[CAUTION: THIS COMMENTARY CONTAINS DOCUMENTATION OF TERRIBLE SINS. IT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY THOSE WHO, MOST UNDERSTANDABLY, DO NOT NEED TO HAVE THEIR SOULS AGITATED BY THE DEPTH TO WHICH THE FALSEHOODS OF THE COUNTERFEIT CHURCH OF CONCILIARISM HAS SUNK.]

Only the willfully blind have any excuse at this point for not recognizing that there is no such thing as “partial-credit” Catholicism.

Although the following two passages have been used a lot on this site, I will proceed to use them again in order to demonstrate to those who might be wavering about their position concerning the true state of the Church Militant on earth in this time of apostasy and betrayal that there is no such thing as a “irreducible minima” standard for maintaining oneself as a Catholic in good standing. It is all or nothing, and those who contend otherwise are without a single, solitary shred of Patristic or dogmatic proof to sustain:

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this because everyone must believe all the truths of faith–both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. “There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition” (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. “No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic” (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. “For in one spirit” says the Apostle, “were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free.” As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered – so the Lord commands – as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

There comes a point, which I have reached, that makes repeating what has been repeated hundreds upon hundreds of times before counterproductive.

So few people, relatively speaking, want to make the sacrifices that are necessary to admit that one who is not a Catholic cannot hold ecclesiastical office legitimately.

So few people, relatively speaking, want to acknowledge that Pope Leo XIII has definitively condemned the “resist while recognize” position that is still being offered as the way to “restore” Holy Mother Church.

Anyone who can read the following passages from Pope Leo XIII’s Epistola Tua, June 17, 1885, Est Sane Molestum, December 13, 1888, and Pope Saint Pius X’s allocution  Vi ringrazio, November 18, 1912, and not even stop for a moment to consider the falsity and the condemned nature of the “resist while recognize” position is not a dispassionate seeker of truth:

To the shepherds alone was given all power to teach, to judge, to direct; on the faithful was imposed the duty of following their teaching, of submitting with docility to their judgment, and of allowing themselves to be governed, corrected, and guided by them in the way of salvation. Thus, it is an absolute necessity for the simple faithful to submit in mind and heart to their own pastors, and for the latter to submit with them to the Head and Supreme Pastor. In this subordination and dependence lie the order and life of the Church; in it is to be found the indispensable condition of well-being and good government. On the contrary, if it should happen that those who have no right to do so should attribute authority to themselves, if they presume to become judges and teachers, if inferiors in the government of the universal Church attempt or try to exert an influence different from that of the supreme authority, there follows a reversal of the true order, many minds are thrown into confusion, and souls leave the right path.

And to fail in this most holy duty it is not necessary to perform an action in open opposition whether to the Bishops or to the Head of the Church; it is enough for this opposition to be operating indirectly, all the more dangerous because it is the more hidden. Thus, a soul fails in this sacred duty when, at the same time that a jealous zeal for the power and the prerogatives of the Sovereign Pontiff is displayed, the Bishops united to him are not given their due respect, or sufficient account is not taken of their authority, or their actions and intentions are interpreted in a captious manner, without waiting for the judgment of the Apostolic See.

Similarly, it is to give proof of a submission which is far from sincere to set up some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them; and in some ways they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation, would wish to appeal to a future council, or to a Pope who is better informed.

On this point what must be remembered is that in the government of the Church, except for the essential duties imposed on all Pontiffs by their apostolic office, each of them can adopt the attitude which he judges best according to times and circumstances. Of this he alone is the judge. It is true that for this he has not only special lights, but still more the knowledge of the needs and conditions of the whole of Christendom, for which, it is fitting, his apostolic care must provide. He has the charge of the universal welfare of the Church, to which is subordinate any particular need, and all others who are subject to this order must second the action of the supreme director and serve the end which he has in view. Since the Church is one and her head is one, so, too, her government is one, and all must conform to this.

When these principles are forgotten there is noticed among Catholics a diminution of respect, of veneration, and of confidence in the one given them for a guide; then there is a loosening of that bond of love and submission which ought to bind all the faithful to their pastors, the faithful and the pastors to the Supreme Pastor, the bond in which is principally to be found security and common salvation.

In the same way, by forgetting or neglecting these principles, the door is opened wide to divisions and dissensions among Catholics, to the grave detriment of union which is the distinctive mark of the faithful of Christ, and which, in every age, but particularly today by reason of the combined forces of the enemy, should be of supreme and universal interest, in favor of which every feeling of personal preference or individual advantage ought to be laid aside.

That obligation, if it is generally incumbent on all, is, you may indeed say, especially pressing upon journalists. If they have not been imbued with the docile and submissive spirit so necessary to each Catholic, they would assist in spreading more widely those deplorable matters and in making them more burdensome. The task pertaining to them in all the things that concern religion and that are closely connected to the action of the Church in human society is this: to be subject completely in mind and will, just as all the other faithful are, to their own bishops and to the Roman Pontiff; to follow and make known their teachings; to be fully and willingly subservient to their influence; and to reverence their precepts and assure that they are respected. He who would act otherwise in such a way that he would serve the aims and interests of those whose spirit and intentions We have reproved in this letter would fail the noble mission he has undertaken. So doing, in vain would he boast of attending to the good of the Church and helping her cause, no less than someone who would strive to weaken or diminish Catholic truth, or indeed someone who would show himself to be her overly fearful friend. (Pope Leo XIII, Epistola Tua, June 17, 1885.)

No, it cannot be permitted that laymen who profess to be Catholic should go so far as openly to arrogate to themselves in the columns of a newspaper, the right to denounce, and to find fault, with the greatest license and according to their own good pleasure, with every sort of person, not excepting bishops, and think that with the single exception of matters of faith they are allowed to entertain any opinion which may please them and exercise the right to judge everyone after their own fashion.

In the present case, Venerable Brother, there is nothing which could cause you to doubt Our assent and Our approbation. It is Our first duty to take care, uniting Our efforts to yours, that the divine authority of the bishops remain sacred and inviolable. It belongs to Us also to command and to effect that everywhere this authority may remain strong and respected, and that in all things it may receive from Catholics the submission and reverence which are its just due. In fact, the divine edifice which is the Church is supported, as on a foundation visible to all men, first by Peter, then by the Apostles and their successors the Bishops. To hear them or to despise them is to hear or to despise Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself [cf. Luke 10:16]. The Bishops form the most sacred part of the Church, that which instructs and governs men by divine right; and so he who resists them and stubbornly refuses to obey their word places himself outside the Church [cf. Matt. 18:18]. But obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces. For the Christian people, the bishops are not only the teachers of the faith, they are placed at their head to rule and govern them; they are responsible for the salvation of the souls whom God has entrusted to them, and of which they will one day have to render an account. It is for this reason that the Apostle St. Paul addresses this exhortation to Christians: “Obey your prelates, and be subject to them. For they watch as having to render an account of your souls” [Heb. 13:17].

