Blood Pool

Amoris Laetitia, Eyes Opened, Sandro Magister

“In the few short years of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the stale and musty spirit of the seventies has resurged, bringing with it seven other demons”
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“In the few short years of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the stale and musty spirit of the seventies has resurged, bringing with it seven other demons”

by Anna M. Silvas
‘I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out all over the world, and I said, groaning: ‘What can get through so many snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying to me: ‘Humility’. So said Abba Antony the Great, Father of Monks.
And so also it seems to me, in accepting to speak to you now, a year after “Amoris Laetitia”. Please forgive me, for it seems to me any number of more qualified lay faithful should be speaking ahead of me. The current field of the Church is so strewn with canonical, theological, and ecclesiological snares, one would hardly dare say anything, so strange is this hour in the Church.
If I were to point to one issue the present crisis in the Church is, it would be ‘modernity’, and that mood in the Church that so greatly prizes ‘modernity’ and follows it at all costs. Theologian Tracey Rowland points out that ‘the modern’ to which we were urged to update, was never defined in the documents of Vatican II, a truly extraordinary lacuna. She says: ‘The absence of a theological examination of this cultural phenomenon called ‘modernity’ or ‘the modern world’ by Conciliar fathers in the years 1962-65 is perhaps one of the most striking features of the documents of the Second Vatican Council.’ (1)
The Latin word moderna means the ‘just now’, the ‘latest’, the ‘most recent.’ The cult of modernity happens when we make this an overriding object of desire, so to gain the approval of the elite classes, the captains of the media and arbiters of culture. If I were to place the finger of diagnosis, it would be precisely on this emulous desire.
Two years ago or so, a young friend of mine who is a teacher and passionately committed in her Catholic faith, took a new job in a new Catholic School. One day some of her Year 8 students did a class exercise in ‘politics’. Her students were in the second year of high-school, so they had been through eight years of Catholic schooling, and through the whole sacramental ‘program’—horrible word that; what does its use signify? She asked that if they were a candidate for an upcoming election, what would would be their policies. To her surprise, every one of them, except for one boy, nominated same-sex marriage and the LGBT agenda. So she began to engage them in remedial conversation. That brought home to me how far the values of a purely secular modernity have more ascendency among ‘Catholics’ today, than the values of the life in Christ and the teachings of the Church. Immersion in the practices of modernity has led to a de facto situation, that the mythos of modernity has seeped into the very bone-marrow and veins of Catholics. It permeates their way of thinking and acting implicitly. I look around, and I begin to wonder, with horror, how much this is now true of the leadership of the Church, perhaps even among the best of them. How many are deeply, deeply, more tributary to the modern world’s ‘program’, than obedient to Christ’s summons to our deepest mind and heart, really?
Under St John-Paul II we seemed to have something of a ‘push-back’ for a while, at least in some areas, especially his intense explication of the nuptial mystery of our first creation, in support of Humanae Vitae. This continued under Benedict XVI, with some attempt to address liturgical decay, and the moral ’filth’ of clerical sexual abuse. We had hoped that some remediation at least was in train. Now, in the few short years of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the stale and musty spirit of the seventies has resurged, bringing with it seven other demons. And if we were in any doubt about this before, “Amoris Laetitia” and its aftermath in the past year make it perfectly clear that this is our crisis. That this alien spirit appears to have finally swallowed up the See of Peter, dragging ever widening cohorts of compliant higher church leadership into its net, is its most dismaying, and indeed shocking aspect to many of us, the Catholic lay faithful. I look up at any number of higher prelates, bishops and theologians, and I cannot detect in them, by all that is holy, the least level of the sensus fidelium—and these are bearers of the Church’s teaching office? Who would risk their immortal soul by trusting to their moral judgment in Confession?
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In preparation for this paper, I thoughtfully re-read “Amoris Laetitia” after nearly a year. As I waded into the murky waters of Chapter Eight, I was overwhelmingly confirmed in my reading of it last year. In fact it seemed to me a worse document than I thought it was, and I had thought it very bad.
There is no need here to offer further detailed analyses, carried out by so many thoughtful commentators in the intervening year, such as the early heroes Robert Spaeman and Roberto de Mattei, Bishop Schneider, the ’45 Theologians’, Finis and Grisez, and many others, all of whom should appear on an roll-call of honour when the history of these times comes to be written.
There is one group however, whose approach I find very strange: the intentionally orthodox among higher prelates and theologians who treat the turmoil arising from “Amoris Laetitia” as a matter of ‘misinterpretations’. They will focus on the text alone, abstracted from any of the known antecedents in the words and acts of Pope Francis himself or its wider historical context. It is as if they interpose a chasm that cannot be crossed between the person of the Pope on the one hand, over whose signature this document was published, and the ‘text’ of the document on the other hand. With the Holy Father safely quarantined out of all consideration, they are free to address the problem, which they identify as ‘misuse’ of the text. They then express the pious plea that the Holy Father will ‘correct’ these errors.
No doubt the perceived constraints of piety to the successor of Peter account for these contorted manoeuvres. I know, I know! We have been facing down that conundrum for a year or longer. But to any sane and thoughtful reader, who, in the words of the 45 Theologian’s Censures, is ‘not trying to twist the words of the document in any direction, but … take the natural or the immediate impression of the meaning of the words to be correct’, this smacks of a highly wrought artificiality.
Pope Francis’ ‘intent’ in this text is perfectly recoverable from the text itself, reading normally and naturally and without filters. Let us try some examples.
The first of the Cardinals’ Five Dubia concludes: ‘Can the expression “in certain cases” found in Note 351 of the exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” be applied to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live more uxorio?’ Without doubt, a papal clarification of the intent in this footnote is of urgent importance to the Church. Nevertheless, what the Pope intended is clear from the beginning of this current section #301. His topic is ‘those living in “irregular situations”’. All that is said a few lines later about those in situations of objective sin growing in grace and charity and sanctification, maybe with the help of the sacraments, Holy Communion in particular, is posted under this heading of ‘irregular situations’.
That those in supposedly ‘sanctifying’ ‘irregular situations’ who are admitted to the Eucharist include the divorced and civilly remarried who do not intend to abrogate their sexual relationship, is flagged in #298, where in footnote 329, a passage in G&S 51 which discusses the question of temporary continence within marriage, as taught by St Paul, is outrageously transposed to those not in a Christian marriage, i.e. in ‘irregular situations’, as an argument that they should not have to live as brother and sister. The intention, prefaced by a misrepresentation of St John Paul and a bare-faced lie about the meaning of G&S 51 is clear. So where is the difficulty in understanding what the Pope intends?
In #299 Pope Francis asks us to discern ‘which of the various forms of exclusion currently practised in the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional framework, can be surmounted.’ This indicates his aim clearly: how are we going to overcome those ‘exclusions’, liturgical first of all, practised till now? Where is the difficulty in grasping Pope Francis’ intent?
