Posted on February 9, 2023 by abyssum

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HERE WE GO AGAIN! A PROMINENT JESUIT UNDERMINES CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHING WHILE MAINTAINING PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. IT’S THE MODERN JESUIT WAY

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

If there’s one thing that’s true of today’s Catholic Church, it’s that Jesuits gonna Jesuit.

Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., America’s second-worst Jesuit, has a history of undermining Church teaching while maintaining plausible deniability. It’s the modern Jesuit way. So while he typically won’t outright deny Catholic teaching on the pelvic issues the Catholic Left is so obsessed with—contraception, abortion, homosexuality—he will call it into question at every opportunity.

But recently, like Fr. James Martin, Reese appears to be getting bolder in his dissent from Catholic teaching. In a recent article for National Catholic Reporter, he wrote,

Since my critics often accuse me of heresy, before I go further, let me affirm that I believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I just don’t believe in transubstantiation because I don’t believe in prime matter, substantial forms and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics.

First, this is like saying, “Since my critics often accuse me of theft, before I go further, let me show you this beautiful diamond necklace I recently stole.” If you don’t want to be accused of heresy, Father, perhaps don’t say heretical things.

And make no mistake: Reese’s rejection of transubstantiation is heretical. The Church has dogmatically defined that a Catholic must believe in transubstantiation. Now, it’s hypothetically possible for one to believe that another explanation of how the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ is superior, based on another (again hypothetical) philosophical framework, but even in that far-out case a Catholic must still accept that transubstantiation itself is true. In other words, he has to “believe” in it.

(And note, saying one believes in the “real presence” isn’t sufficient for a Catholic: Lutherans claim to believe in the “real presence” while rejecting transubstantiation.)

Further, Reese’s reason for rejecting transubstantiation rests on false premises. He bases his unbelief on his claim that transubstantiation is founded on “prime matter, substantial forms and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics.” What’s interesting is that the Fourth Lateran Council defined the doctrine of transubstantiation in 1215, before most of Aristotle’s corpus was even known in the West, having not yet been translated into Latin. (St. Thomas Aquinas—today’s great boogeyman of the Left who often incorporated Aristotelian metaphysics—wasn’t even born until 10 years later.) The term “transubstantiation” itself, in fact, was used as early as 1079 by Hildebert of Tours.

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Reese’s reasoning isn’t unique to him or even very new. Back in 1950 Pope Pius XII explicitly condemned those who wish to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation due to it being “based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance.”

Of course, writing about a Jesuit flirting with or accepting heresy can be a “dog bites man” story. Been there, done that, got the crappy St. Louis Jesuits soundtrack. But I find two things particularly troubling about this specific incident.

First is the boldness of Reese’s assertion that he doesn’t believe in transubstantiation. As I noted, modern Jesuits are usually known for their genius in undermining Catholic doctrine without actually explicitly rejecting it. Yet here Reese feels comfortable simply rejecting the Church’s teaching with no fear of being disciplined by Church authorities. Modern Jesuits are known for their genius in undermining Catholic doctrine without explicitly rejecting it. Yet Reese feels comfortable simply rejecting the Church’s teaching with no fear of being disciplined by Church authorities. Tweet This

And can you blame him? It’s become clear that Church discipline only applies to clerics who use the wrong “tone” or support the wrong politics (i.e., conservatism). Reese knows he won’t get in trouble, and that’s far more concerning than one priest’s rejection of a fundamental Church teaching.

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And let’s explore another significant problem with Reese’s pronouncement.

It’s Catholic teaching that the efficacy of the Sacraments are not dependent upon the holiness or the orthodoxy of the minister. If, for example, a priest rejects the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, his Masses would still be valid, as well as any other Sacraments he celebrates, such as Confession. To think otherwise would be to subscribe to the Donatist heresy, which was rejected by the Church centuries ago.

Yet I think there is a legitimate reason to at least question the validity of Reese’s Masses. When a Sacrament is celebrated, the minister must intend to do what the Church intends. Throughout history the Church has always interpreted this in a liberal fashion, lest she fall into Donatism. An atheist, for example, can validly baptize someone even if he doesn’t himself believe in the power of baptism. He just needs to think something to the effect, “This person asked to be baptized, so I’m going to do it as the Church intends, even though I don’t believe it myself.”

The question, however, is if Reese actually intends to do what the Church intends. By rejecting transubstantiation, Reese doesn’t believe that what is happening at the consecration is really happening (that alone wouldn’t invalidate the consecration), but does he even intend to change the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ? Why would he intend something he does not believe ever happens?

Many Catholics might dismiss this concern for fear of putting doubt into the minds of faithful Catholics about the validity of Sacraments. While I understand that sentiment, I don’t think we can so easily dismiss it in this particular case (and remember it is Reese who is fostering doubt, not those who challenge him). Reese’s rejection of transubstantiation strikes at the heart of the Church’s intention for this particular sacrament—does he then also reject that intention?

Again, a priest can be a heretic and still offer valid Sacraments. I see no reason, for example, to question the validity of Fr. James Martin’s Masses or confessions, even though he clearly rejects Church teaching on the issue of homosexuality. And the same applies to confessions heard by Fr. Reese. Yet to reject the underlying doctrine of what is happening at the moment of consecration at least should put some doubt into our minds as to the act’s validity. And doubt is the last thing that should enter a Catholic’s mind at the Mass.

By this author:

Needless to say, the fact that these questions are even raised demonstrates the mess we’re in right now. We currently have few, if any, Church authorities willing to actually exercise their authority (unless it comes to crushing the few faithful elements left in the Church today). Even if Fr. Reese’s Masses are completely valid, he should be quickly stripped of any public ministry. A priest who publicly denies core Catholic doctrine has no place being a public representative of the Church. Yet we all know this is as likely to happen as Cardinal Cupich celebrating a traditional Latin Mass.

Sadly, Jesuits gonna Jesuit, and that’s definitely not going to change as long as one of their own is at the top calling the shots.

Eric SammonsEric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine.

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A CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD IS NOT A NICE THING TO EXPERIENCE

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

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A Circular Firing Squad of Catholics

Richard Williamson was born in the UK during WWII. He converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1971. He was later ordained a priest in 1976 and consecrated a bishop in 1988, both by Archbishop Lefebvre. Bishop Williamson was a bishop for the SSPX and later departed from them. Last year (in Spring 2022) I met Bp. Williamson in England and even stayed with him one evening. I found him very intelligent and gracious. However, you don’t have to appreciate Bp. Williamson as much as I do to appreciate a prophetic quote from him below. I think even people who find him too “extreme” or too “controversial” or too “disobedient” need to keep reading.

Last year, also in 2022, he was on Restoring the Faith‘s podcast (Apple link only there, as YouTube removed it for content violations.) I normally don’t write a blog meticulously dissecting sentence-by-sentence, but what he said is such a brilliant commentary on the current Church crisis (and perhaps an inadvertent explanation of the growing lack of charity among conservative and traditional Catholics) that I decided to evaluate every sentence he said at one point in the pod.

So, first, let’s relay the entire section that Bishop Williamson said at minute twenty in the above-linked podcast. Please read this slowly, because it’s dense and prophetic, but clear:

In 1969, in the revolution in the Church, Catholic authority split from Catholic truth. And ever since, all Catholics are more or less schizophrenic, because if truth and authority are separated from one other, then either I follow authority and forget truth or I forget authority and follow truth. Or somewhere in between. So, I might mix it 10 to 90. I might mix it 20 to 80. I might mix it 30 to 70 or 70 to 30… So, all Catholics who want to be Catholic are somewhere between 0 and 100. And there’s a great variety and a great confusion in the Catholic Church because of that. And all of that will only be settled, but it will be settled, when Almighty God—nobody else can do it—will bring these erring humans, these erring human beings in Rome back to tradition. And when authority and truth reunite—that’s when the crisis is over.

Let’s look at the first line from the above paragraph: In 1969, in the revolution in the Church, Catholic authority split from Catholic truth.

What Bishop Williamson means here is that any prelate or bishop or priest or nun or layman quoting the faith and liturgy handed on by Jesus Christ to the Apostles and all the saints, Popes and martyrs up to the point of 1960s was subsequently called “disobedient” by men in the highest levels of the Church for doing what the Church had always done. In other words, God did not change His mind on everything in 1969. The Popes and bishops followed the way of the world, and the Catholics following perennial truth were told they no longer stood with authority. Hence, the bifurcation of authority and truth. (Bishop Williamson admits this was in the making long before the 1960s, but what happened in the Church in that decade became the weapon of claiming “disobedience” against any traditional Catholic, nearly overnight.)

And ever since, all Catholics are more or less schizophrenic, because if truth and authority are separated from one other, then either I follow authority and forget truth or I forget authority and follow truth.

Of course, all good Catholics want 100% of both truth and authority. But only those who admit the full crisis in the Church will admit that we have to choose between the two at this point of widespread apostasy in the hierarchy. If we were “Evangelical Protestants,” we would simply go found a new ecclesial community if authority diverted from truth. However, we Catholics know we are wired for obedience to first God and at a very very distant second to the Pope and local bishop. Look, even I admit that, and so does Bp. Williamson. In fact, Bp. Williamson said in that podcast that Archbishop Lefebvre had no rebel-spirit, but was a very obedient person his whole life. (I believe him, because I too was criticized by formators for being “too obedient” in seminary.) But when we have reached an unprecedented time in Church history when a Catholic must choose between classic Gospel-truth and Apostate Rome, it leads to “schizophrenia.” Liberals will say “Just obey the Pope.” But even neo-cons who do not have the same view of the papacy as me are apparently ignoring Amoris Laetitia that says that divorced and remarried can receive Holy Communion without a life of celibacy or a declaration of nullity. Apparently, American neo-cons simply have a higher flash-point (apparently sexual only?) that the traditionalists of the 1960s had on Pope Paul VI giving an unprecedented overhaul to not one or two, but a full seven sacraments. But it’s leading anyone who cares about this Church crisis to the schizophrenia of choosing between Truth and Authority in a way not even presented to Catholics during the height of the Arian crisis.

So, I might mix it 10 to 90. I might mix it 20 to 80. I might mix it 30 to 70 or 70 to 30… So, all Catholics who want to be Catholic are somewhere between 0 and 100.

Bp. Williamson is talking about how one mixes Truth and Authority. America Magazine would be an example of something that follows a positivistic obedience to Rome, in which case they have 0% truth and 100% authority (or so they think.) Maybe the Augustine Institute or FOCUS is about 50/50 where they try to hold to the Gospel and some of the Church Fathers, but will play defense (or at least damage-control) for modernist hierarchy so as to make converts to Catholicism. Perhaps FSSP is about 70/30: FSSP will certainly preach St. Thomas Aquinas from the pulpit (70% truth-choosers) but will probably disband if told to the the new sacraments (30% importance of authority.) Maybe SSPX aims at 90/10. Sedevacantists would be about 100/0. (I mean that 1958-sedevacantists aim for 100% truth and 0% current-authority. That doesn’t mean they actually obtain it.) In any case, I don’t give those numbers to insult anyone, so please don’t take the above as me ripping on Augustine Institute or FSSP or sedevacantists. I’m just saying all these groups are trying to reconcile truth to authority as best they can, so don’t condemn any other conservatives for doing their best in reconciling truth with authority in the most unique Church crisis in history.

And there’s a great variety and a great confusion in the Catholic Church because of that.

Now, notice the title of this blog post: A Circular Firing Squad of Catholics. Although Bishop Williamson was not speaking of fraternal charity in this part of the podcast, I extrapolated from his words that those who hijacked the Council (not only in implementation, but even at the outset in 1962) purposely wanted division in the Church. That means for us: The only way to disarm Satan here is to stop fighting and show charity to one another. This is especially important for us in the traditional and conservative movement at this moment in Catholic Church history. And no, we’re not talking about how “a Council takes one hundred years to take effect.” What Church historians traditionally meant by “a Council takes one hundred years to take effect” was to effect the clarifications contained of an ecumenical Council, not debate the purposeful ambiguities of a Council. And these ambiguities have led to a circular firing squad not only with liberals, but even among good-willed traditionalists within the Catholic Church. We can’t “unite the clans” if even we in the traditional world can’t agree on how to balance truth versus authority (30/70 vs. 70/30?) So, I come to the conclusion: Perhaps this is all a test from God to show charity to one another as we live in “a great confusion in the Catholic Church,” just as Bp. Williamson mentioned.

And all of that will only be settled, but it will be settled, when Almighty God—nobody else can do it—will bring these erring humans, these erring human beings in Rome back to tradition. And when authority and truth reunite—that’s when the crisis is over.

In other words, if even Bishop Williamson or Archbishop Viganò can not fix this, then definitely a priest with a blog can not fix this. Therefore, until the total restoration of the Church, my only job is to teach the truth in charity. I would encourage you to do the same. Of course, there are leftists within the Catholic Church who are trying to destroy the ancient faith and the ancient liturgy, and they need to be named and exposed as vile heretics. (I am currently reading the book titled, Liberalism is a Sin by Fr. Félix Sardà y Salvany in 1899. He shows how the saints call heretics names and why we should, too.) But for traditional and conservative Catholics who may have a different mix of truth of authority (90/10 vs. 10/90?) but are actually trying to promote Apostolic Catholicism and a love of Jesus and Mary—those are the people we need to not kick out of bed, so to speak. Why? Because most conservative and traditional Catholics are doing the best with what they have. And if even a Bishop Williamson can admit that no YouTuber can solve this Church Crisis, then we need to put away our weapons of living in a circular firing squad among traditional Catholics. Notice again his closing words of that section of the podcast, namely, that only God can bring about the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thus, we trads must teach the truth in charity and expose leftists heretics, but we must stop this infighting among ourselves, especially as we’re “majoring in the minors” in shooting each other on rather unimportant topics in a circular firing-squad in this TLM world.

Recently, I watched on Amazon Prime a documentary on the Korean War called American Experience: The Battle of Choisin. In making that documentary, they interviewed many US servicemen who were at the grinding “Battle of Choisin” in North Korea during —30º conditions. It was perhaps the most grueling war documentary I have ever watched. One Mexican-American serviceman named Juan Balleza who was still alive at the making of this documentary described how both the Americans and Chinese suffered the same freezing-to-death of so many of their friends. He then said this astonishing line: “Up to this day if I were to meet a Chinese soldier, I’d hug him like a brother, cuz I know he’d suffered the same thing I did.” So, if an American serviceman can say that about the Chinese in the Korean War, then we traditionalists should be able to say that about a fellow conservative Catholic fighting this same spiritual war for souls. In fact, if the visible Church is in eclipse right now, then the Light may shine around the intended-path to anybody seeking supernatural faith, even before their baptism.

You can find me on Telegram …and then click “join” if you want to follow my daily or weekly posts on Church and State issues.

By Father David Nix

|February 7th, 2023|

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WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR THE CHURCH IN GERMANY WITH THE GERMAN HIERARCHY PUSHING HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE CLERGY

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

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IS THIS WHAT AMERICA HAS COME TO???

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

Joe Biden Demands Abortions Up to Birth During State of the Union Address to the Nation

National | Laura Echevarria | Feb 8, 2023 | 9:49AM | Washington, DC

During the State of the Union address Tuesday evening, Joe Biden once again committed his administration to supporting abortion extremism.

“During the State of the Union, Joe Biden said that Congress must codify Roe v. Wade,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “Biden also clearly stated that he and Vice President Harris are doing ‘everything we can’ to protect abortion without limits.”