In fact, it is always true and manifest to all that there are in the Church two grades, very distinct by their nature: the shepherds and the flock, that is to say, the rulers and the people. It is the function of the first order to teach, to govern, to guide men through life, to impose rules; the second has the duty to be submissive to the first, to obey, to carry out orders, to render honor. And if subordinates usurp the place of superiors, this is, on their part, not only to commit an act of harmful boldness, but even to reverse, as far as in them lies, the order so wisely established by the Providence of the Divine Founder of the Church. If by chance there should be in the ranks of the episcopate a bishop not sufficiently mindful of his dignity and apparently unfaithful to one of his sacred obligations, in spite of this he would lose nothing of his power, and, so long as he remained in communion with the Roman Pontiff, it would certainly not be permitted to anyone to relax in any detail the respect and obedience which are due his authority. On the other hand, to scrutinize the actions of a bishop, to criticize them, does not belong to individual Catholics, but concerns only those who, in the sacred hierarchy, have a superior power; above all, it concerns the Supreme Pontiff, for it is to him that Christ confided the care of feeding not only all the lambs, but even the sheep [cf. John 21:17]. At the same time, when the faithful have grave cause for complaint, they are allowed to put the whole matter before the Roman Pontiff, provided always that, safeguarding prudence and the moderation counseled by concern for the common good, they do not give vent to outcries and recriminations which contribute rather to the rise of divisions and ill-feeling, or certainly increase them.

These fundamental principles, which cannot be gainsaid without bringing in their wake confusion and ruin in the government of the Church, We have many, many times been careful to recall and to inculcate. Our letters to Our Nuncio in France [In Mezzo of 1884], which you have cited in this matter, speak clearly; so do those addressed to the Archbishop of Paris [Epistola Tua of 1885], to the Belgian Bishops, to some Italian Bishops, and the two encyclicals to the Bishops of France [Nobilissima Gallorum of 1884], and of Spain [Cum Multa of 1882].

Once again today We recall these documents; once again We inculcate this teaching, with the very great hope that Our admonitions and Our authority will calm the present agitation of minds in your diocese, that all will be strengthened and find rest in faith, in obedience, in the just and legitimate respect towards those invested with a sacred power in the Church.

Not only must those be held to fail in their duty who openly and brazenly repudiate the authority of their leaders, but those, too, who give evidence of a hostile and contrary disposition by their clever tergiversations and their oblique and devious dealings. The true and sincere virtue of obedience is not satisfied with words; it consists above all in submission of mind and heart.

But since We are here dealing with the lapse of a newspaper, it is absolutely necessary for Us once more to enjoin upon the editors of Catholic journals to respect as sacred laws the teaching and the ordinances mentioned above and never to deviate from them. Moreover, let them be well persuaded and let this be engraved in their minds, that if they dare to violate these prescriptions and abandon themselves to their personal appreciations, whether in prejudging questions which the Holy See has not yet pronounced on, or in wounding the authority of the Bishops by arrogating to themselves an authority which can never be theirs, let them be convinced that it is all in vain for them to pretend to keep the honor of the name of Catholic and to serve the interests of the very holy and very noble cause which they  have undertaken to defend and to render glorious.

Now, We, exceedingly desirous that any who have strayed return to soundness of mind and that deference to the sacred Bishops inhere deeply in the hearts of all men, in the Lord We bestow an Apostolic Blessing upon you, Venerable Brother, and to all your clergy and people, as a token of Our fatherly good will and charity. (Pope Leo XIII, Est Sane Molestum, December 17, 1888. The complete text may be found at: Est Sane Molestum, December 17, 1888. See also  Pope Leo XIII Quashes Popular “Resist-And-Recognize Position.)

Distracted with so many occupations, it is easy to forget the things that lead to perfection in priestly life; it is easy [for the priest] to delude himself and to believe that, by busying himself with the salvation of the souls of others, he consequently works for his own sanctification. Alas, let not this delusion lead you to error, because nemo dat quod nemo habet [no one gives what he does not have]; and, in order to sanctify others, it is necessary not to neglect any of the ways proposed for the sanctification of our own selves….

The Pope is the guardian of dogma and of morals; he is the custodian of the principles that make families sound, nations great, souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and of peoples; he is the head under whom no one feels tyrannized because he represents God Himself; he is the supreme father who unites in himself all that may exist that is loving, tender, divine.

It seems incredible, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are regrettably in our age in this hard, unhappy, situation of having to tell priests: love the Pope!

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth – 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, “si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word – Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: RORATE CÆLI: “Love the Pope!” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

Those might protest that they are not bound to accept the binding nature of such apostolic letters or papal allocutions have reckon with the following words of the late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who some in the “resist while recognize” camp accept as a stalwart champion of the Catholic Faith:

Despite the fact that there is nothing like an adequate treatment of the papal allocutions in existing theological literature, every priest, and particularly every professor of sacred theology, should know whether and under what circumstances these allocutions addressed by the Sovereign Pontiffs to private groups are to be regarded as authoritative, as actual expressions of the Roman Pontiff’s ordinary magisterium.  And, especially because of the tendency towards an unhealthy minimism current in this country and elsewhere in the world today, they should also know how doctrine is to be set forth in the allocutions and the other vehicles of the Holy Father’s ordinary magisterium if it is to be accepted as authoritative.  The present brief paper will attempt to consider and to answer these questions.

The first question to be considered is this: Can a speech addressed by the Roman Pontiff to a private group, a group which cannot in any sense be taken as representing either the Roman Church or the universal Church, contain doctrinal teaching authoritative for the universal Church?

The clear and unequivocal answer to this question is contained in the Holy Father’s encyclical letter Humani generis, issued Aug. 12, 1950.  According to this document: “if, in their ‘Acta‘ the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves.”[6]

Thus, in the teaching of the Humani generis, any doctrinal decision made by the Pope and included in his “Acta” are authoritative.  Now many of the allocutions made by the Sovereign Pontiff to private groups are included in the “Acta” of the Sovereign Pontiff himself, as a section of the Acta apostolicae sedis.  Hence, any doctrinal decision made in one of these allocutions that is published in the Holy Father’s “Acta” is authoritative and binding on all the members of the universal Church.

There is, according to the words of the Humani generis, an authoritative doctrinal decision whenever the Roman Pontiffs, in their “Acta,” “de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt.”  When this condition is fulfilled, even in an allocution originally delivered to a private group, but subsequently published as part of the Holy Father’s “Acta,” an authoritative doctrinal judgment has been proposed to the universal Church.  All of those within the Church are obliged, under penalty of serious sin, to accept this decision. . . .

Now the questions may arise: is there any particular form which the Roman Pontiff is obliged to follow in setting forth a doctrinal decision in either the positive or the negative manner? Does the Pope have to state specifically and explicitly that he intends to issue a doctrinal decision on this particular point?  Is it at all necessary that he should refer explicitly to the fact that there has hitherto been a debate among theologians on the question he is going to decide?

