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The Escalating War Against Orthodox Catholicism

When it was announced last year that Fr. James Martin, SJ, was being brought in as a “consultor” to the Vatican’s communications team, reactions were predictably on a spectrum ranging from deeply perplexed to blood-vessel bursting outrage. Known for his role as editor-at-large for the far-left Catholic rag America Magazine as well as his boundary-pushing views on the Church and homosexuality, Fr. Martin is the kind of name that gets an instant reaction when brought up in any conversation. And among orthodox Catholics, it’s decidedly not a positive one.

Fr. Martin became the second high-profile Jesuit to join the Vatican’s propaganda arm, joining “papal mouthpiece” and editor of La Civiltà Cattolica (LCC), Fr. Antonio “2 + 2 = 5” Spadaro. Together, the two wayward spiritual sons of St. Ignatius have a media audience of some 60,000 souls baked right in, just based on print circulation. Online, America and LCC are globally ranked #25,181 and #838,795 respectively by Alexa.com. This means America‘s footprint is far larger in the digital age, but LCC’s status as a 150-year-old Jesuit publication with direct oversight from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State gives it a unique prestige.

Still, since he’s joined the team, Fr. Martin’s role seemed fairly subdued. While Fr. Spadaro made a bit of a name for himself going after the pope’s “enemies” online (joined by Fr. Thomas Rosica of Salt & Light TV, papal biographer Austen Ivereigh of Crux, and Villanova “theology” professor Massimo Faggioli), Martin has continued to wage a one-man media war to promote his own books, his own causes, and his own unique vision for a decidedly different Church than any the popes and saints of old would have recognized. And with a gigantic social media audience (174,000 Twitter followers; 561,848 Facebook fans), he has the clout to move opinions.

But he’s been getting a lot of pushback.

Recently, a parish in New Jersey canceled a talk by Fr. James Martin after Catholic group Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) got over 12,000 signatures on a petition to pull the plug.

Fr. Martin was, to say the least, not happy. Not content to simply accept that faithful Catholics didn’t want to hear his heterodox message, he called for a war against those ragged few out there still fighting in defense of the authentic teachings of the Church:

As John Zmirak wrote in response to Martin’s comments at The Stream:

Have you got that? Bishops should step in and condemn lay Catholics who criticize Fr. Martin. Or else they’re complicit in giving in to “hate.” Catholics should face public condemnation by their bishops if they dare to disagree with Martin’s new, Caesar-friendly stance on same-sex sin.

Think of Martin’s position as a special advisor to the Vatican. Of his friendly relations with many bishops. Of his long list of media buddies. (He worked with Martin Scorcese on the movie Silence, and appears on Stephen Colbert’s show.) Don’t be surprised if he finds some takers. He’s doubtless hoping to see compliant bishops condemn groups like TFP. He hopes they’ll ban them from churches, denounce them in Church newspapers, as if they were indeed some kind of hate group.

 

Zmirak also made another important point about the rhetoric Martin uses:

When faithful Catholics speak out against him, he accuses them of “hate speech,” which in some places is borderline illegal. He casts the organizations that criticize his stance as “extremists,” even “alt-right.” He’s trying to smear orthodox Christians with the dung-soaked brush of disgraceful racism.

As someone who has been subject to such accusations myself, I can attest to the fact that these labels are applied without the slightest concern for the truth — or the damage done.

Just days after Fr. Martin’s comments, Joseph Bernstein, Senior Tech Reporter for Buzzfeed, published a piece on Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — known to the Catholic blogosphere as Fr. Z — that was anything but flattering. “Meet the Blogger Priest Firing Red Pills At the Vatican”, reads the headline. “Fr. Z’s critics say he’s an ‘alt-right’ priest. He says they’re snowflakes who should toughen up. His surprising rise to prominence shows that in 2018, even the longest-lasting institution in the Western world isn’t immune to the strains of the social internet.”

Notice the language. “Alt-right priest.” Just the kind of label Zmirak was talking about. And who showed up in the article to comment on Fr. Z? The man himself, Fr. James Martin. Martin had previously had another speech cancelled — this time at Catholic University — in part because of a post Fr. Z had written drawing his reader’s attention to it.

“For me the saddest thing about Father Z’s blog is how cruel it is,” Martin told BuzzFeed News. “It’s astonishing to me that a priest could traffic in such cruelty and hatred.”

Fr. Z told BuzzFeed News that it was not his intention to sic the Zedheads — as he affectionately calls his readers — on Martin, and added that though he did not think it was appropriate for Martin to speak, he, too, had been disinvited from similar engagements for his views.

“I don’t whine about it though,” said Fr. Z. “This isn’t bean bag.”

The zinger from Fr. Z might be a cheering moment for Fr. Martin’s critics, but with characterizations like “the sometimes shockingly antagonistic attitude of Fr. Z and his ilk toward the Vatican and liberal culture has invited comparisons to the alt-right”, the overall piece is little more than instant wish-fulfillment for Fr. Martin.

The attack on faithful Catholicism is nothing new, but it seems to have taken on a new and dangerous edge. We’ve seen the culture at both Christendom College and Franciscan University — both seen as seedbeds of authentic Catholicism — come under fire from progressive Catholic bloggers in the past month after alleged mishandling of accusations of sexual misconduct. Voices critical of the current Vatican regime have suffered reprisals, from the retributive actions taken against some academics and priests who have signed the various theological critiques of Amoris Laetitia to the unjust firing of Josef Seifert for publishing articles questioning that same document to the attacks on the dubia cardinals and the Kazakhstani bishops. It seems that suppressing orthodoxy is becoming trendy.  And it isn’t going to stop. I received an inquiry from a “journalist” several days ago about our financial records here at 1P5 — a clear indication that if they can find something to use against us, they will. I can’t imagine we’re alone in that.

Strangely, I think we can take this as a positive sign. It means that while we may be outnumbered, we’re winning — or at least heavily influencing — the war for public perception. Nobody bothers to attack someone who doesn’t pose a threat.

Nevertheless, I ask your prayers for all the men and women who are out there courageously standing up for the truth against unscrupulous opposition. The people looking for ways to discredit their critics don’t let the 8th Commandment get in their way. And as anyone who has ever been dragged through the mud knows, it isn’t a pleasant experience.

262 thoughts on “The Escalating War Against Orthodox Catholicism”

  1. good Presentation of the Light in The Temple for today:

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/st.-john-paul-iis-biographer-the-catholic-church-doesnt-do-paradigm-shifts

    by Lisa Bourne

    NEWSCATHOLIC CHURCHFri Feb 2, 2018 – 12:30 pm EST

    St. John Paul II’s biographer: ‘The Catholic Church doesn’t do paradigm shifts’
    Amoris Laetitia , Catholic , Communion For Remarried , George Weigel , Pietro Parolin

    WASHINGTON, D.C., February 1, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – St. John Paul II’s biographer George Weigel criticized Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s recent assertion that Pope Francis’ teaching in Amoris Laetitia represents “a paradigm shift” for the Church

    “The Catholic Church doesn’t do “paradigm shifts,” ​the Catholic theologian wrote in a First Things column this week.

    “A ‘paradigm shift’ signals a dramatic, sudden, and unexpected break in human understanding—and thus something of a new beginning,” wrote Weigel, adding a little later that such a “shift” in the Catholic Church is impossible.

    Cardinal Parolin had described the pope’s controversial 2016 exhortation on marriage and the family as a “paradigm shift” in an interview with Vatican Radio published January 11.

    The Vatican Secretary of State had said that “at the end of the day, Amoris Laetitia has emerged as a new paradigm that Pope Francis is conducting wisely, prudently and also patiently.”

    Parolin said the “difficulties” generating from the document and which “still exist in the Church, beyond certain aspects of its content, are due precisely to this change in attitude that the Pope is asking of us.”

    “It’s a paradigm shift,” he stated, “and the text itself insists on this, that’s what is asked of us — this new spirit, this new approach!”

    Cardinal Parolin is one of the most powerful Curial officials and has been regarded by Vatican watchers as positioned to succeed Francis.

    Weigel called Parolin’s use of the phrase “unfortunate.”

    He argued that while there is genuine “development of doctrine” rooted in the revelation that ended with the death of the last apostle, there can be no “paradigm shift.”

    “So the evolution of the Church’s understanding of the gospel over the centuries is not a matter of ‘paradigm shifts,’ or ruptures, or radical breaks and new beginnings; it’s a question of what theologians call the development of doctrine,” he wrote.

    “And as Blessed John Henry Newman taught us, authentic doctrinal development is organic and in continuity with “the faith once . . . delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). The Catholic Church doesn’t do rupture: that was tried 500 years ago, with catastrophic results for Christian unity and the cause of Christ.”

    Weigle noted that where something reminiscent of a radical break is occurring is in the exhortation’s dissimilar implementation by dioceses throughout the world – making the Catholic Church look like the Church of England’s fragmented present-day incarnation, “and this is ominous.”

    “The pastoral implementation of Amoris Laetitia mandated in Malta, Germany, and San Diego is quite different than what has been mandated in Poland, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Portsmouth, England, and Edmonton, Alberta,” he noted.

    “Because of that,” he said, “the Catholic Church is beginning to resemble the Anglican Communion (itself the product of a traumatic “paradigm shift” that cost John Fisher and Thomas More their heads).”

    “For in the Anglican Communion,” continued Weigel, “what is believed and celebrated and practiced in England is quite different from what is believed, celebrated, and practiced in Nigeria or Uganda.”

    “This fragmentation is not Catholic,” Weigel said. “Catholicism means one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and unity is one of the four distinctive marks of the Church.”

    “That unity means that the Church embodies the principle of non-contradiction,” he explained, “such that a grave sin on the Polish side of the Oder River can’t be a source of grace on the German side of the border.”

    Amoris Laetitia has been a continual source of consternation for lay Catholics and clergy since its April 2016 promulgation due to its ostensive granting of Holy Communion to “remarried” Catholics.

    Various bishops and cardinals say that allowing the sacrament to unrepentant couples living in so-called “irregular” unions equates to an effective rejection of the Church’s established teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, adultery, and worthiness to receive Communion.

    Varying bishops’ conferences worldwide have implemented the document in drastically different ways. Some insist it does not depart from Church teaching on marriage. Others, however, interpret the exhortation’s ambiguous language as allowing Communion for couples living in objectively sinful situations.

    Weigel suggested a way to stop the current “fragmentation” experienced by many within the Church.

    “Something is broken in Catholicism today and it isn’t going to be healed by appeals to paradigm shifts,” he said.

    “In the first Christian centuries, bishops frankly confronted and, when necessary, fraternally corrected each other. That practice is as essential today as it was in the days of Cyprian and Augustine—not to mention Peter and Paul,” he added.

    Reply
    • Gee Weigle, isn’t he late to the party? Like 50 years too late?

      Weigle was too busy swooning over his hero pseudo-saint John Paul II to notice the destruction and changes going around for decades. John Paul helped to cultivate indifferentism with his ambiguous ecumenism and interjected his phenomenology/personalism into Catholic theology which leads to several errors. John Paul was a sign of change and evolution himself.
      Where was Weigle wen JPII decided it was A-Okay to accoomodate pagans in breaking the first commandment at Assisi? Sounds serious, but nope, he was busy building up the cult of personality for a man who helped bring us Francis and all the resulting changes. JPII and others helped cultivate an atmosphere of the post-conciliar mindset and theology – one which cultivates change and helps grow heresy.

      Weigle will soon be flopping about as the situation worsens, yapping his lips about JPII and the past. Welcome to crisis, you’re 50 years too late and your man-crush on JPII won’t help as he was part of the problem as well.

      Reply
      • Sadly, JPII did a lot spiritual damage to me personally. One minor but very specific example: it was because of his invitation of Frere Roger and his ecumenical “brothers” to host their own official events at WYD that I got involved in the ridiculous and heretical Taize community.

        Reply
      • I believe you are being too harsh, but I will also say that your perspective holds some difficult truths which need to be processed. I profited much from JPII’s pontificate, but often wondered if he was sufficiently aware of what was really going on in the Church. On one level he had sufficient understanding to forestall the insanity holding sway in 1978 — at the same time there was this odd accommodation of conciliar notions that were on their face erroneous. And he was unwilling to uproot the maniacs that now run the show. I think he lived with the impediment of a life experience that was at once expansive but handicapped by the Eastern European perspective — rose colored glasses were often mistaken for prescription lenses.

        Reply
        • Harsh in what sense? JPII did in fact do damage in the area of how the Catholics perceive non-Catholics, religious liberty, watering down of some Catholic theology, and liturgical banality. Not a good example of emulation for the faithful. I am not ascribing any bad motives, just stating he was a confused person and a bad example to follow overall (and if Weigle wants to truly fight against this, he will give up his JPII man crush).

