Posted on 02/22/2005 12:46:48 PM PST by Clint N. Suhks
ROME (Reuters) - Homosexual marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously threatening society, Pope John Paul says in a new book published Tuesday.
In "Memory and Identity," the Pope also calls abortion a "legal extermination" comparable to attempts to wipe out Jews and other groups in the 20th century.
He also reveals that he is convinced the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981 did not act alone and suggests that the former Communist Bloc may have been behind the plot to kill him.
The 84-year-old Pontiff's book, a highly philosophical and intricate work on the nature of good and evil, is based on conversations with philosopher friends in 1993 and later with some of his aides.
In one section about the role of lawmakers, the Pope takes another swipe at gay marriages when he refers to "pressures" on the European Parliament to allow them.
"It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man," he writes.
The Pope's fifth book for mass circulation, issued by Italian publisher Rizzoli, sparked controversy in Germany and elsewhere after Jewish groups protested against leaked excerpts comparing the Holocaust to abortion.
In at least two sections of the book, the Pope talks about the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews and the wholesale slaughter of political opponents by Communist regimes after World War II.
"LEGAL EXTERMINATION"
In following paragraphs he says that legally elected parliaments in formerly totalitarian countries were today allowing what he called new forms of evil and new exterminations.
"There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born," he writes.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.myway.com ...
You are the one prattling.
"But the reason Kasper was 'promoted' to 'Unity of Christians' (or whatever) was that JPII wanted Kasper OUT of Germany before he finished leading the German Church off a cliff."
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Not. You don't promote heretics. You silence them--the way Rome silenced Sr. Lucy.
"Note my comment above. Perhaps the single most significant deficiency in this Pope is his unwillingness to FIRE dumb yocks."
This is another falsehood. JPII had no trouble firing the duly elected superior general of the traditionalist Indult Fraternity FSSP, Fr. Bisig--on a very minor pretext. Two orthodox, straight, perfectly fine FSSP traditionalist theologians were also fired at the same time--and this was just a few years ago. So what you say isn't true. Just more coverups and excuses. The Pope has no problem at all telling traditionalists where to get off, or firing them or silencing them. He only has a problem with heretics. --Why?
From a newsletter of February 2002, by Bishop Fellay:
"In the meantime, there was the nomination of new cardinals in February of 2001. You may recall there were two waves of nominations with a week’s hiatus in between. We had a visit in between from Cardinal Castrillón during that week. I heard from another cardinal that when Cardinal Ratzinger heard that Kasper was about to be nominated he went to see the Pope and said to him, 'Kasper is a heretic!' Castrillón explained to me how the Vatican was obliged to give a cardinal to Germany. The nominations were made during the big fight in Germany over Church-assisted abortion. 'If we hadn’t named a German cardinal,' he said, 'Germany would have quit the Church. So, we thought it better to have a bad guy in the Vatican whom we would be able to control rather than to have somebody far away in Germany who was out of control.' This was a thinly veiled reference to Karl Lehman, who, by the way, was nominated a cardinal four days later. That is two wolves whom Cardinal Ratzinger calls 'heretic.' A few weeks later, a bishop told us the story of his dining with the Pope. The Pope said at that time, 'I have received so many critics of the nomination of these German cardinals, and I don’t know why!' This is not hearsay. The Pope doesn’t know why?!"
The following article appeared in The Angelus a few years ago just after Kasper and Lehman were made cardinals:
___________________________________________
CARDINALS WITH NO FAITH
Recently we have seen that Pope John Paul II appointed as Cardinals two German Bishops, Walter Kasper and Karl Lehmann. On what merits? We have illustrated them in the past, but since time has passed, it is well to recall them in order to better understand the gravity of these appointments vis à vis the facts.
For Walter Kasper, the miracles narrated in the Gospels are not historical facts related as eyewitness testimony by two Apostles, and as testimony heard by two of the Apostles' disciples, nor are they "segni certessimi” of Our Lord Jesus Christ's divinity as defined by Vatican I dogma. Rather, they are "instead, a problem which makes Jesus' activity strange, and difficult for modern man to understand."1,2 So, in homage to "modern man," or to be precise, to prideful man who believes only in himself, Walter Kasper deems himself authorized to put into perspective the "undeniable tradition which witnesses these miracles to us."3
Let us pass over the process that Kasper employs because we've previously treated it,4 and because it is just the parroted echo of the gratuitous assertions of the worst Protestant rationalist "criticism." Instead, let us move on to the conclusions: For Kasper, the new purple biretta, what are Jesus' miracles?
