Pope John Paul II's 1980 Speech to Jews in Mainz in Germany

Papst Johannes Paul II 1980 Rede an die Juden in Mainz in Deutschland

Abstracts and our Commentary

Pray tell, what is the purpose of this? And what is more, what is the purpose of all this coming from popes, from men, we are invited to believe, maybe required to believe, are each some kind of suped-up professor-geniuse, ployglots and polymaths, in addition to being the successors to the Throne of the Fisherman, with John Paul II in the most celebrated rank of all. After all, one speaks here not of holy Christian ascetic mystics living astride a pole for thirty years. And yet faithful Orthodox-Catholic Christians are stricken dumb with incredulity that Supreme Pontiffs present themselves again and again as missing what must be obviously to any smart fifteen year old:

If someone is separated from God through a mortal sin, any mortal sin — though heresy and rejection of God have been held for two millennia to be among the very worst and most damaging of sins, and perhaps the very worst — then any Christian does such person no good service by in any way enabling or facilitating or supporting the person in continuation of the mortally sinful state. To do so is no kindness. It is not love. It is the opposite of love. It is the worst thing to do to the sinner. It means helping them into Hell. Again, this is the case with any Christian. But when popes are doing it ?!?!

"The Old Testament Covenants — Abrahamic and Mosaic — have never been revoked."

Well yes, that is true, they have never been revoked, they have been fulfilled, by God Himself, in Christ Jesus, eternally the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity and also the seed (singular) of Abraham, the Root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) and of his son, King David. (This being the case, it is perhaps superfluous to add that, from the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 Anno Domini, together with all Temple records concerning the Aaronic Priesthood, the Old Covenant, with its ritual and ceremonial aspects, has been impossible to fulfill outside of Christ.)

And yet the writers of such words, and the popes who give such words utterance, know that their words to the effect that "the Old Covenant has never been revoked," will be interpreted to mean that the Old Covenant is an alternative that can be selected instead of Christianity, at least for genetic descendants of Abraham. Thus, the popes can have no purpose in making such statements but to deceive the readers and hearers of these words, to deceive them into believing that

• Repentance;
  
• Acceptance of Jesus as Christ and Lord and Savior and God; and
• Baptism

are not necessary for salvation, for admittance to the Beatific Vision, to God's Heaven. All this unless, that is, the popes, together with their legions of "post-doc"– style assistant professor-theologians, are all themselves deceived, and so also heretics and damned. But assuming that this latter can not be the case (Matthew 16:18), what is meant by the promotion of the "Christ is Optional"– Deception through obfuscation?

One theory might hold that the popes and other seniormost prelates believe that the Jews will not convert anyway, so why not just placate them to shut them up. Of course this could not be further from the actual state of affairs which has emerged. Jews have hardly held silence. In fact men of their number control mass information flow throughout European Christendom, to our civilizational destruction and the damnation of souls en masse. But even if this had not materialized, some "they are all a lost cause anyway"– approach would be an obviously damnable assumption for any pastor, much less the Supreme Pastor of the Church, utterly unacceptable, but also most obviously inaccurate. For the entirety of these last two thousand years, Jews without number have come to Christ. (Which of course also means that, even if the atheist-cum-Talmudic Jew misconception of the meaning of Seed of Abraham is to be considered as valid for the purposes of the arguement, after seventy-eight some odd generation, it is a simply mathematical proof that all "Gentiles" at this juncture are also the Seed of Abraham, and this even without considering the two millennia of intermarriages and intermating from Abraham to Christ.) In any case, the popes of course have never maintained or hinted at some "Jewish souls do not matter"– justification.

Yet, however obvious to reasonable minds must be the fact that mush language in papal statements and documents regarding the central salvific requirement of acceptance of Christ Jesus (mush language or rather the "compromise formula," see Walter Cardinal Kasper's admissions to this effect regarding the documents of Vatican II ) will surely place at least some downward pressure on the number of Jews who will turn to Christ — in other words, that such confusion sowing must condemn at least some people to Hell who otherwise would have turned to God — is the alternative proposition even most minimally tenable, the proposition that some soft touch pastoral approach vis-à-vis the Jews will bring more of them to Christ and His Church?

Do not tell this group that the Good News of the Gospel means that, without Jesus, we all would have remained separated from God, have been consigned to Hell?

