Francis the Illusionist

Part One

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The now retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has spent his entire sixty-two years as a priest promoting apostasy, which he tried to justify by means of what he eventually termed the "hermeneutic of continuity" to assert that conciliarism's rupture with Catholic doctrine, liturgical and pastoral praxis is only apparent, not real. Joseph Ratzinger explained repeatedly as "Benedict XVI" that it was necessary to "understand" that dogmatic formulations have been "conditioned" by the time and the circumstances in which they were issued, thereby blaspheming the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Whose infallible protection guided each of our true popes and Holy Mother Church's twenty general councils when proclaiming or elucidating on articles contained in the Deposit of Faith.

Ratzinger/Benedict XVI summarized this apostate belief, which he expressed many times before he succeeded Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism on Tuesday, April 19, 2005, most succinctly in his infamous Christmas address to the members of his curia on December 22, 2005:

 

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within. On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding.. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005)

It was by use of his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity" that Ratzinger/Benedict justified the "new ecclesiology," false ecumenism and inter-religious "prayer" services, episcopal collegiality, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, heretical interpretations of Sacred Scripture, the distortion and misrepresentation of various Church Fathers and Doctors and saints, including the martyrs of the early Church, and, of course, the abominable Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. Ratzinger/Benedict even distorted the facts of history itself on numerous occasions. This is why the former conciliar "pope" could be called Benedict the Contortionist.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on the other hand, can be called Francis the Illusionist as he does not even try to justify the contradictions between Catholicism and conciliarism. This man simply does not care about anything other than what comes into his revolutionary Jesuit mind at any time. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis cares not for doctrine. He has sent Catholics seeking exorcisms to a Lutheran, Manuel Acuña, who fashions himself to be an exorcist even though Lutheranism is of the devil. Having received what he calls an "emancipated" training in the liturgy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has participated in all manner of "liberated" liturgical travesties and has absolutely no use for those who seek to restore the past and return to the "no church" that has been replaced by his "yes church."

Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's contempt for Catholic doctrine provided was on full display in the quotation from his meeting with several representatives of religious communities from Latin America that was included in yesterday's article, Defending Their Boy Saul, Alinsky, That Is. Here is that quotation again as it serves as an perfect introduction to explain the fast-breaking pace of events in the counterfeit church of conciliarism that are unfolding before our very eyes:

 

They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder [meter la pata], this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up... (Bergoglio to Latin American Religious: Full text Update: Religious confirm they were the source. You can be assured that a fuller commentary on this passage will follow in a day or so.)

In other words, do and believe whatever you want even if you are wrong and make mistakes. It is important to "open the doors," to "do something there where life calls for it" rather than belonging to a church that "gets sick for being closed up." Pay no attention to dogmatic decrees. What matters, of course, is "doing something" as one "opens doors." In believing this and stating it publicly, though, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is showing the world that the doors he wants opened lead to only one place, Hell itself.

Perhaps it is instructive to look behind several of those doors that are being opening at this time.

With apologies to Monty Hall, therefore, looks like first behind. . . .

Door Number One

Ah, what lurks behind door number one?

Well, what do you know?

It's Francis the Illusionist making the reality of the French Parliament's recent passage of a bill sanctioning "gay marriage" disappear before our very eyes as he gives an address to some members of that legislative body without even mentioning directly this offense against the laws of God and the common temporal good of France, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church:

I am pleased to receive members of the Senate and national Assembly of the French Republic this morning. Over and above the different political sensibilities which you represent, your presence demonstrates the quality of the relationship between your country and the Holy See.

This meeting is, for me, an opportunity to highlight the relationship of trust which, on the whole, exists in France between leaders of public life and those of the Catholic Church, be it in at a national level, be it at a regional or local level. The principles of secularism which governs the relations between the French State and the various religious denominations should not imply that there is a hostility towards the religious reality, or an exclusion of religions from the social sphere and the debates which enliven them. One can rejoice in the fact that French society is rediscovering proposals made by the Church, which, among other things, offer a certain vision of the person and his or her dignity in light of the common good. The Church desires, therefore, to offer its own particular contribution to the deeper questions which demand a more complete vision of the person and his or her destiny, of society and its destiny. This contribution is collocated not only in the anthropological and social sphere, but in political, economic, and cultural spheres as well.

