Yes, you read that correctly. Since Protestants have been doing “synodality” far longer than we Catholics have, we need to study them to see how it’s done.
Or something like that.
Here’s what the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference put out this week:
To help better understand the place of synodality in the Catholic Church, ecumenical leaders will attend national Uniting and Anglican gatherings this month to see how synodality works in those communities.
The global Synod on Synodality has encouraged engagement with ecumenical and interfaith groups as part of the process leading towards the gathering in Rome in October 2023.
Cardinals Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, and Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, recently said: “Conscious of our need for the accompaniment and the many gifts of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we call on them to journey with us during these two years and we sincerely pray that Christ will lead us closer to him and so to one another.”
So let me get this right: to learn how to be better Catholics, we need to learn from Protestants. Right.
Maybe we should send our teenagers to carjacking school to make them better drivers? Or send our daughters to Marie Stopes to make them better mothers? (Oh, I forgot – Archbishop Comensoli has already tried something like that.)
The article goes onto say that the Australian Synod of Bishops committee is sending “key ecumenical leaders” (Catholics) to the Uniting Church’s Assembly and to the Anglican Synod, which are both being held this month. This is where some of your hard-earned church-offerings are ending up, friends: sending Catholics to take notes from the Protestants.
One of the participants is a Fr Trainor, a priest from Adelaide. He said that “One of the key lessons I’ve learned is that open and friendly dialogue is at the heart of communion in faith …. The core of our communion is Baptism, which leads us to see each other as sisters and brothers in faith.”
So which is it, Father? Is it Baptism or is it “dialogue” that is the basis of our alleged communion with heretical churches? It matters not – neither would pass the Syllabus test, would they?
One good thing could come of this kind of meeting, though. If Catholics hear from their Protestant peers about the numerous difficulties involved in being a married priest, or the practical challenges of being a female priestess, or the lack of acceptance for (God forbid) an openly sodomite bishop, they just might have second thoughts about their own radical plans for the Church.
But until then, be prepared for more of this nonsense as the increasingly irrelevant Plenary movement morphs into the far more fashionable Synodality movement.
At least that’s what the Bishops are trying to convince us of, anyway.
Since my article of last week, which explained how Melbourne’s Archbishop Peter Comensoli hired an ex-Marie Stopes employee for his Professional Standards Unit, the woman in question, Loretta Hoban, has mysteriously updated her LinkedIn profile.
Now, only a few days ago, Ms Hoban was proud to advertise her time with the prestigious Marie Stopes. And why not? MSI slaughters 5.6 million unborn babies worldwide per annum so is no second-rate baby-killing outfit. MSI is obviously very professional about it, too: why else would the Archbishop choose a pro-abortion feminist over the hundreds of faithful Catholics who were qualified for the job – and who have never come within an inch of being complicit with abortion?
Anyway, in the last few days, it would appear that Ms Hoban has had second thoughts and no longer wants the world to know of her ties to Marie Stopes.
Strange that she left details of her work with the equally anti-life CARE International, Red Cross, Oxfam and Asia Foundation. (Hint: anyone trying to cover their tracks when it comes to involvement with abortion might want to replace the term “sexual and reproductive health” with something a little more, well…. prolife?)
Here’s a comparison of Ms Hoban’s CV of last week with the current one:
LAST WEEK: Ms Hoban was only too happy to provide details of the pro-abortion, pro-contraception Know and Grow project in which she participated in Cambodia
THIS WEEK: struck by a sudden bout of humility, Ms Hoban has hidden her involvement with Know and Grow, but not to worry – that li’l old article at Buzzfeed is still up and it fills in the gaps….
LAST WEEK: Ms Hoban’s experience with Marie Stopes was related in great detail ….
THIS WEEK: Marie Stopes is nowhere to be found.
Far be it from me to suggest that Ms Hoban’s editing spree is due to the article that appeared on this site – but it really is quite the coincidence.
It would be nice to think that in this case, the pen was mightier than the sword, but unfortunately, when it comes to dismembered babies, that just isn’t so. Their blood still cries to heaven, and responsibility for that can’t be simply wiped away with the stroke of a computer key.
