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Syriac Catholic Bishop: “The French Revolution Marginalized God”

 

 

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COMMENT:

One of the reasons why Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election is because many Americans instinctively agree with the sentiments expressed here by Bishop Battah, many of which dovetail with Trump’s campaign promises to bring the troops home and stop playing Policeman of the World. Regardless of which mask it hides behind, Neocon nation-building really doesn’t sit well with red-blooded, patriotic Americans.

This is why the war hawks must always conjure up a “bad guy” for us to fear and hate before dragging our country into yet another unjust (and unjustifiable) war.

But what never ceases to amaze me here in this global valley of the shadow of death called the modern world, is that we’re still expected to slog through the sophist revisionism of TV’s talking heads, pony-tailed college professors, Facebook “historians” and the rest– all about how terrible the Catholic Church of the past was, what with her “quintessential” intolerance, trumped-up antisemitism, Crusaders, and all those brutal “wars of religion”.

Just look at that Spanish Inquisition, for example. I mean that alone may have wiped out HUNDREDS of innocent people! Oh, the carnage! The inhumanity!  

Yes, thank goodness those barbaric Ages of Faith are behind us now, so that we can all merrily tiptoe through the tulips and lollipops (and No-Go Zones) of the New World Order.

I realize most moderns haven’t cracked a non-fiction book since high school, but I’m genuinely mystified by how so many can get it so wrong and with such consistency. How, for example, can any moderately literate human being close a blind eye to the string of genocides committed against innocent millions over the past few hundred years by post-Christian nations, while getting all irate over the Crusades some thousand years ago?

How can anyone decry with a straight face comparative nothing-burgers such as the Inquisition and the Crusades just fifty years after the atheist Joseph Stalin wiped out 50,000,000 people from his own thoroughly Christophobic Empire? Where is the wayward Christian king in history whose alleged crimes are even remotely akin to that?

Millions upon millions of corpses have been piled in open graves all over the world since the Enlightenment’s very first act of genocide—ordered in the name of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, mind you—that claimed the lives of half a million French Catholics slaughtered in the Vendee by their own “enlightened” countrymen. Those pioneer “champions of liberty” hadn’t even finished mopping up the blood from their ‘reign of terror’ (which included regicide) before they’d moved south to wipe out men, women and children by the hundreds of thousands with whom they disagreed.

The blood started flowing in Paris, and then it moved down into Brittany and western France, and eventually into the killing fields of Europe manned by Hitler’s Nazis and Stalin’s Communists where the “tree of liberty” still needed to be “refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  Finally, even China got into the genocide business at the hands of a supremely anti-Catholic madman called Chairman Mao.

And now all the countries of former Christendom, as well as the New World–once reclaimed from the serpent and dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe by “evil” Catholic explorers–are being overrun by the ancient enemies of Christianity, and there’s no secular power on earth that can stand up to them.

The Enlightenment’s non serviam to Christ the King finally succeeded in plunging the modern world into the chaos of terrorism and unending war, with the anti-Catholic confessional states fixated on developing better war machines and dreaming up horrifically efficient techniques for exterminating millions with the push of a button.  They’re promoting formerly-unthinkable (to the kings and queens of Christendom) concepts such as total war, the bombing of cities, and the chemical extermination of children born and unborn.

Tell me, how is this the Age of Enlightenment while glorious Christendom must always and forever be the Age of Darkness…the so-called Dark Ages?

And now with everybody’s favorite whipping boy, the Catholic Church—architect of Western Civilization—assuming the fetal position beneath the jackboots of Lady Liberty, the sons of the Enlightenment rule the world. Their bombs and their guns “make the world safe for democracy”. Their weapons of mass destruction threaten countries hemispheres away who refuse to adopt Enlightenment values which include abortion on demand, gay ‘marriage’, contraception, ubiquitous porn, crappy fast food and the total annihilation of sovereignty, family and God.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the Crusaders sacked Constantinople! Sacked it, I tell you…sacked it! 

Well, you know what?  I’ll take my chances with those guys any day.

From the tyranny of an enlightened New World Order,  spare us O Lord!

 

Published in Headline News Around the World

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Pope Francis: A Pelagian Lutheran

 

 

Editor’s Note: Another issue of The Remnant brings you yet another diagnosis of what Pope Bergoglio has done this week to undermine the Faith. To readers who may wonder why we ought to continue this exercise we would answer: We have no choice in the matter. The current occupant of the Chair of Peter is mounting a determined assault an every aspect of Catholic teaching and practice he finds disagreeable, including the teaching of his own immediate predecessors on fundamental moral questions. In short, we have a Pope who is literally attacking the Church.

It would be a dereliction of duty not to express our continuing opposition to the radically Modernist program of “a dictator Pope” Catholics the world over now recognize “is engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches,” a veritable “lost shepherd” who “is misleading his flock.” To ignore Pope Bergoglio when one is in a position to offer any form of effective opposition, even if it be only a salutary warning about his errors, is to ignore the common good of the Church in favor of personal tranquility. This we cannot do.

Even from a purely journalistic perspective, to ignore the story of the rise of Bergoglianism would be even more absurd than ignoring the story of World II while it was in progress. And the spiritual consequences of what Sister Lucia of Fatima called “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan,” now plainly underway, are infinitely weightier than the consequences of merely earthly warfare.

And so our coverage of this continuing disaster must continue. Until it is over.  MJM

Pope Francis, Pelagian Lutheran

Pope Bergoglio has spent the past five years condemning neo-Pelagianism, which he falsely describes in Evangelii Gaudium (EG) as “observ[ing] certain rules or remain[ing] intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past” or, in Gaudete et Exsultate, as “a punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige.” In other words, to the Modernist mind of Bergoglio, a strong attachment to Catholic doctrine and liturgy—indeed, a strong attachment to Catholicism as such—is Pelagianism.

Like so much of what Bergoglio says in matters theological, this is the opposite of the truth. The Pelagian, unlike the orthodox Catholic, denies the existence of original sin and holds that human effort alone (assisted by whatever divine grace is inherent in created nature) is capable of attaining final beatitude. The “quintessence of Pelagianism,” as the Catholic Encyclopedia observes, can be summarized in these propositions:

1) Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.

2) Adam’s sin harmed only himself, not the human race.

3) Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall.

4) The whole human race neither dies through Adam’s sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ.

5) The (Mosaic Law) is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.

6) Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.

Considering these marks of Pelagianism, it should be obvious that it is actually Pope Bergoglio who has a Pelagian view of salvation and that, like so many of the accusations he hurls at others, this one applies first and foremost to him. The proofs of this have been abundant over the past five years of his pronouncements to the effect that being Catholic and having the grace of the sacraments makes no crucial difference for salvation because all “good people,” even atheists,  are saved no matter what they believe.

Three recent examples, however, suffice to reinforce the point.

First, in Gaudium et Exsultate, we read the following remarkable propositions, for which the only cited authority in 2,000 years of Church history is Bergoglio’s own opinions:

Those who yield to this pelagian or semi-pelagian mindset, even though they speak warmly of God’s grace, “ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style [from the past].” [citing EG]. When some of them tell the weak that all things can be accomplished with God’s grace, deep down they tend to give the idea that all things are possible by the human will, as if it were something pure, perfect, all-powerful, to which grace is then added. They fail to realize that “not everyone can do everything”, and that in this life human weaknesses are not healed completely and once for all by grace….

Grace, precisely because it builds on nature, does not make us superhuman all at once.… Unless we can acknowledge our concrete and limited situation, we will not be able to see the real and possible steps that the Lord demands of us at every moment, once we are attracted and empowered by his gift. Grace acts in history; ordinarily it takes hold of us and transforms us progressively.

Aside from his usual caricature of Catholic teaching—here reduced to the straw man that grace does not instantly make men into supermen—the cited passages are embedded with Pelagian thinking about the role of grace in the moral life. In order to explain this, I must first “unpack” Bergoglio’s treatment of moral weakness.  As we will see, what at first blush would appear to be an argument for the inadequacy of the human will alone to sustain moral virtue without grace, contra Pelagius, turns out to be, upon close examination, quite the opposite, although Bergoglio, given the incoherency of his theology, does not seem to realize that his views actually favor Pelagianism.

First of all, by “the weak” Bergoglio means those who habitually commit sins of the flesh, which his entire pontificate has been an exercise in accommodating, particularly in the case of the divorced and “remarried” and others living in what he calls “irregular situations.” In fact, the very title of the infamous Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia is “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Weakness.” To quote Bergoglio in his book-length interview Politique et Société (pp. 249-250)(translation mine):

The lightest sins are the sins of the flesh. The sins of the flesh are not necessarily the most serious. Because the flesh is weak. The most dangerous sins are those of the spirit. I spoke of angelism: pride, vanity are sins of angelism. I understood your question. The Church is the Church. Priests have had the temptation—not all, but many—to focus on the sins of sexuality. This is what I have already spoken to you about: what I call morality under the belt. The most serious sins are elsewhere.

[Les péchés les plus légers sont les péchés de la chair. Les péchés de la chair ne sont pas forcément les plus graves. Parce que la chair est faible. Les péchés les plus dangereux sont ceux de l’esprit. J’ai parlé d’angélisme : l’orgueil, la vanité sont des péchés d’angélisme. J’ai compris votre question. L’Église est l’Église. Les prêtres ont eu la tentation – pas tous, mais beaucoup – de se focaliser sur les péchés de la sexualité. C’est ce dont je vous ai déjà parlé : ce que j’appelle la morale sous la ceinture. Les péchés les plus graves sont ailleurs.]

Concerning what he views as “light” sins of flesh, Bergoglio fails to mention that habitual sins of  impurity darken the intellect, harden the heart, bury the voice of conscience, and lead ultimately to a loss of faith unless there is an amendment of life.

Further, mangling yet another theological concept to suit his rhetorical needs, Bergoglio equates angelism, which denies or minimizes concupiscence as if men were angels, with pride and vanity (apparently confusing the pride of the Devil and his angels with angelism as a theological error). He thereby excises from the true meaning of angelism the role of concupiscence, and thus Original Sin, in lust and sins of the flesh, which he deems “the lightest sins.” Blessed Jacinta of Fatima, directly informed by the Mother of God, begs to differ with Bergoglio of Buenos Aires: “More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.… Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much. Woe to women lacking in modesty.”

With these two points in view, we can see how the indulgence of “weakness” in Bergoglian theology actually favors a Pelagian view of morality. For if “the weak,” even with the assistance of God’s grace, cannot be expected to  refrain from adultery and fornication , whereas “the strong,” also assisted by grace, are able to avoid these sins—as do so many of the faithful and, for that matter, even many non-Catholics —then what Bergoglio is really saying is that it is not grace but the particular strength of the individual human will that is the decisive factor in avoiding sins of the flesh. That is at least a semi-Pelagian view of human nature, minimizing the role of grace and exaggerating the role of the unassisted will while removing Original Sin from the picture along with the action of divine grace in overcoming post-baptismal concupiscence.

 

Bringing utter disgrace on the Petrine office, Bergoglio holds “weak” Catholics, who have access to the grace of the Sacraments, to a lower standard of sexual morality than that exhibited by evangelical Protestants who are serious about following the Gospel as they understand it and who implore God’s grace as best they can without the helps of the Church, knowing that they will fall without it. For Bergoglio, absurdly enough, to whom much is given less is expected in terms of  sexual morality.

Second, in a clearly Pelagian manner, Bergoglio apparently denies the role of Baptism in translating fallen human nature, debilitated by Original Sin, into the state of sanctifying grace by which we are made children of God. He evidently believes that all men are already “children of God,” no matter what they believe or what they do, and that Baptism merely enhances the preexisting divine kinship in some vague manner. That is exactly what he has just told a group of impressionable children at a Roman parish during one of those events in which he uses staged questions posed by children to propagate Bergoglian theology, and then demands that the children express assent to his errors in the manner of a pep rally:

Carlotta: Hi Pope Francis! When we receive baptism, we become children of God. And people who are not baptized are not God’s children?

Pope Francis: Stay there. What’s your name?

Carlotta: Carlotta.

Pope Francis: Carlotta. Tell me Carlotta, asking back to you: what do you think? Are people who are not baptized, daughters of God or not daughters of God? What does your heart tell you?

Carolotta: Yes.

