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Pope Francis Prompts Outrage With Accusations Against Clerical Sex Abuse Victims

Image: Yahoo Video (Screengrab)

In stunning new comments made during his visit to South America this week, Pope Francis has attacked the credibility of victims of notorious clerical sexual abuser Fr. Fernando Karadima. The pope accused abuse victims of “calumny” for their allegations that Bishop Juan Barros, a Karadima protege, knew about the abuse, or even that he watched as it took place. “There is not one shred of proof against him.” Francis said to a Chilean journalist at the end of his visit to Chile. “It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

On Twitter, Barros’ “most vocal accuser”, Juan Carlos Cruz, lashed out about the absurdity of the pope expecting proof from his abuse:

“As if one could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros standing next to him watching everything. These people from above are crazy and @Pontifex is talking about reparation to the victims. We remain the same and his forgiveness remains empty.”

Juan Carlos Cruz, A victim of Fr. Karadima who says Bishop Barros stood by and watched as he was abused. (Aljazeera Video/Screengrab)

Cruz reiterated his outrage in an exchange with Crux‘ Austen Ivereigh, when the latter questioned his claims. “Does he need a photo, a selfie, as proof? Sorry Austen, we did not think of it as we were being abused and Juan Barros watching.”

According to the Associated Press, the pope’s “astonishing” comments “drew shock from Chileans and immediate rebuke from victims and their advocates.”

A group of Karadima victims spoke out against the pope’s words yesterday, saying, “This is serious and we cannot accept it … what he has done today is offensive and painful, and it also reveals an unknown face of the Pontiff.”

 

Talking Tough on Sex Abuse 

Those who are surprised by the pope’s comments in Chile are likely more familiar with his tough talk on clerical sex abuse. In September 2015, Pope Francis addressed victims of abuse at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia in clear, unequivocal terms:

I carry in my heart the stories, the suffering and the pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests. I’m overwhelmed by the shame that people who were in charge of caring for those young ones raped them and caused them great damages. I regret this profoundly. God weeps! The crimes and sins of sexual abuse to minors can’t be kept a secret anymore. I commit to the zealous oversight of the Church to protect minors, and I promise that everyone responsible will be held accountable.

In June of the following year, the pope issued a new motu proprio letter taking steps further than just words. Entitled “Come una madre amorevole” (As a Loving Mother), the letter established norms seeking the removal of bishops who have, “through negligence, committed or omitted acts that have caused grave harm to others, either with regard to physical persons, or with regard to the community itself.”  At the time, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said that the letter “clarifies that negligence regarding cases of sexual abuse committed against children or vulnerable adults are among the ‘grave causes’ that justify removal from ecclesiastical Offices, even of Bishops.”

During his current visit to South America, Gerard O’Connell of America magazine tweeted about a moment where the pope expressed solidarity with victims:

Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, said Pope Francis “listened, prayed and cried” with a small group of victims abused by priests, when he met them at the nunciature in Santiago, after lunch today. He spent around half an hour with them, alone, without anyone else present.

Nevertheless, by the end of the trip, the pope expressed his indignance at accusations against Barros from known victims of Fr. Karadima.

 

Empty Words: The Way Francis Really Deals With Abusers

Despite powerful words and moving gestures, the pope’s track record on dealing with perpetrators of abuse or those who covered for them has been wildly inconsistent. While there have been some cases — like that of the conservative Bishop Robert Finn of the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, who was removed on the basis of what some have termed “politically motivated” charges of neglect — other, more egregious examples have not only gone ignored, but in some cases have been actively thwarted or even promoted by Francis. As we reported in October, 2015, not long after his statement in Philadelphia, the pope’s words and actions on the matter are often worlds apart.

Bishop Barros

The case of Bishop Barros and the controversy that surrounds it is nothing new, though his harsh response in Chile is now bringing attention to an issue that many have never heard about before this week. The appointment of Barros by Francis in 2015 was, in fact, so controversial, that five members of the pope’s anti-abuse commission expressed “concern and incredulity” at the assignment. Similarly, Barros’ installation Mass was forced to be cut short when hundreds of protesters showed up.

It was at this time that Francis first showed his contempt for victims in Chile — a contempt his recent words appear to confirm. In a video from May of 2015, Francis accused those who implicated Barros of being “dumb”:

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

“Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.

Cardinal Danneels

Also of particular note is the pope’s closeness with Cardinal Godfried Danneels from Belgium, who has become perhaps the most notorious member of the so-called “St. Gallen Mafia” — a group of curial conspirators who worked together to ensure Bergoglio’s election to the papacy. Danneels was caught on tape in 2010 trying to stop a sex abuse victim from going public. As Marcantonio Colonna later reported in The Dictator Pope, Danneels’ home and his diocesan offices were later raided by police, who seized computers and documentation on abuse allegations. “For reasons that remain unclear,” wrote Colonna “the seized evidence was declared to have been inadmissible, the documents returned to the archdiocese and the investigation was abruptly closed. This despite the fact that individuals had come forward with almost five hundred separate complaints, including many that alleged Danneels had used his power and connections to shield clerical sex abusers.” [emphasis added]

Nevertheless, Colonna writes that according to Danneels, the 2013 conclave was for him “a personal resurrection experience.” And sure enough, if one looks closely at the photos of the new pope on the Loggia, standing there in shadows is the triumphant-looking kingmaker himself, the once-disgraced Cardinal Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels:

Later, Danneels — a man who was implicated and even recorded in the act of covering up the clerical abuse of children — would be personally invited by the pope to both synods on the family. 

Father Inzoli

In a January, 2017 report, Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote of a “child abuse scandal” “coming for Pope Francis”. Dougherty detailed the way clerics accused of abuse were able to avoid discipline under Francis by means of powerful friends and connections:

Consider the case of Fr. Mauro Inzoli. Inzoli lived in a flamboyant fashion and had such a taste for flashy cars that he earned the nickname “Don Mercedes.” He was also accused of molesting children. He allegedly abused minors in the confessional. He even went so far as to teach children that sexual contact with him was legitimated by scripture and their faith. When his case reached CDF, he was found guilty. And in 2012, under the papacy of Pope Benedict, Inzoli was defrocked.

But Don Mercedes was “with cardinal friends,” we have learned. Cardinal Coccopalmerio and Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, now dean of the Roman Rota, both intervened on behalf of Inzoli, and Pope Francis returned him to the priestly state in 2014, inviting him to a “a life of humility and prayer.” These strictures seem not to have troubled Inzoli too much. In January 2015, Don Mercedes participated in a conference on the family in Lombardy.

This summer, civil authorities finished their own trial of Inzoli, convicting him of eight offenses. Another 15 lay beyond the statute of limitations. The Italian press hammered the Vatican, specifically the CDF, for not sharing the information they had found in their canonical trial with civil authorities. Of course, the pope himself could have allowed the CDF to share this information with civil authorities if he so desired.

Francis was subsequently forced to laicize Inzoli last summer. But not until the predator priest had shown up at a family conference where he had no business being. For his part, it was Cardinal Coccopalmerio who had petitioned Francis to give an apartment in the CDF building to his secretary, Msgr. Luigi Capozzi — an apartment reports later indicated were raided by Vatican police, where last year they allegedly broke up “a drug-fueled, homosexual debauched party.” (Coccopalmerio had also reportedly requested that Capozzi be raised to the episcopacy.)

 

A Seemingly Impervious Papacy Begins to Crack

For years, Francis’ progressive-friendly papacy has made him nearly bulletproof with the secular press and the progressive Catholic media. His infamous “Who am I to judge?” comment about a known homosexual priest in his employ helped to land him on the cover of “LGBT news” magazine The Advocate as “Person of the Year” in 2013. He has also graced the covers of Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Esquire, Fortune, People, and Vanity Fair, among others — almost always in a positive context. It’s a distinction virtually unknown to his recent predecessors, who more often than not found themselves maligned for their teachings.

But the victim-shaming by the pope this week may mark a change in his fortunes. A few months ago, a Google search of “Pope Francis” and “Sex Abuse” was likely to return our October, 2015 report on Danneels and Barros on the first page of results. But in the wake of the pope’s inconceivably tone-deaf comments in Chile, our report has been buried in a deluge of new stories from major outlets around the world. Rumors of the pope’s temper are a thing of legend, but always from behind closed doors, clouded in anonymous sources. His indignation over the Barros accusations is a rare misstep from arguably the most media-savvy pope in history. Nevertheless, the clerical sex abuse crisis is a powerful third rail in the Church’s relations with the secular world. The damage done here likely won’t soon be forgotten.

 

Beginning of the End, Or Blip on the Radar? 

I’ve said from the outset of 2018 that I think this is the year Francis’ fortunes will turn. The world has reached “peak Francis,” and those who love him, love him for his push towards a new, progressive iteration of Catholicism. The faithful, on the other hand, have had more than their fill of his appetite for destruction. What is certain is that his outrageous comments about abuse victims will not endear him to either camp, lowering his stock among supporters and cementing his reputation among critics.

Still, Francis has enormous good will in the bank among those with a vested interest in the furtherance of his agenda. The news of a papal award being given to one of the most notorious abortion promoters in the world began making international headlines just days after the joint reports first appeared here and at The Lepanto Institute. For the global Left, this was nothing but a feather in the pope’s cap, but the story was quickly drowned out with coos of wistful approval from women the world over (including true believers) when news broke that Francis had offered, on the spot, to officiate the wedding of two flight attendants on a recent papal flight. The couple, so the story went, was planning to marry in 2010 when their parish was damaged by an earthquake. Although they have been living together in a civil marriage for years and have two children, they never found the time to be married in a Catholic Church. The “impromptu” wedding was quickly picked up as yet another heartwarming story demonstrating the humanity of “the people’s pope” — nevermind that it broke a bunch of canon laws, made a triviality of something sacred, set a terrible precedent that will put priests the world over in a tough situation, and was, contrary to a calculated pretense of spontaneity, actually planned out a month in advance. In other words, it was a cheap and transparent PR stunt, but it appears to have done some good for the pope’s damaged image.

When all the smiley face emojis and animated hearts fade, however, the question will remain: how many tricks does a papacy that sees clerical abuse victims unafraid to stand up for themselves as “dumb” people full of “calumny” need to stay afloat? For that matter, how many tricks does it have left?

The Internet is famous for having a short attention span, but there are some things people have a hard time forgetting. Abusing spiritual power to take advantage of children and vulnerable young adults is one of them. With the armor of this papacy finally cracking, it appears there may finally be a chance for the world to see what some of us have long known: the ugly reality that lies beneath.

482 thoughts on “Pope Francis Prompts Outrage With Accusations Against Clerical Sex Abuse Victims”

  1. Internal Church politics at work, perhaps. How serious IS the power struggle within
    the Church if it’s image to the world is to be tarnished with THIS type of “carelessness.”

    I suspect he may be ” canvassing” by stealth, by signalling his support and appealing for
    it’s increase among Prelates with “dodgy records” to help further the agenda of him and
    his ilk.
    And those without a “dodgy record” who are “undecided on agenda” might be impressed with his
    misplaced steel on this matter, since despite it’s gravity, he’s faced down serious protest.
    And like a good Manager, backs up HIS team.
    The projected image, complete.

    Reply
  2. Have I got this right? This is the same guy who was reported to have been blubbering….crying actual tears……with sex abuse victims in Chile. A couple of days later, he turns into a pitbull and starts snarling at them when Barros’ name is mentioned.

    Occam’s razor suggests that the sudden, bizarre reversal means that Francis must have some skin in this one, if you’ll pardon the pun.

    Reply
  3. Pope Benedict and red hat Cardinals should intervene . There is a good reason Vatican does NOT want Alleged Peruvian abuser to return there to testify under oath in Peru. It would Spill the beans on Bergoglio advancing Homosexual apostates agenda clerics like Martin Amer. Mgz , Fagoli Radcliffe and Roisica etc in Europe and Latin America . Etc… …. I cringe whenever Bergoglio Francis wayward Jesuits and Vatican opens their mouths . Not to.mention Bergoglio francis promoting Farrell, sparando,daneels ,two Chilean bishops ,Maradiaga , Cocopalmeiro and German and Belgian cino bishops wrecking the church in the fading west cino church

    Reply
    • A plea from the other side of the Atlantic: I’ve now seen “cino” or “CINO” appear three times in the comments to this one article. A Google search was surprisingly unfruitful. What is this “cino”?

      In Spanish, “cino-” is a prefix meaning “dog-“, like “cinólogo” – an authority on dogs. Given your avatar …

      Reply
        • ¡Caramba! Just when I finally thought I’d narrowed it down to a cafe chain in NYC that hands out theatre awards for off-off-Broadway shows!

          Thanks, Barry.

          Reply
          • You’re welcome Rocio, and your conjecture was impressive given that they may well have met over a coffee
            or two to discuss rehearsals. 🙂

          • Hmm … I suppose Santiago’s theatres are off-off-off-Broadway, then.

            But hey – what a great name for a capital city! Santiago (Matamoros).

          • “Hmm … I suppose Santiago’s theatres are off-off-off-Broadway, then.” You lost me here…….??
            Whatever about that, Santiago-St.James yes, great name.

          • Okay then, just to clarify: there really is a café chain called Cino that hands out awards to off-off-Broadway shows.

            You said His Holiness and the happy couple might have met over a coffee to discuss rehearsals.

            So you seemed to be juggling with both the café and theatre elements here.

            I assumed this discussion of rehearsals could only have been in Santiago, Chile, before they went to the airport to board the plane.

            But off-off-Broadway hardly extends as far as Santiago’s theatres, although I conceded to you that it might count as “off-off-off Broadway”.

            As for Santiago, the help given by St James to the Christian forces in the Reconquista earned him the title “Matamoros”. So in Spain, he’s known as Santiago Matamoros. Matamoros was then adopted as a town name, which in turn led to it being applied as a surname. So the joke there, for what it’s worth, was that I share a “surname” with Santiago (the saint or the capital city).

            Joke analysis – it’s nothing to laugh about.

          • You cleared it up very well, I see. An exact and accurate analysis of my misunderstanding of
            that post. Very good.
            Yes, aware of that title: The slayer of Moors. Learned about some of that history along the route
            heading for Santiago on the Camino some time ago. Thanks Rocio.

          • {You cleared it up very well, I see. An exact and accurate analysis of my misunderstanding of
            that post. Very good.}

            In replying to myself I would like to make it clear that the remarks in
            “curly brackets” from a previous post are now withdrawn or should I say excommunicated.

          • I misread your attempt to clarify, and in error rewarded you with ignorant agreement.
            See my error reply below. Sorry.

            Everything I was actually referring to was solely about THE Image of the superheroes
            on the balcony. Cino awards, rehearsals etc…

            “You said His Holiness and the happy couple might have met over a coffee to discuss rehearsals.”
            “So you seemed to be juggling with both the café and theatre elements here.”

            I was referring to the Image of the Pope etc on the balcony. Nothing to do with the happy couple etc.
            Again, sorry about confusing the issue having initially and carelessly confirmed your false clarification.
            I was tired and did not read carefully.

          • I’ll go back and read it in the light of that – I know it’s not important, but I expect it’ll be amusing.

            I also think, with hindsight, that our “demolition” allegories mapped onto the real world in slightly different ways.

            I suppose that’s the power of interpretation (combined with good will). Reassuring and unsettling at the same time.

        • Your dog looks delightful, Barry.

          Now that he’s (presumably) bigger than in the photo, what I’m wondering is whether he’d be able to reach that holy water if he got up on his hind legs.

          If he can, and if he’s a clever dog, he’ll be sure to get up and lap up all the holy water, which means, of course, that he’ll become super-holy and definitely get to heaven, as all Catholics know (strangely enough, it was a helpful Protestant who told me about this – silly me, I never knew).

          Personally, I use a straw.

          Reply
          • A clever Dog he is and capable of such a feat. However being an obedient canine who
            never fails to recognize his master’s voice, he patiently waits for a cupped hand filled with
            the sacramental power of such water.

            Though am “not convinced” he reasons that being denied such a feat might be centered on hygiene
            issues, he nonetheless obeys and offers an example of fidelity, loyalty, and faith in his masters
            commands.
            However to adopt his attitude towards our current Church “leaders” may prove fatal.

            Unless the Holy water font resides within one’s own home, I REALLY would re-evaluate the use
            of a straw. 🙂

          • Ah, but the holiness kills all the germs, doesn’t it?

            That’s another thing my useful Protestant friend tells me Catholics must believe.

            After all, what greater authority can there be on Catholic beliefs than a Protestant?

          • To be exact he’s a Borador: a cross between a border collie and a labrador.
            A very good nose, smart, energetic, and sufficiently aggressive.

            Not necessarily a mirror reflection of the average member of the Church militant.
            And, his pet hate (pun intended) IS black Crows and never resists the urge to scatter them.

          • Give your sanctified Borador a tin of his favourite food, then – on me.

            I’ll reimburse you if I ever have the opportunity.

  4. This man is not the Pope. He is a demon possessed imposter, that was foreseen by St. Francis. This wicked heretic needs to be burned at the stake along with his clack of homos who play dress up as prelates.

    Reply
  5. What a great day is today for the sociopath in chief. Not only has the veil been torn asunder on his true attitude to the abuse of minors, but he has also been caught out stage-managing a fake news photo-op. That “spontaneous” convalidation of a marriage on an plane had in fact been planned at least a month ago:

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2051641361738038&set=p.2051641361738038&type=3

    He has been caught in a lie that should tell everybody all they need to know about this fake.

    Reply
    • This is my translation of the relevant paragraph from the original source, emol.com, a Chilean news service. The article was published on 19 December 2017 (timestampted 17:57):

      Both of them hope that in January next year, this postponed plan [a Catholic wedding ceremony] can finally be realised aboard the plane, and be conducted by none less than Pope Francis himself. ‘We’d be delighted. It’s our special place [i.e. on the plane], our second home, it’s where we feel safe,’ Podesta stated.

      The couple who were married on the flight (Carlos Ciuffardi and Paula Podes) were already introduced at the beginning of the article. Their planned wedding is the main focus of the article, but it discusses this in the context of the other arrangements to ensure that the Pope’s flight from Santiago to Lima on 18 January would run smoothly.

      Reply
      • The Chilean couple, Carlos Ciuffardi and Paula Podest Ruiz, are flight attendants who say that the pope proposed the idea to them while they sat and chatted with him after a group photo with the plane’s crew.

        “When the time came for the group photo of all flight crew with the pope, he invited us to sit down [next to him],” said Ciuffardi to the press afterwards in a video interview. “He asked us…”

        Podest Ruiz interrupted, “We began to converse with him…”

        “And that would be the moment. It was like that!” added Ciuffardi, snapping his fingers to illustrate how quickly it happened. “It occurred to him [to do it]!”

        “I don’t know if someone had said something to him [about it] because . . . we don’t know,” said Ciuffardi.
        LifeSiteNews/ january 19, 2018

        Reply
        • Yes, cs, so we have clear evidence that Sr Ciuffardi is at present contradicting what his (now) wife said on December 19.

          Do you happen to recall if Pope Francis said anything to the effect that this was unplanned? This is a genuine question, not rhetorical.

          Reply
          • The couple seemed overjoyed about the arrangements when they were interviewed back in December, so it’s very hard to see what personal motivation they could possibly have now to pretend the event wasn’t planned.

            It’s almost as if a Papal aide on the plane had told them what they were supposed to say.

          • Who do you suppose orchestrated that?

            Why would you pretend something that is not true, right before your sacramental marriage?
            hmmmm?
            And why would the pope also do the same thing?

            Do you see what I am saying here?

          • I know exactly what you’re saying, cs, and I was already entertaining the same thoughts as you when I was writing that comment.

            I seem to be more forensically minded than you, cs. I can’t level accusations in advance of the evidence that will support them. I try to keep them to myself, out of fear that some day I’ll type out a calumny in a comments box – maybe quite venial and trivial, but I may overlook it and end up paying for it in purgatory.

            You don’t seem to have that concern. Maybe you should, or maybe I’m being silly, but that’s the difference between us. Our suspicions, on the other hand, seem to be identical.

