Vatican II: A Message for Our Time

I have been going through an identity crisis of sorts as a Catholic the last few months. I have no problems with Catholicism. My identity crisis involves what "camp" I belong in, which in and of itself is a problem because there shouldn't be separate "camps" in the Church. Unfortunately, "should be" and "is" are often not the same thing.

Since coming back into the Church over 7 years ago, I have identified strongly with "Traditionalists", i.e., those who love the Traditional Latin Mass and basically reject Vatican II, or at the very least the "Spirit of Vatican II", seeing the Council as the root of all the modern woes in the Church. When I started this blog just about 2 years ago, I was firmly in the "Traditionalist" camp. However, in writing the blog, I started carefully reading and analyzing Pope Benedict XVI's Wednesday audiences and other writings and sermons. Although Traditionalists loved Pope Benedict XVI for giving us Summorum Pontificum, he was still somewhat suspect because of his "Vatican II leanings." All of my Traditionalist heroes said this, so I assumed it was true and never questioned it.

However, when I started reading Benedict without anyone filtering his words, I was blown away. No one had told me how deep and profound he was. And yes, he was definitely a supporter of Vatican II. How could this be? How could someone be so spiritual and yet support Vatican II? This made no sense to my Traditionalist mind.

But there was no denying the great spirituality of Pope Benedict XVI, and I have also found this to be just as true with Pope Francis.  Traditionalists have had a problem with Pope Francis since the moment he appeared on the balcony in St. Peter's Square.  But when I read Pope Francis' words without the filter of any Traditionalist bias, I see a very spiritual and deeply holy man who truly loves Christ and His Church, as I've written on this blog.

So exactly why do Traditionalists have such an aversion to Vatican II and almost everything after it? I've asked a couple of "Trads", and I've been told more than once that the problem with the V2 documents is they contain "time bombs." This term comes from a book entitled, "Liturgical Time Bombs" written by the late Michael Davies, an English convert who strongly supported the Traditional Latin Mass and saw Vatican II as the great enemy of the Church.  The subtitle of this book is "The Destruction of Catholic Faith Through Changes in Catholic Worship."  Not surprisingly, his book is sold by Angelus Press, the publishing arm of the Society of St. Pius X. This is how they describe Mr. Davies' book:

In his latest work, Michael Davies expands on a famous saying of Archbishop Lefebvre, "There were time bombs in the Council." Davies explains, "These 'time bombs' were ambiguous passages inserted in the official documents by the liberal periti or experts - passages which would be interpreted in an untraditional, progressivist sense after the Council closed."

Davies shows how Father (later Archbishop) Annibale Bugnini - before being removed from his position by Pope Paul VI under suspicion of being a Freemason - was able to "reform" the Catholic Mass into the constantly evolving liturgy which continues to self-destruct to this day. Quoting Bishops and Cardinals, as well as liberal periti and Protestant observers, Davies points out the ambiguities or "time bombs" which were built into the Second Vatican Council's document on the liturgy and how they have been detonating ever since in liturgical abuses, both unauthorized and authorized.

Michael Davies concludes with statistics from Kenneth C. Jones's Index of Leading Catholic Indicators showing that the liturgical reforms have borne bitter fruit in a massive loss of Catholic Faith and practice in the Western World. He urges a return to the Traditional Latin Mass, which has always produced great fruit in vocations and sanctity.

Joseph Ratzinger and Yves Congar, periti Vatican II

This is a pretty heavy accusation. Mr. Davies says that the periti, or theological experts, inserted passages into the Vatican II documents that were specifically designed to destroy the Mass and, in effect, destroy the Church itself. Not coincidentally, young Father Joseph Ratzinger was one of those periti.

The major problem with this argument is that while the Bishops definitely relied on their experts, it was the Bishops who voted on and submitted the Vatican II documents to the Holy Father for approval. The responsibility for these documents lies with the hierarchy of the Church, not the periti. Since Catholics also believe that the Church is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, I would submit that the Holy Spirit must have fallen down on the job as well. The periti not only pulled the wool over the eyes of the bishops and Pope, they even out maneuvered the Holy Spirit.

Another major criticism of Vatican II is very much along the same lines as the "time bombs" theory. This theory says that the documents were intentionally left vague and ambiguous. They could be read and interpreted to say almost anything you wanted them to say, and were often contradictory. This has led to confusion and chaos in the Church and caused the great crisis we see around us.

It seems to me that I've heard these same arguments used against another theological document. It's called the Bible. The Bible has been interpreted in more ways than anyone can count. Many accuse it of being vague and/or contradictory. Differing interpretations of the Bible have caused untold chaos and division in the world. Every argument used against the Vatican II documents has been used over the centuries against the written Word of God. In fact, these same arguments have also been used against Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God.

An unfair comparison you say? Ah yes, of course, the Vatican II documents were "pastoral", not "dogmatic", and therefore they are not binding on the Church, so we have every right to reject them. I find this argument to be cognitive dissonance at best and hypocrisy at worst. Traditional Catholics are always accusing their liberal counterparts of being Cafeteria Catholics, picking and choosing what they like and throwing the rest out. Yet, this is exactly what Traditionalists are doing when it comes to Vatican II. They don't like Vatican II, and so they have found a way to reject it. But to reject the Second Vatican Council is to reject the hierarchy, which is the Bishops and the Holy Father.  This is very dangerous because there can be no Catholic Church without them.

To reject the Council is to reject the following words from Blessed Pope Paul VI:

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, assembled in the Holy Spirit and under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we have declared Mother of the Church, and of St. Joseph, her glorious spouse, and of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, must be numbered without doubt among the greatest events of the Church.

Is it really possible for a Catholic to turn a deaf ear to the Pope when he calls something "among the greatest events of the Church"?  The Holy Father gave us the following reasons why the above statement is not hyperbole:

In fact it was (i) the largest in the number of Fathers who came to the seat of Peter from every part of the world, even from those places where the hierarchy has been very recently established. (ii) It was the richest because of the questions which for four sessions have been discussed carefully and profoundly. And (iii) last of all it was the most opportune, because, bearing in mind the necessities of the present day, above all it sought to meet the pastoral needs and, nourishing the flame of charity, it has made a great effort to reach not only the Christians still separated from communion with the Holy See, but also the whole human family.

All of the Holy Fathers since the Second Vatican Council have emphasized how important it is to the Church, and yet many in the Church condemn it as the most destructive event in Church history.  What is the truth?  Are we free to treat the Second Vatican Council as a sort of bishops' tea party that we can take or leave as we desire?  Are we free to condemn Vatican II?

