TWO POPES LOCK HORNS AND A PN LAY PERSON GETS UPPITY

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"Gestapo! Gestapo!" 

The epithet is reported by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano as uttered early in his pontificate by Benedict XVI, as he pointed to the man who is now effectively his gatekeeper, Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

Just yesterday an attempt, by 'sources close to Benedict' to deny the Emeritus Pope Benedict's collaboration with Cardinal Robert Sarah in their book reaffirming priestly celibacy, has fallen over with the publication of letters from Benedict to the Cardinal proving otherwise. 

Now, there aren't a lot of  'sources close to Benedict'. They boil down, basically, to the retired pope's longtime secretary, now also head of Pope Francis' papal household, Archbishop George Ganswein -
//onepeterfive.com/archbishop-vigano-accuses-archbishop-ganswein-of-abusive-and-systematic-control-of-benedict-xvi/ 

Pope Francis was allegedly "furious" over Pope Benedict's support of priestly celibacy in Des Profondeurs de nos Coeurs (From the Depths of Our Hearts). 

According to a Vatican journalist of repute, Pope Francis personally called Archbishop Ganswein to order him to remove Benedict's name from the cover of the book and renounce his contribution completely. But of course Benedict could not in conscience "bear false witness implying that Cardinal Sarah had involved him without his consent.

"That very authoritative pronouncement of Benedict XVI prevents (Pope Francis) from taking a pickaxe to ecclesiastical celibacy as he had planned to do in the next post-synodal exhortation," said  Antonio Socci. Almost incredibly - but is anything in this papacy's Vatican incredible any more? - he then added that "Benedict also found it necessary to shelter (Ganswein) from South American 'vendettas', given that he had received a peremptory order from Bergoglio". 

Which raises the question, whose idea was it to protect Ganswein? Benedict's - or Ganswein's? 

It raises also the question of elder abuse. Pope Benedict is 92, frail and thin - but has lost none of his mental acuity, as this quote from the book he wrote with Cardinal Sarah demonstrates: “The priesthood of Jesus Christ causes us to enter into a life that consists of becoming one with him and renouncing all that belongs only to us,” he writes. “For priests, this is the foundation of the necessity of celibacy but also of liturgical prayer, meditation on the Word of God and the renunciation of material goods.”

Which then leads us into a guest post by Matthew Walton of Palmerston North, who opens fire with:

"There is much cause for Catholics to challenge the Pope."

Matthew Walton is doing his personal best to head the Pope off at the pass, as the Church worldwide awaits a pontifical declaration on the 'Shamazon' Synod's call for married priests. Many Catholics expect this issue to usher in a clear schism in the Catholic Church, as clergy and laity would declare themselves either in favour of a married priesthood, or opposed to it. 

Personally, I believe Pope Francis, in his Jesuitical way, will go all around the houses to prevent a formal schism, preferring to drag the whole Church behind him willy-nilly on his circuitous route towards a 'World Church'.

Matthew Walton continues by enumerating the heretical and aberrational pronouncements and actions of Pope Francis:

"(There is) his willingness to accommodate abortion as shown by:

• His restructuring of the Pontifical Academy for Life
• His determination to depart from the teaching of Popes John Paul II and Paul VI on family life, exhibited particularly in his reshaping of the JPII Institute for Studies on the Family 
• His instructions to Catholic Institutions to work the tenets of his encyclicals into their teaching and study programs, which is normal for a Pope - but his encyclicals and apostolic letters have all been contested, indirectly, by prominent Bishops and Cardinals and lay leaders). 

"His papacy is considered to be re-defining the nature of the Right to Life and the nature of Sacred Tradition. Truly, as Sister Lucia of Fatima has said, the battle in these last times will be over the family.

