On 10 February 2013, you suffer an accident and enter into a deep coma.
Today you awoke, miraculously cured.
You know absolutely nothing about what has transpired in the world since the day of your accident, at which time all of the following statements were demonstrably true:
Hillary Clinton is against so-called “gay marriage.” The mere idea of Donald Trump as POTUS is laughable. Also, Donald Trump is not a Russian asset. No one has ever heard of “Fake News.” CNN is a marginally credible news source. The UK is part of the EU. The Philadelphia Eagles have never won a Super Bowl.
All of these things are now demonstrably false, except one, and that is Donald Trump is still not a Russian asset. Well, that’s assuming Brexit is “allowed” to happen. Tell me, which of these things would you be most surprised about? Probably that Donald Trump is POTUS, but I bet the Eagles are also high on the list.
Okay, that was a diversion. On with the thought experiment.
On 10 Feb 2013, Benedict was pope. But what if the first thing you saw upon awakening was this video of another prelate in white, yanking his hand away as the faithful try to reverence the ring, the symbol of the papal OFFICE. HERE and then I explained to you that yes, shockingly, this really is the guy currently recognized as Christ’s Vicar on Earth.
Watch the video, if you haven’t already. Remember, these people are NOT reverencing the person, they are reverencing the OFFICE. Except he doesn’t hold the OFFICE. You don’t think there is some sort of significance to him doing this so publicly, with the camera literally three feet away from him? Dare I say, even something supernatural, perhaps?
If you have ever done any kind of television work, or done any sort of public speaking that involves cameras, you know that no matter how many times you’ve done it, you are always keenly aware of that camera being right there, almost like a violation of personal space. There is an inescapable and constant awareness of its presence. There is absolutely no way to “forget” you are on camera, and mistakenly get “caught” doing something you didn’t want people to see.
The video is jarring, isn’t it? There is something that makes it very uncomfortable to watch. It’s almost like watching an act of violence, in a sense.
There is another thing to watch for, which was even clearer in a longer version of the video that now I can’t find: He not only yanks away the ring hand, but he also redirects the faithful reverence to his OTHER HAND. The effect is that they are reverencing the man, not the office. Mafia style.
Don Bergoglio, having been informed of the disturbance caused by the video, sent out an underling yesterday to report to the world that this “amused” him. He finds it amusing. Knowing that biggest rush for a diabolical narcissist is not in committing the criminal act, but in the GETTING AWAY WITH IT, how much more obvious could he be making it for us?
Now what if I told you that the guy in the video usurped power via a “conclave” where a group of thugs conspired to rig the “election,” that Benedict is very much still alive, living inside the Vatican, wearing white and called “His Holiness”, because he believes the acceptance of the papacy is “always and forever”, and that he did not resign the papal munus in his abdication speech, but only tried to resign the active ministry, which means the abdication was defective and not properly manifested and likely with substantial error and under grave fear, all of these being violations of canon law, which means the conclave never took place but only appeared to, and then what if I gave you just a generalized rundown of the Bergoglian antipapacy heretical proofset of him NOT enjoying the supernatural protection promised by our Lord in Luke 22:32, and then I threw in the reminder about Matt 24:22.
What would you conclude, based on the evidence which you’ve been presented?
Thus ends today’s thought experiment.
Author: Mark Docherty
Guest Post: A Friendly Challenge to Robert Siscoe
From frequent combox contributor, “Smith.”
——————————–
A Friendly Challenge To Robert Siscoe
When your reality depends on lies and deception, liberal tears will flow (video)
Russia, Russia, not so much.
Rachel Maddow, boo to the hoo.
https://twitter.com/jackposobiec/status/1109467146839568388?s=21
Quick lesson in humility
By the grace of God, I’ve managed to get back into the habit of daily Mass. It really is a wonderful thing. Sometimes it can be difficult with my travel schedule, and it’s easy to make excuses for yourself if you want to.
Today my only option was an N.O. parish of the Strict Observance. Pictures of liturgical dancers and Santa on the altar promoted on their website, which I was tempted to post the pics but I will spare you. Presider/masonic sanctuary set-up in a once beautiful old church with the high altar ripped out. Confession Saturday only, 3:30-3:45pm (I’m not making this up).
I really didn’t want to go.
