Willing Servants of Antichrist, part three

As was the case with Modernity’s Proto-Heretic, Martin Luther, the heretics who compose the “hierarchy” and “brain trust” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s revolution against the Sacred Deposit of Faith is all about lust and divorce with, it should be added, the extra-added twist of support for perversity, which would have revulsed even Luther, whose own revolution made perversity’s triumphant acceptance in the name of “love” inevitable.

Although others have pointed out that the proximate source of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s false concept of “mercy” that ignores the Spiritual Works of Mercy in favor of an indulgent acceptance of vice in order not to disturb the tender consciences of those steeped in sins, whether natural or unnatural, against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, it is nevertheless true that Martin Luther’s revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself institute to effect man’s return to Him through the Catholic Church was based on this lustful drunkard’s desire to assuage his own conscience that was weighted down with what he believed was “unnecessary” guilt over his sins of intemperance and lust.

Remember, it was Luther who encouraged sinners to sin, and to sin boldly, in the belief that God loved them and forgave them the more and more they sinned:

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.... as long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin.... No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." (Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter from Martin Luther to Philip Melancthon. number 99, August 1, 1521)

This is exactly what Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his gaggle of pro-perversity heretics within the counterfeit church of concilairism believe. These men have no horror over the reality that is personal sin.

Such a heretical view of sin and its effects on the soul--and on the entire Church Militant here on the face of this earth--is nothing other than an open invitation to sin, heedless of the ways in which each Actual Sin, whether Mortal or Venial, darkens the intellect, weakens the will and disorders our already disorderly passions more and more. Such a heretical view of sin and its effects on the soul--and on the entire Church Militant here on the face of this earth--denies the simple truth that Mortal Sin does indeed deprive one of the state of Justification, that is, of Sanctifying Grace, making one a mortal enemy of God until he has been reconciled to Him in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, which was instituted by Our Lord Himself when He spoke these words to the Apostles on Easter Sunday after His Resurrection from the dead:

He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. (John 20: 21-23.) 

Who cares that Martin Luther rejected the truth that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of Penance?

Not Jorge Mario Bergoglio, that’s for sure, as he is preparing to celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Revolution against the true Church that Our Lord founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, and that has enjoyed a perpetual immunity from error and heresy with the Lutherans themselves:

In his words to the German Church leaders, the Pope said half a century of significant progress in the dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics is grounded in sincere friendship and growing cooperation between the two communities. He said the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed 15 years ago in the Bavarian city of Augsburg, is a milestone which enables us to continue with confidence along the ecumenical journey which St John Paul II described as an essential task of the Catholic Church.

Noting how the bells in all cathedrals across Germany were rung last month to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II decree on ecumenism, the Pope said we must celebrate past progress, while looking towards the future with hope. While the goal of full unity sometimes seems to be clouded by different views of the nature of Church, Pope Francis said we must never resign ourselves but rather be focused on the next step forward.

The Pope noted with pleasure that the bilateral dialogue commission of the German bishops conference and the Lutheran Evangelical Church is concluding its work on the theme of God and human dignity. He noted that all questions regarding the family, marriage, sexuality and human life are essential issues that must not be ignored out of fear of jeopardising our ecumenical consensus.

Finally Pope Francis looked ahead to the fifth centenary of the Reformation which Lutherans and Catholics will be commemorating together in 2017, not as “a triumphalistic celebration”, but as a “profession of our common faith in the One, Triune God”. He said may this event encourage us all, with the help of God and the support of the Holy spirit to take further steps towards reconciliation and unity. (Head of Conciliar Sect urges Lutherans and Catholics to take further steps towards unity.)

Birds of a heretical feather do flock together, do they not? 

Consider the words of Bergoglio’s predecessor, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, at the Lutheran Church of Rome on Sunday, March 14, 2010, Laetare Sunday:

The sequela is carried out in this "we". Being Christian means "being we" in the community of Christ's disciples. And this poses for us the question of ecumenism:  sorrow at having broken this "we", at having split the one path into so many paths. As a result the witness we must give is obscured and love cannot find its full expression. What must we say in this regard? Today we hear many complaints about the fact that ecumenism has reached a stalemate and that there are mutual accusations. Yet I think we should first of all be grateful that so much unity already exists. It is wonderful that today, Laetare Sunday, we can pray together, sing the same hymns, listen to the same word of God, explain it and seek to understand it together; that we look to the one Christ whom we see and to whom we wish to belong and that, in this manner, we are already witnessing that he is one, the One who has called us all and to whom, in the deepest way possible, we all belong. I believe that above all it is this that we should show the world:  not every sort of dispute and conflict, but joy and gratitude at the fact that the Lord is granting this to us and that real unity exists that can become ever deeper and become increasingly a testimony of Christ's word, of Christ's way in this world. Of course, this must not satisfy us, although we must be grateful for these shared dimensions. Yet the fact that in the essentials, in the celebration of the Blessed Eucharist we are unable to drink from the same cup, we are unable to gather round the same altar, cannot but fill us with sorrow for it is we who are guilty of this, we who cloud this testimony. It must make us inwardly restless on our journey toward greater unity in the knowledge that, basically, the Lord alone can give this to us. For a unity agreed by us would be a human act, hence brittle, like everything made by the human hand. Let us give ourselves to him, let us seek to know and love him, to see him ever better. Let us therefore allow him to lead us, truly, to full unity, for which we should pray with every urgency at this moment. (Visit to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Rome ..)

