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Dubia Cardinals Audience Request to Pope Francis Has Gone Unanswered For Months

Earlier today, a letter emerged on Settimo cielo, the blog of Sandro Magister. It is claimed to have been written by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, one of the four so-called Dubia Cardinals, on behalf of all four of those prelates who had requested clarity from the pope on specific points of confusion arising from the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

It appears that the cardinals wrote to the pope on April 25th, renewing their “absolute dedication and our unconditional love for the Chair of Peter and for Your august person, in whom we recognize the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Jesus”, but also requesting, “moved solely by the awareness of the grave responsibility arising from the munus of cardinals: to be advisers of the Successor of Peter in his sovereign ministry”, that a papal audience be granted so that they might discuss the dubia which have not yet been answered.

Two months later, this request has also been completely ignored.

For some reason, the text of the letter in Italian later disappeared from Settimo cielo, but despite not showing up in the list of his recent posts, remains available in Portugese. Is it a coincidence? A glitch? It’s difficult not to be a little suspicious in the absence of honest and plain dealing from the Vatican.

But now, Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register has made the text available in English. In the interest of preserving the integrity of the original, we will cite it here in full:

Most Holy Father,

It is with a certain trepidation that I address myself to Your Holiness, during these days of the Easter season. I do so on behalf of the Most Eminent Cardinals: Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Joachim Meisner, and myself.

We wish to begin by renewing our absolute dedication and our unconditional love for the Chair of Peter and for Your august person, in whom we recognize the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Jesus: the “sweet Christ on earth,” as Saint Catherine of Siena was fond of saying. We do not share in the slightest the position of those who consider the See of Peter vacant, nor of those who want to attribute to others the indivisible responsibility of the Petrine munus. We are moved solely by the awareness of the grave responsibility arising from the munus of cardinals: to be advisers of the Successor of Peter in his sovereign ministry. And from the Sacrament of the Episcopate, which “has placed us as bishops to pasture the Church, which He has acquired with his blood” (Acts 20:28).

On September 19, 2016 we delivered to Your Holiness and to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith five dubia, asking You to resolve uncertainties and to bring clarity on some points of the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia.

Not having received any response from Your Holiness, we have reached the decision to ask You, respectfully and humbly, for an Audience, together if Your Holiness would like. We attach, as is the practice, an Audience Sheet in which we present the two points we wish to discuss with you.

Most Holy Father,

A year has now gone by since the publication of Amoris Laetitia. During this time, interpretations of some objectively ambiguous passages of the post-synodal Exhortation have publicly been given that are not divergent from, but contrary to, the permanent Magisterium of the Church. Despite the fact that the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith has repeatedly declared that the doctrine of the Church has not changed, numerous statements have appeared from individual Bishops, Cardinals, and even Episcopal Conferences, approving what the Magisterium of the Church has never approved. Not only access to the Holy Eucharist for those who objectively and publicly live in a situation of grave sin, and intend to remain in it, but also a conception of moral conscience contrary to the Tradition of the Church. And so it is happening — how painful it is to see this! — that what is sin in Poland is good in Germany, that what is prohibited in the archdiocese of Philadelphia is permitted in Malta. And so on. One is reminded of the bitter observation of B. Pascal: “Justice on this side of the Pyrenees, injustice on the other; justice on the left bank of the river, injustice on the right bank.”

Numerous competent lay faithful, who are deeply in love with the Church and staunchly loyal to the Apostolic See, have turned to their Pastors and to Your Holiness in order to be confirmed in the Holy Doctrine concerning the three sacraments of Marriage, Confession, and the Eucharist. And in these very days, in Rome, six lay faithful, from every Continent, have presented a very well-attended study seminar with the meaningful title: “Bringing clarity.”

Faced with this grave situation, in which many Christian communities are being divided, we feel the weight of our responsibility, and our conscience impels us to ask humbly and respectfully for an Audience.

May Your Holiness remember us in Your prayers, as we pledge to remember You in ours. And we ask for the gift of Your Apostolic Blessing.

Carlo Card. Caffarra

Rome, April 25, 2017

Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist

We have heard reports since Easter that the so-called Dubia Cardinals were continuing to press forward, slowly and carefully, with their requests. If this letter is indeed authentic — and we have no reason to doubt it — it would appear that this is so.

The question becomes: if the pope is disinterested in making an answer, and the publication of this letter, like the publication of the dubia before it, signal the only recourse these good prelates have — public exposure — what comes next?

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243 thoughts on “Dubia Cardinals Audience Request to Pope Francis Has Gone Unanswered For Months”

  3. I go to a Ukrainian Catholic parish. There is a divorced and remarried woman who goes every Sunday, but can not receive Holy Communion. The priest said he would sanctify her second civil marriage, as her first husband is deceased. The second husband who is Catholic, but doesn’t attend Mass refused. Therefore, through this couples own hard heartedness, the woman continues to be excommunicated. I mention this story to show my pastor is holding to Church teaching as well as being pastoral by offering the woman a remedy, which she of her own free will refuses to take, whereas these prelates think they are being pastoral by allowing people who aren’t validly marriage to commit sacrilege in receiving.

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        • Wonderful! I saw that in The Way (our archeparchial online newspaper). Mnohaya I blahaya lita! Many and blessed years to His Grace!

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          • Our pastor here in Oregon, Fr. Janowicz, has been the interim administrator, so he has been flying to Chicago every other week since +Bishop Richard fell asleep in Christ, so I’m sure he will be glad once the new bishop is installed.

          • My brother was baptized by +Bishop Richard Seminack when he was a priest. My father, another gentleman and then-Father Seminack purchased the land for our parish.

            Vichnaya pamyat, Vladika!

    • She’s not excommunicated; she is unable to receive Communion. The two can look similar but are quite different.

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    • If possible, give her a blessed Green Scapular and ask her to pray “Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.” for the conversion of your husband. If I knew your name and parish, I’d send it to you c/o your pastor.

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    • I go to a trad mass. I know a man there whose Catholic wife left him after having two kids, took up with another man and had kids with him. He’s sad, he prays for her, he carries his cross, he receives Holy Communion. He’s far away from her in another country, he could get a girlfriend, I’m sure he’s lonely, he could marry again and probably even get the novus ordo church to bless it but he does not, he stays a faithful Catholic, carrying his cross.

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    • I would need to check, but it seems to be that what is called sanatio in radice doesn’t need the other party to agree. I would need to check the Eastern Catholic Code of Canons.

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  4. I wonder if this letter being made public will cause Francis/Bergoglio to fly into yet another one of his infamous temper tantrums. Because it certainly does nothing to advance the narrative of Francis/Bergoglio as “the most humblest pope EVAH!”; rather, it makes him look like a petulant child who doesn’t have the stones to meet with those who express disagreement with him.

    The week’s homily should be most interesting . . .

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  5. What next? Come on, it’s only been a few months. Let’s wait a year or so. Then we can write a respectful letter requesting a response to the request for an invitation to discuss some clarification of what is already perfectly clear. Sin boldly.

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        • Ok. I’m assuming that your original post was meant as sarcasm. I usually put (sarc) or something similar so others know not to take me literally.

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          • It’s an American thing. I cannot count the number of times ironic or satirical posts of mine have been misunderstood by Americans. There seems to be something in the Yankee psyche that blocks their comprehension of basic irony and satire.

