JORGE Bergoglio, the so-called pope, spoke of the dangers last Thursday of Catholics who become “disciple[s] of ideology.” What did he mean by “ideology?” If we read his words closely and interpret them in context, it is obvious what he meant. The ideology this anti-Catholic pope warned against is nothing other than Catholicism. In fact, if we read him correctly, he calls Catholicism a “serious illness.”

Imagine that. A “pope” tells Catholics they are seriously ill for being Catholic.

Vatican Radio reported:

“When we are on the street and find ourselves in front of a closed Church,” [the pope] said, “we feel that something is strange.” Sometimes, he said, “they give us reasons” as to why they are closed: They give “excuses, justifications, but the fact remains that the Church is closed and the people who pass by cannot enter.”

Today, the Pope said, Jesus speaks to us about the “image of the [lock]”; it is “the image of those Christians who have the key in their hand, but take it away, without opening the door.” Worse still, “they keep the door closed” and “don’t allow anyone to enter.” In so doing, they themselves do not enter. The “lack of Christian witness does this,” he said, and “when this Christian is a priest, a bishop or a Pope it is worse.” But, the Pope asks, how does it happen that a “Christian falls into this attitude” of keeping the key to the Church in his pocket, with the door closed?

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’

The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”The Pope continued, Jesus told us: “You burden the shoulders of people [with] many things; only one is necessary.” This, therefore, is the “spiritual, mental” thought process of one who wants to keep the key in his pocket and the door closed:

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the question, no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.”“The key that opens the door to the faith,” the Pope added, “is prayer.”

Who are the people the Church has turned away? No one who has any real-life contact with Catholic churches today could reasonably argue that the repentant sinner or the poor are locked out of the Church.

The woman who has had an abortion and is repentant is not turned away. The sodomite, even someone who has engaged in homosexual activism, who is repentant is not turned away. In fact, he is warmly welcomed. The divorced person who is repentant is not turned away, though he cannot receive Communion if remarried. Those who have committed any number of other serious sins are not turned away. Their repentance is entirely a private matter and social ostracism is virtually non-existent in the relativistic atmosphere of the modernized Church.

The idea that the poor are turned away is laughable. The only sense in which they are turned away is that they have fewer churches because of the destructive, rationalistic ideology of Vatican II that has stripped the Church of its mysteries and decimated priestly vocations.

But that is plainly not the ideology to which Bergoglio is referring. So who is it that this “rigid” and “moralistic” ideology is unforgivingly turning away? There are only two possible categories if one looks at the Church as it is: unrepentant sinners and those from other religions who reject Catholic doctrine. They are the only people turned away. Notice that he says that a pope must not lock the door either.

Bergoglio is clearly urging Catholics to stop being Catholic.

— Comments —

Buck writes:

I continue to argue, though not enough, that it is modern liberalism; not Islam, not race differences, not sex differences and sexual aberrations, not feminism or any subordinate “ism”, or any of the social, cultural and material maladies from which we increasingly suffer, but rather that it is the abundant natural forces already in us that animate, empower and imbue modern liberalism with the necessary attributes on which human weaknesses thrive. It is not some unnatural force outside of us and isolated within only the modern liberal. We are all practicing modern liberals. That is new mode for our global survival. I am increasingly convinced that there is no viable alternative to it, not within the civic realm.

I use the petri dish analogy again: Bacteria exists in the dish, an anti-bacteria agent is introduced into the dish. Most of the dominant bacteria dies, leaving alive only the bacteria with the proper enzymes to resist the anti-bacteria. They survive and then thrive on the nutritious remains of dead Americans. Nothing new has been created. Modern liberalism has always existed, but in such small amounts, as not to matter. Once the constraints were removed (democratic laboratory), modern liberals flourished and devoured the larger population and all of its major institutions.

What is that enzyme? Whatever it is, it’s growing in us all. I once described it to friends: “It’s insidious. It’s in all of us like the tingler. It takes over the human nerve system and can’t be removed by it’s own host. We need a collective scream that shakes down our government buildings.”

The Catholic church, to this non-Catholic and ignorant child, had always seemed to occupy some higher plane, something mysterious and arcane, but real and seeming solid as a rock. I grew up with terrific Catholic friends from adjacent neighborhoods. I didn’t begin to understand it, but I had a sense of a majesty. We, my family and close neighbors, I once heard it said, were “low” Episcopal. It was easy and relaxed, and sometimes fun, nothing like the strict and rigid nun and priest stories friends would tell. It was “other” world and it seemed powerful.

Not so much anymore. Any “damn” that used to protect the church, in my young eyes has been breached and largely destroyed. Modern liberalism is washing over the “masses.”

All the great institutions seems to be hanging by a thread, falling a failing one by one into nostalgia.

I know that the Magisterium exists, that the teachings still exist. But, so does the U. S. Constitution, our congress and our courts. We still have elections. So what?

Laura writes:

The Catholic Church is a supernatural institution so it is not at all comparable to the Constitution or the U.S. government. Liberalism can significantly damage it, but it cannot prevail against it. The Church remains alive despite the apostasies of recent popes and the heresies of Vatican II. It remains alive in the sacraments, the Magisterium, the prayers of the faithful, the Communion of Saints, the workings of the Holy Spirit and the promises of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Redeemer.

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