A Pope at Disney and the Church “in diapers”

Many of Pope Francis’s reported remarks and answers to hot button questions from ten young adults, made in the documentary “The Pope: Answers”, are shocking in their superficiality.

"The Pope Answers" airs on Hulu beginning April 5. (Image: Hulu)

In a documentary titled “The Pope: Answers,” filmed in June 2022 and just released by Disney+, Pope Francis gives answers to hot button questions from ten young adults about sex, abortion, and gender. Many of his remarks and answers, as reported by Catholic News Service and Vatican News, are shocking in their superficiality.

I cannot say it otherwise, nor can I sugarcoat this out of respect for the Petrine office. Indeed, it is precisely because of my devotion to the Petrine ministry in the Church that I must speak in a manner that is more blunt than usual, even for me.

The Pontiff, probably out of a desire to truly engage the young people in a pastoral manner, comes across as a pastor who is pandering to his audience—and in so doing has “made a mess” of the Church’s clear teachings on these matters. I am all for respectful dialogue and a heartfelt engagement with those who are, for whatever reason, alienated from the Church. I am no “scorched earth” evangelist threatening hellfire to unbelievers as I hurl copies of the Catechism at them, and I spent a lifetime in the classroom teaching a mixed bag of thoroughly modernized undergraduates.

Nevertheless, respectful dialogue is one thing, but a melted gelato of word salad deflection is quite another.

In response to a question relating to the morality of using a dating app such as Tinder, Pope Francis states that such things are “normal” since young people naturally want to seek out engagement with others. Fair enough, but the comment is either ignorant of the uses of Tinder as a tool for sexual “hook-up” culture, or the Pope is deliberately deflecting from this fact in order to avoid making a genuine moral evaluation. To be sure, there are probably healthy relationships that began through contact on Tinder; but the app is, on the whole, used by those who are, to use old-fashioned terminology, seeking to fornicate.

This should merit at least a passing comment from the Pontiff about the misuses, for immoral purposes, of this kind of technology in our pornified and sexually licentious culture for immoral purposes. And that such practices are dehumanizing in the extreme and can lead to s distorted and spiritually deadly sexuality. But, based on the report, no such admonition is made. However, in a discussion about pornography and masturbation, apparently initiated by a “a young woman who says she creates adult content,” Francis says that “expressing yourself sexually is a richness,” while adding that “everything that diminishes real sexual expression diminishes you too, it makes you partial, and it impoverishes that richness.”

I am quite certain that Pope Francis thinks that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin (of whatever level of gravity owing to diminished culpability), which only makes his remarks (or lack of remarks) on the real culture promoted by Tinder doubly problematic as an exercise in pastoral insouciance towards the facts on the ground. For someone who often speaks of the need to read “the signs of the times,” his comments concerning Tinder evince a remarkable degree of tone deafness regarding the nature of the times in which we live.

The Pontiff further says that we must never say that sex is an “ugly” thing. But who says this? There might be a few stubborn, Jansenist kill-joys out there who speak this way, but even my most ardent traditionalist friends would never make such a claim. This is the Pope’s usual caricature of conservative Catholicism and its insistence that sexual morality is not only still important, but critically so, given our culture’s death-spiral into sexual lunacy. But Francis uses this caricature to set up his own “merciful” view that “everyone” should be received and welcomed into the Church and nobody must ever be turned away. (“Every person is a child of God,” he insists, “every person.”)  This is pure sophistry, since it uses the false assumption that there are many in the Church who think sex is ugly to establish a McElroy-esque counter claim that the proper road forward is to be more “inclusive” of all those living in immoral sexual relationships. This is a false binary of extremes, that excludes the pastoral middle ground of being endlessly forgiving and welcoming while also laying down the challenge of the Christ-provocation to holiness.

Pope Francis sets up this false binary and uses it to promote “inclusion,” a buzzword loaded with denotative meanings that are hardly friendly to Church teaching. “God does not reject anyone, God is Father,” he says, “And I have no right to expel anyone from the Church. Not only that, my duty is always to welcome. The Church cannot close the door to anyone. To no one.” But this only raises further questions. For example, are there any limits at all on such open-ended hospitality? What other sins should also be addressed from within this pastoral ethos of a latitudinarian form of parish outreach?

Are we now to welcome, without judgmental finger-wagging in a moralistic register, overt racists and avowed white supremacists? Misogynists? Anti-Semites? Mafia dons? Thieves? Financial swindlers? Or is it just sexual sin that should be treated with an “accompaniment” that begins with “Welcome, friend!” before it moves on to the meat of the Kingdom ethic of Christ?

Pope Francis, and his preferred prelates, such as Cardinal McElroy, never give us any nuanced analysis of the pastoral meaning of accompaniment in a manner that befits a spiritual institution devoted to the Revelation of God in Christ. They instead choose to speak in the language of our therapeutic culture, and its atomized individualism and runaway moral subjectivism, in matters of sexual morality. No guidance is offered as to what accompaniment looks like when we “welcome” a racist into our fellowship. The focus is always on sexual sins, which gives the impression, ironically, that the Church is obsessed with sex.

The Pope then offers up some ersatz, armchair psychologizing, saying that those in the Church who he claims are unwelcoming to sinners are afraid of confronting their own sinfulness, for they “live to condemn others because they don’t know how to ask forgiveness for their own faults.” How does he know this? Has he made a study of the problem, or is his evidence merely anecdotal and rooted in his own idiosyncratic experiences? Where are all of these judgmental parishes who have installed liturgical bouncers in order to refuse admission to Club Jesus?

Once again, we are dealing with a straw man and a caricature of what parish life is like in most modern parishes. In fact, the reality on the ground is the exact opposite, as the song “All are Welcome” has become the anthem of choice, bellowed-out with hortatory fervor. Confession lines have dried up, while the communion lines are fulsomely populated with nearly everyone, often treating Eucharistic reception as a party favor owed to them as a birthright, regardless of their sins.

Perhaps I am misreading the state of modern parish life; perhaps I am merely projecting onto a broad screen a film playing in my head, based on nothing but my own subjective experiences. But I think not. As someone – age 64 – who grew up entirely in the post-Vatican II Church and who has attended scores of parishes in venues all across America in differing kinds of neighborhoods, I can assert with deep confidence that the Pope’s stereotyping here of modern parishes riddled with morally self-righteous hypocrites who will not confront their own sins even as they banish others, is quite simply false.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the issue of what parishes are really like matters greatly. Because an accurate assessment on a basic empirical level of the state of modern parish life is the only valid starting point for a proper development of pastoral ministry. We are currently engaged in a “synodal” process, the champions of which have gushed over how wonderful the “listening sessions” have been. But, from what I have read, only about 1% of Catholics worldwide have participated in these deliberations. Which, it seems to me, only underscores my point that the problem afflicting most parishes today is not moralistic judgmentalism, but boredom, apathy, and a certain level of emotional distancing caused by the sedulous mediocrity of it all. The Church, we are told, is now “listening”. But, listening to what exactly? Perhaps the deepest listening of all would be to ignore the 1% and to focus instead on the chirping crickets of indifference in the backyards of the silent 99%.

The Pope, laudably, goes on to speak out strongly against sexual abuse in the Church and calls on the Church to deal with it swiftly and effectively. I wholeheartedly embrace such a crisp, clarion call to action on these matters. But the Pope’s own actions in this regard, as is so often the case in this papacy, do not always match his rhetoric. Do I even have to mention the names of folks including Father Rupnik or Bishop Zanchetta? The Pope told his young listeners what they wanted to hear on this matter—apparently like everything else he said in the interview—but then stopped short of an admission of his own failures in this regard.

Finally, and most outrageously, Pope Francis says that the Church’s “catechesis on sex is still in diapers.” What does this even mean? Does it mean, as I think it does, that the traditional teaching of the Church is still in its infancy and needs to mature and grow up? If so, it is one of those off-the-cuff “tells” that gives us a window into how the Pope really thinks. It shows us that his gutting of the John Paul II Institute in Rome was no fluke, and that his radical reorientation of the Pontifical Academy for Life was no accident. It tells us that his promotion of prelates like McElroy, who openly espouse proportionalist moral theories, is part of his agenda. It tells us that promoting Fr. James Martin to a Vatican post, and that his letters of support to New Ways Ministry are not the products of a naïve Pontiff easily maneuvered by his handlers, but rather the product of a calculated strategy of rupture.

So, apparently, the Church needs potty training in matters sexual and the time has come to put on our big boy pants and move into the brave new world of a pluralism of sexual “lifestyles”. But this characterization of the Church’s traditional moral theology as being in an infantile stage of development can only happen via a monumental act of ecclesial amnesia. Has Pope Francis never read the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas? Was Aquinas, intellectually speaking, also still in diapers?

And has this Pope never read the teachings of St. John Paul II on these matters? What is the status of the late pontiff’s theology of the body and his astute and erudite elucidation of moral theology in Veritatis Splendor? Is it all to now be summarily dismissed with the wave of a metaphorical wand, and described as the diaper phase of our ecclesial meditations on these matters? Was Pope John Paul’s moral theology and his many writings on sexuality and marriage therefore just a part of the “diaper phase”?

All of this, of course, is risible nonsense and is an irresponsible thing for a Pope to say. It gives inaccurate fodder to the Church’s secular critics – “See, even the Pope says the Church has been infantile in such things!” – and adds much fuel to the hyper-traditionalist claims that the modern Church has gone off the rails. Such statements are only feeding the barking dogs that lurk in the extreme binaries and do absolutely nothing to aid and support the few remaining adults in the room.

Lurking behind all of this are the ongoing debates about the proper reception of Vatican II. And the Pope’s words in this interview imply that those who espouse a view of the Council as an event of rupture with the past are correct. This is the Church of Saint Heraclitus, now on steroids, where everything is contested and up for grabs. It is a Church, as Bishop Robert Barron has lamented, in a constant state of “suspension,” in which change and flux are the only metrics of truth. And as such, the Pope’s words imply not only a repudiation of John Paul II, but of Pope Benedict XVI as well, whose hallmark theme was the priority of logos over ethos, and of God’s revealed truth over the passions and passing fads of the moment.

I conclusion, all I can say after reading about this interview is, “Good grief, this is embarrassing!”


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About Larry Chapp 58 Articles
Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology. He taught for twenty years at DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. He now owns and manages, with his wife, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chapp received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. He can be visited online at "Gaudium et Spes 22".

118 Comments

  1. Thank you Larry Chapp, a well written article. How much longer will people keep defending this pontificate and his advisors who promote such errors. The biggest threat to the church are not those who promote errors, but the ones who walk around with blinkers on, telling everyone ” nothing to see hear folks, all is good and well with the church, what the Pope really said was this…..”.

    • But…what choice do we as lay Catholics have, really?! What exactly are we to do? Of course we can disagree with the Holy Father,and argue with other trusted Catholic friends and perhaps also with trusted non-Catholic Christian friends that the Pope appears to be heading down a dark path with these teachings. But we can’t reject him or take away his throne–we can reject his teachings, but…he’s the Holy Father! It God who put him in that position, not man. Are we really able to “touch God’s anointed?” And how can we engage in debate with our non-Christian brothers who have little or no clue about Catholicism or any form of Christianity? At what point do we simply keep our mouths shut and live as St. Paul admonished us “We urge you, beloved, to …aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly towards outsider and be dependent on no one.’ (I Thess. 4 10-12, NRSV). And we must always remember that Our Lord Jesus prayed that “they may become completely one”–by opposing our God-appointed Pope, do we not risk creating even more divisions in Christianity? I think we should pray, pray and pray some more, and, as our first Pope taught us– “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence. (I Peter 3:15, NRSV). Too many Catholics have little background or understanding of Holy Mother Church, Her history, Her teachings and how they have developed through the centuries, or even the most basic knowledge of the Holy Bible (which is the best way to start when talking to Protestant Christians), or an understanding of the Holy Mass–to expect a large number of Catholics to step up and challenge a Pope is like asking a toddler to get into the wrestling ring with John Cena. IMO, it would be best for us to “watch and pray.” God will prevail in the end.

      • God does not appoint a Pope like he did David, he allows men in red hats to do that. Sometimes they pick saints, but mostly they don’t. The role of the Pope is to strengthen the brethren,to defend and teach the faith, not make things up as he goes along or cause confusion.
        If your local parish priest in a sermon said God wills all religions would you be bound to believe him? If not then why a Pope. Stick to the perennial teaching and tradions of the Church. God has allowed this in his church for a reason, those who are trying to change the church in their own image will not succeed.

      • Dear Mrs. Sharon Whitlock,

        You’ve provided a nice description of what the majority of under-Catechized Catholics will say: “Francis is the Pope, the Holy Father, to be obeyed, not contradicted. Even if he’s evil to advocate & scheme for non-repentant serious sinners to be included in The Body of Christ, don’t worry, be happy, it’ll all be OK in God’s good time. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do to stop him, for he’s organized a putsch & he controls the keys to all the treasure; he reigns just as surely as Emperor Augustus over Imperial Rome. Just let it go, will you!”

        I recommend reading Galatians 2:11-14. It shows us that The Holy Spirit of Christ inspired Saint Paul to record (for our sakes) how he opposed Pope Peter the First, to his face, because of an evil that Peter was promoting. Pope Peter had erred in not respecting the true meaning of The Gospel. Does that ring a bell . . ?

        Every Catholic who is true to Christ will prioritize THE Lord as THE Way, THE Truth, & THE Life, over and above the heresies of even the most impressive hierarch. In this we follow Jesus Christ who described the established religious leaders of His day as deaf to His instructions because they had come under the authority of the devil (John 43-44). It can happen . . !

        Yes, dear Mrs. Sharon Whitlock, we Catholics are generally the very most submissive, respectful, & cooperative people to our leaders. Yet, we also have irreproachable Apostolic witness to our responsibility to expose evil, even if it should originate from the Pope of the day. Please read Ephesians 5:1-20.

        Hoping this is helpful. Always in the love of Christ; blessings from marty

          • Marty, Re: your comments of 4/8, 523p-
            Thanks much for your blessings and for your profession of love of Christ, which I hope you mean in all truth and with genuine sincerity, but God alone knows, not I.
            Indeed it is quite important to “carefully read and understand comments we are responding to”; something I think you may have failed to do in response to Sharon. Is it possible that, rather than responding honestly to her and the points which she chose to make, that you instead responded to a caricature? Otherwise why the reference to “under-catechized” Catholics who then go on to say certain things which you then describe without showing how they reflect her views? Perhaps you should re-read her comments and rethink your response.

        • Marty, I don’t read her comments quite the same way. She simply affirms that however we present our critique it must be done in such a manner as not to attack the papal office itself. I’m sure likewise with our bishops. We can freely criticize or question individual bishops, or the Holy Father, on non-doctrinal points, while still maintaining respect for the office. And I also take seriously her injunction to make prayer the focal point of whatever we do and say. As a rule of thumb, perhaps we should spend twice as much time and energy in prayer for our Holy Father and bishops as we do in offering criticism. After all, they will have much to answer for. I think we need sincerely ask God’s blessings upon them and at some point, leave it in God’s hands. “Not mine but thy will be done” after all. Trust God, not our own efforts.

          • Dear ‘faithful’, thank you for your reconciling comments on my comment.

            It’s always a good thing to carefully read & understand comments that we are responding to. If you re-read my humble comment, you’ll find it is based on our Lord, Jesus Christ, directly confronting the ‘pope’ of that time, & his coterie, with the sad news that they were not following Abraham & Moses as they proclaimed but the devil, the original deceiver.

            That important example was backed-up by the evidence of Apostle Paul openly contradicting & criticizing Peter, the first Pope, to his face.

            It would be un-faithful for any true Catholic to remain silent when the main man of our day, Pope Francis, is more thoroughly deceived than Peter was.

            “We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” II Corinthians 13:8

            “. . let me warn you that if anyone preaches a version of The Gospel different from the one we have already preached to you, whether it be ourselves or an angel from heaven, he is to be condemned.” Galatians 1:8

            Dear ‘faithful’, your response appears to show that you believe we cannot both prayerfully intercede for the Pope and also openly criticise him for disobedience to God. That belief is erroneous.

            Hoping this helps.

            Ever in the love of King Jesus Christ, our only teacher; blessings from marty

        • Dear Dr.Martin.
          I felt compelled to defend Pope Francis and the Petrine Office.
          I believe the adage “Where Peter is, there is the Church. I believe that the chair of Peter is duly occupied by the power of the Holy Spirit through a legitimate conclave of Cardinals, therefore respected. I believe in Jesus’ promise that he will be with His Church till the end of time. Matthew 16. I believe that His Church and occupier will prevail against the onslaught of the Devil and his minions.

          Dr. Martin is guilty of what he accused Pope Francis of doing; distorting what Jesus actually said in the New Testament, that anyone in the world can read. I quoted 2 passages, one Matthew 9 and the other from Luke 7. Instead, he ignored those passages and replaced them with his own drivel of what Jesus actually said and meant all and about New Age philosophy and what not.

          Here is an other:
          Luke 11:46
          And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! (Doctors of the law) You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.
          Dr. Martin, you urged me to think. Very well, let’s think clearly of what Jesus said and meant in Luke 7, I quote:

          Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
          45
          You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.
          46
          You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment.
          47
          So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.* But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
          48
          He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

          I am 2 years shy of 90 years of age. I do a lot of thinking on these matters. My question is this: When I stand in front of God’s judgment seat, would I rather be in the shoes of Simon, the scholar of the law, or the shoes of the sinful woman (prostitute)?

          In Christ, Frans

          • Thanks for taking the trouble to reply, dear Frans. My congratulations on your having attained the grande age of 98. Awesome!

            You have explained your mindset very well. You have the belief that whoever the current Pope is, is infallible, must be believed & obeyed, and is above criticism by other Church members.

            This mindset goes back to pre-Christian kingdoms and empires, where it was seen as ‘the divine right of the monarch’. Figurehead worship has played a big part in causing empires to engage in mutual slaughter and mayhem, from the Persians versus Greeks, Egyptians versus Hittites, Rome versus Carthage . . . right up to the present Russia versus Ukraine, and China versus India, etc. The dangerous demi-god in North Korea should surely alert us all to the dangers of ‘above criticism’, autocratic authority.

            Many mature and experienced Catholics (I’m over 80, myself) were accustomed to thinking like that about whoever was our Pope at the time. We deeply respected Him; he is God’s chosen; we’d go to war when he says; any who contradict him, do so at their peril!

            However, as in case of Emperors & Kings & Queens, the work of truth-seeking historians has provided a truer perspective of reality. The fallibilities of autocratic royal personalities & the costly errors of their rule are fully exposed for all to study and to publish in books.

            Reputable Catholic historians have studied the history of all the popes and, dear Frans, it is often not pretty! Please check Eamon Duffy’s magisterial book: ‘Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes’, Yale University Press, 1997. As well as some wonderfully holy papal works, there have often been foolish and ungodly pronouncements, devilish scheming, and wicked actions emanating from the Chair of Peter.

            So, it’s impossible for any good & rational person to continue with a mindset: ‘Whatever the Pope of our day says and does is Gospel to me’. It would be irresponsible and ecclesiastically dangerous for any educated Catholic to maintain that stance. Of course, we respect whoever occupies the Chair of Peter, but are conscious of the dangers of autocracy and its history of costly blunders.

            We are aware that the pope is always under The New Testament, not over it.

            It’s in that context that I hope you will see the necessity of reporting the unbiased results of careful research in critical articles such as that of Larry Chapp and in the many learned comments attached to it.

            If you would be so kind, dear Frans, as to carefully read through all the comments on Larry’s article (I don’t want to take up space by repeating them), you’ll get a wonderful education in the necessity of truthful, New Testament-rooted, Holy Spirit-inspired, genuinely Catholic criticism of the actions of a Pope who is as feral as Jorge Bergoglio, to the point of outright rebellion against the instructions of King Jesus Christ and His Apostles. If only he, Pope Francis, would honor CWR with a personal reply to Larry’s searching article & to the avalanche of learned, fact-based comments on so very many of Francis’ un-Catholic words and actions.

            Perhaps he’s too busy orchestrating his international image to be concerned with the tsunami of rational, godly complaints from Gospel-loyal Catholics.

            Take care, keep well, dear Frans. Ever in the love of Jesus Christ; blessings from marty

      • God does not choose the pope. This is another matter he leaves in human hands. We owe a degree of respect and obedience to the pope regardless of how he is selected. I think the idea that “God chooses the pope” would make it more difficult to navigate the current turbulence. Also what is to be our attitude to God? Historically there have been popes who were very bad men indeed – do we say that God wanted someone evil to be pope? God permits evil, but he never wants it.

      • This has got to stop. This rabid papolatry. The popular myth that God, the Holy Spirit, chooses the pope in the conclave is , as Pope Benedict told us, NOT a teaching of the Church. It is a popular notion and nothing more. The pope is Chosen by the college of cardinals and once he attains legitimately to the papacy he will be offered the grace to fulfill the obligations of his office. It.s up to him to accept or reject that grace. Look. Did the Holy Spirit choose the popes in the tenth century, one of them made a practice of seducing female pilgrims. What about pope. Alexander in the late 15th century who was a fornicator and a nepotist. The continued legitimacy of a pope depends upon his witness to the Divinely Revealed Truth contained in theHoly Scriptures and DivineTradition. Pope Frances, despite the fact that he is legitimately pope. is systematically undermining this Divinely revealed Truth especially in the realm of sexual morality. I have watched him and listened to him for ten hears. The case against him is overwhelming. The cardinals and Bishops could have moved against him. They have done virtually nothing. That is the real scandal.

        • Dear Elia,

          You are right. A college of faithful cardinals needs to give Pope Francis a list, documenting his ‘litany’ of anti-Apostolic, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian heresies. They must insist that Francis publicly repent.

          If he refuses, that gives the grounds to retire him and begin the election process for a new, truly Catholic, genuinely Christian pope.

          Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

  2. Yes, embarrassing and very disturbing. We have a Pope who doesn’t ground his dialogue and teaching in the Sacred Scriptures. Worse, like McElroy and the other priests and prelates he has elevated, I believe the Pope’s comments, in several instances that could be cited, actually contradict the teaching of our Lord in the Gospels and the inspired truths the Holy Spirit gives us in the Epistles. I guess that makes me judgmental in the view of this crowd. But that is my humble and hopefully non- self righteous opinion.

    • … we have a pope who says exactly what Jesus would have said – and his detractors are the pharisees of our time. The ‘sacred scriptures’ referred to above are not the bible, or one of the evangelia, but the church rules entirely made up by church people to control the docile flock of church believers and establish a dominating religious organisation – the ‘catholic church’ is by definition the only ‘all embracing church of Christ’. Only church people of dozens of other churches of christ beg to differ. The same people who would rather burn the temple than let a member of another church in. And ‘people of the book’ are the followers of the first book- which has been described in a Florida court case as unfit to be taught to youngsters, because of its pornographic and violent content. The new book describing the life of Jesus, – talking about mercy, tolerance and to all including tax collectors and ‘fallen women’, that is the book Pope Francis is reading from. The first true Christian after a long line of church men in the chair of Petrus.

      • JJ, so true. This pope is very informed of the reality of the human condition. We know much more today than did the interpreters of the gospels for the first two thousand years. Science has taught us much about the personal conditions in which individual persons live. We as a people and church are still in diapers. We must continue to apply the gospel to our growing understanding of morality.

      • JJ – Have you ever considered passages such as these from the “new book” to which you refer?

        Jesus – MT 10:14-15   “Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.  Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”
         
        Jesus – MT 18:15-17 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
         
        Jesus – LK 10:10-12 “Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”
         
        St. Paul – ROM 16:17-18 I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.
         
        St. Paul – 1 COR 5:1-2 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 
         
        St. Paul – 1 COR 5 11-13   But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person.  For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within?  God will judge those outside. “Purge the evil person from your midst.”
         
        St. Paul – 2 COR 6:14-16 Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Be′lial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
         
        St. Paul – EPH 5:6-8 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
         
        St. Paul – 2 THES 3:14   If anyone does not obey our word as expressed in this letter, take note of this person not to associate with him, that he may be put to shame.
         
        St. Paul – 2 TIM 3:1-5   But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days.  People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.
         
        St. Paul – TITUS 3: 10-11  After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.
         
        St. John – 2 JN 9-11  Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works.
         

      • JJ, have you ever heard of a guy named Marcion? You and he seem to have much in common when it come as to the “old book / new book” thing you are describing. It might be worth looking him up.

      • JJ – You hit upon a truth, probably without realizing its profundity.

        “…we have a pope who says exactly what Jesus would have said…” That is exactly true IF JESUS WOULD HAVE SPOKEN AS THE POPE has said. Jesus NEVER said what the pope says.

        Francis speaks according to what he believes. He has told us to make a mess; presumably his beliefs reflect that method of containment. His set of beliefs is one big mess of evolved, unorthodox, original, progressive, subjectivized, relativized and revised Christianity not worth the air necessary to propagate them. They are gone and lost forever. They are unlike the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, and the PERENNIAL MAGISTERIAL CHURCH TEACHINGS OF THE PAST.

        Take your pick. Don’t forget your profundity. May the Good Lord bless you on this very Good day.

      • So, just curious, who’s paying you to troll this site with your comments? One cannot be serious about matters of faith and spiritual practice and believe what you state about Francis. What really gives here?

      • “The first true Christian after a long line of church men in the chair of Petrus.”

        Hmmm. A confused pontification about a confusing pontiff. Fun.

      • So you believe Jesus was stupid? You believe Jesus believed that His Father was viciously cruel and created a human condition where it was impossible to know right from wrong and would need thousands of years to figure it out leaving His creation to needlessly abuse each other in the mean time?

        And as someone with four degrees in science, I beg you to tell me, exactly when and where there ever was a moment in human history when science ever had any basis for rendering a value judgment about anything at all.

        You do know the Pharisees were the progressives of their era, those who rejected, immutable, unchanging, eternal truth, for all times and all places and all peoples. Those without faith believe man creates truth rather than accept God as the exclusive source of all truth.

      • jj: That’s quite a leap. “[Exactly what Jesus would have said”?? The same Lord and God who unapologetically condemned sexual sin? Somehow I don’t think so. It’s possible to welcome sinners without affirming their sin. It’s been done for two thousand years. The Church and her faithful have great experience doing exactly that. And who exactly is barring the door to “the temple” to use your expression? Jesus did welcome tax collectors and assorted other sinners. He invited them to repentance and to turn from their ways of sin and follow him. That’s not exactly shutting anyone out. It’s inviting them to stop making an idol of their sinful ways.

        • Sorry again, dear ‘faithful’,

          Have you not missed the key point of this debate: it’s about the current Pope and his subtly promoted coterie advocating for unrepentant sinners to be incorporated in The Body of Christ, freely receiving the sacraments that were established specifically for repentant believers.

          What is not being questioned by anyone is the love, prayers, & welcome that we have always extended to even the most serious sinner who desires to repent and be reconciled with God and begin a new life of obedience to God with us. Think: Zachaeus, Mary of Magdala, Matthew, and numerous others.

          Am hoping this helps you to discern the vital difference.

          Ever in the grace & mercy of Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

          • Marty @4/8, 541p, Sorry, but however well intended, I find your comment totally inapt as to anything I offered. Blessings from God are always welcome.

  3. Mr. Chap,

    First of all, “ When there is an imminent danger for the Faith, Prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects. “ Aquinas Summa Theologica

    Secondly, I loved Cardinal Ganswein’s recent testimony where he was experiencing such despair that he looked at Pope Emeritus Benedict and said, is God not there; and Benedict replied with the parable of the Apostles petrified on the boat and wondering if Christ cared and all He had to do was use the words to calm the storm.

    We need to remember that nothing will destroy the Church but we are duty bound to respectfully question Pope Francis on many of his comments.

    Your essay is spot on.

    Have a Blessed Easter!
    Jim

  4. “I am quite certain that Pope Francis thinks that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin (of whatever level of gravity owing to diminished culpability).”

    No. Pope Francis’s understanding of diminished culpability is that I can discern that it is morally impossible for me to avoid sex outside marriage without falling into a greater sin. In other words, it may be a “sin” in some technical sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s always concretely the wrong thing for me to do. JP II’s understanding of diminished culpability was that sex outside marriage is always concretely the wrong thing for me to do, but that I may sometimes do the wrong thing out of ignorance or under pressure or in a moment of weakness etc.

    • The only thing he has ever been clear about is the tyranny of infinite subjectivity, which he explained unambiguously in AI. For Francis the merciful, it is perfectly harmless for a man to mercilessly abandon his family and run away with his mistress if he can convince himself (lie to himself) that in his “concrete circumstances in today’s world this is what God is asking of him at this time.”
      This is not actually “superficial” for Francis. This is as deep as a mind without the slightest understanding of Catholic ethics gets when that mind preens its sense of superiority to all that preceded it and panders to the shallowness of the guilt avoiding likeminded.

  5. As long as this is a morphing Disney thingy, perhaps—in today’s fluidly inclusive world—someone LGBTQ could have asked the pope what he thinks about “uncle” Donald and his three “nephews”…

    Surely, we welcome and don’t want to be accused of excluding any possibilities! Butt, dammit, those ducks are wandering around almost nude! Not even in “diapers,” like Pope Francis quacks flightily of sound moral theology and even the beauty of creation.

  6. How much actual contempt for God, or de facto atheism does a mind have to have to believe God abandoned His creation to a capricious understanding of how we are to order our lives together awaiting moral answers that would otherwise prevent us from doing unnecessary vile harm to each other until some faraway moment in history when some genius finally figures out right from wrong for the very first time. If Francis has no curiosity about Catholicism, does he have any curiosity about common sense?

  7. I am fast reaching the conclusion that Francis has no idea at all why Christ died on the cross…NO IDEA AT ALL!

      • I kinda have the same reaction. It was God who established Pope Francis, not man. I’m OK with disagreeing with the HOly Father, but not with questioning his faith in Jesus. Which one of us can claim that we completely understand all that God has revealed to us, and that we always make the right decision about what God has said and is saying to the Church? We’ve all seen what happens when non-Catholic Christians claim to believe in “the Bible alone.” Ai yi yi! We simply have to trust that God indeed knows what He is accomplishing here on earth and will bring it to pass in the end.

        • Sorry to disagree, but you might need to step back a bit an re-examine your assumptions about Francis here. You are defending the indefensible. When the fox is in the henhouse, accommodating and excusing away the present danger is not in the chickens’ best interest. And yes, Francis is the fox. That’s pretty clear to the discerning eye.

        • If “God established Pope Francis”, all those Cardinals present for the conclave could have stayed home.

        • God established the papacy, when Jesus made his promises to Peter. But he doesn’t establish individual popes. That said, I don’t agree with the posters here who think that Francis has completely abandoned Catholic moral teaching. I think he has some desire to present it in an attractive way (without really knowing how). It would be very difficult to defend the Faith to a group of articulate young people, many of whom were hostile to it, and who would not understand much of the language informed Catholics use. President Biden’s team would not have let him enter that situation.

          • Dear Michael, I admire your kind heart.

            “It would be very difficult to defend the Faith to a group of articulate young people . .”

            Those among us who’ve been doing that for decades would suggest that a deep personal, obedient commitment to the Person & the commands of Jesus Christ attracts The Holy Spirit to give us the most persuasive words. On this criterion, Francis’ performance gets a ‘D’.

            Maybe due to the medical episodes of his youth, Jorge Bergoglio acquired a persona that makes an appeal to our sympathies & our trust. This has been advantageous all through his career, even to election by the College of Cardinals. Jorge’s charm, vulnerability, & cultivated humility has been camouflage for his lack of adherence to the well-established truths of Catholicism. Yet, decades ago, his underlying spirit of rebellion was noted by some of his Jesuit colleagues.

            Should it surprise us that a dyed-in-the-wool rebel cleric, once elevated, manipulates the Church to incorporate other unrepentant rebels?

            Many good Catholics (a Big synod) have seen enough & think it’s time for Emeritus Pope Francis to spend his remaining time on Earth in penitential retirement. May God graciously hear our earnest prayers for a thoroughly genuine Catholic to replace him on the Chair of Peter.

            Ever in The Word of God; love & blessings from marty

  8. It is fitting this is a product of the Disney Company which has, I believe, considerable «form» in matters of sexuality.

  9. Good grief. This is embarrassing. And juvenile. And insulting.
    Including to the young people Francis purports to listen to.

  10. This pope is such an embarrassment.

    For him to babble such insipid, platitudinous, superficial nonsense to defenseless children is an affront to both decency and truth.

    These are dark times for the poor, suffering Church.

    Clearly, the pope doesn’t have a clue about the difference that faith in Jesus makes in the lives of people of faith.

  11. This profanity performed with the Disney Corporation, the veritable Anti-Christ enterprise, is the perfect summation of the Pontiff Francis, a man who has devoted himself to messaging that he is ashamed and embarrassed by the teaching of Jesus and his apostles.

    That’s the main point of the pathological cultishness of self-styled “progressive-Katholik” ideologues: they are so appalled that Jesus is “so yesterday.” They offer an alternative Jesus, one much more like…THEMSELVES.

    But today is Good Friday, when Jesus died to free us from this such profanity.

  12. Chapp quotes Pope Francis that the Church’s “catechesis on sex is still in diapers.” And then asks: “…What is the status of the late pontiff’s theology of the body and his astute and erudite elucidation of moral theology in Veritatis Splendor?”

    Three points:

    FIRST, might there be a synodal (!) one-percent chance that, in this instance, Francis meant to say that “catechesis on sex is ‘still about’ diapers”? Babies, yes! IF so, THEN we may observe that he mouths a rudimentary unfamiliarity with the Church’s affirmation of the both unitive and procreative purpose of human sexuality (both, with neither directly contradicting the other: see #3 below).

    SECOND, about Veritatis Splendor, the record of the past ten years evades Veritatis Splendor. Instead, the enabled endgame seems to be never to deny, but to pastorally exempt subjective sexuality from objective and universal moral theology…Yes, a clear rejection of “gender theory.” But then those photo-ops for fellow-Jesuit James Martin….And the erection of synodality’s ambiguous “aggregation, compilation, and synthesis” of heard/herded contradictory factions?

    The mystery of Babel: harmonized with a word processor! Like monkeys randomly producing Shakespeare on a typewriter?

    THIRD: the papal St. John Paul II:
    “The Church is coherent with herself when she considers recourse to the infecund periods to be licit, while at the same time condemning, as being always illicit, the use of means directly contrary to fecundation, even if such use is inspired by reasons which may appear honest and serious. In reality, there are essential differences between the two cases: in the former, the married couple make legitimate use of a natural disposition; in the latter, they impede the development of natural processes” (“The Theology of the Body,” 1979-1984; Pauline Books, 1997).

    It’s time to come clean with at least an off-the-cuff diaper change.

  13. Larry Chapp’s papal critique was preceded by George Weigel’s March 15 [A Somber Anniversary First Things]. An ominous historical date that I will not imply an innuendo. Although equally as pointed and correctly critical of Pope Francis’ 10 year tenure. Having read at time of publication the interview mentioned by Dr Chapp I came away with similar disfavor. If we combine Weigel’s somber assessment with Chapps’ embarrassing I would add, Downright awful. Or on further, less discretionary thought, perhaps hyperbolic, subversive.
    At the ten year mark it appears a form of necessary Spring house cleaning has finally compelled faithful Catholic intelligentsia to speak out with relative thunder. Robert Royal included. All three, especially Weigel and Royal, had been exceptionally circumspect.
    Anyone one of us who have valiantly suffered through the years trying to be faithful to 2000 years of Apostolic tradition, the words of the Crucified, the witness of the martyrs, the shining testimony of Francis’ two predecessors are appalled, outraged at comparing settled moral doctrine on sexual behavior ‘in diapers’. Why, the very analogy is suggestive. Some might say unseemly. Perhaps, [righteous indignation taken for granted] demanding from us referral to His Holiness [he did tell Weigel he would listen to complaints].

    • After reading your reference, I read Weigel’s column and was still disappointed in his inability to concede that the horrible leadership of this pontificate is due entirely to the corrupted faith of Francis, who is never confusing, as so many claim, but incoherent because he simply lacks an adult understanding of the faith, and probably never desired one. It’s a horrible reality for a pope, but it is a reality that serves no good purpose to deny. Every man has his moral blind spot, and Weigel invested considerable praise on Francis early on as the next JPIII. When a petulant dissident to doctrine emerged, Weigel simply reduced Francis to an incompetent administrator, not the theologically bankrupt man that he is, massive harm to the Church and humanity included.
      This pontificate inspired many to remind us that the election of popes is not under the control of the Holy Spirit. But one is forced to wonder if God may have wanted to provoke a reactive urgency among loyal sons and daughters.

