(Image: Pope John Paul II in attendance with leaders of various world religions at the ecumenical gathering in Assisi on October 27, 1986. Source: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano)
Today, on a fateful anniversary — the thirtieth anniversary of the original Assisi meeting, at which 32 Christian and 11 non-Christian groups were present — we would like to share with our readers the scathing account furnished by Henry Sire in his book Phoenix from the Ashes. This except will give a taste of Sire’s book, a must-read for all Catholics who seek to understand what has happened in the past fifty years and why.
An excerpt from Henry Sire, Phoenix from the Ashes (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015), 382–88. With permission of the publisher:
Even graver, of course, than practical failure are the heretical principles which infused the ecumenical movement and by which it corrupted the understanding of the faithful. The indifferentism lurking in several of the Vatican Council’s documents was made explicit by the liberal ecumenists. The concept of ecumenism proclaimed by John XXIII in the Encyclical Ad Cathedram Petri (1959), which was that of a return to the unity of the Catholic Church, was replaced by one in which the Roman Church is one of a scattering of churches seeking mutual conciliation. This notion is presented as an established truth by the current Encyclopaedia Britannica. Fr. John L. McKenzie, SJ, a well-known scholar selected to write the article on Roman Catholicism, states that since the Vatican Council, “the Roman Catholic Church has officially abandoned its ‘one true church’ position.”25 In saying this, he is expressing what most Catholics have been led to believe, and especially what the consensus of the Church’s Modernist theologians has been teaching. The idea that the Church has officially adopted a heretical view of its own nature is one of the products of the Second Vatican Council and is the premise on which its ecumenical programme has been founded. Those who rely on a legalistic exculpation of the Church will protest that there is no doctrinal basis for it; but the substance of the matter is not the Church’s innocence in word but its guilt in promoting the heresy in practice.
Nevertheless, the worst enormity of the ecumenical movement has not yet been touched on. In this case, exceptionally, the guilt does not belong to the Second Vatican Council, nor to Paul VI. It is found in the perversion introduced into the ecumenical movement by John Paul II, who turned it from a search for Christian unity to a general convergence of world religions. Several times in his reign this false direction led him into shocking associations with paganism. Thus, during his visit to India in February 1982, he allowed a Hindu priestess to impose the mark of Telak on him, and another a few days later to smear sacred ashes on his forehead in a Hindu ritual. In 1995, in Australia, he conducted the beatification Mass of Mary of the Cross McKillop, at which the penitential rite was replaced by a ritual taken from aboriginal fire worship.
But these exhibitions were outdone by the pope’s project of summoning leaders of all the world’s religions to join him at Assisi in October 1986 with the object of praying together for world peace. At this meeting, under the pope’s presidency, representatives of many Christian churches, together with an assortment of Hindus, Tibetan lamas, Japanese bonzes, tribal snake worshippers, and animists of all sorts performed their respective rites, some of the less mainstream officiants showing a little embarrassment at having to exhibit their customs outside the privacy of their native groves. For a day, the town of St. Francis was given over to displays of pagan worship. Cardinal Silvio Oddi reported that a group of Buddhists entered the church of San Pietro, set up a statue of Buddha on the tabernacle of the altar and venerated it with prayer scrolls and incense; when a Benedictine priest protested at the sacrilege he was taken away by the police.26 These activities, all conducted at the pope’s behest, provoke the question what meaning John Paul attached to the first Commandment, by order and by importance, “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.”
But before considering this moral point, let us look at the rationale of Pope John Paul’s policy of a union of all faiths, including paganism. The first question that arises is what duty Christians have to such a policy. What we owe to pagans is good sense as human beings and charity as Christians; but neither of those involves treating Christianity and mythological religions as all part of an underlying spiritual reality. A friendly meeting between the pope and the Dalai Lama could have little harm in it, but that does not imply behaving as if Buddhism were a legitimate expression of divine truth, let alone encouraging its practice. Next to this question, we may ask what use it can be for the Catholic Church to make a rapprochement to Buddhists, Hindus, and tribal shamans. These religions have no defined moral or doctrinal code with which Christianity could make common cause, and the practical aims that can be served by collaboration with Protestants do not apply.
In a more conceptual line, we may be tempted to ask what reasoning should prompt Christianity to consider itself at one with religions of ancestral mythology. We do not usually find medical practitioners going into congress with tribal witch doctors, on the grounds that they share a heart-warming impulse to cure the sick. A more analytical purpose is called for, and in Pope John Paul’s gesture one does not see what it is. The basis of Christian belief is not a human instinct of religion but the objective revelation of God. It may be an exaggeration to say that Christianity would rather take irreligious philosophers as its fellow seekers of truth; but it would have more of a logical basis to it, and give less of a false impression. From the conceptual point of view, John Paul II would have been better justified in holding meetings with philosophers and scientists than with worshippers of anthropomorphic and theromorphic gods.
