See our blog post on the homily at Ognissanti, for more information about Pope Francis’ intentions about his plans for the Church.
Tag Archives: Cardinal Kasper
Pope Francis’ Homily at Ognissanti: An Analysis
A CALL FOR VIOLENCE TO PROMOTE THE GREATER REVOLUTION
Rome, March 9, 2015: Students of theology at Rome, who are catholic, have long experience in “reading” what their professors are saying. This is because the current climate of Modernism, and the persecution of Catholic seminarians which is attendant upon keeping it in power, makes a woeful variety of the forms of dishonestly flourish under its pallid “sun” of error.
Modernism, as Catholics know and recognize, is the error which says there is nothing religious but what comes from the sentiments of the human heart. It is a species of atheism, of the kind apt to be found in those who pretend to be religious. It is a very apt and useful error for the ecclesiastical parasite, the priest-careerist or the hierarchical climber, because it absolves from all conscience and morality and thus enables any compromise necessary to ascend to ever greater depths of moral depravity and power.
In classes at the Pontifical faculties at Rome, the Modernist is easily recognized by his inability to speak sincerely and straightforwardly, his use of metaphors, indirect symbols, passing remarks, to key to his audience the “secret” meaning of his lecture, and allow it to be understood correctly. Few modernists omit this method, because it is so useful and successful; it leaves them in a strong position from where they can with difficulty be accused of being heretics, and one in which those who espouse heresy, can understand what they should be understanding in a certain sort of coded language or discourse.
The talk at Ognissanti is a perfect example of this method, but since this method is rarely recognized for what it is, let us unpack it for those Catholics who have the blessing never to have been “initiated” into it by attending a Pontifical university or seminary class.
First, the very occasion of the talk provides the context. The Modernists who pushed to dump the original schema for Vatican II and who controlled the entire implementation of the texts of the Council into which they wrote nearly all their own errors, find no greater occasion to rejoice but the anniversaries of their revolution. The 50th anniversary of the first mass in the vernacular, as was celebrated on Saturday March 7th, is just such an occasion.
It would be enough for the Pope to celebrate the occasion, even though he scrupulously avoided using the actual ritual Pope Paul VI used on that day, 50 years ago: no, no! such a liturgy, that of 1965, is much too much like the Traditional Latin Mass, of the “preconciliar era”. To have used that liturgy, would have been to confirm what Pope Benedict XVI often spoke about, the necessity to reconcile the 2 liturgies. But since “reconciliation” presupposes equality, and since Modernists deny the legitimate spiritual equality of the Old Rite — they actually deny the totality of the legitimate spiritual quality of that rite — there could be no question about using the liturgy of 1965. That would send the “wrong” message, in their minds, to their followers.
Thus, the significance of the day of March 7 and the use of the Novus Ordo for the 50th anniversary.
Significant too, is the Cardinal of whom this church is assigned among the Sacred College: Cardinal Walter Kasper, chief theologian of “Team Bergoglio” and papally authorized proponent of the Kasper thesis, which holds that it is mercy to abandon 2000 years of Christian teaching which bars public and impenitent sinners from reception of the sacraments.
All of these 3 circumstances already say all which the Modernists need to say. Their con-catenation means that unless their agenda is explicitly denounced in the Homily for the celebration, that agenda is in fact explicitly affirmed by the silence.
Let us now examine the text of the talk to see what else can be gleaned.
As the Modernists would be very inclined to fear that Traditionalists would be apt to criticize this talk — there were even rumors in Rome that the Vatican was obsessed that traditional Catholics would stage a demonstration against the Anniversary — we have to look closely to see what is intended to be seen only by initiated Modernists.
Quotations are from our unofficial English translation of the homily…see previous Blog post for citations.