          • I see. Well LifeSite News reports that it was anything but previously contrived, that it was quite spontaneous coming from Francis, which gives even greater concern for me. Marriage should be entered into very seriously, with thought and discernment.

            Now if it was contrived, as suggested, why would the couple pretend otherwise, as quoted by them in an interview?

          • That is a good question because it does appear that it was contrived. The article from Rocio was published Dec. 19th.

          • The pope asked them to perhaps. That can be the only answer, and of course, they would say yes.

            So….what we have here, is three people all committing a LIE, as they take their marital vows: Francis, and the man and the woman. Three LIARS, deceivers under the sacrament of marriage.

          • Hello Melanie, although there seems to be some rewriting of history, at least this new find opens up the possibility that the Ciuffardi/Podest couple were actually taken through the proper canonical procedures and made a good confession prior to the flight on 18 January.

            I can’t say my hopes are very high. Maybe we should take the fairly safe assumption that they are validly married (if not perhaps licitly), and add to our rosaries the intention that they will faithfully live out their married lives, bringing up their children (about 10 years old now) in the Faith.

          • But they lied. They lied on the plane, along with Francis, pretending something that was not true.
            I read their quotes on the plane.
            So NO! Their marriage began in deception, purposeful deception and their ” priest” cooperated fully.

            Now, this is interesting Rocio Matamoros, and you will forgive me, but I posed this very question to you on LifeSiteNews regarding the concerning spontaneity of it all as it seemed to be reported by LifeSitenews.
            Now, we are told…….well, it was preplanned and therefore maybe there was kind of proper counseling, Confession, etc.

            Either way……..impulsive and thoughtless spontaneity to be used as a photo op or preplanned with the distinct is desire to appear otherwise (falsehood)……..is anything but holy.

          • Nothing to forgive, cs. When we were discussing this earlier, neither of us had any evidence for the event being pre-planned, and in fact the implication of the LifeSite story was precisely that the lack of preparation was the scandalous aspect.

            Now we have new information to assimilate.

            Any general comments I made in the previous discussion hold (such as those about the logical independence of validity and liceity). Any points I made that were entirely specific to the flight story may have to be modified in the light of the new evidence (although I’m not disposed to dredge through them now).

            The Church has had bad popes before, cs. However bad their actions, their office demands respect. That respect is compatible with criticism and with giving warnings to others. I pray for the conversion of Pope Francis, that the Holy Spirit will make of him a true shepherd to his flock. I don’t actually expect the Church to turn around until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I’m not some covert supporter of Pope Francis’s actions and words, you know – or do you think otherwise?

            You don’t seem to have collected any more evidence than I have at the moment, and that evidence doesn’t yet warrant your assertion that Pope Francis is lying about the on-flight wedding. A suspicion, however reasonable, is still only a suspicion.

          • Thank you for your response.

            Well, yes, quite honestly, I though perhaps you were a covert supporter of Francis’ actions and i apologize for that. Your kind way is very welcomed and I do apologize.
            I cannot even begin to determine if the marriage was valid or licit. I am a layperson here, as you must gather. What concerns me Rocio, is that the Sacrament of Matrimony is being ” used” as a photo op, one way or the other and it is hard to grasp that.

            I am glad you pray for him. Bless you for that.

          • Frankly cs, Francis is lying. He can certainly come out and throw everyone in this entire sham under the bus, but I wouldn’t believe it for a second.

          • “You don’t seem to have collected any more evidence than I have at the moment, and that evidence doesn’t yet warrant your assertion that Pope Francis is lying about the on-flight wedding. A suspicion, however reasonable, is still only a suspicion.”

            Yes, you are correct that we don’t have any hard evidence that the pope personally co-operated in this act of deception. He might have had nothing to do with the way his PR people had it reported in the press as a spontaneous occurrence rather than a pre-planned photo-op. Although his permission for this travesty was obviously sought beforehand, he might have had nothing to do personally with the fact that there was no formal paperwork available and it had to be presented as being drafted free-hand and spontaneously.

            We also have no evidence that he personally arranged for photographers to be present when he dropped in to pay his room bill after the conclave.

            We also have no evidence that his spontaneous embrace of a badly disfigured man in St Peter’s square was not a pre-planned photo-op by him and his PR team.

            We also have no evidence that his manipulation of the synods on the family was all pre-planned, except for the hearsay evidence of those with whom he allegedly planned them.

            We also have no evidence to suggest that he holds the Catholic Faith apart from the evidence of his refusal to answer the dubia as a Catholic suggests that in fact he does not.

          • Deacon Augustine, I’ve gone back and read several articles from the mainstream press now that clearly present this as a spontaneous event. Wouldn’t Francis be lying if he didn’t come out publicly to clear the record, even if others planned this without his knowledge? In this particular instance when this has so obviously come out as a choreographed event, to allow such a deception to continue seems to become fully complicit, if even after the fact. The press office didn’t state, no everything is in order, the couple prepared to make this request from the Pope because they couldn’t find a Church not destroyed by earthquake. The fact is that it only makes sense as a spontaneous event because the Sacrament should take place in a Church. Without that element, is makes the whole farce even more of a mockery of the Sacrament.

          • First, Deacon Augustine, let me thank you for bringing the Facebook item to our attention. I would never have looked for the Chilean newspaper source if you hadn’t mentioned this in the first place.

            Secondly, yes, we have no evidence (as far as I know) for any of the things you list. That doesn’t stop us in any way from:

            1. entertaining reasonable suspicions and discussing them (as suspicions, though, not as bare accusations), and

            2. attempting to unearth the further evidence that could turn those suspicions into knowledge.

            I enjoyed your Mark Anthony style rhetoric, but I had a nagging feeling that you take me to be a supporter of Brutus.

            Let’s put it this way: for the past couple of days, commenters were queueing up on Lifesite to accuse the Pope of conducting a wedding ceremony without any prior planning. Now, in the light of this new evidence, they’re queueing up to accuse the Pope of concealing a month-old plan to have the wedding take place on his flight from Santiago to Lima. I hope you notice that the older accusation must then be false.

            Now as I said in another comment, if we keep churning out accusations in comment boxes on the basis of insufficient information, we’re not likely to remember all of them by the time we next arrive at the confessional. A calumny, on my understanding, can include public accusations that happen to be correct but which are made without warrant. Now assuming that these calumnies are only venial, if they’re completely unconfessed, we’ll have to deal with their consequences in purgatory.

            Now someone could, of course, conclude from this: “Aha, a Francis supporter! I knew it!”. But instead of jumping to that (completely false) conclusion, that reader might actually look at my argument, and if I’ve gone wrong somewhere, point out the fault in my reasoning.

          • You seem to be awfully concerned that readers will suspect you of being a troll. Because the initial fabrication caused consternation different from the consternation involved in the actual fabrication, you accuse the consterned of calumny. That’s a pill I’m not swallowing.

          • Rocio Matamoros, no it was not my intent to identify you with the unfortunate Brutus. The distinctions you make between suspicions and accusations/calumnies are valid.

            Its just that knowing everything we know about the man – a man who even accuses himself of being too authoritarian – it strains credulity somewhat to imagine that things like this happen without his full knowledge and connivance. As John Allen recently said – this pope knows everything that is going on around him. This man is not a puppet – he is the one who pulls the strings.

            I must confess that after 5 years of this madness I generally tend not to believe anything he says by virtue of the fact that he is the one who says it.

          • Thank you, Deacon Augustine, for your kind response. I wasn’t sure what you intended (re: “Brutus”), but wanted to check, so thank you for your reassurance there.

            I suppose one of my concerns is that quite a lot of commenters on 1Peter5 and traditional or traditional-leaning sites are sliding unawares into a de facto sedevacantism, and some of the heated responses I’ve received (not from you) show that they don’t want anyone to point out the elephant in their room. Others might eventually apostasize when the cognitive dissonance of their position becomes too much.

            If a later pope some day declares that Francis was an antipope, we can comfort ourselves with an example that is very often cited these days: St Vincent Ferrer, who served the Avignon antipopes.

          • I would hope that most people on here understand that sedevacantism derives from the same false premise as “hyperuberpapolatrousultramontanism”, namely that a pope cannot err in his non-infallible magisterium. One only has to look at the history of the papacy with popes such as Honorius and John XXII to undertand that this is not true. We have had many evil popes though none who have manifestly contradicted doctrine to the extent that Francis has as far as I am aware. We have also had the teaching of popes such as Bl Pius IX telling us not to follow a pope if he teaches heresy. Of course that means not following him in his heresy rather than denying that he is pope at all.

            Although it might happen that Francis is condemned by one of his successors, the charge would not be that of being an anti-pope, but rather one of teaching heresy or failing in his duty to teach the pure Catholic faith. A man can only be an anti-pope if there is an alternative valid living claimant to the throne of Peter at the same time. As nobody else claims to be the rightful pope (apart from a few loonies) and none of the bishops recognize anybody else as the rightful pope, then Francis cannot be an anti-pope – he’s just a very bad pope and we have to deal with that.

            Otherwise your example of St Vincent Ferrer is very apt.

          • Hello Deacon Augustine, I take your point entirely on the “anti-pope” issue.

            I’m delighted to see that you too consider “hyperuberpapolatrousultramontanism” (I think Julie Andrews was the first to warn us of this) is really just the reverse side of the sedevacantist coin. That offers a much more concise way to convey the argument I was trying to make.

          • (I think Julie Andrews was the first to warn us of this)

            LOL. I think the Bones ought to be able to turn this into an amusing song for our edification. 😉

          • Lol. I have no idea what to think about this charade. I mean, this is mocking of the Sacraments, insulting child sex abuse victims, taunting of the faithful who wish to see their children protected from these predators and it’s an absolute nightmare and that doesn’t touch the pure nonsense this man spouted the entire trip and he’s still talking. And I laugh, I guess because it is so surreal.

          • So their church burns down and 8 years later they still could not find another church. And pope called the sexual abuse victims dumb…..
            This math doesn’t add up and I know my math. Clearly, there were at least 3 dumb a——ses on that plane.

          • The final icing on the wedding cake was left to “The Pope of surprises” I’d guess. But evidence of
            pre-planning seems apparent.

          • thanks Barry. As I posted to another here; I know I should not be surprised, but this is very difficult to
            absorb right now: a liar first class of a pope, who manipulate and turn anything around for his glory.
            The man is beyond evil. He is completely lost unto himself.

          • The young couple have left the airline and they’re now writing new guidelines for the Vatican: Mile High Club Pre Cana

          • Flynn shoots out two windows with his pistol, causing the plane to depressurize.
            The snakes are blown out of the cockpit and the lower floor of the
            plane. Flynn and Troy take the controls of the plane and Troy reveals
            that his flight experience was from a video game flight simulator.
            – the Wikipedia article about “Marriage on a Plane” … no, “Snakes on a Plane” – you see, I’m getting them confused already.

            You had “the misfortune to view it”, Barry? Somebody tied you to a seat in the cinema?

          • They’re going to make a movie about this pope….the title will be POPE? WE don’t need no stinking badgers!
            We don’t need no pope,
            But who am I to judge?

        • Hello cs, I’m wasn’t making any point at all. I was reporting information that is probably new to all of us. Deacon Augustine (just above my post) found a FaceBook secondary source in English. Because I refuse to open a FaceBook account, I couldn’t read more than a few lines, so after further searching, I reached the primary source, namely the Chilean news agency I mentioned.

          Reply
        • The hipster pope now will approve of weddings on airplanes?
          The church now has beach weddings & Masses.
          I guess he’s trying to get young people back to church?

          Reply
      • I see what you are saying. This is very difficult to digest, even for Francis.

        Either way, Francis mocks marriage. He mocks God and soon, one too many times.

        Reply
        • Yes, Padre, happy to help.

          Since the inclusion of a link will most likely lead to the automatic blocking of a comment, I can’t do that.

          What I’ve just tried out for myself is to search (“buscar”) for “Podest” (the name of the wife). This called up several articles, but at the time of my search (less than five minutes ago), the article at the top of the list was the one you’re looking for.

          The second and third articles in the list were also connected to the same story, and both were published on 18 January this year. Any others lower down the list were bout John Podesta, so you can ignore them.

          Reply
  6. We should be honest with ourselves: The Vatican will never confront clerical sex abuse in a forthright manner, no matter who the Pope is. The Vatican has had at least a millennium — ever since St. Peter Damian published “Liber Gomorrahianus” — to deal with the issue. It has failed miserably.

    I remember when John Paul II visited Canada that he refused to meet with victims of clerical sex abuse. Frankly, I don’t remember Benedict XVI doing much about the problem, either.

    Homosexuality in the Catholic clergy is a “long distinguished tradition” (hint: sarcasm) that its episcopal practitioners and enablers will defend at all costs — even, obviously, at the cost of their own souls, the souls of the innocent and the faith in general.

    The Vatican is satanic. It’s been satanic for far longer than most Catholics want to admit — certainly longer than the past 50-60 years, which is where Malachi Martin tracks the beginnings.

    Reply
  7. Bergolio has also sent disgraced Mahoney from LA to represent him in Scranton. Make no mistake, his entire “magisterium” is to enshrine sodomy in the Church. The divorced and “remarried” bit was just an opening and softening up exercise.

    Reply
      • Maybe Pope Francis, in some nebulous way, makes the good citizens of Chile feel more at ease with their contracepting, affairs, divorces etc.

        That’s the trouble with opinion polls. Most people don’t let troublesome little things like facts and logic (let alone virtue and the common good) get in the way of their autonomous, sovereign right to form what opinions they please in their new-fangled democracies.

        There were no opinion polls under Isabel and Fernando. Conquer Granada and end Muslim rule on the peninsula? Done. Send Columbus across the Atlantic? Done (okay, check first with the Pope).

        Reply
    • Bingo!! I’ve been saying this almost from the beginning of the publication of A.L. The enshrinement of sodomy is what he’s working for.

      Reply
  8. It would be quite something if this was a miscalculation. I think that idea necessitates the presumption that Francis is trying to bring the secular world into the Church instead of emptying the Church of the faithful. Based upon his words and actions, I do not think that is a safe presumption.

    Reply
  9. Jorge is an idiot…a leftist first and Catholic second. Leftists never throw their own under the bus. I’m so sick of seeing his face and listening to his words. You can tell he’s not a holy man just by looking at him. Holiness is attractive, Jorge is repulsive.

    Reply
  10. The sneer comes out from the smile. And, the Papal Plane Marriage is obviously nothing more than a publicity stunt to try and cover up the absolute disaster that was always going to be Francis’ trip to Chile. Lie after Lie. And, if the media reports are anywhere near accurate, it’s invalid as well.

    This man is interested in one thing: His Own Personal Power.

    Reply
    • When he is gone, we are left with the sycophants, Bishops and Cardinals with which he has infested the Church, not to mention the others siding with him or who are remaining mute. The infestation is so deep, (and it didn’t start with Bergolio’s appointments), is recovery for the institution that has the label Catholic Church possible, or is the Catholic Church elsewhere? When it becomes the “magisterium” of some Pope to “bless” sodomy and his teachings is hailed, is it really still the Catholic Church? If Target sells out to Sears, is it still Target or is it Sears?

      Reply
      • I have a friend who thinks (perhaps it is wishful) that the next Pope to be elected in conclave will be traditional or at least “not a heretic.” That will in turn cause all the “the sycophants, Bishops and Cardinals with which he has infested the Church” to rebel and elect their own antipope at which we will have full blown, undeniable schism

        Reply
        • Maybe a miracle, I hope. Not saying schism is good, but that scripture from Corinthians keeps coming to mind: “Come ye out from among them, and be ye seperate …..” could that have any applicability.

          Reply
        • I did know that quote. I just am reserved as to whether the ability to corrupt is 100 % or certainty.

          I believe temptation can be faced and rejected, although it can be very difficult.

          You see, I am a faithful long abandoned spouse who remains strongly attracted to women and the lonliness is ever present and has increased with my age and the increasingly pro divorce, pro adultery, pro fake annulment culture that has been encouraged by the Popes of my adult life and most openly under the current Pope.

          It is so destructive yet continues, unabated, as the hierarchy does nothing to stop this.

          Reply
      • Lord Acton was Catholic, but I’m afraid this quotation owes everything to his (classical) liberalism, and nothing to his Catholicism.

        Reply
      • My comment just below, about Lord Acton, seems correct as far as it goes, but I don’t want to belittle him.

        His Catholicism was serious. He could, for example, have studied (and no doubt lectured) at Cambridge University, as he dearly wished. But since the price was conversion to the Anglican sect, he continued his studies privately. He had vigorous disagreements with Cardinal Wiseman and with the direction the First Vatican Council was taking, and expressed these in print. But once the Council had finished, he ceased his polemics.

        May Our Lady intercede for his soul.

        Reply
    • Father, can’t a pope be recalled or something? I’m a convert and not that savvy in matters of Vatican palace intrigue. Pope F is a bad guy and he is doing so much damage to the church that who knows how long it will take to restore the dignity and respect holy mother church once held. This is breaking my heart.

      Reply
      • Hello Chesterlab, you have our sympathies, but there is no earthly authority above the Pope. God, in his infinite wisdom, has allowed the Devil to sift the Church as wheat (Luke 22:31), and so we have a Pope who is actively undermining the faith in many of his deeds and utterances.

        It was relatively easy in the days, say, of Pope St Pius X, for a layman to hold firm to the teachings of the Church. Today, it is very difficult, and it can require considerable thought (and prayer) even to determine what those teachings really are.

        In return, your reward in Heaven will be greater by that measure if you stand firm to the end. Because we’re buffeted by Papal and Vatican scandals from day to day, an excellent site like 1Peter5 can give reassurance that many books cannot (great churchment of the past sometimes neither addressed nor even imagined the situation we live in today).

        I will add you to my rosary intentions today. Pray for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that God would at last cleanse his Church.

        Reply
        • That isn’t true you know. A heretical pope I believe can be removed or otherwise dealt with. That man is not acting with the Holy Spirit in him. There is another spirit residing in him but it isn’t holy and comes from another place. Bad popes have been removed before and it’s time the cardinals, bishops and priests do something about this guy. Otherwise there is a major split coming in the church. We traditionals. aren’t going to put up with it.

          Reply
          • Chesterlab, our knowledge is imperfect, but please don’t rush to conclusions. There’s sometimes a competition here (and at other traditional-leaning sites) to produce the toughest-sounding comments on Pope Francis. The first problem is that his office demands our respect, even while it is our duty to warn others against many of his words and actions.

            Now, on to your substantial point. Who, please tell me, has authority to remove a sitting Pope?

            You’ll find examples in the past, yes, where the Holy Roman Emperor attempted this (without authority), and councils of bishops (likewise). You’ll also find a later pope condemning an earlier pope. But who, on earth, actually has the authority?

            Suarez argues that a pope who declares heresy is excommunicated automatically (latae sententiae). Very well, but what next? Which authority can actually unseat such a pope? The small rump of traditionalists in the Church is far from united over the question of whether Pope Francis has actually promulgated heresy. The rest of the Church seems to care little. Even if traditionalists were united, how do you suggest they would unseat Pope Francis? Would you suggest traditionalists declare their own Pope? (Some have tried – look up “Pope Michael”)

            Exclude this from my argument, but as a personal recommendation, I would invite you to read Archbishop Lefebvre on why a bad pope is still the pope (The Remnant very recently republished his address of June 1988).

          • How about The college of cardinals, the bishops and even the laity? All of us have a responsibility NOT to follow a heretical pope. We know what we learned In Catechism class. Some of us know our bible too and church doctrine. And you need to read church history because there were bad popes long before Suarez and the Holy Roman Empire. . There have even been two popes simultanwously at one point . Oh-that’s right. Just like there are right now!!!! And the traditionalist movement is hardly a “small rump.” You do what you want, but if that man brings this church down I’ll go with the ICSP, FSSP or the SSPX, OR I’ll become Eastern Orthodox before I follow a pope who legitimizes homosexuality, and tears apart what this beautiful church has stood for for 2,000 years. Read the history of the Catholic Church for gosh sakes.

