John B. Manos

Judas’ Counterfeit Coin: Francis’ Error, Modernism’s Trap, and the Call to True Worship

Posted on May 3, 2025 • 

Share
Tweet
Pin
Flip

The Betrayal That Keeps on Giving

Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver—a counterfeit coin so worthless it couldn’t buy him a decent lawyer. The Melkite hymns of Holy Week nail it: “Then Judas, the wicked betrayer, sick with love of money, plotted to sell the Lord.” Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions in The Dolorous Passion double down: “Judas, hardened by avarice… cast himself into eternal ruin.” 

Yet, Pope Francis hung Judas’s image in his Vatican office, a scandal. What’s more weird is that it was trumpeted by L’Osservatore Romano (2021). Why splash this provocative art—a painting of Jesus with a dead Judas, a misread Vézelay capital—across the Vatican’s front page? This “spirit of Judas,” like Francis’ 2017-2018 Luther fan club, betrays the fundamental shared experinces I discussed in the lex orandi post and Eucharistic reverence. Communion in the hand risks similar irreverence, while modernism’s fog reduces God to a bumper sticker. 

Some sympathize with Judas’ sob story, but Tradition—Gospel, hymns, visions—slams that door shut. Let’s unmask the fraud and return to Jesus Christ, the Divine Person (not merely an ideal).

Judas, the Gospel Warning

The Gospel doesn’t mince words: Judas, unrepentant, hanged himself (Matthew 27:3-5). Fulton Sheen draws the line in Life of Christ: “Judas failed to repent to Our Lord; Peter wept and was restored.” The Melkite hymns belt out: “O Judas, wretched and miserable, you loved the purse more than the Master.” Emmerich’s visions paint a grim picture: “Hardened by avarice… he saw the blood-money as his curse.” His 30 pieces of silver, a counterfeit coin, traded Christ for chump change. The Catechism of the Council of Trent declares Judas “lost soul and body” to “everlasting destruction.” Before anyone rolls their eyes at Trent, recall that St. Augustine and Dante park Judas in Hell’s VIP section. This lex orandi—Scripture, hymns, tradition—leaves no wiggle room: Judas is a forensic study in greed and despair, not a tragic antihero for your Netflix queue. His unworthy reception at the Last Supper (John 13:27) warns against profaning the Eucharist, a sin echoed in modern liturgical sloppiness. Judas didn’t get a Netflix deal, and neither should his legacy.

Francis’ Troubling Signal

L’Osservatore Romano (2021) spilled the beans: Francis’ office housed two Judas images—a 2021 painting of a nude Jesus with a dead Judas in a red loincloth, and a Vézelay capital photograph, misread as Jesus carrying Judas. A 2024 Vatican video showed the painting looming behind his desk. Francis mused in a 2020 sermon: “How did Judas end up? I don’t know.” 

Why did the Vatican’s newspaper blast this to the world? It’s no mere oopsie! Rather, it was a deliberate signal, waving a “spirit of Judas” flag. This mirrors his 2016-2017 Luther love-in—Vatican stamp, Lund service—lionizing a heresiarch who scoffed at Mary, “full of grace.” Both are counterfeit coins, swapping Gospel truth for ecumania’s false mercy, as skewered in Lionizing Heresiarchs. 

Emmerich’s vision of a corrupted Church, betrayed from within, hangs heavy here. X users like @FredSimonTLM shout “Vicar of Judas,” channeling Catholic outrage at this spectacle of eroded faith.

The Human Trap of Sympathy for Judas

Why do some people root for Judas? Maybe they find his despair hits home—sin, isolation, failure are our shadows too. Modern culture’s antihero fetish doesn’t help, casting every villain as a misunderstood poet. Picture Judas with a gritty reboot: Judas: The Betrayal Diaries, coming to a streaming service near you. 

This instinct, relatable but risky, brews a counterfeit mercy, ignoring Judas’s refusal to repent, unlike Peter’s tearful return. Tradition slaps us awake: Melkite hymns and Emmerich’s visions scream damnation, not redemption. Sympathy cheapens Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, just as sentimentalizing Luther’s errors warps grace, per Lionizing Heresiarchs. Francis’s Judas imagery, splashed across and hyped by L’Osservatore Romano, fuels this trap, hinting at ambiguity where the Gospel draws a hard line. 

The Vatican’s choice to hype these images—provocative, divisive—was a calculated move, risking confusion about sin’s weight. Catholics must dodge this lure, embracing our lex orandi’s clarity over sentiment, lest we trade divine truth for a feel-good counterfeit coin that undermines the personal relationship with Jesus Christ demanded by true worship.

