FOR SHAME!

Norcia has been struck by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake that has flattened homes and made residents homeless, destroying the Monastery of St Benedict and St Scholastica. Keep these distraught people in your prayers and if you are able, donate to their funds for relief.

Having expressed his 'closeness' to the people of Norcia, His Holiness as far as we know still intends to travel to Lund, Sweden, to celebrate the Reformation and will, true to current form, laud and honour the infamous heresiarch Martin Luther, thereby giving a new meaning to the words...

'pastoral'

and

'closeness'.

FOR SHAME!

Let's not let an earthquake in a nearby town to Rome put the breaks on a pointless ecumenical circus in honour of a man who died a public enemy of Christ and His Church. And this is before he has - as I suspect he will, in some form - given the go-ahead for 'inter-communion' with the Lutherans as some kind of 'merciful', 'ecumenical' gesture.

After all, not to give Holy Communion to a Lutheran would be a 'sin against ecumenism', wouldn't it? Not to let those who do not recognise Him under the guise of bread and wine - who are not in Communion with Him or His Church - who have not discerned the Body, therefore eat and drink unto their guilt - would just be 'rigid'. 

Perhaps Pope Francis visit Norcia after the debacle in Lund and the customary multiple pile-up interview on the way home as one of his 'Mercy Friday' gestures and to make reparation for those carbon related eco-sins committed by another wholly unnecessary flight. Why go in person to Lund when you could Shepherd Catholics - your sheep - and send your honorary heretic Cardinal Kasper to go and represent you in Lund?

Be Not Deceiving in Your Receiving

No man, be he lay man, deacon, priest, bishop, cardinal or Pope can receive the Lord Jesus 

and reject His teachings.

Those who reject the Lord's teachings reject the Lord even while receiving Him.

Surely, for this reason do we regard those Communions as sacrilegious in which a person outwardly honours Jesus, but inwardly rejects His commandments.

Why should we be surprised then, when unfaithful Prelates fail to uphold the sublime dignity of the Most Holy Eucharist and fail to discourage those in mortal sin from receiving Him?

Those wicked men, be they Priests, Bishops Cardinals or the Pope himself, who receive Jesus while rejecting His teachings deceive not Jesus but they do deceive themselves and they do deceive the people entrusted to them.

Be not deceived.

The Lord Jesus takes up residence and dwells within the hearts and souls of those who accept Him.

In them He finds a home for they truly welcome Him as their King, Lord and Saviour.

Those who reject Jesus Christ profit nothing from receiving His Body and Blood.

It turns to their condemnation.

For those who do not believe Jesus's Teaching. do not believe in God the Son.

Christ and His Law cannot be separated.

If a man accepts Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist but does not accept Jesus Christ's teachings how can the Most High dwell within him? How can the love of God possibly be in him?

Can it be said that a child respects, reveres or loves a Father whose words he despises? Whose discipline he refuses? Whose decrees and precepts he laughs off? Whose customs he finds repugnant?

Do they think they can receive Jesus Christ and reject His infallible words when He Himself is the Word of God?

Do they truly receive Christ who cannot bear His voice, His speech, His teachings, His commandments and His law?

Do they receive the Lord when the doors of these men's hearts and souls are slammed tightly shut in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How can He enter, whose Charity and Truth are refused?

For no good reason do such men hate us.

Such men as this hate us and scorn us.

They exonerate the wicked while they mercilessly persecute the just.

They are without shame.

But we are not ashamed of Jesus Christ. 

In your intent to desecrate and violate His Most Holy Body and Blood you will be met with 

rigid resistance.

We are not ashamed of His Commandments.  

In your intent to desecrate and violate His Church you will be met with 

rigid resistance.

We are not ashamed of His Teachings. 

In your intent to desecrate and violate His Doctrines you will be met with 

rigid resistance.

We will be unyielding. No matter how you insult us, or denigrate us. 

We are not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

We are ashamed of you who outwardly profess Jesus Christ but who inwardly reject Him.

