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Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part ten, THE END!
This long commentary concludes my series on Amoris Laetitia in this commentary, and I am breathing quite a sigh of relief as I am sick of the bilge.
Seriously, this has been a very penitential exercise. Alas, there is no other path to Heaven than to do penance for our sins, and this means that I have a whole lot more penance to do before I die.
Well, as I noted in part nine six days ago now, there are a few more points that I want to make about Paragraph 297 of Amoris Laetitia before moving to the some of the succeeding paragraphs. Let me provide you with the text of this paragraph before providing just a few more refutations of Jorge Mario Bergolgio’s blasphemous and heretical contention that “no one can be condemned forever”:
297. It is a matter of reaching out to everyone, of needing to help each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being touched by an “unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous” mercy. No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves. Naturally, if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, or wants to impose something other than what the Church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; this is a case of something which separates from the community (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a person needs to listen once more to the Gospel message and its call to conversion. Yet even for that person there can be some way of taking part in the life of community, whether in social service, prayer meetings or another way that his or her own initiative, together with the discernment of the parish priest, may suggest. As for the way of dealing with different “irregular” situations, the Synod Fathers reached a general consensus, which I support: “In considering a pastoral approach towards people who have contracted a civil marriage, who are divorced and remarried, or simply living together, the Church has the responsibility of helping them understand the divine pedagogy of grace in their lives and offering them assistance so they can reach the fullness of God’s plan for them”,328 something which is always possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
This is so bold and so blatant a heresy that a few additional refutations are certainly in order at this time.
Let us turn to Saint Peter Claver once again for a review of how he warned hardened sinners that they would be condemned to hell for all eternity if they did not reform their lives:
The labors of Father Claver for the Spaniards met with the same success as those he undertook for the Negroes. It would seem as if God, for His own glory, had imparted to his words a powerful efficacy, and an irresistible charm; a word from him often sufficed to disconcert the most hardened libertine. Emmanuel Rodriguez declared that he had one evening placed himself behind a tree, with a criminal intention. The night was so dark that it was impossible to discern an object at a distance of two or three paces. Yet Father Claver returning from a sick-call, approached the tree, and exclaimed, “Beware, miserable man! For death is on the watch behind that tree.” These words fell like a thunderbolt on Rodriguez; he took to his heels, and entirely renounce his criminal project.
This ascendance over the human heart was so well known, that he was always called to the most desperate sinners when all other means had failed. Two or three instances will suffice. He was told that a man was dying in a state of despair; he would hearken neither to prayers or exhortations: if the crucifix was presented to him, he turned away his head in a rage: the most zealous priests had reaped no other fruit from their labors than the grief of seeing him become more obdurate and rebellious. Father Claver hastened to him, and, from the first, was much better received than any of the others. He spent the remainder of the day in prayer for him, and returned on the morrow full of confidence in God. After saying all that the ardor of his zeal inspired, he drew his crucifix from his bosom, and presented it to the sick man, with the desire that he should reverence it, and place the end upon his mouth. He did so. And at the same moment his heart became softened; he begged pardon of God with every sign of sincere repentance, and after receiving the last sacraments with exemplary piety, he died leaving in the minds of all an assured hope of his salvation. The holy man, full of joy, hastened to the house of a pious gentleman and begged he would join with him in thanking God for the mercy He had shown this poor sinner.
A Spanish woman who had led a profligate life was in danger of death. She seemed possessed by an impure spirit; for to all salutary admonitions her only replies were obscene expressions. Father Claver called to see her and read a gospel over her; but his kindness was acknowledged only by obscene language. The zeal of the chaste man was immediately enkindled, and with a countenance of holy indignation, and a voice which filled the soul of the miserable woman with terror, he presented his crucifix and exclaimed: “Go, since you will, to hell: go, by all means; and here behold your Judge, who condemns you! Silenced by these words, she dared not even raise her eyes. He like a good shepherd, who only strikes the stray sheep to made it re-enter the fold, immediately began in a mild tone to conjure her to hope in the mercy of a God who was crucified for her salvation. These powerful motives moved her heart; she made her confession, and her abundant tears left no room to doubt the sincerity of her conversion. But it was not the same with another libertine woman, whom the servant of God had long exhorted to lead a more regular life. In spite of all his endeavors she always persisted in deferring her conversion till some other time. “Well,” said he to her one day, “continue to close your ears to the voice of God who calls you; in a short time you will see the result of your obstinacy.” the chastisement soon followed the threat; in less than a fortnight she was suddenly attacked by a violent disorder and died in the presence of her accomplice without even time for reflection. (Father John R. Slattery, S.J., The Life of Saint Peter Claver, S.J.: The Apostle of the Negroes, published originally by H. L. Kilner & Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1893, and republished by Forgotten Books in 2015, pp, 150-151. See Appendix A below for the full context of Saint Peter Claver's work with libertines.)
This one vignette in and of itself
shows a complete contrast between the work of a true priest, a Jesuit missionary, and that of a false priest who is the antithesis of the spirit of the Society of Jesus, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
“No one can be condemned forever,” Jorge?
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the Patron Saint of Moral Theologians and a Doctor of Holy Mother Church, gave an entire sermon on “The Eternity of Hell.” Here is an excerpt:
6. If hell were not eternal, it would not be so frightful a chastisement. Thomas a Kempis says, that “everything which passes with time is trifling and short." Any pain which has an end is not very appalling. The man who labours under an imposthume or a cancer, must submit to the knife or the cautery: the pain is severe; but because it is soon over it can be borne. But a tooth-ache which lasts for three months without interruption is insupportable. Were a person obliged to lie in the same posture for six months on a soft bed, or even to hear the same music, or the same comedy, night and day for one year, he would fall into melancholy and despondency. Poor blind sinner ! When threatened with hell they say: "If I go there I must have patience." But they shall not say so when they will have entered that region of woes, where they must suffer, not by listening to the same music or the same comedy, nor by lying in the same posture, or by tooth -ache, but by enduring all torments and all evils. “I will heap evils upon them." (Deut. xxxiii. 23.) And all these torments shall never end.
7. They shall never end, and shall never be diminished in the smallest degree. The damned must for ever suffer the same fire, the same privation of God, the same sadness, the same despair. Yes, says St. Cyprian, in eternity there is no change, because the decree is immutable. This thought shall immensely increase their sufferings, by making them feel beforehand, and at each moment, all that they shall have to suffer for eternity. In this description of the happiness of the saints, and the misery of the reprobate, the Prophet Daniel says: "They shall wake some unto life everlasting, and some unto reproach to see it always." (Dan. xii. 2.) They shall always see their unhappy eternity. Ut videant semper. Thus eternity tortures each of the damned not only by his present pains, but with all his future sufferings, which are eternal.
8. These are not opinions controverted among theologians; they are dogmas of faith clearly revealed in the sacred Scriptures. "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv. 41.) Some will say: The fire, but not the punishment of the damned is ever lasting. Such the language of the incredulous, but it is folly. For what other purpose would God make this fire eternal, than to chastise the reprobate, who are immortal? But, to take away every shadow of doubt, the Scriptures, in many other places, say, that not only the fire, but the punishment, of the damned is eternal. "And these, says Jesus Christ,” shall go into ever lasting punishment." (Matt. xxv. 46.) Again we read in St. Mark, "Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished." (ix. 43.) St. John says: "And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever." (Apoc. xvi. 11.) "Who," says St. Paul, "shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction." (2 Thess. i. 9.)
9. Another infidel will ask: How can God justly punish with eternal torments a sin that lasts but a moment? I answer, that the grievousness of a crime is measured not by its duration, but by the enormity of its malice. The malice of mortal sin is, as St. Thomas says, infinite. (1, 2, q. 87, art. 4.) Hence, the damned deserve infinite punishment; and, because a creature is not capable of suffering pains infinite in point of intensity, God, as the holy doctor says, renders the punishment of the damned infinite in extension by making it eternal. Moreover, it is just, that as long as the sinner remains in his sin, the punishment which he deserves should continue. And, therefore, as the virtue of the saints is rewarded in Heaven, because it lasts for ever, so also the guilt of the damned in Hell, because it is everlasting, shall be chastised with everlasting torments. "Quia non recipit causse remedium," says Eusebius Emissenus, "carebit fine supplicium." The cause of their perverse will continues: therefore, their chastisement will never have an end. The damned are so obstinate in their sins, that even if God offered pardon, their hatred for him would make them refuse it. The Prophet Jeremias, speaking in the name of the reprobate, says: Why is my sorrow become perpetual and my wound desperate, so as to refuse to be healed?" (Jer. xv. 18.) My wound, they say, is incurable, because I do not wish it to be healed. Just how can God heal the wound of their perverse will, when they would refuse the remedy, were it offered to them? Hence, the punishment of the reprobate is called a sword, a vengeance which is irrevocable. "I, the Lord, have drawn my sword out of its sheath, not to be turned back." (Ezech. xxi. 5.) (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, "The Eternity of Hell," Sermon for the Twenty-first Sunday after Penteocst.)
Not even the words of Sacred Scripture and their reiteration by the Catholic Church’s Patron Saint of Moral Theology matter to “Pope Francis.” Nothing matters to this man except the revolutionary precepts he was taught in the 1960s. His “gospel” of "joy" and "love" is a pretext to coddle unrepetant sinners and to scold those who see to exhort them to reform their lives by quitting their sins and confessing them to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance as they resolve to sin no more.
Here are just few other refutations to demonstrate the completely apostate nature of Bergoglio’s contention that “no one can be condemned forever":
And finally the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, incarnate by the whole Trinity in common, conceived of Mary ever Virgin with the Holy Spirit cooperating, made true man, formed out a rational soul and human flesh, One Person in two natures, clearly pointed out the way of life. And although He according to divinity is immortal and impassible, the very same according to humanity was made passible and mortal, who, for the salvation of the human race, having suffered on the wood of the Cross and died, descended into hell, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. But He descended in soul and He arose in the flesh, and He ascended equally in both, to come at the end of time, to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to their works, to the wicked as well as to the elect, all of who will rise with their bodies that they now bear, that they may receive according to their works, whether these works have been good or evil, the latter everlasting punishment with the devil and the former everlasting glory with Christ. (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, Decree Against the Albigensians, oachim, Waldensians, Chapter 1, The Catholic Faith: Definition Against the Albigensians and Other Heretics, isssued in 1215. As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 429, p. 169.)
24. Moreover, if anyone without repentance dies in mortal sin, without a doubt he is tortured forever by the flames of eternal hell.—25. But the souls of children after the cleansing of baptism, and of adults also the who depart in charity, and who are bound neither by sin nor unto any satisfaction for sin itself, at once pass quickly to their eternal fatherland. (Pope Innocent IV, Council of Lyons I, “Sub Catholicae,” March 6, 1254. As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 457, p. 181.)
It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)
Bergoglio must turn the words of Sacred Scripture, each of which were inspired by the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, on their head—if not ignore them altogether—to assert that “no one can be condemned forever.” He has succeeded in turning what most people think is the Catholic Church into an instrument of enabling sinners in their sin. He is one those false shepherds condemned by Saint Paul the Apostle for their desire to tickle the itching ears of the faithful:
[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Timothy 1: 1-5.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not endure sound doctrine. He has rebelled against it and mocked it his entire life. He has heaped unto himself only those who are his fellow mockers and blasphemers of all that is sacred, all that is pure, all that is just. He is the most prolific manufacturer of fables since Aesop.
This shows once again that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who is forever invoking the “Holy Spirit” as the source of his false beliefs, is moved by only one spirit, Antichrist, as everything he says and does is truly anti-Christ and His Divine Revelation. The Argentine Apostate is a chosen instrument of perdition to complete the course of destruction that began with the “election” of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on October 28, 1958, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, and his call nearly three months later, January 25, 1959, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, for the “Second” Vatican Council.
Paragraphs 298-312
The most commented upon parts of Amoris Laetitia are the ones dealing with what Jorge Mario Bergoglio calls the “pastoral discernment” that should be given in the cases of those Catholics who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without a decree of marital nullity from a conciliar marriage tribunal. The entirety of the Argentine Apostate’s false “pontificate” thus far has meant to lead to the conclusions stated in paragraphs 298-312. I, for one, do not understand why so many people are “surprised” by what these paragraphs contain as Bergoglio has been signaling his intention in this regard incessantly in different forums, including the phone call he made to a Catholic woman in his native Argentina who is married civilly to a divorced man:
“There are priests who are more papist than the Pope.” A set phrase like any other. Only this time, the lips that uttered it were those of Francis himself, during a conversation with fellow Argentinean, Jakelina Lisbona. A woman who married a divorced man. Bergoglio advised her to take Communion regardless of her personal situation. This little detail ended up as a news story that made it half way around the world.
“Pope assures there’s no harm in a divorced person taking Communion”. This is the title that has been causing a buzz in the media in the last few hours. But it is a misinterpretation because the person the Pope spoke with was not divorced as was originally believed.
“It’s not me who’s divorced,” one of the female protagonists in this story said in an interview with Buenos Aires radio station La Red Am910. Lisbona said it was her husband, Julio Zabeta, who had divorced, but she never married in the Church. The two have been united in civil matrimony for the past nineteen years and have two daughters.
“We used to go to mass, not every day. Here at home, we pray every evening, turning to God always; when someone is in a difficult situation God is the first one they turn to. I wrote the letter spontaneously. I wrote to him because he’s Argentinean, he listens to people and I believe in miracles,” she said.
The woman also said she tried taking Communion again last year but not only did the local priest apparently say he could not give her Communion, he even said she could not access the sacrament of Confession either. “[They told me that] when I went home, I resumed a life of sin,” she added.
The woman finally decided to write to Pope Francis to explain her situation to him. The letter was sent last September.
“The phone rang and my husband answered. It was Fr. Bergoglio calling. The father asked to speak to me and my husband asked: ‘who’s calling?’, to which the voice replied ‘Fr. Bergoglio’. I asked him if it was really him, the Pope, and he said it was and that he was calling in response to my letter dated September,” he explained.
Lisbona did not want to give too many details during the radio interview but she revealed the piece of advice Francis apparently gave her and that was that there was no problem in her approaching the sacrament of Communion. “This received too much public attention. He told me to go and take Communion in a different parish, but now I won’t be able to go anywhere.”
She also revealed an interesting fact: the priest who apparently refused to administer Communion to her, no longer exercises his ministry. He asked to be dispensed from his obligations as priest so he could get married.
According to the woman, Pope Francis also said he is “dealing with the issue” of remarried divorcees; a clear reference to the next two assemblies on the pastoral challenges of the family which the Synod of Bishops is due to hold in 2014 and 2015. “He said my letter was useful in helping him address this issue,” she added.