Judas and Modernism’s Shared Failure

Judas’s downfall wasn’t just greed—he refused to see Jesus as a divine person, treating Him instead as a ticket to silver and clout. He internalized Christ as an idea, not the living God. Modernism pulls the same stunt, shrinking God to a fuzzy concept: a vibe, a symbol, or a relativistic shrug. 

Luther’s grace, jazzed up as a “Bob Dylan song” (Lionizing Heresiarchs), and Francis’s Judas imagery both reek of this, prioritizing personal spin over divine reality. Judas’s despair and modernism’s subjectivism sideline the personal encounter with Christ in the Eucharist and revelation. This counterfeit faith fuels communion in the hand’s risks, treating the Host as a mere symbol or token, not Jesus Christ’s real presence, and ecumania’s false mercy, blurring truth for hugs. Emmerich’s “counterfeit coin” and the Catechism of Trent’s clarity on Judas’s ruin call us back. The lex orandi—Melkite hymns, Eucharistic reverence—demands we worship Jesus Christ as a person, not a mere internalized ideal, thereby ensuring that our faith reflects the reality of God’s presence (because He is, after all).

Counterfeit Worship Today

Judas’s unworthy Eucharistic reception (John 13:27) foreshadows communion in the hand’s perils, pushed by modernists like Archbishop Forte. Emmerich’s “counterfeit coin” warns of profaning the sacred. The lex orandi of Melkite hymns and Eucharistic reverence exalts Jesus Christ’s real presence. Francis’s Judas imagery chips away at it, echoing the fraud committed to obtain the 1970s U.S. indult for communion in the hand. Fatima and Akita predict a horrific chastisement being prepared for the abuses of Eucharistic desecration. As Lionizing Heresiarchs rejects fawning over heretics, we must reject this “spirit of Judas” that cheapens Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, ensuring our worship honors the divine person, not a modernist abstraction.

From Judas’ Ruin to Saints’ Triumph

Dwelling on Judas’ internal trainwreck—his greed, despair, and refusal to repent—breeds only confusion and error, a dead-end obsession with a betrayer’s chaos. Yet imagine a world where we turn our gaze to true heroes: St. Augustine, once a sinner, transformed by God’s mercy through repentance; St. Mary of Egypt, a penitent who fled sin for sanctity in the desert; St. Zita, a humble servant radiating Christ’s love through daily fidelity. These saints, countless others, show the lex orandi of true worship: hearts turned to Jesus Christ, the divine person, through sorrow for sin and trust in God’s grace. Unlike Judas’s counterfeit coin, their lives shine with authentic mercy—God’s transformative love in action. Let’s venerate these models and friends of God, not betrayers (who became enemies of God), letting their stories inspire our prayer and Eucharistic reverence, guiding us to a faith that honors the living God, not a modernist shadow projected in the psyche for comfort and sentiment.

Mary, the Antidote

Judas’s silver was trash—so is Francis’s Judas fixation. Reject the counterfeit coin of false mercy and modernist haze. Receive communion on the tongue, pray your Rosary daily, heed Emmerich’s warnings. Turn to Mary, “full of grace,” as she has been entrusted to dispense God’s grace, to meet Jesus Christ as a person, not an idea. As St. Alphonsus affirms, her intercession brings true salvation (Lionizing Heresiarchs). Navel gazing on the betrayer’s failures won’t get you to God, there’s nothing to see in that antihero.

Note on Sources for Judas’ Counterfeit Coin

The following links corroborate this post’s references to L’Osservatore Romano’s 2021 article, the 2024 Vatican video, Francis’ 2020 sermon, and the 2017-2018 Luther events, using online Catholic media and traditionalist outlets. Direct links to Vatican archives are unavailable online, but these sources confirm the cited reports. For full texts, contact L’Osservatore Romano Archives (ornet@ossrom.va) or Vatican News (info@vaticannews.va).


This article, Judas’ Counterfeit Coin: Francis’ Error, Modernism’s Trap, and the Call to True Worship is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/judas-counterfeit-coin-francis-error-modernisms-trap-and-the-call-to-true-worship/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.

FILED UNDER:

Tagged as: , , ,

Share
Tweet
Pin
Flip

John B. Manos

John B. Manos, Esq. is an attorney and chemical engineer. He has a dog, Fyo, and likes photography, astronomy, and dusty old books published by Benziger Brothers. He is the President of the Bellarmine Forum.

Get VIP Notice

Have new blog posts delivered right to your inbox!
Enter your email: