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Jorge Starts to "Clarify" (Undermine) Dignitatis Infinita
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is an insidious, pestilential Modernist revolutionary who is not only ready, willing, and able to undermine, obfuscated, and outright deny many elements of Catholic Faith, Worship and Morals, but is also ever ready, willing, and able to un0dermine documents that he himself had authorized.
The Argentine Apostate undermined a negative reply to dubium that had been drafted by the then named Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by his own handpicked appointee, Luis “Cardinal” Ladaria, to the question about whether the Catholic Church had the power to bless homosexual unions. Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself signed the reply on February 22, 2021, but it was a month thereafter that he began the process of undermining it that would result in the reply being completely overturned by Fiducia Supplicans, December 21, 2023.
Here is what I wrote at the time:
Entirely unsurprising, therefore, the lay Jesuit revolutionary, who has been so very “welcoming” towards “bishops,” priests/presbyters and ordinary laymen steeped in perversity throughout his wrecking ball of a career as a false cleric imbued from his seminary days in false principles that he has put into practice with the anti-apostolic zeal of a demon, slyly undermined the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s” reply to the “dubium” concerning “blessings” for those living in “civil unions” during his Angelus address of Sunday, March 21, 2021, which was Passion Sunday in the calendar of the Catholic Church but which was the “Fifth Sunday of Lent” in the disordered world of the counterfeit church of concilarism:
Today too, many people, often without saying so, implicitly would like to “see Jesus”, to meet him, to know him. This is how we understand the great responsibility we Christians and of our communities have. We too must respond with the witness of a life that is given in service, a life that takes upon itself the style of God – closeness, compassion and tenderness – and is given in service. It means sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples, not with theoretical condemnations, but with gestures of love. Then the Lord, with his grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution, or claims of legalism or clerical moralism. This is barren soil. Precisely then, in trials and in solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time. It is in this intertwining of death and life that we can experience the joy and true fruitfulness of love, which always, I repeat, is given in God’s style: closeness, compassion, tenderness. (Angelus Address, March 21, 2021.)
Permit me a bit of conjecture, please.
As a Modernist, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a seasoned practitioner of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He knows full well that news of his refusing to approve the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s response to the “dubium” about “civil unions” would have been leaked if he chose to reject it. Clever little demon that he is, I believe, he “approved” the response but set about undermining so that “both sides” could “play ball,” so to speak, as he has absolutely no problem with the de facto practice of “blessing” “civil unions” as he his own appointees have permitted lesbians to have their children, conceived by artificial insemination or by “surrogate” mothers, baptized, and he has shown his own openness to sodomite-friendly priests/presbyters and he has said to private individuals that God does not “care” about homosexuality.
Remember, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has no problem whatsoever with the legal status of “civil unions,” something that he made clear in a recent interview:
After those remarks, and in comments likely to spark controversy among Catholics, Pope Francis weighed in directly on the issue of civil unions for same-sex couples.
“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” the pope said. “I stood up for that.”
The remarks come in “Francesco,” a documentary on the life and ministry of Pope Francis which premiered Oct. 21 as part of the Rome Film Festival, and is set to make its North American premiere on Sunday.
The film chronicles the approach of Pope Francis to pressing social issues, and to pastoral ministry among those who live, in the words of the pontiff, “on the existential peripheries.”
Featuring interviews with Vatican figures including Cardinal Luis Tagle and other collaborators of the pope, “Francesco” looks at the pope’s advocacy for migrants and refugees, the poor, his work on the issue of clerical sexual abuse, the role of women in society, and the disposition of Catholics and others toward those who identify as LGBT.
The film addresses the pastoral outreach of Pope Francis to those who identify as LGBT, including a story of the pontiff encouraging two Italian men in a same-sex relationship to raise their children in their parish church, which, one of the men said, was greatly beneficial to his children.
“He didn’t mention what was his opinion on my family. Probably he’s following the doctrine on this point,” the man said, while praising the pope for a disposition and attitude of welcome and encouragement.
The pope’s remarks on civil unions come amid that part of the documentary. Filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky told CNA that the pope made his call for civil unions during an interview the documentarian conducted with the pope. (Bergoglio Calls for Civil Unions in new documentary about him.)
Civil unions?
In other words, Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave free license for those inclined to commit perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to continue their lives of wanton decadence, meaning that he is utterly indifferent to the horror of just one Mortal Sin, to say nothing of the countless numbers of what are Mortal Sins in the objective order of things that his statement made in Francesco will suborn and for which he will have to answer to Christ the King at the time of His Particular Judgment in addition to all the other ways he has offended Him by constant blasphemies, reaffirming non-Catholics in their false religions and his constant resort to naturalism as the sole means to view human life and the problems in the world that are, after all, caused by Original Sin and our own Actual Sins. (From Antipope Appoveth, Antipope Undermineth What He Approveth.)