          • Chesterlab, you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know. For what it’s worth (nothing), I can even trump your two simultaneous popes with three – since that was the situation when the Council of Constance was convoked, convoked by Antipope John XXIII at the behest of Sigismund (who became the Holy Roman Emperor). The Council excommunicated the Avignon claimant, Benedict XIII, deposed the Pisan claimant John XXIII, and secured the resignation of Pope Gregory XII, since this was the only means they could – pragmatically speaking – devise to end the schism. The election of Pope Martin V brought a permanent end to the schism.

            Now here’s the essential point: Martin V subsequently condemned the Council of Constance for arrogating to itself supra-papal authority. This position was strengthened by Trent and Vatican I.

            So, Chesterlab, you invoke tradition in calling for the present Pope to be unseated, but where are the traditions you can call upon? And how could they be in contradiction to Vatican I?

            It won’t do. God is the God of history. He has known eternally of Pope Francis, and He has known what the outcome of this papal reign will be. As laymen, our task is first to see to our own souls, and to the souls of family and others close to us. Beyond that, when Pope Francis does something that can weaken the faith of others, we can warn them of the dangers, if they’ll listen.

            But I’m not going to say that I’m a traditional Catholic, and then contradict that by tell others that the Pope must be deposed by … whoever, or that I declare him an antipope today. It’s not as if the issue of authority is a mere footnote to the Faith.

          • I personally consider him an “anti-pope” we’ve had them before.

            “It’s not as if the issue of authority is a mere footnote to the Faith.”

            True. But that’s exactly THE point. Authority has been usurped and we react in
            a vacuum from a desperate and disparate station.

          • I do find it conceivable that some future pope might condemn Pope Francis as an antipope. But until that happens, I won’t be writing the phrase “Antipope Francis” anywhere, except as I’ve done here, in inverted commas and explicitly disowning it.

            I recognise, Barry, that you haven’t actually “declared” Pope Francis to be an antipope, but I’ve seen other commenters do this and similar.

            If there’s been a usurpation, we still don’t have the authority to declare it, or to depose the Pope (whatever that would mean). What we can do is warn others against scandalous words and actions of the Pope.

            So in the end, rhetoric aside, what are you saying that’s any different from me, Barry?

            It’s strange: quite a lot of commenters I hear issuing their deposition orders against Pope Francis seem to think that Pope John Paul II could do no wrong. That’s part of their problem – they imagine that Pope Francis came out of nowhere, and won’t even contemplate looking at Vatican II as the greatest source of the problems we have today (I’m talking about the Vatican II documents, not just some “spirit of Vatican II” that still leaves the Council beyond criticism).

          • Consider an analogy:

            Two people set out at separate times to survey a building from the outside. And agree to compare notes
            at a later date. The building is surrounded by darkness, their eyes will adjust somewhat to make notes.

            The 1st person who visits notices a bathroom through a window and is horrified to observe an unclean site: rancid, dirty,
            and in very serious need of major surgery, suspecting it may not be actually possible. What an awful building
            he sees and promptly leaves determined to condemn it, for what CAN be done here.

            The 2nd person sets out and and after stumbling in the dark for a while discovers a window and looking through
            it observes a sitting-room; it’s carpets torn and worn, mouldy faded wallpaper, and bereft of furniture save an
            old battered and dusty chair with exposed springs. And most poignant of all, what was once a great fireplace
            now a cemented ruin replete with broken marble which hinted at past lustre.
            This place is apparently abandoned and in great disrepair, he thought. But there is potential for re-modelling
            if the required components can be organised, he leaves with some optimism.

            Our surveyors meet up at last and then THE argument begins….
            Unaware of the fact that they both made genuine observations, each assumed that they had
            seen the reality of the state of the building, little realizing that they had both seen THE same building
            but from different angles.

          • I enjoyed your story, Barry.

            I have a variant analogy, but it doesn’t lend itself to my literary skills (such as they are). Kafka might have been able to make something out of it. So I’ll leave it plain.

            Two surveyors from different firms are sent out at different times to view a derelict building, pending an application for demolition and development of the site.

            At the meeting called to review their surveys, one advises in favour of the project, the other against. Each assumes at first that the other must be in error – perhaps he went to the wrong address, didn’t carry out the job thoroughly enough, delegated the job to a lazy incompetent, etc.

            The project committee that commissioned them is puzzled, and notes that the two surveys they submitted are identical in all relevant respects.

            It eventually transpires that their contrary recommendations resulted from their different understanding of the complex zoning laws affecting the relevant neighbourhood. (If I was cheeky enough, I’d say the surveyor who recommended against demolition had a fairly good knowledge of the regulations, the other … not so much. But that would be cheating.)

            This is closer to our situation here, as far as I can see.

          • I enjoyed that revised analogy, and indeed the surveyor in favor of demolition had argued that
            demolition was already taking place , had in fact by stealth achieved a fait accompli status. And
            up popped a metaphor:

            The Ocean liner is sinking, man the life rafts and maintain heading….

          • Agreed, Pope Francis I is the culmination of Vatican II and the reforms that followed. Many conservative Protestants too have noticed that there is a major difference in the focus and tone in which the Popes spoke – the comparison I hear a lot is the Syllabus of Errors to Ut Unum Sint. One thing I have a hard time seeing is how there will be a group of future majority traditional prelates with the Pope who’ll revisit Vatican II given who we have today as Pope and bishops. But hey if God can end the Great Western Schism, then God can and will end this crisis as well.

          • Would you be able to name any prominent conservative Protestants who have commented on the difference between pre- and post-Vatican II Catholicism? I realise you might have based this comment on private conversations rather than public discourse, but if the latter, I’d be glad to have a few names, since I could certainly use them in a very protracted discussion I’ve been having with a conservative Protestant friend, trying to show him why Catholicism is right (he reciprocates, of course). Thanks, Mark, if you can offer any help here.

            Regarding the improbability of a future revision or abrogation of Vatican II, there was a rather weak comparison I made earlier, namely that Pope Pius IX was elected (humanly speaking) for his liberalism, but once he ascended to the throne of Peter, he markedly changed his outlook. Liberalism in the Church of the 1840s, of course, shares little but the name with today’s liberalism, so I wouldn’t push the comparison far, but it is a precedent, I think, for God over-riding the plans of the electoral college. Cardinal Ottaviani’s intervention over Humanae Vitae is also an example, I think, of Divine intervention where the outcome, humanly speaking, seemed hopeless (Pope Paul, after all, could have dismissed Ottaviani’s attempts to rewrite the document). I expect you could easily list many others.

            I’ll confess I find the end of the Great Western Schism puzzling. Martin V condemned the conciliarism of Constance, even though he owed his own election to that Council. Since Vatican I (or even since the fifth Lateran), we have not, as Catholics, been able to assent to the claims of conciliarism. So we would be constrained to say that Constance was a merely human, expedient solution (and therefore sinful, to some degree, as an evil means for a good end), when the ending of the Schism actually required a different solution (greater prayer and sacrifice for a Divine intervention?). Again, I’d be grateful if you have any thoughts on the matter.

          • When I speak of conservative Protestants, I’m talking about people such as those of the Reformed persuasion such as apologist Dr James White and Dr RC Sproul who recently passed away. They both talk about the tone of irenicism that was present at Vatican II, Protestants were no longer called heretics and schismatics but separated breathren. In addition to that. I think you could go back to the ECT Document back in the 90s and agree with their case that Pope Pius IX would not have approved of it. Though they do not see us as Christians, we can agree profoundly that ecumenism in today’s terms is not something which you can say was something taught and promoted by popes throughout the centuries.
            With Vatican II, the point I was trying to make is that, the church is undeniably in a state of great confusion and lukewarmness. When you’re running a business, and when it sells significantly less products after you’ve implemented some changes you know something’s wrong. I can just give list after list on the indifference and loss of faith I see around my archdiocese. I’ve tried to heed the words that it’s just the Spirit of Vatican II not the council itself, but I don’t think that is plausible either. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I just don’t see how the church can grow if we simply double down on the reforms.

          • Many thanks, Mark for your helpful reply. I’ll carefully keep in mind what you say, and I’ll follow up the leads you’ve given.

            I pray that this will be of further help in bringing my Protestant friend to entertain the possibility that the Church is exactly what it claims to be. He has seen at first hand the ravages of modernism in many Catholic parishes (when attending funerals and weddings, or speaking to individual Catholics), and it’s difficult for him to appreciate that this should not be taken as representative of true, historic Catholicism, so it should be very instructive for him to see that substantial figures like Sproul agree that there were radical departures after Vatican II.

            I agree that the “spirit of Vatican II” can be traced back directly to Vatican II itself. From all I’ve seen, the faults arose both in the conduct of the Council and in the documents that it issued, beginning with the appointment of modernist periti and the throwing out of the schemata through to the deliberate ambiguities in the texts, which contained enough orthodoxy to ensure they would be passed, but also pockets of obscurely expressed heterodoxy that could be exploited to the full later.

          • May I suggest that one reads the EXCELLENT book on the VAT. II Council written by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen, S.V.D. titled , ” The Rhine flows into the TIBER “. It’s very illuminating, factual and detailed. An eye opener.

          • No doubt without realizing it, you’ve got one category laid over another.

            Messrs. White and Sproul may indeed be the first names you happen to think of, but “conservative Protestants” is a set much larger than the Reformed, that is, Calvinist, subset among them.

            What makes conservatives conservative is that they are believing, that is, unlike the modernists, fundamentalists, evangelicals, charismatics accept the Bible’s testimony about itself, to the extent they are aware of these they accept, embrace the great Ecumenical Creeds.

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Descent_of_the_Modernists%2C_E._J._Pace%2C_Christian_Cartoons%2C_1922.jpg/1045px-Descent_of_the_Modernists%2C_E._J._Pace%2C_Christian_Cartoons%2C_1922.jpg

          • Of course I could give you names of Southern Baptists and non-Reformed, but the reason I give those names is that they tend to be more learned consistent in their criticism of Roman Catholicism. I’ve been studying Protestantism and their works to know that Calvinists are but a subset of those who haven’t caved in on something as fundamental as the deity of Christ, SSM or the inerrancy of scripture.

          • Earlier I meant to address your assertion that believing Protestants don’t view you as Christians. Rightly or wrongly, this is today usually not the case. But as for the holdouts, since you yourself no doubt believe, embrace the cardinal doctrines of the Faith, hold to an orthodox Christology, are Trinitarian etc, etc, and Evangelicals already accept as brothers liturgical Anglican Protestants like C. S. Lewis or John Stott it is reasonable to ask, what then is the sticking point? Is it the Pope? I think you’ll find it is the question of merit. We evangelicals completely avoid any sort of “meriting the merits of Christ” language, and many may well believe that you are trusting in, depending on, some combination of Christ’s work on the cross and your own good deeds to get you to Heaven. That many Catholics are themselves confused on this point adds to the strength of the narrative.

            But there is an extra difficulty with Calvinists, because as monergists…

            [Wikipedia: “Monergism is the view within Christian theology which holds that God works through the Holy Spirit to bring about the salvation of an individual through spiritual regeneration, regardless of the individual’s cooperation]

            …they often view even the decision to choose Life, to trust in Christ, to select God as a “work” that dare not be added to the finished work of Christ, and can even regard the emphasis of fellow evangelicals to persuade or woo people for and to Jesus as “a man-centered Gospel”

            This may help, it may not: http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=1217-kreeft

            but in any case I salute you for trying to understand your neighbors!

          • It’s definitely an interesting read whether you’re EO or RC. This book got me thinking about relooking into the EO teachings though they don’t have a Catechism you can just point to. From what I’ve seen, the East and the West has a different set of lens and we in the west tend to read our preconceived notions into their faith. Anyhow, a great read and definitely recommend it for everyone!

          • Though I’m a TLM attending RC, I’ve been fascinated by the EO for a long time, and being a bookworm by nature, I think I could point you in some useful directions.

            Though as you say, I can’t think of any official catechism of the EO, I recall that Orthodox priest Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote a comprehensive 4 volume introduction to the Orthodox faith, which can be read online:
            https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith

            … or purchased as paper books:
            http://store.ancientfaith.com/products/Orthodox-Faith-4-Vol.-Set.html

            Then there are the excellent podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio:
            http://www.ancientfaith.com/

            … and also some beautiful blogs there, especially by Fr. Stephen Freeman & Fr. Michael Gillis.

            Your comment about lenses reminded me of this book by an EO priest who tries to be fair and balanced to both sides while examining the issues that divide us RCs from the EOs.

            https://www.amazon.com/His-Broken-Body-Understanding-Catholic-ebook/dp/B0017H34X0
            I don’t know if we have an equivalent on our side (someone who does not compromise on his Catholicism, but looks at the EO faith with kindness and fairness: perhaps Adrian Fortescue? I’ve heard he wrote some books on the EO, but haven’t got around to reading them yet.)

            Then of course, there is the Philokalia, (with the associated ascetic tradition of the Jesus Prayer ) that explains the EO view of how the heart is to be purified so that we may receive the life of Christ. (The interesting books “The Way of the Pilgrim” and “The Pilgrim Continues his Way” are closely related to this book.)

            Some other authors to look out for are Met. Kallistos Ware (on the Jesus Prayer & intros to the EO), Fr. Lev Gillet (on the Jesus Prayer), Alexander Schmemann (for the EO view of the Sacraments), Frederica Matthewes-Green (good introductory books to EO), Fr. Andrew Louth, Anthony Coniaris, David Bentley Hart, Dumitru Staniloae (wrote a comprehensive book on EO spirituality), Elder Amilianos, Georges Flovorsky, Christos Yannaras (on the difference between individualistic bourgeois conformity to what we wrongly think are “morals” and true repentance) , Hierothoes Vlachos, Ignatii Brianchaninov, Meletios Webber (again, for the sacraments), Met. Antony Bloom, Olivier Clement, Pavel Evdokimov, Rod Dreher (a Catholic who became Orthodox – also check out his excellent book on Dante), the three monastics Silouan, Sophrony, and Zacharias (forming a line of spiritual discipleship) Theophan the Recluse, Seraphim of Sarov, John of Kronsdat, Jim Forrest (on icons) Tito Colliander, & Vladimir Lossky.

            And of course, there’s some excellent fiction from that spiritual culture, like Dostoevsky or Eugene Vodolazkin, just like our Catholic culture produced irreplaceable writers like Tolkien & Chesterton.

            Another interesting books is William Dalrymple’s “From the Holy Mountain.”

            There seem to have been some rare instances of cross-pollination between us and them. Dom Lorenzo Scupoli’s famous “The Spiritual Combat” made its way to EO monks and was re-written with an Orthodox flavour by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and republished as “The Unseen Warfare.” It would have been great if there had been more of such initiatives.

            But there are some signs of hope. In recent times, there has been an EO book on St. Thomas Aquinas that takes a more favourable view of the Angelic Doctor than has been the norm with the EO theologians.
            https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Readings-Paradigms-Historical-Systematic/dp/0199650659

            Okay, I better stop now lest I derail this thread. 🙂

          • To the late thinker Francis Schaeffer, author of five volumes of books, very influential with believing Protestants (your friend will very likely know of him, even if you don’t) the post-V II Church was post-Truth, given over to liberalism, to dialectical thinking and Teilhard de Chardin:

            “The orthodox Roman Catholic would have told me that I was bound for Hell because I rejected the true Church. He was dealing with a concept of absolute truth. But the new Roman Catholic who sits at my fireside says “You are all right, Dr. Schaeffer, because you are so sincere.” “

          • Many thanks, Dr Grabowski.

            Strangely, I now recall that I read this passage many years ago, in an Tyrolean castle-hotel that was also sometimes used for Evangelical retreats (in Austria?). The Protestants left books behind, creating an informal library, and I browsed some of the Francis Schaeffer titles. I was particularly struck by his references to Teilhard.

            But as I say, I’d completely forgotten about this, and it will certainly be useful in future when I go about my solemn nonsense of proselytising Protestants.

            Thanks also for bringing back a pleasant memory of an old visit to Austria.

          • Glad I could brighten your day!

            This Protestant isn’t sure what you mean by calling your activity “solemn nonsense,” but best wishes anyway…

          • Ah, given the nature of 1Peter5, I simply assumed that you were a traditionalist Catholic, Dr Grabowski. Your Polish name seemed to confirm this, and the fact that you were citing Francis Schaeffer didn’t signal to me that I was wrong (for reasons you already know).

            So I’ll explain the phrase you quite understandably found obscure. Pope Francis has a habit of trolling traditionalist Catholics, so to speak, and on one such occasion, he said that proselytism was “solemn nonsense”. His choice of epithets seems quite random, so I don’t think there is anything more to be deduced from the phrase he used on this occasion, beyond his usual suggestion that traditionalists are humourless. In this respect, he is actually quite correct for once: laughter after the onset of the age of reason was indeed a mortal sin prior to Vatican II.

            The Catholic Church, whose missionaries had spread the faith over every continent, continued to proselytise until Vatican II, when a never-defined “ecumenism” was declared in its stead. Pope Francis was merely setting his seal of approval on this diabolical substitution.

            It can’t have been your intention, I realise (!), but I will pray for the soul of Francis Schaeffer tonight. He was a thoughtful, imaginative and cultured Christian writer.

            God bless.

          • After the Council, some prominent Protestants including some who attended the council said that ” They were amazed at what they have achieved through the Council, beyond their expectations. ” Can one imagine the situation where the Pope then, John XXIII, would INVITE 6 Protestant ministers to HELP OUT in the TRANSFORMATION of the Liturgy in the Catholic Church ! Various Liturgists, like Fr. Louis Bouyer said ” Unless we are blind, we must even state that what we see looks less like the hoped-for regeneration of Catholicism than its accelerated decomposition. Needles to say that JUST 10 years following the closing of the Council, 50,000 Priests left their vocation and were dispensed from their celibate vows. “From their fruits you shall know them”, said Jesus. Welcome to the NEW MAN- MADE CHURCH.

          • Was it the last paragraph you dug, Convert?

            They’d probably take a contract out on you if you said something like that paragraph on EWTN.

            Actually, they’d take a contract out on you for omitting “St” and “the Great”.

            I hope no-one else notices this.

          • I hadn’t yet spotted your kind comment from a little earlier, Barry (beginning “The voice of reason” – as all Catholic voices ought to be).

            So assume that if I had, my comment immediately below (at the time of writing) would have been modified in the two places where I address you directly.

            God bless.

          • I am not calling On tradition. I’m calling upon the evidence of heresy. I’m calling on those in power to do so
            Edging about it, and they CAN do something about it.

            . And don’t think I didn’t already know all of what you wrote. How condescending you are. Good day to you.

          • God bless you Rocio Matamoros for your humorous, humane, scholarly and Faithful contributions to this post. You are a great addition to 1P5 commentary. I particularly appreciate (and so I hope do cs and Chesterlab) your prudent, brotherly admonitions and counsels. The splinter in the eye of this Papacy (okay, it looks like a beam) is a great temptation to sin, if in our justifiable anger we over-step the bounds of true Catholic charity. Even the most abject sinner needs our prayers and we are after all, all guilty of nailing Our Lord to the Cross with our sins.

          • Thank you, Mark, for your very kind and encouraging words. If they’re not deserved, at least I’ll try to live up to them.

            cs, by the way, was very good in his (her?) response when I finally said something that allayed his worries. In retrospect, I could see he was just being robust in his enquiries for as long as he suspected I might have an ulterior motive.

            Your last sentence, so beautifully expressed, prompts me to share a painting, not actually from the last of the sorrowful mysteries, but the third:

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/096dca12619c36f08f7a0a511aed8f7ac3baa0aeaf007ecc2c67bf0f563ca4b7.jpg

            Our job, as you say, is to put ourselves in the place of the man pressing the thorns in and preparing to utter some obscenity.

            You may well know the painting, by Carl Bloch. This, together with his Doubting Thomas, are his most powerful depictions of scenes from the life of Christ. Strangely, I can’t think of any equivalent for the hammering in of the nails; perhaps that scene would defeat any painter.