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Holy Mass at the Roman Parish of Ognissanti, on the Via Appia Nuova
Homily of Pope Francis
3rd Sunday in Lent
Saturday, March 7, 2015
On the occasion of the feast of the Jewish Passover, Jesus went to Jerusalem. Arriving at the Temple, he does not find people who seek God, but people who are conducting their own business: merchants of animals for the offering of sacrifice, money-changers, who exchange the “impure” money, bearing the image of the Emperor, with the money approved by the religious authority to pay the annual temple tax. What do we find when we take ourselves there, when we go to our temples? I give you this example: The unworthy commerce, source of ill-gotten gain, provokes the energetic reaction of Jesus. He overturns their tables and throws their money to the ground, he drives the merchants away, saying to them: « Don’t make the House of my Father a market! » (John 2:16).
Note, from the start, that the Pope founds his entire homily on the comparison between the Jewish liturgy and the Christian liturgy. This is the standard Modernist reading of the liturgical aggiornamento: Just as the Jewish liturgy was ignorant and superficial, the Christian inspired and interior; so the old Mass was obsessed with appearances and rules, the reformed Liturgy is open and free and unvexing.
Note that the Pope uses the current Italian version of the Gospels, which erroneously translates the Greek, οἶκον ἐμπορίου, as “market”, when in fact is means “house of business”, that is, “covered market place”. (The actual mercantile practices in the Gospel text took place, not in the Temple, but in the Courtyard of the Gentiles, the most exterior part of the outer area, in which even Gentiles who were believers could enter. No part of the Mosaic Law forbade trade in this area. Contrariwise, the Mosaic Law, of which Jesus as God is the author, precepted the offering of sacrifices to God: the support of the Temple by the annual tax, too, was a customary obligation of the entire Jewish People, to which Jesus never objected.)
In fact, the use of the Jewish – Christian parallelism to fault the old liturgy and praise the new, is a form of antisemitism which we would expect from a Lutheran faithful to Luther’s bigotry against both the Jewish People and the traditional Mass, the kind of theological bigotry propounded in liberal Germany theological institutes, such as those from which Cardinal Kasper may draw his racially tinged concepts of African Bishops, as Edward Pentin exposed during the recent Extra-Ordinary Synod on the Family. But let’s not allow our expectations or history to get in the way of the evidence.
Referring to the words of Jesus in John 2:16, the Pope continues:
This expression does not only refer to the traffic which was being practiced in the courtyards of the Temple. Rather, it regards the type of religiosity. The gesture of Jesus is a gesture of “cleaning”, of purification, and the mentality which He expresses can be found in the texts of the Prophets, according to which God does not take pleasure in an exterior cult wrought through material sacrifice and based upon personal interest (cf. Isaiah 1:11-17; Jeremiah 7:2-11). This gesture is a call back to authentic worship, to the correspondence between liturgy and life; a call which is valid for every epoch and even for us today. That correspondence between liturgy and life. The liturgy is not something strange, over there, far off, and one during which I think of many things, or pray the Rosary. No, no. There is a correspondence, between the liturgical celebration and what I then carry on in my life; and on this (path) one must go further ahead, one must journey onward.
Here the pope abandons the common reading of this passage in the Fathers, which attributes Jesus’ ire not to the mercantile operations per se, but to the corruption which had crept into it, such as not exchanging coins at the fair value, or selling animals for sacrifice at inflated prices; all of which defrauded the honest Jew who came to worship God, especially the poorer ones. (Remember that Jesus’ family was so poor that, at His birth, Joseph could only afford 2 turtle doves for sacrifice not the customary lamb).
To use this text while avoiding the condemnation of the sin of the exploitation of the poor, is a very notable exception for the man who is Pope Francis: seeing that he has railed against this for his entire Pontificate. This omission, therefore, should be seen as significant: namely that the true message of his homily is aimed at something else. We can see what that is, in the text paragraph of his talk:
The conciliar Constitution, Sacrosanctum Concilium, defines the liturgy as « the first and indispensable source from which the faithful can draw the true Christian spirit » (n. 14). Which means to reaffirm the essential link which unites the life of the disciple of Jesus with liturgical worship. This is, above all, not a doctrine to comprehend, or a rite to fulfill; it is naturally also this but in another manner, it is essentially diverse: it is a source of life and of light for our journey of faith.
