Re: We won’t bother if after death we discover God exists—Atheists

by Jonathan Ekene  Ifeanyi

Atheist teen girl holding a banner

We won’t bother if after death we discover God exists—Atheists, was the title of an interview published by Punch newspaper on September 16, 2018. I saw the headline on the day it was published but didn’t have the time to read the entire interview until days later. When I eventually did, I was able to recognise someone I know among the “Nigerian atheists” who were interviewed by Punch—and that was their very master himself, Mr Leo Igwe. (Their pictures were featured in the newspaper). I wrote this response then but later forgot about publishing it! I just remembered it yesterday (December 15)!

Leo Igwe is the Chairman of Humanists Association of Nigeria. He is now a Doctor (PhD), and a “scholar of religion”. I met Igwe for the first time at the University of Ibadan sometime in 2010 during one of their conferences which was held at the Large Lecture Theatre of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan. I had heard of the lecture on the very day it was held and indeed hurried eagerly to attend because I had some serious questions to ask the atheists. But by the time I got to the venue the programme was already about to end and, apart from that, I was totally disappointed by the time I heard the speakers. Put simply, there was nothing like any philosophical discussion there; rather, Igwe and his colleagues were just talking about sex—just about freedom to have sex since there is no God to impose punishment, and things like that—so I totally got disappointed but kept calm until they rounded up. I later met Igwe personally after the programme but felt no need of questioning him. We even took a group picture after the programme!  

In his current interview with The Punch, Igwe vomited similar trashes I heard him vomiting on that day at the university in 2010, the only difference being that he didn't talk about freedom to have sex this time around. In fact, in this article I won’t be countering Igwe except on one point. I tried making sense of all he said but could only extract two paragraphs. Here, only one of his colleagues seems to deserve our attention. The Punch reporters Gbenga Adeniji and Williams Babalola interviewed four of the Nigerian atheists—Alfred Ayodele, Isaiah Akorita, Daniel Nnaji and Leo Igwe. Among the four, only Ayodele captured my attention. Let’s hear from him then.

On why he does not believe in God, Ayodele said:

“Although I was a born-again Christian in the Assemblies of God, a time came that I questioned some of the beliefs in Christianity. For example, when I prayed to God and I didn’t receive answers, my pastor would tell me to exercise patience that God would answer my prayers when it was the right time. At the time, I discovered that given enough time, most of the things I didn’t pray for but wished and worked for came to pass. Then I questioned what was the difference between a God that does not exist, and that who ‘answers’ prayer at the right time when in reality you could get whatever you need if you work hard and are given enough time irrespective of whether or not you pray. That meant logically that I could still get what I wanted irrespective of my praying to God, believing or not believing in Him. So, gradually, I started questioning everything.”

My response: Ayodele is here manifesting his profound ignorance of the very ways of God. He simply doesn’t know the reason why man ought to pray to God. For him, we—our massive sins notwithstanding—ought to pray to God only if God will be ready to solve our problems. But the Bible flatly counters him. We see Christ’s teaching on how a Christian should live in this world in the Gospel according to St Matthew:

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? ...Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble”. (6: 25; 31-34).

When Ayodele was in the Assemblies of God did he seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness? The answer is evidently NO. In fact, even if he had sought it, he simply wouldn’t have found it there because he was worshipping in a wrong place. So, as we can see, the fault was both his and the false place of worship where he belonged. Pentecostal “churches” like the Assemblies of God delude their followers with the doctrine of “prosperity gospel”, which teaches that once any Christian accepts Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour all his problems vanish. This is simply erroneous. The Bible, in fact, says quite the opposite, namely that to accept Christ as Lord and Saviour is not to have all your problems solved but in fact to face problems in this world, to face persecution—TO SUFFER.  As Our Lord puts it:

“Whoever wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels”. (Mark 8:31-38).

Again we read, in St Luke’s Gospel:

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his father and his mother, and his wife, and his children, and his brother, and his sister, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who cannot carry his cross and follow Me, cannot be my disciple”. (Luke 14: 26-27).

Christianity of riches? When a certain rich man came to Jesus asking what he should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus did not waste time telling him to sell all he had, become poor, and follow him. And the man, as the Bible puts it, “became very sorrowful, for he was very rich”. Then Christ warned his disciples:  

“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”. (Mark 18:18-25).

I have often warned my friends that anyone who wishes to hear the true teaching of the Bible—like the verses I’ve just quoted—MUST come to the Catholic Church which remains the only Church established here on earth by Jesus Christ. But in today’s Nigeria sounding such a warning—especially to the Yorubas whose idea of “Christianity” is not only radical Protestantism/Pentecostalism but also their own invented, indigenous, “Christianity”—sounds crazy. As I have already pointed out, Ayodele’s “Assemblies of God” is simply not Christianity.

The cross, which the Lord talks about in the above passage, is a symbol of our redemption—a redemption which comes through suffering, a suffering which the Master Himself first endured. The way of this cross, Jesus tells us, is the very way that leads to eternal life. In fact, from the biblical point of view, anyone who claims to have accepted the Christian Faith, while rejecting this cross, cannot be saved. Thus when Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that He would suffer many things, Jesus did not waste time to call him Satan. (C.f. Mark 8:33).

When Ayodele was praying for God’s blessings—as his criminal pastors taught him to do—but wasn’t getting any positive answer, it wasn't because God wasn’t seeing him, no. It was rather because he was praying wrongly and God simply doesn’t answer such a prayer. God was taking him to this narrow path of suffering—which indeed every true Christian must pass through—but Ayodele was busy following his criminal pastors with their promise of earthly paradise—“pastors” whose God, according to St. Paul, “is their belly”! As St Paul puts it—speaking about these fake pastors even in the first century:

“Be ye followers of me, brethren, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things. But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3: 17-20).

In other words, true Christians must always look up to heaven, where “our conversation is…”, says St Paul. They must have nothing to do with the enemies of the cross of Christ, (like today’s fake pastors) “whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame…” (See my internet article:  NIGERIAN “PASTORS” AND THEIR PROSPERITY “GOSPEL” where I treated this issue in detail).

                                                                                                  

Again, Ayodele added, according to The Punch, that in the past, before the advent of social media, people thought perhaps he was mentally challenged for saying there was no God. He said:

“They often supported themselves with Psalm 14:1. However, my immediate family joked about it saying, “It is because of too much science knowledge.” But that is all different now because many Africans learnt through social media that there is something called atheism. Most people that discovered that I am an atheist always want to ask me more questions and they often get bewildered to discover that atheists are many in Nigeria.

“There is nothing like ‘convince’ because atheism is not like religion where you preach. You don’t convince someone. You only show people how to reason and question things. There is no dogma, creed or rule. And again, you have to understand that atheism is not a belief. It is a lack of belief in any deity. If you don’t play any sport, nobody will describe your lack of sport as a sport in itself! My two siblings are now atheists too because they found out themselves that religion has no true answers to life’s questions.

“Even though I am an atheist, I show understanding when talking to believers about the non-existence of God. Since I was once a believer like them, I truly understand how they feel. Religion has a very strong effect on its followers especially in this part of the world where science knowledge is very low among the population, and people link astronomical and other physical events to the existence of a deity. Most times I ask my believer-friends that we debate our points so that we could both learn from one another.”

Before I respond, let me quickly include here Igwe’s comments I earlier referred to. Igwe, the very boss of all Nigerian atheists, said:

“In fact, it is utterly disingenuous to think that the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being could be proven. Who does that and how? Who does that and from where? How does a finite being demonstrate the existence of an infinite all-encompassing being distinct from and in itself? I don’t know how the religious minds came about such idea that the existence of God, the totality of beings, could be proven. It is a clear demonstration of poverty in thinking and reasoning.

                      

“All arguments to demonstrate the existence of god are exercises in futility and a reductio ad absurdum of the God idea. There is no power outside the omnipotent, no knowledge besides the all-knowing, no place outside the omnipresent, no being outside the totality of being. So God’s existence is fundamentally disproven. It does not need an atheist to declare this. God is an imaginary idea, the creation of the human mind. The God of religion is inexistable; that is why God is designated as invisible, unknowable and inscrutable. These are labels to give it a semblance of existence.”

