Fr. Rutler’s Weekly Column October 13, 2019

Over forty years ago, I told a wise Protestant theologian that I had been reading the Apologia pro Vita Sua of John Henry Newman (1801-1890). He warned me that it is “a dangerous book.” That was just the sort of advice that makes a young thinker all the more eager to read it. And so I did, and so did countless others whose lives were changed by this book, whose passages are some of the most beautiful in the English language, and whose author’s the thoughts considering the psychology of the soul are undying.    Newman wrote that book in four weeks, standing at his upright desk in Birmingham, England, in response to a personal attack on his integrity: “I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind . . . but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.”    Today Newman is to be canonized in Rome, a tribute to his unsurpassed gifts of grace as theologian, historian, writer, poet, preacher and, most of all, a pastor of souls. While preaching and writing immortal words, he also was meticulous in running the Oratory school he founded, even making costumes for school plays, paying coal bills, and playing his fiddle in the school orchestra.    In his honor and in thanksgiving for the Church’s recognition of his holiness, of which the angels never were in doubt, we shall dedicate today a shrine for him in our church. As with all that we try to do in our church, this sculpture is the work of one of our own parishioners. Newman foresaw with uncanny prescience the various challenges of our own day, and this monument should be a reminder to pray for his intercession on behalf of our local church and the Church Universal in a time of spiritual combat, which is a lot like what he faced in his own age.     To Newman’s great surprise, and even “shock,” the newly elected Pope Leo XIII in 1879 created him a cardinal. He had been so attacked and calumniated for his religious views over many years, that he was satisfied that the “cloud” had finally been lifted. In his acceptance speech he said that his entire life had been consecrated to refuting the doctrine of relativism which held that “Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.”    Today we sing Cardinal Newman’s hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” which his own life embodied and faith made bold: “I do not ask to see the distant scene, one step enough for me.” Faithfully yours in Christ, Father George W. Rutler

Settimo Cielo

di Sandro Magister 

12 ott 19

A Missionary Called By the Pope To the Synod On the Amazon Explains What the Church Gets Wrong

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Fr. Martín Lasarte Topolanski, the author of the text hosted on this page, a Uruguayan on mission in Angola, is the head of missionary outreach in Africa and Latin America for the Salesian congregation to which he belongs.

Pope Francis included him among the 33 churchmen he personally invited to take part in the synod on the Amazon.

The following text was written and published before this synod. But it is as if Fr. Lasarte had delivered it in the assembly just now, for the cutting clarity with which he addresses its crucial questions, starting with the widespread request – which he rejects – to ordain married men as priests.

The complete text of the contribution came out in Italian in “Settimana News” on August 12 2019. And “Asia News,” the agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, published an extensive excerpt of it in two parts, on October 10 and October 11.

This is an even more abbreviated  synopsis. But absolutely a must-read, if one wishes to get to the heart of this dramatic synod on the Amazon.

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THE THREE DISEASES THAT STERILIZE THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE AMAZON

by Martín Lasarte

It is said that the priestly ordination of married laymen in distant communities is necessary, because of the difficulty encountered by ministrants in reaching them. In my view, the setting of the problem in these terms reveals  engrained clericalism. […] A Church has been created where the laity do not see themselves as protagonists and where there is little or no sense of belonging, a Church that, if there is no “priest”, does not work. This is an ecclesiological and pastoral aberration. Our faith, as Christians, is rooted in baptism, not in priestly ordination.

Sometimes I have the impression that we want to clericalize the laity. First of all we need a Church of baptized protagonists, disciples and missionaries. In various parts of our America, one has the impression that it has been sacramentalised but not evangelized. […] We need to broaden the horizon and look at the life and experience of the Church in its universal context.

The examples of Korea, Japan, Angola, Guatemala

The Church of Korea was born from the evangelization of the laity. The layman Yi Seung-hun, baptized in China, spread the Catholic Church throughout the country, baptizing himself. For 51 years from its foundation (1784-1835), the Korean Church was evangelized by the laity, with the occasional presence of a priest. That Catholic community flourished and spread far and wide, despite the terrible persecutions, thanks to the protagonism of the baptized.

The Church of Japan, founded by St. Francis Xavier (1549), blossomed vertiginously for three centuries ebven under persecution; the missionaries were expelled and the last priest was martyred in 1644. Only after more than 200 years could priests (French missionaries) return. And when they did they found a new Church formed by kakure kirishitan (hidden Christians). In Christian communities there were various ministries: a person in charge, catechists, baptizers, preachers. The criterion that the Christians guarded until the arrival of the new priests in the 19th century is interesting: the Church will return to Japan and you will know from these three signs: “the priests will be celibate, there will be a statue of Mary and they will obey the Pope sama of Rome”.

Allow me to move on to something more personal, to my 25-year missionary experience in Africa (Angola). Once the civil war ended in 2002, I was able to visit Christian communities that, for 30 years, had not had the Eucharist, nor seen a priest, but remained firm in the faith and were dynamic communities, led by the “catechist”, which is a fundamental ministry in Africa, and by other ministers: evangelizers, prayer leaders, the pastoral care of women, service to the poorest. A living and secular Church in the absence of a priest.

In Latin America there is no lack of positive examples, such as among the Quetchi of central Guatemala (Verapaz) where, despite the absence of priests in some communities, lay ministers have living communities, rich in ministries, liturgies, catechetical itineraries, missions, among the which the evangelical groups have been able to penetrate very little. Despite the scarcity of priests for all the communities, it is a local Church rich in indigenous priestly vocations, where even female and male religious congregations of totally local origin have been founded.

