Posted on 01/12/2017 5:57:27 PM PST by ebb tide
Pope Francis took aim at Catholics concerned with Church doctrine again Tuesday, preaching at Mass that “doctors of the law” were incoherent, hypocritical, clericalist, and lacking in real authority.
Christ’s authority was derived from His service and proximity to people and the fact “he was coherent,” the pope said in his morning Mass homily at Casa Santa Marta.
But his frequent and repeated derision of doctors of the law and Pharisees closely resembled negative assessments he has leveled at Orthodox Catholics at all echelons with ever-increasing frequency.
The doctors of the law considered themselves princes, the pope said, and they are the opposite of Christ, who had authority, was coherent, and close to people.
“These doctors of the law … these had a psychology of princes: ‘We are the masters, the princes, and we teach you. Not service: we command, you obey,’” Pope Francis stated. “And Jesus never passed Himself off like a prince: He was the servant of all, and this is what gave him authority.”
The Pharisees were detached from the people, he continued, and despised “the poor people, the ignorant. They liked to walk about the piazzas, in nice clothing.”
He said the doctors of the law were also guilty of clericalism, a pejorative term he has frequently used for traditional prelates.
“Those detached people, these doctors, had a clericalist psychology: They taught with a clericalist authority – that’s clericalism,” he stressed.
Citing Blessed Paul VI’s 1975 apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, he said, “One sees the heart of a pastor who is close [to the people]: that’s where you find the authority of the Pope, closeness,” going on to say “the head is the one who serves, who turns everything upside down, like an iceberg.”
Then Pope Francis stated, “one who considers himself a prince has a ‘clericalist attitude’ – that is, hypocritical.”
Jesus counseled His disciples not to do what those with a clericalist attitude tell them, the pontiff said.
“They were incoherent. And the attitude Jesus uses of them so often is hypocritical,” Pope Francis said. “And it is understood that one who considers himself a prince, who has a clericalist attitude, who is a hypocrite, doesn’t have authority! He speaks the truth, but without authority.”
Obliquely referencing the current conflict in the Church between her eternal teaching and proposed changes in pastoral practice, fueled by his populist pontificate, the pope said Jesus’ authority came from His being humble, close to people and coherent.
He said, “And this is the authority that the people of God senses.”
The pope’s homily remarks come amid growing concerns of a climate of fear at the Vatican under his reign, as well as increasingly frequent reports of an autocratic leadership style.
The climate of fear was observed by LifeSiteNews representatives this past November during a semi-annual Rome visit. LifeSite’s co-founders and Rome correspondent witnessed for the first time ever “a consistent pattern of widespread anxiety and very real fear” among Vatican prelates and staff.
There was fear of being removed from their positions or fired from their jobs in Vatican agencies, and also of facing severe public or private reprimands and personal accusations from those close to the pope or even from Pope Francis himself. There is also fear over the damaging direction of the Church and helplessness to stop it.
“One can sense the fear,” they were told by a high-level cleric. “It is tangible.”
There were reports of police state-type monitoring of Vatican workers and clerics, and LifeSite personnel saw hostile and obstructive handling of the press after the November consistory when probing questions of issues related to Francis were asked.
During his annual Christmas address to the Curia in late December, the pope pointedly criticized those who resisted his reforms, dividing them into categories, listing “good cases of resistance,” “open” and “hidden” resistance, and in a thinly veiled shot at traditional individuals resisting his agenda, he used the term “malicious resistance.”
This “malicious resistance” “springs up in misguided minds,” he said, and comes forth “when the devil inspires ill intentions.”
He went on to say the resistance “takes refuge in traditions, appearances, formalities, in the familiar, or else in a desire to make everything personal, failing to distinguish between the act, the actor, and the action.”
This holiday assailing echoed his past Christmas addresses where he would present his papal vision while panning unnamed opponents.
The remarks demonstrate a pattern of verbal assaults on orthodox Catholics so well established that a list titled “The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults” was compiled in recent years.
Pope Francis closed both the 2014 Extraordinary and 2015 Ordinary Synods on the Family with backhanded critiques of those Synod fathers who resisted the idea of tacit allowance of Holy Communion for those in irregular unions such as the divorced and civilly remarried, common law and same-sex couples.
In both Synod closing addresses, Pope Francis took shots at those among the Synod fathers who had stood strong for marriage.
After those who sought to uphold the indissolubility of marriage had been better organized and vocal at the 2015 Synod, the pope gave a scathing censure to conclude the contentious gathering, condemning “the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality … ”
The pope further said, “The Synod experience also made us better realize that the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit … ”
The year before in his closing Synod address, Pope Francis spoke of “traditionalists” with their “hostile inflexibility,” and who would not allow themselves to be “surprised by God.”
He also indicted those concerned with upholding Church principles as creating “unbearable burdens” and “casting stones at sinners and the weak.”
Criticisms from within the Curia of a climate of discomfort and conflict in the Francis Vatican were surfacing as early as several months earlier in May of that year. Orthodox prelates were already weary of the effects of the “Whom am I to judge?” tagline attributed to the pope and wary of the brewing storm between liberal and orthodox cardinals and bishops at the forthcoming Synod.
