The Papal Playbook: Bob to the Right, Move to the Left

Fatima Perspectives ^ | November 9, 2019 | Chris Ferrara

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The Papal Playbook: Bob to the Right, Move to the Left

Facing a storm of protests from the Catholic world in the aftermath of his atrocious stage-show at the Shamazon Synod, which was just a vehicle for smuggling married priests and lady “deacons” into the Church, Pope Francis has bobbed momentarily to the right in true Peronist fashion. 

First of all, in his audience address of November 6, Francis characterized the positive idolatry of the “Pachamama” fertility goddess during the event as no more offensive than Saint Paul’s visit to the Aeropgagus, where he encountered a statue dedicated to “an Unknown God” and told those present that he was there to preach the Gospel of the God they did not know.

Twisting the episode to suit his rhetorical needs of the moment, as he has done again and again with Sacred Scripture (see Denzinger-Bergoglio, a project of diocesan priests), Francis claims that “In the heart of one of the most famous institutions of the ancient world, the Areopagus, [Saint Paul] achieved an extraordinary example of inculturation of the message of faith: he announces Jesus Christ to idol worshipers, and he does not do so by attacking them, but by becoming … a builder of bridges.”  According to Francis, Saint Paul “open[ed] a path between the Gospel and the pagan world.”

In truth, what Saint Paul did on this occasion, recounted in the 17^th chapter of Acts of the Apostles, had nothing to do with “inculturation” of the Gospel or merely indicating a “path” between the Gospel and the pagan world.  To be perfectly candid, that depiction of the event is an outright falsehood. As we read in Acts, when he came to Athens Saint Paul “disputed… in the synagogue with the Jews, and with them that served God, and in the marketplace, every day with them that were there.”  And as for the philosophers of pagan antiquity, present in the great intellectual and cultural center of Athens, Saint Paul “preached to them Jesus and the resurrection,” declaring outright: “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.  For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you…”

What follows is no “dialogue” nor any attempt at “inculturation,” but rather preaching with divine authority on the necessity of faith in the true God, Who is Jesus Christ, the Judge of all mankind, with no kind words about the false gods represented by statues in pagan temples erected out of ignorance and superstition:

“God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

“Neither is he served with men’s hands, as though he needed anything; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things:

“And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation. That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us:

“For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring. Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.

“And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance. Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead.”

Bobbing to the right in the face of worldwide criticism, in the same address Francis does admit that Saint Paul “shudders inside to see a city full of idols” and that he preaches to the pagans of Athens the “biblical faith in the God of revelation, leading to redemption and judgment, that is, to the properly Christian message.”  He further admits that Saint Paul exhorts his hearers to “go beyond ‘the times of ignorance’ and to decide to convert in view of imminent judgement.”

A deftly timed bob to the right indeed.  But where in the actual proceedings and ceremonies during the Amazon Synod do we see anything like Saint Paul’s forthright declarations against superstition or his warning that those who were once ignorant, having heard the Gospel from him, must do penance lest they face eternal condemnation by the Just Judge of all men?  Quite the contrary, we see outright condonation of idol worship in the form of Pachamama, whose statues became veritable icons of the event:

• the ceremony in the Vatican gardens, attended by Francis, who dared to bless a statue of the idol;
• the carrying of the idol in procession in the shadow of Saint Peter’s itself (down the Villa della Conciliazione);
• the installation of the idol in the Church of Santa Maria in Transpontina, from which some courageous faithful Catholic men removed several replicas of the idol and then tossed them into the Tiber;
• Francis’s absurd apology for this cleansing of a true temple of God, during which apology he admitted that the statues represented Pachamama, falsely asserted that the very ones thrown in the Tiber had been recovered, and vowed that they would be on display during the final Mass for the synod in Saint Peter’s — which, thank God, did not happen, although Francis instructed his master of ceremonies, Guido Marini, to place a bowl of sacrificial offerings to the idol on the altar during that same Mass.

The rampant idol-worship and laudatory pronouncements on the “cosmovision” of primitive Amazon tribes on display throughout this disgraceful event have earned the public condemnation of six cardinals and bishops.

In short, the attempt to liken the sacrilege and blasphemy on display during the Amazon synod to Saint Paul’s unstinting approach to the pagans of Athens is an insult to the intelligence of the faithful.  But then, this pontificate, like America’s leftwing political establishment, seems to operate on the presumption that the people can be bamboozled by shifty demagoguery while the plan for the subversion of institutions proceeds relentlessly toward its goal.

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Ping

[allendale]

There have been prior agnostic popes who used the office to enrich themselves or promote their interests. Somehow the papacy and the Church survived.

[bigbob]

Do the hokey popey and you turn it all about

[ClearCase_guy]

[wjcsux]

Frances is the 0bama of the Catholic Church.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Previous popes who sinfully used the papacy as their access to income, plunder, political influence, military conquest, access to beautiful courtesans (or boys)--- are on an entirely different plane of activity from Bergoglio. They had no interest in doctrine whatsoever. They did not bother denying it, reinterpreting it, or subverting it, because frankly, it bored them.

They were content to pursue private vices and political ambitions, earning (if they did not repent) pain and horror in eternity, but having little to no impact on the ecclesiology, sacramental practice, theology, or moral law of the Church. They merited a private hell in practice, but did not make it their business to corrupt how the Church itself, in all its members, believed or lived the Faith.

Bergoglio is different. As for private vices, we know of few or none in his case: not alcohol, nor drugs, nor other men's wives nor beautiful boys, nor high living, ostentation nor opulence, nor lengthy and expensive vacations, etc.

Indeed he seems an amazing workaholic and almost ascetic when it comes to being free of the carnal self-indulgence one expects in a corrupt man.

Instead he has steadily, persistently, in a workmanlike manner, devoted to the subversion of Catholicism in theory and in practice. He is a results-oriented, amazingly effective saboteur of Catholicism itself. He is the importer of a billion termites; a man who submerges all things of value in solvents until they fall apart or dissolve; a planter of time bombs in the bearing walls; a man excited not by bon appetit but by wrecking balls.

The Borgia popes? Innocent III? No, he's much more serious. Much more consecrated to his wider and deeper ends. Much more dangerous.

The most dangerous man in the Church, and possibly in the world.

[Mrs. Don-o]

No. He’s much worse than that.

[TonyM]

He looks like Satan sitting on a throne and pretending to be God.

[allendale]

He is all you say. Hence the challenge and the fight. Would any real Catholic deny that the prior agnostic popes were inspired by crass and satanic values? In so doing they rejected God and their indifference to theology were harmful not only to the Church but the faithful. Jesus himself warned that there would be such men but the gates of hell would not prevail. Bergoglio’s secular paganism is but the same assault in another manner. The other agnostic popes with their power, example and actions were also an assault on Catholic teaching and the faith. If indeed Christ is to be with the Church until the end of time, then ultimately the Bergoglio assault and heresies will in due time be smashed. These times are trying for Christians as were previous periods. Yet as in the past the faithful believe that ultimately steadfastness and truth win out. Catholics should take heart how simple actions such as the throwing of pagan idols into a river by devout men so disrupted a Bergoglio pagan festival. Real Catholics believe that Bergoglio’s modernistic secular assault on the Church, its doctrines, its mission and beliefs will ultimately fail.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Te rogamus, audi nos. Amen.