I think it is very important to go back to the time of Vatican II in order to understand what the Church was trying to do. Venerable Fulton Sheen said that we live in a unique age in that this is the first time in history people have lost the sense of sin and no longer recognize right and wrong.  That is now more true than when Bishop Sheen made that statement some 40 years ago.  Also, in the early 1960's, the world was still feeling the effects of two major world wars with untold destruction and loss of life. Mankind had never before experienced suffering on such a large, worldwide scale. There were still many wars around the world, and the United States was about to enter into the most divisive war in its history outside of the Civil War. A large part of the world was imprisoned under Communism, a government based on the rejection of God.  When the Council convened in October 1962, we had just experienced the Cuban missile crisis where America and the Soviet Union came perilously close to nuclear war.  For the first time, we had the ability to literally wipe all life off the planet.

All previous Church councils had been called to address some issue in the Church and/or to define dogma.   The previous councils had been inward looking, dealing with the wounds of the Church.  The Second Vatican Council is unique.  Blessed (soon to be Saint) Pope John XXIII called the Council because he saw not a Church in crisis but a world in crisis with billions of souls at stake, both physically and spiritually. The world was more in need of the saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ than it had ever been.

Blessed Pope John XXIII in his opening statement

In his opening message to the council, which you can read here, Blessed John XXIII said the inspiration for the Second Vatican Council came to him suddenly and unexpectedly:

As regards the initiative for the great event which gathers us here, it will suffice to repeat as historical documentation our personal account of the first sudden bringing up in our heart and lips of the simple words, "Ecumenical Council." We uttered those words in the presence of the Sacred College of Cardinals on that memorable January 25, 1959, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in the basilica dedicated to him. It was completely unexpected, like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts. And at the same time it gave rise to a great fervor throughout the world in expectation of the holding of the Council.

It is interesting to note that the inspiration for the Council came on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. St. Paul was sent not to the Jews, his own people, but to the Gentiles. St. Paul was to preach the Gospel to a world that did not know God. St. Paul was called to open the Church to the world. Does this sound familiar? Just as St. Paul was confronted with a blinding flash of light, Pope John XXIII said the idea of the Council was "like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts." The world of the 20th Century, standing on the brink of its own destruction, was in greater need of the message of the Catholic Church than at any time since the Apostle Paul. It was time for the Church to turn outwards towards a world in desperate need.

Pope John XXIII did not call the Council to change the Church, but to change the way in which the Church related to the world and, more specifically, to re-define her missionary role in the world so as to make the saving message of the Gospel more effective.  From Pope John XXIII:

Illuminated by the light of this Council, the Church -- we confidently trust -- will become greater in spiritual riches and gaining the strength of new energies therefrom, she will look to the future without fear. In fact, by bringing herself up to date where required, and by the wise organization of mutual co-operation, the Church will make men, families, and peoples really turn their minds to heavenly things.

The above statement is truly prescient in that the world of the early 1960's was about to embark on a quest for materialism, hedonism and exaltation of self never before seen in the history of mankind. Technology was about to explode and change the world in ways never imagined. There was now a more urgent need than ever before in history for the Church's message of spirituality to counter the world's descent into itself and away from God. Just as St. Paul was the great missionary to the Gentiles, so the Church as a whole must become the great missionary to those overcome by the false gospel of the exaltation of man.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Blessed Pope John XXIII knew the Church had to intensify her role in the world.  The question is, how do we go out into the world without becoming a part of it?  Reading the documents of Vatican II with this view in mind gives them an entirely different meaning than that seen by people like Michael Davies.

The Second Vatican Council, more than being a pastoral council, was a missionary council, appointing all Catholics to be missionaries where they lived.  The Council's purpose was to look at the world and give us guidelines on how to interact with a world that was rejecting God and headed to self destruction.

Cardinal Francis George

Cardinal Francis George gave a recent talk in Brighton, England which explains this very well. This is from The Pilot:

"The mission of the Church everywhere in every age is to introduce people and the entire world to Jesus Christ. We call the Church 'mother' and mothers introduce their children to other people," he said.

The cardinal cited the original purpose of the council as redefining the relationship between the Church and the world for the sake of a more effective mission in the world. He said he hoped to explore where episcopal and priestly authority fit into the mission.

He said that in calling the council, Pope John XXIII noted divisions -- nation against nation, race against race, and class against class -- as a context to be addressed in the modern world.

"He believed that the Church's internal unity was secure. There was no need to re-examine the deposit of faith, as councils usually did, but there was need to look at it and find new ways for the Church to exercise her mission more effectively, so that the world would find its own integral unity, not exactly the unity of the Church that we now call 'communion' since the council, but rather a solidarity -- the union of the human race," he said.

The cardinal said the unity of the Church and the unity of leaders in communion acted as a level to pursue peace in the world "Pacem In Terris" -- in the words of Pope John XXIII.

"The second Vatican Council is therefore a missionary council. It was called not directly to change the Church, so that she could catch up with a tortured world, but rather to change that world," he said.

"In this sense, Pope Paul VI returned at the very end of the council to Pope John XXIII's intention in calling it, and explained that the Church -- as the Good Samaritan of our age -- sees a wounded world, introduces it to Christ, and binds its wounds through dialogue and service," Cardinal George said.

He said the missionary intent of the council became muted in application afterward, but over time, the Church reestablished its spirituality as a kind of Good Samaritan to the world's injured traveler.

"The method is always dialogue, but the purpose is to heal the world's wounds, and through God's grace, bring the world to its own internal unity," the cardinal said.

A statement from one of Pope Francis' interviews echoes this same idea:

The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. ... And you have to start from the ground up.

The reason so many Traditionalists and others have problems with Vatican II is because they do not understand its purpose. Vatican II is unique among all other councils ever called by the Church. Its purpose was not inward but outward. As Cardinal George said, the purpose of the Council wasn't to change the Church, it was to change the world by opening the Church to the world. If you don't understand or accept that, you will always misinterpret the documents.

Blessed Pope John XXIII explained this in his opening message to the Council. Below are some excerpts:

In calling this vast assembly of bishops, the latest and humble successor to the Prince of the Apostles who is addressing you intended to assert once again the Magisterium (teaching authority), which is unfailing and perdures until the end of time, in order that this Magisterium, taking into account the errors, the requirements, and the opportunities of our time, might be presented in exceptional form to all men throughout the world.

. . . 

The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously. That doctrine embraces the whole of man, composed as he is of body and soul. And, since he is a pilgrim on this earth, it commands him to tend always toward heaven. 

This demonstrates how our mortal life is to be ordered in such a way as to fulfill our duties as citizens of earth and of heaven, and thus to attain the aim of life as established by God. That is, all men, whether taken singly or as united in society, today have the duty of tending ceaselessly during their lifetime toward the attainment of heavenly things and to use, for this purpose only, the earthly goods, the employment of which must not prejudice their eternal happiness.

