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November 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Robert Mutsaerts, auxiliary bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, has joined the signatories of the “Protest against Pope Francis’ sacrilegious acts” whose statement protesting the pagan worship in the Vatican went online on November 12.

He is the second bishop to have signed the statement since Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò joined the original signatories hours after it was published.

Bishop Mutsaerts is an outspoken prelate who has not hesitated to express criticism of the present “paradigm shift,” also calling the Amazon Synod “the most politically correct meeting of all time.”

Mutsaerts, 61, chose the words “Veritas vos liberabit” (“The truth shall set you free”) as his episcopal motto.

He has been vocal on the Internet about many subjects, including the recent Youth Synod in Rome which he decided not to join as a representative of the Dutch Bishops’ conference, because, he told LifeSite at the time, “the whole thing” would “lack credibility” at a time when accusations of clerical sex abuse and coverups showed that the Church could not even offer youth “security.”

More recently, he published two articles on his blog “Paarse Pepers” (purple peppers) on the Catholic platform VitamineXP, in which he accused the Amazon Synod of pushing a “hidden agenda” that “ignores Christ.”

He wrote: “If you read the working document of the so-called Amazon Synod, it really seems that the intention is for the synod to wind up in a new religion. A kind of eco-socialism, an amalgam of ecology; climate change; ecumenism; viri probati; consecration of women; and, as an afterthought, sometimes a mention of Jesus, but then not as the Son of God and Redeemer: Jesus the philosopher, revolutionary, and hippie.”

In a later post, he added: “If sacraments, sin, justification, and hell are no longer relevant, why should you be having a synod at all?”

Both articles were translated by LifeSiteNews and can be read here.

On November 5, Bishop Mutsaerts also republished an article by Fr. Cor Mennen – a priest who has also signed the “Protest against Pope Francis’ sacrilegious acts” – against the “Pachamama” venerations in Rome when Father Mennen was slammed by his Bishop Gerard de Korte for having suggested that the Pope was a heretic. He had also called the ceremony in the Vatican gardens around the Pachamama-Mother Earth statuettes “idolatrous,” the “summit of deviation from the will of God.”

Bishop Mutsaerts is clearly not prepared to revise his position and has fully approved the statement available on www.contrarecentiasacrilegia.org, which has been joined by dozens of new signatories since it went online.

In the statement released last Tuesday, the 100 initial signatories from many countries called upon the Pope to “repent publicly and unambiguously of these objectively grave sins” that had taken place and asked bishops around the world to “offer fraternal correction to Pope Francis for these scandals.”

In a recent post on “Paarse Pepers,” on November 11, Bishop Mutsaerts reflected on a text by Sören Kierkegaard noting that since Luther, the idea of married priests in particular has gained ground.

Below is LifeSite’s full translation of Mutsaerts’ blogpost:

In the Middle Ages people wandered astray with their opinion that it is sacrilege when a priest marries. Then Luther came… and he married. Now we have come to the point where it is considered sacrilege when a priest does not marry. “One cannot be a good priest if one is not married. People won't really accept someone as a carer of the soul, etcetera, if he isn't married.” Apparently they say this in the same sentence as they say about a doctor that “the family” prefers to have a married man as a doctor. They are afraid that a bachelor is a debauched man.

In the Middle Ages, being unmarried corresponded to holiness. Now being unmarried is a reason to be considered a debauched person, as someone with whom one’s wife and daughter are not safe.

In the Middle Ages the most trusted person was an unmarried one. People thought they found a guarantee in their unmarried state. This is a reasoning of the mind. Nowadays one has most confidence in a married person. That is a reasoning of the flesh.

No, the above is not a text by me, but by Sören Kierkegaard (X, 1 A 440). He too lived in a time (1833-1855) when everything was rethought. Again, there appears to be little new under the sun. The final document of the Amazon Synod calls for viri probati – married men – to be admitted to the priesthood. It also calls for the admission of women as deacons. Come and have a look in the Netherlands, where this kind of thing has been practiced for a long time. I live in a country where married men appear at the altar, allow themselves to be called “pastors” and lead “celebrations” where the average churchgoer can’t tell the difference with a Mass. Of course they haven”t received any ordination, of course they don’t have a mission to “lead the way” on Sundays, but in the meantime they wear liturgical robes that can barely be distinguished themselves from priests’ and deacons’ robes. I live in a country in which women appear at the altar, have themselves called “pastors,” wear liturgical garments which suggest a consecration and take charge of the proclamation, and who react indignantly when they are counted as lay people. I live in a country in which carnival masses are celebrated, in which polonaises are held, hymns are sung, and all the people of the Church, who have no idea of what the sacrament is, claim Holy Communion. I live in a country where it is believed that the Church now also recognizes same-sex marriage, because such “wedding celebrations” simply take place without any real action being taken against it. I live in a country where there is an uprising you tell parents that in preparing their children for First Holy Communion you will also introduce them to the sacrament of confession. I live in a country that considers itself as a guide for the world. I live in a country where Vatican II was not seen as an attempt to find new ways to evangelize the world, but to secularize the Church. It worked well. The result?  The Church in the Netherlands is dying. The Netherlands is now the most secularized country in the world. What on earth has possessed the Synod fathers to follow this example?

I would like to let Kierkegaard speak again.

“The New Testament as a guideline for the Christian has become a kind of historical peculiarity, something like a travel guide for a certain country where in the meantime everything has completely changed. Such a book can no longer be of any use to travellers in that country. While sitting in a cosy café and smoking a cigar, one reads in the travel guide: ‘Here are gangs of robbers attacking travellers and abusing them in their refuge.’ But there is no longer a gang of robbers, but a cosy café. However, the New Testament is still, to an unalterable extent, the handbook for Christians who will still experience in this world what is written in the New Testament. One should not be disturbed by people who have different experiences with that same world, people who act as villains in this world with its villainous acts. What happens in this world to a great extent, namely chatter, misery, mediocrity, etc., etc., is actually not mentioned in the New Testament. It radically ignores chatter, pettiness and mediocrity.”