But in the Amazon the opposite is happening

Is the lack of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the Amazon a pastoral challenge or is it rather the consequence of theological-pastoral options that have not given the expected results or only partial results? In my opinion, the proposal of the “viri probati” as a solution to evangelization is an illusory, almost magical proposal that goes nowhere near to addressing the real underlying problem.

Pope Francis writes in Evangelii gaudium 107: ” Many places are experiencing a dearth of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. This is often due to a lack of contagious apostolic fervour in communities which results in a cooling of enthusiasm and attractiveness. Wherever there is life, fervour and a desire to bring Christ to others, genuine vocations will arise”. […]

The Pope touches on the key to the problem. It is not the lack of vocations, but the lack of proposal, the lack of apostolic fervor, the lack of fraternity and prayer; the lack of serious and profound evangelization processes. […]

Two more examples, from India and the Congo

In north-eastern India, evangelization has progressed decisively since 1923, thanks to a small Catholic community that did not reach 1,000 Christians. According to data from 2018, this region today consists of 1,647,765 Catholics, with 3,756 religious and 1,621 priests (half of them belonging to local ethnic minorities and the rest missionaries from other parts of India). There are 15 dioceses rooted in ethnic minorities with about 220 local languages (Naga, Khasi, Wancho, Nocte, Jaintia, Apatani, Goro, Ahom, War, Bodo …). These populations, like the Amazon ones, have remained isolated for centuries from Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism, taking refuge in the mountains and forests of the Himalayas, living their ancestral practices. An impressive change took place over 90 years. The ratio between Catholics and Catholic priests today is 1 to 1,000, which is excellent. Many Christians of these “tribal” minorities have occupied significant positions in India’s local and national politics.

The other “biome” is the Congo River, with the surrounding countries: over 500 populations and languages. Christianity has gone through various difficulties, the same as in other contexts, with the added challenge of being considered the religion of colonialism during the period of decolonization (1960s and 1970s). Despite everything, the flowering of the African Churches is evident and promising. In that “biome,” priestly vocations have grown by 32% in the last 10 years and the trend seems to continue.

We could bring other examples from Vietnam, Indonesia (the most populous Muslim country in the world), East Timor, Oceania … but certainly not from our secularized Europe. In all geographical regions there are challenges and difficulties in Christian communities; but we see that where there is a work of serious, authentic and continuous evangelization, vocations to the priesthood are not lacking.

Why is the Amazon so sterile?

The inevitable question that arises is: how is it possible that peoples with so many anthropological-cultural riches and similarities with the Amazonian peoples, in their rituals, myths, a strong sense of community, communion with the cosmos, with profound religious openness … have vibrant Christian communities and flourishing priestly vocations while in some parts of the Amazon, after 200, 400 years, there is ecclesial and vocational sterility? There are dioceses and congregations present for over a century and which do not have a single local indigenous vocation. Is there an extra gene or one missing, or is the problem something else? […]

I think that in various parts of Latin America, and in particular Amazonia, one of the pastoral problems is the insistence on “old paths”. There is great conservatism in different Churches and ecclesial structures. I am not referring only to pre-conciliar traditionalists, but to pastoral lines, a mentality that took root in 1968 and the 1970s and 1980s. […]

In my opinion, there are three types of pastoral Alzheimer’s that affect the evangelizing sterility of the Amazon.

1. Cultural anthropologism

In 1971, a group of 12 anthropologists wrote the famous Declaration of Barbados, which stated that the Good News of Jesus was bad news for indigenous peoples. Undoubtedly, this provocation gave rise to a fruitful dialogue between anthropologists and missionaries developed in various parts, which served to provide mutual enrichment. But in other places it became self-censorship, it resulted in a loss of the “joy of evangelizing” (“Evangelii Gaudium” 1-13). I remember cases of nuns who decided not to announce Jesus Christ, nor to do catechesis, “out of respect for indigenous culture”. They would limited themselves to witness and service. […]

Sometimes the insistence on witness is such as to demand it replace proclamation. In this regard, Paul VI, in the fundamental document on evangelization “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (22) tells us: ” Nevertheless this always remains insufficient, because even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if it is not explained, justified – what Peter called always having “your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have”[52] – and made explicit by a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus. The Good News proclaimed by the witness of life sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the word of life. There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed”.

2. Social Moralism

In more than one place I have heard expressions of this kind from pastoral workers: “When people need services, they come to us (the Catholic Church), but when they look for meaning in their lives, they go to others (evangelicals etc.)”. It is startlingly clear and evident that the Church, in an attempt to be “a Samaritan Church”, has forgotten that it is a “Magdalene Church”: it is a Church that provides services but does not announce the joy of the Lord’s resurrection.

The Church’s social commitment, in the evangelical option for the poorest, […] has undoubtedly been and continues to be a constitutive aspect of the process of evangelization, which expresses the diaconal dimension of the Church. Such a commitment has been a great source of wealth not only for the Latin American Church, but for the universal Church.

The problem arises when this kind of activity absorbs all of the life and dynamism of the Church, casting a shadow over or even silencing the other dimensions: kerigmatic, catechetical, liturgical, koinonia. We are in an unresolved tension between Martha and Mary. […]

Thank God, when academic pastoral planning omits that “spirituality embodied in the culture of the simple”, the Virgin herself intercedes taking care of her children and touching the popular heart, not with great reflections, but with simple popular piety: rich, simple, direct, full of affection, profoundly interiorised by the “little ones”. Here we can point to the great Amazonian devotion to the Virgin of Nazareth, when in October, in Belém de Pará, about two million pilgrims accompany the procession of the “Cirio de Nazaret” (image of the Virgin of Nazareth).

