The Mad Virtues of Pope Francis, and the Desperate Resistance

Typically, for the Bear, this is not short. You may find it entertaining, however. It wraps up several issues that have been occupying the Bear's mind lately as he grapples with the why and the how of what he is doing.

For decades we have had to sit and watch helplessly as the Church was consumed by preventable scandal and ceaseless innovation. The enemy was hard to get a fix on. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, and his name was Legion. But it was clear that somehow the schwerpunkt of the Church Militant had without question drifted far from the original plan.

In Pope Francis, we have seen, for the first time, the incarnation of the Church's errors and abuses. God has driven into plain view the secret corruption, the pride posing as humility, the indifferentism posing as tolerance, the disregard for the Deposit of the Faith, and the "rebranding" of Catholicism and the papacy that Fr. Rosica is so proud of. In Pope Francis we finally have someone to speak out against, and thereby indict the whole sorry lot of meddlers, swindlers, and sappers: in short, all those who loathe the Church they are supposed to lead.

In other words, we are reacting not only to what Pope Francis personally says and does, but to Pope Francis the Avatar of a different spirit -- the "spirit" of Vatican II, the spirit of the "media council," and, fundamentally, the spirit of the Prince of this world.

One might say we are seeing the beginning of the end of a plot. To simplify, it began with throwing open to the world the windows of the Church. It is ending by tearing down the walls of the Church.

But the Church needs walls. It needs to be separate from the world. Distinct from other religions. The Church should be a fortress from which Catholics sally forth into the world, but not as part of the world, not as worldlings fighting trendy secular battles. Everybody should be able to say with confidence, "here is the Church," and "there begins the world." There are Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, but here is Catholicism. Here is the truth, and there is something else, and we do no favors by pretending otherwise.

That sounds so harsh! Intolerant! Real! We would rather live in our fantasy world where if we're just nice enough, everyone will love us. (To be fair, this does seem to be working out for Pope Francis.) It would be easy to twist the the Bear's meaning. He is not advocating hiding behind the walls of the Church while the world goes to Hell. We should engage the world, but with evangelism, not indifferentism; charity, not socialism; truth, not accommodation of error.

Of course, the Franciscan Church has a horror of walls or division of any kind. The supernatural must be tolerated for the sake of the masses, but for the initiates, purple, red and white, "There'll Be Pie In the Sky When You Die" remains the favorite hymn. A sarcastic number right out of the Little Red Songbook. The religion of the Franciscan Church, much like Freemasonry, is The Brotherhood of Man. It is remarkable, but true: you could strip it of every specifically Christian element, and the world would not be able to tell any difference.

This is no accident. Religious differences must be downplayed in pursuit of the 8th Sacrament of the Franciscan Church: the Holy Photo-Op. And, of course, the aforementioned Brotherhood of Man.

The funny thing is, no one in the Franciscan Church would deny that they are tearing down walls and erasing boundaries. They might deny celebrating error, but only because they don't recognize error. The Pope can travel to Sweden this Halloween to commemorate "the blessings" of Martin Luther's reformation because we're all Lutherans now. In other words, what the Bear laments, the Franciscan Church is most proud of. "Rebranding" indeed. A crass and ignorant word to cover a multitude of sins.

We would do well to remember what Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy. It is almost as if he foresaw Pope Francis. In his day, it was Christianity in general that had been shattered. In ours it is particularly the Catholic Church, but the same warnings apply. No mad virtue is as mad as a Catholic virtue, as we have seen in history.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

Pope Francis is, as far as the Bear can see, more virtuous than the Bear. He is also more mad, if the Bear knows anything about madmen. No virtue may remain merely good with Francis. It must become a mania, a delusion, another shiny object to be incorporated into the narcissistic personality of Francis the Humble, Francis the Tolerant, Francis the Compassionate. Of course, what the Bear calls "madness" becomes "rebranding," or "transcending his own religion."