As president, Joe Biden and his administration have aggressively promoted abortion without limits. Since entering office, President Biden has become the most pro-abortion president in history. His administration has:

promoted abortion around the world by reversing the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance program which prevented federal taxpayer dollars from being used by abortion groups to perform or promote abortion overseas;
suspended protections established for women undergoing chemical abortions, such as seeing the abortionist in person. The in-person requirement ensured that complications, such as an ectopic pregnancy, are ruled out in advance of a woman undergoing a chemical abortion. Mifepristone, the “abortion pill,” has no effect on an ectopic pregnancy and leaves the woman with this life- threatening medical condition. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will also permit pharmacists to dispense chemical abortion drugs, and will permit these dangerous drugs to be sent through the mail;
strongly supported the radical Women’s Health Protection Act which would essentially remove all legal protections for unborn children on the federal and state level and prevent future protections for unborn children;
supported eliminating the Hyde Amendment which prevents the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother;
has considered actions to advance access to abortion, including an effort to encourage states to apply for Medicaid waivers to pay for abortion travel;
has announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs will pay for and provide abortions for “health reasons,” defined broadly as to be for any reason. This has been statutorily prohibited since 1992. Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Defense announced it will pay the travel and transportation costs for military members and dependents to travel to obtain elective abortions.

“The Biden administration and the Democratic party have yet to hear of an abortion they wouldn’t support,” said Tobias. “Tragically, women and their unborn babies will be the ones to suffer.”

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EUROPE’S SYNODAL PROCESS IS OBSESSED WITH SEX

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

Homosexuality and Pederasty are Connected Despite Synodal Denial

Note: The German hierarchy is still pushing for homo seminarians and priests thus increasing the incidence of the crime of pederasty in parishes. Francis also pushes homosexuality thus increasing the incidence of pederasty. Tragically, a certain number of victims of clerical pederasts will also embrace the vice. Not until there is an effort to clamp down on male homosexual clerics and female lesbian nuns will sex abuse of children and vulnerable adults [including the disabled, seminarians] begin to incline.

Remember that the “homosexual” is not a distinct creature from the “pederast.” They are most often one and the same person but in a different stage of life. A rule of thumb is that the older the homosexual the younger his partner.

As for the obvious connection between the lust for sodomy and sex with adolescent boys ask yourself these questions:

Why has there never been a publicized case of a homosexual turning over to the police the names of known pederasts? Whistle blowers are always heterosexual men and women who actually want to protect children. Also, most homosexuals will have at least one sexual contact with a minor including young male prostitutes, during their lifetime.
Why does the Homosexual Collective favor a reduction in the age in the age of consent for minors to engage in sex? Do they support a reduction in the age of consent to protect children or to enlarge the child sex pool for themselves?
Why at Homosexual Conferences do openly pederast speakers draw such a favorable audience? Ever hear of New Ways Ministry decrying the crime of pederasty… you will asphyxiate yourself holding your breath before you do. Randy

Polish delegate warns of temptation to ‘build some other Church’ at synod

The synod on synodality must avoid “the temptation to build some other church,” a Polish delegate told Europe’s continental assembly on Tuesday.

LUKE COPPEN

February 7, 2023 . 10:29 AM

6 min read

The second day of Europe’s synodal continental assembly in Prague, Feb. 7, 2023. © prague.synod2023.org.

The synod on synodality must avoid “the temptation to build some other church,” a Polish delegate told Europe’s synodal continental assembly on Tuesday.

Speaking on Feb. 7, the third day of the week-long gathering in Prague, Aleksander Bańka said that the aim of October’s meeting of the world’s bishops in Rome should be to deepen the “spirituality of synodality” within the Church as established by Christ.

“The goal of the discussion at the first synodal assembly in October 2023 should not be to succumb to the temptation to build some other church, but to seek answers to the question of how to realize the spirituality of synodality within the one Church of Christ, with its hierarchical structure,” said the lay philosophy professor, who is one of four Polish Church representatives at the Feb. 5-9 meeting.

He spoke the day after German leaders urged participants to consider adopting the goals of the country’s controversial “synodal way.”

Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, and Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), told delegates on Feb. 6 that the Church needed sweeping structural changes in response to systemic abuse.

Church leaders in Poland and Germany have disagreed openly over the synodal way, which has faced a series of Vatican interventions since it was launched in 2019.

Polish bishops’ conference president Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki wrote a letter to Bishop Bätzing last February expressing concern over the initiative’s direction. The German bishop replied, assuring him that the German Church was not seeking “renewal carelessly and certainly not outside the universal Church.”

The second day of Europe’s synodal continental assembly in Prague, Feb. 7, 2023. © prague.synod2023.org

In March 2022, the bishops of the Nordic countries — Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland — also wrote to Bishop Bätzing expressing alarm at the synodal way’s trajectory.

The Nordic delegation addressed the Prague assembly on Feb. 7.

Nik Bredholt said that Catholics in Denmark and Sweden sought “a Church which boldly proclaims its true doctrine and, at the same time, accepts and embraces people and accompanies them pastorally, ie, authentically lives the tension between truth and mercy.”

He continued: “One insight that is particularly important for Catholics in Finland and northern Norway is the ever-increasing tendency to see the Church mainly as a power structure. That needs to be challenged and changed.”

“However, it would be better not to forget that any real renewal and strengthening of synodality in the Church must start from the basic principles of the Church itself, from the grounds in which the Church was founded, from the side of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Fr. Marco Pasinato, also representing the Nordic countries, said that local Catholics were concerned about polarization within the Church in Europe.

He said: “The gap between conservative and progressive, between tradition and modernity, is becoming increasingly wide and more and more aggressive. This was felt to be particularly painful in the area of liturgy. The introduction of the Tridentine Rite under Pope Benedict XVI and its limitation by Pope Francis has led in the Nordic countries to tensions in some quarters.”

He added that there were also disagreements over Catholic teaching on sexual morality.

“In various discussions within and outside the Church, the question is asked whether the Church still has the ‘right’ to express itself in a demanding manner in questions of morality and sexual morality,” he said, “But is the term ‘right’ the right one in this context? To what extent is a distinction still made between members of the institution and the institution itself?”

Fr. Pasinato suggested that the synodal process should always keep in mind the Church’s nature.

“What is the Church and what is it not?” he asked. “Is the Church just a social institution, or the body of the Lord? How can the Church be truly renewed without betraying its divine origin?”

“It is very difficult to rekindle love for the Church after the transgressions of abuse. But in the end, we only care about things we love, and without this new love, awakened, felt, and shown for the Church, the temptation can be great to see the Church only as a structural phenomenon that can be changed at will.”

Also addressing the assembly on Feb. 7 were Irish Church representatives. They underlined that “abuse is an open wound and will remain a barrier to communion, participation, and mission until it is comprehensively addressed.”

They also expressed the belief “that much abuse could have been prevented had we been truly synodal, open, and listening to the voices and gifts of all our family.”

The second day of Europe’s synodal continental assembly in Prague, Feb. 7, 2023. © prague.synod2023.org.

Around 200 delegates from more than 40 countries — including Ukraine and Russia — are taking part in person in the Prague meeting, alongside 390 online participants.

The gathering, held in a pyramid-shaped four-star hotel, is divided into two parts: an ecclesial assembly, involving “the entire People of God,” followed by an episcopal assembly consisting of the presidents of Europe’s bishops’ conference.

The week-long discussions will be summed up in a final document, created with the help of a six-person redaction committee. Bishops’ conference presidents will publish a separate commentary on the final document. The texts will be submitted to the Vatican before the “universal phase” of the global synodal process begins in Rome this October.

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Tuesday’s session began with a Mass celebrated by Vatican Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

In his homily, the outgoing prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops suggested that the biblical vision of man and woman created in the image of God should serve as “a precious beacon for our debates and discernments.”

He said: “In today’s Gospel, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their hypocrisy regarding God’s commandment: Honor your father and your mother. The Pharisees practice an interpretation that allows them to disregard the word of God for their own selfish interests. The Lord takes exception to this mentality that claims to obey God while acting contrary to His Word.”

“This warning also concerns us and challenges us in our work to achieve a more synodal Church. Are we not sometimes tempted to interpret the Word of God in a way that is contrary to what it really says?”

Cardinal Ouellet was one of three Vatican cardinals who signed a recent letter informing German synodal way organizers that they had no authority to establish a permanent council of lay people and bishops to oversee the local Church. He also appealed unsuccessfully for a moratorium on the initiative during the German bishops’ ad limina visit to Rome last November.

The second day of Europe’s synodal continental assembly in Prague, Feb. 7, 2023. © prague.synod2023.org

The Mass was followed by presentations by 13 national delegations, with a three-minute pause for prayer after every fourth address.

The assembly then split along linguistic lines into 14 groups of 13 delegates, before returning to the main hall to share summaries of their discussions.

In the evening, 13 more national delegations were due to share their reports in a session moderated by Beate Gilles, general secretary of the German bishops’ conference, followed by a free dialogue.

Among the first 13 delegations to address the assembly on Feb. 6 were representatives of the Church in England and Wales.

National ecumenical officer Fr. Jan Nowotnik noted that among the 10 English and Welsh delegates following the meeting online were “a representative of the Jewish community and also a representative from the Anglican Communion.”

“They have given us very generous insights and we’re glad for that,” he said.

Bishop Nicholas Hudson, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster diocese, said that the Document for the Continental Stage (DCS), the working text for the present stage of the synodal process, “correctly identified the tension between young people who seek to adhere to the 1962 Missal and those prefer more contemporary celebrations.”

But he added: “We felt DCS did not communicate sufficiently the ‘sadness and anger… sense of grievance and marginalization’ of many around the liturgy.”

He added: “As in most countries, many English and Welsh priests were unclear as to how they were supposed to engage with the synodal process. As in most countries, there was frequent expression of appreciation for our priests, along with concern that too much is asked of them. However, clergy and laity alike were surprised to find scant reference in DCS to clerical sexual abuse.”

Speaking during a lively free discussion period on Monday evening, Bishop Bätzing lamented what he said was a lack of attention to clerical abuse survivors at the continental stage of the synodal process. He said he found it incomprehensible that the “hundreds of thousands of victims” did not have a voice at the synod.

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Supposedly, in his diminished and discredited state, Putin would not dare to set off a tactical nuclear weapon (as if diminished and discredited leaders are not more likely to do so). GOD HELP US SINCE WE ARE APPARENTLY UNABLE TO HELP OURSELVES AND NO ONE ELSE SEEMS TO BE INTERESTED IN HELPING US111111111

Posted on February 8, 2023 by abyssum

Ukrainian Paradoxes

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

February 6, 2023

One of the strangest things about the American response to Ukraine has been the willingness of the Left and the establishment Right to discount completely that the war is heading toward a rendezvous with ever-deadlier weapons and staggering fatalities—even as we witness increasing nuclear threats from a weakened and adrift Vladimir Putin. They insist that Putin is merely saber-rattling. And he might be. Supposedly, in his diminished and discredited state, Putin would not dare to set off a tactical nuclear weapon (as if diminished and discredited leaders are not more likely to do so).

Proxies Versus Balloons

But while we discount the nuclear dangers of a paranoid Putin reacting to the arming of our proxy Ukraine, the brazen Chinese, in violation of American airspace and international law, sent their recent “weather “ surveillance balloon across the continental United States with impunity. Only after public pressure, media coverage, and the Republican opposition did the Biden Administration, in the 11th hour, finally drop its increasingly incoherent and disingenuous excuses, and agree to shoot the balloon down as it reached the Atlantic shore—its mission completed.

Given the balloon may have more, not less, surveillance capability than satellites may have itself been designed eventually to adopt offensive capability, and may have been intended to gauge the American reaction to incursions, the Biden hesitation and fear to defend U.S. airspace and confront China makes no sense.

Contrast Ukraine: Why discount the dangers of strategic escalation in a third-party proxy war, but exaggerate them to the point of stasis when a belligerent’s spy balloon crosses the U.S. heartland with impunity? Are the borders of Ukraine more sacrosanct and more worthy of our taking existential risks than our own airspace and southern border?

When and How Did Russia Enter Ukraine?

Russia did not just enter Ukraine on February 24, 2022. So where were the voices of outrage in 2014‚ from Joe Biden and others in the highest positions of the Obama Administration when Putin first absorbed Crimea and eastern Ukraine?

Why do the most fervent supporters of blank-check aid to the Zelenskyy government grow indifferent when we ask how Russia in 2014 managed so easily to reclaim vast swaths of Ukraine? Is it because of the 2012 hot-mic conversation between Barack Obama and then Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev in Seoul, South Korea, in which Obama promised: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space. . . . This is my last election . . . After my election, I have more flexibility.”

Obama’s “ flexibility ” on missile defense in eastern Europe was an understatement—given he completely canceled a long-planned major U.S. commitment to Poland and the Czech Republic, a system that might have been of some value during the present conflict with Putin. And certainly, Putin did give Obama the requested reelection “space” by not invading Crimea and eastern Ukraine until 16 months after Obama was reelected in his “last election.” Once he did so, the bargain was apparently sealed, and each party got what it wanted: both space (i.e., temporary good Russian behavior) and flexibility (i.e., canceling an air defense system).

So it was almost surreal how the bipartisan establishment forgot why and how Putin entered and annexed thousands of square miles of Ukraine so easily, and apparently on the correct assumption of an anemic American response. Did James Clapper in 2014 smear Obama as a “Russian asset” as he did Donald Trump in 2017?

In the “Russian collusion” and “Russian disinformation”hoaxes, the purveyors of those hysterias forgot the role of “reset” appeasement in empowering Putin to attack Ukraine in 2014—in the same manner as the Biden Administration’s ignominious retreat from Kabul was the context for Putin’s 2022 attempt on Kyiv. The common denominator in both cases was Moscow’s apparent conclusion that foreign policy under the Obama-Biden continuum was viewed as indifference to Russian aggression.

Who Did Not Arm the Ukrainians?

Why, after 2014, didn’t the Obama Administration arm the Ukrainians to the teeth? The surreal element of the first Trump impeachment was the reality that Trump was impeached for delaying offensive arms shipments (on the understandable and later proven assumption that the Biden family and elements of the Ukraine government were both utterly corrupt).

If Trump was impeached for delaying the offensive arms he approved and eventually sent, what was the proper reaction to Obama-Biden, who vetoed them altogether? And if the fallback argument is that Trump’s delay targeted his 2020 presidential opponent, then we arrive again at the same absurdity. For Joe Biden, by staging the Mar-a-Lago raid to charge Trump with the same “crimes” he knowingly at the time had committed, should then likewise be impeached for targeting his possible future political opponent.

But be clear: there is far more demonstrable evidence that the Biden family was corrupt and leveraging the Ukrainian and Chinese governments than there is of Donald Trump pilfering “nuclear codes” and “nuclear secrets.”

Part of the American people’s bewilderment over the left-wing zeal to send $100 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine and to damn anyone who asks for clarification of our long-term strategy in ending the war is precisely the contrast between Putin’s lethargy between 2017-2021 and his restless aggression in 2014 and again in 2022, the bookend years to the hated Trump Administration.

Putin moved on all these occasions because of Obama’s refusal to arm Ukraine, his quid pro quos with Putin on missile defense, his rhetorical “red line” in Syria, and his abrupt withdrawal from Iraq that birthed ISIS—in the same manner that Biden scrambled from Afghanistan—promised that America’s response would be muted if Putin’s invasion was “minor,” and offered a safe exit for Zelenskyy.

If we truly seek to navigate an end to Russian aggression, by one means or another, the beginning of our wisdom would entail how exactly we got here in the first place—and require us to learn from our disasters.

Why Are Our Arms Depots Depleted?

If we wish to wonder why Vladimir Putin believed that the Biden Administration’s response to his aggression would be like the Obama-Biden reaction in 2014, then we need only look to the August 2021 American collapse in Afghanistan. That summer, Joe Biden decided to yank precipitously all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, abandoning a $1 billion embassy, a multimillion-dollar refitted airbase, and hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment, including 22,174 Humvee vehicles, nearly 1,000 armored vehicles, 64,363 machine guns, and 42,000 pick-up trucks and SUVs 358,530 assault rifles, 126,295 pistols, and nearly 200 artillery units.

