Is Pope Francis Evil?

On the plane from Ireland to Rome on Sunday night, Pope Francis was asked about the accusations made against him by Archbishop Vigano.  He refused to answer, simply saying:

“I read that statement this morning. I read it and I will say sincerely that I must say this, to you (the reporter) and all of you who are interested: read the document carefully and judge it for yourselves. I will not say one word on this. I think the statement speaks for itself and you have sufficient journalistic capacity to reach your own conclusions,” 

For all those looking to find Francis guilty, that is as good as an outright admission of guilt.  Surely if he was innocent, he would have said so.  Why would anyone allow themselves to be falsely accused?

As Steve Skojec wrote, "It’s an act of hubris so stunning, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it."  Or as Matt Walsh wrote, as quoted by John Zuhlsdorf: "There are no flattering ways to interpret Pope Francis’ non-denial. Either he is guilty as sin or he has so much disdain and hubris in his heart that he does not think he owes anyone an explanation. "

No one is better at making accusations than Michael Voris.  So let's see what he has to say, as this pretty much sums up the sentiments of most the anti-Pope Francis brigade:

You have treated too many of the faithful with coldness and callousness, abusing the power of your office in regard to their sufferings over this horrendous unconscionable evil which you have facilitated.

. . .

You have protected abusers of power, of office, and worst of all, young adults and even children. You have covered up for them. In some cases, you have drawn them close to yourself and taken them on as trusted advisors.

And now, given the revelations over the weekend from Abp. Viganò's testimony — a testimony you do not even deny — it is now clear that you yourself are one of the cover-up bishops because you directly covered up for an actual predator, Theodore McCarrick, until the media heat got too great to withstand.

You have violated your own zero tolerance policy as it pertains specifically to your own actions and omissions.

You have drawn into the temple of God, the most holy of sanctuaries, wicked men who have both raped and covered up the rape of innocents.

Your hypocritical and shameless parade of empty words of sorrow and pleading for forgiveness are an egregious affront to those who believe in God, because you lack all sincerity.

How many trips are you going to take, paid for by the faithful, where you continue to meet with victims, supposedly mourn with them and then return to Rome and conspire with those who abused them or created the environment for the abuse — or both?

The men you have surrounded yourself with have no supernatural faith, for one with supernatural faith would tremble and drop dead of fright at the thought of being judged for what they — and now you — have done. A man who aids, abets, protects and promotes such wicked, sexually perverted and predatory men is not fit for the Chair of St. Peter — he is fit for far worse.

These wolves in shepherds' clothing brutalize and sodomize the sheep, and you promote them. They have no fear of God, and with each passing day, it appears that neither do you.

Any other bishop acting as you have would have been removed immediately for abuse of power and the gravest negligence of office under canon law.

. . .

You can duck and weave questions from the press on Viganò's testimony, and offer clever retorts to the media that sidestep the testimony of your own ambassador, but oh how you cannot do that with Almighty God.

, , , 

Your actions and omissions have left you unable to reign over the Church in any meaningful way. You have no credibility, no moral authority, not a shred of decency left after having covered up one scandal after another, until the day you go to your own grave.

You had better hope that this is not the state you die in, or you will be delivered over to the demons for an everlasting death of agony and torment in the unquenchable fire, for popes are not immune from risk of damnation, whether you believe in Hell or not.

And when you would next encounter the henchmen you have promoted in this life, each of you will rip and tear one another apart for all eternity, having contributed to the damnation of each other as well as innocents while on Earth.

Whatever pact of evil you may have created with one another, or rationalized, it will be your everlasting shame and agony when you are plunged into the pit where the fire is never quenched and the worm dieth not.

You still have time, Holiness. Admit your tremendous failings, sweep the wicked hirelings from the College of Cardinals, resign your office and give us back the Holy Church that we love and your sycophantic minions loathe.

Holy Father, your friends, your advisors, have raped men and boys. They destroy truth and innocence and lives and souls. You are covering for them.

After you have resigned and they have been forced from office by you, the first thing your successor should do is prosecute the entire lot to demonstrate to the world that change has indeed come to the Church. It will go much better for you that you face justice now, rather than after you die.

For the good of your soul, Holy Father, so as not to be subject to the tortures of demons for eternity, step down.

Wow, talk about hubris!  Only Voris would have the unmitigated hubris to stand up in front of the world and condemn the Vicar of Christ to hell.  As Voris said, this was a day of victory for him.

