Sigh. PopeWatch does wish that the only Marx Popes paid any attention to were the ones nicknamed Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Reinhard Cardinal Marx gave a recent demonstration as to why PopeWatch believes this:
Let him who does not want to be lost and go to the devil be on his guard with all diligence and earnestness against the papacy and its doctrine, and let him never again accept even the most insignificant and smallest part of the papacy’s teaching, no matter what it may cost him. Let him flee from the papacy and its following as from the devil incarnate himself, and let him by no means be silenced by the sweet, slippery words of hypocrites or be persuaded that yielding and conceding something for the sake of peace is a matter of little consequence and that the bond of love should not be disrupted for the sake of something trifling (as they represent and rationalize this to be). Come now, there is assuredly no joking in this matter; eternal salvation and eternal damnation are involved. (What Luther Says, II:1019-1020)
Can anything more horrible be said than that the kingdom of the papists is the kingdom of those who spit at Christ, the Son of God, and crucify Him anew? For they do crucify Christ…in themselves, in the church…and in the hearts of the faithful…Therefore let everyone who is honestly given to piety flee out of this Babylon as quickly as possible…. For so great are its impurity and its abomination that no one can express them in words; they can be discerned only by eyes that are spiritual. (What Luther Says, II: 1020)
My dear pope, I will kiss your feet and acknowledge you as supreme bishop if you will worship my Christ and grant that through His death and resurrection, not through keeping your traditions, we have forgiveness of sins and life eternal. If you will yield on this point, I shall not take away your crown and power; if not, I shall constantly cry out that you are the Antichrist, and I shall testify that your whole cult and religion are only a denial of God, but also the height of blasphemy against God and idolatry. (What Luther Says, II: 1069)
What kind of a church is the pope’s church? It is an uncertain, vacillating and tottering church. Indeed, it is a deceitful, lying church, doubting and unbelieving, without God’s Word. For the pope with his wrong keys teaches his church to doubt and to be uncertain. If it is a vacillating church, then it is not the church of faith, for the latter is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt.16:18). If it is not the church of faith, then it is not the Christian church, but it must be an unchristian, anti-Christian, and faithless church which destroys and ruins the real, holy, Christian church. (Luther’s Works, vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, The Keys, p.348)
All this is to be noted carefully, so that we can treat with contempt the filthy, foolish twaddle that the popes present in their decrees about their Roman church, that is, about their devil’s synagogue (Rev.2:9), which separates itself from common Christendom and the spiritual edifice built up on this stone, and instead invents for itself a fleshly worldly, worthless, lying, blasphemous, idolatrous authority over all of Christendom. One of these two things must be true: if the Roman church is not built on this rock along with the other churches, then it is the devil’s church; but if it is built, along with all the other churches, on this roc, then it cannot be lord or head over the other churches. For Christ the cornerstone knows nothing of two unequal churches, but only of one church alone, just as the Children’s Faith, that is, the faith of all of Christendom, says, “I believe in one holy, Christian church,” and does not say, “I believe in one holy Roman church.” The Roman church is and should be one portion or member of the holy Christian church, not the head, which befits solely Christ the cornerstone. If not, it is not a Christian but an UN-Christian and anti-Christian church, that is, a papal school of scoundrels. (Luther’s Works, Volume 41, Church and Ministry III, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil, p.311)
These arrogant and unlearned papists can’t govern the church because they write nothing, they read nothing, but, firmly saddled in the pride of possession, they cry out that the decrees of the fathers are not to be questioned and decisions made are not to be disputed, otherwise one would have to dance to the tune of every little brother. For this reason the pope, possessed by demons, defends his tyranny with the canon “Si papa.” This canon states clearly: if the pope should lead the whole world into the control of hell, he is nevertheless not to be contradicted. It’s a terrible thing that on account of the authority of this man we must lose our souls, which Christ redeemed with his precious blood. Christ says, “I will not cast out anybody who comes to me” (John 6:37). On the other hand, the pope says, “As I will it, so I command it; you must perish rather than resist me.” Therefore the pope, whom our princes adore, is full of devils. He must be exterminated by the Word and by prayer. (Luther’s Works, vol.54, Table Talk, No.441, p.330)
Any Cardinal of the Catholic Church who can seriously contend that Luther merely wished to reform the Church and that Catholics can learn a lot from his writings is either a fit subject for satire or depression. Needless to say, Cardinal Marx stands high at the Vatican today and is a member of the nine Cardinals advising the Pope. He is also chairman of the German bishop’s conference. Also needless to say, he is an advocate of communion for Catholics in adulterous second marriages and the recognition by the Church of homosexual unions. Considering this, PopeWatch understands why the Cardinal looks favorably on a heresiarch who split the Church five hundred years ago. However, it should be recalled that Marx was made a bishop by John Paul II and an archbishop and cardinal by Pope Benedict. The rot that allows creatures like Marx to attain high office within the Church is as long-standing as it is deadly.