And there are many other instances like this. As early as the preface he alerts us that ‘everyone should feel challenged by Chapter Eight”, and then late in that chapter (#308) admits obliquely that his approach may leave room for confusion. Let us believe him: this is his intent, which is not at all that difficult to grasp.
We have noted the abstract focus on the text alone that punctiliously excludes the acts and the person of Pope Francis from all consideration of the document’s intent. Also strictly excluded as a means of ascertaining the Pope’s mind, are the wider historical antecedents. To pick off a few in a galaxy of incidents, these include Archbishop Bergoglio’s known practice in his archdiocese of tacitly admitting to Holy Communion all comers, the cohabiting, as well as the divorced and civilly remarried (2), his personal choice of Cardinal Kasper to deliver the opening address of the 2014 Synod, as if we are to politely turn a blind eye to the entire back-history of Kasper’s activities on these issues, the various ways in which these two synods were massaged, such as the papal order that a proposition on communion for the divorced and remarried, voted down by the bishops in the 2014 synod, be included in the final relatio (3), his scathing condemnations of the Pharisees and other rigid persons in his concluding address at the conclusion of the 2015 Synod, and more recently, his warm praise of Bernard Häring, the doyen of dissenting moral theologians throughout the 1970s and 80s, whose 1989 book on admitting the divorced and civilly remarried to the Eucharist in imitation of the Eastern Orthodox oikonomia, was ammunition in Kasper’s saddle bag. Then of course there was Pope Francis’ endorsement of the Argentinian bishops ‘interpretation’ of AL, precisely in the way that he intended: ‘No hay otras interpretaciones.’ (5) You know all these incidents, and many, many more, almost on a daily basis, in which it is not difficult to grasp Francis’ intent at all.
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Pope Francis, I am sure, is very well aware of the doctrine of papal infallibility, knows how high are its provisos—and is astute enough never to trigger its mechanism. The unique prestige of the papacy in the Catholic Church, together with the practical affective papalism of many Catholics, however, are useful assets, and these he will exploit to the full. For to Francis, and we have to grasp this: infallibility doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter at all, if he can continue to be the sort of change-agent in the Church he wants to be. That this is his spirit we learn in AL #3 where he says:
‘Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does (5).
But I think ‘the spirit’ to which Francis so soothingly alludes, has more to do with Hegel’s Geist, than with the Holy Spirit of whom our blessed Lord speaks, the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him (Jn14:17). The Hegelian Geist on the other hand, manifests itself in the midst of contradictions and oppositions, surmounting them in a new synthesis, without eliminating the polarities or reducing one to the other. This is the gnostic spirit of the cult of modernity.
So Francis will pursue his agenda without papal infallibility, and without fussing about magisterial pronouncements. He tells us so in the third paragraph of AL: Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium”. We are in a world of dynamic fluidity here, of starting open-ended processes, of sowing seeds of desired change that will triumph over time. Other theorists—you have here in Italy, Gramscii and his manifesto of cultural Marxism—teach how to achieve revolution by stealth. So within the Church, Francis and his collaborators deal with the matter of doctrine, not by confronting theory head on, because if they did so they would be defeated, but by an incremental change of praxis, played to the siren song of plausible persuasions, until the praxis is sufficiently built up over time to a point of no return. Such underhand tactics are clearly playing to the tune of Hegelian dialectic. That this is Pope Francis’s modus operandi, consider a certain ‘behind the scenes incident’ in the 2015 Synod, ‘“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried,” said Archbishop Forte, reporting a joke of Pope Francis, “you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, (but) do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.” “Typical of a Jesuit,” Abp Forte joked (6).
Then slowly, region by region, bishops around the world begin to ‘interpret’ AL to mean that the Church has now ‘developed’ her pastoral praxis to admit the divorced and civilly remarried to the Eucharist, setting aside the gravest of sacramental provisos that obtained up till now—provided of course that a sonorous note of ‘accompaniment’ is struck. And when Pope Francis sees this happening, what is his response? He rejoices to find that they have accurately picked up his cues in AL: I have already mentioned his famous ‘No hay otras interpretaciones’ to the Argentinian bishops; the latest is his letter of thanks to the bishops of Malta for their interpretations.
I think it an injustice to blame these bishops for ‘misuse’ of AL. No, they have drawn the conclusions patent to any thoughtful, unblinkered reader of this papal document. The blame however, and the tragedy for the Church lies in the intent embedded and articulated well enough in “Amoris Laetitia” itself, and in the naïve papalism on the part of bishops, that has so poor a purchase on the Church’s imperishable obedience of faith, that it cannot perceive when it is under most dangerous attack, even from that most lofty quarter.
In this game of subterfuge and incremental intent, the elaborate talk of painstaking ‘discernment’ and ‘accompaniment’ of difficult moral situations has a definite function—as a temporary blind for the ultimate goal. Have we not seen how the dark arts of the ‘hard case’ work in secular politicking, used to pivot the next tranche of social reengineering? So now in the politics of the Church. The final result will be precisely in accord with Archbishop Bergoglio’s tacit practice for years in Buenos Aires. Make no mistake, the end game is a more or less indifferent permission for any who present for Holy Communion. And so we attain the longed for haven of all-inclusiveness and ‘mercy’: the terminal trivialization of the Eucharist, of sin and repentance, of the sacrament of Matrimony, of any belief in objective and transcendent truth, the evisceration of language, and of any stance of compunction before the living God, the God of Holiness and Truth. If I may adapt here a saying of St Thomas Aquinas: Mercy without truth is the mother of dissolution (7).
Pope Francis has absolutely no intention of playing by anyone’s ‘rules’—least of all yours or mine or anyone else’s ‘rules’ for the papacy. You know well what he thinks of ‘rules’. He tell us so constantly. It is one of the milder disparagements in his familiar stock of insults. When I hear those who lecture us that Pope Francis is the voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church today, I do not know whether to laugh at the naivety of it, or weep at the damage being done to immortal souls. I would say that yes, Francis is the agent of a spirit, namely the Hegelian Geist of ‘modernity’ very much at work in the Church. It is, as I said earlier, a stale and musty spirit, an old spirit that has no life in it, a privative force that only knows how to feed parasitically on what already is. I am not sure that Newman’s Essay on the Development of Doctrine does not give us all we need to face the present crisis. In his seven ‘notes’ or criteria for discerning genuine development of doctrine from its corruption, Newman provides the needed response to the Hegelian praxis dialectically overwhelming theoria. The seventh note is “chronic vigour”. Over time, a corruption shows itself to be exceedingly vigorous—but only at the beginning of the “infection”, since it does not possess the life to sustain itself in the long term. It will run its course and die out. The Life of Grace, however, possesses in itself the Divine Life, and will therefore throw off in the course of time all that militates against it. Truth perdures. There will be moments of high drama, but, eventually, it must necessarily prevail. It is the way in which grace acts in the organic development of nature, the very reverse of the gnostic ‘time is greater than space’.
