A corporal work of mercy.

A corporal work of mercy.
Click on photo for this corporal work of mercy!

Thursday 9 November 2017

And to think, Amoris Letitia was all about Haiti and North Korea

In an interview with the Italian publication La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana and translated by LifeSiteNews, Cardinal Müller affirms the legitimacy of the Dubia of the four Cardinals, two of whom are now deceased. He also goes on to state that there are "no exceptions," to the ban on Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. 

The issue that is jumped over here and in the two Synods is that of the Church's exercise within Marriage Tribunals of Decrees of Nullity. As one who was granted a Decree of Nullity which had numerous grounds aside from canonical irregularities, it always struck this writer as the misunderstood right of the Church and faithful in this whole discussion. Let us put aside the polemical debate of "abuse" of the process. If the parties are honest and tell the truth and the Church decrees nullity, then there is no sin, nor deception on the part of the faithful. If the Tribunal abused the process then it is the sin of those judges and the bishop. The fact is, if a Decree of Nullity is granted, it renders the fact that the first "marriage" was not valid, there was no marriage.

The process of "discernment" and "accompaniment" are the inherent issues of Eucharistic attack in Amoris Laetitia. Let the few, very few Catholics who care about practicing their faith seek decrees of nullity. Let the Church's age-old practice apply, streamlined if necessary. It is not a degrading process, nor is it overtly expensive, at least not from the experience of most.

But Müller's argument falls apart when he returns to the internal forum matter.  He confirms that Amoris Laetitia throws a battering ram through the traditional process of Decrees of Nullity for accompaniment, - accompaniment is the new annulment process. Why bother then for what is true and right, just make your own decision with a priest who is prepared to go along with it.

Of course, what we did not know, is that it is all for North Korea and Haiti.

And we thought selling ones soul for Wales was serious.


Image result for cardinal muller

Cardinal Müller clarifies: There are ‘no exceptions’ to ban on Communion for ‘remarried’



Cascioli: And so we touch on the question of the indissolubility of marriage. In recent days, it’s been said that you are convinced there can be some exceptions. 
Cardinal Muller: No exceptions. This idea is false. I gave a clear theological explanation, which left no room for misunderstanding. I would like to bring peace to the situation and not fuel polemics between opposing groups. 
And so we need to be clear that when it comes to a legitimate sacramental marriage there can be no exceptions. The sacraments are efficacious ex opere operato. Just as there are no exceptions in the validity of baptism, or of the transubstantiation of the bread into the Body of Christ.” 
But in Buttiglione’s essay, he refers to several very particular situations in which there would be a venial sin, so that it should be possible to be absolved and to receive the sacraments while maintaining the state of the second union. 
In my introduction it is very clearly written that reconciliation is needed, and this is only possible if there is first contrition and a firm purpose not to commit the sin anymore. Certain people who address these issues do not understand that approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation does not mean automatic absolution. There are essential elements without which reconciliation cannot be achieved. If there isn’t contrition there cannot be absolution and if there is no absolution, if one remains in the state of mortal sin, one cannot receive Communion. 
As for Buttiglione, he refers to situations where knowledge of the Catholic faith is a problem. These are cases of unconscious Christians, who are baptized but unbelieving, who may have gotten married in Church to please their grandmother, but without a real awareness. Here it becomes a problem when, after many years, they return to the faith and then question the marriage. There are many such cases. Benedict XVI also looked at the issue. So what’s to be done? In this sense we can say with the Pope that discernment is needed, but this does not mean that one can be granted access to the sacraments without the conditions mentioned above. The issue here is not about the indissolubility of sacramental marriage, but about the validity of many marriages that aren’t really valid. 
But in your essay you also refer to cases of people who convert or return to the faith after already having entered a second union, and regarding the sacraments you talk about a decision in the internal forum. What do you mean? 
While in Europe things are clear enough at least theoretically, in many countries there are many difficult situations to judge. In Latin America, for example, there are many marriages that are not celebrated according to the canonical form. There are couples who live together but one doesn’t know if there is an actual marriage consent. I was in Haiti recently and the situation there is disastrous; everyone is called a spouse. They live together but they aren’t formally married either in church or civilly. When some mature, they start going to church and then you have to determine who the true husband or wife is. And here it’s important for the person to be honest and say sincerely with whom they have expressed true consent, because it is the consent that makes a marriage, not only the canonical form. In any case, in order to be admitted to the sacraments, the parish priest or bishop must clarify the situation in cooperation with the freedom of the faithful. But there are also situations that are overturned. 
Can you say more? 
There are particular circumstances, for example under regimes that persecute the Church, where it isn’t possible to be married canonically. Let’s take the example of North Korea: the few Catholics who are present there still have the right to marry, and here a marriage is possible only through consent. But if in time something happens and the two separate, and they want to remarry, then everything depends on the internal forum, on their honesty in acknowledging if there was consent or not, and they have to express that to the priest or to the new husband or wife. 
This is where conscience comes into play. 
Yes, but conscience understood properly, not like certain journalists explain it who water down the truth. We are talking about a right conscience, one that cannot say “I don’t have to respect God’s law.” Conscience does not free us from God’s law but gives us the guidance to fulfill it. 
However, in your introduction to Buttiglione’s book, you shy away from casuistry and seem especially concerned with offering several clear criteria for understanding Amoris Laetitia so as to avoid what you explicitly call “heretical interpretations.” 
Exactly. Unfortunately, there are individual bishops and whole episcopal conferences that are proposing interpretations that contradict the previous Magisterium, admitting to the sacraments persons who persist in objective situations of grave sin. But this is not the criterion for applying Amoris Laetitia. Pope Francis himself spoke of a Thomist apostolic exhortation. And so it is right to read it in light of St. Thomas, and on admission to the Eucharist, St. Thomas is clear dogmatically and also has a pastoral sensitivity for individuals.

