Yesterday's "Loyal Dissenters," Today's "Doctrinal" Enforcers

There are many ironies that characterize the world in which today, chief among being the fact that yesterday’s social revolutionaries in the world of Modernity who deemed themselves as anti-institutional rebels and plastered “Question Authority” bumper stickers on their motor vehicles are today’s entrenched institutional elite who demand unquestioning obedience to their authority. These former revolutionaries turned powerbrokers think nothing of using the same national security surveillance apparatus under which either they or their parents/grandparents chafed to break the voices of dissent against their ever-changing ideologies du jour.

Similarly, the theological, moral, and liturgical revolutionaries of Modernism and its counterfeit church of conciliarism were once in the vanguard of what they themselves called the “loyal dissent” against Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Now, of course, many of the same “loyal dissenters” and/or those trained to accept their “loyal dissent” are now the iron-fisted enforcers of today’s conciliar orthodox, but with this big difference: Unlike the passivity and toleration shown dissenters, both clerical and lay, on irreformable matters of Faith and Morals, by both Wojtyla/John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of “episcopal” and lay supporters, most notably those in La Civilta Cattolica, America magazine, and National Catholic Reporter, are coming down hard on today’s “papal” dissenters, and the Argentine Apostate himself is lopping off “episcopal” heads all over the world, including by effecting the forced resignation of the “archbishop” of Vaduz, Liechtenstein, Wolfgang Haas, because he had criticized the upcoming “synod on synodality” and refused to have his archdiocese participate in Jorge’s mandated “listening sessions”:

Pope Francis accepted on Wednesday the resignation of the conservative Church leader of Liechtenstein, Archbishop Wolfgang Haas, while naming a heterodox interim bishop who has been described as Haas’ “polar opposite.”

The Holy See press office announced September 20 that the Pope accepted Haas’ resignation shortly after it was submitted, per Church custom, following his 75th birthday. 

The Archdiocese of Vaduz, based in the capital of the microstate of Liechtenstein, was created specifically for Haas in 1997 after a “breakdown of relations” within the Swiss Diocese of Chur, which previously included Liechtenstein. As John Allen Jr. noted in the National Catholic Reporter in 1999, Haas was known as a conservative, while Switzerland and its neighboring areas are marked by a “progressive brand of Catholicism.”

Haas met with heated resistance from local “progressive” Catholics since he was appointed coadjutor bishop in 1988 by Pope John Paul II, when a few hundred people laid down on the ground in front of the entrance to the cathedral in protest of his ordination.

An outspoken defender of Catholic Church teaching, Haas has recently distinguished himself among the world’s prelates by refusing to have the Archdiocese of Vaduz participate in the Synod on Synodality, which he said “runs the risk of becoming ideological” in his area. 

The Liechtenstein-based Association for an Open Church decided to hold their own synodal listening sessions instead, producing a report dismissed by Haas. The document reported that “a change in Catholic sexual morality” is “expected,” and that “Divorced people, queer people, [those living] in cohabitation,” and “people who repeatedly question the order of the church” are “perceived as excluded” from the Catholic Church.

In upholding Church teaching, Haas has been a firm defender of marriage in particular, having canceled a parliamentary Mass late last year in protest of the Liechtenstein Parliament’s passage of a bill legalizing same-sex “marriage.” He had previously protested that “such legal institutionalization is unacceptable for the Catholic Church, both for genuine reasons of common sense and for its doctrine of faith based on divine revelation.”

Earlier that year, Haas declined to attend an annual dinner event with the mayor of Schaan in protest of the mayor’s celebration of a “gay pride” event the day before.

The archbishop is also a supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass, having frequently ordained members of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

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The Vatican shared Wednesday that the pontiff has named Bishop Benno Elbs, head of the neighboring Diocese of Feldkirch in Austria, as Vaduz’s apostolic administrator sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis (“the see being vacant and at the disposition of the Holy See”), who will lead the Archdiocese of Vaduz until the appointment of Haas’ successor, according to Catholic Church Vorarlberg.

In sharp contrast with Haas, Elbs is reportedly an advocate of married priests, female deacons, and the blessing of same-sex couples, and was described as Haas’ “polar opposite” by traditional Catholic blog contributor Mathew Hazell.

In a comment after his appointment, Elbs said, “We live in challenging times. It is up to us to shape these times. It is with this inner attitude that I would like to begin my service as apostolic administrator in the Archdiocese of Vaduz.”

“Pope Francis means nothing else when he wants to lead the Church on a synodal path: Traveling together, listening to one another, being there for one another, and looking to Christ,” he added.

Archbishop Haas said in a farewell message upon his resignation, “Looking back on my term of episcopal office, I am well aware of my personal inadequacies, indeed of many shortcomings and limitations. I humbly and trustingly leave the judgment on this matter to the mercy of the just Eternal Judge.” 

Haas shared that he plans on spending his retirement in “monastic seclusion.”

