Part Three
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Lost in all of the commotion over Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's interview with Eugenio Scalfari, the eighty-seven year-old atheist who is the former editor of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, is the fact that the current universal public face of apostasy is the first conciliar "pope" who is the product of an unvarnished seminary training awash in the Modernist ethos of the doctrinal, moral, liturgical and pastoral revolutions of conciliarism.
Beyond being a garden-variety Modernist, who are a dime a dozen in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is an abject, cliche-spouting, mindless ideologue who is as programmed in his false, philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned beliefs as is a Seventh Day Adventist or a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is a driven, possessed demon of a Modernist who is on a mission to destroy anything and everything of Catholicism that is as of yet remaining in the counterfeit church of conciliarism in order to "prove" to the world that he is not a "clericalist," not a "restorationist, not a "Pharisee" and not a "triumphalist."
It is Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, a man who boasts of his "humility" and who goes to great lengths to make ostentatious displays of it, who is the Pharisee as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's parable about the Pharisee and the publican apply to him, the man who believes he is "not as of the rest of men":
[10] Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
[11] The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee
thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, as also is this publican. [12] I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess. (Luke 18: 10-11.)
Before returning to the Bergoglio-Scalfari interview, it is useful to illustrate that this insidious little devil's rejection of converting non-Catholics was not some momentary verbal "lapse" in a "random" moment with Eugenio Scalfari at the Casa Santa Marta on Tuesday, September 24, 2013, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom. No, no, no. There is nothing random about this whatsoever, something that I tried to demonstrate in part two of this commentary, which was posted around 4:30 a.m. today, Eastern Daylight Saving Time.
Putting an exclamation point on his interview with Eugenio Scalfari, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis was back at it again this morning in today's session of his Ding Dong School Of Apostasy at Casa Santa Marta:
The strength of the Gospel, he continued, is there, “because the Gospel
reaches its highest point in the humiliation of Jesus: humility that
becomes humiliation. And the force of the Gospel, he said, is properly
in humility, in the humility of the child that is guided by the love and
the tenderness of the father.”:
“The Church, Benedict XVI told
us, does not grow through proselytism, it grows through attraction,
through witness. And when the people see this witness of humility, of
meekness, of mildness, they feel the need that the Prophet Zachariah
spoke of: ‘We want to come with you.’ The people feel that need in the
face of the witness of charity, of this humble charity, without
bullying, not sufficient, humble. Worship and serve!”
“Charity
is simple: worship God and serve others! And this witness,” the Pope
said, makes the Church grown.” That’s why a nun, “so humble, but so
trusting in God,” a nun like St. Therese of the Child Jesus “was named
Patron of the Mission, because of her example” which makes “the people
say ‘we want to come with you!’”
Pope Francis concluded his homily with a special mention of the meeting with the “Council of Cardinals”:
“Today,
here in the Vatican, begins the meeting with the Cardinal consulters,
who are concelebrating the Mass. Let us ask the Lord that our work today
will make us all more humble, more meek, more patient, more trusting in
God, so that the Church can give a beautiful witness to the people, and
seeing the People of God, seeing the Church, they might feel the desire
to come with us.” (Antipope stages abominable sacrilege with Council of Commissars.)
There is no need to repeat here yet again what was contained in part two of this commentary earlier this morning. Anyone who disparages Holy Mother Church's missionary work in the seeking of converts to her maternal bosom in perfect fidelity to the mandate given to her by her Divine Founder, Mystical Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has to close his eyes to the spread of the Holy Faith in Europe during the First Millennium and in the Americas in the Second Millennium and has no excuse before God at the moment of His Particular Judgment.
Hatred of Catholic "proselytism" beat deep into the heart of the Catholic-hating Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne one hundred seventy-three and one-half years ago until Our Lady herself to him in the Church of Saint'Andrea delle Fratte on January 20, 1842:
"On entering M. de Bussieres' house I met with a
first disappointment, because the maid, instead of simply taking my
visiting card, immediately brought me into the parlor. As far as I
could, I tried to dissimulate my ennui behind a feigned smile, and I sat
down next to Baroness de Bussieres, near whom her two little daughters
were playing. The conversation began with the usual insignificant
topics, but soon I was displaying the passionate dislike with which I
described the impressions I had received in Rome. In a condescending
sort of way I considered Baron de Bussieres a devout person.
Consequently, because this was a favorable opportunity for me, I did not
refrain from some rather cutting remarks about the situation of the
Jews in Rome, which relieved my feelings somewhat. However, it was these
complaints of mine that brought the conversation around to religion. He
spoke to me of the greatness of Catholicism. But I answered
sarcastically with objections that I myself had read or that I had heard
from others. However, I restrained my impious assertions somewhat, so
as not to shock the faith of the little girls playing near us. Finally
M. de Bussieres said to me: 'Well, inasmuch as you condemn all
prejudices and profess such liberal principles, and because yours is
such an enlightened and advanced mind, would you be brave enough to
submit yourself to a harmless experiment?'
"What experiment?"
"'To carry about with you an object that I will
give you. Here, take this image of the most Blessed Virgin. That sounds
ridiculous to you, doesn't it? However, I consider it very effective.'
"I must admit that I had never expected such a
proposition. At first I felt like bursting out laughing and shrugging my
shoulders. But then I thought, 'What a splendid story this scene will
make in the account of my trip!' So I accepted the medal which was
placed around my neck. When I rested on my breast I laughed aloud and
said, 'Well, well! Now I am a Catholic! . . . Apostolic . . . and
Roman!'
"M. de Bussieres was genially triumphant over the
victory he had won, but wanting to exploit it to the full, he said,
'"Now, to complete the test, you must recite, morning and evening, the
Memorare, a very short, but very efficacious prayer to the most Blessed
Virgin, composed by St. Bernard.'
"But what on earth is this Memorare?" I exclaimed. Let's have done with all this mummery!
"At that moment I felt a great surge of vexation.
