Francis: Without Woman, Man is Not the Image and Likeness of God

A new revelation from the god of surprises…

Francis: Without Woman, Man is Not the Image and Likeness of God

June 15, 2018 was a particularly interesting day in Novus Ordo Land. In the Modernist worship service, the Gospel reading for the day was Matthew 5:27-32, which reads as follows:

You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body go into hell. And it hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.

As this passage is not very Amoris Laetitia-friendly, it was a given that “Pope” Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) wasn’t going to talk about adultery and other sins of the flesh as ensnaring souls and depriving them of eternal life, which would have been a clearly supernatural message.

Instead, he chose to talk about the exploitation of women, human trafficking, human dignity, and so forth. These are topics he is very comfortable with because they directly pertain to the natural sphere. Although it is not wrong to speak of these things, of course, and although they are related to the grave sin of lust which Christ condemns in the Gospel passage cited, we notice that Francis’ message has a decidedly Naturalist character, as whatever emanates from him usually does.

Yes, he did mention that these things are a “sin against God the Creator”, but he did so only to buttress his focus on man, man who was made in the image and likeness of God (see Gen 1:27). And this is where things got really wacky, because Francis proceeded to proclaim in all seriousness:

And a man without a woman beside him – whether as a mother, as a sister, as a bride, as a working companion, as a friend – that man by himself is not the image of God…. This is a sin against God the Creator, rejecting women because without her we men cannot be the image and likeness of God.

(Antipope Francis, in Susy Hodges, “Pope at Mass: exploiting women is a sin against God”, Vatican News, June 15, 2018)

What an idiotic thing to say! This is so incredibly foolish that any commentary should be unnecessary, but we’ll provide some nonetheless for the benefit of our readers.

Sacred Scripture records the creation of the first man and woman as follows:

And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. …[B]ut for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

(Gen 2:7,20-23)

If we were to take Bergoglio’s thesis seriously, it would then follow that Adam was not truly man, was not actually made in the image and likeness of God when he was created, and did not become really man until later when the “helper” Eve was created from his own flesh. If this isn’t heresy, it’s the next worst thing.

What is Francis’ bizarre claim supposed to mean, anyway, that man is not made in the image of God if he does not have a mother, sister, wife, female coworker, or female friend “beside” him? What utter claptrap is this? Why is no one at the Vatican telling this blathering fool to get lost?

Precisely how Francis thinks he can square his thesis with St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians, is another question that will probably have to remain unanswered:

The man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

(1 Cor 11:7-9)

This is anathema to Modernist ears, but it is the divinely revealed truth nonetheless. This is because, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains, “in a secondary [!] sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning and end of every creature” (Summa Theologica, I, q. 93, a. 4, ad 1).

Let’s recall what the true Catholic teaching is about the proper meaning of man having been created in the image and likeness of God (“man” here meaning human, regardless of sex):

Holy Scripture says that God made man “to His own image and likeness,” because in making man God endowed him with intellect and free will, whereby in a very special way man imitates the nature of God, Who at the same time raised him to a supernatural state.

(Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, The Catholic Catechism [Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1932], pp. 78-79)

Man is made in the image of God; his likeness to God is to be found in his soul, which possesses reason and free will, and thence has the power of knowing what is beautiful and good, and of loving it.

(Rev. Francis Spirago, Rev. Richard F. Clarke, ed., The Catechism Explained [New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1921], p. 154)

The image and likeness of God refer to faculties of the soul, not to the body. As if responding to Bergoglio’s poppycock directly, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

Therefore we must understand that when Scripture had said, “to the image of God He created him,” it added, “male and female He created them,” not to imply that the image of God came through the distinction of sex, but that the image of God belongs to both sexes, since it is in the mind, wherein there is no sexual distinction of sex, but that the image of God belongs to both sexes, since it is in the mind, wherein there is no sexual distinction.

(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 93, a. 6, ad 2; underlining added.)

So, Francis has it exactly backwards: The image and likeness of God do indeed apply to both man and woman but separately and individually, not collectively. Obviously, men as well as women possess reason and free will, and they do so independently of one another.

Thus far we have considered man in his natural image of God, according to nature, but there is also a supernatural image (which some authors say is what is meant by the term “likeness to God” referred to in Gen 1:27), according to grace:

The special privileges granted to the soul of man at his first creation were as follows: An enlightened understanding, a will free from all weakness, and the possession of sanctifying grace. Through means of these he was the child of God, the heir of heaven, and well-pleasing in the sight of God.

