Dispensing With The Last Pretenses of Catholicism
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has rapidly demolished the last bastions of Catholicism that had not been smashed down by his five predecessors in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The man is consumed with fire in his belly for that "old time religion" of the 1960s and 1970s with the conciliar revolution was in full bloom during the "pontificate" of Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick.
Not content to merely use his daily Ding Dong School Of Apostasy, which is now mercifully suspended for the summer, his various speeches and other impromptu remarks and the various symbols he has used to strip what appears to most of the world to be the papacy of any semblance of regal majesty and honor befitting a true Vicar of Christ on earth, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis appears ready to take the heresy of "episcopal collegiality" to its logical and most perverse conclusion, namely, that of devolving decisions on doctrinal matters down to the level of the local conciliar "bishops" and their national "episcopal" conferences as part of his much-heralded "reform" of the Vatican and its operations:
On the agenda of Pope Francis, the chief administrative item is the reform of the Roman Curia. This was the radical commission he was given by the College of Cardinals at his election. He has recently been telling friends how difficult it is proving, while being urged to get a move on by Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz, former chairman of the German bishops’ conference. In fact, with the Roman August shut-down fast approaching and the group of cardinals he has appointed to advise him on curial reform not due to meet until October, it is a little early to become impatient.
The issue he has already been wrestling with is about personnel. He inherited Pope Benedict’s appointments, including the key figures of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as Secretary of State and Archbishop Gerhard Müller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Cardinal Bertone had become the focus of much of the discontented grumbling that grew inside the Curia as Pope Benedict’s papacy drew to its unexpected close. That problem may solve itself, as at 78 he is overdue for retirement. Whether the position of Secretary of State survives the impending curial reform is for the Pope’s group of cardinal advisers to consider. But the grand title does not immediately resonate with the Sermon on the Mount, which seems to be the tone in which Francis is trying to restyle the papacy.
Archbishop Müller is a more complicated case, not least because he was the personal choice of Pope Benedict with whom Pope Francis still has regular discussions. But the archbishop is clearly out of step with the new mood, for instance in his astonishing recent statement that divorced and remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion cannot appeal to God’s mercy. He is not going to be able to live it down. It is well known that many of his fellow German bishops – and others elsewhere in the world – strongly disagree.
One option would be to divide the Congregation in two, one part taking on responsibility for the discipline of the clergy – suitably modernised to avoid a repetition of the disastrous mistakes in handling clerical child abuse – and the other responsible for policing doctrine, an issue that Pope Francis himself has implied need not be taken too seriously.
Thus downgraded, the role of prefect of the CDF would disappear. Both these functions should in the first instance be handled by local bishops’ conferences, with Rome reverting to its traditional role as a court of appeal. That would demonstrate the principle that under collegiality, the governing body of the Catholic Church is not the Pope and the Curia but the Pope and the bishops, with the Curia in support. The era of the “one size fits all” decree from the Vatican would have come to an end.
Pope Francis is already encountering resistance, and recently told a friend that the changes he was making in the Vatican had been difficult: “It has not been easy, there were many ‘masters’ of the Pope here and they have been in their positions for a very long time.” That also suggests the changes he has in mind are far-reaching. If so, he has indeed grasped the measure of the challenge he faces – to save the Catholic Church from itself. (An Antipope with only one master.)
There are several "take-aways," a phrase that has come into vogue in recent years, from this article.
First, although noting that the article contains a great deal of speculative analysis, there is the observation, clearly correct, in my view, that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis does not believe that doctrinal matters should be taken seriously. This is something that Bergoglio/Francis has made eminently clear in the past four months as he has disparaged those who are concerned about the integrity of the Sacred Deposit of Faith as "rigid," "stubborn," "Pharisaical" and lacking concern for the poor.
Second, the contention that Gerhard Ludwig Muller, of all people, is unacceptable to Bergoglio/Francis because he, Muller, has said, remarkably in and of itself for its rare adherence to authentic Catholic teaching, that divorced and remarried Catholics cannot appeal to God's mercy to receive what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service is nothing other than stunning in that Gerhard Ludwig Muller is one of the most astounding heretics alive on the face of the earth today (see (see Deft? Daft Is More Like It, part two, Daft? Deft Is More Like It, part three, Does The Defense of Catholic Truth Matter To You?, When Will The Madness End?, part one, Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Gerhard Ludwig Muller and Integral Denial of Our Lady's Integrity, Having More Integrity Than Catholics and Forever Preserving False Traditions"on this site and Muller denies Dogma of Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady, Muller denies Dogma of the Resurrection of Our Lord, Muller denies Dogma of Transubstantiation and CDF Head Muller: Vatican War with Liberation Theology is over at the Novus Ordo Watch Wire site).
