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| The Oath against Modernism vs. the ‘Hermeneutic of Continuity’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2024, 08:07 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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The Oath against Modernism vs. the ‘Hermeneutic of Continuity’
by John Vennari
Taken from here.
The expression “hermeneutic of continuity” came into vogue with the ascension of Pope Benedict XVI.
On December 22, 2005, in his speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI laid out what would be the program of his pontificate. Usually a Pope will do this in his first encyclical, but informed commentators at the time observed that Pope Benedict appeared to lay out the program for his pontificate in this December 22 address, and not his first encyclical.
In this speech, it is clear that the pivotal principle that would be the program for his pontificate is the Second Vatican Council. (1)
![[Image: P001_Ratz-3.jpg]](https://mail.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_m-q/P001_Ratz-3.jpg)
Benedict's ecumenism with schismatics, heretics, Jews and Muslims contradicts the Magisterium prior to the Council
However, says the Pope, there has been a problem with the Council. Too many in the Church, he laments, approach the Council through a “hermeneutic of rupture” and a “hermeneutic of discontinuity” with the past. Thus, Pope Benedict says, many Catholics have approached the Council with an interpretation of rupture with the past.
The proper way to approach the Council, he insists, is through a “hermeneutic of continuity.” His basic claim — and this has always been his claim as Cardinal Ratzinger — is that Vatican II did not constitute a rupture with Tradition, but a legitimate development of it. We can find this legitimate development if we approach the Council through a hermeneutic — an interpretation — of continuity.
This gives the impression to many that Pope Benedict XVI plans a restoration of Tradition in the Church.
But this is not the case. Yes, Pope Benedict issued the Motu Proprio freeing the Tridentine Mass. This was a matter of justice for which he deserves credit, and it is something we could have guessed he would do, even based on his statements as Cardinal Ratzinger.
But the hermeneutic of continuity does not signal a return to Tradition. Rather, it is another attempt, first and foremost, I believe, to save Vatican II.
Vatican II is still his pivotal principle. The so-called “hermeneutic of continuity” approach will give us nothing more than a new synthesis between Tradition and Vatican II — a synthesis between Tradition and Modernism — which is not a legitimate synthesis.
Novel approach
Initially I want to focus on just one aspect that tells us from the beginning that the “hermeneutic of continuity” approach does not signal a true restoration of Tradition. This is the term itself. Pope Benedict does not employ the Traditional terminology for the preservation of Tradition, but has effectively invented a new expression: “hermeneutic of continuity”.
This is because his approach to Tradition is at odds with what the Church taught for 2000 years.
For example, Benedict XVI never says that the answer to the crisis in the Church is to return the admonition of Pope Agatho who said, “Nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning.”(2)
Pope Benedict never says that the answer to today’s ecclesiastical chaos is to return to the formula contained in the Oath against Modernism, that the Catholic is bound to “sincerely hold that the doctrine of Faith was handed down to us from the Apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same explanation (eodem sensu eademque sententia). Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another, different from the one which the Church held previously.”(3)
He cannot use terminology like this because it conflicts with the new teachings of Vatican II, with the new teachings concerning religious liberty and ecumenism. These new teachings are clearly “different from the one which the Church held previously.”(4)
When Pope St. Pius X was battling to maintain Catholic truth and Tradition, he did not come up with his own original phrase in the Oath Against Modernism. The terminology he employed is the ancient terminology of the Church, found in the writings of the Fathers, and enshrined in infallible dogmatic definitions that a Catholic must believe for salvation.
As far back as the 4th Century, St. Vincent of Lerins explained what constitutes the proper development of Catholic doctrine:
“But perhaps some will say: Is there to be no progress of religion in the Church? There is, certainly, and very great ... But it must be a progress and not a change. Let, then, the intelligence, science, and wisdom of each and all of individuals and of the whole Church, in all ages and in all times, increase and flourish in abundance; but simply in its own proper kind, that is to say, in one and the same doctrine, one in the same sense, and one in the same judgment.”(5)
St. Vincent of Lerin’s teaching on Tradition was dogmatically and infallibly enshrined in Vatican I. This demonstrates that the exact same teaching on Tradition was maintained in the Church for more than 1400 years. Vatican I teaches in the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius:
“Hence that meaning (sensus) of the sacred doctrine must always be retained which Holy Mother Church has once declared, and we must never abandon that meaning under the appearance or in the name of a deeper understanding.”
Vatican I’s Dei Filius goes on to say that any authentic development in the understanding of doctrine “must proceed in its own class, in the same dogma, with the same meaning and the same explanation.” This is the same basic wording of St. Vincent of Lerins, unchanged for over 1400 years.
![[Image: P001_Vincent.jpg]](https://mail.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_m-q/P001_Vincent.jpg)
Vincent of Lerins: Any progress in doctrine has to have the same meaning and follow the same judgment of what was previously taught
And this, as noted, was the wording Pope St. Pius X employed in his Oath against Modernism, wherein the man taking the Oath swears before God to “sincerely hold that the doctrine of Faith was handed down to us from the Apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same explanation (eodem sensu eademque sententia).”(6)
Pope Benedict XVI never uses terminology like this. Even as Cardinal Ratzinger he never employed such terminology. The sad fact remains that Pope Benedict XVI and most of our modern Church leaders cannot even use traditional terminology when they claim they are trying to maintain Tradition, but come up with new phrases: “Reciprocal integration”(7) or “hermeneutic of continuity.”
The employment of this new phrase, along with his obvious commitment to the novel aspects of Vatican II such as ecumenism (8) and religious liberty, (9) tells us that as much as we would want it to be true, Pope Benedict XVI is not a Pope of Tradition. He will continue with the novel policies of Vatican II. It may not be in the same wildcat manner as his immediate predecessor. It may be a bit more subdued and refined, and perhaps, a bit more Traditional in appearance. Pope Benedict will even attempt more discipline in certain areas, specifically in liturgical matters, than ever did John Paul II.
But in the end — as far as doctrine — it is still Vatican II’s new orientation that will dominate. What we are commanded in Vatican I and the Oath against Modernism to believe the Catholic Faith “in the same meaning and in the same explanation” as the Church always taught, will be neither mentioned nor reinforced.
Thus, no matter how many times we hear the expression “hermeneutic of continuity,” no matter how many times we are told that Vatican II did not constitute a rupture: the fact remains that Vatican II’s new approach to what is called ecumenism and religious liberty — and by extension, Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to what is called ecumenism and religious liberty (10) — is at odds with the traditional Magisterium of the centuries. Here we do not find continuity, but rupture.
Thus, and I say this with respect, I will not be enthused about any report that Pope Benedict XVI wishes a true return to Tradition, until we hear him employ the terminology for Tradition used for 1500 years; until we hear him call for a return to Catholic Faith “in the same meaning and in the same explanation” of what the Church always taught.
1. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia offering them his Christmas Greetings, Thursday, December 22, 2005. Available on Vatican Webpage.
2. Apud Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, n.7.
3. Oath against Modernism, 1910. (emphasis added)
4. For example, the French Bishops made a formal statement in which they abandoned even the intention of fighting for the Social Kingship of Christ. The Bishops of France plainly said in the Dagens Report in 1997: “Without hesitation, we accept, as Catholics, to take place in the present cultural and institutional context, which is especially characterized by the emergence of individualism and by the principle of secularity. We reject any nostalgia for times gone by when the principle of authority seemed to be an unquestionable fact. We do not dream of an impossible return to what used to be called Christendom.” - Apud Fr. Alain Lorins, DICI, 2008: September 27/October 8 edition.
5. Apud Fr. Edward F. Hanahoe, S.A., “Ecclesiology and Ecumenism,” The American Ecclesiastical Review, November 1962, Part II, p. 328. (emphasis added)
6. Dei Filius, Vatican I.
7. The new concepts of “Reciprocal Integration” and “Enrichment of Faith” were key principles of Pope John Paul II. See Fr. Johannes Dörmann, Pope John Paul II’s Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, (Kansas City, Angelus Press, 2003), Part II, Volume 3, pp. 1-38.
