News
Featured Image
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga

April 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The leader of the Pope's Council of Nine cardinals said the dubia cardinals haven't read Amoris Laetitia and wondered why they haven't “said anything about those who manufacture weapons.” 

Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga made these remarks during a radio interview on March 25. Andrew Guernsey translated them at OnePeterFive.

“I think, in the first place, that they [the four cardinals] have not read Amoris Laetitia, because, unfortunately, this is the case!” said Maradiaga. “I know the four and I say that they are already in retirement…They should do something else.”

He criticized the cardinals who asked Pope Francis to clarify whether Amoris Laetitia is aligned with Catholic morality as Pharisees, the hypocrites in the Bible. 

“How come they have not said anything about those who manufacture weapons?” asked Maradiaga. “Some are in countries that manufacture and sell weapons for all the genocide that is happening in Syria, for example. Why? I would not want to put it – shall we say – too strongly; only God knows people’s consciences and inner motivations; but, from the outside it seems to me to be a new pharisaism.”

“The car of the Church has no gear to go in reverse,” continued Maradiaga. “It pulls itself forward because the Holy Spirit is not accustomed to go backwards.”

He said he's not worried about the direction of the Church because “it is not Francis, it is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church.”

In August, documents released by Wikileaks showed George Soros' Open Society Foundation planned to work through Maradiaga to influence American Catholic bishops during the Pope's visit to the U.S.

“We will support PICO’s organizing activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues, including using the influence of Cardinal Rodriguez, the Pope’s senior advisor,” a report from the Open Society Foundation said. PICO is a leftist community organizing group. Using Maradiaga's influence included “sending a delegation to visit the Vatican in the spring or summer to allow him to hear directly from low-income Catholics in America.”

In 2015, Maradiaga participated in the “shadow synod” that attacked Church teaching and contributed to the subversion of the two synods on the family

Maradiaga has made a series of confusing statements about homosexuality.

In September 2016, he said “no man is born homosexual” during a lecture while at the same time skirting questions about many hot topics. “Everybody is born a man or a woman, to love the other – that is God’s plan,” diocesan media reported he said.

In 2015, he answered a question about homosexuals and the Church by saying: “…that doesn’t mean that we are going to be excluding persons who live their faith [and are homosexual] and would like to be part of the Church. One thing is defining marriage, another thing is pastoral care. This is what I believe will make road in the Synod.”

The Council of Nine pledged allegiance to Pope Francis after a poster campaign in Rome and a satirical version of the Vatican newspaper were critical of the Pope in one week. German Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Council of Nine member has also said of the dubia, “the document [Amoris] is not as ambiguous as some people claim.”