My dear fellow-believers in Christ Jesus our Lord, this false spirit shall not, cannot ultimately prevail. In the 16th Century, the Protestant revolt demoted Marriage from a sacrament, and set in train the secularisation of marriage in the West. Constantinople began to lose its purchase on the accuracy of the Gospel of marriage with the Emperor Justinian and his Roman civil law of divorce. As the scandalous example of adulterous Emperors and Empresses remarried in the lifetime of their true spouses filtered down into the Church and became the custom, so a fair-seeming theology of oikonomia grew up to cloak this grave breach with holy Tradition. This is what Häring, Kasper and co, in their ignorant folly, have been invoking as an example for us to follow. Only till now did the Catholic Church in communion with Rome hold fast the Dominical and Apostolic teaching on the sacramentality and indissolubility of Christian marriage. I qualify that: you should study the recent history of the Coptic Church on this issue: it is most inspiring and encouraging. Let us take the Copts for our allies, in this and in other ways too.
Is it still a possibility, the Cardinals’ proposed fraternal correction of the Pope? We heard of this last November, and it surely lifted our beleaguered spirits. But now it is the end of April, and nothing has come of it. I cannot help but think of that passage from Shakespeare: There is a tide in the affairs of men…, and wonder if the tide has come and gone, and we the lay faithful are left stranded again.
Yet Cardinal Burke has recently said: “Until these questions are answered, there continues to spread a very harmful confusion in the Church, and one of the fundamental questions is in regards to the truth that there are some acts that are always and everywhere wrong, what we call intrinsically evil acts, and so, we cardinals, will continue to insist that we get a response to these honest questions.” (8)
Well, I hope so, dear Cardinals, I hope so. We the faithful, beg you: forget about calculating prudent outcomes. Real prudence should tell you when it is the right time for courageous witness, whose other name is martyrdom.
Pope Francis will not heed any fraternal correction, as John XXII once did. But you know what? It would not matter much even if he did publish some statement along those lines. Let one 24 hour news-cycle go by, and we had better not count on it that further utterances do not subtly undercut or openly contradict what was said the day before. If we have not learnt that about his manner by now, then we truly are the stupidest of sheep—or shepherds, as the case may be. Pardon me if I venture to say this, but, however we account for it, the papacy is not working right now in the Church. Until we face this reality, unbelievable as it may seem, we are bound in intimidation and illusion, and the way out that the Lord would open up for us will be deferred. What kind of prophet do you want to show you the times? Hananiah or Jeremiah? Choose.
What then is the plight of us the lay faithful in these days of severe trial in the Church? I could hardly better the following comment, to an article by the honourable and courageous struggler, Steve Skojec, on 1P5. Pray for Steve and his family. The author of the comment is Roderick Halvorsen from Santa, Idaho. He came into the Catholic Church from Protestantism some years ago, and has no intention of leaving, but sees the follies of liberal Protestantism metastasizing in the Catholic Church. He speaks here of us, the lay faithful:
“But in reality, God is testing us. He is asking us to be in relationship with HIM, yes, personally and intimately and truly. He has taken all the “crutches” of Catholicism away; the power, the glory, the world’s respect, trustworthy leaders and models, in short, all the stuff that can be of assistance to the faith, but is unnecessary to the faith, and like wealth and worldly success, can be the source of a weakening of our faith, when we begin to shift our trust to the “culture” of the faith, instead of to the person of our faith: Jesus Christ.” (9)
Jesus answered, and said to him: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23). To this abode, this abiding, this being hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3), therefore, we must go.
In the midst of social, cultural and ecclesial collapse, it is a wonderful thing, but I see signs of a common cause between monasticism and the lay faithful who are seeking this interior abiding with Christ. Rod Dreher’s the Benedict Option that appeared a few weeks ago, attests this movement. For not in efficient political programs, but ‘below radar’ so to speak, in the humble life of community ordered in Christ, monastic communities quietly established advance outposts of a new liturgical universe in the rubble of the western Roman empire. In other ways too, the lay faithful, and I have in mind especially the domestic churches of families, sense the worsening crises of these times, and intuit that for them the way of spiritual contest is in the local community, in the small, the hidden, the unimportant in this world’s eyes. They have little or no role in the ecclesiastical world, or perhaps in worldly success either. Such seekers hunger for an alternative liturgy of life and community, prayer and work, and some of them are sensing that deep monasticism has a word for them. A dear friend in the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, sadly soon to close, Conor Sweeney, likes to use the hobbits in Tolkien’s mythology as an analogy for this hidden alternative Christian lifestyle. For it was the hobbits, an insignificant folk, who had no part in the counsels of the mighty, who against all odds had the decisive role in overturning the powerful forces of the dark Lord threatening to engulf the whole of Middle Earth in a reign of savagery.
I have another friend, Michael Ryan, a married man and father, whose shining light of inspiration among the saints is St Bruno. Imagine it, the witness of the most intentionally contemplative monastic life in the Western Church, the Carthusians, a beacon of hope to the lay faithful? For deep monasticism is all about moné, ‘abode’ or ‘abiding’ in Christ, about waiting and watching with hope-filled faith, as ‘useful’ as the Prophet Habbakuk standing upon his watch and stationing himself on the watchtower, as ‘useful’ as Simeon and Anna haunting the temple and waiting their life long for the dawning light of salvation and knowing him when he came, as ‘useful’ as the women who sat at a distance and watched at our Lord’s tomb on the eve of the first Good Friday, as ‘useful’ as our all-holy Lady, Mary, taking her stand beside the Cross.
Perhaps prayer, prayer of this sort, is the most radically political act of all, and the very core of Christianity? Where O where have we Catholics been?
Our Lord himself used to rise long before dawn and watch in the night hours, even in the days of his busiest ministry. The disciples, awed one day by the mystery of his prayer, felt a deep wistful attraction: Lord, teach us to pray. This is the one emulous desire that we do need: Jesus, the one model to whose imitation we can give ourselves completely, and we will not be betrayed. Can we, is it at all possible to learn something of the sentiments that filled his human mind and heart in those solitary hours of intimacy with his Father? Yes we can, for in his great compassion he shared them with us in a form of words: sacred words, holy words of complete trustworthy power and truth:
Abba! Abbuna de b’ashmayo, yithqaddash shm’okh.
Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name…
Rome, April 22, 2017
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(1) Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition (London: Routledge 2003), 13.
(2) Above all he encouraged his priests not to deny communion to anyone, whether they be married, or cohabiting, or divorced and remarried. With no fuss and without making this decision public, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires was already doing what the popes at the time prohibited, but he would later permit once he became pope.
—Sandro Magister, ‘The Man who had to be elected Pope’, http://www.onepeterfive.com/man-elected-… accessed Wednesday, April 5, 2017
(3) Relatio Synodi 2014, #52.
(4) https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-n…
(5) See Deacon Jim Russell, ‘Pope Francis ‘Time is greater than Space’: What does it mean?’, , ‘http://aleteia.org/2016/05/24/pope-francis-time-is-greater-than-space-what-does-it-mean/
(6) http://www.onepeterfive.com/pope-speakin… Friday, 7 April 2017
(7) Super Matthaeum, Cap. V, l. 2. The original statement is: ‘Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.’
(8) From https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/03/27/b…
(9) ‘RTHEVR’ from the comments to “Archbishop of Malta Claims Fidelity to Pope on Exhortation Guidelines”, Steve Skojec, February 20, 2017, http://www.onepeterfive.com/archbishop-o… accessed Wednesday, February 22, 2017.
Read the full article at Sandro Magister Blog

Lincoln said that if America was to perish it would have to be by our own hand or suicide. We have been committing “sexual suicide” in this country for 60 years or so. Those driving our sexual suicide are our elites in academia, media, corporate, and now government. They have been educated beyond their native intelligence and like the pride filled, sexually corrupted, obsessive-compulsives, that they are, seem driven to play God and eliminate the perceived “inequalities” related to the “pelvic” issues. Just like the Jacobins were driven to end political inequalities, and the Bolsheviks economic inequalities, and the Maoists cultural inequalities. And just like these previous revolutionaries had all hated God and admired the Devil should telegraph to us that our battle is really spiritual in nature. When you combine the seduction of ending inequality, once and for all, and combine it with their tactics of the end justifies the means, it makes for a potent cancer to the body politic. Or as Saul Alinsky emphasized, pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it ( abortion, same sex marriage, transgenderism, pederasty? ) RINSE and REPEAT. ” But Mao also genuinely feared that China was slipping in an inegalitarian direction and he would not stand by while a new elite took over the party and subverted the revolution. ” So the road to hell is paved with the ceaseless overcoming of inequalities.

The left has handcuffed us intellectually and emotionally ( via academia, media, corporate, and now legally ) into accepting two powerful lies widely shared in this country which are who are we to judge and you can not legislate morality. When the elite left was redefining human life back in the 60’s based on inequalities they argued ” keep your rosaries off of my ovaries, if you don’t want to have an abortion then don’t have one, and who are you to say when human life begins. ” Now almost 60 years later we are forced to pay for them, Catholic doctors and nurses are now being made to perform them, and we are watching baby body parts being harvested for Lamborghini’s. When the elite left started to redefine the family based upon inequalities in the 2000’s similar arguments were made that what do you care what two men do in the privacy of their bedrooms and who are you to say what “true” love and family are; it has no bearing on how you live your life anyway. And now 17 years later our rights to assemble, speak, hold a job, practice our faith, adopt a child, etc. etc. are being curtailed or eradicated. Rinse and repeat for transgenderism and pederasty.

So we have 60 years of evidence to dispel the LIES that we can not legislate morality and we can never judge another when the TRUTH of the matter is someone’s morality is going to be legislated ( and it might as well be Christ’s ) and we must always judge and be intolerant of the error/sin; while remaining tolerant and loving of those in error/sin.

Since we still live in a democratic republic, I suggest we rid ourselves of these mental and emotional handcuffs, and start evangelizing and legislating as though our lives, liberty, and families depended upon it; because they do!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, please intercede for us,
Jim Gill

Why do the Freemasons Love Pope Francis?

OnePeterFive April 7, 2017

Editor’s Note: As we have stated before, much of our work here at OnePeterFive is also based on the kindness and generosity of others who wish to contribute to our apostolate without being able, for different reasons, to go public with their own names. Thus we have been presented by a learned person the result of immense research, undertaken over a long period of time. After reviewing their findings, we have decided present to our readers, under a condition of anonymity, the evidence they have gathered demonstrating that Freemasons around the world have rejoiced over the election of Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy, and that they have continued to publicly praise him for his ongoing and expanding program of reform.

Since the words largely speak for themselves — and thus lead us all to a deeper reflection as to the nature and purpose of this papacy — we shall leave our readers with the abundant evidence compiled in the following pages. The quoted documents are not all presented in a chronological way. Since there is so much material, we shall present the documentation in installments, of which this is the first. When possible, we shall attempt to give direct links to the quoted sources to make possible the easier corroboration of our readers. We also wish to express our deep gratitude to the person who did all the research — a true work of love, done out of filial devotion to our Catholic Church and her formative teaching, whole and entire.

Some Preliminary Comments on Freemasonry and the Catholic Church

1. A Pope According to Our Wants

“That which we ought to demand, that which we should seek and expect, as the Jews expected the Messiah, is a Pope according to our wants. Alexander VI, with all his private crimes, would not suit us, for he never erred in religious matters. Clement XIV, on the contrary, would suit us from head to toe.”

(From the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita, section XIX, 1st half of the 19th century — emphasis added).

As the late John Vennari, then the editor of Catholic Family News explained, the “Alta Vendita was the highest lodge of the Carbonari, an Italian secret society with links to Freemasonry and which, along with Freemasonry, was condemned by the Catholic Church.”

Thus this quote from the Alta Vendita gives us an idea of what some Freemasons had historically been looking for with regard to the Pope of the Catholic Church. In 1861, Jacques Crétinau-Joly published a book entitled L’Eglise en face de la revolution (The Church in the Face of Revolution). This French author first published the Alta Vendita of the Carbonari, which, according to specialist scholars on Freemasonry, was the de facto armed wing of Freemasonry; those given leadership positions within this secret group had to already be Masons, especially high-level Masons.[1]

According to this and other Masonic documents that were seized by the papal police, the Masons were hoping for a pope according to their own needs, not a pope who is part of their “brotherhood,” but a pope who goes along with their mentality. The Alta Vendita calls for a pope who would — similar to Clement XIV[2] — surrender hands and feet to the powers that be (out of fear) and to the unbelievers (who would praise him for his tolerance). To come to this point within the Church, the Alta Vendita knew that it might take a long time, even a century.[3]

This document had been published in 1861, long before there were Catholic traditionalists. It was at the time of Pius IX.

2. John Paul II and Benedict XVI do not please…

We now return to the present day.

In an interview in 1999 and another in 2009, the lawyer Gustavo Raffi, Grand Master of the Lodge Grand Orient of Italy (1999-2014), said that he missed Pope Paul VI because (says Raffi) during his pontificate, “Freemasonry had a season of great dialogue with the Church, many of the clergy spoke about the end of the anti-Masonic censure and argued in favor of a compatibility between Church and Loggia.”[4] But then, with Pope John Paul II, there returned the anti-Masonic “frost”: in 1983, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), presided over by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, reiterated the incompatibility between the Church and Masonry. Pope Wojtyla approved that statement. [OnePeterFive recounted here the role which Dr. Ingo Dollinger played with regard to that 1983 CDF document — the editor.]

Since 1999, however, the Archbishop (later Cardinal) of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has been an honorary member of the Rotary Club, which has ties to Freemasonry and has even been condemned by certain bishops in Europe in the early 20th century.

In the winter of 2004-2005, in the British Masonic magazine Freemasonry Today, a German Mason, Axel Pohlmann, complained about Pope Wojtyla (still living at the time) and of Cardinal Ratzinger. Pohlmann suggested that after the death of the Polish Pontiff, Masons would do their best to convince the Church to remove any anti-Masonic condemnation.[5] In the article, he asked:

And what is in store for the future? When Father Sebott was asked whether contacts should be carried on, he said: “Not as long as the men [to include Ratzinger] who made the decisions in the 1980s are in office, including the Pope.” This statement may be negative for the present, but bears hope for the future.

The desires of the Mason Pohlmann soon seemed to come true: a few months after his article was published, Pope John Paul II died. There followed the 2005 Conclave. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (a Jesuit) was among the eligible candidates; it was he who appealed most to the Masons.[6] But it seems that at that conclave, the decisive choice swung between the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio (also a Jesuit), and Joseph Ratzinger.[7] Ratzinger won (to the Freemasons’ disappointment) and became Benedict XVI, the Pope of Summorum Pontificum, a Pope widely seen as a champion of clear and strong protection of non-negotiable values.

Under the Ratzinger papacy, there were frequent media attacks against the person of the pope, in some cases daily, conspiracies of “spies,” leaked documents, criticisms of various theologians against the pope, and massive boycotts of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. It seems that among the boycotters, or at least among the non-excited observers of Summorum Pontificum, was one Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires.[8]

In 2010, the Argentine Masonic journal, Hiram Abif, showed itself disappointed with Pope Benedict XVI and was already speculating about his future successor. It said:

The first years of Benedict XVI leave a feeling of increasing crisis in the Catholic Church. Never before, the disagreements and dissensions were so loud inside and outside the Vatican. […]  And after Benedict XVI, what? What are the options that arise? Who could lead to a new stage?[9]

On February 11, 2013, Benedict gave in to his concerns about his own ability to continue an effective pontificate and resigned. A new conclave was held. This time, when a new pope came out onto the balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica on March 13, 2013, it was the same Jorge Bergoglio who was alleged to be the favored alternative to Ratzinger at the 2005 conclave. The former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires took the name Francis, the first pope to do so in Church history. Following his election, the relentless media attacks and constant criticisms came nearly to an end, but those who opposed Summorum Pontificum gained new strength. Much talk of “mercy” as the theme of the new pontificate entered the public conversation, but that same mercy seems to have been denied to those “conservative” sectors in communion with Rome.

3. “[…] perhaps in the Church nothing will be as before.” Toward a New Era?

Among some Argentine traditionalist circles, it is said that Bergoglio, before becoming a bishop, disappeared for some time from circulation and was initiated into Freemasonry, then reappeared and made a career. Who knows the truth of it? Is this yet another case of traditionalist misinformation? A conspiracy theory and nothing more? What we do know for certain is that over the years, Bergoglio has been shown to please various Masonic groups to such an extent that they have not made a secret of their satisfaction with him. Let us thus continue now, presenting various Masonic statements in favor of Pope Francis. It constitutes an amount of public praise never received by any other pontiff. (As of this writing, we have compiled over 60 examples of public Masonic praise of the Argentinian pope.)

Some will no doubt say that this image of Francis in the media as one favored by by Freemasonry is the result of Masonic exploitation and the pope himself has nothing to do with it. This may well be the case. But it is therefore important to ask why the Masons did not similarly exploit or praise Popes Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. It would seem reasonable to conclude that they had little opportunity to do so, for these popes did not give them much to work with that they could interpret favorably toward their ends.

Let us now examine the evidence, however, of their support for Pope Francis:

1) After his election, Pope Francis received congratulations and praise from B’nai B’rith[10], a kind of powerful para-Jewish Masonry for Jews only. B’nai B’rith (B.B.) contends that it is not Masonic, yet its assemblies are called “Loggia” and “Grand Lodge.” B’nai B’rith was founded in 1843 and has drawn its own various elements largely from Masonry. It seems that B’nai B’rith, as an organization, has little or nothing to do with esotericism. To be praised by B’nai B’rith means little; the B.B. showed itself also happy with Paul VI and John Paul II, as well as with Francis. But there is some difference. John Paul II had openly condemned the Freemasons and Freemasonry had not praised him as soon as he was elected. There was some sporadic praise for John Paul II from the Masons after the Assisi prayer meeting [in 1986]  — culminating in an award from the Grand Orient Lodge of Italian Freemasonry in 1996 —  but not much more. The previously-mentioned anti-masonic condemnation of 1983 had turned off the majority of Masonic enthusiasm for the Polish Pope.

