The string of eloquent German journalists who have gradually lost patience with Pope Francis does not seem to stop. Now we have another well-known and honorably independent journalist, Matthias Matussek, who has added his own name to the list of reflective papal critics. Matussek, who is an eloquent Catholic conservative critic and book author, currently writes for the well-established Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche and the German magazine FOCUS.
In the 12 April (14/2017) issue of Die Weltwoche – which displays on its cover a picture of Pope Francis himself sitting on a swinging wrecking ball – Matussek characterizes Francis as “gratuitous, appealing, chumming up” and says that this pope reminds us less and less of a Pontifex Maximus. With reference to a recent sharp critique of the pope by the British weekly Spectator, Matussek asks: “Has the Pope Gone Crazy?” and he then proposes to answer the question himself:
This [query] is not so far off as one would think: in fact, this Argentine Pontifex Maximus has uttered so many confusing, contradictory, and politically provocative things that the members of his press corps have a hard time keeping up with corrections and then recommending certain interpretations. Without now here judging the truthfulness of the matter – but, frankly, how does one, for example, moderate this formulation: “Readers of newspapers are inclined toward coprophagy” – i.e., the lubricious consumption of excrement?
To support his point, Matussek attentively – and with a vivid and sprightly style – enumerates in the following seven pages of his article many of the contradictory scandals that we here at OnePeterFive have extensively – and regrettably – reported on; thus a list of Matussek’s topics should now suffice:
– the scandal that Pope Francis reinstated the perverted priest, Father Mauro Inzoli (“Don Mercedes”) after he had been suspended;
– the pope’s outbursts of temper in smaller circles, as well as his curses, crude expressions and “crudities that would better not at all be published”; the fact that Pope Francis humiliates his closest collaborators – and this in an increasing fashion;
– the costly decision of the pope to live at the guest house Santa Marta which is a “method of control, in order to get informed at lunch about the happenings in the diverse camps in the Vatican;
– his harsh treatment of his opponents; for example, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke;
– his decision not to answer the justified Four Cardinals’ Dubia;
– the fact that Pope Francis often makes new laws for the Catholic Church from his own lunch table, rather than going through the channels of the Roman Curia (Matussek quotes here a high-ranking leader in the Curia);
– Francis’ problematic recent comment that many people prefer being an atheist rather than a “hypocritical Catholic”;
– the reaction of the Romans, even to the point of putting up satirical posters about Pope Francis (“The base is mobilizing against Francis, nobody understands him any more.”);
– Pope Francis as the “posterboy of the politically correct way of thinking”;
– his being twice presented to us on the cover of the journal Rolling Stone;
– his stopping Cardinal Robert Sarah in his attempt to promote traditional liturgical forms, such as the praying of the Holy Mass ad orientem;
– that the Wall Street Journal declared (in December of 2016) Francis to be the “leader of the global left”;
– his pretentious way of presenting his humility by driving in a small used car in front of the White House during his visit to the U.S.;
– his taking Muslim refugee families back to Rome with him, after his visit at Lesbos, but not any Christian refugee families;
– that Pope Francis does not appear to care too much about his own religion (In Matussek’s eyes, the sentence of Our Lord “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; nobody will come to my Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) does not seem to mean very much to the pope.)
– the invitation of Paul Ehrlich, the promoter of abortion and population control, to a Vatican conference;
– his inclination to give scope to liberalizing progressive ideas such as female priests and the abandonment of the priestly celibacy;
– his “Who am I to Judge?” with regard to the homosexuals (“Who else?” answers Matussek.)
– in times of political instability and lack of trust in political leaders, “now also the sureties [seem to weaken] with which the oldest institution of the West has heretofore passed through the times of history. She made it, especially because of the recognized loyalty to rites, and to forms and to dogmas.”
– his “agenda which could lead to the dissolution of the una sancta catholica” which was given to us “by God,” and against whose very gates themselves “hell shall not prevail.”