“Then he told me there are some priests who are more papist that the Pope. He was completely normal with me on the phone and I tried to speak to him with the utmost respect. Now I am overwhelmed by the enormous effect this story has had and I feel moved by the fact that I spoke to Francis. I told him I would write to him again when I take Communion again,” she said.
The Holy See did not wish to comment on whether Bergoglio really did make the call to Jakelina Lisbona or not. But it has not denied the news either. As far as the Vatican newsroom is concerned, the Pope’s communication was private and so there is no comment to be made. (Phone Call Re-Opens Communion Debate.)
The lady doth protest too much as it made no difference that it was her bigamous partner in adultery who was civilly divorced from his one and only legitimate wife. As I wrote twenty-two years ago in an article that appeared in The Wanderer, “One Thing Leads to Another,” one is not free to “date” one who is married to another, not even someone, as I wrote at the time as a “semi-traditionalist” in the conciliar structures, who was in the process of obtaining a conciliar decree of nullity. One is not free to “see,” no less consider marrying, anyone who is married to another no matter the decisions of a civil court. The bond of a ratified and consummated marriage is indissoluble, and no civil court’s divorce decree can put an end to such a bond, which ends only with the death of one of the spouses (for a very fine study on this issue, please see Mr. Michael Creighton’s updated Problems in Modern Marriage).
Indeed, a decree of marital nullity issued by the authority of the Catholic Church is a finding, issued with a level of authority that is called “moral certainty,” that a true sacramental bond never existed between a particular man and woman. It is not a “termination” of the bond itself, something that the conciliar annulment factory has led many Catholics to believe, especially since so many cases involve matters of convenience that have nothing to do with the limited number of legitimate cases that the tribunals of the Catholic Church would handle in a specific year.
Jakelina Lisbona was indeed an adulteress when she wrote to "Pope Francis" two years ago as she married a man who was not canonically free to marry anyone even by the standards, such as they were at the time and remain yet in canonical theory, of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that is accepted by all but a handful of mostly warring tribes as the Catholic Church. This was not some kind of hidden knowledge. The Argentine presybter who told her not to receive what purports to be Holy Communion was correct. Bergoglio was wrong, and Jakelina Lisbona was wrong to depict herself as some kind of innocent “victim” in all of this when she is nothing of the sort.
Naturally, “Father” Federico Lombardi’s tried his best to spin these events for the unpredictable “pope” from Argentina:
Several telephone calls have taken place in the context of Pope Francis’ personal pastoral relationships.
Since they do not in any way form part of the Pope’s public activities, no information or comments are to be expected from the Holy See Press Office.
That which has been communicated in relation to this matter, outside the scope of personal relationships, and the consequent media amplification, cannot be confirmed as reliable, and is a source of misunderstanding and confusion.
Therefore, consequences relating to the teaching of the Church are not to be inferred from these occurrences. (Vatican Press Office Official Statement.)
Federico Lombardi was living in a fantasy world of his own creation. Anyone who believed at the thime that no “consequences” were to have been “inferred from these occurrences” was delusional or intellectually dishonest.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio knew full well what he was doing when he telephoned Jakelina Lisbona two years ago. He wants to ‘stir things up” and to “make a mess” in order to make it impossible for his so-called “Extraordinary Synod of ‘Bishops’” to do anything other than to make it part of the pastoral praxis of the conciliar church for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive what is considered to be Holy Communion, and this has now been accomplished as a result of the "pastoral discernment" outlined in Amoris Laetitia?
No “consequences” are to be “inferred from these occurrences”?
Well, I think that the late Father John Joseph “Jackie Boy” Sullivan might have used rather, shall we say, earthy language to describe such a statement. Suffice it to say that Lombardi’s statement was simply beneath contempt and an insult to the intelligence of everyone who had read it, and it is laughable now in light of Amoris Laetitia.
No consequences are to “inferred from these occurrences”, Father Lombardi?
Well, just take a look at Paragraph 298:
298. The divorced who have entered a new union, for example, can find themselves in a variety of situations, which should not be pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for a suitable personal and pastoral discernment. One thing is a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins. The Church acknowledges situations “where, for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate”.329 There are also the cases of those who made every effort to save their first marriage and were unjustly abandoned, or of “those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid”.330 Another thing is a new union arising from a recent divorce, with all the suffering and confusion which this entails for children and entire families, or the case of someone who has consistently failed in his obligations to the family. It must remain clear that this is not the ideal which the Gospel proposes for marriage and the family. The Synod Fathers stated that the discernment of pastors must always take place “by adequately distinguishing”,331 with an approach which “carefully discerns situations”.332 We know that no “easy recipes” exist.33 (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
First Set of Comments:
This is complete moral relativism, a veritable celebration of the so-called “philosopher” Joseph Fletcher’s “situation ethics.”
Alas, this is but the logical consequence of the denial of the immutability of dogmatic truth that is a foundational cornerstone of conciliarism and its false doctrines, sacrilegious and invalid liturgical rites, and condemned pastoral practices. Deny doctrinal truth, deny all truth, including moral truth.
The Catholic Church presumes teaches that the presumption is always in favor of the validity of a marital bond until and unless a duly constituted marriage tribunal determines otherwise.
Using one of the cases posed by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, no one who has been divorced unjustly, indeed, while using the legal system to fight with all his might and mien against divorce proceedings, is free to conduct himself as a single person, no less to “remarry,” until his true spouse dies. No one is free to “presume” the outcome of a case presented to duly constituted marriage tribunal, and one must accept an outcome in favor of the bond as coming from God Himself.
Bergoglio, though, does not believe that it is possible for people to refrain from the pursuit of carnal desires, meaning that he does not believe in the sufficiency and efficacy of the Actual Graces God sends to the souls of married Catholics who must live celibate lives after having been divorced unjustly or after having to proceed with a divorce to protect oneself and one’s children from an abuse spouse (there are instances when even traditional clergy advise an abused spouse to use the civil processes if there is no way to reach an agreement for a legal separation of bed and board as a means to protect those being threatened). Bergoglio thus believes that the sins of fornication and adultery can be justified in cases where individuals have demonstrated “love” in relationships that are said to have a “noteworthy stability.”
As this is all a matter of complete redundancy, let me be redundant as well and reprise what Pope Leo XIII had to say about those who live together outside of a valid marriage:
41. In the great confusion of opinions, however, which day by day is spreading more and more widely, it should further be known that no power can dissolve the bond of Christian marriage whenever this has been ratified and consummated; and that, of a consequence, those husbands and wives are guilty of a manifest crime who plan, for whatever reason, to be united in a second marriage before the first one has been ended by death. When, indeed, matters have come to such a pitch that it seems impossible for them to live together any longer, then the Church allows them to live apart, and strives at the same time to soften the evils of this separation by such remedies and helps as are suited to their condition; yet she never ceases to endeavor to bring about a reconciliation, and never despairs of doing so. But these are extreme cases; and they would seldom exist if men and women entered into the married state with proper dispositions, not influenced by passion, but entertaining right ideas of the duties of marriage and of its noble purpose; neither would they anticipate their marriage by a series of sins drawing down upon them the wrath of God.
42. To sum up all in a few words, there would be a calm and quiet constancy in marriage if married people would gather strength and life from the virtue of religion alone, which imparts to us resolution and fortitude; for religion would enable them to bear tranquilly and even gladly the trials of their state, such as, for instance, the faults that they discover in one another, the difference of temper and character, the weight of a mother's cares, the wearing anxiety about the education of children, reverses of fortune, and the sorrows of life.
43. Care also must be taken that they do not easily enter into marriage with those who are not Catholics; for, when minds do not agree as to the observances of religion, it is scarcely possible to hope for agreement in other things. Other reasons also proving that persons should turn with dread from such marriages are chiefly these: that they give occasion to forbidden association and communion in religious matters; endanger the faith of the Catholic partner; are a hindrance to the proper education of the children; and often lead to a mixing up of truth and falsehood, and to the belief that all religions are equally good. ]
44. Lastly, since We well know that none should be excluded from Our charity, We commend, venerable brothers, to your fidelity and piety those unhappy persons who, carried away by the heat of passion, and being utterly indifferent to their salvation, live wickedly together without the bond of lawful marriage. Let your utmost care be exercised in bringing such persons back to their duty; and, both by your own efforts and by those of good men who will consent to help you, strive by every means that they may see how wrongly they have acted; that they may do penance; and that they may be induced to enter into a lawful marriage according to the Catholic rite. (Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum, February 10, 1880.)
The passage of time does not change the mortally sinful nature of fornication or adultery.
The persistence of a sinner in acts of fornication or adultery over the course of many years does not demonstrate any kind of true love for himself or his partner in sin.
To commend those who use that which is proper to the married state alone outside of the context of a sacramentally valid marriage is in and of itself wicked, a wickedness compounded by the fact that such a commendation reaffirms those in that which is offensive to God and harmful to their own eternal salvation. Jorge Mario Bergoglio thus makes himself an accomplice to the sins of adulterers and fornicators.
The aforementioned First Council of Lyons had something to say about fornication:
“Moreover concerning fornication which an unmarried man commits with an unmarried woman, there must not be any doubt at all that it is a mortal sin, since the Apostle declares that “fornicators as adulterers are cast out from the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9). (Pope Innocent IV, Council of Lyons I, “Sub Catholicae,” March 6, 1254. As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 453, p. 180.)
Bergoglio thus makes light of sin as he dismisses the binding precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and the very words of the Divine Redeemer Himself. Far from being a friend to those he believes have been “excluded” unjustly from the life of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the worst enemy an unrepentant sinner can ever have as it is an evil thing to make excuses for one’s own sins for the sins of others, something that will be amplified shortly.
The Catholic martyrs of England and Ireland died to defend the Papal Primacy after it had been attacked by the adulterous and bigamous King Henry Tudor, This does not matter to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would have found a way to accommodate Henry VIII. Well, come to think of it, Bergoglio would have found a way to "accommodate" Herod the Tertarch and his brother Philip's wife, Herodias, with whom he was living adulterously and bigamously.
Saint John the Baptist, though, did not desire to tickle the itching ears of sinners. He sought to move sinners to repentance:
Which Herod hearing, said: John whom I beheaded, he is risen again from the dead. [17] For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. [18] For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother' s wife. [19] Now Herodias laid snares for him: and was desirous to put him to death, and could not. [20] For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man: and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly.
For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man: and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly.
And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom. Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But she said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist.
And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her:But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother. Which his disciples hearing came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. And the apostles coming together unto Jesus, related to him all things that they had done and taught. (Mk. 6. 20-30)
There is a quite irony here as Saint John the Baptist died to defend the integrity of marriage while Jorge Mario Bergoglio has used the text of Amoris Laetitia to tear into tiny little shreds of that integrity in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
The following three prayers, found in The Raccolta, contain an invocation of Saint John the Baptist for having done what Bergoglio does not thin it "merciful" to do: to issue a warning to a man, Herod the Tetrarch, for practicing adultery by rebuking him openly for his wicked and dissolute life:
I. O glorious Saint John the Baptist, greatest prophet among those born of woman (Luke 7, 28), although thou wast sanctified in thy mother's womb and didst lead a most innocent life, nevertheless it was thy will to retire into the wilderness, there to devote thyself to the practice of austerity and penance; obtain for us of thy Lord the grace to be wholly detached, at least in our hearts, from earthly goods, and to practice Christian mortification with interior recollection and with the spirit of holy prayer.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.
II. O most zealous Apostle, who, without working any miracle on others, but solely by the example of thy life of penance and the power of thy word, didst draw after thee the multitudes, in order to dispose them to receive the Messias worthily and to listen to His heavenly doctrine; grant that it may be given unto us, by means of the example of a holy life and the exercise of every good work, to bring many souls to God, but above all those souls that are enveloped in the darkness of error and ignorance and are led astray by vice. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347)
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.
III. O Martyr invincible, who, for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, didst with firmness and constancy withstand the impiety of Herod even at the cost of thine own life, and didst rebuke him openly for his wicked and dissolute life; by thy prayers obtain for us a heart, brave and generous, in order that we may overcome all human respect and openly profess our faith in loyal obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Divine Master.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.
V. Pray for us, Saint John the Baptist,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.
O God, Who hast made this day to be honorable in our eyes by the Nativity (or commemoration) of blessed John, grant unto Thy people the grace of spiritual joy, and direct the minds of all Thy faithful into the way of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes that is unmerciful to rebuke sinners, and in this he demonstrates that he is a figure of Antichrist and one of the most egregious antipopes in the history of Holy Mother Church.
Actually, not so fine, but back to the text of Amoris Laetitia:
299. I am in agreement with the many Synod Fathers who observed that “the baptized who are divorced and civilly remarried need to be more fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal. The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral care, a care which would allow them not only to realize that they belong to the Church as the body of Christ, but also to know that they can have a joyful and fruitful experience in it. They are baptized; they are brothers and sisters; the Holy Spirit pours into their hearts gifts and talents for the good of all. Their participation can be expressed in different ecclesial services, which necessarily requires discerning which of the various forms of exclusion currently practised in the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional framework, can be surmounted. Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always, who takes care of them with affection and encourages them along the path of life and the Gospel. This integration is also needed in the care and Christian upbringing of their children, who ought to be considered most important”.334 (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Second Set of Comments:
Given the fact that one who is attached to the conciliar structures in the belief that they are those of the Catholic Church has available to him a judicial process that had been “reformed” in the years after the “Second” Vatican Council even before Bergoglio’s absurd “reforms” of that process last year (see Jorge "Gives" What He Does Not Have), a choice to get civilly married after having obtained a divorce (or to marry a divorced person) must be made in complete defiance of the governing law of what is thought to be the Catholic Church. Such a defiance is willful and thus morally culpable. Those who have chosen to ignore even the reformed judicial procedures within the counterfeit church of conciliarism have thus demonstrated themselves to be of malicious intent. They do not care about the law, such as it is. They care only about their own willful desires. While such people are deserving of the prayers of their relatives of their fellow Catholics, they cannot be included in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church as they have chosen to separate themselves from her maternal bosom by proceeding with a civil marriage they knew to be invalid in her eyes and that carried with it the sanction of excommunication. They have chosen to be outlaws.
Once again, to reaffirm such people in their lives or to minimize the gravity of what they have done is nothing other than moral relativism writ large.
With a heavy sigh and a not-so-hearty “Hi-Yo, Silver, Away!”, it’s on to the next passage from Amoris Laetitia:
300. If we consider the immense variety of concrete situations such as those I have mentioned, it is understandable that neither the Synod nor this Exhortation could be expected to provide a new set of general rules, canonical in nature and applicable to all cases. What is possible is simply a renewed encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases, one which would recognize that, since “the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases”,335 the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same.336 Priests have the duty to “accompany [the divorced and remarried] in helping them to understand their situation according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop. Useful in this process is an examination of conscience through moments of reflection and repentance. The divorced and remarried should ask themselves: how did they act towards their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; whether or not they made attempts at reconciliation; what has become of the abandoned party; what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; and what example is being set for young people who are preparing for marriage. A sincere reflection can strengthen trust in the mercy of God which is not denied anyone”.337 What we are speaking of is a process of accompaniment and discernment which “guides the faithful to an awareness of their situation before God. Conversation with the priest, in the internal forum, contributes to the formation of a correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of the Church and on what steps can foster it and make it grow. Given that gradualness is not in the law itself (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 34), this discernment can never prescind from the Gospel demands of truth and charity, as proposed by the Church. For this discernment to happen, the following conditions must necessarily be present: humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it”.338 These attitudes are essential for avoiding the grave danger of misunderstandings, such as the notion that any priest can quickly grant “exceptions”, or that some people can obtain sacramental privileges in exchange for favours. When a responsible and tactful person, who does not presume to put his or her own desires ahead of the common good of the Church, meets with a pastor capable of acknowledging the seriousness of the matter before him, there can be no risk that a specific discernment may lead people to think that the Church maintains a double standard. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Third Set of Comments:
Well, here is the “internal forum solution” that had been proposed as early as 1972 by “Father” Joseph Ratzinger and reiterated by Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger in 1994 and 1998, something that has been discussed earlier in this series as well as in articles on this site in 2014 and 2015.
Indeed, this “internal forum solution” was predicted as one of the outcomes that could emerge from the 2014 “extraordinary synod” on the family:
1. Following the practice of the heretical and schismatic Greek Orthodox, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics without a decree of nullity from the conciliar officials, not that it is worth anything, will be permitted to receive what is purported to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service on a case-by-case basis handled by means of the interior form of the conciliar “reconciliation room.” In other words, everybody goes hand to stick their paws out to receive what they think is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2. The nullity process itself will be “streamlined” even further, making it possible for “decisions” in a matter of months, if not sooner.
3. “Pastoral outreach” to “unmarried couples” will be enlarged and expanded.
4. The “internal forum” solution, which has been used for decades now by cooperative priests and presbyters, will be adopted to assuage the consciences of married couples who find it “too difficult” to avoid the use of contraceptives. “Education” in methods of “natural family planning” will be recommended as the way to “plan” the number of children a married couple desires to have. For the refutation of “natural family planning,” please see Forty-Three Years After Humanae Vitae, Always Trying To Find A Way and Planting Seeds of Revolutionary Change. As found in A New Sense For A New Faith, part two.)
This was not far off the mark. Then again, no one needed any particular expertise to see how Jorge Mario Bergoglio had set up the “synods” of 2014 and 2015 to achieve the results that he expressed in Amoris Laetitia.
Additionally, Bergoglio desired to leave things somewhat ambiguous in Amoris Laetitia so as to give the greatest possible latitude to priests and presbyters in the “reconciliation room” to use the “internal forum” solution as the means to admit divorced and civilly “remarried” Catholics to the reception of what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. The following report, found at Novus Ordo Watch Wire, proves this to be the case:
“It's not a new doctrine, but a merciful application of the ‘old wine’, which, as you know, is always the best.” Thus spoke Mgr. Bruno Forte, archbishop of the diocese of Chieti-Vasto, during a meeting at Rossetti Theatre, on Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris laetitia”, which marked a crucial step with regard to the family, “between crisis and desire”. Crisis, for what the same Archbishop Forte noted was a decrease in marriages and an increase in cohabitation, but also the desire for the family that would be the “womb and school of humanity”. Present at the meeting were Don Nicola Del Bianco, Director of Office for the Family of the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto, and the married couple Maria Antoinetta and Franco Silvestri, who gave testimony of their own life, as a family, and as collaboraters of the Office for the Family.
In Mgr. Forte’s reflection, the causes of the “crisis of the family” ranged from a lack of jobs to housing problems, from migration, to the difficulties relating to “material and human misery”. In this context, the meaning of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation is: “Do not judge, but reach all with the gaze of mercy, but without giving up the truth of God. It is easy to say ‘this family has failed’, but it is more difficult to help it not to fail. No one should feel excluded from the Church”.
This approach, naturally, also has direct “practical” repercussions with regard to the guidelines given to pastors and the ecclesial community. Archbishop Forte in fact gave a special “behind-the-scenes” look at [what Francis said at] the Synod: “If we speak explicitly of Communion for the divorced-and-remarried — Archbishop Forte said, quoting Pope Francis joking(*) — we don’t know what a mess [casino] will result. So let’s not mention it directly. Make sure the premises are there, and I will draw the conclusions”. “Typical for a Jesuit”, Archbishop Forte joked, attributing to this guideline a wisdom that has allowed for the maturing necessary that resulted in “Amoris laetitia”, which, as stated by Monsignor Bruno Forte, does not represent new doctrine but rather a “merciful application” of what has always been [believed].
After the presentation of the exhortation came a “blueprint for the family” in the testimony of the Silvestri spouses, [their] four children plus seven foster children: “We raised our family with great sacrifices, because we did not want to delegate to anyone the upbringing of our children, but of course we also had the distraction of work [to deal with]. It was a difficult choice, but the Lord helped us. We are not better than others, we simply took into account the most important person, the one to whom we said yes: our Lord. And the fact that we have the Lord at the center of our lives has given us the strength to go on”. The “basis”, then, on which we solidly built the “practice” of forgiveness is the key words “thank you, sorry, excuse me”, as mentioned by Pope Francis, the importance of prayer, as well as family time and time alone together as a couple.
At the end of the testimony, there was a chance for remarks and questions from the large audience that attended the meeting.
(*) Translator’s Note: The “joke” is merely in Francis’ colloquial use of the term casino, which literally translates as “brothel”.
(“Nessuno si deve sentire escluso dalla Chiesa”, Zonalocale.it, May 3, 2016; our translation; underlining added.) (As found at Novus Ordo Watch Wire.)
Those of you with very long memories will recall that “Archbishop” Bruno Forte was personally “consecrated” by none other than Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger in 2004 despite having written a book in which he denied the actual, Bodily Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. Then again, of course, Ratzinger believes in the resurrection of “persons,” not bodies, making it perfectly reasonable for him to have consecrated a fellow heretic despite the opposition of the entire Italian “episcopal” conference.
To add proverbial insult to injury, the man who calls himself “Pope Francis” gave an unqualified “yes” to a question that had been posed to him following his trip to the Greek island of Lesbos last month concerning whether Amoris Laetitia would pave the way for divorced and civilly “remarried” Catholics in the conciliar structures to receive what purports to be Holy Communion, citing the arch-heretic named Christopher Schonborn’s interpretation of the relevant passages in Amoris Laetitia to be definitively his own as well:
Frank Rocca (Wall Street Journal): Thanks, Holy Father. I see that the questions on immigration that I had thought to ask you have been asked and answered by you very well. If you permit me, I’d like to ask you another question about an event of recent days, which was your apostolic exhortation. As you well know, there has been much discussion about on one of the many, I know that we’ve focused on this a lot…there has been much discussion after the publication. Some sustain that nothing has changed with respect to the discipline that regulates access to the sacraments for the divorced and remarried, that the Law, the pastoral praxis and obviously the doctrine remain the same. Others sustain that much has changed and that there are new openings and possibilities. For a Catholic who wants to know: are there new, concrete possibilities that didn’t exist before the publication of the exhortation or not?
Pope Francis: I can say yes, period. But it would be an answer that is too small. I recommend that you read the presentation of Cardinal Schonborn, who is a great theologian. He was the secretary for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and he knows the doctrine of the faith well. In that presentation, your question will find an answer. (Full Text of Jorge's Gabfest with Fawning Reporters.)
Unsurprisingly, Christoph Schonborn, a protégé of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and a great friend of all things lavender, took a very expansive view of the paragraphs 298-312 of Amoris Laetitia:
Before entering into the text itself I would like to say, in a very personal way, why I read it with joy, gratitude and always with strong emotion. In the ecclesial discourse on marriage and the family there is often a tendency, perhaps unconscious, to discuss these realities of life on the basis of two separate tracks. On the one hand there are marriages and families that are “regular”, that correspond to the rules, where everything is “fine” and “in order”, and then there are the “irregular” situations that represent a problem. Already the very term “irregular” suggests that such a distinction can be made very clearly.
Those, therefore, who find themselves on the side of the “irregular” families, must live with the fact that the “regular” families are on the other side. I am personally aware of how difficult that is for those who come from a “patchwork” family, due to the situation of my own family. The discourse of the Church in this regard may cause harm and can give the sensation of exclusion.
Pope Francis’ Exhortation is guided by the phrase “It is a matter of reaching out to everyone” (AL 297) as this is a fundamental understanding of the Gospel: we are all in need of mercy! “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (John 8, 7). We are all, regardless of the marriage or family situation in which we find ourselves, arejourneying. Even a marriage in which everything is “going well” is journeying. It must grow, learn, and overcome new phases. It knows sin and failure, and needs reconciliation and new beginnings, even in old age (cf. AL 297).
Pope Francis has succeeded in speaking about all situations without cataloguing them, without categorising, with that outlook of fundamental benevolence that is associated with the heart of God, with the eyes of Jesus that exclude no-one (cf. AL 297), that welcome all and grant the “joy of the Gospel” to all. This is why reading Amoris Laetitia is so comforting. No-one must feel condemned, no-one is scorned. In this climate of welcome, the discourse on the Christian vision of marriage and the family becomes an invitation, an encouragement, to the joy of love in which we can believe and which excludes no-one, truly and sincerely no-one. For me Amoris Laetitia is, first and foremost, a “linguistic event”, as was Evangelii gaudium. Something has changed in ecclesial discourse. This change of language was already perceptible during the Synod process. Between the two Synods of October 2014 and October 2015, it may clearly be seen how the tone became richer in esteem, as if the different situations in life had simply been accepted, without being immediately judged or condemned. In Amoris Laetitia this tone of language continues. Before this there is obviously not only a linguistic choice, but rather a profound respect when faced with every person who is never firstly a “problematic case” in a “category”, but rather a unique person, with his story and his journey with and towards God. In Evangelii gaudium Pope Francis said that we must take of our shoes before the sacred ground of others (EG 36). This fundamental attitude runs throughout the Exhortation. And it is also provides the most profound reason for the other two key words, to discern and to accompany. These words apply not only to the so-called “irregular situation” (Pope Francis underlines this “so-called”) but rather for all people, for every marriage and for every family. Indeed, we are all journeying and we are all in need of “discernment” and “accompaniment”. (Schonborn's Intervention at Presentation of Amoris Laetitia.)
Yes, no more distinctions between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, Sanctifying Grace and Mortal Sin. Such clear, black-and-white distinctions are "exclusionary," and they hurt people's feelings, of course. They make feel like they have done something wrong or evil for which God may condemn them to hell for all eternity. This is the same sort of moral casuistry that
The only place that the conciliar officials are “journeying” to is hell, and they will be “accompanied” by those they have enabled in their sins. Bergoglio’s contention that the use of the “internal forum” solution and his extension of false “mercy” to public sinners who are not interested in reforming their lives does not constitute moral relativism is as intellectually dishonest as the conciliarists’ oft-repeated contention that their practices of “ecumenism” must not be “mistaken” for religious indifferentism.
Here’s a little “reality check”: Amoris Laetitia is an exercise in moral relativism just as much as false ecumenism and interreligious “prayer” meetings and services are exercises in religious indifferentism. Like their statist counterparts in the civil realm, the conciliarists believe that they can use words to cloud reality. This may fool a lot of the people a lot of the time. It never fools God, however, and a terrible judgment awaits these infernal deceivers if they do not repent before they die and return to the Catholic Faith that have rejected, distorted, corrupted and misrepresented.
In essence, you, the entire text of Amoris Laetitia is about one thing: enabling sin in the manner of Martin Luther:
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 sin-enabling 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.)
Bergoglio believes that unrepentant sinners can approach for Holy Communion and be absolved of their sins in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance even though they do not believe that their sins of forncation or adultery (or perversity) are in need of forgiveness and as they have every intention of persisting in their lives of sins. This is truly the work of a figure of Antichrist.
To justify this approach, therefore, the false "pontiff" must invoke the "conscience card" to excuse those who are in what stodgy old "Pharisees" would consider "irregular" situations from the theological, moral and canonical consequences of their freely chosen lives of sin:
301. For an adequate understanding of the possibility and need of special discernment in certain “irregular” situations, one thing must always be taken into account, lest anyone think that the demands of the Gospel are in any way being compromised. The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values”,339 or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin. As the Synod Fathers put it, “factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision”.340 Saint Thomas Aquinas himself recognized that someone may possess grace and charity, yet not be able to exercise any one of the virtues well;341 in other words, although someone may possess all the infused moral virtues, he does not clearly manifest the existence of one of them, because the outward practice of that virtue is rendered difficult: “Certain saints are said not to possess certain virtues, in so far as they experience difficulty in the acts of those virtues, even though they have the habits of all the virtues”.342
302. The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly mentions these factors: “imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors”.343 In another paragraph, the Catechism refers once again to circumstances which mitigate moral responsibility, and mentions at length “affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability”.344 For this reason, a negative judgment about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the imputability or culpability of the person involved.345 On the basis of these convictions, I consider very fitting what many Synod Fathers wanted to affirm: “Under certain circumstances people find it very difficult to act differently. Therefore, while upholding a general rule, it is necessary to recognize that responsibility with respect to certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases. Pastoral discernment, while taking into account a person’s properly formed conscience, must take responsibility for these situations. Even the consequences of actions taken are not necessarily the same in all cases”.346
303. Recognizing the influence of such concrete factors, we can add that individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage. Naturally, every effort should be made to encourage the development of an enlightened conscience, formed and guided by the responsible and serious discernment of one’s pastor, and to encourage an ever greater trust in God’s grace. Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. In any event, let us recall that this discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized.
Rules and discernment
304. It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being. I earnestly ask that we always recall a teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas and learn to incorporate it in our pastoral discernment: “Although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects… In matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles; and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all… The principle will be found to fail, according as we descend further into detail”.347 It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations. At the same time, it must be said that, precisely for that reason, what is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule. That would not only lead to an intolerable casuistry, but would endanger the very values which must be preserved with special care.348 (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Fourth Set of Comments:
First, Bergoglio's misuse and misrepresentation of the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas is reprehensible. The fact that someone engaged in sin may be acting to their ill-informed conscience does not obviate the objectively sinful nature of their sins. The law of Our Lord is clear: no one may marry another while his lawful wife is still alive.
