by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who was teaching us last week about the importance of "coexistence" with false religions as the means to produce "peace" in the world, is at it again, this time time praising the editor and the employees of L'Osservatore Romano, congratulating them on their work, which has included praising a lot of nefarious figures in the past thirteen and one-half months:
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI directed a "cordial greeting" to the staff of the Vatican's daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, after the recitation of the Angelus today.
On Sundays and Wednesdays during the Christmas season the newspaper will set up a newsstand in St. Peter’s Square, where it will be possible to buy the newspaper together with small picture of the Nativity.
"I wish this initiative well," the Pontiff said, noting the project will not only make the Vatican's daily newspaper readily available to pilgrims, but that it will "also help to build a school in Democratic Republic of the Congo."
In its Sunday edition, L'Osservatore Romano announced that its international distribution will increase, as the Spanish daily La Razon will print and distribute it as an insert in its Sunday paper, beginning Dec. 27.
"The 200,000 copies of the Sunday edition that will be printed in Spanish will join those already printed in the Vatican, Argentina, Mexico and Perù," the paper said.
This initiative is similar to that launched in 2008 with the Italian daily L'Eco di Bergamo, which is distributed every Sunday together with a copy of L'Osservatore. It was the first time that such an agreement was reached with a newspaper with national circulation.
La Razón also made the announcement, explaining that the weekly distribution of L'Osservatore, in full color, will not have an additional cost to the readers.
In statements published by La Razón, the director of L'Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that "it is important" to have reached this agreement in Spain, which is "a country of great Catholic tradition that is undergoing, like many other western countries in recent times, a major process of secularization." (Ratzinger Greets Staff of L'Osservatore Romano.)
The "cordial greeting" given by the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to the staff of L'Osservatore Romano comes after the following developments that could never have found their way into print prior to the dawning of the age of concilairism in 1958 with the "election" of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, the "pope" who believed that it was no longer necessary to oppose error.
It was on November 22, 2008, that L'Osservatore Beatles praised the singers who helped to popularize the smoking of marijuana and rank immorality. (See
Yesterday's Evils, Today's Accepted Norm.)
It was on April 29, 2009, that L'Osservatore Obamus breathed an editorial "sigh of relief" that the first one hundred days of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama had been, according to editor Gian Maria Vian, not as bad as expected. (See
Urbanely Accepting Evil.)
It was on May 20, 2009, that L'Osservatore Obamus editor Gian Maria Vian praised Barack Hussein Obama's commenced address at the University of Notre Dame as "very respectful," claiming that Obama is not "a pro-abortion president." (See
Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment.)
It was on June 18, 2009, that L'Osservatore Obamus editor Gian Maria Vian defended in support of the Marxist-trained, pro-abortion Barack Hussein Obama in an interview with a reporter from Inside the Vatican magazine. (See
L'Osservatore Del Naturalista.)
It was on June 27, 2009, that L'Osservatore Weirdo praised the bizarre Michael Jackson after his death. (See Big Pharm Trumps the Holy Cross and
Vatican-paper-hails-Jackson.)
It was on July 14, 2009, that L'Osservatore Occulto praised the latest Harry Potter motion picture. (See
L'Osservatore Occulto,)
It was on July 17, 2009, that L'Osservatore Wilde praised the works of the late Oscar Wilde, a man who is still heralded by the lavender community for his poems in support of indecency even though he made a deathbed conversion to the Catholic Faith. (See Vatican does U-turn to praise Oscar Wilde | Mail Online and Benedict praises perverted archbishop Juliusz Paetz.)
It was on October 22, that L'Osservatore Marxista offered a measure of praise for the work of the man who gave us the Marxist form of Communism that has wreaked so much murder and mayhem upon the world in the past ninety-two hours. (See
L'Osservatore Marxista.)
L'Osservatore Romano under the editorship of Gian Maria Vian has also praised Galileo
Galilei and Charles Darwin.
None of this would have been at all thinkable under any of our true popes. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? Ah, he has not a problem at all with any of the freewheeling editorials and articles that have appeared in L'Osservatore Romano under Gian Maria Vian's direction. He has not offered a word of criticism, as Vian himself pointed out in the interview he gave to Inside the Vatican magazine on June 18, 2009:
Should a reader interpret the editorial line of the newspaper to be also that of the Pope and the Secretariat of State?
