Catholic, Apostolic & Roman

December 2014

The Locust Project

THE EDITOR

One does not remain faithful, like the traditionalists..., to the letter. .... Our certainties can become a wall, a jail that imprisons the Holy Spirit.
- Cardinal Bergoglio, 30 Days, Nov. 2007
 

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. ... Those today who always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal 'security,' ...  - [their] faith becomes an ideology....
- Pope Bergoglio, America, 19/9/13
 

[One] temptation [is] to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) ... ; within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. ... it is the temptation of the ... so-called... "traditionalists" ... 

        - Pope Bergoglio, Extraordinary Synod, 18/10/14
 

 

Is it just our traditionalist 'infidelity' to the Holy Spirit? Our 'ideological' desire for doctrinal 'security'? Our 'temptation' to 'hostile inflexibility'? Or is this repetitive party line precisely as it appears: a purposeful neo-Modernist desire to demean and deconstruct the Faith of Our Fathers? A Bergoglian 'project'?

The rhetorical questions underline the obvious answer. From the outset of this pontificate, as thoroughly documented in these pages, we have endured one long, ruthless Bergoglian assault on all we hold dear (to include the papacy itself). And that being the case, why, on the first anniversary of his election, during a 5 March 2014 interview with Corriere della Sera, did Pope Francis dare to state:

"Last March [2013], I didn't have a project to change the Church"?

The Holy Spirit Made Me Do It!

Now, papolators need not panic or reach for a valium (— just yet: best wait till the end and take a handful of pills at once). I am not accusing the pope of bare-faced lying. In keeping with Modernist duplicity, it's more nuanced ('messier'?) than that.

In the first place, while feigning to 'listen' more than any pope in history, Francis talks so much that he does not hear himself! He does not detect, never mind evaluate, the hallmark pride of anti-dogmatic Modernism that resounds whenever he discusses Catholic Tradition and its upholders. Our opening quotations typify the tone: self-righteous, jarring, condescending. Among so many other examples, his mocking comments during a private audience with Latin American Religious leaders on 6 June 2013 exemplify the alien 'spirit' informing this pope:

There are some restorationist groups. ... And one feels as if one goes back 60 years! Before the Council... One feels in 1940... when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: "Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries." Why don't they say, 'we pray for you, we ask...', but this thing of counting…."

How often and unceremoniously the threadbare veil of humility and charity has fallen to reveal Jorge's unsmiling face! And it must be said that if "these groups" take him back "60 years", his reaction is much older still; ancient, in fact. The dominant Arian heretics of the fourth century also hurled pejoratives like "intransigent" and "traditionalist" against Catholics who would not accept any compromise whatsoever in respect of the Faith received from their Fathers. Saint Athanasius was even excommunicated by Pope Liberius, who argued that Athanasius was not in communion with the Oriental bishops, most of whom were heretics or semi-heretics. Badly misled and mistaken, at least Liberius could point to mitigating pressures.  Not so his current successor, who revels in replicating the Arian injustice lamented by St. Basil the Great:

Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to
the desert (Ep. 243).

As for the endless Bergoglian contradictions and departures from the Faith which we have repeatedly raised, Louis Verrecchio explained in the August-September number that Francis plainly lacks the Catholicity to assess his own heretical trajectory. The Personalist school is his benchmark. He knows no other theological, philosophical or sociological reference point. Formed and steeped in the anti-Scholasticism of Paul VI, Cardinals Martini and de Lubac, Father Luigi Giussani, et. al., he is oblivious to the viral project he embodies and carries. Like most of his collegial contemporaries, in other words, his workaday orientation is that ecclesiastical disorientation perceived by Sister Lucia. A malady Paul VI put down to the "smoke of satan" within the Church having cultivated "non-Catholic thinking within Catholicism." 

In light of this subjective Modernist inversion of objective Catholic reality, therefore, one cannot state that the pope's denial of his Modernist agenda is a lie per se. True, the rebellious programme has been ever more aggressively touted by the rebels since they commandeered the Council half a century ago. Indeed the recent Synod was just the latest confirmation of their proud boast of overseeing a "1789"-style revolution. Yet even though he himself orchestrated this latest rebellious exercise, as one trained to see 'no ideologues to the theological left,' Pope Francis genuinely believes he is not pursuing an ideological project of moral and doctrinal deconstruction by pastoral means. To his disoriented mind, he is merely a providential overseer of a heavenly project.

The Holy Spirit is the perennial scapegoat for Modernist wreckers. John XXIII famously attributed his calling of the Catastrophic Council to a Divine impulse ("the idea kept returning ... It became more and more compelling. ... In the end I said to myself, 'This cannot be the devil, it must be the Holy Spirit inspiring me'." — see "Vatican II - Inspired by God?", April 2014). Reflexively, Pope Francis plays the same card.

During the March Corriere della Sera interview in which he denied harbouring revolutionary designs (contradicted by one of his own confidants, as we shall see), the pope was asked about the forthcoming October Synod. "Great newness is expected" (in respect of divorcees), enthused the interviewer. Francis replied:

It is a long path that the Church must complete. A process wanted by the Lord. Three months after my election the themes for the Synod were placed before me. It was proposed that we discuss what is the contribution of Jesus to contemporary man. But in the end with gradual steps — which for me are signs of the will of God — it was chosen to discuss the family, ....