Then again, a possible downgrading of the role of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's successor to the Holy Office of the Inquisition in order to devolve "doctrinal" decision-making to the level of the local conciliar "bishops" and their national "episcopal" conferences is nothing new. It is exactly what I heard a conciliar presbyter say to me when riding from Emmaus, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's liturgical extravaganza at Logan Circle there on Thursday, October 4, 1979, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, as he envisioned a day where "Rome was nothing more than a clearinghouse for the ideas and liturgies developed at the local level." While such has been the case on a de facto basis for a long time now, there does appear to be the real possibility of Bergoglio/Francis's making this devolution of power de jure (a matter of law).
The very first document issued by the "Second" Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, November 1, 1963, authorized a
devolution of liturgical decision-making to the level of the national
"episcopal conferences" and to diocesan liturgical commissions (cf. Paragraph 22 of Sacrosanctum Concilium). Coupled with
the great latitude that was given a diocesan ordinary to have churches
designed or "renovated" according to the dictates of local customs and
the "genius of the peoples" found in the General Instruction to the Roman Missal, all a conciliar "bishop" had to do to
justify that which is ugly and actually demeaning both to God and to His
Church was to say that a particular design reflects the relative
circumstances and tastes of a particular people and the time in which
they live. Obviously, this vitiates entirely the sense of the
transcendent that is meant to be captured until the end of time in a
Catholic Church.
Postconciliar churches, built according to the specifications of
revolutionaries intent on building churches in their own warped images,
actually damage the Faith.
Conciliarism's penchant for experimentation and "innovation" at the local level in the name of the "inculturation of the Gospel" is enshrined in both the aforementioned General Instruction to the Roman Missal and in Paragraph 23 of Sacrosanctum Concilium:
23. That sound tradition may be retained, and yet the way remain open to legitimate
progress careful investigation is always to be made into each part of the liturgy which is
to be revised. This investigation should be theological, historical, and pastoral. Also
the general laws governing the structure and meaning of the liturgy must be studied in
conjunction with the experience derived from recent liturgical reforms and from the
indults conceded to various places. Finally, there must be no innovations unless the good
of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new
forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, November 1, 1963.)
In other words, despite Sacrosanctum Concilium's admonition, contained in Paragraph 22.3,. that "no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change
anything in the liturgy on his own authority, experimentation and innovation are permitted if it is contended that the "good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them," something that Paragraph 22.2 states is to be determined by the "
competent territorial bodies of bishops
legitimately established." And it is this devolution of liturgical decision-making that has the conciliar-occupied Vatican to become a "clearinghouse" for unprecedented sacrileges, including those that are to take place in Rio di Janeiro, Brazil, as the abominable freak show and celebration of paganism known as World Youth Day takes place under the loving eye of none other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis himself.
World Youth Day is a penultimate celebration of each of the heresies, outrages, blasphemies and sacrileges that define the counterfeit church of conciliarism both in theory and in practice.
Here are a few concrete examples of what is being planned for next week's hootenanny in Brazil, followed by the briefest possible commentaries offered by your overworked, underpaid writer (come on, have a sense of humor):
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jul 19, 2013 / 02:08 pm (CNA).- Organizers of a massive flash mob in Brazil hope that some two million young people from around the world will dance for Pope Francis before the start of the closing Mass for World Youth Day 2013.
“The idea of the flash mob is to show that together we can show the world something, that we are able to say something to the world. To show unity, that we think together,” said Edson Erdmann, artistic director for the events at Guaratiba, near Rio de Janeiro.
He explained that Pope Francis will re-join pilgrims on the morning of July 28 after their overnight vigil at the Campus Fidei. He hopes that the young people will greet the Holy Father with a massive flash mob.
A video teaching the dance steps is available on YouTube for young people who wish to begin practicing with their friends. But there will also be four rehearsals on Saturday evening and Sunday morning before the Pope arrives.
