TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Friday, April 27th, 2018, and now for the third and last time,
Gaudete et Exsultate.
In the last two episodes, we analyzed a number of portions of this so-called apostolic exhortation,
which was issued by Francis on April 9th, and in this episode, we're going to wrap it
up and conclude our critical examination.
The word hell appears exactly once in the document, in paragraph number 115, not of
course as the place of eternal punishment for those who don't die in the state of sanctifying
grace, Francis doesn't believe in that, remember, but as the origin of what Francis denounces
as verbal violence.
Violence through the internet and the various forms of digital communication.
You can't make this stuff up.
Here's the full paragraph, number 115, for the sake of context, quote, Christians too
can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet and the various forms
of digital communication.
Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped.
Defamation and.
Slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of
others can be abandoned.
The result is a dangerous dichotomy, since things can be said there that would be unacceptable
in public discourse, and people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at
others.
It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely
ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness.
They are lying, and ruthlessly vilify others.
Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze, unquote.
So you see here that it's just more of his usual griping about what he calls the terrorism
of gossip, and you can tell that it's just custom-tailored to condemning only those ideas
he personally opposes.
He's not even setting forth Catholic principle here.
For example, he doesn't distinguish between truth and falsehood here, and he doesn't distinguish
between justice and injustice.
No, for him, apparently, anything that harms another's reputation is always bad for that
reason, and therefore is to be avoided when that is not the Catholic teaching.
Now, of course, it's never permissible to lie about someone, but it is, sometimes, permissible
to reveal people's true faults.
And even to insult them.
That depends on a number of things, and we can't go through all that now, but basically,
remember this.
Not all insulting speech is sinful.
The moral theologian Father Herbert Joni states in his handbook on moral theology, quote,
"...contumely," and that's the traditional term, "...contumely consists in unjustly dishonoring
another person in his presence, and thus showing one's contempt for him.
And that's crucial, because not all dishonoring of another in his presence is unjust.
In fact, sometimes, it's morally required.
But Francis won't admit that, which is funny, because he's always the one railing against
black-and-white thinking, right?
And here, that's exactly what he's doing.
He's refusing to admit basic distinctions and nuances, and just declares that all disparaging
speech against others is wrong.
That not all vilification of others is wrong is proven by the fact that our Lord Jesus
Christ himself engaged in vilification of others as needed.
For example, our blessed Lord insulted the Pharisees using very harsh language.
In St. Matthew's Gospel, chapters 12 and 23, for example, our Lord derides the Pharisees
using terms like,
"...hypocrites, blind guides, whited sepulchers, full of iniquities."
Serpents, generation of vipers, evil and adulterous generation, and so forth.
In the second chapter of the Apocalypse, our Lord even refers to, quote,
"...them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan," unquote.
That's Apocalypse 2, verse 9.
Now, imagine someone saying something like that today in public.
The Vatican would immediately...
...publish a statement condemning anti-Semitism.
Our Lord also had a choice moniker for King Herod, calling him That Fox in Luke 13, 32,
quote,
"...and he said to them, Go and tell That Fox, Behold, I cast out devils and do cures
today and tomorrow, and the third day I am consummated," unquote.
Now, imagine what the Jesuit homo bridge builder James Martin would have said about that had
he been...
...around then.
Oh, no, that's comparing a human being to an animal.
How disrespectful.
Oh, the verbal violence.
Jesus of Nazareth cannot be the Son of God because he is offending against human dignity.
He's putting up walls instead of building bridges.
And, of course, as we all know, Francis himself is the chief insulter of Vatican City.
But it was nice to see...
...that the word hell does make at least one appearance in Gaudete et Exsultate.
Next, let's have a brief look at paragraph 104, quote,
"...it is true that the primacy belongs to our relationship with God, but we cannot forget
that the ultimate criterion on which our lives will be judged is what we have done for others."
Unquote.
False.
Of course, we will be judged on what we have done for others, good or bad, but it's not
the ultimate criterion that decides our eternity.
Rather, the ultimate criterion is the presence or absence of sanctifying grace in our souls
at the moment of death.