In the Latin American Church, the enormous hemorrhage of Catholics towards the constellation of the Evangelical and Neo-Pentecostal Churches is undoubtedly due to various factors, so one cannot be simplistic, but certainly the lack of an overtly “more religious” and “less sociologized” ministry has greatly influenced an emigration towards the Evangelical Churches and new religious movements, where in the Word, in a fraternal and warm welcome, in a constant presence, in a strong sense of belonging, they find a “meaning” and a company for their life. […]

I visited a diocese, where 95% of the population were Catholics in the early 1980s; today they are 20%. I remember the comment of one of the European missionaries who systematically “dis-evangelized” the region: “We do not favour superstition, but human dignity”. That says it all.

The Church in some places has turned into a great services manager (health, education, promotional, advocacy …), but little in the mother of faith. […]

3. Secularism

A third side affect of this pastoral Alzheimer’s is secularism. […] A Church is secularized, when its pastoral workers internalize the dynamics of a secularized mentality: the absence or very timid manifestation of the faith almost asking forgiveness.

The consequences of these options or pastoral influences, without a doubt, are reflected in the vocational sterility or lack of perseverance in the path undertaken, due to the absence of deep motivations. No one leaves everything to be a social animator; no one gives his life to an “opinion”; no one offers the absolute of his life to something relative, but only to the Absolute of God. When this theological and religious dimension is not evident, clear and alive in mission, there will never be options of evangelical radicalism, which is an indication that evangelization has touched the soul of a Christian community.

A Christian community that does not generate priestly and religious vocations is a community affected by some spiritual illness. We can ordain the viri probati and others, but the basic problems will remain: an evangelization without the Gospel, a Christianity without Christ, a spirituality without the Holy Spirit.

Logically, in the horizontal vision of the dominant culture, in which God is absent, or reduced to some symbolic, cultural or moral concepts, it is impossible for a young person to come to appreciate the fruitful spiritual and pastoral value of priestly celibacy as a precious gift of God and of the total and sublime disposition of love and service to the Church and to humanity.

There will be authentic priestly vocations only when an authentic, demanding, free and personal relationship is established with the person of Christ. Perhaps it is very simplistic but, in my view, the “new path” for the evangelization of the Amazon is the novelty of Christ.Condividi:

•  12 ottobre 2019
•  English

NOW, IT’S HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS!

A half a billion, to be precise.

October 10, 2019  167 Comments

TRANSCRIPT OF A VIDEO ON CHURCH MILITANT WEBSITE

Following up on yesterday’s Vortex where we talked about Vatican Secretary of State Cdl. Pietro Parolin and his apparent covering up of at least a $13 million theft from the U.S.-based Papal Foundation — now there’s more.

Parolin’s offices were raided internally by Vatican police last week, as was widely reported in international media. The unprecedented raid, created a firestorm of questions.  

Church Militant has been informed that, behind the scenes, this is something of a power play between various Pope Francis factions, apparently all of whom are unhappy with him — just for competing reasons.

Indeed, it was Francis himself who gave permission for the raid, but by the time the case arrived on his desk, too much was already known by too many for the Pope to have not acted.

In short, various workers in the Vatican Secretary of State diverted — or ripped off — approximately 400 million euros; that’s almost $500 million from the account which administers Peter’s Pence.

Let that sink in: half a billion dollars stolen. Those optics immediately look bad — really bad. Francis’ “Church of the Poor” has high-level workers stealing from a pot intended to help the poor.

It’s so bad that the Swiss Guard was handed this flyer with the workers’ official headshots and ordered to not let them back into Vatican City while the investigation is going on.

What has the investigation turned up so far, according to our Vatican sources?

That about half of the money, approximately $250 million, diverted from Peter’s Pence, was used to buy a massively expensive building in the heart of London on Sloane Avenue.

While the cost of the building was at market price, the point is that the purchase was made with funds not authorized to be used for real estate or real estate speculation.

On top of that, when all the Brexit madness and political fallout turned into economic news, the market for expensive real estate in London took a huge hit and the value of the building dropped.

Additionally, some of the remaining roughly $250 million — 200 million in euros — appears to have been diverted to either phony legal companies or, at a minimum, fraudulent billable hours to cover for the purchase of the London property.

Aside from the theft, which makes Cdl. Parolin’s so-called “loan agreement” for $13 million with the Papal Foundation look small by comparison, there is the more painful PR problem for Pope Francis of just who was in charge when the senior managers got sticky fingers.

That man is Cdl. Angelo Becciu, who was deputy to the Secretariat of State, the offices that were raided, at the time all this illegal stuff was going on.

He is a dyed-in-the-wool Francis man, who the Pope promoted to cardinal last year.

In December of last year, he transferred to become prefect of the Congregation for Saints and his replacement at State is none other than Abp. Edgar Peña Parra, a man with a very questionable past, but also an FOF — “Friend of Francis.”

The theft or diversion of half a billion dollars appears to have happened on Becciu’s watch, and the cover-up and resulting raid on Parra’s watch.

Parra has a very troubling past, a past which Pope Francis seems to have no problem with.

This past June, Abp. Viganò, in hiding for fear of his life, told The Washington Post that he’s seen with his own eyes official Church documentation linking Parra to the deaths of two men in Venezuela in 1992.

The deaths from electrocution occurred on the island of San Carlos in Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela, and according to the Church documents Viganò read, he says, “[T]he two corpses were found naked, with evidence of macabre homosexual lewd encounters.”

Moreover, Parra has a long history of accusations of homosexual predation, including the seduction of two seminarians in September 1990 in Maracaibo, an account investigated and confirmed in writing by the seminary rector.

Archbishop Viganò also insists the Vatican has in its possession a 25-page dossier detailing Parra’s alleged crimes, but none of this has stopped his rise to power in the Francis Vatican.

