Catholics have to reconcile with a pope who largely does not represent them in the most pivotal of societal issues.
On Friday, Pope Francis condemned gender ideology at an international conference: “It is very important that there is this meeting, this meeting between men and women, because today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, which cancels out differences.”
He said it was dangerous because it “makes everything the same.” He added that “erasing differences is erasing humanity. Man and woman, however, are in a fruitful ‘tension.’”
The purpose of the conference was to prioritize the “necessary promotion of human and Christian vocations” in the midst of atheistic ideologies that seek to strike down the core fundamentals of the church.
Interestingly, the pope seemed to hold such an ideology not even a full year ago.
On Dec. 18, 2023, Francis fundamentally subverted millennia of Catholic doctrine by endorsing the ability to bless “couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.”
The Vatican attempts to play coy on the matter in its declaration by making sure the public knows that it does not endorse irregular and same-sex marriages.
But what it does include is enough to reveal the pope’s true motives: to make blessings socially acceptable.
The declaration reads: “It offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings.”
One does not need to know church history to know how contradictory this decision is.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a statement on March 15, 2021, distinguishing the blessings of same-sex people from the blessing of same-sex couples:
“The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching. Rather, it declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such.”
On issues such as these, Francis has divided the Catholic Church between conservative Catholics who understand their faith and those who either don’t or wear it as a mask of virtue.
He made his true beliefs clear when he accused conservative American Catholics of “backwardness,” saying that “there’s a correct evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals.”
The pope’s condemnation gave away his anti-Catholic progressive leanings.
In 2014, he created DIALOP, a coalition of supposed Christians and leftists to pursue an earthly utopia.
One way it does this is by partnering with “various European universities, educational institutions and Catholic organizations” to “develop an academic curriculum integrating Christian social teaching, Marxist social criticism and feminism.”
Again, Francis contradicts and upends Catholic tradition.
Every pope before him condemned leftism in the strongest terms.
Pope Pius IX called it a “most iniquitous plot” that uses “perverted teachings.” Pope Leo XIII called it a “scheme of horrible wickedness.”
Pope Pius X warned of people like Francis: “The audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, ‘the reign of love and justice’ … what are they going to produce?”
Francis either deliberately omits or somehow forgets that Scripture does not change with the times.
It is unbiblical for the original teachings of Jesus to “evolve” or “progress” with the world.
Our understanding of them absolutely cannot change in a way that directly contradicts and seeks to upend them. The Bible is quite clear on most topics, which is a fact many do not seem to recall.
Catholics deserve better. I know many who are undeniably genuine Christians, and Francis does not get to speak for them — or for God, for that matter.
Francis shows why Christians have to follow God instead of man.