Pope Francis’ interpretation of Hell

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

LifeSiteNews, ever the unreliable site for the Scamdemic and the Papacies of Benedict XVI and now Francis, ran a story making wild claims and interpretations of the recent statement by Pope Francis on Hell.

Here is that article:

Here is the actual interview, in Spanish:

Here is the text in question, specifically:

¿Cuál es su propia interpretación del infierno y del paraíso? ¿Y qué les pasa a las personas que van al infierno y qué a las que van al paraíso? 

—El infierno no es un lugar, si uno va a asistir al Juicio final, y ve las caras de los que van al infierno, se asusta. Si uno lee a Dante, se asusta. Pero son representaciones mediáticas. El infierno es un estado, hay gente que vive en un infierno continuamente. Esto no lo digo por la gente que sufre, el pueblo que sufre, sino por aquellos que se hacen un mundo de autorreferencialidad mal o enfermizo, y terminan viviendo en un infierno. El infierno es un estado, es un estado del corazón, del alma, de una postura frente a la vida, a los valores, a la familia, a todo. Hay gente que vive en un infierno porque se lo busca, hay otros que no, que son sufridos. ¿Y quién va al infierno, a ese infierno, a ese estado? Ya se va viviendo desde aquí. Si usted me pregunta cuánta gente hay en el infierno, yo le contesto con una escultura famosa de la catedral de Deslé, no sé si del siglo XI o siglo IX, sur de Francia, hay un capitel famoso, las columnas tienen capiteles, que era un modo de catequizar en aquella época a través de la pintura y la escultura. Y el capitel ese tiene a Judas ahorcado y el diablo tirando para abajo, y del otro lado tienen al Buen Pastor, a Jesús que agarra a Judas y se lo lleva a babucha con una sonrisa irónica. ¿Qué quiere decir eso? Que la salvación es más fuerte que la condenación. Ese capitel es una catequesis que nos tiene que hacer pensar. La misericordia de Dios está siempre a nuestro lado, y lo que Dios quiere es siempre estar con su gente, con sus hijos y no que se le vayan.

Here is a google translation of that:

What is your own interpretation of hell and paradise? And what happens to people who go to hell and what happens to those who go to heaven?

—Hell is not a place, if one goes to attend the Final Judgment, and sees the faces of those who go to hell, he is scared. If you read Dante, he gets scared. But they are media representations. Hell is a state, there are people who live in hell continuously. I am not saying this for the people who suffer, the people who suffer, but for those who make a world of self-referentiality bad or sick, and end up living in hell. Hell is a state, it is a state of the heart, of the soul, of a position towards life, towards values, towards family, towards everything. There are people who live in hell because they ask for it, there are others who don’t, who suffer. And who goes to hell, to that hell, to that state? It is already living from here. If you ask me how many people there are in hell, I answer you with a famous sculpture from Deslé cathedral, I don’t know if it’s from the 11th century or the 9th century, southern France, there is a famous capital, the columns have capitals, which was a way of catechizing at that time through painting and sculpture. And that capital has Judas hanged and the devil pulling down, and on the other side they have the Good Shepherd, Jesus who grabs Judas and takes him away with an ironic smile. What does that mean? That salvation is stronger than damnation. That capital is a catechesis that has to make us think. God’s mercy is always by our side, and what God wants is to always be with his people, with his children and not for them to leave him.

COMMENTARY

The first thing to notice is the historical context. Pope Francis is not teaching, but giving an interview. Second, he is asked to give his personal interpretation, not a statement of faith. This is important. And that is why he refers to a work of art, since art is always an interpretation, at least when it regards things which are not seen or cannot be seen.

Second, one has to have a precise notion of what one is talking about. In Catholic teaching Hell is a term used for 2 things, properly speaking: the spiritual state into which Angels and souls are placed for punishment after their personal judgement, which for Angels occurs the moment after they decided against God at the beginning of their creation, and for men, after death; and the place and state of souls and spirits, after the Final Judgement, which in Scripture is called the Pit of Fire, where, according to the Apostle St. John, even Hell will be cast on the Last Day (cf. Rev. 20:4).

Now, since places hold bodies, and there are and shall never be bodies in the first Hell, as is obvious, because they are on Earth, there are those who say that the first Hell is not a place. I use Hell in the wider sense that comprises both Hells, and so would not speak in this way, but I recognize that I am using “Hell” in the common parlance, not in the precise scriptural terminology.

