Monday, October 12, 2015

..... in a Vatican Brewery


Those leprous courtiers, as the Pope himself calls them, seem unable to organise a ------- in the Vatican brewery. Everything about the Synod seems to be chaotic, from the working document, to the uncertainty of the process, from the exceedingly odd choice of the papally appointed members of the Synod (one needs only mention but one name, Daneels), to the lack of coordination between language groups, to say nothing of the secrecy - if a bishop speaks he does so not as a conspirator or as a private person but as the the head of a local Church, a successor of the Apostles, the Church has a right to know precisely what he has said.

I am sure some of the Fathers must be asking, "Why the hell are we here?" There is obviously outrageous manipulation going on but who is manipulating who? The Holy Father's intervention about the 'hermeneutic of conspiracy' in the wake of the letter of concern sent to him by thirteen prominent Cardinals, published here by Magister, has only heightened the sense of confusion. Here is Damian Thompson's take on it. His Holiness has certainly produced a mess, a rather expensive one, not just financially expensive either but expensive to the Church's credibility, but the question is can he produce order of his mess. It increasingly seems unlikely.
I can't help thinking of the Pope's plea that every Catholic parish in Europe should welcome a refugee family, and yet with all the wealth and resources of the Vatican State over which he rules, only two families have been welcomed, temporarily, there. One is left with the idea of sheer ineffectuality, of words but no action. Mgr Gilby said of a certain knightly order, "they make a great deal of fuss to do comparatively very little good". In a Church where dialogue has taken the place of evangelisation we must expect only chatter.

Antonio Socci said over the weekend speaking of the Synod as a war machine, “One knows, in these times, that the German engines need to be scrapped and the Argentinian coachwork is junk mixed with Peronism and rusty liberation theology.”  and “They want to apply their disastrous recipes to the whole Church, with devastating effects on a global scale.” Socci refers to the ineffectuallity of the Church in South-America and in Germany. Why has the Pope with great deliberation chosen that the Synod should be led by bishops of failing, even dying Churches? Why are the voices of fecund growing Churches almost ignored?
Socci perhaps should be read in an Italian context, along with Magister and de Mattei that seems to growing in its criticism of Francis, which should be worrying for Francis, especially with increasingly falling numbers at Papal audiences but even John Allen says:
In other words, Francis is basically shock therapy for the Church.
Such therapy is notoriously painful and unsettling, often causing patients to experience confusion and disorientation — both of which are palpably present in some circles of Catholicism these days. Yet there are times when it’s the only way to jolt the patient out of a funk.
Psychiatrists will tell you that shock therapy should be used only as a last resort, and it doesn’t always work. It’s effective only about half the time, and even when it does succeed, its effects often wear off over time.
Sometimes shock therapy can kill the patient, especially in the hands of a incompetent unproven practitioners.

For English followers of the Synod our problem is the machinations of the pro-gay Fr Rosica, the English speaking presenter of the Vatican's not too competent press corps, has meant that a very partisan presentation of proceedings has come through to us.

What seems now to be the the main concern of the Synod Fathers is not the Kasper proposal or the homosexual agenda but the Synod itself or rather Pope Francis as the Synod's architect in chief. In the long run what being exposed is the manipulation of the Church by the one whose real function is to act as as a point of unity and order in the Church.
Our problem is if one pope can be forced to resign by one cabal, what can another cabal do?

21 comments:

Jacobi said...

I blame all this focus on beer, an essentially Germanic product.

If only we approached this problem with wine in mind.

Remember what that most prescient of men said

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

― Hilaire Belloc


But French wine - of course!

Anonymous said...

I feel that you are being a tad disingenuous, Father? I seem to remember that Card. Daneels recently outed himself as a member of the cabal ("mafia") which actively opposed Pope Benedict and preferred Pope Francis. Not "exceedingly odd" but "entirely explicable", surely?

Romulus said...

Fans of the late, much-loved cartoon strip "Calvin & Hobbes" will remember the chaotic game of Calvinball, whose sole rule is that the rules of the game are fluid, spontaneous, and transitory.

Simple Simon said...

