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The Greatest Trick the Jesuits Ever Pulled…

In 1862, the French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote that “The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” The quote was paraphrased –somewhat more famously, perhaps — in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects, as “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Over the course of more than a century, a poet and a filmmaker kept before the minds of their audiences this important truth of spiritual warfare. But now, Father Arturo Sosa — the new Superior General of the Jesuits — wants you to forget all that. In a May 31 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Sosa opined:

“We have formed symbolic figures such as the devil to express evil. Social conditioning can also represent this figure, since there are people who act [in an evil way] because they are in an environment where it is difficult to act to the contrary.”

As others have aptly pointed out, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (and Christ’s own words in the Scriptures) leave no doubt that the Devil exists, and that he is the enemy of our immortal souls:

394. Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning”, who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father.273 “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”274 In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.

The wrongness of Fr. Sosa’s commentary is obvious to any moderately well-formed Catholic. But it prompts evaluation of a larger question that has been looming in my mind for some time now: do the leaders of the Catholic Church as a whole still believe in Catholic eschatology? For those unfamiliar with the word, eschatology is the theological study of the so-called “Four Last Things”: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

In the same vein, I wrote about the February, 2016 edition of “The Pope Video”, which I described at the time as something that effectively re-branded the Vatican as “a non-denominational ecology and social-justice driven NGO”. I quoted Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who gave a homily in which he stated:

The priesthood is concerned not with temporal things, but with eternal things. It is the same with the Church. The Church is not concerned with climate change, or ecology. That is the job of the government! The Church is concerned with eternal things!

But this has, indisputably, been a papacy with a demonstrated emphasis on immanent rather than eternal things. From environmentalism to arms dealers, poverty to politics, the Catholic Church under Francis has become almost indistinguishable from any number of progressive social justice or grassroots organizations. The irony here is notable, since the pope admonished us to remember, from the first days of his papacy, that the Church is not “a humanitarian agency, the Church is not an NGO (non-governmental organization). The Church is sent to bring Christ and his Gospel to all.” As I wrote in my September, 2015 Op-Ed for USA Today, on the occasion of the papal visit to America:

As Thursday’s congressional address emphasized, however, Francis’ priorities are climate change, economic justice, marginalization and the poor, while little emphasis is placed on the deep moral and spiritual crisis that threatens our eternal salvation or our subsequent need for authentic conversion.

This diversion from the church’s traditional focus has won critical acclaim from the secular world and raised expectations that at last there’s a pope who will force Catholicism to “get with the times.”

At the core of our faith, however, is the belief that its doctrines — founded upon divinely revealed truths — are unchangeable.

Yet under the auspices of “pastoral concern” or “mercy,” we hear a commonly expressed anticipation that Francis will reverse this or that long-held teaching. This is pure wishful thinking, but it is indulged by many high-ranking church prelates, and at times, it seems, by Francis himself.

Stewardship over creation is one of the first responsibilities God gave to Adam and Eve. Care for the poor and the destitute was an important tenet of Jesus’ public ministry. But Christ was not a divine ecologist or social worker. Jesus Christ fed the poor, but his principal concern was their spiritual nourishment.

Appropriate Christian concern for temporal matters is virtuous, but when isolated from the salvific message of the Gospels, the Church risks becoming the very NGO Francis has condemned.

When true sanctity is replaced with ersatz religious materialism, we easily forget our reason for existence: to know, love and serve God in this life, and to be happy with him in the next.

Truly, “our common home” is not earth, but heaven. More than ever, our world needs the pope to fix his eyes firmly there — not here — and to lead us to our eternal destination.

So what does all of this have to do with Fr. Sosa and his alarming belief that the Devil does not exist?

A Church overly concerned with material realities gives the appearance that it no longer believes in eternal ones. If the Devil isn’t real, what is? Clearly not Hell. What about God? Mary? The Saints? Heaven? A friend once told me the story of their encounter with a nun a few decades ago who was actively engaged in social justice work, particularly with the poor. As I recall the tale, when this friend noticed that there appeared to be no spiritual component to the work — nothing that would help the souls under her care stay on the path to eternal salvation — they asked the question: “Excuse me, Sister, but what about getting their souls to heaven?”

“Heaven?” Came the mildly incredulous reply. “We don’t believe in heaven anymore. That’s why we try to do what we can to make heaven here.”

In his 1948 book, Communism and the Conscience of the WestBishop Fulton Sheen wrote:

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect — and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect.

[…]

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. [emphasis added]

Fr. Antonio Spadaro, one of the pope’s “mouthpieces” and a fellow Jesuit, reflected on the election of Fr. Sosa with words that take on a new significance through the clarifying prism of Bishop Sheen’s analysis:

Sosa had the courage to say in his first homily as General:  “We also want to contribute to what today seems impossible: a Humanity reconciled in justice, that lives in peace in a common home well cared for, where there is a place for all of us because we recognize our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same and one only Father”.   He spoke of the “audacity of the impossible” that flows from faith.  Only a man who has gone through the ideologies knows that you must not be afraid of utopias if they are able to supply the gasoline to move forward in the building of a better world.  In a time in which one lives fears and disappointments, in a time in which you only take account of secure things, with few certainties at your disposal, Arturo Sosa invites us to not lose that healthy utopia that allows us to believe that the world is not destined to perdition and that it is possible to work to make it what the Lord wants it to be. [some emphasis added]

Utopias, of course, are for those who intend never to leave the earthly plane. For those with eyes fixed on beatific vision, we are constantly at war with our desire for creature comforts as we attempt to embrace not just the joys, but the “sufferings and sorrows of this valley of tears.” We don’t seek temporal beatitude, because we know we’ll never find it. We worry somewhat less than our secular counterparts about global ecological disaster, because our world is scheduled to be demolished when Our Lord comes again — and not a moment before.

According to papal biographer Austen Ivereigh, Fr. Sosa

has known Francis since both were together in the 1983 General Congregation that elected Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, and has grown closer to him since Sosa moved to Rome in 2014 to take charge of the Jesuit houses in Rome.

