As I write, it’s that time of year when articles abound on Catholic social media about the tens of thousands of converts who are expected to enter the Church at the Easter Vigil.
This, however, is not exactly the case. In reality, the vast majority of the above-mentioned converts will be officially inducted into the conciliar counterfeit church, in union with its papal impersonator, its twisted morals, and poisonous doctrines.
For you sticklers out there: Yes, I suppose we can say that the newly baptized will emerge from the baptismal font as true members of the Mystical Body of Christ. For how long they remain as such, however, is another matter.
In this regard, those baptized at the Novus Ordo Easter Vigil have much in common with persons validly baptized during a Protestant service; each one truly reborn in water and spirit in the context of participation in a non-Catholic rite, only to manifest in short order the false faith of the community into which they’ve been incorporated, even if in genuine ignorance.
In no way do I mean to belittle these persons, in fact, my heart breaks for them. Indeed, we do well to charitably assume that the great majority of those entering into the conciliar church at the Novus Ordo Easter Vigil truly desire, in good faith, to enter into communion with the Holy Roman Catholic Church. This, of course, is precisely what makes their situation so lamentable.
You see, although these sincere seekers of the one true Church of Christ have been convinced that they have found it – joyfully greeted as they will be with refrains of “Welcome Home!” – the sad fact of the matter is that they’ve been misled by many deceivers. First among them, of course, is Satan himself, the Master Deceiver and Chief Architect of Vatican Council II.
That said, even as we assume good faith on the part of the converts, men often conspire to deceive themselves. In the present case, given fallen man’s propensity for seeking confirmation in sin, there can be little doubt that at least some among the current crop of soon-to-be “conciliar neophytes” were drawn to enter the counterfeit church by Francis himself – this perhaps thanks to his nonchalant attitude toward adultery, his blessed affirmation of homo-deviance, his warm embrace of abortionists, or his devotion to enviro-paganism, etc.
To whatever extent this brand of self-deception is at play among the converts under discussion, Bergoglio is far from alone in encouraging it.
In fact, I would count among the most culpable – perhaps even as blameworthy as Jorge himself – those with a notable public presence in tradservative Catholic media, men who abuse their positions of influence by insisting that Francis is our “Holy Father.”
Included in this group are the clerics and spokespersons for the SSPX, FSSP, ICK, etc.
Can we really blame the convert who concludes: Hey, if even the “rigid traditionalists” consider Francis the Vicar of Christ, who am I to doubt his preaching and teaching?
Regardless of who and what is responsible for leading converts to baptism at the Novus Ordo Easter Vigil, let us pray that they will soon receive the grace to discover just how badly they’ve been duped, and that, undaunted, they will continue their search for the one true Church of Christ.
