heretics. This is what we face with these malefactors in Rome and our dioceses.

Let us turn now again to Saint John as he continues with Our Lord's words in verses 14-18.

¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”  

Bergoglio has directly contradicted Our Lord. 

Jesus gave up His life. He, "laid it down" and then He "took it up again." The Father loved Him because of this! The Father did not sacrifice Him, Jesus sacrificed Himself, willingly, humbly. He was slaughtered as a lamb, the true Lamb of Sacrifice. 

To call God the Father, "unjust," - He who is Justice, is blasphemy. It is a lie. It is an abomination. He is not infallible. he is spinning a web of confusion and error.

This is not the first time Bergoglio has used his opinions and fantasies to contradict Holy Scripture and Tradition. 

On December 20, 2013, he spoke to Vatican Radio, where they report:

The Mother of Jesus was the perfect icon of silence. From the proclamation of her exceptional maternity at Calvary. The Pope said he thinks about “how many times she remained quiet and how many times she did not say that which she felt in order to guard the mystery of her relationship with her Son,” up until the most raw silence “at the foot of the cross”.

 “The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not… She was silent, but in her heart, how many things [she] told the Lord! ‘You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I see him there!’ Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: ‘Lies! I was deceived!’ John Paul II would say this, speaking about Our Lady in that moment. But she, with her silence, hid the mystery that she did not understand and with this silence allowed for this mystery to grow and blossom in hope.” 

Who will confront this malefactor on the Chair of Peter over this blasphemy?

Where are the Cardinals and Bishops and Priests who will denounce this man?

Heresiarch Kasper calls on Bergoglio to permit Inter-Communion with Protestants!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, comes this report from Avvenire,  an interview with Walter Kasper published four days ago and now made available to us courtesy of LifeSiteNews. 

Walter Kasper, the same who convinced the Bishop of Rome, to issue the heretical Amoris Laetitia provision for Holy Communion for those in adultery, is now moving more aggressively in his push to destroy the Faith. Lest anyone doubt this possibility, it was fellow German heresiarch Lehmann that urged for these modernists to push for more, "while Francis is still Pope," no doubt sensing the pushback coming upon these malefactors and Bergoglio's imminent octogenarian status.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-kasper-continues-to-push-for-intercommunion

Given Kasper's influence, make no mistake that Bergoglio may very well undertake this sacrilege fitting well with that in Amoris Laetitia. This is nothing new for those surrounding Bergoglio. Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB, whilst still a Deacon and active in Canadian ecumenical outreach advocated this very position. 

Bishops and Cardinals must not allow Heresiarch Kasper to push this evil agenda forward as he did previously. How can Bergoglio be trusted to uphold the faith in this regard given the influence that the evil Kasper has already had over him?

There was a time when a public excommunication for Kasper would have been routine.

Let them be anathema!

Sexual indoctrination: an attack on parental rights, family and children’s souls. It's not our old "birds and bees."

The following is a guest post by Mr. Lou Iacobelli of the Everyday For Life Canada blog. In what is not your "birds and bees" education program, Lou highlights the indoctrination that has beset our children and families. I am honoured to know Lou and pleased that he has taken the time to write this important article to be posted here.

Sexual indoctrination: an attack on parental rights, family and children’s souls
by Lou Iacobelli

Sexual indoctrination is an attack on parental rights, family. marriage and children’s souls. Let's connect the dots to see how we have arrived at this moral abyss, a ravine which is putting children and families at risk both physically and spiritually. The moral devastation of the sexual revolution of the 1960s has transformed itself into today's radical sex "education" programs. Let's examine some of the evidence.

The Vatican

At the last World Youth Day held in Poland, 2016, the Vatican released a radical sex education program. To the shock of many, the goal of the program contradicts past Church teaching on marriage, family and life. The program is called “The meeting Point: Course for Affective Sexual Education for Young people.” It's an explicit sexual program that is the direct fallout from Pope Francis' Amoris Laetitia. The program is illustrated with a number of what can only be called pornographic photos.

What's wrong with it? There are so many things. To begin, it teaches about gender identity...a concept which is totally anti-Catholic because it rejects the biological and divine idea that human beings are made in the image of God, and created male and female. Instead, the Vatican program pushes the notion that parents are to make sure that their children are instructed in sexual education. But the program undermines parental rights by telling parents to let institutions do the sexual teaching not that parents are the prime educators of their children. There is no mention of sexual sins or the breaking of the 6th and 9th commandments. Basically, the Vatican has surrendered to the modern comprehensive sex education buzzword which is being pushed by all Western countries.

Ontario, Canada

In Ontario, Canada the radical sex curriculum began in earnest in 2009 with a school policy called, “Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy.” This was followed in 2015 by the provincial Liberal government release of the Physical Heath and Education program that contains a very radical sex curriculum. The controversial contents are now protected by law with Bill 13, the Accepting Schools Act.” In short, the policy, the sex curriculum and the law establish gay/straight student clubs in both Catholic and public schools. Ontario schools must teach and recognize gender, sexual orientation, gender expression and identity. Children in elementary grades learn about genitalia, masturbation, sexual consent, anal sex, oral sex, condom use, sexual pleasure and how to make a sexual plan. Many Ontario parents have protested the sex curriculum because it violates parental rights and religious freedom. In fact, 186,000 parents signed petitions against the curriculum which were presented in the legislature. But the government has refused to listen and will not even allow parents to withdraw their children from any section of the curriculum even if contradicts family values and beliefs.

