This book came out before IL PAPA DITTATORE, but for some reason, it has not had much media play – I have seen no mention of it in the usual Anglophone
sources of papal news - and I have read no reviews of it till this one. My first reaction, of course, to reports about the book was surprise that anyone would
think it necessary to write a separate 'intellectual biography' which is usually and necessarily covered in all biographies of him and other popes in our time
that necessarily include their formation and preparation before they became pope. There have been dozens of such books about Bergoglio, in which the deficiency
of material regarding his intellectual formation reflects what is probably the man's fundamental lack of interest in ideas as such, only in those ideas that he can
put to good use to promote his personal agenda. Moreover, the fact that he decided not to complete his doctorate in theology by abandoning his proposed thesis
on Guardini after just a few months of preparatory work says something about his personal mental discipline, or lack thereof.
His immediate predecessors from Pius XII to Benedict XVI all had considerable intellectual heft. And although John XXIII and John Paul I were not particularly
renowned for 'intellect', neither of them were intellectual lightweights. Both were well-prepared and well-read popes who also wrote revelatory texts about
themselves and their formation before they became pope - Papa Roncalli with his 'Journal of a Soul', and Papa Luciani with his book Illustrissimi ("To the
Illustrious Ones"), "a collection of letters penned by him in previous years, whimsically addressed to historical and literary figures such as Dickens, G. K. Chesterton,
Maria Theresa of Austria, Saint Teresa of Avila, Goethe, Figaro, Pinocchio, the Pickwick Club, King David and Jesus, written in very clear and simple, yet often witty
language, as a way of relating elements of the Gospel to modern life". Yet no one has thought it necessary to write an 'intellectual biography' of them.
Imagine the challenge of even attempting an intellectual biography of Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, whose intellectual and spiritual formations
were panoramic and profound in their sources and influences! One gathers that this book on Bergoglio is an attempt to give him some intellectual weight compared
to his predecessors, though unlike them, as the following review suggests, he has not really adopted much from his 'teachers', so what's the point in citing them
other than to suggest reflected glory by mere association?
A new book tells us
all of Bergoglio teachers
even if he goes his own way
December 7, 2017
After the many narrative biographies of Pope Francis, here is the first one thatbears the title of “intellectual biography.” Its author, Massimo Borghesi, is professor of moral philosophy at the University of Perugia and has been very close to Jorge Mario Bergoglio since long before he was elected pope, on a par with that circle of friends whose best-known name is that of the vaticanista Andrea Tornielli, all of them belonging to the Roman branch of Communion and Liberation that was headed by the priest Giacomo Tantardini.
But in addition to coming from Borghesi’s pen, this book is also the offspring of the spoken word of Pope Francis himself, who on four occasions - the two most recent being on March 13, 2017, the fourth anniversary of his pontificate -
sent to the author audio recordings that are repeatedly cited in the text and all aimed at identifying the sources of his formation.
It is a biography, therefore, that is in part an autobiography as well. And it is motivated precisely by a revelation made here for the first time by Bergoglio himself, according to whom, at the origin of his thought is the French Jesuit theologian Gaston Fessard - a brilliant scholar of Hegel without being a Hegelian - with his 1956 book on the “dialectic” of the “Spiritual Exercises” of Saint Ignatius.
It is in fact above all from Fessard - as Borghesi confirms and substantiates - that Bergoglio got his markedly antinomian thinking, so fond of contradictions.
[Antinomianism is the belief held by some Christians that they are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law.] But then came other prominent authors to reinforce this way of thinking, Erich Przywara and Henri de Lubac, both of them also Jesuits; Alberto Methol Ferré, an Uruguayan philosopher; and above all, but belatedly, Romano Guardini, with his youthful 1925 essay entitled “Der Gegensatz,” (Polar opposition) on which Bergoglio wanted to base his doctoral thesis during the few months he spent in Germany in 1986, a thesis that was quickly dropped and never written.
Borghesi deftly illustrates the thinking of these great theologians and philosophers. To them he adds, among the inspirations to whom Bergoglio himself says he is a debtor, other first-rate stars like Michel de Certeau and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
And he does all he can to demonstrate how in the writings of Bergoglio both far and near in time, before and after his election as pope, the genius of his teachers lives again. But it is precisely in this transition/translation from the teachers to their disciple that Borghesi’s reconstruction is most debatable.
