Roman Catholicism is the source of damage in our culture today

I have spent a lot of time watching our culture. Sometimes it seems as if Roman Catholics, such as Robert George of Princeton (in our day) or Michael Novak (from days gone by) have been our allies in “culture wars”. 

While some of their thinking may be sound, their underlying view of reality is damaged by their Roman Catholicism. Their Roman Catholicism is the very problem, not part of the solution. 

Go to the First Things website and the header on their pop-up request for donations says:

“Culture is the root of politics, and religion is the root of culture.” – Richard John Neuhaus

Our culture has been tearing itself apart, led philosophically by a form of Kantianism that enables human beings to “construct” their own realities, and at a more visceral level by the concept of Marxism as it manifests itself in what is essentially “a new religion”: “Wokism”. 

 “Wokism” (or simply “leftism”) brings with it a raft of new “moralities”, including “Cultural Marxism”, “Critical Theory”, “Critical Race Theory”, “anti-racism”, “Intersectionality”, the search for “equality”, whatever you want to call them. 

They are all names for “things you gotta do if you want to be saved” in the eyes of this world. It is a religion as much as any other set of beliefs is a religion.

If it’s true that “religion is the root of culture” (and I believe it is), then we need to take the idea that Roman Catholicism is the source of the damages a step further. 

John Calvin said in Institutes 4.1.1 the papacy was the institution through which “satan has polluted every good thing that God has appointed for our salvation.” 

Looking around at our world today, no truer statement has ever been uttered. Neuhaus was, and First Things is, a channel of satan into our culture, because it supports the papacy, and by extension, Roman Catholicism

We must never forget this, and Christianity must from this moment forward work to eliminate the concept of papacy as “a good thing”. 

Roman Catholicism likes to use Genesis 3:15 as some sort of proof or prophecy for its Marian dogmas:

The Lord God said to the serpent ... He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

But rather, what an apt metaphor it is for the way that “the papacy” has hobbled Christianity since its “development” in the fourth and fifth centuries. 

It is said that slaves were “hobbled” by cutting the Achilles tendon, and preventing them from running away. 

It is the concept of “the papacy” that has hobbled Christianity, and its ability to affect “culture” in a Godly way, since the days before it "historically developed" (Klaus Schatz, "Papal Primacy", p. 36). 

Think about it. Your comments? 

There’s an “Our Lady” of Just About Anything. Why Not “Our Lady of the Amazon”, Pachamama?

Pachamama, Our Lady of the Amazon

Traditionalist and conservative Roman Catholics (see here and here, for example) are going apoplectic over the notion that Pope Bergoglio brought Pachamama statues into the Vatican. “It’s a pagan idol” they say.

That should be beside the point. There’s a legal pope endorsing it, there’s a group of Italian bishops who wrote a prayer to Pachamama. Call it #developmentofdoctrine.

There’s an “Our Lady” of just about anything you can think of. “Our Lady of the Amazon” (Pachamama) certainly can fit into this calendar.

What follows below is from the “Marian calendar” published by a website called “Roman Catholic Saints & Heroes!” – Interesting that “Heroes” is added.

The site is owned by a layman, James Fitzhenry, “Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary”, who prays “that the example of their lives may inspire all Catholic children to imitate their virtues, and serve as well to remind men of our age of the great things that can be accomplished through dedication to purpose and the grace of God.”

There’s just about one for every day of the year:

How “Pope Francis” is Dealing with the “Leaving Home” Network

The “Leaving Home” network (leaving Roman Catholicism) is much larger than the “Coming Home” network. And this seems to be one of the key things that’s driving the Bergoglio papacy.

There is a very good reason why we see lots of “Coming Home” stories of conversion to Roman Catholicism, but not many the other way. When one person “comes home”, that really is all they can point to. Just one conversion is a big thing. They can’t point to huge numbers traveling in their direction.

A Roman Catholic may make the claim about the Good Shepherd going to find one lost sheep. But that presupposes that there are another 99 already “home”. In this case, the 99 are flooding away in droves.

The other side of that “home to Rome” coin is that there are simply too many conversion stories that are going the other way. Too many to report. Too many people are leaving.

When someone becomes Roman Catholic, it is just a big event for them. When a Roman Catholic leaves and becomes Protestant, well, that sort of thing happens all the time. Pew Research has recently reported that among US Roman Catholics:

The True Anti-Catholic Agenda Moves Forward as “Pope Francis” Names More Cardinals

“Pope Francis” is continuing to follow up on his program to “clean house” within “the Church”.

