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Is the Vatican Editing Pope Francis?

Everyone has that family member or friend who embarrasses them by saying things they shouldn’t in public. The racist joke, the sexist comment, the unsolicited conspiracy theories…the options run the gamut. Sometimes, they might even say something you might agree with in private, but would never say around strangers. Whatever the case, you just wish they’d try silence for a while.

Catholics in 2016 find themselves in the unenviable position of having this same experience with the pope. Our efforts at evangelization are often undermined by the inevitable moment where we have to explain him. I was at the bank recently, dealing with some financial matters for 1P5, when I was asked what we do. When I explained that we are a Catholic publication, the manager got a wry smile on his face and asked, “So…what do you think about this pope?”

I have generally assumed, due to the number of heterodox prelates in high places, that the Vatican is more fully staffed with those who take pride in Francis, rather than those who find his “Off-the-Cuff Papacy” to be a serious challenge. But lately, I’m beginning to wonder.

I’ve already made note of the trend of both the Vatican and Vatican-friendly Catholic news services to mistranslate (in a favorable way) or simply omit things from papal statements that are excessively controversial. In June, we saw the transcript of a papal address edited after the fact to change a highly provocative comment in which the pope said “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null”; the updated transcript — issued without the standard editorial note of correction — changed this to “a portion of our sacramental marriages are null.” This was, of course, not the first time we’ve seen editorial meddling after the fact. In the above-linked post, I noted:

In fact, I’ve caught this kind of transcript tinkering before, if not on the part of the Vatican itself, then with those agencies most invested in carrying its message. In a plane interview on his return from Greece this past April, Pope Francis responded to the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca’s question about whether there are new concrete realities for the divorced and remarried, post-AL. In his response he said, “I can say yes. Period.” At the time we first reported this, there was no English translation of his Italian comments, so we provided our own.

But the Catholic News Agency, America Magazine, and others (including Vatican Radio, if I recall correctly) ran a different translation, one in which the pope said, “I can say yes, many. But it would be an answer that is too small.”

So I went back to my translator and asked for a complete English transcript, which I then sat for hours and painstakingly used to subtitle the video of the presser. I then had that work double-checked, and then I published the video. A video which simply cannot be refuted, because it’s absolutely clear.

Within a few days, the CNA link we provided showing the discrepancy in the translation was instead using a version that matched our own. You will note that no correction was issued, and the transcript was not notated in any way to show that a change had been made.

The bad translation — which mitigated the severity of his comments — just went down the memory hole.

This is Orwellian, it is deceptive, and it is unbecoming of the Vicar of Christ – or his surrogates.

In September, I wrote an essay entitled A Vatican That Can’t Be TrustedIn it, I cited the observations of Professor Roberto de Mattei, who (citing two recent examples) said:

Information, disinformation, truths, half-truths and lies all seem to be jumbled up in the communication strategy of the Holy See. The history of the Church is being written through interviews, improvised discourses, articles on semi-official blogs and media-rumours, leaving the field wide open to all interpretations possible and giving rise to the suspicion that the confusion is deliberate.

This week, it’s happening again.

Yesterday, I told you about Francis’ address to a thousand Lutheran pilgrims to Rome in advanced of the Vatican-involved commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant “Reformation”. The address had its own clear problems, which I parsed out in my post. But the Vatican transcript entirely omitted a Q&A that took place afterward (link goes to a Spanish-language website), which had one particularly striking statement that topped everything else that was said (my translation):

“It is not lawful to convince others of your faith. Proselytism is the most potent venom against the ecumenical journey.”

Ansa.it has a few excerpts of the same speech, translated into English. Their translation of the above reads:

“The last thing you must do is ‘to say, to convince’. It’s not right to convince someone of your faith,” he said. “Proselytism is the strongest venom against the path of ecumenism”.

Without an official transcript, it’s impossible to say which of these is closer to what was actually said. But they certainly give us the idea, and either are consistent with his constant admonitions against proselytism.

The error of the statement, however it is translated, should require no explanation. “Doctors of the law” have been raising challenges to the Francis maxim that “proselytism is solemn nonsense” for years. While it is true that the word “proselytism” has taken on a negative context, it can also be understood to mean “to recruit someone to join one’s party, institution, or cause”. (That’s Merriam Webster’s definition, not mine.) “Evangelization” and “proselytism” used to be virtually synonymous. The attempt to set up a false dichotomy between them is troubling.

Actions, of course, speak louder than words, and the testimony of a number of people makes clear that the disdain Francis has for proselytism extends to evangelization as well. I’ve documented several examples of Francis making clear that he does not seek to gain converts to Catholicism. In fact, he has in some cases actively discouraged this (most tragically, in the case of Tony Palmer, the Anglican bishop who wanted to become Catholic but was dissuaded by Cardinal Bergoglio, only to die a few years later in a tragic accident.)

If anyone has any example of him doing something to the contrary — of trying to make converts to the Catholic Faith — I would love to hear it.

So we are left with a flatly controversial statement at an obviously controversial event. Nothing new for Francis. But why was this not reported by the Vatican, since it was done in the light of day? It’s not as though one can hide a thousand Lutherans. Why is there no official transcript or translation?

Sources in Rome have spoken of rumors that the Q&A was intentionally not published by the Vatican for reasons that have not been made clear. If this is the case, has Francis finally pushed even the permissive Vatican apparatus too far? Are they attempting to curtail his speech in the hopes of minimizing the damage? Is this yet another example of the common Italian media mentality — related to me by friends who live there — that the true story is whatever the people telling it want you to hear, and you’re just expected to believe it?

I can’t say I like any of these options, but in the event that this is a sign Francis may no longer be able to operate without any resistance, I’ll take it. As the proverb goes, the longest journey begins with a single step.

179 thoughts on “Is the Vatican Editing Pope Francis?”

  1. Great article, just one side note; let’s not be fooled that this is Italian media mentality when ’truth’ is being shared. It is as common and old as the father of lies, and has no limitations on Mediterranean, Scandinavian or any other mentality for that matter.

    As far as the topic, the world today for a Catholic is so like the Easter Saturday. It seems that death has gained the upper hand, but we have to set our emotions and feelings aside, and be like Father Franklin in “Lord of the World”, completely giving ourselves in obedience and faith to Christ when all else is seeming to fade away and know that in the end He and the Immaculate Heart of Mary will Triumph.

    Reply
  2. I recently fielded the same question in a conversation with a Protestant aunt, “What do you think of the Pope?” My unfortunately candid reply impelled me to bring it up at my next Confession. I’m very wary now when discussing the Pope…Usually I just don’t.

    Reply
    • I too have been asked this question a few times. My answer is that I don’t like him very much. He’s maddeningly confusing, and a very bad administrator from the little I have been able to learn. I also add that he seems a bit too exuberantly humble, that for me his humility has an unseemly ostentatiousness to it. I’ve never felt in the least compelled to bring up my assessment in Confession. (It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn my priest agrees with it.)

      Reply
    • That is very interesting. What variety of words require confession and moreover, why? Please, please clarify because I am afraid that something important is unclear (at least to me.)

      Reply
      • Here’s my understanding. I welcome others (particular confessors) to comment.

        People may hold reasonably negative opinions about others based on real experience and/or knowledge. “Opinion” can cross over to harbored resentment against particular individuals, which I believe is a self-destructive wrong that needs to be confessed. Bad enough.

        But one commits the sin of “detraction” when one — without necessity — reveals *true but negative* information about a second party to a third party with the purpose of influencing the third party’s opinion of the second party. (That it is not “detraction” to report to the proper authorities a crime or abuse that another has committed goes without saying.)

        In the case of Pope Francis, it is not “detraction” to discuss/critique/cry-out-to-heaven-and-each-other-about (as we do here) statements that are violations of Church teaching, and/or clarify/defend the true teaching in comparison. However, if one’s answer to the casual question “What do you think of this Pope?” becomes an angry diatribe or a tirade (“How is he a heretic? Let me count the ways …”), one may need to mention that in confession.

        Reply
    • There is no mention of the comment in question in the Zenit piece. And again, sources I’ve spoken with say the omission appears not to have been an accident. If that changes, we’ll make a note of it.

