News Item: : The Third Annual ''Bah Humbug!'' Lecture in Rome
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Friday 23 December 2016 - 01:50:38

Ebenezer Scrooge: ''Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.''

Grinding 'em down like a True Son of Peron

Over 20 years ago, one of my bosses laid out some cash so that everyone on the team went home with a nice bottle of something to drink over Christmas. You don't forget generous acts like that. It is the real-life equivalent of Mr. Fezziwig's annual Christmas ball for his staff in Dickens' classic story, A Christmas Carol. 

On the other hand, miserific deeds leave a long-lasting bad taste all of their own; especially if they are done at Christmas.

No wonder so many of those serving in the Roman Curia felt discouraged when Pope Francis used the traditional Christmas ''meet and greet'' of 2014 to lambast them over ''15 ailments'' which he claimed were afflicting their work. Such discouragement was unleashed yet again in 2015, when Francis followed up with his unpopular ''12 cures'' speech.

As well as the mathematical improbability of applying 12 cures to 15 ailments, that was a speech notable for Francis' praise of the Modernistic Cardinal John Francis Dearden; and the suggestion that ''no Creed brings perfection''...

As we reflected last year, with Christmas gifts like these, who needs coal?''

On the Naughty List - Coal for Faithful Catholics

By now, you will probably have read all about Francis' latest speech to the Roman Curia from today's annual pre-Christmas meeting of 2016. I bet those curial staff just look forward to their annual ''Christmas do'' with baited breath... and gritted teeth. I should think they view it more in terms of a ''Christmas don't''!

To cut a long story short, Francis turned-up the dial on some Spadaro-style rhetoric - interesting hey? - by suggesting that those who were resisting his ''reforms'' were, in some cases, inspired by ''malicious resistance'' that ''takes refuge in traditions'' and comes to the fore ''when the Devil inspires ill intentions''.

Allow us to clearly say that no-one who seeks to protect the authentic teachings of the Church from subversion, the Holy Eucharist from desecration, or endangered souls from perdition, is acting from an ill intention inspired by the Devil.

It is more accurate and just to accuse those who attempt to subvert the Magisterium and promote sacrilegious Communions of being in cahoots with such dark influences.

Candy for Everyone Else!

On the day that Francis delivered this bleak broadside - thus publicly affirming the recently reported ''rumours'' of a ''Climate of Fear'' in his Vatican regime - he did something quite opposite for the children of this world.

During the morning, he lowered the public perception of the papacy still further by telephoning the Italian State Broadcaster's morning TV-show, Unomattina (One Morning) to congratulate them for the 30th-anniversary of their show. I guess for British readers, this would be the equivalent of phoning something like Richard and Judy... 

What would it be in America - The View?

During this shameless piece of Francis-propaganda, a montage of the key events in his pontificate, complete with a male-voiced narrative, announced to the world, and the worldly, some of the ''changes'' that Francis has brought to the Church.

This narrative proclaimed: ''The centrality of the Gospel and revolution, the final realization of the Council that took place more than 50 years ago, the engine of faith in the God of mercy... A Church without temporal power, going out to the peripheries, to the poor, to the discarded, that wants to be involved with the Christian communities, with families, with wounded couples, with the divorced and remarried who can begin a path to approach the Sacraments once prohibited from the start... A Church that accompanies, that condemns evil but does not judge persons. No-one is excluded from his compelling humanity. Pope Francis, who celebrates his birthday with the homeless in his residence; Pope Francis who leaves the Vatican to buy orthopedic shoes as he did to buy glasses; Pope Francis among the earthquake victims''.

Without dwelling for too long on the production similarities to a forced-grin inspiring Kim Jong-un promo-video, let's just focus in on that one line, ''with the divorced and remarried who can begin a path to approach the Sacraments once prohibited from the start''.

And who was it said that the 4 cardinals had not yet had their Dubia answered?

One can only shudder to think of the souls and marriages that are being destroyed, and all the sacrilegious Communions being encouraged, by all this slick play-acting.

At the end, Francis gave a message about wishing a ''Christian Christmas, like the first one, when God willed to overturn the values of the world, and to become little in a manger, with the little ones, with the poor, with the marginalized... littleness. In this world, where the god of money is so adored, may Christmas help us to gaze upon the littleness of this God who has overturned worldy values.''

Whilst this can indeed be a wholesome message, it seems to be rather contradicted by the fact that orthodox Catholics - those Francis sees as ''taking refuge in traditions'' - are truly the marginalized, poor and little ones who consistenly experience Francis undermining them and their truly Catholic beliefs.

At the same time that he himself takes part in shameless self-promotion campaigns with wealthy worldlings...

It is all very sad to see. Indeed, it is also very grave and spiritually dangerous.

The Christ-Child is Our King

Reflecting on Francis' latest attack on those striving to be faithful to Catholic tradition called to my mind the late, great, traditionalist priest Fr. Godfrey Aloysius Carney in Liverpool. He lived to be 98, having served an almost unique 74 years as a priest. Fr. Carney used to remind Catholics that, when you are a Catholic, Tradition is in a sense all that you have got. He used to say that Tradition can never be old-fashioned because it is the living Truth revealed by God through Jesus Christ, established on the Apostles, guarded and handed down through all the ages in the Church.

If there is a lesson we can take from Austen Ivereigh's shamefully over-the-top article earlier this week, it is that Francis seeks to overcome his opponents, not through direct opposition, but by wearing them down gradually in the style of Juan Domingo Peron.

Aware of this tactic, faithful Catholics need to ensure that they do not allow the constant stream of subtle, and not-so-subtle, attacks to undermine them, or their faith.

Earlier this week, Cardinal Raymond Burke reminded Catholics, during an interview for LifeSiteNews, that accusations of rigorism should not discourage them, but bring forth from them a deeper level of commitment.

He said: ''We believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is alive in His Church, in Her teachings, in Her Sacred Liturgy, in Her life of prayer, and in Her discipline, as those have been handed down to us in an unbroken line from apostolic times. And so, even though these statements are very hurtful, and I understand that, we have to rise above those feelings of hurt and adhere ever more strongly to what the Church teaches, to Her Sacred Liturgy, to our life of prayer and devotion, and to that discipline, which safeguards and promotes our life in Christ.''

Let us conclude with a quote from St. Luke's Gospel, which seems appropriate to these times.

Luke 11:11-13: And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he give him for a fish a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father from Heaven give the good Spirit to those that ask Him?

May God give us all the grace to adhere more strongly to Christ and the true teachings of the Church this Christmas.

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1504 )