So, it really doesn't matter how many poor people you helped during your life or how
many babies you saved from abortion if you did not love God, if you did not believe what
He has revealed, and if you rejected His graces, if you did not repent of all, at least your
mortal sins.
Francis loves to quote Matthew 25, where our Lord says,
"...whatever you did to the least of these brethren of mine, you did it to me."
But what Francis never quotes, for example, is Mark 16, 16, quote,
"...he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
But he..."
"...he that believeth not shall be condemned."
Unquote.
Or, for example, 2 John, verse 9, quote,
"...whosoever revolteth and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.
He that continueth in the doctrine, the same hath both the Father and the Son."
Unquote.
So, that's what I'm referring to when I say that gaudete ad exsultate is one-sided.
Next, let's go to number 140, quote,
"...when we live apart from others, it is very difficult to fight against concupiscence,
the snares and temptations of the devil, and the selfishness of the world.
Bombarded as we are by so many enticements, we can grow too isolated, lose our sense of
reality and inner clarity, and easily succumb."
Unquote.
Now, that is just...
Just ridiculous.
Francis has a real aversion for life lived in seclusion, like hermits live, right?
Or living away from the world like cloistered nuns, for example.
Because he's a naturalist, everything for him is always primarily horizontal.
Everything relates first and foremost to other people.
Everybody always has to be active and in motion because...
You know, it's all about moving forward.
Now, contrast what Francis says here with what Pope Leo XIII wrote in 1899 in his apostolic
letter Testam Benevolentiae condemning Americanism.
Quote,
Nor should any difference of praise be made between those who follow the active state
of life and those others who, charmed with solitude, give themselves to prayer and bodily
mortification.
Unquote.
Being a naturalist, Bergoglio has no concept of the contemplative religious life, which
brings blessings to oneself and also to others in a supernatural rather than natural way.
His claim that living apart from others exposes one to temptation and makes it difficult to
fight concupiscence is absolutely harebrained.
The exact opposite is the case.
And that's one reason...
Why people withdraw from the world in the first place.
All right, we've got two more things to look at.
In paragraph 160 of Gaudete et Exsultate, the Jesuit antipope says, quote,
True enough, the biblical authors had limited conceptual resources for expressing certain
realities, and in Jesus' time, epilepsy, for example, could easily be confused with
demonic possession.
Yet, this should not...
That would lead us to an oversimplification that would conclude that all the cases related
in the gospel had to do with psychological disorders, and hence that the devil does not
exist or is not at work.
Unquote.
Yeah.
See, when the sacred writer speaks of demoniacs, we may only be talking about epileptics there.
And I guess Christ just provided an epilepsy cure instead of driving out the devil.
So, unbelievable.
Oh, not in all cases.
Okay, great.
Well, no, not even in some.
The garbage this man utters is beyond the pale.
He's a typical modernist Jesuit who does not believe in the complete inerrancy of sacred
scripture.
Again and again, people have attempted to relativize this inerrancy somewhat, for example,
by restricting it only to faith and morals.
But...
Uh...
The fact of the matter...
The fact of the matter is that there is no error in anything that scripture affirms as
true.
In 1351, Pope Clement VI taught that, quote,
The New and Old Testaments, in all their books, which the authority of the Roman Church has
given to us, contain undoubted truth in all things.
Unquote.
That's from Denzinger 570Q.
In 1893, Pope Leo XIII...
Wrote an encyclical called Providentissimus Deus.
And in paragraph 20, he writes, quote,
Because the Holy Ghost employed men as his instruments, we cannot therefore say that
it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error and not the primary
author, God.
For by supernatural power he so moved and impelled them to write, he was so present
to them, that the things which he ordered, and those only,
they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed
in apt words and with infallible truth.
Unquote.
In 1907, Pope St. Pius X condemned as a modernist error the proposition that, quote,
Divine inspiration does not so extend to all sacred scripture that it fortifies each and
every part of it against all error.
Unquote.
You can look that up in Denzinger 2011.
And on June 18th, 1915, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, by the authority of Pope Benedict
XV, declared that, quote,
Unquote.
That's Denzinger 2180.
And I could go on and on here.