25 comments:

Ana Milan said...

“The Dubia are authoritative and clearly legitimate,” says the former Vatican doctrinal prefect in a new interview. If that's the case, why didn't he sign it instead of putting obstacles in its wake? No-one can trust him now. Lack of transparency is killing the CC. When is he going to support a formal correction & informal council to correct the huge chasm that this papacy has brought about. He still shows his complete allegiance to VII which, directly or indirectly by usurpers, has prostrated the CC before the Devil. Harder questions must be asked of this man. He seems to me to be positioning to be the next pope by compromise. He is as much a politician as PF - neither are true to the One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church. We are approaching the first anniversary of the public outing of the Dubia - will ++s Brandmuller & Burke finally get around to issuing the formal correction on the actual day they went public or do we have to forget about it ever seeing the light of day?

Anonymous said...


Being the simple, minimally educated, non catechized, ignorant Catholic I was, with no theological, philosophical knowledge, no degrees in canon law nor do I in any way claim to be an apologist, can someone explain to me, like I am a "three year old", why two disastrous Synods on the family were ever needed? A three year old could understand the clear, succinct, pastorally sensitive teachings of Holy Mother Church over the centuries. Now we have disastrous, confusing, disgusting doublespeak so called exhortations/documents to give "clear direction" to people of the Faith but instead caused nothing but more chaos for these "modern times". Our recent popes, bishops, priests, and consecrated religious have failed miserably teaching and defending the Faith and have made compromises that are fatal all in the name of (false) ecumenism and to the delight of satan.
For what it's worth, my opinion is AL should be shredded, go to the dumpster along with all the documents of Vatican II......all 16 of them! There's absolutely nothing beautiful about any of them, in fact they all have at least 1% of poison in them, if not more.. (compromise). Change the word (language event....to quote "Wuerly bird"), change the meaning. As far as I understood, Catholicism isn't about compromising rather, combat and salvation of souls. We are to live, love and defend the Faith and bring as many souls into it as possible for the glory of God. They have and continue to bring the Catholic Church down to the level of perversion instead of Mystical Beauty and Holiness.
St Michael, defend us, God save us!

Michael Dowd said...

A thought on AL that keeps coming back to me is why are we having all of this fuss in the first place. Why was AL ever written? The Church has had an annulment factory going for decades and applicants are approved at near a 100% rate. Now Pope Francis has made the process even easier. So what is the real point of AL? My guess is that it had something to do with the compulsory German Church tax. Or diabolically it was intended to undermine the entire moral structure of the Catholic Church regarding the 6th Commandment. Hopefully someone might enlighten me on this.

Peter Lamb said...

I'm betting a six-pack that one day, when we have a Pope again, every scrap of document of vatican II and every writing of the conciliar anti-popes, will be formally burned in St. Peter's square.

Dorota Mosiewicz-Patalas said...

To the wise Anonymous at 9:18

Our modern so called education didn't brake you? It makes our intellect sufficiently disabled for participation in the life of... sophisticated society. I see a press title: "Man gives birth to a baby" and another: "British health authority changes expression 'pregnant women' to 'pregnant people' " - and I know I am too intelligent to participate.