My response: Igwe’s argument above—about a finite being proving the existence of an infinite being—sounds like one of my old articles totally twisted! Here is what I wrote, in my 2009 article  RELIGION: AN OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE? An Enquiry (published in Students' Voice magazine):

“God is the primary object of every religion. Put simply, He is outside human language and knowledge. In other words, man, being a finite being, can never fully know God as He completely is since He is an Infinite Being. Or how can a finite know the very nature of the Infinite? To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature since God is man’s happiness. For man naturally desires happiness and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him.” Hey Mr Igwe! I will be right back.

Igwe

Now back to you Mr Ayodele. Not to believe in God is because of “too much science”? No! Quite the opposite—just lack of basic scientific knowledge! Before the intellect rises to the formation of scientific or philosophic judgments it has certain natural, spontaneous insights into the nature of man and the structure of reality, a kind of reflection of the native evidence of things in the mirror of the intellect. Among these insights is the knowledge of the existence of a Supreme Being upon whom the world is dependent. But the problem arises when the intellect is clouded by prejudice or a false teaching—which unfortunately is what we usually see in all the atheists.  

Ayodele says people thought he was mentally challenged simply because he doesn’t believe in God. Yet, in his poverty of thought, he doesn't know why they think so. Of course, people think so because—as St. Augustine would put it—the whole world is simply convinced that God exists—which is just a fact. As St. Thomas Aquinas puts it, “There is a certain general and confused knowledge of God in all men. ...because by his natural reason man is able at once to arrive at some knowledge of God”. The findings of modern anthropology confirm this observation. No matter how remote in time or how primitive in culture, it is just impossible to find a tribe or a nation which has not believed in the existence of some kind of a god, however vague or twisted their idea might be. As Otto Karrer rightly puts it in Religions of Mankind, “There is a ‘consensus generis humani,’ an agreement of mankind so far as our present knowledge extends, in the belief that there exists an absolute and Supreme Being above ourselves which has ordered the universe and human life in particular. ...History knows of no people godless and devoid of religion, though here and there particular groups, schools of thought or governments may combat religion.”

Aquinas

The knowledge of God’s existence—this universal conviction of mankind about God’s existence—is not something that anybody out there ever taught us. No. It’s rather an inborn knowledge—something that is natural in every man or woman. To tell an ordinary man on the street that God doesn’t exist will sound as senseless to him as telling him that his father or mother never existed. Sure, he hasn’t seen God with his physical eyes, yet he believes he exists—just as he wasn’t yet conscious when his mother gave birth to him, but yet believes—as an adult—that she is his mother. In other words, the knowledge of God is just natural in all men—God is naturally known to all mankind. It’s therefore quite stupid to say “Prove to me that God exists”.

The philosopher St. Anselm, working in the tradition of Plato and St. Augustine, holds that our knowledge is intuitive in character, derived from flashes of the eternal, unchanging types which are reflected in our souls. To know means to scan with the eye of the mind this inner sky of intelligible reality. When you do that, when you sincerely do this scanning, you will see God.

Igwe’s comments above are just the usual ranting we've heard over and over again, and atheists have no argument to make except to continue repeating this ranting monotonously. To join Igwe in attempting to “prove” or “disprove” the existence of his materially conceived god is indeed nonsensical since God—the true God—is purely an Immaterial Being, whose existence, as already stated, is naturally known to all men. We are all conscious of that and this is the very reason why even the atheists are always preoccupied with the issues of God—always talking about God! As the notorious modernist, Prof. Karl Rahner would put it in his so-called theory of “anonymous Christian”, by talking about God always the atheist is only encountering Him! (But note that Rahner’s belief that non-Catholics, including atheists, have the “grace of God”, an error which today is still being championed by Vatican II modernists, is simply heretical).

Ayodele says: “There is nothing to show that God is in existence, we only claim God’s existence through faith. That we do not understand how the universe came to be is not enough reason we should fill the vacuum with faith. Faith is the opposite of knowledge. When you have proof of something, then you have the knowledge and faith disappears. To show that God created something, you will need to prove it logically, not with faith. Faith does not show anything; it only claims.

“When you see something in the universe, you don’t automatically link it to a deity out of faith, you research it. We all learnt from the Bible that God created the stars on the fourth day and then rested on the seventh day. But Hubble Space Telescope and other orbiting telescopes have been beaming pictures of stars being freshly formed across the universe to earth stations on daily basis. So where do you place that?

“The universe is still forming. Hundreds of stars die while hundreds are born every day. The universe is not fixed but expanding contrary to Bible claim. Therefore, until religion comes up with logical proof about its claim of God’s existence, I will remain an unbeliever.”

My response:  “Faith” is belief without evidence. Christians don’t present evidence for God.” These are simply the two well-known atheists’ dogmas. Christians say our belief is backed by evidence, which atheists often rebut by denying that evidence—they say it’s not evidence after all—which leads to some serious questions. When atheists claim that faith is belief without evidence, do they ever present any evidence for making that claim? If they do, is it evidence that meets the level of proof they require Christians to present before they will count our evidence as truly “evidence”?

For it’s common for the atheist not to allow theistic evidence as “evidence” unless it meets a level approaching absolute proof. Of course, this violates the usual definition of evidence, and indeed a whole lot of epistemology. More to the point here, it’s a standard they don’t live up to themselves when they say that faith is belief without evidence; because the evidence they offer for that claim is nowhere near that conclusive. Thus in those terms, their charge is self-refuting. They cannot call Christian faith “belief without evidence” without defining evidence virtually as equivalent to proof; but if that’s how they think the evidence is defined, then on their own definition, they have “no evidence” for their charge. Does that mean, then, that they believe it on “faith”?!

Indeed, atheism has nothing to do with sound reasoning or seeking the truth.  It’s just all about lies which of course is very characteristic of the devil himself. 

For instance, many atheists claim that religion generally was invented just to fool man—Lenin called it “An opium of the people”. But if you venture to ask the question, “Who invented it?” you hear unimaginable stories!

Ayodele cautions that we must not base everything on faith; that we should rather do “research”. Fine. Now when we really do research (though if only Ayodele knows what faith means; if only he knows that without faith no one, not even the atheist, can research anything!); if we research the origin of religion, for instance, we surprisingly discover that religion is just as old as man on earth—whereas atheism that questions religion, historically speaking, is not even up to five hundred years old! (See my article: Descartes and the roots of modern atheism).

Again, if we research the origin of Christianity, we surprisingly discover that it’s just as written in the Bible. We surprisingly discover that Christ, the founder, actually walked physically on this earth about two thousand years ago. We discover that, just as written in the Bible, He performed wonderful miracles—including raising the dead to life. We discover that eventually this Christ—in accordance with prophecy—was crucified by sinful men. He died. He was buried but he resurrected three days later. Afterwards, He was seen by many physically ascending into heaven. These are historical facts on which the belief of Christians is based. But, for no justifiable reason, the atheists TOTALLY reject these facts. Yet, they are the great “researchers” while we Christians are just being deluded by faith; and they have “evidence” to support their belief that “faith is belief without evidence”!

Ayodele is also guilty of limiting faith within the religious circle, which is just a misunderstanding of the concept. Put simply, no man or woman does not have faith. But there are different kinds of faiths—Christian Faith, Islamic Faith, Atheists’ Faith, and so on! When St. Paul writes that “faith ...is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8), he is peculiarly referring to the Christian faith, not just any kind of faith. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus offers many definitions of faith, one of which is a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”. From the Christian perspective, that is just a wrong definition of faith—but indeed an appropriate definition for the kind of faith many non-Christians have. For instance, when a Muslim suicide bomber decides to kill himself just to ensure that he kills other “infidels” why does he do that? Because he believes that seven virgins are specially preserved for him in paradise. That’s faith—not a Christian faith but an Islamic faith. He has no “proof” that seven virgins are actually waiting for him in paradise, yet he believes! Similarly, when Ayodele stated that “I could still get what I wanted irrespective of my praying to God, believing or not believing in Him”, that’s a manifestation of faith—not a Christian faith but an atheist’s faith. Now how does Ayodele know that he can always get what he wants? What “proof” does he have? Of course, he has none, yet he believes! He is just convinced that any time, whether he prays to God or not, he will always get what he wants. Again, in Nigeria currently, politicians are boasting of how they will win next year’s presidential election even though they have no “proof” that they will actually live up to 2019. Why? Because they have faith—not a Christian faith but the faith of politicians.

