Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Francis’ Fables: A Commentary on Recent Bergoglian Utterances

Francis’ Fables: A Commentary on Recent Bergoglian Utterances

SOURCE

NOTE: Not an endorsement for sedevacantism


One may wonder if Francis perhaps has a twin brother, since it is inconceivable that one person alone could talk as much as he does. Alas, he does not — he simply loves to hear himself talk, that much is clear.
Francis’ faux Year of Mercy has finally drawn to a close. It ended officially on Sunday, Nov. 20. But before that happened, the almost-80-year-old Argentinian layman-in-papal-clothes once again had plenty to do and say. Due to the sheer volume of the “papal” activities and speeches during the past few weeks, it was simply not possible to cover all of them in detail, and so we are only now publishing one post to provide a succinct recap of his words and activities (that we didn’t cover elsewhere) from Nov. 5 through Nov. 13.
Brace yourselves.



On Nov. 5, 2016, Francis gave a long address to the participants of the Third World Meeting of Popular Movements. Not surprisingly, his speech was loaded with his usual social justice ideas and utterly devoid of meaningful Catholic theological content. There was no shortage of buzzwords and catch phrases such as “dialogue”, “accompany”, “going forward”, “globalization of indifference”, and “Mother Earth”. He droned about the “terrorism of money” and clarified that “no religion is terrorist”. He denounced the “false security of physical or social walls” that divides people, asking rhetorically, “Is this the life that God our Father wants for his children?” If Francis knew anything about Catholicism, he’d know that the life that God our Father wants for his children is, above all, the life of grace, sanctifying grace. But Francis is a Naturalist, and so it never occurs to him to preach the absolute necessity of grace, especially to the unbaptized and anyone else who does not possess it or does not realize its true significance.
Further on in the same speech, the world’s most talkative Jesuit denounced fear — as though it were an evil in itself and not very often a life-saving mechanism wholly justified by given circumstances — and proclaimed that its antidote is “mercy” — whatever, at this point, he may actually mean by the term. “Mercy”, Francis said, “is much more effective than walls, gratings, alarms and weapons.” Such tripe can only come from a deluded mind that denies original sin and its consequences, which are at the foundation of the human condition unaided by divine grace. Up until this point, walls, gratings, alarms, and weapons have been working just fine. It is only Francis’ rigid ideology (!) that keeps railing against it, and unreasonably so.
The papal pretender then claimed: “Dear brothers and sisters, all walls fall. Let us not be fooled” — which is just another gratuitous leftist ipse dixit that makes for a great headline but is ultimately devoid of substantial meaning. Yet this is precisely what Francis’ revolution thrives on: buzzwords, slogans, Naturalist platitudes, and plenty of touchy-feely gestures that put him in the spotlight and make him look “holy” and “humble” to the world. Look for substance, and you will find none. To even call it hot air would be to give it too much respectability.
Certainly, not everything Francis said in his speech was wrong. He would not be effective in his desire to destroy souls if he uttered only complete falsehoods. No, it is the half-truth that is the most dangerous kind of lie, and that is one of the things that makes Francis such a menace.
One of the deceptions he loves to engage in is his misuse of Holy Scripture. For example, he shamelessly adduced the holy Words of our Blessed Lord in Matthew 14:27, “Do not be fraid”, to bolster his cheerleading for the ongoing Islamic conquest of Europe, as though our Lord had been referring to hordes of Muslim invaders whom one ought not to fear. Quite the contrary: As the context makes clear, our Lord was telling His disciples not to be afraid because the Person visiting them was not a ghost or a stranger, but Himself: “And they seeing him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: It is an apparition. And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: Be of good heart: it is I, fear ye not” (Mt 14:26-27). If Francis was looking for a Scripture verse that could be used in connection with the current invasion of Europe by foreign cultures, religions, and tongues, he should perhaps have turned to Isaias 1:17: “Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies.”