So to say that the former Hell is not a place, but a state of soul, is perfectly Catholic and speaks precisely, even though, Catholics speaking commonly, speak imprecisely and conflate both Hells into one place and one state.  This is a common error especially after the 14th century, when preachers stopped speaking of the Catholic doctrine which says that the Angels fell to earth, not into Hell, and that they are punished here on Earth, and at times, in Hell, as all exorcists know.

Third, the Society of Jesus emphasizes, in its theology and spirituality, the spiritual battle, of which St. Ignatius speaks in his Spiritual Exercises. So when speaking of these things, Pope Francis gives an interpretation which is entirely withing that framework.

Only someone ignorant of history, theology, and St. Ignatius of Loyola would find heresy or scandal in what the Pope has said.  But that is LifeSite News.

POLAND: Ruling party declares Pope John Paul II the greatest Pole in History

Editor’s Note: It is a fact of history that Bishops in the USA during the reign of Pope John Paul II were instructed by Rome to move pedophiles to new parishes. Rome has been giving this advice for a very long time, perhaps 1000 years. John Paul II never repudiated that, as far as I know. Pope Benedict XVI did. — If the Polish Pope did it in ignorance it is not a sin, but do we really want to honor on the altars of God anyone, in Heaven or Earth, who did this in ignorance or in malice? The veneration of the Saints is to promote true virtue. No one is in ignorance anymore that that solution is the wrong solution. And that is what is more important than the present political controversy.

VATICAN: POPE FRANCIS shows signs of senility

Editor’s Note: The bigger news this week is that it seems not highly unlikely that Pope Francis is showing signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, since he has twice made glaring errors when speaking: once referring to the Italian Archbishop Viganò as an American, and now referring to the monks of the Peshersk Lavria, as nuns.

A great tragedy to Christendom is about to be perpetrated, by the insistence of the Ukrainian government to expel the monks of that monastery, which has been celebrated the Slavonic Liturgy for nearly 1000 years. It would be sufficient simply to ask them to vow obedience to the Metropolitan or Patriarch of Kyiv. They should not be expelled.

You can see my visit to the monastery, here.

Liturgical Atheism and Liturgical Idolatry: the Gog and Magog of the Post-Conciliar era

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

To anyone who has read Attorney David Wemhoff’s historic exposé of the U. S. Government program to infiltrate and destroy the Catholic Church from within, there can be no doubt at all that Vatican II and each and every one of its documents and reforms are to be rejected in principle and a priori, on account that they were not inspired by God but were the product of active interference by agents of the Masonic Lodges.

His book, entitled, “John Courtney Murray, Time/Life and the American Proposition”, was the topic of discussion in a series of videos at Ordo Militaris Radio TV (see here), and so if you would like more detailed information, you can watch those to get it, even though I strongly recommend every Catholic in the world get a copy of his book.

But rather that summarize his book or that series, I want to reflect on the implications of this distortion of Catholic Doctrine which are the consequences of the work of the Enemy of souls and his servants in the U.S. Government and their agents.

This program, which was conducted by the Skull and Bonesmen, has been conducted in their standard style of operation for a psyop, namely, to promote two errors, the thesis and the antithesis, to form a dialectical opposition designed to encapture the minds of all Catholics so that it does not ever dawn on any one of them that they are being manipulated by lies.

These two opposing errors are Liturgical Atheism and Liturgical Idolatry.

Liturgical Atheism

As Evelyn Waugh had one of his characters in one of his novels remark: Modernism is the atheism of the unbelieving cleric.  And indeed, Modernism in theology is a most clever form of atheism, because it enjoys cloaking itself in the culture of Christianity and even in the liturgy of Christian churches so that it can feign being a friend and ally, even though in its heart it hates the very nature of the Christian religion.

Unlike all other religions, Christianity is founded upon faith. Faith, here, is not the assembly of doctrines, but the inspired act of the intellect to assent to the truths revealed by God and certified by miracles. Against this unique character of Christian Religion, Modernism proposes a new form of religious adherence which is based upon sentimentality. For the Modernist, he is a true Catholic because he feels strong emotions when he thinks of or encounters Catholic symbols, art, music etc..

Thus, a Modernist can as equally enjoy a Charismatic Revival as well as a Tridentine High Solemn sung Mass. The key is not faith, nor dogma, but experience and enjoyment.  The Modernist leaves a Sunday service and says, “That was enjoyable”, or “I did not get anything out of it.”