“The idea is for the music to be simple, good and pleasant to listen to. The choreography is simple but we are going to amaze the world if we all do it together,” Erdmann explained.
Carioca dancer Glaucia Geraldo created the choreography. The song “Francisco” comes from the Show del Futuro. (Flash mob organizers hope to unite WYD crowds in Rio.)
Gee, I thought we were united by the Catholic Faith. And, at least as far as I know, which admittedly is not much, of course, I do not think that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ needed a "flash mob" to "amaze the world" while he hung on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood.
Next example, if you do not mind, this one focusing on some of the "changes" that the members of the Latin American "episcopal" conference (CELAM) believe should come forth from World Youth Day and the man presiding over it, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis:
We await with great interest the message the Holy Father Francis will offer us in order to intensify our efforts and involve the continent’s bishops in the pastoral renewal of the Church, complying with the guidelines of the Aparecida Document.
We are at a crucial stage. The challenges inherent in the epochal change we are living through demand a rethinking of attitudes, structures and pastoral work in fidelity to Christ. To this end, we must discern the signs of the times, listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Churches. This is a collegial task. It will therefore be of enormous interest and importance to hear the voice of Pope Francis, who knows perfectly our ecclesial and social circumstances and the Document of Aparecida, as well as the contexts in which it came into being, and has developed and matured.
What pastoral horizon do we glimpse in the immediate future of the pilgrim Church in Latin America and in the Caribbean?
Results hoped for:
Within the Church
1. To renew the awareness and identity of Catholics themselves and to move on from being faithful to being disciples and missionaries of Christ who are integrated into and live in communities united with each other.
2. To make the most of one’s own Church and her ability to bring people together and to exert a cultural influence (institutional self-esteem).
3. To go beyond the 19th- and 20th-century labels and prejudices, acting with a view to the future rather than looking back at the past.
4. To transmit the Church’s values in a symbolic, visual, aesthetic and testimonial language
From the Church towards relations with society
5. To step out of one’s own environment to meet society in its different sectors, especially through the lay faithful.
6. To strengthen the Church's social foundations and structure them in order to enter into dialogue and participation with the different milieus of life and society.
7. To avail oneself of the emerging ecological awareness at a global level so as to recover an ethics founded on the laws of nature.
8. To collaborate in the process of inter-institutionalization, furthering the citizens’ participation in the various sectors and institutions.
9. To develop and consolidate the institutional relationship with the different Government bodies, seeking to bring dignity to human life dignified in all the classes, especially the poorest.
10. To learn to live in an intercultural context and thence to witness to the merciful love of God the Father.
11. To use the strategies for communication offered by the current technology, especially in order to enter the social networks with a propositional approach.
The wyd [World Youth Day] and the subsequent celam meeting with the Holy Father will certainly be emotionally and spiritually intense moments of thanksgiving and blessing and of great pastoral hope. In the history of the Church in Latin America and in the Caribbean they will also constitute a particularly significant step taken by God for the benefit of our peoples. (The Latin American Apostates in Rio For World Youth Day.)
In other words, the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council are, well, like, man, so "yesterday," know what I mean, right, bro?
In still other words, this is paganism and apostasy.
As part of entering "into dialogue and participation with the different milieus of life and society," World Youth Day will offer a panel composed of representatives of the United Masonic Nations Organization, that wonderful agent of "peace" in the world as it promotes and funds the chemical and surgical execution of the innocent preborn and propagandizes in behalf of "gay" rights and against the Natural Law rights of parents to supervise and educate their children:
World Youth Day organizers and the United Nations are partnering to sponsor a morning of debates about the role of youth in sustainable development and peace.
The event "Youth and the culture of peace" will take place on July 23rd.
There will be participation on behalf of Ahmad Alhendawi, the UN
Secretary-General's special envoy, and a moment for presentations by
five youth representatives, from the five continents. About 650 youths
are expected to attend.
The event will take place at the Brazilian Bar Association building
(Edifício OAB), where consulates of the international delegations will
have offices during the WYD Rio2013.
According to WYD Executive Secretary Monsignor Joel Portella, the Rio
week is an opportunity to listen to the youth and learn their
expectations for the world.
