The Vatican may want to consider doing some similar photoshopping when it comes to Jorge Bergoglio. The number of those attending weekly papal general audiences or standing in Saint Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus Address has declined dramatically over the course of the past decade, coinciding with the ten-year reign of Francis. There are now more pigeons in the piazza than there are people. No doubt the private celebration of the anniversary was to avoid embarrassment of a sparsely attended public event.

No way, Jorge! As with nearly everything you say, you stand in contradiction to tradition.

But it’s not just the Piazza of Saint Peter that reveals thinning ranks over the course of the past ten years. As reported by the Vatican itself, the number of seminarians worldwide has been steadily decreasing, year by year, since 2013. It is no coincidence that this is the same year that Jorge Bergoglio came to the throne. Contrast this to the pontificate of John Paul II, when post Vatican II vocations were at an all-time high. Not that John Paul II was a perfect saint, but at least he manifested love for priests rather than contempt.

But contempt is the sentiment that best describes the attitude of Jorge with regard to seminarians and young priests, most of whom are more conservative or traditional Catholics than in past generations. For this reason, Old Scratch Bergoglio would rather have no seminarians or priests than truly Catholic ones. In fact, dwindling numbers of seminarians and priests works to his advantage and opens the Modernist door to their evil causes, including lay ministers [sic], women’s ordination [sic] and married priests [sic].

This article is from "The Last Word" column, featured on the last page of every Remnant Newspaper
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Never missing an opportunity to push the Modernist agenda, Jorge had this to say recently on celibacy:

There is no contradiction for a priest to marry. Celibacy in the Western Church is a temporary prescription: I do not know if it is settled in one way or another, but it is temporary in this sense. It is not eternal like priestly ordination, which is forever, whether you like it or not. Whether you leave or not is another matter, but it is forever. On the other hand, celibacy is a discipline. We know that married priest is a possibility, that churches had married priests before. It’s the experience of Eastern Christianity. It’s not been the experience in the West.

No way, Jorge! As with nearly everything you say, you stand in contradiction to tradition. The Last Word submits there is a theological contradiction, or at least an incompatibility, in the matter of married priests.

Let’s begin broadly with the reality that God has divinely revealed that his covenant relationship with his people is to be understood as a relationship between a husband and wife. This imagery abounds in the Old Testament but it is enfleshed in the New Covenant with the Incarnation. Spanning from the Gospels to the Apocalypse, the relationship of Christ to the Church is represented as that of Groom to Bride. It was at a wedding that Jesus did his first public miracle and Heaven is represented as a wedding celebration. Saint Paul wrote that Christian couples must reflect the love between Christ and the Church. A husband reflects Christ through sacrificial love for his wife, who in turn reflects the Church by obedience to her husband.

The celibacy of Jesus was not a matter of personal preference but a sacramental standard.

With this biblical and apostolic teaching in mind regarding the sacrament of marriage, let’s consider the theology of the priesthood as it relates to marriage. In the Old Testament, until the time of Moses, priestly functions were performed by fathers on behalf of their families. Following their idolatry with a golden calf, God stripped this from fathers and entrusted the priesthood to Aaron and his son descendants, within the tribe of Levi. Thereafter, one was a priest by birth. But as descendants multiplied, the exercise of the priestly office for many was rare. Still, when a priest did serve, he abstained from any conjugal relations.

Now the priesthood of Christ is of a higher order than that of the Old Covenant period, as is the sacrament of Holy Orders as well. When a man is ordained as a priest, he is conformed to the priesthood of Christ. When a Catholic priest acts sacramentally, he acts in the Person of Christ. So intimate and inseparable is this priestly bond to Christ, the priest is able to forgive sins in the first person, “I absolve you of your sins…” When the priest offers Mass, he consecrates bread and wine with the very words of our Lord. It follows, then, that for the priest in persona christi, he represents the Groom and the Church is his Bride.

Now let us consider the matter of celibacy and marriage in the case of the Priesthood of Christ himself. The celibacy of Jesus was not a matter of personal preference but a sacramental standard. Since Christ is bound to the Church as Groom to Bride, it is unthinkable that Christ would join himself to a woman. If Jesus had taken a human bride, this would have constituted a sort of spiritual polygamy, with two wives.

The Last Word contends that what was true for Christ and the Apostles remains true.

The same is true of the Apostles, who were directly appointed by Jesus to represent him. Though all but one is presumed to have been married, once the Church was formally born on Pentecost, these men lived as celibates thereafter. Any bonding with their spouses was not conjugal but of a spiritual nature.

The Last Word contends that what was true for Christ and the Apostles remains true. A priest is wed to the Church sacramentally and any other marriage constitutes polygamy and the conjugal embrace is spiritual adultery. How can it be otherwise? Christian marriage reflects the bond of Christ and Church in its unique way and the Christian priesthood reflects this same bond of Christ and Church in its own way.

The Last Word on this: Ladies, be grateful that the likes of Jorge Bergoglio are not eligible for marriage!

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