Vian: Well, we need to distinguish something here. The paper is not official: it is not the expression, in every single part, of the point of view of the Vatican, that is, of the Secretariat of State. But it is obvious that it is an authoritative point of view of the Holy See, because ours is the only newspaper of the Holy See and has a century and a half of history. We were started during the American Civil War. That finished in 1865 and we were started in 1861. It’s a paper with a very long history and it has always been rightly interpreted as the expression of the thought of the Holy See, without a doubt, but that is not to say that every word that comes out in the paper is exactly the thought of the Pope or the Secretary of State.
But the average reader would assume that he will find in the Vatican’s newspaper an editorial line that is in agreement with the Pope...
Vian: Let’s say that L’Osservatore Romano expresses a line generally in agreement with the Holy See. This is obvious because the paper is owned by the Holy See. My editor, in the Italian sense of the owner of the paper, is the Pope, via the Secretariat of State. I could not possibly create a paper in disagreement with the owner, just like no newspaper director could create a paper in dissension with the owner. If I ran the newspaper like that, I would have already been fired.
Do you receive regular feedback from Cardinal Bertone or the Pope on articles that you publish?
Vian: I am here since the fall of 2007 and I have never had a problem. The Pope and the Secretary of State have so far given me and the newspaper their full confidence.
I know the paper very well: my grandfather wrote for this paper, my father wrote for this paper, my brother wrote for this paper and I wrote for this paper from 1977 until 1987 and then 20 years later I’ve come back as director. I knew the paper very well, it was the newspaper that arrived at home every day when I was a child.
I did not imagine I would find the autonomy that I have found here. Sure, we have made mistakes. But I jokingly say that it’s my editor, the owner, who is infallible, not me, not us.
We make mistakes, but so far not the Pope, the Secretary of State or anyone in the Secretariat of State has ever said, ‘You’ve made a serious error.’
They are happy that we do our job and we our happy that they do their jobs.
We work in autonomy except in a few areas of particular interest on international questions and then we work in close collaboration with the Secretariat of State. (Latest Newsflash - Inside the Vatican Magazine.)
It is very telling that Gian Maria Vian has been at L'Osservatore Romano for the past two years now and that he has "never had a problem." Why would he have had a problem publishing all of those articles listed above? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has not said a word of criticism about "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch's blatant apostasy when the latter denied, on Holy Saturday, April 11, 2009, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had died in atonement for our sins on the wood of the Holy Cross. The only thing that seems to get Ratzinger/Benedict's attention is when someone puts into the question the nature and extent of the crimes committed by the agents of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich (see Williamson, Bishop Richard). Crimes against the Faith? Ratzinger/Benedict has shown himself to be so very sanguine about theological error, which is why he tolerates the lunacy these days in L'Osservatore Romano.
The then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger explained his belief that those steeped in even the depths of theological errors, including those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, can teach us about the Faith itself:
Up to the very end of his conference, Card. Ratzinger resolutely continues on this road of agnosticism and now logically comes to the most disastrous of conclusions. He writes:
In conclusion, as we contemplate our present-day religious situation, of which I have tried to throw some light on some of its elements, we may well marvel at the fact that, after all, people still continue believing in a Christian manner, not only according to Hick's, Knitter's as well as others' substitute ways or forms, but also according to that full and joyous Faith found in the New Testament of the Church of all time.
So, there it is: For Card. Ratzinger, "Hick, Knitter, and others" who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Church, His sacraments, and, in short, all of Christianity, continue "despite everything" "believing in a Christian manner," even though they do so using "substitute forms of belief"! Here, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith leaves us wondering indeed, just what it is he means by "believing in a Christian manner."
Moreover, once the "preambula fidei" have been eliminated, that "full and joyous Faith of the Church of all time" which seems [for Card. Ratzinger] to be no different from modern-day apostasies other than by its style and total character, is utterly lacking in any rational credibility in comparison with and in relation to what he refers to as "substitute ways or forms" of faith. "How is it," Card. Ratzinger wonders, "in fact, that the Faith [the one of all time] still has a chance of success?" Answer:
I would say that it is because it finds a correspondence in man's nature…..There is, in man, an insatiable desire for the infinite. None of the answers we have sought is sufficient [but must we take his own word for it, or must we go through the exercise of experiencing all religions?]. God alone [but Whom, according to Card. Ratzinger, human reason cannot prove to be truly God], Who made Himself finite in order to shatter the bonds of our own finitude and bring us to the dimension of His infinity [...and not to redeem us from the slavery of sin?] is able to meet all the needs of our human existence.