Thus, we may ask what compelling cause moved Pope John Paul to hold this union of prayer, setting aside the Church’s tradition against fellowship with false religions. If the prayer meeting of the world’s faiths had been provoked by a visitation of the Black Death, there might have been voices heard asking why the intercession of snake worshippers was called for by the exigency. But it was summoned to pray for world peace, the cliché of Miss World contestants, and with that modish justification the voice of Sinai could be stilled. Linked to this question is another, regarding the particular direction taken by John Paul’s reaching out to other religions. We may ask why he stopped at the Hindu rites and the Australian fire ceremony; why, for example, did we never hear John Paul II declaring his admiration for polygamy as an expression, albeit not quite the Christian one, of the goodness of the married state, or praising female circumcision as an assertion, in its own truth-seeking way, of the virtue of chastity? The answer to that question lies not in principles of religious brotherhood but in the conventions of modern Western opinion. Polygamy and female circumcision are practices that sophisticated liberals feel themselves entitled to despise, whereas celebrating the equality of all religions is a position they reward with unqualified applause.
To illustrate this, we may go back to the fact remarked on earlier, the failure of the Church to seek alliance with Protestant fundamentalists in moral causes. We see here a test of the claims that the ideal of ecumenism is one of friendship with all religions. Of course it is nothing of the sort. Ecumenism as the liberals understand it means friendship with politically correct religions. To the high-caste ecumenist, Protestant fundamentalists are Untouchables, by whose proximity he would be defiled. As understood by John Paul II and the Church he led, ecumenism was rooted in the conventions of Western liberalism, which dictated that the movement would in no case seek practical policies for the strengthening of Christianity, but only gestures of empty amiability. John Paul II called the prayer meeting at Assisi because that was the sort of demonstration that Western opinion applauded. He may not have realised it, and zealous ecumenists will doubtless reject the charge, but that is because they have more unction than self-awareness. Naturally, nothing pleases unbelievers better than to see the Catholic Church put itself on a level with superstitious religions, and they will be quick to condemn the arrogance and bigotry of those who challenge the concept. With that position John Paul’s policy was well in harmony.
He took ecumenism on the course that any enemy of Christianity would have wished for it: he diverted it from a movement intended to unify Christians into one of aimless confounding of faiths. In its practical effects, the influence of the prayer meeting at Assisi could only be to encourage the belief, already well rooted among hazy-minded Catholics, that all the world’s religions are manifestations of the same great truth, and we should pick whichever one of them gives us the best of a warm inner feeling. This estimate will doubtless offend the adepts of liberalism, and they will call it an example of the bigoted absolutism that the Second Vatican Council repudiated. Those who think on those lines believe that the Church shows its Christ-like humility the more it abases itself and surrenders its claims. There may be many who are honestly convinced of that, not considering that it is also the Church’s duty to make itself known as the voice of divine authority. The view is also encouraged by those who do not want that authority recognised, and who prefer to obscure the difference between Christian humility and the degradation of the Church that its enemies would prescribe for it.
We need, however, to turn to a graver question. The appeal to the Second Vatican Council was freely made in justifying the prayer meeting at Assisi, and one would like to refute it by saying that nothing in the Council’s documents proposed such an act or authorised Catholics to associate with idolatry. One would say so if the appeal had not been made by Pope John Paul himself. He, who had attended all the sessions of the Council, emphatically asserted that the meeting of Assisi was a fulfilment of the Council’s spirit. There we have it, then, from no less an interpretative source than a pope. The meaning of the Second Vatican Council is that Catholics should encourage idolatrous worship and associate themselves with it in their prayers. If that is true, it is a far more serious indictment of the Council than any I have made hitherto. The religious subjectivism implied in the Declaration on Religious Liberty bears fruit in the syncretism of the Assisi meeting. The foundation of religion becomes not the God who reveals himself to man but the religious instinct of man, groping for faith, whatever its object may be. It will be a matter for future popes and councils to decide whether that was truly what the Council meant or whether the aberration belongs entirely to Pope John Paul II.
