Unsound Men Promoting Unsound Doctrines, part two

Part One of this two-part series featured an analysis of the aptly-named “Cardinal Dearden Lecture” that was delivered by the conciliar Vatican’s nuncio to the United States of America, Christophe Pierre, at The Catholic University in Washington, District of Columbia, wherein Monsieur Pierre endorsed dogmatic and pastoral evolutionism to disparage a concern about Mortal Sin as being an impediment to the reception of what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination. This commentary focuses on some recent remarks given by the infamous supporter of all things dealing with unnatural vice, “Father” James Martin, S.J., who enjoys the full backing of his fellow lay Jesuit revolutionary, Senor Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Mr. Martin’s most recent bit of “spiritual advice” was to warn Christians not to follow everything that is contained in Sacred Scripture, especially as it pertains to the condemnation of homosexuality and sodomite activity even though Holy Mother Church teaches infallible that every word of Holy Writ was written by human authors under the direct inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost:

(LifeSiteNews) — Dissident Jesuit priest Father James Martin has claimed Christians “shouldn’t do everything” the Bible “commands” in his new “Outreach Guide to the Bible and Homosexuality.”

Martin attempts to show how an explicit defense of homosexual behavior can be reconciled with Christianity in his “guide,” citing biblical scholars who allegedly help interpret Biblical passages on homosexuality. However, the advice of Martin as well as the scholars boils down to this: Even Christians can ignore Scriptural prohibitions on homosexual behavior.

Martin laments that such biblical verses “are used against LGBTQ people over and over,” and goes on to advise that “one response” to these verses “is to see them in their historical context and remember that even devout Christians shouldn’t do everything that [the] Old Testament commands. Likewise for the Epistles in the New Testament.”

Martin’s rejection of Scriptural passages condemning homosexual behavior also appears inconsistent with his suggestion that what the Bible has to say on homosexuality matters. In his introduction to his guide, he writes, “The questions, though, remain: How can we best understand what the Bible says on homosexuality? What did these passages mean then and what do they mean today?

The writers the dissident Jesuit cites do little to clarify the question. Walter Brueggemann, who Martin refers to as a “giant in the field of biblical scholarship,” claims that St. Paul’s intention in his passage condemning homosexuality is “not fully clear.”

St. Paul writes: “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Rom. 1:23-27)

Brueggemann then concedes that “it is impossible to explain away” this text as well as a clear prohibition on homosexuality in Leviticus (“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22).

The scholar suggests that because Scripture expresses God’s welcome, in an apparent self-contradiction, to those who don’t keep “purity codes” (in this case, eunuchs, who are forbidden from the community of God according to Deuteronomy 23:1), that those who don’t abstain from homosexual behavior are likewise considered part of God’s covenant family, as if the moral law were equivalent to temporary Jewish ceremonial law.

Brueggemann fails to address this distinction between moral and ceremonial law, whereas Catholic apologist Trent Horn has pointed out that homosexual acts fall squarely within the moral domain, considering that their penalty under the Old Testament is death, something only assigned to sins like idolatry, murder, and adultery, not to the violation of ceremonial laws. Horn has also noted that mention of homosexual sin is “sandwiched between moral laws and not ceremonial ones.”

The very passage Brueggemann cites, in fact, indicates that eunuchs can be considered part of God’s family if they “hold fast” to His covenant, which means keeping God’s moral law and avoiding serious sin: “For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.” (Isaiah 56:4-5)

Brueggemann ambiguously concludes that “the full acceptance and embrace of LGBTQ persons follows as a clear mandate of the Gospel in our time.” It is true that, according to the CCC, that those with same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” However, it also affirms that “homosexual acts … are contrary to the natural law, that “they close the sexual act to the gift of life,” and that “under no circumstances can they be approved.”

None of the other scholars cited by Martin can refute Scripture’s clear prohibition on homosexual acts, but instead claim there may be loopholes, or, like Brueggemann, they suggest that because we are called to “welcome all,” active homosexuals must be included in the Body of Christ as well.

Fr. Martin is notorious for his open and heretical promotion of homosexual lifestyles and his celebration of homosexuality as a great “gift” for the Church. His tweets stating the homosexual Pete Buttigieg was “married” drew strong condemnation from numerous bishops and priests, with a Spanish priest denouncing him for “speaking out on social media in a scandalous way against the Catholic faith.”