Archbishop Comensoli just doesn’t seem to get it. When he’s not disrupting parishes, hand-wringing over government crackdowns or otherwise fiddling in a Masonic key while Rome burns, then he’s adding another feminist ideologue to his cohort of anti-Catholic employees.
This time, he really has outdone himself: he has hired a former top-level Marie Stopes employee to coordinate the Archdiocese’s National Redress Scheme for survivors of priestly sex abuse. That’s right, a woman who has facilitated the deaths of perhaps tens of thousands of tiny children in utero has been hired to advise a Catholic Archdiocese on how to protect children.
The unfortunate woman’s name is Loretta Hoban: she was hired last year and the description of her role comes straight from her LinkedIn profile:
“To provide high level strategic policy advice to create a culture of safety for children in the organisation. This includes policy oversight and advice relating to child safety and the safety of vulnerable people. In addition, the role oversees the operation of the National Redress Scheme for survivors of abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.“
So His Grace hired a pro-abortion fembot to ‘create a culture of safety for children.’ Great. Why doesn’t he get Vladimir Putin in to advise on conflict resolution while he’s at it.
Just think – only two years previously, Hoban was teaching Cambodian teenagers how to get on in life by contracepting and aborting their babies. Now she’s ‘safeguarding children.’
This is almost as bad as that former Archbishop of Hobart getting the Family Planning director into his schools to teach little children about ‘relationships’. That woman eventually went on to greater things, too – she joined Tasmanian politics and had abortion legalised through all nine months of pregnancy.
Sometimes, all those aspirations pay off.
An aspirator.
Used for performing first trimester abortions.
The cultural imperialists just LOVE handing these out in developing nations.
The appointment of Ms Hoban to the Archdiocesan position took place in April 2021, and made her second-in-charge of the Professional Standards Unit. This means that she is part of the team set up to ‘audit’ parishes for compliance with a plethora of ‘woke’ guidelines. These are ostensibly to protect children from abuse in the parish setting, but are really just a way of monitoring and controlling priests. The Boomers love it.
Of course, as anyone with half a brain knows, most child abuse occurs within the home, but that is no obstacle for the intrepid ideologues who know that there are lucrative opportunities waiting for those who want to infiltrate dioceses and further their immoral agendas under the guise of safeguarding children.
Let’s take a closer look at just how Ms Hoban spent her time before landing her prestigious job with CAM.
Well, for starters, she spent some time with the pro-aborts par excellence, Marie Stopes International, (recently rebranded as Ms Stopes’ penchant for eugenics is now known to the mainstream).
Hoban was employed there in 2015 to kick off a project targeting factory workers in Phnom Penh. Seems that those underprivileged third-world women were not sophisticated enough to understand Western ideas of motherhood so they needed Ms Hoban and her US$4 million to show them how to kill their own offspring. Sounds pretty racist to me.
Then there was that research paper she co-authored in 2016, which investigated what Cambodian career-women thought about contraception. Turns out, they were just as wedded to the idea of traditional motherhood as were the factory workers. Not surprising for a family-oriented Buddhist country like Cambodia. Buddhists hate abortion – or they did until Ms Hoban turned up.
After that, from 2016-17 she was empowering women at the UN-loving Asia Foundation and you can bet she wasn’t there to promote NFP.
Then in 2019, Hoban helped develop that cute little app for CARE, the one which lured Cambodian factory-workers into using more efficient – that is, better at baby-killing – forms of contraception. Here’s what she told pro-abort news outlet, Buzzfeed, about the app:
“Mobile games are increasingly popular in Cambodia, and the app provides a fun and interactive way to learn about a topic that people are often shy to speak about…. [The] stories engage viewers emotionally while providing accurate and easy-to-understand information about contraception.”
How thoughtful of her.
Nihilistic cultural imperialism with your hard-earned tax-dollars (CARE is funded by DFAT – the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.)
Now …. refresh my mind …. what is that mission statement plastered all over the Archdiocesan website? Is it that they have a
“Commitment to the safety of children and young people”
and that
“Safeguarding children and young people is central to our mission”??
Well, excuse my French, but how the hell can someone who thinks it’s good to kill children be trusted to protect them?
And why is this pro-abort feminist being given the authority to lecture priests about preventing abuse? No form of child abuse is more extreme than killing them!