          Reply
        • JPII’s chief flaw was his incorporation of bad philosophy and imbibing the spirit of the age—a naive optimism in the progress and universal brotherhood of man. This was why the great Thomist Fr. Garrilou-Lagrange effectively blocked his doctorate in Rome (a fact carefully hidden by his biographers including Weigel). Lagrange wrote that his thesis flaw was “too much man, not enough God”. Which was the most succinct analysis of the JPII’s world outlook that has ever been given.

          Reply
          • The over-intellectualism and complex choice of language in many of his encyclicals and writings did seem a strange way to teach the faith.

          • He was also too excessive in his personalism, which lead to errors like “mutual submission” of husband and wife. And I believe this personalism, based on man’s experience, as well as an over emphasis on Christ being in every human person, produced bizarre ecumenical/interreligious activities. As a result, it diminished his ability to truly evangelize and produced bizarre events and writings that *conveyed* (not explicitly taught) a notion that people can be saved outside the Church

            The result? During events and talks with non-Catholics there was never any explicit indication that one must convert to the Catholic Church and have sacraments for salvation. It also makes possible the atrocities at Assisi and his later defense of the event.

          • Indeed Amos. In my view it bordered on a type of not just pan-religious but approaching a pantheistic humanism–certainly exhibiting strong permutations of universalism. (I’m amazed at how many Novus Ordo friends have become universalist due to their love of JPII). God becomes so wrapped up with man in JPII’s theology on the Incarnation that the distinction becomes blurred—sanctifying grace is an afterthought, certainly not stressed. All of man gets taken up into God without exception. This is the only way I can understand his approach to Assissi, ecumenism, Theology of the Body, ect.

          • I was unaware of this. That is a big deal, particularly coming from Fr. Garrilou-Lagrange. Its been years since I’ve read a biography of JPII — including “Witness to Hope” — I can’t say I brought an awareness of an academic impediment. I don’t doubt you, but would be willing to provide a trail on this?

          • Definitely, I think I saved the ‘dossier’ on my hard drive. Even mainstream commentary hints at it but never delves deep. This fact was first brought to my attention by an FSSP priest who had been assigned in Rome. He told me the story and that began my digging.

          • Here is Weigel’s own heavily sanitized but yet still revealing take on his time at the Angelicum:

            Witness to Hope—Weigel p. 86-87:

            “In his review of the dissertation, Garrigou criticized Wojty for not using the phrase “divine object” of God. One assumes that this was an issue between dissertation director and student during the preparation of the dissertation and that Garrigou did not persuade Wojtya of his point. Whatever the process involved, the fact remains that, in his insistence on not treating God as a divine “object,” even by way of analogy, Wojty was moving beyond the vocabulary, formulas, and intellectual categories that dominated the Angelicum during his two years there.”

          • Here is one from Father Lugi Villa :

            1948 June 14) Took the admission examination for his
            Ph.D. Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome to continue
            his studies at the Angelicum. But there was, at
            that time, as Rector of the university, the great theologian
            and writer Father Garrigou-Lagrange,
            who was a giant on Thomism. Wojtyla, not being a
            member of that teaching, was following the philosophy
            that he wanted, that of existentialism, the modern
            type of Kant. Therefore, his dissertation,
            “Faith according to St. John of the Cross,” was
            criticized and rejected by Lagrange, because it
            supported the ideas of the Modernists who claimed
            that Faith is based on personal experience. For
            this, Wojtyla was not accepted for the doctorate and
            he had to return to the University of Krakow, where
            there he was accepted.

          • It is not necessarily heretical to question Thomism, nor to depart from its tenets. That philosophical approach is one among others, rather than being (as is often erroneously assumed, evidently) Catholicism itself. It may be that Woytyla’s phenomenology contributed to the rise of Modernism, but if so, that has yet to be demonstrated. It may also be argued that Modernism’s roots can be traced to the distortions inherent in Thomism itself.

          • It is highly problematic to casually dismiss the Church’s only official philosophy which had been held in high esteem for nearly 800 years. Countless Popes attest to this fact. It also becomes much easier to depart from Dogmatic definitions that rely on Thomistic concepts like Transubstantiation. (Thomism has never contributed to Modernism—quite the opposite—if you can find an example I am all ears). For Fr. Woytila to abandon such a precise, orthodox, and universal framework for understanding theology, for two untried, untested and unorthodox ones is highly problematic. Like all modern philosophies Personalism and Phenomenology rely on a “trick”. As GK Chesterton writes, this “trick” is to focus on one specific aspect of reality which requires a suspension of disbelief and it’s required to make sense of the system, without it, the thing doesn’t work. Unlike Thomism which deals with reality quo reality—a true philosophy in its universal application. This is why GK Chesterton called Saint Thomas the Apostle of Common Sense. For Fr. Woytila to think he had the acumen at such a young age, to reject Garrilou-Lagrange’s advice and admonitions and plunge full steam into two philosophies that were not of Catholic origin, and whose only interesting qualities lay in their novelty, does not speak well of his judgement or his willingness to humbly submit himself to the traditions of the Church.

          • Your points are strong and thought-provoking. So I wish to ask, in sincerity and without any overtone of pugnacity: Do you allege that Thomism and Catholicism are coextensive?

          • Thanks Helen for the kind words. I know that any philosophy is ultimately man’s effort to understand Revelation, but as far as Thomism goes, its the closest we’ve come to a universal means of understanding the metaphysics of being. This includes the soul, the body, time, space, angels and Ipsum Esse Subsistens—God’s subsistent being. It’s a holistic and a consistent means of understanding Creation and the only one that remains faithful to what we know by Revelation every step of the way. St. Thomas built on the natural wisdom of Aristotle and the Greeks and made it something truly Catholic. It remains compelling today, though very many Catholics only get an impoverished or distorted version of it. It’s decried as “scholasticism” by uneducated detractors which it is not. Even those seeking to study it today can only get dribs and drabs. I was fortunate to be taught by a Benedictine priest, Father Augustine Kalberer, who himself was taught by men like Etiene Gilson and the great Roman Thomists of the 1940’s. Fr. Augustine lived Thomism daily, it was his life. I count myself very fortunate to have been his student and the fact he was still teaching in his 70’s when I came along.

          • I’ve read Pius X
            Oath against Modernism several times.
            It had to be signed by priests 100 years ago.

          • I have never heard that, but the descriptor of him sums up exactly why I remained a Protestant until 4 years ago. He was a powerful Catholic identity figure and he turned me off from the Catholic Church.

            I saw him as a religious indifferentist and universalist, and from my experiences with Catholics who reflected those positions, wanted nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

            I knew almost nothing really of the true teachings of the CC but one teaching of the Church that always gave me pause was that of “outside the Church is no salvation”. There was something about that concept that beckoned further investigation.

            I have always contended that the best evangelistic tool at least for me is bold and clear and definitive affirmation of doctrine. Anything less smacks of embarrassment at one’s own “beliefs” and is the most effective deterrent to evangelization possible.

            Which is one of the reasons I find Bergoglio utterly disgusting as a person, truly revolting. His steady drumbeat of apologies for the past and compromising with other religions and bad mouthing Catholics makes the Catholic Church out to be unconvinced of its own reason for existence. Who wants to be a part of an organization like that?

          • Deo gratias Rodh, that is a miracle you were able to overcome all of those obstacles. Definitely, you are correct about evangelism being effective when it is informed and bold. The New Evangelism seemed to be based on some vague existential principle. There was this cult of sentimentality and self-effacing embarrassment that prevented a lot of good works from being done. JPII’s speeches and actions in addressing history seemed to bolster the popular bias that the Catholic Church was to blame for all the world’s problems. JPII certainly didn’t do anything to counter that perception given his apology tours which became more and more out of touch with actual history. I remember him telling us to be proud of being Catholic at WYD ‘93’. It wasn’t easy to do with the Vatican telling everyone to not bother converting and giving the impression that the Church’s history was one crime against humanity after another.

          • Very good points.

            Can you imagine what will happen when we get a Pope who is actually uncompromising and unembarrassed at Christ and the Church He founded?

            I submit that many seekers scattered all over the globe are waiting for that man.

          • You spoke mouthfuls of wisdom, RodH, in my opinion.
            As a cradle Catholic, it was the funeral of JP ll that ignited my bold belief in why it was that I am Catholic and that the Church IS Christ’s Church, as I observed thousands upon thousand convening at the Vatican for his funeral.
            ” This is the Church of Christ, His Bride……..for how could one explain this
            mass of people from all over the world.”

            I am one of those cradle Catholics who read some of JP ll’s writings, and
            came to understand most fully the joy of suffering with Christ, ( not a masochist here), and seeing Christ in others for the love of Christ, thru this man.

            But alas, so much of what you wrote is objectively true. Weakness, sentimentality, and perhaps he, as well, took the Church for granted. I do not know.
            I testify to this however, if I am able to love as Christ, for the love of others,
            this man and his witness to that, I shall forever be grateful. He gave me the start!

            Yet, I cannot dismiss what I have learned and read, regarding the impact his pontificate had upon the Church.

            Perhaps one can take pity and with a clear eye, admit, JP ll’s errors , which over the length of his pontificate, have become a source of the crisis in the ChurchI, too,
            I as well took the Church for granted…..God have mercy on me.

            You were so wise.

          • Thank you. I bear no bitterness to the man though I am deeply sorry for the things I saw as I stated.

            But just exactly as you say, his PERSONAL witness to suffering and commitment to fall as age and decrepitude diminished him physically in public view is something I cannot ever forget and will always hold him in high esteem for. The man demonstrated the courage to be ugly for Christ and that is a very rare trait. Even as a Protestant that was “attractive”.

          • I assure you, I never even thought you bore any bitterness to JP ll.
            I understand and agree with all you expressed.
            We must realize these things……….

            May God reward you for your courage and wisdom.

          • Nobody.

            We are part of the body of Christ. Not an organization. Otherwise, it would be easy to agree with you.

      • Remember, better late than never. Are we not praying for Catholics to stand up and notice the problem and say something about it? And for those who can, do something about it?

        Reply
      • Remember, better late than never. Are we not praying for Catholics to stand up and notice the problem and say something about it? And for those who can, do something about it?

        Reply
      • A man crush indeed; Weigle seems to think he and JP2 had a Vulcan Mind Meld. So, has Weigle finally given up on calling Wojtyła “John Paul the Great”? That was lame to begin with and now just grotesque.

        RC

        Reply
        • I could not understand how people could grant “the Great” title subito. That can ever only be the judgement of history. How ironic that last remnants of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching including JPII’s own personal initiatives to that effect completely collapsed within a lightning 10 years of his death. That is certainly a Great Disaster, but not much else.

          Reply
          • Some folks call a dog’s tail a leg and think they have changed reality forever; and so they say dogs have five legs! Some say there are loving acts of adultery and loving virtuous acts of feely willed anal sex. If saying would make it so,Democrats would be in the party of Life and so many of those in dioceses would be Shepherds and not effeminate cowardly hirelings. Posterity probably will not refer to JPDos as great. Saying it today will not make it so. Dogs have four legs, and always will. To counter such when I hear it, wherever, I say out loud “He was not and is not great, and dogs don’t have five legs.” Guy McClung, Texas

      • JPII’s worst mistake was marginalizing Archbishop Lefebvre. If he had embraced him and used the humility he thought he possessed to apologize publicly to the Archbishop, then installed him as Prefect of the CDL, we would have a functioning Catholic Church leading the world to Christ. No fag Cardinals, bishops and priests, no faux nuns in pink polyester, no cowering bishops and priests, no Bergoglio, no Parolin, i.e., no heresy.

        I think I now know why JPII flogged himself regularly.

        Pray daily for the empowerment of the SSPX.

        Reply
        • Indeed. But I’ll say rather, one of the worse. This one is often seen as maybe only worse mistakes he did, but there were others, which were much less obvious and certainly not an example of perspicuity.
          This must be read and known by people, so I suggest everyone to read it, as I pointed to it before here, somewhere: http://www.angelusonline.org/index.php?article_id=2272&section=articles&subsection=show_article
          One may find abnormal and blasphemous this kind of ‘blessing’ said by JPII in March 2000.: https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/travels/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000321_wadi-al-kharrar.html

          Reply
          • Hi. I think there’s a problem with the text of the link to the article from the Angelus you’ve posted. Could you please re-post it?

          • I don’t often disagree with you, Ivan, but I must in this instance. JPII’s remarks in Jordan were proper and a diplomatic necessity. When he’s in a Muslim country that allows Catholics full rights of citizenship. For obvious reasons it’s a good idea to respect the Sovereign and the state religion. His remarks were appropriate.

            What JPII did in Jordan pales beside what he did by elevating Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the episcopacy against the warning of the Jesuit Provincial in Argentina. That makes it clear to me Bergoglio is the son of Satan.