8. One of the many examples of Pope Benedict’s new ecumenical approach. On August 19, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, he conducted an ecumenical meeting in Cologne, Germany. Here he said regarding ecumenism: “... this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not! It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity. ... To this end, dialogue has its own contribution to make.” This statement bears no continuity with what the Popes have taught for 2000 years, that the non-Catholic must convert to Christ’s one true Church for unity and salvation. Apud. Apostolic Journey to Cologne, On the Occasion of the XX World Youth Day. Ecumenical Meeting, Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Cologne — Archbishop’s House: Friday, 19 August 2005. On Vatican webpage here (emphasis added)
9. Fr. Yves Congar openly admitted Vatican II’s new doctrine of Religious Liberty is a rupture with the past. Congar said, “What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII … is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.” Apud Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council (Angelus Press), p. 21.
10. For more examples of Pope Benedict’s novel ecumenical approach, see: “Assisi 2012: Religious Indifferentism on Parade” and “Common Mission and ‘Significant Silence’” (on Pope Benedict’s approach to modern Judaism). (all at www.cfnews.org )
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| Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Most Precious Blood/Response to Excommunication |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2024, 06:39 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
- Replies (1)
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IN SANGUINE TUO
Homily on the external Solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Taken from here
Redemisti nos, Domine, in sanguine tuo,
ex omni tribu, et lingua, et populo, et natione:
et fecisti nos Deo nostro regnum.
Rev 5:9-10
Dear brothers and sisters,
First of all, allow me to share with you my serenity of mind in facing this trial. I experienced the same inner peace when, a few years ago, I rediscovered the Traditional Mass, which since then I have never stopped celebrating exclusively and which has brought me back to the beating heart of our holy Religion, to understand that being united to Christ the Priest in the offering to the eternal Father must necessarily be translated into the mystical immolation of oneself on the model of Christ the Victim, in restoring the divine order in which Charity consumes us with love for God and neighbor, and shows us how incomprehensible – as well as unacceptable – it is to modify anything of this perfect order that the Holy Church anticipates on earth precisely by placing the Cross at the center of everything. Stat Crux dum volvitur orbis.
For sixty years, however, along with the world, volvitur et ecclesia. The ecclesial body has also lost its point of stability: yesterday, in the mad attempt to adapt to the world by softening its doctrine; today, in the deliberate desire to erase the Cross, a sign of contradiction, in order to please the Prince of this world. And in a world hostile to the Cross of Christ, it is not possible to preach Christ, and Christ crucified, because this is “divisive” for a “human brotherhood” from which the fatherhood of God is excluded. It is not surprising, therefore, that those who proclaim the Gospel without adaptations are considered enemies. Christians of all ages, and among them the Pastors in the first place, have always been opposed and fought and killed precisely because of the incompatibility between the Civitas Dei and the civitas Diaboli. The Lord taught us: “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also; if they have kept my word, they will also keep yours” (Jn 15:20).
A few days ago, a church enslaved to the world put me on trial for schism and condemned me with excommunication for having openly professed the Faith that the Lord by my Episcopal Consecration ordered me to preach; the same Faith for which the Martyrs were killed, the Confessors persecuted, priests and Bishops imprisoned or exiled. But how can we even think that it is the true Church that strikes its children and its Ministers, and at the same time welcomes its enemies and makes their errors its own? This Church, which calls itself “conciliar and synodal,” is a counterfeit, a counter-church, for which everything begins and ends in this life, and which does not want to accept anything eternal precisely because the immutability of the Truth of God is intrinsically alien to the permanent revolution that it has welcomed and promotes.
If we were not persecuted by those who are hostile to the Cross, we would have to question our fidelity to Christ, who from that Throne of pain and blood struck a mortal blow against the Enemy of the human race. If our Ministry could be “tolerated” in some way, it would mean that it is ineffective and compromised, if only because of the implicit acceptance of an impossible coexistence between opposites, of a hermeneutic of continuity in which there is room for truth and error, light and darkness, God and Belial. That is why I consider this sentence of the Roman Sanhedrin as causing clarity: a Catholic cannot but be in a state of schism with those who refuse the Profession of Faith in Charity. There can be no communion with the one who first broke the supernatural bond with Christ and with His Mystical Body. Nor can there be obedience and submission to an adulterated version of the Papacy in which authority has deliberately withdrawn from Christ, the first principle of that authority, to be transformed into tyranny.
Thus, just as in the morally necessary choice to return to the Apostolic Mass I rediscovered the true meaning of my priesthood, so too in the decision to denounce the apostasy of the modernist and globalist hierarchy I rediscovered the meaning of my Episcopate, of being a Successor of the Apostles, a witness of Christ and a Pastor in His Church.
Timidity, human respect, opportunistic evaluations, thirst for power, or corruption have led many of my Brothers to make the simplest choice: to leave the Lord by Himself in His Passion and mingle with the crowd of His executioners, or even just to stand by for fear of going against the high priests and scribes of the people. Some of them, like Peter, repeat the “I do not know Him” so as not to be brought before the same Sanhedrin. Others stay closed in their cenacle, content not to be tried and condemned. But is this what the Lord wants of us? Is this what He has called us to in choosing us as His Ministers and as proclaimers of His Gospel?
Dear brothers, bless these times of tribulation with me, because it is only in infirmitate that we have the certainty of fulfilling God’s Will and sanctifying ourselves with His Grace. As Saint Paul says: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Our being docile instruments in the Lord’s hands is the indispensable premise for ensuring that His work is truly divine.
We are asked only to follow him: Veni, et sequere me (Mt 10:21); to follow Him leaving everything else, which is to make a radical choice. We are asked to preach His Gospel, to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to keep faithfully all the precepts that the Lord has commanded us to observe (Mt 28:19-20). We are asked to pass on intact what we have received – tradidi quod et accepi – without additions, without changes, without omissions. And to preach the Word opportune, importune, enduring everything: in omni patientia et doctrina (2 Tim 4:2). We are asked to take up our cross every day, to deny ourselves, to be ready to climb Calvary and be crucified with Christ to rise with Him, to share in His victory and triumph in the blessed eternity of Heaven. We are asked to complete in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the good of his Body which is the Church (Col 1:24). Pastors need to return to belonging to Christ, shaking off the oppressive yoke of a servitude to the world that makes them accomplices in the ruin of the Church.
From the Most Sacred Heart, pierced by a spear, flows the infinite Grace of the Sacraments and especially of the Catholic Priesthood. It ensures the perpetuation of Christ’s redemptive action throughout History, so that the perfect Sacrifice of the divine Victim – who entered the Sanctuary once and for all through his own blood (Heb 9:12) – may continue to be offered under the sacramental species to the Eternal Father. In the same way, when the Church appears defeated and is given up for dead, a spear in Her side renews the flow of blood and water, laying the foundation for a future restoration and guaranteeing the preservation of the Priesthood, the Mass, and the Sacraments: of Tradition. It will be that blood and water that will irrigate this land parched and split by drought, thirsty for the True and the Good, so that the semen Christianorum may sprout and bear fruit.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the form of sheep, but who inwardly are ravenous wolves (Mt 7:15). With these words, significantly proposed by the Liturgy of this Seventh Sunday after Pentecost and which we will read in the last Gospel, the Lord warns us against those who usurp the gift of prophecy in order to contradict the Faith that he revealed and taught the Apostles so that it might be faithfully handed down the centuries. The Lord does not say: Beware of those who sow error, but of false prophets. Who are these false prophets, these pseudochrists of whom Sacred Scripture speaks? For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great portents and miracles, so as to mislead even the elect if possible. Behold, I have foretold it to you (Mt 24:24-25). These are the hirelings, the false shepherds, those whom we can recognize ex fructibus eorum, by their fruits, by what they do (Mt 7:16-20). We know the fruits and we have them before our eyes: the planned destruction of the Lord’s Vineyard by His own vinedressers.
What is imputed to me as a crime in order to declare me schismatic and condemn me to excommunication has been put on the record of a trial that condemns not me, but my accusers, the enemies of the Cross of Christ. When the eclipse that darkens the Church ends and Our Lord returns to be at the center of the lives of his ministers, those who are ostracized today will find justice, and those who have abused their power to disperse the Lord’s flock will have to answer to His tribunal and to that of History. We will continue to do what all Catholic Bishops have done, often being persecuted by them.