      • You’re right Edward regards the massive harm to the Church and humanity. How does a professional writer, commentator, speaker address such a truth with complete candor, and remain in a position to make that case in terms that doesn’t distance himself from his audience? It’s a question I frequently ponder. Similarly, editors of Catholic websites have the same issue.
        For myself, I can say much more. In a parish setting where I know my audience I speak more freely, in ways that on the internet I may be written off. Although, I have greater freedom because here I limit myself to comments on articles rather than make direct vituperative remarks. I’m not as ethically constricted. Were I a bishop I would speak to my constituents as well as clergy in similar manner as I do now from the pulpit. And I would make direct appeal, letting my views be known to Pope Francis. Settings differ and have their own sets of propriety.
        All in all I agree Weigel has been, in appearance, too soft on the pontiff. His recent essay A Somber Anniversary, his recent exchange with Raymond Arroyo allay that impression.

        • I too was amazed at the Holy Father’s comment on the diapers. To me it’s incomprehensible that he would make such a statement given the works of his predecessors. Yes,there have been issues of debate but as we have seen Humana Vitae, that much reviled encyclical has proven so prophetic. To me, most astonishing was his admission of the corruption in the centralized church. A sad time

    • So well said, dear Fr Peter.

      We might pray for there to be even a tiny hiatus in Francis’ enormous hubris to allow in the thought that it is he & his coterie who are in moral diapers, publicly displaying their ignorance of New Testament Apostolic witness, & oblivious to the lives & teachings of the huge cloud of faithful saints & martyrs of our Lord.

      We have only one Lord. He said: “If you love Me, obey My commands!”

      Ever in the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty

  14. “The Pope’s words imply not only a repudiation of John Paul II,” let us be frank, but also of Jesus. That’s the real scandal. It will take nothing short of a miracle to recover from this papacy.

  15. What you may not be aware of is that the program was organized by Jordi Evole, a jornalist and who interviewed Francisco a few months ago in “La Sexta”, a TV channel aligned with Mr. Evole.
    Mr. Evole is atheist openly declared anticatholic. In fact, I was surprised when I learn about his first interview with the Pope.It seems that Fancisco and Jordi went on well together and whis show is the fruit of that meeting, well aligned with Disney LGTBI+ agenda. God have merci on us.
    In case you want to see the interview: https://www.lasexta.com/programas/salvados/mejores-momentos/la-entrevista-de-jordi-evole-al-papa-francisco-en-salvados-en-diez-titulares-video_201903315ca139020cf2ef096e6f6e69.html

  16. Of course, all the examples Mr. Chapp cites indicate quite clearly where Francis stands on sexuality morality. Many more could be adduced. His juvenile and dishonest insult against Church teaching in this realm once again reveals his intentions. He is a morally unfit successor to the good, if flawed, men who preceded him in the last forty-five years. Intellectually, he doesn’t even his rise to their knees. As for how he compares to the saintly giants who have held the papal office over the millennia, his name shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence. I would not say that of any other pope in history.

  17. From my traditionalist perch, Chapp betrays a prejudice, a lack of fact, and only a slightly nuanced way of resurrecting old insults. I’d hazard that traditionalists think more highly of the beauty and goodness of the sexual act than MANY a theologically-minded ressourccement modernist pratt in her second or subsequent career or marriage.

    Chapp says, “…we must never say that sex is an “ugly” thing. But who says this? There might be a few stubborn, Jansenist kill-joys out there who speak this way, but even my most ardent traditionalist friends would never make such a claim.”

    “EVEN” those prehistoric creatures. “EVEN” odd traditionalists don’t think like that. Thanks, Mr. Chapp, for thinking of us. One more thing to add to the cross today.

    • I think you’re misunderstanding Chapp’s quite obvious point: Pope Francis is clearly aiming his remarks at traditionalist Catholics, and Chapp is saying, no, that’s silliness. Which is why he emphatically writes, “would NEVER make such a claim.”

    • And I would have put Larry Chapp there to explain these delicate matters with honesty, clarity, and force! May God help the little people (like me) to stand strong against the arrant and perverse “gelato word salad” (thanks, Larry) of you know who.

  18. Pope Francis seems to fall into the same category as parents who want to be their child’s best friend. That’s not your job. Your job is to parent (in that case) or to guide and instruct. The Pope’s job is not to be popular, or to make the Church align with contemporary mores, it is to make the hard calls and call people to Christ.

    • Well said, dear Catherine. Let’s pray:

      “Dear Lord Jesus Christ, we pray that Pope Francis will have a change of heart and, led by Your Holy Spirit, he will understand his job is to STAND AND WITNESS and not to keep scheming and wheedling. Amen”

      • I pray for Francis, too: ”Please God, deliver this Evil from us. It’s already been 10 years. We’ve been readily and thoroughly punished. Have mercy on us”.

  19. … and his detractors are the pharisees of our time.

    Post-conciliar dimwits never tire of tossing around this chestnut.

    Pharisees went wrong by putting their personal views ahead of divine revelation. Who in the Church today do you think is playing that role?

  20. The thing that really perplexes me is the question of “Why did the cardinals elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be Pope in the first place?” Surely, they must have known who he was and what his views and positions were. Father Bergoglio did not come to all this craziness of mind AFTER becoming Pope Francis. How could the cardinals not have known? Certainly, they must have known all about him and so apparently must have wished for today’s result. THAT is the PERPLEXING thing to me.

    • Speak to McCarrick. He’d be able to clarify how exactly he managed to orchestrate the election of Bergoglio. It’s what happen when the ranks of clergy are staffed with active homosexual predators.

      • Dear Deacon Edward, that has the ring of truth.

        In puzzling over what the personal justification of Francis & Co is, it seemed obvious that they’ve seen the way the world is going and just wanted to keep in-step (previous contributors have identified this as ‘pandering’).

        Then it may be, the Pope and curia are suffering PTSD resultant from exposure of SO many criminal child and vulnerable-adult sexual molestations and cover-ups by clergy. Their deranged response is to do all in their power to try and backpedal the Church’s Apostolic & traditional censure of sexual vices.

        “See, after all, What we did and what we concealed was only normal!”

        Then, even worse for all faithful Catholic parishioners: Francis & Co may be calculating that if they firmly implement Apostolic, traditional sexual morality, they are likely to lose up to 50% of an already depleted priesthood.

        Maybe they’ve then had an ‘inspiration’: If we organize to change the rules against fornication, adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, etc., then we’ll keep all our existing ‘Lillac Mafia’ priests & bishops, and will attract many seminarians from the gay, bisexual, transsexual, etc. ‘community’.

        “See, your clergy crisis can be solved in one fell swoop” says Satan.

        True, this is just speculation, but it suggests that the real motives of Francis & Co are ripe for investigation by honest, faithful Catholic journalists.

        We need to know what is behind the current shambles.

        Always calling on the Name 0f Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

    • A couple of cardinals in the conclave of 2013 claimed that they witnessed what appeared to be signs or miracles confirming the Holy Spirit’s choice of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In hindsight, we must now consider the very real possibility that that those presumed signs (or maybe mere coincidences) may well have been demonic deceptions. Never in 200 years has there been a less discerning or more unwise man elected pope. Or is it worse than that? Was he the cause of St. Faustina’s intense, overwhelming agony on December 17, 1936 (Bergoglio’s birthdate) when she was on retreat praying for the state of the priesthood? Is he, a prophet of false mercy, and thus the counterfeit response to Divine Mercy?

      • Thanks for keeping this vitally important ‘synodal discussion’ alive, dear ‘archange’.

        You must be thinking of Matthew 24:15, with a ‘disastrous abomination set up in The Holy Place’.

        For example: Francis’ fraternizing with pornographers; defaming the teaching of every previous Pope as being ‘in diapers’; embracing the Pachamama idols & the Molock idol; malicious hatred towards faithful traditionalist Catholics; demeaning of Christ’s & the Apostles’ New Testament instructions; secularizing the Church’s Holy Sacraments of Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Holy Matrimony, & Holy Orders; daily deceitful twistings of God’s Word; universalist heresy; soft politicking with Marxists dictators in China, Russia, North Korea, & Cuba; unitarian heresy with joint temples in the Mid-East; scripted projection of himself as another humble, Saint Francis; sacrilegious offering of The Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to obdurately unrepentant serious sinners; the secularizing of the major Catholic committees of doctrine and liturgy; stacking of the College of Cardinals and favoring of bishops & priests who have been sexual abusers & concealers, and proselytizers of anti-Catholic moral teachings.

        You have a point, ‘archange’! Would the start of the prophesied ‘disastrous abomination in the Holy Place’ be any worse than this?

        Always in The Name of Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

  21. Does anyone expect clarification? I don’t recommend anyone hold their breath. Beyond that, it’s truly a very sad state of affairs when young people at an age that should know better are THAT confused about the moral teachings of the(ir) church. Where are our Bishops? Sad but true, more of them can make their way through the general ledger and handle the calculator with greater skill than wear the mitre and wield the crossier… to their shame. 😪

  22. “I cannot say it otherwise, nor can I sugarcoat this out of respect for the Petrine office.”

    Those in authority can still sin. And the most damaging sins with regards to the faithful are against the faith.

    A lack of clarity with regards to doctrine is a hallmark of modernism. One of my college professors at a “Catholic” college used the term “weasel words” (i.e. two-faced) in reference to Vatican II.

    “I am all for respectful dialogue and a heartfelt engagement with those who are, for whatever reason, alienated from the Church.”

    Error has no rights, and erring people are hated (i.e. not treated with charity) by withholding expressing the truth. In the past, there were some heretics who were put to death. In general, that is the best policy with regards to formal heretics. Heresy is like a cancer in any community.