      Reply
  3. Along the same lines, there has been no mention in our local diocesan weekly newspaper of the Pope’s trip to Sweden this month to “celebrate” the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Revolt ever

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  4. (cont.) since the trip was announced a number of months ago. Nor has it been mentioned since the Pope’s itinerary was released 4 or 5 weeks ago. Now, why would our bishop keep such information from his flock, especially when his local diocesan paper will have to say something about it eventually, once the local media reports on it? I’m curious as to how they will try to report it as an event to celebrate, rather than as something of which to be ashamed.

    Reply
  5. I’m an Italian native speaker.
    This is the video with the horrible phrase (Min 41:18)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQVvZaIZV2E

    He says:
    “Non è lecito convincere della tua fede. Il proselitismo è il veleno più forte contro il cammino ecumenico.”
    Which literally translates as:
    “It is not licit (Latin: non licet) to convince of your faith. Proselytism is the strongest venom against the ecumenical path”

    Reply
    • I can’t believe that we can not remove him! What more do you want?
      Please someone, somewhere come up with a plan to remove him.

      He is not Rambo. He is not Rocky Balboa. He is an old man with one lung. Please remove him. Can you handle 10 or 20 more years of this? Oh, the Cardinals that he just elected are all heretical aren’t they? I don’t know how we are going to recover from this!

      Reply
    • Did you hear the people clapping at 41:47. THE POISONING OF THE FAITH IS ACCEPTED!

      This man is against the Great commission of Jesus Christ. HE IS A FALSE PROPHET!

      REMOVE HIM!!!!

      Reply
    • Francis is just a very, very angry man in my view. His words are meant to cut to the bone, to inflame faithful Catholics. He is simply, not a very holy man who dishonors the holy martyrs and our Blessed Mother.

      Our Lord not only died for us, but He gave us His Church and His Mother!!!
      How this pope dishonors our Holy Mother, many saints and holy martyrs with statements such as these.
      How this pope dishonors the sacraments, the priesthood!

      He is our chastisement. These reports are important for the faithful to know, so that we can prepare in prayer and penance, to truly stand with our Lord, His Church and His Mother.

      Reply
  6. Quite dim with languages myself, barely getting by with the native tongue, it has taken me some time to ask simply, can the man even speak? I mean with grammatical correctness. Long have I read statements by the popes translated into English, heard them give a talk in English, and their
    presentations have always been well articulated.
    From the beginning with Pope Francis the written translations reveal a man who can’t speak well. For a while I thought it was just poor translators, but it continues. Forgive my boldness, but besides the content, the poor man “sounds” like an ignoramus. Is this the way he speaks in Spanish? Italian? Or does he speak with grammatical correctness and with precision?
    It would be enlightening to get an accurate and unbiased answer to this question.

    Reply
    • Did you know when Jorge (of course his friends help him with the writing) wrote “Amoris Laetitia”, he quoted himself!

      Never mind the heresies through out the document. But what freakin’ human quote himself when he publish a work?

      Talk about having no scholarship, AL is the for the really stupid mass!

      Reply
        • Please leave the great and saintly pope out of this. His teaching is profound and rooted in Scripture and Tradition. Pope Francis’ teachings can’t get even past Pope St. John Paul II the Great documents [FC, VS, etc]. You will do well to ask for his forgiveness and seek his intercession.

          Reply
          • And you would do well to read what I actually wrote. I was referring to his habit of extensive self-quotation. Regardless of the quality of his writings ( about which good men differ) his governance of the Church was not the best. It was John Paul ll who raised Bergoglio from deserved obscurity and made him both Archbishop and Cardinal; as well as all that “Sankt Gallen Mafia.” The late Pope often seemed to be lacking in good judgment.

          • And Jesus chose Judas and the rest of the eleven, the former who betrayed him and the rest who all abandoned him … Pardon me for misunderstanding Have you ever read JP II’s documents? What did you mean by it? It is either Pope Francis does what Pope Pope St. John Paul II the Great did as regards the habit of extensive self-quotation or not. Which is it? Because what Pope Francis has done has never been said about the great and saintly pope.

          • It’s silly to bring in Jesus choosing Judas as a way to justify Pope JPll raising Jorge to Archbishop and Cardinal. No matter how you cut it. Was John Paul imitating Christ? For what reason? And why did Christ choose Judas at all? Was it not to fulfill scripture? Was JPll undermining the church? Was the Holy Spirit working through the pope to punish the church because of the sins of Modernism, in which he surely played a part? Was it TRUE that Pope John Paul was seduced and compromised by modernism that had infiltrated the church at the end of the 19th century? How else explain the unGodly spectacle of Assisi 86 and every monstrosity that followed? Then taken up by Pope Benedict. Why did both those popes appoint so many bishops who were corrupt or at best compromised?

          • It is not because you cannot discount the fact that God called Pope Francis to the priesthood or allowed him to be a priest and that Pope Francis’ own correspondence to God’s call and that of his Church plays a part. Raising a person to the Archbishopric and/or to Cardinalate does not include in it licence to go rogue. Also, didn’t Pope St. John Paul II not give the Church and Pope Francis [who says he is the son of the said Church], sound doctrine in the saintly documents I have quoted above Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor? So please take your comment to its logical conclusion that despite such documents from which Pope Francis could draw upon, he still chose to selectively misquote, misuse or ignore them but you and others will still blame that on Pope St. John Paul II the Great.

          • I used to defend Pope JPll. But no more. So forget FC & VS, Jorge’s disgrace didn’t just start after his election in 2013. He has a long history of cunning and deceit and rebellion against Christ and His church.. John Paul should have made it his business to appoint bishops strong in the faith. He did not. He failed his sacred duty. He was compromised by the seductions of Modernism. The scary truth I see that has emerged from Vat ll and starting with Pope JXlll as a pattern, is that the popes following Pope Pius Xll had forgotten or rejected the church’s infallible dogma of Original Sin.

          • Jorge’s disgrace didn’t just start after his election in 2013. He has a long history of cunning and deceit and rebellion against Christ and His church. We agree.
            *
            John Paul should have made it his business to appoint bishops strong in the faith. He did not. He failed his sacred duty. Perhaps. God knows and if that be the case, he has already answered him and for all of his failings. And now, he is a saint, confirmed by heaven by two remarkable miracles.

          • Don’t forget it was the corrupt Bergoglio who declared John Paul a “saint”. I was so impressed, not just with his genius, but his awesome prayer life, his commitment to personal holiness. But I can no longer ignore all this nonsense regarding ecumenism, his catering to world religions, and his blindness regarding the true and truly dreadful state of the church, and his delusions of a “new springtime” of the church.

          • Pope St. John Paul II the Great and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had a correct understanding of and preached and taught true ecumenism. Cf.

            On ecumenism:

            BENEDICT XVI: One of the principal problems of our work, in the years that I was prefect, was the effort to reach a correct understanding of ecumenism.

            Also in this case it is a question that has a double profile: on one side, affirmed with all its urgency, is the task to work for unity and to open ways that lead to it; on the other, it is necessary to reject false conceptions of unity, which would like to reach the unity of the faith through the shortcut of the watering down of the faith. […].
            Benedict XVI Pays Tribute to Blessed John Paul II in New Interview

            I believe I have posted other examples elsewhere here on 1P5.

          • Very convincing, right? Alas both popes spoke out of both sides of their mouths. This was part of the seduction of Modernism. It always ended up as dialogue with Protestants, Jews and the pagan religions. They probably believed their own words. However, no pope prior to Vat ‘ll ever taught that on going endless dialogue was the way to conversion. And you know what, if this ecumenical outreach continues on for another 50 years, Protestants will be better Protestants, Jews better Jews and the Catholic faith will go on apologizing for being Catholic. This is the diabolical insidious seduction of Modernism.

            I’m not a Sedevacantist, but there is a meticulously documented video by the Dimond Bros, on the heresies of Pope Benedict. Well worth the time to watch in spite of the unbearable arrogance of those two guys.

          • Strongly disagree.
            *
            And now I have to say this, when you can’t provide a counter argument, these have been your responses

            It’s silly; forget FC & VS; Very convincing, right? and from below I’m not aware that you gave an argument

          • I’m not aware that you gave an argument apart from assumptions you make and references you provide to their encyclicals, letters and news reports. I understand your predicament. It’s tough being a devout Catholic today without being torn apart by outrages, scandals, silences. Who knows what to believe if we don’t cling to the authentic pre Vat ll teachings of the church.

            You might be interested is a couple of fairly long comments I made on Steve’s post from yesterday – On eve of quincentennary…. My comments were spiritual in nature, concerning this man, Jorge Bergoglio.