2) On his election day, the information website Impulso Baires transmitted a release of the Gran Logia de la Argentina de Libres y Aceptados Masones; the Grand Master himself, Angel Jorge Clavero, greeted the new Pope Francis and former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires.[11]

3) On March 15, 2013, the website of the Virtual Grand Lodge of Italy, GLVDI, published a statement (though dated March 13, 2013) of Grand Master Luciano Nistri concerning the election of the new pope:

The Catholic Church has chosen as Pope the Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio who assumed the name of Francis. A clear-cut choice, away from the logic of the Roman Curia and of the temporal power. From the first moment on, Pope Francis, a man who comes “nearly from the end of the world,” rejecting the ermine robe and gold cross and replacing it with an iron cross, made his first tangible act. In his first words of greeting he fostered a desire for dialogue with the world and with mankind, nurturing the vivid hope for laymen and nonbelievers that change is underway. Maybe this is really what the world expects and what it expected. A new Church that knows how to reconnect love with truth in a confrontation among institutions not entrenched in the defense of their own power. It is that same hope for which the world — and especially Latin America, where the Masons Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende and the same Giuseppe Garibaldi [especially while in Brazil] among the many who have given liberty to those peoples — has always longed for.

A message that Freemasonry itself perceives a sharp break with the past and one which is turned now to listening to the poor, the marginalized and the weakest. To the new Pontiff we send our best wishes for his good work for years to come. Luciano Nistri, Grand Master GLVDI.[12]

In January 2017, Luciano Nistri 33° (58 years old, originally from Prato) was reappointed Grand Master of GLVDI for three years 2017-2019.[13]

4) On 14 March 2013, Gustavo Raffi, the Grand Master of the Grand Orient Lodge of Italy — one of the most important lodges in the world — saluted and praised the new Pontiff. Raffi said, possibly prophetically: “Perhaps in the Church nothing will be as before.”[14]

5-6-7) The Masonic site Fenix News, directed by the Peruvian Mason Mario Rolleri 33° (Lodge Luis Heysen Inchaustegui, Lima, Peru), published on 15 March 2013 a statement from the United Grand Lodge of Lebanon. The Grand Master Rami Haddad and the Sovereign Grand Commander Jamil Saade sent their congratulations to Argentina, to the women of the Female Grand Lodge of Argentina (sic) on the occasion of the election of Pope Bergoglio.[15] In this one statement, we see the support of Peruvian Freemasons (5), Lebanese Freemasons (6) and Argentine Freemasons (7), who were all pleased with the election of Bergoglio.

In contrast, Pius IX, a Pius X, or a Pius XII, when newly elected, did not receive praise and greetings from either Italian or international Freemasonry. Those “pious” pontificates have never been friendly with the Masons. (Is it a coincidence that the causes for the canonization of Pius IX and Pius XII have been stalled?)

8) A few weeks after the March 2013 election of Pope Francis, in the April 2013 issue of the Canadian Masonic Newsletter The Watermark, we read that the new Pope is in the Internet, and was even referred to as a Freemason who uses Masonic signs (“a Freemason and using Masonic signs, blah, blah!”[16]) … The writer suggests that one would treat this matter on the level of a chat (“blah, blah!”). The Masonic author is confident that the new Pope, despite his “conservatism,” will be willing to build a better relationship between Catholicism and Masonry. The same article publishes the entire message of good wishes from the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Argentina [Ángel Jorge Clavero, see point 2, above] to the new Pontiff. At the end of the Watermark article, the Canadian Mason hopes for a cease of the centuries-old unjust persecution against the Masons by the Roman Catholic Church.[17]

9) In a letter to his progressive friend, Massimo Teodori, on 20 June 2013, the Grand Master Raffi showed himself to be still full of zeal and enthusiasm for the acts and words of Pope Francis. Raffi advocated a deep “reform” of the Church, of course according to the designs of Masonic and secularist thought. Raffi praised, as “a profound theologian,” Karl Rahner (a Jesuit) and his theory of the “anonymous Christians.” Raffi opposed “the ancient liturgies of privileges and sinecures.”[18]

10) In favor of Pope Bergoglio was also the Brazilian Masonic magazine O Malhete.[19] In the article (“Uma lição do Papa“), on p. 7, the Bishop of Rome was being exalted. The author was Derildo Martins Da Costa, Worshipful Master of the Lodge “Luz do Planalto,” East of Serra-Grande Oriente do Brasil. Martins Da Costa writes: “O Pope Francisco, antes de exortar os outros to fazerem, primeiro fez. Aí está Diferença to do Papa Francisco para seus antecessores“, translated: “Pope Francis, before exhorting others to do so, did it himself first. Here is the difference between Pope Francis and his predecessors.” Moreover, Martins Da Costa says that the Pope “seems to have come to give examples” — examples, it is reasonable to conclude, that the Masons find acceptable. In Brazil, in fact, the “Pope has left us a profound lesson of citizenship” when passing in front of an “evangelical church” and deciding to recite an “Our Father” with the shepherds who were at the door.

(A small side remark: Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, now Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, participated in 2006 as Archbishop of Brasília  (Brazil) in a “spiritual” forum. At that forum, there were also present representatives of theosophy, spiritualism, and of Brazilian Freemasonry (Grand Orient of Brazil).[20] Braz had a dialogue with them and with liberal American nuns,[21] but not so much with the monks and nuns of the Franciscans of the Immaculate of Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli.)

11) In the issue 1-2 /2013 (on pages 65-66) of the magazine L’Acacia of the Italian Grand Lodge for the Symbolic Rite, the chief editor Moreno Neri hopes that Pope Francis, a Jesuit, can really reform the Church (“no one else but a Jesuit might be suitable to take up the challenge of the changes that await the Church”), and commends Cardinal Martini. The Mason Neri hopes that the Church is no longer a “closed and dusty system.”

12) In 2013. the Italian journalists Giacomo Galeazzi and Ferruccio Pinotti publish the book Masonic Vatican. Galeazzi is a big “fan” of Pope Francis, as is Andrea Tornielli, Vatican correspondent and colleague of Galeazzi in the newspaper La Stampa in Turin. Galeazzi-Pinotti wrote:

In the last 30-35 years, several Jesuits were in a positive way interested in Freemasonry; they took part in public debates, at conferences organized by the Grand Orient of Italy, have written articles and books on philosophical thought on the history of Freemasonry — in other words, they were ecclesiastical ones who, in spite of the anathemas and the various excommunications of the Church of Rome issued toward the Masonic institution, tried to understand, and then very often ended up sharing the philosophical approach.[22]

Galeazzi-Pinotti also reported about some statements made by the Mason Nicola Spinello:

Nicola Spinello, Adjunct-Vicar Grand Master of the Piazza del Gesù Community, replied to the question put to him by the television show Mystery [Mistero] aired March 20, 2013: “What is the relationship between the Jesuits and the Freemasons? Jesuits and Freemasonry have always had a great mutual speculative interest… ”

Then the question: “The pope is from Argentina, and in Argentina, there is a great Masonic tradition; he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, do you think that he may have had relationships with Freemasonry?”

