SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

A historic indictment – A review of Antonio Socci’s La Profezia Finale (The Final Prophecy) on Pope Francis

http://www.cfnews.org/page10/page104/socci_indictment_of_francis.html

By Christopher A. Ferrara, March 21, 2016 cfnjjv@gmail.com, www.cfnews.org

Introduction

Again and again the Italian Catholic and public intellectual Antonio Socci has shocked the Catholic “mainstream” with explosive exposés that confirm the diagnosis of the current crisis in the Church in “traditionalist” and “Fatimite” circles. Unlike so many of his colleagues in the Catholic commentariat, Socci will not refrain from publishing what intellectual honesty demands respecting our situation. Hence his Fourth Secret of Fatima, which placed the massive evidence of the Vatican’s failure to disclose the entire Third Secret squarely before the public eye, where it will simply not go away. Likewise, his Non é Francesco (It’s Not Francis, a play on the title of an Italian pop song) fearlessly confronted the disaster of the current pontificate, even if one demurs from Socci’s dubious arguments against the validity of Cardinal Bergoglio’s election (as Socci himself has apparently since done).

Now comes La Profezia Finale (The Final Prophecy), which consists principally of an open letter to Francis following an introductory review of approved Marian apparitions and other prophecies, especially the Message of Fatima and the integral Third Secret, which converge on each other and “indicate our time as the time of an almost apocalyptic turning point.”

As this book has thus far appeared only in Italian, and may never see an English edition—the translations herein are mine—what seems appropriate here is a book review that is more a tour of the text than a mere summary description. What elevates the work to the status of an historical document is the open letter to Francis. Here we encounter a text beneath which simmers barely concealed but entirely justified fury over the baneful effects of what Socci has dubbed “Bergoglianism“—a mixture of popular piety, leftist ideology, disdain for strict adherence to the traditional doctrines and disciplines of the Church, and a personality cult fomented and sustained by a mass media delighted with a Pope who, as Socci writes, seems to have “set about attacking the Church” rather than defending her against attackers.

The title of the open letter, “A terrible responsibility before God,” sets the tone for what is a scathing indictment of the entire pontificate, which, precisely on account of its perceived hostility to Tradition, enjoys “the unbearable general adulation of the media, above all the laicists and enemies of Christ, who propagate with regard to you a veritable cult of personality” (p. 92).

Francis, says Socci, is promoting the error of a “pure” Christianity (quoting Andreas Hoffer), “a sort of ‘superchristianity’ that purports to be “more good than even Jesus Christ himself” because it holds that “it is no longer enough to love the sinner… It is necessary even to love the sin (98).” Not without reason has the ironically entitled “Synod on the Family” been widely disparaged as “the Sin-Nod” and “the Synod Against the Family.”

Indeed, as I write this piece the Catholic world awaits with dread a 200-page “Apostolic Exhortation” that may accomplish what the Synod failed to approve despite its blatant manipulation by Francis and his fiery denunciations of the “rigorists” and “Pharisees” among the Synod Fathers: the admission of public adulterers in second or even third “marriages” to Holy Communion and a greater “acceptance” of those involved in cohabitation and even “homosexual unions.”

In sum, Socci alleges, Francis has engaged in the “abolition of the external enemy and the fabrication of an internal enemy”—not the Modernists, but the defenders of the Faith in all its integrity, whom Francis habitually mocks and derides as “rigorists and fundamentalists (p. 99).” Socci charges that in the midst of the “dictatorship of relativism” lamented by Benedict XVI, which “is now consolidated in the West,” the Catholics who oppose it are “beaten with a cane and emarginated from the highest summit of the Church: by you [emphasis added, here and throughout].”

Yet, with the Church facing an apocalyptic turn of events in the realm of the spiritual, Francis has published an encyclical on ecology*, addressing “the separation of waste and the abuse of plastic bottles and air conditioners.” Socci asks: “Are you sure that this is the response a Vicar of Christ should give to a truly apocalyptic spiritual crisis…?” *Laudato Si’

Socci provides a bill of particulars for his indictment under a series of headings that represent various aspects of the Bergoglian program.

Bergoglian Confusion

Under the heading “Confusion” Socci remarks the unprecedented nature of the “Jubilee of Mercy,” the first Jubilee in Church history that “does not involve the memory of the earthly life of Jesus… [and] celebrates only an ecclesial event: the fifty years since the Second Vatican Council (p. 108).”

Mercy, Socci writes, “was not invented in 2013,” but this event—with its thousands of “mercy doors” and no clear requirements for obtaining a plenary indulgence, seems to suggest (quoting Sandro Magister) “the total cancellation of sin, no longer with any hint of the remission of the consequent penalty. The word ‘penalty’ is another of the words that have vanished (p. 113).” Even the call for repentance and conversion is “set aside because you—as you have said publicly—do not wish to convert anyone and consider proselytism to be nonsense.”

Socci cites Francis’s homily of December 8, 2015 wherein he declares how wrong it is affirm of God “that sinners are punished by His judgment, without preferring instead that they are pardoned by His mercy.” The impression is that God “has pardoned everything ‘a priori’ and that it is not even necessary to amend one’s life.” Socci notes that Our Lord Himself lamented this “terrible self-deception” in an interior locution recorded by Saint Bridget of Sweden, wherein He tells her that the Church’s foundation in the Faith has been undermined “because everyone believes in me and preaches mercy, but no one preaches and believes that I am the just judge… I will not leave unpunished the least sin, nor without a reward the least good.”

Socci asks: “But why has your pontificate taken this turn?” The rest of the open letter presents the evidence for what he believes to be the answer to that question, and the answer could not be more explosive:

“… [I]nstead of combatting errors (and certain of the erring) you have set yourself to combatting the Church…. I would remind you that the Church is the bride of Christ for which He was crucified, and the servant who has received from the King the task of defending pro tempore His bride cannot humiliate her in the public square, treating her like a naughty child…. It is necessary to kneel before the Lord, not the newspapers” (pp. 119-120).

Synod of Subversion

Under the heading “Bewilderment,” Socci trains his sights on the tempestuous Synod, which he rightly describes as “a deadly attack on the family and on the sacrament of the Eucharist that was systematically… carried forward by the Vatican summit,” “assisted for two years in the overturning of the perennial Magisterium of the Church” and was “promoted by the one who should be the custodian and defender of that teaching (p. 126).”

Socci quotes Cardinal Pell’s observation that the Synod was a “theological war” in which the indissolubility of marriage was like a flag to be captured in the “battle between what remains of Christianity in Europe and an aggressive neopaganism. All the adversaries of Christianity want the Church to capitulate on this point.”

But, writes Socci, while Francis “should have headed the resistance to the forces that wanted the Church’s capitulation, instead everyone—with ever-greater evidence and force —saw you heading the revolutionary faction (pp. 126-127).” Thus Ross Douthat of the New York Times was able to write: “in this moment the first conspirator is the Pope himself.” No wonder, Socci notes with disgust, even Newsweek magazine (see page 14) ran a cover story entitled “Is the Pope Catholic?“—a question that “was never posed as to your predecessors and no Catholic would ever have posed, but with you we find ourselves before a Pope who, as reported by a noted laicist daily [La Repubblica], declared literally ‘A Catholic God does not exist.'” In the same vein, The American Spectator depicted Francis “sitting atop a wrecking ball that was reducing a building [a church steeple] to dust” (p. 124).

A Meteorological Pope?

