Marielena Montesino de Stuart stands as a thorn in the side of EWTN Vatican cheerleaders who are even more Ultramontanist than William Ward who wished he had a papal bull with his breakfast each morning to read along with the Times.
In her blog, TheRomanCatholicWorld.com, she has had a history of writing exposés of everything from an alleged scandal involving a building erected at Ave Maria University bearing the name of a politician who has given millions to hard-core pro-choice politicians, including Obama, on the one hand, to American cardinals involved in the coverup of the homosexual/pederast scandal among United States clergy, on the other. Her offerings are neither for the faint of heart or those unwilling to do their own research to confirm or refute.
What takes the cake, however, is her recent series of articles concerning the election of Pope Francis. In a few cases, there is little more than a gesture or an allegation, without much support. In others, however, there is enough substance to evoke a provocation or two. A lot of guilt-by-association, certainly, and demonstrated disdain for traditional forms.
One tiny thing that struck me was the apparent allergy the Holy Father apparently has about making the sign of the cross outside the context of Mass. Why, I wonder?
In any case, here are just three of Montesino de Stuart's posts (yes, I know they sound brazen: you'll have to scroll horizontally through some of her titles to find all she has):
- "FRANCIS “The Bishop of Rome”– and the erosion of solemnity. Socialism disguised as “social justice” (March 16, 2013)
- "SPECIAL REPORT: FRANCIS– First “Pope” to have favored homosexual civil unions" (March 19, 2013)
- "Is Pope Francis really humble?" (March 20, 2013)
15 comments:
PP, your remark that her articles contain "little more than a gesture or an allegation, without much support," is fair enough, based on the the samples that I've read.
On the other hand, it is also undeniable, IMO, that virtually every statement, every sign, every gesture from our new bishop of Rome is wrong, absolutely, positively, nauseatingly wrong. To read Francis' press clippings is to be transported back to the fever swamps of "the spirit of V2."
That his palaver about the poor, and his hokey gestures of "humility", are greeted by cynical secularists and boobish Neo-Caths with swooning bliss is a sign of nothing more than the success of the V2 fathers in throwing the bulk of Catholic tradition down the Well of Forgetfulness.
Or is it "forgetfulness", after all? Perhaps Papa Emeritus could write one of his patented few-dozen-page $14.95 booklets on the subject, for Ignatius Press to peddle.
Can you imagine? A Papal Bull with breakfast every morning! :)
Dear Dr. IANS has two daddies:
http://www.theromancatholicworld.com/
This is an absolute disaster and it is setting, yet another, novel Papal "Tradition."
Popes retiring; Popes praying with Protestants; Popes praying with Jews;Popes praying with animists; Popes praying with Buddhists:Popes visiting the Wailing Wall and not mentioning Jesus; Popes praying with Imams in the Blue Mosque; Popes kissing the Koran: Popes visiting Synagogues and not preaching the Gospel; Popes refusing to wear the Tiara; Popes refusing to offer Holy Thursday Mass on the Holy Altar (which represents Jesus) in a Holy Consecrated Catholic Church ; Popes refusing to wear the Papal Miter: Popes refusing to wear the red shoes; Popes and their praxis of Primus inter Pares- one'd get carpal tunnel were he to type the list of our new traditions, all of which MUST be followed and all of which began in the 1960s and all of which are defended by The Brick By Brick Bund and other conservative Catholics and all of which Popes prior to the 1960s would not have been caught dead doing.
The discontinuity within continuity ( an actual phrase used by Pope Benedict XVI) is a bizarre idea and I sometimes wonder if the crew and actors of the TV Show, Fringe, have taken over the Magisterium.
The inertia into Indifferentism is increasing in intensity and still invisible is the puissant Prelate whose embodiment of Tradition could be a force applied to our inertia into Indifferentism.
Absent such a reality, it is left for the soi disant Catholic Traditionalist to, literally, pray for a miracle for ONLY a miracle can result in setting right what is so wrong.
The Conclave was comprised solely of Prelates chosen by Pope Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and they chose Bergolio and those who will reach mandatory retirement age (a Novelty of Pope Paul VI) during the Primus inter Pares Papacy will be replaced by those chosen by Pope Primus inter Pares and do you think he will choose as Cardinal a Bishop who embodies Catholic Tradition or do you think he will choose a Bishop after his own heart; and do you think those Cardinals will elect a Traditionalist Pope?
Of all the Cardinals chosen by Pope Blessed John II or Pope Benedict XVI (and that is all of the Cardinals who voted in the Conclave) can someone please identify for me even one Cardinal amongst them who embodies Catholic Tradition.
Don't bother trying, such a Cardinal does not exist - nor does such a Bishop exist at least as far as I know.
That being the case, please somebody tell where there exists a case to be made that we soi disant Traditionalists are over-reacting (as the Converts from Protestantism apologists insist we are) and that we should just calm down?
