VIDEO FOLLOW-UP: What President Brandon said to the Pope!

Earlier today, in "Francis and Joe meeting today... cameras not allowed!", Walt commented on the Vatican's unusual prohibition of the recording of the meeting between Pope Bergoglio and President Brandon. Why would they do that? Here's why, a bit of video filmed when they met yesterday.

   

The remark happened after they exchanged gifts. For reasons known only to himself, the Clinton News Network reports (click for longer video clip) that Sleepy Joe spoke to Francis at some length about Satchel Paige, the trailblazing black baseball pitcher, and made a joke about their ages. "How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? You’re 65. I’m 60." 

Mr Brandon may have meant his remarks as some sort of joke, or maybe he genuinely forgot who he was talking to, but his behaviour is not that of a serious person, let alone one of "the two most powerful Catholics in the world." One can only speculate on what was said after the cameras were turned off. How much worse could it have been?

We'll never know, because we have only the President's side of the conversation. Following the not-so-historic meeting -- only the second between a pope and a Catholic president -- Sleepy Joe said that Pope Francis told him he should keep receiving Communion, in spite of the argument of traditional Catholics that the Sacrament should be denied to any politician who supports abortion.

President Brandon said the topic of abortion didn't come up, but that Francis told him he "was happy he was a good Catholic and he should keep receiving communion." Asked about this, the Vatican's spokesthingy would say only that discussions between the Pope and the President were "private matters". Period.

Can a Protestant receive Holy Communion? The Pope's non-answer

On 15 November 2015, Pope Francis visited the Christuskirche, the church of the Lutherans in Rome. Once upon a time no Catholic, not even a pope, would darken the doors of a Protestant house of worship, but times have changed. As reported in "Luther's Revenge: The Surrender of Pope Francis" [Contains a great video! Ed.], the Francis will travel to Sweden in October to commemorate and "thank God for" the Protestant Reformation. What next?! Declaring Luther a saint, perhaps?! But I digress...

While the Pope was visiting Luther's "church", a Protestant lady asked him if she could receive Communion together with her Catholic husband. In "Communion For All, Even For Protestants", our old friend Sandro Magister calls Francis' answer "a stupefying pinwheel of yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out." He quotes, in its entirety, the official transcription of the Pope's lengthy and incomprehensible response:

"Thank you, Ma'am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord's Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid! I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: 'Do this in memory of me'. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord's Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord's Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last. Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: "Is sharing the Lord's Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together? I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand. It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: don't we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism. When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive. When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same. The question: and the Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond the same, you see. 'This is my Body, this is my Blood', said the Lord, 'do this in memory of me', and this is a viaticum which helps us to journey. I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord's Supper. Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man. I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond. A pastor friend of mine said to me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference? Well, there are explanations, interpretations…'. Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: "One faith, one baptism, one Lord", as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more."

Walt notes and deplores the Pontiff's use of the term "Lord's Supper", which is a formulation of the Protestant heretics who would transmute the Sacrifice of the Mass to a mere church supper, celebrated not on an altar but a picnic table. That doesn't bother Pope Francis, apparently. Whatever it is -- a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Saviour of Mankind or just a nice community meal -- Francis seems agreeable to everyone helping themselves. Sgr Magister says "It is impossible to gather a clear indication from these words. Of course, however, by speaking in such a “liquid” form Pope Francis has brought everything into question again, concerning intercommunion between Catholics and Protestants. He has made any position thinkable, and therefore practicable."

Steve didn't pocket the Host...but one sin is as bad as another

The New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal has issued an apologize to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen "Call me Steve" Stephen Harper for reporting that he had slipped a communion wafer in his jacket pocket at the funeral mass for the late Romeo LeBlanc. The paper -- owned by the Irving family (big oil in N.B.) -- says the story was “inaccurate and should not have been published.”

It is dogma that through the action of the priest, the wafer of unleavened bread, literally, the body of Jesus Christ, to be received in communion only by those who so believe. That excludes Steve and all other Protestants, heretics and non-believers.

It is an extremely grave sin for them (and for Catholics who are not in a state of grace) to receive the Sacred Host. That is the real problem with what Mr. Harper did. Even if he put the Host in his mouth, he ought not to have presented himself to receive communion in the first place. If he didn't know that, he is more than a little ignorant of the faith of the majority of Canada's (nominally) Christian people.

A "wedge" between Catholics and Protestants? Really?!

On July 14th, the Catholic Register reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen "Call me Steve" Harper has blamed the controversy of his recent sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion on “people who want to cause embarrassment in religion and drive a wedge between Protestants and Catholics.”