          • Yo Stalin, I have read a ton of your comments so I feel like i know you a bit. I just have to say that the irony in your comment is ironic because I’m a died in the wool *actual* Yankee (slang for New Englander / North Easterner), born in Massachusetts, living in Rhode Island. I’m as Yankee as them come 🙂 Not sure where you are from…oh wait…

          • You’re cute. I’m in southeast Pennsylvania (one of the original 13 colonies [1681]) and am half Ukrainian Greek Catholic, half Byzantine Catholic. 😉

          • I’m American and I get the sarcasm but I’m sad and worried and don’t want people to become contentious because they cause me stress and then I will quit reading them. Up till now I have learned so much from the comments. One could say that I too need to get out more, but the fact is, the stresses and strains of everyday life seem to be putting me in overload already and this friction just sends me over the top.

          • I only responded to you, Margaret but I didn’t mean that you were contentious. You’re my favorite.

          • Thank you. I agree. I have almost given up on one blog (not 1P5) because of a heated online argument with another person.

          • Me too Great Stalin. Born in Quincy, MA. Can’t get more Yankee. Can’t recall missing sarcasm. Maybe those who don’t get sarcasm are below the Mason-Dixon.

          • Yeah, not only is it fine to say that Americans are clueless dullards who can’t discern sarcasm and irony, it’s always acceptable to rag on Southerners!

          • LOL, well I’ll probably live here in GA for the rest of my life but you know I’ll always be a Yankee????.

          • Yes. You, like many other transplants, will live in the South for the rest of your life. While you enjoy living among us, and inwardly give thanks that you aren’t in Massachusetts, you insult and mock us on public forums.
            Bless your heart.

          • Comrade, deep sigh. We are on the edge of WWIII (seriously) and the entire world, including the Church, seems to have gone mad. Humor in America? Sarcasm? Irony? Very little is funny anymore and this is coming from someone who could do stand up comedy.

            If you want the folks in America to “get it” put a “sarcasm tag”. Internet comment boxes do not have any nonverbal cues attached to them unless you add an emotion icon or a (smile and wink). Disclaimer: the above is a combination of humor and truth and was not intended to be offensive in any way.

          • I don’t agree – not that the matter under discussion is in any way important. If someone needs a “sarcasm tag” before they can spot irony or satire, then they need remedial English comprehension lessons.

          • It’s okay that you don’t agree. I’m not Francis. I promise not to go off in a rage or in a tirade. And about those “remedial English comprehension lessons” ….. Comrade, have you not witnessed what is emerging from the public school system in America? Remedial lessons are needed after the initial lessons.

            Common Core: where we add to subtract. Some people are so proficient at irony, satire and sarcasm that folks actually think they are speaking in seriousness. (The above was very well done, by the way.) I have pet peeves of my own. Watch out now, or I might just turn into the “grammar police.”

            But then again, quoting Francis, ” Who am I to judge?”

          • “Remedial lessons are needed after the initial lessons.” LOL!

            In England it’s no different. “Nowotimin” is usually put between every incomprehensible half-sentence uttered by our delightful inner city immigrant types who do so much to improve English life.

            Know what I mean?

          • I really get the point of my very great friend Benedict, so great that I love him really as my own brother (not just as brother Catholic), but I agree here with Susan and Margaret. In my opinion there should never be any need to be sarcastic. Simply, because our Lord Jesus Christ was never sarcastic, our Father in Heaven was never sarcastic. And we should do our best to be like our Father, as we know.
            Another thing is, when someone who IS faithful Catholic and more than obvious is trying to do his best for Christ, the Church and his neighbor, and he is also very intelligent so that he with easiness overcome simpatico whenever he speaks or write words down,- then doing even a little bit ‘sarcastic’ about this kind of Life matters about which we all should cry out with the tears in our eyes because of pain that we all certainly have (not just feel) in our Christian hearts, can be too amusing than really desirable, but also distracting.
            And I know, I too make easily the same slip from time to time, so this applies to me first, before anyone else.

          • Thanks to our good God for every good get or do.
            I send a two big hugs to my dear sister Margarita. 🙂
            I’m really thankful to God for so many brothers and sisters here. Brothers and sisters in real Spirit, connected by the Holy Spirit.

          • Christ responded to the woman of Canaan who asked Him to help her daughter. He asked her if it was good to take the bread of children and cast it to the dogs. Jews regarded non Jewish Canaanites as dogs…..
            Christs comment is somewhat sarcastic and the woman responds with
            humor as well. You said Christ was never carcastic and that was the incident that came to mind.

          • No. It was not sarcastic, neither was there any humor.
            Remember, that Greek woman came to beg Jesus for help for her very sick child possessed by demon.
            “For the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophenician born. And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.” (Mark 7,26)
            Besides, our Lord Jesus Christ, spoke plenty of times in parables to the people so that they could understand:
            “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” (Matthew 13,13)
            or
            “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables;” (Mark 4,11)

          • Yes, the woman was a Gentile… Syro-Phoenician born and greatly concerned about her daughter. Our Lord would never call her a dog but was referring to the attitude that Jews had about Gentiles…there certainly was humor in her answer that even the little puppies eat the crumbs left beneath the table.
            Apparently, our comrade is right about Americans not being able to recognize sarcasm…..much less humor.

          • I am afraid you just don’t see it. No, there was no any iota of humor, let alone sarcasm, let alone, by our Lord. And we know, for sure, how Jews in that time were referring about the gentiles, they called them all pagans, rightly, but sometimes dogs too which is not correct.
            Again she had NO reason to make any humor about the situation in which her daughter was. She went as pagan and unbeliever to our Lord to beg for help.
            And Jesus was saying that what he exactly said, and again trough the parable which must be very understandable to that woman from a pagan folk who didn’t believed in the only One and true God. The reason why Jesus said it in THAT way to THAT women, is rather from reason to show us how even pagan folk can be truly humble (!) and have a great faith in the Son of God, Himself, even without any knowledge or reading letters (as pharisees have for example and still do not lives their faith in a right way), than to be humorist or, let alone, sarcastic.

            Lastly, let’s me say it this way: If man do not have any feeling, or do not appreciate or do not even recognize sarcasm at all, it’s an advantage rather than a lack.

            We should keep in mind things which are much more important than doing effort to be capable to recognize sarcasm or even humor, let alone to fully and often enjoy in both:
            “I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12,36-37)
            “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
            the mind of the wicked is of little worth.”             (Proverbs 10,20)

          • you and Margaret need to bore each other to death over a cup of coffee. Also, guess I will have to move out of Southeastern Pennsylvania… 🙂

          • Sigh, Great One. “It” is not an American thing at all. It is a personal trait exhibited by quite a few people from all parts of the world. While stereotypes generally have a basis in truth, a hearty American “nyet!” is in order here.

          • The Yankee psyche is young enough to still have a healthy dose of earnestness. It does not have quite as much of the blase factor that older and more world-weary cultures have. I know, I’m generalising.

          • If you have to write (sarc) then your sarcasm loaf is not fully baked. Put it back in the oven until there’s no mistaking that it’s done. There is a nice hollow sound when you tap on the bottom…

          • True story:

            When my sister and I were teenagers, we wanted to make the traditional breads for our Easter basket, paska and babka. My sister made the paska, I made the babka.

            When we took them out of the oven, her paska was dry but it came out ok. The top half of my babka disintegrated into crumbs, and the bottom half stuck in the coffee can.

            I cried, and have not tried to bake in over 30 years. Today, my sister is a good cook and yours truly can screw up scrambled eggs. No kidding.

