Vatican “rehabilitation” of … Judas?

I saw something that really bothered me the other day at Ann Barnhardt’s site.  She picked up on a post by Tradition In Action which reported that the Vatican’s daily, L’Osservatore Romano, published something on Holy Thursday (Anno CLXI n. 74 – 1 aprile 2021) which seems very much like an attempt to “rehabilitate” the betrayer of the Lord, Judas.

Rehabilitate Judas.

Rehabilitate…. Judas.

Think about that for a moment.

Christ does NOT owe His glory to Judas.

L’Osservatore Romano is a notorious disaster of a site.  However, Tradition in Action captured screenshots of the relevant pages.

In an introduction by one Andrea Monda, we read that the abysmal figure of Judas is counterbalanced by the abyss of mercy which is the Lord.  He goes on to explain who else will be writing in this mini-section on Judas… on Holy Thursday.  Monda says that this special focus was inspired by Francis’ meditation in a book from 2018 in which Francis said that he had a photo of a capital of a column in a romanesque church in France, depicting the hanging and then deposition of Judas.   Francis thinks it is the Good Shepard who has come to retrieve the dead Betrayer.  There is a large photo of the capital.  It clearly is not the Good Shepherd, btw.

The writers include a famous leftist activist populist Italian priest writing in the 1950’s, Primo Mazzolari (“Our Brother, Judas”), super-liberal, late Jesuit Card. Carlo Maria Martini (“Shadows and light” from a book in 2007), Giuseppe Berto (“Glory” from a book of 1978), Giovanni Papini (“The mystery of a ‘no'” from a book of 1921).   They had to dig.  This last piece mentioned has the writer suggesting that when Satan entered Judas’ heart it was “improvvisamente”.  To which I respond “B as in B, S as in S”: Judas was, all along, a thief, stealing from the common purse.  For sometime he sought a way to betray the Lord.  Scripture doesn’t say, “Judas sought a way to play a sophisticated pre-determined and vital role so that Christ could fulfill prophesies.”  He sought to betray the Lord.

Let’s be straight about Judas.  After the night at Bethany, when the woman with the alabaster box and precious nard anointed Christ’s feet and Judas complained about the expense (because he was stealing from the common purse), Judas, on that Spy Wednesday, sold the Lord’s upcoming betrayal for 30 silver pieces.  The next night, the Passover, Christ said in Matthew 26:24-25:

The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

He didn’t respond, “You have a really complicated role to play, filled with subtle distinctions and aporia.”

“It would have been better for him if he had not been born.”

Even a period in purgatory so long that you were the only one left, and for a long time, would still be great because of the promise of heaven.  The only ones about whom you would say, “better not to have been born” are the damned.

While hanging on the limb, did Judas truly repent?   Christ does not suggest such an outcome for the Betrayer.  During the same meal, evening, Christ predicts Peter‘s betrayal but that, in contrast to Judas, Peter would be okay.

The constant teaching of the Church for centuries has held Judas to be the betrayer of the Lord who receives punishment for his action.

A bare few nights ago, I sang the Holy Thursday Collect. Remember that liturgical prayer is doctrine, it is a theological locus that must be respected. The Collect assumes a contrast between the fate of the Good Thief on his cross-limb and the fate of Judas on his tree-limb: one received “reward” because of his confession of faith (confessionis praemium) which is heaven and the other “punishment” of his guilt (reatus poenam) which is anti-heaven, hell.  So the Church has prayed for centuries.  It has been prayed at least since the mid-9th c. as it appeared in the Liber sacramentorum Augustodunensis.  That’s a 1000 years, at least.  The variations of the prayer include “Iudas proditor”.

That “reatus“, “guilt”, a concept systematically stripped from the edited and composed prayers of the Novus Ordo, is a key.  We can commit acts which are objectively sins and not bear all or any of the guilt of the objectively sinful act.  For example, if compelled by fear or being out of our minds or wholly deceived, etc., we can be subjectively not guilty even though an objectively sinful act was committed.   But that was not Judas’ condition.  And so the prayer says that he received the reatus poenam… “punishment of guilt”.

