"Reform" For Jorge Constitutes A Rejection of Catholic Certitude
Note: Not an endorsement for sedevacantism
Ever
eager to deceive souls, the adversary has been busy using his pawns to
focus on the natural rather than the supernatural. Indeed, so much
attention has been paid to the ongoing coup d’etat
being engineered by deep state appartchiks the attention of many
Catholics this past Advent was diverted from a proper preparation for
the celebration of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Endless news cycles and the blabbering of naturalist talk show
hosts give those immersed in the crises of the moment little time to see
the world through the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.
Meanwhile,
of course, most Catholics alive today, never spend any time focusing on
how the energizer apostate from Argentina continues to go about his
business of finishing off whatever vestiges of Catholicism remain in his
false church, including any true understanding of Our Lord’s birth in
Bethlehem, which he, Bergoglio, ever true to form, reduces to the level
of mere naturalism. Then again, the conciliar revolutionaries have
reduced everything about the Catholic Faith to naturalism, which leads
ultimately to the triumph of atheism under the guise of paganism.
Paganism,
of course, is a projection onto God and His Divine Revelation of
whatever attributes and teachings conform to the imagining of those who
either have never known God, such as the Greek and Roman pagans of
antiquity, or those who reject everything that He has revealed to us
exclusively through His true Church because they cannot bring themselves
to believe in the permanence of truth and the supposed “harshness” this
imposes upon those who are steeped in lives of moral dissolution.
Modernism is thus really a species of paganism. As such, therefore,
Modernism is nothing other than an effort to indemnify those who believe
in theological error and/or those who want to say they “believe” in Our
Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ while defying the binding
precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.
As
to indemnifying those who believe in theological error, which is almost
always tied to acceptance of some violations of the moral law, starting
with Martin Luther himself, Bergoglio’s address to the apostates of the
counterfeit church included this boilerplate exhortation to “make
unity” with adherents of other false religions:
There
are also areas to which the Catholic Church, especially after the
Second Vatican Council, is particularly committed. Among these is
Christian unity, which is “an essential requirement of our faith, a
requirement that flows from the depth of our being believers in Jesus
Christ”.[24] It involves a “journey”, yet, as was also stated by
my predecessors, it is an irreversible journey and not a going back.
“Unity is made by walking, in order to recall that when we walk
together, that is, when we meet as brothers, we pray together, we
collaborate together in the proclamation of the Gospel, and in the
service to the least, we are already united. All the
theological and ecclesiological differences that still divide Christians
will only be surmounted along this path, although today we do not know
how and when [it will happen], but that it will happen according to what
the Holy Spirit will suggest for the good of the Church”.[25]
The
work of the Curia in this area is aimed at fostering encounter with our
brothers and sisters, untying the knots of misunderstanding and
hostility, and counteracting prejudices and the fear of the other, all
of which have prevented us from seeing the richness in diversity and the
depth of the Mystery of Christ and of the Church. For that mystery is
always greater than any human words can express. (Jorge Tells the Curia to Accept More of What Will Always Fail.)
Unity is not “made” or “created.”
Unity is not a matter of some kind of “search or a “journey.”
Unity
is one of the Four Marks of the Catholic Church as she professes the
same Holy Faith, undiluted and without a stain of corruption, in each of
the holy rites, whether of the West or the East, she has sanctioned.
Unity does not have to be “created.” It exists as part of the Divine
Constitution of Holy Mother Church.
Pope Leo XIII explained the nature of the Catholic Church’s unity in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:
Agreement
and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord
amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action
are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He
ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of
those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of
the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That
is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians,
without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not
merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same
mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing,
and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the
same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages
certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides,
all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It
is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to
which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity
should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be
ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was
done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in
faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)
The
true Faith is to be found only in the Catholic Church. The Orthodox
churches and the Protestant sects, which are called “ecclesial
communities” by the conciliar revolutionaries, are false. They are
filled with false doctrines and false liturgical rites, each of which is
inspired directly by the adversary himself.
Yet
it is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio insidiously attempted to use the
diversity of rites that exist within the Catholic Church as an example
for how there “unity” can be “built” with “other churches and ecclesial
communities.”
Pope
Pius XII reminded us that the only members of the Church of Our Blessed
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Catholic Church, none other:
Actually
only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been
baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so
unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or
been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.