We who have retained a Catholic identity have universally resisted Jorge Bergoglio. We didn't ask for this. We didn't organize it. It just happened. We found ourselves being appalled by the same things, connecting the same dots, reaching the same conclusions. We speak with one voice from the same vision, without collaboration. The very people who would normally be the Pope's most fervent supporters have become his harshest critics.

Bergoglioism and Catholicism cannot both be right. (The Bear thinks the collection of pathologies motivating Pope Francis deserves the honor of its own name.) The Bear is not going to repeat the indictment here. It is contained in the archives of this ephemeris, and of many others. It is literally becoming difficult to keep up with Francis the Talking Pope. Perhaps the plan is to beat us through attrition, the way he buried the message of Amoris Laetitia in 247 pages that defy all but the most clever and mind-numbing analysis.

If Pope Francis is indeed all we fear he is, there's not much we can do. By and large, people travel with the herd, and try to think the thoughts the world tells them are right. That worked great when a confident Church put the stamp of the Christ on the culture. It was not so long ago that the joke ran: "Hollywood -- a place where Jews make movies selling Catholic theology to Protestants." Not anymore.

Why not just back a winner? The latest poll shows Pope Francis with a popularity rating of 54%, 85% among Catholics, and -- tellingly -- over 50% among agnostics and atheists. "Francis is a leader who transcends his own religion," said Jean Marc Leger, president of WIN/Gallup International. He's the most popular public figure in the world, and has replaced the Dalai Lama as Generic Spiritual Leader. Only Turkey, Tunisia and Algeria don't like him.

Perhaps, any day now, Pope Francis is going to cash in all that full-spectrum popularity to tell the world about Jesus. More likely not. After all, what does "transcend his own religion" mean? What does "rebranding Catholicism and the papacy" mean? Are these words not chilling to any normal Catholic? Do not the pages of old prophecies begin to rustle out of the dust? Whether you want to go there or not, it makes no difference. Prophecies warn about dangers to come. We didn't listen, and now Nebuchadnezzar is in the sanctuary.

From comments out of Catholic officialdom, we know we are heard at the highest levels. Our message is getting through. We speak out, and others take comfort. We try to preserve the truth and condemn error not because we are holy, but because nobody else will do it. Looking over the last three years, we have done a surprisingly good job, in the Bear's opinion. That's how we operate. Independent francs-tieurs. Partisans. The resistance.

This is not to glamorize anyone. Partisans don't always have pure motives, and sometimes go beyond what is reasonably necessary. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're amateurs. Perhaps our sins will be applied to those who have made the resistance necessary in the first place. We take real risks. One blogger got himself sued by a priest -- papal PR flack Fr. Rosica. But more seriously, we also take spiritual risks.

Ephemerists need your prayers. For prudence, temperance, fortitude, and charity.

Pope Francis uses the entire spectrum of media to spread his errors. If there's a single problem with the man, it's that he lacks a supernatural dimension. Perhaps he suffers from a cultural resentment and envy coming from his background. He cannot think in proper categories. For example, he recently made the bizarre comment that he sees the evangelization of Europe as "colonialism," Worse, from the same interview, he cannot differentiate between Jesus sending forth his disciples to the nations and the blood conquests of ISIS. Mad virtues indeed. Can madness from a pope really go unanswered? There is hardly a peep from the bishops. Surely all of them are not deaf or in agreement. It would take a lot of courage for a bishop to criticize a sitting pope. The Bear may not be qualified, but at least he's willing to put on his hat, take up his shovel, and start trying to put out some of the brush fires Pope Francis sets.

There is a place for dry and sober analysis. But the internet has its own idiom. The legitimate weapons we place at the service of the Church include agitprop, and sometimes a dash of snark and a dollop of satire, so people will enjoy reading what the Bear writes. (Besides, Bears have a hard time being serious for longer than ten minutes.)

Is it sinful to criticize the Pope? That is not a question the Bear is going to answer for anyone else. It is an important one to him, because, after all, he still has to go to confession like everyone else. We should not perform an evil act so that we may obtain a good result. But the laity has a legitimate say in the Church. The Bear is performing a lawful act by informing, educating, and commenting about this man who has effortlessly twisted the Church according to his own personal hobbyhorses.

