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Bergoglio and Fernandez: Men Who Extol and Enable the Impure
Among the many points I have made consistently in the nearly twenty years that this website has existed as a continuation of the eponymous publication of the same time is that, despite the mythology that Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI were “defenders of marriage,” the conciliar revolution’s false teaching about Holy Matrimony is premised on an inversion of the ends proper to this sacrament. This inversion, which is contrary to both the Divine and Natural Laws, was bound, given the teleology of error, to lead to the total separation between the use of the gift proper only to a man and woman joined together in Holy Matrimony and this gift’s primary end, the procreation and education of children, and the mutual good of the spouses. Outright hedonism can be the only long-term result of placing the good of the spouses over that of the procreation and education of children.
As I am always aware of the fact that many people have short attention spans and do not retain much, if anything, of substance from the many articles or news stories they may read in a given week, I think that, no matter however redundant it may be, to point out the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the ends proper to Holy Matrimony and then demonstrate how that the conciliar revolutionaries defied that teaching, resulting in a defilement of the sanctity proper to the married state.
The counterfeit church of conciliarism has inverted the ends proper to the Sacrament of Matrimony and endorsed what is, in essence, a Catholic form of “natural” contraception, and enshrined this inversion in their corrupted 1983 Code of Canon Law. This inversion is clear, and it is absolutely undeniable:
856. The primary object of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring; the secondary purpose is mutual assistance and the remedy of concupiscence. (This can be found on page 205 of the following link, which is the 1917 Code of Canon Law in English: 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law.)
Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Canon 1055.1 1983 Conciliar Code of Canon Law. By the way, Father Vigano, your beloved Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II propagated the so-called 1983 Code of Canon Law. Not even a true pope can change something that exists in the very nature of things. Why no criticism of "Saint John Paul II"?)
TheThe entire fabric of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, including its endorsement of the falsehood that is "natural family planning," is built on the fabric of the inversion of the ends of marriage that was condemned personally by Pope Pius XII on March 29, 1944, a condemnation that he cited and reiterated in the strongest terms possible in his aforementioned Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession:
Certain publications concerning the purposes of matrimony, and their interrelationship and order, have come forth within these last years which either assert that the primary purpose of matrimony is not the generation of offspring, or that the secondary purposes are not subordinate to the primary purpose, but are independent of it.
In these works, different primary purposes of marriage are designated by other writers, as for example: the complement and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual participation in life and action; mutual love and union of spouses to be nurtured and perfected the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.
In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words in the current documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary purpose), which does not agree with these words according to the common usage by theologians.
This revolutionary way of thinking and speaking aims to foster errors and uncertainties, to avoid which the Eminent and Very Fathers of this supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with the guarding of faith and morals, in a plenary session on Wednesday, the 29th of March, 1944, when the question was proposed to them: “Whether the opinion of certain writers can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation of children and raising offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but are equally first and independent,” have decreed that the answer must be: In the negative. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 2295, pp. 624-625.)
The conciliar revolutionaries have placed the safety of the body over the sanctification and salvation of souls while deifying the natural environment and allying very formally with one anti-population, pro-abortion, pro-contraception nogoodnik and their organizations dedicated to the propagation of Communist, globalist, statist propaganda that empower the civil state, deprive men of their legitimate liberties, gut industries, heavily tax citizens and make national sovereignty a relic that belongs in the same category as the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the immutable Sacred Deposit of Faith. Naturalism and Pantheism, not Catholicism, guide the conciliar ideologues who are rigidly committed to the propagation of junk science while offending God by means of their hideous liturgies, false doctrines, false teaching on moral theology and false pastoral theology that lead men on the path to eternal ruin. (See Jorge's Band of Theological Racketeers Legitimize Paul Ehrlich)
From Pope Pius XI’s Defense of Holy Matrimony to Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI’s Perversion of Holy Matrimony
Holy Mother Church, eager to warn her children about the moral dangers facing them in a world of naturalism and materialism, responded to the propaganda in favor of contraception with great tenacity in the 1920s as the efforts of Margaret Sanger's Birth Control League and related organizations worldwide began to grow in influence. Pope Pius XI was specifically alarmed at the fact that the "bishops" of the heretical and schismatic Anglican sect voted in their 1930 Lambeth Conference to endorse the "limited" use of contraception for married couples who found themselves with a "clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood." Here is the complete text of Resolution Fifteen of that 1930 Lambeth Conference:
Resolution 15
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience. (Resolution 15 - The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage.)
The Anglican sect's endorsement of contraception was, of course, but a logical result of what happens to heretics when they throw themselves outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Mere creatures who are but contingent beings with bodies that are destined one day for the corruption of the grave until the General Resurrection on the Last Day become their own individual popes and popessas, believing that they can "determine" things for themselves that have are part of the Order of Nature (Creature) and have been taught by Holy Mother Church, the sole teacher of what is contained in the Order of Redemption (Grace) and the authoritative interpreter of all that is contained in the Natural Law.
The belief enunciated by Federal Council of America in 1931 that the use of contraceptives was mocked by an editorial that appeared in The Washington Post on March 22, 1931, that I have quoted a number of other times on this site. It is worthwhile to do so again:
The Federal Council of Churches in America some time ago appointed a committee on "marriage and the home," which has now submitted a report favoring a "careful and restrained" use of contraceptive devices to regulate the size of families. The committee seems to have a serious struggle with itself in adhering to Christian doctrine while at the same time indulging in amateurish excursions in the field of economics, legislation, medicine, and sociology. The resulting report is a mixture of religious obscurantism and modernistic materialism which departs from the ancient standards of religion and yet fails to blaze a path toward something better.
The mischief that would result from an an attempt to place the stamp of church approval upon any scheme for "regulating the size of families" is evidently quite beyond the comprehension of this pseudo-scientific committee. It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would lead to the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous. If the churches are to become organizations for political and 'scientific' propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions of politics and science as substitutes for the old-time religion. ("Forgetting Religion," Editorial, The Washington Post, March 22, 1931.)
This is a very important statement to which I shall return shortly as we can see clearly now that the conciliar sect’s perversion of the ends proper to Holy Matrimony have led the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Victor Manuel Fernandez, James Martin, Timothy Radcliffe, Blase Cupich, John Stowe, Joseph Tobin, and most of the German “bishops” into believing that sins of impurity are not grave matter and that, quite instead, any expression of the marital gift, whether in or out of marriage and whether natural and unnatural, is “pleasing” to God, Who, they contend blasphemously, is concerned only about raw carnal pleasure no matter the context of how this pleasure is realized.
