I had not yet seen HERE the celebration of the Pachamama with Bergoglio in front of the altar at Saint Peter’s Basilica last October 4 at the opening of the Amazon Synod. It is stunning. Now I understand why people are talking about idolatrous profanation and of the need to reconsecrate Saint Peter’s Basilica. Perhaps it is not “the abomination of desolation in the holy place” (Mt 24:15) prophesied by Jesus, but it certainly raises many concerns.
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It is a sad Christmas for Christians if we think about the many “desecrations” that have recently occurred, which would never be tolerated against any other religion. It’s enough to just look at a few recent headlines.
Two weeks ago, there was the event at the University of Bologna, “Immaculate Con(tra)ception.” Il Giornale ran the headline: “Collective Shock: A Blasphemous Vigil. The Madonna surrounded by condoms.”
Ten days ago, there was the case of the poster displayed in Rome about which the indignant Vittorio Feltri wrote fiery words. The headline of Il Tempo: “Jesus excited with a child. A storm against the Macro [Contemporary Art Museum] for [a blasphemous depiction of Christ as a child molester]. The denunciation made by [political party] Fratelli d’Italia: For shame, [Mayor Virginia] Raggi intervenes.”
There is still more. On Thursday Il Messagero ran a headline: “Netflix, the Gay Jesus satire. [The political party] Fratelli d’Italia calls for the recall of the film. ”
In each one of these cases, the voice of protest does not come from the Vatican, nor from the Italian Bishops’ Conference, but from the party of the center-right, along with lay Catholics (abandoned by their pastors) and a few journalists with good sense. And finally some clergyman says some timid and insipid words.
The clerical apparatus does not have time to defend Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother, and the faith of simple Catholics from these blasphemous efforts because today it is entirely occupied with the glorification of the Argentine pope, who is now a worldly media commodity who is celebrated by secular culture.
Even with the Netflix film The Two Popes, in which — far surpassing the ridiculous — Benedict XVI is depicted as a pope in search of someone to lead him and Bergoglio as the one who obtained this role without ever having sought it, one needs only a minimal awareness of reality to know that the exact opposite is true: In fact it was Ratzinger who resigned, while Bergoglio struggled for years to climb to the top (even failing to receive the vote of his brother Jesuits).
But — returning to these “provocations” against Catholicism — it is not just surprising that the clerical world is in hiding. There is still worse.
Bergoglio’s own magisterium is studded with demonstrations and actions that leave the faithful bewildered, like when he exhibited the hammer and sickle with a crucifix attached, given to him by former Bolivian president Evo Morales.
Or when he said that, in the Gospel story of the woman caught in adultery, “Jesus was a bit of a fool” (June 16, 2016) or when, on May 16, 2013, he denied the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves done by Jesus (“They were not multiplied. No, that is not the truth”) or when (on December 21, 2018) he denied the fact of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
The case of the recent Synod on the Amazon caused scandal when — according to Corrispondenza Romana — “on October 4 Pope Francis participated in an act of adoration of the pagan goddess Pachamama in the Vatican Gardens,” provoking the “protest of one hundred scholars” who signed a document that began as follows: “We the undersigned clerics, scholars, and Catholic intellectuals protest and condemn the sacrilegious and superstitious actions committed by Pope Francis.”
The list gets longer. During these weeks of preparation for Christmas there have been more outrages. On December 12, for example, Bergoglio affirmed that the Blessed Mother “is a mestiza,” and even said, “she ‘mestizoed’ God.”
His obvious intention to politically exploit God and the Mother of God to legitimize his very debatable ideas about migration could be combined — for depth of thought — with the affirmation of the cartoonist Vauro [Senesi], which says, “Jesus is Palestinian.” (He went on to target even poor Santa Claus with incredible words.)
But Bergoglio’s statement on “God mestizoed,” whether he knows it or not, falls into “the heresy of Eutyches (378–454),” as Professor Roberto De Mattei has observed.
Moreover, his intention to use sacred symbols to spread his political ideas is obvious in many of his gestures. In recent days, for example, he announced on Twitter that he had “decided to expose this ‘life-jacket crucifix’” in order to call for open ports for mass migration.
We can also be certain that this year — as in past years — he will not hesitate to politically exploit Christmas to spread the idea — so dear to the hearts of the powerful promoters of globalization — of a worldwide immigration crisis.
Furthermore, within his own establishment they are seeking to give him a hand by even “rewriting” the Bible. In recent days the Pontifical Biblical Commission has published a volume called “What Is Man?” According to the Catholic website The Daily Compass, this text “maintains that Sodom was destroyed not because of the homosexual acts of its inhabitants but because of their lack of hospitality. The immigrationist obsession becomes the exegetical criteria of the sacred text.”
The confusion of the sacred and profane goes far beyond the ridiculous in the clerical world. So there is little to be scandalized by in secular desecrations.
The president emeritus of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, a secular intellectual, has said in an interview: “This pontificate is a scandal in the Biblical sense, it disorients the faithful and makes them fall, it does not bear fruit, on the contrary it makes them diminish in number[.] … As far as what pertains to the fundamentals of the Catholic faith, this pontificate is an outrage to reason.”
