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Did Amoris Laetitia’s Ghostwriter Just Respond to the Dubia?

Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández is a man close to the pope — and his mission. The relationship between these two men can be traced back to their native Argentina, where, nearly a decade ago, then-Cardinal Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio “fought tooth and nail to clear the way for the promotion of his protege” to the position of rector at the Universidad Católica Argentina. It was a job the alumnus and faculty member of the Catholic University of Argentina had wanted for some time, but he was stopped by from obtaining it by the Congregation for Catholic Education. Why this obstruction in the career path of an up and comer under the tutelage of the future pope? It was in part because of work Fernández did on the topic of marriage and family. Work that was created as a counterpoint to a 2004 conference in Buenos Aires dedicated to the theology of the family in light of Veritatis Splendor. Work that would later re-appear nearly verbatim in the controversial eighth chapter of Amoris Laetitia.

Of his work on the topic at the time, Vaticanista Sandro Magister writes:

During those years Fernández was professor of theology at the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires.

And at that same university in 2004 an international theological conference was held on “Veritatis Splendor,” the encyclical of John Paul II on “certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine,” decisively critical of “situational” ethics, the permissive tendency already present among the Jesuits in the 17th century and today more widespread than ever in the Church.

Attention. “Veritatis Splendor” is not a minor encyclical. In March of 2014, in one of his rare and deeply pondered writings as pope emeritus, indicating the encyclicals out of the fourteen published by John Paul II that in his judgment are “most important for the Church,” Joseph Ratzinger cited four of these, with a few lines for each, but then he added a fifth, which was precisely “Veritatis Splendor,” to which he dedicated an entire page, calling it “of unchanged relevance” and concluding that “studying and assimilating this encyclical remains a great and important duty.”

In “Veritatis Splendor” the pope emeritus saw the restoration to Catholic morality of its metaphysical and Christological foundation, the only one capable of overcoming the pragmatic drift of current morality, “in which there no longer exists that which is truly evil and that which is truly good, but only that which, from the point of view of efficacy, is better or worse.”

So then, that 2004 conference in Buenos Aires, dedicated in particular to the theology of the family, moved in the same direction later examined by Ratzinger. And it was precisely in order to react to that conference that Fernández wrote the two articles cited here, practically in defense of situational ethics.

It would seem, then, that the Congregation for Catholic Education was right to block Fernandez from the top position at a Catholic university. However, as Magister notes, they were forced “to have to give in later, in 2009”, when Bergoglio exerted his considerable influence.

To say that Fernández knows the mind of the pope on his now-infamous post-synodal apostolic exhortation is an understatement; it was Fernández who was the author of much of what was written therein. And as we all know, the very substance of that document has sparked one of the most significant theological debates among some of the Church’s most preeminent scholars and clergy around the world.

It was also Fernández who, over two years ago, laid out the road map for the papacy when he made clear that the “reform” agenda of Pope Francis was, by design, intended to be “irreversible”. In May of 2015, Fernández was interviewed for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera by Robert Mickens — the openly homosexual journalist who lost his position as the Rome correspondent at the leftist UK Catholic publication The Tablet after referring to Pope Benedict XVI as “the Rat” and seemingly wishing for his imminent death. The same Robert Mickens who, in September of that same year, referred to the pope admiringly as a “Master Tactician” who is “keeping score” against those who get in his way. The same Robert Mickens who wrote just last month, with apparent anticipation, that “the reformer-pope has run out of patience with the obstructionists [in the curia] and now wants to move more decisively in replacing them with people who are much more eager to promote his agenda. After all, the clock is ticking.”

And perhaps only a sympathetic interviewer of Mickens’ stripe could have elicited such brazen candor from this Argentinian Archbishop who has ridden his patron’s coattails all the way to the episcopacy — and into Vatican’s inner circle.

“There’s no turning back.” Fernández told Mickens. “If and when Francis is no longer pope, his legacy will remain strong. For example, the pope is convinced that the things he’s already written or said cannot be condemned as an error. Therefore, in the future anyone can repeat those things without fear of being sanctioned. And then the majority of the People of God with their special sense will not easily accept turning back on certain things.”

Throughout the interview, Fernández displayed the same unwavering confidence in his mentor’s ability to get the job done: “You have to realize that he is aiming at reform that is irreversible. If one day he should sense that he’s running out of time and doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up.”

A ticking clock indeed.

In June of 2016, on the heels of Amoris Laetitia’s publication, Fernández told La Stampa’s own resident papal sycophant, Andrea Tornielli, that the plan going forward was “decentralization of the Catholic Church.” Further, he said that it was time to consider giving

“…more power to the Bishops’ Conferences, including  some doctrinal authority.” He adds: “Progress is very slow – not because the pope has not encouraged it, but because the theologians and pastors themselves do not dare react with generous creativity.”

The archbishop then explained that the pope’s intention – as expressed in Amoris Laetitia – is to give more scope to the local bishops to deal with moral questions “in dialogue with the pope.”  Fernández still insists that the Church has to become “more merciful, more transformed by the primacy of love and also closer to the reality of the people.” He also repeated that there is a “pastoral door” opened with regard to the divorced and “remarried.”

This summer, Fernández is back in the news again, and he’s continuing his line of thought right where he left off. In a new interview with the Spanish-language theology journal Medellín, entitled “Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia: What Remains After the Storm,” Fernández came out swinging against critics of the ersatz moral theology in the document. As reported by Crux‘s Austen Ivereigh:

[Fernández] begins by asserting the pope himself gave an authoritative interpretation of chapter eight of Amoris, where the footnote on Communion is found, in a letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires on Sept 9, 2016.

In the letter, Francis thanked the bishops for guidelines they had drafted allowing for discernment leading in some cases to the sacraments, and said there was “no other interpretation” of Amoris than the one they had given.

Responding to critics that the pope cannot make an authoritative statement in such a format,  Fernández cites past instances of papal correspondence to bishops being quoted in teaching documents (for example, in a note by Pope Pius IX cited in Lumen Gentium, a document of the Second Vatican Council).

Those precedents prove the “hermeneutical authority” of his letter to the Buenos Aires bishops, Fernández said. [emphasis added]

It should be noted here that the archbishop conflates two examples of the same form of papal writing with two examples of the same level of papal authority — a trick becoming increasingly popular with today’s papal positivists. (Recall that it in the modern Church, it is not so much the form but the content that is most helpful in determining the magisterial authority of a given teaching.) While it is true that a letter written by Bl. Pope Pius IX to a German bishop was cited in Lumen Gentium (and Vatican I before it), that correspondence is of a significantly different nature than that sent by Pope Francis to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region. Lumen Gentium 25 states:

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.(40*)

The citation in footnote 40 includes a reference to “Pius IX, Epist. Tuas libener: Denz. 1683 (2879)” — the correspondence in question. Dr. Kurt Martens explained the history and significance of this particular piece of papal writing in an article last summer for the Catholic Herald:

The term ‘ordinary magisterium’ was first used by Pius IX in the letter Tuas libenter addressed to the archbishop of Munich and Freising on 21 December 1863.

Earlier that year, a meeting of Catholic theologians had taken place in Munich. The pope had been told that in the course of that meeting the opinion had been expressed that Catholic theologians were bound to hold only those truths of faith which had been solemnly declared.

Pius IX replied that “it must not be limited to those things which have been defined by the express decrees of councils or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this Apostolic See, but must also be extended to those things which are handed on by the ordinary magisterium of the whole church dispersed throughout the world as divinely revealed, and therefore are held by the universal and constant consensus of Catholic theologians to pertain to the faith.”

[…]

The teaching of Pius IX on ordinary magisterium was later incorporated in the documents of Vatican I, in particular the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius: “Wherefore, by divine and catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in scripture and tradition, and which are proposed by the church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium.”

It was understood that the addition of ‘universal’ to ‘ordinary magisterium’ was meant to relate the phrase to the teaching of the whole episcopate with the pope, and not the teaching of the pope alone.

It is ironic, therefore, that Fernández equates a letter from a pope praising pastoral guidelines implementing a pastoral document (Amoris Laetitia) that disclaims its own universal and magisterial application (AL #3) at the outset with a critical theological clarification made by a pope that helped to authoritatively define magisterial authority and its application in the first place (Tuas Libenter). (The irony deepens when one considers that said pastoral guidelines have themselves been argued to be “against the ordinances of God” — which excludes them from the faithful’s duty to assent.)

 

A Response to the Dubia

Paraphrasing Fernández, Ivereigh — himself a known papal apologist and defender of Amoris Laetitia — argues that

Francis never claims general moral laws are incapable of covering every situation, nor that they are incapable of determining a decision in conscience, but that in their formulation they are incapable of addressing each and every situation, the archbishop said.

“It is the formulation of the norm that cannot cover everything, not the norm in itself,” Fernández said.

In the case of norms forbidding killing and stealing, for example, the norms are absolute, admitting of no exceptions; yet it is questionable, he said, whether taking life in self-defense is killing, or taking food to feed a hungry child is stealing.

From my reading, it appears that in the above, Fernández is backing away from the menacing specificity of the dubia.

