Luther preaches in Saint Peter’s Basilica…on Good Friday!

From Rome, for the Denzinger-Bergoglio

As to be expected, Holy Week this year was full of innovations…

It was no novelty that Francis would break standards for the ceremony of the ‘washing of feet’, relegating the Cæna Domini to a secondary plane.

What is worse, this year the very (innovated)] norms that he had earlier dictated were overlooked: “from now on the Pastors of the Church may choose the participants in the rite from among all the members of the People of God.” [1] Could someone please explain to us what kind of theological juggling Francis did to include among the members of the ‘People of God’ whose feet he washed “three Coptic women from Eritrea, three Muslims, and one Hindu youth from India” [2]????

This is precisely Francis’ system. He creates the norms, but then he himself does what he wants. Those who remember him from Buenos Aires know that he was always like this.

But, what makes us shudder is another detail: that he really considers these religions to be truly part of the “People of God”, as he insinuated in the words pronounced during the same ceremony: “Pope Francis noted that the two gestures are also present today. One, he said, relates to seeing everyone from different cultures and religions gathered together. Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, evangelicals, but brothers. Children of the same God who want to live in peace, integrated.” [3]

In other words, peace would be the perfect excuse, an ideal means to integrate that which the most daring call pan-religion, of which, they say, Francis himself would be the spokesman or prophet…perhaps even a new Messiah.

The sad thing is that he uses one of the most sacred gestures of Catholicism, the washing of the feet, for this purpose!!

But the matter doesn’t end here – and due to the terrible attacks in Belgium it left us astonished. Since peace is the ideal

excuse for this amalgamation of religions, one understands that each terrorist attack is an obstacle to obtain it. How can it be explained that behind so much violence there exists a religious hatred? Francis had an explanation for the attack in Brussels: “Behind that act (in Brussels), there are manufacturers, arms traffickers who want blood, not peace, who want war, not brotherhood.” [4]

How very insightful!!! Since the terrorists make their bombs out of screws, perhaps soon he will affirm that the hardware manufactures are to blame. This is as irrational as wanting to accuse a children’s clothing stores of provoking pedophilia!

But, there is still another point to consider. Those who were not acquainted with the former Cardinal Bergoglio, imagine that these absurdities escape from his lips due to his complete ineptitude. In reality, he knows very well what he is saying in each circumstance. For example, before the public present at the washing of the feet ceremony, the majority of whom were Muslim, it was politically correct to not offend the dominant religion, which he avoided by placing the blame on the arms manufacturers and traffickers. But the next day, at the Via Crucis in the Coliseum, in the presence of a Catholic public and under the spotlight of the international media, he had to make a more concrete acknowledgment of the situation. That is, he limited himself to mentioning the “followers of some religions” [5]. No one can expect anything more unambiguous from Francis, for it would be contrary to his plans. Moreover, it’s enough to assist the video to notice that he limited himself to reading a previously written text, without using any kind of forcefulness. In reality, he is only uncompromising with respect to one religion: the ‘hard-hearted Catholics’, the ‘legalistic Catholics’, the ‘unmerciful Catholics’, with their ‘sour faces’. For these, there is no pity or half measures, and they are really put through the wringer.

If this wasn’t enough, there was a cherry to top off the Bergoglian Holy Week…and those of us who were present in the Saint Peter’s Basilica encountered the greatest shock of our lives. Who could have imagined this nightmare? The Bishop of Rome, in the presence of the cardinals and bishops, and all of the faithful, listening to Martin Luther himself preaching in the capital of Catholicism. Sounds unreal? No, in fact the only difference from what we just affirmed is that Luther vomited his heterodoxies through the mouth of the “Preacher to the Papal Household” Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM. Some faithful left the ceremony saying… “this is the end!”