        • Remember, let your yes be a synthesis of non-binary pastoral horizon-expanding open to the exclusion of past but familiar modes of thought, and your no not simply be an expression of a concrete real life situation where time is greater than space, in a refreshed hermeneutical epoch that considers the integrity of the human person while allowing for surprises. Anything more than this is from the Cardinal-Burke one.

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          • I’ll stick with St. Matthew and St. Jerome, thank you:

            [37] But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. …

            Btw, that wasn’t funny.

          • You need to get out more, Margaret. It seems like you don’t understand humor and indirect praise. If you don’t understand something, ask what it means. You might learn something. Otherwise, don’t comment on something if you are not sure you fully grasp it. So, please delete your post about me deleting my post. But I will not delete my post because you don’t get how it praises (obviously), Cdl. Burke.

          • I didn’t say delete your post; I asked you to *edit* it. You had me up until the last sentence. That’s when the red alert went off in my poor head.

          • I KNOW It’s sarcastic, But Your Comment Is Very Funny As well. Thank you for a respite from all this.

          • I know it’s sarcastic too but the reference to Cardinal Burke was NOT funny. That poor man has enough to contend with from modernists without having someone else make fun of him.

          • I’m not making fun of Cardinal Burke. I don’t know how you managed to misread sarcasm like that. I’m praising Cardinal Burke for speaking “yes, yes” and “no, no”. Please tell me you understand that!

          • Some people–and there are many–are absolutely incapable of detecting sarcasm. Or humor. Or they cannot resist the pleasurable feelings derived from moral outrage.

          • Your comment was not only funny but perfectly in line with the kind of gobblety gook that Bergoglio would use to answer the dubia should he ever attempt an explanation….which is highly unlikely.

          • I think you’ve GREATLY misunderstood, at least what I was attempting to communicate. Cardinal Burke is a saint in my book, and I would NEVER mock him one iota!!!

            I was appreciating the humor/sarcasim of Douglas Bonneville’s comment. It was, indeed, clever, IMHO. I believe Mr. Bonneville was stating that Cardinal Burke is wise, knowledgeable, and chooses his words wisely, and ONLY uses the words he needs, when he needs it.

            I was NOT mocking anyone.

          • I know that neither you or i would ever mock Cardinal Burke. Re your opinion of him: Ditto here. Also, I know that you NEVER mentioned him in your post. I’m sorry if you got that impression. I was referring to the original comment by DB.

            If you look at the posts by Ivan, Leslie and Susan, they explain what I was trying to convey much better than I.

            My post was an expression of grief, not anger towards you or DB.
            I know what it’s like to be made fun of, so I’m very sensitive when it happens to others, even in sarcasm.

            Friends?

          • We all have misunderstandings; myself included for sure. Texting/emails are not the best modes of communication either; you miss the facial expressions that communicate so much! God Bless.

          • Perfect. A little humor is certainly needed, as this situation gets a little heavy. Allowing for surprises……excellent.

  6. I find it very interesting that already in the second sentence after the greeting, we get this: “We do not share in the slightest the position of those who consider the See of Peter vacant, nor of those who want to attribute to others the indivisible responsibility of the Petrine munus.”

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  7. We can prayeras we should but if he hasn’t answered by now, they have their answer???? He would expose himself if he answered as a heretic so he won’t. Thereby he can continue using his authority to allow evil fill His Church???? This is most definitely the evil one at work. I believe he ( Bergolio) to be the False Prophet???? We must be cautious and diligent in the days ahead. This was predicted and given by our Blessed Mother we must be alert to Truth and lies and remain faithful to Holy Scripture and the Orthodox teachings of Holy Mother Church as there is a ” false Church” immerging???? Yes , pray, pray,pray and offer reparations, following the First Saturday’s our Blessed Mother asked for???????????????????????? We are in this together…. His Remnant Church!

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  8. What’s Francis’ favorite word (apart from “rigid”)??

    Yes, that’s right, it’s dialogue! He’s always blathering on about “dialogue”……..dialogue with Muslims, dialogue with Protestants, dialogue with homosexual activists etc etc.

    Yet when four Catholic cardinals ask for “dialogue”, they can’t get a reply. All of a sudden, the disciple of dialogue clams up and won’t talk.

    Can you say h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e?? Can you say m-o-n-s-t-r-o-u-s, h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-c-a-l b-l-o-w-h-a-r-d??

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  9. Pope Francis may be incapable of clarity. He may just be a confused unclear thinker. He may be a man who wants to appear nice to everyone and understanding of different points of view. And yet this is the man who is Pope and the Church suffers the consequences. As he was unable to answer the “dubbia” because there is no way of answering without being clear, he may be incapable of meeting the four Cardinals and so he hides, not answering hoping the whole thing will go away. I’m trying to give a positive spin to this whole thing. In any case, we pray for the Cardinals, the Pope and our divided Church.

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    • From his own writings I think there is much truth to this.

      There is a vein in modernism that just cannot and will not be nailed down to a coherent and straightforward point. Ultimately, every issue of faith and morals is up for grabs. Read paragraph 3 of Amoris Laetitia. There is SAYS in plain speak that not all issues of faith and morals can be settled by the Magesterium. If that is the case, then issues of faith and morals are up for grabs, at th service of whim, fancy and feelings. There is no other interptation, for it is in fact the purpose of the Magesterium to settle issues of faith and morals!

      Everything becomes “This!!!! {…but, but, but….}”

      And this is precisely what I see in Bergoglio. He affirms “This” one day and then “That” another, always scolding anyone who holds a strong position on any topic or doctrine. I really don’t think he sees what he is doing as a thing of evil, as his perspective seems to prevent a clear assessment of any universal. In effect, what I read in him is a man who cannot, simply cannot, come to a point where he can say anything is definitive.

      Short of coming to a conversion of heart and mind, I can’t see him EVER presenting a clear message of the Gospel, of morality or of the polity of the Church, and frankly, I think that chaos in culture represents what I see in the Catholic Church overall at this time in history, excepting some groups and individual priests and prelates therein.

      Indeed, let us pray for the Pope every single day, and just as important, for priests and bishops, that they may grow far stronger than they are now, and may bring the truth of the Gospel in both its joys AND demands {CCC 1697} to a dying world…and to the Pope himself.

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        • To me, this is where Bergoglio has shown us his hand.

          No longer can any prelate {Cdl Mueller, are you listening?????} Pretend that he is confused by the Pope Pope ng. NO, he is NOT. He has told us: The Magesterium is deficient in providing guidance to moral and faith issues confronting “Modern Man”. For THAT {implication: because we are so special…} we need something more. We need something beyond that necessary to guide the knuckledragging Neanderthals of the past centuries.

          Really, this to me as an ex-Protestant, smacks of nothing more or less than the reflected darkness of Classical Protestant Liberalism.

          I THINK this is why the Dubia were framed the way they were, so as not just to address the possibility that Francis is an heretic, but rather to delve into the terrible possibility that Francis is an apostate. No other reading of the Dubia explains the questions as they were put to him. So there they sit, on his desk, as it were, no doubt always reminding him of “judgment”, the thing he so often derides. Yet they have not judged him, they have only asked questions that many would jump at the chance to answer so as to lead the lost to the truth.

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          • For the moment. But even this tin-pot socialist Comrade caudillo will come to understand that even his narcissism is subject to Holy Tradition. The Cardinals are giving him more than enough time. When they do finally call him to account with a public correction, he won’t be able to say that they sprung it on him without any warning. These are very, very high stakes being played for.

