“Boiling with Rage”: Francis Reacts to Dubia on Amoris Laetitia

New interview — and then some…

“Boiling with Rage”: Francis Reacts to Formal Request for Clarification on Amoris Laetitia

The neverending drama about Amoris Laetitia continues.

The formal request submitted by “Cardinals” Caffarra, Meisner, Burke, and Brandmuller for clarification of five specific points in the infernal exhortation Amoris Laetitia (the so-called dubia, or “doubts”), was released to the public this past Monday, since for almost two months the “Sovereign Pontiff” had refused to give them the courtesy of a response. “Cardinal” Burke added more fuel to the fire by saying in a follow-up interview that the next step would be to confront Francis with a “formal act of correction” should he persist in his errors.

Clearly, Francis is not a happy camper. In what seems like a passive-aggressive move, the papal pretender took the highly unusual step of canceling the plenary meeting with all the “cardinals” at the Vatican consistory on Saturday, Nov. 19. While no official reason was given for the cancelation, it is clear that by making this move, Francis will avoid a potential showdown between him and the four “cardinals” about his refusal to respond to the simple, straightforward, and direct questions raised. So much for the “culture of encounter” he constantly shoves down everybody’s throat. Here the Jesuit apostate is not interested in building bridges, only in putting up walls. How ironic.

By the way, this is not the first time Francis was asked directly about Amoris Laetitia. When in April a journalist asked him to say clearly whether or not public adulterers were now permitted access to the Novus Ordo sacraments, Francis said that a simple “yes” would be too simplistic of an answer and pointed the questioner to the presentation given by “Cardinal” Christoph Schonborn when the document was first released. But Schonborn’s presentation, too, doesn’t really answer the question, which is evidenced by the fact that journalists had to ask him three times during the press conference to give them a straight answer.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: “But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil” (Mt 5:37). Modernists, however, hate clarity, certitude, and objectivity. They love to draw people into a cloud of doubt and uncertainty, a fog of vagueness, ambiguity, and subjectivity. They love questions but hate answers. They are never happier than when they have made certain things doubtful and made straight paths crooked — a truly devilish feat (cf. Mt 3:3), because our intellects were made to know the truth, and truth can only be attained by removing obstacles to it and arriving at clarity about it. Have a look at the history of Vatican II and the post-conciliar debacle, and you will see that this is exactly what it’s all about: a systematic and continual breaking down of truth, certainty, and objectivity in favor of a fluid and “dynamic” mess. Examine the pre-Vatican II catechisms, and see how lucid traditional Catholic Church teaching is and how clearly it is presented and explained — then compare that to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. The difference is enormous. Alternatively, read Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Mortalium Animos and then attempt to slog through John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint. Good luck.

Now, in addition to his deafening formal silence and his passive-aggressive cancelation of the consistorial plenary meeting, Francis has reacted in three more ways: He is reported to be “boiling with rage” over the fact that the dubia have been published and he is thus publicly being pushed into a corner; he has recently preached against “annoying people” who bother you with their “petitions”; and he has even responded indirectly to the dubia in an interview released on Nov. 17.

First, the “boiling with rage” story. No, this isn’t hearsay, this is reliable information from within the Casa Santa Marta, double-checked and reported by Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register on EWTN’s flagship program The World Over with Raymond Arroyo. Have a look at the video yourself (go to the 28:59 min mark):

The fact that Francis’ cheerleader “Fr.” Antonio Spadaro, SJ, has dismissed Pentin’s report lends even greater credibility to it, if anything. All we’d need now is a denial by “Fr.” Thomas Rosica, and the truth of the account would be established with infallible certitude.

On Nov. 18, Francis offered a catechesis, as is the custom, at his weekly general audience. The curiously-timed topic was “how to put up with annoying people”, people who bother us with their “gossip”, “complaints”, “petitions”, and so forth. Rome Reports has a brief video and transcript summary here. The full transcript is available in the original Italian at the Vatican web site here. We’ll just leave it at that.

