If this were not real, it would be laughable. But as it is, it requires heroic fortitude and an unflinching rejection.
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Bishop Athanasius Schneider condemns Synod’s Final Relatio & its Perpetrators
A back door to a neo-Mosaic practice in the Final Report of the Synod
By the Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider
The XIV General Assembly of the Synod of the Bishops (October 4 – 25, 2015), which was dedicated to the theme of “The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and Contemporary World”, issued a Final Report with some pastoral proposals submitted to the discernment of the Pope. The document itself is only of an advisory nature and does not possess a formal magisterial value.
Yet during the Synod, there appeared those real new disciples of Moses and the new Pharisees, who in the numbers 84-86 of the Final Report opened a back door or looming time bombs for the admittance of divorced and remarried to Holy Communion. At the same time those bishops who intrepidly defended “the Church’s own fidelity to Christ and to His truth” (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, 84) were in some media reports unjustly labeled as Pharisees.
The new disciples of Moses and the new Pharisees during the last two Assemblies of the Synod (2014 and 2014) masked their practical deny of the indissolubility of marriage and of a suspension of the Sixth Commandment on a case-by-case basis under the guise of the concept of mercy, using expressions such as: “way of discernment,” “accompaniment”, “orientations of the bishop,” “dialogue with the priest,” “forum internum,” “a more fuller integration into the life of the Church,” a possible suppression of imputability regarding the cohabitation in irregular unions (cf. Final Report, nn. 84-86).
This text section in the Final Report contains indeed a trace of a neo-mosaic practice of divorce, even though the redactors skillfully and, in a cunning manner, avoided any direct change of the doctrine of the Church. Therefore, all parties, both the promotors of the so-called “Kasper agenda” and their opponents, are apparently satisfied stating: “All is OK. The Synod did not change the doctrine.” Yet, such a perception is quite naive, because it ignores the back door and the pending time bombs in the abovementioned text section which becomes manifest by a careful examination of the text by its internal interpretive criteria.
Even when speaking of a “way of discernment” there is talk of “repentance” (Final Report, n. 85), there remains nevertheless a great deal of ambiguity. In fact, according to the reiterated affirmations of Cardinal Kasper and like-minded churchmen, such a repentance concerns the past sins against the spouse of the first valid marriage and the repentance of the divorced indeed may not refer to the acts of their marital cohabitation with the new civilly married partner.
The assurance of the text in the numbers 85 and 86 of the Final Report that such a discernment has to be made according to the teaching of the Church and in a correct judgement remains nevertheless ambiguous. Indeed, Cardinal Kasper and like-minded clerics emphatically and repeatedly assured that the admittance of the divorced and civilly remarried to Holy Communion will not touch the dogma of the indissolubility and of the sacramentality of marriage, and that a judgement in the conscience in that case has to be considered as being correct even when the divorced and remarried continue to cohabitate in a marital manner, and that they should not be required to live in complete continence as brother and sister.
In quoting the famous number 84 of the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio of Pope John Paul II in number 85 of the Final Report, the redactors censured the text, cutting out the following decisive formulation: “The way to the Eucharist can only be granted to those who take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples”.
This practice of the Church is based on Divine Revelation of the Word of God: Written and transmitted through Tradition. This practice of the Church is an expression of the uninterrupted Tradition since the Apostles and, thus, remains unchangeable for all times. Already Saint Augustine affirmed: “Who dismisses his adulterous wife and marries another woman, whereas his first wife still lives, remains perpetually in the state of adultery. Such a man does not any efficacious penance while he refuses to abandon the new wife. If he is a catechumen, he cannot be admitted to baptism, because his will remains rooted in the evil. If he is a (baptized) penitent, he cannot receive the (ecclesiastical) reconciliation as long as he does not break with his bad attitude” (De adulterinis coniugiis, 2, 16). In fact, the above intentional censorship of the teaching of Familaris Consortio in n. 85 of the Final Report, represents for any sane hermeneutics the very interpretation key for the understanding of the text section on divorced and remarried (numbers 84-86).
In our days exists a permanent and omnipresent ideological pressure on behalf of the mass media, which are compliant with the unique thought imposed by the anti-Christian world powers, with the aim to abolish the truth of the indissolubility of the marriage – trivializing the sacred character of this Divine institution by spreading an anti-culture of divorce and concubinage. Already 50 years ago, the Second Vatican Council stated that the modern times are infected with the plague of the divorce (cf. Gaudium et spes, 47). The same Council warns that the Christian marriage as Christ’s sacrament should “never be profaned by adultery or divorce” (Gaudium et spes, 49).
The profanation of the “great sacrament” (Eph 5, 32) of the marriage by adultery and divorce has assumed massive proportions at an alarming rate not only in the civil society but also among Catholics. When Catholics by means of divorce and adultery theoretically and as well as practically repudiate the will of God expressed in the Sixth Commandment, they put themselves in a spiritually serious danger of losing their eternal salvation.
The most merciful act on behalf of the Shepherds of the Church would be to draw the attention to this danger by means of a clear – and at the same time loving – admonition about the necessarily full acceptance of the Sixth Commandment of God. They have to call the things by their right name exhorting: “divorce is divorce,” “adultery is adultery” and “who commits consciously and freely grave sins against the Commandments of God – and in this case against the Sixth Commandment – and dies unrepentantly will receive eternal condemnation being excluded forever from the kingdom of God.”
Such an admonition and exhortation is the very work of the Holy Spirit as Christ taught: “He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16: 8). Explaining the work of the Holy Spirit in “convincing sin,” Pope John Paul II said: “Every sin wherever and whenever committed has a reference to the Cross of Christ-and therefore indirectly also to the sin of those who “have not believed in him,” and who condemned Jesus Christ to death on the Cross” (Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, 29). Those who conduct a married life with a partner, who is not their legitimate spouse, as it is the case with divorced and civilly remarried, reject the will of God. To convince such persons concerning this sin is a work moved by the Holy Spirit and commanded by Jesus Christ and thus an eminently pastoral and merciful work.
The Final Report of the Synod unfortunately omits to convince the divorced and remarried concerning their concrete sin. On the contrary, under the pretext of mercy and a false pastorality, those Synod Fathers who supported the formulations in the numbers 84-86 of the Report tried to cover up the spiritually dangerous state of the divorced and remarried.
De facto, they say to them that their sin of adultery is not a sin, and is definitely not adultery or at least is not a grave sin and that there is no spiritual danger in their state of life. Such a behavior of these Shepherds is directly contrary to the work of the Holy Spirit and is therefore anti-pastoral and a work of the false prophets to whom one could apply the following words of the Holy Scripture: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20) and: “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading” (Lam 2: 14). To such bishops the Apostle Paul without any doubt would say today these words: “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor 11:13).
The text of the Final Report of the Synod not only omits to convince unambiguously divorced and civilly remarried persons concerning the adulterous and thus gravely sinful character of their life style. It justifies indirectly such a lifestyle by means of assigning this question ultimately in the area of the individual conscience and by means of an improper applying of the moral principle of imputability to the case of cohabitation of the divorced and remarried. In fact, the applying of the principle of imputability to a stable, permanent and public life in adultery is improper and deceptive.
The diminution of the subjective responsibility is given only in the case when the partners have the firm intention to live in complete continence and make sincere efforts therein. As long as the partners intentionally persist to continue a sinful life, there can be no suspension of imputability. The Final Report gives the impression to intimate that a public life style in adultery – as it is the case of civilly remarried – is not violating the indissoluble sacramental bond of a marriage or that it does not represents a mortal or grave sin and that this issue is furthermore a matter of private conscience. Hereby one can state a closer drift towards the Protestant principle of subjective judgement on matters of faith and discipline and intellectual closeness to the erroneous theory of “fundamental option,” a theory already condemned by the Magisterium (cf. Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 65-70).
The Shepherds of the Church should not in the slightest manner promote a culture of divorce amongst the faithful. Even the smallest hint of yielding to the practice or to the culture of divorce should be avoided. The Church as a whole should give a convincing and strong witness to the indissolubility of the marriage. Pope John Paul II said that divorce “is an evil that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay” (Familiaris Consortio, 84).
The Church has to help the divorced and remarried with love and patience to recognize their own sinfulness and to help them to convert with one’s whole heart to God and to the obedience to His holy will, which is expressed in the Sixth Commandment. As long as they continue giving a public anti-witness to the indissolubility of marriage and contributing to a culture of divorce, the divorced and remarried cannot exercise those liturgical, catechetical and institutional ministries in the Church, which demand by their own nature a public life in accordance with the Commandments of God.
It is obvious that public violators for instance of the Fifth and Seventh Commandments, such as owners of an abortion clinic or collaborators of a corruption network, not only cannot receive Holy Communion but, evidently, cannot be admitted to public liturgical and catechetical services. In an analogous manner, public violators of the Sixth Commandment, such as divorced and remarried, cannot be admitted to the office of lectors, godparents or catechists. Of course, one must distinguish the gravity of the evil caused by the life style of public promotors of abortion and corruption from the adulterous life of divorced people. One cannot put them on the same footing. The advocacy for the admission of divorced and remarried to the task of godparents and catechists aims ultimately not the true spiritual good of the children, but turns out to be an istrumentalization of a specific ideological agenda. This is a dishonesty and a mockery of the institute of godparents or catechists who by means of a public promise took on the task of educators of the faith.
In the case of godparents or catechists who are divorced and remarried, their life continuously contradicts their words, and so they have to face the admonition of the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the Apostle Saint James: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1: 22). Unfortunately, the Final Report in n. 84 pleads for an admittance of the divorced and remarried to liturgical, pastoral and educational offices. Such a proposal represents an indirect support to the culture of divorce and a practical denial of an objectively sinful lifestyle. Pope John Paul II on the contrary indicated only the following possibilities of participating in the life of the Church, which for their part aim a true conversion: “They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God’s grace” (Familiaris Consortio, 84).
There should remain a salutary area of exclusion (non-admittance to the Sacraments and to the public liturgical and catechetical offices) in order to remind the divorced their real serious and dangerous spiritual state and, at the same time, to promote in their souls the attitude of humility, obedience and of longing for the authentic conversion. Humility means courage for truth, and only to those who humbly subject themselves to God, will receive His graces.
The faithful, who have not yet the readiness and the will to stop with the adulterous life, should be spiritually helped. Their spiritual state is similar to a kind of “catechumenate” regarding the sacrament of Penance. They can receive the sacrament of Penance, which was called in the Tradition of the Church “the second baptism” or “the second penance,” only if they sincerely break with the habit of the adulterous cohabitation and avoid public scandal in an analogous manner as do the catechumens, the candidates to the Baptism. The Final Report omits to call the divorced and remarried to the humble recognition of their objective sinful state, because it omits to encourage them to accept with the spirit of faith the non-admittance to the Sacraments and to the public liturgical and catechetical offices. Without such a realistic and humble recognition of their own real spiritual state, there is no effective progress towards the authentic Christian conversion, which in the case of the divorced and remarried consists in a life of complete continence, ceasing to sin against the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage and to disobey publicly the Sixth Commandment of God.