He [Spinello] replied: “Exactly the opposite would astonish me, namely: if he did not have them [these relationships]. The Masonic tradition in Argentina is very powerful.”

And to another question of the interviewer he responded: “I believe that this pope is the realization of a design that has long wanted to be adopted.“[23]

Galeazzi-Pinotti continued:

The Catanian Grand Master Vincenzo Di Benedetto, head of the Most Serene Grand Lodge of Piazza del Gesù, also responded to our specific question: “Various sources indicate the existence of Masonic Lodges also in the Vatican; do you consider it possible?” He replied without hesitation: “Yes, absolutely, regardless of whether you use the name or not.”[24]

13) In July 2013, commemorating his friend and late Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, the Grand Master Gustavo Raffi (Grand Orient of Italy) launched a new tribute to Pope Francis, saying:

Humanity today is poorer and poorer, as is also the Catholic Church. But the one of Pope Francis is a church that promises to be respectful of the otherness and to share the idea that the secular state promotes peace and coexistence of different religions.[25]

14) In a two-page letter, dated September 9, 2013, Gian Franco Pilloni, Serene Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy — U.M.S.O.I. (Unione Massonica Stretta Osservanza Iniziatica, founded by Armando Corona, already Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy), addressed Pope Francis (one can see that also Pilloni knows that with Francis, the “air has changed” in the Vatican) begging him to work “toward an end of the divisions that exist in the relations between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry.” Pilloni would have us believe that Freemasonry is not an adversary of the Catholic Church, but that it walks on “parallel streets.” Pilloni praises Pope Francis, saying “The Catholic Church is being worthily represented by you,” adding “I appeal to you Holiness, a man of extraordinary human qualities.”[26]Pilloni writes that his Grand Lodge is “recognized by the American Grand Lodges to which I belong” (i.e., Pilloni is also a member of American Freemasonry).[27]

15) On September 21, 2013, moreover, during the celebrations by the Freemasonry of the Grand Orient of Italy on the occasion of the recurrence of the 20th of September and of the Fall Equinox, the Grand Master Gustavo Raffi stated, inter alia:

Pope Francis launches messages of humanity that are in tune with what we have been saying for years. He also invites people to come out of the catacombs and not to withdraw but to witness among the different peoples to one’s own values [sic], in speaking to society. The reflections should not be limited to today but should build the future. This is a living Masonry, talking to people [in a dialogue].[28]

16)  At an unspecified date, but still in the year 2013 — on the website of the Philippine magazine Southern Leyte Times— the publisher Antonio M. Reyes, a declared Mason, wrote that the great Filipino national heroes are Masons and that the Catholic Church had condemned Freemasonry, also with the declaration of then-Cardinal Ratzinger (1983). Reyes stated his belief that now, with Pope Francis, things would change, because even for the reigning Pontiff, just as for the Masons, all religions and brotherhood associations who believe in God should not be condemned to eternal damnation. The professed (Masonic) Christians like Reyes wanted to pay attention to the Pope’s appeal for religious tolerance and for genuine [sic] ecumenism. Reyes wrote:

[…] Fortunately, Roman Catholics now have a leader in Pope Francis who believes that all religions and brotherhood associations that believe in God should be respected and not condemned to eternal damnation. We as Christians should heed his call for religious tolerance and for genuine Ecumenism.[29]

17) In an interview published (but left undated) some time after his election in December 2013, Vincenzo Romano, 33°, the then-newly elected Deputy or Vicar Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons — Piazza del Gesù — Palazzo Vitelleschi, pointed out that Freemasonry does not follow the [Catholic] tenets and complained that the Church does not accept the way of thinking of the Masons.[31] He then answered to the following question:

“Pope Bergoglio has [already] made many openings; may there be something positive to be seen from him with regard to Freemasonry?”

The Mason replied:

“Pope Bergoglio thus far proved to be a great Pope, but I do not know if he has some prejudice against us. Let’s wait to see if there will be any reactions. We declare ourselves ready to embrace the Catholic world.”[30]

End of Part One; next part is soon to follow.

[1]    L. DE PONCINS, La Franc-Maçonnerie d’après ses documents secrets, Diffusion de la Pensée Française, Chiré-en-

Montreuil 19755 , p. 159.

[2]    Pope Clement XIV (1705-1774), Pope from 1769-1774, reluctantly supressed the Jesuit Order universally on 21 July 1773 (see: Dominus ac Redemptor). The Jesuit Order was restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814. Note from the editor.

[3]    Instruction permanente (Haute Vente), cit. in J. CRÉTINEAU-JOLY, L’Eglise romaine en face de la Révolution, 2nd

vol., Henri Plon, Paris 1861, pp. 74-75.

[4]    S. MAGISTER, “Massone, non c’è comunione,” in L’Espresso, 19 August 1999, p. 69 (68-71). ( http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/7167.html); cf. Gustavo Raffi Gran Maestro Grande Oriente d’Italia, in Erasmo notizie, n° 6-7- 8, 31 March-31 April 2009, Grande Oriente d’Italia, Roma, p. 32.

[5]    A. POHLMANN, “Not a crime, but a sin?” (to be a Freemason), in Freemasonry Today, Winter 2005, in https://web.archive.org/web/20101215192220/http://freemasonrytoday.com/31/p10.php

[6]    D. MINERVA, Dialogo sulla vita. Colloquio tra Carlo Maria Martini e Ignazio Marino (L’espresso, 27 aprile

2006), in Erasmo notizie, Bollettino del Grande Oriente d’Italia, n. 7-8/2006, pp. 42-47.