Of course, the Jesuit apostate could not close his speech to popular movements without taking a huge swipe at the Catholic Church: “The Church too can and must, without claiming to have a monopoly on the truth, decide and act, especially in front of ‘situations of deep hurt and dramatic suffering in which values, ethics, social sciences and faith all enter into play'” (underlining added). It is good to know that the church which Francis believes in, and of which he is no doubt the head, is a church that does not have a monopoly on the truth, because that church, whatever it may be, is certainly not the Catholic Church, founded by Christ, “which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
On Nov. 10, Francis confirmed for the umpteenth time that he is not in the business of making converts to “Catholicism”, not even the Novus Ordo version. Speaking to a plenary session of the Vatican’s so-called Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity,
…Francis cautioned against the idea of unity as “going back in time” to incorporate one church into another. No one should deny their own faith history, he said, and no-one should tolerate the practice of proselytism which he called “a poison for the ecumenical journey”. True ecumenism, the Pope concluded, is when we focus not on our own reasons and regulations, but rather on the Word of God which requires us to listen, to receive and to witness to the world.
(“Pope urges all Christian to journey together towards Unity”, Vatican Radio, Nov. 10, 2016)
Francis and his ecumenical gang have no idea what the goal of their efforts at unity actually is, which is why after 50+ years, they still haven’t gotten anywhere, and they never will. All they know is that the goal isn’t converting one party to the religion of the other — that much they are all clear about. So they drone on endlessly about some vague “unity” that is supposedly a “gift of the Holy Spirit” and that is already realized when they serve the needy and get slaughtered by Islamists. It is nothing but a gigantic theological mess that has continually produced the most grotesque theological follies, most recently the ecumenical Reformation anniversary spectacle in Lund, Sweden (see our full coverage here).
To require conversion from a false church to the only True Church would indeed spoil the whole party for the ecumeniacs, which is why Francis can truthfully say that it is “a poison for the ecumenical journey”. In fact, in the same speech, Francis asserted that “unity, rather than a destination, is a journey, with its roadmaps and rhythms, its slowdowns and its accelerations, and also its pauses”. So there you have it — the journey is the destination for the Vatican II Modernists. No wonder “Cardinal” Christoph Schonborn was able to articulate precisely this back in July: “In a way, the journey is the destination.” In other words, they are aimlessly roaming around and have every intention of continuing to do precisely that — and they’re feeling great about it.
One cannot help but discover a Hegelian triad in all this Novus Ordo ecumenical junk theology: The undefined and undefinable “unity” they supposedly aim at is meant to appear as the great synthesis of the two contradictory positions of either remaining separated (thesis) or converting from one to the other (antithesis). The synthesis claims to “reconcile” the two contradictory positions by “transcending” both of them in a higher level of reality. It is in this dialectical interplay between thesis and antithesis that the synthesis of ecumenical unity supposedly emerges, and hence they can say that the “journey” — the dialectic — is the “destination” (the desired synthesis).
While this Hegelian dialectic may warm the hearts of Modernists everywhere, there are only two problems: Georg Hegel’s philosophy (a.k.a. Absolute Idealism) is radically incompatible with Catholicism, and the Catholic Church has long clarified that the only kind of religious unity possible within the realm of Catholic orthodoxy is that of non-Catholics renouncing all of their errors and converting to Catholicism — definitively ruling out any and all attempts to “transcend” contradictions to attain to a “higher plane of truth” which could serve as a substitute. The following links point to genuine Roman Catholic magisterial documents clarifying that the Catholic Church cannot accept any other kind of religious unity except that of people converting to her whole and entire:
Let’s move now from ecumenism to interreligious dialogue — which is basically the same junk but arranged in a different manner.
On Nov. 6, Francis celebrated a special Jubilee “Mass” for prisoners, starring a Muslim altar server who is serving a prison sentence for “a heap of crimes” (his words), including sexual assault: “Behind bars I was strengthened in the Muslim faith that I had since childhood and this has changed me: now I study [the Koran], I do not do drugs, I do not drink and I have found inner peace.” No word on whether he has repented of the sex crime he committed, or whether perhaps studying that Koran has given him new ideas in this regard. In any case, the Call Me Jorge blog has more information:
Perhaps as his next stunt, Francis can use a Roman imam as his next “Eucharistic minister”. What difference would it make at this point?
Speaking of stunts, we must give a quick shout-out to Francis’ terrific sense of humor: On Nov. 10, in one of his dreaded daily Casa Santa Marta homilies, the garrulous antipope “warned Christians against the temptation of a show or entertainment religion that constantly seeks novelty and revelations, comparing it to fireworks that provide us with a fleeting brightness before dying.” Yes, you read that right. The man who’s been pulling off The Francis Show from day one and constantly rebukes his sheeple for not being docile enough to the latest revelations from the “god of surprises”, now “warns” people against constantly seeking novelty in a show religion! If hypocrisy could make people little, you’d have to use forceps now to shake Francis’ hands.
