Wheat and tares

By: Greg Maresca

During your life, you have resided under the Muhammad Ali of American presidents “the greatest of all time,” and as luck would have it, you are now living under the second greatest president, ever. What are the odds? Provided that is not enough, over in Rome on the chair of Peter sits the grandest pope in the history of the Church.

Every day is like having the largest Powerball winning lottery ticket sitting on your dresser waiting to be cashed. Halcyon days, indeed.

And then you wake up.

As the American nation endures a cold civil war, its roots can be traced directly to the Catholic Church. It was Pope St. Pius V who served from January 1566 to his death in May 1572 who was clear and concise: “All the evil in the world is due to lukewarm Catholics.” The Church’s Great Commission has been proselytized by the relativistic and secular gospel of a fallen world that is in direct contradiction with God’s grace.

Recently, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States, who has been living in hiding, was excommunicated by the Vatican for being a soldier of Christ.

I vividly recall the term: “soldier of Christ.” It was what I would become when confirmed as a sixth grader. It was at a time when the Vietnam War was winding down and the wind whirl of Vatican II was in full felt. I was quickly informed that such a terse and antiquated term no longer applied. Living among many second-generation Americans in a working-class neighborhood in an outer borough of the city of New York such an expression as a “soldier of Christ” had a great appeal to a 12-year-old altar boy.

Instead, we were informed to taper our zeal and that such archaic things like altar rails and organs were replaced by hippyish felt banners, guitars and “folk Masses.” Vatican II’s “spirit of the council” did an exceptional job of fostering a sense of profound religious indifference among many of the faithful that is now working on its third generation of Catholics. My generation were the first casualties of the onslaught. At a class reunion of my grammar school a few years back, I was informed by one gentleman who was still tuned into the “old neighborhood’s vibe” that many former classmates cashed out of the faith once they broke free from the old home front.

Since Vatican II, the Church has endured over half-a-century of ecclesiastical decline, in which “reform” has meant abandonment of the rich and traditional liturgical inheritance that has defined Catholicism for over two millennia. The offspring of such reform has resulted in the inconceivable relaxation of ethical and moral standards that many do not give it a second thought.

Fast forward to 2024, when the traditionalist archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said the pope was not legitimate and criticized the reforms of the Vatican II, which according to Cannon Law placed the archbishop in schism.

Viganò did not endear himself to the Vatican when he repeatedly warned them about the homosexual predation of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who not only groomed young boys and men but molested and raped them, too.

McCarrick was eventually laicized but never excommunicated.

Nothing Viganò professes is contrary to the deposit of faith. Yet he is thrown under the popemobile and excommunicated for criticizing ongoing heresy and corruption.

So much for the “Synodal Way.”

Viganò is in exceptional historical company that includes St. Athanasius, who dissented against Arianism in the 4th century that was accepted and endorsed by most bishops. For his valor, Athanasius was excommunicated. Joan of Arc was also excommunicated and martyred but eventually canonized like Athanasius.

The true schismatic is not Archbishop Viganò.

The Vatican has sanctioned and censured critics two of whom are
Americans. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Texas, was stripped of his diocese, while Cardinal Raymond Burke lost his pension and Rome apartment.

The excommunication of faithful priests and repression of the centuries old Latin Mass are the last things the Church needs. Plummeting demographics, record low Mass attendance, church closures, empty seminaries and scant religious vocations go unaddressed. The destructive effects of forgoing tradition combined with the errors of Modernism after Vatican II are undeniable and yet continue to the detriment of all.

In 2016, four cardinals including Burke wrote a letter called a dubia asking the pope to clarify ambiguities in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, regarding illicit reception of the Holy Eucharist. The Pope never answered and since the beginning of his pontificate has been terribly weak in defending the deposit of faith.

Then in 2023, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the controversial Fiducia Supplicans, which was interpreted as tacit approval for the blessing of gay unions.

Such confusion only results in glass houses and double standards where heresies, blasphemies and doctrinal errors are just another day’s business in Rome.

Viganò is vilified, whereas heretics that infest the universal Church like Rev. James Martin and those schismatic German bishops who continue surf the LGTBQ wave are immune thumbing their noses at the faithful and the magisterium.

Buffet Catholics like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and those who claim to be faithful, but serve as the poster politicians for abortion, transgenderism, euthanasia, the LGBTQ agenda parade on serving the prince of this fallen world. No excommunication for them as the rest of Christendom for expediency’s sake looks the other way, while their bishops are forever locked on mute

These contemporary Judases are not interested in bringing souls to Christ. Rather these brazen wolves, who don’t bother with sheep’s clothing, work in unison with the Marxist-Globalist Axis and their New World Order.

Cardinals and bishops need to be reminded repeatedly just why they wear crimson.

If St. Paul were still around, we would be getting much more than just a letter.

May God have mercy on us and the whole world.