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Imitating Judas: The Kasper Position

kasp
Cardinal Walter Kasper

As many Catholics already know, the Ordinary Synod on the Family is set to meet in Rome in just a few days. One of the issues that will be discussed by the bishops is the Kasper Proposal, described by the Relatio Synodi document from last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family as:

“…the possibility of giving the divorced and remarried access to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist…. permitting access in certain situations and with certain well-defined conditions, primarily in irreversible situations and those involving moral obligations towards children who would have to endure unjust suffering. Access to the sacraments might take place if preceded by a penitential practice, determined by the diocesan bishop.”

In other words, it suggests that divorced and remarried couples who are not practicing abstinence (i.e. adulterers) should be allowed to receive Holy Communion. Though the “Kasperites” claim to affirm the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in theory, they suggest that the church should take a more “merciful” approach than the one it has taken for the last 2,000 years – a brash position if there ever was one. This proposal is a hot-button issue not only because it would betray the teachings of Christ on the indissolubility of marriage, but also because it is clearly an opening to allow for obstinate homosexuals to receive Holy Communion as well.

This proposal represents a contradiction. It professes one thing, while suggesting that the church should do another (e.g. say something is a grave sin, while giving Holy Communion to those obstinately engaging in the grave sin, thereby condoning it). Another word for this is “hypocrisy.” This word, often used as a criticism of any inconsistency, has a rather precise and specific application in this instance. Hypocrisy is properly defined as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform”.

Hypocrisy in the Church is nothing new. One of the apostles was a hypocrite; his name was Judas. This apostle once objected to money being spent on Jesus rather than being put into a money bag for the poor (sound familiar?). His motives, however charitable they may have sounded, were not so pure:

“He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”(John 12:6)

Judas also manifested his hypocrisy by professing to be a disciple of Christ, and yet betraying Him in the Garden of Gethsemane:

“‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver.” (Matthew 26:15)

Like Judas, many of the Kasperites suggest that the church should continue to profess the teachings of Christ, and yet betray him in practice. Some may ask, why would the Kasperites maintain such a hypocritical position?

There are several possible motives, but I will explore just two.

First, like Judas and the money bag, they are more concerned about money than the salvation of souls. It is no secret that the main proponents of the Kasper proposal (i.e. most of the German bishops) stand to gain a great deal of money if the church overturns her 2,000 year old practice on Holy Communion. This is so because the church in Germany receives money from the German government for every person that identifies themselves as “Catholic” on their income taxes. Many divorced and remarried Germans who would otherwise identify themselves as “Catholic” do not do so because they are forbidden to receive Holy Communion. This means the German bishops are losing money under the current discipline in the church. Financial gain is an incredibly strong motive to advance the Kasper position.

Second, many of the Kasperites espouse this position as a means of seeking legitimization for their sinful sexual beliefs. A recent example comes from the German bishop Franz-Joseph Bode, who expressed his support for the Kasper Proposal while calling for the Church to privately bless sodomite unions:

“The Catechism makes it clear that we do not discriminate against these people. Just as with other individuals who live together before marriage, it is also a matter of recognizing the strengths of homosexuals, and not simply their weaknesses and shortcomings. Civil unions are not to be equated with marriage. For us, marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, and which results in children. The Church can be of assistance in life partnerships through dialogue and positive support. However, there cannot be anything resembling marriage. Nevertheless, one can accompany them with prayer and a private form of blessing.”

For these bishops, it would seem that if they can get the church to give Holy Communion to obstinate adulterers and sodomites, this would legitimize their views that adultery and sodomy aren’t really that bad after all. It is not unreasonable to question if another reason is that some of the Kasperite bishops themselves possess disordered sexual desires, and are seeking to placate their consciences. Lacking certitude in this matter, one is left only to speculate, but as Aristotle said, “Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.”

What is certain is that these apostolic successors are following the example of only one apostle — Judas — who claimed to follow Christ in word but betrayed him in action. Sadly, if they continue to follow the lead of he about whom Christ said, “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born,” they may very well meet the same fate. (Acts 1:25)

52 thoughts on “Imitating Judas: The Kasper Position”

  1. “Even members of the Church can be tempted to soften Christ’s teaching on marriage & the family… The idea that would consist in placing the Magesterium in a pretty box and separating it from pastoral practice, which could evolve according to circumstances, fashions, and impulses, is a form of heresy, a dangerous schizophrenic pathology.” ~Robert Cardinal Sarah (from his keynote address at the World Meeting of Families for which he received a loud round of applause)

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  2. St. Paul spoke clearly of such men, traitors to their Lord:

    “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”

    “Fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

    “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive…haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith…”

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  3. Your suggestion that certain bishops propose certain things in order to placate their own consciences goes too far. We can defend the faith without resorting to ad hominem attack. Otherwise the connection with Judas is quite good, I think.

