[NB: To understand why I refer to the synod as a “language event”, please refer to this post of mine from a couple days ago, which presents remarks made by Abp. Mark Coleridge in a press conference at the synod.]
Ultimately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher brain centres at all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word duckspeak […]. Like various words in the B vocabulary, duckspeak was ambivalent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but praise, and when the Times referred to one of the orators of the Party as a doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a warm and valued compliment.
— George Orwell, 1984, Appendix
+ + +
The bishops and archbishops at the Synod in Rome have by now mostly all returned to their dioceses, and their first order of business is to unpack the conclusions of the Synod relatio until Pope Francis issues his own definitive judgment of the synodal proposals. Widely touted as a conservative victory (by conservative commentators, at least), the true impact of the synod—as Steve Skojec recently argued here—is turning out to be as polyhedral and contested as the pope who called for it.
A Rashomon synod for a Rorschach pope, if you will.
Indeed, Francis himself expressed his desire for this messy, gerrymandering (if not to say hydra-like) process in his closing address to the synod:
“[W]hat for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion. Cultures are in fact quite diverse, and each general principle needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied.”
Translated out of Well Meaning Modernese, and applied to the synod, Francis is saying something like this:
“What for some bishops in the synodal conclusions supports freedom of conscience (and therefore pastoral creativity!) is for others simply confusion. Dioceses are quite diverse, after all, and the Church’s general (or, “ordinary”, “universal”, one might even say, “catholic“) teachings need to be localized, if they are to be respected and applied.”
How a general principle does not by its very nature command respect and admit of application in all specific sub-cases, is beyond me. I suspect the problem is that the Bishop of Rome is committing a fallacy of equivocation, whereby in some cases he admits truths and morals are generally qua universally true for all specific cases under the same general heading (such as the immorality of defrauding laborers, sodomy,1 I say, “sodomy,” you say, “soda me”? Inculturation, you see. abortion, or that of rigging papal conclaves), while in other cases he means that some practices and values are only generally qua merely conventionally true in diverse times and places.
The problem, though, is that Francis claims that “each [as in, every] principle needs to be inculturated,” which is either a tautology, along the lines of saying that “each universal principle needs to be universalized in all cultures,” or a grave error, along the lines of saying that what is universally true is only a widespread convention which admits of exceptions in ‘special’ or ‘hard’ cases (much as some pro-choice advocates admit infanticide is immoral except in ‘hard’ cases like rape or incest).2 I wrote “pro-choice” instead of “pro-life,” because that’s what hard-case exemptions from absolute morality amount to, even for pro-lifers. (“I’m generally pro-life, except when I’m not.”)
In any ‘case’, I offer three snapshots, from three countries, of what adapting the synod is very well going to look like.
“¡Hagan lío! (Don’t say I didn’t warn you!)”
Case Study 1: It’s Always Sunni in Germany
The indefatigable Cdl. Kasper, representing the Germany hierarchy, says of the synod:
“I’m satisfied and happy with the work of the Synod. The final report (approved by a two-thirds majority) is a good text. Now it’s up to the Pope to make a decision. … I’m satisfied; the door has been opened to the possibility of the divorced and remarried being granted Communion. There has been somewhat of an opening, but the consequences were not discussed. All of this is now in the Pope’s hands, who will decide what has to be done. … The indissolubility of marriage is not in question, but there is [also] no opposition between mercy and the Truth of the Gospel.”
Perhaps “conservative victory” translates differently into German? Perhaps “Quietscheentchen“?3 I can explain the joke meant by linking to this video, but we all know that explaining a joke kills it.
Case Study 2: The Land of Anglicans Welcomes Home Roman Anglicanism
Speaking to journalists on Sunday, October 25, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who is president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said the following:
[T]he synod had “quite deliberately set aside the question of admission to the Eucharist, because that had become a yes-no issue. And the very nature of this is that it’s not as simple as yes-no.”
Or, as we read in the Gospel of St. Murk, “Relax, and believe the Good Maybe!”
Kidding aside, Scripture is clear about the gravity of yes and no: “But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.” (Matthew 5:37)
Yet Nichols quacks on:
“It’s a pathway,” he added. “And it is not for me or for the priest who is doing the accompaniment to pre-empt or foreclose that pathway.” [Under no circumstances?] … [T]he synod had been “decisive” [Wait, aren’y firm yes’s and no’s taboo?] in saying: “what the Church needs developing now is its pastoral pathway. Not everything is a matter of doctrine; not everything is decided by doctrinal dispute.”