The name of St. Bernard made me remember my brother, who had written the
life of this saint. I had never been willing to take the book in my
hands. But his souvenir awakened my rage against proselytism, against
the Jesuits and against those whom I called hypocrites and apostates.
"So I begged M. de Bussieres to let it go at that,
and making a joke of the affair, I told him I was sorry that I could not
offer him even a single Hebrew prayer in return and that consequently I
would have to remain in his debt. The fact was that I did not know any
prayers at all. However, my adversary insisted that if I refused to say
this short prayer, the whole test would fail, and thus I would prove
that I was only an obstinate unbeliever. Since I attached no importance
whatever to the matter I finally promised to recite the prayer. He went
to get a copy of it right way and asked me to write it out. I agreed,
but on the condition that he would give me the original and keep my
handwritten copy. What I wanted to do in fact was to add to my notebook
the new 'pledge of justice.'
So we finally came to an agreement. At the end we
parted, and I spent the rest of the evening at the theater, forgetting
all about the medal and the prayer. When I returned to my lodgings,
however, I found a visiting card from M. de Bussieres, who had come to
return my visit. He invited me to stop at his house again before leaving
Rome. since I had to give the prayer back to him, after packing my
valises in view of my departure the next day, I sat down and copied the
prayer. It ran: 'Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was
it known hat anyone who fled to thy patronage, sought thy aid, or
implored thy intercession w left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I
fly to thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother; to thee I come, before I
stand, sinful and sorrowful. O mother of the Incarnate Word, despise not
my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.'
"I wrote out the words of St. Bernard without
paying any attention to them. It was late; I was tired and was about to
fall asleep standing up.
"Next day, January 16th, I got everything ready for
my departure. But as I went about I found myself constantly repeating
the words of that prayer. My God, how had they taken such possession of
my imagination?
(Ratisbonne goes on to relate how M. de Bussieres
persuaded him to delay leaving so as to have a chance to see the Pope,
Gregory XVI. In the meantime he brought his guest to visit some of the
Christian antiquities, which gave him a chance ot discuss religious
topics.)
"Everything our eyes beheld--monuments, paintings,
the local customs--became topics of conversation. All this led on to
various religious questions. M. de Bussieres brought them up so simply
and spoke of them so enthusiastically that sometimes in the depths of my
heart I thought 'If anything can turn a man aside from religion, it is
certainly the persistence some people show in trying to convert him!' My
natural irreverence led me to make fun even of most serious things. To
my barbed remarks I added an infernal fire of blasphemies, which I no
longer have the courage even to think of today. In spite of all this,
however, M. de Bussieres, while expressing his disappointment, remained
indulgent and calm. Once he even went so far as to say, 'In spite of
your irritation, I am sure that sooner or later you will become a
Catholic, because deep in your nature there resides a naturally
straightforward judgment, and this tells me that you will let God
enlighten you, even if he has to send an angel from heaven to do it.'
"All right," I replied jokingly, "but let it be when I am in a good mood; otherwise, the thing might off badly.
"As our carriage was passing near the Scala Santa,
M. de Bussieres stood up and doffed his hat, exclaimed, 'Hail,. O sacred
stairway! Here is a sinner who will mount you on his knees some day!'
"I cannot express what I felt at the idea of paying
homage to a stairway! I laughed heartily, as at something entirely
unreasonable. Later, as we were passing by the lovely villas and gardens
that lined the sides of Nero's aqueduct, I too raised my voice, and
using the same words as he, I exclaimed, 'Hail, ye truly divine marvels!
Before you one should bow his head and not before a staircase of
whatever kind!'
(Ratisbonne continues with the story of his meeting
with some Protestant friends on January 20th, in a cafe where they were
reading the papers.)
"As I left the cafe, I meet M. de Bussieres'
carriage, and he invited me for a ride. As it was a beautiful day, I
willingly accepted. When we got to the church of Saint' Andrea delle
Fratte, M. de Bussieres excused himself for a moment, because he had an
errand to run. He asked me to wait for him in the vehicle; but instead I
preferred to get down and visit the church. Within they were preparing a
catafalque for a funeral, so I asked the Baron, 'Whose funeral is it?'
"'The Count de Laferronays',' he replied, 'a good
friend of mine who died suddenly. That is why you may have found me
rather glum these last couple of days.'
"I did not know the count; had never seen him in
fact. So the news did not make any special impression on me, beyond that
produced by the information about a sudden death. M. de Bussieres left
because he had to see about preparing the place where the family of the
deceased would sit. 'Excuse me me for a few minutes,' he said, as he
went into the monastery. 'I shall be back shortly.'
(On February 18th and 19th, in the deposition he
made during the investigative process set up to make clear the
circumstances of his conversion. Ratisbonne stated the following among
other things.)
"When I traversed the church, I arrived at the spot
where they were getting ready for the funeral. Suddenly I felt
interiorly disturbed, and saw in front of me something like a veil. It
seemed to me that the entire church had been swallowed up in shadow,
except one chapel. It was as thought all the light was concentrated in
that single place. I looked over towards this chapel whence so much
light shone and above the altar I saw a living figure standing, tall,
majestic, beautiful and full of mercy. It was the most Holy Virgin Mary,
resembling her figure on the Miraculous Medal of the Immaculate. At
this sight I fell on my knees right where I stood; several times I
attempted to lift my eyes towards the Most Blessed Virgin, but respect
and the blinding light forced me to lower my gaze; this, however, did
not prevent me from seeing the luminosity of the apparition. I fixed my
glance on her hands, and in them I could read the expression of mercy
and pardon. In the presence of the most Blessed Virgin, even though she
did not speak a word to me, I understood the frightful situation I was
in, the heinousness of sin, the beauty of the Catholic religion . . . in
a word, I understood everything.