There is certainly nothing in the divinely established constitutional law of the Catholic Church which would in any way justify an affirmative response to any of these inquiries.  The Holy Father’s doctrinal authority stems from the tremendous responsibility Our Lord laid upon him in St. Peter, whose successor he is.  Our Lord charged the Prince of the Apostles, and through him, all of his successors until the end of time, with the commission of feeding, of acting as a shepherd for, of taking care of, His lambs and His sheep.[7]  Included in that responsibility was the obligation, and, of course, the power, to confirm the faith of his fellow Christians.

And the Lord said: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.”[8]

St. Peter had, and has in his successor, the duty and the power to confirm his brethren in their faith, to take care of their doctrinal needs.  Included in his responsibility is an obvious obligation to select and to employ the means he judges most effective and apt for the accomplishment of the end God has commissioned him to attain.  And in this era, when the printed word possesses a manifest primacy in the field of the dissemination of ideas, the Sovereign Pontiffs have chosen to bring their authoritative teaching, the doctrine in which they accomplish the work of instruction God has commanded them to do, to the people of Christ through the medium of the printed word in the published “Acta.”

The Humani generis reminds us that the doctrinal decisions set forth in the Holy Father’s “Acta” manifestly are authoritative “according to the mind and will” of the Pontiffs who have issued these decisions.  Thus, wherever there is a doctrinal judgment expressed in the “Acta” of a Sovereign Pontiff, it is clear that the Pontiff understands that decision to be authoritative and wills that it be so.

Now when the Pope, in his “Acta,” sets forth as a part of Catholic doctrine or as a genuine teaching of the Catholic Church some thesis which has hitherto been opposed, even legitimately, in the schools of sacred theology, he is manifestly making a doctrinal decision.  This certainly holds true even when, in making his statement, the Pope does not explicitly assert that he is issuing a doctrinal judgment and, of course, even when he does not refer to the existence of a controversy or debate on the subject among theologians up until the time of his own pronouncement.  All that is necessary is that this teaching, hitherto opposed in the theological schools, be now set forth as the teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff, or as “doctrina catholica.”

Private theologians have no right whatsoever to establish what they believe to be the conditions under which the teaching presented in the “Acta” of the Roman Pontiff may be accepted as authoritative.  This is, on the contrary, the duty and the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff himself.  The present Holy Father has exercised that right and has done his duty in stating clearly that any doctrinal decision which the Bishop of Rome has taken the trouble to make and insert into his “Acta” is to be received as genuinely authoritative.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own “Acta.”  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner?

The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer.  This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: “And if, in their ‘Acta,’ the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves.”

Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved.  Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided.  A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own “Acta.”  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner? (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)

What more doctrinal proof can be given to make it clear that those who recognize a man as a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter have no right from God to withdraw their obedience to him in matters of Faith, Worship and Morals, no less to criticize him publicly, admitting that some of those who did some during the 9,666 day tenure of “Saint John Paul II” went to sleep, at least for the most part, during the 2,873 day tenure of the now-retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (the future “Saint Benedict of Continuity”), and now, of course, however selectively, during the tenure of Jorge the Decadent?

The situation has decayed in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which has been led by false spirits from the very moment that the old, Judaizing syncretist who supported The Sillon long after its tenets had been condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, “Saint John XXIII,” was “elected” under mysterious circumstances on October 28, 1958, that open licentiousness is now displayed in conciliar churches and cathedrals with absolutely no fear of any “papal” rebuke whatsoever. I will not even begin to describe the sort of decadence that took place recently in the Cathedral of St. Peter in Osnabruck, Germany, noting only that what has been pretty commonplace at “papal” audiences (as mostly disrobed “gymnasts” performed acrobatic feats to the delight of an ogling Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI) and at “papal” extravaganza liturgies (particularly those staged by “Saint” John Paul II that featured native peoples dressed down, shall we say for the occasion) is now considered to be perfectly acceptable at the “retail” level in diocesan cathedrals and in churches. The “bishop” who sanctioned this profantion, is named Fran-Josef Hermann Bode, who was named as an auxiliary “bishop” in his home diocese of Paderborn, Germany, in 1991, by “Saint John Paul II.” (If you really need to see the details, you may find them at (Novus Ordo Watch Wire, which has posted a cautionary note about a video link to the scandalous display. No, I did not view the video, and I do not recommend that any reader from this site do so. The story speaks for itself.)

As horrific as such a profanation of a formerly Catholic cathedral is, however, it must be remembered that it is only the rotten issue of a decadent theology, decadent and sacramentally invalid liturgical rites and an entire regime of decadent pastoral praxis. Such a profanation is the result a false church’s systematic recruitment, retention, promotion and protection of those inclined to the commission of perverse sins against nature. The entire ethos of the counterfeit church of conciliarism has been designed from its very inception to appeal to what is now called the “rainbow” agenda, which is why effeminate men have been screened into the conciliar presbyterate in many archdioceses, dioceses and religious communities and why those who show true masculinity and firmness of resolve against error, falsehood, profanation and sacrilege have been shown the door in their seminary days or sent for psychiatric reprogramming following their presbyteral installation.

The situation is so very decadent in the counterfeit church of conciliarism that words and actions that were considered to be signs of rebellion against “Saint John Paul II” are now considered to be part of the current “pope’s” agenda.

Consider the case of one “Father” Fred Daley, who uttered the following words at a Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service on Sunday, September 15, 2002, at Saint Francis de Sales Church in Utica, New York (the home of Mohawk Valley Community College, at which I taught from 1976 to 1977), to celebrate “diversity”:

“More than 400 people, including a handful of local leaders and clergy, gathered to attend the area’s first Mass for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people led by the Rev. Fred Daley. The main message at the Mass revolved around acceptance, love, forgiveness, peace and unity. ‘I just want you to know you’re very welcome here today,’ Daley told the congregation as he started the service. He wore a rainbow stole over his white robes. . . . ‘I think the last several days have been the greatest teaching moments on homophobia the Mohawk Valley has ever seen,’ he said. ‘I challenge all of us to use this moment as a time to move our community out of ignorance, hatred, fear and violence.’ The key to breaking that cycle is education, he said, which will defeat the myths and stereotypes about gay people that come from as far back as the Middle Ages. Two fundamentals of that education are first, that no one can choose his or her sexual orientation and second, that the Bible cannot be used to evaluate one’s sexuality, Daley said. ‘We can’t use the Bible to hit people over the head with,’ he said, noting that he doesn’t think modern theologians are able to use the Bible to prove homosexuality a sin. The Catholic church and others should not be so obsessed with what people do in private, he said. ‘I didn’t tell anyone at the 8 a.m. Mass or the 11 a.m. Mass (what to do in their bedrooms), so I’m certainly not going to tell anyone here at the 3 p.m. Mass,’ he said, receiving more cheers and applause. ‘Certainly no one is going to push me to stand at the pulpit and explain what is intimate.’ At the end of the service, Beverly Bartlett, coordinator of the Mohawk Valley Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender organization, presented Daley with a clock commending him for his courage. Bartlett said sometime soon the organization would like to work with St. Francis DeSales to establish a monthly Mass for gay and lesbian people. ‘We can walk out of this building and commit ourselves to speak the truth,’ Daley said. ‘If we do that there will be someday that our public officials will maybe even hang the rainbow flag.’ After the service, people stayed for refreshments, to visit and to sign a card to Bishop James Moynihan, thanking him for allowing the Mass. Daley said he spoke to Bishop James Moynihan and Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse officials last week to clarify the service and he expected no opposition for Sunday’s Mass. Syracuse and Binghamton area churches have had similar services, he said.'” (The actual source was the Utica Observer-Dispatcher, which no longer has the story online. I quoted it contemporaneously in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos in an article that was later republished on Mr. Michael Cain’s Daily Catholic website. See Blaming the Messenger, which was, of course, written during my indulterer/resist while recognize years.)

