"Reform" For Jorge Constitutes A Rejection of Catholic Certitude, part one

Ever eager to deceive souls, the adversary has been busy using his pawns to focus on the natural rather than the supernatural. Indeed, so much attention has been paid to the ongoing coup d’etat being engineered by deep state appartchiks the attention of many Catholics this past Advent was diverted from a proper preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Endless news cycles and the blabbering of naturalist talk show hosts give those immersed in the crises of the moment little time to see the world through the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.

Meanwhile, of course, most Catholics alive today, never spend any time focusing on how the energizer apostate from Argentina continues to go about his business of finishing off whatever vestiges of Catholicism remain in his false church, including any true understanding of Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, which he, Bergoglio, ever true to form, reduces to the level of mere naturalism. Then again, the conciliar revolutionaries have reduced everything about the Catholic Faith to naturalism, which leads ultimately to the triumph of atheism under the guise of paganism.

Paganism, of course, is a projection onto God and His Divine Revelation of whatever attributes and teachings conform to the imagining of those who either have never known God, such as the Greek and Roman pagans of antiquity, or those who reject everything that He has revealed to us exclusively through His true Church because they cannot bring themselves to believe in the permanence of truth and the supposed “harshness” this imposes upon those who are steeped in lives of moral dissolution. Modernism is thus really a species of paganism. As such, therefore, Modernism is nothing other than an effort to indemnify those who believe in theological error and/or those who want to say they “believe” in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ while defying the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

As to indemnifying those who believe in theological error, which is almost always tied to acceptance of some violations of the moral law, starting with Martin Luther himself, Bergoglio’s address to the apostates of the counterfeit church included this boilerplate exhortation to “make unity” with adherents of other false religions:

There are also areas to which the Catholic Church, especially after the Second Vatican Council, is particularly committed. Among these is Christian unity, which is “an essential requirement of our faith, a requirement that flows from the depth of our being believers in Jesus Christ”.[24] It involves a “journey”, yet, as was also stated by my predecessors, it is an irreversible journey and not a going back. “Unity is made by walking, in order to recall that when we walk together, that is, when we meet as brothers, we pray together, we collaborate together in the proclamation of the Gospel, and in the service to the least, we are already united. All the theological and ecclesiological differences that still divide Christians will only be surmounted along this path, although today we do not know how and when [it will happen], but that it will happen according to what the Holy Spirit will suggest for the good of the Church”.[25]

The work of the Curia in this area is aimed at fostering encounter with our brothers and sisters, untying the knots of misunderstanding and hostility, and counteracting prejudices and the fear of the other, all of which have prevented us from seeing the richness in diversity and the depth of the Mystery of Christ and of the Church. For that mystery is always greater than any human words can express. (Jorge Tells the Curia to Accept More of What Will Always Fail.)

Unity is not “made” or “created.”

Unity is not a matter of some kind of “search or a “journey.”

Unity is one of the Four Marks of the Catholic Church as she professes the same Holy Faith, undiluted and without a stain of corruption, in each of the holy rites, whether of the West or the East, she has sanctioned. Unity does not have to be “created.” It exists as part of the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church.

Pope Leo XIII explained the nature of the Catholic Church’s unity in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

The true Faith is to be found only in the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches and the Protestant sects, which are called “ecclesial communities” by the conciliar revolutionaries, are false. They are filled with false doctrines and false liturgical rites, each of which is inspired directly by the adversary himself.

Yet it is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio insidiously attempted to use the diversity of rites that exist within the Catholic Church as an example for how there “unity” can be “built” with “other churches and ecclesial communities.”

Pope Pius XII reminded us that the only members of the Church of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Catholic Church, none other:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Pope Pius XII’s firm reiteration of Catholic teaching was, of course, rejected by the Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI and the Fathers of the “Second” Vatican Council when they voted to approve Lumen Gentium on November 21, 1964, the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which included the following phrase, whose insertion was suggested by a Lutheran “observer” to a council peritus, Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger:

This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964.)

