indulgence

A week of commemorations, some good, some Bergogliian - Sunday 29th of October to Saturday 4th of November

This week included the Feast of All Saints, as well as the Feast of All Souls, as all well-informed Catholics will know.

One is an authentic celebration of those who have made it to Eternal Glory spend eternity with God in Heaven. The other is a commemoration of the souls who have not quite made it, inviting us to pray for them and help them along the way. These are the positive commemorations.

It will have escaped the attention of few that this week also marked the 500th anniversary of the protestant revolt. There were many good articles written about this event and the myths that have grown up about it. It's interesting to note that even the  posting of theses to the church door is generally agreed not to have taken place, but is one more myth about that arch-heresiarch. Many of the good articles I found have been linked below, and it would be nice to have a glance at them if you want to know about the real Martin Luther, the one who was condemned by the Church, a rabidly depraved human being who seems to have had little or  no love in him, except of various immoral acts.

One good article was a reprint of an article written 50 years ago in The Wanderer by Bishop William Adrian. It shows that the attempt at rehabilitating Luther has been going on since at least the Second Vatican Council, and what is interesting is that even then the attempt was going against readily available historical data which showed just what a horrble man he was.

We shall not waste much time on him, as we have bigger problems in the Church today than an arch-heresiarch who was excommunicated; in the form of an arch-heresiarch who seems intent on tearing everything Catholic down, and who seems to have very little resistance from the Church's other bishops in his attempts to do so. This same man decided to honour Luther with a blaspemous stamp in which Luther and his associate the the places traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary and St. John. The pose of these people kneeling is unusual as, from what I have read of the man's writings, he is unlikely to have ever got on his knee in front of the Cross or Crucifix after he had apostasised. Even their distortions of history are distorted in other words.

We also had news that Bergoglio has supposedly set up a commission geared towards looking into creating a new ecumenical mass. This time they even bothered to come up with a denial, so at least they know the venture is evil.

It's interesting to note that not even the Novus Ordo Missae is un-Catholic enough for Bergoglio, despite having carried tens and hundreds of millions away from the faith. He wants a novus Novus Ordo, and the blasphemies contained in it we can only imagine. Many disbelieve this story, and I am not sure I am too keen to believe it either, given the Novus Ordo Missae is working just dandily in tearing Catholics away from their faith en masse. However, it is important to remember that the worse a rumour is under this pontificate, the more likely it is to be true, if history is anything to go by. Virtually every bad warning regarding Bergoglio has come to fruition, with the reality being often worse than the rumours.

In an article entitled "Why Catholics should defend indulgences", the Catholic Herald did a good job in explaining the issue of indulgences. It is a very easy read ad a good explanation. That particular newspaper used to be my go-to-site for news, but Bergoglio has left his mark on it. Besides being largely Bergoglio apologists, the newspaper seems often to be little more than neo-cons in Catholic drag, as their very clear support for the Western aggression Libya demonstrated, and it's heavy anti-Russian propaganda. Credit where credit is due though.

This week's Bergoglio-victim-of-the-week was Fr. Thomas Weinandy, who in a rather forthright manner put into writing what he has felt about Bergoglio for a long time. He wrote that Bergoglio has caused "chronic confusion", among other stuff. He also wrote of Bergoglio's hypocrisy in speaking of parrhesia while punishing those who speak up openly in favour of Catholic teaching and against Bergoglian novelties, all the while as Bergoglio rewards those who show nothing but disrespect to the Church's moral authority.

Keen to prove that the terms of its massive grants from the U.S. government does not oblige the USCCB to invest in irony, Fr. Weinandy was promptly dismissed from his position as the USCCB's top doctrinal advisor, swiftly proving that he was right to point out the hypocrisy of FrancisChurch.

I would remiss if I did not take this opportunity to compliment Mundabor on his keen sense of picking out NovusOrdoist tendencies even from people who do good acts. The details of how Fr. Weinandy came to issue his letter to Bergoglio are worth reading about on their own,  but in short, he asked for a sign from God, and a very specific one at that. Once he had received that sign, he felt he should go ahead with airing his grievances. Mundabor notes the fact that it is not a good idea to test God, in the way the priest did. We have a case in which a priest seems to have been forced by God into doing what he should have been doing all along. Given that this particular priest was the head of the doctrinal office, we cannot claim that he does not know right from wrong, so we ought to be afraid that he has led others into thinking that they can test God in similar ways.