“Their current friendship will without doubt help the Jesuits better collaborate with the Holy See,” says Father Luis Ugalde, a Spanish Jesuit in the Venezuela province who knows Sosa well, and was provincial before him.

One wonders, therefore, what the Holy Father thinks of Fr. Sosa’s deconstruction of Satan as a merely human artifice. One of the most commented-upon aspects of this pontificate has been the penchant of Pope Francis to speak openly of the Devil. He has done so many times. To be honest, I have often questioned if perhaps this “symbolic figure” conception of the Devil that Fr. Sosa speaks of was the framework Francis was working from; the notion of a preternatural bogeyman deployed in parables intended to keep people on the desired ideological path. But it is hard to believe such an interpretation in examples like those found in a homily given by the pope in November, 2013:

“There are some priests who, when they read this Gospel passage, this and others, say: ‘But, Jesus healed a person with a mental illness’. They do not read this, no? It is true that at that time, they could confuse epilepsy with demonic possession; but it is also true that there was the devil! And we do not have the right to simplify the matter, as if to say: ‘All of these (people) were not possessed; they were mentally ill’. No! The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil.”

Is Francis just better at hiding his allegorical understanding of the Prince of This World, or does he know something that Fr. Sosa does not?

It would seem appropriate, considering how often Francis has asked us to believe in a figure his own Superior General would have him believe is merely a figure of our imagination, that the pope might remind his friend of something his predecessor, Pope Pius XII, once said in an allocution to the Jesuits*:

Truly, among the noble deeds of your forefathers, of which you rightly boast and which you strive to emulate, this one surpasses the others, that indeed your Society, cleaving as closely as possible to the throne of Peter, has endeavored to guard, teach, defend and advance intact the teaching proposed by the Pontiff of that See, with which, on account of its preeminent authority, it is necessary that every Church, that is, all the faithful everywhere, should agree and also that it does not tolerate anything that smacks of dangerous or insufficiently-tested novelty.

[…]

Moreover, let no one steal from you this renown for orthodoxy and faithfulness in due obedience to the Vicar of Christ; nor let there be among you a place for any pride of “free-thinking,” which belongs rather to a heterodox than to a Catholic mentality, by which each man does not eschew to summon to the scale of his own judgment even those things that proceed from the Apostolic See; nor let there be tolerated any connivance with certain persons who assert that standards of behavior and of striving for eternal salvation are to be chosen from among those things that are done rather than from those that ought to be done; nor let there be allowed to opine and to act according to their pleasure those to whom it seems that ecclesiastical discipline is something antiquated—empty “formalism,” as it’s called—which it unquestionably behooves someone to dispense with so that he might be a servant of the truth. For if a mentality of this kind, borrowed from the throngs of the unbelieving, should slither unhindered among your ranks, will there not be shortly discovered among you unworthy and faithless sons of your Father Ignatius, who ought forthwith to be cut off from the body of your Society?

122 thoughts on “The Greatest Trick the Jesuits Ever Pulled…”

    • Almost completely unchecked, you say?
      Modernism is the denial of Logos which the new religion is built upon, including the beloved mess, the anti-intellectualism, the hatred for a coherent doctrine, and…. the inevitable result – the god of surprises! It is rather the foundation of this anti-church.

      It is so ugly that I can not look at it.

      Reply
      • I guess we’re in agreement then? I can’t tell whether you’re agreeing with me or yelling at me. I get what you’re saying however.

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          • You were perfectly clear, and quite correct. It is indeed the hollow and crumbling rock upon which the anti-church has been built. And of course, when rock crumbles to the point at which it can crumble no more, it becomes – sand!

  1. Earthly Utopias!

    The utopia of the Rationalists brought us the French Revolution and the guillotine, and then the monster Napoleon and the millions of dead from his twenty years of war.

    The utopia of the Marxists brought us the Great Terror, the GULAG, the legalisation of abortion, the imposition of tyranny and the destruction of the Christian Faith over vast swathes of the world and the attempt (for the moment largely successful I think) to produce a new human being, one drained of knowledge of, or desire to know, God.

    The utopia of Mohammed brought us in-built violence, which we now see on our streets each and every day.

    The utopia of the German neo-Darwinists brought us a war that killed 55 million souls and the obscenity of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

    The utopia of Jim Jones brought us the forced suicide of hundreds of people and the murder of many children.

    The utopia of Chavez brought us the ruin of a country with the second or third-largest oil reserves in the world, and will bring civil war to that nation.

    The utopia of the liberal-progressives brings us even the denial of biological reality along with a mania for killing unborn children and even the legal murder (Belgium) of disabled young children.

    Earthly utopias! We just create an utter hell each time. But will we acknowledge our sin and turn to Christ? Even the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ as the sole way of Salvation has succumbed to the siren voices of the succubi.

    Reply
    • Exactly, Comrade. A key to St. Thomas More’s “Utopia” is this: the word “Utopia” means “Nowhere.” There isn’t one, there can’t be one: “We just create an utter hell each time.”

      Reply
    • I agree with everything except your last sentence.

      The *Church* is the Bride of Christ (c.f. Ephesians 5: 22 et seq.). *Churchmen*, on the other hand, can be unfaithful and should turn to Christ.

      St. Ignatius of Loyola has in the Spiritual Exercises the meditations of The Two Kingdoms and The Two Standards (unless the modernists removed those too!). Some Churchmen need to seriously make the traditional Spiritual Exercises.

      Reply
        • Actually, I read that last sentence as I think you intended — by “Church” referring to the “hireling shepherds of souls” or the church as a ‘politicsl institution’ (as it appears to exist today) rather than the People and Children of God as Jesus originally foundrd her and with which He is eternally wedded. Bear in mind that there is a.”specual place in hell reserved for those shepherds of souls who lead Jesus’ flock astray.”

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          • I wasn’t faulting Margaret. Merely saying how I interpreted it. Yes, we must be careful to distinguish between Holy Mother Church – the barque of Peter and those who are steering her course.

      • “The Church is the source of its members’ holiness. But the Church’s holiness is not the measure of its members’ response.” (Frank Sheed). Methinks tis just as well. If the holiness of the Church were nothing more than the sum total of the ‘holiness’ of all her members, she would have disappeared into a black hole centuries ago. As it is, she’s still here, and will be until the conclusion of history.