      • “I really do not think he sees what he is doing as a thing of evil, …”
        On this, man can ask, but how does one deserve to be in such a bad bad bad state?
        Is not the man himself guilty about his own bad bad bad state of the soul? Is such kind of man’s own state not his personal merit? Yes, it must be. Earned and deserved through long years of a very special ways of living his life, and his ‘faith’.

        But the most important question is: how is it possible that such a man – become a pope?
        This tells us that such a person can be a real pope:
        a). because we really deserved someone like him, since we, especially the Christians, who suppose to be a real children of our God, have for decades ruined Christ’s only Church and our true Faith.
        b). he is not the (valid) pope, but an antipope, who have occupied the seat, helped and installed by masonic forces, and sede is vacante,… or not ,but pope BXVI is still the only true valid pope and this ‘double papacy’ is a fact prophesied by v. Fulton Sheen, and st Francis of Assisi, in whose authenticity you had some doubts lately.
        It is a real mess. I am sure only God knows everything for sure.

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    • You could be right and you could be wrong, regarding Pope Francis’ motive, intents, weaknesses, etc.
      But, it does not matter.
      For, this is not personal about Pope Francis.
      This is about the Church, Christ’s Church and the pope’s authority and duty to defend her teachings, dogmas and I will add Liturgy, from where I sit…..a pew sitter.

      This pontificate gets an ” F” in all of the above. And that is all that truly matters.

      God be with you and protect you. Perhaps you are far kinder than I in this matter, but I cannot help but see it this way.

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      • No, Melanie, to me neither, especially every time he scolds priests and all those whom he considers rigid because they love the Church’s tradition or he perceives they disagree with him. But he may want to be appealing and to appear nice. He succeeded in the first year as Pope in being named “man of the year” by all kinds of groups outside the Church. Some people saw that as a good thing, finally outsiders not beating up on the church etc. But worldly adulation doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in an eternal perspective. In fact it’s another sign that there is something seriously wrong. This did not begin with Pope Francis, it’s been in preparation for years.

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    • Don’t try to “put a positive spin to this whole thing”.

      There is no possible “positive spin” to a Pope deliberately acting to introduce heresy and blasphemous practices to the life of a Christian.

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      • The possibilities of this media are obvious and the limitations also. My “positive spin” was not meant as a way of excusing the Pope but as a way of understatement of the situation before us and ultimately as a call to prayer and intercession for the Church of which Pope Francis is unfortunately the supreme pastor at present.

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    • No he is a clear and focused thinker. He is also highly intelligent. Appearing confused is one of the modernist tactics. Pope Pius X

      “But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast”

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    • I agree with Peter (below). He knows exactly what he’s doing. This idea that he wants to appear ‘nice’ to everyone though, I’m not so sure about. He has said some pretty nasty things about ‘rigid’ people who ‘cling to the law’. That’s one group that he doesn’t tolerate very well. By now it’s crystal clear that he doesn’t believe in tradition. As for ‘hiding’ from the Cardinals though, I believe that is pretty accurate, because he knows that if he answers in his modernist speak he will be ‘corrected’ and if he answers in the truth of Church teaching he will betray his own belief and the belief of those he surrounds himself with, ruining everything he’s worked for. So he really can’t answer the Dubia. I’m not sure he anticipated that he would be ‘challenged’ with this encyclical.

      To me however, the Cardinals have to know by now he’s not going to answer them. They can write all the letters they want to and make all the requests for an audience they wish, and he will stubbornly resist and remain silent. They don’t even get the courtesy of a ‘No, not now’ answer.

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      • I appreciate what you say about the Pope appearing nice. Maybe I should have said that he wants to appear nice to the world and the worldly. After all he had a great record in his first year, man of the year and lauded by all these secular groups and journals. Lamentably, the Pope also distinguishes/divides, not quite the sheep from the goats, but those he perceives like and agree with him from those he perceives don’t like or agree with him. The later he goes after, psychologizes them, calls them names and generally has no time for them. He doesn’t care if they like him because he seems not to like them or respect them all that much. It’s sad to say that we’ve come to that. And frankly, as a priest, I don’t like admitting that. I want to think the best about the Pope whoever he is, the Pope I pray for every day in the Mass and outside the Mass.

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  10. Haven’t you had a moment in life, perhaps as a child, when you know you have done something wrong, and go out of your way to avoid the person you have wronged because the meeting will inevitably result in a confrontation and admittance of guilt? I can remember one such moment when I hid in the house to avoid my mother, staying quiet as a lamb and moving from room to room, hoping to stay unseen. The fear I felt was the result of a lightning raid on the pantry and the consumption of an entire cake that wasn’t meant for my stomach alone.

    Well, a child can be forgiven, but an old man who knows full-well he is guilty? It’s pathetic at best. How much more than pathetic for a Pope, who knows he has directly involved himself in heresy when it is precisely his job to fight against that monstrous vice with all his might and power?

    No, not just pathetic, it is a willful and deliberate act that has no precedent in the Church’s entire history. Even John XXII’s denial of the Beatific Vision until the General Resurrection isn’t in the same class nor did it do the terrible harm to souls that Bergoglio’s programme involves.

    Bergoglio knows full-well he is guilty and is refusing correction. There is only one recourse: the Cardinals must formally and publicly denounce him for heresy and seek an immediate retraction. If Bergoglio refuses, than his heresy is manifest and pertinacious, and he must be formally deposed. I don’t care if the denunciation comes from only the four of them, but come it must, and soon.

    Reply

    • Your scenario has one gigantic problem. Pope Francis has precedent on his side. The Dubia Cardinals accept the legitimacy of the pontificate of St. JPII and he is the Pope who allowed public heretics and schismatics to receive communion in his 1983 Code of Canon Law. If one falls, the other has to fall for the law of non-contradiction to hold. And, in case you’re wondering, officials in the Vatican are aware they hold this trump card.

      Reply

        • I’m going to assume you are asking in good faith and will respond accordingly. According to my sources, the Holy See is very aware that Pope St. John Paul II changed then existing Eucharistic practice that denied communion to non-Catholics. In doing so, he set a precedent that could be followed by succeeding Popes. And the principles involved are exactly the same. Can someone who is in an objectively irregular situation receive communion? You can’t say yes to one without saying yes to the other. If you attempt to do so, you violate the law of non-contradiction.

          Reply

          • “I’m going to assume you are asking in good faith ..”

            What a very strange thing to write.

            Mate, I think you have latched onto something (a JP II outreach to the Eastern Orthodox?) and now imagine it blocks the dubia Cardinals from acting. Of course it does not.

          • Of course it does. Even the dubia Cardinals do not deny that not all of those who are D&R are culpable of mortal sin. And it was that very principle that was used by SJPII to allow non-Catholics to receive communion which, up to that time, was strictly prohibited. In fact, it would put the Dubia cardinals in the awkward position of maintaining that sins against the sixth commandment are somehow worse than sins against the first. Anyway, whether you agree or not, as they say, you heard it here first.

          • Sure. From the dubia, “Thus, for the “Declaration,” the question of the admission to the sacraments is about judging a person’s objective life situation and not about judging that this person is in a state of mortal sin. Indeed, subjectively he or she may not be fully imputable or not be imputable at all.”

          • You make a good point Willard.

            I find it very strange that we are at times unwilling to see how JPII’s love for the Orthodox and his drive to get the Church “breathing with her two lungs” again seems to have clouded his judgement at times.

