The Stakes Are Becoming Clearer To All Now

A few days ago, Archbishop Vigano laid bare the case against Francis in no uncertain terms.  Recently, we've also heard from Cardinals Burke and Sarah, along with Bishop Schneider regarding the affronts posed by Francis to the Faith.  The bulk of their recent comments are directed at Fiducia Supplicans, the document penned by Cardinal Kissy-Face Fernandez and signed by Francis.  That document gives the go-ahead for "gay unions".  Given the fact that that to counsel for sin and to approve it are ways of cooperating with sin, the production and the promulgation of Fiducia Supplicans has been inherently sinful on its face.

On June 14, Cardinal Sarah came to Catholic University of America in Washington DC to address some students there.  In his remarks, he held out, as an example to follow, his fellow African bishops who refuse to implement Fiducia Supplicans. owing to its "grave error".  At about the same time, in an interview, Cardinal Burke stated, "we affront the Lord, we show profound lack of respect for Our Lord in love for Him if in some way we try to ask blessing for something that’s sinful."

Bishop Schneider's stance is none too nuanced.  He called Fiducia Supplicans "a mockery of the natural and revealed law of God."  And so it is.  Then he said something very wise, laying bare a part of the insidious strategy of the goons in the Vatican.  He said, "but perhaps creating a state of permanent debate, generalized uncertainty, and doctrinal and practical anarchy, was precisely its aim."  Francis seems to excel at this, to undermine the certainty that has always been a hallmark of God's truth as revealed through Holy Mother Church.

Cardinal Cupich, What Will You Do About This? We Await Your Action..

... or lack thereof, as the case may be.  At any rate, all eyes are on you.  For that matter, the same goes for you, Pope Francis.  What you do, or don't do, will indicate just what goal you had in mind with Fiducia Supplicans.  Notice:

• The priest is vested for a sacramental event.
• This is taking place in a church
• This was recorded, making obvious that this debacle was planned and not extemporaneous
• "Vows" are being exchanged
• The priest blesses them AS A COUPLE
• He calls their union "holy", blasphemous on its face

Archdiocese of Baltimore And Fiducia Supplicans Versus Protection Of Babies

We proceeded to the school cafeteria where lunch was served.  Along the perimeters tables were set up, with various "social justice" organizations were hawking their wares and dissident mindsets.  The only decent organization that I noted was the St. Vincent de Paul Society.   As you can see, LEAD had a table there.  They seemed to have learned one lesson from last year's expose of their nonsense; they did not give away little "gay-pride" flags.  However, their display table skirt was a gay-pride flag.  I suppose the poor dears just couldn't help themselves.  Among the offerings on the table were several of Fr James Martin's books.  At the opposite end of the row was a table for Pax Christi.  They seem to be having internal difficulties when it comes to being anti-baby-slaughter.  With all the regular "seamless garment" stuff, they are all in lock-step with each other.  Why do they seem to have difficulties decrying the evil of abortion?   Keep that question in the back of your mind as I relate to you the contents of the afternoon workshop.

The workshop was entitled "Fiducia Supplian: Putting It Into Perspective".  The presenter was Keith Wildenberg, founder of Building Catholic Futures.  He's also a partnered gay man.  This organization ostensibly exists to facilitate the integration of LGBT persons into the Catholic Church.  As I read the articles on the web about this, it seems that most of the LGBT people bristle at the idea that their inclinations are intrinsically disordered.  The truth is that they are, given that sexuality is ordered by God for marriage and the procreation of children.

One question that Wildenberg asked at the beginning is "what is the Church supposed to do with the gay couples among us?"  Another was "what can we do to make our priests more comfortable with this?"  "Blessing prayers" were interspersed throughout the presentation.  These always invoked blessings upon the gay couple, asking that their homes be blessed, that they grow closer as a couple.  I emphasize as a couple for one simply cannot ask blessing on a couple without validating that which defines them as a couple, i.e. the disordered tendencies that drew them to each other.

Wildenberg tried to take the writings of various popes regarding friendship to justify the intrinsically disordered attraction found in same-sex couples.  He opined ruefully that the "Church is clear about what we can't do with our bodies; I wish it was clear about what we can do with our bodies."  This sounds a bit like randy, hormone-driven kids asking "how far can we go?"  Let's face it.  Anyone who asks that question already knows the answer in his/her conscience.  Much effort was expended to twist Church writings to lend legitimacy to the existence of gay couples.  That is, the talk was full of attempts to justify the objectively perverse attraction between people of the same sex.  About halfway through the talk, he said, "you can't bless their union but you can bless them as individuals.  And if they happen to be standing next to each other and you have two hands.."  Here the audience broke out in chuckles - and we know why.

