Rorate Caeli

Contra Recentia Sacrilegia: Protest against Pope Francis's sacrilegious acts


Protest against Pope Francis’s sacrilegious acts
We the undersigned Catholic clergy and lay scholars protest against and condemn the sacrilegious and superstitious acts committed by Pope Francis, the Successor of Peter, in connection with the recent Amazon Synod held in Rome.
These sacrilegious acts are the following:
 - On October 4, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama.
   -  He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity of the graves of the martyrs and of the church of the Apostle Peter.
    -   He participated in this act of idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama.
   -  On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall. Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this procession.
  - When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where they had been sacrilegiously placed, and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this profanation of the church, Pope Francis, on October 25, apologized for their removal and another wooden image of Pachamama was returned to the church.  Thus, a new profanation was initiated.
  - On October 27, in the closing Mass for the synod, he accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama and placed it on the altar.


Pope Francis himself confirmed that these wooden images were pagan idols. In his apology for the removal of these idols from a Catholic church, he specifically called them Pachamama,  a name for a false goddess of mother earth according to pagan religious belief in South America.
Different features of these proceedings have been condemned as idolatrous or sacrilegious by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Bishop José Luis Azcona Hermoso, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer, and Bishop Marian Eleganti.  Lastly, Card. Raymond Burke has given the same assessment of this cult in an interview.
This participation in idolatry was anticipated by the statement entitled “Document on Human Fraternity”, signed by Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, on February 4, 2019.  This statement asserted that: 
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives.”
Pope Francis’s involvement in idolatrous ceremonies is an indication that he meant this statement in a heterodox sense, which allows pagan worship of idols to be considered a good positively willed by God.
Moreover, despite privately advising Bishop Athanasius Schneider that “You [the Bishop] can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God…” , Francis has never corrected the Abu Dhabi statement accordingly.  In his subsequent audience address of April 3, 2019 Francis, answering the question “Why does God permit that there are so many religions?”, referred in passing to the “permissive will of God” as explained by Scholastic theology, but gave the concept a positive meaning, declaring that “God wanted to permit this” because while “there are so many religions” they “always look to heaven, they look to God (emphasis added).”  There is not the slightest suggestion that God permits the existence of false religions in the same way He permits the existence of evil generally.  Rather, the clear implication is that God permits the existence of “so many religions” because they are good in that they “always look to heaven, they look to God.”
Worse, Pope Francis has since confirmed the uncorrected Abu Dhabi statement by establishing an “interfaith committee”,  which later received the official name of “Higher Committee,”  located in the United Arab Emirates, to promote the “goals” of the document; and promoting a directive issued by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue addressed to the heads of all the Roman Catholic institutes of higher studies, and indirectly to Catholic university professors, asking that they give the “widest possible dissemination to the document", including its uncorrected assertion that God wills the “diversity of religions” just as He wills the diversity of color, sex, race and language.
The rendering of worship to anyone or anything other than the one true God, the Blessed Trinity, is a violation of the First Commandment. Absolutely all participation in any form of the veneration of idols is condemned by this Commandment and is an objectively grave sin, independently of the subjective culpability, that only God can judge.
St. Paul taught the early Church that the sacrifice offered to pagan idols was not offered to God but rather to the demons when he said in his First Letter to the Corinthians:
What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing? But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with demons. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and the chalice of demons: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.
(1 Cor. 10:19-21)
By these actions Pope Francis has incurred the reproach uttered by the Second Council of Nicaea:
Many pastors have destroyed my vine, they have defiled my portion. For they followed unholy men and trusting to their own frenzies they calumniated the holy Church, which Christ our God has espoused to himself, and they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic idols.
With immense sorrow and deep love for the Chair of Peter, we beg Almighty God to spare the guilty members of His Church on earth the punishment that they deserve for these terrible sins.
We respectfully ask Pope Francis to repent publicly and unambiguously of these objectively grave sins and of all the public offences that he has committed against God and the true religion, and to make reparation for these offences.
We respectfully ask all the bishops of the Catholic Church to offer fraternal correction to Pope Francis for these scandals, and to warn their flocks that according to the divinely revealed teaching of the Catholic faith, they will risk eternal damnation if they follow his example of offending against the First Commandment.



