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| Will Topsy and Tuptim pay their IHOP bill with the new Vatican Pachamama coin? |
The IHOP is almost empty when Topsy and Tuptim arrive. A sign on the door reads, "masks required to enter."
Tuptim: Gosh! I forgot my Trump mask? Do you have a mask?
Topsy: (shakes her head) No, I ordered an "I'm a Trump girl" mask, but it hasn't come yet.
They go in.
The host doesn't say anything about masks, but greets them with a cheerful, "Good morning." They can't tell if he's smiling behind the mask. He shows them to a table where they take off their jackets and put down their bags. Topsy orders a coffee with cream and Tuptim orders "good, strong black!"Tuptim: When are you going to convert to real coffee, Topsy. Diluting it with cream is an abomination!
Topsy: Give it up, Tuptim. I like my cream! (She sings a few bars of "You say tomato and I say tomahto...)
Tuptim: (Laughing) Okay, in the interests of our study of the pope's new document, "Fraternity and Social Friendship," I will try to be gracious and respectful and socially friendly.
Topsy: (Taking the encyclical out of her bag. She shakes it.) I keep thinking of this as Tutti Frutti instead of Fratelli Tutti.
Tuptim: (Snickering) It does lend itself to that, doesn't it? Have you read the whole thing yet? It's not as long as some of his others. Although eight chapters and 287 paragraphs isn't exactly a quick read!
Topsy: Don't forget the 288 footnotes. Can you imagine reading this and every document linked? (Sighing) Sheesh! I've just read the first few chapters so far. Frankly, I don't want to read it at all. It's always the same with Pope Francis -- the natural and supernatural are flipped. His Utopia becomes the goal for the world and Eternal Life gets lost in rain forest ramblings.
Tuptim: Speaking of the rain forest, did you see the new Vatican coin with Pachama in her plunging neckline with the world in her belly? (Shaking her head...) At least she's not naked! Sometimes I think the Vatican has become the 21st century version of the old Laugh In variety show.
Topsy: (Snaps her fingers) You nailed it! That's a great analogy! Remember the end where everybody keeps popping out of the doors on the joke wall? That's a good image for this papacy. All the weird characters open their doors, spout dumb one-liners, and then slam the doors again. Somebody needs to lock 'em up!
Tuptim: (Rolling her eyes) Only it's no joke. This pope has done so much damage to the Church! I think historians will rank him among the worst popes in history along with...um...who was that pope who dug up his dead predecessor, put him on trial, cut off the fingers he used for blessing, and had him thrown in the Tiber?
Topsy: Funny...I just looked that up. It was Pope Stephen VI. He called the bishops for the "Cadaver Synod" where they tried Pope Formosus and stripped him of his papal honors. His body was later retrieved from the Tiber and he was reinterred at St. Peter's.
Tuptim: Wow! What happened to Stephen?
Topsy: The papacy was pretty political then. (Shaking her head ruefully) Maybe it always is. Anyway, He ended up being arrested by a rival faction, imprisoned, and strangled. He was pope for only a little over a year.
Tuptim: (Looking incredulous) Truth really is stranger than fiction! (Tapping on the table) But... hmm...Some things never change. We have so many liberal bishops doing everything they can to advance one-world government and all the socialist programs -- even funding groups that support abortion and homosexuality.
Topsy: Yeah...and treating those intrinsic evils on the same level as being kind to your waiter. (Looks up and smiles) ...who's here to take our order. I'll have the eggs benedict with hash browns please.
Tuptim: Me too. And more coffee please. (Opens her notebook) What did you think of the introduction?
Topsy: I always look at the references first. Have you noticed how many times Francis footnotes himself? Extensively! He does it in every document. I need to count them up, but I'm guessing it will be a good percentage of the 288 footnotes. (Laughing) He even footnotes the movie about himself.
Tuptim: I'm not surprised. He comes across as a narcissist. (Pauses) Am I being uncharitable?
Topsy: (Shrugging) Whenever I hear that word in the same sentence with Pope Francis, I think of all the insults and slurs he's cast against faithful Catholics. Just like the Democrats.
Tuptim: True...but let's get to the Introduction. I was appalled at how he misrepresents St. Francis. You almost expect to see the saint in a tie-dyed tunic strumming Kumbaya on a guitar with his brother monk shaking the tambourine.
