Polluting the Atmosphere With the Smoke of Antichrist, part nine

There are advantages to not being able to respond with immediacy to every breaking news story, especially those stories pertaining to matters that appear to indicate that a conciliar “pope” has done or said something that “conservatives” and semi-traditionalists within the ranks of the counterfeit church of conciliarism desperately believes carries an important message that he is “with them” after all.

Dream on, dream on.

Even if the story about Jorge Mario Bergoglio meeting with Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis (see Role Reversal and Role Reversal, part two) in the Vatican Embassy at 3339 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, District of Columbia, on Thursday, September 24, 2015, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, had been focused only on the fact that he had met with her in secret after Vatican officials had conditioned the meeting upon Mrs. Davis’s keeping the matter a secret until after the false “pontiff’s” return to Rome, the truth of the matter would have been that the meeting took place solely to support what Bergoglio believes to be a purely subjective matter of individual conscience, not to make a statement that Mrs. Davis’s refusal issue “marriage certificates” to those engaged in the sins of unnatural vice set an example that others must follow.

Objective truth, whether in the realm of Order of Grace (Redemption) or in the realm of the Order of Nature (Creation), is foreign to the mind of Modernists.

You read that right.

Objective truth, whether in the realm of the Order of Grace (Redemption) or in the realm of the Order of Nature (Creation) is foreign to the mind of Modernists.

Everything is a matter of subjectivity to a Modernist, starting with the “religious impulse” that springs from within the individual that prompts him to seek some kind of divinity, meaning that the Supernatural Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity that are infused into a soul in the Sacrament of Baptism are not the source of an authentic knowledge, trust and love of all that God has revealed to us exclusively through His Catholic Church. Pope Saint Pius X explained this very clearly in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

We begin, then, with the philosopher. Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is commonly called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that appear, and in the manner in which they appear: it has neither the right nor the power to overstep these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to God, and of recognizing His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not be considered as an historical subject. Given these premises, everyone will at once perceive what becomes of Natural Theology, of the motives of credibility, of external revelation. The modernists simply sweep them entirely aside; they include them in Intellectualism, which they denounce as a system which is ridiculous and long since defunct. Nor does the fact that the Church has formally condemned these portentous errors exercise the slightest restraint upon them. Yet the Vatican Council has defined, "If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema";⁴ and also, "If anyone says that it is not possible or not expedient that man be taught, through the medium of divine revelation, about God and the worship to be paid Him, let him be anathema'';⁵ and finally, "If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be anathema."⁶ It may be asked, in what way do the Modernists contrive to make the transition from Agnosticism, which is a state of pure nescience, to scientific and historic Atheism, which is a doctrine of positive denial; and consequently, by what legitimate process of reasoning, they proceed from the fact of ignorance as to whether God has in fact intervened in the history of the human race or not, to explain this history, leaving God out altogether, as if He really had not intervened. Let him answer who can. Yet it is a fixed and established principle among them that both science and history must be atheistic: and within their boundaries there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is divine are utterly excluded. We shall soon see clearly what, as a consequence of this most absurd teaching, must be held touching the most sacred Person of Christ, and the mysteries of His life and death, and of His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.

7. However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernists: the positive part consists in what they call vital immanence. Thus they advance from one to the other. Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when natural theology has been destroyed, and the road to revelation closed by the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside of man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. In this way is formulated the principle of religious immanence. Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances, cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected.

It may perhaps be asked how it is that this need of the divine which man experiences within himself resolves itself into religion? To this question the Modernist reply would be as follows: Science and history are confined within two boundaries, the one external, namely, the visible world, the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or other of these limits has been reached, there can be no further progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In presence of this unknowable, whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world of nature, or lies hidden within the subconsciousness, the need of the divine in a soul which is prone to religion excites -- according to the principles of Fideism, without any previous advertence of the mind -- a certain special sense, and this sense possesses, implied within itself both as its own object and as its intrinsic cause, the divine reality itself, and in a way unites man with God. It is this sense to which Modernists give the name of faith, and this is what they hold to be the beginning of religion.

8. But we have not yet reached the end of their philosophizing, or, to speak more accurately, of their folly. Modernists find in this sense not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they affirm that there is also to be found revelation. For, indeed, what more is needed to constitute a revelation? Is not that religious sense which is perceptible in the conscience, revelation, or at least the beginning of revelation? Nay, is it not God Himself manifesting Himself, indistinctly, it is true, in this same religious sense, to the soul? And they add: Since God is both the object and the cause of faith, this revelation is at the same time of God and from God, that is to say, God is both the Revealer and the Revealed.

From this, Venerable Brethren, springs that most absurd tenet of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and supernatural. It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. From this they derive the law laid down as the universal standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in the capacity of teacher, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

As a Modernist, Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes in everything—and I do mean every single thing—that was anathematized by Pope Pius IX and the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, April 24, 1870. This includes rejection of any and all anathemas, which were, of course, effectively “removed” by the Modernist homosexual named Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick in the wake of the heretical work of the “Second” Vatican Council, that condemn those who seek to reduce religious faith to the level of “vital immanence,” that is, of springing up from within the consciousness of the individual.

