Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!
Part Three
by Thomas A. Droleskey
In perfect continuity of apostasy with his predecessor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is completely unconcerned as to how his public words and actions in violation of the First and Second Commandments have offended the honor and majesty and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity. This is because the deity in which he believes is a project of his own warped Modernist imagination. As a true son and now the universal exponent of the conciliar revolution, Bergoglio/Francis has projected onto God his own conception of Him, which is exactly what the pagans of Greek and Roman antiquity did.
One who is oblivious to the horror of sins he has committed against the First, Second and Third Commandments will be pretty oblivious to the horror of the sins committed against the Fourth through Tenth Commandments.
This is why Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has absolutely no sense whatsoever of the gravity of the sins of unnatural vice in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and why he believes that clear signs of effeminacy and homosexuality are not impediments to service in the conciliar presbyterate. He does not think anything is wrong with signs of effeminacy or homosexuality in any man, including clerics. Sin, to him, is just not that important.
Consider the following excerpt from the freewheeling eighty-one minute interview that he gave aboard the plane that took him back to Rome, Italy, from the doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral atrocity that was World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
"There's a lot of talk about the gay lobby, but I've never seen it on the Vatican ID card."
"When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being
gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have
goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalized. The
tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem ... they're our
brothers." (Apostate on sodomites: 'Who am I to judge?'.)
There are only, say, about a thousand points to make about these remarks. Limitations of time do not make it possible to cover each one in depth. However, an effort will be made to provide at least a few pertinent observations. Just a few, you understand, just a few.
First, it was Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis himself who first used the term "gay lobby:"
And, yes... it is
difficult. In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are
holy people. But there also is a stream of corruption, there is that as
well, it is true... The "gay lobby" is mentioned, and it is true, it is
there... We need to see what we can do...
The reform of the Roman Curia is something
that almost all Cardinals asked for in the Congregations preceding the
Conclave. I also asked for it. I cannot promote the reform myself, these
matters of administration... I am very disorganized, I have never been
good at this. But the cardinals of the Commission will move it forward.
There is Rodríguez Maradiaga, who is Latin American, who is in front of
it, there is Errázuriz, they are very organized. The one from Munich is
also very organized. They will move it forward.
Pray for me... that I make mistakes the least possible... (Universal
Public Face of Apostasy to CLAR, part 2: "Yes, there is a 'gay lobby'
in the Curia. We need to see what we can do about it".)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis himself raised the issue of "gay lobby," saying three days ago, however, that he's "never seen it on the Vatican ID card."
All right.
Which is it?
Why say in June that there is a "gay lobby" in the Vatican and then say a month later that although there had been "talk about the gay lobby," he's never seen it on "the Vatican ID card"?
I, for one, am not going to spend any time trying to figure out what is meant by the contradiction as to do so would be an exercise in complete madness.
Second, there is no such thing as a "gay person." There are no such things as "gay people." There is no such thing as "homophobia." These are all made up to create a special category of people that does not exist in the eyes of the Most Blessed Trinity and then to stigmatize anyone and everyone as a "hater" who condemns the sin of Sodom as hateful to Him.
An inclination towards the commission of seriously disordered, perverse sins against nature that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, no less an unrepentant persistence in such sins, is not the basis for human self-identification.
The only basis for human self-identification is that God has given each man a rational, immortal soul created in His very image and likeness, and that His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, died on the wood of the Cross in atonement for human sins in order to redeem it. Catholics, of all, people, of course, are supposed to understand this.
Ever the revolutionary, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has adopted the language of the homosexual collective, whose members are filled with bitter anger and hatred at anyone who dares to criticize their "lifestyles" as they are, whether or not they realize it, in rebellion against the very nature that God has implanted within them and have thus done what all revolutionaries do to justify themselves before men: to do violence to language in order to cloud supernatural and natural truth with a fog of irrationality and sentimentality.
It is shameful that one conciliar official after another has adopted this language, thereby conceding that one can identify himself on the basis of the inclination to and/or the commission of perverse sins against nature and the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and that civil society and must treat such self-identification as a legitimate basis for social interaction and legal protection under various "civil rights" statutes and ordinances.
Then again, obviously, many conciliar officials, not a few of them afflicted with perversity themselves, have gone of their way created, fostered and promote a culture that has sustained and propagated the entire agenda of homosexual collective, including "marriage" and, quite importantly, persecuting anyone who criticizes sodomy for what it is. There has been the systematic recruitment, retention and promotion of homosexuals through the nooks and crannies of the conciliar structures, including its hierarchy, such as it is, and within parishes, schools, universities, colleges, seminaries, professional schools, religious houses and houses of so-called "spiritual formation." I suggest that those who have any doubt about this fact should consider the massive amount of documented evidence that Mrs. Randy Engel amassed in The Rite of Sodomy.
Thus it is that the counterfeit church of concilairism, reflecting its "openness to the
world" and its falsehoods, has bought into the ideology of the homosexual collective by building it
into programs that are taught to presbyters, teachers and children,
doing so with an special application to "touching" and expressions of
"affection" when the problem of clergy abuse that has exploded into full public view in the past twelve years now has been caused by the creation of an entire environment that is friendly to perversity. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is simply saying, therefore, what he has been conditioned to say by the whole rotten ambiance of conciliarism.