Now, Catholics do not live in a vacuum. They have been subjected to one assault after another against their sensus Catholicus ever since the dawn of the Protestant Revolution, perhaps never more so than in the past century by the rapid advancements in the means of modern mass communications. It was to blunt the advance of propaganda in favor of the "small family" and thus the inversion of the ends of marriage that Pope Pius XI issued Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, to reaffirm the Catholic Church's prohibition against any direct interference in the conception of a child and to remind everyone in the world that the primary end of marriage remained what it will be until the end of time: the propagation and education of children:
7. Since, however, We have spoken fully elsewhere on the Christian education of youth,[18] let Us sum it all up by quoting once more the words of St. Augustine: "As regards the offspring it is provided that they should be begotten lovingly and educated religiously,"[19] -- and this is also expressed succinctly in the Code of Canon Law -- "The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children."[20]
18. Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
Pope Pius XI made it clear that the secondary end of marriage, the mutual good of the spouses, was subordinate to the primary end, reiterating the truth that privileges of the married state belong by right to each spouse, neither of whom can deny the marriage right to the other arbitrarily and both of whom are able to exercise this right, or to refrain its exercise, without interfering with its natural end, the conception of a child:
19. The second blessing of matrimony which We said was mentioned by St. Augustine, is the blessing of conjugal honor which consists in the mutual fidelity of the spouses in fulfilling the marriage contract, so that what belongs to one of the parties by reason of this contract sanctioned by divine law, may not be denied to him or permitted to any third person; nor may there be conceded to one of the parties anything which, being contrary to the rights and laws of God and entirely opposed to matrimonial faith, can never be conceded . . . .
59. Holy Church knows well that not infrequently one of the parties is sinned against rather than sinning, when for a grave cause he or she reluctantly allows the perversion of the right order. In such a case, there is no sin, provided that, mindful of the law of charity, he or she does not neglect to seek to dissuade and to deter the partner from sin. Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
This was not an endorsement of what is today called "natural family planning," only a reiteration of the plain truth that the marital right, subordinated to its primary end, cannot be denied arbitrarily by one spouse to the other and that it is permissible for married couples to use that right when new life cannot be brought forth. There was no discussion of "family planning" here at all, and none existed in the mind of Pope Pius XI.
Indeed, Pope Pius XI explained that confessors had to go to great lengths to counsel penitents not to surrender themselves to the propaganda in favor of contraception and the contraceptive mentality to which they were being exposed on an almost constant basis:
54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.
55. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."
56. Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.
57. We admonish, therefore, priests who hear confessions and others who have the care of souls, in virtue of Our supreme authority and in Our solicitude for the salvation of souls, not to allow the faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God; much more, that they keep themselves immune from such false opinions, in no way conniving in them. If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: "They are blind and leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
Would anyone want to argue that the propaganda in favor of some type of "family planning" has abated in the past eighty-one years? Of course not. We know that even young traditionally-minded Catholics are influenced by this propaganda, believing that it is "impossible" for them to have a large family, sometimes counseled to believe that they should be "informed" about the natural means by which they could avoid conceiving a child so that they do not have a temptation to use artificial contraception.
However, it is a total misreading of Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession to assert that he endorsed what is called today "natural family planning."
He did not.
Our last true Holy Father listed a series of specific conditions in which it was permissible, although never mandatory, for married couples to limit the use of the gift proper to the married state to a woman's monthly periods of infertility. He did not endorse the indiscriminate use of the rhythm method, less yet "mandated" its teaching. He himself referred to those conditions in a later address, given just weeks before his death on October 9, 1958, as "exceptional." Something that is exceptional can never be considered the norm. (Please see for further elaboration).
Alas, there were Jesuit theologians in the 1950s, especially Fathers John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly, who began to push the envelope in favor of “family limitation,” a not so-subtle euphemism for the phrase “planned parenthood.” This push found its way into the proceedings of the “Second” Vatican Council, prompting Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, to respond as follows:
"I am not pleased with the statement in the text that married couples may determine the number of children they are to have. Never has this been heard of in the Church. My father was a laborer, and the fear of having many children never entered my parents' minds, because they trusted in Providence. [I am amazed] that yesterday in the Council it should have been said that there was doubt whether a correct stand had been taken hitherto on the principles governing marriage. Does this not mean that the inerrancy of the Church will be called into question? Or was not the Holy Spirit with His Church in past centuries to illuminate minds on this point of doctrine?" (As found in Peter W. Miller, Substituting the Exception for the Rule; The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, by Father Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, Tan Books and Publishers, 1967, is cited as the source of this quotation.)
In other words, Cardinal Ottaviani, who had defended the immutability of the Catholic Church’s condemnation of the modern concept of religious liberty and of the separation of the Church and State in a series of not-so-oblique commentaries on the promotion of these falsehoods by Father John Courtney Murray, S.J,, in the 1950s, recognized the very inerrancy of Holy Mother Church was at state by the promotion of birth control under one form or another at the “Second” Vatican Council.
Undeterred, though, the supposed opponent of contraception, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antionio Maria Montini/Paul VI, undermined the ends proper to marriage while opening the way for what became known as “natural family planning” and, ultimately, to a landslide of applications for marital nullity as, having placed what was the called the “unitive end” over the procreation and education of children, the sick Modernist sodomite open the way for marital pleasure to take precedence over all else. Fallen human beings are prone to selfishness, not selflessness, and married people who do not want to give themselves selflessly to each other and children in obedience to God and for His greater honor and glory, will come to think that their marriage is “unhappy” because they seek self-pleasure and self-fulfillment above all else.
Humanae Vitae is not, however, an orthodox statement of the Catholic Faith. It is, much like everything else in the false "pontificate" of Paul VI (referred to by former friend of longstanding in the conciliar structures as "Paul the Sick"--great phrase, Father, one of many of yours), a revolutionary document that inverted the ends proper to marriage as the phenomenology of philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand and the theology of Father Herbert Doms were used to assert that the "unitive" end of marriage was primary.
Humanae Vitae was also a revolutionary document in that it continued Paul VI's acceptance of a nonexistent "population crisis" as the foundation for expanding the conditions to use "natural" methods to avoid conceiving children. The hideous false "pontiff," who appointed and promoted all manner of lavender types as "bishops" throughout the conciliar structures, wrote the following in Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967, that laid the groundwork for the further inversion of the ends of marriage to be found in Humanae Vitae by means of an more expansive view of the reasons that married couples could avoid children than provided in Pope Pius XII's Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession in that wonderful year of 1951:
37. There is no denying that the accelerated rate of population growth brings many added difficulties to the problems of development where the size of the population grows more rapidly than the quantity of available resources to such a degree that things seem to have reached an impasse. In such circumstances people are inclined to apply drastic remedies to reduce the birth rate.
There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity.
Finally, it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children already born, and before the community to which they belong—following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God's law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in Him. (39)(Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967.)
Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI was a Marxist sympathizer, if not a Marxist himself. Indeed, Father Michael Roach, who taught Church History at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, said in a class lecture in the Fall of 1981 that he had been with the then rector of the seminary, Monsignor Harry Flynn, who would later denounce Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., as an "anti-Semite" (see Disconnects), in his capacity as the conciliar "archbishop" of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the time of the death of Montini/Paul VI on August 6, 1978. According to Father Roach, the then Monsignor Flynn, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, New York, said, "Ah, yes, Paul VI. A marvelous man. A Marxist, but a marvelous man nonetheless."
The point is this: Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, who betrayed the identity of Catholic priests behind the Iron Curtain when serving the the Vatican's Secretariat of State under Pope Pius XII, accepted the Malthusian myth of "overpopulation" and "depleted resources" to assert that it is parents who decide how many children they are to welcome into the world. Wrong. God decides this, not parents. God can see to it that children are conceived despite the more careful "precautions" taken against their conception, something that is as true of the use of what is called today "natural family planning" as it is of artificial contraception. God decides this matter. No one else. God is alone the Sovereign over the sanctity and the fecundity of marriage. No one else.