So, what does Our Lord think of His Vicar, Pope Francis? You say we can't know that?  Well, maybe we can get an idea.

In March, 2015, Pope Francis visited Naples.  As an article from The Catholic Herald reported:

The blood of St Januarius liquefied in the presence of a pope for the first time since 1848 on Saturday.

The blood of the patron saint of Naples, which is normally solid, partially liquefied after Pope Francis kissed the relic during his day trip to the southern Italian city.

. . .

The blood last liquefied for a pope in the presence of Pius IX. The phenomenon did not occur when St John Paul II visited Naples in 1979 and Benedict XVI visited the city in 2007.

St Januarius was a Bishop of Naples who is believed to have been martyred around the year 305 during the Diocletian persecution.

His blood is kept in a sealed glass ampoule and traditionally liquefies three times a year: on September 19, the saint’s feast day, December 16 and the Saturday before the first Sunday of May

Here is a video report of the Pope's visit and the blood liquefying:

The blood actually continued to liquefy until the entire contents of the ampoule had turned to liquid, causing some in the crowd to weep.  Do you believe that this miracle would occur in the presence of  pope who, according to Michael Voris, had made a pact with evil?

As an aside, please note the Pope's advice to seminarians:  "If Jesus is not central, postpone ordination.  If you are not sure that Jesus is the center of your life, wait a little longer."  Certainly it can be inferred that if a seminarian is struggling with his sexuality, Pope Francis would not want him to enter the priesthood.

Pope Francis also performed an exorcism in public.  This occurred in May 2013.  According to the Telegraph:

According to TV2000, a Catholic television channel, the act was carried out in St Peter's Square after Mass on Sunday.

Smiling broadly, the Pope initially shook the man's hand, but the South American pontiff's expression changed dramatically after a priest from the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative order, leaned in close and spoke a few words to him.

With a more serious expression on his face, Francis placed both hands on the man's head for 15 seconds.

The pilgrim, said to be a 43-year old married man from Mexico called Angelo, then convulsed briefly and emitted a long sigh. His body went limp and his mouth dropped open.

"Exorcists who have seen the footage have no doubt – this was a prayer for liberation from Evil, an actual exorcism," said TV2000, which is owned by the Italian Bishops Conference.

Here is a video of the exorcism:

I wonder how Voris explains this. Does he say, as the Pharisees said about Jesus, that Pope Francis casts out demons by the prince of demons?

Then there are the miracles attributed to Pope Francis.  According to the Standard Digital:

Pope Francis may yet earn the accolade "The Healing Pope" for the miracles he has been performing when touching people with serious health problems.

When the Pope flew to New York last week as part of his six-day apostolic visit to the United States, he once again showed his healing power when he blessed a 12-year-old girl who was one of those who greeted him at JFK Airport, The Gospel Herald said.

Julia Bruzzese of Brooklyn, New York was in a wheelchair when the smiling Pope stopped by, touched her face and blessed her. She had been using the wheelchair ever since she suffered a sudden paralysis whose cause puzzled her doctors no end. Her doctors said she seemed to exhibit symptoms of Lyme disease.

But the problem was that her blood tests showed she was negative for that disease. Early symptoms of the inflammatory Lyme disease include a rash, headache, fever, and chills, according to WebMD. The sufferer then develops arthritis and neurological and cardiac disorders. The disease is caused by bacteria transmitted by ticks, according to the medical website.

While her doctors were still trying to figure out what exactly caused her paralysis, Julia, together with her mother Josephine, decided to meet Pope Francis, hoping and praying for a miracle to enable her to walk again.

 "[Meeting the pope was] the most precious moment of my life," the young girl said. Josephine recalled the moment when the Pope saw and approached them. "He looked me right in the eyes; I kissed his hand and thanked him, and I walked away [saying] 'she's gonna be okay,'" Josephine said.

Five days later, the doctors decided to subject Julia to another blood test. To their utter surprise, they finally found the cause of her ailment. Their initial suspicion turned out to be right—she had Lyme disease, an ailment that can easily be treated with medication.

"The miracle has begun," Julia said. "Yesterday, I went to the doctor and for the first time they saw Lyme disease activity in my blood, and that just shows a miracle can happen if you believe, just like I did. If you believe and pray everything can happen."

In another interview with NBC New York, Julia said she is now brimming with optimism that she will be able to walk again soon. "I know I will walk again because of him [Pope Francis]," she said. Julia is already starting to plan her activities once she gets to walk again. She said she wants to play softball and soccer again and sing in the choir as well.