I shared this with my educated daughter, who was thoroughly brainwashed in one of Canada's best universities, while studying... not gender studies, but biology. I told her: If I showed you, at the age of 5, a picture of a... man who gave birth to a baby, I am quite certain that you would look at it and exclaim with your wicked/smart twinkle in the eye: "You didn't trick me, mommy, this is a lady with a beard!"

Yes, she said (to my great relief) at 26, college can educate you out of all common sense.

It is clear our bishops and cardinals are very willing to engage in the narratives of these our educated elites.

Am I, a simpleton, wrong to believe that Catholic marriage is not first and foremost about consent giving? Am I wrong to believe that it is a Sacrament, an event in the realm of a soul who invites God to fill it and the soul of another with His Holy Spirit and to guide them in a new life?

This great theologian Mueller sounds like a Planned Parenthood sex "educator" with his consent mantra.

Anonymous said...

Michael, the ultimate goal of AL is to allow homosexual unions if not homosexual marriages.

Read Cardinal Ejik's essay entitled Can the divorced and remarried receive communion' which 1P5 published sometime in Sept.

The essay ends by saying that if the Church accepts communion for the divorced and remarried, other types of unions will have to recognized....such as homosexual unions.

That is the Trojan Horse in the A.L. we need to recognize this. ...

Peter Lamb said...

For the great majority of Catholics in the world today, it is virtually impossible to go to confession to a validly ordained priest who professes the true Catholic Faith of the ages and does not profess communion with a public heretic, or apostate like Francis, or Benedict XVI.

When a Priest is not available, mortal sins may still be forgiven, if the soul has Perfect Contrition for its sins. Here is a short and vitally important article explaining Perfect Contrition:

https://novusordowatch.org/2017/11/perfect-contrition-key-to-heaven/

Catholic Mission said...

NOVEMBER 9, 2017

The Holy Spirit cannot make a mistake and there is a fundamental mistake in Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Compendium : Catechism of the Catholic ChurchThe Catechism of the Catholic Church(1994) is based on Vatican Council II and this is a limitation.Since a foundational theme in Vatican Council II is assuming hypothetical cases are non hypothetical.This is a mistake.It is assumed hypothetical cases are known examples of salvation outside the Church, when there are no such known cases in our reality.It concludes that these hypothetical cases are explicit exceptions to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus(EENS).The error is clear in Lumen Gentium 14 which does not state that everyone needs to enter the Church with no exceptions for salvation but only those who know.In other words, unknown cases of being saved in invincible ignorance are known examplesof salvation outside the Church.

ERROR IN THEOLOGY HAS SPREAD TO MAGISTERIAL DOCUMENTS
So everyone does not need to enter, at least not 'the known cases' who are saved in invincible ignorance etc.The new doctrinal teaching is onlythose who know need to enter the Church.This is now part of the new 'developed' ecclesiology approved in Redemptoris Missio,Dominus Iesus, Balamand Declaration, Christianity and the World Religions, of the International Theological Commission etc.

SUBTLE ERROR IN VATICAN COUNCIL II
This is a subtle error in Vatican Council II which was picked up from the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 to the Archbishop of Boston.In 1949 they tried to eliminate traditional EENS by assuming unknown cases of the baptism of desire(BOD), baptism of blood(BOB) and being saved in invincible ignorance(I.I) were known examples of salvation outside the Church.
Cardinal Ratzinger instead of correcting the error, if he knew about it, repeated it in the Catechism(1994) in CCC 846,1257 etc.
Continued
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2017/11/the-holy-spirit-cannot-make-mistake-and.html

Michael Dowd said...

Re Catholic Mission: I think it safer to use the Catechism of the Council of Trent. That is the one I grew up with.

Anonymous said...

God alone IS the Supreme Judge, NOT you. Are you a Cardinal who can co-sign the Dubia and fraternally correct Pope Francis? If not, then stop misleading the faithful. You may have to answer for fat more than the Pope. He didn't have a proper formation.

Anyone who has had an alcoholic relative knows that you can't reason with them. They could lose their family, their job, most of their friends but they're happy as long they worship the bottle. It is only through the grace of God that they will - if they cooperate with the grace of God - be able to recognize that the bottle doesn't make them happy. The bottle doesn't hug you. The bottle doesn't say "I love you."