Moving right along, Matthew Walton continues:

• "This Pope has been opposed on Eucharistic Doctrine and Moral Doctrine. 
• His leadership is being challenged in reference to the nature of the priesthood and the nature and shape of the Church (Amoris Laetitia and the Synods).
• He has been criticised over his Cardinalate appointments and over sheltering episcopal miscreants. 
• He has privately disavowed the two doctrines of the Bodily Resurrection and the Divinity of Christ, in interviews with his favorite Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari.
• He both refuted and avowed the existence of Hell, in one week - Holy Week - last year.

And wait, there's more.

"More recently, the Pope's Vatican Deal with China, engineered by the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, has been strongly opposed by Cardinal Joseph Zen (the leading voice for persecuted Catholics in Communist China), who describes it as a "betrayal" and "handing the Church over to the Communist Party". 

"The Pope negates the potential Marian Dogma of Co-Redemptrix. The very thinking in his documents, statements and comments is openly and consistently challenged as: 

• humanist, 
• Marxist, 
• Jesuitical, 
• extremely abrasive
• Masonic 
• pan-religious." 

"And another thing (or two): 

"Since February 2014 he has declined to call together the whole body of Cardinals, who are normally expected to meet twice a year.  "What is he afraid of ? A coup? That someone might call him to account?

            

"Why shouldn't the Pope be called to account by us ? 

"To Fr. Max Palmer OCSO* I say, "Where now is your 'nest of vipers '? Those who challenge the Pope, as above, do so on the basis of Sacred Tradition, the Gospel and Magisterial Doctrine. So they can't be the 'vipers'.*

As to the outcome for 'vipers' and to know the nature of the battle we are in, read the Proto-Evangelium**: "I will put enmities between you and the woman, and thy seed and her seed. She shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel" (Gen 3:15, St Jerome's translation, Douay Rheims Bible***).


*Fr Max Palmer OCSO (the abbreviation means, ironically, Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance - my emphasis) has been reliably quoted as saying that "Pope Francis is the best pope we ever had and that group in the Vatican which is working against him is a nest of vipers". 

(Or perhaps "a pack of wild dogs", as Pope Francis himself has called his critics?)

**Proto-Evangelium: this is the first prophecy in the Bible of the coming of the Redeemer. The 'woman' prophesied is of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

*** I now understand why most translations of this verse (including some heard in Catholic churches) are so bewildering. I had never before compared them side by side.

We've been hornswaggled, people, by liberal Scripture scholars who want to deny the putative Marian dogma, referred to by Matthew Walton above, of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as Co-Redemptrix.

Protestant translations, and some Catholic, obliterate the BVM, putting it this way, or similarly: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." 

Que?  How conveniently ambivalent and inconclusive. Who is the 'he' to whom the Protestant translations refer? Jesus Christ, we must assume. Who else? Anyone but the Blessed Virgin Mary, it seems. 

https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=XXZLAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA351&lpg=PA351&dq=I+will+put+enmity+between+you+and+the+woman,+DOuay+Rheims+Bible,+St+Jerome%27s+translation&source=bl&ots=ZDMCTl14kP&sig=ACfU3U0sXUnf33GReD9i4pY_aLRbKeMUKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX_KeooYnnAhXCTX0KHbOtAoAQ6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20will%20put%20enmity%20between%20you%20and%20the%20woman%2C%20DOuay%20Rheims%20Bible%2C%20St%20Jerome's%20translation&f=false

And for anyone who thinks Matthew Walton is exaggerating in his summary of Pope Francis' defections and departures from the Magisterium and the Tradition of the Catholic Church, here's a pretty comprehensive survey of this papacy from John Henry Westen of Lifesitenews -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQbKWnmMMeE&list=PL1Zg71hj8daRXkNd7P-N8lU1T8Z3mjhiw

'Anonymous' says:

Fake news again. From someone who has never bothered to actualy (sic) read anything written by Pope Francis. You shd (sic) be ashamed and also make reparation. You are becoming a hater like the Lefebvrists. 

Another 'Anonymous' replies:

I have taken a great deal of time to read what Pope Francis has written.  He seems to be inviting me to become some kind of liberal, leftist, social justice, climate change protestant; to leave the Church altogether; or go and join the Lefebvrists.