The impact of Origen, as a catechist and biblical commentator, rocked the Church for at least three centuries, causing strife over a host of doctrinal and pastoral issues. Many of his views were condemned by the Church at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. Much of the problem was that, because Origen had written so much, had turned over so many stones, it was all too easy to tar one’s opponent as an “Origenist,” since almost anything could be found in his vast corpus of musings over the decades. And if we know one thing that’s consistent about Pope Francis, it’s that he’s inconsistent. As such, I contend that the impact of “Bergoglianism” (a.k.a. the collected theology, exegesis, canonical and pastoral changes generated by Jorge Mario Bergoglio a.k.a Pope Francis) will be just as devastating and unsettling for the Church for perhaps just as long.

Below I present comments¹ I first became aware of these remarks via a comment at Lifesite News, which I then traced to a post by The Radical Catholic, and then decided to flesh out by watching the video for myself. from a thoroughly “Bergoglian” archbishop, Mark Coleridge of Australia, comments which he made at a press conference during the Synod (on October 19, specifically). Observe how the nefarious and utterly specious distinction between revealed “truth” and lived “reality”–or between doctrine and discipline, as these mendacious termites also like to frame it–potentially undermines every Catholic doctrine and tradition, whilst simultaneously honoring them as inviolable ‘in principle’. Sacrificing truth on the altar of “reality” is at the heart of Bergoglianism.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=timmt6EvF-0]
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“[24:00] In the case of the divorced and remarried, we’re always dealing with sin. There’s no news in saying that, so that’s just taken for granted. The Church has traditionally spoken of the second union as adulterous, and I understand why, and I understand the teaching and what lies behind it, including the biblical background. But at the same same time, not every case is the same, and that’s where a pastoral approach needs to take account of the difference from situation to situation. For instance, just to say that every second marriage or second union – whatever you want to call it – is adulterous is perhaps too sweeping. For instance, a second marriage that is enduring and stable and loving, and where there are children who are cared for is not the same as a couple skulking off to a hotel room for a wicked weekend.

“So, the rubric ‘adultery’ in one sense is important, but in another sense it doesn’t say enough. And I think what a pastoral approach requires is that we actually enter into what the Synod is calling a ‘genuine pastoral dialogue of discernment’ with these couples. And the start of that is for people like me to actually listen to their story, and not just swamp them with doctrine or Church teaching. That’s crucial, obviously, as the overall framework of any kind of dialogue of discernment. … [As Pope Francis taught on Saturday, October 17,] a synodal Church is a listening Church…. We need to listen in ‘new ways’ … [with] a new kind of pastoral creativity. So I think we need to be careful of avoiding all or nothing, black or white, approaches. … [27:46]

“[31:20] … [Pope Francis spoke of] synodality within the whole Church … as a permanent characteristic of the whole Church … and it’s radically tied to the ecclesiology, the vision of the Church, of Vatican II. So in one sense there was nothing original in what the pope was saying. … Having listened to the pope’s words, another thought I’ve had … is that it may well be time for a thing like a national synod in my own country. …

“[39:40] My expectation … is that the teaching of the Church in these areas will remain intact BUT — here I move from expectation to hope — my hope is that we will move towards, without actually accomplishing it at this Synod, a genuinely new pastoral approach. Now, at the heart of this, I think there has to be a whole new language. And here, I think of what’s been said about Vatican II: that it was primarily a language event. That it was something, therefore, that was far from cosmetic. And I have in mind what the Bible says, that words create worlds. In other words, a new language that can open new doors that we might not even see at the moment, and can create new possibilities. … The new language will have to require a new listening. … [My hope is] that this genuinely pastoral synod would lead the whole Church to a new listening for the sake of a new language that would open up new doors and new possibilities.”

Pray for Holy Mother Church! Our long-suffering Ecclesia Papyracea continues to be assailed by Modernist Resorption Syndrome. Pray for her to rise up and shake off these shadowy parasites!