Needless to say, the pope has his official defenders, even from the vantage point of orthodoxy. There are those who rebuke his critics’ evil minds, protesting that he has been misinterpreted: that nothing was further from his intention than an indifferentist or syncretist concept of worship. The understanding of John Paul’s mind is indeed a difficult task, in this as elsewhere.27 Nevertheless, the disavowal does not take us very far; one might as well protest that Alexander VI has been misinterpreted as one who condoned clerical concubinage and nepotism. A pope’s actions are what they are, and scandal is not dismissed by distinctions between what he did and what he can be argued to have meant. However benign John Paul’s intentions were, they were tainted by a humanist philosophy that makes man the reference point of religious expression, and forgets that our duty to the one true God infinitely outweighs all other relations.
Let us be clear: the guilt of the prayer meeting at Assisi did not lie in the gathering of non-Christian religions. It lay in the acts of idolatrous worship that the pope caused to be performed as the deliberate component of his gesture. The teaching of the Church for centuries condemned the participation of Christians in the prayers of a false religion, let alone the countenancing of idolatrous worship. This is not the arrogance of an established church but goes back to the earliest time of Christianity. In the primitive discipline of the Church, idolatry was an unforgivable sin, one that debarred even a penitent sinner from return to communion. In its efforts to win their conformity, the pagan empire laid before Christians easy, formal gestures of loyalty: to swear by the genius of the emperor, to offer a pinch of incense to his statue. But the Church would have none of it; a pinch of incense offered to a false god was an enormity, to be refused even at the cost of martyrdom. When the Christians gained power in the empire, they did not set out to impose Christianity, but on one thing they were adamant, the prohibition of idolatry, of sacrifices to the pagan gods. The priests kept their wealth and honours, and pagans could continue to teach their myths, but Christians could not tolerate the practice of idolatry where they had the power to prevent it. We can imagine the incredulity and horror with which those early Christians, including the many who shed their blood for the true God, would have learnt that one day a bishop of Rome would gather together pagan votaries and invite them to perform their idolatrous rites, confounding them with his own.
But let us suppose that the usual appeal made to the early Church is rejected, that we declare it here to have been completely misguided. We can turn to scripture and ask where we find in it any hint of a duty of fellowship with pagan religions. The teaching is exactly the other way. We may listen to St. Paul again: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light and darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:14–17).
But let us insist that ecumenical virtue is too self-evident to be denied by apostolic gainsaying; let us look for it in the example of Christ himself, of that all-tolerant Christ whose spirit, according to the liberals, has been betrayed by a self-regarding church. This Christ, according to the same liberal doctrine, was the strictly orthodox rabbi who had no thought of deviating from traditional Judaism. And the idea is not without foundation. The reason why we get the impression from the Gospels of Palestine as a purely Judaic community is precisely that Jesus and his apostles were so careful in avoiding pagan contamination. The Hellenising rulers of Palestine had filled the land with theatres, gymnasiums, baths, and even pagan temples that showed the country’s immersion in the cosmopolitan culture of the time. If Jesus had wanted to teach a lesson of concord with all religions, he was surrounded by opportunities for it.
Instead he taught that “salvation is of the Jews,” with such strictness that it required a special revelation to St. Peter after the Ascension to persuade the apostles that Gentiles could be admitted to baptism. During his own mission, Our Lord would only preach to Jews, and sent his disciples only to them. When he was approached by the Canaanite woman who begged him to cure her daughter of possession, he refused at first to speak to her, declaring, “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel. But she came and adored him, saying: Lord, help me. Who answering said: It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs” (Matt. 15:24–26). This, of course, was not an exhibition of bigotry; it was a lesson of the exclusive truth of divine revelation. St. John gives us the reply of Christ in the closely parallel encounter with the Samaritan woman: “You adore that which you know not; we adore that which we know” (John 4:22).
When the ecumenists insist, then, that all these texts are outweighed by the duty of charity and understanding, they are setting up a human standard that is contradicted by every guide given to us by tradition and scripture. But in the last analysis this is not a question of texts and arguments; it is a question of the absolute commandment of God. When it comes to John Paul II’s misguided gesture at Assisi, we may point to the contradiction with the perennial teaching of the Church; we may comment on the muddle-headed thinking that led John Paul to turn ecumenism into a rapprochement to pagan religions; we may lament the injury done to the recognition of divine truth; but the primary evil does not lie in those things. It lies in the fact that at Assisi in 1986 Pope John Paul II departed from the example of Christ, whose representative on Earth he was, and committed a grave and public sin against the first commandment.