"When he returned, M. de Bussieres found me
kneeling, my head resting on the railing of the chapel where the most
Blessed Virgin had appeared, and bathed in tears. I do not understand
how I managed to get to the railing, because I had fallen to my knees on
the other side of the nave, and the catafalque stood between me and the
chapel. I must add that the feeling that accompanied my weeping was one
of gratitude towards the Blessed Virgin and of pity for my family,
buried in the darkness of Judaism, for heretics and for sinners. M. de
Bussieres raised me up and, still weeping, I told him, 'Oh, that person
must have prayed very much for me,' thinking of the deceased Count de
Laferronays. [Father Kolbe note: "M. de Bussieres had in fact
recommended Ratisbonne to the prayers of M. de Laferronays."]
"He asked me several questions, but I could not
answer, so deeply was I moved. So he took me by the hand, led me out of
the church to the carriage and helped me to get in. Then he asked me
where I wanted to go.
"Take me wherever you like," I said, "after what I have seen, I will do anything you want."
"'But what did you see?' he asked me.
"I cannot tell you; but please bring me to a confessor, and I will tell him everything on my knees."
"He brought me to the church of the Gesu, to a
Jesuit, Father Villefort, to whom in the presence of M. de Bussieres, I
related all that had happened to me."
(In his letter he continues.)
"All I can say of myself comes down to this: that
in an instant a veil fell from my eyes; or rather not a single veil, but
many of the veils which surrounded me were dissipated one after the
other, like snow, mud and ice under the burning rays of the sun. I felt
as though I were emerging from a tomb, from a dark grave; that I was
beginning to be a living being, enjoying a real life. And yet I wept. I
could see into the depths of my frightful misery, from which infinite
mercy had liberated me. My whole being shivered at the sight of my
transgressions; I was shaken, overcome by amazement and gratitude. I
thought of my brother with indescribable joy; and to my tears of love
there were joined tears of compassion. How many persons in this world,
alas, are going down unknowingly into the abyss, their eyes shut by
pride and indifference!They are being swallowed up alive by those
horrifying shadows; and among them are my family, my fiancee, my poor
sisters. What a bitter thought! My mind turned to you, whom I love so
much; for you I offered my first prayers. Will you some day raise your
eyes towards the Savior of the world, whose blood washed away original
sin? How monstrous is the stain of that sin, because of which man no
longer bears the resemblance to God!
"They asked me now I had come to know these truths,
since they all knew that I had never so much as opened a book dealing
with religion, head not even read a single page of the Bible, while the
dogma of original sin, entirely forgotten or denied by modern Jews, had
never occupied my mind for a single instant. I am no sure that I had
even heard its name. So how had I come to know these truths? I cannot
tell' all I know is that when I entered the church, I was ignorant of
all this, whereas when I left I could see it all with blinding clarity. I
cannot explain this change except by comparing myself to a man who
suddenly awakens from deep sleep or to someone born blind who suddenly
acquires sight. He sees, even though he cannot describe his sensations
or pinpoint what enlightens him and makes it possible for him to admire
the things around him. If we cannot adequately explain natural light,
how can we describe a light the substance of which is truth itself? I
think I am expressing myself correctly when I say that I did not have
any verbal knowledge, but had come to possess the meaning and spirit of
the dogmas, to feel rather than see these things, to experience them
with the help of the inexpressible power which was at work within me.
"The love of God had taken the place of all other
loves, to such an extent that I loved even my fiancee, but in a
different way. I loved her like someone whom God held in his hands, like
a precious gift which inspires an even greater love for the giver."
(As they wanted to delay his Baptism, Ratisbonne pleaded.)
"What? The Jews who heard the preaching of the
apostles were baptized at once; and you wish to delay Baptism for me who
have heard the Queen of the apostles?"
"My emotion, my ardent desires and my prayers
finally induced these good men to fix a date for my Baptism. I awaited
the appointed day with impatience, because I realized how displeasing I
was in the eyes of God.
(Finally the 31st of January came. He described his Baptism.)
"Immediately after Baptism I felt myself filled
with sentiments of veneration and filial love for the Holy Father; I
considered myself fortunate when I was told that I would be granted an
audience with the Pontiff, accompanied by the General of the Jesuits. In
spite of all this I was quite nervous, because I had never frequented
the important people of this world; although these important people
seemed to me too insignificant when compared to true grandeur. I must
confess that I included among these great ones of the world the one who
on this earth holds God's highest power, i.e., the pope, the successor
of Jesus Christ himself, whose indestructible chair he occupies.
"Never will I forget my trepidation and the
beatings of my heart when I entered the Vatican and traversed the
spacious courtyards and majestic halls leading to the sacred premises
where the pope resides. When I beheld him, though, my nervousness
suddenly gave way to amazement. He was so simple, humble and paternal.
This was no monarch, but a father who with unrestrained love treated me
like a cherished son.
"O good God! Will it be thus when I appear before
you to give you an account of the graces I hare received? Awe fills me
at the mere thought of God's greatness, and I tremble before his
justice; but at the sight of his mercy my confidence revives, and with
confidence so will my love and unbounded gratitude.
"Yes, gratitude will from now on be my law and my
life . I cannot express it in words; so I shall strive to do so in
deeds. The letters received from my family give me full liberty; I wish
to consecrate this liberty to God, and I offer it to him from this very
moment, along with my whole life, to serve the Church and my brothers
under the protection of the most Blessed Virgin Mary." (Father Anselm W.
Romb, OFM Conv., Commentator and Editor, The Writings of St. Maximilian
M. Kolbe, OFM Conv.: The Kolbe Reader, pp. 22-31.)
And Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis keeps insisting that the Catholic Church does not grow by what he disparages as "proselytism"?
What about the preaching of Saint Peter, our first pope, on Pentecost Sunday that converted three thousand Jews?
Ah, that must be dismissed by the use of the "historical-critical" method, which is exactly what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did in Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entry Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection:
From a theological understanding of the empty tomb, a
passage from Saint Peter's Pentecost sermon strikes me as important,
when Peter for the first time openly proclaims Jesus' Resurrection to
the assembled crowds. He communicates it, not in his own words, but by
quoting Psalm 16:8-10 as follows: "... my flesh will dwell in hope. For
you will not abandon my son to Hades, nor let your Holy One see
corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life" (Acts 2:26-28).
