Posted on 03/01/2019 2:51:28 PM PST by ebb tide
n a video message to something called the Seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty, Francis once again attempts to impose his will on a matter of divine revelation, replacing what God has revealed with what he thinks on the matter.
It is God who declares “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God made He man.” (Gen 9:6) And it is God Who, as we read in the 20th chapter of Leviticus, dictated to Moses the death penalty for human sacrifice and other grave offenses against the divine and natural law. Accordingly, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches, capital punishment, “far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this commandment which prohibits murder.”
What God has revealed and even directly prescribed is not pleasing to Pope Francis, however. In the cited address he has the supreme audacity to contradict God’s explicit sanction of capital punishment and 2,000 years of Church teaching defending it, declaring once again (after having already had the John Paul II Catechism amended to reflect his opinion) that because “man has been created in the image and likeness of God… capital punishment presupposes, therefore, a grave violation of the right to life every person has.”
So, whereas God cites man’s creation in His image and likeness as the moral foundation of capital punishment, Francis cites the divine image and likeness as the basis for declaring it immoral! In support of this outrageous attempt to impose his personal opinion on the Church in defiance of what God Himself has revealed, Francis offers nothing more than the gratuitous assertion that “The Church has always defended life, and her vision of the death penalty has matured.” Matured, that is, only after Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s arrival from Buenos Aires and his election as Pope.
This nonsense would be laughable were it not for Francis’ occupancy of the Chair of St. Peter, which he has been abusing with ever greater recklessness.
Francis concludes his diatribe with an exhortation to world leaders to “take the necessary steps toward the total abolition of the death penalty.” But never, absolutely never, has he exhorted world leaders to take the necessary steps toward the total abolition of abortion, which really is a radical violation of the right to life and can never be justified under any circumstances.
What is to account for this telling disparity? The answer, as Ed Faust has so trenchantly observed, is that Francis is not so much a Pope as he is a Leftist ideologue. Thus, as Faust explains: “we have the Pope telling us now that the holy season of Lent offers us an opportunity to liberate the plants and animals from the bondage imposed upon them by our sins. The Pope does this because the Pope is a Leftist. He serves the globalist agenda…. We can be certain that so long as Francis has the papal bully pulpit, he will use it to subordinate the Faith to the rising power of globalist rule. Heaven help us, because Rome won’t.”
And Heaven will help us. That divine intervention, whenever it comes, will sweep aside the ecclesial novelties of Francis, along with those of the past half-century, as if they never were. They have no part of Tradition, and with the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary they will disappear like the cockle that “is gathered up, and burnt with fire.” (Matt 13:40).
This nonsense would be laughable were it not for Francis’ occupancy of the Chair of St. Peter, which he has been abusing with ever greater recklessness.
Francis concludes his diatribe with an exhortation to world leaders to “take the necessary steps toward the total abolition of the death penalty.” But never, absolutely never, has he exhorted world leaders to take the necessary steps toward the total abolition of abortion, which really is a radical violation of the right to life and can never be justified under any circumstances.
What is to account for this telling disparity? The answer, as Ed Faust has so trenchantly observed, is that Francis is not so much a Pope as he is a Leftist ideologue. Thus, as Faust explains: “we have the Pope telling us now that the holy season of Lent offers us an opportunity to liberate the plants and animals from the bondage imposed upon them by our sins. The Pope does this because the Pope is a Leftist. He serves the globalist agenda…. We can be certain that so long as Francis has the papal bully pulpit, he will use it to subordinate the Faith to the rising power of globalist rule. Heaven help us, because Rome won’t.”
Pope Francis thinks he IS God.
"I say this because it is my church. We have to combat it. Religious fundamentalism is not religious, because it lacks God.”Pope Francis
Romans 13:4
... for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.
I am by no means an apologist or a theologian. I, however, do believe in the death penalty for murder. (I live in Texas).
I have an issue that I can’t understand. People get tatoos. And somewhere in the OT is says not to mark the body. Today, this is justified because that was the old law and we are under the new law (New Testament). Now, how is this different than the law referenced in the article dealing with the death penalth? Is there any reference in the NT dealing with the issue?
Throughout his pontificate, Bergolio has stressed the unlimited mercy of God: mercy for adulters; mercy for homos; mercy for pro-abort politicians and abortionists themselves, mercy for murderous immigrants, etc.
It was only at the closing of his phony sex-summit that he finally spoke about the righteous anger of God, in reference to Mr. McCarrick, whom Francis had shielded and promoted from the first days of papacy. Pell’s in jail, in isolation 23 hrs a day. McCarrick is walking around a free layman.
He may be squatting in it ... but does he legitimately hold the office it represents?
Who's the Pope?
God, the Father, willed that His Only Son suffer the death penalty to save mankind. And Jesus Christ said, "It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones."
That's enough for me.
This is not even true mercy. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, God's mercy for grave sinners is seen when He grants the grace to repent and the strength to atone for their sins.
When you presumptuously presume to reconcile the unrepentant to God, you not only offend God, but you also endanger the soul of the unrepentant sinner. He no longer sees a need to turn from his evil ways, since he fools himself into thinking his many offenses are OK with God.
Reading 1 Sir 5:1-8
Rely not on your wealth; say not: "I have the power."
Rely not on your strength in following the desires of your heart.
Say not: "Who can prevail against me?" or, "Who will subdue me for my deeds?" for God will surely exact the punishment.
Say not: "I have sinned, yet what has befallen me?" for the Most High bides his time. Of forgiveness be not overconfident, adding sin upon sin.
Say not: "Great is his mercy; my many sins he will forgive." For mercy and anger alike are with him; upon the wicked alights his wrath. Delay not your conversion to the LORD, put it not off from day to day.
For suddenly his wrath flames forth; at the time of vengeance you will be destroyed. Rely not upon deceitful wealth, for it will be no help on the day of wrath.
and just to focus:
Of forgiveness be not overconfident, adding sin upon sin.
Say not: "Great is his mercy; my many sins he will forgive."
For mercy and anger alike are with him; upon the wicked alights his wrath.
Delay not your conversion to the LORD,
Exactly! And that's why footnote 351 in Amoris Laetitia is heresy.
Thus the OT laws pertaining to Temple sacrifice, ritual uncleanness and so forth are set aside in the NT; the ritualized differentness, centered on "keep apart from the gentiles" laws are set aside because the Jewish and Gentile communities are to be made one in Christ; and what remains are he Eternal Moral Laws, which will remain forever.
Make sense?
As I said,I hope somebody else will jump in here and say more. Im sure there has been plenty of controversy about which sort of law is which. For instance, the so-called Gay Christian movement illegitimately claims that the prohibitions of deviate intercourse are just a ritual customary law, whereas Christianity ha always --- for 20 centuries now --- taught that it is part of the Eternal Moral Law.
According to St Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, no:
Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction..."
Pope doesn’t get that first part of Genesis 1-3 Where God specifically tells Adam that if He sins by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil he would die.
God cannot do intrinsically disordered evil, or rather He wills not to do it.
Therefore condemning Adam and all mankind to death, and every action God Himself judged just in killing disobedient would be intrinsically evil.
“...my short take is that the laws of the OT are of three kinds...”
I have never heard about the 3 categories of laws. Thanks. I am comfortable with Christ’s coming and fulfilling the prophecy and righting direction of mankind. I have heard many Christians say, “Live by the OT, die by the OT”. As if the OT was replaced by the NT. I do think, however, that if the laws of the OT are meant for the stability of society, then they must remain enforced.
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