UPDATE: Rorate Caeli’s diatribe against Pope Francis [Catholic Caucus]

Holy Souls Hermitage ^ | March 13, 2013 | Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D.

[NYer]

we do not need St. Francis of Assisi in the Papacy now, we need a tough administrator who will clean house in the Vatican and around the world!

Dear friend, I have a special devotion to St. Francis of Assisi. Most people associate the saint with poverty and preaching to the animals. To understand why the newly elected pontiff chose St. Francis, it is good to take a quick look at the early life of St. Francis.

Francis enjoyed a very rich easy life growing up because of his father's wealth and the permissiveness of the times. He was constantly happy, charming, and a born leader. As he grew up, Francis became the leader of a crowd of young people who spent their nights in wild parties. He attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people addicted to evil and accustomed to vice." Francis himself said, "I lived in sin" during that time. Listening to wandering troubadours, he fell in love with France. Despite his dreaming, Francis was also good at business. But Francis wanted more..more than wealth. But not holiness! Francis wanted to be a noble, a knight.

Finally a call for knights for the Fourth Crusade gave him a chance for his dream. But before he left Francis had to have a suit of armor and a horse -- no problem for the son of a wealthy father. And not just any suit of armor would do but one decorated with gold with a magnificent cloak. But Francis never got farther than one day's ride from Assisi. There he had a dream in which God told him he had it all wrong and told him to return home. The boy who wanted nothing more than to be liked was humiliated, laughed at, called a coward by the village and raged at by his father for the money wasted on armor.

Francis started to spend more time in prayer. He went off to a cave and wept for his sins. Sometimes God's grace overwhelmed him with joy. One day while riding through the countryside, Francis, the man who loved beauty, who was so picky about food, who hated deformity, came face to face with a leper. Repelled by the appearance and the smell of the leper, Francis nevertheless jumped down from his horse and kissed the hand of the leper. When his kiss of peace was returned, Francis was filled with joy. As he rode off, he turned around for a last wave, and saw that the leper had disappeared. He always looked upon it as a test from God...that he had passed.

His search for conversion led him to the ancient church at San Damiano. While he was praying there, he heard Christ on the crucifix speak to him, "Francis, repair my church." Francis assumed this meant church with a small c -- the crumbling building he was in. Acting again in his impetuous way, he took fabric from his father's shop and sold it to get money to repair the church. His father saw this as an act of theft -- and put together with Francis' cowardice, waste of money, and his growing disinterest in money made Francis seem more like a madman than his son. Pietro dragged Francis before the bishop and in front of the whole town demanded that Francis return the money and renounce all rights as his heir.

The bishop was very kind to Francis; he told him to return the money and said God would provide. That was all Francis needed to hear. He not only gave back the money but stripped off all his clothes -- the clothes his father had given him -- until he was wearing only a hair shirt. In front of the crowd that had gathered he said, "Pietro Bernardone is no longer my father. From now on I can say with complete freedom, 'Our Father who art in heaven.'" Wearing nothing but castoff rags, he went off into the freezing woods -- singing. And when robbers beat him later and took his clothes, he climbed out of the ditch and went off singing again. From then on Francis had nothing...and everything.

Francis went back to what he considered God's call. He begged for stones and rebuilt the San Damiano church with his own hands, not realizing that it was the Church with a capital C that God wanted repaired. Scandal and avarice were working on the Church from the inside while outside heresies flourished by appealing to those longing for something different or adventurous.

Soon Francis started to preach. Francis was not a reformer; he preached about returning to God and obedience to the Church. Francis must have known about the decay in the Church, but he always showed the Church and its people his utmost respect. When someone told him of a priest living openly with a woman and asked him if that meant the Mass was polluted, Francis went to the priest, knelt before him, and kissed his hands -- because those hands had held God.

---

Francis did not try to abolish poverty, he tried to make it holy. Francis was a man of action. His simplicity of life extended to ideas and deeds. If there was a simple way, no matter how impossible it seemed, Francis would take it. So when Francis wanted approval for his brotherhood, he went straight to Rome to see Pope Innocent III. You can imagine what the pope thought when this beggar approached him! As a matter of fact he threw Francis out. But when he had a dream that this tiny man in rags held up the tilting Lateran basilica, he quickly called Francis back and gave him permission to preach. So, our rallying cry to our new Holy Father should be:

"Francis, repair our church."

[trisham]

That may be the most moving post that I have ever read here on the Religion Forum.