And we will continue in our work even if it is hindered by those who usurp the power of the Holy Keys against the Church Herself. The authority of the Pastors – and that of the Supreme Pontiff – is in the hands of false pastors, who as such count precisely on our respect for the Hierarchy and on our habitual obedience to make us accept the betrayal of Christ and the ruin of souls. But authority comes only from Christ, who wants all to be saved and to reach eternal blessedness through the one Ark of Salvation. If the vicarious authority on earth preaches salvation from false religions and the uselessness of Christ’s Sacrifice, it breaks the umbilical cord that binds it to Him, thereby delegitimizing itself. We do not separate ourselves from Holy Mother Church, but rather from the mercenaries who infest her. We do not refuse obedience and submission to the Pontiff, but rather to those who humiliate and tamper with the Papacy against the Will of Christ. Let us not impugn the revealed Truth – quod Deus avertat! – but rather the errors that all the Popes have always condemned and that today are imposed by those who want to make the Holy Church the servant of her enemies (Lam 1:1), by those who delude themselves that they can keep the ecclesial body alive by separating it from its Head who is Christ.
We do not have a Pontiff who can judge and excommunicate us. If there were a Pope I would not even have been put on trial, nor excommunicated or declared schismatic, because we would both profess the same Faith and would receive Communion at the same altar. If today Bergoglio is putting me on trial to condemn and excommunicate me, it is precisely because he makes a public profession that he belongs to another religion and that he presides over another church – his church, the synodal church – from which I am “expelled” because I am a Catholic and, indeed, a stranger to it.
Pray, dear brothers. Pray first of all for the faithful and the ministers who live the contradiction of moral belonging to the true Church of Christ and at the same time belonging to the false church of the usurper Bergoglio, so that they may shake themselves from their torpor and line up underneath the Cross, bearing witness to the Truth. Pray for those Bishops and priests who humbly, and despite their infirmities, serve the Lord. Let us not nullify the Most Precious Blood that he shed for us, and indeed let us make sure that we can repeat with Saint Paul: Gratia Dei in me vacua non fuit (1 Cor 15:10). This Blood will descend today on our altar, and it will continue to descend there as long as the Church has Bishops who can perpetuate the Priesthood and priests who celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, according to the rite handed down to us by Sacred Tradition. For this reason, let us act with a serene heart and in the conviction that what I am doing is in conformity with God’s will. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
July 7, 2024
Dominica VII post Pentecosten
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| Archbishop Viganò suggests assassination attempt on Trump due to his anti-globalist stance |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-16-2024, 10:47 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Archbishop Viganò suggests assassination attempt on Trump due to his anti-globalist stance
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò noted that around the globe, attacks have been made on ‘avowedly anti-globalist political leaders.’
![[Image: Untitled-1.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Untitled-1.png)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
YouTube/Screenshot
Jul 15, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò tweeted in support of former President Donald Trump after an attempt on his life at a Saturday rally, suggesting that “anti-globalist” policies link state leaders who have been targeted for assassination.
“Adding to the previous criminal attacks against avowedly anti-globalist political leaders, is now this terrible attempt to eliminate President Donald J. Trump, the leading opponent of the radical globalist Left,” Viganò wrote in a Sunday X post.
The archbishop pointed out that Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán have suffered “similar criminal attacks,” and share with Trump a “staunch opposition to the New World Order” and “defense of national sovereignty.”
Fico was shot five times in an assassination attempt in May, only a few days after his government announced that it would not support the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement. Slovakia’s health minister declared the country would not sign any agreements weakening the nation’s sovereignty. Slovakia has also halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, refusing to align with NATO objectives in the region.
As president, Trump sought to preserve U.S. sovereignty through actions such as barricading the southern border against illegal immigrants and withdrawing the nation from the Paris climate accord in 2017, an agreement that focused on international governance and enforcement of high-cost global warming theory fixes.
“The subversive diabolical power of the international deep state is evident, is there for all to see. Its crimes against God and humanity can no longer be hidden,” Viganò continued. “I urge all Catholics, American patriots and people of good will to pray (to) Our Lord in this time of great threat looming over the world.”
Viganò has frequently warned against the efforts of the “deep state” and “deep Church” to establish a New World Order that will negate national sovereignty under a totalitarian international government with a single global currency and a one-world religion. The “control of citizens under the pretext of a pandemic, and the reduction of the population through the use of vaccines with new technologies” are key parts of these efforts, according to Viganò.
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| Opinion: “The Great Loss: Or, the Pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio” |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-16-2024, 08:07 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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From Rorate Caeli, introduction by Peter Kwasniewski - published July 10, 2024
Guest Article: “The Great Loss: Or, the Pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio”
The following analysis, originally in German (here) and submitted to Rorate Caeli in an authorized English translation, is the finest synopsis of the pontificate and the theology of Pope Francis that I have yet seen. We are very pleased to present it here. ~ PAK
![[Image: Vereinigte-monotheistische-Religionen-1536x1085.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGpDnlqSaFzwf4RtHHFoZ5nYqe7KeUw0YjMuL5xJndHIi9TKv_V4l9Pg5EPKiLbSjOd4i-VXRk_GEsxv9d1zwuGNmgTdMN9qi7-8JlQgMVvQcwupBjIJMFuln23xSYNTau8lSuSeYLJM_zXmWQInq3t49NDtkRDYk4OcI-VgncDLfFYzRVvDw/w400-h283/Vereinigte-monotheistische-Religionen-1536x1085.jpg)
The "Abrahamic Family House" promoted by Pope Francis
The Great Loss: Or, the Pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio
By Vigilius[1]
Jorge Bergoglio’s pontificate is characterized by numerous ambivalences. For example, the Pope speaks out against the woke ideology, but continually receives representatives of this very milieu; he opposes “faggotry” in the seminaries and at the same time is the greatest promoter of the Church’s gay movement; he calls abortion murder and yet has his Curia Archbishop Paglia disseminate conspicuously restrained statements on this serious matter; he sends critical letters to the Synodal Way, but finally lets everything go with the Germans, while he dismisses Bishop Strickland, actively prevents the practice of the Ordo Antiquus and destroys conservative spiritual movements; he makes relativistic statements about religion and then retracts them, gives Eugenio Scalfari several interviews of extremely dubious theological content while giving catecheses that formulate opposing positions—and so on.
These ambiguities and the fact that the Pope has never formally claimed his magisterial primacy for the formulation of a heresy have often caused confusion in the conservative camp and – along with the concern not to damage the papal office—have encouraged the tendency to remain apparently nuanced despite all criticism of individual points. One of the frequently heard relativization narratives is that Francis is erratic in nature, primarily politically and practically oriented, not at all a systematic-theoretical mind and, incidentally, surrounded by bad advisors.
Now I do not wish to deny that these contradictions and inconsistencies exist. Nevertheless, I am not of the opinion that no systematic approach can be discovered in this pontificate.
There may be ambiguities in the personality of the pope himself and vestiges of tradition that emerge again and again, as well as irritatingly divergent Vatican pronouncements. I would like to leave open the question of whether and to what extent the strange incoherences are of a planned, tactical nature in order to reassure the conservatives from time to time and to contain the resistance to this pontificate. Presumably this is occasionally the case. On the whole, however, it seems to me that these are genuine confusions, but of the kind that do not happen simply due to a lack of an organizing center; they are precisely the intrinsic consequence of the system that I assume wants to completely redefine the existence of the Church and whose next consequences in an institution as old as the Catholic Church must be chaotic.
It is significant that Francis himself said that he “makes a lot of messes”, and at the same time called on others to create unrest and chaos.[2] Ultimately, however, chaos is not an end in itself, but both an inevitable consequence of the revolution and its means of self-realization. Thus, in a way, there is a revolutionary current beneath the ambiguities and the momentarily emerging traditional relics, a spiritual primary tendency that forms the actual defining center of the Bergoglian era – sometimes more, sometimes less openly apparent. One must not allow oneself to be blinded by documents such as Dignitas infinita.
“Any great thought is unjust,” says Nicolás Gómez Dávila. This is because one could of course always differentiate more, claim further accentuations, nuances and ambiguities. Nevertheless, its constitutional injustice does not invalidate the fundamental truth of the idea. Moreover, we need such thoughts, because without them we would lose our perspective and lose ourselves in the thicket of that eagerness to differentiate that is widespread in the academic field and is quite capable of differentiating until the phenomenon has disappeared and we can no longer see anything at all. It is the task of thinking to make the phenomenon as clear-cut as possible.