          • I don’t want to wade into the middle of this exactly because I am not in a position to do justice to the debate, but I will give you simply a short reflection on what Pope St JPII’s “ecumenism” meant to a Protestant theology student of his day, namely, me. That is, how we took it. How we understood the Pope. Our perspective was that he believed all religions led to God and that the Catholic faith was at any rate, not unique in bringing salvation to the world.

            Now for many reasons that view {which I happen to think is a very common view of Protestants} is not to be taken with the same level of credibility as is a sober assessment from the standpoint of Church teaching, but it does highlight the fact that many were and are confused by the post-Conciliar Popes. My wife not long ago had this discussion with her Baptist father who HEARS what, frankly, I hear in the teaching of the post-Conciliar Popes; that all religions lead to God and salvation. So, yes, I confess as a Catholic convert {2013} I hesitate to make strong declarations about their total orthodoxy on the issue of ecumenism, ESPECIALLY in comparison {contrast} to very, very clear statements made by Popes prior to V2.

            The question always in the forefront of my mind when the issue comes up is this:

            What changes have occurred in Lutheran, or Methodist, or Anglican, or Muslim, or Hindu teaching to allow them a new position vis-a-vis the Catholic faith, that is, a place in some way equal to that of the Church AS IT SO FREQUENTLY SOUNDS in the teaching of the current Pope and to a somewhat lesser degree {but still present} in the teaching of other post-Conciliar Popes?

            The answer of course is nothing. Absolutely nothing. There have been no changes.

            So that then begs another question:

            Then why have the post-Conciliar Popes had such grand things to say about them as religions?

            The answer, I think, is troubling.

            Since no changes have taken place among the Protestants and other religions, changes must have taken place in the presentation of the Catholic faith. I think a very sound case can be made that there indeed HAVE been significant changes made in the teaching by various prelates and even Popes on these topics.

            Or words have no meaning or whatever meaning anyone arbitrarily wants to hang on them, which means the same thing!

            As I have heard Traditionalists say: “Either what we teach today is right and what was taught before the Council is wrong, or what what is taught today is wrong and what was taught before the Council is right. You can’t have it both ways”. The more I read the “street preaching” of our modern prelates and CERTAINLY this Pope, the more I think there is substance in that statement.Why? Because what we see and hear today sounds so clearly DIFFERENT to that which was taught consistently and vociferously BEFORE the Council. EENS is a classic case in point. Etecetera.

          • Welcome to the “One True Church”. Your conversion in view of, or probably more accurately, in spite of, PF and the other conciliatory popes, prompts my question as to the circumstances of your conversion, apart from Sanctifying Grace. You didn’t reject the church; you see through the lie of Vatll ecumenical outreach. You come from Protestanism with God only knows the distortions of Catholicism that thrive in their little hearts and minds. I have seen stories of conversion in various websites where RCIA programs were literally obstacles to conversion. Yet they persevered.

            I recently read the story told by a Jewish woman who wanted to convert, and she ran out of progressive parishes who taught false teachings in their RCIA programs, and priests did not take her seriously. They told her she did not need to convert to be saved and refused to baptize her. Yet she kept on going to mass and pestering priests. Thanks to the encouragement of E Michael Jones, she persisted and was finally baptized.

          • “…circumstances of your conversion, apart from Sanctifying Grace.”

            Praise God for the grace!!

            I was raised United Methodist. My ancestors go way back as Methodist ministers and even my Grandmother was a minister in the Methodist Church. My Dad was as well, and his Dad was a lay preacher for the Methodist Church. I attended an evangelical 4 year college obtaining a BA degree in History and additional course emphasis in Environmental Science, then obtained a Masters in the Theology from a Wesleyan Seminary. My wife is from a Baptist background and we both served in Africa as missionaries for a short time and there my first, son, was born.

            Cutting it short as possible, we attended a number of denominations along the way as liberalism was clearly a problem for me in the UMC. We attended Anglican, Reformed and evangelical ecclesial groups and finally Lutheran, at each stop I studied the doctrines of their respective denominations and all along the trail, the Bible using what I call the “Cover-to-Cover, Over-and-Over” method. While a Lutheran, I was teaching a class on Reformation doctrines and decided to prove to the class just how wrong the Catholics were by getting ahold of a Catechism so as to “prove them wrong with their own words”. One thing I knew was that Catholic doctrine supposedly did not change, so I figured if I got a modern Catechism it would be close enough to the late middle ages I could use the newer rope to hang the older felon, so-to-speak.

            Parenthetically…that is one major reason I take the unchangeable doctrines of the faith so seriously and why I fight the passion of anger and rage when I hear prelates and…dare I say it, Pope, “Protestantize” the Magesterium.

            Anyway, I had never been 100% happy with the treatment of Scripture by the sola scriptura crowd. Every group I encountered relied on selected texts and ignored others in such a way that tho they glommed on to different emphases, the end result was the same; the wholeness of Scripture was left behind for snapshots of doctrine or worse yet, eisegetical meaning and/or “Whatever I want it to mean”. And this is why I fight the passions of anger and rage when I see…the Pope…do the same doggone Protestant thing.

            So that Catechismal “rope” got me thinking for the first time about the Catholic faith. I was raised moderately anti-Catholic and frankly, as mentioned elsewhere, the Pope’s religious indifferentism and my general opinion that the Church was in large part, in spite of JPII, a front for the Communist Party {experiences with Liberation Theology}, kept me from ever taking it seriously. But the words of the CCC kept at me and that led me and my wife to discussions with a young Mexican priest and then to his RCIA class. In the process I started re-reading the Early Church Fathers. And THAT led to our conversion. Praise God.

            In my opinion, if you love the Lord Jesus {yes, you can “meet” Him outside the Church}, study the Bible and the Fathers, well, you are pretty much destined to be a Fisheater.

            At the same time my kids {ages 17-23} were seeing things in the Protestant world that gave them fits as well. I had always taught them on the ranch and while hunting and on the horses in the mountains and whatnot {Dt 11:19}. They gravitated to hear the message of the Church and all three have now converted as well. All of us, their spouses included, are Catholic.

            So that’s where we are.

            Except…

            My wife and I have been shocked at what we have seen. The disunity, the veering from the clear teaching {required! CCC 1697} and the ambiguity and vacillation of prelates and Pope. And…the MUSIC….UHG!! So, after a year of being badgered by a friend, we decided to visit an FSSP parish and now we worship there unless the weather is too severe for travel {it is 1 1/2 hours away}. Why? Simple. Because they are Catholic. The pastors are unafraid to teach the truth and they are not embarrassed to give straight-up witness to Jesus Christ and His teaching, which is the teaching of the Church, unmolested by modernism and what else to call it? Freemasonry and Marxism. My kids attend Ordinary Form parishes and struggle with all that that means…but I’m the one doing the badgering, now, so we will see.

            I love the Lord, His Church and the Magesterium. I believe with all my heart that the most merciful and most pastoral anyone can be is to deliver unaltered in any way the unchangeable doctrines of the Catholic Faith and then by the grace of God watch those seeds sprout.

            By that grace of God I am a proselyte and I THANK GOD for proselytism and those that engage in it!!

            Rod Halvorsen

          • Rod I just want to say – WOW!! I’m sure you’re aware, that all the faithful Catholic websites share your “outrage” over the betrayal of the conciliar church. Even though the “unity” of these Trads leave a lot to be desired. I went from assuming that PF is different, more pastoral. Then I became alarmed and started to pray and write, and it took another two years to decide he’s at least a material heretic. Now, I can no longer avoid the scary truth he is an apostate.

            This all came about when I bought my first laptop and got internet service in 2012. That was my first introduction to the betrayal of Vat ‘ll and conciliar church since 1965.

            I’m a cradle Catholic, grew up on the East Coast of Canada, and if there was one thing we were taught with certainty, it was that communism was a satanic evil.

            Years ago I would read somewhere that Pope JPll favoured some form of world government. I could not believe that. It was impossible that any pope, knowing the reality of Original Sin, and after 70 years of the former USSR, would approve of a global centralized government. Run by a select group of Oligarchs. IMPOSSIBLE!! Well, I was wrong. After all, as bad as western civilization is politically, it’s still true that sovereign nations are a hedge against total tyranny. As my understanding of the infiltration of Modernism into the church back in the 1880s increased, thanks to the many faithful Catholic blogs I visit daily, a large picture began to emerge where I saw that the hierarchical church and yes, popes too could be seduced, and were, by this worst of all heresies.