Under the heading “Climate Obsession,” Socci contrasts the apocalyptic decline in faith and morals throughout the West with this Pope’s inexplicable obsession with a supposed “climatological apocalypse.” Socci’s question is devastating: “Does the Church really have need of a climatological and meteorological Pope? (p. 131).” Noting that there is “no scientific certainty which proves indisputably that today there is a catastrophic change in climate and that this is imputable to human activity,” Socci declares to Francis:

“Yet you, Holy Father, who are always cold and detached regarding the dogma of the Church, have uncritically wed yourself to absurd ecological dogmas … making a granitic profession of faith in that absurd climatist ideology… [I]t is improper and ridiculous that a Pope makes the climate and the environment (to which he dedicated the first encyclical he penned) the heart of his preaching… The Lord did not say: ‘Convert and believe in global warming,’ but rather: “Convert and believe in the Gospel.” And He never commanded: ‘Separate your refuse’ but rather ‘Go and baptize all peoples'” (p. 134).

Socci’s scalding conclusion (quoting an editorial by Riccardo Cascioli) is that “One has the impression that the fundamental message of the Church has changed: ‘From the savior of men to the savior of the planet.'”

Lions and Tigers and Bears

Under the heading “Disturbing Show,” Socci denounces the preposterous and scandalous ecological light show projected onto the façade of Saint Peter’s on no less than the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Entitled Fiat Lux (Let there be Light), the show was “a mocking challenge and a parody of the Gospel in which the expression indicates the act of the Creator and then identifies the Light that is Christ who has come to illuminate the darkness.”

Replete with pictures of animals but devoid of even a hint of Christian symbolism, this spectacle represents a complete reversal of the message of the Gospel: “the world projects its light on the Church immersed in darkness. And in that show the Church receives the light of the world (p. 138).” And as the world’s imagery was cast onto the basilica that stands at the heart of the Church, the light on the crèche in Saint Peter’s

Square was extinguished because “the light of the Baby Jesus must never disturb the staging of the new ecological religion (p. 139).”

Here Socci points to a stunningly appropriate passage in Scripture, from the Epistle to the Romans: “For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things (Romans 1:22-23).” And here yet another devastating assessment thrown at the feet of Francis:

“But above all, Father Bergoglio [a reference to the Pope’s penchant for introducing himself thus], how is it possible that you do not notice and do not indicate other emergencies than those of the climate, or at least with equal insistence? The apostasy of entire peoples from the faith of the true God is not a drama that merits your most ardent appeals? The war against the family and against life? The neglect of Christ and the massacre of Christian communities? It seems that only the environment and other themes of the religion of political correctness merit your passion.

“A great French intellectual, Alain Finkielkraut, has described you as “Supreme Pontiff of the world journalistic ideology.” Is he wrong? Does he exaggerate?

“In effect, in ‘your’ Church it seems that the themes of separating refuse and recycling take precedence over the tragedy of entire peoples who, in the turn of a few years, have abandoned the faith. You sound the alarm over “global warming” while the Church for two millennia has sounded it concerning the fire of Hell” (p. 142).

From here, Socci launches into a discussion of the Message of Fatima and precisely its warnings about the loss of souls in Hell for all eternity. The Madonna of Fatima, he writes, “did not present the calculations of environmentalists on the climate of the planet, but caused the little children to see the eternal fire of Hell, and told them, sadly: ‘You have seen Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go.

To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. Many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”

This, Socci continues, “is the real tragedy, Holy Father, the eternal perdition of multitudes. Not—if you will permit me—the loss of biodiversity, or at least not for us Christians. Yet you never speak of it. Rather, sometimes you almost induce the belief that everyone will be saved because ‘God does not condemn. (p. 142-143).'”

Summing up his unconcealed contempt for the Pope’s preoccupation with global warming rather than the eternal fire of which Our Lady came to warn the world at Fatima, Socci writes: “Before the spiritual catastrophe of the eternal perdition of multitudes, which induced the mother of God to come earnestly to Earth, I find it frankly incomprehensible that you preoccupy yourself for the most part—as you did in your encyclical Laudato si’ —with biodiversity, the fate of worms and little reptiles, the lakes, and the abuse of plastic bottles and air-conditioning” (p. 148).

A Pope Who Doesn’t Like Catholics?

Socci’s indictment next proceeds to the heading “Attack on the Faith,” a reference to enemies within the Church since Vatican II, whose subversion has been lamented (too little and too late) by every Pope since the Council, including Benedict XVI. It was Benedict who (during the Mass for the opening of the conclave that elected him) declared that today having “a clear and certain faith” is denounced as “fundamentalism.” Citing that testimony, Socci throws a series of gauntlets Francis’s feet:

“I invite you, Father Bergoglio, to reread attentively these words because they describe dramatically what is occurring during your pontificate. In fact, it is precisely you personally, Holy Father, who accuse of ‘fundamentalism’ those who have a clear and certain faith and bear witness to their fidelity to Catholic doctrine… You, curiously, are convinced that the danger for the Church of today is Christians fervent in their faith and those pastors who defend the Catholic creed. In your Evangelii gaudium you attack “some who dream of a monolithic doctrine” and those who “use a language completely orthodox.”

“Should we then prefer those who are carried here and there by every ideology and use heretical language? Evidently yes, seeing that they are never attacked by you.

“If one chooses any day, one will almost always find that you, in your discourse, attack those you call ‘rigorists,’ ‘rigid,’ that is, men with fervent faith, whom you identify with ‘Scribes and Pharisees'” (p. 153-155).

Socci does not mince words in addressing Francis’s well-known constant resort to a false antithesis between mercy and doctrinal rigor, citing one of the innumerable discourses in which Francis declares that so-called “doctors of the law,” who know doctrine well, are estranged from the mercy of God. “But you, Holy Father,” writes Socci: “should overcome your personal resentment toward those who have studied; you should know that, in the Christian horizon, it is completely absurd to oppose mercy to Truth, because both are incarnated in the same Jesus Christ. Thus it is false to oppose doctrine to the pastoral, because that would be to oppose the Logos (doctrine) to the Good Shepherd (the Truth made flesh): Jesus is the Logos (the Truth made flesh) and, at the same time, the Good Shepherd” (p. 159).

Socci also focuses on Francis’s justly infamous speech attacking his conservative opposition at the close of Synod 2016, wherein he blasted the prelates who had resisted having the pre-written, heterodox Instrumentum laboris shoved down their throats as “the Synod’s” final report. As Francis declared in that harangue, his opponents had: “… closed hearts that often hide even behind the teaching of the Church, or behind good intentions, to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superficiality and superiority, to judge difficult cases and wounded families….

“The true defenders of doctrine are not those who defend the letter but the spirit; not the idea but the man; not the formula, but the gratuitous love of God and of his pardon.”

Here we see the umpteenth example of Francis’ penchant for the false antithesis: the letter versus the “spirit” of doctrine; the idea versus the man; the “formula” versus the love of God and his pardon. But there is no opposition at all between these concepts; in fact, they are inseparable.

Socci has had quite enough of the past three years of this sort of Modernist sophistry, and he fires with both barrels: “So doing, do you not think that you have disqualified your predecessors and all the Magisterium of the Church, in order to affirm your strictly personal concept of mercy different from the doctrine of the Church?… Evidently, even Jesus would have been, according to you, doctrinaire, a rigorist, one who defends the idea instead of the man. In effect—applying your criterion—we would have to say that Jesus would not have been accepted to a seminary during your pontificate because he was the most fundamentalist of all; in fact, not only was he certain of the truth, but he proclaimed himself the Truth made flesh (‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ John 14, 6).”

Catholic Divorce?

Next in the dock, under the heading “Nullity,” is Francis’s surprise attack on the process for determining matrimonial nullity, which Francis “streamlined” with new canons devised in semi-secrecy and without consulting any competent Vatican dicastery.