It is truly arduous, for example, to identify the mature fruit of Fessard’s “dialectic” or Guardini’s “polar opposition” in the four “postulates” that Pope Francis placed at the center of the agenda-setting text of his pontificate, the exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium,” and reissued in the encyclical “Laudato Si'” and at the beginning of that other exhortation of his which is “Amoris Laetitia.”
It is true that Francis himself revealed three years ago, to the Argentine authors of another biography of his, that the chapter of “Evangelii Gaudium” with the four postulates is the transcription of a passage from his uncompleted doctoral thesis on Guardini.
But to see how this student exercise of his - an exercise now upgraded as pontifical magisterium - inevitably falls apart if it is subjected to the slightest elementary analysis, one gets the impression that the gap between Bergoglio and his celebrated teachers is truly very profound:
> The Four Hooks On Which Bergoglio Hangs His Thought
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351301bdc4.html?eng=y
> Bergoglio Too Has His Non-negotiable Principles
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351361bdc4.html?eng=y
The first of the four postulates, in fact, the one according to which “time is greater than space,” simply means that Pope Francis wants the evolutionary “processes” dear to him to win over the static apparatus of power, ecclesiastical and not.
While the third postulate, according to which “realities are greater than ideas,” is nothing other than a repackaging of the pseudoconciliar commonplace stating the primacy of orthopraxy over orthodoxy, or in other words, of the priority of the “pastoral” over doctrine.
As for the nature of the Church as
complexio oppositorum, meaning a combination of institution and event, of mystery/sacrament and word, of individuality and community, of interiority and public worship, the pontificate of Francis shows how
he does not at all love this reciprocal enrichment between opposites, but on the contrary wants to suppress or disregard that which in one or the other opposition he sees as static or obsolete.
His coldness toward the liturgy is plain for all to see, as is his insensitivity to the category of the beautiful and
his under-appreciation [the more accurate term would be 'disdain'] of doctrine and institution.
It must be said - and Borghesi recognizes this - that Bergoglio never studied and assimilated the entire work of his teachers, but has only read a few isolated things, taking pointers from them in his own way. And this explains the non-homogeneity of his writings, magisterial as well, in which he combines the most diverse materials. [What Magister calls ‘non-homogeneity’ is really intellectual (and consequently verbal) incoherence that has been the hallmark of Bergoglio’s logorrhea, and this is the result of a mind that lacks system and discipline outside of the man’s specific obsessions which are for the most part erroneous.]
But it explains even more the gaping discrepancy between his illustrious teachers and the concrete figures of whom Pope Francis avails himself as his confidants and ghostwriters: from the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, a rhetorical yarnspinner, to the Argentine Víctor Manuel Fernández, a theologian with a less than mediocre reputation, who revealed himself to the world with a first work entitled “Sáname con tu boca. El arte de besar" (Heal me with your mouth: The art of kissing) and yet was encouraged by his friend who had become pope to go so far as to transcribe into “Amoris Laetitia” whole sections of his confused articles from a dozen years before, on family morality.
[It says volumes that Bergoglio’s one-man brain trust all these years is an intellectual dilettante like Fernandez who is cast in the same mold as Bergoglio.]
Another sign of confusion is the equal “preference” that Francis reserves for the two French theologians dearest to him, de Lubac and de Certeau, showing that
he is unaware that de Lubac broke with de Certeau, his former pupil, and leveled harsh criticism against him: he accused him of being a “Joachimite” infatuated, like the visionary medieval friar, with a presumed golden age of pure spirit, free from any constraint of the ecclesiastical institution. [In this case, it is interesting to note that De Lubac apparently shared Bonaventure’s (and Joseph Ratzinger’s) dismissal of Joachim de Fiore’s 'spiritualism'.]
Moreover, in this 'intellectual biography' written by Borghesi, there are glaring omissions. There is total silence on Walter Kasper, in spite of the fact that Francis declared himself to be a reader and admirer of his from his first “Angelus” after being elected pope, rewarding him with boundless praise - for knowing how to do “theology on one’s knees” – and then, promoting him as his theologian-guide for the major changes he, Bergoglio, has been ‘instituting’ on the matters of marriage, divorce and sacramental discipline, as well as on the supposed primacy of the local Churches over the universal Church.
Nor is there so much as a word on Rodolfo Kusch, the Argentine anthropologist whose concept of people (
‘el pueblo’) Francis recently said he had assimilated. And this in spite of the fact that in Borghesi’s book there are many pages on Bergoglio’s “populism.”
And naturally there is no mention in Bergoglio’s readings, of Joseph Ratzinger as theologian, not even as the author of the books on Jesus. But this is a vacuum that makes matters even clearer.
[In the years he was teaching theology, Bergoglio probably cast an anathema on Joseph Ratzinger's books and forbade any of his students to read them. Just as plausible as that he must have thrown out all CDF documents - including and especially DOMINUS IESUS - directly into the shredder without even bothering to read them.]
Then there's this about THE DICTATOR POPE:
The Dictator Pope:
A must-read book, available now
by Steve Skojec
December 4, 2017
Last week, I offered a preview of a new book called
The Dictator Pope, which bills itself as “The inside story of the most tyrannical and unprincipled papacy of modern times.” In my sneak peek at the book, I said it was important and asked you to consider pre-ordering it, and you rose to the occasion.
Today it debuted in English as an Amazon best-seller out of the gate, ranking #1 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Biographies > Popes & the Vatican, #2 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism, and rising about 500 spots to sit at #876 in the Kindle store overall.
To be clear: I did not write or contribute to the writing of this book and I have no financial interest in promoting it, other than that if you click one of our links and buy it at Amazon, 1P5 gets a standard affiliate commission for sending you to their store.
I simply believe it provides essential information at a critical time, and I am doing whatever I can to help get it out there so people can come to understand the truth about the crisis in the Vatican.
After giving it a skim last week to offer you an overview, I’m going back through it more slowly today, and am about a quarter of the way through. I am already learning things that I did not know.
For example, did you realize that Pope Benedict XVI refused to accept Bergoglio’s mandatory resignation at age 75?
[It surely was not remarkable that he allowed him to continue serving as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Many bishops have been allowed to serve beyond age 75 until Bergoglio became pope, when he has promptly accepted mandatory resignations if the bishops are persona non grata to him. Since it was common knowledge Bergoglio ended up being Ratzinger's eventual challenger in the 2005 Conclave, imagine the field day the media would have had if he had summarily accepted Bergoglio's mandatory resignation!]
The position that Bergoglio built up in these years was threatened, however, by a looming deadline. In December 2011, on reaching the age of seventy-five, he would have to submit his resignation as archbishop, and a movement away from the sinking ship became apparent.
Omar Bello considers that by 2011 Bergoglio had been eclipsed in influence by his rival Héctor Aguer, Archbishop of La Plata. Pope Benedict in fact refused Bergoglio’s resignation (to the disgust of some members of the Argentinian hierarchy, who would soon suffer for their discontent) and, as often happens in such cases, asked the retiring prelate to continue for a little longer.
But even in his own eyes Cardinal Bergoglio could only seem an increasingly lame duck at this time; he was talking about resigning and withdrawing to a retirement home for the clergy. The hopes that had been raised in the 2005 Conclave were disappearing, as Pope Benedict’s reign followed a doctrinal line which Bergoglio had too openly discarded. (From Colonna's book, Kindle 628-635).]
And this came as a shocker:
According to sources interviewed by the author in Argentina, Bergoglio knew Benedict would be abdicating before he announced it — and Benedict’s having allowed him to stay on would play a direct role in what came next:
Unexpectedly, however, this gloomy situation was transformed by a rumour from Rome. By the middle of 2012, a few insiders in the Curia knew that Pope Benedict was considering abdication; he had confided his intention to two of his closest associates, the Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone, and the papal secretary Archbishop Gänswein, and he had named the exact date: 28 February 2013. [Bergoglio's spies must have had direct access to Bertone and/or Gaenswein to obtain the information, which I doubt either of the two would have shared!]
Cardinal Bergoglio’s communications with Rome were abruptly stepped up from this time, rising to hectic levels as the date approached. Sure enough, on 11 February 2013 Pope Benedict made his public announcement to the cardinals, and it took almost the whole world by surprise; not Bergoglio and his associates, however, as eyewitnesses discovered.
