Staying Sane Re. The Amazon Synod

If reports are correct -and we have no reason to think they are not- the ordination of women as deacons and the ordaining of viri probati, as well as the adding of pagan ceremonies to the Sacred Rites, are all proposed by the Fathers of the Amazon Synod. If those suggestions are accepted by Francis we will be in a situation worse than at the time of the Protestant Revolt, for Luther, Zwingli, Henry VIII, at least had the integrity to establish their own communities distinct from Christ’s Catholic Church rather than deface it. In my lowly opinion, if Francis’ follow-up document does follow the false lights presented by Lucifer and his minions (and as yet we can still hope and pray he does not), we do not -and should not- follow it, because we do not have to follow error and/or deviations from the Deposit of Faith.

Since it is generally accepted that Pope Francis was validly elected, does that mean he must be blindly followed< No. Why? Because a pope is as much bound by Sacred Tradition as we are –if not more so, for he is supremely called to defend and promote it. To act in such a way as to suggest that all his predecessors were wrong and he is right would be to demonstrate an arrogance of diabolical origin. After all, the gift of infallibility is granted to the holder of the papacy for the holy performance of his office -the defence and promotion of the faith: “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles” (Pastor Aeternus #6). If a Bishop of Rome uses his office to alter the Church in her teachings, disciplines and worship to his own tastes rather than to defend and promote the Faith of the centuries, he is not doing his job and as such, and cannot access the gift of infallibility given by God for the right use of the office, which is to “inviolably keep..the Deposit of Faith delivered through the Apostles”. We do not have to accept any teachings of a pope, synod or Council if they deviate from the faith of the centuries -just as the Church did not have to follow Liberius. Francis will not doing his job if he allows pagan worship to be adopted into the liturgy, or allows the destruction of the key sacrament for accessing the sacraments (Holy Orders) by ordaining women and viri probabti, and we do not need to follow him on such a path.

Where does all this leave us? Can we simply elect another Pope and forget about Francis? Not at all; he remains our supreme pastor on earth. But we don’t owe him unquestioning obedience: we obey our superiors obedience “in all that is not sin” (cf. USA Baltimore Catechism #3, Answer 1259, and UK Penny Catechism Answer197) and it is surely sinful to allow pagan rites into worship and to alter the divine constitution of the Church in the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

It seems clear that Francis himself accepts that we are not obliged to follow him if he (or anyone else) teaches contrary to the Deposit of Faith, for he says false teachers “separate themselves from the community”: (Amoris Laetitia #297, “Naturally, if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, or wants to impose something other than what the Church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; this is a case of something which separates from the community (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a person needs to listen once more to the Gospel message and its call to conversion” [italics mine]. What is the way forward if a pope himself deviates from the Faith and thereby separates himself from the community? One can only make some suggestions.

First, pray for his recognition of Christ the True Light and his ability to recognise Lucifer’s false lights for what they are, for if/when he impose[s] something other than what the Church teaches, he can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; he needs to listen once more to the Gospel message of conversion. That message is not altered by a God of surprises”, for God is unchanging and has no surprises up His sleeve: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb.13v8); “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change..” (Jas.1v17); "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deut.12v32). There is no God of surprises; that is a ruse to have us accept new teaching contrary to what was handed on from the beginning “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” Num.23v19. “Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it” (Deut.4v5)

Second, give the pope what we might call a ‘discriminating obedience’ in his changes to doctrine, liturgy and discipline for we have a moral right to refuse obedience to that which is sinful. By such ‘discriminating obedience’ we do not enter into formal schism, so we shall not be cutting ourselves off from the Vicar of Christ and Holy Mother Church. If the worst happens and we fall into material schism, we can remember that it is schism from a Church defective in its teaching and disciplines, while we remain in Communion with Holy Mother Church throughout the ages.

Third, wait patiently for God to give Holy Mother Church a shepherd after His own Heart; a new Elijah to fight against idolatry, and a new Josiah; a new Deuteronomic reformer of discipline and worship to re-form the law and liturgy according to what went before the emergence of Modernism and its resurgence and empowerment in the middle of the 20^th Century.

Fourth, learn your Faith from the documents and Catechism of the Council of Trent. For children use the Baltimore Catechism in the US and the Penny Catechism in the UK.

Five, try to attend the Traditional Form of Mass where the liturgy is free from Father’s (or the liturgy committee’s) idiosyncrasies.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Protector of the Church, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

'pachamama' thrown in the river

Applause, admiration and prayers of blessing for those who took the symbol of the pagan goddess ‘mother earth’ from the Church of St Maria Traspontina and dumped it in the Tiber (see link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym48el2-tUs

Now that it has gone it seems the Vatican press office is able to admit it was a symbol of “life…and mother earth”. Prefect of Communications Paolo Ruffini provided the initial response, saying that the idols represent life and Mother Earth — exactly. The response shows the Vatican just doesn't get it (cf Much Militant here video 2:25 seconds to2:35 seconds).