As noted at the beginning of this essay, Pope Pius XI, writing in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, stated this quite explicitly:
10. Now when We come to explain, Venerable Brethren, what are the blessings that God has attached to true matrimony, and how great they are, there occur to Us the words of that illustrious Doctor of the Church whom We commemorated recently in Our Encyclical Ad salutem on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of his death:[9] "These," says St. Augustine, "are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament."[10] And how under these three heads is contained a splendid summary of the whole doctrine of Christian marriage, the holy Doctor himself expressly declares when he said: "By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained."[11]
11. Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth."[12] As St. Augustine admirably deduces from the words of the holy Apostle Saint Paul to Timothy[13] when he says: "The Apostle himself is therefore a witness that marriage is for the sake of generation: 'I wish,' he says, 'young girls to marry.' And, as if someone said to him, 'Why?,' he immediately adds: 'To bear children, to be mothers of families'."[14]
12. How great a boon of God this is, and how great a blessing of matrimony is clear from a consideration of man's dignity and of his sublime end. For man surpasses all other visible creatures by the superiority of his rational nature alone. Besides, God wishes men to be born not only that they should live and fill the earth, but much more that they may be worshippers of God, that they may know Him and love Him and finally enjoy Him for ever in heaven; and this end, since man is raised by God in a marvelous way to the supernatural order, surpasses all that eye hath seen, and ear heard, and all that hath entered into the heart of man.[15] From which it is easily seen how great a gift of divine goodness and how remarkable a fruit of marriage are children born by the omnipotent power of God through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock.
13. But Christian parents must also understand that they are destined not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, indeed not only to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God's household,[16] that the worshippers of God and Our Savior may daily increase.
14. For although Christian spouses even if sanctified themselves cannot transmit sanctification to their progeny, nay, although the very natural process of generating life has become the way of death by which original sin is passed on to posterity, nevertheless, they share to some extent in the blessings of that primeval marriage of Paradise, since it is theirs to offer their offspring to the Church in order that by this most fruitful Mother of the children of God they may be regenerated through the laver of Baptism unto supernatural justice and finally be made living members of Christ, partakers of immortal life, and heirs of that eternal glory to which we all aspire from our inmost heart.
15. If a true Christian mother weigh well these things, she will indeed understand with a sense of deep consolation that of her the words of Our Savior were spoken: "A woman . . . when she hath brought forth the child remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world";[17] and proving herself superior to all the pains and cares and solicitudes of her maternal office with a more just and holy joy than that of the Roman matron, the mother of the Gracchi, she will rejoice in the Lord crowned as it were with the glory of her offspring. Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God, not only to be employed for their own advantage or for that of an earthly commonwealth, but to be restored to God with interest on the day of reckoning. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii , December 31, 1930.)
God decides how many or how few children a Catholic married couple will have. No one else. Men may try to the thwart the natural end of marriage. They may be able to be "successful," as they count "success," perhaps even more often than not. No human means of deliberately frustrating the natural end of marriage is infallible, and no carefully planned use of the gift proper to the married state in those times during a month when a woman is more apt it to be infertile than others will avoid the conception of a new child in all instances. God is the Sovereign of the fecundity of marriage.
As a Modernist and a socialist who was, as noted earlier, at the very least sympathetic to Marxism, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, however, thought and spoke in naturalistic terms that were tinged with vestigial after-effects of the Holy Faith. He accepted the myths of "progress" and "world peace" represented by the United Masonic Nations Organization, about which Pope Pius XII, although at first supportive of the organization, began to sour in the 1950s, and accepted the myths of "overpopulation." It was for this reason that he continued the work of the aforementioned "Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births so that its members could study the biological operation of the "birth control pill" to determine if it could be used morally to prevent the conception of children, especially in areas of endemic poverty,. A member of that commission, Archbishop Albino Luciani of Venice, Italy, the future "John Paul I," is said to have voted to endorse "the pill," which, apart from the denying the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage, is a chemical abortifacient, because of his concerns for "the poor."
Montini/Paul VI was open to "the pill" to deal with the nonexistent problem of overpopulation. Unable to endorse its use, though, he used Humanae Vitae to expand the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession in 1951 to invert the ends of marriage, an inversion that would be institutionalized later by the "personalist phenomenologist" named Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the hideously disgusting "theology of the body" that he explicated over the course of years in his "general audience" talks in the early-1980s (talks he was giving at the time he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca on Wednesday, May 13, 1981, by the way), thus paving the way for the propagation and acceptance of the cottage industry that became known as "natural family planning" as the expected norm for married couples, who must be "educated" in matters that violate modesty of speech and detract from the sanctity of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony:
Montini/Paul VI prefaced Humanae Vitae's expanded conditions for the use of a woman's infertile periods as the basis of avoiding the conception of children upon with yet another reference to the myth of overpopulation:
1. The most serious duty of transmitting human life, for which married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, has always been a source of great joys to them, even if sometimes accompanied by not a few difficulties and by distress.
At all times the fulfillment of this duty has posed grave problems to the conscience of married persons, but, with the recent evolution of society, changes have taken place that give rise to new questions which the Church could not ignore, having to do with a matter which so closely touches upon the life and happiness of men.
2. The changes which have taken place are in fact noteworthy and of varied kinds. In the first place, there is the rapid demographic development. Fear is shown by many that world population is growing more rapidly than the available resources, with growing distress to many families and developing countries, so that the temptation for authorities to counter this danger with radical measures is great. Moreover, working and lodging conditions, as well as increased exigencies both in the economic field and in that of education, often make the proper education of a larger number of children difficult today. A change is also seen both in the manner of considering the person of woman and her place in society, and in the value to be attributed to conjugal love in marriage, and also in the appreciation to be made of the meaning of conjugal acts in relation to that love.
Finally and above all, man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature, such that he tends to extend this domination to his own total being: to the body, to psychical life, to social life and even to the laws which regulate the transmission of life.
3. This new state of things gives rise to new questions. Granted the conditions of life today, and granted the meaning which conjugal relations have with respect to the harmony between husband and wife and to their mutual fidelity, would not a revision of the ethical norms, in force up to now, seem to be advisable, especially when it is considered that they cannot be observed without sacrifices, sometimes heroic sacrifices?
And again: by extending to this field the application of the so-called "principle of totality," could it not be admitted that the intention of a less abundant but more rationalized fecundity might transform a materially sterilizing intervention into a licit and wise control of birth? Could it not be admitted, that is, that the finality of procreation pertains to the ensemble of conjugal life, rather than to its single acts? It is also asked whether, in view of the increased sense of responsibility of modern man, the moment has not come for him to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.
4. Such questions required from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection upon the principles of the moral teaching on marriage: a teaching founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine revelation. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)
It is upon these false premises that the hideous friend of the lavender collective, of which he may very well have been a charter member, handed so many Catholic couples over to the devil so that they could immersed in considerations of physicality that have never had any place in Catholic teaching. Although Montini/Paul VI re-stated the immutable teaching of the Church concerning the begetting of children, this was part of the "bait and switch" game as he used his own text to place what he called the "unitive" end before that of procreation:
And finally this love is fecund for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents."8
10. Hence conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. Consequently it is to be considered under different aspects which are legitimate and connected with one another.
