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| St. Ignatius under the Standard of Christ |
From the very beginning of this ill-fated pontificate, this page was maligned for stating the obvious about Cardinal Bergoglio, and the prospects his positions brought to the papacy.
For example, from the very beginning it was clear to us Francis wanted to impose on the Church the new doctrine of communion to the "divorced and remarried" (that is, those living in permanent state of sin, without the desire to end their sinful situation), the new German Doctrine. Other commentators tried to hide for as long as possible, even up to a few days ago, that the Pope wanted to personally impose upon the Church a doctrine that is absolutely and irrevocably opposed to the very words of Our Lord.
Why so keen to impose it? Because that is what the wealthiest church, the German Church, the Church that was behind his very election as Pope, the Church that financed what the rebel Cardinals themselves called the "Mafia" that worked tirelessly for the overthrow of past moral positions and the election of Cardinal Bergoglio, wanted as well. One thing that cannot be said of Francis is that he is a man who does not keep his campaign promises!...
And why did the German Church want it so much? Because of the income derived from the "remarried" faithful by way of the "Church Tax", certainly. But also because liberal theologians who dominate the Church in Germany need this apparently small change in doctrine since it undermines at least three Sacraments at once: the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, Penance, and, last but certainly not least, Matrimony. And this is necessary because each reduction of meaning of the Sacraments makes the Church less "supernatural", less "divine", and a vehicle of merely human ideas -- as Pope St. Pius X recalled in Pascendi: "for the Modernists the Sacraments are mere symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy - an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having 'caught on,' inasmuch as they have become the vehicle for the diffusion of certain great ideas which strike the public mind." (Pascendi, 21). In their view, therefore, an undermining of the divine demands of the Sacraments makes them more "human" and more "meaningful" for the secular understanding of the world and make the Church seem less "absurd" in the eyes of the world.
Now, at last, after the disgraceful letter of Francis to some in Argentina confirming that Amoris Laetitia has "no other interpretation" ("No hay otras interpretaciones.") than communion to adulterers, the game is up. The commentator Robert Royal, who always tried to see the best in the situation in the Synod debacle, sums it up today:
And why did the German Church want it so much? Because of the income derived from the "remarried" faithful by way of the "Church Tax", certainly. But also because liberal theologians who dominate the Church in Germany need this apparently small change in doctrine since it undermines at least three Sacraments at once: the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, Penance, and, last but certainly not least, Matrimony. And this is necessary because each reduction of meaning of the Sacraments makes the Church less "supernatural", less "divine", and a vehicle of merely human ideas -- as Pope St. Pius X recalled in Pascendi: "for the Modernists the Sacraments are mere symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy - an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having 'caught on,' inasmuch as they have become the vehicle for the diffusion of certain great ideas which strike the public mind." (Pascendi, 21). In their view, therefore, an undermining of the divine demands of the Sacraments makes them more "human" and more "meaningful" for the secular understanding of the world and make the Church seem less "absurd" in the eyes of the world.
Now, at last, after the disgraceful letter of Francis to some in Argentina confirming that Amoris Laetitia has "no other interpretation" ("No hay otras interpretaciones.") than communion to adulterers, the game is up. The commentator Robert Royal, who always tried to see the best in the situation in the Synod debacle, sums it up today:
I’m sorry to have to say this, but I’m afraid that the rest of this papacy is now going to be rent by groups of dissenters, charges of papal heresy, threats of – and perhaps outright –schism. Lord, have mercy.
There is no other way to see it: Pope Bergoglio has willingly and knowingly painted himself into a corner. By saying that there is "no other interpretation" to his words than communion to the "divorced and remarried", he removed any wiggle room both papal adulators of the present and historians and dogmatists of the present and of the future could have about Amoris Laetitia. He placed himself in the same position as Pope John XXII and his heresy on beatific vision. And the Francis Doctrine of communion to adulterers is now to be imposed upon all priests (make no mistake about this, this will be imposed by this authoritarian papacy, until a future Pope corrects it).
As a Jesuit, Francis is well-acquainted with the Ignatian image of the two standards. Let us recall it:
This is the narrative: Here it will be that Christ calls and wants all beneath His standard, and Lucifer, on the other hand, wants all under his. ... This is a mental representation of the place: It will be here to see a great plain, comprising the whole region about Jerusalem, where the sovereign Commander-in-Chief of all the good is Christ our Lord; and another plain about the region of Babylon, where the chief of the enemy is Lucifer. (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises)
There are matters (most ordinary matters of life, in fact) on which Christ did not speak a word. There are matters of which Christ spoke, but about which there can be legitimate disagreement. A glory of the Catholic Church has been that she has never wavered regarding those words in which Christ was absolutely clear: on his Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, for example (St. John, Ch. 6). Or on his recurrent words on the impossibility of the end of marriage while a spouse is living, and that a supposed "remarriage" in such cases is, in the Lord's own words, adultery:
Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery. (St. Luke, 16:18)
On such an issue, there is no room for debate, and there never had been in the history of the Catholic Church: there is no divorce, no "remarriage" while a spouse is living, those doing so are committing adultery, and, being adulterers in a permanent situation cannot receive valid absolution, cannot be in a state of grace, and consequently cannot legitimately receive the Blessed Sacrament.
Specific situations (for instance, those "living as brother and sister") could always be, as they have always been, sorted out by the local confessor, avoiding scandal.
By saying there is "no other interpretation" to his words than communion to adulterers, Francis has chosen his Standard. In opposition to the clear words of Christ.