According to this, it is therefore not objective motives based on history and reason, and thus the truth of Christianity, but only a subjective appreciation which brings us to "see" that it [Christianity] is able to satisfy the profound needs of human nature and which would explain the "success" [modernists would say the "vitality"] of the "faith" ["of all time" or in its "substitute forms," it is of but little importance]. Such, however, is not at all Catholic doctrine: this is simply modernist apologetics (cf. Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi), based on their affirmed impossibility of grasping metaphysical knowledge (or agnosticism or skepticism), which Card. Ratzinger seemed to want to shun in the first part of his address.
Now we are in a position to better understand why Card. Ratzinger has such a wide-open concept of "theology" and of "faith" that he includes everything: theology as well as heresies, faith and apostasy. On that road of denial of the human reason's ability of attaining metaphysical knowledge, a road which he continues to follow, he lacks the "means of discerning the difference between faith and non-faith" (R. Amerio, op. cit., p.340) and, consequently, theology from pseudo-theology, truth from heresy:
All theologies are nullified, because all are regarded as equivalent; the heart or kernel of religion is located in feelings or experiences, as the Modernists held at the beginning of this century (Amerio, op. cit., p.542).
We cannot see how this position of Card. Ratzinger can escape that solemn condemnation proclaimed at Vatican I: "If anyone says...that men must be brought to the Faith solely by their own personal interior experience...let him be anathema" (DB 1812). (Cardinal Ratzinger)
A man who can commit blasphemous sacrileges against the First and Second Commandment by esteeming the symbols and places of "worship" of false religions and by praising their nonexistent ability to "build" the "better" is not going to be outraged by theological error or by the editorial praise of cultural-philosophical-political-economic-scientific figures who were at odds with the Holy Faith. This lack of the sensus Catholicus on the part of Ratzinger/Benedict is truly amazing to behold as it permeates his rejection of the nature of the Church herself, his rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth, his rejection of Scholasticism in favor of his own "new theology," and his embrace of one condemned Modernist proposition after another.
The very sort of material that has published in L'Osservatore Romano in recent years without a word of protest from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI fall under this condemnation by Pope Leo XIII in
Officiorum ac Munerum, January 25, 1897.)
21. Newspapers and periodicals which designedly attack Religion or Morality are to be held as prohibited not only by the natural law but also by the Ecclesiastical Law. Ordinaries shall take care, whenever it be necessary, that the Faithful shall be warned against the danger and injury of reading of this kind.
22. No Catholics, particularly Ecclesiastics, shall publish anything in newspapers or periodicals of this character, unless for some just and reasonable cause. (Pope Leo XIII, Officiorum ac Munerum, January 25, 1897.)
Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, that it is not permissible to speak or publish things that are contrary to the good of souls:
So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law.
What does this mean to a man who believes that "peace" consists in the "coexistence" of the true Faith with false religions?
The proof of apostasy is all around us. So few people see. Fewer yet care. Even fewer still care to see. The honor and glory and majesty of God mean nothing to those who have permitted themselves to be be immersed in a world of naturalism as they are reassured week in and week out in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service that all is well with them and their word.
This is the situation that God has known from all eternity would befall us in our own lives at this time of salvation history. The graces won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady are sufficient for us to prosper under the crosses, whether personal or social or ecclesiastical, that we are asked to bear now.
Let us lift high the Cross in our lives, thankful for each and every cross that is sent our way, understanding that the all merciful Redeemer Who shed His Most Precious Blood to redeem us wants us to plant a few seeds for the restoration of His Social Reign on earth as the fruit of the Triumph of His Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart. We must enfold ourselves in the tender mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary with perfect confidence, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.
Christmas is but three days away. Let us prepare well for the birthday of the Baby Jesus as we ask His Most Blessed Mother and His foster-father, our dear Saint Joseph, to protect us in this our exile from our true home, Heaven.
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Our Lady of Fatima, 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.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