          • If you say you don’t often disagree with me, than that means something good for me. Thank you for that winslow.
            Of course there are and will be things wherein we not or not totally agree with each other. Hopefully, it will never goes about the crucial, main, very important things.
            So here we for my part shall still stay in that position of disagreeing with each other, because I believe that one man who is Vicar of Christ in an Land of islam rather may go down as a martyr for Christ than to say such blasphemous inappropriate nonsense.
            “May Saint John Baptist protect Islam…” – I mean, really!?!?
            He could say one million totally other words in combination of each other and with that he would not displeased the islamist, the king and people of state Jordan.
            But to say those words is utter nonsense.
            To say those words as a POPE is 100x worse than utter nonsense.
            It is diametrical opposite of everything what all the POPES through the last 15 centuries have done and preached.
            If you just could ask that pope Pius V. …
            Moreover, it is betrayal of ALL the martyrs who died for Christ and His Church and also thus for His VICAR on Earth, who were killed and tortured on the most horrible way by people and leaders of ISLAM.

            WHAT in the world must have for the meaning to say “St John protect islam”?!?!
            What than with Christianity? Who might protect us?
            Shall we as good Catholics follow the “good” example of such vicar and we too, pray for protection of islam and the intercession of st John for islam, but next day we’ll pray again to our Lord and for intercession of Mother of God for converting of all infidels including and above all the muslim infidels?
            I just don’t think so.
            That was wrong wrong wrong from him to say those words. That very bad act was probably caused by his weakness. Not by the strength of the Holy Spirit

            Someone else remarked that the link which I earlier gave above don’t work and lead to the home page instead to the meantioned article, which I wish to suggest here, again, to everyone for reading:
            Here is the link to the pdf version of article called:
            “Pope John Paul II’s Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, Part II, Vol. 3”, Author: Fr. Johannes Dörmann, Reviewer: Fr. Pierre-Marie, O.P.
            https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DiD6PcO5FizZlaRczjuWXR8VP1lFiA4t

          • Ivan, St. John the Baptist is revered in Islam as Yahya, a prophet, as is Zechariah, his father. That’s why the Pope invoked his name.

            The prayer meeting in Assisi was an abomination. It was a mistake and should never have happened.

      • Well, for the sake of honesty and clarity, I have not been a big fan of George Weigel, but at the end of his article he did say:

        “In the first Christian centuries, bishops frankly confronted and, when necessary, fraternally corrected each other. That practice is as essential today as it was in the days of Cyprian and Augustine—not to mention Peter and Paul [emphasis mine].”

        The Peter and Paul reference seems to be clearly alluding to Paul’s correction of Peter. So, I think George actually did, in a minimal way, indicate am elephantine problem.

        Reply
        • I truly believe we need to take a very hard look at the Peter/Paul story.

          It is popular to discount the gravity of what St Peter did in encouraging the Judaisers. While we are not told he “taught” heresy, the account we have indicates by his actions he encouraged it.

          Reply
          • I was under the impression that he was guilty of hypocrisy. He didn’t believe or teach that the non-Jewish Christians were apart but treated them so. Like if a Pope didn’t believe or teach that fornication wasn’t a sin but he did in fact fornicate.

          • Yes, in effect.

            By doing what he did, he encouraged those who affirmed the need for adhering to the Jewish ceremonial law. And it was a huge issue, as the first Council was formed around the need to clarify it!

          • Notice that Paul points out that even Barnabas was lead astray. And that Paul points out that they were not straight forward about the Gospel (can one get a whiff of the scandal of Heresy here, even if it’s by omission of a necessary Truth.)

            Galatians 2:11-14 11 But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel,, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

            Yes, Peter was being a hypocrite because he believed and acted one way and when men he feared/honored showed up he acted in away contrary to his belief. I would say that that willful action contrary to the Truth of the Gospel is at best the precursor to out right heresy. And indeed fostered it amongst the believers, Barnabas being the chief example noted by Paul.

            Hence, Paul did not take Barnabas with him on the Second Missionary Journey.

          • Indeed, these are not small things.

            But let’s not forget that St Peter warned us about St Paul’s writings. But in his truth and charity, he made clear that it is the bad interpretation of those who seek their own rather than St Paul who is to blame. THAT is a spear chucked right at the heart of Luther and Calvin and their now-minions.

            In 50 years the Church is going to have this infallibility thing entirely worked out, and we will be “grateful” to Bergie for help in the dogma’s clarification.

          • Dear Father. It is of Catholic Tradition that the Apostles (and them only) were both infallible and possessive of universal jurisdiction and I fail to understand how your claims that The First Pope was a heretic is not destructive of that Tradition.

          • I said that he acted in a heretical manner by leading others into a false practice that of itself was based on an abrogated law, one abrogated by Jesus Christ. I did not say he was a formal or even material heretic, because I do not believe for an instant that he was.
            Once again, infallibility does not apply to the person but the office they hold and it does not stop one from sinning or acting in a manner contrary to their own teaching which in turns leads others into the same behavior (scandal.)
            False practice is a precursor to heresy. St. Paul assisted St. Peter by rebuking him for over his fear induced false practice, St. Peter received the correction and later on speaks highly of St. Paul.
            I have no intention of speaking against the Faith, no am I trying to tear down these Great Saints, especially since I seek their prayers and intercession on a regular basis.

          • Dear Father. Yes, you have said several times that Saint Peter acted heretically even though that is contrary to what the Church Fathers taught and, so, it is beyond question you are acting contrary to Tradition as an unbridled spirit.

            That is to say, it is you who are acting heretically. Said otherwise, you are projecting about acting heretically.

            Here is what Trent had to teach about what you are doing. I post this in the hope that you are also humble and willing to be corrected.

            Decree Concerning The Edition And Use Of The Sacred Books

            Moreover, the same holy council considering that not a little advantage will accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which of all the Latin editions of the sacred books now in circulation is to be regarded as authentic, ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and that no one dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it.

            Furthermore, to check unbridled spirits, it decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions,[5] presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation,[6] has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published.

            Now, Dear Father, can you point to any early Church Father called that Saint Peter a heretic?

          • I would love to see the Fathers on this point. Yes mighty Joe, it makes James and Peter (both ‘pillars of the Church’ as Saint Paul testifies) seem like heretics and hypocrites not worthy of submission. This jives with Protestant commentaries.

          • Why would I try to point to the Church Fathers calling St. Peter a heretic? I have already stated many times that he was not a heretic.

            From today’s NO Office of Readings:

            From an explanation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians by Saint Augustine, bishop
            (Praefatio: PL 35, 2105-2107)

            “Paul writes to the Galatians to make them understand that by God’s grace they are no longer under the law. When the Gospel was preached to them, there were some among them of Jewish origin known as circumcisers—though they called themselves Christians—who did not grasp the gift they had received. They still wanted to be under the burden of the law. Now God had imposed that burden on those who were slaves to sin and not on servants of justice. That is to say, God had given a just law to unjust men in order to show them their sin, not to take it away. For sin is taken away only by the gift of faith that works through love. The Galatians had already received this gift, but the circumcisers claimed that the Gospel would not save them unless they underwent circumcision and were willing to observe also the other traditional Jewish rites.

            The Galatians, therefore, began to question Paul’s preaching of the Gospel because he did not require Gentiles to follow Jewish observances as other apostles had done. Even Peter had yielded to the scandalized protests of the circumcisers. He pretended to believe that the Gospel would not save the Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burden of the law. But Paul recalled him from such dissimulation, as is shown in this very same letter. A similar issue arises in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but with an evident difference. Through his letter to them Paul was able to resolve the strife and controversy that had developed between the Jewish and Gentile converts.

            In the present letter Paul is writing to persons who were profoundly influenced and disturbed by the circumcisers. The Galatians had begun to believe them and to think that Paul had not preached rightly, since he had not ordered them to be circumcised. And so the Apostle begins by saying: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you to the glory of Christ, and turning to another gospel.

            After this there comes a brief introduction to the point at issue. But remember in the very opening of the letter Paul had said that he was an apostle not from men nor by any man, a statement that does not appear in any other letter of his. He is making it quite clear that the circumcisers, for their part, are not from God but from men, and that his authority in preaching the Gospel must be considered equal to that of the other apostles. For he was called to be an apostle not from men nor by any man, but through God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.”
            St. Augustine used the phrase ‘pretended to believe’ believe what? In the circumcision parties beliefs, which were and are heretical beliefs. I said Peter did not believe those beliefs and even instructed the Church against those beliefs, so St. Peter is not a heretic. However, he acted for a brief time as if he were by pretending to those beliefs.

          • My view of the Paul “resisting” Peter episode is that it was a tempest in a teapot. No one paid attention to it until the recognize and resist theology got hold of it.

            I think it’s a huge stretch to take a minor episode that clearly angered Saint Paul, but in the end was resolved quickly. Note, that we never got Saint Peter’s version of the story, only Saint Paul’s perception of it (Divine Inspiration only goes so far). True, Saint Peter’s actions caused a scandal in the eyes of the Gentiles, but it could have been a result of a lapse of judgement.

            It would be very natural for Saint Peter to socialize more with people of his own culture and language than the Gentiles (when he likely spoke little of their language). A little humanity is present here.

            It’s even more telling, that Saint Paul deliberately leaves out Saint Peter’s reply to these accusations! Do you think that if Saint Peter agreed with Saint Paul that he was acting like a hypocrite, that he would have forgot to mention that fact?

            Saint Paul already had an “interpersonal conflict” with Saint Barnabas (which would result in the end of their friendship) so no wonder he drew him into the fray.

            What I’m saying that this episode just isn’t about a Pope falling into heresy, much less how regular Catholic Bishops ect approach that situation. I think it’s an almost ‘Baptist-like’ stretch to take a few obscure Bible versus and create an entire theology of resistance to papal heresy. (Especially when the origins of this approach can only be dated to after Vatican II).

            Saint Peter was the first to admit Gentiles into the Church, so it is a bit of a stretch to surmise he was having second thoughts. Saint Peter traveled all the way to Rome to evangelize the Gentiles. He even took along Saint Mark who knew Roman language and culture. Saint Paul himself, was only a man with his own human flaws, and people in any organization will come into disagreement and conflict. That is all this episode demonstrates.

            Sorry, but I’ve come to see it as grasping at straws to try and explain our unprecedented crisis. Like Melanie, I think it’s both an attempt to normalize heresy from the Pope, and so also normalize dissent to the Papacy. Both sides of that equation are problematic.

          • Please note that I have said several times that I do not believe St. Peter was a formal or material heretic, and I pointed out that Peter himself baptized gentiles in Jerusalem and when questioned about it explained it to the Church in Jerusalem as an act of the Holy Spirit and the Church praised God for the incorporation of the Gentiles into the Church. I said he acted in a heretical manner, in that he behaved as if Jews and Gentiles still needed to be separated for the sake of ritual purity in the New Covenant, something he clearly did not personally believe as he himself taught against it.

            St. Paul isn’t at fault in the above episode, St. Peter is and so was St. Barnabas. St. Paul isn’t picking on St. Barnabas, he was sincerely shocked that Barnabas had been lead astray, as He and Barnabas had already suffered much together while evangelizing the Jews and the Gentiles at the hands of Jews as well as Gentiles for the Gospel the preached.

            St. Peter erred here, not St. Paul. The fact that St. Peter later testifies on behalf of St. Paul shows that he held him in high esteem long after this episode, as St. Paul held St. Peter, hence why he sought Peter’s personal council and instruction when conflicted.

            Sorry, but Sacred scripture clearly attests to St. Paul being correct in this affair as the council of Jerusalem and the rest of the New Testament clearly demonstrate: segregation of Jew from Gentile is over in the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ. Old Covenant Abrogated, New Covenant in effect.

            The Divinely Inspired Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians does not sew doubt about the truth of what happened, it clearly indicates that St. Peter succumbed to fear and acted in a dishonest manner. Other scriptures, such as the Gospels, also demonstrate that fear influenced St. Peter at other critical times as well. As well as ancient Christian tradition: Quo Vadis?

          • True Rev.Fr. but the episode still only applies to resisting certain papal actions, not to the actual Popes teaching of heresy which is what we have today. This incident was very brief scandal, it doesn’t involve an ongoing “resistance” to the Ordinary Magisterium month, after month, year after year, decade after decade, due to a specific line of Aggiornamento Popes who have progressively damaged the Faith to the point of almost no return under Francis. It doesn’t provide a viable pretext to explain the normalization of heresy from the Vatican and also how a genuine Catholic can continue to legitimately dissent from the faith, morals, and disciplines of an Ordinary Magisterium, when its authority continues to be used to go against the Faith. By design and dogma, there is no situation whereby the Ordinary Magisterium could ever find itself in that predicament. It begs the question of a Church whereby the Pope is a mere artifact, an empty symbol with no practical use.