Martin has a longstanding record of promoting LGBT ideology in dissent from Catholic teaching. Among his most notorious actions, Martin has promoted an image drawn from a series of blasphemous, homoerotic works, showing Christ as a homosexual, promoted same-sex civil unions, and has described viewing God as male as “damaging.” (Fr. James Martin on homosexuality: ‘Christians shouldn’t do everything’ the Bible ‘commands’.)

Where can one begin with such utter apostasy in support of that which is hideous in the sight of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity, as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church?

I suppose that first, one can reiterate what was stated in part one of this series, namely, that men such as James Martin and his cohort of “biblical scholars” believe in a deity that is nothing other than a projection of their own perverse imaginations.

Second, James Martin and his cohort of “biblical scholars” do not believe that sodomite behavior is inherently sinful. Quite the contrary, they believe it is a normal and natural expression of “love” and should be accepted as such. As they truly sick and twisted minds have convinced themselves of such hideous fables, it should be evident that anyone who can attempt to ignore the plain words of Holy Writ that contradict their fables is, humanly speaking, any capacity to see the error of their ways. They believe in sodomy, and they who are headed to be damned believe that Sacred Scripture can be damned so as not wound their own guilty consciences and those of the hardened sinners whose evil ways they seek to indemnify at every turn.

Third, leaving aside Lifesite News’s constant references to the heretical Catechism of the Catholic Church, a document that is absolutely irrelevant to believing Catholics, it must be noted that there is no such thing as “LGBTQ” people, only human beings who choose to perversely use the gift that God has given to them for the continuation of the species and to unite one man and one woman in bond of Holy Matrimony that is dissolved only upon the death of one of the spouses.

Fourth, Sacred Scripture contains salutary warnings to fallen creatures to do good and to avoid evil, and sodomy, as Holy Mother Church teaches, is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Here is the litany of such quotations once again:

And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (Genesis 1: 26-30.)

[13] If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them. [14] If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he hath done a heinous crime: he shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you. [15] He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die, the beast also ye shall kill. (Leviticus 20: 13-15.)

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against 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: 18-32.)

[9] Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, [10] Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6: 9)

[1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. [2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. [3] Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. [4] For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.

[11] Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. [12] These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. [14] Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 

[16] These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain' s sake. [17] But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, [18] Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. [19] These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. [20] But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 

[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged:[23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. [24] Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,[25] To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen. (Jude 1-25.)

There are no “loopholes” in these passages.

This all reminds me of the March 22, 1931, editorial in The Washington Post that I have quoted many times on this site:

The Federal Council of Churches in America some time ago appointed a committee on "marriage and the home," which has now submitted a report favoring a "careful and restrained" use of contraceptive devices to regulate the size of families. The committee seems to have a serious struggle with itself in adhering to Christian doctrine while at the same time indulging in amateurish excursions in the field of economics, legislation, medicine, and sociology. The resulting report is a mixture of religious obscurantism and modernistic materialism which departs from the ancient standards of religion and yet fails to blaze a path toward something better.

The mischief that would result from an an attempt to place the stamp of church approval upon any scheme for "regulating the size of families" is evidently quite beyond the comprehension of this pseudo-scientific committee. It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would lead to the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous. If the churches are to become organizations for political and 'scientific' propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions of politics and science as substitutes for the old-time religion. ("Forgetting Religion," Editorial, The Washington Post, March 22, 1931.)

There is no degrading practice that is beyond the capacity of James Martin and his “biblical scholars” to see as inconsonant with personal sanctity. What matters is “love” even though their conception of “love” is pure sentimentality having nothing to do with the nature of God’s love for us, which is why I am going to reprise a list that I have used so many scores of times before as a means of helping the reader who is relatively new to this site to understand how far the likes of Jams Martin and his pals are from any knowledge of Catholic Faith and Morals:

1) God's love for us is an act of His divine will, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of our immortal souls.

2) Our love for others must be premised on willing for them what God wills for us: their salvation.

3) We love no one authentically if we do or say anything, either by omission or commission, which reaffirms him in a life of unrepentant sin.

4) God hates sin. He wills the sinner to repent of his sins by cooperating with the graces He won for them on the wood of the Holy Cross.

5) Sin is what caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors on the wood of the Holy Cross and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be thrust through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.

6) No one can say that he loves Our Lord or Our Lady if he persist in sin unrepentantly and/or celebrates the commission of sin in public acts of defiance against the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the Natural Law.