Before Christ began his teaching mission, he was subjected to three great temptations, which had regard not to sin but to three essential errors that he might commit in attracting mankind to his truth (Luke 4:1–13). There were no witnesses to his encounter in the desert, but Our Lord told his disciples of it, to warn them against falling into those false methods. The devil came to him and first of all suggested that Christ should win over followers by offering them the material things they craved; but he replied that men must be persuaded not by bread but by the truth of his divine doctrine. Then the devil urged that Christ should overwhelm disbelief with great miracles that would leave beholders no choice but to accept him; but Christ replied that it is not for men to put God to the test, to make their belief dependent on blinding proofs. Finally came an astonishing bid for submission: “And the devil led him into a high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; And he said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them.” He was offering to surrender all opposition to Christ then and for all time; and in return he wanted no more than a token: “If thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be thine.” The reward offered was incalculable; the price was no more than a gesture. But Christ replied that no good, however immense, can justify the turning away of the worship that is owed to God alone. Since the Second Vatican Council we have seen the Catholic Church fall into each one of the errors against which its Founder warned it: clamouring for stones to be turned into bread to feed the poor, flinging itself from the house of prayer so that the world might admire its abasement in the gutter, and associating itself with false worship in the hope that mankind should be won over by its humility and breadth of spirit.
- John L. McKenzie SJ, “Roman Catholicism,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, p. 912.
- Cardinal Oddi in an interview to Tommaso Ricci in 30 Dias, November 1990, p. 64.
- One analysis of Pope John Paul’s writings, with a disturbing estimate of his doctrinal understanding as a whole, is given by the Rev. Johannes Dörmann in Pope John Paul II’s Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1995). The author’s interpretation may be disputed, but it is worth remarking that he was not a follower of the traditionalist movement, let alone of any of its extremist tendencies.
A very timely reminder that the apostasy from the Catholic Faith did not begin with Frankenpope.
After reading Randy Engal’s book “The Rite of Sodomy”, it is very clear that the last truly “Catholic” pope was Pius XII. She laid out in painstaking documented detail how every pope since Pius XII (most) knowingly and intentionally embraced the heresy of Modernism or turned a blind eye to it, not to mention the Homosexual Collective which all these modern era popes either supported, covered for, and/or were homosexually inclined. She laid out a pretty good case as to Paul VI being an active homosexual. Pretty sad stuff. At the end of the book, I wondered if the Sedevacantists might be right in their views. The line which separates Sedevacantists from the SSPX seems pretty darn thin in my opinion. Do you have any thoughts? Or for that matter, any other readers on this blog thread?
can you say Borgia????
Pope Alexander is not nearly as bad as Francis. At least Alexander upheld Church teaching even if he did not practice it.
You’re kidding??? So I can uphold Church teaching but do what ever the hell I want: wife, mistress, abortion, drunken orgy, rape and pillage the land and the people for my needs, have lovers-male and female??? WOW… amazing … you are a really Liberal thinker!!!
C’mon. Do you not know sarcasm when you read it!
sarcasm?
You should start reading serious History and not just MASONIC HISTORY, Pope Borgia and specially Lucretia were seriously mistreated by history. A history feasting on Lies from some adversary Italian families from that time. Some important things to know are for example Lucretia and Cesar were adoptive children (if I remember well from Alejandro’s sister) and all that crap about sexual perversions and incest were lies spreaded after Lucretia rejected a pretender from a very important Italian family. My advice is: More investigation and less TV. There is a recent book from a female writer about the theme centered specially in Lucretia but I just don’t remember her name.
SSPX biggest problem is not the pope, but the diocesan bishops. They violate too many sections of the Council of Trent by intruding on the authority of a bishop (heretic or not) and are effectively in schism with them, whatever their attitude toward the Holy Father. The only way that’s permissible, is if the diocesan bishops are not actually bishops… but that turns into sedevacantism really quick.
The sedevacantists, of course, go off the deep end but not to it’s logical conclusion. It should be their responsibility and duty to have a conclave and elect a true Pope and evangelize rather than leave the world in darkness but for their splinter sects.
Sedeprivationism could make a certain amount of sense.
Disobedience doesn’t necessarily imply schism, in my view. If you disobey the Pope, that would be like disobeying your father. If you disobey another bishop, that would be like disobeying your brother. Of course, you may well be justified in disobeying a close family member, even though they have rightful authority over you, but it doesn’t follow that you are out of the family.
