Francis to Vatican Ecumenists: Catholics need Protestants!

The fruits of 60 years of Vatican ecumenism…

Francis to Vatican Ecumenists: Catholics need Protestants!

Seated in a wheelchair, Francis speaks on May 6, 2022

These are tough times for Catholic Answers and Novus Ordo apologists in general, because the utter theological rubbish that constantly emanates from the apostate mouth of Jorge Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) simply defies belief.

A great example is found in the speech the false pope gave to the participants at the plenary meeting for the so-called Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity this past Friday.

The full text has been released by the Vatican in both English and the original Italian, and it is loaded with fireworks:

• Address to Participants at the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (May 6, 2022)

This address came on the heels of another incredible statement the pseudo-pope made to the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Moscow recently, namely: “We are Shepherds of the Same Holy Flock of God”. Vatican II theology is simply the gift that keeps on giving.

We will go ahead now and look at various excerpts taken from Francis’ May 6 address as found on the Vatican web site. Do not think this will be a pointless exercise — it will actually make for a great addition to your ever-expanding “You sedevacantists are just a bunch of Protestants!” stack of files. So let’s go.

The Unholy Father Francis observes:

A first significant ecumenical result of the pandemic has been a renewed awareness of belonging to one Christian family, an awareness rooted in the experience of sharing the same fragility and of being able to trust only in the help that comes from God. Paradoxically, the pandemic, which forced us to keep a distance from each other, has made us understand how close to each other we are in reality, and how we are responsible for each other. It is fundamental to continue to cultivate this awareness, and to give rise to initiatives that make explicit and nurture this spirit of fraternity.

The methodology used here is quite typical for Novus Ordo theology: Personal experience is used as a data source, such that theological conclusions are drawn from people’s lives.

That is a recipe for disaster, indeed a revolutionary idea, one that has allowed Francis to come up with such blasphemous nonsense as that God’s Sixth Commandment — “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14) — admits of exceptions in particular cases. In his 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Bergoglio claims that on account of a person’s circumstances in life, his “conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal” (n. 303).

In the case now under consideration, the COVID experience has allegedly made us “aware” that Catholics and heretics belong “to one Christian family”, a realization that would have certainly surprised any number of saints, doctors, and Popes.

This awareness, Bergoglio claims, is itself derived from “the experience of sharing the same fragility and of being able to trust only in the help that comes from God.” Apparently the man thinks that before COVID came around, Catholics had no idea that Protestants too share the same human nature and that ultimately we must all rely on help from above.

Just wait till he remembers that this is true not only for Catholics and Protestants but also for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, atheists, agnostics, and Satanists! Then the “Christian family” will quickly be expanded to the “human family”, and everything will be theologically adjusted accordingly. Then the Savior Jesus Christ must give way to an expanded and Naturalist “fraternity”, which Francis has called the “anchor of salvation for humanity”.

That is what he already believes anyway. Make no mistake about it: In his May 6 speech to the Vatican ecumenists, Francis is simply using Coronavirus as a gimmick for his experience-based theology. This allows him to reinforce his false teachings on religious unity, as we will see shortly, under the guise of profound theological insights. Humanity is Francis’ true religion — there is no question about that.

The apostate from Buenos Aires has more to say, of course, and he doesn’t hold back:

And on this issue, I would like to emphasize that today, for a Christian, it is not possible or practicable to go alone with one’s own denomination. Either we go together, all the fraternal denominations, or we do not go ahead at all. Today the awareness of ecumenism is such that one cannot think of journeying on the path of faith without the company of brothers and sisters from other Churches of [sic] ecclesial communities. And this is a great thing. Alone, never. We cannot do it. Indeed, it is easy to forget this profound truth. When it happens to Christian communities, it exposes us to the serious risk of the presumption of self-sufficiency and self-referentiality, which are grave obstacles to ecumenism. And we see this. In some countries there are certain egocentric revivals – so to speak – of certain Christian communities that either go backwards, or cannot advance. Today, either we all walk together or we do not walk. This awareness is a truth and a grace from God.

Now this is just so beyond whacko, we’re going to have to split it up into smaller bits:

“…today, for a Christian, it is not possible or practicable to go alone with one’s own denomination.”

The Roman Catholic Church isn’t a “denomination”. It alone is the true Church founded by Christ. Any other “ecclesial communities” are heretical sects, such as those once referred to by Pope St. Peter: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).

