News Item: : Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Wednesday 25 January 2017 - 22:31:02

Weighty Sagas in Malta

What with Francis' take-over of the Knights of Malta - falling somewhere between a slick Anschluss and an outright Blitzkrieg - and the ongoing saga of Scicluna and Grech, most eyes are understandably fixed on Malta at present.

We encourage readers to take some time to read and reflect on a few thoughtful articles which have been posted up on these themes, including: Fr. Hugh Somerville-Knapman's at Dominus mihi adjutor; Mark Lambert's at De Omnibus Dubitandum Est; and Ed Condon's at the Catholic Herald.

There is also a very revealing comment posted by the good Nicholas Bellord over at 1 Peter 5, which we feel bears quoting at some length. It will be remembered that Boeselager is the character who was ousted from the Knights of Malta for his unorthodox collusion with contraception distribution, whilst Festing is the orthodox leader who has, ahem, now ''resigned'' at the behest of Pope Francis. No pressure there then, eh...

Mr. Bellord's comment reads: ''In London we have the Catholic Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth founded in the 1850's and put under the protection of the Order of Malta by Cardinal Wiseman. Latterly it became clear that the hospital was not following the teaching of the Catholic Church on such matters as contraception, abortion and gender reassignment operations. I and a few others, none members of the Order, campaigned to put this right. We wrote to Boeselager then Grand Hospitaller of the Order. His response was to do nothing and wash his hands of the situation. Matthew Festing, on the other hand, was always extremely helpful but unfortunately we came up against one of the promoters of Pope Francis, namely Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who did everything to undermine our position despite having had an independent report supporting our view commissioned at the instigation of the then Cardinal Ratzinger. One of the difficulties with the Order is that there is a split between those like Matthew Festing who regard the Order as a religious institution doing charitable work in the light of the teachings of the Church and others who would like to see it becoming a merely secular institution following the mores of the world at large. This is the essence of the Festing v Boeselager issue. The distribution of contraceptives was part of the issue with Boeselager and we now have Pope Francis taking his side. I have long suspected that Pope Francis had a somewhat lukewarm attitude to Humanae Vitae but this makes my suspicions much stronger.''

Interesting, isn't it, how Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor's name crops up here in this context?

Especially so, knowing that he was also publicly named as a member of the so-called St. Gallen ''mafia'' that worked to undermine Papa Ratzinger; and who was also involved in the scandalous ''reception'' - without any public repentance of his public political support for abortion, homosexuality or unjust war - of former Prime Minister Tony Blair into the Catholic Church?

Late Cancellation!

Whilst it is essential to keep abreast of the various battles for the heart of the Church which are being played out in Malta, it is important not to lose sight of other related events happening closer, at least in geographical terms, to Pope Francis.

We learned today, from Gloria TV News, that the new Francis-picked leaders of the Pontifical Academy for Life are continuing their effacement of the last traces of Pope John Paul II from that academy's work.

This is in light of the fact that, as La nuova Bussola Quotidiana reports, a seminar to celebrate the 30th-anniversary of Donum Vitae has just been cancelled; even though the up-coming seminar was already organized in all of its details.

Donum Vitae was of course the CDF's 1987 ''Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation''.

This bombshell comes on the back of recent news stories relating that: the pro-abortion/mass-sterilization Culture of Death propagandist Paul Ehrlich has been invited with other radical anti-lifers to speak at an ''Extinction'' conference in the Vatican; Pope Francis was radically reorganizing the structure and staffing of the Pontifical Academy for Life through new regulations and the dismissal of all present members; that new members would no longer be required to sign the academy's vital pro-life declaration; that new members would from now on be appointed ''independently of religious orientation''; and that Francis was extending the academy's remit to include ''environmental'' issues...

Don't let us forget, either, that the Pontifical Academy for the Family had also done a massive doctrinal u-turn by issuing a graphically impure and morally confusing ''sex-education'' programme in time for Pope Francis' problematic World Youth Day '16 in Krakow.

Mysteries of Iniquity?

It seems to us that Mr. Nicholas Bellord's prescient words on the Knights of Malta saga can be applied in a similar manner to the overall situation threatening to sunder the Church at this time.

Thus applied, we could then discern a split between, on the one hand, those who regard the Church as Christ's Mystical Body saving and sanctifying with Christ's authority and power; and on the other, those who would like to see it becoming merely a secular institution following the mores of the world at large.

Or even, becoming a vehicle which has global reach, infrastructure, personnel and plant to facilitate the implementation of a New World Order and its dehumanizing anti-life mores...

I was struck tonight that the approach taken by Pope Francis, and run with by the likes of the Stalinesque ''useful idiots'' Scicluna and Grech, presents us with a very particular form of antinomianism.

What we might call ''lawlessness'' in simple layman's terms...

For it is not hard to see that the various goings-on in Malta, and elsewhere, represent a rejection of Divine Law, Natural Law, Church Law, and now, in light of the developments over the invasion of the sovereignty of the Knights of Malta, even International Law.

If you know your European history, you will recognize the fact that the very notion of International Law grew out of the Church's development of Canon Law; which latter was itself formulated to uphold and make clear the requirements of Divine and Natural Law.

There is a certain irony in the fact that a traditional worry of Protestants was always the perceived threat of an unbridled papacy, which might try to meddle in affairs beyond its God-given boundaries. Now that there is a man, in the form of Francis, working to go beyond law in his dealings with Protestants - and even other religions, sovereign nations, agencies, married couples, and individuals of all types - we now see that perceived danger becoming concrete. And yet Protestant leaders and liberal ''Catholics'' are loving it! The followers of Francis' lawless approach to life, as with the followers of the new secularist order in general, adore their new-found freedoms, even as the foundation of true freedom is being cut from beneath their feet. They are like the kids following the Child-Catcher's lolly-pops into the cage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

This is just one of the reasons why it is so necessary to uphold the objective moral law. Freedom without truth, love and self-sacrifice is more accurately called licence. And as we often say here: once freedom is divorced from truth and self-sacrificial love, society can only ever collapse into tyranny.

It becomes clear that the Church is moving through another dramatic historical period marked by heresies in the realm of conscience, autonomy and sacramental theology. How these will be resolved remains to be seen; but they will be resolved in God's good time.

The era through which we are passing has hallmarks of a great apostasy. We may even wonder if it is the Great Apostasy prophesied in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The abandonment of Divine Law, Natural Law, Canon Law, and now even International Law in the case of the Knights of Malta, does call to mind the prophecies of ''the man of lawlessness'' in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12.

Anyway, the Church herself teaches us to be awake for such happenings. Let us conclude with the sobering words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

CCC 675: ''Before Christ's Second Coming, the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ''mystery of iniquity'' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the Truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and His Messiah come in the flesh.''

Such warnings from the constant Magisterium of the Church sound an even deeper ring when one reflects that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Francis' Secretary of State, has just attended the Soros-backed New World Order-building World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss the role which ''religions'' can play in the public arena...

Our Lady of Fatima - Wrap us all in your mantle and pray for us!

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1535 )