Once again, that overarching alternative discussion about "the contribution of Jesus to contemporary man" was passed over; a Synod on the Social Kingship of Christ avoided at all costs! In any event, just as John XXIII felt 'inspired' to call a Council despite the spectre of resurgent Modernism, so Pope Francis felt called to convoke a Synod on the Family in full knowledge of the nefarious designs of clerical sodomites, and Cardinal Kasper's corrupting influence. Like Pope John, the idea that he might be tempting God in such unfavourable circumstances did not strike Francis. But the ungodly scheming that defined both assemblies speaks to the unholy 'spirit' behind the respective 'inspirations.' Apropos the Synod, Cardinal Burke for one is in no doubt.

Informing Il Foglio on 13 October that the work of the Synod was being "manipulated", Burke stated that the (just released) interim report "speaks only of the need for the Church being open to the needs of the world set out in February by Cardinal Kasper. In fact, his argument on the themes of family, and a new framework for communion for divorced and remarried is not new, it has already been discussed decades ago. Then [the] February [Consistory] happened and was culpably allowed to grow. But all this has to stop because it causes serious harm to the Faith."

His Eminence also pointed to the fundamental impropriety of the pope manipulating events at such a gathering, instead of letting things take their transparent course. Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Burke said that if Pope Francis had selected certain cardinals to steer the meeting to advance his personal views on matters like divorce and the treatment of homosexuals, he would not be observing his mandate as the leader of the Catholic Church: "According to my understanding of the Church’s teaching and discipline, no, it wouldn’t be correct," he affirmed.

In this respect, and not for the first time, Francis disgraced himself and his sacred office. For instance, on a daily basis he exchanged furtive messages with Cardinal Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod. Scribbled on scraps of paper passed back and forth, these communications increased as episcopal resistance to his agenda became more apparent. "The series of messages convey the impression that the Pope is giving instructions to the Synod Secretary," noted the Eponymous Flower blogspot, referencing a report by journalist Marco Tossati. "The exchange could not be hidden from the attentive synod participants. Especially not during the remarks given by Cardinal Burke and Müller [defending orthodoxy], as an attack on the Church's teaching on marriage was in the air. It is known that Pope Francis has placed people loyal to him at all strategic positions of the Bishops' Synod. This includes Cardinal Baldisseri and Archbishop Forte to name just two." (It was the Italian Forte, from Chieti, who stitched up the interim report; presenting his own depraved views, on the need to cherish sexual deviants, as the mind of the entire Synod.)  

Even more glaring papal interference in the synodical process followed the bishops' choice of several 'conservatives', including Cardinal Burke, to oversee the group reports leading to the composition of the final report. In response, Francis promptly and personally appointed ad hoc, six other renowned liberal prelates to offset the orthodox influence. According to the website of the Portuguese Bishops' Conference, "The Pope, who never spoke but heard everything that was spoken in the Synod Hall, named, without anyone having foreseen it, six persons to strengthen the committee that should write the Synod report [Relatio Synodi].  The fact is worrying those who want to maintain the current discipline of the Church regarding these issues, considering that all the persons named by the Pope are of a liberal tendency."

For his strong, truthful, Pauline denunciations, which he has admirably offered ever since March 2013, and the clear threat he poses to the papal 'vision', Cardinal Burke has been demoted and banished. Yet many cardinals, bishops and priests voice the same fears. Cardinal Pell said what transpired was only the tip of a degenerate liberal iceberg revealing a Trojan horse in the Church. Cardinal Athanasius Schneider spoke of "dishonesty, infidelity and betrayal," referring to bishops supportive of Holy Communion for divorced-remarried as "the new Pharisees and Scribes" who will pay a dreadful price at Judgement. In a hard-hitting interview with Poland's Polonia Christiana of 5 November, he declared that

During the Synod there had been moments of obvious manipulation on the part of some clerics who held key positions in the editorial and governing structure of the Synod. The interim report (Relatio post disceptationem) was clearly a prefabricated text with no reference to the actual statements of the Synod fathers. In the sections on homosexuality, sexuality and “divorced and remarried” with their admittance to the sacraments the text represents a radical neo-pagan ideology. This is the first time in Church history that such a heterodox text was actually published as a document of an official meeting of Catholic bishops under the guidance of a pope, even though the text only had a preliminary character. [My emphases.]

Polish Archbishop Gądecki of Poznań was another grace-filled voice breaking ranks to amplify Cardinal Burke's concerns. Even Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa, an unlikely ally [see "The Serpent and the Fox," Aug/Sept 2004], denounced the unspeakable goings on, confirming that the draft report was presented as the opinion of the whole Synod, when it was "one or two people." And that, he added, "made people very angry."

Very angry? Really? Like everything else, postconciliar "anger" is a mere shadow of the Catholic original! Given the physical tempest occasioned by Our Lord in response to sacrilegious trading in His Temple [Matt. 21:11-13], from the moment the curial sodomites elbowed their sin that cries to heaven onto the pre-Synod questionnaire with papal blessing, one can imagine the fury of our authentic guide and inspiration; the Spirit of truth. That Force 10 Pentecostal winds did not obliterate St Peter's and wipe Vatican City from the face of the earth, notably on release of the interim report, is startling testimony to Divine forbearance: to the powerful intercession of the saints, and the restraining influence of our Heavenly Mother and Queen of all saints.

Unfortunately, none of these supposedly angry whistleblowers drew attention to the most telling and treacherous revelation of all: the La Stampa report of 20 September 2014 in which the point of the whole exercise — the manipulation of the Synod for Modernist ends — was exposed. Planned before it was even announced and carried out studiously thereafter, the boastful prelate who revealed the synodical strategy is one of Jorge's inner circle, and said to be very influential in his election (see pp. 26-27).

