TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Friday, February 14th, 2020.
If we enter into communion with the forest, our voices will easily blend with its own and become a prayer.
However, as we rest in the shade of an ancient eucalyptus, our prayer for light joins in the song of the eternal foliage.
Well, excuse me, but I'm reading from France's new apostatic exhortation here, okay?
It's called Carita Amazonia, Beloved Amazon, and what you just heard was just a very small part of it.
If you print off a copy from the Vatican website and reduce the print size to...
70%, it's a total of 25 pages, including the footnotes.
And I took one for the team the other day and read the whole thing, so you don't have to.
So, I'm going to need at least a week or so to detox, but in the meantime, let me fill you in on some of the highlights of that latest Bergolian masterpiece.
Now, I won't be able to do that all in a single Express podcast.
It's probably going to take two or three...
Maybe even four, but I'll try my best to get those published in quick succession so that this topic won't drag on forever.
All right, so what's this exhortation about?
Primarily, it's about making the Amazon a better place.
Yes, it even mentions evangelization, but the salvation of souls is clearly not the focal point of this document.
Now, you've got to love how Francis starts out.
Right off the bat, he's already being vague and not making clear what the heck people are supposed to do with what he says.
In the second paragraph of the exhortation, he writes,
I wish merely to propose a brief framework for reflection that can apply concretely to the life of the Amazon region,
a synthesis of some of the larger concerns that I have expressed in earlier documents,
that can help guide us to a harmonious, creative, and fruitful reception of the entire synodal process.
Look at the terms he uses.
Propose.
Framework for reflection.
Can apply.
Can help us guide.
What's a Catholic supposed to do with that?
That paragraph right there is basically gigantic.
It's a gigantic disclaimer issued at the very beginning that can overturn the whole document if need be.
It's deliberately vague so that all options remain open.
Unbelievable.
In paragraph three, Francis says, quote,
I would like to officially present the final document, which sets forth the conclusions of the synod,
which profited from the participation of many people who know better than myself,
or the Roman Curia, the problems and issues of the Amazon region.
Since they live there, they experience its suffering, and they love it passionately.
I have preferred not to cite the final document in this exhortation,
because I would encourage everyone to read it in full.
Unquote.
All right, so he's officially presenting the synod final document, whatever that means.
And in fact, they're arguing about...
Still, now that it's been, what, two days since the release of the exhortation,
that's been one of the points of contention at the press conference,
the points of confusion that people wanted answers to,
and I'm not sure they ever got their answer.
In paragraph five, a particular term caught my attention
that I think Francis put in there with the deliberate intent to offend.
He writes, quote,
Unquote.
I am addressing the present exhortation to the whole world.
I am doing so to help awaken their affection and concern for that land,
which is also ours, and to invite them to value it and acknowledge it as a sacred mystery.
Unquote.
The term sacred mystery, in the original Spanish, it's misterio sagrado.
I think he chose that deliberately as a jibe against the sacred mysteries
of the whole world.
Unquote.
The Holy Mass.
And for those who are not aware, a common alternate traditional Catholic term
for Holy Mass is sacred mysteries.
But regardless of whether or not that was his intent, one thing is clear.
The Amazon region, or any other region in the world for that matter,
is not a sacred mystery.
The world is not sacred.
If you start saying the world is sacred, then everything is.
And if everything is sacred...
If everything is sacred, then nothing is.
Because then the term has lost its meaning.
In paragraph 6, the Frankster writes, quote,
Everything that the Church has to offer must become incarnate in a distinctive way in each
part of the world, so that the Bride of Christ can take on a variety of faces that better
manifest the inexhaustible riches of God's grace.
Preaching must become incarnate.
Spirituality must become incarnate.
Ecclesial structures must become incarnate.
Unquote.
Yeah.
Whatever.
I mean, look, the exhortation is full of wording like that.
What does that mean?
See, it's wording like this that has gotten the Vatican to church to where it is now.
It sounds totally profound and spiritual and whatnot, and yet 10 different people are going
to understand it in 11 different ways.
And not only that, but it's all just windowed.
You know, ever since the Council, they've been talking about all these lofty and impressive
sounding things like the prophetic vocation of every Christian and the charisms that are
continually poured forth on the body of Christ and the great fruitfulness of the Council
seen in the various ecclesial movements and the abundant doctrinal and spiritual richness
of the post-conciliar encyclicals.
All these fancy Greek words like kerygma and metanoia and all that flowery, high-sounding
language that stands in total contrast to the actual reality.
I mean, just walk into your average Novus Ordo parish on a Sunday morning.
See what passes for Catholic Mass there.
See how the people receive what they think is Holy Communion.
See how they're dressed.
See what kind of music.
They play and sing.
See if you can find a confessional even, right, or a reconciliation room.
Listen to what you hear during the sermon.
It's atrocious.
It's utterly atrocious.
Look at what they would consider art, right, their felt banners and all the cold emptiness
everywhere.
Here in the United States, we've been seeing a veritable abortion holocaust for decades.
To a significant extent, enabled and supported by politicians who are members of the Vatican
II Church.