According to sources here in Rome, the half-billion-dollar theft was reported to Francis by high-ranking officials at the Vatican bank. 

That little nugget is what prompted the reports that a huge internal power play was underway inside the walls here.

The Vatican Bank has a very long history of corruption. That the bank would actually report otherofficials of corruption has become something of a quiet joke here. 

When Francis stepped out onto the loggia back in 2013, one of the two pressing issues was the widespread corruption — financial and moral — that needed cleaning up.

Jorge Bergoglio was presented to the cardinals in conclave as the man who could get everything cleaned up because he was not part of the bureaucracy, he was the consummate outsider.

But under Francis, the scandals have proliferated and Vatican corruption seems more entrenched than ever.

Extremely questionable men in high-ranking office, sex abuse cover-up on an unprecedented scale, back in the United States bishops facing hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits, new accusations arising against the old guard like Bp. Howard Hubbard of Albany and hundreds of millions of dollars simply stolen.

On top of that, a dispirited workforce, overworked and hunkered down, terrified of getting their heads chopped off; personal politics of destruction running amok; a soaring operating deficit — $80 million in the red last year alone — and true or not, increasing social media chatter circulating about a secret plot to overthrow the Pope.

And, oh yeah, the little matter of a synod threatening to split the Church, raising questions all over the world if Pope Francis was ever validly elected, or if he has preached heresy, and if a major portion of the hierarchy has simply lost supernatural faith.

Add to that a synod in Germany looking very much like a schism in utero and you have a papacy in crisis — no doubt about it — despite attempts by liberal Catholic and secular media types to downplay it all or even cover up for him editorially.

Regardless of his efforts to stack the College of Cardinals so that a Pope Francis II will be elected next, much more of these high-level scandals and never-ending controversies may just deter some cardinals from voting for “more of the same.”

Coming to you from Vatican City.

FRANCIS, JESUS AND SCALFARI

Weird. Really weird.

October 11, 2019  

TRANSCRIPT of Michael Voris’ Video

I’m Michael Voris coming to you from Vatican City, specifically with some thoughts on the disturbing news about the Pope Francis-Eugenio Scalfari interview about whether Jesus was, in fact, divine — God.

There’s a lot to say about this, a lot that is problematic, from the original story to the Vatican’s somewhat wobbly response, to the further questions raised about the whole affair.

First, the conversation between the Pope and Eugenio Scalfari. Scalfari is a very old Italian journalist, who has known the Pope for a very long time and who enjoys a warm friendship with Francis.

That friendship has earned Scalfari various interviews in the past — and not without controversy.

Scalfari reported last year that Pope Francis does not believe in Hell, that human souls do not go there. Scalfari says the Pope told him that souls aren’t eternally damned, they are just annihilated, pass into non-existence.

That comment set off a firestorm, which the Vatican feebly tried to put out by saying that Scalfari’s interviews aren’t reliable. They are just rough freely interpreted recollections.

OK, so why keep giving interviews to a man who apparently doesn’t electronically record the interviews, does not take any notes and just rambles with a very bad memory when recounting the interview?

You’d think the Pope being misquoted as denying the immortality of the soul and that no human is ever damned would be enough to decline the next interview request from Scalfari.

But, no — not in this pontificate. 

The man who zipped his mouth shut on the plane back from Ireland when the Viganò accusations emerged and told the reporters on board he would not say a single word; when the man who refuses to defuse the controversy surrounding his supposed denial of humans in Hell and immortality of the soul; when the man — the Pope — who refuses to meet with the remaining dubia cardinals does meet with an atheist reporter who, according to the Vatican, can’t be trusted to get the story right — then Houston, we have a problem.

Here’s the overarching problem which frames this controversy. Francis continues meeting with this atheist journalist, knowing he will be quoted, accurately or inaccurately. 

And in the midst of everything, here’s the question that hasn’t been asked: Just how could Scalfari get this so wrong?

Seriously, how does a reporter sit down with a long-time friend, who he constantly says he knows very well and talk about things like, oh, whether Jesus is God — or not.

The Pope says, “Yep, Eugenio. Jesus is God,” and then Eugenio goes, “Yep. Got it. Jesus is not God.”

That scenario is more difficult to believe than a pope who doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus while he was on earth. How could a journalist get this so terribly wrong? Not even close, 100% wrong, 180 degrees backward.

Yet, if we are to believe the Vatican statement, then that’s precisely what you must believe, which of course begs the questions: Why isn’t the Vatican actually denying the content, not just soft-balling and saying Scalfari is wrong? And two, why do you keep giving this guy interviews?

For years, decades really, there has been a theme running through the Jesuits, a kind of Arianism, that while Jesus was on earth, walking around during His Galilean days, He either actually wasn’t divine, or didn’t really know He was divine.

That second proposition is completely stupid because how could God, which is a being who is all-knowing, not know He is God?

But nonetheless, this is a Jesuit thing echoed almost constantly by the likes of James Martin, who says things like Jesus learned His mission from the Syrophoenician woman — really?

Well, I guess the rest of the human race has her to thank for bringing to Jesus’ consciousness that He needed to redeem us — phew!

But don’t forget that this is precisely what Bp. Barron’s hero, Hans Urs von Balthasar, believed, that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity “deposited” His divinity — his term — before the incarnation.

He had a “kind of access” to His divinity when He prayed to the Father, but He Himself while on earth, nope, not divine.

Now, when you have that background, the Jesuits’ decades-long denial, or at least fudging, of Jesus’ divinity while on earth, von Balthasar’s insane claim that he deposited, whatever that means, His divinity before the incarnation and you go back and read the interview, what Scalfari wrote, it starts to get a little dicey because what Scalfari says the Pope said is exactly what all these other guys say.