          • And I never said that it referred to any of the above. Though one thing is certain, if St. Peter had resisted St. Paul to his face in the above incident and continued to separate himself from the Gentiles, which he clearly did not do, then it would have lead to continual resistance by St. Paul.
            I agree, the situation we are in is unique (thank God for that!) and of an entirely different order. Though one thing is clear, resistance to Modernist destruction of the Church is essential.

          • From your earlier post: “but in the end was resolved quickly”

            Not so.

            We do not know the exact timeline but we do know that the issue was at the core of the reason the Council of Jerusalem met.

            It was no small matter.

          • If that is so Rodh, and Galatians 2 precedes the Council of Jerusalem, then that is even more intriguing, since the doctrine of what to do with the Gentile converts was not yet even decided by the Catholic Church. So not only were James and Peter not in error they could not even be properly charged with hypocrisy.

          • Ver. 11.

            But when Cephas, &c.[1] In most Greek copies, we read Petrus, both here and ver. 13. Nor are there any sufficient, nor even probable grounds to judge, that Cephas here mentioned was different from Peter, the prince of the apostles, as one or two later authors would make us believe. Among those who fancied Cephas different from Peter, not one can be named in the first ages[centuries], except Clemens of Alexandria, whose works were rejected as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius. The next author is Dorotheus of Tyre, in his Catalogue of the seventy-two disciples, in the fourth or fifth age[century], and after him the like, or same catalogue, in the seventh age[century], in the Chronicle, called of Alexandria, neither of which are of any authority with the learned, so many evident faults and falsehoods being found in both. St. Jerome indeed on this place says, there were some (though he does not think fit to name them) who were of that opinion; but at the same time St. Jerome ridicules and rejects it as groundless. Now as to authors that make Cephas the same with St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, we have what may be called the unexceptionable and unanimous consent of the ancient fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church, as of Tertullian, who calls this management of St. Peter, a fault of conversation, not of preaching or doctrine. Of St. Cyprian, of Origen, of the great doctors, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Great, of St. Cyril of Alexandria, of Theodoret, Pope Gelasius, Pelagius the second, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas. In later ages, of Bellarmine, Baronius, Binius, Spondan, of Salmeron, Estius, Gagneius, Tirinus, Menochius, Alex Natalis, and a great many more: so that Cornelius a Lapide on this place says, that the Church neither knows, nor celebrates any other Cephas but St. Peter. Tertullian and most interpreters take notice, that St. Peter’s fault was only a lesser or venial sin in his conduct and conversation. Did not St. Paul on several occasions do the like, as what is here laid to St. Peter’s charge? that is, practise the Jewish ceremonies: did not he circumcise Timothy after this, an. 52[A.D. 52]? did he not shave his head in Cenchrea, an. 54? did he not by the advice of St. James (an. 58.) purify himself with the Jews in the temple, not to offend them? St. Jerome, and also St. Chrysostom,[2] give another exposition of this passage. They looked upon all this to have been done by a contrivance and a collusion betwixt these two apostles, who had agreed beforehand that St. Peter should let himself be reprehended by St. Paul, (for this they take to be signified by the Greek text) and not that St. Peter was reprehensible;[3] so that the Jews seeing St. Peter publicly blamed, and not justifying himself, might for the future eat with the Gentiles. But St. Augustine vigorously opposed this exposition of St. Jerome, as less consistent with a Christian and apostolical sincerity, and with the text in this chapter, where it is called a dissimulation, and that Cephas or Peter walked not uprightly to the truth of the gospel. After a long dispute betwixt these two doctors, St. Jerome seems to have retracted his opinion, and the opinion of St. Augustine is commonly followed, that St. Peter was guilty of a venial fault of imprudence. In the mean time, no Catholic denies but that the head of the Church may be guilty even of great sins. What we have to admire, is the humility of St. Peter on this occasion, as St. Cyprian observes,[4] who took the reprehension so mildly, without alleging the primacy, which our Lord had given him. Baronius held that St. Peter did not sin at all, which may be true, if we look upon his intention only, which was to give no offence to the Jewish converts; but if we examine the fact, he can scarce be excused from a venial indiscretion. (Witham) — I withstood, &c. The fault that is here noted in the conduct of St. Peter, was only a certain imprudence, in withdrawing himself from the table of the Gentiles, for fear of giving offence to the Jewish converts: but this in such circumstances, when his so doing might be of ill consequence to the Gentiles, who might be induced thereby to think themselves obliged to conform to the Jewish way of living, to the prejudice of their Christian liberty. Neither was St. Paul’s reprehending him any argument against his supremacy; for is such cases an inferior may, and sometimes ought, with respect, to admonish his superior. (Challoner)

            ++++++++++++++ end quotes+++++++++++=

            OnePeterFive has the reputation of solid orthodoxy. Can it maintain that reputation when one of its Priests moderators repeatedly refers to the heretical actions of Saint Peter?

          • Thanks for that. Given the disagreements among the Church Fathers themselves, this passage is by no means clear in its context or intent. There can simply be no definitive judgement that Saint Peter (and poor Saint James who is dragged through the mud) did anything untoward in this kerfuffle with Saint Paul. Like I said, if this occurred prior to the Council of Jerusalem, and according to the agreement laid down beforehand by Saints Peter, James, and John, that they would handle the ministry to the Jewish converts, and Saint Paul would deal with the Gentiles, then there is no reason to defame either Saint James or Saint Peter, regardless of Saint Paul’s indignation.

          • Dear Father. Several times on this thread you have said that Saint Peter acted heretically and then said he was not a heretic.

            That is simply indefensible.

            If you said repeatedly that a man acted criminally, you could not then also say “he was not a criminal.”

            Well, if he was not a criminal, then why would you constantly say he acted criminally?

            If Saint Peter was not a heretic, why do you repeatedly claim he acted heretically?

            Dear Father. It is so hard for you to admit you made an error by saying Perter acted heretically?

            This is my last attempt to get through to you on this point as it is quite clear you are not willing to admit you erred in saying that Peter acted heretically.

            Also, you have not cited any Church Father or any Traditional source of exegesis that has charged Saint Peter as having acting heretically.

          • He acted drunkenly but he was not drunk. He acted foolishly though he was not a fool. He acted innocently though he was not innocent. He acted ignorantly though he was not ignorant. He acted stupidly yet he was not stupid. He behaved poorly though he was an upright man. He acted like a criminal, that is criminally, though he was innocent. You are in error in what you are saying about what I said. Your attempt failed because it is false and denies flatly what I have said and disallows the use of the English language that is common in its usage.
            St. Peter isn’t a heretic, I never said he was, drop it.

          • Dear Matt. I was just reviewing Dom Ochard’s “A Catholic Commentary on Catholic Scripture” and there is not even a hint of Saint Peter acting heretically as it was clear a doctrinal question was not in question:

            Paul rebuked Peter not with a doctrinal error. but with not holding firm in the princiole which he recognizes, ‘ conversationis vitum non praedicationis before them all.

            P. 1116 895h

          • Dear Matt. The Douay Rheims notes make the perceptive observation that Saint Paul did the same things that he said Saint Peter was doing.

            See note for Verse 11 Galatains 2

            So, I guess we now have to say that BOTH Saint Peter and Saint Paul were heretics.

            This is so much fun, isn’t it?

          • His actions most definitely were encouraging the segregation/separation of the Gentiles, which of itself, denies the Truth of the Gospel. I have always believed and have many times stated that actions themselves can be heretical, not just words.

            Heresy is ultimately a betrayal of the Truth in favor of an untruth, words themselves are not the only form of betrayal. The most poignant forms of heretical betrayal are often carried out in actions not words. The words usually come after the action.

          • I am saying that Peter acted heretically, even if he was not what we would now define as a formal a heretic. Furthermore, Peter took the correction of Paul, as he took the correction of Jesus, with humility, contrition and amendment of life.

            The principle point, is that actions are important in teaching. Hence, we are called to Imitate Jesus Christ and the Saints…as in we are to believe with them as they believed and act with them as they acted.

          • I may be mistaken, but I assumed that many Catholics were noting that St. Peter was a heretic to demonstrate that if our very first Pope, appointed by Jesus Christ Almighty Himself, was a heretic than it’s not the end of the world that we have a heretic Pope now and if our faith is made opposite faith than he’ll certainly just be corrected by a guy like St. Paul and all will be well and it won’t matter at all that for some number of years the faith was opposite faith. Now, me, I don’t see how a faith of 2,000 years could vacillate like that. Am I to believe that during the last 2,000 years there have been Catholics who had a completely different faith than I do because they happened to live under a heretical Pope? And who is to judge which of these Papacies was heretical and which weren’t if this was so? How do I know that I shouldn’t just get with AL program and go to NO Mass and believe the Pastor who says we don’t need to go to Confession anymore, because Confession isn’t really a barrel of laughs?

          • I hear you. Our Faith is founded in Jesus Christ, not on the men whom He has appointed our their successors. The Deposit of the Faith is guaranteed through the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit and the Constant Teaching of the Divinely instituted Church affirms this. Anything contrary, as in contradicting that Deposit, no matter whom on earth utters it is Contra Fidei, that is an act against the Faith.
            There have been heretical Popes, and many Anti-Popes, and yet the Faith and the Church abides in Her Divine Lord and shall prevail.
            It’s not the end of the world if the Pope is a material or formal heretic, it’s the end of him and his knowing and willing cronies. God will protect the truly innocent and give those who have been lead astray ample opportunities to come back to Him, if they choose not to then they are not innocent but actively complicit in the evil and shall suffer the just punishment that is their due.
            Make no bones about it, the Church on Earth is in Her most serious Crisis, and that souls are being lost (though, not innocently!) and that we are called to be truly Militant in our practice of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith in the midst of this heinous Crisis.

          • I think of it like this;

            A person can encourage, foster, promote and assuage heresy in a number of ways without actually and clearly stating it himself.

            The Church needs to clarify just how far a Pope can go. Has Bergoglio actually “taught heresy”? Has he “proclaimed heresy as dogma”? If so, where specifically?

            The story of St Peter manifestly displays how a technically non-teaching act can be deeply damaging to the faith and DEMAND a correction. As you say, St Peter said one thing and did another. And we do not know the entire depth of his actions, words, encouragement, etc. We know what St Paul had to say and that itself indicates a level of gravity that cannot be discounted. And that a Council was formed to grant even more clarity makes the point. Indeed, as Fr Miceli says, in the Scriptures we see Christ making the great proclamation about the foundation of the Church on the Rock of St Peter and then just a few lines later calling him Satan! For many Popes have been “Satan” in their lives and desires to be “popular”. And that is precisely what St Peter was doing then and later in the incident with the Judaizers; he wasn’t “teaching” per se, he was giving support to popular ideas and thus trying to be personally popular and make Christ/the Church popular instead of firmly standing up for the TEACHING of Christ which demanded sacrifise.

            It would be nice to wash our hands of Bergoglio as Pope and make ourselves feel better. But there are other doctrines of the faith that preclude that, namely, that we possess no personal authority to do that and to assert such authority places us firmly in the camp of the Protestant heretics. I spent most of my life there. I am not going back.

          • The problem isn’t me or anyone else declaring the Pope a heretic. The problem is that there is a Pope that’s a heretic. You all can tell me that a Pope can be a heretic because St. Peter was a heretic but that just doesn’t make it so. And I don’t believe that he was a heretic nor that any Pope was. If a Pope could be a heretic than the whole entire purpose of a Pope to guard the faith handed down to us from the Apostles just woudn’t make any sense and we would have absolutely no earthly clue what the faith handed down from the Apostles even was. Can’t you see that it makes no sense? You seem to think that the Church has just been remiss up until now and will clarify this eventually but I posit that the Church was never remiss and that it is already clear. The Pope guards the faith. Even if he is a sinful man, he will, by the protection of the Holy Ghost, be protected from even his own sinfulness from changing the faith that Jesus Christ gave us and why wouldn’t the Holy Ghost be capable of this? Since JB doesn’t seem to have this protection, you know my conjecture and I think it is the most logical based on the information available. I’m just ignoring him like the rest of the Catholics who actually believe he is a heretical Pope. That’s all I can do. But in the mean time he leads many souls astray.

          • Melanie: Who has the authority to assess that a Pope is a heretic?

            Because many have assessed both Benedict 16 and St JPII as heretics, and on one level, it is mighty hard to disagree with that asessement.

          • It is.

            Rod, I don’t know what to tell you. The Catholic Church isn’t a cult, it’s the truth. I have no fear of becoming a Protestant. I believe in the Catholic Church. I have been an imperfect Catholic but I’ve never even at my very worst dissented from a single teaching. I’ve read much over the years, most of it Catholic. I can recognize something not Catholic immediately and I am just confident in it. It isn’t pride, it is faith. I’ll never leave the Church. I could be thrown into a gulag and never have the Sacraments again and I will pray my heart out. Any number of things could occur to somehow make the Sacraments unavailable to me but I’ll chase them around as long as I can. I go to SSPX now because JB scares me and I think he’s a really bad guy and not Catholic and if SSPX were to sign an oath of fidelty to him than maybe my Priest won’t and he’d probably have to say Mass in some crummy place and I would go there.