As we know the rest is history (see Jorge Demands That His Clergy Suborn Sins That Cry Out to Heaven for Vengeance, Jorge Demands that His Clergy Suborn Sins That Cry Out to Heaven for Vengeance, part two, Two Argentine Fiends Patronize African “Bishops” In Defense of Sodomy, Bergoglio and Fernandez: Men Who Extol and Enable the Impure). Luis Ladaria’s negative reply to the dubium about “blessings” for sodomite union got turned into a mandated “yes” in Fiducia Supplicans in two years, ten months.
Well, the eighty-six year, four month old Modernist is at all again, this time undermining at least parts of a document, Dignitatis Infinita, drafted by another handpicked confederate, the infamous Victor Manuel Fernandez, that disapproved of gender ideology and gender mutilation, at least as general rule.
This mild disapproval, though, flew in the face of “Pope Francis’s” notorious efforts to make the “transgendered” feel “welcomed” within the confines of his false religious sect. Examples of this were provided in Victor Manuel Fernandez's Anthropocentric Decree on Human Dignity, part six, and it is the case now that the demon from Buenos Aires has used a reply to a letter sent to him by the infamous Sister Jeannine Gramick of “New Ways Ministry” to say that the “transgendered” must be welcomed into every face of life within the counterfeit church of conciliarism:
Gender ideology is something other than homosexual or transsexual people [sic]. Gender ideology makes everyone equal without respect for personal history. I understand the concern about that paragraph in Dignitas Infinita, but it refers not to transgender people [sic] but to gender ideology, which nullifies differences. Transgender people [sic] must be accepted and integrated into society. (As found at Pope Provides Sr. Jeannine a Clarification of "Dignitas Infinita".)
So much for Dignitatis Infinita.
In other words, there is nothing intrinsically disordered about people identifying themselves by a propensity to commit perverse sins against nature nor can those who are “transgendered” can be said to have done anything that deserves an unconditional condemnation. No, they must be celebrated for who they believe themselves to be, something that the conciliar “archbishop” of Hartford, Connecticut, Christopher Coyne, explained in very clear terms:
(LifeSiteNews) — A new Connecticut archbishop who supports “female deacons” has endorsed using gender-confused individuals’ chosen names and pronouns that contradict their sex.
Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, who assumed leadership of the archdiocese on Wednesday after the resignation of Archbishop Leonard Blair, told Catholic News Agency (CNA) last week that he would use a “transgender” person’s non-biological name to begin a conversation with him or her.
CNA noted that Coyne told Connecticut Public Radio in April, “Biology is biology. You’re either XX or XY. That’s a scientific fact.”
The archbishop told CNA, however, that he would still accept a gender-confused person’s presented “gender.”
“It doesn’t cost me anything to accept them as they’re presenting themselves, as a brother or a sister, or whatever gender they’re asking me to refer to them as,” he said. “If they’d like to be referred to by this name or this pronoun, it doesn’t cost me anything to say, ‘Okay,’ and then begin a communication with this person.”
“That doesn’t mean I accept what they’re bringing forward. It just means I accept what they’re presenting to me as brother or sister.” (Connecticut archbishop who supports 'female deacons' defends transgender pronoun use.)
What about the Spiritual Work of Mercy to admonish the sinner?
What about the following words of Saint Paul the Apostle to Saint Timothy?
[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Tim. 4: 1-15.)
Not for Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Not for Victor Manuel Fernandez.
Not for Christopher Coyne.
It is no accident, of course, that there was no mention of sodomy within the text of Dignitatis Infinita as its author, Victor Manuel Fernandez, obviously speaking the mind of his friend and superior from Argentina, believes that what he thinks to be the Catholic Church has to “change” its teaching about homosexual acts being intrinsically disordered:
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández issued a call for the Catholic description of homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered” to be changed, saying a “clearer” expression would be better.
Speaking at an April 8 press conference launching the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new text Dignitas Infinita, Fernández fielded questions regarding homosexuality and the Catholic Church’s teaching on the topic.
The cardinal was asked if it is time for the DDF to change the Church’s teaching on homosexual activity being “intrinsically disordered.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2357) teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” The Catechism is very clear that homosexual activity can never be approved and repeats that “[h]omosexual persons are called to chastity.”
The CDF’s 1975 document Persona Humana notes “[t]here can be no true promotion of man’s dignity unless the essential order of his nature is respected.” While urging that individuals suffering homosexual tendencies be treated with “understanding” and helped to overcome their trials, Persona Humana adds that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.”
Fernández did not initially answer the question with a simple affirmation or negation but replied that the phrase in question is a “strong expression that should be explained, it would be good if we could find an expression that is even clearer.”
“What we wish to say is that the beauty of the encounter between man and woman which is the greatest difference, is the most beautiful,” he said.
“The fact that they can meet, be together, and that from this encounter new life can be born, this is something which cannot be compared with anything else,” commented the cardinal about marriage.
“So before this, homosexual acts have this characteristic that they cannot in any way match this great beauty,” stated Fernández. “This expression may also be conveyed in other words that may be more appropriate to convey this mystery.”