Then the thought dawned on me (grace): “You pathetic, pride-filled monster.”
I mean, if our Lord and Savior still lowers Himself to come down on that altar in that setting, and my response is that He’s not worth it if I have to endure even the slightest tinge of suffering or discomfort? Effeminacy much? And I seriously think I’m really prepared to be a martyr?
Anyway, I went. He was there. He helped me grow a little closer to Him today.
AMDG
Honestly, I’m not making this up.
Almost as if it was in cue to follow my post which immediately precedes this one, Robert Siscoe at 1P5 opines,
“Dogmatic Fact: The One Doctrine that Proves Francis Is Pope”
HERE.
His error was refuted in my post immediately below.
Be sure to click the link for the pure gold in the combox content while you can, for it is sure to be deleted soon.
Calumnious projection, circular reasoning, and the law of non-contradiction
A video was posted a few days ago by Steve Skojec at 1P5 HERE.
It seems a response is in order.
A transcript has helpfully been provided by the author, so if I just cut and paste, at least I won’t be accused of hearing wrongly, am I right? Wasting no time, it takes all of 0:00:34 seconds to invoke the tactic of Projection:
“…we’ve got an in-house problem…It’s rooted in this battle over who the real pope is — Benedict or Francis — and what the repercussions of each choice are. But it goes deeper than that because it makes certain folks think it’s okay to calumniate or attack anyone who disagrees with them…“
Boy, I’ll say. Specifically, the accusation leveled against those who believe with moral certainty that Benedict is pope is that we are “crazy.” Steve has lobbed the “crazy” diagnosis more times than I can count over the past two years. If you ever look at twitter, you know. Anyone who dares question the Skojec magisterium is immediately attacked, usually without any rational argument, but only with shouts of “insane.” Frank Walker of canon212.com is one of the more recent victims, and it is great to see Frank fighting back (seeking a second opinion on his diagnosis, you might say). Speaking of diagnosis, a few months ago Steve’s dance partner Hilary White even went so far as to literally faux diagnose Ann Barnhardt with a specific mental illness (Borderline Personality Disorder), publicly on facebook. Those comments were eventually deleted, but not before being captured for posterity. So on this point, I agree with Steve, “it makes certain folks think it’s okay to calumniate or attack anyone who disagrees with them.”
Later in the video, Steve calls the idea Benedict is still pope “madness”, and goes on to call anyone who might believe this as being: Schismatic, heretics, sedevacantists, Protestants, and finally, Satan. Yes, he compares the actions of those who dare point out the obvious irregularities of the current situation to the actual non serviam of Satan. I’m not going to reprint those words here, so go ahead and check the video/transcript at 00:13:14. Please click the link and read/listen to the whole thing.
But the real reason for this post is to muse about circular arguments and the law of non-contradiction, so let’s not get distracted by a little calumnious projection that has almost certainly risen to the level of mortal sin. On to the main event.
We start with some rational circuity related to the faithful having no right to examine the evidence and draw conclusions, in honest pursuit of truth:
[00:02:08] “And what I think is and has always been that Francis is a problem. A big one. That he represents a danger to the Church…I am not now nor will I ever be barring some massive conversion on his part, a Francis defender… (But) we’ve made clear that it’s wrong for us to decide for ourselves. However much we feel that we have moral certitude that the pope is anyone other than who the Church says he is. The only thing I’m doing is the same thing I’ve always done: I tell people what I believe the truth is even if they don’t want to hear it.”
This argument can be paraphrased as: “Francis is a danger to the Church (and thus a danger to souls), but it’s just wrong to point out facts which might better explain the reality of the situation, and thus help those souls struggling with their faith. It’s wrong unless you’re me, because I’m always going to tell people what I believe the truth is.”
Are you getting a feel for where this is going?
[00:03:40] “…Now people don’t want to hear that Benedict isn’t the Pope. But it’s also true. And we know that because the Church is the only authority on earth who can state unequivocally who the pope is. And she has told us that Francis is the Vicar of Christ. The cardinal electors were unanimous in their acceptance of him. The sitting bishops of the world have not raised a finger to oppose the validity of his election…[00:07:44] The Church has always held that the election of a pope is what is known as a dogmatic fact…We need to know that the guy the Church says is the pope is the pope because otherwise we can’t trust anything he says…[00:10:09] If we can’t trust that the man the church says is pope is pope, then the governance of the Church falls into chaos…There are no take backs, not even for bad popes…[00:12:41] So I will say now again what I’ve said countless times before: If we cannot trust the Church to tell us who the pope is, we cannot trust her to tell us anything that we must believe…”
Paraphrasing, “The Church has universally accepted “Francis” as pope, and since the Church is indefectible, he must really be pope.”