            The same applies to Ratzinger even when some of the things that PF has said are the logical (or practical I should say) conclusions of Ratzinger’s own words.

            I do wonder, however, how far back we would have to go if we were to look for a starting point to the “reform” craze, I think I saw a reference to Bugnini calling the 50s Holy Week liturgical reform as the battering ram that broke through the Church doors

          • The discipline of denial of Communion has never been predicated on the personal or subjective guilt of the would-be communicant. This is why it is a lie when Cardinal Wuerl claims that Nancy Pelosi must be given Communion because he does not know the “state of her soul.”

            The question JPII had to answer was: Does permitting some schismatics to receive Communion on some occasions cause scandal and mislead the faithful? Giving Communion to Nancy Pelosi and to the D&R ALWAYS does.

          • That is your opinion. As I’m sure you know, those who rejected the pontificate of SJPII, believed that giving communion to objective heretics and schismatics was itself heretical. In the end, it is the decision of the Roman Pontiff that matters.

          • I hear on RadioMaryja.pl just St JPII speaking about genesis of the Galilee song. He used to wonder on trips with the youths, one day when kayaking on Masuria Lakes with the youths, He was suddenly called by Primate Stefan card. Wyszynski to Warsaw to be told, that pope nominated Him bishop (21/06/17 1:57 pm)

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdh1QH3sbQU

          • On July 4, 1958, Father Karol Wojtyla was on a canoe trip with his friends in Masuria, Poland. He received word from Warsaw that he must return for an urgent meeting with Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.

            “So, I started back,” writes the Pope, “first on the waves of the river with the canoe and then on a truck full of flour sacks.

            “The train for Warsaw left late at night. I had brought a sleeping bag with me, thinking I would catch a nap in the station while waiting for the train: Someone, whom I had asked, was to wake me. As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary because I didn’t sleep at all.”

            An anxious Father Wojtyla, who had then been a priest for only 12 years, was told by the cardinal in Warsaw that he had been nominated auxiliary bishop of Krakow.

            After lunch with the cardinal, John Paul II writes, he had hoped to go back to join his friends on the canoe trip. First, however, he had to go to Krakow to see the acting archbishop.

            Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak introduced his new auxiliary to the priests of the diocese with a prophetic greeting, “Habemus papam.”

            Finally, Father Wojtyla asked to be allowed to return to his camp on the river Lyna.

            “Perhaps it is no longer fitting for you!” the archbishop told him.

            “Rather saddened by that answer,” the Pope writes, “I went to the Franciscan church and did the Via Crucis … then I returned to Archbishop Baziak and renewed my request: “I understand your concern, Your Excellency. Nonetheless, I ask that you allow me to go back to Masuria.”

            The archbishop let him go, warning his new auxiliary to return in time for his consecration.

            “That night, I boarded the train direct to Olsztyn,” writes the Pope, “I had with me Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ I spent the whole night reading it, able to take it in only bit by bit. I felt rather strange.”

            He continues: “When I got back to the canoe and began rowing, I once again felt a little strange. The coincidence of the date had struck me: I was notified of my nomination on July 4, and that was the day of the consecration of the Cathedral of Wawel. This anniversary has always had a great resonance in my soul. It seemed to me that the coincidence meant something.”

            “I also thought that it would perhaps be the last time I could go canoeing,” the Pope writes.

            “In reality, I must note, that there were many other occasions for rowing, renewing my strength, in the waters of the rivers and lakes of Masuria. Practically, until 1978.”

          • St.John Paul allowing Orthodox Christians in the case of not having a Church of their own nearby to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church is perfectly legitimate, as they have the Apostolic Succession, real bishops and priests, the seven sacraments and a whole lot more in common with us. They believe the exact same teaching regarding the Eucharist as we do, so your assertion here and now is a HUGE RED HERRING.

          • Assuming all that is true, you still have to deal with the fact that SJPII overturned immemorial Catholic custom by allowing public heretics and schismatics to receive communion. As they say, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

          • Are the confessions heard by an orthodox priest valid?
            Orthodox are sometimes allowed to divorce and remarry. These persons would be entitled to receive the Catholic Eucharist without desecrating it?

          • A person can be a member of a heretical or schismatic ecclesial body without being guilty of the sin of heresy or schism. The founders of heretical or schismatic ecclesial bodies are the ones who are certainly guilty of the sin of heresy and schism.

          • be quiet and get behind us satan in the Holy Name of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Saint John Paul intercede for him with Mary! Vi Ringrazio!

    • So what type of cake was it, if I may ask? My favorite are German Chocolate and Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing. Yum. Speaking of which, perhaps I will bake a cake today.

      Reply

  11. What is next? Unmasking, Schism, and War. The entire world slouches towards the same evil ends, each day. Terror attacks everywhere. Election deniers, assassination attempts, the loss of faith, the corruption of the innocent, and the slaying of the innocent. The good guys seem confused, scattered, disorganized. The bad guys are rabid, full of hateful energy.

    The Second Coming has been imminent for 2000 years now. Each day, it becomes a little more imminent-er. Matthew 24 is not a fun read, when each verse seems applicable to so many events today.

    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
    THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

    Reply

  13. What comes next? This is a case, I think, where Christ, Himself, needs to get into the act. To the wide protestantized Catholic world the four Cardinals would be considered stick-in-the-mud pests, assuming they even bothered to learn about this matter. And Pope Francis knows this. So the only answer we should expect from him is the back of the hand to the courageous Cardinals.

    Reply

  14. According to his much repeated axiom. ªtime is greater than spaceª, his modus operandi is to pretend that the doctrine hasn’t changed, but by means of “discernment, accompaniment and mercy” he has set in motion a process whereby a so called “pastoral solution” is taking hold thanks to various Bishops Conferences, cardinals like Kasper and others. He has already stated in an interview that he is not going to be stopped in his reform agenda by the “rigid” folk for whom he has a whole warchest of insults at hand. The problem is that it is not the job of Popes to invent new doctrine, but to present and preserve the Apostolic Tradition. This is what Vatican I states. .

    Reply

  15. It doesn’t matter. Vatican ii isn’t the problem. Has anyone here read dignitatus humanae? As long as that document is considered catholic. As long as all those ambiguous documents are considered catholic, then this is the norm.

    If Jorge danger does answer, it will be with plenty buts and howevers. It will worse! Vatican ii and the perverse new “mass” must go.

    If there are other ways to go forward without scrapping the council, I haven’t heard it. But I’m open minded!

    Reply

  17. Francis the Destroyer includes everyone except faithful Catholics. Why? Well, that’s why he was elected – to destroy faithful Catholics who are an obstacle to the agenda of the modernist heretics.

    So far, everything is on schedule ….

    Oops, what about Our Lady of Fatima! Kasper and Co better keep that Third Secret hidden lest he and his protege be exposed for the traitors and destroyers they really are.

    Reply

  18. I would like to ask a simple question. What is holding the good cardinals back from identifying renegade bishops, and notorious priests who promote heresy and defame the Liturgy?
    Should not the cardinals be addressing these individuals, forthright and publicly?
    Example: Father James Martin promotion of homosexuality? Where is Cardinal Muller on this.
    Rainbow draped altars in Malta? Where is Cardinal Sarah on this?
    ( I am referring, of course, to well publicized scandals.)

    Pope Francis has decided not to respond. He has made his decision.

    The cardinals now, must simply do their duty to God and the Church and rebuke what is not of God or for His Church. What is so difficult about that? “NO”, is the operative word dear cardinals.

