Tag Archives: Cardinal Fernandez

Blessed Are the Pure of Heart

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There is little question among more observant Catholics that the current situation in the Church is critical, especially as one watches the train wreck which the Vatican increasingly resembles. History, fortunately, comes to our rescue, however. I mean that, looking over the past centuries, it becomes apparent that as regards the Western Church we can see a recurring cycle of reform and decay every 500 years. Beginning with the great reforms of St. Benedict and Pope St. Gregory the Great in the latter 6th century we witness how their reforms shaped and gave rise to the Carolignian renaissance. Still, corruption gradually crept in and by the 10th and early 11th centuries a very dark period emerged for both the papacy and Church discipline. Just when it seemed things could get no worse under the infamous papacy of Benedict IX, a new Ecclesial reformation sprang up under the guiding hands of St. Peter Damien, Hildebrand who became Pope St. Gregory VII, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

The following few centuries would see the Medieval Church reach its greatest glory in the 13th century guided by St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, and St. Thomas Aquinas to name just a few luminaries. Once again though, faith and moral discipline began to wane as corruption set in at both the papal and local levels so that by the time of another corrupt Pope, Alexander VI, the stage had been ably set for Martin Luther’s revolt. Again, it was not until the latter half of that 16th century that a genuine Church Counter-reformation began to take effect led by new saints of great stature: St. Charles Borromeo, St. Philip Neri, Sts. Ignatius and Francis Xavier, and Pope St. Pius V who finalized the great reforms of Trent as well as securing the expulsion of the Muslim Turks from Christendom at Lepanto.

500 years from Pope St. Gregory the Great to Hildebrand’s (Pope St. Gregory VII) reforms. 500 more years elapsed from the late 11th century reforms to the late 16th century reforms at Trent under Pope St. Pius V. We are currently standing 500 years out from the revolution of Luther and Calvin and the Church again seems to be at her nadir, especially when viewing the current papacy. This suggests that we are again on the eve of another great reform movement in the Church. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we need to survive the current imminent disaster, trusting that God already has the next Hildebrand or Borromeo lined up to reverse the course of a (Masonic) trajectory which appears to lead towards the Church’s planned demolition. It is a situation similar to what Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher were facing in Henry VIII’s England, again just 500 years ago.

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Fiducia Supplicans, a False Blessing

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I was naive enough to hope that the Vatican had finished inflicting its yearly quota of modernist damage via Pope Francis’ pet Synod on Sin-odality accompanied by the brutish cancellations of Bishop Joseph Strickland and Raymond Cardinal Burke. It appears I was either too hasty or perhaps overly optimistic. As a parting Christmas sock filled with coal delivered to the entire Catholic world, Jorge Bergoglio’s doctrinal strong man, Victor Cardinal Fernandez, released a new Declaration, Fiducia supplicans, one week to the day before the solemn celebration of Christ’s birth. This latest Francis bombshell, released with his full approbation, appears designed not so much to clarify pastoral questions regarding the dispensation of blessings as to intentionally create confusion,chaos, and agitate controversy. Such divisive aims were certainly accomplished cum laude based on the immediate and wildly divergent responses, both pro and con, from various bishops around the world.

These days, the Vatican routinely launders heresy the way organized crime launders money (although the Holy See has engaged in its fair share of that as well) by burying its poison in fine sounding phrases. One example could be where the new document quotes Francis directly, “We are more important to God than all the sins we can commit because he is father, he is mother, he is pure love…(par. 27) Wait a minute, did Bergoglio just go radical feminist and call God our mother or is this just another of his patented shock value statements? In the Declaration, Cardinal Fernandez employs a bucket full of verbose linguistic sophistry to hide and obfuscate his underlying intentions, which seems to be clearing a pathway for persons in irregular marriages and homosexual unions to have those unions somehow recognized, whether in an official or unofficial capacity, by the Church. After all his boss, Jorge Bergoglio, has made no secret of his view that same-sex couples are entitled to civil recognition, and with the latest Declaration he seems to be laying the groundwork to impose some kind of “quasi-legitimate” status on same-sex unions within the Church itself.

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Paralysis in the Ecclesial Spine

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Using the analogy of a body for the Church as St. Paul often did, we naturally refer to Christ as the head. We might just as rightly refer to the saints in heaven, starting with the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the heart of that mystical body. We of course, the Church Militant, represent the various other members ~ hands, feet, etc. So what connects all these various members to the head, Christ, is the spinal chord or backbone. That metaphorical backbone of the Church would be the clergy: priests bishops, cardinals, and the Pope himself. For without the priesthood there simply can be no sacramental life, no true governance, and no Church. These men represent the indispensable neuro-pathway linking the Church’s many members to Christ her head. Sever the spine and the Church will die, cut off from its one true head. But what if that same spine is only damaged? Then, like our bodies, a full or partial paralysis will occur so that the Church, although it may continue to limp along, it will no longer function in a healthy or robust manner. It will become a weakened invalid.

That point at the very top of the spinal column where the spine merges into the actual brain matter would be the Petrine office of the Pope. Christ after all founded his Church on all twelve apostles but he gave a special authority to Peter, calling him the “Rock” who would support, encourage, and at times even correct his brother bishops. Peter was to be the visible sign and cause of unity in the Church. Nevertheless it would take all of the apostles, not just Peter to manage and extend the Church to the ends of the earth. And yes, there were times when even Peter himself needed correction as we know from the Acts of the Apostles.

With Advent we are entering a new liturgical year, so it might be a good time to take the current pulse of Christ’s Church. And yet, what we observe coming out of the Petrine office these days is very disturbing. I am referring of course to the current Bergoglian papacy euphemistically called the “Francis Church.” (What used to be known as the Roman Catholic Church increasingly resembles a strange new body, the Jesuit Catholic Church.) Beginning March 13, 2013 the world’s Catholic faithful have been living in a surreal dream-like state of two popes which, in the past year since the death of Benedict XVI, has increasingly morphed into a frightful nightmare. We have observed the so-called Church of Mercy descend into the Church of petty retributions, vindictiveness, and patent injustice. Saintly bishops are deposed unjustly and without cause, most recently Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas who it seems has now been forbidden to even celebrate Mass in his former diocese among friends he has known for years. It is a demonstration of just how petulant the henchmen of Bergoglio’s brutal authoritarianism have become.

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