He’s baack!
January 2017 “Pope Video”:
Ecumenism for a Better World
In the era of “Pope” Francis, each new month brings with it a new “Pope Video” announcing Mr. Bergoglio’s prayer intention of the month for the world. Francis started this custom with a bombshell a year ago, when his first “Pope Video” brazenly promoted Indifferentism, effectively blending Buddhism, Talmudic Judaism, Islam, and “Christianity” into an essentially single religion. In case you need a refresher, here is our post ripping it to shreds:
This month, Francis has released a video promoting Ecumenism to aid humanity in need:
Once more, Francis puts the focus on alleviating pain and suffering in this life. Life in the temporal world — not saving people’s souls by attaining the Beatific Vision, which is the ultimate purpose of man’s existence — is the only concern expressed. To be clear: It is certainly important to relieve temporal suffering — that’s not the issue. The problem is that when he addresses non-Catholics, Francis focuses on the temporal world exclusively almost without exception, as though everyone’s purpose in life did not extend beyond the here and now. (This we have dubbed and denounced as Francis’ “Gospel of Man”.)
In the current video, Bergoglio uses Ecumenism as the vehicle to promote this end, and by doing so, he reveals once more that he and his fellow Vatican II Modernists do not believe that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which no one can attain eternal salvation. If they believed this, they would constantly promote, in the most charitable and effective ways possible, the conversion of all non-Catholics to Catholicism. Instead, what they do is, they tell us that converting others is a “great sin against ecumenism”, that it is “not right to convince others of your faith”; they assert that all “Christians” are already united in the true Church, saying that heretics and schismatics are “members of the One Body of Christ”; and they act as though Catholics and other “Christians” only have some internal disagreements to work out still (hence the talk not about conversion but about “partial communion” and “restoring full ecclesial communion”) — as though the true Church could be divided or exist in parts or elements.
Frequent visitors to our web site are famililar enough with these errors and their refutation, but for those who may not be aware or not as familiar with them, we would like to share once more the refutation offered by Pope Pius XI in his magnificent 1928 landmark encyclical against ecumenism:
…But some are more easily deceived by the outward appearance of good when there is question of fostering unity among all Christians.
Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be “one” [Jn 17:21]. And did not the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they loved one another: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another” [Jn 13:35]? All Christians, they add, should be as “one”: for then they would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. …But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.
…
And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring forward these words of Christ: “That they all may be one…. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd,”[14] with this signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment. For they are of the opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time existed, and does not to-day exist. They consider that this unity may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal. They add that the Church in itself, or of its nature, is divided into sections; that is to say, that it is made up of several churches or distinct communities, which still remain separate, and although having certain articles of doctrine in common, nevertheless disagree concerning the remainder; that these all enjoy the same rights; and that the Church was one and unique from, at the most, the apostolic age until the first Ecumenical Councils. Controversies therefore, they say, and longstanding differences of opinion which keep asunder till the present day the members of the Christian family, must be entirely put aside, and from the remaining doctrines a common form of faith drawn up and proposed for belief, and in the profession of which all may not only know but feel that they are brothers. The manifold churches or communities, if united in some kind of universal federation, would then be in a position to oppose strongly and with success the progress of irreligion. This, Venerable Brethren, is what is commonly said….
This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth….
These pan-Christians who turn their minds to uniting the churches seem, indeed, to pursue the noblest of ideas in promoting charity among all Christians: nevertheless how does it happen that this charity tends to injure faith? Everyone knows that John himself, the Apostle of love, who seems to reveal in his Gospel the secrets of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress on the memories of his followers the new commandment “Love one another,” altogether forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christ’s teaching: “If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you” [2 Jn 10]. For which reason, since charity is based on a complete and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united principally by the bond of one faith. Who then can conceive a Christian Federation, the members of which retain each his own opinions and private judgment, even in matters which concern the object of faith, even though they be repugnant to the opinions of the rest? … How so great a variety of opinions can make the way clear to effect the unity of the Church We know not; that unity can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief and one faith of Christians. But We do know that from this it is an easy step to the neglect of religion or indifferentism and to modernism, as they call it….
So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: “The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly.” The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that “this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills.” For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one [1 Cor 12:12], compacted and fitly joined together [Eph 4:16], it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head [cf. Eph 5:30; 1:22].
(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, nn. 3-4, 7-10)
Poor Pius XI! He did not know anything about the “partial communion” taught by Vatican II, nor that these false sects he decried are actually significant because God Himself — allegedly — uses them as means of salvation!
The contrast between the true Catholic religion and the false religion of “Pope” Francis and the entire Vatican II establishment could not be clearer. Could anyone seriously assert that the Novus Ordo authorities adhere to the teaching of Pius XI?
For those who are interested in more on this issue of ecumenism, we recommend our topical page:
The Vatican has just recently declared that Martin Luther is now a “witness to the Gospel”. Considering that witnesses to the Gospel deserve our veneration (cf. Rom 13:7), you can imagine what’s next.
Call the Vatican II Novus Ordo Sect whatever you like — just don’t call it the Roman Catholic Church.
Image source: youtube.com (Vatican News English; screenshot)
License: fair use
;
Latest Post-conciliar Scriptural Updating Memo:
Fear not him/her that kills the soul, but does not harm the body; fear, rather, him that kills only the body, or hurts the feelings of the hardened sinner by pointing out the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, as passed on from Christ through his Apostles. For there is probably no one in Hell – which isn’t a place, in any event, but “a state of being,” just as heaven is a “state of being” – except for some mean, insensitive fundamentalist pre-conciliar holdouts. (Anyway we, being embodied subjects, cannot be reduced to mere “states of being,” and therefore have nothing to fear concerning that which we have deemed to be a mere non-place, so there!)
And certainly do not “fear the Lord,” for that is the beginning of wisdom, and the last thing we want is wisdom and its bothersome spotlight it shines on the partisans of iniquity and deception.” As our good friend Martin Luther declared, in his wisdom: “Sin boldly, but believe more boldly.”