That Jesus wasn’t divine when He was walking around on earth — a good man, full of virtue, blah blah, but not a God.

There is a very disturbing convergence here between what has become accepted theology among many Jesuits — and Pope Francis is a Jesuit — and what Scalfari says the Pope told him.

And there’s that annoying, pestering, nagging question in the back of your mind on this one: How could the Pope say Jesus was divine and Scalfari take away the Pope said Jesus isn’t divine?

Weird. Really weird.

And I Will Be Your Jorge

And I Will Be Your Jorge

• Guy McClung
• October 10, 2019

The Jorge Good News

The Father and The Jorge

All things have been entrusted to me by the Father. No one knows the Jorge except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Jorge and those to whom the Jorge chooses to reveal Him.

The Son and The Jorge

You now have me with you.  It is now proven that Jesus of Nazareth, once having become a man, was, though a man of exceptional virtues, not at all a God.  Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, was a man, not God incarnate. Once incarnate, Jesus ceased to be God and became a man until his death on the cross. I, though chosen, was chosen as a man and I remain a man, though favored, and now I am with you.

The True Gospel

Do not desert me or turn away from my gospel as the schismatics are now doing who cling to that old gospel which is really no gospel at all. These people of the past, out of touch with my gospel, are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert my truth. When these schismatics, faithful only to the past, preach that old gospel, let them be under the Jorge curse!  As we have already said, so now we say again: If anybody is preaching to you that old time religion, that old gospel other than what you have heard from me, let them be under my curse!

Schisms By The Faithful

For first of all, when you come together, I hear that there are schisms among you; and I partly believe it because I know these old faithful ones too well.  In clinging to the old, it is they who are in schism. It is they who are now the source of schisms and heresies that they spread among you by their divisive proclamations rejecting my teachings. They, in clinging to their old schismatic faith, make their separation manifest among you.

As Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, do not allow your minds to be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to me. For if someone comes and proclaims any so-called good news other than the one now newly proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the spirit of the Jorge, or a different gospel than my gospel, do not put up with it. Curse them as I do!

Jorge Ministry – Not Old Myths

Preach the Jorge word. For the time is here when many of the old and ancient schisms do not accept sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires to return to the past, they gather around them a great number of false teachers of the old ways to say what their itching ears want to hear. They turn their ears away from the new truth and turn back to the old myths. But you whom I have elevated, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of a true evangelist, discharge all the duties of your Jorge ministry.

False Teachers Deny Heaven For Everyone

Some devote themselves to myths and depart from the new truths. This is meaningless talk.  They want to be teachers, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

Anyone who teaches that not all are welcome in paradise is a false teacher. The good news is that no one is condemned forever. Eternal condemnation is not the logic of the true gospel. An everlasting hell of fire is not good news.

Do you not know that wrongdoers can inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived!

We now know that paradise is for everyone  – for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders, for men who sleep with boys, women who forsake natural sexual relations for unnatural ones with women, men who abandon natural relations with women and are inflamed with lust for one another, liars, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, those who practice magic arts,  thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers and perjurers, [but not the schismatics] who need only be contrite for the past without changing their lives in the future. This conforms to my good news concerning the coming glory of the blessed, which has been entrusted to me.

Wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the schismatics who deny me and suppress the Jorge truth by their wickedness. They have exchanged my truth for the old lies.

Prayer

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind, in thought, and in proclaiming the Jorge good news by your words and by your actions. I have been sent to preach this gospel. Pray for me to have the strength, the wisdom, and courage to do so.

How Cardinal Sodano robbed the Papacy from Pope Benedict!

Oct11by The Editor

https://fromrome.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/how-cardinal-sodano-robbed-the-papacy-from-pope-benedict/

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

As I have reported before, in February 2013 there was a de facto coup d’etat at the Vatican, the result of which was the imprisonment of Pope Benedict XVI, and the convocation of an illegal, illicit and invalid Conclave, which resulted in the illegal, illicit and invalid election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Now, I invite the entire Church to examine more carefully what happened in the 58 minutes after the Consistory of February 11, 2013, which ended just before noon, Rome time, on that day.

According to Canon Law, it was the grave and solemn duty of the Dean of the College of Cardinals to approach Pope Benedict and ask for a written copy of his act of Renunciation.

Here are the relevant Canons of the Code of 1983 which regulate what should have been done:

Can. 40 — Exsecutor alicuius actus administrativi invalide suo munere fungitur, antequam litteras receperit earumque authenticitatem et integritatem recognoverit, nisi praevia earundem notitia ad ipsum auctoritate eundem actum edentis transmissa fuerit.

Can. 41 — Exsecutor actus administrativi cui committitur merum exsecutionis ministerium, exsecutionem huius actus denegare non potest, nisi manifesto appareat eundem actum esse nullum aut alia ex gravi causa sustineri non posse aut condiciones in ipso actu administrativo appositas non esse adimpletas; si tamen actus administrativi exsecutio adiunctorum personae aut loci ratione videatur inopportuna, exsecutor exsecutionem intermittat; quibus in casibus statim certiorem faciat auctoritatem quae actum edidit.

Needless to say, I have added some color to the letters of the text to make it clear that, in the very 2 Canons which Cardinal Sodano should have carefully read and acted upon, there is made by the Code itself the distinction between munus and ministerium. And yet for 6 years, and especially during the last 12 months, those who have sustained that the renunciation was valid, dared use the argument that there no distinction between the terms!

It seems so true, that it is almost a law, that whatever one investigates about the Pontificate of Bergoglio, one uncovers nothing but lies and frauds. This is clearly the greatest.

