Posted on 10/18/2016 5:30:42 AM PDT by ebb tide
Our series on the font of error that is Pope Francis continues with his performance before an audience of Lutheran “pilgrims” from Germany at the Vatican on October 13. That date was the 99th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima; but Francis, who is supposedly devoted to the Blessed Virgin and had his pontificate consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima (which accounts for my early optimism concerning his disastrous pontificate), completely ignored the occasion. Instead, he devoted the day to celebrating the memory of Martin Luther in the Paul VI Audience Hall.
A statue of the arch-heretic shared the stage with Francis during the event, at which two male Lutheran ministers, one sporting an earring, placed into his hands a mammoth ceremonial copy of the 95 Theses, commonly viewed as the landmark for the beginning of the so-called Reformation. One of the ministers quoted Luther to the effect that he wished his work to be delivered to others who had never read it. Never in his wildest dreams did Luther ever foresee that one of the recipients would be an approving Pope.
Francis spent most of the audience wearing two scarfs, one yellow the other blue, knotted together to symbolize the “unity” between Lutherans and orthodox Catholics that exists only in his imagination. Or perhaps Francis had in view the unity that does indeed exist between Lutherans and the liberalized Catholic majority, who have effectively become Protestants thanks in large measure to the ruinous novelty of “ecumenism.” Today we witness what Pius XI feared when he condemned and forbade Catholic participation in the “ecumenical movement” that had originated in the Protestant sects:
Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be “one”.…
This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.
Now a hyper-ecumenical Pope is personally engaged in destroying the foundations of the Catholic faith precisely in the name of ecumenism, carpet bombing the Church with cocky latitudinarian utterances, usually delivered with a sneer and a tone of indignant irritation at the orthodox Catholics who would differ with the crowd-pleasing bromides he appears to regard as authentic Catholic spirituality.
Indulging in his customary heretical blather in response to questions put to him by members of his Lutheran audience (the following are my translations, taken directly from the video), Francis declared that Catholics and Lutherans belong to the “one body of Christ.” Yet again Francis flatly contradicted the teaching of his predecessors regarding the members of the Mystical Body:
As Venerable Pius XII solemnly affirmed in conformity with all of Tradition:
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. “For in one spirit” says the Apostle, “were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free.” As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith.
As Pius XI, in the course of condemning the “ecumenical movement,” likewise insisted:
[S]ince the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.
But the teaching of his predecessors is of no moment to Francis, who revels in saying things that are “foolish and out place” while the world applauds his “humble revolution.” Further on in his ramblings, Francis addressed a question concerning a region in Germany where some eighty percent of the population professes no religion:
What must we say to convince them? Listen! The last thing we should do is say: You should live as a Christian—chosen, forgiven and growing in virtue [in cammino, fig.]. It is not right [lecito] to convince someone of your faith. Proselytism is the great poison against the path of ecumenism [applause].
You should give testimony of your Christian life—the testimony that is from the heart, the heart they can see. And from this inquietude is born the question: “Why does this man or this woman live this way?” And this will prepare the ground so that the Holy Spirit, who is the one who works in the heart, will do what He must do. But He must speak, not you!
It could not be clearer: Francis insists it is wrong to say anything to convince others of one’s faith. According to him, one must simply live as a Christian while God does all the talking through some sort of interior illumination in the people who will supposedly be led to conversion by the mere sight of Christian living. Francis was not speaking of proselytism in the “negative sense” suggested by the neo-Catholic excuse factory, but rather the very act of persuading people of the truth of the Catholic religion. Nor need Jimmy Akin and the other neo-Catholic artisans of cover-up waste time with the “bad translation” dodge. The Pope’s exact words in Italian are as follows: “Non é lecito [right or lawful] convincere della tua fede. Il proselitismo [his emphasis] é il velleno [poison, venom] piu forte contro il cammino ecumenico.”