"Francis, repair our church."

Amen, NYer!

[NYer]

Thank you, Brian, for posting the updated information. You wrote, They are usually very good but they failed miserably in the prudence, charity and sound judgment departments yesterday.

The beauty of the Catholic Church, as I see it, is its ability to accommodate the desire of Catholics to worship our Lord in a particular manner. This is a tremendous gift! It's a big church in which there are many chapels. We saw this evidenced over the past few days in the procession of cardinals into the conclave and at today's mass.

Bechara Boutros Cardinal Rai, (my) Patriarch of Antioch, for the Maronite Church

Baselios Cardinal Cleemis of the Syro-Malankar Church

Antonios Cardinal Naguib. While he was at the conclave, Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak was enthroned as patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church on March 12

George Cardinal Alencherry of the Syro-Malabar Church

There was another cardinal from the Greek Catholic Church but I can't recall his name. Each one was shown dignity and respect for their respective office.

While no one has so stated, I expect that these "traditionalist catholics" would prefer to see the entire Latin Church restored to the Traditional Latin Mass. I expect they would also like to see the pope don the papal tiara and be carried on a papal throne. I get the impression from their comments that they hold the Novus Ordo liturgy in contempt and feel the new pope should adopt the TLM as the form of liturgy he will celebrate.

Had an Eastern Cardinal been elected, I wonder how they would have reacted. In reading through some of the comments posted on that site, what upset me most were those directed at Cardinal Bergoglio's attendance at various non-Catholic worship services. Those comments stand in contrast to UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO.

Would appreciate your comments. Thank you, Brian.

[Heart-Rest]

"I always thought a caeli was an Irish dance party, but the rorate is a myst'ry to me!    Happy St. Patrick's month to all! "

- - - - - - -

"Rorate" is the way one pronounces "Great!!!" after imbibing a few too many quaffs of

Jameson

or

Guinness

Pray that Pope Francis will remain faithful to the

Faith of Our Fathers

[TradicalRC]

Now, now NYer, the article was not quite as bad as you made out. They seemed to stick to the facts which are really par for the course; the Roman Catholic Church which should be the fountainhead of charity for all Catholics will bend over backwards for the likes of Barack Obama, but has precious little outreach for her most traditional devotees. Some progress has been made under Pope Benedict XVI but I have yet to see anything in these parts. The excuse is always that there’s no demand. Try once a year and see what happens, build from there. (They won’t of course).
Most of the complaint in the article centered around the valid point that an amalgam of Novus Ordo and Traditional Mass is not what the traditional Catholics are looking for and is truly a slap in the face along the lines of “Fine. You want a traditional Mass? We’ll give you our version and you’ll like it.” Again, where is the charity?
I currently have four daughters in Catholic school and you would be appalled at the garbage that I have to deal with. I’m not talking about anything that any serious Catholic would consider radical either. “Father, can we please do Something about the grinding being done at the dances?” My words fall on deaf ears. Everyone just wants to be liked, I guess. But no one gets nailed to a cross for being nice and well-liked, do they?

[mlizzy]

Francis, rebuild my Church

[narses]

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[rwilson99]

You have the funds to rip out and build all new altars that face east? In every Parish throughout the diocese, regardless of whether or not the parish priests are competent enough to deliver the Trinitine form?

If so, Write the check.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

While no one has so stated, I expect that these "traditionalist catholics" would prefer to see the entire Latin Church restored to the Traditional Latin Mass.

Me too, frankly. And some at the Vatican apparently agree: Vatican official: "The new Mass is a passing phase. In 50 years, that will be entirely clear."

I get the impression from their comments that they hold the Novus Ordo liturgy in contempt and feel the new pope should adopt the TLM as the form of liturgy he will celebrate.

Trads can dream. I attend the TLM every Sunday and the Novus Ordo on weekdays. Someday I hope I am able to attend the TLM daily.

Had an Eastern Cardinal been elected, I wonder how they would have reacted.

Many trads have taken refuge, short term or long term, in the Eastern Rites. We attended Byzantine Divine Liturgies for 3 years. I don't know any trads that have a problem with eastern rite hierarchy in any way whatsoever.

In reading through some of the comments posted on that site, what upset me most were those directed at Cardinal Bergoglio's attendance at various non-Catholic worship services. Those comments stand in contrast to UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO.