"These non-historical stories," he writes, "are statements of belief in the salvific meaning of the person and message of Jesus."5 Briefly, for Walter Kasper, Jesus never raised either Jairus' daughter or the widow of Naim's son from the dead, nor did He even call Lazarus from his tomb. Neither did He ever calm tempests, nor multiply the loaves, nor walk on water, etc.
According to Kasper, the evangelists invented these "non-historical stories" the way that our grandmothers made up fables at the fireside when there was no television to corrupt children. And just as our grandmothers' fables only sought to inculcate a "morality," so too the Evangelists' "fables" about Jesus' miracles "did not intend to present Jesus as Lord over life and death."6
In any case, for Walter Kasper, also as to his assumption that the miracles did occur-which, like all of the "new theologians" he firmly doubts-Jesus could not have performed miracles simply because he was not God. Jesus, he says, never advanced such "claims," and at Caesarea Philippi, Peter merely confessed, "You are the Messiah," and Jesus also proclaimed this before the Sanhedrin.7 But when the first Christian community confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, it did not in fact mean that Jesus really is the Son of God, but only wished "to express the idea that God manifests and communicates Himself in an absolute and definite way in the story of Jesus." End of story. In fact, the first Christian community did not intend "to acknowledge a dignity for him that would further his claims." Naturally, it was St. Paul's and St. John's habit to further Jesus' "claims."8
In our day, we are fortunate to have the Dutch Catechism to sort out all of this for us. Kasper partakes of its heresy, namely that "the doctrine of Jesus' divinity and humanity constitutes a development of the original conviction that this man is our divine salvation."9
You have read it correctly: salvation is "divine,” but Jesus is simply "this man"! And this would be "the original belief of the faith," indeed, the primitive Church's belief and faith!
We could stop here because we don't see how a man can still exercise his priestly function, be made a Bishop, and today even be made a Cardinal who, in his writings, negates fundamental Christian doctrine, i.e., Our Lord Jesus Christ's divinity, which, rather than heresy ought to be called apostasy.
If Jesus is not God but was made so by his later followers, there can logically be no resurrection. And in fact, Walter Kasper negates the Resurrection. For him, "the empty tomb represents an ambiguous phenomenon, open to different possibilities of interpretation."10 And interpretations of the Resurrection are "beliefs and testimonies produced by people who believe," and who, via the "new theology's" strange logic, necessarily lie, and who also simply attest to whatever facts that they have been lead to believe.
Undoubtedly, he continues, a certain "grossly erroneous type of assertion that Jesus was touched by their hands and ate at the table with his disciples...runs the risk of justifying a too coarse Paschal faith."11 But fortunately, as to the spiritualization of this "coarse" Paschal faith which has been the Church's faith for 2000 years, lo and behold, we have Walter Kasper to inform us that these apparitions were nothing more than "meetings with Christ present in the Spirit."12Clear, no?
So, for Walter Kasper, Our Lord Jesus Christ was not divine, there were no miracles, no resurrection and, therefore, no ascension.13 And in error's inexorable "logic," there was no Immaculate Conception or divine maternity. Consequently, Walter Kasper actually teaches the windy rehabilitation of Nestorius. Isn't that also logical? If, for Kasper, Jesus is not God, then Nestorius was wrongly condemned for having denied Mary the title, "Mother of God."14Everything squares in the new Cardinal's "logic." What a pity that it is the logic of apostasy and of total rejection of Revealed Truth!
