Previewing Bergoglio's Congressional Speech

September 24, 2015, Washington, D.C.—The man most people accept as “Pope” Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, addressed a special joint session of the Congress of the United States of America today, discomfiting the man who had invited him, House Speaker John Boehner (R-West Chester, Ohio), and most of the members of the Republicans in attendance. Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and House Minority Leader Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi (D-San Francisco, California), however beamed throughout the “pope’s” address, which was a stinging rebuke to Republican efforts to enforce existing immigration laws and to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Bergoglio also won plaudits from the Democrats for his insistence that Congress pass legislation to help end global warming even if it meant more taxation and more government regulation.

Bergoglio’s address came hours after he had given an impromptu press conference while visiting President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetro at the White House. Surprisingly, “Pope” Francis revealed that he was reading several books that in preparation for the World Meeting of Families that he will address in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 26 and 27, 2015. The Argentine Apostate said that he found Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, Bruce Jenner’s Journey to Full Womanhood to be particularly helpful to him in his deliberations on the needs of families who exist at the peripheries.

“Pope” Francis had particularly warm, if not effusive, praise for President Obama while at the White House, citing the great charity that he has exhibited in welcoming immigrants to the United States of America despite the obstruction of xenophobes and for his standing up for racial justice in Ferugson, Missouri. The “pontiff” also thanked Mr. Obama for helping to bring the United States of America into the family of most of the other nations of the world by providing universal health care coverage for those who cannot afford to purchase it. No mention was made of divisive issues such as the president’s support for contraception, abortion and “gay marriage.”

The first “pope” born in the Americas also noted the president’s respect for religious diversity and his keen grasp of historical events such as the Crusades and “The Inquistion.

President Obama/Soetoro returned the praise, explaining that he never thought he would live to see the day that a Catholic “pope” would embody the principles for which the late Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin, whose Archdiocese of Chicago, helped to fund his travel to attend an Industrial Areas Foundation seminar in 1986 in Los Angeles, California, had devoted his entire life. Mr. Obama/Soetoro said that he was very edified that the concept of social justice that had long been championed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the national level and by such priests as Father Michael Pfleger on the local level were being articulated by the Argentine “pope.”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio proceeded from the White House to the Capitol for his address to the members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Among the religious leaders in attendance in the gallery were an assortment of Talmudic rabbis, Mohammedan imams, Protestant ministers Hindu and Buddhist priests, and the Reverend Alfred Sharpton.

Here is the text of Jorge’s address to Congress:

Mister Speaker, Mister Vice President, Members of Congress, the distinguished jurists of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, members of President Obama’s Cabinet, and members of the news media, incliuding the eminent Catholic, Brian Williams,

It is my supreme privilege as an American, a South American, to address you here today.

Such as moment as this would not have been thought possible even fifty years ago when my predecessor, Pope Paul VI, was forced to meet President Lyndon Baines Johnson in a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Lingering suspicions about the intentions of the Bishop of Rome to convert the United States of America to Catholicism. These suspicions, although entirely unjustified, have been dispelled in their entirety now that all believers and nonbelievers alike have come to realize that the Second Vatican Council has made it clear that the sole aim of the Catholic Church is to relieve the sufferings of the human person.

As I have noted on a number of occasions to my brother ministers from American Christian denominations, it is not my intention or that of the Catholic Church to seek the conversion of any person or any nation. In truth, my friends, this is really nothing new as the principal desire of the Catholic bishops of the Nineteenth Century was to acclimate American Catholics to this country’s noble pluralism so that they could take their place alongside their fellow Americas in the social, economic and political life of this great nation. All of the suspicions of the past were completely unjustified, therefore.

America’s pluralism was celebrated by such great bishops of the Nineteenth Century as John Ireland and James Gibbons. It was with prophetic insight that Archbishop Ireland anticipated the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of the postconciliar popes. I make these words of Archbishop Ireland my own as I begin my address to you:

What! the Church of the living God, the Church of ten thousand victories over pagans and barbarians, over false philosophies and heresies, over defiant kings and unruly peoples–the great, freedom-loving, philanthropic, truth-giving Catholic Church–this Church afraid of the nineteenth century! afraid of any century! not seeing in the nineteenth the fervent ebullitions of noblest sentiments, the germinations of her own Christlike plantings; this Church not eager for the fray, not precipitating herself with force irresistible upon this modern world to claim it, to love it, to foster and admire or to correct and cure, to own it for Christ, and with her impetuous arm to lift it to the very summit of its highest aspirations, to which only the Church’s aid this panting, hoping, despairing world can every reach! Far, far from Catholics be the chilling, fatal, un-Catholic thought!

