There is another excellent post by Ches on the latest Papal interview.
What to do?
Why not write to the two English speaking Cardinals of the Gang of 8, Cardinal Seán O'Malley and Cardinal George Pell, maybe they might have some influence over a Pope who can say, 'I have the humility and the ambition ...'.
If you can't summon up the strength to do that, pray and fast.
However, before you join Hans Kung at Dignitas, Rorate has this.
12 comments:
When I read what Cardinal O´Malley said about Church reform according to this article I think it is wasted time to write a letter to him.
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/assisi-asis-papa-pope-el-papa-28186/
I have spent all my professional life and much of my free time standing up for truth. I'm an academic and I have tried to help people who come to me upset by the relativist things they are learning. I work in human sciences and I've never knowingly written anything that confuses or relativises. I've astutely avoided liberation theology and Marxism out of love for the Church. I haven't done this on a whim, but out of love and obedience. Now Pope Francis seems to belittle my work which I thought was faithful and which I intended as a personal service, often at a sacrifice (positions I couldn't take, admonishment for not teaching certain things). Over the years, I've learned to do it well, in a genuine dialogue, with acts of charity towards my colleagues. Please, if the Holy Father is for the laity and the horizontal Church (it is doctrinally true: we are Church), I just pray he will define that relativism is wrong. I have lived my life for my faith, not just on a Sunday, but in my family and ethical choices in teaching and research. This interview makes me feel that the Holy Father thinks it in vain.
I have five comments and a warning on modernism in this papal interview, which thankfully, is an interview and not from the Chair.
This is crunch time when the laity will have to know their Faith to survive the chaos which will follow. If you have not checked out my many comments today and yesterday, if you have time, do so...God bless and stay keen
Put simply, Catholicism expanded, birth-rate apart, from conversion at marriage, and, by example of our way of life. But it was not a Catholicism generated by those who saw religion as a profession, but of a calling - a totally different ethos.
Fr Lombardi: "I think the pope's charism is obvious, as is his desire to communicate directly with people."
See,he is using the media to marshal the forces of liberalism and modernism.
Either one chooses to think like a Catholic or not.
I am 35 and my years have been spent reading and observing the two great Popes of recent times, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
I am basically ultramontane in my devotion to the Papacy.
But the pontificate of Pope Francis has been a disaster so far. The role of Peter is to strengthen his brothers in the faith. Pope Francis sows confusion and doubt.
Pope Francis' comment 'I have the humility and the ambition ..." is frankly terrifying.
I am wondering at which point we write off this pontificate and simply baton down the hatches and wait for another one.
I have heard comments in recent days that Francis may be mentally ill given how bizarre his comments are. That is how far we have come!
Oh how I wish our beloved Pope Benedict had now left us.
I read in another blog that we should not underestimate the effect this is all having on other orthodox Bishops and Cardinals who will be shaken and upset by the Pope's recent comments.
How did it all come to this????
@European Catholic: today you are expressing my feelings; perhaps it is that we are the same age and have had the great privilege of knowing two remarkable Popes. We have not had to live through anything like this before (though, I wonder, has anyone?).
I am still in deep mourning for the resignation of Pope Benedict, and the daily difficulties, even though interspersed with some great things Pope Francis has said, do not make it any easier.
I've taken the wake me up when this pontificate is over....going to Mass and ignoring what comes from Rome...so disheartening.
May it be that he has dementia? Like for real? He doesn't make any sense, contradicts himself a lot and repeats himself all the time. This is termed 'returning to a theme' but really it's just saying stuff twice, which is what forgetful people do. So are the reported rude comments he's alleged to have made ('the carnival is over', etc.)
Also, and much as BXII was evidently a man of great genius, doesn't his abdication now not look like cowardice? It's not like he's so cream crackered he can't do anything; he can still write, can still say Mass? Apparently Dante put the last pope who resigned in a special place in hell. I kind of get that now. I feel like we've been abandoned to the wolves. BXVII's pontificate is rendered meaningless by this last act, just as a father who after 20 years faithful husbandry and fatherhood runs off with the secretary is seen to have sort of undermined his good deeds.
Gillineau: I really don't think one can accuse Benedict of cowardice, given the long years he spent under fire at the CDF and as pope. I wonder whether it's not more that he lacks emotional intelligence - thought he'd done what he could, didn't have the energy to do what he thought was needed, all thought through rigorously before God, with the Church's interests at heart, but he just didn't take on board the emotional effect it might have on us, that we would feel abandoned and would rather he had just remained there, however weak and feeble. Or maybe he had some diagnosis. Who knows? But I really don't believe that he would have quit if he didn't honestly think it was the best way he could serve the Church. It's not as if he's gone off to Florida!
As for Francis: I am really appalled, but also baffled, and the only possible explanation I can think of in charity is that he does in fact have some illness.
Good analysis by Sandro Magister at Chiesa: 'The Francis Transformation'. Among other things, he quotes from the letter Benedict wrote to the atheist mathematician Odifreddi. It includes the line 'But frankness is part of dialogue; only this way can understanding grow'.
@Gillineau: I have a similar feeling regarding Pope Benedict's abdication. The sense that somehow he felt that the grace or chrism of the office was no longer sufficient seemed immediately (to me) to make it all the harder for us to continue to drag ourselves up the Calvary of living as a Christian in the modern world (which really is impossible, humanly speaking: only God's grace makes it possible). Also, I hope this is not ingracious, if Benedict had died in office, perhaps even after setting the example of suffering and spiritual martyrdom which old age can bring, his reforms would certainly have been solidified; they would have been (correctly) viewed as an outward expression of an inner holiness and strength coming from the Lord. There would have been little or no possibility of a reversal of the proportions we are (I think, though I pray I am quite mistaken) seeing. As it was the general interpretation has been that the abdication marked a "failure" and this is why the Cardinals went back to Bergoglio. Maybe.
I wonder whether people understand what it is like to get old. If one's memory is going it is simply not possible to keep on top of events in the way that is required of a Pope. I am 75 and my mind is, I think, as acute as ever but I do have problems remembering people's names and other matters - it is just that the retrieval system is slower rather like a bad line when accessing the internet. If you are dealing with people it is not much help remembering what you ought to have said twenty minutes after meeting them! I would guess that Pope Benedict thought that his powers to administer and to deal with all the problems were not as good as they might be and a younger person was needed. I think with Pope Francis we need to concentrate on what he does rather than all his off the cuff remarks; we must wait and see what he actually does in important matters.
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