          • I don’t concern myself with who declares whom a heretic among the bishops and cardinals. All I know is that most of them, including Francis, has left the Catholic Church, and not I. I’m a Thomist and I start with reality and then work my way back. And the objective reality, plain for all to see, is that we simply do not have a Catholic Pope in Rome. The See of Unity is the very cause of our present disunity. The infallible magisterium has declared war on the Catholic Faith. This truly is the mystery of iniquity and it’s not my job to sort it all out, but to remain faithful to the Catholic Faith. That is my prime directive. If, like my ancestors, I have to live with only receiving the sacraments a few times a year from a rarely seen Catholic priest, than so be it. They lived like that in England for 300 years, therefore so can I and my family and our descendents.

          • “…that we possess no personal authority to do that and to assert such authority places us firmly in the camp of the Protestant heretics.”

            RodH, I learn from so much of what you write here at 1P5…but this….I just cannot see it the way you do. Can we all agree that Protestants are going to have a heck of a hard time identifying the Antichrist? They (most all) already believe that divorce/remarriage is not a deal breaker with God. The NT pretty much starts out with St. John the Baptist and his loosing his head for this very reason. Together with Sr. Lucia’s claim that Satan’s final battle with God would be over family and marriage, and now adding what PF is doing with the family and marriage….I just don’t see that we don’t have the capacity, authority or whatever to discern this. The same “gut feeling” that led me to the CC also tells me that Ann B is right. I see that NOT knowing who or what Bergoglio is is more like Protestantism.

            Additionally, I just want to say that I don’t believe I personally have the capacity to “make the call” as I am woefully less learned than probably everyone here. It just doesn’t make sense that if Bergoglio is the true pope, he doesn’t “enjoy” the negative protection to not teach error. We know that Jesus said of the Pharisees to do what ever they tell you, but not as they do. The example of St. Peter shows this. He didn’t teach heretical things, did he? But he did things that scandalized the people. Big difference. I don’t know. I just got back from a night with the girls, couple glasses of wine….so maybe I should be quiet.

            In your charity, pray for my friends…they’re all Protestants and worse off then us.

          • THAT’S IT.

            To paraphrase Bishop Schneider from not long ago, the Catholic family worships Jesus, not the Pope.

            When clarity and the fullness of the dogma is understood in its complete orthodoxy, brace yourselves for a flood of converts!

          • Dear Father. I think you are harshly incorrect here in your exegesis and your claim is contrary to the traditional classic understanding of the episode.as summarised by Cornelius a Lapide:

            Ver. 11.—I withstood him to the face. Erasmus and others interpret this to mean in appearance, outwardly, feignedly, and by previous arrangement. The literal meaning is better: I openly resisted Peter, in order that the public scandal caused by him might he removed by a public rebuke (Augustine, Ambrose, Bede, Anselm, and nearly all other authorities).

            Because he was to be blamed.

            (1.) Because he had been blamed (κατεγνωσμένος) by other brethren, whom Peter had offended by this proceeding, in their ignorance of his true intention and motive, as Chrysostom and Jerome say, or, as Ephrem turns it, “because they were offended in him.” (2.) Theophylact and Œcumenius understand it: Peter had been blamed by the other Apostles because he had eaten with the Gentile Cornelius at Cæsarea. Fearing lest he should be blamed again by them or by other Jews, he withdrew himself from all intercourse with the Gentiles. (3.) The opinion of Ambrose is better. He had fallen under the condemnation of the truth and of Gospel liberty, which sets the Gentiles free from the darkness and slavery of Judaism. (4.) The Vulgate reprehesiblis (in place of reprehensus, as with the authors cited above) is better, and agrees with the context. It gives the reason for resisting Peter, because he was to be blamed for simulating Judaism.

            It may be asked whether Peter was really blameworthy and was actually blamed by Paul. For many years there was a sharp dispute on this point between S. Jerome and S. Augustine, as may be seen in their epistles. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Baronius answer in the negative, and hold that the rebuke was only theatrical. They argue that Peter, who had lawfully followed the Jewish customs at Jerusalem among Jews, lived as a Gentile among Gentiles at Antioch; when, however, the Jews arrived who had been sent to Antioch from Jerusalem by James, he withdrew from the Gentiles in favour of the Jews, lest he should offend those who had been the earliest to receive the faith (see ver. 9), and also that he might at the same time give Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, an opportunity of rebuking him, that by yielding he might teach the Jews that the time for Judaising was past. On the other side S. Augustine maintains that Peter was really blameworthy, and was blamed by Paul, as the record distinctly declares.

            Out of this arose a dispute between S. Augustine and S. Jerome about simulation and lying. Jerome argued from this action of Peter’s that any similar simulation is lawful. Augustine denied that he did simulate, and laid down the unlawfulness of all lying or simulation, especially in matters of religion. In this second question, however, neither seems to have understood the other’s position. Jerome did not maintain that Peter told a lie, or put on a profession of Judaism while secretly detesting it, as Augustine, by the strength of his language, seems to think that Jerome held. The latter did not say that Peter was right in professing Judaism; if he did, then it would be right for any one of the faithful to make a profession of any false faith or any heresy. But Jerome only held what S. Chrysostom did, viz., that the rebuke administered to Peter by Paul was not really intended, but was merely theatrical, it being arranged between them beforehand that Paul should rebuke Peter, not for simulation, but for thoughtless dissimulation, and that Peter should accept the rebuke thus arranged for, that so the Judaisers might be really rebuked in the specious rebuke given to Peter, and with him might clearly understand that Judaising was forbidden. The lawfulness of such an action is not denied by Augustine, all he denies is that the proceeding was of this nature.

            From this it appears how little ground Cassian (Collat. xvii. 17- 25), Origen, Clement, Erasmus, and others (see the passages in Sixtus of Sens, lib. v. annot. 105) had for founding the lawfulness of lying on this passage, or for endorsing the saying of Plato, that, although a lie is an evil thing, yet it is occasionally necessary, just as we use hellebore or some other drug, for this is now an established error condemned by Innocent III. (Tit. de Usuris, cap. super eo.), and by Ecclesiasticus vii. 14. Against it too S. Augustine writes two treatises, one entitled de Mendacio and the other contra Mendacium. Nor is there any exception to be taken here against Jerome and Chrysostom. They only understand and excuse a secret arrangement, whereby no lie was acted, but a rebuke was simulated, and this is a legitimate action, as is evident in military stratagems, when for instance, the enemy feigns to flee, and so draws its foes into an ambush.

            A third question was also disputed between Jerome and Augustine as to the date when the Old Law came to an end, but this is outside the present subject, and it is sufficient therefore to say very briefly that the Old Law, so far as obligation goes, came to an end at Pentecost, when the New Law was promulgated, but that its observance did not wholly cease, it being lawful to observe it for a while, till the Jews had been gradually weaned from it, that so in due time it might receive an honourable burial. In this dispute Augustine seems to have held the stronger position.

            It may be urged that in this act of Peter’s there was at least something sinful, if not actually erroneous in faith, as some have rashly asserted. By his action it may be thought that he thoughtlessly made a profession of Judaism, and so put a stumbling-block in the way of the Gentiles, and tempted them to Judaise with him. He had previously lived with the Gentiles, but he afterwards withdrew from them suddenly, went over to the Jews, and lived with them. From this the Gentiles might properly infer that judaism was necessary to salvation, both for him and themselves, and was binding on Christians; for though the Old Law, with its ceremonies, was not yet the cause of death, and might be preserved so as to secure for itself an honourable burial, and also to draw the Jews to the faith of Christ, yet it was dead, and in one sense death-giving, viz., to any one who should keep it on the supposition that it was binding on Christians. Although Peter, however, did not so regard it, yet his action was so imprudent as to give the Gentiles good reason for thinking that he did.

            The justness of this remark is evident from the two remarks made by Paul: I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed; and: When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, Why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?—viz., by your simulation, or what the Greeks call hypocrisy. All this shows that either Peter sinned or that Paul told a lie, which God forbid. See S. Augustine (Ep. 8, 9, and 19 to Jerome), Cyprian (Ep. ad Quintum), Gregory (Hom. 18 in Ezech.), Ambrose, &c.

            To what has been said I add this: This sin of Peter’s was venial, or material only, arising from want of thought, or from want of light and prudence. He seems to have thought that, being the Apostle of the Jews especially, that he ought rather to avoid scandalising them than the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles would readily recognise the rightfulness of this line of action. In so doing he erred, for “although,” as S. Thomas says, “the Holy Spirit who descended an the Apostles at Pentecost established them thereafter in such prudence and grace as to keep them from mortal sins, yet he did not also save them from venial sins.”

            Observe that a lie may consist in deeds as well as in words. For example, if a man lead another to suppose by his conduct that he is a good man or his friend, when he is neither of these, then he is guilty of a lie. This lie by deed is what is properly called hypocrisy. Similarly, if any Christian at Rome wears a yellow cap he acts a lie, by thus giving himself out as a Jew.

            Notice, however, with Cajetan that falsity in deeds is more easily excused than falsity in words. The reason is that words are express signs of mental concepts, but deeds are not, and so admit a wider interpretation. Hence if soldiers feign flight to draw the enemy into an ambush, they are not guilty of hypocrisy, as they would be if they were to say in words: “We flee, 0 enemy, because we are afraid of you.”

            Again, observe the following rule: When there is a just cause of concealing the truth, no falsehood is involved. Peter, in the act under discussion, had partly a just cause, viz., the fear of offending the Jews. His withdrawal from the Gentiles was not a formal declaration that he was a Judaiser, but only tantamount to saying that he preferred to serve the Jews rather than the Gentiles, the just cause of this preference being that he was more an Apostle of the former than of the latter. I say partly, for he was not wholly justified in so acting, inasmuch as he was bound, as universal pastor, to care for the Jews without neglecting the Gentiles. Hence it follows also that in one respect he sinned through want of due consideration. The infirmity of man’s mind, however, is such that he cannot always hit the exact mean, and under complex circumstances benefit one without harming another.

          • The simplest interpretation is exactly what is said in the Scripture, Peter gave scandal to the Church in Antioch because he separated himself from the Gentiles once certain Jews showed up from Jerusalem, and he separated himself from the gentiles based on fear of those Jews. Why was he afraid of them? Because they, the Jews, who came to visit Peter, held the belief that Jews were to be separated from the Gentiles.

            Not because St. Peter formally or even materially held that belief, because he did not he had already ministered to the Gentiles in Jerusalem and had explained to the Church in Jerusalem the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Roman Household, to which they all praised God for. The problem was that St. Peter acted as if he held that belief which is why St. Paul is rightfully outraged.

            St. Paul rebukes St. Peter because of this, for he was acting in a dishonest manner which lead even St. Barnabas to do likewise, to draw back from the Gentiles, when they were to bring the Gospel to both the Jews and the Gentiles in Antioch and had been doing for quite some time. This caused Scandal as in leading others astray from the truth, which is what happened with St. Barnabas (and presumably others.) St. Paul rebuked St. Peter publically because St. Peter had given public scandal by his actions. To heal the scandal the correction had to happen publically so that all would be once again reaffirmed by the Truth of the Gospel: That the division between Jew and Gentile was abolished in the New Covenant. That both Jew and Gentile had equal status under the New Covenant because both needed to be saved by the Grace of Jesus Christ and both were reborn via the Sacrament of Baptism and belonged to One Faith as brothers in the One Household of God.

          • Dear Father. Then taught us to stay with what the Church Fathers taught about Holy Scripture and that is what Cornelius a Lapide did. I will stay with he and the Early Church Fathers taught and simply re[udiate your personal heretical exegesis

          • And Father Martin wants us to act like sinners and not saints.
            He probably loves that Billy Joel ditty!

        • You are more kind than I am. I salute you. To me Weigle represents the heart of the problem. Spin masters that refuse to state what must be stated.

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          • As I said, I have not been a big Fan of George Weigel. I am simply trying to clarify the matter at hand, not the past or the future…aka, I do not trust George Weigel. I hope and pray for him, he has a powerful intellect and we could surely use his help in this deadly Crisis.

        • No one should forget when thinking about Weigel that he is capable of making astounding mistakes in judgement. He was once clear in his defense of W Bush’s catastrophic and unprincipled war against Iraq.

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    • “Paradigm shifts” AKA “They changed something” has been going on since V II. And every time there is another “paradigm shift” a whole lot of people get thrown under the bus. Collateral damage, I guess.