[7]    http://temi.repubblica.it/limes/cosi-eleggemmo- papa-ratzinger/5959

[8]    http://blog.messainlatino.it/2011/06/un-mesto-anniversario.html

[9]    See page 20 of this issue:  http://www.hiramabif.org/revista/abif_119.rar

[10]  https://www.bnaibritheurope.org/bbeurope/what-we-do/public-policy/375-bnai-brith-welcomes-pope-francis;

http://www.bnaibrith.org/press-releases/bnai-brith-international-welcomes-new-pope-francis-i

[11]  http://www.impulsobaires.com.ar/nota.php?id=175015; http://www.actualmasonica.com/2013/03/20/el-papa-francisco-los-masones/

[12]  GLVDI Notiziario – Notiziario Massonico Gran Loggia Virtuale d’Italia, R.S.A.A. Massoneria Italiana, Comunicato

Post n° 159 published on 15 March 2013, http://blog.libero.it/GLVDI/11982726.html

[13]  http://blog.libero.it/GLVDI/13495401.html

[14]  http://www.grandeoriente.it/il-gran-maestro-raffi-con-papa-francesco-nulla-sara-piu-come-prima-chiara-la-scelta-di-fraternita-per-una-chiesa-del-dialogo-non-contaminata-dalle-logiche-e-dalle-tentazioni-del-potere-temporale/

[15]  “Gran Logia Unida del Libano saluda a la Gran Logia Femenina de Argentina por eleccion de nuevo Papa Francisco,” http://www.fenixnews.com/2013/03/15/gran-logia-unida-del-libano-saluda-a-la-gran-logia-femenina-de-argentina-por-eleccion-de-nuevo-papa-francisco/

[16]  “The former Archbishop of Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, has already got the anti-Masonic nuts’ & anti-Catholics wound up and the Internet is abuzz (just Google Pope Francis – Freemasonry) with wild eye claims of “the black pope” being a Freemason and using Masonic signs, blah, blah!” (“A New Pope – A New Relationship With the Roman Catholic Church?” in The Watermark – Canada’s online Masonic Philatelic Newsletter, Vol. 3 – Issue 4 – April 2013, p. 3), http://bytown.ottawamasons.ca/Watermark%20April%202013.pdf

[17]  “I for one have hope that this new Pope who despite his conservatism is greatly admired for his personal humility and for a commitment to social justice will be willing to build a better relationship between Catholicism and Freemasonry. I echo the comments of the Grand Master of The Grand Lodge of Argentina Ángel Jorge Clavero […]. We can only hope that hundreds of years of unwarranted persecution against Freemasons at the hand of the Roman Catholic Church will cease.” (Ibid., p. 3)

[18]  Cf. Erasmo notizie, bollettino d’informazione del Grande Oriente d’Italia, anno XIV, n. 13-14, 31 July 2013,

Rome, p. 19.

[19]  August 2013, of the Grande Oriente do Brasil, Stato dello “Espirito Santo” (GOB-ES).

[20] Cf. Corrispondenza Romana, n. 971/03, 6 December 2006; http://www.fattisentire.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=2294. We read on this site about Braz de Aviz, that “he was named auxiliary bishop of Vitoria in 1994, in 1998 he was appointed diocesan bishop of Ponta Grossa; only four years later, in 2002, he was transferred to Maringá, and in 2004 he was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Brasília. A truly meteoric career.” In 2010-2011, he was appointed as the new Prefect of Religious, and soon elevated to cardinal.

[21]  http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350234bdc4.html?eng=y; http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2013/04/15/sempre-in-castigo-le-suore-americane-liberal/

[22]  Giacomo GALEAZZI – Ferruccio PINOTTI, Vaticano massone. Logge, denaro e poteri occulti: il lato segreto della Chiesa di papa Francesco, Edizioni Piemme, Milano 2013, pp. 56-57.

[23]  Ibid., p. 83 — emphasis added.

[24]  Ibid.

[25]  Erasmo notizie, Bollettino d’informazione del Grande Oriente d’Italia, Anno XIV, Numero 15-16, 30 settembre 2013, p. 11

Amoris Laetitia: “consequence of the confusion is de facto schism within the Catholic Church”

April 6, 2017 (The Public Discourse) — Why is there confusion in the Catholic Church over Amoris Laetitia, and what consequences does it have for Church unity? I argue here that the confusion is ultimately over two de fide dogmas of Christian faith and that one consequence of the confusion is de facto schism within the Catholic Church.

When de fide (“of the faith”) is used in Catholic theology to designate a doctrine, it signifies a truth that pertains to Divine Revelation. The term Divine Revelation refers to truths by which God chose to reveal himself and his will to humanity in order to reconcile the world to himself so men and women might live united with him imperfectly in this world and, after death and judgment, perfectly with him in the Kingdom. Thus, the Church considers de fide doctrines necessary for salvation. Their status in Catholic teaching is irreformable. And their mode of proclamation is infallible.

This essay has three aims. First, it introduces and explains the theological concept of “secondary objects of infallibility” and shows how almost all of the truths pertaining to sexual matters taught by the Catholic Church belong to the category of secondary objects of infallibility, and so are rightly designated de fide doctrines. Second, it argues that beginning with the intra-ecclesial dissent from the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church has existed in a grave state of disunity over de fide doctrines, and that this disunity is deepened by the problems caused by Amoris Laetitia. Finally, it offers practical advice to the hierarchy and laity for responding to the crisis.

To read the full article go to:    http://biblefalseprophet.com/2017/04/10/amoris-laetitia-consequence-of-the-confusion-is-de-facto-schism-within-the-catholic-church/

April 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – According to a Maltese news outlet, Pope Francis thanked the Catholic bishops of Malta for their interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, which says active adulterers may receive Holy Communion if they feel “at peace with God.”

Newsbook reported that Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, recently sent the Maltese bishops a letter on behalf of Pope Francis.

The Malta bishops’ guidelines opened the door to Communion for Catholics in adulterous unions, saying it might be “humanly impossible” to follow Church teaching and live chastely while civilly remarried. The guidelines also suggest that a couple in an invalid union might “give rise to greater harm” by not committing adultery.

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is permanent and lifelong, making “remarriage” an impossibility unless the previous union is declared “null.” The Catholic Church also teaches that the Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, so only Catholics in a “state of grace” may receive it. Catholics are supposed to go to Confession before receiving Holy Communion if they have committed serious (mortal) sin. Those who are divorced and civilly remarried must live as “brother and sister” in order to receive the Sacraments.

Shortly after their release, the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published the Maltese bishops’ guidelines.

The document released by the Maltese bishops, titled Criteria for the Application of Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia, said its instructions are “in line with the directions given by Pope Francis.”

To read the full article go to:    http://biblefalseprophet.com/2017/04/10/francis-thanks-maltese-bishops-for-guidelines-allowing-adulterers-to-receive-holy-communion/

To read the full article go to:    http://biblefalseprophet.com/2017/04/10/protestant-reformation-cannot-be-explained-by-theological-reasons-alone/

To read the full article go to this link:   http://wp.me/px5Zw-6aX