The cardinal’s reply drew heavily from his much anticipated Dignitas Infinita (DI), which does not mention homosexuality at all.
Instead of mentioning homosexuality, DI is somewhat critical of “gender theory,” stating that “it intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”
Fernández noted that this difference is utilized in marriage:
This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them. In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvelous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world.
The cardinal’s choice of language, both in his document and in the press conference, is of particular note. By denoting homosexual acts simply as not being able to “match” the “great beauty” of marriage between a man and woman, the cardinal appeared to suggest the possibility that homosexual actions have their own kind of “beauty.”
The DDF previously hinted at such a heterodox proposal with its document on homosexual “blessings” green-lit by Pope Francis in February 2021. The document, while denying the possibility to give “blessings” to same-sex “couples” – something later contradicted by Fiducia Supplicans – suggested the existence of so-called “positive elements” in homosexual relationships. At the time, the passage was criticized by some Catholics as a Trojan horse.
Prominent Catholic prelates, including Cardinal Robert Sarah and Cardinal Raymond Burke, have strongly condemned the idea that homosexual relationships can have “positive elements,” with Cardinal Sarah pointing out that there is nothing “good” or “true” about such depraved relationships.
Fernández arrived to the April 8 press conference launching DI well-armed with resource texts and began by issuing another defense of Fiducia Supplicans and its promotion of “blessings” for homosexual “couples.”
“Pope Francis has expanded our understanding of blessings,” he claimed, arguing that this expansion of “understanding” was well within the pope’s purview.
With such an opening salvo, Fernández made it clear that he would not be making any concessions to his current stance regarding homosexuals and homosexual relationships. It remains to be seen in the coming months, perhaps at the October session of the multi-year Synod on Synodality, if a formal move is made to defend homosexual relationships as having a “beauty” of their own, even if it does not match that of marriage. (Cardinal Fernández calls for change to Catholic condemnation of homosexuality as ‘intrinsically disordered’.)
There is no need to provide this website’s readers with yet another recitation of how sodomy is opposed to Divine Revelation and the Natural Law. There is no need to remind readers of sodomy’s plain condemnation in the words of Sacred Scripture.
What I do want to discuss, if ever so briefly given the constraints of time, is the fact that the cottage industry that has become the “resist while recognize” movement, which should be called “the having your pope and eating him too movement, is working at full steam again to issue stern warnings that the Catholic Church’s teaching about sodomy cannot change.]
Duh!
Any other bright ideas out there in the having your people and eating him too movement?
Guess what, boys and girls, the lords of conciliarism have been altering Catholic teaching ever since the heady days of the Age of Aquarius, er, the “Second” Vatican Council. Here is but a reminder of just a few of the “changes” in Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals that have taken place since October 11, 1962, and have continued to the present day over six decades later:
- The conciliar “popes” have made war upon the very the nature of dogmatic truth, cleaving to the philosophically absurd notion that dogmatic truth can never be expressed adequately at any one point in time, that each expression of dogma is necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. Condemned by the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. (See Antichrist Has Shown Us His Calling Card .)
- The “Second” Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instituted the false ecclesiology of "full" and "partial" communion that flies in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, a teaching documented by Bishop Donald Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Communion: Ratzinger's Ecumenical One-World Church). This “new ecclesiology,” of course, was the handiwork of none other than Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who was acting upon a recommendation by a German Lutheran "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, suggested should be placed into the text of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, in order to give formal recognition to the "elements" of "sanctification" that he believed exists in the "ecclesial" (Protestant) "communities" and in the Orthodox churches. In other words, the man who is considered the “great dogmatist” helped to attack the Sacred Deposit of Faith at the "Second" Vatican Council to help to give birth to the heresy that is the “new ecclesiolgy, whose principal contention was refuted prophetically by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken the “new ecclesiology” to mean that all “believers,” including those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are saved as long as they “do good," and he has built on the foundation of the attack upon the monarchical nature of the papacy that is "episcopal collegiality" to use "local churches" as laboratories for the development of subjective applications of Holy Mother Church's received teaching on Faith and Morals in the name of "synodality."
The conciliar popes, of course, reject what Ratzinger/Benedict called disparagingly the “ecumenism of the return,” and Jorge Mario Bergoglio has gone so far as to issue endless apologies to Protestants and the Waldensians for the manner in which they had been “persecuted” by Catholics in the past, thereby making a mockery of the exhortations of one true pope after another for such a return of non-Catholics to the true Church. Thousands of "papal," "episcopal," sacerdotal/presbyteral "interfaith" prayer services have been held in full violation of admonitions of Saints Paul the Apostle and John the Evangelist as well as the the specific condemnation and prohibition of such services by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.