Recall that in one of his first interviews, he promised to change things in a big way:

“Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

“… providence has placed me at the head of the Church and the Diocese of Peter. I will do what I can to fulfill the mandate that has been entrusted to me” (Interview published October 1, 2013).

He has announced that he will be creating 10 new voting Cardinals in a consistory to be held October 5 this year. This is important because only Cardinals under the age of 80 can vote for the next pope – a vote which, I can assure you, conservative Roman Catholics will be watching for and sweating about. The longer “Pope Francis” lives, (a) the more he will be able to mess up conservative Roman Catholic ideals, and (b) the greater the odds that he will be able to shape the voting for a “successor” who will continue those kinds of policies.

Coming from North America, Central America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, Pope Francis said Sept. 1 that "their origin expresses the missionary vocation of the Church, which continues to proclaim the merciful love of God to all people on earth."

Among those to be elevated to cardinal is Canadian Jesuit Fr. Michael Czerny, the head of the Migrants and Refugees section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Two other red hat recipients also work inside the Vatican. They are: Spanish Archbishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, prefect of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; and Portuguese Archbishop José Tolentino Mendonca, librarian of the Holy Roman Church.

From Africa are Archbishop Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Archbishop Cristobal Lopez Romero of Rabat in Morocco.

There is Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo of Jakarta in Indonesia and Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. North America is represented only by Archbishop Juan de la Caridad Garcia Rodriguez of Havana, Cuba.

Archbishops Jean Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg and Matteo Zuppi of Bologna represent Europe.

These 10 voting Cardinals will replace those who are getting older and falling off the voting list. I’m not sure who these individuals are, but there is at least one Jesuit (and the Jesuit order has been given up for lost by the conservatives) and an Archbishop from Cuba, who is certain to be a Bergoglio fan.

So far Pope Bergoglio has named 73 new Cardinals of voting age. I’m not sure how many have passed the magic number 80 in the interim, so that will affect the total number of voting Cardinals he can claim at the moment. It’s a number that’s always changing.

The October 2019 consistory will bring the number of electors to 128. Assuming that none of these old guys dies during the year, the number of voting Cardinals will fall again to 120 again in November 2020, when Donald Wuerl turns 80.

Previous Articles:

Bergoglio’s Gig: Opposing Ratzinger (We knew that “Pope Francis” was going to oppose “Pope Benedict” from the start).

Killing Pope Francis (May 24, 2017 – outlining conservative Catholic hopes).

Betting on Dead Papal Politics (May 25, 2017).

Killing Pope Ratzinger" (February 8, 2018 – how the “Francis” party is outwitting the “Benedict” party).

What are we supposed to think about the Roman Catholic Church?

I haven’t commented much about Roman Catholicism lately, although that has always been the primary thing that I have written about. There is a saying attributed to Napoleon that I find useful at times like these: “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.

The official Roman Catholic Church has been making a number of them … the “official” “Church” being heavily constituted by that hierarchy which, according to Vatican II, is integral to “the Church that Christ Founded”:

Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body [emphasis added].

In other words, “the ”visible hierarchy” is to the Roman Catholic Church what Christ’s flesh was to the person of Christ”: a strong analogy to the flesh, the “assumed nature”, of “the divine Word”. In the same way, this “visible hierarchy” is (IS!) “vivified” by the Spirit of Christ.

There is no way any Protestant apologist could do more damage to Rome, than Rome is inflicting on itself these days.

The evil of the Roman Catholic hierarchy “would make the Mafia blush”

I urge you to watch this. It's only six minutes long, but it would be hard to find a Protestant who has ever said more scathing things about the Roman Catholic hierarchy, than Michael Voris says here.



What's really amazing is that, because Voris has had interactions with federal and state investigators, what he says here is no doubt highly factual.

Some of his phraseology:

The institution ... operates as an international organized crime syndicate that has access to enormous amounts of wealth from multiple sources ...

Consider the effects of compound interest for a 1500 year old organization.

... [This syndicate within the hierarchy] flies under the cover of "religion", and under that cover, has been unexamined and unchecked for the past half century ...

Ok, I would extend that to about 1000 years ... "unchecked" since the eastern churches broke off from Rome in about 1054 AD, leaving Rome not merely the "first among equals", but simply "the first" in its part of the world (western Europe).

... To a man (among prosecutors and investigators), they are all coming to the conclusion that this evil monster that has seized operational control of the church is far-flung, and motivated by sexual and financial corruption on a scale that staggers even these veterans ... There is a corrupt, organized, criminal syndicate running the church, putting itself in place for decades now. A criminal syndicate that would make the mafia blush with shame ...

These investigations will be going on for years, and they will be in the major news media for years to come. It is hard to imagine where it will all end.

You can tell a tree by its fruit.

“Pope Francis” Names 14 New Cardinals

“Pope Francis” has named 14 new Cardinals, 11 of whom are of voting age, and may vote for his “successor” in the event of the death of this current pope. For whom will they vote?

It is said that the Roman Catholic Church thinks in terms of centuries, not in years. So, we might consider that a lot of the bickering back-and forth among the Traditionist, conservative, and progressivist Roman Catholics is just so much tempest in a teapot – a lot of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing, because it’s “the Church” and especially “the Magisterium”, and especially “the Papal Magisterium” that sets the direction of things.

But that doesn’t mean that the current crop of Church officials won’t have their shorter-term agendas. As I’ve written before, “Pope Francis” is in a kind of horse race now, to have named enough Cardinals of his stripe, to assure the election of another liberal pope once he’s gone. Here’s what that looked like just about a year ago (May 25, 2017):

At the present time, the number of voting totals in the Ratzinger/Wojtyla block is 72 – there is no guarantee that all 72 of those would “vote conservative” in any event (many of them likely voted for Bergoglio in the first place – that’s how he won). On the other hand, the Bergoglio total is 44 now, going up to 49 by June 28. That’s a difference of only 23 in favor of the Ratzinger/Wojtyla side. Fully 30 of the voting-age Cardinals are 75 or older, which means that over the next five years, almost half of the Ratzinger/Wojtyla Cardinals will become ineligible to vote (at age 80).

The liberal-leaning “National Catholic Reporter” has helpfully given us the following tally:

The June 29 ceremony adding the new cardinals will mark the first time in his five-year papacy that Francis has appointed a plurality of the prelates who will one day choose who succeeds him as head of the global Catholic Church. After the ceremony, Francis will have named 59 of 125 cardinal electors. Forty-seven of the remaining electors were named by retired Pope Benedict XVI; 19 by John Paul II.

So that breaks out:

	2018	2017
“Pope Francis”	59	49
JP2 + BXVI	66	72

As we can see, “Pope Francis” is still just about seven Cardinals behind – but again, as I’ve noted, there’s no guarantee that any of the 66 JP2+BXVI Cardinals wouldn’t have voted for him anyway.

“Leaving Doctrinal Truth Untouched”

Rorate Caeli used this photo
with this article

The folks at the Rorate Caeli blog (“Traditionalists” who still maintain “communion with the successor of Peter”) are looking forward to the publication of Ross Douthat’s book on Pope Bergoglio:

Mr. Douthat had a column in the Sunday New York Times (largely an excerpt from his forthcoming book) exposing the myth that Francis would grow the Church (Mass attendance has been down under this pontificate), and examining how calling for a "truce" on hot-button issues has been part of a stealth agenda of incremental liberalization.

This paragraph is perhaps the most eloquent we have seen in a while, unmasking the tactics of Bergoglio:

The papal plan for a truce is either ingenious or deceptive, depending on your point of view. Instead of formally changing the church’s teaching on divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriage, euthanasia — changes that are officially impossible, beyond the powers of his office — the Vatican under Francis is making a twofold move. First, a distinction is being drawn between doctrine and pastoral practice that claims that merely pastoral change can leave doctrinal truth untouched. So a remarried Catholic might take communion without having his first union declared null, a Catholic planning assisted suicide might still receive last rites beforehand, and perhaps eventually a gay Catholic can have her same-sex union blessed — and yet supposedly none of this changes the church’s teaching that marriage is indissoluble and suicide a mortal sin and same-sex wedlock an impossibility, so long as it’s always treated as an exception rather than a rule.

These are folks who operate with the understanding that “the Church” can operate with one or two bad popes, and still be ontologically “the same Church” (structurally) that was supposedly instituted in seed form at Matt 16:18.

They operate (as Douthat may not) with the understanding that this one bad pope won’t harm the underlying structure.