Could there ever be a more timely message than this in our modern, materialistic world?  Because of the material wealth and advanced technology in our world, we are more separated from God than at any time in history.  In the above statement, Pope John XXIII is warning us that our first and foremost goal in life is the "attainment of heavenly things" and that all earthly things should be used for this purpose only.  Human beings have never had to counter the pull of materialism as strongly as we in our modern times do.  We must be constantly fighting against putting materialism above the Kingdom of God.

Pope John XXIII emphasized how important it is to maintain the doctrine of the Church while spreading the saving message of the Gospel to the world.  The Holy Father said that guarding the doctrine of the Church was understood:

Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure [of the sacred doctrine], as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us, pursuing thus the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries.

The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians, and which is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.

For this a Council was not necessary. 

Pope John XXIII then explains how the method of promoting of the Gospel and the correction of error must change in our modern era, that the Mercy of God must be a central part of promoting the Gospel. Is it a coincidence that our Lord appeared to St. Faustina on the eve of World War II with the message of Divine Mercy? That message is the driving force of the Church today. It should be noted that St. Faustina's message was not accepted by the Church at the time of Vatican II.  In fact, Pope John XXIII himself forbade the circulation of the Divine Mercy images and writings based on a faulty translation of St. Faustina's diary.  Yet it was this same Pope John XXIII who made mercy towards the world a central point of his opening statement. Surely this is the work of the Holy Spirit:

At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity.

Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law, or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.

The above statements perfectly describe our world today: "those ways of life which despise God and His law, or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life" and "violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination". This truly is the world we face today.

When you understand the true purpose of Vatican II, that of mercy in reaching out to a world firmly set on the destructive path of materialism and rejection of God, then statements such as the following will make a lot more sense:

If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge? 

I thought the following was a wonderful analysis of Pope Francis' statement which comes right out of Vatican II.   This is from, of all places, the Huffington Post:

"'Who am I to judge' may end up being the most-quoted five words spoken by a modern pope," said John Thavis, author of the best-selling book The Vatican Diaries and who covered the Vatican for 30 years for the U.S.-based Catholic News Service.

"Pope Francis has realized the simple truth, that when the Church preaches on pelvic and political issues like birth control, abortion and same-sex marriage, many people stop listening. So instead of repeating the rules and revving up the 'culture of death' rhetoric, he's focusing on another essential side of Christianity, mercy and compassion. And of course, that's much more inviting," Thavis said.

When a medic goes out on a battlefield to treat the wounded, he is not there to judge the wounded.  He is there to treat them and possibly save their lives.  That is the world we live in today.  It is a totally secular, humanistic world turned away from God.  The world has become a battlefield littered with the spiritually wounded and dying.  Is it our job as a the Mystical Body of Christ to stand and point fingers at them, telling them what terrible sinners they are, or is it our job to bind their wounds and compassionately lead them to the great Physician, Jesus Christ?  When we see them making steps to turn away from our godless world to the True God, such as a homosexual who "seeks God and has good will", shouldn't we do all we can to encourage them, which is exactly what Pope Francis is demonstrating.

Traditionalists blame this great Council for the woes of the Church and the crisis we see around us. But in a homily on April 16, Pope Francis said the problems in the Church stem from our resistance to the Holy Spirit, and that is exemplified by our resistance to Vatican II, which he says has not been fully implemented.  From Vatican Radio:

Pope Francis’ homily at the mass was centered on the theme of the Holy Spirit and our resistance to it. It took its inspiration from the first reading of the day which was the story of the martyrdom of St. Stephen who described his accusers as stubborn people who were always resisting the Holy Spirit. 

Put frankly, the Pope continued, “the Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the Church forward.” He said that we wish “to calm down the Holy Spirit, we want to tame it and this is wrong.” Pope Francis said “that’s because the Holy Spirit is the strength of God, it’s what gives us the strength to go forward” but many find this upsetting and prefer the comfort of the familiar. 

Nowadays, he went on, “everybody seems happy about the presence of the Holy Spirit but it’s not really the case and there is still that temptation to resist it.” The Pope said one example of this resistance was the Second Vatican council which he called “a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit.” But 50 years later, “have we done everything the Holy Spirit was asking us to do during the Council,” he asked. The answer is “No,” said Pope Francis. “We celebrate this anniversary, we put up a monument but we don’t want it to upset us. We don’t want to change and what’s more there are those who wish to turn the clock back.” This, he went on, “is called stubbornness and wanting to tame the Holy Spirit.”

The Pope said the same thing happens in our personal life. “The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path but we resist this.” He concluded his homily by urging those present not to resist the pull of the Holy Spirit. “Submit to the Holy Spirit,” he said, “which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness.” 

The Second Vatican Council, it seems to me, has in many ways fulfilled the statement of the righteous Simeon to the Blessed Mother when she presented Jesus to the temple:

"Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed--and a sword will pierce even your own soul-- to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."

Truly, the thoughts from many hearts have been revealed in their reaction to the Second Vatican Council.  Liberals have co-opted the Council as a means to change the Church, not the world, and justify their disobedience to God.  They have looked at the Council as the Church saying we can do our own thing and become like the world when it comes to worship and obedience.  Traditionalists have also seen the Council as trying to change the Church, not the world, but they have perceived the Council as the great destroyer of the Traditions of the Church, and have seen resistance to the Council and all who support it as the only legitimate reaction.  Both of these groups have displayed stubbornness and resistance to the Holy Spirit as stated by Pope Francis.

One can only wonder, if Vatican II had been truly embraced by the the members of the Church instead of becoming a source of division, if the people in the Church had taken the missionary aim of Vatican II to heart instead of using it to promote their own agendas, how different might our world be today.  In the meantime, while Catholics fight among themselves, resisting, as Pope Francis said, the work of the Holy Spirit, our world continues to die, spiritually and physically.  

Pope Francis is doing all he can to bring the true message of Vatican II, the message of mercy and compassion, to the Church and to the world.  We need to listen to him and stop fighting him.  We need to hear his words without the filter of our own prejudices.  We need to leave our egos at the door. We need to empty ourselves of ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. As Pope Francis said, "The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path but we resist this. . . .Submit to the Holy Spirit which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness."  

The world awaits the Church.

Credit:  www.sfgate.com

Are You Driven By Faith Or Ideology?

Christianity, before being a moral or an ethic, is the event of love, it is the acceptance of the Person of Jesus.

Pope Benedict XVI

I love the Traditional Latin Mass, which in many circles defines me as a "Traditionalist."  I think of myself as just Catholic, but it seems that in our world today we must have precise labels for each other or we don't know how to relate.

Because I attend the TLM, I also interact with many other "Traditionalists." Lately, especially since the election of Pope Francis, I have felt more and more estranged from many of my fellow "Trads". Like many of them, I use to be big into Vatican II bashing (Vatican II is the "root of all evil"), bishop bashing and even a little Pope bashing now and then, as past posts on this blog will show. However, I have come to realize that that I do not and cannot see the whole picture and it is not my job to sit in public criticism of the hierarchy of the Church.

As a result of my changed attitudes, I am now being shunned by those with whom I once agreed. At a recent all night prayer vigil which we spent before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, one woman, whom I thought was my friend, quite literally turned her back on me after I made it clear that I did not agree with her harsh criticism of the bishops and Pope Francis. How does one spend all night in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and then shun people?

Credit:  www.centerforinquiry.net 

There is another man I know who tells me he goes to Mass twice a day, to adoration several times a week, and spends many hours outside of abortion clinics, and yet also tells me that his "Catholicity" tells him he has to reject Pope Francis and most bishops, most especially Cardinal Dolan. This man has also begun to shun me. How does one engage in all these devout Catholic practices, and yet remain so hard of heart?

This has really puzzled me. How does one profess a deep love for our Lord, and at the same time profess a "my way or the highway" attitude exhibited by so many Traditional Catholics? This can be seen quite clearly on Traditional Catholic blogs, which I have highlighted in past posts.

Pope Francis gave me some answers to my questions in a recent sermon in which he discussed the difference between "faith" and "ideology." Father Z says we need to read Pope Francis through Pope Benedict XVI. This is one time when I think this will be extremely helpful.

Pope Benedict XVI gave us an excellent definition of faith, which can be found here :

Faith, in fact, is an encounter with God who speaks and works in history and converts our daily life, transforming within us mentalities, value judgments, decisions and practical actions. Faith is not an illusion, a flight of fancy, a refuge or sentimentalism; rather it is total involvement in the whole of life and is the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News that can set the whole of the person free.

Pope Francis warns us that if we are not careful, this life giving faith, infused into by the Holy Spirit, can be transformed into a deadly ideology, which does not come from God but from our own fallen nature:

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

I have to say, very sadly, that this is what I am witnessing in many who call themselves Traditional Catholics. As stated by Pope Francis, I do not see the "tenderness, love and meekness" of Jesus Christ. Instead, I see, as Pope Francis says, that they are very rigid and unbending, very sure and unquestioning of themselves.  What is the result of this?

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens. Ideology chases away the people. It creates distances between people and it distances the Church from the people. But it is a serious illness, this ideology in Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the question, no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.”

But how does the life giving faith we receive from Holy Spirit change into a toxic ideology which creates division and drives people away?  From Pope Francis:

“When a Christian does not pray, this happens. And his witness is an arrogant witness.” He who does not pray is “arrogant, is proud, is sure of himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement.” Instead, he said, “when a Christian prays, he is not far from the faith; he speaks with Jesus.”  

Pope Benedict XVI said the same thing using different words:

Many people today have a limited idea of the Christian faith, because they identify it with a mere system of beliefs and values [this is ideology that Pope Francis speaks of] rather than with the truth of a God who revealed himself in history, anxious to communicate with human beings in a tête-à-tête, in a relationship of love with them [this is the faith we receive only through prayer, as Pope Francis said]. In fact, at the root of every doctrine or value is the event of the encounter between man and God in Jesus Christ. Christianity, before being a moral or an ethic, is the event of love, it is the acceptance of the Person of Jesus. For this reason the Christian and Christian communities must first look and make others look to Christ, the true Way that leads to God.  [Our relationship with God can only be grounded with prayer]

But the Traditionalists I know do pray. Many of them faithfully say the Rosary and other devotions. They express a very devout and reverent attitude towards our Lord, as I have shown in the two examples I have given. What is missing?

And, the Pope said, “I say to pray, I do not say to say prayers, because these teachers of the law said many prayers” in order to be seen. Jesus, instead, says: “when you pray, go into your room and pray to the Father in secret, heart to heart.” The pope continued: “IT IS ONE THING TO PRAY, AND ANOTHER THING TO SAY PRAYERS.”

So the Pope is saying that just mouthing words to our Lord does not in itself constitute praying.  Our prayers must come from our heart in order to transform us and make us more like Our Lord, filling us with love for other human beings.  As Pope Benedict XVI would say, our prayers must be an encounter with God.  That cannot happen if we let our own ideology stand in the way.  Pope Francis reminds us here that the Pharisees in Jesus' time said many prayers, and yet they were filled with pride and hatred.

This sermon by Pope Francis, like almost everything the Holy Father says and does, had many "Traditional Catholics" criticizing and decrying His Holiness yet again.  Father Z mentioned this sermon on his blog but shed no light on it whatsoever, instead writing:  "The Pope’s language about ideology is so vague that I can’t for the life of me make out who or what he is talking about. It could be that he has a first name and a last name in mind, but I have no idea who she might be."

I personally don't find the Pope's language to be vague at all.   I say with all sincerity that it is possible that I'm just not smart enough to see the "vagueness" in the Pope's words.  On the contrary, these words of Pope Francis have actually helped bring much clarity to my life.

If Father Z is interested in seeing a shining example of the "ideology" which the Pope speaks of, he should take a look at a video produced by Remnant Newspaper and the Remnant Forum, a Traditionalist Catholic group. In this video, Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara discuss and criticize this sermon given by Pope Francis.  You can go here to watch the entire video. This video is an excellent example of the Pope's words, "when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements."

Michael Matt starts out with a very negative statement, "Is this another sort of papal bombshell in the making?"  Chris Ferrara laughs and shakes his head and says, "One of many.  I mean, the ground is littered with craters from the bombs that have been dropping from the mouth of this Pope."  Ferrara goes on to say that the Pope's statements are a "false disjunction that is typical of modernist thought as if there is a dichotomy between saying and praying prayers."  Well, yes actually, there is a huge difference between "saying" and "praying" prayers,  and Chris Ferrara, who holds himself out to be a very learned Catholic, should know that.

Michael Matt responds by saying, "Am I being paranoid?  When I read this today, it struck me once again, since Tradition minded Catholics are among the few who are still saying rosaries. . . is this another, just another sort of brush off against the Traditionalists on the part of Pope Francis?"  I am really amazed that neither Michael Matt nor Chris Ferrara seem to be aware that our Holy Father prays three rosaries every day. He has led public rosaries several times since being elected Pope, the latest being on the day of prayer and fasting on September 7 which he called in regard to the war in Syria. On August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, Pope Francis said the following:

“Mary joins us, she fights at our side. She supports Christians in the fight against the forces of evil. Especially through prayer, through the rosary. Hear me out, the rosary... Do you pray the Rosary each day? I don't know, are you sure? There we go!”

Pope Francis publicly praying the Rosary

Read the entire article on this sermon here. This is only one of many statements by Pope Francis in promoting the Rosary. But you wouldn't know this from listening to Michael Matt and Chris Ferrara. They have no qualms in falsely accusing the Pope of bashing the Rosary. 