"The WYD has a very interesting characteristic as it draws the youth
to look to God, to the world and to themselves," Monsignor Portella
said. "This leads to a great responsibility in the construction of this
new world." (UN Partners With WYD for Panel on Youth Leadership.)
Another "partnership" made in Hell to promote the devil's very own New World Order of Judeo-Masonry.
So much for the Social Reign of Christ the King.
So much for Pope Saint Pius X's admonition in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order:
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an
inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of
civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no
true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth,
a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
So much for the truth that those who promote things that are repugnant to the peace and happiness of prosperity can never promote the true common temporal good of society, something that Pope Pius XI, quoting Silvio Cardinal Antoniano of the Sixteenth Century, noted in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:
The more closely the temporal
power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it
fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to
the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the
ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good
Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in
doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares
them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This
follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic
Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the
same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who
separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce
good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the
formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes
and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal
peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and
happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)
Also at World Youth Day will be leaders and members of the various "movements" that make up the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including the cult of the late Chiara Lubitz that is called Focolare:
The young people of the Focolare Movement will take part in WYD as members of regional or national groups organized by local churches. Some are collaborating directly as members of the organizing committee of the event. Others are among the 60,000 volunteers at the service of participants and some will also animate catechetical sessions.
The young people of the Movement will be presenting the life of Focolare's own Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, the young girl who was beatified in 2010 and who will be one of the leading figures of this World Youth Day.
They will also present the United World Project, the Sophia University Institute, and the Escola Civitas promoted by youth involved in politics.
Blessed Chiara
For more than a year, a group has been working on “A santidade veste jeans”, a show about the life of Chiara Luce. Maria Teresa and Ruggero Badano, the parents of Chiara Luce will attend the film, which will take place on July 24 at 15.00hrs and at 18.00hrs at the Grand Auditorium of “Cidade das Artes”, at Barra da Tijuca. A half million copies of the book “25 minutos: a vida de Chiara Luce Badano” written by Franz Coriasco, an agnostic friend of hers, will be distributed.
Gen Rosso
The musical group Gen Rosso, who has been touring Brazil for over a month, will present their show “Dimensione indelebile” at the Conference Centre “Rio Centro” on July 24 at 20.00hrs. The Gen Rosso also forms part of the group of over 50 artists who will animate the programme of July 27 when all the young people will gather at Guaratiba for the evening vigil with the Holy Father. During this event, they will present a piece of “Streetlight”, which involves some 200 youngsters from various associations active in the treatment of addictions.
Interreligious dialogue
In the context of WYD, an interreligious meeting has been planned for 200 delegates from all over Brazil. Its goal is to make known the initiatives that already exist to promote dialogue and to discuss concrete actions. This meeting will take place on the morning of July 21 at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janiero. The Focolare Movement is participating in the organization of this event and some delegates will be taking part in it.
There will also be the round table conference promoted by the young people of Religions for Peace Global Youth Network. The theme will be “Go and build peace in all nations” and this will be held at “Irmandade do Espírito Santo de Estácio de Sá”, on July 24 at 18.00hrs. (Focolare Youth in Rio Will Teach Peers About Blessed Chiara Luce, Disciple of Chiara Lubitch.)
In other words, so much for these words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:
This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any
terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for
Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they
do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite
alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be
iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a
subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending
revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in
order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and,
lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by
the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely
vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler
and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel
was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also
till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should
in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would
be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one
with another? If this were true, we should have to confess
that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual
indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of
Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and
use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of
God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged
all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by
"witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this
sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he
that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ,
which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to
believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a
complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus
teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter,
those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of
truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and
discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take
possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken
through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a
few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed
through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and
morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his
moral life. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
Mind you, this is just a small sampling of the events that will unfold starting two days from now, that is, on Monday, July 22, 2013, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. There will be little rest for me next week as the post office box and PayPal inbox get their amount of sufficient rest, to be sure (again, just a humorous edge, although this one may be a "message" attached to it). The travesties in Rio di Janeiro will be remarkable to behold. They will make the outrages of World Youth Day in Australia five years ago now seem tame by comparison.
Thus it is that any possible formalization of a devolution of "doctrinal" decision-making to the conciliar "bishops" and their national conferences would give a "papal" seal of approval to the doctrinal free-for-all that exists in the conciliar structure whereby presbyters can support such moral evils as sodomy openly and put into question, if not deny entirely, articles of the Creed that are considered to be, at least "officially," part of what conciliarists are supposed to profess.
Truth be told, of course, it may be hard to tell the difference if such a "reform" is instituted as most of the local conciliar "bishops" and most of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's national "episcopal" conferences provide encouragement and support to various agencies of evil in the world today, including those who manufacture potions and pills that kill the innocent preborn:
Catholic Relief Services is in the midst of distributing a projected
$2.789 million grant to one of the leading voices in the international
abortion movement.
The U.S. Bishops’ foreign relief agency is distributing the funds to Population Services International, a $670 million organization that markets abortion drugs in the developing world.
When questioned about the grant, CRS initially claimed PSI had merely
sold them mosquito nets to combat malaria, but when presented with more
information, the Catholic agency acknowledged that the abortion giant
took a decidedly more active role.
News of the grant has Catholic pro-life leaders raising concern that
the funds, though ostensibly for a good project, are merely empowering
PSI to fulfill its founding mission of population control.
“Anything you do to empower [this organization], anything you do to
help it, anything you do by way of funding it, for whatever stated
purpose, is strengthening an organization that is just absolutely
diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church and its teachings,” said
Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute. “And to
pretend otherwise is not just naïve, it is duplicitous.”
Founded in 1970 by porn baron Phil Harvey,
who initially used his porn profits to fund PSI, the organization
networks and trains local providers throughout the world to offer “safe
abortion.” The group’s “charity” work largely involves “stimulat[ing] demand” for contraceptives and abortion drugs among the world’s poor and then selling them the products.
Mosher told LifeSiteNews.com that the reason PSI got involved in some
legitimate health issues was to further its population control
agenda. PSI first began tackling health issues such as malaria and safe
water in the 1980s.
“They use the bait of health care or the bait of some form of aid to
seduce women into coming into their clinics and availing themselves of
their services, so they can be used as bribes, they can be used as
sanctions,” he said. PSI “is first, last, and always a population
control group,” he added, noting that it “promotes abortion,
sterilization, contraception, always and everywhere.”
Investigating CRS’ connection with PSI
LifeSiteNews began investigating CRS’ relationship with PSI because the
Catholic agency’s IRS filings for 2012 showed that they had given PSI a
grant of $9,588 for “agriculture.”
Asked on Friday to explain the grant, CRS communications director John
Rivera told LifeSiteNews that in late 2011 they had purchased water
purification packets from PSI in Panama to help with water contamination
following a major tropical storm.
“PSI was the vendor with the stocks nearby to respond to the
emergency,” he said. “This helped to save lives from dysentery, cholera,
and other water-borne diseases. The water purification packets were
given to Caritas El Salvador and distributed to several dioceses in the
coastal region as part of our joint CRS-Caritas disaster relief
operation.”
Upon further investigation, LifeSiteNews discovered that CRS was given a grant of $26,939,110 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to run a project combatting malaria in Guinea from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. The grant agreement, signed December 13, 2011, indicates that CRS would award PSI $1,995,959 over the two year period to assist with the project. According to a grant performance report dated May 21, 2013, PSI signed the agreement with CRS on October 8, 2012, and agreed to take on more unspecified project activities on January 7, 2013.
CRS’ relationship with PSI goes back at least more than a decade. A page on the website of the Centers for Disease Control describes a safe water initiative in Madagascar, with an implementation date of April 2000, that CRS partnered on with PSI and CARE. Further, on its website PSI currently lists CRS as a partner in Zambia, Haiti, and Guinea. According to PSI’s webpage on Guinea, CRS partnered with them on a measles vaccination program there during 2009, in addition to its current funding relationship.
There is also movement of personnel between the organizations. In October 2011, CRS hired an HIV technical advisor after she had worked at PSI for three years. While at PSI, she had contributed to a paper on “global contraceptive needs.” Additionally, a member of PSI India’s board of governors indicates that he has worked for CRS in the past.
LifeSiteNews asked Rivera about CRS’ partnerships with PSI on Monday, and was told, “It may take awhile.” On Thursday morning, Rivera indicated that the Guinea grant was to purchase mosquito nets.
