Francis sends his old friend, Leonardo Boff, a photo of the two in San Miguel, Argentina from 1972

(click images to enlarge)

Those are some nice looking cassocks the duo are wearing.

source: twitter @LeonardoBoff, 5 August 2019

Related:

• Where Francis gets his ideas

• Boff interviewed on the telephone by BBC Mundo

• Francis takes his ‘Jubilee Year of Mercy’ to its logical conclusion

• Where did Francis get his name?

• Francis sends birthday greetings to Leonardo Boff

Francis excited to make Romero a saint

“To all the young people gathered in these happy days for the canonization of Monsignor Romero: a big greeting and my blessing. And please do not forget to pray for me. To all, a big hug!” 

— Francis, in the below video—

“[Romero was] a martyr of the church of the Second Vatican Council.” — Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia

Vatican: Oscar Romero is 'a martyr of the church of the Second Vatican Council', National Catholic Reporter, (4 February 2015)

“Few know that Romero received spiritual direction from an Opus Dei priest and personally knew the future saint and Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva. When the latter died in 1975, he wrote a letter to Paul VI asking the Pope to jump start his canonization process, writing: “Monsignor Escriva . . . was able to unite in his life a continuous dialogue with Our Lord and a great humanity; one could tell he was a man of God, and his manner was full of sensitivity, kindness, and good humor.” As recommended by Opus Dei priests, Romero wore a cilice on Fridays as a form of self-mortification until his death.” 

Oscar Romero’s Exaggerating Critics, First Things, (7 March 2013)

Oscar Romero, “Personally, I owe deep gratitude to the priests involved with the Work, to whom I have entrusted with much satisfaction the spiritual direction of my own life and that of other priests.

People from all social classes find in Opus Dei a secure orientation for living as children of God in the midst of their daily family and social obligations. And this is doubtless due to the life and teaching of its founder.”

Archbishop Romero's cordial relations with Opus Dei continued right up to the day of his death. Fernando Sáenz, who eventually succeeded him as Archbishop of San Salvador, says that after writing this letter, Archbishop Romero took advantage of being in Rome to pray before the founder's tomb, and became visibly moved. “His spirituality, in some sense, was nourished by the spirituality of Josemaría Escrivá. He read The Way frequently.”

In his September 6, 1979 Diary entry, Archbishop Romero says that Opus Dei “carries out a silent work of deep spirituality among professional people, university students and laborers…I think this is a mine of wealth for our Church—the holiness of the laity in their own profession.”

The day he was assassinated, Archbishop Romero spent the morning with Fernando Sáenz at a recollection for priests organized by Opus Dei. 

Oscar Romero and St. Josemaria, Opus Dei, (25 April 2013)

Pro-homosexual Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos explains how he will runs diocese of Caicó

Here we listen to Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos give his Novus Ordo version of what the church is and how he will run the diocese of Caicó.  He mentions that his predecessor (Bishop Manuel Tavares de Araújo) signed the Pact of the Catacombs, sold the bishop’s palace (aka the fortress), and moved to a more simple residence then proceeded to make the focus of his ministries the poor and the peripheries (ala Francis).  Cruz Santos clarifies by what is meant by peripheries — it is not just geographical but also means bringing the Novus Ordo to drug addicts and people who are shunned because of the gender they identify as.  Then, Cruz Santos explains that catholic means universal so it has to include everyone.  Next he goes on to decry human trafficking for sex workers, illegal adoptions, and slave labor but has the chutzpah to blames all of this on those who are silent and say they know nothing about it.  In Cruz Santos’ book silence equals consent even when one has never seen human trafficking.   Finally this sad man says that he wants to walk together with the people of his diocese.

This pro-homosexual bishop spews heresies out faster than Francis does in this video.  He has a heretical ideas of what the Catholic Church is; that the Church discriminates against sinners even if they do not support the sin; rebels against the Church as a teacher; believes the in the concept of sin as defined by the Marxist liberation theology; believes people who morally discriminate are committing a social sin (i.e. people who don’t want their children around drug addicts or homosexuals); and doesn’t believe in the need for individual redemption.

Gee, who does this bishop remind us of...Francis?  We’ll he should as that’s who promoted him to be the bishop of Caicó, Brazil in 2014.


Related:

• Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos, “Homosexuality, if it is not a choice and not a disease, it is a gift given by God.”

Francis — Kirill — Castro

Freemasonry — Liberation Theology — Communism

Francis and Kirill sign a Joint Declaration as Raul Castro looks on.

Francis made an unprecedented stop in Cuba earlier today to meet with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all of Rus’, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, it was the first meeting between a pope and the Russian patriarch which therefore makes it historic. Patriarch Kirill (real name, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev) was elected and installed as patriach in 2009 because, “He (Kirill) is seen as a moderniser willing to foster better relations with the Vatican.” Furthermore, Kirill is an agent of the KGB:

“Material from the KGB archives examined by a parliamentary committee led by a dissident priest, Father Gleb Yakunin, in 1992 also revealed that most of the Church heirarchy was infiltrated by the secret police.

Kirill, 62, was alleged to be an agent codenamed ‘Mikhailov’ and Filaret was identified as agent ‘Ostrovskii’.”

Not only is Kirill an intelligence agent, he is also a billionaire.

“This brings us back to Kirill/Mikhailov. In 2006 Archbishop Kirill’s personal wealth was estimated at $4 billion by the Moscow News. No wonder. In the mid-1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department for External Church Relations, managed by Kirill, was granted the privilege of duty-free importation of cigarettes as reward for his loyalty to the KGB. It did not take long for him to become the largest supplier of foreign cigarettes in Russia.”

Perhaps this is what Francis means by going to the peripheries and a poor church?

