One thing astute observers should know by now is that precious few milestones in the Vatican’s campaign for constant innovation (“always forward!”) arrive unannounced. The process to allow communion for the divorced and remarried took over two years — from the consistory keynote of Cardinal Walter Kasper in February of 2014 to the promulgation of Amoris Laetitia in April, 2016 — and many hints were dropped along the way. Like proverbial breadcrumbs, we were led from the sudden resuscitation of Cardinal Walter Kasper’s career as he was allowed to champion his eponymous proposal to the heavily manipulated synods to the eventual release of a post-synodal apostolic exhortation that confirmed the worst, and was in turn itself confirmed by even more public signalling after the fact. The handwriting, which had been on the wall from the beginning of the process, came into stark relief in the November, 2015 papal interview with Eugenio Scalfari in which Francis said, “This is bottom line result, the de facto appraisals are entrusted to the confessors, but at the end of faster or slower paths, all the divorced who ask will be admitted.”
There were many, many smaller markers in between, most of them right out in the open where anyone could see them. The problem for many Catholics was therefore not a scarcity of evidence of what was coming, but a self-imposed myopia. There seemed always to be some escape via ambiguity, some rumor not quite able to be confirmed. The fact is, the ultramontanism cultivated in the faithful during more innocent times did not easily yield to the notion that the Catholic Church — under the guidance of a pope — could do such a thing.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice…
Many Catholics got burned by Amoris Laetitia. But those responsible for its subtle but deadly revolt against Divine Teaching are not wasting time on victory laps. We cannot afford to be caught flat-footed again. And so, we should be paying very close attention now to the signals being given about the next major agenda item in the quest to unravel the Catholic Faith as we know it — the rapidly accelerating path to intercommunion with Protestants.
This latest initiative is beginning in the same way. Blips on the radar screen. Independent and seemingly unrelated comments that express hope but lack apparent purpose. Gestures. Officially unapproved trial runs. They are probing our defenses with public statements and actions that demonstrate — though never quite prove — that momentum is quickly building in this direction. A quick recap of the events of the last year should trace out the arc of the project:
- On November 16, 2015, Pope Francis met with a group of visiting Lutherans at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Rome, under the pastorship of Jens-Martin Kruse. A Lutheran woman, married to a Catholic man, asked the pope about the permissibility of coming to “participate in the Lord’s Supper together” with her husband in a Catholic church. Francis demurred, saying, “‘One faith, one baptism, one Lord.’ This is what Paul tells us, and then take the consequences from there. I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence. One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.” Many took this to be, with a wink and a nudge, an implicit endorsement of Lutherans approaching Holy Communion — in direct violation of Church teaching (CCC 1400) and Canon Law (Can. 844 §1) — provided that their conscience allowed for it. [NB: The fifth dubium from the Four Cardinals’ letter to the pope applies here; its answer is more pressing with this wider application.]
- On January 20, 2016, Sandro Magister related that Pope Francis, in a general audience that day, had taken up this theme again: “this grace creates an unbreakable bond between us Christians, so that, by virtue of baptism, we can be really all brothers … All, Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, we form a a royal priesthood and a holy nation.”
- On January 19, 2016, Magister revealed that the same Jens-Martin Kruse whose church had been visited by Francis the previous November had stated that “The pope has invited all the faithful to take responsibility before God, to decide according to their conscience if it is possible joint participation, between Catholics and Protestants, the Eucharist. There are no theological reasons why this is not so.” Magister continued: “On the morning of January 19, Francis gave an audience in the Vatican to a delegation from the Lutheran Church of Finland, led by a woman, Irja Askola, Bishop of Helsinki, accompanied by representatives of the minority Orthodox and Catholic bishops Ambrosius and Teemu Sippo. But after the audience with the Pope, in the course of the liturgical celebrations that the delegation has officiated in Rome along with groups of faithful who came also from Finland, it happened during a Catholic Mass that communion was also given to the Lutherans.” [emphasis added]
- On January 25, 2016, additional reports about the group of Lutherans attending the Mass on January 19 in Rome indicated that “at the time of communion the non-Catholics placed their right hands on their left shoulders, a traditional way of indicating that they were ineligible to receive the Eucharist. However, the celebrating priests insisted on giving them communion.” One of those in attendance, Lutheran bishop Samuel Salmi from Finland, said, “At the root of this there is, without a doubt, the ecumenical attitude of a new Vatican … The pope was not here at the mass, but his strategic intention is to carry out a mission of love and unity. There are also theological adversaries in the Vatican, for which reason it is difficult to assess how much he can say, but he can permit practical gestures.” [emphasis added]
- On October 13, 2016, Pope Francis received a thousand German Lutherans in a papal audience. “Let us give thanks to God”, he said, “because today, as Lutherans and Catholics, we are journeying together on the way from conflict to communion. We have already traveled an important part of the road.” [emphasis added]
- On October 24, 2016, Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, England — co-chair of the international dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity — gave an interview to Crux. In it, he anticipated what would be coming at the joint Vatican/Lutheran World Federation commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Lund, Sweden, which took place on October 31, 2016. In addition to stating that “the Reformation was all a big misunderstanding!”, Kenney said, “I think you’ve got to start now moving towards that visible unity … One of the big issues – and it will be interesting to see if Francis even mentions it – is inter-communion. He’s already made a gesture about that, of course, when he visited a Lutheran church in Rome and, during a question-and-answer session, suggested to a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic man that perhaps, if her conscience permitted, she could receive communion in her husband’s church.”
- On October 31, 2016, following the commemoration, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told reporters that “it was a ‘very beautiful’ day, one that’s ‘very late’ in coming, but ‘very important.’ It’s a ‘new beginning of a way to leave conflict in the past and go toward communion in the future'”. A joint statement issued by the Vatican and Lutheran World Federation that same day said that “many members of our communities yearn to receive the Eucharist at one table, as the concrete expression of full unity. … This is the goal of our ecumenical endeavours, which we wish to advance, also by renewing our commitment to theological dialogue.”
Which brings us to the present moment. On December 10, 2016, Cardinal Walter Kasper gave an interview to the Italian publication Avvenire. In reference to the Catholic/Lutheran joint declaration of October 31, and its reference to intercommunion, he said: “Personally, I hope that we can use an unofficial text, prepared by a commission in the bishops’ conference of the United States, regarding this subject.” While admitting that “full agreement” was not yet possible, he indicated a hope that “the next declaration opens the way for shared Eucharistic communion in special cases.” He said that the United States and Germany were in particular need of such a solution for this “urgent pastoral problem.”
This notion of urgency, exceptions, and special cases is always the wedge in the door. The appeal is being made, yet again, to offer “pastoral provisions” for what is already forbidden. It is the same kind of argumentation we found in Kasper’s consistory keynote in February of 2014. It is the same kind of argumentation we saw in Amoris Laetitia. It is the same thing we are seeing now in response to the dubia.
It should also be remembered, in the interest of a history that rhymes, that in 2014, Kasper argued to anyone who would listen that he was not acting on his own initiative, despite the “Kasper Proposal” bearing his name:
“I’m not naïve,” Kasper said. “I knew that there are other positions, but I didn’t think that the debate would become, and now is shown to be also, without manners.”
“Not one of my fellow Cardinals ever spoke to me. I, instead, [spoke] twice with the Holy Father. I agreed upon everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do, except be with Pope? I am not the target, the target is another one.”
Kasper again claimed that Pope Francis knew what he was going to propose and fully approved of his speech.
“They know that I have not done these things by myself,” he said. “I agreed with the Pope, I spoke twice with him. He showed himself content [with the proposal]. Now, they create this controversy. A Cardinal must be close to the Pope, by his side. The Cardinals are the Pope’s cooperators.”
At the time, few took Kasper at his word. Many were in fact dismissive of his defense. Among them was Cardinal Burke, who sounded downright indignant:
“I find it amazing that the cardinal [Kasper] claims that he speaks for the Pope,” Cardinal Burke said. “The Pope doesn’t have laryngitis.”
His Eminence — who at the time had not yet been summarily dismissed from his position as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura — no doubt has a somewhat more evolved opinion on the weight of papal silence these days. Sometimes, not saying anything speaks volumes.
As for Kasper, Francis, and the rest of the Vatican players pushing hard for intercommunion, they are singing a strikingly familiar tune. The same little ditty that played out long and loud before the Synods and Amoris Laetitia brought home the reality that the so-called “Kasper Proposal” was, in fact, the Francis Proposal. The groundwork is being quickly laid for this next major item on the agenda, which dovetails perfectly with Communion for the “remarried.”
As I wrote last year:
Why am I speaking here about Communion for the divorced and remarried when the topic is Communion for Lutherans? Because it’s all of a piece. 1 Corinthians 11:28 makes it clear how we must approach Holy Communion: “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” What Francis, Kasper, and others have been advocating is the idea that this examination is not necessary. That rather than being fearful that we “eat and drink judgment (or condemnation) against” ourselves if we receive the Eucharist unworthily, we should see it as the very means by which we may be strengthened on our “journey.” This is an outrageous form of utilitarianism, in which we use God — our first beginning and final end — to accomplish some other, lesser thing. If our worthiness to receive Him is treated as a matter of no importance, how can this be viewed as anything other than elevating the concerns of man — and man himself — above God?
Elevating man over God — a theme that arose in the first exhortation of this pontificate — is really a form of idolatry. The kind of idolatry that leads, as I’ve said before, to the prioritization of things like “excessive concern for the material well-being of the poor, distribution of resources, or care for the environment – over and above concern for the salvation of souls.”