I preach the new, the most glorious crusade. Church and age! Unite them in the name of humanity, in the name of God. 

Church and age! Bring them into close contact; they pulsate alike; the God of humanity works in one, the God of supernatural revelations works in the other–in both the self-same God. . .

It is an age of social battlings for justice to all men, for the right of all men to live in the frugal comfort becoming rational creatures, to all of whom birth in the world gives them title of a sufficiency of the things of the world. Very well; is not this sudden revolution which has come upon men in the plea for social justice and social comfort the loud outburst of the cry which has ever been going forth from the bosom of the Church since the words were spoken by the Founder: "Seek first the king of God and His justice, and all things else should be added unto you"? It is not sufficiently made public that the principles underlying the social movement of the times in all its legitimate demands are the principles constantly taught in Catholic theological schools, as, for instance, this chief one proclaimed by the Cardinal Manning, to the horror of the aristocratic England, that in case of extreme need of food all goods become common property. Catholics have of late been so accustomed to lock up their teachings in temple and seminary that when the same teachings appear in active evolution upon the broad sea of humanity they do not recognize them; they even fear and disown them.

It is an age of material progress, of inventions, of the subjugation of nature's forces to the service of man, of the building up of the man over all irrational creatures. Does Church in these things condemn the age? It is her doctrines that the earth was given to man that he dominates over it. Progress of every kind the Church blesses; for progress along the lines of all human activities and human uses is the divine ordering,--stagnation and inactivity calling down from God reprobation, as we learn from the parable of the talents. (Archbishop John Ireland, A Sermon of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Episcopal Consecration of His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. Full text found in The Voice of the Church, a book published by the Bishops of the United States of America in 1899, pp. 103-113. We were given this book by a friend of ours who believed that it would be of use in my work. It is a treasure of Americanism mixed in with various articles that are authentically Catholic. In other words, it was very representative of the state of confusion that existed in the minds of Catholics in the United States of America at the end of the Nineteenth Century, a state of confusion that has now been spread worldwide as a result of conciliarism's embrace of "the age.")

Archbishop John Ireland’s voice echoed throughout the four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, and it helped to produce the likes of men such as John Cardinal Dearden, Richard Cardinal Cushing, Albert Cardinal Meyer and Pope Benedict XVI, who long ago condemned the imprisonment of Catholic theology by Medieval standards that are no longer relevant to the needs of modern man.

Commenting upon the influence of the American hierarchy on the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, Father Gerald Fogarty, S.J., wrote as follows: 

The Constitution on Revelation had not introduced something new for the American Church, but in fact had returned to the teaching on tradition of the early nineteenth century. Yet, there were still problems. While Scripture and Tradition were now seen as a single source of Revelation, and while there were instructions to exegetes for the interpretation of Scripture, there were no similar norms given for the interpretation of Tradition. John  England in the 1820s had made the distinction that the Epistle to the Hebrews was inspired even if it was not written by Paul. He thus did not feel obliged to adhere to the literal interpretation of the magisterium of Trent in attributing the letter to Paul. At the beginning of the century, Edward Dyer sought to defend Francis Gigot against charges of deviating from the common teaching of the Church in regard to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. At Vatican II, among the Americans, only Cardinal Meyer seems to have seen the danger of an uncritical acceptance of Tradition, although he focused primarily on practice and devotion. As the lessons of the debates over Church and State and of the repression of biblical scholarship during the Modernist crisis remind us, however, not everything that the Church has taught, that is not all of tradition, is on the same level of authority. In these post-conciliar years, the doctrine of tradition is perhaps still developing and will need a close link with the reemergence of episcopal collegiality before it will again have the full dynamic sense it had over a century ago. To do this, it may be necessary for the Church to encourage theologians and others to study tradition in order to determine what is doctrine to be preserved and what is historically conditioned. (Father Gerald Fogarty, S.J., Theology of Tradition in the American Church.) 

The teaching of the Second Vatican Council is really nothing new, therefore. The social teaching of the American bishops has always exalted the founding principles of this nation, and Catholics have taken their place in public life who have respected the pioneering principles of “separation of Church and State” and “religious liberty.”