Here we encounter one of those glittering clichés of liberal Catholicism that sound good but are exposed as rubbish upon a moment’s reflection. Consider the reality of life in our modern secular and pluralist social order. In the vast impersonal arena of public life, including the workplace and places of recreation, the “silent” witness that is supposed to convert people is completely inoperative. Catholics do not walk around visibly radiating joy, with halos floating above their heads to signify that they occupy an exalted platform of peace and happiness to which everyone should aspire. There is no spiritual “inquietude” aroused by the mere presence of Catholics in society, prompting questions about why we “live this way.” Quite the contrary, the sight of a large Catholic family, for example, is more likely to elicit derision and revulsion from members of the dutifully contracepted populace.
At any rate, the people Catholics encounter outside their homes and parishes generally have no idea that Catholics “live this way” unless they tell them about their faith and what it means for their way of life. It is precisely the spoken witness of the faith that can move hearts and lead souls to conversion by the grace of God. Otherwise, Catholics are all but invisible in the immense crowd of contemporary civil society. The liberal Catholic cliché Francis constantly spouts is merely a recipe for the total silencing of the Church Militant, which in fact is the very outcome of “ecumenism” and the conciliar “opening to the world” in general.
Still worse, respecting this imaginary silent Christian witness Francis made no distinction between orthodox Catholics, who follow all the teachings of Christ, and Lutherans, who pick and choose from the Gospel as they practice contraception, divorce and even abortion, pretend to ordain women and practicing homosexuals as “priests” and “bishops,” and condone diabolical “marriages” between people of the same sex. Francis would have us believe that the Holy Spirit inspires conversion based on the “witness” of people who trample on the Gospel and whom even Luther would denounce as damnable heretics.
So much for the divine commission to “make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded thee.” And so much for the example of the first Pope, who, following that very commission, declared to a crowd of potential Jewish converts:
Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call. And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation (Acts 2:38-40).
Committing another of his innumerable bloopers, Francis next attributed to “medieval theology” the dictum “the Church is always reforming” or “must always be reformed,” rendered in Latin as ecclesia semper reformanda est. This Protestant catch phrase, which probably originated in the 1600s, is falsely attributed to Saint Augustine (who was not a medieval in any case) and was first made popular by the eclectic Protestant theologian Karl Barth after World War II.
That error was followed by the nonsensical claim that the “greatest reformers in the history of the Church, of our Churches… are the saints. That is, the men and women and women who follow the Word of the Lord and practice it… And in the Lutheran Church and in the Catholic Church there are, there have been, men and women of this sort… who follow the Gospel. These are the ones who reform the Church.”
In the Gospel According to Francis, the ultimate Catholic ecumenist, there are no crucial differences between Lutherans and Catholics. We are all Christians. We all follow the Gospel, including those who think the Gospel allows for divorce, contraception, sodomy and abortion in “difficult” situations. For Francis, the rank heresy and immorality promoted by Luther’s progeny, including the woman “bishop” Francis warmly greeted, are irrelevant. Catholics have their saints and Lutherans have theirs, including the degenerate maniac who founded their man-made religion, whose statue Francis dignified with his presence beside it.
Far from the mind of Francis is the reality that there is no “Lutheran Church” and never has been. Nor does he seem to notice that Lutheranism itself is fractured into numerous opposing sects whose corrupted doctrines more or less reject the infallible dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church on numerous points as well as precepts of the natural law written even on the hearts of faithless pagans, let alone people who profess to be Christians.
Francis’s performance on October 13 effectively denied the salvific necessity of the Church, a denial thematic of his entire pontificate. His hyper-ecumenism, of which the spectacle on October 13 is but the latest demonstration, also effectively denies the function of the Petrine office as the sine qua non of Christian unity.
The papal bully pulpit, however, is a most suitable vehicle for the worldwide promulgation of Bergoglianism, a religion Lutherans find entirely agreeable, as their delighted applause in the audience hall indicated. And Francis will confirm their delight when he travels to Sweden at the end of this month to commemorate the beginning of the Protestant rebellion and participate in a joint liturgy with Lutheran lay people masquerading in clerical costumes, thereby confirming them in all their abominable errors, none of which matter in the least to Francis.