“CRS bought mosquito nets from PSI, the vendor designated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which funded the project,” he said.
But on further questioning about the grant, including why PSI had needed to hire staff for the project – as indicated in the grant performance report – if they were merely a vendor, CRS acknowledged that PSI had taken a rather more active role in the project.
“To be clear, now that we have had more time to talk with staff involved in the project, the money did not go specifically to purchase the nets but rather to implement other parts of the grant which is focused on distributing 3 million nets and making sure they are properly used to save thousands of lives by preventing malaria,” wrote Michael Hill, CRS’ Senior Writer.
Hill said PSI’s grant grew to $2.789 million over the two-year period when PSI took over responsibilities from another sub-recipient that had dropped out before the project began. Part of those activities included “training and overseeing community health workers to educate households on malaria prevention, and training and overseeing community organizations which would organize anti-malaria themed events,” he said. He also noted that PSI is responsible for the mass-media marketing portion of the project.
“CRS did not choose PSI as a partner in the project,” Hill explained. “Rather PSI was selected as an implementing sub-recipient to the grant by the Global Fund’s Country Coordinating Mechanism, independent of CRS.” He stressed that PSI “was implementing activities related only to the prevention of malaria.”
PSI: Abortion, abortion, abortion
PSI is open about its promotion of abortion even on its own website. On its page about “reducing unsafe abortion,” the firm explains that it “works to increase access to WHO-approved medical abortion drugs.” Its website also mentions its provision of medical abortions in Cambodia and Nepal, noting that in Cambodia it launched the country’s “first safe medical abortion drug, known as Medabon.”
Upon further investigation, LifeSiteNews discovered that CRS was given a grant of $26,939,110 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to run a project combatting malaria in Guinea from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. The grant agreement, signed December 13, 2011, indicates that CRS would award PSI $1,995,959 over the two year period to assist with the project. According to a grant performance report dated May 21, 2013, PSI signed the agreement with CRS on October 8, 2012, and agreed to take on more unspecified project activities on January 7, 2013.
CRS’ relationship with PSI goes back at least more than a decade. A page on the website of the Centers for Disease Control describes a safe water initiative in Madagascar, with an implementation date of April 2000, that CRS partnered on with PSI and CARE. Further, on its website PSI currently lists CRS as a partner in Zambia, Haiti, and Guinea. According to PSI’s webpage on Guinea, CRS partnered with them on a measles vaccination program there during 2009, in addition to its current funding relationship.
There is also movement of personnel between the organizations. In October 2011, CRS hired an HIV technical advisor after she had worked at PSI for three years. While at PSI, she had contributed to a paper on “global contraceptive needs.” Additionally, a member of PSI India’s board of governors indicates that he has worked for CRS in the past.
LifeSiteNews asked Rivera about CRS’ partnerships with PSI on Monday, and was told, “It may take awhile.” On Thursday morning, Rivera indicated that the Guinea grant was to purchase mosquito nets.
“CRS bought mosquito nets from PSI, the vendor designated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which funded the project,” he said.
But on further questioning about the grant, including why PSI had needed to hire staff for the project – as indicated in the grant performance report – if they were merely a vendor, CRS acknowledged that PSI had taken a rather more active role in the project.
“To be clear, now that we have had more time to talk with staff involved in the project, the money did not go specifically to purchase the nets but rather to implement other parts of the grant which is focused on distributing 3 million nets and making sure they are properly used to save thousands of lives by preventing malaria,” wrote Michael Hill, CRS’ Senior Writer.
Hill said PSI’s grant grew to $2.789 million over the two-year period when PSI took over responsibilities from another sub-recipient that had dropped out before the project began. Part of those activities included “training and overseeing community health workers to educate households on malaria prevention, and training and overseeing community organizations which would organize anti-malaria themed events,” he said. He also noted that PSI is responsible for the mass-media marketing portion of the project.
“CRS did not choose PSI as a partner in the project,” Hill explained. “Rather PSI was selected as an implementing sub-recipient to the grant by the Global Fund’s Country Coordinating Mechanism, independent of CRS.” He stressed that PSI “was implementing activities related only to the prevention of malaria.”