This is quite a contrast from the solemn discharge of papal duty exercised by Pope Pius IX in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868:

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.) 

Anyone who thinks that the "popes" of the counterfeit church of concilairism have maintained the teaching of the Catholic Church "exactly the same" as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" instituted it" is not thinking very clearly. The conciliar “popes,” including Antipope Emeritus Ratzinger and his robo-charged successor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have not feared having to render an account to Christ the King for not having pointing out and prepared the way for Protestants to attain eternal salvation as he believes that they, although barred from the "common celebration of the Eucharist," are bearing witness to Our Lord in the world and thus stand together with Catholics in fighting the rising tide of secularism that is the direct and inevitable result of Martin Luther's own diabolical revolution that let loose the forces of Hell and made possible the rise of Judeo-Masonry.

Judeo-Masonry’s godless precepts of religious indifferentism and indulgence of sin in the name of “mercy” and/or “liberty” have served as the proximate foundation of Bergoglio’s onslaught against the last remaining vestiges of what had been a token “resistance” on the part of the previous conciliar “popes” to the surgical execution of the innocent preborn in their mothers’ wombs, albeit on grounds of human “dignity” and not on the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, and to such perverse absurdities as “marriage” between those of the same gender who are steeped in the sin of Sodom and/or its related vices. Bergoglio has gone of his rotten little way to meet with practicing homosexuals and lesbians, going so far as to meet with a woman who had herself mutilated to “marry” another woman. He has given clear signals that his heart, which is so stained by countless sins of heresy, blasphemy and sacrilege, oozes with empathy for those who are on the “margins” or the “peripheries” by virtue of their feeling “guilty” about the Catholic teaching that they are sinners who need to quit their lives of perverse sins against nature.

It is my belief, which cannot be proved empirically, of course, that Bergoglio’s desire to “regularize” those who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without a decree of conciliar nullity, although certainly very genuine as it feeds off of and into his own Protestant and Talmudic beliefs, provides him with a “cover,” if you will, to extend “mercy” also to those who have been “shut out” from his false church’s sacramentally barren “sacraments” that are of no more benefit to souls than those of the Anglican sect that was founded specifically out of a civil tyrant’s desire to legitimize his own divorce and remarriage. Bergoglio really thinks that there is nothing wrong with the behavior of those who engage in sodomy or lesbianism, believing also that there is nothing wrong with “changing” one’s gender if that is what a person believes himself called to do.

As has been pointed out time and time again on this website, there is a direct connection between the conciliarist revolution against the Faith and the systematic recruitment, retention and promotion of effeminate men who have been steeped in perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandment to serve in the conciliar priesthood, admitting that the problem existed before the onset of conciliarism and afflicted even top ranking cardinals, including Cardinals William O’Connell of the Archdiocese of Boston and Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York, who was a product, after all, of the Archdiocese of Boston,  as explained by Mrs. Randy Engel in The Rite of Sodomy, but not to the extent that developed in the wake of the "Second" Vatican Council and the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. Music, art and architecture in many conciliar church buildings have been designed by and to the suit the "needs" of those steeped in perversity unrepentantly.

It is no accident that Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick was afflicted in this manner himself while he helped to oversee the construction of a false "Mass" that removed almost all references to sin and judgment and Hell from the Collects that were still in use in the 1962 Missal of Angelo Roncalli (which Missal contained numerous concessions to Jansenism, including the suppression of feast days and the suppression of the second Confiteor and the breaking of the Canon of the Mass with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph) before the "transitional" Ordo Missae of 1965 took effect on November 29, 1964. Men steeped in objectively sinful behavior could not stand to say prayers that reminded them of their own subjectively culpability before God, which is why Paragraph 15 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal had the unmitigated gall to claim that "outward signs of penance" belonged to "another age in the history of the Church:"

The same awareness of the present state of the world also influenced the use of texts from very ancient tradition. It seemed that this cherished treasure would not be harmed if some phrases were changed so that the style of language would be more in accord with the language of modern theology and would faithfully reflect the actual state of the Church's discipline. Thus there have been changes of some expressions bearing on the evaluation and use of the good things of the earth and of allusions to a particular form of outward penance belonging to another age in the history of the Church. (General Instruction to the Roman Missal, Paragraph 15.)

Who says that "outward penance" belongs to another "age in the history of the Church?"

Not anyone who is conscious of and most sorrowful for the horror of his own sins (I am raising my own hand at present, thank you) and who wants to make reparation for those sins before he dies, understanding that our puny, finite, self-absorbed minds cannot possibly comprehend how much pain and suffering the least one of our venial sins imposed upon the Sacred Humanity of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, during His Passion and Death. Only those who take sin lightly or who, along with Martin Luther, believe it impossible or unnecessary to reform one's life, either because one is a dung heap and is saved by making a profession of faith the Name of the Lord Jesus (Luther) or because of a belief in the heresy of Hans Urs von Balthasar's "universal salvation, do not want a Mass that "bothers" them and singes what is left of their badly damaged and distorted consciences.

