Posted on 05/13/2016 6:21:24 AM PDT by ebb tide
He never says all that he has in mind, he just leaves it to guesswork. He allows everything to be brought up again for discussion. Thus everything becomes a matter of opinion, in a Church where everyone does what he wants
by Sandro Magister
ROME, May 13, 2016 – How the magisterium of Pope Francis works was explained a few days ago by one of his pupils, Archbishop Bruno Forte. He recounted that during the synod on the family, for which he was special secretary, the pope said to him:
“If we talk explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you have no idea what a mess these guys will make for us. So let’s not talk about it directly, you get the premises in place and then I will draw the conclusions.”
And so, thanks to this “wise” advice - Forte continued - matters came to “fruition” and the papal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” arrived. In which the reformers have found what they wanted.
Forte’s is not a confidence snatched by betrayal. He said it from the stage of the theater in the city of Vasto, of which he is archbishop, in front of a packed crowd. “Typical of a Jesuit,” he commented afterward with a smile.
Because that’s just what Francis does. He never says everything that he has in mind. He just leaves it to guesswork. And he lets the interpretations run, even the most disparate, over what he says and writes.
That this approach should be used in private conversations is understandable. But Jorge Mario Bergoglio exercises it in systematically in public, in his official acts of magisterium, even when everyone is expecting him to add it all up and give a clear and definitive response.
With respect to the magisterium of previous popes, carved in stone, polished word by word, unmistakeble, that of Francis is an epochal transformation.
“Amoris Laetitia” is glaring proof of this. In reading it, the German cardinal and theologian Walter Kasper, who for decades has been the most combative proponent of communion for the divorced and remarried, had no doubts: reformers like him, he declared exultantly, now have “the wind at our backs to resolve such situations in a humane way.”
But another cardinal theologian and fellow countryman, Gerhard Müller, has read the contrary in it. He has said that there is nothing in “Amoris Laetitia” that clearly overturns the magisterium of the perennial Church, which forbids that communion. And Müller is not just anyone, he is the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, the supreme court in the supervision of doctrine.
But anyone who believes that at this point Francis should clearly say where he stands is sure to be disappointed. Because meanwhile the pope has promoted a third cardinal, the Austrian Christoph Schönborn, as his most trusted interpreter of the post-synodal exhortation. A role that Schönborn is playing to perfection, with explanations also in the style of Bergoglio, all to be interpreted anew, on the ambiguous border between doctrine presented as unchanged and pastoral applications that must be new and changing.
No to barred gates, no to revolutions. But the third way conceived by Francis is anything but unyielding. Just the opposite.
By bringing back into discussion what appeared definitive before him, he has opened a process that gives equal citizenship to the most irreconcilable opinions, and therefore also to the most fiery reformers.
The unparalleled example of this inventiveness of Bergoglio’s may have come last February, when he went to visit the Lutheran Church in Rome (see photo).
A Protestant married to a Catholic asked him if she too could receive communion, together with her husband. And he replied to her with such a roundabout yes, no, and I don’t know as to give no understanding, in the end, what conclusion to draw, if not this: “It is a problem to which everyone must respond.”
It was to no use that Cardinal Müller, in the subsequent days, exerted himself to reiterate that the doctrine of the Church on this point had not changed. Because what was certain was that the pope had made it a matter of opinion, he in the first place, with his statements, denials, and contradictions.
They have their work cut out for them, the bishops and cardinals of Africa, or of Eastern Europe, or of the school of Wojtyla and Ratzinger. Cardinal Kasper has understood very well how things stand: “There is freedom for all. In Germany that can be permitted which in Africa is prohibited.”
With Pope Bergoglio a new model of Church is advancing, fluid, multicultural.
_________
This commentary was published in "L'Espresso" no. 20 of 2016 on newsstands as of May 13, on the opinion page entitled "Settimo cielo" entrusted to Sandro Magister.
Here is the index of all the previous commentaries:
> "L'Espresso" in seventh heaven
__________
The episode recounted by Archbishop Bruno Forte was reported by an online newspaper of the city of Vasto, of which he is archbishop:
> "Nessuno si deve sentire escluso dalla Chiesa"
It should come as no surprise that Forte puts the expression “you have no idea what a mess these guys will make for us” into the mouth of Pope Francis.
Fr. Federico Lombardi, the official spokesman of the Holy See, was the first to give the translation “make a mess” for the Spanish incitement “hacer lío” often addressed by Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the young people he meets. When he converses in Italian, the pope uses such expressions comfortably.