Sincere thanks Fr.Ray for your courageous words. Likewise to Fr. Hunwicke. It is my fervent hope and prayer that all the Cardinals and bishops at the synod who believe in the Church’s official teaching on marriage, the family and the meaning and purpose of human sexuality have even more courage. This Synod is playing out the end game. In order to win it Pope Francis must be called out. He is responsible for this mess. Absolutely. There is nothing whatsoever new coming from Kasper et al. Everything that they are attempting to force on us has already been rejected explicitly by the Magisterium of JP11 and Benedict. Kasper’s boast that the Pope wants it (communion for the divorced and remarried) was an outrageous boast and also matter of fact. If Francis was not intending to change everything he would not need to be publicly acting as bully and control freak supreme. Why not let everybody have free speech at the Synod? My suggestion is because of fear of failure. Francis was put in place to deliver. And he is determined to do so. It is the authority that Francis carries as Pope that is allowing the cabal who engineered his election to work with a free hand. The call should go out to all faithful Catholics to ‘Go up with him (Jesus) to Jerusalem and die.’ Better that than to remain silent in a New Catholic Church of Schizophrenic Babbling Parrots.

Anonymous said...

I rather pity this Pope. He seems very depressive. in fact speaking from experience and from intimate family relationships he seems to be bi polar, manicly depressed. Anyone out there who is a pyschiatrist might like to comment

ALEXANDER VI said...

Does anyone take Damian Tompson seriously?

Nicolas Bellord said...

'Haga lio' says the Pope and it gets translated as 'make a mess'. Here in Portugal the etymological equivalent is 'lixo' which is best translated as 'rubbish'; it is the stuff I put in the bin marked 'lixo'. Funny thing language!

Nicolas Bellord said...

Leaving all this Synod stuff aside I have been reading Cardinal Robert Sarah's book 'Dieu ou Rien' which I see is now available as a download in English. I cannot remember when I have read a more important book; it is an absolutely brilliant account of his rise from poverty in a remote African village to being a Cardinal. It covers his views on every aspect of Church life. Every page is outstanding in teaching the Faith. I cannot wait for him to be the next Pope.

Pelerin said...

Cardinal Vingt-Trois said in one of his speeches that the Synod was 'hard work.' I can't help reading behind these words that he realises that getting agreement from all those present was going to be extremely difficult.

Incidentally four of the cardinals who supposedly signed the recently published letter have now denied signing it including Cardinal 23. The plot thickens.

Nicolas Bellord said...

As far as I can make out the journalist who reported on the private letter did not get the correct text; therefore it is possible for some of the signatories to say they did not sign THAT letter. I think we need to pray to St Catherine of Siena for guidance!

My Blog said...

I've been wondering: Jesus's and the Bible's teachings are clear on the mater of family, marriage, homosexuality, sex, etc., why would the Vatican need a Synod for them? Unless of course there is something wrong with the Catholic Church or the Synod Fathers themselves. They can try to change things but they can never change their Creator and His teachings.

Deacon Augustine said...

"Why has the Pope with great deliberation chosen that the Synod should be led by bishops of failing, even dying Churches? Why are the voices of fecund growing Churches almost ignored?"

I hope you don't mind if I rephrase that as follows:"Why has the Conclave with great deliberation chosen that the Church should be led by a bishop of a failing, dying church. Why are the Cardinals of fecund growing Churches totally ignored?"

We do know the answer to the latter question as Kasper let it slip last year: "Poor, ignorant Africans are still stuck with primitive taboos and we mustn't let them tell us clever representatives of the Aryan master-race what to do when we're sticking it to God!!! Sieg, heil!"

My Blog said...

When the secular, atheistic, and the sexual pervert world (the homosexuals, the transsexuals, the divorced, the abortionists, etc.) admire and love the Pope more than the faithful, traditional, conservative Catholics, you know that there is something terribly wrong with the Catholic Church.

Let's pay attention here, the world loves the Pope but not the teachings of Jesus, of the Bible.

They think that the Pope can change the Church and consequently, the Bible or God.

I don't know whose fault is this who gave the impression to the world that God approves homosexuality and other abnormal, unbiblical behaviors.