Stranger still, he then appears to go on to attempt to answer the dubia. I didn’t catch it on my first read through, but as I parsed his statements, it occured to me that I should cross-reference them. I would not say that these are direct responses, and they aren’t prefaced as such, but it is almost impossible not to see a parallel structure between the dubia and the Archbishop’s carefully staked out defense of the pope. See for yourself:

Dubia #1: 

It is asked whether, following the affirmations of Amoris Laetitia (300-305), it has now become possible to grant absolution in the sacrament of penance and thus to admit to holy Communion a person who, while bound by a valid marital bond, lives together with a different person more uxorio without fulfilling the conditions provided for by Familiaris Consortio, 84, and subsequently reaffirmed by Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 34, and Sacramentum Caritatis, 29. Can the expression “in certain cases” found in Note 351 (305) of the exhortation Amoris Laetitia be applied to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live more uxorio? [emphasis in original]

Fernández:

“… It is also licit to ask if acts of living together more uxorio [i.e. having sexual relations] should always fall, in its integral meaning, within the negative precept of “fornication”. I say, ‘in its integral meaning,’ because one cannot maintain those acts in each and every case are gravely dishonest in a subjective sense. In the complexity of particular situations is where, according to St. Thomas [Aquinas], ‘the indetermination increases.’ Indeed, it is not easy to describe as an ‘adulterer’ a woman who has been beaten and treated with contempt by her Catholic husband, and who received shelter, economic and psychological help from another man who helped her raise the children of the previous union, and with whom she has lived and had new children for many years.” [emphasis added]

And further:

Turning to the process of discernment outlined in Amoris, Fernández said Francis nowhere claimed that someone can receive Communion if they are not in a state of grace, only that an objectively grave fault is not sufficient to deprive a person of sanctifying grace.

Therefore, “there can be a path of discernment open to the possibility of receiving the food of the Eucharist.” [emphasis added]

Dubia #2, 3, and 4:

2.) After the publication of the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia (304), does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 79, based on sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, on the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and that are binding without exceptions?

3.) After Amoris Laetitia (301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (Matthew 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, “Declaration,” June 24, 2000)?

4.) After the affirmations of Amoris Laetitia (302) on “circumstances which mitigate moral responsibility,” does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 81, based on sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, according to which “circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice”? [emphasis in original]

Fernández:

He said Pope Francis has resisted proposals of progressive moral theologians to drop altogether a distinction between objective sin and subjective guilt, and has maintained that sexual relations by divorced people in a new union always “constitute an objective situation of habitual grave sin,” even if culpability might not exist in a subjective sense in some cases.

Even in these cases, however, “for Francis it is not the concrete circumstances that determine the objective morality,” said Fernández, adding: “The fact that conditions might diminish culpability does not mean that what is objectively bad thereby becomes objectively good.”

Rather, the objectively sinful situation persists “because there remains the clear Gospel proposal for marriage, and this concrete situation does not objectively reflect that.” [Emphasis added]

Dubia #5: 

After Amoris Laetitia (303) does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 56, based on sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, that excludes a creative interpretation of the role of conscience and that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object?

Fernandez: 

Discernment in such cases, he said, involves a person using his or her conscience to examine before God their real situation, together with its limits and practical possibilities, in the company of a pastor and enlightened by the Church’s teaching.

Such discernment, he went on, is not about the moral absolute of the norm, but about its disciplinary consequences. The norm remains universal, but its consequences or effects can vary. By making clear that this can be discerned by means of a “pastoral dialogue,” said Fernández, “this is what opens the way to a change in [sacramental] discipline.” [emphasis added]

Is it just me? Or is Fernández carefully stepping away from the danger zone on Francis’ behalf? His interpretations here are full of casuistry and would hardly be considered orthodox, but they appear to me to be moving away from the current position and in the direction of at least appearing to honor the Church’s moral norms. Or perhaps more aptly put, to at least to admit they exist.

I don’t know whether to be encouraged or concerned.

Fernández sums up his view of Francis’ paradigm shift in Amoris as follows:

“Francis’s great innovation,” he wrote, “is to allow for a pastoral discernment in the realm of the internal forum to have practical consequences in the manner of applying the discipline [his italics].” The general canonical norm remains, but “may not be applied in certain cases as a consequence of a path of discernment.”

This, said Fernández, is where Francis “is bringing in a change with respect to the previous praxis.”

Meanwhile, the pope’s letter to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region now appears as part of the official papal correspondence on the Vatican website. One can’t help but wonder, then, if there are plans to move it into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis — the journal of the official acts of the Apostolic See. Such a move would take the letter from the realm of personal correspondence and give it official status. The AAS “contains all the principal decrees, encyclical letters, decisions of Roman congregations, and notices of ecclesiastical appointments. The contents are to be considered promulgated when published, and effective three months from date of issue.”

Fernández is close to both the pope and the exhortation. He knows and has been broadcast

ing the papal agenda for some time now, and he hasn’t been afraid to disclose just how revolutionary it is. The appearance that he is circling the wagons, attempting to redefine terms and thereby shoring up the doctrinal bona fides of Amoris while simultaneously elevating the pope’s letter to the Buenos Aires bishops to the status of “authoritative” and “hermeneutical” interpretation is raising red flags, but I can’t put my finger on what I’m seeing.

What I know is that this is a new tactic from a team that always goes to the same playbook, time after time. Something is afoot.

171 thoughts on “Did Amoris Laetitia’s Ghostwriter Just Respond to the Dubia?”

  1. “You have to realize that he is aiming at reform that is irreversible. If one day he should sense that he’s running out of time and doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up.”

    I pray that the true Spirit — the Holy Spirit — will deliver us from the “complex” formulations of sophistry that have run amok in the last four years. May our Lord Jesus purge the hearts of all our clergy from worldliness and a desire to exalt the sinfulness of man with a false “pastoral accompaniment”.

    Lord Jesus, grant us tears of repentance, and keep us from covering our sins with smooth names.

    Reply
    • Nothing is irreversible for God. Prior to the Ten Commandments, there was general sinful lawlessness, thereby, the introduction of the Ten Commandments. The habit of sin was confronted, and change was commanded by God through Moses and his “children”.

      Reply
  2. “Heal Me With Your Mouth”. I don’t think so, pervert!

    Fernandez is a creepy, repulsive individual who oozes heterodoxy and homosexuality from every pore. The Jesuits are absolutely crawling with sodomites. What really interests me about this guy is the light he shines on his handler, Francis. These two are twins, separated at birth. They are tight! Francis made him a bishop within three months of his election and it’s clear that Fernandez is Francis’ alter ego. He’s a homoheretic as are most of Francis’ waterboys.

    This is the lavender pontificate.

    Reply
  3. Fernández and Pope Francis; sodomite-friendly snakes who are attempting to twist the Truth in order to lure our children down the road toward eternal doom. The Pied Pipers of Hell – soon to be put under the feet of Our Mother Mary. Watch them squirm, argue and unleash their un-Godly hatred when the irrefutable Truth hits them like a train.

    Reply
  4. >> He [Fernandez] also repeated that there is a “pastoral door” opened with regard to the divorced and “remarried.”

    The only pastoral door opened to adulterers is the confessional. The only mercy they should seek is absolution, which is freely offered if they reform.

    Reply
  5. On the surface, the five dubia appear to be designed to elicit five answers. In fact, as yes-or-no questions very often do, they reveal to the entire human race the totally naked, absolute intellectual dishonesty of any who answer them with silence, or with irrelevant bafflegab, or with ad hominem attacks.

    This is what the five dubia have accomplished. No “correction” is needed. No response is needed. Bergoglio’s obscene, Soros-controlled burlesque of a papacy ended the day the dubia were published.

    Reply
    • Doesn’t Fernandez know that the Dubia is a “yes” or “No” quiz? His seeming ‘answers’ are verbose, to say the least. Every response is full of ‘gray’. Is there any situation or teaching that he considers black and white?

      Reply
  6. The sticky word is “irreversible”, an apt word capping the terminus of this stage of the “road map”.

    Think these folks mean it. What was honed and fine-tuned in Argentina was not meant to stay in Argentina. The road is now being mapped for the post-Francis papacy.

    Yes, review papal history, but it can’t be denied that something is frightfully odd with this papacy. Do we have the language for it?

    Reply
  7. It’s bad enough that clergy who have promised celibacy such as this even think of such things, but for one to actually take the time to write and publish this garbage? Don’t they have more important things to do like saving souls?

    Reply
    • Saving souls? Dear sir, that is SOOO pre Vatican ll. The Church has ‘matured’ don’t you know, and we should now all realize that there is no need to put so much effort into ‘saving souls’. Everyone goes to Heaven, and if they are that bad, their souls just kind of ‘evaporate’ and turn into ‘nothingness’. (all this according to Francis) And besides that “No one can be condemned forever!” (again, according to Francis) So, saving souls is kind of ‘futile’. The real job is taking care of the here and now. The job of a Priest in the Francis Church is to help create a kind of utopia on earth where everyone has enough of everything and everyone is as happy and clappy as can be!!

      Reply
  8. Be on guard Steve!

    There is nothing I would trust from this man; absolutely nothing.
    He does not speak with clarity. If a priest, or a bishop or a pope cannot answer the Dubia questions with a simple yes or no…………be on guard.

    Reply
  9. I wanted to say this when Steve wrote his heartfelt Quo Vadis piece, and I didn’t, but I feel compelled to say it now. I started reading this site about three months ago, when I came across that article from May, about the seemingly authentic third secret of Fatima concerning the apostasy of the Church and the destruction of Rome. (More on that momentarily.) Since then, this site has kept me AWAKE, in the way scripture tells us to be awake, and I remember Luke 12: “Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching ” Steve is doing God’s work, and the rest of us are blessed to have him and the rest of the crew to keep us watchful, vigilant. That can’t be said enough, anyways by those of us who believe, as I do, that these are the end times indeed.

