What about that "Father James Martin"? - BONUS VIDEO ADDED

Some readers have expressed puzzlement over Walt's reference in "What made her/him do it?!", WWW 27/8/25, to "evil priests of the Father Hames Martin type". "Who he?", we hear them ask. That's him  on the right in the picture, giving his priestly blessing to a gay couple.

Father Martin is an American Jesuit priest and pro-queer activist. He was a great friend of the late Jorge Bergoglio (a Jesuit known by some as Pope Francis), and is now in the very good graces of Pope Leo XIV and members of the Mauve Mafia in the Vatican.

Father Martin is objectively a heretic in that he not only denies but openly advocates one of the mortal sins that deprive the soul of grace. They are serious transgressions of God's law, done freely and deliberately with a clear understanding of what they are. Their result is to deny a soul entrance to heaven. 

There are particular mortal sins that are so evil that they cry to heaven for vengeance. They are (with Biblical references for our readers who insist that only what's in the Bible counts): murder (Genesis 4:10), sodomy (Genesis 18:20-21), oppression of the poor (Exodus 2:23), and defrauding workers of their just wages (St. James 5:4).

Sodomy and other "choices" of the liberal/libertine lifestyle are still regarded by Holy Mother Church as grave sins, even though modernists priests and bishops don't say the silent part out loud since the days of Pope Benedict XVI. Just one day before his election, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger delivered a homily in which he denounced modern trends he said were undermining Catholicism and Western civilization. "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism," he said, "which does not recognize anything for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

As enforcer of Catholic dogma, Cardinal Ratzinger chastised dissident theologians, said no to female priests, no to married priests and no to gay marriage. He described homosexuality as an "objective disorder and an intrinsic moral evil."

One of the pontiff's most successful and most emotional trips was to the United States in 2008, where he tackled the most painful issue for the Catholic Church in America — clerical sex abuse — saying he was deeply ashamed. "It is in the context of this hope born of God's love and fidelity that I acknowledge the pain which the church in America has experienced as a result of the sexual abuse of minors," he said. "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse ... nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the Church." 

Readers should now understand my wondering, yesterday, if Robin (formerly Robert) Westman might have been "influenced" by "evil priests of the Father James Martin type." If, indeed, the Minneapolis shooter was "influenced" by an evil priest, that does not excuse her/him. But it condemns the one who led the little one astray.

He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. (St. Matthew 18:6)  

Worth watching! "Nightmare in Minneapolis" Where did the Catholic Church go wrong?", with Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper.

Benedict XVI blames 60s culture, sexual revolution, for scandals, moral decline of Catholic Church

I have often written, here and in other publications, and told anyone who will listen, that the decline of the Roman Catholic Church and Christian (Western) society in general started in the hippy-dippy sixties. Our religion and our culture was killed by secularism and the counter-culture. So I enjoyed something of a "told ya so" moment yesterday when "Pope Emeritus" Benedict XVI released an essay on sexual abuse in the Church, which he blames on the "absence of God".

In the introduction to his "notes", the ex-Holy Father [Can there be such a thing? Ed.] writes: In the first part, I aim to present briefly the wider social context of the question, without which the problem cannot be understood. I try to show that in the 1960s an egregious event occurred, on a scale unprecedented in history.... In the second part, I aim to point out the effects of this situation on the formation of priests and on the lives of priests. Finally, in the third part, I would like to develop some perspectives for a proper response on the part of the Church."

In the 6000-world essay, which originally appeared in Klerusblatt, a German-language magazine for the clergy, Pope Ratzinger blames the Church's sexual abuse scandal on the 1960s sexual revolution, growing secularization and weak church laws that made prosecution of guilty priests difficult. "Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom.... Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of `68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate." What an amazing admission! How dismaying for faithful Catholics, to hear this from no less a personage than the former Vicar of Christ. But there's more...

"Why did pedophilia reach such proportions?", Pope Ratzinger asks. "Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God," he answers, noting failed attempts to include a reference to God in European Union treaties as a negative example of Western secularization. He also cited the appearance of sex in films in the 60s in his native Bavaria and the formation in seminaries of "homosexual cliques" in seminaries "which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate." He also attributes the moral corruption of the Catholic clergy and the Church as a whole to "failures in moral theology".

Benedict also faulted Church laws that protected accused priests. He wrote that during the 80s and 90s "the right to a defence (for priests) was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible." In 1981 Pope John Paul II named Cardinal Ratzinger (as he then was) Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office and, especially around the 16th century, as the Roman Inquisition.

But did he do anything to excise the rotten and diseased members of Christ's Church? He tried in 2001 to reforms of those laws to make it easier to remove priests who abused children, and later, as Pope, defrocked 100s of priests accused of raping and molesting children. But he was opposed by powerful forces -- "the lavender Mafia" -- within the Vatican itself. Some say his unprecedented "resignation" was engineered by those same evil men, who succeeded in replacing him with the more tolerant and merciful Jorge Bergoglio.

