TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Thursday, April 19th, 2018.
Continuing now from our last episode, we turn again to Gaudete et Exsultate,
the pseudo-apostolic exhortation released by Jorge Bergoglio a mere 10 days ago.
And yet it seems like forever ago, because so much has happened in the meantime, right?
10 days is eons in Bergoglio time.
So, Gaudete et Exsultate.
One thing we can say for sure about this document is that it is tendentious.
Even where what it says is not objectionable in itself, it is very often one-sided,
and it basically just recycles various pet topics that Francis has preached about in the last five
years.
And it minimizes, eclipses, or ignores whatever contradicts those pet ideas,
as we'll see shortly in this very podcast.
All right, let's continue now.
Paragraph number 52.
Francis says, quote,
The Church has repeatedly taught that we are justified not by our own works or efforts,
but by the grace of the Lord, who always takes the initiative.
Unquote.
Yeah.
All of a sudden, huh?
Well, it's just too funny that a few days ago, on April 15th,
Francis said about a deceased atheist that he was sure that he was in heaven
because he had allowed his children to be baptized.
How's that for teaching that we are justified by our works, even apart from grace?
And you probably know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the incident with the little Roman boy whose atheist father had passed away.
So, yeah, the same guy that teaches that good atheists go to heaven here teaches in his exhortation
that we are not justified by our works, but by grace.
Well, it's really unfortunate that throughout the entire document, with all its footnotes and
citations, Francis forgot to quote Hebrews 11.6, quote,
Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Unquote.
There can be no sanctification.
There can be no sanctifying grace in the soul without supernatural faith.
Now, it is the height of irony that Francis writes in Gaudete et Exsultate
that our actions sometimes belie our words, by which we profess orthodoxy, but don't practice it.
Here's what he says in number 50, quote,
Underneath our orthodoxy, our attitudes might not correspond to our talk about the need for grace
and the specific situations.
We can end up putting little trust in it.
Unquote.
Really now?
Like, for example, when being asked about the salvation of atheists?
Oh, but that's not what Francis had in mind here, is it?
No, he was, of course, condemning evil traditionalists, whom he falsely characterizes as Pelagians
in his exhortation, when now the whole world has seen that he is the Pelagian, because
Pelagians believe in salvation by works, apart from grace.
Just as he said,
Just as Francis expressed when he said to the little boy that he is sure that his unbelieving father is in heaven
because he was, quote,
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most Pelagian of them all?
But there's more in paragraph 50 that we need to look at.
Jorge the Heretic says, quote,
Unless we can acknowledge our concrete and limited situation,
we will not be able to see the real and real.
And possible steps that the Lord demands of us at every moment,
once we are attracted and empowered by his gift.
Grace acts in history.
Ordinarily, it takes hold of us and transforms us progressively.
If we reject this historical and progressive reality,
we can actually refuse and block grace, even as we extol it by our words.
Unquote.
Ooh, flowery and profound.
Sounding words that he's using here.
The passage is conveniently ambiguous, of course,
so that you can read several things into or out of it if you want.
It seems to me that what he's intending to do here
is provide more putatively magisterial underpinnings
to his blasphemous teaching in Amoris Laetitia, number 303,
that God may very well want you to commit a mortal sin in your concrete situation.
And that by doing so, you can gradually progress towards holiness of life,
towards greater virtue.
That's what he's trying to do here, I think.
And of course, he wraps it up in really shiny terminology,
talking about acknowledging our limits and God's grace acting in history
and it attracting, empowering, and transforming us.
Man, if that doesn't take your breath away,
it just sounds so much better than saying,
well, sometimes you're just going to sin and that's all right.
In paragraph number 49,
Francis accuses those supposed Pelagians of failing to realize that,
not everyone can do everything.
Unquote.
And that is a quote taken from the 13th century doctor of the church,
St. Bonaventure, a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Whoa, look.
Francis teaches tradition.
He teaches traditional doctrine.
He's a scholastic.
He's conservative.
Yeah, well, not so fast.
Two things here.
First, St. Bonaventure's not everyone can do everything
refers to the fact that we ought not to expect those who are beginners
in the spiritual life to be rich in virtue.
Rather, we need to understand that they are still easily prone to vice
because grace builds on nature.
And that's what St. Bonaventure is saying here with the
not everyone can do everything quotation.