And why – O why? – is this woman being handsomely paid by a Catholic Archdiocese when she obviously has no regard for Catholic teaching?
Remember: thousands of Catholics are out of work because they won’t take the abortion-tainted jab. But this anti-Catholic pro-abort has been brought in to ride the abuse-scandal gravy train.
Comensoli really has gone too far this time. I suggest that if you don’t want your collection money funding a pro-abortion feminist like Loretta Hoban – and she’s not the only one roaming the halls in Melbourne – then let Archbishop Comensoli know your thoughts here: archbishop@cam.org.au
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It’s bad enough when the Pope spouts his heretical nonsense to the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, but it is even worse when he misrepresents Christ’s teaching to those of other faiths: in this case, to Mohammedans.
“Fraternity is the anchor of salvation for humanity’, opined Bergoglio in his speech for the second International Day of Freemasonry Human Fraternity.
Christians might ask where the Blessed Trinity fits into this equation? Rightly so, for the Trinity is noticeably absent. Again.
One is tempted to think that Bergoglio hates Muslims. He certainly does not love them enough to explain to them the truth: that salvation is not found outside the Catholic Church and that Mohameddans have rejected that Church’s foundation, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Pope’s recorded speech was first played in Dubai at the UAE’s EXPO 2020 for Freemason Fraternity Day. the EXPO began last October and runs to the end of March this year and has as its themes what amount to the Sustainable Development Goals. So there is nothing remotely Catholic here or for that matter, not even much that is Islamic.
During the six months of the EXPO’s operation, ten weekly themes are being presented and they include the topics being promoted by the WEF and other globalist entities; for example the “Tolerance and Inclusivity” week features presentations on digital employment and AI; the health and wellness week looks at digital medicine and health technologies; the Global Goals week is run in conjunction with the UN and includes the SDGs proper – global business, sustainability, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution are all covered.
None of this is really surprising except for the presence of a pavilion run by the Holy See. (Actually, given the Abu-Dhabi statement, it’s not that surprising.)
The Vatican is being touted as the “world’s smallest sovereign state with global influence”. It’s tagline is “Forging ever-stronger relationship with all faiths”. According to the Holy See listing on the EXPO’s website, attendees are invited to:
* Hear its message highlighting the need to sustain inter-religious and diplomatic dialogue
* Recognise its creed of peace and harmony, underpinning the values of tolerance and coexistence
* Understand its mission to break down the walls that separate ethnic groups and nations
(Here’s an idea: maybe Archbishop Roche could visit the display to learn how to use ‘diplomatic dialogue’ when dealing with traditional Catholics. He could take home a swag-bag of ‘tolerance and coexistence’ as a little memento.)
Now, in the interests of fair reporting, it must be admitted that the Holy See pavilion ran an event for Christmas which did actually mention Jesus Christ, and did actually include prayer. This was held on Christmas Day and was entitled, Prayer Service for Humanity. It included the story of the nativity recounted by a priest, as well as aa jazzed-up version of Silent Night but seemed overall to be fairly joyless event. I guess that’s what happens when people have no faith.
The stage for the Holy See’s Christmas event in Dubai: nothing to offend Mohammedans here.
One of the comments under the Pope’s talk on the Rome Reports Youtube channel gives an indication of the calibre of Catholics this pontiff is attracting to the Church. See if you can make sense of it.
“I WANT TO THANK U DAD FRANCIS THE HOLY FATHER POPE FRANCIS-MY CEO-BOSS-SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP FOR EMBARKING ON THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF HUMANITY. THANK YOU FOR BEIGN THE FATHER TO THE UNIVERSE, A DAD THAT WAS ALWAYS THE DAD FIGURE IN MY LIFE. I LOVE U DAD FRANCIS
“THANKS FOR U JOINT COLLABORATION IN ESTABLISHING A HOUSE REGISTERED TO #5ISLANDS NATION MONARCHY FORMAT OF GOVERNANCE, NASSAU THROUGH TO SAN SALVADOR-PRIVATE-PERSONAL PROPERTIES AND ESTATES MONARCHY FORMAT OF GOVERNANCE.”
Maybe it was composed by a Bergoglio bot. Or maybe was from from Massimo Fagglioli. Either way, it is gibberish, which is probably going to be this pope’s legacy. That and destroying what was left of the human element of the Church.