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    • The connection with Judas makes no sense without linking to Judas’s actual mendacity, which follows immediately if only we grant that his mouth lied to hide his rotten heart. We don’t judge internals, yet ‘out of the heart’ flows such fruits as lying, fornication, greed etc. Either Judas was rotten to the core, and thus – granting the comparison as you do – so are these heretics, or else the comparison is worthless. You can’t have it both ways. They obviously don’t love the truth and right doctrine, so surely we can ask what it is they do love. Given their luxurious lifestyles, threatened by the now dwindling revenues after they decimated the Church in Germany with their ‘pastoralism’ I don’t think one can reasonably assert that they are trying to help anyone but themselves.

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      • True. Judas was with Christ when Christ told his followers that they must eat his flesh and drink His blood to receive eternal life. According to Saint John, it was at that point that Judas turned against Christ. At least it was the first time mentioned in the Gospels. Fulton Sheen called Judas the First Protestant.

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        • ”Fulton Sheen called Judas the First Protestant.” Ah, for those days when men were men, women were women, and bishops were true to their calling. Does anyone recall President Eisenhower’s speech where he denounced Bishop Sheen as a bigot for saying this? I imagine it happened about a half-hour after Sheen made the statement. And, of course, there was the ACLU attempt to get Sheen’s program banned from television. We all remember that, right?

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      • Of course, I (charitably?) interpreted your charge of ad-hom as ‘judging internals’ because as any fule nose (or firsy yr philosophy student) ad hominem is the name of a fallacy of reasoning wherein one attacks the speaker in the absence of an actual counter-argument. As should be clear by now, there is no want of refutation of the Kasper position, we are wayyyyy past that. Now it comes down to “why is this man pushing this rubbish still, after literally decades of solid rebuttal?” Because he’s mendacious and irreformably corrupt perchance? Mayyyybeeee…..

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  4. And, of course, there remains the sixty-four dollar question: Why does a pope who knows full well what these men are proposing and who can guess their evil plan will eventuate in blessing somehow the degrading sin of sodomy, why does this pope not pull them up short? Why does he simply not tell these Judas figures to take their “plan” and go somewhere very warm?

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    • Perhaps God is permitting it for the same reason that he permitted Judas to do what he did. The Church is following her Head into her own Passion.

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      • Jesus Christ’s Passion brought redemption to the whole world with the possibility of salvation for all. What will be brought out of this proposed evil at the Synod? “This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine.” (Vatican I) The Pope is supposed to protect the flock entrusted to him from error.

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      • Well, if the Apostles knew of Judas, I am sure they would have had a moral obligation to remove him from the group or something to stop the betrayal. I believe that what happened suggests that they did not know.

        In our case, we know what is being done…… Also, while it looks like a passion, it is also an attempt to lie to people about marriage.

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  5. On the Synod on the Family in Rome:

    CWR: What are your thoughts on last year’s Synod on the Family in Rome?

    Mother Miriam: It was tragic. There was a confusion that came out of it that the bishops should not have allowed.

    And, with the continuation of the Synod this October, there’s going to be a discussion about the possibility of giving Communion to the divorced and remarried. That is something that should not even be a topic. It should be off the plate. It simply is not a Catholic question. Should we reconsider whether or not murder is legitimate? It would be no less absurd than discussing whether or not Catholics should receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord in an unworthy and gravely immoral manner.

    Families need direction and solid help that coincides with our faith so that we know how to live.

    cf. Mother Miriam’s Heart for the Family and Church | The Catholic World Report, by Jim Graves

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  6. Good article. This is the kind of thing that happens when the moral teachings of the Church are neglected as they have been for more than 50 years. It is a short step from accepting contraception to the abuses mentioned above. The Catholic Church itself has only itself to blame, no one else. Now is a time for prayer and penance. Let us each do our part.