– Pope Francis and his “basis-democratic” questionnaires about marriage sent out to the world, instead of first and mainly referring to the Bible;
– his “angry” demand – put to all the European countries – to “open all the borders for the immigrants”;
– Pope Francis’ neglect of dogmas – in spite of the fact that a limitless world demeans man and lowers him to the level of animals or even plants (here G.K. Chesterton’s reference to magnanimous beets is quoted – “trees have no dogmas; beets are extremely magnanimous”!);
At the end of his breath-taking and spirited – but somewhat disheartening – overview over the recent papal scandals and misdeeds, the German journalist comes back to the truths of our Faith. Matussek defends the Catholic Faith and its truths against his own pope and reminds us that this Faith has existed visibly since the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and His Nativity. He also explains to his non-Catholic readership that, since the Second Vatican Council, the traditional Mass as it had been developed over centuries was “destroyed.” “Altars were cut into pieces” and “brutal blocks of sacrifice were put into the spaces of the altar.” The Church art decayed into “semiotic delicacies”; the priest addressed the congregation “like a TV moderator” and he purportedly celebrated Mass “so that people could look at his fingers, just like with a magician in a third-class variété show.”
In light of all this destruction of spiritual and visual beauty, Matussek concludes with piercing words, as follows: “The former erasers of the barricades (Barrikadenstürmer) – all of them now in their eighties and beyond – still hold on to their juvenile nonsense of modernization and adaptation to the Zeitgeist.” With gratitude, Matussek remembers here the act of Pope Benedict XVI to free the Tridentine Latin Mass which, since then, has attracted especially the young. “The secret returns into the emptied out modern churches, and with it adoration and the mysterium.”
Thus Matthias Matussek ends his Rundumschlag (tour de force) with a positive note, proposing to Pope Francis that he start working in the direction of restoring Tradition, rather than speculating as to whether “I [Pope Francis] might now go down the history as the pope who split the Church” – as reported by Der Spiegel in December of 2016. The German journalist then also adds a passage from the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy, where St. Paul instructs his disciple to “teach the Faith in season and out of season.”
Dare we hope that such wholehearted and faith-inspired articles might also help Pope Francis to convert, after a deep and candid examination of conscience?
The leader of the Catholic world, rather than offering a cheap “who am I to judge” regarding a gay person who was trying to figure out his life, should have followed in his King’s footsteps and re-iterated: “go and sin no more”.
And he should not have made such a statement that could be, and has been, so easily used as ammunition by the enemies of Christ against faithful Catholics.
And yet that profoundly ill-founded comment revealed so, so much disordered about this odd, disoriented, mistaken man who should—in the ordinary course of events—never have been a spiritual leader of any sort, let alone pope.
Dare we hope? Francis’ novelty, “the god of surprises,” is the very real God of Miracles. I tend to think, however, that the next lightening bolt won’t be hitting the dome of the basilica.
Francis loves the thought of dividing the Church. Repentance is not part of that equation. And thus we hurtle toward the Wrath of God.
Francis is the pinnacle of that very Wrath
Hi EO – I agree, Francis is about to learn a long overdue lesson in fear of the Lord
With all due respect, I do not think Pope Francis is the pinnacle of the wrath of God. However, the lack of leadership on the part of the so-called “princes of the RC Church” combined with with the perversion of sound Catholic belief, practice & praxis at all levels (Magisterium, clergy, religious & laity) who all have no excuse–if you are legally an adult, may I suggest, you have a non-delegable duty to educate yourself on your faith, and good, sound materials in many media formats abound–are leading us there.
In my mind, a much worse problem than any individual sitting in the Chair of Peter is the situation w/ respect to the cardinals and bishops–all “organization men” whose loyalty is to their national bishops’ conference and to each other, and to their code of “omerta”.
If the hierarchy had even the slightest orientation towards Our Lord Jesus Christ and his church, not only would the sex abuse crisis never have occurred, but the introduction of novelties & perversions in liturgy, etc., would have stopped in a heartbeat.
The level of gross dereliction of duty has gone on for well over 50 years now–it predated Vatican II by many, many years, in fact.
One can only wonder, how much time do we have left, before the hand of God is forced to strike?
I think the problem with our wayward bishops is they don’t believe in God. If they did, they would surely know He sees everything they’re doing. The fact they have no fear of Him makes me believe there is no ‘Him’ there for them to fear. I’d hate to be them when they die.
“The former erasers of the barricades (Barrikadenstürmer) – all of them now in their eighties and beyond – still hold on to their juvenile nonsense of modernization and adaptation to the Zeitgeist.”
Is this a side-swipe at the quote “Razing the Bastions” which was, I believe, associated with a book written by Hans Urs von Balthazar? If so, it is well-aimed as Bergoglio is merely the logical extrapolation of the agenda put in place by the uncritical devotees of HUvB.
It is a swipe at HUVB and Ratzinger too, who was obsessed with the razing in his early middle age.
The collapse in morals caused by the First and Second World Wars and the siren call of Communism should have been met, post-war, with a return to authentic renewal via great call to traditional personal holiness.
But what we got was a whole bunch of clapped-out heretical revolutionaries. Bergoglio is their kid brother.
Has Bergoglio ever mentioned the word “holiness”?
Holiness? I think your answer is displayed in that incident where he so brutally tore apart the little innocent altar server’s hands folded so devoutly in prayer.
There was a devil at work there, for all to see.
The Politburo had forgotten that incident. Thank you for the reminder.
That’s exactly what came to my mind!
Lutherans don’t believe in holiness because it implies that man has free will. Absolute determinism does not leave room for man to will either evil or goodness – everything is a consequence of what “God” works through us.
The article reveals the crass irony that far from being a courageous renegade intent on theological revolution, as he imagines people regard him, Pope Francis is the stalest, most predictable, most politically correct publicity hound imaginable.
Pope Francis is the new Henry VIII, making the Church his own plaything, having replaced the authority of God with himself. It is time for a new counter-revolution in the Church–a Council of Trent II. Let us hope and pray for a new dawn of holiness, where what is presented to the people is clearly the authentic teaching of Christ, administered by clergy who see their duty as proclaiming and being living examples of redemption, salvation and eternal life.
how true, Michael; excellent comparison
Amen!
May Our Savior take note of your message. Without Him, we can do nothing.
This article, is of course a terrible indictment of a disastrous papacy. Pope Francis, for whatever reason, appears to be hell bent on destroying the perennial teaching of the Church. What is also extremely disturbing considers the number of Cardinals,bishops and priests that are assisting him in his godless mission. I was reading Bishop Fellay’s fair assessment of the pope:
“Bishop Fellay finds Pope Francis perplexing but said that he is someone he can ultimately deal with on a personal level. “The normal way of judging someone is deriving from his actions and concluding he’s acting like this because he thinks like that,” he explained. “With the present Pope, you are totally puzzled, because one day he does something and the following day he does, or says, almost the contrary.”
This contradiction, however, expresses a certain consistency, Pope Francis constantly undermines the Truths of the Faith. He constantly “unties the rope” but in doing so he permits the Church to flounder on the rocks.
“As for the Pope’s motives, Fellay believes Francis is someone who wants to see everyone saved so, “like a rescuer, he unties the rope, which is his security, to put himself in a risky situation to try to get to other people,” and “that is probably what he’s doing with us”.
I think that we may all agree that it is not just Pope Francis that is put in a “risky situation” It is the many souls who blindly follow him in his pell-mell ruination of the Church.
Fellay believes Francis is someone who wants to see everyone saved? What a joke. If Archbishop Fellay had listened to the 5,000 comments from the ‘Pope’ about how everyone is saved regardless of what they believe or what kind of a life they lead, he would know that Francis doesn’t believe in the four last things. IF he even believes in Heaven, he believes EVERYONE goes there regardless.
Besides, to want, or wishing and praying for an intention that everyone might be saved is one thing.
Totally another thing is to believe and act (and even preach) as everyone must or shall be saved.
I don’t think Bernard Fellay has been promoted to Archbishop just yet….
But yes, one gets more than a whiff of universalism off a number of Francis’s comments.
Yes, Bergoglio is a quintessential Modernist; I recommend studying Michael Davies excellent lecture on the history of the first ‘Catholic’ Modernists, available on YouTube, or the writings of St Pius X. Quintessential.
The consistency that I’ve found in his proclamations (that often promote Jesus and random smatterings of piety and virtue) is that he always downplays or undermines the Church as the institution founded to point most perfectly to God. Most of his comments would be acceptable to nondescript Christians (despite varying degrees of banality) but one can be sure that he will neglect the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (when not criticising her members for being mindless hypocrites with their prayerful hands “glued together”).