Peter quotes the psalm text using the version found in the Greek Bible.
The Hebrew text is slightly different: "You do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your godly one see the Pit. You show me the path of life" (Ps.
16:10-11). In the Hebrew version the psalmist speaks in the certainty
that God will protect him, even in the threatening situation in which he
evidently finds himself, that God will shield him from death and that
he may dwell securely: he will not see the grave. The version
Peter quotes is different: here the psalmist is confident that he will
not remain in the underworld, that he will not see corruption.
Peter takes it for granted that it was David who
originally prayed this psalm, and he goes on to state that this hope was
not fulfilled in David: "He both died and was buried, and his tomb is
with us to this day" (Acts 2:29). The tomb containing his corpse is the
proof of his not having risen. Yet the psalm text is still true: it
applies to the definitive David. Indeed, Jesus is revealed here as the
true David, precisely because in him this promise is fulfilled: "You
will not let your Holy One see corruption."
We need not go into the question here of whether
this address goes back to Peter and, if not, who else may have redacted
it and precisely when and where it originated. Whatever the answer may
be, we are dealing here with a primitive form of Resurrection
proclamation, whose high authority in the early Church is clear from the
fact that it was attributed to Saint Peter himself and was regarded as
the original proclamation of the Resurrection. (Joseph
Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pp. 255-256.)
Left unaddressed in this
classic piece of Modernist deconstruction of Sacred Scripture that is a
blasphemous affront to God the Holy Ghost and to Saint Peter is the
little matter that three thousand Jews from all over the Mediterranean
converted because of the stirring words delivered by our first pope
moments after he had received the Seven Gifts and Twelve Fruits of God
the Holy Ghost, being blessed at that moment with the charism of
infallibility of doctrine. Ratzinger/Benedict had to place into
question, no matter how subtly by way of refusing address the question
that he raises, the fact that Saint Peter delivered this sermon as to
admit openly that it is the case is to damn himself for refusing to
speak to Jews as Saint Peter did. Indeed, Benedict/Ratzinger was an Anti-Peter.
Moreover, as we know that Saint Peter did deliver
this sermon and that the Acts of the Apostles was written by Saint Luke
under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost, to assert that Saint Peter
was wrong about the authorship of Psalm 16, attributing it "incorrectly"
to King David, is to mock the papal infallibility with which our first
pope had just been clothed by the same God the Holy Ghost.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, that "master" of "true
Scripture exegesis" who believes his insights superior to those of Holy
Mother Church's Fathers and Doctors, including the Angelic Doctor, Saint
Thomas Aquinas, has identified the first "papal error" for us,
committed moments after Saint Peter received the Gifts and Fruits of God
the Holy Ghost. If only Saint Peter had had the benefit of
Ratzinger/Benedict's training with all of its "access" to sources not
known to the fisherman from Galilee, he would not have made such a
blunder.
Thus it is that the former conciliar "pope's"
disregard for the work of our true popes far beyond those foes
of liberalism such as Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX and the the foe of
Modernism, Pope Saint Pius X, as well as the sainted pontiff's
predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, who taught repeatedly that the civil state
has a duty to recognize the true religion and to accord her the favor
and the protection of the laws. It is necessary in Ratzinger/Benedict's
view to place into question the very reality of Saint Peter's Pentecost
Sunday sermon as a coherent whole and to point out his "error" that is
no error at all.
No matter a difference in style, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is one in Modernist mind and heart with his predecessor. There is no "space" between them on any matter of substance, including that of "proselytism."
Indeed, Bergoglio/Francis has been very busy in his obsessive campaign to disparage "proselytism" in recent weeks. He has gone to great lengths to reaffirm atheists in general (see Francis Do-Right) and in particular, which is what he has done with Eugenio Scalfari. Bergoglio/Francis has spent the last week entertaining his pro-abortion, pro-perversity Talmudic co-author of On Heaven and Earth, Abraham Skorka, at the Casa Santa Marta, reaffirming him all the while in his rejection of the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and explaining to him that what he thinks is the Catholic Church "cannot engage in proselytism":
Skorka sees a deep spiritual significance for both of them in being together at the sites that are sacred to their respective religions. “I do not cease to be a Jew for him, and he goes on keeping his own faith. But the two spiritualities have to have a point of encounter. We cannot live in a world where we reject each other, we must build bridges.”
He believes his friend “has become a spiritual reference point for the whole world, not just for the Catholic Church” as was evidenced recently when he called for a day of prayer and fast for peace in Syria.
“Ours is a spiritual journey”, he said of their friendship which dates back to 1997 when Bergoglio became coadjutor bishop of Buenos Aires archdiocese. “Like him I don’t much like the protocol, and like him I too go for the essentials”, he added. Since then, they have done many things together, including producing an interview book – Sobre el cielo y la tierra (‘On heaven and earth’) that has been translated into several languages and will soon be in Hebrew too.
“We hold to different traditions, but we are creating a dialogue that has not existed for centuries. Both of us believe that God has something to do with our friendship and with what we are doing. There are too many coincidences for it all to be mere chance”, said Skorka, 63, who is Rector of the Latin American Rabbinic Seminary.
“We come together without burying our identities. I spoke to him about evangelization, and he stated emphatically that the Catholic Church cannot engage in proselytism”, he said...' (Rabbi Bergoglio and Rabbi Skorka make history in the Vatican.)
Those who want to contend that the problem with "Pope" Francis's interview with Eugenio Scalfari is a matter of a "bad translation" are playing the role of celebrity lawyer Joe Tacopina, whose legal "strategy" to defend steroids cheat and serial liar Alex Rodriguez is to have him say that he did not know that he was using steroids when he purchased them from the so-called Biogenesis Clinic in Miami, Florida, by throwing up ridiculous defenses to refuse to see that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is a complete Modernist revolutionary. Similarly, legion are the Joe Tacopinas in the "resist while recognize" movement who are throwing up one patently absurd defense after another to "redeem" the legitimacy and validity of Bergoglio/Francis's false "pontificate."
