Saturday 14 June 2014

With Pope Francis the Enemy is Always Outside of Ourselves

Greetings, readers. I'm gradually getting to grips with the harsh realities of the Francis pontificate.

One trend that I have noticed with Pope Francis is the desire to look outside of the human condition, marred as it is by Original Sin for the problems facing the world.

It is only my opinion, but I do detect within Francis's anthropocentrism an emerging view of the world that forgets, or even denies, Original Sin. For instance, his latest interview decries the world economic system that pushes countries, especially world powers, to war. There may be quite some truth to this, but His Holiness neglects to mention that wars and conquest have been a feature of every civilisation since the dawn of time. As long as human beings have been around, there have been wars. Who can be to blame for this? Benedict XVI, I am certain, would look to our human condition, wounded by sin, and point to the seeds of mutually assured destruction which are already in man. This wound can be healed by grace in Jesus Christ, I think he would say.

ISIS terrorists: 'Don't blame us! Blame the arms dealers!'
Similarly, arms dealers. Well, no doubt arms dealers do not aid peace, but again we see here that the bogeyman is invariably not us, the human race, born with inclinations towards the pursuit of sex, money and power, but 'them over there'.

Not a great percentage of the world are arms dealers, so we can safely blame them without causing too much offense to 99.999% of the human race. In the Holy Land, His Holiness had a special word for arms dealers, but let's face it, there are no end of people queuing up to pull the triggers who received no admonishment whatsoever, in Iraq, Syria and, well, a lot of countries!

Again, the mafia. Well, the mafia do some terrible things, but I am not convinced that the mafia nurture within the hearts of its members sins that are any worse than, say, abortion because all murder is wrong. Presumably, if the mafia were brought closer to Christ they could be a far greater force for good in the world than the Freemasons, because they at least would be truly Christian. It seems a bit harsh and erratic to place arms dealers and mafia members in Hell, but the great multitude of faithless sinners if not in Heaven, but in God's friendship. Why so pessimistic about the salvation of arms dealers but so optimistic about the salvation of nearly everyone else? Are we really going to place the sins of the whole world on the shoulders of arms dealers?

Presumably, also, some mafiosi have contributed to some good in the world as well, as well as evil. Have they perhaps contributed to the building of hospitals and Churches and stuff? We have a gypsy community in Brighton at the moment near where I work. They face a great deal of ridicule and contempt from the 'good people of Brighton' and I am glad that His Holiness has defended them, but apparently the crime rate does go up a notch in Brighton when they are camped up here. Still, as the Holy Father lays into arms dealers and mafia, so some people in Brighton would have it in for gypsies. I expect the Council will 'deal with the problem' in due time. Who we see as the enemy seems awfully relativistic to me.

Finally, we have the world economic system which brings with it a host of bad things, not least, in the Holy Father's view, wars and ecological damage. Presumably, His Holiness would see the slavery highlighted by The Guardian this week as a form of evidence of an inhumane economic system, despite the fact that no company has been coerced by the economic system to make slaves. Ultimately, the economic system relies on human beings for its operation and human beings are quite capable of abusing, debasing or corrupting further that which is already imperfect.

Many of the Holy Father's chief concerns seem to me to be the kind of concerns and campaigns that I was into before I became a Catholic, read about sin and salvation and learned at the feet of good and holy priests (and Popes) about the redemption won for us by the Blood of Christ and how Christ came to raise our nature up, making us by adoption, what He is by nature. I have, since I became a Catholic, believed that all of us are being called out of darkness and into light, that we are all being called away from sin and towards friendship with God, away from the works of evil and towards works of goodness and charity - from ourselves to Christ - though if I hear the word 'fraternity' from His Holiness one more time I might lose quite dramatically any charity in my soul!

Of course, at these times, it is quite easy for a Catholic to think the problem is Pope Francis. This is a temptation. The problem is always me. We have found the enemy and it is ourselves. The answer is always Jesus Christ. I am more and more convinced that as long as the Church is focused on changing structures and institutions that the Church is becoming more and more Anti-Christ, for such will be the concerns of the son of perdition.

I am sure he will be a great humanitarian, ecologist, pacifist and charismatic teacher. I am sure, too, that there will be some who oppose him and some who merely do not fit his agenda, who will be viewed as the greatest criminals on the face of the earth. Embracing secular humanism might make the Church more attractive to the enemies of the Gospel, but it makes the Church - and frankly the Pope - open to the charge that of the Lord Himself and His own teachings - we are embarrassed. The more it is espoused within the Church, the more vulnerable the Church is to the temptations that we are promised will one day be presented to it, with the coming of the false messiah. I hope that doesn't sound too hysterical, but how on earth would a Church only concerned with this life cope with such a man today? If the Antichrist were revealed during the reign of Pope Francis, truly, he could not have picked, for him at least, a better time.

27 comments:

Unknown said...





http://twoheartspress.com/blog/how-to-respond-if-pope-francis-is-the-false-prophet-2/

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

"...it also has no oxygen". heheh.

The enemy is within and without - if a person focuses on one front to the exclusion of the other, there'll be consequences; happily, while one is, probably as a matter of course, ignoring both fronts, our Guardian Angels are always on the job.

Bergoglio is certainly a problem, but he's also part of a much larger problem called apostasy (the abandonment of the faith). People deny that the likes of Bergoglio and Wojtyla are guilty of heresy (regardless of preaching man over God, elevating false-religions and participating in their false worship etc.); they argue that whilst saying and doing heretical things, they are probably not aware enough of the Catholic Faith to know they are erring and therefore not culpable. I don't know, do you think an antichrist would approve of this argument - excusing a pope on the grounds that he is ignorant of Catholicism?

There are numerous Catholic prophecies predicting that the Antichrist will be a papal claimant. Many exegetes agree simply because because he (the antichrist) must 'sit in the Temple of God'; and that can only be the Catholic Church, probably St Peters - the largest and the most important Catholic 'temple' on earth - since all other religions are false (protestants obsessed with the temple mount completely miss this). Ensconsed in the 'temple' he will teach contrary to the Faith and be believed. If these theories are correct one simply sticks to the Faith clearly taught for century upon century.

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

p.s. A couple of texts from Catholics Fathers on antichrist and the apostasy:

http://www.realnews247.com/fr_fahey_best_introductions.htm

https://ia700209.us.archive.org/2/items/theapocalypseofs00berruoft/theapocalypseofs00berruoft_bw.pdf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/131835470/The-Book-of-Destiny-Herman-Bernard-Kramer

and then there's the 'prophecy of St Francis':

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2748949/posts

p.s. People who grew up Catholic should be very greatful they didn't have to suffer indoctrination during their formative years into the protestant 'rapture'(an evil and looney idea developed in the 1880s which has made many protestants in the 1900s and 2000s very rich) - I'm sure I can blame all my adult neuroses on this.

Anonymous said...

A very good post. Thank you for it. The Church exists to bring us Christ Who is the Way to all that is good, even on this earth.Without union with Him, we can do nothing to eradicate evil and produce good. You have located and expressed the fundamental error of Mr. Bergoglio. His total emphasis is on earthly solutions. There is no emphasis on the supernatural in what he says, but most of us do not recognize the purposeful duplicity of what he is saying and doing. I grow more convinced with each move he makes that he is setting the stage for a one world church.How is it that we are so blilnd to it? Posts such as this one help to raise up the incongruity of authentic Catholic with the blather of untruth.

Tereze said...

But... HE IS A FALSE PROPHET, is is the one, who will open the door to Antichrist - read this blog: http://biblicalfalseprophet.com/

Adam said...

I'm sorry, but the holy father jolly well has spoken about human weakness and sin plenty of times. Where, otherwise, did you get the contents for your 'Pope Francis' book of Insults'?

Anonymous said...

We can pray for Pope Francis - but I am now convinced that for the time being we are "fatherless" as Catholics. I do't think we can count on him. He is just the same as most of the modernist hierarchy. And in some ways worse...

The few times he says something orthodox brings no joy to me - I am not consoled. He has devastated the papacy

I for one, after what happened last Sunday in the Vatican on Pentecost Sunday (I mean give me a break! - how could he DO THAT?) cannot trust him.

The institutional Church is in the hands of modernists - until Our Lord sees fit to free us from this TORMENT...we are the PRIME TARGET for the world - because we have been abandoned by the majority of our shepherds...including the most important one...

Barbara

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this superb site.

Anonymous said...

Morality laid upon the altar of materialist, atheistic Marxism - given a gloss of Christian terms, references, etc.

Anonymous said...

The "insults" have generally been aimed at faithful Catholics in respect of behaviour which is not sinful.

JB said...

Adam, it's not clear to me that he does hold to the doctrine of original sin. Cardinal Pell obviously does not. Calls it a "myth" and "symbol." You can't reconcile that with the constant teaching of the Church for 1,960 years. Has he given any discourse on it? i'm open to being proven wrong.

Unknown said...

Hey Viterbo---grew up in a Southern Baptist home so I know where you're coming from. Whenever my mom was late coming home from work, I worried that she'd been raptured and I'd been left behind. It was agony. Also we had a book entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Occur in 1988. What a relief when that year ended.

Seattle Kimmy

Unknown said...

Tereze I follow the Biblical False Prophet Blog too.

Seattle Kimmy

Anonymous said...

Barbara, I agree with you. I believe people (me included) will have their eyes fully opened to him gradually, as the post has said. I read a post by a Catholic Theologian stating we must watch him closely. He has the makings of the 'False Prophet', but we cannot yet conclude that definitely. We are to be vigilant in prayer and observation. I just read another one of his 'homilies' just this morning how we need to 'compromise' with our brother in disagreements, and not 'insult' him. Insulting someone we disagree with is sinful. Well, yes, in charity we are to point out the truth as we see it, but we are not to 'compromise' say for instance, with artificial contraception, homosexual unions, abortion etc. He makes me so very uneasy. There is no compromising with evil.

Katalina said...

I Wii after today not read this blog anymore. Any Catholic who would dare call any Pope a Modernist and much worse a heretic or anti-Christ or false Prophet are deserving of being insulted. I don't agree with his style but he has talked about Satan more often than any other recent pope. You are schismatics

Jacobi said...

Bones,

Calm down. I suggest a couple of pints in the local, although it’s a bit late for that now. (23.00?)

Yes, the Holy Father is projecting an odd public image. I’m sure he is orthodox and is trying to engage with the world and so on, but he is going about it in an odd way.

Embracing secular humanism if that is what he is doing, is a no-brainer. That is exactly what St Pius X warned us about, and what caused the post-Vatican II shambles.

What the Church needs now above all else is clarity, particularly in doctrine. Man is a Fallen Creature with an inherent tendency to sin. Christ died in the Cross to save us from this. That is the Catholic starting point and has to be said, loud and clear. If people don’t like it and walk away, tough! As the good Cardinal said the other day, no one has to be a Catholic.

I think we just all have to be realistic. We still have a couple of Popes, and another Council to go, before we begin to get out of the chaos, the absolute mess the Church is in.

The Bones said...

'Any Catholic who would dare call any Pope a Modernist and much worse a heretic or anti-Christ or false Prophet are deserving of being insulted.'

I haven't done that, but if you don't want to read this blog then I am sorry if I have written anything that has led to that.

God and Our Lady bless you.

I agree that some of the comments here are a little much. Can people not be more charitable to the Vicar of Christ on Earth?

Православный физик said...

Looking to Rome has not helped...I'll just keep attending Divine Liturgy, and praying for Pope Francis...it's not good for my health to read anything by Pope Francis right now anyway. For Francis, Pope of Rome, Let us pray to the Lord, Lord Have Mercy

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

@seattle kim: exactly - I wonder if we can sue for millions because of the trauma?

p.s. Who is willing to attribute to the Holy Ghost, the teachings and actions of Bergoglio? If when he teaches and acts as the pope his actions and words contradict the Universal Ordinary Magisterium he is false; we become false to the degree that we believe in a false 'prophet' rather than the Infallible Magisterium.

"Saint Paul in Galatians I:8-9 states: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” Notice that he does not tell them to sift
the teacher of falsehood for tidbits of good doctrine, but instead tells them to reject him altogether. Let him be anathema.This doctrine is also in conformity with Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum ex apostolatus of 1559, which calls for the utter rejection of a Roman Pontiff found to be heretical, and not for the sifting of his doctrine."

The pope of the 'three religions' - Bergoglio - teaches heresy - he promotes false-religions, he preaches that Jesus pretends, he preaches that the Blessed Virgin can sin, he preaches against the Apostolic Body with his feet washings, he preaches against virtue when suggesting we should stop obsessing about abortion and homosexuality, he preaches that their is no 'Catholic God', therefore he subverts the Truth of the Holy Trinity, he teaches against the indissolubility of marriage, and he preaches the 'religion' of man.