Is it lack of proper communication? A misunderstanding? Or a deliberate attitude and language from the Holy Father, I don't know.

There are plenty of confusion in the world. The Vatican is adding more confusion, not only among the secular world but among the faithful.

Liam Ronan said...

Bergolio can't be totally inept. He has qualified for an Argentinian drivers licence.

John Vasc said...

My own personal reading of the Synod is that its purpose was (last year) to produce a final relatio that would be even more extreme and teutonophile than the mid-term relatio manufactured by the luckless Bruno Forte. This year's Synodal sessions would then, according to plan, either be used to rubber-stamp last year's putative final relatio, or else the current Synod Pt II could have been cancelled as 'considered surplus to requirements'.
But that didn't work.
As we know, Forte's mid-term manipulation was too clearly faked, and was stymied by the general protest of the bishops. And its final relatio had to be *openly* altered by the Pope, in breaking the synodal rules on voting majorities to include clauses he 'wanted'.
This time round, the bishops showed themselves more prepared and resolute than had been anticipated by the pro-German faction, and so there had to be further gerrymandering of all the rules and - as Father Ray says - the ludicrous insistence on their anonymity has made a mockery of all questions of openness in discussion. Not merely do we not know, even they themselves do not know what many of their fellow bishops have said. But the gerrymandering has not been cleverly done, and the whole Catholic world can see it plainly, and its brighter journalists can see through Fr Rosica as well. Francis has virtually told the bishops that their views don't matter, only his do. Their reaction to that was silent but not at all compliant.

Gregkanga said...

Chaos reigns in the Vatican and subsequently in the Church in the West. The pot that has been boiling for the last 60 years is about to tip over in the West. The chaos in the in the Western world is a reflection of the reality which has been boiling in the Church and the Vatican.

Fr Seán Coyle said...

From Sunday Examiner, the English-language weekly of the Diocese of Hong Kong:
'HONG KONG (UCAN): The bishop of Hong Kong, which is the largest Chinese diocese in the world, will be not be attending the World Synod of Bishops in October, because he is past the age limit of 75.

'John Cardinal Tong Hon was not invited to participate in the Synod on Marriage and Family Life. “Now I know that I am not going to the synod,” the 76-year-old bishop of Hong Kong said.

'He explained he was told by a Vatican representative that the Vatican does not want to make any exceptions on age. Although he is past the usual retirement age for a bishop, he has been asked to continue in his position for three years past his 75th birthday.

'Cardinal Tong said he was not aware whether another representative from Hong Kong had been invited in his place or not, but he does know that he was only left off the list because of his age.' [http://sundayex.catholic.org.hk/node/2226]

Thus there are no bishops from the People's Republic of China. There are two from the Republic of China (Taiwan).

For some reason the 82-year-old retired Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel, Cardinal Danneels, was not considered too old by Pope Francis who invited him.

Romulus above referred to 'Calvin & Hobbes' A comment by Calvin in one of those great cartoon strips sums up the above: Calvin is reading to Hobbes, 'I before E except after C.' Calvin then comments, 'Weird'.

Pelerin said...

Following what Fr Coyle has said, does anyone know why Daneels has been made an exception? Either there is a cut-off point for age or there isn't. They can't tell one Bishop he is too old and then let another take part who is far older without questions being asked by the faithful.

Jacobi said...

What age is the Pope?

Nicolas Bellord said...

Pelerin: Daneels claims to have got rid of Benedict XVI and been part of the mafia that got Pope Francis elected. So it is just paying a debt? I suspect he would like to have had Cormac but I suspect he thinks VN to be just as good.

Fr Seán Coyle said...

May I correct an error in my comment above. There is only one delegate from the Republic of China (Taiwan). That country has 303,000 Catholics, 1.37% of a population of more than 22 million. [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/country/sc1.html]. Hong Kong has 547,000 Catholic, 7.7% of the more than 7 million living there. [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dhong.html]. Wikipedia gives an estimate of between 9 and 11 million Catholics in the People's Republic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_China]

The sad reality is that the country with the largest population in the world is not represented even though the Bishop of Hong Kong or the Bishop of Macao could have traveled to Rome without any restrictions.

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