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    • How is there any gossip in this article? To what are you referring? Yes, Pope Francis has often spoke of the Devil, and Fr. Sosa does as well. However, and that they are friends isn’t speculation but well attributed by both of them, Fr. Sosa claims that the Devil is a sociological construct. The Pope,being his Christian friend, should he not correct him out of Christian charity, that is if he doesn’t believe the same thing? Would you not correct Fr. Sosa if you did not believe the same thing and you were the Supreme Pontiff, responsible for the faith of all Christians, and He the Superior General of your very own order, the Jesuits?

      And what about needing to reinterpret everything recorded in Sacred Scripture that is attributed to Jesus, because after all there were no tape recorders present? I mean, those horrible apostles and evangelists may very well have fabricated much of it to fit there own desires? I mean, with the fact that there were no taper recorders, should we not realize that anything goes? Whatever we think is necessary should be done regardless of and those ancient texts which could be ramblings of whomever for whatever…because there we not tape recorders?

      Reply
      • Thank you.

        These days, I seem to feel like a ” three headed” green monster when I merely suggest your last paragraph, and apply that to our cardinals who sit in great authority as well.

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      • There is no doubt, Fr. RP, that Sosa’s remarks have the approval of Pope Bergoglio, else he never would have uttered them. The building of ‘the mess’ continues.

        Reply
      • “Pope Francis is responsible, by the office he freely accepted, unto Almighty God and the Whole Church to defend and teach the fullness of the Catholic Faith to the point of imprisonment, torture and even death.”

        Hard to argue with the guy’s basic job description…

        Reply
  2. Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote (commenting on the second temptation of Jesus in his 2004 book ‘On the Road toward Christ Jesus’) referring directly to the Russian mystic Vladimir Soloviev’s ‘A Short Tale of the
    Antichrist’):

    “And a phrase of Soloviev’s is illuminating: The Antichrist believes in God, but in the depths of his heart he prefers himself.”

    Reply
  3. Communism also believes it’s ushering in Utopia.

    This is essentially them trying to take Eden by their own hands. Constructing a Tower to Heaven.

    In the end, they will only encounter the fire. The Angel with the Sword guarding the entrance of Eden shouting “Penance, Penance, Penance!”

    Misery will be their product. War will be their just reward. Fiery Chastisement their end.

    Reply
    • Sadly, there does not seem to be a distinction between the errors of Communism and the pastoral theology of Bergolio.

      Reply
    • “Communism … believes it is ushering in Utopia.” No, not at all. It is a deliberate, diabolic deception that purports to be constructing a paradise of peace, equality and fraternal love on earth, but whose sole, real raison d’etre is to bring about the enslavement and everlasting damnation of humanity. Marx and Engels were satanists. Every single Soviet leader, and all communist leaders, were and are demoniacs.

      As Karl Marx wrote in his poem; “Oulanem”: You see this sword! the Prince of Darkness SOLD it to me …….. Soon I shall clutch eternity to my breast, and then I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind.

      In a revelation to Sr. Mary of St. Peter, March 14 1847, speaking of “the Society known as the Communists, Jesus said: “Oh if you only knew heir secret and diabolical plots …..”

      March 29 1847, The Saviour enjoins Sr. Mary through her prayers and the instruments of His Passion to make war on the Communists who are the enemies of His Church and her Christ. the weapons of the enemy inflict death; the weapons of His Passion restore life.

      April 1 1847: Think, now My daughter, of the outrages inflicted on Me by this Society of Communists. They are the ones who have dragged me from My tabernacles and desecrated My sanctuaries.

      IN another message given by Jesus to Sr. Mary of St. Peter about this time, (but which I cannot, for the moment, locate), Jesus laments the sad fact that many of those who now call themselves “communists” were once sons of the Church.

      Reply
      • Here’s the prayer to defeat the Communists and the enemies of the Church:

        Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and all the instruments of His Holy Passion, that Thou mayest put division in the camp of Thine enemies, for as Thy Beloved Son hath said, “a kingdom divided against itself shall fall.”

        Reply
      • The secret society works well in secret in the Vatican and in governments, but it’s fruits are out there in undisguisable atheism.

        Reply
      • It was at La Salette that Our Lady warned; “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist. Two years after the apparition the German Satanist Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto in which he wrote:

        “The policy of Russia is changeless. Its methods, its tactics, its manoeuvres may change but the
        polar star of its policy – world domination – is a fixed star.”

        Then in 1917 occurred Our Lady of Fatima’s warning of Russia which would be the instrument of chastisement if men did not stop offending God. The year 1917 also marked the outbreak of the Russian Revolution.

        Many Catholics described Marx as the prophet of the Antichrist and not surprisingly made the connection between Russia and the Antichrist.

        Point of interest. On 21 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII formally granted a Canonical Coronation to the image at the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette. A Russian style tiara was granted to the image, instead of the solar-type tiara used in its traditional depictions of Virgin Mary during her apparitions.
        JMJ

        Reply
        • Thanks, Gerry; if I had heard previously about the Russian style tiara with which Pope Leo XIII adorned the image of Our Lady of La Salette, then I had long forgotten about it. And it is, of course, of immense significance.

          Reply
  4. It must be that what Christ confronted in the desert and then in the agony in the garden was merely a figment of his imagination. Pity the modern Jesuits weren’t around back then to explain that.

    Reply
  5. “Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God.”
    Bp. Sheen nails it there! Horizontal focus void of the vertical.

    Reply
  6. Just one more Jesuit “Smart Aleck” in a society that is thronged with self-applauding sophomores and has been for a very long time.

    Reply
  7. There’s another thing about Sosa’s statement. Not only does he trash the inerrancy of the Bible and the constant teaching of the Church, he claims that there is no evil as such, just unfortunate reactions to environment.

    Well, that’s great!

    I think my environment is against me today. So I think the only thing I can do is go out to the street, rape a model or two, steal $1 million from a bank, take someone’s Rolls Royce and bash a couple of old people in the face. It’s not ME, you see – it’s my environment.