    Although it probably was meant to have the opposite effect, I was inspired by a history of early Spanish explorers who put to death French Protestants out of a desire to make sure that Native Americans were only exposed to religious truth. A priest urged and likely obtained the sparing of the life of those in the French party who were Catholics.

    “I am no “scorched earth” evangelist threatening hellfire to unbelievers as I hurl copies of the Catechism at them …”

    Hell exists, and those who know about mortal sin thinking on it has a salutary spiritual effect.

    “However, in a discussion about […] , apparently initiated by a “a young woman who says she creates adult content,” Francis says […]”

    Any person who creates “adult content” is certainly on the path to Hell and should be informed so. She needs to know that she is, to our knowledge, committing – by nature – mortal sins.

    “I am quite certain that […] Francis thinks that [the marital act] outside of […] marriage is a sin (of whatever level of gravity owing to diminished culpability)”

    Even if you are correct, it is the duty of those who have spiritual authority (and even parents) to teach what is right and wrong. To fail to speak the truth when it is spiritually needed is a dereliction of duty.

    A person’s culpability is a matter for God to know and humans to infer. But we don’t say that we won’t send people to jail, just because we don’t know, for certain, the level of guilt, if any, that is involved.

    People need to know what is right and wrong, and they also need to know how serious of a sin it objectively is. This likely helps when confronted with temptation because thoughts of Hell can be dwelt upon as a means of resistance.

    “This is a false binary of extremes, that excludes the pastoral middle ground of being endlessly forgiving and welcoming while also laying down the challenge of the Christ-provocation to holiness.”

    Forgiveness requires first repentance. And repentance includes a commitment to avoid committing further sins. Any person who maintains that certain unnatural sins against the Sixth Commandment aren’t sins is a heretic.

    “Are we now to welcome, without judgmental finger-wagging in a moralistic register, […]”

    Any human can repent before he dies. The prodigal son was welcomed after he “came to his senses” and confessed his sins. But, there is always the possibility of excommunication and Catholics, like everyone else, can go to Hell.

    Note that I am deliberately not opening a can of worms by commenting on the author’s examples of what he considers to be sins.

    “The focus is always on [certain] sins [against the Sixth Commandment], which gives the impression, ironically, that the Church is obsessed with [the marital act].”

    The original (possibly immodest) statement isn’t correct. The Church infallibly teaches truth with regards to faith and morals, and sanctifies its members.

    “Confession lines have dried up […]”

    Assuming that this is correct, this is a really serious issue and is a symptom of larger problems which I won’t go into. The Sacrament of Penance is where mortal – and venial – sins are forgiven. It is likely that frequent confession is very important to the spiritual life.

    “We are currently engaged in a “synodal” process, the champions of which have gushed over how wonderful the “listening sessions” have been.”

    You and those who are of like mind with you are doing this – not me and those with me. But I recognize the same for what it is – a malicious, Machiavellian process.

    “It shows us that his gutting of the John Paul II Institute in Rome was no fluke, and that his radical reorientation of the Pontifical Academy for Life was no accident.”

    Let he who has eyes see. There are never accidents with regards to intentional behavior.

    “Was Aquinas, intellectually speaking, also still in diapers?”

    This is approaches blasphemy. Saint Thomas Aquinas is the Universal Doctor of the Catholic Church. At the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologica was placed next to Holy Scripture.

  23. Are we also able to say with Padre Pio (to Pietro Cugino): “My son, I have given everything, I no longer have blood in my veins”? Only then could we criticize our pastors.

    • St. Paul publicly confronted St. Peter face-to-face, and then published a letter telling other Christians he did so. And despite not having shed all his blood from his veins, which is the bar you have set.

      Thus, your bar is not a Christian standard, but a worldly one, an expression of clerical-ism.

  24. I love reading Larry Chapp, and I do think our current Pope is rather reckless, but after reading today’s “6 hot-button issues Pope Francis and Gen-Z confront…”, I have to say that the Pope did much better than Chapp’s article led me to believe. He wasn’t all that bad.

  25. So the Pope is saying the thigs mentioned in this article and the Church is not off the rails?

    Also, we are all going to heaven per Dr. Chapp so what does it matter? Really, what does it matter? Should we be less welcoming than God, Dr. Chapp? You are a universalist so who are we are to bother pronouncing truths and possibly making people feel unwelcome when we all get in?

  26. The church’s teaching on sex is “still in diapers”… This dismissive, sarcastic, scatological reference to the Church’s beautiful teaching on human sexuality reveals a great deal about this sick and hateful man. In a normal time, he would have been defrocked long ago.

  27. What is so sad of course, is if these young people were left their 15 minutes of fame without the vaticans help to accompany them into a better situation of what they are presently in as very broken disconnected and confused disphoric individuals. If this is just a photo op screen shot for the Pope to think he is dualoguing with the pheriphery; he may want to hear the cry of the poor.
    I heard these young people rant in anger and disgust and hurt at those they no longer trust and find love and acceptance in pornographic ways through apps and same sex relationships for comfort.
    That would be the real tragedy of this Disney flick to leave them hanging in their disillusioned and discordant lifestyles.

  28. Perhaps they are shocking in their superficiality, but the children with whom he is talking would probably be incapable of understanding anything that is shocking superficial. You talk to where your audience is, not where you wish they were.

    • Not convincing. These are adults in their twenties. If we only talk to people “where they are,” they will never understand where they are called to go, what they can be, and why it makes sense of their existence. I, for one, am thankful that in my Protestant upbringing I had countless people push me to know more and to dig deeper, even if their theology wasn’t always accurate.

  29. The doctor of this column’s lapsed and blistered lips throws out: “Confession lines have dried up,…”

    I offer that may be true in parishes celebrating Ordinary forms of Catholicism. The TRADITIONALIST parish with which I am familiar has a line of ten or more (predominantly male parishioners) each time Confession is offered, and that time is before AND DURING (stopping only at the Consecration) every Mass so long as more than one priest is present, and that is about 44 weeks of every year.
    ***************
    BTW, Mr. Olson, I reviewed the first Chapp Schtick column here at CWR because I retained a hazy memory of its jive against traditionalists. There is one there, and at least one other column has had another. No need to persuade that I have misunderstood. I have not. You are surely entitled to your belief.

    Mr. Chapp would do well in charity to write without applying generic labels and sly sneers to certain groups of Catholics whose faith he shares. He cuts his own and others’ charity cold when he assumes and then slings broadly generic snides at other segments of Catholics who prefer forms of worship other than his. Traditionalists are not by definition schismatics. We are not sedevacantists. We are not Rad Trads. “What does that even mean?”

    My Traditionalism is Catholicism which sees value in the Sacred Tradition which has been under attack since at least the implementation of VCII and from within the church Herself. My Traditionalism considers and clings to the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. My traditional, orthodox and LOVELY Catholic faith is fed and honored, respected and loved by Christ =– within the Latin Mass –= in a church architecturally and decoratively lavish. My Traditionalism accepts VCII because it happened as an ecumenical council teaching of the ordinary magisterium.
    However, I also believe that much of what became the Church in the VCII aftermath is tragic.

    Do Traditionalists such as I really and truly need to defend against foolish prejudice of fellow Catholics?

    Dr. Chapp seems to either believe many false things about Catholics whose identities are other than those by which he blesses himself, OR he is a Boomer who is not as humble as Rusty Reno. Rusty said, in his FT March print edition, that it’s time.

  30. And Mr. Chapp (and by extension) Mr. Weigel wonder why the youth of today are increasingly rejecting Vatican II and seeking the truth and beauty of the Latin Mass. They’re tired of the endless “let me tell you the real meaning of Vatican II” debates over imprecise language and vague documents. And yes, one can draw a straight line from the Council to the Pope’s responses cited above. It’s the same agenda: obscure the truth to avoid following in the footsteps of the apostles.

    • Dear Meiron & dear Gregory,

      This article and the string of outrage it has evoked among good Catholics is not to do with pro- or anti-Latin Masses.

      Please focus on what we are all trying to cope with. That is:

      On this Day of all days, surely every Catholic understands that Christian Baptism is NOT a baptism of what a person is, as produced by biology & society.

      Baptism into Christ, into His Catholic Church, IS a baptism into His death. That is the death of the flesh and mind that biology and sociology have given a person. The death of our natural Adamic will to defy God.

      Catholic Baptism is the re-birth of a person, out of the power of the flesh, out of our natural inclination to do what we want in defiance of God, out of slavery to the devil, into the power of The Holy Spirit. We become new creations by our baptism, newly equipped & destined to overcome the flesh, the world & the devil.

      What is so upsetting to all faithful Catholics, across the world (both pro- and anti-Latin Mass) is that Francis & Co are precipitating a charge by heretics & ignorami who deny the basics of re-birth in Christ.

      Their view is that the flesh – what biology & sociology are purported to have produced in a person – does not need to die and be re-born as a new creation, prior to any person being incorporated into our sacramental Church community.

      That is about as gross an error as anyone can imagine. Even the sleepiest Catholics are starting to wake up and protest that the current Pope is a heretic set on snatching away our unique identity in Christ.

      Yes, I sympathize & agree that it’s crazy for Rome to persecute faithful traditionalist Catholics BUT the issue at stake is Far, FAR more serious than that.

      Please: let’s all focus on THE BIG ONE first and after that on other problems.