There are 14 million Canadians who call themselves "Catholic". Mr. Harper is not one of them. He is a "born-again" -- an evangelical Protestant. But he evidently doesn't understand the differences between what he believes and what Catholics believe.

Harper criticized the media for showing a video of him of pocketing the Communion Host while attending the funeral mass for former Canadian Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc on July 3rd. “Somebody running an unsubstantiated [sic] story that I would stick communion bread in my pocket is really absurd and I think it's a real, frankly, a low point,” he said, according to Canwest News.

"Unsubstantiated"? What about the video?! Anyway, the point is that what Steve put in his pocket (and later transferred to his mouth, if you believe him) is not "bread". Catholics true to the dogmas of their Faith believe that the Host is nothing less than the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not to be put in pockets or taken home for a souvenir. In fact, traditional Catholics believe the Host should not even be touched, except by a priest, and therefore reject receiving Holy Communion in the hand.

As for the "wedge" which Harper says is being driven between Catholics and non-Catholics, that division was caused in the 15th and 16th centuries by a chap named Martin Luther and other heretics. Since Vatican II the Church has tried to paper over the cracks in Christianity, to the point where many now believe that it doesn't make any difference which church you go to or what you believe. That is the heresy of relativism.

Here's what Harper said on that point. "While I’m not theologically a Catholic, in my judgment, the Catholic Church is a critical bulwark of worldwide Christianity.... The Pope is an important moral and spiritual leader generally and for Christians generally, even though I’m not a Catholic."

That's very nice of him, but Walt wonders if Steve has heard the Bible-thumpers who preach from the pulpits of churches like the one he attends. Even today they inveigh against the Church, accuse the Pope of being the anti-Christ, etc etc. And we find their anti-Catholic rants printed virtually every day in blogs and letters to the editor and other forums.

No, Mr. Harper. We traditional Catholics -- the ones who were upset by your disrespect for our beliefs -- are not the ones driving the wedge between ourselves and the rest of the world. It is people like YOU, who have no understanding or appreciation of the core principles of true Christianity.

For an excellent article on relativism, see "Can we talk about heresy?" , by Thomas C. Oden. (Christian Century, April 12, 1995)

Cardinal says Communion in the hand is "sacrilegious and scandalous"

Here's a follow-up to the story of Steve's sacrilege. A reader passes on news that last April 27th, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, of Bologna, Italy, forbade the practice of receiving Communion in the hand at three of the 400-plus churches in his archdiocese.

The prelate called the practice, instituted in the aftermath of Vatican II, "sacrilegious and scandalous". However, he did not explain why or how it could be "sacrilegious and scandalous" in three churches but not in the other 400. Walt's guess: it's a mystery!

Sacrilege: Canadian Prime Minister desecrates Host at State Funeral

Former Canadian Governor-General Roméo LeBlanc was buried on July 3rd. At the funeral mass, Prime Minister Stephen "Call me Steve" Harper was given communion -- a sacrament properly reserved for Catholics who are in a state of grace.

The priest distributing communion put the wafer into the PM's outstretched hand, according to the improper but common practice in the Canadian Church since the "reforms" of Vatican II.
Now...watch what Harper does with the Body of Our Lord! Here's the video, courtesy of YouTube. Watch at about the 30-second mark...

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you! He put it in his jacket pocket!!! When Harper took the Host, "everybody just paused and said, 'What did he do with it?'"‚" said one official who watched the pool feed with reporters who were not inside St. Thomas Church in Memramcook, New Brunswick. "You could see he was, 'Uh oh, I don't know what to do with this.'"

Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, wants to know whether the prime minister consumed the host and, if not, what happened to it. The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal quotes Msgr. Henneberry as saying that if Harper accepted the host but did not consume it, "it's worse than a faux pas, it's a scandal from the Catholic point of view."

It certainly is worse! It's a sacrilege! And it wouldn't have happened at all had Holy Mother Church not abandoned the traditional rules and practices regarding the Sacrament of Communion. Giving the Sacrament to non-believers, and giving the Host in the hand, even to believers, are contrary to the Faith of our fathers. Sadly, these practices are just two of the hundreds of poisoned fruits of Vatican II.

As for Steve, Walt hesitates to impute motive, but can't help but question the suggestion that the PM was just ignorant of the nature and significance of the Host. The PM is a self-declared Protestant believer. As such, should he not have politely declined communion, even it were offered by a misguided or negligent priest? Msgr. Henneberry says, "He should not have been receiving communion and if he comes up it places the priest in an awkward position, especially at a national funeral because everyone is watching."

The Prime Minister's office has not answered Msgr. Henneberry's question about what happened to the communion wafer. Perhaps Steve will answer if the Pope asks him when they meet later this week!