Posted on 01/28/2020 9:44:11 AM PST by ebb tide
PERUGIA, Italy (ChurchMilitant.com) Italy's chief archbishop lashed out at critics of Pope Francis on the feast of Saint Francis de Sales, asking them to make "other choices" and become Protestants if they are unhappy with the policies of the present pontiff.
"Our Protestant brethren have neither the pope nor the bishop — everyone makes his own choices. I told someone they could make the choice of becoming Protestant if you don't like the Catholic Church, if this boat is too narrow," Cdl. Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy told journalists in Perugia on Saturday, at a press conference marking the feast of the patron saint of journalism.
Cdl. Gualtiero Bassetti
"Are you not comfortable with the current pontiff? If someone does not like this pope, say it, because he is free to choose other ways," Bassetti told the Italian Catholic Press Union, lashing out at journalists unfavorable to the current papal regime.
The cardinal then apologized for his outburst but insisted that "everyone's goal must be to seek answers for the good of the Church and humanity."
"Criticism is fine, but this destructive criticism is not," the prelate added, observing that "there are too many people speaking against the pope."
Journalist and deacon Nick Donnelly told Church Militant that for a prince of the Church to tell "Catholic journalists critical of Francis to consider leaving the Church" was "a new low for the Bergoglian pontificate."
"That a cardinal archbishop would go so far as to publicly encourage schism shows how angered the Bergoglians are by an independent Catholic media and social media challenging their heresy and immorality," said Donnelly, adding:
It is disingenuous for Bassetti to reduce the crisis besetting the Church to being a question of "liking" or "disliking" Pope Francis. This isn't about a personality clash but about Catholic journalists who love the Church — sometimes at great personal cost — holding to account powerful prelates who are destroying the Church's communion by promoting false teaching.
At the Perugian press conference, Bassetti reiterated Pope Francis' message for the 54th World Communications Day on the theme: "So that you can tell and fix in memory" (Exodus 10:2), remarking that the priest and the journalist are united by their ability to "distinguish between what is good and less good, between what is right and what is poisonous."
"The journalist," said the cardinal, "becomes the voice if he can discern the cry of the least, of the poor and of those who have no voice" and so the journalist must be the herald of good tidings for the future. "For it is important that the journalist be rich in values that guide his choices and his life."
"Healthy" information represents "a great service to the person and the community" and the media's role of "communication is a vital service, even more so because people are not realizing it," the prelate asserted.
I told someone they could make the choice of becoming Protestant if you don't like the Catholic Church.Tweet
Conservative media reacted sharply to the cardinal's threat, Secolo d'Italia viewing it as "something that looks like an excommunication" of the pope's critics.
The Italian newspaper called it "an attack of unprecedented violence, if we consider the role that Bassetti plays within the Church" — as president of the Italian bishops' conference.
"Bassetti is also archbishop of Perugia. And he launches this freighted warning before journalists in the Umbrian capital ... on the occasion of the celebrations of the feast of the patron saint of journalists?" the newspaper queried.
Meanwhile, marking the feast of St. Francis de Sales, Pope Francis lashed out at "deepfake" news, calling for "courage to reject false and evil stories."
"In an age when falsification is increasingly sophisticated, reaching exponential levels (as in deepfake), we need wisdom to be able to welcome and create beautiful, true and good stories," the Holy Father said.
This isn't about a personality clash but about Catholic journalists who love the Church — sometimes at great personal cost.Tweet
"Not all stories are good stories," Francis noted, appealing for a deeper appreciation of the Bible as the "Story of stories" and "the great love story between God and humanity."
The pontiff elaborated:
We may not even realize how greedy we have become for chatter and gossip, or how much violence and falsehood we are consuming. Often on communication platforms, instead of constructive stories which serve to strengthen social ties and the cultural fabric, we find destructive and provocative stories that wear down and break the fragile threads binding us together as a society. By patching together bits of unverified information, repeating banal and deceptively persuasive arguments, sending strident and hateful messages, we do not help to weave human history, but instead strip others of their dignity.
Los Angeles Auxiliary Bp. Robert Barron also added his voice to the debate, calling for bishops to "consider exercising their authority in the digital sphere" to combat "a disconcerting number of such people on social media who are trading in hateful, divisive speech, often deeply at odds with the theology of the Church."
