Pope Bergoglio: “Jesus plays the fool a bit”. This and other inconceivable, extremely grave “expressions” pronounced last Thursday...
Antonio Socci
LO STRANIERO
19th June 2016
It is earth-shattering for a pope to mix-up a two-faced devil with Jesus. It happened last Thursday when Bergoglio mistakenly referred to a column capital on Vézelay Cathedral: a “case of mistaken identity” emblematic of this pontificate, even if a somewhat superficial ghost-writer was probably to blame.
It is, on the other hand, in his own style to mix them up (Jesus and the devil) by proposing that Judas had been saved (without repenting) thus giving the impression he hadn’t ended up in hell...
It’s difficult to know whether this Pope believes in hell or not – but listening to him – it seems that the only ones going there are those who are against mass immigration, who use air-conditioners or plastic glasses and Christians who follow the Gospel to the letter.
In any case, in that same discourse last Thursday evening at the Church Conference in Rome,
Bergoglio didn’t limit his comments to the nonsense about the capital in Vézelay.
He strung together a series of inconceivable other “pearls” reaching the limits of blasphemy: Jesus in the episode with the adulteress “plays the fool a bit ” (a shocking phrase which the Vatican site changed to “pretended not to understand” , but we have the recording...) and then Jesus, in the same episode when the woman was saved from being stoned – “was scant on morality” (ha mancato verso la morale) (this also textual). Then Jesus was not “a clean one” (“un pulito” ) he actually used this expression, who knows what he was suggesting (better not even ask ).
Then finally, Bergoglio even affirmed that “a great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” (constraining Padre Lombardi to explain why the text on the Vatican site was corrected to: “a portion of our marriages”.
And to complete his performance the same Bishop of Rome – added to this reckless and devastating assertion that , on the other hand, many “cohabitations “ are “real marriages” (de facto legitimizing cohabitations, after delegitimizing real, solid sacramental marriages).
This naturally for secular public opinion is only curious and even amusing, like a car demolition show, but from a Catholic point of view it is devastating; it’s a sort of scourge that has fallen upon the Church and risks destroying Her.
BEYOND LIMITS
So much so, that Robert Spaemann, one of the foremost German Catholic theologians and philosophers, and Benedict XVI’s personal friend, was back thundering again on Friday, in “Die Tagespost” with an article carrying the eloquent headline: “Even in the Church there is a limit to what is bearable”.
Here are some of his remarks:
“[...]some of the Holy Father’s affirmations are in clear contradiction to the words of Jesus, those of the Apostles and the traditional doctrine of the Church. [...]If, in the meantime, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is seen openly accusing the Pope’s closest advisor and ghost-writer of heresy, it means that the situation has indeed gone too far. Even in the Catholic Church there is a limit to what is bearable.”
Spaemann also criticised Bergoglio’s habitual ambiguity on certain themes touched upon in Amoris laetitia where – in order not to be caught in manifest heresy – he says and doesn’t say, he alludes, but doesn’t explain, he throws hand grenades furtively. *
Here is more from Spaemann:
“[...]Pope Francis is not very fond of unequivocal clarity. A short time ago when he declared that Christianity has no “ultimatums” it evidently doesn’t disturb him at all that Christ says: “But let your speech be yea, yea, no, no: and that which is over and above comes from the evil one.” (Matt. 5, 37). Paul’s letters are full of “ultimatums” And, ultimately, “He that is not with me, is against me!”(Matt. 12, 30).”
Spaemann had already intervened on April 29th against Bergoglio’s “Amoris laetitia”, explaining that there are” “decisive sentences which change substantially the teachings of the Church” [...] “That an issue of a breach emerges doubtlessly for every thinking person, who knows the respective texts.[...] “If the Pope is not ready to make corrections, it remains reserved for a later Pope to make things right officially.”
Another important Catholic philosopher, Josef Seifert, collaborator with both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, recently intervened with harsh criticisms, which he justified in this way:
“The Pope is not infallible if he doesn’t speak ex-cathedra. True Popes (like Formosus and Honorius) were condemned for heresy. And it is our holy duty – for love and mercy’s sake towards many souls – to criticize our bishops and even our dear Pope, if they deviate from the truth and if their errors are damaging the Church and souls.”
Moreover, added to the nonsense of Bergoglio’s magisterial teaching are his decisions in the governing of the Church now of a South American accent .
DICTATORSHIP
For example, Bergoglio has drawn up a series of measures which subtract prerogatives from bishops and subject them to a sort of ‘Damocles sword’, with the risk of removal if they don’t adapt themselves to the Bergoglian ‘word’.
In fact, after the two Synods, in which the opposition by bishops and cardinals to the “Bergoglian revolution” was vast and decisive,in the ecclesiastical world now everyone has been intimidated into silence.
So much so that Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, Bishop in Kazakhstan (where they remember well what tyranny is) declared:
“When we arrive at a point in the Church where the faithful, priests and bishops are afraid to say something, as in a dictatorship, this is not the Church.”
Nevertheless, among lay Catholics there are more and more troubled voices being raised. Most of all in the United States.
Yesterday, for instance, Phil Lawler, from Catholic Culture, commenting on the papal discourse of last Thursday, published a harsh comment entitled: The Damage done ( again) by the Pope’s Declarations on Marriage”, wherein he brings to light other “pearls” from that intervention.
PERSECUTION
As regards some pastoral questions, one is struck by the insensibility of this papacy to the tragedy of persecuted Christians, and, by contrast, his approval of questionable regimes and even inhuman dictatorships, which continue to persecute and imprison Christians.
The most glaring case - along with the Islamic regimes – is China.
Indeed , a cause for scandal was Bergoglio’s interview on February 2nd to “Asia Times”, in which he was completely silent about the enormous problems of human rights and religious freedom in China (where there are still bishops like Monsignor Su Zhimin in lagers), but in that interview, addressed to the Communist tyrants in Peking, Bergoglio pronounced “ wildly absolutist words of the past, present and future of China” forgetting “the millions and millions of victims that the Pope never names, not even covertly” (Magister).**
“What disturbs many Chinese Catholics” Sandro Magister writes “is the silence the Vatican authorities maintain on bishops being deprived of their freedom.”
Then, over the last few days the case of the Bishop of Shangai, Ma Daquin, has caused quite a sensation. The Bishop after four years of forced residence – signed a self-incrimination, typical of Stalinist times or the Maoist cultural revolution, in which he sustains he had been in error and makes an apology to the Patriotic Association which is the Church of the Chinese Communist regime.
However, there is more. Father Bernardo Cervellera, one of the most-informed experts on the Chinese Church , on his site “Asia News” (even if he is a Bergoglian) for the sake of truth had to report: “A Chinese Bishop fears that someone in the Vatican had piloted Monsignor Ma Daqin’s ‘confession’ in order to please the Chinese Government.”
For certain there are millions of Chinese Christians, heroically living their faith under persecution who have been profoundly disappointed, confused and grieved for this about-turn. But Rome has also become that over the last three years.
A Rome where you hear inconceivable, resonant words about the Son of God, like those pronounced last Thursday in St. John Lateran’s Basilica by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
*’tira il sasso e nasconde la mano’, is an idiomatic expression which implies someone who likes to provoke and then denies responsibility of the repercussions on others, enjoys confusing others.
[Translation: Contributor, Francesca Romana]