Pope Francis: Yes. Here, now she explains. She responded well, she has a Christian flair, this one! We are all children of God. Everyone, everyone. Even the unbaptized? Yes. Even those who believe in other religions, far away, who have idols? Yes, they are children of God. Are the mafia too God’s children? … You are not sure … Yes, even the mafiosi are children of God. They prefer to behave like children of the devil, but they are children of God. All, all are children of God, everyone.

But what is the difference [with Baptism]? God created everyone, loved everyone and put conscience in the heart to recognize good and distinguish it from evil. All men have this. They know, they perceive what is good and what is healthy; even people who do not know Jesus, who do not know Christianity, all have this in the soul, because this has been sown by God. But when you were baptized, in that conscience the Holy Spirit entered and strengthened your belonging to God and in that sense you have become more a daughter of God, because you are daughter of God like everyone, but also with the power of the Holy Spirit that has entered inside.

Pope Francis: Did you understand, Carlotta? I ask, everyone answer: All men are children of God?

Children: Yes!

Pope Francis: Good people, are daughters of God?

Children: Yes!

Pope Francis: Bad people, are daughters of God?

Children: Yes!

Pope Francis: Yes. Do people who do not know Jesus and have other distant religions, have idols, are daughters of God?

Children: Yes!

Pity the children who were cajoled into expressing their assent to this heretical nonsense. If all men, without exception, are children of God, then no one is under the dominion of Satan on account of Original Sin in which case the Redemption would be pointless. Nor can Bergoglio be defended on the ground that he was using the phrase “children of God” equivocally to mean “created by God” and that he was not denying the Church’s infallible teaching that Baptism confers the gift of divine adoption. On the contrary, he explicitly declares that all men are already adopted children of God and that Baptism merely makes one “more a daughter of God… but also with the power of the Holy Spirit”—whatever that means.

The notion that Baptism, in some vague way, makes one “more” a child of God than the other “children of God,” meaning all of humanity, is an absurd theological invention peculiar to Bergoglianism. What is more, Bergoglio neglected to instruct the children on the Catholic doctrine that Baptism and the state of sanctifying grace involve more than some vague “power of the Holy Spirit,” but rather the indwelling of the Holy Trinity and the consequent divinizing of the baptized (unless they subsequently fall into mortal sin), which is anything but a universal state among men. As the late, great Father John Hardon explains:

The Church commonly teaches distinguishing between God’s presence and his indwelling. The indwelling, unlike the omnipresence, is not natural but super – beyond natural. The indwelling is not universal but particular, very particular. The indwelling is not merely the presence of God in the world but it is the special way in which the Holy Trinity dwells in the souls of those who are in sanctifying grace. We see immediately how selective the indwelling is in contrast with the omnipresence….

How does the Church explain this indwelling? The Church tells us that the indwelling is unique; it exists only in the souls of believers who are in the friendship of God. This indwelling, we are told, comes to us through baptism…. That in the final analysis is what makes a person holy, why a child, just baptized and having received at baptism the divine indwelling, is holy….

The divine indwelling may be described as a special intimacy of God with the soul, producing an extraordinary knowledge and love of God. Only those who possess the divine indwelling are able to know God as God wants to be known; are able to love God as God wants to be loved.

Nowhere in the Bergoglian explanation of the effects of Baptism is there any indication that it remits Original Sin, infuses the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, makes the soul fit for the indwelling of Trinity, and is thereby the gateway to salvation. With Pelagius himself, Bergoglio would appear to deny that Baptism translates the soul from its fallen state into the state of divine adoption by which, if one “perseveres until the end (Matt 24:13)”, one is saved. Not for Bergoglio, apparently, is the teaching of Christ, whose Vicar he is supposed to be: “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who believes not shall be condemned…. Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

It is reasonable to wonder whether Bergoglio even believes in the dogma of Original Sin or the Church’s infallible teaching on the nature and effects of Baptism. It does not seem so—at least not in the Catholic sense. But even if he does believe in what the Church teaches, he failed utterly in his duty to instruct those impressionable children about the divine privilege conferred upon the recipients of Baptism and only upon them as adopted children of God.

Third, leaving no doubt of his position, Bergoglio employed another child on the same occasion in order to make the point that Baptism is not necessary for the salvation of “good people,” even atheists. When a lad of six or seven named Emanuele was brought up to the microphone to pose his staged question, he was so frightened he could not speak, whereupon Francis vulgarly prompted him to play his part: “Dai! Dai! Dai! Dai!” (come on! come on! come on! come on!), to which little Emanuele replied: “I can’t do it” (Non ce lo faccio!). Then the poor child, commanded by Bergoglio to come up and whisper in his ear, was practically dragged up to the papal chair where, now crying, he was induced to hug the Pope like a department store Santa Claus. We are expected to believe that this six- or seven-year-old then engaged in the following discussion with Bergoglio, all while whispering in his ear, which Bergoglio recounted immediately afterward:

Maybe all of us, we could cry like Emanuele when we have a pain as he has in his heart. He cried for his father and had the courage to do it in front of us, because in his heart there is love for his father. [As the video shows, he was crying because he was mortified and terrified.]

I asked Emanuele permission to say the question in public and he said yes. This is why I will tell you [i.e., Bergoglio extracted “permission” from a traumatized child to reveal his embarrassing secret to the whole world]:

“A short time ago my father died. He was an atheist, but he had all four children baptized. He was a good man. Is Daddy in heaven?”

How nice that a son says of his dad: “He was good.” Beautiful testimony that man gave his children, because his children will be able to say: “He was a good man.”

It is a beautiful testimony of the son who inherited the strength of his father and, also, had the courage to cry in front of us all [in fact, they had reduced the child to tears by traumatizing him]. If that man was able to make children like that, it’s true, he was a good man. He was a good man.

That man did not have the gift of faith, he was not a believer, but he had his children baptized. He had a good heart. And he [Emanuele] has doubt that his father, who was not a believer, is in Heaven.

Next came Bergoglio’s demand for the children’s assent to his error:

Who says who goes to Heaven is God. But how is the heart of God before a father like that? How is it? How does it look to you? … The heart of Daddy! God has a father’s heart. And before a non-believing father, who was able to baptize his children and do that great thing [bravura] for his children, do you think that God would be able to leave him far away from Himself?

Do you think this? … [soliciting answer from the children, but only eliciting a faint “no” from some] Strong, with courage!

Everyone: No!

Pope Francis: Does God abandon his children?

Everyone: No!

Pope Francis: Does God abandon his children who are good?

Everyone: No!

Pope Francis: Here, Emanuele, this is the answer. God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier to be a believer, to baptize children, than to baptize them as unbelievers. Surely this is so pleasing to God. Talk to your dad [pointing upward to heaven], pray to your dad. Thanks Emanuele for your courage.

Watch the encounter below:

 

 

The notion that atheists who are “good people” can attain salvation without faith, baptism and the life of the Trinity within implicitly denies the necessity of supernatural virtue, not merely natural virtue, for salvation. Thus Our Lord Himself admonished those who called Him good in the natural sense: “And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is God.” (Mark 10:18) In fact, the hypothetical virtuous atheist is the rhetorical device by which the subversive polemic of Enlightenment propagandists attacked revealed religion in general and the necessity of the Catholic faith in particular. What need is there for the Catholic religion if one can be a “good person” and society can maintain a certain moral standard without it?  Bergoglio seems completely won over by this classic deception of modernity, which amounts to a practical elimination of the supernatural order.

It would have been one thing had Bergoglio told Emanuele he could have hope for his father, despite his apparent lack of faith, because God reads every heart and no one but He can know the final disposition of a soul, which is able to convert even at the moment of death in response to God’s grace. But it was quite another to use the boy as a prop for the promotion of Bergoglio’s notion of the universal salvation of all “good people” even if, as was the case with Emanuele’s father, they “did not have the gift of faith” but were “good people” (as Bergoglio simply presumes, as if he could read a stranger’s soul for a little boy who lost his father).

Also conspicuously absent from Bergoglio’s advice to the boy was even a hint that Purgatory might be involved in the eternal destiny of the boy’s father or indeed anyone else who has passed from this world into the next. I cannot think of single reference to the Catholic dogma on Purgatory in the many utterances of this Pope on the matter of salvation. It would seem that, for Francis, even atheists who are “good people” enter directly into beatitude—to adore a God in whom they never believed!

So much for the contrary teaching of the Church, reaffirmed so forcefully by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained.  Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.”

All in all, Bergoglio is a kind of hyper-Pelagian. For even Pelagius affirmed that Baptism confers divine adoption and thus is necessary for salvation and the remission of personal sins, although  he denied Original Sin. In refuting the errors of the Pelagians, Saint Augustine noted that they “do not deny that in that laver of regeneration they [the baptized] are adopted from the sons of men unto the sons of God,” although they had no sensible explanation of why the baptismal ceremony should confer the privilege of divine adoption if it did not remit  Original Sin, produce the state of sanctifying grace, infuse the supernatural virtues, and make possible the indwelling of the Trinity.

Moreover, even as to infants, the Pelagians allowed that Baptism was necessary for entrance into the eternal “Kingdom of God” upon death, but not for “eternal life” as such (i.e., without the pains of Hell). To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia: “As to infant baptism he [Pelagius] granted that it ought to be administered in the same form as in the case of adults, not in order to cleanse the children from a real original guilt, but to secure to them entrance into the ‘kingdom of God.’ Unbaptized children, he thought, would after their death be excluded from the ‘kingdom of God,’ but not from ‘eternal life.’”

Indeed, Pelagius essentially adapted for his system (such as it was) something like the Catholic doctrine on Limbo, which the heretical Synod of Pistoia later wrongly condemned as a “Pelagian fable” even though it was the common teaching of theologians. As Father Brian Harrison has noted on these pages, Pope Pius VI, reprobating the errors of the Synod, “rejected this Jansenist view of Limbo as a mere ‘Pelagian fable’ branding [that rejection] as ‘false, rash, and injurious to Catholic schools.’” Limbo, writes Father Harrison, “was traditional Catholic doctrine not a mere hypothesis. No, it was never dogmatically defined. But the only question is whether the doctrine was infallible by virtue of the universal and ordinary magisterium, or merely ‘authentic.’”

Bergoglio, however, not only dispenses with Limbo (according to the novel thinking of the past fifty years) but also, going beyond even Pelagius, declares that all good people go to heaven with or without Baptism or the other Sacraments. He thus flirts with the anathema of the Council of Trent:

CANON IV.-If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification—though all (the sacraments) are not indeed necessary for every individual—let him be anathema.

Worse, Bergoglio goes beyond both Pelagius and Luther in declaring that even without faith “good people,” including atheists, can be saved just because they are “good people.” Here we see that Bergoglio manages to incorporate both Pelagian and Lutheran elements into his own peculiar theological blend.

As to Luther, in an exercise of his Airplane Magisterium Bergoglio has infamously declared that “today Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants, all of us agree on the doctrine of justification. On this point, which is very important, he [Luther] did not err.” So, according to Bergoglio, Luther was correct in holding that a Christian is justified by faith alone. But, according to the same Bergoglio, the non-Christian, including the atheist, is justified by being a “good person” with “a good heart” even if, as he said of Emanuele’s deceased father, “that man did not have the gift of faith, he was not a believer.” Thus we have in Bergoglio the incredible spectacle of Pelagian-Lutheran thought, depending upon which audience he is addressing at the moment.

Then again—who knows?—next week Bergoglio may utter something consistent with the doctrine and dogma he negated during his parish visit. But, whatever Bergoglio’s subjective intentions may be, his disordered and self-contradictory teaching exhibits precisely what St. Vincent de Paul condemned respecting Calvin and other innovators (courtesy of Antonio Socci, translation mine):

Calvin, who twenty times denied that God is author of sin, elsewhere made every effort to demonstrate this detestable maxim. All innovators act in the same way: in their books they plant contradictions, so that, when attacked on one point, they have an escape ready, stating that elsewhere they have sustained the contrary.

In sum, according to the theology of Bergoglianism: (1) the effects of Original Sin are of no account; (2) Baptism does not remit Original Sin and deliver a soul from the dominion of Satan into the state of divine adoption, but merely enhances an already existing universal divine adoption for anyone who happens to be baptized; (3) faith alone justifies the Christian, without need of the Church and her sacraments, but (4) being a “good person” suffices for the salvation of non-Christians and even atheists. In which case, what need does anyone, believer or non-believer, have for Pope Bergoglio or the religion he presents as authentic Catholicism?