"For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one
Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in
the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one
Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And
therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered -
so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that
those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the
unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine
Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
Pope
Pius XII’s firm reiteration of Catholic teaching was, of course,
rejected by the Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI
and the Fathers of the “Second” Vatican Council when they voted to
approve Lumen Gentium on November 21, 1964, the Feast of the
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which included the following
phrase, whose insertion was suggested by a Lutheran “observer” to a
council peritus, Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger:
This
Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in
the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by
the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of
sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.
These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces
impelling toward catholic unity. (Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964.)
Despite all of the efforts made by defenders of all things conciliar to try to explain how the passage from Lumen Gentium above was not a contradiction of Pope Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis,
it is nevertheless the case that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s
“new ecclesiology” of “full communion” and “partial communion” received
its official sanction in Lumen Gentium. The seeds were thus
planted for a wider and more “generous” application of the “new
ecclesiology that Ratzinger himself defended in an interview with the Frankfort Allgemeine newspaper on September 22, 2000, forty-seven days after the issuance of Dominus Iesus on August 6, 2000, the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Indeed, the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger boasted that Lumen Gentium recognized that there were other “churches” outside of the Catholic Church:
Q. On the other hand, Eberhard Jüngel sees something different there. The fact that in its time the Second
Vatican Council did not state that the one and only Church of Christ is
exclusively the Roman Catholic Church perplexes Jüngel. In the
Constitution Lumen gentium,it
says only that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church,
which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in
communion with him", not expressing any exclusivity with the Latin word
"subsistit".
A. Unfortunately once again I cannot follow the reasoning of my esteemed colleague, Jüngel. I
was there at the Second Vatican Council when the term "subsistit" was
chosen and I can say I know it well. Regrettably one cannot go into
details in an interview. In his Encyclical Pius XII said: the Roman
Catholic Church "is" the one Church of Jesus Christ. This seems to
express a complete identity, which is why there was no Church outside
the Catholic community. However, this is not the case: according to
Catholic teaching, which Pius XII obviously also shared, the local
Churches of the Eastern Church separated from Rome are authentic local
Churches; the communities that sprang from the Reformation are
constituted differently, as I just said. In these the Church exists at
the moment when the event takes place. . .
Q.
In short, why cannot the "otherness" of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit be compared to the diversity of ecclesial communities? Is
Jüngel's not a fascinating and harmonious formula?
A.
Among the ecclesial communities there are many disagreements, and what
disagreements! The three "persons" constitute one God in an authentic
and supreme unity. When the Council Fathers replaced the word
"is" with the word "subsistit", they did so for a very precise reason.
The concept expressed by "is" (to be) is far broader than that expressed
by "to subsist". "To subsist" is a very precise way of being, that is,
to be as a subject which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers
meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject. (Answers to Main Objections Against Dominus Iesus.)
One can see that the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger had explained the Latin word subsistit had been chosen at the “Second” Vatican Council preciselybecause it signified that the “Church of Christ” was an entity larger than the Catholic Church herself.
Ratzinger
was so bold as to project this heretical belief upon Pope Pius XII, who
did not believe that the Eastern Orthodox churches were part of the one
Church of Christ that is the Catholic Church, implying that there was a
possibility that Papa Pacelli had gotten it wrong, that he might not
have agreed with what Ratzinger contended was the “Catholic teaching”
contained in Lumen Gentium. He even went so far as to assert
that Protestant sects became part of the “Church of Christ” at the
moment, which he called “the event,” of their being founded by this or
that heretic. That is not what Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis.
All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing at present is to bring the “new ecclesiology” launched by means of Lumen Gentium to
effect “new understandings” of the doctrine of Holy Mother Church’s
Divine Constitution to its ultimate conclusion: a full endorsement of a
“shared mission” to preach the false “gospel” of statism, open borders
and “saving the planet.” In plain English, therefore, Jorge Mario
Bergoglio believes that pantheistic paganism of the “ecclesial
communities” and “other churches” is the “path” to “unity.”
Well,
in a manner of speaking, Bergoglio’s false beliefs are indeed a path to
“unity.” Most tragically for his own immortal soul, barring his own
conversion to the Catholic Faith that he never truly accepted as the one
and only true Faith (see Soldiers in The Damanation Army),
that “unity” will be found in eternal perdition as he shares the lowest
reaches of hell with those he has indemnified in their false religions.