Killing Pope Ratzinger

The title of this blog article, “Killing Pope Ratzinger”, is to provide a kind of a sequel to my earlier piece, “Killing Pope Francis”. First Things journal has wanted to be rid of “Pope Francis” almost from the beginning.

Of course, Triablogue readers have known that Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) would be “Opposing Ratzinger” from a blog article of that same title early in the papacy.

Joseph Ratzinger, the former (and perhaps “emeritus”) “Pope Benedict” is in the news right now.

“First Things”, in an article entitled “Benedict in Silence”, is lamenting that the former Prefect for “John Paul the Great” did not speak out doctrinally on the conflicts over the “interpretation” of “Amoris Laetitia” (and other Bergoglioan papal initiatives):

The Dictator Pope

This is a blog post about a fairly shocking review (shocking even for me) of the recently released work entitled “The Dictator Pope”, by Robert Royal. Royal is Editor in Chief of “The Catholic Thing” publication, which, according to its own mission statement, is a “series of columns” about “the concrete historical reality of Catholicism – … the richest cultural tradition in the world”: The only thing it intends to express is:

… is a loyalty to Catholicity. Our more learned readers may recall that the original Greek meaning of Catholicity is universality, in the sense that what is Catholic gives proper weight to all truths. Our writers all share that commitment, but, as writers do, we will no doubt also take differing positions. Our mission is to bring the best Catholic thought and action into the public square, not to favor politicians or parties.

It is a thoroughly conservative and intellectual treatment of Roman Catholicism. So imagine my surprise when I saw the smiling photo of Pope Bergoglio (nearby), under the moniker “Dictator Pope”. Of course, Royal had noted long ago, that “All our writers’ opinions are their own”. But in this case, it is Royal’s “private judgment” that this book provides “abundant evidence” that “the head of the Church himself does not feel bound by the tradition or impartial laws he has inherited…”

Here are a few samples:

De Chirico: Rome will Absorb “Pope Francis”

Marking Time

In an article with the same title, Leonardo De Chirico asks, “What Happens If Catholics Think the Pope Is a Heretic?” The short answer is found at the end of the article:

Nothing is going to break abruptly and, more importantly, no biblical reformation is possible under these conditions. Roman Catholicism will be stretched and go through a stress test, but will be able to handle both Francis’ catholicity and his critics’ insistence on the Roman component. The synthesis will be expanded, but the gospel will not be allowed to change Rome. This is the reason why the Reformation is not over.

The article primarily catalogues the ruckus that has been going on in the controversies surrounding “Amoris Laetitia” and the subsequent protests, first from the Dubia Cardinals, then from the “Filial Correction” crowd (Roman Catholic priests and theologians), and finally from Fr Thomas Weinandy, who wrote an open letter to Bergoglio stating, “a chronic confusion seems to mark your pontificate obscured by the ambiguity of your words and actions.”

De Chirico asks, “What is happening in the Roman Catholic Church? Is Rome on the eve of an internal breaking point with disastrous consequences?”

Interestingly, he frames the issue as one of “Roman” elements vs “catholic” ones. “Pope Francis” and “Vatican II” on the “catholic” side (De Chirico uses the word “Catholic” with a capital “C” from time to time, but I think he means small-c “catholic).

He suggests, however, that the “inner and constitutive dynamics of Roman Catholicism” – and the synthesis of “Roman” and “Catholic” will enable the system to survive, because the system was created in order to accommodate various swings back and forth between both.

Here is his larger explanation:

Will Pope Bergoglio outlast the “tiny, extreme fringe” of Traditionalists?

Just following up on my earlier blog post on the scholars who “corrected” “Pope Francis”, it’s interesting to look at the various responses to this statement.

USA Today interviewed Massimo Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and author of a number of books on church history. He marginalized the writers of this statement:

BREAKING: 62 scholars correct Pope Francis for ‘propagating heresies’

We will be hearing about this for a while:

BREAKING: 62 scholars correct Pope Francis for ‘propagating heresies’

ROME, September 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Expressing “profound grief” and “filial devotion,” Catholic clergy and lay scholars from around the world have issued what they are calling a “Filial Correction” to Pope Francis for “propagating heresy.”

The Filial Correction, in the form of a 25-page letter, bears the signatures of sixty-two Catholic academics, researchers, and scholars in various fields from twenty countries. They assert that Pope Francis has supported heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the Eucharist that are causing a host of “heresies and other errors” to spread throughout the Catholic Church.