That is, he is going to speak about the liturgical renewal, not about Jesus cleansing the Temple, per se. The Pope continues:
Moreover, the Church calls us to have and to promote an authentic liturgical life, so that there may be a harmony between what the liturgy celebrates and what we ourselves life in our own existence. It treats of how to express in life what we have received by means of the Faith and what which have celebrated (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 10).
The Church does nothing of the kind, actually. Vatican II did not impose any obligation on anyone in the Church, since it established no canons or anathemas not even promulgated a new liturgy. The Novus Ordo came into being only in 1969, and its authors were the Consilium established by Pope Paul VI, not by the Council Fathers. Nor did it even attempt to be faithful to the document, which the Pope just cited. The Pope could have mentioned this, but he did not: and his silence is significant. He is affirming that his intentions are to continue in that line of misrepresenting the Council as Pope Paul VI did.
The Pope continues:
The disciple of Jesus does not go to church only to observe a precept, to feel okay with a God who should not “trouble” him much. “But I, Lord, go every Sunday, I fulfill …, don’t mix yourself up with my life, don’t bother me”. This is the mentality of so many Catholics, so many. The disciple of Jesus goes to church to encounter the Lord and to find in his grace, working in the Sacraments, the strength to think and act according to the Gospel. On which account, we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that we can enter the house of the Lord and “cover ourselves over”, with prayers and devotional practices, comportments contrary to the requirements of justice, of honesty or of charity towards our neighbor. We cannot substitute with “religious gifts” what is owed to our neighbor, putting off a true conversion. The cult, the liturgical celebration, are the privileged place to heed the voice of the Lord, which guides us along the road of righteousness and Christian perfection.
Notice the dichotomy between the “disciples of Jesus” and “too many Catholics”. If you think the Pope is literally saying that “many Catholics” are not “disciples of Jesus”, you are correct! The truth is, however, that when one speaks properly, “Catholics” are the only disciples of Jesus that there are! for they are the only ones who take Him as seriously as He Himself insisted to be taken. So what is the Pope getting at? We must understand, that while it appears that he is using words in their proper sense, he is not; thus we must consider that he is not, if we are to understand him aright.
Secondly, if one considers the many scandalous deeds and actions of Pope Francis, as Pope and before in Argentina, we can rightly say that we find his words astounding: because he is condemning “many Catholics” for doing what he himself is notorious for doing, yet omitting that he is also at fault for that. What kind of “authentic Christian life” is that?
We must understand, therefore, that in this homily, the Holy Father has no intention of presenting a call to authentic Christian life, rather, his goal is to attack it. For his actions speak louder than his words and give them context, even if that is politically incorrect to say. If his intentions were otherwise, he would publicly repent of his bad example and many scandalous words and deeds during the last 2 years as Pope. He did not. That is significant.
Therefore, the true reading must be, that the authentic Christian life which seeks interior conversion for the sanctification of the exterior life, is to be rejected, and in its place one should implement what the aggiornamento gave us, the appearances of a renewal, which have visibly altered the liturgies of the Church, but have entirely abandoned the interior man, especially the interior of many priests and bishops, to interior corruption, to hypocrisy, superficiality etc., the very same things the Pope appears to be condemning.
The Pope continues:
This regards the fulfillment of a journey of conversion and penitence, to take from our life the scars of sin, as Jesus did, by cleansing the Temple of petty interests. And Lent is the favorable time for all of this, it is the time for interior renewal, for the forgiveness of sin, the time in which we have been called to rediscover the Sacrament of Penance and of Reconciliation, which causes us to pass from darkness to the light of grace and friendship with Jesus. There is no need to forget the great strength which this Sacrament has for the Christian life: it makes us grow in union with God, it makes us reacquire the lost joy and to experience the consolation of feeling ourselves personally welcomed by the merciful embrace of God.
