Bergoglio's Incalculable Ego Cedes More Power to the Demonic: Part I
Bergoglio's Incalculable Ego Cedes More Power to the Demonic: Part I
At best, Pope Francis believes he has a papal monopoly on the Holy Spirit
Pope Francis, through his myrmidon Archbishop Arthur Roche, further punished the Church’s traditions today by abrogating traditional blessings and rites, including the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Order, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction.
Along with the sacraments, out went the traditional blessings of sacramentals and holy water and the exorcism and blessing of salt. The pope, through Roche, also hinted that the Latin Mass itself will soon be universally banned.
The pope’s war on these traditions need be to observed from two angles, so this examination will be in two parts. The first will focus on the extremes of ego revealed by Francis’s upheavals. The second will look at the terrible implications of his moves to block God’s grace from coming into the Church and, through it, to the world.
The Ego of the Ages
Long before Pope Francis began his assault on the Traditional Mass and its accompanying sacraments, an exorcist, Fr. Chad Ripperger, wrote an excellent, cerebral book called Topics on Tradition. The book seemed to foreshadow or, perhaps, prophecy what has happened regarding the Latin Mass in the past seven months.
While the entire book is a valuable scoring rubric to judge Francis’s (and the post-Vatican II Church’s general) assault on the faith, most pertinent to today’s news is this extended passage on breaking from tradition:
Wholesale modifications in the past would have been considered by saints as an act of impiety, because the sweeping modification blocks or denies the perfection of the form of worship and feasts of saints (when removed) to the subsequent generations. It is impious because wholesale modification presumes that prior saints were not adequately directed by the Holy Spirit in the compositions of the prayers of the Mass and no saint would dare to presume to affect the liturgy passed to him by his ancestors to such a degree, particularly because the reverence he would have regarding the guidance of past saints by the Holy Spirit. To presume to block the passing of a monument, not by perfecting it which is actually a part of authentic tradition, but by modifying it in such a way as to deny many of the elements in that monument, is to presume that one is greater than one’s ancestors, as we discussed above. Great care had to be taken so as not to deny God’s providential care of the Church manifest throughout history.1
[Emphasis added.]
Boom!
Remember, Fr. Ripperger wrote this before Jorge Maria Bergoglio assumed the name Francis. The book was published in March 26, 2013, just thirteen days after Bergoglio’s pontificate began on March 13. How could Fr. Ripperger have known what was coming? (We will look at that in part two.)
By abrogating all that came before, Francis personified the reckless egomania and presumption Fr. Ripperger exposes. “To presume to block the pass of a monument . . . is to presume that one is greater than one’s ancestors.”
An Insult to Prior Popes
Who were Francis’s ancestors?
Yes, he has biological ancestors. But, in this matter, we must look at his ecclesiastical family tree. After all, when a man becomes pope, he adopts a new name, leaving behind forever the biological roots from which he sprang.
A pope’s family tree is the history of the papacy from St. Peter to the present. It includes martyrs, Doctors of the Church, and the great saints. Its branches are the saints who championed the faith during the those pontificates.
By his wholesale slaughter of all that came before, Francis is telling the world that the Holy Spirit finds a favor with him that He could not find with St. Peter, St. Gregory the Great, St. Pius V, or any other pope throughout history.
By Francis’s many assaults on centuries of theology, especially his disdain for the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, he signals his belief that his mind and discernment of tradition are superior to anyone who came before. Superior, in fact, to the combined genius of the Theologians.
Those in the Church who claim that the post-Vatican II tumult was exclusively the unadulterated work of the Holy Spirit lay a grave scandal before the faithful. (And the reformers love to throw the Holy Spirit in the faces of those who question any “reform.” As Cardinal Cupich of Chicago and others have stated, to question any post-Vatican II reform is to question the works of the Holy Spirit.) The post-Vatican II “reforms” precisely question and find deficient all prior works of the Holy Spirit in the Church, but these men seem to miss that obvious contradiction.
To abrogate exorcisms from rituals, to remove Psalms and prayers and the invocation of saints from the Mass, to rip down statues and replace them with felt banners, to pass out the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in zip-lock bags to be eaten like candy in the parking lot, is to say “all that came before us was error, and we are the way, the truth, and the life.”
If, as the authors of the New Mass, claimed, the old Mass had “too many signs of the cross,” the authors of the old Mass must have gotten the Holy Spirit’s instructions wrong. If the five exorcisms in the old Rite of Baptism were unnecessary, then those who crafted that old rite must have been drunk, stupid, or willfully disobedient when the Holy Spirit told them to erase those lines from the text.
For Francis to presume that all his papal ancestors—including his immediate predecessor who promulgated Summorum Pontificum—were wrong, he presumes the Holy Spirit works through him in a manner and degree that no one has ever seen before.
And Francis’s hatred of traditional rites is not the end of his hatred of tradition.
A Pattern of Self Will
For 2,000 years, the Church has taught that capital punishment is available as a punishment for certain crimes. Francis decided that the Church had always been wrong about that.
And, while he has stopped short of issuing motu propriae on remarriage of the civilly divorced, gay marriage, and abortion, he has given many nods and winks to all three. Some would say his encyclical Amoris Latitiae did, in fact, open the door to civil divorce and remarriage. So maybe Francis already has abrogated Mark 10:9.2
In other words, not only does Francis seem to believe his relationship to the Holy Spirit beats that of all prior popes, he seems to believe he knows the will of the Father better than Jesus or St. Paul3.
Whatever one thinks of Bergoglio’s assault on tradition, and many welcome it, his abrogation of the inspired teachings of his ancestors exposes an ego and pride that we have never seen openly expressed by a pope in modern times.
Whereas prior popes who swung a heavy hand at the church militant did so in defense of the Church’s constant teaching and in opposition to the dangers of novelty and heresy, this guy pounds his fist on the hearts and souls of those who believe a simple, obvious truth: either the Church was alway right or our faith has been in vain.
In part two, we will look at the consequences of Francis’s abrogation of the conduit of grace.
Part II
Related:
Ripperger, Chad. Topics on Tradition (p. 16). Sensus Traditionis. Kindle Edition.
Mark 10:9: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Romans 1:24-28: “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.”