    Reply

    • Dear cs, very reasonable and understandable questions. And indeed, why must be so difficult for any of them (the shepherds) to say NO or YES, while we know they knows everybody knows what actually their first and most important obligation is.
      But we can be sure, God knows! And because He knows everything, we only can and should have trust only in Him and His and our Heavenly Mother Virgin Mary.
      I believe, this must takes some more time, until all those, the cockle, who are against our Lord Jesus Christ, are not exposed and do not show themselves in the daylight. In the same time, we may believe God is giving to those people too, a lot of extra time and lot of chances to repent so that they too may be saved.
      However, we should stay faithful and we have to be patient.

      Reply

      • Interesting, that saying the fourth sorrowful mystery of the rosary this morning, the intention was “patience throughout trials and tribulations.” It is not in our time this tribulation will be resolved but in God’s time.

        Reply

        • Indeed, and we don’t have a clue about how the time matter realy works… I mean, just to say, a one year in our eyes can be as a thousand for God, and a thousand year for us as one year in His eyes…. And even this is just a kind of parable.
          We are just so so small,… so little… so tiny…
          But! What we really need, we can do: Pray and fasting.

          Reply

  20. Sandro Magister, who first blogged on the yet unanswered letter of the four cardinals, requesting audiencein Italy, among others, reports:
    “In Turin, the Catholic priest Fredo Olivero has confirmed that
    the interconfessional group “Breaking bread” in which he participates
    meets once a month to celebrate the Eucharist now according to the
    Catholic ceremony and now the Protestant, all of those present receiving
    communion. He has said that he is sure this is the true “personal
    thinking” of Pope Francis, according to what he said on November 15,
    2015 during his visit
    to the Lutheran church of Rome. He added that the dogma of
    transubstantiation must be reinterpreted in a “spiritual” vein, and that
    according to Jesus the Mass can be celebrated by anyone, not only an
    ordained minister. Fr. Olivero made this disclosure in the latest issue
    of “Riforma,” the weekly of the Waldensian Church.,”
    UNBILIEVABLE!!! But Fatima’s prophecy is being fulfilled and we should now be prepared for chastisement. My guess is that we are just at the beginning.

    Parce nobis Domine!

    Reply

    • Every time I read something like this, an old saying from my youth comes to mind: “I want to vomit twice and die!”
      The stuff coming out of Rome and this unholy “pontiff” are enough to make any faithful Catholic sick.

      Reply

      • There might be a silver lining here. The further these bold acts of heresy go the clearer it becomes with what we are dealing. Paolo’s citation is heartbreaking, but it casts the raking light on the pastoral malfeasance of the pontificate and will in time allow this fraudulence to be brought to account both in Heaven and on earth.

        Reply

        • How many are going to read that website/ article? How much attention will it draw? And maybe more importantly, how many Catholics are so ill-informed about their faith that they think that “Breaking Bread” is long overdue and that it should have been this way many years ago?

          Catholic and Protestant, there is no difference. All religions and all paths lead to God. There is no devil. All will be saved or alternatively, for those who aren’t saved, their souls will be annihilated. No, I do not believe any of that (above); but it seems to be where we are headed.

          Reply

          • Its not about numbers.
            And it is very much where we are headed, and that is why the action of the four Cardinals are so important. That they are pursuing this course of action is historically unprecedented. That he silently hides behind the façade of the papacy bespeaks the threat that fidelity to the perennial Magisterium holds for him and his sycophants.
            Its about the Truth.

          • Yes, Francis hides. Yes, all of this is unprecedented. Does the average Catholic care about truth? I think people want what they want: divorce, remarriage, gay marriage, the welcoming of homosexuals (don’t dare speak repentance and conversion), open communion, etc. Does the average Catholic know the doctrines and beliefs of the Catholic Church (no, not the forked tongue innovations)? I believe Francis is 100% on board with what most of the Catholics in our culture want today. I truly hope you are right that the perennial Magisterium is a threat to him. I am not as optimistic.

          • We have two generations of baptized but uncatechized, erroneously catechized, inadequately catechized. They don’t care. Its all about “feeling good.” He was catechized and well formed in the faith. He knows he is on thin ice and in the middle of nowhere. To answer the dubia would be to try to make it back to shore, but he can’t move or the ice cracks and he goes down. If he doesn’t move, he goes down.
            Its not going to happen tomorrow, but he and his element are going to face a rude reality sooner rather than later, both on earth and in eternity. Given their faith comportment they are far more likely more concerned about former rather than the later.

  21. Pope Francis knows full well that the 4 cardinals are trying to stop the use of the strategy which allowed Vatican II to be hi-jacked. Write a document which is vague enough to be explained one way to the bishops who have to vote on it, and then another way to priests, seminarians, and laity which will give them the license they need to effectively change the doctrines which the authors of the document told the bishops they were supporting. It is a very old Jesuit ploy. The pope knows that if he answers, he MUST answer that he holds to the “permanent Magisterium” and ancient practice of the Church. That would be simple, if he wanted to say that. He doesn’t. If Pope Francis grants the 4 Cardinals an audience, I will be looking out my window to watch the wing-ed pigs flying over my rectory!

    Reply

  22. OK. So the cardinals are not stupid.

    They send the dubia letter in September. They KNOW they won’t get an answer.

    The dubia letter goes public in November. They KNOW it will make no difference.

    They formally request an audience to discuss the dubia. They KNOW that audience will not be granted.

    That formal request goes public two months later. They KNOW Francis still won’t blink.

    So between the dubia being presented and the follow up letter, SEVEN months have elapsed – and now with another two on top.

    They also KNOW the damage being inflicted upon the Church by this travesty of a papacy is only going to continue to spread and increase in severity.

    Hopefully, they KNOW, therefore that the time for action has most definitely arrived and beckons them to respond and SWIFTLY.

    Your eminences,

    Reply

  23. It seems to me that the surname of Modernism is “Agenda”.
    So many people in our modern-day world, including the Pope, seem to have agendas. Our foremost goal as Christians should be submission to Christ, not our own agendas.

    This quote from a secular Positive Quotations book says it all:

    Before we can pray “Thy Kingdom come, we must pray “My Kingdom go”.

    Reply

  24. I’m glad that the four cardinals possess greater reserves of patience and restraint than do I. For reasons of form and propriety, seeking a response to the dubia is not a thing to be shoved and forced along at an arbitrary pace, to be sure, but please my good fellows, the ever-busy Modernist Wrecking Crew is hard at it 24/7 and there are more souls being jeopardized each day by its various efforts at remodeling and renovation, so can we perhaps get onto the next step to counter all of this while there is yet something recognizably Catholic still standing?.

    Reply

  26. The individual inhabiting the Chair is a narcissist enslaved in a protracted case of adolescence. He is rude and self-obsessed. That an old man would behave such as this is honestly disgusting.
    That the Cardinal’s would wish to meet and reason with him exhibits a degree of charity on their part which is truly heroic. God reward them and bring the object of their charity and respect to deep conversion.

    Reply

  28. What comes next? A commercial break so we can sneak into the kitchen and get more snacks and whatever we were drinking? A trailer for the new Vatican movie thriller? A new book series (fiction, of course) on the scandals in the Catholic Church? I have no idea.