Third, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's "Who am I to judge" dismissal of the depravity represented even by any kind of perverse inclinations or impulses or feelings speaks volumes as to his complete shallowness as a thinker, no less to the total theological bankruptcy that characterizes the words he utters that so tickle the itching ears of men steeped in the universal pestilence of sentimentality.
While God alone is the sole Judge of the subjective state of souls, He gave us the sensus fidei when we were baptized in order to be able to recognize sin for what it is and thus to amend our own lives when are tempted to sin or find ourselves in the near occasion of sin. This sensus fidei also provides us with the ability to perform the Spiritual Works of Mercy, which includes, of course, admonishing the sinner. It is very telling that, as noted a few days ago, Jorge Mario Bergoglio never talks about the Spiritual Works of Mercy. Never means precisely that, that.
Catholics believe in the Spiritual Works of Mercy, Jorge. Here is a little review for you:
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To instruct the ignorant.
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To counsel the doubtful.
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To admonish sinners.
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To bear wrongs patiently;
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To forgive offences willingly;
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To comfort the afflicted;
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To pray for the living and the dead.
Catholics also believe that there are nine ways that they can be accessories to the sins of others:
Conciliarism is by its very
false nature uncharitable as it makes a mockery of the authentic,
immutable teaching that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by
making it appear that it is somehow opposed to tenderness and mercy to
follow these words that Saint Paul wrote in his Second Epistle to Saint
Timothy:
[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 Tim. 4: 1-15.)
To ask "Who am I to judge?" Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is repeating a standard shibboleth in an era of sentimentality and subjectivism.
A physician does not "judge" anyone if he warns him what might happen if he does not stop engaging in a certain course of behavior that is deleterious to his bodily health.
Similarly, one who warns another about the state of his soul as he persists in a life of unrepentant sin is simply performing a fundamental Spiritual Work of Mercy, and those who are inclined to and/or steeped in perverse sins against nature are not to be left without being remonstrated as this is a duty of a Catholic before God and to the eternal and temporal good of the sinner.
It is one thing to sin and to be sorry and then to seek out the mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. It is quite another to persist in sin, no less perverse sins against nature, unrepentantly and to expect others to reaffirm him in those sins, whether explicitly by words of approval or implicitly by silence, which betokens consent. Catholics must judge the states of their own souls every night in their Examen of Conscience, and they have a duty to help others to recognize the serious states of sin into which they have plunged themselves, praying beforehand to God the Holy Ghost to fill them with wisdom and prudence so as to provide a warning in such a way that could plant a seed to get an unrepentant sinner to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.
Fourth, yes "the tendency" to the commission of the sin of Sodom is indeed disordered and indicative of grave problems. Why? Because it is against nature itself. It is a rebellion against the very purposes for which God has created men and women. No one is to be "accepted" for being "gay" as God does not make "gay people." To be attracted in a sinful manner to others of the same gender is a disorder that is learned. It is acquired. It is not inherent in the nature of man. It is that simple.
Fifth, although some apologists for Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis have said that a part of the interview that was included in the National Catholic Reporter's account involved their false "pope's" condemning the "lobbying" actions of "gays" in the same vein as those of "masonic organizations," which is interesting in and of itself given the fact that that entire conciliar ethos is Judeo-Masonic in character, staring with its rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King and its embrace of "separation of Church and State" and "religious liberty," put his comments in a different. All right. Let's take a look
"The problem is not having this [homosexual] orientation. We must be
brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of
greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This
is the worse problem." (Francis the Revolutionary signals openness towards homosexual priests.)
There is once again a disconnect, shall we say, seen in the mind of one who is not Thomistically trained.
To assert that an inclination towards the commission of perverse sins against nature is not a "problem" and that we must live as "brothers" with such people without seeking to correct them is to concede what the "gay lobby" wants to accomplish by convincing "straights" that there is nothing unnatural about being "gay." This false for two reasons: first, as noted above, there is no such thing as a "gay" person; and second, it is such sanguine approval that the homosexual collectives seeks to accomplish. No one is a "brother" because of his self-identification to the commission of any kind of sins, whether natural or unnatural. We are to treat all others as we would treat Our Divine Redeemer, who does not reaffirm anyone at all in an inclination of sins as something praiseworthy and deserving of social status.
This is how Saint Paul the Apostle, who is commemorated today on this Feast of Saint Peter in Chains, dealt with those who sought approval for attraction to the same gender:
Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of
their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among
themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.
Amen.
For this cause God delivered them up to shameful
affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use
against which is their nature.
And in like manner, the men also, leaving the
natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards
another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in
themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
And as they liked not to have God in their
knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those
things which are not convenient; being filled with all iniquity, malice,
fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention,
deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious,
proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.
Who, having known the justice of God, did not
understand that they who do such things are worthy of death; and not
only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do
them. (Romans 1: 24-32)
Writing under the Divine inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Saint Paul the Apostle, condemned "shameful affections." Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and others in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including Timothy Michael Dolan, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York, speak of a "gay orientation." (Even though Dolan was quick to parrot his boss a few days ago, this is nothing new. I will make some time for him again soon enough.)
It is telling that the misnamed conciliar Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of a "homosexual orientation" while Saint Paul the Apostle wrote about shameful affections. And it is because at least one of those who served as a peritus under the liturgical revolutionary Annibale Bugnini, C.M., on the Consilium that planned the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo service, which boasts of a containing almost every passage of Sacred Scripture in its triennial cycle of Sunday readings and its biennial cycle of weekday readings, excludes verses twenty-four to thirty-two of the first chapter of Saint Paul the Apostle's Epistle to the Romans.