As was noted at the outset of this piece, we cannot refrain from documenting the course of this disastrous papacy, unlike any in the entire history of the Church, including the pontificates of Paul VI and John II. Nor can we ignore the obvious conclusion after five years of this insanity: that the Chair of Peter is currently occupied by a promoter of manifold heresy who has no respect for any teaching of the Church that contradicts his idiosyncratic mélange of populist piety and half-baked Modernism.

God alone, or perhaps a future Pope or Council, may someday judge whether Bergoglio fell from office on account of heresy or whether his election was valid in the first place. Meanwhile, we are left to cope with the ruinous effects of this pontificate while praying for its merciful termination, failing the conversion of a Pope who has become the eye of a neo-Modernist hurricane now bearing down on the household of the Faith.

This article appears in the next Print/E-edition of The Remnant. Subscribe today to get access to the rest!

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Chris Ferrara 9 hours ago

PLEASE PIN THIS:

Another revealing example of Bergoglio’s treatment of young people: the famous mocking of the altar boy, whom he cavalierly lays his hands on to make his “humble” point:

If I were his father I would have said: “What gives you the right to put your hands on my son and humiliate him before the whole world? He is not a prop for you to demonstrate your so-called humility.”

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Francis is Using the Communists, Not the Other Way Around

 

 

children and washing the feet of the faithful, and much less about issuing encyclicals and wading into the debate arena with the secularist academics.

But as time went on, a pattern emerged. Francis was not the smiling dunce that he appeared to be. He was, and remains, a coldly calculating man, who uses his so-called “slips of the tongue” to befuddle the conservative opposition within the Vatican and undermine any attempt to rein him in. Francis is no fool. He is Machiavellian, and he has been running circles around us for five years.

And who is this “dictator pope,” what does he want? It should be clear by now that Bergoglio is an arch Modernist, that is to say, a heresiarch who seems to hold no Catholic dogma sacred. To Francis, everything is fair game. He upends everything, glibly remarking that “time is bigger than space”. (Translation: I will make the mess, but somebody else will have to clean it up.) But Francis is not a bull in a china shop; he is a sniper with a powerful scope. One by one, he is picking off his targets. Traditional marriage, blasted away with a tiny footnote in a poorly-written document. Unmistakable teaching against sodomy, laid low by five little words uttered seemingly absent-mindedly on an airplane. The Council of Trent, murdered by a postage stamp. Even Hell, it now seems, has been shot out of the dogmatic picture. The list goes on and on and on. Francis is not a buffoon pottering about breaking things in the chapel. He is systematically destroying whatever is left of the Church that Christ founded. He is, in a word, Modernism exemplified.

 

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Of all Bergoglio’s outrages against the Magisterium, none so neatly illustrates his plan to end Catholicism as his ongoing, slow-motion pas de deux with the Chinese Communist Party. How can Pope Francis be so naïve? we read time and again. Doesn’t he know what the Communists are capable of? Doesn’t he remember Cardinal Mindszenty, Fr. Walter Ciszek, Patriarch Tikhon, the Spanish Civil War, Vietnam? Of course he does. The deal being hammered out between Beijing and the Vatican is not a foolhardy attempt by an open-handed pontiff to save the Church in China—it is a move to end it.

It is not hyperbole to say that, even including the early Christians, few have suffered for the Faith as have the faithful in China. My sources inside the People’s Republic tell me of disappeared bishops, arrested parishioners, confiscated church buildings, houndings by the police, surveillance, intimidation, and character assassination. But one hardly needs to resort to espionage to know what the Chinese government does to Catholics, or to anyone who dissents from the party line. Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese lawyer who was forced into exile for trying to get the Chinese government to stop performing brutal ninth-month forced abortions on women who had violated the “one-child policy,” says from his new home in the United States that Francis should never sign the deal that is on the table. Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, the Hero of Hong Kong who has repeatedly taken to the public square to defy Beijing’s designs on one of the last outposts of relative freedom in continental Asia, has urged Francis to stop negotiating with the Communist authorities. Websites in the US and Europe are now thronged with articles and essays pleading with the Vatican to fight against Beijing, and not to capitulate to it. Steven Mosher, the China expert who runs the pro-life Population Research Institute, has been saying for decades that China is the worst offender against the Catholic Faith, and against basic human dignity, on the planet.

But things look different to Bergoglio. He has no use for such sound council. What is precisely galling about the Chinese Catholics is that they are Catholic. The Catholics who stayed with the legitimate, underground Church—and did not go over to the sham church with “clergy” appointed by the Communist Party—have kept the Faith. They are true believers. They frequently meet martyrdom for their fidelity. Francis wants to cut this out root and branch.

What does he want instead? What do all Modernists want? Francis wants to put a stop to revealed religion and make the Church an adjunct to the state. He is a garden-variety globalist who thinks One World Government will finally solve the problems of mankind. (Globalist Extraordinaire and high priest of the abortion lobby Jeffrey Sachs has been Francis’ frequent guest at the Vatican, often headlining events with the Holy Father and even hosting them from time to time.) When Francis’ lieutenant, Vatican bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, said that China was “best implementing the social doctrine of the Church,” he wasn’t kidding. And he wasn’t alone. Francis—who said nothing in public to rebuke or even to contradict Sorondo—agrees with him completely.

 

The above picture was taken recently at a sham-Catholic, “official, government-approved” church in Nanjing. The sign in front of the church touts the patriotic activities going on there, including building “core socialist values” and inculcating “patriotism”. There is no mention of Jesus or the sacraments, but the stone pillar at the bottom center is a bangmu, in this case the huabiao totem standing in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. (The same Gate of Heavenly Peace where the “People’s Liberation Army” opened fire with machine guns and tanks into a crowd of unarmed civilians in 1989.)

It represents the power of the emperor, traditionally known in China as the “son of heaven,” and, by extension, the power of the state. The symbolism is perverse and entirely intentional. The Cross of Christ, where hopes of a political messiah (should have) died forever, is replaced with a cross-like totem to apotheosized statecraft. Just as Francis has turned the Vatican into an adjunct of the radically anti-human environmentalist fringe movement, and has reliably weighed in on the Marxist side of every political debate he enters, he wants to expand the Church-as-handmaiden-to-world-socialism franchise into China, which openly carries on that Leninist tradition in the twenty-first century.

This time, the deal comes with direct insults and blasphemies against Our Lord. Socialist trampling of religion, but with Chinese characteristics.

Just twenty years ago, it seemed that Communism was finally gasping its last. Now, a dozen winters after the death of the pope who dedicated his pontificate to fighting murderous collectivism, his successor once removed is prepared to give it his blessing.

See Cardinal Joseph Zen COMMENT on this situation

Jason Morgan (PhD, Japanese history) teaches history, politics, philosophy, and language at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan. He studied Chinese language and history at the University of Hawaii, the University of Wisconsin, and Yunnan University in Kunming, PRC.

Published in  Remnant Articles

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  • Avatar
    John Ingram 2 hours ago

    Outstanding article! I would suggest just one little change, in the headline. Francis is not “using” the Communists. Francis is a Communist. The author already said as much himself: “He is a garden-variety globalist who thinks One World Government will finally solve the problems of mankind.”

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    Mark Robertson 2 hours ago

    The Catholic Church is in a state of emergency. The pope is out of control, yet few bishops speak up, much less act.

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    LucyAgnes 4 hours ago

    “Francis wants to put a stop to revealed religion and make the Church an adjunct to the state. He is a garden-variety globalist who thinks One World Government will finally solve the problems of mankind.” Mr. Morgan, I think you have correctly identified the essence of who Francis is and what motivates him.

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    Traditionalist LucyAgnes 2 hours ago

    He wants to make Catholicism into Protestantism.

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    jobina 5 hours ago

    This pontiff is selling out Catholics around the globe.

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    disqus_W8X6VR1yyA 6 hours ago

    I think your giving the man too much credit. I don’t think He’s smart enough to tie His own shoe, much less be leading the charge to destroy the faith. We already know He doesn’t write His “own” encyclicals so who the master wizards are behind the curtain are, that’s up for debate. But I’m sure He has a team working round the clock writing and implementing the nonsense that’s running through is head at any given moment.

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    Marcel 6 hours ago

    Will there ever be enough evidence against Bergoglio for the collage of cardinals to remove him for his heresies and apostasy? What does he have to do for them to take off their blinder and SEE just what he IS doing?

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    Donna_Bethell Marcel 4 hours ago

    The Cardinals are perfectly aware of what is happening. Many are quite happy with developments. Others are like deer in the headlights, frozen in place. Some probably don’t care.

 

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Pope Dissolves Another Thriving Order of Priests

 

 

GloriaTV explains further: But in a time of mass-immigration, De Kesel claimed that the group needed to be dissolved because “too many” of them were French while in the national seminary in Namur out of 80 seminarians only 25 are from Belgium.

On April 12 Marco Tosatti, writing on LaNuovaBQ.it, broke the news that an appeal in front of the Apostolic Signature by laypeople against the killing of the community has been stopped by Pope Francis because the judges were in favour of accepting it.

Remember the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate? Rich in vocations both in Europe and in Africa, inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe and approved by John Paul II. But five years ago it was put under the authority of a Vatican commissioner, and one year ago it was dissolved by Pope Francis.

There is the similar case of the Family of the Incarnate Word. This religious order, begun in Argentina in the 1980s, has more than one thousand members in twenty-six countries on five continents, including in regions where nobody else is willing to go. The Family has roughly 800 seminarians. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine bishops’ conference, did not care for the Family. He made reference to it, while addressing the bishops: “In Latin America we happen to find in small groups, and in some of the new religious orders, an exaggerated drift to doctrinal or disciplinary security.” At one time, he blocked the ordination of the Family’s priests for three years. The founder, again, is more or less segregated from his order.

COMMENT: We’re well aware of the fact that there are often “two sides to the story” when it comes to cases such as these. We do not pretend to have “inside dope” on this one, and I would imagine the various factions have differing accounts of what this is all about.

We do, however, see a pattern here. The Pope, who promotes the likes of Father James Martin and even runs cover for predators such as Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, can be relied upon to spring into action against priests with an orthodox or traditionalist bent.

Cardinal Burke and his allies have been waiting since September of 2016 for Pope Francis to answer their urgent request for clarification of Amoris Laetitia. But like the wartime refugees waiting for the plane to Lisbon in the old movie, Casablanca, they wait and wait and wait…

Pope’s a busy man, I get it… but evidently not too busy to act with lightning speed on behalf of the Brussels’ cardinal who had a Church of Accompaniment crisis on his hands—entirely too many vocations in a Tradition-leaning order of priests.

Then there’s the Society of Saint Pius X which feels confident that the “friendship” of the Argentinian pope—whose apparent goal is to rid the entire Church of Faith and Tradition—will somehow shield them from the proactive modus operandi of the Bergoglian steamroller.

Let’s pray that God will somehow provide an invisible cloak or something similar for our friends in the SSPX, should they ever come under the fatherly benevolence of Pope Francis the Great.

Published in  Headline News Around the World

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    Rory Donnellan 2 hours ago

    The SSPX are already “under the fatherly benevolence of Pope Francis.” Their Masses have always fulfilled a Sunday or Holy Day obligation and they have always mentioned the Pope in the Canon. More recently excommunications against their Bishops have been declared null and void, they have formal jurisdiction for Confessions and have been provided an avenue for Marriages too. Any suggestions that the SSPX are “outside the Church” or “schismatic” needs to be opposed.

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    DMill 2 hours ago

    { Tosatti calls this an “ugly story” that certainly does not cast a good light on Pope Francis. }
    I can think of nothing that does cast a good light on Bergoglio.

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    Francis J. Kieras 3 hours ago

    Francis is dissolving the Catholic Church and all its Traditions. He is an Anti-Pope and a Heretic. He must be disposed and quickly. He is not a CATHOLIC!!.. Cardinal Burke HURRY!!

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    Marcel 7 hours ago

    As quote above;”Pope Francis definitively dissolved the Fraternity for being hated by the anti-Catholic Cardinal of Brussels, Jozef De Kesel.; Unquote.
    If Francis sides with anti-Catholics then can someone kindly tell us just what that makes him!?!?!

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    Mark Robertson Marcel 3 hours ago

    Ah, anti-Catholic?