Compared with Pope Francis, Benedict XVI emerges in this essay as a voice calling Catholics to turn away from the excesses of Vatican II, and back to the values of traditional Catholicism. Of course he does not suggest that Vatican II was in error or anything like the "anti-council" which many traditionalists now claim it was.

He writes: "The Second Vatican Council was rightly focused on returning this sacrament of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ...to the centre of Christian life and the very existence of the Church. In part, this really has come about, and we should be most grateful to the Lord for it. [But] what predominates [now] is not a new reverence for the presence of Christ's death and resurrection, but a way of dealing with Him that destroys the greatness of the Mystery." The reference is to declining participation in Sunday Mass and treatment of the Eucharist as "a mere ceremonial gesture."

"We do not need another Church of our own design," Benedict concludes. "Rather, what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament." A pity he didn't tell us sooner, but let us hope and pray for a Catholic Counter-Revolution, before Christ's Church disintegrates completely. Amen.

Further reading: "Benedict XVI addresses sex abuse scandal", Catholic Herald, 11/4/19.

Walt tells you who the next Pope won't be

Will the next Pope be Catholic? By that I mean, someone who holds to the Traditional Faith, given to us by Jesus Christ, while He was here on earth with us, and handed down to us by His apostles through Holy Mother Church.

If someone who keeps the Faith is to become Pope -- as Walt hopes and earnestly prays -- that would exclude the Great Pretender, the prelate who likes to think of himself as "Deputy Pope" and "prime minister of the Church". That would be Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, perhaps the most reviled man in the curia.

Speculation is rife as to the reasoning behind Pope Ratzinger's decision to resign. The Holy Father said that he no longer had the mental and physical strength which he believes the position requires. And it is reported this morning that he told a German journalist two years ago that he would resign if he no longer felt he could carry on.

In this, one can see the Holy Father's wish to avoid the sad and sorry spectacle of Pope John Paul II, who, in the last years of his pontificate, objectively appeared to have lost some of his faculties. If JPII had been your grandfather, you'd have put him in a home! It was painful to watch him die in office, but he was determined, it seems, to carry on to the end.

But his doing so had grave consequences for his papacy and for Holy Mother Church. Some of the things he said and did, in those last years, caused many believers -- not just traditionalists either -- to question whether the pope had taken leave of his senses. I refer to the travesty of the syncretic sacrilege at Assisi, and JPII's whimsical decision to add a fourth set of Mysteries to the Holy Rosary given to us by Our Lady.

The older and more "out of it" John Paul got, the worse things became. Questions were rightly asked about who was really running the Church! The answer is that even though the pope was Polish, the powers behind the throne were the Secretaries of State: Cardinals Casaroli, Sodano and Bertone -- every one an Italian, every one a modernist, and every one behaving as if he, not the pope, was the real Vicar of Christ.

That's why Bertone will not be elected at the conclave to be held next month. There is recognition -- at last -- that the decisions made and directions taken in the last two or three decades have been not just wrong but disastrously wrong.

When John Paul II was elevated to the papacy, there was a glimmer of hope that the suicidal errors of Vatican II might be undone, and the Church set back on Her true and traditional course. But any ideas JPII may have had along those lines were thwarted by his "prime ministers" and a Roman curia rotten with Freemasons, protestants, and -- yes -- apostates.

Walt predicts that, although the Italians will lobby strenuously to have one of their own "restored to power", prelates from the Third World will campaign successfully to have not just a non-Italian but a non-European pope, for the first time in history. Lifetime pct .987.

"I declare that I renounce the ministry of the Bishop of Rome". Click here to read the English translation of Pope Benedict's statement (read in Latin).
Further reading: Fr. Divo Barsotti's criticisms of Vatican Council II. If you want to understand why I call the direction of the modern Church "suicidal", don't fail to read this! I'm no theologian, but Father Barsotti certainly was.

HUGE news: Pope to resign at end of February!

Walt didn't see it coming. (Lifetime pct .987) Pope Benedict XVI surprised just about everyone this morning by announcing he would resign from the leadership of the One True Church, effective at the end of the month. The pontiff said he no longer has the mental and physical strength to cope with the demands of his ministry.

The Holy Father's aides are reported to be "incredulous". Death, one might have foreseen, but not resignation. It is not the popes never quit. But the last one to resign was Celestine V, way back in 1296.

When Benedict was first elected eight years ago -- it seems longer, doesn't it -- conservative Catholics rejoiced in hopes that under the leadership of "God's rottweiler" the Church's drift into Protestanism and heresy could be halted, perhaps even reversed. Traditionalists looked to him to heal the schism between the modernists and those who hold to the Traditional Faith. They have been sorely disappointed.

A Vatican spokesman said the Pope had not resigned because of "difficulties in the papacy". But of course that would be the official party line, wouldn't it.  Still, it's significant that the spokesman added "The Pope does not fear schism in the Church after his resignation."

This is obviously breaking news... huge news. Walt will have more reaction and comment very soon.