In fact, St. Bonaventure quotes a few Bible passages in that context,
including Romans 15.1, which says,
quote,
Unquote.
St. Bonaventure, then, was not saying what Francis is hinting at,
namely that some people just can't help sinning,
so they get a pass.
Secondly, notice how hypocritical Francis is being.
When it comes to his favorite topic of permitting adultery,
Francis comes up with,
Well, not everyone can do everything,
so shut up and stop joking.
On the other hand, look at what he says in paragraph 101
of the same exhortation, Gaudete Exsultate.
Quote,
The other harmful ideological error is found in those
who find suspect the social engagement of others,
seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist, or populist.
Or they relativize it as if there are other more important matters,
or the only thing that counts,
is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend.
Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example,
needs to be clear, firm, and passionate,
for at stake is the dignity of a human life,
which is always sacred and demands love for each person,
regardless of his or her stage of development.
Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor,
those already born, the destitute, the abandoned, and the underprivileged,
the vulnerable,
and the infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia,
the victims of human trafficking,
new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.
We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness
that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel,
spend with abandon,
and live only for the latest consumer goods,
even as others look on from afar,
living their entire lives in abject poverty.
Unquote.
And notice what Francis,
has done here.
Suddenly, he is concerned about living a holistic moral life.
He could have just said,
kudos to all those defending the lives of the unborn.
All other life issues depend on this most fundamental right,
the right to be born.
Therefore, by fighting abortion,
people are implicitly also fighting for all other worthy causes
in defense of human life.
Right?
I mean, he could have said,
but he didn't say that.
He didn't.
Likewise, to those who object that people shouldn't be so one-sided
in their defense of life by focusing only or mainly on abortion,
he could have said,
well, not everyone can do everything.
But again, he didn't do that, did he?
Why is it that Francis only ever tells pro-lifers
not to focus too much on their cause,
and that they might be able to do more?
He must also focus on other human life issues.
Why doesn't he ever tell those helping migrants, for example,
that that's not enough either,
and that they really also need to get their act together
and work to end abortion?
No, he never says that, does he?
And that was a consideration brought up by Giuseppe Nardi,
by the way, a Vatican journalist in Germany.
Likewise, if we look at Gaudete et Exsultate,
paragraph 19,
Francis says,
And yet, when it comes to pro-lifers,
Francis is quick to tell them
that they better also be recycling their soda cans
and welcome illegal immigrants,
else they're not authentic Christians.
Nothing there about reflecting and embodying
a particular aspect of the gospel
at a specific moment in time.
See, and that's what I mean
when I say that Gaudete et Exsultate
is one-sided and tendentious.
It places undue emphasis on certain points
Bergoglio is particularly fond of,
and thereby it distorts reality as a whole.
I'm sorry for skipping around a bit here in the document,
but that's just the best job I can do here.
Next excerpt,
of Gaudete et Exsultate
that we want to look at
is paragraphs 43 and 44.
The Frankster says this,
quote,
It is not easy to grasp the truth
that we have received from the Lord,
and it is even more difficult to express it.
So we cannot claim that our way of understanding this truth
authorizes us to exercise a strict supervision
over others' lives.
Here I would note that in the church
there legitimately coexist different ways
of interpreting many aspects of doctrine and Christian life.
In their variety,
they help to express more clearly
the immense riches of God's Word.
It is true that for those who long for
monolithic body of doctrine,
guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance,
this might appear as undesirable
and leading to confusion.
In effect, doctrine,
or better, our understanding and expression of it,
is not a closed system,
devoid of the dynamic capacity
to pose questions,
doubts, inquiries.
The questions of our people,
their suffering,
their struggles,
their dreams,
their trials,
and their worries
all possess an interpretational value
that we cannot ignore
if we want to take the principle of the Incarnation seriously.
Their wondering helps us to wonder
that we are not alone.
We are not alone.
Their questions question us.
Unquote.
B.S.
And I don't mean Barbra Streisand.
This is typical modernist bovine manure.
I've got news for you folks.
Doctrine is a closed system.
It's very closed.
And the struggles and dreams of our people,
their suffering,
their high blood pressure or whatever,
has nothing to do with anything.
As regards God's revelation.
I don't have anything to do with the Incarnation either.