Nothing happened to “Father Fred.”

The then conciliar “bishop” of Syracuse, James Moynihan, a product of the revolutionary (and now retired) “Bishop” Matthew Clark’s Diocese of Rochester, New York, kept him where he was.

Nothing happened to “Bishop” Moynihan, who retired in “good standing” in the conciliar structures in 2009 at the age of seventy-seven.

Emboldened by all of the warm and fuzzies he received after his “bold” “homily” of September 15, 2002, “Father” Fred Daley came out the closet two yeas later, five years before one of the architects of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service on Annibale Bugnini’s Consilium, Rembert Geoge Weakland, O.S.B., the doctrinally, morally corrupt conciliar “archbishop” of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1977 to 2002, did so. “Father” Fred’s “coming out” party made big news in Utica at the time:

The Rev. Fred Daley, longtime pastor at St. Francis DeSales Church on Eagle Street, trusts the community will continue to accept him after his acknowledgment that he is gay.

He made the disclosure during an interview with the Observer-Dispatch Thursday. The interview was in advance of Daley’s “Real Hero” award, which he accepted from the United Way of the Greater Utica Area Thursday evening. The award was in recognition of his social ministry on Hospitality Row, where many of Utica’s poor are served.

“I’m the same person today as I was yesterday,” he said. “My expectation and prayer is that people will continue to love and respect me.”

Daley said he shared this information with the bishops of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse as well as a few close friends and family members.

Celibacy is a “charism,” or a gift for some people, he said.

“I myself am gay, and I am committed to living a celibate life,” he said.

Despite a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety about coming out publicly, Daley said he feels called by God to do so and is ready to accept whatever “rejection or misunderstanding surrounding this.”

Daley’s decision to come out occurs at a time when both the Catholic Church and the nation are grappling with changes in society that have led gays to seek greater acceptance.

As recently as 2002, Vatican officials considered barring men with “homosexual tendencies” from seminaries, The Associated Press reported.

In September of that year, the Rev. Andrew Baker, an American staff member of the Congregation for Bishops, wrote an article for Jesuit magazine that said gay men “should not be admitted to holy orders, and (their) presence in the seminary would not only give him false hope but it may, in fact, hinder” the therapy he needs, the AP reported.

Danielle Cummings, spokeswoman for the Syracuse Diocese, said priests have an obligation to celibacy, whatever their sexual orientation. A priest’s homosexuality does not result in dismissal from the priesthood.

Cummings said Thursday evening she was not aware of contact about this issue between Daley and the bishops.

Other diocesan leaders were unavailable for comment Thursday night.

St. Francis DeSales is one of three Utica Catholic churches working on a plan to integrate and become one parish under one priest, with three campuses, by July 2006. Daley is nearing the end of a second, six-year term as pastor of St. Francis, and he hopes to stay in Utica even after completion of that obligation.

“I respect the bishops of our diocese, and I know they respect me and my ministry,” Daley said.

Daley said his decision to come out stems from what he views as the scapegoating of gay clergy over the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church.

“There are many gay priests committed to celibacy, living a celibate life, and doing a beautiful ministry for the church,” Daley said.

Daley was at the center of controversy two years ago, when he was asked to step aside as main speaker at a 9/11 memorial event because there were plans for St. Francis DeSales to host a gay and lesbian Mass. Local firefighters, who were deeply involved in the execution of the event, insisted that Daley be removed.

“All these other issues and crusades should not cloud what this one day is all about,” Assistant Fire Chief Russell Brooks said at the time. “Sept. 11 is supposed to be a day of uniting and healing. I think it’s very inappropriate for (Daley) to bring this to light on that day.”

Utica Mayor Tim Julian said the main speaker should not be someone who speaks out on controversial issues.

“If it was Gay Pride Day, then Father Daley would be very fitting,” Julian said.

Utica Common Councilman Bill Phillips attended the Mass in support of Daley. He said he would do the same thing again now.

“Whatever his sexual preference is, it really doesn’t concern me,” Phillips said Thursday night. “I will say he is one of the greatest humanitarians that I have ever met.”

The controversy spurred a community debate that led to the publication of more than 100 letters to the editor in the O-D.

Friends of Daley believe he may face negative reactions, but that those who truly know him will be supportive.

“Like the New Testament says, you judge a person by the fruits of their labor,” said Michael Crinnin, a longtime friend of Daley’s and executive director of AIDS Community Resources. “He has nothing to show for himself but an incredible number of good works.”

Sister Betty Giarrusso, C.S.J., has worked with Daley for the past 10 years at St. Francis DeSales. She said the “Real Hero” award has always been appropriate for Daley, but particularly now that he has opened up publicly about his sexual orientation.

“I think any time we live from our truth, we don’t know what those consequences will be,” Giarrusso said. “If others have a difficulty accepting who we are or how we’re trying to live, there’s a sadness to that. But to betray oneself is the greatest sadness of all.”

Daley hopes his public acknowledgment will ultimately educate people about homosexuality, and help others who are struggling to come out.

“I know that some people will not understand and it may add to confusion on the part of many, but in prayer I felt that in the long run, the truth — this truth — will help many,” he said, adding that homophobia is the result of ignorance. “I’m being faithful to myself and the Gospel of Jesus.” (As found at: Fred Daley Celebrates Sinful Attractions.)

What happened to “Father” Fred Daley after he celebrated being attracted in a perversely sinful manner to other men?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Indeed, the tenor of what “Father” Fred Daley said ten years ago represents the sort of “compassion” shown by many of those who have Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s personal favor, including the hand of the aged priest he held hands with of a homosexual activist named “Father” Luigi Ciotti as they walked up the steps of a Roman church on April 2, 2014:

(See the story at the Call Me Jorge website)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio also kissed the hand of a ninety-three year-old homosexual activist named Don Michele De Paolis when he met with him at the Casa Santa Marta on May 7, 2014 (See Jorge the Kissing Fool.)

Bergoglio has no problem with those who live in lives of unrepentant sins of perversion, and he has no problem with those who promote it, which is why “Father” Fred Daley, who is still a pastor in the Diocese of Syracuse, albeit at a different church now, felt that it was time to do what was up until then considered to a “crossing the Rubicon” moment in most dioceses: an open celebration of “Gay Pride” during the month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the month of June:

SYRACUSE — For the first time in the history of the Catholic Church in Syracuse, a member parish has hosted a Gay Pride prayer service. Tuesday evening, dozens of people of all different faiths gathered at All Saints Church on Lancaster Place on the city’s east side. The prayer service was billed as a celebration of gay people and a recognition of the ongoing struggle for equality. All Saints Pastor Father Fred Daley said, “Our mission is to be open and welcoming to all people. I think that often religion of all types lose focus on that and can instead become instruments of isolation and segregation. We are trying to be sure to do our best to stop that at All Saints.”