    Anyways, the substance of this article in particular made me think of that article about the third secret (here: https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/amidst-conflicting-fatima-secrets-a-clear-message-shines/) and I got to thinking, about what never made sense to me about the official line on the Fatima secrets. Sister Lucia somewhere said the three secrets are really one secret; help me out because I can’t seem to google when and where and what context she said that; but a the reality of hell, world war two and the trouble of Russia, and finally a bishop in white assassinated—what is the essence of that trinity that makes them ONE secret?

    Question: Has anyone considered that the one secret in three parts are the three versions of the third secret that have been rumored around: the apostasy of the Church, the assassination of a pope, and an apocalyptic chastisement.? Those three seem like they could be the one secret that had three parts that Sister Lucia spoke of. But again, I can’t find where she used that image.

    Reply
    • Seems that fundamental call of the entire Fatima message is this: More souls go to Hell do to the sins of the flesh than any other sin. Mankind is more wicked than anytime since the great deluge. There will be a great chastisement such as the world has never seen unless we repent and sincerely convert. Each Secret tells of specific chastisements brought about by sin and a hardness of heart that resists heavens call to conversion. WWI, WWII, The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, the spread of Russia’s errors and the future desolation yet to come are each consequences of sin. Within the messages Our Lady, knowing the darkness that surrounds us, calls us to repentance and takes us gently by the hand to teach us how to respond to Her call. She instructs us to repent and do penance. She teaches us what many churchmen simply no longer teach. The Virgin Most Powerful instructs us to pray the rosary daily, consecrate ourselves to Jesus through Her Immaculate Heart, wear the brown Scapular, and practice the First 5 Saturday’s Devotion. Our Lady is teaching us to pray the way our Orthodox Catholic Faith has always taught us! In sum, the message boils down to repenting, praying, and sacrificing. If enough of us respond in this way, the Holy Father will fulfill heavens request of explicitly consecrating Russia to The Immaculate Heart of Mary. If these things aren’t obeyed there will be severe chastisements…. physical in nature as well as many souls being damned for eternity in Hell. Thus the angel with the flaming sword in the 3rd secret bellows: “Penance! Penance! Penance!”

      Reply
    • This has the three parts of the Secret:

      http://www.fatima.org/essentials/message/

      The first part is the vision of hell, the second part predicted WWII, and the third part (aka the Third Secret) begins with the exact words of Our Lady: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” The “etc.” holds the place of the rest of Her words.

      What was revealed in 2000 was the vision, NOT the Third Secret per se. It was to be revealed in 1960 but Pope John XXIII decided otherwise. Every pope since then has been afraid to reveal it.

      Imho, until it IS revealed, the Church and the world will be in spiritual bondage.

      Reply
  10. Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández is a stalking horse for Pope Francis sent out to see how the wind is blowing, figuring out how to maneuver in order to bring Pope Francis ship of heresy (Amoris Laetitia) safely to port. We can be sure of one thing. If Victor Manuel Fernández is involved bad things are happening. No need to put a finer point on it.

    Reply
    • It is a bait and switch!

      Their goal is to legitimize homosexuality and their ” unions “, and hence the Sacrament of Matrimony and all that is holy and good. Sin is their pleasure. It was never really about Communion for the civilly remarried, that was a smokescreen.

      Fernandez is but a foolish tool who takes the faithful laity eyes away from what is swirling around all of us.

      We must see what is front of us. It is very ugly, but it must be called out.
      Here is the elephant in the room question to Pope Francis, ” Do you renounce homosexuality? Do you believe man was created by God to be homosexual? Do you renounce Father James Martin’s activities in promoting homosexuality?”

      Our Lord needs to put more spit on the eyes of our prelates and take the wax from their ears and fill their tongues with Truth!
      I am reminded of last week’s Gospel.
      Until then, I remain very, very guarded of everything and everyone with Catholic in front or behind their name, or door. My trust has been brokered of the things and men of this earth.

      Reply
      • “Their goal is to legitimize homosexuality and their “unions”……..I have been saying this cs since the day after A.L. was published. This is NOT only about “Marriage” and the destruction of it, the REAL GOAL is the acceptance of homosexual sex as ‘normal, natural and even going so far as to say it is ‘God ordained’!!! This is the golden ring they are after!

        Reply
        • Wouldn’t the acceptance of homosexual sex as normal BE the destruction of marriage? Communion for the divorced and remarried sans annulment and acceptance of homosexual unions are two sides of the same coin

          Reply
      • Homosexuals Cause Nausea to Our Lord and Are Despised Even by the Devil

        Saint Catherine of Siena, the great 14th century religious mystic, transmitted the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the sin of homosexuality, which contaminated some of the clergy in her time, the Renaissance. Referring to sacred ministers who committed this sin, He told her:

        Our Lord speaking to St. Catherine of Siena:
        They [the homosexuals] not only fail from resisting the weakness [of fallen human nature] …. but they do even worse when they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but is disgusting even to the devils themselves whom these depraved creatures have chosen as their lords.

        For Me this sin against nature is so abominable that for it alone five cities were destroyed by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear their iniquity ….

        It is disgusting to the devils not because evil displeases them or because they find pleasure in good, but rather because their nature is angelic and flees upon seeing such a repulsive sin being committed. For while certainly it is the devil that first strikes the sinner with the poisoned arrow of concupiscence, nonetheless when a man actually carries out such a sinful act, the devil goes away.

        (St. Catherine of Siena, El diálogo, in Obras de Santa Catalina de Siena, Madrid: BAC, 1991, p. 292)

        Reply
      • Homosexual Priests Must Be Deprived of Their Clerical Dignity,…

        St. Pius V:
        “That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.

        Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: “Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature, given that the wrath of God falls over the sons of perfidy, be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery” (chap. 4, X, V, 31).

        So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.

        Therefore, wishing to pursue with greater rigor than we have exerted since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss.”

        (Constitutionn Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568, in Bullarium Romanum,
        Rome: Typographia Reverendae Camerae Apostolicae, Mainardi, 1738, chap. 3, p. 33)

        Reply
        • Wow. Thank you for sharing this. Very powerful stuff. This is why I come to 1P5 (and share a few shekels each month in its support). Because it presents great articles and then its commenters share such powerful wisdom.

          Reply
        • “For it is this (sodomy) which violates sobriety, kills modesty, slays chastity. It butchers virginity with the sword of a most filthy contagion. It befouls everything, it stains everything, it pollutes everything, and for itself it permits nothing pure, nothing foreign to filth, nothing clean.”
          – St. Peter Damian (The Book of Gomorrah)

          We see how absolutely accurate St. Peter Damian was in his description of the demon of sodomy: it pollutes everything like a most filthy contagion. Is it any surprise, then, that so-called “educators” force Comprehensive Sexuality Education on kindergartners, even parading the youngsters around in opposite-sex apparel, encouraging them to fantasize and question their own sex? It is nothing less than “pedophilia-of-the-mind” performed on youngsters — the mental and spiritual molestation of children.

          The only way to stop such child abuse and to properly address this social pathology of homosexualism and all its LGBT/transhuman outgrowths is tear out by the roots iniquitous laws that invent Transhuman “marriage”, the Transhuman “family”, and the Transhuman “person”, and to re-list homosexualism in the catalog of psychological disorders.

          Let’s never forget to pray with fervent hope for politicians, judges, academics, media personalities, and even clergymen within the Church who are swept up in the mania of LGBT/Sexual Transhumanism, for if even a few of them are converted to the Catholic Faith, they will become great witnesses for our Lord Jesus Christ’s holy love and truth, which alone can set us free.

          Holy Family, pray for us!

          Reply
          • Glory to Jesus Christ!

            Dear Margaret,

            Thank you for your comment, as always!

            I think a further clarifying point would be that God does not create persons who have same-sex attraction disorder; rather, God creates persons who are the children of Adam, and as such, are susceptible to sin under the devil’s regime of temptation and deception.

            Exactly when the devil introduces homosexual ideation into the minds of people who embrace homosexualism will vary from person to person, but for some, it will stick and become a life-long addiction. That doesn’t make them “homosexuals” as such, nor does it even make them “persons who have same-sex attraction disorder”, which expression formulates the problem into merely psychological terms that do not address the spiritual source of this grave temptation. Rather, the embrace of homosexual ideation by certain individuals, who are simply sinners like everybody else, shows that they have swallowed the devil’s bait of sodomitic temptation and have formed a homosexualized persona.

            I think it’s really important to be clear on this point, because there are many (even in the Church, as we now see!) who want to portray homosexual practitioners as a special breed of human being — a sub-species of the human race — called LGBT. But we know God created humans as male and female, not as LGBT. So, LGBT is really about Sexual Transhumanism.

            The article at the following link is amazing in putting this into perspective; I can’t recommend it highly enough:

            http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/sexual-liberation-emergence-transhumanism

            Let us pray that millions of people who are falling for the Sexual Transhumanist lie will be converted by God’s grace to the Catholic Faith!

            Your brother in Christ and the Holy Family,

            Clinton

          • Glory forever!

            Dear Clinton,

            Thank you for clarifying my remark in your post. I think we can go a little further and say that God does not negate our free will but respects it even to the point of death. If a person deliberately chooses to sin and does not truly repent of his or her sins and dies in that state, then God will not force him or her to repent. He will give good inspirations, send a good priest/religious/layperson to talk to them, good spiritual advice, spiritual reading etc; in sum, He will do everything possible short of violating that person’s free will in order to repent. But once a person dies, his or her will is fixed at the moment of death just like the angels.
            Many years ago, on my first Ignatian retreat, the priest told us that for ONE sin, a third of the angels became devils through their own choice. For ONE sin, our first parents were expelled from Paradise (c.f. Cheesefare Sunday and the first reading for the First Friday of the Great Fast). For ONE mortal sin, a person can be condemned to hell. Remember the Gospel where the man was thrown out because he did not have a wedding garment?

            August 29th is the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. In the Festal Gospel, it says that Herod (anathema sit!) liked to listen to St. John, yet he had him beheaded. When Our Lord stood before Herod during His Passion, He did not say anything to Herod. Somewhere in the OT it says (I’m paraphrasing here) that when God is silent, He is VERY, VERY angry.

            Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! Since we have no defense, we sinners offer this supplication to You, our Master: Have mercy on us!

            Troparion of General Intercession and Penitence, Tone 6

            In Christ the King,

            Margaret

    • Correct, but we would do well to understand the finer points in Abp. Fernandez’s rhetorical devices.

      “Make a mess!” the Pope told a youth rally in 2015. The Archbishop, a clericalist if ever there was one, is doing just that here – indeed trying (at least in public) to step away from the danger zone through confusing language, but not so far as to weaken the intent of the AL exhortation, which he is clearly addressing. Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, said it best: “Watch what we do, not what we say.”

      These men, or the secularists who control them, are not foolish. They mean business and know how to use procedure. For public consumption, clarity is the enemy, and absolutely everything can come up for “discernment.” Sadly, some early results are favorable – the Maltese bishops teach AL one way, the Polish bishops the other.

      Reply
      • Yes. Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez is trying to make official what has
        been a defacto practice in many dioceses for years, particularly as
        regards co-habitation before marriage. One of our priests told me he
        requires that couples stop cohabiting two weeks before marriage,
        presumably as a hat-tip to the morality (official) of it all. Nothing
        like hypocrisy paying tribute to virtue. The entire annulment and
        re-marriage business is pretty much of a fraud. If the Church is going
        to insist on strict Catholic morality it is going to be much, much
        smaller. That, I think, is the real issue.

        Reply
        • ah…excuse me here?
          I am understanding the priest has no problem with the couple having relations prior to two weeks before marriage?
          How little this priest thinks of this man and woman.

          Reply
          • cs. Guess so. I was told that some time ago Florida Bishops told their priests not to speak about co-habitation to couples seeking to be married. Times do change–and only for the worse. This is the spirit of Vatican II at work.

          • Such things weren’t discussed by the Priest 25 years ago – neither was much else which should have been. in fact I’m not really sure why we had to see the Priest at all! He discussed football with my husband (who hates it anyway).

          • Helosia. We were married 60 years ago. I only recall seeing the priest in order to make the marriage arrangements.

          • That’s actually really interesting. I married in a NO church (to an atheist although I didn’t know this at the time (dont ask!). I’m wondering now when all these courses/meetings with Priest (3 if I remember rightly) were introduced? After VII perhaps?

            To be honest we were expected to attend ‘group’ sessions. Personally, I’m not a ‘group’ type of person at all, but we attended the first meeting, which was embarassing. Most were about 20 years old and frankly, I thought that if the material was suitable for them (or anyone) they shouldn’t have been getting married! Straight forward Catholic talk from a Traditional Priest would have been far more useful and he would presumably made sure I made a proper Confession etc beforehand and was in a state of grace.

            I was older and my now husband even older, so I then arranged for us to see the Priest privately. Sadly, he didn’t discuss anything which, even in my NO befuddled mind I expected him to, and with hindsight and a Traditional outlook, it was a joke. He didn’t speak much at all to me as a Catholic concerning traditional Catholic marriage topics and because of those ‘comments’ he did make. I came away with the idea that everything had changed re rules/teaching etc.

            I suppose my point is simply that, as this was 25 years ago, I can’t imagine what most people get these days (although I realize there are a few exceptions!).

          • Thanks Heloisa. Good comments on present day reality. About 20 years ago after my wife of 40 years had died I decided to get married again. This time lengthy personality tests were given, we were interviewed separately and together, we had to take a series of classes. The priest that advised us told me we were incompatible and shouldn’t get married. I went ahead and did it anyway with another priest because the first one refused to marry us. Stupid me. One year later I was living elsewhere and we were divorced and annulled 6 years after marriage. I take my case to be a positive as regards the Church. All the problems were my problems. The Church did it’s job.

          • Well, interesting again. Was the Priest who advised you not to marry a Traditional Priest? Just wondering because if not, it shows how it’s been a lottery for years now whether one gets good ‘Catholic’ pre-marriage counselling or just the tick the boxes type.

          • My wife was very upset that our “pre-marriage workshop” (or whatever it was called) was not more spiritually uplifting. It was dreary, I’m reasonably certain more than half of the couples were already living together and when they made a half-hearted, token effort to explain the Church’s teaching on contraception, I thought there was going to be a mutiny. As I told her then, I was only to endure it in order to check the necessary boxes so we could get married. It was really a penance more than anything else.

          • A penance? Got it in one! :-))

            What made the ‘groupie’ session worse was that my (now) husband’s cousin was one of the ones running it (hubbie should have been Catholic).

          • Margaret. Yes, we were married 60 years ago but my wife died after we were married 40 years. I know of no special secret other than God gives you the grace to do what He wants you to do.

        • The couples in the situation your priest discussed are exercising their free will in the absence of well-formed conscience, and are casualties of the persistent crisis in catechesis. The priest is trying to do his “best” amid a misguided pastoral sensitivity and fomenting scandal. And all this is probably just fine with the local bishop, who really, really wants to keep his job. At the top, globalists Fernandez and Francis are capitalizing on all this.

          Your point brings to mind this 1969 quote, one of many reasons Ratzinger will go down as one of the greats. Link to related article below: “From the crisis of today a new Church of tomorrow will emerge…she will become small and will have to start afresh
          more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit
          many of the edifices she built in prosperity. . . ”

          But to me, while the transition will continue to be very painful, a small church would be an improvement, not an issue. And the next conclave is critical.

          https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/08/catacomb-time

          Reply
          • “But to me, while the transition will continue to be very painful, a small church would be an improvement, not an issue.”

            I agree completely.

        • Paul VI did exactly alike with the communion in the hand that many Dutch and German dioceses had begun to practice in the wake of VATII though it was obviously forbidden. Once it began to spread, the Pope authorized it instead of clinging hard to its interdiction.

          Reply
          • Yes, tacit approval is how most bad things happen in the Church. This shows a lack of faith and courage and will not be tolerated by Christ come judgement day.

      • “Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, said it best: “Watch what we do, not what we say.””

        Or, as Earl Bush, then-Press Secretary to the late Mayor Richard J. Daley back in the day, exhorted reporters after one particularly garbled press conference, “Write what he meant, not what he said!”

        Reply
    • You hit the proverbial nail on the head – Bergoglio gets others to do his “dirty” work while he puts on an air of “humility” and “mercy”.

      Love this archbshp (Schneider). for his courage and clarity :

      WATCH: Bishop Schneider unmasks progressive Catholic doublespeak – https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/watch-bishop-schneider-unmasks-progressive-catholic-doublespeak

      Excerpt : Liberal prelates frequently use terms like “dialogue,” “pastoral accompaniment,” and “surprises of the Holy Spirit” to advocate for changes in Church teaching.

      “Pastoral accompaniment” is a favorite buzzword of prelates like Cardinal Walter Kasper, who has long lobbied for the Catholic Church to change its teachings on sexual morality. He has declared victory in recent months, citing Pope Francis.
      The pontiff himself uses language like “surprises of the Holy Spirit” and “dialogue,” much to the concern of many Catholics.

      New Confusing and Scandalous Papal Statements
      https://www.tfp.org/new-confusing-scandalous-papal-statements/

      Reply
  11. I think Fernandez is definitely responding to the growing, incessant criticism of AL by not exactly backtracking, but saying again that there is nothing to see here – it’s all good – it’s the same, we are changing nothing except the individual responsibility for sin.

    It makes sense to me. There really can be lack of knowledge, lack of intent, difficult circumstances etc. The Church has always taught there are mitigating circumstances as far is culpability is concerned.

    The difference in what is happening now is there is a standard of culpability that holds for ALL. In other words once a priest and a ‘couple’ sit down and discuss this, as Francis wants, the conscience is formed – so there can be NO continuation of the sin and reception of Holy Communion. Or once a ‘couple’ hear that there is controversy over this problem they are obliged to find out the truth. That’s the part that is under contention to my mind.

    If you don’t know you are not culpability. Once you know you are in mortal sin if you continue. If only we could express it like that without all the other garbage that is spoken and written.

    Francis is leading souls to hell if he continues to say anyone may stay in mortal sin and try to ‘improve’ over time, meanwhile receiving Holy Communion. There is no gradualism allowed. We don’t hear that word much anymore with all the smoke thrown into our faces with Jesuit language. But that’s what it is.

    Reply
    • No, Barbara. It does not make sense. It, AL, and Fernandez, are full of half truths, false indications, ramblings and the like….He presents darkness as Light, evil as Good, uses false contexts, partial truths, etc…he links some truths with those things that are not Truth and calls them God’s Light….Let us pray and do penance for a new and greater October 13th miracle from Our Lady from the Triune Mercy who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit…

      Reply
  12. The pope certainly spends a tremendous amount of energy to not directly answer the dubia. He sends letters to Argentina, he leaks phone calls to laymen, and he has minions speak to the media. Wouldn’t his time be better spent to just answer the dubia?

    Reply
    • Yes, he can answer it, but if I were to place a bet, he won’t answer it. Why? Because for him, it is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of proposition. If he answers the dubai in the traditional and historic way, his answers undo the agenda he is trying to accomplish. If he answers the dubai in the new and modern way (mercy, mercy me!), his answers betray him for the heretic that he is. (No Question! For All to See Plainly!) If he doesn’t answer it at all, then he forces the remaining Dubai Brothers to force the issue. Next up for excommunication: three Cardinals who dared to ask simple questions that any twelve year old Catholic should be able to answer.