          • Hello cs, I was referring to you, yes, and in favourable terms. Sometimes comments posted close together in time eventually drift far apart, as sub-threads and sub-sub-threads develop. So someone like M.M. might cast an entirely benign eye over such fragmented exchanges the following day and easily leave with the wrong impression. I only referred to you in order to put that right.

            I’ll also remember what pronouns to use for you in future (to think that such a sentence would still have sounded innocuous just a couple of years ago!).

          • “Our job, as you say, is to put ourselves in the place of the man pressing the thorns in and preparing to utter some obscenity.”
            Yes, that IS our NATURE.

            And HIS invitation is for US to exchange places and imitate his noble bearing. For WE ARE called
            to follow HIM to Golgotha and will do IF we accept HIS saving Grace using the means HE gave US!
            Thank you for that post.

          • I’d prefer you consider my arguments, chesterlab, but if you’re asking for personal credentials, I attend the traditional mass only, and I attend regularly those given by the SSPX in my city of residence.

          • I’m not going to consider your arguments because I disagree with you. And I say again, do some reading on Christian and particularly catholic history. You might be enlifhtened. And I attend the institute of Christ sovereign priest church and was well catechised. I ev n spok to my priest about the issue and he reminded me that the head of the church is JESUS CHRIST, not the pope. You need to keep that in mind and keep your priorities in order.

          • Nevertheless, his arguments are indeed correct that nobody on earth has the authority to depose a sitting pope. The closest thing to this that could happen canonically is for the College of Cardinals to call an imperfect Council in which it was declared that a pope had deposed himself by virtue of formal apostasy or heresy. As such a declaration would require at least moral unanimity of the bishops of the world, the chance of such a thing happening is virtually nil.

            The best we can hope for with this present miscreant is that one of his successors posthumously anathematizes him as was the case with Honorius.

          • I don’t believe that. I do believe that the Vatican has the means to remove a heretical pope. He simply cannot destroy the church this way. I’m a fairly recent convert and if what you say is true I will go worship with the eastern Orthodox rather than be led by a heretical, radical Marxist Peronist and possibly homosexual pope. Period. If you people want to follow him to hell thats your choice. Good day.

          • Chesterlab, nobody is saying that anybody should follow him to hell. In fact it is our duty not to follow him in his errors or take example from his sins. It is our duty to resist him in anything he proposes which contradicts the Deposit of Faith. The fact that this abysmal college of bishops is not up to the task is something for which they will have to answer to God when they come before His judgement seat.

            I strongly recommend you read the following article from Cardinal Mueller at First Things. Finally it seems the penny is beginning to drop about the gravity of the situation:

            https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/01/by-what-authority

          • You send me an article from a Vatican 2 priest who is a faithful defender of pope Francis? You just revealed yourself as a follower of pope f. Ugh. This conversation is over.

          • Why I have a feeling from your very first post on this topic that you are not catholic (or maybe christian) at all??

            You came with a question pretending you are a new converter and you dont know is there any posibility of dethroning pope.
            After several correct answers (that a bad pope is still a pope) it seams you are not a begginer.
            People told you a catholic teaching. But you fully ignore it, and you teach others your personal gospel.

            I don’t believe you. I don’t like what you’re trying. I don’t think you’re christian at all.
            Reaveal yourself or not, don’t think we are stupid.
            Do ehat you want. You have been told a christian and catholic teaching of Tradition.

            May Blessed Mary the Mother of God and Mother of all of us teach you.

          • Excuse me. I am a convert to the traditional latin mass-as an adult. And I actually learned my catechism and I know my Bible. I have also thoroughly educated myself in catholic, Christian and world history. And I was confirmed in that TLM church and attend mass every day. My father was ukrainian catholic and I am very familiar with the Eastern rite as well. You only make a fool of yourself, friend.

          • The Orthodox have contributed to this nightmare. They are strident adulterers and MUST BE CONDEMNED AND FORMALLY EXCOMMUNICATED!

          • I disagree. I don’t hate the Orthodox. And my fathers family are ukrainian Catholic. Their Divine Liturgy and much of their doctrine is very similar to the orthodox. . Tread carefully, mister.

          • Then you are unaware of their 2nd marriages which are adulterous and encouraged.

            A Greek Orthodox priest told me that my wife and her lover would likely end up in a uniate Church in union with Rome but with Orthodox traditions.

            He was correct.

            Byzantine Catholic Church.

          • I am not sure how I feel about second marriage issue simply because Jesus himself stated that the one time divorce is applicable is through adultery. I knew the catholic stance on it and Since I never plan to remarry it wasn’t an issue to me when I became catholic. But the eastern Catholics are NOT apostate. They are in full communion with Rome. So I warn you again, tread carefully.

          • Doesn’t matter. Jesus words are Jesus words. But like I said I’m never remarrying so it doesn’t matter to me.

          • Quite right, Karl, they have some disturbing practices around marriage. I (personally) know an Orthodox woman whose husband divorced her in order to enter a monastery.

          • The Orthodox do have many problems, for instance they lack vocations, there is corruption among them and other issues. They are not better off than the Romans.

          • The voice of reason. An important caution expressed.

            And given the unprecedented hour of apostasy in action that we witness, our “letting off steam”
            in a rather crude and tough manner (at times) is not without merit, in my view. Unless it’s obviously
            sinful, we, (those faithful clergy and laity) have to take on responsibility when those who HAVE
            responsibility are “missing in action”

          • According to the great Francisco Suárez, among many other theologians and canonists, the Cardinals may declare (declare, mind you; not judge) a Pope a heretic and replace him by another one.
            You don’t find this in Canon Law simply because until now it was supposed that the Holy Ghost would spare the Church the ordeal of having a Pope who would become a formal heretic after his election…

          • Thanks, João, for the correction on Suárez. Can I check with you whether Suárez’s argument was compatible with the Fifth Lateran Council’s ruling against Conciliarism? And for our times, it sounds incompatible with Vatican I.

            Ideally, I’d like to see Divine intervention leading to the sudden conversion of Pope Francis, making him a true shepherd to his flock, a defender of the Catholic faith, and unflinching enemy of modernism. Failing that, I would viscerally like to see him deposed, but rationally, I don’t want that to be brought about by an action that is sinful.

            We have the example of Uzzah touching the Ark of the Covenant – his intention was undoubtedly good, and he saw no other way to remedy the situation. And yet he was struck dead.

            The Council of Constance also brings out the oddity of the situation. With great effort and careful diplomacy, it successfully wrought a settlement that ended the Great Western Schism, electing Martin V as the first post-schismatic pope. What could be more laudable? And yet the same Martin V later condemned the actions of the Council to which he owed his papacy (humanly speaking). His condemnation was then vindicated by later condemnations of conciliarism up to Vatican I.

          • Thanks, João. About a year or so back, attention was focused on Suárez and Bellarmino on some traditionalist sites, and I gained a more solid grasp of the issues at the time. My memories of the debate are hazier now, so I was asking for trouble when I brought Suárez into one of my earlier comments.

            To be fair to Suárez, he didn’t think a heretical pope was a possibility, but his hypothetical argument can still be criticised, and it seems difficult to absolve it of conciliarism. There are also suggestions that incipient political liberalism is present here and elsewhere in Suárez (which seems plausible to me, but I’ve no right to an opinion without reading him much more extensively.)

            For traditionalist Catholics today, the 1917 Code would seem to put the argument that we are best heeding (I can’t quite say it’s “binding”):

            Can 188. Ob tacitam renuntiationem ab ipso iure admissam quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine ulla declaratione, si clericus: […] 4º A fide catholica publice defecerit

            In that case, Suárez’s need for an inferior authority to depose a superior authority is removed, since tacit resignation and vacation of offices ipso facto doesn’t entail any deposition by another authority.

            But I’m doubly uncertain about the practical implications. When there was still a majority of prelates who were at least outwardly orthodox, would they simply have ignored a heretical incumbent and elected a new one? It seems so, but it’s not spelt out (or maybe it’s just my stupidity).

            As for now, when it’s the heterodoxy of prelates that we can count on (or at least their submission to the heterodox for the sake of their careers), Canon 188.4 tells us nothing at all in practical terms … as far as I can see.

            Any further light you can shed on these matters would be welcome.

          • A group of Cardinals declaring a Pope heretic and replacing him with another Pope is not in any way a concession to conciliarism. Conciliarism means that an ecumenical council has more power than the Pope, namely that one has the right to appeal from a decision taken by the Pope to an ecumenical council.
            When a Pope falls into formal heresy, it is the opinion of (almost) all theologians and canonists that he loses ‘ipso facto’ his office. In that case, he must be replaced with a new Pope. Otherwise, the Church will remain ‘sede vacante’.
            In accordance with the wise solution of Suárez, that replacement should take the following steps:
            (1) A group of Cardinals publicly declares the Pope a heretic.
            (2) The Pope defends himself either recanting from his heresy or sticking to it.
            (3) If the Pope sticks to his heresy, the group of Cardinals declares ‘sede vacante’ and calls for a conclave in order to elect a new Pope.
            This way, there will be no doubts about the procedure. The heretic Pope (mis)uses the natural right of defense and the group of Cardinals acts accordingly.
            This solution avoids also the dangers of (a) a heretical Pope on the loose, and (b) a protracted ‘sede vacante’.
            I’m not sure I’ve been helpful. You’ll tell me… 🙂

          • I appreciate all of the above, and FWIW, make the following comment:

            There is no higher Catholic authority on Earth than the
            Pope, true, and no cardinal or council can remove him, but then popes can be and have been rebuked before, as St. Paul did to St. Peter. Pope Francis can be rebuked. I mean, told plainly, as by the bishops of Kazakhstan or whatever Cardinals can develop the courage (they’re either in our Caudillo’s camp or worried that they’ll damage the office of the papacy if they get serious about dealing with him) that he’s plainly a heretic and doing serious damage to the Church herself and to the faith of a billion people.

            And yes: Suffering is a prime ingredient in the Christian Faith, for Christ suffered for our sins and we can unite what we suffer in this life to Him for its transformation: Catholics and Orthodox believe in Theosis, the transformation of ourselves in and through Christ into a higher, more
            glorious nature than Adam had before he fell. But we have to be careful with suffering. I may be a pacifist (I’m not) but were I one, that’s grand, but I can’t make that decision for others. Brigands break into my house, for example, and I piously say, “Here’s my coat and my cloak!” That’s truly Christian – but I can’t say, “And of course you can rape my children and kidnap them; we won’t resist. We turn the other cheek.” Similarly, I might be a married Protestant minister and decide to go on a very dangerous mission to a place of cannibals (this is based on a true story, the first husband of Catholic author Thomas Howard’s sister
            did this) as an act of piety and self-sacrifice in the prayerful hope of bringing the Gospel to heathens: but I, RC, would maintain that it is immoral to do so because a married man has larger responsibilities. Wife and children come first. They’re my prime responsibility. (I’m actually a father of four.)

            Being a Catholic doesn’t mean we have to lose our self-respect, our natural duties as men, or be a doormat for a disagreeable fellow who either doesn’t believe or understand the Faith. And what Pope Francis is doing is – on one of many levels – sapping our self-respect by making us all look like either toadies or cowards. We need to pray for our bishops that they find the courage to do what Bishop Schneider and a few of the other bishops are doing. And make it clear to parish priests and local ordinaries that we know what Francis is up to and that we have no tolerance for it.

            RC

          • I also believe there will be a split. But what scares me is what will happen to those of us who have no Traditional Catholic Churches in their area. I already travel once a month, an hour one way to a Byzantine Catholic Church to get away from the NO. I wish I could move, but at this time it isn’t an option.

          • I feel your pain. I lost my job where I was living and stupidly returned to the northeast to be near one of my kids. There are no jobs here and it is a Novus Ordo hell. Their are four really liberal NO churches in this city and one of them didn’t even bother to recite the nicene creed at mass. Even when I was anglican we recited the creed each week. So I am returning to the TLM Church I was confirmed in. It’s creating a war in my family but my spiritual life is more important.

      • I’m a revert to the faith and I, along with you and hundreds of thousands of Catholic’s are aware of the damage PF is doing to Christ’s holy church. Yet, we must remain Catholic. God has given us the Grace to know the Wolves running in our church and we know not to follow them lest we also fall into the pit. Stay strong brother in Christ for in the end, we will be the ‘True and holy remnant’ that many saints, mystics and the Blessed mother prophesied.

        Reply
        • We must remain catholic until this or another pope causes a schism in the church between liberals and traditionalists. Which side will you take then? I’m not a cradle catholic. I was Protestant all my life and finally found the fullness of faith in the traditional catholic church. And while I was just starting RCIA classes pope Benedict resigned and they picked this new guy. My priest tallied me out of bailing out because I knew Francis wasn’t good for the church. It took me a long time to get the courage and educate myself on Catholicism so that I could convert. It hasn’t been easy and I lost every Protestant friend I had. Then because I’m TLM I get crap from the Novus Ordo people too. I expected flack from the protestants but not from those who were supposed to be my own people. If you think that’s not a problem then you are deluded. So you can give me all your platitudes but as someone who care in from the outside and chose the traditional church because to me that is true Christianity, I remain very concerned.

          Reply
          • Dear Chesterlab, I do understand where you are coming from. You aren’t alone our circumstances are similar in our case we are reverts, the only conclusion that I have reached is that we worship Jesus Christ not the pope etc and that frequent mass, confession, prayer and adoration is the way to go.

            I have seen people really suffer for their faith for example a 93 year old lady and how her own family treat her because of her faith and it’s people like her who keep on picking up the cross and keep on going that inspire us to keep asking for God’s grace to continue in this battle.

          • An addendum to add if I may: the papacy was given to the Church by Christ.
            Because a fool sits in the Chair, does not diminish the importance of the papacy.
            For if a bad pope could easily be deposed, can you only imagine how a faithful, strong and holy pope to come could easily be deposed?

          • No I don’t agree with you. This guy is doing tremendous damage to the church and he is trying to consolidate power at the same time. He attacks devout Catholics and praises Muslims and pagans. No I don’t agree with you. Something must be done before the church is destroyed.

          • Something will be done……..hang in there. It really cannot go on like this.
            Let’s just stay close to the Church and her teachings, the saints, the TLM.
            You have children I take it. So do I.
            Boy, wouldn’t you like to give these bishops and cardinals a little tongue lashing for their grave disobedience and . even a swift smack right between the ears…….and wake them up!!!!
            I wish we could. Perhaps another ” Mother” shall.

          • Yes I would like to do something like that. I have a problem with my kids as well since I raised them Protestant because I was an Anglican and we also attended some evangelical churches before I decided to swim the Tiber. . And boy did I do a good job. They have no interest in Catholicism at this point and it’s difficult to have a discussion with them with poles and prelates who behave very badly. At least they both will Occasionally attend mass with me though. I guess that’s a beginning at least. But one is reformed Presbyterian and one isn’t really anything and his wife was raised RC and wants nothing to do with it. . Can you imagine the phone conversations I had the day I decided to convert? It went something like this: “hi boys. Remember everything I told you about the Catholic Church? Well I was wrong.” I now know how St. Paul felt when he had his road to Damascus moment.

      • A pope can be formally corrected, I believe. Unfortunately, right now, we have many rebels in the Church who are prelates. Just a fact. And for a pope to be deposed, there would have to be a mighty thunder from a great majority of them: which is not going to happen. I am afraid, even if Francis were to ” bless homosexual ‘unions’, a great silence among prelates would prevail.

        From reading your posts here at OnePeterFive, it seems to me, that you are most prepared for the coming days, when each and every Catholic will have to make a choice and choose between fidelity to Christ and to who now sits on the Chair of Peter. Please pray for us that we choose as you have.

        It is Christ’s Church, not a pope’s, or a prelate’s or any laity. Just stick. May God continue to bless you for
        your most faithful witness.

        Reply
        • Thank you for your gracious post. Maybe because I made a conscious choice to become catholic as an adult and coming out of Anglicanism I have a different perspective. I pray for the holy mother church each day that she will return to her roots and most importantly, to Christ.

          Reply
      • Chesterlab, check the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, which lists 30 anti-popes, not counting Francis. There is evidence that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was coerced, making it invalid; and that the St. Gallen Group illegally canvassed for votes for Francis…making his election invalid; and that Francis is not even Catholic. So I think Francis is an anti-pope… and thus has no legitimate authority. And yes, there will be a declared schism to resolve this undeclared schism…wait and watch for it.

        Reply
        • I’ve done one better. I studied dozens of books on church history, all the popes, crusades etc. I know this isnt the first time we’ve had two popes either. I always thought benedict was forced out too. He realized Vatican 2 was becoming a nightmare and he was becoming. far more traditional than the modernist liberal cabal wanted. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make him wear and ankle bracelet so he can’t leave that old convent he lives in.

          Reply
          • Chesterlab, I am glad you are educated on Church matters. You probably would be interested to know that several private prophecies foretell a pope who will flee Rome, go into hiding for a short time, then suffer a cruel martyrdom. Most think this refers to Pope Benedict XVI… since many recognize that Francis is an invalid pope. Other private prophecies mention a schism that will occur when Pope Benedict XVI flees Rome. An excellent and short book, that includes many prophecies that explain all this, is “Catholic Prophecy: the Coming Chastisement” by Yves DuPont and published by TAN. A good website about all this is by the Catholic theologian, Kelly Bowing PhD, and called, “Two Hearts Press.” He has a few YouTube videos, books and DVD’s.

          • Thanks for the info. I also go on the remnant online, roarate coeli and onepeterfive, all conservative Catholic sites that keep us up to date on what’s happening in Rome and to the holy mother church.

    • I’m afraid that it is unlikely that the next pope will be one who feels compelled to protect the Apostolic Faith and Tradition in its entirety and to want to lead all souls to the fullness of truth and put God first, then man. There are a handful of such bishops i.e. Athanasius Schneider, Raymond Burke, or even a moderate such as Andreas Laun. However, apart from divine intervention (there is precedence for miracles), it is more than likely we will get another pope with modernist tendencies, who will be seen as one who can continue the Pope Francis’s so called reforms, and put Pope Francis on the fast track for canonization.

      Reply
      • Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti was considered rather liberal before he became Pope (Blessed) Pius IX.

        Granted, a liberal back then was very remote from the liberals who took over during Vatican II, but it does open up the possibility of an apparently unworthy pope being elected in a few years time, who is led by the Holy Spirit to act very differently from what his supporters expected of him.

        A small-scale version would be Cardinal Ottaviani’s rewriting of the draft of Humanae Vitae – it didn’t transform Pope Paul VI, but it radically changed the character of his reign thereafter, whether he lived up to it or not.

        Reply
    • A former member of the White House security detail, Dan Bongino, recently described Obama as “a vengeful narcissist”. Had he been in the employ of the Vatican, he could justifiably used the same precise term to describe the current holder of the Petrine Office.

      Reply
    • The headline in newspaper today;
      Pope says fight FEMICIDE.
      I never heard of the word.

      Even liberal CDL O’Malley is now criticizing the way the pope called Chileans DUMB!

      Reply
    • The ‘marriage on the plane’ has deep and evil consequences. Was there even a confession heard after the couple admitted to seven years together, living in sin? I think not. And what does that show our bishops and priests?? It is all too agonizing to contemplate where this is all going. Pray and may God, in His mercy, help us to weather this hurricane of the pope.

      Reply
      • Yeah and think of all those nasty bulletin announcements that state that those planning on a church wedding should not set a date that is not at least a year out and not until the couple has talked to the priest. Some even go as far as stating that no date can be set until the conditions re met. Talk about off-putting and now look what the purported Pope has done by this wedding!

