Of Validity and Excommunication and the Insanity of the Present Time

I have some really smart readers and how blessed I am to learn from them. In fact, I appreciate and pray for all my visitors even the trolls. They are particularly helpful to my retaining my sense of humor. 

But as for my fellow well-catechized Catholics, often I'm humbled by what they share.  So today I'm offering a few recent comments that are so smart and insightful they deserve wider viewing. Thank you to all my faithful readers for your kindness and prayers.

The first comment is about Pascal's wager. You've no doubt heard of it. Pascal defended the wisdom of living and acting as if you believe in God. You have nothing to lose (unless you consider living a virtuous life instead of a licentious one a loss). When you die, if there is no God you will be none the wiser. If there is a God and you lived the virtuous life of the believer, you go to heaven to glorify God forever. On the other hand, if you lived a sinful life ignoring God's laws, you will meet the God you didn't believe in and go to hell. Isn't the wiser course obvious?

Quo Vadis? I Thought Headlines of Pope Francis Giving Away the Bones of St. Peter was a Satire Piece from the Babylon Bee...

...but it's all too real. Quo vadis, Kephas? To Constantinople to a Church not in union with Rome that rejects the papacy.

Think about it. Francis, the successor of St. Peter (If he is!), thinks so little of the papacy that he gives away precious relics of the first pope to the representatives of a Church that is in schism over the issue of papal authority.

Please tell me this is a nightmare. Pope Paul VI kept the relics in his private chapel to venerate St. Peter and perhaps to remind himself of what it means to give your life for the Church to the point of shedding your blood. LifeSiteNews reported:

The archbishop said that after the two prayed together at St. Peter’s tomb, the Pope told him he had a “gift for the Church of Constantinople.” The Pope invited the archbishop to accompany him to the Apostolic Palace. There, in the private chapel of the popes, Francis took the reliquary and gave it to Archbishop Job.

The Historic Meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill

Their joint declaration.

But I'm a little confused about this being the first.