In October 2017, Capuchin Fr. Thomas Weinandy, who at the time served as head of the USCCB Secretariat for Doctrine, made public an unanswered letter that he had sent to Francis months earlier calling him to account for the “chronic confusion” that has been the hallmark of his Roman tenure, in particular with respect to the content of Amoris Laetitia.
“To teach with such a seemingly intentional lack of clarity,” he wrote, “inevitably risks sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church, and particularly to yourself, to dispel error, not to foster it.”
He went on to write, “You seem to censor and even mock those who interpret Chapter 8 of ‘Amoris Laetitia’ in accord with Church tradition as Pharisaic stone-throwers who embody a merciless rigorism.”
“This kind of calumny is alien to the nature of the Petrine ministry,” Weinandy declared, even going so far as to suggest that Bergoglio’s teaching “cannot survive theological scrutiny, and so must be sustained by ‘ad hominem’ arguments.”
Boom!
The letter quickly drew the attention, and the applause, of tradservatives everywhere.
The following day, Weinandy was forced to resign from his post at the USCCB, thus cementing his place in the Neo-Con Hall of Fame next to Raymond “Formal Act of Correction” Burke.
Weinandy would later reveal that he wrote his letter criticizing Bergoglio only after requesting, and receiving, a sign from Heaven letting him know that he should act.
“There was no longer any doubt in my mind,” he stated. “I considered it an apostolic mandate.”
Evidently, however, Heaven is a fickle woman, like a feather in the wind, changing her accent and her thoughts.
Less than two years later, nineteen theologians and academics published an open letter addressed to the world’s bishops accusing Francis of heresy, urging them to take canonical action.
Weinandy wasted little time in leveraging his celebrity to denounce the effort as “extreme” and “intemperate.” He wrote:
Those who interpret [Bergoglio’s] ambiguous teaching in a manner not in keeping with the Catholic faith may be heretical, but the pope is not, even if the pope appears to give silent approval to their erroneous interpretations.
Surely Weinandy was aware as he wrote that Francis had not merely “remained silent” about “erroneous interpretations,” he moved to have them enshrined in the AAS!
What happened?
At the time, I observed that Weinandy had learned his lesson. No one could say for certain, however, exactly what caused him to shift from intrepid Bergoglian detractor to yet another of Francis’ dishonest defenders.
Fast forward to the present day and one might suspect that the Bergoglian Intelligence Agency raided Weinandy’s closet, discovering within the skeletons necessary to make of him a blackmailable asset.
In a recent email to Bergoglian News Agency (aka CNA), Weinandy came out in praise of the Synod of Bishops on the Synodal Path to a Synodal Church, Synodally speaking. (Get that? We’re not talking hierarchical here, we’re talking synodal!)
Like a hopeful little Dorothy setting foot on the Yellow Brick Road, Weinandy gushed about the synodal path and the glories that may lie ahead:
It could enliven not only the local churches but the entire worldwide Church. [Through] a global growth in faith through the working of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would more fully be called Lord of all of the world to the glory of God the Father.
Also, the faith of the Church could be confirmed and strengthened and people could be helped to live holy lives. It could enliven a whole worldwide evangelization. All of this would be marvelous to behold.
Yeah, sure, the same conciliar clowns that cringe at the very mention of the Social Kingship of Christ are going to see to it that Jesus is more fully called Lord of all of the world.
Seriously, one wonders, what in the Hell happened to Stompin’ Tom Weinandy?
Based on his 2017 letter to Jorge, it appeared that he had at least some semblance of Catholic faith coursing through his veins. Did someone spike the Capuchin’s cappuccino? Was he blackmailed? Did Jorge’s operatives threaten to shoot his puppy?
While any and all of these things are possible given the level of evil presently dwelling in occupied Rome, the real answer is far more obvious:
Weinandy is just another man of the Council. As such, whenever or wherever his words or deeds give the appearance of orthodoxy, it is just this, mere appearance. In reality, he, like the rest of his conciliar con freres, is tainted with more than a little leaven of error. They belong to a counterfeit church. As the Baltimore Catechism states:
“If any Catholic denies only one article of faith, though he believes all the rest, he ceases to be a Catholic, and is cut off from the Church” (see Q. 129, 1945 edition, p. 142).
Consider Weinandy’s passionate praise for the Almighty Council and its abundant fruit published just last year:
– “Without Vatican II, it would be hard to imagine Karol Wojtyla being elected Pope.”
– “Vatican II created a climate wherein new renewal movements and communities were able to come to birth.”
– “The Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church has no human founder, but was the sole work of the Holy Spirit. Such a phenomenon would never have entered the mind of any Catholic man or woman, ecclesial (especially) or lay in the 1940’s and 50’s, much less among the post-Vatican II liberal elite.”
Is it any wonder he also imagines that the synodal path will be a great blessing?
By now, the moral of the story should be plain:
Be wary of anyone – celebrity clerics and self-identified “traditional” media types in particular – who fail to plainly warn others that Vatican Council II, the totality of its contents, and the rite that it inspired DO NOT come from, nor belong to, the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Such a person, despite occasionally uttering truth (even Satan does that), is not a defender of the true Faith, they are its enemy. How so? Such a one clearly does not know who or what Holy Mother Church is, and so rather than defending her honor, ultimately, they denigrate her by leading others to believe that she dispenses poison to her children.