      Reply
  13. “You have to realize that he is aiming at reform that is irreversible. If one day he should sense that he’s running out of time and doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up.”

    The problem is, it isn’t the Holy Spirit asking Pope Francis for this irreversible reform. I read this and thank God that I learned about consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary! I pray for the conversion of many who do not know the Truth, because their chances of learning become less likely every day under this pontificate.

    Reply
  14. In this time of great uncertainty in the world and especially in the Church, we need clear teachings! We don’t need documents that ramble on for hundreds of pages and are unclear, misleading, and interpretable in multiple ways!

    Reply
  15. To Hell with these apostates! Now, regarding something I’ve just noticed on this fine site, “Print Friendly”. I like that, nice touch and now we can disseminate these articles to those friends who are not connected to the world wide web.

    Reply
  16. Of the many bad things about sin, one thing needs be mentioned in the context of this article: Sin makes you stupid.
    Things to know about sodomy:
    1. Sodomy REALLY makes you stupid; if you have the “inclination” but refrain from it, pray, offer sacrifice, etc., it may not utterly possess you, but if you embrace it (no pun intended) it’ll make you take simply crazy risks for it, and it will make you quite unbalanced, untrustworthy, and finally demented.
    2. Sodom (and Gomorrah, etc.) were destroyed for it. They were so “unbalanced” and “demented” that they wanted to A, break the ancient code of hospitality to strangers, and B, rape angels. (How stupid can you get? I ask you!)
    3. Like murder, it is one of the four sins that “cries out” to Heaven for vengeance, so it is pretty serious (to say it in a deadpan way); see also Point 1 and 2 above.
    4. It is also worship of devils; Prostitution in the ancient Near-East was usually “temple prostitution”, which took place in temples such as that at the famous Baalbek (Heliopolis, as in: “Sun City”, in effect) that wasn’t closed until the Imperator Constantine himself ordered it closed. So for a 1st century Pharisee, ALL the Jewish people were “saved” because they had the blood of Abraham through Sarah; the only way to break that bond was to work directly for the conquerors (i.e., be a tax collector, hence the loathing of such) or prostitution – which was, yes, condemned in Leviticus but also was in essence the worship of devils!
    5. Saints are on record as to just how evil it is. Take a moment to review Steve Skojec’s article here on that aspect of it from June 30, 2015
    6. Churchmen who engage in this are (depending on just how deeply they’ve gone into it, one could charitably suppose) are going to manifest unbalanced behavior, untrustworthiness, and demented, and open the Body of Christ to the invasion of Satan (which Paul6 alluded to in his “The smoke of Satan fills the sancturary”).
    And finally:
    7. Any Churchman who, within his competence, doesn’t do what he can to eradicate this evil from the bosom of the Church…well…I don’t think I need to say it. We all know it. And we’re actually seeing it happen, in the here and now.

    Raghn

    Reply
  17. This individual need provide himself a card table and set up a shell game in Times Square.
    Your analysis, Mr. Skojec, is the fruit of a heroic effort. Reading this “theologian” is nothing less than agonizing. We are witnessing an episcopate in cognitive fracture. It is nothing less than frightening.
    These men are without faith.
    On a practical note — What purpose is served by the “block” above in the article asking for name, email, et al.? Am I missing something?

    Reply
  18. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the case that no sanctifying grace is bestowed upon someone who receives Holy Communion unworthily, regardless of this joker’s opinion or even what the pope succeeds in changing about doctrine? For heaven’s sake, it’s not up to them, and certainly not within their purview to change. They can change the faithful’s beliefs, but not reality.

    People may think they’re receiving grace, but in reality they merely satisfy a superficial desire to publicly display union with Christ, which is not the same thing by any stretch.

    No one seems to talk about this so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.

    But if I am right, the most immediate solution to this problem can be found in a grassroots effort, in which every priest with the courage to do it would instruct the faithful about the truth of the grace available in the Eucharist.

    Reply
    • We all receive sanctifying grace all the time but we can will to impede it by committing mortal sin which results in our not being in a state of grace and therefore ineligible to receive communion. Fernandez has deliberately confused the receipt of sanctifying grace with being in a state of grace.

      Reply
      • Yes, he is deliberately confusing the faithful. Maybe you didn’t mean it literally, but my understanding is not that we all receive sanctifying grace all the time, but that we first receive it at Baptism and then continue to receive it through the reception of the sacraments, prayer, works of mercy, etc. We receive it when we strive for heaven, in other words, following the timeless teachings of the faith.

        Reply
        • I have been corrected by michael elsewhere in these comments and you might like to read my answer to him. Frankly it seems to me that the whole subject of grace is not that clear – at least to me! Reflecting further I think it is difficult to equate sanctifying grace solely with grace received whilst in a state of grace anymore then one could equate the word ‘food’ with ‘a plate of food’. Is actual grace which we receive all the time not sanctifying grace? What does Fernandez mean by sanctifying grace? Father Charles Journet in his book “The meaning of Grace” discusses how we can ascertain whether we are in a state of grace. He quotes St Thomas Aquinas saying that lack of consciousness of mortal sin is a sign that one is not in a state of grace. This would seem to contradict what AL suggests.

          Reply
          • In a nutshell, sanctifying grace is intrinsic, lives in the soul, and (after Baptism) is received through reception of the Eucharist, etc. Actual grace is extrinsic, a “temporary supernatural intervention” or enlightenment sent from God to strengthen our will, show us our sins, etc. Hope that helps.

  19. The obfuscation, the refusal to confirm (“there can be no other interpretation” instead of “yes, that is what I meant”), alway using language that is replete with words that have to be understand in some deep theological context. Is this pontificate really for the people, “little people”, or something else?

    As a dated old prophet once said “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.”. Ah but he didn’t understand the concrete situations that call for situational/gelatin ethics. Humanity was so much more simple back then. We have evolved and changed. We have new ideas. The body and soul are not at all linked. Christ was just a prophet. We live in a spirit world.

    No, that prophet could have foreseen none of this.

    Reply
  20. “…but I can’t put my finger on what I’m seeing.”

    Oh, I see it alright the whole thing is about destroying The Institution of Marriage through theology. A little drip here and a little drip there and the leaks will eventually break the Dam. Only God can judge the state of the person’s soul (Only God can judge the person subjectively because He is All-Knowing). Therefore, a Con-Artist (for example, one of the Kennedys) can come up with fake excuses to justify Adultery to protect his or her reputation (not because the Con-Artist has any Supernatural Faith).Therefore, we shouldn’t be getting into the business of Judging someone subjectively because this will lead to the slippery slope of JUSTIFIABLE ADULTERY and we’ll wind up becoming nothing more than a Protestant Sect, where people don’t take Marriage seriously.

    Look at the poster…..I’m making it very clear for you! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff1780f509eb8f332676f82d121ea603dc5e03ec9511f9cddcfa51904d61a98f.jpg

    Reply
  21. Ah, “creative generosity”! But I thought God was the same yesterday, today, and forever. And also that truth does not change. Nor does sin. While one should be obedient to legitimate authority, one should NOT be obedient when that authority promotes or approves of sin. And therein lies the confusion: so what has always been known as sin, are such things no longer sin because an authority in the Vatican–perhaps the pope or his minions–so it no longer is? Are they upholding the teachings of Christ? The faithful person who has managed to remain “in the pew” should not have to be prisoner to these doctrinal confusions; it is a travesty at the very least and also grave sin to lead them to sin or to continue in it.

    Reply
  22. Fernández is doing his usual Jackie Mason routine.

    It could be a sin..but not always a sin…if it is Tuesday it is..if it is Wednesday it is not…if I feel ok it is…if I feel tired it is not…it looks like a sin…but it is not a sin…i say yes..i say no…may it is…maybe it isn’t…

    This absurd man should plug in some other sins and run that through his moral calculator. Racism, genocide, baby torture…then gives us his same shtick.

    Reply
  23. I think the the Church should consider using this phrase and truly consider it from both sides of the Catholic equation
    “Those not a a state of the grace that sanctifies do not, cannot receive HOLY Communion”. By thins I mean they can go ans receive all they want but Jesus will withdraw. Wisdom chapter one. By scriptures we know that if God is there so is all of the Holy Trinity..
    Charity I think cannot be where there is no charity. When we do not love God above all things and we do not love better still do not respect respect the charity of others in their Holy Sacrifice of the Mass then there is no charity for the one so lacking in respect for God’s directive or for the one who by confession id trying to give on his part the respect due to the Word of God in its purest form. The Eucharisti

    Reply
    • “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution” – St. Thomas Aquinas
      “Charity which has not truth and justice for its foundation is faulty” – St. padre Pio
      “Mercy does not come first, and then justice; but rather justice first, then mercy. The divorce of mercy from justice is sentimentality, as the divorce of justice from mercy is severity. Mercy is not love when it is divorced from justice.”
      From Way to Happiness by Fulton J. Sheen (Garden City Books, 1949)

      Reply
  24. “Fernández said Francis nowhere claimed that someone can receive Communion if they are not in a state of grace, only that an objectively grave fault is not sufficient to deprive a person of sanctifying grace.”

    Francis doesn’t know basic theology? Grave Sin + Full Knowledge + Full Consent = Mortal Sin (losing sanctifying grace).

    Then you teach them not to commit the objectively grace fault. DUH! Am I in some kind of FULL RETARD bizzaro world?

