Fatima Perspectives #1313
Since my first column on the “Synod for the Amazon” — which is really a synod for the continued auto-demolition of the Church — Catholic commentators around the world have sounded the alarm about this latest exercise in stage-managed “synodal” decision-making, meaning what Pope Francis is plotting to achieve.
See, for example, this searing commentary on the Instrumentum laboris [IL] for the synod, which notes that it “represents a total opening of the gates of the Magisterium to Indian Theology and Ecotheology, two Latin American derivatives of Liberation Theology.”
Sandro Magister, however, focuses on the document’s blatant opening to an undermining of clerical celibacy. He writes that among the IL’s “59 dense pages… these few lines from its paragraph 129 are enough to understand where Pope Francis wants to arrive”:
“Affirming that celibacy is a gift for the Church, it is requested that, for the remoter zones of the region, the possibility be studied of the priestly ordination of mature men, preferably indigenous, respected and accepted by their communities, even though they may already have an established and stable family, for the sake of guaranteeing the sacraments that accompany and sustain the Christian life.”
Magister notes the usual modus operandi of double-talk by which Francis navigates toward his predetermined destination in this or that ruinous innovation:
“The last time the pope had outlined this objective had been at the press conference on the flight back from Panama on January 27 2019, when to the question: ‘Will you allow married men to become priests?’ he first responded by repeating with Paul VI: ‘I would rather lay down my life than change the law of celibacy,’ but immediately afterward admitted a possibility of that kind ‘in remoter areas’ like in the ‘Pacific islands’ and ‘perhaps’ in the Amazon and ‘in many places.’”
During the same press conference, notes Magister, Francis cited a book by the ultra-Modernist bishop Fritz Lobinger wherein he presents what Francis calls the “interesting” idea of ordaining married men for “the sole ‘munus,’ the task, of administering the sacraments, not those of teaching and governing as well…”
Yes, incredibly enough, Francis appears to be contemplating an entirely new form of priestly ordination limited to the administration of the sacraments, thereby tampering with the Sacrament of Holy Orders established by Our Lord Himself. Evidently the idea is to ordain indigenous “elders” with families who have no theological formation or seminary training and thus are not qualified to teach or govern. Or, perhaps Francis has in mind the ordination simpliciter of married men even without theological formation or training.
Then we read, from Magister, the news that none other than the arch-Modernist Cardinal Walter Kasper told the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau that “Francis expects only to put his signature to a decision of the synod in favor of the ordination of married men.” A decision that has already been predetermined as the outcome of the “synodal process,” meaning the process of giving Francis what he wants while pretending that it was not his idea from the beginning. Then, of course, we will be told that “the Spirit” has spoken through the Synod — as if anyone seriously believes this cynical trope after the previous three blatantly manipulated synodal shams.
Magister reminds us that the abolition of priestly celibacy was a primary objective of the infamous Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Pope’s Jesuit confrere, and that it was precisely Martini who, together with the German cardinals Kasper and Lehman, conspired in the Swiss city of Sankt Gallen to bring about the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope.
Magister concludes that once the tradition of priestly celibacy is ruptured in the Amazon, the next stop will be Germany, and from there the whole of the Western Church in keeping with the post-conciliar rule that every novel departure from Tradition by way of exception shall become the norm while the norm becomes the exception, if it is even tolerated at all.
Roberto de Mattei asks: “Will the bishops, successors of the Apostles, be silent? Will the cardinals, the Pope’s advisors in the governing of the Church, be silent in the face of this political-religious manifesto which perverts the doctrine and praxis of the Mystical Body of Christ?”
Indeed, will any of the hierarchs do their duty of confronting a Pope who has made a reality the hypothetical scenario discussed by Saint Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church? To quote Bellarmine: “Therefore, just as it would be lawful to resist a Pontiff invading a body, so is it lawful to resist him invading souls or disturbing a state, and much more if he should endeavor to destroy the Church.”
Who among the hierarchs will have the courage to do what Bellarmine said ought to be done in such a situation? Quoth Bellarmine: “Resist him, by not doing what he commands, and by blocking him, lest he should carry out his will…” [Cfr. Controversies of the Christian Faith, trans. Ryan Grant (Mediatrix Press: 2015), p. 303. Cfr. also, Controversies of the Christian Faith, trans. Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. (Keep the Faith: 2016), Third General Controversy on the Sovereign Pontiff, Book II, p. 835.]
The answer, apparently, is none of them. Not one. There is no Athanasius for our time. All of the signs, therefore, indicate a terminal state of affairs that can end only by an intervention from on high. With the most dramatic consequences for both the Church and the world.
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Note: The readers’ prayers are requested for the repose of the soul of my friend and colleague in the law, Thomas F. Portelli, who attended Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock, NJ. He passed away quite suddenly at the age of 71.
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