Yes, we Sedevacantists are right. Our thesis is the only one in line with REALITY and DOGMA because you cannot see the flagrant heresy and idolatry of Vatican Hierarchy (the same your mentioned book talks, the same you view all the time with Bergoglio, The same you saw in Asisi at 1986 and in every single “ecumenical” encounter) and still keep closing your eyes negating the obvious: False Popes of the Vatican II are heretics and Yes most of them are Masons, and yes all are Jews (except maybe the murdered Albino Luciani), and Yes Roncalli was communist and Yes Wojtyla was Spiritist, and Yes Montini was Gay and probably Bergoglio too. So if you guys are real catholics you MUST recognize the dogma of the Pope infallibility excludes the possibility of an heretic being Pope ERGO An heretic can’t be a valid Pope ERGO they are not Popes. Your simple reason says you’re being deceived, is totally obvious now with Bergoglio (it was too with Wojtyla, every time he visited another countries he was involved on idolatric pagan public rituals just as Bergoglio, but the difference now is the massive presence of internet). Read CUM EX APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO from Pope Benedict XIV (Not XVI) it says clearly even the Pope must be desobeyed and removed if results to be an heretic. CUM EX APOSTOLATUS says all but people don’t read anymore the old writings of the Popes before Vatican II (Not even the priests do, they only value “modern theology”) or they will know clearly as all the changes of this fake church are totally opposite with the teachings of the real church of 2 000 years (want an example? Compare Humane Vitae + Familiaris Consortio + Amoris Laetitia AGAINST Casti Conubii and you will see we are talking about 2 different churchs) (want another? Compare Novus Ordo Mass + Lutheran Mass AGAINST old Catholic Mass, but not the fake Latin mass of Ratzinger. And you must realize Novus Ordo mass is a Lutheran disguised service). So if you really want the truth pray for it with all your heart and keep researching. Internet have a lot of evidence. And when you find it be brave enough to embrace Sedevacantist posture because is the only one in line with Dogma and Reality!
And sorry, sometimes my mind play me dirty tricks, I don’t know if it’s age or I’m just very tired after a long journey, but I just realized I was confused when telling the author of Apostolic Constitution CUM EX APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO… it’s not Benedict XIV but Paul IV (Again, not Paul VI) I Believe it was just residual memory because antiPope Ratzinger has just passed away and this theme has been around in the news. So please forgive this memory mistake.
It is disturbing that JPII was canonised so quickly. Assisi was an idolatrous occasion that gave tremendous scandal to the entire world and if he did repent his repentance was not made public, possibly because it suited the usurpers’ agenda. PB was his right-hand man & now, it seems, he is fully behind PF’s tireless efforts to fully undermine the Catholic faith & introduce the NWO religion over which he hopes to preside.
Yeah, but look who canonized him, yours truly, ‘Frankie.”
Indeed, and again the rules for canonisation weren’t kept. Some of our best saints weren’t canonised for decades (even centuries) the process took so long, and rightly so. A repetition will be laid on for PB when the time comes and this again is inappropriate because of what went on prior to, during & after VII, the usurping of that Council & the enforcement of false ecumenism, meddling with the Ten Commandments, snubbing Our Lady’s instructions re the Third Secret & Consecration of Russia etc. Having a brilliant mind is no cause for being included amongst the saints. One can use brilliance for good or evil but the incumbents of the Vatican don’t care as they are for the NWO & most are effeminate. It will take an exceedingly strong Pope to rid us of them.
It wasn’t always that way. The rules on canonization have changed before and were not always under central control. The Supreme Pontiff can dispense and change them.
Similarly, we should not conflate or confuse private revelation like Fatima with public revelation.
Fatima wasn’t private revelation. Our Blessed Lady left very public messages – consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart & there would be a period of peace. Reveal the Third Secret in 1960 when it would be properly understood. Neither were complied with. What arrogance!
Fatima absolutely was private revelation. Multiple people can view “private revelation.” The content is ‘private revelation’ because it was told to Lucia to tell to the Holy Father, not to you or I.
Public revelation is the Gospels and the miracles performed by Our Lord.
I know they don’t form part of the Deposit of Faith & that no-one is obliged to believe in them, but they have been publicly made known & approved of by the CC & over thirty thousand witnessed the miracle of the sun, so in ordinary language they have become ‘public’
It shouldn’t be. The old system with formal trial, Devil’s Advocate, etc only dated to 1634 under Urban VIII. The Holy See didn’t reserve the right to beatification and canonization until the Alexander III in the 12th century. Before that, each bishop could decide himself.
Though the old system was better, many make way too much of this. The Holy Father has the keys or he doesn’t.
Perhaps he doesn’t have just yet. The case of an expanded papacy has not been settled.
