Posted on 05/09/2024 11:03:52 AM PDT by ebb tide
Springfield’s Bishop Thomas Paprocki has stated President Joe Biden “mocks our Catholic faith,” following Biden’s latest pro-abortion move making the sign of the cross when hearing about restrictions on abortion in Florida.
In a May 8 video, Paprocki joined his voice to that of Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Spain’s Bishop José Ignacio Munilla in condemning Joe Biden’s selective approach to Catholicism and his support for abortion.
“Making the sign of the cross is one of the most profound gestures a Catholic can make in showing reverence for Christ’s death on the cross and belief in the Holy Trinity as we sign ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” said Paprocki. “To misuse this sacred gesture is to make a mockery of our Catholic faith.”
On April 23, Biden was seen making the sign of the cross in reaction to laws approved by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to restrict abortions from from 15 to 6 weeks. While campaigning in Florida, Biden attacked the state’s six-week ban as “extreme” and again declared that killing the unborn should be “a constitutional right in the federal Constitution.”
READ: ‘Absolutely evil’: Joe Biden makes sign of the cross during pro-abortion rally in Florida
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder. (CCC 2270-2272.) The Vatican’s 2004 memo states that a politician “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” manifests “formal cooperation” with grave sin, and must be “denied” the Eucharist.
Paprocki noted that “making the sign of the cross is one of the most profound gestures a Catholic can make in showing reverence for Christ’s death on the cross and belief in the Holy Trinity as we sign ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“To misuse this sacred gesture,” said Paprocki, “is to make a mockery of our Catholic faith.”
The Springfield bishop summarized Biden’s action as having “compounded his support for the sin of abortion.”
Prior to Biden’s now viral sign of the cross, Cardinal Gregory had commented during an Easter Sunday interview that the president was a “cafeteria Catholic.” This, Gregory said, was because Biden “chooses to ignore” certain issues of the faith such as those relating to life and death.
You can’t pick and choose,” said Gregory. “You’re either one who respects life in all of its dimensions, or you have to step aside and say, ‘I’m not pro-life.’”
READ: Cardinal Gregory says pro-abortion, pro-LGBT Joe Biden is ‘very sincere about his faith’
To this, Paprocki added his vocal support: “I fully support Cardinal Gregory and agree with what he said.”
But going further than the D.C. cardinal, Paprocki outlined the Catholic teaching on heresy, apostasy and schism. While making no accusation directly against Biden, the bishop’s thinly veiled meaning appeared clear.
Citing the precise points of Canon Law, Paprocki noted that “heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
With heresy, apostasy and schism incurring “automatic excommunication,” said Paprokci, such an individual is “no longer in full communion with the Catholic Church until he or she repents, goes to confession, and is absolved from the sin with remission of the penalty by the competent ecclesiastical authority, which normally is done by a priest in the sacrament of penance.”
Biden’s misuse of the sign of the cross had also drawn criticism from Spain’s Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante, who said that what Biden had done was to “invoke the cross in a sacrilegious manner.”
READ: Spanish bishop decries Biden’s signing of the cross at abortion rally as ‘sacrilegious’
Noting that Biden had made a “desecration of the sign of the cross,” Munilla stated that the sign of the cross is intended to be how “we remember that Jesus gave His life for us, He gave His life for all the innocents, He gave His life to restore innocence and to make us saints.”
“I fully support Bishop Munilla and agree with what he said,” said Paprocki, joining his voice to that of the Spanish prelate as well as Gregory’s.
Continuing, Paprocki drew from the Catechism’s teaching on sacrilege, stating that it “consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin.”
“To misuse this sacred gesture is to make a mockery of our Catholic faith,” Paprocki doubled down.
READ: Pro-abortion Joe Biden says Pope Francis told him to ‘keep receiving Communion’
Drawing also from Sacred Scripture, Paprocki quoted from St. Paul to warn that “Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.” (Galatians 6:7-10).
Paprocki’s condemnation of the pro-abortion president’s action comes in addition to those made by numerous lay Catholic leaders. Emeritus bishop of Tyler also voiced his condemnation of Biden’s action, with Bishop Joseph Strickland responding by writing “Absolutely vile, pray for the soul of our president, he is a feeble old man, he needs to prepare to meet his maker.”
Ping
I was thinking maybe it was an unconscious reaction to the rank evil of the subject.
Whenever a news piece mentions Pelosi’s or Biden’s “Catholicism”, I always assume they are misspelling Alcoholism.
Hypocrite ping.
Hypocrite ping.
And the Pope enables President Retard to do it
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