But I thought “dialogue” and “lively debates” were panaceas! In any case, the appearance now is that not even Catholic doctrine is a matter of doctrine anymore!
Back to Nichols’s duckspeak:
I think this synod will prove to be a very important moment, when definitively [that crude word again!] the Church has said: our response to all sorts of difficult situations is not … simply to repeat doctrine, but to pick up a pathway of accompaniment, with discernment and listening, and trying our best to walk with people on paths that have become smoother [and thereby slipperier]….
In other words, as (Buddy) Christ said in the Gospel of St. Yawn, “I am the pathways, the authenticity, and the lifestyles; no one comes to the Politically Manageable Consensus but by me.” Broad is the pathway indeed that leadeth to destruction, and many there are that accompany the lost over those mitered-skulls.
Meanwhile, what does the Word of God say?
“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the [path]way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.” (Matthew 7:13)
And as for ‘simply’ repeating doctrine in the face of a changing world?
“Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
Case Study 3: Americanism: The Heresy That Never Sleeps, or, “We’ve Always Been At War With Eastasia”
In our own land of the free and home of the brave, still glowing with the after-effects of the pope’s landmark visit, Cardinal Wuerl is on the job, carving out a pathway for implementing the synod. On October 27 Wuerl made the following remarks in an exclusive interview with the Vatican Insider:
I think it is an opening to a new direction. I think the new direction is in complete continuity with the Second Vatican Council. [Full stop.] It’s just taken 50 years [so what’s another fifty gonna hurt, eh!], good years [doubleplusgood years, in fact!] in between where there was, sometimes, a lot of upheaval and then the consolidation of John Paul II. We wouldn’t be here today if it were not for John Paul II. But now we’re at a point where the openness that the Council asked for, taking the Gospel in all of its integrity, in all of its truth and trying to find how does it actually reach and touch and change the world today. I think that’s where we are but in a whole new mode. Pope Francis has said you can’t sit behind closed doors and do that. …
I think the genius of connecting the two synods [is] to say … [that the synodal process is] ongoing. You can’t come together in two weeks’ time, in three weeks’ time, and arrive at pastoral decisions that truly impact the world. But if you start talking about it, and invite the larger Church into it as he did from before the first synod, through all the consultations, the episcopal consultations, then you’re on the road. Pope Francis basically said we need to discuss these matters openly and in the light of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think we can go back on that in the future.
That was then… the future is now. So much for ressourcement.
In a similar vein, in an interview he held with Religion News Services on Sunday, October 25 (and which was released in an edited form on October 28 at Crux.com), Wuerl made the following remarks:
What Pope Francis has done in these two years, and these two synods, and all the collaboration in between — and we can’t forget that — he called for a process, not a synod. You had all this open discussion about issues the Church is struggling with. You are not going to be able to close that door in the future. …
Yes, we have a very clear teaching and yes, we announce that teaching. But at the same time, that teaching includes the mercy of God and the care of the individual believer. Those two elements of the same reality are what the pope has lifted up and made visible in a way they haven’t been in a long time.
How long, exactly? Perhaps we can ask Herr Doktor Luther for his insight?
The frame of reference now is no longer the Code of Canon Law. [When was it ever, Cdl. Wuerl?] The frame of reference is now going to be, “What does the Gospel really say here?” …
I think part of the genius of this synod was the opening of the Church in her discernment process to include these types of conversations going forward. We don’t have to wait for another synod.
In other words, the balkanization of the Bride of Christ can be inculturated with even greater pastoral creativity! Quack quack!
How do you continue the spirit of the Second Vatican Council [sic] unless you actually bring people together to talk to one another about the Church’s needs?
The Spirit of Vatican II is dead—long live The Spirit of Vatican II.
After all, as our first parents know so well, nothing does so much good as a lively and open conversation! Quack!
“Catholicism: Ha(l)ve It Your Way!”