Ontario Bishops

In 2016, the Ontario Catholic Secondary Curriculum Policy Document: for Grades 9-12, Religious Education prepared by the Institute for Catholic Education and approved by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario was released. The policy document states that Catholic religious courses will include the topics of gender, sexual orientation, homophobia, gender identity and expression. It's on pages 51-52 of the document, under the headings: "Healthy Relationships and Religious Education" and "Equity and Inclusive Religious Education." The bottom line is this: the Ontario bishops have surrendered and have now given the green light to the 2015 Government sex curriculum which undermines parental rights, puts children's bodies, minds and souls at risk. It is a sex education program that totally contradicts Catholic teaching on the person, family, marriage and sexuality. The bishops must have been reading from the liberal pages of the Vatican's sex curriculum.

Ontario Courts Overruling Parental Rights

In November 2016, after a four year costly legal battle, an Ontario judge ruled against a father who had gone to court to defend his parental rights and religious freedom. Dr. Steve Tourloukis took the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to court in 2012. He simply wanted the school to inform him of class lessons dealing with the sex curriclum that contradicted his Greek-Orthodox faith so that he could keep his children at home. The judge's verdict is no.

In his argument, the judge makes a statement that should concern all parents in the province. He agreed that parental rights must be respected. However, there is a limit. Judge Reid writes, "I do not take the position of the applicant that his authority over his children and their education supersedes the law. Rather, the applicant seeks a declaratory order to support his claim that he can assert his Charter and Code rights without the Board responding by asserting a superior level of authority when it comes to the education of his children." The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Ontario Human Rights Code are supposed to protect religious freedom. However, the judge decided that "a superior level of authority" trumps parental rights and religious liberty. Readers can get more information about this terrible decision by going to the Parental Rights in Education Defence Fund.

The United Nations

The same radical comprehensive sex education is being pushed by the United Nations around the world. The UN website nicely describes it as "helping young people to explore and nurture positive values regarding their sexual and reproductive health. This education includes discussions about family life, relationships, culture and gender roles, and also addresses human rights, gender equality, and threats such as discrimination and sexual abuse." For many years, the United Nations has been advocating for universal sexual education. They have tried to go even further by suggesting that sexual rights is a universal human right, like the right to food, clean air and water! Note how sex education includes "gender roles" which means that children should be taught about sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. There is never a mention about the important role of parents. What's happening is that children are being taught the secular vocabulary of sex and this will change their thinking and then of course, their behaviour. 

Conclusion

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 26, (3) states: "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children." The Church too has always defended the rights of parents to direct their children's education. Past governments have respected this. Sadly, today, the state, the schools, the courts and even the Church can no longer be trusted to defend children and parents against an anti-moral attack that is relentlessly coming at them from many sides, disguised as sex "education," "equity and tolerance" and "sexual rights." These radical sex programs have nothing to do with education. They are sexual indoctrination that attack children, morally, spiritually, psychologically and spiritually. They necessarily attack parental rights, family and marriage. We are in a spiritual cultural war and children are being abused on so many fronts. Parents need to get informed and do all that they can to protect the souls of their children.

Lou Iacobelli is a "retired" Catholic educator who really has never stopped teaching. He is the Chair of the Parental Rights in Education Defense Fund and has been assisting Mr. Steve Tourloukis in his fight for parental and child rights in public education. Lou is the publisher of the blog, Everyday For Life Canada featured on the blog roll to the left, a blog that should be on your daily must-read which can be linked at: http://everydayforlifecanada.blogspot.ca/

What's a leppo?

Ah, that infamous statement by a pot-smoking imbecile during the American election.

Aleppo, one of the most glorious cities of the Middle East has been laid waste by terrorists funded by the United States, Britain, the House of Saud, and others. The corporate media has lied to you. The regime of Barack Obama and his Republican sycophants such as John McCain, have manipulated the world's opinion. Harper, Trudeau are no better than these other malefactors. 

http://www.boredpanda.com/before-after-war-photos-aleppo-syria/

I have written before about my views on Syria and Bashar Al-Assad. Syrians are not the problem. Syria is a secular, not sectarian State. Syrians are Syrians, they have always seen themselves as this whether Christian, Alawite or Sunni.

There is a war on for your mind. It is of the antichrist and the globalists. Syria has been destroyed by us, in the West. Like it not, Vladimir Putin is to be commended for coming to the aid of the Syrian people - Christians and Muslims alike.

You need to watch this.

Eva Bartlett is arguably the most honest journalist in the world.

May God protect her.

https://www.facebook.com/EvaBoBeeva

Phyllis Zagano wants $50.00 - and U.S. too!

A delightful email arrived in my inbox last night. It seems that I published too many words.

The link is now there instead of the whole article.

$50.00?

That's all your work is worth?

I would like to encourage people to make a donation in the name of Phyllis Zagano to the Society of St. Pius X's new seminary project. Remember, a donation of $5,000 will have Phyllis' name engraved on a plaque in a seminarian's room.

https://www.newseminaryproject.org/donate/

From: Phyllis Zagano [mailto:Phyllis.Zagano@Hofstra.edu]
Sent: December 12, 2016 8:26 PM
To: voxcantoris@rogers.com
Subject: invoice

Sirs,

I note you have published one of my columns (http://voxcantor.blogspot.com/2016/07/phyllis-zagano-and-national-schismatic.html.) Please remit your payment of U.S. $50 immediately, to the below.

Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate-in-Residence
Department of Religion-Heger 104B
115 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549
516-463-5615 (office)
516-463-2201 (fax)

http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/Phyllis_Zagano/

http://www.fios1news.com/longisland/hofstra-professor-chosen-by-pope-francis-for-commission-aug-3-2016#.V6dUG7grKCh

All you Vatican and Papal Coprophagians!

Take this:

And read this!

"Madmen and sycophants in the Vatican": A FOOTNOTE
I wrote yesterday in criticism of the hypersuperueberpapalist nutters who, in their respective generations, have seemed to wish to assimilate the Roman Pontiff to one of the Persons of the Glorious and Undivided Trinity. Today, I wish very briefly to point out that this tendency, as well as being arguably blasphemous and idolatrous or at least heretical, is contrary to the Tradition of the Universal Church, and to that of the great and glorious Roman Church herself.

 ...

Believe me, we do not need some new and horrible dogma that the voice of Bergoglio is the voice of the Holy Spirit. For two millennia, Roman Pontiffs, in harmony with Churches of the East and of the West, have been content with the notion that Ss Peter and Paul are sub Christo the basis of their authority. And the First Vatican Council put this beyond denial when it infallibly defined that the Holy Spirit does not inspire the Pope to teach new doctrine; the claim made by the church's authentic Magisterium is that He helps the Successors of S Peter to guard the Apostolic Tradition, the Depositum Fidei.

http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.ca/2016/12/madmen-and-sycophants-in-vatican_13.html

To our readers in Spain - Is this true? Did the Archbishop of Compostela ordain two active sodomites - a "couple" to the priesthood?

http://infovaticana.com/2016/12/12/arzobispo-espanol-ordeno-presbiteros-dos-homosexuales-sabiendo-pareja/

Computer translation:

That morning in Santiago de Compostela would not remain indifferent to the clergy and the faithful of the Galician capital. The rain could be glimpsed behind the windows of the episcopal palace would not be able to clean the grave offense that deliberately Bishop would practice against their own Church.

At late afternoon, in one of the most spectacular and most visited cathedrals in the world, six men were to be ordained priests for eternity by Archbishop Julian Barrio.

The rule is not new, and Archbishop Barrio not know, but chose to ignore the doctrine so often exposed and as often collected by the tradition of the Church, and ordained priests, priests of the Catholic Church, two people they had expressed publicly as gay, and also had been presented to the membership as a couple.

Not only knew Don Julian, but one of his assistants had been a few days before having dinner at home ordination of the artist couple. The management of these two priests, whose identity we will not make public for obvious reasons, caused a huge upset between compostelano clergy, who can not understand how their archbishop "imposes heavy burdens on others," he dodges.

The Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Julián Barrio, on a tightrope.

The issue, well known by the curia, has already reached the ears of the Congregation for the Clergy Vatican, which is studying the matter, and could lead to Barrio his early resignation of Compostela Archdiocese, as it happens, by a similar, his partner in the episcopate Manuel Urena section of the archbishopric of Zaragoza after a scandal with a deacon matter.

It is not the first scandal in which Archbishop Barrio is involved. InfoVaticana two years ago revealed the existence of several books in which the electrician author of Codex Calixtinus stolen recounted sexual encounters with members of the Cabildo seminarians and pilgrims.

Doctrine of several popes

This episode, which has been ignored by church authorities Galician, is particularly serious in the light of recently published by Francisco document, recalling that "homosexual persons can not be admitted to holy orders"

In particular has been the Congregation for the Clergy, expressly aprobacioón Francisco, which has published the document  The Gift of the priestly vocation - Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, on the formation of priests (L ea-here-el-Don- de-la-vocation-priestly ).

"It would be gravely imprudent to admit the sacrament of Holy Orders to a seminarian who had not matured a serene and free, faithful affection in celibate chastity, through the exercise of human and priestly virtues, understood as openness to the action of grace and not only as an effort of the will, "he stated in the document.

Jorge Bergoglio's women priests

“About rigidity and worldliness, it was some time ago that an elderly monsignor of the curia came to me, who works, a normal man, a good man, in love with Jesus – and he told me that he had gone to buy a couple of shirts at Euroclero [the clerical clothing store] and saw a young fellow – he thinks he had not more than 25 years, or a young priest or about to become a priest – before the mirror, with a cape, large, wide, velvet, with a silver chain. He then took the Saturno [wide-brimmed clerical headgear], he put it on and looked himself over. A rigid and worldly one. And that priest – he is wise, that monsignor, very wise – was able to overcome the pain, with a line of healthy humor and added: ‘And it is said that the Church does not allow women priests!’. Thus, does the work that the priest does when he becomes a functionary ends in the ridiculous, always.” Bergoglio of Rome

Such charity.

Such mercy.

Such humility.

Such gossip.

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/12/09/pope_francis_rigidity,_worldliness_a_disaster_for_priests/1277926

Pope Pius XII

Pope Benedict XVI

St. John XXIII

St. John Paul II

St. Pius X, Pope

Archbishop Mark Coleridge - The profane heresiarch of Brisbane leaves one to ask, "where are the Catholics there?"