On the day of the announcement itself, the rector of Buenos Aires cathedral went to visit his Cardinal and found him exultant. During their interview, the telephone never stopped ringing with international calls from Bergoglio’s allies, and they were all calls of personal congratulation. One Argentinian friend, however, less well informed than the others, rang up to ask about the extraordinary news, and Bergoglio told him: “You don’t know what this means.”
Cardinal Bergoglio had had eight years to mull exactly what it meant. In 2005, the plans of the St Gallen Group had seemed shattered by the election of Benedict XVI. It was assumed that Benedict was due for a reign of ten or even fifteen years, and that would be too long for any of those involved to benefit.
The abdication in February 2013 came just in time to revive the St Gallen programme. Cardinal Martini had died the previous year, but Danneels and Kasper were just young enough to beat the exclusion from papal conclaves that cardinals incur at the age of eighty, a milestone they would both reach later in the year. Above all, Bergoglio, at the age of 76, remained papabile; the extension of his mandate by Pope Benedict meant that he was still in place as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and thus a leading member of the Latin American hierarchy. (From Colonna's book, Kindle 636-652).]
[In the two excerpts he posted, Skojec seems to be expanding the 'blame' that he and others have imputed to Benedict XVI for having brought on the Bergoglio pontificate by resigning when he did - now the blame goes back even farther to when Benedict XVI chose to extend Bergoglio's service as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.]
Frequently,the book has offered some new insight, or ties together pieces of information I already knew in a way that helps me better connect the puzzle in my head. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you’re missing out on what is turning out to be the best, most readable overview of this entire papacy I’ve yet come across. (And I say this as one of the sources cited in the book’s footnotes.)
Some of you have asked me if there’s a physical copy available, or just an ebook. For the moment, the answer is just an ebook. I’ve been in contact over the past few days with some people with knowledge of the book’s production, and they’ve told me there’s an interest in producing a physical copy, but it’s still in the planning stages. (You’ll note that the ebook was self-published; this is one of the most efficient ways to get a text out and into the hands of as many people as possible as quickly as possible.)
Also, to answer another question, even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can read the ebook. Just download the kindle app for your phone, tablet, PC or Mac right here.
Finally, I was also informed that as of today, the book’s website has gone back up. There’s really not much new information there, but considering that the first version of the website was taken down after the designer was hounded by people in Rome trying to get him to reveal the author’s identity, it’s noteworthy.
I am sure I’ll have more to share as I make my way through the rest of the book. Stay tuned!
“The Dictator Pope”
by Robert Royal
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017
Note: This is an all too brief account of a remarkable new book on the pope, which is making waves in Rome and around the world. Fr. Gerald Murray, Raymond Arroyo, and I will discuss this and other matters in greater detail tomorrow evening on EWTN’s “The World Over,” 8 PM East Coast time.
The title above is the name of a book that appeared Monday in English (after earlier publication in Italian) by a writer who has assumed a grand Renaissance pseudonym: Marcantonio Colonna (an admiral at Lepanto). He evidently could not publish under his real name, for fear of reprisals.
But the case he lays out is largely convincing: that Pope Francis has carefully cultivated an image in public as the apostle of mercy, kindness, and openness; in private, he’s authoritarian, given to profanity-laced outbursts of anger, and manipulative in pursuing his agenda.
This is hardly news, least of all in Rome. This volume, however, is far more probing and detailed than anything that has previously appeared. It sometimes stretches evidence, but
the sheer amount of evidence it provides is stunning. About 90 percent of it is simply incontrovertible, and cannot help but clarify who Francis is and what he’s about.
The parts of this story I know best – the Synods on the family that I reported on daily from Rome for TCT – are absolutely reliable. We know, for example, that Pope Francis was quite willing to openly manipulate the Synods by personally appointing supporters of the Kasper Proposal and that he even intervened personally at key points, changing procedures and instructing the bishops about where their deliberations should start – and end.
When Francis cares about something – as Colonna shows – he makes it happen, whatever the opposition (at the Synods, it was considerable). There’s a clear pattern of behavior, whatever uncertainties remain. On the divorced and remarried, the environment, immigrants, “Islamophobia,” the poor, the pope is relentless.