Bergoglio’s meeting with Kim Davis, arranged, as it has been revealed just in the past day, by the “papal” nuncio to the United States of America, “Archbishop” Carlo Maria Vigano, was simply about respecting her “conscience,” something that Alberto Melloni of the Jacobin/Bolshevik “Bologna of School” of an “ultra-progressivist” interpretation and application of the “Second Vatican Council, amplified when the news of the meeting became public on Tuesday evening, September 29, 2015, the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel:

ROME — Pope Francis met privately in Washington last week with Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, adding a new element to an American tour that saw Francis attract huge crowds and articulate left-leaning positions on poverty, immigration, the environment and inequality.

Vatican officials initially would not confirm that the meeting occurred, finally doing so on Wednesday afternoon, while refusing to discuss any details.

Ms. Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Ky., has been at the center of a nationwide controversy over whether government employees and private businesses have a legal right to refuse to serve same-sex couples. She spent five days in jail for disobeying a federal court order to issue the licenses.

On Tuesday night, her lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, said that Ms. Davis and her husband, Joe, were sneaked into the Vatican Embassy by car on Thursday afternoon. Francis gave her rosaries and told her to “stay strong,” the lawyer said. The couple met for about 15 minutes with the pope, who was accompanied by security guards, aides and photographers.

“I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Ms. Davis said Wednesday in an interview with ABC News. ‘Thank you for your courage.’”

“I had tears coming out of my eyes,” she said. “I’m just a nobody, so it was really humbling to think he would want to meet or know me.”

The secretiveness of the meeting, and the Vatican’s refusal to give any information, will inevitably raise questions about why Francis chose to meet with Ms. Davis — and why he kept the meeting secret. Mr. Staver said that he, the Davises and Vatican officials had agreed to not publicize the meeting until after the pope had left the United States because, he said, “we didn’t want the pope’s visit to be focused on Kim Davis.”

Mr. Staver said the idea for a meeting was first discussed on Sept. 14, more than a week before the pope’s arrival. He declined to say who proposed the meeting.

But “this was not a generic meeting in which Kim Davis happened to appear,” Mr. Staver said. The Davises snapped selfies inside the Vatican Embassy. However, he said, “out of deference and respect they didn’t want to pull out a cellphone with the pope. The Vatican had their own photographers there and we’re told the pictures will be released later.”

No photographs had been released by Wednesday evening in Rome.

Throughout his six-day American tour, Francis carefully navigated the country’s political divisions and seemed to be deliberately trying to strike a balance, if also to reframe entrenched debates. He spoke to Congress about the importance of “life” but elaborated on the theme by decrying the death penalty, not abortion. He also offered broad strokes about the importance of religious freedom — a big issue for American conservatives — but often in the context of preventing extremism and promoting interfaith tolerance.

Yet his meeting with Ms. Davis raises the question of whether the pontiff was again shifting directions, seizing on an issue — conscientious objection — typically embraced by liberals but instead framing it around Ms. Davis.

Francis did make an unscheduled visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns suing the federal government over the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Reporters were not present at the meeting, which was announced later the same day by the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. Asked on Wednesday why the Vatican noted that visit, but not the meeting with Ms. Davis, Father Lombardi drew a distinction.

That meeting with the pope and the Little Sisters was a specific event,” he said, noting that he had informed the news media because the pontiff had diverted from his public schedule.

For the most part, Francis has avoided any incendiary talk about same-sex marriage, and early in his papacy he even signaled a tolerant attitude about homosexuals with his now famous comment, “Who am I to judge?” Francis opposes same-sex marriage and has often defined marriage as between a man and a woman. In his final Mass, in Philadelphia hours before his departure, Francis said that God is revealed through the “covenant of man and woman.”

But he then immediately signaled a more welcoming tone: “Anyone who wants to bring into this world a family which teaches children to be excited by every gesture aimed at overcoming evil — a family which shows that the Spirit is alive and at work — will encounter our gratitude and our appreciation. Whatever the family, people, or religion to which they belong!”

Francis’ meeting with Ms. Davis was first reported by Inside the Vatican, a publication edited by Robert Moynihan, an American who has covered the Vatican for many years.

Some analysts argued that the meeting was less about same-sex marriage and more about Francis’ uncompromising support for conscientious objection — a stance he emphasized at a news conference onboard the papal airplane during the return trip to Rome on Sunday.

Toward the end of the news conference, an American television reporter asked Francis about government officials who refused to perform their duties because of religious objections to same-sex marriage.

In answering the question, Francis did not mention the Davis case and began with what, in hindsight, seems like a curious disclaimer: “I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscientious objection,” he said.

Then he continued, by saying that “conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right.”

Alberto Melloni, a liberal Vatican historian in Italy, said that in meeting with Ms. Davis, Francis was staking out ground as a defender of conscientious objection more than seeking to escalate his relatively muted opposition to same-sex marriage. Mr. Melloni noted that this stance was consistent with Francis’ decision to single out Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day during his address to Congress. Both were “radical pacifists,” Mr. Melloni said: Merton was a conscientious objector during World War II, and Day supported objectors during the Vietnam War.

John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal advocacy group, said Francis’ intent was not to escalate America’s culture wars but to illustrate the contradictions within them.

“Part of the Francis effect is making the left and the right a little bit uncomfortable, and, mission accomplished,” Mr. Gehring said. “I think Pope Francis affirms religious liberty, and he rejects the culture wars. That’s something we need to grapple with." (Bergoglio Met with Kim Davis.)