            Another truth the church taught me as a child is that life is not going to be easy. Christ told us to carry “crosses”. And let’s face it, For anyone who wants an easy faith without many demands, Catholicism will be anathema.

            Like the faithful church against the Arians, the assaults of Islam, the Protestant revolt, the French revolution, masonry, communism and the seductions of Modernism, there is never a dull moment.

            I once read of a Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times.”

            God bless.

          • Tom:

            Thank you for that. And thank you for staying true to the faith of our Lord.

            Truly, for all the chaos that exists, it is a great witness to me when I meet in person or online those who have stayed IN the Church AND held to the Tradition in spite of essentially living their entire lives amidst the struggles that have grown out of the post V2 era. That, too, is my {our} commitment.

            I do not believe enough can be said for the severity of trauma that was caused by World Wars 1 & 2. That {essentially it is a “that”, too, as it is in many sense a 30-years war with a rest and recovery period in between the vast exercise of industrial murder} is certainly a pivotal event in all of human history. The damage to psyche and body of the millions certainly cannot be ignored in the direction many went theologically afterwards. I sense that the “ecumenism at any cost” may be a method by which many lived out the notion of “never again”. I’ve always wondered if this was a driving force in the lives of Pope St JPII and B16 and their softness on “other religions”. Truly, Pope Benedict 15 was right; Europe committed suicide in World War 1, and as such it took the moral corpse the rest of the century to quit twitching. And along the way, the Church has Herself been deeply wounded.

            As such, this emphasis on ecumenism is understandable, tho that is not to say it is commendable.

            Now we have what might be called the second generation of Ecumenist Churchmen, those with no direct involvement in that great era of worldwide bloodletting. The Pope falls into this league, and they have taken and transformed an understandable excess into, dare I say, what looks like a new religion.

            May God raise up prelates who are brave enough to preserve the faith with clarity, even at the risk of new travail. I believe he will. Holy Mother Church is lying in the ditch right now, beaten and bloodied. She desperately needs courageous men to lift her out and salve Her wounds. I believe such men will do it. I don’t know who they are, but God does.

          • Good to distinguish the work of the Church vs. the work of the innovators post VII, with groups e.g. those who call themselves Trads not helping by amplifying the noise and confusion. Cf. These five and Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the related commentary. This is path the faithful ought to follow to obtain clarity should they have doubts about what is reported vis-à-vis VII and Church Teaching.
            *
            As regards EENS Catechism of the Cathoic Church CCC 846 – 848 confirms that the Church continues to teach what she has always taught.
            *
            In the interview I have referenced here [https://disqus.com/home/discussion/onepeterfive/is_the_vatican_editing_pope_francis_35/#comment-2952549202] Pope Emeritus reveals what he and the saintly and great pope were challenged with and what efforts they were engaged in [against the innovators and wrong understanding] to be true to the faith and carry out true ecumenism.

          • You mention the distinction between “what the Church teaches and innovators.

            I’ll build on this.

            The phrase “Church teaching” means different things to different people. To the devout and knowledgeable Catholic, it references the perennial Magesterium without incursion of heterodoxy.

            But to the “Man on the Street”, “Church teaching” means what he has heard or what has actually been stated by prelates, priests and “faithful” over time.

            Toward that end, “Church teaching” is pretty well understood by many outside the Church to mean:

            1} All religions lead to God and are salvific.
            2} The Catholic Church “changed” at V2
            3} Hell is no longer a doctrine taught by the Church.
            4} EENS no longer applies. We are “all” going to heaven…if there is one…
            5} Paper doctrines are just that, paper doctrines. They are general guidelines but do not actually mean what they say, for every time a text can be found that is uncomfortable, it is restated in a way that softens it or changes its meaning to something more palatable today.
            6} Catholic leaders are managers of a vast bureaucracy that has as its primary objective the protection of Catholic leaders, no matter what Catholic leaders do, no matter what crimes they commit. And maintenance of income stream. Can’t forget that.
            7} Catholicism used to teach a bunch of supernatural, spiritual and “superstitious” things but in the last 40 years it has “gotten with the times” and doesn’t do that stuff anymore. “That stuff” was used back when the Church needed to scare people into obeying the corrupt leadership and now the Catholic leaders have been exposed enough that they realize they can’t pull the wool over anybody eyes anymore or at least, not as much as they used to.
            8} Old teaching on homosexuality is still there on paper {softened very much in the CCC} but with the selection of homosexuals for special mention of possessing “dignity” in the CCC {to the exclusion of other folks like bank robbers, rapists, political despots} they have been given an “in between” position as if their evils {are they evils?} are not as bad as others which implies they are going to be “OK’d” in some way by the Church at some point, and soon as possible for many prelates because the prelates kind of want to out themselves since many are queerer than a 3 dollar bill anyhow.

            I could go on, but I think these are some salient points of “Church teaching” that might be put forth by a large number of non-Catholics.

            I believe, personally, that Church leaders who are orthodox, need to face these issues squarely and go on the offensive to educate and catechize Catholics and non-Catholics, the former to lead to sanctification, the latter to lead to salvation in the Church.

            That there is intense resistance to do so from inside the Church highlights just exactly why the non-Catholics believe that these or many of these are…”Church teaching”.

            A friend of mine who is a Lutheran tells me he has no respect for the Catholic Church because, simply put, her leaders pay with words, establishing no clarity in teaching and dodging the hard issues.

            I find this interesting because while I find great clarity in Catholic teaching, I see his point. It seems so often a point is made and then when faced with pressure, it is given up.

            An example of this is the often-cited Regensburg Address.

            Was it a clear statement? Yes…..

            Unless you tuned in a few weeks later for the apology…

            It is that kind of thing that is simply toxic for making any strong point.

            Ditto ex-Pope {whatever he is…} Benedict’s recent statement that EENS was “abandoned” after V2.

            This is the sort of thing that destroys the integrity of “Church teaching” in the “marketplace” of non-Catholics.

            THEY deserve better than that. They NEED better than thay, for they need salvation.

            Oh, I forgot…we aren’t supposed to “proselytize” anymore.

            And thus we have yet another case making my point.

          • Post-Vatican II “ecumenical dialogue” = endless Catholic Church compromise and appeasement with various heretical sects and non-Christian religions.

            Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI participated at Vatican II in the camp of the Modernists. I think both of those men later regretted their collusion with the “progressives” at the council (especially Benedict).

          • Hi Paul, long time no see. Did both those popes have “regrets”? I hope so. However, I’m not aware that either of them put their lives on the line to stop the relentless onslaught of outrages against Christ and His church. It appears that Benedict, at least, is very good at making excuses. “Too timid” et al

          • How do you know God called Pope Francis to the priesthood??? Recent history has shown us that many men became priests for their own reasons, which were sometimes sinful…like those who became priests to subvert the Church from within.

        • I’ve read the old documents, from Popes of the past, (e.g., Leo XIII). Well, if JPII quoted himself, well that’s lame too! HA!

          These Popes, some have very poor scholarship!

          JPII is a good person with failings too! Like all of us!

          Reply
        • You are quite correct. He began this modern fad of self-citation, but who is there left to quote when Vatican II was the “new Pentecost” and all things began from scratch in 1965?

          Reply
    • It takes many words not to speak the truth.
      I too have the impression that he is either rather inarticulate or he is deliberately being vague and obfuscatory.

      Reply
      • My conclusion, bluntly, is that he is cognitively, morally and emotionally challenged – a willing shill for the worst elements in the species presently engaged with a well advanced project to eviscerate the Church.
        It could very well be that the insecure Jorge seeking refuge from the challenges of secular existence sought refuge in the Society, only to be surrounded by a crowd of cassocked alpha males and went along for the ride into heterodoxy – as so many priests and religious did as we rounded the fifties into the sixties. I’d like to believe his personal insecurity, his need for affirmation, made him a target, but ultimately a willing accomplice to the wolves in sheep clothing. It also explains the obsessive need to blather about the sacred mystery of God’s mercy without end. There are few on the planet in more need of God’s mercy than me, but let’s keep things in their context. This faux mysticism of Bergoglian mercy is at best simply odd, at worst a desecration. There is no balance here. All appears out of whack.

        Reply
  7. Oops, Steve, they missed one…

    Just copied and pasted this blasphemy that remains on the vatican.va site from Evangelii Gaudium paragraph 161:

    “Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).”