Despite all of the efforts made by defenders of all things conciliar to try to explain how the passage from Lumen Gentium above was not a contradiction of Pope Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis, it is nevertheless the case that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s “new ecclesiology” of “full communion” and “partial communion” received its official sanction in Lumen Gentium. The seeds were thus planted for a wider and more “generous” application of the “new ecclesiology that Ratzinger himself defended in an interview with the Frankfort Allgemeine newspaper on September 22, 2000, forty-seven days after the issuance of Dominus Iesus on August 6, 2000, the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Indeed, the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger boasted that Lumen Gentium recognized that there were other “churches” outside of the Catholic Church:

Q. On the other hand, Eberhard Jüngel sees something different there. The fact that in its time the Second Vatican Council did not state that the one and only Church of Christ is exclusively the Roman Catholic Church perplexes Jüngel. In the Constitution Lumen gentium,it says only that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him", not expressing any exclusivity with the Latin word "subsistit".

A. Unfortunately once again I cannot follow the reasoning of my esteemed colleague, Jüngel. I was there at the Second Vatican Council when the term "subsistit" was chosen and I can say I know it well. Regrettably one cannot go into details in an interview. In his Encyclical Pius XII said: the Roman Catholic Church "is" the one Church of Jesus Christ. This seems to express a complete identity, which is why there was no Church outside the Catholic community. However, this is not the case: according to Catholic teaching, which Pius XII obviously also shared, the local Churches of the Eastern Church separated from Rome are authentic local Churches; the communities that sprang from the Reformation are constituted differently, as I just said. In these the Church exists at the moment when the event takes place. . .

Q. In short, why cannot the "otherness" of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be compared to the diversity of ecclesial communities? Is Jüngel's not a fascinating and harmonious formula?

A. Among the ecclesial communities there are many disagreements, and what disagreements! The three "persons" constitute one God in an authentic and supreme unity. When the Council Fathers replaced the word "is" with the word "subsistit", they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by "is" (to be) is far broader than that expressed by "to subsist". "To subsist" is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.  (Answers to Main Objections Against Dominus Iesus.) 

One can see that the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger had explained the Latin word subsistit had been chosen at the “Second” Vatican Council preciselybecause it signified that the “Church of Christ” was an entity larger than the Catholic Church herself.

Ratzinger was so bold as to project this heretical belief upon Pope Pius XII, who did not believe that the Eastern Orthodox churches were part of the one Church of Christ that is the Catholic Church, implying that there was a possibility that Papa Pacelli had gotten it wrong, that he might not have agreed with what Ratzinger contended was the “Catholic teaching” contained in Lumen Gentium. He even went so far as to assert that Protestant sects became part of the “Church of Christ” at the moment, which he called “the event,” of their being founded by this or that heretic. That is not what Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis.

All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing at present is to bring the “new ecclesiology” launched by means of Lumen Gentium to effect “new understandings” of the doctrine of Holy Mother Church’s Divine Constitution to its ultimate conclusion: a full endorsement of a “shared mission” to preach the false “gospel” of statism, open borders and “saving the planet.” In plain English, therefore, Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes that pantheistic paganism of the “ecclesial communities” and “other churches” is the “path” to “unity.”

Well, in a manner of speaking, Bergoglio’s false beliefs are indeed a path to “unity.” Most tragically for his own immortal soul, barring his own conversion to the Catholic Faith that he never truly accepted as the one and only true Faith (see Soldiers in The Damanation Army), that “unity” will be found in eternal perdition as he shares the lowest reaches of hell with those he has indemnified in their false religions.

The man who is viewed by all but a very tiny handful of Catholics in the world as “Pope Francis” concluded his annual Christmas address to the conciliar curia by discussing the state of relations between the conciliar curia and non-Christian religions, starting with Judaism and Mohamedanism:

The Curia, Judaism, Islam and other religions:

The relationship of the Roman Curia to other religions is based on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the need for dialogue. “For the only alternative to the civility of encounter is the incivility of conflict”.[26] Dialogue is grounded in three fundamental lines of approach: “The duty to respect one’s own identity and that of others, the courage to accept differences, and sincerity of intentions. The duty to respect one’s own identity and that of others, because true dialogue cannot be built on ambiguity or a willingness to sacrifice some good for the sake of pleasing others. The courage to accept differences, because those who are different, either culturally or religiously, should not be seen or treated as enemies, but rather welcomed as fellow-travellers, in the genuine conviction that the good of each resides in the good of all. Sincerity of intentions, because dialogue, as an authentic expression of our humanity, is not a strategy for achieving specific goals, but rather a path to truth, one that deserves to be undertaken patiently, in order to transform competition into cooperation”.[27]

My meetings with religious leaders during the various Apostolic Visits and here in the Vatican, are a concrete proof of this.