Chris Ferrara actually made a very astute statement in the following: "Obviously, if one recites the Rosary in the manner of a machine gun, a completely rote manner without meditating on the mysteries, then one is not really praying. If that all is that Pope Francis means, that is completely unobjectionable."

In light of the Pope's constant promotion of the Rosary, what else could he mean? Yet, Ferrara and Matt just go right past this. Ferrara puts words in the Pope's mouth when he says: "The idea that saying prayers without actually having a spiritual consolation or actively meditating and seeking communion with God is in itself an ideological activity that should be rejected by Catholics. This is just bad pastoral advice."   Ferrara is drawing this false conclusion from the Pope's statement that we should go to our room and pray to the Father in secret, which is a quote from Our Lord found in Matthew 6:6.

In actuality, this is a complete misrepresentation of the words of Pope Francis (and Jesus Christ). The Pope never said anything about "spiritual consolation." Many saints, if not most, went through long periods in their lives when there was no spiritual consolation. That can actually be a sign of great holiness, as we saw with Blessed Mother Teresa, who spent 50 years in the Dark Night. Pope Francis is obviously talking about the need for prayers to be more than just words, empty gestures and motions. Shouldn't that always be our goal? Why would anyone criticize this statement? Yet, that is just what Ferrara and Matt do. Ferrara actually accuses Pope Francis of "anti-pastoral naivety." Ferrara falsely accuses Pope Francis of saying that our prayers mean nothing unless we achieve the "unitive state". Michael Matt chimes in and says, "there is a certain Protestant flavor to it. I'm not saying that is what was intended, but there is a certain Protestant flavor."

Matt then goes on to state that Pope Francis is "giving the impression" that he "doesn't care" for the rosary, "and that repetitive prayer is useless or that memorized praying is not praying at all."  Ferrara responds with, "Yea, where is the vaunted sympathy for the sinner and weak of heart?"  He then says, "This is part of a pattern.  It seems there is an inescapable pattern of a total lack of sympathy for Catholics of Traditional orientation."  He then goes on to recite a litany of statements Pope Francis made that are supposedly attacking Traditional Catholics.  He carries this argument to an extreme by saying that criticism of Traditionals means that the Pope is actually attacking all traditions in the Church and is ready to throw it all away.  

Traditionalists have to stop playing the victim. All this does is drive people away from them, just as Pope Francis warned in his sermon. Instead of immediately coming up with counter-arguments and criticisms to everything the Pope says, they would do much better to humbly and prayerfully meditate on the words of the Vicar of Christ to determine if these words have any relevancy in their lives. Humility is the key to everything.

Ferrara and Michael Matt continue to discuss the Pope's sermon using a totally false premise by continuing to attribute ideas to the Pope which he never conveyed in any way. Michael Matt says, "If memorized prayers are somehow problematic [something the Pope never said], what do you do with all the indulgenced prayers?" Ferrara says this shows the "cruel school master", again accusing the Pope of not caring about people. This is a pure straw man argument because the Pope has never at any time said we should not use the memorized prayers of the Church.

Ferrara then says "I'm sorry if I sound acerbic and sarcastic, but I've had enough of this!!"  Yes, Mr. Ferrara, you sound very strident, and that is not going to draw anyone to Christ, exactly what Pope Francis was warning against.  

Michael Matt, later in the video, says, "What is going on?  I don't want to believe that the Holy Father is intending to say these things and I want the spin.  I want the good, favorable positive spin, but he keeps saying things that are getting increasingly difficult to spin in a Catholic direction. What in the world is going on?"

Ferrara once again accuses Pope Francis of being sympathetic to modernists and wanting to destroy everything in the Church that is not in line with the evil Vatican II.  Here are two men who hold themselves out to be good, loyal Catholics but yet are warning other Catholics against this "liberal, modernist" Pope who is seemingly out to destroy the Church.    

Towards the end of the video Michael Matt laments, "I look to Pope Francis and I don't see any clarity.  In fact, I'm finding more confusion looking to Rome right now, and I know I'm not alone in that."  Ferrara responds by saying that he loves the Church and reveres the Pope and the office that he occupies.  He said he was hopeful when Pope Francis was elected.  "I don't enjoy sitting here doing a postmortem on the latest papal statements that make the Church and us look ridiculous, which they do."  He says he wants The Remnant to be a "papal loyalist newspaper" as he says they were under Pope Benedict XVI, basically conceding that they are not loyal to Pope Francis.  

Ferrara says that he now has a "queasy feeling":  "we haven't been to this place yet in the post conciliar epic.  This is a new destination on the train ride to disaster."  Matt responds, "I think I'm going to let that be the last word because that pretty much sums it up.  I don't know what to say to people other than to agree with you absolutely this is terrifying."  Ferrara tells us that "the enemy is inside the household of the faith and is running through all the rooms of the house right now." 

How does this type of thinking happen?  How do supposedly loyal, devout Catholics come to see the Holy Father as the enemy of the Church? As Pope Francis, said, they are a "disciple of their ideology", and they will attack and destroy anything that threatens their ideology, even if it includes the Holy Father himself. Nowhere in this 27 minute video is there even a hint of humility, of questioning themselves and where they are going with their often blatantly false accusations and misrepresentations of the Pope's words. 

I am not questioning the sincerity of these two men or even of those who feel they are justified in shunning me. My prayer is that they will truly pray as Pope Francis has exhorted us to do and get beyond their ideology, which is destroying them. We must remember that Satan can appear as an angel of light, and his greatest trick with believers is to make us believe that we are right and everyone else, especially Church hierarchy, is wrong. This is the genesis of all heresy. As the Apostle Paul warned us in I Cor. 10:12, "Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

It seems that no one is more sure of their "firm footing"' than Traditionalists, and therefore, no one should be questioning themselves on a regular basis more than Traditionalists. We need to constantly be asking ourselves and asking God to reveal to us whether we are truly following the lead of the Holy Spirit, or blindly following an ideology born of our pride and our fallen nature.

The Real Deal: A Saint From Hollywood

Sister Antonia Brenner

I have never heard of this nun until today when I read her obituary.  Her life sounds like that of the saints from hundreds of years ago.  I pray for her soul and I pray to her, asking her to guide us and help us walk in the way of love she so beautifully exemplified.  So many of us are caught up in the politics of the Church, accusing each other of being bad Catholics, and often forgetting about what it means to live a life of service to God and men.  Sister Antonia Brenner shows us what it truly means to be Catholic and to imitate Our Lord.

This is from The Los Angeles Times:

Sister Antonia Brenner dies at 86; nun moved into Tijuana prison to tend to inmates

Guards and inmates in La Mesa penitentiary referred to Brenner as the prison angel. In the cellblocks she was known as 'Mama.'