“This offers me an increased opportunity to continue to ask for God’s blessing and the special assistance of Mary, the main patroness of our archdiocese. I also promised this to the apostolic administrator appointed by the pope, Bishop Benno Elbs, to whom I wish a good reception and the success of his mission in this country,” Haas wrote.

“Together we want to pray fervently for a replacement pleasing to God for the vacant archbishop’s see of Vaduz,” he added.

In a September 15 letter to Elbs, Haas shared, “As has been the case for years, I will not give any interviews or participate in any media events (press conferences, etc.).” (Francis retires Liechtenstein archbishop, who refused to participate in Synod on Synodality.)

Wolfgang Haas is neither a true priest nor a true bishop of the Catholic Church. However, his plain defense of immutable Catholic teaching on Holy Matrimony and the intrinsic evil of sodomy and all its perverted vices are absolutely correct, and he demonstrated true apostolic courage in refusing to meet a mayor because of the latter’s support for and participation a “pride” march.

Most of all, though, Wolfgang Haas is to be commended for his decision to a life of monastic seclusion is exactly what a man who believes himself to be true bishop to do when the man he believes is a true pope immediately accepts his resignation even though there are many instances when a “bishop” within the conciliar structures is permitted to continue in office for an indeterminate period. Jorge Mario Bergoglio acted with alacrity in accepting Haas’s resignation, and that Haas, unlike several other prominent “conservatives” within the conciliar hierarchy, was compliant, not defiant.

One can only pray that Wolfgang Haas comes to recognize the fact that proposals to “change” the immutable laws of God, which He has entrusted to His Holy Church, for their infallible explication and eternal safekeeping, can never emanate from the Catholic Church and that a true and legitimate Successor of Saint would never countenance, no less encourage and support, “changes” that no power on earth can change.

Wolfgang Haas may not realize it, but the reason he had to oppose the upcoming “synod on synodality” was that it is seeking to make it appear that what purports to be the Catholic Church can change what is called her “pastoral praxis” by “listening” to the Jack Bailey Queen for a Day sob stories from hardened sinners who have absolutely no desire to reform their lives by conforming them to God's eternal laws and then change the unchangeable by refusing the obvious change of doctrine for what it is. This has become the old, reliable chestnut that the conciliar revolutionaries have kept using to justify various “adaptations” to cater themselves to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

There were many who paved the way for what his happening today in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s counterfeit church of conciliarism and the triumph of the Jacobin/Bolshevik.conciliar revolutionaries over the Girondist/Menshevik conciliar revolutionaries, most notably the late Godfried Danneels, Jacques Gaillot, John “Cardinal” Dearden, and Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin.

As I have dealt with Danneels (see Godfried Danneels' Wretched Career of Suborning Sin Has Come to An End) and Gaillot (see Conciliar Disciplinary Action: Confined Almost Exclusively to "Conservative" Catholics) enough in past commentaries, readers will find a review of the following information about “Cardinals” Dearden and Bernardin to be instructive about the upcoming “synod on synodality” features the likes of Claude Hollerich, Joseph Tobin, Robert McElroy and, among so many others, James Martin.

The late Father Vincent Miceli, S.J., wrote a trenchant commentary about Dearden’s “Call to Action” conference in 1976:

The following are some of the conference's mad demands which the Catholic Church simply cannot grant without ceasing immediately to be the true Church of Christ. If she granted them, she would become a Church of the world, a snake pit of radicals. She would become a center of doctrinal, moral, chaotic disorder and psychoneurotic distress. The radicals demanded: 1) Divorced, remarried couples to receive Holy Communion while still living in adulterous unions. 2) Ordained women priests and bishops. 3) Women given the power to preach the Gospel with authority. 4) A reversal on the doctrine of artificial birth control. 5) A mitigation of the doctrine on abortion. 6) A teaching approving Marxism, Socialism and pacifism as doctrinally true and morally good practice. 7) A denial of the right to property and to reasonable profit. 8) The creation of a new Church, democratic, non-hierarchical in structure, a classless church.

The following are some of the demands the Church simply cannot fulfill for that is not her mission: 1) Wipe out poverty, ignorance, prejudice and war. 2) Democratize the whole world. 3) Stop the sale of arms everywhere. 4) Back the E.R.A. as a constitutional amendment. Like her Savior, the Church will not turn stones into bread, thereby becoming the Mother of Socialism or a millennium of this world. Finally here are a few demands the Church will most probably not grant in the interest of her supernatural mission to make converts of all nations: 1) Allow married men to be ordained. 2) Allow priests to marry. 3) Revoke the vows of celibacy of priests and religious. 4) Lift the excommunication from divorced, remarried Catholics still living in adultery.