Oh, the name of that one person? Yes, sure, thanks for asking. Rembert George Weakland, O.S.B. (see Weak In Mind, Weakest Yet In Faith and Just A Matter of Forgiveness?)
Sixth, Vatican Radio ran a report about Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's interview that cast the remarks quoted above as follows:
Speaking of other problems within the administration of the Holy See,
including rumours of a ‘gay lobby’ within the Vatican, Pope Francis said
there are many saintly people working in the Curia but also those who
are not so saintly and cause scandals which harm the Church. Quoting
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he said that people with
homosexual tendencies must not be excluded but should be integrated into
society. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I
to judge him?” he asked. (Francis the Revolutionary holds press conference on flight back from Brazil.)
This whole subject came up because of the documented charge that "Monsignor" Battista Ricca, whom Bergoglio/Francis himself appointed as the head of the Institute of Religious Works
(the Vatican Bank) is a sodomite. Bergoglio/Francis is standing by his "man" in this instance, claiming that a "preliminary investigation" showed nothing even though the facts, documented by Sandro Magister, who did a sold piece of reporting on this matter, are to the contrary. Here is just a brief review:
"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".)
Put into this context, therefore, what the false "Bishop of Rome" said on this issue three days ago now means that Battista Ricca is his "brother" as long as he has "good will" and "seeks God," that he, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, has no problem with supposedly "past" sins of perversity as God forgives and forgets, requiring him to do the same.
In this, you see, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis demonstrates himself to be completely sanguine about the horror of personal sin and his total openness to having "gay men" in the clergy as long as they "seek God" and "have good will."
This implies fairly strongly that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis believes in the moral theological heresy known as the "fundamental option," which contends that one is never guilty of any kind of truly serious, no less mortal, sin unless his "option" is said to be against God. A sinner is just "fine" with God as long as he not opt to turn away from Him. It is no accident that this heresy was propagated in the 1970s by a Jesuit "theologian" by the name of Father Richard McCormack, who died in 2000, and it certainly does not matter to Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis that the "theology of the fundamental option" was condemned even by the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in Persona Humana on December 29, 1975 (see Persona Humana.)
Readers of this site should know, however, that every sin involves a turning away from God as we seek creatures, starting with our own sinful temptations, and that Mortal Sins involve a casting out of the very inner life of the Most Blessed Trinity that is found in baptized souls who are in states of Sanctifying Grace. The theology of the "fundamental option" ("seeking God with a good will") is destructive of individual souls and thus of nations. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis sees none of this. None of this whatsoever.
Contrary to what Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and many of his fellow revolutionaries in the conciliar clergy believe, those afflicted with effeminacy of any kind and/or any sort of inclination to the commission of perverse sins, no less the commission thereof, are unfit to serve in the Holy Priesthood and those discovered to be so inclined or are guilty of such sins must be removed from all pastoral work immediately. Predators must be removed and then sent to a monastery to live in isolation as they make reparation for their sins.
What Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and fellow revolutionaries such as Timothy Michael Dolan do not realize is that to believe that those who have a "gay orientation" represent no clear and present spiritual danger to the good of souls, starting with their own, is the same thing as saying that a person inclined to the commission of serial killings must be treated as "brothers" and even "mainstreamed" into society as long as they do not "act" on their murderous inclinations. In other words, the conciliar revolutionaries believe in absurdity, which is why they speak and act absurdly.
Father Gerald Fitzgerald, the founder of the Servants of the Paracletes,
warned the Catholic bishops of the 1950s not to place predators back
into any parish assignments, going so far as place a $5,000 deposit
towards the purchase an island to isolate these men as he did not
believe that they were capable of reforming their behavior, that the
best that could be done for them was to keep them away from possible
future victims as they made reparation for their sins and attempted to
save their immortal souls:
As early as the mid-1950s, decades before the clergy sexual-abuse
crisis broke publicly across the U.S. Catholic landscape, the founder of
a religious order that dealt regularly with priest sex abusers was so
convinced of their inability to change that he searched for an island to
purchase with the intent of using it as a place to isolate such
offenders, according to documents recently obtained by NCR.
Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paracletes, an
order established in 1947 to deal with problem priests, wrote regularly
to bishops in the United States and to Vatican officials, including the
pope, of his opinion that many sexual abusers in the priesthood should
be laicized immediately.
Fitzgerald was a prolific correspondent who wrote regularly of his
frustration with and disdain for priests "who have seduced or attempted
to seduce little boys or girls." His views are contained in letters and
other correspondence that had previously been under court seal and were
made available to NCR by a California law firm in February.
Fitzgerald's convictions appear to significantly contradict the claims
of contemporary bishops that the hierarchy was unaware until recent
years of the danger in shuffling priests from one parish to another and
in concealing the priests' problems from those they served.
It is clear, too, in letters between Fitzgerald and a range of
bishops, among bishops themselves, and between Fitzgerald and the
Vatican, that the hierarchy was aware of the problem and its
implications well before the problem surfaced as a national story in the
mid-1980s.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, reacting in
February to a federal investigation into his handling of the crisis,
said: "We have said repeatedly that ... our understanding of this
problem and the way it's dealt with today evolved, and that in those
years ago, decades ago, people didn't realize how serious this was, and
so, rather than pulling people out of ministry directly and fully, they
were moved."