As elected officials from a nation towards which the eyes of the world are often turned, I believe it to be your responsibility to contribute in an effective and consistent way towards improving the lives of your citizens whom you know through the numerous local contacts you cultivate, and which help you to better know their needs. Your duty is certainly technical and juridical, and involves proposing, amending and abolishing legislation. However, it is also necessary to instil something extra in them, I would say a spirit, a soul, that does not limit itself to reflecting the modalities and ideas of the moment, but which also confers upon them the indispensable quality that elevates and dignifies the human person.

I therefore extend to you my warmest encouragement in fulfilling your mission, always seeking the good of the person and promoting fraternity in your country. (Francis the Illusionist meets French parliament members.)

 

Yes, the best that Francis the Illusionist could do was to speak in Judeo-Masonic terms about the purposes of a legislature to respect the role of "religions" in the public process, explaining that secularism, which was referred to variously as "healthy secularity" or "healthy laicism" by both Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, should not be implicitly hostile towards what he called "the religious reality" even though barbarism is the only thing that can result from any nation's embrace of separation of Church and State.

In this regard, you see, Francis the Illusionist has made disappear these papal condemnations of "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" in Holy Mother Church's elder daughter, France, which has long been the land of false liberty, false equality and Judeo-Masonic fraternity:

The necessary effect of the constitution decreed by the Assembly is to annihilate the Catholic Religion and, with her, the obedience owed to Kings. With this purpose it establishes as a right of man in society this absolute liberty that not only insures the right to be indifferent to religious opinions, but also grants full license to freely think, speak, write and even print whatever one wishes on religious matters – even the most disordered imaginings. It is a monstrous right, which the Assembly claims, however, results from equality and the natural liberties of all men.

"But what could be more unwise than to establish among men this equality and this uncontrolled liberty, which stifles all reason, the most precious gift nature gave to man, the one that distinguishes him from animals?

"After creating man in a place filled with delectable things, didn’t God threaten him with death should he eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil? And with this first prohibition didn’t He establish limits to his liberty? When, after man disobeyed the command and thereby incurred guilt, didn’t God impose new obligations on him through Moses? And even though he left to man’s free will the choice between good and evil, didn’t God provide him with precepts and commandments that could save him “if he would observe them”? …

"Where then, is this liberty of thinking and acting that the Assembly grants to man in society as an indisputable natural right? Is this invented right not contrary to the right of the Supreme Creator to whom we owe our existence and all that we have? Can we ignore the fact that man was not created for himself alone, but to be helpful to his neighbor? …

"Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words." (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right").

For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

 

Far from being "diplomatic" and speaking in naturalistic terms by basing opposition to social evils on what amounts to anthropocentrism (man and his activities as the center of all) without referring once to little things such as the Ten Commandments or the Sacred Deposit of Faith as has Francis the Illusionist, Pope Saint Pius X condemned separation of Church and State in France with great vehemence and bluntness and two separate occasions, explaining that this madness would lead only to open licentiousness:

 

Our soul is full of sorrowful solicitude and Our heart overflows with grief, when Our thoughts dwell upon you. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, immediately after the promulgation of that law which, by sundering violently the old ties that linked your nation with the Apostolic See, creates for the Catholic Church in France a situation unworthy of her and ever to be lamented? That is, beyond question, an event of the gravest import, and one that must be deplored by all the right-minded, for it is as disastrous to society as it is to religion; but it is an event which can have surprised nobody who has paid any attention to the religious policy followed in France of late years. For you, Venerable Brethren, it will certainly have been nothing new or strange, witnesses as you have been of the many dreadful blows aimed from time to time by the public authority at religion. You have seen the sanctity and the inviolability of Christian marriage outraged by legislative acts in formal contradiction with them; the schools and hospitals laicized; clerics torn from their studies and from ecclesiastical discipline to be subjected to military service; the religious congregations dispersed and despoiled, and their members for the most part reduced to the last stage of destitution. Other legal measures which you all know have followed: the law ordaining public prayers at the beginning of each Parliamentary Session and of the assizes has been abolished; the signs of mourning traditionally observed on board the ships on Good Friday suppressed; the religious character effaced from the judicial oath; all actions and emblems serving in any way to recall the idea of religion banished from the courts, the schools, the army, the navy, and in a word from all public establishments. These measures and others still which, one after another really separated the Church from the State, were but so many steps designedly made to arrive at complete and official separation, as the authors of them have publicly and frequently admitted.