“God filled them with wisdom and the knowledge of understanding,” says the Wise Man (Ecclus. [Sirach] xvii. 5, 6). He gave Adam an insight into the inner nature of things, so that he was able to give appropriate names to all the animals. He also knew by inspiration the indissolubility of marriage. The will of man was weakened by no sensual desires. Adam and Eve were naked, but felt no shame, because in them there was no rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, no struggle necessary to avoid sin. They also had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, and His sanctifying grace; they were like to God, full of love for Him, and children of God; and because children, also heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

…

When God at man’s creation said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” the image refers to the natural, the likeness to the supernatural gifts of God.

(Spirago-Clarke, The Catechism Explained, pp. 157-158)

Through original sin, this beautiful original state of man was lost:

The disobedience of our first parents received this severe punishment, because the law given them was one that it was easy for them to obey, and because they had such a high degree of knowledge. The sin they committed was a mortal sin, else it would not have been necessary for God Himself to die upon the cross in order to expiate it. From the cost of the remedy we may judge of the deadly nature of the wound. Just as the man who fell among the thieves on the road to Jericho was robbed of his goods, and also sorely wounded, so man was robbed by Satan of his supernatural gifts, and was sorely wounded in his natural gifts. In other words, the supernatural likeness to God was lost, and his whole nature, body and soul alike, was disfigured and weakened.

Original sin injured the soul of man in the following ways: His understanding was darkened, his will weakened and made prone to evil; he lost supernatural grace and thus became displeasing to God, and could no more enter into the kingdom of heaven.

(Spirago-Clarke, The Catechism Explained, p. 159)

The likeness to God, or supernatural image of God, is restored to man through sanctifying grace, especially in the sacrament of baptism, which is usually the first time this grace enters into a person’s soul. All this is completely ignored by Francis in his sermon of June 15, and yet it is this very aspect which gives such a great boost to human dignity:

Indeed, the idea of the image of God, if it is carefully considered, contributes greatly to the enhancement of human dignity. And therefore at the same time it reveals both the love of God for man, whom he gratuitously raises to that level, and his duty to lead the type of life that the image of God demands.

(Rev. Joseph F. Sagüés, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IIB: On God the Creator and Sanctifier, trans. by Fr. Kenneth Baker [original Latin published by BAC, 1955; English published by Keep the Faith, 2014], n. 672)

Here we can see quite beautifully the stark contrast between Francis’ Naturalism and real Catholicism: The Catholic uses human dignity to promote the glory of God and virtuous living; Francis, on the other hand, uses God to promote human dignity. The end of the Catholic is God; the end of Francis is man.

Catholicism has no place in Bergoglio’s religion of Masonic Naturalism. He is concerned with human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women. That’s good — but the world doesn’t need a Pope for that (not even a fake one). The Pope is supposed to teach the supernatural truths of Divine Revelation, not focus on those things you will hear just as well at the local Masonic lodge, at a women’s conference sponsored by the United Nations, or at a peace gathering of Buddhists.

Yet, even if he had wished to make the main focus of his homily a natural state of affairs, it would have been easy for Francis to end on a supernatural note. For example, after condemning the natural and bodily evils that lust generates, he could have also warned of the many supernatural evils that follow from it: Lust deprives souls of sanctifying grace, hardens them in vice and in resistance to grace, leads to a detestation of spiritual things, and so forth. He could also have asked that we pray for all those harmed by sexual exploitation, that they may not only be able to escape from their distress but also find divine grace and the true Faith so that the doors of salvation may be opened to them, lest they should find that they have escaped temporal misery only to merit eternal punishment at the end of their lives.

Yes, Francis could have said this. Instead, he chose to keep it all in the natural realm and didn’t say anything in essence that one couldn’t also have heard from a Protestant preacher, a Jewish rabbi, or a secular philanthropist. In fact, the latter at least would have spared us the idiotic remark that “a man without a woman beside him … is not the image of God.”

And so it looks like the Bergoglian “god of surprises” has communicated a new revelation through his Jesuit oracle once again. We recall Francis saying a year ago that “God cannot be God without man” — and today we find out that man cannot be truly man without woman.

One shudders to think what novel revelation might be disclosed next year.

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