1. The second and third point men.
Pope Gregory was guided by the ‘Sign of the Times’ that are like sacraments. First, it has a visible element, like water. And, secondly, it has a spiritual reality described with words from Divine Revelation.
The twelve Popes, from Gregory XVI to Benedict XVI, first, saw the visible ‘Sign of the Times,’ and, secondly, searched for the spiritual reality it signifies from Divine Revelation. Then they warned us through encyclicals about the ‘Modern Errors’ in more than 16 documents. Actually more than 16 except that after Pope Pius XII all the rest of the documents, including Vatican II, are elaborations of the 16 documents.
The warning was nothing else than about the eternal battle between the evil spirits and men. The issue is the same; original sin, the freedom of man to do what he wants. Except now it is called ‘Liberalism.’ And the dutiful Pope Gregory XVI having noticed its great resurgence during his era wrote ‘Mirari vos’ to warn the Church that Satan is back with his old tricks. Gregory’s era was no longer a thinking era, according to the English literary converts. The temptation not to think is directed towards the mind. Gregory was struck at the number of Catholics who were falling for it.
The next Pope, Pius IX saw that extraordinary efforts will be needed to combat this ‘deified’ original sin. So he wrote the syllabus of errors to help Catholics see the errors that was raining on the Church. But the defect was that man was no longer thinking, as Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton had earlier observed. The decay of Faith and the waxing cold of Charity prophesied by Christ was on schedule.
Pope Gregory XVI received a document which he did not publish. Pope Pius IX was the one who had it published, that showed the strategy the enemies of the Church would take for her early destruction. Nothing new here except it is more detailed. It laid out the plan in four steps. First, to infect the men of the church with the heresy of liberalism, the easiest sin to commit because it is natural to fallen nature. This had been tried in France and all of Europe, and perfected in the U.S. Second, this liberalism must progressed towards the heresy of modernism, by which men are bogged down in the natural level and become totally incapable of rising up to the supernatural. By the third step, the men of the Church would be ignorant of supernatural Catholic doctrines. In the fourth step, the men of the Church should be establishing an entirely ‘new’ catholic sect that will unite all religions.
To accomplish this, Lucifer needs only three men, called point men, in three strategic places. These three point men can influence the whole Church. The first point man shows the upward extent of the heretical contamination. The second will show the extent of the contamination in the downward vertical flow of authority. And the third point man will show the extent of the lateral contamination among the bishops.
With these three men the whole edifice of the Catholic Church could easily come crumbling down. Satan had tried this before. Many times in Church history, Satan needed only three men in three strategic places. But it is God who dictates the outcome. What if the world needs a great chastisement for the testing of the Church? Will God allow Satan to succeed this time? Yes, if Christ’s prophecy, the decay of Faith and the waxing cold of Charity is to be fulfilled. Just as God allowed Judas to succeed to accomplish the work of Redemption.
2, Let us place liberalism and modernism side by side with the visible signs of the true Church. Let us use both the 4 visible signs mentioned in the Nicene Creed and the expanded version of St. Robert Bellarmine in his 15 Marks of the Church.
Liberalism and modernism being sins against Faith cannot exist with the visible signs of the Catholic Church. He who embraces these heresies will surely not have any visible signs of the Church.
The three point men will not have the visible signs of the true Church. And vice versa; he who does not have the visible Marks of the Church surely believes in liberalism and modernism. On the other hand, he who has the visible signs is surely not a heretic. But he who is not a heretic will not necessarily have the visible signs, St. Robert Bellarmine states.
Let us do a counter check. First, let us see if the point men are guilty of liberalism and modernism; then counter check if they have the four visible signs of the true Church. If they are guilty they will surely not have the visible signs.
3. We have seen the first point man.
The point man, being a ‘Sign of the Times’ must be very visible through current event news. Like water of baptism, he cannot be missed though the spiritual reality can be missed.
The Pope had always been the target of the devil. Christ warned St. Peter of this. The Pope can never be unwatchful. Not because he is vulnerable because he is not. But more because there might be another one pretending to be pope. We have seen the devil succeed more than 40 times. Before. Satan did not succeed because God calls the shots in this game. But on Good Friday, when God had seemingly permitted Satan to win to be able to get a greater good, is a pre-figure of these days where Satan will, again, seemingly succeed.
Because we know the four stages of the development of this heresy of liberalism, and we know the three point men Satan needs to destroy the Church it is incumbent for us to watch for both that we may not be caught sleeping. Man does not chose the actors in this drama. God, alone, does.
4. The reasonings of Cardinal Arinze was a big help in pointing out the first point man.
He knows Bergoglio more than any of us. And he knows his theology. All the rest of the news are mere confirmations of what he had declared. Pope Francis’ trip to the United State will be a confirmation of his tendency towards liberalism. It is a homecoming in the land of liberalism. Theologians tell us that liberalism is the religion of the United States, thus the statue of Liberty. So Pope Francis and Obama will be like two long lost friends. Their mutual admiration for each other shows Arinze was in the right direction. And Robert Benson, in his Apocalyptic novel which Pope Francis read and commented on in a homily, wrote about a certain anti-pope named Francis being a surrogate of the President of America and of Europe.
5. Since Cardinal Arinze had shown the heresies the 12 Popes had warned us of, the same point man should not have the four visible signs of the true Church. During the 2014 Bishop’s Synod 1/3 did not have ‘de notis Ecclesiae’, the 14 signs of the true Church according to St. Robert Bellarmine. Pope Francis could not show the classical 4 visible signs nor the 15 marks described by Bellarmine. A Jesuit can be of help if he can show just one sign of the Church, enumerated by Bellarmine, in Pope Francis. . After all they are all Jesuits. These signs of the true Church are visible and available for all to use for analysis.
6. Since the three point men are guilty of liberalism and modernism, a confirming sign is that they would not have neither the 4 visible signs in the Nicene Creed nor the 15 Marks noted by Bellarmine of the true Church.
7. The second point man.
The natural choice for the second point man should be the presidentcy of the Bishop’s conference. Like Bishop Marx in the German Bishop’s conference. Let us look at the news for the ‘Signs of the Times.’
A video appeared in the internet during the Papal mass in Manila; it showed lay men passing the Sacred Host one to another to reach those behind. At first there were not much reaction except that those organizing the liturgy were incompetent amateurs for having violated the provision of ‘Redemptionis Sacramentum’. Until GMA network news interviewed Church officials and questioned them about the news from One Peter’s Five article. And the Bishop of Lingayen-Dagupan Sacrates Villegas, president of the CBCP, answered that ‘it was an extraordinary event so the passing of the host from one to the other was allowed.’ The response was described in the internet as ‘unsatisfactory because it cannot rationalized an act of sacrilege. In no circumstance is sacrilege allowed.
The situation got worse when Fr. Francis Lucas, executive secretary of the CBCP Commission on Social Communication and Mass media confirmed what Bishop Villegas said, saying:” For Pastoral Reason since people can’t move during Communion, mass passing of the host is okay”
The reason given was unacceptable because it sounds like liberalism. They were pleasing people by exerting efforts to give them Holy Communion even if they displeased God by tolerating sacrilege. Giving men more importance than God is the heresy of Liberalism. The interview gave the impression that that was the stand of the whole Bishop’s Conference. Readers thought that it would had been more Catholic if they simply said: we made a big mistake. Let us just celebrate a few Masses as act of reparation for the sacrilege.
Another news. During the speech opening the 109th CBCP Plenary Assembly at the Pius XII Catholic Center, Bishop Villegas said; “(Pope Francis) has slowly moved the Church from being a dogmatic, self engrossed and authoritative {sic} sick institution to being a gentle, outreaching, compassionate and persuasive Church through the power of love and mercy.”
The good bishop was describing two churches. One that is dogmatic, self-engrossed and authoritative sick institution. The other is a gentle, outreaching, compassionate and persuasive Church with the power of love and mercy. Evidently he was describing, first, the old Catholic Church founded by Christ upon the Apostles. And, secondly, he was describing the ‘new’ church which Bishop Bergoglio started in Argentina, called the Church of compassion and mercy, which he praised at the end of the speech.
In describing the first Church, theology admits that the old Church, which is never old in the first place, is dogmatic and authoritative. Because she is so sure of what she is teaching. And ecclesiology can prove she is dogmatic and authoritative. On being ‘self engrossed’ and being a sick institution history does not agree. Theology had shown that the old Church is engrossed in loving God and neighbor and not on herself. Theology had, also proven, that the old Church has the remedy to all illnesses including homosexuality and lesbianism as shown by St. Peter Damian…..and the Church as wheat was never sick. As cockle, maybe.
For lack of time, the good bishop was not able to prove his allegations that the old Church was sick; nor did he prove that the new church of Bergoglio was gentle, outreaching, compassionate and persuasive.
The lack of proof, which he can still give today, that the old Catholic church was sick and that the ‘new’ church was compassionate tends towards modernism ( i.e. the synthesis of all heresies because everything said is unproven and yet said dogmatically.)
8. The third point man.
He does not volunteer for this job. The reality around him prepares him for this. And seeing him disposed, the forces of evil uses him. While the second point man is the downward flow of the heretical contamination, the third point man is the lateral flow of the heretical contamination. It answers the question; how many bishops in the Conference are influenced by these heresies? In the German Church, because the news showed the second point man was Cardinal Marx, president of the German Bishop’s conference and, probably Cardinal Kasper as the third point man, the news from the German press is that the entire Catholic church in Germany had decided to go on its own way independently of the Universal Church. It broke unity with the Church. Both belong to Pope Francis’ inner circle.
It was Sept. 22, the congregation was discussing one of the bishop candidate for cardinalate. They preferred Bishop Tagle, bishop of Imus at that time over Bishop Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan. As usual, they were discussing the ‘ponenza,’ the document that contains the biography of the candidate and every important information about him. The Congregation does not discuss unimportant facts like the nationality of the candidate but special informations like heretical and political tendencies. It was not clear whether the ‘ponenza’ itself was nowhere or whether only the information they were looking for were missing. Anyway, everything seems to be in order and the congregation approved the bishop for cardinalate. After the bishop was approved, the information sought for appeared. If seems not to be in the ‘ponenza.’ but came from other sources. The information if known earlier would have prevented the approval of the bishop for cardinalate, the news states. But the approval had been given and the consistory was scheduled.
The news still appeared. That the Congregation for the Bishops would have not raised the said bishop to the cardinalate if they had prior knowledge of this information that should have been in the ‘ponenza’ but was nowhere to be found. The information they were looking for was whether the bishop was a member of the theological school of Bologna. And the bishop was Bishop Tagle.
What is the school of Bologna? It is a school of theology that had produced great saints. But not lately. The school became notorious during Vatican II as having pushed forward the hermeneutics of discontinuity. In brief, this hermeneutics believe that the Catholic Church had ceased to exist before Vatican II and, therefore, it is time to establish a new church to supplant the old Church of Christ. The school did not give the new church a name but it looks like the heresy of modernism.
The better known members of the theological school are Alberto Melloni, Giuseppe Alberigo both disciples of Fr. Dosetti. And there is Komonchak from the Catholic University of America who was the teacher of Bishop Tagle. During Bishop Tagle’s installation in Manila, the Manila Bulletin wrote that he was a member of the School of Bologna. And the Daily Inquirer was intrique that Pope Benedict approved him since the Pope had been condemning the Hermeneutics of discontinuity that is being pushed by the School of Bologna. In fact Bishop Tagle was the author of a chapter in their voluminous book on Vatican II entitled “Storm of November, the Black Week.” This group was part of the progressive group that continuously tried to change Catholic teachings during Vatican II and up to the present.
