VIDEO ADDED: Pope Francis accused of heresy... again

A group of 19 prominent Catholics, including clergy and scholars, chose Easter Week, recently concluded, to publish an open letter to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church accusing Pope Francis accusing of heresy.

This is hardly "news". Over the last several years, there have been a number of letters and petitions questioning the Unholy Father's theological orthodoxy, particularly after the publication of Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), his 2016 apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family. See "'Amoris Laetitia' - Pope Francis leads Catholics into error", WWW 10/12/16 and "Traditional Catholics formally accuse Pope Francis of spreading heresy", WWW 24/9/17.

In the still-unanswered dubia (an expression of questioning or doubt), Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Leo Burke, Carlo Caffarra and Joachim Meisner asked Pope Francis, in more formal language,"Are we still Catholic or not?!" They asked him to clarify five fundamental points of Catholic doctrine and sacramental discipline. Answer came there none.

This new letter takes up the same theme, and would thus be unremarkable were it not for the endorsement of Dominican Father Aidan Nichols, who Breitbart writer Thomas D. Williams calls "one of the most prominent Catholic theologians in the English-speaking world." A prolific author, Father Nichols has published over 50 books and, from 2006 through 2008, was the first John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, the first lectureship of Catholic theology at that university since the Protestant Reformation.

The 20-page letter, which you can read in its entirety by clicking here, comes right to the point in the first two paragraphs.

We are addressing this letter to you [the bishops of the Church] for two reasons: first, to accuse Pope Francis of the canonical delict of heresy, and second, to request that you take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation of a heretical pope.
We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis's words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.

Much of the material offered as evidence of heresy comes from Amoris Laetitia, and deals with sexual ethics and sacramental theology. A large section of the letter is devoted to showing the Pope's misconduct in "praising clerics and laity who advance these heresies, or by naming them to influential posts, or by protecting clerics of this kind from punishment or demotion when they have committed gravely immoral and criminal acts." There follows a too-long list of the offending clerics, including American Cardinals Blase Cupich, Donald Wuerl and now infamous homosexual pederast and EX-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. These names appear in other posts on WWW; click on the tags below to find out why.

The question now is: will His Unholiness pay any attention? Answer: no. But if his fellow bishops will not judge him, God certainly will. Stay tuned.

VIDEO ADDED 2/5/19: While Walt was writing this, Michael Matt and his team at The Remnant newspaper were preparing "Pope Accused of Heresy (Francis Trolls His Own Church)". Here it is.

LGBT... what next?

For half a century we've wrestled with what to call people who are, errr, non-white. That adjective encompasses a range of hues, from "tanned" through yellow and red to brown and finally black. So we called black folks "black", and that was a problem because of "shadeism" which placed octaroons above quadroons above mulattos and so on. (In fact you don't hear any of those words any more.)

Besides, there was something pejorative about "black", or "dark-complected", not to mention "darkie" (as in toothpaste) or the N-word. So some genius came up with "African-American", which for most black Americans was as ridiculous as calling us white folks "European-Americans". And so we went back to "persons of colour", which sounds a lot like "coloured" to me. I don't know which term is politically correct now, and I don't care.

The same nomenclatural problem exists with people we used to call "queers". Not so long ago, that was pejorative term, right up there with "fairies", "faggots" and other quaint expressions we used -- yes, I admit it -- to describe homosexuals. But then the homos embraced the Q-word, as in "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" And so Q was added to LGBT, as in "the LGBTQ community", referring to the alleged 10% of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and/or otherwise queer.

But apparently five terms isn't enough for the proponents of aggressive gender ideology. The concept of "gender fluidity" -- today I'm a guy but tomorrow I might feel like a girl, or vice versa -- led to the addition of "2S", which stands for "two-spirited". It's not your physical gender, you see, but how you feel about it! Don't be surprised if Barack Hussein Obama stretches his pro-LGBT bathroom laws to include those who feel like "the other sex"... at the moment.

Would LGBTQ2S be the end of it? As recently as this January, I thought so, but I was wrong. (Lifetime pct .984.) Now the PC police have told us we can drop the "Q2S" -- perhaps because "queer" is still a loaded word and "2S" is just stupid -- but add an "I", which stands for "intersex". Seriously...

"Intersex" is how the Australian Department of Health refers to people whose sexual characteristics don't fit neatly into the "male" or "female" categories. Wikipedia tells us such people "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites, but the term has fallen out of favor as it is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing. Since 2006, intersex traits have controversially [sic] been described by medicine as disorders of sex development."

So there you have it, folks. "LGBTI" is the latest politically correct term for people we used to call "queers". Remember that as your city/state/province/country/whatever celebrates Gay Pride Day/Week/Month/Year/Whatever.

Further reading: "Cardinal Wuerl decries 'aggressive gender ideology'", Catholic World News, 2/6/16.

Gay students seek to oust Catholic chaplain for being, errr, Catholic

Unlike Gonzaga University -- see previous post -- George Washington University doesn't hold itself out to be a Catholic institution. (It is, however, within spitting distance of Georgetown University, which is about as "Catholic" as Gonzaga.) Although a private, non-denominational school, GWU has a Newman Center, complete with chapel in which Catholic students are free to worship. Non-Catholics are welcome to join in devotions if they wish, so there's no discrimination there, right?

Errr, well, not according to at least a dozen GWU students, including seniors Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, who say they have left the Newman Center because its chaplain, Rev. Fr. Greg Shaffer, is "anti-gay" and "anti-abortion". Imagine that! Next thing you know, they'll be saying he's actually Catholic!

According to a report in The GW Hatchet, the students lambasted Father Shaffer’s counseling sessions, in which he is said to have advised students who are attracted to members of the same sex to remain celibate for the rest of their lives. They also criticized the priest for a blog post he wrote last May, calling gay relationships "unnatural and immoral" (in response to the Prez's support of same-sex marriage).

Here's what Father Shaffer actually said: "As Vatican II states, God is the author of marriage. He has defined marriage as between a man and a woman. So, marriage is between a man and a woman. Period. This is not just divine law, it is natural law (the law imprinted on each of our hearts about good and evil). Every single rational person knows that sexual relationships between persons of the same sex are unnatural and immoral. They know it in their hearts."

Hey, this is Obama's America! The gay gang doesn't have to take those insults bending over! ["Lying down", surely. Ed.] And the offended LGBT types are doing a lot more than just throwing a hissy!  They've started a campaign to have Father Shaffer removed from not the Newman Center and any connection whatsoever with GWU.

They're also going to complain to Cardinal Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, in hopes of getting Father Shaffer run right out of the Archdiocese, if not burned at the stake. Will they be successful? Is the Pope a Jesuit? Oh... wait...