Most trads have a real problem with the documents of Vatican II. The SSPX believes VII ushered in false ecumenism. Trads want to see the return of true ecumenism, i.e., efforts to bring non-Catholics into the One, True Church. I don't see that as a bad thing. The "ecumenical" practices of the post-Vatican II Church are not beyond reproach.

[cothrige]

I expect that these "traditionalist catholics" would prefer to see the entire Latin Church restored to the Traditional Latin Mass. I expect they would also like to see the pope don the papal tiara and be carried on a papal throne. I get the impression from their comments that they hold the Novus Ordo liturgy in contempt and feel the new pope should adopt the TLM as the form of liturgy he will celebrate.

I think this overstates things a bit, at least as I understand from reading various traditional blogs and fora. Though I am not technically a traditionalist (I have never been to a TLM since they have been banned or effectively banned in my diocese since time immemorial) I am quite sympathetic to their position and I do think what they seek is generally a good thing. On the whole the traditionalists I know and speak to online do not feel that the OF is evil or invalid, but simply inferior. They also think that the TLM is truly Catholic and part of the deposit of faith which means it should be defended and promoted regardless of whether people continue to use the OF. And while I don't doubt they would love to see the Holy Father celebrate in the EF their real worry is more that they will not be allowed to do so themselves. And, to be honest, they have a good reason to fear if history means anything. We should remember that the Mass they love was really entirely forbidden for years, and anyone who wished to celebrate according to that historic form was castigated as somehow schismatic and medieval.

What if your own church's Liturgy were abrogated suddenly and anyone celebrating it were attacked as divisive? What if this went on for thirty or more years and then you were allowed only one such liturgy a month hundreds of miles from your house, and it was suggested that this was more than adequate for your needs? And, what if this form were then required to include foreign additions which were never part of the patrimony of your church? Would you resent this? And, after years of such when a pope came along who finally made some gestures of tolerance how would you feel about bishops and cardinals who still said no to that authority and continued to block your access to your own church's historic liturgy? And, after all that, what would be your reaction if just such a hierarch were then to be named pope? I can tell you you might find yourself quite nervous. Quite nervous indeed.

We should pray for our new pope, and we should be as charitable as we can when speaking of him. I absolutely agree with this. And, it is undeniable that some have failed to do this. This is unfortunate. But, I also think there are far too many who, having never been where these people have been, are quick to criticise and attack them when they speak out of fear. I am not saying you are doing this, but I do think it is done. We need to be charitable to our pope, but we also should try to be charitable to these among his flock who find themselves in possibly frightening territory yet again.

[Salvation]

By Chris Pelicano

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Excellent explanation and post, thanks.

[TradicalRC]

Well said.

[B Knotts]

Well said! And ditto!

[ELS]

The trads have spoken!

Some trads at Rorate Caeli have spoken. Michael J. Matt is a long time traditionalist Catholic and he has written a very sensible piece in The Remnant entitled "Pope Francis".

[steve86]

Insightful +1

[noinfringers2]

I wonder if the public has designated Saint Francis of Assisi as the new Pope’s spiritual model without knowing there was another Saint Francis- of Xavier. Reviewing info on St Francis Xavier I see a very close Southern Hemisphere church person much like I see in Pope Francis. Perhaps someone has a more declared reason/purpose for Pope Francis’s choice.

[ELS]

Pope Francis himself said that he picked the name of St. Francis of Assisi. He sees his major task at hand (besides, of course, the salvation of souls) as rebuilding/repairing the Church which was a task that God gave to St. Francis.

[noinfringers2]

I read what you presented as to St. Francis of Assisi and though even not being of the Catholic faith I can understand the meaning of Saint for this Francis. However, I still think that their was/is more of relationship of Pope Francis to Saint Francis of Xavier. First of all St Francis of Assisi was of the Franciscan order while both St Francis of Xavier and Pope Francis are both of the Jesuit order. Indeed I think Xavier helped found the Jesuit order with a few other priests. Secondly, the Pastoral background of Pope Francis and Xavier are much alike especially as to shepherding the poor and living their own lives. Thirdly, it strikes me, but might be of no significance, is that Pope Francis and St Xavier are both of the Southern Hemisphere. For me as a non Catholic it is a marvelous and wonderful happening that the Cardinals chose a man who would/could by his choice bring the whole world together by simply having/taking the name of two Saints.

[Romulus]

If you’re Catholic and don’t know what “rorate caeli” means, you are out of touch with your own liturgical heritage. It’s sad when people are robbed and defrauded and think it something to joke about.