We call to mind here Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith of New York, who became the first Catholic to be nominated for President of the United States of America. Mr. Smith had to overcome great prejudice to obtain the nomination of his political party, but his loss in 1928 was a pioneering that made possible the election of the first Catholic to the office of President of the United States of America, thirty-two years later, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of the Commonwealth of Massachussets.

What progress has been made! Nearly one-third of the members of Congress are Catholic. Mr. Biden, who sits behind me, is the first Catholic to have served as Vice President of the United States of America. Mr. Boehner is the second successive Catholic to serve in the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives, a position that was filled so admirably and ably by the late Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill,  a man who stood for the poor and was a steadfast ally of the oppressed peoples of El Salvador and Nicaragua, and by the late Thomas Foley, one of Speaker O'Neill's protégés. Secretary of State John F. Kerry was the third Catholic to have been nominated by the Democratic Party for the office of President of the United States of America, and he lost by a very narrow margin, did he not?

The governors of such states as California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island are Catholic. The United States of America truly has been a grand laboratory of religious liberty and toleration, so much so that Catholics have now been able to take their place in public life without any real thought given to the fact that they have a secret agenda to convert this nation or to use the tenets of their religion as the basis of civil law and public policy. This is tremendous progress, would you not agree?

Catholics work and live and play with Protestants and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindi and of those of no religious faith at all. Catholics have been in the forefront of championing mixed marriages here in this land of religious liberty. It is so good to see all of the progress made in this country, which served as harbinger for the progress that the Catholic Church made in updating its theology and approach to the world at the Second Vatican Council.

Catholic bishops have long stood shoulder to shoulder with American presidents in the alleviation of the suffering of the poor by means of governmental assistance.  

James Cardinal Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, from 1877 to 1921, was a stalwart ally of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson during World War I, showing him and all other Americans that Catholics were patriots who were unafraid to fight in behalf of freedom, democracy and equality in Europe, a land where monarchies had repressed the legitimate aspiration of their people for liberation from these vestiges of the Middle Ages.

Many Catholic bishops supported the efforts of the great American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to provide income equality during the Great Depression as they urged Catholics to support the New Deal and worked to silence one of its chief critics, Father Charles Coughlin.

Catholic bishops stood shoulder to shoulder with President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s policies to build a newer, fairer American economic and social order with the advent of the programs of the War on Poverty and the Great Society. These bishops were forthright in their criticism of the trickle down economic policies of the 1980s and of efforts to retard the liberation of the peoples of El Salvador and Nicaragua here in the Americas as they called for a nuclear freeze in the interests of a world peace, dialogue and mutual encounter rather than unnecessary military and political confrontation.

American bishops were in the vanguard of supporting efforts to universalize health care coverage in the 1990s during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton tried so very hard to secure this coverage in cooperation with the bishops. Their efforts, though, were not in vain. Thanks to the forward looking policies of President Obama and the leadership of two good Catholics, Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and then House Speaker Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelsosi, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in March of 2010, and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. It is no accident that the decisive vote in that case was cast by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, himself a Catholic. Whatever obstacles have been experienced in the implementation of universal health care coverage, I want to reiterate to you now that there can be no turning back from the progressive act of charity represented by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which was in large measure a testament to the legacy of the late United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, himself a devout Catholic. Senator Kennedy gave his life to the advancement of the poor, and I urge you in his name to keep universal health coverage in place. There can be no turning your backs on the sick simply because they are poor.

These are all great accomplishments, ones that must be protected, to be sure, and it must be noted that each of them represent a perfect continuity in the way in which the American bishops of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries helped to serve as prophetic voices that led to the adoption of American values at the Second Vatican Council.

However, there are other things for the government of the United States to consider as Jesus Himself said in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew that the only measure of human judgment will be what we give to the poor, the naked, the homeless and the imprisoned:

[31] And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. [32] And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: [33] And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. [34] Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [35] For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in:

[36] Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. [37] Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? [38] And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? [39] Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? [40] And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.

[41] Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. [42] For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. [43] I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you covered me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. [44] Then they also shall answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to thee? [45] Then he shall answer them, saying: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me.

[46] And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting. (Matthew 25: 31-45.)

Each of you, whether you are a believer or not, must rise to these challenges.

You must clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give thirst to the drink, release the prisoners, give comfort to the sick and shelter the homeless. You must go out to the peripheries of suffering in this nation of plenty and to show yourselves more generous than you have been in the past.

This generosity must start with a profound respect of all human life, including the unborn and those in prison who have been convicted of crimes and sentence to death. I join my voice again with that of Saint John Paul II and of the American bishops themselves in denouncing the death penalty as evil and unjust. It must be eliminated for the sake of common good as it is a blight on any true sense of justice and the dignity of the human person.

Very urgently, however, this protection must be according to the stranger, to the immigrant, to those who are seeking shelter and refuge in this land of plenty at a time when the hearts of many, including some in this every Congress, have become cold and hardened despite the anguished crimes of those who risk their lives to come to this country.

President Obama’s leadership in the field of justice for the undocumented and the unwanted must inspire each of you to work together with him for the elimination of all barriers that make it difficult for those in distress to seek residence in this nation and to benefit from the generosity of social programs that must relieve this distress. The undocumented must be granted the status of citizens, taking the place in American life, including at the voting booth. It is not right that they should live in the shadows, and I commend mayors such as Bill de Blasio of New York City, who is here with us today, for being one of many across the nation who has gone to great lengths to make their cities sanctuaries for the undocumented so that they may live without fear of deportation or harassment by bureaucracies that have nothing to do with human dignity and respect for true civil rights.

The United States is a nation of immigrants. It is sad to note, however, that many of the descendants of immigrants have forgotten, perhaps out of ignorance of the past, their own ancestors suffered unjust discrimination upon their arrival to these shores. Millions upon millions of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and later southern and eastern Europe suffered at the hands of nativists in the Nineteenth Century. The nativist urge was so strong in the early Twentieth Century that an unjust system of quotas was imposed in 1924 that curtailed immigration from the countries of eastern and southern Europe.

How correct it was, therefore, that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed and signed into law by that champion of social justice, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, on October 3, 1965, just a day before the great Texan met with Blessed Paul VI in New York City. The handiwork of the late United States Senator Philip Hart and the late United States Representative Emmanuel Cellar was aided immeasurably by the aforementioned Senator Edward Kennedy, who warned against the alarmists of his own day with these truly remarkable words:

"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.)

How unjust it is, my friends, that your neighbors from Latin America, your own fellow Americans, have been burdened with the bureaucracy of your immigration laws and forced to live in the shadows while they are paid substandard wages for doing hard physical labor that many of the wealthy do not want to perform for themselves. This injustice must be remedied, something that the bishops of the United States of America, including Roger Cardinal Mahony, have long demanded. 

As I noted seven months ago when news of my trip to your country was announced, I wish that my travels could have been arranged to permit me to go to the Mexican border to walk over and back with as many refugees as could come with me to show my complete solidarity with each of them and with those of you in this Congress who are working hard to make sure that immigration restrictions are eliminated and that those who come here are given what they need to sustain themselves for as long as it takes for them to get on their feet.

To this end, therefore, it is important for you in the Congress to cooperate with President Obama to enact a just tax code to end income inequality so that the economic playing field should be leveled. It is not just for some men to make inordinate sums of money while so many live poverty. To demand this does not make me a Communist as some have alleged. To demand this is my duty as disciple of Jesus. The Apostles and the early Christians shared all things together. It is not too much to ask Americans to support their elected representatives in efforts to close the gap between rich and poor. This gap must be closed.

Too many of your African-American and Spanish-speaking inhabitants live in dire circumstances of poverty, enslaved anew by a cycle of poverty that is impossible for them to break without a governmental safety net being provided to them. The goal of eliminating income insecurity to make it possible for these Americans, many of whom have never known full citizenship in your country and are imprisoned at inexcusably high rates while suffering from immorally high unemployment among their youth, to live lives of dignity so that they make take their turn to do good as citizens without having to worry about their daily bread and without being tempted to resort to crime because of the economic and social injustices that have been visited upon them.

In the final analysis, however, what does any of this matter if we do not save the earth from being despoiled by global-warming?

Even though there are naysayers among some of you here in this Congress, global-warming is a scientifically proved fact. Only the stubborn who want to cling to policies based in greed and a refusal to make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good of the global community can ignore these scientific facts.

I have laid out an extensive program for reversing what is unquestionably man-made global warming in the encyclical letter Laudato Si, that  I issued on May 24, 2015. A copy of this encyclical letter has been delivered to each one of you and your legislative staffs. Decisive action is needed now, and I urge the members of this Congress to cooperate with the policies outlined by President Obama to curb the protection and use of fossil fuels, to eliminate coal from your economy and to cease monopolizing the natural resources of this planet for selfish reasons of luxury and comfort. The countries of the developed world must be prepared to make necessary sacrifices, and policies must be enacted that penalize citizens who drive their vehicles too much or who consume too much energy in their homes.