A final word of advice to Cardinal Dearden, Archbishop Peter Gerety and Msgr. John Eagan, prime movers at Detroit in the drive to create a democratic church of the future in a five year program. Such a democratic church will not be accepted by American Catholics, for such a church would be a man-made utopia, incapable of saving anyone. The Holy Spirit and the Vicar of Christ will preserve Catholics from such a sterile kingdom of this world. Bereft of Christ, such a church could only become an instrument of the Sons of Satan in their war against the flock of Christ. To loyal, perceptive bishops, priests and laity who still love their traditional, apostolic Church, it is of no small significance that the world is rejoicing over the debacle at Detroit. Such faithful souls know that when The New York Times rapturously reports the wild doings of a conference of Catholic enthusiasts and projects their redimensioned model of the Church as the inevitable Church of the future, then proper Church authorities better grab the holy water sprinkler, the prayer manual of exorcisms and, if need be, the legal instrument of excommunication before it is too late. Only by at once applying these remedies vigorously (Alinsky would insist on the vigorously) will the temple of God be cleansed effectively of its iconoclasts and the true Catholic Church rescued from the savagery of latter-day malcontents posing as concerned Catholics. Superstition? Hardly. Rather security measures against outside agitators and inside traitors. (Detroit: A Call To Revolution In The Church.)

The late Father Vincent Miceli, whom I got to know well when he was in residence at Holy Apostles Seminary in the 1983-1984 academic year, summarized the entirety of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s antipapal agenda in the article quoted above.

Unfortunately, though, Father Miceli, whose razor-sharp ability to analyze error and to denounce it clearly and sometimes with a lot of south Bronx sarcasm, did not realize that what he thought was the Catholic Church was its counterfeit ape nor that the conciliar doctrinal and liturgical revolutions would become so entrenched that his prediction of a widespread resistance to the “Call to Action” agenda had no chance of occurring.

At least two generations of Catholics have been born since 1976, and many of them know nothing of true Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals any more than the average Catholic in the United States knows anything about the glories of Christendom in the Middle Ages. Then again, many of us “conservatives” in the conciliar structures, focused on our careers or other matters, were dimly aware of “Call to Action” and/or took its demands seriously. Father Miceli, on the contrary, saw the problems precisely and sounded the alarm with prophetic clarity.

Another of the leading lights of “change” was, of course, the late Joseph Louis Bernardin, who was a true bishop as he consecrated in 1966 in the traditional rite of episcopal consecration, whose own revolutionary work was summarized as follows by Dr. James Hitchcock:

One of the most astonishing revelations following his death was an article by Ann Landers, in which the columnist who has made her fortune by giving advice to the lovelorn revealed that she had been summoned late one night to come to the deathbed of :my friend Joe," with whom she had long enjoyed the warmest of personal relations. The revelation was astounding because Landers has perhaps had more influence than any other single person in making abortion socially acceptable, for years using her syndicated newspaper column to promote abortion and to denigrate pro-lifers. Landers has also effectively endorsed the sexual revolution, actually going so far as to ridicule her own earlier belief that people should remain chaste until marriage. (She also illustrates the pattern whereby those who admire Bernardin as a bishop often denigrate other prelates proportionately. Last year she claimed that John Paul II does not understand women because he is a "Polack" with a narrow cultural outlook.)

After Bernardin's death an abortionist in Indiana announced that, inspired by the cardinal, he was giving up performing abortions. It was an edifying episode which, if repeated enough times, would validate Bernardin's approach to the issue. However, the abortionist in question had no personal contact with the late cardinal. There is no evidence that Bernardin ever tried to persuade Ann Landers or anyone else that her views on abortion were in error. Indeed he seemed to thrive on warm friendships with people like Landers, while remaining aloof from people active in, for example, pro-life work. As one secular journalist put it, "We didn't talk about religion, only about the things that unite people."

"Shortly before his death, referring to the slanders once directed at himself, Bernardin expressed the wish that "unfair attacks" on Hilary Clinton, the president's wife, would cease, so that she would be allowed to employ her talents for the good of the country. Altogether it was as blatantly partisan a statement as any bishop in America has ever made, given the fact that Hilary Clinton was involved in a number of questionable financial transactions and that several of her associates are now under criminal indictment. In addition, abortion has been precisely one of her major causes, and she has used the power of the White House to promote it in every way possible. But if the cardinal was friendly in his statements regarding the Clintons, the White House returned that friendly attention. Shortly before the prelate's death President Clinton bestowed on Bernardin the Medal of Freedom, indicating that he saw the cardinal as exactly the kind of religious leader the nation needs.

But even more astonishing than Ann Landers's revelation that she was the cardinal's close friend was the report by Tom Fox, editor of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), that Bernardin over the years had occasionally telephoned him to encourage his journalistic work, urging him to "keep the flame lit"--the "flame" being the causes the NCR champions, and calling the newspaper "a candle in the night."

Over its more than thirty years of publication, almost the sole purpose of the NCR's existence has been to mount increasingly bitter assaults on almost every aspect of official Catholic teaching, especially sexual morality, and against every member of the hierarchy who gives visible support to those teachings. It is a journal where, for example, it is almost routine for Vatican officials to be referred to as Nazis and to be accused of suffering from various kinds of psychological disorders. It is also the journal where Tim Unsworth has for years celebrated the rebelliousness of the Chicago clergy, and where the same writer attacked Mother Teresa.