On the liturgical front, Francis was happy to fire a few rounds of ammunition against those in his sect who consider themselves traditional Catholics and have a love for the traditional Roman Catholic Mass, which was replaced by the Vatican II religion with the liturgical disaster known as the Novus Ordo Missae in the 1960s. In an interview with fellow-Jesuit “Fr.” Antonio Spadaro, Francis denounced Latin Mass adherents as being (horror of horrors!) “rigid” and psychoanalyzed them as being insecure or hiding something. Furthermore, he made clear that he considers Benedict XVI’s reintroduction of the Traditional Mass (according to the 1962 Missal) as nothing but an “exception” for those with liturgical nostalgia, for which reason it is called merely the “extraordinary” rite of Mass (the Novus Ordo Missae being the — extremely — “ordinary” form):
Francis is actually quite correct here: It is indeed true that from the beginning, the 1962 Missal was permitted to be celebrated by priests adhering to the Novus Ordo religion only as an exception in order to keep them and the people from leaving the Modernist sect. This is something traditionalists in the New Church do not like to hear, but it is true nonetheless. We had warned our readers from the beginning that even Benedict XVI’s apparent blanket permission for the “Old Mass”, allowing it to be celebrated widely and frequently again, was nothing but a shrewd and dangerous ploy to keep people from defecting into Sedevacantism or otherwise turning their backs on the phoney authorities in the Vatian II Sect. We had dissected Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum to show how unacceptable it is to a Catholic:
To allow the 1962 Missal to be used on an indult basis, that is, on the basis of a magnanimous permission by the Modernists, has worked very well to keep the Vatican II revolution going at full throttle, because it has stopped these people from interfering with the Modernist program: Give them their Mass and they will be quiet; they will not care if you give them the true Faith or not as long as they have their Mass. And so it is, alas — except that the Modernists lied. Since most of the priests who offer the Latin Mass were ordained in the Novus Ordo rite of Paul VI, although they have the beautiful externals they desire, the Mass is still invalid, since the new rite of ordination is itself invalid.
In any case, assisting even at a valid Mass on the basis of a concession “generously” granted by public non-Catholics, is a recipe for disaster. On such an outrageous principle, Catholicism will never be saved or restored. Besides, they’ve had the “indult Mass” now since 1984, and what did it accomplish? Did it stem the tide of apostasy in the Vatican? Did it choke the Modernist Revolution around the globe? Far from it! It simply made those who were catching on that something was rotten in the state of Vatican City, lean back comfortably in their Latin Mass zones, content that they had found a way to escape the dreadful Novus Ordo worship service, while happily being able to profess “communion”, however insincerely, with their local Modernist pseudo-clergy.
On Nov. 11, things got interesting at the Casa Santa Marta. The reading of the day was 2 John 4-9, which reads as follows in the Douay-Rheims version:
I was exceeding glad, that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady, not as writing a new commandment to thee, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is charity, that we walk according to his commandments. For this is the commandment, that, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in the same: For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that you lose not the things which you have wrought: but that you may receive a full reward. Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine, the same hath both the Father and the Son.
In his homily, instead of using the occasion to warn his followers against the “many seducers” who spread heresies and other errors — such as, for example, the Lutherans he just met with at Lund, Sweden, and especially the “antichrist” mentioned by St. John — Francis proved himself to be precisely one of the seducers condemned in this scriptural text: Paying lipservice to the Incarnation — we all know how he “witnesses” to the Incarnate Son of God when it really matters — he launched into a condemnation of “ideologies that strip the Flesh of Christ from the Church”, adding that “[l]ove is always interior, concrete and does not go beyond the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Word”. Thus he “warned against those who put forward theories on love or intellectualize it, saying they ruin the Church and lead to a situation where we have a God without Christ, a Christ without the Church and a Church without people.”
Whatever.
Although the reading of the day gave him ample opportunity to preach the necessity of adhering to all of revealed truth and of entering the Catholic Church for salvation, since “[w]hosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God” (2 Jn 9), Mr. Bergoglio instead once again decided to hide behind buzzwords (“stripping away the flesh of the Church”, “intellectualizing and ideologizing … love”), railing against undefined and probably imaginary enemies whose “intellectualism” supposedly does damage to the Church because it doesn’t involve caressing a homeless person. He speaks of “works of mercy whereby we touch the Flesh of Christ, the Incarnate Christ”, giving the impression that our Lord became incarnate only, or chiefly, in order to show solidarity with suffering man. This, incidentally, is the heresy of Freiburg’s former “Archbishop” Robert Zollitsch, who used precisely this reasoning to deny the dogma of Christ’s Atonement in a televised interview in 2009. So, we know who “is a seducer and an antichrist”.
