Men Must Do Their Christian Duty Even in the Time of Francis

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francis biden crying

The Truth of Christ summed up in one hanky

The sight of John Boehner sobbing and Jo Biden ‘manfully’ holding back tears behind Francis Thursday might possibly have been the low point in American history, perhaps the entire West.  Never has civilization been so scrubbed of manly virtue and never has it been so false.  Three fools and three liars; three men of ‘audaciousness,’ none of them Christian.  One represents evil, the other capitulation, while Francis the Judas delivers a captive Christ. He did not even mention Him.

In two plus short years Francis and his worshipers and apologists have succeeded in making the Protestant Right, the remnant voice of Faith and reason in America, despise Catholics.  Ann Coulter is right.  It’s Pope Francis ‘catholicism’ that is flooding Texas.  It’s also conquering Europe and destroying the world.  After thousands of years of Crusades and battles, what Pope would stand on an Italian rock waving Muslims into Europe and scolding her defenders?  Only a man who hates the Faith, the sacrifices of its saints and its soldiers would do such a thing.

After five centuries we’d succeeded in demonstrating to Protestants that Catholics don’t worship their Pope, and now in two years we’ve proved them right all along.  If you remove Pope-worshipers from the cult of Francis, delete their faces from the trumped-up and tiny crowds around the country last week and from the airwaves, there would be no one left.  Perhaps three Christians would remain who were so unfortunate to have to watch the horror pass by.  I don’t believe for a minute there are faithful Catholics enthusiastic about Francis, because people like that are able to discern a fraud.  They know Faith in Christ when they hear it, when they see it.  Catholic witness and prophecy are not something Biden and Boehner cry over.  At least Nancy Pelosi probably maintained a shred of dignity.  Can you imagine?

Maureen Mullarky didn’t need to watch the FrancisSpeech to know what it was.

In large measure, Thursday’s propaganda event will prove a concluding flourish to what this pope is on course to achieve: the descent of the Catholic Church into one more geopolitical “ism,” a pious-seeming companion to every other materialist -ism that tempts modern man away from freedom and toward submission to totalitarian order. Since ascending to the papacy, Francis’ actions have served a mongrel papo-caesarism that drains Christianity of its soul. Christian idiom degrades into the carrier of a secular agenda.

“A pious-seeming companion:”  that’s our Pope.  You can even get a cardboard “Flat Francis” friend to seem to be your companion too, but I think they’re about $79.00.  Talk about a throwaway culture of waste and excessive consumerism!

Ideolatry, the idolatry of fixed ideas, is as rampant in the Vatican as in any other directorate, and just as dangerous. Even more so. Because the pope commands deference from the world’s peoples, the present object of his worship—from climate-change dogma to the antagonisms peculiar to an anti-democratic Leftist elite—disfigures the faith of billions. It becomes a golden calf festooned with gospel quotes.

Deference to a pope comes readily to Catholics. We are groomed for it. Within legitimate bounds, there is grace in that. But the boundaries are not totalizing. Outside of them, obeisance falls prey to forces that do not serve the church. Neither do they lend succor to a civilization painfully wrought from endemic tyrannies and universal poverty. Far, far from it.

There comes a moment when deference glides into collusion. At that point, we all become Good Germans. Fascist-friendly. Trust in respected authority curdles into a thing entirely different—a willed blindness to something dark in the particular voice commanding assent. Decent and dependable, we incline toward the beckoning circle of connivance.

Our own lifetime has not prepared Catholics for such a moment. But it is here now. We can adjust our sensibilities, our priorities, and our hopes to counter this juncture. Or we can surrender our children and grandchildren to a downward slide into a retrograde world order built on contempt for the bases of those very structures that have lifted a still-increasing portion of the earth’s population out of the misery that is history’s norm.

FrancisChurch, it’s henchmen, and it’s dupes are not only shepherding the world into totalitarian death and squalor.  They’re shutting down the Church, the instrument of Grace which saves souls.  When the Church, already rendered dysfunctional and now being fitted for slaughter, is gone from the Earth, there won’t just be a return to paganism, to savage animism, or totalitarian slavery.  There will be Hell on Earth, or if we’re lucky, Islam.  It will be something much worse than just Cuba.  Hell itself is also a ‘post-Christian society.’

Something in me gave way at the sight of an exultant image of Che Guevara overseeing the altar in Plaza de la Revolución, the approved site of the recent papal Mass in Havana. A sadistic, murderous thug looked down on attendees in an obscene burlesque of Christ Pantocrator. Under the gaze of a butcher and amid symbols of the regime, Jorge Bergolio joined his fellow Argentine in service to the calamitous Cuban revolution. The entire spectacle played like a farcical inversion of John Paul II’s presence in Warsaw’s Victory Square, in 1979, and in stark contrast to the message he brought to Cuba in 1998.

What collapsed was any lingering sense of obligatory constraint. Gone is the time for courtesy extended to an occupant of the papacy despite his hubris and ruinous impulses. Out the window is dutiful tolerance for this man’s accusatory or incendiary language. Politesse has run its course. Historian Roberto de Mattei, writing on the wound to marriage delivered by Francis’ recent motu proprio (a personal mandate) ends his analysis with this: “Silence is no longer possible.”

The rest is here.

The seedbed of Catholic Truth and defense of the Church in our country used to be found in the faithful American Catholic Media, re-established by people like Mother Angelica during the reign of John Paul II.  Today, from those desperate pages we hear the cry of “anti-Catholicism” at Protestants and faithful Catholics who still love Christ’s truth and justice,  but faith ‘in Francis’ is, unfortunately, not Catholic.  Faith in Christ is.  To call out FrancisFaith for what it is, is not to reject the Church; it’s the way to embrace it and stick close to it.

Manly Christian duty demands that we uphold the Church.  The formula is simple: encourage those who hold the Faith and live it, but correct those who do only one of those or who do neither.  That formula doesn’t change for anyone.  Obedience to the Pope only goes so far as he holds the Faith and lives it.  When he fails, our duty tells us direct action must follow.

Our own neglect of this duty to correct those who live outside the Church has crushed her in our time.  On this Earth enemies are the rule.  Christian resistance is the exception and the way to Heaven.

With whom does Francis, the author of fast, cheap, and false annulments, have more in common: King Henry XIII or his resistor Pope Clement VII?  Must we obey now that Henry is Pope or instead challenge him in the name of Christ?

Our Lord is not a man of tearful compliance in the face of evil.  Soldiers are great because they fight, risk, and die, not because they kill.  Our Lady is the Queen of Lepanto, not of Catholic Charities.   In the face of an unprecedented and unchallenged reign of a heretic king, Thomas More was ‘disobedient’ in the minds of many, but the saint maintained he acted out of love for King and country when he said,  “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.” 

St. Thomas did not say, “but the Pope’s first.”  His obedience to God was also loyal to the Pope because Clement was faithful.   In true Christian unity, not the type Francis rails about, all are united in Faith.  But the reign of Francis is like the reign of Henry.  It’s against the Church and cannot be a source of unity.  Popes are supposed to uphold the Faith, not destroy it in the name of ‘mercy’ and ‘the poor.’  We must go on being loyal sons of the Church even when the Pope is wrong, not lay down and lie in the name of obedience.

Tears are for the field of battle I’m sure, and for men like  Boehner, hopefully at the judgment seat of Our Lord, but they’re an ugly and pitiful sight standing behind ‘the Francis’ in Congress. The Church needs men of duty, not men like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Francis is Here and Now I’m Uncomfortable

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The Francis has landed. Time for you Faithful to squirm.

The Francis is landing. Time for you Faithful to squirm.

Francis is in the air over America and the call has gone out from liberals and faux-catholics around the world to ‘be troubled.’

Faithful Catholics are never really troubled.  They feel pain and worry but they don’t become disturbed by reality or truth the way Herod was by John the Baptist.  But liberals do, and they really want you to as well.  They want to disturb you, insult you, make you confused.  They want you to feel pain like they do, and if they can’t do that, at the least they want you to be a slave to their selfish schemes.

CNN’s Carol Costello weaves:

Pope Francis is no longer the undisputed homecoming king.

As he visits the United States for the first time, the Pope’s approval ratings here, according to Gallup, have taken a tumble, from 76% in 2014 to 59% today.

Pity Pope Francis!

He washes the feet of the poor, talks of forgiveness and stresses care of the planet. He even tries to lead by example, rejecting the Vatican’s more opulent digs and fancy vestments. Yet Francis elicits a confusing mix of emotions. Love. Admiration. Scorn. And fear.

Yes, fear.

Pope Francis is an angel and if you don’t think so, you’re just a hateful coward.  Oh, and you’re also nuts.

What other explanation can there be when an article actually exists with the headline: “Why so Many People Think Pope Francis is the Antichrist“? In case you’re curious, that headline appeared on Charisma News.

Reporter Jennifer LeClaire googled “pope antichrist,” and came up with a motherlode of hits. None was more ridiculous than the online “Jim Bakker Show.” A guest author named Tom Horn told the show’s audience that 50 years ago, a Jesuit priest “predicted the resignation of Pope Benedict to the day,” which means Pope Francis could be “demonically inspired,” because, Horn said ominously, “demons know things about times.”

My head is about to explode, too. But now that I’ve dispensed with that bit of nonsense, I’ll get down to brass tacks.

Pope Francis’ approval ratings have taken a tumble because he makes Americans squirm.

This ugly metaphor is supposed to make us think Francis is ‘pricking our consciences’ the way Hillary Clinton commands, but the image is more akin to being killed and eaten, like a worm on a hook.  There are two regular responses to direct Christian correction: anger or compunction, but squirming is just for victims.

“He’s nudging me, as he is lots of us, to think about some uncomfortable things and how we might be better human beings in our world today,” Sister Donna Markham, the president of Catholic Charities, told me. “And that’s hard.”

Sheep dogs nudge and they nip at heels.  They herd.  Catholic Charities is an agent of the mega-state.  They are government contractors, not Christians.  This nudge ‘Sister’ Markham wants us to feel is the shove of government, not the words of Jesus.

Do you know what else is hard, but makes you a better human being and the world a better place?  Work.  But work isn’t what Markham or Francis are talking about.  They’re not talking about serving others.  They’re talking about servitude and slavery to the state machine.  There’s not a thing Christian about it.  That’s why Francis is coming to Congress, because he advocates government.

The Pope recently called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil.” He said that profit tends, especially in capitalist countries like ours, to drive all decision-making, often at the expense of the poor.

“It is not enough,” the Pope said, “to let a few drops fall whenever the poor shake a cup which never runs over by itself.”

Those remarks left many conservatives cold, especially those who say Pope Francis is a Marxist who wants to “spread the wealth.”

The world is not a cup of water in the hands of some fat rich person, from which the rest of us only receive what spills, at least it’s not if you observe the Ten Commandments.  But if you’re a Castro-ite dictator then your world is a lot like that, yes. In that case even more injustice isn’t any kind of solution.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told me the Pope’s words are dangerous. “It’s a mixture of naivete and papal authority,” he said. “The Gospel mandates we care for the poor. But there is a legitimate disagreement on how the poor are helped. He has split Roman Catholicism on that issue.”

And because Francis may criticize American capitalism before a joint session of Congress, his appearance makes Mohler positively seethe. “As an evangelical and American citizen, I’m deeply troubled by the fact that Congress is going to host the Pope. I know they’ll say Pope is the head of state, but the Vatican is largely a diplomatic fiction and its size … it can fit into a parking lot. He is there because he is the head of the Roman Catholic Church.”

It’s true, there’s something profoundly odd about the head of the Catholic Church addressing Congress.  Perhaps it’s because Francis is profoundly political and oddly un-Catholic.

And Albert Mohler isn’t ‘seething’ like a river-full of piranha.  He’s in his right mind.  Boundless rage is a characteristic of evil.  What Mohler has is some righteous anger.