        Reply
    • Pope Francis is neither proud nor vicious.
      He just has to reflect on this:
      St Irenaeus, “Against the heresies”
      The pure offering made by the Church
      The Lord taught the Church to make an offering throughout the whole world, and God accepts this as a pure sacrifice. It is not that God needs any sacrifice that we might offer, but that whoever offers something is glorified in the act of offering – if, that is, his gift is accepted. Making a gift to a king shows our honour and loyalty to him – and it was because the Lord wanted us to make our offerings in all innocence and without ulterior motives that he said: When you are offering your gift at the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come back and offer your gift.
      We ought to offer to God the first fruits of his creation, as even Moses said: Do not come empty-handed into the presence of the Lord your God. Thus whatever we are grateful for, we can show our gratitude to God by gifts and receive back the honour that God can give us.
      The new law does not abolish offerings. There were offerings under the old law and there are offerings now. Then, sacrifice was made by the people, now it is made by the Church. The only change is that the sacrifice is not now offered by slaves but by free men. The Lord remains one and the same – but an offering made by a slave is of a characteristic kind, and so too is an offering made by a free man: its nature is a sign of his free status. With God, nothing is purposeless, or meaningless, or without a good reason. Thus under the old law they consecrated one tenth of their possessions, while those who have received their freedom set aside everything they have for the Lord’s use. They cheerfully and freely give more than the bare minimum because they have more than the bare minimum of hope. The poor widow put all that she possessed into the Temple treasury.
      For we must make an offering to God, and show ourselves in every way grateful to him who made us – in purity of thought, in sincerity of faith, in fervent hope and burning love – as we offer the first fruits of the things he has created and that are his. This offering the Church makes alone to her creator, making it with gratitude from his creation.
      For we are offering him the things that are his, preaching our fellowship and union and proclaiming the resurrection of body and soul. Just as bread that comes from the earth, once the words of consecration have been said, is no longer ordinary bread but becomes the Eucharist, made of two things, earthly and heavenly, so our bodies, receiving it, are no longer corruptible but have the hope of resurrection within them.
      (Roman Franciscan Liturgy of Hours)

      Reply
    • All true, yet at each mass we are asked to pray that “Pope Francis will continue to lead the church in truth and love” or some similarly worded petition. What a disaster to church teaching he has wrought.

      Reply
  11. Matrimony is one of the five Sacraments called “the Sacraments of the Living” because one must have Sanctifying Grace, the Divine Life of God in order to worthily receive it.

    If a man and woman marry without being in the state of sanctifying grace, they are validly married but commit a sacrilege (add another sacrilege if they receive Our Lord unworthily in the Holy Eucharist). The bride and groom will not receive the graces particular to Matrimony until each makes a general confession and specifically confesses that he or she committed the sacrilege of getting married in the state of mortal sin and receiving Our Lord unworthily in Holy Communion.

    Baptism and Penance are called “the Sacraments of the Dead” because they give Sanctifying Grace to one is either in the state of original and/or mortal sin. Baptism infuses the soul with Sanctifying Grace and Penance restores Sanctifying Grace to a soul dead in sin.

    Source: Schudlo, Rev. M., compiler. My Divine Friend, 1959.

    Reply
  12. I guess this a new phase of the madness. I live in the diocese of Scranton Pennsylvania. This diocese is celebrating it’s 150th anniversary this year. Pope Frances appointed Cardinal Mahony as a special envoy to the diocese for the celebration: http://www.dioceseofscranton.org/pope-francis-appoints-special-envoy-for-anniversary-celebration/ This is the same Cardinal Mahony that was barred from public appearances in the diocese of Los Angeles by liberal Bishop Gomez for Cardinal Mahony’s handling of the sex abuse crisis. This is the same Cardinal Mahony known for picking a fight with a nun (Mother Angelica) This is the same Cardinal Mahony known for the demonic Taj Mahony. You would think the modernists would want to distance themselves from the sex abuse crisis ( so as not to expose the modernist hoax) but no Bishop Bambera welcomes the Papal envoy Cardinal Mahony?!!??!? So is the diocese of Scranton more liberal than the Arch diocese of Los Angeles now? So if he was barred in LA for the sex abuse crisis but he is welcome in the diocese of Scranton is it fair to say the diocese of Scranton is now OK with the sex abuse crisis? This right after the diocese of Scranton green lighted Father James Martin speaking at a local University. The message seems clear.

    Reply
    • They should have sent Abp. Chaput. I think Scranton used to be part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia before it became a diocese. Plus, it would have been less of a carbon footprint since Philadelphia is closer to Scranton.

      ***

      Tell them that and maybe he’ll go back. (Sarc)

      Reply
      • I wonder if Abp. Chaput refused to go or they knew he would not be so inclined.
        I still believe in him, even though, I may be a fool.

        Scranton is a polluted diocese.

        Reply
        • What cleric has criticized FR MARTIN ?
          Besides CDL SARAH & Fr Gerard Murray of EWTN?

          MARTIN is the poster boy for the gay movement in the church!

          Why is everyone afraid of my misguided son Martin?

          When will Cardinals and bishops stop adulating him
          When!

          Reply
          • Everyone is afraid of Fr. James Martin, SJ, because the Pope appointed him to some special (made up) post as LGBT envoy to the Vatican, thereby making it clear he is protected. In addition, while I assume Martin is true to his vows, and he is coy about his own sexual orientation, he has the stereotypical personality of an urban gay man: mincing and bitchy. You can bet he’d fight back and fight dirty against any priest or bishop who should dare to rebuke him, especially since he knows Frankie is on his side. These times are beyond belief.

      • Not only was Scranton originally part of the (Arch)diocese of Philadelphia, Chaput is the Metropolitan Archbishop for Scranton. For instance, Canon Law cases from Scranton (such as annulments) automatically go to Philadelphia as the next “level”, as it were.

        Reply
        • You’re right! I totally forgot about that. So the $ 64,000 question remains…WHY was Cardinal Mahony chosen to go to Scranton instead of Archbishop Chaput?

          Reply
    • He belongs the same NWO gang with PF and minions all over the world. God save us, Mother Mary and all angels and saints pray for us,

      Reply
    • My condolences to Scranton on being sent Mahony. It’s obviously intended to be a rebuke for your diocese’s stalwart orthodoxy. All I can say is, “Forbear.” Don’t take the bait by reacting (publicly). If it’s any consolation, I suspect Mahony has been humbled by the humiliating end to his career; I suspect also that, unlike Pope Francis, Mahony actually believes in Catholicism. He deserves all the criticism he has received for mixing religion with politics, for persecuting Latin Mass lovers, for his appalling handling of sexual abuse cases, for the godawful Cathedral he built. However, during the years I lived in Los Angeles, I never thought Mahony was trying to wreck the Church and destroy the Catholic faith. Sadly, I think those things about Pope Francis. So, hang in there, Scranton. Show Cardinal Mahony how REAL Catholicism is done. Who knows…perhaps he’ll fly out to Rome afterwards and give the Pope an earful about how HE has gone astray!

      Reply
    • PioKolby, Mahony will be speaking at the Los Angeles archdiocese’s religious education conference. So much for being barred from making public appearances.

      Reply
  13. 12 churches were burned in Chile in the last several days.

    Francis calls Chileans dumb!

    He wants proof Barros is guilty!

    Would someone tell him Irishwoman Marie Collins resigned & there’s no longer a VATICAN sex abuse victims Committee or Commission.

    Would someone tell him he ordered the shut down?
    Does Francis have a bad memory ?

    Reply
    • Could you please provide some backing for your statement that “12 churches were burned in Chile in the last several days” That sounds a bit unbelievable! Thanks.

      Reply
      • As the report you linked to suggests, it might simply be further nativist Mapuche protests of the sort that have been seen in the past few years. The Mapuche are pagan, and have a long-lasting dispute with the Chilean state over land rights and the treatment of forests. As far as I can see, they don’t have a direct dispute with the Church, and only attacked church buildings insofar as they represented non-Mapuche Chilean society. They seem to have put some hope in Pope Frances as a mediator with the state, so if they attacked churches at just this moment, they were shooting themselves in the foot.

        Across the border in Argentina, there have been attacks on church buildings by crowds of social justice warriors, and if their counterparts in Chile were the culprits on this occasion, there would be a clearer explanation for the timing. They would also have been well aware of the scandal over Bishop Barros, and would have seen this as a good moment for the attacks, since their Catholic fellow-townspeople would be too demoralised to show vigilance or resistance at the moment.

        The Mapuche also leave leaflets at the scene of their attacks, since its in their interests to publicise their cause; they have no direct interest in damaging or destroying church buildings, but use these only for their leverage on the state. The SJW’s, by contrast, do have a direct interest in destroying church buildings (and in preventing masses from being held), so such attacks, from their point of view, have already achieved their purpose, and hence there’s no particular need to leaflet.

        Reply
  14. “’Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,’ the pope said.”

    If that’s not one of the most classically devious comments on record, I don’t know what surpasses it…

    This Pope is a thoroughgoing instrument of the left. But he apparently thinks that by blaming them he’ll be taken as a right wing, moderate conservative.

    Francis the Traditionalist

    Reply
  15. As I look at all the glowing magazine covers I’m reminded of Our Lord’s warning to His apostles: “the world will hate you on account of Me. Know that they hated Me first.” It appears that the world LOVES this pope.

    Reply
  16. CORRECTION:

    In the paragraph under the photo of Juan Carlos Cruz near the top of the article, it should say:

    Cruz reiterated his outrage….”

    Reply
  17. Did the pope hear the confession of these two public fornicators before conferring upon them the Sacrament of Matrimony? If not, then this is another hateful action by the pope of mercy. Totally devoid of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

    Reply
    • I think PF is giving even Mercy a bad name. Mercy is an all-purpose destroyer if you use it to justify every action. It was the predator Father Inzoli who appealed to PF for clemency, invoking the Year of Mercy. Francis granted him clemency and the luckless spin doctor Greg Burke had to go out and explain this astonishing leniency to the world’s media. Of course Greg had to invoke Mercy…..but then more accusations emerged and Inzoli had to be defrocked a second time!

      Reply
  18. It will be incredibly satisfying to watch Francis popularity shatter, to witness the world suddenly realize that “the people’s pope” really isn’t. I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate when Donald Trump won the election, something I had never done before. I feel like I could buy a champagne factory to celebrate the day when Francis is gone.

    Maybe this will not destroy his popularity. Maybe evil will cloud people’s minds and they will forget about even this indiscretion. Sometimes it takes several attempts, several exposures of misdeeds, to wake people up to the reality that the person they admire really isn’t so admirable. There already have been several, but it’s not for those of us who have known there was something wrong with him since pretty much the beginning to decide.

    Francis isn’t the type to just go away and pout. Scripture tells us to “be wise as serpents and simple as doves.” Sometimes it seems that many of the “good guys” only get the second part right. They seem to forget that they have been sent out as a “sheep among wolves,” forgetting to be wise as serpents and being quickly subdued. Perhaps the only one who can stop him, other than God of course, is himself.

    Evil becomes most dangerous when it becomes most desperate. When Francis’ popularity with the people truly shatters, if he isn’t dead by then he will become dangerous in a way we cannot yet imagine. That’s not a reason to be afraid, but it is a reason to watch out. Evil never graciously accepts defeat. It does not go out with a glorious martyrdom, it goes out with a dirty, unpredictable fight that becomes more and more desperate until it is suddenly destroyed.

    Reply
  19. If Francis was serious about wanting to deal with the clerical sex abusers he’d take swift action like Pope St.Pius V did when he faced a similar problem during his pontificate. And this is not a hyperbole or joke on my part, I’m dead serious about it.

    Reply
  20. “Barros reiterated his outrage in an exchange with Crux‘ Austen Ivereigh….” Shouldn’t this be “Cruz reiterated……”?

    Reply
  21. His reaction was just disgusting, showing a total disrespect towards the victims. But what can your expect from the one who’s biggest promoter, Godfried Danneels, didn’t do any better?

    Reply
  22. It would seem that problem herein lies with a man given great authority, that has caused far too much scandal, and has made written statements, documents that border, if not are, heretical. His scandalous words, behaviors have given righteous cause
    for the faithful to abhor all that comes out of his mouth, and most sadly, to distrust even those things that perhaps come out of his mouth that are not of bad intent and……..even perhaps of goodness, of faithfulness.

    Now, we have these scandalous and hurtful words . of Francis, aimed at those who have been sexually abused by a priest and possibly a sitting bishop. He laments that of course that these victims have sinned in continuing to indict the sitting bishop.
    How does he know? Should there not have been an true investigation of this bishop back in 2015?
    And these hurtful and abusive words of his towards the victims are beyond anything we have witnessed thus far perhaps.

    To continue silence regarding all of these actions, in the name of respect for the office of pope, goes against
    human nature and our God given senses. Cardinal ????? must speak out and defend the victims.
    Or are they all tainted in some way as well with this sin of sodomy and its coverup?

    Reply
  23. “…reveals an unknown face of the Pontiff.”
    Only unknown to those who turn the blind eye to Bergoglio and other clerics of his ilk.
    There are all forms of abuse. Individuals who regard their appointed ecclesial position as an
    acknowledgement of personal superiority rather than a call to servanthood will surely be versed in grooming and the abuse of power. The narcissist in white has been abusing the power of the office, which he regards as “his” power, whenever it is opportune.
    And one might ask where is Maradiaga?
    Sexual exploitation is a gross and mind-numbing assault on a person created in the image and
    likeness of God. Manipulation of theological realities, the reduction of theology to a speculative enterprise, is a gross and mind-numbing assault on the revelation gifted us by Almighty God.
    Both are an abuse of power.
    Both are soul slaying.

    Reply
  24. Steve sees cracks in the armor, the latest being Francis’s mindboggling put-down of abuse victims in Chile, and thinks 2018 may finally be the year the tide turns on our rotten Pope.
    Don’t hold your breath, Steve. One of the pillars of the New Moral Order is the prestige media, sometimes called “mainstream,” which, despite the proliferation of alternative media on the Internet, still largely controls the flow of information and instructs the public on what is important, what is (or is not) a scandal, and so forth.
    This institution, the media, has protected and embraced Francis from almost the beginning. It recognizes him as an invaluable and unique ally in the project, largely completed now, to overturn the ancient Judeo-Christian moral code.

    Francis has effectively taken the Catholic Church out of the fight or, worse, actively allied Her with the enemies of God. Francis is an asset that the media and its powerful New Order friends will NEVER abandon.

    No, the tide will turn, if it ever does, against Francis only when some earthly princes of the Church decide that the Truth is more important than their positions of comfort and power. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen either.

    Reply
    • Just so. The world media, a gaggle of liars, perverts, and social climbers, have hidden crimes and protected powerful leftists for a long time. Here in the US we have the astounding examples of two drug-using sex maniacs presidents (viz. Kennedy and Clinton) and a fast-talking flim-flam artist (viz. B H Obama) who have enjoyed almost armor-plated insulation from exposure. There are just as egregious examples of similar media mendacity in other countries, e.g the lionization of the likes of Trudeau in Canada, Merkel in Germany, and of all presidents of the thoroughly corrupt Mexican republic. In all these cases, preceptive observers know full well the king has no clothes, but the average citizen who thinks himself well-informed by fake news sources like PBS, the CBC, the New York Times, or Newsweek hasn’t a clue. Your fear that pew sitters in parishes across the globe are no more astute than average citizens is, I suspect, well founded.

      Reply
      • Correct, though of course a more balanced expose would undoubtedly include the inimitable Bush clan.
        Their “pro-life” credentials surely tested by the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
        civilians in an unjust and illegal war of wicked design.
        Weapons of mass destruction and all the rest….

        Reply
        • Not to worry, Barry. I have always said that it was a photo finish for worst president in US history between Obama and W. (I also have said for a long time that the “W” surely stands for warmonger.)

          Reply
          • Thanks, hadn’t realized that. I think we do ourselves a serious disservice to consider any of these
            worldlings credible or friendly to THE WORD.
            The only noteworthy “W.”

      • Thanks.

        Yes, the same phenomenon is indeed seen in the political arena, with the media strenuously and reliably protecting and promoting the likes of the Clintons and their fake messiah, Obama, every step of the way.

        Which is why I get a perverse sort of kick every time the wide-eyed, naïve Trumpkins point triumphantly to the latest documented outrage on the part of Obama’s Deep State to blow up Trump’s candidacy (and presidency). In fact, it’s happening again this past week with the revelations (still classified) of a liberal Deep State conspiracy aimed at bringing down Trump.

        Uh, newsflash, guys: at the end of the day, the New Moral Order will survive, as will the Deep State of what was once a constitutional republic known as America. Your boy, Trump, on the other hand, has no chance.

        Our rotten Pope, who satanically took the name of one of the great saints of the Church and history, will also survive. And likely “win” — at least as “winning” is understood in human terms.

        But his victory will be short-lived. Because when all is said and done, our Savior, the Lord Jesus, will wash the New Moral Order away, even as Our Lady crushes it beneath her feet…and the Judas traitor named Francis at the same time.

        Reply
  25. I know that there are cases of reported sexual abuse which are false accusations. A deputy sheriff told me once, many years ago, that it happens almost exclusively within families. According to him the usual case involves a child who is upset with a parent because the parent won’t let them do whatever they want or have what they want. This is not a similar case. To openly, publicly rebuke victims without any proof is a very serious, degrading crime. This victim, or these victims have a right to be treated as victims, not as criminals.

    Reply
    • In my experience, and in talking with CPS workers, about five percent are false. However, there is often some other abuse in the background in those cases. Not always. Some children are sociopaths. I’ve dealt with those too.

      But about 95 percent are essentially accurate.

      Reply
  26. I hope this will become the scandal which will break the neck of the Bergoglian pontificate. It’s a good occasion for massive resistence and protests.

    Reply
  27. “Cardinal Coccopalmerio and Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, now dean of the Roman Rota, both intervened on behalf of Inzoli…”

    I didn’t know that. Cocco’s really looking like a perv

    Reply
    • Seeing that it was one of Coco’s priest assistants who was caught running a coke-and-sodomy orgy in the Vatican in 2017, further investigation of the esteemed Cardinal is worthwhile.

      Sadly, only the priest hosting the orgy has been named; he is obviously the nominated sacrifice. The guest list at that party would make interesting reading, especially if they were of senior rank or under age.

      Reply
      • How dare you, sir, hold up to public mockery my dear pet, the faithful and talkative dachshund-mynah bird cross that was presented to me by the late lamented Generalíssimo Franco.

        He’s been my only constant companion over the last fifty years, at my castle lodged high in the Sierra Nevada. I send him out each morning to fly across the foothills to Granada, so that he can harry, soil and scatter the hordes of foolish tourists who come to marvel at “the glories of Islam” (ha!) in the Alhambra Palace.

        We sit on the ramparts as the sun descends over that last-conquered city, laughing heartily as he relates his daring deeds of the day, and then I let him gnaw on a leg of the finest jamón ibérico.

        Reply
  28. There are few sins more egregious than the sexual abuse of children by adults—especially by members of the clergy. It is an outrage against not only their psychic innocence but against their spiritual innocence as well.

    But right up there and equal to it in sinfulness is that of falsely accusing someone of such abuse. It is too easy for lives to be ruined because someone simply dislikes or resents another person—especially an authority figure—enough that he or she is willing to make up a crime.

    So it is certainly right that Francis should insist on a high standard of proof when such allegations are made—though the “concern and incredulity” expressed by the his own anti-abuse commission at the installation of Bishop Barron are telling, as are the protests of hundreds at his installation Mass.

    What is thoroughly shocking to me, though, is the Pope’s display of utter contempt for victims whose credibility in their accusations against the priest who abused them had already been established.

    I want neither accusers nor the accused to be tried in this manner.

    Reply
    • Hello HL&M, could you make a quick edit to your comment? At the moment, you have anti-abuse protesters at Bishop Barron‘s installation.

      Make that Barros. For all Bishop Barron’s possible shortcomings, we don’t want to tie this particular millstone to his neck.

      I hate using emoticons, but … : )

      Reply
  29. If one gets out into the pews and talks to typical churchgoers the vast majority love Pope Francis and are totally ignorant of these controversies. It is unlikely that will change in 2018, barring a miracle.

