Love and Marriage

Fr Adolpho Nicolas: Superior General of the Jesuit Order

I find it a little disturbing that the man pictured left, who is called Fr Adolfo Nicolas (no cheap jibes about the name 'Adolf', readers - its simply not cricket!) has been appointed by Pope Francis to the team duly charged with writing the final draft of what emerges from the Synod.

No sooner it seems, has Eponymous Flower carried a story concerning the head honcho of the Jesuits claiming that there is 'more love in some irregular relationships' than in Christian marriages, is the individual appointed to Team Francis to embark upon The Synod: The Real Story.

Well, people have some funny ideas about the Jesuits. A lot of conspiracy theorists, usually of a Protestant bent, think they are running the whole world. I cannot imagine H.M. the Queen hanging out with Jesuits myself, in a well-orchestrated world conspiracy. It doesn't sound terribly likely but these conspiracy theorists imagine, therefore, that Fr Adolfo is the 'power behind the Throne' at the Vatican, as well as being the head of the black nobility or something. It all sounds rather silly to me. We all know its not the Jesuits running the world. No. It's the Freemasons. I know you don't believe me, but you'll see it plainly one day.

For the record: it may very well be that there is more human love and affection in some irregular relationships than in some Christian marriages, but we do not judge a Sacrament by the persons involved, but because the Church teaches that it is indeed a Sacrament and that therefore, marriage is sacred and holy. We can all take what is holy and trash it. Yes, we are very good at doing that as statistics on the breakdown of even Christian marriages tells us. We can all fail to love. There are some very affectionate irregular relationships and nobody doubts that.

What we do doubt is the salvation of those who embark upon a lifestyle that rejects the central Christian message of repentance in order to enter the Kingdom of God. What we do doubt is that irregular marriages are a state or relationship within which sanctifying grace can work because these relationships are not Catholic Christian marriages. We believe that while we can ruin our marriages with no great help at all from anyone, yet with God's help, we can live out holy, loving, salvific and beautiful, fruitful marriages because marriage in the Catholic Church is a Sacrament. We really do believe that marriage is good and willed by God for man and woman. We really do believe that. In addition, not that this rather frightening (though one mustn't judge by names and photographs alone) Jesuit has not told us, all sexual activity outside of marriage is mortally sinful. Mortal sin kills the soul and distances that soul from God on earth and, if unrepented of, for eternity.

We should be a little surprised, then, perhaps even really rather alarmed, that a cleric - and a powerful one at that - who sees Christian marriage as seemingly no better or worse a state in life than any old shack-up arrangement has been appointed to draft the, seemingly already pre-drafted, report on the Synod and its conclusions.

Catholics - that is - all Catholics who uphold and defend the Magisterium of Holy Mother Church needed a hero to emerge from the Synod to defend the Holy Eucharist and the Church's teaching on the Family and Marriage. Step forward, then, Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has wasted no opportunity to take to the media to teach the truth concerning human sexuality, marriage and the transmission of human life, in defiance of the world's hatred and the animosity that would appear to be directed at him from powerful circles within the Church. This is the kind of bilious hatred normally reserved for a Pope who merely says something about human ecology and the need to preserve and promote the Family. This is the kind of demonic outrage that should be falling upon the Successor of St Peter, in imitation of his Divine Lord, rather than a relatively obscure Cardinal who opposes the apostasy generated, fed and feared to be fomenting in Rome.

We all know that real heroes in the Catholic Church are not those who are lauded by the world as a 'breath of fresh air' or who win various accolades for their cheap 'live and let live' slogans from the enemies of the Gospel, but instead those who do not buckle to the 'spiritual worldliness' that goes along with embracing every fashion or passing human philosophy that comes from the Devil and embeds itself at the heart of the Catholic Church even in high places in the Hierarchy.

Cardinal Napier

It would seem that, despite the best efforts to stop Burke's star rising at the Synod by various Bishops, perhaps even the humble, 'debate-encouraging' Bishop of Rome himself, Burke's position (notably coinciding with Christ's position) on various issues discussed at the Synod, has led to a number of Bishops seeking the Cardinal under-fire today in the secular press to head up the team to write the draft of the final report of the Synod.

All this would suggest that all is not going completely according to plan in Rome - or at least - the plan as envisaged by the 'reformers'. Who will rid them of this meddlesome Cardinal? Just how serious are they about altering the Church's Faith - expressed in this particular instance, through Her disciplines and laws?

Who will emerge from the Synod victorious: the liberal mafia appointed by Pope Francis to dupe the whole Church into thinking the Catholic Bishops of the World decided not to veto promoting mortal sin and sacrilege, or Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Napier and those Bishops (and there are quite a lot of them but the sounds of things) who will refuse to be bullied into accepting those things that no Christian can or should accept? Why? Because no man, woman, no Cardinal, no Pope indeed, can overturn, and ignores at his peril, the Teaching of Jesus Christ the Divine Head of the the Catholic Church? Perhaps we shouldn't worry too much what is said in the final report at the Synod. Perhaps we should worry that liberalism, when it gets in power in the world, becomes tyrannical and oppressive towards those who dissent from its tenets. Why, I wonder, should the lot be any different for clergy and bishops and laity who dissent from the dictatorship of relativism within the Church Herself?