And if anything ever happens to them, it's a lone Novus Ordo bishop or priest saying
that they cannot receive communion in their diocese or church.
That's it.
And that's the courageous ones.
This has been going on for decades.
And then the Vatican II Church is always talking about how we must be known.
We must be nourished by God's Word, right, which is true enough.
But again, contrast it with the reality.
What do they give you?
The new American Bible.
And they're proclaiming doctrines that are totally and manifestly at odds with the very
scripture that they're saying needs to be our nourishment.
Like Francis saying that God wills the diversity of religions and religious differences are
necessary.
That is.
That is the reality.
That is the Vatican II Church for you.
You know, the one with the prophetic voices and the charisms and all that stuff.
It's unbelievable.
Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent.
So, Francis wants a church with a variety of faces.
Well, Catholics, by contrast, have a church with only one face, that of Christ, for he
is her head.
Just a little thought there on the side.
All right.
Then, Chaos Frank goes into four dreams that he has for the Amazon, namely a social dream,
a cultural dream, an ecological dream, and an ecclesial dream.
And that's what we're going to look at now.
First, though, let me make clear that, of course, the exhortation doesn't only contain
bad stuff, okay?
A certain amount of what it says is good, true, important, and justified, right?
For example, where it denounces,
Terrible and really cruel crimes committed against the indigenous population.
But that doesn't counteract the intolerable, unacceptable, erroneous, heretical, or blasphemous
stuff.
You can't say that because it's got half of good stuff and, say, half of bad stuff,
therefore, taken together, it's really nothing to lose sleep over, that it's okay.
No.
This is a document that's supposedly from the vicar of Christ.
Even,
One blasphemy, one heresy, one serious error is a disaster.
You cannot offset that by saying,
Oh, but look at all the good stuff over there.
Now, you wouldn't do that in any other situation, right?
Imagine if a car dealership were trying to sell you a car with only three wheels.
I mean, obviously, you'd reject it.
And they couldn't make up for that by pointing out how awesome the leather seats are, right?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't work that way.
All right.
Back to the text of the exhortation.
In paragraph 12, Bergoglio writes something that I thought was quite amusing.
Quote,
It is well known that ever since the final decades of the last century, the Amazon region
has been presented as an enormous empty space to be filled, a source of raw resources to
be developed, a wild expanse to be domesticated.
None of this recognizes the rightness of the Amazon.
None of this recognizes the rights of the original peoples.
It simply ignores them as if they did not exist, or acts as if the lands on which they
live do not belong to them.
Unquote.
Whoa.
Francis, the man who is encouraging and supporting the continued flooding of the European continent
with migrants from Africa and Asia, has suddenly discovered that native people own the land
in which they live.
Wow.
In paragraph 14, he even defends borders.
He talks about, quote, the right of the original peoples to the land and its boundaries, and
to self-determination and prior consent.
Unquote.
How about that?
Bergoglio, the defender of boundaries and borders.
Only for non-Europeans, of course.
When it comes to Europeans, they had better shut up, embrace anyone and anyone.
And, of course, pay for it all to boot.
Folks, if hypocrisy caused weight gain, this guy wouldn't fit into St. Peter's Square.
In paragraph 22, Francis tells us, quote, Christ redeemed the whole person, and he wishes to
restore in each of us the capacity to enter into relationship with others.
Unquote.
Yeah.
Because until Christ redeemed the human race, people were not able to enter into relationship
with others.
Here we go again with this post-conciliar garbage.
So, here Francis finally talks about the redemption, and right away he keeps it horizontal, or
he makes it horizontal, right?
He uses the redemption to focus on man's relationship with his fellow man.
Not with God, but with his fellow man.
Bravo.
Now, the sentence that follows is priceless.
Quote,
Unquote.
Be careful as your head hits the desk.
A hymn.
A fraternity.
Who writes this junk for him?
Always, always beware of metaphors in Novus Ordo documents.
Usually, they're used to obfuscate or as a substitute for theology.
In paragraph 26, Francis turns his attention to the poor.
He says, quote,
If we wish to dialogue, we should do this in the first place with the poor.
They are not just another party to be won over or merely another individual seated at
a table of equals.
They are our principal dialogue partners, those from whom we have the most to learn,
to whom we need to listen out of a duty of justice, and from whom we must ask permission
before presenting our proposals.
Unquote.
Now, I only have one question on this.
Why?
Why are they the most important people?
Why are they the ones from whom we supposedly have the most to learn?
Why must we listen to them, not simply out of charity, but out of justice?
What is it about physical poverty that calls for all that?
See, this is never explained.
It's always simply asserted, dogmatically, I guess.
And everyone is expected to just accept it.
And that's not to say, of course, that the poor aren't important, that they can be brushed
aside, that they shouldn't be considered equal to everyone else or any of that.
No.
All I'm saying is that Francis almost deifies them, almost makes them divine, and he doesn't
even explain why.
It's funny, but with all the footnotes that this exhortation has, a total of 145, he's
got none for that paragraph.
Why?
All right.
Thus far, the social dream of Francis, and you can see it's already a nightmare.
We'll pick up here in the next episode.
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