    The liberal stance brings us only to anarchy and the breakdown of family, community, society and eventually nation.

    Reply
    • It does remind me of a story of a cardinal in Australia long before the council. On a radio program he was asked about evil and he answered that the greatest evil was not sin itself but the loss of the sense of sin. It seems to me that he, alongside Cardinals Newman and Manning, and popes of 19th and early 20th century, could see the gradual loss of the supernatural sense and orientation of western society. In a way this pernicious excuse for a priest is just a metaphor for the age we live in.

      Reply
  8. The Robe of Christ: by Joyce Kilmer.

    At the foot of the Cross on Calvary,
    Three soldiers sat and diced.
    One of them was the Devil,
    And he won the Robe of Christ.

    When the Devil comes in his proper form
    To the chamber where I dwell,
    I know him, and make the Sign of the Cross,
    Which drives him back to hell.

    Now many a million tortured souls
    In his red halls there be:
    Why does he spend his subtle craft
    In hunting after me?

    Kings, Queens and crested warriors
    Whose memory rings through time,
    These are his prey, and what, to him, is this poor man of rhyme.

    That he, with such laborious skill,
    Should change from role to role; should daily act so may a part
    To get my little soul,

    I saw him through a thousand veils,
    And has this not sufficed?
    Now must I look at the devil robed
    In the radiant Robe of Christ?

    He comes with face so sad and mild
    With thorns his head is crowned;
    And bleeding wounds in both his feet,
    And in each hand a wound.

    How can I tell, who am a fool,
    If this be Christ or no?
    Those bleeding hands outstretched to me,
    Those eyes that love me so!

    I see the robe – I look – I hope –
    I fear – but there is one
    Who will direct my troubled mind:
    Christ’s Mother knows her Son.

    O Mother of Good Counsel, lend
    Intelligence to me!
    Encompass me with wisdom,
    Thou Tower of Ivory!

    “This is the Man of Lies,” she says,
    “Disguised with fearful art:
    He has the wounded hands and feet,
    But not the wounded heart.”

    Beneath the Cross on Calvary
    She watched them as they diced.
    She saw the Devil join the game
    And win the Robe of Christ.

    Reply
    • Wow! Thank you for posting this. I had never seen it but it brought me to tears and consoled me because I love her and I know it’s true. She will guide us safely home.

      Reply
    • Stewart….thank you so much for posting that. The first time I read it some years ago I was truly inspired. It is like a prayer. Mother of Intelligence…Mary Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

      Reply
      • This poem is replete with meaning, and enormous value for all of us:

        Mother of Good Counsel, lend intelligence to me. Encompass me with wisdom ………

        Many years ago, I formed an image in my mind of a young child, maybe twelve years old or thereabouts. He was walking along a rough path through a field, hand-in-hand with the Blessed Mother. He was dressed as the boy Jesus would have been dressed at that age, but it wasn’t Jesus; it was any one of us. The grass either side of the path was very long, but at one point, this young boy spotted a beautiful flower growing among the long grass. Attracted by its beauty, he reached out to take it, but as he did so, the Blessed Mother pulled him back, pressed him gently but firmly to her side, and shielded him beneath her mantle. Because what the child had not seen, but which his Mother knew without needing to see it, was a deadly snake, coiled around the base of the stem of the flower, and ready to strike anyone who would be attracted by the beauty of the flower while being blissfully unaware of the danger it concealed.

        I thank God for the wisdom and poetic eloquence with which He gifted Alfred Joyce Kilmer, which is, of course a great gift for all of us if we know how to make use of it.

        Reply
  9. Is any reader particularly close to the Jesuits presently? Can you tell us if there is any internal opposition to the Superior General’s various heresies and to the overall direction of the Jesuits in recent decades?

    Reply
  10. Bergoglio had every national pro-abortion politician seated before him–including katholyks–and uttered not one word to them about the crime of supporting the murder of babies.

    His goo-goo eyes at Emma Bonino, his demolition of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the JPII Institute–the message is clear.

    Reply
  11. Another thought struck me when thinking about utopias.

    Our Lord Jesus Christ in His Divine genius knew very well that Man must sacrifice. And so He gave us the Sacrifice of the Mass – in an unbloody form, the bloody form having been His own poor Body, given up for an infinity of sins and an infinite number of souls.

    When we do not cleave to the Sacrifice of the Altar, then we must sacrifice in other ways. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that immediately following the Protestant Revolt, which at its heart overthrew the Mass and the Priesthood, Europe embarked on the Thirty Years War, an orgy of blood not seen since the Romans, probably. And in our own time, with protestantism morphing into the Enlightenment, bizarre philosophies (some of them unfortunately from England, I’m sorry to say) and finally into militant atheism and straight-forward paganism, how we have kept up with the sacrifices! Murder upon murder, millions and millions of them.

    A whole sweet countryside amuck with murder;
    Each moment puffed into a year with death.
    Still swept the rain, roared guns,
    Still swooped into the swamps of flesh and blood,
    All to the drabness of uncreation sunk,
    And all thought dwindled to a moan, Relieve!
    But who with what command can now relieve
    The dead men from that chaos, or my soul?

    That’s the ending of “Third Ypres” by Edmund Blunden. Quite an apposite quotation perhaps, exactly one hundred years after that terrible battle otherwise known as Passchendaele.

    And with the sacrifice today, as I write this, all over the world of the unborn, offered up to the Moloch of selfishness, lust and irresponsibility both male and female, can we not also ask with Blunden, “But who with what command can now relieve the dead men from that chaos, or my soul?” We know the answer. Only Our Lord Jesus Christ can relieve us. Why have our Pope, the Cardinals, the Bishops, so many priests and religious forgotten?

    Reply
    • Have they forgotten, or did they ever really understand? Lacking sufficient supernatural faith, they can only perceive the world through the lens of worthless abstractions. They can no longer make what should be the glaringly obvious connection between cause and effect. But in an age when sin has been relativised, or not even acknowledged, one wonders if they can even identify the cause?

