Closing Thoughts
 

on the Infamous Apostolic Exhortation
 

and the “Art” of Plausible Deniability

Apart from presuming to nullify the 6th Commandment against adultery in Holy Scripture itself —  and the audacious presumption of contradicting the very Word of God —  Francis errs as follows (carefully consider his following disingenuous argument for permitting Holy Communion to those living in adultery):

                                                                                                                         “the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
 

This is fundamentally an ad hominem argument that is a clever and deliberate variation of the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, recounted in Saint Luke 18.10-14, and which may be summarized thus:
 

 “Holy Communion is not a prize given to Catholics who refrain from adultery out of love for God and obedience to Him — those who wish to appear holy and deserving of  it — and are not.  Rather it is a medicine (clearly adverting to Saint Luke 5.32:  “I have come to call sick, not the whole”) and nourishment for those who are not hypocrites like the Pharisee in Saint Luke and the faithful Catholics disparaged above — who try to avoid sin in order to worthily receive Holy Communion — when we all know it is a pretense!”

The Devil is in the Details

This is Francis’s argument stripped of its pretext and cleverly written (certainly not by Francis) in such a way as to invoke our sympathy for the unrepentant sinner and our scorn for the faithful Catholic — whom, in a parable of his own making, he contemns. The devil indeed is in the details. Conflation and equivocation as the art of sublating opposites into an apparent and compelling (though ultimately spurious) synthesis: what is intuitively understood by the simple is subtly and cleverly “de-constructed” by the “wise and learned” and re-arranged into something synthetic that somehow resembles the real, but is not real — which in turn (and when challenged) never attains to the clarity that alone deflects plausible deniability.

As in Francis’s infamous “Art of Accompaniment” we are led to a point of confusion so intricate and overwhelming that not only can we no longer nail down what was said, but who said it — and how it was to be understood through that devilishly elusive notion of intention! Hence they can, at one and the same time, affirm and deny as the purpose suits them. This is plausible deniability at its most diabolic — and we seldom use that moniker. Obvious understanding, the immediately understood, the intuitively apprehended, the totally conspicuous and public understanding of anything stated — is discredited and redefined in terms, concepts, and constructs no longer apprehensible to the common man — who is neither a canon lawyer, nor a scholar, nor a scoundrel. The entire discussion is disdainfully and insolently excluded from public understanding — by the scholars, the canonists, the lawyers: today's Scribes — masters of plausible deniability — and “brood of vipers” whose toxin is in the tongue.

The Reality of Mortal Sin that Francis Defies

Much like his recently acquired mentor — Martin Luther — whom Francis praises profusely, the reality of Mortal Sin has morphed into a modern fiction. After all, as he has said, no one goes to Hell: “No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel.” This is ... the “Gospel according to Francis”.

Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John emphatically disagree — to say nothing of 2000 years of Church teaching, the Sacred Deposit of Faith, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church Fathers, and Jesus Christ Himself.

Mortal Sin is the separation of the soul from God Who is Life, and separation from Life is what we understand by death: in other words Mortal Sin is the death of the soul before God.

One who is dead can no longer be “nourished”, nor will any medicine avail him while he remains dead. The soul must first be alive (vivified through grace and absolution in the Sacrament of Penance — and possess a “firm amendment to sin no more”) — to be nourished or to receive a “powerful medicine.” Do you doubt this?

Consider the following statements absolutely irreconcilable with Francis’s statement above: one from Saint Paul himself, and the others from Saint Thomas Aquinas:


Saint Paul:

• “Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep [die].” (1 Corinthians 11:27-29)
   

St. Thomas Aquinas, Question 80:

• “This sacrament [the Holy Eucharist] is a medicine given to strengthen, and it ought not to be given except to them who are quit of sin.” (Article 1. “Whether there are two ways to be distinguished of eating Christ’s body?”)
   

• “Many receive Christ’s body unworthily; whence we are taught what need there is to beware of receiving a good thing evilly . . . For behold, of a good thing, received evilly, evil is wrought” (Reply to Objection 2)
   

• “It is manifest that whoever receives this sacrament while in mortal sin, is guilty of lying to this sacrament, and consequently of sacrilege, because he profanes the sacrament: and therefore he sins mortally.” (Article 4)
   

• “The fact of a man being unconscious of his sin can come about in two ways. First of all through his own fault, either because through ignorance of the law (which ignorance does not excuse him), he thinks something not to be sinful which is a sin, as for example if one guilty of fornication were to deem simple fornication not to be a mortal sin; or because he neglects to examine his conscience, which is opposed to what the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 11:28): “Let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice.” And in this way nevertheless the sinner who receives Christ’s body commits sin, although unconscious thereof, because the very ignorance is a sin on his part.” (Reply to Objection 5.)
   

• “The sin of the unworthy recipient is compared to the sin of them who slew Christ, by way of similitude, because each is committed against Christ’s body. (Article 5 Reply to Objection 1)
   

• “Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it.” (Article 6)

As we have stated above, all this is out of our hands and frighteningly in the scandalous hands of powerful cardinals, bishops, and ecclesiastics whose agenda is not Christ’s — nor the Church’s: saving souls. Theirs is rapprochement with the world, and, it would appear, ultimately assimilation into the world — against which Saint John the Evangelist so forcefully warned us (especially note the closing sentence):

Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
January 28, 2018