Heretical blather, continued…
Ecumenical Journey to Nowhere:
Francis and the Lutherans
A false bishop gives the false pope a chalice made in Taizé, France
On Friday, June 25, 2021, Jorge Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) received a delegation representing the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), including its current president, “Archbishop” Panti Filibus Musa, pictured above, and its secretary, Rev. Martin Junge.
The LWF is a “global communion of national and regional Lutheran denominations” that has its main offices in Geneva, Switzerland. It was originally founded in Lund, Sweden, a city which Francis excitedly visited on Oct. 31, 2016, in order to celebrate (!) the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation with the heretics:
The Lutheran World Federation has long been a dependable partner in the Vatican’s ecumenical shenanigans, and to that end the Argentinian antipope delivered an address this past Friday, repeating many of the usual interreligious bromides. Here is a brief video report of the occasion:
We’ll now provide a critical review of some of the incredibly profound words of wisdom the “Pope” hurled at his Lutheran visitors. Here is the full text of the address:
Francis begins by recalling briefly “that memorable ecumenical occasion” of his visit to Lund, during which, he says, he “experienced the evangelical power of reconciliation….” We’ll observe here that it was during that visit that Rev. Junge delivered a speech in Francis’ presence in which he pleaded:
…may God find us building bridges so that we can draw closer to each other, houses where we can meet together, and tables — yes, tables — where we can share the bread and the wine, the presence of Christ, who has never left us and who calls us to abide in him so that the world may believe.
(Rev. Martin Junge, Address at Lund Cathedral, Oct. 31, 2016; full video here.)
No doubt that was music to Bergoglio’s ears, who himself has a preference for the Lutheran heresy of Consubstantiation over the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation:
Francis is not the only one in Vatican City denying Transubstantiation. “Cardinal” Gerhard Ludwig Müller and “Pope Emeritus” Benedict XVI are both on record cleverly undermining the dogma.
But let’s not get sidetracked.
Returning to his June 25, 2021 address, Francis mumbles something about a “path from conflict to communion” that is supposedly “taken only in crisis: a crisis that helps us to understand more deeply what we are seeking.”
And just what are they seeking? That is the ever-mysterious, ever-elusive goal of “Christian unity” that they cannot even define concretely. All they know for sure is that it does not mean Lutherans have to become Catholics. That is completely out of the question, as both sides are happy to affirm.
Take “Pope” John Paul II, for example. In his lengthy 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint, n. 60, he refers approvingly to the so-called Balamand Declaration of 1993, which rejects “the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church” (“Uniatism, method of union of the past, and the present search for full communion”, n. 30).
Or take the Modernist “Cardinal” Walter Kasper, once the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (2001-2010). On Feb. 26, 2001, the Italian Novus Ordo news site Adista quoted him as saying: “Today, we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being ‘Catholics.’ This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II” (quoted in Paul Kokoski, “The New Evangelization: Quo Vadis?”, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Sep. 20, 2012).
Indeed it was. During World Youth Day 2005, held in the Land of Luther, “Pope” Benedict XVI declared concerning the unity aimed at by ecumenical efforts that “this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!”. In his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia in 2012, Benedict frankly admitted that ecumenical “dialogue does not aim at conversion, but at better mutual understanding” — before seeking refuge behind the ubiquitous Modernist “but” and then losing himself in gobbledygook about “drawing closer to the truth” while rushing to assure his audience that Catholics “do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us”. Got it?!
And now there is Francis. The Jesuit from Argentina has reaffirmed the ecumenical heresy perhaps more frequently and more openly than anyone else:
- Francis denounces Converting the Orthodox as “Great Sin Against Ecumenism”
- Francis: “It is not right to convince others of your Faith”
- Francis says Proselytism is “Solemn Nonsense”
- Francis: “Never Proselytize in Schools!”
That would explain why Francis is on record saying that he is “not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism.” But that’s OK because, as the same papal impostor tells us, “being a Christian is not about adhering to a doctrine” anyway, and hence conversion is only necessary when it comes to clean energy through an integral ecology and things like that.
All this, it must be remembered, stands in direct and open contradiction to the instruction Ecclesia Catholica that the Holy Office issued in 1949, when Pope Pius XII was its head:
Therefore the whole and entire Catholic doctrine is to be presented and explained: by no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding the nature and way of justification, the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ. It should be made clear to them that, in returning to the Church, they will lose nothing of that good which by the grace of God has hitherto been implanted in them, but that it will rather be supplemented and completed by their return. However, one should not speak of this in such a way that they will imagine that in returning to the Church they are bringing to it something substantial which it has hitherto lacked. It will be necessary to say these things clearly and openly, first because it is the truth that they themselves are seeking, and moreover because outside the truth no true union can ever be attained.