The Shepherds of the Church and especially the public texts of the Magisterium have to speak in an utmost clear manner, since this is the essential characteristic of the task of the official teaching. Christ demanded from all His disciples to speak in an extremely clear manner: “Let what you say be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Math 5: 37). This is valid all the more when the Shepherds of the Church preach or when the Magisterium speaks in a document.
In the text section of the numbers 84-86 the Final Report represents, unfortunately, a serious departure from this Divine command. Indeed in the mentioned passages the text does not plead directly in favor for the legitimacy of the admittance of the divorce and remarried to Holy Communion, the text even avoids the expression “Holy Communion” or “Sacraments.” Instead, the text by means of obfuscating tactics, uses ambiguous expressions like “a more full participation in the life of the Church” and “discernment and integration.”
By such obfuscating tactics the Final Report in fact put time bombs and a back door for the admittance of the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion, causing by this a profanation of the two great sacraments of Marriage and Eucharist, and contributing at least indirectly to the culture of divorce – to the spreading of the “plague of divorce” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, 47).
When reading carefully the ambiguous text of the text section “Discernment and integration” in the Final Report, one has the impression of a highly skillful, elaborated ambiguity. One is reminded of the following words of Saint Irenaeus in his “Adversus haereses”: “He who retains unchangeable in his heart the rule of the truth which he received by means of baptism, will doubtless recognize the names, the expressions, and the parables taken from the Scriptures, but will by no means acknowledge the blasphemous use which these men make of them. For, though he will acknowledge the gems, he will certainly not receive the fox instead of the likeness of the king. But since what may prove a finishing-stroke to this exhibition is wanting, so that any one, on following out their farce to the end, may then at once append an argument which shall overthrow it, we have judged it well to point out, first of all, in what respects the very fathers of this fable differ among themselves, as if they were inspired by different spirits of error. For this very fact forms a proof from the outset that the truth proclaimed by the Church is immoveable, and that the theories of these men are but a tissue of falsehoods.” (I, 9, 4-5).
The Final Report seems to leave the solution of the question of the admittance of the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion to local Church authorities: “accompaniment of the priests” and “orientations of the bishop.” Such a matter is however connected essentially with the deposit of faith i.e. with the revealed word of God. The non-admittance of divorced who are living in a public state of adultery belongs to the unchangeable truth of the law of the Catholic faith and consequently also of the law of Catholic liturgical practice.
The Final Report seems to inaugurate a doctrinal and disciplinary cacophony in the Catholic Church, which contradicts the very essence of being Catholic. One has to be reminded of the words of Saint Irenaeus, about the authentic shape of the Catholic Church in all times and in all places: “The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes the points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world (Italy). But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no one is greater than the Master); nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition. For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it.” (Adversus haereses, I, 10, 2).
The Final Report in the section on the divorced and remarried carefully avoids confessing the unchangeable principle of the entire Catholic tradition, that those who live in an invalid marital union can be admitted to Holy Communion only under the condition that their promise to live in complete continence and avoid public scandal. John Paul II and Benedict XVI confirmed strongly this Catholic principle. The deliberate avoidance of mentioning and reaffirming this principle in the text of the Final Report can be compared with the systematic avoidance of the expression “homoousios” on behalf of the opponents of the dogma of the Council of Nicea in the fourth century – the formal Arians and the so-called Semi-Arians – , who invented continuously other expressions in order not to confess directly the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father.
Such a declination from an open Catholic confession on behalf of the majority of the episcopate in the fourth century caused a feverish ecclesiastical activity with continuous synodal meetings and a proliferation of new doctrinal formula with the common denominator of avoiding terminological clarity i.e. the expression “homoousios.” Likewise, in our days the two last Synods on Family avoided naming and confessing clearly the principle of the entire Catholic tradition, that those who live in an invalid marital union can be admitted to Holy Communion only under the condition that their promise to live in complete continence and avoid public scandal.
This fact is proven also by the immediate unequivocal reaction of the secular media and by the reaction of the main advocators of the new un-Catholic practice to admit divorced and remarried to Holy Communion while maintaining a life of public adultery. Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Nichols and Archbishop Forte, for instance, publicly affirmed that, according to the Final Report, one can assume that a door in some way has been opened to Communion for the divorced and remarried. There exists as well a considerable number of bishops, priests and laity who rejoice because of the so-called “opened door” they found in the Final Report. Instead of guiding the faithful with a clear and an utmost unambiguous teaching, the Final Report caused a situation of obscuration, confusion, subjectivity (the judgement of the conscience of the divorced and forum internum) and an un-Catholic doctrinal and disciplinary particularism in a matter which is essentially connected to the deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles.
Those who in our days strongly defend the sanctity of the sacraments of Marriage and Eucharist are labeled as Pharisees. Yet, since the logical principle of non-contradiction is valid and common sense still functions, the contrary is true.
The obfuscators of the Divine truth in the Final Report are more like Pharisees. For in order to reconcile a life in adultery with the reception of Holy Communion, they skillfully invented new letters, a new law of “discernment and integration,” introducing new human traditions against the crystalline commandment of God. To the advocators of the so-called “Kasper agenda” are addressed these words of the Incarnated Truth: “You made void the word of God by introducing your own tradition” (Mark 7: 13). Those who during 2,000 years spoke relentlessly and with an utmost clarity about the immutability of the Divine truth, often at the cost of their own life, would be labelled in our days as Pharisees as well; so Saint John the Baptist, Saint Paul, Saint Irenaeus, Saint Athanasius, Saint Basil, Saint Thomas More, Saint John Fisher, Saint Pius X, just to mention the most glowing examples.