UPDATED:

From a reader in the combox at The Stumbling Block.

"The church is St. Patrick's Fortitude Valley. It is not a closed church. It is listed on the archdiocesan web page and has a Mass schedule."

https://brisbanecatholic.org.au/parishes-mass-times/mass-centre/st-patricks-church-fortitude-valley/

@BneArchdiocese

taylora@bne.catholic.net.au

https://twitter.com/ArchbishopMark

Mark Coleridge is the Archbishop of Brisbane. We've written about this heresiarch before; here, and here. Both, were during the Synod in October 2015. I was going to write another on his comments that the four Cardinals' are unnerved and that their actions issuing a dubia, are "false charity." You can read all about that at EWTNUK by Deacon Nick Donnelly who is really doing incredible work there.

As I was stating, "I was going" to write on that until I came across this,courtesy of Frank Walker at The Stumbling Block and Canon 212, which you can view below.

Good grief, what is wrong with Coleridge?

Does he have any faith? Is he a satanist? A Freemason? A homosexual? He is certainly not a Catholic anymore. He cannot be, it is not possible. Not with the statements he has made and not with this sacrilege. Regardless of whether the Blessed Sacrament is present on not, this is a church owned by the Archdiocese handed over to profane use for money. The altar, crucifix and holy images remain.

Better that the church should have seen the wrecking ball, than this.

No, better that the Coleridge wear sackcloth and ashes crying from the porch crying "Parce Domine, parce populo tuo." But why should the LORD spare His people? Why? If the Catholics of Brisbane, and in particular the Catholic men of Brisbane are two emasculated, two cowardly, too feminised, too drunk on their comfortable lives to stand up to Heresiarch Coleridge, why should I care on the other side of the world?

Because friends, I am a Catholic and so are you. And this Coleridge and what you now see, are straight out of Hell.

Here is one.

Visit The Stumbling Block by clicking on this link to see the rest of this porn, but be prepared to be offended by Coleridge's permission.

Austen Ivereigh at Knights of Columbus funded CRUX - the latest Bergoglian minion!

There can be no truck nor trade with these journalistic poseurs who purport to be Catholic. They must be called out and that includes Austen Ivereigh at Crux. 

As Father Z points out, he is a "contributing editor" at Crux and states it so above this screed. One would presume then that this is an editorial position. This malefactor paid for out of my Knights of Columbus dues has now targeted faithful Catholics as the dissenters.

Ivereigh takes the same stance as Pope Bergoglio did the other day. That is, that the majority of bishops at the Synods voted to provide Holy Communion to those in adultery.

This is a not true whether it is stated by Ivereigh by the Bishop of Rome himself.

Ivereigh, and Bergoglio himself are following the Gospel according to Saul Alinsky: 

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. 

He also blasphemes that the Holy Spirit can somehow change his mind and lie to us after two thousand years.

Since I hold the same faith and same beliefs and practices of the parents who passed it on to me, one must ask, "Who is the dissenter?"

A little more on Austen? A regular reader has written to me with this public information:

Archbishop Sheen was famous for asking those who professed their objections to organized religion, “And what is your sin?”

But he would not have needed to ask Austen Ivereigh - because Ivereigh admitted in a British Court that “he had made one girlfriend pregnant” – but he denied  having pressured her to have an abortion”.

Later he further admitted, “while working as head of public affairs for Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, he  admitted making another girlfriend pregnant with twins. This woman was contemplating abortion and, after their relationship floundered, she suffered a miscarriage, the court was told.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-515997/Im-abortion-hypocrite-insists-Catholic-adviser-accused-girlfriends.html#ixzz4Sf3yBJjA

See too:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austen_Ivereigh

In fairness to Mr. Ivereigh -  from a reader:

The allegations were the subject of legal proceedings initiated by Ivereigh in the High Court of Justice against Associated Newspapers Ltd. (ANL). A trial in February 2008 was inconclusive, but at the retrial in January 2009 [1] the jury unanimously found that Ivereigh had been libeled. He was awarded £30,000 in damages [2] and all costs [3], estimated at £3m.

And now, our boy Austen has blocked me on Twitter.

Oh, how will I ever cope.

As anti-Amoris critics cross into dissent, the Church must move on 

By rejecting the process of the synod and its fruits, the critics of Amoris Laetitia, led by four protesting cardinals, have crossed a line, and look increasingly like the dissenting lobbies under John Paul II who accused him of betraying Vatican II.

Meanwhile, the Church is moving on. The anti-Francis revolt spearheaded and legitimated by four mostly retired cardinals has acquired a newly vicious tone. A line has been crossed.

I don’t just mean the line of good manners and respect. That was crossed some time ago, when the four cardinals made public their letter challenging Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and threatened him with a kind of public censure. Since then the tone of disrespect and contempt of some writers who back them has plumbed shocking new lows.

But far more important than tone, the critiques have crossed a frontier into a territory marked “dissent”.

Dissent, to be clear, is not the same as disagreement. Catholics often disagree with this or that decision or statement of a pope, object to his theology, or don’t share his priorities. And Pope Francis is not only relaxed about disagreement, but positively encourages it.Dissent is different. Dissent is to disagreement what disbelief is to doubt.

Dissent is, essentially, to question the legitimacy of a pope’s rule. It is to cast into doubt that the development of the Church under this Successor of St. Peter is a fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit.

Dissent is nothing new. At the time of the Second Vatican Council, the dissenting party set its face against its pastoral direction, as well as key developments in liturgy, religious freedom and ecumenism.

Under John Paul II, on the other hand, the dissenters were convinced he had betrayed the Council. They argued for women priests, an end to mandatory celibacy and an opening in areas such as contraception.

Now, under Francis, the dissenting party opposes the synod and its major fruit, Amoris Laetitia.Because dissenters almost always end up looking and sounding like each other, the four cardinals and their supporters look every day more like those lobbies under the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI calling for liberal reforms.

Catholics know that going against the pope is a serious matter, and so when they dissent they adopt a regretful, pained tone that stresses conscience and the impossibility of betraying whatever they have absolutized - their idea of unchanging tradition, say, or their version of the Second Vatican Council.

What they have in common is that they are almost always lay, educated and from the wealthy world or the wealthy parts of the developing world. They are mostly intellectuals and lawyers and teachers and writers who put great store in their reason.

What to them seems entirely self-evident - arguments, logically developed from absolute first principles, backed by a few emeritus bishops, building to a case that cries out to be answered - almost always meets with silence from Rome. At this point there is a reaction of anger and stupefaction which over time coagulates into suppurating resentment.Some will break off, claiming the one true Church lies elsewhere or nowhere, but most resentfully stay, “clinging onto my faith by my fingertips” as they like to say, or “still a Catholic - despite the pope’s best efforts to drive me out.”

Clinging to the pain of their betrayal, they take refuge in their progressive or traditionalist liturgies and incandescent websites, firing off letters and petitions from lobbies and associations, vainly demanding, as “faithful Catholics” that the pope do this, that, or the other.

But even as they insist that there is a debate to be had, a case to answer, a matter to be settled, the train is leaving the station, and they are left on the platform, waving their arms.

The Second Vatican Council set the Church on a path of pastoral conversion. John Paul II united the Church around an understanding of the Council based on a hermeneutic of continuity. In both cases, there was strong resistance, but most Catholics recognized the development as legitimate, as Peter acting for the good of the Church, as a doctrinally faithful response to the signs of the times.

The same is true now. Most Catholics understand the synod, and Amoris Laetitia, as an inspired response to our times, a means both of rebuilding marriage and of helping to bandage those wounded by the failure of marriage.

This is why Francis can no more respond to the cardinals’ dubia than Benedict XVI could answer a petition to ordain women as deacons: because the Catholic Church has its own mechanisms of development, based on consultation and spiritual discernment.

Put another way, whether it is a conclave or a synod, the Catholic Church likes to lobby-proof its deliberations, precisely to allow the Holy Spirit space to breathe.

Francis cannot answer the cardinals directly  - although he has done indirectly countless times - without undermining that action of the Holy Spirit present in the most thorough process of ecclesial discernment since Vatican II. As he last week told the Belgian Christian weekly Tertio, everything in Amoris Laetitia - including the controversial Chapter 8 - received a two-thirds majority in a synod that was notoriously frank, open and drawn out.Roma locuta, causa finita, as Catholics used to say. And the case is even more closed this time, because it is the universal Church which has spoken, not just the pope.

To respond to the cardinals would be tantamount to rewinding the clock, to refuting the very process of the synod, in order to rehearse arguments that the synod settled, if not resolved.

Let’s remember what happened. At the start of the two-year synod process, there were two groups wanting to resolve the question of access to the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried one way or the other.

One group wanted to open up an Orthodox-type pathway back to the sacraments, the other wished to restate and reaffirm the teaching and discipline of Familiaris Consortio (John Paul II’s 1980 exhortation, which on that topic calls for discernment of different situations, but precludes any return to the sacraments unless the couple promises to live together as brother and sister.)

Faced with that yes/no question, of precisely the sort that the cardinals have put to Francis, the synod rejected a yes/no answer.  The synod affirmed the general principles of FC but developed John Paul’s teaching on the discernment of situations while refusing to impose the same blanket ban on readmission in all cases.

The synod decided, by a two-thirds majority, that they wanted both to preserve the doctrine of indissolubility in the current discipline of the Eucharist while at the same time creating sufficient pastoral latitude in the application of the Church’s law to allow pastors to respond to situations where there was a subjective lack of culpability.

Which situations?

AL doesn’t specify, which has allowed the four cardinals and their supporters to claim the document is ambiguous and confusing. But how could it spell it out, without becoming a manual of casuistry?

The whole point is that there is no new law, no new doctrine, no new norms, because the synod determined that there should not be. “There is no general norm that can cover all the particular cases,” as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn says, adding: “The general norm is very clear; and it is equally clear that it cannot cover all the cases exhaustively.”

And that’s the heart of the matter. The synod kept the law - how could it not? It’s the law of Jesus - but defended a latitude in its application, recognizing, as did Jesus, that the law is necessary but insufficient, and has to be applied in such a way that respects the particularity of each person’s story.

Amoris Laetitia took the synod’s settlement - forged, by all accounts, in the white heat of the German group - and asks the Church to create mechanisms of accompaniment that will allow for this discernment.