Recent reports, denied by the United States, allege that Putin is negotiating with the Taliban to buy some of the abandoned American arsenal to help replenish Russia’s enormous materiel losses in Ukraine. What helped the Soviets win World War II were the American gifts of 400,000 trucks and Jeeps. Over 60,000 American armored vehicles, Humvees, and trucks, now in the hands of the Taliban would be a valuable addition to Putin’s arsenal. The media assures us that poorly equipped Russian soldiers struggle with obsolete guns dating back to the early postwar period, while assuring us that either the Taliban would not sell, or Russians could not use, over a half-million late-model American automatic pistols, assault rifles, and machine guns.

Americans are quite critical of the supposed anemic European response and lack of aid matching the American largess. But, in fact, Biden likely reversed course from his initial remarks about minor incursions and a safe ride out for Zelenskyy, and a prior aversion to sending offensive arms, because the frontline Europeans were terrified of Putin on the move and demanded an American-led NATO joint effort to supply Ukraine.

The belated but increasingly muscular response of the United States to pour aid into Ukraine may stall the Russian advance and even its anticipated spring offensive. But the growing involvement of the United States has raised the issue of deterrence, as China closely watches both the response of Europe and the United States and the ability of revanchist Russia to invade. If Russia were to mobilize and use all its resources—10 times the GDP of Ukraine, 30 times the territory, 3.5 times the population—it would likely require a far greater sacrifice of Ukrainian blood and Western treasure. And the war that may have already cost over 200,000 dead and 300,000 wounded will likely prove the most lethal since the Vietnam War, in which over 3 million soldiers and civilians died on both sides of the conflict.

More importantly, will the zealots, who demand that we empty our arsenals to supply Ukraine, vote in Congress for massive increases in the defense budget to ratchet up arms production to ensure that our depleted stocks of weapons are restored rapidly?

In sum, there would be broader support for Ukraine’s military aid if advocates were transparent on the following 10 issues:

1) The United States will be as firm and deterrent vis à vis China as it is now belatedly with Russia.

2) We will acknowledge that Ukraine is a mess because Vladimir Putin between 2009 and 2016, and again in 2021, concluded that the United States either would not or could not deter his aggression.

3) Just as we attempt to help to protect the sovereign borders of Ukraine, so too must we consider just as sacrosanct our own airspace and our southern border.

4) All those in government and the media who demand more weapons for Ukraine, after the war ends, with the same zeal must demand immediate increased arms production to ensure their own country is as well protected as Ukraine.

5) Just as we deplore Russia interfering in our elections, so too we must cite Ukrainian interference in 2016, as evidenced by the pro-Clinton skullduggery of Alexandra Chalupa, Valeriy Chaly, Serhiy Leshchenko, Oksana Shulyar, and Andrii Telizhenko, along with the Biden family’s financial relations with Burisma and top Ukrainian officials. We expect and prepare for enemies to tamper with our elections, but Ukraine is a supposed friend that nonetheless likely was more involved in 2016 than were the Russians—and yet was never held to account.

6) Unfortunately, we cannot believe any of the predictions emanating from our top intelligence and military leaders about the course of the Ukrainian war, given they were simply wrong about the Afghanistan collapse, wrong both about the initial resiliency of the Ukrainians and later the supposed imminent collapse of the Russians, both biased and wrong about Hunter Biden’s laptop, implicated in the Russian collusion hoax, and once again misled the American people about the time of arrival, the nature, and the purpose of the Chinese balloon, and the various garbled reasons why it was not immediately shot down.

7) Those who feel international negotiations about the status of Crimea and the Ukrainian borderlands are tantamount to surrender, and therefore taboo, must prepare the American people for their envisioned victory of ejecting every Russian from pre-2014 Ukraine, by assessing the dangers of a nuclear exchange, the eventual cost in arms and weapons of $200-500 billion, and a price tag of economic aid to rebuild a ruined Ukraine that will vastly exceed our military aid.

8) Those who advocate Ukraine’s entry into NATO must remind the American people that should Putin then mount a second offensive into Ukraine, American troops, along with those of 29 other NATO nations, would be sent to Ukraine to fight nuclear Russia and its allies.

9) We should apparently accept as regrettable, but tolerable that the war in Ukraine has united China and Russia, ensured they are both patrons for nuclear North Korea and soon-to-be nuclear Iran, and are near to drawing Turkey and India into their orbit—or nearly half the world’s population.

10) Given that China is a more existential threat than Russia, and given that the Chinese danger to the whole of Taiwan is far greater than is the Russian threat to all of Ukraine, we would expect those advocating blank-check support for Ukraine, would, of course, be as adamantly protective of Taiwan, even if the two wars were to become simultaneous. We expect those who demand no limits in weakening Putin’s dictatorship, to harbor even more animus for the far more dangerous totalitarianism of China.

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PART 2 ST. PETER DAMIAN SLAYS THE GERMAN SYNODAL WAY

Posted on February 6, 2023 by abyssum

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St. Peter Damian Slays the German Synodal Way

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St. Peter Damian Takes Up The Gauntlet Thrown Down by the German Bishops on the Vice of Sodomy

A Defense of Catholic Sexual Morality and a Condemnation of the German Synodal Way

Part II

By Randy Engel

Introduction

In February of 2019, thirteen years after my book The Rite of Sodomy – Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church^[1] was published, this writer founded the League of St. Peter Damian,^[2] an international Catholic ministry, to honor this great 11^th century Cardinal and Doctor of the Church best known for his lengthy exposition on the unnatural vice of sodomy, the Book of Gomorrah,^[3] written in 1049.

Saint Peter Damian of Ravenna, “Hammer of the Sodomites,” addressed his now famous Letter 31 to another future saint, Pope Leo IX, a German aristocrat, who had only been in office a few months and who was to become one of the most illustrious popes of the Middle Ages.

According to Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., Saint Peter Damian’s chief translator and biographer in modern times, the hermit-monk’s spiritual life was first and foremost a life of prayer, penance, and reparation. Peter Damian also promoted and practiced a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

The two hallmarks of the holy monk’s teachings on the spiritual life were his great hatred of sin and his fundamental and overriding interest in the spiritual advancement of the Catholic priesthood. Peter Damian thought of the priesthood as an order of the greatest dignity. Indeed, it was the exalted nobility of this office that caused him to speak in such dire terms to priests who forgot their position and tarnished their souls with incontinence.

Peter Damian showed remarkable insight into the importance of model episcopal leadership, stating that the example of a virtuous life filters down from the princes of the Church to all levels of the clergy and laity. The holy monk was equally insistent on the deposition of unworthy incumbents to the priesthood, the duty of which fell to the local bishop.

Much of the success of his program of clerical moral reform was due to the fact that Peter Damian was able to closely link his own efforts with that of the Papacy. Indeed, his wise counsel and diplomatic skills were employed by a long succession of popes.

Peter Damian died in the odor of sanctity on February 22, 1072, in his sixty-sixth year at Faenza, while returning to Rome from a papal mission to Ravenna. Although he was never formally canonized, he was revered as a saint immediately after his death and his cultus has existed at Faenza, at Fonte-Avellana, at Monte Cassino, and at Cluny to the present day.

Over the centuries, his body has been moved six times, each time to a more splendid setting. In 1898, Peter Damian found his final resting place in a beautiful side chapel dedicated to the saint in the Cathedral of Faenza, seat of the Bishop of Faenza-Modiglina.

A Special “Interview” With St. Peter Damian

Fortunately for todays’ Catholics, although more than a thousand years have passed since Peter Damian completed the Book of Gomorrah (Letter 31), it continues to be as pertinent and timeless as the year it was written.

Part II of this series on sodomy and the German Synodal Way draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of this street-smart and fearless Benedictine monk as made manifest in his response to the arguments once employed against him by his own clerical adversaries, the same being put forth by a majority of German cardinals and bishops intent on promoting sodomy under the ruse of “Synodality.”

It is not without a great sense of irony that, as this series goes to press, Fr. Joachim Wernersbach, a Benedictine priest at the Abbey of Tholey in Germany, has been publicly condemned by his superior, Abbot Mauritius Choriol, for giving a sermon critical of sodomy and the Synodal Way.^[4]

In Part II of this series, I will conduct a modified interview with Saint Peter Damian, inviting his response to my questions and comments, all of which are taken from the Book of Gomorrah. [Some of His Eminence’s responses will be in abbreviated form, with emphasis occasionally added.]

Interview Opening

Engel: Your Eminence, welcome to the twenty-first century. Would you begin our interview by telling our readers what motivated you to write the Book of Gomorrah and to present it to the blessed Pope Leo IX?

Cardinal Peter Damian: Since we know from the mouth of Truth itself that the Apostolic See is the mother of all churches, it is proper that if any doubt should arise in matters pertaining to the welfare of souls, one should have recourse to her as to the teacher and, as one might say, to the source of heavenly wisdom, so that from this unique principle of ecclesiastical discipline a light may go forth by which the entire body of the Church is bathed in the utter brilliance that Truth imparts, once the darkness of uncertainty has been dispelled.

In our region a certain abominable and most shameful vice has developed, and unless it be prevented as soon as possible by the severest punishment, it is certain that the sword of divine fury will be unsheathed, leading in its unchecked violence to the destruction of many. One is nauseated with shame and embarrassment to speak of things so disgracefully foul, or even to mention them within earshot of Your Holiness. But if a physician is appalled by the contagion of the plague, who is likely to wield the cautery? If he grows squeamish when he is about to apply the cure, who will restore health to stricken hearts?

Engel: My Lord Cardinal, you wrote the Book of Gomorrah in 1049. Some of your critics say you were exaggerating the matter. How would you respond?

Peter Damian: The befouling cancer of sodomy is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ, that for many of them it would be more salutary to be burdened with service to the world than, under the pretext of religion, to be enslaved so easily under the iron rule of satanic tyranny.

It would be better for them to perish alone as laymen than, after having changed their attire but not their disposition, to drag others with them to destruction, as Truth itself testifies when it says, “But if anyone is a cause of stumbling to one of these little ones, it would be better for him to be drowned in the depths of the seas with a great millstone round his neck.”Unless immediate effort be exerted by the Apostolic See, there is little doubt that, even if one wished to curb this unbridled evil, he could not check the momentum of its progress.

Engel: Pardon me, but before we go any further, would you define the term sodomy as used in your treatise.

Peter Damian: … there appears to be four varieties of this criminal vice. There are some who pollute themselves; there are others who befoul one another by mutually handling their genitals. Others still who fornicate between the thighs; and others who do so from the rear. Of these, as we proceed through the various degrees, the two latter are to be judged more serious than the others.

The ingenious artifice of the devil contrived these states of corruption, so that the higher the unhappy soul rises in the scale of vice, the deeper it is likely to be buried in hell.

Engel: Obviously then, you are opposed to the ordination of sodomites?

Peter Damian: … it seems to me to be utterly preposterous for those who are habituated to this filth of this festering disease to dare to present themselves for orders, or to remain in them if they have been ordained. It is clearly contrary to reason and opposed to the canonical decrees of the Fathers. I state this, not to render a definitive opinion … but only to make my position clear. It is not without cause that this shameful deed is considered to be the worst of crimes, seeing that Almighty God is always read to have detested it, even when he had not yet curbed other vices, he already kept condemning this one with the precepts of the Law, under pain of the strictest penalty… In the Law it also says, “If a man lies with a man in the same way as with a woman, both have done a hateful thing; they must die, their blood shall be on their own heads.”

He, moreover, who has committed this crime for which the Old Testament prescribes the death penalty, should not be promoted to ecclesiastical orders.

It is perfectly clear that when a capital crime has degraded a man, no subsequent holy life will reform him to the point where he might receive orders and ecclesiastical status. No one may aspire to reach the heights of preferment who has surely fallen into the depths of mortal sin. Hence, it is as plain as day that anyone proven guilty of fornicating with a man between his thighs, which, without a doubt is a mortal sin, will be promoted to ecclesiastical orders in total opposition to the norms of Holy Scripture and in complete disregard of the regulations ordained by God.

Engel: How do you answer those who claim that sometimes “necessity demands” either the ordination or retention of sodomites or else there will be no one present to celebrate divine services in the Church?

Peter Damian: I am going to reply to this in a summary way: Was it not a pressing matter, and one fraught with necessity, at the time when the Apostolic See was without a shepherd? Shall we wipe out a vigorous judgment to benefit an individual, but retain it unchanged even to the deprivation of an entire people? If we do not sacrifice a principle to benefit a vast multitude, shall we violate it to promote one man’s advantage?

Engel: What did St. Paul have to say about the poor souls, both men and women, who fall into this dreadful vice?

Peter Damian: Who can turn a deaf ear, or, more to the point, who does not tremble through and through at the words Paul, like a mighty trumpet, blasts at such as these? “God abandoned them to their hearts’ desire and to the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies.”^[5]

And almost immediately following he said, “that is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions. For their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices, and their menfolk likewise have given up natural intercourse with women to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their perversion. And since they refused to see that it was rational to acknowledge God, God has abandoned them to their depraved ideas to do that which was reprehensible.”^[6]

Why is it that they are so eager to reach the top in ecclesiastical rank after such a grievous fall? What should we think, and what conclusion should we draw but that God has abandoned them to their depravity?

Engel: Is there a resemblance between the men of Sodom who were blinded by the angels dwelling in Lot’s house, after which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by sulfurous fire from heaven, and sodomites who seek ordination, or if already ordained to the priesthood or religious life, seek higher orders?

Peter Damian: [Yes] … sodomites attempt violently to break in on angels when impure men attempt to approach God through holy orders. Surely, they are struck with blindness, because by the just decree of God they fall into interior darkness. …Those who lose Christ because of their addiction to sin, never find the gate that leads to the heavenly dwelling of the saints.

Engel: Thus far, we have been discussing sodomites who are seeking ordination or those who have already been ordained. How would you address bishops who permit or even encourage these men to seek, or continue in, the priestly or religious life?

Peter Damian: Unquestionably, one who is not awakened by this awful thunder of apostolic invective must be thought more likely to be dead than asleep. And since the Apostle makes such an effort to intensify the severe punishment of this sentence, and that, not for the faithful among the Jews, but for the gentiles and for those ignorant of God, what, I ask, would he have said had he beheld this deadly wound reeking in the very body of the Holy Church? And especially, what grief, what fire of compassion would kindle his devout heart upon learning that this destructive plague was raging even among those in sacred orders?

Listen, you do-nothing superiors of clerics and priests. Listen, and even though you feel sure of yourselves, tremble at the thought that you are partners in the guilt of others; those, I mean, who wink at the sins of their subjects that need correction, and who by ill-considered silence allow them license to sin. Listen, I say, and be shrewd enough to understand that all of you alike are deserving of death, that is, not only those who do such things, but also they who approve those who practice them.

Engel: What about the case where a bishop or religious superior is guilty of sodomizing his own spiritual sons?

Peter Damian: What an unheard of crime! What a vile deed, deserving a flood of bitter tears. If they who approve of these evildoers deserve to die, what condign punishment can be imagined for those who commit these absolutely damnable acts with their spiritual sons? Who can expect the flock to prosper when its shepherd has sunk so deep into the bowels of the devil? What man will continue to be under his authority, knowing that he is so hostilely estranged from God? Who will make a mistress of a cleric, or a woman of a man? Who, by his lust, will consign a son whom he has spiritually begotten for God to slavery under the iron law of satanic tyranny? … What a sorry state of affairs that one’s ruin depends upon another, so that when one dies, the other must necessarily follow.

Engel: My next question concerns the sacrament of confession. Are you acquainted with the common practice of sodomite clerics who confess their sins and seek absolution from the same person with whom they have sinned?

Peter Damian: [Yes] So that we are not unaware of the devil’s clever devices, let me put before you some of the tools that he and his council have designed in his ancient laboratory of evil.

I would be remiss if I allowed the fact to be hidden, that some of those who are shot through with the poison of this crime, when their conscience begins to trouble them, confess to one another lest their guilt come to the attention of others.