In 2004, Father Daley made headlines, especially among religious publications, when he came out to his congregation  in Utica. The Roman Catholic Church’s position on gays remains unchanged. Church doctrine considers them “intrinsically disordered” and prone to “evil tendencies.” At the Pride prayer service, Fr. Daley said, “This is about God’s love – God made all of us, and we teach that God is good. This event tonight is about inclusion and where there is inclusion there is light.” (The Jorge Effect in Syracuse.)

Wanna write a letter to Jorge about this?

Fuhhgettaboutit!

All efforts, weak as they may have been, on the part of “conservative” “bishops” in the counterfeit church of conciliarism to prevent parishes from sponsoring “gay pride” groups from marching in the annual displays of vulgarity that might have made the inhabitants of Sodom and Gommorha blush with shame have been undercut. What was once forbidden in the conciliar structures is now part of Jorge’s agenda of “charity” and “mercy.”

As has been noted on this site endless, the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism has created, sustained and celebrated an environment that breeds and promotes sodomites in the presbyterate as they  have helped to “mainstream” popular Catholic  acceptance of objectively perverse sinful behavior as a normal part of a person’s identity. And while it is one thing for one to sin or even be tempted to do so, it is quite another to celebrate sin, no less that of the sin of Sodom, one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, and to promote it with ready abandon.

Human identity is not based on upon one’s inclination to the commission of any particular sin, no less those against nature. It is indecent, gross and profanely blasphemous for anyone to contend that God has “made” anyone with a predilection to commit sins against nature. Such sins are a matter of choice, usually preceded by social conditioning, the likes of which in today’s world really has no parallel in history. Not even ancient Rome with all of its decadence can compare to the social conditioning in favor of perversity that exists in the world today, a social conditioning that many of the lords of conciiarism have attempted to “baptize” as part of Catholic “charity.” Those who have done so now have the full blessing and support of none other than the world’s foremost enabler of the “gay agenda,” Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who last year became the first concliar “pope” to use what Mrs. Randy Engel terms as “gayspeak.”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has even empowered the octogenarian Walter Kasper with a fresh lease on his work of apostasy (see Forever Prowling the World Seeking the Ruin of Souls, part 1 and Forever Prowling the World Seeking The Ruin of Souls, part 2) to prowl all over the world to promote what Kasper himself says is Jorge’s “radical” agenda of going “back to the Bible,” which means throwing out every single doctrinal pronouncement made under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost at Holy Mother Church’s twenty general councils as irrelevant to “these times of mercy.”

Kasper recently appeared at that notorious den of homosexual activism, the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle in the Lincoln Square district of the Borough of Manhattan of the City of New York, New York, which is run by Americanism’s own Father Isaac Thomas Hecker’s Society of Saint Paul, to “evangelize” in behalf of Jorge’s false gospel of false charity:

To hear Cardinal Walter Kasper tell it, he became the pope’s point man for reform in the Catholic church thanks to a bit of serendipity, or, if you will, Providence, before anyone knew that Francis was going to be the next Roman pontiff.

The genesis of their partnership, Kasper recalled during a recent trip to New York, was a fateful encounter that took place a few days before last year’s conclave, when all the electors in the College of Cardinals from around the world were staying in the Vatican guesthouse.

Kasper’s room happened to be right across the hallway from that of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A renowned German theologian who had just turned 80, Kasper had recently received a Spanish translation of his latest book, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life. He brought a couple copies with him and gave one to Bergoglio.

“Ah, mercy!” the Argentine cardinal exclaimed when he saw the title. “This is the name of our God!”

The two men knew each other a bit — Kasper had been to Buenos Aires several times on church business — but it turns out Bergoglio’s reaction wasn’t just one of those pro forma compliments you might give to an acquaintance at a book party. Mercy had long been a guiding principle for Bergoglio’s ministry, and he devoured Kasper’s original, wide-ranging study in the days leading up to the voting.

Then, on the evening of March 13, it was Bergoglio who emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Francis. Four days after that, the new pope addressed a huge crowd in the square — and as a surprised Kasper watched on television, he heard Francis praising him as a “very sharp theologian” and effectively blurbing his work: “That book has done me so much good,” Francis said.

“But don’t think I do publicity for the books of my cardinals!” the new pontiff quickly added.

Too late. The subsequent editions of Kasper’s book led with Francis’ praise above the title, and ever since Kasper has been enjoying the kind of influence that a short time ago would have been as unimaginable as, well, the kinds of reforms that Francis has been promoting.

‘A radical pope’

For years, Kasper had been an odd man out in the Roman power structure. When he was a bishop in Germany in the 1990s, Kasper led efforts to try to persuade Pope John Paul II to find a way to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion. But that was thwarted by conservatives in Rome, led by another German theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s longtime doctrinal czar.

Kasper continued to push for reforms, however, often sparring with Ratzinger in the pages of Catholic journals. Still, John Paul made Kasper a cardinal in 2001 and later named him head of the Vatican department for relations with other churches.

The post turned out to be something of a way station for Kasper, and when John Paul died in 2005 there were some who pitched Kasper as the last great hope for a progressive turn in the church: “Kasper the Friendly Pope,” as some quipped.

Instead, it was Ratzinger, Kasper’s longtime rival, who emerged from the Sistine Chapel as Pope Benedict XVI, apparently cementing the church’s turn toward conservatism. Kasper retired and settled down to writing books on topics such as mercy.

After Benedict announced he was resigning, Kasper once again entered the conclave by another stroke of fortune: Cardinals over 80 are barred from voting for a new pope, and Kasper’s 80th birthday was March 5 — one day after the cardinals began deliberating. He made it by just 24 hours.

Ten days later, Francis was elected.

To be sure, Francis shares a passion for mercy with Kasper. But he also relies on Kasper not only to provide the theological underpinnings for his views but also as a kind of front man to sell Francis’ push to renew Catholicism.

“This pope is not a liberal pope. He is a radical pope!” Kasper said as he sat in an office at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Manhattan’s Upper West Side during a weeklong U.S. sojourn. “This pope goes back to the Gospel.”

Contentious topics

After Francis publicly praised Kasper’s work, an older cardinal in Rome came to the pope and insisted: “Holy Father, you should not recommend this book! There are many heresies in it!” The pope smiled as he told Kasper the story, and reassured him: “It goes in one ear and out the other.”

Further proof of Francis’ trust in Kasper came in February when the pope tapped him to deliver a lengthy talk for a meeting of all the world’s cardinals who had gathered to discuss updating the church’s policies on a range of hot-button issues.