A Coda from the Bleachers
Dr. Jeffrey Mirus has made no secret that he likes going out of his way to defend Pope Francis’s leadership style and theological vision. Interestingly, though, on October 27, he published a piece admitting that there’s one thing he dislikes most about Pope Francis: the Bishop of Rome is a name-caller. “It is especially unfortunate,” Mirus argues,
when someone in authority appears to be speaking negatively about a certain group, but gives no examples of the specific persons or particular behavior he is criticizing. Unfortunately, I believe Pope Francis himself has a tendency to do this, and it is the characteristic I like least about his very interesting and often inspiring pontificate. …
[W]hen he fails to identify clearly the cases to which he is referring—choosing instead to allow his audience to interpret his words according to conventional cultural prejudices—Pope Francis offers criticisms that can do more harm than good. As I said, I am perfectly willing to apply everything to myself; I know I will find in the application some cause for painful growth. … But this tendency to denounce publicly in general terms, and to accuse without sufficient specificity, is still Pope Francis’ least attractive characteristic as the Vicar of Christ.
Given what Pope Francis said at the close of the synod about inculturating general principles, I find this quite amusing. Perhaps piously looking down one’s nose is a “general principle” he believes works in every culture.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | I say, “sodomy,” you say, “soda me”? Inculturation, you see. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | I wrote “pro-choice” instead of “pro-life,” because that’s what hard-case exemptions from absolute morality amount to, even for pro-lifers. (“I’m generally pro-life, except when I’m not.”) |
| ↑3 | I can explain the joke meant by linking to this video, but we all know that explaining a joke kills it. |
…And here is what Pope St. Pius X said about the Dogmatic method of modernists:
“But far more advanced and far more pernicious are their teachings on doctrinal and dogmatic authority. This is their conception of the magisterium of the Church: No religious society, they say, can be a real unit unless the religious conscience of its members be one, and one also the formula which they adopt. But his double unity requires a kind of common mind whose office is to find and determine the formula that corresponds best with the common conscience, and it must have moreover an authority sufficient to enable it to impose on the community the formula which has been decided upon. From the combination and, as it were fusion of these two elements, the common mind which draws up the formula and the authority which imposes it, arises, according to the Modernists, the notion of the ecclesiastical magisterium. And as this magisterium springs, in its last analysis, from the individual consciences and possesses its mandate of public utility for their benefit, it follows that the ecclesiastical magisterium must be subordinate to them, and should therefore take democratic forms. To prevent individual consciences from revealing freely and openly the impulses they feel, to hinder criticism from impelling dogmas towards their necessary evolutions – this is not a legitimate use but an abuse of a power given for the public utility. So too a due method and measure must be observed in the exercise of authority. To condemn and prescribe a work without the knowledge of the author, without hearing his explanations, without discussion, assuredly savours of tyranny. And thus, here again a way must be found to save the full rights of authority on the one hand and of liberty on the other. In the meanwhile the proper course for the Catholic will be to proclaim publicly his profound respect for authority – and continue to follow his own bent. Their general directions for the Church may be put in this way: Since the end of the Church is entirely spiritual, the religious authority should strip itself of all that external pomp which adorns it in the eyes of the public. And here they forget that while religion is essentially for the soul, it is not exclusively for the soul, and that the honour paid to authority is reflected back on Jesus Christ who instituted it.”
Let’s just be clear: The Pope and his followers are modernists.
I don’t know which of St. Pius X ‘s writings this excerpt is from but this one sentence says it all in terms of how the infiltrators operate:
“In the meanwhile the proper course for the Catholic will be to proclaim publicly his profound respect for authority – and continue to follow his own bent.”
Liars and deceivers don’t tell you they are lying and deceiving you. They tell you they only want to ‘open the windows’ and ‘let in some fresh air’ and ‘dialogue’ in order to be ‘charitable’ and ‘ecumenical’ and ‘address’ some ‘grievances’.
You nailed it Elliot. The only folks who would appreciate the thinking you describe are the mentally unbalanced, the insane, or those possessed by the devil There is a name for this: liberalism or Modernism. It is all about the garden of Eden when man decided to ignore God. The results speak for themselves.