We are moving far too quickly toward the next milestone. More damage will be done. More souls harmed, or even lost.
Formal correction can’t come soon enough.
Sigh. Do prelates like Kasper think we are morons? (Aside: It’s very likely that he does.) Anyone who has been paying attention since 1965 or so should have alarm bells ringing in their ears the minute he hears the words “pastoral provision”, “accompaniment”, or “special circumstances”. Those are precisely the words that gave us Holy Communion in the hand, “extraordinary” (translation: regularly-scheduled in 99.9% of Novus Ordo parishes in the U.S.) ministers of Holy Communion, female altar servers, and general absolution at “community penance services” without the need for individual confession.
So when Kasper comes out and says we have an “urgent pastoral problem” (whose fault is it, by the way, Your Eminence?) that demands some sort of novel solution only in “special cases”, how can we not fear the worst?
The Universal Church of Christ on earth cannot have different rules for different countries & peoples. The Ten Commandments were meant for ALL people & cultures for ALL time, as were the teachings of Christ through Revelation & Scripture. To suggest that in our times (possibly the beginning of the End Times) people are so advanced in their knowledge they don’t need the ‘idea’ of God & now is the time for letting go of stuffy rules & regulations in order to meet with & accommodate unrepentant sinners in their sin without any need to feel ashamed or to make amends where possible. Society has accepted these people so why wouldn’t the CC. He forgets, of course, to mention the hoards of ordained priests & prelates who are openly gay & have either abused young males in the past or enabled others to do so leading to the worst scandal ever & an unprecedented outlay of funds by the faithful meant for the upkeep of parishes & schools which almost crippled the CC & led many out of the Church.
Consecrated Hosts can never be given to those who don’t believe they are actually receiving Christ – their Creator & Redeemer – but only a wafer, and have not made the necessary step of accessing confession beforehand. It is often spoken about in Catholic circles the lack in these times of access to confession. How greater then the need for non-Catholics to understand the meaning of this great sacrament which Luther ditched, telling them to sin well as the Lord loved them to sin (or words to that affect).
The counterargument that Kasper and his progressive cohorts would make to that, Ana, (though they would be hard-pressed to actually say this so bluntly) is that since so many baptized Catholics receive Holy Communion unworthily (as evidenced by the fact that almost everyone receives Communion Sunday after Sunday, while in most parishes the confessional is rarely used; is it really possible that every single person who receives Communion is in a state of grace when they haven’t gone to confession in decades?), why should we exclude Lutherans?
Of course, to make this case, they would have to admit they have utterly failed to teach the laity about just what happens at the consecration, but then again, I personally doubt they themselves actually believe in transubstantiation when they for all intents and purposes treat the Body and Blood of Our Lord with the same level of respect shown to a Ritz cracker or glass of grape juice.
The logic of such a counterargument is devil’s logic. To allow Lutherans to profane the Bl. Sac., just because it is all too likely that many Catholics do so, would be a truly horrendous justification for reception of the Bl. Sac. by Lutherans. There are no justifications – the Tradition of the Church has been so insistent that only the Faithful, and not those schism or heresy, can receive It, that the Church has no freedom to permit those in schism or heresy to receive It.
If non-Catholics wish to receive It, there is a very simple solution: let them pray a Spiritual Communion, so that, though they cannot receive the Sacramental Body of Christ, they may nonetheless receive the grace which the Sacramental Body of Christ signifies. After all, there is no gain in knowing Christ bodily present (as His opponents did) if one has no faith in Him, hope in Him, or love for Him (as on earth His Saints did). They would not desire It, if God had not put this desire in their hearts. And that means they have to observe the discipline for receiving it which God’s Church has laid down.
I agree with you completely. One observation I’d like to make though. Throughout your comment you said “It” many times, and capitalized as you should. But if we truly believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Our Lord, why not say Him? That’s something I’ve been trying to do and it’s just some food for thought. If you have any reply I’d love to hear it!
I’ve always wondered why people refer to the Lord as “it”.
This is a very good observation. We hear “cup” and “bread” too – horrible. Certainly shows people are completely into the ‘meal thing.’
So long as we have this mentality we will always have priests who throws the w”wine” and “bread” into the sink
The lack of catechesis & stopping evangelising the ignorant has undoubtedly led to grave distortion as to what actually occurs at the moment of the Consecration & the absolute necessity of being in a state of grace in order to receive the Sacred Host. For those of us who have been turned down many times by priests unwilling to hear confession & whose churches have been cleared of confessionals for decades, it is necessary to make a good spiritual confession & contrition to ask God to forgive us for any venial sins we may have committed before approaching the altar. For grave sin, of course, it is essential we refrain from receiving Holy Communion until confession is accomplished, which could take months. The decision to do away with Confession was a deliberate act of will by those participating in VII in order to promote their false ecumenism & kowtow to the NWO, just as the acts of ditching TLM & most of the Sacraments that Christ left to us. IMO these men are the Marxist infiltrators cited by Bella Dodd as having been placed in Catholic seminaries in the 1930s & 40s who are now in a desperate hurry to annihilate the CC, which is an impossibility as it is the Church of Christ on earth. They do not have any faith & certainly not the True Faith so judging them as Catholics is useless. They must be removed (forcibly if necessary).
Credit should be given where it is due, though, and I think we do have to thank Pope John Paul II for those who DO still go to confession regularly in many cases, especially youth. He spoke about the need on many occasions and he was one of the Council Fathers.
Confession is a Sacrament that has been definitely down-graded since VII, the same as Last Rites & Confirmation (at least in Spain & Europe generally). PF also speaks of the devil & the need to go to Confession but if there is no Confession being held on a regular basis & no confessionals in Churches then how are the people going to access it? It is rare to see a Baptism taking place which used to be done on a Sunday before the last Mass. I have only witnessed one in the past 26 years & single figure marriages, because cohabitants don’t bother & the priests doesn’t keep in touch with his parishioners. I understand it is hard with the lack of numbers, but on visiting another European country two years ago the priest in situ wouldn’t hear confessions while his two colleagues were on holiday. With that attitude, how can the CC be said to be fulfilling it mission?
Well, I’m in the United States and in a relatively good archdiocese (even if it is a blue state) so I don’t know how things are in Europe except anecdotally. Most parishes I know of, with a few exceptions, hold confessions AT LEAST once a week for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Many don’t avail themselves of the sacrament, but it IS available. Most baptisms I see done AFTER the last Mass on Sunday, so there aren’t a lot of people witnessing it, but it happens fairly often. Marriages are fairly common here too.
That said, there are a goodly number of parishes known for their heterodoxy and most people I know simply avoid them, with the anecdote being that someone went to mass at one of these places for one reason or another and the person says “I’m not sure if I went to Mass or not…”
From what I understand, the situation in Europe and other dioceses is much worse and I would guess what you say is true… still, what John Paul did, from what I’ve seen working with many youth groups and other apostolates, has been very beneficial in getting young people at least to confession.
There seems to be quite a wide disparity between the two continents. We have only NO Bishops so no option to go to a Traditional Order church. Holy Mass said in Spanish closely resembles the Latin & where I go is said very reverently – no comparison to the English version I had to endure a couple of years ago & which I don’t want to have to attend ever again. If we can rid ourselves of this Modernist takeover and get back to Tradition I feel the faithful would find great difference in their lives – it would be like a rebirth.
Laypeople cannot do this except by prayer. This is the great Apostasy and only a miracle will fix this mess. However this is exactly what the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart means; but not before a severe world-wide chastisement which will probably happen by 2029, 100 years after Our Lady formally asked for the Pope and the Bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. We can expect martyrdom, natural and unnatural disasters around the world until then. Despite that the Vatican said “valid consecration has been made” yet we see Russia spreading her errors throughout the world, including the Vatican.
Spot on
Two wrongs can never make a right – sin is sin – and each will be judged according to his actions.
The move by PF to open the door to Communion for Lutherans and divorced Catholics is just the first step in the acceptance and legitimizing of homosexual unions and all the stuff that goes with that behavior.
I was always of the opinion that the synod fathers should never ever have signed off on the last Synod in the hope that PF would eventually come around and right the barque of Peter – his intention from the start was to neutralize the orthodox clergy and replace them with heretics like Schonborn, Bonny, and others who would do his bidding. False humility, mercy and deception were the name of the game.
Now, we the faithful, must storm heaven and implore the Blessed Mother to deliver us from the evil that has been deliberately perpetrated upon us. The prophecies of Our Lady of Fatima and Akita are playing out before our eyes – God help us!
Anyone who honestly follows Francis should know that all he wants to do is approve of sin and sacrilege.
Sacrilege has been approved now for decades. You almost cannot attend a Novus Ordo mass without witnessing sacrilege. That’s why I can’t attend them anymore. I don’t think it should be necessary to provide any very obvious examples here.
Communion in the hand is the sacrilege enabled by most bishops on earth.
Yes, Communion in the hand was the first big sacrilege. What followed was the “active participation” of lay extraordinary ministers of Communion. I used to shake my head in amazement when some pious individuals in the Novus Ordo would approach an extraordinary minister and receive Our Lord on the tongue thinking that they were receiving Him with greater dignity. Clearly they did not realize that the employment of lay ministers removed most of the dignity before it reached their tongue. But hold on, the popes and bishops have approved this so it must be good ; ) Who am I to judge.
Try reading Memoriale Domini, the letter of Pope Paul VI re Communion in the hand. This is on the Remnant website:
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/traditional-catholic-answers/item/1330-what-s-wrong-with-communion-in-the-hand
Also, http://www.oltyn.org had a tape/CD titled The Truth about Communion in the Hand with John Vennari.