It says: Let’s hear this particular couple’s history and see where sin has created blockages and wounds, and where God’s grace is needed.And on the way, what will happen? It might mean ending a relationship and returning to a valid marriage; it might lead to an annulment; in some cases it might lead to re-integration into a parish, but not the sacraments; in some cases it might require living as brother and sister, and a return to the sacraments.

And in some, rare cases it might lead, yes, to being admitted to Communion where the lack of subjective culpability is beyond doubt, where, for example, an annulment is impossible, where the marriage is irrecoverable, where there are children by a new union, where a conversion has taken place in a person that creates a new state, and where the notion of ‘adultery’ simply fails to capture a reality. (Father Thomas Reese has suggested the kinds of distinctions Pope John Paul II had in mind in Familiaris Consortio.)

One bishop in South America whom I recently interviewed, when I asked about Chapter Eight of Amoris in an interview, kindly but firmly cut me short. “I can’t talk about that,” he said. “Every case is different.”

There speaks a pastor. There speaks the synod. There speaks the pope.

The one message I’ve had from other bishops and cardinals I have spoken to this year in preparation for a new book is that what AL calls for can only be grasped by a pastor.

Only one who understands the complexities of the workings of sin and grace in a person’s life grasps the paradox: that to insist on the universal, equal application of the law in all circumstances is to contradict God’s supreme law of mercy, which puts the individual before - not above, but before - the law.

The four cardinals, with their heavily loaded binary questions carefully crafted to exclude precisely that paradox, reject the synod’s settlement of this question, and in so doing they reject the validity of the Holy Spirit’s action.

They are trying to return to the logic of the liberal media and the hysterical pro-family groups who descended on the first synod to defend Christian teaching on marriage. Yet the synod rejected that logic in favor of an ancient tradition of pastoral theology.

To the four cardinals, three of whom wrote a book prior to the first synod insisting that nothing could change, this of course looks like capitulation. (Cardinal Burke, it is worth remembering, was removed as head of the Vatican’s highest court because he rejected any reform to the annulment process - a reform sanctioned by the synod - on the grounds that it would undermine marriage).

And they will continue to see it that way.

So, too, will the lay elite intellectuals and journalists who continue to scream that the entire edifice of Catholic teaching on indissolubility will unravel as a result, and construct elaborate arguments that AL cannot possibly say what it says.

It is not easy for young converts fleeing the Anglican doctrinal muddle in search of rock-like objectivity, and who saw the synod through that prism. Nor is it easy for the culture warriors, who are all too happy to look away from the pain of people’s shattered marriages to focus on the defense of the institution of marriage faced with divorce and the hook-up culture.

And it is not easily grasped by those Pope Francis calls the “doctors of the law” in whom fear of being swamped or contaminated by a world of relativism and sin is so great that it becomes the single driving focus of their attention.

They suspect that Amoris undermines the affirmation of objective truth in Veritatis Splendor (which it doesn’t, but it certainly shifts the focus away from the defense of truth to the defense of the way Grace works in a soul.)

Many are good people, clever people, faithful Catholics, who want to defend the Church and promote the Good and the True. Some I consider friends. And as their friend, I have to tell them that in their anxiety and fear they have been tempted down the road of dissent, rejecting a Spirit-filled process of ecclesial discernment. (They argue, naturally, that the synod was ‘manipulated’ or ‘steamrolled’, and therefore merely political. But these are not arguments, but stories dissenters need to tell each other.)

More importantly, as their friend, I have to warn them: the train has left the station, the Church is moving on. And they will end up like the betrayed progressives of the John Paul era, locked into a kind of resentment that made them poor heralds of the Gospel.

Just last week, the Congregation for the Clergy released a comprehensive new format for seminary formation. The priest of the future, formed by Amoris Laetitia, will learn to walk with people “with a disposition of serene openness and attentive accompaniment in all situations, even those that are most complex, showing the beauty and demands of Gospel truth without falling into legalistic or rigorist obsessions.”

Long after the cardinals’ dubia are no more than a footnote in the history of this papacy, long after Ross Douthat’s predicted schism from the columns of the New York Times has failed to materialize, the next generation of priests will be applying the magnificent teaching of Amoris Laetitia, and the noisy, angry strains of dissent will have faded into a distant memory.

Francis expected protest, especially from this quartet of red hats, and is saddened by it.  But he is not alarmed or shocked. He sees it, as Father Antonio Spadaro told Crux, as the outworking of a Spirit-filled process.

He knows that the dissenters have dug their trench, and many will stay firmly in it, glowering while the rest of the Church develops a new pastoral strategy for marriage and family. But Francis also knows that this is their choice, which is the choice of every dissenter.

And he knows that, in order to be faithful to the Holy Spirit’s action, his own choice can only be to ignore the cardinals and press on.

Don't follow the Vatican's "madmen and sycophants" into papolatry!

The great fraud perpetuated on the Catholic faithful with regard to the Pope, any Pope, is the absurd belief that everything they say is from God and is infallible. The First Vatican Council was very specific, infallibility is when a Pope declares on faith and morals and defines it as such.  This definition actually limits papal power.

Catholics, particularly since Vatican II and the papal "cults of personality," which we see currently, have adopted that which protestants have accused us of doing, elevating the Pope to godlike status resulting in papolatry.

Father Hunwicke has such a delightful manner of expression, particularly referring to the "madmen and sycophants" at the Vatican.

In the feverish Roman atmosphere of 1870, as the hypersuperueberpapalists at the Council ran around propagating extreme and barmy notions of the papal office, this little bit of nonsense did the rounds: "The three incarnations of the Son of God are: in the womb of our Lady; in the Eucharist; and in the Pope". We appear now in 2016 to have moved on from that, because instead we have Pintos and Farrells and other hypers telling us that whatever Bergoglio utters is the utterance of the Holy Spirit. What has stayed the same is that the hypers in each age appear to have the same disordered passion to see the Roman Pontiff as some sort of incarnation of one of the Persons of the Blessed and Undivided Trinity. Seems to me close to blasphemy and idolatry. Did I say 'close'?

Now, who might be amongst those "madmen and sycophants."

THE MISUSE OF AMORIS LAETITIA TO SUPPORT ERRORS AGAINST THE CATHOLIC FAITH

Two preeminent Catholic Scholars send an Open Letter to the Bishop of Rome and all bishops in communion with him. The eight positions are highlighted below; the full letter at the link can also be found below. It is long. It is heavy. It is a must read and share.

If I can use a less than academic expression, it demolishes Amoris Laetitia and those behind it for issuing it. It is a condemnation of the heresy contained therein and a rallying cry to the faithful.

John Finnis

Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy, University of Oxford

Fellow of the British Academy (Law and Philosophy sections)

Biolchini Family Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Member of the International Theological Commission

of the Holy See 1986–91

Germain Grisez

Emeritus Professor of Christian Ethics, Mount St. Mary’s University

Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University 1957–72 and

Campion College, University of Regina 1972–79

Most Rev. Harry J. Flynn Professor of Christian Ethics,

Mount St. Mary’s University 1979–2009

A letter to the Supreme Pontiff Francis, to all bishops in communion with him, and to the rest of the Christian faithful 

John Finnis and Germain Grisez 

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/an-open-letter-to-pope-francis

Your Holiness, Pope Francis;

Your Excellencies, all Bishops in communion with him; andall of our other Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ:We are convinced that certain statements in the ApostolicExhortation Amoris Laetitia, and certain omissions from it, have beenmisused and/or, unless prevented, will be misused to support positionsthat are or include errors against the Catholic faith. We shall identify eight such positions, explain how AL is used to support each of them,and show how each either is or includes error against the Catholic faith.Proponents of the erroneous positions may respond that their readings of AL are accurate, and that the Exhortation overrides and supersedes the sources we quote from or cite to show that the positions they defend are errors against the Catholic faith. But in making such a response, as in holding their positions, they would neglect what it is for bishops of the Catholic Church to teach. (continued at this link)

... 

http://www.twotlj.org/OW-MisuseAL.pdf

Position A: A priest administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation may sometimes absolve a penitent who lacks a purpose of amendment with respect to a sin in grave matter that either pertains to his or her ongoing form of life or is habitually repetitive.

Position B: Some of the faithful are too weak to keep God’s commandments; though resigned to committing ongoing and habitual sins in grave matter, they can live in grace.

Position C: No general moral rule is exceptionless. Even divine commandments forbidding specific kinds of actions are subject to exceptions in some situations.

Position D: While some of God’s commandments or precepts seem to require that one never choose an act of one of the kinds to which they refer, those commandments and precepts actually are rules that express ideals and identify goods that one should always serve and strive after as best one can, given one’s weaknesses and one’s complex, concrete situation, which may require one to choose an act at odds with the letter of the rule.

Position E: If one bears in mind one’s concrete situation and personal limitations, one’s conscience may at times discern that doing an act of a kind contrary even to divine commandment will be doing one’s best to respond to God, which is all that he asks, and then one ought to choose to do that act but also be ready to conform fully to the divine commandment if and when one can do so.

Position F: Choosing to bring about one’s own, another’s, or others’ sexual arousal and/or satisfaction is morally acceptable provided only that (1) no adult has bodily contact with a child; (2) no participant’s body is contacted without his or her free and clear consent to both the mode and the extent of contact; (3) nothing done knowingly brings about or unduly risks significant physical harm, disease transmission, or unwanted pregnancy; and (4) no moral norm governing behavior in general is violated.

Position G: A consummated, sacramental marriage is indissoluble in the sense that spouses ought always to foster marital love and ought never to choose to dissolve their marriage. But by causes beyond the spouses’ control and/or by grave faults of at least one of them, their human relationship as a married couple sometimes deteriorates until it ceases to exist. When a couple’s marriage relationship no longer exists, their marriage has dissolved, and at least one of the parties may rightly obtain a divorce and remarry.

Position H: A Catholic need not believe that many human beings will end in hell.

 

Permission is hereby given to everyone to publish electronically or

otherwise this entire booklet as a unit or the entire treatment of any one

or more of the eight positions dealt within it provided this copyright

notice is included in the publication; all other rights reserved.

Copyright © John Finnis and Germain Grisez

Notre Dame, Indiana — 21 November 2016

Vatican under a "reign of terror" and virtual "martial law!" Where is mercy? Where is dialogue? Where is "encounter?"

Edward Pentin is arguably the most credible professional journalist in the world today reporting on the Catholic Church.

What he is reporting cannot be easy for him. No more easy than for me to write what I do. How it is heartbreaking and pains me to see what is happening to the Church of Christ under this Bergoglio and the rotten, filthy, malefactors surrounding him. His culpability in all of this can no longer be denied. The affirmation of heresy and sacrilege in Buenos Aires and the Vicar of Rome's affirmation of the most liberal interpretation of Amoris Laetitia prove that Bergoglio is promulgating error, sacrilege and heresy.