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    • A lot of work went into this!
      Thanks!!!!!
      George Wiggle is a spiriritual WORM!
      If I’m not mistaken he endorsed a recent heretical book, but my memory is not working

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      • George Wriggles name was on the jacket of the book and I was shocked by it.
        This was only a week ago.
        TO LIGHT A FIRE ON EARTH
        by Bishop Robert Barron

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  2. “Nobody bothers to attack someone who doesn’t pose a threat.” I am sure there are many spiritual attacks as well. I pray to God for all those pursuing truth and authentic faith that they would stay strong and receive the graces and grow in virtues necessary to fulfill God’s Will in their lives and in the Church and that they not fall into temptation.

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  3. Fr. Z’s is one of the more cheerful blogs out there and he is careful about keeping the crazies out of his commboxes, which are two of the reasons I like his blog so much. Makes you wonder if the Fr. Martins of the world ever read anything in his blog from top to bottom, though I think we all know the answer to that.

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  4. The article over at Buzzfeed is blistering. One hardly knows how to respond to it, or to the loathsome erroneous characterizations of Father Zuhlsdorf and his apostolate offered by Martin and Faggioli. It speaks volumes of the author and of those he enlists to support his assault on a priest who is faithful to the perennial Magisterium of the Church. I’m beginning to give credence, more and more to the “theories” proposed around the resignation of Pope Benedict.
    There is an evil at work in the Church that is mind numbing, and it has only just begun. WE all have bulls eyes on our backs, but priests and religious particularly — and those of whom they need be most cautious are those whom they are required to trust.
    It is really apocalyptic.

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    • I agree. I would say that I don’t think we should accept these people’s false premises when attacked. If they accuse us of wanting to rid the Catholic Church of liberalism, we should say, “Yes, liberalism is a sin. Repent buddy.” And double down. Those in the wrong ALWAYS double down but those in the right frequently back down and capitulate in some degree.

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      • As Catholics we are instinctively sensitive to ecclesiastical authority — as Catholics faithful to the perennial Magisterium this is magnified. It is hard to turn the corrective on members of the episcopate and clergy, religious. But I’ve been watching this since it came to birth during my youth. Those worthy of deference receive it from me. Those unworthy, who mask their reality behind a façade of Catholicism are called out. We all have to stop being afraid of committing the “sin” of telling the truth to bad bishops, priests and sister. They are off track and it absurd to think it virtuous to remain mute in the face of evil. And that is what it is — evil.

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        • Since I have felt like a grown up in the Church, basically after getting married and having children, I have had absolutely no qualms about questioning ecclesiastical authority and I’ve always been respectful and never used words like, bull. I was probably raised a spoiled brat but I know there are more of me out there. Sometimes I was given a response that literally meant nothing, it may as well have been, “Wa wa wa wa wa.” And I never received a response from a Bishop. These people were going to do what they were going to do, period. I do not blame the laity for this crisis. Concupiscience, sure. But those people who say something did say something and no dissent or protests were going to stop this monstrosity.

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  5. PLEASE POINT OUT THAT BUZZFEED SELECTIVELY MISQUOTED Fr. Z ON PURPOSE.

    Buzzfeed article:

    ““No,” the priest, Father John Zuhlsdorf, replied. “It is not necessarily sinful to pray for the end of a pontificate, one way or another … Popes come and go. In our prayers, we can, without sinning, discuss with God about His time table.””

    What Fr. Z actually said, and is contained in the ellipses ‘…’

    “No. It is not necessarily sinful to pray for the end of a pontificate, one way or another. However, it depends on why and on your attitude. I urge people not to have hate in their hearts for the person of the Holy Father. He deserves our prayers. That doesn’t mean that we have to like him or what he does. We do NOT worship the Pope. Popes come and go. In our prayers, we can, without sinning, discuss with God about His time table.”

    As pointed out by:
    https://onemadmomblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/what-color-is-the-pill-youre-taking/

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  6. I’m going to plug a book again;

    “The Antichrist” by Father Vincent Miceli.

    Written in 1991, it prophetically describes in detail the Modernist/Communist war being fought within the Church not as a mere series of unfortunate episodes, but as the playing out in the midst of God’s plan of salvation the works of Antichrist through “little antichrists”. It has, I guess strangely, calmed my concerns.

    And it must be. With Christendom as a culture shattered by the Protestant exodus 500 years ago, the remaining target left to the devil is the heart of the Church itself; the dogmas of the faith, worship, morality. And who best to destroy that edifice but those within the walls?

    It is quite boringly predictable that the heretics like this Martin guy use secular terms and the instigation of the mob to make their points. This is not theological discussion or even debate, it is the promotion of full-blown, godless secularism by converts to the teaching of the devil who are at war with Holy Mother Church.

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    • We are living in a remarkable age. Among my Catholic siblings and Catholic friends I am increasingly vilified for aligning myself with orthodox teaching in regards to same-sex marriage, in vitro conception, donor gametes, contraception, and a male priesthood. No matter how logical an argument I put forth, they respond angrily and say I am bigoted, crazy, or worse. Very frightening, very disheartening.

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      • Luke 18:8 – “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?”

        Matthew 24:15 – “When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.”

        Matthew 24:24-25 – “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.”

        2 Thess. 2:3-5 – “Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt [apostasy] first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God. Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?”

        “When all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks (II. Thess. ii., 3). Such, in truth, is the audacity and the wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of the faith, in brazen effort to uproot and destroy all relations between man and the Divinity! While, on the other hand, and this according to the same apostle is the distinguishing mark of Antichrist, man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God; in such wise that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has contemned God’s majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored. “He sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (II. Thess. ii., 2). Pope St. Pius X, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_04101903_e-supremi.html

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      • “We are living in a remarkable age.” Reminds me of that Chinese saying/proverb that’s supposedly a curse, “We live in interesting times.”

        The age is remarkable and the times are interesting and frightening. Disheartening only if you let it get to you…

        Recently I read Saint Teresa of Avila’s assessment of disappointment (I think you can substitute disheartening for disappointment….maybe not directly on point but close enough.) and she said that allowing ones self to become disappointed is a sin of pride. I suspect the her rationale is that “nothing happens by accident” and that we are born into a particular place and time according to God’s Will and that everything that happens to us is a function of Divine Providence so that we should just “man up”, “suck up” and approach life with the attitude that whatever is presented to us is just a welcomed spiritual “challenge and opportunity.”

        Hey, this is spiritual warfare….mortal combat…all Christians are born for spiritual warfare….toughen up 🙂

        Check out Pope Leo XIII In Sapientiae Christianae. Here’s an excerpt – you have to love Leo XIII – especially in light of the current occupant of the chair of Saint Peter.

        ” Pope Leo XIII, however, has no patience with silence. “To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth,” he warns, “is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe.” The only ones who win when Christians stay quiet, he says, are the enemies of truth. The silence of Catholics is particularly disturbing because frequently a few bold words would have vanquished the false ideas.

        “Christians are,” Leo continues, “born for combat.” It is part of their nature to follow Christ by espousing unpopular ideas and by defending the truth at great cost to themselves. One of their main duties is “professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine”; a second is “propagating it to the utmost of their power.” As many today insist, they should preach the Catholic faith through personal example; at the same time, though, they should also preach the faith “by open and constant profession of the obligations it imposes.” A negative reaction from the public, far from being a sign of mistaken ideas, can serve as evidence of exactly the opposite fact. “Jesus Christ,” the pope points out, “has clearly intimated that the hatred and hostility of men, which he first and foremost experienced, would be shown in like degree toward the work founded by him.”

        In short, before Leo XIIl spelled out the important social doctrine of Rerum Novarum, he outlined some even more basic truths about how Catholics should live. If Catholics can rejoice that much of Rerum Novarum has been fulfilled in the West, they should lament that Sapientiae Christianae remains virtually a dead letter. Many of the social problems in the West today would not exist if Catholics had taken this encyclical seriously. It is not too late. Today, through the great blessing of the Internet, Catholics can learn doctrine more easily than ever before. The next step, “open and constant profession,” is more difficult, but it flows directly from accepting that we are indeed “born for combat.“ ”

        I’ll keep you in my prayers….please keep me in yours.

        Peace, Grace and Mercy….remember, what we do today echoes in eternity!

        © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: [email protected]

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      • It is like this for me, too. Has been for years.
        We were warned that a time would come, when people would not listen to sound teaching.

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        • I just had a thought. It’s important to maintain Christian joy and a sense of humor through all these relatively tepid persecutions. We are not being threatened with bodily maiming st this point. We pray for perserverance. Remember St Lawrence, at the stake, saying “turn me over, this side is done”.

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      • I believe we both commiserated about our fallen away “Catholic” siblings on another occasion. I think that they do not want to deal in logic or reason, because I believe that somewhere deep down inside, they know that we are right. They truly cannot argue against our truly Catholic positions, so they use a defensive mechanism or tactic of name calling or getting so angry and vicious that they hope we will not argue with them on the “hot button” topic or sore subject. Fr. Heilman is asking Catholics to fast and pray for conversions and for life for 90 days, called Nineveh 90 for Life. I’m late in joining the 90 days worth of novena/s, but I’m going to join my fasting and prayers, (for life and for my loved ones’ conversions), to the large groups’ prayers during the rest of their Nineveh 90 prayers. That way I’ll get the benefit of the shared prayers from a large group of Catholics praying in earnest. I hope you can join, too. God bless you and all of the dear Catholics on this blog & comment section.

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    • Rod: I heard something wonderful the other day which came to mind when riding your post. Andrew Klavan was talking about how the Crucifixion and Resurrection is both literal and a beautiful allegory. The allegory is that it also describes the truth. Pilate is government; the Pharisees and Saducees are the elites, the people are the people and Christ is (literally and figuratively) the Truth.
      -Elites hate a truth
      -Elites attempt to use government institutions to destroy it
      -Neutral government institutions rebuff the elites, not on moral grounds but on the ground that the people are for the truth
      -Elites use media to turn people against the truth
      -Elites go back to government–this time with the people–and government agrees to kill truth
      -Truth is declared dead
      -Pesky old truth rises again because it cannot be killed

      Well…..I would say we are the point with liberals and all governing bodies in the west that the elites have turned enough of the people and government is slowly cooperating with them.

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        • Ut, oh. Don’t you know enough not to descend into facts?

          Just because the Messias-Deniers own the media doesn’t mean they are not even-handed and only interested in objective facts 🙂

          O, btw, Media Report is keeping a running tab of the Messias-Denying gal whose attacks on the Church are legendary.

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    • Some say that the antichrist will be a usurper of God’s authority in the Catholic Church, who
      claims Divine honours.

      So does making God in your own image fit the above description

      There is presently one unifying force between Conservative and Liberals that is a unification of
      silence on this question

      Is God’s Word (Will) indorsed by the Church Inviolate?

      See my running post on Crisis magazine with Michael Dowd in the Link below, from one of my posts;
      “as no one will respond to my plea, is there a THEOLOGAIN CAPABLE OF
      RESPONDING TO MY QUESTIONS,
      who visits this site?

      My question; is God’s Word (Will) indorsed by the Church Inviolate?

      If the answer is yes there can be only one Divine Mercy Image in God’s House on earth an Image of Broken Man.

      Perhaps we have a theologian who visits this site, who may respond to my question.I now include those who visit onepeterfive.
      http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/the-bashfulness-of-sin

      Extract from my opening Post in the link above

      “We need to be reminded about sin and how we resist it”….

      Yes! We do Michael, and that also
      includes calling (Reminding) our spiritual leaders to give account for their
      actions when they deceive the laity.

      Many hope for divine intervention to deal with the chaos within the church at
      this present moment in time……

      kevin your brother
      In Christ

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      • The silence is deafening, where are the searches for truth, where are the Shepherds, where are the men with chests, there is a name for many who participate on this site and others where I have posted this question,
        “is there a THEOLOGAIN CAPABLE OF RESPONDING TO MY QUESTIONS, who visits this site?
        But I will leave it for those who participate here to discern its name.

        kevin your brother
        In Christ

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  7. Your last two paragraphs really resonate with me.

    I worked for several years in politics, and saw up close and personal how, inch-by-inch, the conservatives would give and give until many became “liberal lite” or full-blown liberals; to these new enlightened folks people who would have been formerly thought solid conservatives became the great unwashed. This is why I like to say that “conservatism is liberalism in slow motion.”

    I’ve seen the same thing play out in the Church, and it’s now come to a head. I no longer should be surprised, but it still stings and shocks me when someone I thought “for sure” wouldn’t cave on Francis, A.L., etc. goes over the cliff with the other lemmings. “Conservatism is liberalism in slow motion.”

    Tradition is our only hope, and we will pay for it. I’ve seen that up close and personal, too. I thought professional politics was ugly, but nowhere have I seen more vicious, hateful ugliness than among “conservative,” “respectable,” “professional,” “orthodox” Catholics who expel Tradition-minded Catholics from their communities with no more thought than tossing a bag of trash to the curb.