      Ever in the love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty

  31. Larry Chapp wrote re the Tinder discussion:

    ‘This should merit at least a passing comment from the Pontiff about the misuses, for immoral purposes, of this kind of technology in our pornified and sexually licentious culture for immoral purposes. And that such practices are dehumanizing in the extreme and can lead to s distorted and spiritually deadly sexuality. But, based on the report, no such admonition is made. However, in a discussion about pornography and masturbation, apparently initiated by a “a young woman who says she creates adult content,” Francis says that “expressing yourself sexually is a richness,” while adding that “everything that diminishes real sexual expression diminishes you too, it makes you partial, and it impoverishes that richness.” ‘

    But the Pope did make such an admonition:

    ‘The audiovisual montage shows the Holy Father who, although not always at ease, allows young people to express themselves freely, even when many of their positions contradict the Church’s teaching in various areas. For example, Alessandra, a Colombian, challenges the Pope starting from the activity that gives her a living: She presents herself as a creator of pornographic content that she distributes on social networks; a job that, according to her, has allowed her to value herself more and spend more time with her daughter.

    Then María, the young Catholic who had previously spoken out against abortion, countered by saying how pornography is harmful both for those who produce it and for those who consume it. Starting from this, Pope Francis takes the floor again and recalls that those who use pornography debase themselves humanly: “Those who are addicted to pornography are like being addicted to a drug that keeps them at a level that does not let them grow,” he explains.’

    More here: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-04/in-open-dialogue-with-pope-ten-young-people-ask-tough-questions.html

    • Dear Maggie G.,

      Our current Pope, unlike his chosen namesake, Saint Francis, scarcely seems to know the Christ of the New Testament, whose Word was and is like Fire and a Sword.

      As in the example you provide, Francis is generally devious & equivocal; his word is like sweeties & a flyswat. Our Pope is scarcely ‘the Vicar of Christ’; though, as you show, he seems to be doing his best to be vicar of the world (see James 4:4).

      Francis occasionally cherry-picks a scriptural verse but generally twists its meaning. For example, where Jesus is praying that all His disciples will be united, Francis says this refers to everyone in the world. See John 17:21: “May they all be one. Father, may they be one in Us as You are in Me and I am in You, so that the world may believe it was You who sent Me.” John 17:11 gives the correct context.

      Francis says “God loves all His children” applies universally to every human being. Christ, however, teaches us that some are like weed seeds sown by the devil (Matthew 13:36-43). There are many examples of Francis’ flagrant abuse of God’s Word.

      Yes, our great Catholic Church does need a radical revival – in our increased love & knowledge of and brave proclamation to the whole world of the Christ and the Apostles of The New Testament, humanity’s only hope of life eternal. Surely, you’d agree, dear Maggie, that that’s not at all the gameplan of Pope Francis & Co.?

      Always in the unshakeable Word of Christ; love & blessings from marty

  32. Thanks Larry! Great article, as usual. Because of my life long commitment to the Catholic Faith in Christ and his Holy Church, my intelectual love for clarity, logic, reason, consistency, and truth, it has been very hard to understand this Pope. It has been a spiritual battle for me to reconcile my love and obedience for “Peter” the “Vicar of Christ” (although this Pope dropped that tile) with my understanding (or lack of) of many comments and teachings Francis has offered on his 10 year tenure. In my struggle I had to sacramentally confess twice sins I committed against this Pope, something I’ve never done with any previous Pope in my >50 years. So, in the end, what do I do? Renew my commitment to pray, to be the best husband and father I can be, to frequent the sacraments especial confession and Eucharist, to serve my family, the prisoners, the sick, and the poor as much as I can, and ignore some teachings even from a Pope or Cardinal if they contradict of put questions on perennial settle matters of faith and moral theology. In the end, I am just a simple faithful Catholic whom Christ will demand what I’ve done with the talents he gave me and how much I’ve loved Him in others, including this Pope, as difficult as it may be. The Pope, Cardinals and Bishops will answer to Christ for what they’ve thought and done. I rest in the peace of knowing that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and that in the 2,000 year history we have survived worse Popes. God bless! Happy Easter!

  33. “A Church in diapers.”

    20 years ago such a statement was unthinkable.

    10 years ago – who knows?

    Today – There it is and it doesn’t really seem so out of hand.

    How sad.

  34. Addendum – And this all done by Disney, That lowers it from merely sad to pathetic.

    To cheer up I recommend ‘The Aristocats’. The scene with the spinster aunt geese from London is beyond funny, and I just had a flash of P.G. Wodehouse seeing it.

    We’ll get through this BUT – itsagonna take some fasting and prayer and – a sense of humor.

    • Dear Oscar P., and dear Terence McManus,

      You have both expressed what hundreds of millions or good, ordinary Catholic parishioners are feeling, summarized as: “How can the Pope of this day and his associates be making pronouncements that directly contradict the instructions of King Jesus Christ & His Apostles, as clearly set out for us by The Holy Spirit in The New Testament and faithfully followed by The Church for nearly 2,000 years.”

      Someone said: “Jesus turned water into wine. Bergoglio’s turning wine into water!”

      The faithful ‘Catholic World Report’ team have described and analyzed so many examples of these (what can only be called anti-Catholic) contradictions, that have characterized Jorge Bergoglio’s occupation of the Seat Of Peter.

      No one complains about Pope Francis’ good works in politics, international diplomacy, environmental protection, speaking up for the poor, and so on. (As one who has worked for social justice & environmental common sense, all over the world, for nearly 70 years, I applaud). Francis’ efforts in this regard have given him a global status like the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg, etc. He would be an obvious candidate to lead the United Nations and to be listed for a Nobel Peace Prize.

      Does this mean, as you both seem to suggest, we should passively accept his mangling of what it has always meant to be a Catholic? Think what grave harm he has done to our Chinese Catholic brothers & sisters: a major tragedy. Think how his wishy-washy equivocations over Russian aggression have cost the Ukrainian people dearly.

      When Bergoglio blunders, he really blunders. It is as if God is not with him.

      This is not a time to advocate for passivity in The Body of Christ, the community of faithful Catholics. CWR articles have provided clear evidence of heretical actions & intentions by Francis & Co. (as per Ephesians 5:5-14). Surely, from now on we should together be discussing what practical measure we can enact to stop the rot. The souls of hundreds of millions are at stake.

      So, Oscar and Terence, over to you . . .

      Always in the grace & mercy of Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty

      • Dear Doc,

        At what point did I suggest (in your opinion) that we should “passively accept his mangling of what it means to be a Catholic?” I have, I must confess, NO idea of what you are talking about.

        IMO he is trying to ‘dumb it down’ and that NEVER works.

  35. Another stupid interview that with more than enough regularity becomes a theological train wreck which heaps on the confusion and equally the frustration for Catholics! He might see this as another smell the sheep moment, but these delusional gen z bar one laugh at him and through him the church!! Sadly this pontificate never fails to extol failure! It’s becoming tiresome!! 🥱

  36. So now the secular media are reporting that PF thinks sex is good (shocking revelation – I think this was discovered in the 60s or 70s, which PF seems to be stuck in) and looking for love on Tinder is normal. Instead of showing how with-it he is, which I think is his goal, he’s just revealing a pathetic cluelessness.

  37. The problem I perceive is that Dr.Chap speaks the language of a trained dogmatic theologian, while Pope Francis speaks the language of Jesus.

    For example, in Matthew 9. After Jesus persuaded Mathew to follow Him, Mathew had a party at his house. The party consisted of all kinds of sinners, tax collector’s, prostitutes and all other low life. He was accosted by the Pharisees, the teacher’s of .
    The law of why he mingled with these sinners.
    His answer was telling: ” I came here for sinners, for the sickos, the healthy ones don’t need a doctor.”
    (I am one of those sickos, thank you Jesus. Question: Did Jesus therefore condone our sick behavior?)

    Luke 7:
    A Pharisee, a teacher of the law, invited Jesus for dinner, a sinful woman, a code word for prostitute, entered and washed and kissed Jesus feet and poured costly ointment on his head.

    When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.”

    Obviously, Simon, the Pharisee, knows what a sinful woman does, during her day’s work she does what is normally shown in porno movies. (We are used to thinking of these things in a sanitized fashion, but this is reality.)
    Jesus response is telling:
    “ Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
    You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment.
    So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.
    He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
    Does Jesus therefore condone adultery?
    The answer is No, but that mercy trumps the law, as in, the law is made for people, not the law for people!

    Read Pope Francis “The Church of Mercy.”

    All he Law is summarized in 2 precepts:
    Love God with your whole heart and your whole soul
    Love your neighbor as yourself. As Bishop Baron explains all the time that the definition of Love is willing the best for the other person.
    Therefore, the statements of Dr.Chap:
    “Are we now to welcome, without judgmental finger-wagging in a moralistic register, overt racists and avowed white supremacists? Misogynists? Anti-Semites? Mafia dons? Thieves? Financial swindlers? Or is it just sexual sin that should be treated with an “accompaniment” that begins with “Welcome, friend!” before it moves on to the meat of the Kingdom ethic of Christ?

    Typical straw man argument

    The answer is “of course not, they are acting contrary to the definition of Love. They are acting out of selfish malice, the opposite of Love

    On receiving H, Communion:

    St. Cyprian wrote in his commentary on the Our Father that no one, no matter how heinous the crime he committed is, must not be denied H. Communication.
    Pope Francis said H. Communion is not a prize for good behavior, but a medicine for sick people.
    Read Pope Francis’ book: “The Church of Mercy.”