    Sorry Pope, but the First and Greatest Commandment is NOT ” that you love one another as I have loved you”.

    Have you ever heard a single prelate address this?

    Me, neither.

    By the way, I am a proselyte, and so is my wife and so are my kids. That God for those who proselytized us!

    Reply
    • From Catholic Answers: When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:36-39).

      To express Christian love, we must first know the difference between what is good and what is bad for us as human beings and then share that knowledge with others for everyone’s good. Paul expressed this when he wrote, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good” (Rom 12:9).

      To Timothy, Paul wrote, “[T]he aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith” (1 Tm 1:5).

      John wrote similarly, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 Jn 5:2).

      Pope Benedict wrote about this in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, in which he referred to Christian love more precisely as charity:

      To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity . . .

      Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite . . .

      A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. In other words, there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. (CV 1, 3-4)

      By loving with the truth of Christian faith in mind, we avoid causing others to fall into sin. John wrote, “He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling” (1 Jn 2:10).

      But going even further, Christian love calls us to correct our neighbors when they do stumble. Jesus taught:

      If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Mt 18:15-17)

      Reply
      • Steve Jalsevac:

        I’m confused by your post here. What is the point of your posting the Catholic Answers response? It in no way addresses the misquote by Francis of the words of Jesus. By pasting this, is your point that they simply deflected the question and didn’t want to deal with the obvious?

        The point is simple: Pope Francis misquoted Jesus. He did it in a context and way that fits in with his anthropocentric hermeneutic in general. In other words, his setting up of Man as the primary subject of our love fits very closely with his religious indifferentism, refusal to admit the Muslim “refugee” crisis is colonization, his diminishment of the sacrament of marriage and his use of the word “marriage” to describe a homosexual union. Etcetera.

        Please advise.

        Reply
        • It was posted to support your initial comment. The greatest commandment was, ““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” whereas the “love your neighbour as yourself” part is usually quoted without any reference to what scripture really indicates about genuine love, which must include conveying complete truth.

          Reply
          • Thanks for the clarification. I agree.

            The Pope has made it clear:

            Stand with him and mankind first.

            Or stand with God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

            The prelates have remained silent. The Vatican leaves this horrific misquote on the website.

            Matthew 10:32 is clear. So, more and more…is the Pope.

            As Catholics, what do we do but read, pray, serve and what, post on comboxes?

            When will a man among the prelates rise to stand for Christ?

            Man the subject of first love? The veneration of the pagan goddess “Sister Mother Earth”? The disregard for the sanctity of marriage? Denial of past teaching on capital punishment? Calling the union of two women a “marriage”?

            What more do they need?

            And there IS much more!!

      • Thank you, Steve and no, I did NOT see it. Neither did I pick it up in my reading of Gaudium et Spes and neither did I know about the other references. As usual, this time in a sense to my dismay, you have done a great work in the pursuit of Truth.

        This is nothing less than shocking. Terribly so.

        The Catholic Church is in far, far more serious condition than I thought if She has let these blatant statements of disagreement with god’s Word lie undisturbed.

        Is this not clear and unvarnished heresy?

        Now the dots are connected in so many ways to the other positions held by this Pope.

        One thing I have noticed among many Catholics is an utterly bizarre comfort with logical absurdities. This is one such example. Look, I wasn’t raised a Traddie. I wasn’t raised with a chip on my shoulder about Vatican 2. In fact, as a Protestant growing up, the only thoughts I had about Vatican 2 were positive, knowing as little as I did about the Church.

        But now, as a convert convinced as I am of the Catholic Church’s historical claims, I am more than troubled about Vatican 2 and the more I read and study it the more serious this concern grows.

        As Catholics, we are being asked by prelates and theologians to look a duck square in the eyes and call it a dog.

        And what is worse, I see a whole vast culture who are perfectly happy calling that duck Fido. Ad they will call Fido a cat or a monkey if a Pope says to as well.

        This is not right.

        These documents need to be condemned. Common sense and an honest reading of the written word demand it! I see absolutely no other way to handle them if the Catholic Church is going to continue to adhere to the historical claims She has made about Her unique position in God’s plan of salvation.

        And isn’t it interesting how the current Pope seems to be comfortable giving up on those historical claims as well.

        More and more I understand the position of the SSPX vis a vis Vatican 2.

        Reply
      • I agree that Francis has misquoted Scripture {as he also did in his homily at the closing of the Synod where he states that the Apostles walked on while Christ engaged the Blind Bartimaeus*. Admittedly, a smaller thing, but indicative of his fast and loose use of Scripture.

        However, @fmshyanguya:disqus I do not see how what Francis has done is any different than what was done in Gaudium et Spes. Your comment last year reads to me as if Gaudium et Spes is orthodox in its transmission of the meaning of the text, but Francis’ is not. To me they seem to be identical. Maybe I am reading your comment incorrectly? If I’ve misread you please help me out. I’m trying to get the thrust of your statement.

        * Here’s the Blind Bartimaeus passage:

        “None of the disciples stopped, as Jesus did. They continued to walk, going on as if nothing were happening. ”

        This is simply not in the text. He has inserted something here that is nowhere stated or even implied. He appears to have made this statement in order to give his point more emphasis and meaning. This is classic eisegesis and worse, blatant addition to a text of Holy Scripture. Heck, there are lots of Scriptures I could doctor to make a point I’d like to make. That is the work of the uneducated hillbilly preacher, wholly unworthy of a Pope. And no, i do not think he is uneducated. I think he is cunning and does what he does on purpose. To think otherwise is, in my opinion, to disrespect him.

        http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/10/25/pope_francis_homily_at_closing_mass_for_synod_assembly/1181890

        Reply
        • This may help
          The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind. If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, The author of this book is mistaken; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.. – St. Augustine
          And please see this response of mine to you below: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/onepeterfive/is_the_vatican_editing_pope_francis_35/#comment-2955143272

          Reply
          • As I see it at this point, if the passage in Gaudium et Spes is orthodox, then so is Francis misquote, since both state the same thing.

            But Francis’ statement is obviously not correct. So how can the statement in GS?

          • Francis > Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 161:

            Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).

            Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, on December 7, 1965, 24, :

            God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who “from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God Himself.

            For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: “If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law” (Rom. 13:9-10; cf. 1 John 4:20). To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance.

            1) Pope Francis: Mandatum novum, i.e. “you love one another as I have loved you” = the first and the greatest of the commandments.
            2) Neither the LORD nor Scripture nor the Church has ever taught this, nor can this teaching be supported by Scripture and Tradition, and Church Teaching.
            3) Therefore one cannot say let alone conclude that EG 161 and GS 24 are the same or that they are almost the same.

          • EG 161 references Matthew 22:36-40. We are in agreement that this represents a new teaching.

            However, GS 24 “For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment” also, unless one ignores the actual words of the text in order to impose a meaning on it from other texts, also references the text of Matthew 22:36-40.

            They refer to the same Matthew text and they are both wrong.

            Your desire to affirm the Church teaching that a Council cannot err is laudable, but you cannot deny the wording used, and the wording used in both EG 161 and GS 24 is the EXACT SAME: “first and greatest” in reference to what the Matthew text clearly states is NOT the “first and greatest”. This isn’t difficult to see. It is plain as the words on the page.

            “…first and greatest” is neither vague nor confusing. It is clear. It is a reference to the Matthew text, and in both instances the statements are wrong.

            The other texts are interesting and useful in reflection on the full meaning of love for God and for man, but they not are relevant to the ACTUAL WORDS used in BOTH EG 161 and GS24. Those texts are crystal clear. They both state “first and greatest” and connect them with love for God AND MAN. In so doing, they violate the specific text where the language “first and greatest” is used.

            They are BOTH wrong.

            Period.

            Exegesis of other texts to expand on the Matthew passage can as I say, expand our knowledge of God’s love for man and our love for God and man, but they cannot and do not CHANGE the wording chosen by Pope Francis NOR the writers of GS 24.

            That there is an explanation for the dilemma that keeps with Church teaching I do not deny, but that explanation cannot ignore the actual words used in the texts cited. The actual words used are used incorrectly.

            This I might add parenthetically is why I waited for a long time before I made up my mind about EG 161. I suspected that it flowed from a typographical error, error of speech, slip of the tongue, or some such which could be and would be repaired on the Vatican site and in official reprints of the document.

            In light of what we see in GS 24, I now understand why this has not occurred.