In relation to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of their functions; human intellect discovers in the power of giving life biological laws which are part of the human person.
In relation to the tendencies of instinct or passion, responsible parenthood means that necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them.
In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.
Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values.
In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church.
11. These acts, by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy, and by means of which human life is transmitted, are, as the Council recalled, "noble and worthy,"and they do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be infecund, since they always remain ordained towards expressing and consolidating their union. In fact, as experience bears witness, not every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births. Nonetheless the Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act (quilibet matrimonii usus) must remain open to the transmission of life.
12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)
Who had been calling for "responsible parenthood" for five decades prior to her death on September 6, 1966?
The nymphomaniac, racist and eugenicist named Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League that became known as Planned Parenthood, that's who. Her followers continue to champion this shopworn slogan that found its way into the text of an alleged "papal" encyclical letter. Montini/Paul VI's acceptance of "responsible parenthood" slogan of Margaret Sanger and her diabolical minions, coupled with the inversion of the ends of marriage propagated by Dietrich von Hildebrand, constitutes a revolution against the ends of marriage that have "baptized," if you will, a supposedly "natural" form of contraception that is to be used as a matter of routine, not in truly extraordinary cases, where is it only lawful, that is, permissible, and never mandated.
The inclusion of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children by the use of "knowing" the physicality of a woman's body has been interpreted rather broadly, shall we say. In plain English: the use of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children has been used to reaffirm the "consciences" of those who are "not ready" for children. This is no different whatsoever than those who have chosen the use of artificial means to prevent the conception of children because they are "not ready" to have them. They have careers. They have poor finances. They have elderly parents for whom to care. They have "plans." They have to get through school. And on and on on. Everybody's got a "serious reason." These are nothing other than excuses and rationalizations that consider marriage in purely naturalistic and materialistic, if not utilitarian, terms without any true love of God and thus of trust that He will send married couples all of the supernatural and temporal helps that they need to provide for the children that God sees fit to send them.
The "teaching" that led to what is called today as "natural family planning" is not to be found in Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession. It is to be found in Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, devoted to the "responsible parenthood" slogan of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations and environmental groups.
Truly responsible Catholic parenthood is founded in a love for God's Holy Will and by training however many or few children in the truths of the Catholic Faith, which require parents to eschew worldliness and to arm them with the supernatural and natural means to live in a "popular culture" devoted to the glorification of the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, that is, sin. That's truly responsible Catholic parenthood. Not that which is represented by "Paul the Sick" and Humanae Vitae.
How the Adversary Used Humanae Vitae to Further Advance Contraception With the Help of Believing Catholics
As has happened in the realm of civil politics, the devil used "false opposites" to divide and conquer believing Catholics as a result of the issuance of Humanae Vitae nearly forty-three years ago now in several ways. Permit me a brief word of explanation.
There were a number of ultra-progressive revolutionaries who were poised to oppose Humanae Vitae even before its release on July 25, 1968. Led by Father Charles Curran, a priest of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, who was then under the authority of his diocesan bishop, a man named Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, and was teaching at The Catholic University of America in Washington, District of Columbia, a number of Catholic "dissenters," funded by Planned Parenthood and related organizations, were able to take a major advertisement in The New York Times to express their "loyal opposition" to Humanae Vitae's reaffirmation on the proscribed nature of artificial methods of contraception. Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, the Archbishop of Washington, sought to fire Curran. He was overruled by the other cardinals who constituted the governing board of The Catholic University of America. Montini/Paul VI did not discipline Curran. Neither did Bishop Sheen, who could have called Curran home to Rochester right then and there.
The rise of the "loyal opposition" posed by Father Charles Curran and his fellow "dissenting" signatories made acceptance of Humanae Vitae a touchstone of what was considered to be Catholic "orthodoxy" in "conservative" Catholic circles. These "conservative" Catholics "rallied around the 'pope,'" embracing Humanae Vitae without once considering it to be a truly revolutionary document that helped to launch and institutionalize a "natural" form of contraception that has become the expected norm in conciliar circles (and even in some sedevacantist venues). The "poor, suffering 'pope'" syndrome that afflicts "conservative" and traditionally-minded Catholics in the conciliar structures to this day began with the issuance of Humanae Vitae and the opposition it engendered from the "ultra-progressives."
It was to protect the "poor, suffering 'pope'" that many "conservative" Catholics, although uneasy with the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service when it was promulgated on April 3, 1969, and implemented on Sunday, November 30, 1969, accepted the "liturgical reform" and became strong defenders of it as to otherwise would be to place themselves in the same camp as the "ultra-progressives." This was a point that had been made to me first by the conciliar presbyter who had referred to Montini rather consistently as "Paul the Sick." It was a good point, a correct one as he was ahead of me on the harm of the Novus Ordo by about ten years.
Having thus become a touchstone of "doctrinal orthodoxy" and of "loyalty to the 'pope,'" Humanae Vitae launched the cottage industry of "natural family planning" (there is something called the "Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction" in Omaha, Nebraska) that was defended by such believing Catholics as Father Paul Marx, O.S.B, who had debunked the myth of overpopulation and who was hated by his Benedictine superiors for his criticism of the conciliar "bishops'" refusal to oppose "artificial" contraception, and Father John A. Hardon, S.J., who was equally hated by his own superiors in the Society of Jesus for his defense of the Faith as best as he was able to do in difficult circumstances. (I would not be surprised if Monsignor George Kelly also became an enthusiast of "natural family planning" out of loyalty to "the pope.") And then there was the syncretist Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who helped to champion the "pope's" cause in this regard. Unfortunately, the cause was that of a false "pope," a true revolutionary who went beyond anything ever intended by Pope Pius XI's Casti Connubii and Pope Pius XII's Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession.
Montini/Paul VI helped to pave the way as a perverse "John the Baptist" for the endless "personalist" tripe of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II that made discussion of matters that would never pass from the lips of Catholics in any age prior to this a very casual part of the related cottage industry called "the theology of the body." This cottage industry has enriched the likes of Christopher West and others who are obsessed with physicality and thus immodesty and indecency of speech as that which is opposed to Catholic teaching is presented as actually being part of the Sacred Deposit of the Faith in "loyalty" "Blessed" John Paul II. (For a thumbnail sketch of the road from Dietrich von Hildebrand, who was, ironically, opposed to the Novus Ordoservice and told Paul VI so to his face, to Christopher West, see Mrs. Randy Engel's The Phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand and His Novel Teaching on Marriage.)
Pope Pius XII Condemned the Personalist View of Marriage That Gave Rise to Humanae Vitae and Natural Family Planning
Pope Pius XII's Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, which is being treated by some in sedevacantist circles as a positive mandate to teach and practice "natural family planning," contained a complete rejection of the "personalist" view of marriage championed by Dietrich von Hildebrand, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Albino Luciani/John Paul I, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:
"Personal values" and the need to respect such are a theme which, over the last twenty years or so, has been considered more and more by writers. In many of their works, even the specifically sexual act has its place assigned, that of serving the "person" of the married couple. The proper and most profound sense of the exercise of conjugal rights would consist in this, that the union of bodies is the expression and the realization of personal and affective union.