In my opinion (for what it's worth), the "bottle" is VII. Pope Francis (and I am NOT trying to judge him, but to put myself in his shoes) is probably convinced that he IS doing the will of God and fulfilling the unfinished task of implementing VII.

If you actually met him in person, what would you tell him? That he's a heretic? It would go in one ear and out the other. (He might not even know what the word means!) Quote St. Robert Bellarmine? (He probably never read St. Robert.)

Or would you try to tell him that it's NOT merciful to allow people to receive Our Lord sacrilegiously? That it's NOT merciful to people like Karl who are faithful to their marriage vows to allow adulterers to receive Our Lord?

I think you get the idea. Offer up prayers and fasting for him. Remember what Our Lord told the disciples after they asked Him why they couldn't cast out the devil: "This kind can only be cast out by prayer and fasting."

Anonymous said...

We have a Pope. His name is Francis and you should pray for him.

Anonymous said...


To anonymous @ 11:05;

Your third paragraph in your comment is absolutely absurd!
Pope Francis, ( I use that title lightly), in your opinion is "doing the Will of God and fulfilling the unfinished task of implementing VII". Can you please enlighten us, where in any of the documents of the failed Vatican II Council, where the Will of God is to promote sodomy, climate change, marxism, population control (abortion), euthanasia, destruction of the church ("I want a poor church"...Pope Francis), and all the other evils this man has entertained and endorsed?
Show us in Sacred Scripture where our Lord condones any of it? The old adage "silence is affirmation", especially after nearly 58 months endurance of this man's daily rhetoric and heterodoxy, with absolutely zero correction from himself or any in the hierarchy, seems to be more than a sign that he is set to destroy all Catholic teachings and make such a mess that none of it can be reversed except through Divine intervention.
Anyone with an ounce of gray matter in their cranium can deduce the difference between right and wrong, good and evil....it's called discernment. This man and his cabal of dissidents have their hearts and minds set to do this and in many words have openly said so. Take a look at who he surrounds himself with, use your God given intellect to look at the situation and know that something is totally wrong with the Church and in the Vatican!
You do know we are allowed to judge actions and situations, we do it every day in our lives.
The Francis "mercy" is a distortion and disordered. Mercy is what we don't deserve, justice is what we deserve. Allowing adulterers and practicing sodomites to receive our Lord and Saviour Jesus in Holy Eucharist is not mercy, it's called sacrilege!
God desires that all men be saved, and to quote a saint who's name escapes me at this moment, "God created us without our cooperation, but He will not save us without our cooperation". Jesus said to penitent sinners to go and sin no more, he didn't tell them to continue on in their sins, lest something worse may befall you.
There are two men dressed in white present in Rome, both need our prayers as well as all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
God bless and save us from our sins.

Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous @ 11:05, Your opinion is worth a lot as is your charity, but sadly both are misguided. The Catholic Faith is clear and absolute. An heretic excommunicates himself from the Church. Bergoglio is a public heretic and therefore according to Catholic doctrine, not me, cannot be Pope formaliter.

bergoglio propounds a false, anti-Christian gospel. Saint Paul instructs us to let him be anathema - not to pray for him. We do not pray for enemies of Christ. Do you offer sympathy to and prayers for the devil?

Vatican II was summoned and promulgated by two proven, excommunicated judeo-masons, roncalli and montini - not through ignorance, but rather satanic cunning. Do not waste sympathy and prayers on the enemies of Christ. Where there is no hatred of heretics, there is no holiness.

Anonymous said...


Addendum to: in response to Anonymous at 11:05pm;

Stop....making excuses for bad behaviour

Johnno said...

The objective of Amoris Letitia is:

- DESECRATION OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST

- DESTROYING BELIEF IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST AND THE CHURCH'S CREDIBILITY

- GETTING SINNERS TO EAT AND DRINK UNWORTHILY AND BRING FURTHER CONDEMNATION UPON THEMSELVES

- SEPARATING TRUE CATHOLICS FROM THE FALSE HERD, THEN ONCE IDENTIFYING THOSE WHO WILL NOT FOLLOW THE FALSE SHEPHERD, SEPARATE & TAKE THEM TO SLAUGHTER. THIS IS ALL A TEST.

Keep in mind the objectives of the true mastermind behind all this - SATAN.

Michael Dowd said...

Thanks Johnno. Good summary of what AL is all about. We must be in the end times.

susan said...

Peter Lamb......my friend, again, you are a treasure!

Anonymous said...

"Where there is no hatred of heretics, there is no holiness."

