Category: False Report

I’m glad to report that Ultramontanists do not exist.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 15, 2024 • False Report; papacy

 

Ultra­mon­tanists are like the bogey­man: a myth­i­cal being used to fright­en chil­dren. Thus at The Catholic Thing, Fr. Jef­frey Kir­by warns his read­ers about “the rise of the Ultra­mon­tanists.” You nev­er know when the bogey­man is going to come and get you; you nev­er know when the Ultra­mon­tanist is going to wreck the Church. It’s an always-present dan­ger. I have very fre­quent­ly been accused of being an Ultra­mon­tanist, for no oth­er rea­son than that I defend the pope and believe the Holy Spir­it safe­guards the Church from ever teach­ing error. Thus when­ev­er I see an arti­cle like this one, the first thing I do is check whether the author defines what an Ultra­mon­tanist is. Not every­one who uses the term does; it’s a dis­ser­vice to the read­er.

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“The Collapse of Dave Armstrong.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 12, 2023 • False Report; On Other Blogs

 

For­give my title; they’re not my words, but David Griffey’s. In his post on Jan­u­ary 9, Mr. Grif­fey tells us that it’s a new year, and in this new year he’s grown tired of blog­ging about issues and pol­i­tics. He, Mr. Grif­fey, is “no writer,” he says. He’s not “invest­ed” in it. But Mark Shea, once upon a time before he became a mean and angry heretic, sug­gest­ed that Grif­fey start a blog; and Grif­fey did; and his blog took off, even though it involved a lot of hit­ting his head against a brick wall. He want­ed to quit many times, but polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy drew him back in—and a pity too, because polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy amounts to noth­ing more than peo­ple call­ing each oth­er Hitler. And after explain­ing all this to us in a remark­able ram­ble, Grif­fey final­ly gets around to talk­ing about—who else?—Dave Arm­strong!

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Crisis!!! plays Benedict vs. Francis on Amoris Laetitia.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 16, 2019 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Richard A. Spinel­lo, author of a recent arti­cle at Cri­sis!!!, goes as far as to claim that the pope emeritus’s let­ter on the sex abuse cri­sis was an “implic­it rebuke” of Amor­is Laeti­tia. Odd, then, that the Vat­i­can gave the green light to B16. How very care­less of Frank, to miss his sub­text this way. But Spinel­lo sees all, even though “Bene­dict is quite dis­crete, of course, and nev­er men­tions Amor­is Laeti­tia.” It all has the tone of wish­ful think­ing on Spinello’s part. And I say that because Spinel­lo accus­es Pope Fran­cis of deny­ing what the text explic­it­ly affirms.

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Kwasniewski, Fr. Murray, Death Site News promote falsehoods on capital punishment.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 4, 2018 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; False Report; Pro-Life Issues

 

Fr. Mur­ray is mys­ti­fied: On Ray­mond P.W. Arroy­o’s anti-Fran­cis pro­pa­gan­da show The World Over, he says he has no idea why the pope would think the death penal­ty vio­lates the dig­ni­ty of the human per­son. Pos­si­bly Pope Fran­cis might think so because Pope St. John Paul II had already said it him­self. It’s in Evan­geli­um Vitae. Per­haps Mur­ray has read it; though, I begin to won­der whether he mere­ly skimmed it for the parts about abor­tion. What­ev­er the case might be, JP2 explains to us why God pro­tect­ed Cain from the death penal­ty.

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Pope Francis contradicts Benedict XVI and John Paul II on abortion? Fake (Site) News!

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 11, 2018 • False Report; Pope Francis; Pro-Life Issues

 

I tell you again: Give no cre­dence to Fake Site News. Nev­er give them cre­dence, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope. Nev­er give them cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when the author is John-Hen­ry West­en. A look at his absurd attempt, here, to claim that Pope Fran­cis some­how con­tra­dicts Bene­dict XVI and John Paul II on abor­tion, gives us one more exam­ple why. But first let us go to Gaudete et Exsul­tate and read the words of Pope Fran­cis about the equal sacred­ness of all human life.

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Fake Site News accuses New Pro Life Movement of “liberal boilerplate.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 16, 2017 • Church Social Teaching; False Report; Pro-Life Issues

 

In a shame­less piece of char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion against Rebec­ca Brat­ten Weiss, Fake Site News made the aston­ish­ing claim that the goals of the New Pro Life Move­ment are no more than “lib­er­al boil­er­plate.” In fact, every one of them comes from the Mag­is­te­r­i­al teach­ing of the Church. Has Fake Site not read the Com­pendi­um of the Social Doc­trine of the Church? Evan­geli­um Vitae? Lauda­to Si? The Church’s teach­ing on just war? The very Cat­e­chism? Maybe they should get on that, rather than writ­ing sin­ful hit pieces against good and decent Catholics like Rebec­ca Brat­ten Weiss.

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Reports of the death of Humanae Vitae are greatly exaggerated.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 13, 2017 • False Report

 

Can we please take a look at what Pope Fran­cis has actu­al­ly said about Humanae Vitae? For in Amor­is Laeti­tia we find him say­ing that mar­riage is ordered, “by its very nature,” toward pro­cre­ation. “Open­ness to life is the con­di­tion of the sacra­ment of mat­ri­mo­ny,” the pope says else­where. And yet I am sup­posed to believe the pope is on the verge of over­throw­ing Paul VI’s encycli­cal But it turns out Edward Pentin at the Reg­is­ter is bent on reviv­ing these rumors, always with the melo­dra­ma, anony­mous sources, pained expres­sions, and stage whis­pers.