Kirill the bald-faced liar

The patriarch originally denied that he wears a Breguet watch, which costs about 30,000 euros, and called any photo evidence a collage. Whoops...notice in the doctored photo one can still see the reflection of the watch in the table which has been photoshopped off of Kirill's wrist.
(see: The Telegraph's Russian Orthodox Church admits doctoring Patriarch photograph)

According to Ion Mihai Pacepa in the book he wrote, Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism, Kirill's employers the KGB created Christianized Marxism or as it is known in the Western hemisphere, Liberation Theology. 

Castro greets Francis at the José Martí airport in Havana, Cuba.

Now that we have given the reader a feel for whom Patriarch Kirill is, let's move onto Raul Castro. For those who don't know, Raul and his brother Fidel come from a Marrano family. This is of their own admission and has been published at Jewish Virtual Library as well as Jewish Cuba. A marrano is one who converts from Talmudic Judaism to Catholicism and then professes Catholicism publicly while privately practicing the Talmudic Jewish faith.

When Fidel Castro arrived in Cuba in 1956 to start his communist revolution against Fulgencio Batista, the dictator of Cuba, he was hidden by freemasons in a masonic lodge and given protection by them. Castro was inspired by the teachings of José Martí. We will return to José in a moment. Today there are over 318 masonic lodges in Cuba and under the Castro brothers, freemasonry unlike Catholicism has never been persecuted.  

In May 1985, Fidel Castro met with Brazilian liberation theologian, Frei Betto, several times and had a 23 hour dialogue about life, religion, revolution, etc... This was published as the book,  Fidel and Religion: Talks with Frei Betto.

Raul Castro “was involved in organizing the meeting,” between Francis and Kirill, according to Rev. Federico Lombardi, and that discussions about this historic meeting had been going on “for at least two years.”

Logia José Martí in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba.

When Francis came to Cuba for his first visit, he offered the Novus Ordo Missae at Revolution Square in Havana.  Revolution Square is known for its having the iron images of Ernesto Che Guevara & Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán bolted to the sides of the buildings surrounding the square and for its José Martí Memorial which dominates the square.  Recall above we mentioned that Fidel Castro took inspiration from José Martí and that when he came to Cuba to overthrow the government he was protected by the freemasons.  José Martí if you haven't figured it out was a freemason.  Cuba's patriotic song, “Guantanamera” is one of his poems set to music.  So what airport did Kirill and Francis have this historic meeting at where they signed a Joint Declaration?

Why none other than the former Rancho-Boyeros Airport now known since Castro's revolution as José Martí International Airport.

Francis' true color is revolutionary red.

Francis has embraced liberation theology and said, 

“I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the center of the Gospel.”

Francis interview with Il Messaggero

“Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, twenty centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: 'but then you are Christian'.”

Francis interview with Il Messaggero

“Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.” 

Francis in interview with La Stampa

“There are some declarations that you will like!”

When gifting Evangelii Guadium to Raul Castro.

and Raul Castro said of Francis,

“As I've already told my council of advisers, I read all of the pope's speeches. If the Pope continues to speak like this, sooner or later I will start praying again and I will return to the Catholic Church -- and I'm not saying this jokingly.”

These same characters keep on turning up — freemasons, revolutionaries, communists, liberation theologians, intelligence operatives, and non-Catholics!

What follows is the Joint Declaration between Francis & Kirill which was found on the Vatican's website.  Remember this meeting, the resultant dialogue, and the Joint Declaration have been rabbinically blessed! 

Joint Declaration
of Francis and Kirill

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor 13:13).

1. By God the Father’s will, from which all gifts come, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the help of the Holy Spirit Consolator, we, Pope Francis and Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, have met today in Havana. We give thanks to God, glorified in the Trinity, for this meeting, the first in history.

It is with joy that we have met like brothers in the Christian faith who encounter one another “to speak face to face” (2Jn12), from heart to heart, to discuss the mutual relations between the Churches, the crucial problems of our faithful, and the outlook for the progress of human civilization.

2. Our fraternal meeting has taken place in Cuba, at the crossroads of North and South, East and West. It is from this island, the symbol of the hopes of the “New World” and the dramatic events of the history of the twentieth century, that we address our words to all the peoples of Latin America and of the other continents.

It is a source of joy that the Christian faith is growing here in a dynamic way. The powerful religious potential of Latin America, its centuries–old Christian tradition, grounded in the personal experience of millions of people, are the pledge of a great future for this region.

3. By meeting far from the longstanding disputes of the “Old World”, we experience with a particular sense of urgency the need for the shared labour of Catholics and Orthodox, who are called, with gentleness and respect, to give an explanation to the world of the hope in us (cf.1Pet3:15).

4. We thank God for the gifts received from the coming into the world of His only Son. We share the same spiritual Tradition of the first millennium of Christianity. The witnesses of this Tradition are the Most Holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints we venerate. Among them are innumerable martyrs who have given witness to their faithfulness to Christ and have become the “seed of Christians”.

5. Notwithstanding this shared Tradition of the first ten centuries, for nearly one thousand years Catholics and Orthodox have been deprived of communion in the Eucharist. We have been divided by wounds caused by old and recent conflicts, by differences inherited from our ancestors, in the understanding and expression of our faith in God, one in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are pained by the loss of unity, the outcome of human weakness and of sin, which has occurred despite the priestly prayer of Christ the Saviour: “So that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you … so that they may be one, as we are one” (Jn17:21).

6. Mindful of the permanence of many obstacles, it is our hope that our meeting may contribute to the re–establishment of this unity willed by God, for which Christ prayed. May our meeting inspire Christians throughout the world to pray to the Lord with renewed fervour for the full unity of all His disciples. In a world which yearns not only for our words but also for tangible gestures, may this meeting be a sign of hope for all people of goodwill!

7. In our determination to undertake all that is necessary to overcome the historical divergences we have inherited, we wish to combine our efforts to give witness to the Gospel of Christ and to the shared heritage of the Church of the first millennium, responding together to the challenges of the contemporary world. Orthodox and Catholics must learn to give unanimously witness in those spheres in which this is possible and necessary. Human civilization has entered into a period of epochal change. Our Christian conscience and our pastoral responsibility compel us not to remain passive in the face of challenges requiring a shared response.