Cardinal Muller Reiterates We Have “Two Popes”! @tradcatknight.blogspot.com
And only a few more days until Lund…
Yes, as all eyes are on the presidential election here in the states…..and with good reason, there is another vicious storm brewing in Lund with unimaginable consequences as well.
My money is on some nominally limited intercommunion that progressively becomes unrestricted intercommunion in the coming months. With people whose beliefs about the Eucharist are wildly different from our own. Wrap your head around that.
So you’re thinking it’ll be like assisi? I don’t know if this guy will want to be outdone by the subject of this article.
This is very difficult to read indeed, yet necessary in understanding many things right now.
Agreed. I do not doubt John Paul II’s personal piety, but public actions of his such as this demonstrate that even he could not escape the taint of Modernism. Sadly, so many in the establishment Church literally view JPII as one of the greatest, if not the greatest pope of all time. Articles such as this for those of this mindset, sadly, cause them to react defensively or simply reject the reality altogether.
John Paul ll could not escape Modernism possibly because the wolves were surrounding the walls of the Vatican and within. I wonder if he was alone in so many ways.
I will always have a deep appreciation for this pope as he tried so to uplift humanity with the Truth and his sincere witness to the hope of Christ. I was never aware of the Assisi meeting at that time, as I gave little attention to much of what went on in the Church at that time. All I knew, was the Mass was torn apart and I was struggling to remain faithful with all the sex abuse scandals.
The greatest pope was Peter. No one else comes close for me.
All popes have their weaknesses, for they are human. Pope John Paul ll gave a great deal
to the Church. But the world rejected it, not because of him, but because of Satan and his great thrust now upon the earth.
There have been several saintly popes, one of them being St. Pius X
Yes, i agree very much with you.
There have been many, I did not mean to exclude here.
It is a mighty task to fill the shoes of Peter, and our Church throughout her 2,000 years has given us many holy men.
It concerns me at times, when we in the Church start to compare this pope with that pope, some better, some weaker, some stronger than the other. Does a mother not love all her children, bearing with their weakness and focusing on their strength?
BUT, when one child become unruly, causing chaos and harm within, affecting the welfare of all, it is her duty to protect by any means possible.
I really love St. Pope JP2 but this is a major failure event. I do wonder if this was a fallback versus being forced to “resign.”
“forced to resign”?
Yes, meaning that if you do this ecumenical thing then we won’t force you to resign with blackmail, such as reporting that you allowed homo-priests to abuse boys.
Its odd that JP2 had this gathering in Assisi because if St. Francis were alive, he would be shocked at this taking place. When St. Francis went to the Middle East, he went there to “CONVERT” the Muslims, not to pray with them! I’ve also seen a UTube video of JP2 kissing the Koran and I’ve often wondered if he was in his ‘right mind’ at the time he did this since this was total blasphemy on his part. As a revert, I’m not at all pleased with what Vatican II did. I know only attend a Traditional Latin Mass
No, I think Francis would have been right there leading the prayer of UNITY!!!! in CHRIST!!! Sorry you are not pleased with the fact that VCII eliminated much of the error of the Dark and Early-Middle Ages Liturgy which was all pomp and circumstance and little to do with the Body of Christ. Everything starts with prayer. If you actually read documents such at the Didache you will see that the liturgy you LOVE is NOT what was practiced in the early church and certainly NOT in Latin, a now dead language of the original oppressors of Christianity.
What utter nonsense.
In what other field besides religion is one expected to appeal to the earliest recorded practices as the ideal for current use? By that logic, medical science should scrap all technological advances and return to leaching illnesses out of people; all printed books, computers, iPhones, et cetera should be discarded in favor of parchment and quill pens; all urban centers should be shuttered and all places of commerce shut down so we can all return to the early practice of being hunter gatherers and dwelling in caves.
Liturgy develops organically over the centuries; precisely in what way were the faithful harmed by having the priest and servers recite Psalm 42 at the foot of the altar, or by having the priest recite the Last Gospel at the conclusion of Mass? I suggest you stop digesting the progressivist propaganda so in vogue immediately following the Council and actually read well-researched sources (e.g., Reid’s The Organic Development of the Liturgy or Monti’s A Sense of the Sacred) before you try to continue making your points.
Actually, Monti was a professor and friend of mine…. READ the DIDACHE… the error of the dark and middle ages and your comparison do not make any sense. Was the VCII perfect in it’s execution? of course not. Were there mistakes made in the rush to execute the documents? of course, That was human error which the church has always dealt with BUT the tone and the scope are more authentically CHRISTIAN. OH, and BTW: actually you may have read that many medicines, miracle cures and technological advancements as well as science (such as MONSANTO/GMO) have actually been proven to be bad for you…the herbs and remedies of the “ancient’s” are often more effective and certainly less toxic…. so there goes your theory.