That sounds so beautiful, so simple. Roma locuta est, causa finita est.
But here is where that nasty law of non-contradiction comes into play:
[00:14:31] “Perhaps someday…the Church will declare Francis to be an antipope. Perhaps someday his entire papacy or at least large swaths of it will be condemned by a future pope or even an ecumenical council. It’s happened before. Perhaps this disaster can only be sorted out by Our Blessed Lord Himself through an act of divine intervention we have not yet even imagined. But I’ll tell you this: if Catholicism is true we know that the influence of this pontificate in many essential things will have to be rooted out and refuted. Knowing this in the present moment as this is unfolding, as the crisis goes on, and seeing that no action is being taken is maddening…But we have a choice to make however difficult we find it if we wish to be sons of the Church, we must take our mother at her word…”
Wait, what?
It’s hard to paraphrase, because the argument is so turned in on itself, but it goes something like this: “The Church is indefectible, and the Church says “Francis” is pope, therefore he is pope. It’s dogmatic. But in the future, the Church could declare “Francis” to be an antipope, and his entire “pontificate” expunged, which would also be dogmatic. But for now, we have to sit and do nothing, be sons of the Church, yada yada.”
If the above statement were true, it would mean Truth could change, and it would mean two contradictory states could both be true. Witness the internal conflict and violation of the Law of non-contradiction of Steve’s pounding insistence that the Church cannot defect with regards to the identity of the Pope, and then claim two minutes later that in the future the Church could declare that it totally DID DEFECT in calling Bergoglio the Pope and then declare he was an antipope. As if he is true pope today because indefectibility, but tomorrow he could be antipope because… indefectibility! Do you see that both of these things can’t be true? This logic suggests it is simultaneously IMPOSSIBLE and POSSIBLE for the Church to defect. The Church is both defectible and indefectible.
Now, should a future meeting of cardinals or a council at some point declare Bergoglio an antipope, and they do so by reason that the conclave that elected him was invalid, due to the failed abdication of Benedict, then said council would be declaring he NEVER WAS POPE and that Benedict never stopped being pope. Despite appearances, acceptances, etc, IT NEVER HAPPENED. If only we didn’t have to wait for some future council, and we had a few live prelates walking around right now who might want to defend their mother.
Please click the link and do go read/listen to it all. I’ve omitted many paragraphs out of brevity. He offers several paragraphs with supporting evidence for the validity of Benedict’s abdication, including quotes from the Seewald interview where Benedict claimed, inter alia, that he was forced to continue wearing white because no other clothes were available… a claim which (wink) REALLY lends weight to anything else he might have said. But there are also quotes from saints and other sources that do lend some credibility to his arguments, just very weak IMO when levered against the eternal fate of souls.
The man who drove Natacha Jaitt to the place she died has some splainin to do
Raúl Velaztiqui Duarte, 47, was Jaitt’s friend and producer. The businessman lied to investigators on three occasions about the circumstances surrounding her death at the facility, according to Buenos Aires province’s Attorney General Julio Conte Grand.
“There were some noticeable contradictions in the declarations he made yesterday…”
And it wasn’t *just* the false/contradictory statements. There is security video of Duarte lifting Jaitt’s cell phone from the scene after her demise, concealing it in a towel and absconding.
Source link HERE. Barnhardt commentary HERE.
Oh yes, I know all the cool kids already have this all figured out. She was a former prostitute and drug user. She was a trainwreck, so who cares if she said she had damning evidence on Gustavo Vera AND DOZENS OF OTHER “CELEBRITIES” WHO ENJOY KIDDIE RAPE. So what that the trial in which she was supposed to testify was set to begin this week. Stop being such a conspiracy nut about literally everything, won’t you? Didn’t you see that the coroner immediately declared a drug overdose HERE.? I mean, it would be super duper hard for someone capable of murder (or contracting a murder) to pay off an Argentinian coroner, right? And again she was a whore or former whore, so she has no credibility anyway, so shut up.
