There is something strange going on in the Vatican

LifeSiteNews ^ | Mon Oct 07, 2013 | Hilary White, Rome Correspondent

[Brian Kopp DPM]

There is something strange going on in the Vatican

by Hilary White, Rome Correspondent

• Mon Oct 07, 2013 18:28 EST

  ROME, October 3, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – I don’t know if I’m the only one to have noticed, but there seems to be something strange going on in the Vatican. No, I’m not talking about all that, at least not directly. I’m talking about the strange, long, almost awkward and, dare I say it, embarrassed silence, that has reigned from the Vatican’s press office on all of Pope Francis’s extraordinary statements and actions since his election.

  I’m not going to go into all the details of the comments made by Pope Francis in the press – starting with his blockbusting plane interview on the way home from Brazil – which I’m sure most readers know well enough by now.

  

  Fr Lombardi answering questions from reporters

  We have all seen the fallout. Homosexualist activists thanking Francis for “softening the Church’s policy on homosexuality”; the National Abortion Rights Action League thanking Pope Francis for… no one seems quite sure what; and even an atheist US talk show host declaring Francis an atheist.

  Through all this, although the full Italian texts of the two interviews have been posted to the website of Vatican Radio, there has been nothing in the way of official clarifications, corrections, or even thunderous denials from the Sala Stampa.

  In the nearly ten years I’ve been covering Vatican and Catholic-related news, through three papacies now, I don’t remember a time when the uproar caused by things a pope is saying and doing has reached so deeply into the minds of orthodox believers. These are the people who adhere to and defend all the teaching of the Catholic religion as a coherent and indivisible whole, and who have always relied on clarity and vigorous defence of the faith from Rome.

  Catholic believers have understood their task well over the last few decades of this war of ideas; to patiently and articulately correct the claims made by the secular progressivists in the media. We have been able to do this because, thanks to the clarifying of doctrine and strengthening of the Church over the last two papacies, we have been confident about the ground we stood on.

  But in recent months, around the world, with either dismay and anxiety, or with triumphant whoops, this pope’s statements – first to the Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica and now to the Italian atheist celebrity Eugenio Scalfari – have been interpreted as nearly a declaration that the Church will change to suit the tastes of the “progressivists,” liberals and secularists. And for weeks, there was nothing; no clarification, no corrections or denials at all from inside the Vatican’s walls. The Catholic world outside was starting to wonder just what is going on in there. 

  Nothing, that is, until last Thursday, when, after a Sala Stampa (Holy See Press Office) press conference about the first meeting of Pope Francis’ new council of cardinals, Fr. Federico Lombardi stammered out a few words in response to a deluge of reporters’ questions.

  Despite the fact that they certainly must have known what was coming, we had nothing but the Holy See’s press officer and the de facto papal spokesman metaphorically dropping his gaze and shuffling his feet. The pope, Fr. Lombardi said, was speaking in a “conversational” or “colloquial” manner, and his statements were not “a magisterial document”…

  Not only was there no comment or clarifications in the prepared remarks at that press conference, Fr. Lombardi had nothing prepared for what he must have known would be the main point of interest for journalists. He seemed, simply, to be caught off guard.

  Now Scalfari himself has admitted this weekend that he neither recorded nor took notes during the conversation, and that the “interview” that was published had been reconstructed from memory. However, Scalfari and Lombardi have both insisted that Pope Francis was shown the final text and approved it, although it is not “clear how closely the Pope read it”.

  This revelation was followed on the weekend by a letter produced by Fr. Thomas Rosica, signing not as a Vatican spokesman but as head of Salt and Light Catholic Television Network, who summed up a few of the revelations about the Scalfari interview that had come to light elsewhere.

  The interview, Fr. Rosica said, was “after-the-fact reconstruction” and so “run[s] the risk of either missing some key details or conflating various moments or events recounted during the oral interview”.

  Fr. Rosica affirmed again, however, that the Scalfari interview was “trustworthy overall” but admitted, “Nevertheless, some minor, unprecise details have caused a stir among you.” Among the possible “‘conflation’ of facts, details and sequence of events” on the night of his election, were questions about “a so-called ‘mystical experience’ of Pope Francis on the night of his election to the Papacy.”

  But that was it. We are left to ourselves to try to understand all the rest of Pope Francis’s remarks and actions that have astonished, confused and alarmed Catholics around the world for the last six months. Writing for the National Catholic Register, Rome correspondent Edward Pentin summed up the dissatisfaction of many observers, commenting, “[T]he picture emerging is of a Pope who does whatever he wants with little or no consultation with his closest aides.” The pope, one inside source said, is “viewed as being ‘totally unpredictable,’ preferring to do things arbitrarily and on his own”.

