Sr. Tequila Nastypants, Mother Superior of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, came out swinging at a press event last evening, criticizing Pope Francis for his attacks on conservative religious orders in the Catholic Church:

Yeah, we poke filthy fun at nuns, and prance around in outrageous costumes doing obscene, sacrilegious things. But Pope Francis has sent in henchmen to interrogate sincere, traditional nuns. Then he closed down their communities, seized their facilities, and essentially turned them out on the street to fend for themselves. We’d never do that. It’s just plain mean.

“We don’t want to wipe out Catholic orders of nuns. We’re just a bunch of happy degenerates who want to mainstream sexual perversion,” Nastypants averred.

Who’s Persecuting Nuns?

Nah, just kidding about Sister Nastypants. He doesn’t exist. But I had to point up the irony in the current situation: I see agonized Catholics on social media asking why Pope Francis doesn’t speak up about the sickening, blasphemous behavior of the LGBTQMYNAMEISLEGION “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” whom the Los Angeles Dodgers are now indulging with a “Pride” award. And I know where my fellow Catholics are coming from.

But I have to ask myself: Did this group of degenerates ever actually persecute groups of nuns? They might detest or mock them, but they’ve never actually bothered them, have they? (They very well might, if they ever got the power to.) But Pope Francis and his quasi-Marxist, sexual-liberationist henchmen, have actually gone in and ruined such women’s lives. Church Militant (no friend of drag queen pseudo-nuns) reports:

An Italian diocese is using paramilitary police to intimidate traditionalist nuns who refuse to submit to Vatican diktats, which include banishing the prioress to a progressive, quasi-Protestant community.

Thirteen nuns from the monastery of Mary Temple of the Holy Spirit have slammed Cdl. Augusto Paolo Lojudice of the Montepulciano–Chiusi–Pienza diocese for the “fake news and distortions” aimed at “defaming” them and “creating a gratuitous and inopportune climate of scandal.”

Sources close to the monastery say that the Vatican and the cardinal are seeking to oust the nuns so that they can sell the prime property on the site of the diocese’s former seminary and stamp out the Tridentine [ancient Latin] Mass, which the nuns “discovered” in 2020.

Cardinal Lojudice has also refused to allow the sisters to receive Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling, humiliating them before the whole city by making them stand up and receive the Blessed Sacrament in the hand, Church Militant has learned.

…

Faithful Catholics have voiced concerns over the closure of several monasteries under the Francis pontificate, including the Dominican Monastery of the Most Holy Annunciation in Marradi, the Monastery of the Visitation in Milan, the Monastery of the Visitation in Pistoia, the Cenacle of Montauto in Anghiari and the Poor Clares convent of Montalto in Marche.

In his recent book Claustrofobia, Vaticanist Aldo Maria Valli has demonstrated how cloistered orders are being targeted by the Vatican because the progressive hierarchy prioritizes social commitment over contemplative life. Observers say that the Vatican is also attempting to seize vast properties owned by the traditionalist orders.

Forbidding Catholic Worship and Allying with Red China

Pope Francis has also scapegoated some of the most vibrant, fast-growing Catholic communities around the world. Why? Because they prefer the more traditional, reverent Latin liturgy to the version concocted in the mid-1960s by progressive theologians, led by Rembert Weakland — who later would be disgraced for using church money to subsidize his male lover. Meanwhile, Francis has replaced faithful, pro-life thinkers at the Vatican-sponsored John Paul II Institute with thinkers tolerant of abortion and homosexuality.

Oh, and Francis sent child-molesting (now ex-cardinal) Ted McCarrick to Red China, to sign an alliance with that regime against the West, selling out local faithful Catholics in favor of the Communist-puppet “Patriotic Church.” Pope Francis’ right hand man, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, praised Red China as a better practitioner of Catholic social teaching than Trump’s America. He made friendly remarks at a gathering of that regime’s organ harvesters, who steal body parts from political prisoners (including Uyghurs in concentration camps).

You Think Your Church Is Safe?

Why, non-Catholic reader, should any of this be of interest to you? Because there’s a good chance your church’s leaders are acting the exact same way. Are you a United Methodist? Then your local church might soon be performing same-sex weddings. Are you Baptist? Find out if your church is accepting and teaching Marxist “Critical Race Theory,” which includes in its agenda empowering “marginalized” groups such as practicing homosexuals.

The worst enemy is always the enemy within. That’s true if it’s a conscious infiltrator from an openly hostile group. Or if (more commonly) it’s some worldly, cowardly nebbish who’s afraid of losing congregants, cutting into his bottom line, or attracting hostile attention from the IRS. Christians have always been called to swim upstream against the current of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

Right now that current is stronger in the West than it has been in many decades. If you’re in a church that’s torpid, peaceful, and comfortable, that means just one thing: It is dead, and floating along with the current to be extinguished in the sea.

Remember that the real villain of the Gospels isn’t Caiaphas or Pilate, but Judas. The traitor from within. He’s literally the only person whom God Himself said would have been better off if he’d never been born.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”