Thank you, Elliot, for noting some of the papolatrous nonsense regularly manufactured at Jeff Mirus’ site. I used to contribute to his project till it dawned on me (I’m a bit slow at times, age you know) that Mirus was a full-time cheerleader for Francis, regardless of what the pope said or did. Contributors’ posts –and you MUST contribute to post at Mirus’ site– are simply not allowed if they so much as hint that this papacy is a daily disaster. So on the rare occasion that either Mirus or his sidekick Phil Lawler do write articles even mildly critical of this pope, you know beyond all doubt that Francis has done something especially bad for the Church; the Mirus-Lawler reaction is as dependable a barometer as exists anywhere on the Internet. Over at catholicculture.org it’s papal panglossianism 24/7, and it’s very hard to imagine any pope with whom Mirus and company would find fault. (Naturally, in fine Begoglian fashion, Mirus disavows any tendency toward ultramontanism. Of course, given Francis’ penchant for “devolving authority” and “decentralization”, catholicculture may soon find itself in a quandary, forced to choose between Vatican Catholicism and Catholicism as practiced in, say, Rottenburg [amusingly, the name of the diocese where Cdl. Kasper was bishop once]).
Church Militant has “devolved” into serious papolatry also, with the often quoted policy of don’t criticize the pope. I speak as one who has suffered #CMBlockParty. Particularly watch the Vortex episodes of this week (Oct 26-28), where they rail that only those formally trained in theology and with secular media experience, along with contacts on the ground, could dare have a Catholic blog, and then only criticize the underlings, not Francis.
Curious how they ape the development of Protestantism, isn’t it? Like Luther and his band of rebels, they proclaim the virtues of the common man, the humble man in the pew….and then proceed to shut the little man’s mouth with all manner of pseudo-intellectual sophistry.
In other words, as (Buddy) Christ said in the Gospel of St. Yawn, “I am the pathways, the authenticity, and the lifestyles; no one comes to the Politically Manageable Consensus but by me.” Wow! That sums it all up. Well done.
For those who want a visual…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Christ
Yep…that sums it up.
Highly recommended reading: “We Are Church: Radical Aims, Dangerous Errors” by Atila Sinke Guimaraes.
It was written in 1997 and a second edition came out in 2000. It shows the play book for what the “We Are Church”, aka ‘the people of God’ agenda was doing in the 1990s to “prepare’ Catholics for a Vatican III synod like the one that wrapped up last week.
Here are the goals sought by We Are Church:
1. A Papacy without primacy or jurisdiction.
2. Destruction of the traditional conception of the Church.
3. Every vestige of inequality should be eliminated.
4. A democratic regime established in the Church.
5. A program of new sexual morals.
Excerpt from Guimaraes’ book: ‘The ‘propaganda from the We Are Church campaign clearly states its goals: “Ever since Call to Action opened the 1990s with a Call for Reform in the Catholic Church (NY Times, Ash Wednesday, 1990), we have continued to accept our responsibility as liberation theologian Leonardo Boff says, to “Reinvent the Church.” “The shape of this new church is steadily emerging from the ground up. In this new church, small Christian communities multiply, priesthood and ministry are rethought, women assume their rightful place, collaboration replaces patriarchy, and Catholic social teaching demands an outward mission to transform social structures.”
Now, didn’t Benedict XVI tell us that the church would be a “smaller” church in the next twenty years? That sounds an awful like ‘small Christian communities multiply’ to me.
All of the heavy hitters were (so to speak) ‘on board’: Bernardini, Weakland, Weurl, John Quinn, Hans Kung, Cdl. Franz Konig, Cdl. Paulo Evaristo Arns, and many bishops; Luigi Bettazzi, Pino Scabini, Basil Hume, Jacques Gaillot, Erwin Drautler, Samuel Ruiz, Thomas Gumbleton, Raymond Lucker, Albert Ottenweller, Ernest Gutting, and Johann Weber.
Of course, the usual suspects, Dignity, New Way Ministry, Conference of Catholic Lesbians also threw their support behind the We Are Church agenda.
A book of collected articles from church figures who expound the agenda of We Are Church was published in 1996 with the title “We Are Church – An Appeal of the People of God: More Democracy in the Church”.
One such article by Fr. George Denzler, professor at the University of Banberg, Germany (who looks to Ignaz Von Dollinger for his theology) states: “The principal malady from which the Roman Catholic Church suffers originated in Vatican Council I (1869-1870). Yes, the Church is sick with a mortal disease. This is the Pope’s ‘primacy of jurisdiction,’ which that Council defined as a dogma”. He went on to state he was “profoundly opposed to those whose ideal of the Church is spiritually that of a universal kingdom and materially dominated by a sole monarch, a kingdom of constraint and oppression.” He called for the Pope to ‘renounce’ his absolutist position’ which would allow for a ‘return to the notion of Church as communio’.