By Richard Marosi

October 17, 2013, 6:51 p.m.

Sister Antonia Brenner, a Beverly Hills-raised mother of seven who became a Roman Catholic nun and moved into a notorious Tijuana prison where she spent more than three decades mending broken lives, easing tensions and dispensing everything from toothbrushes to bail money, has died. She was 86.

Brenner, who had been in declining health, died Thursday of natural causes at the home of her religious order in Tijuana where her fellow sisters had cared for her in her final days, said Christina Brenner, her daughter-in-law.

She was born Mary Clarke in Los Angeles on Dec. 1, 1926, to Irish immigrant parents. Her father grew wealthy running an office supply business, and the family counted Hollywood stars such as Cary Grant among their neighbors. She married and raised four daughters and three sons, all the while becoming deeply involved in charity work.

In 1977, after her children were grown and two marriages had ended in divorce — a source of sadness that she rarely talked about — Brenner gave away her expensive clothes and belongings, left her Ventura apartment and moved to La Mesa penitentiary. She had delivered donations in the past to the prison, each visit filling her with compassion.

"Something happened to me when I saw men behind bars. … When I left, I thought a lot about the men. When it was cold, I wondered if the men were warm; when it was raining, if they had shelter," Brenner told The Times in a 1982 interview. "I wondered if they had medicine and how their families were doing. …You know, when I returned to the prison to live, I felt as if I'd come home."

Small of stature, with blue eyes peeking out from under her traditional black–and-white habit, Brenner cut a strikingly serene presence in the overcrowded prison of 8,000. She lived as any other inmate, sleeping in a 10-by-10-foot cell, eating the same food and lining up for morning roll call.

She would walk freely among thieves and drug traffickers and murderers, smiling, touching cheeks and offering prayers. Many were violent men with desperate needs. She kept extra toilet paper in her cell, arranged for medical treatment, attended funerals.

Guards and inmates alike started referring to her as the prison angel. In the cellblocks she was known simply as "Mama." "There isn't anyone who hasn't heard my lecture on victims," she said in a 2002 Times story. "They have to accept that they're wrong. They have to see the consequences. They have to feel the agony. ... But I do love them dearly."

When prayers didn't work, she took matters into her own hands. On more than a few occasions she broke up fights and quelled brewing riots. Sometimes her presence wasn't enough. In 2008, police opened fire on rioting inmates, killing more than 20. Brenner said she was in the cellblock at the time, but someone had locked the doors to the courtyard where the shooting occurred.

"I didn't know what was happening. That people were being killed," she said in an interview after the siege ended. "I was thinking, all over the world little children have to hear the sounds of guns. It's such a terrible sound."

Brenner was an energetic fundraiser who often visited Southern California to collect food and supplies. Few people said no, though sometimes she didn't leave them much choice.
Father Joe Carroll, who for many years ran the St. Vincent de Paul Village in San Diego, jokingly took to calling Brenner a "thief" for regularly clearing out his charity of donations.
"If I told her she couldn't have it, she'd just be smiling and giggling at me and putting it into her car and leaving," Carroll said in the 2010 documentary "La Mama: An American Nun's Life in a Mexican Prison."

A revered figure in Tijuana, where she counted police chiefs and politicians among her friends, Brenner was honored with the naming of a street after her outside the prison. In the late 1990s, she established her own religious order, the Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour. Tijuana Archbishop Rafael Romo said she possessed the qualities of a saint and said her death was a "terrible loss" for the city, the Tijuana newspaper Frontera reported.

Brenner often visited her family in Southern California, where she would regale her more than 45 grandchildren and great-grandchildren with stories about her charity work. "She was a tiny woman with a little fire and a lot of passion," Christina Brenner said. "We called her the Eveready battery. She wouldn't stop. She was always going."

She is also survived by her seven children, James, Kathleen, Theresa, Carol, Tom, Elizabeth and Anthony.

"You walk in her presence and you know you're in a different world," Carroll said. "Rhyme, reason — you can't rationalize why she did it. She has that one-on-one relationship with God."

Michael Voris Has Jumped The Shark

I was once a loyal follower of Michael Voris. At that time I saw the Catholic Church as being in a state of chaos.  It seemed that many Catholics were hardly even aware or caring about the teachings of the Church. I saw priests and bishops who didn't seem to teach the truths of the Church anymore. Along came Michael Voris, excoriating them all with no holds barred. Bring it on!!! Voris came up with what I perceived to be the perfect label to describe the contemporary Catholic Church, the "Church of Nice", where everyone is always "nice", but there is no real preaching of the truth because they don't want to offend anyone.  According to the Gospel of Michael Voris, fear of offending people should never be the guiding force in our lives. We are the Church Militant, and that means we need to be spiritual warriors, fighting for the Truth of the Gospel, basically burning and slashing our way through the world.

After doing a total consecration of my life to the Blessed Mother, my perceptions and attitudes began to change, and I came to realize that Michael Voris did not have it completely right.  I have come to realize that our job as lay people is not, contrary to the Gospel of Voris, to right every wrong in the Church or society.  Our job is to right all the wrongs in ourselves, to be as brutally honest and uncompromising with ourselves as we can be.

Michael Voris often shows himself holding a sword, symbolizing that he is part of the Army of God and the Church Militant.  As he said in a Vortex from January 3, 2013:  "[The Church's] role is to fight .. its charter to attack and tear down the kingdom of Satan .. the empire of lies and falsehood and heresies that so dominate the world today .. in short .. the mission of the Church and Her member is to slay dragons."

Venerable Fulton Sheen, for whom Michael Voris claims a deep devotion, had a different take on this. He also spoke about the sword and war, but he said the sword needs to be pointed inward, not outward, and that the war is not with others, but with ourselves. The following is a quote from Bishop Sheen from a retreat he gave on St. Therese of Liseux:

We are fond of talking peace today, but all we mean by peace is lack of disturbance. Our Lord said, "I came not to bring peace." God HATES PEACE in those who are destined for war! And we are destined for war, spiritual war. We've forgotten that we're in a combat. We are in genuine combat. When our first parents were driven out of the garden of Paradise, God stationed an angel with a flaming sword, a two-edged sword that turned this way and that. Why? To keep our first parents from going back to eat of the Tree of Life and thus immortalize their evil. And the only way we can ever get back again into paradise is by having that sword run into us. It's flaming because it's love. It's two-edged because it cuts, and it penetrates. It's not the sword that's thrust outward to hack off the ear of the servant of the high priest as Peter did. It's the sword that's thrust inward to cut out all of our seven pallbearers of the soul, the pride and covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

In one of the recent interviews given by Pope Francis, he was asked, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?"  His reply: "I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner."  We must all come to the same personal realization in our own lives.  We must turn the sword of God upon ourselves.    