The revelation that for years Bernardin was offering encouragement to the editors of that paper confirmed conservative Catholics' worst suspicions--that, while crafting for himself the image of a "moderate," Bernardin had always been firmly in the liberal camp. While he was occasionally criticized by people on the left for not going far enough, he was a consummate realist who understood that the methods he used were far more successful than direct assaults would be. Under the rubric of "reaching out" he was able to create an environment of maximum tolerance for dissent.

That he admired and supported the angrily abusive NCR also shed light on Bernardin's claim that he merely wanted to bring peace and harmony to a Church torn by bitter disagreements. On the contrary, it turned out that he was quite willing to encourage such bitterness, so long as it served the appropriate causes.  (James Hitchcock, "Cardinal Bernardin's Legacy," found at www.Catholic.net. The link no longer works, and online searches reveal that this lowly website is the only place where Dr. Hitchcock’s article can be found.)

Ah, the National Catholic Reporter has gone from being in charge of the “loyal dissent” to being an enforcing arm of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his crew of Jacobin/Bolshevik theological revolutionaries. Yesterday’s “loyal dissenters” are quite indeed today’s doctrinal enforcers while yesterday’s defenders of “papal” “orthodoxy” have become solidly entrenched as militant opponents of the entire Bergoglian war against Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals, once again proving what Pope Saint Pius X wrote about Modernists:

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

As to Dr. Hitchcock’s great summary of Joseph Bernardin’s “legacy” while leaving aside the matter of the legitimacy of the conciliar sacraments, suffice it to say that the late sodomite was so “pastoral" that he preferred to offend God by distributing Holy Communion to people he knew to be invalidly married (divorced and remarried Catholics who lacked a decree of nullity) than "embarrassing" people who were living under the "stigma" of the Church's opprobrium. Admitting that he "might" talk to such people afterwards, this is what he told an author, Peter Wilkes, for an article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine on December 11, 1994, that assessed the chances of possible successors to John Paul II, who was then seventy-four years of age and would live for another ten years and nearly four months:

When I asked Cardinal Bernardin to assess the achievements of John Paul's papacy, his response was the one I'd heard so frequently from others: he had "personalized" the papacy, influenced the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe and had supported the thrust of Vatican II reforms, meanwhile reining in those he felt had gone beyond Vatican II's intent.

Wasn't it true that along that line -- the one marking the reach of Vatican II -- the most painful conflicts in the church were being battled out?

Bernardin replied carefully, rather evasively, and what seemed to me unenthusiastically. "I have taken an oath to be loyal to the church and to uphold her teachings," he said, "and I will do that. But, over these years -- actually I find myself, with 12 years as a Cardinal, pretty well up there in seniority -- I am not overawed by Rome and the workings of the Vatican any more. I haven't changed. I don't have to put on an act. I can be who I am here, say what I think."

Our conversation moved to a more specific implementation of papal thinking: the document forbidding divorced and remarried Catholics from receiving the holy eucharist. I asked the Cardinal if he would deny such a divorced person the eucharist. "Oh, no," he said, closing his eyes and slowing shaking his head, "that would be totally inappropriate to embarrass someone like that. I might try to find an opportunity to talk to the person afterwards, but no, never, I could never do that."

Our lengthy and wide-ranging conversation moved along easily; there was only one time that Cardinal Bernardin hesitated in his response, saying "Let me think about that." The question was about work not getting done in today's Catholic Church.

"We are a church polarized and we have to bring it back together," he said, finally. "The pro-choice people don't feel they are in the same church with the pro-life people. We need a greater sense of humility for our own failings, a greater sense of reconciliation, reaching out for what joins us rather than looking for what can divide us. And a number of my priests, my pastors" -- he paused with the thought -- "they don't feel the church is taking their experiences into account. They tell me over and over again the teaching and discipline of the church is not as flexible as it should be. And they feel they don't have enough input to the decision-making process of the church -- yet they are the ones who have to implement those decisions.

"No one could have expected the changes of Vatican II to have come about in an orderly way; we can't give up on them just because they are so difficult."

All right. "The pro-choice people don't feel they are in the same church with the pro-life people." Well, you see, it is like this: anyone who supports abortion under any circumstances ceases to be a member of the Catholic Church in good standing. Not so to the man of the "Consistent Ethic of Life," which helped to reaffirm pro-abortion Catholics that they could vote for their fellow pro-abortion Catholics with perfect impunity.

Men such as Wolfgang Haas who oppose the Bergoglian agenda while supporting every aspect of conciliarism (the new ecclesiology, dogmatic evolutionism under the euphemisms of “living tradition” and/or the hermeneutic of continuity, false ecumenism, interreligious prayer services, separation of Church and State, religious liberty, the inversion of the ends proper to Holy Matrimony, “natural” family planning, etc.) must be purged to make room for an abandonment of  all conceptions of objective moral truths based upon subjectivist determinations that must keep “evolving” over time.

Victor Manuel Fernandez, who ghostwrote much, if not all, of Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, amplified the subjectivist nature of the upcoming synod on synodality in a recent interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register while blowing smoke in the face of Edward Pentin by using strawmen and other false arguments to justify the unjustifiable. I will provide several examples. Here is the first.

Edward Pentin: One criticism often directed at Church leaders, especially since the Second Vatican Council, has been an absence of clarity in Church teaching. How can individual faithful Catholics find a path to salvation when the Church’s teaching appears obscured by debates influenced by what they might see as worldly values that have entered the Church and an apparent lack of certainty that has ensued? What might you do as prefect to help address this lack of clarity? 

Victor Manuel Fernandez: Debates (and therefore some lack of clarity) have existed throughout the history of the Church. There were fierce debates among the Fathers of the Church, there were debates among religious orders, and how can we not remember the de auxiliis controversy, where two groups of theologians and bishops condemned each other [over the relationship between divine grace and free will] until the pope decided that it was an open question and forbade them expressing themselves in condemnatory terms? 

However, even in such situations that may seem scandalous, the Church grows and matures in its understanding of some aspects of the Gospel that had not been made sufficiently explicit before. I believe that this dicastery can be a space that can welcome these debates and frame them in the secure doctrine of the Church, thus avoiding for the faithful some of the more aggressive, confusing and even scandalous media debates. (Fernandez Warns Against Bishops Who Think They Can Judge ‘Doctrine of the Holy Father’.)

A Brief Comment:

While there have been debates on doctrinal matters and on Scriptural interpretation, there are no debates to be had after a pope and/or a pope and a general council defines teaching and anathematizes those who dissent from it.

Pope Leo XIII condemned the absurd Americanist opinion that the doctrine of papal infallibility was open for debate because it had been defined, opening a path for a wider discussion:

It is alleged that now the Vatican decree concerning the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff having been proclaimed that nothing further on that score can give any solicitude, and accordingly, since that has been safeguarded and put beyond question a wider and freer field both for thought and action lies open to each one. But such reasoning is evidently faulty, since, if we are to come to any conclusion from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, it should rather be that no one should wish to depart from it, and moreover that the minds of all being leavened and directed thereby, greater security from private error would be enjoyed by all. And further, those who avail themselves of such a way of reasoning seem to depart seriously from the over-ruling wisdom of the Most High-which wisdom, since it was pleased to set forth by most solemn decision the authority and supreme teaching rights of this Apostolic See-willed that decision precisely in order to safeguard the minds of the Church’s children from the dangers of these present times. (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899.)

Modernists attempt to confuse the uninformed with very unoriginal sleights of hand, which are nothing more than illusions designed to convince others to believe what is not and can never be so.

In this regard, therefore, Victor Emanuel Fernandez’s effort to use the dispute between the Jesuits and the Dominicans over the issue of God’s Divine foreknowledge coexisting with human free will and the action of grace thereon to “prove” that there are many “open questions” concerning Church teaching is a very clumsy sleight of hand worthy of Ballantine the Great as while it is true that Pope Paul V decided to let both sides continue teaching their theological opinion on the matter without one side condemning the other, the issue in dispute has not been defined—and will never be defined—solemnly by Holy Mother Church precisely because it remains a mystery.

As will be seen shortly, Fernandez, who also used the same falsehoods about supposedly “changing teaching” on slavery and the death penalty as were used by Jorge Mario Bergoglio during his in-flight interview on his return to Rome from Mongolia (see Anti-Apostle Number Six (aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio) Acts as An Anti-Apostle in Mongolia), used the Modernist sleights of hand for one principal purpose: to indemnify sodomy and its endorsement on the grounds of "mercy” by contending that the “doctrine” has not changed, which is one of the longtime goals of those who constituted the so-called loyal opposition during the false pontificates of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

To wit, this is what Victor Manuel Fernandez said on the perverse concept of “marriage” between two people of the same gender:

Edward Pentin: In an interview with InfoVaticana in July, you seemed to be open to Church blessings of same-sex couples if they can be carried out without causing confusion. Could you explain more what you meant by this? What sort of confusion were you referring to?

Victor Manuel Fernandez: I was referring to confusing a same-sex union with a marriage. At this point, it is clear that the Church only understands marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman who, in their differences, are naturally open to beget life. (Fernandez Warns Against Bishops Who Think They Can Judge ‘Doctrine of the Holy Father’.)

A Brief Comment:

Fernandez believed he was being subtle in his answer to Edward Pentin, whom he treated as a Catholic who was a dissenter from the “magisterium” of “Pope Francis,” but there is nothing subtle about saying “At this point, it is clear that the Church only understands a marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman who, in their differences, are naturally open to life.”