That the Catholic Church can and must “go alone”, without any kind of support from heretical sects, is so obvious that it needs no explanation. The Church our Blessed Lord instituted is what is properly termed a “perfect society”, which means that “it has in itself all the means required for its own end, which is the eternal salvation of mankind…” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, n. 13). In other words, it doesn’t need help to achieve this end from the outside, least of all from heretics (regardless of whether these be in good faith or not, personally).

In fact, it was precisely in response to the ecumenical movement that Pope Pius XII made clear that in discussions with Protestants, “one should not speak of [their potential conversion] 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” (Holy Office Instruction Ecclesia Catholica, sec. II).

“Either we go together, all the fraternal denominations, or we do not go ahead at all.”

This is another one of those ipse-dixits Francis has made his trademark. He simply makes gratuitous assertions such as this one; in other words, he makes claims but offers no proof to back them up. But what is asserted without proof, is just as well denied without proof. Hence there is really nothing else to say about this stupid remark of his. It is simply another variation on his “no one is saved alone” mantra.

“Today the awareness of ecumenism is such that one cannot think of journeying on the path of faith without the company of brothers and sisters from other Churches of [sic] ecclesial communities.”

Notice how he speaks of “awareness”, which is necessarily a subjective thing, as if it were an objective reality that imposes itself on others. What is this “awareness” grounded in but the consciousness of individual people? That alone is where this “awareness” exists. This being so, how is it relevant to the objective state of affairs, namely, that Catholics have inherent in the Catholic Church all they need to attain their final supernatural end, the Beatific Vision?

What Francis is really saying is that all the people involved in the ecumenical circus have made themselves imagine that “one cannot think of journeying on the path of faith without the company of brothers and sisters” from other religions. In other words, they are laboring under an illusion, a mass psychosis if you will, and Francis is trying to objectify this illusion and somehow make it into a kind of revelation that all Catholics ought to accept. In short, Francis holds that all must now subscribe to a theologically erroneous, if not heretical, idea because a bunch of ecumenists have a certain “awareness”. It is nuts!

This is the kind of thing St. Paul must have had in mind when he counseled St. Timothy to avoid “the profane novelties of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called” (1 Tim 6:20).

“And this is a great thing. Alone, never. We cannot do it. Indeed, it is easy to forget this profound truth.”

No doubt, this idiotic “insight” of his is a great thing and a profound truth. How much more disconnected from reality can one get?

“When it happens to Christian communities, it exposes us to the serious risk of the presumption of self-sufficiency and self-referentiality, which are grave obstacles to ecumenism.”

Here Francis tries to put a guilt trip on anyone who might object. But of course there is nothing presumptuous about believing, as every Catholic must, that the Catholic Church is indeed self-sufficient and certainly not in need of the aid of those outside her fold who deny the Faith. To say otherwise would be an insult to Jesus Christ, who promised that the Holy Ghost would lead His Church into all truth (see Jn 14:26; 16:13), wherefore His Church is truly “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

That the Catholic truth on the matter should be a grave obstacle to ecumenism is no doubt true, and only serves as further confirmation of its veracity. Francis’ attempt to shame Catholics into believing themselves to be “self-referential” is another rhetorical trick cooked up by the Argentinian apostate. If the alternative is religious unity with heretics, then Catholics must be “self-referential”, and are more than happy to be so!

But of course this is just more Bergoglian bunk. One might as well extend Francis’ logic a little bit and accuse all those involved in ecumenism of being “self-referential” if they fail to join up with people outside of their big-tent ecumenical circle. Don’t be so self-referential, you presumptuous ecumenists, and embrace also the “faith journey” of the agnostic, the Deist, the Jainist, the Wiccan, and the Voodoo witchdoctor!

“And we see this. In some countries there are certain egocentric revivals – so to speak – of certain Christian communities that either go backwards, or cannot advance.”

If there is one thing you’re not allowed to do in the Vatican II religion, it’s “going backwards”, whatever that means. Unless, of course, you have to find a pretext to justify the Novus Ordo liturgical revolution, then you get to assert that “that’s how it was done in the early Church”, which was waay back. But outside of that, going backwards is verboten, you nostalgic idolatrous clinger to the past!

“Today, either we all walk together or we do not walk. This awareness is a truth and a grace from God.”

As repetition is the mother of all learning, Francis restates his senseless mantra one more time; and then he blasphemes the Most Holy Trinity by crediting Almighty God for his infernal idea. It’s par for the course.

We turn now to the next excerpt of Francis’ May 6 address:

In the last century, the awareness that the scandal of the division of Christians had historic relevance in generating the evil that poisoned the world with grief and injustice had moved communities of believers, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to desire the unity for which the Lord prayed and gave his life. Today, faced with the barbarism of war, this longing for unity must once again be nurtured.