Articles, chapters, entire books, conferences, especially dealing with the "technique" of love, are composed to spread these ideas, to illustrate them with advice to the newly married as a guide in matrimony, in order that they may not neglect, through stupidity or a false sense of shame or unfounded scruples, that which God, Who also created natural inclinations, offers them. If from their complete reciprocal gift of husband and wife there results a new life, it is a result which remains outside, or, at the most, on the border of "personal values"; a result which is not denied, but neither is it desired as the center of marital relations.
According to these theories, your dedication for the welfare of the still hidden life in the womb of the mother, and your assisting its happy birth, would only have but a minor and secondary importance.
Now, if this relative evaluation were merely to place the emphasis on the personal values of husband and wife rather than on that of the offspring, it would be possible, strictly speaking, to put such a problem aside. But, however, it is a matter of a grave inversion of the order of values and of the ends imposed by the Creator Himself. We find Ourselves faced with the propagation of a number of ideas and sentiments directly opposed to the clarity, profundity, and seriousness of Christian thought. Here, once again, the need for your apostolate. It may happen that you receive the confidences of the mother and wife and are questioned on the more secret desires and intimacies of married life. How, then, will you be able, aware of your mission, to give weight to truth and right order in the appreciation and action of the married couple, if you yourselves are not furnished with the strength of character needed to uphold what you know to be true and just?
The primary end of marriage
Now, the truth is that matrimony, as an institution of nature, in virtue of the Creator's will, has not as a primary and intimate end the personal perfection of the married couple but the procreation and upbringing of a new life. The other ends, inasmuch as they are intended by nature, are not equally primary, much less superior to the primary end, but are essentially subordinated to it. This is true of every marriage, even if no offspring result, just as of every eye it can be said that it is destined and formed to see, even if, in abnormal cases arising from special internal or external conditions, it will never be possible to achieve visual perception.
It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few years ago (March 10, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught, and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law. Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an equal footing and independent of it.
Would this lead, perhaps, to Our denying or diminishing what is good and just in personal values resulting from matrimony and its realization? Certainly not, because the Creator has designed that for the procreation of a new life human beings made of flesh and blood, gifted with soul and heart, shall be called upon as men and not as animals deprived of reason to be the authors of their posterity. It is for this end that the Lord desires the union of husband and wife. Indeed, the Holy Scripture says of God that He created man to His image and He created him male and female, and willed—as is repeatedly affirmed in Holy Writ—that "a man shall leave mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh".
All this is therefore true and desired by God. But, on the other hand, it must not be divorced completely from the primary function of matrimony—the procreation of offspring. Not only the common work of external life, but even all personal enrichment—spiritual and intellectual—all that in married love as such is most spiritual and profound, has been placed by the will of the Creator and of nature at the service of posterity. The perfect married life, of its very nature, also signifies the total devotion of parents to the well-being of their children, and married love in its power and tenderness is itself a condition of the sincerest care of the offspring and the guarantee of its realization.
To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory. Therefore, in Our allocution of September 29, 1949, to the International Congress of Catholic Doctors, We expressly excluded artificial insemination in marriage. The conjugal act, in its natural structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift, which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union "in one flesh".
That is much more than the union of two genes, which can be effected even by artificial means, that is, without the natural action of husband and wife. The conjugal act, ordained and desired by nature, is a personal cooperation, to which husband and wife, when contracting marriage, exchange the right.
Therefore, when this act in its natural form is from the beginning perpetually impossible, the object of the matrimonial contract is essentially vitiated. This is what we said on that occasion: "Let it not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the will and the design of the Creator carries with it in a stupendous degree of perfection the intended ends. It is at the same time in conformity with the spiritual and bodily nature and the dignity of the married couple, in conformity with the happy and normal development of the child".
Advise the fiancée or the young married woman who comes to seek your advice about the values of matrimonial life that these personal values, both in the sphere of the body and the senses and in the sphere of the spirit, are truly genuine, but that the Creator has placed them not in the first, but in the second degree of the scale of values. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)
This is a ringing condemnation of the very philosophical and theological foundations of the indiscriminate, institutionalized teaching and practice of "natural family planning" in the lives of Catholic married couples. It is also yet another papal condemnation of conciliarism's view of marriage.
One cannot overemphasize the importance of Pope Pius XII's condemnation of the very personalist ideology that is at the root of what is called today "natural family planning" as it just a little over seven years and one-half years after the Holy Office's condemnation of the work, which was identical to that of Dietrich von Hildebrand's, of Father Herbert Doms, who had inverted the end of marriage. The condemnation of Father Doms' work was alluded to in a passage from the October 29, 1951, address just cited above. Here it is once again for the sake of emphasis:
It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few years ago (March 10, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught, and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law. Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an equal footing and independent of it. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)
Catholics who seek to comment on the foundation of the ideology of "natural family planning" must understand the connection between the work of the likes of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Father Hebert Doms and others that served as the revolutionary basis for Humanae Vitae and thus of "natural family planning" and the "theology of the body." It is also very important for one to familiarize himself with and become conversant in Pope Pius XII's condemnation of these false presuppositions that are the very heart of "NFP" as it is taught and practiced on an institutionalized basis, especially at the likes of the "Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction."
The Foundation of True Married Love: Love of God Above All Else
Higher than any human love is the love that each of is us to have for the God Who created us, the God Who redeemed us, the God Who sanctifies us. Love of God and of His Holy Faith comes before the love that offer to any mere creatures, including our spouses and our children. A husband and a wife's love for each other is inauthentic and thus actually damaging to their eternal salvation if either loves the spouse--or, worse yet, himself or herself and his or her own disordered desire to be the center of the other's universe--more than the true God of Divine Revelation as He has revealed to us exclusively to His true Church. No spouse can be said to be a good husband or a good wife who complains that the one to whom he is wedded in Christ the King loves God more than himself or herself. Such is narcissism. It is egotism. We are called to love to God above all creatures and thus to love all creatures for love of Him, meaning that we will their good, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of their immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has taught us how single-hearted our love for Him must be:
[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (Matthew 10: 36-40.)
[26] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. [27] And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 26-27.)
The Bishop Challoner commentary on the Douay-Rheims Bible explains the meaning of Luke 14: 26:
[26] "Hate not"... The law of Christ does not allow us to hate even our enemies, much less our parents: but the meaning of the text is, that we must be in that disposition of soul, as to be willing to renounce, and part with every thing, how near or dear soever it may be to us, that would keep us from following Christ.
Husbands and wives must love each other so much for the love of the Most Blessed Trinity that they are willing to renounce even the privileges of the married state if there are circumstances that might require them to consider doing so. Many saints have done this, including Saint Henry the Emperor and his wife, Saint Cunigunde, for purely supernatural reasons. Nothing is impossible with God. Nothing.
It is with this in mind that one must consider these words of Pope Pius XI when discussing the mutual agreement of husband and wife to refrain from the privileges of the married state in exceptional circumstances:
53. And now, Venerable Brethren, we shall explain in detail the evils opposed to each of the benefits of matrimony. First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act. Some justify* this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without their consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other can they have children because of the difficulties whether on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstances .
54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. . . .
60. We are deeply touched by the sufferings of those parents who, in extreme want, experience great difficulty in rearing their children.
61. However, they should take care lest the calamitous state of their external affairs should be the occasion for a much more calamitous error. No difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids all acts intrinsically evil. There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, fulfill faithfully their duties and preserve in wedlock their chastity unspotted. This truth of Christian Faith is expressed by the teaching of the Council of Trent. "Let no one be so rash as to assert that which the Fathers of the Council have placed under anathema, namely, that there are precepts of God impossible for the just to observe. God does not ask the impossible, but by His commands, instructs you to do what you are able, to pray for what you are not able that He may help you."[48]
62. This same doctrine was again solemnly repeated and confirmed by the Church in the condemnation of the Jansenist heresy which dared to utter this blasphemy against the goodness of God: "Some precepts of God are, when one considers the powers which man possesses, impossible of fulfillment even to the just who wish to keep the law and strive to do so; grace is lacking whereby these laws could be fulfilled."[49] (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)
There is some merit in elaborating on these points, if only for a brief moment or two.
Although some of "The Nine" who were expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X in 1983 have demonstrated a most unfortunate tendency to "beat the sheep" when they dare to bring to them their legitimate pastoral concerns and to force them to accept pastoral positions and practices that have not been enunciated by Holy Mother Church, they were correct about many things, including their firm, unequivocal statement against Archbishop Lefebvre's blithe acceptance of the decrees of nullity issued by conciliar "marriage tribunals." "The Nine" stood forth in defense of the integrity of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, exhibiting the courage of Saint John the Baptist as they did so.
This means, of course, that "The Nine"--and those they have trained--hold to the correct view that those who have, sometimes at the direction of the conciliar authorities themselves and not infrequently with real and legitimate "cases" (such as ratum et nonconsummatum, something reserved to a pope himself to decide), received a decree of "nullity" from the conciliar authorities must live in Josephite marriages until the death of the one they had espoused in the conciliar church.
This is not harsh.
This is not "tough."
This is not impossible.
Those who love God above all else recognize that He sends all of the graces through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, that necessary to bear whatever crosses we are asked to carry at every point in our lives. And this is no different than what married couples who find themselves in some very truly extraordinary cases of very rare physical threats to a woman's life or severe economic distress may certainly consider themselves called to do: to bear the cross with love and gratitude as they forfeit by mutual agreement without being an occasion of sin to either spouse, for however long a time is necessary and by means of their mutual consent and consultation with a spiritual director, whether in or out of the confessional, that which is proper to the married state.
Pope Pius XI had noted this in Casti Connubii. So did Pope Pius XII in his Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession on October 29, 1951:
Perhaps you will now press the point, however, observing that in the exercise of your profession you find yourselves sometimes faced with delicate cases, in which, that is, there cannot be a demand that the risk of maternity be run, a risk which in certain cases must be absolutely avoided, and in which as well the observance of the agenesic periods either does not give sufficient security, or must be rejected for other reasons. Now, you ask, how can one still speak of an apostolate in the service of maternity?
If, in your sure and experienced judgment, the circumstances require an absolute "no," that is to say, the exclusion of motherhood, it would be a mistake and a wrong to impose or advise a "yes." Here it is a question of basic facts and therefore not a theological but a medical question; and thus it is in your competence. However, in such cases, the married couple does not desire a medical answer, of necessity a negative one, but seeks an approval of a "technique" of conjugal activity which will not give rise to maternity. And so you are again called to exercise your apostolate inasmuch as you leave no doubt whatsoever that even in these extreme cases every preventive practice and every direct attack upon the life and the development of the seed is, in conscience, forbidden and excluded, and that there is only one way open, namely, to abstain from every complete performance of the natural faculty. Your apostolate in this matter requires that you have a clear and certain judgment and a calm firmness.
It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such a heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you will read it everywhere. Even those who should be in a position to judge very differently, either by reason of their duties or qualifications, are ever ready to bring forward the following argument: "No one is obliged to do what is impossible, and it may be presumed that no reasonable legislator can will his law to oblige to the point of impossibility. But for husbands and wives long periods of abstention are impossible. Therefore they are not obliged to abstain; divine law cannot have this meaning."
In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be able".
Do not be disturbed, therefore, in the practice of your profession and apostolate, by this great talk of impossibility. Do not be disturbed in your internal judgment nor in your external conduct. Never lend yourselves to anything which is contrary to the law of God and to your Christian conscience! It would be a wrong towards men and women of our age to judge them incapable of continuous heroism. Nowadays, for many a reason,—perhaps constrained by dire necessity or even at times oppressed by injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an extent that in the past would have been thought impossible. Why, then, if circumstances truly demand it, should this heroism stop at the limits prescribed by the passions and the inclinations of nature? It is clear: he who does not want to master himself is not able to do so, and he who wishes to master himself relying only upon his own powers, without sincerely and perseveringly seeking divine help, will be miserably deceived.
Here is what concerns your apostolate for winning married people over to a service of motherhood, not in the sense of an utter servitude under the promptings of nature, but to the exercise of the rights and duties of married life, governed by the principles of reason and faith. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)
Bergoglio and Fernandez: Men Who Extol and Enable the Impure
As far as Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez are concerned, however, God does command the impossible as they do not believe that the ineffable graces for us by His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that flow into our hearts and souls through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary are sufficient to keep any of the Ten Commandments perfectly, and, in particular, they believe that chastity is impossible to maintain and that, to the contrary, it is virtuous to express “love” in any manner, in or out of Holy Matrimony, natural or unnatural, as “love” is of God.
Although I will not descend into the lurid, blasphemously heretical contentions made by Victor Manuel Fernandez contained in a book he published in 1998 that has come to light courtesy of LifeSite News (I will not provide a link to the article as its revolting beyond all imaging but, I should add, Fernandez’s horrible contentions, which are nothing other the rationalization and glorification of sins of impurity, bear a very strong resemblance to the writings of the disgraced, venal, and financially corrupt Father Marcel Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ that I read at the behest of Alphonse J. Matt, Jr, the publisher-editor of The Wanderer, who died in 2019, after he had been given a copy by one associated with the Legionaries), suffice it say that the recent efforts by the Argentine Apostate and his protégé, Victor Manuel Fernandez, to mandate the “blessing” of homosexual “couples” is based not on any kind of respect for the Catholic Church’s doctrine on Holy Matrimony but on a complete, welcoming acceptance of the sin of Sodom and its related vices as expressions of “love” that, all their gratuitous protestations to the contrary, can only be suppressed and condemned to the detriment of the “happiness” of those who are on the smooth and straight road that leads directly to the portals of hell.
It is a straight path from the acceptance of contraception a century to ago to the rise in divorce, broken families, the feminization of poverty, generations of children who have never known the stable, self-sacrificing love of one father and one mother and thus who have been lost, confused and angry throughout their lives, the surgical killing of the innocent preborn, and, ultimately, to the acceptance of self-abuse, fornication, sodomy in all its evil forms as well as the chemical and surgical mutilation of bodies in an effort to achieve the biologically and ontologically impossible goal of changing the gender with which they were born, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who once praised an actual baby-killer, Emma Bonino, a member of the Bilderberg Group and an associate of the George Soros who is known as the “Margaret Sanger of Italy, and Victor Manuel Fernadez have given their support and understanding to these evils in one way or another.