If what I’ve read is true and my feeble attempt at understanding this German Catholic crisis is correct, then it is all about the money! A taxation in German Catholic Church has backfired. A new money stream is desperately needed.
Answer! The homosexual unions and adulterous Catholics in second marriage’s.
Yes? No?
Because of the Church Tax in Germany the German Catholic Church is the wealthiest arm of the Catholic Church in Europe. German Catholics have been opting out of the Church formally in greater numbers to avoid the taz and the reaction initially of the German hierarchy was to treat such opting out as tantamount to excommunication. Members of the German hierarchy now seem to believe that capitulating to the zeitgeist on sex issues would stem the flow, senselessly following the well trodden path to irrelevance and extinction blazed by many non-Evangelical Protestant churches. A church that stands for nothing will swiftly become nothing.
Philip and Don,
I don’t think it can be the Church Tax alone. Why are there so many non-German bishops among the Kasperites, when they have nothing material to gain from it? To be sure, the Kirchensteuer certainly turbocharges things, but I believe the truth may be far worse: the Kasperites hate the Catholic Church and seek to destroy the very basis of her doctrinal authority.
As for Luther, isn’t it true that his initial positions were relatively mild, but that when he encountered resistance, he rapidly hardened into the foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic we see in your words above? This may be my historical ignorance at work.
Finally, a small irony, given Luther’s implacable hatred of the papacy. According to the great Father Hunwicke, Cardinal Marx recently remarked that “it is incomprehensible how the Synod Fathers are more bound to Tradition than to the Pope”. So we have the ultrapapist Marx (st last under this papacy) trying to rehabilitate the reputation of the virulently antipapist Luther!
“As for Luther, isn’t it true that his initial positions were relatively mild, but that when he encountered resistance, he rapidly hardened into the foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic we see in your words above?”
Luther had the type of personality that assumed that everyone would agree with him once he had explained himself. (Tiresome boors like Luther are commonplace in everyday life.) When people did not agree with his analysis of Scripture it could only be out of malice. Throughout his life Luther reacted to everyone who had opinions that did not fall in line behind Doktor Luther with blind rage and scatological vituperation: fellow “reformers”, peasants, Jews, Kings and Queens, etc. His blind hatred and wrath were by no means restricted only to Catholics. Like many great rebels of history, Luther had little tolerance for those who had the temerity to disagree with him.
“My dear pope, I will kiss your feet and acknowledge you as supreme bishop if you will worship my Christ and grant that through His death and resurrection, not through keeping your traditions, we have forgiveness of sins and life eternal.”
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“…not through keeping “our” traditions, but “your traditions” indicates that Luther separated himself from the Catholic Church. Luther left the Church and self-excommunicated himself. To embrace a self-excommunicated person without his repentance is mortal danger.
If it is the head count and donations, Cardl. Marx needs to prevent abortion.
[…] – Fr. Rb. Barron First New Church in Turkey in Nearly a Century – Max Lindenman Does Crd. Marx Know His Faith? – Donald R. McClarey JD, TACatholic Consumers Kept in Dark w/ HHS Abortion Surcharge Rules […]
These German Judas Bishops and Cardinals should probably just leave. But wait, that would mean giving up their huge pay cheques from the state Catholic Church tax. Oh, and the merciful smiling German Bishops cry mercy mercy, all the while with holding the Sacraments from any Church goer who doesn’t pay the huge tax. Where is the mercy? Mercy is for those who pay the tax. Hmmm, sounds like simony to me.
Thank you Donald Murray and Mary.
