Posted on 10/05/2019 1:28:16 PM PDT by ebb tide
The “Pope of mercy,” as John Allen calls him, has spent the past six-and-a-half years mercilessly heaping ridicule and demagogic slurs on faithful Catholics he does not like. The recent papal jaunt to Mozambique was no exception. After telling a group of Jesuits to form a circle of chairs around him to listen to his remarks, Francis proceeded to denounce a woman who had introduced two converts to him earlier that day and then made fun of priests in traditional dress, accusing them of immorality and mental imbalance.
Concerning the poor woman, Francis declared:
“Today I felt a certain bitterness after a meeting with young people. A woman approached me with a young man and a young woman. I was told they were part of a slightly fundamentalist movement. She said to me in perfect Spanish: ‘Your Holiness, I am from South Africa. This boy was a Hindu and converted to Catholicism. This girl was Anglican and converted to Catholicism.’ But she told me in a triumphant way, as though she was showing off a hunting trophy. I felt uncomfortable and said to her, ‘Madam, evangelization yes, proselytism no.’”
Notice how the “Pope of mercy” attributes the basest of motives — trophy hunting — to a woman who was merely attempting to share with him the joyful news of two new converts to the one true Church, of which, through a divinely permitted misadventure of epochal magnitude, Francis has been made the earthly head.
Consider how the woman must have felt to see her supposed spiritual father denouncing her before the whole world with enough indications to make her identity clear to everyone who knows her. And consider how the two converts must have felt to read Francis’ further explanation that they had been enslaved by “proselytism”!:
“What I mean is that evangelization is free! Proselytism, on the other hand, makes you lose your freedom. Proselytism is incapable of creating a religious path in freedom. It always sees people being subjugated in one way or another…. St. Francis of Assisi told his friars: ‘Go out to the world, evangelize. And, if necessary, use words, too.’ Evangelization is essentially witness. Proselytizing is convincing, but it is all about membership and takes your freedom away….
“Unfortunately, however, not only in the sects, but also within the Catholic Church there are fundamentalist groups. They emphasize proselytism more than evangelization…. The dependence of the evangelized person, the ‘paternal’ dependence, is the memory of the grace that God has given you. The proselyte instead depends not as a child, but as a slave, who in the end does not know what to do unless he or she is told.”
Putting aside the absurd contention that it is somehow evil to seek to convince people of the truth of the Catholic Faith as opposed to relying upon a vague “attraction” — yes, God’s grace does attract conversions, but potential converts need to hear the truth before they can embrace it — notice how the “Pope of mercy” also assumes the worst about the two converts: that they are dupes who have been made slaves of the Church by the wily persuasion of the Catholic “fundamentalists” Francis sees around every corner and under every bed.
Not content with hurling these calumnies, Francis reserved his worst for the traditional Catholic priests he so obviously despises:
“Clericalism has a direct consequence in rigidity. Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems. I had to intervene recently in three dioceses with problems that expressed themselves in these forms of rigidity that concealed moral problems and imbalances.”
Yes, the Vicar of Christ publicly accuses traditionally attired priests of both moral and mental disorder. According to Francis, such priests are afflicted by “exclusive moral fixation on the sixth commandment. Once a Jesuit, a great Jesuit, told me to be careful in giving absolution, because the most serious sins are those that are more angelical: pride, arrogance, dominion… We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”
Here we have the very theme of this entire disastrous pontificate: Sins against the Sixth Commandment, which Our Lady of Fatima warned are the cause of more souls being lost than any other, are for Francis mere peccadillos compared to “social injustice, slander, gossip and lies.” Yet Francis seems oblivious to the “slander, gossip and lies” in his own remarks! But this is hardly the first time have we seen this Pope committing the very wrongs he attributes to others.
And this from a Pope surrounded by homosexual corruption among the decidedly non-traditional, non-cassock-wearing clergy he prefers, including the notorious homosexual he has placed in charge of his very household at Casa Santa Marta, the homosexual predator he shelters in a Vatican sinecure while Argentine authorities prosecute him for sex crimes, and the infamous ex-Cardinal he rehabilitated despite his long history of preying on boys and young men. Then there is pro-homosexual activist Father James Martin, the fellow Jesuit that Francis has just conspicuously received in private audience, photographed for the world, at the very moment certain American bishops have raised criticisms of Martin’s subversive pro-homosexual activity.
At any rate, here is one example of the kind of priest Francis despises:
“Walk the streets of St. Joseph, Missouri, and you may have a memorable encounter with a tall young priest wearing a black cassock and Saturno clergy hat, a rosary in one hand and large crucifix in the other. The priest is Father Lawrence Carney, ordained for the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, who for the past three years has devoted much of his time to street evangelism: strolling down inner-city streets, praying the Rosary and sharing the Gospel with those who approach him.”
Such “proselytizing” priests are the future of the Church. Even by their very mode of dress, which Francis ridicules in the manner of a cheap politician, they set themselves apart from this fallen world. In so doing they create the very attraction of which Francis speaks but which is all but lost in the polyester superficiality of the post-Vatican II “renewal,” which has done everything it can to eliminate the visible signs of the Church’s otherworldliness in order precisely to join the world and be absorbed by it.
