Posted on 01/09/2019 3:18:38 PM PST by ebb tide
The current regime in Rome will damage the Catholic Church. Pope Francis combines laxity and ruthlessness. His style is casual and approachable; his church politics are cold and cunning. There are leading themes in this pontificate—mercy, accompaniment, peripheries, and so forth—but no theological framework. He is a verbal semi-automatic weapon, squeezing off rounds of barbed remarks, spiritual aperçus, and earthy asides (coprophagia!). This has created a confusing, even dysfunctional atmosphere that will become intolerable, if it hasn’t already.
Every pope sets a particular tone, a party line. Benedict made no secret of his desire for the Church to recover the dignity and transcendent orientation of the old ways of worship. But he was measured and never denounced or insulted those who prefer guitars and casual liturgies. St. John Paul II’s great intellectual project was to redeem the promise of mid-century Catholicism’s turn toward cooperation with secular humanism. He sought to fuse the modern turn to the subject and freedom with a full-spectrum affirmation of the doctrinal tradition. One can judge his project a success or a failure, but it is beyond dispute that his intention was to span the gap between today’s individual-oriented ethos and Catholicism’s theocentrism.
Pope Francis, by contrast, is quick to denounce, widening gaps rather than closing them. More often than not, he targets the core Catholic faithful. He regularly attacks “mummified” Christians and “rosary counters.” On many occasions, Francis has singled out doctrinally orthodox priests for ridicule. The same holds for those who favor the Latin Mass, whom he derides as suffering from a “rigidity” born of “insecurity.” Early in his pontificate, his Christmas sermon to the curia recited a litany of condemnations.
Francis expresses little sympathy or support for regular Mass-goers and the men laboring in parish ministry. “Go to the peripheries!” That’s one of his signature exhortations. In practice, that has meant neglecting (if not attacking) bishops, priests, and laity who do the ordinary work of sustaining the Church’s institutions and traditions.
In November, Francis intervened to prevent the bishops in the United States from taking decisive action to address their failure to hold one another accountable. Meanwhile, it appears that the Vatican has come to an agreement with the Chinese government to regularize the underground Church in that country. The deal seems to allow communist bureaucrats to play an integral role in the selection of bishops.
The contrast is shocking. On the one hand, the pope slaps down men who have devoted their lives to the Church and proven their loyalty over decades of service. On the other hand, he is solicitous of the interests of commissars and accommodates them, even to the point of suspending one of the most important canonical principles of modern Catholicism, designed to protect the Church against secular control.
Ping
I fear the only hope for Catholics is for God to call Dope Francis home. The only question is whether Dope Francis’ eternal home is in Heaven or in Hell.
I mistakernly failed to publish the full article. Click on the link to read full article.
HE’S NOT FAILING. He and his clerical allies are methodically destroying the Church and advancing agendas aimed at the destruction of Western Civilization and is doing so successfully.
Coprophagia? I think I’m glad I missed that one.
God Save the Church!
The pope is a complete disgrace and disaster. All he cares about is persuading regimes to take money from those who earn it and give it to those who whine about not having money.
The Church is losing people! This man must leave office!
Francis is an anti-Pope appointed by the Pink Mafia within the Church. It is heartbreaking for a Catholic.
“This approach coheres, moreover, with the Peronist tradition that seeks to transcend ideology in the service of the people. A true Peronist is left-wing—except when he is right-wing.”
What evil has contaminated First Things?
A true Peronist is a child-molesting Nazi.
Perhaps, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ’s church!
>>The current regime in Rome will damage the Catholic Church.<<
What a stupid statement to make! Everyone on the planet who is paying attention to this fool knows that he has already caused ENORMOUS damage to the Church. Frankie can be rightfully considered the second nuclear attack upon the Church following the first one which was the Second Vatican Council!
>>Perhaps, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ’s church!<<
Absolutely correct. However, no one has ever prophesied that it would be filled with faithful Christians, and now we know why!
The way I heard it, Juan Peron was having his politically-ambitious nephew tag along with him to learn the ropes. The nephew saw him tell his Right-wing constituents "You're absolutely right" in the morning, and tell the Left-wing "You're absolutely right" in the afternoon. Then Tio Juan asked the nephew his opinion.
"Tio Juan, This is totally unacceptable!" he emoted. "You agree with diametrically opposed positions, you pretend you're on everybody's side. This is so wrong!" And Tio Juan nodded sagely and replied, "You're absolutely right."
“You agree with diametrically opposed positions, you pretend you’re on everybody’s side. This is so wrong!”
That just shows that he was a cynical liar. That’s not unusual.
It seems more important to me that he was a Nazi. A real Nazi, who supported Hitler and wanted Argentina to enter WWII on Germany’s side.
And he actually was a child molester. He married the mina (prostitute) Eva Duarte as a beard because even his supporters were losing patience with the things he did to prepubescent girls.
Peron was filth in every way imaginable, but the author seems to approve of him, and tries to find some legitimacy in his dishonesty.
The author is NOT approving of Peron. The author is as opposed to Peron as you are. AND the author is not saying "Bergoglio is OK, 'because' he's like Peon."
He IS saying Bergoglio and Peron are on the same damn team.
Excellent article! Thanks for posting.
“He IS saying Bergoglio and Peron are on the same damn team.”
Perhaps you’re right. I’ll give it some thought.
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