So how much of that pow-wow session was smoke-and-mirrors?  Well, consider this recent news.  It was discovered that Father Joseph Williams, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago, presided at a "same-sex blessing" with exchange of "vows" on April 22nd.   It was first reported in Our Sunday Visitor.  Fiducia Supplicans states that any "blessing" not be accompanied by any accouterments that might imply a sacramental event.  Father Williams was vested for the confection of a sacrament.  He recognized them as a couple, asking blessing on their perverted relationship.  A faithful Catholic notified the Chicago chancery and was assured that "it will be addressed".  I'll believe it when I see it.  If Williams is not disciplined for this sacrilege, we may safely assume that such "blessings" as he attempted are indeed the goal of the authors of Fiducia Supplicans.

Priest Blesses Lesbian Couple

Throughout the presentation, various people read sample "blessings" for gay couples.  Wildenberg had planned, as a closing activity, to have the audience break down into groups of 4-5 people so that we could compose our own "blessings" for same-sex shack-ups.  I prepared to leave at that point for there was no way I could morally pretend to engage in that sin and I wasn't prepared to destroy my own cover.  Fortunately, Wildenberg et al noticed that there would not be time for that activity before the closing event of the day.

There were quite a few other workshops, all having to do with various progressive causes: climate change, death penalty, labor organizing, racial matters, etc.  There was only one that even mentioned pro-life concerns.  Bear in mind that Maryland has on its ballot the question of whether or not the so-called "right" to baby-slaughter,   It is the so-called "Right to Reproductive Freedom Act".  Was it mentioned, at least once, in that "pro-life" workshop?  By the way - as I was perusing the tables of different organizations during lunch, there was no pro-life display.  Given that this was an ostensibly Catholic social justice convocation, I found such absence to be quite indicative of priorities being misplaced.

The title of that workshop was "Pro-Life, Social Justice, And Not Being Cringe".  In that description was not one mention of the word abortion, the method by which over 90 babies every day are murdered in Maryland.  Moreover, when I recall that I sat through two workshops in which gays lectured to us, in a Catholic school with permission of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, I find it rather backwards that the word "cringe" is being associated with pro-life activism.

To add to the authentically "cringe" factor of this convocation, I noticed that there were a number of Calvert Hall students were present, ushering people through the building and carrying materials to different locations.  I presume that they were doing this for service points or other extracurricular credits.  In forcing those boys to witness the progressives and deviants strutting through their school, the Archdiocese of Baltimore failed those boys miserably.

This year's convocation was no different than last year's debacle.  These are unabashed attempts to normalize gay perversion (and other anomalies) within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.  The fact that this is being done so openly and on Catholic property indicates that such twisting of Catholic teaching is done with the permission of the Archbishop of Baltimore - if not at his express direction.  The directors responsible for inflicting these convocations on Baltimore should be dismissed - even if that includes the current archbishop.

Kissy-Face's Lame Attempt At Damage Control

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, aka Kissy-Face, issued yesterday what he claims to be a "clarification" of Fiducia Supplicans.  In reality, it seems nothing more than a lame attempt to throw smoke and dust into the eyes of those who clearly see the diabolical nature of the screed.

Look at section 4 of that letter.  The "theological reflection" as he calls FS, is, according to him, "a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church".  Substitute the word "divergence" for "development" and you have a halfway-true statement.  Then he said that "the text requires an effort to think serenely, with the heart of shepherds, free from all ideology."  Italics mine.  Let's unpack that double-speak, shall we?  What is meant by "ideology" in this context is the doctrines and dogmas of the Church as handed down through the centuries, because they ultimately come from God Himself.  By the way - Kissy Face should be delighted to know that there is a place that is free of all that "ideology".  It's called hell.

He goes on to betray his disdain for the Church's teaching by saying that Francis "proposed that we think of a way of blessing that does not require the placing of so many conditions to carry out this simple gesture of pastoral closeness, which is a means of promoting openness to God in the midst of the most diverse circumstances."   These conditions are the moral teachings of the Church.  How can a desire to be free of those not be its own serious sin?   Now substitute for the phrase "most diverse circumstances" the more accurate phrase "inherently sinful situations".