    Reply
  30. Notice the voices of concern and anguish come and disappear. Cardinal Burke now inexplicably silent. Cardinal Mueller repentant. Fr Weinandy’s stark repudiation a memory. Brave aux bishop Athanasius Schneider clamoring exquisitely from remote Kazakhstan. Voices in the Wilderness. Darkness has enveloped the Bride of Christ. Something strange is afoot. Two thousand years of the fragrant words of the Word made Flesh rolled back. A New Paradigm. An ancient affront to decency. And a clarion call to spiritual warfare.

    Reply
    • Amen. Let us redouble our prayers and personal sacrifices for the grace of Light to enter the minds of Christ’s anointed on Earth so that they may willingly give them selves in Sacrifice to Our Blessed Lord and Proclaim the Light from the Roof Tops. Amen.

      Thank you Father Morello for gracing 1P5 with your wisdom, a wisdom acquired through grace and much study. You inspire me to be a better priest and to study more diligently the writings of our Holy Fathers and Doctors.

      Reply
      • Our Blessed Mother will show us the way and be our greatest intercessor, particulalry for her priests.

        She is the only way, I can give to God, what He wants and yet rejoice.

        Reply
    • Don’t forget Cardinal Brandmüller! He performed his duty the best he could under the circumstances. At least, he had the courage to step forward with an informal correction of Francis.

      Reply
      • Yes, and he clearly stated that anyone who supports Holy Communion for the Civilly Divorced and ‘Remarried’ who do not have a valid annulment and continue to live as husband and wife (having sexual relations) with their false spouse are Excommunicated.

        God Bless Cardinal Brandmüller! Amen. Forever, Amen!

        Reply
    • It doesn’t seem like it now, but the Bride is victorious because of the Bridegroom. The Church is like the boat where the aposrles were so afraid, being tossed here and there by an angry sea. Let’s joyfully go forward, armed with the weapons of faith and the armour of God, believing that the Tempest will pass. Nothing can separate us from Christ.

      Reply
      • For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8: 38-39).

        Reply
  31. The longer PF is in the ‘Chair of Peter,’ the more blunders he will continue to make. Hopefully more people are catching on to his hypocrisy sounding Catholic one day and an Agnostic the next. Another thing I’ve noticed is that he loves to be in the limelight. So much for being ‘humble.’ I thought he told the clergy not to be airport priests, yet, he’s been flying all over the world…..

    Reply
  32. So many competing voices to choose between. It’s like we are being spiritually tested. I’ll stand with Pope Francis and his voice, seeing that he is Christ’s spokesman here on earth.

    There was something fishy with this whole sex abuse “crisis” from day one. I’d wager most of the allegations that came years after the fact and fleeced the Catholic Church for millions and millions of dollars were based on false allegations. Many parishes folded under intense media pressure and intense fear. The coordination and focus on the Catholic Church was unprecedented and was, I fear, coordinated and conspiratorial in nature, given that statistically speaking the incidence of abuse in the Catholic Church was no worse (in fact it was less) than in other, secular organizations yet the Catholic Church was single-out and continues to be singled out and in effect persecuted in a “soft” manner here in the West (contrasted with the “hard” persecution of our Catholic brothers and sisters in Syria and across the Middle East and Africa as we speak). I smell a Freemason rat somewhere in all of this, and it ain’t in the Vatican.

    Reply
    • Well, you’re against freemasonry – at least you have that going for you.

      Seriously though, try Galatians 2:11-14 to see why a pope cannot be regarded as Our Lord’s “spokesman on earth”.

      “Vicar”, yes, in various respects, but “spokesman”, no.

      But I’m not sure you’re serious; there might be a clue hiding in your name – something to do with Gemini Launch Vehicles. I’m sure 1Peter5’s finest minds are working on it as I write.

      Reply
    • I have personally known of two cases of homosexual priests abusing teenage boys; one of them ended in multiple suicides of the victims, and the only survivor becoming addicted to drugs.

      And several cases of young women and young girls being molested by lesbian nuns. None of them made any money off of it.

      Reply
    • Yes, there have been many false claims, this is not debatable as it has been substantiated in court. However, the claims against Bishops Barros are credible, especially when you consider that the Vatican had already decided on removing him and two other Chilean Bishops due to those credible claims and then Pope Francis suddenly did an about face and appointed Barros to a Diocese and left the other two where they were and for ridiculous reasons: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/01/11/world/americas/ap-lt-chile-pope-sex-abuse.html

      PS: There are plenty of Freemason rats in the Vatican, and the current Pope is very friendly with Freemasons. They have celebrated his papacy from the beginning: https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/freemasons-love-pope-francis/

      Reply
  33. Concerning the airplane marriage having been arranged a month previously – can you give us some citations for that, so we can look it up too? It is particularly smelly.

    I have found that giving people articles about Bergoglio, the St. Gallen Mafia, and the previous child sexual abuse issues (the school for the deaf in Argentina, I think in Buenos Aires that he did nothing about) is very effective. The totally ignorant have no defenses against truth.

    Reply
      • I’ve just discovered, Father, that emol.com is one of several addresses used by El Mercurio newspaper of Chile. So the story that I found (via Deacon Augustine) is actually the same as the story referred to in passing (without details) early in the LifeSite article. The Mercurio search function wasn’t working properly when I tried it, whereas the emol.com site is running very smoothly, so I’d recommend the latter.

        Reply
      • Thank you. Read it.

        Could Steve add the cite to the original story? A lot of people won’t scroll down through the comments, and will miss it.

        It is, in the PR sense of the word, quite damning. There is nothing quite so disrupting as finding out that a spontaneous, heartwarming moment was staged.

        I remember watching an old video clip of Glenn Beck in his dressing room before his show, talking about putting drops in his eyes so he could cry at affecting moments. I have not watched him since.

        Reply
    • Hello HL, if you search through my posts far below on this thread, you’ll find more details, but in short, the information was originally presented in an article dated 19 December 2017 about the plan for the couple to be married on the plane a month later, with the Pope officiating.

      The article appeared on the website of the Chilean news service emol.com. If you go there and search for “Podest” (the wife’s maiden name), you’ll find this article at the top of the list.

      Reply
    • Exactly. Who am I to Judge is stated for a known practicing homosexual ( caught in an elevator with a young man and sexual ‘toys’, who had to be rescued by police after fleeing from a liaison at a gay Bar) who is then elevated to the head of the Papal Household and given a position in the Vatican Bank, but shame on you is given to people who have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of a priest and his knowing accomplices and disciples are made Bishops and given Diocese.

      Evil. Purely Evil/ Nothing sacred about it, only Evil.

      I would upvote this a trillion times if I could. May God save us and deliver us from this present Evil.

      Reply
  34. What took me aback when reading “The Political Pope” is that our humble Holy Father was regularly going out of his own way to stand out as the humble one and didn’t blend in with the other cardinals, at one time he ordered his bag to be brought off the plane so that he could be seen carry it onto the plane. I’m not one who’s quick to judge intentions, but orchestrating an event to shape public opinion, giving outlandish off the cuff statements digging a bigger hole in the sex abuse scandal is far from what’s to be expected from the Roman Pontiff himself.

    Reply
    • Because it’s always truly humble to have your bags removed from the plane so that you can be photographed carrying them onto the plane…

      Reply
    • He is not humble. When he came to America and was driven around in a brand new little fiat or some other econobox it was such an act of ostentatious behavior diaguised as humility. If he had asked to be driven around in a 15 year old Buick I might have respected him. Lol

      Reply
      • This driven-around-in-a-little-car business has to be the most ludicrous exhibition of fake humility since Uriah Heep. My favorite episode was the time PF visited Cairo and was chauffeured in a small car, escorted by tens of millions of dollars’ worth of tanks and helicopters.

        Reply
        • Lol. That’s funny. And doesn’t the pope have his own plane? He should be fyling coach like the rest of us peons if he is truly humble. Of course he might mess up his white cassock. We wouldn’t want that.

          Reply
  35. JP II also had a belief that sexual abuse accusations could be a communist plot to bring scandal to the Catholic Church because that in reality did happen in Poland. That having been said, it’s still critical that each case be judged on its own merits. I haven’t heard of a single bishop in the past acknowledging one of his priests sexual abuse and asking the civil authorities to get involved. Yes, now many bishops are acting with conscience.

    Reply
    • I have a feeling that some, but not all, of the sex scandal in the church was simply a witch hunt. How do you argue a case 30 years later? How do you prove it? . It’s no different than all these actresses coming out of the woodwork today. Yet I’ve talked to cradle Catholics who were indeed afraid of their priests when they were young and I’ve heard stories of what certain priests were like with the altar boys. So I don’t know the answer. I just want it to stop.

      Reply
      • Chesterlab,

        Good question:

        How do you argue a case 30 years later?

        They do THAT with annulments, EVERY DAY.

        I have a friend whose case is before the Rota. I know the facts as well as she does. The marriage is valid. The Rota said otherwise. It is being appealed.

        I know, exactly. what I am talking about and any Canonist who reads this blog and disagrees with me, should quit their profession. THEY ARE CORRUPTED AND DOING MASSIVE HARM!!!

        ANY CANONIST!!!!

        Even if Monsignor Cormac Burke disagreed, he should quit, and I respect him TREMENDOUSLY.

        he and his colleagues REVERSED

        Reply
        • Karl I have also been divorced. I was Protestant at the time and my husband had cheated on me for years and he left me once for someone else, I took him back, and he got me pregnant with our second child and then he left me Becaise I refused to have an abortion. So he left when that child was born. I also am a legal assistant and have worked in domestic relations law for many years. So I know very well what goes on . I have never worked on an annulment or Canon law, only civil law so I can’t speak to that experience. . However since my ex is still alive if I were ever to marry I’d have to get an annulment. But I became celibate in 2004 while I was still Anglican because I could not find a man with character and Christian faith who would treat me right. Now I am happy being alone. That’s all I can say to you.

          Reply
          • You are fortunate to be comfortable alone. I make due, but find it increasingly difficult being alone. I, too, have been celibate since 1989. Temptation is there, everyday.

            Hang in there.

          • I don’t have temptation anymore. I was treated badly and I am free of that aggravation alone. I enjoy going to mass every day and I sing Gregorian chant and polyphony in latin in my TLM choir and I am happiest when I am at that church. God might take something away but he will give you something else which often turns out to be much better:-)

    • Thank you, Elleblue, I don’t think I’d heard that observation of Pope John Paul II’s before.

      He may only have intended his words in the most direct sense (that the conspiracy consisted of the allegations themsleves), but there’s another indirect sense that also applies: the conspiracy consisted in infiltrating priests who would badly damage the credibility of the Church.

      Such was the testimony of the former Communist, Bella Dodd, before the House Un-American Activities Committee:

      In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to
      destroy the Church from within. The idea was for these men to be
      ordained, and then climb the ladder of influence and authority as
      Monsignors and Bishops.

      She also said that she knew of four cardinals on whom the Communist Party of the U.S.A. could rely on at this time.

      Stalin outlawed homosexual activity within the Soviet Union during this period, together with other socially destabilising behaviour, such as abortion and easy divorce. But that is entirely compatible with Soviet use of foreign communist parties to subvert non-Soviet societies and institutions by covertly promoting destabilising elements in their midst – such as homosexuals in the Church. Once the first seeds were planted, a self-sustaining homosexual culture would establish itself in the Church.

      Reply
  36. This website confuses me. One Peter Five tells us ” You are Peter and upon this rock I will built my church”. Yet this website is more antipope than any Protestant I’ve met in my life. And I’ve met a lot some who are close friends and family who have no problem disrespecting the successor of peter but this website has surpassed anything I’ve come across. Yes the Pope shouldn’t have made that comment but he also said a lot of good things for the people of Chile. We all agree he isn’t infallible at all times so why are we expecting him to be infallible 24-7?!

    Reply
    • AflowerofStTherese, please don’t be so lazy and kindly cite some words and actions of Pope Francis that have been criticized here that you endorse and warrant respect. Somebody has to do the dirty work. In fact it is a duty, at times, according to canon law (Can.212). Also satan wants to spread confusion among each one of us, especially in everyday affairs.

      Reply
      • I’m new here. I find it strange that a website with the name Onepeterfive focuses on one comment the Pope made that was careless and upset people. When he did said a lot of things in Chile. What in the world is the goal of Onepeterfive to tear apart the Pope into pieces? No one covered his entire Chile trip except for that one comment.

        Reply
        • If you are new, then I suggest to you, read at least some other articles before you (wrongly) conclude. You’ll be surprised! Believe me. Otherwise, it is like you are starring to read a book, but you pick the very last page, on which you will to write your own review. Mind, it’s not only Chile, but far and much more than that.

          Reply
        • The goal of 1P5 is NOT “to tear apart the Pope into pieces”. Please take a look at the link I posted for you.

          Ivan made some good points also. I’ve appreciated the good advice he’s given me and hope that you will benefit from his good counsel too.

          Reply
    • Are you divorced, against your will and does the Catholic Church support that adultery and all the crimes that go along with it?

      Unless you are, you are C L U E L E S S about how corrupt the Popes before Jorge were.

      If you think I am lying, you are incorrect. I am living it and the Church has the proof. This man, Bergoglio brought the perversions of Wojtyla and Ratzinger, out of the closet! God only knows about Montini!

      Please dear, open your eyes.

      Reply
      • Karl, if this is the wrong thing to say here, just tell me and I’ll delete this comment immediately. I’ve read what you’ve said about your divorce (and the aftermath) a couple of years back on Zippy’s blog, and it horrified me – there’s so much attention given today to remarried adulterers, but thanks to your story, I’ll never again forget the plight of a faithful Catholic who is the innocent party in a divorce, especially in the post-Vatican II Church of today.

        I’ll try to remember to keep you in my rosary intentions, but allow me to reproduce an old reply to one of your comments, written by someone much wiser than me:

        Ah, Karl, my Friend…please know you are still in my prayers as you
        continue in your defense of your marriage. God will certainly reward
        you, if not on earth then most certainly at your Judgement. Remember
        that God is Faithful and won’t permit you to be tempted beyond your
        strength, as it is written…I think you have been a worthy example of
        that. Courage!, My Friend…you are living your vocation, especially as
        regards your children. A better example you could not be giving.

        One more thing: perhaps you already know of Blessed Elisabetta Canori-Mora? If you don’t, please read her life, and I think you’ll soon find an intercessor who understands your situation very well.

        Reply
      • “I am living it and the Church has the proof. ” Your misfortune is a bit unclear to me, but I’m sorry to hear. I’m not really sure what you mean by this statement. Are you a divorcee who was allowed to recieve communion and regretted?

        ” This man, Bergoglio brought the perversions of Wojtyla and Ratzinger, out of the closet!” St.JP2 is a saint declared by the Church.

        “Are you divorced, against your will and does the Catholic Church support that adultery and all the crimes that go along with it?” NO. I am not a divorcee.

        Reply
        • You are observing what is the true fruit of what has become of the Catholic Church in my lifetime, AflowerofStTherese.

          I am 63. Cradle Catholic.

          I am a sinner just like the rest of us. But, I do not recognize the Catholicism that I was raised in. I was too young to comprehend, in the 1960’s how things were changing.

          I was a virgin at 25 when I
          met and married my wife.
          I meant our vows. So did she, as we spoke about our lives with each other and knew, exactly, what marriage meant and we both agreed to it, consciously.

          10 years and 5 children down the road, having throughout the intervening years lived an openly Catholic life together, even reminding each other of our lifetime commitment to each other, from time to time, she changed and withdrew her love.

          I could not reach her.

          Ultimately, she deceived me into moving from our home to “give her space”.

          She cold cocked me, filed for no fault divorce and convinced everyone we knew in Iowa that I had abandoned her and our 5 children.

          I had to move in with my parents back in NY.

          Through lies and collusion the Catholic Church granted her and annulment. She was already sleeping with her lover before our divorce was final.

          She said she was not in her annulment petition.

          3 witnesses were offered to the Judicial Vicar, along with my testimony of finding a package of opened TROJANS/RUBBERS in her bed’s nightstand.

          My wife STRONGLY REFUSED TO USE RUBBERS during our marriage.

          The 3 witnesses were refused to be addressed.

          The annulment was a guarantee.

          I transferred the case to NY, which denied my wife’s petition as being baseless, even citing her own mother’s testimony.

          She was already pregnant, so she had the case transferred back to. Iowa and I was not consulted, IN VIOLATION OF EXISTING CANON LAW.

          When the case was physically returned to Iowa, the adulterers married civilly.

          The annulment was granted in 1994, the Rota refused to certify it, issued a negative decision in 1997:

          http://www.cormacburke.or.ke/node/432

          And a 2nd negative Rotal decision in 2001/2.

          So, she could not marry in the Church but every parish and diocese has openly accepted and treated them as a couple and ignored me and the facts AND KNOWINGLY GIVEN THE LOVERS HOLY COMMUNION IN FRONT OF OUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS!

          The Curia has known this since the onset. Cardinal. Burke knew this during his days in the Signatura……

          The Catholic Church is completely corrupted and the proof has been in its possession since 1990.

          It is probably long gone.

          I am not lying.

          I do not think that I could ever trust the Catholic Church again, barring a miracle in which Jesus, Himself, interevened in public, on camera, world-wide and fixed things.

          Reply
          • I am so sad that happened to you. That is a very heavy cross to carry that I can’t imagine what it must be like.

          • Some good has come of it. But, much more is possible with repentance.

            If my cross turns others toward salvation, it is worth, infinitely, more than mere earthly satisfaction and transient feelings of happiness.

          • Agree. Our crosses purifies us and raises us to the heights of holiness. I have no doubt in my heart God is with us in our darkest moments and lifts the humble to himself. Keeping in mind the very words of our lady “For you have looked upon my lowliness”.

    • You set up a straw man. Nobody is criticizing Bergoglio for not being infallible 24/7.

      He teaches heresy, persecutes the faithful, and promotes the faithless and notorious.

      There is nothing about this website that is objectively inconsistent or confusing.

      Reply
      • Straw man definition:
        An intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.

        Reply
    • Here’s how to end your confusion:

      Accept that Bergoglio is the worst Pope there has ever been.

      Suddenly, everything on this website will make perfect sense.

      Reply
      • “Accept that Bergoglio is the worst Pope there has ever been.” Okay. So, let’s just say that he is the worst Pope ever. That doesn’t make Christ a liar though. Regardless, the Church will always be protected from error.

        Reply
        • Grace builds on nature, it doesn’t precede nature. Sometimes the Truth has to be fought for, defended, down here, in this vale of tears. Look at the great heresies throughout history. Look at our martyrs. Note: Ann Barnhardt reckons that Pope Benedict XVI is in fact the worst pope in history for abdicating. My faith is strengthened by Our Lady’s recent apparitions.

          Reply
          • “Au contraire mon frere..”

            Guy just asked a normal question. You put yourself above him, pope and Chatolic teaching.
            Not good my brother. Not good…

          • Above him? Above the pope? Above Catholic teaching? Vous exagérez un peu, mon frère, n’est-ce pas?

        • Yes the Church will always be protected fro error. And in the meantime millions hurtle towards damnation for listening to the evil words of an evil pope who tells them everyone is saved in the end.

          Reply
        • Protected in what way? By having cowardly laymen twiddle their collective thumbs? By asking them to bury their heads in the sand? During previous heretical waves, the Church was protected through the efforts of men willing to tell the truth, men like Athanasius who stood against the Arians. The distinction you believe exists between the duties of laymen and clerics is artificial and bogus; all Catholics are required to defend the faith to the best of their abilities. And quietism of the variety you seem to recommend here isn’t simply annoying, it’s deadly in the face of determined heresy. Qui tacet consentit.

          Reply
          • Quite right, Johnny.

            That was ultimately the deal for the laity as the Vatican II project unfolded: the more we let you play at being priests, the more we expect you shut up about our heresies and sacrileges.

      • Accept that Bergoglio is the worst Pope there has ever been.

        Are you sure in this?
        What authority do you have to claim that?

        Reply
          • I don’t need authority. I follow Jesus’s authority and his words: You are the Peter the rock..

            You deny that authority, do you must have some bigger authority?
            Do you?

