Francis I on the throne of Peter

The Lepanto foundation ^ | Feb | Roberto de Mattei

[Vermont Crank]

The Church has a new Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the first non-European Pope, the first Latin American Pope, the first Pope called Francis.  The mass media are trying to guess what will be the future of the Church during his Pontificate, by looking at his past as a cardinal, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and as a simple priest.  Which “revolution” will he bring about?  Hans Küng has called him “the best possible choice” (La Repubblica, 14 March 2013).  But it is only after he has made his principal appointments and after his first programmatic speeches that it will be possible to predict the line’s of Pope Francis’ pontificate.  It is true for every Pope what Cardinal Enea Silvio Piccolomini said in 1458 when he was elected with the name of Pius II, “Forget Enea, welcome Pius.“

History never repeats itself exactly but the past helps us to understand the present.  In the 16th century, the Catholic Church went through an unprecedented crisis.  Humanism, with its immoral hedonism, had infected the Roman Curia and even the Pontiffs themselves.  Against this corruption there emerged Martin Luther’s Protestant pseudo-reform which was dismissed by Pope Leo X, a Medici, as “a quarrel between monks“.  The heresy had started to fizzle out when, on Leo X’s death in 1522, the first German Pope was elected, Adrian Florent from Utrecht who took the name Adrian VI.  The brevity of his reign prevented him from bringing his projects to fruition, in particular – as the historian of the Popes, Ludwig von Pastor, writes – “the gigantic war against the mass of abuses which deformed the Roman Curia and nearly the whole Church.“ 

[aMorePerfectUnion]

My argument is simple - if something cannot be demonstrated to be a legitimate Christian belief during the first 100 years of the church, it didn’t originate from the Apostles or the Scriptures. It is an accretion of history and probably pagan in origin. As such, it is a false belief and not Christian.

I’m fine with disagreement... I’m just pointing out that beliefs as discussed on this thread, do not find their origin in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Sccripture, nor any identified Apostolic Tradion in the original Church.

For most of these pagan customs, you must go out hundreds of years before they find entry into the church.

[sasportas]

I get so weary of these “Pope this and Pope that” threads, accompanied by all this Protestant bashing. One would almost think FR is a RC site or something. Surely not.

What makes this Pope exalting audacity so unique is it is done on a American conservative site like FR. This is the only conservative site I know of that pushes this. European Kings, emperors, popes on their thrones (the throne of Peter), absolutely foreign to what this country was founded. Roman Catholic Machiavelli-like oppression is what the Pilgrims, etc., came here to escape from, for heaven’s sake. America is the very antithesis of all that.

Yet here we have “the throne of Peter,” “Protestant heretics,” pushed here with reckless abandon. On an American conservative site, no less. Go figure.

[Vermont Crank]

Dear sasportas. Those who successfully seceded from the Protestant English Crown were , largely, Calvinists who had fled England first for the low countries before shipping-off-to Boston; they were not fleeing Catholicism.

And as for KIngs, the Calvinists were heretics for not recognising the Jesus is King of all and those of us now alive are living witnesses to the ineluctable destruction that followed the creation of a nation that refused to acknowledge and worship Jesus as King of Kings.

That action called down a curse on this country.

[ArrogantBustard]

I get so weary of these “Pope this and Pope that” threads, accompanied by all this Protestant bashing.

ROFL!!!!

Please ... take a look at post number 3 on this very thread.

Your comment comes across as more than a little bit hypocritical.

[sasportas]

Yes, I am aware of the facts you state, however, to suggest that the Pilgrims and Puritans were pro-Papacy in any way shape or form, is ludicrous. Early America wanted freedom from the religious oppression of Europe’s kings and Popes. Whether the oppression was RC or Church of England.

Except for Maryland, the one Catholic redoubt, early America was anti-RC. What you guys stand for is the antithesis of what this country is all about.

[Vermont Crank]

Dear Sasportas. Yes, I am aware of the facts you state, however, to suggest that the Pilgrims and Puritans were pro-Papacy in any way shape or form, is ludicrous

That would be an absurd thing to write which is why I am glad I did not write it.