Really? Allow me to cast her situation in a different light. Jaitt was not only a prostitute and porn model, but proud of it, with certainly no moral qualms, and then an outspoken fighter for the rights of “sex-workers” after her own departure. What would it take for a person like this to be so full of legit moral outrage so to risk her own life to bring justice to these scum? It wasn’t blackmail, because you don’t execute blackmail by publicly accusing your targets. It’s much more likely that what she learned, what she saw, or what she had physical evidence of, was so sickening that even for a person like Jaitt, it was WAY WAY WAY over the line. If you follow this line of reasoning, her background actually makes her MORE credible.
I don’t know the truth of this case, but fishy is as fishy does. #Contrails #FlatEarth
And then there was this…
Gustavo Vera, Jeffrey Sachs featured speakers at Mar. 4-5, 2019 Vatican conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on: "Transport Union & Manufacturers Summit: Climate Change, Human Trafficking, Technology & Transport." Journalists not invited to working sessions. pic.twitter.com/y3P97Ej5fB
— Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) March 5, 2019
Lent is upon us. Don’t waste it. Be the tip of the spear.
You are merciful to all, O Lord,
and despise nothing that you have made.
You overlook people’s sins, to bring them to repentance,
and you spare them, for you are the Lord our God.
Wisdom 11:24,25,27; from the Introit for Ash Wednesday
Lent is upon us. Don’t waste it. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.
“Secure your own mask first, before helping others.”
That same day, I went off to Confession, as I had already planned to do. The penance was totally focused on the need to pray for my own needs, and really making it a priority. The priest asked me if I had prayed my daily Rosary yet, and I told him I had not (I love that at the FSSP parish, it’s just assumed you’re praying a daily Rosary). He instructed me to go offer my Rosary, entrusting to our Blessed Mother the channeling of all necessary graces for my spiritual benefit.
The podcast and the Confession should both have been a big wake up call. But the full gravity of the situation didn’t really hit me until about halfway through that Rosary when I realized, slap upside the head, I actually could not remember the last time I prayed the Rosary entirely for myself. The Holy Ghost always knows when you need a slap upside the head. Now you already know how much I love the Rosary, so you can imagine how odd this seemed to me. I mean, obviously I’ve prayed a decade or two as a penance, for an increase in this virtue or that, but a whole Rosary just for me? I can’t remember the last time, and that’s a real problem.
In Spiritual Warfare, the Rosary is a weapon of mass destruction. I’ve written about it many times in these pages. It’s a real weapon, not a metaphorical weapon. So much so, it almost seems selfish to offer it entirely for yourself. But it’s never selfish to pray for yourself, so long as your intention is in accord with God’s will. And we need not worry about petitioning something against His will, because He’s not granting that anyway. Of course in the individual prayers of the Rosary, the Our Fathers and Hail Marys, we are praying for ourselves within those prayers. But what I am talking about here are specific, personal, spiritual intentions beyond what is asked in those prayers.
I would be willing to bet that most Catholics who are somewhat secure in their faith, who are honestly trying to live authentic Christian lives, and who have managed by the grace of God to overcome a whole bunch of entrenched wretchedness, don’t pray for themselves nearly enough. We foolishly think we’ve extracted ourselves permanently from said wretchedness and we’re now “saved”. Not in the proddy sense of “once saved always saved”, but rather in the sense of “thanks to my hard conversion/reversion to the one true faith, even though I still fall sometimes, and even though I’m totally unworthy of the honor, I am now on the side of the angels and God will surely grant me final perseverance.”
Oh man, that is so dangerous. It’s for very good reason that Jesus taught us to pray to the Father to deliver us not into temptation, and that we ask Mary to pray for us at the hour of our death. It’s for very good reason that in the Roman Canon itself, during the Hanc Igitur, the priest and faithful pray to be saved from eternal damnation and be counted among the elect. Damnation is a real possibility if we so choose it, and “once saved always saved” is one of the most pernicious lies ever told. If you are truly living an authentic Christian life, Satan views you as a hard target; he knows he needs to deploy extra resources to bring you down, and deploy he will. He’s already won the soft targets without even trying, so he’s got extra munitions reserved for you. Meditate on the blitzkrieg he has planned for the hour of your death. Be terrified by this, and use the terror to build your counterattack.
