Judas Church strikes during Holy Week…
Sympathy for the Devil: Vatican Newspaper tries to elicit Compassion for Judas Iscariot on Holy Thursday
It is not a secret that “Pope” Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) has a soft spot for Judas Iscariot, the traitor whom our Blessed Lord called the “son of perdition” (Jn 17:12).
The false pope said as much in a television broadcast in 2017 on the Italian Novus Ordo channel TV2000. The program featured an in-depth conversation with Francis about the Lord’s Prayer, which has since been released as a book in English translation: Our Father: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer (New York, NY: Image Books, 2018).
Out of the “three episodes [in Our Lord’s Passion that] speak to us of shame” (p. 84), Francis says that he is most moved by that of Judas Iscariot (the other two being that of St. Peter and that of the Good Thief). Although he acknowledges that Judas killed himself out of despair, he insists that the traitor could still have saved his soul. He points to the art engraven in the capital of a column of the Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, France, that supposedly depicts a smiling Good Shepherd carrying Judas on his back.
As always, Francis has it all wrong; but we’ve covered that before:
Last week on Holy Thursday, April 1, the Italian edition of the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, dedicated the first three of its pages to Judas Iscariot. The entire paper is available for free online and can be accessed here in PDF.
On the front page, the paper includes a large print of a blasphemous painting depicting a naked post-Crucifixion Christ as he bends over the corpse of Judas and caresses him:
The sacrilegious painting serves as the title image for an article written by editor-in-chief Andrea Monda entitled “Judas and the Scandal of Mercy.” It can be read in full on the Osservatore Romano‘s web site, albeit in Italian. What is even more shocking is that, as the article discloses, Francis has the original of that painting in his Vatican residence: “This painting of Jesus bending over Judas now occupies the pride of place on the wall in the papal study next to the image of the sculpture of Jesus carrying Judas, Monda reveals” (Jules Gomes, “Rome Rehabilitates Judas on Holy Thursday”, Church Militant, Apr. 2021). We might add here that Monda was appointed to his position of chief editor by Francis in 2018.
On page 2 of the Apr. 1, 2021 edition of the Osservatore Romano there are more articles on Judas, including one by the late Jesuit “Cardinal” Carlo Martini (whom one could describe as a cultured and polished version of Bergoglio), and there is included a photo of the column capital referred to by Francis. The intent is clear: We are to have hope and compassion for Judas.
That is further corroborated on page 3, on which is found the full text of the scandalous sermon “Our Brother Judas” by Fr. Primo Mazzolari (1890-1959), given on Holy Thursday of 1958, which the Bergoglio admirers at Where Peter Is have translated and published on their web site. Mazzolari was a sort of proto-Bergoglio who promoted inchoate ideas of “social justice”, liberation theology, and other aberrations. It is no wonder that in 2017 Francis made it a point to solemnly visit Mazzolari’s tomb to pay public homage to his hero.
In face of this horrific affront to our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by the Vatican Modernists during Holy Week, we have put together a powerful 22-minute podcast that delivers a scathing indictment against these enemies of Christ. You can listen to it in the player below, or access it directly on Soundcloud:
This outrage of the Vatican newspaper taking steps to rehabilitate Judas Iscariot, on Holy Thursday no less, was not missed by conservative Novus Ordos and recognize-and-resist traditionalists. The following reports/critiques are worth perusing and contain more details regarding the content published in the Apr. 1 edition of Osservatore Romano:
- ‘Church of Judas’ or ‘Church of Satan’? (Tradition in Action)
- Rome Rehabilitates Judas on Holy Thursday (Church Militant)
- Vatican “rehabilitation” of … Judas? (Fr. Z’s Blog)
- Why is there a painting of a nude Jesus ministering to Judas in Francis’ study? (Life Site)
Interestingly enough, as St. John’s Gospel testifies, the Lord Jesus called Judas “a devil” (Jn 6:71) and Francis referred to himself by that frightful but accurate moniker a few years back:
Is a clear picture emerging yet about Jorge Bergoglio?
Hopeless: Judas Ischariot commits suicide in despair
Although many people may not like the divinely-revealed truth about Judas and his fate, it is nevertheless our duty to affirm and defend it. The tragic fact of the matter is that Judas died in mortal sin, and he was condemned to an eternity of hell. Saying so is not prideful, presumptuous, or otherwise objectionable; it is the clear testimony of Sacred Scripture:
And the Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born. (Mk 14:21)
While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. (Jn 17:12)
And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place. (Acts 1:24-25)
The Catholic Magisterium has also spoken on the eternal demise of the traitor:
Some are attracted to the priesthood by ambition and love of honours; while there are others who desire to be ordained simply in order that they may abound in riches, as is proved by the fact that unless some wealthy benefice were conferred on them, they would not dream of receiving Holy Orders. It is such as these that our Saviour describes as hirelings, who, in the words of Ezechiel, feed themselves and not the sheep, and whose baseness and dishonesty have not only brought great disgrace on the ecclesiastical state, so much so that hardly anything is now more vile and contemptible in the eyes of the faithful, but also end in this, that they derive no other fruit from their priesthood than was derived by Judas from the Apostleship, which only brought him everlasting destruction.
(Catechism of the Council of Trent, “The Sacraments: Holy Orders”; underlining added.)
Judas, an Apostle of Christ, “one of the twelve,” as the Evangelists sadly observe, was led down to the abyss of iniquity precisely through the spirit of greed for earthly things.
(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, n. 49)
In her Sacred Liturgy, too, Holy Mother Church hints at Judas’ damnation. In the Collect for Holy Thursday, the Church prays:
O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy clemency; that even as in His Passion, our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each a retribution according to his merits, so having taken away our old sins, He may bestow upon us the grace of His Resurrection. Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
The facts about Judas are clear. But of course there are always “teachers, having itching ears” (2 Tim 4:3) who try to find a way around what God has revealed because they do not believe (cf. Jn 10:26) and, perhaps, seek absolute assurance of salvation for themselves despite their own treachery.
Seeking the rehabilitation of the traitor, in direct contradiction to divine revelation, is not new in the Vatican II Church, but until Francis, it was only a marginal phenomenon:
Quite tellingly, on Mar. 23, 2021, two members of the Society of Jesus Judas hosted a webinar on that very topic: “Hope for Judas?” One of them was the notorious James Martin, the other the German Christoph Wrembek, whose book Hope for Judas: God’s Boundless Mercy for Us All was released in English two months ago. The video recording of the webinar can be watched here:
At the root of this attempt to rehabilitate Judas there is a thoroughly distorted notion of God’s mercy, which Francis has been pushing from the beginning of his false pontificate. It is not that hard to refute:
- Pope Pius XII destroys Amoris Laetitia and Francis’ False-Mercy Gospel
- False “Mercy” and More: Another Truckload of Bergoglian Baloney
- True vs. False Mercy
- Scriptural Condemnations of Presumption and False Mercy
This entire scandal is put into proper perspective when we keep in mind that this past Holy Thursday the Vatican newspaper could have dedicated its first three pages to the first Mass at the Last Supper, to the institution of the Holy Eucharist, to the institution of the holy priesthood, to the washing of the feet, or to Our Lord’s agony in the garden. How terrible that grief and distress must have been for Jesus, who knew He was about to be betrayed by one of his most intimate friends for a few silver coins! He willingly took upon Himself all of our sins and anticipated all of the sufferings of His Passion in all their shameful and cruel detail — for our sake! And yet, on this day the Vatican’s newspaper dedicates its first three pages to eliciting compassion not for the betrayed and suffering Jesus, but for the execrable betrayer Judas! What does that (not) tell us?
“Rise, let us go: behold he is at hand that will betray me” (Mt 26:46).
Francis isn’t the Vicar of Christ, he’s the Vicar of Judas. Nonetheless, there is one difference between the antipope and the Iscariot:
Judas betrayed our Lord for 30 pieces of silver; Bergoglio does it for free.
Image source: composite with elements from Shutterstock and Associated Press (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) / osservatoreromano.va (screenshot) / shutterstock.com
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