Tuesday’s homily also closely follows the pope’s personal Christmas-time sacking of three longtime and accomplished priests from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The removal is part of a Francis pattern with orthodox and traditional groups and individuals; it’s justification remains unknown. But reports have indicated the pope’s explanation revealed continually emerging dictatorial tendencies.
The Congregation’s Prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Muller inquired with Pope Francis, “These persons are among the best of my dicastery … what did they do?”
The pontiff is said to have abruptly ended the meeting with Cardinal Muller but not before replying, “And I am the pope, I do not need to give reasons for any of my decisions. I have decided that they have to leave and they have to leave.”
Some truth there.
"Christ’s authority was derived from His service and proximity to people and the fact “he was coherent,” the pope said in his morning Mass homily at Casa Santa Marta."
Christ's authority was derived from His Godhood.
For the record, I lived in the Rockford Diocese, but spent time with people from the Lacrosse, WI diocese from when Cardinal Burke was their bishop. He IS a man of the people, getting personally involved when necessary, with both Truth and a kind heart.
He also writes and speaks in a very coherent manner. Perhaps Pope Francis has someone else in mind.
Aren't "doctors of the law" preferable to torches and pitchforks?
Exactly.
“Christ’s authority was derived from His service and proximity to people and the fact “he was coherent,” the pope said in his morning Mass homily at Casa Santa Marta.”
That statement seems very close to a rejection of God to me.
It smacks of secularism.
Never mind what man says. Jesus says,”If you continue in My Word, then you are My disciples indeed. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”(John 8:31)
Sounds like Frankie the idiot pope is starting to lose it.
Agreed. Not to mention some historic heresies!
According to the "New Baltimore Catechism" that I grew up with, we are here :" to know, love, and serve God in this world, and in the next."
We are taught that there was a war between the angels in heaven, between the angels of Light, and the angels of Darkness, who chose to follow Satan.
The losing angels of Darkness became 'fallen angels', who then rule this mortal existence; so war is not unknown to the Heavenly hosts.
One of the basic eternal precepts of the Gospel is "Free Agency", that is, the ability to choose: choose between good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, sacred vs. sinful, etc.,etc..
Islam (translated as "Submission") is a geo-political plan of war and conquest, allows no choice, either convert or face physical death, and makes slaves of survivors.
Since there was war in the heavens, should we expect anything less in this mortal existence, against those who would have us violate that eternal precept, and take away free agency ?
Many of us have learned "to be in the world, but not a part of it", that is, to live a sacred life rather than to join in a hedonistic, barbaric lifestyle(ie.:" A Pillar of Salt").
If I am to be considered by the Pope as orthodox and an anachronism to modern Catholicism, then, so be it !
I can be concerned and love my fellow man, even if he be Islamic, but my free agency allows my conscience to not accept his sinful barbaric behavior,
and led by a false prophet who plagiarized sections of both the Old and New Testament in a failed attempt to obtain new converts.
My conscience and free agency allows me to go to war over compulsive conversion to barbaric behavior
since war is already known in the heavens and is already too well known on earth.
I don't need a religious Marxist, social justice warrior to define me as orthodox; I have core values that are unalterable and unchangeable despite my mortal existence.
Heh. Not a traditionalist alive that doesn’t consider themselves theological wizards and canon law mavens,
thank you for that ..
You just said in those two sentences that which took me more than a paragraph to say.
Obviously, the scriptures are more eloquent than I am.
Catch that? Authority comes not from above but from below.....it is the people who confer authority.
On the contrary, Jesus makes it plain that his power (authority) comes from on high:
And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Matt 28: 18
The Godhead shone through him in his miracles, in his preaching and his teaching. As for "coherence", that's funny coming from Francis, the incoherent, ranting, potty-mouth pope.
Look who's talking.......
This reminds me of what St. Ignatius once said, the corruption of the best is the worst. Nothing so bad as a fallen Jesuit.
But the reference to turning things upside down is very troubling, as it typically belongs to the domain of the satanists, who invert the cross (peace symbol), who invert the symbol of man, who ascribe to the so-called “law of correspondences”, who worship the creature rather than the Creator.
I think this Pope's tenure might not be tenable if he continues on this path.
The thing that is refreshing is the confirmation that the last 50 years has been a total theological scam perpetrated by Fabian socialist Freemason Alinskyites inside the fold. Think of the Four Cardinals as a pack of Great Pyrenees going after the wolves.
It is and that is my problem with him too. Jesus is God and this Pope is leading many to hell with their “works will get them to heaven” message.
“And I am the pope, I do not need to give reasons for any of my decisions. I have decided that they have to leave and they have to leave.”
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The fake Pope is destroying the Church and resents interference.
“Satan Must Reign in the Vatican. The Pope Will Be His Slave.”
"The bold proclamation in the headline of this article was personally witnessed by St. Maximilian Kolbe, who watched Freemasons celebrate their bicentennial in St. Peter’s Square in 1917. St. Maximilian Kolbe saw banners bearing these words amidst the revelry..."
Third Secret of Fatima Documentary: The Third Secret Foretells “A Pope Under the Control of Satan”
Interestingly, the centenary of the Fatima "Miracle of the Sun" falls on Friday 13th, 2017. Good versus evil.
“So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself.” (James 2:17)
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