AT LAST BERGOGLIO, REHABILITATING JUDAS, CONDEMNS HIMSELF

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At last the man the world calls Pope Francis has shed his mask of mercy. He reveals himself definitively as Satan's right-hand man. We defy any prelate or priest of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church to defend Jorge Bergoglio now without aligning himself with the forces of evil. 

I doubted this story. Not that I couldn't believe that Bergoglio, as the so-called pope, would allow the traitor Judas to be whitewashed in the Vatican's prestigious L'Osservatore Romano newspaper - and on Holy Thursday, to boot: Bergoglio is a Judas himself, and the bishops and priests throughout the world who hang on his words and cassock-tails are Judases likewise. 

But I could not find the April 1, Maundy Thursday edition on line. Had the story caused such a brouhaha that it was pulled? Or was it an April Fools' Day prank? 

But no, it's kosher all right, and here it is, per kind favour of Church Militant.

In a ringing endorsement of the world's best-known traitor, the Vatican's most prestigious publication has dedicated its Maundy Thursday Italian edition to rehabilitating Judas Iscariot through word and art.

L'Osservatore Romano's front page features a painting of a naked Jesus by an unnamed artist bending over a dead Judas who has a blood-red loincloth around his waist. The tree on which Judas has hung himself ...

Ahem. "Hanged himself." 

... is in the background.

In "Judas and the Scandal of Mercy," which accompanies the illustration, L'Osservatore Romano highlighted the "most tragic and unsettling" figure in the New Testament.

The publication's director Andrea Monda ... praises the work as having "dizzying expressive power" which "can be admired on the front page".

The painting is the "fruit of the meditations" of Pope Francis' book Quando pregate dite Padre Nostro (When you pray say Our Father).

In the 2018 book, Francis speaks of Judas and God's mercy, basing his theological argument for Judas' salvation on a sculpture on a column in the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, Burgundy.

 

 

Francis has a picture of this sculpture hung behind his desk in his study. and explains that the painting is inspired by Francis' reflections on the "same sculpture that portrays Jesus as the Good Shepherd carrying Judas as the last lost sheep".

The sculpture does not portray Jesus as any such thing. The man carrying the body of Judas away is a labourer, as one can tell by his dress - and by his expression of distaste at having to discharge such a disgusting duty (the body of Judas would have been left all that hot Good Friday, to be given a shameful burial after dark).https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/P046_Judas.htm

A French Catholic artist decided to give this painting to the pope. It now occupies pride of place in the papal sudy next to an image of the sculpture of "Jesus carrying Judas".

"This scene is powerful, precisely it is true for the believer," Monda comments. "The crucified Christ embraces Judas after having removed him from the tree on which he committed suicide."

Drawing on St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where the Apostle speaks of "the scandal of proclaiming the crucified Christ," Monda stresses "the mercy of the dead and risen Jesus is the source [stone] of scandal even today in a world accustomed to condemning rather than forgiving."

Priest's 1958 Sermon Invoked

L'Osservatore Romano's inside pages dedicated to Judas feature a controversial 1958 Maundy Thursday sermon preached in Mantua, Italy by partisan and pacifist Fr. Primo Mazzolari.

"And by calling him brother, we are using the language of the Lord," Mazzolari preaches. "See, Judas, our brother! Brother in this common misery and this surprise! ... I also love Judas; he is my brother Judas."

The priest climaxes his sermon by saying he will pray for Judas this evening, "because I don't judge, ...

Inspiration for Bergoglio, obviously, in his infamous statement about sodomites, "Who am I to judge?" And inspiration for his throngs of followers who can't tell the difference between judging a deed and judging its doer.  

... I don't condemn. I should judge myself; I should sentence myself."Mazzolari concludes ...

Dear Fr Mazzolari, why bother? In the fulness of time God will save you the trouble.

 

... with the suggestion that Judas may have been saved because of the "mercy of God," especially as the word "friend" used by Jesus to address him would have "made its way into his poor heart."

"Perhaps [Judas] is first Apostle who entered [into paradise] with the two thieves," Mazzolari declares.

Anarchist: John Distorted Judas

The hugely controversial postwar writer Giuseppe Berto — who was a fascist in his youth and later described himself as an "anarchist out of desperation and disgust" — also features, with two excerpts from his 1978 book, The Glory.

According to Berto, Judas has no intention of betraying Jesus. It is the gospel writer John who distorts the story by a dishonest portrayal of the hapless Judas.

"I was one of yours, and I know that in a certain way I was too and perhaps most loved until the end, but John, who hated me, hastened in his story to exclude me from your love," Berto's reconstructed Judas tells Jesus.

30 Pieces of Silver: Too Paltry?

A final essay is by Giovanni Papini — a controversial novelist and popularizer of the literary schools of pragmatism, futurism and post-decadence, who argues that Judas must have had an ulterior motive to betray Jesus as 30 silver coins was "a very small sum of money, especially for a man who was coveted by wealth."

"Who coveted wealth", perhaps? 

Francis: The 'Mercy' Leitmotif

Sources close to the Vatican told Church Militant that Andrea Monda was merely restating the theology of Pope Francis, "who has been seeking to rehabilitate Judas under the rubric of 'mercy' — a leitmotif of the Francis pontificate."

In 2016, Francis speculated: "Perhaps if he had met the Virgin Mary, things would have gone differently, but the poor man goes away, doesn't find a way out of his situation, and he went to hang himself."

"I do not claim that Judas is in Heaven and saved. But I do not claim the opposite," Francis told Die Zeit in 2017.

Typical modern Jesuit. Ambiguity is a Jesuit's best friend. So much for "But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil"(Mt 5:37).  

On Wednesday of Holy Week 2020, Francis again suggested that Judas may have been forgiven:

"How did Judas end? I don't know," Francis asked, quoting Jesus: "Woe to that man from whom the Son of Man is betrayed — better for that man if he had never been born!"

"Does this mean that Judas is in Hell?"...

Seems that Bergoglio is accusing Jesus of ambiguity. 

..."I don't know.

Does this man know which way is up? Oh yes, he does. 

I look at the Gospel and, He calls him 'friend,' and He kisses him," the pontiff said.

Jesus' Irony Convicts Judas?

Catholic New Testament scholar Raymond Brown in The Death of the Messiah explains that Jesus is using irony. There is irony in Judas greeting Jesus with a kiss and saying, "Hail, Rabbi!" Jesus responds with equal irony: "Friend, do what you came to do."

Jesus also does not use the word for a bosom friend, i.e. philos. Instead, He calls Judas hetairos — comrade or colleague — a term used exclusively by Matthew and always used negatively.

Even I knew that. Bergoglio does too, of course. More Jesuitical posteuring.  

Moreover, biblical scholars note that Judas does not repent since Matthew uses the Greek verb metameslesthai, not metanoia, to describe Judas' "remorse" or "regret." This verb is very occasionally translated as "repent."https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/rome-rehabilitates-judas-on-maundy-thursday

From the Collect for Holy Thursday: “O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, the thief, the reward of his confession...” Even if Bergoglio pretends that Judas might be innocent and forgiven, the Church he's supposed to lead as her Pontiff knows better, and proves it by her liturgical prayer.

And Acts 1:25: “ Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place.” 

Does Bergoglio and his Judas Church need to have it explained that "his own place" is hell?

 "Do not drag me away with the wicked,

          with the evil-doers,

          who speak words of peace to their neighbours

       but with evil in their hearts."

- Psalm 27