These Last Days News - February 28, 2023
URGENT: Forward a link to this web page to your clergy, family, friends and relatives.
30-8. Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki: Imagining a Heretical Cardinal...
CLERGY MISLEADING CHILDREN OF GOD
"Measure for measure, the Eternal Father shall meter to you a just form of punishment. Many shall die in the great flame of the Ball of Redemption.
"There is no excuse accepted now by the Eternal Father among the clergy, who now offend the Eternal Father by misleading the children of God upon earth. The experimentation and changes must be stopped and reversed! There is no other course.
"Many upon your earth now have chosen to worship the adversary, satan.
"I have told you, counseled you in the past, that sin is insanity. Your world and its people are involved--they walk as on a treadmill, seeking power and money and material goods and pleasure. And they go round and about, never stopping as the world plunges faster to the abyss."
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, August 4, 1979
CARDINALS SELLING THEIR SOULS
"The present leaders of My Church in the city of Rome, in your arrogance you have set up My Church without honor, without holiness! In the name of peace and brotherhood, you have whittled away the foundation. I am the foundation! You must now rebuild My Church, for a church in darkness wears a band of death about it. I say unto you; it is better that there are few with quality than quantity with nothingness.
"The Red Hats have fallen and the Purple Hats are being misled. I say unto you, that satan has entered into the Holy City of Rome.
"You have been warned in the past by the descendants of Peter to guard My Church from humanism, modernism and satanism. When the world and My Church become as one, know that the end is at hand. Many of the descendants of Peter, men of knowledge and piety, gave you the reasons for shunning modernism and liberal attitudes. Many of those wearing the Red Hats have sold their souls to satan to get to the head.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Jesus, December 31, 1977
CARDINALS LEADING BISHOPS INTO ERROR
“Our cardinals, who lead Our bishops into error, you have been allowed to proceed in error because of your vain satisfaction, seeking of body pleasures, and because you have replaced your God with idols—humanism, idolism, destruction!”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Jesus, August 15, 1971
FirstThings.com reported on February 28, 2023:
by Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki
Imagine if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to publish an article in which he condemned “a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist” and stated that “unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy.” Or what if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to state publicly that homosexual acts are not sinful and same-sex unions should be blessed by the Church?
Until recently, it would be hard to imagine any successor of the apostles making such heterodox statements. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon today to hear Catholic leaders affirm unorthodox views that, not too long ago, would have been espoused only by heretics. “Heretic” and “heresy” are strong words, which contemporary ecclesiastical politeness has softened to gentler expressions such as “our separated brethren” or “the Christian faithful who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church.” But the reality is that those who are “separated” and “not in full communion” are separated and not in full communion because they reject essential truths of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Thus, it is deeply troubling to consider the possibility that prelates holding the office of diocesan bishop in the Catholic Church may be separated or not in full communion because of heresy.
Yet both the cases mentioned above would in fact involve heresy, since heresy is defined as “the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith” (canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law). What, then, constitutes “some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith”?
According to canon 750,
A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium which is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatsoever contrary to them.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II added a second paragraph to canon 750, which states,
Furthermore, each and every thing set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely, those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.
The Holy Father also amended canon 1371 of the Code of Canon Law, adding an appropriate reference to canon 750, so that it now reads: “The following are to be punished with a just penalty: a person who . . . teaches a doctrine condemned by the Roman Pontiff, or by an Ecumenical Council, or obstinately rejects the teachings mentioned in canon 750 § 2 or in canon 752 and, when warned by the Apostolic See or by the Ordinary, does not retract.”
Canon 752 says,
Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by a definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.
In his apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem, Pope John Paul II explained his reason for making these changes to canon law:
To protect the faith of the Catholic Church against errors arising from certain members of the Christian faithful . . . we, whose principal duty is to confirm the brethren in the faith (Lk 22:32), consider it absolutely necessary to add to the existing texts of the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, new norms which expressly impose the obligation of upholding truths proposed in a definitive way by the Magisterium of the Church, and which also establish related canonical sanctions.
Normally canonical sanctions require that either a judicial or administrative process be followed before a penalty can be imposed. However, it is important to note that canon 1364 says that “an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.” A latae sententiae excommunication is a sentence that is automatically incurred without any canonical process. While an automatic penalty without due process is unheard of in most judicial systems, canon law provides for such penalties, due to the distinctive character of spiritual offenses such as apostasy, heresy, and schism, since a person who espouses apostasy, heresy, or schism has de facto separated themselves ontologically—that is, in reality—from the communion of the Church. Thus heretics, apostates, and schismatics inflict the penalty of excommunication upon themselves.