The
man who is viewed by all but a very tiny handful of Catholics in the
world as “Pope Francis” concluded his annual Christmas address to the
conciliar curia by discussing the state of relations between the
conciliar curia and non-Christian religions, starting with Judaism and
Mohamedanism:
The Curia, Judaism, Islam and other religions:
The
relationship of the Roman Curia to other religions is based on the
teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the need for dialogue. “For
the only alternative to the civility of encounter is the incivility of
conflict”.[26] Dialogue is grounded in three fundamental lines of
approach: “The duty to respect one’s own identity and that of others,
the courage to accept differences, and sincerity of intentions. The duty
to respect one’s own identity and that of others, because true dialogue
cannot be built on ambiguity or a willingness to sacrifice some good
for the sake of pleasing others. The courage to accept differences,
because those who are different, either culturally or religiously,
should not be seen or treated as enemies, but rather welcomed as
fellow-travellers, in the genuine conviction that the good of each
resides in the good of all. Sincerity of intentions, because dialogue,
as an authentic expression of our humanity, is not a strategy
for achieving specific goals, but rather a path to truth, one that
deserves to be undertaken patiently, in order to transform competition
into cooperation”.[27]
My meetings with religious leaders during the various Apostolic Visits and here in the Vatican, are a concrete proof of this.
These
are only some aspects, important but not comprehensive, of the work of
the Curia ad extra. Today I chose these aspects, linked to the theme of
“diaconal primacy”, “institutional senses”, and of “faithful antennae
that transmit and receive”.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I began our meeting by speaking of Christmas as the Feast of Faith. I would like to conclude, though, by pointing out that Christmas reminds us that a faith that does not trouble us is a troubled faith. A
faith that does not make us grow is a faith that needs to grow. A faith
that does not raise questions is a faith that has to be questioned. A
faith that does not rouse us is a faith that needs to be roused. A faith
that does not shake us is a faith that needs to be shaken. Indeed, a
faith which is only intellectual or lukewarm is only a notion of faith.
It can become real once it touches our heart, our soul, our spirit and
our whole being. Once it allows God to be born and reborn in the manger
of our heart. Once we let the star of Bethlehem guide us to the place
where the Son of God lies, not among Kings and riches, but among the
poor and humble. (Jorge Tells the Curia to Accept More of What Will Always Fail.)
This is just pure, unadulterated Modernism.
The
Modernist mind cannot accept certitude. Everything about Divine
Revelation must be “reimagined” in light of “changing circumstances.”
The Modernist’s acceptance of uncertainty and doubt is based on
agnosticism, that is, that nothing about God can be known with
certainty.
Pope Saint Pius X explained Senior Jorge’s beliefs as follows in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:
14.
Thus far, Venerable Brethren, of the Modernist considered as
Philosopher. Now if we proceed to consider him as Believer, seeking to
know how the Believer, according to Modernism, is differentiated from
the Philosopher, it must be observed that although the Philosopher
recognises as the object of faith the divine reality, still this reality
is not to be found but in the heart of the Believer, as being an object
of sentiment and affirmation; and therefore confined within the sphere
of phenomena; but as to whether it exists outside that sentiment and
affirmation is a matter which in no way concerns this Philosopher. For
the Modernist Believer, on the contrary, it is an established and
certain fact that the divine reality does really exist in itself and
quite independently of the person who believes in it. If you ask
on what foundation this assertion of the Believer rests, they answer:
In the experience of the individual. On this head the Modernists differ
from the Rationalists only to fall into the opinion of the Protestants
and pseudo-mystics. This is their manner of putting the question: In the
religious sentiment one must recognise a kind of intuition of the heart
which puts man in immediate contact with the very reality of God, and
infuses such a persuasion of God's existence and His action both within
and without man as to excel greatly any scientific conviction. They
assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind
that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience is denied by
some, like the rationalists, it arises from the fact that such persons
are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state which is necessary to
produce it. It is this experience which, when a person acquires it,
makes him properly and truly a believer
How
far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the
decree of the Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such
theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened
wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given
this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism,
every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is
to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In
fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what
right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a
follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for
Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some
confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true.