You who are embarrassed of Jesus Christ, we are embarrassed of you!

There are two bodies in this world. 

Only two.

These are the mystical Body of Christ and the mystical body of Anti-Christ.

Choose today which body you will belong to.

For now these two bodies exist within the same visible Church.

But even now, in the very highest ranks of the Church a great separation is taking place as those who arrogantly promote themselves as 'reformers' seek to usurp the Word of God and place their vain reasoning and foolish imaginings over and above the very words of Our Blessed Saviour Himself.

With subtlety and great cunning they seek to separate the Lord Jesus Christ from His Teachings and thus unveil a new Christ, a false Christ, a counterfeit Christ who receives those who receive Him not, because they do not receive His teachings.

They now call what is just and fitting a scandal and a disgrace and make that which is disgraceful seem laudable by their soft speech.

But their words bring death to souls.

They claim to represent Jesus Christ and for this sublime Office they were called.

But He cannot truly abide in those who refuse to abide in Him.

You may try - and you may well appear to be victorious as you attempt to dissolve not only the teachings of Jesus Christ but the faith and the morals of those in your care.

For good reason do you run to heretics to say, 'We want union with you!'

Since you are disloyal to Christ, since you cannot accept Him or abide His Teaching and since He finds no home in you, then naturally you seek union with others who are not of Christ's flock, those who, just like you, deny that He is Who He Is!

Being unable to attain union with Christ you seek union with heretics.

For like attracts like.

You seek union with heretics because you are heretics.

Should we be surprised that you seek to give the Lord to unrepentant adulterers?

Why should we be surprised?

 When unrepentant adulterers is just what you are!

You who professed to be wedded to the Lord at your Ordination! 

You take other lovers and feel no shame because you have no love for Christ!

You wish to refashion the Church in such a manner as to make it indistinguishable from the Church the Lord Jesus founded. 

Nothing is safe in your hands, be it the Church's doctrines, her Sacred Liturgy or Her Sacraments.

You have set your faces against the Lord and against His children.

You deride as 'rigid' those who remain loyal to the Truth, to Christ and His glorious Martyrs.

You will deceive and fool many in your plans.

But you will by no means succeed in your efforts.

Christ is with His Church and His Church is His Body until the End of Time.

In as much as you feign love for Christ, receive the Body of the Lord but try to deceive Him Whose Body it is, will you find yourself deceived as close as you get to achieving your claimed victory.

Don't you understand?

You have chosen as your master the origin of lies and illusion itself!

For were you the visible Head of the Body of Christ, if you do not accept the teachings of the Lord, if you will not allow yourself to be instructed by Him, then you will discover yourself not only to be not the Head, but not even a part of the Body!

Do you understand what this discovery will mean for you?

And do you think that the Church is decapitated if you discover yourself to be not only not the Head but not even a part of the Body?

No. It cannot be.

Jesus Christ is the Head of His Body the Church.

The Church is never without its true, divine and glorious Head.

And He Himself is Truth.

The overwhelming majority of your venerable and esteemed predecessors,
Bishops, Cardinals, Popes knew and understood that.

When you receive Him, you receive the whole Christ, whole and entire.

You receive not a corpse of a dead man whose words you wish to be forgotten and erased but the Living One, He, the Word of God, Faithful and True!

The Alpha and the Omega! The beginning and the end!

But you cannot receive Him and deny Him entrance at the same time!

For he who denies Him in the company of men will find himself denied in the company of Angels.

You may not know that or understand that today. 

But you will.

Soon.

You are the Father who has been placed in authority over us. 

We pose no danger to you whatsoever. But there is one you must fear and he is purely spiritual.

Power has been given to you for a time and for a season.

But as to whom your Father is?

Know this and mark it well.

It doesn't matter to what rank in the Church you have been raised. 

For every Catholic this remains true for all time:

The Church's infallible doctrines are those of Christ our Lord and Saviour.

He founded the Church and He is its Bridegroom and Lord.

Those who do not believe Jesus's Doctrine. do not believe in Jesus as God the Son.

If you will not submit yourself to the holy Teachings of God the Eternal Son and the Church which He has founded, Whose Teachings are His?

Then you do not believe in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit, you cannot receive.

And God the Eternal Father, your Father cannot be.

And the end of those who have will not have God for their Father is one of terror and endless torment, eternal anguish and the tremendous horror of separation from the happy company of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother and His Saints.

Do not let this be your fate!

In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, of Most Holy Mary, St Joseph and all the Saints.

 I plead with you.

It is not too late to turn to the Lord!

You may think you have the upper hand over us, but it is not so.

For it is you who are surrounded!

 You think that your enemies are being purged but they are your friends.

Instead, you surround yourself with enemies of your immortal soul!

Your Eternal Salvation!

In the web of illusion and deceit you have spun, care you nothing for this?

For your own sake and for those in your care:

Reject the wiles of the Enemy who is Satan.

Do not allow him to ensnare you!

Beg the Lord to guide your ways!

We have petitioned you. 

We have written to you. 

We have sought your ear and you made it plain that you have no time for us. 

You have made it plain that you consider us beneath contempt.

But we love you! 

Why do we love you?

Because we take Jesus's Teachings seriously and we believe in Him!

And that is why we warn you! 

With one accord, may each one of us turn towards the Lord, rich in mercy and slow to anger because when He comes He will come in great power and might and His recompense He will bring with Him giving to each as their deeds deserve.

Come, Lord Jesus and deliver the people you purchased by your Royal, Precious Blood!

Jesus, I trust in Thee!

Well, at least they weren't rigid...

Of course, we're all looking forward to Obama/Hillary and Putin showing great 'flexibility' in 'shall we or shall we not use an array of nuclear warheads against each other during WW3' and thus ensure the death of millions of civilians.

These moral laws - such an encumbrance when you just want to blow up your enemies countries and allies!

Obama and Putin. 

Come on!

Relax and be FREE! 

Don't be rigid types! Show flexibility and elasticity with the moral law and with human laws like treaties and stuff!

Not to be elastic is worse than the unforgivable sin - the only unforgivable sin - that's right! 

The great sin against ecumenism!

The Pontificate that Won't Stand Up to Scrutiny

As I left a Church a day or two ago, I walked past a copy of a mainstream Catholic newspaper, I think it was The Universe. The headline took me somewhat by surprise. 'Is this really where we have got to?' I thought. The headline went something very much like this:

'POPE FRANCIS CHOOSES MERCY OVER MORALS WITH NEW CARDINAL PICKS'

You can imagine what the rest of the article was like. I thought to myself that there is something deeply wrong with that headline and that such a headline - and it is accurate in its reportage - is a damning indictment of the pontificate of Pope Francis. In a single headline, we can discern the nature of the crisis enveloping the Church from the top downwards.

Has Catholic intellectual life come to such a nadir as this when a Catholic newspaper can publish a news story on the Pope's cardinal picks and fail to see the idiocy being promulgated therein. Mercy over morals. Mercy over morals. Mercy over morals?

Remember folks, you can't have both! When it comes to these qualities of - on the one hand - possessing morals and - on the other hand, possessing mercy a choice simply has to be made. One of them has to be abandoned because, well, aren't these two things just mutually exclusive? Isn't that what the most venerated Catholic Saints and scholars have always held? Isn't that what Jesus Christ taught? Good grief!

Now, I'm no ace theologian. While I've read a little 'City of God' and dipped into the 'Summa', I've no theological credentials to my name, but a smidgen of the sensus fidelium can tell me that there is no conflict between the man who upholds mercy and the man who upholds morality. These are the same man. This Man is Jesus Christ. And the sorry truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ Himself, were He a Bishop instead of the Divine Head of the Church, would very likely be passed over by Francis in his Cardinal picks because He simply wouldn't let go of His 'morals'. The clear inference of the Universe headline - and the clear inference of this papacy - is that mercy is good and, wait for it...