8. Our gaze must firstly turn to those regions of the world where Christians are victims of persecution. In many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated. Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed. It is with pain that we call to mind the situation in Syria, Iraq and other countries of the Middle East, and the massive exodus of Christians from the land in which our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived since the time of the Apostles, together with other religious communities.

9. We call upon the international community to act urgently in order to prevent the further expulsion of Christians from the Middle East. In raising our voice in defence of persecuted Christians, we wish to express our compassion for the suffering experienced by the faithful of other religious traditions who have also become victims of civil war, chaos and terrorist violence.

10. Thousands of victims have already been claimed in the violence in Syria and Iraq, which has left many other millions without a home or means of sustenance. We urge the international community to seek an end to the violence and terrorism and, at the same time, to contribute through dialogue to a swift return to civil peace. Large–scale humanitarian aid must be assured to the afflicted populations and to the many refugees seeking safety in neighbouring lands.

We call upon all those whose influence can be brought to bear upon the destiny of those kidnapped, including the Metropolitans of Aleppo, Paul and John Ibrahim, who were taken in April 2013, to make every effort to ensure their prompt liberation.

11. We lift our prayers to Christ, the Saviour of the world, asking for the return of peace in the Middle East, “the fruit of justice” (Is32:17), so that fraternal co–existence among the various populations, Churches and religions may be strengthened, enabling refugees to return to their homes, wounds to be healed, and the souls of the slain innocent to rest in peace.

We address, in a fervent appeal, all the parts that may be involved in the conflicts to demonstrate good will and to take part in the negotiating table. At the same time, the international community must undertake every possible effort to end terrorism through common, joint and coordinated action. We call on all the countries involved in the struggle against terrorism to responsible and prudent action. We exhort all Christians and all believers of God to pray fervently to the providential Creator of the world to protect His creation from destruction and not permit a new world war. In order to ensure a solid and enduring peace, specific efforts must be undertaken to rediscover the common values uniting us, based on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

12. We bow before the martyrdom of those who, at the cost of their own lives, have given witness to the truth of the Gospel, preferring death to the denial of Christ. We believe that these martyrs of our times, who belong to various Churches but who are united by their shared suffering, are a pledge of the unity of Christians. It is to you who suffer for Christ’s sake that the word of the Apostle is directed: “Beloved … rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (1Pet4:12–13).

13. Interreligious dialogue is indispensable in our disturbing times. Differences in the understanding of religious truths must not impede people of different faiths to live in peace and harmony. In our current context, religious leaders have the particular responsibility to educate their faithful in a spirit which is respectful of the convictions of those belonging to other religious traditions. Attempts to justify criminal acts with religious slogans are altogether unacceptable. No crime may be committed in God’s name, “since God is not the God of disorder but of peace” (1Cor14:33).

14. In affirming the foremost value of religious freedom, we give thanks to God for the current unprecedented renewal of the Christian faith in Russia, as well as in many other countries of Eastern Europe, formerly dominated for decades by atheist regimes. Today, the chains of militant atheism have been broken and in many places Christians can now freely confess their faith. Thousands of new churches have been built over the last quarter of a century, as well as hundreds of monasteries and theological institutions. Christian communities undertake notable works in the fields of charitable aid and social development, providing diversified forms of assistance to the needy. Orthodox and Catholics often work side by side. Giving witness to the values of the Gospel they attest to the existence of the shared spiritual foundations of human co–existence.

15. At the same time, we are concerned about the situation in many countries in which Christians are increasingly confronted by restrictions to religious freedom, to the right to witness to one’s convictions and to live in conformity with them. In particular, we observe that the transformation of some countries into secularized societies, estranged from all reference to God and to His truth, constitutes a grave threat to religious freedom. It is a source of concern for us that there is a current curtailment of the rights of Christians, if not their outright discrimination, when certain political forces, guided by an often very aggressive secularist ideology, seek to relegate them to the margins of public life.

16. The process of European integration, which began after centuries of blood–soaked conflicts, was welcomed by many with hope, as a guarantee of peace and security. Nonetheless, we invite vigilance against an integration that is devoid of respect for religious identities. While remaining open to the contribution of other religions to our civilization, it is our conviction that Europe must remain faithful to its Christian roots. We call upon Christians of Eastern and Western Europe to unite in their shared witness to Christ and the Gospel, so that Europe may preserve its soul, shaped by two thousand years of Christian tradition.

17. Our gaze is also directed to those facing serious difficulties, who live in extreme need and poverty while the material wealth of humanity increases. We cannot remain indifferent to the destinies of millions of migrants and refugees knocking on the doors of wealthy nations. The unrelenting consumerism of some more developed countries is gradually depleting the resources of our planet. The growing inequality in the distribution of material goods increases the feeling of the injustice of the international order that has emerged.

18. The Christian churches are called to defend the demands of justice, the respect for peoples’ traditions, and an authentic solidarity towards all those who suffer. We Christians cannot forget that “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, that no human being might boast before God” (1Cor1:27–29).

19. The family is the natural centre of human life and society. We are concerned about the crisis in the family in many countries. Orthodox and Catholics share the same conception of the family, and are called to witness that it is a path of holiness, testifying to the faithfulness of the spouses in their mutual interaction, to their openness to the procreation and rearing of their children, to solidarity between the generations and to respect for the weakest.

20. The family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman. It is love that seals their union and teaches them to accept one another as a gift. Marriage is a school of love and faithfulness. We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience.

21. We call on all to respect the inalienable right to life. Millions are denied the very right to be born into the world. The blood of the unborn cries out to God (cf.Gen4:10).

The emergence of so-called euthanasia leads elderly people and the disabled begin to feel that they are a burden on their families and on society in general.

We are also concerned about the development of biomedical reproduction technology, as the manipulation of human life represents an attack on the foundations of human existence, created in the image of God. We believe that it is our duty to recall the immutability of Christian moral principles, based on respect for the dignity of the individual called into being according to the Creator’s plan.

22. Today, in a particular way, we address young Christians. You, young people, have the task of not hiding your talent in the ground (cf. Mt25:25), but of using all the abilities God has given you to confirm Christ’s truth in the world, incarnating in your own lives the evangelical commandments of the love of God and of one’s neighbour. Do not be afraid of going against the current, defending God’s truth, to which contemporary secular norms are often far from conforming.

23. God loves each of you and expects you to be His disciples and apostles. Be the light of the world so that those around you may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father (cf. Mt5:14,16). Raise your children in the Christian faith, transmitting to them the pearl of great price that is the faith (cf. Mt13:46) you have received from your parents and forbears. Remember that “you have been purchased at a great price” (1Cor6:20), at the cost of the death on the cross of the Man–God Jesus Christ.

24. Orthodox and Catholics are united not only by the shared Tradition of the Church of the first millennium, but also by the mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in the world today. This mission entails mutual respect for members of the Christian communities and excludes any form of proselytism.

We are not competitors but brothers, and this concept must guide all our mutual actions as well as those directed to the outside world. We urge Catholics and Orthodox in all countries to learn to live together in peace and love, and to be “in harmony with one another” (Rm15:5). Consequently, it cannot be accepted that disloyal means be used to incite believers to pass from one Church to another, denying them their religious freedom and their traditions. We are called upon to put into practice the precept of the apostle Paul: “Thus I aspire to proclaim the gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on another's foundation” (Rm15:20).

25. It is our hope that our meeting may also contribute to reconciliation wherever tensions exist between Greek Catholics and Orthodox. It is today clear that the past method of “uniatism”, understood as the union of one community to the other, separating it from its Church, is not the way to re–establish unity. Nonetheless, the ecclesial communities which emerged in these historical circumstances have the right to exist and to undertake all that is necessary to meet the spiritual needs of their faithful, while seeking to live in peace with their neighbours. Orthodox and Greek Catholics are in need of reconciliation and of mutually acceptable forms of co–existence.

26. We deplore the hostility in Ukraine that has already caused many victims, inflicted innumerable wounds on peaceful inhabitants and thrown society into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. We invite all the parts involved in the conflict to prudence, to social solidarity and to action aimed at constructing peace. We invite our Churches in Ukraine to work towards social harmony, to refrain from taking part in the confrontation, and to not support any further development of the conflict.

27. It is our hope that the schism between the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine may be overcome through existing canonical norms, that all the Orthodox Christians of Ukraine may live in peace and harmony, and that the Catholic communities in the country may contribute to this, in such a way that our Christian brotherhood may become increasingly evident.

28. In the contemporary world, which is both multiform yet united by a shared destiny, Catholics and Orthodox are called to work together fraternally in proclaiming the Good News of salvation, to testify together to the moral dignity and authentic freedom of the person, “so that the world may believe” (Jn17:21). This world, in which the spiritual pillars of human existence are progressively disappearing, awaits from us a compelling Christian witness in all spheres of personal and social life. Much of the future of humanity will depend on our capacity to give shared witness to the Spirit of truth in these difficult times.

29. May our bold witness to God’s truth and to the Good News of salvation be sustained by the Man–God Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who strengthens us with the unfailing promise: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom” (Lk12:32)!
Christ is the well–spring of joy and hope. Faith in Him transfigures human life, fills it with meaning. This is the conviction borne of the experience of all those to whom Peter refers in his words: “Once you were ‘no people’ but now you are God’s people; you ‘had not received mercy’ but now you have received mercy” (1Pet2:10).

30. With grace–filled gratitude for the gift of mutual understanding manifested during our meeting, let us with hope turn to the Most Holy Mother of God, invoking her with the words of this ancient prayer: “We seek refuge under the protection of your mercy, Holy Mother of God”. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, through her intercession, inspire fraternity in all those who venerate her, so that they may be reunited, in God’s own time, in the peace and harmony of the one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and indivisible Trinity!

Francis Bishop of Rome Pope of the Catholic Church

Kirill Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia

12 February 2016, Havana (Cuba)

Francis to Kirill, “We are brothers”

Francis to Raul Castro, “I appreciate your active availability, if it continues, Cuba will be the capital of unity.”

Brothers in what?

 

Francis arrives at José Martí International Airport

Francis & Kirill sign the Joint Declaration

Raul Castro greeting Francis

Francis embracing Kirill

Francis’ masonic handshakes

Francis the 'humble' Marxist

Francis 'Karl Marx'

Francis is currently in the middle of a South American tour and in Bolivia.  Shortly after arriving, he stopped his motorcade at the spot where the dead body of Fr. Luis Espinal Camps, S.J. had been dumped and found. There Francis said a few words, “Dear sisters and brothers. I stopped here to greet you and above all to remember. To remember a brother, our brother, a victim of interests who did not want him to fight for the freedom of Bolivia.”  And concluded with, “May Christ draw this man into himself. Lord give him eternal rest and may light shine for him that has no end.”

Francis prays at site where the dead body of 

Marxist-Jesuit Luis Espinal was discovered

Who was Luis Espinal?

Born in 1932 in Barcelona, Fr. Espinal studied both philosophy and theology before entering the Jesuit novitiate in Veruela in Zaragoza at the age of 17.

The same year he traveled to Bergamo, Italy to study audiovisual journalism. After two years he returned to Spain and began to work for Spanish radio and television corporation TVE at the height of Francisco Franco's rule.

Fr. Espinola denounced the censorships placed on TVE under Franco and left Spain. He moved to Bolivia in August 1968, where he took over as chair in the journalism department of the Bolivian Catholic University, and later become sub-director.