In the following, I would like to deal with the Bergoglian system, of whose existence I am convinced. This is by no means to say that Francis is an important theologian. He is certainly not; in truth, Jorge Bergoglio has never formulated any propositions of note. In fact, the most impressive feature of this pontificate is precisely the insistence with which Bergoglio, unscrupulous and self-assured as only mediocre minds can be, pushed an old project that he by no means invented towards its completion. Ironically, his only historical significance lies precisely in this merely catalytic effectiveness, which will weigh on his memory like a dark curse.
Fratelli tutti
There is a remarkable little speech by Francis from the early phase of his pontificate, which he spoke to his friend, the Anglican-Episcopalian clergyman Tony Palmer, who later died in an accident in 2014, on his cell phone so that Palmer could present this message to the participants of a Pentecostal congress[3]. At the beginning of this video, which presents itself as spontaneous but is nevertheless systematically planned, the Pope apologizes for not speaking English but Italian, only to follow up with a deliberate sentimental change of category, saying that he did not want to speak English or Italian at all, but “heartfelt” with “the grammar of love”.
This is brilliantly staged. Instead of rational-distinctive theological terms, which could enable an argumentative dispute and thus legitimate opposition for the sake of the question of truth, the emotional level is used, which is a clever tactical manoeuvre with which possible opponents of the substantive position advocated by Francis are delegitimized a priori and eliminated from the field. The emotionalized coordinate system established by the speaker without further ado opens up a highly moral discourse in which all objections must immediately appear hard-hearted and hurtful. Francis sets the rules of the game even for his opponents. At the same time, this “speech from the heart” corresponds precisely to the core concern presented, which is both secured and realized through the chosen rhetorical method: unity across borders and unconditional fraternity. According to the Bishop of Rome, he is already realizing both of these with what he explicitly calls his “bishop-brother Tony Palmer”. In this scenario, the critic of such emphases of unity can no longer be anything other than a villain. In his hardening, the critic disregards Pope Francis’ explicitly stated “longing to embrace” the brethren of other denominations, preferring instead those theological distinctions that the Pope explicitly and without differentiation identifies as sinful divisions.
In the further course of his speech, which is governed by the grammar of love, the Pope turns to the Old Testament story of Joseph, which forms the organizing center of his entire address. Joseph’s brothers, driven by hunger, go to Egypt to buy bread. Their money, Francis remarks with a loaded expression, is not enough for them to eat. But then they find something even more important than bread, namely reunion with their brother. “All of us have currency,” says Francis, “the currency of our culture, our history, we have a lot of cultural riches, and religious riches, and we have diverse traditions.” And now comes the big confrontation: “But we have to encounter one other as brothers.” According to the Pope, it is the “tears of love,” longing for communion, that bring us together and which are much more important than the aforementioned secondary riches of particular religious traditions, which form the inauthentic sphere of theological questions of truth and the corresponding lines of conflict. To put it more precisely: The “tears of love” do not make us brothers first and foremost, but allow us to discover the actual treasure hidden beneath the doctrinal propositions of particular traditions, namely, that we have always been brothers already.
This formulates the simple and yet extremely consequential basic axiom of the Bergoglian world view. It is dominated by the idea that universal brotherhood, beyond secondary religious traditions, is the most important principle of all for morality and concrete political action, but also for the theology and spiritual practice of individuals and the Church as a whole.
During his term of office to date, Pope Francis has expanded the guiding category of universal fraternity to include the aspect of ecological responsibility for “Mother Earth”. However, both motifs are only two sides of the same coin. In his two writings “Laudato Si” and “Laudate Deum”, concern for the planet becomes the central focus of the Church’s attention. Once again, apart from the serious problem that the Pope is here making himself the custodian of scientifically highly controversial economic and climate-ecological positions and is thus definitely overstepping the precisely defined area of magisterial competence, Francis is attempting to give the ecological paradigm theological centrality—far beyond its merely natural and ethical relevance.
This is why the Pope’s famous statements at a Focolare meeting celebrating the international day of action to raise awareness against environmental pollution, known as “Earth Day”, are so significant. When Francis proclaims here that our common humanity is the decisive factor—as when he says: “‘But I belong to this religion, or to that other one ...’ That is not important!”[4]—this sentence is not remarkable because it claims that the specific religious affiliation is insignificant when it comes to the fight against environmental pollution. That would be trivial. Rather, it is relevant because Jorge Bergoglio fundamentally and unambiguously assumes that the fight against environmental pollution as an integral part of the fight for a better, i.e. a socialist world of brotherhood, is the most important concern of religion in general and that, consequently, the other differences between religious traditions are of marginal relevance.
The commitment to the idea of universal fraternity beyond particular religious traditions, established as the theological core of the church’s self-understanding and enriched by the socio-ecological idea of world transformation, forms the defining center of the Bergoglian universe. In the eyes of Jorge Bergoglio, it is, so to speak, the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae that justifies the existence of the Church in the first place. The implications of this paradoxical position—that the essence of a particular tradition, i.e. the differentia specifica, consists in relativizing itself and thus negating it as such—are so monstrous for the Catholic Church that we must examine them separately in a next step. First, however, we need to make the phenomenon sufficiently visible.
How little exaggerated the assertion of this definitional center is, is shown by the fact that it has persisted throughout the entire pontificate even in such a way that—not least for political reasons—it has increasingly emerged as an all-impregnating principle. The most recent example is the Pope’s last Lenten message, in which he interprets Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt, returning allegorically to the Orient as he did ten years ago. The text, the reading of which can be called a true work of penance, bears the title “Through the Desert God Leads us to Freedom”.[5]
You can already guess everything, and you guess right. Pharaoh and the slave house stand for those “oppressive bonds” that deny “the brotherhood that originally binds us together”, while this brotherhood itself forms the “promised land”. There it is again, the “fraternità universale”, which is translated into German as “Geschwisterlichkeit” on the Vatican website itself and which forms the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae bergogliensis. Accordingly, Francis deciphers the longing of the grumbling Israelites for the fleshpots of Egypt and the lingering reign of Pharaoh as a desire to return to “oppressive bonds”, which desire is identical to the “globalization of indifference” that, as Pope Francis explicitly reminds us, was criticized by him on his trip to the migrants in Lampedusa.
According to Jorge Bergoglio, Lent is about asserting the “dream of the promised land”—repeatedly referred to as such—against a “growth model that divides us” and “pollutes the earth, the water and the air”. However, Pharaoh’s kingdom, which is opposed to the promised land, is not only determined by economic ties and eco-ethical misconceptions, but at least as much by those ties that relate to “our position”, “tradition” or socio-cultural group. The “Lenten season” is intended to make us recognize these particular relationships that lead to inequalities, so that we can then abandon the economic, social, and religious-traditional “security of what we have already seen” in favour of moving out into the new world of “worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood”.
According to Jorge Bergoglio, this dream of the “new world” and “new humanity”, which is no longer “tied to money, certain projects, ideas, goals, our position, a tradition, or even certain people”, is nothing less than the “dream of God” himself: a dream of the “Promised Land towards which we are heading when we leave slavery”. God dreams the socialist dream of the rediscovery and reawakening of the universal fraternity that has always existed, in which the “darkness of inequalities” is dispelled and all become “companions”. It is a dream in which exclusivist claims to truth, religious dogmatics, distinctive religious community identities, and all circumscribed cultural and ethnic affiliations have lost their supposedly oppressive binding force. Freedom, on the other hand, is defined as being beyond the shackles of particularity, as identity with the generality of the cosmos of boundless brotherhood and sisterhood.
The Promised Land is realized in a processual way; we must work for it with all our strength and overcome our fixation on particular identities, which are considered to be egotistical. This means, not least, that we must fight against our temptation, coming from our need for security, to make a particular creed absolute beyond the universal fraternity that has always existed. The papal theory of fraternity makes it unavoidable that all the traditional theological beliefs must submit to it and be redefined accordingly. Any martyrdom for the sake of a creed must also be dissolved, as must any mission related to a specific creed; both will be transformed into the categories of “social commitment” and “listening dialog”, which will become the new guiding spiritual dimensions. The overcoming of “our ideas” and “our tradition” as well as the correlating classical-religious activities—in short: the overcoming of everything “backwardist” (“indietristic”) is declared to be the central religious commandment, God’s own will and mission.