This inconsistency is the most perplexing behavior of all. When I am daily praying for him, I find myself trying to make excuses for him to God! I ramble on about what I hope Francis might intend, and then I say, ‘Never mind. You know him far better than I. Please help Pope Francis, and all of your Catholics, and please convert him soon.’
It is a bad thing to be an incompetent, Comrades. It is a worse thing to be a brutal incompetent. But worst of all is to be a brutal incompetent so arrogant that all efforts to mitigate his incompetence are brushed aside.
This is Pope Bergoglio: once a night-cub bouncer and still a night-club bouncer, unfortunately one with the intellectual gifts of a gnat.
Equally sadly, the level of manliness amongst the Hierarchy is so low that no-one has the courage to take him on.
He reminds me of Napoleon in the book ” Animal Farm”, by George Orwell.
Too many pigs surround and protect him and too many sheep to follow him.
Yes, a very good analogy. Napoleon the pig he is.
Don’t let Francis’ Columbo approach fool you. He is a well trained sophist Jesuit.
He is not ‘well-trained’,at least not intellectually: when given the chance to prove his brains and acumen and get a serious doctorate in theology at Sahnkt-Georgen in Frankfort: he flunked out, didn’t even pass his comps, a matter glossed over by his adoring media.
But you are correct, he is ‘well -trained’ in the nebulous social stratosphere of skilled Jesuit self -delusion—they, who have become like him, smugly self-assured secular-atheist seekers of their own spiritual self-destruction.
again, another parallel with Obama..
I’m not a mind reader nor do I want to judge PF, but this thought keeps recurring in my head: Maybe he WANTS the hierarchy to take him on? Remember Hagan lio? My sensus Fidei says this is mucho hagan lio.
* Apologies if my Spanish is incorrect.
????What?
Great description of this whole mess
Jorge Bergoglio will never repent and be converted. He is what he is, set in his ways at 80 now. So many critiques of him end up praying for his conversion. I suppose that is politically correct Catholicism too, but it won’t have any effect. His warped personality is set in stone. There is such a thing in Catholic theology as the reprobate who is hardened in sin and beyond salvation. That too is reality.
Regardless of the chances of a conversion, we are compelled by charity to pray for this nonetheless. While certainly not equal, John XXII repented on his deathbed of his heresy. I think it necessary to pray for Francis’ conversion, but also prudent to pray for an end to this pontificate. Francis needs the first; we desperately need the second.
May God have mercy on me I struggle to pray for PF…it’s so bad that I couldn’t respond to the prayer said for him at mass on Holy Thursday…he has really hurt me personally as someone trying to be a faithful Catholic..like my Bishop who has refused to answer any correspondence I have sent him on issues of concern, PF has orphaned me of a spiritual father
Dear Mike:
We’re all suffering greatly under the current malaise in the Church — there is ample evidence of Satan’s seemingly unprecedented boldness in attacking the Body of our Lord from within by the cooptation of Her institutional apparatus. I’ve never seen anything that appears more to be the rise of anti-christ than what’s happening right now.
But please remember: Despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
As Catholics, we do not have the right to despair of our own salvation; neither do we have the right to commit someone else to burn in hell forever when his or her life is not yet over and God’s grace is not out of reach. We’re not being “politically correct” when we pray for those in grave sin or apostasy; rather, prayer is the most essential and charitable response. We must believe in and work for the conversion of others, but without ever forgetting our own vulnerability to sin (which would relate to the sin of Presumption):
“1Brothers, if someone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him with a spirit of gentleness. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the Law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:1-2
“22And indeed, have mercy on those who doubt; 23save others by snatching them from the fire; and to still others, show mercy tempered with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.” – Jude 1:22-23
“9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” – 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
“But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you.” – Matthew 5:44
Have a blessed Passiontide.
Your brother in Christ and the Holy Family,
Clinton
How come not one Bishop can speak this plainly about the pope? It is obvious to all what the pope is about.
“The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished
the intents of his mind.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
“I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their doings.
“Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams which they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Ba′al? Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord. Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their tongues and say, ‘Says the Lord.’ Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them; so they do not profit this people at all, says the Lord.
“When one of this people, or a prophet, or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, says the Lord.”
(Jeremiah 23, 20-33)
Love the OT Prophets. They spoke to a people who presumed too much on the ancient Covenant of God, forgetting the Covenant promises depended upon their personal participation in its Holy demands.
“And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Matt 3:9
I think there is a parallel with those who presume too much on the promise that the “gates of hell will not prevail”.
“How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams which they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Ba′al? Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.”
Somehow I see, and recognize here the two ‘B’s’. Before the first mentioned one stands- Jorge, before the second one- Raymond.
“What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord.”
The Modernists love to turn the Church from the ‘Mystical Body’ to the ‘People of God;’ their tactics backfire, turning the One True Church from the ‘People of God’ to the ‘Mystical Body,’ in which the Modernists have no part!
Generations of relentlessly mounting ultramontanism (going back well before Vatican II) and aggrandizement of papal power explain most of it; the fact that the Pope also overwhelmingly has the secular culture wind at his back supplies the rest.
A bishop desiring to buck all that appreciates readily how quickly he will be isolated and discredited save with a small minority of the most conservative lay Catholics and clergy – and that simply was not the case with the Church of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance.
Any Catholic, especially a Bishop, will consider isolation and discredit a badge of honor if walking the path with Christ and a Cross on their back, crowds jeering at their ridiculous appearance and situation, just as at our Lord.
Jeremiah the prophet (38: 4-6)
4 Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”
5 “He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.”
6 So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
I did mean to bracket out, by the way, the bishops who really have not the faith, which seems to be a pretty substantial share of their population, sadly. I meant only to speak to the ones who do seem to have it in some sense.
But we are a hierarchical church. Deference to that hierarchy (especially its head) has been with us from the start, and has been ratcheted up in the last couple centuries. That has helped to anesthetize our righteous instincts. But even in better formed ages, such prelates have always been a minority.
That sounds like +Archbishop Lefebvre.
Monsignor, pray for your spiritual sons and daughters!
Is an English translation of the full article available?
Does anyone have a list of things done by Francis the First which fail to verge upon blasphemy, heresy, sacrilege, and the like?
https://en.denzingerbergoglio.com/queries-and-doubts/
The above link is to a site that lists 157 “queries and doubts” occasioned by Francis’s words. However, it has not been recently updated.
Good link and a great site. I have read through that one before. I appreciate those Priests very much.
Helen Weir was asking about the “fail to verge upon” list, though.
Ah, you are right – sorry. Weissfjord below though seems to have a pretty complete list of the orthodox statements.
Yes. I believe the current list is:
1. “Buona sera!”
2. “Pray for me and I will be with you again soon.”
3. “Goodnight and sleep well!”
It was all downhill after that…
The list ought to include the fact that Bergoglio seems unable to speak
of Our Lord and Savior or The Mother of God without blaspheming.
Pope Francis is the fruit of the tree of ecumenism that converted the Catholic Church to the world’s religions.
The Church tired of conflict 50 years ago; chose surrender and called it peace.
That does not seem like the Way Of The Cross; the straight and narrow path which few find; the sign of contradiction leading to martyrdom. To be like the world, and admire the world, makes it impossible to convert the world.
Ecumenism is a dead branch. It is fruitless. It will be cut off and burned by the Royal Gardener.
I am sure ecumenism is much worse than just a dead branch. It have his own purpose.
That purpose could be named as those synonyms of word ‘destroy’,- annihilate, obliterate, eliminate,…
It is just that the blind and deaf ones, with the stone hearts, and intoxicated brains could not see that in the real way as it is.
There can never be thing like ‘ecumenism’ in the sense,- ‘enjoying together’ almost the same but still different religions with the only one and true Catholic Faith.
All those who are preaching ecumenism are actually apostates.
So simple is that.
Yet there is a personal ecumenism which, though far rarer, glorifies the Church, such as Satis Cognitum by Leo XIII, which expresses the love of a father to his wayward children and invites them home to Holy Mother Church with open arms and presents before them the Catechism of Aquinas and St Paul V…
Bergoglio is the only Pope ordained after Vatican II and that’s important. He is the embodiment of all the post-Vatican II crapola; it has all come to its fruition and fulfillment in him. The modernism, the heresy, the liturgical chaos, the syncretism, the false ecumenism, the doctrinal indifferentism…….he is the personification of all of this. He is at once a chastisement and a purification for a faithless Church.
