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Francis and the Chilean Bishops: An Addendum

Last night, I posted my thoughts on the alleged statements of Pope Francis to the Chilean bishops as regards several items of importance, including Communion for the divorced and “remarried”. If you haven’t read it yet, the gist is that he appears to have contradicted his own previous stance on this issue by saying this:

Faced with the question of the communion of remarried divorcees, the bishop explains that the Pontiff denied that his goal with the synod he called upon the family was to authorize the communion of the divorced . He told them that there is no “moral situation,” say other sources. “It’s hard for us to see the gray ones,” he would have told them when he told a personal, family affair.

“I have a niece married to a divorcee, well, Catholic, Sunday Mass and when she confesses she tells the priest ‘I know he can not absolve me, but give me a blessing.’

My contentions that this is a) hearsay and b) ultimately meaningless insofar as it represents a consistent pattern of inconsistency in his positions remain. But a third point, which I failed to make, is this:

If people believe that Francis has aligned himself with the orthodox position on Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia, it will undercut any effort of the Four Cardinals to issue a public, formal correction. 

This is incredibly important. Don’t lose sight of it. You’re likely to see this very argument — that Francis is not in fact a supporter of Communion for the “remarried” and thus cannot and should not be corrected — advanced by the papal positivists when it suits them to make use of it.

61 thoughts on “Francis and the Chilean Bishops: An Addendum”

    • Father RP, I was about to write something about a possible connection between Francis’s seeming about-face with the Chilean bishops and the decrease in revenues from donations (among other decreases), but I stopped to read the article you linked to. I still think the objective decrease in donations is a factor (and if we could find out if the US is leading the way in decreased donations, that would be a plus, because I’ve read repeatedly that when Francis speaks sneeringly of conservatives, he’s talking about U.S. Catholics), but I also saw this in the article on eponymous flower:

      “So what happened?

      I dont know. But it may be that Francis saw the situation in which he had ridden the Church, but he did not want to enter into history causing a schism with incalculable consequences. His popularity among those who really count in the Church has declined sharply.”

      The last sentence speaks volumes to me: His popularity among those who really count … has declined sharply.

      He’s playing his usual game of “I’ll tell you what you want to hear.” Note also that he brought up confession again, saying people need to go in repentant and ashamed to confess their sins. He’s also advising priests to refer cases for exorcism where the behavior appears to be more than just the usual weakness of Humanity. Remember how when he was newly-installed, he kept mentioning the devil and kept talking about Our Lady? It threw me off at first — but very quickly I took up the adage: Watch his actions, not his words. I’m going to continue doing that. His words mean nothing — it’s what he does, what he allows to be done, that matter.

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      • Exactly, Pope Francis is a master strategist, he says whatever appears to be the right thing to say at a given moment to get what he wants and then says the opposite another to time for the same. Every time Pope Francis says something orthodox sounding, within a week he has said 20 unorthodox things.

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          • Hi davend – Perhaps Francis is guided by some of the cleverest of demons. Is there then a discernible distinction between the one who submits their will to the demons and those very demons who control their will? Perfect Possession of the Will by the devil has terrible consequences for all, when the perfectly possessed is in a position of authority, especially if that situation exists in one responsible for preserving the faith and morals of the Followers of Christ. God help us. Pray the “Prayer against Satan and the Rebellious Angels Published by order of His Holiness, Pope Leo the XIII” as often as possible, and as a family if possible. Pope Leo warned us this was coming.

      • Well said.
        That’s the game he plays all the time.
        But our Lord had worned us already: “You will know them by their fruits.” (Mt 7,16).
        However, his (PF) words are everything but meaningless. His sentences forms concepts, ideas which actually are – his works.

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  1. The Dubia are 5 questions asked to Pope Francis. If one is answered clearly (and im not sure the conversation with the Chilean Bishops even answers one) then the rest should be answered. The problem is more than just this seemingly tacit approval for giving communion to those in adultery, but also the lack of teaching concerning intrinsic evil.