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    Richard Malcolm 9 hours ago

    There’s an interesting pattern at work in this campaign against religious orders and societies: They all seem to orbit in what we might call the conservative, Novus Ordo, spectrum of the Church. Liberalized orders, as you say, remain untouched; but also unscathed (so far) are the Ecclesia Dei orders, too. Consider:

    * Fraternity of the Holy Apostles (Belgium) – ROTR Novus Ordo Masses, known for wearing cassocks
    * Immaculate Word (Argentina) – missionary (N.O.) priests and religious brothers of either apostolic or contemplative life, conservative in morals, mainstream in liturgy
    * Dioceses of Ciudad del Este, Albenga-Imperia, and Kansas City – diocesan bishops known for more traditional formation with many vocations, all removed on various pretenses
    * Franciscans of the Immaculate – Franciscan orders, men and women’s, which had begun as conservative, Wojtylian communities under Congregation for Religious, but which had shown growing signs of attachment to traditional (“crypto-Lefebvrian”) liturgy, practices
    * Heralds of the Gospel – Eclectic, traditional leaning (O.F.) South American Association of Pontifical Right with explosive growth

    To this, we could add the repeated slapdowns of Cardinal Sarah in his various calls for more traditional practices in the Ordinary Form, and the new instruction on translations for the O.F., giving more discretion to local conferences in preparing translations.

    In some cases, scrutiny seems warranted to some degree – the Immaculate Word in particular stands out – and one thinks of the ominous precedent of the Legion of Christ, which so famously adopted traditional practices and airs and enjoyed explosive growth as a result but in fact proved to be dangerously cult-like, made toxic by a depraved founder. That said, none of these newer orders seems to be in the Legion’s realm, so far. The bishops of the three dioceses in question seem to have been a little sloppy in vocations screening, or in following proper procedures in handling abuse allegations (though if Robert Finn deserved removal for his offenses in the Ratigan case, one shudders to think what punishment Roger Mahoney, Godfried Daneels, and Rembert Weakland merit), and modest failures provided the excuse for pontifical obliteration. In other cases (the FFI and FHA), concerns seem meritless, and are pretty obviously motivated by theological animus.

    And yet, the Ecclesia Dei orders remain untouched so far. In fact, if anything, they’ve done pretty well over the last five years. Bishops not known for love of tradition (why, just last week, Chaput) have been inviting them in to erect apostolates; there’s even an indult now for the pre-1955 Holy Week, something unthinkable under Benedict or John Paul II. And as we all know, this papal benignity has even trickled down to the Society. Why is this? God knows there’s no love for these groups in SpadaroLand.

    Many peeps here assume the biggest trap is waiting to be sprung on them (and the SSPX). And at some point, that may indeed happen. But I think what is happening is a combination of two things: 1) Ecclesia Dei orders are not only canonically protected in their practice of tradition in a way other orders and communities (like the poor FFI) are not, they also tend to be much more vigilant in keeping their noses clean, not least because they know they can’t give the hierarchy any excuse to squash them; 2) groups and societies and prelates that function in the Novus Ordo are perceived as more of an immediate threat, because they can more easily affect how Catholics worship, live, and believe in a rite that governs 98%+ of Latin Rite Catholics. Trads, on the other hand, can be more readily tolerated (and sealed up) in their ghettos (the Diocese of Rockford over the past two years is a perfect case in point). It also does not hurt that the Ecclesia Dei groups have generally kept their heads down publicly in current controversies, as some who follow the Society like to remind us from time to time; but I think it’s also true that they know well that traditionalists would fight back like wildcats in a way these conservative groups have not. That’s a fight they may not be eager to take on just yet.

    None of this is meant to suggest that vigilance by traditionalists is not warranted. It is! But it’s quite interesting to see what the pattern of oppressive acts seems to say about what this pontificate views as most threatening to it – and most easily crushed – right now.

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    Remnant Moderator . Richard Malcolm 8 hours ago

    Interesting analysis. Thank you. But, then again, there are some longtime Vatican watchers who believe all of this is about the big prize—first gaining control of and then suppressing the single largest organization of priestly opposition to the revolution of Vatican II in the world: Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X. He changed history. He is now and always was the arch nemesis of the Modernist Vatican. The seduction or expulsion (the Vatican didn’t care which) of his SSPX is what Summorum Pontificum was all about, they argue; this is what the Indult was all about, this is what Ecclesia Dei was all about. If these turn out to have been more than mere wild conspiracy theories, then it stands to reason that any Vatican strong-arming the FSSP would be the kiss of death to their main agenda: Controlling the opposition. After all, the main argument in favor of a Vatican/SSPX rapprochement is this: “Look at the FSSP! They’re doing fine. They’re growing, many vocations, parishes springing up all over the place. Why not the SSPX?” If this theory turns out to be based in reality, then traditional Catholics should prepare to say au revoir to the FSSP just as soon as the Vatican says bienvenue to the SSPX. Everybody loses…except the Vatican.

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    mattheus 9 hours ago

    It’s almost getting to be like the time of the persecution in Ireland, when people were told the location of secret places to gather where mass would be celebrated. The good thing is that with the internet, it may be easy for stay in touch, communicate and share books and pdf missals. Even 3d-print statues. Back then we had to stay out of the way of the police, now we’re wise to stay quiet and out of the way of the official church.

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    BioFeed 9 hours ago

    Brussels is close to 40% Muslim and within a decade or so will be majority Muslim. Ironically, it is the seat of the EU. Once Muslims comprise 50% plus of the city’s population things will get interesting as their stance on family issues (gay and LGBT rights) is in sharp contrast to that of the EU.
    What can be done? The Western bishops have thrown in the towel so nothing will come from them. Could groups such as this change their affiliation within the Catholic Church from the Roman Rite to one of the Eastern Rites? That would protect them from Vatican/Roman/Francis interference. As the Catholic Church closes parishes throughout Europe, the Orthodox church is opening them. I assume there is a small but growing Eastern Rite presence in Europe and maybe in that lies a solution.

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    slyphnoyde BioFeed 4 hours ago

    Sorry, but I don’t think that some groups’ affiliating with eastern Catholic rites, if that is even possible, would protect them from Vatican/Roman/Francis interference. The eastern rites are also under the thumb of the Vatican. For example, whether Roman rite Catholics like it or not, eastern Christians have always ordained some married men to the priesthood. Yes, there have always been married true Catholic priests. However, when eastern Catholics migrated to North America and eastern rite bishops sent married priests to minister to them according to their own traditions, one of the popes (I forget which) imposed mandatory celibacy on eastern priests in NA, despite their ancient traditions and practices. (I think that was only recently lifted.) So it shows that the popes are willing to impose even on the eastern Catholic rites. The easterners are not really free. I don’t think that re-affiliation would gain much except a little breathing time, until another pope crunched down on them.

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    pamino 9 hours ago

    I rather think that if Menzingen made positive moves towards a “normalisation” of relations with this pope, a new Mgr Lefebvre would emerge.

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    Frankie 9 hours ago

    The SSPX will never come under the ‘fatherly’ (malign) influence of Bergoglio. Why fight all this time to give up now?

 

 

Michael Matt   has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper’s editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church and the modern world. He is the host of The Remnant Underground and Remnant TV’s The Remnant Forum. He’s been U.S. Coordinator for Notre Dame de Chrétienté in Paris–the organization responsible for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres, France–since 2000.  Mr. Matt has led the U.S. contingent on the Pilgrimage to Chartres for the last 24 years. He is a lecturer for the Roman Forum’s Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera, Italy. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll) and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to Catholic groups about the Mass, home-schooling, and the culture question. Together with his wife, Carol Lynn and their seven children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

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Zeno’s Papacy and the Sherlock Holmes Axiom

 

 

Unrepentant wicked souls, the pope is reported to have said, “do not go anywhere in punishment. Those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and go among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and therefore cannot be forgiven vanish. Hell does not exist, only the disappearance of sinful souls.”

The take-away message of the pope to the Catholic faithful the day before Good Friday? “So really, there was no point at all to that whole crucifixion/resurrection business. It was all just a rather sad waste… Redemptive suffering? Uniting your own suffering to that of Christ on the Cross? Redemption from what?”

As always, it was done in a way that provided sufficient cover, by again allowing the nonagenarian, radical atheist and notorious anti-Catholic Eugenio Scalfari to report the pope’s words “from memory”. The method allows barely enough plausible deniability to encourage the usual suspects to issue their (increasingly absurd) excuses; Austen Ivereigh and other professional Francis-apologists suggested again that this was the “merciful” Francis trying to convert Scalfari. These claims were bolstered with yet another hasty “non-denial” issued by the Vatican. The fact that the Vatican message-controllers failed completely to either assert that the pope didn’t say that, or that the pope believes what the Church believes about the existence of Hell and the immortality of the human soul, seemed not to deter them a bit.

As Antonio Socci observed, the methodology here, that appears to be Francis’ favourite game, is two-tracked: first, to issue “vague and theologically ambiguous” messages intended to be heard by the Catholic world, meticulously avoiding “explicit statements” while “little by little demolishing” Catholic doctrine; and second, to send signals to the secular world, the non-Catholic readers of the extreme-left La Repubblica, that the pope’s real position is one of fashionable, radical doubt on central issues of Catholic teaching. Socci asserts that this radical doubt is the substance of Francis’ “true ideas” and these messages are being issued in this way “in order to build up his ‘revolution’ and to have popularity among non-Catholics and the media.”

 

In other words, he’s hiding behind Eugenio Scalfari specifically because of Scalfari’s lack of credibility; because Scalfari is a life-long bitter anti-Catholic crusader; because he’s in his 90s; because he admitted he doesn’t take notes or make recordings. This is the cover that Francis is using to get his message out for those with ears to hear, all while remaining with his toes barely on this side of the “formal heresy” line, the line that he knows we are all waiting for him to cross.

Given the regularity with which the Catholic world has had to endure this monotonous exercise in two-step subversion since the first days of this pontificate, it is difficult to argue against Socci’s thesis without ignoring much of what we can observe with our own eyes. From what his former victims in Argentina have reported, this is the patented game, the Bergoglian Tango, that he has used from the earliest days of his ecclesiastical career. Jorge Bergoglio was and remains known mainly for his skill at manipulation and his eagerness to cause division, strife and chaos in order to consolidate his own power. A classic Peronist.

Among the questions remaining at this astonishing pass is how fine is he going to be able to cut the remaining infinitesimal distance between himself and a formal declaration of heresy? And, perhaps even more to the point this month, as Cardinals Burke and Brandmuller were speaking at a Rome conference on the “confusion in the Church” over doctrine whilst never once actually calling Francis out by name to demand that he declare and defend Catholic truth: who is going to hold him to it? Who, among these “good” bishops and cardinals is going to say to him, to his face, “Holy Father, you’re a heretic and you will lose the papal office if you do not recant immediately.”? Who of our hierarchy is going to have the guts to call it?

While these two cardinals, and Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Cardinal Zen by remote teleconferencing, are in Rome, where are the sitting bishops? All or nearly all of the bishops who have said anything thus far – as the Pope grows ever more bold, halving the distance again and again – are retired, having no see to govern, no seminarians to form. The ordinaries, the sitting bishops and archbishops are either hiding in studious silence or are currying the favour of this pope by ever-more open declarations opposing perennial Catholic doctrine.

I know we have been wondering all this time; how far are the “good bishops” going to let it go?

 

Of course, the now-normal fight over whether the pope “really said it” immediately broke out on social media, with precisely the same excuses being offered that we have seen trotted out for five years. I was told it was “common sense” that a pope would never say such things, and therefore “the media” were “blowing it out of proportion,” “taking him out of context,” “misquoting” and anyway – our old favourite – “it was probably a mistranslation.” With every one of these interview scandals being so much the same, both in what the pope says and the reaction to it, it can be difficult to keep track of it all, but someone I know dug around and made a count: this is the eighth time Francis has had one of these little “informal chats” with Eugenio Scalfari.

More than one Catholic news outlet asked the obvious question: “If, as the Vatican press office continues to insist, Scalfari either lies, misinterprets or otherwise misrepresents the Holy Father’s words in his ‘reconstructions’ of their conversations – and every single time causes a huge uproar in the Catholic world – why does Francis continue to go back to him?” The UK’s hapless Catholic Herald, still bravely trying to square the “conservative” circle, laments that this habit is causing “confusion” among the faithful.

Perhaps the Herald is doing that (aggravating) English thing of talking around the point in order to make it obvious. The point, of course, being that it is perfectly clear that Francis keeps going back to Scalfari specifically for the purpose of creating this confusion.

