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Their website still uses “Sovereign”, but I’m sure the IT people are working on it.
The text of the letter confirming the acceptance of the forced resignation of Grand Master Festing is HERE. It is a total capitulation to Francis, not only on the resignation but also by agreeing to nullify all decrees since the suspension of Boeselager.

“Subsequently, the Sovereign Council presided over by the Lieutenant ad interim annulled the decrees establishing the disciplinary procedures against Albrecht Boeselager and the suspension of his membership in the Order. Albrecht Boeselager resumes his office as Grand Chancellor immediately.”

Not only is his suspension lifted, he’s back in the office of Grand Chancellor.
Then they (Francis ghostwriting) just had to end the letter with this:

“The Sovereign Order of Malta is most grateful to Pope Francis and the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin for their interest in and care for the Order. The Order appreciates that the Holy Father’s decisions were all carefully taken with regard to and respect for the Order, with a determination to strengthen its sovereignty.”

Because Francis cannot resist claiming something to be true which is 100% the opposite of true.
I cannot imagine what transpired in the meeting earlier this week between Festing and Francis, which lasted less than 30 minutes.  The result of the meeting was Festing offering his resignation, Francis accepting, and Francis then forcing Festing to write it down, among other things.  Let’s say these things took twenty minutes. That means whatever Francis had on Festing must have been so devastating, it took less than ten minutes to lay it out in convincing fashion, such that Festing was left with his head spinning.  Have you ever been left your head spinning, either by physical harm or by receiving devastating news? Your cognitive ability goes to zero and you literally have no idea what just hit you.
However, the fact that Festing did not retract his resignation once he came to his senses, or anytime before today’s meeting, confirms that the blackmail must have been totally over the top. For Festing to think that what transpired to day is somehow “for the good of the Church”, well, the alternative must be truly horrifying.
All eyes are certainly now on Cardinal Burke. Pray that the formal correction to the non answered Dubia comes quickly, because a further demotion is surely on the way (the See of Juneau is currently vacant). The entirely swirling mess continues to accelerate. I feel like I’m in a room with one of those singularity spheres from The Arrival.

I try not to draw attention to myself or offer too much personal information. I try to simply point to the truth and call out error. But today I will offer a private reflection.
I was nervous all day.
From the long wait at the White House, the exit through the corridors with what seemed to be a whole lot of people who didn’t need to be there, out to the motorcade.
The swearing in, the speech, the luncheon, the delays.  I just wanted it to be over.
Standing on the steps of the Capital, reviewing the troops, a 240 year tradition. Out in the open. I just wanted it to be over.
I continued with the parade.  Trump exited the Cadillac MRAP to walk for bit, as presidents do. Most vulnerable moment, with no bulletproof glass and dozens of viewing points with elevated positions.
Finally, they reached the reviewing stand. Bulletproof AF. Relax.
The last thing I watched was General Mattis being sworn in as SecDef at 7:43pm Eastern Standard Time.  The adults are back in charge. AMDG.
I don’t know where it goes from here, but it could have been a lot worse.
 

I wrote these words barely six weeks ago, on the First Sunday of Advent. The situation in Malta raises the level of urgency by several degrees, because the Dubia Cardinals now know that souls are at immediate risk. With the Holy See complicit in the crime, more diocese will certainly follow. The correction will be forthcoming quickly from +Burke et al., which will of course be made public after Francis refuses to respond. Then comes the schism, when the 99% of Catholics who are blissfully unaware of what is what are going to be awakened overnight.
Anyway, here is some more from that post. The past few days have made it more relevant than it was even a few weeks ago:

“Are you keeping track of everything? Are you starting to get the hint that we are not living in normal times, and that more is required of you at this moment? What are you personally doing about it?
You need to prep harder. While there are plenty of other considerations…we will focus on the spiritual realm. No other preparedness makes any difference if you aren’t prepping your soul. As we prepare for the coming of the Lord every Advent by making a spiritual renewal, the current events swirling around us lend a greater urgency to the matter.
We have Francis, fount of heresy, squatting on the throne of Peter. We have Benedict, also dressed in white, who at times remains silent and at time offers great praise to Francis. Francis has promulgated heresy in a magisterial document, Amoris Laetitia. In this same document, Francis tries to support his heretical positions by lying about what former popes have taught, and claiming that his teaching is aligned with theirs. Cardinals are rightly attacking Francis for his heresy, and demanding answers. Cardinal Burke explains that no answer is the same as answering wrongly, and will bring additional sanctions. Unless there is some miraculous conversion of the Francis, there is only one way this is going.
The Church is about to descend into a war like nothing seen before, and you are not ready for it. You must prepare your soul for this war. The Rosary is a great, great weapon.  If you don’t already say it every day, you need to start right now, today.  You can’t imagine the graces that flow from this practice.  Just do it. You will then find yourself drawn more into prayer – adoration, petition and thanksgiving – throughout the day. Unite your prayers to the sacrificial offering of Christ on the Cross, and beg the intercession of the saints.. Then start helping your family and friends understand the reality of the situation. Teach them that prayer isn’t nothing. So many people think prayer is literally “the least we can do.”  That is incorrect.  Prayer is huge.
You will be attacked by a relentless foe. The father of lies, upon seeing you engaged in the pursuit of sanctity, redoubles his efforts to destroy you. You will be shocked by your temptations even as you proceed on the path toward holiness.  Just remember, no matter how frequent the attacks, God is always sending you more than enough grace to abide. You have to decide, today, to prepare the way and begin your counterattack.
You will also be attacked in the spiritual realm by your brethren. We now know that among these will be “Catholics”. You will be greatly outnumbered. You may have to flee your parish. You may be driven from your parish. You may be driven from your diocese.We are talking about open schism here, and you will be seen as being ON THE WRONG SIDE.
Not to mention, the entirety of secular society will be against you. The schism that has been simmering for three and a half 50 years is about to boil over into a very public spectacle that will captivate the whole world.
Are you starting to understand how bad this is going to be? And don’t you dare try to avoid it, because this is exactly what is necessary.  All of this is necessary, and it is for the best. Francis is awesome, because we never could have gotten to the hot war this fast without him. God created your soul to be born into the world at this hour. Cloak your soul in the armor of God, and figure out what your role is in all of this.”

Read the rest HERE.

The instruction from the Maltese bishops on the implementation of AL includes ideas such as:  Conscience trumps doctrine, self adjudication of penitents, Commandments are merely “Ideals” that are impossible to live by, etc.
This announcement was made 13 January 2017, exactly 47o years after these same issues were settled for all time, in the wake of the Lutheran heresies:

The Canons And Decrees Of The Council Of Trent

SESSION THE SIXTH
13  January 1547
DECREE CONCERNING JUSTIFICATION

CHAPTER IX–Against the Vain Confidence of Heretics

But, although it be necessary to believe that sins neither are remitted, nor ever have been remitted, save freely, by the divine mercy for Christ’s sake; yet is it not to be said, that sins are forgiven, or have been forgiven, to any one who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and rests on that alone; since it may exist, yea, does in our time exist, among heretics and schismatics; and with great earnestness is this confidence, vain, and remote from all piety, preached up in opposition to the Catholic Church…

CHAPTER XI–On the Keeping of the Commandments, and on the Necessity and Possibility thereof.

But no one, how much soever justified, ought to think himself free from the observance of the commandments; no one ought to make use of that rash saying, prohibited by the fathers under an anathema; that the commandments of God are impossible for one that is justified to observe. For God commands not impossibilities, but, by commanding, admonishes thee both to do what thou art able, and to pray for what thou art not able, and aids thee that thou mayest be able; whose commandments are not grievous; whose yoke is sweet and whose burden light…

CANON XII. If any one shall say, that justifying faith is nought else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or that it is this confidence alone by which we are justified; let him be anathema.

CANON XIV. If any one shall say, that man is absolved from his sins and justified, because he assuredly believed himself to be absolved and justified… let him be anathema.

CANON XVIII. If any one shall say, that the commandments of God are, even for a man that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.

You can read all this and more at a blog post from shortly after the release of AL HERE.  I concluded with this:

Time for choosing, boys and girls.  Which Church do YOU belong to?  This one here was founded by Jesus Christ. It’s worth fighting for.