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Oh, that conference on deposing a pope? Church Miscreant had it wrong. And Fake Site News.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 4, 2017 • False Report

 

Last month our friends at Church Mis­cre­ant were all jit­tery at the news that there would be a con­fer­ence in Paris on how to depose a pope. Canon lawyers, Chris­tine Niles gushed, would be there! You know, actu­al canon lawyers, who might advise on how to get rid of that pesky Bergoglio. Two peo­ple sched­uled to speak at the con­fer­ence even signed a let­ter cri­tiquing Amor­is Laeti­tia! Anoth­er sup­ported the dubia! Fake Site News tried to make the same con­nec­tion. Turns out, it was noth­ing of the kind. Wrong again at Fake Site and Mis­cre­ant; what a shock.

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Don’t believe this fake Pius IX quotation on a pope teaching heresy.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 22, 2017 • False Report

 

If a future pope teach­es some­thing con­trary to the Catholic faith, don’t fol­low him.” Trads who pro­mote dis­sent from Pope Fran­cis claim Pius IX said this in a let­ter to “Bish­op Brizen.” One glar­ing prob­lem: There has nev­er been a bish­op by that name, still less dur­ing the reign of Pius IX. Oops. Now, there is a Roman Catholic dio­cese of Brix­en. Per­haps this is where the con­fu­sion is. Per­haps Pius IX wrote the let­ter to the “bish­op of Brix­en.” Well, the bish­op of Brix­en dur­ing the reign of Pius IX was Vin­cent Fer­rer Gasser. He wrote a Rela­tio for Vat­i­can I on papal infal­li­bil­i­ty.

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Oh, that story about Pope Francis advocating population control …

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 7, 2017 • False Report; Pope Francis

 

It was based on a mis­quo­ta­tion of Vat­i­can pan­elist Peter Raven. See, I told you so. The pope was advo­cat­ing “sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” but “respon­si­ble par­ent­hood,” which the last three popes—Benedict XVI, John Paul II, and Paul VI—also advo­cat­ed. Many were out­raged when the pope said that Catholics should not feel they must “breed like rab­bits” in order to be good Catholics. Some mis­quot­ed the pope as hav­ing com­mand­ed: “Don’t breed like rab­bits.” You need to be care­ful about these mis­quo­ta­tions. The pope tells us what the Church has already told us.

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Attn. Fox News, et al.: The pope has condemned population control.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 5, 2017 • False Report; Pope Francis

 

Fox News, the UK Inde­pen­dent, and LSD News are all report­ing that the pope has praised pop­u­la­tion con­trol. This is fake news. And the rea­son I say so is because Pope Fran­cis is on record con­demn­ing pop­u­la­tion con­trol. He con­demns it in Lauda­to Si—have you read it? Even LSD News and the Nation­al Catholic Reg­is­ter picked up on that. He con­demned it in his inter­view on the flight back to Rome from Mani­la; maybe you recall that inter­view. Did you know he con­demns pop­u­la­tion con­trol in that inter­view three times? I have all the quotes, dear read­er.

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Pope Francis corrects Pope Francis; will media correct media?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 21, 2016 • False Report; Pope Francis

 

Here is a good rule of thumb. When some­one says, “I mis­spoke, here is what I meant to say”: Believe him. Mis­s­peak­ing is a known phe­nom­e­non. If you haven’t known about this phe­nom­e­non for some time, I don’t know what you know. Even popes can mis­s­peak. It’s true. I have checked, and rechecked, the dog­mat­ic def­i­n­i­tion of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty, and I find nowhere that the Holy Spir­it pro­tects the Roman Pon­tiff from mis­s­peak­ing. Check it your­self if you like, but do not waste too much of your time. That’s what I’m here for.

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Now, if Life Site News could correct the record. (Again.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 2, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Wouldn’t it be prop­er to explain that, accord­ing to Schon­born — the man Pope Fran­cis says has the right under­stand­ing about com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried — AL is actu­al­ly to be read in har­mo­ny with FC 84,? Wouldn’t it clear up a lot of poten­tial con­fu­sion to say, Now, Schon­born spec­i­fies that the “cer­tain cas­es” in are those which the cou­ple has agreed to prac­tice celiba­cy? The very sec­tion of FC 84 that Mr. West­en quot­ed to show that Amor­is is a depar­ture, was Schon­born quot­ed to explain how Amor­is is con­sis­tent.

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Life Site News gets a pope story wrong. (Again.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 19, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

In this lat­est exam­ple of errant reportage, Life Site News pro­claims: “Pope Says Schon­born Inter­pre­ta­tion on Com­mu­nion is the Final Word”! (That’s the title.) Now, I looked at the pope’s inter­view; can’t recall the pope say­ing any­thing that can fair­ly be sum­ma­rized as defer­ring to Schon­born the “final word.” Nor was Schonborn’s pre­sen­ta­tion of Amor­is Laeti­tia, quite exact­ly, an “inter­pre­ta­tion” of any sort. It was, rather, a sum­ma­ry of the pope’s exhor­ta­tion; I find it to be very pro­fuse with direct quo­ta­tions. So we shall have to dis­cern very care­ful­ly to see whether West­ern or I has it right.

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Pope gives another interview; false reporting begins at 1 Vader 5 forthwith.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 16, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Mr. Steve Sko­jec, of 1 Vad­er 5 infamy, was quick to pounce, claws unsheathed, on the lat­est papal inter­view. He did so in order to make the self-affirm­ing claim that Pope Fran­cis gave an unam­bigu­ous, full-throat­ed “Yes!” to com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried. Shaz­a­am. The pope, says Mr. Sko­jec, gave “a very straight­for­ward affir­ma­tion” in response to a “very direct ques­tion” from a reporter. “Straight­for­ward,” you say? “Very direct,” you say? Then let us hie our­selves to the text of that inter­view and take a look.

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