MORALS ARE BAD!

Yes, this idiocy is going out to the parishes via the Catholic press. By this simple but so far successful employment of cynical propaganda the character of, hmm, let's see, among others Cardinal Raymond Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Cardinal Robert Sarah, the editorial team of Asia News and anyone who stubbornly remains loyal to Jesus Christ is being denigrated. These are people who still believe that, shock horror, morals are, in fact, good.

Growing opposition to and criticism of Pope Francis's pontificate is now being peddled by Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli as evidence of a club within the Church who are simply against Francis for the sake of it. Despite a wealth of evidence stacked up against him in papal pronouncements, interviews, off the cuff decisions and now an exhortation, Tornielli insists that the entrenched views of those Catholics who appeal to Rome for clarification or who insist on the perennial teachings on the Church are just resentful people who fail to see the enormous good Francis is doing for the Church.

For argument's sake, however, let's assume that, for instance, a Cardinal Blaise Cupich is the model of every Cardinal in the Church, one who, in the image of Francis himself chooses 'mercy over morals'. What kind of a Church aside from one sidelined into the gutter of popular culture is it that proclaims mercy at the expense - or instead of - morals? What does that Church look like? What does that Church have to say to a drug dealer or a human trafficker? What does that Church that chooses mercy over - or instead of - morals say to a pornographer, murderer or terrorist? What does that Church have to say to a pederast or someone who covers up pederasty for the sake of a quiet life? To anyone bound up in a lifestyle of mortal sin, what does that Church have to say? Quite simply, nothing, because of Her Founder, that Church is truly embarrassed. Yes, in the name of mercy, it is He Himself, the Lord Jesus, who is abandoned!

It seems to me that indeed what some will argue is a Pope advocating for a Church that sees not in terms of black or white but in many shades of grey will quickly become a Church of darkness. Why? Because Jesus Christ is Light. He is the Light of the World. His Morality shines a light into not just the darkest recesses of our hearts, our hearts which are dulled by sin - yes, sin, that dirty word! - but also into the darkest recesses of the Church. Shades of grey, like so many clouds that, when they accumulate during a storm can form a thick darkness that blots out the Sun, can act as cover for a great deal. It is the Church that refuses light, that fears the Light, the Truth, that covers the tracks of abuse and attempts to silence victims of that abuse.

'Mercy over morals.' My oh my. Who would have thought that after the years of championing the culture of life over the culture of death, the Catholic Church from the top could offer the World such a pathetic motif as that, and a Pope who played the pied piper for every rogue and criminal on the face of the Earth. Mercy over morals. Mercy over morals. What sweet music to the ears of the amoral, to those who find that Morality itself is a sworn enemy, an adversary, one who must be overcome, slain, like an innocent Lamb upon a Sacrificial Altar!

In Praise of Luther, the Great!

I can see why His Holiness would want to spend time with Lutherans and venerate him just a little. After all, Luther Vandross was a pioneer of classic 80s soul music, music which brought many people together in the bars, the pubs and clubs. A lot of us remember the ups and downs of the 80s and Luther was there, often in the background, on the radio, on Top of the Pops, singing his soul music always with a smile. His Holiness is right to highlight his impact on Western culture and his artistic contribution to society. I am sure all the Lutherans went home very happy from their meeting with the Pope, knowing that Mr Vandross's musical contribution had received recognition from the highest levels of the Church.

Just Another Day at the Vatican

Just in time for Christmas, the chocolate Luther. 

Can't wait for the chocolate Calvin. The sheer indulgence of it!

Chocolate Calvin filled with delicious liqueur!

Martin Luther said, 'Destroy the Mass, you destroy the Church!'

He seems like a credible role model for the tragic trajectory of this papacy.

Potentially.

But what's with the scarves?

"No. I don't know what happened to your Luther statue."

It probably really is best Benedict XVI stepped aside from this whole 2017 Reformation party. I don't think he could have brought himself to get terribly excited by it.

God help us.