The real result of the Synod in the perception of the faithful and of the secular public opinion was that there has been practically only one focus on the question of the admittance of the divorced to Holy Communion. One can affirm that the Synod in a certain sense turned out to be in the eyes of public opinion a Synod of adultery, not the Synod of family. Indeed, all the beautiful affirmations of the Final Report on marriage and family are eclipsed by the ambiguous affirmations in the text section on the divorced and remarried, a topic which was already confirmed and decided by the Magisterium of the last Roman Pontiffs in faithful conformity with the bi-millennial teaching and practice of the Church. It is therefore a real shame that Catholic bishops, the successors of the Apostles, used synodal assemblies in order to make an attempt on the constant and unchangeable practice of the Church regarding the indissolubility of the marriage, i.e. the non-admittance of the divorced who live in an adulterous union to the Sacraments.
In his letter to Pope Damasus, Saint Basil drew a realistic picture of the doctrinal confusion caused by those churchmen who sought an empty compromise, and an adaptation to the spirit of the world in his time: “Traditions are set at nought; the devices of innovators are in vogue in the Churches; now men are rather contrivers of cunning systems than theologians; the wisdom of this world wins the highest prizes and has rejected the glory of the cross. The elders lament when they compare the present with the past. The younger are yet more to be compassionated, for they do not know of what they have been deprived” (Ep. 90, 2).
In a letter to Pope Damasus and to the Occidental Bishops, Saint Basil describes as follows the confused situation inside the Church: “The laws of the Church are in confusion. The ambition of men, who have no fear of God, rushes into high posts, and exalted office is now publicly known as the prize of impiety. The result is, that the worse a man blasphemes, the fitter the people think him to be a bishop. Clerical dignity is a thing of the past. There is no precise knowledge of canons. There is complete immunity in sinning; for when men have been placed in office by the favour of men, they are obliged to return the favour by continually showing indulgence to offenders. Just judgment is a thing of the past; and everyone walks according to his heart’s desire. Men in authority are afraid to speak, for those who have reached power by human interest are the slaves of those to whom they owe their advancement. And now the very vindication of orthodoxy is looked upon in some quarters as an opportunity for mutual attack; and men conceal their private ill-will and pretend that their hostility is all for the sake of the truth. All the while unbelievers laugh; men of weak faith are shaken; faith is uncertain; souls are drenched in ignorance, because adulterators of the word imitate the truth. The better ones of the laity shun the churches as schools of impiety and lift their hands in the deserts with sighs and tears to their Lord in heaven. The faith of the Fathers we have received; that faith we know is stamped with the marks of the Apostles; to that faith we assent, as well as to all that in the past was canonically and lawfully promulgated.” (Ep. 92, 2).
Each period of confusion during the history of the Church is at the same time a possibility to receive many graces of strength and courage and a chance to demonstrate one’s love for Christ the Incarnated Truth. To Him each baptized and each priest and bishop promised inviolable fidelity, everyone according to his own state: through the baptismal vows, through the priestly promises, through the solemn promise in the episcopal ordination. Indeed, every candidate to the episcopacy promised: “I will keep pure and integral the deposit of faith according the tradition which was always and everywhere preserved in the Church.” The ambiguity found in the section on divorced and remarried of the Final Report contradicts the abovementioned solemn episcopal vow. Notwithstanding this, everyone in the Church – from the simple faithful to the holders of the Magisterium – should say:
“Non possumus!” I will not accept an obfuscated speech nor a skilfully masked back door to a profanation of the Sacrament of Marriage and Eucharist. Likewise, I will not accept a mockery of the Sixth Commandment of God. I prefer to be ridiculed and persecuted rather than to accept ambiguous texts and insincere methods. I prefer the crystalline “image of Christ the Truth, rather than the image of the fox ornamented with gemstones” (Saint Irenaeus), for “I know whom I have believed”, “Scio, Cui credidi!” (2 Tim 1: 12).
November 2nd, 2015
+ Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana
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Reblogged from http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/11/rorate-exclusive-bishop-athanasius.html
Statement Calling for Constitutional Resistance to Obergefell v. Hodges
October 8, 2015 |
We are scholars and informed citizens deeply concerned by the edict of the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v. Hodges wherein the Court decreed, by the narrowest of margins, that every state in the country must redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships. 
The Court’s majority opinion eschewed reliance on the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, as well as the Court’s own interpretative doctrines and precedents, and supplied no compelling reasoning to show why it is unjustified for the laws of the states to sustain marriage as it has been understood for millennia as the union of husband and wife.
The opinion for the Court substituted for traditional—and sound—methods of constitutional interpretation a new and ill-defined jurisprudence of identity—one that abused the moral concept of human dignity.
The four dissenting justices are right to reject the majority opinion in unsparing terms.
Justice Scalia refers to it as “a naked judicial claim to legislative….power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.”
Justice Thomas says the opinion “exalts judges at the expense of the People from whom they derive their authority” as it perverts the meaning of liberty into an entitlement to government action.
Justice Alito calls attention to the well-established doctrine that the “liberty” guaranteed by the due process clause protects only those rights “that are deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and that it is “beyond dispute that the right to same-sex marriage is not among those rights.” He further points to the opinion’s tendency to reduce the purpose of marriage to “the happiness of persons who choose to marry.” He warns it will be used to “vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy” and is yet another example of the “Court’s abuse of its authority.”
Chief Justice Roberts says “the Constitution leaves no doubt” that the majority’s “pretentious” opinion is incorrect. It even attempts to “sully those on the other side of the debate” in an “entirely gratuitous” manner.