Returning to the earlier examples cited, it is contrary to a “truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith” to reject or condemn “a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist,” as if no such barriers existed. They do exist, and they are a matter of divine revelation. The truth about eucharistic coherence that must be believed by divine and Catholic faith was articulated by St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord . . . For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor. 11:27–29). This has been the constant teaching of the Church for the past two thousand years. Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.” A mortal sin is one which “destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God.”
With regard to the sinfulness of homosexual acts, the truth that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith is also stated clearly in the Catechism:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
Thus a cardinal of the Catholic Church, like any other Catholic who denies settled Catholic teaching, embraces heresy, the result of which is automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church.
In addition, a cleric can be punished with the penalties mentioned in canon 1336, such as prohibiting residence in a certain place or territory and removing “a power, office, function, right, privilege, faculty, favor, title, or insignia, even merely honorary.” Canon 1364 adds, “If contumacy of long duration or the gravity of scandal demands it, other penalties can be added, including dismissal from the clerical state.”
Canon 194 provides for removal from an ecclesiastical office by the law itself in the following cases:
1) a person who has lost the clerical state;
2) a person who has publicly defected from the Catholic faith or from the communion of the Church; and
3) a cleric who has attempted marriage even if only civilly.
However, canon 194 adds this restriction: “The removal . . . can be enforced only if it is established by the declaration of a competent authority.” Only the pope can remove a cardinal from office or dismiss him from the clerical state in the case of heresy or other grave crimes. If he does not do so, the unseemly prospect arises of a cardinal, excommunicated latae sententiae due to heresy, voting in a papal conclave.
We must pray that the Holy Spirit will not let this happen, and will inspire anyone who espouses heretical views to renounce them and seek reconciliation with our Lord and his Church.
These Last Days News - March 2, 2023
URGENT: Forward a link to this web page to your clergy, family, friends and relatives.
Bishop Paprocki Accuses Cardinal McElroy of ‘Heresy,’ Says He May Have Excommunicated Himself...
LifeSiteNews.com reported on March 2, 2023:
by Raymond Wolfe
Bishop Thomas Paprocki stepped up his criticism of Cardinal Robert McElroy, accusing the San Diego cardinal and other dissident prelates of “heresy” and suggesting that they have excommunicated themselves from the Catholic Church.
Writing in First Things on Tuesday, Bishop Paprocki said that McElroy’s call to give Holy Communion to grave sinners, including homosexuals and adulterers, meets the definition of heresy, the penalty for which is “automatic excommunication.”
Without naming McElroy, the bishop quoted directly from a widely criticized article that McElroy wrote for America magazine last month in which he explicitly rejected “a theology of eucharistic coherence.”
“Imagine if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to publish an article in which he condemned ‘a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist’ and stated that ‘unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy,’” he wrote, quoting McElroy’s article.
Bishop Paprocki, who leads the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and serves as chairman-elect of the Church governance committee of the U.S. bishops’ conference, also took aim at cardinals who have denied Catholic doctrine on homosexuality.
“Or what if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to state publicly that homosexual acts are not sinful and same-sex unions should be blessed by the Church?” he wrote. “Until recently, it would be hard to imagine any successor of the apostles making such heterodox statements.”
Multiple cardinals, including Jean-Claude Hollerich and Reinhard Marx, have publicly repudiated Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality in recent months. Hollerich, the archbishop of Luxembourg City and relator general for Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality, declared last year that Catholic teaching against sodomy is “false” and should be changed. The late Cardinal George Pell accused Hollerich of “explicit heresy” and urged the Vatican to censure him.
Marx, the archbishop of Munich and a member of the Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, has performed same-sex “blessings” and claimed in April that homosexuality “is not a sin.” Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, has also suggested that the Church could “bless” same-sex unions. McElroy, for his part, has attacked Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and suggested that they are not necessarily sinful.
“Unfortunately, it is not uncommon today to hear Catholic leaders affirm unorthodox views that, not too long ago, would have been espoused only by heretics,” Bishop Paprocki continued.