But how do we know this is the correct interpretation? How can we figure out what is really going on?

Easy; by eliminating everything that doesn’t fit.

There’s a technique in classical realist art called drawing the negative space. Drawing a portrait is among the most difficult tasks for an artist; everything, each feature, every curve and shadow has to be in absolutely perfect proportion and exactly accurate distances from each other in the complex system of a human face. The human eye is so well trained to recognise faces that even the tiniest inaccuracy in the placement of any element of the drawing will be spotted instantly. One of the tricks an artist will employ to place, for instance, the left eye exactly correctly in relation to the right eye, is to draw around it. My instructor called this “sneaking up on it”. If you are struggling to get the placement of the feature right, draw everything on the face that isn’t the left eye. Once you’ve done everything else with perfect accuracy, the only space left will be the precisely correct spot for the eye.

This idea, of identifying everything around a problem, was articulated by Arthur Conan Doyle who put it in the form of a logical axiom that was the operating system of his great investigator, Sherlock Holmes; “Once you have eliminated everything that is impossible, whatever is left, however improbable it may be, must be the truth.” In some idealised reality, in a parallel universe in which, say, Scola was elected pope in 2013, it might very well have been “common sense” that a pope would never deny a dogmatically defined, de fide, portion of the Catholic faith. But since we are living in this universe, and we have this puzzle to examine, let’s do it rationally.

What Austen Ivereigh and his pals want us to do is to take every artefact produced by the Great Bergoglian Scandal Generator as a singular object without context. They want us only to look at the left eye, by itself, without reference to its position in the rest of the face. When he tells Eugenio Scalfari that there is no hell, this is to be examined in a kind of hermetically sealed mental “clean room,” where it will be examined exclusively on its own merits, with no reference to all the other times he has said this or something similar.

They want us to not remember that Bergoglio has said exactly this and other scandalous things to Scalfari, and not once but several times. They want us not to think about the fact that in every case, he has never once issued a clear, unequivocal statement that Scalfari’s claim was not true. They want us to ignore the fact that something very similar to this was inserted into the text of Amoris Laetitia – again with just enough of an ambiguous twist to provide a diaphanous veil of increasingly implausible deniability: “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves.”

With each rotten bloom of scandal, we are expected to look only at this instance, and ignore the full context of all that we have learned in the last five years[1]. We are supposed to forget that Bergoglio’s longstanding habits have been reported by the Argentinians he worked with in the past and these reports are completely congruent with what we are seeing today. And we have ourselves heard and read the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times he has “accidentally” misquoted Scripture, endorsed homosexual activists, gender ideologues and abortionists, insulted faithful Catholics, lay and clerical; said that atheists can be redeemed through good works, said that Christ and His Blessed Mother were guilty of sins…

After five years of this constant stream of scandal, error, heresy, blasphemy and outright blatant lies, are we now really expected to believe that Francis didn’t tell Eugenio Scalfari what Scalfari said he did? It’s true that we don’t have a recording of the conversation, and yes, it’s true that Scalfari is an elderly communist and hater of the Church. But these are the only bits of negative space left in the drawing, and all that surrounds them pretty clearly tells us exactly what we’re looking at.

 

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    Paul Bev. 7 hours ago

    As one commentator (Laura Y.) already beat me to the well known verse, “You will know them by their fruits,” I would add that you will know where there are fruit flies there is rotting fruit.

 

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    Evangeline1031 7 hours ago

    So well done Hillary. It seems similar in some way to inhabitants of Europe and the entire West, who seem to have no idea whatsoever that allowing Islam to take over would cause any inconvenience, let alone destruction of their own culture and system of law. It’s as if history never provided a trail for them to sort out what is going on, or what is likely to happen in the future.
    We still have many odd defenders, in their own way, although I’m sure they would not want to see themselves that way. Go to some well known trad-Catholic blog sites and say the pope is a heretic. Your comment may not make it past the gate. At some point reality has to be stated, and faced.

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    louiseyvette 9 hours ago

    Today I’m laughing, not crying. The whole thing is so absurd, it’s quite funny (sometimes).

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    Mornac 10 hours ago

    Perhaps it is because I am an American that I tend to look at too many things with a litigious eye, but I am rather surprised that no one else has publicly entertained this idea. It seems to me that there must be some group (preferably in Italy and something on the order of a Catholic anti-defamation organization) that has legal standing to sue La Repubblica for libeling the Pope and thereby slandering the Church. The consequence of this should be that Scalfari either admits that the Pope never said anything substantially similar to what he claims, or that he stands by his characterization of the Pope’s words in which case Francis would be forced to make a pubic statement about the facts of the incident. Perhaps Chris Ferrara has some insight as to the plausibility of this.

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    Chris Garton-Zavesky 11 hours ago

    Hilary White raises a fascinating point about context. May I restate it this way: It’s true that the media wishes to misrepresent the Church, and it’s true that it will therefore misreport or mistranslate or whatever…. but when His Holiness isn’t giving an airline press conference, but instead writing an Apostolic Exhortation which HIS OWN OFFICE OF TRANSLATORS renders in a way which leads to confusion, not once but multiple times, either this is gross incompetence or deliberate malfeasance.
    Did I get that right?

 

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      Laura Y. 13 hours ago

      “You will know them by their fruits,” says Jesus Christ. Time and time again, through His actions and teachings, Jesus threw people into a tizzy. They could not believe what they were witnessing and all wondered just what manner of man He was. He touched the unclean, healed the sick on the Sabbath, allowed a harlot to anoint His feet with her tears, invited Himself to dine with wanton sinners, and challenged the holders of the Law, saving His harshest criticism for them . Francis has done much the same during his pontificate and so it would seem, on the surface, that he is following the Way of Jesus. Francis, like Jesus, is causing much division. There is much talk about Francis, whisperings and murmurings about what he has said and done. Some might say he is being calumniated like our Lord. All of this paints a very favorable picture of Francis to the unwitting. There is a key difference, however . Jesus tells us that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it and He actually takes the Law and ups the ante as opposed to relaxing it, clearly illustrated in the Sermon on the Mount. Francis, while he may – and I say may – be making some valid statements about the less than perfect behavior and attitudes of the faithful, he is doing just the opposite. He is relaxing the Law, reducing it to an ideal as opposed to the God-given truth, thereby preaching a false mercy. Without the Law, there is no need for mercy, there is no need for salvation, there is no Hell and Jesus is relegated to the ranks of Buddha and Confuscious – another wise man of old. What Francis is offering us is half, not whole, truth and we see this when we view his papacy as a whole and not in individual moments, as is illustrated here in this article. Isn’t that what The Enemy does? As the Francis papacy continues, I am seeing more and more the Hand of God, for the faithful are truly being tested by Jesus Who asks each one of us, “Who do you say that I am?” How will you, how will I, respond? Our response will be known by our fruits.

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      Tom A. 16 hours ago

      If the “good bishops and cardinals” have not moved against Bergolio after he halved the first heretical yardage, they will not move against him when he halves the next. Like football they will just move the chains and draw another line in the sand, proclaiming this and no farther. But of course, when Bergolio crosses their next line, they will simply shift the goal posts one more time.

     

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      Traditionalist Tom A. 12 hours ago

      Reminds me of Looney Tunes where Bugs Bunny keeps drawing a new line in the sand and Yosemite Sam keeps crossing over and over until he falls off a cliff. In a way, Pope Francis is Bugs Bunny, he keeps drawing a new line and the bishops keep following him over it until they fall off the cliff.

     

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      mary_podlesak a day ago

      Maybe I missed the memo, but I haven’t heard Francis I’s reaction to the bombing of Syria by the US, Great Britain and France. The alleged chemical attack on Douma has not been definitively corroborated, which makes the bombing of innocent people a violation of the Just War theory. Francis I has an awful lot to say about Hell, Divorce, immigrants, etc. in violation of traditional Catholic doctrine. I can’t imagine a more humanitarian Christian Catholic position than to come out in opposition to the indescriminate bombing of civilians. Maybe that is why he hasn’t said anything yet. It doesn’t fit in with his agenda.

     

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      Evangeline1031 mary_podlesak 7 hours ago

      We did not conduct “indiscriminate bombing of civilians”. I admit I don’t know much about this situation, but President Trump must be convinced about who did it, and I am sure the photos of dead or dying children being gassed impacted his decision. This is a man who cares deeply about children.

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      ArthurMcGowan mary_podlesak 8 hours ago

      What evidence can you cite that Trump has engaged in “indiscriminate bombing of civilians,” or any civilians?

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      mattheus a day ago

      The truth is evident that NONE of the Ecclesiastical bigwigs wants to deal with this mess of an ignorant, errant pope. Any serious confrontation would just show that there’s no agreement on basic theology any more, and also show how deep the damage of sixty years of un-resisted modernism has gone. When the pope has even mocked the Rosary as empty Pelagian prayer-counting, you know we’re well into the Vatican II twilight zone. We just have to endure Francis as long as he lasts, hoping that he won’t be allowed to rock our rickety boat to the point that even the current crop of Cardinals fear for their livelihood.

     

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      slyphnoyde mattheus 7 hours ago

      Has Pope Francis mocked the Rosary as empty Pelagian prayer-counting? I’m not saying whether he has or has not; I’m just unaware of his having said so. What is the source or basis for the claim of such an action?

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      slyphnoyde GeorgeT 5 hours ago

      Thanks for the link. The link itself indicated that the text was not an official transcript, but it seems in keeping with other things I have read. Even as one who is now outside the Catholic church, I can say that the more I read, the more it is obvious how much Francis leaves behind century upon century of traditional teaching. Any fair outsider can realize that. It’s as if traditional teaching has been wrong clear back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers and now, all these centuries later, he Francis suddenly has it right! Bah, humbug!

     

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      Lio Perron a day ago

      Hilary’s clarity prevents us from giving the current Pope the benefit of the doubt. Penance, sacrifice and sanctity have lost their meaning under Bergoglio. It’s all about mercy, accompaniment and “pastoral care” for those who refuse to change their ways. He acts like a vulgar street performer desperate for attention from the secular media, but there’s great cunning behind everything he says and does to undermine his predecessors. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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      Mike O’Malley a day ago

      Lawyers try to match the facts of a case to all the elements of an offense to determine if it can be proved. The definition of a formal heretic is of a professed Catholic believer who pertinaciously persists in error after corrections. Does Pope Francis already match all those elements of the definition? I would say Yes, he has already crossed the line of formal heresy in many of his words and actions. No infinitesimal halving of the last distance left. The portrait is complete.

     

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      MKDAWUSS Mike O’Malley a day ago

      But do We The Laity have the authority to declare Pope Francis a heretic? As far as I know, we don’t. I can call Pope Francis a number of things (which I do), but I stop short of calling His Holiness a heretic as that has religious applications and connotations which are beyond my religious authority.

     

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      mattheus MKDAWUSS a day ago

      To “declare” him a heretic is of course “ultra vires” – beyond our legal capacity in the Church hierarchy. But to “call” him a heretic, if we list his heresies with a bit of logical backing, is our right.

     

     

     

    Our Italy correspondent is known throughout the English-speaking world as a champion of family and cultural issues.

    First introduced by our allies and friends at the incomparable LifeSiteNews.com, Miss While lives in Norcia, Italy.

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    Syrian Christian Leaders Condemn Missile Strike

     

     

     

    4) The timing of this unjustified aggression against Syria, when the independent International Commission for Inquiry was about to start its work in Syria, undermines of the work of this commission.

    5) This brutal aggression destroys the chances for a peaceful political solution and leads to escalation and more complications.

    6) This unjust aggression encourages the terrorist organizations and gives them momentum to continue in their terrorism.

    7) We call upon the Security Council of the United Nations to play its natural role in bringing peace rather than contribute to escalation of wars.

    8) We call upon all churches in the countries that participated in the aggression, to fulfill their Christian duties, according to the teachings of the Gospel, and condemn this aggression and to call their governments to commit to the protection of international peace.

    9) We salute the courage, heroism and sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army which courageously protects Syria and provide security for its people. We pray for the souls of the martyrs and the recovery of the wounded. We are confident that the army will not bow before the external or internal terrorist aggressions; they will continue to fight courageously against terrorism until every inch of the Syrian land is cleansed from terrorism. We, likewise, commend the brave stand of countries which are friendly to the Syria and its people.