And yet, as God infallibly draws good from evil, the very dreadfulness of this pontificate is finally awakening the faithful to the perils of papal positivism, reminding them that the Faith is objectively true, not true because the Pope says so, and that it is entirely possible that a Pope’s words and deeds can contradict that objective truth. Thus, for example, the day after the October 13th audience Jeffrey Mirus wrote:
The readers and writers of CatholicCulture.org, though they may be wrong at times, are not idiots. It is disingenuous to pretend that Pope Francis, when he says something that is received as new, different and unsettling, always really means [his emphasis] exactly what the Church has taught previously. By now, each one of Thomas Babington Macaulay’s famous schoolboys knows that this is not true. When the emperor’s wardrobe is depleted, it does not help anyone to pretend that he is well-dressed—unless it is preferable for us to doubt our sanity.
No, we are not insane. What is insane is this pontificate. As Antonio Socci observed following Francis’s love fest for Luther: “Bergoglio, instead of honouring Our Lady, honoured Martin Luther by taking part in an audience (in the Vatican) where a statue of the German heretic and schismatic was exposed as if he were one of the saints. For that matter, Bergoglio is the Pope who, for the first time in two thousand years, has wanted the profanation of the Sacraments! … [W]hat else is it going to take for the ingenuous to open their eyes?”
Only God knows how much longer the Church will be afflicted by this wretched Pope. But eyes are being opened at long last. For that, at least, we can give thanks as we hope and pray for the Church’s deliverance from Francis and all his works.
The office of the Pope is described in 2 Thessalonians 2. Each pope is quite cunning.
Papa Francisco disgraced himself (an the Chair of Saint Peter) and embarrassed Catholics worldwide. Sad.
Based on the story of the Prodigal son, shouldn’t the Catholic Church expect the return of heretical religions return to the Father and accept the Faith?
Why does the Pope consider all Christians to have the same beliefs as those taught by Jesus and the Catholic Church?
Does the Catholic Church now accept those who do not believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the Sacraments, Sacred Tradition, the Pope, etc.
The Lutherans; http://www.lutheran-resources.org/lutheran_beliefs.htm
Lutherans believe it is important to proclaim their faith to the world in an understandable manner. And so Lutherans have been known to write down statements explaining what they believe and where they find these beliefs in the Bible. The most important of these statements are found in the Book of Concord, which is a collection of Lutheran theological declarations. These are sometimes referred to as the “Confessions” and Lutherans who believe that these writings are a correct explanation of what the Holy Scripture teaches on certain topics are often called “confessional”.
Lutherans also take their various practices from Scripture. We do recognize that God’s Word does not address every matter of practice. Our position is that if God’s Word has spoken to a matter we must follow God’s Word on that matter. But where God’s Word is silent, there can be liberty for practice as long as this is done responsibly for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel into the world.
Treatise Compiled by the Theologians Assembled at Smalcald - 1537
1] The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom].
2] Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.].
3] And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar of Christ on earth.
4] These three articles we hold to be false, godless, tyrannical, and [quite] pernicious to the Church.
http://bookofconcord.org/treatise.php
Yet even, the Lutherans have split into many different denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lutheran_denominations
I hope all individuals find the Truth of Jesus Christ and find salvation. I don’t see that they acquire that Truth through a man made heretical religion. There are certainly organizational problems within the Catholic Church, but the teachings are from Jesus Christ and His Church.
There is also the author of this piece who makes no distinction between confessional Lutherans (who hold to the Word of God and the Book of Concord) and Lutherans in name only (who pick and choose what to follow).
It's really weird that Catholics would embrace heretical Lutherans when Catholics have much more in common with orthodox Lutherans. I understand that Catholics and Lutherans have disagreements, but don't disparage all Lutherans because of the views of quacks.
Yes, we do. If you set yourself in the place of Christ, you are an antichrist.