    Maybe someone should send Francis the Baltimore Catechism. Yeah the one with lots of pictures! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/50985cafe1d800e1b00bb5246b16069aeef68ced1884cd8772a1f1600bd2d620.jpg

    Reply
    • Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC1735: “Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors”. This deals with the “full knowledge/deliberate consent” parts of the equation, in a case (let’s assume) where the matter concerned is objectively grave (i.e. serious). This of itself is no more than classic Catholic moral theology, which (thank God) considers our intentions and not just our foolish actions. However, Amoris is perceived to have used this “get-out” as a pretext for fudging the issues around adultery and suggesting that access to Communion may be given in difficult cases. But, as it is said: “hard cases do not make good law”. It’s difficult to envisage many cases where a person in such a situation could justly be admitted to the sacraments. A case where abandoning a divorcee partner sexually might cause the partner to return with her children to an abusive biological father, perhaps?

      Reply
      • “It’s difficult to envisage many cases where a person in such a situation could justly be admitted to the sacraments.”

        I don’t think it is hard to envision this at all. When people are not taught the truth, they will desecrate the Holy Eucharist. Look at the Pro-Abortion Advocate Politicians, they are going up to receive Communion to protect their reputations. They don’t care about God, it is all a SCAM! Hey, Adulterers want to protect their reputations too, and their sins have darkened their mind. It is called Justifiable Adultery!

        Reply
        • Of course, if people aren’t told the truth, they may be wrong in their actions through no fault of their own, it’s possible. That’s what I’m saying.

          Reply
          • Father, with all respect, “I did not know,” can not be the proper justification. Not for Catholics. Catholics should and must know the truth. Truth which is unchangeable and of vital importance for their eternal life.
            We can not just sit and wait, or just do not care or minimal effort, until the truth about certain and very important things shall be announced to us.
            If an adulterer 30, 40, and 50 years old is mature enough and able to know how to marry two or three times … Then he/she must also be mature enough to know the truth, which btw. is of vital importance for him/her.
            Besides, we are here not talking about pagans, who probably could have right to say ‘I did not know’. But the ones who are baptized in the water and the Spirit cannot have that justification.
            Moreover, the main task of every Christian is to seek, find and live with the truth, according the truth, and in the truth. Even in the smallest things. How more we should in such great things which are of vital importance.
            As the psalmist speaks: “The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom: and his tongue shall speak judgment. The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be supplanted.”
            And: “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: he shall delight exceedingly in his commandments.”

          • This is it exactly.

            The citation references only an event after it happens, not a set of behaviors to be modeled in the future.

            Seriously, for anyone to even suggest that this passage describes the situation of public adulterers receiving communion is ridiculous.

          • Great comments, all of them and I agree. I merely set out the grave matter/full knowledge/deliberate consent principles and opined that they were being used in a disingenuous way in Amoris.

          • It’s called spiritual blindness, sins of the flesh and wilful disobedience and Bergoglio and his henchmen are aiding, abetting and empowering these liberals.

          • Errr…disagree somewhat. There IS such thing as “vincible ignorance” and it is certainly culpable. The “fault of their own” was never seeking out the truth in fact. God leads the good to the truth and lets the evil “have eyes and yet not see”. Obdurate sin breeds ignorance because “their minds have been darkened” [Romans]. God “gives up” the obdurate sinner to the folly of willful blindness.

            p.s. this is why, if you were wondering, many people (even Catholics) today do not “see” the obvious truth that Islam is the Antichrist religion and of the devil, full of evil. Because of their sin. Grave sin engaged in and justified over long periods of time (obduracy) leads to moral blindness and even to what St. Thomas calls “the loss of the good of intellect”. As a punishment for their grave sinfulness and refusal to repent, God “gives them up” to blindness and they are thus incapable of seeing what to any decent, good person is patently obvious. And they will pay the price for rejecting the truth.

          • God places an internal, what I call, “bull manure monitor” inside each of us at conception. Have you ever heard something about the Catholic Faith and said to yourself, “That doesn’t sound right”? You didn’t know what the truth was, but you knew something was wrong when you heard it. I have this a lot. That instinct is natural law, and can be suppressed. The analogy of the “sense of sin” and “Islam” is like apples and oranges. We can be blind to worldly knowledge without suppression, but if we hear a teaching in regards to Islam that is not Catholic, our “bull manure monitor” should go off and we should “know” that it is wrong. If not, then years of suppression have occurred – and it’s our own fault. Hereto, the “I didn’t know” excuse is laughable. Ex. You can’t put your head in a hole in the sand and then say, “I didn’t see it coming”, because you didn’t see it coming because you chose to not see it. AKA : Culpability.

    • Fernandez has confused sanctifying grace with being in a state of grace. God gives everyone sanctifying grace all the time even to the worst of sinners. Fernandez is suggesting that receiving sanctifying grace entitles one to receive communion. However sanctifying grace gives sufficient strength to resist committing sin but a person can will to impede that grace and commit the sin. If it is a mortal sin then they are no longer in a state of grace and thus ineligible to receive communion. I suspect that Fernandez knows full well the difference between receiving sanctifying grace and being in a state of grace but has deliberately confused the two in order to promote the devil’s agenda.

      Reply
        • michael: Maybe you are right but I do find the terminology very confusing. The Catholic Encylopedia says you are right but that was in 1917. The Catechism though is less clear. Both would agree with you about ‘actual grace’ but the Catechism is not so clear about ‘sanctifying grace’. I would have thought that actual grace which is the grace that God gives to us to enable us to avoid sin is a sanctifying grace as it aims to sanctify us even though we may will to impede it. Para 2023 says sanctifying grace “is infused by the Holy Spirit to heal it of sin and to sanctify it”. However para 2000 says that sanctifying grace is ‘an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition’ but does not go so far as to say it is the same as a ‘state of grace’. Para 1861 says that mortal sin deprives one of sanctifying grace ‘that is of a state of grace’. Curiously ‘state of grace’ is nowhere defined in the Catechism and is only otherwise mentioned as a requirement for the receipt of communion etc. Thus one could conclude that sanctifying grace is a grace which one receives when one is in a state of grace rather than there being an equivalence. I am no expert however and just find the subject confusing! How it applies to Father Fernandez I am now not so sure and will have to study it further. It is probably just ambiguity.

          Reply
  25. nice article: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/ By Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek

    from it:

    …Christian morality, then, is not based on the application of precepts or ideals, but on our nuptial union with God in Christ. The moral assessment of a situation, including a remarriage after divorce, is fundamentally a matter of recognizing what it means to join Jesus in doing what is truly good for us and others. This is always just, merciful, and faithful.

    Jesus insisted that what is good for us will lead to crucifixion; we must be prepared to lose our loved ones and our lives if we are to love as he loves. (Mt 10: 37-39) Inevitably, this entails sacrifices and martyrdoms of many kinds, including the loss of the personal and financial support of a “second spouse” who abandons a family because a partner refuses adulterous sexual relations. In that situation, it is no act of mercy to offer a way around the Cross by declaring the sexual relations “good” since deliberate infidelity is not good, but harmful for each partner’s union with Jesus, their current relationship, children, and the first marriage.

    Nuptial fidelity to one’s first spouse and to Christ must be chosen over adultery, regardless of the cost. That is the clear meaning of the fidelity, merciful love, and justice God has shown to us; a meaning reaffirmed by the Lord’s life and his teaching that remarriage after divorce is adultery; adultery is a sin; sin is a betrayal of Him; that it is better to suffer than to betray Him. (Mk 10:11; Jn 8:11; Mt 25:31-46; Mk 9:43)

    Jesus condemned the Pharisees not only for the false burdens they created but also for the righteous duties they set aside. (Mk 7:1-15) In the past, strict priests wrongly burdened those in troubled marriages by refusing to consider the need for legal separation or the possibility of an invalid marriage. Now, accommodating priests wrongly declare sexual relations in a second union “good” by setting aside the first marriage in light of the current partners’ support for each other and their children.

    This is not pastoral progress or mercy, but the replacement of an older pharisaical approach with a newer one – its mirror image. In the name of avoiding rigorism, this effectively “nullifies the word of God” regarding covenant fidelity, marriage, adultery, and sin.

    This new pharisaical approach can be corrected only by viewing second unions in light of the first marriage and the union of Christ and the Church. For we call something “good” not because it fits a strict or accommodating application of moral principles, or because it suits our preference for a “just” or “merciful” solution, but because it conforms to Him who alone is good. (Mk 10:18-19)

    Reply
  26. St. Paul has already told us how and why this perverted, convoluted, deceptive heterodox thinking and teaching could come about:
    “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling man… Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever! Amen”
    The many chastisements prophesied by Our Lady and the Lord in the apparitions of Quito, Lasalette, Fatima and Akita, as well as in numerous visions to authentic Catholic mystics, cannot be too far away. Pray the Rosary daily. Keep the true Catholic Faith. Pray for Benedict XVI to release the full 3rd Secret of Fatima, so at least some will have a chance to repent before it is too late!

    Reply
  27. It is a work of Nominalism…Give lip service to objective norms and then deny them in practice. Whatever way they turn, they are still Modernist heretics.

    michael

    Reply
    • That is how they all operate. They claim fidelity to moral truth, and then do the opposite while claiming they are not doing such.

      It is a contradiction and a lie.