If Obergefell is accepted as binding law, the consequences will be grave. Of the results that can be predicted with confidence, four stand out:
First, society will be harmed by being denied the right to hold out as normative, and particularly desirable, the only type of human relationship that every society must cultivate for its perpetuation. This compelling interest is strengthened by the fact that there is strong evidence to support what common sense suggests, namely, that children fare best when raised by their married mother and father who are both responsible for bringing them into the world and who provide maternal and paternal influences and care.
Second, individuals and organizations holding to the historic and natural understanding of marriage as a conjugal union—the covenantal partnership of one man and one woman—will be vilified, legally targeted, and denied constitutional rights in order to pressure them to conform to the new orthodoxy.
Third, the new jurisprudence of dignity is unlimited in principle and will encourage additional claims to redefine marriage and other long-established institutions.
Fourth, the right of all Americans to engage in democratic deliberation, and ultimately self-government, will be decisively undermined.
Any decision that brings about such evils would be questionable. One lacking anything remotely resembling a warrant in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution must be judged anti-constitutional and illegitimate. Obergefell should be declared to be such, and treated as such, by the other branches of government and by citizens of the United States.
In 1788, James Madison wrote, “The several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, neither of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers.”
In 1857, Abraham Lincoln said, “Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents, according to circumstances. That this should be so, accords both with common sense, and the customary understanding of the legal profession.” If a decision “had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part, based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been affirmed and re-affirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, to not acquiesce in it as a precedent.” If, however, a decision is “wanting in all these claims to the public confidence,” it is “not factious” to resist it.
Obergefell is wanting in all these claims to the public confidence. It cannot therefore be taken to have settled the law of the United States.
Therefore:
We stand with James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in recognizing that the Constitution is not whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices say it is.
We remind all officeholders in the United States that they are pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not the will of five members of the Supreme Court.
We call on all federal and state officeholders:
To refuse to accept Obergefell as binding precedent for all but the specific plaintiffs in that case.
To recognize the authority of states to define marriage, and the right of federal and state officeholders to act in accordance with those definitions.
To pledge full and mutual legal and political assistance to anyone who refuses to follow Obergefell for constitutionally protected reasons.
To open forthwith a broad and honest conversation on the means by which Americans may constitutionally resist and overturn the judicial usurpations evident in Obergefell.
We emphasize that the course of action we are here advocating is neither extreme nor disrespectful of the rule of law. Lincoln regarded the claim of supremacy for the Supreme Court in matters of constitutional interpretation as incompatible with the republican principles of the Constitution. Our position is summed up in Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address:
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
The proper understanding and definition of marriage is self-evidently a vital question affecting the whole people. To treat as “settled” and “the law of the land” the decision of five Supreme Court justices who, by their own admission, can find no warrant for their ruling in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, would indeed be to resign our government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. That is something that no citizen or statesman who wishes to sustain the great experiment in ordered liberty bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be willing to do.
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For a list of the signers of this petition, see https://americanprinciplesproject.org/founding-principles/statement-calling-for-constitutional-resistance-to-obergefell-v-hodges%E2%80%AF/
Vatican Expert confirms Cardinal Danneels ties to “St. Gallen Mafia”
Reblogged from the Radical Catholic
(Photo: CNA)
The German Edition of Catholic News Agency published an interview with Vaticanist Paul Baade today, in which the latter reveals what knowledge he had of the St. Gallen “Mafia-Club” back in 2005, as well as few interesting details regarding the election of Pope Benedict XVI. The relevant section of the interview is posted below in an original Radical Catholic translation (to be updated if CNA puts out their own English translation):
CNA: There’s a minor scandal brewing in the background [of the Synod on the Family]: Pope Francis invited former Belgian Archbishop Godfried Danneels, who recently admitted before rolling cameras to having belonged to a kind of “Mafia Club” within the Church, to the Synod.
Continue reading from the Radical Catholic
Team Bergoglio member confirms in new book the conspiracy to elect Cardinal Bergoglio in violation of UDG 81
New entries are now required to our Chronology of Reports regarding Team Bergoglio:
September 24, 2015: Renowned Vaticanista, Edward Pentin, via his blog on NCR, publishes an article entitled, “Cardinal Danneels Admits to Being Part of a ‘Mafia’ Club opposed to Benedict XVI”, which reveals the decade long conspiracy, which was known as “the Club of St. Gallen“, to elect Bergoglio so as to radically change the Catholic Church. This is confirmation of the violation of UDG 81.
September 24, 2015: Renowned Vaticanista, Marco Tosatti confirms, via his blog, that in a new biography, Cardinal Danneels admits to being part of a “mafiaclub” working to get Bergoglio elected, years before 2013.
T -116: When Words Have No Meaning
This is the best analysis of the popular errors and politics which led to the Supreme Court of the US to “redefeine” marraige. This article should be read by all Catholics, all parents, and explained to all children who are 15 years or older. The very existence of human civilization depends upon it.
A Manifesto of Christian Resistance
The SCOTUS ruling today effectively requires all States, politicians and govt workers to deny Jesus Christ, the God of Israel and the Creator, as a prerequisite for being a member of the USA! For that reason, we Christians cannot but RESIST!
Pope Francis blames Catholics for the persecution of the Waldensians!