With everything that’s going on right now, all of the “confusion” surrounding all aspects of the Bergolian antipapacy, Satan is squealing with delight and has launched a huge offensive. Bergoglio himself is a soft target for Satan, easily manipulated and used to destroy souls on a horrific scale. He is a soft target not only because he is an arch-heretic and profoundly stupid, but because he does not have the supernatural protection afforded to the holder of the Petrine office, due to his invalid election. Now, when this is the unmistakable reality of the Catholic Church today, the one true Church founded by God Incarnate, do you think perhaps the effects of this might be rather… widespread? The past nearly five years since the failed partial resignation of Pope Benedict has literally been, pun intended, a huge coming out party for all manner of perversion and reprobation; a spiraling tempest of filth. Do you want a sense of how long ago five years was? Five years ago, Hillary Clinton was campaigning AGAINST same-sex “marriage.” Yeah. The ever quickening pace of events across all sectors of civilization is so breathtaking, you would be delusional to think it’s not all connected. The demonic activity is everywhere and is even palpable at times. PALPABLE. Have you felt it? Every solid priest I speak with confirms they feel it too.
So there is certainly no shortage of things to pray about. And while some of this is about prioritization, it’s also about recognizing your role at the tip of the spear. We need to militantly pursue our own spiritual perfection first and foremost. It might not seem right when it first hits your ear, but if we are too busy praying for everyone else at the expense of praying for ourselves, it does everyone a disservice. This may sound uncharitable or lacking humility, but that’s not the case, because it necessarily means expanding our own prayer life. The mere fact that you are here, reading this tiny, tiny blog right now, means you are probably the tip of the spear. Proper training is essential. By calling down these graces in petition, and cooperating with them, our own increase in holiness in turn makes our prayers for others more efficacious. Everybody wins.
You are part of a very small, elite, specialized unit. This is the greatest battle ever fought, because the results of this battle are eternal. You need to be on your game.
St Michael the Archangel, pray for us
St Joan of Arc, pray for us
St Martin of Tours, pray for us
St Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us
Christ, have mercy on us
REBLOG: “The judge who fails the criminal in punishment himself incurs a greater guilt.”
If you don’t think CCC#675 is in play right now, think again. We’ve reached the point where the Vatican is attempting to deflect from the infestation of moral decay within the episcopate by publishing heresy in the Catechism. This is the Antichurch in ascendancy.
The death penalty is not unjust, it is just. It is not unmerciful, it is merciful. It is a means of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation. It forces the penitent (that’s why it’s called a ‘penitentiary’) to reflect more deeply on his sins as his time draws near, and hopefully experience a conversion. Justice demands this. Failing to dispense proportional punishment for a criminal act, is itself a criminal act. But for someone who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, doesn’t believe in the eternal life of the soul, none of this makes sense.
Anyway, I’m short on time, and Ann has already put up a bunch of proofs from Doctors or the Church and others. The title quote is from the brilliant John Senior, whom I’ve quoted many times on this site. Read it all HERE.
And then there was this,
It would be INSANE to suggest a valid pontiff could reverse 2000 years of doctrine, AMIRIGHT?
It’s said that everyone has their breaking point. Anyone who continues on the “Pope Francis” train past this station should be prepared to start questioning their own sanity. How many times do you need to see the law of non-contradiction *seemingly* broken, before you start to scratch your head and think, “Wait, that can’t happen”?
You know how someone should have told Luther that you can’t just rip out the parts of the bible you don’t like, and you can’t change the verses to better suit your liking? Well, someone should have told the Argentinian the same thing about the Catechism of the Catholic Church, because not only did he change it, but now he has driven a stake through it.
Conveniently, Diane Montagna has put together a powerhouse follow-up to her initial reportage yesterday of the Bergoglian Faux Mercy Machine on the Death Penalty HERE. Thank God for the work she is doing at LifeSite, since the general media blackout otherwise continues unabated. Her piece is a must read. (UPDATE 1 March 2019 Diane followed up again today amidst the latest row with more commentary from Feser and is a MUST READ HERE.