 
 

“If, as a result of the process of discernment, undertaken with “humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it” (AL 300), a separated or divorced person who is living in a new relationship manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she are at peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (see AL, notes 336 and 351).” HERE

So much for Nemo iudex in causa sua. If you believe you are “at peace with God”, you’re good to go.  Like John Lennon singing “All we are saying is, Give Peace a Chance.” Because hey, the idea that what makes a thing true is if you believe it to be true is SO CATHOLIC.
Ed Peters has the wrap HERE:

“The bishops of Malta, in a document that can only be called disastrous, repeatedly invoking Pope Francis’ Amoris laetitia, have directly approved divorced and remarried Catholics taking holy Communion provided they feel “at peace with God”. Unlike, say, the Argentine document on Amoris which, one could argue, left just enough room for an orthodox reading, however widely it also left the doors open for abuse by others, the Maltese bishops in their document come straight out and say it: holy Communion is for any Catholic who feels “at peace with God” and the Church’s ministers may not say No to such requests. In my view the Maltese bishops have effectively invited the Catholics entrusted to them (lay faithful and clergy alike!) to commit a number of objectively gravely evil acts. That their document was, moreover, published in L’Osservatore Romano, exacerbates matters for it deprives Vatican representatives of the ‘plausible deniability’ that they could have claimed (and might soon enough wish they could claim), as it becomes known that the Maltese bishops went beyond what even Amoris, if interpreted narrowly, seemed to permit.”

He gets into a couple of the finer points you should go read about. A couple of my own:

1. “The Maltese bishops have effectively invited Catholics…to commit a number of gravely evil acts…”  There is nothing “effectively” about it. For the laity in these situations, it’s an open invitation to do just that. It would be more accurate to say that it turns the implicit instruction of AL into an explicit invitation.
2. Worse, for the clergy involved, it will be a command – a command to knowingly desecrate at least three sacraments, which will be enforced with an iron fist. It doesn’t simply abrogate Canon 915, it inverts it. Think about it. The penitent adjudicates the matter and then demands the sacraments be administered.
3. That the document was published in L’Osservatore Romano was most certainly by design; an open endorsement from the Holy See.

I have been thinking a lot about reblogging my posts leading up to the release of AL and in its immediate aftermath. With a lot more people now waking up to what is going on, I think it might be beneficial. This concrete action by the Maltese bishops reminded me of something I wrote the day before AL came out, which is really beginning to ring true HERE:

“On Friday morning, each and every Catholic bishop in the world will need to rise, put on a strong pot of coffee, read the Exhortation, and make a series of decisions which will directly affect the vector of many, many souls, foremost his own.
He must decide whether or not  his diocese will endorse the sacrilege, which presumably would entail erecting structures and programs to circumvent the reality of Matthew 19:9. If he chooses to not overtly endorse it, but rather stay quiet and do nothing, well, that’s nearly the same thing as endorsing it. Inaction is action.
Or he could publicly denounce the document and call out its authors and endorsers.  How many will?
Beyond the particular issue at hand, Communion for those guilty of obstinate unrepentant mortal sin, and the horrific sacrilege being demanded from bishops and priests, we have another problem.  Leaving the solutions up to each individual diocese isn’t collegiality, it’s anarchy.  Have these people learned nothing from the Anglicans?
Matters of Faith and Morals are the Truth itself.  Truth cannot vary from diocese to diocese.  This is third grade catechism.
Pray intensely for your bishop.  Pray for your priests.  War is coming.”

On the bright side, at least the pretenses of the last 50 years are now out of the way and the war is finally here.

Damian Thompson at UK Spectator HERE:

“Bergoglio divides the church into those who are with him and those who are against him — and if he thinks you’re in the latter camp then he’ll come after you,” says a priest who works in the curia.
‘Bergoglio’, note: he doesn’t even call him ‘Francis’. Tellingly, this priest used to be a fervent supporter of some of the Pope’s administrative reforms and he doesn’t look back nostalgically at the reign of Benedict, whom he blames for neglecting his papal duties.
But, like so many Vatican employees, he’s sick of Francis’s habit of telling the entire Roman curia that they are modern-day Pharisees — an analogy that casts the Argentinian pontiff in the role of Jesus.