As in politics, we get the leaders we deserve.
“Bergoglio is the only Pope ordained after Vatican II”
I did not know that. Certainly explains a lot
However his ordination was by one Ramón José Castellano, Archbishop of (Argentine) Cordoba. The Pauline Rite of ordination in its material form has changes so slight that it would be unreasonable to impugn his ordination, unless early evidence of Bergoglian herodoxy emerges. His poor formation is something we experience every other week whenever he opens his mouth, but his ordination holds, or at least held. That said, Martin Luther was ordained, Thomas Cramner was made Archbishop of Canterbury with Papal approval (which Henry insisted Cramner on, as he did not want a doubtful consecration, but Cramner swore an affidavit privately in King’s Inn that he did not mean to give any fealty to the Pope). Pope Francis is a material heretic, but there is insufficient evidence to consider him a formal heretic.
I wasn’t calling into doubt his ordination but rather the content of his formation
His late sixties formation, or lack of appropriate formation must be at work here. However, I think some of the problematic statements are designed to keep potential opponents off balance. The Regularisation of the SSPX could be an attempt to introduce clients of his (his support for them in Argentina in gaining civil recognition has to be contrasted with his indifference, even hostility) to diocesan traditionalism and Summorum Pontificum) into a segment of the Church that dislikes him. The ICKSP/ICRSS have Cardinal Burke as a patron. Perhaps the SSPX as a client will neutralise any threat from Tradition. Anyway, the Order of Malta annexation suggests a Pope who is deeply cunning. His silly statements could be pot stirring.
Ouch! I say that because I think you are right. And I hope the purification will occur rapidly after this horrible chastisement we are enduring.
I’d say – having gone over the prophecies again – the chastisement is only in first gear. We have much more to come. But we are Blessed indeed having Jesus firmly on our side along with Our Blessed Mother, St. Michael and all the Angels and Saints. Not forgetting the Remnant Army who will be looking out for each other
Beautifully stated
And remember it was , as ETWN loves to say, John Paul “the Great” who plucked him fromhis deserved obscurity among his brethren and raised him to the highest See in his country and gave him the Red Hat. His pontificate reveals the superficiality of the supposed “post-Vatican II Conservative” era. Nothing was really eradicated and the Enemy bided his time.
J+M+J
Even saints didn’t always make the best choices…look at Saint Peter’s denial of Christ, for one…and remember that God always uses even bad events/people for eventual good (Good Friday being a prime example); as kiwiinamerica said, I’m sure that God allowed the Church’s chastisement and consequent purification via Francis/Bergoglio…
No matter what we think of the legitimacy or lack thereof of his papacy, he clearly needs our ardent prayers!
Dominus vobiscum!
Matussek’s list is something of a grab bag of indictments, and I’m not sure it is as helpful to building his case against Pope Francis as he might like it to be. For example, I am not sure it’s pertinent to hold Francis responsible for how certain media outlets (Rolling Stone et al) characterize him, or perhaps even that such characterizations have become so common, but that he has made no effort at all to refute or correct them – any more than he does Scalfari’s from-memory interviews with him. If anything, he seems pleased with them, and even eager to court them. Some accusations go to his character, and others to his orthodoxy. Some are quite grave, and some are merely petty. Perhaps it is not fair to judge him from second hand glosses by Maike Hickson, but I have the impression of a very rambling and disorganized indictment.
All that said, it’s hard to know how much solace to take from Matussek’s barrage, since there’s little chance it is representative of anything beyond a conservative view of a rather small minority of German Catholics. Most prelates and lay Catholics in Germany are quite clearly very liberal proto-Lutherans (if even that) at heart, and content with their Church’s devolution into a state-subsidized constellation of social work agencies that only do worship as a very secondary consideration and on an ever more aggressively congregational model.
I think it relates to the “spirit of the age.” Like is attracted to like, as you have known in your own life. Somehow the faithful incline to things of God with almost a sixth sense (I believe firmly that it’s grace — indeed it was preternatural how much they hated Benedict XVI); likewise, the powers of this age quickly rushed to Francis with unholy zeal. Not quantifiable, of course, but one of those “enemy of my enemies is my friend” inclinations. A disturbing fraternity on any level.