    The Maltese and German Bishops still need to be correct by the Pontiff and a public statement, addressed to the whole Church still needs to be made.

    Pressure still needs to be applied out of love for the Chruch and Pope Francis, for many still regard their conscience as above Divine law.

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    • The Dubia cannot be answered through informal public (or private) conversations such as with the Chilean bishop. The Dubia was formally submitted and, therefore, requires a fornal and clear PUBLIC response. The failure to do so is a neglect of his duties and responsibilities to Christ and the whòle Church.

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      • Precisely. As time passes and these kinds of non-responses pile up, more and more people are starting to get it and the screw is turning.

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  2. This deserves probably another topic, but we should be good ‘prepared’ for the next sinod too and a very “new approach” to youth in the Church., where the recently released preparatory document on the subject of “Youth, Faith, and Vocational Discernment” is heavy on sociology and psychology and light on Scripture and Tradition…
    See more on CWR… http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/5501/The_2018_Synod_and_the_new_approach_to_youth_in_the_Church.aspx

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  3. Francis, when speaking to the Chilean bishops knows that they are mostly orthodox. It is as if he is saying what they want to hear in that specific environment. But, what we were never supposed to know about, was Francis’ letter to the Argentinian bishops, where Francis told them…..yes it is exactly as you have read it…that adulterers CAN receive Holy Communion. Never before have we seen such duplicity, which is why Francis’ credibility in word is so difficult to swallow. If he means what he said to the Chilean bishops, then he now has to make a public statement to the Argentinians, the Maltese and the Germans. That is never going to happen, so we are back at square one….duplicity, deception, and lack of trust.

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  4. Ah yes, the forked tongue emerges as always.

    Will we allow ourselves to be played by the serpent as Adam and Eve was?

    Keep on with the pressure to answer the dubia.

    Hearsay is exactly that, hearsay and is useless.

    The scheming and deviousness in the Vatican is reaching great heights.

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  5. Brilliant. Yet another public response to pretty much everyone EXCEPT the cardinals that actually asked the questions.

    Will the real response to the dubia please stand up?

    (Crickets)

    Prayers up, oh faithful followers of Christ!

    St. Joseph, pray for us 🙂

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  6. Simply put, Pope Francis is in a bind. He can’t deliver for the enemies of the Church and has been exposed as regards the Church

    I and some others (cf. The beginning of the end for Pope Francis – https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/the-battle-of-pope-franciss-footnote/ ) believe that Amoris Laetitia marked the beginning of the end for Pope Francis. Even the Beast’s (https://thewarourtime.com/2016/01/29/the-apocalyptic-beasts/ ) magazine acknowledges the difficulty Pope Francis faces:

    The difficulty faced by Francis, and the ace held by his critics, is that one pontiff cannot easily alter the line laid down by a previous one without appearing to undermine the whole authority of the papacy. John Paul II, pope from 1978 to 2005, seemed to see communion for the divorced as an open-and-shut case; couples including at least one divorcee could only take the Eucharist if they lived as brother and sister, he implied. – Contentious uncoupling: Pope Francis faces a conservative backlash over the divorced and remarriedhttp://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2016/12/contentious-uncoupling

    and

    […] The headline was “He’s Replied!”—a sarcastic reference to the pope’s refusal to answer a letter from four cardinals, including Cardinal Burke, last September (and, most unusually, made public by them in November). The letter challenges Francis to state that passages in his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), conform with established doctrine.

    […]

    They are appalled by what they see as Francis’s lack of interest in theology, and his abandonment of principle in the name of a nebulous requirement for mercy.