Despite the fact that, as actual culprits, they are ashamed to look others in the eye, they themselves become judges and each happily grants to the other the blanket forgiveness that he aspires for himself. It follows, then, that they have become penitents involved in great crimes, and still their lips are not pale from fasting nor are their bodies wasted by self-denial. Moreover, since they do not hesitate to gorge themselves, their passions are basely aroused to their usual lust. Thus it happens that he who has yet to weep for the sins he has committed, is guilty of still more lamentable crimes.

The Law commands, however, when one has contracted leprosy, he should show himself to the priests. But when an unclean man confesses to another, defiled by evil that they have committed in common, it is a case of a leper showing himself to a leper and not to the priests. Now, since confession is by definition a revelation, what does he reveal, I ask, who tells his hearer something already known. Or, in what sense can this be called a confession, where nothing is revealed by the penitent but what the hearer already knows?

By what right or what law can one bind or loose the other when he is constrained by the bonds of evil deeds common to them both. He who is himself tied in chains, labors in vain to release another from his shackles. He who would guide a blind man on his way must himself have sight, or he will be the cause of his client’s fall, as the voice of Truth declares when it says, “If one blind man leads another, both will fall into the pit.”

By these texts from the Gospels it becomes perfectly clear that he who is oppressed by the same guilty darkness tries in vain to invite another to return to the light of repentance. While he has no fear of extending himself to outstrip the other in erring, he ends up accompanying his follower into the yawning pit of ruin.

Engel: Your Eminence, having read the Book of Gomorrah more than several hundred times over the last 35 years, I cannot but be impressed by the constancy and degree of your condemnation of the sin of sodomy, or, as I have expressed it in the title of this interview, “the devil’s congress.”

Would you please expand your thoughts on the diabolical origins of sodomy?

Peter Damian: Certainly, it is quite proper for those who, contrary to natural law and right reason, hand over their flesh to demons by such foul practices should share a common nook to pray with the diabolically possessed. Moreover, since human nature itself rebels at these evil deeds, and since the problem of not being of different sex is repugnant, it becomes perfectly clear that they would never undertake such queer and repulsive deeds unless evil spirits had completely possessed them like “vessels of wrath made for destruction.”

But once they begin their possession, they pour out the hellish infection of their malice into those they have seized, so that now they passionately desire, not what the natural emotions of the flesh might demand, but only that which the devil’s urging suggests. For when a man assaults another man to practice sodomy, this is not a natural urging of the flesh but only an incitement of diabolical origin.

The holy Fathers, therefore, were careful to ordain that sodomites should pray in the company of demoniacs, since there was never any doubt that they had become prey to the same satanic spirit. But how can a mediator, exercising the priestly office, stand between God and the people if he is excluded from associating with the congregation of the people and is never allowed to pray except with those possessed by the devil?

Engel: One of the myths circulating in Catholic circles these days is that the crime of pederasty in which monks and clerical sodomites prey on boys and young men is a recent development in the Church. Your treatise in which you quote Saint Basil [330-379] on the punishment meted out for this criminal act belies this myth. Do you mind recalling that quote for our readers?

Peter Damian: The great Basil says: “Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting into his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small, segregated courtyard in the custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men for purposes of improper conversation or advice.”

Engel: Am I correct in stating that you go one step further and favor the position of Pope Siricius (334-399) who held that sodomites, including those who have done penance and been reconciled with the Church, should be forbidden entry into the novitiate, and those who have been ordained be removed from office?

Peter Damian: [Shaking his head, yes.] Among my recommendations to His Holiness is that whoever is sullied with the ugly filth of homosexual vice is unworthy of service in ecclesiastical offices. They, moreover, who were once vessels of vice, as we said, are unfit to celebrate the divine mysteries.

Engel: Your Eminence, in the Book of Gomorrah you state that the vice of sodomy surpasses the enormity of all others, so much so that it is impossible to compare with any other vice. How would you describe the spiritual devastation that befalls the sodomite and those he draws into his net?

Peter Damian: Without fail it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. … It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise, changes a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem into an heir of Babylon, and turns a heavenly star into chaff for eternal fire; it cuts off a member of the Church and hurls him into the depths of the devouring flames of hell. …

It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity with a knife dipped in the filthiest poison. It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things; and as for itself, it allows nothing to be pure, nothing to be spotless, nothing to be clean. …

This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church and forces him to pray with those possessed and obsessed by the devil; it separates the soul from God to associate it with demons. …

Once this poisonous serpent has sunk its fangs into this unfortunate man, he is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind’s vision is darkened. Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes the foundations of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence.

Shall I say more? … Surely, once this savage beast has seized a man in his cruel jaws, it restrains him with its chains from performing any good deed, and then lets him rush unchecked in wild descent into the worst depravity. Then once one has fallen into the depths of utter degradation, he becomes an outcast from his heavenly home, is severed from the Body of Christ, is rebuked by the authority of the whole Church, is condemned by the judgment of all the holy fathers, is despised among men on earth, and is rejected from the company of the citizens of heaven.

He cannot be happy while he lives, nor hope for heaven when he dies, for now he must bear the derision of men and afterwards the torments of eternal damnation.

Engel: I was very moved in the section of your great work in which you state that “we should be sorry for the soul that does not lament.” Can you quote or paraphrase your feelings concerning the unrepentant sodomite?

Peter Damian: Miserable soul, I weep for you with unrelenting grief because I do not see you weeping. For this reason I lie prostrate on the ground for you because I see you wickedly standing erect after your grievous fall and even striving for the highest rank that the ecclesiastical order may offer.

If, on the other hand, you had restrained yourself with humility, I should have rejoiced with the Lord with all my heart, assured of your reform. If compunction, which is the property of heartfelt contrition, had shaken your soul to its foundation, I would have rightly cheered and danced for joy.

But as it is, you are truly to be wept over because you do not weep; and thus you need the grief of others because you do not grieve over your perilous calamity. And since you appear to be undisturbed by any personal sad feelings of regret, you need all the more the bitter tears and compassion of your brothers. Why do you merely neglect to gauge the measure of your damnation?

Engel: Your Eminence, there are many somewhat unusual but important insights that you reveal in the Book of Gomorrah. One that especially attracted my attention was your statement that the services of an unworthy priest will spell ruin for the people. This topic is rarely addressed by members of the hierarchy, or the laity, including those whose parish priest is an active homosexual. What would you say to such an unworthy priest?

Peter Damian: For God’s sake, why do you damnable sodomites pursue the heights of ecclesiastical dignity with such fiery ambition? To what purpose are you so eager to ensnare the people of God in the meshes of your own perdition? Is it not enough that you yourself are plunging headlong into the depths of sin? Must you also expose others to the danger of your fall?

Suppose someone comes to ask us to intercede for him with a powerful man who is angry with him, and suppose we do not know this powerful man. We would immediately respond: We are unable to come to intercede because we are not familiar with him. So, if someone is bashful about interceding with a man of whom he presumes little, in what frame of mind does a person who does not know whether he is a friend of God’s grace through the merits of his life occupy the place of intercession with God for the people?

Everyone, in fact, should discreetly judge himself and not dare to accept the office of the priesthood if the accursed vice still has power over him. Nor should he who is a victim of his own depravity aspire to become an intercessor for the sins of others.

Forbear, I beg you, and dread to inflame the inextinguishable fury of God against you, lest by your very prayers you more sharply provoke Him whom your wicked life so obviously offends. If you are willing to accept your own destruction, beware of being responsible for the damnation of others.

Remember this: The more circumspect you are about your present lapses into sin, the more readily will you rise in the future when God in His mercy extends His hand, inviting you to penance. But if Almighty God Himself refuses to accept the sacrifice from your hands, whom do you think you are in presuming to thrust them upon Him against his will? “The sacrifice of the unclean is abhorrent to the Lord.”

Engel: Dear Cardinal Peter Damian, please accept my apology for this interruption, but you have hit upon a vital issue that is in need of clarification as we currently have certain German and Flemish bishops and cardinals who are ordaining known sodomites and extolling the virtues of homosexual priests. It’s as if they believe that their vocation alone is enough to save them. Are these men totally oblivious to the fact that, as you have written, “no oblation, soiled by impurity, is acceptable to God”?

Peter Damian: Here are the words of Isaiah, renowned among the prophets, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking by the mouth of Isaiah: “Hear,” he says, “the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the command of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What are your endless sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I am sick of the holocausts of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts, and the blood of bulls and sheep and of goats revolts me. When you come to present yourselves before me, who asked you to trample over my courts? Bring me your worthless offerings no more, the smoke of them fills me with disgust. New Moons, sabbaths, and other festivities I cannot endure; your assemblies are wicked. New Moons. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts I hate with all my soul. They lie heavy on me, and I am tired of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you; when you multiply your prayers, I shall not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.”

You will notice, consequently, that even though the sentence of God’s condemnation bears commonly on the evil inherent in all vice, it is principally leveled, however, at the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah. If, perhaps, the rash opinion of those who would contest this view is not prepared to believe human evidence pointing to the moral quality of this vice, it should at least agree with the testimony of God.

Engel: Many traditional Catholics, including myself, often speak about the abuses of offering communion in the hand, but there seems to be little interest or objection to the Blessed Sacrament being held in the hands of a sodomite priest. Would you care to comment?

Peter Damian: As Peter says: “When angels sinned, God did not spare them; He sent them down to the underworld and consigned them to the pits of hell, to be held for punishment until the day of Judgment … And He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and destroyed them completely, as a warning to those who would act wickedly in the future.”

Engel: My Dear Saint Peter Damian, it is obvious that you consider the salvation of souls the primary task of priests and monks. Instead of encouraging sodomites in their sin, what should the German and Flemish bishops, indeed all members of the Catholic hierarchy from the pope down, be advising clerics, whatever their station, who are caught in the homosexual vice?

Peter Damian: Let these miserable souls learn to inhibit this detestable vice, manfully conquer the wantonness of enticing lust, repress the lascivious urging of the flesh, and fear in their bones the terrible judgment of divine anger. Let them always recall the threatening words of the Apostle when he says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Remember the Philistines, indeed, had the power to shave Samson’s locks but not to uproot them, which means that the evil spirits too, even though for a time, they may deprive you of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit, they will never succeed in denying you the remedy of God’s forgiveness.

Begin an unremitting struggle against the flesh, always standing armed against the dangerous disease of passion. … Think again of the peril of this exchange, that for momentary pleasure experienced at the moment of ejaculation, a punishment will follow that will not end for thousands of years. Ponder how sad it is that because one member is not satisfied to the full, the whole body together with the soul is afterwards tortured forever in a dreadful holocaust.

It is also well worth the effort that you constantly keep in mind the promised rewards of chastity and that, stimulated by their sweetness, you may with unencumbered faith overcome any obstacle thrown in your path by the wiles of the crafty plotter.

Engel: As we draw near to the end of our interview, would you address the charges that were leveled against you by your fellow episcopal critics who accused you of being “an informer and a delator” of your brother’s crime. I’m sure similar criticisms are being conjured up in the minds of those Church leaders today who are calling for the ordination of homosexuals and the blessing of sodomite relationships under the banner of “Synodality.”

Peter Damian: I have no fear, moreover, of the hatred of evil men nor of the tongues of detractors. I would surely prefer to be thrown innocent into the well like Joseph who informed his father of his brothers’ foul crime, than to suffer the penalty of God’s fury, like Eli, who saw the wickedness of his sons and remained silent.

Who am I, when I see this pestilential practice flourishing in the priesthood to become the murderer of another’s soul by daring to repress my criticism in expectation of the reckoning of God’s judgment? I should become responsible for another’s crime in which I was in no way involved.

How, indeed, am I to love my neighbor as myself if I negligently allow the wound, of which I am sure he will brutally die, to fester in his heart; if, moreover, I am aware of these wounds of the spirit and fail to cure them by the surgery of my words?

I might also add, that if blasphemy is a terrible thing, I am not aware that sodomy is any better. The former indeed causes a man to err; the latter brings him to perdition. The one separates the soul from God; the other joins it to the devil. The former expels one from heaven; the latter buries him in hell. The one blinds the eye of the soul; the other hurls one into the abyss of ruin.

And if we are careful to investigate which of these crimes is the weightier in the scales of divine scrutiny, a search of Sacred Scripture will provide a satisfactory answer. There, indeed, we find that the children of Israel who blasphemed God and worshiped idols were taken into captivity; but we notice that sodomites were devoured in the sulfurous flames of a fire from heaven.

So let no man condemn me as I argue against this deadly vice, for I seek not to dishonor, but to promote the advantage of my brother’s well-being. Take care not to appear partial to the delinquent while you persecute him who sets him straight. If I may be pardoned in using Moses’ words, “Whoever is for the Lord, let him stand with me.”

Engel: Thank you so much Saint Peter Damian for this instructive interview which I hope will receive world-wide attention especially among the German and Flemish bishops. Do you have any parting words for our readers, including the many who are learning of you and the Book of Gomorrah for the first time?

Peter Damian: Permit me to end our interview with the last sentence of the Book of Gomorrah presented to His Holiness Pope Leo IX in the year of Our Lord, 1049:

Most reverend Father, may Almighty God be pleased during your pontificate to utterly destroy this monstrous vice, that a prostrate Church may everywhere rise to vigorous stature.

The End

P.S. A reminder to our readers that the League of St. Peter Damian is making available the complete [electronic] text of the Book of Gomorrah as translated by Father Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., as well as Pope St. Leo IX’s Decree on Sodomy written in response to Peter Damian’s Letter 31, free of charge. The text is completely footnoted so that the quotes taken from the Book of Gomorrah can be seen in their original context. Send your request to: randyengel@stpeterdamian.com.

^[1] Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, 2006, is available as a five-volume set from www.newengelpublishing.com or from New Engel Publishing, Box 356, Export, PA 15632.

^[2] For additional information on the League of St. Peter Damian see Home | League of Saint Peter Damian (stpeterdamian.com).

^[3] The Letters of Peter Damian Letters 31-60, translated by Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., The Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 2005, pp. 3-53. In connection with Part II of this series, the League of St. Peter Damian is making available the complete [electronic] text of the Book of Gomorrah as translated by Father Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., as well as Pope St. Leo IX’s accompanying Decree on Sodomy (1049), free of charge to our readers. The text is completely footnoted. Send your request to: randyengel@stpeterdamian.com.

^[4] See https://germany.detailzero.com/news/309896/Pater-triggers-nationwide-outrage-with-his-sermon-in-Wittichenau.html.

^[5] Rom 1.24.

^[6] Rom 1.26-28.

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AN IMPORTANT EXPOSE OF THE GERMAN “BISHOPS” ADVANCEMENT OF SODOMY PART 1

Posted on February 6, 2023 by abyssum

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Exposé: The German Bishops’ Advancement of Sodomy

Guest Contributor January 24, 2023 No Comments

Challenging the German Bishops’ Advancement of Sodomy – “The Devil’s Congress“

A Defense of Catholic Sexual Morality & Condemnation of the Synodal Way

Part I

By Randy Engel

Introduction

If there is one lesson that faithful Catholics the world-over need to learn from the more than half-century of the rule of the Robber/Counterfeit Church,^[1] aka, the Novus Ordo, is that never, ever, say, “it cannot get worse,” because it always does.

Last year’s pro-homosexual debacle lead by prominent members of the German and Flemish hierarchies under the banner of Pope Francis’ new vision of a Synodal Church via a Synodal Way^[2] is a powerful lesson in point.

While there are other continuing recycled controversies associated with the Synodal Movement – including a more egalitarian reshaping of the Catholic Church’s hierarchical structures, and the opening up of the “new priesthood” to women, intersex and transgender candidates – there can be no doubt that the sanctification of sodomy is the linchpin that binds together the entire German Synodal doctrinal and moral wrecking apparatus and its crew.

The primary focus of this article is the 28-page German Synodal Forum IV document “ Life in Succeeding Relationships – Living Love in Sexuality and Partnerships,”^[3] presented by the German Episcopal Conference (Deutsche Bischofskonferenz) and the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) at the IV Plenary Assembly of the Synodal Way held in Frankfurt in 2022.