The entire text of the video can be read here, and another little snippet appears below.
“Now is the fitting time to journey together: believers and all people of good will, together. This is a good day to extend a hand, to celebrate our unity in diversity – unity, not uniformity, unity in diversity – in order to say to the communities and societies in which we live that the time of Freemasonry fraternity has arrived.“
Pope Francis
Extending a hand ?
“This is not a time for forgetfulness”, the pope concludes. And I agree.
Memento mori, Bergoglio. Because at the hour of death, you want Christ to be the anchor of your salvation, whereas good ol’ ‘fraternity’ will be a weight that drags you to hell.
It sounds like a joke, does it not? But this is deadly serious. A Catholic Archbishop, in need of new premises for his admin offices, concluded that a Freemason’s Lodge would be the best location from which to preach, teach and sanctify his unwary flock.
This story might be a few years old now, but it’s still worth taking a closer look.
Timothy Costelloe was installed as Archbishop of Perth in 2012, and in August 2015 purchased a $7 million property in Perth’s CBD from which to run the Archdiocese. The property, 249 Adelaide Terrace was owned by the Grand Lodge WA and had been used as their headquarters. Who knows what kind of deal was struck, but the bishop got quite a bargain as he paid half a million less than the amount paid by the Masons when they bought the property six years earlier.
Before and after shots of 249 Adelaide Terrace, Perth. Pictures with Archdiocesan signage are pretty thin on the ground, so if any reader can supply, I’d be most grateful.
Now it is somewhat strange for a Catholic institution to take over a Masonic temple – especially in these days when our bishops seem only too willing to “dialogue and accompany” the Masons. In fact, there could be one of only three reasons why a bishop would make this decision:
1. Extreme piety: despite exorcists claiming that it is sometimes impossible to cleanse a geographical site from demonic influence, the bishop is confident that he can enlist all the powers of the Church (exorcism, prayers of liberation, sacramentals, Masses) to free the site and use it to further the mission of the Church.
2. Ignorance: the bishop’s formation was so dumbed-down that he sees Masonry as no threat to Catholicism; he thinks it’s nothing more than a social club for men intent on growing their virtues.
3. He is a Mason and wants to access the power that comes from the dual processes of mocking God (by moving Church offices into a former temple) and of tapping into the rituals that have been performed there.
Hopefully it’s number 2, although that doesn’t minimise the risk to the Archdiocese. (Number One is out of the question – this is Australia, remember?) So what is known about Archbishop Costelloe? Does he have any form as a Mason or Masonic sympathiser?
Well, he says he is against child abuse (don’t they all?) but followed his predecessors’ footsteps by covering it up (ditto) – even though he has “seen the anguish” first hand. He says enforced celibacy causes priests to abuse children but then sacked a priest for breaking his vow of celibacy. (Obviously, the action taken by His Grace was appropriate, however, it does seem a tad inconsistent with his stance on celibacy….) The Archbishop is also involved with a few legal battles with his priests, not to mention whispers of his utter contempt for the more orthodox ones.
But at least he honours the ancestors, right?
He has even opted not to stick up for a Catholic school principal who is against the state government’s vaccine mandates. Instead of lauding that man, Archbishop Costelloe distanced himself from the principal, saying that he was “deeply disappointed.”
Yes, your Grace, it is always disappointing when a layman shows up the clergy’s lack of conviction by demonstrating his own.
So now, having looked briefly at some poignant items from the bishop’s CV, let us return to the title of this piece: why DID the bishop buy the Lodge?
All things considered, could the answer possibly be: to get to the Other Side?
Another Australian bishop has been throwing his pandemic-acquired weight around, this time in sunny Queensland. Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Brisbane, has decided to collaborate with the tyrannical state government by forcing his priests to get vaxxed or risk losing their faculties.
The Catholic Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, affectionately known as “Stasi,” has found a willing ally in the Archbishop of Brisbane. Like Daniel Andrews and his “good Catholic grandfather”, Palaszczuk has fond memories of her Polish grandparents with their “eight photos of Pope John Paul II in the living room.” Also like Daniel Andrews, Palaszczuk is left-wing, pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia and has been autocratically bullying her subjects into following a raft of COVID mandates, including barely-voluntary vaccination.