Now Christian Faith, quite contrary to Ayodele’s erroneous assertion, is not the opposite of knowledge but a faith solidly based on knowledge. The New Testament (Letter to the Hebrews 11:1) defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” NOTE: One can actually prove the existence of something he cannot see. For instance, my university certificate was not given to me on the very day I graduated from the university. By then I hadn't seen it at all, yet I believed it existed (or would soon start to exist) and could indeed prove it. (Not just me, everybody does this!). That is a faith based on knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of the fact that I had successfully passed through the process of getting a certificate and was indeed qualified to get it. I had the assurance that I would get it even though I hadn’t seen it. The various causes I studied successfully were the “proof” that the certificate existed (or would soon exist). Hence I knew it existed even though I hadn’t seen it. That’s a strong faith—a faith based solidly on knowledge, a reasonable faith. Christian Faith is just something similar. 

Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was guilty of prioritising faith even to the point that it becomes positively irrational, while English philosopher and physician and father of Liberalism John Locke,  emphasizes the reasonableness of faith to such an extent that a religious doctrine’s irrationality—conflict with itself or with known facts—is a sign that it is unsound. “Faith”, he writes in one of his works, “is a persuasion of our own minds, short of knowledge”. (A Third Letter on Toleration, quoted by M. Polanyi in Personal Knowledge, p. 266). These are the men who unfortunately have deluded Ayodele’s mind.

Kierkegaard

Locke

In his famous passage from Romans 1:20, St. Paul champions a natural theology against those pagans who would claim that, even on Christian grounds, their previous lack of access to the Christian God would absolve them from guilt for their non-belief.  St. Paul argues that in fact, anyone can attain to the truth of God's existence merely from using his or her reason to reflect on the natural world. Yet, in 1 Corinthians 1:23, he points out that Christian revelation is folly to the Gentiles (meaning Greeks). He points out that the world did not come to know God through wisdom; rather, God chose to reveal Himself fully to those of simple faith.

St. Paul

St. Augustine, quite contrary to Kierkegaard and Locke, defines faith as “assenting to reason”—what I like to call “cooperating with reason”. You’ve seen something which is true and your reasoning keeps telling you that this is indeed true. If you refuse to cooperate with that reasoning, it’s not because you’re a “great thinker” but because you have a bad will—because your mind is clouded with prejudice or prejudices. Why do I believe in Christ? Of course, it’s because I have indisputable evidence—namely the marvellous things He did, and my own personal encounters with Him even in this present life—which, to me, shows that He is indeed God. That’s the meaning of “assenting to reason”. To believe is "to think with assent" (credere assensione cogitare). It is an act of the intellect determined not by the reason, but by the will. 

Augustine

Augustine made a contribution to developing a thinking faith, a legacy which is still with us today. We see this in action in his sound teaching on the divine unity and his teaching on original sin. For Augustine, it is not a question of contemplation or action in this life, but both; not faith or works, but faith and works; or again, not faith or reason, but faith and reason.

Years before St. Augustine, both Plato and Aristotle had developed versions of natural theology by showing how religious beliefs emerge from rational reflections on concrete reality as such. An early form of religious apologetics—demonstrating the existence of the gods—can be found in Plato's Laws. Aristotle's Physics equally gave arguments demonstrating the existence of God—or the Unmoved Mover—as a timeless self-thinker from the evidence of motion in the world.

Plato and Aristotle

Again, Ayodele’s assertion about “Hubble Space Telescope and other orbiting telescopes” that “have been beaming pictures of stars being freshly formed across the universe to earth stations on daily basis”—which leads to his conclusion that “The universe is still forming. Hundreds of stars die while hundreds are born every day. The universe is not fixed but expanding contrary to Bible claim”—is just another massive illusion. Put simply, the way the universe is now is just the way it was on the very first day it was created by God. That’s why we see the sun, the moon and the stars appearing at their due season exactly the same way our forefathers who lived thousands of years ago saw them. What modern secular scientists do is just to speculate, but unfortunately after speculating they impose their assumption on the whole world as a “scientific fact”!

However, Hubble himself didn’t do exactly that—quite contrary to Ayodele’s assertion.

Who is Hubble and what is Hubble Space Telescope?  Hubble is the American astronomer who played a crucial role in establishing the field of extragalactic astronomy and is generally regarded as the leading observational cosmologist of the 20th century. His full names are Edwin Powell Hubble and he was born in Marshfield, United States, on November 20, 1889, and died in San Marino, California on September 28, 1953. 

Edwin Powell Hubble 

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

Hubble was the central figure in the establishment of extragalactic astronomy in the 1920s and '30s. Starting with Albert Einstein’s 1917 paper Kosmologische Betrachtungen zur Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorien (“Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory of Relativity”), a number of physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers had applied general relativity to the large-scale properties of the universe. The so-called redshift-distance relation established by Hubble and Humason was quickly meshed by various theoreticians with the general relativity-based theory of an “expanding universe”—an idea which is just a massive assumption. The result was that by the mid-1930s the redshift-distance relationship was generally interpreted as a velocity-distance relationship such that the “spectral shifts of the galaxies” were a consequence of their motions. But—interestingly—Hubble throughout his career resisted the definite identification of the redshifts as velocity shifts. Hubble hoped to shed light on this issue by investigating the numbers of extragalactic nebulae that lay at various distances in space. He conducted these studies in part with the distinguished mathematical physicist and chemist Richard C. Tolman. But, again, writing in the mid-1930s, Hubble and Tolman stressed the uncertainty of the observational data. They declined to choose publicly and unambiguously between a static and a non-static model of the universe. In fact, Hubble later argued that the evidence seemed to favour the concept of a stationary universe! But he did not definitely rule out an expanding universe. Ayodele should research well before pontificating!

If you say that the universe is expanding then we ask a simple question: Where is it expanding to? If the universe is moving then we in Africa (and indeed everybody in different parts of the world) simply can’t be here now. We all will be moving with it because we live within the universe. Just a crazy idea!

MacIntyre

And then, how come about those stars and galaxies up there? And the other heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon—too?  How did they come into being? If you ask atheists these questions you hear unimaginable stories. In short, the whole idea of this “Hubble Space Telescope” was inspired by the concept of Big Bang theory, a massive illusion which ascribes billions of years to the existence of the world. 

Scottish philosopher Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre once stated:
“About fundamental human reality, the natural sciences are and must be silent.” I have already shown the utter absurdity of the Big Bang in my article Evolution Compatible with the Bible?

In fact, there I demonstrated that Evolution, the Big Bang and such nonsense are not even results of natural sciences! I recommend a thorough reading of that article to Ayodele. On his belief that “The universe is not fixed but expanding contrary to Bible claim” I recommend The Illusion of Expanding Universe, an article by W. Jim Jastrzebski. 

Finally, on how he would react if, after death, he discovers God’s existence, Ayodele said:

“Both atheists and religious people face the same dilemma when asked this question. It is like asking a Christian what would happen if he dies and finds out that Christianity is not the way but Islam; or what a Muslim would do if he dies and discovers that Judaism is the only true religion. But to answer this question directly, I don’t play Pascal’s Wager. I would still not be bothered if I die and find out that the God of Christians is the right God. This is because I have studied the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and found only a single place where Satan actually took the life of someone and at the permission of God. Millions of people were killed in the Bible by God himself or under His instruction. We read in the Bible where God was said to have intentionally hardened King Pharaoh’s heart so that God could kill all the innocent firstborn of Egyptian families. This is barbaric and I wouldn’t want to be associated with a figure of such unstable behaviour. So, if I am to evaluate the personality of God and that of Satan as presented in the Bible, Satan is not responsible for any evil but God. And moreover, it is better to die for a good cause. If I could be good to everyone on earth and still find myself in Satan’s hell-fire because I didn't accept a man as my lord and saviour, then I will be glad to live in such lake of fire.”

