Ecumenical Christian Scandal: The Paganization/Gnosticization of New Testament Bible Studies.

Pagan Gnosticism Is Modernist Christian Babel

Given the institutions where I have taught during my professional life, it is appropriate to begin my overview of the Paganization/Gnosticization of NT Studies with a quote from J. Gresham Machen, speaking of the inroads of Liberalism into the American church at the beginning of the last century:

“The truth is that liberalism has lost sight of the very centre and core of the Christian teaching. In the Christian view of God as set forth in the Bible, there are many elements. But one attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible; one attribute is absolutely necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end the Bible is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the creature from the Creator. It is true, indeed, that according to the Bible God is immanent in the world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. But He is immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator a great gulf is fixed.

To be sure, Machen does mention Gnosticism, but he does define the essence of it, as a religious belief.

Gnosticism builds on the common, pagan notion of “humanity as divine”.

Plato taught that the soul “was immortal by its very nature.” This notion is integrated into Jewish thinking by Philo, and developed by later Gnosticism as the alien, “divine spark” within humanity.

Hans Jonas defines Gnosticism as radically dualistic–a dualism between man and the world, “an anthropological acosmism.” “The essence of man is knowledge of the self and God.”

As the famous Messina Colloquium on Gnosticism in 1966 clearly recognized, “the idea of divine consubstantiality” is a defining notion of Gnosticism.

Such a notion effectively eliminates the uniqueness and transcendence of God.

Read more

Dogmas of the Catholic Church from “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Dr. Ludwig Ott

The following De Fide statements comprise “Our Catholic Faith without which it is impossible to please God” (The Council of Trent, Session V, explaining the correct interpretation of Hebrews 11: 6).

These positive “articles of faith” have the function of fundamental principles which the faithful accepts without discussion as being certain and sure by virtue of the authority of God, Who is absolute truth (Council of the Vatican). They represent the mind of Christ as St. Paul says:

• 1 Cor. 2:16. – But we have the mind of Christ.
• Hebrews 13:8. – Jesus Christ yesterday, and today: and the same for ever.

Since Our Catholic Faith comes from God, they are not open for debate, and they are not reversible.

The Christian is called to adhere to Christ and His teaching integrally; the unity of faith is the dominant motif of divine revelation on which St. Paul insists energetically, when he writes:

• 1 Cor. 1:10. – I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you: but that you be perfect in mind and in the same judgement.

There is, then, no place for “pick and choose” in the truths proposed to the Faith of Christians by the Infallible Teaching Church for they are bound in Heaven by God Himself. If something is decreed on earth and is also bound in Heaven, that thing must be the truth. Otherwise, God is no longer the Truth, which is contrary to the Gospel:

• Matthew 16:19. – And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven.

The Catholic Church is infallible because it is:

• 1 Timothy 3:15. – the church of the living God,
  the pillar and the ground of the truth.

If a baptized person deliberately denies or contradicts a dogma, he or she is guilty of sin of heresy and automatically becomes subject to the punishment of excommunication.

From the work of Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, published by the Mercier Press Ltd., Cork, Ireland, 1955. With Imprimatur of Cornelius, Bishop. Reprinted in U.S.A. by Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 1974.

---

I. The Unity and Trinity of God

God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.

God’s existence is not merely an object of rational knowledge, but also an object of supernatural faith.

God’s Nature is incomprehensible to men.

The blessed in Heaven possess an immediate intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence.

The immediate vision of God transcends the natural power of cognition of the human soul, and is therefore supernatural.

The soul, for the immediate vision of God, requires the light of glory.

God’s Essence is also incomprehensible to the blessed in Heaven.

The divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.

God is absolutely perfect.

God is actually infinite in every perfection.

God is absolutely simple.

There is only one God.

The one God is, in the ontological sense, the true God.

God possesses an infinite power of cognition.

God is absolute veracity.

God is absolutely faithful.