      Reply
      • I am trying to imagine when PF one day goes to say: “Amicus Sosa, sed magis amica veritas.” Or this: “Amicus AL, sed magis amica veritas.” Hardly!
        If their knowledge and belief are based on truth which is variable, then any (theological) upgrading of such a foundation leads to only a greater misconception.
        If you are fed with a poison written by K.Rahner, H.Kung, E.Schillebeeckx, W.Kasper, and other utopian quasi-theologians, … afterwards you can study, for example, T. Aquino daily, and for long time, but all upgrade will lead you rather to bigger heresy than to help you to grow in the real Truth.

        “Have they forgotten, or did they ever really understand?”
        – They do not understand because they do not want to understand. And they do not want to understand because it does not fit in their personal “truth”. And it do not fit into their “truth” because they are deceived by the lies of Satan and his followers.
        . . .
        “But in an age when sin has been relativized, or not even acknowledged, one wonders if they can even identify the cause?”
        – Are they not ones of those who, denies, relativize and justify even a grave sins as adultery, pederasty,…?
        Do not they preach that man cannot even exist without being full of sins – and therefore God must always be very very very merciful. But they don’t even think to let God be just and righteous! They tailor image of God by their own wishes. By their misguided imagination. And by their own perversions too.
        But God is righteous. Above all. Even before he is merciful.
        Because if he were not righteous, he would not be God.
        The Almighty God is NOT what man want or wish him to be!
        Therefore this group of modern-progressive seduced ones, and at the same time the seducers of others, they of course, cannot identify either cause or disease.

        We know: He who does not admit the least truth as the truth, soon or later he will deny the whole truth. But most of those modern progresists will not deny certain things openly, they twist it. Such people are not in truth, does not lives in truth, and does not confess the truth. It is the weed that will be removed, thrown into the fire. If they do not repent and convert before they die.

        For example: Every Catholic who claims that other religions are as valuable as the one Catholic Faith of Christ’s in the Triune God, cannot be a true Catholic, but a betrayer of Christ. Therefore, what have the faithful one to do with the traitors? Nothing. Nothing at all.

        Reply
    • Comrade, please read Rene Girard on the human need to sacrifice. It all boils down to a fundamental choice: sacrifice of my own fallen ego or sacrifice of my human brother. It is as old as Cain and Abel.

      Reply
  12. We might be right to guess that Father Arturo Sosa is a stalking horse for Pope Francis position of having it both ways: yes, there is a devil; no there is not a devil. Reconciling contradictions is what Pope Francis is all about, e.g., 2 + 2 = 5. He is a “both/and” kind of guy, i.e., there is no fixed truth. In my opinion, contradiction is the key to Pope Francis and it is a tool of the devil. The devil tells everyone he doesn’t exist or if you believe he exists that’s fine too. It’s whatever works to get you to hell. Remember the devil is a liar and father of liars. There are many sons of the devil even among the Jesuits.

    Reply
  13. And are there any Jesuits out there who will speak up against this nonsense? Or are they all just being obedient? This is where blind obedience leads.

    Reply
    • The ultimate tool of the modernists to ensure their plan succeeds is the very notion of blind obedience! Without it they could achieve nothing.

      Reply
  14. It seems that Saint Ignatius’ order has become SJ the Society of Jezebel….may the Beloved through Mary hear the petitions of Saint Ignatius and all the Saints of the Order, that the order may repent and believe and continue the Saving Mission of Jesus, casting Jezebel into the Abyss…..Blessed be God, Blessed be the Living God….may the Beloved have the Society of Jesus anew, to renew the face of the earth! Come, Holy Spirit, come through Your Immaculata!!

    Reply
  15. Why does Fr. Sosa deny the existence of the Devil but Francis appears to believe in the devil existence? I think the answer is Fr Sosa doesn’t believe in the Devil or Jesus but Francis WORSHIPS the Devil that is why he can talk with apparent sincerity about the Devil’s existence.

    Reply
  16. Does Francis the First actually “believe in the Devil,” getting (like the blind pig coming across an acorn) at least one thing right? Let’s consider the above-quoted passage in light of the incessant demonization, by the Pope of Mercy, of everybody with whom he disagrees. Jorge Bergoglio isn’t the slightest bit shy about using the figure of Satan as a whip with which to keep those he “accompanies” moving always “forward” along the wrong path, so either he, too, doesn’t think there is a Satan, or else he misunderstands profoundly (one might even say, heretically) exactly who this figure is.

    Reply
  17. Sosa’s heresy should come as no surprise and neither should the lack of any papal action or rebuke over Sosa’s scandalous unbelief. These two fellow Jesuits are functional agnostics who pay lip service to Catholicism.

    This all brings to mind an even greater scandal; Bergoglio’s own reported heretical comments to the Italian atheist, Eugenio Scalfari back in 2015 when he poured cold water on the existence of eternal fire. Of course, Bergoglio’s comments were not reported verbatim nor transcripted (as in Sosa’s interview) so there is an element of hearsay and uncertainty about them (as always) but there’s no doubt in my mind that these two worthless rogues do not believe in the Catholic Church’s eternal teaching on Hell.

    Reply
    • Or in many other eternal teachings of the Church; that a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery with her, for example.

      Reply
  18. For many years now I have believed a significant number of Catholic clergy do not believe in God. That belief is based on the things they do and say. If they really believed in God they would know He sees everything they do and say; He knows what’s in their hearts.

    Prominent among them today is the deceiver Bergoglio, his homosexual friends and many of those he has elevated to high office. Cupich of Chicago comes quickly to mind. It is they who are destroying Christ’s Church. May He have mercy on their souls.

    Reply
  19. A supremely rich article. Well crafted, sober. I’m somewhat taken aback as to how the author was able to phrase the most abhorrent ecclesiastical realities so judiciously.
    Nevertheless we are saddled with the realization that a vast swath of the clergy class is of an assortment of atheist, agnostic, indifferent, reprobate, duplicitous and slothful. Compounding this
    gross awareness is the knowledge that the laity are being deceived, abused and neglected. Our faithful clergy are caught between the all too real Devil and a hard place, abandoned by their confreres in the priesthood, by their ecclesiastical superiors, and by the Bishop of Rome.
    “Allegorical understanding” – well phrased!
    The likes of Bergoglio, Sosa, Kasper, Schonborn, Marx, Danneels, Cupich, et al., and their sycophants such as James Martin – these scoundrels render our faith a fairy tale.
    Make no mistake about it – a fairy tale.
    They perceive themselves intellectually and morally superior to groundling Catholics with their beads and candles. They regard themselves as the liberators of those burdened with ill-gotten guilt complexes erroneously generated religious notions on correct sexual mores.
    These charlatans do not deserve the respect one would offer a snake oil salesman.

    Reply
  20. Bergoglio does not believe in hell, or eternal punishment for sin; where there is no hell, there can be no devil.

    Dogmas of the Catholic Church:
    1. The souls of those who die in the condition of personal grievous sin enter Hell.
    2. The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity.

    Bergoglio:
    1. In March 2015 came another interview with Repubblica in which the Pope seemed to suggest no person could go to hell, but if they fully rejected God they would be annihilated. The article says: “What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? The response of Francis is distinct and clear: there is no punishment, but the annihilation of that soul. All the others will participate in the beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the body their journey is finished.”
    2. “No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” (Amoris Laetitia 297.)

    To deny dogma is to sever oneself from the Church. Bergoglio declares himself an heretical judeo-masonic modernist and modernists routinely double-speak. Here is a devil; there is no devil:

    “[This behavior] cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up to the personal inclinations of the individual – such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it. … [The heretic Nestorius] expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed.”
    (Pope Pius VI, Bull Auctorem Fidei.

    Reply
    • I am glad you brought this up. I had thought to mention it, but then forgot as I was searching for other pieces of the puzzle. He says so very many things that make you wonder….

      Reply
      • Steve, is there a name for this particular school of thought that hell doesn’t exist but rather God “annihilates” the soul rather than punish forever? …I’ve never heard of such a thing and yet the Holy Father himself is saying such stuff. And is that quote real? Thanks : )

        Reply
        • I’m not sure of the name but I think that this annihilation of souls doctrine is what the jehovah’s witnesses teach.

          Reply
          • …more proof you can ‘be’ pope and not actually Catholic. Which then leads us to the question..is that possible? Or would such a person be de-facto null-in-void as Supreme Pontiff?

          • Dear Nick, Good question. If bergoglio is a heretic and out of the Church, can he still be Pope? Apparently not:

            The topic of a pope becoming a heretic was addressed at the First Vatican Council by Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, Ohio: “The question was also raised by a Cardinal, ‘What is to be done with the Pope if he becomes a heretic?’ It was answered that there has never been such a case; the Council of Bishops could depose him for heresy, for from the moment he becomes a heretic he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be Pope, being deposed by God Himself. (The New Princeton Review, Volume 42 p. 648, also The Life and Life-work of Pope Leo XIII. By James Joseph McGovern p. 241.)

            The Papal Bull Cum ex apostolatus officio of Pope Paul IV teaches that: if anyone was a heretic before the Papal election, he could not be a valid pope, even if he is elected unanimously by the Cardinals. Canon 188.4 (1917 Code of Canon Law) teachers that : if a cleric (pope, bishop, etc.) becomes a heretic, he loses his office without any declaration by operation of law. St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Antonius, St. Francis deSales, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and many other theologians all teach that a heretic cannot be a pope.

            St. Alphonsus Liguori: – “If ever a Pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he should at once fall from the Pontificate. If, however, God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the
            apostolic chair would be vacant.”

            For brevity, I just quoted one Saint and for the same reason here’s one theologian:

            “Given, therefore, the hypothesis of a pope who would become notoriously heretical, one must concede without hesitation that he would by that very fact lose the pontifical power, insofar as, having become an unbeliever, he would by his own will be cast outside the body of the Church.” (Billot — De Ecclesia, 1927.)

            Well, that seems pretty clear to me. An heretic cannot become Pope, because he’s not a member of the Church and if a Pope becomes an heretic, he is no longer a member of the Church, or Pope and the Chair of Peter is vacant.

            So, what are we to do about an heretical Pope? Well, I did some checking up and here’s what I found. (Again only a few for brevity.):

            St. Cyril of Alexandria:
            “It is unlawful, and a profanation, and an act the punishment of which is death, to love to associate with unholy heretics, and to unite yourself to their communion.”

            St. Athanasius:
            “Saint Anthony never held communion with the Meletian schismatics, knowing their wickedness and rebellion from the beginning; neither did he have friendly converse with the Manichees or any other heretics, except only to warn them to return to their duty, believing and teaching that their friendship and society was harmful and ruinous to the soul. Thus also he loathed the Arian heresy, and taught all men neither to go near them nor to partake in their bad faith.

            II Lateran Council
            “The accursed perversity of heretics has so increased that now they exercise their wickedness not in secret, but manifest their error publicly, and win over the weak and simple-minded to their opinion. For this reason, We resolve to cast them, their defenders, and their receivers under anathema, and We forbid under anathema that any one presume to help heretics or to do business with heretics.”

            St. Thomas Aquinas:
            To know whom to avoid is a great means of saving our souls. Thus the Church forbids the faithful to communicate with those unbelievers who have forsaken the faith by corrupting it, such as heretics, or by renouncing it, such as apostates.”

            Well, as far as I can see, a Catholic must have nothing to do with a false heretical anti-pope, or his judeo-masonic church.

          • …then add to this what JPII laid out for rules during Conclave and what really seemed to happen for Francis to be elected and you have a better case going than they had against O.J. ; )

    • “What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? The
      response of Francis is distinct and clear: there is no punishment, but
      the annihilation of that soul. All the others will participate in the
      beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are
      annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the
      body their journey is finished.” [Pope Francis, interview with la Repubblica, March 2015]

      The “lake of fire” will indeed be eternal. The second death (Rev 20:6,14) in it will NOT be eternal. Why would it be called death, otherwise. And it is not true that “there is no punishment”: to be raised and realize to have thrown away God’s gift of one’s life, that will be the essential punishment. The annihilation will will simply get rid of those who are unworthy of life everlasting. And, even if Rev 20:10, seems to suggest otherwise, I hope that the devil (and his minions), the beast and the false prophet will be annihilated too. Otherwise, in spite of all apologetic effort, they would remain as a stain on God’s Glory.

      Reply
      • Are you saying here that the punishments of hell will not be eternal; and / or that after a time in hell the damned soul will be extinguished? If you are, you are writing heresy here Miguel.

        Reply
          • A brief salutary Meditation on Hell by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor:

            I. The Eternity of the Pains of Hell.
            Consider that the torments of hell will never terminate. The damned suffer in every way, and they suffer eternally. A hundred years of suffering will pass away, a thousand will pass away, and hell will still be only at its beginning. A hundred thousand and a thousand million of years will pass, and hell will still begin anew. Were an angel to be sent to one of the damned, informing him that, after as many million of ages have expired as there are drops of water in the sea, leaves upon the trees, and grains of sand on the seashore or upon the earth, he should be delivered from hell, this news would fill him with inconceivable joy. For although he would be compelled to suffer for an innumerable multitude of ages, still he would be able to say: The time will come when my sufferings will end. But alas! As many ages will really expire, and hell will be only at its beginning. Nay, this number of ages maybe multiplied as many times as there are grains of sand on the earth, drops of water in the ocean, and leaves on the trees, and, at the close of this immense period, hell will begin again. There is not a wretch in that abode of torments, that would not willingly make this proposition to the Almighty. “Increase, O Lord, as much as Thou pleasest, my torments, prolong the duration of them to any extent Thou pleasest, provided they may terminate.” But no: this termination will never be granted. It would be an alleviation, if the unfortunate sufferer could flatter himself with the hope that perhaps the Lord would one day have compassion on him and deliver him from hell. But alas! He will always keep the sentence of his eternal reprobation before his eyes, and will see that all these pains, this fire, this despair, these lamentations, will never cease, will never end. O hell! O eternity! How can men believe in you and yet continue in sin?

            II. Christian soul! pay attention to these truths: remember that hell is for you, if you live in sin. This horrible furnace is already kindled under your feet, and numbers throughout the world are falling into it, whilst you are reading this. Reflect, that if the same misfortune ever befalls you, it will be irreparable; if ever, then, you did deserve hell, thank God with all your heart for his mercy in having spared you. Weep over your sins; employ every possible means of securing your salvation; frequently approach the sacraments; read daily some pious book, entertain a sincere devotion to the Blessed Virgin, recite every day the Rosary, and fast every Saturday in her honor; be firm and resolute in resisting the beginning of temptation, invoking frequently the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary; flee from all occasions of sin; in short, use your utmost endeavors to avoid eternal misery, remembering that there cannot be too great security where eternity is at stake.

            Consider what numbers of men have hidden themselves in deserts, and shut themselves up in caverns, in order the more effectually to secure their eternal welfare. And what are you doing? Oh! give yourself sincerely to God, and say to him from your heart: Lord, behold I am now Thy servant:ready and willing to do whatever Thou commandest me. Mary, assist me.

    • Satan will come to get you, Fr. Sosa who deliberately open the door and invites him in. Follow Fr. Sosa’s activities and you will see..

      Reply
    • From the beginning the Father of Lies has had a plan and a method to destroy by confusion. As his minions, the modernists employ the same methodology. Bergoglio’s statements are excused as ‘off the cuff’, but in reality are purposely worded to sow confusion through ambiguity. Where there is confusion, the seeds of doubt are planted. With doubt comes disunity and loss of faith. Satan knew this when he engineered the documents of the council, laying the foundation of the road we’ve been traveling for the last half century; a road to perdition. The saddest thing of all are the millions of souls who have been duped and lost because of the snares that have been laid.

      Reply
    • If there is no Devil, Fr. Sosa would not be here to talk all kinds of nonsense, insane like demonic possessed person since St. Ignatius had no need to create Jesuit’s order. Another Judas priest.

      Reply
  21. … do the leaders of the Catholic Church as a whole still believe in Catholic eschatology? For those unfamiliar with the word, eschatology is the theological study of the so-called “Four Last Things”: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

    Maybe, and certainly against the purpose of the “immanentists” and “liberals”, it will be a good opportunity for re-examining the s.c. “Last Things”, and
    explain an absence that sticks out like a sore thumb: the General Resurrection. I suggests that we all read seriously1 Corinthians 15.

    “Excuse me, Sister, but what about getting their souls to heaven?” “Heaven?” Came the mildly incredulous reply. “We don’t believe in heaven anymore. That’s why we try to do what we can to make heaven here.”

    See above. Urgently.

    «Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is
    simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil.»[Communism and the Conscience of the West, Bishop Fulton Sheen, 1948]

    And why did this happen?

    Because the Church, so as to make the faith in the general bodily resurrection (of ALL, elect as well as reprobate) more “digestible”, invented, in the course of time, the “conscient survival of the soul separated from the body”, and even its ” particular judgment”, with relative destinations to hell, paradise and, (latest medieval entry) purgatory. Such inventions, obviously, weaken the strength and confuse the sense of the pure and simple faith in the final Resurrection for all, Judgment, Life Everlasting for the elect, or second (and definitive) death for the reprobate.

    The problem was clearly already present with Paul’s Corinthians …

    «Inthe midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he [the Devil] will have one great secret which he will tell to no
    one: he will not believe in God.»[Communism etc., op. cit.]

    This is spot on!

    Is Francis just better at hiding his allegorical understanding of the Prince of This World, or does he know something that Fr. Sosa does not?

    This
    is a question that I have often asked myself. I sincerely hope not.

    «… nor let there be among you a place for any pride of “free-thinking,” which belongs rather to a heterodox than to a Catholic mentality …» [Pius XII, 1957-58]

    Is
    Thomism still supposed to be part and parcel of orthodoxy? Just asking …

    Reply
    • Miguel, good morning. You are a new commentator here as far as I know, and I for one am not quick to understand your thinking which does appear to come from an unusual direction, one might say.