The Laws which governed what Cardinal Sodano should have done

Because in that key moment, before Sodano through Father Lombardi gave the Sig.ra Chirri the go ahead to publish to the world that Benedict had resigned, He will leave the Pontificate on Feb. 29 (B16 è dimesso. Lascia il Pontificato Feb 28), he HAD TO read these 2 canons, or at least recall them.

Let us therefore take a closer look at these 2 canons, which regard whats is to be done when someone with mere Executive authority receives notice from someone with Jurisdiction to posit an adminstrative act, that he is to take an action.

My English translation of the Canons:

Canon 40: The executor of any administrative act invalidly conducts his office (suo munero), before he receives the document (letteras) and certifies (recognoverit) their integrity and authenticity, unless previous knowledge of them has been transmitted to him by the authority publishing the act itself.

Canon 41: The executor of an administrative act to whom there has been committed the mere ministry of execution, cannot refuse execution of the act, unless the same act appears manifestly to be null or cannot be sustained for any grave cause or the conditions in the administrative act itself do not seem to be able to have been fulfilled: however, if the execution of the administrative act seems inopportune by reason of place or adjoined persons, let the executor omit the execution; in which cases let him immediately bring the matter to the attention of (certiorem faciat) the authority which published the act.

What Cardinal Sodano did

First, as Canon 40 states, Cardinal Sodano’s first duty was to ask Pope Benedict XVI for a written copy of the Act of Renunciation. This is because, as read outloud, anyone fluent in Latin, as Cardinal Sodano is reputed to be, would have noticed multiple errors in the Latin, most grevious of which was the ennunciation of commisum not commiso by the Holy Father. This touched upon the integrity of the act.

Second, in receiving the Act of Renunciation in the authentic Latin Text, and finding that it was as it was intended to be read, he was obliged to examine if the act was in conformity with Canon 332 §2, which reads:

Canon 332 § 2. Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet, ad validitatem requiritur ut renuntiatio libere fiat et rite manifestetur, non vero ut a quopiam acceptetur.

My translation:

Canon 332 §2. If it happen that the Roman Pontiff renounce his office (muneri suo), for validity there is required that the renunciation be done freely and duly manifested, but not that it be accepted by anyone whomsoever.

And thus, in this examination, the Cardinal had to confront the very Distinction between munus and ministerium that was founded in the Act of Renunciation, which contained used the terms munus and ministerium.

Clearly anyone reading Canon 40, would see that munus means office or charge! And in reading canon 41 that ministerium means execution of the duties of the office. Clearly he would as Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals realize that it is one thing to have a munus to do something, quite another to put into motion his ministerium to execute it. — He was acting on the very basis of that distinction, because before he acted, he held the munus to act, and in acting he executed the ministerium to act!

For this reason, Cardinal Sodano must be questioned if not publicly accused of having closed his eyes! Of having ignored the distinction and his own grave duty and invalidly executed his office, by declaring the act a valid act of renunciation of the papal office!

This violated the general principle of law, that the validity of the renunciation of power is NOT to be presumed.

As is enshrined, in an applied form, in Canon 21:

Can. 21 — In dubio revocatio legis praeexistentis non praesumitur, sed leges posteriores ad priores trahendae sunt et his, quantum fieri potest, conciliandae.

Canon 21 — In doubt, the revocation of a pre-existing law is not presumed, but later laws are to be compared with prior ones, as much as can be done, be reconciled to them.

In a word, he was claiming a munus to act and using that authority to deny that the Pope had a munus which had to be renounced!

This was tantamount to robbing the Roman Pontiff of his office by exploiting his authority to declare valid what was invalid to produce a papal resignation!

What Cardinal Sodano should have done!

Upon receiving the document of Renunciation, and noticing that the renunciation of ministerium was not the act specified by Canon 332 §2, he should have spoken with Pope Benedict in the presence of 2 credible witnesses and brought this to his attention, as Canon 41 requires. Then he should have asked whether it was his intention to renounce the Petrine munus or simply to renounce the Petrine Ministerium. In the latter case, he should have asked the Holy Father to issue a Motu Proprio naming someone to be his Vicar extraordinaire who would have the potestas executionis but not the office of the Pope, during the remainder of his life, OR, asked him to sign a corrected copy of the act, containing the word muneri instead of ministerio.

Simple. Easy. Legal, Legit. By failing to do that, he convened an illicit, illegal and invalid Conclave, and made Bergoglio an Antipope, not the Pope!

(Photo Credits: CTV)

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Athanasius Gracida Against the World & Francis’s “Pagan Rites”

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/FMfcgxwDrlRLWtxGnXTwBbmHWZkzxJNt

The Church Father St. Athanasius was dubbed “Athanasius contra mundum”:

“Athanasius against the world.”

He almost single handedly defended Catholic orthodoxy and the deity of Jesus Christ when all the Catholic bishops defected from the faith except for a handful. Even the pope excommunicated Athanasius for his defense of the deity of Jesus.

Now, it is Athanasius Gracida contra mundum:

Athanasius Gracida against the world.

Bishop Rene Gracida alone among all the Catholic bishops of the entire world defended God’s greatest commandment: “You shall have no other God before me.”

Today, Athanasius Gracida told Francis and all the Catholic bishops of the world that they must choose to be a Catholic or to be a semi-pagan and therefore a heretic. You cannot be both a Catholic and a pagan.

Bishop Gracida’s voice cried out:

“The participation by Francis the Merciful in the pagan rites held in the Vatican Garden is… heretical… forbidden to all Catholics, especially the one who sits (invalidly?) on the Throne of Peter.”