I tried to find it on the Vatican website, but no success. If I find it, I will update my post.
Hope this helps you.
I went to one last week because of weather and my wife’s pleas to be safe (we woulda been fine but I acquiesced for her comfort). Never again. I just couldn’t handle it. There was no dignity… and then there was the sacrilege I believe the communion line… I wept.
Thank you for your post. I was thinking about attending the NO again after having given it up. I’m Ukrainian Greek Catholic but the local RC Church is closer to my house. (When I was younger, that’s where I went to daily Mass.)
Your post has helped strengthen my resolve not to attend the NO again (except for attending necessary family functions; even then, I couldn’t participate).
Philemon 1:3
There isn’t much time. Everyday the modernists grow stronger. The Dubia is our chance. Let us continue to fight.
Chastisement will sweep out the house an throw the novus ordo and all modernism on the trash heap of history where it belongs.
Please God it will.
“God was unjust to his Son. He sent him to a cross.” Pope Francis as quoted in la stampa. He blasphemes against the Holy Trinity, not just heresy. This is outrageous, crickets from the Bishops and Cardinals of the Church. Next Communion for all, not just those who wear the name Christian such as the fake Lutheran Womanbishop who supports abortion and sodomy who he flew to Sweden to celebrate with.
Can you please provide a link to the la stampa article in which this quote appears, in the English version?
Dec 15 audience with Bambino Gesu hospital. Go to canon212 website and click on pope talking to sick children link and go straight there.
What an evil man he is to lead little children into heresy.
NO! NO! NO!!!!! This is sacrilege!!!!
(Sorry for shouting, but I had to get that out of my system.)
And it is already happening.
We can scream Noooo till we are blue in the face but the spirit of Screwtape is in the ascendancy in the vatican.
Dear Steve,
If you really think about it, adultery IS idolatry in the sense that you mentioned in the article: one worships a creature instead of God.
Excellent work. Thank you.
In Christ the King,
Margaret
It is idolatry. Over and over in the OT, God called Israel as an adulterous nation for her idolatry.
The Pope is hell bent on secularizing the Church. Or perhaps I should have stopped at hell bent.
I don’t know what his intentions are, but secularizing the Church won’t succeed. God gives us free will but He will not allow His Church to be destroyed. Keep the Faith!
Oh I am sure the Lord is in charge and is allowing this to happen for some reason. Perhaps to shake us out of our complacency. I’ve personally given up on the Pope. I know that is terrible because no one is beyond conversion. But it is hard for people who have found the faith and lose it majorly to find it again.
I wouldn’t give up on him, though. Remember: Our Lord didn’t give up on St. Peter.
You are of course right.
But when I think about it, the Peter He prayed for was a pre-resurrection and pre-pentecost Peter.
Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible[c] to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.
This is the Douay-Rheims version of Hebrews w/ footnote:
[4] For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, [5] Have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
[4] It is impossible: The meaning is, that it is impossible for such as have fallen after baptism, to be again baptized; and very hard for such as have apostatized from the faith, after having received many graces, to return again to the happy state from which they fell.
[6] And are fallen away: to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a mockery.
I understand what you’re saying but we don’t know his mens rea. WHY is he saying and doing these things? That’s the $64,000 question.
He’s the creature of the FreeMasons who have infiltrated the Church at the highest levels and he is also the creature of the NWO. which subsumes the UN and the EU. The next thing on the agenda is gently lulling us into the “One World Church” which true Catholics must reject, and be martyred for. See U-Tube for Fr Malachi Martin’s interviews which talk about the NWO and the One World Religion which the False Prophet will endorse.
Formal correction can’t come soon enough? And then what? Our fearless leader will most likely take their red hats first, and any positions whether academic, ceremonial or substantive would come next. After that comes a demand by the Pope for the Cardinals to formally submit to an Oath of Supremacy. Absent their submission, it will be excommunication, post haste. If the Dubia cardinals organize a resistance, any of their followers could be subjected to the same treatment. Excommunication. Would they then excommunicate Pope Francis?
When faced with a heretical schismatic pope, St. Bernard and St. Norbert sought the support of the crowned heads of Europe for Innocent II, the true pope elected under irregular circumstances by a small subgroup of the College of Cardinals. They also sought a military force to remove Anaceltus II. Do you imagine that civil reasoned discussion or even an imperfect council could have dislodged Anacletus II when he had the support of most Italians and the powerful Duke of Savoy?
Thank you for pointing out the obvious, this Pope has more heresy coming in the same vein as Amortis. I realize historical analogies are not exact when discussing the current circumstances but when people discuss this Papacy it’s almost as if they consider the the Catholic Church to have had a history that began in 1958. They forget the 2000 years of popes and history that came before. That history and those circumstances are relevant even under the present Papacy.
It is unnerving to think we may have PF sitting on the Throne of Peter until his demise. That’s not to say that we are not obliged to make our dissatisfaction (to say the least) known & felt at the very top which has defected. Even the musings of the saints on such a likelihood happening come nowhere near our`present-day experiences & requirements, as Modernism is the heresy of all heresies.
I do not think Bergoglio will take such steps. Too much clarity.
If “joint participation” is possible, then a lot of past Catholic teaching is dog-shit. Sorry to be blunt, but the time for “tact”, diplomacy, ambiguity, circumlocution, JP2-like verbosity, misty Teutonic imprecision, euphemism and other “easy speeches / that comfort cruel men” is over. Only clarity clear beyond all possibility of misunderstanding will do. And of that, there has been far too little these last 50 years. If the SSPX and their Founder could be clear, why can’t the Church of Christ ?
Apparently, all the (correct and admirable) post-V2 Papal talk about how only Catholics can receive the Bl. Sac., because to receive It is a sign of communion with the Church, must, as a matter of logical consistency, also be regarded as, after all, nothing but canine faecal matter, here today and gone tomorrow. Does Card. Kasper not see that a religion that can so readily throw out discipline that is an expression of its dogmas, becomes impossible to defend in any coherent and consistent way ? Dogmas have no expiry date until the Last Day, and the discipline that expresses them cannot be cast aside without implying that the dogmas are false. “Change and decay in all around I see” – Bl. J. H. Newman was not referring to the CC, of which he was not at that time a member; but that line is all too applicable to the Church since V2.
Cardinal Kasper is not a Catholic nor is PF & practically the entire Hierarchy. That is why the clergy & laity must visibly support the four Cardinals & demand the formal correction & the calling of an Imperfect Council to remove these monsters once & for all.
I was reading something on the Pope being a heretic and how it needs to be a public denial of the faith. Does his belief that we Luther was right vis a vis justification constitute such?
That makes it manifest. It needs to be a formal denial in order to be a formal heretic. It doesn’t have to be a denial of the entire faith, just a denial of a crucial aspect. Basically, if he answers wrongly to any of the dubia, that would be fairly formal. After correction, if he still professed the same thing… well, then we’d have an unprecedented situation.
…and of course that is why we will get no formal answers to the Dubia. However, Francis has answered many times in his informal talks, interviews, and in his daily sermons.
And PF is in the habit of “speaking through others” so he can’t be quoted, and has “deniability”.
I would regard the countless heresies & blasphemies emanating from PF to be justification of his public heresy but, of course, I am not a theologian or canonist & even they are in disarray about what exactly constitutes manifest heresy & even if he is deemed to have taught heresy & thereby withdrawn from the CC, what exactly can be done to remove him.
Unfortunately Germany’s “church tax” had created a clerical class full of atheistic sybarites. The oceans of coercively collected money has attracted a very bad lot to the clerical life, where the strictures of “celibacy” provide perfect social cover for gentlemen who would formerly been known as “confirmed bachelors”.
Naturally they wish to make life even more (psychologically) comfortable for themselves by removing those statutes, whether from God or Peter, that could expose them for the hypocrites they are. Unless they are stopped they will dig out the Church’s entire theological foundations so that they can live like the apocryphal Mediaeval cardinals they have surpassed in corruption.
Draining the swamp by ending the church tax, by Rome refusing it if necessary, would help to expose the parasites. But, it would need a heroic pope to do that, and notorious freemason Bergoglio (80 tomorrow) is not the one.
Holy smokes, or rather, unholy smokes. What we have here is the next iteration of the ‘strategy of exception’, whereby over time the exception becomes the rule. Very clever, very devilish. And, so very effective as most Catholics will see it as another Merciful gesture by Pope Francis. The question is: Will Pope Francis get away with this outrage? Probably yes based on current experience. We need God to intervene very soon before more souls are lost to heterodoxy.
Our Lady’s Triumph cannot be far away now. Fatima celebrations coming up in May next. I wonder what PF will have to say at Her shrine after his blasphemous meanderings about her doubting God’s Will & her role in it? Release from this parasite may be close to hand. Keep the Faith & keep praying for the four Cardinals & their Dubia. May they decide to issue the formal correction straight away!
They won’t go voluntarily. As with Anacletus II they will only go by force of arms. It will take an Emperor Lothair or Emperor Sigismund to remove a Pope Francis. In the history of the church it was the case that the crown called councils when the papacy was in crisis. History can be our guide and the actions, not the musings of the saints.
Unfortunately, we have no Catholic monarchs (save Monaco) anymore & practically all presidents/prime ministers have no personal faith. We are literally in the grip of NWO tyrants & prayer & steadfastness is the only way forward that we have left.
Exactly, there are no Catholic confessional states left in the world. The last approximation of a Catholic confessional state was the Austro-Hungarian empire. The heir apparant, Franz Ferdinand, was murdered by freemasons in 1914. Any military intervention will have to come from another source and I believe that is exactly what will happen. Prayer and fasting on behalf of the Church and organizing are what’s left for us to do. None of us can organize an army, only Catholic life loyal to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Resist, resist, resist.