God is absolute ontological goodness in Himself and in relation to others.

God is absolute moral goodness or holiness.

God is absolute benignity.

God is absolutely immutable.

God is eternal.

God is immense or absolutely immeasurable.

God is everywhere present in created space.

God’s knowledge is infinite.

God’s knowledge is purely and simply actual.

God’s knowledge is subsistent.

God knows all that is merely possible by the knowledge of simple intelligence.

God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future.

By the knowledge of vision, God also foresees the future free acts of rational creatures with infallible certainty.

God’s Divine Will is infinite.

God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and wills the creation of extra-divine things, on the other hand, with freedom.

God is almighty.

God is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth.

God is infinitely just.

God is infinitely merciful.

In God there are three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Each of the three Persons possesses the one (numerical) Divine Essence.

In God there are two internal divine processions.

The Divine Persons, not the Divine Nature, are the subject of the internal divine processions (in the active and in the passive sense).

The Second Divine Person proceeds from the First Divine Person by generation, and therefore is related to Him as Son to Father.

The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son as from a single principle through a single spiration.

The Holy Ghost does not proceed through generation but through spiration.

The relations in God are really identical with the Divine Nature.

The Three Divine Persons are in one another.

All the ad extra activities of God are common to the three Persons.

Read more

Judaism and the Catholic Church: before and after Vatican II

The key text of Nostra Aetate on this point is in the document’s fourth chapter:

Given this great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews, it is the wish of this sacred Council to foster and recommend a mutual knowledge and esteem… the Jews should not be presented as rejected by God or accursed, as though this follows from Scripture… The Church… deplores all hatred, persecution and other manifestations of anti-semitism, whatever the period and whoever was responsible.

Of course, no Catholic may favor the mistreatment of Jews or of anyone else. This is a given. What’s troubling, however, is the ambiguity contained in the phrase, “The Jews should not be presented as rejected by God or accursed, as though this follows from Scripture.”

This phrase lacks necessary distinctions.

Firstly, all of us are members of an “accursed race” – the human race. None of us are born Catholic, but enter this world stained with original sin as children of Adam and Eve. We are thus born, as Blessed Abbot Marmion explains, “enemies of God.” [5] The Psalms teach, “Indeed in guilt was I born and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 5:7) St. Paul affirms, “For we are by nature children of wrath.” (Eph. 2:3). We are all born as part of the Kingdom of Satan.

To be freed from this kingdom, we need to be “saved”. The eminent Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton explains, the process of salvation requires a transfer from the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom of God, according to the age-old doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,[6] is the Catholic Church, the one and only supernatural society established by Christ in which salvation can be found.

The process of salvation, as Fenton notes, is similar to being saved from a sinking rowboat wherein the individual is sure to perish, and being transferred to a sea-worthy ocean liner. This necessary transfer from the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God requires Baptism and acceptance of the Jesus Christ and his Divine Revelation. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:6) This teaching applies to all people on earth, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or secular humanist.

We are all thus born as part of an “accursed race.” The only way to free ourselves from this curse, the only way out of the kingdom of Satan, is to leave the devil’s empire and transfer into Christ’s one true Church, and to keep oneself in the state of grace by means of prayer and the sacraments.

Locusts and Luther – Oh My!

Chapter 9 of the Apocalypse opens with Saint John’s terrifying vision:

“And the fifth Angel sounded the trumpet; and I saw a star fall from Heaven upon the earth, and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.

“And he opened the bottomless pit: and the smoke of the pit ascended as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun was darkened, and the air with the smoke of the pit:

“And from the smoke of the pit, there came out locusts upon the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.” (Apoc: 9:1-3)

Devout Catholic Scriptural commentators for the past 500 years have seen in this vision a prediction of Luther and his Protestant Revolt.