Karl Lehmann is the other new purple biretta. Lehman's "faith" is specifically exemplified for us in the document of the 1986 Working Group on Justification, and Priestly Ministry (Fribourg in Br.-Göttingen), which he directed along with the Protestant, Pannenberg. On this subject, we shall also limit ourselves to the minimum while referring the reader to a long article published in the September 15, 1987 edition of SiSiNoNo, titled, "Germany: A Disgusting Document of Ecumenical Treason." Lehmann reveals himself to be this document's true "father" or, at least, the standard bearer of the shameful "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," signed two years ago by Catholics and Protestants.15
For Lehmann, the Council of Trent's anathemas have no value, because as he and his "separated brethren" say, that Council judged and condemned the "first" Luther. This, so that the "second" Luther might be tidied up and covered over!
Naturally, with satisfaction, the document emphasizes that the "departure from Trent" has been established in the Catholic Church. Obviously, here Lehmann confuses the Catholic Church with the "new theology," which is philo-Protestant and heretical. For this reason, we can understand why he says, "what is decisive in the reformers' conception of faith" no longer constitutes "any problem for today's Catholic theology."16
According to Lehmann, today, the Protestant theses—among which however there is no "departure" from Luther-no longer fall under Trent's anathemas. And, no matter that you might level them again, given that he has denied, par excellence, any value to that dogmatic Council.
In this same document, Protestant heresies are blasphemously and impudently placed on the same plane as Trent's infallible definitions, and Protestant sects' human and heretical "traditions" are put on the same level as the Church's Divine, Apostolic Tradition. Therefore, it is not surprising that just as Carlo M. Martini, S J. would like to send us to the Jews' schools to understand Sacred Scripture,17 so Lehmann would like to send us to the Protestants' school "in order to more profoundly understand the Church's doctrines and their roots."
Regarding this more profound "understanding," he presents proof composed of really many Protestant heresies, including sola Scriptura, which has no component of Tradition and no Magisterium, and is abandonment to private interpretation; and dogmatic relativism, by which a dogma can be true for Catholics and false for Protestants and vice-versa, and so also means that there are only diverse confessional "traditions," all of them respectable, despite the principle of non-contradiction.
Looking forward to Catholics allowing themselves to be instructed by Protestants, Lehmann rejoices that "in reality, the exegetical praxis of both Churches have become largely similar." And for him it is of little importance that the "Catholic" exegetes have aligned themselves with the Protestants, and not vice-versa.
Karl Lehmann speaks of a plurality of "churches," but in reality he partakes of the heresy of the "Church divided," which retains the unity of the Church destroyed by the schisms, against Sacred Scripture and Tradition, which, as faithfully transmitted by the Magisterium, teaches that the schism did not corrode the unity of the Church, exactly as when a dry branch that falls from a tree or is chopped off leaves the integral unity of the tree intact. Karl Lehmann not only unites himself to "the separated brethren" in exalting Luther, but he also unites himself to them in the denigration of the Catholic Church, her doctrine and her "very often unenlightened practices"18
If, then, we consider the document's content relative to doctrine on justification, merit, and on the sacraments, the picture becomes even more distressing: Or, doesn't Karl Lehmann know Catholic doctrine, or does he want to sacrifice it to an imaginary and illusory "consensus" at the expense of, and damage to Divine Revelation?
Here is just one example: Luther reduced the traditional seven sacraments to two, and Lehmann concedes that the relevant condemnation of Trent "can today only have value in a limited way."19 Let us ask: For Lehmann, are there seven or two sacraments? Or better, does he consider the sacraments to be a human or a divine institution? Similarly, Lehmann concedes that the Protestant critique regarding "the Roman Mass's canon's sacrificial thesis" is "understandable"!20 We ask: For Lehmann, is the Mass really a sacrifice, as the Catholic Faith defined it at Trent, or is it only a memorial, as his "separated brethren" want to say? Another cunning condescension: Today's Protestants' position would no longer fall under Trent's anathema only because—playing on words—they speak of the "real presence" in the Eucharist. But by "real presence," they really mean the "personal," spiritual presence and not at all the corporeal presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ.21
Also, in Vatican II texts, the absence of the term "transubstantiation" was hailed as a prudent distancing,22 naturally, from Catholic doctrine. And it doesn't matter at all that the same Pope Paul VI in Mysterium Fidei forced himself to undo this omission of the Council. For Lehmann, the "devotion before the Tabernacle"23 —notice that he puts it in quotation marks-and the Corpus Christi procession, are considered "forms of still conserved medieval devotions." And he supports the liturgical reform's operative reductions, thus confirming that Protestantization of the liturgy denounced by Cardinals Ottaviani and Baci to Pope Paul VI in their Breve esame critico. He also slips toward Protestant theology on Purgatory, which doesn't exist for Protestants; on Communion, which for Protestants is a means of remission of mortal sins; on Confirmation, Extreme Unction, Marriage, and on Ordination. He equivocates on the word, "Sacrament," which Protestants will adopt, but who mean by it something totally different from the Catholic faith's meaning. All of this is either serious or a betrayal, and both of these possibilities are unforgivable in a minister of God, a priest, who ought never to have become a Bishop, and instead, is now even a Cardinal.
