Francis in the Middle East
May 27, 2014
Antipope Francis laying a wreath at grave of Zionist Theodor Herzl
IF Jorge Bergoglio were a true pope and not a scandalous heretic, what would be the purpose of a visit to Jordan and Israel, such as the one he concluded yesterday? There would be only one purpose: To seek the conversion of both Muslims and Jews so that this blood-drenched region has some hope of peace.
But if the Argentinian Bomber sought to convert, he had a strange way of going about it. For he seemed only to affirm Muslims and Jews in their disastrously erroneous beliefs. He spoke admiringly of “three great monotheistic religions,” as if it were possible for contradictory religions to be true and as if the outrageous denial of Christ and his Sacred Humanity by Jews and Muslims (yes, Muslims do deny Christ) amounted to nothing. He praised the Jews as God’s “people,” as if the Incarnation had never happened and the Covenant with the Hebrews were still alive. And he invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres both to join him in prayer at the Vatican as if they were all worshipping the same God. How much further can the world sink than this indifferentism, which is so conducive to worldwide atheism and international strife?
Francis blathered on, of course, about religious freedom:
Religious freedom is in fact a fundamental human right and I cannot fail to express my hope that it will be upheld throughout the Middle East and the entire world. The right to religious freedom “includes on the individual and collective levels the freedom to follow one’s conscience in religious matters and, at the same time, freedom of worship… [it also includes] the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” (Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 26).
Religious freedom is no more a human right than walking down a street in the face of ongoing traffic is a human right. No one has the right to be wrong.
As pointed out at Novus Ordo Watch, Pope Pius IX is among those who condemned this error:
For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.”
And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”
From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity,” viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”
But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching “liberty of perdition;” and that “if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling.”
(Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Quanta Cura [1864], n. 3;)
For all his sentimental talk of peace, Francis brought division instead. All in all, his visit reminds me of the time I attended the funeral of a priest with my then-eight-year-old son. My son was perplexed when he saw the bishop who presided over the funeral was wearing a skullcap under his mitre. (He was also so overwhelmed by the pageantry that he thought the bishop might be the pope himself.) He tapped my shoulder and whispered, “Mom, how come the Pope’s Jewish?”
— Comments —
Bob writes:
For awhile under JPII and Benedict, I was drawn to the Church, in which I was raised and which I left 50 years ago. I do understand the doctrinal problems with JPII’s version of ecumenism, but he was charismatic.
No more. That repellent Pharisee pretending to be Catholic has sent me away, probably for good.
The Holy Ghost has abandoned the Roman Church, most likely since the Great Schism.
However, there is still the Orthodox Church.
Laura writes:
Don’t blame your apostasy on Francis. You have your own ignorance or bad will to blame.
You entirely misread Catholic theology.
No one claiming to be pope can redefine the dogmas that have been revealed by God and promulgated by the Church for 2,000 years. The Church resides in those who do hold these sacred truths and will never perish, no matter how many people walk away from it. If you believe the Holy Ghost has abandoned the Church, you have abandoned Christianity, period. And in doing so you walk away from your own salvation and all the magnificent popes who defended this formidable fortress from ruin, including Leo XIII who wrote:
The greatest of all misfortunes is never to have known Jesus Christ: yet such a state is free from the sin of obstinacy and ingratitude. But first to have known Him, and afterwards to deny or forget Him, is a crime so foul and so insane that it seems impossible for any man to be guilty of it. For Christ is the fountainhead of all good. Mankind can no more be saved without His power, than it could be redeemed without His mercy. “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv, 12).
Ian F. Shield writes:
As a Jew, I obviously don’t share the religious convictions you express in that post, but I have no desire to debate such theological issues. What I find worth commenting on in that post, however, is the view you express that peace could be brought to the region if both the Jews and the Muslims were converted to Christianity. Need I point out that Christians – even Roman Catholics – fought each other, often viciously, during the whole time Christianity was a state religion? If, hypothetically, the Jews and Muslim Arabs of the Middle East were converted to Christianity, they would remain divided by language, culture, history and ethnicity, and would presumably remain in conflict. Indeed, it is my understanding that Christianity – at least traditional Christianity – does not claim that its universal adoption will result in the abolition of war and other forms of political conflict and other human problems of this world (at least until God intervenes at the end of days). So I am somewhat surprised to hear a traditional Christian like yourself imply that Christianity is the solution to the various conflicts in the Middle East.
You also refer in the post to Jews’ believing that their covenant with God continues to exist. While this is still the doctrine of Orthodox Judaism, most Jews in Israel are either completely secular and nonbelieving (such as President Peres) or only casual and intermittent participants in Jewish ritual (kind of like “cafeteria Catholics” in this country), who merely engage in Jewish religious practices as they see fit but have no deeply held religious beliefs (something that is probably also true of many of the outwardly rigorously observant Orthodox). Moreover, the whole premise of political Zionism (apart from the small religious Zionist minority within pre-statehood Zionism) was that the Jews were a people like any other, with no special covenant with God, and should form a political nation like any other, without any need to wait for divine sanction for so doing.
Laura writes:
Thank you for your comments.
I did not mean to suggest that the conversion of the region would bring complete and final peace. Such a thing is not possible. I believe it would bring relative peace, such as the relative peace that reigned for periods in Europe before the advent of modern nationalism. I realize that there has never been a time free of conflict between tribes, kingdoms or nations.
The fact that many Jews are atheists is the beside the point. I was referring to Bergoglio’s belief in the ongoing Covenant with the Jewish people.