However, since Modernism is relativist, and approves of any religious experience whatsoever, it is in truth not attached to any religious tradition. So when modernism infects the Catholic Clergy, they become in principle open to liturgical innovation, even if at first they cloak it under the name of liturgical restoration.

The false apostles of many ages have always claimed that the Church needs to be restored, because such a claim presupposes that the Holy Spirit has failed, and that the Church needs the false apostle to guide it into all truth.  This heresy is implicit even when the restoration is aimed solely at the liturgy, because obviously, since the Holy Spirit does lead Catholics to all truth, He also guides us and has guided us infallible and constantly through 2000 years in true religion and worship of the Most Holy Trinity. Indeed, it is impossible for Him to do otherwise.

So for Modernists, there is no authentic liturgical form of any kind, because obviously, for them, it is not truth but experience which is the goal of public or private worship.  And hence the Modernist is the liturgist in the modern sense of the word: the person who invents liturgy at every moment to produce an experience, just like a street huckster changes his presentation with every person so as to sell his snake oil.

Thus, the Modernist is a Liturgical Atheist, because for him there is no fixed meaning to any sign or symbol used in liturgy. Everything is up for grabs, so long as it grabs you and produces an effect.

This is the spirit and error implicit in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the very first document of the Second Vatican Council. And thus this error and spirit is found in the entire liturigical aggiornamento “authorized” by this non-dogmatic, non-disciplinary “pastoral” council.

Thus, for the liturgical atheist is is not necessary to have any thing fixed or traditional in liturgy. Experimentation is much more authentic worship than the recitation of prayers that are 1000 years old. And hence, the liturgy has to been renewed and adapted to what is needed today, making one’s experience memorable.

Liturgical Idolatry

The contrary error takes the opposite extreme. It holds that liturgical forms are the very object of worship and that man’s highest act of religion is the very performance of the religious rituals which have been established by men.

For the liturgical idolater, any liturgy can be the object of worship, whether it is ancient or new. What is important is that every other human value, every other moral principal, every other doctrinal or disciplinary rule bend to the preservation or performance of the liturgical ritual.

Liturgical idolaters are not found only among rabid modernists, no. They are found just as commonly among zealous Traditional Latin Mass zealots.

In the name of the liturgy they hold is the true one, they feel justified to violate every canon of canon law, every norm of ecclesiastical communion, and every virtue of a honest Christian life. Boys can be raped daily after mass, so long as the rubrics of the mass were perfectly performed, or so long as the New LIturgy was conducted in a thrilling experience. It does not matter. Morality is totally divorced from liturgy, because all religion has been reduced to a liturgical performance.

This error of liturgical idolatry is proposed by the agents of the U.S. Government so as to create irreconcilable divisions in the Church among Catholics who recognize the error of liturgical atheism and want to oppose it, but do not know how.

Yet, while this error of liturgical idolatry is contrary to the error of liturgical atheism, it can coexist in the same mind and soul.

By these two errors, the Masonic Lodges have seized the control of hundreds of millions of Catholics’ minds and hearts, and have presented an unsolvable problem, the consequences of which lead to the dissolution of the Church PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY DISTANCE THE CATHOLIC FROM THE WORSHIP OF THE TRUE GOD AND TURN HIM INTO EITHER AN ATHEIST OR AN IDOLATER, which are the two greatest sins against the First Commandment.

If we want to repair the damage in the Church, we must, thus and therefore, oppose both of these errors and return to the truly Catholic position which recognizes that there is an objective meaning to the signs and symbols which have been handed down by Christ to the Apostles and through the Church under the ever and constant action of the Holy Spirit, and that these form a coherent and integral part of all Church teaching and discipline regarding faith and morals, no point of which can be abandoned or innovated in the name of saving any other.

Hate, Cancer and Toilets

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

FRANÇAIS

Hate of itself is merely a human passion that is neither good nor evil. It becomes good or evil only when it is directed toward a proper or improper object.

The proper object of hate is evil, and an evil is the deprivation of the good which ought to be in a thing, in that thing.

But the improper object of hate is either the good, or the deprivation of a good which does not have to be in the thing, in the thing.

So, for example, it is good to hate the rot in a tomato, or to hate injustice in an institution. But it is wrong to hate honesty in an officer, or the lack of the knowledge of Latin in a carpenter.

Hate can also be immoral when it is excessive or insufficient. Thus it is wrong to hate dishonesty in a merchant so much, that you defraud him; just as it is wrong to hate so little abortion that you tolerate that your wife elect an abortion.