Fiducia Supplicans is the direct result of the conciliar sect’s overthrow of the ends proper to Holy Matrimony and its endorsement of what has become known as “natural family planning,” which is why is good to review the words of that Washington Post editorial from ninety-one years ago once again:
The Federal Council of Churches in America some time ago appointed a committee on "marriage and the home," which has now submitted a report favoring a "careful and restrained" use of contraceptive devices to regulate the size of families. The committee seems to have a serious struggle with itself in adhering to Christian doctrine while at the same time indulging in amateurish excursions in the field of economics, legislation, medicine, and sociology. The resulting report is a mixture of religious obscurantism and modernistic materialism which departs from the ancient standards of religion and yet fails to blaze a path toward something better.
The mischief that would result from an an attempt to place the stamp of church approval upon any scheme for "regulating the size of families" is evidently quite beyond the comprehension of this pseudo-scientific committee. It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would lead to the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous. If the churches are to become organizations for political and 'scientific' propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions of politics and science as substitutes for the old-time religion. ("Forgetting Religion," Editorial, The Washington Post, March 22, 1931.)
The prediction made ninety years ago in The Washington Post is being fulfilled anew by the theological “innovations” of the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez, who how their fealty to the adversary by condemning those who stand fast in behalf of Catholic teaching and by giving every signal to the forces of hell that they are their side, that they are doing their bidding, which is homosexual activists recognize Fiducia Supplicans for what it is and is meant to be: a Vatican endorsement and stamp of approval on their perversities:
(LifeSiteNews) — LGBT “Catholic” groups and individuals are praising Fiducia Supplicans as a not-so tacit endorsement of homosexual relationships — if not a step toward sacramental homosexual “marriages” — by the Holy See while chiding prelates and priests who recognize the declaration as an outright attack on truth, undermining Scriptural authority and the magisterium of the Church.
“This statement from the Vatican is a dramatic reversal of a document issued about two and a half years ago that declared blessings for same-sex couples could not be offered,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an organization for LGBTQ-identifying Catholics.
A recent press release from the organization noted that “DignityUSA has blessed same-sex relationships since the 1970s and has called for equal access to marriage for LGBTQIA+ people for over 25 years.”
“This is an important recognition that the denial of blessings caused great pastoral harm to many and demonstrates a willingness to rethink discriminatory and dehumanizing theology,” Duddy-Burke said. “It also feels like a vindication of the work so many LGBTQIA+ Catholics and allies have been doing for decades to convey our deep conviction that our sexuality and gender identities are blessings from God, and totally consistent with being faithful Catholics.”
Saying what supporters of Pope Francis refuse to acknowledge, Duddy-Burke said Fiducia Supplicans is a step toward full equality and affirmation of same-sex relationships.
It is clear from this statement that sacramental recognition of same-sex relationships is not yet on the table,” she said. “However, the Pope has expressed support for civil unions and legal protections of same-sex couples and our families. Perhaps even more importantly, significant majorities of Catholics in many countries already believe that same-sex couples’ relationships are holy, blessed, and equivalent to marriage. It may take time, but we fully expect that the official church will achieve this recognition, as well.”
“We encourage pastors around the country, and across the globe, to take advantage of this new permission to bestow blessings on same-sex couples who ask for this sign of affirmation,” she added.
Writing for Outreach, a Jesuit-run online resource for LGBTQ Catholics, Fr. James Martin wrote that Fiducia Supplicans is a “major step forward for LGBTQ Catholics,” in part, because it “continues Pope Francis’ continual outreach to LGBTQ people.”
Martin explained:
[D]uring the month of October, Pope Francis met with LGBTQ representatives three times. A few days before the Synod began, he met with me in a private audience at the Casa Santa Marta; halfway through the Synod, he met with Jeannine Gramick, S.L., along with her New Ways Ministry team; and finally, during a general audience toward the end of the month, he met with Marianne Duddy-Burke and other representatives from the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (G.N.R.C.), an umbrella group for LGBTQ Catholic groups worldwide.
“Speaking of umbrellas, on the day of that final meeting with G.N.R.C., an immense rainbow appeared over St. Peter’s Basilica,” Martin added.
“[Fiducia Supplicans] refers to blessings of couples. It doesn’t say separate individuals,” said Paul Riofski, a 66-year-old homosexual, according to a report in the Bay Area Reporter.
Riofski, who for decades has been a member of San Francisco’s LGBTQ “Dignity” group, an organization for LGBTQ-identifying Catholics, was commenting on a directive concerning Fiducia Supplicans given by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to the priests of his diocese concerning the blessing of homosexual couples.
Cordileone’s private memorandum said “any priest has the right to deny such blessings if, in his judgment, doing so would be a source of scandal in any way.”
“We believe our relationships and our love is blessed by God and consonant with God’s love,” Riofski continued. “The best thing he [Cordileone] did say publicly was telling people to read the entire document. And if you read church documents, you read the entirety and look at what’s being promoted and called on.”
“It’s very clear the purpose of this document is to open things up and be more inclusive and point a way to how people can be encouraged in their lives to grow in love and adherence to the gospel,” Riofski said. “We have different understandings, at times, of what the gospel calls for.”
“The Vatican’s instructions for blessing same-gender couples offered a clear set of parameters for how, when, and what priests are supposed to do when people request such blessings,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a group which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) declared in 2010 “has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church” to speak on the LGBT issue.
“The instructions were very clear and detailed, and so it seems that Archbishop Cordileone’s additional comments, including a warning about scandal, were unnecessary,” DeBernardo said. “The archbishop’s warning may cause priests to be reluctant to give such blessings when asked and may also cause some couples to be wary of asking for them.”
Archbishop Cordileone’s memo provided “an easy excuse for refusing to provide catechesis, ” said Stan JR Zerkowski, executive director of another “catholic” LGBTQ affinity group, Fortunate Families.
“The resistance to invoking a blessing on a same-sex couple and blaming it on ‘scandal’ seems to be an easy excuse for refusing to provide catechesis, which can be challenging in this regard for some, and appears to be lacking in mercy, welcome, as well as pastoral sensitivity,” Zerkowski said. (LGBT ‘Catholic’ groups celebrate Fiducia Supplicans as an endorsement of homosexual relationships.)
It is, of course, the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Victor Manuel Fernandez, James Martin, et al., who are the ones who are lacking in mercy by refusing to exhort hardened sinners to reform their lives. Then again, those who do not believe that sodomy is inherently evil and that those who commit sins of Sodom are on the path to eternal perdition, no less that it is impossible to keep the commandments and that to express “love” in a manner contrary to the laws of God and nature is commendable, not damnable.
As We Continue to Adore Christ the King During the Octave of the Epiphany
That this is all so contrary to the Light of the World, Christ the King, Who made Himself manifest to the three Gentile Kings, that it is tragic so few people want to recognize the fact that none of this can come from His spotless, virginal, mystical spouse, the Holy Catholic Church, she who can never give her children anything poisonous, erroneous, or impure. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came to redeem us from sin and to thus make it possible to scale the heights of sanctity, not to be immersed in a sewer of impurity and iniquity. No true pope, despite his own impurities and iniquities, has ever touched the purity of the Holy Faith, and no true pope will ever do so.