The more I think about this article, the funnier this article gets. The argument goes Martin Luther should have know his place and shouldn't have questioned/criticized the pope. The author of this article criticizes the pope. The author says to come join the one true faith, led by a pope who doesn't share the one true faith. Seriously, consider using a mirror.
So why are you bitching that, "Catholics have much more in common with orthodox Lutherans."
Francis is the master of the false dichotomy. He posits two alternatives; speaking (or "proselytism") and living a Christian life as if the two are mutually exclusive. In fact, it's not an either/or situation. Both are part of the mission of a faithful Christian. If we speak to others of our faith, our own lives should of course reflect our words. However, there are times when a word or two may be exactly what is required, especially if our faith is attacked or denigrated by friends, family, work colleagues etc.
Of course, we should not harangue or nag those who are not receptive since it will likely be counterproductive but there is absolutely no reason why speaking of one's faith to those who are receptive, should not take place. Spiritual discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit and Christians should be able to discern when proselytism is called for. One of the tragedies of the neo-humanist, secular West is that nobody speaks of God any more. This is especially true in Britain and Western Europe where any mention of God marks one down as a religious kook. People need to start talking about God as well as living Godly lives and the Pope of all people, should understand this.
The question "why does this man or woman live this way" is seldom asked because in a large urban metropolis, he or she (the believer) probably lives in a very similar manner to the agnostic next door. Both own a home and cars, both leave at 8am every morning to go work, both tidy their yards at weekends and their children play baseball and soccer together. Likely the only major difference is that on Sunday morning, the believer goes to Church and the agnostic goes fishing. The principal difference between them is, in fact, interior: how they view material possessions, how they view suffering, the importance of prayer etc.
What is ecumenism anyway? Isn't it supposed to be a journey together towards the truth? How can that happen if nobody speaks of their faith? Isn't "proselytism" a form of ecumenism, minus all the fake smiles, handshakes and high-level, platitudinous statements?
Because it's true...
Ecumenism is the goal, but that doesn't mean it's easy or even possible in this world. Some of these discussions are difficult and contentious, but that doesn't mean they are not worth having.
But by all means, have fun with the easy ecumenism of liberal Lutherans and their heretical beliefs and anything goes ideology. When you believe that the Bible contains the Word of God along with a bunch of other stuff made up by men, you can throw out anything that makes you uncomfortable or goes against today's morality.
I'm just tired of reading about Catholics and Lutherans, when the story is really only about a subset of Lutherans.
"Ecumenism" is not the goal and it never has been. The goal is salvation and it's only through the Catholic Church that one can achieve it.
P.S. Martin Luther didn't appear to be ecumenical.
And Shia is a subset of Islam. What's your point?
Quote Martin Luther, "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen."
The Catholic Church kicked Martin Luther out. Catholic of his day wanted to burn him at the stake. The Roman Emperor, a Catholic, said is was ok to kill Martin Luther without penalty. Even Catholics of today bemoan the fact that Martin Luther wasn't killed.
Ecumenism doesn't mean everyone agrees with the Catholic Church or else. It appears we can't even agree on salvation.
The goal is salvation and it's only through the Catholic Church that one can achieve it.
No thanks. That's not why I'm saved.
And you can keep you Pope. If my pastor or the president of my synod said the things that your Pope said, we'd take him aside and have a discussion. If he didn't change his ways, we'd have a larger discussion. And if he still didn't change his ways, he'd be out the door. Shame on the Catholic Church for allowing this Pope to spout gibberish.
Why is the Catholic Church position that people have to accept their opinion without question, but then state you have to take the Pope's statements with discernment? Submit to the Pope, but sometimes he doesn't know what he's talking about. His word is infallible, but only in some situations. Catholic's complain about "Your own personal interpretation of scripture", but then leave Catholics in the position to selectively parse when the Pope is off his meds.
Hard fact: you, not being invincibly ignorant, are not saved outside the Catholic Church.
Have you ever wondered why?
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