The letter was dated July 16 of this year, and “delivered to the Pope at his Santa Marta residence on August 11, 2017”. (It seems to me they could have just emailed him, it would have been quicker).

Unlike the “Dubia” last year, a formal document issued by four Cardinals last year simply asking for clarity on particular questions, this document has no formal standing. In fact, it is already being dismissed as simply “conservative theologians” who are “failing” to exercise “prudence” and “discernment”.

The traditionalist (and yet not having broken communion with the pope, as opposed to, say, the SSPX) Rorate Caeli begins its dramatic coverage of this item with the phrase, “And So It Begins: ‘FILIAL CORRECTION OF POPE FRANCIS For the Propagation of Heresies’.”

On the other hand, officially, nothing has really begun. They are still just throwing insults at each other, for all practical purposes.

Expect the Bergoglio papacy to lead to more inquisition and less discussion

The Bergoglio Inquisition is coming

Ross Douthat, who considers himself to be among the conservative Roman Catholics, has a pretty good take on what’s happening in the Bergoglio papacy. The down side for Douthat is that his “only serious” solution to what’s happening may only exacerbate the problem that he sees.

“Expect the Inquisition” is a headline that probably some editor gave to the column, but the real heart and soul of the Roman Catholic Church is on display, and it shows why this editor is right and Douthat is probably wrong.

In his opening statement, Douthat himself has noticed “In the Catholic Church of Pope Francis, it is dangerous to be too conservative.” He then recounts the story of “a distinguished Catholic philosopher” who was removed from his university position for having “raised questions about ‘Amoris Laetitia’”.

The sniping goes the other way, too. “Meanwhile, in the Catholic Church of Pope Francis it is also dangerous to be too liberal.” He recounts the travails of “Father James Martin”, author of “Building a Bridge” (from the Roman Catholic Church to “the LGBT community”) who was not only disinvited from giving a speech at the “Theological College of the Catholic University of America”, here’s the key: “after an internet campaign by traditionalist priests and laypeople”.

Roman Catholicism needs a procedure for a pope who “teaches error”

Fr Aidan Nichols wants a procedure to discipline a pope who “teaches error”

Many Roman Catholics are willing to whisk away the current teaching of "Pope Francis" as if it were a continuation or a "development". But here is one leading Roman Catholic priest, intellectual, and theologian, who thinks that's not the case.

Link: Fr Aidan Nichols said that Pope Francis's teaching had led to an 'extremely grave' situation

Fr Aidan Nichols, a prolific author who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge as well as the Angelicum in Rome, said that Pope Francis’s exhortation Amoris Laetitia had led to an “extremely grave” situation.

Fr Nichols proposed that, given the Pope’s statements on issues including marriage and the moral law, the Church may need “a procedure for calling to order a pope who teaches error”....

Ratzinger: “Barque of Peter is leaking, on the verge of capsizing”

In a funeral message yesterday, former pope Joseph Ratzinger suggested that the Roman Catholic Church “has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing”. The message was related at the funeral of Cardinal Meisner, who was one of the dubia cardinals, (asking “Pope Francis” if his statement Amoris Laetitia had actually contradicted “church teaching”).

July 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Benedict XVI sent a sobering message at the funeral of Cardinal Joachim Meisner today, saying he was moved at the dubia cardinal's ability to "live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing."

The Church "stands in particularly pressing need of convincing shepherds who can resist the dictatorship of the spirit of the age and who live and think the faith with determination," Pope Benedict said in a message read by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his personal secretary and head of the papal household. Because of this "pressing need," Meisner "found it difficult to leave his post."

"What moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing," the pope emeritus concluded.

Meisner, who was 83, was one of the four cardinals who sent Pope Francis a dubia asking if Amoris Laetitia is aligned with Catholic morality. He died still awaiting the pope's response. Although Pope Francis hasn't answered the dubia, he has given his approval to interpretations of the controversial exhortation that say those living in adulterous unions may receive Holy Communion.

Canon lawyer Kurt Martens said Pope Benedict's message was an "amazing yet diplomatic form of support for [the] dubia Cardinals."