  But many of us Vatican-watchers are also left wondering what is going on inside the Press Office. The brevity and off-the-cuff, essentially reactive character of their very few responses to date do indicate one thing that they were probably not intended to convey. That is, it seems the usual paths of communication within the Vatican, and their “control over the message” have broken down.

  One local Rome reporter told me, “I think they must be embarrassed that the interview went ahead as it did. I asked Fr. Lombardi if anyone else sat in on the interview. No reply. It raises an ominous question: if there is this much confusion and bewilderment out here, is it possible that the same confusion reigns in there?

  Meanwhile, the “clarifications” from Fr.’s Lombardi and Rosica leave unanswered the numerous questions about Pope Francis’s statements.

  Hundreds of articles and editorials, and easily thousands of blog posts have asked, Did Pope Francis really mean that there has been too much emphasis on abortion, the nature of the family, marriage and sexuality? Who "reprimanded" Francis for not talking about these issues? Are youth unemployment and the loneliness of elderly people really the most urgent issues facing the Church? Does that mean that the killing of 50 million unborn children a year around the world, the growing threat of legalised euthanasia, the global population control movement… really should take a back seat to our economic or even emotional troubles?

  Is the pope, the Vicar of Christ, saying that focusing on these issues in the public sphere is a distraction from the true aims of the Church of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

  What does he mean by the Church being caught up in “small rules”? What did he mean when he said that “God is not a Catholic”? Or that “Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good”?

  There can be no doubt that this is all having a profound effect on faithful Catholics out there. Ordinary Catholics are asking hard questions, and expressing their grave concerns. Typical of such comments was one that I found most poignant on the ‘blog of Fr. Dwight Longenecker, one of Pope Francis’ strongest supporters:

   “I find this interview very hard. I have accepted that this is the Holy Father's personal view, and that it is not infallible, but this interview is challenging my prior notion of what devotion to the Papacy meant because previously I would not have selected what the Popes said but assiduously read things like this. I can't get past the cognitive dissonance.”

  There seems little point in debating over what it’s all about. The possibilities have been explored as far as we can take it from out here. As LSN managing editor Steve Jalsevac said the other day, we’ve seen all we need to see of speculation about “what the pope really meant…” or “what the pope could not possibly have meant…”. As he said, all of this might be cathartic for some, but ultimately only Pope Francis can clarify what he really meant. And he isn’t.

  Last week he was in Assisi and in that highly public forum with the press corps following and waiting, there has not been any hint that he is aware of the enormous uproar among the faithful that has resulted from his words.

  For fifty years, Catholics have relied upon a system in which every word spoken or written by a pope, or for that matter by any office of the Vatican, has been carefully examined and vetted through the appropriate Vatican dicasteries for conformity to Catholic teaching. It has been this system, almost as much as the personal commitment of the last two popes to the defence of the sanctity of human life, that has given Catholics the confidence, the solid doctrinal ground they needed to fight the good fight. 

  That collaborative process of vetting and doctrinal precision, of caution, care and commitment to the internal theological and doctrinal coherence, has produced some of the most important documents to the life and family issues of the last century. These statements, taken together, could be seen as a kind of constitution of the international pro-life movement: Humanae vitae, 1968, on artificial contraception; Donum vitae, 1987, and Dignitas Personae, 2008, on artificial procreation and new reproductive technologies; Evangelium vitae, 1995, on abortion and euthanasia; the Charter of the Rights of the Family 1983.

  But the evidence is mounting that that system has broken down or simply been rendered moot. If Pope Francis is now just calling up journalists himself (if that story is to be believed) and bypassing the process by which papal statements were vetted, clarified and perfected, then what can we expect next?

  We also know that the same system that kept ambiguity or confusion from causing problems among the faithful, also restrained those members of the hierarchy who were inclined, for whatever reason, to back away from the Church’s teachings. It will not have failed to cross the minds of a certain kind of prelate and priest that there now appears to be no one minding the store and that some things may now be said and done with less fear of corrective action.

[apillar]

Pope Francis is stepping on a lot of the toes of the true powers that be in the Vatican. I really wouldn’t be surprised if one day he is found dead in his quarters under mysterious circumstance like Pope John Paul I....

[yldstrk]

The Pope needs keep his trap shut because he is proving to be someone who cannot think straight.

[Uncle Miltie]

So the early fears of a “Social Justice” socialist pope were right or wrong?

[cuban leaf]

The Pope needs keep his trap shut because he is proving to be someone who cannot think straight.

---

Why did god choose him then?

