It appears that the ecumenical circus will now include an ongoing discussion with assorted Protestant heretics about the Catholic doctrine of indulgences. According to the Vatican Information Service, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has announced that "for the first time since the Reformation, Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed held an ecumenical theological consultation on the theme of indulgences. The meeting involving the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches took place in Rome on February 9 and 10, upon the invitation of the Pontifical Council."

        Apparently, the Vatican thinks this is a worthwhile undertaking with "churches" that do not even accept the application of the Fifth Commandment to the murder of children in the womb. That the Vatican is seriously discussing indulgences with people who condone child-murder is just another of the uncountable absurdities of the "ecumenical movement." Let us just say that the Pontifical Council’s sense of theological priorities is a tad out-of-kilter. That should hardly be surprising, considering that its new head is Cardinal Walter Kasper, a member of the rebellious German hierarchy whose personal theological writings have cast doubt on the Bodily Resurrection of Christ, among other doctrines of the Faith.

        What, really, was the point of this ridiculous gathering? "The purpose was to clarify historical, theological and pastoral issues related to indulgences in order to come to a better understanding of each other." Does this mean that the Vatican seeks to persuade the Protestant interlocutors of the truth of the Catholic teaching on indulgences, as one small step in their conversion to the Catholic Faith? Silly me. Of course not. The meeting "did not aim at an agreement on indulgences - an issue on which there have been longstanding differences between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the reformation."

        Differences! So, then, the Protestants have "differences" with the one true Church over the question of indulgences - which is to say "differences" with Almighty God. But it is not as if the Pontifical Council expects the Protestants to abandon any of their many "differences" with God and convert to Catholicism for the salvation of their souls. No, no, no. The Church doesn’t expect that any longer. As Kasper declared in an interview in the Italian journal Adista (February 26, 2001), within days of his outrageous elevation to the rank of Cardinal: "Today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being ‘Catholics.’ This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II." Is that so? Well, I am no great fan of the ambiguous documents of Vatican II, but there is no such "express abandonment" anywhere in its teaching. How comforting to know that the task of achieving "Christian unity" has been entrusted to a man who does not even believe that Protestants need to become Catholics.

        No wonder Father Nicholas Gruner is hounded and declared "suspended," while the likes of Kasper is created a Cardinal. You see, Father Gruner still preaches the conversion of Russia announced by the Mother of God at Fatima. But the conversion of non-Catholics "was expressly abandoned by Vatican II," according to the Vatican’s new head of the Pontifical Council for "Christian Unity." Thus, priests like Father Gruner must be silenced, since there is no room for them in the Church of "openness and dialogue" which supposedly arose with the Council.

        After all, what did Our Lady of Fatima know about "the springtime of Vatican II"?