Father Herman Bernard Kramer, in The Book of Destiny, explains, “Luther did truly open the pit and let loose against the Church all the fury of hell. Therefore modern interpreters almost universally see in this fallen star, Luther.”[1] Father Kramer references the eminent Scriptural commentator, Cornelius a Lapide as making this point.[2]

“The whole description of the locusts”, Father Kramer explains, “fits down to the last detail the kings and princes who established by force the heresy of the 16th Century.” He continues:

“When Luther propounded his heretical and immoral doctrine, the sky became as it were obscured by smoke. It spread very rapidly over some regions of the earth, and it brought forth princes and kings who were eager to despoil the Church of her possessions. They compelled the people of their domains and in the territories robbed from the Church to accept the doctrines of Luther.

The proponents of Protestantism made false translations of the Bible and misled the people into their errors by apparently proving from the ‘Bible’ (their own translations) the correctness of their doctrines. It was all deceit, lying and hypocrisy.

Bad and weak, lax and lukewarm, indifferent and non-practicing Catholics and those who had neglected to get thorough instruction were thus misled; and these, seeing the Catholic Church now through this smoke of error from the abyss and beholding a distorted caricature of the true Church, began both to fear and hate her.”[3]

As for Luther, he did “everything to instill hatred of the [Catholic] Church into the hearts of his followers.”

The Book of Destiny – Free Download – 521 pages – 10.5 MB – PDF

The Health and Wealth Gospel isn’t worth the paper it’s not written on.

I would like to illustrate how the Faith and Prosperity teachings and our adherence to them robbed my wife and I of the one thing we needed the most: Truth, and the grace to carry the cross our Lord graciously and lovingly handed us. My wife was diagnosed with a rare lung cancer at 28 years of age while still nursing a 6 month old. Here’s my story:

Link

Editor’s note: The Health and Wealth Gospel is a fabrication of modern, materialistic Protestantism that enriches preachers (entertainers) to the detriment of the congregation, through the flagrant and creative preaching of imaginative modern heresies, falsely allegedly to be founded in Bible truth.

A special essay on Modernism and why its presence is so strong in our days.

In his book “Athanasius”, Bishop Rudolf Graber, of Regensburg, explains how the Evil One in the course of the ages has attacked the Holy Catholic Church in ways increasingly refined, insidious, and intimate. He began by attacking the faithful through persecutions, but seeing that these lead rather to an increase of the Faith, he adopted another method: that of attacking the Faith itself.

With the heresies of Martin Luther he managed to detach a great number of people from the Catholic Church; with the heresies that comprise Modernism, he has even succeeded at present in contaminating the Faith of a great number of people within the Church Herself.

What is Modernism? Saint Pius X defines it in his encyclical Pascendi as “the synthesis of all heresies”. The Code of Canon Law (CIC. 751) defines heresy as: “the obstinate denial, after receiving baptism, of a truth which is to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith, or the obstinate doubt concerning it…”

Now, what is defined by the words ‘a truth which is to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith’ is Catholic dogma. We observe that Modernism has in fact a wider scope than Catholic dogma as here defined, in that it extends to all traditional Catholic doctrines, even if they have not yet been defined as dogmas. In other words, Modernism includes the denial not only of all dogmas, but also of all traditional Catholic doctrine.

Read more

San Diego Cdl. McElroy’s heretical position on unworthy reception of Holy Communion only “works” if the Blessed Sacrament is merely “cookies and grape juice”. McElroy (and others) need to be officially reprimanded. Here’s what you can do to help make that happen…

*** Send this article to all your Catholic friends ***
*** Copy the link below and paste it into your email ***
tinyurl.com/4xxrwvm5

By Doug Lawrence

San Diego’s Cdl. McElroy’s heretical position on unworthy reception of Holy Communion only “works” if the Blessed Sacrament is merely symbolic i.e. “cookies and grape juice”.