The error of Luther was to seek God in the confirmation of his own personal “will” to be saved, founded in a fiducial faith. This error gave rise to the sentimentalism of Protestantism, which puts the experience of faith in the place of dogmatic faith; to which error there followed unbridled free thought in matters of religion, since “faith” no longer required intellectual assent to defined propositions or to revealed truths. What remained from Protestantism was consumed by Modernism, where sentiment alone remains. Thus Modernists go to church to get a feeling, a consolation, just as the pope is proposing for “disciples of Jesus”. Thus, we have our true key to read the Papal homily: The “disciples” are Modernists, the Jews are the Traditionalists, the pre-conciliar Catholics, who refuse the Aggiornamento.
The pope continues this line of thought, in his concluding remarks, where he calls for the continued revolution in the Church.
Dear brothers and sisters, this Church was constructed thanks to the apostolic zeal of St. Luigi Orione. It is precisely here, that, fifty years ago, blessed Paul VI inaugurated, in a certain sense, the liturgical reform with the celebration of the Mass in the language spoken by the people. I auger that this circumstance may revive in you all the love of the house of God, In her, may you find great spiritual help. Here you are able to experience, every time you wish to, the regenerative power of personal prayer and of community prayer. Listening to the Word of God, proclaimed in the liturgical assembly, it sustains you in the path of our Christian life. You meet together here between these walls, not as strangers, but as brothers, capable of giving one another a hand freely, because you have been built up in love through Christ, the foundation of hope and the fundament of pledge for every believer.
Him, Jesus Christ, the Corner Stone, do we embrace in this Holy Mass, renewing the resolution to commit ourselves for our own interior purification and for the interior cleansing of the spiritual edifice of the Church, of which each of us is a living part in force of our Baptism. Amen.
To a simple Catholic it might seem that the Pope is saying something quite different than what we have expounded, but take it from a student of 3 pontifical faculties, that is just what it is intended and crafted to appear to mean to a simple Catholic.
Thus, in summation, we can say, that the homily as presented is calling for greater violence against the “Jews”, that is the traditionalists — Jesus cleansing the Temple, is after all a prime example for the justification for violence* — and in favor of the Aggiornamento of the Church ever more deeply, and thus in favor of the Kasper Thesis, the heretical thesis of divorcing the Sacraments from the observance of the moral law, the thesis promoted by Cardinal Kasper, who is the Cardinal patron of the very church in which this homily was given.
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* Remember, it is a mortal sin of sacrilege to use scripture for an evil purpose or to interpret it in a sense contrary to the common opinion of the Fathers of the Church. The true example given by Our Lord in the Temple, is that as God’s Divine Son He has the right to cleanse His own Church from corruption, and this He surely will do, even before the great day of His Final Return. And that it is a grave offense to the Divine Majesty of His Father, that the uses of the places dedicated to the worship of God, as He commanded it, be stained with moral corruption. In other words, the example of Our Lord in the temple gives us the exact opposite indications as that which the Pope promotes, because it is diametrically opposed to the impiety of Modernism, to the hypocrisy of the pink mafia, and to the objectives of Free Masons and the Progressive Movement, and the adaptation of liturgy to life, such as the Aggiornamento has been applied.
Who tallied votes for “Team Bergoglio”?
Rome, January 11, 2015: Dr. Austen Ivereigh, the author of The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope recently reminded the world that the Conclave of 2013 contains many secrets of which the world has yet to know. One of the more intriguing mysteries to which he refers to in the ninth chapter of his book, where he describes in detail the organized effort to solicit and obtain the promises of votes for Cardinal Bergoglio — which this blog has shown is a formal violation of the papal law on Conclaves, punished by automatic excommunication for those Cardinal electors promising them, and by the Code of Canon Law, c. 1329 for those soliciting them — is the identity, as yet not revealed, of the aged Italian Cardinal who kept a tally of the votes.
Who this is, is unknown. And one can only make inferences on published facts, inferences which have not much probity.