In a nutshell, together, we are staying with the "old brand" of Catholicism, before Pope Francis "rebranded" Catholicism and the papacy, and "transcended his own religion." So what if most people say they like Pope Francis? Since when was the truth found in poll numbers? The Bear has noticed that most of the people who like Pope Francis seem to be unfamiliar with his actions, unable to articulate what he has done to earn their approval, or progressive Church dissidents.

If the Pope and his public business are portrayed in an unflattering light, that is an unavoidable consequence, even as it is not the real objective. Few are criticizing the Pope for the sake of criticizing the Pope. Even the Bear, who may take an unholy glee in what he does isn't playing.

But there is also the sin of "adulation." Nobody ever talks about it, so here it is, right from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another's vices or grave sins. Neither the desire to be of service nor friendship justifies duplicitous speech. Adulation is a venial sin when it only seeks to be agreeable, to avoid evil, to meet a need, or to obtain legitimate advantages.

Funny, the Bear has never heard Fr. Rosica say, "Patheos bloggers are a bunch of sycophantic losers with a pathological need for approval and an aversion to sound doctrine. We must pray for these disturbed, broken and angry people."

Of course, Fr. Rosica's job might be to commit the sin of adulation continuously, but the Bear does not know the man's heart, or how much culpability might be reduced by mental issues, or secret struggles. One must wonder about someone who brags about "rebranding" Catholicism, though.

When they gave us a Protestantized Mass, we were silent. When they smashed the altar rails, we were silent. When the nuns started dressing in mufti, we were silent. When the bishops cared more about gun control than souls, we were silent. When the mania for interfaith and ecumenism started, we were silent. And when we were told to sing hymns by Martin Luther, we sang. One thing is for certain. We will never be silent again. We are guardians of something. The Bear does not want to label it, because it does not belong to this faction or that. But he thinks his readers know what he's talking about. We encourage one another -- and it is just as much readers encouraging ephemerists as the other way around. Pope Francis and his minions are learning that whatever they do in public will be challenged by some very smart and talented people. (And also, the Bear.) It obviously bothers them.

“...Catholic monk ... Bella Dodd...Fordham...”

Thank you for the information on this. I have been planning to read Bella Dodd for myself and this inspires me to get going on it.

Father Malachi Martin in Windswept House covers these events as well, in particular bringing out that it is the Church alone that stands against “one worlder/new world order” atheist communism and the Church has been gravely weakened by the enemy through Vatican II.

Am hoping to squeeze in a rereading of WH in the near future (this time with the pseudonym decoder list in hand :).

WHO'S WHO IN "WINDSWEPT HOUSE"

I think I will re vist it too with the de coder - good summer reading although a bit scary because the fight is ongoing (NWO vs. Christianity) and playing out just as he predicted.

Lot’s of prayer needed! Also the TLM is a great tool (I am sure you know this already) because the Tridentine mass has so much power against evil.

Trump will be a good president against the New World Order atheist agenda even though I doubt he will have any idea that he is on the right side of a spiritual battle - he will think he is just doing the right thing to Make America Great Again!

Hillary is the personification of the global atheist power grab.

“...the Council ... avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility” as per Pope VI’s statement on January 12, 1966.

Here's the whole quote:

"In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogma carrying the mark of infallibility, but it [Vatican II] nevertheless endowed its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary (and therefore obviously authentic) magisterium must be docilely and sincerely received by all the faithful, according to the mind of the Council regarding the nature and scope of the respective documents."

The Supreme Ordinary Magisterium (separate from the Extraordinary Magisterium) is the Universal Ordinary Magisterium and it is (supposed to be) infallible. So we still have the issue of an ecumenical council contradicting previous Magisterium in matters of faith and morals.

Lot’s of prayer needed! Also the TLM is a great tool (I am sure you know this already) because the Tridentine mass has so much power against evil.

Amen.

And pray the Holy Rosary daily.

"Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for thou alone have destroyed all heresies. Thou believed the word of the Archangel Gabriel. A virgin still, thou brought forth the God-man; thou bore a Child, O Virgin, and remained a Virgin still. Mother of God, intercede for us." [Tract from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary THE ROMAN MISSAL Tract (After Septuagesima)]

“Bring me my weapon”– St. Padre Pio

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.” –Blessed Pope Pius IX

Hillary is the personification of the global atheist power grab.

Unfortunately, she can rely on support from some very strange quarters.

"Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan...

173. Enforceable international agreements are urgently needed, since local authorities are not always capable of effective intervention. Relations between states must be respectful of each other’s sovereignty, but must also lay down mutually agreed means of averting regional disasters which would eventually affect everyone. Global regulatory norms are needed to impose obligations and prevent unacceptable actions, for example, when powerful companies or countries dump contaminated waste or offshore polluting industries in other countries.

174. Let us also mention the system of governance of the oceans. International and regional conventions do exist, but fragmentation and the lack of strict mechanisms of regulation, control and penalization end up undermining these efforts." ~ Pope Francis, Laudato si'

So we still have the issue of an ecumenical council contradicting previous Magisterium in matters of faith and morals.

A non-issue, except for those who wish to justify the delusion that the visible Church has existed only amongst sedevacantists since 1958.

From the address of Pope Paul VI during the last general meeting of the Second Vatican Council on 12/7/65:

"...This council hands over to posterity not only the image of the Church but also the patrimony of her doctrine and of her commandments, the "deposit" received from Christ and meditated upon through centuries, lived and expressed now and clarified in so many of its parts, settled and arranged in its integrity. The deposit, that is, which lives on by the divine power of truth and of grace which constitutes it, and is, therefore, able to vivify anyone who receives it and nourishes with it his own human existence..."

Paul VI's clear intention was to "hand over to posterity ... the patrimony of her doctrine and of her commandments, the "deposit" received from Christ and meditated upon through centuries, lived and expressed now and clarified in so many of its parts, settled and arranged in its integrity...". Pastoral documents containing novel opinions and/or apparent contradictions which fall short of that goal are not binding. Contradiction ≠ de fide definita.

"...It is clear throughout that it is a question of the bishops acting in conjunction with their head, never of the bishops acting independently of the Pope. In the latter instance, without the action of the head, the bishops are not able to act as a College: this is clear from the concept of "College." This hierarchical communion of all the bishops with the Supreme Pontiff is certainly firmly established in Tradition..." [+ PERICLE FELICI Titular Archbishop of Samosata Secretary General of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council]

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

Paul VI's intention?

Whatever were our opinions about the Council's various doctrines before its conclusions were promulgated, today our adherence to the decisions of the Council must be whole hearted and without reserve; it must be willing and prepared to give them the service of our thought, action and conduct. The Council was something very new: not all were prepared to understand and accept it. But now the conciliar doctrine must be seen as belonging to the magisterium of the Church and, indeed, be attributed to the breath of the Holy Spirit. (Paul VI to the Roman Curia, 23 April, 1966)

Speaking for The Bear, I can assure you that he fully supports and agrees with whatever VII may or may not say, whether pastorally, dogmatically or by anathema, if anything. Er, forget the anathema part.

As for prince of this world, the Bear only meant to suggest that Pope Francis’ Pan-Religious Love-Cult centered on his own personality, and focus on secular issues, appears to show a dramatically increased solicitude for non-Catholic teachings and secular concerns. And the Bear admires that.

“...The Supreme Ordinary Magisterium (separate from the Extraordinary Magisterium) is the Universal Magisterium and is infallible...”

Sounds like gobbledy gook. (not you Pius V, the wording of the pronouncement) Our Lady undoer of knots, pray for us!

At any rate, it seems as though Pope VI is saying both that the council is not definitive and yet it is definitive and at different times! All of which results in an ambiguous painful brain fog just like the one surrounding this current Pope - and similar to many of the documents themselves.

I am not convinced that all this causes the Chair of Peter to be vacant though -

What to do? Pray for the Church.

Dear Lord deliver us all from the 1960’s hangover.