That's incorrect. It should be:

"Where there is no hatred of *heresy*, there is no holiness."

Re the devil: He and the other fallen angels (i.e. demons) are incapable of salutary repentance since angels - both good and bad - cannot change their minds.

However, men and women ARE capable of changing their minds. That goes for everyone from Pope Francis down to a child who says NO its parents and then says "I'm sorry."

The good thief reviled Our Lord on the cross just like the bad thief but then Our Lord granted him the grace of salutary repentance. All he could say was: Remember me, O Lord...

As long as he's alive, Pope Francis (like the rest of us) is still able - with the grace of God - to truly repent of his sins.

You should offer up the Holy Face of Jesus in reparation for his sins as well as your own. (And before you ask, yes I do - for my sins as well as the sins of Pope Francis.)

Maybe your sins and mine are keeping him in spiritual darkness. Maybe IF you prayed for him, God would give the graces he needs. Try it.



Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous, You are correct. My mistake. Thanks for pointing it out. :)

For as Father Faber warned: “The crowning disloyalty to God is heresy. It is the sin of sins, the very loathsomest of things which God looks down upon in this malignant world. Yet how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness!… “We look at it, and are calm. We touch it and do not shudder. We mix with it, and have no fear. We see it touch holy things, and we have no sense of sacrilege… “Our charity is untruthful because it is not severe; and it is unpersuasive, because it is not truthful… Where there is no hatred of HERESY, there is no holiness."

We will have to agree to differ regarding bergoglio. He wears the insignia of the Patriarch of the World. I do not for a second believe that he, or his minions, are ignorant of what they are doing. We are told to pray for our enemies, but not for the enemies of Christ:

"Have I not hated them, O Lord, that hated thee: and pine away because of thy enemies? I have hated them with a perfect hatred: and they are become enemies to me." Psalm 138:22.

Christ commands, "Love your enemies;" not those who hate God. (St. Augustine.)

You are a good and kind person. God bless. :)

Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous, You have got me thinking and I'm not feeling quite so sure of myself as I was when we started out. On the one hand, I can't ignore the quotes I provided. Who would better qualify as an enemy of Christ than a judeo-mason who denies Christ; who actively leads souls away from Christ and who worships lucifer? On the other hand you make some very valid points, especially regarding a man's potential for conversion by the grace of the Holy Ghost. I am just an ordinary layman without any theological training. I would be most grateful if anybody who has such training, or who might know more on the question, would jump in and help us.

Anonymous said...

To anonymous @ 8:55:

"Your third paragraph in your comment is absolutely absurd!
Pope Francis, ( I use that title lightly), in your opinion is "doing the Will of God and fulfilling the unfinished task of implementing VII". Can you please enlighten us, where in any of the documents of the failed Vatican II Council, where the Will of God is to promote sodomy, climate change, marxism, population control (abortion), euthanasia, destruction of the church ("I want a poor church"...Pope Francis), and all the other evils this man has entertained and endorsed?"

I think you missed the second paragraph, so let me rephrase it this way:

In my non-infallible opinion (again, I'm NOT trying to judge the Pope, but trying to put myself in his shoes), Pope Francis is so convinced that he IS doing the will of God, that he IS doing the right thing that no one can convince him otherwise.

Obviously, the majority of the Fathers of VII didn't even think that the things you mentioned would occur, let alone be promoted by of all people the successors of Peter.

Also, I am using "my God-given intellect to look at the situation and know that something is totally wrong with the Church and in the Vatican!"

Yes, I know that "we are allowed to judge actions and situations, we do it every day in our lives." It doesn't change the fact that people *think* that you're judging them when you make an observation. Example: You see a woman immodestly dressed and casually say to someone: "She's not modestly dressed." You can bet your bottom dollar that someone will say that you shouldn't judge people. THAT'S how far we've fallen.


I agree with you one hundred percent re what you said about sacrilege.

"God created us without our cooperation, but He will not save us without our cooperation"." I think that's St. Augustine.



Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous, I have asked two experienced, holy Priests for their opinions regarding the question under discussion. While I await their response, some further musings of my own:

You are basically saying "Hate the sin, not the sinner", which is akin to Theodoret's "Hate what God hates in him and love what God loves".
I am basically saying "Hate the miscreant unto death and thereafter."

Perhaps the answer lies in distinguishing between sins against Morality and sins against Faith. The murderer, adulterer, and maybe alcoholic, sin against Morals, but remain members of the Mystical Body. They infract the Law of Christ, but do not deny, or reject Christ. They are not enemies of Christ. Therefore we should pray for their repentance and conversion.

The heretic, schismatic, or apostate, however, sins against Faith and thereby excommunicate himself from the Mystical Body, thus becoming an enemy of
Christ, for whom we are told not to pray for. bergoglio et al fall into the second category and that is why we should not pray for them.

OK, so what about jews and muslims? They deny Christ, yet we pray for their conversion, eg. in our "Consecration to the Sacred Heart". Perhaps we pray for them because they are "infidels" who never had the Faith in the first place, as opposed to heretics who had the Faith, knew the Faith and then rejected the Faith?

Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous, I have received a reply from Fr. Arnold Trauner, a sedevacantist Priest who was formerly with the SSPX for 25 years. It pretty well answers my questions.

Dear Peter,

There is a problem on either side in this discussion, and this is why it got stuck and tends to get poisonous.
On your side: You need to understand that - most unfortunately - the nature of the present situation carries in itself the fact that the present-day occupants of the Holy See and of the episcopal sees around the world have not been cut off legally from the true Church. Therefore the big confusion in your interlocutor's mind is understandable. Everything seems to be as he thinks because that is how the enemies of human salvation want it to appear.
Only the teaching of the Faith makes things clear. But our opponents want to hear it from the Authority, not from us. So we are back to start: They do not correctly understand the situation, i.e. the Church's state of privation of (its human-divine) Authority. Since there has not been a true Pope, there has been no possibility of legally separating the Novus Ordo heretics and schismatics from the Church. Thus they keep crawling around and infesting and infecting the greatest number of souls possible.
On the other side: They just do not have the idea of what the Church is. All her essential components (since they are essential, it follows that they cannot be lost) are supernatural. Thus any comparison (like the ones with the bottle, with the father...) necessarily leads them further into error because there is not much to be compared between natural realities and the supernatural character of the Authority... The Pope, in all that makes him the proper Catholic leader, the Vicar of Jesus-Christ, i.e. in his formal prerogative, is part of the constitution of the Church. This is exactly why Montini, Bergoglio etc. cannot possibly be true Popes. For if they were, the Church and ultimately Christ himself would teach heresy, sin, abomination etc.
But as long as this logical and theological thinking does not prevail in a mind, it is enclosed in darkness. Hopefully for your interlocutors, this darkness is that of invincible error; but there is no way we can judge about that.
That Bergoglio has not received a proper (traditional) Catholic training is quite obvious. But then what business has he "to be pope"? And what business have Catholics to regard him as the Vicar of Christ, the one who in His name guarantees the truth and the purity of their Faith, the universal Pastor established by Heaven to lead souls to Heaven...? They just need to take seriously what they say, understand its theological meaning, and they will be totally una nobiscum (= una cum nobis), of the same mind as we are.

Peter Lamb said...

Put in other words: A novus ordo Catholic is in no better position than a Muslim, a pagan or other miscreant, if he thinks he needs to go to Heaven in spite of the pope! Material miscreants can save their souls in spite of the false religion or belief that is around them...
It is obvious that absolutely speaking, Jorge Bergoglio could convert and save his soul. But the probability of this happening is quite small, and that is why you can make your bet (because the thing is not absolutely impossible: as long as there is life, there is hope), but you are sure to win 1:whatever. The salvation of each soul is in God's hands.
Therefore you are wrong (absolutely speaking; but I suppose you mean it by way of hyperbole) when you write: "We do not pray for enemies of Christ. Do you offer sympathy to and prayers for the devil?"
You are wrong because the previous sentence is lacking in logic: "Saint Paul instructs us to let him be anathema - not to pray for him." The first part being true, the second part does not follow. Holy Church does not publicly pray for excommunicated people - except on Good Friday - but they are always included in her prayers as potential members of Christ and the Church.
Of course we cannot possibly pray for the devils and for such souls as are certainly in Hell. But the only case of a human soul being in Hell, ascertained by public Revelation, is that of the traitor Apostle Judas Iscariot.

I am sure you understand these precisions and nuances. We all have to learn constantly to put things straight in our minds in these seriously mixed-up times!
It is another question whether it is worthwhile putting them to your interlocutors. You can judge about the opportunity yourself, knowing them better than I do.

Have a good and holy Sunday! God bless you always.

Fr Arnold T.

Anonymous said...

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/10/30/catholic-theologians-must-set-an-example-of-intellectual-honesty-a-reply-to-prof-robert-fastiggi/