She first captures commentary by Edward Feser, and then she brings in an anonymous theologian: Dominican vs Argentinian in a steel cage death match. It’s a rather lopsided battle. Next up is a Catholic historian, Dr. Alan Fimister, who ends the scene by quoting the great Elizabeth Anscombe. Turns out Anscombe vs Argentinian is pretty decisive as well.
God is immutable. The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is immutable. It’s not that difficult a concept. When true popes teach, they document their orthodoxy by generously footnoting key points with references to Scripture, Fathers, Doctors, and past popes. A true pope goes out of his way to point out, “Hey, this isn’t new.” Go to vatican.va and pull up any document from any past pope. You will quickly see, this is how it’s done.
What can one say about a “Bishop of Rome” who claims the One True Faith was wrong – long on justice and short on mercy, with an immature conscience – from 33 A.D. to 2013 A.D. How could he contradict scripture, Tradition, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and all of his “predecessors’? How can he deliberately misquote Aquinas (as he did in Amoris Laetitia as well) in trying to get support for his utterly novel teaching (which a scholar of ten years old can discover in ten seconds that Aquinas teaches exactly the opposite, and he does it in Articles 2-3 of the very same Question 64 that the Argentinian cites HERE.)
Imagine how profoundly UNPROTECTED one must be from the supernatural graces our Lord and Savior promised to Peter and his successors, to wake up one morning and decide to take on Saint Thomas Aquinas and invert his teachings. Imagine then GETTING AWAY WITH IT, cue the accompanying endorphin rush, BECAUSE SILENCE.
Oh yes, BTW he is still Argentinian, you know. Renewed his Argentinian passport, even though he’s the purported Head of State of a different sovereign entity. It’s almost like a sign, or something. He also doesn’t live where popes live. He also doesn’t wear what popes wear. He also doesn’t give the apostolic blessing like popes do. He also likes to be called bishop, not pope. Nothing to see here.
“A disgraceful display of excuses and evasions”
You know the old saying, “When you’ve lost WaPo…”
Pope Francis’s (sic) closing address to the Vatican Summit on Child Protection was a disgraceful display of excuses and evasions. He began with extended meditation on how a “great number of” abuse cases are “committed within families.” He urged the assembled bishops to focus on “other forms of abuse” experienced by “child soldiers,” “starving children,” “child victims of war” and “refugee children.” He laid out an agenda that, bizarrely, focused on matters have nothing to do with clerical abuse (such as combating “sexual tourism”). And, most shamefully of all, he lashed out at those demanding that bishops who covered up abuse and silenced victims be held to account, declaring that the church must “rise above” those who “exploit, for various interests, the very tragedy experienced by the little ones.”
Sorry, Holy Father, that’s not good enough.
Read the rest HERE.
Another worthy dissection of the whole sham comes from Chris Ferrara:
On and on Francis goes regarding the sexual abuse of minors around the world as shown by “statistics… drawn up by various national and international organizations and agencies (the WHO, UNICEF, INTERPOL, EUROPOL and others)” which “do not represent the real extent of the phenomenon, which is often underestimated, mainly because many cases of the sexual abuse of minors go unreported, particularly the great number committed within families.”
…
It took considerable gall for Francis to state further that “those who perpetrate abuse, that is acts of physical, sexual or emotional violence, are primarily parents, relatives, husbands of child brides, coaches and teachers. Furthermore, according to the UNICEF data of 2017 regarding 28 countries throughout the world, 9 out of every 10 girls who have had forced sexual relations reveal that they were victims of someone they knew or who was close to their family.”
Francis deplores “acts of violence … in the home, but also in neighbourhoods, schools, athletic facilities and, sadly, also in church settings.” Also in Church settings! The homosexual abuse of minors by Catholic clerics is here presented as a mere “oh, by the way.”
Read the rest HERE,
The mainstream coverage in the U.S. has been absolutely brutal. CNN actually stopped talking about Russia for two minutes so they could cover this story. I wish I could find video from FoxNews Monday night, not sure if it was Tucker or Martha but there was a short panel segment that was just devastating in its condemnation of the Bergoglian cohort. It was clear the group understood that we are not dealing with mere incompetence, but rather intentional deflection, inaction, and continued cover-up, including from Bergoglio himself.
It may be some kind of turning point.