As far as calling out other people as sinners, I refer to the words of our Lord:  "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."  (Matt. 7:5).  Does this mean never denouncing the evils in society? Absolutely not. I regularly pray in front of abortion clinics and I will continue to do so as long as I am able. I have written many times on this blog about the many evils in our world and will continue to do so. Again, quoting Bishop Sheen (from his 1932 book, Moods and Truths):

Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God's. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.

Denouncing evil is far different from setting myself up as judge and juror over other individuals. Yet I fear that is exactly what Michael Voris and many like him have done.   Although Michael Voris often talks about the evils in society, he reserves his harshest judgment for the hierarchy of the Church, often calling them "cowards" and worse.

In a recent Vortex episode released on September 11 and entitled, "Self Destruction", Voris quoted Pope Paul VI (not someone he normally lauds) in which the Pope said. "It is as if the Church were destroying herself."  This is from a speech given on December 7, 1968 by Pope Paul VI to Members of the Seminary Lombardo.  It is important to realize that this is a few months after the release of Humanae Vitae, in which many in the Church basically revolted against the Pope.   In my own opinion, the rejection of Humanae Vitae is the reason we have seen so much upheaval and chaos not only in the Church, but in the entire world.  You can read my post on this here.  

However, Michael Voris uses Pope Paul VI's statement as an indictment against Church leadership, as seen in this excerpt from the aforementioned Vortex episode:

Some are naïve yes. They don’t have the constitution of real men to stand up and call out what needs to be called out. So they profit, interiorly – in their own weak and damaged psyches by remaining in place where they perceive themselves to be popular and well liked.

Others refuse to see the damage because to do so would mean effectively the end of their clerical careers and advancement. They are perhaps aware in a dim fashion of the murder of the faith going on, but like their counterpart priests in the parable of the good Samaritan, they just cross over lanes on the road and walk on by the victim. So they too profit.

Then there are the real conspirators. These people HATE Christ and HATE the Church – they hate what She preaches, what she stands for and they are determined to destroy her from within.

You must understand, Michael Voris is not talking about those enemies who openly profess their hatred for the Catholic Church. He is talking about our ordained priests and bishops, the ones for whom we should be praying every day. In the very next sentence, he says they are "following in the line of apostolic succession from Judas." Michael Voris, who professes his love for the Catholic Church, makes his living by openly and unhesitatingly condemning, in the harshest of tones, the hierarchy of the Church he says he loves. He compares them to Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus Christ. I wonder if Voris realizes that although Our Lord was intimately aware of Judas' true intentions, he never once openly criticized or condemned him.

This is what St. Thomas said in the Summa Theologica regarding correction of prelates (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II, II, q. 33, a. 4):

A subject is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment: but the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity, provided there be something in that person which requires correction.

Now an act which proceeds from a habit or power extends to whatever is contained under the object of that power or habit: thus vision extends to all things comprised in the object of sight. Since, however, a virtuous act needs to be moderated by due circumstances, it follows that when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness, but with gentleness and respect. Hence the Apostle says (1 Timothy 5:1): "An ancient man rebuke not, but entreat him as a father." Wherefore Dionysius finds fault with the monk Demophilus (Ep. viii), for rebuking a priest with insolence, by striking and turning him out of the church.

All would have to agree that "gentleness and respect" are not hallmarks of Michael Voris when it comes to the bishops. Would Dionysius strike Michael Voris and turn him out of the Church?

Many use the example of the Apostle Paul correcting St. Peter to justify public and harsh criticism of the Church hierarchy. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that:

Paul would not have withstood Peter then, unless he were in some way his equal as regards the defense of the faith. But one who is not an equal can reprove privately and respectfully.

Michael Voris does not reprove the elders of the Church either privately or respectfully.  It may not be his intention - only God can judge his soul - but Voris is sowing discord among the Church and encouraging the brethren to rebel against those whom God has put in charge of their souls.  

Is there ever a time when a prelate needs a public rebuke?  St. Thomas tell us this:

It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects."

Public rebuke, according to St. Thomas, is to be used only in times of "imminent danger" and "if the faith were endangered."  It is not to be used as a general rebuke on a daily basis, as Michael Voris does.  And again, it should be done "not with impudence and harshness, but with gentleness and respect."

I believe Michael Voris finally "jumped the shark" when he did a Vortex episode entitled, "The New Tone", released on September 25.  In this Vortex, Voris talks about the reaction to the interview Pope Francis did with La Civiltà Cattolica.  Voris starts out with his usual harsh rhetoric:

Lots of cowardly clerics are most delighted at the Pope’s interview because they feel and are even saying .. in so many words .. that they are now off the hook.

Voris then does something that, as far as I know, he has never done before.  He slams the Holy Father:

Unlike John Paul and Benedict .. who many of them just ignored when it came to stressing the importance of defeating these evils .. now they finally have a Pope who they can interpret to mean .. “Phew, glad we don’t have to mention those things anymore” as if they had ever in reality lifted one blessed finger to preach against these evils in the first place.

This statement is subtle, but it become much harsher as he goes along.  Voris then wonders aloud "exactly when and where was this 'obsession' on the part of Church leaders and her clergy on preaching about for example contraception, that so many church leaders are all rushing to the barricades now to foreswear."  I have heard this argument from many conservatives in the Church - we never hear these things from the pulpit anyway, so what is the Pope talking about?  I totally agree that we have not heard these matters discussed from the pulpit as we should.  And that has been harmful to the Church.

But this is a canard, because that is not what the Holy Father was speaking of.  Pope Francis was talking about how to reach out to those outside of the Church, and he was telling us not to keep hitting them over the head with things like abortion and homosexuality, but to reach out to them first and foremost with love and compassion, just as our Lord did.  Our Lord never told sinners how horrible they were.  The only sinners Jesus Christ ever publicly denounced were the Pharisees, and he accused them of hypocrisy. Does that mean there are no other sins? Of course it doesn't mean that. But it does mean that in reaching out to the spiritually wounded, we first of all have to address their wounds, not stand in judgment and pridefully look down upon them.

Remember, our Lord told the religious leaders that "tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you." Pride is the sin of Satan. Hypocrisy is the direct result of spiritual pride, and no sin - not sodomy, abortion, murder or any other sin - is worse than pride because pride says we know better than God.

What Voris calls a "new tone" is the same "tone" used by Jesus Christ when He walked this earth 2000 years ago. It is a tone of love and compassion. Christ's way was to first heal people and only then did He tell them "Go and sin no more." You don't hit someone when they're down. As the Holy Father told us in his next interview, "They have been crushed by the present. You tell me: can you live crushed under the weight of the present?" We first must lift the heavy weight that is literally crushing people, and then we can begin to talk about the sin in their lives.

