Salvation by Compassion? Debunking Francis’ latest Demagoguery

The tweeting existentialist…

Salvation by Compassion?
Debunking Francis’ latest Demagoguery

Just because it’s vacation time in Rome and Vatican City doesn’t mean the Argentinian apostate Jorge Bergoglio has nothing to say. Under his pseudonym “Pope Francis”, the Bergoglian jaw is always moving — if not physically, at least virtually.

On July 14, 2020, Francis’ digital self posted the following message on Twitter:

For those unable to see the image, the text says: “On the Day of Judgment we will not be judged for our ideas, but for the compassion we have shown to others.” The tweet can be accessed directly using this link.

After being exposed to Francis’ infinite wisdom for the past seven years, we have learned how to decode the often deliberately ambiguous, vague, and sometimes cryptic Francisspeak.

With the above tweet, Francis seeks to downplay, once more, the essential role revealed truth and the virtue of Faith play in salvation. In the final analysis, they play no role whatsoever for him, and in a candid moment, he will even admit it. He has done so on occasion in the past:

Being a Modernist, Francis doesn’t believe in divinely revealed religion at all, hence it is of no consequence to him what a person actually believes. For that reason, he loves to villify “ideas” — by which he means sacred doctrine, divinely revealed truth, for which He who is the Truth (see Jn 14:6) became incarnate (cf. Jn 1:17; Heb 1:1-2) and for which countless martyrs spilled their blood. Indeed, for His divine truth our Blessed Lord established “the church of the living God [as] the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), so that “henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14; cf. 2 Tim 4:2-4).

In his first so-called “Apostolic Exhortation” Evangelii Gaudium, published in 2013, Francis declared: “Realities are greater than ideas” (n. 233). That is a truly unfortunate principle he puts forth there, considering that what it expresses is itself an idea. On top of that, it is an erroneous idea; in fact, it is one of the core principles of the false modern philosophical school of existentialism. “Existence precedes essence”, is another way to express the same notion. What it means is that in any given scenario, the concrete situation before us takes precedence over general ideas that might govern our assessment of it. A situation is to be evaluated according to its own unique circumstances and exigencies (“case by case”) and not in accordance with general principles (such as universal moral laws, for example).

In his landmark encyclical condemning the renascent Modernism of his day, Pope Pius XII warned also against existentialism:

Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 6)

The same true Pontiff also specifically condemned “ethical existentialism”, another term for situation ethics, precisely the kind Francis puts forth in his exhortation Amoris Laetitia on the joy of adultery.

For Francis to say that we will not be judged for our ideas is simply false. Of course we will be judged for our ideas. We will also be judged on a lot of other things, including, of course, the compassion we have (not) shown to others, for we cannot love God without also loving our neighbor, whom God has commanded us to love: “If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?” (1 Jn 4:20; cf. Mt 22:36-40).

It is certainly true that “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:26) and will save no one. But at the same time, works without Faith (and therefore without grace) are just as dead, for “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6); and such works, although they may receive a natural reward (see Mt 6:2), will do exactly nothing for our eternal salvation: “For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man may glory” (Eph 2:8-9). To say otherwise would be to affirm the heresy of Pelagianism, which teaches salvation by works apart from grace.

Francis loves to bring up Chapter 25 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, where our Blessed Lord says that whatever we did to the least of His brethren, we did unto Him (see vv. 31-46); but that is by no means the only passage that speaks of salvation or judgment.

For instance, a place in Sacred Scripture Francis never quotes is Mark 16:16: “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” Another pericope he could refer to on occasion but doesn’t is 2 John 9: “Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine, the same hath both the Father and the Son.” And in Romans 2:16, St. Paul speaks of “the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel”, and certain ideas will definitely come into play then!

To sum up: Salvation is not simply by ideas, but neither is it merely by compassion. It is by Faith, hope, and charity, made possible by divine grace, merited for us by Jesus Christ our Lord. If any of these elements be lacking, no matter how compassionate we have been in the natural order, there remains only “the furnace of fire [where] there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 13:42).

Pray much, therefore, for the grace of final perseverance!

Image source: shutterstock.com / twitter.com (screenshot)
Licenses: paid / fair use

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Salvation by Compassion? Debunking Francis’ latest Demagoguery