In the Roman Canon we clearly say, “on the night he was betrayed“, not “on the night when He was nuanced into custody”.

“But Father! But Father!”, you apokatastasists are squealing, “Scripture says ‘Judas repented’, but, No!, you don’t pay attention to the Scripture you don’t like because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

I know enough about Scripture to seek the help of those far greater than I in interpreting it.  For example, the Fathers of the Church.   The Fathers (St John Chrysostom, St. Leo the Great, St. Augustine) point out that Judas’ suicide shows that his “repentance” is not the sort that lead to a request for mercy.  While the Fathers are firm in saying that had Judas sought pardon, it would have been given, instead Judas did not have the sort of remorse that lead to true repentance.

However Judas died, and there are variations, I don’t think there is much doubt about where he is now.

So why would one purposely maintain an image of Judas in one’s clear view?

I don’t know why a Jesuit would have one.  I don’t think like they think.

Were I to have one it would be to remind myself that, in my every sin, I betray the Lord, that my sins crucified Him.  “Don’t be a Judas.”

I don’t have an image of Judas.  That’s just a little creepy.

I do have one of Miguel Pro.

I take note of a contribution in that L’OssRom by the Jesuit Card. Martini.  I call to mind the Jesuit participation in the making of the movie “Silence” which, from the book by Endo, portrays the betrayal of Jesuit missionary in Japan by a “Judas” figure. Instead of remaining a Christ-figure (as the Whiskey Priest does in Graham Green’s book) he himself becomes a Judas, seemingly at the Lord’s own prompting, as if the Lord were saying, “I would betray me so you can too”.  What an evil book and movie.

Oh, how sophisticated we are!  We can rehabilitate Judas!

Is it coincidence that on 23 March 2021, Jesuits, including Jesuit homosexualist activist James Martin, our modern Geryon, held a webinar entitled, “Hope for Judas? A spiritual conversation on Judas and God’s boundless mercy for us all”?

I rather think not.

A last thing about that L’Osservatore Romano showcase on Judas.  On the front page of L’Osservatore – on Holy Thursday – there is a poorly executed sketch of a naked Christ (implying that he is fresh from the tomb immediately after the resurrection)  cradling the dead body of the thief, suicide, formerly possessed, betrayer, Judas.   There is a strong tradition that the first mission/appearance of the Lord after His resurrection was to His Mother, Mary.  Here, the implication is that it was to suicide-dead Judas, whom Christ called the “son of perdition” (John 17:12).

Folks, Hell is a reflection of God’s justice and love.  He loves us and lets us freely make our choices.  Hell and its punishments also reflect God’s great holiness.  Eternal separation from God of evil, that which is inimical to God, reveals God’s infinite holiness, for holiness cannot be united with what is evil.  God’s wrath also reveals God’s infinite goodness.  God must put apart and away from Himself, whatever it is evil.

On the one hand, I don’t like the idea that there is anyone in Hell because I want everyone to be happy.  On the other hand, if a soul going to Hell is the result of God’s justice and love, and it always is, therefore … “Hell, yeah!”, as they say.  E’n la sua volontad è nostra pace.

Those of you who don’t read Italian are at a disadvantage in reading and responding to this post.  I will keep the combox open, but turn on moderation.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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36 Comments

  1. Josephus Muris Saliensis says:

    Dear Father,

    This is truly grotesque, and one does not use hyperbole libenter.

    But it is a week late for the April Fool it resembles, so who are the fools?

    Oremus pro invicem.