Together, the two entities form the 230-member German Assembly known as the Synodaler Weg, that is, the Synodal Way. The group is comprised of all the German bishops plus clerical and lay representatives from Catholic religious orders, dioceses, parishes, lay movements, academia, and ecumenical associations that include non-Catholics and non-believers.

The first time I read “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” I felt it impossible not to fall to my knees and kiss the crucifix of my Rosary in tears of reparation. More than six months have gone by, and I still can’t find myself letting go of the report without taking some action. Hence, this two-part series which will review the German document in detail. It will then be followed-up by a classic response from Saint Peter Damian, courtesy of yours truly, who, for the record, is the founder of the League of St. Peter Damian dedicated to the promotion and application of one of this saint’s greatest works, the Book of Gomorrah (1049).^[4]

The MHG Study – Prelude to the Synodal Way

“Life in Succeeding Relationships – Living Love in Sexuality and Partnerships,” which received world-wide publicity in the fall of 2022, was not conceived in a vacuum. It was based on a much earlier German bishops’ study titled “Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests, Deacons and Male Members of Orders in the Domain of the German Bishops’ Conference”^{^[5]} and released in 2018.

Known as the MHG Study,^[6] [also abbreviated as the MSG Study], this research project was commissioned in 2011 by the German Catholic Conference. It involved all of Germany’s twenty-seven dioceses and took seven troubled years to complete.

The MHG sex abuse report remains critically important as it resulted in the hemorrhaging of hundreds of thousands of Catholics from the Church in Germany. When the German faithful learned of the extent of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clerics and religious, and the subsequent cover-ups by the German bishops, many of them disaffiliated themselves from the Catholic Church amid calls for radical reforms.

Moreover, the MHG report is especially important to this article because it provided the dominant themes that inspired and buttressed the pro-homosexual actions taken by the majority of German bishops, clerics, and lay delegates years later at the 2022 Synodal Way assembly.

The original Director of the interdisciplinary MHG taskforce was Professor Christian Pfeiffer, a Protestant German criminologist, and Director of the Institute for Criminological Research of Lower Saxony (KFN).^[7] Pfeiffer ruffled some feathers early on in the game when he admittedly told a conference of general vicars that celibacy was at the root of the Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis – a strange claim since clerical sexual offenders are by definition not celibate.

In any case, Pfeiffer and his team did run into some legitimate problems surrounding the accumulation of raw data as they never had access to the German Church’s original case files.

Instead, it soon became clear that many of the sex abuse case archives and files from 1945 onward, had been radically manipulated, censored, shredded, or otherwise destroyed by diocesan staff on the orders of their bishop. At the time of his employment, Pfeiffer was unaware of the fact that Church rulings permit the destruction of abuse files after a ten-year period making serious research on the offenders and victims almost impossible.

Less than a year later, on December 12, 2012, at a private meeting in Munich under the heretical and pro-homosexual Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s watch,^[8] Archdiocesan officials attempted to bribe Pfeiffer to resign with an offer of 120,000 euros, the cost of the study. When Pfeiffer rightly saw this as an attempt to silence him and censor his findings, the powers that be threatened to destroy his name and career.

In the end, Pfeiffer left, but not quietly.^[9] He was replaced by psychiatrist Prof. Harald Dressing of the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim.^[10] Under the new research contract, the German bishops gained total censorship over the public content of the final MHG Report which was published in 2018.^[11]

MHG Summary – Poor Theology and Poor Science

In its introductory statement on methodology, the MHG Report openly admits as to one of its most serious shortcomings:

All the findings are purely descriptive in nature. Due to the research method that was used, statistical proof of causal relationships between individual phenomena or variables cannot be provided. At best, hypotheses can be generated on the basis of existing findings.^[12]

The MHG study covers alleged [not proven] cases of sexual abuse of minors involving 1,670 priests, deacons, and male religious for the period from 1946 to 2014. The figure was deemed “conservative” with probable numbers going much higher. Similarly, the number of child and juvenile victims was recorded as 3,677, another low estimate considering the nature of the crimes.

The majority of the victims, 62.8%, were male, mostly between the ages of 12 and 13, with others fourteen and older. One of the seven sub-projects indicated a homosexual orientation among 72% of the accused clerics.

Consistent with other official Catholic Church sex abuse diocesan studies, the MHG Report uses the term paedophilia, rather than pederasty, to describe the nature of the predominantly homosexual acts performed on adolescent male victims by clerics – a clear indication that the researchers intended to disclaim any connection between homosexuality and the clerical sexual abuse of young boys, which, as we will see, they did in fact, do.^[13]

The MHG report also indicates systemic grooming techniques were employed by alleged offenders. These include emotional and psychological blackmail, threat of physical violence, and exploitation of authority. More than 80% percent of the young victims suffered “hands-on” offenses, that is, acts associated with physical contact including anal, vaginal and/or oral penetration.^[14]

Church sanctions and penalties against convicted clerical offenders were lenient or non-existent across the board. Admission of guilt and expressions of remorse on the part of the accused were conspicuously absent. In contrast, the majority of victims appeared to have suffered greatly, many for a lifetime.

Laicization and excommunication of clerical offenders was rare under canon law, while the removal and transfer of criminal clerics to other parishes or institutions or dioceses was the common line of action taken by the German bishops.

MHG Technical Recommendations

Among the technical recommendations identified in the MHG study – recommendations common to the many other diocesan and independent reports on clerical sexual abuse this writer has reviewed over the years – is the need for “binding, uniform, transparent and standardized reporting,” as well as long-term recordkeeping of abuse cases, including follow-up reports to accompany any transfer of clerics;^[15] the establishment and financing of independent professional contact entities for alleged victims; the updating of canon laws and procedures dealing with criminal sexual acts against minors and vulnerable adults, and the promotion of penalties which are commensurate with the gravity of the respective crime.^[16]

Thus far, there appeared to be no significant surprises reported in the MHG study when compared to similar large scale clerical abuse studies conducted in Catholic dioceses in other countries including the United States.

It’s not until to the last section of the study dealing with “Catholic sexual morals,”^[17] that the real fireworks go off.

MHG Study Rejects Catholic Sexual Morality

The opening paragraph of the recommended plans of action to be taken by the Catholic Church to address clerical sex abuse of minors and vulnerable adults reads:

The results of the study make it clear that the abuse of minors on the part of clerics belonging to the Catholic Church constitutes not only misconduct committed by individuals, but also that attention must be paid to the risk and structural characteristics that are specific to the Catholic Church and which encourage the sexual abuse of minors or make it more difficult to prevent such abuse [bold added].^[18]

But what specifically are “the risks and structural characteristics” of the Church that “encourage” and make the prevention of sexual abuse of minors “more difficult”?

Let’s see how the creators of the MHG report attempt to square the circle:

According to the MHG study team, “Homosexuality does not constitute a risk factor for sexual abuse.”^[19]

Following this denial of their own research, they state, “There is an urgent need to reconsider the fundamentally negative attitude of the Catholic Church towards the ordination of homosexual men.”^[20] They recommend rather “an open, tolerance-promoting atmosphere”^[21] toward advancing openly homosexual candidates to the priesthood. Rebuking the Church for its use of “idiosyncratic terminology” (e.g., “deeply-rooted homosexual inclination”), the researchers recommend instead the use of modern sexual medicine language and the implementation of sexual science’s findings.^[22]

The Roman Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement also takes a hit, even though the MHG admits it is not an eo ipso [by itself] contributor to the sexual abuse of minors. Maintaining the sacramental seal of confession in abuse cases is also questioned.^[23]

The issue of “clericalism,” defined as “an abuse of power facilitated by the authoritarian-clerical structure of the Catholic Church,”^[24] is a main theme of the MHG report especially as it relates to clerical sexual abuse.

According to the MHG recommendations:

A change in clerical power structures requires a fundamental examination of the ordained ministry of the priest and of his understanding of his role vis-à-vis non-ordained persons … Clericalism denotes a hierarchical-authoritarian system that can lead the priest to adopt an attitude of dominating non-ordained individuals in interactions because he holds a superior position by virtue of his ministry and ordination. Sexual abuse is an extreme manifestation of such dominance. [Emphasis added] ^[25]

That is, the Roman Catholic Church needs to abandon its hierarchical structure in favor of more egalitarian governance because sexually abusive clerics, religious, and bishops use their office to commit unpardonable crimes against minors and other vulnerable people – male and female.

The German Synodal Assembly, Hessen, Frankfurt, September 8-10, 2022

Returning to the Controversial Frankfurt Synodal Assembly

As noted earlier, the German Catholic Conference of Bishops and the lay Central Committee of German Catholics, aka Synodal Assembly, met in Frankfort for three days, September 8-10,2022. The Assembly produced fourteen texts based on the findings of the 2018 MHG sex abuse report that centered upon (1) clerical power (2) the role of women in the Church (3) the priesthood and (4) Catholic sexual morality. ^[26]

Having reviewed the case of the modernist “ecclesiastical politics”^[27] that dominates the German MHG Report, I expect that the reader will better appreciate its decisive role, four years later, in influencing the direction of the IV Synodal Path in Germany and its controversial document, “Life in Succeeding Relationships – Living Love in Sexuality and Partnership,” key portions of which are cited below.

Preamble – Church Teachings Foster Abuse^[28]

It is the contention of the German Synodal Assembly that the centuries-old Catholic Church teachings on “love, sexuality, and partnerships,” have been marred by “rigid moral dictates,” and “merciless attitudes,” which in turn have prompted acts of “sexualized violence in Church institutions, congregations and communities.”

According to the Assembly, the brunt of these alleged harsh teachings has been unwed mothers, fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, the divorced and remarried, and contracepting married couples. Horror of horrors, these individuals have been “forced into complete abstinence.”^[29]

The Synodal Assembly continues:

This suffering also includes the countless reprimands to which religion teachers and theologians, Catholic institutions and societies were and are subjected when they try to be critical of the current teachings of the Church. In doing so, we have marginalized people, deeply wounded them, and hindered their developing humanity. Time and again, people’s privacy and decisions of conscience were not respected. We see today that the Church’s sexual ethics also facilitated the crimes of sexual abuse in the Church. We ask forgiveness from the bottom of our hearts from all those who have suffered from the effects of the Church’s sexual teachings.^[30]

As a Synodal Assembly, we see it as our duty to follow up this admission with actions, and to formulate impulses for a reorientation of the Church’s pastoral care.^[31]

The Synodal Assembly is convinced that it will not be possible to reorient pastoral care without re-defining the emphasis of the Church’s sexual teaching to a significant degree. The Synodal Assembly therefore suggests a major re-emphasis in the Church’s doctrine, and considers an urgent need to exist to overcome some of the restrictions in questions of sexuality, for reasons of sexual science as well as theology. In particular, the teaching that sexual intercourse is only ethically legitimate in the context of a lawful marriage, and only with a permanent openness to the transmission of life, has caused a wide rift to open up between the Magisterium and the faithful. This threatens to completely obscure other important accents of God’s Good News which could have a liberating effect on shaping dignified sexuality. [Emphasis added] ^[32]

Section A: Synodal Assembly Cites MHG Study

Having thrown down the gauntlet that challenges every aspect of two-thousand years of Catholic sexual morality, the Assembly credits the MHG report with providing the motivations and orientation for its subsequent actions, especially the finding that “homosexuality (…) does not constitute a risk factor for sexual abuse” – a finding which “thus demonstrates the need for a change in Church teaching on partnership and sexuality.^[33]

The Assembly, throughout all its deliberations, promotes the constant MHG theme – that of the alleged “irreparable disconnect” between the “lived sexual experiences”^[34] of the Catholic laity and the norms of the Church’s teachings on sinful sexual acts, including contraception [almost all of which have an abortive mode of action], homosexuality, fornication, masturbation, etc.^[35]

According to the Assembly, even those who actively dissent from the Magisterium on sexual matters can “enjoy joyful, liberating relationships” which can be successfully measured by recognizing the dignity of the other person and by a standard of non-violence, to which are added committed friendship, fidelity, respect, mutual tender affirmation, and responsible parenthood.^[36] To be rejected are sexual acts and relationships that are “exploitative and violent sexuality” including “forced prostitution, rape and other forms of sexualized violence,” especially the sexual abuse of minors.^[37]

Not surprisingly, this section is followed by a lengthy exposition on Biblical Scripture and the primacy of “love” and man’s “inalienable dignity.”^[38]

“Consensuality on the part of partners in sexuality and partnership is a sine qua non,” the Assembly stresses.^[39] “Since children cannot yet consent to sexual acts,” the Assembly states, “Sexual acts before, with and on children are to be evaluated without exception as violence.”^[40]

Section B – Preface to Motions

This brief section waxes lyrically on various Novus Ordo themes including (1) Sexuality as a gift and as a creative mandate of God; (2) God’s affirmation of the individual [terms like men and women, husband and wife, are rarely used in the text]; (3) God’s unconditional forgiveness; (4) responsible freedom; (5) and the primacy of conscience.^[41]

Homosexual couples are equated with “married couples” throughout the text.

Motion 1. [Principle 1]

Based upon the above criteria, the first motion of the Assembly is to affirm that:

Human sexuality is a fundamentally positive life force given by God, and that every individual has the right to sexual “self-determination and self-perception” hence “the fundamental mission of the Church is to respect and honor sexual identity in its diversity across the lifespan – regardless of age or sexual orientation [emphasis added].^[42]

The Church’s Magisterium also acknowledges that homosexuality is an orientation that is not chosen [emphasis added].^[43]

Motion 2. [Principle 2]

Since the Assembly writers erroneously claim that homosexuality is biologically determined and that self-perceived sexual orientation must be respected, it logically follows that the report vigorously opposes any form of therapy:

Both sexual orientation and gender identity are the result of a deeply personal growth process, and it is up to the person concerned to identify it. All forms of discrimination and promotion of its manipulation in a manner not medically indicated, such as via conversion therapies, are therefore prohibited [emphasis added].^[44]

The Assembly report states that “human sexuality” is fluid, and “polyvalent” and takes “various forms of expression.”^[45] The report is a celebration of “diversity.” It adopts the “Kinsey Scale,” that classifies sexual orientation on a spectrum from 0-6, with zero representing “exclusively heterosexual” and six representing “exclusively homosexual, with asexual, intersex and transgender people sandwiched in between, rather than acknowledging that heterosexuality is the norm for the human species.^[46]

The Virtue of Lust

Among its more euphonious insights into human sexuality is the report’s attempt at rehabilitating lust traditionally defined as a disordered desire for, or inordinate enjoyment of, sexual pleasure.^[47] Lust, Church tradition tells us, is one of the seven deadly sins. It brings about “blindness of mind, which excludes almost entirely the knowledge of spiritual things,”^[48] and “darkens the intellect.”^[49]

Not always claims the Assembly report:

Ontogenetically (development of the individual), the lust dimension in conjunction with the experience of human nearness usually forms the first step of a person’s life.^[50]

…One need have no profound knowledge of the human sciences or of sexual medicine in order to know that no dimension of human sexuality must be realized in each expressive sexual act in order to enable the other dimensions to be realized. …For each of the dimensions of sexuality is itself ambivalent: The experience of sexual lust targets the positive experience of one’s own self as well as of the other; but it can also tip over into a narcissistic self-isolation that instrumentalizes another person as a mere object of lust [emphasis added].^[51]

Motion 3. [Principle 3] Contraception Justified

The report hails the “primacy of love” as “polyphonic” in all its sexual expressions and dimensions.^[52]

For example, the term, “fertility,” is not limited to the biological transmission of new life via marital intercourse. … Beyond its biological fertility, neighborly love, mediated in the flesh, assumes a social responsibility for the human community as a whole. This assumption of social responsibility can also be based on a conscious decision to use contraception in a certain situation, or in an option against further biological children [emphasis added].^[53]

In this sense, ‘fertility’ is essential for all interpersonal love. It is however disputed whether biological fertility in terms of openness for the transmission of human life – and that in each genital-sexual act – is essential.^[54]

And it is undisputed that each sexual act must respect personal dignity and be characterized by the gift of mutual love and grace, and may of course be performed together with full lust and joy.^[55]

… The unconditional linking of each sexual act to biological fertility constitutes an impermissible absolutization of the reproductive aspect which threatens to level out the qualitative difference between human sexuality and that of animal reproductive behaviour.^[56]

Humanae Vitae Not Compelling

The principle of inseparability asserted itself in the teaching of the Catholic Church for the first time in the Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (1968), where it was referred to as “the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.”(HV 12).^[57]

… In any case, the consequences of such a principle are severe: debasement, even delegitimization of all sexual acts which by themselves cannot beget children. This not only concerns sexuality between homosexual individuals… [emphasis added]. In this respect, precisely because of its severity, this principle of inseparability is rejected by the majority as a failure to recognize the human significance of human sexuality for each individual, and as an imposition that lacks plausibility.^[58]

Readers, I am sure, will not have missed the point the Assembly report is making. Sodomy/anal penetration or “the devil’s congress” as it was known in the Middle Ages, is not a debasement of human sexuality, but the Church’s anti-contraceptive stand is a debasement of the marital act.