That they cannot feel otherwise is clear. For on what ground, according
to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion
whatsoever? It must be certainly on one of these two: either on account
of the falsity of the religious sentiment or on account of the falsity
of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the religious
sentiment, although it may be more perfect or less perfect, is always
one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has
but to respond to the religious sentiment and to the Believer, whatever
be the intellectual capacity of the latter. In the conflict between
different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the
Catholic has more truth because it is more living and that it deserves
with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully
with the origins of Christianity. That these consequences flow from the
premises will not seem unnatural to anybody. But what is amazing is
that there are Catholics and priests who, We would fain believe, abhor
such enormities yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they heap
such praise and bestow such public honour on the teachers of these
errors as to give rise to the belief that their admiration is not meant
merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit,
but rather for the errors which these persons openly Pascendi Dominci Gregis profess and which they do all in their power to propagate. (Pope Saint Pius X, September 8, 1907.)
This
is a clear repudiation of everything that has been taught by the
conciliar “popes” about false religions. It is also a repudiation of
conciliarism en toto.
Although
there is probably no need to do so, it is useful to remind the few
remaining readers of this site of the fact that Judaism is a false
religion no matter how many times that Jorge and brother Raccoon Lodge
members tell us that the Old Covenant remains fully in force and that
adherents of the Talmud are still the Chosen People:
It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly
believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law
of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into
ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were
established to signify something in the future, although they were
suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had
been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament
began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these
matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for
salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned
mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to
the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they
were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the
promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed
without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that
time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of
the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least
fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover
from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the
name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease
entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it,
it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.
Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often
take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than
through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from
the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of God, it
advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty
days, or any time according to the observance of certain people, but it
should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently, but so
,that, when danger of death is imminent, they be baptized in the form of
the Church, early without delay, even by a layman or woman, if a priest
should be lacking, just as is contained more fully in the decree of the
Armenians. . . .
It
firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within
the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and
schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart
"into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels"
[Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to
the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong
that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of
benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions
of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and
that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed
blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in
the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)
28.That
He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous
teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from
the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the
living. [28]
"And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced
side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is
now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is
that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.
29.And
first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the
place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ
together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites
was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ.
For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He
was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34]
"To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the
Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the
Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one
Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the
innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently
from top to bottom." [35]
30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37]
and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family
in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that
our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church.
"For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching
of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over
the gentiles"; [38]
by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces,
which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His
mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger
was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual
graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the
fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above
all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into
possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical
Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope
Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
Night
and day, ladies and gentlemen. The night of the matter comes from the
adversary and is promoted by the counterfeit church at the behest of its
Talmudic masters. The light and truth of the matter is from Our Blessed
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is the very Light of the world.
The Old Covenant has been superseded. It has the power to save no one. Anyone who contends that it does is a heretic.
Consider
the reiteration of Catholic teaching on this point as found in The
Catholic Church and Salvation, which was written by the eminent
theologian, Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who was the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review from 1943-1963:
It is highly important to understand that this process is quite complex. The terminus a quo,
the undesirable condition, from which men are removed in the process of
salvation is basically sin, the status of aversion from almighty God. A
man is said to be saved, absolutely and simply, when he is taken out of
the condition of original or mortal sin and brought into the status of
the eternal and supernatural life of grace. Ultimately that process in
achieved and perfected when the person saved comes to possess the life
of grace eternally and inamissibly, in the everlasting glory of the
Beatific Vision. There is genuine salvation, however, when the man who
has hitherto been in the state of original or mortal sin is brought into
the life of sanctifying grace, even in this world, when that life of
grace can be lost through the man's own fault.
There
is, however, a definitely social aspect to the process of salvation. In
the merciful designs of God's providence, the man who is transferred
from the state of original or mortal sin into the state of grace is
brought in some way “within” a social unit, the supernatural kingdom of
the living God. In heaven that community is the Church triumphant, the
company of the elect enjoying the Beatific Vision. On earth it is the
Church militant. Under the conditions of the new or the
Christian dispensation, that community is the organized or visible
religious society which is the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of
Jesus Christ on earth.