  2. Adelle Cecilia says:

    Judas repented for his sin. He openly confessed his crime and admitted his guilt. Even the money, the desire for which had occasioned his treachery, he gave up.
    Why, then, was he not forgiven?
    He looked back and saw the enormity of his sin; but he did not look to God and realize that pardon is always possible. Self-centered and proud, though he could see his own sin, he could not look beyond himself to the mercy of God.
    We are sinners.
    We must hate our sins; but then we must look beyond them to God’s forgiving kindness.
    -from the Library of Catholic Devotion, 1954

  3. Gerard Plourde says:

    It does sound is if the article makes a real hash of the question of Judas’ role and fate. I will say that whenever the question of Judas came up in my Pre-Vatican II Religion classes, we were always told it was not our place to speculate about where he ended up but to fervently hope that in his last moments he had true repentance for his sins and therefore received the unbounded mercy and forgiveness that God extends to the repentant, which would not rule out an extended stay in Purgatory for a just expiation.

  4. Chrisc says:

    Principally, is the apologia pro Judam a) motivated by a desire for theological silliness and triviality b) motivated by a rejection and hatred of the tradition c) an attempt to embody the fullness of mercy thus giving license and cover for certain kinds of sinfulness found especially in certain kinds of clergy d) a cover for an apology for Satan. I am open to all but a. I don’t think silliness suffices for this problem. I think the devil is using many to pervert mercy and justice so that out of their own perceived righteousness they can out-forgive God. The devil is turning them wholly inside out so that they may be thoroughly consumed with self worth and pride.

  5. ChrisP says:

    It doesn’t surprise that the usual brood of vipers play with this philosophical self-immolating curtain set. Their results are predictable. What is not predictable is how their own end will manifest.

    Even a non-religious person gets it: according to the story alone, Judas could have sought forgiveness, like Peter. He didn’t, instead choosing his own ego and destruction. That’s a total denial of the physical Truth, right in front of him.

    Dante got it right.

  6. Kathleen10 says:

    It’s the same old maneuver, there’s nothing new here. New Church is about blurring moral lines and confusing the faithful, or once-faithful. It’s about lowering the bar so that sinners never feel they are sinning, that hell does not yawn before them, so they ought to keep on sinning and maybe try some brand new sins. If Hell did not take in Judas, what am I feeling guilty about? Jesus is the God of Merrrcy.

  7. richdel says:

    Thank you for your reflection on Matthew 26:24, Fr. Z. God’s mercy is indeed boundless, but if we didn’t need to repent to receive it, as seems intimated by the heterodox suggestions of rehabilitating Judas, much else of what Jesus says doesn’t make sense, such as that re: the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.

  8. iamlucky13 says:

    I have always been taught to avoid the temptation of presumption regarding the damnation of any individual human, even Judas. Perhaps by some miracle he did experience repentance in his final moments.

    At the same time, however, it is clearly out of line to leap from hope for the possibility of redemption for Judas to any attempt to deny the reality of hell, mortal sin, and possibility of our own condemnation which we must strive against.

  9. jhogan says:

    The Mercy of God is perfect; the Justice of God is perfect. Judas committed suicide which is a mortal sin. It is beyond little, old imperfect me to say what happened to Judas after death; as far as I am aware, the Scriptures are silent on this.

    As to this article in L’Osservatore Romano…
    One of the heresies embraced by many Modernists is universal salvation—that everyone will eventually be saved and go to Heaven; Hell will be empty because even Satan and his demons will be saved in the end. This article appears to be a toe-dip into that cesspool.

  10. clare joseph says:

    I’m glad I stopped subscribing to L’Osservatore Romano several years ago. This looks like part of the fundamental definition of bad news.

  11. Rob83 says:

    It is hard to interpret the phrase “it would have been better for that man if he had not been born” in any way that rehabilitates Judas. Note that Jesus is not saying it would have been better for Judas if he never came to be – since that’s not true of any of the damned – only that it would have been better had he died in the womb.

    A literal reading is that Judas is worse off because he was alive to commit the betrayal, which strongly suggests this sin was not forgiven. After all, if he did make it to purgatory or heaven, the general opinion of the Church Fathers would have been that he’d be in a better spot than an unbaptized unborn, whose salvation is uncertain such that the Church teaches that miscarried children should urgently be baptized before they die.