Pope Saint Pius X sought the conversion of the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, when he met with him on January 25, 1904, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, who was, after all, converted by the direct intervention of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself while he was on the way to Damascus to persecute more Catholics there after having presided over the stoning of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr:
POPE: We
are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the
Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground
of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the
life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you
otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.
HERZL:
[The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the
other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be
conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress
him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present
status, Holy Father?
POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks
in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But
to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.
HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].
HERZL:
[The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the
other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be
conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress
him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present
status, Holy Father?
POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks
in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But
to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.
HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].
POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either
the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the
Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are
denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they
will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at
all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own,
but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot
admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been
the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.
HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark,
“It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But,
instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best
means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in
its simplicity:]
POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came
in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles.
It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for
the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to
accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do
so, and they have not done it yet.
HERZL:
But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if
Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a
land for these harried people.
POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?
HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.
POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.
[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement
theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church.
Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his
meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis
that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews.
However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that
which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman
Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further,
if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very
same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and
launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.
HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?
POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are
Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other
evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those
of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such
bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray
for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is
celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a
miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodore Herzl.)
In case you
missed this, let me repeat what part of what Pope
Saint Pius X told the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, a
sworn enemy of Christ the King:
The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.
Pope Saint Pius X was a Catholic.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not, and this is a point that he himself made repeatedly in his interview with Eugenio Scalfari in La Repubblica to which we now return.
Tickling the Itching Ears of a Confirmed Atheist and Playing to the Applause of the Multitudes
[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For
there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but,
according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Timothy 1: 1-5.)
The prologue above was necessary, at least as I see thing, as it is important to demonstrate, especially to those who are now open to reading the articles posted on this website, an opportunity to understand that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is but a creature of his false religion and, as such, is an enemy of Christ the King and of the souls He redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. He is in perfect "continuity" with each of his predecessors who have headed the counterfeit church of conciliarism. There is no "hermeneutic of discontinuity" at work here at all.
To the next part of the Bergoglio-Scalfari interview:
Scalfari: However, as we said, Jesus told us
that love for one's neighbor is equal to what we have for ourselves. So
what many call narcissism is recognized as valid, positive, to the same
extent as the other. We've talked a lot about this aspect.
Bergoglio: "I
don't like the word narcissism", the Pope said, "it indicates an
excessive love for oneself and this is not good, it can produce serious
damage not only to the soul of those affected but also in relationship
with others, with the society in which one lives. The real trouble is
that those most affected by this - which is actually a kind of mental
disorder - are people who have a lot of power. Often bosses are
narcissists".
Scalfari: Many church leaders have been.
Bergoglio: "You
know what I think about this? Heads of the Church have often been
narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the
leprosy of the papacy."
Scalfari: The leprosy of the papacy, those were his exact words. But what is the court? Perhaps he is alluding to the curia?
Bergoglio: No,
there are sometimes courtiers in the curia, but the curia as a whole is
another thing. It is what in an army is called the quartermaster's
office, it manages the services that serve the Holy See. But it has one
defect: it is Vatican-centric. It sees and looks after the interests of
the Vatican, which are still, for the most part, temporal interests.
This Vatican-centric view neglects the world around us. I do not share
this view and I'll do everything I can to change it. The Church is or
should go back to being a community of God's people, and priests,
pastors and bishops who have the care of souls, are at the service of
the people of God. The Church is this, a word not surprisingly different
from the Holy See, which has its own function, important but at the
service of the Church. I would not have been able to have complete faith
in God and in his Son if I had not been trained in the Church, and if I
had not had the good fortune of being in Argentina, in a community
without which I would not have become aware myself and my faith. (The Antipope: how the Church will change - Repubblica.it.)
If Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis wants to see a narcissist up close and personal, I suggest that he look at himself in the mirror at his humble and ambitious self.
The answer a Catholic would give to Eugenio Scalfari concerning is accusation of narcissism is simple.
God's love for us is an act of His Divine Will, which seeks our good in He has made us in His own image and likeness, endowing us with a rational, immortal soul with an intellect and our will. He has created us so that we will love Him, our First Cause and Last End, our very Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, by knowing, loving and serving Him as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church so that can be with Him for all eternity in Heaven by living and dying in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ taught us to love ourselves as we love God in that use our free will to choose the good as He has revealed It to be, not as we want it to be, understanding that we must will what God wants of us, to avoid sin and to save our immortal souls as members of His Catholic Church. No one can love God or himself or his neighbors if he persists in unrepentant Mortal Sins as the ultimate expression of the love we must have for ourselves is to do or say nothing that can in any way that can impede the salvation of our immortal souls.
No one can say he truly loves God or himself or others by persisting in sin, no less by promoting sin under the cover of civil law as a "human right" while making constant advertence to the primacy of individual conscience, no matter how ill-formed, above the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.
Not having the Catholic Faith, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is incapable of providing such an answer, which is why he must focuses on the word "narcissism" when a Catholic would have said that Scalfari's premise was mistaken from the very outset.
As Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis did run with the premise while eschewing the word "narcissism" that describes him to a tee, it is telling that he used the opportunity given him by Scalfari to make a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church, including her hierarchical nature. He wants a "community of believers," not the hierarchical church that Our Blessed Lord and and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. Ecclesiastical officials, he believers, must engage in "encounter" and listen to the faithful in the same kind of "dialogue" that the conciliar church has employed with non-Catholics, including atheists such as Eugenio Scalfari himself.
To asset that a Vatican-centric view "ignores the world around us" is the stuff of Martin Luther and John Calvin.
While it is certainly true that many within the Vatican even during the times of our true popes were ambitious self-seekers and careerists, the proper functioning of the governance of Holy Mother Church cannot be jettisoned simply because of the weakness of those who might hold her ecclesiastical offices. Pope Alexander VI, for example, had his problems natural vice, shall we say. However, he was a superb administrator of the Church and was a zealous defender of the Sacred Deposit of Faith.