The meeting, or consistory, was the first in a series of discussions that Francis has planned to jump-start long-stalled talks on contentious topics — one of them whether divorced and remarried Catholics can receive Communion. It’s not the sexiest topic but it is a huge pastoral crisis, given that so many Catholics have remarried without an annulment and are barred from the altar rail. Even a murderer can confess and receive Communion, as Kasper likes to note.

“I told the pope, ‘Holy Father, there will be a controversy afterward,’ ” Kasper said. The pope laughed and told him: “That’s good, we should have that!”

Sure enough, fierce criticisms tumbled in.

“Such a shift wouldn’t just provoke conservative grumbling; it would threaten outright schism,” warned New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, agreed that such a change was beyond the pale: “The Kasper proposal, in anything approaching its current form, is unworkable,” he wrote.

To be sure, Kasper himself did not exactly tamp down the flames in his recent appearances at Catholic campuses and in interviews with U.S. media.

Speaking to the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, for example, Kasper said the pope himself “believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid” — an assertion that left many conservatives aghast. “I am stunned at the pastoral recklessness of such an assertion. Simply stunned,” wrote canon lawyer and popular blogger Edward Peters.

At a public talk at Fordham University in New York, Kasper also irked the right, and pleased the left, when he tweaked the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who had just delivered a blistering critique of leaders of most American nuns. Kasper expressed his “esteem” for Müller and said his office tended to take a “narrow” view and must be more open to dialogue and change. That, too, sparked a fresh round of complaints.

Risking change

Despite the pushback, colleagues describe Kasper as rejuvenated by the reform Francis has launched.

“I do not know if my proposals will be acceptable,” the cardinal said with a shrug. “I made them in agreement with the pope; I did not do them just myself. I spoke beforehand with the pope, and he agreed.”

Kasper’s ideas are controversial not so much for their content but because at heart they are about whether and how the church can change.

“Change is always a risk,” Kasper said. “But it’s also a risk not to change. Even a greater risk, I think.”

Kasper said he was confident that the process of debate that Francis had launched on the topic of family life and sexuality would in the end produce some significant reforms, in part “because there are very high expectations.”

He noted that the church has often changed, or “developed,” over the centuries, and quite recently in the 1960s when, for example, the Second Vatican Council reversed long-standing teachings against religious freedom and dialogue with other believers.

Kasper reiterates that he’s not advocating a change in the church’s dogma on the sanctity of marriage, but a change in the “pastoral practice” about who can receive Communion. “To say we will not admit divorced and remarried people to holy Communion? That’s not a dogma. That’s an application of a dogma in a concrete pastoral practice. This can be changed.”

Kasper said it is the voice of the faithful that has made the difference. “The strongest support comes from the people, and you cannot overlook that,” he said.

“If what people are doing and what the church is teaching, if there is an abyss, that doesn’t help the credibility of the church,” he said. “One has to change.” (Kasper is Jorge’s “papal” theologian.)

This is a remarkably bold, apostate statement that is heretical and blasphemous of its very nature.

Obviously, this is nothing new. I heard many such statements from the mouth of conciliar priests and presbyters as they preached from the lecterns of conciliar churches during their stagings of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

The decadence of the counterfeit church of conciiarism, led as it has been by its false spirits since October 28, 1958, has become so vast that a man who is believed to be a prince of the Catholic Church can claim publicly that contingent beings who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined for the corruption of the grave until the General Resurrection of the living and the dead on the Last Day determine how the Catholic Church will “adapt” her teaching to tickle their itching ears.

Kasper’s boldness in this regard thus shows total contempt for the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, under Whose Divine inspiration Saint Paul the Apostle wrote the following words to Saint Timothy:

[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Tim. 4: 1-15.)

Holy Mother Church never changes her doctrine or liturgy to suit the “people,” who are forever clamoring “Give us Barabbas! Give us Barabbas!” “We want sin!” “We want to be approved in our sins!” “Those who do not approve of our sins are ‘haters.'”

Forget about all of that convoluted Hegelianism of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity.” Kasper is kind enough to state clearly that the conciliar church’s teaching on religious liberty “dialogue with other believers” has changed. So much efforts for efforts on the part of “conservative” apologists of the conciliar revolution to claim that no such change ever took place. After all, Walter Kasper is the “pope’s” theologian. The folks at Catholics United for the Faith and other such organizations have been defending an “orthodoxy” that does exist in the synthetic “faith” of conciliarism.

Is it any wonder that the morally corrupt, financially profligate abuser of boys and young men, Father Carlos Urrutigoity (see Leaving Predators Free To Prey Over And Over Again and Adding Shame On Top Of Shame), has risen to the position of “vicar general” under Opus Dei’s Rogelio Livieres Plano? The environment fostered by the likes of Urrutigoity’s fellow Argentinian, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and his fellow Latin American, Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez (see Commissar of Antichrist Speaks, part one, Commissar of Antichrist Speaks, part two, Commissar of Antichrist Speaks, part three and Commissar of Antichrist Speaks, part four), and Walter Kasper makes it eminently possible for the next conciliar “bishop” of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, to be none other than Father Carlos Urrutigoity upon the retirement of Livieres Plano on August 30, 2020.

Here is the story of this latest development in the story of Urrutigoity, who says that those who accuse him of wrongdoing or criticize him in the slightest are doing the “work of the devil,” something that I know about first-hand as he wrote to me directly after I had submitted a special report to the Diocese of Scranton in Fall of 2000 about his misuse of funds and his failure to disclose his true intentions concerning the sacred liturgy when soliciting money from his donors:

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay — A hush falls across the church, broken only by the rhythmic swish of the censer as it bestows acrid incense across the faces of the congregation.

A gaggle of monks in brown habits, their heads tonsured in repentant horseshoes, rises and begins to chant. They are joined by seminarians — priests in training — in floor-length, black soutanes, and Latin liturgy pulses over the pews. The words rise to a massive floor-to-ceiling mural that casts dozens of saintly eyes across the room.

A noise behind the congregation. A door opening. He is here.

Father Carlos Urrutigoity glides into the sanctuary, his ivory and scarlet robes swishing between the pews. Revered by his flock in the unruly diocese of eastern Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este, the priest will deliver his sermon to hundreds of worshippers. They will later clamor outside the church to meet the man, to receive his benediction.

This is a man who’s been described by bishops from Switzerland to Pennsylvania as “dangerous,” “abnormal,” and “a serious threat to young people.”

He has spent two decades flitting from diocese to diocese, always one step ahead of church and legal authorities, before landing in this lawless, remote corner of South America. Here, in the pirate-laden jungle near the Iguacu falls, he has risen to a position of power.

Today, despite warnings from the bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where in 2002 Urrutigoity was accused of molesting a teenage boy and sleeping with and touching other young men, this priest leads a starry-eyed cadre of young male seminarians. Despite once being accused of running what a fellow priest called a “homosexual cult” in the hills of Pennsylvania, Urrutigoity now graces the diocese website here, advertising seminars for budding young Catholics.

Urrutigoity’s voyage from his native Argentina to Pennsylvania and back to South America represents a new chapter in the shocking story of abuse in the Catholic Church.