At this point?

“At this point” clearly means that there can be another point in time when what purports to be the Catholic Church will be able to “reflect” on the “depth” of the Gospel and come to a different “understanding” that she has had from time immemorial.

This is far from subtle.

Although writing about “civil unions” between fornicators and adulterers, Pope Pius XI clearly condemned the belief that there can be any “new” teaching or adaptation concerning what constitutes Holy Matrimony:

Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label "temporary," "experimental," and "companionate." These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.  

Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern "culture" in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

Pope Pius XI referred to the new species of unions nearly ninety years ago as "hateful abominations." Bergoglio believes them to contain "elements of true love."  This is because Pope Pius XI was a true pope. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not. He is an apostate.

Unlike the conciliar revolutionaries, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori taught that God wants sinners to quit their sins now, not at some point the future, reminding his hearers that God does not command the impossible, meaning that all of the supernatural helps are available for a repentant Catholic to quit his sins and to seek to do penance for them, especially by making reparation for his own sins and those of the whole world as a consecrated slave of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary:

4. You say:” I cannot at present resist this passion." Behold the third delusion of the devil, by which he makes you believe that at present you have not strength to overcome certain temptations. But St. Paul tells us that God is faithful, and that he never permits us to be tempted above our strength. "And God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able." (1 Cor. x. 13.) I ask, if you are not now able to resist the temptation, how can you expect to resist it hereafter? If you yield to it, the Devil will become stronger, and you shall become weaker; and if you be not now able to extinguish this flame of passion, how can you hope to be able to extinguish it when it shall have grown more violent? You say: "God will give me his aid." But this aid God is ready to give at present if you ask it. Why then do you not implore his assistance? Perhaps you expect that, without now taking the trouble of invoking his aid, you will receive from him increased helps and graces, after you shall have multiplied the number of your sins? Perhaps you doubt the veracity of God, who has promised to give whatever we ask of him?” Ask, “he says,” and it shall be given  you." (Matt. vii. 7.) God cannot violate his promises.” God is not as man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said, then, and will he not do ?" (Num. xxiii. 19.) Have recourse to him, and he will give you the strength necessary to resist the temptation. God commands you to resist it, and you say: “I have not strength." Does God, then, command impossibilities? No; the Council of Trent has declared that ” God does not command impossibilities; but, by his commands, he admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask what you cannot do; and he assists, that you may be able to do it." (Sess. 6. c. xiii.) When you see that you have not sufficient strength to resist temptation with the ordinary assistance of God, ask of him the additional help which you require, and he will give it to you; and thus you shall be able to conquer all temptations, however violent they may be.  ("The Delusions of Sinners: Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday," as found in Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, The Sermons of Saint Alphonsus Liguori For All the Sundays of the Year, republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1982, pp. 119-120.)

Victor Emanuel Fernandez’s next answer made it eminently clear that the upcoming synod on synodality is all about soothing the consciences of those engaged in sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance:

Edward Pentin: You’ve said that doctrine cannot change, but our understanding of it can. Yet some Church watchers see this as subverting the Church’s immutable teaching under the guise of pastorally helping the faithful, creating a false dichotomy between doctrine and pastoral praxis that actually cohere. Do you see doctrine as an obstacle to being truly compassionate, and if so, why?  

Victor Manuel Fernandez: True doctrine can only be a light, a guide for our steps, a sure path and a joy for the heart. But it is clear that even the Church does not yet fully grasp the full richness of the Gospel. In some areas it has taken centuries for the Church to make explicit aspects of doctrine which at other times she did not see so clearly.

Today the Church condemns torture, slavery and the death penalty, but this did not happen with the same clarity in other centuries. Dogmas were necessary because before them there were issues that were not sufficiently clear. 

The doctrine does not change; the Gospel will always be the same. Revelation is already settled. But there is no doubt that the Church will always be tiny in the midst of such an immensity of truth and beauty and will always need to continue to grow in her understanding. (Fernandez Warns Against Bishops Who Think They Can Judge ‘Doctrine of the Holy Father’.)

A Brief Comment:

Putting aside the falsehoods about slavery and the death penalty that I discussed at length in Anti-Apostle Number Six (aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio) Acts as An Anti-Apostle in Mongolia, this answer is pure dogmatic evolutionism. To claim that that the Catholic Church “does not yet fully grasp the richness of the Gospel” calls to mind the following discussion about the “progress” of doctrine from Pope Saint Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

The progress of dogma is due chiefly to the fact that obstacles to the faith have to be surmounted, enemies have to be vanquished, and objections have to be refuted. Add to this a perpetual striving to penetrate ever more profoundly into those things which are contained in the mysteries of faith. Thus, putting aside other examples, it is found to have happened in the case of Christ: in Him that divine something which faith recognized in Him was slowly and gradually expanded in such a way that He was at last held to be God. The chief stimulus of the evolution of worship consists in the need of accommodation to the manners and customs of peoples, as well as the need of availing itself of the value which certain acts have acquired by usage. Finally, evolution in the Church itself is fed by the need of adapting itself to historical conditions and of harmonizing itself with existing forms of society. Such is their view with regard to each. And here, before proceeding further, We wish to draw attention to this whole theory of necessities or needs, for beyond all that we have seen, it is, as it were, the base and foundation of that famous method which they describe as historical.