7) Each sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will, inclining us all the more to sin and sin again. We must, therefore, resolve never to sin again and to do penance for our sins as Our Lady herself implored us to do when she appeared in th Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, ninety years ago.

8) It is therefore forbidden for anyone of this parish or diocese to participate or support, whether morally or financially, any event whatsoever that celebrates any sin, whether natural or unnatural, and/or encourages people to persist in sin as a legitimate "lifestyle."

9) One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to admonish the sinner. We have an obligation to admonish those who are in lives on unrepentant sin to turn away from their lives of sin and to strive to pursue the heights of sanctity.

10) God has compassion on all erring sinners, meaning each one of us. He understands our weakness. He exhorts us, as He exhorted the woman caught in adultery, to "Go, and commit this sin no more."

11) It is not an act of "love" for people to persist in unrepentant sins with others.

12) It is not an act of "judgmentalness" or "intolerance" to exhort people who are living lives of unrepentant sin to reform their lives lest their souls wind up in Hell for eternity.

13) Mortal Sins cast out Sanctifying Grace from the soul. Those steeped in unrepentant mortal sin are the captives of the devil until they make a good and sincere Confession.

14) Certain sins cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Sodomy is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

15) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments do not "love" the individuals with whom they are sinning. Authentic love cannot exist in a soul committed to a life against the Commandments of God and the eternal welfare of one's own soul, no less the souls of others.

16) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are not fit to adopt children.

17) Those engaged in natural or unnatural acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are not fit to adopt children because their very sinful lives put into jeopardy the eternal of the souls of the children they seek to adopt. It is not possible for people who are sinning unrepentantly to teach children to hate sin as God hates sin. They are immersed in sin. Pope Pius XI put it this way in Casti Connubii, December 31,1930:

But Christian parents must also understand that they are destined not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, indeed not only to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God's household, that the worshippers of God and Our Savior may daily increase. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31,1930.)

18) Those engaged in unnatural, perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are further unfit to adopt children because they have no right in the Divine positive law or the natural law to live together as a "couple."  Once again, Pope Pius XI's Casti Connubii:

Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31,1930.)

19) Those engaged in unnatural, perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandment have no right in the Divine positive law or the natural law to present a "model" of parenthood that is from the devil himself. The words that Saint Paul wrote about perversity in Rome in his own day are quite apropos of our own:

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)

20) Matrimony was elevated to a Sacrament by Our Lord at the wedding feast in Cana. The Holy Sacrament of Matrimony is entered into by one man and by one woman to achieve these ends: the procreation and education of children, the mutual good of the spouses, a remedy for concupiscence. Pope Pius XI noted this in Casti Connubii:

This conjugal faith, however, which is most aptly called by St. Augustine the "faith of chastity" blooms more freely, more beautifully and more nobly, when it is rooted in that more excellent soil, the love of husband and wife which pervades all the duties of married life and holds pride of place in Christian marriage. For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,"[24] that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse.[25] The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed "dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets." For all men of every condition, in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ Our Lord, and by God's grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example set us of many saints.

This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

21) It is never permissible to put even one child into spiritual, if not physical, jeopardy by claiming that so many others would be helped if the Church did not cooperate with an unjust law. Our Lord said that it would be better for one to have a millstone thrown around his neck and thrown into a lake than to lead one of his little ones astray. He was not joking.

22) Sinners must repent of the evil they have done in order to live lives of penance and mortification worthy of Saint Francis of Assisi.

A Catholic priest would not hesitate to make these points. Alas, men such as James Martin, who is not himself a validly ordained priest, is not a Catholic, which is why Jorge Mario Bergoglio personally selected him to speak at the “World Day for Families” in Ireland in 2018 just several months after the Irish voted in favor of perverted “marriage.”

Holy Mother Church has long taught that we must perform the Spiritual Works of Mercy by admonishing and that there are nine ways by which we can become accessories to the sins of others. Here is a little review for you:

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

• To instruct the ignorant.
• To counsel the doubtful.
• To admonish sinners.
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead.

Catholics also believe that there are nine ways that they can be accessories to the sins of others:

• 1. By counsel.
• 2. By command.
• 3. By consent.
• 4. By provocation.
• 5. By praise or flattery of the evil done.
• 6. By silence.
• 7. By connivance.
• 8. By partaking.
• 9. By defense of the ill done.

