The gospel according to Judas

[3] Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. [4] Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: [5] Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
 -- Gospel According to Saint John 12:3-5

Where have we heard this talk of a "stripped" down Church of the poor before?

It is in the words of Judas Iscariot, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?".

Jesus rebuked Judas immediately saying, "Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you; but me you have not always."

In reading Chapter 12 of the Gospel according to Saint John I see a perfect description of the how the Church has fallen prey to the devil through the "new" traps that he laid in the "modern" world.

It was revealed to St. John that the events surrounding Palm Sunday were a perfect foreshadowing of the Crucifixion. Vatican II reminds me of the how the multitude rejoiced at the "new springtime" even as they prepared to hand over Christ to the Jewish leaders to be crucified.

They "took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried: Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel."

Jesus responded to them, "Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself."

But St. John tells us that "they could not believe, because Isaias said again: He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."

They were blinded because they saw as Judas saw. In my previous post I quoted from Pope Benedict regarding Judas. I will repeat that quote except that I will substitute for Jesus the Church.

In the end, Jesus knew that even among the Twelve there was one who did not believe: Judas. Judas too could have left [the Church] like the other disciples did; perhaps he should have left had he wanted to be honest. Instead he stayed with [the Church]. He stayed not because of faith, not because of love, but with the secret plan to get back at [the Church]. Why? Because Judas felt that [the Church] had betrayed him and he decided to betray [the Church] in turn. Judas was a zealot and wanted a victorious [Church] who would lead a revolt against [the Rich]. [The Church] frustrated these expectations. The problem is that Judas did not leave and his gravest fault was falsity, which is the sign of the devil. Because of this Jesus said to the Twelve: “One among you is a devil!” (John 6:70). Let us pray to the Virgin Mary, who helps us to believe in Jesus, as St. Peter did, to be ever more sincere with him and with everyone.

The gospel according to Judas sees the principal role of the Church as fighting for the poor against the rich. It is no wonder then that Bergoglio has won the endorsement of so many followers of Judas.

There is a reason every conceivable constituency of the Church’s enemies, both internal and external, is hailing Pope Francis: from Hans Kung (“was overwhelmed with joy” at Francis’s election), to the National Abortion Rights Action League (“To Pope Francis: Thank you”), to Stephen Colbert (“a seismic ripple throughout the world of Catholicism”), to Jane Fonda (“Gotta love new Pope. He cares about poor, hates dogma”), to Chris Rock (Francis is “the greatest man alive”), to the man that vulgar comedian worships as the “dad of our country” and “our boss”—none other than Barack Obama, who is “hugely impressed with the pope’s pronouncements.” When a politician who can rightly be viewed as a forerunner of Antichrist is “hugely impressed” by a Pope’s statements, there must be something gravely wrong with what the Pope is saying.

Bergoglio has even won the endorsement of the communist party.

Well, it appears they [the communists] prefer the words and emphasis and intentions of this particular pope. They trust him to take a stance closer to theirs. Consider the enthusiastic take of People’s World: “Pope Francis has provided a moral bully pulpit to rally the world’s workers in the ongoing crusade against corporate greed.”

It is interesting to note that Bergoglio gave a homily on St. John Chapter 12:3-5 soon after being elected pope by the cardinals. I cannot improve on an analysis of it by Atila Sinke Guimarães. And so I present his analysis in its entirety below.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

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Please refer to the original article which is properly formatted and also contains footnotes:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/156bev05_29_2013.htm

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FRANCIS and JUDAS (by Atila Sinke Guimarães) -    During the homily he delivered at his Mass on May 14 at Santa Marta Inn, Pope Francis commented on the episode that, in many ways, is the paradigm of his pontificate. He referred to the complaint of Judas about the “waste” Mary Magdalene was making when she washed the sacred Feet of Our Lord Jesus Christ with an expensive perfume at the Bethany supper offered by Simon the leper.

Judas objected, contending that she should have saved the perfume, sold it and given the money to the poor. A quick look at the reports of St. Mark (14:3-9) and St. Matthew (26: 6-16) of that episode shows us that both Evangelists attribute the objection to the Apostles as a whole. St. John, more conscious of the vices of Judas, reports Judas as the one who authored it (12:4).