Since Cardinals attended the open sessions of the Conclave in 2013 at the same time in which from Dr. Ivereigh’s account it appears “Team Bergoglio” was actively soliciting support for Cardinal Bergoglio, it can be presupposed that their closest collaborators were those who were the men most frequently in their company, and in whose company they feared not to be photographed. This conjectural probability is valid in anthropology or sociology, but not in forensics.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the one aged Italian Cardinal, in whose company one of the leading alleged members of “Team Bergoglio” was seen in that period — according to the photo record — was Cardinal Severino Poletti, retired Archbishop of Turino, Italy, and Cardinal-Priest of San Giuseppe in via Trionfale.
Seen also in the photograph above is Cardinal Marx, one of the more prominent supporters of the theological and pastoral proposals of Cardinal Kasper, rejected by the majority of Bishops at the recent Extra-ordinary Synod on the Family, in October.
For a complete Chronology of reports on the “Team Bergoglio” allegations, from around the world, including our own, see our Chronology of Reports on “Team Bergoglio”.
Antonio Socci speaks on “Team Bergoglio” scandal
Rome — Dec. 21, 2014: Antonio Socci, noted Italian journalist and author of the book, Non è Francesco (a best-seller in Italy, which details the events and facts which he believes invalidate the renunciation made by Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Cardinal Bergoglio), spoke about the “Team Bergoglio” scandal in an editorial published today in the Italian newspaper, Libero (republished on his FaceBook page; reprinted on his blog, Lo Straniero, i. e. The Outsider).
Here is our unofficial English translation of the first part of that blog-post, entitled, Abbattere tutti i muri? Va bene, Papa Bergoglio, cominciamo a spazzar via il “Muro di Silenzio” della Sistina, facendo emergere la verità sul Conclave…. A full translation in the German Language is available from Kirche & Realitat!
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Tearing down walls? Ok, Pope Bergoglio: let’s begin to do away with the “Wall of Silence” in the Sistine Chapel, to reveal the truth of the Conclave
Dec. 21: It was Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, thirty years ago, who proposed the abolition of the secrecy of the Conclave, by which the Cardinal-princes are obliged under oath regarding the election which takes place in the Sistine Chapel. He proposed this because that norm — far from standing guard over the sacred — risked (and risks) becoming a cover for profane things (the Cardinal adjoined, then, in the ’80’s, that one should pray very much for the Conclaves of the future so that no external influence of any sect might intervene therein).
It is paradoxical that a proposal so innovative and democratic would be advanced by a prelate who was considered to be the leader of the “Conservatives”. And that in the 30 years since no prelate, considered to be “progressive”, has taken it up and made it his own.
TRANSPARENCY
Today, if Pope Bergoglio were to take it up, that is, abolish the secrecy, he’d have the ability to demonstrate with deeds how much he is truly desirous of transparency and openness in the life of the Church, by liberating Her from obsolete prohibitions.
Will the Pope who has come to be hailed as “revolutionary”, be less an innovator than a “conservative” Cardinal? Will he wish to bolster the “wall of the Sistine Chapel”, after having asked the entire world to tear down all walls (in Cuba and elsewhere)?
Besides, Pope Bergoglio is sounding out every day against those modern “scribes and pharisees” who want to mummify all the old rules and old laws and prohibitions, by opposing change, transparency and openness to the world.
Let’s see if his words are followed with deeds, at least in regard to these norms which are entirely capable of modification, because they are ecclesiastical laws (while not even a Pope could modify the matters discussed in the recent Synod, because they pertain to the Word of God; though they were put into discussion by the Modernist faction).
One feels particularly the necessity of knocking down this “Sistine wall” — and this with urgency — above all in regard to the Conclave of 2013, concerning which rumors and questions grow daily instead of passing away.
THE MYSTERY OF 2013
As the case, which has broken out in England, shows — and from there it has leaped to America and Italy — in regard to the revelations of Austen Ivereigh in his book, “The Great Reformer”.
The book, a biography about Bergoglio, in an entirely positive light as regards the Argentine pope, contains some lines which skin him alive. One has to remember that Ivereigh is not the last man to arrive at the party, he was the spokesman for Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor and has held positions of trust in Catholic Media in England.
