This Pope is sure acting as an AntiChrist. We should not be afraid of saying this. The reformers faced pagan, power hungry Princes who considered the throne of Peter as akin to that of Tuscany. Who stole, whored, corrupted and ignored the needs of the church.

Who taught nothing but power. They were antichrists. And the Catholics I respect are saying the same thing about the current pope.

One thing is clear: he will not accept correction.

Bergoglio earlier this week delivered a sermon at Casa Santa Marta in which he called Judas Iscariot a poor, repentant man, victimized and driven to suicide by unmerciful lovers of the law. This stunning attempt to rehabilitate Judas Iscariot, the greatest, most wicked traitor in history and despairing self-murderer, is beyond unprecedented. It reeks of supernatural evil.

This coupled with Bergoglio’s repeated statements that there is no hell, that the worst that can happen to a human soul is that it be simply annihilated at death, and that the possibility of eternal damnation is not part of “the logic of the gospels”, and Bergoglio’s relentless push to keep people from confessing their sins TO CHRIST by convincing them that not only are their sins not sins, but are, as we saw in the Paragraph 303 quote above, God’s will, can not but make one think that Judas Iscariot could be a big player in all of this.

But, I can hear you say: “You are reformed. You reformed people consider the Pope is always an antichrist. It is in your confessions.” Well, the idea that our works can save us is an error, and that ceremonies have an efficacious nature without the spirit of God is an error. But the Reformation had its fair share of rotten popes.

As has the modern era: we have had some good popes, but a fair number who have caused more damage to the Barque of Peter than the most corrupt and Machiavellian person who sat in the chair of St Peter’s four hundred years ago.

And there are antichrists within the Protestants and the Reformed. For they preach anything but the gospel, and lead many into error. They proclaim their courage in leaving the church, for equality, for the right to have no shame about fornication and sodomy, and the right to preach evil, not truth.

Truth does not care about such rights. The Church will survive this, as it survived the Reformation and the wars in Ulster.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.

I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

(1 John 2:18-29 ESV)

Consider the trees here. THe Pro photographer and I were walking along a sand spit and on the inland side there are old pine trees. As the Spit erodes, their roots are exposed to salt water and they die, are cut down, and burned. (They have to be cut down to stop them falling in storms, endangering those who use this park).

If we abide not in Christ, and if we embrace our errors and besetting, secret errors, we will die. As surely as the trees die. And the issue with the Anti-Christ is that such take the authority and form of our religion and our practice and our language and preach error.

Let us learn from history. And let us confront error in this time.

UPDATE.

This is from the Remnant, and a faithful catholic priest. Hat tip Mundabor.

By now it should be manifestly clear to all but the invincibly ignorant or hopelessly obtuse that the rogue who currently holds the office of pope speaks and acts more like a vicar of an anti-Christ than a Successor of Saint Peter. To put it bluntly, the flock of Christ is being ravaged by a wolf rather than protected by a shepherd. The recent papal exhortation is but the latest example in a long litany of papal outrages against truth and godliness. For three insufferable years Bishop Francis of Rome has been given sufficient rope to hang himself, leaving no doubt among the faithful remnant that we have a terribly rogue Pope on a Rope.

So The Last Word at this critical time must needs be an Exhortation Word to my brother priests: PLEASE do not allow this rogue pope to mislead souls entrusted by divine providence to your personal protection. We cannot expect—though we have every right to—that the Successors of the Apostles, the bishops, will exercise the authority and grace of their office to publicly oppose this rogue and his abominations. With rare exception they are for the most part either complicit through ill will or compliant through weak will.

Instead it falls to increasingly marginalized or already ostracized priests to protect whatever souls God has entrusted to us, whether in parishes, in classrooms, in confessionals or in some form of exile. Our circumstances vary and we must act accordingly but act we must.

Some priests are in a position to act openly with personal impunity, such as the clerics of SSPX. Bravo and keep up the good work! We can only pray that any regularization that your Society may consider would not in any way jeopardize your religious liberty or compromise your traditional integrity.

For many other priests in the trenches subject to bully bishops we do well to heed the exhortation of our Lord: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” Saint Edmund Campion, priest and martyr of England who often had to minister and witness in secret, would be a good patron and intercessor for us.

It ain’t just the Reformed now. And that was not the case during the reformation.