Hans Kung praised the We Are Church initiatives claiming the present characteristics of the “Roman system” are “not biblical or Catholic” including the following: “the absolutist papal Church, which sees itsel as the ‘mother’ of all”; “the Church of canon law, which wants to control everything”; “the Church of power, with its pretention to dominate the world”; “the clerical Church, in which priests are denied [the right] to marry and women [the right] to be ordained”.
Well, you get the gist.
The clearest indication of the authentic malady within the Church is that most of the men you mention above (Bernardini, Weakland, Weurl, John Quinn, Hans Kung, Cdl. Franz Konig, Cdl. Paulo Evaristo Arns, and many bishops; Luigi Bettazzi, Pino Scabini, Basil Hume, Jacques Gaillot, Erwin Drautler, Samuel Ruiz, Thomas Gumbleton, Raymond Lucker, Albert Ottenweller, Ernest Gutting, and Johann Weber) have not been excommunicated. And now, thanks to revelations from the recent synodal fiasco, we can add several more names to this list of shame.
Who will excommunicate them when the modernism runs to the top?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I wish I had an answer.
Pope Benedict XVI was not speaking of the “We Are Church” small communities when he spoke of the Church being smaller. I believe he foresaw the time of the apostasy in the Church and
The “We Are Church” and “Call to Action” adherents despised Cardinal Ratzinger/ Pope Benedict XVI. I “crashed” some of their meetings in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. I have gone to hear many of them speak at the diocesan level and international Religious Education level for over twenty years. They couldn’t stand Pope John Paul II or Mother Teresa. Mother Angelica sent them through the roof. I spoke out many times at these events. I confronted in the best respectable manner I could at several bishops and a Cardinal. I also have had one on one very verbally heated experiences with a bishop and several priests involving a family member who is a open homosexual priest living in a sodomite relationship. Now since defrocked. I have been persecuted and ostracized by most family members for confronting the situation. I have cried many nights because of all of this. I have had enough life experience with ” We Are Church” to know exactly what they have been planning for a very long time. I have warned many people of their diabolical plans for many years but it fell on deaf ears and still does with some. I wrote to the certain Congregations in the Vatican only to be thwarted by the “homosexual mafia gate keepers” working there.
Pope BenedictXVI is a good and holy man, not perfect in governance, not always the favorite amoung a lot of “Traditionalist” minded people and occasionally they say very ugly untrue things about him. Now as of late Michael Voris of Church Militant is joining in the flogging. Pope BenedictXVI obviously couldn’t read souls like Padre Pio so he couldn’t always detect the machellivian prelate. He is an elderly man with human weakness to battle on top of all this plotting by his enemies. He needed true friends around him to protect him. Instead he was betrayed and many fled away.
God bless you for standing up to the wolves! Not many people have the courage, or guts to do what you have done! Many church goers are quite content in not ‘rocking the boat’. Most do not know what’s really going in ‘behind the scenes’ in the Church. They have also been poorly catechized. I will look up the book ‘We are Church’.
My husband and I stand firmly with Pope Benedict XVI, and truly believe that he is the true Pope.
Attila Sinke Guimaraes and Marian Horvath are two venomous writers who pretend to be traditionalists but who smear everybody they don’t like. I would suggest caution.
Their site looks dubious:
http://www.traditioninaction.org
The Bishops heed their inner Rahner.
http://www.johnathan.org/handouts/Xianity/Rahner.pdf
Have you ever looked at the library of priests ordained about the time the Vatican Two documents were approved (the documents were, in effect, the yellow tape around that crime scene).
Their libraries are crammed with Rahner and others of his ilk and there is no way the revolution is going to let their triumphs be debated but when it comes to the Commandments of Christ, let’s have at it, baby
I’m going to finally read Pope St. Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis. But just skimming it at first (going to read this thoroughly in installments) I am shocked how prophetic he is in the early 20th century! Vatican II & especially now seeing it’s full fruits coming into bloom is 100% textbook Modernism to the hilt!
Yes, do study the document carefully, it will prove to be a real eye opener.