I ask them when are they going to wake-up and smell the myrrh?
The Brick By Brick Bund and its conservative coterie will fall in line behind this Totalitarian Humility that will dissolve even the few remaining outward signs of the once obvious Reign and Rule of a Monarch and which Reign and Rule is, with ostentatious humility, solemnly processing towards Rack and Ruin.
I guess I will have to start praying for the cause of Merry del Val, so we have a stalwart saint to implore on behalf of the Cause of Truth as this onslaught of middle-of-the-roader Vaticanistas escalates through the century. You read vaguer expressions of JPII and BXVI in their printed works, you listen to some of our new leader's new remarks, and you wonder... How on earth do people ever get fired up about the bare-bone essentials when these so often come served swimming in a faux post-Modern sauce of impossible to discern flavors and ingredients. "Love" and "humility" are rhetoircal phrases akin to overpowering garlic and curry, obliterating the necessary distinctions that give doctrines taste and defining edges.
You're right about there being a danger in externalized rhetoric about love and humility. It's the internal intention that counts, and that is something that often isn't known and is only capable of being inferred through probable hunches.
totustuusmaria,
I think a papal bull would make a nice complement to a hearty breakfast, especially if it was a bull of excommunication, and most especially if it was every day! =)
Ralph,
The two pieces that had the most substance, I thought, were the one on humility and the one on the erosion of solemnity and "socialism disguised as social justice."
You may remember that I said not only that there is little more than unsupported allegation in every case, but that in some there is "enough substance to evoke a provocation or two," and certainly instances of "demonstrated disdain for traditional forms." IANS offers an ample supply of examples beyond Montesino de Stuart's website.
These things bother me. But there are many things about this Argentine Pope that I have yet to learn. Michael Voris might be part of the Brick by Brick Bund, and despite his friendly remarks about the TLM I know that he is not personally a partisan of the EF liturgy. Yet some things he said about the Pope's first homily toward the end of this video, highlighting the connections Pope Francis drew between a failure to confess Christ and being an instrument of the diabolical, I found somewhat compelling. How such statements sit within the overall trajectory of his pontificate remains to be seen. I hope and pray that not everything that you and IANS have said here turns out to be correct, despite the dire times in which we live.
Correction: "You may remember that I said not ... that there is little more than unsupported allegation in every case ..."
The Brick By Brick Bund was created by a CPA, Fr. Z. and the CPAs of conservative catholicism are legion -The Brick By Brick Bund, Dr.Taylor Marshall, Mark Shea of CAEI infamy, Prof Scott Hahn, etc etc etc and they can all be counted on to defend every single novelty of the modern Popes, er, Petrine Ministers.
The Conservative CPAs (Converts from Protestantism Apologists) will cook the books to make it appear that the Papacy is in the profit of Tradition whereas it is bankrupt and drowning in the debt of novelty, effete ecumenism, and the inertia into Indifferentism.
Any novel act by he who exercises the Petrine Ministry will be entered into the Magisterial Ledger as a profit by The CPAs who will infer or insist that such an exercise of humility in repudiating the symbols signifying the power, privlidge, and prestige of his Divinely - Designed Office (THE most important Office on Earth) is in service to the poor and his refusal to actualise the authority of The Supreme Pontiff will be entered into The Magisterial Ledger by The CPAs as a profit for such a refusal to act will be attributed to his humility in service to the entire world.
As to the Duties and Authority of the Supreme Pontiff, the Supreme Pastor, The Monarch of the Catholic Church, he who has Universal Jurisdiction and Universal authority to Bind and loose?
Pfffft, that is SO Vatican I and we are living in the new dispensation of Vatican Two in which every single thing, and I mean EVERYTHING, must be cooked in an Ecumenical Oven - Mass, Doctrine, Ecclesiastical Praxis, Tradition, Salvation - and no matter how half-baked the product of that Ecumenical Oven is and no matter how foul that fetid food is, it WILL be treated as though it was a miraculous meal created by a resurrected Auguste Escoffier.
We Catholics have gone from the CORONATION Mass of Pope John XIII to the INAUGURATION Mass of the Petrine Ministry and the CPAs have become so inured to radical change that the CPAs react to Traditionalists standing athwart Ecclesiastical History yelling BASTA by pointing fingers at us and screaming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo
And you don't need to be told by Roger Ebert who represents the CPAs and who represents the Catholic Traditionalists.
I hope and pray that not everything that.. IANS...said here turns out to be correct, despite the dire times in which we live.
Dear Dr. Because I specalise in error, I am happy to concede that everyone will be right with the small exception of me.
And as that is the tile of a good song..
http://tinyurl.com/c3tyrhu
Mr. Duffy's voice was high, lonely, and in search of the truth even as a Catamount searched alone high in the mountains of Vermont in search of a doe for each needed the object of their desire to survive and thrive; and now both are no longer with us and we are all the worse off because of that.
IMNS, I am having a bit of a problem keeping up here. I can’t make heads or tails out of what has been going on in the Catholic world lately. Do I understand you to say that Fr. Z is not as Dr. Blosser would say a “partisan of the EF liturgy”? And do you not find Michael Voris a faithful Catholic and part of the Church Militant? I have applauded many of the things Voris has said in the past and most especially perhaps his latest video called hijacking Francis.
Donna
“The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.” -Galen
“Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear. ...” Joseph Joubert
Dear Donna. Fr Z. has many many things going for him but because he is a CPA , he lacks the Bred-in-the Bones Catholic Traditional ability of a man like Ralph who has the Traditional instinctual ability of a Lynx to see amidst a forest of theological propositions the rat of novelty and which rat is infected with the deadly toxins of novelty and error.
Fr. Z. is a fine conservative Priest but he is not a Catholic Traditionalist and his near blindness vis a vis Pope Benedict XVI is proof of that; that is, Fr Z went on and on and on about the Benedictive arrangement and treated it as though that was institutionalised and would be followed by future Popes when the plain and simple truth is that Pope Benedict XVI was exercising his personal preferences on the playground that is the Lil' Licit Liturgy with its nearly endless options and there was no rational expectation that the Pope who succeeded him would have the same personal preferences as did he for the next Pope would not be a clone.
That is, the much vaunted Benedictive Arrangement was all about personal preferences and because Fr Z personally preferred Benedict XVI, he treated his Benedictine arrangement as other than what it was - a function of Pope Benedict's personal preferences.
And, so, we've got our own selves a new Pope and his personal preferences are now being actualised and, therefore, priests like Fr Z have no rational ground to object to him acting out his own personal prejudices on the playground that is the Lil' Licit Liturgy after having supported Pope Benedict XVI actualising his personal preferences on that same playground.
As for Mr, Voris? Yes, he is a faithful Catholic, obviously, and I have really enjoyed his masculine approach to many issues.
And I do not at all object to criticism of my rhetoric. I have my own "voice" and it is a product of my heritage and having been learnt by my betters, the old timers in the hills and mountains of Vermont.
There are many things one could write about writing but my personal preferences and prejudices are such that I'd walk a mile to read something Ralph wrote whereas I wouldn't cross my room to pick-up a book by Ernest Hemingway.
Ralph writes beautifully and persuasively and one can almost see in his creative phrases and wry asides the last display at a fireworks and yet there is no mistaking what his point is and that is just another way of saying that there are many ways to write and drive home a point.
Dear Donna. Flannery O'Connor once explained why she wrote as she did; (paraphrasing) that to the hard of hearing you yell and to the nearly blind you paint with bright big bold colors and I try to ape her in that.
I am simply amazed that it has been such a short time between the Coronation of Pope John XXIII and the Inauguration of the Petrine Minister of Francis and yet that radical and incredible change - From CORONATION to INAUGURATION with all of the meaning attached to those two very different words - has been accepted with alacrity by the CPAs and nearly every single other living Catholic on Earth is fine with that massive and stunning and rapid change.
Our inertia into Indifference has intensified and a CPA like Fr Z is most upset by the few who object to this rapid revolution and not the revolution itself.
And, if Mr. Voris devotes an episode to this revolution with form in the Papacy, I'd be fast to praise him
Thanks, IANS, the check is in the mail.
The remark about protestant converts running the church [PP, you understand I am not including you in any of this] resonates. For such people, the Catholic Church really did begin with V2. How could we expect them to think otherwise? The fact that they have advanced in the church as readily as they have may be due in part to this lack of Catholic memory. They do have a PROTESTANT memory, however, and we see that imported into the Church regularly, most nauseatingly to me in the form of charismatic/pentecostal affectations. James Hitchcock, whose thought processes on some subjects have made me scratch my head, has been fairly blunt about this: "Whatever may be said about the Pentecostal movement, it is doubtful that it would have gained so much strength in Catholicism if so many traditional devotional outlets had not been systematically closed. A religion richer in folk piety than perhaps any in the world has been reduced to borrowing its most notable contemporary folk idiom from fundamentalist Protestants, A FACT WHICH IN ITSELF STRONGLY SUGGESTS THAT SOMETHING IS DRASTICALLY WRONG WITH THE RENEWAL OF PRAYER LIFE IN THE CHURCH [caps Ralph]."
Oh well, time for silence.
As a convert myself, I also find the advice of Catholics who come from a long, pre-V2 Catholic background, very different and much more about humility than the post V2 advisors who do seem more intent on a Protestant/"we are all included and important" type of thinking. Interesting developments. Think I may prefer the SSPX more and more.
In all due respect, if you remain silent where will we get our last display of fireworks?
IANS, I avoid reading any of O'Connor's works. I think she appeals more to men than to women but that is just a guess. Her works do not appeal to me.
Donna
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