If you told me that Newton was a genius, I would accept that. But you must admit that Jorge Mario Bergoglio surpasses him by far. Newton discovered the law of gravity, the law that so greatly affects our lives from the moment we come into the world…Well, Francis has abolished it! Isn’t that clever?
Of all those who have occupied the Chair of Peter, Francis is surely the one who stands out due to his propensity for drilling holes in the dikes of the Church, to liberate the waters of passions “unjustly” held back by the solid walls of almost two millennia of doctrinal “intransigence”. And this is much more harmful than the surface hammerings of others. It is noteworthy that as soon as the document Amoris Laetitia was launched, the international press immediately drew attention to an aspect which Francis had relegated to the footnotes; as though together, they had been up to some masterful teamwork — one merely lifts the ball slightly, and the others hit it and send it flying. In note 329 Bergoglio appears to defend the “fidelity” of divorcees who enter another civil union, desiring that they do not lack certain “expressions of intimacy” without which the new union would be put at risk. What a way to defend a “second” union! Also in note 336 he seeks to attenuate sacramental discipline in order to accept those who do not quite fit in, making an Olympic leap over what the Catechism so clearly affirms in this regard: ‘There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as […] adultery’ [no. 1756]
Now, with the excuse that “we have been called to form consciences, not to replace them” each individual should form his or her own, because “a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives.”
Why did Jesus have to interfere with other people’s consciences? Good thing Francis knows better! For example, the following words pronounced by Jesus would be inadmissible at this juncture in history:
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery”. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna’ (Mt 5:27-29).
What a lot of stone-throwing! Jesus must have been having one of his bad moments… Or maybe one of those moments when he just pretended to be angry, as Francis had already explained (click here).
Or perhaps, it’s the papacy itself that is experiencing one of its worse moments…
By any chance, have we taken the aforementioned words of Jesus out of context? For they are found in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, which begins with the beatitudes; words full of poetry and sweetness that promise heaven to the poor in spirit, consolation to those who mourn, the inheritance of the earth to the meek, satisfaction to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, mercy to the merciful, and the vision of God to the clean of heart, the promise to be called children of God to the peacemakers, and the very kingdom of God to those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
In the next verses of the same passage, the evangelical pedagogy — of a logic decidedly opposite to the Bergoglian — passes on to strong warnings, reminding us that ‘you are the salt of the earth’ which, when it loses its taste, ‘is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot’ (v.13), and that the light cannot be ‘put under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand’ (v.15), that in regard to the Law, Jesus has not come to abolish but to fulfill. For until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law (v.17-18). Great will be the reward of the one who fulfills the Law, and the opposite for the one who does not (v.19). The Divine Shepherd goes on to threaten whoever offend his brother with nothing more, nothing less, than hell (v.22), a prison from which there is no release until the last penny is paid (v.25).
This is where, according to Bergoglian terminology, Jesus really starts to throw stones on peoples’ lives. For as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: “Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God’s plan strictly: ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Mt 5:27-28). ‘What God has joined together, let not man put asunder’ (Mt 19:6)” [no. 2336]
While Bergoglio is committed to changing every jot and tittle even in the footnotes, for Jesus, true mercy consists in avoiding evil, and his clear admonitions serve toward this purpose. After all, we are human and our lives will always be a perilous road to travel, with many bends and curves. One of the most hazardous of all of these, tends to be marriage itself. In the logic of the Gospel, it is necessary to warn those on this path, how dangerous it may be to enter into it hastily without calculating the consequences. The Bergoglian logic, however, believes in gradually removing all the warning signs that prevent accidents, to thus avoid startling drivers. And when, due to this perilous approach, the number of accidents increases, the best solution is to say there is nothing irregular about it…
Should we, then, preach a Christ who only admonishes with severity? The Gospel offers us the answer. There is not one single circumstance in which Jesus, whether suavely or severely, failed to correct someone with the clear intention that they abandon the wrong path, which he refers to with harsh words such as “adultery” — without tempering the disagreeable aspect of this term, which is currently the case with the use of dubious and ambiguous expressions such as “divorced and remarried”, “irregular situations”, “civil marriages” and “living together before marriage”. Divine mercy, which pardons all, will never fail to help those who find themselves in such situations, as long as these people seek to configure their lives according to the divine admonition: ‘Go, and sin no more’.
Really, the power of the Supreme Pontiff is limited… just as he cannot affirm that one plus one is three, neither can he change Newton’s law of gravity; likewise, he cannot change what has been established by Jesus Christ, who constantly obliges us to combat our tendency to sin, seeking that which comes from above. Have no doubts, it will not be Francis — however much he so wishes — who will manage to abolish the effects of original sin from mankind.
The Law of Gravity was not invented by Newton, it was simply discovered. The same happens with all the moral laws. Since the Church did not invent them , no one has the power to change anything.
Its time the Church stops being so rigid. We need to have an open mind. Learn from other ancient religious streams. God cannot be confined to human doctrines. Francis is doing a great job. He’s preventing the Church from becoming more obsolete than it already is.
Reblogged this on The Deus Ex Machina Blog.