It would not be entirely fanciful, for instance, to think that a man with a weakness for a workmate will use the same trick and put a set of conditions which, if met,...

An emeny speaketh sweetly with his lips, but in his heart he lies in wait, to throw thee into a pit

An emeny speaketh sweetly with his lips, but in his heart he lies in wait, to throw thee into a pit. An enemy weepeth with his eyes: but if he find an opporunity he will not be satisfied with blood.

That is a quotation from the  Ecclesiasticus 12:15-16. I did not know before today that the same book is also called the "Book of Sirach". On top of that, the numbering of the verses seems to differ. So in the RSV, we find the corresponding verse in Sirach 12:16, which combines both verses into one:

An enemy will speak sweetly with his lips, but in his mind he will plan to throw you into a pit; an enemy will weep with his eyes but if he finds an opportunity his thirst for blood will be insatiable.

The topic today is that of the 2015-2016 Holy Year of Mercy, announced some time ago. In particular, I wish to address the developments which came about yesterday when Pope Francis wrote a letter to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation. I still haven't figured out what the "new evangelisation" is supposed to be, by the way. If you ask me it seems to be another way of saying "no evangelisation", a point which has been made by others.

In any case, most of the letter is surprisingly Catholic, apart from somewhere in the middle where Pope Francis addresses the issue of abortion, writing "I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision". I am unsuere of which pressure Pope Francis speaks, but he makes it seem as though all women are forced into it through outside pressure or threats. For some it may be the case, but one may be hard-pressed to argue that it is the case for most. Many do it so that a baby won't interfere with their leisure activities, such as interfering with one's volleyball aspirations - and I don't even mean sex, which for most people in the West is just one leisure activity among many. In typical Pope Francis fashion, the sin is someone else's fault, although at least he does seem to think it is a big issue, although using words such as "tragedy of abortion" again give the impression that is is something brought about by external forces and not through the conscious choice of the women who make the conscious decision to kill an unborn child.

I especially liked the part about those who have been incarcerated, and are therefore unable to make a pilgrimage to obtain the Jubilee Indulgence. I liked it that the letter did not take the opportunity to rail against incarceration and instead speaks of those who "despite deserving punishment, have become conscious of the injustice they worked and sinceredly wish to re-enter society and make their honest contribution to it". That statement entails a kind of culpability which Pope Francis does not seem to think can be attributed to those who have their unborn children killed. The indulgence "can also be obtained for the deceased" so without a doubt we are looking at one of the few Catholic documents released in the name of Pope Francis.

Given that the letter is quite concise and without many contradictions, I am inclined to agree with Mundabor that it has not been written by Pope Francis. I am sad to conclude that, but I have a very hard time believing that the man who when he is allowed to speak freely cannot bring himself to uttering perhaps as little as 2 consecutive sentences or an Orthodox bent can write a document which is very much to the point and does not attack Catholic orthodoxy.

I write though regarding the SSPX, which is the very topic that Pope Francis addresses before concluding the document. Pope Francis makes it clear that "This Jubilee Year of Mercy excludes no one" and that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins." That is all well and good, and the SSPX has taken time to respond, thanking the pope for his gesture while insisting that they did not need to be granted special permission during this  year of mercy as they have "extraordinary jurisdiction", as granted by canon law in emergency situations. One can hardly argue that the post-Vatican II period does not consitute a period of emergency - one which Pope Francis has made all too visible-, but I am not going to go into the particulars.

My point is that I simply don't buy that Poper Francis is being well-intentioned to the point of being generous. The synod is but a month away and Pope Francis has shown his cards very clearly. It is very clear that in his mind, Church discipline should have nothing to do with Church doctrine or Church teaching, or even obedience to Our Lord. I cannot help but detect a rather sinister ploy in which Pope Francis will turn around some time soon and say that since the year of mercy "excludes no one", and he has proven this by granting the SSPX special jurisdiction during the course of that year, that he would have to extend it to those in adulterous relationships as well. This is, after all, the same pope who said just 2 days prior to this that:

With these words, Jesus also wants to put us, today, on guard against considering that the exterior observance of the law may be sufficient to be good Christians.

The literal observance of the precepts is something sterile if it does not change the heart and is not translated into concrete attitudes.

Those are words which would not trouble us if they were said by a...

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