As we all know by now, entire bishops' conferences and religious orders see FS for the cow plop that it is and are refusing to implement it.  So now in section 5 the arm-twisting of these clerics is underway.  In section 5, of these so-called "blessings" he says, "we are talking about something that last about 10 or 15 seconds.  Does it make sense to deny these kinds of blessings to these two people who ask for them?"  Ladies and gentlemen, when have you ever seen this kind of pouting and whining in a Church document?  What difference does it make that this act of cooperating with sin lasts only a few seconds?  Most murders take about the same amount of time.

I have neither time nor stomach to analyze this entire tome.  GloriaTV has done a nice job, as has Peter Kwasniewski in Crisis Magazine.  I will say this, though.  I dubbed Cardinal Fernandez "Kissy Face" because of that less-than-theological masterpiece (cough!) that he wrote called "Heal Me With Your Mouth - The Art Of Kissing".  After wading both through Fiducia Supplicans and this pig-slop of a "clarification", I'm glad that I didn't subject myself to the torture of reading that book.

Fiducia Supplicans - Where Do Our Clergy Stand?

If there is any silver lining to the stinking, foggy cloud known as Supplicans Fiducia, it's that more and more people are acknowledging this papacy to be the unmitigated disaster that it is.  Over these past few days we've been hearing accounts of various dioceses and religious orders stating emphatically that they will not permit their priests to bless sinful unions of any sort, with some rejecting Fiducia Supplicans in its entirety.  Conversely we've been hearing of others who wax giddy about the prospect of priests greasing the skids of those headed to hell.

LifeSite News has been collecting these accounts and has published their summary.  For obvious reasons that summary remains a work in progress.  Therefore, keep checking that post for updates.

If you are in one of the questionable locales, as I am, consider what you will do if you should become aware of a planned "blessing of irregular couples".  That will be the sin of blasphemy and cannot go unopposed by faithful Catholics.

Why Fiducia Supplicans Is Spiritually Poisonous

Some otherwise faithful Catholics are obviously having difficulty accepting that the Vatican is so depraved that it has put out such a poisonous document.  They want to believe so badly that this pope is not so corrupt as to undermine the Church that they twist themselves into pretzels believing that there might be some redeeming quality to FS as to restore their faith in this papacy.  But therein lies their error.  They put too much faith in a sitting pope rather than in the Church's teachings and traditions as handed down through the centuries.

I will now relay some of the most frequent denial tactics that I've read on social media. Here is the text of Fiducia Supplicans.  By the way- please have the FS document open as you read this post.

"The priest gives a blessing to all people after Mass".  That is a general blessing to the congregation at large, not targeted to specific people, especially those designated because of sinful relationships.  It has always been ok to bless people and ask for God's guidance.  That begs the question of just why did the pope highlight those in "irregular relationships"?  And why is the word "irregular" used when the more truthful adjective is "sinful"?

"The theology of marriage isn't challenged"  Perhaps not overtly, but it is.  A blessing on a gay couple, even though it may not be "liturgical", does lend legitimacy to the relationship that makes those two people a "couple".   "Only individuals are being blessed, not the relationship".  Read the document.  It's right there in the title to Section 3 of the tome.

Those are two common attempts to deny the harm of FS.  Let's take another look at the thing, shall we?

Since my previous post on this topic, there have been a number of commentaries that have demonstrated the fatal flaws of Fiducia Supplicans.  I see no need for me to "reinvent the wheel as it were, so I will link to them and recommend all to your reading.  An important aside - I link to articles such as these so that you can draw your own conclusions and not just rely on my understandings of what the authors say.  We ALL have a duty, no matter our stations in life, to be informed of these matters.  Ignorance is not a morally acceptable option.

The first of these is an analysis by Cardinal Gerhard Muller.  He notes several troubling aspects of FS.  First, there is the attempt to introduce another type of "blessing".  Why?  Because the blessing already recognized by the Church demand agreement between the blessings and the Church's teachings.  Having this last sentence in mind, please pop over to the other browser window with FS open, and read paragraph 12 in its entirety.  You should be getting a sense of how insidious FS is, since it overtly calls for a new type of "blessing" that is not subjected to "too many moral prerequisites",  because they could "overshadow the unconditional power of God's love".  Absolute satanic nonsense!  The "moral prerequisites" are God's Commands.  His love and His commands stem from Him.  God does not have a split personality.