It is not and could not be the Holy Ghost teaching these things, and no matter how 'black' some Popes have been in their personal conduct, they have never changed the Faith - an authentic Pope cannot led souls astray.

Anonymous said...

Katalina wrote, " You are schismatics."

Quite an accusation to make to your brethren in Christ.

You are right that we should be careful how we speak about the Vicar of Christ, though - but to my mind - I don't think Pope Francis would be insulted at all being called a "Modernist". He certainly isn't a Traditional Catholic. Can we agree on that?

I would REALLY like someone to convince me that he isn't a modernist. Nothing would make me happier.

Calling fellow-Catholics "schismatics" just because they see the demolition of Papal Authority in act under the present pontificate is not very nice.

I for one love the Papacy - an office instituted by Our Blessed Lord Himself. How can we not love the Vicar of Christ?

I have not abandoned the Papacy - but I think this particular Pope ( for the time being) has abandoned us - the Church. Am I allowed to say this and back it up with evidence without being called "schismatic"?

If not - then we are under some kind of "religious regime" of blind obedience and emotional blackmail - a horrible thing in religion - which has nothing to do with the "freedom of the children of God." So put up and shut up - would be the order of the day to Catholics who haven't yet switched off their brains.

"I'm sure the Pope is orthodox" writes Jacobi. Please tell me how you deduce that Mr. Jacobi...

And Mr. Bones has nothing to calm down about - he has created a fine blog for Catholics to meet and discuss many issues in the present situation in the Church.

Too bad some can't see that -

I for one love his keen wit.

Thanks Mr. B.!

Barbara

Singalong said...

I have read that Pope Francis gets up at 4 am and spends much time in prayer. Do all the contributors to this blog do as much? Let him or her who is without sin cast the first stone.

JB said...


Oh I see Singalong, we should all keep our mouths shut like the North Korean army while Francis continually insults Catholics right and left, sends confusing messages right and left, has - - for the first time ever -- islamic prayers within the walls of Vatican City.

Don't try to cow faithful Catholics who care about the Church by acting as if we want to stone an adulteress. It's absurd.

Unknown said...

Just not 100% per cent sure to whom he is praying.

Unknown said...

In case you're still secretly reading, Katalina---I'd like you to know that Mr. Bones is a devout Catholic who left the homosexual lifestyle to live life as a single and chaste man---pure in the eyes of God. He has never called the pope any of those things, but like many of us , he finds the pope's seeming lack of fidelity to the teachings of Holy Mother Church frustrating at
the very least.

But personally, Ms K, I have no problem believing that he may be the false prophet of Revelation. Plenty of saints have predicted an antipope who will lead the Church into apostasy----saints who were nurtured at the tables of beautiful Latin Masses. Why is that the Latin Mass seems to be such kryptonite to this pope?


Seattle Kimmy

Codgitator (Cadgertator) said...

Singalong:

This papacy is a disaster, and the only way in which we can praise it, is by the unsleeping redemptive power of God to turn all things to His own glory. When Francis is right, we praise the Lord; but when he gives in to his Modernist formation, we praise the Lord anyway, for knowing the Catholic truth by contrast.

As for the 4 AM thing... External piety is the easiest thing in the world:

Matthe 6 - 1 TAKE heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen [or heard] by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven. 2 Therefore when thou dost an almsdeed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honoured by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. ... 5 And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues [and before Zionist tomb and political protest walls] and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 23 - 2 The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. 3 All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. 4 For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. 5 And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes. 6 And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues, 7 And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi.

Singalong said...

I do hope and pray that the hostile opinions and fears about Pope Francis expressed on this blog are unfounded, and that its focus will soon revert to its previous stance.

JB, I am in no position to "cow" any body, and as regards his recent peace initiative, I think we can all be reassured with the view expressed in this week`s Catholic Herald editorial, particularly noting that Christian, Jewish, and Moslem prayers were not said together, but in succession.

Codgitatur, I would not find getting up at 4 am to pray, the easiest thing in the world, quite the opposite, and in any case, I do not think the Pope has been advertising or boasting about this part of his day. If someone has thought fit to make it known, perhaps they are thinking of Our Lord`s injunction to let our light shine before men to give glory to God.

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

@singalong. Our Lord doesn't want the blind leading the blind - therefore he has given us permission to 'judge the fruits' in order to discern the 'spirit', so to say. He in no way wants us to render unto 'kaiser' that which belongs to Him alone.

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