Although Mrs. Randy Engel documented the nest of homosexuals in the conciliar hierarchy, clergy and religious communities in The Rite of Sodomy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s laissez-faire approach to the horrors of personal sin has been such as to give a green light for bold endorsements of sodomite behavior as “loving” to emanate from his own “bishops,” who know that their “merciful” approach to those engaged in one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance will not only go without any kind of rebuke from him, but who are actually doing what he wants done prior to the “synod of bishops” in two months’ time. And what “Pope Francis” wants done is to make the condemnation of “stable same-sex relationships based on ‘love,’ ‘stability,’ and ‘commitment” part of a bygone era of the “no-church” that was too “rigid” and “closed-in-on-itself.” Bergoglio is thus serving the interests of the “gaystapo” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to silence critics of sodomy just as much as the scions of Modernity in one civil government after another, including right here in the United States of America, are attempting to do with such evangelical fervor, pride and sanctimonious righteousness.

Novus Ordo Watch Wire blog has translated the remarks of “conservative” Catholic website in the Federal Republicof Germany about a conciliar “bishop” from Switzerland, Marcus Buchel, who is the president of the Swiss “episcopal” conference and the ordinary of the Diocese of Sankt-Gallen, Switzerland who joins the ranks of others in their false religious sect (Walter Kasper,Godfriend Daneels, Ranier Woelki, Vincent Nichols, et al.) who have called perverse acts against nature that called down fire and brimstone upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha as expressions of “love” and “commitment.”

Here is the post as found on Novus Ordo Watch Wire blog, which begins with an introduction and is followed by the bloggers’ translation of the news report written by a “conservative” Catholic who believes that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the Catholic Church:

The Novus Ordo Sect in Europe has once again shown its true colors: “Bishop” Markus Buchel of the diocese of Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, who is also the current head of the Swiss Conference of Novus Ordo Bishops, has essentially declared that sodomy (and any other type of sexual perversion) is an intrinsically acceptable expression of human sexuality, and that this unnatural sexual act that cries to Heaven for vengeance is not seriously blameworthy as long as the partners-in-vice are “attentive”,”loyal”, “careful”, and “respectful” towards each other — in other words, as long as they’re nice. Buchel has furthermore implied that Holy Scripture is not the inerrant Word of God dictated by the Holy Ghost (cf. Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, n. 20) but is simply a historical narration subject to the conditions of the times in which it was written.

This glorious paragon of Faith and morals was made a “bishop”, of course, by none other than the “great Restorer of Tradition”, Benedict XVI, in 2006 (source). One may surmise that in the Middle Ages, he would have been burned at the stake.

The following is our translation of the post “Bischof von Sankt Gallen: Egal, ob jemand homo- oder heterosexuell ist”, posted on August 7, 2015, at the German Mathias von Gersdorff blog. The author is a conservative adherent of the Novus Ordo religion. It provides a good summary of Mr. Buchel’s position, whose quoted words are indicated in dark blue:

[Begin Excerpt]

On August 7, 2015, Bishop Marcus Büchel of Sankt Gallen (Switzerland), in a letter to all “employees who work in pastoral care”, made appalling statements regarding homosexuality and Church teaching on sexuality in general. His central thesis: It is of no consequence what sexual orientation one practices, as long as this is done in a “responsible” manner.

Thus he directly contradicts the Catholic Church’s sexual morality and possibly also Christian anthropology.

On top of that, Bishop Markus Buchel is the head of the Swiss Bishops’ conference!

His ideas about sexuality Bishop Buchel expresses as follows: “Human relationships have many dimensions, because each person carries within himself several dimensions. One of them is sexuality. To advance a person’s well-being, what is decisive is not so much one’s heterosexual or homosexual inclination, but rather the responsible use of sexuality and of all dimensions present in a relationship (such as attentiveness, care, respect, or faithfulness). We as faithful Catholics in particular may certainly rely on the conscience of each individual with respect to this matter. Let us be happy about every kind of relationship in which the partners accept each other [or “themselves” —Transl.] as equal, valuable, beloved children of God, who respect the dignity of the other and advance the well-being of the person!”

Regarding the biblical testimony on homosexuality, Bishop Buchel writes: “Our knowledge today about homosexuality as a disposition rather than a freely-chosen sexual orientation was not even known at the time of the Bible.”

Bishop Buchel is calling for a new sexual morality, in particular as regards homosexuality: “Thus we as Church must consciously face the historical baggage in dealing with homosexuality and find a new, approriate language that does justice to the issue and to human dignity.”

These statements reinforce the impression in the universal Church that things are “topsy-turvy” in the German-speaking world. The Roman synod in the fall of 2015 should also give thought to how in our region the Faith and the true doctrine of the Catholic Church can once again be propagated.  [source: http://mathias-von-gersdorff.blogspot.com/2015/08/bischof-von-sankt-gallen-egal-ob-jemand.html]  As found at Novus Ordo Watch Wire.)

What really needs to be said about such diabolically-inspired hatred for the binding truths of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law and for the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, which is said to be but a product of the historical circumstances in which its books were written, written, of course, under direct divine inspiration and with the infallible assistance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost?

Perhaps someone who has the funds to do so could pay for a full-page advertisement, printed in the Italian language, in a Roman newspaper that asks the following direct questions:

What part of the following passage from Saint Paul the Apostle’s Epistle to the Romans is not canonically inspired and therefore the very immutable Word of God about which no human being is free to dispute, no less to deny?

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. (Romans 1: 18-32.)

In other words, was Saint Paul the Apostle wrong?

Was the Apostle to the Gentiles, who had presided over the stoning of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr and who was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians there when Our Blessed Lord and Saviour converted him, a Jew, to the true Faith, writing on his own authority or that of God Himself?

Do those engaged in unnatural vice receive in their own bodies the just recompense for their perversity?

Mind you, those are just a few questions.

As has been pointed out on this site many times in the past and in G.I.R.M. Warfare (yes, it is still my hope to revise and update this badly out-of-date book), it is no accident that the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service, which boasts of containing practically every single passage from Sacred Scripture its triennial cycle of Sunday readings and biennial cycle of weekday readings, omits verses eighteen through thirty-two of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans cited just above.

Indeed, even the horrible New American Bible has a translation of the same verses that describes, albeit inadvertently, what the “gaystapo” in the world and in the conciliar sect are doing by seeking the applause of others to reaffirm them in their acts of perversity:

18 The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. 20Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; 21for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22While claiming to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.

24Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. 28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. 29 They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips 30and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. 31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.    (New American Bible Translation of Romans 1:18-32.)

Men such as Markus Buchel and his superior, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whose soul is "hurt" over the deforestation of forests to plant soybean crops ("It hurts me in my soul when I see deforestation to plant soy"--see Apostate laments destruction of forests to plant soy) but not over the vivisection of an innocent preborn baby's brain as his heart is still beating after he has been aborted by those “loving” folks at Planned Barrenhood (see I saw an aborted baby's heart beating outside his body), give active approal to those who practice sodomy.

Bergoglio and Buchel do not believe that unrepentant sinners need to change their behavior as they only need to "encounter" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The people who need to change are those who condemn sodomy for what it is and who seek to perform the Spritual Works of Mercy by admonishing the sinner to quit his sins and to confess them to a true priest in the Sacred Triubnal of Penance. Men such as Bergolgio and Buchel are simply willing servants of Antichrist, which means that they believe, think speak and act in ways that are contrary to Christ and what He has revealed to us exclusively through His Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. (I will append below material taken from a previous article to refute yet again Buchel's exercise in reaffirming sinners in their lives of perversity that are leading them headlong into the fires of Hell and causing nations to be plunged into the abyss.)

Those who are unchaste must be exhorted to quit their immoral behavior, seeking out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance at the hands of a true priest as he acts in persona Christi as an alter Christus, resolved from thence on to live penitentially as the consecrated slaves of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as their state-in-life permits. You will hear no such exhortations from the lips of the conciliar "bishops," staring with Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself.

We do not base human self-identification on the basis of an inclination to commit various sins. If we did, of course, perhaps we could refer to the "blasphemers' community" and the "killers' community" and the "thieves' community" and the "adulterers' community" and the "gossipers' community" and the "enviers' community." (Well, come to think of it, the counterfeit church of conciliarism is a collection of blasphemers, isn't it?) Human self-identification is not based on the inclination to commit any sins, and for the conciliar revolutionaries to reaffirm those inclined to the commission of perverse sins demonstrates that they, the conciliar revolutionaries, do not understand that true love of God requires us will the good of others. the ultimate good of others is the salvation of their immortal souls, which they conciliar revolutionaries impede, not advance, as they write about the "elements of true love" and concern that perverse sinners have for each other than can "inspire" others by the "sacrifices" they make for each other.

Yet it is that the conciliar "archbishop" of Washington, District of Columbia, the nefarious Donald Wuerl, as much as said that any thought of opposing "gay marriage" after the decison of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, June 26, 2015, is out of the question, that he would follow "what the law says". How is this not of Antichrist? How?

The District’s top Catholic leader has weighed in on the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

“The law of the land is the law of the land,” says Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl. “We certainly follow what the law says. That doesn’t mean we change the word of God. That doesn’t mean we change the scriptures, or the church’s millennia-long tradition of what marriage is.”

Everyone is welcome to the faith, Wuerl says: “Nobody is turned away because of their sexual identity, because of their race because of their ethnic background. And are we not all struggling to live the gospel?”

The Catholic church teaching will not change, but Cardinal Wuerl says Pope Francis has been more inclusive.

“He keeps saying, ‘Go out. Go out and meet people where they are. And in that encounter, walk with them, accompany them,'” Wuerl continues. “I think that’s what the church is saying. We all need to walk together as we try to make our way closer and closer to God.”

Churches across the country are divided over same-sex marriage. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 56 percent of Catholics support same-sex marriage, while 55 percent of Protestants do not. Eighty-five percent of religiously unaffiliated people support gay marriage. (Cardinal Wuerl: Same-sex marriage ruling is 'law of the land.)

How can one claim that Catholic teaching has not changed when saying that he will obey an unjust court decision that established a nonexistent “right” for people of the same gender to “marry”?

Pope Leo XIII provided us with the authentic Catholic teaching concerning the necessity of  opposing unjust laws, not acquiescing in the face of them, no less acquiescing by trying claim “fidelity” to the Word of God that many conciliar “bishops” believe was as “historically conditioned” as the decrees of Holy Mother Church’s twenty general councils prior to the dawning of the age of conciliarism with the “election” of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on October 28, 1958, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude:

10. But, if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then, truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense leveled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition; for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused, but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor due to God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, venerable brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are "to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word," at once adds: "And to be ready to every good work."Thereby he openly declares that, if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner, the Prince of the Apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

Pope Leo XIII’s clear, bold reiteration of Catholic teaching is rejected by the figures of Antichrist in the counterfeit church of conciliarism because they are the architects of false religion that is designed precisely to lead the “human family” into a “bond of brotherhood” that the Antichrist will use rule over the earth. Let those who have the eyes to see face reality for what it is without making up false reasons to clothe the conciliar emperor with the status of being a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, which has reached such desperately absurd levels now as to lead one into concluding that the results of the upcoming "synod" will be rejected the siftters in the reject while recognize movement because it was not a general council of the world's "bishops".

Alas, today is the Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who revived devotion to Our Lady in the Twelfth Cenutry. Here is an account of the life of this wonderful client of Our Lady, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a defender of the Catholic Faith and a Doctor of Holy Mother Church, as found in the readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office:

Bernard was born (in the year of salvation 1091) at a decent place in Burgundy called Fontaines. On account of extraordinary good looks, he was as a boy very much sought after by women, but he could never be turned aside from his resolution to keep chaste. To fly from these temptations of the devil, he determined at two-and-twenty years of age to enter the Monastery of Citeaux, whence the Cistercian Order took its rise. When this resolution of Bernard's became known, his brothers did all their diligence to change his purpose, but he only became the more eloquent and happy about it. Them and others he so brought over to his mind, that thirty young men entered the same Order along with him. As a monk he was so given to fasting, that as often as he had to eat, so often he seemed to be in pain. He exercised himself wonderfully in watching and prayer, and was a great lover of Christian poverty. Thus he led on earth an heavenly life, purged of all care and desire for transitory things.

He was a burning and shining light of lowliness, mercifulness, and kindness. His concentration of thought was such, that he hardly used his senses except to do good works, in which latter he acted with admirable wisdom. Thus occupied, he refused the Bishoprics of Genoa, Milan, and others, which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so high a sphere of duty. Being made Abbat of Clairvaux in 1115, he built monasteries in many places, wherein the excellent rules and discipline of Bernard long flourished. When Pope Innocent II., in 1138, restored the monastery of St Vincent and St Anastasius at Rome, Bernard set over it the Abbat who was afterwards the Supreme Pontiff Eugene III., and who is also the same to whom he addressed his book upon Consideration.

He was the author of many writings, in which it is manifest that his teaching was rather given him of God, than gained by hard work. In consequence of his high reputation for excellence, he was called by the most exalted Princes to act as arbiter of their disputes, and for this end, and to settle affairs of the Church, he often went to Italy. He was an eminent helper to Pope Innocent II., in putting down the schism of Peter Leoni, and worked to this end, both at the Courts of the Emperor and of Henry King of England, and in the Council of Pisa. He fell asleep in the Lord, (at Clairvaux, on the 20th day of August,) in the year 1153,  the sixty-third year of his age. He was famous for miracles, and Pope Alexander III. numbered him among the Saints. Pope Pius VIII., acting on the advice of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, declared and confirmed St Bernard a Doctor of the Universal Church. He also commanded that all should use the Mass and Office for him as for a Doctor, and granted perpetual yearly plenary indulgences to all who should visit Churches of the Cistercian Order upon the Feastday of this Saint. (The Divine Office, Matins, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.)

His words below should give us great confidence in this time when we can see the convergence of the forces of Antichrist in the world and in the counterfeit church of concilairism:

Whoever you are, when you find yourself tossed by storms and tempests upon this world's raging waters, rather than walking upon firm dry land, never take your eyes from the brightness of this start lest you be overwhelmed by the storm. When the winds of temptation blow, when you run upon the rocks of disaster, look the star. Cry out to Mary! If you are cast away upon the waves of pride or ambition, of detraction or jealousy, look to the star. Cry out to Mary!! When anger, avarice, or the lusts of the flesh assail the ship of your mind, look up to Mary. When you are worried by the enormity of your sins, troubled by a confused conscience, or terrified by the horrors of the judgment to come, when you begin to drown in the bottomless pit of sorrow or sink in the abyss of despair, think of Mary.

In danger, in difficulties, think of Mary. Call upon Mary! Never let her name be absent from your lips or absent from your heart. If you would obtain the help of her prayers, do not neglect to follow the example of her conduct. If you follow her, you will not stray; if you pray to her, you need not despair. If you think of her, you will not err; sustained by her, you will never fall; protected by her, you need not fear; guided by her, you will walk without weariness. If she smiles upon you, you will succeed. You will experience in your own heart with what justice it is said And the Virgin's name was Mary.

With confidence in Our Lady and praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, therefore, we continue our defense of the Faith as we also seek to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as her consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Christ the Kingm, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. We bear each of the crosses of the present moment with joy and gratitude, knowing that the only thing that matters is dying in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Our Lady seeks the conversion, not the reaffirmation, of sinners. We must beg her for our own conversion on a daily basis so that we will be better able to offer her all that we have and do during the course of a day to be disposed of as she sees fit the honor and glory of God and for the conversion of other poor sinners.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, 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.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Appendix

Material Taken From Previous Articles on This Site

1) God's love for us is an act of His divine will, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of our immortal souls.

2) Our love for others must be premised on willing for them what God wills for us: their salvation.

3) We love no one authentically if we do or say anything, either by omission or commission, which reaffirms him in a life of unrepentant sin.

4) God hates sin. He wills the sinner to repent of his sins by cooperating with the graces He won for them on the wood of the Holy Cross.

5) Sin is what caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors on the wood of the Holy Cross and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be thrust through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.

6) No one can say that he loves Our Lord or Our Lady if he persist in sin unrepentantly and/or celebrates the commission of sin in public acts of defiance against the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the Natural Law.