The net effect of the two motu proprios introducing these “reforms,” Mitis Iudex Jesus (for the western Church) and Mitis et Misericors (for the eastern Church) is, Socci writes, “a total overturning of perspective: no longer the defense of the sacrament above all (for the salvation of souls), but rather the ease and speed of obtaining an annulment (p. 168).”

Socci notes Francis’s curious insistence on the notion of “marital failure” in the sense of a breakdown in relations, which he seems to equate with grounds for nullity (original nonexistence) of the marriage. But, as Socci rightly observes, “there are many failed marriages that are perfectly valid” while, on the other hand, “there are many ‘null’ marriages (that is, they have never been such from the beginning) that are not failed” in terms of personal relations (p. 169). What Francis has done with his “reforms,” says Socci, is to authorize “imposition of a sentence of nullity as therapy for couples in crisis,” producing what many commentators have termed “Catholic divorce.” The net result, Socci concludes, is “a true revolution in the history of the Church.”

And the supreme irony of this revolution is that not even Cardinal Kasper called for it, but rather, in his intervention at the Consistory of February 2014, rejected precisely “the hypothesis of a generous broadening of the procedure for matrimonial nullity” because “it would create the dangerous impression that the Church is proceeding in a dishonest way to concede what are in reality divorces (p. 171).”

Incredibly, then, Francis has outdone even Kasper in his attack on the foundations of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. As I have noted elsewhere, Francis admits in his own motu proprio the danger of what he has done: “It did not however escape me that a shortened procedure may endanger the principle of the indissolubility of marriage…”

Returning once again to the theme of Fatima, Socci reminds us that Sister Lucia warned Cardinal Caffarra in a letter to the prelate that “The final conflict between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be over marriage and the family.” Socci here pleads with Francis to undo his improvident reform: “I fervently hope that you will withdraw everything. As soon as possible (p. 173).”

The Consequences of Liberalization

Reaching the climax of his long indictment, Socci, under the heading “A Catastrophic Balance,” drops one bomb after another in assessing the claim that Francis is merely attempting to attract souls by mitigating the Church’s supposed rigor. It suffices merely to recite Socci’s explosive remarks:

• “No one has ever held that in order to draw people to the Gospel it is necessary to disown or overturn the

Gospel.”

• “Of the many saints and great Popes who have evangelized peoples and entire continents, no one has ever done it by watering down and adulterating the doctrine of the Faith.”

• “We must be the salt of the earth and the salt burns wounds. Like the truth. We must choose: either with

Him or against Him. Either salvation or perdition.”

• “[W]henever a religious confession lowers the bar to accommodate worldly customs or to attract adherents it decrees its own suicide.” pp. 177-179.

Socci cites the study of a renowned sociologist whose data confirm that Christian religious confessions that liberalize begin immediately to decline, while those that maintain or return to their traditions thrive, and that this is precisely what has happened in the liberalized Catholic Church of the post-Vatican II epoch.

In this connection, Socci presents Francis with “heavily negative data regarding you personally,” showing that the vaunted “Francis effect” has really meant a steady decline in attendance at papal audiences, despite “the always more powerful planetary propaganda machine that daily hails and exalts your smallest gesture, mythologizing it more than any star.” In fact, he notes, despite the myth that Benedict was “a cold German professor, from whom the people felt distant, in reality the people were much more attracted by Benedict

XVI,” whose audience addresses were far better attended. And even though, in contrast to Francis, the media were uniformly hostile to Benedict, “evidently the Christian people, even when bombarded by the media, recognized the authentic accent that its heart expected (p. 180-181).”

In sum, Socci concludes:

“Evidently your message not only does not attract the distant, but even causes those near to run away…

You speak instead to the elite, who have acclaimed you, feeling themselves confirmed in their laicist convictions. Your personal popularity has grown to excess.

They call it the ‘Bergoglio effect,’ believing that the interested applause of unbelievers and the adulation of the media will fill the churches again. Instead, data in hand, we can say that for the Church the Bergoglio effect has been the contrary. The contents of your magisterium have distanced the people from religious practice rather than attracting them to it” (pp. 181-182).

The Franciscan Friars Affair

Socci next treats of the case of Francis’s brutal persecution of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (FFI), dismembered and destroyed by his personally appointed “apostolic commissioner” without any concrete reason ever having been given to the victims. Here Socci recalls the astounding remarks by Francis during a meeting with some members of the already-shattered FFI, wherein, at one and the same, he admits that he approved the FFI’s destruction but that the FFI has suffered persecution by “the demon” on account of its devotion to Mary! To which demon is Francis referring? Socci protests to Francis that “their [the FFI’s] true ‘crime’ is that of being true Christians, fervent in the Faith, those you harshly describe as ‘fundamentalists’ and who are in reality only living the authentic Gospel. Dear Father, reverse a decision for which one day God could ask you to account…. You have many who adulate you, but few among your fans pray for you; surely very few pray for you as much as the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate “(p. 186).

A Love Affair with Lutherans

After noting that Francis evinces no concern over the internal enemies of the Church who, as Saint Pius X warned, work to undermine the foundations of the faith, Socci next discusses how, on the contrary, Francis seems to have little regard for the doctrinal differences between Catholicism and the various forms of Protestantism.

Under the heading “In the House of Luther,” Socci recalls Francis’s scandalous appearance at a Lutheran church in Rome to participate in a Sunday service during which he rambled on for some ten minutes in answer to a woman’s question about why a Lutheran cannot receive Holy Communion. In the process he characterized the Catholic dogma on transubstantiation as a mere “interpretation” differing from the Lutheran view, ultimately rather coyly suggesting that the woman to “talk to the Lord” about whether she should receive Communion from a Catholic priest—an act of sacrilege. “I dare not say more,” said Francis, having already said quite enough.

Noting Luther’s venomous hatred of the Mass, Socci asks Francis: “how is it possible not to be disturbed? (p. 193).” Dialogue with Lutherans, he writes, must involve “reciprocal clarity, not tossing into the thorn bush the heart of the Catholic faith (p. 194).” Here Socci quotes what may be the single most outrageous remark Francis has ever made. Said Francis to the Lutherans on that occasion: “The final choice will be definitive. And what will be the questions that the Lord will ask us that day: ‘Did you go to Mass? Did you have a good catechesis?’ No, the questions will be on the poor, because poverty is at the center of the Gospel.”

Socci reminds Francis of what any well-formed child would understand: the infinite value of the Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration, and its worthy reception as compared to even a mountain of good works for the poor:

“But instead you, Father Bergoglio, seem to affirm that what counts are humanitarian merits that we acquire ourselves with our activism, with our ‘service’ to the poor.”

“This would seem to be a Pelagian idea. But—I repeat—the most amazing thing is that you contrapose [yet another false antitheses] “serving the poor” to the Mass, which almost reduces it to something superfluous (along with catechesis)” (p. 197).

Quoting the famous saying of Padre Pio that “It would be better for the world to be without the sun than without Holy Mass,” Socci confronts Francis with the implications of his own words and deeds over the past three years, including his curious refusal to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament:

“Permit me to confide to you, Father Bergoglio, that—from the entirety of your words and gestures—one gets the impression that you have some problem with the Holy Eucharist, and that you do not really comprehend its value and its reality. There are so many facts and actions that raise this doubt. The most evident… is your decision not to kneel before the Sacrament during the Consecration at Mass, nor in front of the tabernacle, nor during Eucharistic adoration (moreover you do not participate in the Corpus Christi procession in which your predecessors, kneeling, always participated) (p. 200).

And yet, Socci notes, Francis had no problem kneeling when, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he knelt to receive “the laying on of hands at the convention of Pentecostals in the Luna Park Stadium… Suffice it to say that your intermittent pain in the knees, which seems to arise only when before the Most Blessed Sacrament, beyond seeming rather bizarre, would not appear to be an acceptable explanation (p. 201).”