My response: No, Ayodele, it is not as simple as you seem to think. If you die in your current state, you will without a doubt descend into an everlasting lake of fire, where you will burn for all eternity. It’s just as serious as that. No amount of accusation you bring against God can save you. Only a change of heart can.

Ayodele’s comparing of God to Satan also betrays his utter lack of basic theology. Yet, he has read the entire Bible—from Genesis to Revelation!

Put simply, all human beings and all the angels in heaven as well as demons in the underworld—including Satan himself—were created by God. As such, God has ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY over all these beings. He can choose to destroy anyone if He wishes, and if he does that it won’t be unjust because He created ALL and ALL belong to Him.  

That said, God is ABSOLUTELY RIGHTEOUS AND JUST. He has never been unjust and can never be unjust. His very nature is simply JUSTICE. Our very idea of justice comes from Him—without Him, in fact, Ayodele won’t know anything about justice.

On the accusations he brings against God, Ayodele just reminds me of Michael Hardman who once raised similar questions when I stated that every single killing of a human being in the Old Testament is perfectly justifiable.  The answers I provided—which is equally relevant to Ayodele’s current accusation—can be read in the article, Old Testament filled with violence just like the Koran?

Francis must resign for covering up McCarrick's homosexual scandal—Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

by Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi

Francis and McCarrick

When, two weeks ago, we were discussing Francis’ attack on the Church’s teaching on Death Penalty, I pointed out that John Paul II and Benedict XVI were equally guilty of the same attack, Jeff Cassman, FB friend, responded quickly asking me to be “precise”. When I asked how he meant he said: “...by precision I mean the understanding of words with exactness and accuracy. So when Benedict XVI says it is his opinion that "in some places and at some times, the death penalty is no longer necessary", he is not saying "the following is binding on all the faithful: the death penalty is no longer possible in any place or time.”

Then I responded: “Oh, you seem to think it doesn't matter if a pope or theologian expresses his "private opinion" on any matter (which though may sound heretical) provided he does not intend it to be binding on all the faithful? Sorry, that's a modern understanding, which is wrong. I refer you to Pope Honorius I who didn't even go as far as Benedict XVI and co – yet was condemned by the Church. As I wrote: "For example, 42 years after his death, Pope Honorius I was condemned by the Third Council of Constantinople (680 AD) for aiding and abetting heresy, precisely for supporting the doctrine of “one will in Christ”, and that condemnation was confirmed by Pope Leo II in 682, (who stated that Honorius “allowed the immaculate faith to be stained” by teaching not “in accord with apostolic tradition.”) and repeated by later popes. Note, however, that Pope Honorius wasn’t even a manifest heretic, yet he was anathematized. He wasn’t the originator of the heresy. The heretics were the Monothelites—Sergius and co—and Honorius was condemned together with them. And why? The anathema of the Third Council of Constantinople read, after mentioning the chief Monothelites, “and with them Honorius, who was Prelate of Rome, as having followed them in all things.” Furthermore, the Acts of the Thirteenth Session of the Council state, “And with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what we found written by him to [Patriarch] Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines.” The Sixteenth Session adds: “To Theodore of Pharan, the heretic, anathema! To Sergius, the heretic, anathema! To Cyrus, the heretic, anathema! To Honorius, the heretic, anathema! To Pyrrhus, the heretic, anathema!”

I continued: “Carefully note the words: "...because of what we found written by him to [Patriarch] Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines." Quite unlike Honorius, Benedict XVI and John Paul II—enforcers of Vatican II errors and deadly heresies—did more than merely "following someone's view"! (See, for instance, Benedict XVI’s heresies in The Teachings of Benedict XVI vs. the Teachings of Prior Popes).

While still trying to defend Benedict XVI, Jeff even referred me to “the Catechism” (I mean that famous documentation of the errors of John Paul The Great!)

Viganò

Why am I mentioning this here? Anyone who thinks that all we need now is just to remove Francis and his friends then things will become perfectly okay in the Church is simply deceiving himself. The scandals confronting the Church are deeper even than Francis' pit of scandals!

In the following “Testimony” of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò—a very good one indeed—he, however, like Jeff (and indeed all adherents of Vatican II), gives the impression that John Paul II and Benedict XVI were good popes. The “Testimony” is simply a fearless exposition of the impostor called “Pope” Francis—but the Archbishop messes it up by saying the following (among other things):

1. He refers to the same imposter as “Pope Francis”, ignoring (or just ignorant of?) Francis’ manifest heresies which already place him outside the Church.

2. He gives the impression that “Pope Francis” is going against Benedict XVI – obviously ignorant of (or just wilfully ignoring?) Benedict XVI’s statement months ago that “there is interior unity” between his pontificate and that of Francis, his “successor”. Recall that Benedict XVI had, in his letter presented by its recipient, Msgr Dario Edoardo Viganò, during a press conference presenting “The Theology of Pope Francis,” a series of 11 books written by 11 different authors and published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, held in Sala Marconi in the headquarters of Vatican Media, said:

“I applaud this initiative...It contradicts the foolish prejudice of those who see Pope Francis as someone who lacks a particular theological and philosophical formation, while I would have been solely a theorist of theology with little understanding of the concrete lives of today’s Christian.” Benedict XVI expressed his gratefulness to have received the set of 11 books edited by Roberto Repole, President of the Italian Theological Association, and added that these volumes “reasonably demonstrate that Pope Francis is a man with profound philosophical and theological formation and are helpful to see the interior continuity between the two pontificates, even with all the differences in style and temperament.”

Benedict XVI and Francis

3. He believes that John Paul II (“canonised” by a manifest heretic, and even by the same Francis who must now resign because of his current scandal!) is a saint! He writes:  “Let us heed the most powerful message that St. John Paul II left us as an inheritance: Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!”

4. He shamelessly quotes a female theologian, writing: “The homosexual networks present in the Church must be eradicated, as Janet Smith, Professor of Moral Theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, recently wrote.  “The problem of clergy abuse,” she wrote, “cannot be resolved simply by the resignation of some bishops, and even less so by bureaucratic directives. The deeper problem lies in homosexual networks within the clergy which must be eradicated.” ”

Good statement, of course. But unfortunately, in the Catholic Church we know, women are not to be teachers in the seminaries, or “catechists” as can be witnessed in many dioceses around the world today—something which they do now in the spirit of modern atheistic democracy which preaches "equality" with a vengeance! St. Paul is very clear about this in his Letters to Timothy and to the Corinthians, and for a bishop of the Holy Roman Catholic Church not to be aware of this—for him to quote a female “theologian” even with pride is indeed another terrible sign of the times we’re living in. Soon the likes of Archbishop Viganò will also protest against women ordination currently being championed by Francis, blind to the fact that it was this kind of madness—women “leaders” in the Church or women studying full-time in Catholic seminaries or women professors of theology, etc.—that gave rise to the scandal. The fact that women are now among those who form modern priests is also one of the reasons why we witness unimaginable scandals among the “clergy” in the world today. (Note: to say this is not to "marginalise" women but simply to say that it is not their natural role to play, just as, for instance, it isn't the natural role of men to be midwives). A dramatic increase has been reported in the number of women enrolled in seminary and divinity school programmes around the world (See: Women in Seminary). As the article here shows, “Many of these women are not content to be channeled into traditional roles but are studying along with men in disciplines leading to the Master of Divinity, Doctor of Ministry, or Doctor of Philosophy degrees. They are thus earning qualifications which lead directly into the field of church leadership”). Janet Smith, a Professor of Moral Theology just quoted by Archbishop Viganò, is just an example of those who have been successful. 

For St. Paul’s teaching on this subject, see my article: A “Feminized” Catholic Church?

Finally, the only thing I find praiseworthy in the “Testimony” is Archbishop Viganò's unambiguous call for Francis’ resignation. He thunders:

“I want to recall this indefectible truth of the Church’s holiness to the many people who have been so deeply scandalized by the abominable and sacrilegious behavior of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick; by the grave, disconcerting and sinful conduct of Pope Francis and by the conspiracy of silence of so many pastors, and who are tempted to abandon the Church, disfigured by so many ignominies. At the Angelus on Sunday, August 12, 2018 Pope Francis said these words: “Everyone is guilty for the good he could have done and did not do ... If we do not oppose evil, we tacitly feed it. We need to intervene where evil is spreading; for evil spreads where daring Christians who oppose evil with good are lacking.” If this is rightly to be considered a serious moral responsibility for every believer, how much graver is it for the Church’s supreme pastor, who in the case of McCarrick not only did not oppose evil but associated himself in doing evil with someone he knew to be deeply corrupt. He followed the advice of someone he knew well to be a pervert, thus multiplying exponentially with his supreme authority the evil done by McCarrick. And how many other evil pastors is Francis still continuing to prop up in their active destruction of the Church!