However,  Voris sees nothing but evil resulting from this "new tone":

The churches are emptying out and closing and yet Church leaders are positively giddy about now being able to stop talking about the sins that send souls to Hell and start speaking with a “new tone”.

Again – how will the new tone, be anything different from the old current tone?

When Jane Fonda and Chris Rock are cheering on you and your new tone, you better watch out.

They aren’t cheering you on because they have suddenly had a Damascus moment and are agreeing with you. They are cheering you on because they hope or actually think that YOU now agree with THEM .. or at the very least can now be persuaded to come over to their side.

Voris doesn't even consider the fact that people like Jane Fonda and Chris Rock are actually now listening to the Pope, which is a huge step.  What caught the attention of the thief on the cross being crucified next to Our Lord?  Dismas had first joined in with the insults from the other thief.  But as Dismas watched Christ and saw that there was no condemnation coming from Jesus, but only love and forgiveness, it affected him so greatly that he was saved right then and there.  Will the world come to a Church that only offers it condemnation, or will they respond to love and acceptance of them as human beings?  Our Lord gave us the answer to that when He walked the earth.

This is what Voris sees:

They aren’t saying thank you for showing us the light so that we can now convert to the truth.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing us to the realization of the paschal mystery and our path to salvation.

They aren’t saying thank you for bringing to them the light of revelation and the glorious mysteries of the Catholic Church.

They are saying thank you for giving them the moral license to now fire back at pro-lifers and faithful Catholics who have spent decades in front of the abortion chambers praying for the killing to end.

Only one of the two thieves repented and was forgiven.  Not everyone responds to the saving mercy of Jesus Christ.  So yes, there have been and will continue to be those who are trying to say that this Pope doesn't care about issues such as abortion and homosexuality, and they will use the Pope's words as weapons against Catholics. But there are also others who are saying thank you for trying to understand me, thank you for not condemning me. They are sensing a true love and acceptance, just as the sinners in Christ's time did, and they will be much more open to hearing the true Gospel than they have ever been before. An excellent example of this was an editorial in The New York Times, which I wrote about here.

Voris then makes a statement with which I could not agree more:

The issue is about saving souls. Every action done, every word uttered must be measured against this standard.

This is exactly right.  It all comes down to saving souls.  How do the words of Michael Voris stand up against this measure?

From Voris:

Will this encourage Jane Fonda to REPENT and become an authentic Catholic? Will she hang up her weapons of mass contraception and renounce a lifetime strategy of global population reduction through abortion and contraception?

Just what part of the “good news” has she suddenly embraced, so much so that she is praising the Vicar of Christ on earth? Same types of questions for Chris Rock and all the other cultural elitists who have lived against and even actively fought against the truth with every fiber of their beings for most of the lives.

Michael Voris, do you think your method of accusing and attacking them will bring them to Christ? Doesn't seem to have worked so far, and there is no evidence it ever will. But Pope Francis, following in the footsteps of Our Lord, has gotten their attention. They are listening to him, just as sinners listened to our Lord. That is HUGE and should not be dismissed.

The following statement is where I feel that Voris has finally jumped the shark.  He is now not only attacking the bishops as he has always done, he is going after the Holy Father as well:

But at the end of the day .. the Church is Christ’s. Not the pope’s .. not the bishops or any other cowardly clerics.

In the above statement, Voris is saying that we don't need to listen to the bishop or even the Pope.  Voris is including Pope Francis with the "cowardly clerics." Voris is right when he says the Church is Christ's. And no, the Pope did not speak ex cathedra in these interviews. But does that mean we can just dismiss these words as if they were never said and go right on as we always have with no reflection? The Pope is not just another politician, he is not just another man. He is the Vicar of Christ, the actual human representative of Christ on earth. Whenever he says anything, be it ex cathedra or not, it is important that we listen to him and reflect on the meaning of his words. We should never dismiss the Pope because he says something that doesn't fit in with our way of thinking. Maybe, just maybe, there is something we need to learn.

This is how Michael Voris ended this Vortex episode:

She is His Bride .. and He will not suffer forever Her mourning in the marketplace and desecration of Her altars and confessionals.

He is allowing this scourge of contradiction and humiliation .. of being mocked and laughed to scorn by Her enemies .. to bring about salvation for some souls .. some where at some time.

In the meantime .. amidst all the verbal and emotional stoning going on .. stand fast –while the faith is full of mystery, it is also quite simple.

Loving God means more than just feeling a certain way. He Himself has told us what it means – if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Yes, Michael Voris, Our Lord did say that if we love Him we will keep his commandments.  He also said the two most important commandments are to love God with our whole mind and heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Is a barrage of constant condemnation a way of loving our neighbor, or is it more loving to reach out to them on a level they can understand as our Lord did?  Jesus never condemned sinners, and yet during His physical lifetime, He saved more sinners than we will ever know.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, Our Holy Mother gave us the example of how to react to things we don't understand. Most of the time she did not understand the events in her life or the words or actions of her Son. Did she sit in criticism? Did she protest and say, you know, there really is a better way of doing things. Why can't you wait until I'm married before I become pregnant? Why don't you allow me to give birth at home where it is more comfortable? Why do I have to flee to Egypt when you could just stop Herod from killing the babies? Why do you answer me so harshly when I ask you to help out at the wedding when the wine runs out?

The world is in a terrible state. Billions of souls are at stake. Obviously whatever we have been doing up to this point hasn't been effective enough. Do we follow the example of people like Michael Voris and attack other Catholics, including our bishops and even our Holy Father? Our Lord warned us that "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand." (Matt. 12:25). Do we continue to listen to those who are dividing us against one another?

Or could it just possibly be that the Holy Spirit is trying to point us in a new direction? Are we so prideful that we can't listen to the Vicar of Christ on earth and ponder his words as our Holy Mother showed us?

I am not questioning the sincerity of Michael Voris and his followers and all who think like them. I was one of them not that long ago. But think about it: is " trapping and exposing lies and falsehoods" what the Gospel is about? "Gospel" literally means "good news." Lies and falsehoods are not good news.

It is our job as the recipients of God's forgiveness and mercy to bring that same forgiveness and mercy to the rest of the world. That is what our Holy Father is trying to tell us. Is it merciful to expect a man with crippled legs to walk? Is pointing at him and telling him that he has useless legs going to convince him that we have the answers he is looking for?

Or is the answer to make ourselves available to the saving and transforming Grace of Christ into our lives, allow that flaming sword of the Holy Spirit to cut away all in us that is opposed to God, and then draw people to us when they see us living a life of grace?

The Little Flower gave us these words which we would do well to contemplate:

O Jesus, my whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice; these are my invincible weapons, and experience has taught me that the heart is won by them rather than by words.