Was collegial reluctance to publicise this treachery down to the papal connection? It hardly matters. Unconcerned that his Fabian-like stealth revolution has been announced by one of his coterie; undeterred by the criticism he earns; oblivious to the scandal he gives — Francis simply demurs, appealing to a Higher Guide. "We can 'thwart' God’s dream if we fail to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit," he said at the outset of the Synod. "The Spirit gives us that wisdom which surpasses knowledge, and enables us to work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity."

Repeating his mantra at Synod's end, he concluded with a hearty exhortation for one and all "to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit)."

The 'Anti-spirit' of Skulduggery, Compromise & Betrayal

Never mind our surprise! Like Cardinal Burke, I'm sure the Holy Spirit Himself was quite surprised, not to say righteously enraged, by the pope "culpably" fostering "serious harm to the Faith" by including Communion for the adulterous and perverse 'relationships' in familial deliberations.

Even to allude that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity 'guided' the pope in all 'wisdom' and 'humble creativity' to accommodate the interests of curial perverts — merely to intimate that it was not the disoriented spirit of Francis but the Holy Spirit who 'surprised' us with sodomitical acquiescence and accommodation — is to drag "diabolical disorientation" and "non-Catholic thinking within Catholicism" to new subterranean pits.

Why mince words? The plain facts are these:

To avoid the treacherous odour, neocons reach for their nose-pegs. But I insist we suck it up! With purveyors of Modernist Deception and Falsehood so brazenly arrayed against Catholic Truth and Transparency, it is essential to depict the stark reality; to state the honest case bluntly. "Let us call this Synod what it is," wrote Chris Ferrara at the outset of the jamboree,

a secretive, manipulated, progressive-dominated cabal, led by septuagenarian and octogenarian diehards of the conciliar 'renewal,' who are rushing to finish their 'work' — so rudely interrupted by Pope Benedict — lest death release the Church from their clutches before they are quite done.

Beneath all the bishops’ and cardinals’ blather about "mercy," "graduality," "new ways of accompaniment," and their newly discovered imaginary divide between the doctrinal and the pastoral, beneath the Pope’s own blather about perceiving the "rhythm of our time and the scent of the men of today" — when has a Roman Pontiff ever uttered such nonsense? — we will find the real theme of the Secret Synod as expounded by its leaders. And the theme could not be simpler: Let us compromise on everything. Everything, that is, on which they have not already compromised.

Juxtaposed against such plain speaking was the dominant narrative fed to the masses: about the new and liberating 'transparency,' 'openness,' 'honesty' and 'freedom of expression' that allegedly pervaded and defined the Synod. "This time," La Stampa duly exalted, "no one’s opinions were muffled. All different stances emerged clearly after Francis invited Synod fathers to express themselves freely and fearlessly, without feeling that they needed to please the Pope." Ferrara cut this propaganda to shreds:

[...] Stranger to nuance that he is, Francis has revealed, with supreme condescension, the ideological essence of the Secret Synod: that the Pope and the Modernist cabal he has handpicked are adversaries of the few remaining conservative bishops, who have been allowed to speak (but only in presentations submitted in advance) because it "pleases" Francis to allow this "debate," which will not, of course, deter him from doing whatever he plans to do—in all humility.

On and on the Secret Synod drones, led by the Pope, his German progressivist shock troops, and reliably liberal prelates from throughout the vast realm of post-conciliar apostasy. Take Cardinal Wuerl, for example. Speaking outside the Synod Hall, he now calls openly for a "graduality" that would allow all manner of objective mortal sinners to receive Holy Communion while they think about whether they might, someday, obey the Church’s teaching on marriage and procreation (as if the generality of clergy even bother to mention it any longer).

"The reception of Communion is not a doctrine or position, it’s a pastoral application of the doctrine of the Church," says Wuerl in soothingly pastoral tones. The old smoothie is trying to deceive us. The requirement that one conscious of mortal sin abstain from the Blessed Sacrament is no mere "pastoral application" of doctrine, but rather a revealed truth at the foundation of our religion: "Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27-29)."

But then Wuerl’s deception merely exemplifies the deception that is the Secret Synod itself. It is impossible to take seriously "pastoral reflections on the family" by a group of Modernist subversives who have either failed to uphold or openly undermined the Church’s moral teaching, including that protector of priestly predators of altar boys, Cardinal Daneels, outrageously appointed a "Synod Father" by the will of Francis, and that infamous ecclesiastical termite, Cardinal Kasper, suddenly elevated to high prominence at age 80 by none other than Francis. We are asked to believe the ludicrous cover story that the Secret Synod was urgently needed to address “pastoral challenges” that did not exist a mere 33 years ago, when John Paul II insisted upon the Church’s perennial discipline, required by the revealed truth on the indissolubility of marriage:

[T]he Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist.

Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage. (Familiaris consortio, n. 84).

"The faithful would be led into error and confusion" if the divorced and "remarried" were admitted to Holy Communion. Thus taught the very Pope that Francis has canonized. Yet that very teaching is now under attack at the Secret Synod by a cabal that appears determined precisely to lead the faithful into error and confusion, while leaving those who have already apostatized in their darkness. The aim of the Secret Synod is nothing less than a "pastoral" institutionalization of mortal sin in the Church. What else could its aim be, given its declared refusal to repeat and reaffirm what the Church has always taught about adultery and other sins of impurity? Why would the members of the Secret Synod (the conservative minority aside) meet for any purpose other than to affirm their own longstanding defection in practice from the moral teaching they will mendaciously affirm in principle?