    The only way around this would be to claim Jesus is speaking in hyperbole, but there is no hyperbole about the reality of His death in the first part of the passage.

  12. Rod Halvorsen says:

    Does SJ stand for “Semper Judas”?

    Asking for a friend….

  13. AA Cunningham says:

    The Pied Piper of Sodomy, homosexualist James Martin LGBTQWXYZSJ would be better served conducting a webinar that poses the question “Help for Jesuits? Does eternal damnation await them all or do they have the ability to repent and amend their pathetic lives before they take their final breath?”

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  15. hilltop says:

    There once was a Washington Pastor
    His homily a regular disaster
    He made room for sin
    And invited us in
    -His twinkling eyes
    Eventually failed as disguise-
    It happens that Satan’s his master

    Plus ca change
    Plus ca meme chose

  16. teomatteo says:

    My thought is that some of the people in the Vatican have to put away that LP ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. Put away their youthful indistrection.

  17. rwj says:

    Perhaps it’s the right time for the Jesuits to rebrand themselves as the Society of Judas. Just to make it official.

  18. Conference # 10 given by Archbishop Sheen for the Priests of the Archdiocese of Washington at Loyola on Potomac Retreat House during their annual Priest’s Retreat.

    JUDAS by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
    http://semperficatholic.com/page29.html

  19. Dan says:

    This is along with the empty hell theory so popularly put forth by modernist theologians and Bishop Barron. If hell is empty then not even Judas could be there. They see it as a limitation of God’s power of mercy for Judas to be in hell. But since God’s love and respect for us and our free will is limitless then we have to allow that hell exists and many people go there.

  20. Gerard Plourde says:

    semperficatholic,

    Thank you for sharing Bishop Sheen’s conference talk. His observation that Judas’ road away from Our Lord began with his rejection of the Real Presence in the Eucharist (foreshadowed in the Eucharistic Discourse in John 6 and by his departure before the Institution at the Last Supper) is a reminder that we should take every opportunity to humbly receive The Lord in order to be fortified to humbly do His will.

  21. ProfKwasniewski says:

    A few years ago I published a piece at Rorate Caeli that demonstrates how the damnation of Judas is taught by Scripture and Tradition, and especially by the liturgy:

    https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/03/damned-lies-on-destiny-of-judas-iscariot.html

    We must recognize that the REMOVAL of the Holy Thursday/Good Friday Collect about Judas was an initial step down the road that ends with Bergoglio SJ and Martin SJ.

  22. xavier says:

    Father

    Is there a name to a spiritual virtue that goes awry? Forgiveness seems one which is prone since there’s the just and noble sentiment to forgive as God does but unlike Him, we can be confused how to go about it

    xavier

  23. ProfKwasniewski says: REMOVAL of the Holy Thursday/Good Friday Collect about Judas was an initial step

    Removal. That is a good reminder. It has been a long time since I have said the Novus Ordo Holy Thursday Mass.

    It is also a good reminder that the Collect was also used after the first reading on Good Friday. It’s almost as if the Church was trying to make an important point… about Judas.

  24. Nathanael says:

    Your point, Father, about the disadvantage of translation in general is well taken; here specifically we are at the additional disadvantage of the Italian attempting a synthesis of Three Versions of the article in the original Argentine Spanish, each with different emphases.
    From the first article:

    El Verbo, cuando fue hecho carne, pasó de la ubicuidad al espacio, de la eternidad a la historia, de la dicha sin límites a la mutación y a la carne; para corresponder a tal sacrificio, era necesario que un hombre, en representación de todos los hombres, hiciera un sacrificio condigno. Judas Iscariote fue ese hombre. Judas, único entre los apóstoles, intuyó la secreta divinidad y el terrible propósito de Jesús. El Verbo se había rebajado a mortal; Judas, discípulo del Verbo, podía rebajarse a delator (el peor delito que la infamia soporta) y ser huésped del fuego que no se apaga. El orden inferior es un espejo del orden superior…