Second, living an adulterous relationship has nothing to do with possessing all of the virtues to their highest degree. It has to do with obeying the simple law of God as expressed in the Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Third, there is nothing to "discern" about those who are chosen to ignore the canonical procedures available to them in the counterfeit church of conciliarism to follow their own disordered will to enter into an adulterous union. Such people have the solemn obligation before God to quit their sins by refraining from that which is proper to married state alone even if their circumstances prevent a separation because of the presence of children or other factors. Bergoglio, though, wants to enable these adulterous unions as he does not believe that it is possible for a man and a woman to live celibately. He does see that each sin of adultery is gravely sinful in the eyes of God no matter, and very, very few people can claim ignorance of the Sixth Commandment before their Divine Judge, Christ the King, when they die. They have made excuses for themselves in their sins, and Bergoglio is assisting them in this regard.
Fourth, the Argentine Apostate's invocation of the "conscience card," which was used infamously by Father Charles Curran to oppose Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI's reiteration of the gravely sinful nature of contraception as expressed in a document that endorsed a supposedly "Catholic" form of "natural" contraception, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, is nothing other than a trick of Modernists to excuse themselves and others in their sins, including their own sins of pride and the sins of lust committed by others.
As a brief reminder, Father Charles Curran, a priest of the Dioceses of Rochester, New York, led a pre-planned and well-funded (by population controllers) campaign of dissent from Humanae Vitae on the grounds that it upheld Cahtolic teaching against artificial contraception even though was a revolutionary overturing of the ends proper to marriage and an endorsement of the agenda of family planners. This heretical moral theologian has lived long enough to see his false notion of "conscience," which has received the de facto endorsement of many"bishops" and priests/presbyters within the conciliar structures, endorsed by a supposed "pope" in a "papal exhortation."
Yet it is that Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in De Veritate that we are informed by the Natural Law to use our practical reason in a manner should the good will be chosen and evil avoided. The enemies of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law in the counterfeit church of conciliarism believe that what is considered objectively evil can be called “good” because it is “unavoidable” to act otherwise. Pope Saint Pius X critiqued this Modernist falsehood as follows in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:
From the combination and, as it were, fusion of these two elements, the common mind which draws up the formula and the authority which imposes it, arises, according to the Modernists, the notion of the ecclesiastical magisterium. And, as this magisterium springs, in its last analysis, from the individual consciences and possesses its mandate of public utility for their benefit, it necessarily follows that the ecclesiastical magisterium must be dependent upon them, and should therefore be made to bow to the popular ideals. To prevent individual consciences from expressing freely and openly the impulses they feel, to hinder criticism from urging forward dogma in the path of its necessary evolution, is not a legitimate use but an abuse of a power given for the public weal. So too a due method and measure must be observed in the exercise of authority. To condemn and proscribe a work without the knowledge of the author, without hearing his explanations, without discussion, is something approaching to tyranny. And here again it is a question of finding a way of reconciling the full rights of authority on the one hand and those of liberty on the other. In the meantime the proper course for the Catholic will be to proclaim publicly his profound respect for authority, while never ceasing to follow his own judgment. Their general direction for the Church is as follows: that the ecclesiastical authority, since its end is entirely spiritual, should strip itself of that external pomp which adorns it in the eyes of the public. In this, they forget that while religion is for the soul, it is not exclusively for the soul, and that the honor paid to authority is reflected back on Christ who instituted it. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Amoris Laetitia is thus a work of pure Modernism, and that which is Modernist can never be issued by a true pope.
Fifth, Bergoglio's claim in Paragraph 304 of Amoris Laetitia that "pastoral discernment" must avoid "an intolerable casuitry" is a case of "hiding in plain sight." That is, "Archbishop" Victor Manuel Fernandez, Bergoglio's ghostwriter, believed that a purely gratuitous reference to the danger of moral casuitry contained Amoris Laetitia's call for "pastoral discernment" would reflect attention from the simple fact such "discernment" is indeed moral casuitry.
One can see this casuitry at work in Paragraph 305:
305. For this reason, a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, “sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families”.349 Along these same lines, the International Theological Commission has noted that “natural law could not be presented as an already established set of rules that impose themselves a priori on the moral subject; rather, it is a source of objective inspiration for the deeply personal process of making decisions”.350 Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.351 Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits. By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth, and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God. Let us remember that “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order, but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties”.352 The practical pastoral care of ministers and of communities must not fail to embrace this reality (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not preach some kind of ethereal “ideal” that is unattainable. It is a trick of the Modernist mind to pose some kind of conflict between the “ideal” of what is contained in the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted to the infallible teaching of Holy Mother Church and the compassion of Our Lord.
Our Lord understands the weakness of us erring sinners. However, he wants us to reform now, not at some ill-determined future moment. As was quoted in an earlier part of this continuing series, Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri used a sermon to ask “Who has guaranteed you tomorrow?” None of us knows when “tomorrow” may never come for us, which is why Our Lord told the Samaritan woman that the man with whom she was living was not her husband and why he told the woman caught in adultery to sin no more. Constant vigilance is necessary in the interior life, a vigilance that Bergoglio thinks is “impossible” for people to realize in the practical order of things.
This is both blasphemous and heretical as it is based upon the assertion that Our Lord teaches one thing without providing us with the supernatural helps to reform our lives so as to conform with His teaching out of love for Him and obedience to all that He has revealed to us for our sanctification and salvation. It is also disingenuous to claim that the Catholic Church has denounced decadence without being “proactive in proposing ways to find true happiness” as there can true happiness cannot exist within the souls of men if they are not in a state of Sanctifying Grace. The Catholic Church has denounced decadence throughout her history precisely to provide her children with the path to true happiness, eternal life in Heaven, which not possible by persisting in unrepentant Mortal Sins.
How is this not clear to anyone who remains “mystified” by their supposed “pope’s” reaffirmation of hardened sinners?
Amrois Laetitia is nothing if not Jorge’s own self-justification of heretical beliefs that have shaped his entire career as a presbyter and false bishop prior to his “election” by his brother apostates on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, that brought The Jorge Show from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to the Casa Santa Marta and thus the global stage
Berogoglio’s caricaturing of straw men who seek to throw stones at sinners is one of his boilerplate ways of making any thought of championing an “ideal” that makes those steeped in sins feel shameful, and this means he is at odds with the examples from the missionary work of Saint Peter Claver provided above and the preaching and the pastoral work of a true bishop, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was trained by the very sort of revolutionaries whose false moral theology was condemned by Pope Pius XII in 1957, and it is this false moral theology, which is nothing other than Judeo-Masonic moral relativism, which itself is the product of the Protestant Revolution’s theological relativism. Modernism is, of course, the synthesis of all heresies. Amoris Latetia is nothing other than a celebration of subjectivism, of basing a false moral teahcing on what is "actually done, rather than from what should be done, and Paragraph 305 and its accompanying footnotes are just further proof of what should have been obvious a long, long, time ago to all but those who had their heads in the sand, namely, that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is a false entity which has the power to bind the consciences of no one.
Here is footnote 351 that was contained in Paragraph 305 of Amoris Laetita:
351 In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, “I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [24 November 2013], 44: AAS 105 [2013], 1038). I would also point out that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” (ibid., 47: 1039) (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Bergoglio’s entire career as a lay Jesuit revolutionary has been dedicated to the work that he is now “canonizing” in his “homilies,” general audience addresses, speeches, exhortations, encyclicals and interviews. Amoris Laetitia reflects this egregious heretic’s Modernist mind with great accuracy even if he actually very little, if any, of its text. Some have the ability to write but are poor speakers or teachers. Others have the ability to speak and teach but are not good writers. Yet others can do both. All that Jorge can do is to speak his revolutionary, heretical clichés over and over and over again. He leaves it to others to “purdy up” his beliefs so that they can be put into the written word. No man who talks so endlessly and engage in endless meetings has any time to write serious works of even faux scholarship.
Bergoglio does indeed believe that true priests in the past and some conciliar presbyters in the past have used the confessional as a torture chamber. As a penitent who has make use of the confessional on a regular basis, I can report that I have never been subjected to a “torture chamber,” and only those with guilty consciences who are not ready to quit their sins can consider it to be “abusive” to be told to amend their lives for love of God and to save their own immortal souls.
It is not to “torture” anyone for a priest to be stern, if necessary, in the confessional. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was unstinting in his insistence that penitents make an integral confession of their sins, and he would use his ability to read souls to tell them if they had omitted anything. He was also uncompromising on the matter of women’s attire, referring to those who dressed immodestly as “clowns.” Bergoglio, though, believes that distinctions between "good and evil" are overly simplistic.
Even this is nothing new. He spoke in almost the exact same terms before the Congress of the United States of America on Thursday, September 24, 2015, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, as he condemned “fundamentalists” who reduced everything to “good and evil”:
All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject. (Bergoglio's Address to U.S. Congress.)
Once again, especially for those who are relatively new to this site or who may have forgotten, it was our last true pope, Pope Pius XII, who described Bergoglio’s false “belief system” when exactitude in an address that he gave to the Thirtieth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in September of 1957:
The more serious cause, however, was the movement in high Jesuit circles to modernize the understanding of the magisterium by enlarging the freedom of Catholics, especially scholars, to dispute its claims and assertions. Jesuit scholars had already made up their minds that the Catholic creeds and moral norms needed nuance and correction. It was for this incipient dissent that the late Pius XII chastised the Jesuits’ 30th General Congregation one year before he died (1957). What concerned Pius XII most in that admonition was the doctrinal orthodoxy of Jesuits. Information had reached him that the Society’s academics (in France and Germany) were bootlegging heterodox ideas. He had long been aware of contemporary theologians who tried “to withdraw themselves from the Sacred Teaching authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them in error” (Humani generis).
In view of what has gone on recently in Catholic higher education, Pius XII’s warnings to Jesuits have a prophetic ring to them. He spoke then of a “proud spirit of free inquiry more proper to a heterodox mentality than to a Catholic one”; he demanded that Jesuits not “tolerate complicity with people who would draw norms for action for eternal salvation from what is actually done, rather than from what should be done.” He continued, “It should be necessary to cut off as soon as possible from the body of your Society” such “unworthy and unfaithful sons.” Pius obviously was alarmed at the rise of heterodox thinking, worldly living, and just plain disobedience in Jesuit ranks, especially at attempts to place Jesuits on a par with their Superiors in those matters which pertained to Faith or Church order (The Pope Speaks, Spring 1958, pp. 447-453). (Monsignor George A. Kelly, Ph.D.,The Catholic College: Death, Judgment, Resurrection. See also the full Latin text of Pope Pius XII's address to the thirtieth general congregation of the Society of Jesus at page 806 of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis for 1957: AAS 49 [1957]. One will have to scroll down to page 806.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was trained by the very sort of revolutionaries whose false moral theology was condemned by Pope Pius XII in 1957, and it is this false moral theology, which is nothing other than Judeo-Masonic moral relativism, which itself is the product of the Protestant Revolution’s theological relativism. Modernism is, of course, the synthesis of all heresies. Amoris Latetia is nothing other than a celebration of subjectivism, of basing a false moral teahcing on what is "actually done, rather than from what should be done."
Is there any need to review Paragraphs 306-312?
Perhaps not.
However, I will provide a few clustererd comments before concluding this series once and for all.
306. In every situation, when dealing with those who have difficulties in living God’s law to the full, the invitation to pursue the via caritatis must be clearly heard. Fraternal charity is the first law of Christians (cf. Jn 15:12; Gal 5:14). Let us not forget the reassuring words of Scripture: “Maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8); “Atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged” (Dan 4:24[27]); “As water extinguishes a blazing fire, so almsgiving atones for sins” (Sir 3:30). This is also what Saint Augustine teaches: “Just as, at the threat of a fire, we would run for water to extinguish it… so too, if the flame of sin rises from our chaff and we are troubled, if the chance to perform a work of mercy is offered us, let us rejoice in it, as if it were a fountain offered us to extinguish the blaze”.353
307. In order to avoid all misunderstanding, I would point out that in no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur: “Young people who are baptized should be encouraged to understand that the sacrament of marriage can enrich their prospects of love and that they can be sustained by the grace of Christ in the sacrament and by the possibility of participating fully in the life of the Church”.354 A lukewarm attitude, any kind of relativism, or an undue reticence in proposing that ideal, would be a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also of love on the part of the Church for young people themselves. To show understanding in the face of exceptional situations never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal, or proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being. Today, more important than the pastoral care of failures is the pastoral effort to strengthen marriages and thus to prevent their breakdown.
308. At the same time, from our awareness of the weight of mitigating circumstances – psychological, historical and even biological – it follows that “without detracting from the evangelical ideal, there is a need to accompany with mercy and patience the eventual stages of personal growth as these progressively appear”, making room for “the Lord’s mercy, which spurs us on to do our best”.355 I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion. But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, “always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street”.356 The Church’s pastors, in proposing to the faithful the full ideal of the Gospel and the Church’s teaching, must also help them to treat the weak with compassion, avoiding aggravation or unduly harsh or hasty judgements. The Gospel itself tells us not to judge or condemn (cf. Mt 7:1; Lk 6:37). Jesus “expects us to stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune, and instead to enter into the reality of other people’s lives and to know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated”.357
309. It is providential that these reflections take place in the context of a Holy Year devoted to mercy, because also in the variety of situations affecting families “the Church is commissioned to proclaim the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the mind and heart of every person. The Bride of Christ must pattern her behaviour after the Son of God who goes out to everyone without exception”.358 She knows that Jesus himself is the shepherd of the hundred, not just of the ninety-nine. He loves them all. On the basis of this realization, it will become possible for “the balm of mercy to reach everyone, believers and those far away, as a sign that the kingdom of God is already present in our midst”.359
310. We cannot forget that “mercy is not only the working of the Father; it becomes a criterion for knowing who his true children are. In a word, we are called to show mercy because mercy was first shown to us”.360 This is not sheer romanticism or a lukewarm response to God’s love, which always seeks what is best for us, for “mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life. All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness which she shows to believers; nothing in her preaching and her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy”.361 It is true that at times “we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems”.362
311. The teaching of moral theology should not fail to incorporate these considerations, for although it is quite true that concern must be shown for the integrity of the Church’s moral teaching, special care should always be shown to emphasize and encourage the highest and most central values of the Gospel,363 particularly the primacy of charity as a response to the completely gratuitous offer of God’s love. At times we find it hard to make room for God’s unconditional love in our pastoral activity.364 We put so many conditions on mercy that we empty it of its concrete meaning and real significance. That is the worst way of watering down the Gospel. It is true, for example, that mercy does not exclude justice and truth, but first and foremost we have to say that mercy is the fullness of justice and the most radiant manifestation of God’s truth. For this reason, we should always consider “inadequate any theological conception which in the end puts in doubt the omnipotence of God and, especially, his mercy”.365
312. This offers us a framework and a setting which help us avoid a cold bureaucratic morality in dealing with more sensitive issues. Instead, it sets us in the context of a pastoral discernment filled with merciful love, which is ever ready to understand, forgive, accompany, hope, and above all integrate. That is the mindset which should prevail in the Church and lead us to “open our hearts to those living on the outermost fringes of society”.366 I encourage the faithful who find themselves in complicated situations to speak confidently with their pastors or with other lay people whose lives are committed to the Lord. They may not always encounter in them a confirmation of their own ideas or desires, but they will surely receive some light to help them better understand their situation and discover a path to personal growth. I also encourage the Church’s pastors to listen to them with sensitivity and serenity, with a sincere desire to understand their plight and their point of view, in order to help them live better lives and to recognize their proper place in the Church. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016.)