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  7. The Synod is most definitely RIGGED. They will announce today the changing of the RULES of the Synod so as to diminish the voices of the faithful Bishops. Apparently they will ram through their heterodox ‘pastoral approach’ to the Doctrine so as to make it look as if the majority of the Bishops agree with heresy. According to Rorate, they will also change the rules as to the ‘majority’ to a ‘simple majority’ which means (someone correct me if I’m wrong) they only need 51% in order to ram through the (basically) changing of Church Doctrine. Bishop Schneider was correct……a schism is definitely in the works.

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  8. In Kaspar’s proposal there is a phrase “….. recognizing the STRENGTHS (my emphasis) of homosexuals….” and I wonder while we don’t refer to recognizing the”strengths” of thieves, or the “strengths” of pedophiles? Isn’t it odd that this disordered inclination is treated as if has peculiar virtues that the rest of us don’t have. Anyone who says that has a disordered thought process.

    The Raleigh diocese has initiated an advertising campaign on TV with the theme of asking ex-Catholics to “come back to the Catholic Church.” I only wish the Catholic Church would come back to the Catholic Church.

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    • The proponents of this lunacy couldn’t offer us better proof of their veiled agenda, could they? Forget about reconciling the divorced and ”remarried” who are living in an adulterous relationship. Bad as that circumstance is, it is merely the wedge in the door. The real aim is eventually to foist upon the Church an Episcopalian-style endorsement of calling sodomoshackups marriage, or at least treating them as if they were marriage. I thought the sodomite assault on the Church had only one strategy, viz. subverting our seminaries to turn them into pederast brothels. But, no, the plan now seems much vaster and bolder. The enemy has enlisted evidently some of our own commanders at HQ.

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  9. Going from the quote from the ‘Relatio’ to painting Cdl. Kasper as a money grubbing Judas is more than a bit cynical. After all, nothing in the quote indicates that Holy Communion would be distributed to, as you claim, divorced and remarried couples not practicing abstinence. Or what do you think might be meant by “well defined conditions?” (Not to mention ‘penitential practices’)
    .
    As far as the money-grubbing bit is concerned, while it’s certainly possible that Cdl. Kasper might be that naïve, everything I’ve read indicates that the church/tax situation in Germany is more complex than that. Do you have hard data on the numbers? Please share!

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    • Ah, I think if you investigate, you’ll discover there are already “well defined conditions” and established “penitential practices” in place; in fact, they’ve been in place for a while now. The notion that Kasper and others are pushing is designed to weaken in some way the clear teaching about living in sin and receiving Holy Communion. What other possible goal could “discussing” something this straightforward have?

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      • You might be surprised how many Catholics don’t know what recourse they have! Maybe the goal here is to provide much needed catechesis.
        I’ve met Catholics who think that if they get divorced they’re automatically out of the Church. I’ve met Catholics who think that if they’re divorced — and not even remarried — they can’t receive Holy Communion. And what about divorced and remarried converts? Their situations are often a headache for all involved and they often get contrary advice at different levels of church bureaucracy. Wouldn’t it be a mercy if the Church could clarify her message and reach out to those in difficult situations?

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        • You merely discuss here the recourse already in place, the existent solutions I mentioned. But no one seriously believes that this is what is on the minds of men like Kasper, Marx, and Danneels. If it were, given that all three are bishops, they could have simply ordered their priests to better explain matters to the faithful in their respective dioceses. You and I both know exactly where these three men and their cohort wish to take the Church, and it’s not to a train station called EXPLICATION.

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          • The problem is that however you twist it, the ‘Relatio’ doesn’t go there. Pretending it does remains an act of cynicism and you use it to gin up suspicion and despite. You think you know “where these three men and their cohorts wish to take the Church” but you don’t and can’t. Neither can I, so respectfully leave me out of your entrail-reading. Sure, I’m curious to see how the synod plays out, but save your ire for when your worst fears are confirmed. I doubt they will be, if hanging Cdl. Kasper on the halter with Judas relies on this flimsy of an argument.

          • You don’t read very closely, do you? Here — quoted in the article above — is what the Relatio says. It’s actually quite clear for those who read without predetermined ideas in mind: “…the possibility of giving the divorced and remarried access to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist…. permitting access in certain situations and with certain well-defined conditions, primarily in irreversible situations and those involving moral obligations towards children who would have to endure unjust suffering. Access to the sacraments might take place if preceded by a penitential practice, determined by the diocesan bishop.” I see not a hint here of your notion of clarification. Of course, you can read into it anything you like, I suppose.