“A day of reckoning will come for him as it will for each of us.”
(FromRome.Wordpress.com, October 10, 2019)

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church and for Bishop Gracida’s call for a imperfect council of cardinals to investigate the invalidity of the conclave that elected Francis as well as the validity of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

Fred Martinez at 6:24 PM

The Amazon Synod Has Begun, and Pandora’s Box Is Opened

OCTOBER 10, 2019

The Amazon Synod Has Begun, and Pandora’s Box Is Opened

JULIA MELONI

CRISIS MAGAZINE

The Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is off to an ominous start. Each day, as more bizarre, jarring, and revolutionary developments emerge, I keep coming back to a line from Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor: “When the cardinals elected Bergoglio they did not know what a Pandora’s box they were opening.”

Shortly before the synod started, Pope Francis and Claudio Cardinal Hummes, the synod’s general relator, hosted a startling indigenous ceremony in the Vatican gardens. Led by a female native of the Amazon region, a group encircling a mandala bowed down before a statue of Pachamama—Mother Earth. A synod official didn’t identify the (apparently nude) statue as the Blessed Virgin Mary, but rather said the image was probably meant to represent “Mother Earth, fertility, woman, life.” An Amazonian tribal leader, meanwhile, said that the ceremony looked decidedly “pagan.”

Another rite of “indigenous mysticism” took place at a pre-synodal meeting of bishops gathered around Cardinal Hummes’s group, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM), which organized both the Vatican gardens ceremony and the synod. One commentator claimed that the synodal fathers “expect the [ceremonial] broth to be hot enough to ingest, in a kind of communion with the Pachamama.” In August, at another preparatory meeting for the synod, a Colombian shaman “blessed” the religious present.

In the synod’s opening days, more unsettling figures leaped out of Pandora’s box. Cardinal Hummes announced that indigenous communities had “requested” the ordination of married men—the very project Hummes has been pushing since at least 2006. Bishop Erwin Kräutler (reportedly the principal author of the synod’s working document) claimed that “indigenous people don’t understand celibacy,” endorsed a female diaconate, and admitted that the synod is “maybe a step to” women priests. Sr. Alba Teresa Cediel Castillo, a Columbian missionary, explained that women in the Amazon already “baptize children,” “celebrate” marriages, and “listen to confessions” without offering absolution. Even an experimental liturgical rite for the Amazon was proposed. 

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We now have “two religions within the Catholic Church,” according to historian Roberto de Mattei. The first is traditional Catholicism; the second is “the Amazonian religion,” he argues, charging that the synod’s working document endorses “pantheism and polytheism.”

At a hard-hitting roundtable of Catholic leaders, de Mattei pointed out that revolutions historically have long incubation periods but move dizzyingly fast once they explode. He believes that the current Church revolution has been simmering for 50 to 60 years and that now “it is possible that all will explode very, very rapidly.” The passage from a material schism to a formal schism “could be dramatic and happen very, very, very rapidly.”

Writing in The Catholic Thing on Tuesday, the renowned theologian Fr. Thomas Weinandy published an extraordinary text on “internal papal schism.” Fr. Weinandy predicted that neither an American nor a German schism will “formally happen”—yet, he explained, Pope Francis remains the “ultimate protector” of German leaders who are promoting “ambiguous teaching and pastoral practice… in accord with Francis’s own.” Thus, says Fr. Weinandy:

What the Church will end up with, then, is a pope who is the pope of the Catholic Church and, simultaneously, the de facto leader, for all practical purposes, of a schismatic church. Because he is the head of both, the appearance of one church remains, while in fact there are two.

The only phrase that I can find to describe this situation is “internal papal schism,” for the pope, even as pope, will effectively be the leader of a segment of the Church that through its doctrine, moral teaching, and ecclesial structure, is for all practical purposes schismatic. This is the real schism that is in our midst and must be faced, but I do not believe Pope Francis is in any way afraid of this schism. As long as he is in control, he will, I fear, welcome it, for he sees the schismatic element as the new “paradigm” for the future Church.

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And so Pandora’s box joyously opens ever wider in the current post-modern papacy. To borrow an insight from Richard Spinello: “Pope Francis’s mindset, which so effortlessly tolerates contradictions and polarities, mirrors the post-modern mentality that celebrates disunity and indeterminacy over unity, continuity, and moral closure.”

The pope and his allies have lyricized all the fragmentation and chaos with the shimmering image of the polyhedron. “If we think of it as a precious stone, [the polyhedron] reflects the light which falls upon it in a wonderfully variegated way,” claims Walter Cardinal Kasper in his glowing book on Martin Luther. Sandro Magister, the renowned Vaticanist, is less poetic. For Pope Francis, he says, “the Church must be made precisely like this: ‘polyhedral,’ with many sides. In plainer words: in pieces.”

Another line keeps flashing through my mind: “Today the whole Church is seen dismembered.” It’s from St. Athanasius’s letter to his fellow bishops in the year 340. In it, the saint calls for his brothers to be “scandalized” by the despoiling of the Faith—and to exemplify courageous fidelity in response. “May what has been preserved in the Churches from the beginning down to the present day not be abandoned in our time; may what has been entrusted into our keeping not be embezzled by us.”

If we do not fight for the Faith, how much more will escape from Pandora’s box? As de Mattei powerfully said of the Amazon synod and its errors: “I call upon the Cardinals and Bishops who are still Catholic to raise their voices against this scandal. If their silence continues, we will continue to seek the intervention of the Angels and Mary Queen of Angels, to save the Holy Church from every form of reinvention, distortion and reinterpretation.”

Photo: the statue of Pachamama in the Vatican Garden (Getty Images)

Tagged as Amazon Synod, Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, Mother Earth, paganism, Pope Francis34

By Julia Meloni

Julia Meloni writes from the Pacific Northwest. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale and a master’s degree in English from Harvard.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/breaking-news-vatican-responds?mc_cid=f181412738&mc_eid=b64ec53233

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Voris coming to you from Rome with breaking news again, following up on our last breaking news report just an hour or so ago earlier today.