We
must not lose sight of the fact that people in the condition of
aversion from God, in the state of original or mortal sin, belong in
some way to a kingdom or an ecclesia under the leadership of
Satan, the moving spirit among the spiritual enemies of God. Hence the
process of salvation involves necessarily the transfer of an individual
from one social unit or community to another, from the kingdom Satan to
the true and supernatural kingdom of the living God. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, pp, 134-135.)
This
is important to emphasize as anyone who is unbaptized, a condition that
applies to Jews and Mohammedans and pagans, belongs to an ecclesia
under the leadership of Satan, which predisposes them to a hatred of Our
Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, His Holy Cross and His Holy
Church and predisposes them as well to wage wafare against all to do
with Our Lord, His Church, His Divine Revelation and even the binding
precepts of the Natural Law. Amorality must be the result of such
hatred.
Monsignor
Fenton explained that the Jewish ecclesia had ceased to exist with Our
Lord's death on the wood of the Holy Cross, and that Saint Peter, our
first pope, sought to bring them out their adherence to false beliefs
that could only wind up damning them for all eternity:
This
intrinsically social aspect of salvation is brought out in the account,
in the Acts of the Apostles, of the end of St. Peter's sermon on the
first Christian Pentecost and of the results of that sermon.
Now
when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their hearts
and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men
and brethren?
But
Peter said to them: Do penance: and be baptized every one of you in the
name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.
And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation.
They therefore that receive his word were baptized: and there were added in that day about three thousand souls.
And
they were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the
communication of the breaking of bread and in prayers. [Acts, 2: 37-42]
According
to the inspired word of God in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter
exhorted the men who listened to him of that first Christian Pentecost
to “save themselves from this perverse generation.” Furthermore, we are
told that the individuals who “received his word” received the sacrament
of baptism, and that they were “added” to the number of the disciples
of Christ who had been with St. Peter and the other disciples before he
delivered his sermon. The society of the disciples of Jesus Christ, the
organization which we know now as the Catholic Church, continued with
this great number of new members, to do exactly what it had been doing
since the day of Our Lord's ascension into heaven.
We
read that the group, composed as it was of these new converts who had
come into the Church as a result of St. Peter's Pentecost sermon and of
the disciples who had entered the group during Our Lord's public life,
was “persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the
communication of the breaking of bread and in prayers.” And we read the
same sort of account of the activity of the original band of disciples
that returned to Jerusalem immediately after the Ascension.
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a sabbath day's journey.
And
when they were come in they went up into an upper room, where abode
Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Batholomew and
Matthew, James of Alpheus and Simon Zelotes and Jude the brother of
James.
All
these were persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women and Mary
the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. [Acts 1. 12-14]
Both
the text and the context of the Acts of the Apostles assure us that the
people who heeded St. Peter's injunction to save themselves from this
perverse generation entered the true Church of God, the kingdom of God
on earth. They entered the Catholic Church.
Now,
if St. Peter's words on this occasion meant anything at all, they
signified that the individuals to whom he was speaking were in a
situation which would lead them to eternal ruin if they continued in it.
They were described as belonging to a “perverse generation.” They were
told to save themselves by getting out of it. The
institution into which they would enter by the very fact of leaving
“this perverse generation” was none other that the society of Our Lord's
disciples, the Catholic Church itself.
The
clear implication of St. Peter's statement is that the Church, the
kingdom of God, was the only institution or social unit of salvation.
Not to be within this society was to be in the perverse generation
within which a man was faced with eternal and entire spiritual ruin. To
leave the perverse generation was to enter the Church.
In
other words, the clear teaching of this section of the Acts of the
Apostles is precisely that given by Pope Leo XIII in the opening
passages of his encyclical Humanum genus. The central point of this teaching is that the entire human race is divided between the kingdom of God, the ecclesia,
and the kingdom of Satan. To be saved from the kingdom of Satan is to
enter the kingdom of God. In this context it is not difficult to see
how, by God's institution, the Catholic Church, the one and only
supernatural kingdom of God on earth, is presented as a necessary means
for the attainment of salvation. By God's institution the process of
salvation itself involves a passage from the kingdom of Satan into the ecclesia.