          • I read the above article more than once, and read the ‘Relatio’ as well, since I just wasn’t seeing the Judas-like hypocrisy you and Mr. Skojek find so obvious. No where does it say that the aim is to do away with Church teaching, even with a “Nod, nod, wink, wink.” You seem to have made up your mind already, not me. I came to this discussion with curiosity, but not with preconceptions.
            The best time to speak out is usually when you have all the facts in hand, but go ahead with your alarms. After all, it worked out so well for Chicken Little, didn’t it?

          • ”No where does it say that the aim is to do away with Church teaching.” Not exactly a surprise. I’ve noticed that burglaries tend to be more successful when the criminal refrains from calling the targeted house to announce his arrival.

          • But that’s my whole point. Where are you getting this special knowledge that Cdl. Kasper is, in your words, a criminal; and in the article above, a Judas? The evidence shown is not supporting your view.
            What I’m seeing is: “Cdl. Kasper wants to be welcoming and merciful to divorced-and-remarrieds and probably to (gasp!) homosexuals as well! He’s evil, I tell you, evil, evil, evil!”
            Is there a secret decoder ring I’m supposed to have that would make his perfidy clear? Or is there a video of him somewhere of him rubbing his hands together and sniggering with sinister intent?
            ‘Cause the ‘Relatio’ seems fairly straightforward and boilerplate Catholicism.

          • Look, no one is going to convince you unless we recover a letter signed by Kasper in which he describes in detail his plan to pull a coup at the Synod. What he said in the past, his little book once presented to the pope, his pals Marx and Danneels, nothing arouses or can arouse suspicion in your mind. You are admirably trusting, so we will simply have to wait to see what surprises the German cardinal unveils in the next few months and how the pope reacts finally to the doings at the Synod. In the meantime, though, if you notice someone watching your house daily from a car across the street, occasionally taking photos, and then you cross this same individual in a local hardware store purchasing a crowbar and gloves….well pay no attention at all. I’m sure it’s all innocent enough.

          • Cute.
            I just keep saying the same thing: that Mr. Skojek’s quote doesn’t do what he says it does. It is open to other interpretations and using it to paint Cdl. Kasper as a Judas is illogical, sloppy and does his credibility no good. He’s not going to reach anybody but the True Believers. How is that going to help get more Catholics on board with this site’s message, which I thought was to support Catholic tradition?

          • I didn’t write this article. If you can’t even discern that from the text in front of you, why should anyone believe you can understand anything else you read?

          • Do forgive me. I’m new here and as yet had only seen your name. On my device the author’s name is in a very pale grey type which is difficult for me to see. I shall endeavor to correct my error.
            However, an error in eyesight is a mistake, not a lack of discernment and really should have no bearing on the quality of my discussion, should it? Now that I have explained my error do you have anything in the substance of my thought to critique?

          • ….and it is disingenuous to say that one upholds/believes in the teachings of Christ only to attempt to institutionalize that which goes against said teachings. The Holy Ghost doesn’t work against Himself, friend.

            Any talk of credibility should be set at the door of Cardinal Kasper who seems to advocate for the hardening of Christian hearts by way of policy instead of leading them to Christ by way of doing his job.

          • Realists are not cynics but the willfully blind are blissfuly walking into the quicksand singing,

            I can see clearly now, the reign is on.
            I can see no obstacles in our way.
            Gone are the dark cynics who are so unkind.
            Its gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright, sunshinny day.
            Its gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day.

            Oh, yes I can make it now, its all so plain
            All of the bad thoughts have been put away.
            O, that rainbow the Jerry’s have been planning for?
            It’s nothing, cause its a bright, bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day…

          • Christ is quite clear about the fate of those who willfully mislead his children. So quipping, “Oh, mercy me, such a wit,” is not going to cut it.

          • “…entrail reading?” Good grief.

            Kasper cozies up to the Judas halter by choice, stroking the leather and oiling it regularly with his band of cronies. By your logic, Christ’s refusal to jump off the cliff when bid by Satan would have been a grave act of cynicism.

            God is not to be put to the test, friend. And that is precisely why those who look to Kasper’s actions wonder, quite rightly, if he understands with whom he toys.

    • “To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high respect for those who are doing this,” [Kasper] told Commonweal’s Matthew Boudway and Grant Gallicho, referring to divorced partners who have entered into a new civil marriage.

      “But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not for the average Christian.”

