Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon joins Sunday Morning Futures to discuss rising support for democracy around the world and connects the movement to the impeachment effort against President Trump. Big Stuff. Big Ugly type stuff.
A fired-up Bannon looks at the Senate impeachment trial as the “trial of the century”, where the professional political class gets brought into the trial and the framework becomes an expose’ on how President Trump is willing to take down the system.
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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI breaks his silence on the Church abuse crisis in unprecedented new book
Co-authored with Cardinal Robert Sarah, the two Bishops appeal for reform and renewal FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information: Lisa Wheeler, 404-519-1987 LWheeler@CarmelCommunications.com or Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276 KWandra@CarmelCommmunications.com
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 12, 2020 – Many Catholics thought that Feb. 28, 2013, would be the last we would hear from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. And most assumed that the Pope Emeritus would never author another book. Over the past seven years, as the Church has descended into more and more of a crisis, the former Supreme Pontiff has largely remained silent. The release of From the Depths of Our Hearts, published in English by Ignatius Press, comes as a shock to anyone who knows him, and the content of the book should incline everyone to take notice of what he has to say.
The book is a serious and unflinching look at the crisis in the Catholic Church and it pinpoints the heart of the turmoil — priestly ministry. “The priesthood is going through a dark time,” writes Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, along with his co-author, Cardinal Robert Sarah. “Wounded by the revelation of so many scandals, disconcerted by the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy, many priests are tempted by the thought of giving up and abandoning everything.”
In this book, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah give their brother priests and the whole Church a message of hope. They honestly address the spiritual challenges faced by priests today, including struggles of celibacy. They point to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ as the key to faithful and fruitful priestly ministry and church reform.
Responding to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from the Amazonian Synod, two wise, trusted and spiritually astute pastors explain the biblical and spiritual role of the priesthood, celibacy and genuine priestly ministry. Drawing on Vatican II, they present priestly celibacy as more than “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law.” They insist that renewal of the Church is bound to a renewed understanding of priestly vocation as sharing in Jesus’ priestly identity as Bridegroom of the Church. And they affirm that optional celibacy for priests is not actually optional for an authentic priesthood.
This book is a crucial message for clergy and laity alike, and will likely become a catalyst for renewal and restoration for a hurting Church.
“Their book is not just about priestly celibacy, important as that is in itself,” says Ignatius Press founder and editor Father Joseph Fessio. “It is about, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI describes it in his first paragraph: ‘the lasting crisis that the priesthood has been going through for many years.’ But it is about more than that; it is about the nature of the Church and of Christian discipleship. This is a book that all should read. It is powerful and personal — from the depths of their hearts.”
From the Depths of Our Hearts is available for preorder now and ships on Feb. 20. The cover image of the book is below.
For more information, please contact Lisa Wheeler (404-519-1987 or LWheeler@CarmelCommunications.com) or Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com) of Carmel Communications.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) was Pope from 2005-2013. A world-renowned theologian, biblical scholar, and theological expert at Vatican II, he is the author of numerous works, including the trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth, Introduction to Christianity, and The Spirit of the Liturgy. He resides in Vatican City.
Robert Cardinal Sarah, born in Guinea, West Africa, was appointed prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments by Pope Francis. He is author of the best-selling books God or Nothing, The Power of Silence, and The Day is Now Far Spent. ###
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THERE IS OFTEN more to a story. Sometimes the story is not complete yet when told, and sometimes events unfold that require a follow-up, or an epilogue.
Readers of a certain vintage might recall a radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey, whose timeless stories were verified and always ended with an interesting twist. Once the twist sunk in, he would sign off, “… and that is, The Rest of the Story”.
Our story begins with everyone’s favorite exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, the founder of the International Exorcist Association in 1994.
When this long-time and famous exorcist of the Diocese of Rome died at age 91 in September of 2016, the BBC News was anxious for an interview with the new exorcist of Rome. They found Father Vincenzo Taraborelli, 79, a Carmelite priest who had been performing exorcisms for 27 years, laboring away on the Via della Conciliazione, close to Castel Sant’Angelo and the Tiber River.
The Carmelites have long served the adjacent baroque church, having been first installed there in 1474, by Pope Innocent VIII (the original church on a slightly different location was erected under Pope Hadrian I (772–795)). The façade of the church is covered with stone from the Colosseum, where the blood of martyrs flowed for their witness to Jesus Christ. It is a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as befitting an Order that itself enjoys the Sabbatine Privilege, extended by Our Lady to all who devoutly wear the scapular of the Carmelites.
Father Tarabelli operates out of “windowless room at the back of his church,” according to the BBC, and “…he often sees 30 people every day.” His office has hundreds of small statues of angels, and according to the Eponymous Flower blog, “In the Carmelite church, he likes to show visitors an oil painting from the 18th century.” They quote him further, “This is a possessed woman, demons run out of her mouth. She was cured by exorcism.”
Father Tarabelli is one of the busiest exorcists in Italy. To put that in context, Thomas Williams, PH.D, reported in DMG News in 2018, “In Italy, the number of exorcisms has risen in recent years, with some 500,000 Italians requesting an exorcism each year and not nearly enough exorcists to meet the rising demand, according to recent reports.” But each year the more than 250 priests from over 50 countries who attend the course Exorcism and the Prayer of Liberation at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum in Rome, cannot begin to keep up with the worldwide demand.
What does the Bishop of Rome do to support his chief Exorcist? Oh, he’s on top of it alright.
Father Tarabelli’s Carmelite Church is named Santa Maria in Traspontina.
Sound familiar? It should. Santa Maria in Traspontina became world famous during the Amazon Synod for enshrining and warehousing the idols of the demon Pachamama. It was the epicenter of Pachamama activity. It was from Santa Maria in Traspontina that Alexander Tschugguel, the young hero and convert of Vienna, Austria, took the filthy idols and threw them into the Tiber River.
Jorge Bergoglio put an end to the speculations of his apologists about the identity of the idols, in his scandalous apology as “bishop of the diocese,” referring to “… the Pachamama statues that were removed from the Church at Traspontina, ….” There is no question now that the image is Pachamama, or about the demonic origin and significance of Pachamama, as has been widely attested to by experts, both pro and con.
That Santa Maria in Traspontina, the center of Rome’s exorcism and deliverance ministry, became the center of the Bergoglians’ new cultic worship of a demon, is appalling and beyond coincidence. It is as if Jorge Bergoglio were flipping a giant middle finger in the Face of God.
When it comes to the mystery of autism, we don’t pretend, here, to be experts of any kind, on any level. There are many causes for it, it seems.
Or are there?
Is there some singular factor or event that has caused such an apparent upsurge in it?
Such is the instability of science that there is even argument (as there is about everything else) about whether there really has been quite so dramatic an increase or whether it is now simply being diagnosed under that nomenclature (in the same way that so many suddenly now are diagnosed with high blood pressure, which once was defined as over 140 — now is over 130 — and atrial fibrillation, once known more simply as irregular heartbeat).
Once again, we rely on what the eyes see, what the ears hear, and in our modern time, in this time when we swim in a chemical soup, when we bathe in all kinds of electrical radiation (when our bodies are probed with CAT-scans, when we breathe and imbibe and digest synthetics), what we see and hear are too many young with autism and “attention-deficit syndrome.”