Topsy: (Laughing) And dancing into the Sultan's camp singing We are the World. My husband and I were married on October 4th, his feast day, so I have a special link to St. Francis. I thought the pope portrayed him as a goody-two-shoes who wanted to make nice with the Sultan to "simply spread the love of God" and the "vision of fraternal society." The clear implication was that St. Francis was on the same kind of Abu Dhabi mission as Pope Francis instead of trying to bring the Sultan to Christ.
Tuptim: Well...that spin fits with the pope's on-going emphasis on ecumenism. Hey....Islam, Catholicism, or belief in the pagan Pachamama -- it's all the same. It's Rodney King evangelism -- "Can't we all just get along?"
Topsy: I think this document is one more step in the relentless march toward syncretism, globalism, and one-world religion. That seems to be the pope's hidden agenda.
Tuptim: Not so hidden, I'd say.
Topsy: You're right.... (The waiter brings their breakfast and they pause as he refills their coffee.) I really like their eggs benedict! Hopefully eating while discussing the encyclical won't give us indigestion! Anyway, this idea of "universal fraternity" has been around for centuries and the ones always talking about it are Fascists or Communists who tell you they'll create a Utopia for all and end up killing millions and sending their political enemies to gulags and concentration camps.
Tuptim: My hackles went up when I read the first sentence of Chapter one. (She reads) "Without claiming to carry out an exhaustive analysis or to study every aspect of our present-day experience, I intend simply to consider certain trends in our world that hinder the development of universal fraternity." (She looks up) Since when is "universal fraternity" a doctrine of the Church.
Topsy: (with a disgusted grunt) It's not! The Church teaches we have an obligation to act in fraternal charity which is an entirely different thing. In doing some preliminary research before our meeting I found that "universal fraternity" is a Masonic doctrine and the masons are praising the encyclical talking about how it shows that the Church is "far away" from its former teachings. I think that says a lot. Of course, Francis' ideas aren't new. They were promoted by the Le Sillon movement in France in the late 19th and early 20th century, not to mention all the 18th century Enlightenment philosophers who gave us the guillotine, murder of the clergy and religious, and the genocide in the Vendee.
Tuptim: Le Sillon. That's new to me; I never heard of it.
Topsy: I hadn't either until I started researching "universal fraternity." Le Sillon means "The Path" and its founder, Marc Sangnier tried to do what Francis is doing -- blend socialism and Catholicism. He promoted a modernist Utopia, but Pope St. Pius X condemned it in an apostolic mandate to the French bishops titled Notre Charge Apostolique. I ran it off. (She pulls it out of her bag.) This is from the beginning. The pope talks about his obligation to watch over the faith. (She reads.) It requires from Us that We protect the faithful from evil and error; especially so when evil and error are presented in dynamic language which, concealing vague notions and ambiguous expressions with emotional and high-sounding words, is likely to set ablaze the hearts of men in pursuit of ideals which, whilst attractive, are nonetheless nefarious. Such were not so long ago the doctrines of the so-called philosophers of the 18th century, the doctrines of the Revolution and Liberalism which have been so often condemned; such are even today the theories of the Sillon which, under the glowing appearance of generosity, are all too often wanting in clarity, logic and truth. These theories do not belong to the Catholic or, for that matter, to the French Spirit.
Tuptim: Sounds like he was talking about Vatican II. We could sure use a pope like him today!
Topsy: What I found particularly interesting about the document, was that the movement had a good beginning and the pope praised the enthusiasm of the young who made up its base. But it quickly degenerated - denying that authority comes from God and instead, saying that it comes from the people.
Tuptim: Comrades eh? Somehow "the people" who buy these lies always end up wearing Big Brother's uniform!
Topsy: You got it! Le Sillon also developed into a cult of personalism where the individual is the measure of everything. We're there aren't we. "My body, my choice!" A man can be a woman and a woman be a man. For Pope Francis to be aligning himself with these same ideas is serious. Do people never learn anything from history?
Tuptim: Not much it seems. (Her smart phone starts beeping) Gosh, Topsy, I have an appointment. (Gathering up her items and the bill) We didn't make much progress, did we. We'll have to pick this up next week. Oh...and by the way. Archbishop Vigano weighed in on Tutti Frutti. Read his comments and we can discuss them along with the document.
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