Conciliarism is by its very false nature uncharitable as it makes a mockery of the authentic, immutable teaching that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by making it appear that it is somehow opposed to tenderness and mercy to follow these words that Saint Paul wrote in his Second Epistle 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.)

A physician does not "judge" anyone if he warns him what might happen if he does not stop engaging in a certain course of behavior that is deleterious to his bodily health.

Similarly, one who warns another about the state of his soul as he persists in a life of unrepentant sin is simply performing a fundamental Spiritual Work of Mercy, and those who are inclined to and/or steeped in perverse sins against nature are not to be left without being remonstrated as this is a duty of a Catholic before God and to the eternal and temporal good of the sinner.

It is one thing to sin and to be sorry and then to seek out the mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. It is quite another to persist in sin, no less perverse sins against nature, unrepentantly and to expect others to reaffirm him in those sins, whether explicitly by words of approval or implicitly by silence, which betokens consent. Catholics must judge the states of their own souls every night in their Examen of Conscience, and they have a duty to help others to recognize the serious states of sin into which they have plunged themselves, praying beforehand to God the Holy Ghost to fill them with wisdom and prudence so as to provide a warning in such a way that could plant a seed to get an unrepentant sinner to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.

Fifth, so-called “biblical scholars” who believe that they can deconstruct the plain words inspired by God the Holy Ghost are abject rebels who have been anathematized by the Council of Trent:

Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, —wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established. (Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent.)

Thus stands condemned the efforts of James Martin and his “biblical scholars” to deconstruct the following passages of Sacred Scripture that are not in the least unclear or ambiguous.

Furthermore, Pope Leo XIII explained that no one must ever doubt the fact that the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, inspired every word of Sacred Scripture, which cannot be ignored by anyone desirous of pleasing God and saving his own immortal soul.

Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write — He was so present to them — that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. “Therefore,” says St. Augustine, “since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated.”⁵⁸ And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things — we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893.)

To take issue with the clear denunciations of sodomy contained in Holy Writ is to blaspheme God the Holy Ghost, and Pope Benedict XV, aware that innovators were trying to deconstruct the plain words of Sacred Scripture by casting aspersions upon Saint Jerome’s translation of it into the Latin Vulgate by claiming that the holy Dalmatian’s work was unreliable:

Pope Benedict XV used a good deal of Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920, to denounce innovators who were attempting to distort Saint Jerome's body of work for their own Modernist ends. One will see in the passages below an exact description of how the conciliar "popes," including Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have sought to reconcile the Modernist precepts of conciliarism with the truths of Catholicism by distorting the work of various Church Fathers, Doctors and saints:

24. Nor do modern innovators stop here: they even try to claim St. Jerome as a patron of their views on the ground that he maintained that historic truth and sequence were not observed in the Bible, “precisely as things actually took place, but in accordance with what men thought at that time,” and that he even held that this was the true norm for history.[44] A strange distortion of St. Jerome’s words! He does not say that when giving us an account of events the writer was ignorant of the truth and simply adopted the false views then current; he merely says that in giving names to persons or things he followed general custom. Thus the Evangelist calls St. Joseph the father of Jesus, but what he meant by the title “father” here is abundantly clear from the whole context. For St. Jerome “the true norm of history” is this: when it is question of such appellatives (as “father,” etc), and when there is no danger or error, then a writer must adopt the ordinary forms of speech simply because such forms of speech are in ordinary use. More than this: Jerome maintains that belief in the Biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith; thus in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon he says:

“What I mean is this: Does any man believe in God the Creator? He cannot do so unless he first believe that the things written of God’s Saints are true.” He then gives examples from the Old Testament, and adds: “Now unless a man believes all these and other things too which are written of the Saints he cannot believe in the God of the Saints.”[45]

25. Thus St. Jerome is in complete agreement with St. Augustine, who sums up the general belief of Christian antiquity when he says:

Holy Scripture is invested with supreme authority by reason of its sure and momentous teachings regarding the faith. Whatever, then, it tells us of Enoch, Elias and Moses — that we believe. We do not, for instance, believe that God’s Son was born of the Virgin Mary simply because He could not otherwise have appeared in the flesh and ‘walked amongst men’ — as Faustus would have it — but we believe it simply because it is written in Scripture; and unless we believe in Scripture we can neither be Christians nor be saved.[46]

26. Then there are other assailants of Holy Scripture who misuse principles — which are only sound, if kept within due bounds — in order to overturn the fundamental truth of the Bible and thus destroy Catholic teaching handed down by the Fathers. If Jerome were living now he would sharpen his keenest controversial weapons against people who set aside what is the mind and judgment of the Church, and take too ready a refuge in such notions as “implicit quotations” or “pseudo-historical narratives,” or in “kinds of literature” in the Bible such as cannot be reconciled with the entire and perfect truth of God’s word, or who suggest such origins of the Bible as must inevitably weaken — if not destroy — its authority.