While the two State Premiers have much in common, it is remarkable to likewise observe some similarities between Archbishops Coleridge and Comensoli: the latter fancies himself to be the Australian incarnation of John Paul II, while the former was, at one stage, the Polish Pontiff’s speech writer. But unlike JPII, neither Archbishop seems to have the strength nor the will to stand up against their secular leaders’ repressive regimes.
Despite demanding that his priests are double-vaxxed with toxic gene serum by December 15th (“Clergy not doubly vaccinated are failing in their duty to care for the faithful”), the good Archbishop states that he respects his priests’ consciences.
“I too have a conscience”, says he. At least, that’s what he tries to convince them of in his four-page letter, reproduced below.
For the time-poor, the short version is: “You have to listen to me since I am the CEO of the Archdiocesan Corporation.”
The CEO, whose hobbies include holding Zoom meetings with his staff of one.
The Stasi, seen here throwing a totally innocent Illuminati-inspired hand signal.
Yes, that’s right. The Archdiocese of Brisbane is a Corporation, so as well as owing obedience to their Ordinaries, priests must also now submit themselves to medical trials at the behest of their CEOs. From the letter:
“I recognise that having a vaccination, including the COVID-19 vaccination, is a matter of personal choice. However, I am the sole member and officer of the Archdiocesan Corporation which in civil law is the employer of Archdiocesan staff, including those working in parishes. I am therefore bound to take seriously compliance with health directions. Further, I have a legal obligation to ensure that the Archdiocesan Corporation meets its workplace health and safety obligations….“
Oooohhh. Civil AND legal obligations. But no moral ones?
The Archbishop goes on to make some sophistic claims about his duty to protect his priests, his priests’ duty to protect their parishioners and everyone’s duty to protect unborn babies from medical experimentation – oops, sorry! – he didn’t actually write that last bit because Australian bishops no longer believe in minor obligations like upholding Catholic teaching.
Coleridge did include some extracts from Canon Law which is always guaranteed to make a prelate look more credible. The fact that those Canons are twisted and misapplied is neither here nor there. (He is a CEO with Obligations, remember!)
Just take a look at the penalties Coleridge has prepared for the non-compliant priests, who are, no doubt, some of his most holy and orthodox men: the cessation of their public ministry or worse – suspension of their faculties.
“In circumstances where a priest or deacon has not complied with paragraph 1 above by 15 December 2021, I will be asking that he voluntarily stand aside from pastoral duties in his parish and from all pastoral ministry until he has been fully vaccinated. Should a priest or deacon in such circumstances decline to stand aside voluntarily, I will need to consider the temporary suspension of faculties until he fully complies..“
Does the Archbishop not realise that unvaccinated Catholics (and probably many vaccinated ones) have no problem at all with being ministered to by an unvaccinated priest? The letter continues with a tirade about medical exemptions, and makes no provision for conscientious objection – or for objecting to His Grace’s conscientiousness!
Now, it really comes as no surprise that Archbishop Coleridge has agreed to do the government’s bidding. As President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference – that same Bishops Conference which in 2017 approved Catholics to be Freemasons – he is more than familiar with handshake deals and fraternal cooperation. Coleridge is not even averse to using Brisbane’s churches for sexually-explicit entertainment or from pushing an heretical agenda at his pet project, the Plenary Council.
However, there may be just a little hope for Brisbane’s faithful, unvaccinated priests. It seems Archbishop Coleridge can sometimes be quite lenient when it comes to his pastors breaking the law – at least, it depends on what kind of law is being broken. If it is something on the scale of child sex abuse, he seems to be able to turn a blind eye. He can even enlist help from his pal Cardinal Cupich when the need arises. But something tells me that his unvaxxed priests will not be so fortunate.
In case there’s any doubt left as to what kind of prelate we are dealing with, here’s Archbishop Coleridge’s take on “synodality.” Given that it was St Charles Borromeo who risked contracting the plague to ensure that all Catholics had access to the Sacraments, Archbishop Coleridge unironically uses the patron saint of facing-down pandemics to promote heresy, all the while shirking his own responsibility to safeguard the souls of his flock.