Sandro Magister, "The Closed Door of Pope Francis" (www.chiesa, May 11, 2015): "Since the end of the 2014 synod, he has spoken dozens of times on abortion, divorce, and homosexuality [Magister provides a list]. But he hasn't said a single word more in support of the “openness” demanded by the innovators."
Related: "The Bergoglio Pontificate: 'One Does Not Get Fully Rid of the Impression of Chaos' and 'Autocracy' (Interview with Robert Spaemann)" (RC, May 11, 2015).
16 comments:
I guess this should be encouraging. But... I don't think most people have expected any real reversal, just shift in pastoral discipline. Certainly the shift in rhetoric has already happened. Francis speaks far, far more opaquely about these moral sins than he does the communal problems of capitalism and global warming. Which is why the media can more easily overlook such items. When I hear Francis coming meeting with the Archbishop of San Franciscan versus Raul Castor, I will think there has been a shift to the right. Until then, 'Loyal Son of the Church" could just as easily apply to Karl Rahner or Raymond E Brown. The shift has decisively been to the Left and to ambiguity, not mater how many 'dozens' of references we can decipher.
Suckers!!!
He has his flunkeys in place, obscure enough not to draw headlines themselves, but loyal apparatchiks of the signs of the times. No screw-ups this time.
So what does he need to say?
Your title reminds me a bit of the material fallacy of the "complex question" in logic.
If we take the statement and turn it into a question, it become: "Has Pope Francis ceased encouraging the synodical innovators?"
If you answer "Yes," then he's guilty of having encouraged them.
If you answer "No," then he's guilty of continuing to encourage them.
Most amusing.
Francis is a slug. JPII oversaw the consolidation of the annulment process and the pastoral practices that continue to destroy marriages, people and faith. He spoke against it on occassion but left it alone to destroy MY MARRIAGE and countless others. The slug Francis made him a saint!
In 1977, the America bishops removed the automatic excommunication from the American Church, which had been in place since the late 1800's, for divorce and remarriage. America remains the largest annulment machine. This encouraged, intentionally, adultery and all its crimes.
For this "apparent" change of tactic we should be happy? Why?
Not me. He is the enemy. I am required to pray for him. But he is a monster whether I pray for him or not.
He is absolutely unworthy of respect or trust. His office, he disgraces.
We have gotten what we deserve.
KARL
Would it be gloating to say "I told you so"?
Pope Francis is not going to change doctrine. The Holy Spirit won't let him. It is not because Francis is anything special but because in the end Jesus Son of Mary & Son of God simply isn't a liar.
Gloat away, Ya'Kov, you clueless ostrich. The issue has never been a "heretical" pope (one who obstinately rejects or changes orthodox doctrine), but one who severs the umbilical cord to sacred tradition by means of a new "pastoral" approach of boundless "mercy" without contrition. Just don't pull your head out of the sand.
@Charles
>Just don't pull your head out of the sand.
Why? I have been hearing from the usual suspects that "the fix is in" and the Pope is going to change doctrine and practice in a radical way. Now the Pope's harshest most credible critic is seemingly doing a 180.
"Fool me once shame on you etc"
The sand is vindicated so far over the fresh air so I think I will stay in the sand for a bit.
> The issue has never been a "heretical" pope (one who obstinately rejects or changes orthodox doctrine), but one who severs the umbilical cord to sacred tradition by means of a new "pastoral" approach of boundless "mercy" without contrition.
You need help moving that goal post there Charles? I may be getting on in years but I still got some umph.
>Gloat away,
No I'm good now.
Anyway on a serious note.
Why not take delight and joy in the fact God in His Divine Providence seems to be protecting His Church?
Why not point out to others how it is a sign of Her divine origin? No matter how close it seems the Church might get to the edge of the Abyss She will never fall in.
It's amazing to me and we need light in these dark times.
Yakov is right about our needing light in these dark times, and where faith in The Faith is in increasingly short supply as the western Church implodes, our faith clearly requires encouragement. Belief in the Church, along with other tenets of faith in our creeds, is itself an article of faith, and it's not the easiest time for many today to believe in Her.
As the Catechism says, She has the Holy Spirit as her "soul." Yet she also has as her "body" men with feet of clay, like St. Peter who denied our Lord thrice.
What Charles or anyone else here would say, I'm not sure, but I would contend that we need BOTH (1) to maintain and pray for faith in the supernatural dimension of the Church, the infallible promises of Christ, etc., AND (2) to maintain a vigilant awareness of the empirical realities of the all-too-human politics involved in the natural dimension of the Church.
St. Augustine said that "He who created you without your cooperation will not save you without your cooperation" (Sermon 169, 13). Likewise, while the Holy Spirit is the "soul" of the Church and infallibly guides and preserves Her, He will not do it without our cooperation.
We can't sit back on our laurels and expect the Holy Spirit to do all the work for us. He acts through our decisions, prayers, and those of our leaders, for better or worse.
When he was still a cardinal, Papa Ratzinger was aked on Bavarian TV whether the Holy Spirit is responsible for papal elections. He responded:
"I would not say so ... I would say that the Spirit ... like a good educator ... leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us.... Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.... There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!"
That sounds about right.
In other words Doc it's not either/or but both/and.
Classic.
Cheers.
I think the most pressing issue is not the hypothetical "shifts" or "changes" in "doctrine" that Francis and Co. will or will not make, but rather how his recklessness heretofore--and, with Francis, give it a week--has in and of itself endangered SOULS, and who knows to what fate. As Sheldon suggests, any putative "change for the better" is itself proof that a change was needed, and away from the past two years of, well, "the Francis effect." The Church will outlast him or any other prelate, but the same cannot be said about the vast number of souls who have already been emboldened in their errors, or, at least, deadened to their need for repentance.
I don't know Elliot?
(I read your link)
Rod left a Church under St John Paul II that had a sex abuse problem and joined one that had a similar problem & he refused to see the disconnect.
Also the schismatic church he joined has no central authority to bring about wide spread change.
Also Dreher openly admitted his "conversion" to eastern orthodoxy wasn't reason based and he didn't want to debate the issue.
Augustine said there is no excuse for Schism even if it is admitted the Church is being ruled by wicked and sinful men.
I would say the current problem is a very old problem that goes back even before the convenient trad whipping boy of Vatican II.
People simply refuse to reason.
"People simply refuse to reason."
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
Look whos talking.
>>Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
>Look whos talking.
Who are you & what reasoning have you presented to me in the past that I have rejected?
Unlike Rod who refused to debate his decision to leave the Catholic Church for the dissident eastern so called Orthodox Church I don't usually turn down an opportunity to debate.
No. You dont lisen to other people's arguments, but keep repeeting yorself like a brokn recrd. You talk with out lisning (S&G).
@ Dark Horse
At best I have not been convinced by specious or bad reasoning and I might have repeated arguments that have been repeatedly ignored or my opponents have dodged.
Never the less I am at your connivence. Put forth your argument on some topic in which I allegedly refuse to employ my reasoning faculties.
Otherwise you my friend are nothing more than sound and fury.
"nothing more than sound and fury"
Ha. No more than you.
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