Despite all their protestations to the contrary, the conciliar "popes," starting with Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI and continuing to the present time under Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have given "joint blessings" with non-Catholic clergymen and engaged in endless services exhibiting a syncretism for which millions of Catholic martyrs gave up their lives rather than to even give the appearance of doing andhave endorsed, at least on a de facto basis, the very sort of religious indifferentism condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors and Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, by Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, and by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII, July 5, 1948:
Mixed gatherings of non-Catholics with Catholics have been reportedly held in various places, where things pertaining to the Faith have been discussed against the prescriptions of the Sacred Canons and without previous permission of the Holy See. Therefore all are reminded that according to the norm of Canon 1325 § 3 laypeople as well as clerics both secular and regular are forbidden to attend these gatherings without the aforesaid permission. It is however much less licit for Catholics to summon and institute such kind of gatherings. Let therefore Ordinaries urge all to serve these prescriptions accurately.
These are to be observed with even stronger force of law when it comes to gatherings called “ecumenical”, which laypeople and clerics may not attend at all without previous consent of the Holy See.
Moreover, since acts of mixed worship have also been posed not rarely both within and without the aforesaid gatherings, all are once more warned that any communication in sacred affairs is totally forbidden according to the norm of Canons 1258 and 731, § 2.
Given at Rome, at the premises of the Holy Office, on June 5th 1948. (This was translated by those who run Novus Ordo Watch. See The Holy Office's 1948 Canonical Warning against Ecumenical Gatherings.)
The “Second” Vatican Council proclaimed the heresy of “religious liberty and the conciliar “popes” have consistently praised nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the "betterment" of nations and the world. Condemned by Pope Pius VI in Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791, Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)
- Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio have endorsed and even praised the Protestantism’s and Judeo-Masonry’s concept of the "separation of Church and State," a thesis called absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and have have rejected outright the obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, an obligation reiterated by pope after pope following the rise of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity.
- The conciliar “popes,” therefore, are social modernists of the sort described by Ratzinger/Benedict, therefore, falls into the category of a social modernist described by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.
- Wojtyla/John Paul II became the first conciliar “pope” to enter into a Mohammedan mosque, doing so on May 7, 2001, in Damascus, Syria, paving the way for Ratzinger/Benedict and Bergoglio to do the same, thus engaging in acts of apostasy and blasphemy as they, who have believed themselves to be Successors of Saint Peter, have permitted themselves treated as inferiors while treating treated places of false worship that are hideous to God as worthy of respect, thereby scandalizing Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s little ones no end.
- Ratzinger/Benedict termed Mount Hiei in Japan, where the adherents of the Tendei sect of Buddhism, worship their devils, as "sacred," a term he used to describe the mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on May 12, 2009, and Bergoglio is constantly praising the temples of false religions as sacred places that give honor and glory to God.
- The conciliar “popes” have rejected the clarity and certainty of the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in favor of the condemned precepts of the so-called “New Theology” and they have held a view on the Doctrine of Justification that, in essence, hinges on the belief that the Fathers of the Council of Trent, who met under the influence and protection of God the Holy Ghost, were wrong (as is explained in Attempting to Coerce Perjury.)
- The counterfeit church of conciliarism has promulgated abominable, sacrilegious and sacramentally invalid liturgical rites, including the the aforementioned Novus Ordo liturgical travesty and the conciliar rites of "episcopal ordination"--the conciliar terminology, presbyteral "ordination," Confirmation and the so-called "Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick." The Novus Ordo service has been the chief means by which the conciliar authorities have broken down the senusus Catholicus of older Catholics and brainwashed three successive generations into accepting the doctrinal heresies and false moral teaching of a religious sect that is nothing other than the counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church. Even the Sacrament of Penance has been renamed, at least in many places within the conciliar structures, as the "Sacrament of Reconciliation" as the faithful have the option of going to what they think is Confession on a "face to face" basis while sitting down rather than kneeling.
- The egalitarianism of the conciliarism is such that the conciliar "popes" have granted permission for the administration of what they think is Holy Communion in the hand, to abolish, at least on a de fact basis, kneeling for what is purported to be Holy Communion, abolished the Communion rail in many Catholic churches held in conciliar captivity, designed new church buildings and wreckovated others for the Cranmer Table to be in the nave of the church and to be circular in shape and permitted a veritable army of laity, including women, into the what used to be called the sanctuary of a Catholic Church.
- The conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have taught that the Old Covenant God gave to Moses was never superseded by the New and Eternal Testament that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and ratified as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, thus rejecting as "obsolete" the plain, immutable teaching of the Catholic Church as summarized very succinctly by Pope Pius II in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:
28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.
29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]
30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
- The innocence and purity of the young have been undermined and corrupted by explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, instruction that was specifically prohibited by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, and reaffirmed by the Holy Office under his pontificate on March 21, 1931:
65. Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers.
66. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.
67. In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:
Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice. (Passage and double-indented quotation as found in Pope Pius XI's Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)
I) Can the method be approved, which is called "sexual education," or even "sexual initiation?"