    Reply

  29. Trepidation??? Why would anyone be filled with trepidation in stating their heart felt beliefs?
    Maybe it is just cardinal lingo when speaking to the Pope. But, I thought it strange.

    trepidation (n.)
    agitation, alarm, anxiety, apprehension, apprehensiveness, consternation, cynicism, dismay, dread, fear, misgiving, mistrust, perturbation, quiver, shiver, tremble, trembling, tremor, uneasiness
    trepidation (n.) (literary)
    disquietude, flurry, hurry, restiveness, restlessness, turmoil, unrest

    Reply

  30. Perhaps this is the next step in the process for the eventual public correction of the erroneous interpretation of AL by the Cardinals?

    Reply

  35. So there could be two explanations for this. An Aide must have accidently threw the letter away. Or, Pope Francis is purposely not answering the Letter.

    I hope it’s the first explanation.

    Reply

  36. It’s very difficult for me to comment on this newest ‘Dubia’ development and be charitable at the same time. I will say this in all charity: This situation is becoming an embarrassment. This flowery sticky sweet letter to the ‘Holy Father’, this ‘soft soaping’ of a situation that is blatantly undermining the Church at the hands of this guy is frankly embarrassing. These men KNOW, or they should know by this time that Bergoglio is not going to deal with this. By this time, they are not wise enough to know that he cannot answer? He is between a rock and a hard place with this. I can’t believe they haven’t by this time come to the conclusion that HE is the problem, and that HE wants this changing of Church doctrine. I also can’t believe that they have no other avenues to pursue to rectify this situation. In effect they are tiptoeing through the tulips. Is there no way to play hardball with this guy?

    Reply

    • I think they know exactly what’s going on & are behaving as excellently as possible so as to avoid any criticism at any point.
      Good. Very good.

      Reply

  37. So I thought I would call the Catholic diocese where I live and ask about Amoris Laetitia. I identify myself and I ask a simple question: if I were married, divorced and then remarried, can I receive communion?

    As soon as I ask the question, I hear an audible gasp and I am immediately put on hold. I wait. The music is grating. I wait some more. I am curious as to how long I will be left on hold. I put my phone on speaker. Fifteen minutes on hold. The receptionist comes back with a cheerful, “Can I help you?” I say, “Yes, I had the question about communion.” She says, “I thought I had I lost you. I am so sorry for the wait and for the mistake.”

    Yeah, right. So maybe it was a mistake or maybe “on hold for 15 minutes with grating/ nails on chalkboard music” is an excellent way to get rid of callers with questions you really don’t want to answer or deal with. How long would you wait on hold? Would you hang up and call again only to be put on hold again for another 15 minutes? But I digress. She connects me to the appropriate department. I ask my “simple question” once again.

    This is the answer: first they would assist me in getting an annulment. It is a lot easier to get an annulment these days than it was before. Of course, she refers me back to my parish priest. I ask, “what if I can’t get an annulment? What if I had a valid sacramental marriage?” She says, “Then it would be up to your parish priest and it would be a pastoral matter. That’s how Pope Francis wants it to be handled.”

    I say, “so, it is possible to receive communion without an annulment.” She says, “Yes. No one gets married with the plan to get divorced.” I respond, “If I can’t get an annulment and if my parish priest says, “No, I can’t receive communion, then would it be possible for me to go to a different parish and a different priest? Could I get an affirmative answer and receive communion from a different priest?” She says, “Yes, that is very possible.”

    I thank her for her time and for the information and I tell her how helpful she has been and I end the call. I am from a diocese where the bishop has not taken a “formal public stance” on AL (i.e., marriage/ divorce/ remarriage/ communion). This is what I learned:

    1) technology difficulties, dropped calls and the hold button are awesome ways to deal with troublesome callers and questions
    2) it pays to shop around — just like the song says, “Ya better shop around.”
    3) same diocese, 180 degree different answers, find the priest and the parish that best satisfies what you want.
    4) silence on the part of the bishop/ clergy is the same as approval and complicity.
    5) four sacraments have now been trashed — Marriage, Reconciliation, Communion and Holy Orders.

    Reply

      • And this all (and many more) evil ‘changes’ we as Church suffer these days, are the fruits of the false spirit and his black smoke that is breathed into many high and low, old and young clerics and theologians decades ago. The fruits that we can easily call with just two words, ecumenism (which is a new communism-utopianism) and humanism (which is modern paganism).
        But one may wonder why things came so far?! This has happened because all of those who do not wish to have God’s Mother for his own, as we know that all those who don’t wish to have Mother of God as his Mother, he don’t have the Heavenly Father as his own Father.
        We should take a closer look into the IIVC and how the forces of so-called ‘minimalists’ have blocked everything what could help not only the Church and us Christians, but also all other people on this earth, those who should become members of the only one true Catholic Church… when “Our Lady were left behind: The Marian Question in Vatican II”

        https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-lady-left-behind-marian-question-in.html
        http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-lady-left-behind-marian-question-in_13.html

        Reply

      • It was as I suspected it would be, but now I have confirmation. I think everyone should call their local diocese and ask this same question. Then come back and post the responses here. The woman I spoke with saw nothing wrong — at all — with the answers she provided me.

        Reply

        • Seriously, the ‘secretary’ @ my old (Deo gratias) NO parish told me, “Personally, I don’t care what religion anybody is, just as long as it gives you some kind of focus…”
          She was also a ‘eucharistic minister.’

          Reply

  38. Let us take the example of Baptism and Nicodemus’ dubia. Jesus is not silent, He answers; Francis and those in his image will not answer Nicodemus [and us] and so remain in silence. Jesus does not refuse to explain further to Nicodemus [and us] and says there is an universal and absolute saving Truth and Teaching – “Baptism is necessary for salvation”. That is not oblique, etc. We can understand Jesus, we cannot understand Francis. Those who speak in Francis’ image and likeness prefer silence or attacking Nicodemus, Jesus, mercifully, witnesses mercy and Teaches the Nicomeduses of every generation directly and universally. Don’t let me speak on the mess of how Francis rarely if ever builds up priests and seminarians but judges us all beratingly as without mercy, accompaniment and rigid – gone are the days of Saint JPII and Benedict where our Father in Holy Week and Holy Thursday messages builds, encourages and loves, as well at other times (they corrected where necessary but you knew you were loved, that you are more precious than many sparrows by a Beloved God who knows everyone of your hairs…..I know those who experience this first hand in Rome and I believe there yes is yes and there no is no….Let us pray and do penances that the Holy Spirit may speak clearly to us afresh as He has done in FC, CC, VS, GS, CDF 1984 docmt and Pont. Council Vademecum for Confessors Teachings, etc., back to the First Holy Father and Bishops.

    Reply

  39. Amoris
    Laetitia (The Joy of Love) is causing great discord within the Church I believe
    the remedy to this discord can be found in an honest response to this question

    Is an act of humility too much to ask?

    I have read

    “At this moment in time the church has two sails that are blowing in the
    opposite direction causing great discord within the Church. On the Right: an
    extreme conservative wind wanting to blow our boat back to the becalming
    out-of-date swamp of pre-1962. On the Left: an extreme liberal wind wanting to
    blow our boat into rapids where faith and morals are thrown overboard”.

    But we can go forward in UNITY OF PURPOSE by hoisting a third sail one of
    Humility, the true (only) sail that the Holy Spirit blows upon, bringing
    arrogance to its knees and folly does not have to be appeased.

    Is the true
    Divine Mercy Image an Image of Broken man?

    Pope Francis
    says we need be a Church of mercy and so we do, but more importantly we need to
    be a humble Church, as Gods Mercy received in humility guarantees spiritual
    growth, which wells up into eternal life.