Rome, June 22, 2015: This morning, Pope Francis met with the leaders of the Waldensian Church, a group of Protestants from the Piedmont of Italy. During his meeting the Pope made some stunningly false and heretical statements. You can read the original Italian here. Here is our unofficial translation in part, of that article, with the Original Italian preceding:
Il Pontefice argentino ha precisato: «L’unità che è frutto dello Spirito Santo non significa uniformità. I fratelli infatti sono accomunati da una stessa origine ma non sono identici tra di loro. Ciò è ben chiaro nel Nuovo Testamento, dove, pur essendo chiamati fratelli tutti coloro che condividevano la stessa fede in Gesù Cristo, si intuisce che non tutte le comunità cristiane, di cui essi erano parte, avevano lo stesso stile, né un’identica organizzazione interna. Addirittura – ha ricordato – all’interno della stessa piccola comunità si potevano scorgere diversi carismi e perfino nell’annuncio del Vangelo vi erano diversità e talora contrasti».
Ecco poi il passaggio sul «nervo scoperto»: «Purtroppo, è successo e continua ad accadere che i fratelli non accettino la loro diversità e finiscano per farsi la guerra l’uno contro l’altro. Riflettendo sulla storia delle nostre relazioni, non possiamo che rattristarci di fronte alle contese e alle violenze commesse in nome della propria fede, e chiedo al Signore che ci dia la grazia di riconoscerci tutti peccatori e di saperci perdonare gli uni gli altri. È per iniziativa di Dio, il quale non si rassegna mai di fronte al peccato dell’uomo, che si aprono nuove strade per vivere la nostra fraternità, e a questo non possiamo sottrarci. Da parte della Chiesa Cattolica vi chiedo perdono per gli atteggiamenti e i comportamenti non cristiani, persino non umani che, nella storia, abbiamo avuto contro di voi. In nome del Signore Gesù Cristo, perdonateci!».
Translation:
The Argentine Pope explained: “The unity which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit does not signify uniformity. Brothers are united by the same origin, but are not identical among themselves. Which is very clear in the New Testament, where, though all who share the same faith in Christ Jesus, are called, “brothers”, one understands that not all the Christian communities, to which they belong, had the same stile, nor the identical christian organization. In fact — he recalled — inside the same small community there could have flowed diverse carisms and consequently in the announcement of the Gospel there was a diversity and at times contrasts”.
Behold, now, the passage on the “uncovered nerve”: “Unfortunately, it has happened and continues to happen that brothers do not accept their diversity and end in making war, the one against the other. Reflecting on the history of our relations, we cannot but be saddened in the face of the conflicts and violence committed in the name of faith itself, and I ask the Lord to give us the grace to recognize ourselves all as sinners and to know how to forgive each other. It is through the initiative of God, that we never surrender in the face of man’s sin, that there opens new roads to live our brotherhood, and from this we cannot excuse ourselves. On the part of the Catholic Church I ask forgiveness for the non-Christian, even inhuman mentality and comportment which, in history, we have had against you. In the name of Jesus Christ, forgive us!”
That the context of the Pope’s words, said while visiting a Waldensian Church, puts the blame solely upon Catholics, can be had from the history of the Waldensians, who never waged war against the Catholic Church, but whose members were at times put to death by, or targeted by Crusades by civil and ecclesiastical authorities for not being Catholic.
For more information about the Waldensians, one can see the Catholic Encyclopedia and Wikipedia articles.
Analysis
Cardinal Walter Kasper’s famous thesis, advanced in his work for “Ecumenism” is that the Protestants are in fact members of the Church, since baptism alone, without dogmatic faith, causes a person to be a member of the Church. For this reason, it is no exaggeration to ascribe the doctrine contained in Pope Francis’ words to the Valdensians, as Kasperite in its form and content.
However, the Pope’s own words imply that the true and one God is not offended by heresy, because if He were offended, then Catholics would have been justified to reprove, remonstrate with, punish and even put heretics to death. So if Catholics are at fault for doing these things, and if theirs is a sin against the Holy Spirit, then the true God does not care what men believe of Him. Or in other words, the Pope’s words presuppose that He does not believe that there is a Catholic God, a God of Truth in the Catholic sense of those two words, “God” and “Truth”. For these reasons, the popes words, while manifesting that he is not a Catholic, seem also to indicate that he is not even a Christian, but some sort of Unitarian.
What must be done by every Catholic who reads of this scandal
We need to call on the Cardinals to publicly rebuke Bergoglio for these words, manifesting to him that he cannot continue to claim the office of Pope if he does not repudiate these words. Catholics can do this by writing their Cardinal, or some specific Cardinal whom they believe might hear their petition.
They can also join the 470 other Catholics who have petitioned the Cardinals to judge and depose the Pope for heresy. You can read more about this here.
« Laudato Sie, mi Signore… » — The Encyclical which needs to be written
From Ivereigh to Abdication, the Canonical steps implied by the “Team Bergoglio” scandal
The election of Cardinal Bergoglio was a supreme failure of the College of Cardinals
I said it on March, 13, 2015, and it needs repeating…
The Bergoglio Effect in Ireland: “The Mass has ended”
by Antonio Socci, unofficial English translation by the From Rome blog.
That Ireland, ancient fortress of Catholicism, has gone over to the people of “gay” marriage (“and who am I to judge”, as the Bishop of Rome is want to say), is a historical event. If this sounds like the profound rumble of an avalanche, as in the collapse of a mountain falling down, it is just to ask, “Is this an Bergoglio effect?”
Besides, in South America, the Church has already been crumbling for years (the statistics are horrible); now in Europe, the heart of Christendom.
That which renders secularism dominant — as Cardinal De Lubac used to say — is the propulsion and instrumentalization of “a Christianity ever more in the minority, reduced to a vague and impotent theism.”
Barack and his Puppets
Today, only such a theism is permitted. Instead, the Catholic Church as She has been known upto now is threatened even as regards Her existence.
