Friday, January 04, 2013

Alice von Hildebrand and the proposed canonization of Paul VI

In "Interview with Alice von Hildebrand: Should Pope Paul VI be Canonized?" (Les Femmes - The Truth, January 2, 2013), von Hildebrand is reported as saying:
Considering the tumultuous pontificate of Paul VI, and the confusing signals he was giving, e.g.: speaking about the “smoke of Satan that had entered the Church,” yet refusing to condemn heresies officially; his promulgation of Humanae Vitae (the glory of his pontificate), yet his careful avoidance of proclaiming it ex cathedra [infallible doctrine]; delivering his Credo of the People of God in Piazza San Pietro in 1968, and once again failing to declare it binding on all Catholics; disobeying the strict orders of Pius XII to have no contact with Moscow, and appeasing the Hungarian Communist government by reneging on the solemn promise he had made to Cardinal Mindszenty; his treatment of holy Cardinal Slipyj, who had spent seventeen years in a Gulag, only to be made a virtual prisoner in the Vatican by Paul VI; and finally asking Archbishop Gagnon to investigate possible infiltration in the Vatican, only to refuse him an audience when his work was completed – all these speak strongly against the beatification of Paolo VI, dubbed in Rome, “Paolo Sesto, Mesto” (Paul VI, the sad one) ...
Dr. von Hildebrand paints a dark picture indeed, but one that should not simply be ignored. Read more >>

13 comments:

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

If the Brick By Brick Bund can accept discontinuity within continuity; if the Brick By Brick Bund can come to an acceptance of a revolution with form (same words different meanings), then there is no reason other Conservative Catholics can't be brought to heel.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/12/what-is-heroic-virtue/

However, there is available on the net sources militating against this rash act...

http://www.huttongibson.com/PDFs/Paul-VI-Beatified-Book.pdf

..and I am not even posting a link to sources which appear to verify those acts which will cause 1 -3% of our population to claim him as one of their own.

Lord have Mercy on your Church if the modernists accomplish this

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Well, why not raise him to the altars and reward he who helped usher in the new church of the new age?

Read what this Cardinal had to say about continuity...

http://tinyurl.com/an3677r

Chris said...

Philip,

Once upon a time, there was an office in Rome whose job was to propose reasons why N., whose name had been proposed, should not be raised to the dignity of the altar. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to resurrect such an office? That way, His Holiness can also have an airing of the false accusations against Pope Pius XII, and a debunking of them.

I understand Mrs. Von Hildebrand's reticence, since among my friends I have found that hers is the most mild form of uneasiness, and the most well grounded.

His Holiness is "up to" something, and we should pray for a rich blessing as the issue of this sad affair.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Fr. Z. in his piece about heroic virtue:However, something that Pope Benedict said about the role of the Holy Spirit in a conclave or council comes back to tickle my thought process. Ratzinger said that the role of the Holy Spirit in those special situation was not so much to elect the Pope or write the Council documents Himself. Rather, the Holy Spirit guarantees that whomever or whatever we choose isn’t a total disaster.

I'm sorry but this is so far off the base from what I was learnt in the hills of Vermont. I was learnt that the actions of The Holy Ghost at a Council were to be understood in a largely negative sense in that He, the Third Person of The Blessed Trinity, would prevent the promulgation of false Doctrines (given the existence of a solemn dogmatic council) but to suggest the the Doctrines of former Dogmatic Councils weren't a total disaster - instead of pellucid and vivifying truths - is a thing shockingly negative to read.

And as for the actions of The Holy Ghost in a conclave, claiming that He would not allow the election of a dope for Pope is LIGHT YEARS away from claiming that Pope Paul VI lived a live of heroic virtue and how that can assertion be conflated with the "new" (it is ALWAYS new, isn't it?) idea of heroic virtue is beyond.

Lord have Mercy; I think if he is raised to the altars Our Lord will send His Church a Divine Chastisement of monumental proportions.

Jeff Kantor said...

It's awfully hard to really know the truth about such things as Pope Paul "breaking a solemn promise" to Cardinal Mindszenty about keeping him as Primate of Hungary and so many other of these things. I don't know that they are unrefuted but even if they ARE, that could easily because no one bothers to try because they are silly or thought to be so.

And anyway, how does one go about "refuting" something like that?

I rather think that for all the hullabaloo, Venerable Paul VI is a saint and will be canonized. My hope is that if that happens, those who opposed it will deeply reconsider and not be what could be called "sanctoral minimalists" about it.

Jeff Kantor said...

I guess part of my reason for thinking that is that all three of the popes who succeeded him seem to have regarded him as a very holy man and a great pope, one for whom they had deep love and esteem.

Two of them even took his name for their own pontificates.

Jeff Kantor said...

Just one of many examples, from Benedict:

"In the period after the Second Vatican Council, which Paul VI closed, he "did not let himself be conditioned by misunderstandings and criticisms, though at times he had to endure suffering and violent attacks," Benedict XVI said, "but in all circumstances he was a firm and prudent helmsman of Peter's boat."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1795749/posts

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

According to his followers, Chairman Mao was a GREAT helmsman, not merely a "firm and prudent" one. But no group is more savage and unsparing in their criticism of predecessors than Catholic popes.

Perhaps I would be more impressed if Benedict had said of Montini, "I like the cut of his jib."

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Mr. Kantor. You are prolly right; after all, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger declared a protestant a Saint and he even dispensed the Blessed Sacrament to the famous protestant; so, we must resign ourselves to the new ways of the new days

http://www.zenit.org/article-13718?l=english

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Mr. Kantor. Pope Blessed John 23rd, Pope Blessed John Paul II, and, now, Pope Venerable Paul VI and who will be dumb enough to claim that Our Holy Father will not follow in their saintly wakes after his wake?

If they are Saints, who among the previous 265 Popes is not a Saints?

The Second Vatican Council produced a monumental collapse of every single objective measurement in the Catholic Church except for the production of Saintly Popes under whose reigns the collapse occurred; no, sir; the production of Popes as Saints has proliferated even as the categories of criteria in determining who is or isn't a Pope have been eliminated - producing Saint-Popes is our solitary growth industry.

Woe betide the Pope who tries to stop the V2 Saint Train after the death of our Holy Father; he would be crushed by the unfathomable ineluctability of it all.

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

When an incompetent pope is canonized, does that mean that he has been "kicked upstairs" ?

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Ralph. I am but a tsetse in the face of this tsunami of sainthood that bids fair to drown, destroy, and sweep away all opposition to the humanist- enlightenment novelties of the pastoral council.

I know that what I write will have no effect so I am hoping you are about to open your rhetorical silos and launch; sure, it will be futile on a natural level but it would funny as hell to read - and it would have the bonus of being the truth.

Pertinacious Papist said...

I'm always on standby for a good Cape Canaveral launch by RR-D! If you could bottle the stuff, you could sell it and get rich!