It is an obvious fact that Pope Francis is an authoritarian man of power. However, my thesis is that his rule is exercised far less irrationally than is claimed in many descriptions of this pontificate. Pope Francis has a basic agenda, and it is the one I have described, which he is implementing in the Church with remarkable consistency. Francis is primarily neither a pragmatist nor a politician; in his own words, he is above all a “dreamer”. To put it less romantically: Jorge Bergoglio is primarily an ideologue.
The Great Loss
In the following, my aim is to shed light on the theological depth of the theory that religious traditions are only of secondary relevance, a theory that is held now even by a pope. It would presumably be difficult for many religious convictions to accept the Bergoglian theory of relativity; it is probably most compatible with Asian spiritualities. For the Catholic Church, however, it is devastating.
Crucially, it is the essential characteristic of the Catholic tradition that it does not see itself as a mere context of tradition. The tradition of the Church fundamentally understands the Church not as a structure of tradition-formations, i.e. of conscious ideas, formulas of faith, and symbolic practices, but as an inner moment of an ontological event from which these tradition formations logically emerge in the first place. Already with the texts of the New Testament, the ecclesial consciousness affirms and testifies to this decisive event of being, with which the Church stands and falls. If this traditional faith were to be replaced by faith in tradition itself, nihilism would have already taken hold and even the traditional context would disappear à la longue. If the reference to tradition is not supported by faith in the truth, i.e. in the very being of the object of Church tradition, tradition degenerates into a purely formal “traditionalism” that cannot sustain itself. It feeds on a faith that it has already lost. I know priests who were traditionalists with inquisitorial verve and enthusiastically celebrated the Old Rite, until their long-standing unbelief, which was obscuring itself in their own eyes, broke through so massively that they gave up their office and became equally hardened ideological gay activists. The two phenomena are only seemingly contradictory. In truth, they are merely different manifestations of identical nihilism.
The event to which the traditional faith of the Church fundamentally refers is that God has constituted a new, and therefore supernatural, context of being in Christ in an undeducible act of grace that reaches infinitely beyond the mere possibilities of created nature. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Cor 5:17). The novelty of this new being was described with great boldness by the Church Fathers as the theosis of man, in which man remains a creature, but in grace is lifted infinitely beyond the sphere of mere creation and receives such an inwardly transforming share in divine life, in God’s own holiness, that the mystic St. John of the Cross can compare man transformed in Christ to a log of wood which, when placed in a blazing fire, can hardly be separated from the ambient glowing embers. In the more prosaic language of scholastic theology, this means that the Holy Spirit becomes the principle of our spiritual acts and, in the visio beatifica, even of the human body.
As Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus already asserted[6], the human spirit is constitutionally characterized by an “appetitus innatus” that is oriented towards the supernatural life, which finds its inner completion in the unveiled contemplation of God. Although the desiderium in visionem beatificam is inherent in the human being, created nature is never able to achieve this supernatural goal of its own natural longing by itself. Moreover, nature has no right to its perfection; the gift of the goal remains pure grace, also in the sense of complete lack of entitlement. In other words, it is precisely part of man’s essential nature to be so dispossessed of himself and so lacking in autonomy that he is completely dependent, materially and formally, on an external, unavailable freedom for the perfection of his own nature, which may have mercy, but can also refuse this mercy. A relationship of dependence is formulated here that cannot be conceived in a more radical way.
What is of great relevance in our context is that the Catholic Church does not assume an extrinsic stance toward the supernatural being-in-Christ to which she bears witness. In her proclamation, she does not simply deal with something that is essentially different from herself, but rather, as I said earlier, understands herself as an inner moment of the ontological event outlined above. The new being-in-Christ is the Church herself. As his Spirit-filled body, she is nothing less than the supernatural communion of life with the incarnate Son, from whom, as her congregating supernatural head, she is the One, Holy, and Catholic, in which God’s Trinitarian communion of life is revealed to us. “Extra Christum nulla salus” is factually convergent to “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”.
Accordingly, human fraternity and the “unity of the human race” are indeed central topoi of the Christian faith, but they are so only in the context of this supernatural connection, which must be strictly observed. Leaving aside once again the question of whether it makes sense to say that we are always already brothers qua human beings and form a human family for reasons of original sin theology alone, the category of brotherhood becomes a substantially relevant dimension for the Catholic only under the supernatural consideration of the ecclesiologically formed being-in-Christ. It is entirely consistent with the New Testament that, for John of the Cross, even the bodily brotherhood of mankind is ontologically a radically secondary dimension.
Against this background, it becomes understandable why the Bergoglian position is destructive for the Church. It is destructive because the Pope wrongly determines the ontological status of tradition, and he wrongly determines it because he wrongly determines the actual object of faith. Francis allows the Church of Tradition to fall seamlessly into the category of logical subordination, because for him it is nothing other than a tradition—one among many. In this reductionistic sense, Bergoglio is a radical “traditionalist”: there is no reality that corresponds to the traditional confessions. For Jorge Bergoglio, they are all mere ideas and, in principle, arbitrary practices; one could also say that the tradition of the Church is a mere self-circulating discourse whose claim to truth was invented by people who, due to psychologically explainable needs for demarcation, like to lull themselves into a sense of security and construct detached clerical special worlds in which they perform liturgical operas in lace rochets.
The Modern Project of Naturalizing Christianity
As a result of this pontificate, the immanentist propaganda of natural fraternity theology has become unrestrained and ubiquitous in the Church. Nevertheless, Jorge Bergoglio did not invent it. The project of naturalizing Christianity goes back to the 18th century and extends from the Enlightenment through German Idealism and liberal Protestantism as well as the various modernist propositions of the 19th century and politicizing theologies of the 20th century to the present day. One of its current manifestations is the idea, which has long been popular in theological circles, of viewing the New Testament as a mere internal continuation of the Old Testament and—as the Freiburg fundamental theologian Magnus Striet significantly likes to do—speaking primarily of the “Jewish Jesus”[7]. One could call this the Old Testamentization of the New Testament.
The punchline of this process is to strip the promises of salvation in the New Testament of their supernatural and therefore Christological character and to make Israel’s primarily this-worldly religious relationship absolute. In the Old Testament, God’s saving action essentially refers to inner-worldly dimensions: the one blessed by God has a long earthly life and has male offspring; the people of Israel are given a certain geographical territory as their homeland; the people’s lives are ordered by the divine will made into a legal code; God inflicts physical punishment on Israel when it is disobedient, just as he also frees Israel from earthly bondage; he stands by the people in battle with other peoples, and so on. Accordingly, Yahweh is identified as the true God in Jewish theology by the fact that, unlike the gods of the other nations, he actually helps—he proves his power empirically.
It was above all the Church Fathers who developed a pioneering Christological hermeneutic of the Old Testament. The Old Testament texts were primarily read prefiguratively and allegorically, as the Church still does today, for example in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil: the sacrifice of Abraham refers to the sacrifice of Christ, the crossing of the Red Sea is a symbol of baptism, the Promised Land is the eternal communion of life with the Risen One—and so on. In other words, this interpretation raises the theology of Israel and the covenant made at Sinai to that actually supernatural level of the relationship between God and the world, which is ontologically constituted exclusively in Christ, i.e. in the “unio hypostatica”. Israel as such is thus lifted into the Church as the mystical body of Christ. There is a context of reference between the two testaments, but it is organized in a strictly Christocentric way.
The much-vaunted sublimation of the Old Testament image of God in the discourse of the New Testament therefore does not mean that the New Testament God no longer bears any dark traits. In essence, the sublimation consists rather in the described process, namely, that the theological sphere of the Old Testament becomes a truly supernatural and mystical one: The center of the salvific action is the inner communion of life of man with God opened up by the gratia Christi, which has the visio beatifica as its essential goal. At the same time, from an epistemic point of view, this means that the Old Testament cannot be adequately understood by itself, but that Christ alone is its decisive hermeneutical approach.