He was granted Bolivian citizenship in 1970, and over the course of the next 10 years worked in both the written and radio press, produced documentaries on social themes and got into screenwriting.

As an avid defender of human rights, the priest cofounded the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights in Bolivia in 1976. During the 1971 military coup led by Hugo Banzer Suarez, Fr. Espinola intervened on behalf of persecuted and detained politicians and trade unions.

In 1977 he participated in a three-week-long hunger strike to gain general amnesty for political exiles, validity of trade unions and the withdrawal of the army from mining centers.

In 1979 Fr. Espinola founded the weekly newspaper “Aqui,” which was quickly dubbed “leftist” due to its anti-establishment views and vocal criticism of government corruption.

As a result of his work, the priest was kidnapped by a group of paramilitaries March 21, 1980, while on his way home.

According to police and militants at the time, the militants took Fr. Espinola to La Paz' Achachicala slaughterhouse, where he was tortured for five hours before being shot 17 times. His body was found handcuffed and gagged the next morning.

In 2007, Morales officially declared March 21 as the “Day of Bolivian Cinema” due to the priest’s contributions in the area. On that day, cinemas and television channels are obliged to show national films, particularly relating to the themes of human rights and indigenous peoples.

Fr. Lombardi noted during a July 6 press briefing that no cause has been opened for Fr. Espinal's beatification.

source: Catholic News Agency, Pope Francis apparently not amused by 'communist crucifix'

Luis Espinal Camp, the Marxist-Jesuit priest at work.

Fr. Espinal, who considered himself a "worker priest" remained in the capital, La Paz, where he lived in a poor neighborhood with two other Jesuits. He worked as a theater critic for the daily newspaper Presencia and initially designed his own show on national television, in which he reported on the "worker priests" and took interviews with members of the Marxist guerrilla movement Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). In 1971 he was awarded Bolivian citizenship. From that year until his death he was a member of the Jesuit radio station Radio Fides and chief editor of the weekly newspaper he founded, Aquí as a mouthpiece left "popular movements". He supported the miners' movement, founded in 1976 the human rights organization, Asamblea de Derechos Humanos and joined a public hunger strike in 1977 with the demand for democratization.

Luis Espinal was one of a number of Jesuits and got closer to various forms of Marxism. Unlike his brothers he did not go over to armed struggle.

When the Leftist Nationalist, Lidia Gueiler Tejada from the interim Revolutionary Nationalist Movement of Bolivia, was the President of the Republic, Espinal was abducted and murdered on March 21, 1980. Whether the offenders were sent by the drug cartels that soon afterwards supported the dictatorship of Luis García Meza Tejada, or from one of the various rapidly changing, and disempowered military rulers could never be clarified. Espinal followers see the reason in his public criticism of an amnesty for crimes during the tenure of President Banzer.

source: Eponymous Flower, What is the Origin of the Hammer and Sickle Crucifix? -- Marxist Jesuit

Francis meets with Evo Morales and they exchange gifts

the hammer & sickle crucifix

A fellow Spanish Jesuit priest, Xavier Albo, who worked with Luis Espinal wrote an editorial this past week in which he explained the  hammer & sickle crucifix hand carved by Espinal as well as relating a few of his experiences with him.  Albo said, the hammer & sickle crucifix expresses, "the necessary but elusive Marxist Christian dialogue with the workers and peasants, which made him the Christ of their votes he shows how the urgency felt in such a dialogue."

Luis Espinal left Spain because he felt stiffled by the censorship of Franco's government.  After Luis had lived in Bolivia for a time he wrote that, "The liberation of the workers will be the work of themselves." Yup, that sounds the opposite of what Christ said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me." (John 14,6)

The hammer & sickle crucifix, hand carved by and used by the late Fr. Luis Espinal 
Camps, S.J.  It is kept at the Jesuit headquarters in La Paz, Bolivia.

Francis didn't know Luis Espinal had carved a crucifix like this.

The two medals presented to Francis by Evo Morales.  Notice the same hammer & sickle crucifix as the emblem on the top one.  Also, the two co-official flags of Bolivia.  Since 2009, Bolivia has had two flags.  The rainbow colored flag is called the Wiphala of Qullasuyu or the Túpac Katari Wisphala and the rainbow supposedly stands for the indigenous people and the land they live in.  Coincidentally, the flag has 7 colors as does the Noahide Rainbow.  The Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army (Ejército Guerrillero Túpac Katari) traces its origins to the revolutionaries trained by Che Guevara.  We bring this last point up only because one of the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army's former members, Álvaro García Linera, is the current vice-president of Bolivia.

News media outlets and conservative Catholic websites went into overdrive after the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, gave the two hammer & sickle crucifixes to Francis as presents.  They claimed Francis uttered, “This is not right," when receiving the gift and used a still shot taken out of context, ignoring the smile seen in the video on Francis' face and the fact that he accepted both gifts!  Great job reporting guys!  Our take on it is that those in the media doing the reporting still see communism as evil and projected their own desires onto Francis and they further didn't do their work, checking what was actually said in the video.  In our opinion at Call Me Jorge..., Francis should have slapped Morales across the face for presenting him with blasphemous gifts like this and walked out of the room at the least.  Instead of the falsely attributed quote, he said, “I didn't know that.”  Doesn't sound like a condemnation does it?

English subtitles of what transpired in brief exchange between Morales and Francis when hammer & sickle crucifix was given

Here is a transcript of the words exchanged between Morales and Francis, extracted from the clips based on the audio and subtitles:

[Morales:] Santidad, han tallado afortunadamente el símbolo de la cruz del martillo y de la hoz que es probablemente obra de Espinal, Luis de Espinal… Interesante como símbolo.

[Francis:] No sabía eso.

[Morales:] Ya lo sabe.