We notice here that Francis describes purely natural motives for the desire for religious unity, namely, “the evil that poisoned the world with grief and injustice” and “the barbarism of war”. These motives are legitimate, but they are not supernatural, that is, they do not concern our supernatural end (salvation), nor the Truth revealed by God.

This is not surprising, considering how much Francis’ mind is focused on the temporal world. From what he says here, it is evident he wants the religious unity of all who call themselves Christians chiefly because disunity has led to temporal evils such as war and injustice — not because of the spiritual evils their being cut off from the Catholic Church entails, such as that “they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church” (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 103) and therefore find themselves in “a state in which they cannot be assured of their own salvation” (Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes) because “no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church” (Pius IX, Encyclical Quanto Conficiamur, n. 8). Indeed, this concerns more than just individuals: “Upon this longed-for return to the truth and unity of the Catholic Church depends the salvation not only of individuals, but also of all Christian society” (Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes) — a thought entirely foreign to the Naturalist mind of Jorge Bergoglio.

Francis doubles down in the words that follow:

Ignoring the divisions between Christians, out of habit or resignation, means tolerating that contamination of hearts that creates fertile ground for conflicts. The proclamation of the gospel of peace, that gospel that disarms hearts even before armies, will be more credible only if it is announced by Christians who are finally reconciled in Jesus, Prince of peace; Christians inspired by his message of universal love and fraternity, which transcends the boundaries of their own community and nation.

How touching to see Francis express his bewilderment at the division of those who profess to be followers of Christ! Is this not the same Francis who at other times likes to proclaim that “our [religious] differences are necessary”, indeed that “[t]he pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings” (source)? If that’s the case, then what’s the problem with a multitude of Protestant denominations? Are they not also “willed by God in His wisdom”?

In any case, the argument that we need ecumenical unity among Christians in order to make the Gospel more credible, is not new and was shot down by Pope Pius XI as far back as 1928, as follows:

Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be “one” [Jn 17:21]. And did not the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they loved one another: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another”? [Jn 13:35] All Christians, they add, should be as “one”: for then they would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These things and others that class of men who are known as pan-Christians continually repeat and amplify; and these men, so far from being quite few and scattered, have increased to the dimensions of an entire class, and have grouped themselves into widely spread societies, most of which are directed by non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying doctrines concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.

(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 4; underlining added.)

The only way religious unity can be achieved, according to the perennial Catholic doctrine, is by the conversion of all non-Catholics to the Catholic religion: “…the only true union [is] by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ” (Pius XII, Ecclesia Catholica, sec. II). Since the Roman Catholic Church alone is the “one true Church of Christ” (Mortalium Animos, n. 7), it is only by joining this Church, which is the “ark of salvation” (Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Quod Anniversarius, n. 3), that the unity desired by Christ, that of “one fold and one shepherd” (Jn 10:16), can be realized. This is not difficult for a Catholic to understand or accept, and yet it is vehemently denied and repudiated by the “Catholic authorities” in the Vatican today, as shown here.

Any attempt by the post-Catholic Vatican to promote “Christian unity”, therefore, is a farce. They seek a unity that is not the kind desired by Christ. This necessarily makes it a false unity, the kind we ought to be abhor and reject, for otherwise we “will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ” (Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, n. 8). “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine”, St. John the Apostle warned, “receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you” (2 Jn 10).

Francis then tops off all his errors with a blasphemy:

Let us return to what I said: today, either we walk together or we stand still. We cannot walk alone. But not because it is modern, no: because the Holy Spirit has inspired this sense of ecumenism and brotherhood.

No, the Holy Spirit hasn’t done that; He has actually condemned it.

Bergoglio’s garbage about “not walking alone” lest we “stand still” very much belongs to the category of “doctrines and precepts of men” (Mk 7:7) Christ rejects and condemns, for they “make void the commandment of God…” (Mk 7:9).

At least in his May 6 address, Francis does not even attempt to justify his blasphemous and heretical position from the sources of revelation. Instead, he indicates where he obtains his ideas:

If we truly want to listen to the voice of the Spirit, we must not fail to hear what he has said and is saying to all those who have been born again “of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5).

No doubt some “spirit” is at work here, and we have infallible certitude it’s not the Holy Spirit. Francis believes that public Divine Revelation is an ongoing process, which has to be discerned continually through “the signs of the times” (Mt 16:3).