Motion 4. [Principle 4]

In still another plug for sodomy, the report states that the social dimension of fertility provides homosexuals with the opportunity to be “fertile” by raising children, in part, an underhanded way of putting the stamp of approval on adoption by male homosexuals and lesbians.^[59] No mention is made of the catastrophic moral dimension of commonly used artificial forms of manufacturing babies used by homosexuals, aka, in vitro fertilization and paid sexual surrogates.

Grace-filled Homosexuality

Under the subtitle “The fertility of homosexual partnerships,”^[60] the report reiterates its claim that homosexuality is a natural inborn variant of human sexuality. Therefore, homosexual acts can fulfill the same physical expression of personal love experienced by heterosexual couples.

The writers of the report question “whether one can seriously demand that a core feature of a person’s identity be frozen, only because it does not fulfil certain normative expectations, without thereby harming that person or any other person.^[61] That is to say, homosexuals can harm themselves by not acting out on their special nature in the form of sodomy or other habituated perverted acts.^[62]

It follows then that the Assembly again demands the renunciation of conversion therapies:

These aim to change same-sex desires, and to “cure” homosexuality. They fundamentally presume that homosexuality is a disease. In doing so, they ignore the acknowledgement in the human sciences of homosexuality as a disposition, which is also advocated by the Magisterium.^[63]

[Spiritual] guidance should be provided. It does not aim to carry out therapeutic conversion, but at bringing about acceptance of a self-determined life decision of the individuals receiving spiritual guidance. The pastoral guidance of homosexual faithful should fundamentally aim to positively integrate the sexual orientation into the individual, and not to promote the repression or suppression of the sexual orientation.^[64]

… same-sex relationships should always be unconditionally recognized if they – like any form of sexual relationship – respect the dignity of the individuals concerned and are characterized by heartfelt, enduring love and grace [emphasis added].^[65]

Motion 5. [Principle 5]

The principles and criteria of sexuality lived out in Christianity – respect for self-determination and responsible sexuality, as well as fidelity, permanence, exclusivity and responsibility for one another in relationships – also apply to homosexual people.^[66]

The authors of the report then restate that homosexuality does not exclude candidates for the priesthood or religious life and that all attempts at conversion therapies, “are to be strictly rejected and put to a stop.”^[67]This pronouncement is followed by further commentaries on “making sexual lust life-giving in its beauty.”^[68]

Our Lady of Fatima told Blessed Jacinta that, “More souls go to Hell because of the sins of the flesh than for any other reason,”^[69] but the German bishops and lay assembly members, indifferent to St. Paul’s warning,^[70] are preaching a different Gospel:

A highly skeptical attitude towards sexual lust prevailed for a long time which made human sexuality as a whole appear to be an ultimately dangerous, explosive and quickly invasive energy that had to be contained and tamed by means of strict moral and legal norms. Lust, and with it sexuality, are understood less as drive-bound arousal, the exuberant potential of which would have to be relieved by the satisfaction of drives, but as the consummation of a physically-experienceable energy which owes itself to the attraction of Eros, and thus lends expression to the sense of well-being of physically-perceived nearness. The productive elements of human lust – also and especially in the area of sexuality – are now being perceived and taken seriously.^[71]

Motion 6. [Principle ] Sex Education and Masturbation

…It is the task of sex education, as of Christian education and upbringing as a whole, to promote the life-serving and thus mindful and dignified formation of sexual lust over the whole span of human life, to sensitize it for its moments of pleasing, and thus to protect it from trivializing degeneration.^[72]

The report put special emphasis on the deprived sexuality of the “disabled”:

The premise for the emotional-sexual education of disabled persons is inherent in the conviction that their need for love is at least as great as anyone else’s. … People with disabilities too seek authentic relationships in which they can find appreciation and recognition as a person. Sexuality shows itself as the language of physically-mediated appreciation and recognition.^[73]

Where is all this heady talk on sex for the disabled (and others) heading? Towards the benefits of self-stimulating sexuality for everyone, of course:

… It [masturbation] opens up the possibility of discovering and experiencing oneself in physicality, and of experiencing the dimensions of the sexuality of lust, identity and transcendence. This experiential space is significant over the whole lifespan. It is an important gradual development for the psychosexual maturation process in almost every person. Self-stimulating sexuality is not a form of pure self-love, but another important form of human sexuality besides interpersonal relationships. It is each person’s task never to make the pleasurable self-referentiality of human sexuality absolute. It is however an expression of human sexuality on this side of relationships between couples.^[74]

Motion 7 (Principle 7)

Since “sexuality lives in and from relationships, including people’s relationship with themselves,” the report states as a matter of principle that:

Experiencing one’s own body through self-stimulation in a pleasurable way can be an important building block of self-acceptance for everyone. This does not deny the danger inherent in the self-stimulated sexuality of each person: to become encapsulated within oneself, and thus to dry up the richness of relationships with other people as a source of one’s own life.^[75]

Marriage and Divorce

The next large section of the German Synodal Assembly report is an extended muddied verbal collage on marriage and other “committed relationships.” The long discourse on marriage as “relationship” pays little attention to the primary end of marriage, which is the begetting and education of children, but does manage to give considerable space to divorce and remarriage of one spouse to a new “partner” a la Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love):

Conjugal sexuality is interwoven with ups and downs in the same way as conjugal love as a whole. … The mystery of sacramentality especially reveals its liberating character here: Spouses regard God’s salvific, strengthening nearness not as a promise for the future which they themselves must first earn, but as an encounter which has already taken place and on which they can build.^[76]

God’s promise does not protect even Christian marriages from exhaustion and failure. …This is one reason why an increasing number of marriages are dissolved by civil law. A divorce dissolves the civil bond, and also terminates the partnership (covenant) outwardly.^[77]

… Although, according to current doctrine, this second marriage cannot constitute a sacramental marriage because of the indissolubility of the first, the question nonetheless arises for the Christian faith community as to whether and how the persons concerned can participate in the life of the Church if they so wish. … Pope Francis has taken important steps in this regard towards recognition in his post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia – according to the pastoral maxims of “accompanying, discerning, integrating.”^[78] …The question remains as to how the Church can enable people in such new partnerships, many of whom experience a longing in terms of their faith, to experience God’s merciful care through His blessing.^[79]

The Blessing of Homosexual Partnerships

Having opened the door to legitimizing Catholic divorce and remarriage, we get to the long-anticipated bottom line concerning fornicating and cohabiting couples and homosexual partners:

God’s sustaining strength is promised not only to married couples, but to all people who seek caring, committed relationships [emphasis added]. In this respect, they seek to consciously and explicitly place their relationship under God’s promise, and therefore ask for the blessing of the Church. Some consider this very request, which occasionally even leads to a request for a formal marriage, to express esteem for the ‘institution’ of marriage as a covenant for life that is made binding by a formally-concluded bond.^[80]

Acts of blessing for same-sex couples are controversial in the Church. Separate rituals and acts of blessing therefore can and must be found for other forms of cohabitation than marriage – despite the unfavourable judgment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of 15 March 2021. This will not only support loving couples, but also all those relatives and friends who accompany them on their journey through life.^[81]

The Assembly report acknowledges that the Roman Catholic Church condemns homosexual deeds [it also condemns lustful thoughts and words, willingly entertained by homosexuals and heterosexuals], and forbids sodomite and lesbian “blessings” as well as “marriage,” but dismisses these puerile objections outright:

… the Church should not and may not deny to committed partnerships God’s succor as promised in the blessing. God’s succor is said to encompass all relationships – in particular those which, in addition to loving affection and reliable support, are also lived in exclusivity and faithfulness.^[82]

Motion 8 (Principle 8)

Though the Assembly report acknowledges that marriage remains the most frequently chosen form of relationships in our society, it repeatedly argues that other forms of partnerships must be accepted:

Trust in God’s salvific acts does not rule out painful failures. But it does encompass trust in the presence of a God who accompanies the lives of all people through life with His goodness and care, and who surprisingly reveals new chances of success, especially in seemingly hopeless situations.^[83]

Same-sex partnerships seeking to take the risk of an indissoluble life together also draw on such trust. Therefore, they too should be able to see themselves as placed under the blessing of God, expressly granted by the Church, and live from it [emphasis added]. This also applies to people who enter into a new partnership after a marriage has failed.^[84]

Recalling the Königstein Declaration

As the Assembly report draws to a close, its authors mention, for the first time, the German bishops’ infamous Königsteiner Erklärung (Declaration of Königstein) written in 1968 as a renunciation of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae:

In the follow-up to the Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, the “Königstein Declaration” already referred to the conscientious personal decision of spouses to use so-called artificial methods of birth control. It thus follows the tradition of both the Bible and of the Church, which assigns to the conscience of each person the central position of a responsible way of life, and which was again brought to bear by the Second Vatican Council: As the Pastoral Constitution of the most recent Council summarizes the doctrinal tradition of the Church, “Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.” (Gaudium et Spes 16).^[85]

The fact that a conscience-based judgment always binds each person in terms of his or her conduct in life – irrespective of any possible error – is undisputed [emphasis added].^[86]

… The Second Vatican Council remains within the doctrinal tradition of the Church when it holds to another path of the discerning of conscience: The Council considers the ‘voice of God’ to be audible in conscience: “In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.”. And adds: “In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships.” (Gaudium et Spes 16).^[87]

… the Magisterium also guides the faithful in their formation of conscience; but it cannot take its place: “We [the Magisterium] have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.” (AL 37) The Magisterium may rightly expect from all the faithful the Christian obedience owed to the traditions and teachings of the Church – also in questions of moral conduct (cf. can. 212 CIC). But it is never blind obedience that dispenses with its own responsibility for the knowledge of what is morally right and true and takes refuge in the exculpatory arms of an authority. According to the Church’s teaching and to canon law, it is in fact always an obedience “conscious of their own responsibility.” This responsibility consists of “freedom which is obedient to one’s own insight and conscience.”^[88]

Motion 9 (Principle 9) The Criteria of Love aka Sex

The Assembly report again repeats the mantra that sexuality – that is “responsible sexuality” – is a universal avocation based on the Commandment to love one another. The criteria it gives for truly authentic and successful loving relationships includes (1) free consent) (2) fidelity and exclusivity of genital activity (3) and the absence of exploitive behavior, sexual violence (especially against minors) and all forms of humiliation.^[89]

Ironically, the report uses the writings of St. Paul to indemnify all forms of sexual depravity that the Apostle repeatedly condemns, most especially sodomy.^[90]

The Pauline “freedom from the law” implies the promise that, with the experience of God’s salvific and liberating nearness ‘behind us,’ it is possible again and again to take the risk of life-embracing love without having to despair of one’s own or the other’s weaknesses and mistakes. And that is indeed directly liberating: accepting the reality of one’s own existence – including its potential for salvific change – without being crushed and oppressed by the romanticization of an ideality.^[91]

Motion 10 (Principle 10) The Successful Life

The Synodal Assembly report ends with “a call to holiness”:

Holiness and perfection are part of a common growth process, initiated by God Himself (cf. Eph 5:27). Holiness stands for the promise of growing steadily in a successful life, with the experience of God’s salvific presence, until it reaches flawless heavenly perfection through the mercy of God’s choosing and redeeming.

The freedom for which Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1) is freedom from the compulsion to assert ourselves towards others through egoistic self-centeredness, or to justify ourselves before God through a seemingly flawless, outwardly law-abiding lifestyle.

It is freedom to be able to engage in the ventures of love and committed partnerships, as well as in responsible sexuality [emphasis added].

… we can and must carefully respect the realities of people’s lives today and hold out to them, in the midst of their concrete circumstances, the promise of a successful and abundant life – including sexuality that takes as its standard the God-given dignity and uniqueness of each individual person.^[92]

A Revolution in the Making

The above Forum IV text on the “renewal” and “reform” of Catholic sexual morality was presented to the Synodal Way membership on September 8, 2022, the first day of the meeting, as Germany’s contribution to the worldwide synodal process initiated by Pope Francis. According to the German Catholic news agency KNA, all proposals were formulated for the pope’s consideration and not as independent dogmatic changes by the German church.”^[93]

When the prepared text came up for a vote, a minority of bishops, some representing the Forum of German Catholics, the conservative organized opposition group to the Synodal Way, managed to block its adoption with a vote of 27 against and 33 for, not enough to meet the required episcopal two-thirds majority.^[94]

There were cries and the gnashing of teeth from the pro-homosexual majority of bishops and laity, some of whom departed from the bitter and extended debate that followed the vote. The KNA reported that the conservative bishops and laity made a second more “nuanced” appeal, in the course of which some opinions apparently change. But whose opinions changed and in what direction?

KNA doesn’t tell us, although the news agency does report that after moderator Bishop Georg Bätzing, President of the German Episcopal Conference bishops’ conference, secured a measure that provided for a 20-minute consultation behind closed doors before each “sensitive vote” by the attending bishops, there were no further attempts at blocking any votes by any bishop even though debates still occurred during the plenary sessions.^[95] Which I guess answers my question.

During the next two days of debate, the “reform” aka “change doctrine” -minded members of the German hierarchy, including Bishop Bätzing of Limburg and big-hitter Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising,continued to press the Assembly agenda forward on the grounds that the pope wanted a “synodal Church,” and that the German Church was simply following his lead.^[96] Some bishops said they would implement pro-sodomite measures in their own dioceses, including blessings for homosexual couples, male and female, and employing homosexuals in services of the Church.

Gregor Podschun, lay chairman of the Federation of German Catholic Youth, argued that the church owed it to the victims of clerical sexual abuse to change its doctrine and structure in such a way that these crimes could no longer happen.^[97]

In wrapping up the Synodal Way, co-President Irme Stetter-Karp said: “We have achieved a lot, and we are not going to stop here.”^[98]

I, for one, am taking Stetter-Karp at her word.

Quo Vadis the German Synodal Way?

The German Synodal Way is due to end with a fifth General Assembly in Frankfurt in March 9-11, 2023, at which time a final vote on the revised and updated Synodal Way documents is expected. The Continental Assemblies deadline for submitting final documents on three reflection questions is March 31, 2023. The feedback from the seven Continental Assemblies on the Document for the Continental Stage (DCS), will be used as the basis for another instrumentum laboris or working document, that will be completed in June 2023 to guide the Synod of Bishops’ discussion.

On October 4-29, 2023, the First Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will convene in Rome under the title “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.” Pope Francis had extended that deadline to October 2024.

In the meantime, the proponents of the German Synodal Path are carrying on smaller local forums on doctrinal changes in sexual morality, the need for a new more secularized priesthood, an expansion of women’s roles in the Church including the diaconate and priesthood and the issue of “clericalism”, throughout Germany and its 16 constituent states.

There are also open discussions on canon law revisions and the creation of a permanent Synodal Council made up of bishops and laity to oversee the German Church.