2. On the other hand the Holy See has spared absolutely no means to avert this great calamity. While it was untiring in warning those who were at the head of affairs in France, and in conjuring them over and over again to weigh well the immensity of the evils that would infallibly result from their separatist policy, it at the same time lavished upon France the most striking proofs of indulgent affection. It has then reason to hope that gratitude would have stayed those politicians on their downward path, and brought them at last to relinquish their designs. But all has been in vain-the attentions, good offices, and efforts of Our Predecessor and Ourself. The enemies of religion have succeeded at last in effecting by violence what they have long desired, in defiance of your rights as a Catholic nation and of the wishes of all who think rightly. At a moment of such gravity for the Church, therefore, filled with the sense of Our Apostolic responsibility, We have considered it Our duty to raise Our voice and to open Our heart to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people-to all of you whom We have ever cherished with special affection but whom We now, as is only right, love more tenderly than ever.

3. That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."  (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

As was his wont throughout his priestly life of absolute fidelity to Christ the King, Pope Saint Pius X minced no words when addressing himself to the injustice done both to God and to the nation of France itself by the law of separation. Our sainted pontiff decried the effect of French laws on marriage, family and the education, and he stated in no uncertain terms that at the separation of Church and State is a "thesis absolutely false." Something that is false in 1906 does not become "true" at a later point by the invocation of a "hermeneutic of continuity" (or "living tradition") or by Francis the Illusionist's simply ignoring that which he believes was wrong to begin with as it was part of the "no church" of the past.

Paragraph Three of Vehementer Nos, which has been cited on these pages so many, many times in the past, makes it clear that the Roman Pontiffs "have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State." That the conciliar "pontiffs" have embraced and promoted this falsehood is just another proof of the fact that they have not been true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter as Vicars of Christ cannot teach that which has been condemned in the past.

Much unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis the Illusionist, Pope Saint Pius X explained why the law of separation was particularly unjust in France:

 

4. And if it is true that any Christian State does something eminently disastrous and reprehensible in separating itself from the Church, how much more deplorable is it that France, of all nations in the world, would have entered on this policy; France which has been during the course of centuries the object of such great and special predilection on the part of the Apostolic See whose fortunes and glories have ever been closely bound up with the practice of Christian virtue and respect for religion. Leo XIII had truly good reason to say: "France cannot forget that Providence has united its destiny with the Holy See by ties too strong and too old that she should ever wish to break them. And it is this union that has been the source of her real greatness and her purest glories.... To disturb this traditional union would be to deprive the nation of part of her moral force and great influence in the world.". (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

With prophetic insight, Pope Saint Pius X saw the evil consequences that befall France as a result of the law of separation:

 

13. Hence, mindful of Our Apostolic charge and conscious of the imperious duty incumbent upon Us of defending and preserving against all assaults the full and absolute integrity of the sacred and inviolable rights of the Church, We do, by virtue of the supreme authority which God has confided to Us, and on the grounds above set forth, reprove and condemn the law voted in France for the separation of Church and State, as deeply unjust to God whom it denies, and as laying down the principle that the Republic recognizes no cult. We reprove and condemn it as violating the natural law, the law of nations, and fidelity to treaties; as contrary to the Divine constitution of the Church, to her essential rights and to her liberty; as destroying justice and trampling underfoot the rights of property which the Church has acquired by many titles and, in addition, by virtue of the Concordat. We reprove and condemn it as gravely offensive to the dignity of this Apostolic See, to Our own person, to the Episcopacy, and to the clergy and all the Catholics of France. Therefore, We protest solemnly and with all Our strength against the introduction, the voting and the promulgation of this law, declaring that it can never be alleged against the imprescriptible rights of the Church.