Thanks, Mr. Gehring, I do not need to “grapple with” anything as Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Thanks, however, for your pitiful advice.

Alberto Melloni had it entirely right: Jorge Mario Bergoglio supports “freedom of conscience,” a heresy that was discussed yet again in an earlier installment in this continuing series of commentaries. Yet it is this heresy that has been condemned repeatedly by a true popes and condemned in scathing terms by a doctor of Holy Mother Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo, who was quoted as follows by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirai Vos, August 15, 1832:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

Modernists such as Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick, Albino Luciani/John Paul I, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis believe that what they think is the Catholic Church can “reconcile” itself to the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity that are responsible for the freefall of men and nations into the bottomless pit that has transformed mind, corrupted youth and led supposedly Catholic “pontiffs” and “bishops” and “priests” and consecrated religious to have a contempt of sacred things and holy laws. Who, pray tell, is more contemptuous of sacred things and holy laws than Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who is using his own secret “shadow synod” to prepare yet another amendment to the conciliar code of canon law to permit the distribution of what purports to be Holy Communion to divorced and civilly “remarried” Catholics who lack a conciliar decree of nullity and to those who are living in perverted “unions”?

The story “Pope Francis’s” top secret, behind closed doors meeting with Kim Davis is not about freedom of conscience or making a “statement” about the objective correctness of what she did by defying the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, June 26, 2015.

No, the story of the Argentine Apostate’s meeting with Kim Davis is about a false “pope” being pushed by a “conservative” Ratzingerite, Carlo Maria Vigano, whom Jorge is now feeding to the lions and throwing under the bus now that the “gaystapo” has shown once again that there can be no “toleration” extended to “homophobes” under the flag of the homo-rainbow.

Bergoglio freely offends God, doing so regularly, of course. However, he does not want to offend Talmudists, Mohammedans or other adherents of false religions. He does not want to offend pro-abortion politicians such as Barack Hussein Obama/ Barry Soetro, and he does not want to offend practitioners of the sin of Sodom and all of its perverted variants. This is why Carlo Maria Vigano may be selling pizza in the Borgo Pio near Saint Peter’s Square.

There is no other force on earth other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio for giving permission for his underlings, “Father” Thomas Roscia (see  "Humanity" Has Come to "Teach Us to be More Human"), to “finger” Vigano and to throw him under the bus being driven by the gaystapo’s house organ, The New York Times:

Shortly after the election of Pope Francis, Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, spoke effusively about his official reception by the pontiff in the library of the Apostolic Palace in Rome.

“That is a man you may talk to with an open heart,” Archbishop Viganò said in an interview at the time, calling his audience, “extremely nice, extremely warm.”

Archbishop Viganò could be in for a chillier reception the next time he returns to the Vatican.

The archbishop, who was exiled to the United States in 2011 after losing a high-altitude Vatican power struggle that became public in an infamous leaks scandal, now finds himself at the center of another papal controversy. This time, the Vatican is suggesting that Archbishop Viganò is responsible for giving papal face time to Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk whose refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has made her a heroine to social conservatives.

The encounter struck a dissonant note in a papal visit that seemed designed to avoid the battlefields of the culture wars. News of the meeting has proved to be manna for conservatives frustrated by Francis’ de-emphasis of social issues and hungry for more of a papal focus on religious liberty and doctrinal opposition to same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Viganò, an amiable 74-year-old northern Italian with an appreciation for good red wine, declined to comment, though people close to him rejected the notion that the Vatican was blaming him.

But the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said on Friday that the office of Archbishop Viganò had extended the invitation to Ms. Davis and that the pope was probably not briefed about her case. And the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the chief Vatican spokesman, depicted the meeting as one meet-and-greet among many.

A lawyer for Ms. Davis, Mathew D. Staver, said in an interview that the Vatican’s version of events was “absolute nonsense” and that “somebody is trying to throw some people under the bus.”

The wronged party, several church observers and Mr. Staver suggested, was Archbishop Viganò.

Mr. Staver said his client’s meeting with the pope was indeed private and that “if there was a line or other people, they would not have been able to keep this quiet as long as they have.” He then detailed the choreography involved in setting up the meeting.

He said Archbishop Viganò personally contacted Ms. Davis late in the day on Sept. 14 suggesting a private meeting with Pope Francis on Sept. 24. On the eve of the meeting, he said Ms. Davis received a voice mail message on her cellphone confirming the meeting and instructing her to keep her noticeably long hair up.

“I told her this morning, ‘Do not delete those,’” said Mr. Staver. He said, “we were led to believe that the invitation did come directly from Pope Francis.”

Mr. Staver said a conservative deacon, Keith Fournier, introduced him to Archbishop Viganò back in April before speaking at a National Organization for Marriage rally on the Washington Mall in opposition to same-sex marriage. As Mr. Staver descended from the stage, Archbishop Viganò made a point to “thank me for my message,” the lawyer said.

Archbishop Viganò, a cultural conservative born into a wealthy family in Varese, received the title of archbishop from John Paul II in 1992. He later joined the church’s diplomatic corps, which is one of the traditional sources of power in the Vatican, and in 2009 was installed by Pope Benedict XVI as secretary of the governorate of Vatican City State, a position not unlike the mayor of Vatican City.

