So, I shouldn’t have converted, then? – UPDATED

The other major story – or perhaps scandal – that broke over the weekend was Louis Verricchio’s revealing to the orthodox Catholic world, anyway, that Pope Francis had sent a greeting to an American evangelical protestant confab wherein he called some guy named Tony Palmer-  who has gotten many, many Catholics to reject their faith and apostasize – his “brother bishop.”

It seems Tony Palmer has known the pope since his days in Argentina and that they are great buds.  Palmer was due to speak at one of Kenneth Copeland’s protestant hootenannys and wanted Pope Francis to send a greeting to the evangelicals. Pope Francis, who has had a long history of eager cooperation with evangelicals, went so far, on video, as calling Palmer his “brother bishop” (see 1:20):

Verricchio has many videos from the confab at his site, if you want a flavor for that kind of false-emotion, overly produced, and highly staged event.  I’ve been watching and observing evangelicals for over 30 years, and it’s always the same: the twisting of bits of Scripture to their own destruction, orchestrated events to fire emotions, and always money, money, money.  You don’t love Jesus if you don’t keep me in $5000 suits.

So, one of these types – wearing a pretend Roman collar, no less – is a “brother bishop?”  Speaking from the heart?  So then why did I convert? Why should anyone convert?  And when Pope Francis says @1:55 that Jesus Christ is “the only Lord,” how does he reconcile that with telling muslims they don’t need to convert and can be saved by their faith in “Allah?”  You can include the Jews, who specifically repudiate Jesus Christ and frequently harbor a great animosity towards Christians and Christianity.  But Pope Francis, echoing nebulous conciliar statements, claim they have their own path to salvation.

Yes, what happened to “let your yes mean yes and your no mean no?”  Is this a different message for a different audience?  When speaking to muslims, islam is fine, but when speaking to evangelicals, Jesus Christ is the Only Lord?!  Que paso, Jorge?

From the standpoint of one who very deliberately, after much suffering, converted to the Faith, I have to say, all these excessive efforts at ecumenical outreach are very painful for me to see.  It seems to trivialize all I went through for the sake of conversion (and I am far from alone), which painful process I have never once seen Pope Francis mention as being noble, or even worthy.

Instead, what we have seen repeatedly is that all these false sects, with their erroneous beliefs which actually lead people away from Christ, in so many cases, are saintly “brothers” who are just perfectly fine where they are at.  Again, this is not limited to separated Christians, it seems to apply to EVERY religion out there. This is self-contradictory thinking, as I pointed out above, for by embracing evangelical protestants who love them some Jesus, Pope Francis is telling the same muslims he embraced a few months ago that they are, in fact, in thrall of an idolatrous false religion.  This is the fundamental flaw in all ecumenism, aside from the massive indifferentism it perpetuates: any “advance” with one sect or group means a setback with another, because they believe contradictory things.  That is one major reason why ecumenism, as such, is doomed to fail.

Unless, of course, we reduce our Faith to just a worldly feel-good society where the lowest religious common denominator predominates.  That would result in Catholic churches inescapably being Good Shepherds, with 20 or 30 old women in attendance and no one else (essentially, like France).  Which error Pope Francis again and again claims to oppose, but then we see this very “heartfelt” message.  What are we to believe?  It’s just confusion piled on confusion – the favorite tool of modernists.

Well, now we have more fodder for our Septuagesima and Lenten sufferings.  Louis Verricchio also notes that Pope Francis appears to have a kind word, even a heart felt love, for everyone, save orthodox/traditional Catholics.  There’s a phrase for that, but I’ll keep it to myself.

To give you an idea of what kind of creature Copeland, Palmer, and their fellow televangelists, see this report from an admittedly hostile secular pagan tabloid.  Nonetheless, as Verricchio notes, how does Pope Francis square his denouncing of the rich and love of the poor, and his encouragement to pursue  a simple, Christian lifestyle, with this man’s fabulous wealth?  And almost every other major televangelist enjoys a similar lifestyle:

UPDATE: Just another thought, for those who may express scandal at this post. If I made a post where I referred to Anglican/evangelical orders as valid (there is massive question as to the lineage of this “Bishop” Tony Palmer, and whether he is even truly Anglican), and called Episcopal head Catherine Jefferts Schori a true bishop in Christ’s Church, would there not be scandal?  Would I not rightly lose the attention of many readers?  Even if I claimed differently, later, would my claim, if I had originally had doubts, at least be a grave sin against prudence?

I cannot judge the actions of a pope, but I can recognize scandal when I see it.

UPDATE II: So, I guess I should not have been surprised. Nevertheless, I have been dismayed at the outpouring of ecstatic, uncritical support for this little ecumenical gesture on the part of Pope Francis.  A few mix in a word or two of caution regarding the doctrinal gulf between protestants, especially evangelical protestants, and Catholics.  But even those are pretty muted.  Most reactions have stated just how unreservedly pleased Our Blessed Lord must be at this turn of events, because apparently what Jesus craves more than anything is “unity.”  Whatever that means.  Of course, any unity that failed to proclaim Christ’s sovereign Reign and which would be founded at least in part on error would be totally false.

One common defense of the greeting I’ve seen is that we have to meet people on their terms, that Catholics must “try to at least find some common ground to bring us together and start a conversation must be the first step.”

Maybe.  It certainly sounds good to worldly, secular ears today.  But is that how the early Church dealt with heretics?  Aren’t protestants heretics?   How many great Saints and early Church Fathers can I quote that absolutely excoriated heretics in the most savage of terms, casting them literally and figuratively out of the Church and referring to them as children of satan – or even satans themselves.  So un-ecumenical!  But such was the faith that conquered an empire, and endured 2000+ years.

How did St. Paul react to the erroneous judaizers in Galatians and other letters?  Did he tell them how awesome they were, but they just had one or two errors to tweak?  NO!  He completely obliterated them, knowing that one error mixed in with thousands of truths leads to the corruption of all.  He even “withstood Peter to his face,” showing that the pope can, indeed, be wrong, even on matters of doctrine.

But my biggest problem with Francis’ comments is that they just obliterate Catholic efforts at evangelization.  Now when Catholics try to convert protestants, what will they hear?  “Even your pope thinks we’re fine, leave me alone!”  How much harder will it be to promote the Church’s already moribund efforts at evangelization?  Just as it has become harder to defend the Church’s Doctrine on marriage and abortion, since Pope Francis’ previous unfortunate comments.  There have been full-blown heretic demonstrations at nominally Catholic colleges and schools, with the students claiming Pope Francis doesn’t “judge,” so let that “married” sodomite teach theology, or let that woman have an abortion.

And so it goes.