Is it one in 36 now, as one graph claims (with autism) or one in 45 (as the Centers for Disease Control calculates)?
Is it mainly environmental, or genetic (it can run in families)?
Caused by viruses during pregnancy?
Whichever, there is a lot of it — basically, just about one case for every two classrooms.
“We know that there is not one autism but many subtypes, most influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors,” says a site dedicated to the disorder. “Because autism is a spectrum disorder, each person with autism has a distinct set of strengths and challenges. The ways in which people with autism learn, think and problem-solve can range from highly skilled to severely challenged.”
Adds WebMD: “People with autism have trouble with communication. They have trouble understanding what other people think and feel. This makes it hard for them to express themselves, either with words or through gestures, facial expressions, and touch.”
A possibly dirty little secret: vaccinations. Up until a few years ago, mercury — a toxic metal that can beyond question impair the brain — was used in certain vaccinations as an adjutant, enhancing the vaccine’s effects. There is little question that vaccines save and have saved many lives. There is also little question that medical science is not entirely certain of the side effects. As a society, we are grossly over-medicated (choosing to cover over illnesses with medicines instead of getting to the root cause, such as poor diet, stress, or obesity).
And if vaccines are like most synthetic medications (note those pharmaceutical commercials all over television), side effects there are, some potentially damaging.
But let’s stay here on autism: The CDC maintains that “no links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and autism. One vaccine ingredient that has been studied specifically is thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used to prevent contamination of multidose vials of vaccines. Research shows that thimerosal does not cause [autism].”
“U.S. public health officials and physicians have been combating misconceptions about vaccine safety for over twenty years,” says an organization called Public Health. “They’ve had mixed success. Despite the fact that numerous studies have found no evidence to support the notion that vaccines cause autism and other chronic illnesses, a growing number of parents are refusing to vaccinate their children.
“Researchers now link falling immunization rates to recent resurgences of vaccine-preventable diseases. In 2010, California saw 9,120 cases of whooping cough, more than any year since the whooping cough vaccine was introduced in the 1940s. Ten infants too young to be vaccinated died of whooping cough during the outbreak. The CDC warns that events like these will become more frequent and harder to control if vaccination rates continue to fall.
Others disagree — quite vociferously. Many vaccines given very young children — babies — had what to the layman’s eyes certainly seemed to have too many concoctions in it. No one knows what the effect of many synthetics might be , especially when they are combined with each other (a process called “synergism”).
Some years back we heard from a mom in Florida named Stefanie Stark who fought an incredible battle to free her son from the “disease” — and apparently, with the help of a spiritual approach, as well as a natural one, was able to.
“I wrote a couple of years ago to say that our middle son, Andrew, had fallen ill with vaccine-induced autism. I also wrote, during that time, of a bird-flu pandemic in the works,” she had said.
“I believe that Our Lord is asking me to share the follow-up story with you.
“It has become so clear to me, through hindsight and the Holy Spirit, why this had to happen to Andrew.
“My son, like all of the children with vaccine-induced autism, are little messengers of God. They are angels on a mission to teach us that we must turn back to God and to a more natural way of living that is in accordance with God’s creation, as opposed to a chemical/synthetic world such as the one we are creating through science and medicine.
“When Andrew was about four weeks old, I went to lay down and, as soon as my head touched the pillow, I had a vision – not a dream, but a vision. It was so real. I saw my baby lying in his crib. And kneeling beside the crib, praying, was a male angel dressed in a brown robe with a gold-colored rope for a sash, the kind the Franciscans wear.
“And I heard Our Lady’s voice say, “Spend every moment you can with him.”
“Then the vision ended. I sat bolt upright in the bed and thought that I was being prepared for my child to die. I got on my knees and begged God not to take him. But I remembered, also, the promise I had made in Adoration [of giving and trusting my children to Jesus, at His request], and asked that Our Lord would give me the strength to bear whatever His Will would be for Andrew’s life.
“Weeks later, I told my mother and sister about the vision. I was still so shaken by it.
“When I took my son for his 12-month-old check-up, I asked the pediatrician which vaccine he was to receive. I was told it was the MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella). I told the doctor that I had read an article just the week before (I think on Spirit Daily), that said the MMR, along with twelve other vaccines, was cultured on the cell lines of aborted fetuses.
“I explained to the pediatrician that, as a pro-life Catholic, I would object to and refuse that particular vaccine based on my moral and religious beliefs.
“The doctor became furious at this claim and said it was ‘a lie made up by extremists on the right who have an agenda to push.’ He stormed out of the office and returned with the package insert. He unrolled it in front of me like a scroll and said, “Here. Look at this and tell me where it says aborted fetuses were used!”
“I was shocked by his reaction, but I also had nothing more to go on than the one article, and I couldn’t even remember the source. I felt silly and unsure, so I went along and allowed Andrew to be immunized with the MMR. I later found out that, indeed, the vaccine is created using cell lines from aborted fetuses.
“The week before my son was diagnosed with autism, I went for a walk on the beach. I stopped to pick up a bird feather. Again I heard a voice. This time it said, ‘Hope is a prayer with wings.’
“Later that day, I was at the bookstore.
“As I walked past rows of books toward the checkout, I spotted one whose title read “H.O.P.E.” It was a book about digestive health and how to heal the gut. I bought it on a hunch. Later, it became invaluable in understanding and healing my child’s “leaky gut syndrome,” another aspect of autism.
“The day Andrew was first diagnosed with autism, he had just turned two. I was reeling from shock and disbelief and confusion.
“What had happened to my precious, healthy child?
“How could this be?
“I remembered, again, that I had committed my children to the care and protection of Our Lord.
“That night, I read Andrew a bedtime story and tried not to break down in tears until I had put him to bed.
“Quietly, he got up from my lap and walked over to the Holy Water font in his room. He dipped his tiny fingers in and then came over to me and made the Sign of the Cross on my forehead! He had never done that before.
“I knew at that moment that Jesus was right there with me and, just as in the poem “Footprints,” He was going to carry me and my family through this. I kept thinking, “You have to persevere in hope. Do not give up hope for even one instant.”
“I have witnessed the special connection that children with autism have to Jesus and Our Blessed Mother. When Andrew was two and a half and completely nonverbal, he took my agnostic sister, who struggles with infertility, by the hand and led her into the Shrine of Our Lady of Le Leche, that bears a statue of Our Lady holding the infant Jesus (in St. Augustine, Florida). Andrew motioned for her to kneel down. Then, without words, he invited her to clasp her hands and bow her head in prayer. It was a beautiful scene to watch!
“At three years old, Andrew had so few words, but such incredible comprehension, that the speech pathologist recommended he get a handheld computer device to speak for him. Our insurance company agreed to pay for the device.
“Around the same time, we met a biomedical doctor who was willing to run the blood tests that my husband and I had been asking for.
“The tests came back showing conclusively that Andrew had been infected with measles and rubella. The tests also showed that our son’s immune system was barely functional – because his little body, by that time, had been fighting these viruses for nearly two years, which led to an auto-immune disorder.