And now the same in English:

[Morales:] Your Holiness, fortunately they have made the symbol of the hammer-and-sickle cross, which is probably the work of Espinal, Luis de Espinal. It’s an interesting symbol.

[Francis:] I didn’t know that.

[Morales:] Now you know.

source: NovusOrdoWire, Commie Crucifix Kerfuffle: What did Francis say to the Bolivian President?

Rome Reports finally corrects their error, kind of

Are you sitting down dear reader?  The Vatican said, the hammer & sickle cross was not a sign of ideology but one of dialogue!  They used the same explanation Xavier Albo gave.  Thanks for the clarification Fr. Lombardi.  The communists should remember that line next time they are massacring Christians.

Instead of reading Francis' new encyclical Laudato si', the Vatican and all Catholics should take the time to read  two encyclicals which condemn the same socialism and communism Francis so admires.

• Rerum Novarum, (On Capital and Labor, Leo XIII, 1891)

• Divini Redemptoris, (On Atheistic Communism, Pius XI, 1937)

We can't think of a more astute observations than what one commentator on twitter wrote. "this is bergoglio's liberation theology tribute trip...so this blasphemous hammer and sickle is his award trophy," and "one twitter image says it all... bergoglio is a communist.. he hides his communism behind the crucified Christ."

Franics sounding like...

"I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the center of the Gospel."

"Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, twenty centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: 'but then you are Christian'."

Francis interview with Il Messaggero

Franics sounding like...

"Let's say together with our heart: no family without a roof, no peasant farmer without land, no worker without rights, no person without dignified labour!"

“Land, roof, and work … It’s odd, but for some, if I talk about these [subjects], it turns out the pope is a communist.”

Francis addressing the World Meeting of Popular Movements

Franics sounding like...

“Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”

Francis in interview with La Stampa

Franics sounding like...

"There are some declarations that you will like!"

When gifting Evangelii Guadium to Raul Castro.

 

...a Commie!

Austen Ivereigh on Francis

The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope

Well worth taking 5 minutes and 20 seconds to listen to a liberal explain what Francis is doing.

the moral decline of Jorge Bergoglio

An interesting article in Newsweek Magazine, The Crisis That Changed Pope Francis by Paul Vallely, was sent to us by an anonymous reader of Call Me Jorge... Vallely makes several impressive observations about Francis and shows the transformation of Jorge Bergoglio from a rule follower worried about the souls under his care into a rule breaker worried only about the temporal matters of his flock.    The underlines in the article are ours for emphasis.

The Crisis That Changed Pope Francis
by Paul Vallely

He was not what she was expecting, in several ways. The man who would one day be Pope Francis had come to hold a service far from the grandeur of the great cathedral of Buenos Aires. He had travelled – taking the subway train and then the bus – to arrive in one of the shanty-towns, which Argentines call villas miserias – misery villages. He had picked his way down crooked and chaotic alleyways, criss-crossed with water pipes and dangling electricity cables, along which open sewers ran as malodorous streams when the rain came. There, amid ramshackle houses of crudely- cemented terracotta breezeblock, he fell into conversation with the middle-aged mother.

She told him of life in an impoverished slum, terrorised by gangs peddling paco – the cheap chemical waste product left over from processing the cocaine sent to Europe and the United States, or sold to the affluent middle classes of the Argentinian capital. Dealers mix the residue with kerosene, rat poison or even crushed glass and sell it for a dollar a hit to the people of the slums. So addictive is the drug that one day’s free supply is enough to get hooked, creating a short-lived high followed by an intense craving, paranoia and hallucination. The dealers target the children of the poor and adolescents who hang around because there is no work to be had.

The woman looked at the prince of the Church and apologised to him for the fact that her son, amidst all that, had stopped going to Mass. The man, who as Pope was to take the name of Francis – the great saint of the poor – looked into her eyes as though she were the only person in his world. “But is he a good kid?” the priest asked.

“Oh, yes, Father Jorge,” she replied, eschewing the grander titles of the cardinal archbishop. “Well,” pronounced the prelate, “that’s what matters.”

People not dogma

Over the past two weeks, Pope ­Francis has gathered together the first Extraordinary Synod of Bishops of his pontificate. There has not been such a synod for more than 30 years. His aim appeared to be to persuade the leaders of the Catholic church to adopt the same approach he had demonstrated to the mother in the slum – and which has characterised his ministry for the past three decades. It is that the care of individuals takes priority over doctrine. “realities are greater than ideas,” as Francis said in his first major document,Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), which sets out his prioroties like a manifesto for his papacy.

More than half of the Catholic church’s leaders voted for changes – in attitudes to gay and divorced people – in harmony with the approach of the new pope. But a minority of conservatives prevented the changes from receiving a two-thirds majority. It seems that Francis has some way yet to go to bring the whole Catholic church into line with his new inclusive approach.

The grounds on which he chose to wage this struggle for the soul of Catholicism were revealing. There were many pressing items on his list that he might have put before the 250 bishops, theologians, lawyers and lay men and women he hand-picked to attend the synod.

It could have been the reform of the dysfunctional Vatican bureaucracy. Or the sex abuse sandal which has bedevilled the Catholic church for the past two decades. Or how to make the secretive Vatican Bank more accountable. But instead Francis, who has begun to deal with all those issues in other ways, chose a subject which directly touches everyone of his flock – the family. Boldly, it confronted the issue of why large swathes of the faithful chose to ignore official church teaching on contraception, pre-marital sex, cohabitation, divorce and homosexuality.

Autocratic style

Yet there is more to the notion of family than that for the man who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Flores, a lower middle class district of Buenos Aires, in 1936. Though he was by birth an Argentine, the future Pope was raised on pasta and in a distinctively Italian culture and faith tradition. His grandparents and father had emigrated to Buenos Aires from Piedmont in the north-west of Italy six years before he was born. They had no liking for the dictatorship of Mussolini and their older sons had left a few years earlier.

The boy Jorgé was the first of five children and, to give his mother some respite, Bergoglio’s grandmother Rosa took him to her home nearby every day. His grandparents spoke Piedmontese to one another and he learned it from them, which is why he is fluent in Italian as well as Spanish – and can even sing a few risqué songs in Genoese dialect, thanks to a reprobate great uncle. His family had no car and could not afford holidays, but the house was filled with relatives, cooking, opera, laughter and love.

The family’s chief legacy to the boy was its faith. Nonna Rosa told him stories of the saints and taught him the rosary. The family prayed together every evening. It was a peasant religion that rejoiced in popular pieties, processions, novenas and shrines. Today he retains a special place in his heart for the simple faith of ordinary people.

But the family was not a place of total concord. His mother was angry when she found that he was not studying medicine, as she had been told, but theology.

“I didn’t lie to you,” the future Jesuit responded with the casuistry for which his order has been notorious. “I’m studying medicine – but medicine of the soul.” His mother was so upset she refused to go with her son when he entered the seminary three years later, aged 19. It took her years to accept that her notion of family should accommodate her eldest son becoming a priest.

For Bergoglio, the notion of family extended to embrace the Jesuits, the religious order founded in the 16th century by the soldier-turned-mystic Ignatius Loyola. After being taught philosophy and theology by Jesuits at seminary he decided to enter the order who saw themselves as “contemplatives in action”.

But families have tensions and rivalries as well as affection and support. The Jesuits in Argentina were riven in the 1960s and 70s with the arrival of Liberation Theology, which wanted the church to work for the economic and political enfranchisement of the poor. Progressive Jesuits, including their leader, Father Ricardo ­O’­Farrell, embraced this. But conservatives wanted to stick to their traditional job of educating the children of the rich. They complained to Rome about O’Farrell and the Jesuit leadership in Argentina replaced him with a young conservative – Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was made Jesuit Provincial at the young age of 36.

However, Bergoglio did not heal the split in the Jesuit family. He made it worse with his inexperienced autocratic style. So deep was the division that one senior Jesuit wrote privately, on the eve of the papal election, that a Bergoglio papacy would be “a catastrophe” for the Church, concluding: “We have spent two decades trying to fix the chaos that the man left us.”

Interior crisis

So divisive were his 15 years as Jesuit kingpin in Argentina that, when it ended in 1986, he was sent into exile by Jesuit leaders in Rome. He went first to Germany, where the leitmotif of family once again emerged. In a church in Augsburg he discovered a painting that had been commissioned to celebrate the work of a wise old Jesuit who had rescued the failing marriage of a 17th-century Bavarian aristocrat. Entitled Mary Untier of Knots, it showed the Virgin Mary untangling the knots in the long ribbon used to celebrate the wedding of the nobleman and his wife.

The painting spoke to Bergoglio about the tangles he had exacerbated among Argentina’s Jesuits through his inexperienced leadership style which, he later admitted, was hasty and authoritarian and led to him being perceived as ultraconservative. He returned to Argentina only to be sent into two years internal exile in the remote city of Córdoba, some 650km from Buenos Aires, where he underwent what he later described as “a time of great interior crisis”.

Though it’s not possible to see into another person’s soul, it is clear that in this period of exile, in which he was given no full-time job to do, Bergoglio found a way to see further into his own.

Bergoglio has always been a man of deep prayer. For many years his habit has been to rise at 4.30am to 5am every morning to spend two hours in silent prayer before the tabernacle before his working day begins. It is in that period of prayer that he makes his big decisions, one of his aides told me. He would also in Córdoba have undertaken the set of spiritual exercises devised by the Jesuits’ founder, Ignatius of Loyola. At the heart of these is a process of discernment which helps the practitioner to strip away his layers of self-justification and self-delusion, and penetrate through to the inner core of his behaviour and motivation.

What is clear now is that Bergoglio emerged from that spiritual crisis an utterly different man. He had had a profound conversion that reconfigured his understanding of the way God wanted him to behave. He developed a new model of leadership, one which involved listening, participation and collegiality. When he arrived at his next job, as an assistant bishop in Buenos Aires, the old Bergoglio had vanished. He had transmuted from an authoritarian reactionary into the figure of radical humility who is today turning the Vatican upside down.

Shocking transformation

Returning to the city of his birth as a bishop meant that Bergoglio embraced an even larger family. He went to the villas miserias and spent long hours with the poorest of the poor. He became known as the Bishop of the Slums. Over his 18 years as bishop and then archbishop in Buenos Aires, one priest told me, Bergoglio talked personally to at least half the people in his slum. He would turn up, wander the alleyways, chat to the locals, bless their children and their homes, and drink maté tea with them. “He doesn’t see the poor as people he can help but rather as people from whom he can learn,” said Father Guillermo Marcó. “He believes the poor are closer to God than the rest of us.”

Many were staggered at the transformation. One of his former Jesuit pupils, Father Rafael Velasco, who is now Rector of the Catholic University of Córdoba, told me: “Bergoglio had been so very conservative that I was rather shocked years later when he started talking about the poor. It wasn’t something which seemed at the top of his agenda at the time but clearly became so as a bishop. Something changed.” And not just in Bergoglio himself. Over the next two decades Bergoglio transformed the face of the church in Buenos Aires. He quadrupled the number of priests serving in the slums. He became concerned with the water pressure in the pipes as much as the holy water in the churches. He backed self-help groups, co-operatives and politicised organisations – exactly the kind of work he had condemned two decades earlier.

The man who was once the scourge of Liberation Theology among Argentina’s Jesuits now helped form a union among the cartoneros – some of the poorest people in Buenos Aires who make a living sorting through the city’s garbage each night to find and sell recyclable materials. “He wanted to help them to protect their rights,” said Federico Wals, who was Bergoglio’s long-standing public spokesman.