Nothing is more important that saving the planet. We are here to be good stewards of the earth. We will all die together if we do not take collective action now to change human behavior and to use the full weight of the civil law and taxation to coerce those who squander the earth’s limited resources so needlessly while putting the very existence of the earth into mortal danger. What is more important than saving the earth?

I noted last year in my message to Peru’s Minister of the Environment, who served as the president of  the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Lima ten months ago, the necessity of observing and enforcing all of the existing protocols and of establishing more goals that must bind every nation on the face of this earth as the richer nations help poor nations to realize the goal of sustainable development that respects Mother Earth:

In the first 12 days of December, the city of Lima and the people of Peru will have the honour of welcoming the 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the programme of which is to confirm the progress of the application of this legal instrument, of critical import at this moment in history.

Along with my greeting to you, Mr President, and to all the organizers and participants of this Conference, I would like to express my closeness and encouragement, that the work of these days may be accomplished with an open and generous spirit. That which you will discuss will have an impact on all of humanity, particularly the poorest and future generations. Moreover, it is a serious ethical and moral responsibility.

It is not without significance that the Conference is being held on the coast adjacent to the Humboldt Current, which joins the peoples of America, Oceania and Asia in a symbolic embrace and which plays a decisive role in the climate of the entire planet. The consequences of environmental changes, which are already being dramatically felt in many countries, especially the insular states of the Pacific, remind us of the gravity of neglect and inaction. The time to find global solutions is running out. We can find appropriate solutions only if we act together and in agreement. There is therefore a clear, definitive and urgent ethical imperative to act.

An effective fight against global warming will be possible only through a responsible collective action, which overcomes particular interests and behaviours and develops unfettered by political and economic pressures. A collective response which is also capable of overcoming mistrust and of fostering a culture of solidarity, of encounter and of dialogue; capable of demonstrating responsibility to protect the planet and the human family.

I sincerely hope that at the Conference in Lima, as in subsequent meetings, which will be decisive for the negotiations on the climate, a dialogue will be adopted which is imbued with such a culture and with the values that foster justice, respect and equity.

With this message, Mr President and Conference participants, I express my best wishes that your reflections and initiatives may be successful and may be at the service to all mankind. I pray that your decisions may bear abundant fruit, I invoke upon you and on all the participants in this significant meeting the blessing of the Almighty which I ask you to extend to all the citizens of the countries you represent. (Message to the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Peru on the occasion of the 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework.)

My personal representative, Archbishop James Patrick Given, who is the papal nuncio to Peru, amplified these concerns in the intervention he made in Lima, Peru, on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference:

At this very decisive moment in the history of climate negotiations we have to come to the point where we must overcome inaction. As Pope Francis said in his Message to our Conference, the issues we are debating “affects all humanity, especially the poor and future generations: […] it is a serious ethical and moral responsibility […] There is a clear, definite and urgent ethical imperative to act […] We can only find adequate solutions if we act together”.

The longer we wait, the more it will cost; more victims will suffer from our inaction and the greatest weight will fall on the most vulnerable, the poorest peoples and future generations: what is at issue here is respect for their fundamental human rights.

Our earth is the object of our constant concern and requires our constant attention. We are not the masters of nature, but its stewards. We need to respect it, but “instead we are often guided by the pride of dominating, possessing, manipulating, exploiting; we do not ‘preserve’ the earth, […] we do not consider it as a freely-given gift to look after” (Pope Francis, General Audience, 5 June 2013). “Respect for the environment, however, means more than not destroying it; it also means using it for good purposes” (Pope Francis, Address to the European Parliament, 25 November 2014).

The Holy See’s Delegation has repeatedly called for a clear and firm political will to agree on tangible and concrete action, and has urged the adoption of common binding measures and adequate budgets for effective and sustainable action on mitigation and adaptation, as well as on sharing technologies and know-how. The operational bases needed to facilitate this mutual responsibility are already available or within our reach.

The critical problem of global warming is inextricably bound to the search for authentic integral human development. We can achieve two interconnected objectives: combating poverty and easing the effects of climate change. As stewards of nature, we can learn a lot from the signs it is sending us. The worries and the concerns about our common home make us aware that we are part of one interdependent human family. The decisions and behavior of one member of this family have profound consequences for all others. There are no borders, no more political, social or geographical barriers behind which one can be isolated. There is no room for the globalization of indifference, the economy of exclusion or the throwaway culture so often denounced by Pope Francis (cf. His Eminence Card. Pietro Parolin to the UN Climate Summit, 23 September 2014)

Pope Francis warns that “the effective fight against global warming is only possible through a responsible collective response, that overcomes particular interests and behaviors and develops itself free from political and economic pressures. A collective response that is also capable of contrasting attitudes of distrust and promote a culture of solidarity, encounter and dialogue; able to act responsibility to protect the planet and the human family”, ensuring that present and future generations have the possibility of living in a safe and worthy environment. This is the great challenge facing not only the Conference, but all human work.

Justice, respect and equity are at the basis of this culture.

If we remain inactive in addressing climate change, even before drafting a new agreement, we already violate equity, one of the core principles of the Convention. We have only one year left to the COP-21 in Paris, where the world is expecting an answer in the form of a new climate Treaty. We were unable to give that answer in 2009 when we failed to reach an agreement in Copenhagen.

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, released last October, emphasizes once more that action is extremely urgent and highlights the risks of inaction. Let us work together for the common good rather than point at each other and pass responsibility to others. This requires the full, responsible and dedicated collaboration of all, according to their possibilities and circumstances.

Mr President,

Technical solutions are necessary, but not sufficient. We must also consider the central factor of education: education aimed at fostering a sense of responsibility in children and adults towards environmentally sound patterns of development, the stewardship of creation, and solidarity among people. The current lifestyle with its throwaway culture is unsustainable and should have no place in our lives. The Holy See is continuously making significant contributions in this regard. Worldwide, many Catholic educational institutions are engaged in promoting such education for environmental responsibility, which should be ever more deeply anchored in respect for “human ecology”. Moreover, Episcopal Conferences, dioceses, parishes and faith-based NGOs have been devoted to advocacy and management of ecological programs for a number of years.

The Holy See hopes that everyone will join in adopting an ambitious holistic approach to ensure the integral development of all persons, countries and creation itself. (OF THE UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE.)

As I explained to the European Parliament ten months ago, the time for action on climate change has long since passed. We must think globally and act locally. This is not a slogan. This must be a way of life, our way of action, our way of saving the very earth on which we live. The demands of national sovereignty must fall before the urgency of the situation that we face. More and more political power to act without politics must be given to international agencies such as the United Nations Framework for Climate Change, under whose auspices the annual climate change conferences will take place. Thus it is that the words that I addressed to the European Parliament last year are addressed to you here today in the Congress of the United States of America:

There is so much creative potential in Europe in the various fields of scientific research, some of which have yet to be fully explored. We need only think, for example, of alternative sources of energy, the development of which will assist in the protection of the environment.

Europe has always been in the vanguard of efforts to promote ecology. Our earth needs constant concern and attention. Each of us has a personal responsibility to care for creation, this precious gift which God has entrusted to us. This means, on the one hand, that nature is at our disposal, to enjoy and use properly. Yet it also means that we are not its masters. Stewards, but not masters. We need to love and respect nature, but “instead we are often guided by the pride of dominating, possessing, manipulating, exploiting; we do not ‘preserve’ the earth, we do not respect it, we do not consider it as a freely-given gift to look after”. Respect for the environment, however, means more than not destroying it; it also means using it for good purposes. I am thinking above all of the agricultural sector, which provides sustenance and nourishment to our human family. It is intolerable that millions of people around the world are dying of hunger while tons of food are discarded each day from our tables. Respect for nature also calls for recognizing that man himself is a fundamental part of it. Along with an environmental ecology, there is also need of that human ecology which consists in respect for the person, which I have wanted to emphasize in addressing you today. (Address to the European Parliament, 25 November 2014.)

As I wrote in my encyclical letter on climate change, God will never forgive us if we do not act to save the planet. You must be courageous enough to take strong and effective political action. Such action may require painful sacrifice on the part of your constituents. It is your duty to explain to them how they must be willing to live with less of this world’s goods and resources in order to help the global community fight climate change.

It is also long past time for the United States Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that was agreed to by Saint John Paul II in 1990 and that received the consistent endorsement of Pope Benedict XVI. The abuse and human trafficking of children must stop, and it can only stop if nations surrender their sovereignty in this area to the appropriate judicial authorities that exist under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Do not listen to alarmist voices. Follow the lead of the international community and put aside concerns that are based in fear and not reality.