“We began using vitamin supplements and B-12 shots to get his immune system functioning again. We also switched to a gluten-and-casein free diet and went organic as much as possible. We used homeopathy to detox his body from the viruses and heavy metals and to heal the damage that had been done.
“Within weeks of detoxing Andrew from the damage his vaccines had caused, he began speaking and behaving more normally. When I called her to say that we would not need the speaking device after all, the lady at the insurance company said that she had never heard of a patient recovering to the point of not needing a speaking device, especially in only a few months time!
“More important than all of the physical remedies: I not only prayed for my son but over my son.
“I asked for the intercession of so many saints, especially Our Blessed Mother.
“I asked, for example, St. John Chrysostom, saint with the golden voice, to pray for Andrew’s voice to be restored.
“I stood on the Scripture in Mark where Jesus healed the deaf and mute man when He said, ‘Ephatha!,’ that is, ‘Be opened!’
“I claimed the Scriptures for my child. I anointed his forehead with Holy Water and blessed oil daily as I prayed over him.
“And perhaps most powerful of all, I praised God and thanked Him every day for Andrew’s healing long before he was actually healed.
“I also prayed every day that I would be given the grace to hope beyond hope and never lose faith that my child would be healed.
“Indeed, Andrew has been healed of autism! All praise and glory be to God! He goes to school with normally developing children, and people are shocked when I tell them that he has recovered from autism.
“He is now a normal, active four-year-old.
“When he was finally able to speak (which he now does in full sentences), Andrew said, “Mommy, Jesus is the Bible.” I said, “Yes, much of the Bible is about Jesus.” To which he replied, “No. Jesus is the Bible, Mommy.”
“I encountered another autistic boy at the doctor’s office one day. He looked to be 12 or 13 but had the social skills and speech of a five-year-old. I asked him if he liked to swim. He said yes. I asked if he liked to swim in the pool or the ocean. And he replied, ‘Ma’am, I don’t have an ocean, but I have a river, and His Name is Jesus.’
“These kids are so close to Our Lord!
“I believe that God allowed this to happen to Andrew. I have met literally hundreds of parents with the same or a similar story to Andrew’s, and they have found renewed hope that their child can recover.
“This experience has also opened my eyes to the many ways our children are being harmed through vaccines. The swine flu vaccine is perhaps scariest of all. The adjuvant, squalene, has not only been proven to cause severe neurological damage and auto-immune disorders, but also paralysis and death. Squalene can cause a person to become allergic to cholesterol, something your body needs to survive!
“I am also very troubled by the fact that Baxter International, (the same company that accidentally sent avian-flu tainted flu shots to 18 countries), applied for a patent to make an H1N1 vaccine in August 2008, even though swine flu did not appear in the population until April 2009. (For the patent, go to: http://patft.uspto.gov/ Click on publication number search on the right for patent applications. Enter: 20090060950).
“I know the vaccine issue is just one of many sins against God and His creation. Our bodies are His temple, Scripture says. The Bible also says that “we perish for lack of knowledge.”
[Feedback: “Prayer is always needed, however, the graph and title for this page: https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/look-at-the-autism-rates seems to indicate that there is a rise in actual developmental disorders in the general population. This may be true, but this graph doesn’t show it, and it certainly wouldn’t be that dramatic.“The reason for the increase is because of diagnostic definitions and screening. Autism as defined in the 1970s is probably constant in diagnoses through the decades since.The graph would have to be normalized to show the different uses of the word and the diagnostic rigor. To say Autism rates have increased as the graph shows is equivocation, ie, the definition changed through the decades.“In particular, autism used to require severe intellectual and language disables (ie, mental retardation). Then, for the Autistic definitions without those were only applied in severe circumstances (ie, when an individual had gone through several stages that required more medical attention). Now, it is more widely known and a person can be diagnosed without any major crises or apparent disability.“So, the rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder, as it is now defined, have only changed because of definition changes and increased awareness. The actual rates of people with what we would call “Classical Autism” probably have not changed at all. The big jumps in diagnoses were not a continuous curve as presented, but will show spikes and leveling off as the diagnostic criteria changed and younger people were diagnosed with the new definitions.“Prayer is perhaps more needed for the reality that many people view people with Autism as life unworthy of life (especially those who are intellectually disabled) and there may be selective abortions. I know this is the case for other disorders, but I do not know the specifics for Autism.Pax,J. F. O’NeillShareTweet
German cardinal warns that adapting to ‘spirit of the age’ would make Church useless
A Church that adapts to the spirit of her time loses her ‘prophetic mandate and mission’ and ‘would be of no use anymore’: Cardinal Rainer WoelkiTue Jan 7, 2020 – 1:17 pm EST
Cardinal Rainer Woelki
January 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Rainer Woelki, the archbishop of Cologne, warned Catholics in a homily yesterday that the Church adapting to the spirit of the age (zeitgeist) would make her lose her “prophetic mandate and mission” and would render her “of no use anymore.”
Cardinal Woelki made his remarks in a January 6 homily he delivered on the occasion of the Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the coming of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem. He warned the Church against adapting herself to the world and reminded his hearers that the Three Wise Men – as well as the builders of his own Cologne cathedral, who had placed a star atop of its crossing tower – were intending “solely and exclusively to seek and to proclaim Christ as the Light of this world.”
Man, according to this German prelate, needs this “Light” in order to “find his way,” especially “in our time, in which the orientation towards the true salvation has become difficult, due to the confusing pluralism of offers of salvation.”
“Even in the Church,” he continued, this orientation seems to have gotten lost, since a polyphonic choir of opinions, personal views, and interests seeks to relativize and adapt to the world God’s Revelation and the Church’s faith.”
However, such a faith according to the zeitgeist, according to Cardinal Woelki, loses her being a “compelling alternative” to those other offers that are being presented to us anyway “day by day.”
“He who does not have an orientation,” explained Woelki, “loses direction. And he who loses the direction, loses the life; he becomes irrelevant,” is not anymore an “alternative that is to be taken seriously.”
Referring back to the star that has been placed atop of the crossing tower of the Cologne Cathedral in reference to the shrine of the Three Wise Men that is to be found in this cathedral, Cardinal Woelki told his hearers that this star, in contrast to the spirit of our time, “gives us the direction, just as the Star of Bethlehem had done it earlier.” This star “points to the Light, in which alone is to be found salvation,” according to the German cardinal.
“The Child in the manger is that Salvation,” he concluded. “And wherever this Child is being welcomed, the life of a man receives direction and orientation. Then life becomes salvation.”
Cardinal Woelki also pointed back to the “whole faith of the Church, as it is being proclaimed and lived in an unabridged manner and as it has been laid down by the Apostles and as the Church has borne witness to it and has preserved it over time.” That faith, he explained, helps us that we do not follow erroneous lights.
The prelate went on to say that this true faith “contains truth that transcends time and that preserves the Church and the Gospel which has been entrusted to her lest she adapt to the spirit, to the views and opinions, and to the feelings of a certain time period.”
Here, one might well remember that there was another time period in German history where many Catholics were tempted to adapt to the “spirit of the times,” which was then called National-Socialist. During the two family synods, another German-speaking cardinal – Cardinal Kurt Koch – had made that explicit reference.