    COMMENT: This statement was issued by the Patriarchates of Antioch and all the East for the Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and Greek-Melkite Catholic, released in Damascus on April 14, 2018. Presumably, these Christians on the ground know a bit more about what actually happened there than does Anderson Cooper.

    Even if President al-Assad had “gassed his own people” — which is laughable on its face — this is still not a crime for America to adjudicate, prosecute and penalize. There are state-sponsored atrocities going on all over the world, with death tolls that dwarf the supposed number of victims in this case. And yet we don’t bomb those countries.

    Take China, for instance.  Why isn’t CNN broadcasting heart-breaking images of the dead baby Chinese girls that result from China’s mandatory two-child policy, so that we can get behind some missile strikes on that country?

    Ah, but that country can fight back. Besides, Israel doesn’t have a pressing need for China to be wiped off the face of the earth.

    Right, so let’s get back to the show: President al-Assad gassed his own people, and we righteous Americans cannot—WILL not—sit by and let babies die in Syria, dammit! Sure, we wipe out millions of the little people here at home. But that’s different. For one thing, that’s legal, whereas chemical weapons are illegal. If you’re going to kill babies you gotta make sure it’s LEGAL!

    If this insanity isn’t checked, the embattled President Trump can forget about whatever re-election bid he may have in mind. He has few friends in the Swamp as it is, and even fewer supporters. If he loses his base by becoming a neocon puppet like George Bush, he loses everything.

    Donald Trump is a man accustomed to getting his way. I honestly believe he doesn’t know how to handle the bullies standing in his way right now, i.e., the deep state, CNN, RINOs. He’s never been bullied before, and, quite frankly, he’s not good at it—thus the reactionary tweets.

     

    They’re breaking him down.

    More and more we see the President with his arms crossed awkwardly over his chest, a dead-giveaway sign of defensiveness and isolation. Understandably, Trump is a man on the ropes. But taking refuge in the arms of neo-cons isn’t the answer. He won the presidency precisely by opposing them. And if he goes down that road now, he’s a one-termer.

    On the other hand, Trump’s heart was not in the strikes on Syria. Only days before, he’d announced he would be pulling U.S. troops out of Syria. But that was before al-Assad had—a-hem—gassed his own people…maybe that’s WHY al-Assad “gassed his own people.”  RED ALERT: Trump’s about to make a serious America First move. Cue video of suffering babies. Get CNN on the line!

    Who knows.

    But Trump’s retaliation against Syria was first delayed and then done in a manner that satisfied no one. The surgical strikes on alleged “chemical weapons plants” — so careful to avoid civilian and Russian targets — were nowhere near enough for the hawks and way too much for the doves. So what was accomplished here? A token bombing to keep us in Syria, please Israel and alienate Russia. Mission accomplished. Dog wagged.

    Mr. President, enough already. Stick to your guns—the American-made ones—and bring our troops home!

    Published in   Headline News Around the World

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      Remnant Moderator . Mark 3 hours ago

      Would you consider us a newspaper of integrity if we demonstrated a willingness to defend that which is wrong, merely because we happen to like the guy who did it? When he makes a serious mistake like this, pushback from those who supported Trump goes a lot farther than that from those who did not.

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      Camille 4 hours ago

      I appreciate Matt’s commentary. Good food for thought.

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      Hilary White 5 hours ago

      And after this one term? What then. Hillary is unelectable. It’s like wondering where do we go from Francis.

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      Remnant Moderator . Hilary White 5 hours ago

      The parallels are sobering.

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      Johnno 6 hours ago

      We’ve got more information out now about what was going on.

      It seems that the missile attacks were themselves a face-saving measure.

      Strikes were coordinated with Russia. Hit buildings that were largely abandoned. 3/4 of the missiles were intercepted. Not Russian, Iranian or Hezbollah facilities were targeted.

      Of the facilities destroyed, there were no reports of any gas or anything leaking out (naturally because obviously there weren’t any). But it seems one chemical plant, producing treatments for cancer, was destroyed, especially bad considering that sanctions prevent medicine from coming into Syria.

      Like the previous missile attack, this one was a big load of nothing burgers, a waste of US taxpayer expense, and simply a show-boat piece of political theater.

      Trump is caught in a vice.

      If Trump does not bomb Syria, the lefties and neo-cons will call him a Russian agent.

      If Trump does break all manner of US and international law to bomb Syria, the democrats and neo-cons can use this as grounds to impeach him. Something that never occurred to them back when Barry Obama was doing likewise. But that was then, this is now.

      Either way, it’s a win-win situation for the American Deep State. The close-to-retirement Pentagon chiefs don’t have to be at the helm of a world war, and can also likewise beg for more military spending because of the ‘threat’ of Russia and Assad. The Syrians are set back and the U.S. has bought more time for its little Al Qeada forces of rebel fighters on the ground. Given the action of the UN, the US can remain confident that nobody will dare to condemn its actions, and the crazed Nikki Hayley can continue to return there and abuse the lot of them. Russia’s supposed ‘non-response’ will be painted in the media as them having no balls to follow through, even though in reality this missile strike was coordinated between the U.S. and Russia (likely via France) to do the most minimal damage, leave Russian forces untouched, and buy some more time for Planet Earth while the Americans wave another ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner.

      We should be sure to send Vladimir Putin thank-you cards for helping the US and UK save face a little after their failed attempts at fake chemical attacks and falsely blame it on Russia and Syria.

      Yet somehow I think despite Trump’s missile fireworks and the mainstream news saying impressive things about the US destroying Assad’s supposed chemical weapons, we will expect again more claims of Assad chemical weapon attacks and that Trump is still a Russian agent for a long time to come from the same stooges.

      I suppose we can predict the US will try another attempt to escalate things when the World Cup rolls around and Putin is distracted with football season.

      see more

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      goatally_ewesome Johnno 2 hours ago

      I must admit I did wonder how they managed to bomb a chemical weapons stash without releasing vast amounts of lethal chemicals into the air and doing more harm than good.

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      SJ Green 6 hours ago

      Something else worth noting. For Christians who are on the Julian Calendar (I’m not sure which one the Greek-Melkite Catholics follow), last weekend was the start of Easter (RT network covered Orthodox divine liturgy for Holy Saturday in Moscow, where President Putin was in attendance). It’s well known that the Syrian Christian community supports President Assad, and if this chemical attack was indeed ordered by him, then the timing could not have been worse – sacrilege on top of mass murder. And yet we heard nothing coming from that direction denouncing his actions at all, which leads me to believe that it didn’t happen, at least not the way it’s being presented. It’s a false flag being used to goad the US and her western allies into war.

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      Margaret SJ Green 2 hours ago

      Remnant moderator: This post contains a link. Please approve. Thank you!

      Totally agree with you. Didn’t we go through the same spiel when the media was hyperventilating about Saddam Hussein in 2003? The U.S. got rid of him and then we sent thousands of soldiers (many who were wounded or killed) and spent billions in dollars in “peacekeeping efforts”.

      Are we going to fall for the same lies all over again???

      Sorry, I just had to vent – nothing personal.

      On another note, the Melkite Greek Catholics in the U.S. follow the Gregorian calendar:

      https://melkite.org

      Click on “Death Could Not Hold Him”.

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      goatally_ewesome Margaret an hour ago

      Yep! Do they really never learn? Or are they just pulling the same fast one all over again…and expect us to believe it? I don’t know what happened there with the gassed people story…I wasn’t there…something seems to have happened….but I was there during Saddam’s time…and yes, some things happened…but an awful lot of it wasn’t the way it was portrayed in the West. And as the article points out, there’s a whole load of selective indignation going on, irrespective of what actually happened. I was never exactly a Trump fan…but I did think he was a step in the right direction in some ways…but now it just seems like plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose. It’s the same – if not worse – here in the UK. It seems like the politicians and parties don’t really mean anything any more…they all just seem to be puppets of some agenda that is bigger than all of them. The thing that was really a breath of fresh air with Trump, whether you like everything he did or not, was that he seemed to do what he believed in and not give a monkey’s what anyone thought. He seemed prepared to swim against the tide. I am disappointed in him. So where do you Americans go from here? I guess the same way we here in the UK have gone…from worse to worser. We thought we got rid of Blair….same old same old.

     

     

    Michael Matt  has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper’s editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church and the modern world. He is the host of The Remnant Underground and Remnant TV’s The Remnant Forum. He’s been U.S. Coordinator for Notre Dame de Chrétienté in Paris–the organization responsible for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres, France–since 2000.  Mr. Matt has led the U.S. contingent on the Pilgrimage to Chartres for the last 24 years. He is a lecturer for the Roman Forum’s Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera, Italy. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll) and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to Catholic groups about the Mass, home-schooling, and the culture question. Together with his wife, Carol Lynn and their seven children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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    Invade Syria? Please, Mr. Trump, Don’t Feed the Hawks!

     

    Written by 

     

    Please, God… not again!

     

     

     

    Join the discussion…

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      Traditionalist 3 hours ago

      I’m hoping that Trump is just playing the deep state/war hawks and doesn’t do anything stupid. If anything, Russia should be one of our greatest allies, not our enemy.

     

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      jola szymanska 6 hours ago

      Play stupid games, win stupid prizes !

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      Camille 10 hours ago

      Good for Tucker.

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      Christopher Mayerle 11 hours ago

      The track record of Western powers in the Middle East should give any ruler pause. Trump argues that Iraq was a huge mistake but he’s willing to get involved in a similar situation that has even less bearing on the United States and which has the very real possibility of expanding the conflict to our ostensible allies like Egypt and Turkey (although they are allies in name only), not to mention drawing Russia into it deeper.

      If our country can’t learn from Iraq, what will it take?

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      Suriani 11 hours ago

      Western ‘initiatives’ in the Near East have accomplished what Islam in centuries failed to do, decimate the ancient Christian communities.
      The Russians, historically, have attempted to protect them.
      Why do people with supposed professed Christian beliefs eg Bush, Blair inter alia, cause such misery and destruction?
      It is totemic of this tendency that the atombomb that destroyed Nagasaki exploded above the Catholic cathedral.

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      Robert Dahl 14 hours ago

      Which unnamed Mideast “trouble-maker” may be involved in gas attacks in Syria? The repeated occurrence of these gas attacks raises the suspicion that supposed Syrian guilt may be a contrived case of an “agent-provocateur”?—so useful in stirring up excuses for American and Israeli military involvement, in pursuit of Zionist domination of the Mideast?—and with Russia also in the mix? Syria and Russia have stocks of gas-weaponry? Yes, and so does the USA, and Israel too, possess gas-weaponry (along with Atomic weapons)—which Israel steadfastly refuses any international inspection—the regular inspection required of all other nations? This continual anti-Syrian propaganda, seems a cover-up of real evidence, with use of “fake news”?

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      Jerry 14 hours ago

      Recipe for catastrophe:

      One ignorant, blustering President whose governance of the country consists of ridiculous Tweets.

      One vast collection of corrupt elites possessed of a rabid hatred of the ignorant President — though their own collective failure of leadership and character led directly to his election in the first place.

      One lunatic conspiracy theory, stoked fanatically by the corrupt elites, that the election of the ignorant President was due to the machinations of a nuclear-armed foreign power, a country suddenly transformed into the locus of all evil in the universe.

      One manufactured international crisis with the corrupt elites taunting and manipulating the ignorant President into an insane military confrontation with the nuclear-armed foreign power.

      Mix ingredients well.

      Set nuclear oven to 30,000 degrees and leave town immediately.

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      DMill 15 hours ago

      We are already fighting everywhere, and winning nowhere. Syria contains all the necessary tinder to set the world ablaze. Mr. President, do you really want to strike that match?

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      alcogli a day ago

      Of course, all the wars of the past 20 years have been prosecuted by the neocons in the interests of their First Loyalty, which is not the US — to the point of fabricating false flag attacks to scare and galvanize a gullible populace into supporting the madly destructive agenda of a supposed ally that exploits our military for its own ends and is thus really Enemy Number One.

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      Augustine7 a day ago

      The Neo-Cons, Globalists and Christian Zionists, while being strange bedfellows, make a formidable triumvirate. The United States, Israel, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia seem to be forming an alliance against Russia, Syria and Iran with China looming quietly in the background. I’m not normally an alarmist but the signs of the times (Including The Fatima Messages) certainly appear apocalyptic.

      Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

      Virgin Most Powerful, wrap us under the protection of thy Heavenly Mantle.

      Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

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      Michael Leggett a day ago

      WHY do I have the sick feeling that the Moussad in Israel is involved in this? Commentary Magazine is part of the Amen Corner for Israel.

     

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      Henry Ptak Michael Leggett 14 hours ago

      Amen to that – and why do I have the sicker feeling that Mr. Trump is either incapable (or unwilling) to figure that out? Assad gains nothing from what he’s being accused of, so who else does?
      May Our Lord and Our Lady have mercy upon our country.

     

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      Chris F. Michael Leggett 14 hours ago

      Respectfully; plausible at best understanding Isreal hates Syria vice-versa. I hate the thought of another “Big Whore” Global spun media sources driving U.S. involvement into another propaganda fueled war. Russia and China are pushing the West like a moth to a flame into an all out staged WWIII. Is Mr. Trump really buying all this strictly on the basis of a military humanitarian response to really gain nothing at all in the end but bloodshed? The stench of tyranny wreaks havoc everywhere with governmental children playing with matches boasting who’s king of the hill. Good Grief.

     

     

    Michael Matt has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper’s editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church and the modern world. He is the host of The Remnant Underground and Remnant TV’s The Remnant Forum. He’s been U.S. Coordinator for Notre Dame de Chrétienté in Paris–the organization responsible for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres, France–since 2000.  Mr. Matt has led the U.S. contingent on the Pilgrimage to Chartres for the last 24 years. He is a lecturer for the Roman Forum’s Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera, Italy. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll) and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to Catholic groups about the Mass, home-schooling, and the culture question. Together with his wife, Carol Lynn and their seven children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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    Sermon on the Last Judgment–Sheep and Goats

    Sermon on the Last Judgment–Sheep and Goats

    by St. Vincent Ferrer O.P.


    “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand.” –Matthew 25:33


    32 And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats:
    33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.
    34 Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
    35 For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in:
    36 Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me.


    For the explanation of this text, approaching the material to be preached, you should know, that Christ speaking of his coming for judgment said, “And when the Son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.” (Mt 25:31-33). Note, “in majesty,” for in his first coming, to accomplish the redemption, he did not come in majesty, but in humility and poverty. But in the second coming when he will come for rendering repayment, he will not come in humility and poverty but in such majesty and power that the whole world will tremble.
    You know how? Note by a comparison to a tree with birds, many birds singing and flitting about [saltantes]. But when the falcon comes, they tremble and are frightened. So this world is like the tree bearing wicked fruits, of vanities, of pomp and delights, and some wish to fill their lap or stuff their mouth, and some search everywhere for these mundane things. In this tree all creatures, like the birds, are playing, like the Sun, and Moon and Planets; their motions and eclipses, etc. Also the elements. Sometimes the earth produces herbs, plants, flowers and fruits, and at another time lets them all go, in autumn. Water sometimes flows etc, sometimes not. The same of air. So now the birds in truth sing [in vere cantant], and mate [faciunt matrimonium] , for each wants his own, so that all creatures seem to be playing. But when the falcon comes and circles, the great eagle, the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole world shall fear. For the Sun shall stand still in the East, and the Moon in the West, so that they will not move themselves, nor also the stars, and all the mountains will melt etc. For this reason the church in the person of an individual Christian prays, “Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death,”(from the Requiem Mass). If therefore the heaven and earth and other sinless creatures which have never violated the precept of God should fear, what shall you do, who sin often, how many oaths, how many corrupt deeds have you done etc. Then the sinners would prefer to be in hell than to face the angry judge. So Job says in the person of the sinner, “Who will grant me this, that you may protect me in hell, and hide me till your wrath passes,” (Job 14:13). Then they shall say “to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,” (Rev 6:16).
    But those of good life, who in this world lived according to divine commands, and not according to their own inclinations, then they shall not fear, but they shall rejoice saying, “Lord I have desired this day; I now shall be glorified in body and soul,” and so they say, “Glory to thee O Lord,” etc., therefore Christ said, “But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads,” Gloss: rejoice in your hearts, “because your redemption is at hand,” (Lk 21:28).
    Second, he says, “then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty,” (Mt 25:31), because a judge passes sentence sitting. So he, as the universal judge of all shall sit in judgment, not on the earth, but in the air, so he may be seen by all. The wicked shall see his humanity, the good, however, the humanity and divinity. And the Virgin Mary shall sit with him, and the apostles, and all those who held to the apostolic life. Authority: “Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” (Mt 19:27-28). O how much should we strive to obtain this honor. Also, “all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left,” (vv 32-33). Thus the theme [text] is clear.
    And I am in the moral material, therefore on that day only the sheep shall be on his right hand, when he says, “And he shall set,” etc. Therefore, on that day it will be better to be a sheep of Jesus Christ that to have been a pope, or king, or emperor. Now, I see in sacred scripture that a man becomes and is revealed to be a sheep of Jesus Christ from five virtues, even if he had been the devil’s goat before, namely by: Simple innocence, Ample mercy, Steadfast patience, True Obedience, Worthy Penance.

    SIMPLE INNOCENCE

    First, the first virtue is when a man lives simply, nor hurts anyone in his heart, by hating, nor by defaming in speech, nor striking with hands, nor by stealing, and so such a life is called simple innocence, which makes a man a sheep of Christ. Reason: For just as a sheep does not strike with horns like a bull, nor bite with its teeth like a wolf, nor strike with hooves like a horse, but lives simply, so also if you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you should strike no one with horns of knowledge or of power, for lawyers strike by the horns of knowledge, jurists, advocates, or men who have great knowledge. Merchants too, by deceiving others. Lords and bullies strike with the horns of power, plundering or injuring, and extorting, using calumnies and threats, and the like. Listen to what the Lord says by the mouth of David, “And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted,” (Ps 74:11).
    Also you should not bite with teeth as wolves do. By defaming you bite the reputation of your neighbor, by saying such and such happened. To defame someone is nothing else but to bite. Therefore, defamers are not the sheep of Christ, but wolves of hell. So the Apostle [Paul], “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another; take heed you be not consumed one of another,” (Gal 5:14-15). Note the difference between biting and devouring, because to bite is to take a chunk, to devour is to swallow it all. They bite, who on one hand praise a man or woman, and on the other defame them by saying: “Do you know something. O, he is a good man and a good woman, but he has this defect.” See, a bite out of his reputation. They devour when they say nothing good praising someone, but only the bad. See why the Apostle says, “If you bite…”
    Also, you should not kick with your feet like horses. For they kick with their feet when they despise someone. Therefore children, do not hate your parents; nor parents, children; nor young people, old folks; nor the healthy, the sick; nor rich, the poor; nor masters, their servants; nor prelates, their clergy; and vice versa, but like sheep, everyone should bear themselves innocently toward all. So Christ said, “See that you despise not one of these little ones,” (Mt 18:10). It is clear, then what is simple innocence. Innocent, as if not-harming.[non nocens], for such shall be the sheep of Jesus Christ, and they shall be on his right hand with the angels of God.
    Note here the story of David who although he had been the most holy, nevertheless sinned in counting the people, on account of which God sent a plague on the people, so that in three days seventy thousand men had died, twenty years old and up, besides the women and children, who were about the same number. David seeing the people dying, in whom he was punished, was more willing to die himself said, “It is I; I am he who has sinned, I have done wickedly: these that are the sheep, what have they done? let your hand, I beg you, be turned against me, and against my father’s house,” (2Kg 24:17). Behold, here is simple innocence!

    AMPLE MERCY

    The second virtue, ample mercy, is when goods, both temporal and spiritual given to you by God, are given out and distributed to the needy. This is how one becomes a sheep of Christ. Reason: Because among all the animals a sheep is the most beneficial of animals. For the sheep by growing wool, shows us mercy and benefits of mercy, because how many poor people does a sheep clothe? For none of us would have been clothed in wool unless the sheep had given it to us. Also it gives us milk, and lambs to eat, etc. Therefore if you wish to be likened to it, you shall be the sheep of Christ, by giving wool, i.e. external and temporal goods, bread and wine, money and clothes and the like. If you have poor in your town or village, give them this “wool.” Second, by giving “milk,” that is, interior and spiritual goods, by giving good teaching to the ignorant, as I am giving to you now. If you have the milk of knowledge, of devotion, or of eloquence, you should give to those not having them. Remember the story of the gospel, for he says, “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; …Naked, and you covered me,” (Mt 25:35-36). Note also in the legend of St. Martin we read that once, on the road, wondering at a sheared sheep, the disciples questioned, “Father, why are you amazed?” Replying, he said: “This sheep fulfilled the precept of the gospel which says, ‘He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do in like manner,'” (Lk 3:11).

    STEADFAST PATIENCE

    The third virtue is steadfast patience, and this when a man suffering from injuries inflicted or spoken to him does not want to concern himself with taking revenge. Rather he loves everyone in general, and prays for them all. This virtue makes a man a sheep of Christ. Reason: Because a sheep is a most patient animal, for if harassed while eating, or if struck, it does not defend itself, but goes elsewhere, nor does it avenge itself like a dog or a goat would do, but humbly yields. O blessed is the person, man or woman, who has such patience, and takes no vengeance for injuries, but forgives, as God forgives him. Therefore the Apostle Paul writes: “If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Defend not yourselves,” the Gloss has “revenge not…,” “my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink,” (Rom 12:18-20), like a sheep. Note: “Revenge is mine.” And so a man ought not to usurp the rights of God, otherwise etc.
    Temporal lords and judges can inflict and ought to inflict juridical vengeance with due process, because justice is enforced without sin. Also the remission of injuries is meritorious. For the patient ones are likened to Christ, about which Isaiah 53 said: “He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth,” (v. 7). So the apostle [Peter], “you should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not,” (1 Peter 2:21-23).

    TRUE OBEDIENCE

    The fourth virtue is true obedience, when a man in his life does not do anything neither in thinking, nor speaking, nor acting according to his own will and inclination but according to the divine will and ordination, such a one is a sheep of Christ. Reason: For already you see how sheep are obedient to the shepherd. For a boy or girl with a small staff can easily guide thirty or forty sheep; it is otherwise with goats or kids, because a shepherd is needed for each one. If therefore on the day of judgment you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you will be obedient to the shepherd, namely to him who said: “I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me,” (Jn 10:14).
    Let us see now, what this shepherd commanded. First that we live humbly. Matthew 11: “learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart,” (Mt 11:29). “Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God,” (1 Pt 5:6), namely of your shepherd etc. Whoever therefore wishes to go by the path of pride, is not a sheep of Christ but a goat of the devil.
    Second, that in giving we take the way of mercy and generosity. “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful,” (Lk 6:36). Also by lending, in the same citation,: “Lend, hoping for nothing thereby: and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest; for he is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil,” (Lk 6:35). Therefore whoever disobediently goes by the way of avarice by committing usury, robbery, theft etc, is not a sheep of Christ, but a goat of the devil.
    Third, that we walk by the way of cleanness, of chastity etc. Matt. 19: ” [There are those ] who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it.” (Mt 19:12). And 1 Thess 4: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification;…That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification,” (vv. 3-4). Whoever therefore goes by the way of uncleanness and the filthiness of lust and carnality, such is not a sheep of Christ but a goat of the devil, to whom Christ said, “But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice:” obediently, “…and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting,” (Jn 10:26-28).

    WORTHY PENANCE

    The fifth virtue is worthy penance, for sins committed. Because no one can be exempt from sins. And so it is said: “For there is no just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not,” (Eccl 7:21). Therefore worthy penance is necessary, by sorrowing for sins and proposing not to relapse, confessing, and making satisfaction. And in this way penance makes a man a sheep of Christ. Reason: For a sheep and goat differ. Because a sheep covers its private parts with a tail, but not so a goat. Rather it shows everything. Now you know who is a sheep and who a goat. All– how many we are – have “private parts” of sins, which, although they are not now apparent, nevertheless on the day of judgment all evils and sins will be out in the open. Just as the enormous sins of those who are condemned are made evident, and placed on the scale with the parchment, on the face of which the sins are pictured. O how many hidden evils the dish reveals. Many men and women who now are believed to be good people, who, when they are then seen, it will be said, “Who is he? and “Is not he the one so religious?” O for the hypocrite traitor. Same for clergy, laity and women. But if the private parts of sins are covered here with the tail of penance, then they will not be revealed to your confusion, nor to your shame.
    And note here the example of the squire who confessed in a stable who covers his sins with confession, you understand with the tail of penance. For thus he covers sin, so the devil will not remember. And it is no wonder then if they are forgotten by the devil, because they are also forgotten by God. Authority: “But if the wicked does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, and does judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done,” (Ez 18:21-22). So David says in Psalm 31: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered,” (Ps 31:1), namely, by the tail of penance.
    A goat, however, which shows all, stands for the notoriously shameless person, because everyone knows his wicked life and sins, like wicked clergy, and other notorious cohabiters [concubinarii], nor do they wish to cover it up with the tail of penitence; they are impenitent. Therefore we should do penance. Now you see why the theme says, “He shall set the sheep on his right hand,” (Mt 25:33). Thanks be to God.