In the course of the development of modern theology, this interpretative relationship has now been reversed insofar as the determination of Jesus’ salvific action and that of Jesus’ very being is undertaken in a merely linear continuum with the basic theological approach to salvation in the Old Testament. This means that the prefiguration context described above, which forms a peculiar complex of continuity and discontinuity, is abandoned in this new hermeneutic. However, this means nothing less than the loss of the theology of supernaturalism that has characterized the Church’s tradition of interpreting Holy Scripture, as seen especially in the liturgy. However, the intention behind this operation is by no means a specifically sought proximity to the faith of Israel. Rather, the Old Testament is strategically used for the sake of a general axial shift in the definition of the actual object of Christian faith. The aim is an inner-worldly Christianity whose focus is on empirical, natural-moral, psychological, and political contexts. As in the Pope’s Lenten address, God appears on this horizon only as the one who wants to bring about a changed world among us through our commitment, and to improve life in this world.
Recently, the blogger “Caminante” published a text entitled “They have robbed us of religion.”[8] Caminante refers directly to the new Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge García Cuerva, recently appointed by Pope Francis, who formulates an Easter greeting in a video published on the website of the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference. This episcopal sermon is characterized above all by the fact that he indiscriminately conflates the theological definition of Easter with the Old Testament Exodus and Passover. Caminante states that the bishop “does not mention the Lord Jesus Christ at all. He has been erased from the horizon of religion because He is politically incorrect. The Primate speaks only of a humanistic God, to which Voltaire and the fiercest representatives of anti-Christianity would have consented without hesitation.”
This episcopal address is one of the countless manifestations of the naturalization theology described above. It is only logical that the bishop, who is theologically very close to the incumbent pope and did not come to his post by chance, no longer speaks of Christ’s substitutionary atoning death, but only of “liberation” and the advent of a more just world, which he sees symbolized in Israel’s exodus from Egypt and, merely in a very vague sense, in Easter.
The extent to which this program has already been implemented in the Church through Pope Bergoglio’s catalytic effectiveness can be seen, to take some examples, in the equally emblematic events I would like to mention briefly. For example, the chief organizer of last year’s World Youth Day in Portugal, whom Francis has since made a cardinal, said that he did not want to convert anyone to Christ and the Church, but that the only essential thing was that everyone should simply be there and be accepted as they are in their natural state of existence. The decisive aspect is natural, boundless fraternity, which, according to Francis, implies ecclesiological inclusionism: “all, all, all” belong. The newly appointed Bishop of Hong Kong speaks in a similar vein, denying any proselytizing and missionary work, i.e. any Christocentric ambition of the Church, and instead speaks of only wanting to proclaim the all-encompassing divine love and mercy that extends unconditionally to all—just as Jesus supposedly did.
And since Mariology has been a function of Christology since the beginnings of the Church, the Vatican’s chief Mariologist, Father Cecchin, has now also demystified the Mother of God and, following the current magisterium of Pope Francis, adapted her to the emancipatory parameters prevailing today and to the transcultural ideal of reconciliation. Overall, according to Cecchin’s view, the essence of the figures of Jesus and Mary is to serve us fraternally as friendly models for a happy and fulfilled life, beyond disturbing messages[9]. The supernatural cosmos, from the talk of Mary’s mediation of grace to the theology of atonement, no longer appears in substance here. Thus, in all these phenomena, the same basic process of naturalization and secularization of originally supernaturally understood theological beliefs always appears, which have long since become embarrassing to those who would be called ex officio to proclaim and defend them.
Agere contra ecclesiam
Calling Jorge Bergoglio an ideologue may be a correct predication, but it is an objectifying attribution. It should never be overlooked that Francis does not see himself as an ideologue, but rather as an executor of the divine will, as Gladius Dei, who must take up arms against the enemies he has identified of the divine dream of the promised land. The pharaoh-like, divisive “backwardists” with their stubborn claims to truth must be fought. It is not without irony: Jorge Bergoglio believes he has a divine mission, and one that consists precisely in the abolition of the mission. Bergoglio is fighting the last of all wars, which consists precisely in the eradication of the enemies of peace, i.e. the tradition-obsessed enemies of universal fraternity, and this war to end all conflicts of truth and inequalities is, according to Carl Schmitt, the cruelest of all, because it must declare the opponent of unconditional, total harmony to be a moral monster[10]. It is a papal jihad, which alone can explain the constant rage against the representatives of religious dogmatism. That these representatives are the true enemies of God follows necessarily from the Bergoglian orthodoxy of natural fraternity universalism, which must now regard everything that was previously considered orthodox in the Church as heresy contrary to God and burn it at the stake of tenderness.
It seems to me that only the concept of Jorge Bergoglio as this Gladius Dei can adequately explain his political acts. The theological accusation made by opponents of this pontificate—that Francis is acting against the Church—is raised by Bergoglio himself, and intentionally seriously, against his critics. This is the “great inversion” of which Caminante spoke.[11] That is why I do not share Archbishop Viganò’s view that Jorge Bergoglio, on assuming the papal office, personally refused his consent to desire, with the office, what the Church desires: that it be used for the Church’s good. In no way does Francis deliberately want something bad for the Church. For that to be the case, Francis would have to be aware of the correct concept in principle, and consciously act against it. The opposite is true: he only wants the very best for the Church as he understands it, and to this end he makes full use of the possibilities of his office. He wants to save the Church precisely from the hands of those whose faith he, like Dom Hélder Câmara, considers to be nothing more than an ideological superstructure, an anti-Jesuanic invention of elitist, rigorist people who like to float in baroque worlds instead of taking care of global socialism, the promotion of gay conditions, environmental protection and climate change, as well as shipping as many Muslim migrants as possible to Europe, as the Gospel supposedly demands in the interpretation of universal fraternity theology.
Conversely, against this background, it not only becomes clear why Francis so vehemently campaigns against people like Cardinal Burke or Bishop Strickland, while Bishops Georg Bätzing and Franz-Josef Overbeck are still in office and can basically implement their agenda unhindered, but it also makes the Pope’s solidarity with the global financial elites more plausible. Recently, José Arturo Quarracino published a text in which he pointed out that Francis is not a Peronist, but rather a partisan of globalists such as George Soros.[12] Whatever the truth may be about Bergoglio’s repeatedly claimed Peronism, it is undeniable that Bergoglio has collaborated with the globalist elites. This is evidenced not only by the various political acts, such as the establishment of a rigid Vatican vaccination regime during the so-called “coronavirus pandemic” and the relevant appointments to the papal academies, but above all by Bergoglian theology itself. Whether Bergoglio’s assessment of these globalists and alleged “philanthropists” is correct remains to be seen. However, he obviously assumes that these people, with their global programs of inclusive capitalism, the ecological turnaround, climate protection, overcoming national borders, the promotion of a one-world religion, etc., are working on precisely the same project that is formulated in his own theory of universal fraternity and in his understanding of the Church as the custodian of the “promised land” of this natural fraternity.
The Abandoned Christ
If one takes the Pope’s statements seriously, the conclusion is unavoidable that in his spiritual cosmos there is no longer that supernatural being-in-Christ for which the martyrs went to their deaths; for which the missionaries, starting with Paul, traveled the world under the harshest privations; for and by which the hermits turned their backs on the world and founded the contemplative religious life; that supernatural being-in-Christ that brought forth the sacramental priestly ministry as well as the liturgies and magnificent church architecture in which the supernatural context of life is communicated and celebrated. However, this also inevitably means that for Jorge Bergoglio, not only does the Church no longer exist as the mystical body of Christ, but fundamentally Christ himself no longer exists.
Eugenio Scalfari claimed after one of his interviews with Francis – nor was it denied by the Vatican—that the Pope did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. In the context of Jorge Bergoglio’s actually verifiable statements, I consider it highly plausible that Scalfari is reporting correctly here. How could Francis believe in the divinity of Jesus if it is precisely this theological predicate that decisively makes the theology of universal natural brotherhood beyond secondary religious traditions impossible?