There is only place for a ridiculous laicized parody of Herself, as the humanitarian “courtesan” (as Andrea Emo would have it), as an “agency for religion” which on the great life issues submits herself to the dictates of Obama-like ideology, which renounces proselytism and the “Catholic God” (as Bergoglio says, “There exists no Catholic God”), which dissolves herself into an ecumenical freemasonry of so many religions, which busies herself with the climate and the recycling of garbage, teaching good manners (Good Morning! Good Evening! Thank you! and Pardon me!) and goofy-pleas for the help of the poor. But for the true Catholic Church, there is no longer any seat at the table, as the drama of the last great pope, Benedict XVI shows, “fired”, self-incarcerated and silenced.
The True Church
The Church has illumined and conquered the darkness of the world of the gods and has rehabilitated the history of a pagan and anti-human age: the Church of the Word of God made Flesh, who has the presumptuousness to announce the Truth, the Church of the great Saints, of the Martyrs, of the Missionaries, the Church of the Divine Liturgy and of the masterpieces of Art, the Church of Mother Teresa, of great ideas, of great popes, of Padre Pio, with Her outbursts of the supernatural, the Church which has held Herself firm head-to-head with the ferocity of the Mohammedan and the great genocidal totalitarianisms of the 20th Century: this Church, today, no longer has the rights of citizenship.
Yesterday, Msgr. Galantino (Secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference) — according to a tweet from Alberto Mingardi — seems to have said at a conference: “When the Church was Catholic and the Mass was in Latin …”.
A Freudian slip which is explosive and revealing. In fact, today, we are in the midst of the last act of the “liquidation of the Catholic Church,” as Giuseppe Prezzolini foretold, a layman but concerned with the abyss to which the Catholic world was running, anxious as it was to be “modernized” and to surrender to all the ideological fashions of the moment.
But, to liquidate the Church, it is not the persecutions, nor the hatred of the secularist, but — as Paul VI said — it’s the “self-demolition” from within which is the cause.
The way to the abyss was undertaken not with the Council — as certain lefebrvians think — but at its end, exactly 50 years ago, with the “post-Conciliar” age.
In the days following, in the newspapers, one was reminded of the 5oth anniversary of the first Mass in Italian, and another layman like Elémire Zolla, in those days, came to underline the event in apocalyptic tones: “The 7th of March, the Mass dies, Gregorian chant dies. Heard for the last time. Now, as a dry branch, the Church shall be burnt.”
In reality, the problem was not only the use of the vulgar language in the liturgy (a thing, which I think is positive), but the successive “liturgical reform” of 1969 and above all the de facto, but illegal, banning of the Mass of the preceding millennia of Catholic liturgy.
Joseph Ratzinger made us understand, many years afterwards, the enormous error, even theological, which was committed at that time. Which would have colossal consequences, even in the tragic loss of faith.
To Save the Cathedral
But, curiously, in those days, the ones to raise the alarm, in a dramatic manner, for this Church which in an instant has refused its own bimillenarian rite (that around which our Cathedrals were constructed), were above all the laymen-intellectuals.
Who protested with the same consternation with which we contemplate, today, the tragic devastation wrought by Isis in the ancient Middle-East.
On September 5, 1966, there was issued the first appeal to Paul VI to safe-guard the Latin-Gregorian liturgy (a few months before the devastating flood which struck the ancient, Catholic beauty of Florence).
That manifesto/appeal was signed by some 40 great intellectuals and it is impressive, today, to read some of their names: Jorge Luis Borges, Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale, Giorgio De Chirico, Robert Bresson, Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Gabriel Marcel, Maria Zambrano, Cristina Campo, Elena Croce, Wystan Hugh Auden, Jorge Guillen, Elémire Zolla, Philip Toynbee, Evelyn Waugh, Salvador De Madariaga, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Julien Green, Elsa Respighi, Francesco Gabrieli, José Bergamin, Fedele D’Amico, Luigi Dallapiccola, Victoria Ocampo, Wally Toscanini, Gertrud von Le Fort, Augusto Del Noce, Lanza Del Vasto.
The appeal made a great impression, even in the Vatican, but di not succeed in stopping the landslide. Thus, in 1971, another was made, and the number of intellectuals who added their names was even more.
I remember some of their names: Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Harold Acton, Mario Luzi, Andrés Segovia, William Rees-Mogg (the director of the Times), Joan Sutherland, Guido Piovene, Giorgio Bassani, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Ettore Paratore, Gianfranco Contini, Giacomo Devoto, Giovanni Macchia, Massimo Pallottino, Rivers Scott, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Colin Davis, Robert Graves, Yehudi Menuhin, Kenneth Clark, Malcolm Muggeridge.
Self-Demolition
It was for the most part, useless, but little by little the same Paul VI became aware of the tragedy which was in course: the collapse of religious practice, the thousands of priests and religious who abandoned the habit, the catholic intellectuals who submitted to marxism, the great part of the youth seduced by the myths of the revolution (by Fidel Castro, by Mao, by the Vietcong, by Che Guevara, and last by Stalin), the spread of the Theology of liberation and of the modernist theologies which demolished Catholic Doctrine.
Paul VI, in his last years, spoke in ever increasing dramatic tones: “We believed that after the Council there would have come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. There came, instead, a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness”, “from somewhere the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God”, “the opening to the world was a true invasion of worldly thought in the Church … We we have been, perhaps, too weak and imprudent.”
Paul VI denounced “those who try to knock the Church down from within” and he began to cite the books of Louis Bouyer, “The Decomposition of Catholicism” and “Religieux et Clercs contre Dieu.”