"It's unfortunate that this has happened. This experience has made me wiser, made me look at life in a different perspective. Life is precious," she said.

Performing miracles is nothing new to Pope Francis. Last March, authorities attested that he turned the dried blood of St. Gennaro into liquid in Naples, Italy.

Just last month before he began his visits to Cuba and the US, Pope Francis abruptly stopped his motorcade in the rain and asked his aide to bring to him the baby he saw being lifted at the barricade by her parents at St. Peter's Square. The Pope briefly placed his palm on the chest of the three-month-old girl who was suffering from Down's syndrome and had two holes in her heart.

Later when the doctors checked on the baby, they found one of the two holes had completely closed while the other one was reduced to half its former size. Lynn Cassidy, the mother of the baby, told the Washington Post, that what happened to her child made her believe that "God can act through the pope's blessings in miraculous ways."

Here is a video of yet another healing attributed to Pope Francis when he visited Cuba:

Despite all of the many miracles and healings performed by Jesus Christ, the Pharisees accused him of being a heretic worthy of death.  It would seem that the enemies of Pope Francis feel the same way about the Holy Father.

There is no doubt in my mind that all those who are criticizing Francis for not defending himself and calling it an act of hubris would do the same thing with Jesus Christ. Our Lord never defended Himself. He defended the poor and weak. He defended sinners. He defended the Temple. But He never defended Himself against the horrific accusations made by His enemies.

This was especially true during His Passion. Pontius Pilate was amazed at this, telling Jesus that he had the power to release Him if only Jesus said the right words. Jesus said the only power Pilate had was given to him from God, while still refusing to answer Pilate.

One of our greatest saints, St. Therse of Lisieux, wrote powerfully about accepting false accusations. She was once falsely accused of breaking a vase. She accepted this accusation without a word of self defense. As she wrote, "Without a word, I kissed the floor, promising to be more careful in the future." She never fought back against those who treated her unfairly and harshly. She offered all of this up, calling it the "little virtues."

When Pope Francis was asked about the accusations made by Vigano, he was returning from a very emotionally draining trip to Ireland.  He had had to stand up in front of a country that had basically been terrorized for decades by priests and religious in the Catholic Church.  He had to look into the eyes of the Irish people and see the betrayal they had suffered.  All the Holy Father could do was metaphorically cover himself in sackcloth and ashes and beg for their forgiveness.  I can't even image the great sadness he was carrying inside.

This is what Pope Francis said to the Irish people:

“We ask forgiveness for the abuses in Ireland, abuses of power, of conscience, and sexual abuses perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in the church.

“In a special way, we ask pardon for all the abuses committed in various types of institutions run by males or female religious and by other members of the church, and we ask for forgiveness for those cases of manual work that so many young women and men were subjected to. We ask for forgiveness.”

“We ask forgiveness for the times that, as a church, we did not show the survivors of whatever kind of abuse the compassion and the seeking of justice and truth through concrete action

“We ask for forgiveness for some of the church hierarchy who did not take charge of these situations and kept quiet.

“We ask for forgiveness for all those times in which many single mothers were told that to seek their children who had been separated from them - and the same being said to daughters and sons themselves - that this was a mortal sin. This is not a mortal sin. We ask for forgiveness.”

Is there any doubt that Pope Francis was carrying great heaviness and suffering in his heart when he left Ireland?  Well, according to Michael Voris, the Pope is nothing but a sham artist, a true hypocrite who cares nothing for the people:

Your hypocritical and shameless parade of empty words of sorrow and pleading for forgiveness are an egregious affront to those who believe in God, because you lack all sincerity.

How many trips are you going to take, paid for by the faithful, where you continue to meet with victims, supposedly mourn with them and then return to Rome and conspire with those who abused them or created the environment for the abuse — or both?

I would really not be the least surprised if Pope Francis looks at these attacks against him as a way to suffer for the evils of the Church.  To answer the personal attacks would be throwing off the cross he has been given.  I really don't expect that Pope Francis will ever answer any personal attacks just as Our Lord never defended Himself against personal attacks. Pope Francis has accepted the cross that has been given him, and he will carry it without complaint.

We do live in very evil times, and the devil is hard at work.  But I guarantee you that the devil is not working through Pope Francis.  We have been given too many unmistakable signs of grace with Pope Francis to ever accuse him of being in league with the devil.  So what does that say about those who oppose him?