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Christopher A. Ferrara

George Weigel has a reputation, largely among Catholics who have never read him, as a nuanced thinker on matters Catholic, uniquely in the know not only about current Church affairs but also their significance in the larger context of ecclesiastical history.  But as Weigel’s article in First Things concerning Remnant TV's "Catholics Rising" video on the upcoming Catholic Identity Conference demonstrates, his writing is too often shallow cant thinly disguised by fancy locutions.

Under the portentous title “The Transmigration of Theological Nonsense,” which seems to promise serious thought, we find little more than Weigel’s petty quibbling over a couple of Michael Matt’s remarks in the video to the effect that we ought to “take our Church back” from those who have corrupted her doctrine and praxis since Vatican II, as any Catholic who is not comatose can see. With his usual air of pseudo-professorial condescension toward the traditionalists he considers infra dig, Weigel declares: “The Church is not ‘ours’; the Church is Christ’s.” Quoting himself, Weigel adds: “the Church ‘was not created by us, or by our Christian ancestors, or by the donors to the diocesan annual fund—a point the Lord made abundantly clear himself in the gospels: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’…”

As the Filial Correction to which I am a signatory continues to gather support that now includes Bishop René Gracida, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Pope Bergoglio is facing an unprecedented display of opposition from “mainstream” Catholics who are awakening to the astounding debacle of this out-of-control papacy.

Antonio Socci gives a surprising new indication of just how out-of-control Bergoglio is in his column of September 24, entitled “What He Did He Wanted to Do as ‘Pope Jesus II’, the Demolitionist” (translation mine).  He begins by noting that in the just-published book-interview with Dominique Wilton, Bergoglio jokes that he chose the papal name Francis not as an act of superbia but rather of humility, because then “he would have been able to call himself ‘Jesus II’”—a reference to the common description of Saint Francis of Assisi as an alter Christus, “another Christ.” While this was only a joke, it was a very revealing one: the phrase “Jesus II” evinces an arrogant flippancy regarding both Our Lord and the great saint who is popularly likened to Him.

Socci believes that Bergoglio suffers from a dangerously acute case of that classically Argentinian egocentrism Bergoglio himself once remarked when he joked that an Argentinian commits suicide by throwing himself from the top of his ego.  This, writes Socci, is “a very big problem which a psychoanalyst attempted to resolve—futilely—years ago” (a reference to Bergoglio’s revelation to Wilton that he had undergone weekly psychoanalysis for six months with a Jewish psychiatrist). And this very big problem is immensely exacerbated by what Socci describes as “ego-latria in the form of a planetary papolatry.”

Bergoglio, says Socci, “seems to want to ‘re-found’ the Church and almost present himself precisely as ‘Pope Jesus II’”, who “pretends in fact to be more merciful than Christ” respecting those living in adulterous “second marriages” and dares to pursue what his collaborators exultantly characterize as “irreversible reform” of the Church.  But, Socci continues:

the Church belongs to Jesus Christ, not to the Pope.  The popes are only its temporary custodians, not its owners…. By definition, only the Law of God is “irreversible,” which is in Sacred Scripture and the constant Magisterium of the Church. The Popes are subject to that Law, they are not its masters. They must be like chauffeurs who bring the Bride (precisely the Church) to the encounter with the Bridegroom (Christ Himself).  If the chauffeur wants to appropriate the Bride to himself and… change the destination in an irreversible way, then he would be saying that he has substituted himself for the true Bridegroom.  As if he were a “Jesus II”…. ]

In fact, the mandate that Jesus gave to Peter and all his successors is not at all to ‘change’ the Church (much less in an ‘irreversible’ way) but—on the contrary—to ‘conserve’ her (to conserve the depositum fidei, confirming the brethren in the faith)…. The Pope—by definition—is only a ‘conservator,’ otherwise he is no longer the Pope.  His ministry is to preserve intact the faith of the Church. Not to make of her a woman out on the street at the mercy of the world.

This Pope, Socci maintains, is in the process of attempting to change the Church from a supernatural institution whose mission is to save souls into “a humanitarian agency which professes an entirely social and political religion, centered on mass immigration as the Summum Bonum, ecological catastrophism and an uncritical embrace of Islam.” What Bergoglio is attempting is precisely the destructive process foretold by the atheist philosopher Feuerbach, who predicted that the Church would (per impossible) be destroyed through “an irreversible transformation of Christianity into atheistic humanism, with the aid of Christians themselves, guided by a concept of charity that will have nothing to do with the Gospel.”

And now—here is Socci’s most startling observation—Bergoglio seems intent on finding a way to eliminate or at least decommission the Roman Curia and even the College of Cardinals, both deemed non-essential by his “right-hand man,” Archbishop (“the art of kissing”) “Tucho” Fernandez, whom Bergoglio made a titular archbishop of a titular see as one of his first acts. This would leave the way open, in “exceptional situations,” for Bergoglio to “name his own successor… rendering his revolution truly ‘irreversible.’”  Which possibility, believe it or not, Bergoglio “is having studied on the pages of canon law.”

By the way, whatever happened to the Humble Pope narrative with which this pontificate began?  Perhaps the promoters of this con job on the Bergoglian PR team and their allies in the media have recognized that it has become too absurd to fool anyone except those who insist on being conned.

Is it possible, as Socci suggests, that we have underestimated the extent of the Bergoglian Debacle?  God help us.  God help His Holy Catholic Church.  And may God deliver us and the Church from a Pope who is increasingly revealing himself to be—one must say what has become obvious—a clear and present danger to the Faith.

Pope and lutheran lady bishPope Francis embraces Lutheran "Archbishop" Antje Jackelén in Lund, Sweden

At every stage in the ecclesial crisis that followed the Second Vatican Council, the Mensheviks of the Neo-Catholic Establishment (NCE) have been there to defend the Bolsheviks of the post-conciliar revolution as they foisted one destructive novelty after another upon the Church.  The NCE has found a way to defend or excuse the New Mass with all its officially approved abuses (including Communion in the hand and John Paul II’s approval of “altar girls”), the New Ecumenism, the New Dialogue, the New Interreligious Dialogue, the New Bishops’ Conferences, the New Collegiality, the New Seminaries, the New Convents, the New Ecclesial Movements, the New Evangelization, the New Synodal Church, and now, with Amoris Laetitia (AL), even the New Catholic Morality, which declares that God does not expect obedience to the negative precepts of the natural law, including the Sixth Commandment, if one feels unable to attain the “objective ideal” given the “concrete complexity of one’s limits” (cf. Amoris Laetitia, ¶ 303). 

 a pope

In a 450-page book-interview, Pope Bergoglio reduces adultery and fornication to “minor sins,” announces a “battle” against sexual morality via Amoris Laetitia, condones “civil unions” for homosexuals, pronounces all wars unjust, and says the secular state is a healthy thing.

If there was any doubt that Pope Bergoglio’s tumultuous reign is an unparalleled, indeed apocalyptic, threat to the integrity of the Faith, that doubt cannot possibly survive the publication of “Pope Francis: Meetings with Dominique Wolton: Politics and Society,” a 450-page compendium of rambling private conversations between Bergoglio and Wolton, a French sociologist, during an extraordinary series of private audiences at the Vatican.

That the Church is in the destructive grip of a neo-Modernist dictatorship under an octogenarian Jesuit Pope and his cohort of aged progressive friends is no longer reasonably arguable. In this all but apocalyptic situation, the only issue now is how far the regime will be able to go in realizing the megalomaniacal Bergoglian vision of Evangelii Gaudium: “I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation [!].” 

ProPublica and the Alt-Left’s New Tactic: Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations

 

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Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.               


UPDATE
 

ProPublica’s attempt at tortious interference with contract has failed as to Jihad Watch, which was featured in the Kirchner, et al. faux “investigative journalism” report, consisting of regurgitated SPLC/ADL propaganda and an EXCEL spreadsheet listing 57 groups, including The Remnant, as “hate groups” whose accounts PayPal was apparently expected to terminate based on ProPublica’s flimsy presentation of non-evidence.

While PayPal temporarily suspended Jihad Watch’s account immediately following receipt of the results of ProPublica’s sham “investigation,” it quickly reversed that decision after a storm of protests and account cancellations by Jihad Watch supporters.   

Cue laughing trombone.

ProPublica also cut off the comment thread to its report after only 73 comments, nearly all of which condemned ProPublica for its ham-handed effort to punish Unapproved Opinion.

The almost total lack of supportive comments indicates that ProPublica has no real constituency and is merely a creature of Leftist foundation largesse—in this case, the Sandler Foundation, funded by Soros allies Herbert and Marion Sandler, major supporters of the Soros empire of some 527 far-Left front groups. As ProPublica’s website states: “The Sandler Foundation made a major, multi-year commitment to fund ProPublica at launch.”

In short, ProPublica is no “independent investigative newsroom” but just another alt-Left façade, propped up by foundation money without which it could never survive. 


The email from an outfit called ProPublica arrived in the Remnant’s inbox at 2:08 PM with a “deadline” of 5 PM. Sent by one Lauren Kirchner, the email reads as follows:

No matter what Donald Trump may be able to achieve as President, despite opposition from literally all the powers of this world, his greatest achievement is already behind him and established as a landmark in Western history: his election to the Presidency of the United States of America.

tobin deadliftJoseph Tobin Pumping iron and welcoming “gay couples” to his cathedral
A Bergoglian cardinal for the new Gay Church

Introduction

As I have noted on these pages more than once, the essential novelty of the Bergoglian pontificate, even in the midst of the turbulent sea of novelty that is the post-conciliar epoch, is its carefully planned and relentlessly executed assault on the Sixth Commandment under the guise of “accompanying and “integrating” public sinners involved in “second marriages” and other “irregular unions” through a vague process of “discernment” of their “concrete situations.”  In other words, a form of situation ethics in matters sexual. This development is simply apocalyptic. There is no other word for what we are witnessing.

DHS official testifies: The Russians Might Have Done Something!

On June 21, DHS’s acting Director of the Cyber Division of the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, Samuel Liles, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the endless, increasingly farcical “Russia probe.”  Let me summarize his testimony for the reader (the Remnant digests this important material so that you don’t have to):  

Internet-connected state election systems were “potentially targeted” in 21 states by “Russian-government-linked cyber actors.” This was the equivalent of someone who was “rattling the door knob and was unable to get in,” but in a small number of states “they made it through the door.” There is no evidence that any votes were changed because voting machines are not connected to the Internet.

In short, nothing actually happened, as indicated by the weasel words “potentially targeted.” Nevertheless, Russia’s dastardly “potential targeting” cannot go unpunished!  We cannot allow America’s Greatest Enemy Ever to rattle the sacred door knobs of democracy! 

But, the reader may ask, how do we really know that the “potential targeting” was conducted by “Russian government-linked cyber actors”?  Well, if you knew anything about counter-intelligence work, you would know that the “Russian government-linked cyber actors” left their Russian government-linked digital fingerprints at the scenes of the potential cyber-crimes they could actually have committed if they had wanted to commit them. Their fingerprints are all over the door knobs of our democracy!

But, but, the reader may wonder, why would sophisticated Russian government-linked cyber actors be so inept as to leave their fingerprints at the scene of their “potential targeting”?  Why would they not make their potential targeting untraceable to its source by generating fake IP addresses and using other means of concealment, like pimple-faced adolescents hacking government agencies and credit data bases from their parents’ basement? 

Well, if you knew anything about counter-intelligence work you would know that sophisticated Russian government-linked cyber actors routinely employ reverse psychology whenever they potentially do something they could actually do if they were inclined to do it.  They make it so obvious that Russian government-linked cyber actors were involved that we might think it couldn’t possibly be Russian government-linked cyber actors, who would never be so obvious.  Ah ha!

The incurably skeptical reader may cavil at the phrase “Russian government-linked cyber actors.”  How is a Russian government-linked cyber actor different from simply a Russian government cyber actor?  What constitutes a “link” to the Russian government, and how do we know that the “link” is not just a phony IP address like those pimple-faced kids use?

Well, if you knew anything about counter-intelligence work, etc.

Clearly, the astonishing disclosure that Russian government-linked cyber actors rattled the door knobs of our democracy means that Donald Trump must have colluded with Vladimir Putin to undermine the very foundation of our way of life: the election of Hillary Clinton.  No doubt, Robert Mueller and his army of Clinton donors will get to the bottom of this… in a few years.

Meanwhile, should there not be a Congressional investigation of whether Russian government-linked cyber actors potentially affected the outcome of the special election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District?  Karen Handel was supposed to lose, like Trump was supposed to lose. Yet she won, just like Trump did.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

Indeed, how can America ever trust the election of any Republican again, given the undeniable role of Russian government-linked cyber actors in potentially favoring Republicans and rattling the door knobs of our democracy in order—potentially—to collude with them in some manner that will surely be determined after numerous thorough investigations?

Only an independent commission or another special counsel can determine whether Republican victories will ever be legitimate again.  Until then, RESIST!

Dear President Trump:

You are now in the midst of an absolutely intolerable situation: A Democrat acting Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, has appointed a Democrat special counsel, Robert Mueller, who has hired Democrat lawyers, including a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation, in order to perpetuate an already year-long, fruitless investigation of the Democrat fantasy, invented by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, that your Presidential campaign somehow “colluded with Russia” to “hack the election.” At the same time, five congressional committees, including cooperative Republicans, and the FBI are continuing the same pointless investigation into a fantasy that would not be a crime even if it were true.

The letter appointing Mueller does not even identify an alleged crime to be investigated, without which the special counsel has no jurisdiction to proceed.  Yet Mueller is assembling a small army of $1000-per-hour political operatives with law licenses, all at taxpayer expense, in order to conduct an investigation in search of a crime—the very thing a special counsel is not authorized to do.