Yesterday, on the occasion of the Rome Film Festival, the director Evgeny Afineevsky presented a documentary called Francesco, which proposes several interviews done with Jorge Mario Bergoglio over the course of the last few years of his pontificate. Among other disconcerting statements, there are several about the legitimization of homosexual civil unions: “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they [homosexuals] are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
I think that both the simple faithful as well as bishops and priests feel betrayed by what Bergoglio has affirmed. It is not necessary to be theologians to understand that the approval of civil unions is in clear contradiction of the Magisterial documents of the Church, including recent ones. Such approval also constitutes a very grave “assist” to the LGBTQ ideology which today is being imposed on the global level.
In the coming days the Italian Parliament will be discussing the approval of the so-called Zan law [against so-called “homophobia”] proposed by the Democratic Party (PD). In the name of protecting homosexuals and trans-sexuals, it will be considered a crime to affirm that the natural family is the building block of human society, and those who affirm that sodomy is a sin that cries out to God for vengeance will be punished. Bergoglio’s words have already been received by the gay lobby worldwide as an authoritative support for their claims.
Carefully reading Bergoglio’s statements, someone has already observed that it does not include an approval of homosexual marriage, but only a gesture of welcome – perhaps poorly formulated – towards those who ask the secular state for juridical protection. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has already unequivocally clarified that in no case may a Catholic approve of civil unions, because they constitute a legitimization of public concubinage and are only a step towards the legal recognition of so-called homosexual marriages. So much so that in Italy today it is even possible for people of the same sex to “marry” each other, after having been assured for years – even by self-styled Catholic politicians – that [civil unions] would in no way question marriage as it is defined in the Italian Constitution.
After all, experience teaches us that when Bergoglio says something, he does it with a very precise purpose: to make others interpret his words in the broadest possible sense. The front pages of newspapers all over the world are announcing today: “The Pope Approves Gay Marriage” – even if technically this is not what he said. But this was exactly the result that he and the Vatican gay lobby wanted. Then the Vatican Press Office will perhaps say that what Bergoglio said was misunderstood, that this was an old interview, and that the Church reaffirms its condemnation of homosexuality as intrinsically disordered. But the damage has been done, and even any steps backwards from the scandal that has been stirred up will ultimately be a step forward in the direction of mainstream thought and what is politically correct. Let us not forget the nefarious results of his famous utterance in 2013 – “Who am I to judge?” – which earned him a place on the cover of The Advocate along with the title “Man of the Year.”
Bergoglio has declared: “Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.” All the baptized are children of God: this is what the Gospel teaches. But these children may be either good or evil, and if they break God’s Commandments, the fact that they are His children will not prevent them from being punished, just as an Italian who steals does not avoid going to prison solely because of the fact that he is a citizen of the nation where he commits the crime. The Mercy of God does not prescind from Justice, and if we think of how in order to redeem us the Lord shed His Blood on the Cross, we cannot but strive for holiness, conforming our behavior to His will. Our Lord has said: “You are my friends, if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14).
If familial or social exclusion results from provocative behaviors or from ideological claims that cannot be shared – I am thinking of Gay Pride – this is only the result of an attitude of challenge, and thus such exclusion has its origin in those who use that attitude to hurt their neighbor. If instead that discrimination results only from being a person who behaves like everyone else with respect for others and without any imposition of one’s own lifestyle, it should be rightly condemned.
We know very well that what the homosexualist lobby wants to obtain is not the integration of normal and honest people but rather the imposition of seriously sinful, socially destabilizing models of life that have always been exploited to demolish the family and society. It is no coincidence that the promotion of the homosexual agenda is part of the globalist project, in conjunction with the destruction of the natural family.
One of the most ardent supporters of the LGBTQ agenda and of the indiscriminate welcoming of homosexuals in the Church, the Jesuit James Martin, has been made a Consultor in the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See. As soon as the news came out about Bergoglio’s statements, Martin stormed social media with tweets, expressing his uncontainable satisfaction with this action which, in contrast, scandalized the majority of the faithful.
Along with father Martin, there are cardinals, bishops, monsignors, priests, and other clerics who belong to the so-called “lavender mafia.” Some of these have been investigated and condemned for very grave crimes, almost always linked to homosexual environments. How can we think that a clique of homosexuals in the command post does not have every interest in pushing Bergoglio to defend a vice that they share and practice?
In fact, I would say that it is part of Bergoglio’s intended behavior that he plays with equivocation and provocation – such as when he said, “God is not Catholic,” or when he leaves it to others to finish a discourse which he initiates. We have seen this with Amoris Laetitia: although he did not clearly contradict Catholic doctrine on the impossibility of the divorced and remarried accessing the Sacraments, he allowed other bishops to do so, later approving their statements and stubbornly remaining silent in response to the Dubia of the four Cardinals.
