Mask Slippages Dept. (UPDATED)

     This article has me wound tighter than a 1,000,000-to-1 stepdown transformer:

     After Pope Francis early in his papacy decried capitalism as “trickle-down economics” — a polemical phrase coined by the left during the Reagan years that Francis frequently borrows — radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh commented, “This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope.” Talk show host Michael Savage called him “Lenin’s pope.” Pope Francis took such comments as a compliment. “I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended,” he told the Italian press.

     Pope Francis grew up in socialist Argentina, an experience that left a deep impression on his thinking. He told the Latin American journalists Javier Camara and Sebastian Pfaffen that as a young man he “read books of the Communist Party that my boss in the laboratory gave me” and that “there was a period where I would wait anxiously for the newspaper La Vanguardia, which was not allowed to be sold with the other newspapers and was brought to us by the socialist militants.”

     The “boss” to whom Pope Francis referred is Esther Ballestrino de Careaga. He has described her as a “Paraguayan woman” and a “fervent communist.” He considers her one of his most important mentors. “I owe a huge amount to that great woman,” he has said, saying that she “taught me so much about politics.” (He worked for her as an assistant at Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory in Buenos Aires.)

     “She often read Communist Party texts to me and gave them to me to read. So I also got to know that very materialistic conception. I remember that she also gave me the statement from the American Communists in defense of the Rosenbergs, who had been sentenced to death,” he has said. Learning about communism, he said, “through a courageous and honest person was helpful. I realized a few things, an aspect of the social, which I then found in the social doctrine of the Church.” As the archbishop of Buenos Aires, he took pride in helping her hide the family’s Marxist literature from the authorities who were investigating her. According to the author James Carroll, Bergoglio smuggled her communist books, including Marx’s Das Kapital, into a “Jesuit library.”

     Please read it all.

     The pope is not the Church. The pope’s statements, except on theological matters, carry no authority; they’re just one man’s opinions. Yet this man, unwisely elevated to the Throne of Saint Peter, is steadily dismantling the Church by his refusal to restrict his pronouncements to matters directly relevant to Catholic theology and Catholic ethics. I know for a fact that at least one potential convert – an intelligent man strongly interested in the Catholic faith – has turned away from the Church, entirely because of Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio a.k.a. Pope Francis.

     Imagine Pope Benedict XVI declaiming on economics or climatology to the exact opposite effect of Pope Francis. Imagine Pope John Paul II doing so. Glory be to God! Imagine any pope previous to this one making a strong, public statement in favor of capitalism or against the global warming / climate change hysteria. What sort of reaction would the world media have toward a pontiff who made such a statement?

     The Church has weathered so many dislocations, catastrophes, and scandals that I’ve often wondered if anything at all could destroy it. Many believe that it’s defended by Jesus Himself. But an antipope with access to (and connivance from) the blatantly left-wing media is making me wonder whether it will survive to replace him.

     Pray, fellow Catholics. Indeed, pray, fellow Christians of every denomination, because if the Church should fall, you won’t last very much longer.

     UPDATE: A fellow Catholic, “Thomas in Singapore,” just wrote to me as follows:

     All men and women are today the result of their respective experiences. The Holy Father is no different. Keyboard kommandos throughout the blogosphere, many professing to be faithful Catholics, seem to delight in finding fault and casting aspersions upon Pope Francis. Thanks to a wonderful Jesuit priest here in Singapore, I came to realize that the Catholic church was where my soul could find peace. When Jorge Bergoglio was elevated to the papacy, tears of joy streamed down my cheeks. For me it was a sign from God, confirming that my decision was correct, and that after 50 years of searching I was truly, finally home.

     Say what you want, believe what you want. Cast aspersions, cast stones. Fanny about like the pharisees acting all holier than thou. At the end of the day, we are all sinners. Who are you to judge Pope Francis, or any other person? Don't get me wrong Fran. I have to remind myself constantly to not judge others. But it really gets up my nose when I hear my fellow Catholics, mostly cradle Catholics who should really know better, forget or outright ignore their own shortcomings while running their mouths about the perceived shortcomings of others.

     Instead of attacking our Holy Father, try praying for him.

     And what makes you think I don’t, Thomas? What makes you think I don’t pray daily that Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio will learn that the Throne of Saint Peter is a sacred trust, and that the authority of the papacy is not to be abused -- that his expertise in anything other than theology is negligible and does not entitle him to use his altitude in the Church to make political, economic, or scientific proclamations as if from On High?

     As for “who am I to judge,” this is who I am: a Catholic who remembers that Jesus Himself separated Church and State; that He forbade the crowd to stone “the woman caught in adultery, in the very act.” I also know, from personal contact with others, that Pope Francis is the reason several previously firm Catholics are contemplating leaving the Church and several who were considering conversion from other Christian denominations have decided otherwise. This is not unexpected, as a similarly political priest in my very own parish has had the same effect on others.

     Clerics should stick to their clerical duties: the conservation and promulgation of the faith, the administration of the sacraments, and counseling those who bring them theological, ethical, or moral problems. All else is vanity.