Muller goes on to say that sinful persons can be blessed, e.g., blessed to ask graces to turn from their sin.   However, paragraph 31 talks of blessing homosexual couples, not individuals.  An attempt to do that would be to cooperate in the mortal sin of homosexual conduct.  One cannot bless a couple without blessing what defines them as a couple - in this case, mortal sin.  That is both sacrilege and blasphemy.  Added to that is the guilt of cooperating with the mortal sin of sodomy.

Again, I urge you to read Cardinal Muller's entire piece.  But now we'll read what others have said.

The next article to consider was written by Father Thomas Weinandy and was published in First Things.  Father cleared up a misconception held by many.  Francis did not pen that tripe.  Rather, it came from Cardinal Victor Fernandez, aka Kissy Face, with Francis' approval.  Weinandy's main focus appears to be on paragraph 31, which is quite the poison pill amidst all that word salad.  Weinandy aptly calls it "jargon, sophistry and deceit".

In his last paragraph, Weinandy suggests the possibility that FS might have been well-intentioned.  Here I must disagree with Father.  The track records of both Francis and Kissy-Face testify against any possibility that this is well-intentioned.  It is a brazen attempt to cajole poorly-educated clergy into doing the indefensible - to normalize mortal sin in the Church's teachings.

Now let's look at what Eric Sammons says in Crisis Magazine.  He speaks a bit on the role of the pope in the Church and contrasts that with Francis' conduct.  In the writings of previous popes, their footnotes are drawn upon Scripture, doctrines, writings of their predecessors.  Not so for Francis.  Sammons states, and I think him correct, that approximately 65% of his references are his own previous teachings and/or writings.  He is his own source of teaching, in other words.

Paragraph 7 states that "the Holy Father's above-mentioned response invites us to broaden and enrich the meaning of blessings."  Sammons correctly points out that it is not the proper role of any pope to "broaden and enrich" anything.  Rather, the pope's responsibility is to teach and guard what has been handed down from the apostles.

Sammon's piece deserves a close and careful read.  I need not rehash what he said, but he does do a great job in unpacking FS, illustrating its divergence from Tradition.

More on FS soon.

A Song To Celebrate The Fiddle-Faddle Soup Document

Ipsitilla sums this up most succinctly in her latest.

Using The Papal Office To Normalize Mortal Sins Via Sacrilege

Francis today issued a mess called Fiducia Supplicans - a rather verbose attempt to legitimize the blessings of same-sex shack-ups.  I linked to the English version on the Vatican's website.  Read it for yourselves - the whole thing.  I realize it's a bit of a word salad, but that appears to be his favorite strategy - bury the poison pill in the midst of a multitude of pious-sounding platitudes.

The preface of this tome is written by none other than Cardinal "Kissy-Face" Fernandez.  He yaps about the "development" of the "pastoral meaning of blessings".  Notice those two words: development and pastoral.  It's like they are saying that for the past 2000+ years, the Church's understanding of blessings was woefully lacking.

Then the screed mentions "irregular unions" quite a few times.  Irregular?  Try "mortally sinful".  Paragraphs 31 and 32 mentions those who "recognize themselves to be destitute and in need of his (God's) help" and "who do not claim to be righteous but who acknowledge themselves humbly as sinners."  Those people, if they are sincere, will immediately repair to the nearest confessional and receive the Sacrament of Confession with the intentions of ceasing their sexual perversions and removing themselves from the near occasion of sin - that is, their sinful situations.  This is not rocket science.  We learned this in second grade as we were preparing to go to Confession for the first time.

Those who persist in "popesplaining" need to consider what was said above instead of trying to fabricate some meaning out of "blessing" that justifies this tome's proposition that gay shack-ups be blessed.  Another crucial lesson in moral theology is understanding the nine ways that one can cooperate in another's mortal sin, and thus share the guilt and punishment of that mortal sin.  I just linked to them.  This is not the first time that Francis has tried to normalize mortal sin.

The USCCB issued its own commentary regarding the FS slop.  The last sentence mentions "the imparting of pastoral blessings because each of us needs God's healing love and mercy in our lives."  Again, that is to be found primarily in the Sacrament of Confession.  Isn't it telling that this "Fiddlefaddle Soup" screed utters not one peep about the Sacrament of Confession?  It's not hard to figure out why.  In order to receive God's authentic mercy, one must actually be contrite and have a firm resolve to not fall into that sin again.  This "fiddle-faddle" thing is taylor-made for those who have no intention of forsaking their perversions, even if it means damnation in the next life.  The perverts might not be alone in their damnation.  That statement isn't a judgment, but rather a warning.