Christopher A. Ferrara
In the fourth year of his pontificate, Francis continues to deliver regular payloads of explosive off-the-cuff remarks that delight the media and shock the Catholic faithful. It would be easy at this point simply to ignore these spectacles, but then one would be ignoring a key element of the manner in which Francis is attempting to realize his “vision” of the Church. As Francis himself has insisted, his “magisterium” includes an endless stream of informal speech in various venues: “I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear.”
Bishop Schneider at last year's Chartres Pilgrimage,
with foreign chapter leaders (including Michael Matt and John Rao)
Your Excellency:
To your everlasting credit, but to the Church’s everlasting shame, you alone among the entire Catholic episcopacy have protested publicly and forthrightly against the many statements in Amoris Laetitia (AL), particularly in Chapter 8, which appear to derogate from the negative precepts of the natural law, including those against divorce, adultery and fornication. By the divine will, these precepts, as Your Excellency writes, “are universally valid… oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance” and “forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception” because they concern “kinds of behaviour which can never, in any situation, be a proper response.”
Jorge & Bruno
Archbishop Bruno Forte, Pope Bergoglio’s handpicked Special Secretary for both sessions of the Phony Synod, is a supremely arrogant man. For only supreme arrogance could explain his reported insertion into the midterm report of Phony Synod 2014 (with Francis’s full approval) those infamous statements about “valuing” the “homosexual orientation” and recognizing that “homosexual unions” can provide “precious support in the life of the partners” as they habitually engage in sodomy.
French Translation by SJJ
Note de l'éditeur: Ceci est la version WEB RÉVISÉE ET AUGMENTÉE de l'article de M. Ferrara du même nom qui apparaît dans la version imprimée courante du The Remnant. Nous avons décidé de l'afficher ici dans son intégralité en raison de la gravité de son sujet et parce qu'il pourrait bien être notre réquisitoire le plus définitif de François et de son ordre du jour pour changer l'Église de façon permanente. C'est avec tristesse que nous publions cette critique dévastatrice de la «Joie de l'amour». En fait, nous considérons ceci comme rien de moins que le devoir déchirante des fils fidèles de l'Eglise, qui ne voient pas d'autre choix que de résister. S'il-vous-plaît, priez pour le Pape François et pour notre bien-aimée Église catholique manifestement assiégée. MJM
Aucune difficulté ne peut survenir qui justifierait la mise de côté de la loi de Dieu, qui interdit tous les actes intrinsèquement mauvais. Il n'y a aucune circonstance possible dans laquelle le mari et la femme ne pourraient pas, fortifiés par la grâce de Dieu, remplir fidèlement leurs devoirs et préserver de toute souillure leur chasteté dans le mariage. Pie XI, Casti Connubii
Introduction: L'inquiétude se répand
Comme le cardinal Burke a observé dans un article paru dans le National Catholic Register, suite à une lecture attentive, AMORIS LAETITIA se révèle être un document «personnel, c'est-à-dire non-magistériel, une réflexion personnelle du pape» qui «ne se confond pas avec la foi qui doit obéissance aux déclarations du Magistère.». Ceci est vrai, mais peut-être pas pour les raisons décrites par le cardinal, comme je le montrerai à l'issue de cet essai.
Editor's Note: This is the REVISED AND EXPANDED WEB VERSION of Mr. Ferrara's article by the same name which appears in the current print-edition of The Remnant. We've decided to post it here in its entirety due to the gravity of its subject matter and to the fact that it may well be our most definitive exposé of Pope Francis and his agenda to permanently change the Church. It gives us no joy to publish this devastating critique of the 'Joy of Love'. In fact, we regard it as nothing less than the heartbreaking duty of loyal sons of the Church who can see no alternative but to resist. Please pray for Pope Francis and for our beloved Catholic Church under obvious siege. MJM
No difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids all acts intrinsically evil. There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, fulfill faithfully their duties and preserve in wedlock their chastity unspotted. -Pius XI, Casti Connubii
Introduction: Spreading Alarm
As Cardinal Burke has observed in an article appearing in the National Catholic Register, upon careful reading AMORIS LÆTITIA reveals itself to be “a personal, that is, non-magisterial” document, “a personal reflection of the Pope” that “is not confused with the binding faith owed to the exercise of the magisterium.” This is true enough, but perhaps not for the reasons the Cardinal expresses, as I show at the conclusion of this essay.
Our Lord says "whoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery (Lk 16:18)."
But in Chapter 8 of “The Joy of Love” Francis says: Well, really, it depends on the circumstances.
In keeping with Our Lord’s divine admonition, the Church has constantly affirmed her “practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried” unless, if they "cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.” (Familiaris consortio, 84)
Timothy Cardinal DolanThe “Joy of Love” is about to explode upon the Catholic world, no doubt overthrowing the teaching of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in line with all of Tradition, on the impossibility of Holy Communion for those living in a state of continual adultery. The overthrow will be veiled in ambiguous references to the “internal forum,” “integration,” and a “path or journey” culminating in admission to Holy Communion according to the “competence” of the local ordinary or the “episcopal conferences” Paul VI invented to begin the process of fragmenting the universal discipline of the Church Universal in the context of the “liturgical reform.”
In short, if what seems likely comes to pass, practice will hollow out the dogma on the indissolubility of marriage, making a mockery of the very words of Our Lord Himself, which “The Joy of Love” will of course affirm resoundingly with paragraph after paragraph of empty praise.
Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, has just publisheda previously unpublished interview of Benedict XVI in October of last year by the liberal Jesuit theologian (forgive the redundancy) Jacques Servais, a leading exponent of the Nouvelle Théologie once suppressed by Rome. Servais is an avid promoter of Hans Urs (“Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved?”) von Balthasar, who dropped dead days before John Paul II could accomplish the indignity of making him a cardinal.
Derived from the Greek root demos, meaning “the people,” demotic is a rich word that denotes or connotes all of the following: common, vulgar, popular, colloquial, the language of ordinary people, demagogic.
Francis is the first designedly demotic Pope in Church history. Unlike any Pope before him, he basks in the world’s unending praise precisely because he styles himself “the people’s Pope.” The world loves “the people’s Pope” for saying what the people want to hear as opposed to what the Church teaches in calling all men to be elevated from their fallen condition through the operation of sanctifying grace and the conformity of nations, laws and institutions to the Law of the Gospel and the Social Kingship of Christ. The disciples who abandoned Our Lord when He revealed the meaning of the Holy Eucharist declared: “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” But so often when Francis speaks the world delights in replying: “This saying is easy, who can reject it?”
Wherein the Pope who lives behind walls condemns walls, gives another thumbs-up to contraception, folds on “gay marriage” and blatantly contradicts himself—as usual.
Another day, another blabbering press conference on the return flight from another useless, blabber-filled papal voyage.
And, as is so often the case, Francis has condemned others for precisely what he himself is guilty of. Speaking of Donald Trump’s vow to build a wall along the entire US border with Mexico, Francis declared:
"He who thinks only of building walls and not bridges is not Christian. This is not the Gospel. Vote for him or not vote for him? I say only that if that is what he said, this man is not Christian."