To his friend Jean Guitton, he confided: “There is a great turmoil in this moment in the world and in the Church, and what is in question is the faith. I find myself, now, repeating the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of Saint Luke: “When the Son of man returns, shall He still find faith upon earth?” What strikes me when I consider the catholic world,” the Pope continued, “is that inside Catholicism there seems to sometimes prevail a mentality of the non-catholic type, and it might happen that this non-catholic thought within Catholicism becomes stronger tomorrow. But it shall never represent the thought of the Church.”
Then, thanks be to God, there arrived John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger. The Barque of Peter was tirelessly repaired, the compass of the Faith found its way and a generation of young people experienced anew the beauty of Christianity.
But this was the spring which was bitten by some sort of powerful and obscure frost, which for the first time in the history of the Church, placed before us the drama of a “Pope emeritus” self-imprisoned in the Vatican and of a “bishop dressed in white” which was acclaimed by all the eternal enemies of the Catholic Faith, who has brought the Church into a submission with the worldly ideologies of the 70’s (having even re-exhumed the theology of liberation and its founder Gutierrez, which now pontificates from the Vatican).
We seem to have reached the final abyss. Unless God….
(Published in the Libero, May 24, 2015: this English translation is currently unapproved, but if the author gives us some corrections, it will be amended in the next few days. — The translator, while not agreeing with all of the authors judgements, nevertheless believes that the article poses significant contributions to Catholic thought for the present hour).
Pope Francis “knows very well what he is doing”
Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, the theologian widely acknowledged to have been the lead ghostwriter of Pope Francis’s much-praised apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, recently gave an interview that is remarkable for the crudity of its categories, the tendentiousness of its contentions, and, above all, what it portends for the silent lambs. The Archbishop’s way of talking about the Church is so far from what one would expect from a serious theologian and vir Ecclesiae, it’s difficult, for me at least, not to despair at the significance of this man’s being one of the advisors on whom the Holy Father is reputed to rely the most.
The interview is here, and those who care about how we should love the Bride of Christ should be scandalized by the mentality it bespeaks and the future it all but promises. Keep in mind that its all-but-named target at one point is the recent and utterly unprecedented suggestion (here) by Cardinal Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that a new role for the CDF would be to provide a “theological framework” for this pontificate. As readers will recall, Cardinal Muller was one of Pope Benedict’s last senior appointments in the Roman Curia.
Continue reading at Mirror of Justice Blog.
Cardinal Pell says that “Team Bergoglio” are atheists
Cardinal Pell, the other day at Rome, has confirmed the conclusion of the From Rome Blog, that “Team Bergoglio” is a heretical conspiracy, when he said that the party in the Church pushing for a change in Church discipline are “atheists”.
See the Cardinal’s words at the Deus Ex Machina Blog.
See our article, below….
The real agenda beind widespread political support of “Gay Marriage”
Click image to expand.
Why does the Lord at times threaten His Church with chastisement?
Logo for “Year of Mercy” by Jesuit Father is bizarre and scandalous
Here is one layman’s reaction…William Tapley.
If the Pope was an effective communicator and faithful disciple of Christ in communicating, you would expect something like this logo would never happen, let alone be considered.
Without a doubt the logo is sowing confusion, because being composed of mixed symbols, it is in a word confusing.
The logo by the Jesuit Father — who we believe does not have the artistic talent or appreciation for the achievements of Catholic Art, in past or modern times — departs radically from the Scriptural images used by Our Lord.
First, because to return to the image given us by Our Lord: to seek the 1 lost sheep, leaving aside the 100, is an image of the love of Our Redeemer, not of His Mercy. Mercy consists in His deed of dying for us, like a lamb, upon the Cross, while saying, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do!”
The ancient depiction of the aureole about Christ’s Head should contain a clearly visible Cross, normally 3 of the 4 arms. But showing 2, Mr. Tapley takes them as horns.
Others, this time a Brit, have taken scandal. Here is what End Times News, a protestant source, is saying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K2I1_l-1s4
He has taken scandal, among other things, with the Vatican’s English translation of the accompanying prayer, which by failing to distinguish, as can be done in English, between relative pronouns which refer to God and those which refer to creatures, such as Our Lady, has led him to an awful misunderstanding, or at least given him occasion to be scandalized.
From Rome believes, in addition, that the choice of the logo shows a great insensitivity to the victims of clerical abuse, because it appears to show the abduction of a man by another man, exalted as an act of mercy.
Our Lord did in fact say, “Out of the fullness of one’s heart, does the mouth speak.” It seems, therefore, that not only the artist but all those involved in choosing the Logo, need to look to their heart and ask how is it, that such a confused and twisted image is recognized by them as an apt symbol for a “Year of Mercy”?
From Rome thinks it has everything to do with the false theology upon which Pope Francis has based the entire year.
For it is a law of the spirit, that no one can exalt anything unto the level of the divine, without committing the sin of idolatry; whereupon, with such a spirit of sin, the entire spiritual life and judgement of the idolater becomes corrupt. — This spiritual principal can be distilled from reading the entirety of Scripture, especially the Old Testament prophets.
For more about the fundamental problem with the Year of mercy, see our campaign, #Y4Tc.
Archbishop Lenga: The Intention of the Freemasons is being implemented in the Church
Scalfari says Bergoglio denies Catholic Soteriology
You cannot make this stuff up: silence in the face of alleged Papal apostasy is either a grave sin against the charity and obedience owed the Pope, or is a tacit consent to the alleged apostasy.
Bergoglio’s Heresy of Dialogue as necessary for salvation
This is not a rereading of the Gospel, this is an entirely new and false gospel, which is undeniably heretical.