    […]

    Last year Anna Silvas, an Australian scholar, charged the pope with writing “tracts of homespun, avuncular advice that could be given by any secular journalist without the faith—the sort of thing to be found in the pages of Readers Digest”. The conservatives’ biggest gripe is with Amoris Laetitia, which in a footnote opened the way for some remarried Catholics to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the very body of Christ. Polls suggest that the faithful in Europe and the Americas strongly back the change. But critics see it as legitimising adultery. They will scarcely have been reassured when Francis last month encouraged a gathering of priests to show understanding for parishioners who were living together before marriage. On March 10th he again shocked traditionalists, suggesting that the church might ordain married men to help lessen an acute shortage of priests. – Is the pope Catholic? Francis is facing down opposition from traditionalists and Vatican bureaucratshttp://www.economist.com/news/international/21718881-clerical-sex-abuse-he-seems-weak-francis-facing-down-opposition

    and

    Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of the pope, has noted that next year a synod of bishops (…) will consider the crisis in priestly vocations. But Pope Francis is already coping with high-level resistance to the outcome of the previous synod, simply because it cautiously held out the prospect that people who divorce and remarry might be readmitted to holy communion. – Fewer and lonelier: Why the celibate priesthood is in crisishttp://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2017/01/fewer-and-lonelier

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    • IF the Pope and his cartel are not certifiably unhinged it could be determined IF their primary agenda has simply been from the start to render the papacy itself incredible. The bizarre display of irrational reasoning along with the institution kowtowing to the contrarian occupant of the Chair of St. Peter is comical to those outside the Church and painfully undermining to the faithful.
      It is the only thing Pope Bergoglio is accomplishing well – the evisceration of Roman Catholicism and the authority of the papacy.
      If he thinks he is doing anything else effectively, he and his clique are unhinged.

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  7. Pope Francis stands squarely on both sides of the fence. He sows confusion, not truth. On the Dubia matter? My guess he will continue to ignore the whole thing saying he supports the doctrine of the Church in all it’s pastoral ramifications. That statement is vague enough to accomplish his purposes–for now.

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  8. The “vision” or “interior locution” experienced by Pope Leo XIII is relevant to this and other similar discussions. If you haven’t heard of it, the gist is that Leo was allowed to overhear a conversation between Jesus and the Demon. Satan says, “If I had enough time I could destroy your church.” Jesus replies, “How much time would you need?” After a pause Satan answers, “A hundred years.” Jesus tells him, “I give you the twentieth century. But this is your last challenge.” In anothet version of the conversation Jesus says something like, “You have your hundred years…” obviously a hundred years are up, but we are seeing the fruits of Satan’s effort. During the first part of the last century he was busy getting things arranged and the people in place for his all-out offensive. It had to be big because he would not be permitted to challenge Jesus again. Therefore, with everything in place he instigates Vatican II knowing the doctrines and teachings would be undermined by the modernists in his retinue. All the fruits of the council and even Francis’ own selection and “papacy” are the aftermath of Satan’s efforts. His refusal to surrender, although the war was lost on that first Good Friday, reminds me of another of his minions; Adolf the Terrible.

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  9. Steve, what you say makes sense up to a point. But if, as seems likely, Francis is ‘hell-bent’ on ultimately regularising Communion for the divorced and re-married, then surely he will, sooner or later, need to declare his hand. Or, is he counting on compliant bishops’ conferences to spread this cancer while he remains apparently aloof from it?

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      • Yes, it becomes ever more obvious, doesn’t it! Herein we see the reason for Bergoglio’s fondness for collegiality. The more bishop’s conferences who throw in their lot with the Francis agenda, the greater the pressure that will be exerted by their own constituents on those who drag their feet. At least, that would appear to be the strategy.

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        • One thing seems to be overlooked in that scenario: the Pope is obliged to defend the Church from heresy. The first step there is to identify it, next to declare it. if the matter is clearly heresy, as is Ch. 8 of AL, and he does neither, is he not complicit by definition?

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          • Absolutely, he is. But he is probably trying to arrive, gradually, at a majority consensus among the world’s bishops that A.L. Ch. 8 is “free from error”. But it ain’t gonna happen. What most alarms is that he knows that he is risking an openly declared schism, but nonetheless, he seems to be determined to see it through to the bitter end. However, it is his appointed role to preside over the climax of the greatest crisis in the history of the Church. There really is no averting it.