It illustrates the church’s seeming inability to prevent a priest accused of illegal acts in the United States from fleeing to a remote developing country — even one on the doorstep of Pope Francis’ homeland — and remaking himself into a powerful religious leader.

Urrutigoity, who denies ever molesting anyone, says he’s been the victim of a smear campaign. But to those devoted to uncovering church misdeeds, the Argentine’s sustained protection by the Catholic establishment is emblematic of an ethos of cover-ups and gross negligence that continues to place young people at risk.

“Five, 10, 15 years ago, they would move these guys from the southwest corner of the diocese to the northeast corner of the diocese,” said David Clohessy, director of the St. Louis-based Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP. “Nowadays, with victims being more organized and the internet, those kinds of moves are more and more risky, so sending someone abroad is a much safer way to keep them on the job.”

Trouble will find me

Trouble has followed Urrutigoity across the globe.

The first notable account of his alleged transgressions is a 1999 letter from Bernard Fellay, spiritual leader of the traditionalist Catholic society of Saint Pius X, based in Switzerland.

Urrutigoity first served at that organization’s seminary in La Reja, Argentina, where Urrugoity was studying. In a letter to then-Bishop of Scranton William Timlin, Fellay warned about what he described as the Argentine priest’s “homosexual behavior,” stating that Urrugoity was asked to leave La Reja and was given a “second chance” at the society’s seminary in Winona, Minnesota.

While in Minnesota, Urrutigoity was accused of approaching a young seminarian’s bed “for obvious dishonest acts,” the letter states. While the seminarian pretended to be sleeping, according to the letter, Urrutigoity touched him sexually.

“Our conclusion is that there is a dangerous pattern in Fr. Urrutigoity and we feel obliged to reveal this to you,” the letter states.

Despite the clear warning, Urrutigoity was allowed to continue living and working in the Diocese of Scranton. Two years later, he was being accused of sexual misconduct again, this time in court.

Cigars, wine and shared sleeping bags

In Pennsylvania, the accusations against Urrutigoity grew more extreme.

He had teamed up with another charismatic Catholic priest, Eric Ensey. With other like-minded leaders, they founded an ultraconservative religious group called the Society of St. John.

In the late 1990s, the Society of St. John found a home in an unused wing of a Catholic boy’s school, St. Gregory’s Academy. That’s when the trouble really started.

In a 2002 lawsuit against Urrutigoity, Ensey and the Diocese of Scranton, the two priests were accused of a pattern of sexual misconduct.

Urrutigoity was accused of giving alcohol and cigars to teenagers, sharing beds and sleeping bags with seminarians and inappropriately touching at least two young men.

The alleged acts were cloaked in a bizarre dogma upon which Urrutigoity and Ensey had founded their society.

Young men were encouraged to form devoted relationships with their spiritual advisers, court records show. Documents from the lawsuit, brought by a victim identified only as “John Doe,” show the seminarians revered Urrutigoity, who became a father figure, guide and close friend.

But that friendship had a dark side, the documents show.

One former member of the Society of St. John said in a deposition that he slept in the same bed as Urrutigoity after the priest said it would help him overcome his “puritanical attitude.” After a few months of their sharing a bed, the seminarian woke one night to find the priest’s hand first on his abdomen, then on [a personal area].

The case stirred up further accusations from Urrutigoity’s time in Winona, as well.

In a deposition for the lawsuit, a former seminarian in Minnesota said Urrutigoity asked him to insert anal suppositories in front of him. When he refused, the young man said in a deposition, Urrutigoity was furious, calling the act a betrayal.

Urrutigoity at least twice invited him to sleep in the same bed, the man said in the deposition. One night, he woke up to find Urrutigoity was molesting him, the seminarian said.

His first instinct was to “rip his head off.”

“I thought about it, and I might have been OK to do it, but my dad told me once a guy hit a priest and his arm was frozen forever,” the former seminarian said in the deposition.

The young man instead settled for breaking ties completely with the man he’d once considered a hero. He left the seminary soon afterward.

The Diocese of Scranton settled the lawsuit in 2004 for more than $400,000. It also sent Urrutigoity and Ensey to The Southdown Institute, an organization in Canada, for a detailed psychological evaluation.

Following that evaluation, the Diocese of Scranton’s Independent Review Board made its recommendation, which was noted in the confidential minutes of the board meeting:

“In view of the credible allegation from the seminarian, his admitted practice of sleeping with boys and young men, and the troubling evaluation by the Southdown Institute, Father Carlos Urrutigoity should be removed from active ministry; his faculties should be revoked; he should be asked to live privately.”

Disappearing and reappearing

The 2002 lawsuit caused uproar in Pennsylvania.

A former member of the Society of St. John took to the internet, campaigning virulently against the conservative sect and calling Urrutigoity “Rasputin in a Roman collar.” Bishop Timlin came under increasing pressure as media attention grew.

Timlin told a deposition that he had done all he could to investigate the claims against Urrutigoity, even sending a diocese lawyer to interview the priest. After the lawsuit was filed, Timlin suspended Urrutigoity and Ensey, barring them from practicing or having contact with children.

A criminal investigation launched by the Lackawanna County district attorney was stymied by a lack of cooperation from St. Gregory’s and Pennsylvania’s short statute of limitations on sex crimes, said Tom Dubas, the lead investigator on the case. Dubas wanted to launch a grand jury investigation, but never had the chance.

“As soon as it got out that I was interested in a grand jury, both priests just disappeared,” Dubas said. “We never did convene one.”

Then, in 2008, Urrutigoity began making headlines again, this time in far eastern Paraguay in the den of iniquity known as the Tri-Border Area.

‘A refuge for delinquents’

The Tri-Border Area, at the junction of the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, is a hub for everything from drug smuggling to arms dealing to human trafficking.

The city of Ciudad del Este is the region’s ramshackle capital — a maze of crumbling shopping malls and covered markets, bustling with Brazilians hauling duffel bags full of phony goods across the border.

But for some residents of this chaotic city, things went too far when trouble entered the hallowed grounds of Ciudad del Este’s Catholic churches.

In 2008, Javier Miranda, a Ciudad del Este resident who was once an active volunteer at local churches, learned of a recent influx of international priests. He decided to research the newcomers.

It didn’t take Miranda long to unearth the scandals that had followed Urrutigoity. Immediately, he protested against the priest’s presence in the diocese, and was soon joined by dozens more local volunteers and even a group of 12 local priests, who in 2009 signed a letter denouncing Urrutigoity as a divisive figure.

The bishop of Ciudad del Este, Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, responded with a spirited defense of Urrutigoity. The priest had been slandered and persecuted, Livieres said. Miranda and other critics should join with the church in praying for a peaceful end to the controversy, he wrote on the diocese’s website.

Miranda says that far from being welcomed, he and the other vocal critics were ostracized by the church. He also accused Livieres of harboring several other troubled priests.

“For us, the Diocese of Ciudad del Este has become a refuge of delinquents,” Miranda said.

Undeterred, Livieres continued to support Urrutigoity. Last year, he promoted the Argentine to second in command.

