Let me start with a positive comment. Remember, this is the best I could come up with:

If we had gotten the pope we DESERVE, we would now have Pope Snoop Dogg.

And thus ends the positivity.

Francis, like his homeland of Argentina, is a total disaster. He has overseen the near-total destruction of the Church in Argentina. He hates and despises the Tridentine Mass, which is to say that he hates the Mass – let’s not mince words, and is a rabid persecutor of anyone in Argentina who shows ANY signs of tradition. A priest in Argentina literally risks the end of his career if he wears a cassock in public. He has forbidden the Tridentine Mass in Argentina, which is an act of direct disobedience, specifically against the papal decree Summorum Pontificum, but embraces horrific “charismatic” and “Superfun Rockband”-type liturgical sacrilege.

Which brings us to his regard for the papacy, and the Church itself. He said yesterday in his bizarre little speech, again and again, that he was the Bishop of Rome, which is true, but in being the Bishop of Rome the pope is the head of the Universal Church, not just the city of Rome. Francis does not believe this, and even made a reference to the idea that the pope is “first among equals”. This means that he regards the Church as a mere loose confederacy, and also that he thinks the Church is, or should be, a democracy. The proof of this is, again, his blatant disobedience to Summorum Pontificum. He will never do anything to clean up the sodomite infiltrators in the Church outside of Rome because he doesn’t feel that the pope has any authority outside of Rome. Bottom line here: many bishops and archbishops have been kept in line over the past eight years because Benedict was relatively aggressive in booting out extremely bad bishops. Benedict was feared in a healthy way. This guy is basically the big green light to every Marxist-homosexualist to just go ahead and do whatever, because they know Francis will never remove them or even chastise them, because Francis doesn’t believe that the pope has any universal authority and is merely the bishop of the city of Rome proper – at least that is the excuse that will be given when nothing is done about abuses and heresies **that Francis is sympathetic towards.**

BUT, like all insecure leaders who say that they reject authority and obedience, reports from Buenos Aires are that he is an iron-fisted totalitarian against traditionalists, precisely because he has no confidence in or respect for his own authority, and thus assumes that no one else does either, and thus wields power against his perceived enemies only from brute force. Again, this is TEXTBOOK 20th century Marxist worldview and psychology. It is also the diametrical opposite of the virtue of MEEKNESS, which is power under control.

Next, he is an “ecu-maniac”, which is to say that he is in the “all religions are equal and can’t we all just get along” camp. In Buenos Aires he knelt before and received the “blessing” of a Superfun Rockband Church “pastor”, and even received “communion” from a Protestant. There are pictures floating around of that episode. This is terrifying. He clearly does not have a strong belief in or understanding of Our Lord, His Church, the Mass or the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. But, as I have stated repeatedly, almost none of the men ordained in the 1960s, 70s or 80s do.

Next, he’s a Jesuit. Now, I must disclose that I have a deep personal, seething, visceral hatred of Jesuits, but my hatred of them is a corollary to the fact that they long ago descended into truly evil heresies and apostasy. Jesuits, in addition to being a cult of sodomites who hate God, are also † wait for it † Marxists. Now Francis has in the past put up some token resistance to so-called “Liberation theology”, which is just Communist Totalitarianism in religious drag, but he is huge, huge, huge on “social justice”, which is merely code for Marxism. This guy’s worldview revolves around giving people free stuff because it’s nice, which as we have discussed is contrary to logic and reason, specifically in the subset of mathematics, and thus is contrary to Our Lord who is FIRST the Logos, with the Divine Caritas (charity) proceeding out of the Logos. Bottom line, there will be zero positive assistance to the world from Francis with regards to the inevitable economic collapse. Not only will there be nothing helpful coming from him, he will almost certainly come out in favor of more debt, more “free stuff”, and more rhetoric about how people are “entitled” to physical and service commodities (which are someone else’s man-hours, remember) as “rights”.

But Ann! He has gone on record against homosexual “marriage” and abortion!

Wow. Is this really how far we have sunk? The Roman pontiff is on record as being against sodomy and killing babies and we cite this as proof of ORTHODOXY? Really? I wonder if he also believes in gravity. Does belief in gravity constitute a conservative worldview now?

