Jorge Mario Bergoglio has once again endorsed "civil unions" for those engaged in lives of impurity, especially for those identify themselves as practitioners of the sin of Sodom.
This a brief commentary, which is followed by an appendix containing excerpts from an article published in late-2020. Jorge Mario Bergoglio loves to sully the holy sesason of Lent with his absolute obsessio to indemnify impurity, indecency, and impiety.
May God have mercy on us all!
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Saint Patrick, pray for us.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.
March 18, 2024, Update:
This commentary was revised and enlarged ever so slightly a few moments ago, that is, after Midnight on the Feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. I should be able to have another brief new commentary for you by tomorrow, March 19, 2024, the Feast of Saint Joseph.
As it is now the Feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, I want to provide the lesson about the life of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem contained in Matins for the Divine Office teach us about our saint’s unswerving fealty to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and his profound hatred of heresy, error and all sin:
Cyril of Jerusalem was given to the study of the Holy Scriptures from a child, and so learnt therein that he became an eminent champion of the orthodox faith. He embraced the monastic institute in perpetual continency, and all hardship of living. He was ordained Priest by holy Maximus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and undertook with eminent success the task of preaching the word of God to the faithful and of instructing the catechumens. Thus did he compose those truly wonderful Catecheses, wherein he has embraced, clearly and fully, all the teaching of the Church, and stoutly defended every one of her doctrines against the enemies of the faith. His treatment of these subjects was such that he has overthrown therein, not only the heresies which had then come into being, but, by a kind of foreknowledge, even those which were to arise in later times. Of this an instance is his contention for the real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the wondrous Sacrament of the Eucharist. After the death of holy Maximus, the bishops of the province chose Cyril in his place.
In his office of Bishop he had for the faith's sake, like his blessed contemporary Athanasius, toto endure many wrongs and sufferings at the hands of the Arian sect. The Arians could not bear that Cyril should steadfastly withstand their heresy. They assailed him with calumnies, deposed him in a pretended council, and drove him out of his see. To escape their rage he fled to Tarsus in Cilicia, and as long as Constantius lived he bore the hardships of exile. After his death and the accession to the imperial throne of the Apostate Julian, Cyril was able to return to Jerusalem, where he set himself with burning zeal to deliver his flock from false doctrine and from sin. He was driven into exile a second time under the Emperor Valens. But when peace was restored to the Church by Theodosius the Great, and the cruelty and insolence of the Arians were restrained, Cyril was received with honour by the Emperor as one of Christ's most eminent soldiers, and was restored to his see. With what earnestness and holiness he fulfilled the duties of his exalted office was made manifest by the flourishing state of the church of Jerusalem at that time, of which a picture hath been left for us by holy Basil, who dwelt there for a while when he went to worship at the holy places.
Tradition hath handed down that God Himself crowned with signs from heaven the holiness of this venerable Patriarch. Among these signs is numbered an apparition of a cross, more resplendent than the beams of the sun, which appeared at the beginning of his Patriarchate. Not only Cyril himself, but heathens and Christians alike were eye-witnesses of this marvel, and Cyril first gave thanks to God therefore in the church, and then sent news thereof by letter to the Emperor Constantius. A thing no less wonderful came to pass when the Jews were commanded by the profane Emperor Julian to attempt the restoration of the temple which had been destroyed by Titus. A great earthquake arose, and great masses of fire broke forth from the earth and consumed all the works, so that the Jews and Julian were dismayed and stayed their hand, all the which it can be proved that Cyril had foretold. A little while before his death he was present at the second Council of Constantinople; herein was condemned the heresy of Macedonius, and once more the Arian heresy. After his return to Jerusalem he died a holy death in the 69th year of his age and the 35th of his episcopate. The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII. commanded that his office and Mass should be celebrated throughout the universal Church. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.)
Heresy and error never just “go away.” They must be fought by Catholics, who are soldiers in the Army of Christ by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem understood this, which is why he fought vigorously against heresy and error and to provide catechumens with proper instructions in the Holy Faith so that they could withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil to stain their baptismal gown and thus to be more prone to embrace heresy and error.
