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Editor's Desk/

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note that the current edition of The Remnant is a double issue. At 32 pages, Volume 46, Numbers 19 & 20 is a combination of the November 15th and 30th issues. I'm grateful for your patience as The Remnant experiences some growing pains. Combining these two issues allows us to put muchneeded resources into the completion of The Remnant's new and vastly improved website.

With the election of Pope Francis, the winds of change are blowing, obviously, as the beleaguered Church Militant braces for what looks to be yet another seven years of spiritual famine. But The Remnant is adjusting accordingly.

Do we need help? Absolutely! But the needed financial assistance is not for the purpose of propping up a dying venture, thanks be to God. If you wish to help drag The Remnant, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, please spread the word about our TV and social network outreach. Also, please take advantage of our Christmas special (see page 2) to order gift subscriptions for friends and family; pick up a Remnant book or two for Christmas (see page 22); subscribe to Remnant TV’s YouTube channel (it’s free); or just recommend our website to your friends: www.

RemnantNewspaper.com.

As I’ve often insisted in this column, we are not giving up on newsprint.

Our NEWSPAPER must survive if The Remnant is to have any chance of weathering the coming Internet purge of all things Catholic. So we’ve got a survival plan firmly in place and, with

From the Editor's Desk...

C P

God’s help and yours, we’re forging ahead. All we need is a little help.

Donations to The Remnant Foundation are vital to the success of this effort— and tax deductible too, by the way.

Pope Francis

There are several articles in this issue of The Remnant that I’m publishing with a heavy heart. They have to do with the increasingly troubling pontificate of our Holy Father, Pope Francis.

Ever since the conclave, when John Rao and I stood in the Piazza San Pietro, rain pouring down, watching with dread in our hearts as the white smoke still billowed from atop the Sistine Chapel, I have been unable to shake a nagging sense of foreboding. Like many others, I was skeptical of the abdication of Pope Benedict, and, to a large extent, still am.

To me it smelled of a classic coup d’état, with intrigue ripped straight from the pages of a Malachi Martin novel. Was the abdication forced on some level? I have a hunch, but only time will tell…I hope.

Still, when it comes to the new Bishop of Rome I have tried manfully to "put on a happy face". To some extent we’re still holding out hope that Francis might do something to render these feelings of dread misplaced. I'm still convinced we must proceed with caution, making every attempt not to 'pile on' but rather to minimize the papal gaffes (always augmented by the mainstream media) wherever possible and for the sake of the Church. But… The Pope’s recent Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium has left even the most optimistic commentators scratching their heads. (See Christopher Ferrara’s Quo Vadis, Franciscus elsewhere in this issue.) One of the most troubling aspects of it has to be the rave reviews it garnered from liberals and progressives, and with good reason. As E. J. Dionne Jr points out in "The Heart of Pope Francis’ Mission" (The Washington Post): In light of a recent past in which conservatism was gaining the upper hand in the American Catholic church, progressives have reason to be elated. Conservative Catholics know this. That’s why they are torn between expressing loyalty to a pope who has captured the popular imagination and fretting over whether he is transforming the church with a speed that few thought was possible.

Indeed, Francis seems to be moving ahead with vigor. The endless stream of papal chitchat about "dialogue", "ecumenism", "Vatican II", "joy" and throwing off the shackles of "rigid tradition" indicates there is nothing new in all of this. After all, the "new trends" of the hippy era are about as progressive as a Jane Fonda workout video.

Nevertheless, the pretending seems to have ceased, with the closet doors having been thrown open wide, revealing the leprous visage of the Revolution.

The revolutionaries themselves, aged but confident of total victory, are convinced the traditionalists—the only speed bump on the road to Modernist nirvana— have been successfully controlled and contained within the coral of Legitimate Liturgical Aspirations. With little to fear from us, their secret plotting is no longer necessary, their masks can come off, and the old Church is in danger of becoming little more than a collection of faint memories in the minds of a few old men. And what’s next? "And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days," (Daniel 12:11) It is day 1,291, only this time it will not be the idol of Jupiter set up in the sanctuary, but rather the idol of Vatican II itself, clothed in the ecclesial robes of false ecumenism. Consider the bizarre novelties we see and hear spewing forth every day from the pulpits to the papacy: "Atheists are saved, just as all Christians are." "Jews are saved by the Old Covenant." "Even the Pope can’t say that homosexuals are living an intrinsically evil lifestyle. After all, who is he to judge?" "Hell is empty."

"Limbo doesn’t exist." And on and on it goes, where it stops nobody knows.

Given the Church’s infallible teachings on death, judgment, heaven and hell, this "new theology" is an unholy abomination at the very heart of the Church of Vatican II.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ became man, died on a Cross and rose from the dead in order to found a Church whose mission to save souls was established by God Himself. Speaking to his Apostles, Our Lord said "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

(Matthew 28: 19) It is the ultimate abomination of desolation when the successors of the Apostles begin giving the impression they've essentially rejected this Divine mandate in favor of one crafted by the Spirit of Vatican II—one which constitutes a de facto cease fire between the Church and the World. The new mandate can be summed up as: "All power is given to the Second Vatican Council. Go therefore and dialogue with all nations, assuring them that they need not be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost anytime soon."

Indeed if this is not what our Church leaders intend to say why do we keep hearing it? And when will the pope and his bishops begin clarifying the confusion and indifference this 'new orientation' is causing throughout the whole world?

Where is Francis going? Indeed.

Pray for the Pope. The Church needs all of her loyal sons and daughters to pray for him but also to hold fast to the mast of sacred Tradition until the storm passes, for in the darkness and confusion of a roaring sea anyone can be washed overboard. Let us resolve to keep the old Faith even if popes and bishops do not.

We must know our God and never doubt that in His mercy He will be with us always, even when they no longer are.

"And such as deal wickedly against the covenant shall deceitfully dissemble: but the people that know their God shall prevail and succeed." (Daniel 11:31) v