At the time, two leading German bishops – actually the same leaders that are quite influential in today’s discussions in Germany: Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Franz-Josef Bishop Bode – had proposed that the Church listen more to the “life realities” of our time and therefore admit “remarried” divorcees to Holy Communion.
In 2015, the Swiss Cardinal Koch commented on these claims, as follows:
Let us think of the ‘German Christians’ during the time of National Socialism, when, next to the Holy Scripture, they also raised up the Nation and the Race as sources of revelation, against which the Theological Declaration of Barmen (1934) [which had rejected the submission of the Protestant churches to the State] protested. We have to differentiate very carefully here and listen with sensitivity to the signs of the times – and to the spirit that reveals itself in these signs: which ones are signs of the Gospel, which ones are not?
Cardinal Woelki also seems to make an indirect reference to the time of the Third Reich when he stated in his homily that such a Church which adapts herself to the spirit of her time would lose her “prophetic mandate and mission,” adding that “such an adapted and assimilated Church [“gleichgeschaltete Kirche”] would be of no use anymore.”
The word gleichschaltung is often being used with reference to Hitler’s politics during the Third Reich which aimed at controlling all aspects of public life in Germany.
Finally, Cardinal Woelki then returned once more to the main topic in his homily, namely, that the seekers of the star in Bethlehem find in Bethlehem the Light, God’s Son, “in which alone is to be found all salvation and life.”
On March 13, 2013 a Schism was consummated in the Church by the College of Cardinals, who dared to convene a Conclave during the life of a Pope who had not resigned in accord with Canon 332 §2. Nearly everyone was drawn into this schism due to the rash and false announcement put out by Father Lombardi on Feb. 11, 2013, when he gave Giovanna Chirri the via libera to publish a tweet at 11:58 AM that morning, just minutes after the end of the Consistory for the Martyrs of Otranto, claiming that Benedict had resigned and would give up the Pontificate on February 28.
During the last 7 years, the Holy Spirit has been stirring up Catholics to re-examine the Renunciation and realize in accord with the right granted them in canon 41 that the Renunciation was never valid, because it never named the thing a Pope must renounce to renounce the Papacy: the petrine munus.
For Catholics loyal to Christ, our duty now is to convince the Cardinals and Bishops to stop adhering to this Schism. Bergoglio never was the Successor of Saint Peter and is not the Pope: Benedict XVI is.
However, I am willing to admit that the Cardinals might not have the intellectual capacity or the moral ability to recognize the truth of what they did (schism and usurpation) and of what the Renunciation really meant: nothing at all but the uncanonical expression of an old man who was tired of governing those who did not obey him.
So I am willing to propose a solution for the Church, which does not require the Cardinals to have any virtue other than pragmatic prudence. And in this post, I will discuss that which regards the possibility that Bergoglio leaves office before Benedict.*
The Solution
The solution would be, that after the resignation of Bergoglio (may God hasten the day!) or after the death of Bergoglio (may he repent before it comes upon him), the Cardinals decide to re-elect Pope Benedict as the pope.
In this way they return to loyalty to the Pope without having to admit their error or sin. In this way they get a superior who probably wont ever correct them in anything, being so old and weak.
While one can argue that the Cardinals cannot validly or legitimately elect anyone during the life time of Pope Benedict, nevertheless, such a post-Bergoglian faux Conclave would serve as a cover for their return to communion with him.
So materially it would be a papal conclave and election, but formally it would me an act of re-submission to the Roman Pontiff. And Benedict does not even have to agree or be informed, because he is already pope and has already accepted his canonical election in 2005!
So I say this publicly now, so that if the occasion presents itself, Catholic bloggers and Clergy might take swift action to persuade the better Cardinals to propose this path of action in the future. I myself will make it a point to discuss it with every Cardinal I get the chance to speak with, and I encourage all to write every Cardinal and suggest it.
Because, we must keep ever in mind, that what matters most of all is the salvation of souls. And this objective requires that first the College of Cardinals and the College of Bishops and the Clergy return to communion with Pope Benedict XVI, the true and only Vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth.
After that, the Church can get to business condemning the individual heresies of Cardinal Bergoglio.
Appendix
For many, however, this controversy has caused them to forget how necessary submission to the true Roman Pontiff is for society and their own personal salvation, so I will reprint here in full the English translation** of the Bull of Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, which is a must read for all Catholics right now in the Church.
Unam Sanctam
One God, One Faith, One Spiritual Authority
Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in Her firmly and We confess with simplicity that outside of Her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and She represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In Her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and We read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.
We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: ‘Feed my sheep‘ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’ We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords‘ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard‘ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God‘ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as Our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by Us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, We declare, We proclaim, We define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
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* In my post tomorrow, I will discuss the opposite case, and what the solution there might be.
** Source, with a few corrections, regarding honorific capitalizations, added by myself here on the pronouns referring to the Roman Pontiff and to Holy Mother Church.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on The Cardinals might not have the intellectual capacity or the moral ability to recognize the truth of what they did in 2013 (schism and usurpation) and of what the Renunciation really meant: nothing at all but the uncanonical expression of an old man who was tired of governing those who did not obey him, so the Cardinals need to ‘re-elect’ Pope Benedict XVI thereby making Francis the Merciful an Anti-Pope
“Children are the future of the Church.” How often are such truisms used to explain the extensive focus on a single demographic group within a parish? From youth ministry to religious education to Catholic schools, most Catholic parishes direct a large amount of their limited resources toward young people. After all, if our children fall away, the future of the Church will be dire indeed.
Of course, the future of the Church is dire, demographically speaking. In spite of all this focus on young people, we see them flocking for the door once they reach adulthood. The problem isn’t bad or incompetent youth ministers; I’ve known many good and sincere Catholics involved in youth outreach, who work long hours and are committed to bringing kids to Christ. Yet, to repeat, it’s not working. Once free from their parents’ direct influence, kids are leaving the Church.
So, if the problem isn’t a lack of focus or competent and sincere leaders, then what is it? I would argue that our model for reaching young people is fatally flawed.
I know that even suggesting that our current model of youth ministry is flawed will raise the hackles of the Catholic professional class, in spite of the current model’s evident failure. For some reason, youth ministry is a sacred cow. However, we can’t avoid the grim reality of millions of Catholics growing up and then moving out, even after having been involved in “good” youth ministry. Surely many youth programs are orthodox and very well-intentioned. This is my point. So why are young people still leaving? And how can we change this?
Finding the answer starts with looking at which factors influence a person’s decision to remain Catholic after the teenage years. The biggest influence on them is the parents. As a recent study by the Pew Research Center noted,
Among those who were raised in a single religious background…the family’s religious commitment is closely linked with retaining one’s religion into adulthood. Those adults who say religion was very important to their family while growing up and whose parents frequently discussed religion are more likely than others to continue to identify with their parents’ religion as adults.
For Catholics, if religion was “very important” in the family, then 73 percent of the time the kids remained Catholic after leaving the house. If it was “not too/not at all important,” only 38 percent remained Catholic. This shouldn’t be surprising to most people involved with youth outreach; they know it from experience. This is why many look for ways to involve parents in their youth activities. However, the model remains directed toward the kids, separate from their parents.