Indeed, some psychology experts seemed to hold the position that
priest offenders could be returned to ministry. Even the Paracletes, as
the order developed and grew, employed experts who said that certain men
could be returned to ministry under stringent conditions and with
strict supervision.
The order itself ultimately was so inundated with lawsuits regarding
priests who molested children while or after being treated at its
facility in Jemez Springs, N.M., that it closed the facility in 1995.
Whatever discussion occurred during the 1970s and 1980s over proper
treatment, however, for nearly two decades Fitzgerald spoke a rather
consistent conviction about the dim prospects for returning sex abusers
to ministry. Fitzgerald seemed to know almost from the start the danger
such priests posed. He was adamant in his conviction that priests who
sexually abused children (often the language of that era was more
circumspect in naming the problem) should not be returned to ministry.
In a 1957 letter to an unnamed archbishop, Fitzgerald said, "These
men, Your Excellency, are devils and the wrath of God is upon them and
if I were a bishop I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome
for involuntary layization [sic]." The letter, addressed to "Most dear
Cofounder," was apparently to Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe,
N.M., who was considered a cofounder of the Paraclete facility at Jemez
Springs and a good friend of Fitzgerald.
Later in the same letter, in language that revealed deep passion, he
wrote: "It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the
island retreat -- but even an island is too good for these vipers of
whom the Gentle Master said it were better they had not been born --
this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not?"
The documents were sealed at the request of the church in an earlier
civil case involving Fr. Rudolph Kos of Dallas. Eleven plaintiffs won
awards in the case in which Kos was accused of molesting minors over a
12-year period. He had been treated at the Paraclete facility in New
Mexico. The documents were unsealed in 2007 by a court order obtained by
the Beverly Hills law firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, according
to Anthony DeMarco, an attorney with the firm that has handled hundreds
of cases for alleged victims of sexual abuse in the Los Angeles
archdiocese and elsewhere.
According to Helen Zukin, another member of the firm, the documents
have been used in some cases to dispute the church claim that it knew
nothing about the behavior of sex abusers or the warning signs of abuse
prior to the 1980s.
In a September 1952 letter to the then- bishop of Reno, Nev.,
Fitzgerald wrote: "I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for
any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of
the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the
Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual and
when a man has so far fallen away from the purpose of the priesthood the
very best that should be offered him is his Mass in the seclusion of a
monastery. Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be
extremely rare. ... Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from
diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the
approximate danger of scandal." The advice was ignored and the priest
was allowed to continue in ministry, and was ultimately accused of
abusing numerous children, for which the church paid out huge sums in
court awards.
While Fitzgerald told anyone who would listen of the futility of
returning sexually abusive priests to ministry, that conviction became
less absolute as the order, today headquartered in St. Louis, grew and
the scope of its work became more complex. Fitzgerald, by most accounts,
was deeply motivated by a sense of obligation to care for priests who
were in trouble. Originally a priest of the Boston archdiocese for 12
years, he became a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1934,
and started the Servants of the Paraclete in 1947. His concern at the
time was primarily for priests struggling with alcoholism. As his new
order matured and its ministry became known, bishops began referring
priests with other maladies, particularly those who had been sexually
abusive of children. The order for years was the primary source for care
of priests in the United States with alcohol and sexual problems.
At times, Fitzgerald appears to have resisted taking in priests who
had sexually abused youngsters. In his 1957 letter he requested
concurrence from the cofounder archbishop "of what I consider a very
vital decision on our part -- that for the sake of preventing scandal
that might endanger the good name of Via Coeli [the name of the New
Mexico facility] we will not offer hospitality to men who have seduced
or attempted to seduce" children. "Experience has taught us these men
are too dangerous to the children of the parish and neighborhood for us
to be justified in receiving them here."
In September 1957 the bishop of Manchester, N.H., Matthew F. Brady,
sought Fitzgerald's advice regarding "a problem priest," John T.
Sullivan, who seemed sincerely repentant and whose difficulty "is not
drink but a series of scandal-causing escapades with young girls. There
is no section of the diocese in which he is not known and no pastor
seems willing to accept him," Brady wrote. The "escapades" involved
molestation of young girls. In at least one instance, he procured an
abortion for a teenager he had impregnated. In another case, he fathered
a child and provided support to the mother until she later married. The
charges of molesting girls would follow him the rest of his life.
"The solution of his problem seems to be a fresh start in some
diocese where he is not known. It occurred to me that you might know of
some bishop who would be willing to give him that opportunity," Brady
wrote in his original letter.
Fitzgerald responded that in his judgment the "repentance and
amendment" in such cases "is superficial and, if not formally at least
subconsciously, is motivated by a desire to be again in a position where
they can continue their wonted activity. A new diocese means only green
pastures."
Fitzgerald added that the Paracletes had "adopted a definite policy
not to recommend to bishops men of this character, even presuming the
sincerity of their conversion. We feel that the protection of our
glorious priesthood will demand, in time, the establishment of a uniform
code of discipline and of penalties."
He acknowledged the degree of deference with which Catholic clergy
were treated even by civil authorities. "We are amazed to find how often
a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted
with the cura animarum [the care of souls]," he wrote.
Sullivan apparently had already been pulled from active ministry. In
October 1957, less than a month after contacting Fitzgerald, Brady wrote
a response to the bishop of Burlington, Vt., among the first of more
than a dozen bishops approached by Sullivan for the next five years,
warning against accepting him.