    Let us pray for them that their eyes be opened and our patience and charity be strengthened.

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    • Eoin, I think this happens because there are not enough high profile media savvy people who can explain the flaws in the current ideologies. Speaking directly in an un-nuanced fashion is pounced upon. Maybe Jordan Peterson is an exception but we could do with some clones of him inside the Church who are wearing scarlet.

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      • Yes.

        I have read a number of comments recently about the void of true Catholic intellectuals among the prelature and find that interesting. We do not have powerful voices, or rather, we have very few powerful voices to defend and EXPLAIN the faith in the midst of conflict.

        Really, these Martin/Marx/Cupich individuals should be obliterated by rank and file bishops using the Sword of the Word and the philosophy and historical doctrine of the Church and yet…they all seem to “Coexist” in peace. Yet Traditonalists seem to be so threatening to many!

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          • I’m not familiar with the details of Peterson’s philosophy. But truly we need all the Catholic converts we can get, so I hope he has a devout Catholic in his sphere that can bring him the Gospel.

          • He believes truth exists and is knowable. That’s Catholic 101 today even if that foundation is despised by some but not him. I too pray he will run into a Catholic he can respect. There are no anonymous Christians- the world is too tough. We need eachother.

    • This is precisely what first attracted me to Donald Trump, i.e. he was NOT a ‘conservative.” The word had lost all meaning in an age when a globalist dunce like George W. Bush could call himself its standard bearer. Trump, while far from being perfect, was independent enough to openly say in debate that Bush and his cohort lied us into the disastrous Iraqi war. I knew then he was not one of “them.”

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  8. This is all a battle for the moral high ground within the Church and in society at large. In days of yore, whatever the Church taught was automatically accepted as the moral high ground by Catholics while dissenters were viewed as heretics, subversives and malefactors. We’ve reached the point where that situation has been almost completely reversed. Previously, the Pope was in our corner and he carried the fight forward since he was the custodian of Catholic tradition and teaching but that is no longer the case.

    The advent of priests like James Martin SJ has been greatly facilitated by two events, one external to the Church and the other internal. The external issue is the advent of the asinine entity known as “hate crimes” which has propagated the myth that there is a sub-class of crime which is especially repugnant and is defined by a certain way of thinking. Few people adverted to this at the time but we now have what is essentially a totalitarian “thought police”. Such police can, apparently, read minds and hearts and a citizen may be convicted of this especially heinous form of crime on the word of the state.

    The internal issue is the behavior of Pope Francis who has brought the “hate” rhetoric into the Church by spending an extraordinary amount of time, words and energy demonizing and vilifying faithful Catholics with words such as “rigid”, “doctors of the law” and “Pharisee” (among many others) which essentially convey the same meaning. Thus, the terms of debate have changed completely and Martin and his fellow travelers know this. Operating in this climate and secure in the knowledge that the sodomites in the Vatican have his back, he’s going all in. He (and others like him) now have a “nuclear button”, a weapon of last resort to which there is no answer and which he is not reluctant to use; “Hater!!”. When he has no theological argument to use against an opponent (e.g. Fr. Z), when Church history, science and facts are against him, there’s always the weapon of last resort; “hater”. Checkmate!

    An important element of propaganda is repetition and the proliferation of this word throughout popular culture has left the guardians of traditional morality marooned on an island surrounded by a sea of secular humanist godlessness. We’re closet nazis, racists and haters while Martin et al are the good guys who are just trying to “build a bridge”, in the words of Martin’s recent book.

    Open persecution is coming fast but it will be the means by which the Church is purified.

    Reply
  9. Great article Steve, as always. One thing however, I question classifying Catholics who object to our faith being hijacked as “Orthodox” or some use the term conservative or right-wing. WE are the Catholics, I’m not sure what to call those who are occupying some of our Churches, buildings, especially at the Vatican or at least I shouldn’t share. But it is they who are the hyphenated Catholics. It’s not “Orthodox” to believe in Church doctrine, the words of Christ, the Sacraments, it’s Catholic. Just a thought. A big thanks for all everyone does here. I don’t know where we would be without sites like this. God Bless.

    Reply
  10. “. . .to the unjust firing of Josef Seifert.”

    The small potato critics of orthodox Catholicism have been greenlighted – and to do so nastily – by the big potato smasher which is the current papacy. If someone of such faultless (and elevated) reputation as Prof. Seifert can be hounded and brought low then the chase is on to tree small prey as Fr. Z, or you, Mr. S.

    Reply
  11. Message to “Father’ James Martin – You are a heretic and traitor to the Catholic Faith. You are a purveyor of perversion and the sin of Sodom. In no way shape or form are orthodox Catholics going to bend to your dictatorial bullying, bile and hate speech. We are going nowhere. In fact, we are growing and will continue to grow while the modern-day apostate Jesuits are dying. With members like yourself (and Fr 2+2=5) there’s no wonder why.

    Reply
  12. Being an orthodox Catholic is like being pro-life in the Democrat Party. And speaking of Democrat Party, the Catholic Church is the Democrat Party from a religious and social point of view. The big question for orthodox Catholics is whether fighting is worthwhile. Or would it be better to join SSPX or the Sedevacantists. Saving our own souls and that of our families come first. To me it is an open question whether resistance to the Novus Ordo Catholic Church is the right thing to do given that such resistance tends to generate anger and a feeling of hopelessness. To me me the Sedevanctists represent the truth; the Novus Ordo Catholic Church does not.

    Reply
    • We’re soon going to be reaching that point Michael. Already with many of the lamestream Novus Ordo parishes, many of them, I view as being no different than say the local Lutherans. Would I not be crazy to waste my time trying to make the Lutheran church into the Catholic Church? Is it not a similar waste of time to try to do it with the average Vatican II/Modernist tainted parish? I go the diocesan TLM, but if my local Bishop formally sides with Francis, those days will be over. Like the 16th Century, he will have decided to defect from the Catholic Faith, and thereby from the Catholic Church. I will have no further recourse to parishes under his control. If this crisis lasts, any association could be permanently lost.

      Reply
      • You have an option.

        Emigrate.

        Emigrate to a place where the truth is taught, modeled and worshiped.

        Many of our forefathers did, and many…gazillions…emigrate for better jobs and advancement and…money…today.

        Why should Catholics not emigrate to save their souls?

        Reply
      • I agree completely with your position. One of the unintended consequences of reading One Peter 5 is to move further and further away from the Vatican II Catholic Church. But the big question now is when do we leave and where do we go. My thought on leaving is like yours. Once heresy is actually being officially proclaimed at Sunday Mass it is time to leave. My next step would be SSPX, or the sedevancantists. An old saying comes to mind: these are the times that try men’s souls. Let us pray for wisdom and prudence.

        Reply
  13. Well Steve, talking about “positive signs.” As Devin Nunes said in relation to the furor over the release of ‘the memo: “When you’re being attacked from all sides, you know you’re over the target.”

    Reply
  14. What an unpleasant article at Buzzfeed! I’ve been reading Fr Zuhlsdorf’s blog for over a decade, and Buzzfeed for almost 10 minutes, and it’s clear where the lack of charity is to be found!

    Reply
    • BuzzFeed made its mark in the most recent American political campaign by publishing anti-Trump lies like the dodgy dossier cooked up by phony British spy Steele at the behest of Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff. It is about as trustworthy for news as are press releases from the Democrat National Committee. One of Trump’s lawyers is now suing this leftist cesspool for defamation.

      Reply
  15. Has anyone else noticed that those in the Catholic Church who are most vociferous in defense of sodomy often have reasons other than purely intellectual ones? I’m thinking of mitered men like Rembert Weakland and Joe Bernadin, and priests like Boston’s Paul Shanley for examples.

    Reply
      • I know. That seems to be the “linchpin sin,” doesn’t it? I can’t help but think this is the reason St. Paul singled it out for special attention. As a battering ram for Satan, this nauseous practice has been especially effective against the Church lately.

        Reply
        • Next to freewill/choice, the greatest “power” mankind has been granted is our ability to bring forth human life – human beings made in the image and likeness of God who are created by God to know Him, love Him and serve Him so that they could be in Heaven with Him – and this is done through sex. In sodomy, we take life and put in our refuse – that is exactly what Satan thinks of life. One cannot escape the symbolism and allegory. Sodomy is a complete perversion of the conjugal act – no longer life-giving, but death-mongering.

          Reply
      • Not just sympathizer, but cheerleader! Don’t forget Cardinal Dolan saying “Bravo” about openly homosexual football player.

        Reply
        • I don’t know…I tend to think Dolan was “virtue signalling” His personality seems like he just so badly wants to be liked and he thinks that being likable is how he is gonna get people to come to Church. What he doesn’t realize is that he just comes off as pathetically goofy and “trying too hard”

          Reply
          • I have always thought Dolan plays the fiddle for whichever Pope he serves. He was more conservative under Benedict and more “open to dialogue” under Francis. In the end, he is a bit of a political figure in some sense which probably accounts for the conflicts most traditionalists see in him. That may be a bigger problem for the Church overall, bishops seeking to become cardinals and playing politics to get there. Cardinals wishing to be Pope and so on. Vanity is the devil’s preferred sin, no?

          • So says the movie The Devil’s Advocate…personally, I’ve always thought it was pride. Anywho…what you have written explains a lot about how Dolan could be perceived as “one of the good guys” initially but has gradually been shown to be rather cowardly. Makes me sad…I do have to give him credit for being among those who challenged the rigged synod and signed his name to the letter. I remember being surprised to see his name on the list.

          • Vanity & Pride are often different sides of the same coin (it was The Devil’s Advocate, I was actually thinking of btw… good catch). I still hold respect for Cardinal Dolan given his past positions on islam / the war on terror, etc. but he is an imperfect man. Serving apparently conflicted Popes in one’s lifetime must be difficult to reconcile.

          • I am glad that I am not the only person who still holds a modicum of respect for the good cardinal and does not think him to be in the mold of Cupich or Farrell. (Even Tobin is not as bad as those two.)

          • I think the bottom of the episcopal barrel at least in the United States, is Cupich. Even Farell and Tobin have had some recent redeeming moments, though both are fairly abyssmal. And that’s only if we limit it to cardinals. McElroy is the absolute bottom (likely in more ways than one). Above (but not by much) Cupich, Farell and Tobin is Wuerl and just barely above him would be Dolan.

    • Hang in there.

      Convert, too. Find a good solid parish and study the Scriptures and the doctrines of the faith.

      Commit to a life of prayer.

      Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

      And don’t forget; what we are fighting over in the Church today all other self-proclaimed Christians surrendered to many years and decades ago.

      Oh, and don’t be afraid to tell your Bishop that you are a convert and the current culture of the Pope and the prelates is telling potential converts to stay right where they are.

      Reply
      • My mistake is that I had a good church out west and lost my job when my boss was disbarred. So then I kind of panicked and moved back to the northeast to be near one son and not only is it a Novus Ordo hell up here, there are no jobs and my son doesn’t really want me around. So I’m going to go back to my old church in a few months and stay out west by myself. At least I will be fed spiritually.

        Reply
    • Welcome HOME Chesterlab!
      Whatever you think or feel now, just start (if not already) and pray daily Holy Rosary.
      And be sure, that you’re called Home by our Heavenly Father right on time!
      His Church needs you,specially you right now and right here.
      Luke 10,2 – someone of your ancestors has prayed hard for you. Don’t be afraid, you seems to be one of labourers of the last hour.
      Just keep in mind, the labour is not and will not become easier.
      Remain faithful & God bless.

      Reply
        • Please just keep going. You’ll see. It is the greatest weapon that we have at hand anytime anywhere. For me was neither easy to even begin with praying Holy Rosary, but after a time, and especially when I had some special purposes or reasons or needs, for myself or others, – then it went just so easy. But not only that, you must see the fruits of it.
          Believe me! God’s Mother is our Mother too. If we want to be Her children. And if we pleased Her, then is Her God and ours, the Lord Jesus Christ more cordial to us.
          Just keep going, please. God bless you too. 🙂

          Reply
      • Wow.

        I wonder about this.

        “I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (Ex 20)

        I am a amateur genealogist of sorts. And I wonder WHO in my past prayed for me.

        I want to be that person for some unknown of my lineage who is yet to come.

        PRAY.

        {Convert, too, Chester!}

        Reply
        • Yes my dear brother RodH.
          And you are very special. Not for nothing. Not just like that.
          Our Lord doesn’t forget “And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (Ex 20,6)

          If this is not a reason to keep God’s word as it is, and with this I mean the translation of the Bible MUST be as the Church has always said, – according the Latin Vulgate, (and NOT some kind of modernized NEO-Vulgate, which is NOT official Bible of the RCC)
          Regarding the question above, in combination with the main sin of the apostates, you may do the check in the book of Tobit, and the consciously purposely BAD translations of the very IMPORTANT words of God himself (who speaks to Tobit through archangel Rafael).
          Check a very good and trustful DRA Bible version with many other, the modern ones and see how they purposely have banned this:

          In the Vulgate this is what Tobit 6, 16-17 says:

          “Tunc angelus Raphael dixit ei: Audi me, et ostendam tibi qui sunt, quibus praevalere potest daemonium. Hi namque qui coniugium ita suscipiunt, ut Deum a se et a sua mente excludant, et suae libidini ita vacent, sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus — habet potestatem daemonium super eos.”

