Posted on 07/14/2015 5:15:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week the Marxist quasi-dictator of Bolivia, Evo Morales, presented Pope Francis with a gift — a carved wooden hammer-and-sickle cross on which the figure of Christ is crucified.
The Vatican announced that the pope had not been informed in advance about the gift. And some commentators said that photos of the pope and Morales show that the pope was actually offended. That was a false — probably wishful — interpretation. The pope himself later announced that he was keeping the hammer-and-sickle crucifix and taking it home, saying, “I understand this work. For me it wasn’t an offense.”
And “Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi . . . said he personally wasn’t offended by Morales’ gift” (the Guardian).
The pope’s acceptance of Morales’s gift — along with his attacks on capitalism during his Latin American tour — further confirms one of the most troubling moral developments of our time: The Roman Catholic Church is currently led by a man whose social, political, and economic views have been shaped by leftism more than by any other religious or moral system.
It also reconfirms what is probably the single most important development one needs to understand in order to make sense of the contemporary world: The most dynamic religion of the past hundred years has been leftism, not Christianity, not Islam, not any other traditional religion. Indeed, regarding traditional religions, leftism has influenced them — particularly Christianity and Judaism — far more than they have influenced the Left. Mainstream Protestant Christianity, much of Catholicism (especially in Latin America, where Pope Francis lived his whole life before becoming pope), and most of non-Orthodox Judaism have become essentially liberal/Left movements with religious (and in the case of Judaism, ethnic) identity.
In terms of evil committed, what is the difference between the hammer and sickle and the swastika? Would the pope receive, let alone keep, a Fascist, racist, or Nazi sculpture with a crucified Christ on it? Of course not. Yet the hammer and sickle represents more human suffering than all of them combined. The number of people enslaved and murdered under the hammer and sickle dwarfs the number of people enslaved and murdered by any other doctrine in history.
To make things worse, Pope Francis received this gift from a man (Morales) wearing a picture of Che Guevara on his jacket. Is that, too, not worthy of condemnation by the Vatican? Che Guevara devoted his life to undermining human liberty, and to killing innocents in the name of Communism.
The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend? What if, in a visit to an American museum, American artist Andres Serrano had presented Pope Francis with a gift — his work of art, Piss Christ — that features a crucifix in a jar of Serrano’s urine?
Would the pope have accepted it? Would he have brought it home?
There could not have been a gift that more accurately represents this pope’s value system than Christ crucified on a hammer and sickle. First, in a literal sense, that is exactly what Communists have done wherever they have assumed power — crucified Christ by working to violently destroy Christianity and murder Christians. Second, in a figurative sense, the gift represents the mélange of Christianity and Marxism, precisely what much of the Church — again, especially in Latin America, and especially in the person of this pope — stands for.
My heart breaks for the millions of Catholics who feel that their beloved Church is being led over a moral and religious cliff by a leftist pope and innumerable other leftists among cardinals, bishops, and parish priests.
Though I am not a Catholic, my heart breaks too. The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend?
Tragically, we cannot turn to the contemporary Catholic Church. When the pope keeps a hammer-and-sickle crucifix; when the pope declares free-market capitalism, the one economic system that has lifted masses of people out of poverty, to be largely evil (“the dung of the devil”); when Cuba’s Cardinal Jaime Ortega declares that there are no political prisoners in Cuba; and when the pope issues an encyclical on global warming while the oldest Christian communities in the world are exterminated, it is clear that while one can still turn to individual Catholic priests and lay leaders for moral guidance, one cannot turn to the Church and its pope for moral guidance. On the contrary. One must fight back.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His book, The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code, was published by Regnery. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
For me both the cross and communism represent death which was conquered by Christ.
But if the head of the Catholics be blind, the body is in danger of toppling into a ditch!
Find a church that teaches the Bible. Typically the church will have a "What we believe" statement (usually on a website). The statement will say something like this:
We believe that the Bible is the verbally inspired Word of God, and that it is His revelation to man, inerrant in the original writings. We believe, therefore, that the Bible is the supreme and final authority in all matters of doctrine, faith, and life.
About God, the statement should say something like this:
God exists eternally in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three have distinct personalities and yet are of the same substance, one God.
About Christ, the statement should say something like this:
The eternal Son of God became incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ, being born of the virgin Mary, and is true God and true man. He died physically on the cross and was bodily resurrected three days later.
About the Holy Spirit:
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He regenerates, indwells, baptizes, and seals all believers in Christ and empowers those yielded to God.
There should be a statement about man's sin condition and our need for a Savior.
This is a good statement about "salvation":
Salvation is given to those men chosen by God and drawn to Christ by the Holy Spirit. The only means to their salvation is belief in Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection.
. There will be more, but these are the bare essentials. There may be minor differences, some may object to minor details of this message to you. Don't bother with issues that are secondary.
The MAIN thing is that you have asked the essential first question, "Where should we go?"
May God Richly Bless you!
I mean what do you say when someone hands you something that hideous?
How about get thee behind me Satan, and cast that hideous monstrosity out a window into the Tiber? He’s the pope, what could they do to him?
“Why do Conservatives stay in the Catholic church?”
Most Catholics I know are liberals.
Interesting post.
“For me both the cross and communism represent death which was conquered by Christ.”
I’m sure that a lot of people feel that way about the swastika, too, but you usually don’t see that juxtaposed with a cross.
That is not what this is about.
A Communist dictator puts Jesus on a hammer and sickle, the symbol of Communism, to relate one of two messages:
1.The hammer and sickle has overpowered Jesus.
2.Jesus approves of the hammer and sickle and died for it.
The messenger here is as important as the message.
Morales was wearing a shirt with Che Guevara on it during the meeting with the Pope.
Honoring Jesus and His sacrifice was not the point of this gift.
Maybe the organized church is not the future of “the church” - as in the body of Christ.
It would seem the word ‘maybe’ is unnecessary in your statement...
...I have been telling my fellow Catholics (modernist drones, most of them...sorry, that’s what they are) that this lunatic is merely the precursor to an even more leftist regime that will send the RCC into theological oblivion...I know that prospect warms the cockles of many on this website, but nonetheless, I believe it to be true.
the Church of the 1960’s gave us homosexual seminaries, that gave us pervert clerics who amused themselves with teenage boys, along with their criminal bosses...that filth, far worse than influence peddling and corrupt politicking of the past, has rotted the Church beyond repair, and there need only be the leftist thrust spearheaded by this current idiot to complete the job...
He’ll do for the Catholic Church what the Borgia & Medici papacies did: Lead to break-off movements.
I know what they intended. But in reality, the depiction is pretty accurate — Christ crucified on an instrument of torture.
“Perversion of the cross” is quite the phrase. The cross is a shameful, horrible torture device. Yes, it’s also awesome, and glorious. But it was designed by the Romans to be gruesome. In a sense, God “perverted” the cross, by changing its original meaning as an object of defeat and hopelessness to a symbol of victory and hope.
Where should we go?
find the nearest SSPX chapel...other than that the Church offers no alternatives...
The question of St. Peter himself.
No where else to go, but where He leads. His Church is not defined by one man's actions, not even the Pope. It's become increasingly clear to me that Pope Francis at least has leftist (political) sympathies. This doesn't concern me though; the Church survived many more worse Popes than he; it will continue on long after we are all dead.
"Thou hast the words of everlasting life".
I know what the communist meant by giving that gift. But he may have inadvertently allowed a larger truth to be communicated: that communism is excruciating torture.
well stated
Yep. run from your troubles right into the waiting arms of schismatics.
I understand, it was just after 8 years Love your brother as yourself became a cliche. Now we are hearing the entire message.
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