If such is Rasper's and Lehmann's faith, it is not difficult to intuit what has become of morality in their hands: abortion, divorce, contraception, abolition of priestly celibacy, etc. Regarding the "remarried divorced," we have stressed here that Cardinals Kasper and Lehmann want to allow them to receive Communion, even if culpable and impenitent, "after an examination of conscience" and "a meeting with a prudent priest-expert." This statement provoked the intervention of the Congregation for the Faith.24
It is superfluous to say that Cardinals Kasper and Lehmann are enemies of the Roman Primate.25
Is it possible that Pope John Paul II is ignorant of much of what we have reviewed here about Kasper and Lehmann? Unfortunately, this is not so. In fact, in Kasper's case, he has treated one of his books that has circulated undisturbed for years in Italy. And in Lehmann's case, he has been treated in an official document on "ecumenical dialogue" in Germany. In any case, to prove that Pope John Paul II was well enough informed, his letter, a monitum that was sent to the German Cardinals at the time of the last consistory, suffices.
The first report on the letter was published on March 12, 2001 by the German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It reported that in the February 22nd letter, the Pope spoke of "confusion and abuse" and of "the decline in human and Christian values in Germany." He deplored an upsurge in liturgy, preaching, catechesis, in management of the community that does not correspond to disciplinary directives and Church teachings; and then, as to ecumenism, the German Bishops are called to guidelines recently presented in Dominus Jesus. Also while praising the German Church's "solid organizational structure," John Paul II warned of the risk of "gutting the Church from within by means that seem strong from the outside, but internally always [cause the Church] to lose ever more strength and credibility.
On May 16, Vatican Radio confirmed the same letter's content, as had been widely purveyed by the German mass media, and carefully repeated by Ansa. Vatican Radio added that the Pope had referred the new German Cardinals to the teaching of Humanae Vitaeand to the Congregation for the Faith's letter on the exclusion of the remarried divorced from Holy Communion; it otherwise noted that "confusion and abuses" were lamented, "particularly in the area of intercommunion with Protestants."
Therefore, John Paul II knew and disapproved many things. What sense then is there in making the two Cardinals, warning them within the same act of creating them as such? In his speech, the Pope told the new Cardinals: "Isn't the red of the vestments you wear the burning fire of love for the Church, which ought to nourish in you readiness, if necessary, for the supreme witness to life?" But how can one love the faith and love it " usque ad effusionem sanguinem” if one doesn't have the faith? And can the Cardinal's purple biretta perform the miracle of transforming "Bishops without faith"26 into Cardinals burning with faith unto martyrdom? Won't appointing them Cardinals have the singularly terrible effect of placing them in a position to do major damage to the Church, and no longer only in Germany?
Hirpinus
I see you are reduced to reprinting whole texts from SSPX pamphlets.
Read that one, thought it was good. Kudos to you if you found it easy, I had to slog my way through some of the passages.
That is just not true. I am a non-Catholic considering conversion, and I have learned a lot from ultima ratio and the other traditionalists here. I find his posts to be eloquent and informative. In fact, since it is the Latin mass that speaks to me as the Novus Ordo does not, the existence of the traditionalist movement which includes many who share my aesthetic and political preferences makes me more likely to join the Church, not less.
If there were no traditionalist movement, if all Catholics everywhere had simply gone along with the post-Vatican II changes and the Latin mass were nowhere to be found, I would definitely not have any interest in becoming Catholic.