Pope Francis, said Cardinal Baldisseri, the Secret Synod’s Secretary, "wants to open a door that has so far remained shut." Shut, that is, for 2,000 years; shut even during the reign of John Paul "the Great," who apparently was not quite great enough to merit the coming prodigy of divine illumination that announces the reversal of his own teaching. The Church used to inform sexuality, but now, at the Secret Synod, sexuality informs the Church, the inversion of the proper order of things being a sure sign of diabolical influence. The Secret Synod is in the grip of madness.

Whatever Francis’s subjective intention may be, let us not shrink from recognizing the "door" he has opened for what it is: a portal into the pit of Hell. In the interview with the liberal Jesuit magazine America, the liberal Jesuit Francis delighted the world when he declared: "We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel." As the moral edifice of the Church threatens to fall like a house of cards under the Secret Synod’s onslaught, we are reminded of how often Francis’s accusations against others apply precisely to him.

["The Secret Synod Freak Show, Brought to You by Pope Francis," The Remnant, 9/10/14]

If at this advanced stage of our civil war we baulk at such frankness — at calling things by their name — we risk sliding into the damnable lukewarmness of the Reasonable Men; those with pretensions to orthodoxy who have meekly acquiesced in the Modernist programme for fifty years, ever smug in the knowledge that the gates of Hell will not prevail.

Well, yes, the Holy Ghost has protected de fide Catholic doctrine and morals despite a few wayward popes, and the worst efforts of many more wicked prelates and priests through our long history. And He always will, as Christ Our Lord promised [Jn 16:13; 15:16; 14:17]. No faithful Catholic disputes the fact. But He did not propose the Divine guarantee as a green light for minimalistic and insipid neo-conservatism; the blithe abandonment our holy Faith to last-minute rescue jobs, with untold cost to souls.

So: where is the outrage? For two thousand years the Church managed to tend the wounds of sinful humanity without treating the abnormal, perverted and false as normal, wholesome and true. Now we fold like deck chairs on the Titanic before the heirs of the same Lavender Mob that threatened Abraham's nephew. If Lot did not back down before the threats and violence of the original "men of Sodom," who tried to kick his door down in a bid to rape his guests [Gen. 19: 4-10], why have we opened wide the door to euphemistic "gays" harbouring the same sodomitical lust? Until very recently, seeking to tailor the Faith to their sins ('pastorally', of course) was unthinkable. In the Catholic world, where mercy is inseparable from truth ("Mercy and truth go before him" - Ps 88:15), it still is. In the Vatican Neverland, however, that world is now viewed as passé. Unrealistic. Insufficiently pragmatic. A rigid, legalistic obstacle to embracing the sinner and his sin.

Neon signs have been flashing wildly all along the broad road to this accommodation. Like the pope's protection of sodomite Mgr Ricca; his embrace of proudly unrepentant sodomitical activist Fr De Paolis (after concelebrating Holy Mass with him!); and the contracting of renowned corporate promoters of sodomy to effect Vatican structural and financial reforms. So many brazen nods and winks, all flagging the Extraordinary General Assembly. A Synod not called in order to draw global attention to homosexual disease, death, and dysfunction of every kind (to include the abuse and rape of children by a rampant homo subset). Nor to address the "gay" threat to freedom of speech and conscience. But rather, to consider homosexuality in the context of Pastoral Challenges to the Family!

If the intent was not obvious enough, consider one of the couples invited to address the Synod.

Notorious Down Under for their obsessive sexual prattle, and consequent corrupting influence on a generation of Aussies who have passed through their "Marriage Encounter Movement" and/or "Antioch Youth Movement", Ron and Mavis Pirola of Sydney preached sodomitical acceptance. Ferrara again:

Of course the Secret Synod is not so secret when its leaders wish the media to know of the most recent progressivist intervention in the Synod Hall, pregnant with the promise of radical change. Hence, for example, the worldwide media were delighted to convey the address of a laughably oversexed septuagenarian couple, unencumbered by any sense of shame, who boasted of their 57-year-long sex life, including "the telephone calls and love notes, the… outward expressions of our longing to be intimate with each other," because "marriage is a sexual sacrament with its fullest expression in sexual intercourse."  Marriage is a sexual sacrament? Such is the product of John Paul II’s impenetrable "theology of the body," which he left assorted lay commentators to "unpack" like a suitcase full of naughty lingerie.

The same pair of kooks lauded the example of another family in welcoming their "gay" son and his "gay partner" to the family’s Christmas celebration, exposing their own grandchildren to the scandal of their son’s perversion: "They fully believed in the church’s teachings and they knew their grandchildren would see them welcome the son and his partner into the family. Their response could be summed up in three words: 'He’s our son'." Cardinal Nichols told the press "the synod gave them a round of applause." No doubt there were tears in a considerable number of episcopal eyes.

Cheap sentiment must trump morality and reason. That is the "pastoral" leit motif of the Secret Synod. In vain did the London-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children protest that "The homosexual agenda is forcing its way into schools, universities, workplaces and sports clubs. The last thing families and parishes need is for church leaders to tell them to welcome homosexual couples." But the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children was not invited to the Secret Synod, which according to Francis was convened to hear "the cry of the people" — but only certain people, whose "cries" were rehearsed and approved in advance in the manner of all revolutionary assemblies.

Pornifying Bethlehem: Adulterating Nazareth

It hardly matters that the toxic interim report was detoxified: cleansed of its insane passages about "accepting and valuing" a "sexual orientation" towards sodomy by perverts who have "gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community." Naturally, this detox irked the interdependent Fifth Columns: the "wolves" and the "filth" famously decried by Pope Benedict. Archbishop Nichols, for one, said the final wording "did not go far enough" to accommodate the sons and daughters of Sodom, insisting that  much stronger language was needed to "respect, welcome and value" their (short and brutal!) relationships. His Modernist dissatisfaction, however, is deceptive. As Maike Hickson explains herein, despite its vaunted orthodoxy, the content of the final report is more problematic than it appears. She also highlights the wafer-thin voting margins between a passably Catholic outcome and a flagrantly Modernist one. 

Rather than take cold comfort in this hollow victory, we should pause for a moment, consider the magnitude of what we have revealed thus far, and readdress some elementary questions:

Why were anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-life 'same sex (read sodomitic) relationships' introduced for discussion at all? With so many other matters infinitely more worthy of deliberation, why was the  corrupting agenda of an infinitesimally small constituency addicted to unnatural vice included in a programme pertaining to familial truth and goodness? Why was there not a fierce and prolonged outcry from the vast majority of decent neo-conservative prelates the moment the idea was broached?

Does it not reflect, in the most striking manner, the degenerate state of hierarchical play documented by Fr Dariusz Oko: bishops personally and collectively compromised and corrupted by homo-heresy and homo-ideology? Episcopates forever pushed around by the small, tireless, influential homo-lobby? In this case by a handful of deviants and fellow travellers who hijacked the synodical process, before presenting the world with their own interim report dressed up as episcopal consensus (— perhaps the boldest liberal manoeuvre since the first session of Vatican II, when Cardinal Lienart illicitly seized the microphone in order to secure the voting delay that allowed the Modernist cabal to take control of the Council, and so the Church).

At the same time, does not the Pope's orchestration of this 'mess' confirm the abyssal quantum leap we have made in just two-and-a-half years since Fr Oko wrote his essay? In June 2012 he could truly title it: With the Pope Against the Homo-Heresy. Would he not have to drastically rework that heading today; to reflect the about-face so brazenly effected by Benedict's successor? 

And how to explain the complicit retention of a sodomitic section in the final report? Was it cowardice? A desire to avoid more public spats and divisions? Papolatry? The prospect of papal reprisal and isolation à la Burke for breaking ranks? Or was it fear of the homo-mafia that caused the 'good guys' to act as if cleaning up the interim report redressed their intitial failure: to prevent the shoehorning of a crime against God and nature into deliberations in the first place?

Moreover, since it is now de rigueur to speak of homosexual "unions" and "couples" (semantic deceptions covering over sodomitic instability and promiscuity), what are we to make of interim and final reports all but cleansed of the words "mother" and "father", and not once used in workaday familialcontext on the few occasions they appear (see pp. 36-37)? 

Before all that: where were the spontaneous, loud, Christ-like episcopal protests decrying the pollution of the Nativity; the pornification of Bethlehem; the adulteration of Nazareth? For that, in essence, is what transpired.

"What fills me with dread," wrote Fr Ray Blake of Brighton on 16 October, "is the feeling that really what Pope Francis wants is for the Church to get into a civil partnership with contemporary society to the point where it loses sight of the One to Whom it supposed to be 'the bride'. It is adultery in its broadest sense that worries me. Rather than the Gospel challenging 'this adulterous generation' the leaders of the Church seem to be dancing the tango with Salome and calling out for John the Baptist's head with Herodias."

A week later, American Fr Peter Carr shared the dread:

In the document from the Extraordinary Synod on the family there is nothing about the reality of judgment for those who die in the state of mortal sin nor is there more than a passing reference to our call to sanctity through Baptism.  Instead what do we have?

Cardinal Erdo says the document calls for a "new sensitivity in the pastoral care of today consists in grasping the positive reality of civil marriages and … cohabitation … In such unions it is possible to grasp authentic family values or at least the wish for them." The document also states that many bishops favor allowing divorced Catholics who are married outside the Church to receive Holy Communion on "a case by case basis."

So for some of the bishops of the Synod, fornication and adultery can be part of relationships that include "authentic family values."

Against such clear-eyed Catholic understanding, stands a cataractous pontiff and his crowing Modernist clique. 

Project Locust

"The doors are open — wider than they have ever been since the Second Vatican Council," Germany's Rheinhard Cardinal Marx told Die Zeit. "The synod debates were just a starting point. Francis wants to get things moving, to push processes forward. The real work is about to begin."
Denying reports to the contrary, Marx said the "progressive" group at the Synod had not suffered any setbacks, nor will Francis allow that to happen. "Anyone who comes to that conclusion has not had their eye on what has been going on in our church over the past one and a half years," he said. "This pope knows exactly what he is doing, let no one doubt that. Francis wants us to move. His frequent use of the word avanti – ‘get moving’ – is ample proof of that."

Marx then played the old 'get out of jail free' card: the all-singing, all-dancing, all-rationalising "spirit" of "surprise."

"In a reform process, whoever divides people into superiors and inferiors prevents us from being infected and surprised by the Holy Spirit," he insisted, parroting his boss. 

Again, it is not about us being surprised by God. It is about the Holy Spirit being surprised and angered by His Church, His Spotless Bride, preaching false mercy that facilitates filth and sin.

"It’s not a case of throwing opponents," added Marx with a straight face. "Whoever abuses a new beginning in the church in order to organise majorities for their own camp has not understood the spirit of this pope."

Au contraire, Eminence! After 50 heretical years, we understand that anti-spirit very well. And your collegial opponents in the other "camp" finally understand it much better, too.

Elsewhere, wearing his born-to-rule Modernism like a uniform, Comrade Cardinal Kasper continued to press the party line, lecturing the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna on "The keeping of the ecclesiological and ecumenical vision of Pope Francis."

It was 15 October. The malignant interim report had been released a few days earlier. But in case the anti-spirit at work back in Rome was not clear enough, he assured his liberal audience that "The spirit of the Council is blowing  in the Synod."

Despite Cardinal Muller, the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, having damned the interim report as "undignified, shameful, completely wrong," Kasper offered it as an example of the "confidence, joy and freedom" reigning at the  Synod! "Francis seizes the original message of the Church and its mission from the past," he exalted; failing to add that the familial message and mission of Bethlehem had been seized in order to be perverted!

Against his inglorious optimism, Kasper condemned a contrary pessimistic mood evoked by Cardinal Burke & Co., which accuses the pope of initiating a rupture. The Holy Father, he countered, is "God's gift to the Church and this time." And not just for this time, it seems. According to a report by the Katholische Austria Press Agency:

The reform program, which Pope Francis had decreed was a "100 YEAR PROGRAM", said Kasper, since it  concerns all dimensions of being church in the attitude of every Christian. Thus, the current choices ... , according to Kasper, are also far beyond the pontificate of Francis; the success of the Pope [...] therefore depends on whether we will be able to bring the awakening spirit to life in future pontificates.

Let us at least give Kasper credit for openly admitting the obvious programme of deconstruction that Francis denies against all the shocking daily evidence; both visible and anecdotal. Apropos the latter, consider this 5 November 2014 post on the Argentinian blog Caminante-Wanderer, said by Rorate Caeli to be "extremely well-informed in local (now universal) matters." It concerns a meeting in Argentina (all emphases mine):

A discussion in which over ten Argentinian and Chilean priests take part. There are moderate progressives, not very bright progressives, and not very bright neoconservatives. All of them with doctorates, and professors in important theology schools.

One of them reads [aloud] an e-mail message that has just arrived. He says, "Father X (he names a well-known Argentinian canon lawyer who is in the Roman Rota [Rorate note: the Pope named Fr Alejandro Bunge auditor of the Rota in April 2013]) tells me that Francis created on September 20, BEFORE the Synod, a commission of canon lawyers to set up a procedure in order to speed up the processes of matrimonial nullity." Someone says, "Were they expecting the resistance of the conservatives during the Synod?" "Yes, of course it was expected," he answers. "It will be hard. The problem is that those who advise the Pope are doing things wrongly. They will move towards a change in the pastoral practice, leaving doctrine as it is. And what must be done is to change doctrine because, if it is not changed, in three hundred or four hundred years they could move everything backwards."

Third Episode: the same discussion, somewhat later. Who speaks now is a priest with regular, or rather, daily, contact with the Holy Father. "The last thing he told me before I came was to pray so that he can effect profound and definitive changes in the Church in such a way that they can never again be modified."

Hmm. Sounds very familiar...? Oh, that's right! It's the phantom project Walter Kasper boasts but Jorge Bergoglio refuses to concede. Whereas the former is thinking long-term, however, the latter could simply go for broke.

In America's The Week of 31 October, Damon Linker is quoted as saying that the pope knows he lacks the support to liberalise Church doctrine on homosexuality, "gay marriage" and divorce so "he's decided on a course of stealth reform." Like Kasper, Linker says the seeds of change he's sowing today are meant to flower "a generation or two from now."

Commentator Robert Mauro responded: "I strongly disagree with this! I think the Pope and his fellow pro-homosexual Jesuits will go for the victory one year from now at the October 2015 Synod. Accepting homosexuality in the Church will be their main objective during the next 12 months." He elaborates:

The strongly pro- homosexual U.S.  Jesuit  priest Father Martin, an editor of the strongly pro-homosexual Jesuit magazine America, has closely collaborated with pro-homosexual Jesuit Pope Francis, in the past. Right after Pope Francis made his notorious "Who Am I To Judge?" comments favorable to homosexuals during an airplane press conference, Father Martin, SJ, issued a YouTube video entitled "Who Are We to Judge?" highly favorable to homosexuals. This helped mostly  Democratic pro-homosexual state legislators to pass "homosexual marriage" laws in several Democratic state legislatures. Then Father Martin, SJ, joined Pope Francis in a book primarily written by Pope Francis over a year ago. Two other pro-homosexual Jesuits along with Father Martin contributed to this book by Francis over a year ago, one of them was affiliated with Civilta Cattolica, the pro-homosexual magazine — Father Spodaro, SJ. Fr Spodaro was also at the recent Synod. He almost certainly cast pro-homosexual votes there. The other Jesuit was another pro-homosexual Jesuit editor of the U.S. Magazine, America.

Many of the pro-homosexual men who voted at the Synod consisted to a great extent of "gay lobby" cardinals and archbishops at the curia who had an automatic vote at the Synod along with the pope's hand-picked pro-homosexual cardinals such as DOLAN and WUERL from the U.S., and pro-homosexual cardinals from other nations. Francis was given a list of the "gay lobby" cardinals and archbishops at the curia by Pope Benedict when he left office. Benedict had appointed a group of three trusted Prelates to investigate claims of a "gay lobby" at the Vatican. The investigation revealed there was a "gay lobby" at the Vatican. Francis admitted there was a "gay lobby" behind closed doors to tourists who revealed his comments.

But Francis did not purge the "gay lobby" cardinals. They were sure votes at the Synod for his "pro-homosexual" policies. Why would he purge them? The Pope and the "Gay Lobby" Cardinals and Archbishops were on the same page: they all favored a homosexualized Catholic Church.

Clearly, Francis presumed he would carry the day through his selected cardinals. That is why he felt no need to declare himself and shoulder the blame. Yet as Cardinal Burke publicly stated, simply not stating "openly what his position is," has already "done a lot of harm." Moreover, by selecting Kasper to open the Synod, reported BuzzFeed News, "Burke said the Pope had given the impression that he endorses some of the most controversial parts of the Relatio, especially on questions of divorce. 'The pope, more than anyone else as the pastor of the universal church, is bound to serve the truth,' Burke said. 'The pope is not free to change the Church’s teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts or the indissolubility of marriage or any other doctrine of the faith'."

True. But it won't stop him trying. Indeed his programme is already in full swing. In the wake of the Synod, veteran British Modernist Clifford Longley truly opined: "in my view the very fact of discussing these things, changes them."Nor did this kindred spirit of our papal Jesuit exaggerate in pointing out that "Everyone now knows that a substantial proportion of the Church's international leadership thinks that gay and lesbian Catholics should be welcomed into the life of the church, and that their relationships — and we're not just talking about platonic friendships here — should be valued. Two years ago such progress would surely have been unthinkable. Similarly we know that a majority of church leaders think divorced Catholics who marry again should not automatically be barred from participating in the sacraments."

Longley is half right. While this hellish Modernist vision is hardly "progress," it was "unthinkable." Yet the resurgent postconciliar wind is firmly behind the pope's furious sowing of seeds of moral and doctrinal "change", carrying them to the four corners of the earth; like the locusts of the Apocalypse:

And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit: and the smoke of the pit arose, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke of the pit. And from the smoke of the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power: And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree: but only the men who have not the sign of God on their foreheads. And it was given unto them that they should not kill them; but that they should torment them five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. (Rev. 9:1-5)

This evocative passage captures our parlous state, rammed home so ferociously at the Synod. As the Douay Rheims explains, the falling "star" may mean "the fall and apostasy of great and learned men from the true faith. Or a whole nation falling into error and separating from the Church, not having the sign of God on their foreheads." While "The key of the bottomless pit" given to the "fifth angel" was the power given to the angel, signified by a key, "of opening hell." As for the locusts:

These may be devils in Antichrist's time, having the appearance of locusts, but large and monstrous, as here described. Or they may be real locusts, but of an extraordinary size and monstrous shape, such as were never before seen on earth, sent to torment those who have not the sign (or seal) of God on their foreheads. Some commentators by these locusts understand heretics, and especially those heretics, that... denied the divinity of Jesus Christ; as ...  Arius. These were great enemies of the Christian religion; they tormented and infected the souls of men, stinging them like scorpions, with the poison of their heresies.

Since the June/July ("Kasper Apostasy") edition we have hammered this implicit neo-Arian denial of the divinity of Christ. The lies, dissembling and self-interest at play before, during and after the Synod, to include the escalating damage to come as liberal locusts thereby unleashed take flight to infect and sting ever more "souls of men with the poison of their heresies" — everything flows from the neo-Modernist secularisation of Christ, and in consequence His Church and its teachings.

We should not be at all surprised, then, that the man papally assigned a central role in Project Locust is a neo-Arian. Since I have been fiercely rebuked by one of Cardinal Kasper's admirers for making this charge without possessing the requisite erudition and quals (as if a baptismal certificate, a Catechism, and literacy were not sufficient to judge material heresy), let a pre-eminent cleric with many letters after his name, and thoroughly acquainted with the Cardinal's theology, do so for me. 

In the summer of 1991-92, commentaries on the Final Draft of the New Catechism of the Catholic Church were pouring in to the Vatican from bishops around the world. Early one evening, then-Father Walter Kasper's eagerly awaited contribution arrived. The person sitting next to Cardinal Ratzinger at the table — at the time a recent (distinguished) convert, and already profoundly affected and shaken by the non-Catholic commentaries sent in by the bishops — recounted how excited the group were (Ratzinger included!) to read Fr Kasper's critique. Apprised of this, Father John Hardon, the late Jesuit scholar renowned for his knowledge, wisdom and sanctity, could not contain his righteous anger, crying out intensely before his close friend Dr. Robert Hickson: "Walter Kasper does not even believe in the Incarnation!" Shortly after, he repeated the same charge with the same intensity in the same words. Another layman also witnessed this explosion. 

On more than one occasion, referring to the final (French) draft of the Catechism, Fr Hardon also insisted to Dr Hickson: "We are witnessing a massive effort to re-make our historic Faith." I suggest to Complicit Kasperites and Naive Neocons that this exemplary priest — of towering intellect and purity of soul, whose cause for canonisation is proceeding — would know! Just as he knew that Kasper was representative; merely the visible tip of the agitating neo-Arian iceberg exposed by Pius X a century ago, in Pascendi:  

... the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, ... many...  belong to the ... ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, ... thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; ... not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.

The following exchange on Italy's traditional website Riscossa Cristiana, between a reader and journalist Alessandro Gnocchi, reveals the extent of this apostasy and its "partisans": 

Dear Dr. Gnocchi: [Apropos] the voting results of the Synod with respect to the two principle topics that were debated:  admission to the Sacraments of those divorced and remarried: 104 in favour, 74 not in favour; with respect to gay unions: 118 placet and 62 non placet. That signifies that the majority of two-thirds that was called for as a basis for specific passages to be considered as “the expression of the Synod” was not there. But this also shows that we came close to that two thirds majority…. How can a bishop of the Church, even those who voted against, think that he could put truth to a vote, that truth of which  he is the custodian, defender, witness and guarantor? Why did they arrogate to themselves the right to decide by voting what is good and what is bad, not caring at all about God?... Fabio Baioni

Dear Baioni: Among your observations, there is one that shows the reality of the situation in a dramatic and acute way:  more than half of the bishops present at the Synod, not yet the two-thirds needed but almost, have already switched (what we know as our) religion. Perhaps it still has something vaguely Christian, but it is far away from being Catholic. We find ourselves confronting a Synod in which the majority of Cardinals and Bishops threw at least three Sacraments overboard:  Matrimony, Confession, and the Eucharist.  Church history teaches us that schisms have been consumed by much less. The dramatic point is in the fact that there are Bishops and Cardinals who are in substance schismatics in playing out their roles, with no sense of contradiction, in response to the pressure exerted by Bergoglio towards “the new”.