27. Although evolution is urged on by needs or necessities, yet, if controlled by these alone, it would easily overstep the boundaries of tradition, and thus, separated from its primitive vital principle, would make for ruin instead of progress. Hence, by those who study more closely the ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as a resultant from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress, the other towards conservation. The conserving force exists in the Church and is found in tradition; tradition is represented by religious authority, and this both by right and in fact. By right, for it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition: and in fact, since authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the individual consciences and works in them — especially in such of them as are in more close and intimate contact with life. Already we observe, Venerable Brethren, the introduction of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity the factor of progress in the Church. Now it is by a species of covenant and compromise between these two forces of conservation and progress, that is to say between authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences, or some of them, act on the collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositories of authority to make terms and to keep to them.

With all this in mind, one understands how it is that the Modernists express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished. What is imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. They understand the needs of consciences better than anyone else, since they come into closer touch with them than does the ecclesiastical authority. Nay, they embody them, so to speak, in themselves. Hence, for them to speak and to write publicly is a bounden duty. Let authority rebuke them if it pleases — they have their own conscience on their side and an intimate experience which tells them with certainty that what they deserve is not blame but praise. Then they reflect that, after all, there is no progress without a battle and no battle without its victims; and victims they are willing to be like the prophets and Christ Himself. They have no bitterness in their hearts against the authority which uses them roughly, for after all they readily admit that it is only doing its duty as authority. Their sole grief is that it remains deaf to their warnings, for in this way it impedes the progress of souls, but the hour will most surely come when further delay will be impossible, for if the laws of evolution may be checked for a while they cannot be finally evaded. And thus they go their way, reprimands and condemnations not withstanding, masking an incredible audacity under a mock semblance of humility. While they make a pretense of bowing their heads, their minds and hands are more boldly intent than ever on carrying out their purposes. And this policy they follow willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church in order that they may gradually transform the collective conscience. And in saying this, they fail to perceive that they are avowing that the collective conscience is not with them, and that they have no right to claim to be its interpreters.

28. It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: “These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.” On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ”Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason”; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ”The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.” Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: “Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries — but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.” (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Thus stands exposed all of Victor Manuel Fernandez’s Modernist sleights of hand, sleights of hand to make it appear that yesterday’s dissenters turned today’s enforcers of doctrine are simply being humble servants of the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ even through they are the enemies of the fact that God is immutable and that His teaching is never to be adapted in light of “changing” historical circumstances and/or the “consciences” of the “people,” especially those people steeped in lives of unrepentant Mortal Sin.

There is, of course, no mystery on the settled issues concerning Holy Mother Church’s consistent condemnation of those who approach to receive Holy Communion in a state of Morta Sin. The Catholic Church has always condemned sins of impurity, and Saint Paul himself tells us that those who receiving Holy Communion unworthily do so unto their own damnation:

For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come  [1 Corinthians 11:26]  27 Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.  28 But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice.  29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11: 26-29.)

Saint John Chrysostom said explicitly that “To this Table then let there draw night no Judas Iscariot, no Simon Magus”:

Let us hear, all of us, both Priests and laymen, let us hear What Food it is whereof we are made worthy let us hear, I say, and let us quake. The Lord satisfieth us with His Own holy Flesh, setting Himself slain before us. What excuse therefore shall we have, if, being so fed as we are, we sin as we do If, eating of the Lamb, we are still wolves If, pastured as the sheep of the flock, we raven like lions This mysterious Sacrament forbiddeth unto us not outrage only, but any the least enmity it is the Mystery of peace. Upon the Jews God laid it to make year by year by solemn festivals a yearly commemoration of His mercies unto them, but upon thee to do this in remembrance of His love to thee, day by day. To this Table then let there draw nigh no Judas Iscariot, no Simon Magus. These men fell through covetousness let us fly that bottomless pit. (Saint John Chrysostom, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Monday within the Octave of Corpus Christi.)

Once again, the Thirteenth Session of the Council of Trent had something to say about this:

CHAPTER VII.

On the preparation to be given that one may worthily receive the sacred Eucharist.

If it is unbeseeming for any one to approach to any of the sacred functions, unless he approach holily; assuredly, the more the holiness and divinity of this heavenly sacrament are understood by a Christian, the more diligently ought he to give heed that he approach not to receive it but with great reverence and holiness, especially as we read in the Apostle those words full of terror; He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself. Wherefore, he who would communicate, ought to recall to mind the precept of the Apostle; Let a man prove himself. Now ecclesiastical usage declares that necessary proof to be, that no one, conscious to himself of mortal sin, how contrite soever he may seem to himself, ought to approach to the sacred Eucharist without previous sacramental confession. This the holy Synod hath decreed is to be invariably observed by all Christians, even by those priests on whom it may be incumbent by their office to celebrate, provided the opportunity of a confessor do not fail them; but if, in an urgent necessity, a priest should celebrate without previous confession, let him confess as soon as possible. (The Council of Trent.)