But he was not elected to revolutionize marital doctrine or “discipline.” Nor was he chosen to be a player in international politics. He was elected to be a “reformer” who would mainly clean up Vatican finances and deal with the gay lobby, two things that played a role in Benedict’s resignation.
On the financial front, there was a strong start: The council of cardinals, Cardinal Pell’s effort to inject Anglo-Saxon transparency, a new special secretariat on the economy, hiring PriceWaterhouseCoopers to do an external audit. The momentum stalled as the old guard slowly regained control over Vatican finances – and oversight. A series of Vatican Bank presidents, officials, accountants, etc. – probably getting too close to the truth – have been fired without good explanations. (Something similar played out in the Knights of Malta controversy.) Pell had to return to Australia to deal with sexual abuse charges from forty years ago that, suspiciously, resurfaced after being earlier examined and dismissed.
And where was the pope during all of this? He didn’t seem very interested. If he had been, he’d be at least as dogged in dealing with financial reform as he is, say, about global warming. Austen Ivereigh, a British writer and papal fan, entitled his biography
The Great Reformer, in part because of Jorge Bergoglio’s alleged role in curbing abuses in Buenos Aires. Colonna doubts the truth of that account, and not only because of Francis’s lack of action in Rome. He thinks the Argentinian stories should be re-examined.
Then there’s the gay mafia. People forget that the occasion for Francis’s famous remark “Who am I to judge?” was not a general comment about homosexuality. It was in response to a question about Msgr. Battista Ricca, who was involved in several notorious homosexual scandals, some right across the river from Buenos Aires in Uruguay. Nonetheless, right after the 2013 papal election, he became the pope’s “eyes and ears” at the Vatican Bank and director of the Casa Santa Marta, where Francis resides.
And then there’s the troubling, casual resurrection of figures like Cardinal Gottfried Daneels, once thoroughly discredited for his support for contraception, divorce, gay marriage, even euthanasia and abortion – and outrageous mishandling of priestly abuse. But he stood with Francis on the balcony of St. Peter’s right after the conclave and read the prayer for the new pope at his inauguration. He was also one of the ringers Francis personally invited to bolster his case at the Synods.
Then there’s the appointment of another radical, Archbishop Paglia, to head the “reformed” John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family. In a remarkably naked authoritarian move, the pope substituted himself for Cardinal Sarah for the institute’s opening academic address in 2016, and spoke of “a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage.” You have to believe that Cardinal Marx was expressing the truth when he said, at the end of the synods, that it was just the beginning.
The least satisfactory part of this book for me is the account of how the “St. Gallen Group” – one of its own members called it a “mafia” – which met to plan opposition to St. JPII and Joseph Ratzinger, identified Jorge Bergoglio as a future papal candidate. He had no global visibility until he gave the concluding address at the 2001 Synod on the role of bishops. NYC’s Cardinal Edward Egan was supposed to do that but stayed home because 9/11 had just happened. The address impressed the synod fathers for its fairness to both sides. Colonna reveals, however, that it was entirely the work of a Synod secretary/speechwriter, Msgr. Daniel Emilio Estivill. We need to know more about how things went, from then to now.
Colonna also weakens his credibility somewhat by repeating rumors that Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin convinced Francis to use money from Peter’s Pence to support Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. No footnotes appear to support this claim, nor does Colonna offer a plausible account of how and why Rome would think Mrs. Clinton – Hilary Clinton? – worth such a risky bet and potential scandal.
Despite a few lapses,
the most disturbing element remains: the abundant evidence – confirmed by many particular instances now over years of this papacy – that the pope has little use for established procedures, precedents, even legal structures within the Church. These are not mere trivial rules, Pharisaic legalism, resistance to the Holy Spirit, etc. They are the means by which the Church seeks to be clear, fair, and orderly – and to address unjust actions or abuses by those in power.
When the head of the Church himself does not much feel bound by the tradition or impartial laws he has inherited, what then? That the question even has to be asked is disturbing. Any answer will have to reckon with the eye-opening material in this compelling book.
12/8/17
P.S. Fr. Blake on 'that book'...
'The Dictator Pope' - some thoughts
December 8, 2017
I finished that book, 'The Dictator Pope', a few days ago.