Given the shocking dimensions of such an unheard of happening in the history of the Church, — the principle heresy of Luther condemned by the Church, being proclaimed from the papal pulpit in the central Basilica of Christianity, before those who should defend the opposite truth with their own lives — we cannot help but make a parallel with the very Passion of Christ. The fact that this occurred on a Good Friday couldn’t make matters more poignant. Let us take a look at the words that were pronounced on the same day that Christ was condemned to death:

“There is a danger that people can hear about the righteousness of God but not understand its meaning, so instead of being encouraged they are frightened. St. Augustine had already clearly explained its meaning centuries ago: “The ‘righteousness of God’ is that by which we are made righteous, just as ‘the salvation of God’ [see Ps 3:8] means the salvation by which he saves us.” [6]
In other words, the righteousness of God is that by which God makes those who believe in his Son Jesus acceptable to him. It does not enact justice but makes people just.
Luther deserves the credit for bringing this truth back when its meaning had been lost over the centuries, at least in Christian preaching, and it is this above all for which Christianity is indebted to the Reformation, whose fifth centenary occurs next year. The reformer later wrote that when he discovered this, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” [7] (Fr. Raniero Cantalamess, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Good Friday, March 25, 2016)

Never, not even during his wildest deliriums, could Luther have ever imagine that his primary doctrines would be proclaimed on a Good Friday, by the official preacher of the Papal Household, before those who he had labelled as the “diabolical scum of Rome”. Never could he have imagined that his entire ecclesial revolution would be celebrated five centuries later by the Church itself, which he had denominated as a “diabolical institution” and the “great prostitute of Babylon”. [8]

Now all that is left is for Luther to scale the altars…and perhaps be placed between St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Theresa of Avila for public veneration!

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Let us, as Catholics, recall the principle condemnations of the doctrines proclaimed with such impunity in Saint Peter’s Basilica:

Council of Trent. Session VI, Decree on Justification, January 13, 1547 Denzinger-Hünermann 1520-1583

1558 Can. 8. If anyone shall say that the fear of hell, whereby by grieving for sins we flee to the mercy of God or refrain from sinning, is a sin or makes sinners worse: let him be anathema [cf. n. 798].

1560 Can. 10. If anyone shall say that men are justified without the justice of Christ by which He merited for us, or that by that justice itself they are formally just: let him be anathema [cf. n. 798, 799].

1561 Can. 11. If anyone shall say that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and remains in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God: let him be anathema [cf. n. 799ff., 809].

1562 Can. 12. If anyone shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone by which we are justified: let him be anathema [cf. n. 798, 802].

1571 Can. 21. If anyone shall say that Christ Jesus has been given by God to men as a Redeemer in whom they should trust, and not also as a legislator, whom they should obey: let him be anathema.

1583 Can. 33. If anyone shall say that because of this Catholic doctrine of justification as set forth by the holy Synod in this present decree, there is in some degree a detraction from the glory of God or from the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that the truth of our faith, and in fact the glory of God and of Jesus Christ are not rather rendered illustrious: let him be anathema [cf. n. 810]

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Notes:

[1] “I therefore decree that the section according to which those persons chosen for the Washing of the feet must be men or boys, so that from now on the Pastors of the Church may choose the participants in the rite from among all the members of the People of God.’ (Zenit, January 21, 2016)

[2] “Of the migrants, four were Catholic youths from Nigeria, three were Coptic women from Eritrea, three were Muslims, and one was a Hindu youth from India.” (National Catholic Register, March 24, 2016)

[3] “Pope Francis noted that the two gestures are also present today. One, he said, relates to seeing everyone from different cultures and religions gathered together. Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, evangelicals, but brothers. Children of the same God who want to live in peace, integrated.” (Catholic News Agency, March 24, 2016)

[4] “Behind that act (in Brussels), there are manufacturers, arms traffickers who want blood, not peace, who want war, not brotherhood.” (Catholic News Agency, March 24, 2016)

[5] “O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in expressions of fundamentalism and in terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence.” (News Va, March 26, 2016)

[6] St. Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter, 32, 56, in Augustine: Later Works, trans. and intro. John Burnaby (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), p. 241.

[7] Martin Luther, Preface to Latin Writings, in Luther’s Works, vol. 34 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960), p. 337.

[8] “Against the Roman Papacy: an Institution of the Devil.”