The same day, Nov. 11, saw the publication of yet another Francis interview (we have long stopped counting — it must be somewhere in the 30+ interviews at this point). Once again, Bergoglio granted an exclusive interview to his apostate (Catholic-turned-atheist) admirer Eugenio Scalfari, the co-founder of the lefitst Italian paper La Repubblica (Francis’ favorite — the only one he reads, in fact). Despite the fact that Scalfari does not take notes during his interviews and quotes Francis only from memory, the “Pope” has never claimed to have been misunderstood or misrepresented by the unbelieving journalist, and Francis’ continued granting of interviews to him indicates that he does indeed faithfully present the “papal” words.
The conversation with Francis having been conducted on Monday, Nov. 7, the U.S. presidential election had not yet taken place. Nevertheless, Scalfari had the foresight to ask the papal pretender: “Your Holiness, what do you think of Donald Trump?” The response was rather typical: “I do not pass judgment on people and politicians, I simply want to understand the suffering that their approach causes the poor and excluded”. Never mind Jesus Christ, His holy Church, the true doctrine, or the Christian order. Francis doesn’t believe in any of that. He doesn’t care if a politician’s policies conform to the natural law, respect the rights of Christ the King, grant freedom to the Church, or otherwise help the Kingdom of God to flourish. All he cares about is whether his crypto-Communist social-justice ideas might be adversely affected. Remember when he embraced the Communist Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, since removed from office? Remember when in 2013, at the beginning of World Youth Day, he greeted her affectionately and was entirely silent on her imminent plan to legalize abortion in her country, which came to fruition just four days later?
Further on in the conversation with Scalfari, Francis identifies what is “the greatest evil that exists in the world.” Can you guess what it is? No, no, not the unemployment of the young and the loneliness of the elderly — that was Francis’ take back in 2013! The greatest evil has morphed into something even worse: It is inequality now! The Argentinian Antipope says: “What we want is a battle against inequality, this is the greatest evil that exists in the world. It is money that creates it and that goes against those measures that try to make wealth more widespread and thus promote equality”. In other words: “Spread the wealth around…” Where have we heard this before?
francis-karl-marxScalfari then asked whether this does not smack of Marxism, and Francis, adding insult to injury, replied as follows: “It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians”! That’s it — Communism is really a Christian idea! That must be the reason why Pope Pius XI observed: “It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized” (Encyclical Divini Redemptoris, n. 16). Bergoglio then adds: “Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide.” Unfortunately, Francis didn’t provide a Scripture reference to back that up, because it’s a passage that Catholics have apparently missed for 2,000 years. Bergoglio brazenly makes it up as he goes along. Who will stop him, anyway?
German journalist Alexander Kissler recently referred to Francis as a “U.N. Secretary General with a pectoral cross.” That is a pretty apt description of Mr. Bergoglio — except that even his pectoral cross leaves a lot to be desired.
On Nov. 11, it was time for the last “Friday of Mercy” in his Jubilee Year of [bogus] Mercy, which finally comes to a close on Nov. 20. (We have counteracted it with our Year or Exclusion, Judgment, and Condemnation here.) Francis used the occasion to meet with men who left the Novus Ordo priesthood and got married. Details can be found here.
On Saturday, Nov. 12, Francis returned to preaching about one of his favorite themes, that of “inclusion.” As we explained in a blog post a year ago, “inclusion” is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Without reference to an object, it is simply indifferent. That does not, of course, keep Francis from lauding it as an inherent good, and its opposite, exclusion, as an intrinsic evil, effectively. According to Bergoglio, inclusion is an “aspect” of mercy that we must practice “to avoid closing in on ourselves and our selfish securities.” You know, like St. John the Evangelist did when he wrote, “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine [of the Gospel], receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you” (2 Jn 10). Or like St. Paul, when he wrote: “But now I have written to you, not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one, not so much as to eat…. Put away the evil one from among yourselves” (1 Cor 5:11,13).