7) Each sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will, inclining us all the more to sin and sin again. We must, therefore, resolve never to sin again and to do penance for our sins as Our Lady herself implored us to do when she appeared in th Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, ninety years ago.

8) It is therefore forbidden for anyone of this parish or diocese to participate or support, whether morally or financially, any event whatsoever that celebrates any sin, whether natural or unnatural, and/or encourages people to persist in sin as a legitimate "lifestyle."

9) One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to admonish the sinner. We have an obligation to admonish those who are in lives on unrepentant sin to turn away from their lives of sin and to strive to pursue the heights of sanctity.

10) God has compassion on all erring sinners, meaning each one of us. He understands our weakness. He exhorts us, as He exhorted the woman caught in adultery, to "Go, and commit this sin no more."

11) It is not an act of "love" for people to persist in unrepentant sins with others.

12) It is not an act of "judgmentalness" or "intolerance" to exhort people who are living lives of unrepentant sin to reform their lives lest their souls wind up in Hell for eternity.

13) Mortal Sins cast out Sanctifying Grace from the soul. Those steeped in unrepentant mortal sin are the captives of the devil until they make a good and sincere Confession.

14) Certain sins cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Sodomy is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

15) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments do not "love" the individuals with whom they are sinning. Authentic love cannot exist in a soul committed to a life against the Commandments of God and the eternal welfare of one's own soul, no less the souls of others.

16) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are not fit to adopt children.

17) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are not fit to adopt children because their very sinful lives put into jeopardy the eternal of the souls of the children they seek to adopt. It is not possible for people who are sinning unrepentantly to teach children to hate sin as God hates sin. They are immersed in sin. Pope Pius XI put it this way in Casti Connubii, December 31,1930:

But Christian parents must also understand that they are destined not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, indeed not only to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God's household, that the worshippers of God and Our Savior may daily increase. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31,1930.)

18) Those engaged in unnatural, perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are further unfit to adopt children because they have no right in the Divine positive law or the natural law to live together as a "couple."  Once again, Pope Pius XI's Casti Connubii:

Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31,1930.)

19) Those engaged in unnatural, perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandment have no right in the Divine positive law or the natural law to present a "model" of parenthood that is from the devil himself. The words that Saint Paul wrote about perversity in Rome in his own day that were cited above in this commentary are quite apropos of our own situation today. One wonders if "Monsignor" Seamus Brennan considers Saint Paul's words to be "offensive" to "gay" people?

20) Matrimony was elevated to a Sacrament by Our Lord at the wedding feast in Cana. The Holy Sacrament of Matrimony is entered into by one man and by one woman to achieve these ends: the procreation and education of children, the mutual good of the spouses, a remedy for concupiscence. Pope Pius XI noted this in Casti Connubii:

This conjugal faith, however, which is most aptly called by St. Augustine the "faith of chastity" blooms more freely, more beautifully and more nobly, when it is rooted in that more excellent soil, the love of husband and wife which pervades all the duties of married life and holds pride of place in Christian marriage. For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,"[24] that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse.[25] The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed "dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets." For all men of every condition, in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ Our Lord, and by God's grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example set us of many saints.

This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

21) It is never permissible to put even one child into spiritual, if not physical, jeopardy by claiming that so many others would be helped if the Church did not cooperate with an unjust law. Our Lord said that it would be better for one to have a millstone thrown around his neck and thrown into a lake than to lead one of his little ones astray. He was not joking.

22) Sinners must repent of the evil they have done in order to live ives of penance and mortification worthy of Saint Francis of Assisi. Pray as many Rosaries as you can each day of our life. They must repent and pray and work for the conversion of those with whom they have sinned, sure to make a full, integral confession to a true piest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance on a weekly basis. 

A Catholic bishop would not hesitate to make these points. Although there are some true bishops from the Eastern Rites present in Rome at this time, they are one with the their brother “non-bishops” of the Roman Rite within the counterfeit church of conciliarism of being completely bereft of the Catholic Faith, thus leaving souls “happy” in this life to be condemned for all eternity in Hell, the very place where the conciliar revolutionaries themselves are headed if they do not have a miraculous conversion to the true Faith before they die.

How do Catholics speak to sinners? How did Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ speak to sinners whilst He walk the face of the earth?

Our Lord did not reaffirm Saint Mary Magdalene in her sin of adultery. He did not applaud her. He did not excuse the gravity of violating the Sixth Commandment. He did not explain away her sin by saying that she was genetically-predisposed to commit it or that it was "impossible" for her to keep from committing it. Our Lord, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, said the following to her:

Go, and now sin no more. (John 8: 11.)

Our Lord told His friend from Bethany to reform her life, to quit her sins once and for all. He tells us, each of whom is a sinner (and I am one of the worst and most miserable, truth be told) the same thing in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance as we resolve to amend our lives as we pray the Act of Contrition as a true priest administers Absolution upon our immortal souls, thereby applying the merits His own Most Precious Blood upon them.

Is it any accident that the passage cited above from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans is not included in the triennial cycle of Sunday readings or the biennial cycle of daily readings in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service?

Consider how Saint Peter Damian and Pope Leo IX deal with the sin of Sodom that was rampant amongst the clergy in the Eleventh Century:

According to Damian, the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because:

"Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind ... It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise ... It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity ... It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things ... This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church ... it separates the soul from God to associate it with demons. This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God... She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice ... She humiliates her slave in the church and condemns him in court; she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire. ... this unfortunate man (he) is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind's vision is darkened. Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I say more?"

No, dearest St. Peter Damian, I think not.

Like every saint before him, and every saint that will ever come after him, St. Peter Damian exhorts the cleric caught in the vice of sodomy to repent and reform his life and in the words of the Blessed Apostle Paul, "Wake up from your sleep and rise from the dead, and Christ will revive (enlighten) you." (Eph 5:14) In a remarkable affirmation of the Gospel message, he warns against the ultimate sin of despairing of God's mercy and the necessity of fasting and prayer to subdue the passions:

"... beware of drowning in the depths of despondency. Your heart should beat with confidence in God's love and not grow hard and impenitent, in the face of your great crime. It is not sinners, but the wicked who should despair; it is not the magnitude of one's crime, but contempt of God that dashes one's hopes."

Then, in one of the most beautiful elocutions on the grandeur of priestly celibacy and chastity ever written, Damian reminds the wayward cleric or monk of the special place reserved in Heaven for those faithful priests and monks who have willingly forsaken all and made themselves eunuchs for Christ's sake. Their names shall be remembered forever because they have given up all for the love of God, he says.

One of the very interesting historical sidebars to Damian's treatise is that he made no preference to the popular practice of distinguishing "notorious" from "non-notorious" cases of clerical immorality--a policy which can be traced back to the 9th century and the canonical reforms on ecclesiastical and clerical discipline by the great German Benedictine scholar and Archbishop of Mainz, Blessed Maurus Magnentius Rabanus (776?-856). Under this policy, the removal of clerics found guilty of criminal acts including sodomy, depended on whether or not his offense was publicly known, or was carried out and confessed in secret.

In cases that had become "notorious," the offending cleric was defrocked and/or handed over to the secular authorities for punishment. But if his crime was known only to a few persons such as his confessor or religious superior, the offending cleric was privately reprimanded, served a penance and then was permitted to continue at his post, or transferred to a similar post in a different diocese. Given the aggressive and predatory nature of the vice of sodomy, it is highly likely that such a policy contributed to, rather than inhibited, sodomical practices among clerics and religious between the mid-800s and the early 1000s. In any case, it was unlikely that Damian, who openly expressed his condemnation of too lenient canonical regulations related to the punishment of clerical sodomites and was so judicious in preserving the integrity of the priesthood and religious life, would have approved such a policy.

Saints are realists, which is no doubt why St. Peter Damian anticipated that his "small book" which exposes and denounces homosexual practices in all ranks of the clergy including the hierarchy, would cause a great commotion in the Church. And it did.

In anticipation of harsh criticism, the holy monk puts forth his own defense as a 'whistle-blower'. He states that his would-be critics will accuse him of "being an informer and a delator of my brother's crimes," but, he says, he has no fear of either "the hatred of evil men or the tongues of detractors."

Hear, dear reader, the words of St. Peter Damian that come thundering down to us through the centuries at a time in the Church when many shepherds are silent while clerical wolves, some disguised in miters and brocade robes, devour its lambs and commit sacrilege against their own spiritual sons:

"... I would surely prefer to be thrown into the well like Joseph who informed his father of his brothers' foul crime, than to suffer the penalty of God's fury, like Eli, who saw the wickedness of his sons and remained silent. (Sam 2:4) ... Who am I, when I see this pestilential practice flourishing in the priesthood to become the murderer of another's soul by daring to repress my criticism in expectation of the reckoning of God's judgement? ... How, indeed, am I to love my neighbor as myself if I negligently allow the wound, of which I am sure he will brutally die, to fester in his heart? ... "So let no man condemn me as I argue against this deadly vice, for I seek not to dishonor, but rather to promote the advantage of my brother's well-being. "Take care not to appear partial to the delinquent while you persecute him who sets him straight. If I may be pardoned in using Moses' words, 'Whoever is for the Lord, let him stand with me.' (Ezek 32:26)"

As he draws his case against the vice of clerical sodomy to a close, St. Peter Damian pleads with another future saint, Pope Leo IX, urging the Vicar of Christ to use his office to reform and strengthen the decrees of the sacred canons with regard to the disposition of clerical sodomites including religious superiors and bishops who sexually violate their spiritual sons.

Damian asks the Holy Father to "diligently" investigate the four forms of the vice of sodomy cited at the beginning of his treatise and then provides him (Damian) with definitive answers to the following questions by which the "darkness of uncertainty" might be dispelled and an "indecisive conscience" freed from error:

1) Is one who is guilty of these crimes to be expelled irrevocably from holy orders?

2) Whether at a prelate's discretion, moreover, one might mercifully be allowed to function in office?

3) To what extent, both in respect to the methods mentioned above and to the number of lapses, is it permissible to retain a man in the dignity of ecclesiastical office?

4) Also, if one is guilty, what degree and what frequency of guilt should compel him under the circumstances to retire?

Damian closes his famous letter by asking Almighty God to use Pope Leo IX's pontificate "to utterly destroy this monstrous vice" that a prostrate Church may everywhere rise to vigorous stature." (Mrs. Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, pp. 53-55)

Does Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis want to destroy this monstrous vice?

Hardly.

He wants to befriend those who are attracted to and/or practice it and to see it "mainstreamed" in society, which is pretty much a fait accompli these days (see, for example, Irreversible By Means Merely Human).