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    article Battle Catholic Christian news No-AdFly Spam Pray Prayers Religion Rosary The Mass | SkyhawkProjects | | Leave a comment

    Colonel Beltrame: Traditional Catholic Hero

    Written by  James Bogel, London Correspondent

    …His actions helped bring an end to this act of terrorism that left three people dead. READ MORE  HERE

    Arnaud_Beltrame

    COMMENT:

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    …as we had all guessed already, the supremely heroic Colonel Arnaud Beltrame was, indeed, a traditional Catholic devoted to the old rite… “un tradi” as the French put it.

    But of course!

    Touchingly, a canon of Lagrasse Abbey – a “tradi” Abbey of the Canons of the Mother of God – celebrated the marriage of the good colonel, on his deathbed, as he wed his fiancée, also a “tradi”. They both participated in the spirituality of the Abbey and were part of the lay community associated with the Abbey.

    I would not be surprised if he had been a regular on the Chartres pilgrimage – we always have a few holy Gendarmes attending in their uniforms!

    Here, at last, is a real candidate for beatification…!

    Let us remember him when, at the Maundy mass on Thursday, we hear again sung those words of our Lord, recorded by St John, the very “maundy” or mandate that we celebrate on that most famous Feast Day of Holy Charity:

    Hoc est praeceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem, sicut dilexi vos. Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat qui pro amicis suis. [John 15:12-13]

    And let us pray for the brave colonel and his young widow.

    Requiem aeternam, dona ei, Domine, Requiescat in pace.

    Catholic France is not quite dead yet so long as they can still produce a man like Colonel Beltrame.

    In memory of the heroic colonel, I leave you with my favourite Vendean hymn which the soldiers of the Grand Royal and Catholic Army used to sing in the face of the revolutionary armies – the “Blues” – before flinging themselves fearlessly into battle.

    The Chartres pilgrims devoutly sing this each year on the road from Paris to Chartres and around the camp fire at night, led by the fiercely hardy Catholic Boy Scouts. I well remember, on my second pilgrimage over 15 years ago, seeing a tall Gendarme officer striding up and down in his uniform and riding boots, singing this great hymn with gusto, alongside the Scouts. Could it have been the good colonel? One may devoutly imagine….and, if not, nevertheless that officer seemed to capture something of his noble soul and spirit….

    Les Bleus sont là

    Les bleus sont là, le canon gronde,
    Dites les gars avez vous peur?
    Nous n’avons qu’une peur au monde,
    C’est d’offenser Notre Seigneur.

    Vos corps seront jetés à l’onde,
    Vos noms voués au déshonneur.
    Nous n’avons qu’un honneur au monde,
    C’est l’honneur de Notre Seigneur.

    Les bleus chez vous dansant la ronde,
    Boiront le sang de votre coeur.
    Nous n’avons qu’un amour au monde,
    C’est le Coeur de Notre Seigneur!

    Allons debout, le canon gronde,
    Partez les gars, soyez vainqueurs.
    Nous n’avons qu’un espoir au monde,
    C’est la victoire du Seigneur.

    English translation:

    The Blues are there, the cannon roars,
    Say you, boys, do you have fear?
    We have only one fear in the world,
    It is to offend our Lord.

    Your bodies will be hurled into the river,
    Your names will be doomed to dishonour;
    But we have only one honour in the world,
    It is the honour of our Lord.

    The Blues, in your homes, dancing,
    Will drink the blood of your heart;
    But we have only one love in the world,
    It is the Heart of our Lord!

    Stand up, the cannon roars,
    Forward, boys, and vanquish!
    For we have only one hope in the world,
    It is the victory of the Lord.

    And my true favourite, the soldiers’ version:

    Join the discussion…

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      Roderick Halvorsen • 11 days ago

      The article should possibly be updated as clarification of the marital situation has been apparently made. Unconscious, Col Beltrame was unable to marry his fiancee.

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        Therese • 11 days ago

        Sigh… apparently also initiated into & attending local free mason lodge. I hope this info gets discredited.

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            Mary Dalton Therese • 10 days ago

            That apparently was part of his past. It doesn’t make what he became any less. The National Catholic Register has a good commentary by Archbishop Chaput that includes a statement by the priest attending this man.

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              Mary Dalton Sean Taylor • 8 days ago

              Sean, I still stand by my statement. The Colonel was a witness to Christ in the moment of his death. That means far more to me than all the armchair warriors debating over whether he was sufficiently holy.

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                Amos • 11 days ago

                “Here, at last, is a real candidate for beatification…!”

                Indeed! Amidst the garbage canonizations we have lately, this would be a breath of fresh Holy Ghost air.

                It may not get far though, given his love for normal Catholicism (e.g. traditional Catholicism).

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                    Roderick Halvorsen • 11 days ago

                    Wiki lists him as a Freemason. Says he received honors from his lodge {assuming at death}. I don’t doubt this as he was 44 and a member of the French military. I don’t see how anyone could have risen in the ranks without being a Freemason. What I am curious about tho is if he was a Freemason at death. He converted to the Catholic faith at age 33 and as a French member of the Armed Forces it is highly likely he WAS a Freemason. . Now I’d say most Catholic priests don’t care about Freemasonry anymore. A Freemason has been communed regularly at the local NO parish here and I assume that is common everywhere.

                    I don’t know anything about the Canons which he was associated with but I’d find it hard to believe he was left in the dark about Freemasonry by any solid Traditional priest. It would be interesting to investigate this further. I wouldn’t put it past the Freemasons to “take credit” of sorts by honoring him even if he left Freemasonry behind or was in the process sometime in the past.

                    I think Chaput does a pretty good job in painting the picture of a man, a man on the journey of life. You can clearly see the path he is taking, even if his boots slipped off the trail here and there. It is a rough and rocky trail, the trail of life.

                    He ended his life nobly and in giving the greatest gift a man can possibly give; his all.

                    RIP Lt Col Beltrame.

                    https://freemasonry.network…

                    http://www.ncregister.com/d…

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                        Jacques Dumon Roderick Halvorsen • 11 days ago

                        There are a lot of freemasons in the french army, but they are despised by their colleagues because they say their FM convictions are pulled by their carrierism.
                        This doesn’t prevent true worthy catholic gentlemen reaching the highest grades and levels of authority, like the last “Chef d’Etat-Major des Armees” Général de Villiers (retd in 2017)

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                          Roderick Halvorsen Jacques Dumon • 11 days ago

                          Thanks Jacques.

                          Freemasonry is very strong in the officer corps of the US Army, too and there are no doubt those who dislike them for the exact same reason you cite. It will be interesting to see what details come out about the FM connection, if any.

                          As we discussed on the other site, the man’s courage and selfless act of heroism, combined with his conversion to the Catholic faith are inspiring.

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                            Sonny’s Mom Roderick Halvorsen • 6 days ago

                            On certain topics the Wikipedia editors don’t appear to tamper much with the facts. But other pages are closely monitored and quickly “edited” from a leftist perspective, and any attempt to correct the the editor’s distortions quickly gets airbrushed out, sometimes within hours. I would be skeptical of Wikipedia in general, and especially of any profile page that leaves out known information about an individual’s character, conversion and faith.

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                              peter f • 11 days ago

                              No mention in the BBC link that Col Beltrame was a Catholic. What a surprise. I did wonder if he was when I heard about him on the news.
                              What a hero and a wonderful example.
                              Viva Cristo Rey!

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                                  Sonny’s Mom Margaret • 6 days ago

                                  On Mar 23-24, coverage in CNN and USA Today briefly mentioned “a police officer” who offered to take the place of a hostage. The NYT, 3/28/18 actually reported that a funeral Mass took place, but in a style worthy of Pravda and Izvestiya during the Soviet era:
                                  “Colonel Beltrame’s act prompted an outpouring of support and a sense of community from people of different faiths and backgrounds. A Mass held for him in Trèbes on Sunday drew not only Christians but also Jews and Muslims, who saw the attack at the supermarket as an assault on their community and on a place where they all shopped.”

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                                    slyphnoyde Margaret • 11 days ago

                                    https://www.washingtonpost….

                                    Nothing in the article mentions that Beltrame was Catholic, but in The Washington Post I would not expect anything that might be positive toward his faith. (Although The Post does seem to have some esteem, misguided though it might be, for Cardinal Wuerl of Washington. That would be typical of The Post.)

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                                      Gwynn Ap Nudd • 12 days ago

                                      Some of the young French are awake and resisting, thank God.

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                                          Roderick Halvorsen • 12 days ago

                                          Thank you for posting this. What a powerful testimony of faith and the truest charity. A martyr hero and model for our young and old alike!

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                                              ahem • 12 days ago

                                              Men like Lt-Col Beltrame put most of those in the Vatican to shame.

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                                                  rodlarocque1931 • 12 days ago

                                                  The fruits of the Traditional Mass for the world to see, but I guess the Holy Father won’t care to take note.

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                                                      James rodlarocque1931 • 11 days ago

                                                      He takes note; you can be certain that his henchmen take full note and make reports. And he – Bergoglio/Francis – opposes it like the dickens, to use the vernacular.

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                                                        MadMC • 12 days ago

                                                        Is it requescat in pace, or ora pro nobis?

                                                        I’ll do both

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                                                            cs • 12 days ago

                                                            ” Sanctificamini; cras enim faciet Dominus inter vos mirabilia.”

                                                            ” Be ye sanctified, for to-morrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” -Josue lll. 5

                                                            Pray for France, we ask of thee, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

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                                                                VisPacem • 12 days ago

                                                                “Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat qui pro amicis suis.” Ioan., 15, 13

                                                                Requiescat in Pace.

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                                                                    DMill • 12 days ago

                                                                    May the soul of this courageous man rest with God.
                                                                    As the now old saying goes, “I learned all that I need to know about Islam on 9/11.” But, of course, it actually goes much farther back than that. Islam is as Islam does, as Islam has always done. It is the most repugnant of all the false religions of the world, and may the day soon come when every stain of it will be scoured from every square centimeter of Christendom, and may as many as possible of those who currently adhere to that vile creed be truly converted to Christ and become true brothers and sisters. As for those who persist in mohammedism–get them out of Christendom. Now.

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                                                                        slyphnoyde DMill • 11 days ago

                                                                        May the day soon come, yes, but humanly speaking things do not look bright, especially for western Europe. Politicians are foolishly allowing Muslims to flood into their countries. “Native” Europeans have a birth rate below replacement level in many countries, while Muslim couples are encouraged by their leaders to have three or more children, above the replacement level. Take the two factors together, and Europe is on course to become majority Muslim before too many generations pass. Islam may then surpass secularism as the force which will work against Christianity. God knows best — I certainly don’t — but again, humanly speaking things do not look bright.

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                                                                          DMill slyphnoyde • 11 days ago

                                                                          No, things do not look bright right now, but anger is building and the European people are getting sick of seeing those parasitic mohammedan savages everywhere, acting as if they owned the place, and sick of their own governments legislating Europeans into 2nd class citizens in favor of the parasitic mohammedan savages. One day, not far off, I think we will suddenly hear the collective roar of the true European patriots who love their countries and have rediscovered the value of their threatened national culture, take to the streets after the one-outrage-too-many occurs–whatever that may be–and then the rotten EU will crumble as quickly as thoroughly did the Soviet bloc, and an enlightened nationalism will begin to awaken throughout Europe.
                                                                          This is my hope, anyway.

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                                                                            James • 12 days ago

                                                                            I had never heard this song. It is sobering and soul-steeling: the very antithesis of the music for Novus Ordo Masses.

                                                                            St. Jeanne d’Arc, pray for France and for the Church.

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