Even without the information gained from a half-century and more of lived experience with this pastoral experiement, it was always patently absurd.

How about this:

I. Dialogue within The Orthodox-Catholic Church, among the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox (Non-Chalcedonians) and Catholics or between any two within them, is very good and holy and indeed Divinely required, as Canonically recorded. We within, trying to live and to be within, the Church, the one, holy, apostolic and catholic Church, the Orthodox-Catholic Church, will solve the theological problem, will come to reconcile canonically Papal Primacy with conciliarity, or there will be only flawed and disfunctional intra Orthodox-Catholic Church unity, except of course in the ontological sense in which the Church is always and eternally One.

II. Dialogue with Christians — validily baptized and sincerely trying to accept Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior and Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity — but who have become separated from The Orthodox-Catholic Church, from accepting Salvation on the Terms God dictates, usually through following one or another heresiarch and his teachings, is also acceptable, and maybe a very good thing, but here the relationship between Orthodox-Catholic priest or prelate and his interlocutor — regardless of how exalted in the temporal realm — certainly becomes altered and probably also much abbreviated. In such dialogue the relationship is that of Divinely constituted authority of the General Magisterium confronting adherents of error. (And this is the charitable view.) Of course there are better and worse ways of seeing through this teaching function of The Church. Doctors of the Church are few. (Three Great Hierarchs are fewer.) At times the very greatest skill and personal holiness might be required if the outcome is to be successful. No one forgets that those exalted in the temporal realm sometimes command large numbers of men without abundant wisdom or holiness but with guns. Still, the relationship within this category of dialogue in essence involves teacher, however soft-spoken, lecturing to student. There can be no compromise whatsoever on any single point of orthodox doctrine. The student will very like have a great deal to share with regards his personal story and more so still the story of his people, of his nation. The student will have absolutely nothing to share regarding "improvement" to the Doctrine of the Church.

III. Dialogue with rejectors of Christ Jesus — with Jews and Marxists and Modernists and Homosexualists and Mohammedans and Mormons and Freemasons — should be bound by parameters at once similar to those with regard to dialogue with Christian heretics and yet also most fundamentally different. Trying to accept Christ, as best as one has been equipt by life to do so, is different from trying not to. Of course, even within the just preceeding list of potential interlocutors within this third category of "dialogue parameters," strong distinctions must be drawn. Libraries are filled with works compiled over centuries attempting to work out such distinctions. A billion Muslims born into their error, into their false religion and its civilizations, is quite a different matter from a Freemason or a Revolutionary Jew or a militant Homosexualist deliberately seeking out error, culpably choosing the embrace of structured or random conflict with Logos. Still, there is a common strand running through all of these, the Jew, the Marxist, the Modernist, the Homosexualist, the Muslim, the Mormon, the Freemason. Yes, they are all our fellow creatures, Made in the Image and Likeness of God, and we are called upon to love them, but they need to convert to Christianity or they are our enemies, often enough quite imminently and militantly so, always potentially so. Of course this reality impacts matters other than religious dialogue. Mass Immigration into Christendom springs to mind. And face facts. During these times in which our lives are playing out this means nearly exclusively European Christendom. Peru and the Philippines are not facing this kind of pressure. But regarding dialogue — and basically we speak here, especially on this page, about dialogue involving the most senior metropolitan archbishops and the popes themselves — what dialogue can there be? "Please don't kill us for a while;" absurd calls for peace which only serve to lull European Christendom into complacency so that we welcome additional millions of Muslim immigrants, leading in short order to demographic replacement of us by them in our civilization? And all this against a Muslim "theological" backdrop which holds that strategic or tactical deception of non Muslims is god ordained! We are not in First century Palestine or elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Jew and Muslim leaders already always know in a general way, and usually with quite a lot of detail, Christian teaching, the Gospel message, and they have rejected it. They remain incorporated into religious communities and civilizations which reject the Logos. There can be no compromise with the Devil.

And there is another factor, and of the greatest moment.

