Is the Pope Catholic? For a long time, this was a rhetorical question, similar to the question about where do bears relieve themselves. But as of late, it has become an actual question, with no clear answer, or maybe a negative answer.

Something very strange is happening in the heart of the Catholic Church. I suppose most of my few readers are not Catholic and don’t care, but I was raised Catholic and know many Catholics. And most of them are very confused about what is going on.

Pope Francis has done so many heretical statements and so many attacks on traditionalists — most recently with the direct firing of Bishop Strickland — that is unclear if he even understands Catholic doctrine, much less practice it.

The best explanation, so far, is the one by Ann Barnhardt, saying that previous Pope Benedict didn’t validly resign, so Francis’ election was invalid, and he’s not the real Pope, and he needs to be ejected from the seat.

But in truth, it’s not just Francis. The problem goes much farther and many years back in time.

The tragedy of the Catholic Church is that it is its own top hierarchy who seems to be bent on destroying Catholicism forever.

In the 1960s, among many other changes, the Vatican II council completely changed the way Mass was performed, basically eliminating the traditional rituals. They persecuted priests who still followed the old system, and now there are only a few parishes who follow the traditional Latin Mass. But even the few remaining ones are being persecuted.

Now, think about it. What also has happened since the 1960s? People abandoned the Catholic Church in droves. In Latin America, they fled to evangelical denominations, while in Europe and North America they simply became atheists. The Church itself was marred by several sexual scandals, some real, some not, but all this certainly tarnished its image. Also, in part thanks to birth control but also to the loss of Catholic traditional morality, marriage and birth rates collapsed. It was normal for Catholic families to have 5, 6, even 10 children in the early 1960s. Now it is lucky if they have 1 or 2.

The Mass has become less strict in a way that was supposed to be more appealing to the modern public, but, in fact, it has not appealed to the public at all. In some cases, it has just become a clown show. One of the last times I went to a “Novus Ordo” mass, years ago, they were playing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah during the Eucharist. I mean, I like Leonard Cohen as much as anyone, but there’s a time and a place for it, and it’s completely out of place in a Mass. You have to have organs and a choir singing, not pop songs.

As a result of all that, most churches are empty or frequented only by a few octogenarians. Many churches are even destroyed or repurposed. The only churches where I still saw young people going to mass were those who still performed the traditional ritual.

So, if the idea of the Vatican was to “modernize the Church” and thus bring more people into the fold, it failed miserably. Anyone seeing such results would think, “hey, it didn’t work at all, it’s time to reverse gears and go back to what it was”.

But what is happening is exactly the opposite. Pope Francis and his gang are doubling down with the destruction. They are now planning to marry homosexual couples and declare women priests.

Recently Pope Francis declared that “being a Freemason is still a sin and that you can’t be a Freemason and a Catholic.” But it seems to be misdirection. The Church was infiltrated and taken over long ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if Francis is a secret Freemason himself.

The way it is going, it is very possible that the Catholic Church will not even exist in 100 years. Just as Europe or America may not exist anymore in any traditional sense.

May God have mercy on our souls.