    The second:

    sabemos… que fue uno de los apóstoles… Un varón a quien ha distinguido así el Redentor merece de nosotros la mejor interpretación de sus actos. Imputar su crimen a la codicia (como lo han hecho algunos, alegando a Juan 12: 6) es resignarse al móvil más torpe. Nils Runeberg propone el móvil contrario: un hiperbólico y hasta ilimitado ascetismo. El asceta, para mayor gloria de Dios, envilece y mortifica la carne; Judas hizo lo propio con el espíritu. Renunció al honor, al bien, a la paz, al reino de los cielos, como otros, menos heroicamente, al placer. Premeditó con lucidez terrible sus culpas.

    And finally:

    El famoso texto Brotará como raíz de tierra sedienta; no hay buen parecer en él, ni hermosura; despreciado y el último de los hombres; varón de dolores, experimentado en quebrantos (Isaías 53: 2-3), es para muchos una previsión del crucificado, en la hora de su muerte; para algunos (verbigracia, Hans Lassen Martensen), una refutación de la hermosura que el consenso vulgar atribuye a Cristo; para Runeberg, la puntual profecía no de un momento sino de todo el atroz porvenir, en el tiempo y en la eternidad, del Verbo hecho carne. Dios totalmente se hizo hombre hasta la infamia, hombre hasta la reprobación y el abismo. Para salvarnos, pudo elegir cualquiera de los destinos que traman la perpleja red de la historia; pudo ser Alejandro o Pitágoras o Rurik o Jesús; eligió un ínfimo destino: fue Judas.

    Needless to say, heterodoxy notwithstanding, the Argentine’s originals are more poetical and provocative than this Italian abstract.

  25. Patrick Casanova says:

    Scripture proves that Judas is in hell. Why then wouldn’t the church have declared as dogma that he is damned? It would make it much harder for queer religious to put forth this madness.

  26. Suburbanbanshee says:

    The Lives of the Philosophers includes stories of a fair number of favored disciples of Greek philosophers who held the common purse; and most of those who are the subject of stories were thieves, sometimes on an epic scale. (A lot of them were stealing the money and investing it in shipping, or in their own companies, although some just spent on luxuries or unphilosophical living.)

    Nobody among the Greeks suggested that these thieves were doing it for highminded reasons.

  27. Suburbanbanshee says:

    The book I’m thinking of is Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius. It’s not a primary source, per se, and probably contains a lot of ancient urban legends; but it’s the best we’ve got on a lot of ancient philosophers, much less their disciples.

  28. Barnacle says:

    My reaction to that horrid painting was visceral: it has become the last straw, or the ‘red line’ for me, as far as Pope Francis is concerned. Quite apart from the lie it peddles, it is pornographic, and therefore blasphemous.

  29. I have reflected a lot on the possibilities of hell being thinly populated and of Judas being redeemed. That is not a bad thing; if hell is what we believe it is, surely none of us wants anyone to go there, and learning the number ending up in hell is small would seem to be a happy thing.

    Also, there is a question at the root of this that I find extremely difficult. Some say that most people go to hell. That may be true, but for me that is a real challenge. To this sinner, it seems far more fitting that God’s great plan of salvation would result in a larger harvest. Yet hell certainly exists and at least the Lucifer and the fallen angels are there.

    Anyway, I have noodled away at this question for years, entertaining hope that even Judas might have made a sufficient repentance, and a parishioner kindly reminded me of the very passage our genial host cited above: “it would have been better if he had not been born.” How had I missed that? It seems inescapable.

    It is not a bad thing to hope for minimal souls in hell. Beyond the fallen angels and — based on this text — Judas — there is no one else I can think of that we are obliged to think is damned. Pilate? Herod? Caiaphas? I could go on with lots of iniquitous individuals in history; I’m not saying they were saved; but I am saying we don’t know and we are, I think, permitted to hope. Not because sin isn’t damning, but because God’s grace is just that powerful. Lots of good people seem to forget this.