There was very little that was new in it but it is shocking when scandals are brought together in a catalogue of vice. This is certainly not a book I would recommend most people reading, especially those who are easily shocked.
It portrays
a picture of an arbitrary self-seeking princeling with few virtues and practically every vice. For those who hear confessions regularly it gives an insight into the cup which is clean on the outside but full of corruption on the inside.
It gives an insight into the contemporary Church, certainly into the psychology of many of its leading clergy and perhaps into the heresy of Mercy. In the abuse crisis so many of our leaders like Cardinal Daneels, who comes in for much criticism, not only defended abusers, telling their victim they needed to repent but they simply pretended there was no problem. Maybe they were not as bad as Cardinal Maradiaga who chairs Francis's Council of Nine, and who dismissed the whole matter as a construction of the 'Jewish media'.
A false, heretical understanding of Mercy reduces God to being tolerant of everything, to the point where sin disappears and black becomes white, the foolish are regarded as wise, the corrupt become virtuous. A tolerant God means mankind has no need of Redemption or Salvation, the whole Christological drama becomes unnecessary and humanity has no need of a moral compass, because whatever is done, so long as it doesn't undermine the Enlightenment virtues, is fine.
An excess of Mercy has a tendency to remove any critical faculty. God becomes the watchmaker who having finished his work, sets it in place to run by itself, he is not as scripture portrays him concerned by our every action, nor is he the one who will come to judge between sheep and goats, and certainly not the one who is concerned about our personal integrity, our truth telling, our sexual or financial morality and our craving for power.
It works well for a dictator, in that any criticism or expression of doubts or any questioning about this new god (the god of theological speculation, rather than God revealed by Jesus Christ in scripture and Tradition) becomes a sign of sickness, rigidity, even heresy, but worst of all of the unforgivable sins of divisiveness and disloyalty.
What I find so shocking in this book, which hardly reveals any new secrets, just adds a few details, is that such corruption as it reveals causes dis-ease in so few. [This is exactly what I meant when I deplored in a recent remark how the cumulative effect of daily media reports about this pope in the past almost five years has resulted in creating a 'new normal' for most Catholics, including Catholic media - in which the iteration and accumulation of doctrinal and moral infractions by someone who happens to be the pope has seemed to make the infractions no longer infractions but just 'the way it is with this pope'.
Yet whether in his habitual lying about his actions or his equally habitual selective preaching about the Gospel, none of it is the way it ought to be for any God-fearing Catholic, much less for the supposed Vicar of Christ on earth. Is it shocking to think of a pope, any pope, as a habitual liar? It's even more shocking, reprehensible and totally censurable that his deception extends to falsifying the Gospel - the very Word of God - by preaching only the parts of it that serve his agenda for himself and for the 'new improved church' he is trying to institute. But few are calling him out for these offenses.
'Heresy' is a difficult accusation to make because it has become tangled up in all sorts of legalisms and technicalities. But anyone can show Bergoglio is falsifying the Gospel by referring to his own innumerable statements, duly reported in the world's media, in which he does just that. ]
Indeed, those who do raise concerns are hussled to the margins and vilified. Colonna gives us insight into a court that seems to be hotbed of neurotic revenge, nepotism, financial corruption, homosexual practice and where surveillance and gossip are rife and where image is all.
A quote from the book, a priest said, "It is not who or what you know, it is now about what you know about who you know", he was talking about a culture of blackmail. Why is it tolerated? Why is it so easily accepted? Why do so few denounce it?
Perhaps it is that Catholicism in particular has seen so many changes in recent years that there are so few points of stability from which bearings can be taken. Even the Gospels, the actual revealed words of Jesus are pushed to the background and replaced by 'the sublime theology' of some German Cardinal.
The author makes the point that what has been lost in the last few years is Jesus's 'Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no'. [One of those very obvious teachings of Jesus that this pope will never ever cite because he disregards it as he pleases!]
Being anxious that some fragment of the Lord's body might be lost or desecrated should be important to priests,
nowadays every Christian should be deeply concerned that a word, a comma of the Lord's teaching is omitted, ignored or lost, because his words cannot be said wherever sin and vice abound.
But then many bishops and religious superiors simply turned a blind eve to sexual abuse and abusers.....
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/12/2017 18:20]