While you are at it may I recommend this talk on modernism by the great Michael Davies? In it he traces the roots of the heresy (or rather, the synthesis of all heresies) and ties it to the current crisis.
God bless, and happy learning!
Here, back to back, are two very hard-hitting articles. And what precisely do they hit? Well, I think it’s fair to say they score a direct on Pope Francis and his highly selective, bitterly tendentious calls for mercy. I especially like Anthony Esolen’s parable that throws light on the real effects of “mercy” as portrayed in the Bergoglian narrative. Fr. Mark Pilon’s essay points to the basic lack of fairness and measure in the pope’s whole approach, and calls him out — rightly so — for being a tedious liberal scold. These and a few other indications that I see make me wonder if Francis may finally have overplayed his hand, if at last he may have exposed too openly a purely secular liberal bias underlying his preaching. Many Catholics are angry with his shenanigans and willing to say so publicly.
Read at:
http://abyssum.org/2015/10/29/a-parable-and-plain-talk/
Wow! Thanks for the aforementioned link.
Yeah, his language gets more and more strident. Was he so arrogant that he thought his agenda would sail through without a naysayer in the house? Did he simply miscalculate? He was really angry in his talk after the Synod. Kinda scary when we think that was the edited version, or written in collaboration with his evil trolls. If he had just stood there, script-less, and let ‘er rip what would he have said?
Dr Cernea said it best at the end of an interview posted at VOTF (http://voiceofthefamily.com/video-romanian-doctor-at-synod-warns-of-powerful-attack-against-humanae-vitae/):
So to paraphrase, the greatness of the Catholic Church is many cultures believe the same teachings.
Cardinals Kasper, Nichols, and Wuerl would turn that inside-out and claim the greatness of the Catholic Church is each culture can have its own teachings,
or perhaps the greatness of the Catholic Church is its teachings develop over time and at different rates in different cultures.
Is it true that the pope can be a woman? I’ve got somebody in mind. 😉
If folks are not following @DrDialogueSJ on Twitter, you should really do so. Laughter is the best medicine. Per Cardinal Wuerl’s claim that The frame of reference now is no longer the Code of Canon Law.The frame of reference is now going to be, “What does the Gospel really say here?”,
Dr. Dialogue tells us: “Put down that Can’t-echism! Dump your Can-not Law! Mercy is the only rule!!”
A healthier exercise would be to read Pascal’s Lettres provinciales (The Provincial Letters) where the polymath genius skewers casuistry, aiming directly at the Jesuits and their penchant for using convoluted reasoning to defend moral laxity and sins of every description (sound familiar?). Our first Jesuit pope appears to want to resort to a kind of casuistry too to square moral circles, to “reach out” to include impenitent sinners fully in the life of the Church (i.e. reception of the Eucharist). But perhaps he should instead take a cue from Pascal’s Lettres provinciales, written in such an engaging fashion that the book was a favorite of notorious anti-Catholics like Voltaire and of the heretic Rousseau, men with whom the pious Catholic author could not have been more in disagreement. Now, that is real inclusivity!
It seems that a critical mass of our leadership is unhappy with their flock and has decided they would be happier if we all became Episcopalians.
Always a source of accurate news about the Vatican, Sandro Magister in the article below gives us a benchmark with which to measure Pope Francis’ temperment. If he defies the consensus of the fathers gathered in the Synod, and issues what is basically a Protestant decision that undermines the sacraments of marriage and the Eucharist, then we will know he is one of the most petulant men to ever occupy the See of Peter; we will also probably have the sorrow of witnessing a schism. (One article I read recently [Phil Lawler?] pronounced this possibility a non-starter since Francis, by contradicting every previous pope, would be sawing through the very limb he sits on, viz. that of papal infallibility and consistency.) If, on the other hand, he has a “Humanae vitae moment” and issues a Catholic decision pronouncing Communion for the impenitent sinner impossible, it being serious sin for both a consenting priest and a communicant, then the world will know that at least the pope has not taken leave of his senses; those of us who are still fully Catholic will also understand, of course, that the Holy Spirit decided it was high time for His personal intervention. All will be revealed soon because several spokesmen for the Vatican have said the pope will issue the document quickly.
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351168?eng=y
Petulant. That’s it, the word I was trying to think of to describe Francis’ rant at the end of the Synod. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, so I hope the document does indeed come quickly. One might even suspect that the “secret” gathering of Jesuits at Casa Santa Marta before and during the Synod has already drafted it.