Thus, the worse excesses or insufficiencies of hate are the habitual states of mind, in which our perception of reality, or rather, our moral relationship with reality is skewed, altered, or substantially disconnected, so that we no longer relate to reality as reality, but to our own distorted hate, as the new reality.

This is the diagnosis for all who have been unable to rationally consider what happened on January 30, 2023, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected by the Assembly of Roman Catholics from the Roman Church, shortly after noon, in the Sala Michelangelo, at the Rome Marriott Hotel, Rome, Italy.

Because, if one is still acting on faith and using their reason, it is glaringly obvious, that there has been a huge moral change since that day. But for those who are in denial, their fixation remains on their hate. They have chosen to hate without end, and God forbid that the man they hate be converted by God, because then God Himself will become the enemy of their hate, which is now their true and only god.

One wise Franciscan priest once taught me, that the best way to snap people out of a bad state of mind, is to use humor. So let me try to explain what happened 6 weeks ago, with a story.

The Parable of the Palace with the clogged Toilets

Imagine a large and beautiful palace of a king, which has thousands of servants and hundreds of rooms. Guests come and go, and the King is constantly having visits from the most distinguished persons. Everything has to be arranged with perfection for such events, and the King is very particular that not a thing is out of place, or in any way wrong.

But one day, because of his Majordomo’s decision to flush something improper down the toilet in the main visitor’s bathroom, the main line of the sewer gets blocked, and slowly one by one, all the toilets in the palace stop working. The palace is so big that it takes nearly 10 days for all the toilets to stop working, but some of the more observant servants nevertheless start noticing the problem immediately.

Plus, a rank odor begins to fill the air inside and outside of the palace, and the problem soon can be denied by no one, with any honesty.

However, instead of fixing the problem, the servants begin to form factions blaming one person or another for the problem. There are those who blame the Majordomo and those who blame his under secretary. There are those who blame the servants friendly to the former and those who blame the servants of the latter.

Then as the days progress there are those who even blame the king.

Soon, then, these factions become hardened, and it becomes a quasi doctrine that the Majordomo is a demon, or the King a liar, or the undersecretary the antichrist.

But the toilets remain unusuable, because the main sewer line is blocked.

So one day, after the Majordomo dies, a gardener goes to the main room of the Palace and invites all the servants together to discuss how to unblock the main sewer line.  And the leaders of one faction do not even take interest, because they hold that the undersecretary is not at all guilty, But the followers of the Majordomo, who is now retired, tell everyone not to come, because they are now content that the sewer line is blocked, because it makes the undersecretary look bad. And none of these two factions care at all that the King’s palace is putrid and none of the bathrooms work, nor that the King’s visitors are all declining his invitations to his banquets and meetings.

So what happens. A few gardeners are the only ones who show up at the meeting, and they vote unanimously to open up the main sewer line and clear the blockage, ignoring any discussion about who is and who is not guilty for blocking it.

And the sewer begins running properly from that day onwards.

But then the palace explodes with riots of hate from the supporters of the retired Majordomo, because now they cannot blame their political rivals for the sewer being blocked.

With the sewer cleared, the block is now an academic question of little importance. Life in the Palace can now go back to normal.

But the servants who supported the outgoing Majordomo won’t forgive the gardeners who voted, and they begin to make vicious attacks on all of them, especially on the gardener who called the meeting, claiming this or that about them and about the Plumber they called in to unclog the drain.

I think that sums it up, nearly perfectly.

USA: 11 More Banks might experience bank-runs, on Monday

Editor’s Note: If you are not in the USA and if you do not have a financial relationship with one of these banks, you should not be worrying. — However, as I have said many times, the Agenda 2030 objective of eliminating all physical currencies means that everyone should be moving some of their assets into physical currencies: cash in stable currencies, and other precious metals or real-estate. Diversify to reduce risk. But keep in mind the necessity to always have enough ready means to obtain the necessities of life, or to flee to another place or nation. — The bigger picture here is the elephant in the room since they introduced the fiat currencies in the 1960’s, when, after the assassination of JFK, there was a world wide move away from currencies fixed to the price of gold or silver. All currencies which depend solely upon reputation or confidence are subject to wild swings in prices during panics. That a major world wide financial panic is possible was just proven by the 3 year world-wide medical panic. A panic does not have to be based on facts or reason. Nay, rather, they are nearly always based on fear and terror. This is the kind of event, which the Globalists can use to gain complete control of everyone and enslave them, by making their cash assets evaporate over night. So the best wisdom is to prepare not to be at such a risk.