    A Pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit through the mediation of the conclave of Cardinals

    • Chapp’s argument is not a straw man at all. He raises legitimate concerns and questions that happen to not support your narrative. Francis is not who or what you think he is.

  38. Dear Frans Monnereau,

    It’s so good that someone has, at last, set out what they feel is a systematic defense of Pope Francis.

    1. You perception that Francis ‘speaks the language of Jesus’ can only be measured by comparing what Francis says and writes with what Jesus actually said. What Jesus actually said is available in The New Testament to everyone in the world. There are many examples of Francis twisting the meaning of the very few of Jesus’ words he seems to respect and of his taking Jesus words totally out of context. Francis’ dishonesty with The Word of God is a valid reason why many theologically literate, faithful Catholics criticise him.

    2. As with Francis & his coterie, you distort what Jesus meant in saying He had come, not for those who imagined they were sinless (healthy) but for all of us sinners (unhealthy). Frans – please think! The sinners referred to are those who were eager to be with Jesus because He had the Words of Life to forgive them and set them on the right path, without making them bankrupt through expensive Temple sacrifices. These, eager-to-repent sinners, are categorically different from the obdurately unrepentant sinners who Francis says we should welcome into our Catholic fold, The Body of Christ. For goodness sake! Please meditate on: Luke 19:8.

    3. Do you realize that the distorted view of Christian love that you present is no more than New Age hippy ‘philosophy’? In the context of all that Jesus taught, given us by The Holy Spirit-inspired 9 authors of the 27 New Testament texts, the 10 commandments are fully represented without loss of ‘a jot or tittle’. Jesus specifically taught against sexual sin and led many sexual sinners to repentance.

    Why does the Francis coterie ignore the awful psycho-social problems that have resulted in recent years from the ‘Free-Love Revolution’.

    4. I agree with you that, as represented, the list of serious sins does tend to be somewhat of a ‘straw man’ argument. But, at heart Professor Larry Chapp is correct, in that many serious sinners will claim that what they do is not sin because they do it with love. A deceit, not just of homosexuals; but of child molesters; of handicapped & vulnerable adult molesters; of sadists; of animalists; and so on. Frans, you miss the salient reason God has specifically banned fornication, adultery, & homosexuality. It is for our spiritual health, in that, like all sins, these acts entangle us with evil.
    John 8:34 reports Jesus as instructing: “Anyone who sins is a slave of sin.”

    Christ came to set us free. If we lovingly obey Him, we will BE FREE INDEED. Amen!

    In the whole of this discussion, we have to continually bear in mind why The Son of God became human: 1 John 3:8b “The reason The Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” John 18:37b “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone of the truth listens to Me.”

    5. Dear Frans, you need to understand a bit more about Catholic Holy Communion. It’s a grievous error to represent The Holy Body & Blood of Our Lord and King Jesus Christ as a pharmaceutical. The Holy Eucharist is uniquely different to any analogy to food or medicine. It is the sacrament of our personal and corporate INCORPORATION INTO CHRIST’s BODY. Jesus in Glory is The Head, we are His Body. As such, fully logically, the Church has always required communicants to be shriven of all sins. Francis & Co. preposterously advocate for unrepentant sinners to be able to receive The Holy Eucharist. Sacrilegiously, Francis, has given the Holy Body & Blood of Jesus to internationally known public sinners.

    Are you surprised, dear Frans, that so many faithful Catholics pray regular for Pope Francis to repent or resign. We’ve had enough of this chaos and are desperate for a sincere Catholic as our leader; one whom we can respect.

    Always in the mercy of The Lamb of God; love & blessings from marty

  39. It is indeed the latest claimant to papacy who wears the equivalent of adult diapers, fulfilling for the church the much debated nostrum that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”, although not in the way thought a century ago. We are living through the senescence of the Church, having experienced its peak in AD 33.

    But we can be confirmed that, as purgatorio canto 25 suggests, a person’s intellect appears first in purgatory, only followed later by his body (senses). Thus we can hope that the intellect of the demented person experiences an early resurrection in purgatory while the body on earth awaits death. Sursum Corda!

  40. POPE SAYS YOU & I ARE “INFILTRATORS” & “CORRUPTIONS OF THE CHURCH”
    1. Many news agencies are reporting that in this Disney doc film that Pope Francis says that those who uphold traditional doctrine on homosexuality are “infiltrators who take advantage of the church for their personal passions, for their personal narrowness. It is one of the corruptions of the church.”
    2. Here is the context as copied from Slate.com:
    A nonbinary person asked Francis if the church could be a place for LGBTQ people. “The church cannot close its doors on anybody,” he responded. “I don’t have the right to cast anyone out from the church. My job is to receive, always.” And when discussing those who cite Scripture to attack gay and transgender people, Francis said they were “infiltrators who take advantage of the church for their personal passions, for their personal narrowness. It is one of the corruptions of the church.”
    3. So, according to this pope, you and I are “infiltrators,” i.e., we are not real Catholics; we are phony, imposter Catholics; we are from outside the Church; we are foreigners who have no rightful place in the Church (while gay and transgender people have a place in the Church that cannot be denied, says this pope).
    4. So, can we now, after this pope plainly rejected the Faith for about the 1,001th time, finally at last organize a peaceful, sorrowful gathering of about 100,000 of our fellow “infiltrators” and go to Rome to ask and plead, in name of the Most High God, for this pope to repent or resign?

    • INFILTRATORS WORLD REPORT
      1. Given that, in this Disney doc film, Pope Francis says that those who uphold traditional doctrine on homosexuality are “infiltrators who take advantage of the church for their personal passions,” I think it would only be right to honor Pope Francis’ statement by renaming this publication to “Infiltrators World Report.”
      2. After all, Francis has said that you and I are not Catholics, but infiltrators.
      3. Ah, poor Stalin and Castro has so many problems with infiltrators who kept invading the paradises they had created for the purpose of ruining everything. 4. Now poor Francis faces the same problem!

  41. “LURKING BEHIND ALL OF THIS…VATICAN II”
    1. This courageous doctor of theology, Dr. Larry Chapp, writes the following in this brave article:
    “Lurking behind all of this are the ongoing debates about the proper reception of Vatican II. And the Pope’s words in this interview imply that those who espouse a view of the Council as an event of rupture with the past are correct.”
    2. Yes! I think sooner or later the 1960s pastoral council that set in motion these last 60 years of chaos and decline in the Church, manifesting right now in the papacy of Francis, will have to be reevaluated and reformed.
    3. Pope Benedict (Ratzinger) proposed a “reform of the reform,” and in that vein he declared that one could reject and condemn parts of the Vatican II pastoral documents (as do SSPX bishops and priests) and still be in communion with the Church. (But then suddenly Pope Benedict was mysteriously out of office.)
    4. As Catholic World Report reported last month: “Bishop Athanasius Schneider has recently praised Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre as ‘a prophet of our time’.”
    5. Lead us on, brave saints and theologians! Lead us not into temptation! Lead us on into the pure light.
    6. Teach us to refuse, shun, condemn, and disassociate from all “pastoral” compromising and watering down of the eternal teachhings of truth vs. falsehood, of right vs. wrong, of eternal life vs. eternal death.

  42. “I[n] conclusion, all I can say after reading about this interview is, “Good grief, this is embarrassing!”

    What is embarrassing is that the author of this article should come to such a “melted gelato of word salad deflection”.

    May I suggest to Mr. Chapp that the “conclusion” that he strives mightily to avoid should rather be “all I can say about this interview is ‘Good grief’, this is heretical and apostate.”

  43. Satan’s master stroke will be a counterfeit Catholicism, the forewarned “ape of the Church”, that will characterize the end days and deceive even the elect.”

  44. Well said, Tera. A counterfeit Church is, indeed, what we witness today. To those of you who have not actually taken the time to read the major documents of Vatican II, please take the time to do so. Clearly, what they propose cannot be squared with the previous 19 centuries of Church teaching. To those who attempt to excuse Vatican II as a “pastoral council,” not binding on the faithful, please take the time to read Montini’s (Paul VI) closing remarks. He would not agree that Vatican II can be sifted by the faithful. To those who think they can sift the teaching of a true pope, take the time to read the major documents of Vatican I, as well as the great doctors (starting with Bellarmine, and others who correctly interpret Paul’s “correction” of Peter. You will find that, indeed, where is Peter, there is the Church. The Novus Ordo sect, while populated by many people seeking God (but then again, the same can be said of the local Baptists), is a counterfeit church. An ape of the One True Church. Apply the syllogism of sedevacantism: the pope cannot teach heresy; Bergoglio teaches heresy; therefore, Bergoglio cannot be pope.

  45. Please pass this to Larry.
    Not for publication.

    Larry, is it not curious that Disney – who blocked Sound of Freedom 5 years – has no problem producing Propaganda with the first Pope to have ever been implicated on several occasions in videoed Human trafficking investigations: the disappeared children of Argentina?

6 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. Impactantes por su superficialidad, comentarios y respuestas papales en el vídeo de la controvertida ‘Disney’: CWR.
  2. Pope Francis Shares His Squishy Thoughts on Abortion, Tinder, and LGBTQ Issues for Disney+ Documentary - Protestia
  3. Disney Film Features Pope Francis With Porn Creator – Via Nova
  4. La pro LGBT «Disney», coloca a creador de pornografía en su película con Francisco
  5. A Pope at Disney and the Church “in diapers” - JP2 Catholic Radio
  6. Disney Film Features Pope Francis with Porn Creator - Dr. Rich Swier

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