14. We had to address these grave words to you, Venerable Brethren, to the people of France and of the whole Christian world, in order to make known in its true light what has been done. Deep indeed is Our distress when We look into the future and see there the evils that this law is about to bring upon a people so tenderly loved by Us. And We are still more grievously affected by the thought of the trials, sufferings and tribulations of all kinds that are to be visited on you, Venerable Brethren, and on all your clergy. Yet, in the midst of these crushing cares, We are saved from excessive affliction and discouragement when Our mind turns to Divine Providence, so rich in mercies, and to the hope, a thousand times verified, that Jesus Christ will not abandon His Church or ever deprive her of His unfailing support. We are, then, far from feeling any fear for the Church. Her strength and her stability are Divine, as the experience of ages triumphantly proves. The world knows of the endless calamities, each more terrible than the last, that have fallen upon her during this long course of time -- but where all purely human institutions must inevitably have succumbed, the Church has drawn from her trials only fresh strength and richer fruitfulness. As to the persecuting laws passed against her, history teaches, even in recent times, and France itself confirms the lesson, that though forged by hatred, they are always at last wisely abrogated, when they are found to be prejudicial to the interests of the State. God grant those who are at present in power in France may soon follow the example set for them in this matter by their predecessors. God grant that they may, amid the applause of all good people, make haste to restore to religion, the source of civilization and prosperity, the honor which is due to her together with her liberty. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

This is how true popes wrote. This is how true popes governed. There was not an ounce of "diplomacy" within the episcopal soul of Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto. The farm boy from Riese, Italy, was direct and to the point. No compromise with evil. No "understanding" of the "circumstances of the moment. No "nuances." No thought of teaching a doctrine that was "time-conditioned." Not a hint of any assertion that the formulation of doctrines is so fraught with complexity that it can never be expressed adequately at any one time.

No, Pope Saint Pius X explained himself directly. Readers can judge for themselves that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is an antipope because he is a figure of Antichrist, a man who is following the path by his predecessors in daring to endorse and promote propositions that have been condemned by the Catholic Church and that even history itself has shown to be detrimental to men and their nations.

Indeed, Pope Saint Pius X stated in Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907, that he would leave it to history to decide how damaging the law of separation of Church and State would be to France over time:

17. The vague and ambiguous-wording of some of its articles places the end pursued by our enemies in a new light. Their object is, as we have already pointed out, the destruction of the Church and the dechristianization of France, but without people's attending to it or even noticing it. If their enterprise had been really popular, as they pretend it to be, they would not have hesitated to pursue it with visor raised and to take the whole responsibility. But instead of assuming that responsibility, they try to clear themselves of it and deny it, and in order to succeed the better, fling it upon the Church their victim. This is the most striking of all the proofs that their evil work does not respond to the wishes of the country.

18. It is in vain that after driving Us to the cruel necessity of rejecting the laws that have been made -- seeing the evils they have drawn down upon the country, and feeling the universal reprobation which, like a slow tide, is rising round them -- they seek to lead public opinion astray and to make the responsibility for these evils fall upon Us. Their attempt will not succeed.

19. As for Ourselves, We have accomplished Our duty, as every other Roman Pontiff would have done. The high charge with which it has pleased Heaven to invest Us, in spite of Our unworthiness, as also the Christian faith itself, which you profess with Us, dictated to Us Our conduct. We could not have acted otherwise without trampling under foot Our conscience, without being false to the oath which We took on mounting the chair of Peter, and without violating the Catholic hierarchy, the foundation given to the Church by our Savior Jesus Christ.

We await, then, without fear, the verdict of history. History will tell how We, with Our eyes fixed immutably upon the defense of the higher rights of God, have neither wished to humiliate the civil power, nor to combat a form of government, but to safeguard the inviolable work of Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. It will say that We have defended you, Our beloved sons, with all the strength of Our great love; that what We have demanded and now demand for the Church, of which the French Church is the elder daughter and an integral part, is respect for its hierarchy and inviolability of its property and liberty; that if Our demand had been granted religious peace would not have been troubled in France, and that, the day it is listened to that peace so much desired will be restored in the country.

20. And, lastly, history will say, that if, sure beforehand of your magnanimous generosity. We have not hesitated to tell you that the hour for sacrifice had struck, it is to remind the world, in the name of the Master of all things, that men here below should feed their minds upon thoughts of a higher sort than those of the perishable contingencies of life, and that the supreme and intangible joy of the human soul on earth is that of duty supernaturally carried out, cost what it may and so God honored, served and loved, in spite of all. (Pope Saint Pius X, Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907.)

 

The verdict of history is clearly on the side of the great Pope Saint Pius X, and no amount of rhetorical tricks from Francis the Illusionist can change that verdict. Pope Saint Pius X manfully defended the Social Reign of Christ the King that has been abandoned and flushed down the Orwellian memory hole by the conciliar revolutionaries. All that Francis the Illusionist is doing at the present time is celebrating the "victory" of what he thinks has been "progress" in the world even though the world is collapsing all around him.

To wit, the law of separation of Church and State in one of France's neighbors, the Kingdom of Belgium, has resulted in this once proud Catholic country's descent into the moral abyss that Pope Gregory XVI noted in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, was bound to occur once "religious liberty" and "freedom of conscience" was adopted and promulgated. The surgical execution of innocent preborn through the twelfth week of pregnancy since 1990. Euthanasia for persons over eighteen years of age has been legal there since 2002, and "marriage" between persons of the same gender was legalized on June 3, 2003, just a little over ten years ago now.

Each of these steps down in the moral abyss was bound to lead to others as the process of degeneration is simply unstoppable by merely natural means. Men and their nations must convert and turn away from their sins as they submit in humility and with docility to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the Catholic Church. Absent this, however, each concession to evil made by men and their nations must lead to other evils, which is exactly what is happening now in Belgium without, at least so far, any outcry from Francis the Illusionist:

The Belgian Federal Parliament is reportedly about to expand its controversial "right to die" policies to include access to euthanasia for some gravely ill children.

A consensus among members of the legislative body has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop.

If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books allowing the practice, although the Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of medical guidelines dubbed the Groningen Protocol.

Belgium became the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalize euthanasia in 2002, but the statute currently extends only to people 18 or older.

The bill, introduced by the Socialist party in December, would lay out guidelines for doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not a child is mature enough to make the decision to end his or her own life, as well as whether a child's health is grave and hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.

"The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to," Socialist party leader Thierry Giet said shortly after the bill was introduced, according to Agence France-Presse.

The Belgian Senate's Committee on Social Affairs is slated to take up the divisive proposal, which has met with strong opposition from the nation's influential Catholic clergy and members of the centrist Christian Democrats political party, on Wednesday.

"On both sides of the linguistic border, liberals and socialists appear to agree on the fact that age should not be regarded as a decisive criteria in the event of a request for euthanasia," Der Morgen wrote last week.

The decision to consider the bill follows months of testimony by medical experts, doctors, clergy members and others, and it marks a turning point in the nation's approach to the rights of young people, some of whom would be able to choose to die if the law were to pass, even while still being legally barred from driving, marrying, voting or drinking liquor until they turned 18.

The bill would also likely allow euthanasia for patients suffering from Alzheimer's and other diseases leading to advanced dementia, who may otherwise be deemed incompetent to make the decision to die. There were 1,133 cases of euthanasia recorded in Belgium in 2011, accounting for about 1 percent of the country's deaths that year, according to AFP.

Peter Deconinck, president of the Belgian medical ethics organization Reflectiegroep Biomedische Ethiek, has come out in support of expanding the practice to minors, as has the head of the intensive care unit of Fabiola Hospital in Brussels, who testified before a Belgian Senate committee.

"We all know that euthanasia is already practiced on children," he told the committee. "Yes, active euthanasia."

Though a majority of members of the Belgian Parliament are reportedly ready to pass the child euthanasia bill, Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard and many of the nation's Catholics are staunchly opposed to any expansion of legalized euthanasia.

"We expressed our strong reservations regarding the decriminalization of euthanasia as early as 2002," Leonard said last week, according to Der Morgen. "First and foremost because we have excellent palliative care available today, and because we can rely on sedation, to the extent strictly necessary."

The Christian Democrats may vote against the child euthanasia law, but New Flemish Alliance party members have indicated that they are willing to back the bill in order to ensure its passage, according to Der Morgen. (Belgian Parliament Posed To Approve Child Euthanasia Law.)

 

"Strong reservations"? "Archbishop Leonard?

Wow, man, like, that's really deep, really profound. That'll shake 'em up in Brussels.

Note that the corrupt protector of clerical abuser, Andre-Joseph Leonard (see Deflecting Reality With Emotionalism), said not one word about the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment. The conciliar revolutionaries are incapable of speaking as Catholics because they are not Catholics. They are apostates, men who belong to a false religion that pretends as though anything before the glories of the "Second" Vatican Council did not exist or, worse yet, was mistaken, thus throwing the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church out the window.

Andre-Joseph Leonard, however, speaks with one voice with Francis the Illusionist, who is prone to oppose moral evils by the use of conciliarspeak, invoking such slogans as "solidarity," "human dignity," "anthropological evidence" and, of course, "the civilization of love." Francis the Illusionist ever makes reference to the Fifth Commandment as he walks on egg shells in the presence of those who support grave moral evils under cover of the civil law.

Far from being "healthy," secularism leads to barbarism as it becomes a "religion" in and of itself that exists de jure, which is why its adherents cannot tolerate true Catholicism, something that Pope Leo XIII noted very clearly in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

 

Once again, let us turn to Pope Saint Pius X, who warned us as Patriarch of Venice about men such as Francis the Illusionist and their embrace of the errors of Modernity and Modernism:

 

"How necessary it is to stir up again the spirit of faith, at a time when there is a growth of that malignant fever which would discredit everything and deny every dogma of revealed religion! How necessary it is at this present time when people are trying to dismiss the mysteries of our faith, when people are claiming to explain them--while Christ has demanded the submission of the intellect--when they are casting doubt on the most established prophecies, when they are denying the most manifest miracles, whey they are rejecting the sacraments, deriding pious practices, and discrediting the magisterium of the Church and her ministers!

Cardinal Sarto, clearly, had in mind not only the rationalists outside the Church, but also those who, inside the Church, were beginning to dismiss her dogmas because of their own historical presuppositions and their erroneous philosophies. Even if the name Modernism does not appear in this pastoral letter [dated May 21, 1895], Cardinal Sarto had identified its initial symptoms, as he had in Mantua. It was during this period, moreover, that he began to take notice of the works of [notorious Modernist] Alfred Loisy, "forcefully reproving the affirmations contrary to the faith," which they contained, as a witness in the beatification process tells us."  (Yves Chiron, Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Translated by Graham Harrison. Angelus Press, 2002, p. 95.)

With Pope Saint Pius X, we reject those who reject and mock the integrity of the Holy Faith no matter how many times a putative "pope" does and says things that have been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church.

We must always cling to the spiritual weapons given us by Our Lady to fight the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, the forces, that is, of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Our Lady will help us to be ever ready to defend the honor and the glory of the Blessed Trinity to Whom she is Daughter, Mother, and Spouse. She will lead us to be ever mindful of making reparation for our own many sins by offering our daily penances to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, ever desirous of spending time with her at Holy Mass and in front of her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament as a foretaste of the Heavenly glories that will await us if we die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of the Catholic Church.

The possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision in Heaven is our goal. And that goal cannot be achieved by a participation in or even silence about the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of conciliarism.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death Amen

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Ephrem the Deacon, pray for us.

Saints Mark and Marcellinus, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

The Land of Windmills and Murder (February 6, 2001)

The Netherlands has replaced Germany as the world’s leading laboratory for social engineering. The recent decision of the Dutch to “legalize” the killing of the elderly and the infirm and the chronically ill is simply the logical result of a set of forces that the Netherlands became home to following the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in May 1945.

The unification of the Germanic states into a single country as a result of Prussia’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 ushered in the triumph of social engineering in northern Europe’s industrial and economic giant. Masterminded by Otto von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor,” the social engineering that began in Germany during the Kulturkampf sought to create a brave new world where people would become more and more dependent upon the beneficence of the state. Bismarck knew that one of the ways to solidify political power was to create a sense of dependence on the part of the citizenry, who would become convinced that it was impossible for them to live their lives without the direction and largesse of government bureaucrats.

Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, which started off as a direct assault upon the Catholic Church (viewed by Bismarck as an obstacle to the social and economic advancement of human society), occurred at a time when two complementary schools of thought were coming to the fore: Darwinian evolutionism and the historical-critical method of Scriptural exegesis. The latter was designed by Protestant Scripture scholars in Germany as a means of “demythologizing” Scripture, a goal that dovetailed neatly with the agendas both of the Darwinians and of Hegelian philosophers who were intent on creating the illusion of change in the very nature of God Himself. The old way of religion had to yield to the new ways of progress and social advancement. And that social advancement would entail, among other things, the discarding of those who were economically unproductive and thus relatively useless for the life of society.

Bismarck was not as aggressive as his successors in Germany would be during the period of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). However, he laid the groundwork for the sterilization and euthanasia policies that would be the hallmarks of both Weimar and the Third Reich. One of Bismarck’s principal legacies was the establishment of the modern welfare state, paving the way not only for the Weimar democrats and Hitler but also for V.I. Lenin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Social Security was the crown jewel of Bismarck’s welfare state. For Bismarck desired to create a world where grown children believed that they were relieved of the natural-law responsibility to care for their elderly parents when they became incapable of caring for themselves. He wanted to rally the elderly to his side by making it appear as though he was their friend — and he wanted to do the same with the young, convincing them that he had made it possible for them to live a more comfortable life materially by relieving them of the “burden” of providing for their parents (never mind the nasty little fact that confiscatory taxes were used to pay for Social Security). Thus, Bismarck sought to pit generations against each other in preparation for the day when those who were retired could be deemed useless to society and thus worthy of liquidation. Bismarck relied upon the German traits of obedience to authority as the means by which he could convince the public that he, their chancellor, knew best.

Social scientists and natural scientists had a field day in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Yes, democratic Germany was home to scores of biological and eugenic experimentations. Science is a tool given us by God to use as a means of assisting the legitimate development of human progress in the natural world. Absent the direction provided it by the true Church, however, science can become a terrible weapon of destruction and of maniacal social and biological engineering. Thus, the fuller development in the Third Reich of the monstrous policies pursued during the Weimar Republic was quite logical. In 1939, the German populace quite docilely accepted Hitler’s implementation of the wholesale extermination of the retarded and infirm. Germans had become used to the principle that the state knew best. Only Clemens von Galen, the Bishop of Munster, had the courage to speak out publicly against Hitler’s eugenics policies.

(Obviously, Lenin and Stalin were playing their own monstrous games in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Psychiatry there became a tool of political reprogramming and raw terror. Social engineering is the very foundation of Marxism’s own brave new world. And the fact that the Bolsheviks had plenty of defenders in the West helps explain the triumph of the spirit of Bolshevism in almost every country in Western Europe, as well as in Canada and the United States.)

In the West, social engineering fell into a bit of disrepute in the wake of the Nuremberg Trials that followed World War II. However, in the Netherlands the groundwork was quietly being laid for a recrudescence of the utilitarianism that was the essence of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. The social engineers and eugenicists had taken over the Dutch universities and hospitals and laboratories. The positivists held sway in the courts and in the Staaten, the Dutch national legislature. And Modernists populated much of the Dutch Catholic hierarchy. Indeed, Modernist Dutch theologians even produced a best-selling catechism that was essentially a defense of the very trends developing in the Netherlands in the 1960s.

In that decade, the Netherlands became a playground for hallucinogenic drug use and promiscuity. It was one of the first nations in Europe to embrace every single bit of the sodomite agenda. And it is so radically pro-abortion that it is now the de facto policy in the Netherlands to permit parents to euthanize their newborn child up to a year after his birth, thus giving them from the moment of fertilization to one year after birth to take a crack at the fruit of their conjugal love. And it has been the de facto policy of the Dutch for some time to permit physicians to dispatch patients who are deemed to have outlived their usefulness in society (too old, too sick, too costly to maintain). What was once de facto is now de jure. Although no doctors in the Netherlands have been prosecuted for doing what was once technically illegal, they can now kill their patients with legal impunity.

