Francis based his message on the Novus Ordo Gospel reading for the Sunday, which reads as follows:

“The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, ‘I am the bread which came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, `I have come down from heaven’?' Jesus answered them, ‘Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’” (John 6:41-51, quoted from EWTN)

Many Novus Ordo priests might have focused their homilies on the last lines of the Gospel passage, which speak of the incomparable gift of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and the need for all souls to seek what they can find only in the Catholic Church. Francis instead dedicated his message to describing (and causing) scandal:

“Today the Gospel of the liturgy (Jn 6:41-51) tells us about the reaction of the Judeans to the statement of Jesus, who says: ‘I have come down from heaven’ (Jn 6:38). They are scandalized.”

While it is true that Jesus later asked His disciples if they were scandalized (John 6:62) after He told them that His flesh is meat and His blood is drink (John 6:56-59), the Gospel reading from Sunday ended before any mention of scandal. As it turns out, though, Francis did not appear to have any interest in the Gospel other than to use it to demonstrate the evils of not listening to Francis. In so doing, he helped us understand various “sinful" traits that keep us from accepting the ideas Francis wants to impose upon us: making presumptions based on apparent facts; having rigid mindsets; abiding by the law; and refusing to abandon religious beliefs.

With these words, Francis has clearly moved well beyond anything remotely connected to the Gospel story and is simply projecting his dislike for Traditional Catholics. It is as though Francis wants his audience to believe that Jesus had to suffer the same rigid assaults from the Jews that Francis has to suffer from Traditional Catholics.

Making Presumptions Based on Apparent Facts. Francis began his message by scolding those who questioned Jesus’s claim that He was the bread that had come down from heaven:

“They murmur among themselves: ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?’ (Jn 6:42). And they murmur like this. Let us pay attention to what they say. They are convinced that Jesus cannot have come from heaven, because he is the son of a carpenter and because his mother and his relatives are common people, familiar, normal people, like so many others. ‘How could God manifest Himself in such an ordinary way?’, they say. They are obstructed in their faith by their preconception of his humble origins and they are obstructed by the presumption, therefore, that they have nothing to learn from him. Preconceptions and presumptions, how much harm they do! They prevent sincere dialogue, a coming together of brothers and sisters: beware of preconceptions and presumptions.”

Assuming this is not simply a terrible translation of Francis’s words, one wonders if he recognizes that it was actually somewhat unique in human history for God to become man and dwell among others. Commenting on the same passage, St. John Chrysostom said the Jews were not to blame for questioning Our Lord at this point:

“It is evident that they did not yet know of His miraculous birth: for they call Him the Son of Joseph. Nor are they blamed for this. Our Lord does not reply, I am not the Son of Joseph: for the miracle of His birth would have overpowered them.” (from St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea)

If we follow Francis’s reasoning, though, the Jews were supposed to take Jesus at His word without any questions. And apparently they should have done that not only for Jesus but also for anyone else who would have claimed to be from Heaven.

Francis removed all doubt about his true intent by extrapolating from his misreading of the Gospel to draw the universal message that “preconceptions and presumptions” do so much harm because “they prevent sincere dialogue, a coming together of brothers and sisters.” Obviously this is not limited to situations in which Our Lord appears as He did to the Jews, so Francis wants us to rid ourselves of all preconceptions and presumptions. With these words, Francis echoes every false prophet who wants to scandalize innocent souls into abandoning what they know to be right.

Ironically, Francis labels the Jews as rigid because they would not let Jesus into their hearts, whereas he labels us as rigid because we won’t kick Jesus out of our hearts to make room for the heterodox and globalist ideas he wants to put there instead.

Having Rigid Mindsets. As we have seen for several years, Francis denounces Traditional Catholics by saying we are rigid. He chose the same terminology to denounce those who questioned Jesus:

“They have their rigid mindsets, and there is no space in their heart for what does not fit into them, for what they are unable to catalogue and file away in the dusty shelves of their security. And this is true: very often our securities are closed up, dusty, like old books.”

With these words, Francis has clearly moved well beyond anything remotely connected to the Gospel story and is simply projecting his dislike for Traditional Catholics. It is as though Francis wants his audience to believe that Jesus had to suffer the same rigid assaults from the Jews that Francis has to suffer from Traditional Catholics. Ironically, Francis labels the Jews as rigid because they would not let Jesus into their hearts, whereas he labels us as rigid because we won’t kick Jesus out of our hearts to make room for the heterodox and globalist ideas he wants to put there instead.

Abiding by the Law. Once Francis got a on roll, it appears that he could not stop until he exhausted all of his criticisms of Traditional Catholics. And so he chose to denounce the Jews because they wanted to observe the laws:

“And yet they are people who observe the law, who give alms, who respect fasts and times of prayer. Indeed, Christ has already performed various miracles (cf. Jn 2:1-11,4,43-54; 5:1-9; 6:1-25). How is it that all this does not help them to recognize in Him the Messiah? Why does it not help them? Because they carry out their religious practices not so much in order to listen to the Lord, but rather to find in them the confirmation of what they think.”

Again, none of this has anything to do with the Gospel reading. St. Augustine explained that the Jews could not come to Jesus at this point because the Father had not drawn them to Jesus:

“The answer to the murmurers next follows: Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves; as if to say, I know why ye hunger not after this bread, and so cannot understand it, and do not seek it: No man can come to Me except the Father who hath sent Me draw him. This is the doctrine of grace: none cometh, except he be drawn. But whom the Father draws, and whom not, and why He draws one, and not another, presume not to decide, if thou wouldest avoid falling into error.” (from St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea)

Thus it is risible for Francis to falsely judge the Jews of this scene and then, with transparent desire to apply the rash judgment to his personal enemies, suggest that following the religious laws given to us by Jesus makes us less likely to hear the voice of Jesus.

Thus it is risible for Francis to falsely judge the Jews of this scene and then, with transparent desire to apply the rash judgment to his personal enemies, suggest that following the religious laws given to us by Jesus makes us less likely to hear the voice of Jesus.

Refusing to Abandon Religious Beliefs. Francis’s final critique of the Jews (and Traditional Catholics) seeks to damn those who have firm religious convictions:

“They are closed to the Word of the Lord, and look for confirmation of their own thoughts. This is demonstrated by the fact that they do not even take the trouble to ask Jesus for an explanation; they limit themselves to murmuring among themselves against Him (cf. Jn 6:41), as though to reassure each other of what they are convinced, and they shut themselves in, they are closed up in an impenetrable fortress. And so, they are unable to believe. The closure of the heart: how much harm it does, how much harm!”

So if we have firm religious convictions we will be “unable to believe.” It is such a grave scandal for the purported head of the religion established by Jesus Christ to use his power to bully Catholics into abandoning their Catholic religious convictions. Did any of the people in St. Peter’s Square see the irony of Francis excoriating the Jews for holding to their religious beliefs and questioning Jesus, at the same time that he excoriates Traditional Catholics for holding to our religious beliefs and refusing to question what Jesus taught?

Francis closed with an emotional plea for everyone to learn the lessons of his diatribe by being open in mind, heart, prayer, and faith:

“Let us pay attention to all of this, because at times the same thing can happen to us too, in our life and in our prayer: it can happen to us, that is, that instead of truly listening to what the Lord has to say to us, we look to Him and others only for a confirmation of what we think, a confirmation of our convictions, our judgements, which are prejudices. . . Brothers and sisters, faith and prayer, when they are true, open the mind and the heart; they do not close them. When you find a person who is closed in their mind, in prayer, that faith and that prayer are not true.”

By all means, we should take his advice and be open to all that God wants to give us. But this means we must be open to what Jesus actually taught; we must be open to the examples of the saints, who would have rather died than practice Francis’s anti-Catholic religion; we must be open to the almost two-thousand years of truth and beauty that the Catholic Church has left us; we must be open to following Our Lord’s guidance to judge by fruits, so that we know to avoid Francis’s putrid and lethal fruits; and we must be open to the pre-Vatican II popes who warned that men like Francis would try to corrupt our Faith with the same lies we hear him telling us today. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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