          • Be careful how you interpret Scripture. I don’t see Jesus in the actions of
            these particular historical Popes:

            Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.
            Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
            Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who “sold” the Papacy.
            Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante’s Divine Comedy
            Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.
            Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.
            Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors’ reserves on a single ceremony
            Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

          • I agree.
            There were bad popes but Church is still here and they are not…
            I hope @ArthurMcgowan will see this list.

    • This is how One Peter Five got its name:

      https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/about/

      You cited Matthew 16, not 1 Peter 5: 8. (It’s used in Compline according to the traditional 1962 missal.)

      As you said, the pope is not infallible 24/7. However, the average Catholic in the pew doesn’t know that because catechesis has been so abominable over the past 50+ years. They think that if pope said it, it’s gospel.

      Example: In 2003, Pope John Paul II signed an encyclical on the Rosary. Among other things, it ***suggested*** (NOT mandated, ONLY suggested) 5 “luminous” mysteries. It was a ***suggestion***, but the Catholic and secular press had a field day. Headlines screamed: “Pope changes Rosary!”

      Never mind that it wasn’t mandated. All the Catholic publishers changed their Rosary books, booklets and leaflets. Why? Because the ***suggestion**** of the pope was taken as a command.

      Chris Ferrara wrote a booklet called “The New Rosary”:

      https://www.amazon.com/New-Rosary-Christopher-Ferrara-ebook/dp/B074HSWCNQ

      This booklet is extremely informative, short and easy to read. I highly recommend it.

      I admit that your remarks about 1P5 really shocked me. If you look at the comment policy link above, it outlines what is and is not acceptable. Fr. RP, Jafin, Brian and Steve are always on the alert for bloggers who violated the comment policy but they can’t catch all of them.

      Please read and learn from 1P5. A long time ago, I used to think like you. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it took a lot of prayer, learning, blood sweat and tears but in the end was worth it.

      Many faithful Catholics are grieved by what has been going on for the last 50-60 years, let alone the last 4.5 years. Countless souls have been lost.

      Some people who have replied to you are very angry. They are angry because the Faith which they love has been and is under attack from those who should be setting an example for the faithful.

      Please give 1P5 a chance.

      Reply
      • So, what am I suppose to do, track the pope, demonize him and that makes me a faithful catholic? I mean, I understand when priest object his teachings, because essentially the parish priest is where the rubber meets the road. So I can understand their frustration. They have to deal with their parishioners so they need to clear up any misunderstandings.

        But as a laity, what good is it to over dwell on a Pope if I think he is in the wrong? How is that even going to advance my spiritual growth? And plus, all this blaming him on the abortion holocaust. People have been butchering their babies since St.JP2 and NOBODY WANTS TALK ABOUT THE ROOT CAUSE WHICH IS THE LOVE FOR MONEY, POWER AND THE DESIRE TO GET AHEAD IN THIS WORLD. We are all idolaters and some of us can’t even see that.

        Reply
      • The canonizing of the so-called Luminous Mysteries is an excellent example of creeping infallibility.
        btw the wicked GermChurch, not to be outdone in novelty, have coined the 5 “Mysteries of Consolation” and they are listed in the official Hymnbook here. So you get 25 mysteries for the price of 15.

        Reply
        • I don’t really think that it was an “unfair” post. Nor will I remove my comment as per your suggestion.

          From the tone of AflowerofStTherese’s comment, he / she mentions that “This website confuses me.” and “Yet this website is more antipope than any Protestant I’ve met in my life.”

          (O_o)

          If that is what he / she has deduced (from his / her very brief time here on the 1P5 forum), then he / she either needs to find another website(s) that are more in line with his / her thinking, -OR- he / she needs to suspend judgement until he / she has perused this site more indepth to glean the viewpoints expressed herein.

          1P5 is a good website. I am only coming to its defense with regard to the tone of AflowerofStTherese’s initial comment shown above.

          Reply
          • I agree this is a good website, I just do not want to drive people away whose opinions vary. Are we different than Jorge if we do not bother to contemplate some nuances that perhaps we have not heard before because we are so certain that our conclusions are beyond adjustments, here, or perhaps, there?

            I do not think for one moment that this man is willing to listen.

            How could he listen to the story of our marriage and not see how the very things that he supports have contributed to the undoing of our valid, sacrament?

            He does not have, what old American men would call, the guts, to look in the mirror and see how thoroughly corrupted he is.

            Why?

            Because if he was open to seeing it, someone like me would make it obvious to him. Then he would have to confront it. Which he shows no proclivity to even consider, other than for how he can make it APPEAR that way, to deceive, to deceive and to deceive some more! He is a master manipulator. He is a chameleon.

            He knows very well the damage he is doing. He loves it.

            BTW, Steve, your edit button is MAGNIFICENT. It should be SOP(standard operating procedure) for every comment area.
            Were I not so in awe of it, I would be jealous for not having thought of it until after I had the privilege to experience it here at IP5.

            Keep up the good work!

  37. …”the ugly reality that lies beneath.”
    Your very important report is chilling, but thank you for your good work.
    We have a bad pope a very corrupt Vatican full of wolves in costumes.

    Reply
  38. “A plan to open a tribunal in the Vatican to judge bishops accused of covering up sexual abuse or mishandling cases never saw the light of day”.
    Of course, the Pope is reluctant to have his good friend the Cardinal Danneels who engineered his election in 2013 through the “Saint Gallen Mafia”, being tried and sentenced by this court.
    Card. Danneels was involved in a paedophile bishop’s abuse coverup years ago in Belgium.

    Reply
    • I guess that this proposed tribunal to try cover-up bishops would have been swamped by culprits from all five continents. It looks like just another PR exercise by PF – enough to convince the media of his eagerness to tackle the cancer, but with zero substance.

      Reply
  39. St. John Eudes confirms that ” When the people stubbornly keep sinning, God sends them BAD PRIESTS”. Isn’t it the case NOWADAYS. And what happens when we have bad priests in the Church? Satan REIGNS.Cardinal Luigi Ciappi revealed in 1995 that ” In the Third Secret of Fatima, it is written, amongst other things , that The Great Apostasy in the Church STARTS AT THE TOP”. Need one question this FACT. And because of this horrible situation we have Lucia of Fatima being interviewed by Fr. Fuentes in 1957, said : “Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him, the greatest number of souls. So, the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.”
    “That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell. The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence.” This was Sr. Lucia last free and open interview before silence was imposed on her. She became the only person in the Catholic Church who was not permitted to speak about Fatima from 1960 up to her death in 2005”!! Obviously, this was what Our Lady revealed to her then. Has this calamity happened? You bet your boots, it did. Now we are living in the AFTERMATH of this tragedy. But still this was/is ALLOWED by God for His Inscrutable Purposes. Just KEEP the FAITH whole and Entire and pray, sacrifice and let God do His Will. In the meantime do your best to illuminate others not to fall for the Devil’s tricks and his minions, whoever they might be.

    Reply
      • and who was SAINT JOHN Eudes? founder of the Eudists.
        a man that left the Jesuits and started the Sacrament Fathers. I pray James Martin reads this.
        Eudes left the Jesuits to enter the Congregation of the Oratory, founded by the famous Fr. Pierre de Berulle, who worked to re-establish orthodoxy of doctrine and sanctity of life among the clergy. John Eudes thought that the training of priests should also be a priority, so in 1643, he left the Oratory and founded the Society of Jesus and Mary to specialize in seminary education. The first seminary of the Eudists Fathers, as they became known, opened in Caen, shortly followed by many others.

        In order to convert women of ill-fame and assist those who had converted from a wayward life, he founded another institution, the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity. He also instituted the parish mission to evangelize neglected souls. For many years, he preached to large crowds in churches or open fields, in the courts of nobles and the King. His sermons were renowned for his strong condemnation of the vices of his audience, the brilliant eloquence with which he delivered them and, above all, the eminent sanctity which shone forth from him and gave substance to all his words.
        https://s3.amazonaws.com/New-ANF-Site/Saint+of+the+Day/08-August/Aug+19+John+Eudes+3.jpg

        Reply
        • St. John Eudes also was the first to encourage devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Most Holy Heart of Mary.St. John Eudes pray for the Church.Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, for the glory of the Father.

          Reply
        • I have the book, ” Saint John Eudes” by Paul Milcent.
          Printed in Great Britain by John S. Burns and Sons. 1963.

          The book presents his beginnings and has beautiful writings from his Selected Texts.
          It is one of the most treasured books I own.

          Reply
  40. Can I just say that this is the problem with blind loyalty, which is something that has led myself astray in the past.

    In the past, I have formed friendships that were toxic but at the time had no idea that the friendship from the other party was more for financial gain and manipulation.

    For example, I remember that my best friend at the time told me that if his girlfriend called me could I say that he was with me………..

    Regarding the situation with the Pope and his comments I hope that in this situation the truth is revealed for the sake of those affected and for the purity of the faith.

    Reply
  41. Keep praying. This evil pontificate will inevitably fall. In the interim let’s hope his immediate plans – which undoubtedly will wreak much more destruction – are providentially thwarted.

    Reply
    • Yes, His days are numbered. I do believe if he tries to canonize the sodomite Paul VI he will either be struck dead or lose the papacy immediately afterwards.
      After all this is the whole endgame with Bergoglio, to canonize sodomy.

      Reply
      • I think if that ever does come about, I think it’s just PF canonizing Vatican II. Canonized you have Popes John XXIII and JPII, the only one who’s missing is the one who oversaw most of the council itself. Given PF’s animosity towards the TLM, and his very ecumenical approach, it’s a very plausible one. Hell, I think he’ll even go as far as to open the case for Teilhard De Chardin.

        Reply
          • That’s the obvious next step. For decades, the deceased at most Catholic funerals is implicitly presumed to be in Heaven and any tiresome business of praying for his/her salvation from the fires of Hell has been glossed over.

            As PF seems to be moving us towards Universal Salvation (to judge from Sandro Magister’s disturbing recent article), we should logically drop the tedious requirement that we should die first and immediately declare ourselves all Saints. My feastday is 19th April, if you’re interested.

            https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/worlds-end-update-last-things-according-francis/

          • I know it is shocking to hear it the first time but sadly it is well documented. As archbishop of Milan the then Cardinal Montini was know to the police for his “cruising” then upon election to the papacy he carried on with a well known Italian actor (the hairdresser in “Roman Holliday” starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn).

            When you understand that a sodomite sat undetected upon the Throne of Peter back in the 60s you can appreciate how we are in the mess we are in today. And Paul VI was no defender of orthodoxy a la Humanae Vitae. That accolade goes to Cardinal Ottaviani in the Holy Office.

            There is a website somewhere with the relevant chapter of the Rite of Sodomy online. I will try to find it.

  42. The manipulation of headlines: The Pope DID NOT accuse sex abuse victims of slander. He said that the accusations of COVERUP against a newly appointed bishop were baseless, and in that sense slanderous. He might be right or wrong about the matter of fact. And supposing he was right it might have still been imprudent to appoint this bishop. I respect and endorse the arguments that say that it was not prudent. But does the fact that the Church has engaged in large scale coverup of sexual abuse scandals mean that every accusation of coverup must be regarded as true? Does a serious treatment of sexual abuse mean that all discernment of cases must be abandoned? Must we regard all as guilty until proven innocent? The Pope endorses a pastoral practice which is merciful and discerns cases. Should he be blamed when he applies it? May it not be applied ALSO to clerics? And why should the anti-Francis faction get all annoyed about the Holy Father’s insistent criticism of clericalism and then turn around and attack him when he defends a cleric against what he judges to be unjust attacks? Or is it that any stone is good when it is useful to hurl against this Pope who irritates us?

    Disclaimer: I am a Legionary of Christ. So I am preparing for the attacks that will be launched against my person and against the Legionaries. The Legion was institutionally involved in coverup. But this does not make of every Legionary a moral monster. Our case was a most remarkable case. But it also has some relation to the Abuse Crisis in general. And our coverup has some relation to the pattern of coverup across the Church. I don’t want to see more coverups. I want transparency, humility, metanoia, reparation. But I don’t think the anti-Francis movement has the key in its hands. What they seem to want is a return to the regime of moral rigorism, Manicheism, black and white thinking and scapegoating. I believe with Pope Francis that Mercy is the center and essence of the Gospel Message.

    Reply
    • I think we see here a pristine example of what I like to call Legionnaire’s Disease, a blindness toward disorders at the Vatican. I’ve seen another Legionary on Twitter, one from Canada I believe, who is totally incapable of uttering even the mildest criticism of Francis. I think the source of LD is gratitude to the Vatican for not disbanding the order completely when the stupendous financial and sexual scandal of its founder, Marcial Marciel, was finally brought to light.

      Reply
        • Actually, TR, they pretend to a fairly rigid ‘conservatism’ in moral questions, orthodoxy perhaps being a more accurate word. But the Legion owes its very survival to the Vatican. I thought for years — I always believed Maciel’s accusers because their stories were so very credible — that eventually the Legion would be shut down, disbanded; there was no way this much corruption could possibly be unknown to other Legionaries, in fact, to many, many of them. Beyond that, I heard reports from sources in parishes where the Legion was active through its affiliated organization, Regnum Christi. There was evidence of an unhealthy cliqueism and of secrecy; it mirrored the climate in which the monster Maciel had prospered.

          Much to my disgust, the final decision under Francis was to simply “restructure” the order. Memory fails me, but I seem to recall that there have been more recent stories of scandal associated with the Legion. I refrain from talking about this, though, because the details escape me now (perhaps someone else has the information at hand). The Legion was founded by a monster. Many of its priests are good, I believe, and the Church could benefit from their service. But they need to make a clean break with this organization born in sin and tainted still with horrendous memories.

          Reply
          • Ok, but the poster in question has a long history of liberal posts. I have read his agitprop on other sites. He is a liberal.

          • He substantiated your allegation handsomely right here at 1P5 this morning. Read his rant in response to me above. I’m not sure what complete avoidance of proper paragraphing indicates in the screed, but perhaps it’s something along the lines of locked capital letters throughout. I could almost sense the good padre’s breathlessness and see his crimson face near the end. Of course, he unwittingly did us all a favor by making dismissal of his balderdash that much easier and automatic.

          • There was too much money around for the Legion to be disbanded – one report said that its assets were $25 billion! However vile he was, Maciel was obviously a superb fundraiser, organiser and businessman. Sanctity had nothing to do with it.

      • If you read what I said it does contain a criticism of Pope Francis. I don’t think he handled this matter well. That is my opinion: that Barros should not have been appointed, and that defending him now is unfortunate. But that does not mean that I know anything special about this case than what I read in the papers. But I am totally convinced that the way the above article handles this matter is not so much objective journalism as a manifestation of the Great Anti-Francis Pile-on.

        Reply
        • Read carefully what I posted and you will see that my comment about always refraining from any criticism of Francis is applied to your colleague, a Canadian Legion priest on Twitter. In the Barros case, you have little choice but to concede that Francis made a lousy original decision and that he sticks by that lousy decision today. Perhaps memories of the egregious mistakes John Paul II once made about the accusations against the monster Maciel haunt your memory here and suggest some caution and moderation in your defense of Francis.

          Your blindness prevents you from connecting the dots, from detecting any pattern to the pope’s behavior. Let’s be clear here. The accusations involve a proven sodomite predator in a Roman collar, Fernando Karadima, knowledge of whose crimes and sins Barros is alleged to have had and hidden. As an isolated defense of a fellow priest, Francis’ words concerning the case might be simply lamentable but understandable; after all, the pope is in Rome and the crimes happened in Chile. It would all be, as you put it, unfortunate.

          But, as Steve ably pointed out in his article, we know so much more. We know about Francis’ friendship with the disgraced Danneels; we know about a recent drug-fueled homosexual romp at the Vatican right under the pope’s nose; we know of the favor he has shown the dubious Fr. Jim Martin, a doughty apologist for sodomic leanings; we know of his recent appointment of Roger Mahoney, infamous for his cover-up of sodomic hanky-panky in Los Angeles; we know of the Inzoli case where secular authorities in Italy showed more commons sense than the pope; we know that, while in the US, Francis scandalously flaunted his friendship with a pair of Argentinian sodomites, Yayo Grassi and his “partner,” who seem to think they are somehow “married”; etc. I could go on, but I suspect you read the papers and know all this and more already. It is Legionnaire’s Disease that prevents you from saying anything beyond the obvious, viz. “I don’t think he handled this matter well.”

          Reply
          • I’ve read it carefully. It refers to me directly (The sentence beginning with “I think we see here” refers to my post doesn’t it?) and then it gives another anonymous Legionary as as an example of “Legionaire’s disease” which supposedly we all have. If you had read my posts with care you would see that I have admitted that some Legionaries were blind to things happening in front of their faces. I will also admit that I went along for a very long time with the founder’s affirmations that everything was calumny. This has taught me that making judgements about people is a difficult business. And that I am also perhaps not the greatest judge of human character on the face of the earth. We all knew of grave accustations made against our founder. With time it become evident that they were based on facts. I will also admit to you my opinion that Pope John Paul II made grave errors regarding our founder. Yet the Church has affirmed his sanctity. That teaches that even saints can make grave errors in judging people. I would suggest that you grow up a little, mature a little, and restrain your harsh judgements of other human beings.. And there exists such a thing as calumny You could also connect some dots about people who like sowing calumnies in the calumny laden press. You should try being Pope. I am not licking the boots of anyone, but I believe people should be treated with respect and decency. And I can see plainly when that respect is lacking.

          • I’ve never read any of your posts before the one that initiated this exchange. To begin with, the other Legionary needn’t remain anonymous; his name is Fr Matthew Schneider. As for the rest of your post above, I’ve noticed that most people who talk of ‘calumny’ are….well, let’s be generous ….. imprecise, and that what they call calumnies today turn out to be headlines and formal indictments tomorrow (e.g. the dozens of alleged ‘calumnies’ against priests in Boston more than a decade ago). Instead of suggesting you “grow up a little,” I’ll suggest you learn a lesson from your self-described lengthy record of mistaken judgments. That experience would seem to indicate you could profit by being a bit more realistic about your present and future assessments.

          • I don’t like talking about calumny either. Our founder always spoke of calumnies against him, and I never liked that. One went along with it because it is part of the mythic structure of the Congregation that one joins: the founder is a saint, one must imbibe the charism and the spirituality. And you are right: often, when there is smoke there is also fire. So I have learned something from my mistaken judgements. I have learned not to judge; one’s judgements can be mistaken. I don’t like people who talk about slander but neither do I like people who go around slandering or spreading and repeating slanderous discourse from the internet. Pope Francis does not go around talking on and on about being slandered like our founder did. Here he is not complatining about being slandered but about another person’s being slandered. He has consistently defended Barros and that consistency says something.Maybe Francis is lying. Maybe he is getting old and starting to dodder. But maybe, knowing things that we don’t know, he has come to conclusions that are founded. I don’t exclude that. But Francis certainly is the victim of a constant and shameless pounding from outfits such as One Peter Five; Lifesitenews; and to a lesser extent from more mainstream conservative Catholic press that too often are fellow travellers with the paranoiac, Manichean, Catholic Right. So there was a homosexual orgy in the Vatican. Was the Pope responsible for that? Did he not react to it? The anti-Francis faction would never give him credit for it had he reacted to it. I’m sure he did react to it in a discrete way, which was probably the best way to do it. But no, according to the anti-Francis crowd the Pope is pro-gay, and he was probably there at the orgy and would be all for a brave future of countless orgies in the Vatican, for that is the kind of guy that he is according to Lifesitenews, One Peter Five and company. (But one forgets all the times that Francis has spoken out with tremendous courageous clarity against the clericalism and luxurious lifestyles from which clerical immorality breeds. But that does not fit into the anti-Francis discourse. In fact the anti-Francis faction seems to bond with clericalists, with their cigars and fine wines, who gather to spread the latest gossip about this liberal Pope who is the enemy of all morality. Francis is not pro-gay. He is simply pro-decency. And I dare to say the same thing about Father Martin. Most Legionaries would probably ostracize me for saying it. Father Martin is a highly decent and Christian person who happens to take it upon himself to exercize the Christian virtues of tolerance, charity and decency with homosexual persons and has payed the price for his intestinal fortitude it by earning the wrath of hate-pedlars who dare to call themselves Christians. He is not pro-gay. Not in the sense that the hate pedlars mean it when they sneeringly use that word about him. What word did you use to describe him? Doughy? But Father Martin is giving testimony to real human and Christian principles of decency, tolerance and charity. Hate-filled people are frauds. So what if Francis has a friendly relationship with a homosexual couple (or whatever terminology you prefer to use regarding people who are, in spite of everything our brothers and sisters). What kind of relation would you prefer: no relation? a hate-relation? I suppose you do not know any gay people yourself, that you do not have any in your family or in your Church? Is your only relationship with them writing nasty stuff about them in blogs where you enjoy your little safe space of being surrounded by people who do the same thing. That is your idea of being a real man, not like Pope Francis, who is a liberal creep who says things lke “who am i to judge?” I have followed the controversy around Amoris Laetitia closely. What the Pope does in that document is simply to insist on a solidly pastoral way of dealing with people in irregular situations. He has done nothing more and nothing less. He has insisted on decency, on charity, on truthfully and objectively discerning individual situations under the light of the Gospel. The whole heresy witch-hunt against Amoris Laetitia is fraudulent, not based on facts. Go back and read it! Pope Francis behaves decently and as a good Christian, and is dismissed as a left-wing, liberal heretic for doing so.

          • So, let’s see, Father, if I have this right. If Francis were hobnobbing in public with the likes of David Duke, smiling and embracing those in Duke’s entourage, you’d say those who criticized him for doing so were just “fellow travelers with the paranoiac, Manichean, Catholic Right”? And if clerics he trusted organized a cross burning inside the Vatican, you’d say “Was the Pope responsible for that”? Whom exactly do you think your charade here is fooling? Your problem is that, unlike Jim Martin, you’re not clever enough to successfully hide an agenda of passivity or worse in the presence of serious challenges to the Church’s constant teachings. Of course the disastrous papacy of Francis doesn’t faze you; you agree with his fundamental notions!

            Thanks for fulsomely confirming the allegation printed below of TR-22; you are indeed the liberal in sheep’s clothing whose postings he had previously seen. Your jeremiad also helps expose the continuing corruption of the Legion. No one should be fooled by its professions of orthodoxy and piety today any more than during the heyday of the arch criminal Maciel. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice….

          • The Pope does not hob-nob with the likes of David Duke. You’ve got the Pope confused with Trump who knows the kind of people that were there in Charlottesville with their torches, the David Dukes and that, and told us “there are many good people among them.” I am not sure what you are saying. I think you are saying that Fr. Martin is the moral equivalent of David Duke. I find that insinuation revolting. The Pope is responsible for what goes on inside the Vatican. That is why I would hope that reacted properly in a decent Christian way to that homosexual orgy. You who only read One Peter Five and such assume that the Pope is so gay/pro-gay that he doesn’t mind at all if there are homosexual orgies in the Vatican. Doesn’t it say in Amoris Laetitia that homosexual orgies are a good thing? Why don’t we start that rumor. It would be no less based in fact than all the other things that are being said about the doctrine taught by the Pope which have no basis in fact. With regard to the right and the left: the Pope is neither left nor right. The anti-Francis wing paints him as left because they have the infantile ideological notion which equates left with evil. The Pope used the word “slander” with regard to the treatment of Barrios; but he didn’t say he was being slandered by Karadima’s victims; he said he was being slandered by. the left. But the anti-Francis doesn’t care about anything except having stones to throw at Francis, because he has discovered their hypocrisy. It drives them wild. But the Pope has not misbehaved. You should read what Austen Ivereigh says about Francis and the Barrios case. There you have a gentleman. Francis is also a gentleman. He has made no wild attacks against his enemies. He has been restrained. And he has dedicated himself to the teaching of faith and morals. His critics pretend to be be the champions of morality. But the Pope calls out their moral hypocrisy, not by getting personal but simply by insisting on basic Christian teachings about respect and decency and refraining from judgement. The very case of Barrios shows that: that he has the guts to follow his convictions even when that is not at all politically correct. The Pope is a man made of whole cloth.

          • Father — how should I put this delicately? OK, I know – you’re making an ass of yourself. You’re clearly unsettled because someone challenges your Weltanschauung. It makes you discursive, prolix, and prone to errors (e.g. the bishop in question’s name is Barros, not “Barrios” as you would have it, and none of us has a clue about what an “anti-Francis” is, nor can we follow your multiple and dizzying changes of grammatical number in the same sentence).

            I have a suggestion. Try to follow the example of your Canadian colleague in the Legion, Fr. Schneider. He may be weak when it comes to accurately assessing Francis’ performance as a pope, but at least he can follow an argument by analogy and he knows how to make his posts visually accessible to his audience. (You might find that valerian root helps you in your struggle. A cup of tea made with this natural herb followed by a couple of hours away from your keyboard could be just the ticket!)

          • Thanks for your tips. I have posted the revised version now, and I hope that it is more forcefully expressed.

          • Again, while this may be more digestible in form, it still falls way short of the mark intellectually. My reference to Duke was a comparison to Francis’ very public meeting in the US with two Argentinian sodomites who think they can “marry.” Both the fantasy and the true meetings are clearly scandalous in substance; only apologists for the ongoing Bergoglian disaster like you would fail to see that. You’re as blind to this reality as you are to the fact that Francis is a run-of-the-mill Latin American leftist who is causing immense harm to the Church with his shenanigans. To start to cure this blindness, try reading The Dictator Pope while you’re sipping that cup of valerian root tea I recommended.

          • Don’t make of yourself a discerning intellectual when all you really are selling is your personal distaste for certain persons. Jesus spent time with prostitutes and publicans. This scandalized people who did not bother to ask themselves what he actually was doing. Jesus was applying God’s mercy to sinners. He was not just hobnobbing (your wonderful verb) with sinners. The whole message of Pope Francis is that we should deal with others as Jesus did. Pope Francis has illustrated this basic principle in his way of dealing with homosexual people. This is why homosexual people show their appreciation for Pope Francis.

          • It’s a distaste born of actions, mon père. I didn’t start out disliking Francis; he earned my aversion by hard work. Same thing goes for your organization. I once thought it was something good for the Church. Then the facts about its loathsome founder and others associated with it emerged. I changed my mind about the Legion just as I did about Francis. Francis doesn’t simply apply mercy to sinners, as you pretend; he promotes them. Wake up.

          • I was talking about your way of speaking about homosexuals, which doesn’t seem to evince a moral and much less a Christian attitude but a condemning attitude, they are not persons for you, it seems, they äre “sodomites” a term which evinces your affective attitude toward them. As for the Legion of Christ, I find it much more likeable now than a number of years ago when we were full of vain illusions.

          • I know it’s not popular any longer to call a spade a spade, especially among those inclined to emotivism. But I prefer clear language so I regularly use terms like sodomite, murderer, thief, adulterer, etc. I prefer to leave linguistic fudging up to liberals like Martin, Kasper and Marx. They’re so good at it, after all.

          • No the rigorists are moral relativists. I only insist on behaving with decency and not judging people. The rigorists are the one’s who have a hidden agenda.

      • Johnny, this is a wonderful new disease you have so ably diagnosed.

        Of course, Legionnaire’s Disease is rife throughout all kinds of institutions, not just the Vatican and the Legionaries of Christ. Jimmy Savile was one of the most famous people in Britain. He was knighted by the Queen and Pope JP2 (hey, he was a good Catholic boy, as well as being rich and famous!). He was a huge celebrity on the BBC. He was friends with Margaret Thatcher. He raised tens of millions for charity. For over forty years no one noticed that he was an insatiable paedophile and necrophile…..well, er, er, quite a few people did, apart from the hundreds he raped. But hardly anyone wanted to see. He was even depicted as a molester in an Irvine Welsh novel in 1996. But he survived even that.

        https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/01/james-mcavoy-jimmy-savile-irvine-welsh

        Reply
        • So many cases of this disease, Bill, that it’s hard to keep track. I had heard Savile’s name but did not know about this background; thanks for summing it up. We have to ask, don’t we, what is it about power that blinds men to perversity? Why do authorities, both secular and ecclesiastic, feel obliged to turn a blind eye when, say, the likes of B J Clinton and JFK rape and abuse interns in the Oval Office, but come down like lead on some hapless sap, say a teacher or store clerk, who is even accused of patting a young lady’s derrière?

          Reply
          • My favourite episode in the whole Savile saga was the story that he acted as marriage counseller to Prince Charles and Lady Di. Charles was full of praise for his charity work. Almost as good was the time he was appointed as a special governor to Broadmoor Hospital, an infamous institution caring for our very worst deranged criminals. As the wags said, this was really giving the lunatic the keys to the asylum.

            I met Savile briefly in 1982. I did not get any favourable or unfavourable impression of him. But the charity for which I volunteered was totally in the grip of Legionnaires Disease.

    • You completely abuse mercy.

      Or you do not understand that mercy and justice, like spouses and like the Trinity, are one.

      This Pope is PURE distilled and concentrated EVIL!

      Reply
    • So in your first sentence you say the Pope did not accuse the victims of slander. In your second sentence you say he accused some people of slander who claimed there was a cover up.
      Now who might possibly be claiming there was a cover up? Hmm the victims, maybe?
      This black and white thinking is really a bitch, doncha think.

      Reply
      • Time for a little lesson in reading comprehension: My thesis is that the headline is misleading, because it makes it sound like the Pope is denying that the sexual abuse involved in this case occurred, whereas the Pope affirms that there is no evidence of a coverup by Bishop Barros, who was indeed close to Karadima. One of the victims claims that Bishop Barros was present while he was abused. Bishop Barros denies this flatly. Those are the facts and I am aware of them. I am not saying that Pope Francis acted correctly in this matter. I am observing how the anti-Francis faction is making use of it.

        Reply
        • And yet I only addressed your first two sentences of your opening post, not some impression one may or may not get from the headline.

          You contradicted yourself 180 degrees in the first two sentences of your opening post and reguse to see it.

          Maybe it is you who needs reading comprehension. Or a lesson in the law of non contradiction.

          Reply
          • Several of the abused say Barros was present when they were abused. This means, I suppose that he saw what happened to them. If someone sees something and does nothing that could be the basis ot an accusation of COVERUP. Still, knowing something and not acting is not the same as coverup. And secondly Barros denies what the victims said about his being present. So who is telling the truth? Do you know? Keep in mind we are talking about coverup not about the sexual abuse itself. The whole issue is about coverup. (Which is not the impression one gets from the headline; a headline ought to avoid giving a false impression.) Now the Pope says that he has seen the evidence in the case and has found it to be insubstantial. I am now in the presupposition that the evidence in question refers to or includes the testimony of the above mentioned victims. Why the Holy Father considers it to be insubstantial is not clear. But there could be reasons. I myself am not happy with the situation. But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. You might try reading this also: https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2018/01/22/franciss-defense-barros-may-not-satisfy-victims-right-thing/. Mr. Ivereigh defends Pope Francis. You don’t have to agree with him, but I find his tone at least fair.
            If you had read my whole post you would realize that it makes sense and there is no contradiction. You can’t just read things the way you want to read them.

          • 1. In that Cruxnow piece linked above, Ivereigh says that Pope Francis “apologized” for his use of the word “calumny”. As far as I can tell from the text of the plane press conference, this is simply false: the Pope stuck by his accusation of calumny.

            2. Pope Francis doesn’t seem to know what calumny is.

            Pope Francis says: “[It is] calumny, [if] anyone says with obstinacy, without evidence, that he did this, he did that… it is calumny.”

            False. Calumny occurs when Jack, knowing full well that Bill has not committed a wrongful act, puts about the lie that Bill has done this act, with the intent of damaging Bill’s reputation.

            Lack of evidence is not a constitutive element of the sin. For various reasons, Jack may not be able to prove with evidence to others (beyond his own word) that Bill in fact did the deed, and yet it may be appropriate and non-calumnious for Jack to try and let others know of Bill’s deed even if he can’t offer any further evidence than his word.

            Now, Pope Francis doesn’t KNOW that the alleged victims are lying about Barros. He says he doesn’t have any “evidence” that Barros is guilty and so he goes by the legal principle “innocent until proven guilty”. Fair enough. But, by the same token, the lack of evidence before Pope Francis doesn’t PROVE that Barros is actually innocent and that the victims, knowing this, are certainly lying with the intent of destroying Barros’s reputation, so guilty of calumny.

            As I’ve just explained with Jack and Bill above, it could be that the actions Barros is accused of indeed happened in a way that doesn’t leave “evidence” beyond the verbal testimony of each side, and that the victims felt the need to speak out in case Barros were to be placed in positions of ecclesiastical responsibility, possibly leading to further such crimes. In other words, that their protests have nothing whatever to do with the sin of calumny.

            In making the charge of calumny, Pope Francis (“Who am I to judge?”) is unfairly failing to allow for this rather obvious alternative scenario, and so may well be guilty himself of the sin of rash judgement.

          • The Pope didn’t accuse the victims of calumny. He spoke of the calumny realized by those who affirmed coverup without having proof. Then on the plane back home he apologized for the employment of the word PROOF in that context: the Holy Father said the word he really should have used was EVIDENCE. (This also means that he apologized for his way of speaking about calumny; it doesn’t mean that he didn’t want to say anything about calumny. What he really meant to say was that those who affirming that Bishop Barros committed a coverup without having EVIDENCE are committing calumny. . He is not referring to witnesses who could hypothetically come forward to give testimony about coverup. A witness gives evidence. A witness has evidence to give. The Holy Father thus does understand what calumny is. If I know something I can testify to it. If I accuse someone of something without knowledge (and thus without being able to testify) I am commiting calumny.

          • Thanks.
            1. Ivereigh (among others) believes P.F. was accusing the victims of calumny. “Karadima victim unhappy that Pope has described his allegations re Barros as baseless slander.” (Twitter)

            It makes sense anyway that P.F. meant this. If P.F. is “convinced” as he admits that Barros is innocent, then it seems to me he MUST accordingly believe that the Karadima victims, who strongly affirm that he (Barros) was present at Karadima’s assaults, were saying something they knew not to be true – an element of the sin of calumny.

            2. re: ‘Hearsay is not evidence.” The rules concerning the admissibility of certain classes of hearsay evidence in Common Law Criminal judicial proceedings are irrelevant to the elements of the sin of calumny. One can reasonably rely on hearsay evidence to form a belief. My belief in the apparitions at Fatima in 1917 is entirely based on hearsay, but, I submit, not unreasonable for being so. Those who trust the abuse victims’ testimony re. Barros’s (alleged) presence at Karadima’s crimes can form a justifiable, reasonable belief that he was present, regardless as to whether their hearsay evidence which grounds their belief would be admitted in a criminal proceeding. That is to say : they can have knowledge – or at least a bona fide belief – that Barros was present, even if the “evidence” (testimony of the victims’ testimony that this was so – ie, hearsay) is not admissible evidence in a court. (Note: I’m not saying Barros was present, or that he was not.)

            3. To repeat: calumny is not as such to do with evidence, let alone proof * ; it occurs when Bob, who KNOWS or at least believes Bill DIDN’T do an evil act X, lies about this and says he DID do X, with the intent of destroying Bill’s good name. This may not the case re. the victims, and it may equally well not be the case with any of those who have come to believe the victims’ account on the basis of the victims’ testimony.

            ( * Lack of evidence may itself be evidence that calumny has been committed. But it is not itself an element of the sin of calumny. Pope Francis is confused on this.

            In any case, he is wrong to assert lack of evidence here, even on the part of the victims’ supporters ; the testimony of the victims is itself a category of evidence. And it is so even when, as hearsay evidence, it grounds the belief in the minds of their supporters. Again: we must distinguish between evidence as such, and evidence admissible in a court of law. An imputation of the sin of calumny does not rest on the definitions of admissible evidence in contemporary legal codes. )

    • And as a Legionary of Christ, I can testify to the phenomenon of people not seeing what is in front of their face. This happened with us. It could have also happened to Bishop Barros. I am not saying that it normal not to see what is in front of your face. I am saying that it happens.

      Reply
  43. As evidence that this may, in fact, cause Francis to lose support, I offer that thanks to it, Sean Cardinal O’Malley (of all people) has DUBI(A)ous distinction of “Cardinal who has criticized the Pope for something.”

    I’ve also noticed that in the years immediately following the Conclave, so many personalities in Catholic media tweet, posted and made videos taking about how much they loved Pope Francis, or how great he was or how good his pontificate is/was going to be for the Church. No…nary a peep. I’m not sure if it’s because they themselves have #FrancisFatigue or they just know that anything about the Pope will likely unleash an onslaught of criticism from (most) faithful Catholics but either way…it is telling

    Reply
    • Good point. I think in this instance +O’Malley is more afraid of guilt by association than afraid of what Bergoglio might do to him for opposing him.

      Reply
      • Yes. He is acutely aware of this, no doubt, due to his being the successor of Cardinal Law and Archbishop of the Archdiocese in which the crisis first broke.

        Reply
    • The funny thing is that in the secular world, and among the effete clergy, there are a couple of topics that are still viewed as intrinsically wrong. You can defend sodomy, you can nuance baby murder, you can embrace gender confusion, but for now you cannot defend child abuse. Speaking against an abuse protector is seen as good work among the masses. This is one weak spot where Pope Humble is in trouble.

      Reply
      • I think a large problem is that no one is willing to actually discuss the real reasons that there was such widespread sex abuse in the Church in the first place. I remember one of the very first times I was ever blocked by somebody on Facebook was because I dared to state that the problem was not a pedophilia scandal but a homosexual ephebophilia one.

        Reply
        • Right, it is as if you cursed their mother. The conscience is so seared and deformed that they see love of sodomy as no big problem. Total inversion.

          Reply
        • Just so. Eliminate the homosexual element from this equation and Bernie Law would have gotten many more years at the head of the Boston Archdiocese. Sure, there were a few priests who molested women, but their number is dwarfed by the huge number of perverts like Paul Shanley and John Geoghan.

          Reply
          • I noticed how the movie Spotlight about the crisis in Boston Archdiocese obscured this point. A character declared that 30% of the victims of clerical abuse were female. Well, that’s Hollywood. No one in the movie business is going to admit that the abuse crisis was overwhelmingly a sodomy problem – not after decades of pro-gay propaganda.

    • Love the tortured pun, Thomas! When you have guys like my parish priest declaring that PF is one of the greatest popes in history (OK, my PP did explain that the 2004 tsunami was a consequence of global warming) ….there’s going to be an awful lot of people denying three times that they ever knew PF.

      Reply
      • Ironic. The other day I found myself saying he is surely among the most tragic figures in human history. The only other one in worse shape that comes to mind is Judas. This man had the opportunity to do so much for Christ and His Church and all he has done is deconstruction of God’s great gift to us and a pitifully comic job of self-promotion.

        Reply
  44. We must convince Catholics now that this Pope and all that has gone on for almost 5 years is a direct result of, and punishment for, the sins of the world. Someone added up all the venial sins committed by all Catholics if each one committed one a day. We’re talking almost 2 billion – and we wonder why the destruction of our Church is well underway. What about the close to a billion babies killed by their mothers around the world since Roe vs Wade…and the acts of sodomy around the world, the enslavement of millions to poverty because of the greed and fraud of others….if we think times are hard, why would they be better?

    That is the hardest task now: how the heck to we convince people to stop sinning? What is sin? Who says? What I do isn’t sin, it’s just my weakness…God is Merciful, and the Church NOW teaches that God will forgive….how to combat that without sounding like Torquemada?

    When I was growing up the Sisters talked non-stop doom and gloom and sin, sin, sin. Now Sisters have disappeared, and so has sin. That’s why we have this Pope.

    Reply
  45. When will this constant stench of feces out of the Vatican end? And why is it that liberal progressives seem to enjoy this smell, as if it were roses! How angry God must be at us to deserve such a Pope.

    Reply

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