(Pope Pius XII, Holy Office Instruction Ecclesia Catholica)
It is important to understand that we are not talking merely about a “pastoral approach” that could be subject to change. We are talking about a doctrinal matter, the doctrine being that of religious unity. It is a matter of belief, not only of practice, that the conversion of non-Catholics to Catholicism is required because such is the only religious unity possible in the Catholic Church.
“…[T]he 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”, Pope Pius XI had already written in 1928 (Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 10). It is not a diffcult doctrine to understand; but then lack of intelligence is not the problem in Novus Ordo circles. It is lack of belief and lack of will to believe. These people simply do not believe in Catholicism. They do not want to adhere to traditional Catholic teaching.
Interestingly enough, Francis proceeds to “confess together what joins us in faith: we are reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul, ‘one body… one baptism, one God’ (Eph 4:4.5-6).” It’s too bad he didn’t include the “one Faith” St. Paul also mentions in the same passage, even though Francis does (falsely) assert that Lutherans and Catholics are joined in Faith. They are most definitely not.
Of course it is true that there is an overlap of doctrines between the two religions, but that does not mean they are joined in Faith, for Faith cannot be possessed in elements: “Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected” (Pope Benedict XV, Encyclical Ad Beatissimi, n. 24). The Faith is one, as St. Paul says (see Eph 4:5) and as Francis decided to omit from his scriptural quote; for that reason it cannot be divided up.
The false pope then states: “The Nicene Creed is a binding expression of faith, not only for Catholics and Lutherans, but also for our Orthodox brothers and sisters and for many other Christian communities.” If only he could have added that, although all may be praying the same words, they all understand these words differently, and hence this idea that the Creed is “a treasure we hold in common” is in reality an illusion. Furthermore, this shows that the mere reciting of a Creed, however orthodox the text may objectively be, does not demonstrate one’s adherence to the true Faith. Thus Francis’ protestation that he is not a heretic and that “if necessary, I’ll recite the creed” to prove it, which he made on Sep. 22, 2015, proves nothing.
Bergoglio then proceeds to the heart of ecumenism, saying:
For ecumenism is not an exercise of ecclesial diplomacy but a journey of grace. It depends not on human negotiations and agreements, but on the grace of God, which purifies memories and hearts, overcomes attitudes of inflexibility and directs towards renewed communion: not towards reductive agreements or forms of irenic syncretism, but towards a reconciled unity amid differences. In this light, I would like to encourage all those engaged in the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue to persevere with confidence, in constant prayer, in the exercise of mutual charity, and in passionate efforts to achieve greater unity between the different members of the body of Christ.
(italics given)
If ecumenism doesn’t depend on “human negotiations and agreements”, one wonders why they put so much effort into precisely that. If ecumenism is anything, it is an entirely human project: originating with man, put together by man, implemented by man, for a goal set by man. God certainly has nothing to do with it. But of course appealing to the grace of God and loading up the listener with all kinds of vague, ambiguous, and impressive-sounding terminology from the “purification of memory” to “irenic syncretism”, makes the matter sound just so… spiritual.
“Reductive agreements” presumably means common declarations that are based on the lowest common theological denominator each side is willing to concede. Is that not exactly what ecumenical dialogue has produced — or worse? If not, why is it that Francis said on June 26, 2016:
…today Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants, all of us agree on the doctrine of justification. On this point, which is very important, he [=Martin Luther] did not err. …Then things went forward, and today the dialogue is very good. That document of justification I think is one of the richest ecumenical documents in the world, one in most agreement.
(Antipope Francis, in “Full text: Pope Francis’ in-flight press conference from Armenia”, Catholic News Agency, June 26, 2016)
Luther did not err on justification? That is heresy!
The “document of justification” Francis refers to in the above-quoted passage is the so-called “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” between the Lutheran World Federation (ha!) and the Novus Ordo Church. It was signed on October 31, 1999, and can be found on the Vatican web site here.
By contrast, the dogmatic Catholic teaching on justification, together with its condemnation of the Lutheran heresy, can be found in the Council of Trent (1545-1563), as follows:
The sedevacantist bishop Donald Sanborn has provided a refutation of the errors of the Joint Declaration right here:
By the way: That Vatican-Lutheran Joint Declaration on Justification back in 1999 almost didn’t happen. The one man who saved it was a certain Joseph Ratzinger. If he hadn’t, they’d have to “journey” a bit longer still…
So yes, it looks like “reductive agreements” and “forms of irenic syncretism” — the blending of incompatible theological positions for the sake of fostering reconciliation — is exactly what Vatican II ecumenism has been giving to the world.
Francis’ hope that there will be “greater unity between the different members of the body of Christ” is, once again, nothing less than heretical, for he is saying that Lutherans are members of the Body of Christ, and that is heresy. We’ve gone over this before:
As the above-linked article makes clear, this isn’t a heresy unique to Bergoglio — this is Vatican II.
