As I started my Ash Wednesday and Lent, one of the first things I was treated to was the Pope downplaying penance and preaching instead about hope at his general audience today. Thus, the Pope of the Catholic Church has gutted the entire purpose of Lent on Ash Wednesday and has potentially taken the air out of the spiritual sails of up to a billion Catholics. What’s left? I honestly don’t know what inspires this pope and the many priests and bishops who believe this way to even get up in the morning for the next forty days. What possible purpose does Lent have for such men?

With Pope Francis refusing to answer the dubia of the four cardinals and the situation growing tense, it is a good time to look back to examples from history for guidance. For there have been times when past popes have made decisions extremely harmful to the Church as well. For example, in a previous series of articles, I presented the Church’s response to Pope John XXII’s novel teaching on the Beatific Vision. Much to the surprise of Neo-Catholics and Sedevacantists alike, the response of the faithful, bishops, and priests of that time was not groveling submission to error, but a robust and fervent resistance.

Similarly, one of the historical examples the Neo-Catholics have repeatedly used as a binding disciplinary decision of the pope is the suppression of the Jesuit order by Clement XIV. If you recall our previous debates with the Neo-Catholics regarding the “abrogation” of the Latin Mass, they assured us that Catholics were bound to accept with complete docility any disciplinary decision made by a pope.  To do any less, they said, would be to deny the very authority of the pope over disciplinary matters. Thus, they argued, all Catholics were obliged to humbly and quietly give up their Latin Masses in 1969 in favor of Paul VI’s Novus Ordo Missae.

With all of the talk of mercy this past year, people would be tempted to think that we are all assured of Heaven; that all that is left to do for us in the Catholic religion is to help make life on earth better. But is this true? Does mercy mean that as long as we are generally "nice" people who believe in social justice causes we are, more or less, assured Heaven? Would it not be unjust for God to send anyone to Hell? After all, sending souls to Hell is not at all in line with the new mercy.

Indeed with the advent of Amoris Laetitia, one wonders if anyone is culpable for any sin they commit. For if one can receive Holy Communion regardless of the objectively sinful state of their life, based on an imperfect purpose of amendment, who can be damned? 

Thankfully for us, the Reverend John Evangelist Zollner has the answer to these questions. With stunning precision only a priest of the past could provide, Fr. Zollner exposes with laser like insight, the false mercy preached by many Catholic prelates and priests today. 

Without further ado, I give you Fr. John Zollner, writing in 1884, from Volume One of a series called "The Pulpit Orator."

Chris Jackson

Hillary Clinton has selected self described "Traditional Catholic" Tim Kaine. Mr. Kaine is so traditional in fact, that he supports abortion rights, public abortion funding, and partial birth abortion. William D’Antonio, a Catholic University sociologist, described Kaine as a “Pope Francis Catholic." The far left ThinkProgress website has just published an article entitled, "6 Ways That Hillary Clinton's Vice President Pick Resmbles Pope Francis."

Some highlights:

Seamless garment Catholic

The idea of ideological consistency is not a popular one in America, especially during this election. But Kaine holds to a Catholic teaching often called “seamless garment,” or consistent ethic of life. How does this belief present in current American political debates? It means Kaine personally opposes abortion, the death penalty, and all threats to human life. His government service, however, has been another thing. As governor, he oversaw several executions and is a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade. “I’ve taken a position which is quite common among Catholics,” he said on Meet the Press recently. “I’ve got a personal feeling about abortion, but the right role for government is to let women make their own decisions.”

Evolving on LGBT Rights

Another point of contention for the left wing of the Democratic Party has been Kaine’s evolution on same-sex marriage and gay rights. Like Pope Francis, he’s evolved on the issue in the past few years. He fully embraced marriage equality in March 2013, but previously faced many questions about his position during campaigns. And again in the Pope Francis mold, Kaine has stressed anti-discrimination and civil rights over arguments about religious ethics. During his 2012 campaign for the Senate, he championed the idea that “relationship equality is a civil right.”

This is the most critical presidential election in the history of the United States. Hillary Clinton, a corrupt, radical pro-abortion, anti-Christian, career politician threatens to change the face of America forever. If elected, she will name three to four Supreme Court justices, cementing Roe v. Wade into the Constitution and losing the court for generations, if not forever. Hillary Clinton opposes home schooling and believes it is the government’s right to educate children and not the parents. She will restrict religious speech and persecute Christians who refuse to support her radical social agenda. She will promote illegal immigration and allow millions of unvettted illegal immigrants into our country. The illegal population will vote democrat far into the future so that no candidate with anything approximating Catholic positions will have a viable chance to be elected president. So despite obvious disagreements with him, I believe Catholics have the moral right to vote for the only viable alternative to Hillary Clinton in this election: Donald Trump.

Why Cardinal Kasper Deserves an Apology from Neo-Catholics Everywhere--from ChurchMilitant.com to CatholicCulture.org

Back on May 8 of 2014, this author reported on an interview Cardinal Kasper gave to Commonweal Magazine. In that interview Kasper stated, “I’ve spoken to the pope himself about this, and he said he believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid.”

Reaction from the Neo-Catholics was fierce. There was heated rejection of the substance of the claim and even ire at Cardinal Kasper, but strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) there was little criticism of Pope Francis. Some even questioned whether Cardinal Kasper could be believed. Now, however, Pope Francis has proven Kasper wrong. For not only does Francis believe 50% of Catholic marriages are invalid, the Pope himself just said that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null.” As Catholic News Agency reported just yesterday,

On May 24, 2016 The Telegraph reported the comments of the Vatican’s head of ecumenical relations, Cardinal Kurt Koch. The Cardinal had just finished a two day closed door discussion with Jewish leaders at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge. The Telegraph began with the following:

Christians still have a “mission to convert” Muslims and members of other religions to Christianity even in the face of persecution in the Middle East, one of Pope Francis’s most senior aides has insisted.

As many of you know, Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX met with Pope Francis last month. A few days afterwards, on April 7, 2016, Msgr. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei Commission, gave an interview to La Croix newspaper in which he said:

“The difficulties raised by the SSPX regarding questions of Church-State relations and religious liberty, the practice of ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions, certain aspects of liturgical reform and their concrete application, remain objects of discussion and clarification,” Archbishop Pozzo added, “but do not constitute an obstacle to the SSPX’s canonical and juridical recognition.”

Yet on Tuesday May 24^th, Edward Pentin reported the following in the National Catholic Register:

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said he expects the Society of St. Pius X, which has always opposed the Second Vatican Council's declarations on religious freedom and ecumenism, to “unreservedly recognize” freedom of religion as a human right, and an obligation to ecumenism.

In an interview in the June edition of the German publication Herder Korrespondenz, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that if one “wants to be fully Catholic, one must recognize the Pope and the Second Vatican Council.”

Cardinal Müller said he expects a recognition of all the Council declarations that deal with these issues, according to the interview, reported on the Austrian Catholic website, Kathpress, May 24.

Edward Pentin of the National Catholic register reported the following on May 23:

Speaking at the presentation of a new book on Benedict’s pontificate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome May 20, Archbishop Gänswein also said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another, but represent one “expanded” Petrine Office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”