Perhaps, most importantly, there is a call for a Third Vatican Ecumenical Council to implement Synodal Waydoctrinal and administrative changes in the Church.

Heaven help us!

Yes, I thought this latter comment would grab your attention.

If so, I hope that you will join me for Part II of this series in which Saint Peter Damian offers an antidote to the German Synodal Path poison designed to obliterate Catholic sexual morality. This remarkable Benedictine provides a truly Catholic response to the challenges posed by the forces of organized perversion inside and outside the Church today.

P.S. In connection with Part II of this series, the League of St. Peter Damian is proud to make available the complete [electronic] footnoted text of Book of Gomorrah as translated by Father Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., as well as Pope St. Leo IX’s accompanying Decree on Sodomy (1049), free of charge to our readers. Send your request to: randyengel@stpeterdamian.com.

^[1] See the classic work The Robber Church by Patrick Omlor that should be on every Catholic’s bookshelf. Available from https://store.silviosfarm.com/robber-church-patrick-henry-omlor-1895270200.

2.For an introduction to a “Synodal Church” and the “Synodal Way” see the Vatican document of the International Theological Commission, SYNODALITY IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH issued in 2018 at Synodality in the life and mission of the Church (2 March 2018) (vatican.va). During its 9^th Quinquennium, the International Theological Commission undertook a study of synodality in the life and mission of the Church. The work was carried out by a specific sub-committee, whose president was Mgr. Mario Angel Flores Ramos… General discussions on this theme took place during the meetings of the sub-committee and during the Plenary Sessions of the Commission itself, held between 2014 and 2017. The present text was approved by the majority of the members of the Commission during its 2017 Plenary Session, by means of a written vote. It was later approved by the President, His Eminence Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria S.J., Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who authorized its publication on 2^nd March 2018, after receiving a favorable response from Pope Francis. The following paragraphs taken from the ITC document summarizes the essence of “Synodality” which was in the past limited to members of the hierarchy, but has now been expanded to include the “People of God,” as well as the “People of No God,” or just “People” including non-Catholics, atheists, and heretics.

3.4.2 The Synod of Bishops

99. The Synod of Bishops, instituted by Blessed Paul VI as a permanent synodal structure, is one of the most precious legacies of Vatican II. The Bishops who compose it represent the whole Catholic episcopacy, so that the Synod of Bishops is evidence of the participation of the College of Bishops, in hierarchical communion with the Pope, in care for the universal Church. It is called to be an “expression of episcopal collegiality within an entirely synodal Church.”

100. Every synodal assembly evolves in successive phases: preparation, celebration, and implementation. The history of the Church bears witness to the importance of the process of consultation, which aims to receive the opinions of Pastors and the faithful. Pope Francis has suggested a line of approach to achieve this: to listen more broadly and more attentively to the senses fidei of the People of God by putting in place procedures of consultation on the level of local Churches, in such a way that the Synod of Bishops can “be the point of convergence of this listening process conducted at every level of the Church’s life.”

Through the process of consulting the People of God, the ecclesial representation of the Bishops and the presidency of the Bishop of Rome, the Synod of Bishops is a privileged structure for implementing and promoting synodality at every level of the Church. Through consultation the synodal process has its point of departure in the People of God and, through the phase of enculturated implementation, it has its point of arrival there, too.

^[3] See 18_6.1_SV-II-ENG_Synodalforum-IV-Grundtext-Lesung.pdf (synodalerweg.de). Note that the document uses as its foundational text for discussion and approval an earlier draft passed at the Second Synodal Assembly held from September 30^th to October 2^nd 2021.

^[4] The Letters of Peter Damian Letters 31-60, translated by Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., The Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 2005, pp. 3-53.

^[5] “Expeller Missbrauch an Minderjährigen lurch katholische Priester, Diakone und Mannlicher Ordensangehörige im Bereich der Deutsch Bischofskonferenz.” Only a summary of the report, (Version 13), was ever made public. It was released on August 13, 2019.

^[6] An unofficial 17-page summary translation of the MHG Study is available at MHG Studie (dbk.de).

^[7] Prof. Dr. Christian Pfeiffer – KFN

^[8] Cardinal Reinhard Marx teaches a New Gospel on Catholic doctrine and morals. “Homosexuality is not a sin. It corresponds to a Christian attitude when two people, regardless of gender, stand up for each other, in joy and sorrow,” he states. In March 2022, he celebrated Mass in honor of the 20^th anniversary of “queer services” in Munich. Marx has admitted to having blessed homosexual couples. He has publicly called for a change in Catholic teachings on sodomy. Marx’s Munich diocese financed a separate sex abuse study in 2010, but the results were kept secret except for an 8-page summary report stating the study’s research methods and some general observations. See Cardinal Marx calls for change in church teaching on homosexuality, admits to blessing same-sex couples | America Magazine.

^[9] See Former head of German sex abuse study claims bishop threatened and tried to silence him – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com).

^[10] To his credit, Dr. Dreßing was critical of the cover-up tactics of the German bishops, and the fact that none of the offenders resigned their posts in the light of evidence against them. He also noted that the clerical sex abuse issue is far from over in the Catholic Church.

^[11] Pfeiffer was in possession of the May 7, 2012, letter from Cardinal Marx’s Munich diocese that laid out new conditions for the research project including final censorship.

^[12] MHG Studie (dbk.de), p. 4.

^[13] The terms paedophilia and pederasty have a different history and etiology. The former was introduced into medical and psychiatric literature in 1912, so it is of a fairly recent vintage. It describes the condition in which a (usually) heterosexual adult male is sexually attracted to young children, usually of the opposite sex, while pederasty, derived from the ancient Greek word paiderastes, literally means a lover of boys. Until the late 1960s, Vatican documents involving the criminal attack of a cleric upon an adolescent youth employed the term pederasty. While there are common overlapping traits to be found among both categories of sex offenders – both are emotionally immature, narcissistic, and highly compartmentalized individuals, that’s where the commonality ends. The pederast is a different breed of sexual offender: He has no real emotional attachment to his victim; he has many more victims; and his victims are male youths which introduces another level of sexual deviancy; but most importantly, the homosexual offender performs the same violent and orgasmic forms of sexual abuse including fellatio and sodomy on his young victims as he does on his adult homosexual partners. All clerical sexual abuse of minors reports including the MHG study bears this out. For additional insights into the difference between paedophilia and pederasty see https://akacatholic.com/fallen-order-homosexual-pederasty-in-the-roman-catholic-church-part-i/and Pederasty and Paedophilia – What’s the Difference? And What Difference Does It Make? – Part II – AKA Catholic.

^[14] MHG Report, p. 7.

^[15] Ibid., p. 14.

^[16] Ibid., pp. 14-15.

^[17] Ibid., 14.

^[18] Ibid.

^[19] Ibid., p.15

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Ibid.

^[23] Ibid., p. 16.

^[24] Ibid., See https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f219_Dialogue_122.htm.

^[25] Ibid.

^[26] The 31-page “Women in Ministries” text lauds genderless-based ministries opening the Catholic priesthood and religious life to intersex and transgender persons. The 20-page text “Priestly Existence Today,” which highlights the MHG Report findings calls for programs to develop the priest’s personality, and for an inclusive priestly ministry and “truly inculturated” into contemporary society. See What do the German synodal way’s documents actually say? – BishopAccountability.org (bishop-accountability.org).

^[27] Among the most vocal critics of the MHG Report was Father Dominikus Kraschl, a Franciscan professor of philosophy in Switzerland who called into question the “founding myth” of the German synodal path. Kraschl’s criticism anticipates that of this writer. He states that the study denies valid scientific statistical proof; he asks why the Church’s immemorial teachings should be shunted aside for “modern sexual medicine”; and he charges that the study was driven by “ecclesiastical politics.” See Priest criticizes German bishops for using ‘amateurish’ abuse study as basis for ‘synodal path’ – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com).

^[28] Preamble, Presentation of Synodal Forum IV “Life in Succeeding Relationships – Living love in sexuality and partnership” based on the First Reading at the Second Synodal Assembly (30 September – 2 October 2021). Full text available at 18_6.1_SV-II-ENG_Synodalforum-IV-Grundtext-Lesung.pdf (synodalerweg.de)

^[29] Ibid. pp. 1-2.

^[30] Ibid. p.2.

^[31] Ibid.

^[32] Ibid.

^[33] Ibid., p.3.

^[34] A favorite ploy of the Homosexual Collective, the “lived experience” argument was condemned as a Modernist heresy by Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis on the doctrine of the Modernists (September 8, 1907): “…If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be anathema” (De Fide can.3).

^[35] “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” p. 3.

^[36] Ibid., pp. 3-5.

^[37] Ibid., p.5.

^[38] Ibid., pp. 6-8.

^[39] Ibid., p.7.

^[40] Ibid., p.8.

^[41] Ibid., pp. 8-10.

^[42] Ibid., p. 10.

^[43] Ibid., p. 11. The Assembly states that the vice of homosexuality is innate, and that the Church’s Magisterium supports its position. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1986 document “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” does not support this erroneous position. The 1975 document Persona Humana [Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics], Section 8, however, does refer to homosexuals “who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.” This mischievous and false statement opened the door for the unscientific and unproven argument that homosexuals are “born that way.”

^[44] Ibid., p. 12.

^[45] Ibid.

^[46] Ibid.

^[47] Catechism of the Catholic Church 2351.

^[48] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II, IIae 15.3.

^[49] St. Paul, Romans 1:18.

^[50] “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” p.12.

^[51] Ibid., p. 13.

^[52] Ibid., p. 14.

^[53] Ibid., p. 15.

^[54] Ibid.

^[55] Ibid.

^[56] Ibid., p. 16. The Assembly report gives so-called “natural family planning” a back-handed slap in the face when it suggests that it can “dramatically increase the number of unwanted pregnancies, and thus the risk of killing human life through abortion.” See p.

^[57] Ibid.

^[58] Ibid., pp. 16-17.

^[59] Ibid. 17.

^[60] Ibid.

^[61] Ibid., p. 18.

^[62] Ibid.

^[63] Ibid.

^[64] Ibid

^[65] Ibid.

^[66] Ibid., p. 19.

^[67] Ibid.

^[68] Ibid.

^[69] MAY 13: OUR LADY OF FATIMA MESSAGE (7): “NO” TO IMPURITY. – Catholics Striving For Holiness

^[70] Galatians 1:8.

^[71] “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” p.19.

^[72] Ibid., pp. 19-20.

^[73] Ibid., p. 20

^[74] Ibid.

^[75] Ibid.

^[76] Ibid., p. 22.

^[77] Ibid.

^[78] Ibid.

^[79] Ibid., pp. 22-23.

^[80] Ibid., p. 23.

^[81] Ibid.

^[82] Ibid.

^[83] Ibid., p. 24

^[84] Ibid.

^[85] Ibid., See ‘Humanae Vitae’ and Catholicism in Germany| National Catholic Register (ncregister.com).

^[86] “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” p. 24.

^[87] Ibid.

^[88] See Gerhard L. Müller: Was ist kirchlicher Gehorsam? Zur Ausübung von Autorität in der Kirche. In: Cath 44 (1990), 26-48. 28.

^[89] “Life in Succeeding Relationships,” p. 25.

^[90] Ibid., p. 26.

^[91] Ibid

^[92] Ibid., p. 27.

^[93] Germany’s 4th Synodal Path Meeting Ends with Reform Resolutions – The Southern Cross (scross.co.za).

^[94] Ibid., Note: The voting structure of the Synodal Way is obviously different from traditional formal Catholic Church synods in which only bishops participate. It permits both bishops and lay members to vote and be represented in equal numbers. However, church law does not allow laypeople to impose a decision on a bishop, thus, the Synod Way decisions are, at most, recommendations for the bishops who must decides for themselves whether and how to implement the group’s recommendations in their own dioceses. Synodal member, Dr. Juliane Eckstein, insisted the decisions of the Assembly are not “legally” binding, but are “morally” binding on members.

^[95] Ibid.

^[96] Ibid.

^[97] Ibid.

^[98] Ibid.

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YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO NOT REMAIN IGNORANT OF WHAT IS OBJECTIONABLE IN OUR TREATMENT BY THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY, YOUR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT!!!

Posted on February 6, 2023 by abyssum

A Primer on Medical Gaslighting

Analysis by A Midwestern Doctor

February 06, 2023

Pfizer Admits ‘Directing’ the Evolution of COVID-19 Virus

USA Today Smears Mercola Over Vitamin C and D Information

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

The medical industry has a vested interest in concealing injuries from its products
A cruel but common method for accomplishing this is medical gaslighting
Two of the most common diagnoses use to gaslight patients severely injured by the COVID-19 vaccines are “anxiety” and “functional neurologic disorder”
Most doctors do not intend to gaslight their patients, but this behavior is an almost inevitable consequence of of their training and the modern practice of medicine. A patient understanding their perspective helps make it possible for doctors to see that patient’s medical injuries

One of the classic ways an abuser controls their prey is to manipulate the environment so that the abused individual begins doubting their own observations regardless of what is occurring in front of them.

In the 1944 movie, Gaslight, this was accomplished by the villainous husband (played by Charles Boyer) adjusting the intake to gas-powered lights (causing them to flicker) and simultaneously denying that any change was occurring to his mentally abused wife (played by Ingrid Bergman). The term gaslighting originated from this classic movie.

In modern times, this is accomplished by having medical providers all echo the same message that a patient’s injury has nothing to do with the pharmaceutical (or other medical procedure in question). Most commonly, it instead is argued that the symptoms they are experiencing are due to pre-existing psychiatric issues the patient has (e.g., anxiety), which are treated with medications that often create additional issues.

Before we go any further, I want to emphasize just how miserable this is to go through as an injured patient. Imagine what it would be like if (due to the medical injury) the world you had previously known collapsed around you and every single person you trusted (including your friends and family who defer to the judgment of “experts”) told you that it was all in your head and you just needed psychiatric help. It’s a perfect recipe for going insane.

For example, let’s consider the recent experiences of Maddie De Garay in the pivotal Pfizer trial that was used to argue for the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines in the adolescent population:

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Pfizer’s trial only vaccinated 1,131 children so a single serious injury would have made the vaccine too dangerous.

Maddie’s story shows just how far medicine will go to betray and gaslight patients who threaten its narrative. We may never know who else was swept under the rug. pic.twitter.com/4ONwty5Hu6— Pierre Kory, MD MPA (@PierreKory) January 11, 2023

Note: This was clipped from episode 280 of the Highwire which we shortened (e.g., much of what she had to deal with in the hospital was cut out) so her story could reach a broader audience.

Although Maddie’s experience was atrocious, it was sadly not unique and many others had similar experiences in the COVID-19 vaccine trials. Similarly, I have heard many similar stories from other people who were harmed by the medical system.

Pharmaceuticals are inherently toxic. For example, most medications work by inhibiting enzymes(which are essential for life) and because of how interconnected the body is, this inhibition will create a variety of unintended consequences.

Similarly, most vaccinations function by making the immune system (often with the aid of toxins that help provoke that response) have an unnatural and narrowly focused response to a target substance.

The creation of this immune response unfortunately also often creates dysregulation within the immune system as this provocation can cause the immune system to be diverted away from attacking things it is supposed to address (e.g., microbes and cancers), while simultaneously triggering it to attack the body’s own tissue.

Since toxicity has always been inherent to the practice of allopathic (Western) medicine, the profession has gradually come up with a playbook to prevent its inevitable medical injuries from sabotaging business. This has essentially been accomplished by doing the following:

• Telling patients the adverse events they experienced either are not occurring or are unrelated to the toxic pharmaceutical.

• Developing an elaborate scientific apparatus that provides evidence refuting the link between these injuries and pharmaceuticals on the market, while concurrently training the population to defer to the scientific consensus rather than trusting their own observations.

• Making competing forms of medicine that lack a similar degree of inherent toxicity illegal, therefore making the only choice within the existing medical monopoly be a toxic form of medicine (similarly consider how allopathic medicine is always considered to be the best form of medicine every other approach must find a way to measure up to).