He, thus, speaks of the existence of a “Team Bergoglio”, made up, precisely, of Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor, Kasper, Danneels and Lehmann to promote the Argentine prelate to the papacy. The work, which is to have begun after the renunciation of Benedict XVI, would have had the consent of Bergoglio himself. A canonical case arises from this, because there are those who have sustained that all of this might put into doubt the validity of the election on March 13th. There have followed polemics, precisions and denials which have co-involved even Fr. Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman.
In my opinion, the facts cited in the book by the Englishman do not put into discussion, per se, the legitimacy of the election.
Nevertheless, they cause to be revealed that there is something of a battle which was engaged in behind the 5 ballots in the 2013 Conclave (from the renunciation of Benedict to the election of Bergoglio) and who were the protagonists of that.
But it makes one recall a similar controversy which broke out. Perhaps this is only the tip of an iceberg? Are there any other secrets? Among the various rumors and speculations, for example, remains the as-of-yet unexplained delay of Pope Bergoglio’s salute from the Loggia of St. Peter’s.
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In the other half of the essay (not translated here), Socci speaks of other anomalies in the 2013 Conclave and the non-reaction to his book.
Socci’s entire piece was republished by Libero’s blog, on Dec. 22, 2014.
For a complete Chronology of reports and videos regarding the “Team Bergoglio” scandal, see click here. That the allegations of Ivereigh are substantial and have grave canonical consequences has been explained here, here and here and here.
The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope
As many as 30 Cardinals implicated in Vote-Canvassing Scandal
Per una traduzione Italiana
December 9, 2014: Now, in the midst of the scandalous affair of “Team Bergoglio”, when the Catholic world is aghast at not only the allegations made by Dr. Austen Ivereigh in his new book, The Great Reformer, but also at the inconsistencies in and contradictions of the denials of his allegations, which denials have issued from the most authoritative sources: the official spokeswoman for Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor and the Pope’s spokesman, Fr. Frederico Lombardi, S. J., it will be most useful to scrutinize the testimony given by Dr. Ivereigh in his book.
The From Rome blog, having obtained a hard-copy of the American edition of the book, it can now do so; but so as to clarify the legal implications and the probity of testimony, let us proceed in a forensic manner. This will require, that we first consider the acts criminalized, the confession by the head of the conspiracy, and the corroborating evidence which supports the probity of what we shall study from Dr. Ivereigh’s book.
The Papal Decree which criminalizes Vote-Canvassing
In the papal law, Universi Dominici Gregis, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1996, there is forbidden under pain of automatic excommunication (i.e. immediately imposed, without necessity of declaration) the canvassing for votes. The crime is described there thus in the official and original Latin text:
81. Cardinales electores praeterea abstineant ab omnibus pactionibus, conventionibus, promissionibus aliisque quibusvis obligationibus, quibus astringi possint ad suffragium cuidam vel quibusdam dandum aut recusandum.
And, according to From Rome‘s more precise English translation of the official Latin text:
81. Let the Cardinal electors, moreover, abstain from all pacts, agreements, promises and any other obligations you like, by which they might be constrained to give or refuse support (suffragium) for anyone (sing. & plural).
To understand this prohibition, let us note that Pope John Paul II was personally very scandalized by the shenanigans which marked the conclave in which he himself was elected. To obstruct this in the future, he established a penalty for that most common form of human prudence in elections, vote-canvassing: this is because, as one can see in the papal law, UDG, he insists that the Cardinal Electors proceed in a religious manner and after much prayer to select the man most pleasing to almighty God and useful for the Church in the present hour (cf. the paragraphs which precede and follow, n. 81).
Thus, the Latin text, by which Pope John Paul II describes the activities to be forbidden, contains very important words: the first is all, the next describe the activities pactionibus, conventionibus, promissionibus (pacts, agreements, promises), but the last throw a net around all kinds of human activity by which there is any moral obligation arising: aliisque quibusvis obligationibus (and any other obligations you like).
