I have no skin in the theological fights that occur in the Roman Church. But they exist. They exist. The modernisers want to geld that church and ruin it. As they have with the Anglicans and Methodists. As they tried with the Presbyterians (and succeeded in the USA). For they see the faithful catholics as trapped on the Barque of Peter. If they can but sink that Barque, souls will be lost, and Satan will be truly pleased.

Father Nichols will now, sadly, be persecuted, and he will not even have the protection normally afforded to a Bishop. Please pray for him.

It is very sad to see that priests feel the need to publicly criticise the Pope and undergo certain persecution when not one of the bishops besides Schneider, and no darn Cardinal at all, dares to openly confront and condemn this evil man and the damage he is causing.

Father Nichols also theorised a procedure, sanctioned by Canon Law, to discourage heretical statements of future Popes; but I frankly find the endeavour futile, as a heretical Pope would block such ordinary ways. By definition, a heretical Pope can only be an extraordinary event; which will, then, require extraordinary measures outside of the usual legal ways and channels.

The Extraordinary Council generally seen as the remedy for such actions is just this: a counter-revolution for Christ against a revolutionary Pope. There can be no manual for such things, which makes it wise for such situations never having been regulated by Canon Law.

But this is just side news. That even the Catholic Herald publishes such a scathing condemnation is rather more relevant.

This is one of the reasons I say that those who believe in Christ crucified, risen, and the Lord of all need to stand with each other. We have differences in theology. They are big. We cannot reconcile them. But the believers need backing. We can let Christ correct our errors. In this time we have to pray for and support those we once expelled.

For we are in a religious war that could be as deadly as any that Europe and the West has seen. It is fought with ideas and memes, not with rifles and tanks… but given the experience of Northern Ireland, that can change.

Mark 11:27-12:12

^11:27Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him ²⁸and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” ²⁹Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” ³¹They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³²But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” — they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. ³³So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

¹Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ²When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. ³But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. ⁵Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. ⁶He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰Have you not read this scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
¹¹  this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

¹²When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

We are to have nothing to do with those who would destroy us. We need to preach the gospel, and remind all that those who add new books to the gospel are accursed, Muslims included. We are to preach the gospel, pray for all, and support the brotherhood.

Those who think that their status within the church means they can twist the gospel into something it is not need to recall that the Pharisees sat in the seat of Moses and were damned. For when the fulfilment of Moses and the law was in their prescence, they rejected him.

We need to preach the gospel, and see all else as noise. Particularly those terms used by the world at present to damn and destroy.

Even if you have done good, as Dreher has, you need to continually reform and consider your mission. Which is not agreeing with the enemies. This is Will, our Canadian brother, calling him out.

On the one hand, he is a Christian who is solidly traditionalist conservative as regards social issues, and is a keen observer of the scene, and has demonstrated a decent grasp of the big picture, the implications of current events, as regards such matters. His ‘Benedict Option’ seems, from all I’ve read about it, to be a well-thought out analysis of and response to the culture war status quo. His Law of Merited Impossibility predicts and explains the usual prog pattern of pooh-poohing notions of ‘slippery slope’, till they come true: “That will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it!” We’ve seen this time and time again, if anyone has paid any attention to the culture war from the early 1990s onwards…

But on the other hand, he’s also the wannabe hippie who invented the ‘crunchy con’ term, and promoted it heavily a decade and a half or so ago, embracing the notion of granola-eating, organic off-the-grid conservatives who homeschool and embrace homeopathic remedies, etc. In other words, who have much in common with alternative lifestyle (heterosexual, monogamous) progs. And today, he’s known as a bearded, craft-brew-swilling, Eastern Orthodox (but anti-Putin) hipster-wannabe, who feels the need to police the right for the slightest trace of anything that progs might consider ‘racism’, and condemn it fiercely. He desperately wants to be accepted by progs, and this makes him go over the top frequently, esp. with regards to Trump.

There is no virtue in muesli or veganism. There is less in antiracism, the current environmental movement, and the damnation of any race or group or culture for the imagined sins of their grandparents,

The gospel is now offensive. Our preachers have but one choice. Seek the praise of the press and the narrative of the progressive elite, and be damned as faithless. Or embrace the offence, and preach Christ crucified.

As Christ did.

It is not merely the congregation that is being winnowed as this war heats up. It is our bishops, our moderators, our theologians and our elders. Pray that they find again the courage to be faithful.