An Unconscious Joachimist?

This strange attitude toward the Holy Eucharist leads Socci to pose this challenge to Francis regarding his apparent affection for Protestantism: “… one has the impression that behind your particular opening to the Protestant world and behind your hostility to the structure of the Church—that is, to the visible Church and her doctrine, which they would surpass by listening to the Holy Spirit—flickers a sort of “Church of the spirit,” longed-for in certain affirmations you made in the meeting with Pentecostals at Caserta, on July 28, 2014… As if the Catholic Church, with its doctrinal structure and hierarchy, would in some way supersede itself in the same way the Old passed to the New Covenant (and he who “lingers” to defend doctrine would be… like the ancient Scribes and Pharisees)” (p. 204-205).

Here Socci levels the stunning accusation that Francis exhibits a “sort of unconscious mitigated Joachimism”—a reference to Joachim of Fiore, the deluded 12th century “visionary” who imagined a coming new age of the Holy Spirit that would supersede even the New Testament.

Another Honorius?

Socci’s indictment (p. 207) reaches its climax with the suggestion that Francis, being a Pope who “promotes his own ideas,” may go the way of another Pope who did the same: Honorius (r. 625-628), who was posthumously anathematized by an ecumenical council—a sentence confirmed his own successor, Leo II—for aiding and abetting the spread of the “monothelite” heresy (denying any human will in Christ). Socci levels against Francis the same condemnation Leo II leveled against Honorius: “Those who aroused contention against the purity of apostolic tradition, at their death certainly received eternal condemnation, [including] Honorius who, rather than extinguishing the flame of heresy, as befits apostolic authority, fed it by his neglect.”

Paying Homage to Dictators

Socci nears the end of his indictment with a positively scalding account of Francis’s visit to Cuba, where he said nothing about the tyranny under which it suffers while he condemned the “god of money” in capitalist countries. Unlike John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who demanded the release of prisoners and met Fidel Castro on neutral ground (John Paul) or received him at the apostolic nunciature in Havana (Benedict), Francis made no demands on the Castro regime, either of Fidel or his brother Raul, and conducted a veritable pilgrimage to Fidel’s home, where the bloody dictator received the Pope in audience.

Socci expresses entirely appropriate disgust at Francis’s acceptance from Raul of the gift of a crucifix supposedly made from the oars of “refugee” rowboats in the Mediterranean—no rowboats were involved. Yet Francis ignored the 100,000 refugees who have drowned attempting to escape the Castro brothers’ communist prison state. Socci concludes: “These are the tyrants you to whom you have paid homage and who have given you the gift of your ‘migrants’ (p. 214).”

The Folly of “Open Borders”

The indictment proceeds to the heading “Walls,” wherein Socci dismantles Francis’s demagogic insistence on “an indiscriminate opening of the frontier that would destabilize peoples, states and systems.”

Socci points out that not only Saint Thomas but the Bible itself defends the use of “walls” to protect the integrity of nations and peoples from invasion and malign influences —the Vatican walls themselves being an example of this—and that the modern national frontier is not a “wall” to be denounced as unchristian.

Socci asks Francis: “Is it possible that you do not perceive a phenomenon as macroscopic as the failure of assimilation? And can you not see the unresolved problem that Islam has with violence, as Benedict XVI explained at Regensburg? (p. 217).”

The Summation

The indictment concludes under the heading “the Poor,” wherein Socci, son of a miner, protests Francis’s constant talk of the poor as “unacceptable: because it is in a mode that is ideological, demagogic and sociological…. But the Church does not dream of instrumentalizing the poor, making of them an ideological-theological category like that Argentine theology of liberation from which it emerges…”

Summing up his whole indictment, Socci writes: “the first poverty of peoples is not to know Christ… This is the problem, Holy Father. It is necessary to announce to men the only one who can save them, because this is what really counts, as Jesus tirelessly warns: “What profit a man if gains the whole world but loses his soul?…”

“So, you should reverse the entire orientation of your papacy: Thus, instead of occupying yourself with separating refuse, you will defend sound Catholic doctrine against attacks by the world and by Modernism; instead of obsessively sounding the alarm about the climate, you will warn humanity about the overhanging threat of eternal damnation; instead of an encyclical on the fate of worms and little reptiles, you will write one on the persecuted Christians and the world’s hatred of the Savior….

“As Vito Messori said to then Cardinal Ratzinger: ‘Without a vision of the mystery of the Church that is also supernatural and not only sociological, Christology itself loses its reference to God: a purely human structure ends by corresponding to a human project. The Gospel becomes the Jesus Project, the social liberation project, or other historical projects… which seem religious only in appearance, but are atheistic in substance…'” (p. 224).

The closing words of this truly historic document are Socci’s personal plea to Francis to change his course before it is too late: “Do not be afraid of disappointing the world, which until now has enthusiastically applauded you… The only fear to have is that of disappointing God….

“Dear Pope Francis, be one of our true pastors on the way of Christ, with Pope Benedict who assists you with prayer and advice: also assist the Church, today bewildered and confused, to recover the way of its Savior and thus reignite the light that will enable humanity not to lose itself in an abyss of violence. All of the saints of heaven pray for this….”

Francis Applies the Butter

Shortly after publication of La Profezia Finale, Socci received a handwritten letter from none other than Francis himself1. Addressed to “dear brother,” the letter was not unlike the telephone call2 Francis made to Mario Palmaro, late co-author of another searing critique of the pontificate bluntly entitled “We Do Not Like This Pope.”3 The gist of the letter and the phone call alike was the same: I appreciate your criticism of me.

One can be forgiven for thinking that so clever an ecclesial politician as Francis might have in mind a bit of buttering up of his most effective and widely read critics. But the letter to Socci (as well as the phone call to Palmaro) puts to rest any suggestion that “traditionalists” offend the Faith when they publish strong criticism of this Pope. Francis himself explodes that contention.

In any case, Socci, while not unmoved by this personal attention from the Supreme Pontiff, has not backed even one step away from his indictment. His most recent column (as of this writing) laments the enormous damage “the ‘new Church’ of Bergoglio” is causing to “the Church of all time,” threatening to be “more devastating than Luther.”

In closing one must ask: Where are the prelates who, undoubtedly seeing what Socci sees, will come forward to stand with him—and with concerned laity around the world—in opposition to the rushing tide of “Bergoglianism,” a phenomenon unlike anything seen before in the annals of the papacy.

Whether or not you read Italian, buy this book.* You will be the owner of a piece of history. And may God bless and protect its courageous author.

* Book also available on Kindle (Italian only)

1 http://www.antoniosocci.com/la-lettera-che-mi-ha-scritto-il-papa-su-la-profezia-finale-e-la-mia-risposta/

2 http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-calls-a-traditionalist-writer-who-criticized-him/

3 http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2015/10/07/questo-papa-non-ci-piace-con-gli-onori-de-losservatore-romano/

RELATED FILES AT THIS MINISTRY’S WEB SITE IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THE SUBJECTS WERE TOUCHED IN THE TRANSLATED AND SUMMARISED CRITIQUE OF ANTONIO SOCCI:

THE THIRD SECRET OF FATIMA AND THE CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_THIRD_SECRET_OF_FATIMA_AND_THE_CONSECRATION_OF_RUSSIA.doc

THE THIRD SECRET OF FATIMA-DR FRANCO ADESSA

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_THIRD_SECRET_OF_FATIMA-DR_FRANCO_ADESSA.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-THE MID-WAY REPORT

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-THE_MID-WAY_REPORT.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-FROM CASUISTRY TO MERCY-THE NEW ART OF PLEASING

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-FROM_CASUISTRY_TO_MERCY-THE_NEW_ART_OF_PLEASING.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 28-DID GERMAN PELF INFLUENCE THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY?