            I’m all ears to attempts to reconcile the two opposing views, but so far, I do not see how in any way you have done that except, in essence, to say “It can’t happen”.

            I agree with Steve Skojec. There is a problem here.

            ETA: Just a thought: somehow I think the ongoing discussions with the SSPX are going to bear fruit in providing the final answer to the dilemma that presents before us. From what I can see now, there are still open questions as to how to class the texts of V2. It appears the results of the current discussions may be beneficial to the Church at-large, with relevance far beyond the limits of the SSPX organization itself.

          • Church teaching that a Council cannot err is infallible Church Teaching either this holds for ALL councils or else if it doesn’t, then everything falls apart and the Church must then NOT be the true Church. Take your pick.

          • Is Gaudium et Spes an infallible document? Was it even intended to be?

            Your statement does not actually address the issue of the texts at all. We are talking about specific words and how they are used, not general statements of doctrine.

            The Scripture says something clear, using clear words. The words are there to be read. So are the words of EG 161 and GS 24. One might be able to form some sort of argument that they MEAN the same thing but one cannot ignore the simple literary FACT that they do not SAY the same thing.

            If the words of GS 24 are correct, then so are those of Pope Francis’ EG 161. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME WORDS. This isn’t deep theology. It is simple reading of the text. So much so that I scratch my head wondering why or even how you can draw a distinction between the two.

            I’ll leave the theologians to fight over whether GS is an infallible text from an infallible Council. Yes, I know that the Council by its own words was not intended to define any dogma and yes, I know that defined dogmas were sometimes referred to so one cannot just throw away everything from V2 because they don’t like how some interpret it, but as to whether every phrase and word from every text is considered infallible, I do not know. You are affirming that it is. I am saying I am not certain you are right.

            And thus we have the current arguments put forth by Schönborn, Burke, Kasper, Müller, etc about the texts of Francis’ various writings and whether they are “Magesterial” or not. It seems obvious that Burke takes the position he does because he feels that if Francis’ words are considered Magesterial, the whole house will collapse…BECAUSE FRANCIS’ WORDS STAND IN OPPOSITION TO THE WORDS OF CHRIST.

            The problem is that so does the text from Gaudium et spes.

            What it appears you are doing is saying that it doesn’t matter what the actual text says, doesn’t matter what the words are and it doesn’t matter if EG 161 says the same thing as GS 24, EG 161 is WRONG and GS 24 is RIGHT. Because you say GS is an infallible document from an infallible council and no matter what it says, it can’t be wrong. All of this while an Apostolic Exhortation from a Pope could be, and in this instance is, wrong. I agree by the way in a sense. What I lack is a clear understanding of whether Gaudium et Spes, and specifically the text cited, is considered infallible. You say it definitely is. I’m not sure about that.

            I as a convert will add something pastoral, and that is that these arguments between prelates while necessary from the orthodox standpoint, are unfortunate because there are souls that need saving and ambiguous and misquoted texts do nothing to save them. Such texts are serpents striking at the heel of the Virgin, slowing the spread of the Gospel.

            One thing is certain; While we may know that Church teaching doesn’t change, a huge number of prelates and the Pope among them sure think it can be. And they act accordingly. And what is more, this line of thought appears to have been in the minds of at least some of the writers of the Vatican 2 documents. Why? Because V2 documents are in several instances VERY ambiguous and tend toward a common theme, that of a new and novel anthropocentric theology.

          • All the teaching in matters of faith and morals in all the Documents of the Second Vatican Council are without error. If there is any error in them, then an ecumenical council under a pope has taught error, which is impossible because it is an infallible teaching of the Church that an ecumenical council under a pope cannot teach error. Again, take your pick.
            *
            Let’s approach it this way: We know for instance that some within the Hierarchy and the laity have raised alarm over AL. Any chance you can provide a comparable list among the hierarchy and laity, including SSPX raising alarm over GS 24? I am thinking that if you can produce such a list, it would be very long because it is just over a half a century since GS was promulgated. Even the 1P5 article [and similarly Rorate Cæli] just bring up the subject but do not conclude that GS 24 is erroneous. In at least a couple one of my comments I have pointed out what one ought to be doing in the cases of such where they have such doubts, and that is, they ought to be reaching out to the Church for clarification. I close by noting that earlier in our exchange you were of the thinking that EENS teaching had changed [by VII? and] post VII and I demonstrated to you it hadn’t. I believe just this ought to make you review as to where you have been educating yourself as regards the Faith and perhaps change course, especially since I have read you are a convert to the Faith.

          • This is very interesting.

            OK, couple things.

            First; EENS.

            I have not said that EENS changed. Ex-Pope Benedict did inasmuch as he has said that the doctrine was “abandoned” after V2. So let’s put EENS to rest. It is not relevant to the current discussion anyhow.

            I am still not certain about the orthodoxy of all the statements in all the documents of V2, and many are in agreement with me on that, largely because we have yet to obtain a totally clear assessment on the Magesterial place of all the documents and statements within them, especially in light of what V2 has to say about ITSELF. You seem to say in a sweeping manner that anything that fell off the printing press during the V2 gathering was equal to any Magesterial document ever written.

            Back On Topic:

            Whether I am a convert or not in this matter at hand is irrelevant. I can read English, {and a bit of German}. That is all it takes to be able to make the assertions I have made. A text that says the same thing as another cannot mean something different.

            You actually have the problem.

            GS 24 and EG 161 say the same thing. You say one is doctrinally sound and the other isn’t. I’d have much more ability to accept your argument if you said that they were BOTH orthodox statements {or both heterodox}. That you say one is, and the other isn’t, defies the clear written word. You have yet to make anything like a logically sound argument about the issue.

            You haven’t dealt with the relevant texts.

            Yourr insistence that GS cannot be wrong because it cannot be wrong is a circular argument.

            You are going to have to prove WHY GS 24 and EG 161 say something different in order to present a sound argument. You have not made that argument or rather, your argument is so far that you think Pope Francis is incorrect while the Council is infallible even tho they say the same thing. That is not much of an argument.

            GS 24 and EG 161 are either both right or both wrong. One cannot be right while another is wrong.

          • “I have not said that EENS changed” – I stand corrected.
            *
            This statement

            Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”

            is the same as this statement

            God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who “from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God Himself.

            For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor

            ?
            i.e., Loving others as Jesus loves us equals Loving God and neighbor?

          • I’m still confused as to why you are confused but regardless, let’s walk thru it and I don’t think you will be any longer.

            Here’s what I mean about “EXACTLY the SAME”. Because what Francis and the writers of GS did IS exactly the same thing.

            Let’s start with the Biblical Text in question:

            Matthew 22:37, 38 says:

            37 Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.”

            PERIOD.

            Nothing else IS the “first and greatest commandment”. Doesn’t matter WHAT we want to add to the “first and greatest commandment”, it would be incorrect, simply because Jesus has just defined it for us in simple, clear language. In addition, in the Scriptures, there is only one “first and greatest commandment” and Jesus just told us what it is.

            Then, He goes on, differentiating the Second from the First when He says:

            “39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

            Note he says the Second is “like” the First, but is not the same thing as the First. Note also that He specifically tells us here how we are to love our neighbor. He doesn’t say “as God loves you”. He says, “Love your neighbor as yourself”.

            Now, we can go on and on with discussions of what the Second Commandment MEANS, but whatever it means, it does not impact the actual wording that Jesus used to describe the FIRST GREATEST Commandment. I’ll repeat that because it is too important to skip over:

            Whatever the Second means does not impact the actual wording that Jesus used to describe the FIRST GREATEST Commandment.

            Is there a distinction without a difference? Well, not according to St Thomas. He remains {with Jesus!!} in asserting that the distinction and difference must remain. {Summa Theol II, ii, 44, 2}

            Francis and the writers of GS did exactly the SAME thing…EXACTLY.

            What was that?

            It was the ADDITION of something to the “first and greatest commandment”. That’s IT. That’s what they did. And it really doesn’t matter WHAT they added to it. They added SOMETHING to it and that is enough to make their wording incorrect.