Now,
for the proper understanding of this doctrine, especially in view of
the teaching on this subject contained in some recent books and
articles, it is imperative to understand the religious condition of the
people to whom St. Peter delivered his sermon on that first Christian
Pentecost. Again, the Acts of the Apostles contains essentially
important information.
This
book describes them in general with the statement that “there were
dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under
heaven.” The homelands of these men are enumerated in the statement
attributed to the multitude itself.
And they were all amazed and wondered saying: Behold, are not all these that speak, Galileans?
And how have we heard, every man, our own tongue wherein we were born?
Parthinians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers from Rome,
Jews
also and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians: we have heard them speak in
our own tongues the wonderful works of God. [Acts 2: 7-11.]
According
to the text of the Acts, a great many of these people were pilgrims,
men and women who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the great Jewish
feast of Pentecost. Our Lord had died on the Cross only a little over
seven weeks before St. Peter delivered that sermon, and many of the
people who listened to St. Peter must have been on their way to
Jerusalem at the very time Our Lord died. They had begun their
pilgrimage as an act of worship in the Jewish religion at the very time
when the Jewish religion was the one approved especially by God and when
the Jewish politico-religious commonwealth was actually the
supernatural kingdom of God on earth, the ecclesia of the Old Testament.
These
people as individuals probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the
persecution and the murder of the Incarnate Word of God. They had
started on their journey as members of God's chosen people, the people
of His covenant. Their journey to Jerusalem was made precisely in order
to worship and honor God. They were truly devout individuals.
Yes, seven weeks before, the religious body to which they belonged had ceased to be God's ecclesia.
The Jewish politico-religious social unit had definitively rejected Our
Lord, the Messias promised in the Old Testament. This company had
hitherto enjoyed its position as God's ecclesias or His congregatio fidelium by
virtue of the fact this it had accepted and professed its acceptance of
the divine message about the promised Redeemer. In rejecting the
Redeemer Himself, this social unit had automatically rejected the
teaching God had given about Him. The rejection of this message
constituted an abandonment of the divine faith itself. By manifesting
this rejection of the faith, the Jewish religious unit fell from its
position as the company of the chosen people. It was no longer God's ecclesia, His supernatural kingdom on earth. It became part of the kingdom of Satan.
While
the great Jewish social unit was rejecting Our Lord and thus
repudiating its acceptance of the divinely revealed message about Him,
the little company of the disciples, organized by Our Lord around
Himself, retained its faith. It continued to accept and to obey Our Lord
and to believe the divinely revealed that centered around Him. Thus at
the moment of Our Lord's death on Calvary, the moment when the old
dispensation was ended and the Jewish religious association ceased to be
the supernatural kingdom of God on earth, this recently organized
society of Our Lord's disciples began to exist as the ecclesia or the kingdom.
This
society was the true continuation of Israel. The men who were within it
were the true sons of Abraham, in that they had the genuine faith of
Abraham. This society was the new association of the chosen people. Its
members were, as St. Paul called them, the elect or the chosen of God.
It
must be understood, incidentally, that this society was actually God's
supernatural kingdom on earth in a much more complete and perfect sense
than the old Jewish commonwealth had ever been. The old Israel had
constituted the pople of the covenant. According to God's unfailing
promise, the Redeemer was to be born within that company. Yet conditions
had never been such that a man had to be within this company in order
to attain to eternal salvation. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, pp, 136-139.)
It
cannot get any clearer than the following sentence in the seletion from
Monsignor Fenton's masterpiece of Catholic theology just quoted:
By
manifesting this rejection of the faith, the Jewish religious unit fell
from its position as the company of the chosen people. It was no longer
God's ecclesia, His supernatural kingdom on earth. It became part of the kingdom of Satan. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, p. 139.)
Obviously,
the conciliar “popes,” each of whom has been a Judaizer, do not accept
such clear reiterations of Catholic truth. Conciliarism is a corrupt
misrepresentation of the Catholic Faith. It is really that simple.
This
is why the false “pontiff’s” calls for the conciliar curia to follow
his “reforms” carry special significance as he sold himself to the
conciliar “college of cardinals” as a “reformer” fifty-eight months ago.
Ah,
“reform” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio constitutes ending all moral
certitude and replacing it with the skepticism of a rationalism as he
believes the “corruption” that he is fighting is nothing other than the
“corruption” of the Faith caused by some of the Fathers of the Church,
Scholastic Philosophy and most of the true general councils held in the
Second Millennium, especially the Councils of Florence, Trent and the
[First] Vatican.