      Reply
  28. I can see the Pope’s point, but that he does not state it clearly enough. It is that YES INDEED, a person or even a couple can have MORAL CERTITUDE, that in view of subsequent events THEIR CHURCH WEDDING WAS INVALID, and thus they are free to marry for the first time a post- divorce union that is a true exchange of vows.. (I know of a few cases where this was undoubtedly true, one within my own extended family).
    One or both of the couple were so wounded or so immature that they could not, be parents or could not establish a common life, IN WHICH EVEN MINIMAL COMMUNICATION ON ESSENTIAL
    MATTERS WAS ABSENT.
    But that is what the decree of nullity process comes in. I understand that one of the consequences of this controversy is that some bishops are establishing a formation process formally to dialogue about such cases. The example given in your article of a very abusive husband is prima facie SELF EVIDENT. ( If a husband beats his wife, IMMEDIATELY THE “WIFE” SHOULD SEPARATE AND TAKE THE CHILDREN WITH HER or make the husband leave with the help of the law or others. We KNOW NOW that such a person CAN NOT ESTABLISH MINIMALLY A SPOUSAL RELATIONSHIP; usually this means deep wounds or deprivation IN CHILDHOOD produce such events..
    One must remember that MARRIAGE IS FOR THIS LIFE ONLY and most of humanity is called to marriage.
    Also, the theological teaching of the Roman Church that the validity of the marriage is the exchange of vows and the Eastern Churches that it is the Blessing of the Clergy, EACH TAKEN ABSTRACTLY IS WRONG, In BOTH traditions, going back to the Apostles BOTH ARE NEEDED FOR VALIDITY! AND THAT IS WHAT ACTUALLY TAKES PLACE IN EACH TRADITION.

    Reply
    • Physical abuse does not axiomatically mean a marriage is invalid. It means they should separate but each case does not equal invalidity.

      Moral certitude does not mean one can commit adultery.

      Reply
      • It does if it indicates that the husband CAN NOT ESTABLISH A SPOUSAL UNION, SINCE EVERY RELATIONSHIP OF ANY SORT MUST HAVE RESPECT FIRST. No respect, not real relationship!

        Reply
        • I just heard a Jewish expert on the Torah speak of Genesis’ account of the creation of woman to be a helpmate to the man AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER (the next word) an OPPOSITE to the man, which in Hebrew means an EQUAL to the man.
          The question about the abuser is at the time of the religious ceremony did he even have any self knowledge he was so wounded that he was an abuser. If he was too immature to even know, that WOULD INDICATE an impediment to one of the two ESSENTIAL AND CO-EQUAL PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE, thus invalid. That is what a process for a decree of nullity needs to find out, BUT THE WOMAN CAN HAVE MORAL CERTITRUDE ABOUT THAT; and remember the local Church CAN ONLY OFFER A DECREE OF MORAL (NOT MEDIPHYSICAL) CERTAINTY anyway.. The problem is that the lack of respect comes from a narcissistic factor in him that he woman BLAMES HER for the conflicts within himself which he can not admit to, i.e., ” there’s nothing wrong with ME; it’s all her fault. This usually arises to awareness within the first few years AND GOES BACK INOT CHILDHOOD.
          The local Church has an essential role to play because marriage is a PUBLIC union that arises out of free consent WITH the witnessing AND BLESSING of the Church.
          A priest can come to see that not JUST a separation, but a legal divorce is necessary; and that she was never married to begin with. And it can mean that practically speaking IN A PARTICULAR CASE, the process would take FAR TOO LONG.
          Of the three cases I know, it was a Jesuit who advised a civil marriage and attendance of Mass at a parish that did not know them so as to avoid scandal. It took more than two years for the decree of nullity to arrive BUT THAT WAS NOT OWING TO THE LOCAL CHANCERY JUDGE (not the Jesuit) who had moral certainty the woman was honest and believable, it just took that long for the Church bureaucracy in another country to act. Meanwhile the civil marriage was genuinely happy with 4 children.
          The word adultery does not apply to any part of this case.
          The other two cases I know of (one within my extended family) the second (really FIRST) marriage did not take place until the decree of nullity was obtained, basically because it was within a reasonable time period.

          Reply
          • Psychiatric/psychological “experts” can claim all types of things. You can find other ones to claim the opposite. They are like lawyers.

            The idea that the majority of people cannot give proper consent is rubbish. It is post modern propaganda.

            Leaving your marriage to have sex with any person is a mortal sin. Any priest that encourages that is a traitor to the faith. Period.

  29. Steve, you say “but they appear to me to be moving away from the current position and in the direction of at least appearing to honor the Church’s moral norms.”

    Yes, the greatest danger is the use of taqiyya by this Pope and his henchmen.

    In fact, I have been surprised he hasn’t used this tactic more frequently.

    Why, he could easily come out and answer every question in the Dubia in a totally orthodox fashion and nevertheless still continue wrecking the Church.

    Indeed, that is how Catholic prelates have been doing it for years.

    Pretend to be orthodox and then allow ANYTHING.

    This is precisely why men of this Tucho heretic were excommunicated in the past.

    The Church needs a LOT more excommunications, laicizations and interdicts.

    Reply
      • The Islamic doctrine perfectly describes it.

        Early on after converting I found myself asking “How can the Church have all these doctrinal problems if all the prelates are avowedly orthodox?” Because, publicly, they all are “orthodox”.

        The reason is simple.

        We have a culture of deceit and lying from the top to the bottom.

        What we see now with the current pontificate isn’t a pell mell, radical conversion of orthodox prelates to heterodoxy, it is merely the little-by-little coming-out of dishonest men, now willing to let out a bit more of what they believe/don’t believe without the fear of any ramifications for doing so.

        “And furthermore, the Church desperately needs excommunications, laicizations and interdicts.”

        Reply
        • You are absolutely correct.
          Anyone who has been in religious life since the council can affirm the rabid daily demonstration of your analysis. Manipulation and deceit in order to create a new entity which has no resemblance to the congregation one entered.
          The formal concept of “taqyia” was unknown to me. My thanks to both you and Steve for bringing it up. Very illuminating.

          Reply
          • Yes, I believe in the no-doubt soon-to-be released Novokathlick Katekizm of Pope Saladin, the entry for “Tradition” will be replaced with “Taqiyya”.

            😉

  30. Nobody is confused about what is going on here.

    The Pope and his heretic buddies want to change Church teaching.

    Period.

    No if’s, and’s or but’s.

    Reply
    • The question to be answered is, ” why do they want to change Church teaching.”
      There are many superficial reasons; but what is the main reason?
      What do they hope to accomplish by changing Church teachings? what is the agenda?
      Hatred of purity is the first thing that comes to my mind and so the sins of homosexuality, adultery are given excuses and in fact even being thrusted upon the laity……..especially the children.

      How much Satan detests purity, I would imagine it reminds him of our Blessed Lady, and the Holy Family and how quickly does an impure heart runs from God, instead of humbling seeking Him.

      “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”. says our Lord.
      They love God and “seek His face” = do His will.

      Impurity would be my guess to answer this question.

      Reply
      • I think they (the heretics) want to change the Church’s teachings because they are working for the Liberal Elites to promote the Culture of Death (Abortion,Contraception,etc.).

        Reply
      • You know for some time now I had asked myself the following question: Why in the world would someone who doesn’t believe in what any institution or religion teaches want to become a part of it, only to subvert it and change it from within to the point where it is no longer itself? Is it only the triumphalism of claiming the “Catholic” label for yourself without having to give up any “lifestyle choices”?

        Then I realized, (and I don’t have all the answers) that there are several layers of corruption to this rottenness we see now. In a general way, on a purely animal level we have a possible prideful feeling that comes with considering yourself as the man/men who finally changed (i.e. “reformed”) the Catholic Church (this may be an appeal to our most animal desire for “success” and recognition as a well as desire for power).

        Then on a more intellectual and philosophical (once described as the handmaid of Faith by Pope Leo XIII) level, a whole array of philosophical corruptions arise in an obscured intellect such as Communism/Socialism, Liberalism, Scientism, Casuistry, and Modernism that may or may not accompany a sincere desire to help the Mother Church.

        On a higher still level there are the puppet masters who have repeatedly outlined their plans and brazenly espoused them in the open for all to see. Take Soros for instance who has called himself and has said he believes himself to, if there ever was one, a god. He also said that he finds it “fun” to destabilize entire geo/political regions in his mad dash to erase all cultural differences that may cause conflict (which may be due to his own checkered past) and create a New World Order of peace and permanent heaven on earth.

        And last but most certainly not least, all the rebel angels that roam the earth have a vested interested in wiping the memory of G-d from humanity’s collective memory. I found Cdl. Cafarra’s sermon about the anti-creation particularly helpful in this matter. Being that demons cannot create, all they can do is corrupt what has already been created; and since they’re out to carve a new kingdom for themselves that is in no way (or so they wish) related to G-d, then the best way is to trivialize religion especially as it pertains to the Lord and make it a simple option among many other unimportant things in life.

        Reply
  31. Unfortunately Tucho does have good precedent for “changing doctrine” and associated discipline which he draws on in his article for Medellin. Namely the fact that the Church has de facto abandoned the dogma: “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.”

    While the Church may still pay lip-service to the dogma, the modernist interpretation of it runs along the lines that there is very good hope of salvation outside the Church for everybody. The “liberals” tend to run with Rahner’s fairytale of “Anonymous Christians” while “conservatives” tend to prefer HUvB’s postulate that we can hope for an empty hell and that everybody will be saved.

    If EENS can be so re-interpreted to mean that there is good hope of salvation outside the Church for everybody, then what is the big deal about saying that not all adulterers are in a state of mortal sin, and that some are even avoiding mortal sin by remaining in an adulterous state? It may seem like a sick and demonic proposition to suggest it, but, as Tucho argues, the Church has already given far greater ground on solemnly defined dogma at Vatican II and in its aftermath.

    The seeds for this rebellion against God’s Law were planted a long time ago – even before Vatican II – and we are now seeing them come to fruition. If any correction of this Pope is to be effective, it will need that misbegotten abomination of a Council to be corrected too.