  30. Ariseyedead says:

    This is truly despicable. From a darkly humorous perspective, they should have called the webinar “Hope for Hitler” as it has a better ring to it.

    Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

  31. Fr Martin Fox says: It is not a bad thing to hope for minimal souls in hell.

    Happy Easter, brother!

    You are exactly right. It is a good thing to hope that there are few souls in Hell. This is one reason why I pray for my enemies and why I strive to be forgiving. I want neither them nor myself in Hell.

    About the numbers… I remember something from a Desert Father who tells his apprentice, complaining about the ascetic life, that a day would come when people couldn’t stand a day without food, but if they could persevere, those people would enjoy a place in heaven higher than theirs. I suspect something along those lines must be at work in the mind of the JUST Judge, who knows – who KNEW – into what circumstances we would all be born and would take those circumstances into consideration.

    However, I also remember from the Divine Comedy that the Poet, Dante, has a long process in the Inferno of coming back to the use of right reason and understanding the Justice of God for those in the Inferno. While at first he is filled with horror at the fate of the damned and feels remorse for them, eventually he comes to see that they are exactly where they are supposed to be according to their choices and God’s dispositions. He is eventually content even to walk on the faces of the damned without remorse because, after all, they are in Hell, not Club Med. (That “Club Med” part is my interpolation, for those of you in Columbia Heights.)

    If there is hope for people in life, while they still have a chance, the idea of them going to Hell is horrible and repugnant for me.

    If a soul is now in Hell, then, I am content that that is the way it ought to be. If there are many souls in Hell, I am content that that is the way it is. This is according to both God’s will and His mercy.

    The wrath of God, the existence of Hell, is a manifestation of God’s ultimate holiness: nothing but the holy can be in God’s presence.

    Meanwhile, you and I have the task of keeping as many people out of Hell as we can.

  32. Semper Gumby says:

    “Christ owes His glory to Judas.”

    Given that anti-Christian blasphemy and considering the other blasphemies and attacks on Christians over the last five years or so, many clergy and laity inside the Bergoglio Vatican seem to be converting from Gnosticism to some version of Satan worship.

    Given this type of activity and who the Bergoglio Vatican considers as its enemies and friends, it is possible that if and when World War III occurs, and a catastrophic global nuclear or biological exchange is avoided, that certain individuals in the Vatican hierarchy could be tried for their complicity in crimes against humanity. That is, the current regime in the Vatican would likely, indeed almost certainly, join the side of tyranny, statist political-religions, and anti-Christianity if WW III occurs.

    Of course, there will be consequences for that complicity. If the victorious Allies decide out of respect for the Catholic Church not to try and hang several clergy and laity for crimes against humanity in a future Nuremberg-style trial, another option is to seal off the Vatican from the world for ten or twenty years except for food deliveries, water, sewer, and limited electricity- no internet, no radio or TV broadcasts, no newspaper publishing.

    There have been serious problems at the Vatican before over the centuries and another serious problem is here. Deo volente, the current Vatican regime will fade away quietly. Christus Vincit.

  33. Fr Martin Fox says: Beyond the fallen angels and — based on this text — Judas — there is no one else I can think of that we are obliged to think is damned. Pilate? Herod? Caiaphas? I could go on with lots of iniquitous individuals in history; I’m not saying they were saved; but I am saying we don’t know and we are, I think, permitted to hope.

    What about Dathan and Abiron and their households and tents, who rebelled against God, that Scripture says the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up (Deuteronomy 11:16)? If Scripture says the earth swallowed them up, doesn’t that mean they went to hell?

  34. iamlucky13 says:

    Quoting Father Martin Fox:

    a parishioner kindly reminded me of the very passage our genial host cited above: “it would have been better if he had not been born.” How had I missed that? It seems inescapable.”