These are arrogant old men hastening to complete their revolution before passing from the world stage. The devil’s Achilles heel is that man “is of few days.” Infected with sin, which deadens the intellect, these men rush to the consumation of Satan’s best laid plans. The overreach is a joy to behold, for it guarantees the failure of their machinations. God is good!
He has no authority to allow such a thing, as with allowing the divorced and remarried. No one listens to that though. We should all pray daily for an end to this pontificate.
As a convert, I am so thankful that I did not receive communion before I converted. My first communion day was the happiest day of my life. This was made especially so because I waited to receive at the proper time, even though I was offended at the first Mass I went to when I found out I couldn’t receive communion.
He doesn’t have any authority from God to change His Commandments or pastoral teachings, Scripture & Revelation, or to support the unrepentant in their sins. Neither does he have God’s authority to allow schismatics to receive the Consecrated Host in Holy Communion just to show friendship. They must come back to the Fold & accept Christ fully & all that such faith entails, not the happy-clappy nonsense that prevails elsewhere.
He shows no regard for his own soul or the souls of those he has been appointed, by virtue of his Office, to lead, most probably because Cardinal Kasper & et al don’t have the True Faith or, indeed, any belief in God or the afterlife. They hold prominent positions in the CC by default from the neglect of past popes/hierarchies to promote the Word of God only, not that of man. They have made the Vatican into a parliament where all religions can come & be comforted in their paganism – Satanic Masses, worship to false gods etc. Fr. Amorth stated before he died that the Vatican reeked of Satan. This, of course, has all been predicted long ago – it is our generation that has to face such calamities but face it we must & fight to the very end also.
Future news headline: “FRANCIS DECLARED A FORMAL, MANIFEST, HERETICAL APOSTATE: Small group of cardinals call for an Imperfect Council and conclave to elect a pope to the vacant Chair of Peter.”
YODA says: “Revealed, now, the Dark Side is. Underground the true Catholic Church must go. Reemerge it will when the time is right.”
Only an army will expell an imposter or heretic pope. This is the lesson of history. But yes there is a need for good underground organization so that when God makes his move against the apostates there will be loyal Catholics ready to fill the breach.
God has other methods for removing bad popes. After all, the pope is now 80.
But I agree regarding history.
The blindness of the Europeans, in permitting millions of “migrants” to flood their continent, seems to point in this direction.
Some type of revolution in Rome, predicted by so many mystics down through the ages, would be a just punishment and put a stop to the shenanigans.
The stigmatic Sister Elena Aiello spoke about this.
Not much evil a person can do when his/her body is laying lifeless on the pavement.
This appears to be more than a veiled threat (a suggestion at least) on the pope’s life. I have thusly flagged your comment to be removed. If said comment is not removed I will also also be contacting both civil and ecclesial authorities to investigate.
Just know that people are watching here, criticism is fine but there is a fine line where it crosses over into hate speech and/or threats to a person’s welfare. Breaches of this sort will not be tolerated.
Do you own this site? I thought Steve Skojec did.
Hmmm, I see I’m getting some upvotes… maybe there really ARE some people watching here.
Never claimed to own the site Ana, but I am well connected with civil and ecclesial authorities. This will not impress you, I am sure.
I am well connected with civil and ecclesial authorities. That sounds rather threatening to me.
Not impressed… I was right.
Correct.
“I am well connected with civil and ecclesial authorities.”
So am I.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a83ec794ac91ac6b23922b93417b7afcd871d44171a9992fadef085d53d3f729.jpg
So the Church has gone full on communist with a mole in every website?
Do you realize how pathetic you are beginning to sound?
Watch me I am a puppet of the puppetteer.
LOL. That’s comical. Hey, Scott, you do know he’s getting old, right? You also know that Italy happily accepts raping and pillaging Mahometans. There was no threat made here.
My diocesan bishop will see this (if not removed) and he holds rank among the USCCB. We shall see if he/they think this rises to the level of “threat.”
Help your cause here, Steve, and do the right thing… some of the natives appear to be getting restless, and a bit careless.
Gasp. I suppose Sister Lucy was threatening the pope when she said she saw him dying on a hill, stepping over the bodies of religious and laity. For that matter, she threatened all of Rome!
Get over yourself you damned pansy.
Tough guy eh (or maybe you’re female)… hiding behind your keyboard and fake moniker I see.
Why limit yourself to “male” or “female”?
I certainly do not. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cbe29db5312af0b7eb56360b4dd89d4556e162a3580c2a63f746b432e1e68b8.jpg
This all seems a bit childish, don’t you think?
Please send it to him. Pretty please?
Your diocesan bishop will do no such thing.
I will ensure it.
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Steve is right; there’s something wrong with you.
Your bishop holds absolutely NO rank with my bishop, nor does the USCCB. My bishop is not even subject to a single thing that the USCCB does, nor am I subject to your bishop.
Relax, my tender-hearted brother bishop.
I am in control.
I can say this because it is my church.
Now wish me a happy birthday.
But don’t do it too early, because that brings bad luck.
And God is a God of surprises.
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You’re an idiot. Give the authorities our regards. They won’t take you seriously either.
Ok Steve, have it your way… God bless!
“God bless!”
Really now.
Thou shalt not curse with a blessing.
In my church, that privilege is reserved to me alone.
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Yes, it is clear the pope is not welcome here; I suspect Jesus wouldn’t be either… do you have a point?
Jesus told us to be clear, to answer “yes” or “no”, anything else was from the devil. Pope Francis refuses to be clear and answer five simple questions that any faithful lay Catholic could answer in a matter of minutes.
When you are ready to apologize for your childish insults I might be willing to dialogue about this.
My guess is you will double down on your childish tantrum with more insults… what-a-you say Daniel??
The situation is clear. He refuses to answer yes or no. I stand by my comment that you’re a triggered snowflake conflating a comment into a threat against the person of the pope.
Excessive pride, I can see you have issues… thanks for making my point.
Eh, I go to confession regularly. I’m no saint, i’m certainly not an apologist for heterodoxy, nor am I a whiny, limp-wristed finocchio who threatens to turn in comments to “civil and ecclesiastical authorities.”
It’s okay Dan, no worries… I have forgiven you already.
And I you.
Because you say to Jesus, “This is your sin, and I will sin again.”
And Jesus likes that, because it was his mission: to become the sinner for us.
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“Yes, it is clear the pope is not welcome here.”
I have had no trouble encountering and accompanying dialogue here.
“I suspect Jesus wouldn’t be either..”
Who are you to judge?
“Do you have a point?”
Yes, I do.
In fact, I have been known to use it on occasion.
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Sadly, it is now a case of going Jesus or with the Pope.
I think I go with the Lord. That is the only good choice.
This appears to be a comment about the Pope simply dying due to Old age as he is 80 years old tomorrow.
Oh, for God’s sake, grow up. A veiled threat on the pope’s life? Good Lord.
I wasn’t even talking about the pope when I made the comment about the dead body.
Please see Sister Elena Aiello’s prophecies regarding the destruction of Rome.
You are connected with the USCCB? That’s not something I would brag about.
And civil authorities? Lol.
This is not about me so stop trying to make it so; it is about maintaining civility within your rights as a conscientious objector. When you step beyond the freedom afforded you under civil law, you put yourself in a position to be subjected to that law. I don’t need to tell you that ALL threats are taken seriously in this age of radical fundamentalism; you can protect yourself by staying within the established bounds of civil discourse. I “get” the reference to Sister Elena’s prophesy but your talk of revolution and “bodies laying lifeless on the pavement” went over the line. I asked that it be removed and was called an idiot by the moderator; hence the need to elevate for further consideration.
Thank you.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html
Please be sure to report Sister Lucia, too. And the Vatican. You never can be too sure.
The only consideration necessary is who is to be master—that’s all.
And I am master.
The revolution has already occurred. Do you not see it?
It is my church.
Thank you.
Go back to being joyful.
If you can.
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You’re not the arbiter of what is civil and what is not, and what is within the bounds of civil discourse and what is not.
Who told you that you were? And where did you get the idea that anyone cares what you think?
Special snowflakes get offended easily; if they cannot handle reading other people’s remarks, let them go play with the kiddies. This arena is for adults.
It is about you.
You’re the only person who decided to interpret what was written as if it were some kind of veiled threat on the pope’s life.
Do you seriously think your bishop is going to care one whit about what’s written here?
Even more, do you seriously think anyone here cares what your bishop thinks? Or the USCCB?
Steve’s assessment appears to be correct.
Be my guest and show your bishop, the USCCB, and “the authorities.”
By the way, thanks for the lecture about “civil law.”
If you don’t mind, can you send me a certificate for the class? I’d like to use it for some CLE points. The end of the year is approaching, and I’m behind in my continuing ed.
Well it’s obvious you do or you will not be replying to Steve at all nor would you be in this forum.
I wasn’t replying to Steve. That reply was to ScottG.
See above: DJR > ScottG • 2 days ago
So there, I posted in haste and must now repent at leisure.
Apologies.
Okay now you are bordering on the ridiculous. No, you have crossed the border.
Calm down. No one is calling for the death of the Pope.
Rubbish. There was no threat. God can indeed take the life of the Pope (or extend it) according to His pleasure.
Now some here may be praying like St Rita did who begged God to take the life of her sons rather than for them to commit an evil. Which of course is a good prayer and which is of course up to God to grant.
And if He allows the Pope to remain, then we He allows the Pope to remain for His purpose.