Thus, let us consider the moral act of urging the election of a prospective candidate: First, one must have some confidence that the Candidate is suitable & willing (# 1: the agreement & pact); then, that one must recruit those willing to assist in canvassing (agreement & pact) in such wise that they also pledge support (# 2: promise & pact). The members of the vote-canvassing team, then, communicate by word or signs with prospective electors to present the reasons why the said candidate merits the electors support or vote (proposal of an agreement); and obtain some word or sign of agreement (# 3: agreement & promise or obligation) that he is worth of the electors’ votes. Each of these three steps is criminalized by the Papal Law. Since the Law does not exclude, but rather includes, all kinds of obligations, those which are grave, such as under a vow, or those which are light — which are signaled, for example, by even the wink of the eye — all are forbidden.
Note that since the Papal law is wide in what it forbids, not only is it a crime to promise a vote, it is a crime to join in a conspiracy to canvass for such votes, since this is tantamount to promising to vote for one candidate and not vote for other candidates. However, note that the papal law only penalizes voting Cardinals. Cardinals too old to vote, are not thus penalized, though they are collaborating in the solicitation of votes.
Once one has canvassed for votes, one has knowledge that the said candidate will achieve such and such in the first ballots, and confidence that he will be successful or not in that. This allows one to tally the votes promised.
The Confession of the Crime
That Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, confessed to having such confidence, was reported by the Catholic Herald on Sept. 12, 2013; in that same report he admits that Cardinal Bergoglio knew that he was being put forth as a candidate prior to the initiation of the Conclave. He also admits that after the Conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio personally recognized the English Cardinal’s leadership in the campaign for getting him elected. In the said interview, the English Cardinal confesses both knowledge and confidence, which could not have been had, reasonably, except by means of vote-canvassing in the strict sense of the term.
The Corroboratory Testimony & Evidence
Note that the mere fact that “Team Bergoglio”‘s self-confessed and papally-recognized leader was Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, an aged Cardinal who was NOT an elector, argues for the awareness by other members of “Team Bergoglio” of the existence of the penalty imposed in UDG 81. Also, from the testimony given by Dr. Austen Ivereigh, in his BBC appearance on March 12, 2013, at 17:03 PM, we know that Ivereigh and Murphy-O’Connor met beforehand to discuss the affairs of the Conclave; and that Ivereigh knew of the penalties imposed by UGD 81. Since in recent days, Ivereigh has shown himself unaware of the implications of UDG 81, it can be further suspected that in March of 2013, he had this knowledge of UDG 81 from Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor.
The Narrative of the Conspiracy, according to Ivereigh
I strongly suggest you get a copy of Ivereigh’s book, because the testimony it contains will be of momentous historical worth for years to come. Let us now consider that evidence.
From the Chapter entitled, “Conclave” (Chapter 9, pp. 349-367), we have these allegations:
“The had learned their lesson from 2005”, top of p. 355 — Argues for motive and foreknowledge of necessity of making a strong showing for Cardinal Bergoglio in the first vote: but this cannot be accomplished without a vote-canvassing campaign, nor can it succeed unless the forbidden and criminalized activities are engaged in.
“They first secured his assent. Asked if he was willing, he said that he believed that at this time of crisis for the Church no cardinal could refuse if asked.” (ibid.) — This Jesuitical response is what you would expect from a Cardinal-Jesuit; nevertheless, such a statement is morally equivalent to a sign of will giving consent, and in the context of a proposal to launch a campaign, it is also morally equivalent to a pact. This is an excommunicatable offense given the context of the offer of a campaign. A conscientious man, observant of the law of the conclave, would have added a sign that he repudiated an organized campaign, if only out of charity for the campaigners, who would thereby fall foul of the papal law.
The probity of what Ivereigh has just alleged, is very high, because no one initiates a campaign without the consent of the candidate; it would be to accuse “Team Bergoglio” of insanity, to hold that they did not ask for a sign to indicate his willingness. And it is more uncharitable to accuse a sane Cardinal of madness, than of a worldly Cardinal of reasonable prudence.