True, there are those within the Traditionalist Catholic movement, and especially among those who push the thinking through to Sedevacantism, who maintain there is no distinction. For these, both Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are in the Out-Group, schismatics and heretics, basically to be treated no differently than those in Categories II (Protestants) and III (Muslims and Jews and other assorted Militant Atheists, etc.), supra. They maintain their untenable position essentially through (i) a distorted extreme legalism — this ex cathedra / this not — among papal pronoucements which in common are published to the world (not merely private musings or free flowing thoughts still in the deliberative stage) and intended to set forth the content of the faith on doctrine and morals, or (ii) by simply concluding, in the face of the irreconcilable, that the pronouncing popes — John XXIII through Francis — are not popes at all but anit-popes. For the Sedevacantists the Gates of Hell very much seem to have prevailed against their church (Matthew 16:18 notwithstanding). A great tragedy, including for the reason that some, not all, Trad Cats and even Sedevacantists have much about them to admire. And they know a lot. They take Christianity seriously. Who could compare them to a Zombie Catholic in the pews, to the Neo-Con -cum- Neo-Catholic embracing the absurdly false "The Jews are our Spiritual Elder Brothers–" line, or to Heterodox and Homosexualist Father Flabdoodle disgracing his calling? Marcel Lefebvre is in many ways a hero.

But back to the core issue in this section, a very great deal in what these Traditionalist Catholics find objectionable about the Vatican II and post- Vatican II popes, actions and pronoucements which are sometimes held by them to descend into heresy and apostasy, goes directly to questions of ill-conceived and ill-executed dialogue between popes and those fitting into Categories II and III, and mostly with those in Category III, chiefly Jews and Muslims. Indeed, one might conclude that the Traditionalist Catholic movement is at least as much about legitimate objection to "dialogue" with the Jews tending toward Syncretism, Indifferentism and False Ecumenism (or False Irenicism / Eirenism) as it is about legitimate objection to the Novus Ordo Missae. If not all the rank-in-file, surely at least the Traditionalist Catholic intellectual leadership know both of the Pre-Tridentine Latin Rites and of the non Latin liturgical traditions and rites within the Catholic Church.

And are the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox wrong in this? Vatican II and post- Vatican II Popes, whatever the underlying truth, can not seem to keep clear in their minds the most basic Gospel message in connection with the people among whom Christ's earthly ministry was carried out and those who are or who imagine themselves to be the genetic descendants of Biblical Jews: ! that acceptance of Christ is not Optional; that Dual-Covenant Theology is heretical ! Yet these men can be trusted to deal with — and to pronounce infallibly on — and by themselves and utterly without regard to all other orthodox-catholic bishops of the world, or all of them drawn together in Ecumenical Council — any necessary clarifications on the finest points of the highest theology touching on the nature of Original Sin or on the innermost relationships within the Most Holy Trinity ?!?

Catholic, and worst of all, papal dialogue with the so-called Jews has been used for a half-century and more as a vehicle for the Jews to undermine Orthodox-Catholic catechesis, integrity and civilization. Pope John Paul II played a greater role in the continuation and continuity of this destructive path than did any of the other Vatican II and post-concilaire popes. Pope John Paul II, canonized on 27 April 2014 by Pope Francis — under the changed, and frankly diminished, rules for canonization which Pope John Paul II himself promulgated — did not get the dialogue balance right.

W dniu 14 maja 1999 roku Jan Paweł II przyjął w Watykanie delegację islamskich duchownych z Iraku, którzy w prezencie podarowali mu egzemplarz Koranu. Papież Jan Paweł II ukłonił się przed Koranu oraz pocałował ją.

14 May 1999 Pope John Paul II kissing and bowing to the Qur'an while within the protection of the Vatican, where he ruled as an absolute monarch.

the Pièce de Résistance

... of his troubles.

in haeresi, dictis vel factis

Politically idiotic, nearly fatal poison to all efforts to achieve the paramount goal of reuniting the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Catholics, enormously effective fodder for the enemies of orthodox Christian unity, obviously yes, it was all of these things par excellence, but beyond these most weighty of considerations,

this monstrous act of Pope John Paul II was blasphemy and heresy, apostasy through action, period-full stop.

Absurd explanations of spin doctors are inefficacious, e.g., he was acknowledging, kissing, that within the Qur'an which is good, that is, that which Muhammad copied from Christianity; or just that he really wanted to ingratiate himself with the Iraqis so he could take a trip, a pilgrimage, to Abraham's old stomping ground. And it was this coming from the man who was legitimately the leader of the successors to the Apostles, that is, the leader of the Standing Apostolic Synod and who illegitimately continued in a non-canonical tradition of holding himself to be infallible speaking ex cathedra on Christian doctrine and morals.