PSI: Abortion, abortion, abortion
PSI is open about its promotion of abortion even on its own website. On its page about “reducing unsafe abortion,” the firm explains that it “works to increase access to WHO-approved medical abortion drugs.” Its website also mentions its provision of medical abortions in Cambodia and Nepal, noting that in Cambodia it launched the country’s “first safe medical abortion drug, known as Medabon.”
PSI is also a mainstay at pro-abortion conferences, and has posted numerous online job ads seeking employees to fulfill various roles in the organization’s campaign for globally-accessible abortion.
At the 2013 Women Deliver conference on May 31st, they organized a session on “making safe abortion care a clinical reality” and one of their employees was a panelist for a session dealing with methods to “increase access to safe abortion.”
On January 16, 2013, Daniel Crapper of PSI delivered a talk titled “Creating the misoprostol market” at the Global Maternal Health Conference in Tanzania. (See video here.) In his talk, Crapper indicates that PSI has "social marketing" programs for the abortion drug in 7 countries and talks about their strategies for promoting it.
The organization is listed as a participating sponsor at a conference in Lisbon, Portugal in 2010 dedicated to expanding access to medical abortion.
Regarding hiring, PSI has an active job ad – posted July 3rd and still open until August 1st – seeking someone who has “experience with safe abortion” to “oversee and coordinate … safe abortion … implementation” and to help “expand access to quality safe abortion … services and products.” The person must also “support countries as requested to advocate for use of [medical abortion] for safe abortion.”
A 2011 ad seeking a Deputy Director of Services for Kenya said the position had a focus on “increasing access to safe abortion services,” including “provid[ing] and organiz[ing] technical assistance to countries for training of trainers.” Among the needed qualifications was a “clinical proficiency [in] surgical and medication abortion.”
A 2012 ad sought a “maternal health consultant” to provide “technical guidance to PSI platforms implementing abortion, post abortion care, post partum hemorrhage programs,” and other programs. Another from 2012 sought a communications manager in Cambodia whose duties included managing PSI’s “safe abortion” brand.
In addition to its work promoting medical and surgical abortions, PSI is a leader in the global movement to promote abortifacient “emergency contraception” pills. The organization is a member of the International Consortium for Emergency Contraception (ICEC), and has a staff member on the steering committee. A Google search of the ICEC website turns up numerous examples of PSI’s promotion of abortifacients. Other Consortium members include the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Ipas, and Catholics for Choice.
‘They might as well be funding Planned Parenthood’
As with its controversial grants to the pro-abortion group CARE, CRS’ $2.7 million grant to PSI Guinea is “pass-through” funding, meaning that CRS acts as a principal recipient to a funding agency and then doles out part of the funds to sub-recipients.
CRS defended this “pass-through” funding to CARE last year, arguing that the funds are given only for projects in line with Catholic teaching and are not fungible because of the way the grant agreements are established.
But when asked at the time if CRS would give ‘pass-through’ funding to Planned Parenthood for a morally neutral project, they said no. “We would never partner with Planned Parenthood,” Rivera said last year. “We’ve given this a lot of consideration, and there’s a threshold in terms of what the focus of an agency is, and the preponderance of their work.”
But Michael Hichborn, director of American Life League’s Defend the Faith Project, said that the U.S. Bishops’ relief agency, in funding PSI, “might as well be funding Planned Parenthood.”
"Based upon the preponderance of the work PSI does, I would love for CRS to explain how giving it money is any different than funding Planned Parenthood, because the preponderance of PSI's work IS birth control and abortion,” said Hichborn.
"Whenever CRS gets caught funding groups like this, they wave their professed fidelity to the Catholic Church the way Nancy Pelosi professes that she's an ardent, practicing Catholic. Simply having a Catholic Identity document cannot in any way exonerate CRS from giving money to an organization like PSI.”
Mosher’s claim that PSI uses legitimate health issues like malaria to promote its population control agenda would appear to be supported by statements PSI made in a program description for a Madagascar project funded by USAID from 2008-2013, where the pro-abortion group describes how it views its work on malaria as “deeply intertwined” with its “reproductive health” agenda.
“Reproductive, maternal and child health and malaria are all deeply intertwined, affecting poor and vulnerable populations in rural areas together,” the organization writes. “Success (or failure) in one area, such as malaria, can free up resources to focus on other areas, or drag down progress.” Integrating these programs, they add, “offer[s] many opportunities to reach target audiences.”