Brady then wrote a letter that he sent out time after time to bishops
inquiring about Sullivan after he had requested acceptance for
ministry. "My conscience will not allow me to recommend him to any
bishop and I feel that every inquiring bishop should know some of the
circumstances that range from parenthood, through violation of the Mann
Act, attempted suicide, and abortion.
"Father Fitzgerald of Via Coeli would accept him only as a permanent
guest to help save his soul but with no hope of recommending him to a
bishop."
According to a 2003 Washington Post story, Sullivan, who had
bounced around from diocese to diocese for nearly 30 years, "was
stripped of his faculties to serve as a priest after he kissed a
13-year-old girl in Laconia, N.H., in 1983, when he was 66. He died in
1999, never having faced a criminal charge." After his death the church
paid out more than a half-million dollars in awards to Sullivan's
victims, including three in Grand Rapids, Mich., and one in Amarillo,
Texas, two dioceses that did not heed the warnings of the bishops in New
Hampshire. The victims said they were abused when they were between 7
and 12 years old.
In April 1962, Fitzgerald wrote a five-page response to a query from
the Vatican's Congregation of the Holy Office about "the tremendous
problem presented by the priest who through lack of priestly
self-discipline has become a problem to Mother Church." One of his
recommendations was for "a more distinct teaching in the last years of
the seminary of the heavy penalty involved in tampering with the
innocence (or even non-innocence) of little ones."
Regarding priests who have "fallen into repeated sins ... and most
especially the abuse of children, we feel strongly that such unfortunate
priests should be given the alternative of a retired life within the
protection of monastery walls or complete laicization."
In August of the following year, he met with newly elected Pope Paul
VI to inform him about his work and problems he perceived in the
priesthood. His follow-up letter contained this assessment: "Personally I
am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been
addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young. However,
the needs of the church must be taken into consideration and an
activation of priests who have seemingly recovered in this field may be
considered but is only recommended where careful guidance and
supervision is possible. Where there is indication of incorrigibility,
because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly
recommend total laicization."
But by 1963, Fitzgerald's powerful hold on the direction of the order was weakening. According to a 1993 affidavit by Fr. Joseph McNamara, who
succeeded Fitzgerald as Servant General, the appointment of a new
archbishop, James Davis, began a new era of the relationship between the
order, which was a "congregation of diocesan right," and the
archdiocese. Davis and Fitzgerald apparently clashed over a number of
issues. Davis was far more concerned than his predecessor about the
business aspects of the Santa Fe facility and demanded greater
accountability. He also demanded greater involvement of medical and
psychological professionals, while "Fr. Gerald [Fitzgerald] distrusted
lay programs, psychologists and psychiatrists," favoring a more
spiritual approach, according to McNamara.
McNamara said Fitzgerald was eventually forced from leadership by a
combination of factors, not least of which was a growing disagreement
with the bishop and other members of the order over the direction of the
Paracletes. After 1965, said McNamara, Fitzgerald "never again resided
at Via Coeli Monastery, nor did he ever regain the power he had once
had."
Nor did he get his island. In 1965 Fitzgerald had put a $5,000
deposit on an island in Barbados, near Carriacou, in the Caribbean that
had a total purchase price of $50,000. But the new bishop apparently
wanted nothing to do with owning an island, and Fitzgerald, who died in
1969, was forced to sell his long-sought means for isolating priest sex
offenders.
When asked for comment, a spokesman for the Paraceltes referred NCR to historic accounts previously written about the order. (Bishops were warned of abusive priests.)
True bishops before the "Second" Vatican Council had been warned by Father Fitzgerald. They did not care. The seeds of corruption were planted long ago. They only managed to come to the forefront and receive liturgical expression and now even "papal" approbation in the decades thriftier.
Far, far, from the mind of such pathetic men as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who have no regard at all for the horror of personal sin are the insights and work of the great Saint Peter Damian:
According to Damian, the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because:
"Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul.
It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the
Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to
the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes
truth from the deluded mind ... It opens up hell and closes the gates of
paradise ... It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty,
strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity ... It defiles all things,
sullies all things, pollutes all things ... This vice excludes a man
from the assembled choir of the Church ... it separates the soul from
God to associate it with demons. This utterly diseased queen of Sodom
renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious
to God... She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them
to be pierced by the spears of every vice ... She humiliates her slave
in the church and condemns him in court; she defiles him in secret and
dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and
consumes his flesh like fire. ... this unfortunate man (he) is deprived
of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind's vision is darkened.
Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes
the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond
of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes
temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I say more?"
No, dearest St. Peter Damian, I think not.
Like every saint before him, and every saint that will ever come after
him, St. Peter Damian exhorts the cleric caught in the vice of sodomy
to repent and reform his life and in the words of the Blessed Apostle
Paul, "Wake up from your sleep and rise from the dead, and Christ will
revive (enlighten) you." (Eph 5:14) In a remarkable affirmation of the
Gospel message, he warns against the ultimate sin of despairing of God's
mercy and the necessity of fasting and prayer to subdue the passions:
"... beware of drowning in the depths of despondency. Your heart should
beat with confidence in God's love and not grow hard and impenitent, in
the face of your great crime. It is not sinners, but the wicked who
should despair; it is not the magnitude of one's crime, but contempt of
God that dashes one's hopes."