I did misunderstand the tax.
As for the diabolical “…Kasperites hating the Catholic Church…” and seeking to destroy doctrinal authority. Sad but it feels and reads that way.
When the three paragraphs we’re not approved by 2/3rd’s majority in last years Synod, and PF said they will be included in the 2015 Synod for further discussion, it started to feel dark and foggy. If a majority matters then why overrule?
I haven’t given up in prayers for PF.
I will because it’s our calling.
Thank you kind folks for explaining this matter in brighter light.
Thanks for the link to Father Hunwicke- absolutely great:
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“Four years ago, I and others, not without some sacrifice, joyfully accepted the gracious invitation of Benedict XVI to enter into full communion. I, for one, did not do so in order to stand idly by with a polite smile upon my silly face while some unscrupulous Northern European ecclesiastics plot to demolish the Church’s teaching and discipline about Marriage and Sexuality, and to do so by means of a confected hyperpapalism which, since it contradicts the defined doctrine of Vatican I, seems to me clearly a heresy.”
I especially liked “confected hyperpapalism” 🙂
Let us also remember that Luther was a priest who violated his vows, and who married a nun, who also violated her vows. That is the founder of this “religion”, a horny man who couldn’t control his sexual urges. I guess that’s what’s so appealing to Marx and his ilk. Of course, their modern theology assumes that we’re just like them and that self-control, self-denial, self-mortification and the power of the Holy Spirit working in us cannot overcome our base, sinful desires. How pathetic and cowardly are these fundamental premises.
I could chase women to my heart’s desire and engage in as much adultery as I wanted according to these debased men, and they could care less for the harm I could cause to my wife, my family and the spouses and families of the women I hooked up with, not to mention the ungrateful slap in the face I would give to God when I did so.
I understand how men living just a step above the animals could “convert” to this sect, but not any man who cared about and made any effort to understand and live the True Faith. Truly this filth is nothing more than saccharine posing as real sugar.
I wrote earlier on my own blog about a woman who was “ordained” a so-called “c”atholyc priestess in a Lutheran assembly this past weekend. That’s evil in a few different ways but also laughable if not for the potential loss of her soul and others who go along with this. Here’s the link if you’d like to share it. https://exmagnasilentium.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/another-priestess-for-play-church-how-a-woman-can-go-to-hell-very-easily/
[…] Cardinal Marx is another one of Pope Francis’ esteemed theologians holding sway in the Vatican these days. The American Catholic posted some quotes of Martin Luther after the Cardinal told the world that catholics can learn a good deal from that heretic. Please arm yourselves with some knowledge of what that scurrilous priest had to say about the papacy and the catholic Church by reading that post. […]
Gosh sure I’m not Luther lover … but isn’t the issue understanding his positions and statements over time … which began softer …. but harden as the years went by.
By 1520 Martin Luther was already calling the Pope Anti-Christ:
Against the Execrable Bull of the Antichrist (excerpt)
I have heard that a bull against me has gone through the whole earth before it came to me, because being a daughter of darkness it feared the light of my face. For this reason and also because it condemns manifestly the Christian articles I had my doubts whether it really came from Rome and was not rather the progeny of that man of lies, dissimulation, errors, and heresy, that monster John Eck. The suspicion was further increased when it was said that Eck was the apostle of the bull. Indeed the sty1e and the spittle all point to Eck. True, it is not impossible that where Eck is the apostle there one should find the kingdom of Antichrist. Nevertheless in the meantime I will act as if I thought Leo not responsible, not that I may honor the Roman name, but because I do not consider myself worthy to suffer such high things for the truth of God. For who before God would be happier than Luther if he were condemned from so great and high a source for such manifest truth? But the cause seeks a worthier martyr. I with my sins merit other things. But whoever wrote this bull, he is Antichrist. I protest before God, our Lord Jesus, his sacred angels, and the whole world that with my whole heart I dissent from the damnation of this bull, that I curse and execrate it as sacrilege and blasphemy of Christ, God’s Son and our Lord. This be my recantation, Oh bull, thou daughter of bulls.