    Reply
    • Exactly.

      This issue…EENS…must be re-examined.

      As must a number of other teachings on topics that have effectively changed, notably involving:

      EENS, homosexuals, indissolubility of marriage, suicide, Limbo, presumption of God’s mercy, adultery/”remarriage”, just war, artificial contraception, Real Presence, responsibility of the prelature/Pope to defend the faith, religious indifferentism, Islam, Protestantism, Luther, Communism, death penalty, relationship of husband and wife in marriage, unity of the Faith/”synodalism”.

      You know, to name just a few…

      Reply
    • To deny the uniqueness of the salvation of the Church of Christ is the same thing as to deny Christ! Whoever is and my be so crazy, to be obedient to anyone who denies the truth, the dogma, and who do not just denying it, but also promotes the diametrical contrariwise lie to that truth, the dogma. Once dogma, forever dogma!
      In addition, the dogma is in essence an invariable, unchangeable truth, as the truth that always is, whatever it is called, unchangeable!
      We need to tell faithful people much more about this main problem, about – ‘abolishing EENS’. Who they were who did it, when and how it began, how was the way for it prepared,…
      I wonder, I really do, enormously; how can be even possible to betray Christ on that way?! To say, and start to teach even others, the flock about some kind of ‘new truth’, about how any, (or few ‘nicely & peacefully’) even pathological religions,- are just fine, which means — the same(!?) as THE CHURCH of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!? How they are succeeded in convincing the Catholics around the Globe in such notorious nonsense!?
      To make this clear, Christ our Lord didn’t said to Peter Kefa; ‘You, Peter are a rock, but,… they are also others,… I have other rocks too, and so all my Church(es) I’ll build on all of them!’
      Therefore, must repeatedly be said: There is only one Gospel!
      “I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1,6-7)

      “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6,14-15)

      Reply
  32. “Rather, the objectively sinful situation persists “because there remains the clear Gospel proposal for marriage, and this concrete situation does not objectively reflect that.”——(sigh) the gospel proposal for marriage? I’ve never heard marriage, as something God gives to us as a proposal as if God is suggesting that this is what marriage is. Its clear, we are in a war of words as well. Marriage is a Sacrament that God has given us and He has formed it the way He has formed it for it is by Divine Law it’s form is the only form. No more word games sir. We see you like you see us

    Reply
  33. “Discernment in such cases, he said,involves a person using his or her conscience to examine before God their real situation, together with its limits and practical possibilities, in the company of a pastor and enlightened by the Church’s teaching.

    Such discernment, he went on, is not about the moral absolute of the norm, but about its disciplinary consequences. The norm remains universal, but its consequences or effects can vary. By making clear that this can be discerned by means of a “pastoral dialogue,” said Fernández, “this is what opens the way to a change in [sacramental] discipline.”

    —— see, the good thing here is that this interview is in print so we can actually zero in on what’s being surreptitiously said….firstly, real situations should be understood in the context of not just the material but also under the context of spiritual war…

    Moral absolutes of the norm? Our moral absolutes are not one of a norm but have Divine origin. God who sees all, knows all, understands all, gave us Divine Law with every situation already accounted for. The consequences of doing what is Divinely prohibited is an attack on our soul and has negative seen and unseen conequenes.

    Discipline is governed by Doctrine and once again, the Church has already infallible taught on this matter. There is no authority granted to the Pope to change what is already irreversible.

    Reply
  34. “Indeed, it is not easy to describe as an ‘adulterer’ a woman who has been beaten and treated with contempt by her Catholic husband, and who received shelter, economic and psychological help from another man who helped her raise the children of the previous union, and with whom she has lived and had new children for many years.” ——yes, it’s not easy….none of this is easy, it wasn’t easy to tell all of Israel to repent but that’s what John the Baptist did, was he to not aware of mitigating circumstances? It wasn’t easy for St. Thomas More or Felicity and Perpetua to uphold the faith even though it cost them their lives…its not easy for Christians in Egypt to go to Church in Sunday under clear threat of an attack…but they do. Who on Earth convinced this man his job was easy???? I guess our situation dictates how much love we are to have for God but if God is bigger than our situation then someone needs to preach this because its certainly not coming from this man.

    Reply
  35. Only a jesuit could think up a title “heal me with your mouth…”.
    Yeah, sure, nothing to see here folks, go home.
    This bishop gives me the creeps. The pope is beginning to give me the creeps.
    Something wicked this way comes.

    Reply
  36. Imagine when we will be old, beside the fireplace, telling stories from the time of the false prophet, what was the name… Gorgoglio… Imbroglio… Badoglio… and his pink parterre of human demons, fraternitas frociorum, maradiaga, paglia, fernandez, ricca, schoenborn etc etc…

    Reply
  37. Everyone see this? Looks like El Bergo has responded to the Dubia in a flank attack (and decimated Cardl Sarah’s position into the bargain):
    https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/08/24/pope-invokes-magisterial-authority-declare-liturgy-changes-irreversible/
    Wow…they guy is just incredible. So that’s it for the SSPX, FSSP and ICKSP? (As for me, I’m reading Dr Kwasniewski’s new book and I simply won’t tolerate this nonsense; is the battle about to be joined? A Schism about to be formalized?)
    An excerpt:
    Addressing a group of liturgical experts on Thursday, Pope Francis said that after the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and a long path of experience, “We can affirm with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.”

    Reply
    • Just read the whole report, if you can. It’s got everything wrong with the Pauline liturgy upside-down, saying it is all so great! It is just an incredible report. I’ve read it, but I can’t believe it – or well I should use the distinction that I can imagine almost anything, even something as absurdist mad as this, but I can NOT actually conceive of anyone believing it.

      Sheesh.

      Reply
      • And I don’t know, but Steve et al, does this look like El Bergi is really intending to deep-six Summorum Pontificum? I’m asking because I don’t know, but it seems he’s at the putting down of the foundation for just such a move.

        Reply
        • All I read was the Crux piece and I don’t see a direct indication of intended dissolution of the “EF”, just an affirmation that the novus ordo is here to stay.

          I am wondering if this is an attempt to head off any development to marginalize the novus ordo as I have heard more and more priests are desiring to do.

          Nip it in the bud so-to-speak.

          Hard to say. We know the guy isn’t in love with anything that is overtly Catholic, so I have no confidence he intended to protect the Latin Mass, but I just don’t see a direct attack against it here. Maybe something along those lines is in the 2500 word speech? But if it was I’d think it would get top billing in all Catholic reporting.

          Comments?

          Reply
          • Perhaps. Perhaps it is just a way to humiliate and embarass Cardl Sarah into leaving, or a sort of pep rally for his troops as the Dubia showdown approaches.. But surely, everyone knows the Progessives would fight to their last transgender to save the N.O. Bergi hardly needs to say that. Or say it so emphatically.

            An odd thing about this is that most “Magisterium” Catholics wouldn’t need to be told this either — they assume it is a given. The TLM may grow a good bit, as far as they’re concerned, but the N.O. Mass is “safe”. Therefore, it is an odd commment — indeed, he made it a serious doctrinal statement, El Bergo did.

            Interesting.

            R

          • Yeah, I think you may be right. As you say, worldwide, the NO IS safe, so it IS an odd statement, sort of a self-conscious one as if he actually fears it may be going somewhere.

            Maybe he knows something we don’t about the “safety” of the NO?

  38. Irreversible.
    Irreversible?
    What makes anything papal – exhortations, proclamations, or a passing thoughtless notion,
    irreversible, when the current occupant of the Chair of St. Peter is “reversing” anything that is contrary to his fancy?
    These desperate attempts to undermine the papacy while simultaneously wielding it to confect an
    ecclesial confection which suits the formally Catholic will in the long run fail. Signs of that are presently before us. Who listens to this cohort of self-absorbed clerics wrapped up in their own image? Those like us who out of conscientiousness know them to be fraudulent; those who are supportive of their hedonism – who can be characterized as ultimately uncommitted, and entirely
    sterile when it comes to handing on the faith; and the vast swath of baptized uncatechised Catholics who have no awareness of anything at all that is going on.
    Pope Bergoglio’s belligerent disregard for the responsibility of the office he presently holds will make his “magisterium” entirely reversible, and will obliterate his credibility for all the faithful who follow us into the future.

    Reply
  39. That was physically painful to read. My head is still spinning.

    I think the words of Our Lord apply most aptly here: “Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.”

    Reply
  40. I don’t know what’s happened about the SSPX, but if they’re not playing ball any more, perhaps this is a resulting warning shot about the TLM and Traditional Orders. I won’t be surprised if a ‘magisterial’ blanket ban appears on anything remotely related to Traditional Catholicism. A lot of NO Catholics would accept any statement suggesting Tradition was the wrong side of a Schism.

    Reply
  41. I wonder what contingency they are preparing for…why would the pope be running out of time suddenly? A grave ill ess? Or is he thinking he will somehow be ousted?

    Reply
    • He’s 80 years old (turns 81 this coming 17 December), and he has only one functioning lung. I think that he’s thinking primarily of his physical health and life expectancy.

      Reply
  42. Apostolic Constitutions Book II Section 3 VII.
    .
    Beloved, be it known to you that those who are baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus are obliged to go on no longer in sin; for as those who are dead cannot work wickedness any longer, so those who are dead with Christ cannot practice wickedness. We do not therefore believe, brethren, that any one who has received the washing of life continues in the practice of the licentious acts of transgressors. Now he who sins after his baptism, unless he repent and forsake his sins, shall be condemned to hell-fire.

    Reply

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