Alas, the immorality and venality of some popes and cardinals and bishops and priests over the centuries are different species of sins than those of heresy, which cause one to fall from the Faith in Its entirety.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis wants to jettison the the entire hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church and the actual primacy of the Vicar of Christ and those who assist him in the Holy See not because of "narcissism." He wants to jettison this as he does not believe in it, something that has been made clear in numerous other articles on this site in the past two hundred four days now.
The false "pope's" group of Commissars is intent on destroying the hierarchical nature of what they think is the Catholic Church, and they are doing so in full compliance of the very charge that he gave them. His spokesflack, "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., gave us a glimpse earlier today, Wednesday, October 2, 2013, the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, that this "perestroika," if you will, is being justified by invoking the "new ecclesiology" of the "Second" Vatican Council:
Fr. Lombardi SJ also explained that the Council of Cardinals is
conducting business in Italian. He reported that the sessions opened
with a broad and general reflection on the ecclesiology of Vatican
Council II. He said that the pastoral care of families will be a major
focal point of discussion. The group of eight Cardinals celebrated Mass
with the Holy Father in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae
residence again on Wednesday morning, and are scheduled to do so again
on Thursday. (Lombardi briefs on Council of Commissar. "Father" Lombardi also stressed that his boss's interviews with Antonio Spadoro and Eugenio Scalfari were NOT "magisterial" documents when the truth is that nothing Bergoglio/Francis says, does or writes is "magisterial" as he is not a Catholic and is the head of a false church.)
In essence, you see, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis envisions what he is thinks is a "Catholic Church" that exists somewhat along the lines of the heretical and schismatic Anglican sect, which is why he believes that his predecessor's creation of "ordinariate" to "receive" high Anglicans into the conciliar church was completely unnecessary and unwise. Bergoglio/Francis envisions a "church" that is decentralized in the manner of the worldwide "Anglican Communion," a federation of local churches whose leaders are elected democratically and which consults regularly with the "people" about their "needs."
What Bergoglio/Francis believes is precisely what Pope Saint Pius V condemned in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570, when he excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I:
Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after
its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the
lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics.
She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England,
and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the
followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and
ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers,
fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has
ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the
whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of
Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her
subjects. She has dared to eject bishops, rectors of churches
and other Catholic priests from their churches and benefices, to bestow
these and other things ecclesiastical upon heretics, and to determine
spiritual causes; has forbidden the prelates, clergy and people to
acknowledge the Church of Rome or obey its precepts and canonical
sanctions; has forced most of them to come to terms with her wicked
laws, to abjure the authority and obedience of the pope of Rome, and to
accept her, on oath, as their only lady in matters temporal and
spiritual; has imposed penalties and punishments on those who would not
agree to this and has exacted then of those who persevered in the unity
of the faith and the aforesaid obedience; has thrown the Catholic
prelates and parsons into prison where many, worn out by long
languishing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives. All these
matter and manifest and notorious among all the nations; they are so
well proven by the weighty witness of many men that there remains no
place for excuse, defense or evasion. (Regnans in Excelsis, the decree issued by Pope Saint Pius V on March 5, 1570, excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes in everything condemned by Pope Saint Pius V, and he has proved that he is willing to reject priests and religious who adhere to the Faith of our Fathers who refuse to have anything to do with the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service by cleaving exclusively to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition offered by true priests who have no share of "communion" with the conciliar "popes" and their false church.
Remember, it was as the conciliar "archbishop" of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that he threw a group of consecrated women religious who were dedicated to the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church onto the streets without a penny to their names. So much for his concern for the "poor," for the "suffering" of the "people." He is as brutal ecclesiastical tyrant in the John Calvin, and he is just as brutal as Henry VIII or his daughter by his mistress, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I. Please review Francis: The Latest In A Long Line Of Ecclesiastical Tyrants.
To the next part of the interview:
Scalfari: You heard your calling at a young age?
Bergoglio: "No,
not very young. My family wanted me to have a different profession, to
work, earn some money. I went to university. I also had a teacher for
whom I had a lot of respect and developed a friendship and who was a
fervent communist. She often read Communist Party texts to me and gave
them to me to read. So I also got to know that very materialistic
conception. I remember that she also gave me the statement from the
American Communists in defense of the Rosenbergs, who had been sentenced
to death. The woman I'm talking about was later arrested, tortured and
killed by the dictatorship then ruling in Argentina."
Scalfari: Where you seduced by Communism?
Bergoglio: "Her
materialism had no hold over me. But learning about it through a
courageous and honest person was helpful. I realized a few things, an
aspect of the social, which I then found in the social doctrine of the
Church."
Scalfari: Liberation theology, which Pope John Paul II excommunicated, was widespread in Latin America.
Bergoglio: "Yes, many of its members were Argentines."
Scalfari: Do you think it was right that the Pope fought against them?
Bergoglio: "It certainly gave a political aspect to their theology, but many of them were believers and with a high concept of humanity." (The Antipope: how the Church will change - Repubblica.it.)
With apologies to Jimmie Walker, the actor, not the infamous Mayor of the City of New York, New York, from January 1, 1936, to September 1, 1932, this is Dyn-O-Mite!
"Liberation Theology" gave a "political aspect to their theology" while many of them were "believers and with a high concept of humanity"?
Supposedly Catholic "theologians" who were influenced by Communism were nevertheless "believers with a high concept of humanity"?
There is nothing about Communism that has any compatibility with the Catholic Faith in the slightest, something that Pope Pius XI pointed out in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937:
But the enemies of the Church, though forced to
acknowledge the wisdom of her doctrine, accuse her of having failed to
act in conformity with her principles, and from this conclude to the
necessity of seeking other solutions. The utter falseness and injustice
of this accusation is shown by the whole history of Christianity. To
refer only to a single typical trait, it was Christianity that first
affirmed the real and universal brotherhood of all men of whatever race
and condition. This doctrine she proclaimed by a method, and with an
amplitude and conviction, unknown to preceding centuries; and with it
she potently contributed to the abolition of slavery. Not bloody
revolution, but the inner force of her teaching made the proud Roman
matron see in her slave a sister in Christ. It is Christianity that
adores the Son of God, made Man for love of man, and become not only the
"Son of a Carpenter" but Himself a "Carpenter." It was Christianity
that raised manual labor to its true dignity, whereas it had hitherto
been so despised that even the moderate Cicero did not hesitate to sum
up the general opinion of his time in words of which any modern
sociologist would be ashamed: "All artisans are engaged in sordid
trades, for there can be nothing ennobling about a workshop."