          • Things are definitely coming to a head. His attempt at an orthodox correction is so transparent it will have no chance to fool anyone but the hopelessly gullible.

            The bishops, studying in Paris for ways to remove a pope who has become heretic, should just continue their work and ignore him. Unless to give him an ultimatum.

          • Will there be bishops participating in the Paris conference? I read that it will be comprised of theologians and canon lawyers, but the clerical or lay status of the participants was not mentioned in the articles I read.

          • Perhaps I assumed bishops. I’m not sure about that. At least someone’s working on it. If it’s a lay group. maybe they’re doing the heavy lifting for the bishops. We’ll know soon enough.

  10. I thought about this believe it or not when I read it. That he is making these Catholic statements or at least having said to have made them in order to put the Dubia to rest and to shut the four Cardinals up. The Cardinals did not act fast enough. This is exactly how he will wiggle his way out. Francis has recently made other Catholic sounding statements as of late, and I’ve wondered if they to be of this end.

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  11. The game plan for Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried is exactly the same as for altar girls, Communion in the hand etc.,

    The genie is first let out of the bottle, in the sense that it starts to happen in practice in various scattered locations. More dioceses join in and the practice spreads. Rome shrugs and says….well, we don’t really like this but we’ll go along with it…”. It then becomes universal.

    In the case of Communion for the divorced, the only difference is that it was Francis who let the genie out of the bottle with Amoris laetitia. His work being done, he can now play the role of the orthodox Pope who simply shrugs and looks puzzled when controversy erupts, hence the supposed words to the Chilean bishops.

    He believes this ship has already sailed and that the momentum will be unstoppable.

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  12. What cognitive processes are in gear in an individual who has set forth his position in black and white – all be it surreptitiously in the 351st footnote, has reinforced his personal understanding of his position in letters, by word of mouth through sycophants, et al., and now contradicts himself in front of a group of ecclesiastics with whom he shares a common native tongue (thus dispelling the poor translation argument)?
    Really, honestly, what is one to make of such an individual?
    What is one to make of the institution that buttresses such peculiar behavior?
    What is one to make of the individuals who enabled him to assume the Chair of Saint Peter?
    “Oh, gosh, I changed my mind?”
    “Oh, they’ll never notice?”
    Those who might craft such nonsense in an attempt to undermine the very pertinent dubia reveal themselves only to be even less credible than they are to any adult. The “throw the groundlings a chunk of piety and get them off my tail” isn’t going to work.
    It bespeaks a form of dementia — personal and institutional.
    This is protracted adolescence on steroids.
    Can you imagine this taking place in your office environment?
    This individual is living in a personal erroneous zone and has been in gear for a very long time. It has been given credence by the institution that has been living in the erroneous zone at the hands of similar delusionals since October 13, 1962. A marriage made in heaven for those of such disposition.
    It is more than beyond time that the requisite wallop be rendered those held captive in the hysteria of their own confections and the Church get on with the its commission from Jesus Christ.
    “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Matthew 28:18-19.

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  13. PF is aware about the theologians who are meeting in Paris to consider deposing a heretical pope, and is changing his tune. Smart as a fox.

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  14. I doubt the Cardinals are so naive as to think this ‘Francis’ remark will clear anything up. I’m certain Cardinal Burke’s position is, “Answer all five, yes or no. Period.”