There is a portrait of Saint Louis, King of France, on the wall of the gallery of this great legislative chamber. Saint Louis was a ruler who cared for the poor and the downtrodden, a true son of Saint Francis of Assisi as a Third Order Franciscan. I pray that you will have his humility to serve the poor and not the rich and the powerful, that you will take advance of this country’s long experience in practical ecumenism to engage in a politics of dialogue and encounter, not confrontation for the sake of political expediency and showmanship. And it is with this in mind that I encourage each of you, despite your political party affiliation, to cooperation with a modern day Saint Louis, President Barack Obama, and his administration to advance the goals of income equality, justice and full civil rights for the undocumented, freeing those who are imprisoned because of their race and helping him to protect the environment without which we do not take our next breath.

As Saint John Paul II noted in his Mass on Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, October 4, 1979, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi:

Human-Christian values are fostered when every effort is made so that no child anywhere in the world faces death because of lack of food, or faces a diminished intellectual and physical potential for want of sufficient nourishment, or has to bear all through life the scars of deprivation. Human-Christian values triumph when any system is reformed that authorizes the exploitation of any human being; when upright service and honesty in public servants is promoted; when the dispensing of justice is fair and the same for all; when responsible use is made of the material and energy resources of the world—resources that are meant for the benefit of all ; when the environment is preserved intact for the future generations. Human-Christian values triumph by subjecting political and economic considerations to human dignity, by making them serve the cause of man—every person created by God, every brother and sister redeemed by Christ. (Mass at the Logan Circle in Philadelphia (October 3, 1979.)

My message is nothing new. It is in perfect continuity with the magisterium of Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. My message is the message of the peoples of this earth, who cry out for justice after years of having their own natural resources exploited by the developed nations.

I will be praying for you, and I pray that you will pray for me as I ask your own blessing on my work as a missionary servant of the poor and the downtrodden as the Bishop of Rome.

May the Almighty shower down His blessings upon each of us in the challenging work that is ahead of us.

A few discordant notes were heard, however, after the putative “pontiff’s remarks, which received a standing ovation from Congressional Democrats as most Republicans stood and applauded tepidly. Speaker Boehner himself, although personally gracious to the old heretic from Argentina, was noticeably pale after the address.

A few groups of sedevacantists, people who believe that the See of Peter has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, and who do not accept the Second Vatican Council, the “renewed” liturgy and the authority of the postconciliar Petrine Ministers, did put aside their usual daily quarrels to band together to purchase full page advertisements in major national newspapers and to have billboards erected at various points off of Interstate 95 between New York, where “Pope” Francis was received enthusiastically by Timothy “Cardinal” Dolan, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio and ecumenical leaders such as Reverend Alfred Sharpton, and the nation’s capital.

Among the messages found in the advertisements and billboards are the following:

In August 1896 in Padua, the second Congress of the Catholic Union for Social Studies took place. We have already seen that this organization had been created seven years before by Professor Giuseppe Toniolo, in the presence of the Bishop of Mantua [Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto]. This time, eight bishops were present and several directors of the Opera del Congressi took part. All the eminent representatives of the Italian Catholic Movement were present (Medolago Pagnuzzi, Alessi and others). Cardinal Sarto's address attracted considerable notice. Faced with "ardent enemies" (unbelief and revolution) "...menacing and trying to destroy the social fabric," the Patriarch of Venice invited the participants to make Jesus Christ the foundation of their work: "the only peace treaty is the Gospel." He warned them against what is now called the "welfare state," the state which provides everything and provides all socialization: "substituting public almsgiving for private almsgiving involves the complete destruction of Christianity and it is a terrible attack on the principle of ownership. Christianity cannot exist without charity, and the difference between charity and justice is that justice may have recourse to laws and even to force, depending on the circumstances, whereas charity can only be imposed by the tribunal of God and of conscience." If public assistance and the redistribution of wealth are institutionalized, "poverty becomes a function, a way of life, a public trade..." (Yves Chiron, Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Translated by Graham Harrison. Angelus Press, 2002, p. 100.)

Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

120. If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account of changed conditions many things which were done by small associations in former times cannot be done now save by large associations. Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.

The supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the State will more freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone because it alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasion requires and necessity demands. Therefore, those in power should be sure that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, in observance of the principle of "subsidiary function," the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

JORGE MARIO BERGOLIO IS AN APOSTATE, AN ANTIPOPE, A FIGURE OF ANTICHRIST.