            Again: Doesn’t matter WHAT they added {tho in meaning, both EG and GS added essentially the same thing} but rather, they ADDED something to the “first and greatest commandment”. Now parenthetically I can hear my Protestant friends squeal that “HaHa!!! This is YOUR lousy Catholic Biblical scholarship at work…you don’t care about the B-I-B-L-E…” to which I’d ask them to sit down with me and discuss just exactly why “sola scriptura” refers only to the Biblical texts and Books left in their “Bible” after they got done tossing whole Books of Scripture into the garbage, but that is a chat for another time… LOL

            Back On Topic:

            There is ONLY one “First and Greatest Commandment”. Period. It isn’t “Love of God and Man” in any form of that construction. It is “Love of God”. Period.

            What’s more, with both of these texts {EG 161 and GS 24} we have yet to ask a very important question:

            If the “first and greatest commandment” is “Love of God…and…something else” {which EG and GS both say it is…} then…what happened to the Second Commandment? What is it? Does it even exist? Where did it go?

            Because JESUS has told us that there are TWO {2} commandments, not just one conflated commandment. In that sense then, the writers of EG and GS have both done damage to BOTH commandments we have been given in the Matthew text.

            If it isn’t clear enough, lets go back one more time and say it in a slightly different way.

            In the first case {EG 161} we have the “first and greatest commandment” being “that you love one another as I have loved you”.

            In the second {GS 24} we have “love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment”.

            The question we can ask in BOTH cases is this:

            WHICH IS THE “FIRST AND GREATEST COMMANDMENT”?

            In BOTH texts the answer is essentially the same: love for God and…something else…love for human persons.

            BUT THAT IS NOT, REPEAT, NOT, WHAT THE MATTHEW TEXT SAYS.

            The really troubling part to me is that the GS 24 passage you refer to is actually shorter and more succinct, and in that way more clearly INCORRECT. Admittedly, it is also more easily taken as a typographical error, error in translation, simple use of poor wording, etc, all errors of a “scribal” nature. But if that was the case, then we would think that it would have been corrected. Or at least I would think so.

            Remember, the rabbit trails of “meaning” involving the point that love for God cannot be separated from love for man are actually not relevant to the discussion as we are referring here to a direct quote of Jesus involving technical language {“first and greatest”}, tho even in that there is a sense where it IS separated. Even St Thomas says so. So to wholly eradicate the difference is not acceptable. Why? Because Jesus Himself made the distinction. Who are we to conflate His words? Indeed, who even is a Pope or a Council to alter Holy Scripture? Both are charged with preserving the faith intact, not redefining it a la Martin Luther and the Protestants, tho as we have seen since Vatican 2 much “protestantizing” and “Lutheranizing” has gone on in the words of Church leaders and now…even the Pope himself.

            In summary, did the writers of EG 161 and GS 24 say “the same thing”? Yes, they did. They said that there is a “first and greatest commandment ” that includes something OTHER THAN what Jesus told us the “first and greatest commandment” IS.

            As I say, you have a problem. You say that EG 161 is wrong but GS 24 is right. That simply cannot be. They are either both right or both wrong. Whether one is an intentional distortion of the text and the other is a scribal error is irrelevant to their mutual inaccuracy, but it may be relevant to a future repair. But even there I wonder.

            Why?

            Because, to leave the technical and discuss meaning for a moment, it appears that Pope Francis is purposely reaching back for support for his position through using language grasped from a novel “tradition” {possibly even a scribal error!} begun in Gaudium et Spes {and possibly transferred thru the Pope Paul VI text} to the present, a “tradition” that is clearly anthropocentric when viewed in the context of Pope Francis’ other writings.

            Yes, Houston, we have a problem, And it is high time we have prelates who are informed, knowledgeable, holy and courageous enough to tackle it head on.

            What we see here is the formation of a New Tradition. We are watching it develop right before our very eyes. Now do not fret just yet. I believe it will get worse and indeed thus more clear, and THAT will result in a rising up of true men of God to douse the flames of heresy. Yes, I think that wonderful day is coming, but I also believe we will see more of this “Novel Tradition” form.

            Why…the Pope is headed to Lund to Celebrate the Great Divorce of the Church with the Lesbo-Lutherans very soon. Stay tuned for more of the Novel Tradition being played out there and everywhere until this man is stopped.

          • One more quick thing. A simple websearch indicates that the GS 24 text HAS been noticed, not just by Rorate Caeli.

            However, I do not believe it has been considered THAT significant {I can hear the textual purists as they muster to hang me from the yardarm…} until…

            …now.

            Why?

            Because tho obviously a conflation of two texts, the meaning put forth really didn’t directly challenge any Magesterial teaching.

            Whereas when the exact same approach is used by Pope Francis, in the context of his pontificate, well, different meaning may very well be intended.

            That is why {putting my Prophet Hat on, here} I believe the GS 24 text may be revisited now harder than it ever has been before, because it appears to be that Pope Francis is using it as a “precedent” to develop a novel teaching in his “New Church” theology.

          • Look, I know actual credentialed, published theologians with doctorates and long practice in their fields who have a serious problem with all of these passages. Comment box warriors can try to make their cases, but the fact is this stuff is not just something that can be reconciled with a wave of the Magisterial wand.

          • Right on. I think this is the essence of my point. There is trouble here. I do not have the solution but I trust the Church will bring clarity to these difficult passages at some point.

            She kind of “has to”.

            Since She demands it Herself. {CCC 1686}

          • BTW, Steve: I do not have a Doctorate, but I do have a Masters in Theology and even tho that hails from a Protestant seminary it has equipped me to read a passage of Scripture and tell if extra words have been shoehorned into it…AS CAN ANYONE WHO CAN READ. This thing is so grossly manifest a problem that a doctorate, quite literally, is unnecessary in its identification, tho that sheepskin might help in finding the solution.

            What’s lacking in the Catholic Church today isn’t academic acumen to nuance a solution, it’s guts to face a problem and to then honestly fix it.

          • Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? That pretty much every utterance of the Church since the 1960s has been a “language event”? That we are constantly told that if we read something that is plainly different than another thing, that the problem is with our “interpretation”?

            The waters surrounding the levels of Magisterial authority are so muddy that it allows for defenses like this. The fact is, these first and second commandments CANNOT be conflated. One might be able to make the argument that GS isn’t technically in error, rather, it’s only insufficient in its distinctions, but that seems a bit pedantic.

            The Second Vatican council makes certain statements that do not stand up to scrutiny. Whether we class them as theological error or not, they demand correction, not just clarification.

          • I agree 100%.

            The Synod of Pistoia was condemned for direct heresy AND for producing ambiguity that could lead to heresy. The CCC citation above gives us modern support for the need for clarity. And common sense tells us the same thing.

            The World needs clarity in the presentation of the whole Gospel. If clarity is there in the first place, no correction is needed.

          • GS 24 text may be revisited now harder than it ever has been before
            *
            And if that comes to pass thereby fulfilling your prophecy and since you have been such a champion for it, perhaps you will have the dubious honor of it being named RTHEVRism.

          • I’d be honored, but in truth, I’d rather they just clean the mess up. I’ll trade honorary mention for a nice clean fix any day!

    • “the First and Greatest Commandment is NOT ‘ that you love one another as I have loved you’.”

      Right. It is in fact what we call, the “New Commandment.” As when our Lord said to His Apostles during the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I have loved you.”

      That is why Holy Thursday is called “Maundy Thursday,” i.e., Commandment Thursday, Mandate Thursday.

      In the New Commandment, Our Lord raised the standard of brotherly love from love of self (“love your neighbor as yourself”) to love of the Lord – the love that Jesus has for us, i.e., “as I (the Lord) has loved you.”

      Reply
      • Christ did not conflict with His own teaching.

        You are correct in stating that Christ raised the standard, but He did not eliminate the difference. Love of God is STILL {by His clear teaching} the First and Greatest Commandment. If you are saying that He somehow abrogated that commandment, I disagree with you. So does the text. Maybe I am misunderstanding you?

        And that is what is at stake here; abrogation by Pope Francis of the commandment as set by God Himself, our Lord Jesus.

        I must add, too, that in this discussion here on this thread and in the other one Steve linked, the opinions expressed have included only an assessment of the concept of “love”. They have NOT included an assessment of the essential related concept of “hate”.

        When we address that, I think clarity comes forth perfectly AND demonstrates just exactly why the two commandments CANNOT be conflated.

        For example, admitting the use of hyperbole here, we are called to “hate” our very family members in comparison to Christ. Luke 14:25-26 isn’t just related to the discussion, it is ESSENTIAL to the discussion!

        What does this mean?

        I think it is simple and gets right to the heart of Bishop Schneider’s concerns and the problem with Pope Francis’ teaching.