Pope
Saint Pius X outlined in perfect summary form the program of “reform”
that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has instituted to bring conciliarism, based
as it is in subjective “experience,” to its logical conclusions of
practical atheism:
For
let us return for a moment, Venerable Brethren, to that most disastrous
doctrine of agnosticism. By it every avenue that leads the intellect to
God is barred, but the Modernists would seek to open others available
for sentiment and action. Vain efforts! For, after all, what is
sentiment but the reaction of the soul on the action of the intelligence
or the senses. Take away the intelligence, and man, already
inclined to follow the senses, becomes their slave. Vain, too, from
another point of view, for all these fantasias on the religious
sentiment will never be able to destroy common sense, and common sense
tells us that emotion and everything that leads the heart captive proves
a hindrance instead of a help to the discovery of truth. We speak, of
course, of truth in itself - as for that other purely subjective truth,
the fruit of sentiment and action, if it serves its purpose for the
jugglery of words, it is of no use to the man who wants to know above
all things whether outside himself there is a God into whose hands he is
one day to fall. True, the Modernists do call in experience to
eke out their system, but what does this experience add to sentiment?
Absolutely nothing beyond a certain intensity and a proportionate
deepening of the conviction of the reality of the object. But
these two will never make sentiment into anything but sentiment, nor
deprive it of its characteristic which is to cause deception when the
intelligence is not there to guide it; on the contrary, they but confirm
and aggravate this characteristic, for the more intense sentiment is
the more it is sentimental. In matters of religious sentiment
and religious experience, you know, Venerable Brethren, how necessary is
prudence and how necessary, too, the science which directs prudence.
You know it from your own dealings with sounds, and especially with
souls in whom sentiment predominates; you know it also from your reading
of ascetical books - books for which the Modernists have but little
esteem, but which testify to a science and a solidity very different
from theirs, and to a refinement and subtlety of observation of which
the Modernists give no evidence. Is it not really folly, or at least
sovereign imprudence, to trust oneself without control to Modernist
experiences? Let us for a moment put the question: if experiences have
so much value in their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the
experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the
Modernists are on the wrong road? It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive?
The vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold firmly that
sentiment and experience alone, when not enlightened and guided by
reason, do not lead to the knowledge of God. What remains, then, but the
annihilation of all religion, - atheism? Certainly it is not the
doctrine of symbolism - will save us from this. For if all the
intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are pure symbols, will
not the very name of God or of divine personality be also a symbol, and
if this be admitted will not the personality of God become a matter of
doubt and the way opened to Pantheism? And to Pantheism that other
doctrine of the divine immanence leads directly. For does it, We ask,
leave God distinct from man or not? If yes, in what does it differ from
Catholic doctrine, and why reject external revelation? If no, we are at
once in Pantheism. Now the doctrine of immanence in the Modernist
acceptation holds and professes that every phenomenon of conscience
proceeds from man as man. The rigorous conclusion from this is the identity of man with God, which means Pantheism.
The same conclusion follows from the distinction Modernists make
between science and faith. The object of science they say is the reality
of the knowable; the object of faith, on the contrary, is the reality
of the unknowable. Now what makes the unknowable unknowable is its
disproportion with the intelligible - a disproportion which nothing
whatever, even in the doctrine of the Modernist, can suppress. Hence the
unknowable remains and will eternally remain unknowable to the believer
as well as to the man of science. Therefore if any religion at all is
possible it can only be the religion of an unknowable reality. And why
this religion might not be that universal soul of the universe, of which
a rationalist speaks, is something We do see. Certainly this
suffices to show superabundantly by how many roads Modernism leads to
the annihilation of all religion. The first step in this direction was
taken by Protestantism; the second is made by Modernism; the next will
plunge headlong into atheism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Yes, Pope Saint Pius X asked—and answered—the most pertinent rhetorical question of all when he wrote:
Let
us for a moment put the question: if experiences have so much value in
their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that
thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on
the wrong road? It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
This
is why Jorge Mario Bergoglio is constantly attacking those who hold
fast to the Catholic Faith without making any concessions to
conciliarism as he knows that such people, no matter how few in number
they may be, serve as a constant reminder to others that conciliarism,
which is a repackaging of Modernism by way of Sillonism and the “new
theology, is false and deceptive and leads to triumph of atheism.