Certainly Papa Bergoglio is a full embodiment of the Spirit of the Age. Or at least of a Peronista sub-strain of it…
But again, people like Matussek are a pretty small minority even within the Church (in Germany, or without) in resisting it. An indictment like his is, alas, unlikely to persuade many but the already convicted. Probably the only count in his indictment likely to have any traction with the rest is Francis’s growing pattern of enabling and covering up of priestly sexual abusers, because it feeds into what Hilary White calls an established media narrative.
And what difference if the Matussek article makes only one more convert? That converted soul may be able to influence any number of others, or only one or two. But I would suggest your own argument/comment is a very good reason to do nothing. I am not saying we must all be cheerleaders, but to perhaps have something useful to bring to the argument. And it seems as if it is not so useful to downplay the efforts of those who are saying or doing something positive.
I don’t say we do nothing, of course.
I’m just not keen to read Matussek’s stance as indicative of anything larger brewing in Germany, which on all evidence is pretty far gone now, nor should anyone else be. But I do hope I prove to be wrong.
Who said he who marries the spirit of the age is soon left a widower?
Early 20th century Anglican priest William Ralph Inge: “Whoever married the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” And he was in a position to know, given his public support for nudism and eugenics.
Some can’t see the vast face of a cliff right smack in front of them.
I write again with a small expertise of having two members of my family with roughly the same tendencies he is badly bipolar or manic depressive or ????? add your own definition to the question marks
With all due respect to anyone who has struggled with any illness I sincerely ask this question. Is there any relation of demonic possession to what we classify as psycotic, emotional and/or mental illness? This is an honest question
Mental illnesses can manifest themselves in many ways. Many people could just be ‘having a bad day’ and seem ‘wacky’, for want of a better word. For constant &/or repetitive ‘wacky’ behavior one becomes a bit suspicious: is it just a bad habit or is it straight up crazy? Or, as Eric P (below) asks, is it a matter of possession?
Or could it be a combination of all three? Whatever the case, we need to shield ourselves, and warn others, about the danger, I think.
Seriously?
Der Papst räumt ab https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9374eec5439ffe56f7b0ca5feae0a237ffeed8e1d5d53c08dba4574699d1b550.jpg
You can never get too much of the truth.
How does one thank Matthias Matussek for his superior contribution to the critique of the madness of this pope? There are no words.
Francis making Dogma out of human precepts,global warming, death penalty, immigration ,Un. Dev. Goals and Global warming etc while thrashing basic beliefs and morality Sexual and otherwise is Disturbing beyond belief… .. Sadly he reminds me of Infamous bishop Spong USA leader of the now largely disintegrating Anglican Episcopal Church. Spong like Francis surrounded himself with the same liberal fools like the Jesuits Martin etc in former mainline Protestant churches…… .. .. As a result you will soon see what little is left of the Dying rump church hardly R. c. Collapse in Germany , low countries and Canada etc under the liberal clerics who can’t run the faith in their respective nations.Obviously With Jesuits Martin, Venezuelan HD of Jesuits and those like Roisica, Sparando and R Marx that Francis has surrounded himself with, bad days are coming just as surely as befell the now largely disintegrating Anglican Episcopal Church.
Do you mean the Venezuelan general of the Jesuits, Arturo Sosa Abascal, Mr. “Jesus’-words-are-‘relative’?”
According to the learned Jesuit, there was no one around to make an audio recording of Jesus’ words, so we can’t be sure if He condemned divorce and remarriage. Presumably we can’t be sure about anything Jesus said about anything, so why does the Church or the Jesuit order exist at all?
Jesuits seem infected with heresy from top to bottom. Parishes, High schools , in San Francisco Cal. and USF and other colleges run by Jesuits try to undermine faithful AB in Oakland and SF. California. The fool head of Jesuits who insists Jesus really did not mean his repeated condemnation of Divorce and remarriage. Alleged other Jesuits colleges like Fairfield, Marquette with sorry excuses for ex Priests like Lakeland and McGuire teaching Theology no less at those alleged Jesuit schools……………………. Martin in America mag promoted by Francis no less. Then there is Louvain of Belgium ,Georgetown, Prov. Col., Marquette USA hassling Catholics pointing out the faith at those alleged Catholic colleges. Lord have mercy on what little is left of the Catholic faith in the west.
