Procinctu

Bergoglio utters misnomer: “I like the Lutherans who follow the True Faith of Jesus Christ”

  • Posted April 23, 2019

from Novus Ordo Watch

Jorge Bergoglio says the darndest things, most of them incompatible with Catholicism.

After the Jesuit pretend-pope gave an address to a mixed audience consisting mostly of young Novus Ordos and Lutherans on Oct. 13, 2016 in the Vatican, he engaged in a question-and-answer session with the youngsters. It was on that occasion that he pronounced one of his many condemnations of “proselytism”, telling a girl who had asked whether she should try to convert her non-religious friends: “It is not licit to convince them of your faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path” (source). We covered this in a blog post at the time:

However, there was another thing Francis said during his audience with these hapless youths, something that escaped not only us but, it seems, just about everyone else too. Asked about what he likes and dislikes about the Lutheran church, he answered: “I really like the good Lutherans, the Lutherans who follow the true faith of Jesus Christ. However, I do not like lukewarm Catholics and I do not like lukewarm Lutherans” (“Pope jokes in ecumenical meeting: Who is better – Catholics or Lutherans?”, Rome Reports, Oct. 13, 2016; underlining added.)

A video report by Rome Reports has captured the moment he said this and provided English subtitles. The fun begins at the 1:09 min mark:

The heresy implied in these words is so blatant that it defies belief that Francis actually said this so openly.

As far as a refutation of this outrageous Bergoglian remark goes, it shouldn’t be necessary to point out the obvious, but we might as well: There can be, and is, only true religion, one true Faith. God has revealed only one truth, one set of revealed teachings, contained in the Deposit of Faith given by Jesus Christ to the Apostles (see Jn 1:17; Jn 16:12-13; Heb 1:1-3), passed on through Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture (see 2 Th 2:14; 2 Tim 3:15-16). He established the Church to be the infallible and indestructible guardian of that truth, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), “that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14). Any deviation from this true Gospel is necessarily a false gospel, one that leads to eternal damnation (see Gal 1:8-9; 2 Jn 1:9). Lutheranism is a set of heresies invented and/or propagated by Martin Luther in the 16th century. It is a perversion of the Gospel.

It is therefore clear that it is absolutely impossible for someone to adhere to Lutheranism and to “the true Faith of Jesus Christ” at the same time. The one excludes the other. That is not to say that there aren’t many Lutherans who are sincere in their errors, but sincerity in error is still sincerity in error — it does not change the fact that the doctrines of Lutheranism are not the teachings of Jesus Christ but “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim 4:1; cf. Heb 13:9). That many Lutherans mean to adhere to the true Faith of Jesus Christ can readily be assumed but is irrelevant with regard to the fact that they do not in fact adhere to it.

What Francis did in this ecumenical audience on Oct. 13, 2016, is confirm Lutherans in their errors (something he habitually does also with Jews and Muslims). He told them, essentially, that their heresies are the true Faith of Jesus Christ. That is a complete denial of the Catholic Faith. By contrast, Pope Leo XIII didn’t exactly share Francis’ belief that Lutheranism is just as much “the true Faith of Jesus Christ” as Catholicism is, as is evident from this Apostolic Letter to Cardinal Pietro Respighi.

Francis has long had a love affair with Lutheranism:

Thus, it is clear that what the Frankster said in that ecumenical audience regarding there being “good Lutherans” who “follow the true Faith of Jesus Christ” is not at all out of character for him.

Here is a small sampler of what real Catholic Popes have said about the only true Faith, the only true religion.

Addressing dissidents, Pope Leo XII exhorted “all of you who are still removed from the true Church and the road to salvation”, hoping they would “sincerely agree with the mother Church, outside of whose teachings there is no salvation” (Encyclical Quod Hoc Ineunte, n. 9).

Pope Pius IX condemned those who claim that “[t]he Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Syllabus of Errors, n. 21) and warned against them who make no distinction “between the true religion and false ones” (Encyclical Quanta Cura, n. 3). Indeed, in his encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, he rebuked those who try to draw Catholics into “Protestantism, which in their deceit they repeatedly declare to be only another form of the same true religion of Christ, thereby just as pleasing to God” (n. 6). That applies to Bergoglio to a tee!

Upon convoking the (First) Vatican Council, the same Pope Pius IX addressed an apostolic letter to Protestants and other non-Catholics who, “whilst they acknowledge the same Jesus Christ as the Redeemer, and glory in the name of Christian, yet do not profess the true faith of Christ, nor hold to and follow the Communion of the Catholic Church” (Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes; underlining added).

Pope Leo XIII noted that “French Catholics … have the happiness of belonging to the true religion” (Encyclical Au Milieu Des Sollicitudes, n. 7) and, in another document, emphasized the exclusivity of Catholicism as the only religion revealed by God: “…the Catholic religion … is alone the true religion” (Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae, n. 34; underlining added).

Pope Pius XI, too, referred to Catholicism as “the true religion of Christ” (Encyclical Casti Connubii, n. 115). In another place he stated clearly: “The Church is indeed conscious of her divine mission to all mankind, and of the obligation which all men have to practice the one true religion…” (Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, n. 39).

Pope Pius XII called “the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church” nothing less than the “true Church of Jesus Christ” and warned that “grave errors … are being spread among those outside the true Church” (Encyclical Mystici Corporis, nn. 13, 8).

Bergoglio is a Modernist and an an adherent of Vatican II ecclesiology, and so he considers Protestantism to be simply a different “expression” of the same Christian religion. He recently admitted that for him, Christianity is really not about adherence to doctrine, and shortly before he had proclaimed in Abu Dhabi that God positively wills the diversity of religions!

“Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true”, wrote Pope St. Pius X in his landmark encyclical Pascendi (n. 14). His successor, Pope Pius XI, condemned “that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule” (Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 2).

Thus we see once again the stark contrast between the true Catholic religion of the ages and the Novus Ordo counterfeit that began with the false pope John XXIII (1958-63) and has reached its present zenith in the man the world calls “Pope Francis.”