“Francis is abdicating the mandate which Christ gave to Peter to confirm the brethren. Indeed, by his action he has divided them, led them into error, and encouraged the wolves to continue to tear apart the sheep of Christ’s flock.

“In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”

The “Testimony”:

                                                                             TESTIMONY

by
His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò
Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana
Apostolic Nuncio

In this tragic moment for the Church in various parts of the world — the United States, Chile, Honduras, Australia, etc. — bishops have a very grave responsibility. I am thinking in particular of the United States of America, where I was sent as Apostolic Nuncio by Pope Benedict XVI on October 19, 2011, the memorial feast of the First North American Martyrs. The Bishops of the United States are called, and I with them, to follow the example of these first martyrs who brought the Gospel to the lands of America, to be credible witnesses of the immeasurable love of Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Bishops and priests, abusing their authority, have committed horrendous crimes to the detriment of their faithful, minors, innocent victims, and young men eager to offer their lives to the Church, or by their silence have not prevented that such crimes continue to be perpetrated.

To restore the beauty of holiness to the face of the Bride of Christ, which is terribly disfigured by so many abominable crimes, and if we truly want to free the Church from the fetid swamp into which she has fallen, we must have the courage to tear down the culture of secrecy and publicly confess the truths we have kept hidden. We must tear down the conspiracy of silence with which bishops and priests have protected themselves at the expense of their faithful, a conspiracy of silence that in the eyes of the world risks making the Church look like a sect, a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia. “Whatever you have said in the dark ... shall be proclaimed from the housetops” (Lk. 12:3).

I had always believed and hoped that the hierarchy of the Church could find within itself the spiritual resources and strength to tell the whole truth, to amend and to renew itself. That is why, even though I had repeatedly been asked to do so, I always avoided making statements to the media, even when it would have been my right to do so, in order to defend myself against the calumnies published about me, even by high-ranking prelates of the Roman Curia. But now that the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy, my conscience dictates that I reveal those truths regarding the heart-breaking case of the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., Theodore McCarrick, which I came to know in the course of the duties entrusted to me by St. John Paul II, as Delegate for Pontifical Representations, from 1998 to 2009, and by Pope Benedict XVI, as Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, from October 19, 2011 until end of May 2016.

As Delegate for Pontifical Representations in the Secretariat of State, my responsibilities were not limited to the Apostolic Nunciatures, but also included the staff of the Roman Curia (hires, promotions, informational processes on candidates to the episcopate, etc.) and the examination of delicate cases, including those regarding cardinals and bishops, that were entrusted to the Delegate by the Cardinal Secretary of State or by the Substitute of the Secretariat of State.

To dispel suspicions insinuated in several recent articles, I will immediately say that the Apostolic Nuncios in the United States, Gabriel Montalvo and Pietro Sambi, both prematurely deceased, did not fail to inform the Holy See immediately, as soon as they learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests. Indeed, according to what Nuncio Pietro Sambi wrote, Father Boniface Ramsey, O.P.’s letter, dated November 22, 2000, was written at the request of the late Nuncio Montalvo. In the letter, Father Ramsey, who had been a professor at the diocesan seminary in Newark from the end of the ’80s until 1996, affirms that there was a recurring rumor in the seminary that the Archbishop “shared his bed with seminarians,” inviting five at a time to spend the weekend with him at his beach house. And he added that he knew a certain number of seminarians, some of whom were later ordained priests for the Archdiocese of Newark, who had been invited to this beach house and had shared a bed with the Archbishop.

The office that I held at the time was not informed of any measure taken by the Holy See after those charges were brought by Nuncio Montalvo at the end of 2000, when Cardinal Angelo Sodano was Secretary of State.

Likewise, Nuncio Sambi transmitted to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, an Indictment Memorandum against McCarrick by the priest Gregory Littleton of the diocese of Charlotte, who was reduced to the lay state for a violation of minors, together with two documents from the same Littleton, in which he recounted his tragic story of sexual abuse by the then-Archbishop of Newark and several other priests and seminarians. The Nuncio added that Littleton had already forwarded his Memorandum to about twenty people, including civil and ecclesiastical judicial authorities, police and lawyers, in June 2006, and that it was therefore very likely that the news would soon be made public. He therefore called for a prompt intervention by the Holy See.

In writing up a memo[1] on these documents that were entrusted to me, as Delegate for Pontifical Representations, on December 6, 2006, I wrote to my superiors, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and the Substitute Leonardo Sandri, that the facts attributed to McCarrick by Littleton were of such gravity and vileness as to provoke bewilderment, a sense of disgust, deep sorrow and bitterness in the reader, and that they constituted the crimes of seducing, requesting depraved acts of seminarians and priests, repeatedly and simultaneously with several people, derision of a young seminarian who tried to resist the Archbishop’s seductions in the presence of two other priests, absolution of the accomplices in these depraved acts, sacrilegious celebration of the Eucharist with the same priests after committing such acts.

In my memo, which I delivered on that same December 6, 2006 to my direct superior, the Substitute Leonardo Sandri, I proposed the following considerations and course of action to my superiors:

• Given that it seemed a new scandal of particular gravity, as it regarded a cardinal, was going to be added to the many scandals for the Church in the United States,
•  and that, since this matter had to do with a cardinal, and according to can. 1405 § 1, No. 2˚, “ipsius Romani Pontificis dumtaxat ius est iudicandi”;
• I proposed that an exemplary measure be taken against the Cardinal that could have a medicinal function, to prevent future abuses against innocent victims and alleviate the very serious scandal for the faithful, who despite everything continued to love and believe in the Church.

I added that it would be salutary if, for once, ecclesiastical authority would intervene before the civil authorities and, if possible, before the scandal had broken out in the press. This could have restored some dignity to a Church so sorely tried and humiliated by so many abominable acts on the part of some pastors. If this were done, the civil authority would no longer have to judge a cardinal, but a pastor with whom the Church had already taken appropriate measures to prevent the cardinal from abusing his authority and continuing to destroy innocent victims.

My memo of December 6, 2006 was kept by my superiors, and was never returned to me with any actual decision by the superiors on this matter.

Subsequently, around April 21-23, 2008, the Statement for Pope Benedict XVI about the pattern of sexual abuse crisis in the United States, by Richard Sipe, was published on the internet, at richardsipe.com. On April 24, it was passed on by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, to the Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone. It was delivered to me one month later, on May 24, 2008.

The following day, I delivered a new memo to the new Substitute, Fernando Filoni, which included my previous one of December 6, 2006. In it, I summarized Richard Sipe’s document, which ended with this respectful and heartfelt appeal to Pope Benedict XVI: “I approach Your Holiness with due reverence, but with the same intensity that motivated Peter Damian to lay out before your predecessor, Pope Leo IX, a description of the condition of the clergy during his time. The problems he spoke of are similar and as great now in the United States as they were then in Rome. If Your Holiness requests, I will personally submit to you documentation of that about which I have spoken.”

I ended my memo by repeating to my superiors that I thought it was necessary to intervene as soon as possible by removing the cardinal’s hat from Cardinal McCarrick and that he should be subjected to the sanctions established by the Code of Canon Law, which also provide for reduction to the lay state.

This second memo of mine was also never returned to the Personnel Office, and I was greatly dismayed at my superiors for the inconceivable absence of any measure against the Cardinal, and for the continuing lack of any communication with me since my first memo in December 2006.

But finally I learned with certainty, through Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, then-Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, that Richard Sipe’s courageous and meritorious Statement had had the desired result. Pope Benedict had imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis: the Cardinal was to leave the seminary where he was living, he was forbidden to celebrate [Mass] in public, to participate in public meetings, to give lectures, to travel, with the obligation of dedicating himself to a life of prayer and penance.