27. What can we say of men who in expounding the very Gospels so whittle away the human trust we should repose in it as to overturn Divine faith in it? They refuse to allow that the things which Christ said or did have come down to us unchanged and entire through witnesses who carefully committed to writing what they themselves had seen or heard. They maintain — and particularly in their treatment of the Fourth Gospel — that much is due of course to the Evangelists — who, however, added much from their oown imaginations; but much, too, is due to narratives compiled by the faithful at other periods, the result, of course, being that the twin streams now flowing in the same channel cannot be distinguished from one another. Not thus did Jerome and Augustine and the other Doctors of the Church understand the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels; yet of it one wrote: “He who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he tells the truth, and you also may believe” an. 19:35). So, too, St. Jerome: after rebuking the heretical framers of the apocryphal Gospels for “attempting rather to fill up the story than to tell it truly,”[47] he says of the Canonical Scriptures: “None can doubt but that what is written took place.”[48] Here again he is in fullest harmony with Augustine, who so beautifully says: “These things are true; they are faithfully and truthfully written of Christ; so that whosoever believes His Gospel may be thereby instructed in the truth and misled by no lie.”[49]

28. All this shows us how earnestly we must strive to avoid, as children of the Church, this insane freedom in ventilating opinions which the Fathers were careful to shun. This we shall more readily achieve if you, Venerable Brethren, will make both clergy and laity committed to your care by the Holy Spirit realize that neither Jerome nor the other Fathers of the Church learned their doctrine touching Holy Scripture save in the school of the Divine Master Himself. We know what He felt about Holy Scripture: when He said, “It is written,” and “the Scripture must needs be fulfilled,” we have therein an argument which admits of no exception and which should put an end to all controversy. (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritius Paraclitus, September 15, 1920.)

There is really nothing more that needs to be written about men who, barring a miraculous conversion, will wind up being “welcomed” into hell by the adversary, who will then proceed to torture them for all eternity those who were stupid as to claim that “welcoming” practitioners of perverse sins against nature important enough for them to teach that, in essence, Holy Scripture is not inerrant and can be ignored with impunity in order not to offend the tender sensibilities of those steeped, objectively speaking, in one Mortal Sin after another.

Quite unlike men such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, James Martin, Blase Cupich, Reinhard Marx, Joseph Tobin, John Stowe, Jean-Claude Hollerich, et al., Saint Monica understood the horror of sin and shed copiously tears as she prayed ceaselessly for the conversion of her son, Saint Augustine, from his libertine and Manichean ways that included unchaste behavior. Dom Prosper Gueranger explained:

In the company of our Risen Lord there are two women, two mothers, of whom we have often had to speak during the last few weeks: they are Mary, mother of James the Less and Thaddeus, and Salome, mother of James the Greater and John the beloved disciple. They went, with Magdalene, to the Sepulcher, on the Resurrection morning; they carried spices to anoint the Body of Jesus; they were spoken to by Angels; and, as they returned to Jerusalem, our Lord appeared to them, greeted them, and allowed them to kiss his sacred feet. Since that Day, He has repaid their love by frequently appearing to them; and on the day of His Ascension from Mount Olivet, they will be there, together with our Blessed Lady and the Apostles, to receive His farewell blessing. Let us honour these faithful companions of Magdalene, these models of the love we should show to our Lord in His Resurrection; let us, also, venerate them as mothers who gave four Apostles to the Church.

But lo! on this fourth morning of beautiful May, there rises, near to Mary and Salome, another woman, another mother. She, too, is fervent in her love of Jesus. She, too, gives to holy Church a treasure: the child of her tears, a Doctor, a Bishop, and one of the grandest Saints of the New Law. This woman, this mother, is Monica, twice mother of Augustine. This master-piece of God's grace was produced on the desert soil of Africa. Her virtues would have been unknown till the day of Judgment, had not the pen of the great Bishop of Hippo, prompted by the holy affection of his filial heart, revealed to us the merits of this woman, whose life was humility and love, and who now, immortalized in men's esteem, is venerated as the model and patroness of Christian Mothers.

