...and in this corner:

The POPE against SMOM

Have you ever heard of the “ Sovereign Military Order of Malta”? (SMOM)

If you haven't, don't feel guilty or ashamed, because not many people know of this ancient, small, but powerful Catholic Order. It traces its history all the way back to the Crusades, where, so it reports, it fought many a bloody battle against the “infidels.”

The Order finally withdrew to the rocky island of Malta, from whence comes their name.

Nowadays, however, their headquarters are in Rome, from where their “Grand Master” directs about 15,000 members. They engage over 100,000 employees and volunteers throughout the Christian World.

They are now engaged less in battling infidels, and more in doing Good Works.”

The SMOM considers itself to be a sovereign national entity. To strengthen this claim, they issue their own passports, their own stamps, and send diplomatic envoys to over one hundred countries in the world. Pretty good for a small group of ultra conservative Catholics. Wouldn't you say?

The Grand Master of this organization is, or was, one Fra' Matthew Festing.

One of his lower echelon members was the German “Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.”

Good old Albrecht thought he was doing one of his Organizations “Good Works” by distributing Condoms in Myanmar.

Festing: “What did you say? Distributing Condoms? Are you insane? We do not distribute Condoms. Condoms prevent conception and that is sinful, because “Conception” is the only reason for sexual intercourse. Basta!”

Boeselager: “But Condoms will prevent many people from contracting HIV/Aids, which will kill them.”

Festing: It may kill them, but they will not go to Hell because they had Sex just for pleasure. It is better to die a slow death here on Earth than to roast in Hell for ever.

Since Boeselager would not agree to this penetrating Catholic Logic, Festing fired him.

Many leading Catholics cheered and jubilated: Another “heretic” out of the game and the conservative practice of Roman Catholicism preserved.

Hold everything for a moment:

Has the “Grand Master” Fra' Festing not read the Pope's Encyclical “Amoris Laetitia”?

Or did he just want to defy his boss, Franciscus, to whom he has sworn obedience, by ignoring it?

So, the Pope did the only thing he could do under the circumstances: He fired Fra Festing and re-instated his nemesis Boeselager.

The whole “Condom Affair” is, it seems, just a camouflage for a greater struggle within the Catholic church.

It is a competition between Pope Franciscus, attempting to modernize the Church a little and the arch- conservative forces which want to keep it mired in the earliest Century AD!

Bertstravels

thinks that even a “modernized” Catholic church

is still a pretty preposterous, silly Organization.