These are only some aspects, important but not comprehensive, of the work of the Curia ad extra. Today I chose these aspects, linked to the theme of “diaconal primacy”, “institutional senses”, and of “faithful antennae that transmit and receive”.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I began our meeting by speaking of Christmas as the Feast of Faith. I would like to conclude, though, by pointing out that Christmas reminds us that a faith that does not trouble us is a troubled faith. A faith that does not make us grow is a faith that needs to grow. A faith that does not raise questions is a faith that has to be questioned. A faith that does not rouse us is a faith that needs to be roused. A faith that does not shake us is a faith that needs to be shaken. Indeed, a faith which is only intellectual or lukewarm is only a notion of faith. It can become real once it touches our heart, our soul, our spirit and our whole being. Once it allows God to be born and reborn in the manger of our heart. Once we let the star of Bethlehem guide us to the place where the Son of God lies, not among Kings and riches, but among the poor and humble. (Jorge Tells the Curia to Accept More of What Will Always Fail.)

This is just pure, unadulterated Modernism.

The Modernist mind cannot accept certitude. Everything about Divine Revelation must be “reimagined” in light of “changing circumstances.” The Modernist’s acceptance of uncertainty and doubt is based on agnosticism, that is, that nothing about God can be known with certainty.

Pope Saint Pius X explained Senior Jorge’s beliefs as follows in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

14. Thus far, Venerable Brethren, of the Modernist considered as Philosopher. Now if we proceed to consider him as Believer, seeking to know how the Believer, according to Modernism, is differentiated from the Philosopher, it must be observed that although the Philosopher recognises as the object of faith the divine reality, still this reality is not to be found but in the heart of the Believer, as being an object of sentiment and affirmation; and therefore confined within the sphere of phenomena; but as to whether it exists outside that sentiment and affirmation is a matter which in no way concerns this Philosopher. For the Modernist Believer, on the contrary, it is an established and certain fact that the divine reality does really exist in itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it. If you ask on what foundation this assertion of the Believer rests, they answer: In the experience of the individual. On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists only to fall into the opinion of the Protestants and pseudo-mystics. This is their manner of putting the question: In the religious sentiment one must recognise a kind of intuition of the heart which puts man in immediate contact with the very reality of God, and infuses such a persuasion of God's existence and His action both within and without man as to excel greatly any scientific conviction. They assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience is denied by some, like the rationalists, it arises from the fact that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state which is necessary to produce it. It is this experience which, when a person acquires it, makes him properly and truly a believer

How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true. That they cannot feel otherwise is clear. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever? It must be certainly on one of these two: either on account of the falsity of the religious sentiment or on account of the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the religious sentiment, although it may be more perfect or less perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has but to respond to the religious sentiment and to the Believer, whatever be the intellectual capacity of the latter. In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more living and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. That these consequences flow from the premises will not seem unnatural to anybody. But what is amazing is that there are Catholics and priests who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they heap such praise and bestow such public honour on the teachers of these errors as to give rise to the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the errors which these persons openly Pascendi Dominci Gregis profess and which they do all in their power to propagate. (Pope Saint Pius X, September 8, 1907.)

This is a clear repudiation of everything that has been taught by the conciliar “popes” about false religions. It is also a repudiation of conciliarism en toto.

Although there is probably no need to do so, it is useful to remind the few remaining readers of this site of the fact that Judaism is a false religion no matter how many times that Jorge and brother Raccoon Lodge members tell us that the Old Covenant remains fully in force and that adherents of the Talmud are still the Chosen People:

It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation. Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people, but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently, but so ,that, when danger of death is imminent, they be baptized in the form of the Church, early without delay, even by a layman or woman, if a priest should be lacking, just as is contained more fully in the decree of the Armenians. . . .

It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)

28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Night and day, ladies and gentlemen. The night of the matter comes from the adversary and is promoted by the counterfeit church at the behest of its Talmudic masters. The light and truth of the matter is from Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is the very Light of the world.

The Old Covenant has been superseded. It has the power to save no one. Anyone who contends that it does is a heretic.

Consider the reiteration of Catholic teaching on this point as found in The Catholic Church and Salvation, which was written by the eminent theologian, Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who was the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review from 1943-1963:

It is highly important to understand that this process is quite complex. The terminus a quo, the undesirable condition, from which men are removed in the process of salvation is basically sin, the status of aversion from almighty God. A man is said to be saved, absolutely and simply, when he is taken out of the condition of original or mortal sin and brought into the status of the eternal and supernatural life of grace. Ultimately that process in achieved and perfected when the person saved comes to possess the life of grace eternally and inamissibly, in the everlasting glory of the Beatific Vision. There is genuine salvation, however, when the man who has hitherto been in the state of original or mortal sin is brought into the life of sanctifying grace, even in this world, when that life of grace can be lost through the man's own fault.

There is, however, a definitely social aspect to the process of salvation. In the merciful designs of God's providence, the man who is transferred from the state of original or mortal sin into the state of grace is brought in some way “within” a social unit, the supernatural kingdom of the living God. In heaven that community is the Church triumphant, the company of the elect enjoying the Beatific Vision. On earth it is the Church militant. Under the conditions of the new or the Christian dispensation, that community is the organized or visible religious society which is the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ on earth.

We must not lose sight of the fact that people in the condition of aversion from God, in the state of original or mortal sin, belong in some way to a kingdom or an ecclesia under the leadership of Satan, the moving spirit among the spiritual enemies of God. Hence the process of salvation involves necessarily the transfer of an individual from one social unit or community to another, from the kingdom Satan to the true and supernatural kingdom of the living God. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, pp, 134-135.)

This is important to emphasize as anyone who is unbaptized, a condition that applies to Jews and Mohammedans and pagans, belongs to an ecclesia under the leadership of Satan, which predisposes them to a hatred of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, His Holy Cross and His Holy Church and predisposes them as well to wage wafare against all to do with Our Lord, His Church, His Divine Revelation and even the binding precepts of the Natural Law. Amorality must be the result of such hatred.

Monsignor Fenton explained that the Jewish ecclesia had ceased to exist with Our Lord's death on the wood of the Holy Cross, and that Saint Peter, our first pope, sought to bring them out their adherence to false beliefs that could only wind up damning them for all eternity:

This intrinsically social aspect of salvation is brought out in the account, in the Acts of the Apostles, of the end of St. Peter's sermon on the first Christian Pentecost and of the results of that sermon.

Now when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their hearts and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren?

But Peter said to them: Do penance: and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.

And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation.

They therefore that receive his word were baptized: and there were added in that day about three thousand souls.

And they were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the communication of the breaking of bread and in prayers. [Acts, 2: 37-42]

According to the inspired word of God in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter exhorted the men who listened to him of that first Christian Pentecost to “save themselves from this perverse generation.” Furthermore, we are told that the individuals who “received his word” received the sacrament of baptism, and that they were “added” to the number of the disciples of Christ who had been with St. Peter and the other disciples before he delivered his sermon. The society of the disciples of Jesus Christ, the organization which we know now as the Catholic Church, continued with this great number of new members, to do exactly what it had been doing since the day of Our Lord's ascension into heaven.

We read that the group, composed as it was of these new converts who had come into the Church as a result of St. Peter's Pentecost sermon and of the disciples who had entered the group during Our Lord's public life, was “persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the communication of the breaking of bread and in prayers.” And we read the same sort of account of the activity of the original band of disciples that returned to Jerusalem immediately after the Ascension.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a sabbath day's journey.

And when they were come in they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Batholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus and Simon Zelotes and Jude the brother of James.

All these were persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. [Acts 1. 12-14]

Both the text and the context of the Acts of the Apostles assure us that the people who heeded St. Peter's injunction to save themselves from this perverse generation entered the true Church of God, the kingdom of God on earth. They entered the Catholic Church.

Now, if St. Peter's words on this occasion meant anything at all, they signified that the individuals to whom he was speaking were in a situation which would lead them to eternal ruin if they continued in it. They were described as belonging to a “perverse generation.” They were told to save themselves by getting out of it. The institution into which they would enter by the very fact of leaving “this perverse generation” was none other that the society of Our Lord's disciples, the Catholic Church itself.