As we know, of course, this is all occurring within the Providence of God for His greater honor and glory and for our own sanctification and salvation, and it is to advance that sanctification and salvation that we turn our attention away from the evils of the world of Modernity that has made the date of Our Lord’s Epiphany a cause of political division and the evils of the world of Modernism to the joys of Our Lord’s manifestation of Himself as the Light of the Gentiles, the Light of the World, the King of Kings.
Dom Prosper Gueranger reminded this in his reflection for January 9th, the Fourth Day in the Octave of the Epiphany:
The Star foretold by Balaam having risen in the East, the three Magi, whose hearts were full of the expectation of the promised Redeemer, are immediately inflamed with the desire of going in search of Him. The announcement of the glad coming of the King of the Jews is made to these holy Kings in a mysterious and silent manner; and hereby it differs from that made to the Shepherds of Bethlehem, who were invited to Jesus' Crib by the voice of an Angel. But the mute language of the Star was explained to them by God Himself, for He revealed His Son to them; and this made their Vocation superior in dignity to that of the Jewish Shepherds, who, according to the dispensation of the Old Law, could know nothing save by the ministry of Angels.
The divine grace, which spoke, directly and by itself, to the souls of the Magi, met with a faithful and unhesitating correspondence. St. Luke says of the Shepherds, that they came with haste to Bethlehem (St. Luke, ii. 16); and the Magi show their simple and fervent eagerness by the words they addressed to Herod: We have seen His Star in the East, they say, and we are come to adore him (St. Matth. ii. 2).
When Abraham received the command from God to go out of the land of Chaldea, which was the land of his fathers and kindred, and go into a strange country, he obeyed with such faithful promptitude, as to merit the being made the Father of all them that believe (Rom. iv. 11): so, likewise, the Magi, by reason of their equally docile and admirable faith, have been judged worthy to be called the Fathers of the Gentile Church.
They, too, or at least one or more of them, went out from Chaldea, if we are to believe St. Justin and Tertullian. Several of the Fathers, among whom are the two just mentioned, assert that one, if not two, of these holy Kings was from Arabia. A popular tradition, now for centuries admitted into Christian Art, tells us that one of the three was from Ethiopia; and certainly, as regards this last opinion, we have David and other Prophets telling us that the coloured inhabitants of the banks of the Nile were to be objects of God's special mercy.
The term Magi implies that they gave themselves to the study of the heavenly bodies, and that, too, for the special intention of finding that glorious Star, whose rising had been prophesied. They were of the number of those Gentiles who, like the centurion Cornelius, feared God, had not been defiled by the worship of idols, and maintained, in spite of all the ignorance which surrounded them, the sacred traditions of the religion that was practised by Abraham and the Patriarchs.
The Gospel does not say that they were Kings; but the Church applies to them those verses of the Psalm, where David speaks of the Kings of Arabia and Saba, that should hereafter come to the Messias, bringing their offerings of gold. The tradition of their being Kings rests on the testimony of St. Hilary of Poitiers, of St. Jerome, of the Poet Juvencus, of St. Leo, and several others; and it would be impossible to controvert it by any well-grounded arguments. Of course, we are not to suppose them to have been Monarchs, whose kingdoms were as great as those of the Roman Empire; but we know, that the Scripture frequently applies this name of King to petty princes, and even to mere governors of provinces. The Magi, therefore, would be called Kings, if they exercised authority over a considerable number of people; and, that they were persons of great importance, we have a strong proof in the consideration and attention showed them by Herod, into whose palace they enter, telling him that they are come to pay their homage to the new-born King of the Jews. The city of Jerusalem is thrown into a state of excitement by their arrival, which would scarce have occurred had not the three strangers, who came for a purpose which few heeded, been attended by a numerous retinue, or had not attracted attention by their imposing appearance.
These Kings, then, docile to the divine inspiration, suddenly leave their country, their riches, their quiet, in order to follow a Star: the power of that God, who had called them, unites them in the same path, as they were, already, one in faith. The Star goes on before them, marking out the route they were to follow: the dangers of such a journey, the fatigues of a pilgrimage which might last for weeks or months, the fear of awakening suspicions in the Roman Empire towards which they were evidently tending--all this was nothing to them; they were told to go, and they went.
Their first stay is at Jerusalem, for the Star halts there. They, Gentiles, come into this Holy City, (which is soon to have God's curse upon it,) and they come to announce that Jesus Christ is come! With all the simple courage, and all the calm conviction of Apostles and Martyrs, they declare their firm resolution of going to Him, and of adoring Him. Their earnest inquiries constrain Israel, who was the guardian of the divine prophecies, to confess one of the chief marks of the Messias--his Birth in Bethlehem. The Jewish Priesthood fulfils, though with a sinful ignorance, its sacred ministry, and Herod sits restlessly on his throne, plotting murder. The Magi leave the faithless City, which has turned the presence of the Magi into a mark of its own reprobation. The Star reappears in the heavens, and invites them to resume their journey. Yet a few hours, and they will be at Bethlehem, at the feet of the King they are in search of.
O dear Jesus! we, also, are following Thee; we are walking in Thy light, for Thou hast said, in the Prophecy of Thy beloved Disciple: I am the bright and morning Star (Apoc. xxii. 16). The meteor that guides the Magi is but Thy symbol, O divine Star! Thou art the morning Star; for Thy Birth proclaims that the darkness of error and sin is at an end. Thou art the morning Star; for, after submitting to death and the tomb, thou wilt suddenly arise from that night of humiliation to the bright morning of Thy glorious Resurrection. Thou art the morning Star; for, by Thy Birth and the Mysteries which are to follow, Thou announcest unto us the cloudless day of eternity. May Thy light ever beam upon us! May we, like the Magi, be obedient to its guidance, and ready to leave all things in order to follow it! We were sitting in darkness when thou didst call us to Thy grace, by making this Thy light shine upon us. We were fond of our darkness, and Thou gavest us a love for the Light! Dear Jesus! keep up this love within us. Let not sin, which is darkness, ever approach us. Preserve us from the delusion of a false conscience. Avert from us that blindness into which fell the City of Jerusalem and her king, and which prevented them from seeing the Star. May Thy Star guide us through life, and bring us to Thee, our King, our Peace, our Love!
We salute thee, too, O Mary, thou Star of the Sea, that shinest on the waters of this life, giving calm and protection to thy tempest-tossed children who invoke thee! Thou didst pray for the Magi as they traversed the desert; guide also our steps, and bring us to Him who is Thy Child and Thy Light eternal. Amen. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Fourth Day in the Octave of the Epiphany.)
We must always turn to the Our Lady, she who is our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope, to beg through her most Holy Rosary for the grace of final perseverance in this passing, mortal vale of tears, and for the restoration of true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter as we strive by the graces she sends us to remain pure in the face of those who extol vice in the world and within the counterfeit church of conciliarism and to adore her Divine Son with the humility with which the kings of the Orient adored Him.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.