Sixth and Final Set of Remarks:
First, the via caritas, mentioned in Paragraph 306 of Amoris Laetitia, the way of mercy, is not to reaffirm sinners in their sins. It is to exhort sinners to quit their sins and from there to scale of heights of personal sanctity.
Here are the Spiritual Works of Mercy:
- To instruct the ignorant.
- To counsel the doubtful.
- To admonish sinners.
- To bear wrongs patiently;
- To forgive offences willingly;
- To comfort the afflicted;
- To pray for the living and the dead
Rather admonishing sinners, Jorge Mario Bergoglio admonishes those who do admonish sinners in order to exhort them to go to Confession and to amend their lives lest their souls perish for all eternity in hell. Bergoglio is thus an accomplice in the sins of all of those he reaffirms in their erroneous consciences.
Here are the nine ways in which one can be an accomplice in the sins of others:
- By counsel.
- By command.
- By consent.
- By provocation.
- By praise or flattery of the evil done.
- By silence.
- By connivance.
- By partaking.
- By defense of the ill done.
Bergoglio uses his pastoral "counsel" to connive at defending the livs of those who have made a conscious decision to defy the binding precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, thus preparing for himself an awfully bad end if he does not repent before he dies.
Second, as has been mentioned numerous times before in this series, the the Catholic Church's teaching on the indissolubility of a ratified an consummated marriage is not some kind of "ideal" (Paragraphs 307 and 308) that is hard to realize in the concrete circumstances of daily life. This is a repugnant effort to make it appear as though human beings can use their ill-informed consciences to choose to enter into civil marriage after obtaining a divorce (or having been divorced against one's will).
Alas, the Divine Positive Law on this matter is clear. The law of the Catholic Chuch presumes the validity of the marital bond until declared otherwise by a duly consituted ecclesiastical tribunal or until the death of one of the spouses. While a civil divorce terminates the civil effects marriage insofar, it has no bearing on the indissolublity of a sacramental bond, which either exists from the time of the marriage itself or did not exist as a result of some impediment, a determination that is made by an ecclesiastical tribunal, not by a civil judge. To claim that the Catholic Church proposes merely an "ideal" of marriage is to assert that the graces won for us by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by means of the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross are neither efficacious nor sufficent to sustain married couples in times of difficulty.
Thus it is that Bergoglio's effort to undermine Catholic doctrine on marriage by positing it as an "ideal" is even more offensive to God than his application of false mercy to those who have chosen to ignore even the liberalized nullity procedures of the conciliar church to "remarry" even though they—and/or the one they desire to marry—are not free to do so. This is a direct attack on Divine truth.
The Bishops of France, seeking clarity from the Holy Office of the Inquistion in 1886, asked whether udges and laywers who conducted matrimonial cases can decide that they are grounds for divorce. The Holy Office replied in the negative, although the Holy Pentientiary stated a year later that a Catholic judge might be able to render a decision if he reaffirmed Catholic teaching while doing so:
The questions were raised by some Bishops of France to the inquisition S.R. et U.: “In the letter S.R. et U. I. of June 25, 1885, to all the ordinaries of the territories of France on the law of civil divorce it is thus decreed: “Considering very serious matters, in addition to times and places, it can be tolerated that those who hold magistracies, and lawyers who conduct matrimonial cases in France, without being bound to cede the office,” and it added conditions of which the second is this: “Provided that they are so prepared in mind not only regarding the dignity and nullity of marriage, but also regarding the separation of the bodies, about which cases they are obliged to judge as never to offer an opinion to defend one to be offered, or to provoke or to incite that opinion which is at odds with divine and ecclesiastical law.”
It is asked:
I. Whether the interpretation is right which is widespread throughout France, and even put in print, according to which the judge satisfies the above mentioned condition, when, although a certain marriage in valid in the sight of the Church, ignores that true and unbroken marriage, and applying civil law pronounces that there is ground divorce, provided he intends in his mind to break only the civil effects and only the civil contract, and provided the terms of the opinion offered consider these alone? In other words, whether an opinion so offended can be said not to be at odds with the divine and ecclesiastical law?
II. After the judge has pronounced that there is ground for divorce, whether the syndic (in French: le maire), intent also upon only the civil effects and the civil contract, as is explained above, can pronounce a divorce, although the marriage is valid in the eyes of God.
(Dezinger Footnote: But the response of the Holy Penitentiary, given on the 24th day of September, 1887, is worthy of note, according to which it is permitted also for France in a particular case that, after the civil judges have pronounced that there is ground for divorce, the syndic, who would otherwise be ejected from office, pronounced the civil divorce, provided 1) that “he professes publicly the Catholic doctrine on matrimony and on matrimonial cases which pertain to ecclesiastical judges only, and provided, 2) in the opinion itself, and as a magistrate speaking in public he declare that he can consider only the civil effects and only the civil contract, that otherwise the bond of matrimony remains entirely firm in the sight of God and conscience” (Revue de sciences eccles., Ambien. 60, 476).
III. After the divorce has been pronounced, whether the same syndic can again join a spouse who strives to enter into other nuptials in a civil ceremony, although the previous marriage is valid in the eyes of the Church, and the other party is living?
The answer is:
In the negative to the first, the second, and the third. (From the Decree of the Holy Office, May 27, 1886. As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 1865, pp. 466-467.)
Contrary to Bergoglio's positing of yet another of false dichotomies, one that involves a manufactured "conflict" between what he calls the "ideal" of marriage and its "reality" today in world of so-called nuances and complexities, Pope Pius XI explained in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, that the teaching on the indissolubility of a valid, ratiified and consummated marriage is from Our Lord Himself:
31. But this accumulation of benefits is completed and, as it were, crowned by that blessing of Christian marriage which in the words of St. Augustine we have called the sacrament, by which is denoted both the indissolubility of the bond and the raising and hallowing of the contract by Christ Himself, whereby He made it an efficacious sign of grace.
32. In the first place Christ Himself lays stress on the indissolubility and firmness of the marriage bond when He says: "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder,"[31] and: "Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth another committeth adultery, and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery."[32]
33. And St. Augustine clearly places what he calls the blessing of matrimony in this indissolubility when he says: "In the sacrament it is provided that the marriage bond should not be broken, and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring."[33]
34. And this inviolable stability, although not in the same perfect measure in every case, belongs to every true marriage, for the word of the Lord: "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder," must of necessity include all true marriages without exception, since it was spoken of the marriage of our first parents, the prototype of every future marriage. Therefore although before Christ the sublimeness and the severity of the primeval law was so tempered that Moses permitted to the chosen people of God on account of the hardness of their hearts that a bill of divorce might be given in certain circumstances, nevertheless, Christ, by virtue of His supreme legislative power, recalled this concession of greater liberty and restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must never be forgotten, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." Wherefore, Our predecessor Pius VI of happy memory, writing to the Bishop of Agria, most wisely said: "Hence it is clear that marriage even in the state of nature, and certainly long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, was divinely instituted in such a way that it should carry with it a perpetual and indissoluble bond which cannot therefore be dissolved by any civil law. Therefore although the sacramental element may be absent from a marriage as is the case among unbelievers, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage there must remain and indeed there does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so bound up with matrimony from its first institution that it is not subject to any civil power. And so, whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it is really a true marriage, in which case it carries with it that enduring bond which by divine right is inherent in every true marriage; or it is thought to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and in that case there is no marriage, but an illicit union opposed of its very nature to the divine law, which therefore cannot be entered into or maintained."[34]
35. And if this stability seems to be open to exception, however rare the exception may be, as in the case of certain natural marriages between unbelievers, or amongst Christians in the case of those marriages which though valid have not been consummated, that exception does not depend on the will of men nor on that of any merely human power, but on divine law, of which the only guardian and interpreter is the Church of Christ. However, not even this power can ever affect for any cause whatsoever a Christian marriage which is valid and has been consummated, for as it is plain that here the marriage contract has its full completion, so, by the will of God, there is also the greatest firmness and indissolubility which may not be destroyed by any human authority.
36. If we wish with all reverence to inquire into the intimate reason of this divine decree, Venerable Brethren, we shall easily see it in the mystical signification of Christian marriage which is fully and perfectly verified in consummated marriage between Christians. For, as the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Ephesians,[35] the marriage of Christians recalls that most perfect union which exists between Christ and the Church: "Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico, in Christo et in ecclesia;" which union, as long as Christ shall live and the Church through Him, can never be dissolved by any separation. And this St. Augustine clearly declares in these words: "This is safeguarded in Christ and the Church, which, living with Christ who lives for ever may never be divorced from Him. The observance of this sacrament is such in the City of God . . . that is, in the Church of Christ, that when for the sake of begetting children, women marry or are taken to wife, it is wrong to leave a wife that is sterile in order to take another by whom children may be hand. Anyone doing this is guilty of adultery, just as if he married another, guilty not by the law of the day, according to which when one's partner is put away another may be taken, which the Lord allowed in the law of Moses because of the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel; but by the law of the Gospel."[36] (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
This is no "ideal." This is truth that has been ratified by Our Lord Himself, and it is against Our Lord, therefore, that "Pope Francis" must wage war by blaspheming Him and His doctrine throughout the text of Amoris Laetitia.
Fourth, Bergoglio’s effort in Paragraph 309 to justify a so-called “merciful” approach to those who are living, objectively speaking, in states of Mortal Sin by invoking his “Holy Year” of false mercy is gratuitous and self-serving. Bergoglio started his “Holy Year” of false mercy precisely to permit those who are divorced and civilly married and those who are cohabiting—whether heterosexual or homosexual—to be readmitted to what purports to be the sacramental life of the Catholic Church. The Good Shepherd does indeed seek out the lost sheep, but he does so in order to get them to quit their sins, not to enable them in the continuing commission of those sins.
Fifth, the false “pontiff’s contention in Paragraph 310 that “there is a place for everyone” in the Catholic Church is essentially a reiteration of Paragraph 297’s assertion that “no one can be condemned forever.” Sufficient refutations have been provided to demonstrate the falsity of this belief.
Sixth, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s hatred for authentic Catholic moral theology is summarized by his seeking to blur the distinction between Divine Justice and Divine Mercy, which he did throughout the text of Amoris Laetitia, and especially in Paragraphs 311 and 312. To contend that putative pastors of the Catholic Church must “avoid a cold bureaucratic morality in dealing with more sensitive issues” is to disparage nearly two millennia of the true charity exhibited by Catholic priests to sinners in order to exhort them to change their lives. Mortal Sin casts out the life of Sanctifying Grace in the soul. To claim that teaching this simple truth is an exercise in “cold bureaucratic morality” is to show oneself a disciple of none other than the devil himself.
Moreover, Bergoglio himself is a cold bureaucrat who has exhibited the most venal sort of cruelty to the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate, and to a group of traditional sisters in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Argentina, whose “reform” he sought by appointing an overlord who forced those sisters undergo psychoanalysis and to be forced to encounter eroticism.
Then again, Amoris Laetitia is all about pop psychology, not Catholic moral theology. It is quite indeed a means to “redeem Eros.”
There is thus no need to examine Amoris Laetitia’s concluding chapter, which is nothing other than an effort to put a revolutionary spiritual gloss on that which is offensive to God and harmful to the sanctification and salvation of the souls for whom Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem.
Concluding Commentary
Amoris Laetitia is the Argentine Apostate’s final, crushing blows to the immutable precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. It is at odds with both supernatural and natural truth, and it makes a mockery of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Thomas More, Saint John Fisher and thousands upon thousands of other Catholics who went to their deaths defending the sanctity and indissolubility of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. This wretched document is the antithesis of such papal defenses of marriage as those of Pope Leo XIII's Arcanum, February 10, 1880, and Pope Pius XI's Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.
Citing the authority of Pope Leo XIII's Arcanum, Pope Pius XI excoriated the mentality expressed in Amoris Laetitia whereby all manner of rationalizaions are given to excuse the gravity of the sin of adultery committed by Catholics who have civilly married a divorced person or who have sought to marry another after obtaining a divorce themselves:
84. Assuredly, also, will there be wanting that close union of spirit which as it is the sign and mark of the Church of Christ, so also should be the sign of Christian wedlock, its glory and adornment. For, where there exists diversity of mind, truth and feeling, the bond of union of mind and heart is wont to be broken, or at least weakened. From this comes the danger lest the love of man and wife grow cold and the peace and happiness of family life, resting as it does on the union of hearts, be destroyed. Many centuries ago indeed, the old Roman law had proclaimed: "Marriages are the union of male and female, a sharing of life and the communication of divine and human rights."[63] But especially, as We have pointed out, Venerable Brethren, the daily increasing facility of divorce is an obstacle to the restoration of marriage to that state of perfection which the divine Redeemer willed it should possess.
85. The advocates of the neo-paganism of today have learned nothing from the sad state of affairs, but instead, day by day, more and more vehemently, they continue by legislation to attack the indissolubility of the marriage bond, proclaiming that the lawfulness of divorce must be recognized, and that the antiquated laws should give place to a new and more humane legislation. Many and varied are the grounds put forward for divorce, some arising from the wickedness and the guilt of the persons concerned, others arising from the circumstances of the case; the former they describe as subjective, the latter as objective; in a word, whatever might make married life hard or unpleasant. They strive to prove their contentions regarding these grounds for the divorce legislation they would bring about, by various arguments. Thus, in the first place, they maintain that it is for the good of either party that the one who is innocent should have the right to separate from the guilty, or that the guilty should be withdrawn from a union which is unpleasing to him and against his will. In the second place, they argue, the good of the child demands this, for either it will be deprived of a proper education or the natural fruits of it, and will too easily be affected by the discords and shortcomings of the parents, and drawn from the path of virtue. And thirdly the common good of society requires that these marriages should be completely dissolved, which are now incapable of producing their natural results, and that legal reparations should be allowed when crimes are to be feared as the result of the common habitation and intercourse of the parties. This last, they say must be admitted to avoid the crimes being committed purposely with a view to obtaining the desired sentence of divorce for which the judge can legally loose the marriage bond, as also to prevent people from coming before the courts when it is obvious from the state of the case that they are Iying and perjuring themselves, -- all of which brings the court and the lawful authority into contempt. Hence the civil laws, in their opinion, have to be reformed to meet these new requirements, to suit the changes of the times and the changes in men's opinions, civil institutions and customs. Each of these reasons is considered by them as conclusive, so that all taken together offer a clear proof of the necessity of granting divorce in certain cases.