[Brian Kopp DPM]

No one knows for sure yet. He may be a great saint, he may be an anti-pope. Only time will tell. Everyone needs to pray, fast, sacrifice and be vigilant.

[cherry]

these are dark days....I can truly see underlings changing the words or phrases that the Pope has said and publicize them...

dark days...

[yldstrk]

well I am sure God can bring good out of it, but I am not sure of anything else

[Jeff Chandler]

This article sums things up very well.

[seeker41]

Something very wrong here...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2013/10/my-interview-with-pope-francis.html

Pope says in interview from above link:

Proselytism is solemn nonsense. It makes no sense. I recently had an interview with the Italian atheist Alfredo Sauce and I assured him that I did not want to convert him.

I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

[Dutchboy88]

"well I am sure God can bring good out of it, but I am not sure of anything else"

How did you come to this conclusion?

[pgkdan]

I'm in no position to judge the Pope but in my estimation many of his comments border on heresy. People keep making excuses for him claiming that liberals and secularists are twisting his words to advance their aims, but as the article points out, if there's twisting going on there is absolutely no Vatican effort to 'untwist'!

It seems to me that this pope is saying exactly what he wants to say and his words are being interpretted exactly as he wants them interpretted.

[Alex Murphy]

I don’t know if I’m the only one to have noticed, but there seems to be something strange going on in the Vatican. No, I’m not talking about all that, at least not directly. I’m talking about the strange, long, almost awkward and, dare I say it, embarrassed silence, that has reigned from the Vatican’s press office on all of Pope Francis’s extraordinary statements and actions since his election....

....In the nearly ten years I’ve been covering Vatican and Catholic-related news, through three papacies now, I don’t remember a time when the uproar caused by things a pope is saying and doing has reached so deeply into the minds of orthodox believers....for weeks, there was nothing; no clarification, no corrections or denials at all from inside the Vatican’s walls. The Catholic world outside was starting to wonder just what is going on in there. Nothing, that is, until last Thursday...Not only was there no comment or clarifications in the prepared remarks at that press conference, Fr. Lombardi had nothing prepared for what he must have known would be the main point of interest for journalists. He seemed, simply, to be caught off guard....

....Scalfari and Lombardi have both insisted that Pope Francis was shown the final text and approved it, although it is not “clear how closely the Pope read it”.

Ping for later

[Brian Kopp DPM]

From the interview of Pope Francis Pope:

“The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old."

From Cardinal Ratzinger:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the -application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia" (WRHC 3).

I want BXVI back.

[Boogieman]

Alfredo Sauce?!? Is that actually a person’s name, or is the Pope talking to his dinner?

[livius]

Only God, working through Jesus Christ, converts people. Proselytism is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and we all know how convincing that is! Or what the Muslims do, converting by force.

Even when the Spanish evangelized the American Indians, the Indians did not have to convert. Those tribes that didn’t could still enter into a treaty with Spain. But the Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican missionaries managed to convince most of them to convert by telling them about the freedom and peace found in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

And as for the knowledge of good and evil by even non-Christians, that’s essentially another way of saying “natural law,” which is because man is made in the Image and Likeness of God and has this law engraved on his heart.

Whether a person ignores it or is blinded to it by an evil ideology that exalts things contrary to it (such as Islam or Communism), this natural law exists and can be discovered by the conscience, the built-in moral sense of mankind.

[Mikey_1962]

No one knows for sure yet. He may be a great saint, he may be an anti-pope.

Petrus Romanus?

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Thanks for that link. These are dangerous days we are living. We all must be alert, watch and pray.

My Interview With Pope Francis

October 1, 2013 By Fr. Dwight Longenecker 32 Comments

I was sitting at my desk when my secretary knocked on the door. I could see she was excited and breathless. “I have the Pope on the phone for you!”

“Your Holiness, this is unexpected!”

“I would like you to have a dialogue with you. However, since you are in the United States I would like this interview to take place in your mind. This is a chance for you, as one of my priests, to ask me questions.”

“Your Holiness, I am honored.” The interview began.

The room I sat in was simply furnished. There was a chair, a desk and a religious picture on the wall. I had a glass of water.

In my mind the Pope entered the room. He was dressed in white.

Holiness, allow me first of all to thank you for the honor of conducting an interview with me. I am, after all, only a convert, and one of your humble priests. My first question to you is about the importance of the New Evangelization. How shall we convince a new generation of the love of Christ and convert them to the Catholic faith?

Proselytism is solemn nonsense. It makes no sense. I recently had an interview with the Italian atheist Alfredo Sauce and I assured him that I did not want to convert him.