Benedict thought that between the “Natural Solution” (the passage of time yielding the death or retirement of the bad guys) and the appointments he was able to make over the last eight years that he had set up the College of Cardinals to elect a successor that was very much in the Ratzingerian camp. Benedict was wrong. Not only did they not elect a Ratzingerian, they elected the anti-Ratzinger. In the 2005 conclave Francis came in second to Ratzinger, which is to say that Francis was the “opposition”. In what must have Benedict’s mind reeling today, after eight years of purging and priming the College of Cardinals, the very men Ratzinger placed turned around and elected the anti-Ratzinger. This proves, as I have said all along, that playing prevent defense, namely the “natural solution” of waiting for the bad guys to die is UNSOUND. In war, you fix your bayonets, say your prayers, and you charge.

Tridentine Mass-goers and clergy, this guy will be on the warpath against us at some point. Prepare. Brace. He may attempt to undo Summorum Pontificum either directly or through intense passive aggression. Any hopes of reconciling the good guys in the SSPX is now totally over. Beyond that, the splinter factions will now claim that “they were right”, and sadly even more schism will result, and more people will remain outside the Church. So sad.

We got what we deserved, and probably better than we deserve. God’s chastisement of His people is sending them bad priests, bishops, and now, in all likelihood, a bad pope. What do you expect? Look around. The world is awash in staggering sin and blasphemy and no one will lift a finger to do anything about it. And, as my last essay on penance proved via my email box, no one is sorry or has any desire to make reparation to Our Lord for any of it. No one has the slightest comprehension of the notion of taking on the burden of guilt for sins that they didn’t directly commit, which blows my mind because that is LITERALLY the ENTIRE POINT of the Incarnation. The mind reels at the collective obtuseness needed to miss that glaring point.

No one has the slightest comprehension of the idea of seeing Our Lord in agony and simply stepping over to Him and asking, “What can I do to help You? What can I do to make You feel better? Let me take some of Your burden. Let me go with You.”

Nope. So long as we all leave Him alone in His Passion, He will leave us to our self-absorption and indifference.

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

Viva il Papa.

So I was praying the Rosary yesterday in a modest little church with a modest little Blessed Sacrament chapel and was struck right away by the First Sorrowful Mystery, which is the Agony of Our Lord in the Garden. The fruit of the mystery of the Agony in the Garden is sorrow for sin.

Look at those words again: sorrow for sin.

Not sorrow for just MY sins, but sorrow for all sin. And this, it seems to me, is where the world is in big, big trouble. If we read the Old Testament we see the same course of events repeating itself over and over again. People turn away from God, there is chastisement, the people repent and do penance, and God in His mercy forgives them and takes them back. But in every instance there must first be the acknowledgement of sin by the people and then penance. We see this both in individual contexts, as with David, and on the macro scale as with Israel over and over again. God does not and will not forgive sins unless there is a genuine turning away from the sinful activities. God does not and will not accept empty, hollow, dishonest faux-repentance, and certainly won’t forgive an unrepentant people.

In visiting with people of late, it is very, very clear to me that there is basically ZERO sorrow for the sin beyond the individual level, and there is LESS THAN ZERO willingness to do penance and make reparation to Our Lord for the sins of the state, the broad culture, or for anyone other than one’s self. Beyond that, the notion of penance itself has been watered down to nothingness. There are people running around living lives of utter decadence, ease and superficial happiness who will look you in the eye and swear up and down that they are living a life of penance because they pray every day, don’t eat red meat on Fridays, and donate a little money here and there. Let’s break that down. First, how is conversing with God penance, exactly? How would you feel if someone told you that conversing with you was an act of mortification for them? As someone who was recently told that very thing in so many words, and has heard that fairly consistently for most of my life, it isn’t exactly fun. But then, Our Lord hears that from HIS OWN PEOPLE constantly. Hmmm. If nothing else, I guess I’m in good company on that point.

Next is the fasting thing. Let’s be clear. The red meat fast is a good thing, but if you just order the Sea Bass, you know, the kind that melts in your mouth like butter from the sea, instead of the steak, is this really an act of penance? Are you REALLY making reparation to Our Lord for your sins and the sins of the world? No. At best the red meat fast makes you stop and think for just a moment about our Lord and His Passion. That is good, but if you dive into a meal that is otherwise sublime – just without one particular kind of food – this really isn’t penance in any honest sense of the word.

Finally, almsgiving. Almsgiving that doesn’t break the bank is fun. Especially when done in secret. That is one of the great joys in the well-lived life.

In the Third Secret of Fatima, which is being played out before our very eyes (the Fatima visionaries saw a bishop in white who they thought MIGHT have been the pope but were very confused about, which now makes perfect sense, whereas up until just a couple of weeks ago no one could make heads or tails of what that meant), an angel appears in conjunction with a great tribulation crying, “Penance, Penance, Penance!”

I’m afraid that a supernatural terror like that is what will be required to make anyone in this culture actually ponder the terrible, terrible crimes that have been committed against Our Lord and do any penance for them at all. Hundreds of millions of dead babies. The cult of sodomy. The destruction of the economic and financial systems and the resulting theft and deprivation of rightfully owned property and wages. The liturgical sacrilege of the Novus Ordo within the Church, and of all of the false religions and political cults all over the world that either pervert or deny Truth. It just goes on and on and on.

I, for one, will not wait until there is a giant angel with a flaming sword standing over me screaming, “Penance, Penance, Penance!” I love Our Lord now. I’m sorry not just for my own sins, but for the sins of the entire world right now.

What can I do, Lord? What can I do to console You as You suffer in the Garden? I know that most of these people are never going to wake up. I know that most of these people regard You as an abstract philosophical construct, a legalistic point of contract law, and a gift horse, and thus it will never occur to them that maybe You just want them to come to You in the Garden and ask to take on some of the burden of not just our own sin, but the sins of others, and to share in Your suffering – which is the real definition of the word “penance”. When you love someone and you see them suffering, you should want to take it. We can’t take all of it, but we can, like Simon of Cyrene, help. The merit comes not from the load of the penance we bear in and of itself, because we are talking about an infinite quantity. Infinity minus x still equals infinity. The merit comes in the movement of the soul in REAL CHARITY in desiring to share in Christ’s sufferings through REAL penance just for His sake, and for the sakes of our neighbors, who we love not because of any quid pro quo, but because Christ loves them too. I don’t personally like very many people, truth be told, nor is personal affection on my part required. But I am willing to suffer and do penance on their behalf because Our Lord loves them and desires their salvation, and so that is good enough for me. If it consoles Him, then that is what I want to do, because I love Him.

People, no matter who is elected pope, no matter what happens, none of this is going to be resolved in any way, shape, manner or form unless and until people start doing actual, real penance for the unspeakable, unprecedented sins of the world today. As in real, profound mortification and suffering, joined to Our Lord’s Passion. Think prison. Think total loss of property and wealth. Think martyrdom. This culture not only refuses to do any real penance for the enormous sins we have committed against Our Lord, heck, we refuse to even acknowledge that any sins have been committed at all.

This isn’t going to end well in an earthly sense. There exists no cardinal who can fix this as pope. All I’m praying for is that the next pope isn’t a Marxist-homosexualist who hates God, hates His Church, hates the Mass, and hates Our Lord in the Eucharist. Given those criteria, pickins are slim, people. My advice to one and all is to embrace serious repentance and penance now motivated by true love for Our Lord (filial fear) and for neighbor, and not to wait until the motivation is abject terror rooted in selfishness and servile fear. Let me echo one more time the words of the angel in the Fatima vision: PENANCE! PENANCE! PENANCE!

Go to Him in the Garden now, and beg Him to let you help carry the Cross. But understand, if you ask this of Him, HE WILL LET YOU DO IT, and there will almost certainly be no earthly reward, only a heavenly one.

Here’s the next Pope.

Angelo Bagnasco. Pope Leo XIV.

Very smart, and very elegant and dignified in a masculine way. Very kind, but will tear the face off of anyone who crosses him. And 70 years old. Plenty young and robust.

I like him.

(Please Lord, let me be right if for no other reason than to send all of the insane conspiracy theorists who say I am a government agent or shape-shifting lizard person simultaneously into low-earth orbit. Oh, and thanks again for our chat in the Sistine Chapel back in December. Amen.)

† Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL. †

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ASSAULT WEAPON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!EVELENTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ABSOLUTE MONARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m skeerd. Hold me.

Oh, no. Wait. That’s King Saint Ferdinand III of Spain. Thirteenth century manly-man. Pious and holy as the day is long. Zealous propagator of the faith and manful slayer of many, many musloids. The love of his people was second only to his love of Our Lord and His Holy Church.