Barron suggested that bishops may have "to introduce something like a mandatum for those who claim to teach the Catholic faith online, whereby a bishop affirms that the person is teaching within the full communion of the Church."
Bassetti has been criticized for his anti-Salvini position and for openly supporting the "sardines" (movimento delle sardine) also known as "Sardines against Salvini" — a leftwing political movement that gets its name from protestors tightly packed into public spaces.
"We must not be controllers of their dreams and if they are good dreams, we will say we will be with you," Bassetti told the sardines.
What Tetzel did was not authorized by the pope and constituted the canonical crime of simony. But again, Luther went beyond just objecting to abuse; the Reformation was a wholesale rejection of Church teaching.
I mean no disrespect to Protestants, I just went with the example from the supposed Catholic Cardinal, had he said Baptist, or some other denomination I would have probably gone with it.
You are probably just as tired as I am of people demanding an established religion or organization change because they are unhappy with it. If you are unhappy then leave and find a happy place, that's the same guidance I used to give employees that didn't want to follow company rules. Except then I said toe the line or hit the road.
Right ... the concern is that Francis is acting like a Protestant ... engaging the spirit of the age without clear connection to Sacred Tradition. No wonder Vatican PR handlers are promoting that Francis “may” be doing a book on JP2—magisterial work that’s gone missing for years! Hope it’s true.
Attitudes like that is why there ARE Protestants in the first place.
If he is being told by these lay Catholics either to do what Christ commands, or to refuse to do to cease doing what Christ prohibits, then he ought to do it for Christ, and not on account of the ones who pressed him to do his duty.
The problem is that there is no higher earthly power to get him to do the right thing, and no apparent means to remove him.
Hey, I’m Protestant. He wouldn’t even be a good Protestant with some of the garbage he is pushing . . . not even at Reverend Leroy’s Church of What’s Happening Now (Flip Wilson)!!!!!
“Criticism is fine, but this destructive criticism is not,” the prelate added, observing that “there are too many people speaking against the pope.”
oh some words are ok, but some are not because they are destructive..is it because you don’t agree with them..hmmmm
that is destructive to anyone who is free in Christ..
no priest needed for salvation..Jesus only
brain washing... say after me...under the pope or not in God’s scope..again,,again...whos your daddy..hmmm..
I cannot go on...I will be sick...
yea so much for the absolute word of the pope...
it really becomes very tortured to believe and a healthy dose of brain washing, public censure, excommunicato, fears ..yea that’s the ticket....please...
sacraments don’t save us, a relationship with Jesus does, so I bet those words are harmful...why should the church point to itself first and not Christ.? Oh yea I know only the priest know Christ in succession from the disciples..wrong...God’s spirit pours onto all who seek Him through Christ..Church is good to attend, but man made himself too involved and too serious, giving power to fellow fools..please..
Ok then,
So the church can support communism & gay clergy, protect and enable pederast priests, and claim the holy Koran is divinely inspired, but if we laity object, then we should leave the church?
I have news for this assclown in silly robes, the priesthood and ‘leadership’ left the church long before anyone protested. - because they covered it up for decades.
Sod off.
Nothing of Man is holy, priest and popes are men, rule applies..let’s start there..
Don’t go foisting him off on us non-Catholics.
He’s one of yours until the Catholic religion officially ex-communicates him.
He’s not protesting Catholics, he’s the epitome of it, the full fruition of Vatican 2.
But I get your objection. I wouldn't take it, either.
No worries. I know you didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that we have enough lefties in the protestant church. We definitely don’t need Poop Francis.
What do you do when you’re own Magestirium and Pope advocate theology that is “deeply at odds with the theology of the Church.”?
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Following the debacle of the Second Vatican Council my friends and I attached ourselves to the Tridentine Latin Mass community in our area, and we rejected the Novus Ordo forever. Of course not everyone has the good fortune to live within driving range of a church that celebrates the traditional Latin Mass. After retirement I moved to an area that is 75 miles from closest church that has one, so I rarely attend Mass anymore.
And were could I go to be just Catholic?
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To a Tridentine Latin Mass community, if one is close enough for you to get to on Sunday.
Choices based on the word of God.
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Not exactly. Actually the choices are based on what is THOUGHT to be the word of God. Whether what is thought to be the word of God truly IS the word of God always has been, and presumably always will be, a subject of debate.
You have too much time on your hands.
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