But I think...
I think you get the idea.
So, when the evangelists write that our Lord cast a devil out of a demoniac, then that's
exactly what happened.
Not in most cases or in some cases, but in all cases.
Okay?
There was a man possessed by a demon, and our Lord drove that demon out.
That's it.
It's got nothing to do with epilepsy.
All right.
Last one now.
Last paragraph that we're going to look at.
Which is not to say that there isn't.
There's a lot more to find fault with in Gaudete et Exsultate.
It just means that it's all I care to mention here.
In paragraph 6 of the exhortation, the Frankmeister says this, quote,
The Holy Spirit bestows holiness in abundance among God's holy and faithful people.
For it has pleased God to make men and women holy, and to save them not as individuals without any bond between them,
but rather as a people who might acknowledge Him in truth and serve Him in holiness.
In salvation history, the Lord saved one people.
We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people.
That is why no one is saved alone as an isolated individual.
Rather, God draws us to Himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community.
God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people, unquote.
Yeah.
I mean, whatever.
Okay.
I'm sure that there is a way you can understand this, or most of it, in an orthodox sense.
But I don't think that an orthodox interpretation is the only possible one here.
What does this even mean?
We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people.
Well, poor Adam and Eve, I guess.
So God takes into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships in a community.
Huh?
That's the kind of thing I would have written in a college paper if I'd had no idea what I was talking about but wanted to sound smart.
Just saying.
Of course, there is a bond between the members of the church, for example,
but then not all the members of the church will be saved.
Only the elect will.
But that doesn't...
That doesn't prevent them from being saved individually.
Of course, depending on what exactly is meant, I guess.
But that's something modernists never really make clear, is it?
And that's, of course, by design.
At the end of the day, we are saved or damned individually.
That's why there is a particular judgment for each one of us.
And Christ emphasized a number of times that it wasn't going to be enough to simply belong to the chosen people,
whether in the Old Covenant or in the New Covenant.
Remember the parable of the wheat and the cockle.
They may have some dynamic interpersonal relationships going on while they're growing together in the field,
but at the time of the harvest, the cockle gets gathered up separately and then it gets burned.
Then think of the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins.
Five made it to the wedding feast because they were prepared,
and the other five arrived late because they had neglected their preparations
and so they were not ready for the wedding feast.
And so they were not ready for the wedding feast.
And so they weren't admitted.
That's right.
They were excluded individually.
Can you believe it?
So hateful.
Yeah, and then the same thing also in the parable of the marriage feast,
where one man, rather individually, did not have on a wedding garment
and he was cast out into the exterior darkness.
And finally, we see just how individual our salvation or damnation is.
When we look at Matthew 24, 40 through 41,
where Christ says that the day of judgment will be like this,
quote,
Then two shall be in the field, one shall be taken, and one shall be left.
Two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, and one shall be left.
Unquote.
And that has nothing to do with some rapture, by the way.
That's a Protestant invention.
The great Jesuit commentator,
Cornelius Alapede, explains this as follows, quote,
Meaning, in the day of judgment, Christ will separate companion from companion,
neighbor from neighbor, as, for example, farmer from farmer.
The one who has lived justly and piously, he will take up with himself to glory in heaven.
But his companion, who has lived wickedly, he will leave in his sins,
disapprove and condemn to everlasting punishment.
Unquote.
As St. Ambrose says,
He who is taken is carried away to meet Christ in the air,
but he who is left is condemned.
Christ says this,
that no one may trust to good society merely because he lives among the righteous.
He would also show how exact and searching will be that judgment,
which will separate and divide father from son, wife from husband, brother from brother.
Unquote.
So, who knows what Francis actually said?
I don't know what he really means when he says that God doesn't save individually,
but I just see it as misleading and dangerous because it can be very easily misunderstood,
even if there is some orthodox intention behind it.
All right, enough of Gaudete et Exsultate.
This concludes our little review of the latest Bergolian exhortation.
Who knows what's coming next?
It seems that the chaos in the Vatican increases with every day that passes,
and don't say it can only get better because with Bergoglio at the helm,
oh yes, it can get worse.
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