This twisting of the true doctrine regarding Divine Revelation easily lends itself to introducing all kinds of novelties, which can then conveniently be ascribed to the “voice of the Spirit”, as Francis does here. (Note, too, that he claims the Holy Ghost reveals these novelties to “all those who have been born again” in baptism, that is, he includes heretics as much as Catholics — for all heretics, by definition, are baptized — all the while leaving out of consideration the fact that heretics have left the Church through their public adherence to a false religion.)

In a 1947 article, Fr. Francis Connell sums up the true teaching on development of doctrine thus:

In what, then, does the unchangeableness of Catholic doctrine consist? In the first place it means that nothing has been added or ever can be added to the deposit of public divine revelation since the death of the last apostle. Such has ever been the teaching of the Church, based on the conviction that the truths proclaimed by Christ (including what was revealed to the apostles by the Holy Spirit) were intended as the completion of the Message of God to the human race.

(Rev. Francis J. Connell, “Does Catholic Doctrine Change?”, American Ecclesiastical Review, vol. 117 [Nov. 1947], pp. 326-327; underlining added.)

The idea of ongoing revelation, and the perpetual evolution of dogma, was one of the chief errors of the Modernists. In 1907, Pope St. Pius X condemned this proposition: “Revelation, constituting the object of the Catholic faith, was not completed with the Apostles” (Syllabus of Modernist Errors Lamentabili Sane, n. 21). While it is true that there still exists what is called private revelation, that kind revelation is not part of the Deposit of Faith and does not have to be believed by any Catholic.

Probably no one in recent times has done more to encourage false notions of revelation than “Pope” Francis himself. His concept of the “god of surprises” alone opens a pandora’s box of endless novelty. In 2019, Vatican News released an article ridiculously entitled: “Development of Doctrine is a People that Walks Together”. The late Fr. Anthony Cekada blasted it in a powerful rebuttal in what would turn out to be his last public article.

Enough already of all the “walking together” nonsense!

The Catholic Church does not need heretics to know where she is going, much less does she need their help to get there. They are not even walking on the same path as she is anyway; or if they are, they are walking in the opposite direction. Always faithful to Jesus Christ her Head, the Catholic Church is never alone, for He promised her: “…behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28:19).

It is to His Church — and not to wandering heretics — that Christ “entrusted all the truths which He had taught, in order that it might keep and guard them and with lawful authority explain them; and at the same time He commanded all nations to hear the voice of the Church, as if it were His own, threatening those who would not hear it with everlasting perdition” (Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, n. 26).

So Francis tells us that after 60 years of ecumenism, this is where they’re now at: “One cannot think of journeying on the path of faith without the company of brothers and sisters from other Churches or ecclesial communities”.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have gone from the exhortation to avoid heretics (see Rom 16:17; Titus 3:10) and not to communicate with them (see 2 Jn 10-11), to the exhoration to do the exact opposite — not only as desirable but as necessary! This must be that fabled “hermeneutic of continuity” we keep hearing about! No wonder these people now consider the arch-heretic Martin Luther a “witness to the Gospel”!

Whereas the robber council of Vatican II in 1964 “merely” extolled the heretical sects of Protestantism as “by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation” (Decree Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 3), Bergoglio has now “moved forward” a bit and declared them to be more or less necessary for salvation — or at least for “journeying on the path of faith”, whatever that means!

That Francis should say, essentially, that Catholics have need of Protestants, as Protestants, is not new for him. According to the testimony of an Anglican bishop years ago, then-“Cardinal” Bergoglio had told him that Anglicans were needed precisely as Anglicans, not as converts to Catholicism:

Bp [Greg] Venables added that in a conversation with Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, the latter made it clear that he values the place of Anglicans in the Church universal.

“He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans.”

(“‘The Church universal needs Anglicans’ – Pope Francis”, Anglican Communion News Service, Mar. 14, 2013)

Is it any surprise that Bergoglio — this time as “Pope” — is on record telling Catholics that if there is no Catholic Mass available for them on a given Sunday, they should just go to the Anglican worship service instead? You can’t make this stuff up!

A good way to sum up all this nonsense is to state that Francis believes we are to join those who have gone astray in order not to go astray. How can anyone believe that this blathering fool is the Pope of the Catholic Church? “Be not led away with various and strange doctrines…”, St. Paul warned the Hebrews (13:9). Now surely this one would qualify.

Speaking of walking and going astray, these ancient holy words of the prophet Jeremias are perfectly applicable to the Bergoglian circus: “Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see and ask for the old paths which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: we will not walk” (Jer 6:16).

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