I see. You will forgive me as I am a convert from the Protestant tradition, and when I was in Sunday School I learned the story of Jesus  Christ calling his apostles to be fishers of men. I also recall the Lord’s words, “Go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Holy Father, how shall we understand the command of the Lord to his apostles if proselytism is nonsense? But then, perhaps I have misunderstood your words and there is a deeper meaning?

I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

I see. So perhaps it is not so important to convert people to the Catholic faith? What then is our mission? Simply to make the world a better place? 

“Yes, that is the purpose of our mission: to identify the material and immaterial needs of the people and try to meet them as we can. Do you know what agape is?”

Yes, I know.
“It is love of others, as our Lord preached. It is not proselytizing, it is love. Love for one’s neighbor, that leavening that serves the common good.”

Perhaps the translation from Italian was faulty, but am I to understand that as a Catholic priest then, you would advise me to simply love people and make the world a better place and not seek to convert anyone?

The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you.

What a beautiful thought. I am sure something is being lost in translation, but it seems theologically imprecise to speak of “the Son of God becoming incarnate in the souls of men” How does one “become incarnate” in the soul?  So the important thing is for people to have a feeling of brotherhood. I can see why non-believers are pleased with this message because it is something with which they can agree!

Please forgive me Holy Father for being obtuse and simplistic, but I am reminded of the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus in the third chapter of John’s gospel. The Lord said to Nicodemus that it was necessary for a person to be born again of water and the spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God. He went on to say that through his coming death on the cross–when he would be lifted up– all who believe in him would be saved. He then says in verse 18 that those who do not believe are already condemned. I have always understood that the default setting of all human beings is that they are condemned unless they believe in Christ, and the church therefore has the imperative from Christ himself to preach the gospel and call men and women to repentance and faith. Was this not the primary mission of Peter the Apostle, and is it not therefore your primary mission as his successor? But perhaps I have misunderstood.

God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us… our species will end but the light of God will not end and at that point it will invade all souls and it will all be in everyone.”

I believe Tielhard deChardin was a Jesuit also was he not? Holiness allow me to ask you a question concerning your earlier words, you said that Jesus said, “I will show you the way.” Perhaps it is lost in translation and I have misunderstood the Scriptures, or perhaps I am being too picky, but I believe Jesus said not that he would “show us the way” but that he IS the way. This would seem to be an existential claim which places him above all other teachers or mentors who merely claim to show the way. Have I misunderstood your teaching here? 

Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.

Those are beautiful sentiments, and as St Paul teaches “the greatest of these is love”. However, I have always understood that Jesus Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to the Father except through him” This indicates something different than simply loving our neighbor as ourself or following the path of a wise religious teacher. There is first of all an existential encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. In your other interviews and homilies you have spoken of the importance of that primary encounter with the living Jesus Christ, so perhaps I have misunderstood what you are saying here. Surely you are not telling me as one of your priests that all I need to do is be kind and loving to others?

“there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor,Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.”

The conscience is a valuable guide, but as Chief Pastor isn’t it your responsibility to help form the consciences of your flock with clear moral teaching? 

I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them.

I must continue to listen and learn from you Holiness. I understand that your recent conversation with an atheist should not be understood as definitive church teaching. It was no more than a personal conversation.

I am grateful for your interviews with atheists, but I must admit to being confused by many of your answers. What I have gathered from this most recent interview is that all people will be saved in the end, and that it is good enough for everyone to simply follow their conscience and be loving to others.

My final question is this – if you really are saying that following one’s conscience is good enough and one does not need to be converted, that belief in Jesus Christ is optional and that in the end all will be saved–then why should I continue be ing a Catholic priest? Indeed why should I continue to be a Catholic?

Transcendence remains because that light, all in everything, transcends the universe and the species it inhabits at that stage. But back to the present. We have made a step forward in our dialogue. We have observed that in society and the world in which we live selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.”

Thank you for meeting with me Holy Father. I want to continue to learn from you, but may I leave you with a simple question? As you continue to meet with atheists and unbelievers will you also take time to meet with those of your flock who find your personal views difficult to understand?

Many of us are ordinary Christians who love Jesus Christ and believe the plain words of Scripture. When we read what you are saying some of it seems to contradict the words of Jesus himself. I hope you will take time to explain them for us and help us to understand.

UPDATE: Sister Anne provides some help with what seems to be an unclear translation of some of the Italian in the latest papal interview here: Jimmy Akin analyzes the Pope’s interview here.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

That quote was from a startlingly well done piece of satire.

[informavoracious]

Almost like he is the Obama of popes. He says ambiguous statements that people project their own wishes on. Yet he says that be conforms with the beliefs of the Church.