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

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 24^th 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."