      A divorced and remarried couple living as brother and sister, he said in the article published May 7, “could also create new tensions … normally it’s also the sexual relations in such a communion, so I can’t say whether it’s ongoing adultery.

      Cardinal Kasper: ‘Heroism is not for the average Christian’ [Emphasis added]

      But I think you’re right about the Kirchensteuer. It seems unlikely that allowing adulterers to receive communion would have more than a marginal effect on Church revenues. Given Kasper’s history of heterodoxy and dissent, it seems far more likely that he is driven by a hatred of orthodox Catholicism and seeks to destroy it by rendering void three sacraments in one fell swoop: Eucharist, Confession, and Matrimony.

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      • ….could it be next that Kasper proposes celibacy is heroism and therefore above the ability of the “average” priest. Any attempt to conquer the passions creates new tensions, right?

        Of course, Kasper is completely ignoring the gospel message that with God (grace) one can do anything. And that is the point. Ignoring grace, ignoring God, encouraging people to forget Who is calling them to pick up their respective crosses and replace it with the humanist notion of just doing whatever causes the least conflict.

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  10. Imagine if Governor Susanna Martinez of Mexico publicly confessed that her state was a damn drag to drive through and so she proposed legalising drinking (just Light Beer, don’cha’know) and driving but that meant in no way was her proposal undermining her support for DUI Laws.

    Well, we know the media will support what Our Pope and Our Cross will actualise via the Synod because they are Cultural Marxists who hate Jesus Christ and His Church whereas it would denounce the Govenor’s hypocrisy because Cultural Marxism.

    Maybe there is a reason why the media has been so sedulously courted by Our Pope and Our Cross.

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  11. It seems to me that the Kasperite proposal is merciful only if you have no concept of sin, reflecting a sentiment along the lines of “not being able to receive Communion makes people feel excluded from the group, so the Church should be ‘merciful’ and let them feel good about themselves and enter the club.” However, if you believe in sin and believe that sodomy and adultery are sins, it is not merciful to confirm them in their sin or encourage their sin. It is the opposite of mercy to allow them to think their sin is OK. Furthermore, the Kasperite proposal also seems to reflect a deformed understanding of the Eucharist. If Our Lord is really, truly and substantially present to us in Holy Communion, then allowing those in mortal sin who are not trying to amend their lives to receive Communion will only result in them eating and drinking their own condemnation (1 Cor.11:29). This suggests that Kasper and others do not believe Hell exists, because for him it seems there is no condemnation for those who receive Communion unworthily.

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  12. The Kasperites are the true sons of the Second Vatican Council. They are simply following its “spirit” which Paul VI pointed out in his closing address of the Council: “But one must realize that this council, which exposed itself to human judgment, insisted very much more upon this pleasant side of man, rather than on his unpleasant one. (Sin is simply “unpleasant”?) Its attitude was very much and deliberately optimistic. A wave of affection and admiration flowed from the council over the modern world of humanity. Instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging remedies; instead of direful prognostics, messages of trust issued from the council to the present-day world. The modern world’s values were not only respected but honored, its efforts approved, its aspirations purified and blessed.”

    Or read in his opening address of the 2nd session on Sept. 29, 1963 where he states: “The world must be aware that the Church regards it with profound sympathy, with genuine admiration, sincerely disposed not to subdue it, but to serve it; not to loathe it, but to value it; not to condemn it, but to sustain it and rescue it.”

    Or his statement at the opening of session IV on Sept. 14, 1965: “The Council offers the Church, and Us especially, a comprehensive view of the world: will the Church, and will we be able to do anything but to look at the world and to love it?”

    Or his closing address on Dec. 7, 1965: “A wave of affection and admiration flowed out from the Council over the modern world of humanity…The modern world’s values were not only respected but also honored, its efforts sustained, its aspirations purified and blessed.

    And: “This Council…in conclusiong will give us a simple, new and solemn teaching to love man in order to love God.”

    Further: “All these doctrinal riches aim at one and one thing only: to serve man.”

    So “the world” is genuinely admired, valued, respected, honored, purified, and blessed. And it is man which is to be served. “To know God, he claims, “one has to know man.”

    Contrary to Sacred Scripture where we read from 1 John 2:15-18 (DR): “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the will of God, abideth forever. Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour.”

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  13. A new attempt at a Trinity is being cooked up here – the Father, Son and the Friendly Ghost. That is what Catholicism will be worth once it becomes OF this world and NOT detached from it.

    Reply

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