Benedict wanted the ambitious Italian to enact government reforms, but Archbishop Viganò’s efforts in that goal earned him powerful enemies. In early 2011, hostile anonymous articles attacking Archbishop Viganò began appearing in the Italian news media, the bulletin board of Vatican power politics. Archbishop Viganò appealed to Benedict’s second in command, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, who instead echoed the articles’ complaints about his rough management style and removed Archbishop Viganò from his post.

Those appeals and protests, later leaked by the pope’s butler, became the heart of the church scandal known as VatiLeaks, which many church observers say contributed to the resignation of Benedict XVI.

In one missive copied to the pope, Archbishop Viganò wrote to Cardinal Bertone accusing him of getting in the way of the pope’s reform mission, but also of failing to make good on a promise to elevate him to cardinal. When faced with a transfer to the United States, he protested that the move would give heart to those opposed to his efforts to “clean up” the “corruption and abuse of power” in the Vatican.

On July 7, 2011, he wrote to Benedict that on issues of malfeasance inside the Vatican, “the Holy Father has certainly been kept in the dark.”

The question now is did Archbishop Viganò, left to linger in the United States as a new administration has taken power in Rome, keep Pope Francis in the dark or simply underestimate the off-message media storm that a meeting with Ms. Davis would provoke. Or, after executing orders from Rome, has he once again found himself being hung out to dry at the end of his career. In January, Archbishop Viganò will turn 75, the age at which bishops must submit a formal request to the Vatican for permission to resign. These requests are not automatically accepted, and bishops often stay in their appointments long after. It seems unlikely, church analysts say, that Archbishop Viganò will be one of them.

“Life is always in progress,” Archbishop Viganò said in the 2013 interview about the shifting power structure under Francis. He added that the church would emphasize the dimension of charity, “of pardon, of mercy. As Pope Francis has said, this is his own style.” (Jorge Throws Carlo Maria Vigano, Kim Davis, and Matthew D. Staver Under the Bus.)

In other words, the meeting with Kim Davis was engineered by Carlo Mario Vigano as a result of his friendship with her attorney, Matthew D. Staver, with whom Vigano had spoken at a rally held by the National Organization for Marriage in Washington, District of Columbia, six months ago. Jorge Mario Bergoglio wants it made known that he was forced into meeting Kim Davis. Thomas “I’ll Sue You If You Criticize Me” Rosica, was not speaking on his own authority. Jorge, in effect said, “Tom, take care of Vigano for me.” And thus the deed was done. For all of Bergoglio’s big, brave talk about the Italian Mafia, he acts like a complete Mafia chieftain when it comes to dealing with the Girondists/Mensheviks and/or restorationists within his ranks. Swim with sharks, “Archbishop” Vigano, and suffer the consequences.

It is now eminently clear that “Pope Francis” did not arrange the meeting with Kim Davis and that he was embarrassed for his “gay friends” after the fact of its becoming public, which is why the Press Office of the Holy See, ever quick to do “damage control” these days, let it be known that the “merciful” Argentine did initiate a meeting with a “gay couple” from Argentina that took place in the same Vatican Embassy on Wednesday, September 23, 2015, the Feast of Pope Saint Linus and the Commemoration of Saint Thecla, the day before he met with Kim Davis at the insistence of “Archbishop” Carlo Mario Vigano.

Kim Davis and small entourage, which included her Catholic mother (to whom she, an “Apostolic Christian,” handed the Rosary beads that Bergoglio had given her as a standard practice at such meetings) and Matthew D. Staver, were not permitted to take “selfie” photographs or to record any video of her meeting with “Pope Francis” at the Vatican Embassy. There were no such restrictions on the “gay couple,” which included one of Bergoglio’s former students from Argentina.

Here is a report on the meeting with that so-called “gay couple”:

VATICAN CITY — Ever since it became public that Pope Francis met in Washington with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, the questions have been swirling: Why did he meet with her, and was it meant as a political statement?

As it turns out, the Vatican said on Friday, the pope did not mean to endorse Ms. Davis’s views. It also said he gave her no more than a typical brief greeting, despite what her lawyer described.

Instead, the Vatican said that Francis gave only one “real audience”: to someone later identified as one of his former students, Yayo Grassi, a gay man in Washington who says he brought his partner of 19 years to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington for a reunion. They even shot video.

The disclosure, after the Vatican’s unusual attempt to correct the impressions left by Francis’ meeting with Ms. Davis, added to days of speculation about whether Francis intended to send a message on the place of gays in the church, or conscientious objection, and whether his advisers had fully briefed him on Ms. Davis, or had their own agenda.

The Vatican spokesman emphasized that the meeting with Ms. Davis was arranged by the office of the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington, not by anyone in Rome — including the pope.

“The pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis, and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement released Friday morning.

On the other hand, Mr. Grassi, a 67-year-old caterer, told The New York Times that he and the pontiff have known each other since the 1960s, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as the future pope was then called, taught him literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepción, a Jesuit high school in Santa Fe, Argentina.

Mr. Grassi said that he had resumed contact with the future pope years later, when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires. He also visited the pope at the Vatican in September 2013, and later contacted his office to ask for an audience in Washington.

“Once I saw how busy and exhausting his schedule was in D.C., I wrote back to him saying perhaps it would be better to meet some other time,” Mr. Grassi said. “Then he called me on the phone and he told me that he would love to give me a hug in Washington.”

Mr. Grassi said that he had been accompanied by his partner of 19 years, Iwan Bagus, as well as four friends, and that the meeting took place at the Vatican Embassy on Sept. 23 — a day before Ms. Davis met the pope.

Mr. Grassi said that Francis had told him to arrange the visit through the office of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio, or envoy, in Washington.

It was a private meeting, for about 15 to 20 minutes, in which I brought my boyfriend of 19 years,” Mr. Grassi said. His boyfriend, Mr. Bagus, worked on a video that was posted online that showed Francis hugging Mr. Grassi and the others.

Mr. Grassi said the meeting was purely personal. “I don’t think he was trying to say anything in particular,” Mr. Grassi said. “He was just meeting with his ex-student and a very close friend of his.”

Late on Friday, the Vatican confirmed the meeting. “Mr. Yayo Grassi, a former Argentine student of Pope Francis, who had already met other times in the past with the pope, asked to present his mother and several friends to the Pope during the Pope’s stay in Washington, D.C.,” Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement.

“As noted in the past, the pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue,” the statement added.

Earlier on Friday, the Vatican said that Archbishop Viganò had arranged the pope’s meetings in Washington, including the one with Ms. Davis.

The news of the meeting with Ms. Davis was disclosed late Tuesday night by Ms. Davis’s lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, at the same time it was reported on the website of Inside the Vatican, a conservative publication edited by an American who has covered the Vatican for years.

For nearly eight hours, Vatican officials refused to confirm or deny that the meeting had occurred, before finally confirming it on Wednesday afternoon.

For Francis, the timing of the Davis controversy is not ideal. Beginning Sunday the Vatican is staging a critical three-week meeting of bishops and laypeople to discuss whether to recommend changing their approach to contemporary issues related to the family, like gay couples, single parents or whether divorced and remarried Catholics who have not obtained annulments should be allowed to receive communion.

That meeting, known as a synod, could become a showdown between liberals and conservatives. Francis has spent nearly two years trying to gradually build consensus and has repeatedly stated his desire for a more welcoming, merciful outreach — even as he has not signaled any willingness to change church doctrine.

News of his meeting with Ms. Davis buoyed Christian conservatives, who had been dismayed that the pope, in his emphasis on the poor, barely mentioned issues like abortion and homosexuality during his visit to Washington, New York and Philadelphia. It also puzzled and angered more liberal observers.

It also led observers of the Vatican to speculate about whether the encounter with Ms. Davis was a signal of support for her cause. Francis has emphasized that he strongly believes in conscientious objection as a human right, a position he reaffirmed on his plane ride home.

On Friday, the Vatican appeared to be distancing itself from Ms. Davis’s camp. Father Lombardi’s statement said that the brief meeting “has continued to provoke comments and discussion,” and that he was providing clarification “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”

The Vatican’s statement prompted reactions on both sides of the Atlantic.

In a phone interview on Friday, Mr. Staver said the meeting had been called by the Vatican.

“This was a private meeting initiated by the Vatican,” Mr. Staver said. “My contacts were Vatican officials in the United States. And I was informed the request came directly from the pontiff.”

Mr. Staver said the request had come on Sept. 14, the day Ms. Davis returned to work after her release from jail. Ms. Davis and her husband were picked up at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in a tan van by private security guards who spoke Italian, he said. She had been instructed to change her hairstyle so she would not be identified.

Mr. Staver said Ms. Davis was not among a large group of people meeting the pope. She saw no one else waiting to see the pope and no one else saw her. “Just think about it. If she was in a line, there is no way this could have been kept secret for five days,” he said.

“This was a private meeting initiated by the Vatican,” Mr. Staver said. “My contacts were Vatican officials in the United States. And I was informed the request came directly from the pontiff.”

Mr. Staver said the request had come on Sept. 14, the day Ms. Davis returned to work after her release from jail. Ms. Davis and her husband were picked up at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in a tan van by private security guards who spoke Italian, he said. She had been instructed to change her hairstyle so she would not be identified.

Mr. Staver said Ms. Davis was not among a large group of people meeting the pope. She saw no one else waiting to see the pope and no one else saw her. “Just think about it. If she was in a line, there is no way this could have been kept secret for five days,” he said.

But at the Vatican on Friday, a spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, said the invitation had been extended by the nuncio’s office — not from Rome.

“Who brought her in? The nuncio,” said Father Rosica, who is working with the Vatican’s media office in advance of a major meeting of bishops that begins this weekend. “The Nunciature was able to bring in donors, benefactors.”

Father Rosica said of the controversy: “I would simply say: Her case is a very complex case. It’s got all kinds of intricacies. Was there an opportunity to brief the pope on this beforehand? I don’t think so. A list is given — these are the people you are going to meet.”

Mr. Staver, for his part, said he had been briefly introduced to Archbishop Viganò in April, when he spoke at a large rally in Washington against same-sex marriage, before the Supreme Court ruled on the issue.