Why did the Congregation made a big thing of Bishop Tagle’s being part of the School of Bologna? Because the school is pushing for the Hermeneutics of discontinuity. What is this in short? That there is a ‘new’ Catholicism divorced from any adherence to the Catholicism before Vatican II. So, its very spirit is Liberalism condemned by Pope Gregory XVI and modernism condemned by Pius IX and X. And its hermeneutics was condemned by Pope Benedict XVI, and lately by Archbishop Muller of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Piacenza, formerly of the Congregation of the Clergy and lately of the Apostolic Penitentiary. .
Addressing 8,000 members of Frame II Youth Congress in Wembly Arena, London, Bishop Tagle decried the Church’s problematic treatment of marginalized communities (the Vatican’s common term for lesbians and sodomites) without saying what is problematic about the Churches treatment of lesbians and sodomists.
He stated that ‘the Church had to learn lessons from changing social attitudes and greater understanding of psychology and recognize the wounds. Psychology makes us realize some are not merciful.’ The Church only learn from God and had always understood the wounds of men. And Psychology cannot teach mercy because the virtue of mercy is over and above the capability of psychology which is only in the natural realm.
“This whole of spirituality, this growth in the virtue of mercy is what we need to learn.” What? The Church never knew what mercy was?
“What is in the past is not acceptable now.” This sounds like the heresy of modernism.
In the three point men mentioned above we saw a general tendency in the Catholic priesthood towards liberalism, modernism and its consequent establishment of an entirely new church condemned by the so-called 12 Marian Popes (from Gregory XVI to Benedict XVI).
9. Liberalism, modernism and the signs of the true Church.
It is not Pope Francis, Bishop Villegas and Bishop Tagle’s fault that they committed these modern errors. Really. This is what they learned in the seminary. And seminaries are still teaching all these errors. From the Gregorianum to the CUA, from the Catechumenate seminaries to the Vincentian seminaries, from Tubingen to Louvain. Recall that Pope John Paul II had been calling for the reform of the seminaries. Pope Benedict even emphasized the need to review Morals. But to no effect. So while almost all the bishops and priests are enmeshed in these modern errors they are not to blame. Their fault is that in their elder years they did not check if they have the four Signs from the Creed or the 15 Marks of the true Church according to Bellarmine to find out if they were truly Catholics.
It is more difficult to study a person by analyzing his heresies because there is need for much Philosophy. It is easier to study a person by finding out if he has the signs of the true Church. Since those who have heresies are surely without the signs of the true Church, just look for the signs. If he has them, he surely have no heresies. If he does not have them then he probably have heretical beliefs. When we were studying the three point men above we noticed that they did not have the visible signs of the true Church; neither the four visible signs mentioned in the Nicene Creed nor the 15 Marks of the Church enumerated by St. Robert Bellarmine.
My persistent repetition to all Catholics is to check if they are Catholics by checking if they have either the four visible signs or St. Robert Bellarmine’s 15 Marks of the Church. Specially priests, bishops and cardinals. And for the Jesuits to check on the first Jesuit Pope; especially the Marks given by the Jesuit doctor of the Church. Robert Bellarmine. Let us not presume; presumption is a serious sin. It had been an old cry in this blog for priests, bishops and cardinals to check because they will be surprised at what they will find out.
CONCLUSION. Many priests, bishops and cardinals will find it difficult to show the visible signs that they are Catholics because there is none to show. That was a light accusation. St. Robert Bellarmine wrote; if they have the modern errors of liberalism, modernism and are dreaming of a new catholic church…they are probably not popes, nor cardinals, nor bishops, nor priest…….because they are not even Catholics.
P.S. If we read in depth the writings of the 12 above mentioned Popes they are really warning us that we live in an age where Heads of states are intentionally leading the nations to self-destruction. And the men of the Church are leading the church to spiritual self-destruction. Believe it or not.