One of the great charms of the book of Confessions, is Augustine's fervent praise of Monica's virtues and devotedness. With what affectionate gratitude he speaks, throughout his whole history, of the untiring constancy of this mother, who, seeing the errors of her son, "wept over him more than other mothers weep over the dead body of their children! (Confessionum, liv. iii. cap. xi)" Our Lord, Who, from time to time, consoles, with a ray of hope, the souls He tries, had shown to Monica, in a vision, the future meeting of the son and mother; she had even heard a holy Bishop assuring her, that the child of so many tears could never be lost: still, the sad realities of the present weighed heavily on her heart; and both her maternal love and her Faith caused her to grieve over this son who kept away from her, yea, who kept away from her, because he was unfaithful to his God. The anguish of this devoted heart was an expiation, which would, at a future period, be applied to the guilty one; fervent and persevering prayer, joined with suffering, prepared Augustine's second birth; and, as he himself says, "she went through more when she gave me my spiritual, than when she gave me my corporal, birth (Ibid. lib. v. cap. ix)."

At last, after long years of anxiety, the mother found, at Milan, this son of hers, who had so cruelly deceived her, when he fled from her roof to go and risk his fortune in Rome. She found him still doubting the truth of the Christian Religion, but tired of the errors that had misled him. Augustine was not aware of it, but he had really made an advance towards the true Faith. "She found me," says he, "in extreme danger, for I despaired of ever finding the truth. But when I told her, that I was no longer a Manichean, and yet not a Catholic Christian, the announcement did not take her by surprise. She leaped for joy, at being made sure that one half of my misery was gone. As to the other, she wept over me, as dead, indeed, but to rise again; she turned to thee, O my God, and wept, and, in spirit, brought me, and laid the bier before Thee, that Thou mightest say to the widow's son: " Young man! I say to thee, arise! Then would he come to life again, and begin to speak, and Thou couldst give him back to his mother! * * * Seeing, then, that although I had not yet found the truth, I was delivered from error, she felt sure that Thou wouldst give the other half of the whole Thou hadst promised. She told me in a tone of gentlest calm, but with her heart full of hope, that she was confident, in Christ, that before leaving this world, she would see me a faithful Catholic (Confessionum, liv. vi. cap. i)."

At Milan, Monica formed acquaintance with the great Saint Ambrose, who was the instrument chosen by God for the conversion of her son. " She," says Augustine, "had a very great affection for Ambrose, "because of what he had done for my soul; and he equally loved her, because of her extraordinary piety, which led her to the performance of good works, and to fervent assiduity in frequenting the Church. Hence, when he saw me, he would frequently break out in her praise, and congratulate me on having such a mother (Ibid. liv vi. cap. ii)." The hour of grace came at last. The light of Faith dawned upon Augustine, and he began to think of enrolling himself a member of the Christian Church; but the pleasures of the world, in which he had so long indulged, held him back from receiving the holy sacrament of Baptism. Monica's prayers and tears won for him the grace to break this last tie. He yielded, and became a Christian.

But God would have this work of His divine mercy a perfect one. Augustine, once converted, was not satisfied with professing the true Faith; he aspired to the sublime virtue of continency. A soul, favored as his then was, could find no further pleasure in anything that this world could offer him. Monica, who was anxious to guard her son against the dangers of a relapse into sin, had been preparing an honorable marriage for him: but Augustine came to her, one day, accompanied by his friend Alypius, and told her that he was resolved to aim at what was most perfect.

Let us listen to the Saint's account of this interview with his mother; it was immediately after he had been admonished by the voice from heaven: "We (Augustine and Alypius,) go at once to my mother's house. We tell her what had taken place she is full of joy. We tell her all the particulars; she is overpowered with feelings of delight and exultation. She blessed thee, O my God, Who canst do beyond what we ask or understand. She saw that Thou hadst done more for me, than she had asked of thee, with her many piteous and tearful sighs. * * * Thou hadst changed her mourning into joy, even beyond her wishes, yea, into a joy far dearer and chaster than she could ever have had in seeing me a father of children (Confessionum, liv. viii. cap. xii)." A few days after this, and, in the Church of Milan, a sublime spectacle was witnessed by Angels and men: Ambrose baptizing Augustine in Monica's presence.