What a mess! Points to the sower of confusion again ...

So we still have the issue of an ecumenical council contradicting previous Magisterium in matters of faith and morals.

Not an issue.

Again, the ecumenical Council ended with this:

"...This council hands over to posterity not only the image of the Church but also the patrimony of her doctrine and of her commandments, the "deposit" received from Christ and meditated upon through centuries, lived and expressed now and clarified in so many of its parts, settled and arranged in its integrity...".

Over and out.

That aside, Conciliar documents and post-Conciliar papal maunderings containing novel opinions and/or apparent contradictions which do not pertain to the Deposit of Faith (or perhaps even contradict it) are not binding.

Bottom line: Contradiction ≠ de fide definita, nor can it ever be.

To insist that an ecumenical council with the stated intention of passing on the Deposit of Faith binds us also to error and novelty outside the limits of the Deposit (like some sort of ecclesiastical bait-and-switch) is illogical. Ditto the peculiar notion that erroneous teachings out of the mouths of Popes or "pastoral" Councils are automatically magisterial and therefore binding. Those who grossly exaggerate the limits of infallibility in order to lure others away from the Ark bring to mind "Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel."

The whole idea was to destroy, not the institution of the Church, but rather the Faith of the people, and even use the institution of the Church, if possible, to destroy the Faith through the promotion of a pseudo-religion: something that resembled Catholicism but was not the real thing.

Which, of course, is exactly what happened in China. The Roman Catholic Church is illegal per order of the Communist Party, and in its place they have erected a false church called the "Patriotic Catholic Association" which mimics our faith, but in reality is a puppet of the atheist Communist Party. They weren't content simply to purge Catholicism---they wanted, as your quote said, to create a literal pseudo-religion to take its place.

They either have to put up, or shut up. His quote clearly labels the heretical Vatica-2 as infallible and of God.

So the R & R crowd has three choices:

They must either accept Montini’s decree & V-2 and become heretics themselves in that manner.

Continue this Resist the ‘true’ [sic] V-2 magisterium and ‘true’[sic] pope and become heretics and schismatics from what they THINK is the Church and the pope.

Come to the CATHOLIC conclusion that both were of Satan and Montini and the rest of the post-1958 lot who also participated or affirmed V-2 were formal heretics thus not Catholic thus not the pope.

Have you read “Red Book Of Chinese Martyrs” by Gerolamo Fazzini?

“The confessors and martyrs of the Church of China belong to Christianity as a whole, and it is our duty, as well as our right, to present their testimonies so that they might nourish the faith of Christians throughout the world.”
- From the Preface by Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-Kiun, Bishop of Hong Kong”

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Chinese-Martyrs-Gerolamo-Fazzini-ebook/dp/B002HY6GLE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1464319825&sr=1-1&keywords=red+book+of+martyrs

They either have to put up, or shut up. His quote clearly labels the heretical Vatica-2 as infallible and of God. So the R & R crowd has three choices: They must either accept Montini’s decree & V-2 and become heretics themselves in that manner. OR Continue this Resist the ‘true’ [sic] V-2 magisterium and ‘true’[sic] pope and become heretics and schismatics from what they THINK is the Church and the pope. OR Come to the CATHOLIC conclusion that both were of Satan and Montini and the rest of the post-1958 lot who also participated or affirmed V-2 were formal heretics thus not Catholic thus not the pope.

Actually, the TRUE CATHOLIC conclusion would be to venerate that schmuck Pope Michael of Oklahoma City---he's the TRUE PONTIFF, as decided by a Papal conclave of six sedevacantists including himself and his parents. That's about as logical as the sedevacantists' "true Catholic conclusion," which calls for the invalidation of a legitimately elected Pope by a tiny self-appointed tribunal.

Continue this Resist the ‘true’ [sic] V-2 magisterium and ‘true’[sic] pope and become heretics and schismatics from what they THINK is the Church and the pope.

Sedevacantist News Flash: The Pope is not God! Papal infallibility does not extend to each and every utterance.

Vatican I: “We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals”.

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