86. Others, taking a step further, simply state that marriage, being a private contract, is, like other private contracts, to be left to the consent and good pleasure of both parties, and so can be dissolved for any reason whatsoever.
87. Opposed to all these reckless opinions, Venerable Brethren, stands the unalterable law of God, fully confirmed by Christ, a law that can never be deprived of its force by the decrees of men, the ideas of a people or the will of any legislator: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."[64] And if any man, acting contrary to this law, shall have put asunder, his action is null and void, and the consequence remains, as Christ Himself has explicitly confirmed: "Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery."[65] Moreover, these words refer to every kind of marriage, even that which is natural and legitimate only; for, as has already been observed, that indissolubility by which the loosening of the bond is once and for all removed from the whim of the parties and from every secular power, is a property of every true marriage.
88. Let that solemn pronouncement of the Council of Trent be recalled to mind in which, under the stigma of anathema, it condemned these errors: "If anyone should say that on account of heresy or the hardships of cohabitation or a deliberate abuse of one party by the other the marriage tie may be loosened, let him be anathema;"[66] and again: "If anyone should say that the Church errs in having taught or in teaching that, according to the teaching of the Gospel and the Apostles, the bond of marriage cannot be loosed because of the sin of adultery of either party; or that neither party, even though he be innocent, having given no cause for the sin of adultery, can contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other; and that he commits adultery who marries another after putting away his adulterous wife, and likewise that she commits adultery who puts away her husband and marries another: let him be anathemae."[67]
89. If therefore the Church has not erred and does not err in teaching this, and consequently it is certain that the bond of marriage cannot be loosed even on account of the sin of adultery, it is evident that all the other weaker excuses that can be, and are usually brought forward, are of no value whatsoever. And the objections brought against the firmness of the marriage bond are easily answered. For, in certain circumstances, imperfect separation of the parties is allowed, the bond not being severed. This separation, which the Church herself permits, and expressly mentions in her Canon Law in those canons which deal with the separation of the parties as to marital relationship and co-habitation, removes all the alleged inconveniences and dangers.[68] It will be for the sacred law and, to some extent, also the civil law, in so far as civil matters are affected, to lay down the grounds, the conditions, the method and precautions to be taken in a case of this kind in order to safeguard the education of the children and the well-being of the family, and to remove all those evils which threaten the married persons, the children and the State. Now all those arguments that are brought forward to prove the indissolubility of the marriage tie, arguments which have already been touched upon, can equally be applied to excluding not only the necessity of divorce, but even the power to grant it; while for all the advantages that can be put forward for the former, there can be adduced as many disadvantages and evils which are a formidable menace to the whole of human society.
90. To revert again to the expression of Our predecessor, it is hardly necessary to point out what an amount of good is involved in the absolute indissolubility of wedlock and what a train of evils follows upon divorce. Whenever the marriage bond remains intact, then we find marriages contracted with a sense of safety and security, while, when separations are considered and the dangers of divorce are present, the marriage contract itself becomes insecure, or at least gives ground for anxiety and surprises. On the one hand we see a wonderful strengthening of goodwill and cooperation in the daily life of husband and wife, while, on the other, both of these are miserably weakened by the presence of a facility for divorce. Here we have at a very opportune moment a source of help by which both parties are enabled to preserve their purity and loyalty; there we find harmful inducements to unfaithfulness. On this side we find the birth of children and their tuition and upbringing effectively promoted, many avenues of discord closed amongst families and relations, and the beginnings of rivalry and jealousy easily suppressed; on that, very great obstacles to the birth and rearing of children and their education, and many occasions of quarrels, and seeds of jealousy sown everywhere. Finally, but especially, the dignity and position of women in civil and domestic society is reinstated by the former; while by the latter it is shamefully lowered and the danger is incurred "of their being considered outcasts, slaves of the lust of men."[69]
91. To conclude with the important words of Leo XIII, since the destruction of family life "and the loss of national wealth is brought about more by the corruption of morals than by anything else, it is easily seen that divorce, which is born of the perverted morals of a people, and leads, as experiment shows, to vicious habits in public and private life, is particularly opposed to the well-being of the family and of the State. The serious nature of these evils will be the more clearly recognized, when we remember that, once divorce has been allowed, there will be no sufficient means of keeping it in check within any definite bounds. Great is the force of example, greater still that of lust; and with such incitements it cannot but happen that divorce and its consequent setting loose of the passions should spread daily and attack the souls of many like a contagious disease or a river bursting its banks and flooding the land."[70]
92. Thus, as we read in the same letter, "unless things change, the human family and State have every reason to fear lest they should suffer absolute ruin."[71] All this was written fifty years ago, yet it is confirmed by the daily increasing corruption of morals and the unheard of degradation of the family in those lands where Communism reigns unchecked.
93. Thus far, Venerable Brethren, We have admired with due reverence what the all wise Creator and Redeemer of the human race has ordained with regard to human marriage; at the same time we have expressed Our grief that such a pious ordinance of the divine Goodness should to-day, and on every side, be frustrated and trampled upon by the passions, errors and vices of men. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
Readers can see that every single one of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's false suppositions used in Amoris Laetitia had been condemned by true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter.
The upshot of all of this is that Jorge's like-minded Jacobin/Bolshevik revolutionaries have been further emboldened to give a green light in the "internal forum" to every manner of sin against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in the name of "mercy," which has been extended for a long time even to those steeped in perverse acts against nature quite openly in many conciliar venues. Despite all of the false "pontiff's" protestations to the contrary, Amoris Laetitia is for the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony what the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service has been for the what purports to be Catholic worship in the Roman Rite: a trainwreck, a disaster. We see unfold befor eus the very spirit of neo-paganism decried by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI.
Alas, Amoris Laetitia did not come out of nowhere, and those within the “hierarchy” of the conciliar structures who are understandably and justifiably outraged by these latest developments really have no one else to blame as they have been active apologists for false doctrines that violate the First and Second Commandments.
Violate the First and Second Commandments, good readers, and everything else will follow thereafter.
Why should any particular respect be given to the binding precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments when the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity have been undermined and mocked with complete impunity?
The veritable “house of cards” that has been constructed out of the constant erosion of the sensus Catholicus by the documents of the “Second” Vatican Council and the “magisterium” of the postconciliar “popes” has fallen down by the septuagenarian juvenile delinquent from South America, a man who delights, absolutely delights, in “making a mess” as he springs “surprises” that he dares so blasphemously to represent as coming from God when they are nothing other than the phantasms of his heretical imagination.
Moreover, the supposed defenders of the sanctity and inviolability of marriage have permitted and promoted programs providing explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments that have undermined the innocence and purity of young Catholics. These programs, which are sometimes connected with the so-called “theology of the body” that originated with the “cathechesis” provided by “Saint John Paul II” in various general audience talks in 1981 and 1982, have served to further enforce rather than to counter the culture of indecency to which most parents have exposed their children by means of television programming, motion pictures, “music,” DVDs, video games and by giving their children unrestricted access to the internet.
Perhaps even more importantly, of course, the “conservatives” within the hierarchy of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have endorsed the inversion of the ends of Holy Matrimony as taught first by Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI and have promoted so-called “natural family planning” that is nothing other than a means for married couples who simply do not want children to avoid having them without having recourse to pills and chemicals. Although effected by natural means, this frustration of the primary end of marriage, the procreation and education of children, is still nevertheless a form of contraception as it is rooted in avoiding rather than welcoming children without the justifications outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Address to Italian Midwives.
The “personalist” view of marriage that had been condemned personally by Pope Pius XII in 1944 after it had been promoted by Father Herbert Doms and Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand also played a fundamental role in Montini/Paul the Sick’s decision to “liberalize” the grounds by which Catholic married couples could obtain a decree of nullity from a diocesan marriage tribunal. Although attempting to maintain the Catholic doctrine that favors the presumption of the validity of a marriage bond until proved with mortal certainty to the contrary, Montini/Paul VI’s “liberalization” merely gave lip service to that presumption as it included the same sort of “psychological” grounds that had been included as justification for the use “natural family planning.”
Leaving aside the relatively few cases of ratum et nonconsummatum, which are reserved to the Apostolic See alone in the normal functioning of the life of the Catholic Church, a valid, ratified and consummated marriage is indissoluble. A legitimate decree of marital nullity is a finding, reached after investigations and interviews, that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony was not exchanged at the time of a marriage ceremony given the existence of one or more impediments. A book written in 1959 and published by Sheed and Ward outlined some of the legitimate reasons for decrees of nullity as contained in the Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law that was promulgated by Pope Benedict XV in 1917 (see F. J. Sheed, Nullity of Marriage. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1959).
Montini/Paul VI’s “natural family planning” and his “liberalization” of the grounds for a decree of marital nullity destabilized Catholic married and family life every bit as much as had the false and heretical Anglican sect’s Lambeth resolution of 1930 that endorsed the use of contraceptives by married couples who felt a “morally sound reason” for doing so. Montini/Paul VI effectively helped to increase incidences of marital infidelity and divorce. That Montini/Paul VI is considered to this day by many within the conciliar structures to have been a “defender of marriage” is nothing other than a joke.
There are some Catholics among this group who have later come to accept the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal must conduct themselves according to the counsel offered under priestly seal by a true priest. Mr. Michael Creighton analyzed some of the situations wherein the traditional clergy can be of assistance (see Problems in Modern Marriage) . In many cases, however, those who acted upon a decree of nullity in good faith to marry again but later came to accept the papal vacancy that has existed since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958 must simply live in a Josephite manner. Just as some of the conciliar “canonizations,” such as that of Padre Pio and of Father Maximilian Kolbe, whose apostolic work in behalf of the City of Mary Immaculate and his firm opposition to all forms naturalism and to false ecumenism itself is why he had been imprisoned by the Nazis in Auschwitz in the first place, would have to be ratified by a true pope, so is it the case that most of those Catholics who have left the conciliar church after having received conciliar decrees of nullity will have to await a papal restoration for a determination of their cases if they live long enough to see such a restoration. Love of God and of his truth comes first. Nothing else.
A caveat must be offered at this point, however.
Although it is easy to demagogue the matter, as some have in cyberspace have done, there are many thousands of Catholics who are still within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who have sought decrees of marital nullity after they had been advised to do so by men they supposed to be their pastors or chancery officials. These Catholics have tried to act in good faith by following the rules of what they believe, albeit erroneously, to be the Catholic Church without engaging in adultery or having undergone a civil divorce in order to remarry illicitly, and some of them still conduct themselves within those structures as married Catholics even after having initiated a civil divorce, sometimes at the suggestion of a pastor or a chancery official, or having been victimized by a civil divorce until such time as a decree of nullity is issued. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of course, has thrown such Catholics under the bus, treating their fidelity to what they believe mistakenly to be the rules of the Catholic Church as nothing other a vestige of the “Pelagian” past that is best forgotten. Bergolio and his fellow revolutionaries make a mockery of those Catholics who have stayed within the confines of the conciliar "Code of Canon Law," including those, such as the late Genevieve Gleason, who conducted themselves properly as married persons long after their spouses had obtained a "civil divorce" (see Jorge Plays Strictly by the Montini Playbook).
Jorge Mario Bergoglio cares nothing for such Catholics, no matter how few or many in number they may be in comparison to the large preponderance of nullity cases in the conciliar church, whose cases would have withstood scrutiny under the Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law. He is all about rewarding soothing the consciences of those who sought to live lives of sin.
Indeed, Bergoglio would have granted the lecherous, adulterous, bigamous drunkard King Henry VIII a decree of marital nullity, and he would have been more than happy to have made up some false pretext for doing so, something that is easy to deduce when one considers the fact that the Argentine Apostate laid this out pretty well when he "liberalized" an already quite liberal nullity process eight months. The uber-heretic even went so far as to state the following as legitimate conditions for a decree of marital nullity from a conciliar marriage tribunal:
Art. 14 § 1 . The circumstances which may allow the handling of the case of nullity of the marriage by means of the process shorter according to cann. 1683-1687, for instance include: the lack of faith that can generate the simulation of consent or the error that determines the will, the brevity of married life, procured abortion to prevent procreation, the stubborn persistence in a extramarital affair at the time of the wedding or at a time immediately following, the malicious concealment of infertility or a serious or contagious disease of children born from a previous relationship or incarceration, the cause of marriage completely foreign to married life or substantial the unplanned pregnancy of the woman, the physical violence inflicted to extort the consent, the lack of use of reason proved by medical documents, etc. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, August 15, 2015.)
How can either brevity of married life or having a procured abortion signify the lack of the reception of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony?
Also, please tell me what is an “unplanned pregnancy”?
Does Jorge Mario Bergoglio believe that unmarried Catholics who engage in fornication or married Catholics should “plan” the conception of a child?
It’s a fair question, a very fair question.
These are bogus conditions.
How many women are going to kill their babies so as to get one of Bergoglio’s “quickie” decrees of nullity?
Make no mistake about it: Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done as much harm to the truth of the indissolubility of marriage and to the gravity of sins, whether natural or unnatural, against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, as had Martin Luther and Henry VIII nearly five hundred years ago.
It is in God's Holy Providence that this series is published just a few hours in the evening hours of May 24, 2016, the Feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians, just a few hours before the beginning of the Feast of Pope Gregory VII, the great defender of the privileges of the papacy, and the Commemoration of Pope Saint Urban I, a martyr for the Holy Faith.