He even embraced much of the economic analysis that had led Liberation Theology to fall foul of the Vatican under the anti-Marxist Polish pope, John Paul II. Bergoglio began to use the language of Liberation Theology, condemning oppressive economic systems as “structures of sin”.

When Argentina became the biggest debt defaulter the world had ever seen in 2001, almost half the population was plunged below the poverty line. Bergoglio responded by denouncing the “unjust distribution of goods”. What the poor needed was not charity but justice; “not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them”, he proclaimed. Bergoglio had begun to talk like a liberation theologian.

But if Bergoglio’s contact with the direct poor was making him a political radical – and enemy of the Peronist governments of Néstor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Kirchner – it was also affecting his attitudes to the way the church should minister to people. The hard life of the teeming slums created high levels of unemployment, crime, drug use and prostitution, which brought high levels of divorce, remarriage and cohabitation.

In the slums of Buenos Aires he learned to see the world differently, says Father Augusto Zampini, a diocesan priest from the city, who has taught at the Colegio Máximo where Bergoglio was once Rector. The future Pope did not alter his doctrinal orthodoxy on matters like the church’s ban on divorced and remarried Catholics taking communion. But he did not allow church doctrine to overrule his priority of pastoral care for the troubled folk he met in the slums.

“When you’re working in a shantytown 90% of your congregation are single or divorced,” Zampini says. “You have to learn to deal with that. Communion for the divorced and remarried is not an issue there. Everyone takes communion.” Bergoglio’s priority became understanding the problems faced by the poor, rather than focussing on obedience to unbending rules.

He showed particular sensitivity toward those living in difficult situations, and those who felt marginalised from the life of the church. “He was never rigid about the small and stupid stuff,” says Father Juan Isasmendi, the parish priest in Villa 21 slum, “because he was interested in something deeper.”

Rebellion against Rome

Not everyone approved of this embrace of heterodoxy. Jerónimo José Podestá was a progressive Catholic bishop whose radical teachings in the 1960s irritated the Vatican. He was drummed out of the episcopacy by Rome at the behest of Argentina’s conservative bishops. By the time of his death in 2000, Podestá was poor and living in obscurity. No one in the church would have anything to do with him – apart from one man.

Bergoglio visited the ostracised bishop on his deathbed and gave him the last rites. He then ensured that the man’s widow, Clelia Luro, and her children were provided for – even though she was a feminist as radical as was imaginable on the Catholic spectrum, who used to celebrate mass with her husband. Despite that, Bergoglio continued to phone her every Sunday until her death last year.

Rome doubtless disapproved of the archbishop’s contact with the disgraced prelate. But Bergoglio did not shy away from what he saw as his duty of compassion. He was used to Rome’s displeasure. In his time as archbishop of Buenos Aries he became immensely impatient with junior Vatican officials who treated cardinals around the world with an infantilising disregard. “They would speak to us as if we were altar boys,” one cardinal complained to me. Bergoglio’s recommendations for who should be made bishop were routinely overturned. Conservative enemies in the church were constantly reporting him to Rome behind his back.

Last year Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by resigning. The cardinals who met to elect his successor held days of private debate before voting. In the discussions, senior churchmen from all round the world complained of being treated by Rome as Bergoglio had been. The Vatican was supposed to be their servant but behaved as though it was their master.

The cardinals articulated two priorities for the new pope. He should reform the scandal-hit Vatican Bank and the dysfunctional Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia. And he should restore a sense of collegiality to the governance of the church so that it was run by bishops collectively rather than by the pontiff behaving like a medieval monarch.

Francis acted swiftly to reform the bank and the bureaucracy, bringing in teams of top management consultants, sacking ineffectual regulators and closing over a thousand dodgy accounts. He set up a Council of Cardinal Advisory as a counterweight to the Curia; its members came from every continent, and included conservatives as well as moderates, but all had in common that they had previously been fierce critics of the Vatican’s haughty centralism.

But the issues confronted in this month’s synod were more controversial within the church. Francis laid the ground carefully, sending out numerous signals that he wants change. He married 20 couples – something popes rarely do – and included among them several already living together in contradiction of official church teaching. And he angled the preparation for the Synod so that debate focused on one totemic issue – the ban on remarried Catholics taking communion.

The pope could have simply announced he was delinking the practice of receiving communion from the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. But Francis does not want to be a pastoral autocrat in the way that previous popes have been philosophical or theological dictators. He wants to change the way the church goes about making decisions, to turn it from a monarchy into a body in which pope, prelates, priests and people constitute a collegial communion.

He began by sending out a questionnaire to ordinary Catholics asking their views on church teaching on contraception, pre-marital sex, cohabitation, divorce and homosexuality. It was an unprecedented move. In the past the faithful had just been expected passively to pray and pay. Next he made the responses – many of which were highly critical – the basis for the agenda of the Synod discussions. Then on the eve of the Synod he announced that discussion must be frank and fearless – the opposite of the climate under previous popes where dissent was discouraged or supressed.

Change on the march

He got what he wanted. There was free and fierce debate between liberals and ideological conservatives (the most strident of whom, US Cardinal Raymond Burke, has been going round claiming that the pope is about to sack him from his post as the Holy See’s most senior canon law judge). Pastoral conservatives have divided between the two sides. Yet the vote on welcoming gays failed by just two votes to get the two-third majority.

Change is clearly on the march. A series of documents were drawn up – an interim report, small group reports and a final report which was less welcoming to gays and the divorced than Francis wanted. These are now the subject of a year’s intense debate. Then there will be a larger Synod on the family next October after which the pope – who concluded by warning against “hostile rigidity” by traditionalists  and “destructive good will” by liberals – has the final word.

It will not be a straightforward business. Indeed it could get rather messy. But then family life is like that. And Pope Francis is, above all else, a family man.

Pope Francis – Untying the Knots by Paul Vallely is published by Bloomsbury