Lastly, Francis has starred in yet another “papal” interview, the second or third in the past two weeks, this time conducted and published by the Italian paper Avennire. The full text in Italian can be accessed here. An English translation of the highlights was published by Vatican Insider here. The relevant portion concerning Amoris Laetitia is this:

“The Church exists only as an instrument for the communication of God’s merciful plan to the people,” Francis told Avvenire. “During the Council, the Church felt it had the responsibility to be a living sign of the Father’s love in the world. In the [conciliar document] Lumen Gentium, it went back to the origins of its nature, the Gospel. This shifts the axis of Christianity away from a certain kind of legalism which can be ideological, towards the Person of God, who became mercy through the incarnation of the Son. Some still fail to grasp the point,” Francis said, referring to certain criticisms directed at the “Amoris Laetitia”, “they see things as black or white, even though it is in the course of life that we are called to discern. The Council told us this, but historians say that a century needs to pass before a Council is properly assimilated into the body of the Church… we are half way.”

(Andrea Tornielli, “Francis: ‘The Church is not a football team in search of fans'”, Vatican Insider, Nov. 18, 2016)

The outrageous claim that until Vatican II, the Catholic Church wasn’t a living sign of the Father’s love in the world and wasn’t in line with the Gospel, is typical of the Modernist disdain for true Catholicism. They can only justify their abominable council — the only one they really believe in — at the expense of the 1,900 years that preceded it. Too bad that the proposition, “in these later times there has been spread a general obscuring of the more important truths pertaining to religion, which are the basis of faith and of the moral teachings of Jesus Christ”, was condemned as heretical by Pope Pius VI in his bull Auctorem Fidei (Denz. 1501).

But we’ll let that slide for now, because the important point to note here is that Francis explicitly rebukes criticism of Amoris Laetitia in this passage of the interview. There is no doubt about this when looking at the Italian original text. He explicitly says, “pensa a certe repliche ad Amoris laetitia” — “think of certain replies to Amoris Laetitia“. The highest-profile replies to the document to date have been the Caffarra-Burke-Meisner-Brandmuller dubia, the condemnation by 45 scholars, the heartfelt plea by various VIPs, and the Remnant/CFN Book of Accusation.

So, what is his answer to those who want clarity on Amoris Laetitia? They are not to “see things as black or white” because “it is in the course of life that we are called to discern”! In other words, there are no absolute moral norms. It’s all grey, it all depends, we have to decide each individual case without any unchanging standard! This is situation ethics. This is a pseudo-intellectual way of saying “anything goes.” This is what he really means by “discern” and “accompany”. Thanks for making it clear! It is not moral theology, it is immoral theology, infernal theology, straight from the deepest pit of hell. He’s been preaching this all along, in his daily homilies, if you read just a little bit between the lines. Now he’s confirmed that reading betweeen the lines is indeed what he expected everyone to do by lamenting that “some still fail to grasp the point”. Well, we sure didn’t, Frank, because we’ve been calling your bluff from day one!

It is this latest Bergoglian malarkey that just made former Vatican II adherent Louie Verrecchio declare that Francis is indeed an Antipope. He has grasped the point now, and we can only pray that many more will follow.

If you need a refresher on what the problems are with Amoris Laetitia, have a look at our special Chaos Watch page and listen to our podcast which dissects the document. Everything is really blowing up now, so much so that even the run-of-the-mill Modernists in the Vatican are now realizing that they have a public heretic pretending to be the Pope in the Casa Santa Marta.

The times we live in, the things we are witnessing, defy description. To still think that Francis is the Vicar of Christ, at this point, requires a willing suspension of disbelief. If the Roman Catholic Faith and reason ruled in Vatican City, the Swiss Guards would long ago have jumped into action and arrested Francis and either incarcerated or expelled him.

Perhaps we will see a few interesting moments at the consistory tomorrow. Just because Francis won’t meet with his “cardinals” in a plenary session doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t be confronted about the matter in some other way. That “culture of encounter” has a way of coming through, you know…

As far as what to do with the many copies of Amoris Laetitia in the Vatican, we have found just the perfect place for them…

Image source: unknown
License: fair use