The readings for Matins in today's Divine Office teach us about the lives of these two pontiffs, each of whom defended the truths of the Catholic Faith without compromise with the world, the flesh and the devil:
Hildebrand, who reigned as Pope under the name of Gregory VII, was born at Saona in Tuscany. By his teaching, by his holiness, and by his graces of all kinds, he was a noble light of the Church, whose brightness hath shone throughout all lands. There is a story to the effect that when he was a little child without any schooling, he was playing at the feet of a carpenter who was planing wood, and that God guided his hand to arrange the shavings which fell into the form of letters, making the inspired words of David, He shall have dominion from sea to sea, Ps. lxxi. 8, a fore-shadowing, as it were, of that wide lordship over the earth which was afterwards his. He was taken to Rome, and brought up under the shelter of St Peter. As a young man he bitterly sorrowed over the oppression of the freedom of the Church by the laity, and over the corruption of the clergy themselves. He took the habit of a monk in the Abbey of Cluny, which was then in all the glory of the severest observance of the Rule of St Benedict. There he served God's majesty with such warmth of earnestness that the saintly fathers of the convent chose him to be their Prior. But the Providence of God had greater things in store for him, whereby to make him a source of health to many, and he was brought away from Cluny. He was first elected Abbot of the monastery of St Paul-without-the-walls at Rome, and afterwards created a Cardinal of the Roman Church. Under the Popes Leo IX, Victor II, Stephen IX, Nicholas II, and Alexander II, he discharged great offices of trust, and the duties of a Legate, and Blessed Peter Damian, speaking of him at this time, calleth him a man of most holy and honest thoughts. When Pope Victor II. sent him as his Legate into France, he, by a miracle, forced the Bishop of Lyons, who was befouled by the pollution of simony, to acknowledge his sin in the Council of Tours he wrung from Berenger a second abjuration of his heresy and he prevailed against the schism of Cadolaus, and strangled it.
After the death of Alexander II., Hildebrand, against his own will and to his own grief, was, on the 22nd day of April, in the year of Christ 1073, chosen Pope by one common consent of all. Reigning as Gregory VII., he was as the sun shining upon the Temple of the Most High. Ecclus. 1. 7. Mighty both in word and deed, he toiled for the restoration of Ecclesiastical discipline, for the spread of the Faith, for the defence of the freedom of the Church, for the suppression of error and corruption, so that since the time of the Apostles there is said never to have been a Pope who bore more labour and trouble for the sake of God's Church, or contended more manfully for her liberties. He purged divers provinces of the pollution of simony. Like a brave soldier he withstood without dread the unrighteous contendings of the Emperor Henry IV., against whom he shrank not from setting himself as a wall of defence for the house of Israel. And when the said Henry fell into the depths of sin he cut him off from the communion of the faithful, and from his kingdom, and loosed the nations that were subject to him from their sworn allegiance. (Matins, Divine Office, May 25.)
Just an interjection at this point.
One will note that Pope Gregory VII cut off the wicked Emperor Henry IV from “the communion of the faithful” because of the depth of the sins into which he had fallen. This in and of itself is a complete refutation of the false concept of “mercy” invented by men who desire to reaffirm others (and perhaps even themselves) in their own sins.
All right, back to the readings for Matins:
While he was celebrating solemn Mass, godly men saw a dove descend from heaven* perch upon his right shoulder, and spread out its wings so as to veil his head, a testimony that it was not by reasonings of man's wisdom, but by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, that he was guided in his rule over the Church. When the armies of the infamous Henry encompassed Rome, and hedged her in on every side, a great fire which the enemy had raised became extinct, when Gregory made the sign of the Cross towards it. The Norman Duke, Robert Guiscard, at length delivered Gregory from the hand of Henry, and he departed from Rome, first to the Abbey of Monte Cassino, and thence onward to Salerno, to dedicate the Church of St Matthew the Apostle at that place. While he was preaching to the people there, on a certain day he was smitten with grievous pains, and fell into a sickness whereof he foresaw that he should never be healed. As he lay on his death-bed, Gregory's last words were I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I am dying in exile. He was a man really holy, a visitor of sin, and a most loyal soldier of the Church. It is past reckoning how many sufferings he manfully bore, and how much he wisely ordained in many Councils, which he gathered together in Rome. He had been Pope twelve years, when, (on the 25th day of May,) in the year of salvation 1085, he went hence to be ever with the Lord. Both during his life and after his death he was marked by signs and wonders not a few. His holy body was honourably buried in the Cathedral Church of Salerno. (Matins, Divine Office, May 25.)
“I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I am dying in exile.”
It can be said of Jorge Mario Bergoglio that he loves iniquity and hates righteousness, which is why is so beloved by the world.
Here is the reading concerning the life of Pope Saint Urban I:
This Urban was a Roman, who, in the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, by his teaching and holy life, brought many to believe in Christ. Among others was Valerian, the husband of the blessed Cecily, and Tiburtius, the brother of Valerian, both of whom afterwards bravely underwent martyrdom. It was Urban l who wrote the following words concerning the property of the Church : Those things which His faithful ones make offering of unto the Lord, must never be turned to any other use than those of the Church, or of our Christian brethren, or of the poor. They are the free-will offerings of faithful believers, the trespass offerings of sinners, and the inheritance of the poor. He sat in the chair of Peter six years, seven months, and four days, and being crowned with martyrdom, was buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus, on the 25 th day of May. He held five ordinations in December, wherein he ordained nine Priests, five Deacons, and eight Bishops for divers places. (Matins, Divine Office, May 25.)
True popes have defended the Holy Faith. False ones corrupt It.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ used the occasion of the discourse at the Last Supper to remind the Apostles that the world would hate them on account of His Name, but that they had to rely upon the help of the Holy Ghost to remain steadfast in loyalty to Him:
If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.
But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake: because they know not him who sent me. If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: They hated me without cause.
But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning. (John 15: 18-27)
Do not be surprised, therefore, that the world will hate us as much as it hated Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who told us in the Sermon of the Mount that those who were persecuted for His Name’s sake would have a blessed reward:
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. (Matthew 5: 11-12)
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ repeated this in the Sermon on the Plain as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Luke:
Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For according to these things did their fathers to the prophets. (Luke 6: 22-23)
The first Pope wrote the following in his first Epistle to instruct us to be ready to suffer for the sake of the Holy Name of Jesus:
If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honour, glory, and power of God, and that which is his Spirit, resteth upon you. (1 Peter 4: 14)
No one has suffered for the Holy Name of Jesus the way that Our Lady did in her Seven Sorrows during the life of the Son to Whom she gave birth eight days before His Circumcision, eight days before the world heard for the first time the Holy Name that forces men to choose whether they are for Him or for the devil He came to vanquish by His redemptive act on the wood of the Holy Cross, extended to us in an unbloody manner in each and every offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Our Lady stood with her Divine Son as His Blood was shed for the first time. She would stand beneath the foot of the Holy Cross as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood for our redemption. May we give her our thanks and love on during this month of May, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, by having nothing to do with those who blaspheme he Divine Son and make a mockery of His Sacred Deposit of Faith and of the witness given by countless millions of martyrs who preferred death by the most cruel means imaginable than to given even a hint of esteeming the symbols of false religions, no less entering peaceably into temples of false worship as though these were dens of anything other than the devil himself, and without giving even the slightest degree of legitimacy to adulterous unions that have attained a supposedly "noteworthy stability."
Yesterday, Tuesday, May 24, 2016, was the feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians, one of the oldest titles of the Mother God. It was the great Saint John Chrysostom himself who is said to be the first to invoke Our Lady as the Help of Christians in the Fourth Century, and it has been under the title of Our Lady, Help of Christians, that heresies and the threats posed by Mohammedans, were turned aside throughout the course of the Middle Ages. Most famously, of course, our beloved Saint John Bosco, father and teacher of the young, was singularly devoted to Our Lady, Help of Christians, and attributed all of the successes of his pastoral work to her intercession and protection.
The following prayer, found in The Raccolta, is one we should pray frequently as it very much refers to the problems of our own times:
Virgin most powerful, loving helper of the Christian people, how great thanks do we not owe thee for the assistance thou didst give our fathers, who, when they were threatened by the Turkish infidels, invoked thy maternal help by the devout recitation of thy Rosary! From heaven thou didst see their deadly peril; thou didst hear their voices imploring thy compassion; and their humble prayers, enjoined by the great Pope, Saint Pius V, were acceptable unto thee, and thou camest quickly to deliver them. Grant, dear Mother, that in like manner the prolonged sighs of the holy Bride of Christ in these our days may come to thy throne and engage thy pity; do thou, moved anew to compassion for her, rise once again to deliver her from the many foes who encompass her on every side.
Even now from the four quarters of the earth there arises to thy throne that loved prayer, to win thy mercy in these troubulous times even as of old. Unhappily our sins hinder, or at least, retard its effect. Wherefore, dear Mother, obtain for us true sorrow for our sins and a firm resolution to face death itself rather than return to our former iniquities; we are sore distressed that, through our fault, thy help, of which we stand in such extreme need, should be denied or come too late.
Rise, then, O Mary, incline thyself to hear the prayers of the whole Catholic world, and beat flat to the ground the pride of those wretched men, who in their intolerance, blaspheme Almighty God and would destroy His Church, against which, according to the infallible words of Christ, the gates of hell shall not prevail. Let it be seen once more than when thou dost arise to protect the Church, her victory is sure. Amen. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 313-315.)
The following prayer was composed by Saint John Bosco himself:
O Mary, powerful Virgin, thou art the mighty and glorious protector of the Church; thou art the marvelous help of Christians; thou art terrible as an army in battle array; thou alone hast destroyed every heresy in the whole world. In the midst of our anguish, our struggles and our distress defend us from the power of the enemy and at the hour of our death receive our souls in paradise. Amen. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 316-317.)
Yes, we need the help of Our Lady, Help of Christians, now in these times when figures of Antichrist in the world and in the counterfeit church of conciliarism attack us from every side.
Alas, the final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May we do our part to expedite this victory by praying for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter so that he may fulfill Our Lady’s Fatima Message by the collegial consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. And may we always seek to make reparation for our sins as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady, Help of Christians, 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 Andrew the Apostle, 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.
Pope Saint Gregory VII, pray for us.
Pope Saint Urban I, pray for us.
Appendix A
Saint Peter Claver’s Dealings With Libertines
The labors of Father Claver for the Spaniards met with the same success as those he undertook for the Negroes. It would seem as if God, for His own glory, had imparted to his words a powerful efficacy, and an irresistible charm; a word from him often sufficed to disconcert the most hardened libertine. Emmanuel Rodriguez declared that he had one evening placed himself behind a tree, with a criminal intention. The night was so dark that it was impossible to discern an object at a distance of two or three paces. Yet Father Claver returning from a sick-call, approached the tree, and exclaimed, “Beware, miserable man! For death is on the watch behind that tree.” These words fell like a thunderbolt on Rodriguez; he took to his heels, and entirely renounce his criminal project.
This ascendance over the human heart was so well known, that he was always called to the most desperate sinners when all other means had failed. Two or three instances will suffice. He was told that a man was dying in a state of despair; he would hearken neither to prayers or exhortations: if the crucifix was presented to him, he turned away his head in a rage: the most zealous priests had reaped no other fruit from their labors than the grief of seeing him become more obdurate and rebellious. Father Claver hastened to him, and, from the first, was much better received than any of the others. He spent the remainder of the day in prayer for him, and returned on the morrow full of confidence in God. After saying all that the ardor of his zeal inspired, he drew his crucifix from his bosom, and presented it to the sick man, with the desire that he should reverence it, and place the end upon his mouth. He did so. And at the same moment his heart became softened; he begged pardon of God with every sign of sincere repentance, and after receiving the last sacraments with exemplary piety, he died leaving in the minds of all an assured hope of his salvation. The holy man, full of joy, hastened to the house of a pious gentleman and begged he would join with him in thanking God for the mercy He had shown this poor sinner.
A Spanish woman who had led a profligate life was in danger of death. She seemed possessed by an impure spirit; for to all salutary admonitions her only replies were obscene expressions. Father Claver called to see her and read a gospel over her; but his kindness was acknowledged only by obscene language. The zeal of the chaste man was immediately enkindled, and with a countenance of holy indignation, and a voice which filled the soul of the miserable woman with terror, he presented his crucifix and exclaimed: “Go, since you will, to hell: go, by all means; and here behold your Judge, who condemns you! Silenced by these words, she dared not even raise her eyes. He like a good shepherd, who only strikes the stray sheep to made it re-enter the fold, immediately began in a mild tone to conjure her to hope in the mercy of a God who was crucified for her salvation. These powerful motives moved her heart; she made her confession, and her abundant tears left no room to doubt the sincerity of her conversion. But it was not the same with another libertine woman, whom the servant of God had long exhorted to lead a more regular life. In spite of all his endeavors she always persisted in deferring her conversion till some other time. “Well,” said he to her one day, “continue to close your ears to the voice of God who calls you; in a short time you will see the result of your obstinacy.” the chastisement soon followed the threat; in less than a fortnight she was suddenly attacked by a violent disorder and died in the presence of her accomplice without even time for reflection.
Reconciliations
In effecting reconciliations, Father Claver was equally as fortunate. God seems to have placed the key of all hearts in his hands. A lady of high rank sought a divorce from her husband. Her action was a great scandal to the whole city, for she seemed to be actuated more from caprice and disgust than from any solid reason. The official to whom she carried her complaint put her under the protection of Don Diego de Villegas, who together with his wife used every endeavor to effect a reconciliation. She, however, became more obstinate than ever, refused to eat with them, or even to speak to the, and gave them to understand, that rather than return to her husband she would hang herself. Don Diego, not knowing how to subdue her resistance, begged Father Claver to undertake this difficult task. He reasoned with both parties, but found them both equally obstinate. He had recourse immediately to his usual arms, prayer. A few days afterward the lady was heard screaming and crying out for help. Don Diego ran up to her room, and found her pale and terrified. She said, that she had just seen two devils, one on either side of her bed, ready to carry her off, and that they threatened to do the same to the counsellor and attorney who had undertaken her cause. Whether this was a dream or a vision, the results were most happy. Father Claver spoke to the lady and gentleman, and on Saturday assured Don Diego that everything would be satisfactorily arranged on the following Monday. Such were the difficulties that a result of that nature seemed scarcely probable; yet so great was the holy man's power of persuasion, that both parties yielded and lived very happily together afterward.
Thus occupied, in reforming, succoring and consoling the inhabitants of Carthegena, the four last months of the year furnished still more ample matter for his zeal. From the beginning of September until Christmas, the Spanish fleets repaired to the Bay of Carthegena to meet the vessels which arrived there from Peru, Quito, and Potosi, laden with the riches of the Indies. This accumulation of foreigners formed in a manner a new city, still more corrupt than the other. They yielded to every kind of excess without restraint: – Quarrels, enmities, revenge, and duelling raged in full fury. Abandoned women, attracted by the hope of gain, flocked in from all parts; sordid interest corrupted many others; in fine, drunkenness, usury, fraud, oaths, and blasphemies, turned this licentious multitude into a set of pagans.