So there’s no point conjecturing.
Perhaps that whole reason of having a bad Pope is so that we will start praying more and sacrificing more.
God is not limited to armies to bring about His Will.
God may not be limited to armies but He does use human beings to bring about His will. We are His arms, His legs, His words. The world sees Christ through us. European and Church history were an interplay of Church and Crown. Each supported and fought with the other. When Crusades were called for, when St.Pius V persistently sought to unite Christian monarchs against the Turks and ardently supported Don Juan of Austria in 1571 to halt the Moslem tide at the Battle of Lepanto, etc.
Father, what does a formal correction look like?
We will have to wait and find out (unfortunately I do not seeing this playing out without it happening, as the Holy Father appears to be obstinate in his refusal to address the problem in a Catholic manner.)
It will probably be an address that is read publically and directly pertaining to the matters brought up in dubia and the failure to confirm the brethren in the Faith by refusing to answer the dubia (etc…), and perhaps other things as well. I am certain that the same address will be sent to the Holy Father as a written document and to the various Vatican Congregations as well as all of the Cardinal’s and probably the Bishops as well.
Then we wait for the response and go from there.
Since I was mysteriously banned by LifeSite News, I decided I could respond to you response to my comment about the article entitled “Climate of fear in the Vatican is very real” here. What irony that my opinion was suppressed for my response to an article decrying the Vatican’s supposed suppression of opinions of some of its employees. If anyone could show me what I wrote that would justify a ban from the site, I would certainly like to see it. Groupthink can be quite dangerous.
In any event, here goes:
The interpretation that you and others derive from the verses from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is not the sole interpretation of that verse. The wider context of that verse makes it apparent that Paul, in v.27, which you cite, was referencing those who were making the Eucharistic meal a meal solely for their physical sustenance, even to gluttonous ends, and were thereby diminishing the deeper significance of the Eucharist for themselves others.
Here is a translation of vv.20-22 of the same chapter, which you seem not to have regarded or understood:
20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you.
Then in vv.23-26 Paul recounts the Eucharistic celebration as it was passed on to him, and in v.27 he gives the verse that you cite. In the ensuing verse, v.28, his advice to his readers/listeners who would participate in the Eucharist was to examine themselves so that they do not have the mindset of those described in vv.20-23. Again, that advice is to discern themselves, not to get themselves examined by someone else.
Discerning oneself… isn’t that just what the internal forum offered in Amoris Laetitia means to do – provide individuals and couples with the opportunity to discern themselves with the guidance of a priest in regards to the state of their relationship to God and to the Eucharist?
Lastly, and to back up what I believe Paul’s intended meaning was for v.27, which you cite, and the similar v.29, in vv.30-32, Paul speaks about some effects of what he believes are God’s retribution for those who have not examined themselves – weakness, sickness, and death. These are the scripturally-based consequences given in the fuller text around the singular verse that you provide. It says nothing here about a consequence of excluding individuals from communion. Paul, rather, leaves those he considers unworthy of the Eucharist to the consequence effected by God.
Also, you say that this practice of excluding those in an “objective state of sin” from the Eucharist derives from the time of the Apostles; but with what do you back up your claim? Are you referring to the Didache? I don’t see anything of the sort that I’ve spoken about there. Where do you find the historical evidence to make such a statement.
In regards to the analogy between marriage and reception of the Eucharist, I say only that you and others who have employed this analogical line of reasoning have isolated a particular meaning derived from symbolic understanding of the Eucharist. There’s nothing wrong with deriving meaning from a symbol – which is an element of the definition of any sacrament. But rather than put forward this meaning for others to attempt to emulate, you enforce it in isolation to any other meaning to the degree that you tangibly affect the lives of broken individuals through your exclusion of those who don’t live up to what you believe the Eucharist means. But another analogy of the Eucharist, proposed (or reiterated) by Pope Francis, that divorced individuals, remarried or not, are like physically injured people, and that the Eucharist is like a medicine for them, is rejected. You seem to believe that you have such certainty regarding analogies/metaphors between the Eucharist and people’s lived experience of marriage that you can distinguish which are “true” and which are “false.”
But, as it is, I’m not convinced by your/others’ analogical reasoning, and certainly not to the degree that I would allow such a speculative line of reasoning to do damage to real human lives.
Sorry for the double work! as St. JPII stated in Familiaris Consortio this long prohibition has always been based off the scripture I cited. And passed down to us by way of oral sacred tradition. The Church, amongst many other responsibilities safeguards the sacraments for the benefit of the Church and the individual. The Church is primary interpreter of scripture although other interpretations are allowed (and what you said about it is correct as well but it does not exclude what the Church has infallibly taught by means of sacred tradition) but must be in Union with what the Church teaches. We are to place faith in sacred tradition. The eucharist is the center of every other Sacrament. Every sacrament relates to the Eucharist. And every sacrament has a relationship with the other. It is a Eucharistic ecology. Thus the Divine Prohibition as stated in the Pontifical letter for legislative texts regarding this is more of a call for the Sacramento of Confession. But is really important to place faith in our sacred Tradition concerning this and all things my brother. Blessings to you and all.
(continued)
element of the definition of any sacrament. But rather than put forward this meaning for others to attempt to emulate, you enforce it in isolation to any other meaning to the degree that you tangibly affect the lives of broken individuals through your exclusion of those who don’t live up to what you believe the Eucharist means. But another analogy of the Eucharist, proposed (or reiterated) by Pope Francis, that divorced individuals, remarried or not, are like physically injured people, and that the Eucharist is like a medicine for them, is rejected. You seem to believe that you have such certainty regarding analogies/metaphors between the Eucharist and people’s lived experience of marriage that you can distinguish which are “true” and which are “false.”
But, as it is, I’m not convinced by your/others’ analogical reasoning, and certainly not to the degree that I would allow such a speculative line of reasoning to do damage to real human lives.
Are you aware of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence and what that means? A lot of what you ask is answered by understanding what Catholics actually believe regarding that sacrament.
Regarding historical practice of refusing obstinate sinners from receiving, there’s more to Church history, even the ancient church, than just the first few decades, and it’s all good. Heck, even the era of the Church Fathers takes the first 700 years into account!
I do have a conceptual understanding of what the notion of real presence means – that all that is essential to Jesus, his body and blood, his soul and divinity (as opposed to mere bread and wine) is present where the bread and wine has been consecrated. I say “all that is essential to Jesus” in distinction to Jesus in the totality of his existence because for Jesus to be present in the totality of his existence, i.e. with his glorified body, would no longer be a sacrament, for there would no longer be a sign present, but the signified thing instead.
Perhaps give some thought to what I would guess is your classification of divorced and sexually active, civilly remarried persons as “obstinate sinners,” for I believe that your (and so many others’) categorization here is a crucial difference in understanding to how others, like Pope Francis and likely many other ordained ministers and lay people in the Catholic Church, regard the same individuals.
Is there truly to you no significant difference between a man or a woman who lustily abandons his or her spouse for the sake of being sexually active with another woman or man whom they have are attracted to/have feelings for, on the one hand, and the man or woman who, having been left by his/her spouse, find within themselves a deep-seated psychological and spiritual need for a relationship, among other potentially exterior factors such as protection, financial support, and the raising of children, and so enter into a relationship with a second spouse? Are these two kinds of person both equally “adulterers” or “obstinate sinners” in your opinion? Can you not discern the difference in their motives for remarriage?
Be so careful with these category names by which you understand individuals; it is the self-same modus operandi used by those who support and propogate the practice of abortion by categorizing developing human lives as “tissue”, or any number of generalized, non-specific biological category names, or who refer to abortion as the false categorization as “women’s health,” or other category names.
The internal forum, which I might guess you are in opposition to, seeks just the opposite of this categorizing, this exclusionary generalizing, by allowing the individual to understand him/herself as just that, an individual – not necessarily as one who has committed adultery or one who is obstinately sinning, but as one who is in a second union for any number of very specific, individual reasons, and could greatly use the grace of the Eucharistic in his/her life for continued strength and healing, and to likewise be a model of unity – an ideal of the sacrament of Eucharist – in spite of past failure.
Catholics believe that the bread and wine, at the consecration, actually become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Thomistic philosophy explains this in the terms of “accident” and “substance.” The accident is the outward appearance. The substance is what the thing actually is. The bread and wine go through the process of transubstantiation meaning the substance of the thing changes, but the accident doesn’t. The closest analogy we have in the natural world for example is water. The accident of water changes at different temperatures, to ice, liquid water, or water vapor, changing in it’s appearance and expression, but substantially it is the same thing it has always been. Similarly, the bread and wine changes substantially, instead of in its accidents, so that it appears the same in every way but has, in actual fact, changed what it is. So the substance is the actual body and blood of Jesus, in his totality. The Eucharist is the ACTUAL Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in his totality, the lamb who was slain, and who was raised from the dead. This is why the Eucharist is referred to as the Blessed Sacrament, because it is the only sacrament in which it no longer simply signifies the thing, but actually becomes what it signifies. So when we receive Christ, we are receiving him, in totality, who was born, lived, suffered, died, and was raised from the dead. We receive the crucifed and risen Christ, in actual fact. It is not just what is essential to Jesus, the Eucharist IS Jesus. This is what the Catholic Church believes.
Now, in regards to everything else…
There are some differences, between the two sorts of people you describe, certainly, and I’ve never denied those differences. One commits the sin of separating from their spouse and breaking their vow, the other is sinned against. However, when the one who is sinned against initially, enters into a new union with someone else, and yet they are still sacramentally married to the first person, they commit adultery. Period. This is what Jesus has told us.