Faithful to these principles, the Church has
given new life to human society. Under her influence arose prodigious
charitable organizations, great guilds of artisans and workingmen of
every type. These guilds, ridiculed as "medieval" by the liberalism of
the last century, are today claiming the admiration of our
contemporaries in many countries who are endeavoring to revive them in
some modern form. And when other systems hindered her work and raised
obstacles to the salutary influence of the Church, she was never done
warning them of their error. We need but recall with what constant
firmness and energy Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, vindicated for the
workingman the right to organize, which the dominant liberalism of the
more powerful States relentlessly denied him. Even today the authority
of this Church doctrine is greater than it seems; for the influence of
ideas in the realm of facts, though invisible and not easily measured,
is surely of predominant importance.
It may be said in all truth that the Church,
like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would
be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations
had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On
the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social
edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too
soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling
one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is
not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.
This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of
the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer
real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But
this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day
life, according to the admonition of St. .James the Apostle: "Be ye
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." The
most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and
timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the
catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope
that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night
at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the
holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater
zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty. . . .
57. On this point We have already insisted in Our Allocution of May 12th of
last year, but We believe it to be a duty of special urgency, Venerable
Brethren, to call your attention to it once again. In the beginning Communism
showed itself for what it was in all its perversity; but very soon it realized
that it was thus alienating the people. It has therefore changed its tactics,
and strives to entice the multitudes by trickery of various forms, hiding its
real designs behind ideas that in themselves are good and attractive. Thus,
aware of the universal desire for peace, the leaders of Communism pretend to be
the most zealous promoters and propagandists in the movement for world amity.
Yet at the same time they stir up a class-warfare which causes rivers of blood
to flow, and, realizing that their system offers no internal guarantee of peace,
they have recourse to unlimited armaments. Under various names which do not
suggest Communism, they establish organizations and periodicals with the sole
purpose of carrying their ideas into quarters otherwise inaccessible. They try
perfidiously to worm their way even into professedly Catholic and religious
organizations. Again, without receding an inch from their subversive principles,
they invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so-called
humanitarianism and charity; and at times even make proposals that are in
perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine of the Church. Elsewhere they carry their hypocrisy so far as to encourage the belief that
Communism, in countries where faith and culture are more strongly entrenched,
will assume another and much milder form. It will not interfere with the
practice of religion. It will respect liberty of conscience. There are some even
who refer to certain changes recently introduced into soviet legislation as a
proof that Communism is about to abandon its program of war against God.
58. See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves
to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save
Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.
Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the
triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of
their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian
civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much
more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was one of the deceived even though he may not been a card-carrying Communist. Just like Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, he had his own personal Frank Marshall Davis, which is why their world views are so very similar in many respects.
Should we be surprised, therefore, that the ruling Marxist in Washington, District of Columbia, has taken time out from the government shutdown his intransigent lawlessness has caused to comment favorably on Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis?
President Obama said in an interview on Wednesday that he had been “hugely impressed” with Pope Francis, “not because of any particular issue” but because he seemed to be “thinking about how to embrace people as opposed to push them away.”
“He seems somebody who lives out the teachings of Christ. Incredible humility, incredible sense of empathy to the least of these, to the poor,” the president said in an interview on CNBC. “He’s also somebody who’s, I think, first and foremost, thinking about how to embrace people as opposed to push them away. How to find what’s good in them as opposed to condemn them.”
Pope Francis has given two interviews that were published in the last two weeks in which he has indicated that he wants to see a truce in the culture wars and that the church should put love and mercy above doctrine and judgment. On the issues of abortion, gay marriage and contraception, Pope Francis said, “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” adding, “We have to find a new balance.”
These words may offer a ray of hope to Mr. Obama, who has been locked in a standoff with Roman Catholic bishops in the United States. The bishops are suing the Obama administration over a mandate in the president’s health care law that requires Catholic colleges and hospitals to allow their employees access to free birth control, including morning-after pills that the bishops say are abortifacients. Declaring that President Obama is a threat to the church’s religious freedom, the bishops have mounted a major campaign to rally Catholics across the country to oppose the contraception mandate.
The president did not mention all of this in the interview. He said that Francis emanated a spirit of “love and unity” through both his actions and his words.
“For any religious leader, that’s something that’s a quality I admire,” he said. “And I would argue for any leader period, that’s a quality that I admire.”
Circling back to Washington politics, he said that “no party has a monopoly on wisdom.” (Obama 'Hugely Impressed' by Francis the Talking Apostate.)
Yes, yes, yes, a love note from one figure of Antichrist to another.
Perhaps the two self-righteous hypocrites will become pen pals of a fashion.
After all, both condemn those who condemn and judge yet each condemns judges the straw men against whom they use the most demagogic language imaginable. Both men are the very definition of hubristic.
For his own part, having no aversion to error, save for the "errors" of "restorationists," "triumphalists" and "legalists," Bergoglio/Francis saw the "good" in Communism just as did the progenitors of the "Second" Vatican Council, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII and Giovanni Montini/The Sick. He did not try to dissuade his Communist professor from believing in Communism, something that he known was his duty as a Catholic, which says something about the level of formation he received in his beloved Argentina.
Furthermore, a man committed to truth would know that any statement about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has to be qualified by te simple acknowledgement that traitors were guilty of Soviet espionage as charged:
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed 55 years ago, on June 19, 1953. But last week, they were back in the headlines when Morton Sobell, the co-defendant in their famous espionage trial, finally admitted that he and his friend, Julius, had both been Soviet agents.