I do not know when Pope Benedict took these measures against McCarrick, whether in 2009 or 2010, because in the meantime I had been transferred to the Governorate of Vatican City State, just as I do not know who was responsible for this incredible delay. I certainly do not believe it was Pope Benedict, who as Cardinal had repeatedly denounced the corruption present in the Church, and in the first months of his pontificate had already taken a firm stand against the admission into seminary of young men with deep homosexual tendencies. I believe it was due to the Pope’s first collaborator at the time, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who notoriously favored promoting homosexuals into positions of responsibility, and was accustomed to managing the information he thought appropriate to convey to the Pope.

In any case, what is certain is that Pope Benedict imposed the above canonical sanctions on McCarrick and that they were communicated to him by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Pietro Sambi. Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, then first Counsellor of the Nunciature in Washington and Chargé d'Affaires a.i. after the unexpected death of Nuncio Sambi in Baltimore, told me when I arrived in Washington — and he is ready to testify to it— about a stormy conversation, lasting over an hour, that Nuncio Sambi had with Cardinal McCarrick whom he had summoned to the Nunciature. Monsignor Lantheaume told me that “the Nuncio’s voice could be heard all the way out in the corridor.”

Pope Benedict’s same dispositions were then also communicated to me by the new Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, in November 2011, in a conversation before my departure for Washington, and were included among the instructions of the same Congregation to the new Nuncio.

In turn, I repeated them to Cardinal McCarrick at my first meeting with him at the Nunciature. The Cardinal, muttering in a barely comprehensible way, admitted that he had perhaps made the mistake of sleeping in the same bed with some seminarians at his beach house, but he said this as if it had no importance.

The faithful insistently wonder how it was possible for him to be appointed to Washington, and as Cardinal, and they have every right to know who knew, and who covered up his grave misdeeds. It is therefore my duty to reveal what I know about this, beginning with the Roman Curia.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano was Secretary of State until September 2006: all information was communicated to him. In November 2000, Nunzio Montalvo sent him his report, passing on to him the aforementioned letter from Father Boniface Ramsey in which he denounced the serious abuses committed by McCarrick. 

It is known that Sodano tried to cover up the Father Maciel scandal to the end. He even removed the Nuncio in Mexico City, Justo Mullor, who refused to be an accomplice in his scheme to cover Maciel, and in his place appointed Sandri, then-Nuncio to Venezuela, who was willing to collaborate in the cover-up. Sodano even went so far as to issue a statement to the Vatican press office in which a falsehood was affirmed, that is, that Pope Benedict had decided that the Maciel case should be considered closed. Benedict reacted, despite Sodano’s strenuous defense, and Maciel was found guilty and irrevocably condemned.

Was McCarrick’s appointment to Washington and as Cardinal the work of Sodano, when John Paul II was already very ill? We are not given to know. However, it is legitimate to think so, but I do not think he was the only one responsible for this. McCarrick frequently went to Rome and made friends everywhere, at all levels of the Curia. If Sodano had protected Maciel, as seems certain, there is no reason why he wouldn’t have done so for McCarrick, who according to many had the financial means to influence decisions. His nomination to Washington was opposed by then-Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. At the Nunciature in Washington there is a note, written in his hand, in which Cardinal Re disassociates himself from the appointment and states that McCarrick was 14th on the list for Washington.

Nuncio Sambi’s report, with all the attachments, was sent to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, as Secretary of State. My two above-mentioned memos of December 6, 2006 and May 25, 2008, were also presumably handed over to him by the Substitute. As already mentioned, the Cardinal had no difficulty in insistently presenting for the episcopate candidates known to be active homosexuals — I cite only the well-known case of Vincenzo de Mauro, who was appointed Archbishop-Bishop of Vigevano and later removed because he was undermining his seminarians — and in filtering and manipulating the information he conveyed to Pope Benedict.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the current Secretary of State, was also complicit in covering up the misdeeds of McCarrick who had, after the election of Pope Francis, boasted openly of his travels and missions to various continents. In April 2014, the Washington Times had a front page report on McCarrick’s trip to the Central African Republic, and on behalf of the State Department no less. As Nuncio to Washington, I wrote to Cardinal Parolin asking him if the sanctions imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict were still valid. Ça va sans dire that my letter never received any reply!

The same can be said for Cardinal William Levada, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for Cardinals Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Lorenzo Baldisseri, former Secretary of the same Congregation for Bishops, and Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari, current Secretary of the same Congregation. They were all aware by reason of their office of the sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict on McCarrick.

Cardinals Leonardo Sandri, Fernando Filoni and Angelo Becciu, as Substitutes of the Secretariat of State, knew in every detail the situation regarding Cardinal McCarrick.

Nor could Cardinals Giovanni Lajolo and Dominique Mamberti have failed to know. As Secretaries for Relations with States, they participated several times a week in collegial meetings with the Secretary of State.

As far as the Roman Curia is concerned, for the moment I will stop here, even if the names of other prelates in the Vatican are well known, even some very close to Pope Francis, such as Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who belong to the homosexual current in favor of subverting Catholic doctrine on homosexuality, a current already denounced in 1986 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Cardinals Edwin Frederick O’Brien and Renato Raffaele Martino also belong to the same current, albeit with a different ideology. Others belonging to this current even reside at the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Now to the United States. Obviously, the first to have been informed of the measures taken by Pope Benedict was McCarrick’s successor in Washington See, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, whose situation is now completely compromised by the recent revelations regarding his behavior as Bishop of Pittsburgh.

It is absolutely unthinkable that Nunzio Sambi, who was an extremely responsible person, loyal, direct and explicit in his way of being (a true son of Romagna) did not speak to him about it. In any case, I myself brought up the subject with Cardinal Wuerl on several occasions, and I certainly didn’t need to go into detail because it was immediately clear to me that he was fully aware of it. I also remember in particular the fact that I had to draw his attention to it, because I realized that in an archdiocesan publication, on the back cover in color, there was an announcement inviting young men who thought they had a vocation to the priesthood to a meeting with Cardinal McCarrick. I immediately phoned Cardinal Wuerl, who expressed his surprise to me, telling me that he knew nothing about that announcement and that he would cancel it. If, as he now continues to state, he knew nothing of the abuses committed by McCarrick and the measures taken by Pope Benedict, how can his answer be explained?

His recent statements that he knew nothing about it, even though at first he cunningly referred to compensation for the two victims, are absolutely laughable. The Cardinal lies shamelessly and prevails upon his Chancellor, Monsignor Antonicelli, to lie as well.

Cardinal Wuerl also clearly lied on another occasion. Following a morally unacceptable event authorized by the academic authorities of Georgetown University, I brought it to the attention of its President, Dr. John DeGioia, sending him two subsequent letters. Before forwarding them to the addressee, so as to handle things properly, I personally gave a copy of them to the Cardinal with an accompanying letter I had written. The Cardinal told me that he knew nothing about it. However, he failed to acknowledge receipt of my two letters, contrary to what he customarily did. I subsequently learned that the event at Georgetown had taken place for seven years. But the Cardinal knew nothing about it!

Cardinal Wuerl, well aware of the continuous abuses committed by Cardinal McCarrick and the sanctions imposed on him by Pope Benedict, transgressing the Pope’s order, also allowed him to reside at a seminary in Washington D.C. In doing so, he put other seminarians at risk.

Bishop Paul Bootkoski, emeritus of Metuchen, and Archbishop John Myers, emeritus of Newark, covered up the abuses committed by McCarrick in their respective dioceses and compensated two of his victims. They cannot deny it and they must be interrogated in order to reveal every circumstance and all responsibility regarding this matter.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was recently interviewed by the media, also said that he didn’t have the slightest idea about the abuses committed by McCarrick. Given his tenure in Washington, Dallas and now Rome, I think no one can honestly believe him. I don’t know if he was ever asked if he knew about Maciel’s crimes. If he were to deny this, would anybody believe him given that he occupied positions of responsibility as a member of the Legionaries of Christ?

Regarding Cardinal Sean O’Malley, I would simply say that his latest statements on the McCarrick case are disconcerting, and have totally obscured his transparency and credibility. 

