Offenses

By Charlie Johnston

 

“Woe unto the world because of offenses!

For it must needs be that offenses come,

But woe to that man by whom the offence comes.”

-Matthew 18:7

On Friday, July 5, the Vatican found Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano guilty of schism and excommunicated him. Vigano’s criticism of Pope Francis and the hierarchy around him had certainly gone beyond what is common. The evidence for the charge of schism was obvious. But what of the pushing for the normalization of homosexuality by Fr. James Martin and many other prelates and Bishops? What about the ardent support for abortion for any reason by Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and virtually all Catholic American Democratic politicians and officials? What about all the homosexual, transgender, and abortion advocates who have not only not been rebuked, but positively honored by the Vatican – even being appointed to Vatican Commissions? There is not even a threat of excommunication for such anti-Christian behavior. It is very clear now that severe punishment and even excommunication by this Vatican regime has nothing to do with protecting the faith, but is simply a tool to enforce submission and conformity to Pope Francis, a lawless dictator who sometimes cosplays at being humble and welcoming. Pope Francis is welcoming to any except sincere, practicing Catholics.

Want to diddle the kiddies? Pope Francis is all about forgiveness and coverup. Want to contradict Christ’s teaching on marriage, sexuality, and the family? Pope Francis has your back (and in the case of Fr. James Martin, will write the forward to your book, congratulating you on your progressive thought). Want to put up blasphemous, sexually charged images of Christ, Our Lady, and other saints in your Parish? Pope Francis has your back. Dare to criticize Pope Francis or disagree with him on climate change? Time to remove you from your see or excommunicate you. And sometimes, canon law is not even referenced in making the hit.

Infallibility does NOT apply to excommunication. It is strictly a disciplinary measure, exercised administratively. I am utterly convinced that any official who uses excommunication out of pique or as a tool of political enforcement legitimately excommunicates the subject from the Church Militant, but simultaneously excommunicates himself from the Church Triumphant. The former can be reversed; the latter can only be reversed from heaven – and not unless there is public repentance, preferably in sackcloth and ashes.

Many clerics do not fear being excommunicated from heaven because, just as many believe there is no hell, so these same ones believe there is no heaven. Rather, they believe that the Church is a manmade institution – and they want to wield the temporal power and influence that has grown around it. For many high clerics, the Church is not the mystical Body of Christ; it is a game of Dungeons and Dragons writ large – and they intend to win. I will not venture to guess what percentage have abandoned faith in God while still holding tightly to the reins of power. Suffice it to say that St. Paul VI spoke with prophetic prescience when he proclaimed that the smoke of satan had entered the Church.

Why, then, do so many Bishops who DO believe in God refuse to confront this gangster Pope directly? I think it is because he is old and infirm. If a pitched battle must come, I think most Bishops reasonably prefer it begin with his successor. A part of me welcomes each new offense. They make it more likely that, whoever Pope Francis’ successor is and whatever his political views, he will enter office knowing he has a LOT of fences to mend. If he tends to that work, he will probably be a transitional Pope. If he tries to rule with an iron fist, condemning all those who insist that Christ’s teaching is dispositive, then we will have a schism for a time. I do not think the majority of Bishops will sit still for a round two of being branch offices for Papolatry, Inc. Blessed are those who will remain with the Church without succumbing to the offenses of its hierarchs.

Sadly, we have had anti-Catholic bigots in the ranks of the hierarchy since Judas Iscariot. I don’t think we have ever had them as the dominant force in the Vatican hierarchy before now – including in the Medici era. Pity those poor souls who think to hijack Christ’s Church for their own temporal purposes. For though they may think there is no God, God IS. And He is not mocked.

There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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I have fretted publicly about the undisciplined panic that has beset many solid Catholics as things in the Church (and the world) have so rapidly degenerated. I have been annoyed that so many have been so restlessly following every person who claims to be a mystic regardless of whether his claims are consonant or not with Magisterial teaching – or make any sense at all. All one needs do is say, “God told me…” to get an enthusiastic following. I know, I know, a seeming strange objection coming from me, who has publicly claimed to be a mystic for over a decade. But right from the beginning of any public proclamations, I submitted myself to authority, first to my spiritual directors, nearly two decades before my first public claims and, then, to my Archbishop. And I endeavor to obey them…in fact, regard them as critical guardrails to keep me from doing damage to the very people I pray to help get through the greatest crisis in the history of the world up until this time. I also avoid telling people what they want to hear in order to curry favor with them. Though there have been notable errors in timing and detail, I have been consistent with my message – in season and out of season as St. Paul would say. I told you a great Storm was coming, a global civil war fought on cultural lines, that all families on earth would be touched by the Storm. I told you that confidence in ALL the institutions we have relied upon would collapse. I told you that many would think this to be the end, but that it was NOT. This was God renewing the faith and the face of the world – and giving us another chance to show that we love Him by our devotion to Him and our care for our neighbors. I even gave you direction on what was needful to weather this Storm. Acknowledge God, take the next right step, and be a sign of hope to those around you. Apparently, many thought this was just a slogan.