Can we possibly have before our eyes more poignant and conclusive evidence that all bishops — including the Bishop and Patriarch of Rome, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Supreme Pontiff — need the fellowship and guidance, and on hopefully rare occassions the correction of their brother bishops and the whole community of the Christian faithful?

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.

Some isolated incident, in the final quarter of the long pontificate of an old man?

Would that we could with integrity reach such a conclusion. We can not. It is but one incident in a lamentable long list of similar such throughout the pontificate of John Paul II from its beginning to its end. No attempt will be made here to reproduce such list or to produce description and analysis of each such apostasy-by-action event, much as a thorough, scholarly and objective work along these lines would be highly useful for Church and Christendom. It is true that John Paul II's actions and statements more often than impacting Islam and Muslims took the form of flirtations among "Jews." Never, it is true, did these venture to rise to an ex cathedra statement, heretically attempting to establish Dual-Covenant "theology" as Church doctrine. Always they were very wrong. They damaged the Church and her faithful, and they also damaged the Jews, leaving them with the impression that Repentance, Baptism and Belief in Jesus as Christ and God were not necessary.

There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist.

...

From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.

4. As I stand on the threshold of the Third Millennium "in medio Ecclesiae", I would like once again to express my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican Council, to which, together with the whole Church - and especially with the whole Episcopate - I feel indebted. I am convinced that it will long be granted to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this 20th-century Council has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great patrimony to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice. For my part, I thank the eternal Pastor who has enabled me to serve this very great cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate.

"In medio Ecclesiae"... from the very first years of my service as a Bishop - precisely, thanks to the Council - I was granted to experience the fraternal communion of the Episcopate. As a priest of the Archdiocese of Krakow, I was granted to experience the fraternal communion of the presbyterate - the Council had opened a new dimension of this experience.

God's Church was Oh so lavished with spiritual treasures from the Second Vatican, writes John Paul II two months and a day before his 80th birthday and also in his last definitive word, his Spiritual Testament.

(entire document at www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/testamento-jp-ii_20050407_en.html and www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/testamento-jp-ii_20050407_pl.html and
zenit.org/articles/john-paul-ii-s-last-will-and-testament/

4. Stojąc na progu trzeciego tysiąclecia «in medio Ecclesiae», pragnę raz jeszcze wyrazić wdzięczność Duchowi Świętemu za wielki dar Soboru Watykańskiego II, którego wraz z całym Kościołem – a w szczególności z całym Episkopatem – czuję się dłużnikiem. Jestem przekonany, że długo jeszcze dane będzie nowym pokoleniom czerpać z tych bogactw, jakimi ten Sobór XX wieku nas obdarował. Jako Biskup, który uczestniczył w soborowym wydarzeniu od pierwszego do ostatniego dnia, pragnę powierzyć to wielkie dziedzictwo wszystkim, którzy do jego realizacji są i będą w przyszłości powołani. Sam zaś dziękuję Wiecznemu Pasterzowi za to, że pozwolił mi tej wielkiej sprawie służyć w ciągu wszystkich lat mego pontyfikatu.

«In medio Ecclesiae» ... od najmłodszych lat biskupiego powołania – właśnie dzięki Soborowi – dane mi było doświadczyć braterskiej wspólnoty Episkopatu. Jako kapłan Archidiecezji Krakowskiej doświadczyłem, czym jest braterska wspólnota prezbyterium – Sobór zaś otworzył nowy wymiar tego doświadczenia.

5. How many people I would have to list! The Lord God has probably called the majority of them to Himself - as for those who are still here, may the words of this Testament recall them, everyone and everywhere, wherever they may happen to be.

In the course of the more than 20 years since I have been carrying out the Petrine service "in medio Ecclesiae", I have experienced the benevolent and most especially the fruitful collaboration of so many Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, so many priests and so many consecrated persons - Brothers and Sisters - finally, of a great many lay people, in the Curial environment and in the Vicariate of the Diocese of Rome as well as outside these contexts.

How could I not embrace with grateful memories all the Episcopal Conferences in the world, which I met in the course of their visits ad limina Apostolorum! Besides, how could I fail to remember all the Christian Brothers and Sisters - non-Catholics! And the Rabbi of Rome and likewise all the representatives of non-Christian religions, not to mention all the representatives of the worlds of culture, science, politics and the media!