THE FIRST LAW OF THE CHURCH IS THE SALVATION OF SOULS.

We will have updates on the “pope’s” continuing visit to the United States of America throughout the day as political analysts assess the impact his address will have on the 2016 presidential election. Initially, of course, the address cannot but help former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton secure the votes of many Catholics despite her support of the chemical and surgical assassination of the innocent preborn, which received but perfunctory notice in “Papa” Bergoglio’s speech.

Stay tuned.

Back to the Present for an Afterword

Obviously, this is a parody, a very broad caricature of what will likely be a far more nuanced and less partisan address. However, I do think that the major themes that Bergoglio will explore in his address to Congress seven months, fifteen days from now are pretty accurate. Even though the putative speech and press report composed for this satirical look at the false “pontiff’s” upcoming visit to the United States is only a caricature, it is certainly the case that Jorge Mario Bergoglio will give aid and comfort to the naturalists of the false opposite of the “left” as he leaves the hapless members of the organized crime family on the naturalist “right” flummoxed as to how to respond in rhetorical, legislative and political terms.

Another thing that can be fairly certain is that Bergoglio’s emphasis on climate exchange to the exclusion of the salvation and sanctification of sous will indeed be a key feature of his address to Congress, and it will anger many “conservative” Catholics enough to join what the “new and improve” “resist while recognize” movement under the leadership of Raymond Leo “Cardinal” Burke if the latter carries through with his threat to “resist” Jorge should the latter approve the reception of what passes for Holy Communion in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service to those who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without a conciliar decree of nullity (see "I Will Resist" on Novus Ordo Watch Wire Blog.) Moreover, many “conservative” Protestants will be reaffirmed in their falsehoods about the Catholic Church, although they will be pleased with the “pope’s” assurance that he does not seek to convert them or the country.

What do we need?

Help from the Mother of God, to whom Saint Cyril of Alexandria was so dedicated:

The praises of Cyril of Alexandria have been celebrated not only by one writer or another, but have even been registered in the acts of the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. He was born of distinguished parents, and was the nephew of Theophilus, Pope of Alexandria. While he was still young he displayed marks of his excellent understanding. After giving a deep study to letters and science he betook himself to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, to be perfected in the Christian faith. After his return to Alexandria, and the death of Theophilus, he was raised to that see. In this office he kept ever before his eyes the type of the Shepherd of souls as it had been laid down by the Apostle; and by ever adhering thereto deservedly earned the glory of an holy Bishop.

Zeal for the salvation of souls was kindled in him, and he undertook all care to keep in the faith and in soundness of life the flock unto him committed, and to preserve them from the poisonous pastures of infidelity and heresy; hence, in accordance with the laws, he caused the followers of Novatus to be expelled from the city, and those Jews to be punished who had been induced by rage to plan a massacre of the Christians. His eminent care for the preservation of the Catholic faith pure and undenled shone forth especially in his controversy against Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who asserted that Jesus Christ had been born of the Virgin Mary as man only and not as God, and that the Godhead had been bestowed upon Him because of His merits. Cyril first attempted to convert Nestorius, but when he found this hopeless he denounced him to the Supreme Pontiff the holy Celestine.

As delegate of Pope Celestine, Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus where the Nestorian heresy was condemned; Nestorius deprived of his see; and the Catholic doctrine as to the unity of Person in Christ and the divine Motherhood of the glorious Virgin Mary was laid down amid the rejoicings of all the people, who escorted the bishops to their lodgings with a torch-light procession. For this reason Nestorius and his followers made Cyril the object of slanders, insults, and persecutions which he bore with profound patience, having all his care for the purity of the faith, and taking no heed to what the heretics might say or try against him. At length he died a holy death, in the year of salvation.  And of his own papacy the 32nd. After vast work for the Church of God, and leaving behind him divers writings directed either against heathens and heretics or to the exposition of the holy Scriptures and of Catholic doctrine, the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII. extended to the Universal Church the Office and Mass of this most eminent champion of the Catholic faith, and light of the Eastern Church. (Matins, The Divine Office, February 9.)

Our Lady promised us that her Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end. We simply need to be faithful to her Fatima Message, praying our Rosaries during this Sexagesima Week in preparation to make the best, most fruitful Lent of our lives in order to help make some small bit of reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Villanova, pray for us.

Saint Maurice and Companions