The False Mercy of Pope Francis
by Alexandre Marie
Last April, by the bull of indiction Misericordiae Vultus, Francis announced an “extraordinary jubilee of mercyâ€.
This “Holy Year†opened on December 8th 2015 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of the second Vatican council. This year of mercy, Francis explained, is meant to celebrate the triumph of Vatican II, the beginning of a new era in the history of the Church:
“The Church feels the need to keep this event alive. It is then that a new stage in her history began. The Council Fathers had strongly perceived, like a breath of the Holy Spirit, that it was necessary to talk about God to the men of their times in a more understandable way. The walls which had enclosed the Church for too long like in a citadel having been flattened, the time had come to announce the Gospel in a renewed fashion.â€
The “ walls†which used to protect the faith having been “flattened†by this “pastoral “ Council, Francis is trying to flatten those which still protect morality. This was the work of the Bishops’ synod last October, very obviously also convened with a “pastoral“ goal to extend the reign of a false “mercy†destructive of the truth.
Let us recall just four facts which serve to illustrate the very particular fashion in which Francis understands “mercyâ€:
1) the notorious comment “Who am I to judge“ gay people?
2) the “ private†phone call to a woman “ married†to a divorced man, whom he advised to go to receive the sacraments in another parish
3) the call to the Spanish transsexual “woman†who told him of the “discrimination†“she“ was subjected to in her parish, and whom Francis invited to come to see him in a private audience in the company of her “fiancée†– at the expense of the Vatican if you please!
4) the washing of the feet of another transsexual “ woman†last Maundy Thursday – to whom to cap it all off Holy Communion was given.
In this perspective, Francis invites us to experience the opening up to “the existential peripheries†and to dare “noveltyâ€:
“During this Holy Year, we will be able to have the experience of opening our hearts to those who live in the most different existential peripheries, which the modern world has often created in a dramatic fashion. […] Don’t let us fall into indifference which humiliates, into the habits which numb the soul and prevent us from discovering novelty, through destructive cynicism.â€
The Church dreamed of by Francis must conform herself to the world, must allow herself to be molded by the “values†and “aspirations†of the world instead of trying to convert the world to Our Lord.
After having destroyed “the walls of the citadelâ€, the Church must come out of herself and breathe in the “ smell of humanityâ€, even at the risk of “getting hurtâ€. At least the Church will be cured of her propensity for “self-referenceâ€, freed from the “certainties†in which she entrenches herself and from the pretention of possessing “unique and absolute†truths. The Church will no longer “proselytizeâ€, she will not interfere in the spiritual life of people but will really be “at the service of peopleâ€.
How could faithful Catholics participate in such a “Holy Year†which is nothing but a charade destined to accelerate the process of the dissolution of Catholicism and to destroy the little that remains? This “Holy Year“ has nothing holy about it, nor anything even remotely praiseworthy. It is certainly not the work of the Holy Ghost. [Editor: for further information, please see our December 13, 2015 article entitled Should we participate in the ‘Year of Mercy’? ]
(From Le Sel de la terre 94)