Thanks so much for the reminder of the ludicrous Bishop Spong – it’s been years since I heard anyone mention him. There’s no shortage of similarly fatuous clergy here in England, Catholic or Anglican. It could be Bishop Lang of Clifton declaring that we should be campaigning for the total abolition of the death penalty or Cardinal Nichols of Westminster taking 4 moderate imams to meet Pope Francis and show him how moderate and non-violent Islam is (just a few days after the terrorist attack in Westminster). Or it could be my all time favourite: the Anglican archbishop who declared that the Resurrection was not about a conjuring trick with bones….
Accordingly to retired ab of Anglican Canterbury ab Carey only One percent of Anglican people go to mass on Sunday all through out the Uk…Accordingly to him the Anglican Church of UK is headed for Extinction,his words not mine. .. … Sadly the . UK, RC rump church under Nichols and O Conner are not far behind. Only Five percent of RC people go to weekly mass there as well in the UK……..Sad that Francis promoted R Marx and Koch of Germany who cannot run the RC faith in Germany as well. . ..You might as well have Karl or Groucho Marx in charge as R Marx or Nichols in charge of dying RC faith in Germany and UK etc..
A disaster of a Pontificate
Excellent article. The emperor has few clothes. That is increasingly clear.
He simply does not love the Catholic Church.
The Bishop of Rome is, in fact, embarrassed by many things Catholic.
God Bless Holy Benedict.
No, he will not convert.
My prayer is that his pontificate ends as soon as possible. By whatever means Our Lord chooses.
I hope he converts however, I stopped listening to him a long time ago, as I suspect did many others.
You consider a journalist to be “honorably independent, reflective, and eloquent” who wrote an article depicting an image of Pope Francis swinging on a wrecking ball and the question, “Has the Pope Gone Crazy?” I can only reflect on the agendas I think are at play here, and I worry for the sake of our Church. https://popefranciscatholics.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/catholic-blogs-that-lie-about-pope-francis/
I wonder what Jesus thinks about all this.
No, the Pope’s attitude toward the Church is set in stone. He will destroy her or die trying.
That is a great article and a very good read,the whole article is the truth about Francis,he want everyone too think he is this humble soft spoken person but in truth he is a very aggressive an damning person,history is not going to be good for this Pope,he is not a very good person he want it his way or no way,we can’t get a new Pope soon enough.
Tomorrow, on Easter, I celebrate my 4th anniversary of being a Catholic, although I have been a Christian for about 50 years. I LOVE being Catholic: thousands of years of church teaching have been opened to my understanding.
However, I do not understand Pope Francis, and I am upset by what I read about him. For example, I read that he invited Islamic people into a church to pray. Why would he do that? Islam is idolatry according to the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me. …” Evangelism to Muslims is appropriate, but participating with them in “worship” which is not worship of the one true God reminds me of Old Testament Israel which again and again allowed idolatry to thrive – to their great detriment.
Am I missing something here? The Pope’s behavior does not conform to what I understand Catholicism to be.
There are a LOT of Catholics, IMHO, who feel the same as you do.
Thank you for responding. I am glad to know that I am not alone.
i will only say this, and then say no more- His Holiness, Pope Francis is perhaps the major reason why i came back to the Church after leaving it for many years. i am disappointed in what i’ve seen written here in opposition to his Papacy. i will continue to pray for His Holiness, and for the Church. Thank you, Holy Father, for your love and support. i see the true love of Christ and the generosity of spirit of St. Francis in you.
You came back to the Church **because** of Pope Francis??!! Ah, the Lord truly does work in mysterious ways.
God bless you.
Whatever opinions we may have about Pope Francis, we still have to pray for him in 2 ways: 1)that he may repent of the wrong he has done to the Church and do reparation for the same 2) that if he would not repent, and God in his omniscience would know if that’s the case, then pray that his pontificate will end in whatever way God wills and that the next Pope would be the one to bring the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Church and the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Church. Judging a validly elected Roman Pontiff is not the charism of any Catholic. Only God knows and He can judge. We can only pray and the more Catholics pray in the same way, the more effect it will have on God granting our prayer.
modernists never convert, but pervert…