The current ecclesial crisis, unlike any other in Church history, represents an attempt to build what Archbishop Vigano rightly describes as “a new church” on the ruins of the old. The effort will fail, and the crisis will be resolved in favor of Tradition. It is only a matter of time. Meanwhile, however, the faithful will have to endure the pontificate of a merciless Pope of mercy, who almost daily embarrasses the Church with his crude and brutal polemics.
Ping
No doubt there were some popes during the Dark Ages (when the popes were often picked by and from some of the noble families of Rome) or during the Renaissance who had more scandalous lives, but I doubt any earlier pope ridiculed people for believing in what the Church has taught for centuries.
The False Prophet speaketh again. I feel sorry for Catholics who want to save this dying church. satan has settled upon the RCC to be his throne on earth.
Dear Pope Francis. Can you please tell me, in all your divinely inspired wisdom, why and how the world would be so much better if there had never been and was not now a United States?
The devil wants to capture Her and humiliate Her before the eyes of all the world. God has granted the Evil One a certain length of leash to do a great deal of damage and succeed horribly--- for a time.
But the Church on earth is both a human "organization" (composed entirely of sinners) and a divine "organism" identified as the Body of Christ.
This is the prophesied time of great tribulation. It is epic combat. It will come to blood. But we are steadfast.
"Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood." - Acts 20:28
We know Who will win in the end.
This is the Anti-Pope.
I became Catholic as an 18 year old, by my own decision, after studying religion, having no formal religious training as a child, and coming from a family with a partial Jewish heritage. I choose it after reflection, primarily because the Church at it's core is supposed to be predicated on the universalism of Christianity, and it's recognition of the foundation of the Church on Judaism and the Jew Jesus Christ.
That said, I had a Polish priest who taught me when I was preparing for adult baptism and confirmation, and he told me that faith and the Church were stronger in places at which they were under duress and/or oppression. He was right. This period of history will, it is my hope and belief, re-energize and renew Catholicism - not end it.
In this context, one can substitute Christianity for Catholicism.
Mozambique Africa
Francis is morally and intellectually dishonest.
He says (pretends I think) that evangelism if ok, but says proselytism is not. The idea is absurd.
Proselytism: the act of becoming or condition of being a proselyte : conversion
If evangelism does what it is intended to do, then just evangelism alone INVITES proselytism - acceptance of Christ by the non-religious or conversion of a belief to the belief in Christ, AS A SUCCESS OF EVANGELISM.
Evangelism invites proselytism.
Yes, individuals can find Christ without evangelism from others, that’s true. But if evangelism is right and good, and a proselyte (convert) can legitimately find Christ due to evangelism they have recieved, Francis is disonest in claiming proselytism is bad.
All Francis is really trying to do - in my opinion - is to NOT defend Christianity, or even just defend Catholicism, in his demonic idea that all religions are O.K. with G-d, so it really does not matter if Christianity dies, there will always be religion and it will always believe in G-d. If that last sentence was true, the Catholic Church and more importantly Christianity altogether has wasted the last 2000+ years, ‘cause G-d does not care.
I think there is a biblical definition of this pope.
There is a reason why lightning struck St. Peter’s Cathedral the night this Pope was appointed to the Papacy. He wants to “fundamentally change” the Church the way Obama did the USA. I am a Catholic and this Pope worries me greatly, but we have had bad popes before and survived.
Sure....Roman Catholics routinely criticize Christians on these very forums.
You’re right about the pope intending to change the church, but don’t be superstitious. Lightening strikes St. Peter’s dome all the time. It’s the highest point for miles around. Lightening rods are part of the structure for this reason.
Are you sure you have the facts correct?
Benedict announces resignation Feb 11, 2013
Francis was selected on March 13, 2013.
https://liturgyguy.com/2017/02/11/on-resignations-and-lightening-strikes/
Using your same train of thought was there displeasure with the feast day for "Our Lady of the Rosary"?
From the same article:
Having said that, it did not suffer another such occurrence until October 7, 2016 on the feast day for Our Lady of the Rosary, when the Church recalls Christian Europe’s defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto.
Thank you. Well said, as usual.
Prayers up for Holy Mother Church.
Thank you for this strong testimony.
Praying as never before. THe words keep coming back to me: stay at the foot of the Cross. Cling to His ruined feet.
You are correct. Lightening struck the dome after Benedict’s resignation, the first Pope to do so in 598 years.
However, ealgeone, what Rufus asked was, "Has any pope ever done this before to members of the faithful--subject them to ridicule?"
If what you mean by "pope" is "the true pope" (not an antipope) and if what you mean by "the faithful" is "the true faithful" (not people fallen into heresy, schism or apostasy)--- then the answer is
I don't think so.
There was a whole lot of bitter language when you look at times of schism. Thinking of the time of St. Athanasius (when almost all the East had gone over to the heresy of Arius) or the Western Schism (for 40 years after the end of the Avignon papacies) ---severe division and lots of intra-church hatred.
But no, no popes continually sniping at and ridiculing the simple faithful---- ridiculing them precisely for their Catholic culture, customs, faith and morals ---- until now.
That seems to have changed somewhat with Vatican 2.
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