That really upset the folks back in Scranton.

‘A serious threat to young people’

In March, the nonprofit group BishopAccountability.org, which specializes in tracking problem priests, announced on its website that not only was Urrutigoity active in the Catholic church in Paraguay, but he had been promoted to the position of vicar general, essentially the second most powerful post in the diocese of Ciudad del Este.

The new bishop of Scranton rushed to defend his diocese and distance it from Urrutigoity.

In a March 15 statement on the diocese website, Bishop Joseph C. Bambera wrote that the diocese had previously “reported its serious concerns about this cleric to appropriate church officials.”

“In every instance, Bishop Martino clearly expressed his reservations concerning Father Urrutigoity, who was identified as posing a serious threat to young people,” Bambera wrote.

Shortly afterward, Bambera announced he was taking his concerns to the Vatican. A diocese spokesman confirmed the bishop has contacted the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a sort of internal affairs for the Catholic Church, about Urrutigoity.

GlobalPost’s email to the Vatican press office requesting comment has not received a response.

Last week, Pope Francis announced he will meet with eight sexual abuse victims, several from Europe, at the Vatican as part of the church’s “zero tolerance” policy. Sexual abuse scandals around the world have dogged the church in the past two decades.

Clohessy, the director of SNAP, said a lack of action on Urrutigoity at this point would be reprehensible.

“The real issue is the continuing refusal — not failure, refusal — of the church hierarchy to take even the most minimal steps to safeguard kids,” Clohessy said.

Outside the church in Ciudad del Este, the normally balmy tropical air has taken on a slight chill. A mist has risen off the nearby river and envelops the faithful as they form a ring around Urrutigoity, waiting to receive his benediction.

Last in line is this GlobalPost reporter. Hearing a question in English, Urrutigoity blinks, then quickly regains his composure. He has an urgent meeting with another priest, he says, but he can answer a couple of questions.

The Argentine priest says he has been the victim of a decades-long smear campaign. Look closely at the people accusing him, he says, and you’ll see the real motives behind the attempts to limit his influence.

“There’s a whole hysteria,” he says. “I think [Bishop Bambera in Scranton] is covering, legally, the bases, so nobody can accuse them and then sue them for millions of dollars.”

In his work, is he in contact with young people? With children? Does he teach? Urrutigoity is asked.

“No, no! Mostly it’s desk work,” the priest insists.

But Urrutigoity’s daily work involves a lot more than sitting in an office.

A January announcement on the diocese’s website named Urrutigoity as one of the key teachers for a course for young people on Catholic culture.

An interview with one of the seminarians at the church where Urrutigoity spoke earlier this month revealed the priest is certainly in the minds and hearts of the more than 40 young men who live in dormitories there.

“Father Urrutigoity is a true superior for us. We view him as a father,” said 20-year-old Mariano Juarez, who spoke in glowing terms about his appointed leader. “In spiritual guidance, which is the most important, in spiritual direction, counseling in difficult times, he helps us with everything.” (Carlos back in business again. See also Mr. James Bendell’s Pray for the Children and Mrs. Randy Engel’s Exploiting Traditionalist Orders: The Society of St. John.)

Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, did his due diligence when warning “Bishop” James Clifford Timlin of the Diocese of Scranton. Timlin simply ignored the warning that was given to him.

One who is blessed with even a modicum of the sensus Catholicus does not dismiss behavior that is clearly immoral as “imprudent,” something that Timlin did in his sworn testimony in one of the cases adjudicated in Lackawana County, Pennsylvania. One recognizes predatory homosexual behavior and grooming for what it is, and recoils in horror against it as he discharges his duty to admonish the sinner to reform his life.

“Bishop” Rogelio Livieres Plano, like so many in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world, refused to believe the testimony of witnesses. He has refused to reach the proper conclusions. He is thus culpable before God, which he will find out at the moment of the Particular Judgment. Indeed, every enabler of clerics and others have engaged in inappropriate and/or overtly immoral behavior with members of the same gender will out at their Particular Judgment that they can be no excusing, no minimizing no seeking to blame the victims, no seeking to blame the messenger that is acceptable to Christ the Divine King and Judge.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Oscar Andres Maradiaga and Walter Kasper, et al., have helped to empower the likes of “Monsignor” Batista Ricca and Fred Daley and Carlos Urruitogity and Don Ciotti and Don Michele De Paolis, who are just a few among so many others in the conciliar structures.

Can anyone imagine Pope Saint Pius X or Padre Pio or Saint John Mary Vianney or Saint Alphonsus de Liguori or Saint Mary Anthony Claret or Saint Peter Damian speaking the words that have issued forth from the mouths of Bergoglio and friends?

If you can’t, then I urge you to review the material found at the beginning of what has become a very long article.

Believe me, I do not like writing long articles, especially when I am completely physically exhausted.

However, I am writing for posterity, not for the glib sound bite. This site exists to serve as a resource long after I am dead if it is God’s Holy Will for the work to remain visible to readers.

It must be stated furthermore that there is nothing to gain by coming to recognize the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

It is not nice to be estranged from relatives, former friends and acquaintances, most of whom think one to be “schismatic,” “disloyal” and non-Catholic.

However, truth demands our fidelity, not human respect.

The easiest path to acceptance in what passes for “traditionalism” within the “approved” confines of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

To wit, I had an occasion two days ago to review some old financial records and was shocked to discover the numbers of those who were donating to us in 2004, 2005 and early 2006. Some of the donations were substantial. “I can’t believe this,” I said to Sharon. “People actually gave to us.”

It would have been easy to keep my mouth shut eight years ago last month when I became convinced that the See of Peter was vacant. Truth, though, must take us where it will no matter the consequences.

As has been noted before on this site, to embrace the truth and to make whatever sacrifices one must make to persevere in it does not make one one bit better than anyone else, and it does not mean, of course, that one is on the sure path to salvation. Of course not.

What it does mean, however, is that those who seek to disparage those who reject apostates as legitimate Successors of Saint Peter cannot be criticized for “being in it for the money” or for “popularity” as the surest way for a Catholic to lose support and to lose friends and to be thought ill of by relatives is to state clearly that a true pope is beyond criticism, meaning that the men who have posed as “popes” since October 28, 1958, have been imposters given the fact that they had defected from the Faith long before their apparent “elections.”

Look, does anyone really think that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and friends takes the following admonition to those who practice the sin of Sodom made by Saint Paul the Apostle seriously

Writing under the Divine inspiration of God the Holy Ghost, Saint Paul the Apostle wrote as follows

Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use against which is their nature.

And in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.

And as they liked not to  have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.  (Romans 1: 24-32)

The evidence is clear. Those who do not want to see the evidence and accept what it represents probably will not be convinced of their error save for prayer and fasting on the part of those who do see the truth of our ecclesiastical situation. Evidence and arguments alone have proved insufficient for so many Catholics.

Keep close to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, remembering that that which is false of its nature can never produce good fruit.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saints Marcellianus, Peter and Erasmus, pray for us.

Saint Francis Caracciolo, pray for us.