The Rev. James Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America, had cautioned in an article this week that the pope meets many well-wishers on his trips, and that news of the meeting with Ms. Davis had been manipulated.

“I was very disappointed to see the pope having been used that way, and that his willingness to be friendly to someone was turned against him,” Father Martin said in an interview on Friday. “What may originally have prevented them from issuing a statement was the desire not to give this story too much air. But what they eventually came to realize was that they needed to correct some gross misrepresentations of what had happened. It shows that Pope Francis met with many people on the trip, and that she was simply another person who he tried to be kind to.”

Father Rosica’s statement seemed to square with that account.

Asked on Friday if the Vatican press office had been unaware that Ms. Davis had met the pope, Father Rosica said: “No, but I think we may not have been aware of the full impact of the meeting. It is very difficult sometimes when you are looking at things in America from here.”

A receptionist who answered the phone at the Vatican Embassy in Washington on Friday said, “The nuncio does not deny that the meeting took place, but would not make any further comment.”

She said the embassy did not have its own spokesman, and that no other officials there would comment.

Archbishop Viganò is turning 75 in January, the age at which bishops must submit a formal request to the Vatican asking for permission to resign. These requests are not automatically accepted, and bishops often stay in their appointments well past age 75. But if Archbishop Viganò is held responsible for what is seen as a grave misstep on an important papal trip, he is likely to be removed at the first respectable opportunity, according to several church analysts.

“Nobody in the Catholic Church wants another Regensburg,” said Massimo Faggioli, an associate professor of theology and director of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He was referring to the backlash after Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, gave a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that appeared to denigrate Islam.

“This was not as serious as Regensburg, when Benedict read his own speech,” Dr. Faggioli said about the meeting attended by Ms. Davis. “But the pope has to be able to rely on his own system, and in this case the system failed him. The question is, was it a mistake, or was it done with full knowledge of how toxic she was?”

The meeting with Ms. Davis was clearly a misstep, Dr. Faggioli said, “because the whole trip to the United States he very carefully didn’t want to give the impression that he was being politicized by any side.”

He added, “And this thing is the most politicized thing that you can imagine.” (Before Clerk, an Antipapal Hug for a Gay Friend.)

I quoted this entire story to give readers a full appreciation of how far from the sensus Catholicus Bergoglio and his fellow travelers in the false religious sect of conciliarism are in the practical course of daily events. These apostates are so bereft of the Catholic Faith that their very first instinct is to indemnify wanton sinners and leftist ideologues while vilifying those who dare to criticize or make life “uncomfortable” for such people.

Furthermore, the contention made by Dr. Massimo Faggioli that Jorge’s meeting with Kim Davis was not as bad as “Regensburg” is a remarkable concession that it was as “unacceptable” and “incendiary” for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to state even an attenuated version of the truth of Mohammedanism as being an irrational religion prone to violence in an address he gave Regensburg, Germany, on September 12, 2006, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, as it was for “Pope Francis” to have been put in the “untenable” position of meeting with the “toxic” Kim Davis. Any kind of opposition to the gaystapo agenda is considered to be an act of “violence” against a supposedly “legitimate” classification of human beings even though human identity is not based on one’s proclivity to commit any particular sin, less yet those that are unnatural and cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

The conciliar Vatican went to extraordinary lengths to throw Carlo Maria Vigano, Kim Davis and Matthew Staver under the bus while celebrating the fact that Bergoglio (a) invited his former student, Yayo Grassi, and his “partner” in unnatural vice, Iwan Bagus, and (b) the video shows the false “pontiff” hugging both men and kissing them on their cheeks!

Just an expression of Argentine “friendliness” for an old friend and his “partner”? Nonsense. Jorge Mario Bergoglio knows what he is doing, which is why there were no restrictions on the meeting with Yayo Grassi and Iwan Bagus, and anyone who is in “suspense” about what is going to happen as a result of the sideshow that takes place two days from now, Monday, October 5, 2015, when the “synod of bishops” starts its three-week farce of precooked deliberations designed to delight the masses is not thinking too clearly—and that is being about as charitable as a man can be who has not slept for two days now.

Come on, Bergoglio made it clear throughout his journey to the United States of America that Catholics had to “go forward,” meaning that they have to forget about the “past” (not that too many of them at this point in the conciliar revolution know about that is true about the “past” as a result of fifty years of its misrepresentation by the revolutionaries).

Consider how Jorge attempted to use Fray Junipero Serra, the Apostle of California, as a means to accomplish this goal when preaching at the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service of “canonization” that was held outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, District of Columbia, on Wednesday afternoon, September 23, 2015, the Feast of Pope Saint Linus and the Commemoration of Saint Thecla:

Father Serra had a motto which inspired his life and work, not just a saying, but above all a reality which shaped the way he lived: siempre adelante! Keep moving forward! For him, this was the way to continue experiencing the joy of the Gospel, to keep his heart from growing numb, from being anesthetized. He kept moving forward, because the Lord was waiting. He kept going, because his brothers and sisters were waiting. He kept going forward to the end of his life. Today, like him, may we be able to say: Forward! Let’s keep moving forward! (Holy Mass and Canonization of Blessed Fr. Junipero Serra.)