This comparison of the texts lets us suppose that it was Judas who raised the indignation of the Apostles. This was a mutinous and deceitful ploy, an attempt to set the Apostles against Our Lord and to pressure Him to reject Magdalene’s homage.

We sense the depth of Judas’s hatred for that act of glorification by considering that no one with a bit of good sense would provoke a whole group of men to go against a single woman. Further weakening her position, she was facing a general ambience that was strange to her.

Were it not for his uncontained hatred, Judas could have waited until later to ask Our Lord whether her action was correct or not. But he was no longer interested in learning from Him. His mind was made up; he detested that act of public glorification and wanted to stop that display. Thus, disregarding any sense of courtesy that men should normally show toward a fragile woman, ignoring the honor they owed their Messiah and God, Judas instigated the Apostles to reject Magdalene’s gesture.

Seeing the position of Judas, Our Lord took a divine attitude that anticipates medieval Chivalry’s protection of the weak, Scholasticism’s refutations of heretics, and the Constantinian Church’s glorification of God with riches and pomp. He said: “Why do you harass this woman? For she has wrought a good work upon me … Wherever this gospel will be preached in the whole world, that also which she has done will be told in memory of her.” (Matt 26: 10-13)

This is, therefore, an episode dense in symbolism: On one hand, it prefigures a long series of enemies of richness and solemnity in God’s worship: all types of heretics, as I have listed elsewhere. (1) Last on this list, we find the progressivists who have been controlling the Church since Vatican II. They are doing everything they can to transform the Catholic Church into a Miserablist Church despoiled of all her properties and glories, a proletarian Church compatible with Communism. It is the Church of the Poor, as Francis called it in his first audience, or the Servant, Humble and Fraternal Church that he prayed for with the Italian Bishops some days ago. (2)

On the other hand, this episode of Mary Magdalene symbolizes the Constantinian Church, the Church that offers to God the best of what nature provides and man produces in quality and beauty. She must have splendorous churches and solemn ceremonies to glorify the One who created all of nature and redeemed mankind.

Now, as Pope Francis speeds up his desacralization, the Miserablist Church with its patron, Judas Iscariot – a theme we have pointed out for a long time - is becoming increasingly linked to the Bergloglio Revolution.

So, Francis needed to disengage himself from this embarrassing and infamous association. Toward this purpose, nothing appeared better than to criticize Judas in that episode of Mary Magdalene. So this is what he did on May 14, 2013.

Francis’ objections

In a quite superficial sermon, as his teachings ex hospitio [from the inn] have often been, Francis said these words, summarized by Vatican Radio:

“Let us think of that moment with the Magdalene, when she washed the feet of Jesus with nard, which was so expensive. It is a religious moment, a moment of gratitude, a moment of love. And he [Judas] stands apart and criticizes her bitterly: ‘But ... this could be used for the poor!’ This is the first reference that I personally found in the Gospel of poverty as an ideology. The ideologue does not know what love is, because he does not know how to gift himself.”

Thus, we have his first accusation:

Judas was wrong because he adopted poverty as an ideology

Then, in another excerpt more accusations come:

The Pope warned that those who “isolate their conscience in selfishness,” in the end “lose.”This is how Judas ended up … he “was an idolater, attached to money”.

“This idolatry has led him to isolate himself from the community of others: this is the drama of the isolated conscience. When a Christian begins to isolate himself, he or she also cuts off his or her conscience from the sense of community … Instead, the Christian who gives his or her life, who loses it, as Jesus says, finds it again ... And those who, like Judas, want to keep it for themselves, lose it in the end. John tells us that ‘at that moment Satan entered into Judas’ heart.’ And, we must say: With Satan the payback is rotten. He always rips us off, always!”

Thus, the second and third accusations of Pope Bergoglio are:
Judas was an idolater of money; at that moment [when he made the objection] Satan entered his heart;

Judas was wrong because he isolated himself from the community.
Basically, these were the charges Francis made against Judas.

In these accusations, what first strikes me is what the Pope omitted. He did not condemn Judas for his infamous moral behavior, which has justly raised horror in Catholics everywhere and in all times. Instead, he chose to present Judas as an egocentric intellectual, like so many others. His only rigorous censures were that Judas was an idolater of money - which we will analyze below - and the inexact remark that the Devil entered Judas’s heart on that occasion. (3)

Let me analyze these accusations.