Research also points to the vital role specifically of the father’s faith. A 2000 report in Population Studies magazine concluded that “it is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.” More specifically, it states:
In short, if a father does not go to church—no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions—only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular).
Only 2 percent of kids whose fathers don’t practice the faith will end up practicing that faith! It’s clear, then, that fathers more than anyone dramatically impact their children’s future religious practice, and if parishes want children to retain their faith in adulthood (which is the purpose of youth ministry), they should focus not on the children but on the fathers.
Even with data supporting this conclusion, it still seems counterintuitive that to reach kids we shouldn’t focus on them but on their fathers instead. Yet this is the biblical method of salvation.
In the Bible, whenever God works with a group of people, He does not direct His energies toward the entire group, but toward a mediator. Think of Abraham, Moses, or David: each of these men represented a much larger group of people. God first influenced and converted the one man, then He allowed that individual to influence the group he led and represented. This is also the fundamental way in which the Catholic Church operates: we have bishops and priests who receive specific graces and powers that are then used to help the laity draw closer to Christ.
The father is the “mediator”—the “priest”—of the family, the domestic church. Therefore it makes sense, both sociologically and theologically, to focus on fathers in order to save the children.
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How can we do this? What practical steps can a parish take to influence fathers? Many people might suggest the typical answers, such as a men’s Bible study group or a strong Knights of Columbus council. However, these things, while they can be beneficial, aren’t enough. They may support men already strong in their faith, but they don’t impart the faith or make it attractive to men. If we are going to attract and hold the attention of fathers of young children, parishes will need to make more radical changes. These will be highly controversial, but we need to ask ourselves: do we want to succeed in passing on the faith to future generations, or are we more concerned with maintaining the status quo?
The primary thing that needs to be done is to destroy the current ambiance found in most parishes, which is only attractive to gay men of the 1970s. Merely entering a typical suburban Catholic parish is emasculating, from the architecture to the music to the felt banners to the limp homily to the army of elderly female Eucharistic ministers. What red-blooded male would be interested in that if he did not already have a faith strong enough to see beyond it to the underlying reality? Parishes are sending a strong message without even realizing it: young virile men are not welcome.
What can be done to change this? Here are seven suggestions (with thanks to John Zmirak, who suggested a couple of them to me):
1) Institute ad orientem worship. Men would prefer following a leader into battle to sitting around a table for a chat. When a priest leads his people in worship, not only in spirit, but in his body’s orientation, he challenges men to follow him, and men love that challenge.
2) Ensure there are only men and boys at the altar. In many parishes, there is only one man at the altar during Mass: the priest. The altar servers are all girls, and the Eucharistic ministers are female as well. Men are not naturally inclined to follow women, though women will follow men. The visual of hordes of women at the altar sends an unwelcoming and effeminate message to most men.
3) Maintain silence before and after Mass in the church. Walking into a Catholic church full of the sound of people chattering away before Mass sends a signal that people there don’t take the Mass seriously. Men want a faith that is serious above all else. They are not looking for a social club; they are looking for something to give their life to. Well-dressed male ushers should politely remind those who do talk before or after Mass to stop.
4) Sing traditional hymns, not the 1970s folk drivel so popular today. Men want to hear songs that are beautiful and inspire them to greater heights, not a thousand and one variations of kum-ba-yah.
5) Institute men’s groups (i.e. the Holy Name Society) that focus on concrete, practical activities. Most men don’t want to sit around in a group and share their feelings about a Bible passage. They want to do things. So have a men’s group that does service projects, such as working at a soup kitchen, praying in front of Planned Parenthood, or building a grotto on the parish grounds. Such a group should be chaplained by the pastor, who connects their actions with their spirituality as Catholic men.
6) Call for sacrifice. Men don’t want to hear “just be nice” week in and week out. They want to be challenged to go deeper in the faith, with practical and concrete challenges. So call them to make real sacrifices, such as fasting on Fridays or taking cold showers in reparation for sin or for the salvation of souls.
7) Tell it like it is. Stop mincing words. Confront the anti-Catholic secularism that’s overtaking our culture, and directly address the crisis in the Church. Pretending there isn’t rampant corruption at the highest levels of the Church only makes one look like a cowardly sycophant, not a courageous disciple of Christ that men will be willing to follow.
If we want the faith to survive tomorrow, it’s imperative that we reach out to fathers today. This won’t be easy. Parishes must change their entire mindset when it comes to helping young people, redirecting their focus from youth outreach to bringing fathers back to the faith. Only then will the next generation have a chance. If we save the father, we will save the youth, and save the future of the Church.
Image: “Seminarians in Barcelona circa 1900 in Cassock, Greca & Saturno” via the Brighton Oratory
Eric Sammons, a former Evangelical, entered the Catholic Church in 1993 and has been involved in Catholic evangelization efforts for over two decades. He is a freelance writer, editor, and the author of several books, including The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did (Catholic Answers, 2017) and Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaría Escrivá. He holds a Master of Theology degree from Franciscan University. He can be followed on Twitter @EricRSammons and his website “Swimming Upstream” can be found at ericsammons.com.
OTTAWA, Ontario, January 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — News that organ harvesting from Canadians killed by lethal injection is on the rise in Ontario has euthanasia opponents warning more horrors and assaults on human life are to come.
“Everybody says, ‘Well, it can’t get any lower than it is,’ but we’ll get lower than it is, because every time you break a new ethical barrier, it opens up a new question,” Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Canada-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews.
“There is growing evidence that coercion plays a substantial role for many vulnerable people with regards to so called physician-assisted death. Conflating this decision with organ donation further complicates the issue of coercion,” echoed John Smeaton, chief executive of the U.K.-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
“We need to acknowledge the unsettling reality that many vulnerable people who have been euthanized without consent, may also have had their organs harvested without explicit consent,” Smeaton added in a Wednesday statement.
Trillium Gift For Life Network, which administers organ and tissue donation in Ontario, harvested 18 organs and 95 tissue donations from 113 people euthanized in the first 11 months of 2019 (December figures were not available), the Ottawa Citizen reported this week.
That’s a 14 percent increase from 2018, but not as steep a jump as the 109 percent increase in organs and tissue harvested from euthanized individuals between 2018 and 2017 in the province. SUBSCRIBEto LifeSite’s daily headlinesSUBSCRIBEU.S. Canada World Catholic
Euthanasia deaths also accounted for five percent of all the province’s overall organ and tissue donations in 2019, up from 3.6 percent in 2018, and 2.1 percent in 2017, the Citizen reported.
Canada’s most populous province, Ontario has the distinction of being the first jurisdiction in the world to proactively ask people approved for euthanasia if they want to donate their organs.
After initially allowing only patient-initiated organ donation, Quebec has now followed suit, and permits Transplant Québec to initiate discussions about organ and tissue harvesting with patients scheduled to be euthanized, the Citizen reported.
“Under the Trillium Gift of Life Network Act, designated facilities are required to notify Trillium Gift of Life Network of imminent death in an effort to ensure the opportunity to donate organs and tissue is offered to every medically-eligible Ontarian as part of high quality end-of-life care,” Trillium spokesperson Margaret Barng told LifeSiteNews.
That includes telling Trillium when an individual has been approved for euthanasia, Barng said. After this decision is made, “the discussion of organ and tissue donation occurs.”
Currently, there are more than 1,600 Ontarians waiting for “a lifesaving organ,” she said.
While potential recipients can refuse an organ if they have a moral objection to euthanasia, revealing donor information is not required, Barng told LifeSiteNews.
“The decision to share information about the donor background is up to each clinician,” she wrote in an email.
“Most do share the information, but it is not specified that it should be shared. The potential recipient is able to decline the organ if they choose and they would then remain on the waitlist.”
Euthanasia and organ harvesting: Canada leads the way
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government legalized euthanasia, or “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD), in June 2016, following a February 2015 Supreme Court decision striking down the law prohibiting euthanasia and assisted suicide as unconstitutional.
Canada thus joined Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Columbia as the only countries so far to allow euthanasia death by lethal injection.
The other jurisdictions, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, currently allow only patient-initiated organ donation, reported the Citizen.
Canada also allows assisted suicide, which is now legal in nine American states and Switzerland, but which doesn’t allow for organ harvesting because the individual typically dies by self-administered drugs. In Switzerland’s infamous death clinics, people kill themselves by taking a drug cocktail.
Canada is now on track to expand euthanasia to non-terminal cases.
In September, Quebec Superior Court Justice Christine Baudouin struck down the eligibility criterion for euthanasia that death be imminent.
The ruling nullifies both the federal Criminal Code requirement in Bill C-14 that an individual’s death be “reasonably foreseeable,” and the Quebec Bill 52 requirement that an individual be at the “end of life” to be eligible for euthanasia.
Baudouin gave the governments of Quebec and Canada six months to change their laws, and neither government is appealing her decision.
Moreover, Quebec has opened up consultations on whether or not to allow “prior consent” for euthanasia, in which a person suffering from a degenerative illness gives an advance directive to be euthanized at a future date, thus opening the door for people to be killed by lethal injection without their active consent.
Killing by organ donation?
All this will inevitably increase attacks on human life, Schadenberg warns.
Linking organ donation to euthanasia changes the perception of death by lethal injection to “a good” in which “people who are sick can get better because you had your life ended,” he told LifeSiteNews.
And with imminent death no longer an eligibility requirement for euthanasia, vulnerable people, particularly those with depression or psychiatric illnesses, or mental or physical degenerative decline, or who see their lives as worthless, could find the perceived “good” of organ donation irresistible, Schadenberg said.
“There are a lot of people who are not even sick. They may have ALS, or a neurological condition such as Parkinson’s. Their organs are perfectly good. So they become the great organ donors,” he said.
“If you open up euthanasia for psychiatric reasons, those are even better donors because they have no physical health problems,” he added.
Indeed, euthanasia lobbyist Dr. James Downar, who co-chaired the Canadian Blood Services committee that developed guidelines for euthanasia organ donation, told the National Post in 2017 that euthanasia — where the heart stops beating two to three minutes after lethal injection — is a prime source of organs.
“If somebody has organs that would be appropriate to donate, you’ll never get better organs than you would by this process,” said Downar, who now has a pivotal role in palliative care at Ottawa’s Catholic Elisabeth Bruyère Hospital.
But a more grisly possibility is “already under discussion,” says Schadenberg.
“This is the ethical next question, because obviously, if you’ve said ‘yes’ to euthanasia and you’ve said ‘yes’ to organ donation by doing euthanasia first, why would you do euthanasia and then organ donation, when you could be doing euthanasia by organ donation?” he pointed out.
Death by lethal injection shuts down the heart, and “therefore, it denies the ability of a heart transplant,” Schadenberg said.
“So euthanasia by organ donation has become the next question.”
And the danger of coercive organ donation is very real, stressed SPUC’s Smeaton.
“It is true that organ donation is good, but only insofar as it does not bring about harm, namely the death of the donor, and, worse still, where that is coupled with lack of explicit consent,” he pointed out.
“The removal of explicit consent which is possible through state-regulated ‘opt-out’ policies, undermines the ethical basis of donation and intensifies concerns around some aspects of organ donation, such as removing vital organs from beating heart patients.”
Italian Novus Ordo Bishop silences Creed for Epiphany because it might offend Non-Catholics in Attendance
When Francis appointed Mr. Derio Olivero (b. 1961) “bishop” of the diocese of Pinerolo in 2017, he knew what he was doing. Olivero is clearly cut from the same faithless cloth as his boss.
This he demonstrated on Monday, Jan. 6, during a solemn Novus Ordo worship service for the Feast of the Epiphany held at the cathedral of Pinerolo. At the end of his sermon, after which the rubrics prescribe the praying of the Creed, Olivero instructed his hapless congregation to remain silentrather than profess aloud what they believe in. The reason? There were non-Catholics in attendance as well.
According to a Jan. 9 report by the Italian La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, the false bishop said verbatim: “Since there are also non-believers [here], everyone will say it [the Creed] silently. Those who believe can say it and those who don’t believe or have other beliefs, will silently say the reasons for their beliefs” (our translation). After several minutes of silence, the “Mass” continued with whatever they do after the Creed.
It is hard to know where to start in commenting on something so absurd as this. Disregarding for a minute that the Novus Ordo worship service is not a Holy Mass offered by the Catholic Church but a (usually invalid) Modernist meal service perpetrated under the auspices of the Vatican II Sect, it stands to reason that when one attends a Catholic Mass one will expect to find there Catholicsworshipping and praying according to their religion. And that happens to include a profession of Faith, which by definition is prayed out loud. It is the ancient Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which states:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. Born of the Father before all ages. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Begotten, not made: consubstantial with the Father; by Whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven: and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: and was made man. He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And He ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: of Whose kindgom there shall be no end.
And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life: Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified: Who spoke through the Prophets.
And in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
The silencing of that Creed by the “bishop’s” mandate, contrary to the obligatory directives of the Church, is a monstrous scandal. It is, however, not all that surprising because it is a perfect testimony to the fundamental spiritual crime of the Vatican II Sect: the suppression, silencing, and violation of the Catholic True Faith. This credal silence, therefore, speaks volumes!
To force the Creed into silence on the grounds that “there are people here who are not Catholic” sums up the entire apostasy of the Vatican II Sect: With the advent of the Novus Ordo Church, religion is no longer divided into the true religion (revealed by God) and false religions (invented by man or the devil). The true religion is no longer an objective and deductively certain matter, the embrace of which begins with a rational act by the human intellect when it freely accepts divine revelation and in consequence of which man has the right and the duty to proclaim this religion in public and in private. Rather, according to the Novus Ordo Modernists, religion is the result of a subjective experience (“encounter”!) that is essentially a personal matter. It is indeed permitted to express one’s religion in public, but this is grounded not in the rights of God or the truth but in conscience and human dignity — and it naturally applies to all religions equally.
“Bp.” Olivero just confirmed all that in a stunning and powerful way. It’s important to understand that the essential problem here is not simply disobeying a particular liturgical detail. It goes much deeper: The man has no concept of Catholicism as the only religion revealed by God and everyone’s duty to profess this Faith integrally, especially at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the solemn worship of the Most Holy Trinity.
Not surprisingly, this incident generated some backlash even among Novus Ordos, and the diocese had to respond to inquiries from the press. However, as La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana reports, “Bp.” Olivero did not budge and emphasized that he obeys the liturgical instructions of the Missal all other times of the year. In his estimation he did nothing wrong on Epiphany because there were also “other confessions … like the Waldensians and Orthodox” present.
In other words, Mr. Olivero’s advice is: Do not profess your Faith around non-believers — they might be offended, and what they believe in is no less good or valid than what you profess. This is precisely “that false opinion” condemned by Pope Pius XI in 1928 “which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule” (Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 2; see also Pope Pius IX, Syallbus of Errors, nn. 15-18).
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the “New Evangelization”, derived from the “missionary nature” of the Vatican II religion! Fifty-four years after the council closed, this is where their “Great Renewal” has gotten them: They now remain silent because others don’t believe. So, who has successfully “evangelized” whom here?!
The Great Commission didn’t exactly mandate silence in the profession of the True Faith: “And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mk 16:15-16). When St. Paul preached the Gospel in Antioch, he motioned the unbelievers to be silent so he could speak: “Then Paul rising up, and with his hand bespeaking silence, said: Ye men of Israel, and you that fear God, give ear” (Acts 13:16).
There are some other interesting Scripture verses that are worth considering in this context:
Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 10:32-33)
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. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. (Rom 10:9-10)
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:10-11)
For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an antichrist. (2 Jn 7)
One question still remains to be answered: Were there non-believers present at the Jan. 6 “Mass” at Pinerolo Cathedral? The answer is clear: Yes, there were.
Chief among them was “Bp.” Olivero himself.
Image source: youtube.com (screenshot) License: fair use
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION IN THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
I have previously written an extensive description of how the horrible sin of pride is the hallmark of wicked men in the Church since the time of Vatican II, in my article on The Downfall of Luciferian Pride.
Today, I want to focus on one of the outstanding characteristics of the unfaithful who are members of the Church of the Antichrist, though they may not realize it or admit it. I want to do this because it is very easy to fall into the camp of Lucifer without realizing it, because, as I said in the previous article, the vice and sins of pride, being the most evil, are the hardest to discern and recognize, because they are full of the deprivation of the being that should be in an act of virtue. And that makes them spiritually invisible, except to the very humble who desire to glory solely in the Divine Majesty of God.
Ann Barnhardt’s Righteous Indignation
I am continually impressed by the righteous indignation of many devout Catholics on social media. Righteous indignation is the sense of disgust and anger which rises in the heart of someone who loves God and puts God first, and this kind of indignation is expressed solely because the rights of God are being transgressed.
As you may know, in recent years, months and weeks certain clergy, religious and laymen, who insist Bergoglio is the pope, because they refuse to doubt for a moment that Cardinals and Bishops are infallible, have begun to fault Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His promises to Peter, the teaching of Vatican I on Papal Authority and Infallibility, and the credulity of the Saints in regard to the Roman Pontiff’s authority and magisterium.
A recent example is the declaration of the Hermits of Westray, Scotland. Who know well what the arguments for Benedict still being the pope are, but refuse to harken to them, because they prefer to deny the indefectibility of the Catholic Church or the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff which they cannot reconcile with their more cherished “belief” that Bergoglio is the Pope.
One of the more shocking and sustained attacks came recently from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, in his blog post entitled, How Francis may be vindicating the “inopportunists” of the First Vatican Council, published by Lifesite News, run by the Campaign for Life Coalition, a political organization out of Toronto, Canada, whose editor is a Mr. John-Henry Westen, co-founder of Lifesite and of the Voice of the Family Coalition, one of the leading “Bergoglio is certainly the pope” politicians-journalists.
I will quote the key passage, which I want to focus on, as a preamble to a discussion of the Marks of the Beast. Ann Barnhardt, addressing the problem many Catholics are having, from Cardinal Burke down to the last man in the pew, to understand how a man like Bergoglio could be the pope, says decisively:
Maybe if people would attack this controversy from the base assumption that GOD ALMIGHTY is THE PERFECT ONE as manifested in His Spotless and Indefectible Bride the Church, in His Angels, and in His Saints, and that THEY THEMSELVES are deeply fallible and so very capable of error, INSTEAD OF THE EXACT OPPOSITE, there might be a bit more clarity of thought round about.
(Bold Face in the original)
What Ann Barnhardt is addressing is PRIDE. And a particularly diabolic kind of pride, which holds that the unholy fallible trinity of “I, me, and myself,” knows better than the Holy Infallible Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
No use talking about modern errors, if you embrace them without so much as a wink of the eye
What is so ironic about her observation is that it is valid against a good number of popular writers and speakers and YouTube personalities, who either ascribe to or have been leading members of the so-called “Traditional Movement” in the Catholic Church since the time of the Second Vatican Council. A group which has made it a point and raison d’entre to fault the errors of modernity.
These errors consist in Modernism, Neo-Modernism, Relativism, Individualism, Secularism, Humanism, Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Hedonism… Have I left any out? Probably.
However, when it comes to the controversy of how a man like Bergoglio can be thought to be the Vicar of Christ and act more heretical than any lay leader of one of the main line Protestant “churches”, then their opposition to certain modern errors is cast to the wind and instead some of these errors are readily embraced.
First of which is Modernism, which holds that that which validates religious belief is interior religious sentiments, not objective revelation. For the Modernist, Papal Infallibility is not a gift from God, but the habit of mind of believers to take whatever a Pope says or does and regard it as a religious doctrine. For that reason, there is nothing wrong in criticizing Catholics throughout history who had this sentiment.
Second of which is Neo-Modernism, which holds that there is no unchanging eternal truth revealed by God, but that religious truth consists in conformity of the mind to modern life. Neo-Modernists think that the Church is dead unless She is in the process of continual aggiornamento, that clergy are not properly formed unless they are undertaking continuous formation, etc. etc. For them no event can be condemned by religious doctrine because events themselves are the goal posts of truth and the sacred. They worship history, but not as something that once was, but which is always changing. Hence, papal infallibility must also now be reconsidered and redefined in light of Bergoglio’s way of acting.
The Third of which is Relativism, which holds that there are no absolute moral truths implicit in human nature or in an eternal unchanging law. Truth is found in the right relation of things and actions in the here and now. And right, here, means what is suitable to me. Relativism in turn gives birth or opens the door to Hedonism and Individualism, the definitions of which are well known. Hence, what papal infallibility should mean today is not limited to what it meant before. And what I think it should mean is more important than what any Saint, Doctor of the Church, or previous Pope said it meant, because what is most important is that I have a pleasant experience of Catholicism.
Bergoglio is certainly the Pope, because …
Many Catholics unwittingly have adopted the errors which I just mentioned in a very imprudent attempt to rationally explain why they hold the position that Bergoglio is certainly the pope.
None actually confront the historical facts, which are as follows:
Pope Benedict, as the man who is the pope, renounced the ministerium in his declaration of Feb. 11, 2013.
Canon 332 §2 says a Roman Pontiff renounces when he renounces the munus.
Canon 17 says that Canon 332 § must be read in accord with the Code of Canon Law’s usage of terms, canonical tradition, and the mind of its legislator, Pope John Paul II.
Benedict behavior after Feb. 28, 2013, shows that he retains the papal dignity in all respects.
The idea that Benedict’s renunciation of ministerium means a renunciation of the papacy comes from a tweet by Giovanna Chirri, an ANSA reporter, minutes following the Consistory of Feb. 11, 2013.
No meeting of canonists was called to examine the act of the Renunciation to determine if it was valid or not.
The Vatican has never officially claimed that the renunciation was valid.
The Cardinals have never claimed that they did anything to verify that the See was Vacant before meeting in the Conclave of 2013 to elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a public manifest and pertinacious heretic, idolater and fomenter of schisms, who by divine right cannot be a member of the Catholic Church, let alone hold any office in Her.
The Church has NEVER taught that the Cardinals or Bishops or even all the clergy are infallible in matters of canonical interpretations or knowledge of historical facts.
Instead, these “Bergoglio is certainly the pope” Catholics take another route. They hold that the solidarity of opinion of the vast majority, who say Bergoglio is the pope, is more authoritative than:
God who is infallible by nature.
Christ Jesus who created the office of Saint Peter and promised it infallibility.
Christ Jesus’ Prayer for the person of the Pope that his faith may NEVER fail.
The First Vatican Council in its decree, Pastor Aeternus.
The Code of Canon Law of 1983 promulgated by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Pope John Paul II.
The words of Pope Benedict himself during and after the Renunciation of Feb. 11, 2013.
Solidarity in Dissent, is a Mark of the Diabolic
The essence of pride, the vice, is dissent. This is because pride as the worst of all vices is directed more principally against the truth and against knowing the truth, than all other vices. Pride is a spiritual vice and since the intellect is the most spiritual of all the powers of the soul, pride takes root first of all in it.
We can see this in Scripture, where, from the name of Saint Michael, who according to Saint John the Apostle, in his Book of the Apocalypse, was the first Holy Angel to act out of holy indignation and take up arms to fight against Lucifer and his angels, that the sin of Lucifer was pride. For Saint Michael’s name means, Who is like unto God? A name, which, according to the Fathers of the Church, he merited for repelling the evil suggestions of Lucifer who suborned and seduced a third of the Angels of God with a sin of pride. Lucifer then was probably saying something like, Worship me, because I am like unto God!
But this is also the sin of all prideful men. When you by any act of mind or will or body or soul do something which presupposes any affirmation that you have the merit, right, worthiness, power, protection, etc.. that only God has by Nature, then you are committing a sin of pride. This is so, because you are acting as if you were like unto God in such a way as to fail to distinguish that you are much more unlike God than like Him, and that you fail in being like Him in 3 principle characteristics: You are not omniscent, You are not omnipotent, You are not infallible.
Omniscent means all knowing. Omnipotent means able to do all things by your own power or ability. Infallible means able not to err. I could add impeccable, which means unable to sin, but since a proud man is already entirely oblivious to his ability to sin, I will omit that here.
It follows, then, that since Lucifer seduced the Angels of God by pride, and that those who fell with him and were cast out of Heaven by the Divine Power and Saint Michael and his Angels, that one of the marks of the diabolic community is their solidarity in pride. And that means solidarity in the misuse of their intellects in dissenting from the truth.
Dissent, which merely means disagreement, can be good or evil. But when it disagrees with objective reality or revealed truth or even a truth which we know is true on account of other truths, natural or revealed, then it is evil, a mortal sin. This is the dissent of which I speak in this article.
Our Lord points this out for our observation, when He calls Lucifer a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Because a liar attacks a truth because he disagrees with it. And a murders kills a living thing, because he disagrees that it should be allowed to live.
Solidarity in Dissent is, therefore, the Mark of the Beast
Solidarity in dissent, therefore, must be the chief mark of the Beast, that is, the chief distinguishing characteristic of all the members of the Church of the Anti-Christ, the Mystical Body of Satan.
Saint John the Apostle indicates this symbolically in his Apocalypse, when he says that in the days of the Antichrist no one will be able to buy or sell anything without having the mark of the beast inscribed upon their right hand. According to the Fathers of the Church this is a symbolic expression, chiefly, for the conspiracy of the wicked in acting on principle out of falsehood. The biblical number, often translated as 666 is actually in the Greek text written very similar to sss, three Snake like symbols which were used in Asia Minor, in the time of Saint John, as the symbol for the number 6, which in the bible indicates the fullness of imperfection. And since pride is the fullness of all vice, and vice is the moral habitual failing which leads to imperfection and wickedness, 666 is a pre-eminent symbol for pride and dissent.
Whether the number 666 means more than this, is another consideration. I am here giving a mystagogic reading of the text, that is, a reading which applies to the moral or spiritual life and how we should or should not be living our lives today.
But the “Bergoglio is certainly the Pope” people are doing just this. They are acting out of a spirit of solidarity in dissent from the 10 truths which I listed above. They ignore all arguments, refuse all reflections and reasons, even conversations, which would lead them to confront the fact of what they are doing. They have willfully blinded themselves to the truth and they show absolutely no worry whatsoever of what might or will befall them for denying and dissenting from truth. They do this because they do not want to separate themselves from the massa (damnata)* who define themselves as dissenters from these truths. They do not want to disagree with the Cardinals and Bishops who reject these truths or close their eyes to them. They are literally willing to risk their eternal salvation on the basis of this solidarity in dissent.
And it is true dissent, because they do not even attempt to give reasons for what they are doing. They only lash out with insults or vicious punishments, calumnies etc..
These catholics are profoundly confused. The unanimous or near unanimous opinion of men might be truth in the political order, but it is not the criterion of truth in matters of canon law. That many of these Catholics are very political people might indeed explain why they cannot understand that in the Church democracy or politics means nothing. Truth means everything.
Indeed, it is the teaching of Christ, Scripture, the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, the Doctors of the Church, the Saints and the Magisterium throughout the ages, that to deny even one truth is a mortal sin meriting eternal damnation. But a godless politician will never accept or understand this.
This is why solidarity in dissent is the preeminent spiritual mark of the beast. If you have this mark, then you are a member of the Church of the Anti-Christ, no matter what religion you practice, what mass you attend, what Cardinal you follow, or what you otherwise might think of yourself, as holy or impious.
Solidarity in dissent can last a long time. It is what destroyed and is destroying the Protestant Churches, who agreed in the Reformation to deny certain Catholic truths, and in that tradition, from which they refuse to break, they ran into the necessity of denying other truths. — This follows the spiritual law of moral degradation, namely, that if you deny one moral truth with unbending firmness and fidelity, then you will be forced to sacrifice your adhesion to other moral truths, until you become utterly depraved and ultimately are driven insane. This is why among men, insanity is a hallmark of the diabolic. — And this is why Protestant Churches, or any group which practices solidarity in dissent, such as those who deny the 10 truths above, cannot be saved: they are doomed by that solidarity to fall into continually worse and more diverse errors and vices.
So I warn all: solidarity in dissent is a mark of the Beast and so long as you are marked with that mark, you belong to that Beast.
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* “Massa damanata” is a Latin phrase used by Saint Augustine of Hippo to name the collectivity of all the damned souls. Massa in Latin means mass, damnata, means damned.
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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