
The Liability of Logic
The
“Francis Effect Defect”
If
I cannot be certain about what my Catholic Faith holds to be
indefeasibly true
— not by any conflict between internal logic and divine revelation
— but because Pope Francis is ambiguous about tenets held for
2000 years and inscribed in Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Deposit
of Faith — such as the existence of Hell, the immortality of the
soul, the absolute proscription against Adultery in the Ten Commandments,
the condemnation of Homosexuality — despite the constant 2000 years
old teaching of every pope in the history of the Church, then I do not
reject my faith, but I do take issue with — indeed, reject
— the disordered thinking of the present pope, and, with cause, likely
his sanity or at least his mental stability.
Why will no one
state the obvious? Francis is either
cognitively impaired, deeply defective in his understanding of Christianity,
the Person of Christ, and the nature of His Church — or a buffoon.
A
buffoon, however, is rarely dangerous, but ...
Francis
is
He is because he is
held to speak the mind of the Church — even when he speaks non ex-Cathedra
— what he states has a direct impact upon the faithful to whom he has
been faithless. That is why he is dangerous. He is not just in conflict
with the Church and the faithful: his conflict with the Church
results in not just confusion among the faithful, but the
adherence of the faithful who cannot reconcile his novel
pseudo-theological episodes with 2000 years of constant Church teaching
and Sacred Scripture itself.
The danger
is defection. And the danger is real. They
will embrace the one or the other, but cannot embrace both — or … they
can reject both as irrational nonsense since such a state
of affairs conflicts with reason and what was held to be inviolable
revelation. God Himself cannot make 2 plus 2 equal 5. This violates
reason and consequently our understanding of God. Outside of divine
revelation (which, while not conflicting with reason, exceeds
it) anything we predicate of God is done so through the vehicle of reason.
Any sentence that starts with “God is …” can only conclude in
two ways: through an appeal to reason or to revelation. We cannot sustain
our association with any organization that demands not just the
suspension, but the violation of reason — and if we do, we can,
eo ipso, provide no reason for it.
Let
us simplify the matter: either GOD and 2000 years of Church teaching
— including the authority of Holy Writ are right — OR
Francis is right.
But by the Law of
non-contradiction both cannot be right if there exists
a contradiction between them. The assertions that “Hell exists”
and “Hell does not exist” cannot be reconciled: the one is the negation
of the other.
-
God
asserts the first.
-
Francis
repudiates it. *
-
The Church teaches the immortality
of the soul.
-
Francis
denies it. *
-
The Divine proscription
against adultery is not capable of attenuation (read
“discernment” or “accompaniment”) in Holy Scripture. It is absolute.
No Commandment can be negotiated to accommodate man. Commandments
are not “Propositions”.
-
For Francis,
it is not an inviolable Commandment — literally set
in stone — but a matter of Situational Ethics (a discredited
moral concept condemned by the Church).
-
Homosexuality,
toward which he shows remarkable deference,
has always been condemned by the Church and Sacred Scripture
—
but “Who is Francis to judge”?
The Inconvenient
Law of Non-Contradiction
Whenever we are confronted
with a contradiction, we must not only decide which is right but adduce
reasons for it — or remain in a state of abstention, aloof from the
proposition entirely. Given what Holy Mother Church has taught — and
held as indefeasible — for 2000 years, what we cannot do
is affirm both since each negates the other. In other
words we cannot be both Catholic and “indifferent”, both Catholic and
“undecided”, both Catholic and “permissive’. It is not consistent with
logic — which is another of saying that it is illogical! For human beings
this is not a desirable attribute. It is, in fact, one of the signatures
of madness.
Given the illogical nightmare that Francis
has brought to the Church — in what he apparently believes is his
fulfilling the mandate of the staggeringly destructive
“Spirit
of Vatican II”
— he has left a vacuum of reason into which something diabolical, irrational,
and recreant has rushed.
Why this has been allowed to come to such a pass in this unfortunate
generation, given the responsibility of the episcopate — the cardinals
and bishops who should be fraternally correcting him for the sake of
Jesus Christ and the souls of the faithful He came to save — rather
than pusillanimously colluding with him — is anyone’s guess.
One thing is apparent: there is as deep a defection from the Catholic
Faith in the cardinals and bishops as there is in Francis. Perhaps
they fear him — and losing the perquisites of their positions of authority-seldom-exercised,
or exercised to the detriment of the faithful.
Their fear, however, is deeply misplaced: rather
than fearing the retaliation of an autocrat arrogating the Seat of Peter,
they should fear Him Who can cast both body and soul into Hell.
(St. Luke 12.5).
Perhaps that fear is reserved to simple
Catholics and it is time that the sheep teach the shepherds.
____________________________________
* While the
official Vatican organ delegated with re-constructing Francis’s
logical and theological
... paroxysms ... with feeble
and ambiguous statements such as “What is reported by the author
in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the
literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of
the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful
transcription of the words of the Holy Father” is proffered as assurance
that he said no such thing (which it does not say,
for it speaks only of Scalfari’s
assertions — not Francis’s) it sounds much more like the
non-committal, ambiguous, and litigious language of a solicitor or attorney
who pleads an “objection!” to a potentially damaging assertion
— no?
Nor does it help matters when Francis makes no effort
to deny or distance himself from Scalfari’s “interpretation”.
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Printable PDF Version
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
____________________________
Further Reading on
the Papacy of Francis:

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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