It does not count for much that Pope Bergoglio has now administered a few reproofs to those on the right and those on the left, to the "intellectual traditionalists" and the "progressive do-gooders". To some this will seem to be an intelligent gesture of expediency coming from Jesuit roots. Others will try to interpret this piously as showing the great and balanced equanimity of the Pope in a stormy context. But ... this has nothing to do with being a Jesuit. But, sadly, it has everything to do with “democratic Christianity”.

Dear Baioni, Do not get annoyed at those Bishops and Cardinals of solid faith who agreed to vote on certain issues.  In a Church that for a long time now has in truth very little sense of what it means to be Catholic, it is hard to make a Bishop and a Cardinal be obedient to God instead of to the dictator on duty.

Symbolised by the "smoke of the pit" and the tormenting locusts released by the angel in Revelation, this disorienting plague of hierarchical compromise and unbelief destroys doctrine, the conscience, and the moral life. Fostered for fifty years by hapless papal instruments of God's anger, Francis is the latest and most aggressive overseer of Project Locust: "the massive effort to re-make our historic Faith."

Ominous sign

In the wake of the Synod, Bishop Tobin of Rhode Island duly noted: "Pope Francis is fond of 'creating a mess.' Mission accomplished." Of course we cannot judge his subjective state. Especially being a product of the dissolute Society of Jesus. However, he must not be allowed to pass off his Modernist agenda and modus operandi as the Holy Spirit's. One cannot deny his free will or the additional grace of state received in March 2013. After all, Pius IX, a pontiff with liberal sympathies, quickly saw the orthodox light upon his papal accession, and reacted accordingly. Even neo-Modernist Cardinal Muller is now defending marriage and orthodoxy with gusto, responding to the special graces required and gratuitously bestowed on the head of the CDF.

In the end, therefore, there is nowhere for Francis to hide. And certainly not behind his all-things-to-all-men closing address to the Synod. A textbook display of the scattergun Modernist pablum denounced by St. Pius X, everyone got a little ticking off: "traditionalists", "intellectuals", "liberals" and "progressives." This superficial show of even-handedness appeared to salvage the Pope's battered agenda 'going forward', as they say: the obsequious brethren giving him a sustained standing ovation! (— "baby seals clapping their clubber," as I once described 2,000 faithful who applauded Cardinal Hume for disparaging their orthodoxy.)

Amid the applause, few seemed to notice how the papal egalitarian always at pains to present himself as one of the collegial boys — a mere "Bishop of Rome" — promptly changed tack when Project Locust met firm resistance; suddenly proclaiming papal power and the duty of obedience (i.e., to his Modernist designs!). With all the despised "certainty" of an exocriated "restorationist, a legalist" looking for dreaded "disciplinary solutions," the pope happily recalled that his office is "the guarantor of the obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Tradition of the Church. ... the 'supreme Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful' (Can. 749) ... enjoying 'supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church'."

It is an ominous sign that Francis will not take "No!" for an answer. That he  will force through those "profound and definitive changes in the Church in such a way that they can never again be modified," as confided to his Argentinian compatriot. Cardinal Burke has already noted the abuse of papal power in selecting Walter Kasper to open the Synod, and like-minded cardinals to steer it according to his personal views. We'd better watch out!

Standing firm

There is an End Times atmosphere. A feeling that Rome may well indeed fall into such apostasy as to be destroyed, as Cardinal Manning foresaw. We sense that politically correct tyranny, stoked by homo-fascism and the great apostasy within, may yet see us having to wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb. The warnings of Fatima, Akita, La Salette et. al., loom large. But remember: the devil preys on sadness and despair! Standing firm in truth, justice and holiness, marked by the Sign of the Cross, alert to what is happening, refusing to bury our heads and ignore the gathering storm, we will be protected and rewarded. Even if the locusts swarm in greater numbers between now and October, we should take heart from the final chapter of the Apocalypse:


He that hurteth, let him hurt still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is just, let him be justified still: and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still. Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb: that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and unchaste, and murderers, and servers of idols, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie. [22: 10-15]

Like real locusts, Modernists will have their furious day, then disappear. "Let him hurt still" is not an exhortation, or license to go on in sin, but an intimation, that no matter how far the wicked may proceed, their progress shall quickly end, and then they must expect to meet with proportionate punishments. We are not compelled to join their wickedness and share their banishment from the Catholic Safe Haven, however. Like Christ's Vicar, we have a choice: either to embrace the seductive 'anti-spirit' of false mercy and compromise, or accept the grace of the Holy Spirit.

If we choose the latter, we will surely honour Our Lady's Fatima message — the daily Rosary and the Five First Saturdays devotion. In doing so, we may confidently hope to see Her Son stay his righteous wrath, reseal "the bottomless pit," and raise up a Crisis Pope in the image of St. Pius X — to confront and face down the Kasperites, not laud and honour them. 

The foundations, ramparts and splendour of the Catholic City thus restored, The Locust Project will shut down; its apostate agitators cast out to wander aimlessly beyond the gates — among the dogs, and idolators, and fornicators, and sodomites, and all the lovers and makers of lies.

 

 

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