Response: In the negative, and that the method must be persevere entirely as set forth up to the present entirely as set forth up to the present by the Church and saintly men, and recommended by the Most Holy Father in the Encyclical Letter, "On the Christian Education of Youth," given on the 31st day of December, 1929. Naturally, care must especially be taken that a full and solid religious instruction be given to the youth of both sexes without interruption; in this instruction there must be aroused a regard, desire, and love for the angelic virtue; and especially must it be inculcated upon them to insist on prayer, to be constant in the sacraments of penance and the Most Holy Eucharist, to be devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mother of holy purity, with filial devotion and to commit themselves wholly to her protection; to avoid carefully dangerous reading, obscene plays, associated with the wicked, and all occasions of sin.
By no means, then, can we approve what has been written and published in defense of the new method especially in these recent times, even on the part of some Catholic authors. (Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 asThe Sources of Catholic Dogma--referred to as "Denziger," by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 2183-2185, pp. 597-598.)
- Sins against Holy Purity, including fornication and adultery have been minimized and those who persist in states of public scandal by means of these sins have been welcomed to receive what the conciliar revolutionaries purport to be the Sacraments without reforming their lives.
- Similarly, those practice and persist in perverse sins of unnatural vice have been welcomed in the name of a false concept of "mercy" and their lifestyles of perdition have been celebrated by many conciliar "bishops" and priests/presbyters worldwide without any "papal" rebuke under the current Bergoglian regime--and only infrequently and inconsistently before the elevation of the Argentine Apostate to his current position as the universal public face of apostasy.
- 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:
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"?)
The 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, October 29, 1951:
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 leads men on the path to eternal ruin. (See Jorge's Band of Theological Racketeers Legitimize Paul Ehrlich)
This recitation can be compressed as follows:
- Warfare on Dogmatic Truth
- New Theology
- New Mass
- New Rosary
- New Catechism
- New Raccolta
- New Code of Canon Law
- New Roman Missal
- New G.I.R.M.
- New Ecclesiology
- Episcopal Collegiality
- False Ecumenism
- Episcopal Synodality
- Religious Liberty
- Separation of Church and State
- Inverting the Ends Proper to Holy Matrimony
- Natural Family Planning
- New Fraternity
- New Sacraments
- New Canonization Process
- Environmentalism
- Feminism
- Socialism
- New Scriptural Interpretations
- New One World Church
- New Religion
- New World Order
- Pacifism
- New Morality
- New Pastoral Theology
- Indemnification of Adulterers, Fornicators, and Sodomites
Even the fact the Victor Manuel Fernandez, who is also the principal author of the egregious Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, is able to speak freely about “changing” a part of Divine Revelation and Natural Law is really nothing terribly new as this is what the likes of James Martin, Timothy Radcliffe, and almost the entirety of the conciliar “hierarchy” in the Federal Republic of Germany have been advocating openly without penalty and, in the case of Martin and Radcliffe, with the full and open support of Jorge Mario “Who am I to judge” Bergoglio himself.
Moreover, it was nine years, seven months ago that the “midterm” report for the “extraordinary synod” on the family stated the following very openly:
Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?
The question of homosexuality leads to a serious reflection on how to elaborate realistic paths of affective growth and human and evangelical maturity integrating the sexual dimension: it appears therefore as an important educative challenge. The Church furthermore affirms that unions between people of the same sex cannot be considered on the same footing as matrimony between man and woman. Nor is it acceptable that pressure be brought to bear on pastors or that international bodies make financial aid dependent on the introduction of regulations inspired by gender ideology.
Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners. Furthermore, the Church pays special attention to the children who live with couples of the same sex, emphasizing that the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority. (Synod on Family: Midterm report presented, 2015 Synod announced.)
This is what I wrote at the time:
Although some "conservative" and "traditionally-minded" Catholics thought that a "victory" fought by the "good, moderate revolutionaries" (sort of like Glinda, the "Good Witch of the North" in the hideous anti-Catholic mockery of religion, The Wizard of Oz, I suppose) had been won at the now-concluded "extraordinary synod of 'bishops' on the family" by having those three paragraphs struck from the final report (the relatio) of the synod. Even disregarding, at least for a few moments, Jorge Mario Bergoglio's desire to have those "moderates" "mature" in the next year, the truth is, of course, that the three paragraphs remain in the final report, albeit in slightly modified form so as to make the "maturation" process that much easier to accept in the conciliar "tradition" of "gradualness" that is all too frequently not very gradual:
VATICAN — In an electronic vote this afternoon, the synod fathers approved the final report — relatio synodi — of the synod of bishops, with two paragraphs on administering holy Communion to divorced and “remarried” couples and one on welcoming homosexuals failing to reach a two-thirds majority.
The final document of the Oct. 5-19 extraordinary synod on the family contains 62 points and the voting numbers for each of these was published. The most contentious paragraph, on allowing some remarried divorcees to receive communion after a period of penitence, received 104 votes in favor and 74 against.
A second paragraph on divorced and remarried persons, spiritual communion and a call to deepen understanding of this question received 112 votes in favor, 64 against — also failing to make obtain a two-thirds majority.