But, since the Holy Eucharist (in the Catholic Church) TRULY IS the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, active homosexuals and others, who choose to “live in sin” rather than authentically repent and turn away from their sins, should “seek out Christ” in Protestant faith communities, where they will have no opportunity to intentionally (or otherwise) desecrate and profane the authentic, Blessed Sacrament.

The Pope’s recent heretical teaching, urging priests to give absolution to unrepentant sinners, even though said sinners have no intention or likelihood of true repentance, is merely the “flip side” of McElroy’s same, ugly, corrupt and counterfeit, pro-sodomy “coin”.

Are they attempting to “queer” the Holy Catholic Church
in an effort to somehow, “inoculate” the priesthood
from future, homosexual/pedophile sex scandals?

Have they no “Fear of the Lord”?

Both of these men, as well as all their like-minded, clerical cronies, ought to immediately resign, so as to avoid any further, public scandal and/or damage to the Church. But they probably won’t.

As a faithful Catholic, you should be angry
about what these people are doing
and you should also be ready and willing to do something about it
right here and right now!

First, these renegade clerics dishonored, profaned
and financially impoverished the Holy Catholic Church,
with their homosexual/pedophile sex scandals!

Then, they closed down all the churches
and effectively impeded reception of the sacraments,
during the pandemic!

Now, they work to brazenly and publicly
“queer” the Church
while attacking the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist,
as well as all the other sacraments!

*** HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP REPAIR THE CHURCH ***
(It won’t cost you anything.)

Send a note to your parish priest
(I’ve already written it for you. All you need to do is print it. See below.)
explaining that, until these people are properly disciplined,
publicly and officially sanctioned/reprimanded by the Church,
that no more weekly donations will be forthcoming.

Place that note into the collection basket,
in lieu of your regular, Sunday donation.

Continue to do so every week, until the problem is fully
and properly resolved.

Urge all your Catholic friends to do the same.

Don’t worry about sending a copy to the bishop. He’ll find out – real fast!

— SAMPLE NOTE —

Sample note – ready for you to print out
and drop in the collection basket. (PDF)

Related article with all the sordid details

Corruptio optimi pessima is a Latin phrase meaning, “corruption of the best becomes the worst.”

Biden’s version of Catholicism is an escapade.  Biden’s election was illicit.  His fake-Presidency is ridiculous, full of blunders, gaffs and senility.  But probably over 50% of US Catholic priests and bishops voted for this man in 2020—thinking it was the “Catholic” thing to do.

Read more

God made me this way

Popular headlines in the  media earlier this year trumpeted Jorge Bergolgio’s telling a young man who is choosing freely to live a homosexual life that he should be happy because God made him that way.

Instead of condemning faithful catholics who speak the truth, why do the priests, bishops, cardinals and Jorge Bergolio not tell those they now condemn:

Be happy being a rigid RadTrad, God made you that way.

Be happy being a bully fundamentalist, God made you that way.

Be happy being a racist, capitalist critic of Jorge Bergolio, God made you that way.

What possible explanation could there be – if consistency is a standard for logical argument –  for not applying the “God-made-you” justification to any sin- even the sin of being a faithful catholic?

Link: https://the-american-catholic.com/2020/10/09/radtrads-rigid-bullies-go-to-heaven/

Buchanan: Either the Church has been in grave error in the past, or the Church is toying with heresy today.

Saturday, The Washington Post described the synod as a “brawl over Francis’ vision of inclusion.”

Reporter Anthony Faiola compared the synod deliberations to a Tea Party rebellion in John Boehner’s House caucus, and the pope to a change agent like Barack Obama who finds himself blocked and frustrated by conservatives.

Saturday’s document from the synod ignored the call for a new Church stance toward homosexual unions. And it did not approve of giving Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, whom the Church considers to be living in adultery.

Yet, in Sunday’s sermon the pope seemed angered by both the defiance of the resisting bishops and the conclusions the synod reached.

Read more

Invincible ignorance neither saves nor condemns. So, what is it?

…a person who wants to go east, but, by an innocent mistake, gets on a train going west, will, as soon as he finds out his mistake, get off at the next station, and take a train that goes east. In like manner, a person who walked on a road that he, in his inculpable ignorance, believed was the true road to Heaven, must leave that road, as soon as he finds out his mistake, and inquire for the true road to Heaven. God, in His infinite mercy, will not fail to make him find out, in due time, the true road to Heaven, if he corresponds to His grace. Hence we asked the following question in our Familiar Explanation: 

“What are we to think of the salvation of those who are out of the pale of the Church without any fault of theirs, and who never had any opportunity to know better?”

To this question we give the following answer:

“Their inculpable (invincible) ignorance will not save them; but if they fear God and live up to their conscience, God, in His infinite mercy, will furnish them with the necessary means of salvation, even so as to send, if needed, an angel to instruct them in the Catholic Faith, rather than let them perish through inculpable ignorance.” (St. Thomas Aquinas)

More

Dirty little secret: Many “Fallen away Catholics” were first left spiritually and morally abandoned by a “Fallen Away, Know-Nothing Catholic Church”.

by Doug Lawrence

Coming of age in the early 1970’s and looking to the Catholic Church for guidance on faith, family and other matters of critical import brought only shrugs, along with the continuing assurance that I would be just fine if only I managed to follow my conscience.

But how could I follow my conscience on matters I knew nothing about? Wasn’t there somebody who could provide a reliable Catholic perspective for me – perhaps a local priest or a bishop? (Sound of crickets chirping.)

That was my personal experience with the “New Pentecost” which led to the “New Springtime” of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church – and it took me more than twenty years to get over it!

It wasn’t until I eventually developed a modicum of personal maturity, along with the necessary research skills, that I managed to overcome the ecclesial nonsense, fend off the rampant incompetence and corruption, and finally develop a working understanding of the one, true faith – no thanks to anyone in the church, except God!

It was then that I discovered – or more correctly – rediscovered – the power and the glory that is still ever present in the Holy Catholic Church – despite the rabble and the schmucks (I’m really trying to remain charitable here) who continue (on a daily basis ) to do everything in their power to run it into the ground!

The clerics of the 1970’s Catholic Church were AWOL when I most needed them, and due to the wide-spread apostasy and modernism embedded in virtually every part of the institutional church, many of them remain (at least, spiritually) absent without leave, today!

Modernism is the present day equivalent of Original Sin, since it corrupts everything! I have little doubt that when Pope Paul VI spoke of the Smoke of Satan somehow finding its way into the Temple of God, it was actually Modernism of which he spoke!   

For example: At this past Sunday’s Mass I was subjected to a homily, consisting of at least forty percent pure heresy, that was later followed by vigorous applause from the entire congregation (minus one – me). What used to get a person (particularly a priest) sanctioned, or even burned at the stake, now generates spontaneous applause and wide-spread approval!

Witness the “Francis Effect” in action! God help us!

Seen on the web: How to resolve the Fisher-More College affair and “fix” the entire Church.

1. SaintNicholasPunchedAHeretic March 4, 2014 2:55 pm

   First the rage at the diabolic actions of this Bishop. Then the calls for calm and reflection. Then the gossip and the fallacious logic of ad hominem attacks on the principal of the college in question as somehow excusing the demonstrably wrong actions of this Bishop ( see Rorate for details). And this after the FFI. And who next?
   Seriously folks. We have a demonstrable heretic of a Pope and not a single Cardinal or Bishop on the planet with the balls to call him out on his daily offences against the faith. We have the vast majority of so-called Catholics who go to no form of Mass at all – Ordinary, Extraordinary or otherwise. And the ones that do go the vast majority on a daily basis I live lives in total disregard of Church teachings. And yet, the Traditionalists tie themselves in knots agonising over questions of whether this group offers licit and valid sacraments, or illicit but valid sacraments or proper jurisdiction to do this but not that- arguments which would fly over the heads of the notionally Catholic but functionally heretical ‘Catholic’ population at large.

   Hit the heretics where it hurts. Withdraw financial support. Step back a bit. Take a deep breath. Recognise the direction things are going. Clamber aboard the lifeboats of the SSPX and pray that the storm eventually passes.

   Link to article/site

The new Cosmos television series and the ongoing war between faith and science.

“Everyone” knew the earth was the center of the universe?

Wow, who’s going to tell Copernicus? Kepler? Stigliola? Diggs? Maestlin? Rothmann? Brahe? All of them believed in models of the cosmos that were not considered orthodox, and lived at the time of Bruno. All of them escaped the fire, and indeed weren’t even pursued by the Inquisition. Right here we have the major lie at the heart of modern anti-religious scientific propaganda: the war between faith and science.

We’re supposed to just assume this ignorant backwards world of the past hates smart people. Tyson himself says it matter-of-factly: “How was [Bruno] spending New Year’s Eve [in 1599]? In prison, of course.”

Of course! Because that’s what the Church does to smart people! Bad church! Bad!

Read more

Editor’s note: The truth is, there existed at the time, no way of scientifically proving or disproving many of the theories these men (including Galileo and his telescope) proposed. If our understanding of the Sacred Scriptures needed to be reinterpreted, the Church first demanded real proof. There was none – and there would not be for many, many years.

When people began to promote their unproven and as yet, unverifiable theories as dogma, the Church said no. When some of them persisted, they were sanctioned in various ways.

The rest of the truth is that many of the theories these men promoted eventually proved to be – at least in part – false and/or scientifically incorrect, in many aspects. Not surprising, since no way existed (at that time) to definitively prove or disprove them.

That’s something the pro-science/anti-church guys always seem to conveniently leave out!

Galileo was wrong: The Bible does not teach how the Heavens go … but rather, how to go to Heaven

Science, Galileo and the Catholic Church

  

In times of great confusion, such as our own day, many Catholics are baffled on how to react.

Some claim that we must obey our leaders no matter what, and that to voice the slightest disagreement with them is a manifestation of disrespect and disobedience. Not only is this way of thinking incorrect, it also paralyzes Catholics into inaction and heightens their confusion. What we hope to demonstrate is that, according to the Saints, and according to the consistent teaching of the Church, Catholics are bound to resist even prelates if they deviate from the unchanging doctrine and Tradition of the Catholic Church.

Many also believe that it is impossible for a Supreme Pontiff to deviate in any way from the straight and narrow. This is partially correct. The Holy Ghost will always protect a Pope from defining error as truth, for example, from teaching error in an ex cathedra pronouncement. (1) That is certain. But it is demonstrable from the teachings and writings of the Saints that even the highest authority in the Church may fail in his duty and may drift into deviations from Church Teaching.

Read more

The modernist blasphemy “dogmatic evolutionism” or “reinterpretation of dogma to fit the times”

According to Mgr. Víctor Manuel Fernández, Rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina:

“Some have even claimed that all Church teachings depend and are based on non negotiable principles. This certainly is heresy! To claim that Jesus Christ, his resurrection, fraternal love and all that the Gospel teaches us depends on ethical principles is a distortion of Christianity.”

Link

Editor’s note: These are the same type of errors Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are shamelessly promoting in the United States – and the poorly educated, easily misled public is happily, gobbling them right up!

But it’s one thing for cheap, tin-horn politicians to promote falsehoods – and quite another for the priests and hierarchy of the Catholic Church – who are supposed to know better.

Perhaps Mgr. Fernandez no longer believes in Divine Revelation, Sacred and Apostolic Tradition, and the Sacred Deposit of Faith – which are precisely the things on which Catholic ethical principles have always been fashioned?

Or perhaps, these days, to Mgr. Fernandez, there is nothing sacred?

Let’s pray for all those attending the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina – whether or not they still accept that type of thing down there!

Yes. Pope Francis did indeed call Jesus a sinner!

This particular heresy is more typical of Lutherans

Since God cannot commit sin, this is also blasphemy.

Pray for the pope. Pray for Catholics who don’t know heresy when they hear or see it proclaimed.

Read the pope’s words for yourself at the official Vatican News website.

(Do it now, before the story is taken down.)

For the record – here’s the pertinent text:

Vatican Radio) Christian life is not a spa therapy “to be at peace until Heaven,” but it calls us to go out into the world to proclaim that Jesus “became the sinner” to reconcile men with the Father. These were Pope Francis’ words during his homily at Mass Saturday at the Casa Santa Martha.

The Christian life is not staying in a corner to carve a road which takes you into heaven, but it’s a dynamic that encourages one to stay “on the road” to proclaim that Christ has reconciled us to God, by becoming sin for us. In his usual profound and direct way, Pope Francis focuses on a passage from the Letter to the Corinthians, from today’s liturgy, in which St. Paul very insistent, almost “in a hurry”, uses the term “reconciliation”five times.

“What is reconciliation? Taking one from this side, taking another one for that side and uniting them: no, that’s part of it but it’s not it … True reconciliation means that God in Christ took on our sins and He became the sinner for us. When we go to confession, for example, it isn’t that we say our sin and God forgives us. No, not that! We look for Jesus Christ and say: ‘This is your sin, and I will sin again’. And Jesus likes that, because it was his mission: to become the sinner for us, to liberate us. “

It is the beauty and the “scandal” of the redemption brought by Jesus and it is also the “mystery, says Pope Francis, from which Paul draws” zeal “that spurs him to” move forward ” telling everyone” something so wonderful “the love of a God” who gave up his Son to death for me. ” Yet, explains Pope Francis, there is a risk of “never arriving at this truth” in the moment when “we ‘devalue a little the Christian life”, reducing it to a list of things to observe and thus losing the ardor, the force of the ‘”love that is inside” of it:

Pope Francis: Jesus is a sinner…

“Jesus is a sinner, we take His own sins to Him and we tell Him, this is Yours and I’m going back out into the world to do it again. Jesus likes that.”

If this scandal is really Francis’ statement, then our Pope is a blasphemer and public heretic.

Read more

Editor’s note: See the story and verify the comments here on the official Vatican news website.

Wayward Seattle priest is turning the sacred scriptures upside down and inside out to falsely justify the homosexual subculture

About 500 years ago Father John Whitney, S.J. would have been beheaded and burned at the stake for his heresies and blasphemy against the written Word of God, but today all we can do is feel pity for Archbishop J. Peter Sartain for having to tolerate this Jesuit, and pray that he excommunicates him for continuing to lead Christ’s flock astray.

Read more

What happened to religious vocations?

Today’s ubiquitous assumption that marriage and religious life are equal paths to holiness is not merely bad doctrine.  It is also a deathblow for religious life.

Once you accept that religious life and lay married life are equally effective means to sanctity, you undercut the only compelling motivation for becoming a religious.

If lay married life provides an equally effective means to sanctity, plus the goods of pleasure, family, property, one’s own will, etc., then it is irrational to choose religious life.  Choosing religious life over marriage would mean punishing yourself for no good reason.  It would mean turning your back on—showing contempt for—the goods of God’s creation while gaining nothing from your sacrifice. If lay married life gets you to sanctity just as easily and reliably as religious life, then all that religious life amounts to is a kind of masochism.

In the words of University of Washington sociologist Rodney Stark, “what does a woman gain in return for her vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, if she… acquires no special holiness thereby, while spending her working hours side-by-side with married women who now are officially seen as her equal in terms of virtue, but who are free from her obligations?”

Well, therein lies the problem.

Read more at Crisis Magazine