In John Paul II's entire Spiritual Testament in all its installments going back to 6 March 1979, there are only four individuals singled out for mention, in addition to the Blessed Virgin and God:

1. Pope Paul VI;
2. Ks. Stanisław (later Cardinal Dziwisz);
3. Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński;
4. August Cardinal Hlond; and
5. the Rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff (30 April 1915 – 19 April 2015; Chief Rabbi of Rome from 1951 to 2002).

To avoid confusion, though at the risk of being trite, there might be very good reasons for notes to or comments about a Jew or Rabbi in one's spiritual last testament, and the chief such reason is to bring the person in question and others to Eternal Salvation, only available with and through Christ Jesus. As throughout his entire, more than 26-year, pontificate, John Paul II had no intention of converting Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff, nor did he. What a contrast with holy popes and patriarchs and with the community of the faithful, men and women of God. Rabbi Elio Toaff survived John Paul II by ten years, getting a hundred years of life in this world, as very few people do. No conversion, at least none of which we are aware! By the starkest imaginable contrast, another Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli (born Israel Anton Zoller 27 September 1881, and died 2 March 1956 Eugenio Maria Zolli), and Rabbi Toaff's immediate predecessor in the office of Chief Rabbi, serving as such from 1940 to 1945, converted to Catholicism, together with his wife and daughter, on 13 February 1945, taking the Baptismal name Eugenio in honor of Pope Pius XII.

Visitor to the "Great Synagogue of Rome" on 13 April 1986; Hero of Major Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), John Paul II brought his embrace of the heresy of Dual Covenant "theology" right up to the end of his life.

As with the other two groups of the Orthodox-Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, so too the Catholic Church has for 2000 years taught that Salvation, being with God, going to Heaven, require absolutely:

• Repentance of sins;
• Belief in, that is, acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior and God; and
• Baptism in the Name of the most Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The Catholic Church has never taught that Christ is optional.

N.B., There is also ample reason to believe that, for those who have the chance, Salvation also requires worthy reception of the Eucharist:

Denying the teaching of The Church to atheist or Talmudic Jews, to those who, like John Paul II's "friend," Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff, self identify as being Jews, is not love but love's opposite. This is the worst thing anyone could do to them.

Pointing people toward Hell ! Even if this did not involve a pastor and indeed The Pastor of the Universal Church, all this would not meet my minimum definition of friendship.

How 'bout yours?

5. Ileż osób winien bym tutaj wymienić? Chyba już większość z nich Pan Bóg powołał do Siebie – Tych, którzy jeszcze znajdują się po tej stronie, niech słowa tego testamentu przypomną, wszystkich i wszędzie, gdziekolwiek się znajdują.

W ciągu dwudziestu z górą lat spełniania Piotrowej posługi «in medio Ecclesiae» doznałem życzliwej i jakże owocnej współpracy wielu Księży Kardynałów, Arcybiskupów i Biskupów, wielu kapłanów, wielu osób zakonnych – Braci i Sióstr – wreszcie bardzo wielu osób świeckich, ze środowiska kurialnego, ze strony wikariatu Diecezji Rzymskiej oraz spoza tych środowisk.

Jakże nie ogarnąć wdzięczną pamięcią wszystkich na świecie Episkopatów, z którymi spotykałem się w rytmie odwiedzin «ad limina Apostolorum»? Jakże nie pamiętać tylu Braci chrześcijan – nie katolików? A rabina Rzymu? i tylu innych przedstawicieli religii pozachrześcijańskich? A ilu przedstawicieli świata kultury, nauki, polityki, środków przekazu?

And how can any thinking Christian imagine that this helps the Jews?
This only helps lead them to Hell.
When any person is, objectively, in a state of mortal sin,
Being "supportive" of them, encouraging by word and deed and what is left undone,
the person to remain in that state, this is not love but love's opposite.
It is the worst thing one can do to the person in that state of mortal sin.
It is an abomination.

Embrace Muslim (mass immigration) into the constituent countries of Christendom?!

Support, not Muslim conversions to Christianity, but Muslims being "joyfully grounded in their own identity"?!

"[a]uthentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence."

Could any Christian leader possibly be more ill-informed and ignorant on this critical issue?

Informed people know that the popes do not actually write these documents. Like the professor in the laboratory with a dozen post-docs, these are joint efforts. But were these paragraphs written by a 25-year-old intern, right out of Brown University and a comparative religion class taught by an atheist Jew? Was it signed by the pope, thinking he was signing something else?

Violence against non-Muslims — violence against Christians, Holy Father, is the essence and epicenter of Islam. Time to actually read the Qur'an.

[Translation errors? Nope. Here are the German, Italian (original?) and the Polish, for example:

253. Um den Dialog mit dem Islam zu führen, ist eine entsprechende Bildung der Gesprächspartner unerlässlich, nicht nur damit sie fest und froh in ihrer eigenen Identität verwurzelt sind, sondern auch um fähig zu sein, die Werte der anderen anzuerkennen, die Sorgen zu verstehen, die ihren Forderungen zugrunde liegen, und die gemeinsamen Überzeugungen ans Licht zu bringen. Wir Christen müssten die islamischen Einwanderer, die in unsere Länder kommen, mit Zuneigung und Achtung aufnehmen, so wie wir hoffen und bitten, in den Ländern islamischer Tradition aufgenommen und geachtet zu werden. Bitte! Ich ersuche diese Länder demütig darum, in Anbetracht der Freiheit, welche die Angehörigen des Islam in den westlichen Ländern genießen, den Christen Freiheit zu gewährleisten, damit sie ihren Gottesdienst feiern und ihren Glauben leben können. Angesichts der Zwischenfälle eines gewalttätigen Fundamentalismus muss die Zuneigung zu den authentischen Anhängern des Islam uns dazu führen, gehässige Verallgemeinerungen zu vermeiden, denn der wahre Islam und eine angemessene Interpretation des Korans stehen jeder Gewalt entgegen.

253. Per sostenere il dialogo con l’Islam è indispensabile la formazione adeguata degli interlocutori, non solo perché siano solidamente e gioiosamente radicati nella loro identità, ma perché siano capaci di riconoscere i valori degli altri, di comprendere le preoccupazioni soggiacenti alle loro richieste e di fare emergere le convinzioni comuni. Noi cristiani dovremmo accogliere con affetto e rispetto gli immigrati dell’Islam che arrivano nei nostri Paesi, così come speriamo e preghiamo di essere accolti e rispettati nei Paesi di tradizione islamica. Prego, imploro umilmente tali Paesi affinché assicurino libertà ai cristiani affinché possano celebrare il loro culto e vivere la loro fede, tenendo conto della libertà che i credenti dell’Islam godono nei paesi occidentali! Di fronte ad episodi di fondamentalismo violento che ci preoccupano, l’affetto verso gli autentici credenti dell’Islam deve portarci ad evitare odiose generalizzazioni, perché il vero Islam e un’adeguata interpretazione del Corano si oppongono ad ogni violenza.

253. Dla podtrzymania dialogu z islamem konieczna jest odpowiednia formacja rozmówców, nie tylko, aby byli solidnie i radośnie zakorzenieni w swojej tożsamości, ale także, aby byli zdolni uznać wartości innych, zrozumieć obawy leżące u podstaw ich żądań i sprawić, by ujawniły się wspólne przekonania. My, chrześcijanie, powinniśmy przyjąć serdecznie i z szacunkiem islamskich migrantów przybywających do naszych krajów, podobnie jak mamy nadzieję i prosimy, byśmy byli przyjmowani z szacunkiem w krajach o tradycji islamskiej. Proszę, pokornie błagam te kraje, aby zapewniły wolność chrześcijanom, by mogli sprawować swój kult i żyć swoją wiarą, uwzględniając wolność, jaką wyznawcy islamu cieszą się w krajach zachodnich! Wobec niepokojących nas epizodów naznaczonego przemocą fundamentalizmu, serdeczne uczucie wobec autentycznych muzułmanów powinno nas prowadzić do unikania wrogich uogólnień, ponieważ prawdziwy islam i poprawna interpretacja Koranu sprzeciwiają się wszelkiej przemocy.]

And faithful Catholics should be reproaching themselves, not the popes, for questioning whether such men are suddenly going to wax infallible when speaking ex cathedra on questions of faith and morals?