He also talks about the ritualistic fake humility with which Francis tried to cloak his papacy from the beginning, though Thompson still can’t bring himself to call him out for it, as if a different person did these things.

A man who, when he took office, seemed endearingly informal — paying his own bill at his hotel, refusing to live in the Apostolic Palace, making surprise phone calls to members of the public — now cuts a less sympathetic figure.

Ahem, perhaps it’s time to view these antics as part of the PLAN??
And then there was this:

…right up until the end, Benedict was always ‘the Holy Father’. That title has almost dropped out of use inside the Vatican under Francis, at least in everyday conversation. And, when you hear it, there is an edge of sarcasm. For example: ‘As the Holy Father so wisely says, we all have a natural tendency to eat shit.’ The priest in question is no fan of Francis. But the fact is that the Pope did say it — in public. Last month, he told the media to stop spreading fake stories because ‘people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia’. Which means eating excrement.

The mainstreaming of coprophagia, ladies and gentlemen.

Cardinal Mueller seeks to clarify the situation around Amoris Laetitia and proceeds to… make things even more confusing? HERE

“In the German cardinal’s eyes “Amoris Laetitia is very clear in its doctrine and [in it] we can interpret [sic] the whole doctrine of Jesus concerning marriage, the whole doctrine of the Church of 2000 years history.” Moreover, for Pope Francis, it is all about “discerning the situation of those people who live in irregular [sic] unions” and thus about helping them to “find a new integration into the Church according to the conditions of the Sacraments and according to the Christian message on marriage.” Cardinal Müller adds that he does “not see any contradiction: on the one side we have the clear doctrine on marriage, on the other the obligation of the Church to help those persons in difficulties.””

Well… of course! Why didn’t you say it like this before?! Now I see it is perfectly understandable!
No.
If you read through the whole thing, I think +Mueller’s strategy here (the clear part, anyway) is somewhat along the lines of what +Chaput and +Olmsted have proclaimed. That is, Amoris Laetitia cannot possibly have changed doctrine because Amoris Laetitia cannot possibly have changed doctrine. Which is a demonstrably true statement, since doctrine cannot be changed. But of course the issue here is whether it attempted to change doctrine or otherwise change disciplines in a way that radically departs from sound doctrine, or even inverts it.  And we all know the answer to that.
As I have been writing in recent weeks, the final appeal of Francis will be an appeal to Heaven, to a false transcendence that supersedes doctrine for the sake of (false) mercy, with the added benefit of declaring those who hold to the true doctrines as devils and heretics.
The almost daily back and forth among prelates as this accelerates toward whatever it’s accelerating towards is truly breathtaking, even as it has suddenly become commonplace. Avoid the temptation to ignore them just because at times it’s hard to keep up.  These volleys and sorties will be, unless this really is the final chastisement, replayed by historians for a thousand years. We are living through the brick by brick final act of nuChurch, and you have a front row seat.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Gen 11:3-9 (NIV)

That was then, this is now.  We shall see.

Cardinal Tobin was installed at Newark yesterday. From his homily:

To believe in Jesus “is not acceptance of a doctrine or a moral code…” HERE

Oh, really? I thought it was the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newark.  Isn’t being Catholic a prerequisite for taking this job?

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” John 14:15-21

You see, “acceptance of the moral code” is precisely what is required of a Catholic. No matter how many times we may fail, we must never deny the Eternal Truths as they’ve been graciously revealed to us.  The Commandments are not a punishment, they are a blessing. They are proof of God’s love.  He is not a selfish or distant lover.  He comes right out and tells us how to love Him, what he expects from us, and what we can expect in return.

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. John 14:22-26

The commands given by Jesus, which belong to the Father, and are reinforced by the Holy Spirit, are a representation of the Divine Love that flows eternally between the Three Persons of the Trinity, in which we will take part if we persevere to the end (Matt 24:13). These loving instructions provided by the Triune God are the key not only to attaining Heaven by the merits of the Cross, but they are also the only way to achieve even fleeting happiness in this world.