People who follow Bergoglio in this will have set their face against Christ.

I shall not.

There are good men in the Vatican and the episcopacy and their chanceries. They must find the courage to rise up and defend the faith against these malefactors. The time has come.

Pentin discloses, from credible contacts in Rome, the "reign of terror" now existing.

Jorge Bergoglio has boxed himself into a corner. It is his doing and it will be his undoing.

"No," means he must withdraw Amoris Laetitia or amend it.

"Yes," means he declare himself a heretic.

He has set his face against Christ on the matter of adultery.

God forbid it that any of us follow him where he is going.


 

"The Pope’s reaction, of going so far as to question the cardinals’ mental state, has been read as a manifestation of his own anger at having his agenda taken off course. And instead of taking the four cardinals at their word (they have said they are acting primarily out of charity towards the Holy Father, justice and deep pastoral concern), they are seen as adversaries. I understand he has also been working behind the scenes to ensure his agenda is not thwarted.  ...

"Lastly, it’s important to point out that simply by matching facts with words coming from the Pope and his allies, it’s clear there is significant lying and deceit taking place, as well as calumnies and the besmirching of reputations of those labeled to be “on the right” just because they are publicly critical of Amoris Laetitia, or merely report on such criticism. ...

Read it all, at:

http://reginamag.com/rome-in-eye-of-storm/

Pope Bergoglio says that the "majority" of the Synod Bishops voted for Amoris Laetitia content. Sorry, the facts call him a liar!

Is Bergoglio this stupid? Or does he think we are?

He is entitled to his opinion, even if it is wrong. What he is not entitled to are to change the facts. We know that is is not true.We know the necessary majority did not vote for the changes he is demanding upon the Church. Yes, he may ignore a Synod and do what he wants. He has and that makes him, since he opines so often about "synodality," a hypocrite and a dictator!

Either he is sadly mistaken or deluded.

Or, the Pope is a liar!

Say what?

Argue with these, courtesy of:

http://catholicvs.blogspot.ca/2016/12/nuevas-declaracines-del-papa-francisco.html?spref=tw:

1. The final reports of the Synods, both the 2014 and the 2015, were voted paragraph by paragraph by the bishops.
2. For approval, each paragraph needed to be positively voted by a qualified majority of two - thirds of Fathers with voting rights.
3. In 2014 the Synod Fathers voting was 181 , so to say that the synod had officially approved a paragraph one needed a qualified majority of two - thirds, which in this case was obtained with 123 votes in favor. 
4. Paragraph describing the two opposing positions during the Synod on the administration of the sacraments adulterers, only obtained 104 votes positive. Therefore, it was rejected by not having the qualified majority of two thirds of the votes . 
5. Paragraph concerning the treatment towards people with homosexual tendencies was also rejected by the Synod Fathers, since neither obtained the qualified majority of two thirds of positive votes to be approved. 
6. Despite having been rejected by the Synod Fathers, Pope Francisco ordered that those paragraphs was included in the final document.
7. Father Federico Lombardi, then director of the Holy See Press Office, had to try to justify its inclusion , with little success, and only convinced those already in favour, making the following statement: "paragraphs that have not achieved so - called 'qualified majority' cannot be considered as rejected, but mostly paragraphs that are not mature enough for a broad consensus of the assembly.” 
8. As no consensus was reached when the final report talked about expediting procedures for the declaration of nullity of marriages, Pope Francisco did not wait for the Synod Fathers return to reject the proposal and before the synod of the family of that year to meet , ordered by decree reforming the canonical process for the causes of declaration of nullity of marriage (it was September 8, 2015), which introduced the "presumption of invalidity" of marriage, absent for two thousand years of history the Church - marriage has always been considered "valid" while , unless otherwise demonstrated. It is recalled that Pope Francis made public his personal belief, unprovable, that a vast majority of marriages are invalid . 
9. From 4 to 25 October 2015, it took place the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of bishops -a commonly referred to as "Synod 2015 Family" -, headed by the Pope appointed a majority of like - minded prelates their ideas, as the Cardinal Tagle (in office), the Cardinal Baldisseri (Secretary General), Bruno Forte (special Secretary) and the Committee drafting the final report, in addition to Baldisseri and Forte: the Cardinal Wuerl , Victor Manuel "Tucho" Fernández and Adolfo Nicolas (then Superior General of the Jesuits). 
10. On Monday October 5, just one day after the start of the Synod, was issued a written and directed by 13 cardinals Pope Francis letter, which denounced irregularities that were taking place such as the choice of certain participants, the exclusion of others, or changes in procedures - which, according to them, made this gathering of bishops seemed to be "designed to facilitate default disputed issues important results." 
11. At the Synod of 2015 the number of parents was increased voting, which became 279 (although some sources said that only voted 270), so that the qualified majority to consider approved a paragraph became 186 positive votes (180 if voters were the 270 mentioned above). 
12. The number paragraph 85, which is the one that dealt with the administration of the sacraments adulterers, only obtained 178 votes in favor, not reaching the qualified majority of two thirds of affirmative votes necessary for approval (whether they were 270, as if were 279 Synod Fathers who voted).