"The Papal Magisterium can rise to the level of infallibility only on matters of faith and morals..." -Bishop Robert C. Morlino-

There are too many of these. Reader, do your own research on this. Forget finding Truth with George Weigel and EWTN. This is not a question of mischaracterization by the "liberal media," though they, and "the worldly" certainly love Pope Francis.

The jury is no longer out. This is a terrible pope.

And Karol Józef Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, inflicted the Church with this man.

• Tolerance of Adultery;
• A mish mush softening on the Church's teaching on Mortal Sin;
• Opening the way to desecration of the Holy Eucharist;
• Distorted overemphasis on the importance and priority of individual conscience;
• Overbroad pastoral discretion for individual clergymen;
• Attempt at denying the Church's undeniable teaching regarding eternal consequences for unrepented of and unabsolved mortal sin.

Casting careless, erroneous, and foolhardy doubt on nearly 2000 years of invariable orthodox-catholic Orthodox Catholic Church teaching,
on a major point of the Faith, regarding the meaning of Matthew Chapter 11 and the Faithfulness to Christ Jesus of John the Baptist,
Pope Francis again does all he can to injure the one and only true Faith and the Christians who are true to that Faith.
(Neither when awaiting death in prison nor at any other point in his life did John the Baptist doubt in Jesus.
Matthew 11 is about John the Baptist wanting to both strengthen the faith of his own followers in Jesus
by having them hear the words directly from Jesus and, so to speak, to transfer these followers to Jesus,
so the Fathers of the Church have taught down through the centuries, and so was unmistakably foreshadowed in Luke 1:11-17 and in Luke 1:41.)

"The great can afford to doubt, and this is beautiful. They are certain of their vocation but each time the Lord makes them see a new street of the journey, they enter into doubt. ‘But this is not orthodox, this is heretical, this is not the Messiah I expected.’ The devil does this work, and some friend also helps, no? This is the greatness of John, a great one, the last of that band of believers that began with Abraham, that one that preaches conversion, that one that does not use half-words to condemn the proud, that one that at the end of his life is allowed to doubt. And this is a good program of Christian life.

"Let us ask from John the grace of apostolic courage to always say things with truth, from pastoral love, to receive the people with the little that they can give, the first step. God will do the rest. And also the grace of doubting. Often times, maybe at the end of life, one can ask, “But is all that I believed true or are they fantasies?” the temptation against the faith, against the Lord. May the great John, who is the least in the kingdom of Heaven, and for this reason is great, help us along this path in the footsteps of the Lord.”

And who inflicted this weak and confused prelate on the Church, on the Icon of the Holy Trinity, the Body of Christ, the Perpetual Pentecost?

Elevated to the Episcopacy on 30 March 2003 by command of Pope John Paul II.

Elevated to the Cardinalate 18 February 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, though to be fair, by this point out of which pool of holy bishops could Benedict have chosen?!?

And there is another point of the first moment which must be raised and thoroughly internalized by Catholics.

The Doctrines of

• the Immaculate Conception, as set forth in Ineffabilis Deus (1854) ;
• and of Papal Infallibility, as set forth in Pastor Aeternus (1870) (and reaffirmed in Lumen Gentium (1964) and many other places)

from the second half of the Nineteenth Century, from the pontificate of Pope Pius IX, have come to lie near the epicenter of Catholic religious identity.

Lourdes is not simply about the Blessed Virgin, the Theotokos, the Queen of Heaven, but about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. How many parish Churches and schools are named after the Immaculate Conception?

The Dogma of Papal Infallibility is the most serious and greatest obstacle to the re-unification of the Orthodox-Catholic Church, but for present purposes let us consider this doctrine only with respect to its impact on the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Pope Pius IX, that is, Papal Infallibility makes the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception an announced component of the Dogma of the Church, of the content of the faith. This Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not just left to the realm of theological opinion — of theologumen — as it should have been, to be accepted by the faithful individual if useful to him or her. Rather, it was made part of the Dogma of the Church. All faithful had to believe it, have to believe it, or they are not faithful, are not Catholic. Elsewhere the Catholic Church has defined, also ex cathedra, that if one is not Catholic, one is not saved, one is outside of and has culpably rejected God's free gift of salvation.

For the avoidance of doubt on this point, we reproduce as immediately follows the text of the Definition itself from Ineffabilis Deus:

THE DEFINITION

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

[Declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus doctrinam quae tenet beatissimam Virginem Mariam in primo instanti suae conceptionis fuisse singulari Omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis, ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam, atque idcirco ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam.]