Fray Junipero Serra went “forward” to convert the native Indians of California to Catholicism and to teach them basic skills to farm and raise livestock. He went forward to save the souls of pagans. He did not go “forward” to make a “peace treaty,” if you will, with unrepentant sinners in the name of a false spirit of mercy. Please review Father Junipero Serra: Under Attack From the World and Misreprsented by Bergoglio, part one for a mere summary of the wonderful work of this Franciscan friar who was so zealous for the sanctification and salvation of souls.

To “go forward” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of course, is to do what he did with Yayo Grassi and Iwan Bugas, namely, to embrace those who live on the “existential peripheries” as he castigates those who want to remain tried to the “structures” and “institutions” of the past, something that he made clear in his Novus Ordo vespers service at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, New York, on Thursday evening, September 24, 2015, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, September 26, 2015, the Feast of the North American Martyrs (Jesuits, by the way, who predated the work of Father Serra in the Americas as they sought the conversion of particularly savage tribes of Indians to the true Faith), and at the closing Novus Ordo liturgical service in Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, September 27, 2015, the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saints Cosmas and Damian:

I know that many of you are in the front lines in meeting the challenges of adapting to an evolving pastoral landscape. Whatever difficulties and trials you face, I ask you, like Saint Peter, to be at peace and to respond to them as Christ did: he thanked the Father, took up his cross and looked forward! (Vespers with the Clergy, Men and Women Religious.)

One of the great challenges facing the Church in this generation is to foster in all the faithful a sense of personal responsibility for the Church’s mission, and to enable them to fulfill that responsibility as missionary disciples, as a leaven of the Gospel in our world. This will require creativity in adapting to changed situations, carrying forward the legacy of the past not primarily by maintaining our structures and institutions, which have served us well, but above all by being open to the possibilities which the Spirit opens up to us and communicating the joy of the Gospel, daily and in every season of our life. (Holy Mass with the Bishops, Clergy, Men and Women Religious of Pennsylvania.)

Jesus encountered hostility from people who did not accept what he said and did.  For them, his openness to the honest and sincere faith of many men and women who were not part of God’s chosen people seemed intolerable.  The disciples, for their part, acted in good faith.  But the temptation to be scandalized by the freedom of God, who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Mt 5:45), bypassing bureaucracy, officialdom and inner circles, threatens the authenticity of faith.  Hence it must be vigorously rejected.

Once we realize this, we can understand why Jesus’ words about causing “scandal” are so harsh.  For Jesus, the truly “intolerable” scandal consists in everything that breaks down and destroys our trust in the working of the Spirit! 

Our Father will not be outdone in generosity and he continues to scatter seeds.  He scatters the seeds of his presence in our world, for “love consists in this, not that we have loved God but that he loved us” first (1 Jn 4:10).  That love gives us a profound certainty: we are sought by God; he waits for us.  It is this confidence which makes disciples encourage, support and nurture the good things happening all around them.  God wants all his children to take part in the feast of the Gospel.  Jesus says, “Do not hold back anything that is good, instead help it to grow!”  To raise doubts about the working of the Spirit, to give the impression that it cannot take place in those who are not “part of our group”, who are not “like us”, is a dangerous temptation.  Not only does it block conversion to the faith; it is a perversion of faith! 

Faith opens a “window” to the presence and working of the Spirit.  It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures. “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded”, says Jesus (cf. Mk 9:41).  These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different.  They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children.  They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion.  Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work.  Homely gestures.  Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work.  Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home.  Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love.  That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith. (Francis closes World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia with a call to openness to miracles of love for the sake of families of the world.)

Going “forward” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio means making no demands for the conversion of non-Catholics or of unrepentant sinners.

Going “forward” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio means following what he calls the “holy spirit” that is nothing other than an unholy demon from the adversary himself.

Going “forward” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio means accepting the “family” as it exists in the world, not as we may want to be in the “idealized” past.

Going “forward” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio means “dreaming” as he believes, most blasphemously, as “God dreams,” thereby denying the Omniscience of God, Who lives outside of time and space and Who sees both the beginning and the end of the world is an instant “now.” God does not “dream.” He knows. He wills. God is pure act as He is pure love, and His love wills the good, the ultimate expression of which for man, who is the zenith of His creative handiwork, is the sanctification and salvation of his immortal soul.

God hates sin.

God wills the conversion of the sinner.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ became Incarnate in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation to make atonement for human sins, not to reaffirm men in their the very thing that caused Him to suffer once in time in His Sacred Humanity during His fearful Passion and Death and that wounds His Mystical Body, Holy Mother Church, until the end of time.

Our Lord Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ calls us to make reparation for our sins, not engage in maudlin celebrations of that which caused Him to sweat droplets of His Most Precious Blood in the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane as He contemplated coming into contact in His Sacred Humanity with the very antithesis of His Sacred Divinity, sin—your sins, my sins, the sins of everyone from the beginning to the end of time.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s version of “going forward” has been condemned by pope after pope, including Pope Pius XI, who condemned “new species of unions” that the Argentine Apostate endorses by such actions as hugging and kissing a “gay couple” who met with him at his own personal invitation with an entourage of between fifteen to twenty people:

How grievously all these err and how shamelessly they leave the ways of honesty is already evident from what we have set forth here regarding the origin and nature of wedlock, its purposes and the good inherent in it. The evil of this teaching is plainly seen from the consequences which its advocates deduce from it, namely, that the laws, institutions and customs by which wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence can and must be founded, changed and abrogated according to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power which is grounded in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range than matrimony -- hence it may be exercised both outside as well as within the confines of wedlock, and though the purpose of matrimony be set aside, as though to suggest that the license of a base fornicating woman should enjoy the same rights as the chaste motherhood of a lawfully wedded wife.

Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label "temporary," "experimental," and "companionate." These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.

Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern "culture" in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

Never mind the fact that Pope Pius XI was referring to immoral civil unions between those engaged in natural vice in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. His words are just as applicable to those engaged in the unspeakable perversion of “gay marriage” and “gay civil unions.”

The mind of Jorge Mario Bergoglio on matters of morality was summarized perfectly by Pope Pius XII when he addressed the Thirtieth General Convention of the Society of Jesus in 1957 as our last true Sovereign Pontiff thus far condemned those who based their view of morality on the state of things as they are, not as God wills them to be.

This gold nugget of a quotation of Pope Pius XII’s address to the Thirtieth General Convention of the Society of Jesus in 1957 was contained in article on Catholic college education authored by the late Monsignor George A. Kelly, Ph.D:

The more serious cause, however, was the movement in high Jesuit circles to modernize the understanding of the magisterium by enlarging the freedom of Catholics, especially scholars, to dispute its claims and assertions. Jesuit scholars had already made up their minds that the Catholic creeds and moral norms needed nuance and correction. It was for this incipient dissent that the late Pius XII chastised the Jesuits’ 30th General Congregation one year before he died (1957). What concerned Pius XII most in that admonition was the doctrinal orthodoxy of Jesuits. Information had reached him that the Society’s academics (in France and Germany) were bootlegging heterodox ideas. He had long been aware of contemporary theologians who tried “to withdraw themselves from the Sacred Teaching authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them in error” (Humani generis).

In view of what has gone on recently in Catholic higher education, Pius XII’s warnings to Jesuits have a prophetic ring to them. He spoke then of a “proud spirit of free inquiry more proper to a heterodox mentality than to a Catholic one”; he demanded that Jesuits not “tolerate complicity with people who would draw norms for action for eternal salvation from what is actually done, rather than from what should be done.” He continued, “It should be necessary to cut off as soon as possible from the body of your Society” such “unworthy and unfaithful sons.” Pius obviously was alarmed at the rise of heterodox thinking, worldly living, and just plain disobedience in Jesuit ranks, especially at attempts to place Jesuits on a par with their Superiors in those matters which pertained to Faith or Church order (The Pope Speaks, Spring 1958, pp. 447-453). (Monsignor George A. Kelly, Ph.D.,The Catholic College: Death, Judgment, Resurrection. See also the full Latin text of Pope Pius XII's address to the thirtieth general congregation of the Society of Jesus at page 806 of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis for 1957: AAS 49 [1957]. One will have to scroll down to page 806.)

Although the late Monsignor Kelly, whom I knew and consulted on occasion in the 1980s and 1990s, tried to “save” that which was beyond saving because it was in the hands of apostates, the history he provided should illustrate the fact that not all was well in the 1950s, the supposed “golden era” of Catholicism in the United States of America. All manner of revolutionaries, including those within the Society of Jesus, got imprimaturs from like-minded Americanist bishops, men such as John Dearden, Francis Spellman, Richard Cushing, Albert Meyer, et al,, to push the envelope, especially in the field of bioethics, as far as they could during the waning years of the pontificate of our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII.

Pope Pius XII, however, knew of the “proud spirit of free inquiry more proper to a heterodox mentality than to a Catholic one.” His demand that the Jesuits not “tolerate complicity with people who would draw norms for action for eternal salvation from what is actually done, rather than from what should be done” applies to a certain man named Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina. The stage for the conciliar revolution was pretty well set by the time of the death of Pope Pius XII, who demanded that the likes of those “educating” Bergoglio “be cut off as soon as possible from the body of” the Society of Jesus as they were “unworthy sons.”

Jorge’s upcoming synod is all-about embracing sin. Those who refuse to “get this” just do not want to admit that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church, and they will be consigned to the tedious task of “sifting” through the words and deeds and men they believe to be true popes and true bishops, thereby exercising a role that Pope Leo XIII noted specifically did not belong to them and, quite indeed, was forbidden to them by the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church.

It is well past time to take Pope Pius XII’s advice ("It should be necessary to cut off as soon as possible from the body of your Society” such “unworthy and unfaithful sons") by cutting ties with a false church with false doctrines, false sacraments, false teachings on morality, and false pastoral practices once and for all no matter what the costs in human terms may be for doing so. Truth matters, and the truth is simple as God is simple: the Catholic Church enjoys a perpetual immunity from error and heresy.

The hour is now past 3:30 a.m. on the Feast of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. A revised reflection on the Little Flower will be posted later today.

For the moment, remember that this is the month of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary. Do pray as many Rosaries each day as your state-in-life permits, praying to console the good God, to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world, and to pray for the conversion of men such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio and all of those poor sinners who are “going forward” headlong into hell with him if they die as they believe and practice at the present time.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and Holy Face, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Our Holy Guardian Angels, pray for us and protect 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 Joachin and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, pray for us.