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_28-DID_GERMAN_PELF_INFLUENCE_THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY.doc

SYNOD ON THE FAMILY 01-FR JOHN ZUHLSDORF

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY_01-FR_JOHN_ZUHLSDORF.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-BETWEEN HERESY AND SCHISM 01

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-BETWEEN_HERESY_AND_SCHISM_01.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-BETWEEN HERESY AND SCHISM 02

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-BETWEEN_HERESY_AND_SCHISM_02.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-BETWEEN HERESY AND SCHISM 03

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-BETWEEN_HERESY_AND_SCHISM_03.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-SCANDALOUS DEMAND OF THE INDIAN BISHOPS TO PERMIT USE OF CONTRACEPTIVES

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-SCANDALOUS_DEMAND_OF_THE_INDIAN_BISHOPS_TO_PERMIT_USE_OF_CONTRACEPTIVES.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-THE CONCERNS OF THIS MINISTRY STAND VINDICATED

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-THE_CONCERNS_OF_THIS_MINISTRY_STAND_VINDICATED.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-WE ARE AT WAR

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-WE_ARE_AT_WAR.doc

THE SYNOD ON THE FAMILY-100 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/THE_SYNOD_ON_THE_FAMILY-100_QUESTIONS_AND_ANSWERS.pdf

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 24-APOSTOLIC DECEPTION AMORIS LAETITIA

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_24-APOSTOLIC_DECEPTION_AMORIS_LAETITIA.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 31-AMORIS LAETITIA-CONTINUING FALLOUT

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_31-AMORIS_LAETITIA-CONTINUING_FALLOUT.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 12-CATHOLIC CRITICISM OF ENCYCLICAL LAUDATO SI’

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_12-CATHOLIC_CRITICISM_OF_ENCYCLICAL_LAUDATO_SI.doc

MISERICORDIAE VULTUS-ON THE OCCASION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY
FRANCIS SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MISERICORDIAE_VULTUS-ON_THE_OCCASION_OF_THE_EXTRAORDINARY_JUBILEE_OF_MERCY.doc

MITIS IUDEX DOMINUS IESUS AND MITIS ET MISERICORS IESUS-ON ANNULMENTS
FRANCIS SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/MITIS_IUDEX_DOMINUS_IESUS_AND_MITIS_ET_MISERICORS_IESUS.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 19-CRACKDOWN ON THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF THE IMMACULATE

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_19-CRACKDOWN_ON_THE_FRANCISCAN_FRIARS_OF_THE_IMMACULATE.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 23-THE LUTHERANIZATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_23-THE_LUTHERANIZATION_OF_THE_CATHOLIC_CHURCH.doc

QUO VADIS PAPA FRANCISCO 30-ECUMENISM WITH PROTESTANTS

http://ephesians-511.net/docs/QUO_VADIS_PAPA_FRANCISCO_30-ECUMENISM_WITH_PROTESTANTS.doc

The Fourth Secret of Fatima by Antonio Socci

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930278772/novordwat-20

July 13, 2009

Over 100.000 already sold in this newly released English translation.

This is the book that has been electrifying Rome and the rest of Europe for three years!

This fascinating inquiry into the theories and the truths of the most disconcerting mystery of the 20th Century was a huge best-seller in Europe.

On June 26, 2000, Vatican officials (including Cardinal Bertone) released what they claim was the Third Secret of Fatima. They further said that it was a prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. Antonio Socci, an acclaimed Italian journalist and television personality, originally sided with the Vatican s interpretation of the Third Secret.

Upon closer investigation of this matter, the evidence led him to the conclusion that there is another document of the Third Secret containing the actual words of Our Lady. So far, the Vatican is still hiding this text while claiming that all is released.

Antonio Socci, for the first time, in this book produces the testimony of a still-living witness from the inner circle of Pope John XXIII, to prove his point. This book has caused a public sensation and debate. Far from being a dead issue the urgent message of Our Lady to the shepherd children of Fatima is now being more critically discussed and examined than ever before.

Easter reminds us we must speak Truth in Love – for Pope Francis and the Church

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/easter-reminds-us-we-must-speak-truth-in-love-for-our-pope-and-our-church

By John-Henry Westen, March 24, 2016, Editorial EXTRACT

Easter is almost here! As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said in his Easter Homily in 2012, the Resurrection of Jesus assures us that: “Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies.” Hallelujah!

That admonition is sorely needed today as it seems for the Catholic Church, a time of darkness continues unabated. We are living in historic times, but for many, since life seems to be continuing as usual, the gravity of our current situation doesn’t make an impression (Mt 24:38). The revolution inside the Church, which became evident in the 1960s and was combatted by Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has been reawakened by Pope Francis himself.

Thankfully, Pope Francis has practically begged Catholics, laity included, to make known their points of view, even criticisms of his actions. He is hearing the voices of many so-called progressive Catholics urging him to pursue their agendas, but very few orthodox faithful have made known their concerns. There are a few notable exceptions, a couple of whom Pope Francis thanked personally for their interventions, but more on that later.

During the Synod of Bishops on the Family, the Pope warned the participants against saying what the Pope wanted to hear. “This is not good!” he said. He laid down the rule, “Speak clearly. Let no one say: ‘This you cannot say.'”  He called on the prelates to speak boldly and listen with humility.

Among the lay critics are two Italian journalists, Mario Palmaro and Antonio Socci, who rather severely criticized the Pope’s liberal actions in writing.

Palmaro’s criticisms made early in the pontificate in 2013, consisted of accusing the Holy Father of attempting to capture the praise of the world rather than remaining faithful to the truth. When Palmaro’s cancer was acting up and he was dying, Pope Francis called him on the phone. The pope said he had read Palmaro’s criticisms and understood that they were done for the love of the Church and the papacy. Francis also told him it was important for him to receive the criticisms.

Socci, whose new book contains an open letter to Pope Francis outlining the actions which have caused confusion and scandal among the faithful, called on the Holy Father to: “Rethink the entire path you have taken until now, avoid other very grave steps, such as a post-Synod Exhortation which would permit an opening to Cardinal Kasper’s ideas.” Socci sent the book with a letter to the Pope.

Pope Francis replied, thanking him for the book and for the criticisms. “In reality, also criticism helps us to walk on the righteous path of the Lord. I thank you very much indeed for your prayers and those of your family,” the Pope wrote.

The Third Secret of Fatima – A Testimony

http://padrepioandchiesaviva.com/uploads/Third_Secret_Dossier_en.pdf
– All emphases theirs

By Dr. Franco Adessa, Chiesa Viva magazine issue of July/August 2013 EXTRACT

In 2006, there was an outburst with the case of the “Fourth Secret of Fatima,” which culminated with the publication of the book: “The Third Secret of Fatima Published by the Vatican is a Fake, Here’s the Evidence …,” by Laurent Morlier, and the book by Antonio Socci, “The Fourth Secret of Fatima” roused by the statements made by Archbishop Capovilla on the existence of this “Fourth Secret,” i.e. the confirmation of the existence of a small sheet on which Lucy wrote the “Third Secret” of Fatima.

On Fatima Story, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Breaks Silence    

http://www.onepeterfive.com/on-fatima-story-pope-emeritus-benedict-xvi-breaks-silence/
All emphases theirs

By Steve Skojec, OnePeterFive, May 21, 2016 EXTRACT

Christopher Ferrara, a noted expert and author on the topic of Fatima, recounted the following earlier this week, related to Antonio Socci’s book on the topic:

For his part, in a blog post dated May 12, 2007, Socci relates that he keeps the letter Benedict XVI wrote to me about my book, thanking me “for the sentiments it inspired in me.” [per i sentimenti che l’hanno suggerito]  Words that comfort in the face of insults and accusations…

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/socci-apostolic-exhortation-is-turning.html

Mortal sin is replaced with social sin and the door to Communion for the divorced and remarried is opened: the real sin is ignoring the poor

By Antonio Socci, ‘Libero’, April 9, 2016

Was Cardinal Kasper right when he announced “the great revolution” a month ago? With the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris laetitia is Bergoglio overturning the Magisterium of the Church, thus putting himself above the words of Christ and God’s commandments?

With words he says he is not changing doctrine. But with facts he has today opened up to something that until now has been forbidden by Holy Scripture and the Church.

An operation of “double-truth” is hidden in the ambiguity of vague and misleading declarations. Why? Is it to camouflage the “revolution”, given that the law of God cannot be overturned in the Church? 

Yes, it is. However, mostly with cautious gradualism:  the ‘boiled frog’ strategy is being applied to the Church. A frog thrown into a pot of boiling water would jump out immediately.  If, instead, it is put into a pot of tepid water which is gradually heated up, it ends up being boiled without being aware of it.

So little by little for months now, we have been witnessing the continuous demolition of Catholic doctrine. Each day a new blow. In the end the Church will be driven to melt into a sort of United Nations of religions, with a touch of Greenpeace and the Cgil (an Italian Labour Union).

I repeat – it was Cardinal Kasper who spoke of a “first step” in the “revolution” and he was also the one used by Bergoglio at the Consistory in February 2014 to throw the “bomb” of Communion for the divorced and remarried.

This “revolution” is being carried out by cancelling the notion of “mortal sin”.  Cardinal Mueller correctly warned: “The greatest scandal the Church can give is not that there are sinners inside Her, [it is that of] ceasing to name the difference between good and evil, making them relative; i.e. ceasing to explain what sin is or claiming to justify it so as to have greater closeness and mercy towards the sinner.”

John Paul II had explained that the Church’s greatest maternal charity is precisely to sound the warning about sin and the risk of damnation.  

This should be the Pope’s fundamental mission: Jesus Christ’s mandate to Peter is that of “confirming the brethren in the faith” not to confuse, destabilize and mislead. But this is the age of Bergoglio.  Cardinal Mueller, custodian of the faith, in an interview to a Die Zeit journalist three months ago, said he didn’t believe Bergoglio was a heretic, but added: ” [It is] something completely different when a teaching of the Church officially presented, is expressed perhaps in an unfortunate, misleading or vague manner.”

Considering the Cardinal’s role, these words seem like enormous boulders. Being “misleading” means leading astray. And is a misleading Pope admissible?

Furthermore, this Exhortation shows that this misleading ambiguity is not an involuntary accident, but a precise strategy. So much so, that yesterday a heated debate erupted over the Exhortation’s interpretations due to the vagueness of the text and its clamorous contradictions.

So confusion is being fomented by the Pope himself, who, according to the Gospel, should be obliged to speak with absolute clarity. “But let your speech” Jesus commands “be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.” (Matt. 5, 37).

In contrast to this, today the double-track and double-truth are manifest seeing that the Bergoglio Party on the ‘home front’ is trying to reassure the faithful by insisting that nothing is being changed (why then shake up the Church for two years and now produce a document of 260 pages?), while outside [the Church] they are playing a fanfare about an “epochal turning-point”.

Indeed, all of the secular ultra–Bergoglian newspapers are celebrating with these headlines “The Synod, the opening of Pope Francis: possible Communion for the divorced and remarried (Repubblica.it); “The Pope opens up to Sacraments for the remarried” (Corriere.it).

Why doesn’t Pope Bergoglio order Father Lombardi to refute these newspaper interpretations, seeing that he sent him speedily to deny the trite gossip regarding his physical health?   Is it not more important to defend the faith from eventual misinterpretation than to refute health problems?

A perfect example of this refined ambiguity was the embarrassing press conference for the presentation of the Exhortation, conducted by Cardinal Schönborn, who tried to defend an untenable position for two hours.

It is the double-truth that dominates today in the Vatican. Here we have a clamorous example of it in the text of the Exhortation. 

In order to claim – in words – that nothing is being changed in doctrine , Bergoglio had to remind us in some way, of the condition the Church has allowed up until now, for the divorced and remarried to receive Communion: on the condition that they live “like brother and sister.”  It was this key passage in John Paul’s Familiaris consortio that should have been central to Bergoglio’s Exhortation, had it been in continuity with the perennial Magisterium. Yet Bergoglio doesn’t even mention this rule in the text but relegates it to a marginal note (n.329) and immediately afterwards demolishes it saying that without certain “intimacies”, “faithfulness” would be compromised.

From this we can deduce that for Bergoglio there is no longer any difference between families and irregular couples; on the contrary, there are no longer any irregular situations and it is no longer possible to say that they are considered per se, mortal sin. This is the crucial point.  In fact, even if it is not explicitly said that such a couple can be admitted to sacramental Communion, it is understood that it will be conceded “case by case”.

De facto, the Exhortation contradicts the letter and the spirit on justification of the Council of Trent, the Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen gentium (Vatican II) and John Paul II’s encyclical on morality, Veritatis splendor. 

In point of fact, it does not place being in a state of Grace and the salvation of souls (the supreme law of the Church) as an absolute good,  but rather places social, sociological and sentimental considerations, thus gravely deluding and deceiving the faithful about the state of their soul before God, consequently placing their salvation in grave jeopardy.

Bergoglio avoids talking about “the moral law”, which the Church has condensed for centuries in dogmas and canonical dispositions, or he depicts it contemptuously as something “abstract” which cannot be applied to “concrete” situations. In doing so, he arrives at contesting Jesus Himself in His clash with the Pharisees on the question of divorce (Mat. 19, 3-12). In fact Bergoglio asserts that: “a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families” (36) must not be proposed.  This would be “excessive idealization”.  Even worse:  “there is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and His Church” (122).

In compensation, Bergoglio introduces new grave sins.  Those of the so-called “rigorists”, guilty of remembering God’s law, but most of all, those [of individuals] who don’t share his political ideas on social questions.

At no.186, Bergoglio finally remembers St. Paul’s passage which calls for the receiving of the Body of Christ in a worthy manner “otherwise one eats and drinks his own condemnation”.  Yet, in explaining what “a worthy manner” means he doesn’t say “in a state of Grace” as the Church has always taught. He does not sound a warning to couples in a state of mortal sin, but to families that are closed up in their own comfort…who are indifferent when faced with the sufferings of poor and needy families.”

The moral sins are in this way reduced.  Bergoglio introduces social sins (or socialist ones).

It would seem then, that those who don’t share his ideas on immigration should be wary of receiving the Eucharist. 

An article criticizing Pope Francis’ Motu Proprios Mitis Iudex Jesus
and
Mitis et Misericors, by Antonio Socci (See also Antonio Socci’s comments in “Libero”)

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/09/socci-with-papally-mandated-catholic.html
Traditionalist site*

By Antonio Socci,
September 12/16, 2015

*Several conservative Catholic media agencies cite/reproduce rorate-caeli, e.g.:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-splendor-of-truth-against-the-darkness-of-error October 12, 2015

After 2000 years, Divorce is Enforced in the Church — and a Schism Looms Larger than Ever

“Newsweek” recently had a photo of Pope Francis on their front-cover with the headline: “Is the Pope Catholic?”

Subtitle: “Of course he is. You just wouldn’t know it from his press clips.”

Indeed, it is a legitimate question, seeing that the Argentine Pope has prayed in a Mosque and said in an interview to Scalfari: “There is no Catholic God.” The anxiety in the Church is now becoming enormous after the 8th of September. In fact with two Motu Proprios on the nullity of marriage, we have an official act by Bergoglio where we are going off the rails – according to authoritative opinions – by the institution of a sort of “Catholic divorce”.

This would mean the negation of Christ’s commandment on the indissolubility of marriage and the cancellation of two thousand years of Church teaching. So as to understand the gravity of the issue it is enough to remember that the

Church suffered the very grave Anglican Schism in the XVI century and lost England completely, simply because the Pope did not recognize King Henry VIII’s divorce, based on a flimsy reason for the nullity of the first marriage.

Could Bergoglio’s Motu Proprio create a new schism? It may.

Yet, if Cardinal Muller himself, Head of the former Holy Office, spoke recently of a possible schism referring to the Synod, there is fear of it even more so after the 8th of September. There have already been signs of some very strident quarrels with some important cardinals at Santa Marta over the past few days. And the Synod promises to be explosive.

Bergoglio, in spite of “collegiality”, which he proclaims in words, decided everything before the Synod he convoked specifically on this issue; not to accomplish what the bishops asked for in October 2014, since the Commission which drew up the Motu Proprio was instituted by him with that mandate, two months earlier on 27th August 2014.

In practical terms, why will the Motu Proprio be contested from the Catholic point of view?

Millions of annulments

First of all – as Professor De Mattei explains – the totality of the reforms (of apparent facilitation and speeding up) go in the opposite direction from what the Church has always taken. It is a complete overturning of perspective: the defense of the Sacrament is no longer the priority (for the salvation of souls), but primarily the easiness and the speediness of obtaining an annulment. The abolition of the double-sentence is in itself, sufficient [cause] to think this. De Mattei writes: “Cardinal Burke recalled a catastrophic experience. In the United States from July 1971, the so-called Provisional Norms came into effect, which eliminated de facto the obligatory double conforming sentences. The result was that the Episcopal Conference did not negate one single request for dispensation among the hundreds of thousands received, and, in the common perception, this process began to be called “Catholic Divorce”.

Then again, Monsignor Pinto, Dean of the Roman Rota and President of the Commission which drew up the Motu Proprio, openly declared the purpose of this reform. He wrote in the “Osservatore Romano” that Pope Bergoglio has asked “the bishops for a true and proper “conversion”, a change in mentality which convinces them to follow the invitation of Christ”. According to Monsignor Pinto “the invitation of Christ, present in their brother, the Bishop of Rome”, would be that of “passing from the restricted number of a few thousand annulments to that immeasurable [number] of unfortunates who might have a declaration of nullity”. That Christ wanted an “immeasurable” number of annulments is completely unheard of. Yet it is now clear that the goal of the Motu Proprio is large-scale divorce – much quicker, cheaper and easier than State divorce (there are already those who are trying to figure out whether divorce is [more] convenient through priests). Up to now, until Benedict XVI, the ecclesiastical tribunals had always been reproached by popes because they were too indulgent in recognizing annulments. With Bergoglio everything has been overturned, and they are [now] attacked for the opposite reason: large-scale annulment “factories” are to be set up. The Honorable Alessandra Moretti is right then when she says triumphantly that “this epoch-making reform” by the Pope” follows closely the law on quick Divorce which I proposed to the Chamber”. And she underlines “the common vision of the Church and State on this issue”. But there is more.

Divorce

With this Motu Proprio, new reasons for nullity – without any magisterial and theological base – are being formulated, which could overturn de facto the role of the Church Herself: it would no longer be the Church Herself which must verify the original nullity of sacramental marriage in the eyes of God, but [She] risks becoming an entity that de facto “dissolves” sacramentally valid marriages, for today’s invented reasons. In fact, in the Motu Proprio, de Mattei writes: “The theoretical affirmation of indissolubility of marriage, is accompanied in practice with the right to a declaration of nullity for every failed marriage bond. It will be enough, in conscience, to deem one’s own marriage invalid, in order to have it recognized as null by the Church”.

The explosive charge that changes the “Rules of Procedure” is found mainly in article 14 where ” the lack of faith” of the parties is suggested as a possible cause of simulation or error in consent, and hence of the nullity of the marriage. Up to now, lack of faith as cause for the invalidity of a marriage has always been excluded by the Church, who limits Herself in elevating natural marriage to that of a Sacrament. Benedict XVI explained: “The indissoluble pact between a man and woman, does not require the personal faith of the contracting parties for the aims of sacramentality; what is required, as a necessary minimal condition, is the intention to do what the Church does”. That is to say, [to have] the intention of getting married.

This is so true that the Church also recognizes mixed marriages as sacramental, even when an atheist spouse or one of another religion is involved: all that is required is the desire for natural marriage.

Now everything is being overturned. And in conformity with Bergoglio’s style, an ambiguous form is being used to make the Catholic world believe that doctrine has not been changed. 

On September 9th in [the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference] “Avvenire”, canon lawyer Paolo Moneta sustained that “lack of faith was not a cause for nullity before and it is not a cause today either”. Yet, at the same time, Monsignor Pinto, in presenting the Motu Proprio, praised “the innovation of Pope Francis’ pontificate ” and spoke of “the sacrament celebrated with no faith” which will bring an “immeasurable” number of annulments “because of evident absence of faith as a bridge to knowledge and thus to the free will [necessary] to give sacramental consent”. 

This will open the door, without a doubt, for millions of annulments. Millions! Since when did you need to be a saint or have a university degree in theology from the Gregorian to get married?

The Church, in order to recognize a sacramental marriage, has always simply asked for the free decision to marry, according to the characteristics of natural marriage. Further, She has always taught that the spiritual disposition of the spouses (their personal holiness) influences the fruits of the sacrament but certainly not its validity.

Now everything has changed. And among the circumstances that have opened wide the possibility of a super-fast divorce is “the brevity of conjugal cohabitation” or the fact that the couple were married “because of the woman’s unexpected pregnancy”. And what does that have to do with consent?

The unbelievable list actually ends with an “et cetera”. Does it mean that one can amplify at will? What kind of law is this? It will be the weaker parties (the women and children) who will pay the price for this revolution in destabilizing the family, which is already under heavy attack from the secular world.

Sister Lucia, the Fatima visionary, one day said to Cardinal Caffarra: “Father, there will come a time when Satan’s decisive battle with Christ will be over marriage and the family”.

This is it. 

If this the hour of “the bishop dressed in white” there will be sufferings for everyone (remember the vision of the city in ruins?). 

Antonio Socci favours the Latin Mass

French, Italian intellectuals join in support for Latin Mass

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=48261

December 18, 2006

In separate public statements published on December 16, two groups of French and Italian intellectual leaders have thrown their strong support behind an expected move by Pope Benedict XVI to broaden use of the traditional Latin Mass. More than 50 French intellectuals, led by René Girard of the Académie Française, joined in Un manifeste en faveur de la messe tridentine (“Manifesto in favor of the Tridentine Mass”), published Saturday in Le Figaro. On the same day the Italian daily, Il Foglio, ran a similar statement, also signed by Girard, along with several other signatories including Antonio Socci and Franco Zeffirelli.
Both published statements begin by noting the media reports that Pope Benedict will soon release a motu proprio liberalizing the use of the traditional liturgy. The Italian statement begins: “I wish to launch an appeal to the world of culture, in support of a decision of Benedict XVI.” The French manifesto declares that the signers “witness our fidelity, our support, and our affection” for the Pontiff.
The French statement quotes the Pope’s statement, written well before his election to the papacy, that the crisis in the Church “is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy.” The manifesto goes on to applaud the Pope’s decision to recognize the new Institute of the Good Shepherd, an institution of French priests dedicated to the Tridentine rite. The Figaro statement notes that the Second Vatican Council called for the Church to recognize all legitimate rites, and “she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way.”
The longer Italian statement predicts that the release of the motu proprio will be “an extraordinarily important event for the Church and even for the culture and history of our civilization.” A generation ago, the Foglio manifesto recalls, a group of secular intellectuals appealed to Pope Paul VI, pleading for the preservation of the Tridentine rite as a treasure of modern culture. These appeals, issued in 1966 and again in 1971, were backed by an impressive list of thinker, writers, and artists including W. H. Auden, Agatha Christie, Jorge Luis Borges, Augusto Del Noce, Graham Greene, Julien Green, Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Willim Rees-Mogg, Andres Segovia, and Evelyn Waugh. The participation of so many non-Catholics, the Italian manifesto notes, reflects the fact that “the ancient Latin liturgy is a legacy of all, as is the Sistine Chapel, as it the Gregorian chant.” Maintaining that tradition is crucial, the statement continues, at a time “when our entire European civilization risks to cut off and deny its own roots.”

The Italian statement also quotes then-Cardinal Ratzinger, with his observation that the disappearance of the traditional Missal was devastating, and the “consequences could only be tragic.” The results of that radical change in the Catholic liturgy, the “Socci manifesto” declares, were “disastrous.” The Italian manifesto concludes with an invitation for others to join in support of the statement, and support of the anticipated move by Pope Benedict.

The Rorate Caeli blog (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2006/12/traditionalists-of-world-unite.html), which provided quick coverage and translations of both the French and Italian statements, has also posted a sample letter to Il Foglio, for those who wish to join in support of the Italian manifesto.

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2006/12/italian-intellectuals-sign-tridentine.html

I wish to launch an appeal to the world of culture. In support of a decision of Benedict XVI. The announcement was given by Cardinal Arturo Medina Estevez, a member of the Ecclesia Dei commission which met to discuss the liberalization of the Latin Mass. The prelate said, “The publication of the Motu Proprio by the Pope which will liberalize the celebration of the Latin Mass according to the Missal of Saint Pius V is close.” It is an extraordinarily important event for the Church and even for the culture and history of our civilization. Historically, lay intellectuals were actually those to realize more and better the disaster, the actual cultural destruction, represented by the “prohibition” of the liturgy of Saint Pius V and the disappearance of Latin as sacred language of the Catholic Church.
When, 40 years ago — in contravention to the documents of the Council — the prohibition of the ancient liturgy of the Church (that which had been celebrated even during the Council) was imposed, there was a great and meritorious protest by very important intellectuals who considered this decision as an attack on the roots of our Christian Civilization (the liturgy has always been a center and a fountain of the most sublime art). Two appeals were published in defense of the Mass of Saint Pius V, in 1966 and 1971. These are some of the names which undersigned them: Jorge Luís Borges, Giorgio De Chirico, Elena Croce, W. H. Auden, the directors Bresson and Dreyer, Augusto Del Noce, Julien Green, Jacques Maritain (who indeed was the favorite intellectual of Paul VI, the one to whom the Pope had given the letter to intellectuals at the end of the Council), Eugenio Montale, Cristina Campo, François Mauriac, Salvatore Quasimodo, Evelyn Waugh,

Maria Zambrano, Elémire Zolla, Gabriel Marcel, Salvador De Madariaga, Gianfranco Contini, Giacomo Devoto, Giovanni Macchia, Massimo Pallottino, Ettore Paratore, Giorgio Bassani, Mario Luzi, Guido Piovene, Andrés Segovia, Harold Acton, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, and many others, including the editor of the “Times”, William Rees-Mogg.
They are largely lay intellectuals because the cultural and spiritual value of the ancient Latin liturgy is a legacy of all, as is the Sistine Chapel, as is the Gregorian [chant], as the great cathedrals, Gothic sculpture, the Basilica of Saint Peter also are. Even more so today, when our entire European Civilization risks to cut off and deny its own roots.
Curiously, even “progressive Catholics”, who made the dialogue with the world and with modern culture their banner, did not give any regard and fought for forty years to keep this incredible prohibition. An unprecedented arbitrariness. In April 2005, at the eve of the election of Benedict XVI, it was a lay writer, Guido Ceronetti, who writes, in La Repubblica, an open letter to the new Pope, in which he asked “that the sinister suffocating gag on the Latin voice of the Mass be removed”. When he was a cardinal, Ratzinger declared that the prohibition of the Mass of Saint Pius V was unprecedented: “throughout her history, has never abolished nor forbidden orthodox liturgical forms, which would be quite alien to the very spirit of the Church”. In one of his books, he retold dramatically how he had viewed the publication of the missal of Paul VI: “I was dismayed by the prohibition of the old missal, since nothing of the sort had ever happened in the entire history of the liturgy. The impression was even given that what was happening was quite normal,” but, Ratzinger wrote, “the prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic … the old building was demolished, and another was built.”
The effects were disastrous. The road to incredible abuses in the liturgy was opened. Ratzinger writes, “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not He speaks to us and hears us. But when the community of faith, the world-wide unity of the Church and her history, and the mystery of the living Christ are no longer visible in the liturgy, where else, then, is the Church to become visible in her spiritual essence?”
That same Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who prepares to cancel the prohibition, will find opposition even inside the Church (already pre-announced by the French bishops) and he deserves an answer from the world of culture which, forty years ago, made its voice heard. I ask intellectuals and whomever may wish to do so to sign this synthetic manifesto:
“WE EXPRESS OUR PRAISE FOR THE DECISION OF BENEDICT XVI TO CANCEL THE PROHIBITION OF THE ANCIENT MASS IN LATIN ACCORDING TO THE MISSAL OF SAINT PIUS V, A GREAT LEGACY OF OUR CULTURE, WHICH MUST BE SAVED AND REDISCOVERED”

Antonio Socci: There has been a coup in the Church

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/antonio-sooci-there-has-been-coup-in.html

Antonio Socci, “Libero”, April 10, 2016

Let us rebel against “the dictatorship of relativism” which is destroying Catholicism and our civilization.

In “La Repubblica” yesterday, the Catholic ideologue of progressivism, Albert Melloni, informs us that Bergoglio’s Exhortation (re-named by some “Familiaris divorzio”) is “a praise to erotic joy”.  With this, he makes it seem like a playful treatise on pornography to be published in Dagospia with the title: “Coito ergo sum”. 

Isn’t the idea of a ‘red-light’ Vatican pathetic?  To be sure, the Bergoglian “modernism” of today brings to mind the image of an eighty year-old woman running around in a mini-skirt and stiletto heels, exposing her bosom to all and sundry. Also on social issues, Bergoglio rehabilitates the fossilized slogans of those abominable “red-light” 1960s, now at the age of catheters and Alzheimer’s. Then the Bergoglian pages on Eros which are a clumsy amateurish copying (with errors) of the theological  and pastoral masterpiece by John Paul II, who, in his catecheses on Genesis and the body, linked together splendidly the “Eros” and “Agape” in Christian marriage.

To Genesis and the Song of Songs, Wojtyla added his past human experience as a poet- miner-theologian and in his youth took part in the resistance against Nazism and Communism reading St. John of the Cross and Montfort.

Someone paraphrasing Melloni, says that the Bergoglian Exhortation is, in reality, “a praise to heretic joy” (not erotic). And that is the rub.

Erotic or heretic joy?  

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