You keep asserting that there are “errors of the dark and middle ages”, yet you fail to provide any evidence to support such assertions. I asked you specific questions, you give nonsensical talking points (wrapped in such poor grammar that I had to read your comment three times to make sense of what you are saying. Punctuation and capitalization are a must if you want to be taken seriously, by the way.)
He kissed it in the same way he would have kissed any gift given to him at that event. Should he have done it? No. Is it potentially confusing? Yes. Did he say it was a convocation for prayer for world peace (which obviously includes non-Catholics)? Yes. Did he intend it to speak to the truth of Catholic faith? Seems a pretty huge step to say yes to that! Should he have gone there at all? In retrospect, seems little is served by such things. I would have preferred that neither he nor any other Pope travel so much as a general rule. Send Papal Nuncios and Apostolic Delegates, instead. Yet they have this mindset of the modern politician, having their face seen tied in to this ultramontanism that hangs on his every word.
Over the last year or so I’ve been starting to see the apostasy that the pontificate of St. John Paul II was filled. I still call him Saint as I do truly believe he is in heaven with God. His personal piety I think cannot be questioned in good conscience. His love for his fellow man, for the Church, and for God is self-evident. However, he was formed in an underground seminary in communist Poland, he was made Pope during the height of Vatican II insanity, and he had a huge problem on his plate. All things considered, I think he did pretty well. And so he is an EXCELLENT saint to appeal to during the apostasy of our time, as he knows it better than perhaps anyone.
That said, we need to be aware of the errors that he committed as errors, and not try to apologize for them. He was not perfect, he committed some serious errors, including what is detailed above. We need not be scandalized, but rejoice in the great mercy of God (true mercy for the faithful, not FrancisChurch false mercy.) I believe John Paul was either unaware of the seriousness of his error, or repented of it later. He had a significant period of time where he was basically immobile. This was part of his purgatory. He did a great deal of good for the Church, amidst the bad (both his fault and not.) So, ask for his intercession to be freed from the present error and to persist in the good of the church.
And if I’m wrong, well, I’m sure another saint will be happy to take up those prayers and may God grant his soul mercy and rest.
Thank you!
🙂
His cannonization is contingent on the Argentinean remaining valid. If he is removed even post mortem, the cannonization, I believe, with everything else he did, goes with it.
Including Pope John XXIII.
I believe that the rot does go that deep, even if he actually repented as I’ve heard. Yet I don’t imagine a pope going that deep in washing the Church. But that is a small matter if a returning King were to wish it.
That’s all up in the air really. There are no hard and fast rules for these things. If it’s determined Francis was an Anti-pope in the usual sense then, yes, you’re right. If it is determined that he was indeed elected validly and fell into heresy then that’s uncharted territory. Regardless of whether or not the canonization were to remain official, his beatification will remain (unless the sedevacantists are actually right!), and I still believe JPII’s in heaven.
I agree with you, Jafin. I have no doubt John Paul is a saint, but I suspect he would rather the official announcement had been delayed. He is now aware of how his errors increased confusion and regrets his mistakes (that, too, would have been part of his purgatory), but his personal piety and his good intentions – for sure cannot be matters of doubt.
I often think how the bridge-building he was hoping Assisi would be could have been so much better accomplished by a garden party instead of a heretical prayer gathering.
Is there a connection to the current of “blessing” of the Church’s temporal foe? While it kills the few remaining Christians at its geographic base, who must not be named washes its feet, brings it to Rome and admonishes all nations to welcome the hajrah. I can’t quite draw the lines, but it seems like the same act.
People praying together is sacrilegious???? Perhaps You are the problem!!!!
The article goes so far as to cite the scripture. Or is that changed?
Any fool can find a quote from the Bible to support his or her reactionary position…on either side of the argument. Christ calls us to Mercy for all even the Samaritan, not Division.. The vile and reactionary comments here against the Popes are revolting… are you all Gnostic?
You missed the queue. [neo] Pelagian pharasees is closer to fashionable (but still stupid.) You set aside Luke 12:51 in connection to your desire to ignore the facts.
What facts do you have? Papolatry doesn’t help. The ideas are set out beautifully, apparently you could read them. What is incorrect?
At the end of day, it comes down to this, as far as I am concerned: We have to judge any so-called ecumenical actions of any of our prelates, even if he be a pope, in relation to whether or not their actions are in violation of the terms of Pope Pius XI’s Mortalium animos, as no one, not even the uber-progressives I have encountered on the Internet, can provide any sort of authoritative papal document that abrogates that document.