The clear implication of St. Peter's statement is that the Church, the kingdom of God, was the only institution or social unit of salvation. Not to be within this society was to be in the perverse generation within which a man was faced with eternal and entire spiritual ruin. To leave the perverse generation was to enter the Church.

In other words, the clear teaching of this section of the Acts of the Apostles is precisely that given by Pope Leo XIII in the opening passages of his encyclical Humanum genus. The central point of this teaching is that the entire human race is divided between the kingdom of God, the ecclesia, and the kingdom of Satan. To be saved from the kingdom of Satan is to enter the kingdom of God. In this context it is not difficult to see how, by God's institution, the Catholic Church, the one and only supernatural kingdom of God on earth, is presented as a necessary means for the attainment of salvation. By God's institution the process of salvation itself involves a passage from the kingdom of Satan into the ecclesia.

Now, for the proper understanding of this doctrine, especially in view of the teaching on this subject contained in some recent books and articles, it is imperative to understand the religious condition of the people to whom St. Peter delivered his sermon on that first Christian Pentecost. Again, the Acts of the Apostles contains essentially important information.

This book describes them in general with the statement that “there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.” The homelands of these men are enumerated in the statement attributed to the multitude itself.

And they were all amazed and wondered saying: Behold, are not all these that speak, Galileans?

And how have we heard, every man, our own tongue wherein we were born?

Parthinians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers from Rome,

Jews also and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians: we have heard them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. [Acts 2: 7-11.]

According to the text of the Acts, a great many of these people were pilgrims, men and women who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the great Jewish feast of Pentecost. Our Lord had died on the Cross only a little over seven weeks before St. Peter delivered that sermon, and many of the people who listened to St. Peter must have been on their way to Jerusalem at the very time Our Lord died. They had begun their pilgrimage as an act of worship in the Jewish religion at the very time when the Jewish religion was the one approved especially by God and when the Jewish politico-religious commonwealth was actually the supernatural kingdom of God on earth, the ecclesia of the Old Testament.

These people as individuals probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the persecution and the murder of the Incarnate Word of God. They had started on their journey as members of God's chosen people, the people of His covenant. Their journey to Jerusalem was made precisely in order to worship and honor God. They were truly devout individuals.

Yes, seven weeks before, the religious body to which they belonged had ceased to be God's ecclesia. The Jewish politico-religious social unit had definitively rejected Our Lord, the Messias promised in the Old Testament. This company had hitherto enjoyed its position as God's ecclesias or His congregatio fidelium by virtue of the fact this it had accepted and professed its acceptance of the divine message about the promised Redeemer. In rejecting the Redeemer Himself, this social unit had automatically rejected the teaching God had given about Him. The rejection of this message constituted an abandonment of the divine faith itself. By manifesting this rejection of the faith, the Jewish religious unit fell from its position as the company of the chosen people. It was no longer God's ecclesia, His supernatural kingdom on earth. It became part of the kingdom of Satan.

While the great Jewish social unit was rejecting Our Lord and thus repudiating its acceptance of the divinely revealed message about Him, the little company of the disciples, organized by Our Lord around Himself, retained its faith. It continued to accept and to obey Our Lord and to believe the divinely revealed that centered around Him. Thus at the moment of Our Lord's death on Calvary, the moment when the old dispensation was ended and the Jewish religious association ceased to be the supernatural kingdom of God on earth, this recently organized society of Our Lord's disciples began to exist as the ecclesia or the kingdom.

This society was the true continuation of Israel. The men who were within it were the true sons of Abraham, in that they had the genuine faith of Abraham. This society was the new association of the chosen people. Its members were, as St. Paul called them, the elect or the chosen of God.

It must be understood, incidentally, that this society was actually God's supernatural kingdom on earth in a much more complete and perfect sense than the old Jewish commonwealth had ever been. The old Israel had constituted the pople of the covenant. According to God's unfailing promise, the Redeemer was to be born within that company. Yet conditions had never been such that a man had to be within this company in order to attain to eternal salvation. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, pp, 136-139.)

It cannot get any clearer than the following sentence in the seletion from Monsignor Fenton's masterpiece of Catholic theology just quoted:

By manifesting this rejection of the faith, the Jewish religious unit fell from its position as the company of the chosen people. It was no longer God's ecclesia, His supernatural kingdom on earth. It became part of the kingdom of Satan. (Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation In Light of the Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See, published in 1958 and reprinted in 2006 by Seminary Press, Round Top, New York, p. 139.)

Obviously, the conciliar “popes,” each of whom has been a Judaizer, do not accept such clear reiterations of Catholic truth. Conciliarism is a corrupt misrepresentation of the Catholic Faith. It is really that simple.

This is why the false “pontiff’s” calls for the conciliar curia to follow his “reforms” carry special significance as he sold himself to the conciliar “college of cardinals” as a “reformer” fifty-eight months ago.

Ah, “reform” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio constitutes ending all moral certitude and replacing it with the skepticism of a rationalism as he believes the “corruption” that he is fighting is nothing other than the “corruption” of the Faith caused by some of the Fathers of the Church, Scholastic Philosophy and most of the true general councils held in the Second Millennium, especially the Councils of Florence, Trent and the [First] Vatican.

Pope Saint Pius X outlined in perfect summary form the program of “reform” that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has instituted to bring conciliarism, based as it is in subjective “experience,” to its logical conclusions of practical atheism:

For let us return for a moment, Venerable Brethren, to that most disastrous doctrine of agnosticism. By it every avenue that leads the intellect to God is barred, but the Modernists would seek to open others available for sentiment and action. Vain efforts! For, after all, what is sentiment but the reaction of the soul on the action of the intelligence or the senses. Take away the intelligence, and man, already inclined to follow the senses, becomes their slave. Vain, too, from another point of view, for all these fantasias on the religious sentiment will never be able to destroy common sense, and common sense tells us that emotion and everything that leads the heart captive proves a hindrance instead of a help to the discovery of truth. We speak, of course, of truth in itself - as for that other purely subjective truth, the fruit of sentiment and action, if it serves its purpose for the jugglery of words, it is of no use to the man who wants to know above all things whether outside himself there is a God into whose hands he is one day to fall. True, the Modernists do call in experience to eke out their system, but what does this experience add to sentiment? Absolutely nothing beyond a certain intensity and a proportionate deepening of the conviction of the reality of the object. But these two will never make sentiment into anything but sentiment, nor deprive it of its characteristic which is to cause deception when the intelligence is not there to guide it; on the contrary, they but confirm and aggravate this characteristic, for the more intense sentiment is the more it is sentimental. In matters of religious sentiment and religious experience, you know, Venerable Brethren, how necessary is prudence and how necessary, too, the science which directs prudence. You know it from your own dealings with sounds, and especially with souls in whom sentiment predominates; you know it also from your reading of ascetical books - books for which the Modernists have but little esteem, but which testify to a science and a solidity very different from theirs, and to a refinement and subtlety of observation of which the Modernists give no evidence. Is it not really folly, or at least sovereign imprudence, to trust oneself without control to Modernist experiences? Let us for a moment put the question: if experiences have so much value in their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong road? It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive? The vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold firmly that sentiment and experience alone, when not enlightened and guided by reason, do not lead to the knowledge of God. What remains, then, but the annihilation of all religion, - atheism? Certainly it is not the doctrine of symbolism - will save us from this. For if all the intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are pure symbols, will not the very name of God or of divine personality be also a symbol, and if this be admitted will not the personality of God become a matter of doubt and the way opened to Pantheism? And to Pantheism that other doctrine of the divine immanence leads directly. For does it, We ask, leave God distinct from man or not? If yes, in what does it differ from Catholic doctrine, and why reject external revelation? If no, we are at once in Pantheism. Now the doctrine of immanence in the Modernist acceptation holds and professes that every phenomenon of conscience proceeds from man as man. The rigorous conclusion from this is the identity of man with God, which means Pantheism. The same conclusion follows from the distinction Modernists make between science and faith. The object of science they say is the reality of the knowable; the object of faith, on the contrary, is the reality of the unknowable. Now what makes the unknowable unknowable is its disproportion with the intelligible - a disproportion which nothing whatever, even in the doctrine of the Modernist, can suppress. Hence the unknowable remains and will eternally remain unknowable to the believer as well as to the man of science. Therefore if any religion at all is possible it can only be the religion of an unknowable reality. And why this religion might not be that universal soul of the universe, of which a rationalist speaks, is something We do see. Certainly this suffices to show superabundantly by how many roads Modernism leads to the annihilation of all religion. The first step in this direction was taken by Protestantism; the second is made by Modernism; the next will plunge headlong into atheism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Yes, Pope Saint Pius X asked—and answered—the most pertinent rhetorical question of all when he wrote:

Let us for a moment put the question: if experiences have so much value in their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong road?  It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

This is why Jorge Mario Bergoglio is constantly attacking those who hold fast to the Catholic Faith without making any concessions to conciliarism as he knows that such people, no matter how few in number they may be, serve as a constant reminder to others that conciliarism, which is a repackaging of Modernism by way of Sillonism and the “new theology, is false and deceptive and leads to triumph of atheism.

Conciliarism does indeed make Catholics within the structures of its counterfeit religious sect slaves of their senses, and it is this slavery that Bergoglio’s Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, celebrates in the name of a false “mercy.” This same kind of slavery is why Bergoglio authorized a Nativity display in Saint Peter’s Square that featured images friendly to the sin of Sodom, and he even stooped so low as to call for “openness” to new “social relationships” in the “homily” he delivered at the Midnight offering of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service on Christmas morning.  Part two of this commentary will examine these two, interrelated matters at some considerable length.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Although yesterday’s republished reflection contained a brief section on the meaning of today’s feast, today’s readings in Matins of today’s Divine Office contains a reflection by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux that is well worth considering:

Behold a mystery, great and full of wonder! The Child is circumcised, and His Name is called Jesus. Why are these two things thus mentioned together? It would seem that circumcision should rather be for the saved than for the Saviour; that the Saviour ought rather to be Circumciser than circumcised. But behold here the Mediator between God and men, how even from His childhood He joineth the things of the Highest to the things of the lowest, the things of God to the things of men. He is born of a woman, but her womb is made fruitful without the loss of the flower of her virginity. He is wrapped in swaddling-bands, but these swaddling-bands are a theme for the jubilation of angels. He is laid in a manger, but a bright star standeth in heaven over the place. So also in His circumcision, the ceremony gave proof of the reality of the Manhood which He had taken, and that Name which is above every name proclaimed the glory of His Blessed Majesty. As very son of Abraham He underwent circumcision; He assumed the Name of Jesus as very Son of God.

Why Jesus beareth not that Name as others have borne it before Him, as a vain and empty title. It is not in Him the shadow of a great Name, but the very meaning of that Name. That His Name was revealed from heaven, is attested by the Evangelist, where it is written, Which was so named of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. After Jesus was born, men called Him Jesus, but angels called Him Jesus, before He was conceived in the womb. The One Lord is the Saviour of angels and of men; of men, since His Incarnation; of angels, from the beginning of their creation. His Name, saith the Evangelist, was called Jesus, which was so named of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. In the mouth therefore of two or three witnesses is every word established; and that word whereof the Prophet spoke as cut short, is set forth at length in the Gospel: the Word made Flesh.

It is no wonder that it should be at His circumcision that the Name of Jesus (which is, being interpreted, Saviour) is given to the Child Who is born unto us, for it was then that He for the first time shed that sinless Blood Which is the mean whereby He hath chosen to work out our salvation. It is no matter for the speculation of Christians why the Lord Christ was pleased to be circumcised. He was circumcised for the same reason for which He was born, and for which He suffered. Neither one nor the other was for Himself, but all for the sake of the elect. He was not born in sin; He was not circumcised to separate Him from sin; neither did He die for sins of His own, but for ours. Which was so named of the Angel before He was conceived in the womb. The Angel indeed gave Him that title of Saviour, but not for the first time. Saviour is His Name from everlasting; He hath it of His own proper nature to save. This title He hath in Himself, not by the gift of anything that He hath made, be it man or Angel. (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.)

May this Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ inspire us to rededicate ourselves to proclaim His Holy truths no matter what this might cost us in terms of the world, including possible estrangements with family members and friend of longstanding.

So what?

So what?

We must always have the courage the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of a world steeped in a paganism that was celebrated at the time of His Nativity and which the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio “respects” in the name of “reform.”

As always, we must rely on the help of the Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, especially through her Most Holy Rosary. The triumph of her Immaculate Heart is only a matter of time. We may not live to see this triumph, but it is our duty to plant a seed for its manifestation as we offer all in this difficult times to the throne of the Most Blessed Trinity as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

To be continued.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church and Protector of the Faithful, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?