    I was also thinking about how inescapable this passage seems contrasted against the fact that the Church has had 2,000 years of opportunity to formally declare Judas damned or to prohibit hope in his salvation, yet has not done so. Some important theologians seem to have expressed a belief that Judas is in hell, including St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope St. Leo the Great, yet it is not officially defined. Why not?

    I can speculate about interpretations such as perhaps Jesus shifted to a universal meaning here: we all betray the Son of man when we sin. If any of us were to die in that state, it would be better for us had we not been born.

    I freely admit, that’s very thin.

    The bottom line is I don’t really know why the Church has refrained from explicitly stating it, but if Church refrains from doing so, then I will, as well.

    Frankly, it makes no real difference to me, and I don’t want to let people who seem to have a heterodox motive get the discussion sidetracked into an argument about a person who is already dead and whose fate can not be changed. The critical point is the reality of hell and the danger that each of us who are alive can choose to go there by our sins.

    My speculative reading of Matthew 26:24 has no trouble reconciling with this understanding: It is a very startling warning, and similar warnings elsewhere in the Gospel were clearly not unique to a singular person. Jesus warned all of us about hell numerous times. Even if Judas did repent and was saved in whatever precious time elapsed between when he committed himself to the rope and when he perished, that warning remains.

    It would be insanity for anyone to reason, “There is a chance even Judas was saved. Therefore I can betray the Son of man in any and every way I desire, without fear.” Any remotely sane person recognizes, “Regardless of whether or not Judas was saved, I do NOT want to spend eternity wishing I never existed.”

  35. roma247 says:

    I have been pondering and praying about this. There is no randomness to why this is happening. There is a very specific reason for it.

    If we look at satanic worship, we see that it always seeks to replace the sacred with the profane; in fact, not merely with the profane, but with what destroys and perverts the sacred. Thus, in Black Masses such terrible things take place that I can’t bear to speak them even in a combox. Suffice it to say that they target those ways in which God most touches man and allows him to participate in the divine. (Thus their preoccupation with Sodomy…)

    In like manner, for us, Peter is our Apostle, whom Jesus appointed as the head of the Church. Whereas Judas is the son of perdition…he is the Apostle of those who worship Satan, isn’t he? Look where Dante puts him. It’s about right, isn’t it? We revere the saints; they revere the Betrayer.

    Viewed from this angle, it makes perfect sense that we would be seeing this. A pagan demon has been invited into the Vatican…not only have there been no Masses at the high altar of St. Peter’s since then, but now the total number of Masses in the Basilica has been curtailed to a shocking few…and the titles “Vicar of Christ, ” “Successor of the Prince of the Apostles,” “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,” etc. are now Bishop of Rome Jorge Bergoglio’s historic titles…

    Well, those titles don’t disappear just because he doesn’t want them, now do they? So who do they belong to???

    Now is a good time to read Windswept House and compare what was happening then with the more thorough reboot that is taking place now…

  36. robtbrown says:

    This Judas situation is part of a larger scheme to blur the line between good and evil. And that is the consequence of the influence of Existentialism–we are all supposedly walking around in an Existential Fog, unable to tell our right from our left.

    There is a strong tendency in Jesuit theology proceed using a single text and ignoring others that shed light on it, thus also a principle of hermeneutics: There is no text without context. This caused the nonsense of Luther (now taken up by contemporary Catholic theologians) that produced the theologia crucis and the exaggerations of Kenotic Christology. Luther acted as if the not only Fourth Gospel had never been written but also Messianic texts found in Mark and Matthrew (cf. give his life as a ransom for many . . .).

    There also seems to be the adoption of the Protestant notion that Mercy is a relaxation of Justice. Thus, Justice and Mercy are inversely proportional: To embrace Mercy, it is necessary to abandon Justice.

    In fact, St Thomas says that Mercy is not the relaxation of Justice, but in a certain sense the perfection of it.

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