__________
On the “orthodox” exegesis of the post-synodal exhortation attempted by Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, see:
> Reading Exercises. The “Amoris Laetitia” of Cardinal Müller
But by now it is evident that for Francis, Cardinal Müller no longer matters at all. In place of him, for the official presentation of “Amoris Laetitia” on the day of its publication, the pope called the Austrian cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna. And then again he indicated him as the authorized interpreter of the same, during the press conference on the flight back from the island of Lesbos.
To the journalists, Francis presented Schönborn as “a great theologian” who “was secretary of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, and knows Church doctrine well.” Exaggerating, becuase the archbishop of Vienna was never “secretary” of the congregation, but only a member, as appears more correctly in the transcription of the papal press conference published afterward on the Vatican website.
Also viscerally hostile to Müller is Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Argentine archbishop whom Bergoglio has adopted as his own “theologian of reference” and to whom he is mainly indebted for the writing of his major documents:
> E questo sarebbe il teologo di fiducia del papa?
__________
On the visit of Pope Francis to the Lutheran Church in Rome, see:
> Sì, no, non so, fate voi. Le linee guida di Francesco per l'intercomunione con i luterani
And on another spectacular example of his meandering eloquence, concerning the American elections and laws on homosexual unions in Argentina and Italy:
> Il gesuita perfetto. Autoritratto volante di Jorge Mario Bergolio
__________
English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.
This is what I've been saying all along: this Pope has not "changed" doctrine and discipline --- in a declarative, official sense--- and never will.
Not in theory, that is: only in practice!
His studied and finely-calibrateed method of doing this is to massage everything down to a soul-killing ambiguity. Then the orthodox interpret things, as they must, in an orthodox way, and the heterodox in theirs, and nobody receives any correction or guidance from the top.
If you don't grasp this point, you have "not yet begun to fight"
And your bishop says what?
You can't have one without the other. Why can't you comprehend that?
Who says I can't comprehend that! Isn't that what we're all so upset about? Isn't that why we are even more aggravated with this Agent of Confusion every time he opens his conniving, equivocating mouth!!?
I don't usually shout like that.
So are you admitting that by changing practice, Francis is changing doctrine/theology?
Argentinean Archbishop Victor Fernández, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers; May 10, 2015
This is the very definition of corruption.
Don't you get the significance of that?
To use Cardinal Robert Sarah's metaphor, he's not throwing doctrine into the dumpster. Oh, no. He's putting doctrine in a jeweled reliquary, giving it a couple whiffs of incense and then storing it in the back of the closet behind the old altar linens, where (maybe) seminarians will still be permitted access to it if they want to write their feckless theoretical academic papers.
He's savvy enough not to officially rescind anything in the Catechism or Canon Law.
Rather, he turns it into a dead letter.
In some ways, this is worse, because the disorder, though deadly, is subtle enough to slip past the immune system.
He knows very well what he is doing
[T]he pope is convinced that the things he's written or said cannot be condemned as error. Therefore, in the future anyone can repeat those things without fear of being sanctioned. And then the majority of the People of God with their special sense will not easily accept turning back on certain things.
Please do become part of the majority mentioned above.
2) What?
Sorry. I don’t agree with you or Cardinal Sarah about Francis not throwing doctrine in the garbage.
However, I do agree with the perinneal Catholic Church Magisterium.
Sorry for the broken link:
http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2015/05/he-knows-very-well-what-he-is-doing.html
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Christian Doctrine
Taken in the sense of “the act of teaching” and “the knowledge imparted by teaching”, this term is synonymous with CATECHESIS and CATECHISM. Didaskalia, didache, in the Vulgate, doctrina, are often used in the New Testament, especially in the Pastoral Epistles. As we might expect, the Apostle insists upon “doctrine” as one of the most important duties of a bishop (1 Timothy 4:13, 16; 5:17; 2 Timothy 4:2, etc.).
The word katechesis means instruction by word of mouth, especially by questioning and answering.
:o)
Thank you.
I consider Screwtape to be an excellent analogue to Pope Francis.
Too bad Francis doesn’t agree with us.
But he can't. All he can do, if he's against a doctrine, is to neglect it, obfuscate it, undermine it, or violate it. But he can't change it. Because he hasn't the authority.
THis is excellent. I’m stealin’ it.
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