So, if Mortalium is still the authoritative teaching of the Church (and as far as I can tell, it is), then that needs to be our objective point of departure:
(emphasis added)
Regarding ecumenism, my thought has always been (maybe I was taught it, – I don’t know) is Mark 9:38-41 (someone acting in Christ’s name not of the disciples – the Church? – where Christ says not to stop them. ) the following lines may caveat that.
If one reads that together with the Highpriestly prayer, then some kind of effort toward rapprochement with at least separated brethren may at least suggested.
Is that exegesis very misguided?
Those images of that day never fail to give me the creeps ,there is something truly sinister about them.
2 questions everyone should ask themselves.
1. Can the Church teach error?
2. Has the Church as I percieve it taught error in the last 50 years?
How you answer will determine whether you are a sedevacantist or not.
Sacrilege? Who makes the accusation? Who condemns?
*
Btw noticed that both pewsitter.com and Canon212.com never featured links for (e.g. like) Pope St. John Paul II Optional Memorial, October 22, Saturday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Ghastly. I don’t think I ever knew the details. What on earth was he thinking?
“Our help is in the name of the Lord Who made heaven and earth”
I do not defend the actions of John Paul II at Assisi…I wish he never did such a thing. In his defense, I wonder how many people who post on this or other blogs could have survived the life he led in Poland having to deal with the Nazi invasion and decades of Communist persecution. Being a man who attends the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays and holy days, internet Trads often give me a pain in the rear. Sometimes their braying and whining makes me want to give them a fistful of Polish Catholic. for all the continued b*&^$ing about Assisi, Pope John Paul II put the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary back on the Church calendar after Paul VI got rid of it. I really wonder how many holier than thou Trads realize how much the Polish people have sacrificed, fought, bled and died in defense of the Catholic faith…my guess, not very damn many. Poland fought Muslims (Ottoman Turks, in the defense of the beloved-to-Trads-Hapsburgs at the battle of Vienna on September 11, 1683….a century later, a Hapsburg sided with Catherine the Not So Great and Federeick to wipe Poland off the map), Communists (actually beat them in the Polish Soviet War) and Nazis (who did the Germans surrender to at Monte Cassino, who helped close the Falaise Gap, and who was the leading fighter ace in the ETO in WWII (Gabby Gabreski, an American from Oil City who was the son of Polish immigrants). To sum it up, JPII’s deeds can be criticized, but his faith better not be questioned. I take it as personally as someone insulting my Catholic faith, my family or my Polish nationality.
In the primitive discipline of the Church, idolatry was an unforgivable sin, one that debarred even a penitent sinner from return to communion. In its efforts to win their conformity, the pagan empire laid before Christians easy, formal gestures of loyalty: to swear by the genius of the emperor, to offer a pinch of incense to his statue. But the Church would have none of it; a pinch of incense offered to a false god was an enormity, to be refused even at the cost of martyrdom. . . . We can imagine the incredulity and horror with which those early Christians, including the many who shed their blood for the true God, would have learnt that one day a bishop of Rome would gather together pagan votaries and invite them to perform their idolatrous rites, confounding them with his own.
These statements are factually untrue:
For one, during the early persecutions many Christians either: (A) handed over the Sacred Scriptures to be destroyed (i. e., the traditores); or (B) lapsed in the Faith and offered incense to the pagan gods (i. e., the lapsi); or, (C) bribed somebody in order to get a document stating — falsely — that they had indeed offered sacrifice to the gods, when they actually had not (i. e., the libellati). So, denial of the Faith or performing an act of idolatry, instead of facing death, were in fact quite well-spread practices during the persecutions and a very real pastoral problem for the Early Church.
For two, the Roman Bishops (if anything) were charged with being TOO LENIENT in allowing lapsed Christians to do penance and return to receive Holy Communion (cf. e. g. St. Cornelius and St. Stephen I).
For three, Pope St. Marcellinus (+ 304 A. D.) apparently lapsed, offering “a pinch of incense” to idols. This is admitted by the Liber Pontificalis which would have no reason for concocting such a scandalous and denigratory episode, if false. Anyways, Marcellinus repented and was martyred — hence, his sainthood.
For four — and, not for nothin’ — even the old, pre-conciliar Manualists recognized that “Religion” — even as practiced falsely by non-Christians — was a moral virtue.
Pope St. John Paul II and The CDF under Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Evangelization and Proselytism
And