The displaying of pagan idols in the house of the One True God during the Synod was a signal that paganism is likely more respected by our shepherds than Catholicism. Such a thing is nothing less than diabolical; it is the honouring of demons: “Am I saying that either the idols or the food sacrificed to them is anything? No, I am not. That food is really sacrificed to demons and not to God” (1 Cor.10v19-20). What is worse is that the same shepherds display another copy of that idol in the hall where they deliberate how to take the Gospel to pagan peoples, and it seems another is placed in St Peter’s.

Forget about honouring other religions; that is not what we are about; we respect the people of other religions, but we cannot respect a religion that is not of God. if the idols of other faiths is to be respected, why did Elijah smash the idols, and why did Boniface chop down a sacred oak? We cannot fall into the trap of respecting paganism. Indeed, God sent us into the world to replace other religions with the Gospel, not to honour them.

We desperately need synod prelates with the wisdom and courage of Elijah and Josiah to get the Church back on track. If they want to reach pagan peoples, we ought to do what the Church did so successfully for 2000 years: preach the Gospel unadulterated, and offer worship that is entirely Catholic, not polluted with paganism. It seems to me that we lost people from the Church in the Amazon when we stopped sending missionaries with the Gospel in their hearts and instead sent missionaries with social-work in their heads, preaching an earth-bound salvation by social liberation, and not salvation from hell by liberation from paganism and sin.

Francis' Amazon Synod

I have not written posts for a long time and cannot say when I will do another, not only because my health status depletes my energy levels but because in today’s Church there seems to be nothing but to comment on but damaging change, especially noticeable in the Synod on the Amazon where paganism is being applauded and accommodated. While our battle is “not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, powers and rulers of this dark age” (Eph.6v12), yet in temporal terms we are doing battle with the Church’s highest-ranking shepherds. Sadly, this has to include Pope Francis, whom the secular world has embraced because they see in him what many Catholics see, that is, an accommodation to the ways of the world: re-marriage after divorce (here), the anti-life practices of contraception (here) and homosexual acts (here) and even of paganism by seeking to the give the Church an Amazonian face (sinodoamazonico #7, here). 

This accommodation of secular ideologies and paganism is supremely regretful since the eternal welfare of souls is at stake. I cannot help but call to mind two texts from Holy Scripture that our shepherds seem in need of re-hearing and taking to heart. One is an instruction: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not let yourselves be carried be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (Heb.9v13). The other is a warning: “Woe to you when the world speaks well of you, for that is how they treated the false prophets” (Lk.6v26). Those who were elevated by Francis to the Episcopacy, the Cardinalate or to high rank in Rome might well be troubled in heart these days; they may be concerned that they were elevated because they are seen as men who will not rock the Francis boat; men who do not fully adhere to the faith of the Centuries but are willing to adapt it (or even dispose of it) in order to gain the favour of the world -or perhaps just to feel themselves enlightened beyond the men of the past whose office they inherited; ‘Gnostic’ men with special insight and knowledge.

The buzz words of today’s episcopacy and the Synod -dialogue, listening and accompanying- are falsely applied to the Church’s mission. “Dialogue” has no place in Catholicism because we were not commanded to “Go, dialogue with all nations” but to “Go, teach all nations” (Matt.28v19).if they accept it, alleluia! If they do not, we don’t then syncretise The Truth with error; darkness with The Light; poison with The Food that leads to eternal life. Amazon Synod Fathers please take note: we are not meant to modify the Church according to pagan cultures but to replace paganism with Catholicism by authentic evangelisation: the faithful, unadulterated preaching of the Gospel. Paganism has nothing to add to the Divine Revelation given us by God Himself. If there are elements of the Faith that God has seeded in the ways of pagan religions they are there so that we can bring those seeds to fruition by showing how they prepare them for the Gospel, not so that we can adopt them. We have to be like St Paul and say “you are ignorant of the very thing you worship--and this is what I am going to proclaim to you” (Acts 17c23). Paul did not say let us add the unknown god to The Way.

As for “listening”, what see in Rome today is not genuine ‘listening’ but selective hearing; those of us who defend the True and Traditional Faith handed on through the centuries are not ‘listened to’ but dismissed; regarded as rigid and perhaps mentally ill and (here). Those who are listened to by Rome are those willing to modify (and thereby destroy) the Church in her structures, disciplines, teachings and liturgies by accommodating paganism and modern ideologies –a natural consequence of believing that Christ is not God-made-man -for if Christ was not God when He walked the earth, why listen even to Him?

Then there is the idea of “accompanying”; of walking with those who live a life Traditionally seen as a life of sin. How do we accompany someone who lives in sinful ways? To accompany rather than challenge them is to affirm them in their sins and put their salvation at risk by making their sins appear acceptable or even good: more holy than even a sacramental state. We are not called to accompany but to correct; with gentleness and respect sure, but also with clarity and conviction.

I am praying the prayer to St Michael and my Rosaries for the Synod, that the hearts and minds of our shepherds may love Truth, seek Truth, live Truth and advance The Truth. This world is filled with false lights where truth is distorted as it was in the Garden of Eden when the devil took the truth that man is made in the image and likeness of God and distorted it by presenting the tree of good and evil as a way of becoming more like God. It was this distortion and manipulation of the truth which caused man to fall into hell. Please God our shepherds do not do the work of the devil all over again by syncretising the Truth with the errors –the ideologies- of the modern world and of paganism.