The Abbot of Solesmes’s prayer to our saint, bishop and doctor will give us encouragement in a bloodthirsty world shaped by a rejection of the very true Faith that Saint Cyril fought so hard to defend and to propagate:
Thou wert a true child of the light, O Cyril. Thou didst give thy heart to Holy Wisdom, while yet a child, and she set thee up as a lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour to be the guide of unfortunate souls tossing on the sea of error. The Church confided to thee the mission of preparing for baptism those happy multitudes whom her recent victory had won for her from all ranks of society, and this mission was to be accomplished in a century rich in holy doctors and in the region consecrated by the mysteries of our redemption. Thou wast nourished by Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Mother of all mankind, and thy words flowed pure and abundant as water from a spring. History tells us that the many duties of thy holy ministry would not permit thee to devote thyself exclusively to the Catechumens, and thus thou wert led to improvise those admirable instructions wherein the science of salvation was the knowledge of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, contained in the creed of the Holy Church. Preparation for baptism, for life, for the love of God, was the acquisition of this knowledge, so deep, so far-reaching and so necessary. It was to be acquired, not by the impression of vain sentimentality, but the reception of the word of God in the right spirit, and by constant meditation, so that the souls comes to be firmly established in the fullness of truth, in moral rectitude, and in hatred of evil.
Thou wast sure of thy hearers and didst not fear to unveil before their eyes the arguments and abominable devices of their secret enemies. There are times and circumstances, only to be judged by the shepherds of the flock, when it is necessary to disregard the revulsion of feeling caused by such revelations in order to denounce the danger and warn the sheep against intellectual or moral scandals. Thus, O Cyril, thy invectives pursued Manicheism to its utmost secret haunts. Thou didst see in this heresy the principal agent of that mystery of iniquity which pursues its path of darkness and destruction throughout the ages, until it shall bring the world to decay. In these times the Manichee triumphs openly. The societies founded by him have gained power. The secret of the Lodges still hides from the uninitiated the sacrilegious symbols and dogmas brought once from Persia, but the prince of this world has cleverly united all social forces in the hands of this ally. The first use he makes of his power is attack the Church out of hatred for Christ. He assails her fruitfulness by denying her right to reach what she has received from her divine Head. The children, whom she has brought forth and who are hers in virtue of their baptism, are snatched from her by main force, and she is forbidden to preside over their education. Thou didst understand so well the claims of the sacrament of regeneration. Protect the baptism of so many innocent souls in which men seek to stifle the germ. Strengthen and rekindle the faith of Christian parents and even then that if it is their duty to defend their children from death at the risk of their own bodies, they must remember that the souls of these little ones are still more precious. It has greatly consoled us to see how many have understood this and, faithful to the dictates of their conscience, have suffered violence rather than yield to the regulations of a pagan state. Bless also, strengthen and multiply those faithful souls who devote themselves to the instruction of poor children whose spiritual interests are betrayed by the secular power. There is no mission to-day more urgent than that of catechists, and none, surely, dearer to thy heart.
Holy Church has just related to us the apparition of the holy Cross, which marked the beginning of thy episcopate, and similar marvels have been witnessed in our own time. But the apparition in thy day announced a triumph—the triumph thou didst foresee when St. Helena discovered the three of our redemption, the triumph which, at the time of thy death, had been confirmed by the fulfilled of the prophecies concerning the Jewish Temple. Can it be that our times are to witness only defeat and ruin? We have confidence in thy aid, O holy Pontiff. We remember that the triumph which thou didst witness was brought by the sufferings of the whole Church, in which thou thyself didst share by thy thrice-repeated deposition and twenty years of exile. The Cross, whose great anniversary is not approaching, is not conquered, but triumphs in the sufferings of the faithful and their patient endurance. It will appear once more, a sign of eternal victory, over the ruins of the world on the Day of Judgment. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Volume V, Lent, pp. 419-420.)
It is the Faith that matters, the entire Faith without any compromises, now and for all eternity.
Aren't we willing to suffer some more for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our state in life permits?
Relying upon the help of Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, may we always lift high the standard of the Holy Cross in our own lives so that our soul will be in ruins when the day of the Particular Judgment comes for us.
A reminder: Today, Monday, March 18, 2024, is the Feast of Saint Cyril of Jersualem and the Commemoration of Monday in Passion Week, is the forty-second nniversary of the death of my late mother, Norma Florence Red Fox Droleskey (nee: Maxine Coomer, born on March 6, 1921). Please pray for the repose of her immortal soul.
Today is also the seventeenth anniversary of the death of Father Daniel Johnson, the longtime pastor of St. Mary's by the Sea Church in Huntington Beach, California, who personally walked the entire territory of his parish three times to knock on every door, resulting in the conversion of 532 people to the Holy Faith, and it is also the sixteenth anniversary of the death of Mrs. Therese Colgan, the mother of a former student of mine from St. Francis College, Brooklyn, New York, during the 1985-1986 academic years. Please pray for the respose of their immortal souls. (A former friend of mine within the conciliar structures, for whom I pray every day, turns seventy-three years of age today as well.)
A blessed Feast of Saint Patrick to you all!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.