          (“Then the angel Raphael said to him: Hear me, and I will shew thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail.
          For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.”)

          I think that, according these words, we can well judge how much today there are marriages over which the devil’s rules. Is it weird then that there are so many divorces?

          Another important point came from those words from Tob 6, 22, which in the Vulgate are:

          “accipies virginem cum timore Domini, amore filiorum magis quam libidine ductus”

          (“thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children [offspring] than for lust”)

          This places from Tobit are cited by the Catechism of the Council of Trent in the chapter about marriage (when talking about the reasons why men and women enter into the sacrament of marriage), and remarks:

          “Atque una etiam haec causa fuit cur Deus ab initio matrimonium instituerit. Quare fit ut illorum sit scelus gravissimum, qui matrimonio iuncti, medicamentis vel conceptum impediunt vel partum abigunt: haec enim homicidarum impia conspiratio existimanda sit.”

          (“And this is also one reason why God established from the beginning the marriage. For this reason, it is the most difficult crime of those who, together in marriage, are preventing conception, or doing abortion: this should be considered as evil conspiracy of the killers.”)

          It is worth repeating here again the purpose of marriage according to the Code of Canon Law from 1917 (Can. 1013 § 1):

          “Matrimonii finis primarius est procreatio atque educatio prolis; secundarius mutuum adiutorium et remedium concupiscentiae.”

          (“The first purpose of marriage is procreation and raising children; second, the mutual help of a spouses, and a cure against the lust.”)

          As we probably know, the modernist heretics (especially Cardinal Suenens) took a real war against this doctrine, at the Second Vatican Council. Unfortunately, the progressives have partly succeeded in putting some ambiguity into some documents.
          A result of this is the new Code of Canon Law which came in 1983., which has mixed purposes of marriage, so that puts an abstract concept of “common good of the spouses” in front of the procreation and raising children!

          Please take a look into Vulgate (DRA) Tobit 8,4-6 and then Tobit 8,7-9, (Douay-Rheims Bible) here: http://drbo.org/drl/chapter/17008.htm,
          and compare it then with the IIVC neo-vulgate version and its translations (for example in the New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE) 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970) here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Tobit+8&version=NABRE

          These are the words of Tobit to his God, the words which are of greatest importance for all generations of Gods’s people: “And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever.” (Tobit 8,9)

          Reply
    • As long as you can stay in the Traditional Roman Catholic church, you will be fine. And if you’re real strong in your faith, the holy spirit will guide you. Remain Catholic for its the one and only True church Christ Himself established. I’m a revert to the faith, was Protestant for about 25yrs. and I’m so glad I am truly home!

      Reply
    • Another important advise; ‘Pray the Rosary daily!’ Its very, very powerful! Its the life of Christ through His mother, that’s what makes it so powerful. I’ve been praying the rosary daily, if I miss in the morning then I pray it at night. I’ve been praying it now for about four years and have had several mystical experiences!

      Reply
    • Reading about the life of Mother Mariana of Peru will help. She prophesied about the twentieth century in fine detail centuries ago, and spent her entire life praying for us, in this time. Her body is incorrupt.

      She also prophesied that her writings would be forgotten until the twentieth century, which was true. However, they were occasionally mentioned in the years between and there is no question of their legitimacy.

      I found it helpful because she makes it clear that God is in control, was perfectly aware of what would happen, and had her write it all down.

      So cheer up, Chesterlab. You’ve joined the Church Militant just in time for the battle. Clearly God wanted you as one of His soldiers in the present war.

      And the best thing is, you get to live forever, even if you get killed in it.

      Reply
    • SO what I am getting from this comment and it’s thread of replies is that yes, many converts are, in fact, “more Catholic than the Pope.”

      Reply
    • Me too. Actually, technically a re-vert as I was baptized Catholic but never, ever practiced the faith. Was introduced to Christ by my Protestant “second” husband, who promptly divorced me after my “conversion”, saying the marriage could only survive if I were a “nominal” Catholic. On good days I can with my whole heart thank God for my sufferings. Praying this Lent for more graces to actually carry my crosses instead of dragging them.

      Reply
  16. 2 + 2 = 5? That is SO 2017.

    We’re now at 2+2=29. Very soon, 2+2=platypus.

    Repeat: 2+2=4. Alternative “answers” are not merciful, flexible, caring, or relevant. They are wrong. We should never respect people more than we love and fear God. 2+2=4.

    If we truly love God and our fellow sinners, we will not give in to the bullyings of the ruling cadre, nor the publicity-hounds, nor the talented manipulators and twisters of words and truth. 2+2=4.

    King Jesus declares to us: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

    2+2=4, dammit.

    Reply
  17. No one is condemned forever except orthodox Catholics.
    Mercy covers everything except being faithful to Jesus Christ.
    Rapists, racists, thugs, and malakoi should all be integrated into the active life of their parishes, but no one who even utters the word “magisterium” should be allowed in.
    Tick, tock, the game is locked and the faithful cannot play.

    Guy McClung, Texas

    Reply
  18. Thank you so much for this article. Sadly fr. Martin does not care, truly care, for homsexuals and other groups, that seem to be growing as we speak, with so many unnatural practices being accepted, even voisting it on little children. If he truly cared he would tell the truth and help those in unnatural lifestyles to fight their way out and at the very least live chaste lives. So man, like Joseph that writes about this constantly and also about Fr. Martin and the harm he is doing to these hurting souls points out that many are on the vere of dieing as he was, and by the grace of God he lived…but will suffer consequences of his lifestyle for the rest of his life…and is now attending as many marches and events that he can trying to help those beautiful souls heal and change their ways.

    Reply
  19. With the reality that we now have from different provinces and nations and dioceses differing, variable and opposing doctrines now simultaneously being taught as “Catholic”, the public face of the Catholic Church is no longer any different than that of the Anglicans.

    This is a log we must recognize is now firmly stuck in our collective Eye.

    Bishops MUST act soon.

    I confess, I long for the day when heretical clergy of any and all ranks are publicly condemned by name for their heresy, are tried for heresy and when found guilty, are laicized and if unrepentant, excommunicated. And this in reasonable but short order. En masse. There are no small numbers of them. Because that is the only way the message of the Church about our Lord and Savior can be defended.

    Right now, that name is NOT being defended.

    Feeding the flock and herd and making sure they have fresh bedding is fine, but when the young have been lost and a pack of coyotes is known to exist in the area, the only defense is an offense to hunt down that pack and destroy it. That is what we do here on the ranch. Sometimes it is hot, sometimes it is cold. Sometimes it is raining, or snowing. It is always dirty work. But it must be done.

    Theologically, doctrinally and canonically that is what MUST happen in the Church or we are frauds. Discipline MUST be re-established and the theological “coyotes” identified and removed from their positions of authority and the unrepentant driven out of the Church itself or we are no different than the Anglicans and the message of the Catholic Church is lost.

    Reply
    • Agree totally but owing to the spread and because in many places orthodox seminarians have been hunted out in seminaries, the sheer numbers require truly something supernatural and I believe sudden. Otherwise all the vast numbers of progressive laity, some of whom are that way through ignorance, will not realise they need to repent their beliefs.

      Reply
  20. Don’t give up, Steve and all you courageous Soldiers of Christ! Jesus Christ….The Way, The TRUTH, and The Life!!! He suffered and died for us…. Let’s stand and defend Him, His Mother and His Church!!!!! The gates of hell Will NOT PREVAIL!!!!!

    Reply
  21. This sinful priest is coming via scype to speak at Marquette University this coming Monday at 9am. We are hoping to get a large crowd in front where this will take place and pray the rosary. Please pray that we get a large crowd and give this so called priest that we’re not in line with his disgusting view of human sexuality! The TFP, another great Roman Catholic organization was able to get 14,000 signatures to prevent him from speaking at a Catholic church which I can’t recall at this time. The parishioners were livid and along with all the signatures collected, were able to stop this Martin guy from speaking. We all need to physically get out there when people like Martin want to destroy our Catholic faith and show that we are not going to take this anymore!!

    Reply
  22. I thought heresy is a sin. And you’re either a Catholic or not. Who is this priest protesting, the church? There’s no such thing as Orthodox Catholic there’s only the Catholic Church. What is going on?

    Reply
  23. Living in Sodom, thanks to Jesuit’s hard work and a lot of play, we are forced to “build bridges” to sodomites, so that they can “educate” all our children properly, so that hate of sodomy would never rear its ugly head again, even it is God’s wrath.
    I despise sodomy, I fear its destructive, horrible, evil influence on society, and I really hate what the Jesuit Martin is encouraged to inflict on the Church – pure evil.

    We all know that loving people who practice such terrible sins, means telling them the truth.

    Reply
  24. I think a great number of orthodox Catholics are smart enough to have seen through Fr. Z’s near-daily displays of simony, gluttony, and his jet-setting lifestyle—at least based on the nature and number of recent comments. That doesn’t mean what he’s saying (generally) is wrong—but do as he says, not as he does.

    There’s far better Catholic sites to follow–such as this one!

    Reply
      • There’s a world of difference between the two sites; Fr. Z would never in a million years pose many of the questions that are being asked here. Because “We have Canon 915,” all is right with the world according to his viewpoint.

        Reply
  25. “…a decidedly different Church than any the popes and saints of old would have recognized.”

    Actually we have already had one since 1962. Fr Martin is just more stump grinding of a tree that was cut down decades ago.

    Reply
  26. In one sense, we can rejoice that 1P5 is being attacked, because it means it is making a difference and impeding the path to a protestantized Catholic Church! I saw the other day that Trudeau actually named the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (a staunchly orthodox prolife group) as the target in his “no summer jobs for prolifers” policy. When you are targeted by the enemy, it means you are making inroads into what would otherwise be a cakewalk for them. Well done, Steve and Team!!

    Reply
  27. The silence is deafening, where are the searches for truth, where are the Shepherds, where are the men with chests, there is a name for many who participate on this site and others where I have posted my question, “is
    there a THEOLOGAIN CAPABLE OF RESPONDING TO MY QUESTIONS, who visits this site?

    But I will leave it for those who participate here to discern its name.

    kevin your brother
    In Christ

    Reply
  28. Very simple test to see what kind of priest Martin really is: Is he pro life or pro abortion? I have a feeling
    he is pro abortion.

    Reply
  29. I’ve read it (The Antichrist by Vincent Miceli) I’ve also read “The Jesuits by Malachi Martin. The present day “Martin” speaks from a purely Arrupian/Marxist perspective and attacks his critics with modern day one-liners and “phobe” terms that have become very popular with the Antifa, BLM and other terror for rent groups. He is the horn of the false prophet and spreader of the doctrine of demons common among arrupian SJ’s

    Reply
  30. “We’ve seen the culture at both Christendom College and Franciscan University — both seen as seedbeds of authentic Catholicism — come under fire from progressive Catholic bloggers in the past month after alleged mishandling of accusations of sexual misconduct”

    Okay, glad I’m not the only one who thought those accusations (and the posts by the bloggers, both of which I read) were incredibly conveniently timed. The whole thing was super sketchy.

    Reply
  31. “Known for…his boundary-pushing views on the Church and homosexuality…”

    Ah yes, little Jimmy Martin, SJ, is well known for his homosexualism, which is not quite the same as calling him a homosexual. He has been asked whether he’s homosexual, but he’s keeping his lips zippered, if nothing else. I wonder what his T-cell count would tell us?

    Nice site you’ve got here, Steve. This is my first visit.

    Reply
    • “I received an inquiry from a “journalist” several days ago about our financial records here at 1P5…”

      I missed that. To reprise what I just said above, but in words that might have been spoken by John Gotti (RIP) – Nice site you’ve got here, Steve. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

      Reply
  32. I’m growing increasingly annoyed with the application of the term “Alt-Right” to anything remotely conservative. It is on par with overblown and over-used accusations of “racisim.” More than annoyed, I’m confused why traditional teaching is “alt” to anything. Its the original interpretation, upheld for generations. What is alternative about that? Shouldn’t acceptance of gay marriage be the “Alt” version of Catholicism?

    Reply
  33. “It’s time for bishops, priests and lay leaders finally to stand up to the hate-mongering of online groups with no standing whatsoever in the church, who seek to substitute their spurious authority for legitimate church authority,”

    The finest encapsulation of clericalism we’ve seen in a long time.

    Reply

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