That rant is the most revealing thing that happened at the Synod; it gave the whole story away for anyone who still didn’t understand. As noted somewhere else here, even Jeff Mirus, usually unwilling to criticize the pope, wrote that he was offended by the tongue-lashing’s lack of specificity. Most of the rest of us got the pope’s message loud and clear.
Good analysis. I think we need to create a modernist Francis-speak dictionary and post it online.
The language corruption has two main purposes, to hide the truth through ambiguity and obscurity (the smoke screen of satan) as well as suppress any talk of sin to avoid pricking guilty consciences. Such speaking would not be so successful if there hadn’t been such an apostasy until now, and that will only increase.
Denzinger-Bergoglio, even better than a Francis-speak dictionary, a full blown doctrinal analysis in the spirit of the great Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum:
http://en.denzingerbergoglio.com
Yes, that is a very good source which I follow. I was looking for a simpler format for the “everyday reader.”
Apart from The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults I’m afraid that’s all I can think of. I meant to say that I imagine you would be a follower of the Denzinger site (not a contributor then 😉 ?), not sure why I omitted it. In truth I just saw an opportunity to direct others to it, who may not have encountered it as yet.
Denzinger-Bergolgio is indeed a great site, as informative as it is depressing. 😉
OK.
Ok.
OK…..
THIS is just about the most awesome thing I have read this week. Here is what Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich had to say about the GERMANS…http://www.catholicrevelations.org/PR/bl%20anna%20maria%20katarina%20emmerick.htm
“I saw in Germany among world-wise
ecclesiastics, and enlightened Protestants, plans formed for the blending of
religious creeds, the suppression of Papal authority, the appointment of more
superiors, the diminishing of expenses and number of ecclesiastics, etc., which
projects found abettors in many of the Roman prelates.” 43
“They want to take from the
shepherd his own pasture grounds! They want to fill his place with one who will
hand all over to the enemy! Then she shook her hand indignantly, crying out: ‘O
ye German cheats! Wait awhile! you will
not succeed! The Shepherd stands upon a rock! O ye priests!…ye sleep, and the
sheepfold is everywhere on fire! You do
nothing! O how you will bewail this some day!…”
This is the reality. TOTALLY the reality. Now considering how historically REAL this prophecy is, consider these others…
”
September 12, 1820
“I saw a strange church
being built against every rule…No angels were supervising the building
operations. In that church, nothing came from high above…There was only
division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation, following the
latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox Church of Rome, which seems of the
same kind…” 17
“I saw again the strange big church that was being built there (in
Rome). There was nothing holy in it. I saw this just as I saw a movement led by
Ecclesiastics to which contributed angels, saints and other Christians. But there
(in the strange big church) all the work was being done mechanically (i.e.,
according to set rules and formulae). Everything was being done, according to
human reason. I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There
was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be
very successful. I did not see a single Angel nor a single saint helping in the
work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed
with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: ‘Do build it as solid as
you can; we will put it to the ground’.” 18
“I saw that many of the
instruments in the new Church, such as spears and darts, were meant to be used
against the living Church. Everyone dragged in something different: clubs,
rods, pumps, cadgels, puppets, mirrors, trumpets, horns bellows – all sorts of
things. In the cave below (the sacristy) some people kneaded bread, but nothing
came of it; it would not rise. The men in the little mantles brought wood to
the steps of the pulpit to make a fire. They puffed and blew and labored hard,
but the fire would not burn. All they produced was smoke and fumes. Then they
broke a hole in the roof and ran up a pipe, but the smoke would not rise, and
the whole place became black and suffocating. Some blew the horns so violently
that the tears streamed from their eyes. All in this church belonged to the
earth, returned to the earth. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church
of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church
in Rome” 19
I don’t make a habit of suggesting people read the New York Times, but this Sunday’s edition is worth a look. You will find there a great open-letter written by Ross Douthat to the liberal nitwits who make up “the established Catholic academy” in the US today and who recently jumped all over Douthat for daring to challenge their heterodox views. Read it and see Mr. Douthat politely tell them all to….well, to go to hell (where many of them could end up anyway).
Great translation of The Wrecking Crew’s duckspeak.