Then, in one of the most beautiful elocutions on the grandeur of
priestly celibacy and chastity ever written, Damian reminds the wayward
cleric or monk of the special place reserved in Heaven for those
faithful priests and monks who have willingly forsaken all and made
themselves eunuchs for Christ's sake. Their names shall be remembered
forever because they have given up all for the love of God, he says.
One of the very interesting historical sidebars to Damian's treatise
is that he made no preference to the popular practice of distinguishing
"notorious" from "non-notorious" cases of clerical immorality--a policy
which can be traced back to the 9th century and the canonical reforms on
ecclesiastical and clerical discipline by the great German Benedictine
scholar and Archbishop of Mainz, Blessed Maurus Magnentius Rabanus
(776?-856). Under this policy, the removal of clerics found guilty of
criminal acts including sodomy, depended on whether or not his offense
was publicly known, or was carried out and confessed in secret.
In cases that had become "notorious," the offending cleric was
defrocked and/or handed over to the secular authorities for punishment.
But if his crime was known only to a few persons such as his confessor
or religious superior, the offending cleric was privately reprimanded,
served a penance and then was permitted to continue at his post, or
transferred to a similar post in a different diocese. Given the
aggressive and predatory nature of the vice of sodomy, it is highly
likely that such a policy contributed to, rather than inhibited,
sodomical practices among clerics and religious between the mid-800s and
the early 1000s. In any case, it was unlikely that Damian, who openly
expressed his condemnation of too lenient canonical regulations related
to the punishment of clerical sodomites and was so judicious in
preserving the integrity of the priesthood and religious life, would
have approved such a policy.
Saints are realists, which is no doubt why St. Peter Damian
anticipated that his "small book" which exposes and denounces homosexual
practices in all ranks of the clergy including the hierarchy, would
cause a great commotion in the Church. And it did.
In anticipation of harsh criticism, the holy monk puts forth his own
defense as a 'whistle-blower'. He states that his would-be critics will
accuse him of "being an informer and a delator of my brother's crimes,"
but, he says, he has no fear of either "the hatred of evil men or the
tongues of detractors."
Hear, dear reader, the words of St. Peter Damian that come thundering
down to us through the centuries at a time in the Church when many
shepherds are silent while clerical wolves, some disguised in miters and
brocade robes, devour its lambs and commit sacrilege against their own
spiritual sons:
"... I would surely prefer to be thrown into the well like Joseph who
informed his father of his brothers' foul crime, than to suffer the
penalty of God's fury, like Eli, who saw the wickedness of his sons and
remained silent. (Sam 2:4) ... Who am I, when I see this pestilential
practice flourishing in the priesthood to become the murderer of
another's soul by daring to repress my criticism in expectation of the
reckoning of God's judgement? ... How, indeed, am I to love my neighbor
as myself if I negligently allow the wound, of which I am sure he will
brutally die, to fester in his heart? ... "So let no man condemn me as I
argue against this deadly vice, for I seek not to dishonor, but rather
to promote the advantage of my brother's well-being. "Take care not to
appear partial to the delinquent while you persecute him who sets him
straight. If I may be pardoned in using Moses' words, 'Whoever is for
the Lord, let him stand with me.' (Ezek 32:26)"
As he draws his case against the vice of clerical sodomy to a close,
St. Peter Damian pleads with another future saint, Pope Leo IX, urging
the Vicar of Christ to use his office to reform and strengthen the
decrees of the sacred canons with regard to the disposition of clerical
sodomites including religious superiors and bishops who sexually violate
their spiritual sons.
Damian asks the Holy Father to "diligently" investigate the four forms
of the vice of sodomy cited at the beginning of his treatise and then
provides him (Damian) with definitive answers to the following questions
by which the "darkness of uncertainty" might be dispelled and an
"indecisive conscience" freed from error:
1) Is one who is guilty of these crimes to be expelled irrevocably from holy orders?
2) Whether at a prelate's discretion, moreover, one might mercifully be allowed to function in office?
3) To what extent, both in respect to the methods mentioned above and
to the number of lapses, is it permissible to retain a man in the
dignity of ecclesiastical office?
4) Also, if one is guilty, what degree and what frequency of guilt should compel him under the circumstances to retire?
Damian closes his famous letter by asking Almighty God to use Pope Leo
IX's pontificate "to utterly destroy this monstrous vice" that a
prostrate Church may everywhere rise to vigorous stature." (Mrs. Randy
Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, pp. 53-55)
Does Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis want to destroy this monstrous vice?
Hardly.
He wants to befriend those who attracted to it and to see it "mainstreamed" in society, which is pretty much a fait accompli these days (see, for example, Irreversible By Means Merely Human).
By contrast, consider how Pope Leo IX responded to the report presented to him by Saint Peter Damian:
The approximate date that
Damian delivered the Book of Gomorrah to Pope Leo IX is generally held
to be the second half of the first year of the pontiff's reign, i.e.,
mid-1049, although some writers put the date as late as 1051. We do
know, absolutely, that the Pope did respond to Damian's concerns, as
that response in the form of a lengthy letter (JL 4311; ItPont 4.94f.,
no.2) is generally attached to manuscripts of the work.
Pope Leo IX opens his letter to "his beloved son in Christ, Peter the
hermit," with warm salutations and a recognition of Damian's pure,
upright and zealous character. He agrees with Damian that clerics,
caught up in the "execrable vice" of sodomy "verily and most assuredly
will have no share in his inheritance, from which by their voluptuous
pleasures they have withdrawn. " Such clerics, indeed profess, if not in
words, at least by the evidence of their actions, that they are not
what they are thought to be," he declares.