“And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.” Matthew 19:9. The man has left his wife for lust, she is taken in, for WHATEVER REASON, and our Lord calls this adultery.
For a person to actually be culpable of sin, they have to knowingly and willingly commit that sin. It is in this case that the internal forum has great use. A couple in such a situation comes to meet with their pastor, and the pastor informs them of the sinfulness of the situation. After thus being informed, whether they ACCEPT that teaching or not, any time they commit a sexual act or any act that is proper only to married couples, they commit adultery. In such a case, if this couple sought to amend their lives and change their situation so that it is proper, as far as can be done, they need to do so and could then be admitted to the sacraments. To avoid scandal, I would find it likely that these people would only be admitted to the sacrament of Penance until the situation was fully “regularized” but I’m sure Fr. RP would be able to answer this better as he is, in fact, a priest and pastor. Mistakes may happen, and these people may fall into sin again through temptation, and that is exactly what Confession is for, as a medicine for the weak. These situations need to be handled in the internal forum so that these people may be able to make it back to being in a right situation with God. Only in the case that this teaching is not accepted would these people be “obstinate sinners,” because they remain obstinately in a sinful situation and continuing to sin.
Everyone has reasons to sin. Many, varied, individual deep-seated psychological and spiritual reasons… but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still sin. To use your example of abortion (which, by the way, you indulged in the fallacy of false analogy to use, since the things being discussed are not equal or even remotely the same), I’ve known women and men, personally, even some who are now good friends and in my family, who had abortions for varied, deep-seated, financial and psychological reasons. But the fact remains… their child is dead. And to murder an innocent is always and everywhere a sin. So is adultery. It is always and everywhere a sin. This is why the dubia that the four cardinals posed to Pope Francis asks the question as to whether or not things can be intrinsically, as in always and everywhere, evil.
This is why I, and any orthodox catholic should, oppose the changes that are being made. They deny the truth of the Eucharist, they deny Jesus own teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, they deny the need for the sacrament of Penance, they deny the objectivity of sin, and by extension deny the need for salvation and the central message of the Christian faith.
I’m aware of the Aristotelian/Thomistic analysis of existents as composed of the metaphysical co-principles of substance and accidence, among others.
In your reply, you fail to distinguish between Jesus present in a sacramental mode and Jesus present in a non-sacramental mode. I’ve noticed that in their piety, some Catholics tend to exalt the Eucharist over other sacraments to the degree that they forget that it is bound to the same definition as the other sacraments, part of which is that all of them are signs, although not merely signs.
You make it a point to say that Jesus “is” there, but in doing so you seem to be ignoring the distinction that I was careful to make, and which accords with Catholic sacramental theology, that Jesus is “really” present, but is present mediatedly, through the sacrament, which puts Jesus in contact with us in a tangible way, as befits a sacrament, and which also signifies Jesus in his non-sacramental mode.
Thomas Aquinas’s reasoning (I figured if I mention his name, I would get a hearing from you) was that (a) sacraments signify the spiritual realities that they effect, (b) the Eucharist is a sacrament, and it signifies the suffering and crucified Jesus re-presented in our liturgy, (c) a thing cannot be a sign of itself; so the crucified Jesus cannot be a sign of the crucified Jesus, therefore (d) the Eucharist is not the crucified Jesus, present in his totality, but rather (e) the Eucharist is Jesus present in a particular mode of existence, the sacramental mode.
To say that Jesus is the underlying substance of the conceptual substance-accidence distinction of the sacrament of Eucharist is valid, but you’re going on about something that I didn’t mention because it didn’t need to be mentioned in my previous response. It is indeed the case that Jesus is not present in his totality, in the fullness of his existence, that is, his non-sacramental existence, in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, rather, Jesus is present in a sacramental mode. When you simply say “the Eucharist IS Jesus,” you fail to make proper distinctions that are crucial to a proper Catholic sacramental theology.
I repeat what I said before that what we have present in the Eucharist, which is the sacramental mode of Jesus, is his essential form – body, blood, soul, and divinity – whereas Jesus in the totality of his existence is not present; Jesus in the totality of his existence could not be present, else there would no longer be a sacrament before us.
Next, you cite a Gospel verse, which is one of twelve verses that compose a story within Matthew chapter 19; in so doing, you remove it from its context, as if Jesus spoke this in isolation from any prompting. Not only this, but there is a historical context for this story, which also appears in Mark 10:1-12, that is not found in the text, which likely applies to it. That unwritten context is the debate between two Jewish schools of thought, the Hillel school and the Shammai school. The former school did not permit a husband to write his wife a bill of divorce for any reason he chose, but only for infidelity, which is mentioned in a phrase in the Gospel of Matthew but not in the Gospel of Mark, whereas the latter school did. If this is the proper context in which to understand Jesus response to Pharisees, who in the wider context of the single verse that you cite without a context is responding to question meant to trap him by making reference to a stipulation in the Mosaic Law that had resulted in a very liberal application of bills of divorce by Jesus’ time, the principle of contextuality would tell us that we go beyond what Jesus taught to assume that no scenario whatsoever could justify a divorce and remarriage in Jesus’ view.
Jesus’ response is to remind the Pharisees of the sacred dimension of marriage, which is founded in their Torah; his intention, as far as the text and context give us insight into, seems to be to protect the lives of wives who stood the risk of being displaced from their homes and having to rely on another man to provide their life necessities. Jesus’ own words that are spoken in Matthew’s account and are likely understood in Mark’s account of this incident, seem to imply even that he was accepting of divorce in the case of infidelity on the part of either the husband or the wife. What is not derived from this proper, contextual reading of the verse that you cite is that Jesus instituted an absolute prohibition on divorce and remarriage. What you say is there isn’t actually there.
Lastly, I committed no fallacy in comparing the practice of pro-choice proponents, on the one hand, and opponents of admitting divorced, civilly-remarried, sexually active individuals to the Eucharist, on the other hand. Both practices use a less-specific (general/categorical) term/phrase, such as “adulterer” or “obstinate sinner,” for a person, when a more specific term/phrase/clause could be used to describe the same person, one that would therefore be more accurate and less ambiguous. In so doing, you group together under the same term/phrase those who leave their spouses because of their lust for another with those who remarry after having been abused, abandoned, and who still have a good and holy need for intimacy and act on it. And if, as you say, you are aware of this distinction, it would seem that a sense of legalism, which thrives on generalizations, prevents you from empathizing with the latter kind of person.
For people like myself, it is almost unbelievably un-Christ-like to have such an insensitivity to persons as individuals with specific difficulties and the need for specific responses to those difficulties. In spite of your incomplete understanding of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees about divorce in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Jesus taught and acted contrary to such a legalism in several instances throughout the four Gospels.
I also find it to be an act of presumption on your part to say that the internal forum should only be used to remind remarried divorcees that they have a choice between receiving the Eucharist or continuing their romantic relationship. That interpretation thankfully doesn’t seem to be the internal form that is envisioned in Amoris Laetitia, which at least one diocese in the US (and others outside of the US) has begun instituting, and which will hopefully be instituted in other dioceses, if not all. And this is, of course, because in spite of a remarriage not being that ideal, or objectively imperfect, there are subjective criteria for a action to be properly categorized as a sin, for which reason the couple in dialogue with the priest in the internal forum have the responsibility of discerning those criteria. And while the sacrament of Reconciliation is a means of spiritual healing for individuals, the Eucharist too is a “medicine” for sinners as well, metaphorically speaking, as per the words of this truly pastoral and deeply understanding pope.
Outstanding SayMyName, you present several important nuances which many here seem unwilling (or unable) to consider. I believe you have described the “nuances” precisely as AL has envisioned, which may seem threatening to those who prefer a more rigid interpretation. But clearly it doesn’t have to be that way, as you have so aptly described in your synopsis. Thank you and may God continue His blessings upon you!
Thanks, ScottG. I find that it’s so important to be a distinguishing person. As you may have heard, there is a Scholastic maxim that goes: seldom affirm; never deny; always distinguish (as regards the evaluation of one’s own and others’ statements). The world around us is staggeringly complex, more than any one man or woman will ever be able to know comprehensively; and the human person and human behavior are a part of this complexity, due to our nature as psycho-spiritual, embodied persons. We are blessed when we develop guidelines as to what is helpful for our flourishing according to our existing in the image of God, but if such guidelines don’t take into account the great variety of contingencies that we are subject to in our experience and that come to bear on our acting, they will not contribute to our flourishing.
I can tell from your well written response that you are a thinking, distinguishing person. It gives me hope that you and others, as well as myself, can be a means of God’s love for those for whom legalism and rigorism have been their primary lens through which to relate to God.
I’ll come back and respond when I have the energy. It’s actually been a very trying few days for me.
Well, the trying times are done, so are the holidays, and I was thinking of coming back and responding and realized how fruitless that would be, so I almost decided to just forget this happened and move on… but then I found this document someone put together seeing what Popes and Church Councils have said about this issue since the very beginning. Read this, no really, read it, and realize that the Church settled this issue, including pastoral guidelines about it, back about, oh, 1800 years ago? If you go through this, and somehow still disagree with the Holy Spirit, then, well… God have mercy on you. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XKimKuzgHgbE9YsJXojwhiufsDosCURraly6mMXIxDE/mobilebasic
You got that wrong. Real Presence means that the bread and wine is no more – there is only Jesus in His Body, Blood Soul and Divinity.
I’m wrong because I didn’t write the words that you wrote? You seem a little too eager to call foul. I didn’t say the bread and wine are there; I’m aware of the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation.