Protection of Roman Catholic Ecclesiology at the Heart of Sex Abuse Scandal

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, recently dismissed as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, formerly the “Holy Office”, formerly the Inquisition”) by “Pope Francis”, recently wrote:

The primacy of the Roman Church with its bishop is not due to a claim of superiority over other churches or to some will to power cleverly organized over the centuries by the clergy in the capital of an empire, but rather to the foundational will of the Lord of the Church [emphasis added]. Peter suffered martyrdom in Rome, and thus his primatial apostolate devolves upon the Church of Rome and consequently upon its visible head, the Bishop of Rome.

The primacy of Peter did not flare up at some point over the real world as an ideal, only to grow dim over the course of history and increasingly lose its contour in history’s vicissitudes. In order to comprehend the nature and mission of the episcopal ministry and of the primacy, one must go beyond a naturalistic understanding of the Church as a legal assembly. The Church has its origin in God’s salvific will and is the instrument thereof [emphasis added]. By its nature and mission it is not merely a religious assembly organized by men. The dualism between a supratemporal ideal image and its pale reflection in its historical realization must be overcome also. (Müller, Benedict and Francis: Their Ministry as Successors to Peter, English translation by Michael J. Miller, Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press ©2017, pgs 7–8.

This is the core of Roman Catholic ecclesiology.

Sex Abuse Enabler-In-Chief?

According to the conservative “The Catholic Thing”, the 

sex abuse spotlight has now been turned on “Pope Francis”.

Who is he to judge?

After the departure of one of his closest advisers in the hierarchy, Cardinal Pell (and following the departure as well of his CDF chief, Cardinal Müller, who failed to move more than 2,000 sex abuse cases through his department), the spotlight has turned by some on the potential sex abuse enabler-in-chief, “Pope Francis”.

“There is a deep disconnect between the pope’s words and his actions,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the advocacy group Bishop Accountability.

Barrett Doyle was critical of the pope for keeping Pell in his post until now, despite knowledge of the allegations against him.

“The pope is not a reformer when it comes to the crisis,” she said. “He apologizes often and uses buzz phrases like ‘zero tolerance.’ But underneath he remains the minimizer and the defender of accused priests.”

“Pope Francis” vs “Pope John Paul II”: Opposing “Veritatis Splendor”

The Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister has fretted now that the dismissal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller was really “an attack on ‘Veritatis Splendor’”, which he called “the most important doctrinal encyclical” of “Pope John Paul II”, and further, that this “attack” was accompanied by an affirmation of this encyclical, “by fate or divine providence” in “all the Catholic churches of the Roman rite” in the regularly scheduled prayers in last Sunday’s Mass:

“O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord...

The first line of that encyclical re-states the Roman Catholic distinction vs Protestantism:

Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9), people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" (Eph 5:8), and are made holy by "obedience to the truth" (1 Pet 1:22).

“Obedience” makes people “holy”. This precisely mirrors the error that Augustine made, which led to the medieval misunderstanding of justification, which in turn was contested by Luther and the Reformers. The Council of Trent later codified the error as “infallible dogma”.

But there is a second error espoused by “Pope Francis” and “Amoris Laetitia”, and it was articulated by Joseph Ratzinger. Pope Ratzinger, who had been Prefect of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (CDF) prior to Müller, and who “contributed in a substantial way to the writing of that encyclical”, had this to say about it in a recent chapter in “a book in honor of John Paul II”:

Two High-Ranking Cardinals Depart the Vatican; Two Sets of Reasons

Is “Pope Francis” Fighting against Sex Abuse in “The Church”?

Both Cardinal Gerhard Müller (left) and Cardinal George Pell,
two of the most powerful prelates in the Roman Catholic
Church, are out. Both have miserable records in the
Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis.

Last week, two of the highest-ranking Cardinals departed the Vatican, and the conservative and liberal factions are giving (surprise, surprise) conflicting reasons for the changes.

Both Cardinal Gerhard Müller (Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], formerly the Holy Office, formerly the Inquisition), and Cardinal George Pell, who was Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican, and a member of Pope Francis’s “C9” council of cardinal advisers, selected to clean up the financial mess in the Vatican, were dismissed from their Vatican posts last week.

Ostensibly, Müller was dismissed simply because his five-year term had run out and was not renewed. But Müller had two strikes against him already: First, he opposed “Pope Francis” on the “interpretation” of Amoris Laetitia. Second, according to The Times of London, Muller “failed to deliver on a promise to deal with more than 2,000 outstanding cases of alleged abuse.” (It is the CDF’s role to prosecute sexual abuse cases).

The conservative LifeSite News writer John-Henry Westen gives several other reasons for the sacking of Müller: