{"id":8409,"date":"2016-06-25T19:21:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T23:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=8409"},"modified":"2016-06-27T15:22:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T19:22:00","slug":"it-doesnt-matter-if-francis-is-an-anti-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=8409","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn’t Matter if Francis is an Anti-Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some discussion resulted from Ann Barnhardt\u2019s published determination<\/a> that Francis is an anti-pope; that he\u2019s not the Pope and Benedict still is.\u00a0 This is a happy assertion and I like it.\u00a0 After all, Benedict\u2019s resignation was ridiculous, not just unfortunate.\u00a0 Did he mean it?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 His communication, I believe, is often falsified or lied about and, if it were true he was deposed, his few more recent words are still often made under pressure.\u00a0 It would be a mistake just to believe what seems to emerge from or about him. He\u2019s read statements.\u00a0 He\u2019s also mentioned his indelible papal character and \u2018contemplative\u2019 new role, detailed by Abp. Ganswein, which Barnhardt and others believe nullifies his abdication.<\/p>\n

Was he forced?\u00a0 I think it\u2019s likely, but we don\u2019t know for certain.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t have professed and cared about the things he did for the thirty-plus years prior and knowingly enabled the result that he did.\u00a0 I think he was probably presented with two bad options originating ultimately from someone, some empire outside the Church, and he chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils.\u00a0 These are just good guesses, but that type of scenario would have constituted a putsch.<\/p>\n

How do we respond to this?\u00a0 There\u2019s really very little precedent.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t matter<\/em>.\u00a0 Francis isn\u2019t Catholic, so he has no legitimate role in the Church.\u00a0 It\u2019s our job to see that he\u2019s removed from the official position and to demonstrate our contempt for him and his destruction in the meantime.\u00a0 The same is true of anyone who calls himself Catholic.\u00a0 If they are heretics (or clearly no longer in a state of grace for some reason), then they aren\u2019t a part of the Church.\u00a0 An open heretic is different than a plain sinner because he can\u2019t achieve a state of grace.\u00a0 He would have to repent of his heresy first.\u00a0 Francis should be expected to do so.<\/p>\n

Does Francis or any other faithless cleric have certain canonical status?\u00a0 Are they able to bring us the sacraments? \u00a0I believe so.\u00a0 But regardless, whether the pope\u2019s an open adversary like Francis or a capitulator like Benedict, the \u2018Church\u2019 in our lifetime is being ruled by its enemies, falsely.\u00a0 Why are the bishops usually worse than the pastors, who are worse than the vicars?\u00a0 It\u2019s because the Church is being crushed.\u00a0 You\u2019d have to look far and wide today to find a Catholic<\/em> who doesn\u2019t blame the collapsing Faith on the changing world as if the Church were the world\u2019s fault.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that.\u00a0 It\u2019s generations now of \u2018bad\u2019 management.<\/p>\n

If the Church is ever to become a growing thing again, we have to excise the dead tumors both high and low.\u00a0 We have to take the long view, see life and death in eternal, metaphysical terms, and act accordingly like children of the Light.\u00a0 That is done through properly placed contempt.\u00a0 Contempt is the opposite of honor, and today we use both quite poorly.\u00a0 We abuse them.\u00a0 We say one thing, but then we honor what\u2019s evil and show contempt for what is true: Christian charity namely, drawing the hard line.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have a certain \u2018allowance\u2019 to think in our time, but when it comes to treating contemptuous things and people appropriately, then we are circumscribed.\u00a0 We must follow our minders.\u00a0 We sketch an outline of a Catholic life, but we don\u2019t enforce it by walling-out trouble and heaping love and respect on what’s good.\u00a0 We don\u2019t calibrate our honor and contempt correctly because that would mean bringing worldly contempt and \u2018dishonor\u2019 upon ourselves and real consequences.\u00a0 So error and sin flourish in the weedy garden we cultivate while we wave our too-short arms like babies who can\u2019t reach their mothers.\u00a0 We don’t really stand.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to avoid treating dead things as if they were part of the Church.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sin to do that.\u00a0 The Church now is actually quite small.\u00a0 It\u2019s an underground Church.\u00a0 It has few buildings or institutions and most of the people who appear to be part of it are not.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t headed for life.\u00a0 For them, unless someone faithful has the courage to treat them appropriately and they respond correctly, they will be shortly dead forever.\u00a0 We can\u2019t leave these things just up to God.\u00a0 We have to call them out so there is hope.<\/p>\n

The same goes for monstrous Francis and his minions willing or compelled.\u00a0 Is he the Pope?\u00a0 He\u2019s not even part of the Church.<\/em>\u00a0 As such he should be resisted fiercely, treated contemptuously, and his words and actions denounced and ignored, because as a heretic in white, he is an enemy of God and, unless he repents, a child only of death.<\/p>\n

Do you think this sounds too harsh?\u00a0 I know our proud rulers will appreciate your restraint.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019m positive they expect it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some discussion resulted from Ann Barnhardt\u2019s published determination that Francis is an anti-pope; that he\u2019s not the Pope and Benedict still is.\u00a0 This is a happy assertion and I like it.\u00a0 After all, Benedict\u2019s resignation was ridiculous, not just unfortunate.\u00a0 Did he mean it?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 His communication, I believe, is often falsified or lied about …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[985,994,716,19],"class_list":["post-8409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-pope","tag-catholic-honor-and-contempt","tag-heretic","tag-pope-francis"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8409"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8422,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8409\/revisions\/8422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}