What I’m sure you will call foul about is that I actually think the latter theory has some merit to it. Aristotelian categories are not the only ones by which reality, or the sacraments, can be understood.
It’s not about Aritotelian theories. It’s about what’s true.
Very well stated SayMyName, thank you for your balanced contribution to this discussion.
From our comment policy.
“8. Trolling/arguing/being a sophist in the comment box without contributing in a meaningful way to the discussion will not be tolerated.”
You have yet to contribute in any meaningful way to any discussion on this site so far (except getting Llamame Jorge to post). You’ve insulted other users in the combox. Your trolling is getting old. If you do have meaningful contributions to make, please, contribute. Disagree, comment, debate. That’s fine. You’re simply being inflammatory. Stop. Consider this a warning.
With all due respect, I don’t think ScottG was trolling. He really was in agreement with SayMyName and thought his/her contribution balanced.
While I think SayMyName’s post is wrong on many levels, we cannot silence those who do not agree with us or those who laud the opposing views.
This is the sad thing about Michael Voris and Lifesite who are quick to ban posters even respectful ones. The forum becomes then just an echo chamber.
The beauty of allowing this discourse without threats of banning is that you will find that the community will decimate their argument anyway if you allow the post to stand (except of course when they become ugly).
If we allow the community to read their comments and rebut them, then we can show that we are not merely preaching to the converted but are actually engaging the valid arguments of the unconverted which could in turn lead to their conversion.
Others who many not comment will read their post and the subsequent rebuttals and thus be better educated.
Only the adamantly ignorant will refuse to see the light being offered. And we always trust that the Holy Spirit will always offer them the grace to be docile to the truth – which grace of course they can freely reject.
I have no problem with him agreeing with this here and if that were all, that’d be more than fine. I wholeheartedly agree with your views on discussions and they mirror my own.
There’s a pattern going back several weeks of inappropriate behavior on ScottG’s part, including insulting other users as I said. Some of his comments have been flagged with request for moderation. He’s been trolling. He needs to stop now. Scroll down just a little further to see his nonsense. I stand by my warning.
i looked at his other posts and he seems to be claiming to be from the Vatican or some sort of spy for them anyway.
I rather think he is pathetic trying to strut about as some important person. Nazi comes to mind.
Marc… neither / nor but thanks for your willingness to engage.
Okay so you want a little substance… let’s try this:
The “tensions” between the regressive reading of AL and the embracing of it is rooted in that old battle for meaning between neo-Augustinians (against) and neo-Thomistic (for). In that light of understanding, AL is completely consistent with the aggiornamento of the Council and is what PF and his supporters are reinforcing. No one finds it “confusing,” really. It is the code word for resistance coined by Cardinal Burke and his ilk.
Thomists tend to deconstruct without reconstruction, and, in the process, lose the meaning. By the time they are finished, the “subjective” is unimportant, peripheral, weak, modern, and silly. But without it there is nothing to talk about, however, because without all that personal stuff, we are no longer human. And Jesus became human, not a human representation of a Thomist first principle. Jesus says that we reach God through him, a Person. Again, Thomism is fine if it actually helps you think, but it is no prerequisite to anything else.
Vatican II marked a shift in emphasis from the legalism of the medieval manuals to the personalism of the Biblical witness as a way of thinking about the moral life. Fr. Bernard Haring’s “Law of Christ” — written mostly in the pre-Council years — is perhaps a hinge on which that shift turns. It’s fascinating to read it in the light of Vatican II, which it both anticipated and influenced.
No — an organisation would soon be inflitrated and subverted. However the Holy Spirit is moving many to prepare to “go underground” all separate from each other so that if one is “rumbled”, the others survive. This is strictly the work of the Holy Spirit. Remember when the Prophet Elijah, in fear of his life, complained to God, that the priests of Baal were many, and it appeared that he was the only true Israelite left? God told him not to worry for ” I have reserved to my self in the nation of Israel 7000 who have not bent the knee to Baal.” Those 7000 weren’t an organisation, they were simply men of conviction who didn’t calll attention to themselves. and That’s the way the underground church will be — a few faithful priests, and the laity who support them in secret and meet in “house churches.” As they do now in China.
This is just the logical progression of the full blown apostasy we are witnessing before our very eyes.
I have been to Catholic weddings where a significant portion of the congregation was not Catholic and where the priest announced the requirements for receiving Holy Communion: being Catholic, having fasted, and being in a state of grace.
If (or maybe when?) Cardinal Kasper’s views gain ascendancy, this would now make little sense.
The priest would be telling the congregation that non Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion but then, moments later, giving Holy Communion to the non Catholic bride or groom.
If permitted, it will lead to open communion for all.
No. Non possumus.
We will not follow. We will not concede.
And we will not allow our Church to be hijacked. We will fight.
They are advocating a false Christ and a false church.
No. Apostates.
I think giving Communion to non-Catholics is going a bridge too far, no matter how much you gussy it up in the language of “accompaniment”. There would be too many Cardinals and bishops who would oppose him. AL is one thing. But, allowing Communion for non-Catholics is something totally different. It would be sacrilege written on the widest possible canvas.
I pulled this from a web cache a year ago because I heard Catholic Answers claim that Cardinal Kasper never said Rome has given up an ecumenism of return.
Interesting that Keating came out in favor of the dubia. Is the Novus Ordo recognizing the problem in the program?
On that note, what Mass framework do you think intercommunion will happen in? The Mass that was designed to be Protestant in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOQ2mv1K4X0&t=1s
Why don’t Kasper and the pope & etc just join the Lutherans? Answer: because their mission is to destroy the Catholic church.
So sad that I must agree with you.
It’s not a coincidence that the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Revolt happens next year. If I had to bet, they are planning something major for the celebration PF is going to attend.
Many Catholics that have been bobbing around in the pot longer than us fresh converts likely miss a lot of this stuff, but from my perspective, the more I see of the PRACTICE of “Catholicism”, the more it looks like nothing more than the Lutheranism I left without the facade of concern for the Holy Scriptures.
When David Axelrod can say that Obama is the “most Catholic President” in the nation’s history and get away with it, you know the Church has slid into the gutter and very few are doing anything about dragging Her out.
It’s been said over and over, but the prelates who care need to ACT. That isn’t a statement of emotion, it is simply a fact. With each passing DAY, now {used to be decade, then year, then week, now it seems day…minute?} the message of the Church becomes less and less definable as Catholic.
I really do not think many non-Catholics are left who have any idea what the Catholic Church dogmas and doctrines are. How can they when it seems so few Catholics do? And nothing is being done in PUBLIC to change this significantly.
CHAOS RULES.
Hi RTHEVR – That the Sacraments are under attack should have caused you to value them more and recognize their true power. If you love the Truth you will find It in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. If you love the Truth you won’t become distracted by those who labor to separate you from that Truth. No one can make you chose the world over the Word. No one is compelled to follow this pope into apostasy, and he is slowly realizing that there is absolutely nothing he can do that can persuade the faithful to follow him. And that enrages him, let us complete his total failure.
I think you missed the point. Many cradle Catholics do, and it is understandable, since they have had to deal with this for so long they seem to have lost their sense of what the WORLD {non-Catholic} sees in the “Church”.
That there is Truth in the Catholic faith, not just Truth but THE Truth I am not denying. But the MISSION of the Church has been severely damaged. The advance of the Gospel is hindered {think serpent striking at the heel} and one of the ways this has occurred is that many Catholics have lost their sense of shame, of shock and of what the Church is called to be and have just tunneled in and isolated themselves.
For example, NEVER in my life, ever, did a Catholic ever share their faith with me. I came to the Catholic faith because I started studying the doctrines on my own and walked into a Catholic Church and asked to speak with the Priest. Then I led my entire family to the Church. My Father was a Methodist minister, engaged in ecumenical meetings all his life. All THAT is about is getting the Catholic priest to accept more and more Protestantism. and they do. Now look at the POPE.
Admittedly I have a sense of zeal to reach my lost family and friends who are stuck outside the Church in Protestantism, but in fact, by the poor witness of Catholics AND by the lack of discipline of Catholic prelates and by the PUBLICLY changed doctrines {“teaching on the street” if you will, as opposed to the written, “paper doctrines”} there are many reasons why Protestants would NOT want to even bother to inquire into the Catholic faith, seeing that they have had their fill of the obvious ROT that exists everywhere.
For example, as an ex-Lutheran, I am very, very well aware of the people this Pope has stood shoulder to shoulder with, their doctrines and their sexual degeneracy. And he and his minions declare their desire to come into “full communion” with these immoral deviants! I would not let this Pope near small children I had responsibility for. And that goes for MANY prelates as well. Others see the same thing. Think they want ANYTHING to do with the “Church” they SEE?
That is why it is so imperative that our good leaders FIGHT. Not just lean back and pretend all’s well or “rely on the Holy spirit” which is a copout to skirt the duty every Catholic has to engage in mission for Holy Mother Church. I have met Catholic after Catholic who acts the same way. This lack of concern for non-Catholics and their eternal salvation PERMEATES the Church. Indeed, even Pope Benedict has said that the dogma of extra ecclesiam nula salus was “abandoned” after Vatican 2! Where is the spiritual zeal of Phineas in the Catholic Church today?
I’M not going anywhere. I’M not leaving the Church. But then I am a “doctrine guy”. I have a degree in theology and, raised Protestant, have studied the doctrines of the various sects outside Catholicism and when I studied the doctrines of the Catholic Church I KNEW She held the truth.
But most people do not have that past and experience. And thus you see why Protestants basically don’t take the Church seriously and have absolutely ZERO respect for what they see, for they see rot, effeminacy, religious indifferentism, ignorance of Scripture, ignorance even of Catholic doctrine and in fact, denial of Christ everywhere in the church today. Why would they be interested in THAT? Well, from their perspectives, they wouldn’t. It would be immoral to do so! BECAUSE ALL THEY SEE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS WHAT THEY SEE.
And worse, we have converts to the faith that come to the faith BECAUSE they believe it is about soft-core communism, socialism, and easy religion.
It is our duty and our honor to make every effort to teach and LIVE the truth.
Grace is a many-wondered thing. We are conduits of that Grace, but we are not the Source. You might be surprised to know that holy souls, in heaven and on earth, have been praying for your and your family’s conversion, since the day you and they were born. Don’t be discouraged, Jesus was born for a reason, and He will return for a reason. Until then the assault on the Truth grows ever the more bold. Subtlety from the Gates of hell is being abandoned, and that seems to be a sign that the demonic realm is becoming more and more desperate.
Thank you.
And for all those who have Protestant friends and family, if they inquire or express interest in the faith, TELL them. As my son-in-law says, “Catholic doctrine demolishes Protestant doctrine”.
Interestingly now, tho, we see reflected in Protestantism a declining interest in doctrine as well. There are REASONS for the diverse sects, because their doctrines are in severe antithesis of each other, yet more and more Protestants don’t care and accept each other’s faiths as real. This defies reason and makes no sense, but there it is.
It is not time for more ecumenism. It is time for prophetic truth. And that only exists in the Catholic faith.
The devil doesn’t care what you believe as long as you reject the Truth that would save you from the fires of hell. Satan knows exactly what he is doing when he separates souls from the sacraments. The absence of the Grace which flows from the Sacraments is most easily observed as our world becomes more perverse and cruel. Heresy feeds this voracious spiritual void.
RTHEVR,
You and I seem to have a bit in common. My father is also (now) a Methodist pastor; I also converted to the Faith on the basis of learning Catholic doctrine, rather than because of being evangelized by any Catholic.
Also, I agree very much with your assessment. The Church is in poor shape in our time period. I would never leave the Church. I hope that if called upon I would have the courage to die, which is not theoretical but actual for many Christians in the world today. But the Church is in a sorry, scandalous state. It is only by the working of the Holy Spirit, and the abundant riches the Church still possesses (i.e., Christ in the Eucharist, and doctrine, which in the final analysis is also Christ, insofar as he is the Truth), that anyone in our time would convert to the Faith.
I hope to help my father convert, and I’ve asked him to get together on a regular basis this upcoming year to talk about Catholic-Protestant doctrinal issues, and he agreed to do so. Perhaps in a strange way now is actually a good time to reach out to Protestant Christians, insofar as this doctrinal crisis produced by Francis highlights so clearly the need for Tradition, which protects us from reading into Sacred Scripture whatever the current zeitgeist would demand (by forcing us to read Scripture in the context of the saints, the fathers, the doctors, the councils, the papal writings). Also, the papacy is a big sticking point for most Protestants. To be able to show the difference between the real Catholic doctrine of infallibility, and the false, absolute ‘infallibility’ currently claimed by Cupich, Farrell, Papamanolis, Tobin, Pinto, etc. is the kind of thing that might help my Dad to see what the papacy is, and what it is not (and the doctrinal conflict itself shows why we need a Petrine minstry).
My goal is to help my Dad to convert sometime in 2017. Being the 500th anniversary of the ‘Reformation,’ this seems a fitting time for him to re-examine these things.
Wow. THAT is a prayer I pray for my remaining siblings, that I can someday engage them in conversation about the Catholic faith. At this juncture they simply do not take the Catholic Church seriously {as one of my brothers-in-law says “I know hundreds of Catholics and not one of them is a Christian”}. For them Catholicism is a total, tragic joke and they think we are plumb nuts for converting.
And yet…when I for a short time was able to engage the BIL about the faith, he could offer no actual argument to defeat the teaching of the Church.
And it is the latter that wins. This is where the current crop of prelates who downplay doctrine fall so far afoul of the truth. They think we will win folks by being “nice”. Well, sure we will…to Protestantized, effeminate, heretical pseudo-Catholicism that means nothing, a faith they might smile at but will never join anyway. They preach death just like the mainline Protestant groups preach death and are dying.
But in the doctrines of the faith are the truths that cut right to the core of the Protestant fallacies, starting with the Bible.
I grew up Methodist, and it is interesting how natural it was to convert to the Catholic faith in that many of the actual teachings, flowing as they did from old Anglicanism prepared me for the full truth of the Catholic faith. May the Holy spirit guide you and your Dad. I wish I had that chance. My Dad died a couple months before I was received into the Church and during my RCIA process he was suffering from dementia and not able to engage me. Mom had died several years before.
Catholic priests and prelates, if any happen to read this: PROSELYTIZE. PREACH. CONVERT. ENGAGE. CONVINCE.
Souls, and not just after death, but in this life as well, NEED the truth and the life-giving message of the Catholic faith, the faith God gave us through his Blessed Son.
Raymond Arroyo’s interview with Cardinal Burke is now showing on Edward Pentin @(EdwardPentin) twitter.
Cardinal Raymond Burke responds to his critics and asks Pope to clarify #AmorisLaetitia.
For those of us whose time lines don’t coincide with Eastern Time this is a great service.
For over forty years, bishops have insisted on giving Communion to abortionist politicians, even punishing the few priests who denied them Communion.
The American bishops have approved more than once a document, “Catholic in Political Life,” in which they give themselves permission to commit the mortal sin of giving Communion to such politicians. (EVERY violation of c. 915 is grave matter.)
In other words, the war over Communion for illicitly-remarried Catholics was lost–through surrender–by Popes John Paul and Benedict. Francis is just consolidating the gains of the Katholyk Church of Abortion, Adultery, Sodomy–and Intercommunion.
What I’m trying to get my head around is this: if the pope or some other modernist cardinal were asked “should a Catholic be absolved from serious sin before they receive Communion?”, his/their answer would have to be “yes”. So if clearly even a Catholic cannot receive Communion anytime he feels like it, how much more of an impossibility is it to suggest a non-Catholic can?!?!
That is an interesting point I’ve never heard put that way before.
Of course, the answer must be “dialogue” and “accompaniment” since after all, “Jesus never excludes”…!! 😉
I can actually imagine Cupich dancing around that and not give a clear answer…
In his 2015 article linked above, Steve correctly points to Para 161 of “Evangelii Gaudium” as apparently elevating Man over God, though that interpretation lead to some fierce debate among the commentators. But Para 169 of EG contains even more bizarre rhetoric: “remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other”. Are we treating everyone as God, or perhaps an earthly manifestation of God?
“169. In a culture paradoxically suffering from anonymity and at the same time obsessed with the details of other people’s lives, shamelessly given over to morbid curiosity, the Church must look more closely and sympathetically at others whenever necessary. In our world, ordained ministers and other pastoral workers can make present the fragrance of Christ’s closeness and his personal gaze. The Church will have to initiate everyone – priests, religious and laity – into this “art of accompaniment” which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5). The pace of this accompaniment must be steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which also heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life.”
Kasper’s words, “I am not the target…” sound eerily similar to Adam: “The woman gave me the fruit, so I ate it.”
Thank you for the continuing great work, Steve, in keep us abreast of events.
Thanks, Gary. Much appreciated.
Maurice Pinay “The Plot Against the Church” is a must read to understand what is happening, this mediocre buffoon is taking us down the path of syncretism and a new world order masonic Church. If any Cardinals are reading this blog please recognize him for what he is and go into open opposition, your intregrity and your soul depend on what you do. He can’t just do whatever he wants to do because of everyone’s Papalitry, the age of rock star Popes made so by the filth who run the world is how they control the opposition. If I wasn’t alive to see it I wouldn’t believe how everyone is just giving this moron a pass, he is scandolous to everyone I talk to now- even the moderate modernists I meet. This can’t go on- the rot of Vatican 2 is being sold as perfume when an ugly stinking rotting buzzard is peddling the last gasp of the coprophagia generation.
The doctrine of the faith is being destroy. SOUND THE ALARM ALL YE WATCHMEN!
Since Protestants don’t have the Sacrament of Confession. Thus, Protestants in the state of mortal sin can receive the Holy Eucharist?
THIS IS SO SATANIC! Hitting 2 birds with one stone (fake ecumenism): desecrate the Holy Eucharist and destroy the Sacrament of Confession! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f489dcecbe7b4821e8ab9e393ca166aef8ffe729e119939233ffee2bdc304ad.jpg
And can Communion for the practicing proud sodomites and paedophiliacs be far behind? Or did I blink and miss that?
I think a formal Repudiation of Amoris Latita and communion with Lutheran’s and Anglican is in order…… Other wise expect the fading RC faith to disintergrate as the Lutheran’s and a Anglican Episcopal protestant sects have splintered already…… It is Now or never for Retired Pope Benedict and the majority of red hat Cardinals to Prevent Francis and his liberal minions from driving the RC faith off a cliff.
Thus begins the path which will lead to the abomination of desolation. If the Mystery of Transubstantiation and the now-quaint notion of receiving His Body only while in the state of grace can be watered down with the wave of a pen to appease the Lutherans, it will be further diluted once the faithful have become accustomed to the bitter taste of the pill. The offense to His Sacred Heart as a result will be ever greater…as will, I fear, the coming trials.
We must do as Our Lady requested…pray many rosaries, and do penance, and stay close to the sacraments. Now is not the time to abandon the Church, though it seems as though the Church is abandoning us.