Having given my testimony I proceed to take up the bull. Peter said that you should give a reason for the faith that is in you, but this bull condemns me from its own word without any proof from Scripture, whereas I back up all my assertions from the Bible. I ask thee, ignorant Antichrist, dost thou think that with thy naked words thou canst prevail against the armor of Scripture? Hast thou learned this from Cologne and Louvain? If this is all it takes, just to say, “I dissent, I deny,” what foo1, what ass, what mole, what log could not condemn? Does not thy meretricious brow blush that with thine inane smoke thou withstandest the lightning of the divine Word? Why do we not believe the Turks? Why do we not admit the Jews? Why do we not honor the heretic if damning is all that it takes? But Luther, who is used to bellum, is not afraid of bullam . I can distinguish between inane paper and the omnipotent Word of God.
They show their ignorance and bad conscience by inventing the adverb “respectively.” My articles are called “respectively some heretical, some erroneous, some scandalous,” which is as much as to say, “We don’t know which are which.” 0h meticulous ignorance! I wish to be instructed, not respectively, but absolutely and certainly. I demand that they show absolutely, not respectively, distinctly and not confusedly, certainly and not probably, clearly and not obscurely, point by point and not in a lump, just what is heretical. Let them show where I am a heretic, or dry up their spittle. They say that some articles are heretical, some erroneous, some scandalous, some offensive. The implication is that those which are heretical are not erroneous, those which are erroneous are not scandalous, and those which are scandalous are not offensive. What then is this, to say that something is not heretica1, not scandalous, not false, but yet is offensive? So then, you impious and insensate papists, write soberly if you want to write. Whether this bull is by Eck or by the pope, it is the sum of all impiety, blasphemy, ignorance, impudence, hypocrisy, lying – in a word, it is Satan and his Antichrist.
Where are you now, most excellent Charles the Emperor, kings, and Christian princes? You were baptized into the name of Christ, and can you suffer these Tartar voices of Antichrist? Where are you, bishops? Where, doctors? Where are you who confess Christ? Woe to all who live in these times. The wrath of God is coming upon the papists, the enemies Of the cross of Christ, that all men should resist them. You then, Leo X, you cardinals and the rest of you at Rome, I tell you to your faces: “If this bull has come out in your name, then I will use the power which has been given me in baptism whereby I became a son of God and co-heir with Christ, established upon the rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. I call upon you to renounce your diabolical blasphemy and audacious impiety, and, if you will not, we shall all hold your seat as possessed and oppressed by Satan, the damned seat of Antichrist; in the name of Jesus Christ, whom you persecute. But my zea1 carries me away. I am not yet persuaded that the bull is by the pope but rather by that apostle of impiety, John Eck….
If anyone despises my fraternal warning, I am free from his blood in the last judgment. It is better that I should die a thousand times than that I should retract one syllable of the condemned articles. And as they excommunicated me for the sacrilege of heresy, so I excommunicate them in the name of the sacred truth of God. Christ will judge whose excommunication will stand. Amen.
Yes, fightin’ words for sure! But the 95 Theses were posted 3 years before that … I have to wonder about his progression and theological underpinnings during that spree.
Steven Hansen: “I wrote earlier on my own blog about a woman who was “ordained” a so-called “c”atholyc priestess in a Lutheran assembly this past weekend. That’s evil in a few different ways but also laughable if not for the potential loss of her soul and others who go along with this.”
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A woman needs a call from God to a vocation as a priest. If God wants a person to become a priest, that person will be born a man. The evidence that a vocation is a constant calling by God to the priesthood is the fallen away priest who has “lost” his vocation by allowing the devil to seduce him, by allying himself with evil and by his rejection of God. The free will God gave to man is free from one instance to the next and requires constant defense. Thankfully, there is Divine Providence.
Anzlyne & Murray.
Thanks.
I just finished Fr. Hunwicke’s post.
It is fine tuned. The Vatican I reference is appropriate. Pope Francis needs to be reminded, daily, of his role as Pope.
btw..the comments we’re great as well.
Appreciate the guidance.
If your bishop hasn’t already begun teaching his priests, deacons, and lay catechists about the errors of Martin Luther and the Church’s answers to them, he is already too late in preparing for the 500th anniversary of Protestantism’s founding moment.
You can be sure that Protestants of all kinds, including Hollywood, are hard at work preparing their people to attack the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church as 2017 approaches. And they won’t wait for 2017 to start their attacks.