I did not tell you that you could wheedle an exemption card for yourself. You cannot. I did not tell you there was some secret formula to forestall the Storm. There never was. I did not tell you that God was going to secret away all His favored ones while everybody else gets smacked. Rather, I told you that all of us are guilty of the blood of Christ, either by what we have done or by what we have failed to do. That God was giving us a way to renew our covenant with Him – and that it required we take up our cross and participate actively in His work of renewal, not that we lounge in secret refuges being attended to like sultans by His angels and His saints. The glorious news was that this is the hour of the ordinary man and that God has work for each and every one of us if we will accept it. I told you it was going to be hard, it was going to be frightening, but by girding your loins and taking up the mantle Christ offered you, you could demonstrate your fidelity by your actions, not just your formulaic pious words. By doing so, you would participate in renewing the faith and face of the world.

It offends me when people come up with or follow these scenarios where the “good” people are going to be exempted. And those who savor those scenarios are always certain that their exemption card is among the first to be issued. What madness is this? Do you think you are good? How many babies have you saved from abortion? How many people struggling have you helped? How many people who have lost hope and faith have you reignited hope and faith in? Pathetically, many who think themselves the most pious Christians think to demonstrate their piety by restlessly telling everyone around them how they do not measure up. They play at being God’s vengeful mini-me rather than doing the work to spark new hope, new faith. And these think they are going to be exempt from the Storm?! Better they should pray that God purify them and they accept the purification with gratitude.

I am a sinful man. I have been prone to the sins of weakness and appetite, particularly when I was younger. I have endeavored not to bruise the tender reed nor quench the smoldering wick – but I have failed at this many times, as well. Despite my efforts, my sins are always before me. The Storm is fearful but, oh, how I rejoice that God is giving me the chance to prove my love and fidelity through severe penance and hardship. But the entitled generation is determined to have its exemptions.

As much as all this offends me, I have come to think that this is akin to a modified version of the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief. In my modified model for the ending of an old era I posit these stages:

• Denial: This is when people determinedly insist that nothing serious is wrong at all. That all the troubles will pass harmlessly away. It is why so many have spoken with wonder at how people around them sensed no real problem. Some of that is genuinely ignorant lack of awareness, but a lot of it is an act of the will: that if I pretend nothing is wrong eventually nothing really will be wrong.
• Depression: When things persist in massive dysfunction, many still remain in denial, but their awareness of how bad things have gotten also manifests in depression. People get into a deep funk, their productivity tanks and their temperament takes on a dour cynicism. This accounts for the huge (nearly unreported) increases in suicide in our culture over the last decade. It is a dark paralysis that feeds on itself.
• Bargaining: As people see that the dysfunction is not going to go away, they start coming up with scenarios by which they can exempt themselves and their loved ones. They imagine all manner of exotic escape pods. I understand this. I often struggled with the temptation to just go off into the mountains, live off the land, and wait for the storm to pass. But this was NOT what God was calling me to – and to avoid the call of God is to invite hungry whales to seek you out. Just ask Jonah. This is, in large measure, the genesis of rapture fantasies and angels leading you to refuges to sit out the Storm.
• Anger: When people finally come to terms with the realities that the Storm is not going to pass over, that there will be no escape pod for them from its vicissitudes, and that they are not the icons of Christian purity and fidelity they imagined themselves to be in easy times with no serious challenges, they get angry. Some of the anger is nostalgic: a good life they had enjoyed is passing away and won’t return again. Some is for the things they will lose. Some is for the hardships they must endure. The anger can destroy them if they wallow in it and self-pity. But if it focuses them on dealing with reality as it is rather than as they wish it to be, it will lead them to Stage Five…
• Action: In the Kubler-Ross model the fifth stage is acceptance. Her model was directed toward the grief at the loss of a loved one. When a loved one dies, there is nothing you can ultimately do but pray for their souls. Acceptance is the only healthy denouement to such grief. But in our spiritual battle, acceptance is to concede the fight to the demonic. Instead, our final stage is action. Not wild flailing of fists nor beating the chest nor futile grand gestures. Rather, the action we are called to is to do the little we can from right where we are, recognizing that we are not the titans, but that we ARE God’s hands and feet on earth. Doing this together, in loving collaboration with each other, is how we may participate with God in renewing the faith and face of the world, knowing that God is with us and will protect us. Some of us will perish to this life – this life which is just a blink of the eye to our entire life, which is eternal. But those who lose their lives in service to the Lord and their neighbors will immediately live with the Lord in paradise. My whole concept and creation of CORAC was designed to facilitate this sort of action.