The saintly mother had fulfilled her mission: her son was regenerated to truth and virtue, and she had given to the Church the greatest of her Doctors. The evening of her long and tried life was approaching, and she was soon to find eternal rest in the God, for Whose love she had toiled and suffered so much. The son and mother were at Ostia, waiting for the vessel that was to take them back to Africa. "I and she were alone," says Augustine, "and were standing near a window of our lodging, which commanded a view of the garden. We were having a most charming conversation. Forgetting the past, and stretching forward to the things beyond, we were talking about the future life of the saints, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it ascended into man's heart. * * * And whilst thus talking about it and longing for it, our hearts seemed to bound forward and reach it. We sighed, and left the first-fruits of our spirit there, and returned to the sound of our own voice. * * * Then, my mother said to me: 'My son! as far as I am concerned, there is nothing now that can give me pleasure in this life. I know not what I can do, or why I should be here, now that I have nothing to hope for in this world. There was one thing, for which I desired to live somewhat longer, and it was to see thee a Catholic Christian before my death. My God has granted me this, and more; for I see that thou hast despised earthly pleasures and become his servant. What do I here (Confessionum, liv. ix. cap. x)?'"

She had not long to wait for the divine invitation. She breathed forth her pure soul a few days after this interview, leaving an indelible impression upon the heart of her son, to the Church a name most dear and honoured, and to Christian mothers a perfect example of the purest and holiest maternal affection. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Monica, May 4.)

Saint Augustine gave us his profligate ways and aspired to continency. Bergoglio and his crew of theological destroyers, including James Martin, mock continency and aspire to “accompany” those who seek to live in profligate ways.

The readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office contain a passage from Saint Augustine’s own words in praise of his holy mother, Saint Monica, who suffered so much to win his conversion to the true Faith:

Monica was twice over the mother of St. Augustine, for, under God, he owed to her both earth and heaven. When her husband was very old she made him a friend of Jesus Christ, and after his death she lived a widow in all purity and constantly occupied in works of mercy. Her son Augustine had fallen into the heresy of the Manichaeans, and for his conversion she earnestly pleaded with God for years, with strong crying and tears. She followed Augustine to Milan, and tenderly and constantly besought him to confer with Ambrose the Bishop. This he consented to do, and at last, through the public sermons and private conversations of Ambrose, his eyes were opened to see the truth of the Catholic Religion, and he received baptism at the Bishop's hands, at the Passover of the year 387.

The mother and son set out to return to their home in Africa, but after they had reached Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, she was stricken down by a fever. One day as she lay sick, she came to herself after her mind had been long wandering, and said: "Where am I?” Then she saw who were standing by, and said "Let your mother lie here only, remember me at the altar of the Lord." On the ninth day this blessed lady surrendered her spirit to God. Her body was buried there at Ostia in the Church of St. Aurea, but, long after, in the papacy of Martin V, it was carried to Rome and honourably buried again in the Church of St. Augustine.

Augustine added these words after describing his mother's death: "We did not think that hers was a death which it was seemly to mark with repining, or tears, or lamentations, seeing that she died not sorrowfully, nor at all as touching her best and noblest part. This we knew, because we knew what her life had been, her faith unfeigned, her sure and certain hope. And then, nevertheless, I remembered again what thine handmaid was used to be, her walk with thee, how godly and holy it was, and with us so gentle and long-suffering and that it was all, gone away from me now. And I wept, over her and for her. And if any man will make it blame to me that I wept for a little while, when I saw lying dead before my eyes my mother, who had wept over me so many years, that she might see me live, I say, if any man will make it blame to me, I pray him not to sneer at me, but rather (if his charity be so great) himself to weep over my sins before thee, Who art a Father to all them to whom thy Christ is a Brother." (As found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Monica, May 4.)

The conciliar revolutionaries do weep over sins, they celebrate them in the name of “tolerance” and “compassion.”

We, though, must imitate Saint Augustine’s sorrow for our sins and beg Our Lady, the Mother of Sorrows, to help us understand their horror and to strive to cooperate more and more with the graces she sends to us to climb the ladder of personal sanctity, especially as we fly unto her maternal patronage through her Most Holy Rosary in this month, her month, the month of May, and every month we are privileged to live as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

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 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.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.