Next, Francis claims: “Whenever we are pained by divisions between Christians, we draw close to Jesus’ own experience of seeing his disciples still disunited, his tunic rent (cf. Jn 19:23).” Now that is a very odd thing to say if for no other reason than that Christ’s tunic was of course not rent: “The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified him, took his garments, (and they made four parts, to every soldier a part,) and also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said then one to another: Let us not cut it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be…” (Jn 19:23-24).
Our Lord’s inviolate robe is an image of His Mystical Body: “The Catholic Church is one, she is neither broken nor divided”, Pope Leo XII made clear, adding that anyone who departs from her unity of Faith and government “cannot in any sense belong to the Catholic Church” (Apostolic Exhortation Pastoris Aeterni, n. 4; English taken from Papal Teachings: The Church, n. 149). This is the perennial Catholic teaching down to the eve of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), when the Novus Ordo Modernists came up with their patchwork ecclesiology to introduce ecumenism and thereby gradually dissolve the entire doctrine of the unicity of the Catholic Church and her necessity for salvation. As Pope Pius XII had warned: “Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation” (Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 27). We have seen exactly that, now to the point that even heretical sects are said to be parts of the Body of Christ!
It is hard to see how the Vatican II doctrine, especially as applied by Francis in his June 25 address to the delegation of the Lutheran World Federation, doesn’t present, by and large, the very error condemned by the Holy Office under Pope Pius IX in 1864 with regard to an ecumenical association founded in London “for the promotion of the unity of Christendom”:
The principle on which [this ecumenical association] rests is one that overthrows the divine constitution of the Church. For it is pervaded by the idea that the true Church of Jesus Christ consists partly of the Roman Church spread abroad and propagated throughout the world, partly of the [Eastern Orthodox] Photian schism and the Anglican heresy, as having equally with the Roman Church, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. To take away the dissensions which distract these three Christian communions, not without grievous scandal and at the expense of truth and charity, it appoints prayers and sacrifices, to obtain from God the grace of unity.
(Holy Office Letter Apostolicae Sedi Nuntiatum, Sep. 16, 1864)
Is what is condemned there not identical in essence to the ecumenical program of the Vatican II Sect, even if the latter is perhaps a bit more refined and sophisticated?
Cardinal Costantino Patrizi, who penned this Holy Office Letter, immediately proceded to name the Catholic cure for the misguided ideas of the ecumenists, namely:
Nothing indeed should be dearer to a Catholic than the eradicating of schisms and dissensions among Christians, and to see all Christians ‘solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph. iv.). To that end, the Catholic Church offers prayers to Almighty God, and urges the faithful in Christ to pray, that all who have left the Holy Roman Church, out of which is no salvation, may abjure their errors and be brought to the true faith, and the peace of that Church; nay, that all men may, by God’s merciful aid, attain to a knowledge of the truth. But that the faithful in Christ, and that ecclesiastics, should pray for Christian unity under the direction of heretics, and, worse still, according to an intention stained and infected by heresy in a high degree, can no way be tolerated.
(Apostolicae Sedi Nuntiatum; underlining added.)
How much more obvious does it need to get that the ecumenism of Vatican II is not compatible with the Roman Catholic religion?!
Alas, Francis is not done yet with his blather at the Lutherans. He claims that “although it is impossible to undo the sad events of the past, it is possible to reinterpret them as part of a reconciled history”. Of course he remains conveniently vague so as to make it impossible to know what he means concretely; however, his words don’t exactly “scream” doctrinal uprightness.
The conclusion of Francis’ address is a doozy. He says:
Once more I thank you heartily for your visit, and I now invite you to pray together the Our Father, each in his or her own language, for the restoration of full unity between Christians. And the way to bring that about we can leave to the Holy Spirit, who is creative, very creative, and also a poet.
Yes, the “Pope” actually said that! Leaving aside the idiocy about God being a “poet”, what Bergoglio says about the Holy Ghost finding creative ways to bring about Christian unity is blasphemy! The false pope is tempting God to create a unity other than the one He has willed for His Church! This is an act of unfathomable temerity, in which Francis essentially spits the Holy Ghost in the face and says, “Give us some unity here, but not the kind YOU want!”
Aside from the insufferable blasphemy, it is also incredibly stupid of the Vatican Modernists to constantly work towards a unity they cannot even define. All their talk of “reconciled differences” and “unity in diversity” and what not, is thus shown to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. They have no idea what they’re doing, nor do they know where they’re going, or even concretely where they want to go. All they know is what kind of unity they do not want, and that is Catholic unity — and that wherever they’re actually going, they want to get there faster. It is really unbelievable.