A third paragraph on the same issue, which states that situations of married divorcees “require careful reflection and respectful accompaniment, avoiding the kind of language and attitudes that may make them feel discriminated against,” received over a two-thirds majority (155 votes to 19).
A point on homosexuality received 118 votes in favor and 62 against. No longer did it say, as the interim report proposed, that homosexuals have gifts to offer the Church. Instead it says they must be “received with respect and gentleness” and that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
Another issues that received a large number of negative votes concerned cohabitation and the matter of declarations of nullity, commonly called annulments.
Aside from the three paragraphs that lacked the two-thirds majority, the other 58 points passed. Despite the lack of agreement on certain paragraphs, they were “not completely rejected,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters today. “They cannot be considered an expression of synodal consensus”, he said, but rather show a “work in progress” and areas that “still have a ways to go.”
The fact that these three points remain in the document despite only having a “qualified majority” has surprised some observers. In common law in the Anglophone world, these paragraphs would be rejected from the final document. “This is moving into new territory,” a legal expert told the Register on condition of anonymity. “Where now is the legitimacy of these causes as an expression of the synod? They should be fully rejected.”
Father Robert Gahl, professor of moral philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, said that comments made from a senior synod official this week that “doctrine can change” is “confusing and unsettling for all Christians because our faith is received from the revelation of Jesus, not from the consensus from a group of bishops meeting in Rome.”
Pope Francis gave a closing speech in which he spoke of the need to have “animated discussions” and set our eyes at the good of the Church but without “ever putting into question the fundamental truths of the sacrament of marriage.”
He stressed that there is still a year before the ordinary synod of bishops, set to take place in October 2015, “to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront.”
The final report was drafted by Cardinal Peter Erdo, general rapporteur of the synod, plus Cardinals Gianfranco Ravasi, Donald Wuerl, Msgr. Victor Manuel Fernandez, Msgr. Carlos Aguiar Retes, Msgr. Peter Kang U-ILL, Jesuit Father Adolfo Nicolas Pachon, South African Archbishop Wilfrid Napier and Australian Archbishop Denis Hart. (Synod of Apostates Lacks Consenus on Supposedly "Controversial" Topics.)
So much for voting, which is as much of a farce at these "bishops'" meetings as they are in the realm of electoral politics in the world. What was thought to be a "victory" was, of course, no "victory" at all.
The so-called "good" conciliar revolutionaries accomplished nothing as Jorge Mario Bergoglio is intent on making it impossible for them to oppose him by continuing to "make a mess" of things in his own screeds and as he encourages his "bad" revolutionaries to throw open wide "the doors of mercy" to those who have no intention of reforming their lives by quitting their sins and seeking to do penance for them.
Moreover, the so-called "good" conciliar revolutionaries conceded that individuals can be identified by their tendencies to commit sins of unnatural vice, thereby reaffirming the popularly held belief that an inclination to commit and/or persistence in the commission of the sin of Sodom is a legitimate means of human self-identification. This is no kind of "victory" whatsoever. (From Catholic Doctrine Has Been Under Attack For Fifty-Six Years.)
The ”maturation” that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is coming to fruition as those in the “having your pope and eating him too” movement stew in their juices about how to remove a “heretical pope” and fall over each other to open “petition drives” to “convert” the “pope” while they all continue to get crushed under the same boulder that always crushed Sisyphus after he had pushed it up to the precipice of a hill.
If you think about it, however, the refusal of the having your pope and eating him too movement to pay attention to actual Catholic doctrine about the papacy and the fact that there has never been nor can there be a heretical pope is caused, at least in large measure, by the corrupting influence of the Americanist spirit that has resulted in many believing Catholics treating the papacy as they would, say, the likes of a Clinton, Obama, or Biden presidency. The Americanist spirit is one of rebellion, not of obedience. How far we have come from the days when Catholics revered the papacy and obeyed the commands of a true pope promptly.
Enough.
Today, Saturday, May 4, 2024, is the Feast of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, who caused her such grief for twenty years by living a life of utter profligacy. Unlike the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez, Saint Monica did not reaffirm nor “accompany” her son as he did and said things that she knew had wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour once in time and wounded his own immortal soul that has been redeemed at such a high price, that of every single drop of the Divine Redeemer during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.
Guided by the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, Holy Mother Church chose the account found in the Gospel according to Saint Luke of Our Lord’s raising the son of a woman in Naim from the dead:
At that time, Jesus went to a town called Naim; and His disciples and a large crowd went with Him. And as He drew near the gate of the town, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large gathering from the town was with her, and said to her, Do not weep. And He went up and touched the stretcher; and the bearers stood still. And He said, Young man, I say to you, arise. And he who was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother. But fear seized upon all, and they began to glorify God, saying, A great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited His people. (Luke 7:11-16.)