This is also why we have the doctrine in allopathic medicine that every treatment has risks and the treatments are chosen because its benefits outweigh its risk (as opposed to just exploring systems of medicine without those risks).

All of this in turn results in the tragic phenomenon known as medical gaslighting, or as some like to put it “allopathic medicine gaslights you to death.”

Why Can’t Doctors Diagnose Medical Injuries

I have found numerous documented examples of medical gaslighting stretching back to the late 1700s and in each case, typically only a minority of the medical profession is willing to acknowledge the injuries that are occurring could be linked to their pharmaceuticals.

At the same time, it’s rare for me to meet doctors I consider to be evil; on the contrary, most tend to be remarkably intelligent and well-intentioned individuals who genuinely want the best for their patients.

At this point, I believe medical gaslighting is a natural consequence of our training. Since the therapeutic toolbox of allopathic medicine is quite limited, most doctors cannot practice their craft without administering unsafe pharmaceuticals to their patients, and thus for the sake of their self-identity, they must fully believe in their pharmaceuticals (this subject was discussed further here).

It is an enormous personal investment to become a physician and it is extremely difficult for someone who goes through that to acknowledge that much of what they learned is highly questionable.

Similarly, no well-intentioned doctor wants to harm a patient, and since they often do, the reflexive psychological coping mechanism is to deny the possibility of each injury that occurs (discussed further here).

This first dawned on me at the start of my medical education when one of our professors inserted a tirade against anti-vaxxers into his lecture and concluded his argument with “… and just think about it. Do you really think pediatricians would vaccinate their patients if they thought vaccines could harm them?”

Although widespread denial of the harms that Allopathy causes likely explains some of my profession’s predilection for gaslighting, I do not believe it is the primary issue. Instead, I believe it is a result of the training doctors receive making them unable to recognize medical injuries.

The Origins of Medical Blindness

Because the human body is immensely complex, humans in every era face significant difficulties in being present to everything that is occurring within a human being. Most medical systems address this challenge by creating diagnostic models which simplify the immense complexity present in each patient down to the key things that must be focused upon to positively affect patient wellbeing.

The downside to this approach is that there will always be things in each patient that lie outside the diagnostic model being used to evaluate them. When this happens, those things understandably will not be recognized (unless the medical practitioner innately can perceive a complexity that transcends the limitations of their diagnostic model, something the majority of the population is not capable of).

In the case of allopathic medicine, we are taught a diagnostic model that is excellent for identifying many things (particularly indications for prescribing pharmaceutical drugs). However, our model also fails to notice many other things which are critical for health and wellness.

For example, much of medicine is taught by having a series of lists to memorize that are plugged into linear algorithms. Because this requires breaking many complex subjects into a binary “yes” or “no,” many important things that lie between these two polarities get lost in translation.

This is the easiest to illustrate with the nervous system (but the issue is by no means exclusive to it). When evaluating it, one of the things we are all taught to do is quickly check if the twelve cranial nerves are functioning normally (e.g., can you swallow, make a smile, or follow a finger with your eyes).

Frequently, although the cranial nerves are “generally normal” they will have some difficulty firing (e.g., at some point in the motion arc as the eyes travel side to side, they will jump instead of moving smoothly). These “minor” deficits often have a significant impact on a patient’s quality of life, but in most cases (except when evaluated by certain neurologists or neurosurgeons), the function of those nerves will be noted as normal and ignored.

One of the most common signs of a vaccine injury is a subtle cranial nerve dysfunction (discussed further here). While these are very easy to recognize if you are trained to look for them, that training does not exist within allopathic medicine, and as a result, most physicians simply cannot see the large number of vaccine injuries occurring around them.

Simplifying Illness

The cranial nerve example unfortunately is only one of many areas where a complex presentation of symptoms is simplified into a box that excludes an inconvenient diagnosis from ever being recognized. Another common way this boxing occurs is when an authoritative diagnosis is used to define a complex phenomenon without actually stating what it is.

For example, many disorders in medicine are simply symptoms written in Latin. Dermatitis quite literally translates to “inflammation of the skin,” and in most cases is simply treated with a cream that suppresses that inflammation.

Conversely, in many other medical systems, inflammation of the skin is recognized as an important sign of something being awry in the body, and the exact character and location of the inflammation are focused upon to identify and address the root cause of that inflammation (to some extent this is recognized in dermatology, but even there it occurs nowhere to the degree that it should).

Similarly, “migraine” headaches, although not exactly Latin, falls into a similar boat. While many things can cause migraines (e.g., they are very frequent after COVID-19 vaccine injuries) their cause is rarely focused upon, and instead, the standard medical approach is to throw pharmaceuticals at them until something improves the headache.

In my medical practice, I frequently treat migraines. In these patients, I find over and over that they have seen numerous doctors (including highly regarded specialists). Despite this, it is very rare anyone they saw was able to recognize the diagnostic signs or aspects of their history that point to the root actual cause of their headaches, and thus, not surprising that they will simply be prescribed more and more medications in the hope one will work.

Framing the Iatrogenic Debate

Iatrogenesis is the term for any type of illness or medical complication resulting from a bad reaction to medical care (e.g., a complication from a surgery or a pharmaceutical). A common pattern I’ve observed for decades is everyone denying a particular iatrogenic complication exists (e.g., “there is no evidence”), and then once overwhelming evidence exists that it does, it will be acknowledged.

Once this happens, the harm from the drug will be reframed so that only the accepted harm can be bad and an underlying assumption is created that nothing else is a possible complication.

For example, fluoroquinolones (e.g., Cipro) are fairly toxic antibiotics that can severely harm people and are frequently given for many minor infections (e.g., urinary tract infections) where their corresponding toxicity is simply not justified.

In medical school, everyone learns that a tendon rupture (something unique and hard to ignore) is a side effect of these drugs, and as a result, when doctors evaluate for harms, they will look for that but not be able to recognize most of the other well-documented complications from them.

My favorite recent example of this reframing occurred with the J&J COVID-19 vaccine. At the start of Operation Warp Speed, I hypothesized that a major goal was to get mRNA technology onto the market since it held the promise of trillions of dollars in future revenue for the pharmaceutical industry (but since there were safety challenges with it, nothing short of an “emergency” would be able to break the barrier to human testing).

Because of this, I suspected that once vaccine safety concerns emerged, a non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine would be thrown under the bus to make the mRNA technology look “safe.” This is what then happened with the J&J vaccine when six cases of an extremely unusual blood clot being linked to that vaccine caused the FDA and CDC to pause its administration for 11 days.

By doing so, it created the perception the FDA was monitoring for vaccine side effects with a fine-tooth comb and was willing to pull the vaccine if it caused a rare side effect in a very small number of people.

Nothing could be further from the truth as the mRNA vaccines have caused far more blood clots than the J&J vaccine. Similarly, investigation after investigation shows the FDA is ignoring the endless deluge of red flags from the COVID-19 vaccines.

Unfortunately, this ploy worked, and in the odd instances where I hear a doctor willing to debate the safety of the vaccines, one of the most common arguments they still utilize is that if the FDA was willing to temporarily pause J&J after six blood clots, there is no possible way a larger unaddressed problem exists with the mRNA vaccines.

Psychiatric Complications and Iatrogenic Injuries

As the above points have shown, a variety of factors work against doctors being able to recognize the presence of medical injuries. The question then becomes, how will the injuries that inevitably occur be explained?

As you might imagine, the default strategy is to fold the injury into an amorphous diagnosis which (instead of allopathic medicine) can take the blame for the medical injury and then put that label on everyone with the injury. Typically this is done with psychiatric diagnoses, but recently COVID-19 infections have also been appointed to that role (both of these diagnoses were used to gaslight patients in the clinical trials for those vaccines).

The earliest references to this gaslighting I have found were at the time of Freud, where his new model of psychoanalysis was used to explain the complex symptoms observed within patients doctors otherwise had difficulty making sense of. However, as detailed in The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic, an outside evaluation of Freud’s case studies suggests those patients’ problems actually arose from mercury poisoning.

Mercury, despite being extremely toxic, was used by the medical profession for centuries (and to some extent still is). Frequently, individuals with mercury poisoning would develop a wide array of complex diseases which included neurological and psychiatric complications (which like many other conditions were often attributed to “female hysteria”).

Freud’s message that these complications were the fault of the patient (e.g., as a result of unresolved sexual desires) rather than the physician was an immensely appealing message to the medical profession, and as a result, became the party line.

Ever since this time there has been a systemic failure to recognize that neurologic damage can produce psychiatric symptoms. Instead, neurologic symptoms are viewed as a manifestation of a pre-existing psychological illness that must be treated with psychological counseling and psychiatric medications.

One of the best examples of this issue is “Functional Neurological Disorder” (FND) which recognizes that something is wrong with the brain, but since no explanation can be found, it is assumed to have been due to pre-existing psychiatric conditions.

If you review the National Institute of Health’s description of FND, you will see that the above description is no exaggeration, and it is extremely sad to hear about the experiences vaccine-injured patients go through since FND is one of the most common diagnoses they receive.

When I look at FND cases, the cause of the disorder (e.g., seizures) can frequently be found, but since neurologists (including friends of mine) do not want to consider the actual cause, the tests needed to diagnose it are often not ordered or even known about by the doctors attending to the patient.

If you review Maddie’s story, you will note that this is also exactly what happened to her and her permanent paralysis from the vaccine was labeled as FND resulting from a psychiatric condition. Because of this gaslighting, she was not able to get appropriate care when her neurological reaction to the vaccine was occurring (that would have prevented permanent disability).

I believe this occurred because the chief investigator was fully aware that a severe neurologic reaction to a single participant would have made the vaccine too dangerous for children to take, so he decided to gaslight Maddie so her injury would not need to end up in the trial. Sadder still, Maddie’s experiences were not unique, and their experiences that indicate systemic fraud in the vaccine trials were detailed here.

Another common symptom doctors place the blame for medical injuries on is “anxiety.” The two major problems with this process are:

Failing to recognize that having a life-changing injury will normally create distress, and similarly failing to recognize that being collectively gaslighted by medical providers is not good for anyone’s mental health.
Pharmaceutical injuries frequently cause tissue damage that will trigger anxiety.

Sadly, very few doctors recognize that damage to the nervous system (which is a common toxicity of pharmaceuticals) can also create psychiatric disturbances. Instead, they only can recognize that psychiatric distress can often worsen neurologic symptoms, but do so without also realizing that it is much rarer for psychiatric distress to be the originating cause of a neurologic issue.

Similarly, many common psychiatric disorders have organic causes (e.g., chronic undiagnosed infections, traumatic brain injuries, or nutritional and metabolic deficiencies). However, in most cases, psychiatrists prescribe medications based on the symptoms a patient presents with (e.g., you are depressed so you need Prozac) rather than looking at the underlying cause.

I believe this is because doing the former pays well but the latter typically does not and is not emphasized in a psychiatrist’s training.

In addition to neurological damage frequently creating psychiatric complications (e.g., vagal dysfunction creating anxiety), damage to other organ systems can as well (Chinese medicine does an excellent job of mapping these correlations out). One of the best examples I have seen with the COVID-19 vaccines relates to the heart and I have had variations of the following conversations multiple times since 2021:

Friend: I have been having severe anxiety attacks since I got the vaccine. My heart starts beating rapidly, and I start to have pain in my chest. I never had this problem before, but now everything makes me anxious and it’s so hard for me to be calm.

Me: You should get your heart looked at.

Friend: What do you mean? Everyone told me it was anxiety due to stress.

Me: Trust me, you need to get your heart looked at.

(Time passes)

Friend: How did you know I had myocarditis?

Damage to the heart (or the vagus nerve) will often create an irregular heart rate and chest pain, and these palpitations often provoke anxiety. Unfortunately, since these symptoms are also triggered by anxiety, when they are observed, doctors will often default to a diagnosis of anxiety and look no further.

Conclusion

There are essentially two models of medical practice which are followed:

The paternalistic model (where you are expected to unquestioningly trust and comply with everything the doctor tells you).
The collaborative model where the physician is your partner in working towards health.

Although the paternalistic model was the standard for most of allopathic medicine’s history, in recent times, there has been a push for the collaborative model. Presently, many patients are seeking out collaborative physicians (especially since system doctors have to spend so much time going through checklists that there is little time for actual engagement with their patients), and the market is economically rewarding physicians who are making this change.

A key misconception much of the public holds about doctors is that we are infallible beings (which is a key justification for the paternalistic model). In reality, once you peer behind the lab coat, we struggle with many of the same issues you all do too. Being able to genuinely recognize this and respectfully treat the physician you see as a fellow human being is one of the most effective strategies for initiating a collaborative doctor-patient relationship.

Although doctors sometimes gaslight injured patients for self-serving reasons (e.g., to protect Pfizer’s vaccine in its clinical trials or under the misguided belief it will protect a doctor from a lawsuit), I believe the majority of cases occur because the doctors simply cannot see the injury occurred. As a result, these doctors believe they are doing the best for the patient when in reality they are just gaslighting them.

One of the largest issues in our modern era is how disconnected we have become from ourselves and others. Within the doctor-patient relationship, this disconnection makes it much less likely a physician will be able to recognize what is happening in a patient (e.g., a medical injury) or feel compelled to go to bat for them while every other healthcare provider is gaslighting them.

When people ask me for their best options to avoid being gaslighted, I thus suggest pursuing one of the following options:

1) See a physician who you pay directly (rather than one who takes insurance). This business model matters because it forces the doctor to have a collaborative doctor-patient relationship and stay in business (no one will pay to see them if they just get gaslit). I am a big believer in the statement “you get what you pay for” and if only see system doctors who base their practice around insurance payments, you often do not get a good outcome.

For example, I had a patient recently who I felt exemplified this issue. He had what I felt was a relatively straightforward problem that had significantly impacted his life for 25 years. When I reviewed his history, he told me he had seen a dozen (insurance-taking) doctors, many of whom promised they could fix the problems with elaborate procedures from their specialty (all of which did nothing or made his issue worse).

What was striking about his story was that only one of them had ever even performed an extensive evaluation (e.g., talking with him about the history of his disease) to try to figure out what was causing the problem.

2) However, while seeing a private-pay physician often is an excellent investment, many patients simply cannot afford to do so. In this case, the ideal scenario is to find an insurance-taking physician through word of mouth who has earned a reputation for forging collaborative doctor-patient relationships. Unfortunately, these recommendations are hard to come across and typically these doctors will have full practices that are hard to get into.

3) The third (and often the only available option is to take the initiative to forge a collaborative relationship with the doctor through having a respectful demeanor where you treat the doctor as a fellow human being rather than “the doctor.”

In general, this approach will be the most effective on doctors who recently completed their medical training (everyone becomes more rigid with age, plus their practices are not yet full), and in medical settings where the doctors get longer per visit (you can’t really build a collaborative relationship in 10-15 minutes).

Regardless of the option you choose, it is also often important to provide the documentation to support the occurrence of your medical injury. This includes records establishing a timeline of the injury following the medical therapy and scientific literature substantiating the link between the two.

Physicians in turn (especially younger ones) will be the most receptive to considering this link if it is presented in a composed and thoughtful way rather than a confrontational manner, because like every other human they tend to become defensive. Given how upsetting the process of being gaslighted is, maintaining this demeanor can be extremely challenging.

Sadly though, it is necessary because doctors are trained to see these injuries as being psychological in nature, and a patient expressing their completely justifiable feelings about the situation will often feed into the doctor’s erroneous perceptions about the patient’s mental health.

About the Author

A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician from the Midwest and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. To find more of AMD’s work, be sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicineon Substack.

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A Primer on Medical Gaslighting

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

Why Can’t Doctors Diagnose Medical Injuries

The Origins of Medical Blindness

Simplifying Illness

Framing the Iatrogenic Debate

Psychiatric Complications and Iatrogenic Injuries

Conclusion

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Randy Engel	10:21 AM (8 hours ago)