Wouldn’t want to let Christ get in the way…
Vatican’s Luv Logo for Francis Trip to United States Lacks Minor Detail: the Cross
The Beatles couldn’t have said it better…
Days after the ugly and ambiguous logo for the “Year of Mercy” 2015-16 was revealed, the Vatican has now unveiled the emblem for the next item on the Francis Show: Jorge Bergoglio’s visit to the United States of America in September 2015. You can see the logo as released by the so-called “United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” above.
Overall, the logo appears rather sterile, with no clear identity other than the figure that has its back turned toward you. But really, replace the illustration of Francis with one of the Dalai Lama, and it would fit just as much. As well it should, for it might as well be the Dalai Lama that comes to visit — the message preached will substantially be the same.
It’s funny, however, that this emblem has Francis’ back towards the viewer. Haven’t we been told since the 1960s that having your back to the people is just soo insensitive and offensive? Or is that only true when you can turn your back on the Tabernacle at the same time?
While this design is a lot less bad than what one could have expected, given prior history (remember the Philippines?), we notice the striking absence of a crucifix, or at least a cross — you know, that minor detail that says that it’s not about Francis but about Christ (“But we preach Christ crucified…” [1 Cor 1:23]). Ah well, but then that would be false advertising, so it’s actually a good thing there is nothing even remotely resembling a cross, lest anyone mistakenly associate Francis’ Masonic-Modernist Naturalism for Christianity.
The official slogan to go with this logo is “Love is our Mission” — wish that it were so! The absence of a crucifix or cross is your first indicator that the “love” which Francis is on a mission for is not the love of genuine Christian charity. No, Francis’ mission is not true love, the love of charity as commanded by God towards Him and our fellow-man for His sake (see Mt 22:36-40); no, Bergoglio preaches a corrupted version of charity, not “love” but “luv”. We have written on this before: His “luv” consists of a shallow, insincere, and worldly compassion-for-show that focuses only on the needs of the body while craftily starving the soul. Of course the needs of the body are important, but they are subordinate to the needs of the soul, which are of much greater importance. All feeding of the homeless will do them no good if they are not also helped spiritually so they can reach eternal salvation. For the body will necessarily face the corruption of the grave before long, but the soul will live unto eternity (with the body then resurrected, either to glory or to shame — cf. Jn 5:29): “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28).
Remember the sweet little girl in the Philippines that cried in front of Francis because she saw the great evil of suffering among the children there, especially through child prostitution, and she was struggling to understand how a good God could allow this? Instead of nourishing her tender soul with the sweet milk of the saving Gospel, which alone gives the true sense of all suffering and the great merit to be derived especially from the suffering of the innocent, if born patiently and with resignation to God’s will, he simply gave her a hug (that’s the shallow and phony part of his “mercy” and “luv”). Certainly, this hug gave her some consolation for a brief moment, but what he did then was inject a venomous lie into the sweet soul of that dear child. He said to her, “There is no answer.” Now that was cruel. That is what will stay with the girl long after the comfort of the hug is gone. That is what will make her doubt God, or hate God, and perhaps even despair.
The world, of course, loves what Francis did, because it’s a great photo combined with a great soundbite, displaying his supposed “humility” by claiming we do not know the answer to this all-important question. In reality, what Francis did was neither merciful, nor compassionate, nor charitable. In the true sense of the word, he scandalized the little girl and all who listened to him, by putting a strumbling block into their spiritual path.
We have documented and written about this at length — you can review the analysis and the arguments here:
Unfortunately, most minds in this nation — the United States of America — have been so dumbed down or been fed such an inadequate or erroneous education that they would never know the difference between genuine love and a fake “luv”. Ours is a society in which just about anything is called “love” that really isn’t, and true love is labeled “hate”. Everything is backwards now: Lust is taken for love; niceness is taken for love; offending God rather than man is taken for love. By contrast, true love often has to correct, rebuke, and “offend” — man for the sake of God, that is; and this is now labeled “hate.” Black has become white; light has become darkness; right has become wrong.
Contrast Francis’ false, worldly luv with what the great anti-Modernist Pope St. Pius X had to say about genuine charity in his Apostolic Letter against the errors of Le Sillon, a Modernist movement in France that sought to secularize and neutralize Catholicism by reconciling it with the ideals of the French Republic (i.e. a prototype of Vatican II):
The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which [the Sillonists] found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.
Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.
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And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
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We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness.
But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors.
Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them.
He was as strong as He was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body.
Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
(Pope St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique [“Our Apostolic Mandate”], 1910; underlining and pargraph breaks added.)
BAM! Saint Pius X blows Francis and his false gospel away. You would be well-advised to read the Pope’s Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique in its entirety, at the link given above. It is a sound refutation of the secular, humanist, and naturalist “gospel” of Jorge Bergoglio. Read it and see how much what Pius X thunders against is exactly what Francis believes, preaches, and practices.
What are your thoughts on the official logo of Francis’ visit to the United States? Leave a comment and join the discussion in our combox below this post.
Let’s hope that this will be the last logo to be issued for a while.
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