The Vatican has just issued a statement about an article written by long-time friend of Pope Francis and recognized Italian reporter Eugenio Scalfari.

In his account, reportedly published in yesterday’s issue of La Repubblica, Scalfari maintains that Pope Francis denied the divinity of Christ.

Two key quotes here for context; again, this is Scalfari reporting what he says the Pope said to him.

First, “They are the proven proof that Jesus of Nazareth, once having become a man, was, though a man of exceptional virtues, not at all a God.”

Scalfari says that is what the Pope told him.Pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate. Once incarnate, Jesus stops being a God and becomes a man until his death on the cross.Tweet

Then, moving on, Scalfari gives his own personal impression of what the Pope actually thinks, based on their conversation and their long-term friendship.

Scalfari’s words here: “Pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate. Once incarnate, Jesus stops being a God and becomes a man until his death on the cross.”

The report has caused an international firestorm in social media — as news begins to spread, speculation that the Pope may subscribe to the Arian heresy.

The Vatican, just moments ago, immediately shifted into high-gear damage control and issued the following statement:

As has been affirmed in other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari attributes between quotes to the Holy Father during his colloquies held with him cannot be considered as a faithful account of what was effectively said, but represent more a personal and free interpretation of that which he heard, as appears entirely evident from what was written today concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ.

That is the relevant part of the statement, and it, in itself, is now creating its own firestorm because it does not actually deny Scalfari’s characterization, merely hinting at the possibility.

Likewise, it does not affirm in any fashion that Pope Francis does indeed hold the divinity of Christ during Our Savior’s earthly ministry.

So the overarching question has moved from “is what Scalfari reported true?” to “does Pope Francis absolutely and unequivocally declare his full and entire belief in the divinity of Christ while He was present on earth and prior to His death on the cross?”

Scalfari said the Pope does not. 

The Vatican, so far, has not responded.

Stay tuned on this one. Given the current climate in the Church, this story appears to not be going away anytime soon.

What is needed from Rome is a flat-out denial of the report, not just a vaguely worded statement left open to interpretation.

Also needed: a clear affirmation of the Pope’s belief in Our Lord’s divinity.

ATONEMENT ONLINE

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A simple writing desk…Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:08 PM PDT It has been said that John Henry Newman “wrote himself into the Church.” If there is any truth in that, then it took place on this desk, where he wrote his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. It was 1845, and he had been at Littlemore for the previous few years. He was undergoing spiritual suffering, and he was eating so little that he was described as “ghostly thin.” He stood at this desk to write, the writing surface adjusted to be at a slight slope, and by the time he finished the work he knew he would enter the Catholic Church. Is it possible to know something of the man simply from a piece of furniture? Objectively speaking, perhaps not; but I cannot deny the overwhelming sense of Newman’s journey as I laid my hand on the surface of the desk where his own hand had laboured, and where his heart searched out and found its home. It was on 9 October 1845 that John Henry Newman was received into the Church by Bl. Dominic Barberi. On 10 October 1845 an altar stone was placed on this very desk, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered — the Mass at which John Henry Newman received his first Holy Communion as a Catholic layman. He never again used this desk as a place to write. He said he could not, knowing that it had been used for so great a Mystery as the Mass.

Blessed John Henry NewmanPosted: 08 Oct 2019 02:56 PM PDTThe Shrine of Blessed John Henry Newman in the Baptistry at Our Lady of the Atonement Church. John Henry Newman, the 19th century’s most important English-speaking Roman Catholic theologian, spent the first half of his life as an Anglican and the second half as a Roman Catholic. He was a priest, popular preacher, writer and eminent theologian in both Churches. Born in London, England, he studied at Oxford’s Trinity College, was a tutor at Oriel College and for 17 years was the Anglican vicar of the university church, St. Mary the Virgin. After 1833, Newman was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement, which emphasized the links which the Church today must have with the Church at the beginning. His study and research eventually convinced John Henry Newman that the Roman Catholic Church was indeed in continuity with the Church that Jesus established. He stopped his work in Oxford and retired to Littlemore. It was there, on October 9, 1845, he was received into full communion as a Catholic. Two years later he was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome and joined the Congregation of the Oratory, founded three centuries earlier by St. Philip Neri. Returning to England, Newman founded Oratory houses in Birmingham and London and for seven years served as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. Newman eventually wrote 40 books and 21,000 letters that survive. Most famous are his book-length Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (his spiritual autobiography up to 1864) and Essay on the Grammar of Assent. When Newman was named a cardinal in 1879, he took as his motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (Heart speaks to heart). He was buried in Rednal (near Birmingham) 11 years later. After his grave was exhumed in 2008, a new tomb was prepared at the Oratory church in Birmingham. Three years after Newman died, a Newman Club for Catholic students began at the University of Pittsburgh. In time, his name was linked to ministry centers at many public and private colleges and universities in the United States. Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman on September 19, 2010, at Crofton Park (near Birmingham). The pope noted Newman’s emphasis on the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society but also praised his pastoral zeal for the sick, the poor, the bereaved and those in prison.  His canonization takes place on October 13, 2019, and from that time he will be known as St. John Henry Newman. “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.” “I have a mission; I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons; He has not created me for naught.” “I shall do good — I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace while not intending it if I do but keep his commandments. Therefore, I will trust him.” O God, who didst bestow upon thy Priest Blessed John Henry Newman, the grace to follow thy kindly light and find peace in thy Church: graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fulness of thy truth; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.