In the same document on the Madagascar project, PSI indicates that it would be partnering on the project with CRS.
"Given that PSI made perfectly clear that its distribution of malaria drugs and mosquito nets is 'deeply intertwined' with pushing birth control on the poor, CRS can't claim that giving a grant to PSI is isolated only for fighting malaria,” said Hichborn. “PSI's own documents explain that pushing birth control is its primary focus." (Catholic Relief Services Gives $2.7 Million to Abortion Marketing Giant.)
Don't bother writing to the "pope," please. He is not concerned about silly little things such as doctrinal matters, especially when he is so very concerned about "the poor" and how best to assist them with whatever charity can be extended to them and, of course, as he prepares to meet and greet that "flash mob" on Sunday, July 28, 2013, the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saints Nazarius, Celsus, Innocent and Victor. This is all best handled at the "local" level, you understand, and an upcoming article, preempted by the current commentary, will focus on what that has meant here in the United States of America on matters pertaining to the binding precepts of the Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is also very busy "reforming" the Vatican, although, contrary to some reports of a few days ago, he is going to keep his own appointee, "Monsignor" Battista Ricca, as head of the Institute of Religious Works (the Vatican Bank) even though the man has been shown to be a sodomite.
Questioned on
L'Espresso's cover story on the prominent promotion by Pope Francis of a supposed member of the Vatican "Gay Lobby" (
previous post),
Fr. Federico Lombardi, Holy See spokesman, called the accusation
"untrustworthy" (non attendibile). Not only that, according to
journalist Matteo Matzuzzi on Twitter, Lombardi said today that, "
the
Pope has had the chance to verify whether the accusations against Msgr.
Ricca were consistent or not," and that "Pope Francis is aware of the
accusations made against Msgr. Ricca but has decided to keep him in his
position".
Sandro Magister, the well-known Vaticanist and article author, and L'Espresso (institutionally) fired back:
This was the immediate reply of L'Espresso:
"To Father Lombardi, who defines as 'not trustworthy' what was published regarding Msgr. Ricca, L'Espresso replies reaffirming point by point the facts referred by Sandro Magister in his piece, confirmed by several primary sources and, as a whole, considered at the time of such gravity by the same Vatican authorities that forced them to remove the Monsignor from the Uruguay nunciature, in which he rendered his service, giving scandal to bishops,priests, religious and lay persons in that country.
"It can be added that the Vatican authorities, instead of making up improbable and ad-lib denials, could verify the trustworthiness of all that was published by L'Espresso by simply consulting the exhaustive documentation in their possession on the affair, in particular that related to his time in the Montevideo nunciature. Further documentation is available from the Uruguayan authorities, from security forces to fire brigades. Not to mention the numerous bishops, priests, religious, laymen in Uruguay who were direct witnesses of the scandal and are ready to speak." (On "Gay Lobby", Sandro Magister challenges the Vatican: "We have the evidence".)
This is one time that I can empathize with Sandro Magister as I know all about trying to convince those who do not want to see the plain evidence before their eyes in such cases. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is just too busy seeing what he "can do" to get rid of the "gay lobby" to take seriously the proven claims against Battista Ricca. He is also too busy preparing for that flash mob in Brazil and to demonstrate his "solidarity" with the poor of Rio di Janeiro by walking through a slum without protection and without any body armor.
Yes, this is all dispensing with the last pretenses of Catholicism.
We, though, must be about the business of shielding ourselves from all of the decaying rot that emanates from the counterfeit church of conciliarism. One will never hear "rock" music or see flash mobs dancing in the true Catholic catacombs, and one will never be confused by the errors of Gallicanism by being told that the Catholic Church could for one moment be in any way responsible for the horrors that will be on full display at "World Youth Day 2013".
May we have the true humility of Our Lady to serve God without complaint and by relying in humility upon her maternal intercession from Heaven as we seek to give to her Divine Son's Most Sacred Heart our prayers and penances and acts of reparation (for our sins and those of the whole world) through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart in this time of apostasy and betrayal. And to truly help others to flee from the errors of the moment and to gain Heaven we must storm Heaven each day with as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, imitating little Francisco Marto, who loved to "console the good God" with his Rosaries.
The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In this victory we must place our confidence as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through that same Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