A decade ago most people did not believe my description of the Storm and how suddenly it would come upon us. But a good chunk of people did. I am befuddled that so many among those who did are running around in raw (or scarcely concealed) panic now that the Storm I described has made landfall. If you believed it, why are you in panic now? You are not called to panic, but to reassure those around you. Even if I had never described it, where is your trust in God? I do not mean the sort of trust that comes up with some fantasy response and “trusts” God to confirm their fantasy. I mean the sort of trust that knows God intends their good and will guide them safely through the trials. The only way to get to the era of peace is through the valley of death…but God is with us every step of the way. Psalm 91 says that you need not fear the terror of night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. It does NOT say these things will not come, but that you shall not fear them for God is with you – if you acknowledge Him.

On most apparitions and mystics I am agnostic. There was no bigger skeptic of my own mystical experiences than me throughout my life. But God makes us for His own purposes – and my skepticism has served me well in developing an attitude of proving all things. Truth will stand the test of examination. I am neither credulous in accepting anything just because it purports to be from God nor dismissing the supernatural just because it is mystical. Truth will stand the test of examination. Most mystical phenomenon commented on here I let stand without comment. Only if I see it is harmful to the salvation of souls do I suppress or ban it from this site. I ban talk of the rapture and mystical refuges because people who are fixated on that may enter into existential despair at the critical moment when they are not raptured or no angel shows up to take them to a place of safety and, thus, lose heaven. I don’t worry if some of my readers believe either of these scenarios because, when they are proven wrong, they are unlikely to go into despair, but instead think, “Well, I guess old Charlie was right,” and then get down to serious work. But I will NOT be party to promoting such dangerous doctrines. Some have told me that when I ban a certain mystic or idea, I may be stifling God. Could be. More likely they are foolishly promoting demonic deceptions. In either case, God allows me to be wrong – and I usually learn important things from my errors. But He does NOT allow me to be intentionally disingenuous to curry favor or keep the peace. By far, the worst dressing down I ever got from the Lord was when I was on the verge of splitting the difference on a controversy in order to keep the peace among Christian evangelists. I do NOT expect anyone to believe what I say because I am a reputed mystic. I test all things I am shown – and sometimes am shocked to find the devil showed them to me. I am experienced enough now to know that if I am shown something I really want to believe, it is usually from satan. Man, he sure can be soothing in his attempts to lead you away from God’s hard truths! I pray that what I teach will stand the test of examination and people believe me because of that. Trusting anyone for saying the “Lord told me…” is a formula for chaos – and we have quite enough of that already.

In positing the modified Five Stages of Grief, I have come to more peace with all the panic and bargaining out there today. People go through different stages at different times – and it is a natural human reaction. I will not change what I profess and how I go about addressing the crisis that is on us. I don’t begrudge any of you where you are at in the stages of grief. When you are ready for action, I will welcome you with gladness and gratitude to those of us who are focused on just taking the next right step. It truly is the only effective approach to what is upon us…and I will joyfully take recruits whether they come early or late in the day.

*********

Coming back from St. Cloud, Minnesota, I somehow contracted a case of Covid. Fortunately, I began my Ivermectin regimen at the first symptoms, even before I knew it was Covid. The last week has been mild (at least compared to the brutal case I had three years ago when I let it get deep into me before I started treating it properly). But the shortness of breath, disorientation, and sudden intense bouts of fatigue still hindered my ability to accomplish much. Thankfully, I am just about out of the woods.

Man, I can’t believe that our gangster government and rogue medical authorities ever suppressed Ivermectin! I have found it to be the most effective medication against any virus. No wonder it won the Nobel Prize – and won for being a miracle treatment for infectious diseases.   

I spoke to a very welcoming conference of preppers in Minnesota. I like preppers because they do stuff. They take action. And they are increasingly eager to talk about the role of God in the confrontation before us.

If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.

Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim

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