As I have noted on a number of occasions, arguing against euthanasia on purely natural terms is no defense against the power of sentimentality to trump rational thought. A culture of well-being seeks to anesthetize pain and all other unpleasant realities. Why should a person suffer when the truth of redemptive suffering is rejected as either fantastic or as just simply unrealistic in our modern world? Those who believe that it is possible to combat the “mercy killers” with naturalistic arguments are as delusional as those who believe that a person who supports one abortion as a matter of principle is a defender of the sanctity of innocent human life.

Human suffering is one of the many consequences of Original Sin. Indeed, physical suffering and death are two of the very tangible consequences of Original Sin, as well as of our own actual sins. It is only the Catholic Faith that teaches the full truth concerning human suffering. And it is a rejection of the Catholic teaching on human suffering that has permitted sentimentality to triumph so mightily in the world, even among many Catholics who attend Mass every Sunday.

The Church teaches us that no suffering is beyond our capacity to bear by means of the graces won for us by the shedding of our Lord’s Most Precious Blood on Calvary. Further, the Church teaches us that no human suffering — no matter how intense — is the equal of the pain that just one of our venial sins imposed upon our Lord in His Sacred Humanity on the wood of the Holy Cross. And she teaches us that our patient endurance of the sufferings we experience in our lifetimes can be the means by which we help the Poor Souls in Purgatory make satisfaction for the debt we owe as a result of our forgiven sins (and our general attachment to sin), and the means by which we can give exemplary witness to the world of the fact that we unite our sufferings with those of our Blessed Lord. Indeed, our patient endurance of suffering is one of the ways we prove our love for our Lord. Knowing that our Lord never permits us to endure any suffering beyond our capacity to endure equips us with the knowledge that the more suffering we are sent, the more we receive a sign of His love for us, that He expects us to do great things for Him and His Church by becoming co-redeemers of the world with Him.

A rejection of those simple truths results in the tyranny of the social engineers and the bioethicists (who don’t practice true biology and are not very ethical). Why not kill “unwanted” babies? Why not kill those who suffer? Why not clone yourself? Why not conceive a child in order to kill it and use its body parts to aid someone with Parkinson’s Disease? Why can’t a woman who is sterile conceive a child by means of in vitro fertilization? Why can’t two people of the same gender who “love” one another get “married”? What’s wrong with surrogate motherhood? Why can’t we use genetics to pick the sort of child we want? The very people who reject the authority of the Church in those matters look to secular “experts” to provide them with guidance, ironically conferring on those pseudo-experts a spirit of infallibility that is rejected as belonging to the Successor of Saint Peter and the bishops who are in full communion with him.

The Netherlands goes first where other nations follow. That has been true both ecclesiastically and civilly. Look for Canada to follow the Dutch lead before too long. And the state of Oregon is already the de jure euthanasia pioneer in the United States. The actual de facto practice in most hospitals in most places in this country is pretty much the same as it has been in the Netherlands. Doctors are liberally dispatching people as a matter of routine, making decisions that certain people have simply outlived their usefulness. That is over and above the instances where poorly formed people (or their families) actually ask to be killed. No, there are all types of “mysterious” deaths in hospitals these days as doctors and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) play God and make cost-benefit analyses as to a person’s “worth.”

It is no accident that the Netherlands is one of the leaders in utilitarian social engineering. At one time under the control of Catholic Spain, the Netherlands, like some other nations of Europe, eventually fell under the sway of Lutheranism and Calvinism. The Netherlands has long been home to relativists. After all, an essential tenet of Protestantism is that a person is saved if he makes a confession of faith in our Lord with his lips and in his heart. Nothing else matters after that profession of faith is made. There is no room for a theology of redemptive suffering in such a belief system. Protestantism rejects Purgatory as un-Scriptural. It contends that we do not prove our faith by good works. And it rejects the simple truth that we gain merit for our good works, merit that can be applied to the Poor Souls in Purgatory and help make expiation for the debt we owe our own forgiven sins. Why not annihilate yourself when pain becomes too severe? A “loving” God would understand that, wouldn’t He?

There is only one weapon that can stop the advance of the brave new world that has been evolving since the time of the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolt: the Cross of the Divine Redeemer. When are we going to learn that we cannot fight the culture of death without the weapon that brought us the possibility of eternal life?

Our Lady, Mother of Mercy, pray for us. (Original text as appeared in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos and at The Land of Windmills and Murder.)