Hence, if anyone shall dare -- which God forbid! -- to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

But how is one, how can the faithful orthodox-catholic Christian possibly reconcile the two strands, that of the necessity of embracing wholeheartedly a Dogma on a detail of theology in fact even understood by only a tiny minority of the faithful — original sin and its consequences and how Mary was kept free from this stain — on the one hand, and on the other hand the seeming un-necessity of embracing the most fundamental Christian beliefs of the Trinity and the Incarnation, flowing from Nostra Aetate and its theological progeny and antecedents?

One is, you are, outside of the Church and Grace and Salvation and Heaven if you reject, if you just fail to embrace, a questionable, highly intellectualized point of high theology concerning Original Sin and the relationship (that is, the non-relationship) of the Blessed Theotokos, the Mother of God, to Original Sin, but one is, you are, not outside of Grace and Salvation and Heaven if you reject God?

— it bears repeating here and often, that the Big "O" Orthodox doctrine is that Mary – Παναγία – Панагия – Panagia – All Holy – higher and holier than all the saints never sinned. The faithful Orthodox-Catholic Christian, cognizant of her/his own hourly sins, might do well to reflect on this often. Indeed, could one fill an entire lifetime in gaping jaw wonder at this most singular of achievements? Now reflect also, is it with the same wonder that one reflects on Mary having never sinnned when she — most unlike all the rest of created humanity — was exempted by God from the moment of her conception from concupiscence and all tendency toward any sin? —

For the avoidance of any doubt, the present writer is neither expressing nor meaning to encourage any doubt regarding the validity of the content of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. These comments go to (i) the wisdom of any pope defining as Dogma this or any doctrine outside of an Ecumenical Council and (ii) the seeming utter incongruity between, on the one hand defining as Dogma that every Christian must, with an open and willing acceptance, embrace this Marian Dogma touching on a complicated point of high theology or that person is, in effect, separated from the Church and the True Faith; not a Christian at all; and condemned to Hell, and on the other hand and by the starkest imaginable contrast, entering into the corpus of Catholic Church teaching documents and pronouncements in the vein of Nostra Aetate and many subsequent papal statements and actions which, though never actually so stating, were so obviously designed to deliberately create in the minds of listeners and readers and observers the impression that, well maybe, belief in, acceptance of Christ Jesus Himself as Lord, Savior and God is optional.

Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 841: "The Church's relationship with the Muslims. 'The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.'"

"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind." - from Lumen Gentium.

Can these seeming incongruities be explained away by Catholic canon lawyers to Orthodox canon lawyers? And why pin all this on John Paul II when, for example, Lumen Gentium was promulgated after a vote of 2151 bishops to 5 dissenters?

Of course they can be explained away by such lawyers or by anyone likely to be reading the present paragraphs or by the writer of the present paragraphs. Luckily they are sufficiently vague they do not actually mean much. "But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans ..." Of course that is the case. The plan of salvation includes the Muslims: that they should and must accept and follow Christ as the Messiah of God, the Second Person of the Holy and Eternal Trinity, the only begotten Son of God and therefore also that they, the Muslims abandon the patently erroneous notion that Muhammad is a man of God, much less His supreme, final and definitive prophet. A companion statement might be made about the Jews. And as for John Paul II's responsibility, if there is a divorce, some dicotomy between the Second Vatican Council decisions, the documents and decrees, and their later interpretation and implementation, then who bears the chief responsibility for the latter?

From 1854 to 1964, this is the same Church?

What intervened?

• The August 1914 to May 1945 Civil War of European Christendom?
• Shoah-Holocaust assumed guilt?
• Americanism?
• A cabal of the American Central Intelligence Agency, the Jew lobby, including, without limitation, the Jewish French historian, Jules Isaac (1877–1963), John Courtney Murray, SJ (1904–1967) and Augustin Cardina Bea, SJ (1881–1968) and the deliberate confusion-sowing, faith-undermining "compromise formulas" they managed to get worked into Nostra Aetate and other Vatican II documents?

Yes of course it was all of the above, but perhaps at a deeper level the problem is found in the divisions within, the absence of the actually unity of the Orthodox-Catholic Church?