Posted on 01/12/2017 2:46:40 AM PST by BlessedBeGod
Pope Francis is facing an extraordinary challenge to his authority from an ancient Catholic order that is refusing to cooperate with a Vatican investigation into the sacking of a top official over the distribution of tens of thousands of condoms.
The controversy has been simmering for weeks, but the Knights of Malta’s rejection of the investigation – an unprecedented act in recent times – has now escalated the matter...
The fight is increasingly being seen not just as a battle over the investigation, but as a sign of the increasing anger and disobedience by some Catholic traditionalists who are opposed to Francis’s papacy because they view him as too progressive on issues involving social doctrine.
It came amid tension between Francis and the Vatican’s top diplomat to Malta, the conservative US cardinal Raymond Burke...
Burke, who is known in particular for his views on so-called sexual morality, is one of four cardinals who challenged Francis last September when he asked the pope to submit yes or no answers to a series of questions about his call for priests to show “discernment” in their treatment of Catholics, such as divorcees, who live outside the church’s rules...
“Burke is becoming a real thorn in the side of the pope. I suspect he is driving this [firing of Boeselager] and it is part of his obsession with sexual morality, as if this is the decisive feature of what it means to be Catholic and faithful to Jesus Christ when in fact scriptures say very little on these matters,” said Robert Mickens, a veteran Rome-based Vatican journalist...
Burke and the Knights of Malta represent in many ways everything that the church of the second Vatican council and Francis have been seeking to get away from,” he said...
They’re saying you’re either obsessed with sexual morality or sexual depravity. Apparently there is no longer a middle ground, so choose your side.
The people who are obsessed with sex are the Vatican II crowd, including or even especially, Francis.
The Knights of Malta have every right to challenge the Pope’s claim to authority over them. They have the status of a sovereign nation state.
If what Burke stands for is what the “Church of Vatican II” is trying to get away from, then I know not what such church is... But it sure is not Catholic.
Homosexuals such as Robert Mickens are the “obsessed” ones.
Mickens and “the closet”. Fr. Z responds.
Posted on 20 June 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Robert Mickens, once a writer for The Tablet (aka The Bitter Pill aka RU-486) until he openly wrote that he wished that Benedict XVI should die, now writes for – who else – the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter).
Mickens posted a panegyric about suffering closeted “gay” (I hate the distortion of that word) priests whom he places in so many gradations that you’d think they were choirs of angels.
How horribly they are treated! What an injustice it is that the Church says homosexuals shouldn’t be admitted to seminaries! Ratzinger was a real meanie! If not this Pope, who? If not now, when?
He also outs himself.
Mickens’ piece has a lot of yak yak, but it mainly struck me as frustrated, desperate...
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2016/06/mickens-and-the-closet-fr-z-responds/
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