It may be asked: why would the Pope act in this way, especially when his predecessors were always very clear on moral matters? I do not know what Bergoglio has in mind: I limit myself to making sense of his actions and words. And I think I can affirm that what emerges is an attitude that is deliberately two-faced and Jesuitical. Behind all of his utterances there is the effort to arouse the reaction of the healthy part of the Church, provoking it with heretical statements, with disconcerting gestures, with documents that contradict the Magisterium. And at the same time, his statements please his supporters, above all non-Catholics and those who are Catholic in name only.
By dint of provoking, he hopes that some bishop will grow tired of daily feeling afflicted by his doctrine and morals; he hopes that a group of cardinals will formally accuse him of heresy and call for his deposition. And by doing so, Bergoglio would have the pretext of accusing these prelates of being “enemies of the Pope,” of placing themselves outside the Church, of wanting a schism. Obviously, it is not those who want to remain faithful to the Magisterium who separate themselves from the Church: this would be absurd.
In a certain way, Bergoglio’s behavior is of the same matrix as that of the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte: both of them, in hindsight, were desired in their roles by the same élite, who are numerically a minority but are powerful and organized, with the purpose of demolishing the institution that they represent; both of them abuse their own power against the law; both of them accuse those who denounce their abuses of being the enemy of the institution, when in reality the denouncers are defending the institution from their destructive intent. Finally, both of them are distinguished by a bleak mediocrity.
If canonically it is unthinkable to excommunicate a Catholic for the mere fact that he wishes to remain so, politically and strategically this abuse would allow Bergoglio to expel his adversaries from the Church, consolidating his own power. And I repeat: we are not talking about a legitimate operation, but of an abuse that, despite being an abuse, no one would be able to prevent, since “the First See is judged by none” – prima Sedes a nemine judicatur. And since the deposition of a heretical Pope is a canonically unresolved question on which there is no unanimous consent of canonists, anyone who would accuse Bergoglio of heresy would be going down a dead end and would obtain a result only with great difficulty.
And it is exactly this, in my opinion, that Bergoglio’s “magic circle” wants to achieve: to reach the paradoxical situation in which the one who is recognized as Pope is at the same time in a state of schism with the Church he governs, while those who are declared by him to be schismatic for disobedience will find themselves expelled from the Church because of the fact that they are Catholic.
Bergoglio’s action is above all directed outside the Church. The encyclical Fratelli Tutti is an ideological manifesto in which there is nothing Catholic and nothing for Catholics – it is the umpteenth embrassons-nous [“let’s embrace”] of the Masonic matrix, in which universal brotherhood is obtained not, as the Gospel teaches, in recognizing the common fatherhood of God through belonging to the one Church, but rather by the flattening of all religions into a lowest common denominator that is expressed in solidarity, respect for the environment, and pacifism.
With this way of acting, Bergoglio is a candidate for “pontiff” of a new religion, with new commandments, new morals, and new liturgies. He distances himself from the Catholic religion and from Christ, and consequently from the Hierarchy and the faithful, disavowing them and leaving them at the mercy of the globalist dictatorship. Those who do not adapt to this new code will therefore be ostracized by society and by this new “church” as a foreign body.
On October 20 in Rome, Pope Francis prayed for peace along with representatives of the world religions: the motto of that ecumenical ceremony was “No one is saved alone.” But that prayer was addressed indiscriminately to both the True God as well as to the false gods of the pagans, making it clear that the ecumenism propagated by Bergoglio has as its goal the exclusion of Our Lord from human society, because Jesus Christ is considered “divisive,” “a stumbling stone.” This modern man thinks that he can obtain peace by leaving aside the One who said of Himself: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6). It is painful to note that this apostasy of formerly Christian nations is accompanied by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who ought to be the Vicar of Christ, not his enemy.
Three days ago, the press announced that the Pope will not celebrate Midnight Mass on Christmas. I will limit myself to one observation: a few days ago, in the midst of the full-fledged “Covid emergency,” it was possible to celebrate an ecumenical rite in the presence of the faithful and the civil authorities, all wearing masks. And yet, on the contrary, someone has decided that it would be imprudent to celebrate the Birth of the Savior on the Holy Night of Christmas in the far vaster space of the Vatican Basilica.
If this decision is confirmed, we will know that Jorge Mario Bergoglio prefers to celebrate himself by supporting the mainstream thought and syncretistic ideology of the New World Order, rather than kneeling at the foot of the manger where the King of Kings is placed.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
22 October 2020
Official translation