To be sure, each of us is a sinner. Our Lord did indeed institute the Holy Eucharist to be administered unto sinners for their spiritual nourishment and fortification so that they can grow in virtue and holiness and thus overcome their sins and sinful tendencies by making the grace of the holy sacrament efficacious in their lives.

Our Lord did not institute the Holy Eucharist so that sinners could continue sinning wantonly and unrepentantly, and He did not institute this Sacrament that is the source and the summit of true Charity to be abused in the name of a “fragility” that is meant to convey, no matter how sneakily, the old heresy of Luther, namely, that men are so “fragile,” so thoroughly “corrupted” by Original Sin that it is impossible for men to stop sinning. This is, apart from being a denial of the doctrine of Original Sin on Luther’s part.

None of this matters to Victor Manuel Fernandez nor to his close friend and collaborator in the work of the adversary, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. As happened in the 2014 and 2015 synods that produced Amoris Laetitia, the 2023 and 2024 synods will result in an “apostolic exhortation” issued in 2025 wherein Senor Jorge claims to be upholding “doctrine” while sanctioning “blessings” for sodomite “civil unions” and mandating the celebration of “pride” month with various liturgical and what they call “paraliturgical” ceremonies. The goose is cooked. The deck is stacked. The fix is in.

As most of the readers of this site understand, none of this comes from the Catholic Church.

Those of us who were late to come to the understanding of this fact after decades of having defended the Polish “pope” against the “dissenters” who were merely prophets of the New Conciliar Order, shall we say, have to give thanks to Our Lady to send us the graces so that we can recognize and condemn apostasy when we see it rather than be in the position of today’s “papal” critics, who were dispatched by Victor Manuel Fernandez as follows in a direct slap to Edward Pentin personally:

Edward Pentin: You said in a July interview with Crux that you take Pope Francis’ words about accepting the recent magisterium very seriously and that the faithful should allow their thought “to be transfigured with his criteria,” particularly when it comes to moral and pastoral theology. What is the “recent magisterium” exactly? How does it differ from the non-recent magisterium, and what do you mean when you say “transfigured with his criteria” regarding moral and pastoral theology? Is it binding; and, as prefect, how will you deal with those in the Church, especially bishops and priests, who won’t subscribe to the Holy Father’s magisterium, as they might see it as contradicting established Church teaching? 

Victor Manuel Fernandez: When we speak of obedience to the magisterium, this is understood in at least two senses, which are inseparable and equally important. One is the more static sense, of a “deposit of faith,” which we must guard and preserve unscathed. But on the other hand, there is a particular charism for this safeguarding, a unique charism, which the Lord has given only to Peter and his successors. 

In this case, we are not talking about a deposit, but about a living and active gift, which is at work in the person of the Holy Father. I do not have this charism, nor do you, nor does Cardinal Burke. Today only Pope Francis has it. Now, if you tell me that some bishops have a special gift of the Holy Spirit to judge the doctrine of the Holy Father, we will enter into a vicious circle (where anyone can claim to have the true doctrine) and that would be heresy and schism. Remember that heretics always think they know the true doctrine of the Church. Unfortunately, today, not only do some progressives fall into this error but also, paradoxically, do some traditionalist groups. (Fernandez Warns Against Bishops Who Think They Can Judge ‘Doctrine of the Holy Father’.)

A Brief Final Comment:

Yes, as was noted at the beginning of this commentary, yesterday’s dissenters have become today’s “papal” defenders, and yesterday’s “papal” defenders have become today’s dissenters and critics. Such must be the vicious cycle in a false religious sect where nothing is secure and nothing is stable, a vicious cycle wherein a claimant to the papacy is treated with the same sort of contempt as an elected political official when he supports various policies. This vicious cycle is itself proof that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church as a true pope would never place into question the immutability of Catholic Faith and Morals and believing Catholics would always treat a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter with reverence and filial submission, not defiance and contempt.

We are still in the month of September, the month of the Sorrows of Our Lady and of the Holy Cross.

Thus, we continue to pray Our Lady’s Dolors in these final five days of September and ask her to send us the graces that we need to carry the crosses of the present moment with love, joy, and gratitude as we fly unto her patronage with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through he own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, through her Most Holy Rosary.

Our Lady of the North American Martyrs, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us!

Saint Rene Goupil, S,J.,  pray for us.

Saint John Lalande, S,J., pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemant, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, S.J.,  pray for us.

Saint John De Brebeuf, S.J., pray for us.

Saints Cyprian and Justina, pray for us.