* * *

My conscience requires me also to reveal facts that I have experienced personally, concerning Pope Francis, that have a dramatic significance, which as Bishop, sharing the collegial responsibility of all the bishops for the universal Church, do not allow me to remain silent, and that I state here, ready to reaffirm them under oath by calling on God as my witness.

In the last months of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI had convened a meeting of all the apostolic nuncios in Rome, as Paul VI and St. John Paul II had done on several occasions. The date set for the audience with the Pope was Friday, June 21, 2013. Pope Francis kept this commitment made by his predecessor. Of course I also came to Rome from Washington. It was my first meeting with the new Pope elected only three months prior, after the resignation of Pope Benedict.

On the morning of Thursday, June 20, 2013, I went to the Domus Sanctae Marthae, to join my colleagues who were staying there. As soon as I entered the hall I met Cardinal McCarrick, who wore the red-trimmed cassock. I greeted him respectfully as I had always done. He immediately said to me, in a tone somewhere between ambiguous and triumphant: “The Pope received me yesterday, tomorrow I am going to China.”

At the time I knew nothing of his long friendship with Cardinal Bergoglio and of the important part he had played in his recent election, as McCarrick himself would later reveal in a lecture at Villanova University and in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. Nor had I ever thought of the fact that he had participated in the preliminary meetings of the recent conclave, and of the role he had been able to have as a cardinal elector in the 2005 conclave. Therefore I did not immediately grasp the meaning of the encrypted message that McCarrick had communicated to me, but that would become clear to me in the days immediately following.

The next day the audience with Pope Francis took place. After his address, which was partly read and partly delivered off the cuff, the Pope wished to greet all the nuncios one by one. In single file, I remember that I was among the last. When it was my turn, I just had time to say to him, “I am the Nuncio to the United States.” He immediately assailed me with a tone of reproach, using these words: “The Bishops in the United States must not be ideologized! They must be shepherds!”Of course I was not in a position to ask for explanations about the meaning of his words and the aggressive way in which he had upbraided me. I had in my hand a book in Portuguese that Cardinal O’Malley had sent me for the Pope a few days earlier, telling me “so he could go over his Portuguese before going to Rio for World Youth Day.” I handed it to him immediately, and so freed myself from that extremely disconcerting and embarrassing situation.

At the end of the audience the Pope announced: “Those of you who are still in Rome next Sunday are invited to concelebrate with me at the Domus Sanctae Marthae.” I naturally thought of staying on to clarify as soon as possible what the Pope intended to tell me.

On Sunday June 23, before the concelebration with the Pope, I asked Monsignor Ricca, who as the person in charge of the house helped us put on the vestments, if he could ask the Pope if he could receive me sometime in the following week. How could I have returned to Washington without having clarified what the Pope wanted of me? At the end of Mass, while the Pope was greeting the few lay people present, Monsignor Fabian Pedacchio, his Argentine secretary, came to me and said: “The Pope told me to ask if you are free now!” Naturally, I replied that I was at the Pope’s disposal and that I thanked him for receiving me immediately. The Pope took me to the first floor in his apartment and said: “We have 40 minutes before the Angelus.”

I began the conversation, asking the Pope what he intended to say to me with the words he had addressed to me when I greeted him the previous Friday. And the Pope, in a very different, friendly, almost affectionate tone, said to me: “Yes, the Bishops in the United States must not be ideologized, they must not be right-wing like the Archbishop of Philadelphia, (the Pope did not give me the name of the Archbishop) they must be shepherds; and they must not be left-wing — and he added, raising both arms — and when I say left-wing I mean homosexual.” Of course, the logic of the correlation between being left-wing and being homosexual escaped me, but I added nothing else.

Immediately after, the Pope asked me in a deceitful way: “What is Cardinal McCarrick like?”  I answered him with complete frankness and, if you want, with great naiveté: “Holy Father, I don’t know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you ask the Congregation for Bishops there is a dossier this thick about him. He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.” The Pope did not make the slightest comment about those very grave words of mine and did not show any expression of surprise on his face, as if he had already known the matter for some time, and he immediately changed the subject. But then, what was the Pope’s purpose in asking me that question: “What is Cardinal McCarrick like?” He clearly wanted to find out if I was an ally of McCarrick or not.

Back in Washington everything became very clear to me, thanks also to a new event that occurred only a few days after my meeting with Pope Francis. When the new Bishop Mark Seitz took possession of the Diocese of El Paso on July 9, 2013, I sent the first Counsellor, Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, while I went to Dallas that same day for an international meeting on Bioethics. When he got back, Monsignor Lantheaume told me that in El Paso he had met Cardinal McCarrick who, taking him aside, told him almost the same words that the Pope had said to me in Rome: “the Bishops in the United States must not be ideologized, they must not be right-wing, they must be shepherds….” I was astounded! It was therefore clear that the words of reproach that Pope Francis had addressed to me on June 21, 2013 had been put into his mouth the day before by Cardinal McCarrick. Also the Pope’s mention “not like the Archbishop of Philadelphia” could be traced to McCarrick, because there had been a strong disagreement between the two of them about the admission to Communion of pro-abortion politicians. In his communication to the bishops, McCarrick had manipulated a letter of then-Cardinal Ratzinger who prohibited giving them Communion. Indeed, I also knew how certain Cardinals such as Mahony, Levada and Wuerl, were closely linked to McCarrick; they had opposed the most recent appointments made by Pope Benedict, for important posts such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Denver and San Francisco.

Not happy with the trap he had set for me on June 23, 2013, when he asked me about McCarrick, only a few months later, in the audience he granted me on October 10, 2013, Pope Francis set a second one for me, this time concerning a second of his protégés, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. He asked me: “What is Cardinal Wuerl like, is he good or bad?” I replied, “Holy Father, I will not tell you if he is good or bad, but I will tell you two facts.” They are the ones I have already mentioned above, which concern Wuerl’s pastoral carelessness regarding the aberrant deviations at Georgetown University and the invitation by the Archdiocese of Washington to young aspirants to the priesthood to a meeting with McCarrick! Once again the Pope did not show any reaction.

It was also clear that, from the time of Pope Francis’s election, McCarrick, now free from all constraints, had felt free to travel continuously, to give lectures and interviews. In a team effort with Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, he had become the kingmaker for appointments in the Curia and the United States, and the most listened to advisor in the Vatican for relations with the Obama administration. This is how one explains that, as members of the Congregation for Bishops, the Pope replaced Cardinal Burke with Wuerl and immediately appointed Cupich right after he was made a cardinal. With these appointments the Nunciature in Washington was now out of the picture in the appointment of bishops. In addition, he appointed the Brazilian Ilson de Jesus Montanari — the great friend of his private Argentine secretary Fabian Pedacchio — as Secretary of the same Congregation for Bishops and Secretary of the College of Cardinals, promoting him in one single leap from a simple official of that department to Archbishop Secretary. Something unprecedented for such an important position!

The appointments of Blase Cupich to Chicago and Joseph W. Tobin to Newark were orchestrated by McCarrick, Maradiaga and Wuerl, united by a wicked pact of abuses by the first, and at least of coverup of abuses by the other two. Their names were not among those presented by the Nunciature for Chicago and Newark.

Regarding Cupich, one cannot fail to note his ostentatious arrogance, and the insolence with which he denies the evidence that is now obvious to all: that 80% of the abuses found were committed against young adults by homosexuals who were in a relationship of authority over their victims.

During the speech he gave when he took possession of the Chicago See, at which I was present as a representative of the Pope, Cupich quipped that one certainly should not expect the new Archbishop to walk on water. Perhaps it would be enough for him to be able to remain with his feet on the ground and not try to turn reality upside-down, blinded by his pro-gay ideology, as he stated in a recent interview with America Magazine. Extolling his particular expertise in the matter, having been President of the Committee on Protection of Children and Young People of the USCCB, he asserted that the main problem in the crisis of sexual abuse by clergy is not homosexuality, and that affirming this is only a way of diverting attention from the real problem which is clericalism. In support of this thesis, Cupich “oddly” made reference to the results of research carried out at the height of the sexual abuse of minors crisis in the early 2000s, while he “candidly” ignored that the results of that investigation were totally denied by the subsequent Independent Reports by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004 and 2011, which concluded that, in cases of sexual abuse, 81% of the victims were male. In fact, Father Hans Zollner, S.J., Vice-Rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University, President of the Centre for Child Protection, and Member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, recently told the newspaper La Stampa that “in most cases it is a question of homosexual abuse.”