        “Love” is difficult for us humans to define. We may agree that we must love, but exactly HOW is difficult when we are speaking only of human persons. Love so often gets tangled in feelings and the “easy way out”. Indeed, we have an English term to defend against such; “tough love”.

        In regards to God, love is in many senses less troublesome to define, for He has given us what are called “commandments” by which to gauge our love for Him. Indeed, in 2 John 1:6 we read that love IS obedience to GOD. So we can ALWAYS define our love for man by first and foremost examining if we are loving {obeying} God.

        And HERE is where the wheels fall off the Pope’s cart.

        We CANNOT love Man by disobeying GOD. If Jesus gives us clear teaching on divorce and remarriage for example {and he has}, we cannot “show more love than Christ” by softening that teaching so as to appear to love those who have fallen astray of it. This is the error of the Freemasons as the holy Popes of the past identified.

        Indeed, if you read Pope Francis, he gives the clear indication that he sees “love” as something beyond the standards of God Himself. Ditto mercy. As if God isn’t “merciful” or “loving” enough. Thus he disregards the HARD teaching in order to appear to be “more merciful” or “more loving” than Jesus Himself.

        This is absolutely common to mankind itself. It is a delusion. It gives the impression of “love” without the substance thereof.

        What is that substance?

        Obedience to God’s commands FIRST.

        And thus we have the First and Greatest Commandment, and it is NOT the same as the Second.

        Reply
  8. Calling Catholic Answers!

    Bit of an ironic conundrum for you guys isn’t it?

    Guess now you’ll just have to convince us that he didn’t really mean that trying to convince people of your faith was actually poisonous or something.

    What a joke.

    Reply
  9. Let’s face it. Listening to Papa Fiasco is a health hazard. He is injurious to one’s Faith and Eternal Soul. He is long past “diabolical disorientation” and has devolved to the state of “demonic dementia”. Time is better spent doing positive things like praying for him, the Church and for holy priests.

    Reply
  10. It is really getting much more difficult to talk about Bergoglio in a logically subjunctive fashion, giving due respect and benefit of doubt. That’s required in some fashion one supposes. Maybe that’s why they edit….

    Today I saw an article in the EWTN blog (cna or something – the names run together in my head.) Anyway it’s entitled “14 Saints…” [And what they said about end times]… It’s worth looking at because I am reasonably certain that the EWTN editors didn’t understand that the piece can be read as a full-blown indictment of Francis, in literally the most dour terms conceivable.

    I’ll post a link if desired.

    The point is that wiki leaks connecting the multi faceted attack against the Church, from podesta and Soros (adding sunsteen you get the collection of the most obviously dangerous minds in the world) all come dangerously close to something very new. Something that I believe a Catholic must understand in a way that transcends a worldly pedestrian view.

    I have no doubt that very good men at the Vatican spend tremendous amounts of sweat, tears and blood trying to take the edge off of Francis` pronouncements. And if Steve’s thesis is correct, that they do redact inanity and heresy, they will not be able to keep it going forever. Leaders typically don’t appreciate being edited for content by technocrats.

    But more to that, I’m not sure that sanitizing the utterances actually does even a bit of good – but I might be missing the soul count effect? Is there any spiritual up side (good) to sanitizing transcripts?

    Reply
  11. When comes to putting the kibosh on Pope Francis we will take anything we can get. This man is totally out of control and needs to be silenced. He has caused unspeakable damage.

    Reply
  12. I wonder if they are covering for him rather than editing him. I mean by this that they are in the tank for him just as the press here is in the tank for Hillary. Hiding the words shows complicity, I think. There is not, yet, a prelate willing to oppose the spiritual corruption we are witnessing in both the papacy and the Vatican media.

    Reply
    • Perhaps they are covering for him even though they agree with him and what he is saying. They just think it better to not cover it in the sure faith that eventually it will be used to convince people that Jesus’ words “You are Kephas, and upon this Kephas I will build my Church. And the gates of hell will not prevail” were in error. And they will convince people that that promise has failed, therefore Jesus failed, therefore…. They will overlook the truth that Jesus’ promise referred only to those official actions of the Pope (successor of Peter) when done in the Name of the Pope, in the Chair of Peter etc, etc, Like Pope John Paul II did in giving us the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (page 5-6 of my copy of the CCC citing Apostalic Constitution Fidei Depositum.)
      People are asking that Pope Francis be removed. I would urge everyone to be careful for what you pray for. God might answer with a “Yes”, remove Francis, and all Priests, and we would not have the Eucharist anymore.BUT THE CHURCH will still be here! We would be left with just the Bible and CCC. Which is more than others have been left with for hundreds of years and they retained their Catholic faith (Japan, China, after first missionaries). That will be difficult, but doable with God’s grace. But we have to remember, by an act of God, anything is possible, even Pope Francis and orthodox seeing eye to eye and agreeing with Christ.

      Reply
  13. Our priest related a great little anecdote a few months ago regarding Pope Pius V. Apocryphal, perhaps, but worth the telling all the same.

    It seems a pair of dear friends of his, a married couple, had just left the Church for Anglicanism. They came to see the holy pontiff, hoping for his blessing. He, of course, spent the day in the solemn nonsense of proselytism, laying-out from ground zero the fact that the Catholic Church can be identified as the One, True Faith using Scripture, history, and reason alone. He explained to them that they had the responsibility to seek truth above all else and to embrace is when it is found. He pleaded with them as a friend as well as the very Vicar of Christ to return to the Barque of Peter.

    But it was all to no avail. They had become completely convinced that they were on the path to salvation, and that none of these things really mattered. They patiently listened to the Pope’s lessons and admonitions but were unmoved.

    At the end of the day, they still begged him for his blessing, and were aghast that he would dare refuse to bless fellow Christians. Eventually, given their persistence, he informed them he decided he could give them the blessing of holy incense: “Be blessed by Him in Whose honor thy will be burnt.”

    (Now there’s a party conversation-stopper. *I’m* the embarrassing relative – every faithful Catholic today is.)

    Reply
  14. LifeSite can confirm that we have been noticing the exact same thing and have had to do the same as Steve for the past couple of years for most of our Pope Francis reports.

    The Vatican has become no longer reliable for accurate translations of the controversial statements by Pope Francis. This is very serious. The laity now have to trust only other faithful lay publications rather than institutional Church ones.

    Reply
  15. People pay attention to two things: what the Pope actually says and what’s actually happening in the Church. No amounts of after-the-fact Vatican editing or Catholic Answers hoop-jumping apologetics can change that.

    Reply
  16. The smoke of satan has entered the Church and you just can’t trust the Vatican any longer. Read blogs like this or Lifesite News or Remnant Newspaper for trustworthy reporting.

    Reply
  17. You know what? I forgot about this. On October 13th, was the 99th anniversary of the sixth apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, this date was the Miracle of the Sun!
    What did Jorge do, he had a private audience in the Paul VI Hall with around 1,000 Lutherans who were on an ecumenical pilgrimage to the Vatican. The Lutherans gave him a gift: Luther’s 95 theses.

    JORGE DID NOT MENTION ABOUT THE MIRACLE OF THE SUN NOR FATIMA TO THE LUTHERANS!

    Do you remember the crazy Vatican light Show last year (about the whole mother earth/climate change nonsense)? The New Age light show was done on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

    I don’t think Jorge is a Catholic. He doesn’t care about the Great Commission of Our Lord. He doesn’t want to promote anything that is Catholic.

    Reply
  18. If they are and I highly doubt he would tolerate this, it’s too little too soon. He’s confused Catholics worldwide and created a lack of faith in some.

    Reply
  19. According to Sandro Magister, the answer is yes. Cf. So Many Errors, Your Holiness. And Some Marked With Red E.g.

    The first was that of flattering Cardinal Christoph Schönborn with a role that he has never held: that of “secretary” of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.

    The first time the pope had promoted him to this role was April 16, during the press conference on the return flight from the island of Lesbos. And that time, in transcribing the pope’s words in the official bulletin, the Vatican press office had corrected the mistake, replacing the title of “secretary” with that of a simple “member.”

    Reply
  20. The importance of translation is only slowly dawning on the Catholic public. Translation can profoundly mislead either accidentally or intentionally. This is compounded when we start with confused and contradictory thinking and writings in the first place, as happened from VAT II onwards.

    As for the present, it is my policy never to comment on the current occupant of the Chair of Peter.

    Reply

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