In conjunction with the meeting with Lutherans in the Vatican, by the way, Francis’ Twitter account sent out the following heretical tweet the same day:
Charity is the beating heart of the Christian: just as one cannot live without a heartbeat, so one cannot be a Christian without charity.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) June 25, 2021
“Charity is the beating heart of the Christian: just as one cannot live without a heartbeat, so one cannot be a Christian without charity.” Now that sounds incredibly orthodox, pious, and Catholic, does it not?
Except it’s heresy. It’s been condemned, practically verbatim, by the Council of Trent: “If anyone shall say that together with the loss of grace by sin faith also is always lost, or that the faith that remains is not a true faith, though it be not a living one, or that he, who has faith without charity, is not a Christian: let him be anathema” (Trent, Session VI, Canon 28; Denz. 838; underlining added).
This may seem odd and bewildering at first, since obviously charity is necessary for salvation, as Divine Revelation and also the Council of Trent clearly teach (see Mt 7:21; Jas 2:24; Denz. 830); but this dogma Francis is denying is of the utmost importance for the nature and visibility of the Church. This is explained in depth in the following posts:
We must not forget to mention that Francis received from “Abp.” Musa an interesting gift that day: an ugly Eucharistic paten and chalice (view big photo here) made by the Taizé Community, that notorious bastion of ecumenical indifferentism. Perhaps Mr. Musa was merely trying to return the favor, considering that Francis had given a real Eucharistic chalice and paten to the pastor of Rome’s Lutheran church, Jens-Martin Kruse, on Nov. 15, 2015.
Musa, by the way, also read an address to Francis. It has been published by the Lutheran World Federation here:
The text includes some incredibly profound and insightful lines such as this one: “I am convinced that, for our journey from conflict to communion to unfold its deepest spiritual meaning, it must always become a gift of justice and peace to people waiting for a sign of hope in their lives.” If that one doesn’t do it for you, try this one: “The churches are part of God’s transformative mission, living out God’s gift of reconciliation and justice, always journeying ever-deeper into communion.”
Musa’s address shows how much six decades of ecumenical dialogue with the Vatican II Sect have accomplished besides endless gobbledygook — absolutely nothing in terms of beginning to accept real Roman Catholicism. Reflecting the false Vatican II doctrine condemned and refuted above, the head of the Lutheran World Federation says: “At the Joint Commemoration of the Reformation [in Lund in 2016], we gave thanks, we confessed, we prayed together and committed ourselves to unity, acknowledging each other as branches of the true vine” (underlining added).
This nonsense was shot down by Pope Pius IX in his 1868 Apostolic Letter convoking the First Vatican Council, in which he made a renewed effort to convince the Protestants of their errors so that they would return to the Catholic Church. His Holiness wrote:
Now, whoever will carefully examine and reflect upon the condition of the various religious societies, divided among themselves, and separated from the Catholic Church, which, from the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles has never ceased to exercise, by its lawful pastors, and still continues to exercise, the divine power committed to it by this same Lord; cannot fail to satisfy himself that neither any one of these societies by itself, nor all of them together, can in any manner constitute and be that One Catholic Church which Christ our Lord built, and established, and willed should continue; and that they cannot in any way be said to be branches or parts of that Church, since they are visibly cut off from Catholic unity. For, whereas such societies are destitute of that living authority established by God, which especially teaches men what is of Faith, and what the rule of morals, and directs and guides them in all those things which pertain to eternal salvation, so they have continually varied in their doctrines, and this change and variation is ceaselessly going on among them. Every one must perfectly understand, and clearly and evidently see, that such a state of things is directly opposed to the nature of the Church instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ; for in that Church truth must always continue firm and ever inaccessible to all change, as a deposit given to that Church to be guarded in its integrity, for the guardianship of which the presence and aid of the Holy Ghost have been promised to the Church for ever.
(Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes; underlining added.)
So much for the idea that Lutherans are branches of the true Vine that is Christ. They are not and cannot be, as they do not share the “one Faith” (Eph 4:5) given by the One Lord, nor do they subject themselves to the lawful ecclesiastical authority (cf. Heb 13:17). As Pope Pius XII said, “those [who] are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit” (Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 22).
In 1952, the same Pope affirmed one more time that “churches unfortunately cut off from the Apostolic See where Peter, Vicar of Jesus Christ, lives in each of his successors to the end of time[,] …wither like the branch cut from the vine [cf. Jn 15:6], and could not produce fruits of salvation” (Pope Pius XII, Apostolic Letter Cupimus Imprimis; English taken from Papal Teachings: The Church, n. 1322).
Thus it is clear that neither the Vatican II Modernists nor the Lutherans have any interest in Catholicism.
That is the real fruit of six decades of ecumenism.
Image source: youtube.com (screenshot)
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