    I agree with the four cardinals in that this statement from Veritatis Splendor
    “conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral
    norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object” as God’s
    Word (Will) is inviolate. Individual we can only stand before His Divine Mercy
    in humility as we can never justify sin.

    I all so
    agree with this statement by Pope Francis “the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for
    the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak”. It’s the
    sick and supplicant who need the doctor, not the well and the righteous”.

    How can the two statements be reconciled “With God all things are possible” as
    only God can square the circle.

    Throughout
    history God has made His Will know to mankind through his Saints, Spiritual
    leaders and Prophets. And at crucial times His Will has be revealed in a way
    that that cannot be misunderstood by His people.

    God’s Word (Will) given to Sister Faustina

    “Paint a picture according to the vision you see and with the inscription:
    “Jesus, I Trust in Thee.”

    The Divine Mercy Image that the Church displays today is an affront to God,
    instigated by nationalistic pride and those who would pacify the powerful it
    has nothing to do with Trust.

    As The true
    Divine Mercy Image is an Image of Broken Man

    “Paint a
    picture according to the vision you see and with the inscription: “Jesus, I
    Trust in Thee.” “I desire that this picture be venerated first in your chapel
    and then throughout the whole world”

    Sr. Faustina
    acted immediately in singular (pure) intent; no one else can paint this
    picture, as no one else can SEE what she saw. The picture she painted,
    sketched, (no matter how badly) must be venerated and no other, to do so
    knowing it is not the painting commanded by God (His Word is inviolate) is to
    commit blasphemy.

    The Church acknowledges that Sr Faustina received a direct visual and verbal
    request to “paint an Image according to the vision you see” God’s Word is
    Inviolate this is our most fundamental belief and sits at the base of all the
    Sacraments. His Word is not open for debate it cannot contradict itself and
    must not be touched by man, it is impossible for it to be God’s Word (Will) and
    not His Word (Will) at the same time.

    For clarity the church teaches that divine revelation ended with the apostles.

    The visual and verbal request given by God to Sr. Faustina may not be an
    additional revelation but it is a communiqué endorsed by the Church that
    incorporates the direct Word (Will) of God and for that reason it is binding on
    the Church in that the true image painted by Sr. Faustina (one of Broken Man)
    must be venerated and no other.

    Sister Faustina was very poorly educated and it is fair to assume that if her
    superiors had accepted her painting as they should have done (they would have
    known that Gods Word is inviolate) she would have also. Earthly hands violated
    Gods Word to fit their own earthly vision of goodness as they could not accept
    the reality that they were been asked by God to show human weakness.

    Any revelations after the first revelation now must be considered suspect, as
    from that time onwards earthly hands were distorting the Word (Will) of God.

    Sister Faustina was uneducated coming from a very poor family with only three year’s
    very basic education. Hers were the humblest tasks in the convent. She was very
    innocent and trusting we can deduce this because after her first vision she
    immediately attempted to paint Jesus herself and for this reason I believe her
    vision was genuine and received in total trust.

    Her diaries
    reflect a particular culture and type of devotion at a particular time in the
    Church but are more in keeping with those who would propagate such devotions.
    We need to look at her spiritual advisor Fr Michal Sopocko who appears to have
    overseen her diaries and commissioned the first fraudulent image of Divine
    Mercy, and in doing so violated her trust in God.

    The Church
    has acknowledged that the Word (Will) of God had been given to her, its actions
    confirm this, we have a picture in God’s House, with the words “Jesus I trust
    In thee” But the picture is not the one commanded by God, it is a worldly image
    of goodness, it pertains to the senses and is made in man’s own image, it has
    nothing to do with Trust.

    The present
    Divine Mercy Image is a self-serving IMAGE of Clericalism, definition of
    CLERICALISM: a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious
    hierarchy. Their actions show that they did not trust in His mercy and were
    only concerned with a worldly image of goodness, the very same problem which
    has led to the cover up of the on-going child abuse scandal and refusal to
    acknowledge its historical culture within the Church emanating from Rome.

    The original picture by Sister Faustina in its brokenness relates to spiritual
    beauty (goodness) as it pertains to humility. The pure (humble) in heart shall
    see God The True Divine Mercy image calls for the leadership of the Church to
    give account for themselves, before God and mankind while at the same time healing
    so many past and on-going injustices.

    To do this
    the elite within the Church need to act out these instructions given by Jesus
    Christ to His Church

    “I desire
    that this picture be venerated first in your chapel and then throughout the
    world “

    Commencing
    in Rome by recapturing (Staging) the original ceremony by displaying the
    present self-serving blasphemous Divine Mercy Image an image of Clericalism,
    then remove (Destroy) it publicly and re-place it with the true image an Image
    of Broken Man and in humility venerate it in a symbolic way that cannot be
    misunderstood by mankind, then re-enact this action with the help of the
    bishops throughout the whole Church (World).

    If this were to happen a Transfiguration would occur within the Church at this
    moment in time that would resurrect the true face of Jesus Christ, a face that
    reflects Truth and humility before all those she is called to serve in love and
    compassion. From this base one of humility before God the Church can proceed to
    tackle many of her on-going problems/dilemmas as it would permit the Church to
    give access to the Sacrament of Holy Communion (Spiritual Food) to all baptised
    Catholics who for whatever reason apart from the sin against the Holy Spirit,
    who presently cannot receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation the means to do
    so.

    As an
    example; To those in second relationships, permit them to partake in Holy
    Communion in making a public acknowledgement of their need of God’s Divine
    Mercy just prior to receiving the Eucharist by venerating the true Image of
    Divine Mercy an image of Broken Man, saying these words from the heart publicly

    “Jesus I
    Trust in You”

    Then as the recipient approaches the priest for communion after his /her public
    confession the priest could say (or words to the effect of) “Welcome to the
    path/way of salvation/confession/reconciliation receive The body of Christ” in
    doing so acknowledging the on-going commencement to receiving the full
    sacrament of Reconciliation, by doing so His outward sign of inward grace His
    Divine Mercy is manifest at that moment in time as having been given by God
    Himself to the recipient before His Church (People/Faithful) full absolution
    has not given by the Church as they dwell in His Divine Mercy as he/she returns
    to his/her sinful situation (Entanglement with evil) but a journey of HOPE in
    that spiritual growth has commenced, this must be clearly understood by the
    laity in regards to the indissolubility of marriage.

    The need for the teaching on birth control in Humanae Vitae can also be
    strengthened by encouraging the laity who practices it, to acknowledge it
    openly before the Church in accepting their own human frailty, before partaking
    of the bread of life in Venerating The True Image of Divine Mercy an image of
    broken man, a reflection of themselves before God in the Eucharist. In
    acknowledging their dependence on His Mercy they give glory to our Father in
    heaven in bearing witness to the Truth, teaching others by their example to
    serve the Truth and walk in humility before our Creator and in doing so
    encourage all to confront that which enslaves mankind, our own sinfulness.

    “Paint a
    picture according to the vision you see and with the inscription. “Jesus I
    trust in thee”. I desire that this picture be venerated first in your chapel
    and then throughout the world “

    This is a
    missionary call instigated by our Lord to the whole Church to Evangelizing
    through the action of Humility, a disarming action in its honesty, that embrace
    all in its simplicity, as we encounter our brothers and sisters who stand and
    seek direction at the crossroads (Difficulties) of life.

    kevin your
    brother

    In Christ

    Reply

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