If Jesus is the Christ, the second divine person incarnate, then his work cannot be aimed at anything other than the constitution of that supernatural relationship of life which consists in the mystical unity with himself opened up by sanctifying grace. Then he himself, and he alone in person, is the divine truth; then his death is a vicarious act of atonement to make this very unity possible; then the question of eternal salvation and perdition is decided by him alone; then he himself is the central object of worship, and before him every knee must bow. If he is the Christ, then the sacraments are indispensable as his own action on man for salvation; then the Church is both the central mediator of salvation and the supernatural communion with Christ himself; then there must be a mission aimed at converting all men to him as the Christ. If he is the Christ, then there can be no ecclesial discourse on God without Christology, because he is the only way to the divinity, which, in its inner mystery of life, is revealed and made accessible only in him. If he is the Christ, then Mary is the Mother of God and has the sole task of leading us to her Son.
No one-world religion can be made with this Christ; in his absolutist claim about himself, he refuses to be relativized in any way. He is absolutely incomparable. In short: if Jesus is the Christ, then all the articulations, from the sentences quoted from Jorge Bergoglio to the countless statements by Bergoglian bishops, are logically impossible. Conversely, this means that these statements presuppose the conscious, albeit explicitly unacknowledged, negation of classical Christology, provided the gentlemen are still reasonably sane. The whole rhetoric of mercy and apparent closeness to Jesus in the Bergoglian interpretation of the New Testament cannot conceal this. Basically, in these exegeses Jesus appears—as he did with Goethe—as the authoritative opponent of Christ.
This brings us to a shocking finding. In contrast to popes such as John XXII or Honorius, who misunderstood individual elements of church dogma, Francis has the chutzpah to take on the whole of church tradition—to change the sign before the equation. Under such an ideology, the Catholic Church must completely collapse. The church of Jorge Bergoglio no longer has anything to do with the Church of which the tradition speaks; it is, in substance, something radically different.
From the perspective of the original Church, Francis should never elevate the natural fraternity category above the tradition of the Church, because in doing so he would only perpetuate a context that Paul calls—explicitly also with regard to questions of interpersonality—the “schemata tou kosmou toutou” (1 Cor 7:31). However, these forms of the old world are destined by God to become in Christ that supernatural context of brotherhood, that is, that new creation which the Catholic Church mediates in its sacramental acts and is already itself in intenso. Only She is the “promised land”. The work of a pope should be directed with all his strength precisely towards this dimension. While God himself is concerned with divinizing man in supernatural grace and bringing forth a new heaven and a new earth, the narrow-minded papal view focuses on the old world and degrades the new world—which has been the subject of Church tradition for two millennia—to a matter of secondary relevance. This is truly grotesque.
At the same time, the Church must draw the Pope’s attention to the fact that the deconstruction of Her mission, which the Pope places under the suspicious term of “proselytism,” fixates man on the old world, thus inhumanely depriving him of that supernatural sphere towards which he is precisely ordered in order to fulfil his humanity. Natural fraternity theology does not satisfy the aforementioned “appetitus innatus,” i.e. the actual hunger that is proper to man as man. This is why only the classical mission of the Church truly loves man.
However, after long attempts at repression and whitewashing, we must now finally admit that the theological tradition in which Francis stands has always intended precisely this transmutation. Incidentally, it would be an important undertaking to examine precisely what role the three relevant predecessor popes actually played in this process. This is much more complex, especially with regard to Joseph Ratzinger, than the conservative idolatries of Benedict would like to admit. One only has to ask oneself how it can be explained that after the joint pontificate of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, which lasted well over three decades, what we have now been suffering for 11 years could happen. This cannot be due only to poor personnel policy decisions and a lack of psychological judgment.
Whatever the reason, the Church has reached a state in which Christ has become offensive and embarrassing, and not just to many ministers. The spirit of the supernatural mystery has—with strong papal assistance—largely disappeared from the Church, which has degenerated into a pigsty. The Lord will not put up with this denial by his own Church on earth.
[1] Starting soon, the author runs his own blog, where essays on theological and philosophical topics will appear regularly: www.einsprueche.com
[2] https://katholisches.info/2024/04/02/der...snarrativ/; https://www.herder.de/communio/theologie...e-waechst/; https://www.katholisch.de/artikel/2537-i...cheinander
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHbEWw7l_Ek
[4] https://katholisches.info/2016/04/29/ear...t-wichtig/
[5] https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco...a2024.html
[6] Cf. Rupert Johannes Mayer: "Zum desiderium naturale visionis Dei nach Johannes Duns Scotus, and Thomas de Vio Cajetan: Eine Anmerkung zum Denken Henri De Lubacs," in: Angelicum 85 (2008), 737-763.
[7] Striet is an excellent example of the theological tendency described here. There is nothing left of the classical Christology of the Church in Striet’s work. In Striet’s bleak attempts at theory, it, like all traditional convictions in general, is leveled into the Enlightenment flatlands. Cf. e.g. Walter Homolka, Magnus Striet, Christologie auf dem Prüfstand, Jesus der Jude—Christus der Erlöser, Freiburg 2019.
[8] https://caminante-wanderer.blogspot.com/...igion.html
[9] https://katholisches.info/2023/10/16/bes...llziehbar/
[10] Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, Berlin 92015, 35.
[11] https://caminante-wanderer.blogspot.com/...rsion.html
[12] https://katholisches.info/2024/01/31/das...s-gloriam/
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| New Zealand: Traditional Transalpine Redemptorists Kicked Out of the Diocese |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-15-2024, 06:40 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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New Zealand: Transalpine Redemptorists Kicked Out
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gloria.tv | July 15, 2024
Bishop Michael Gielen of Christchurch, New Zealand, has forced the Transalpine Redemptorists, who celebrate the Mass in the Roman Rite, to leave the diocese.
The decree of 14 July also removes their priestly faculties within the diocese. It is effective immediately: "Any ministry [...] will be unauthorised and liturgical celebrations will be illicit - that is, outside the rules of the Church."
There are wishy-washy accusations of "spiritual and psychological abuse" and "unauthorised" exorcisms against the Redemptorists.
Former Bishop Robert McGuckin of Toowoomba, Australia, carried out an Apostolic Visitation in November 2023. Subsequently, the Vatican's Dicastery for Religious sent recommendations to Bishop Gielen, who is now happy to accept them.
Gielen promises to make "a new provision for the pastoral care and celebration of the Eucharist and other sacraments for the Traditional Latin Mass community" in Kaiapoi, starting on 21 July.
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| The New "Instrumentum Laboris" Shows Why Catholics Aren’t Welcome in the Synodal Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-14-2024, 08:04 PM - Forum: General Commentary
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The New Instrumentum Laboris Shows Why Catholics Aren’t Welcome in the Synodal Church
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Robert Morrison, Remnant Columnist [red font emphasis mine]| July 10, 2024
“Ecumenical dialogue is fundamental to fostering an understanding of synodality and the unity of the Church. Above all, it drives us to imagine authentically ecumenical synodal practices, including forms of consultation and discernment on shared and urgent concerns.” (Synod on Synodality, Instrumentum Laboris for the Second Session (October 2024))
Although we have already seen more than enough to unequivocally condemn Francis’s Synod on Synodality as a blasphemous assault on the Catholic Church, it is worth considering how the newly released Instrumentum Laboris refines the Synodal Church’s anti-Catholic contours. As discussed in a recent article, it has been evident for some time that Francis’s Synodal Church is shaping up to be Protestantism in union with a Bishop of Rome. The new Instrumentum Laboris elaborates on two key aspects of the Protestantization of the Synodal Church: celebrating diversity of religious belief, and decentralizing doctrinal decisions.
Celebrating Diversity of Religious Belief. We have seen that the Synodal Church encourages confused Catholics to embrace the sins of those who do not follow the Catholic moral teaching, but the new Instrumentum Laboris includes a few passages that make it clear that members of the Synodal Church must also celebrate diversity of religious belief:
- “Throughout the synod process, the Church's desire for unity has grown hand in hand with an awareness of its diversity. It was precisely the sharing among the Churches that reminded us that there is no mission without context, that is, without a clear awareness that the gift of the Gospel is offered to people and communities living in particular times and places, not closed in on themselves but bearers of stories that must be recognised, respected, and opened to broader horizons. One of the greatest gifts received along the way has been the opportunity to encounter and celebrate the beauty of the ‘pluriform face of the Church’ (John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 40). . . . In this way, different cultures can grasp the unity that underlies and completes their vibrant plurality. Appreciating contexts, cultures, and diversity is key to growing as a missionary synodal Church.”