Granted, Francis was speaking in the context of salvation, saying, “No one is excluded from [God’s] love and mercy, even the greatest sinner: none! All are included in his love and in His mercy.” But this can be understood in an orthodox sense and in a heretical sense. It is true in the sense of God desiring the salvation of all and making it possible for all to be saved (see 1 Tim 2:4; Rom 1:16). In this sense, God excludes no one: He has redeemed everyone. However, it is not true in the sense that God will in fact save everyone. On the contrary, Christ was rather explicit about this:
For many are called, but few are chosen.
(Matthew 22:14)
And a certain man said to him: Lord, are they few that are saved? But he said to them: Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he answering, shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are. Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
(Luke 13:23-28)
So then, what is Francis talking about? Everyone is already included in the Redemption — there is nothing and no one left to “include”. On the other hand, not everyone is included among the elect (i.e., those who will actually be saved and are “written in the book of life”; cf. Apoc 20:15). So then, if Francis’ intent is to ensure that as many as possible will benefit from the Redemption and actually be saved — something which Christ’s commandment to love everyone is ultimately all about (cf. Mt 22:39) –, why will he not finally get busy and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who do not know Him? “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned”, Christ warned (Mk 16:16). “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness”, proclaimed St. Paul (1 Cor 1:23). But Francis does no such thing: He hides the Crucified Christ from the Jews, jokes about the Crucifixion, and tells Muslims to adhere firmly to their false religion because their “faith” will help them to “move on”, while he tells Hindus there is “hope” in their idolatrous religion. Francis preaches the false gospel of man, not the Christian Gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. Gal 1:8-9).
Lastly, we come to Francis’ sermon at the Jubilee for Socially-Excluded People on Nov. 13. The Gospel reading of the day was Lk 21:5-19, where our Blessed Lord foretells the signs that shall precede the end of the world and His great Second Coming: the destruction of Jerusalem, great calamities and convulsions, persecutions and betrayal, false messiahs, bloodshed, etc. Clearly, this passage is not exactly about the socially excluded or any other of Francis’ favorite themes, but that doesn’t stop him from hijacking it and turning it into an advertisement for his usual blather.
First, he is not ashamed to use this passage to denounce the “prophets of doom … or terrifying sermons and predictions that distract from the truly important things”! Think about this: Francis uses a terrifying doom-and-gloom sermon preached by our Lord to claim that terrifying sermons by prophets of doom “distract from the truly important things”! You have to admit, the man is not lacking in chutzpah.
Francis continues: “Amid the din of so many voices, the Lord asks us to distinguish between what is from him and what is from the false spirit.” Precisely! That’s why we reject Francis’ “god of surprises” and the Bergoglian “spirit” that brings constant “newness”! This is exactly how we know that Francis’ doctrines (and all of those peculiar to the Vatican II religion) are not of God: “Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty!” (Pope St. Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi, n. 49); “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8). In the following passage, it seems St. Paul must had a vision of the Vatican II Church in particular: “For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables” (2 Tim 4:3-4).
For Francis, of course, the “false teachers” spoken of in the New Testament aren’t the Modernists of whom he is the chief — no, they are “those who seek in God’s name to frighten, to nourish division and fear”, of course. As though there were anything intrinsically wrong with division or fear (cf. Mt 10:28,34-35). In fact, our Blessed Lord Himself is, and forever will be, the Chief Divider, splitting all of humanity permanently into sheep and goats, that is, into the good and the wicked: “And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats” (Mt 25:32); “The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner…. And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder” (Mt 21:42,44). Yes, we should be afraid — afraid of going to hell: “…I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell…” (Act of Contrition); “…fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). So much for “those who seek in God’s name to frighten”!
But there we go again with our divisive and terrifying sermons that distract from what’s important, right?!
The reason why there can never be doom and gloom for the Novus Ordos is that it would kill all the Vatican II gaudium (“joy”) we’ve been hearing endless blather about. It would remind people that there is a real possibility of going to hell for all eternity and that — alas! — most people will actually end up there: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” (Mt 7:13).
Francis then returns to his favorite theme once more, that of inclusion vs. exclusion. Being the Naturalist that he is, he once again focuses not on the salvation of souls but on alleviating the temporal sufferings of our fellow men:
Today, though, when we speak of exclusion, we immediately think of concrete people, not useless objects but precious persons. The human person, set by God at the pinnacle of creation, is often discarded, set aside in favour of ephemeral things. This is unacceptable, because in God’s eyes man is the most precious good. It is ominous that we are growing used to this rejection. We should be worried when our consciences are anaesthetized and we no longer see the brother or sister suffering at our side, or notice the grave problems in our world, which become a mere refrain familiar from the headlines on the evening news.
Now, of course we must assist those who are in need, regardless of their religion and irrespective of whether they be friend or foe. It is a corporal work of mercy and our Christian duty. But that’s what the true Catholic Church has been doing from the very beginning. Bergoglio didn’t just discover charity or mercy. His over-emphasis on helping people in their temporal needs to the nearly total exclusion of helping them to attain their supernatural end, their very purpose for existence, is what is causing so much harm to souls. After all, no matter how much a hungry man is fed, how much money a poor person receives, or how big of a mansion is built for a homeless individual, it is all ultimately of no value if people do not make it to Heaven. That’s precisely what our Lord means when He says: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mk 8:36-37).
The temporal world will pass away — that’s why it’s called temporal. Eternity is what we must be most concerned about, but this is not in Francis’ vocabulary. It is his near-total focus on the temporal world that makes his false gospel of man so dangerous, where the salvation of souls is not mentioned except perhaps in passing, and all focus is placed instead on clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and being kind to the suffering.
In 1910, Pope St. Pius X, the great Anti-Modernist, put things in perspective when he exposed the false notion of fraternity (brotherly charity) of the French Sillonist movement, whose intellectual child Francis is:
The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which [the Sillonists] found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.
Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.
…
And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
…
We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness.
But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors.
Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them.
He was as strong as He was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body.
Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
(Pope St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique [“Our Apostolic Mandate”]; underlining and paragraph breaks added.)
By considering the temporal world not in light of the Catholic teaching on eternity and the necessity of sanctifying grace to obtain Heaven but instead leaving it “closed in on itself” (ha!), and by divorcing corporal works of charity from the salvation of souls, Francis ensures that human misery will continue for ages to come. Sure, he laments that “[t]he human person … is often discarded, set aside in favour of ephemeral things”, but his Naturalist “solution” — that of simply “including” — won’t solve anything at all because, philosophically and theologically, it is not tenable. If man has no supernatural purpose or destiny, then he is ephemeral, and then men will simply assign whatever value they choose to their fellow human beings, for what incentive — at least one that isn’t arbitrary — do they have to love their neighbor? Welcome to the reality of concupiscence, one of the effects of original sin, something all Naturalists deny in one way or another. The true incentive was given by our Lord, and it’s a supernatural one, one that requires divine grace: “…as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Hence we say we must “love ourselves and our neighbours for the sake of God” (Catholic Encyclopedia; italics added).
As proved by her 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church’s teaching about supernatural charity (that is, works of charity aided by grace and done for a supernatural purpose) produces most abundant fruit. Wherever the Catholic Faith was introduced, there charitable institutions were founded, both for spiritual and corporal works of mercy: schools, seminaries, hospitals, orphanages, convents, homeless shelters, etc. Think of all the good works accomplished, for example, by countless nuns in hospitals and schools — nuns who had a vow of poverty and therefore took no salary. They worked for free, for the love of God. This is the fruit of the Catholic teaching on charity. Naturalism cannot accomplish this; only divine grace can. Therefore, all who want to see human suffering alleviated should work, above all, for the spread of the true Catholic Faith. This Francis refuses to do.
While Francis does, on occasion, mention something about Heaven as being “the true life to which we are called”, as he does in this sermon, he does so only in passing and never does so when addressing non-Catholics. Moreover, he never explains that this true life in Heaven, i.e., the Beatific Vision, can only be obtained through sanctifying grace, for which Faith — the true Faith — is absolutely necessary: “But without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). Instead, Francis acts as though a blessed eternity can be obtained simply by being naturally good, good without God’s grace, which is the Pelagian heresy, rooted in Naturalism. He acts as though every poor person is a saint simply for being poor; every person who suffers or is marginalized is guaranteed Heaven simply for suffering or being marginalized; etc. The truth is, of course, that the poor too can be greedy; the suffering can be wicked; the homeless can be blasphemers; and the marginalized can be idolaters. Put simply: Being the victim of injustice or circumstance does not make you holy.
This recaps Francis’ most important activities and speeches from Nov. 5-13. A lot has happened since then, which we have already covered on this blog.
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle warned: “For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:13-14).
Pray that the false apostle Francis, who disguises himself as an angel of light, may no longer be able to seduce the masses, and that those who have already fallen victim to him may, by the help of divine grace, come to see the truth about him and the wicked Vatican II Church.

 

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