The appointment of McElroy in San Diego was also orchestrated from above, with an encrypted peremptory order to me as Nuncio, by Cardinal Parolin: “Reserve the See of San Diego for McElroy.” McElroy was also well aware of McCarrick’s abuses, as can be seen from a letter sent to him by Richard Sipe on July 28, 2016.

These characters are closely associated with individuals belonging in particular to the deviated wing of the Society of Jesus, unfortunately today a majority, which had already been a cause of serious concern to Paul VI and subsequent pontiffs. We need only consider Father Robert Drinan, S.J., who was elected four times to the House of Representatives, and was a staunch supporter of abortion; or Father Vincent O’Keefe, S.J., one of the principal promoters of The Land O’Lakes Statement of 1967, which seriously compromised the Catholic identity of universities and colleges in the United States. It should be noted that McCarrick, then President of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, also participated in that inauspicious undertaking which was so harmful to the formation of the consciences of American youth, closely associated as it was with the deviated wing of the Jesuits.

Father James Martin, S.J., acclaimed by the people mentioned above, in particular Cupich, Tobin, Farrell and McElroy, appointed Consultor of the Secretariat for Communications, well-known activist who promotes the LGBT agenda, chosen to corrupt the young people who will soon gather in Dublin for the World Meeting of Families, is nothing but a sad recent example of that deviated wing of the Society of Jesus.

Pope Francis has repeatedly asked for total transparency in the Church and for bishops and faithful to act with parrhesia. The faithful throughout the world also demand this of him in an exemplary manner.  He must honestly state when he first learned about the crimes committed by McCarrick, who abused his authority with seminarians and priests.

In any case, the Pope learned about it from me on June 23, 2013 and continued to cover for him. He did not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him and made him his trusted counselor along with Maradiaga.

The latter [Maradiaga] is so confident of the Pope’s protection that he can dismiss as “gossip” the heartfelt appeals of dozens of his seminarians, who found the courage to write to him after one of them tried to commit suicide over homosexual abuse in the seminary.

By now the faithful have well understood Maradiaga’s strategy: insult the victims to save himself, lie to the bitter end to cover up a chasm of abuses of power, of mismanagement in the administration of Church property, and of financial disasters even against close friends, as in the case of the Ambassador of Honduras Alejandro Valladares, former Dean of the Diplomatic Corps to the Holy See.

In the case of the former Auxiliary Bishop Juan José Pineda, after the article published in the [Italian] weekly L’Espresso last February, Maradiaga stated in the newspaper Avvenire: “It was my auxiliary bishop Pineda who asked for the visitation, so as to ‘clear’ his name after being subjected to much slander.” Now, regarding Pineda the only thing that has been made public is that his resignation has simply been accepted, thus making any possible responsibility of his and Maradiaga vanish into nowhere.

In the name of the transparency so hailed by the Pope, the report that the Visitator, Argentine bishop Alcides Casaretto, delivered more than a year ago only and directly to the Pope, must be made public.

Finally, the recent appointment as Substitute of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra is also connected with Honduras, that is, with Maradiaga. From 2003 to 2007 Peña Parra worked as Counsellor at the Tegucigalpa Nunciature. As Delegate for Pontifical Representations I received worrisome information about him.

In Honduras, a scandal as huge as the one in Chile is about to be repeated. The Pope defends his man, Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, to the bitter end, as he had done in Chile with Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros, whom he himself had appointed Bishop of Osorno against the advice of the Chilean Bishops. First he insulted the abuse victims. Then, only when he was forced by the media, and a revolt by the Chilean victims and faithful, did he recognize his error and apologize, while stating that he had been misinformed, causing a disastrous situation for the Church in Chile, but continuing to protect the two Chilean Cardinals Errazuriz and Ezzati.

Even in the tragic affair of McCarrick, Pope Francis’s behavior was no different. He knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. Although he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end; indeed, he made McCarrick’s advice his own, which was certainly not inspired by sound intentions and for love of the Church. It was only when he was forced by the report of the abuse of a minor, again on the basis of media attention, that he took action [regarding McCarrick] to save his image in the media.

Now in the United States a chorus of voices is rising especially from the lay faithful, and has recently been joined by several bishops and priests, asking that all those who, by their silence, covered up McCarrick’s criminal behavior, or who used him to advance their career or promote their intentions, ambitions and power in the Church, should resign.

But this will not be enough to heal the situation of extremely grave immoral behavior by the clergy: bishops and priests. A time of conversion and penance must be proclaimed. The virtue of chastity must be recovered in the clergy and in seminaries. Corruption in the misuse of the Church’s resources and of the offerings of the faithful must be fought against. The seriousness of homosexual behavior must be denounced. The homosexual networks present in the Church must be eradicated, as Janet Smith, Professor of Moral Theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, recently wrote.  “The problem of clergy abuse,” she wrote, “cannot be resolved simply by the resignation of some bishops, and even less so by bureaucratic directives. The deeper problem lies in homosexual networks within the clergy which must be eradicated.” These homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church.

I implore everyone, especially Bishops, to speak up in order to defeat this conspiracy of silence that is so widespread, and to report the cases of abuse they know about to the media and civil authorities.

Let us heed the most powerful message that St. John Paul II left us as an inheritance:Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!

In his 2008 homily on the Feast of the Epiphany, Pope Benedict reminded us that the Father’s plan of salvation had been fully revealed and realized in the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, but it needs to be welcomed in human history, which is always a history of fidelity on God’s part and unfortunately also of infidelity on the part of us men. The Church, the depositary of the blessing of the New Covenant, signed in the blood of the Lamb, is holy but made up of sinners, as Saint Ambrose wrote: the Church is “immaculata ex maculatis,” she is holy and spotless even though, in her earthly journey, she is made up of men stained with sin.

I want to recall this indefectible truth of the Church’s holiness to the many people who have been so deeply scandalized by the abominable and sacrilegious behavior of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick; by the grave, disconcerting and sinful conduct of Pope Francis and by the conspiracy of silence of so many pastors, and who are tempted to abandon the Church, disfigured by so many ignominies. At the Angelus on Sunday, August 12, 2018 Pope Francis said these words: “Everyone is guilty for the good he could have done and did not do ... If we do not oppose evil, we tacitly feed it. We need to intervene where evil is spreading; for evil spreads where daring Christians who oppose evil with good are lacking.” If this is rightly to be considered a serious moral responsibility for every believer, how much graver is it for the Church’s supreme pastor, who in the case of McCarrick not only did not oppose evil but associated himself in doing evil with someone he knew to be deeply corrupt. He followed the advice of someone he knew well to be a pervert, thus multiplying exponentially with his supreme authority the evil done by McCarrick. And how many other evil pastors is Francis still continuing to prop up in their active destruction of the Church!

Francis is abdicating the mandate which Christ gave to Peter to confirm the brethren. Indeed, by his action he has divided them, led them into error, and encouraged the wolves to continue to tear apart the sheep of Christ’s flock.

In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.

Even in dismay and sadness over the enormity of what is happening, let us not lose hope! We well know that the great majority of our pastors live their priestly vocation with fidelity and dedication.

It is in moments of great trial that the Lord’s grace is revealed in abundance and makes His limitless mercy available to all; but it is granted only to those who are truly repentant and sincerely propose to amend their lives. This is a favorable time for the Church to confess her sins, to convert, and to do penance.

Let us all pray for the Church and for the Pope, let us remember how many times he has asked us to pray for him!

Let us all renew faith in the Church our Mother: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church!”

Christ will never abandon His Church! He generated her in His Blood and continually revives her with His Spirit!

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

Mary, Virgin and Queen, Mother of the King of glory, pray for us!

Rome, August 22, 2018

Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Official translation by Diane Montagna

Source: lifesitenews.com

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[1] All the memos, letters and other documentation mentioned here are available at the Secretariat of State of the Holy See or at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.