Then Ivereigh includes in parenthesis, a citation which appears to be lifted from Cardinal-Murphy-O’Connor’s testimony to the Catholic Herald last year. But the mere fact that these words are in parentheses, preserves the probity of the narrative from claims of hearsay evidence.
“Then they got to work touring the cardinals’ dinners to promote their man…” (ibid.) — This has been confirmed, in the case of Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal O’Malley, in the Wall Street Journal report from August 6, 2013. Dr. Ivereigh’s recent denials, do not deny this activity, which he, in retraction, characterizes now as “urging” Bergoglio as a candidate.
“… Their objective was to secure at least twenty-five votes for Bergoglio on the first ballot. An ancient Italian cardinal kept the tally of how many votes they could rely on before the conclave started.” — This statement which has never been denied or repudiated on point, confirms the charge of a violation of UDG 81, without any wiggle-room, because you cannot tally votes, unless votes have been promised, and if they are promised, then the ones asking have sought them, and both parties have entered into some kind of obligation or pact or agreement to vote for a particular candidate in the first ballot, while not voting for all other candidates.
There you have it, a formal, explicit allegation of a formal explicit violation of UDG 81.
Dr. Ivereigh then speaks of the confidence they had regarding the 19 Cardinals from Latin America, and then adds:
“The Spanish cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, archpriest of St. Mary Major in Rome and a former nuncio in Latin America, was vigorous in canvassing on Bergoglio’s behalf among the Iberian Iberian bloc.” (ibid.)— This allegation has never been denied by anyone, not even the Spanish Cardinal.
Ivereigh then names other Cardinal collaborators: Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna and Cardinal André Vingt-Trois of Paris.
He also names other Cardinals in suchwise as appears they participated in promising votes: Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa and Cardinal Sean O’Malley.
Finally, on p. 356-357, Dr. Ivereigh confirms this reading of the testimony he gives, by writing:
For this reason, and because the organizers of his campaign stayed carefully below the radar, the Bergoglio bandwagon that began to roll during the week of the congregations went undetected by the media, and to this day most vaticanisti believe there / was no organized pre-conclave effort to get Bergoglio elected.
Dr. Ivereigh then confirms this statement, that there was an organized campaign, with footnote 10, which reads:
In his Francis: Pope of a New Word (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013), ch. 3, the leading Vatican commentator Andrea Tornielli says that there were no “campaigns organized in advance” of the conclave for Bergoglio. There was one.
Numerous Cardinals are implicated
Though, heretofore, there have been publicly implicated 4 Cardinals: Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster, Danneels of Belgium, Kasper and Lehmann of Germany; the text of Ivereigh has named 3 others as team members: Schonborn of Vienna, Vingt-Trois of Paris and Santos Abril y Castello of St. Mary Major.
A total of 7 Cardinals in the team.
Two other Cardinals as suspect of promising votes, named explicitly: Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, and Cardinal Sean O’Malley.
But also, enormously, all the Cardinals of Spain and Latin America as potentially promising votes! That’s more than 20 others! — Not to count the African Cardinals.
In total, perhaps as many as 30 Cardinals, all participated: those who were electors, excommunicated even unto this day! *
Astounding!
More astounding is that key parts of this narrative have not, as of today, been denied by any of or all of the participants. The only facts denied are that the Four Cardinals asked Cardinal Bergoglio for his consent to the vote-campaign, and the narrative presented by Dr. Ivereigh regarding them. Nothing has been denied by the others, and some alteration of the chronology of the timeline presented, might in fact be what is being implicitly affirmed by Lombardi’s denial. The facts denied however are the those which the evidence presented above shows to have great probity.
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FOOTNOTE
* Though, if any did not vote for Bergoglio in the first round of votes, one might argue that they did not oblige themselves.
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For a complete list of our coverage on Team Bergoglio and a list of reports from major news outlets the world over on it, see here.