This torrent of iniquity the Apostle of Cathagena undertook to stem. For this purpose, with some well instructed youths, formed in his own school, he went to the Great Square, where the four principal streets of the city meet. There he remained the greater part of the day, instructing, exhorting, and inviting sinners to repentance, and so moving were his discourses, that no one could hear him without being softened. It would be impossible to say how many hated and enmities he stifled, how many improper connections he dissolved, how many usuries and other vices he abolished. The fruit of his labors was so abundant, that toward the end of the year the confessionals were as much thronged as during Holy Week; and many persons entirely forsook the world to embrace a religious state. It would have been impossible for one man to have so succeeded, had not God Himself made his the depository of His power and virtue. (Father John R. Slattery, S.J., The Life of Saint Peter Claver, S.J.: The Apostle of the Negroes, published originally by H. L. Kilner & Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1893, and republished by Forgotten Books in 2015 pp. 150-152.)
Appendix B
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
Sermons for Every Sunday of the Year
Sermon Fifty: The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost
On the eternity of hell
"And his Lord, being angry, delivered him to the torture until he paid all the debt." MATT, xviii. 34.
IN this day’s gospel we find that a certain servant, having badly administered the affairs of his master, was found to owe him a debt of ten thousand talents. The master demanded payment; but the servant falling down said: " Have patience and I will pay thee all." The master took pity on him, and forgave the entire debt. One of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred pence, besought him to have patience, and promised to pay him the last farthing; but the wicked servant cast him into prison. Hearing of this act of cruelty to his fellow-servant, the master sent for him, and said to him: “Wicked servant, I have forgiven thee ten thousand talents, and for a debt of a hundred pence thou hast refused to show compassion to thy fellow-servant. He then delivered him to the tortures till he paid all the debt. Behold, dearly beloved brethren, in these last words, a description of the sentence of the eternal death which is prepared for sinners. By dying in sin, they die debtors to God for all their iniquities; and being unable to make any satisfaction in the other life for their past sins, they remain for ever debtors to the divine justice, and must suffer for eternity in hell. Of this miserable eternity I will speak to-day; listen to me with attention.
1. The thought of eternity is a great thought: so it was called by St. Augustine: Macjna cogitatio. According to the holy doctor, God has made us Christians, and instructed us in the maxims of faith, that we may think of eternity. "We are Christians that we may always think of the world to come." This thought has driven from the world so many of the nobles of the earth, has made them renounce all their riches, and shut themselves up in the cloister, there to live in poverty and penance. This thought has sent so many young men into caves and deserts, and has animated so many martyrs to embrace torments and death, in order to save their souls for eternity. " For," exclaims St. Paul, " we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come." (Heb. xiii. 14.) This earth, dearly beloved Christians, is not our country; it is for us a place of passage, through which we must soon pass to the house of eternity. "Man shall go into the house of his eternity." (Eccl. xii. 5.) In this eternity the house of the just, which is a palace of delights, is very different from the house of sinners, which is a dungeon of torments. Into one of these two houses each of us must certainly go. "In hanc vel illam seternitatem," says St. Ambrose, "cadam necesse est.; (S. Amb., in Ps. cxviii.) " Into this or that eternity I must fall."
2. And where the soul shall first go, there she shall remain for ever. "If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall there shall it lie." (Eccl. xi. 3.) On what side does a tree fall when it is cut down ? It falls on the side to which it inclines. On what side, brethren, will you fall, when death shall cut down the tree of your life ? You will fall on the side to which you incline. If you shall be found inclining to the south that is, in favour with God you shall be for ever happy; but if you i- h ill fall to the north, you must be for ever miserable. There is no middle place: you must be for ever happy in heaven, or overwhelmed with despair in hell. We must all die, says St. Bernard or some other author (de Quat. Noviss.), but we know not which of the two eternities shall be our lot after death. "Necessi morem, post haec autem dubia ceternitatis."
3. This uncertainty about his lot for eternity was the constant subject of the thoughts of David: it deprived his eyes of sleep, and kept him always in terror. "My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not: I thought upon the days of old, and I had in my mind the eternal years." (Ps. Ixxvi. 5, 6.) What, says St. Cyprian, has encouraged the saints to lead a life, which, on account of their continual austerities, was an uninterrupted martyrdom? It was, he answers, the thought of eternity that inspired them with courage to submit to such unceasing rigours. A certain monk shut himself in a cave, and did nothing else than constantly exclaim:" eternity! eternity!" The famous sinner converted by the Abbot Paphnutius, kept eternity always before her eyes, and was accustomed to say: "Who can assure me of a happy eternity, and that I will not fall into a miserable eternity." The same uncertainty kept St. Andrew Avellino in continual terrors and tears till his last breath. Hence he used to ask every one he met, "What do you say? shall I be saved or damned for eternity?"
4. O! that we, too, had eternity always before our eye! We certainly should not be so much attached to the world. "Quisquis in aeternitatis disiderio figitur, nee prosperitate attollitur, nee adversitate quassatur: et dum nihil habet in mundo quod appetat, nihil est quod de mundo pertimescat." He who fixes his thoughts on eternity, is not elated by prosperity nor dejected by adversity; because, having nothing to desire in this world, he has nothing to fear: he desires only a happy eternity, and fears only a miserable eternity. A certain lady, who was greatly attached to the world, went one day to confession to Father M. D Avila. He bid her go home, and reflect on these two words always and never. She obeyed, took away her affections from the world, and consecrated them to God. St. Augustine says that the man who thinks on eternity, and is not converted to God, either has no faith, or has lost his reason: Aeternitatis! qui te cogitat, neponitet, aut certo fidem non habet, aut si habet, cor non habet." (In soliloq. eternity! he who thinks on thee, and does not repent, has certainly no faith, or has lost his heart. Hence St. Chrysostom relates, that the pagans upbraided the Christians with being liars or fools: liars, if they said they believed what they did not believe; fools, if they believed in eternity and committed sin. "Exprobabant gentiles aut mendaces, aut stultos esse Christianos; mendaces si non crederent quod credere dicebant; stultos si credebant et peccabant."
5. Woe to sinners, says St. Cesarius of Aries; they enter into eternity without having known it; hut their woes shall be doubled when they shall have entered into eternity, and shall never be able to leave. "Yae peccatoribus, ineognitam ingrediuntur." To those who enter hell, the door opens for their admission, but never opens for their departure. "I have the keys of death and of hell." (Apoc. i. 18.) God himself keeps the keys of hell, to show us that whosoever enters has no hope of ever escaping from it. St. John Chrysostom writes, that the condemnation of the reprobate is engraved on the pillar of eternity, so that it never shall be revoked. In hell there is no calendar; there the years are not counted. St. Antonine says, that if a damned soul heard that she was to be released from hell after so many millions of years as there are drops of water in the sea, or grains of sand in the earth, she would feel a greater joy than a criminal condemned to death would experience at hearing that he was reprieved, and was to be made the monarch of the whole world! But, no! as many millions of years shall pass away as there are drops of water in the ocean, or grains of dust in the earth, and the hell of the damned shall be at its commencement. All these millions of years shall be multiplied an infinite number of times, and hell will begin again. But of what use is it, says St. Hilary, to count years in eternity? Where you expect the end, there it commences. "Ubi putas finem invenire, ibi incipit." And St. Augustine says, "that things which have an end cannot be compared with eternity." (In Ps. xxxvi.) Each of the damned would be content to make this compact with God Lord, increase my torments as much as thou pleasest; assign a term for them as distant as thou pleasest; provided thou fix a time at which they shall cease, I am satisfied. But, no! this time shall never arrive. “My end," the damned shall say, "is perished." (Lamen. iii. 18.) Then, is there no end to the torments of the damned? No! the trumpet of divine justice sounds in the caverns of hell, and continually reminds the reprobate that their hell shall be eternal, and shall never have an end.
6. If hell were not eternal, it would not be so frightful a chastisement. Thomas a Kempis says, that “everything which passes with time is trifling and short." Any pain which has an end is not very appalling. The man who labours under an imposthume or a cancer, must submit to the knife or the cautery: the pain is severe; but because it is soon over it can be borne. But a tooth-ache which lasts for three months without interruption is insupportable. Were a person obliged to lie in the same posture for six months on a soft bed, or even to hear the same music, or the same comedy, night and day for one year, he would fall into melancholy and despondency. Poor blind sinners! When threatened with hell they say: "If I go there I must have patience." But they shall not say so when they will have entered that region of woes, where they must suffer, not by listening to the same music or the same comedy, nor by lying in the same posture, or by tooth -ache, but by enduring all torments and all evils. “I will heap evils upon them." (Deut. xxxiii. 23.) And all these torments shall never end.
7. They shall never end, and shall never be diminished in the smallest degree. The damned must for ever suffer the same fire, the same privation of God, the same sad ness, the same despair. Yes, says St. Cyprian, in eternity there is no change, because the decree is immutable. This thought shall immensely increase their sufferings, by making them feel beforehand, and at each moment, all that they shall have to suffer for eternity. In this description of the happiness of the saints, and the misery of the reprobate, the Prophet Daniel says: "They shall wake some unto life everlasting, and some unto reproach to see it always." (Dan. xii. 2.) They shall always see their unhappy eternity. Ut videant semper. Thus eternity tortures each of the damned not only by his present pains, but with all his future sufferings, which are eternal.
8. These are not opinions controverted among theologians; they are dogmas of faith clearly revealed in the sacred Scriptures. "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv. 41.) Some will say: The fire, but not the punishment of the damned is ever lasting. Such the language of the incredulous, but it is folly. For what other purpose would God make this fire eternal, than to chastise the reprobate, who are immortal? But, to take away every shadow of doubt, the Scriptures, in many other places, say, that not only the fire, but the punishment, of the damned is eternal. "And these, says Jesus Christ,” shall go into ever lasting punishment." (Matt. xxv. 46.) Again we read in St. Mark, “Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished." (ix. 43.) St. John says: "And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever." (Apoc. xvi. 11.) "Who," says St. Paul, "shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction." (2 Thess. i. 9.)
9. Another infidel will ask: How can God justly punish with eternal torments a sin that lasts but a moment? I answer, that the grievousness of a crime is measured not by its duration, but by the enormity of its malice. The malice of mortal sin is, as St. Thomas says, infinite. (1, 2, q. 87, art. 4.) Hence, the damned deserve infinite punishment; and, because a creature is not capable of suffering pains infinite in point of intensity, God, as the holy doctor says, renders the punishment of the damned infinite in extension by making it eternal. Moreover, it is just, that as long as the sinner remains in his sin, the punishment which he deserves should continue. And, therefore, as the virtue of the saints is rewarded in Heaven, because it lasts for ever, so also the guilt of the damned in Hell, because it is everlasting, shall be chastised with everlasting torments. "Quia non recipit causse remedium," says Eusebius Emissenus, "carebit fine supplicium." The cause of their perverse will continues: therefore, their chastisement will never have an end. The damned are so obstinate in their sins, that even if God offered pardon, their hatred for him would make them refuse it. The Prophet Jeremias, speaking in the name of the reprobate, says: Why is my sorrow become perpetual and my wound desperate, so as to refuse to be healed?" (Jer. xv. 18.) My wound, they say, is incurable, because I do not wish it to be healed. Just how can God heal the wound of their perverse will, when they would refuse the remedy, were it offered to them? Hence, the punishment of the reprobate is called a sword, a vengeance which is irrevocable. "I, the Lord, have drawn my sword out of its sheath, not to be turned back." (Ezech. xxi. 5.)
10. Death, which is so terrible in this life, is desired in hell by the damned; but they never shall find it. "And in these days men shall seek death, and shall not find it: and they shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them." (Apoc. xi. 6.) They would wish, as a remedy for their eternal ruin, to be exterminated and destroyed. But "there is no poison of destruction in them." (Wis. i. 14.) If a man, condemned to die, be not deprived of life by the first stroke of the axe, his torture moves the people to pity. Miserable damned souls! They live in continual death in the midst of the pains of hell: excites in them all the agony of death, but does not give them a remedy by taking away life. “Prima mors," says St. Augustine, "animam nolentem pellit de corpore, secunda mors nolentem tenet in corpore.” The first death expels from the body the soul of a sinner who is unwilling to die: but the second death that is, eternal death retains in the body a soul that wishes to die. "They are laid in hell like sheep; death shall feed upon them." (Ps. xlviii. 15.) In feeding, sheep eat the blades of grass, but leave the root untouched; hence the grass dies not, but grows up again. It is thus that death treats the damned; it torments them with pain, but spares their life, which may be called the root of suffering.
11. But, if these miserable souls have no chance of release from hell, perhaps they can at least deceive or flatter themselves with the hope, that God may one day be moved to pity, and free them from their torments? No : in hell there is no delusion, no flattery, no perhaps; the damned are as certain as they are of God’s existence that their hell shall have no end. "Thou thoughtest unjustly that I shall be like to thee; but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face." (Ps. xlix. 21.) They shall for ever see before their eyes their sins and the sentence of their eternal condemnation. "And I will set before thy face."
12. Let us conclude. Thus, most beloved brethren, the affair of our eternal salvation should be the sole object of all our concerns. "The business for which we struggle, says St. Eucharius, "is eternity." There is question of eternity: there is question whether we will be saved, and be for ever happy in a city of delights, or be damned, and confined for eternity in a pit of fire. This is not an affair of little importance; it is of the utmost and of eternal importance to us. When Thomas More was condemned to death by Henry the Eighth, his wife Louisa went to him for the purpose of tempting him to obey the royal command. Tell me, Lousia, replied the holy man, how many years can I, who am now so old, expect to live? You might, said she, live for twenty years. O foolish woman! he exclaimed, do you want me to condemn my soul to an eternity of torments for twenty years of life ?
13. Good Christians believe in the existence of hell, and commit sin! Dearly beloved brethren, let not us also be fools, like so many who are now weeping in hell. Miserable beings! What benefit do they now derive from all the pleasures which they enjoyed in this life? Speaking of the rich and of the poor, St. John Chrysostom said: "unhappy felicity, which has drawn the rich into eternal infelicity! O happy infelicity, which has brought the poor to the felicity of eternity! "The saints have buried themselves alive in this life, that after death they may not find themselves buried in hell for all eternity. If eternity were a doubtful matter, we ought even then make every effort in our power to escape an eternity of torments; but no, it is not a matter of doubt; it is a truth of faith, that after this life each of us must go into eternity, to be for ever in glory or for ever in despair. St. Teresa says, that it is through a want of faith that so many Christians are lost. As often as we say the words of the Creed, life everlasting, let us enliven our faith, and remember that there is another life, which never end; and let us adopt all the means necessary to secure a happy eternity. Let us do all, and give up all; if necessary, let us leave the world, in order to secure eternal happiness. When eternity is at stake no security can be too great. "Nulla nimia securitas," says St. Bernard, "ubi periclitatur Eeternitas."