Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: Pelly on March 14, 2013, 03:11:07 PM
-
A comment (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-horror-buenos-aires-journalist.html) here states that ha was a Mason before becoming Pope. Is this true? I didn't find any reliable information on Wikipedia.
EDIT: here (http://www.Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.bcy.ca/biography/pius_ix/freemason.html) is another link. Something is very wrong I think.
-
EDIT2: according to that, it seems like that he infiltrated Masonry. Upon becoming Pope, he excommunicated the Lodge.
-
From what I understand, he was a liberal early in his life, but there is no evidence that he was a Freemason.
And it should be noted that was most certainly NOT a liberal Pope. He was one of the greatest Popes we've ever had.
-
Can somebody examine these writings?
-
Pope Pius IX was never a mason.
-
From what I understand, he was a liberal early in his life, but there is no evidence that he was a Freemason.
And it should be noted that was most certainly NOT a liberal Pope. He was one of the greatest Popes we've ever had.
In the text below, Pope Pius IX demolishes the calumny that he himself was a liberal and also condemns in the strongest terms the same religious indifferentism which the "popes" of Vatican II regard as their greatest glory.
The Life of Pope Pius IX and the Great Events in the History of the Church During His Pontificate[/i]]Against religious indifferentism so zealously advocated in our days, and made as it were a state creed, he said: “It is assuredly not unknown to you, venerable brethren, that in our times many of the enemies of the Catholic faith especially direct their efforts toward placing every monstrous opinion on the same level with the doctrine of Christ, or of confounding it therewith, and so they try more and more to propagate that impious system of the indifference of religions. But quite recently, we shudder to say it, men have appeared who have thrown such reproaches upon our name and apostolic dignity, that they do not hesitate to slander us, as if we shared in their folly and favored the aforesaid most wicked system. From the measures, in no wise incompatible with the sanctity of the Catholic religion, which, in certain affairs relating to the civil government of the Pontifical States, we thought fit in kindness to adopt, as tending to the public advantage and prosperity, and from the amnesty graciously bestowed upon some of the subjects of the same States at the beginning of our pontificate, it appears that these men have desired to infer that we think so benevolently concerning every class of mankind, as to suppose that not only the sons of the Church, but that the rest also, however alienated from Catholic unity they may remain, are alike in the way of salvation, and may arrive at everlasting life.
“We are at a loss from horror to find words to express our detestation of this new and atrocious injustice that is done us. We do indeed love all mankind with the inmost affection of our heart, yet not otherwise than in the love of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save that which had perished, who died for all, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; who therefore sent his disciples into the whole world to preach the gospel to every creature, proclaiming that they who should believe and be baptized should be saved, but they who should believe not should be condemned; who therefore will be saved let them come to the pillar and ground of faith, which is the Church; let them come to the true Church of Christ, which in its bishops and in the Roman Pontiff, the chief head of all, has the succession of apostolical authority, never at any time interrupted; which has never counted aught of greater moment than to preach and by all means to keep and defend the doctrine proclaimed by the apostles, by Christ’s command; which, from the apostles’ time downward, has increased in the midst of difficulties of every kind; and being illustrious throughout the whole world by the splendor of miracles, multiplied by the blood of martyrs, exalted by the virtues of confessors and virgins, strengthened by the most wise testimonies of the fathers, hath flourished and doth flourish in all the regions of the earth, and shines refulgent in the perfect unity of the faith, of sacraments, and of holy discipline.”
John Gilmary Shea, LL.D., The Life of Pope Pius IX and the Great Events in the History of the Church During His Pontificate, New York: Thomas Kelly, 1878, pp. 98-103.
-
I agree, I think Pope Pius IX was an exemplary Pope, I'd rank the First Vatican Council the crowning glory of his pontificate - a most salutary and necessary exposition of the divine institution of the Papacy and its supreme prerogatives, most timely and necessary condemnations of errors like pantheism, agnosticism, rationalism and the like, and excellent and precise definitions on the relationship between faith and reason, the motives of credibility for belief in God, Christ and His Church marvelously laid out, and which would later become the basis for the Oath against modernism under Pope St. Pius X.
-
Pius IX was only politically liberal at the beginning (nothing to do with doctrine), but even that political liberalism faded away as he saw the fruits of it and reversed himself, too late for the Papal States.
-
Pius IX was only politically liberal at the beginning (nothing to do with doctrine), but even that political liberalism faded away as he saw the fruits of it and reversed himself, too late for the Papal States.
This has been repeated many times. Do you have some source for it?
-
Fr. Feeney, for one. He said he freed political prisoners left and right; also, some of Pius IX' appointments, like Count Rossi, were also liberal, from what I've read (though I could be wrong).
Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pius IX: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12134b.htm
-
Fr. Feeney, for one. He said he freed political prisoners left and right; also, some of Pius IX' appointments, like Count Rossi, were also liberal, from what I've read (though I could be wrong).
Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pius IX: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12134b.htm
His great charity and amiability had made him beloved by the people, while his friendship with some of the revolutionists had gained for him the name of liberal.
That's describing a calumny.
-
Well, he was too liberal, in that he freed political prisoners better left in jail. That's what I meant. And his political reforms went too far, even though not against doctrine; which is why the people under his government clamored for more. Being politically a bit liberal isn't wrong, IMO.
Here's Fr. Feeney on the matter:
http://archive.org/details/FɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყInTheLifeAndTimesOfPopePiusIx
Here's a quote:
And up in Austria, its wise, prudent and able old Chancellor, Prince Metternich — who, practically single-handed and alone, had, ever since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, staved off the enslavement of the Catholic Church and the countries of Europe, even though he was called a “reactionary” for doing so — shook his experienced head. He issued warning after warning to his Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, all of which went unheeded, and all of which a brokenhearted Pio Nono lived later to realize would have saved the day for his Papal States.
Finally, when Pope Pius IX granted a Civic Guard for Rome, even Cardinal Gizzi resigned, realizing what the Pope, in his credulous enthusiasm did not see, that putting arms in the hands of the people was tantamount, at that time, to arming the revolutionaries. Metternich completely despaired. Nor did the stories of the Pope’s angelic personal life, his purity, charity, preaching, devotions, console him. The old statesman wrote, in 1847, from the depths of his anguish:
The Pope reveals himself every day more and more lacking in practical sense. Born and nurtured in a liberal family, he has been formed in a bad school. A good priest, he has never turned his mind toward matters of government ... he has allowed himself, since he has assumed the tiara, to be taken and ensnared in a net from which he does not any longer know how to disentangle himself. And if matters follow their natural course now, he will be driven out of Rome.
-
Here's a quote made by Pius IX himself, recognizing he went too far, also from Fr. Feeney's article:
Violence followed upon violence when it was fully realized that Pio Nono had served notice on the world that he was neither the knowing nor the unknowing leader of Liberalism. Young Italy and the secret societies under Mazzini raged, conspired and plotted. So did Cavour, the Prime Minister of Sardinia, for the interests of the Piedmontese. Lord Palmerston worked openly through his special envoy in Rome, Lord Minto, whose policy it became to encourage the most dangerous revolutionaries in Italy. Pio Nono was fully aware of all this, and to those who had the honesty and courage to reproach him with the folly of his former credulous and childlike trust in the success of his “reform program,” his vain belief that he could win by kindness where his predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI, had failed by severity, and his misplaced confidence in the “gratitude of the people,” he would answer simply that he was “very like the unwise and doting parents who had made over their goods to their children before their death, and are turned out of their house and home in their old age!”
“I am like the little shepherd boy,” he said, “who had for companion a great necromancer. The boy had seen him again and again call up the Devil, and had learned the formula of incantation. So he too one night tried the power of the spell. The evil one arose at his call, and the frightened child would fain have got rid of him, but he had not, however, learned the spell that could lay the fiend, who henceforth haunted and tormented him.”
-
Nor did the stories of the Pope’s angelic personal life, his purity, charity, preaching, devotions, console him.
The old statesman (Metternich) wrote, in 1847, from the depths of his anguish:
The Pope reveals himself every day more and more lacking in practical sense. Born and nurtured in a liberal family, he has been formed in a bad school. A good priest, he has never turned his mind toward matters of government ... he has allowed himself, since he has assumed the tiara, to be taken and ensnared in a net from which he does not any longer know how to disentangle himself. And if matters follow their natural course now, he will be driven out of Rome.
Here is the CE on Metternich:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10245a.htm
-
From the article you linked to, I confess that I like Metternich, whatever his faults, since he was indeed a great statesman, concerned especially for religion.
-
Two quotes by Metternich:
Admirers of the press honour it with the title, 'representative of public opinion', though everything written in the papers is nothing but the expression of those who write. Will the value of being the expression of public opinion ever be attributed to the publications of a Government, even of a Republican Government? Surely not! Yet every obscure journalist claims this value for his own products. What a confusion of ideas!
The downfall of empires always directly depends upon the spread of unbelief. For this very reason religious belief, the first of virtues, is the strongest power. It alone curbs attack and makes resistance irresistible. Religion cannot decline in a nation without causing that nation's strength also to decline, and the fall of states does not proceed in arithmetical progression according to the law of falling bodies, but rapidly leads to destruction.
-
Pius IX was a deciple of Pius VII & his attempt to reconcile the revolutionaries to the Church comes from that Pope. His amnesty was conditional and an act of grace. Once this was abused, there was no more.
It was Metternich and later Franz- Joseph who were the freemasons.
-
Then 1848 would have a reason.
-
Here's a few lines in defence of Pius IX sent to me from a good friend a while back.
"The story of the sainted Pius IX is cut from the same cloth (as the story of
Benedict XIV). 'It started in Germany,', says John Gilmary Shea, in the "Life
of Pope Pius IX", pp. 291, 292, "and they thought that by putting the scene in
America, they would escape detection. They declared positively that Pius IX
had been received into a Masonic lodge in Philadelphia, cited his discourses,
and declared that a number of his autographs were preserved in the lodge.
Unfortunately for the story, Philadelphia is in the civilized world. People there
could read and write. They examined the story and found there was no
Masonic lodge in that city by the name given; they found that no lodge in
Philadelphia had ever received John Mary Mastai; they could find no trace of
his ever having been there, as he never was; no lodge had any of his
autograph letters; Masons themselves attested that the whole (story) was a
pure invention. The slander thus refuted has been revived from time to time
but in later versions care is taken not to specify the lodge or city too
distinctly."
-
Fr. Capreolus gives a good answer here. (http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2013/03/pope-francis-i-now-jesuits-are-control.html?showComment=1363234907680#c8145470072503948353)
-
Then 1848 would have a reason.
:confused1:
-
Can somebody examine these writings?
Is there some reason you can't examine his writings yourself if you are actually even considering the possibility that this great pope was a Mason? Come on now...