Conciliarism
does indeed make Catholics within the structures of its counterfeit
religious sect slaves of their senses, and it is this slavery that
Bergoglio’s Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, celebrates in the
name of a false “mercy.” This same kind of slavery is why Bergoglio
authorized a Nativity display in Saint Peter’s Square that featured
images friendly to the sin of Sodom, and he even stooped so low as to
call for “openness” to new “social relationships” in the “homily” he
delivered at the Midnight offering of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo
liturgical service on Christmas morning. Part two of this commentary
will examine these two, interrelated matters at some considerable
length.
Today
is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Although yesterday’s
republished reflection contained a brief section on the meaning of
today’s feast, today’s readings in Matins of today’s Divine Office
contains a reflection by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux that is well worth
considering:
Behold
a mystery, great and full of wonder! The Child is circumcised, and His
Name is called Jesus. Why are these two things thus mentioned together?
It would seem that circumcision should rather be for the saved than for
the Saviour; that the Saviour ought rather to be Circumciser than
circumcised. But behold here the Mediator between God and men, how even
from His childhood He joineth the things of the Highest to the things of
the lowest, the things of God to the things of men. He is born of a
woman, but her womb is made fruitful without the loss of the flower of
her virginity. He is wrapped in swaddling-bands, but these
swaddling-bands are a theme for the jubilation of angels. He is laid in a
manger, but a bright star standeth in heaven over the place. So also in
His circumcision, the ceremony gave proof of the reality of the Manhood
which He had taken, and that Name which is above every name proclaimed
the glory of His Blessed Majesty. As very son of Abraham He underwent
circumcision; He assumed the Name of Jesus as very Son of God.
Why
Jesus beareth not that Name as others have borne it before Him, as a
vain and empty title. It is not in Him the shadow of a great Name, but
the very meaning of that Name. That His Name was revealed from heaven,
is attested by the Evangelist, where it is written, Which was so named
of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. After Jesus was born,
men called Him Jesus, but angels called Him Jesus, before He was
conceived in the womb. The One Lord is the Saviour of angels and of men;
of men, since His Incarnation; of angels, from the beginning of their
creation. His Name, saith the Evangelist, was called Jesus, which was so
named of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. In the mouth
therefore of two or three witnesses is every word established; and that
word whereof the Prophet spoke as cut short, is set forth at length in
the Gospel: the Word made Flesh.
It
is no wonder that it should be at His circumcision that the Name of
Jesus (which is, being interpreted, Saviour) is given to the Child Who
is born unto us, for it was then that He for the first time shed that
sinless Blood Which is the mean whereby He hath chosen to work out our
salvation. It is no matter for the speculation of Christians why the
Lord Christ was pleased to be circumcised. He was circumcised for the
same reason for which He was born, and for which He suffered. Neither
one nor the other was for Himself, but all for the sake of the elect. He
was not born in sin; He was not circumcised to separate Him from sin;
neither did He die for sins of His own, but for ours. Which was so named
of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. The Angel indeed gave
Him that title of Saviour, but not for the first time. Saviour is His
Name from everlasting; He hath it of His own proper nature to save. This
title He hath in Himself, not by the gift of anything that He hath
made, be it man or Angel. (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Matins, The
Divine Office, Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.)
May
this Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ inspire us to
rededicate ourselves to proclaim His Holy truths no matter what this
might cost us in terms of the world, including possible estrangements
with family members and friend of longstanding.
So what?
So what?
We
must always have the courage the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ in
the midst of a world steeped in a paganism that was celebrated at the
time of His Nativity and which the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio
“respects” in the name of “reform.”
As
always, we must rely on the help of the Blessed Mother, she who is the
Mediatrix of All Graces, especially through her Most Holy Rosary. The
triumph of her Immaculate Heart is only a matter of time. We may not
live to see this triumph, but it is our duty to plant a seed for its
manifestation as we offer all in this difficult times to the throne of
the Most Blessed Trinity as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of
Mary.
To be continued.
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church and Protector of the Faithful, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.
The Holy Innocents, pray for us.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
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