Poverty as an ideology

The first charge he makes is that Judas was wrong because he understood poverty as an ideology.

What does Francis mean by ideology?

For Catholics ideology was always synonymous with philosophy. Each man, movement or current of thought can be defined by the ideas that he or it upholds. So, the ideology of a man or movement is an ensemble of principles that orients their actions. This definition supposes that man is a rational being.

However, in the last phase of JPII’s pontificate, throughout Benedict’s and now in Francis' a new concept of ideology has been conveyed to Catholics. An ideology is an abstract, artificial and duplicitous system elaborated by cold reason without taking into consideration the ardor of love. An ideology is a system invented by some elites to fool the people and maintain their control over power and wealth.

Below, in another of Francis’ ex hospitio teachings (April 19, 2013), he addressed the topic of ideology:

“The ‘doctors’ answer only with the head. They do not know that the Word of God goes to the heart … They are the ‘scientists,’ the great ‘ideologues,’ those who do not understand that the word of God … is directed to the heart … because it is the beautiful word that brings love and makes us love. …

“The ‘ideologues’ are the ones in the Gospel who discuss among themselves: ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’ It is a problem of the intellect! And when ideology enters the Church, we do not understand anything of the Gospel. …

“The ideologues falsify the Gospel. Every ideological interpretation, no matter the source, is a falsification of the Gospel. And these ideologues – as we have seen in the History of the Church - end up as intellectuals without talent, moralists without goodness. They do not speak of beauty because they do not understand it. Instead, the way of love, the path of the Gospel is simple: It is the road understood by the Saints! …

“Let us pray to the Lord for the Church to be free from any ideological interpretation and to open her heart to the simple, pure Gospel that speaks of the gate of love and so much beauty! … (original here)

Reading these lines, we see that Bergoglio considers any intellectual effort to understand the Gospel as wrong and qualifies it as an “ideology.’ Only love matters. However, the Catholic Church teaches that in the human soul the intellect has primacy over the will and the sensibility. To deny this is to establish anarchy in the soul.

Now, Francis denies this hierarchy and condemns it: It is an ideology. If one were to accept his judgment, all Catholic theology and exegesis should be rejected...

If we apply this outlook to Judas, Bergoglio’s charge against him would translate thus: Since Judas argued that the perfume should be sold and the money given to the poor, he was objecting intellectually; with this he became an ideologue. So, it is the way Judas placed his objection – not his hatred for the glorification of Christ – that would be wrong.

We see that this accusation against Judas - he adhered to the ideology of poverty – is meaningless. Any man who uses his intellect to articulate an idea can be similarly condemned.

An idolater of money

Francis also accuses Judas of being an idolater of money. In this second accusation he lacks precision.

St. John tells us that Judas was a thief who stole coins from the moneybag (12:6). The revelation stops here. Most persons who steal money do it to buy other things. A minority of thieves steal money to hoard it because they love money as such. The accusation of being an idolater of money only applies to the latter.

In his sermon Francis forgot to explain why Judas should be considered as one of this latter brand of thieves. Since no explanation was given, his second accusation is wide open to discussion.

It is sad to say, but these two ex hospitio teachings are of a very poor intellectual level.

Isolated from the community

When Bergoglio comes to his third accusation - Judas was an egocentric who had isolated himself from the community - in principle he is correct. Any traitor is motivated by his own interests and has no care for anything else.

But, what Francis is stressing here is not this banality. Instead, he is repeating the progressivist thesis that no one can have a private relationship with God and individual spiritual life, but rather must share everything with the community. It is a kind of spiritual Communism.

With this we see that the accusations Pope Francis made against Judas have little to no actual value.

Certainly they do not excuse Francis from being a follower of Judas in his hatred for the external glorification of God and in his pretext that the Church must give up her pomp and sacrality to better help the poor.

What remains to be analyzed in another occasion is whether or not Francis’ eagerness to please the Jews - his first letter some hours after been elected was for them - can be considered as selling the Mystical Body of Christ to the Jews, as Judas did with Our Lord.

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