And by the way,
doubt,
doubt is contrary to the virtue of faith.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent
and its treatment of Article 1 of the Creed says,
Faith therefore must exclude not only all doubt,
but all desire for demonstration.
Unquote.
Now, what about what Francis says here, though,
that it's just so difficult to express God's revealed truth
and that there are always different ways to understand and explain it?
Oh, sorry.
No, no, no, no.
Of course, Francis is shrewd enough to say not exactly that.
No, he says it's many different aspects of doctrine
that are legitimately interpreted differently.
You know, like the aspect that says that,
Thou shalt not commit adultery
actually comes with a divine footnote,
but it really depends on your concrete situation.
That aspect.
So, well, this whole thing about doctrine on the one hand
and the way to express it or understand it on the other
is a foundational error,
or I should say half-truth,
of the new theology,
the nouvelle théologie.
And Pope Pius XII blew it out of the water
in his excellent 19th,
1850 encyclical against the modernism
that was resurfacing during his pontificate,
Humani Generis.
In paragraphs 14, 15, and 16 of that encyclical,
the sovereign pontiff teaches as follows,
quote,
In theology, some want to reduce to a minimum
the meaning of dogmas
and to free dogma itself from terminology
long established in the Church
and from philosophical concepts
held by Catholic theologians.
To bring about a return
in the explanation of Catholic doctrine
to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture
and by the fathers of the Church.
They cherish the hope
that when dogma is stripped of the elements
which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation,
it will compare advantageously
with the dogmatic opinions
of those who are separated from the unity of the Church
and that in this way they will gradually arrive
at a mutual assimilation of Catholic doctrine.
with the tenets of the dissidents.
Moreover, they assert that
when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition,
a way will be found to satisfy modern needs
that will permit of dogma being expressed
also by the concepts of modern philosophy,
whether of immanentism or idealism
or existentialism or any other system.
Some more audacious affirm
that this can and must be done
because they hold that the mysteries of faith
are never explained,
expressed, listen,
by truly adequate concepts
but only by approximate and ever-changeable notions
in which the truth is to some extent expressed
but is necessarily distorted.
Wherefore, they do not consider it absurd
but altogether necessary
that theology should substitute new concepts
in place of the old ones
in keeping with the various philosophies
which in the course of time,
it uses as its instruments
so that it should give human expression
to divine truths in various ways
which are even somewhat opposed
but still equivalent, as they say.
They add that the history of dogmas
consists in the reporting of the various forms
in which revealed truth has been clothed,
forms that have succeeded one another
in accordance with the different teachings
and opinions that have arisen
over the course of the centuries.
It is evident from what we have already said
that such tentatives not only lead to
what they call dogmatic relativism
but that they actually contain it.
The contempt of doctrine commonly taught
and of the terms in which it is expressed
strongly favor it.
Everyone is aware
that the terminology employed in the schools
and even that used by the teaching authority
of the church itself
is capable of being perfected and polished
and we know also that the church itself is capable of being polished
and that the church itself has not always used
the same terms in the same way.
It is also manifest
that the church cannot be bound
to every system of philosophy
that has existed for a short space of time.
Nevertheless,
the things that have been composed
through common effort by Catholic teachers
over the course of the centuries
to bring about some understanding of dogma
are certainly not based
on any such weak foundation.
These things are based
on principles of dogmatism
principles and notions
deduced from a true knowledge
of created things.
In the process of deducing
this knowledge like a star
gave enlightenment to the human mind
through the church.
Hence it is not astonishing
that some of these notions
have not only been used
by the ecumenical councils
but even sanctioned by them
so that it is wrong
to depart from them.
Unquote.
And that right there
ladies and gentlemen
condemns the doctrine of dogmatism
and the doctrine of dogmatism
all of them.
Bergoglio, Ratzinger, Muller
and the whole neo-modernist cabal
that Vatican City
is currently infested with.
And there's much more to quote
from that encyclical
but of course we don't have all day here
so yeah, make sure you read
this beautiful encyclical in full
if you haven't done so already.
It's called Humani Generis
of Pope Pius XII
and it was published on August 12, 1950.
You can find it at
papalencyclicals.net
Alright, I really wanted to finish
going over Gaudete at Exsultate today
but there's more to discuss still
and we'll have to leave that
for the next Express episode
in just a few days.
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