By contrast, consider how Pope Leo IX responded to the report presented to him by Saint Peter Damian:

The approximate date that Damian delivered the Book of Gomorrah to Pope Leo IX is generally held to be the second half of the first year of the pontiff's reign, i.e., mid-1049, although some writers put the date as late as 1051. We do know, absolutely, that the Pope did respond to Damian's concerns, as that response in the form of a lengthy letter (JL 4311; ItPont 4.94f., no.2) is generally attached to manuscripts of the work.

Pope Leo IX opens his letter to "his beloved son in Christ, Peter the hermit," with warm salutations and a recognition of Damian's pure, upright and zealous character. He agrees with Damian that clerics, caught up in the "execrable vice" of sodomy "verily and most assuredly will have no share in his inheritance, from which by their voluptuous pleasures they have withdrawn. " Such clerics, indeed profess, if not in words, at least by the evidence of their actions, that they are not what they are thought to be," he declares.

Reiterating the category of the four forms of sodomy that Damian lists, [59] the Holy Father declares that it is proper that by "our apostolic authority" we intervene in the matter so that "all anxiety and doubt be removed from the minds of your readers".

"So let it be certain and evident to all that we are in agreement with everything your book contains, opposed as it is like water to the fire of the devil," the Pope continues. "Therefore, lest the wantonness of this foul impurity be allowed to spread unpunished, it must be repelled by proper repressive action of apostolic severity, and yet some moderation must be placed on its harshness," he states.

Next, Pope Leo IX gives a detailed explanation of the Holy See's authoritative ruling on the matter.

In light of divine mercy, the Holy Father commands, without contradiction, that those who, of their own free will, have practiced solitary or mutual masturbation or defiled themselves by interfemoral coitus, but who have not done so for any length of time, nor with many others, shall retain their status, after having "curbed their desires" and "atoned for their infamous deeds with proper repentance".

However, the Holy See removes all hope for retaining their clerical status from those who alone or with others for a long time, or even a short period with many, "have defiled themselves by either of the two kinds of filthiness which you have described, or, which is horrible to hear or speak of, have sunk to the level of anal intercourse."

He warns potential critics, that those who dare to criticize or attack the apostolic ruling stand in danger of losing their rank. And so as to make it clear to whom this warning is directed, the Pope immediately adds, "For he who does not attack vice, but deals with it lightly, is rightly judged to be guilty of his death, along with the one who dies in sin."

Pope Leo IX praises Damian for teaching by example and not mere words, and concludes his letter with the beautiful hope that when, with God's help, the monk reaches his heavenly abode, he may reap his rewards and be crowned, "Ö in a sense, with all those who were snatched by you from the snares of the devil."

Clearly, on the objective immorality of sodomical acts, both Damian and Pope Leo IX were in perfect accord with one another. However, in terms of Church discipline, the pope appears to have taken exception with Damian's appeal for the wholesale deposition of all clerics who commit sodomical acts. I say, appears, because I believe that even in the matter of punishing known clerical offenders, both men were more in agreement than not.

Certainly, Damian, who was renown for his exemplary spiritual direction of the novitiates and monks entrusted to his care, was not unaware of certain mitigating circumstances that would diminish if not totally remove the culpability of individuals charged with the crime of sodomy.

For example, as with certain clerical sex abuse cases that have come to light today involving the Society of St. John and the Legionaries of Christ, which the Holy See has yet to investigate, some novices or monks may have been forced or pressured by their superiors to commit such acts. No doubt, it is circumstances such as these that prompted Pope Leo IX to use the term, "who of his own free will" in describing a cleric guilty of sodomy. Also among the four varieties of sodomy Damian discusses in his treatise, he states that interfemoral and anal coitus are to be judged more serious than solitary or mutual masturbation.

All in all, what this writer found to be most remarkable about the pope's letter to Damian, was the absolutist position Pope Leo IX took concerning the ultimate responsibility of the offending cleric's bishop or religious superior. If the latter criticized or attacked this apostolic decree, he risked losing his rank! Prelates who fail to "attack vice, but deal lightly with it," share the guilt and sentence of the one who dies in sin, the pope declared. (Mrs. Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, pp. 57-58)

Writing five hundred years after Saint Peter Damian and Pope Leo IX, Pope Saint Pius V explained the just penalty due clerics caught in the act of unnatural vice:

That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.

Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery" (chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.

Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss. (Pope Saint Pius V, Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568.)

Death, not "brotherhood" and "mainstreaming" for the sake of "inclusivity," was what Pope Saint Pius V, faithful to the teaching of Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Roman cited above, believed should be imposed on the clergy as well as the laity who were caught in "such an execrable crime" that caused him "such better sorrow" shocked his papal mind as he sought to "repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal."

Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and others in the conciliar structures want to provide "brotherhood" and "acceptance."

Just a slightly different approach, wouldn't you say?

A true pope understood the horror of such a detestable sin on the part of the clergy and sought to administer punishment to serve as a medicinal corrective for other priests and to demonstrate to the laity the horrific nature of such a moral crime.

A false "pope"seeks to appear as an agent of mercy when he is actually an apostle of eternal death.

Mind you, I am not suggesting the revival of this penalty in a world where it would not be understood and where the offender would be made a "martyr" for the cause of perversity, only pointing out the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that clerics and others in ecclesiastical authority who are guilty of serious moral crimes are deserving of punishment, not protection, by their bishops. Such is the difference yet again between Catholicism and conciliarism.

It is shameful that anyone would seek to provide a cover for a man who has such disregard for the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity and who seeks to indemnify sinners in the name of what is nothing other than a false mercy.