“‘Heretic’ and ‘heresy’ are strong words, which contemporary ecclesiastical politeness has softened to gentler expressions such as ‘our separated brethren’ or ‘the Christian faithful who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church,’” he added. “But the reality is that those who are ‘separated’ and ‘not in full communion’ are separated and not in full communion because they reject essential truths of ‘the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 1:3).”
Though the idea that a bishop “may be separated or not in full communion because of heresy” is “deeply troubling,” he wrote, the errors promoted by McElroy and like-minded prelates indeed “involve heresy.”
“Yet both the cases mentioned above would in fact involve heresy, since heresy is defined as ‘the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith’” Bishop Paprocki explained, citing canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law.
He also quoted canon 750, which states that all members of the faithful “must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith” and that “anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.”
Bishop Paprocki noted that the penalty for heresy is extremely serious — automatic or “latae sententiae” excommunication — and applies to prelates as well as to the faithful.
Canon law provides such a severe penalty due to the nature of the offense, “since a person who espouses apostasy, heresy, or schism has de facto separated themselves ontologically — that is, in reality — from the communion of the Church,” he wrote. “Thus heretics, apostates, and schismatics inflict the penalty of excommunication upon themselves.”
As with any Catholic, a cardinal “who denies settled Catholic teaching, embraces heresy, the result of which is automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church,” he added.
Bishop Paprocki: McElroy, pro-LGBT cardinals reject definitive Catholic teaching
Referring to Cardinal McElroy, Bishop Paprocki stressed that “it is contrary to a ‘truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith’ to reject or condemn ‘a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist,’ as if no such barriers existed.”
Barriers to the Eucharist “do exist, and they are a matter of divine revelation,” he insisted.
The truth about eucharistic coherence that must be believed by divine and Catholic faith was articulated by Saint Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord . . . For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor. 11:27–29). This has been the constant teaching of the Church for the past two thousand years. Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.” A mortal sin is one which “destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God.”
The First Letter to the Corinthians notably lists homosexuality, adultery, and sexual immortality as grievous sins.
“With regard to the sinfulness of homosexual acts,” Bishop Paprocki further wrote, “the truth that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith is also stated clearly in the Catechism”:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has similarly described rejection of Catholic teaching on homosexuality as “heresy.”
Again quoting canon law, Bishop Paprocki noted that heretical clerics can be punished with removal from the clerical state and their ecclesiastical office, though only a pope can impose those penalties on a cardinal.
“If he does not do so, the unseemly prospect arises of a cardinal, excommunicated latae sententiae due to heresy, voting in a papal conclave,” he warned. “We must pray that the Holy Spirit will not let this happen, and will inspire anyone who espouses heretical views to renounce them and seek reconciliation with our Lord and his Church.”
Widening backlash against McElroy
Bishop Paprocki’s latest essay comes days after he wrote an article in Catholic World Report slamming McElroy’s attacks on Catholic sexual ethics and accusing him of promoting the heretical “fundamental option” theory.
The Springfield bishop specifically condemned statements that McElroy made in an interview with America earlier this month in which McElroy claimed that the Church is too focused on “sexual things” and needs a looser “framework” for sexuality.
“The Cardinal seems to be calling for the Church to devalue the gravity of sexual sin, but sexual sin is part of the ‘framework’ found in God’s Word,” Bishop Paprocki responded.
McElroy’s series of recent heterodox comments have provoked an explosion of criticism, including from U.S. bishops such as Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, and Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Archbishop Charles Chaput, archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, has called for McElroy to be “publicly corrected” by the Holy See.
Pope Francis made McElroy a cardinal last August despite the San Diego prelate’s long record of disobeying and criticizing Catholic teaching.
“A WAR WITHIN MY HOUSE”
"There shall be a war in My House: bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal. And why? Because you have allowed satan to play chess with you!
"You shall not be unevenly yoked. What have you in common with the darkness? Are you strong enough, My pastors, to pierce that darkness now? No, I say to you, for many of you have extinguished the light.
"The gates of hell shall not prevail against My House.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Jesus, May 26, 1976
MANY MITRES WILL FALL INTO HELL
"The judgment of your God is not akin to the judgment of man. The Eternal Father will only judge by the heart. Your rank, your accumulation of worldly goods does not set you up before another. Many have sold their souls within the holy House of God. Better that you strip yourself and remove all worldly interests now while you have the time to make amends to your God, for many mitres will fall into hell."
- The Bayside Prophecies
St. Thomas Aquinas, August 21, 1972
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