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  15. When there is an edited version of Amoris Latitia to be released with the footnote scrapped and when the Bishops of Malta, the Bishop in San Diego, Cupich in Chicago, the Buenos Aires Bishops, Archbishop Villegas in the Philippines, the Bishops in Germany, et al. are ordered to get back in line with the traditional teaching of the church, then I will believe that he is at least trying to retract for the sake of unity…two disastrous Synods where Cardinal Kasper was pushing the communion for adulterers, the vote at the end of the Synod of the Families 2015 which produced this statement (which parallels many recent statements):” laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the church’s teachings and good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families,” and some highly questionable appointments like Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia to head the Pontifical Academy for Life, as well as of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, lead me to believe that nothing has changed and that Catholics who are living as the church teaches will along for a bumpy ride filled with frustration at the thought of souls being lost due to being guided in the wrong direction…hopefully we will handle it sacrificially and my prayer is that the next Pope (maybe an African Bishop?) may restore some form of order…

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  16. Just because he says it wasn’t his goal to…just means that he is pretending (lying) that it was just the outcome of what other bishops wanted, but not an actual goal beforehand. It doesn’t change what he has done and refuses to correct. Interesting the hypocrisy of the “hear-Sayers”. We won’t accept it from you but “take it from us!!”

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  17. You guys should be happy. This just proves that things aren’t really settled and that Pope Francis apparently just says whatever depending on who the audience is.

    I wouldn’t count on a formal correction nor do I think it would be wise. He seems like a very vindictive man. You conservatives/traditionalists should learn to play your cards right and stop banking on the defensive strategies (e.g., excommunications, public corrections, reprimands, public outrage) because that clearly doesn’t work in this day and age. It would be more prudent to run with this story as an example that the debate is far from settled and in essence Pope Francis has done nothing with regard to the issue of communion for divorcees. Promote the narrative that this pope doesn’t want to settle the issue and just says whatever is convenient at any given time. Tolerate the confusion. And hope that a future Pope will settled this clearly and definitely.

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  18. The timing of the (alleged) statement to the Chilean Bishops by Francis is quite interesting. If my guess is right, the four brave Cardinals formally corrected Francis shortly before the ‘ad limina’ visit. So, I find it probable that Francis took a step back in the matter. That being the case, I think it of less importance whether or not Francis did it good faith. It is a colossal defeat for the so-called liberals who will not dare to raise the topic again in a near future. Neither Francis will dare it also, because he will always have over his head the Damoclean sword of the four brave Cardinals disclosing to the public the formal correction they did to him.

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    • The dubia were presented to the Pope last September. The “ad limina” of the Chilean bishops was a month ago.
      The man is unhinged.
      The only logic to the entire last four years is filed under both mendacious and nefarious…

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      • Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller talked about taking the second step of any formal correction shortly after Epiphany. I’m just guessing but I find it probable that it really happened by then. In the meantime, several Cardinals who voted for him in the last conclave began backstage manoeuvers in order to persuade Francis to resign. I gather the four brave Cardinals called his bluff (so to speak) and Francis lost. Maybe he is not that intelligent; but he is sharp enough to understand that, if he insists in his whims, he will go down the History books not as the Pope who split the Church but as the Pope who was replaced for being a formal heretic. I don’t believe he has the guts to do that.

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        • I understand now, Joao Pedro.
          Oddly enough this morning at Canon212.com there is a headline that deals with the “formal correction.” The headline brings you to a short video of Cardinal Burke making a statement about the correction — I believe it is an event from within the most recent week.
          https://twitter.com/CanonTwoTwelve/status/845431659986071552
          You will find it heartening.
          While you are at Canon212.com look for the headline on the lower left column which (in poor translation from German) debunks the “friendship” between Benedict and Francis. It only makes sense. God willing it is true.
          Ultimately I too believe Pope Francis and his clique to be cowards. Let us hope that whatever their true nature it is revealed.

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  19. I never lose confidence in Catholicism and never lost faith in a Pope before but I cannot believe what I see coming out of this Pope. The Year of Mercy was a Trojan Horse to push this Divorced and Remarried thing through. You would think he’d be going off the walls about the Christian persecutions by Muslims (Yes, Muslims, I am still looking for the World Muslim Peace Movement and haven’t been able to find one yet!). Instead, instead atheists, abortionists, gays and Muslims get treated better then the Dubia Cardinals. Dictatorship of Mercy !!!

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