Truly did Our Lord raise Augustine of Hippo from the death of his soul in response to the endless prayers offered and tears shed by his saintly mother, Saint Monica, who was hailed as follows by Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., in The Liturgical Year:
In the company of our Risen Lord there are two women, two mothers, of whom we have often had to speak during the last few weeks: they are Mary, mother of James the Less and Thaddeus, and Salome, mother of James the Greater and John the beloved disciple. They went, with Magdalene, to the Sepulcher, on the Resurrection morning; they carried spices to anoint the Body of Jesus; they were spoken to by Angels; and, as they returned to Jerusalem, our Lord appeared to them, greeted them, and allowed them to kiss his sacred feet. Since that Day, He has repaid their love by frequently appearing to them; and on the day of His Ascension from Mount Olivet, they will be there, together with our Blessed Lady and the Apostles, to receive His farewell blessing. Let us honour these faithful companions of Magdalene, these models of the love we should show to our Lord in His Resurrection; let us, also, venerate them as mothers who gave four Apostles to the Church.
But lo! on this fourth morning of beautiful May, there rises, near to Mary and Salome, another woman, another mother. She, too, is fervent in her love of Jesus. She, too, gives to holy Church a treasure: the child of her tears, a Doctor, a Bishop, and one of the grandest Saints of the New Law. This woman, this mother, is Monica, twice mother of Augustine. This master-piece of God's grace was produced on the desert soil of Africa. Her virtues would have been unknown till the day of Judgment, had not the pen of the great Bishop of Hippo, prompted by the holy affection of his filial heart, revealed to us the merits of this woman, whose life was humility and love, and who now, immortalized in men's esteem, is venerated as the model and patroness of Christian Mothers.
One of the great charms of the book of Confessions, is Augustine's fervent praise of Monica's virtues and devotedness. With what affectionate gratitude he speaks, throughout his whole history, of the untiring constancy of this mother, who, seeing the errors of her son, "wept over him more than other mothers weep over the dead body of their children! (Confessionum, liv. iii. cap. xi)" Our Lord, Who, from time to time, consoles, with a ray of hope, the souls He tries, had shown to Monica, in a vision, the future meeting of the son and mother; she had even heard a holy Bishop assuring her, that the child of so many tears could never be lost: still, the sad realities of the present weighed heavily on her heart; and both her maternal love and her Faith caused her to grieve over this son who kept away from her, yea, who kept away from her, because he was unfaithful to his God. The anguish of this devoted heart was an expiation, which would, at a future period, be applied to the guilty one; fervent and persevering prayer, joined with suffering, prepared Augustine's second birth; and, as he himself says, "she went through more when she gave me my spiritual, than when she gave me my corporal, birth (Ibid. lib. v. cap. ix)."
At last, after long years of anxiety, the mother found, at Milan, this son of hers, who had so cruelly deceived her, when he fled from her roof to go and risk his fortune in Rome. She found him still doubting the truth of the Christian Religion, but tired of the errors that had misled him. Augustine was not aware of it, but he had really made an advance towards the true Faith. "She found me," says he, "in extreme danger, for I despaired of ever finding the truth. But when I told her, that I was no longer a Manichean, and yet not a Catholic Christian, the announcement did not take her by surprise. She leaped for joy, at being made sure that one half of my misery was gone. As to the other, she wept over me, as dead, indeed, but to rise again; she turned to thee, O my God, and wept, and, in spirit, brought me, and laid the bier before Thee, that Thou mightest say to the widow's son: " Young man! I say to thee, arise! Then would he come to life again, and begin to speak, and Thou couldst give him back to his mother! * * * Seeing, then, that although I had not yet found the truth, I was delivered from error, she felt sure that Thou wouldst give the other half of the whole Thou hadst promised. She told me in a tone of gentlest calm, but with her heart full of hope, that she was confident, in Christ, that before leaving this world, she would see me a faithful Catholic (Confessionum, liv. vi. cap. i)."
At Milan, Monica formed acquaintance with the great Saint Ambrose, who was the instrument chosen by God for the conversion of her son. " She," says Augustine, "had a very great affection for Ambrose, "because of what he had done for my soul; and he equally loved her, because of her extraordinary piety, which led her to the performance of good works, and to fervent assiduity in frequenting the Church. Hence, when he saw me, he would frequently break out in her praise, and congratulate me on having such a mother (Ibid. liv vi. cap. ii)." The hour of grace came at last. The light of Faith dawned upon Augustine, and he began to think of enrolling himself a member of the Christian Church; but the pleasures of the world, in which he had so long indulged, held him back from receiving the holy sacrament of Baptism. Monica's prayers and tears won for him the grace to break this last tie. He yielded, and became a Christian.
But God would have this work of His divine mercy a perfect one. Augustine, once converted, was not satisfied with professing the true Faith; he aspired to the sublime virtue of continency. A soul, favored as his then was, could find no further pleasure in anything that this world could offer him. Monica, who was anxious to guard her son against the dangers of a relapse into sin, had been preparing an honorable marriage for him: but Augustine came to her, one day, accompanied by his friend Alypius, and told her that he was resolved to aim at what was most perfect.
Let us listen to the Saint's account of this interview with his mother; it was immediately after he had been admonished by the voice from heaven: "We (Augustine and Alypius,) go at once to my mother's house. We tell her what had taken place she is full of joy. We tell her all the particulars; she is overpowered with feelings of delight and exultation. She blessed thee, O my God, Who canst do beyond what we ask or understand. She saw that Thou hadst done more for me, than she had asked of thee, with her many piteous and tearful sighs. * * * Thou hadst changed her mourning into joy, even beyond her wishes, yea, into a joy far dearer and chaster than she could ever have had in seeing me a father of children (Confessionum, liv. viii. cap. xii)." A few days after this, and, in the Church of Milan, a sublime spectacle was witnessed by Angels and men: Ambrose baptizing Augustine in Monica's presence.
The saintly mother had fulfilled her mission: her son was regenerated to truth and virtue, and she had given to the Church the greatest of her Doctors. The evening of her long and tried life was approaching, and she was soon to find eternal rest in the God, for Whose love she had toiled and suffered so much. The son and mother were at Ostia, waiting for the vessel that was to take them back to Africa. "I and she were alone," says Augustine, "and were standing near a window of our lodging, which commanded a view of the garden. We were having a most charming conversation. Forgetting the past, and stretching forward to the things beyond, we were talking about the future life of the saints, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it ascended into man's heart. * * * And whilst thus talking about it and longing for it, our hearts seemed to bound forward and reach it. We sighed, and left the first-fruits of our spirit there, and returned to the sound of our own voice. * * * Then, my mother said to me: 'My son! as far as I am concerned, there is nothing now that can give me pleasure in this life. I know not what I can do, or why I should be here, now that I have nothing to hope for in this world. There was one thing, for which I desired to live somewhat longer, and it was to see thee a Catholic Christian before my death. My God has granted me this, and more; for I see that thou hast despised earthly pleasures and become his servant. What do I here (Confessionum, liv. ix. cap. x)?'"
She had not long to wait for the divine invitation. She breathed forth her pure soul a few days after this interview, leaving an indelible impression upon the heart of her son, to the Church a name most dear and honoured, and to Christian mothers a perfect example of the purest and holiest maternal affection. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Monica, May 4.)
Saint Augustine gave us his profligate ways and aspired to continency. Bergoglio and his crew of theological destroyers, including James Martin, mock continency and aspire to “accompany” those who seek to live in profligate ways.
The readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office contain a passage from Saint Augustine’s own words in praise of his holy mother, Saint Monica, who suffered so much to win his conversion to the true Faith:
Monica was twice over the mother of St. Augustine, for, under God, he owed to her both earth and heaven. When her husband was very old she made him a friend of Jesus Christ, and after his death she lived a widow in all purity and constantly occupied in works of mercy. Her son Augustine had fallen into the heresy of the Manichaeans, and for his conversion she earnestly pleaded with God for years, with strong crying and tears. She followed Augustine to Milan, and tenderly and constantly besought him to confer with Ambrose the Bishop. This he consented to do, and at last, through the public sermons and private conversations of Ambrose, his eyes were opened to see the truth of the Catholic Religion, and he received baptism at the Bishop's hands, at the Passover of the year 387.
The mother and son set out to return to their home in Africa, but after they had reached Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, she was stricken down by a fever. One day as she lay sick, she came to herself after her mind had been long wandering, and said: "Where am I?” Then she saw who were standing by, and said "Let your mother lie here only, remember me at the altar of the Lord." On the ninth day this blessed lady surrendered her spirit to God. Her body was buried there at Ostia in the Church of St. Aurea, but, long after, in the papacy of Martin V, it was carried to Rome and honourably buried again in the Church of St. Augustine.
Augustine added these words after describing his mother's death: "We did not think that hers was a death which it was seemly to mark with repining, or tears, or lamentations, seeing that she died not sorrowfully, nor at all as touching her best and noblest part. This we knew, because we knew what her life had been, her faith unfeigned, her sure and certain hope. And then, nevertheless, I remembered again what thine handmaid was used to be, her walk with thee, how godly and holy it was, and with us so gentle and long-suffering and that it was all, gone away from me now. And I wept, over her and for her. And if any man will make it blame to me that I wept for a little while, when I saw lying dead before my eyes my mother, who had wept over me so many years, that she might see me live, I say, if any man will make it blame to me, I pray him not to sneer at me, but rather (if his charity be so great) himself to weep over my sins before thee, Who art a Father to all them to whom thy Christ is a Brother." (As found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Monica, May 4.)
The conciliar revolutionaries do weep over sins, they celebrate them in the name of “tolerance” and “compassion.”
We, though, must imitate Saint Augustine’s sorrow for our sins and beg Our Lady, the Mother of Sorrows, to help us understand their horror and to strive to cooperate more and more with the graces she sends to us to climb the ladder of personal sanctity, especially as we fly unto her maternal patronage through her Most Holy Rosary in this month, her month, the month of May, and every month we are privileged to live as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, 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.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.