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”. The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin”. CCC#234

mkay?
 

From Lifesite HERE.

An Austrian bishop has given a sweeping interview claiming that “remarried” Catholics now have the “blessing of the Pope” to receive Communion, the use of contraception is “a decision of conscience” for couples, and homosexuals can constitute a “family.” Bishop Benno Elbs, who heads the Feldkirch diocese in west Austria, made the comments in an interview with Die Presse on December 23.
Regarding the admission of “remarried” divorced Catholics to Communion, he said, “The teaching [of the Church] has changed insofar as she has opened the door. People have made decisions of conscience in the past, but now they can do it – so to say – with the blessing of the Pope. That is an essential progress.”

“We had unanimity in everything, and the Pope has taken up a lot.” For Elbs, the entirety of Amoris Laetitia is about the decision of conscience: “If that is written in a footnote or not is not important. The whole paper breathes the spirit that the individual person can find a way in his conscience to deal with situations of life.” He added that the admission to Communion of those in question is irreversible. “That has been in the pastoral praxis for quite some time. Even theologically. Now we should not make the mistake of inventing new rules. The progress is an attitude that surpasses norms.”

“The progress is an attitude that surpasses norms.”

Sound familiar?  Brick by brick they are setting the stage for the big reveal, which is False Unity through the doctrine of False Transcendence.  Thanks to Bishop Elbs, we now have the first formula of this doctrine, which comes on the heels of this:

Now is the time to unleash the creativity of mercy, to bring about new undertakings, the fruit of grace.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) December 14, 2016

I wrote a brief post on this HERE.

The endgame to the dubia and the entire implementation and enforcement of Amoris Laetitia is not in yes or no answers. The endgame will be to assign the questions and criticisms to a malformed, primitive, simplistic moral theology, which needs to be enlightened by the Third Person of the God of Surprises. That is why you are hearing all the talk lately about spirits, and it will soon become clear which Spirit or spirits are on which side.
The endgame will be false transcendence. If twitter allowed more than 140 characters, it would sound something like this:
“Doctors of the law remain fixated on the ‘ideals’ of the Gospel, and indeed the ‘ideals’ remain unchanged. But the God of Surprises demands us to unleash the creativity of mercy at this time, to bring about new undertakings amidst the concrete situations of real life. This is the fruit of grace to which the spirit is calling. It is a grace that transcends mere ideals, bringing God’s profound mercy and hope to those on the peripheries.”

My forthcoming essay on this topic is now complete, and awaiting editing. It will be posted shortly.

 
These screen shots are from Saturday at the Te Deum, and were retweeted all over the world. “Te Deum laudamus” is how the hymn begins, “Thee, O God, we praise.”  Pssst, you’re supposed to kneel on that kneely thingee and praise God. It’s not polite to stand there and stare.
Silly Francis, he only kneels for muslims and wheelchairs. Not sure what +Marini is thinking, but I like how he keeps on setting up the prie dieu. Except when he sets it up and then Francis orders him to remove it, like at the opening of the Holy Door for the Year of (false) Mercy. We can’t have any distractions when Francis is going for an Ecce Homo moment with the press.  Watch, as he stands Vader-like at the 0:29 mark:

 
Just think about what these pictures say, for all the world to see. Go back and look at the twitterpics again. There are two possibilities for what is going through the mind of Francis right here.
If he DOES believe in the Real Presence, the blinding Pride monster is on full rage. He is openly mocking God to His face, refusing to kneel to his creator, in a public demonstration of non serviam. Just like he does at the consecration at every Mass. But the visual in this scene is one of pure defiance.
If he DOES NOT believe in the Real Presence, he’s actually demonstrating not pride, in his mind, but humility. By allowing himself to be paraded in front of a cracker, he begrudging goes through the motions of doing his job, even if he can’t manage to wipe the scowl from his face.  Plus there is the added bonus of scoring points with the other cool kids who don’t believe any of that stuff.
Which one is it?
Which one is worse?
Well, I’m not sure what is going on in the FrancisBrain, but I sure know what is going on in actual reality.