- “The communal horizon of the exchange of gifts, outlined in Part I, inspires the relationship between the Churches. It combines an emphasis on the bonds that shape the unity of the Church with an appreciation of the particularities linked to the context in which each local Church lives, with its history and tradition. Adopting a synodal style enables us to overcome the idea that all Churches must necessarily move at the same pace on every issue. On the contrary, differences in pace can be valued as an expression of legitimate diversity and an opportunity for the exchange of gifts and for mutual enrichment.”
- “The pluralism of cultures and the fruitfulness of the encounter and dialogue between them are a condition of the Church's life, an expression of and not a threat to its catholicity. The salvific message remains one and the same: ‘There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4:4-6). This message is pluriform and expressed in diverse peoples, cultures, traditions, and languages. Taking this plurality of forms seriously avoids hegemonic tendencies and mitigates the risk of reducing the message of salvation to a single understanding of ecclesial life and its liturgical, pastoral, or moral expression. The web of relations within a synodal Church, made visible in the exchange of gifts between the Churches and guaranteed by the unity of the College of bishops headed by the bishop of Rome, is a dynamic guardian of a unity that can never become uniformity.”
This may seem subtle, but the Synodal architects show their true intent in the third passage: “Taking this plurality of forms seriously avoids hegemonic tendencies and mitigates the risk of reducing the message of salvation to a single understanding of ecclesial life and its liturgical, pastoral, or moral expression” This removes all reasonable doubt — it is evident that the Synodal Church celebrates not only diversity of culture but also diversity of “ecclesial life” and “liturgical, pastoral, [and] moral expression.”
Decentralizing Doctrinal Decisions. The Instrumentum Laboris also reveals another aspect of the Protestantization of the Synodal Church that is even more clear, the decentralization of doctrinal decisions:
- “It is up to the local Churches to increasingly implement all the possibilities of giving life to authentically synodal decision-making processes that suit the context's specificities. This is a task of great importance and urgency since the successful implementation of the Synod largely depends on it. Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible. This will alienate those members of the People of God who have drawn strength and hope from the synodal journey.”
- “From all that has been gathered so far, during this synodal process, the following proposals emerge: (a) recognition of Episcopal Conferences as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority, assuming socio-cultural diversity within the framework of a multifaceted Church, and favouring the appreciation of liturgical, disciplinary, theological, and spiritual expressions appropriate to different socio-cultural contexts . . .”
- “Today, the local Churches are also made up of associations and communities that are old and new expressions of Christian life. In particular, Institutes of consecrated life and Societies of apostolic life contribute much to the life of the local Churches and the vitality of missionary action. The same applies to lay associations, ecclesial movements and new communities. Today, belonging to the Church is expressed in an increasing number of forms not formally attached to a geographically defined base but related to bonds of association. This variety of forms must be promoted in the light of the missionary orientation and the ecclesial discernment of what the Lord asks in each context.”
At first glance, the third passage may not seem to relate specifically to decentralization of doctrinal decisions but it has the most intriguing implications because it allows for decision-making at the level of “Institutes of consecrated life and Societies of apostolic life” that may span various geographies. As discussed in a recent article, this may help explain why Rome has (at least temporarily) shown favor to the ex-Ecclesia Dei communities (e.g., the FSSP and ICKSP): it validates the model for “recognizing” the Catholicity not only of actual Catholic institutes that dissent from Francis’s revolution but also non-Catholic groups (i.e., Protestants) that dissent from both Francis’s revolution and Catholicism.
Again, we did not need anything further to alert us to the need to fight against Francis’s Synodal Church, but the new Instrumentum Laboris may open the eyes of some who have yet to see. By now there can be little excuse for those who go along with the Synod, hoping that it will avoid taking a major step such as approving the ordination of women. Those headline issues now appear to be deliberate distractions to keep otherwise rational Catholics from realizing that Francis and his collaborators have been creating a universalized form of Protestantism in union with a Bishop of Rome.
All of this helps us better understand why the German and other heretical bishops remain in good standing while Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has been “excommunicated.” Diversity of religious belief is celebrated in Francis’s new Synodal Church and those who make too much of a show about saying that the non-Catholics are wrong (and need to convert) will not be welcome. May God grant us all the grace to hold firm to beliefs that are not welcome in Francis’s blasphemous Synodal Church. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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| Leaked US Army briefing slide calls pro-life organizations ‘terrorist groups’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-13-2024, 08:44 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Leaked US Army briefing slide calls pro-life organizations ‘terrorist groups’
The slide, reportedly from a terrorism briefing at Fort Liberty, names the pro-life organizations National Right to Life Committee and Operation Rescue as ‘terrorist groups,’ characterized by their opposition to abortion and Roe v. Wade (misspelled ‘Row’).
Jul 11, 2024
FORT LIBERTY, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted]) — Military officials under the Biden administration continue to teach that their peaceful political opponents are violent extremists, according to a report about a terrorism presentation given to U.S. Army members at Fort Liberty (the renamed Fort Bragg).
Sam Shoemate, an independent journalist and self-described “advocate for service members seeking justice,” posted to X/Twitter Wednesday evening a photograph of a slide he said was shown during an anti-terrorism briefing at Fort Bragg, right after one about the Islamist terror group ISIS.
The slide names the pro-life groups National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and Operation Rescue (OR) as “terrorist groups,” characterized by their opposition to abortion and Roe v. Wade (misspelled “Row”). It lists various types of peaceful activism pro-life groups typically practice.
The bottom two bullet points are partially obscured, but “Bombing of Clinics” and “Attempted Murders” can be read. Left-wing activists have long attempted to tar pro-lifers as a whole with the rare violent acts of a few, which mainstream pro-life activists and organizations have always overwhelmingly condemned. Especially in recent years, pro-abortion violence has been far more common than anti-abortion violence, as admitted by FBI Director Christopher Wray in November 2022.
The slide also shows an example of a “Choose Life” license plate, which are available in many states and the proceeds from which typically go to support local pro-life organizations.
“The military and Dept of Defense are insanely out of control,” Shoemate said. “Service-members are being indoctrinated to view Pro-Life groups as the enemy.” In a follow-up post, he noted that attendees told him the violent leftist group Antifa was not mentioned as an example of domestic “terrorists.”
The Blaze investigative journalist Steve Baker reached out to Shoemate to discuss the story privately, and later posted that the story’s authenticity had been confirmed to his satisfaction.
The presentation is far from the first instance of military officials attempting to stigmatize right-of-center political views, or more generally turning its attention to the domestic political and cultural priorities of liberals at the expense of the Armed Forces’ historical mission of defending the nation.
The steady rise of “woke” ideology within the military, which has persisted and grown since the Clinton years despite the presidencies of Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump, has been intensified by current President Joe Biden, who upon taking office quickly moved to open the military to recruits suffering from gender dysphoria in a reversal of Trump administration policy, then had his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin launch a review of supposed “domestic extremism” within the military that many saw as a pretext to purge conservative views from the ranks.
In March 2023, the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) published an update on the administration’s work to infuse the armed forces with left-wing gender ideology, ranging from enforcement of preferred pronouns, to allowing cross-dressing and the use of opposite-sex showers and restrooms on military bases, to making it harder to access information on the negative consequences of such policies. Last November, the Pentagon requested an additional $114.7 million for diversity programs in the upcoming fiscal year, representing a total of $269.2 million in taxpayer dollars just on military diversity since Biden took office.
Until December 2022, Biden’s Pentagon leaders also enforced COVID-19 shot mandates on American service men and women, provoking lawsuits and threatening soldier and pilot shortages in the tens of thousands, which only added to broader problems of force strength, troop morale, and public confidence.
Such priorities have taken their toll. During a Pentagon press briefing in April 2022 on the Army’s budget for Fiscal Year 2023, Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo announced the Army had “proactively made a decision to temporarily reduce our end strength from 485,000 Soldiers to 476,000 in FY ’22, and 473,000 in FY ’23.” The Military Times reported at the time that this “could leave the service at its smallest size since 1940, when it had just over 269,000 troops.”
Gallup and Ronald Reagan Institute polls have both shown that the public has lost confidence in the military’s leaders, which presumably also has a significant effect on prospective soldiers’ willingness to sign up.
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