If it makes conservatives feel any better, Francis makes progressives squirm, too — in a pool full of confusion.

On the one hand, Francis sounds like their hero, a holy version of President Obama or Bernie Sanders. He trashes greedy Wall Street types! He thinks climate change is in part caused by man! He’s urged us to embrace undocumented immigrants! Awesome.

On the other hand, while the Pope has talked in a more merciful way about moral issues, the church still opposes same-sex marriage, women priests, married priests, divorce, birth control and abortion.

If only he were all bad.

“I think that Francis doesn’t intend to change any doctrine,” the Rev. Thomas Bohlin, vicar of Opus Dei, told me. “He’s been faithful to the church through thick and thin for many years. He does want to change the emphasis and the way people look at religion, not reducing it to left and right categories.”

Maybe that’s really why Francis makes us squirm — he’s a man who cannot be categorized, who is, at times, difficult to read. In short, he’s not always a people-pleaser. He wants us not just to feel, but also to think — and not just about our personal stake or “take,” but about our personal roles and responsibilities.

I’m squirming because I’m being nudged to use my brain and think of others too.  This banality sums up FrancisGospel, but it’s a blinding revelation from Heaven to this CNN anchor.

As New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told me, “I don’t think he (Pope Francis) thinks about his work in terms of favorability. I think he thinks about telling the truth. It’s quite clear if you read his encyclical, he’s saying the status quo is unsustainable and we have to get on a new path. And he’s obviously just not speaking to the Catholics of the world. He’s speaking to people well beyond the church. And it’s interesting, a lot of people are moved by him, of all different backgrounds.”

And so another Communist finds FrancisFaith.  It’s just the truth and I believe!  “It’s interesting how he moves people.”  It’s almost supernatural.  “Please may I bow low, O Francis,” says the ruthless and irreligious Mayor of New York.

Where is Christ in all this trumped-up worship from enemies of His Church?  Nowhere.  They are just playing us, speaking to us like the debased pre-school children they’ve groomed us to be.

“Way to go, Pope Francis,”  says Ms. Costello just before a snack, nap time, and a quick smoke out back.

A good cigarette can really settle a nervous stomach.

 

The October Surprise

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By Elizabeth Yore

francis before congress

Former Senator George Mitchell famously said that,“God does not take sides in politics.” Mitchell’s observation might be about to change in the upcoming 2016 election.

The highest ranking Catholic in government, Vice President Joe Biden is rumored to be considering a presidential run. The timing of his announcement is reportedly in late September. With the critical 25% swing Catholic vote at play in this election, Biden may find a powerful, and surprising ally in his presidential bid. As they say, politics make strange bedfellows, and this upcoming fall, Biden will have a powerful compadre in his presidential election bid: a non-American, dressed in white, speaking Spanish, none other than, Pope Francis.

This week Biden told AP that “Pope Francis has breathed new life into what I believe is the central mission of our faith: Catholic social doctrine,” Biden added that Francis “has become a moral rudder for the world on some of the most important issues of our time, from inequality to climate change.” Translation for the upcoming political campaign: Pope Francis has breathed new life into what I believe is the central mission of my life, the Presidency of the United States. Pope Francis has became a moral rudder for the most important issues of the Democratic Party from inequality to climate change.

In late September, Pope Francis will visit the United States with appearances at the White House, a Joint Session of Congress, the United Nations and the Philadelphia World Meeting of Families.

In the two short years of his overtly political papacy, Francis assumed the role of an ad hoc Secretary of State. The Vatican and Obama administration closely collaborated on a key foreign and domestic issues. The political Pope covertly initiated and negotiated detente with Communist Cuba through back door Vatican diplomatic channels. These papal secret maneuvers allowed the Obama administration to open an embassy in Cuba, despite opposition from the Miami Cuban refugee community, who view the Pope as a willing pawn in the Obama dealmaking with violent dictators. The Pope will visit Cuba before his U.S. visit for a victory lap with the Castro brother dictators.

Following the Cuba concession, Pope Francis and Obama continued their foreign policy foray with the Iran nuclear deal. Pope Francis gave his papal blessing to the Iran nuclear deal before the details were even dry on the page or publicly revealed by announcing that “in hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world.” Surely, the U.S. Congress will hear this papal blessing invoking God to support the Iran deal, with the congressional Iran vote looming in the near future.

On the domestic front, the unholy alliance between the Vatican and the Obama Administration runs deep. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy met with Vatican officials to coordinate the new and onerous EPA environmental regulations with the Pope’s environmental encyclical. McCarthy asserted that the Obama Administration and the Vatican are “deeply aligned on climate change.” Laudato Si reiterated Al Gore’s apocalyptic phony warnings of global warming and climate change-all elevated to moral tenets, which not surprisingly, are deeply ensconced in the democratic party platform.

Undoubtedly, in his UN keynote address, Pope Francis will urge the passage of the UN Sustainable Development Goals which, among other initiatives, promotes global access to abortion, a key diplomatic directive of the Obama Administration, one which aligns with Joe Biden who enjoys a 100% rating from pro abortion group NARAL in 4 of the last 5 years.

The political advantage for the democratic party that co-opts the papal agenda, as its own, and wraps itself in the popularity of the Pope, coupled with a Catholic presidential nominee, bodes political disaster for the Republicans in 2016. According to Pew Research, one-quarter of 2012 voters were Catholics. They continue to swing between the democratic and republican parties, depending on the nominee. Not since John Kennedy, have voters had the option to vote for a Catholic presidential candidate.

The Catholic vote will determine the next President of the United States. Pope Francis, as the leader of the Catholic Church, is popular with the secular mainstream media which supports and feverishly protects the Democratic Party. September will bring wall-to-wall coverage of the Pope Fest, as he embraces the Obama/Biden administration, and its EPA, and the United Nations. Then followed by the Biden presidential announcement. Timing is everything in politics.

Be prepared for Joe Biden to shadow the Pope throughout his visit. As President of the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden will be seated directly behind Pope Francis at the podium, when the Pope addresses to the Joint Session of Congress on September 24th. Picture Joe Biden repeatedly jumping to his feet and leading the cheers when Pope Francis urges open borders for immigrants, decarbonization, the evils of fossil fuels, and the approval of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Watch as the cameras focus on VP Biden’s pearly white grin when the Pope demands that the U.S. Government spend more taxpayer money on the poor and renewable energy, like windmills and those important Solyndra solar panels for the sake of global warming! The media will ensure that the huge viewing public will understand that Joe Biden shares the values of Pope Francis. What a subliminal endorsement!

Rest assured, that Biden will be featured prominently at the White House papal meet and greet, when President Obama caucuses with the Pope on September 23rd. After all, President Obama has recently anointed Biden, as his successor with the glowing endorsement that Joe Biden was “the smartest political decision he ever made and he will mount a successful campaign.”

Look for Joe Biden to attend the Papal keynote address at the September 25th UN General Assembly, and nod approval as the Pope exhorts the passage of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the ratification of the December Paris Climate Treaty. Both initiatives are supported by the Obama Administration and Democrats, and will tax and fine Americans into poverty and finally achieve ‘hope and change’ in the form of redistribution of American wealth and prosperity.

Imagine the 2016 political TV ads! Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden huddled with and embracing the most powerful moral leader of the world, Pope Francis. Now those are some political coat tails.

Too bad the Pope can’t vote for Joe Biden, they share so many common values. But perhaps, he can. If Pope Francis crosses over from the Mexican border into the U.S., he just might be able to vote for a Joe Biden/Elizabeth Warren ticket.

 

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Elizabeth Yore is an Attorney and International Child Rights Advocate. She served as a member of the Heartland Institute delegation to protest the Vatican exclusion of all scientific opinions and its reliance on population control experts. She served as Oprah Winfrey’s Special Counsel at Harpo, Inc. until 2012.   She was the General Counsel of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.