Reiterating the category of the four forms of sodomy that Damian
lists, [59] the Holy Father declares that it is proper that by "our
apostolic authority" we intervene in the matter so that "all anxiety and
doubt be removed from the minds of your readers".
"So let it be certain and evident to all that we are in agreement with
everything your book contains, opposed as it is like water to the fire
of the devil," the Pope continues. "Therefore, lest the wantonness of
this foul impurity be allowed to spread unpunished, it must be repelled
by proper repressive action of apostolic severity, and yet some
moderation must be placed on its harshness," he states.
Next, Pope Leo IX gives a detailed explanation of the Holy See's authoritative ruling on the matter.
In light of divine mercy, the Holy Father commands, without
contradiction, that those who, of their own free will, have practiced
solitary or mutual masturbation or defiled themselves by interfemoral
coitus, but who have not done so for any length of time, nor with many
others, shall retain their status, after having "curbed their desires"
and "atoned for their infamous deeds with proper repentance".
However, the Holy See
removes all hope for retaining their clerical status from those who
alone or with others for a long time, or even a short period with many,
"have defiled themselves by either of the two kinds of filthiness which
you have described, or, which is horrible to hear or speak of, have sunk
to the level of anal intercourse."
He warns potential critics, that those who dare to criticize or attack
the apostolic ruling stand in danger of losing their rank. And so as to
make it clear to whom this warning is directed, the Pope immediately
adds, "For he who does not attack vice, but deals with it lightly, is
rightly judged to be guilty of his death, along with the one who dies in
sin."
Pope Leo IX praises Damian for teaching by example and not mere words,
and concludes his letter with the beautiful hope that when, with God's
help, the monk reaches his heavenly abode, he may reap his rewards and
be crowned, "Ö in a sense, with all those who were snatched by you from
the snares of the devil."
Clearly, on the objective immorality of sodomical acts, both Damian
and Pope Leo IX were in perfect accord with one another. However, in
terms of Church discipline, the pope appears to have taken exception
with Damian's appeal for the wholesale deposition of all clerics who
commit sodomical acts. I say, appears, because I believe that even in
the matter of punishing known clerical offenders, both men were more in
agreement than not.
Certainly, Damian, who was renown for his exemplary spiritual
direction of the novitiates and monks entrusted to his care, was not
unaware of certain mitigating circumstances that would diminish if not
totally remove the culpability of individuals charged with the crime of
sodomy.
For example, as with
certain clerical sex abuse cases that have come to light today involving
the Society of St. John and the Legionaries of Christ, which the Holy
See has yet to investigate, some novices or monks may have been forced
or pressured by their superiors to commit such acts. No doubt, it is
circumstances such as these that prompted Pope Leo IX to use the term,
"who of his own free will" in describing a cleric guilty of sodomy. Also
among the four varieties of sodomy Damian discusses in his treatise, he
states that interfemoral and anal coitus are to be judged more serious
than solitary or mutual masturbation.
All in all, what this writer found to be most remarkable about
the pope's letter to Damian, was the absolutist position Pope Leo IX
took concerning the ultimate responsibility of the offending cleric's
bishop or religious superior. If the latter criticized or attacked this
apostolic decree, he risked losing his rank! Prelates who fail to
"attack vice, but deal lightly with it," share the guilt and sentence of
the one who dies in sin, the pope declared. (Mrs. Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, pp. 57-58)
What have the conciliar "popes" done when faced the same sort of evidence?
Well, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II ignored the evidence. He
promoted the conciliar bishops and cardinals who protected the perverts.
He ignored the incontrovertible evidence presented to him about the
corruption and perversion of conciliar bishops such as Daniel Leo Ryan,
who presided over the spiritual devastation of the Diocese of
Springfield in Illinois, until lawsuits filed by victims forced
resignations that John Paul II never demanded. The enabler of perverts
in the Diocese of Phoenix, conciliar Bishop Thomas O'Brien, did not
resign until he hit a man, Thomas Reed, crossing a street in Phoenix
with his car and drove on without reporting the incident (Mr. Reed was
hit by a second car and died from his injuries). Bernard Cardinal Law,
the prince of "nuance" who enabled Father Paul Shanley, a co-founder of
the North American Man-Boy Love Association, and scores of other
priests, was appointed by John Paul II to be the Archpriest of the
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, from which he still exercises
great influence in the appointment of conciliar bishops in the United
States of America. (Law also enjoys the "favor and protection" of Opus
Dei.) (See "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts and Nearly A Decade After Law Was Broken.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did much in his own turn to enable
the perverts. He appointed William Levada to be his own successor of the
conciliar Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith despite Levada's
letting the Homosexual Collective have its way repeatedly during his
sorry tenure as the conciliar archbishop of San Francisco from December
27, 1995, to May 13, 2005. Levada helped to water down an already weak
"instruction," Criteria for Discernment of Vocations for Persons with Homosexual, August 31, 2005, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (and the same day that Bishop Bernard Fellay meet privately with Ratzinger/Benedict at Castel Gandolfo), on the admission of men inclined to perversity to study
for the priesthood and played a key role in helping his longtime friend,
the pervert-friendly George Niederauer, who praised the propaganda
piece in behalf of perversion entitled Brokeback Mountain, to succeed himself as the conciliar archbishop of San Francisco. Levada even gave permission for a Novus Ordo "Mass" to offered in a Catholic church in London to cater to the "needs" of practicing homosexuals and lesbians.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis wants to enable this all even more in the name of "brotherhood" and "inclusivity."
By what stretch of logic can anyone still fighting in the jungles of Mindanao seek to continue fighting delegations from their local parishes participating with parish banners in the local "gay pride parade"?
By what stretch of logic can anyone still fighting in the jungles of Mindanao write to their local chancery office or to "Rome" to complain about some presbyter's speaking highly of the "gay lifestyle"?
By what stretch of logic does anyone think that notorious havens of the homosexual collective such as Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco, California, Saint Brigid's in Westbury, New York, Saint Francis Xavier Church and Saint Paul the Apostle Church in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, and, among so many others, Saint Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will be in any way "disciplined" for "running" with their "pope's" seal of approval upon their "work" of "inclusivity"?
Ladies and gentlemen, none of this can come from the Catholic Church.
Indeed, consider how a true pope, Pope Saint Pius V, said that problems of clergy who fall into the sin of Sodom more than once should be handled:
That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene
cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us
most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a
crime with the greatest possible zeal.
Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this
decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature
. . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery"
(chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may
not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which
is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish
the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not
frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be
handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces
civil law.
Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have
decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any
priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits
such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of
every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical
benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge,
let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to
death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have
sunk into this abyss. (Pope Saint Pius V, Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568)
Death, not "brotherhood" and "mainstreaming" for the sake of "inclusivity," was what Pope Saint Pius V, faithful to the teaching of Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Roman cited above, believed should be imposed on the clergy as well as the laity who were caught in "such an execrable crime" that caused him "such better sorrow" shocked his papal mind as he sought to "repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal."
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and others, such as Timothy Michael Dolan, want to provide "brotherhood" and "acceptance."
Just a slightly different
approach, wouldn't you say? A true pope understood the horror of such a
detestable sin on the part of the clergy and sought to administer
punishment to serve as a medicinal corrective for other priests and to
demonstrate to the laity the horrific nature of such a moral crime. A
false "bishop" seeks to protect his "institution" and the "clerical
club." Quite a different approach.
Mind you,
I am not suggesting the revival of this penalty in a world where it
would not be understood and where the offender would be made a "martyr"
for the cause of perversity, only pointing out the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that clerics and others in ecclesiastical authority who
are guilty of serious moral crimes are deserving of punishment, not
protection, by their bishops. Such is the difference yet again between
Catholicism and conciliarism.
Yes, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis says ˇViva la Revolución! as he speaks, thinks and acts as a complete creature of the doctrinal, moral, liturgical and pastoral revolutions of Modernism that all too frequently converge with Judeo-Masonic social revolutions of Modernity and with which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its happy and very official "reconciliation."
Yes, we pray for those afflicted with the temptation to unnatural vice or who have plunged themselves headlong into a life of such vice. We give such people blessed Green Scapulars. We find opportunities to exhort them to quit their sins as we ourselves seek to quit our own. We do not, though, treat those so afflicted with special categories or use the language of the homosexual collective's revolution to refer to them and their need for being "included" in society. Indeed, "society" has found room aplenty for such people while telling Christ the King and His Holy Cross to get lost, seeking also to intimidate Catholics into being silent about this detestable sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance.
We must redouble our own efforts in prayer and
sacrifice and penance and fasting and mortification to plant the seeds
as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for the restoration
of Christendom, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life
permit in reparation for our many sins, each of which has wounded Our
Lord once in time and wounds His Church Militant on earth today, and
those of the whole world:
Francisco Marto spent long hours in church to console the "good God." So must we:
With his sister Jacinta and his cousin Lucia, he had been blessed with three appearances by an Angel, and six by Our Lady.
At his third appearance, the Angel said to these
three young shepherd children: "Console your God". These words impressed
Francisco very deeply, and guided his whole life. He wanted to be the
"Consoler of Jesus". He felt most hurt when he saw Jesus offended, and
his ideal was to give Him consolation. He wanted to avoid sin, and
others to avoid it, to save his Saviour sadness. He made very sacrifice
he could to give consolation to Jesus. To do this he would stay along
for long hours in church, or hide himself in some lonely place. Shortly
before he died, he said "In haven I'm going to console Our Lord and Our
Lady very much." (Holy Card of Francisco Marto.)
Anyone who thinks that he is
"consoling" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ while he remains
"neutral" about or supportive of any of the four sins that cry out to
Heaven for vengeance is deceiving himself quite possibly to the point of
his own eternal perdition, Such a person is in need of our prayers, to
be sure. However, such a person is a proximate source of social chaos,
not an instrument of justice founded in the binding precepts of the
Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. Sloganeering and sentimentality
do not secure one's salvation. Indeed, they are instruments of the
devil to lead sloganeers and sentimentalists into Hell as they take many
others with them.
Conscious of making reparation for our own sins,
which, although forgiven and thus no longer exist, are in need of our
making satisfaction here in this passing, mortal vale of tears before we
die, may our Rosaries each day help lift the scales from the likes of
the confused Catholics and non-Catholics in public life, thereby
hastening their return or conversion to the Catholic Church, outside of
which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true or
lasting social order.
To Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart belongs the triumph that will vanquish the lords of Modernism once and for all.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
