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| "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity": Placed by the French Republic in front of the Saint Pancras church, in Aups (Provence) |
In his Christmas message, Francis used the word "fraternity" not less than 12 times. It is, as is well known, one of the ideals of the French Revolution, and chosen by the Revolutionaries precisely due to the influence of the secret societies that bred that disastrous event.
[M]y wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity.
Fraternity among individuals of every nation and culture.
Fraternity among people with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another.
Fraternity among persons of different religions. Jesus came to reveal the face of God to all those who seek him.
But do not believe for a moment we are being conspiratorial -- in fact, to be honest, we had not even paid attention to the Urbi et Orbi message before the great Spanish association of Freemasons, the Grand Lodge of Spain, posted this on Monday:
Todos los #masones del mundo se unen a la petición del Papa Francisco por «la #fraternidad entre personas de diversas religiones».
Artículo completo en EL ORIENTE:
Suscripción gratuita a EL ORIENTE:— Gran Logia de España (@GranLogiaEspana) January 7, 2019
"All the Freemasons of the world join Pope Francis' wish [in his Christmas address] for 'fraternity between persons of different religions'."
All right...
***
Our friend Maureen Mullarkey posted a precise analysis of this "fraternal" message:
Pope Francis’ Christmas message, clotted with the word fraternity, was such a brew of pernicious banality that it is hard to know where to start. From the perspective of our 24-hour news cycle, a Moloch that feeds on contrived obsolescence, the papal dispatch asks to be addressed before the end of Christmastide. However, what matters is not one passing item in the news but its substratum, something steady and abiding. In this case, that bedrock something is hostile to the very civilization—however flawed—which has sustained the Church that gave it life and breath.
This pontificate hungers for a kind of matricide. So, permit me, please, to work toward Francis’ baleful Christmas message by degrees.
Step back from the mess of it and begin, instead, with Daniel J. Mahoney’s The Idol of Our Age. The book’s subtitle How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity applies in spades to Francis and his doctrinaire maunderings. Mahoney, a political philosopher, places discussion of “the perplexity that is Francis” in a larger historical context: that of the modern, “progressive” moral order derived from the convolutions and fallacies of what is termed “social justice.”Writing as a Catholic layman, he summarizes his approach to Francis in the Introduction:
For the first time in the history of the Church, we have a pope who is half-humanitarian and thoroughly blind to the multiple ways in which humanitarian secular religion subverts authentic Christianity. With winks and nods, he challenges the age-old Catholic teaching that there are intrinsic evils that cannot be countenanced by a faithful Christian or any person of good will. In a thousand ways, he sows confusion in the Church and the world. His views on politics are summary, to say the least, and partake of . . . inordinate egalitarianism. Pope Francis has displayed indulgence toward left-wing tyrannies that are viciously anti-Catholic to boot. His views on Islam are equally summary and partake of an unthinking political correctness (the Koran, he insists against all evidence, always demands non-violence). He has spoken respectfully about Communism, the murderous scourge of the twentieth century.