      “Because the Church, so as to make the faith in the general bodily resurrection (of ALL, elect as well as reprobate) more “digestible”, invented, in the course of time, the “conscient survival of the soul separated from the body”, and even its “particular judgment”, with relative destinations to hell, paradise and, (latest medieval entry) purgatory. Such inventions, obviously, weaken the strength and confuse the sense of the pure and simple faith in the final Resurrection for all, Judgment, Life Everlasting for the elect, or second (and definitive) death for the reprobate.”

      Are you denying the survival of the soul separated at death from the body, the particular judgement, hell, Heaven and Purgatory? A plain reading of your comment, which you call “inventions”, would seem to suggest so.

      Apologies if I have wildly misunderstood but I would be grateful for your clarification.

      Reply
      • Hi comrade!

        Are you denying the survival of the soul separated at death from the
        body, the particular judgement, hell, Heaven and Purgatory? A plain
        reading of your comment, in which you call these things “inventions”,
        would seem to suggest so.

        As you can see, I have used the word Paradise (which is not scriptural), not Heaven (which is scriptural). Apart from that your understanding is correct.

        Let me ask you a question: why do you think that the Chuch has “forgot” to include the General Resurrection in the “Last Things”?

        Reply
        • Because it doesn’t need to. The General Resurrection comes at the end of time. Human beings die every day; their particular destiny comes first; the GR will follow.

          Miguel, I liked your presentation of the Daniel prophecy but you now have stated clearly that you deny basic truths of the Catholic Faith.

          I therefore issue a warning to all 1P5 readers to avoid the poster Miguel de Servet who is a self-confessed heretic (if he is a Catholic, which he may well not be).

          Reply
          • The General Resurrection comes at the end of time. Human beings die every day; their particular destiny comes first; the GR will follow.

            Really? I see! So, the s.c. “Last Things” are (for a “good Catholic”) not really so … last, after all: even the “Judgment” is not really THE Judgment, but the invented “particular judgment”. Yes? Well, congrats!

          • I stay with the dogmatic teaching of the Church. You have delved into Scripture and have invented your own religion. It’s happened countless times before – Hus, Wycliff, Luther et al, ad nauseam.

          • Good for you! In the meantime, you may want to look (without blinders on) at 1 Corinthians 15.

          • I have, earlier this morning. A wonderful passage of St. Paul, densely theological.

            But I am a Catholic Miguel, I therefore look to what the Church has taught about these things, not what I think it means. I urge you to do the same and not elevate your private judgement above that of Tradition.

          • In case it has escaped you, Paul was accusing his Corinthians exactly of the distortions regarding eschatology that the Chuch made into a system herself.

            Now if Christ be preached, that he arose again from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead? (1Cor 15:12)

            In case you don’t know, the pious Corinthians believed in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, BUT as an exception. For themselves, they were quite content to believe in the … disembodied survival of the soul. Fancy that!

          • It won’t be long when there will only two options left: following Fr. Sosa’s “metaphors”, or following the Apostles’ Creed, pure and simple.

            Then there will not be room for “traditional” additions, for “metaphysical” flights of fancy, for Greek-heathen inventions.

          • Great Stalin,

            who sets the “Party Line” today, in your opinion? Pope Francis? Cardinal Sarah? “Emeritus pope” Benedict XVI? The “seers” of Medjugorje? Who?

            You cannot simply say, “the Church Magisterium”. It would need to speak with one voice: it does not anymore, even if you wanted to hold on to that “comfort”.

            Estote parati (Be prepared) …

  22. It’s a disaster. The Jesuits have long since crashed and burned. Now Pope Francis and Father Sosa are pouring gasoline on the fire.

    Reply
  23. This alleged ldr. Of cino Ven. jesuit is a Apostate. He should be defrocked along with most of Francis’s minions period.

    Reply
  24. Just a little “sample” from the Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology (<= right-click on link with mouse – CDF, 17 May 1979)

    4) The Church excludes every way of thinking or speaking that would render meaningless or unintelligible her prayers, her funeral rites and the religious acts offered for the dead. All these are, in their substance, loci theologici.

    This paragraph is incredibly cynical and dishonest: the CDF admits that the Church needs the “immortality of the soul after death” for pastoral and liturgical reasons, therefore she affirms it! Yuck!

    Oh, BTW, loci theologici (or loci communes), is a fancy expression used by theological professionals to refer to “common topics of discussion in theology”, which (that is the hint …) should not be allowed for discussion by lay people.

    Reply
  25. Another “sample” from the Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology (<= right-click on link with mouse – CDF, 17 May 1979)

    3) The Church affirms that a spiritual element survives and subsists after
    death, an element endowed with consciousness and will, so that the “human self”
    subsists. To designate this element, the Church uses the word “soul”, the accepted term in the usage of Scripture and Tradition. Although not unaware that this term has various meanings in the Bible, the Church thinks that there is no valid reason for rejecting it; moreover, she considers that the use of some word as a vehicle is absolutely indispensable in order to support the faith of Christians.

    This is an elegant way of saying that the word “soul”, in its use by the Church, and regardless of the reality of its “immortality after death” is a useful practical tool

    … more cynicism and dishonesty …

    Reply
  26. I noticed that Father Luis Ugalde SJ who was mentioned in the Venezuela piece,( who did so much damage and double speak ) is also quoted in this piece by Austin Iverleigh about Sosa. This is an insidious picture that is being painted about one too many Jesuits from Latin America. They have their fingers in all sorts of power grabbing political arenas.

    Reply
  27. I was thinking their biggest trick was not telling Louis XVI until it was too late that he was supposed to consecrate France.
    Then I was thinking, no, their biggest trick was sitting up on a mountaintop with one of the most powerful telescopes on earth but never bothering to tell (warn) the faithful what they were monitoring.
    Since you don’t believe in hell my jesuit friends, I’ll just put it in the words of one of the pagans you likely admire: “instant karma’s gonna get you..”

    Reply
  28. It appears that from the beginning of his papacy Francis has continually thrown us ‘red herrings’ to divert us from the path of what is most important in the life of each person and of the daily life of the Church. We are here to become saints and to assist others in the same. I haven’t heard him address these concerns.

    Reply

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