It was a stunning admission; Sobell, now 91 years old, had adamantly maintained his innocence for more than half a century. After his comments were published, even the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and Michael Meeropol, were left with little hope to hang on to -- and this week, in comments unlike any they've made previously, the brothers acknowledged having reached the difficult conclusion that their father was, indeed, a spy. "I don't have any reason to doubt Morty," Michael Meeropol told Sam Roberts of the New York Times.
With these latest events, the end has arrived for the legions of the American left wing that have argued relentlessly for more than half a century that the Rosenbergs were victims, framed by a hostile, fear-mongering U.S. government. Since the couple's trial, the left has portrayed them as martyrs for civil liberties, righteous dissenters whose chief crime was to express their constitutionally protected political beliefs. In the end, the left has argued, the two communists were put to death not for spying but for their unpopular opinions, at a time when the Truman and Eisenhower administrations were seeking to stem opposition to their anti-Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War.
To this day, this received wisdom permeates our educational system. A recent study by historian Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton has found that very few college history textbooks say simply that the Rosenbergs were guilty; according to Schweikart, most either state that the couple were innocent or that the trial was "controversial," or they "excuse what [the Rosenbergs] did by saying, 'It wasn't that bad. What they provided wasn't important.' "
Indeed, Columbia University professor Eric Foner once wrote that the Rosenbergs were prosecuted out of a "determined effort to root out dissent," part of a broader pattern of "shattered careers and suppressed civil liberties." In other words, it was part of the postwar McCarthyite "witch hunt."
But, in fact, Schweikart is right, and Foner is wrong. The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies, and not minor ones either. Not only did they try their best to give the Soviets top atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project, they succeeded in handing over top military data on sonar and on radar that was used by the Russians to shoot down American planes in the Korean and Vietnam wars. That's long been known, and Sobell confirmed it again last week.
To many Americans, Cold War espionage cases like the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases that once riveted the country seem irrelevant today, something out of the distant past. But they're not irrelevant. They're a crucial part of the ongoing dispute between right and left in this country. For the left, it has long been an article of faith that these prosecutions showed the essentially repressive nature of the U.S. government. Even as the guilt of the accused has become more and more clear (especially since the fall of the Soviet Union and the release of reams of historical Cold War documents), these "anti anti-communists" of the intellectual left have continued to argue that the prosecutions were overzealous, or that the crimes were minor, or that the punishments were disproportionate.
The left has consistently defended spies such as Hiss, the Rosenbergs and Sobell as victims of contrived frame-ups. Because a demagogue like Sen. Joseph McCarthy cast a wide swath with indiscriminate attacks on genuine liberals as "reds" (and even though McCarthy made some charges that were accurate), the anti anti-communists came to argue that anyone accused by McCarthy or Richard Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover should be assumed to be entirely innocent. People like Hiss (a former State Department official who was accused of spying) cleverly hid their true espionage work by gaining sympathy as just another victim of a smear attack.
But now, with Sobell's confession of guilt, that worldview has been demolished. (Case closed: The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies.)
Even one of the Rosenbergs' sons admitted in 2011 that his father, Julius, was guilty while still insisting on his mother's innocence:
The younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg acknowledged on Wednesday that his father deserved to have been convicted of the legal charges that led to his parents’ execution.
“Yes, he was guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage,” Robert Meeropol acknowledged in an interview. “But what the prosecution did from the very beginning was constantly emphasize, ‘These people stole the greatest secret known to mankind.’ The formal charge got lost in the shuffle.”
“There are lots of atomic bomb secrets,” he added, “but the reason there was a death penalty was because it was the secret. That’s a qualitative leap.”
Mr. Meeropol, a lawyer, reflected on the case — 60 years after his parents were sentenced to die in the Sing Sing electric chair — in the interview and in his blog on the Web site of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which he directs.
Responding to recent revelations in The Weekly Standard by Morton Sobell, a co-defendant in the 1951 trial, Mr. Meeropol wrote: “I’d be less than honest if I did not admit that the latest news that Morton Sobell, my father and two others provided aeronautical information to the Soviet Union in 1948 gives me pause. My parents wrote in their last letter to me and my brother: ‘Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience.’ My father, at least, doesn’t seem quite so innocent anymore.” (Rosenberg Son Says Father Was Guilty of Spy Charge.)
Yet it is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis recites having received information about the Rosenbergs from a Communist without in the slightest indicating that he is aware that he had been given a pack of lies to read, speaking only how his Communist professor had been totrured and killed by the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1982. He is as consistent in matters pertaining to secular history as he in matters pertaining to Catholic theology and history, which is why little nuggets such as this, tucked away as they were in his interview with Eugenio Scalfari in La Repubblica are so revealing of his shallowness, which extends to his view of Faith, Worship and Morals. And it is no accident that he appointed the Communist-friendly Pietro Parolin as his Secretary of State. If you need a reminder as to why this is so, please see Conciliarism's Weapons of Mass Destruction, part three and Conciliarism's Weapons of Mass Destruction, part three.)
Another point to be made point before ending this segment of these commentaries is to note that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's disdain for hierarchy, whether social or ecclesiastical, was anticipated perfectly by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves,
Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon?
Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising
expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in
its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a
miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in
every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which
shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the
mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom
and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a
Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the
oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
Behold an undisciplined mind that has neither dogmas, nor hierarchy without any discipline for the mind or curb for the passions, which believes in the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Behold the heretical mind of Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, apostate.
No, there is nothing random about this as it is who and what this man has been from his youth. He is, as noted at the beginning of this segment, a total creature of the conciliar revolution and its "reconciliation" with the anti-Incarnational principles of Modernity.
It is now time for our family to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, which is good idea for everyone who is reading these articles.
We need to suffer as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. And it will be my own personal penance to have to return to this work in a few hours so as to complete part four by tomorrow morning.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
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, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Our Holy Guardian Angels, pray for us, defend us and protect us.
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, pray for us.