Do you imagine anybody else in the Church would have the guts to tell the unvarnished truth at this stage? There has been a huge deafening silence regarding the Pope's heterodoxy. You will only get the kind of whitewash you and others like you would like to read. In other words, you would not get the truth. In fact, when I posted the comments of a respected theologian--you said THAT was a bit of tabloid journalism. In other words, nothing will satisfy you, since you are not at all disposed to hear the truth.
I'm a traditionalist Catholic as well, but that doesn't mean I slander the Pope as some do here!
If you are considering conversion, please try to visit an indult Mass then. Hopefully there is one in your area.
Difficult concept, eh? Do you recall who IS the 'man' the Church must follow?--the Man-in-Full? The very MODEL of 'man'?
Or is that just a little too challenging for you?
At some point, you may understand allegory. Take up the subject in your next Ph.D.
Are you kidding? He didn't say "The Son of Man" he said man. Your spin is disingenuous. Nice try, though.
That doesn't always work. It's the same thing Pius XII did with Paul VI. (can't remember his pre-pope name)
Pius XII detested him and wanted him out of Rome, so he made him the Bishop of Venice, a position that carries a red hat. Pius sent him off without even an audience and considered him well gone. Never made a move to get im the red hat.
When Pius died and John XXIII took over he gave his good friend the red hat, and the rest is history.
If you did pay attention,you would know that it took ten years to silence them on the subject of homosexuality, an issue on which they were twisting and spinning Truth and calling it Catholic teaching. And even after the ten years,they only silenced half of the team.
I think the whole Call To Action army sent individual letters saying that Nugent and Grammick never said what they were accused of saying. Of course they were being deceitful, nonetheless it took 10 years when finally Father Nugent ceased. Grammick is still supported by her coven or convent or whatever the gang she belongs to is called.
I just can't believe you are as naive as you appear to be when it comes to why the Pope can't say abracadabra and make liars and deceivers disappear. Get a job in government for a few years and you will begin to get a glimmer of what the Pope and Catholic Cardinals and Bishops are up against. And government principals in most cases aren't even held to a standard of decency let alone personal sanctity.
I'm generally on your side, but I can't go along with this. However reprehensible Henry VIII's break with Rome, that does not make his successors "fake" or unworthy of the allegiance of British Catholics, and the Church has never held that it does. Catholic monarchist Charles Coulombe has addressed this issue:
We beseech Thee, Almighty God, that thy handmaid Elizabeth our Queen, who has been called by thy kindness to rule over this kingdom, may also receive from Thee an increase of all virtues. Fittingly adorned with these, may she be able to shun all evil doing, (to conquer her enemies), and, finally, being well pleasing before Thee, may attain with the Prince Consort, and their royal offspring to Thee, Who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
When the Poles rebelled against Tsar Nicholas I, they appealed to Pope Gregory XVI to back their rebellion, arguing that since the Tsar was Orthodox they owed him no allegiance. The Pope sternly rebuked them and refused, saying that even though the Tsar belonged to a schismatic church, he was still their lawful ruler whose authority came from God and therefore they were obliged to obey him in all things but sin.
In other words, Tsar Nicholas was not "fake," and neither is Queen Elizabeth.
Even in ill health the man continues to fight evil.
God bless this great man.
Why couldn't Bush say this?
There is no indult mass anywhere near me; that's why I've been going to an SSPX chapel. I have attended indult masses elsewhere though and would so again.
That's interesting what you posted. However, wasn't Henry IV of France forced to become Catholic before the Pope ruled that he was the legitamite king?
But none of this sounds anything like what John Paul has written in Encyclicals or his books.
I have to disagree with you on one point, I think John Paul is a masterful writer. But these actions sound nothing like what he has written. How could he expect to get a holy Church by making reprobates into Cardinals?
If this is true, is it possible he writes one thing (beautifully), but does another? It's just so confusing! How is one to know the real Pope, by what he says or what he does?
Ninenot is absolutely correct and if you read the encyclical you will note that the entire emphasis is on Christ. Ninenot is a very nice way provides some food for serious reflection on the part of those who hyper-focus on incidentals or asides rather than issues and big pictures.
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