November 9th, 2019
In Festo dedicationis Basilicae Lateranensis
“Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est et porta cæli; et vocabitur aula Dei”

List of Signatories

Dr Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Netherlands
Dr Robert Adams, medical physician in Emergency & Family Medicine
Donna F. Bethell, J.D.
Tom Bethell, senior editor of The American Spectator and book author
Dr Biagio Buonomo, PhD in Ancient Christianity History and former culture columnist (1990-2013) for L'Osservatore Romano
François Billot de Lochner, President of Liberté politique, France
Rev. Deacon Andrew Carter B.Sc. (Hons.) ARCS DipPFS Leader, Marriage & Family Life Commission, Diocese of Portsmouth, England
Mr. Robert Cassidy, STL
Dr Michael Cawley, PhD, Psychologist, Former University Instructor, Pennsylvania, USA
Dr Erick Chastain, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fr Linus F Clovis
Lynn Colgan Cohen, M.A., O.F.S.
Dr Colin H. Jory, MA, PhD, Historian, Canberra, Australia
Rev Edward B. Connolly, Pastor Emeritus, St. Joseph Parish St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Girardville PA
Prof. Roberto de Mattei, Former Professor of the History of Christianity, European University of Rome, former Vice President of the National Research Council (CNR)
José Florencio Domínguez, philologist and translator
Deacon Nick Donnelly, MA Catholic Pastoral & Educational Studies (Spiritual Formation), England
Fr Thomas Edward Dorn, pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish in New Bremen OH in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati
Fr Stefan Dreher FSSP, Stuttgart, Germany
Dr Michael B. Ewbank, PhD in Philosophy, Loras College, retired, USA
Fr Jerome Fasano, Pastor, St John the Baptist Church, Front Royal, Virginia, USA
Dr James Fennessy, MA, MSW, JD, LCSW, Matawan, New Jersey, USA
Christopher A. Ferrara, J.D., Founding President of the American Catholic Lawyers’ Association
Fr Jay Finelli, Tiverton, RI, USA
Prof. Michele Gaslini, Professor of Public Law, University of Udine, Italy
Dr Linda M. Goulash, M.D.
Dr Maria Guarini STB, Pontificia Università Seraphicum, Rome; editor of the website Chiesa e postconcilio
Fr Brian W. Harrison, OS, STD, associate professor of theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (retired), Scholar-in-Residence, Oblates of Wisdom Study Center, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Sarah Henderson DCHS MA (RE & Catechetics) BA (Mus)
Prof. Robert Hickson PhD, Retired Professor of Literature and of Strategic-Cultural Studies
Dr Maike Hickson PhD, Writer and Journalist
Prof., Dr.rer.pol., Dr.rer.nat. Rudolf Hilfer, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Universität Stuttgart
Fr John Hunwicke, Former Senior Research Fellow, Pusey House, Oxford
Fr Edward J. Kelty, OS, JCD, Defensor Vinculi, SRNC rota romana 2001-19, Former Judicial Vicar,  Archdiocese of Ferrara, Judge, Archdiocese of Ferrara
Dr Ivo Kerže, prof. phil.
Dr Thomas Klibengajtis, former Assistant Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology, Institute of Catholic Theology, Technical University Dresden, Germany
Dr Peter A. Kwasniewski, PhD, USA
Dr John Lamont, DPhil (Oxon.)
Dr Dorotea Lancellotti, catechist, co-founder of the website: https://cooperatores-veritatis.org/
Dr Ester Ledda, consecrated laywoman, co-founder of the website https://cooperatores-veritatis.org/
Fr Patrick Magee, FLHF a Franciscan of Our Lady of the Holy Family, canonical hermit in the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts
Dr Carlo Manetti, jurist and lecturer, Italy
Dr Christopher Manion, PhD, KM, Humanae Vitae Coalition, Front Royal, Virginia, USA
Antonio Marcantonio, MA
Michael J. Matt, Editor, The Remnant, USA
Jean-Pierre Maugendre, general delegate, Renaissance catholique, France
Msgr John F. McCarthy, JCD, STD, retired professor of moral theology, Pontifical Lateran University
Prof. Brian M. McCall, Orpha and Maurice Merrill Professor in Law, Special Advisor to the Provost for Online Education, University of Oklahoma
Patricia McKeever, B.Ed. M.Th., Editor, Catholic Truth, Scotland
Mary Angela McMenamin, MA in Biblical Theology from John Paul the Great Catholic University
Fr Cor Mennen, lecturer canon law at the diocesan Seminary of ‘s-Hertogenbosch and member of the cathedral chapter
Rev Michael Menner, Pastor
Dr Stéphane Mercier, Ph.D., S.T.B., former research fellow and lecturer at the University of Louvain
David Moss, President, Association of Hebrew Catholics, St. Louis, Missouri
Dr Claude E Newbury, M.B. B.Ch., D.T.M & H., D.P.H., D.O.H., M.F.G.P., D.C.H., D.A., M. Prax Med.
Prof. Giorgio Nicolini, writer, Director of “Tele Maria”
Fr John O'Neill, STB, Dip TST, Priest of the Diocese of Parramatta, member of Australian Society of Authors
Fr Guy Pagès, Archdiocese of Paris, France
Prof. Paolo Pasqualucci, Professor of Philosophy (retired), University of Perugia, Italy
Fr Dean P. Perri, Diocese of Providence, Our Lady of Loreto Church
Dr Brian Charles Phillips, MD
Dr Mary Elizabeth Phillips, MD
Dr Robert Phillips, Professor (emeritus) Philosophy: Oxford University, Wesleyan University, University of Connecticut
Prof. Claudio Pierantoni, Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Chile; former Professor of Church History and Patrology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Prof. Enrico Maria Radaelli, Professor of Aesthetic Philosophy and Director of the Department of  Aesthetic Philosophy of the International Science and Commonsense Association (ISCA), Rome, Italy
Dr Carlo Regazzoni, Philosopher of Culture, Therwill, Switzerland
Prof. John Rist, Professor emeritus of Classics and Philosophy, University of Toronto
Dr Ivan M. Rodriguez, PhD
Fr Luis Eduardo Rodrìguez Rodríguez, Pastor, Diocesan Catholic Priest, Caracas, Venezuela.
John F. Salza, Esq.
Fr Timothy Sauppé, S.T.L., pastor of St. Mary’s (Westville, IL.) and St. Isaac Jogues (Georgetown, IL.)
Fr John Saward, Priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England
Prof. Dr Josef Seifert, Director of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute of Philosophy, at the Gustav Siewerth Akademie, Bierbronnen, Germany
Mary Shivanandan, Author and consultant
Dr Cristina Siccardi, Church Historian and author
Dr Anna M. Silvas, senior research adjunct, University of New England NSW Australia.
Jeanne Smits, journalist, writer, France
Dr Stephen Sniegoski, PhD, historian and book author
Dr Zlatko Šram, PhD, Croatian Center for Applied Social Research
Henry Sire, Church historian and book author, England
Robert J. Siscoe, author
Abbé Guillaume de Tanoüarn, Doctor of Literature
Rev Glen Tattersall, Parish Priest, Parish of St. John Henry Newman, Australia
Gloria, Princess of Thurn und Taxis, Regensburg, Germany
Prof. Giovanni Turco, associate professor of Philosophy of Public Law, University of Udine, Italy
Fr Frank Unterhalt, Pastor, Archdiocese of Paderborn, Germany
José Antonio Ureta, author
Adrie A.M. van der Hoeven, MSc, physicist
Dr Gerd J. Weisensee, Msc, Switzerland
John-Henry Westen, MA, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief LifeSiteNews.com
Dr Elizabeth C. Wilhelmsen, Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, retired
Willy Wimmer, Secretary of State, Ministry of Defense, (ret.), Germany
Prof. em. Dr Hubert Windisch, priest and theologian, Germany
Mo Woltering, MTS, Headmaster, Holy Family Academy, Manassas, Virginia, USA
Miguel Ángel Yáñez, editor of Adelante la Fe