I have not been checking out Fr Kirk lately, but two recent posts regarding Bergoglio's outrageous single-handed 'revision' to the Catechism of the Catholic Church are quite typical of his cogent views.
Catechetical
August 5, 2018
What is the status of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church?
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was clear at the time of its promulgation. Things are not true because they are in the Catechism; they are in the Catechism because they are true.
The very text bears this out. As the invaluable Ignatius Press Commentary amply demonstrates, the Catechism is rich in references, not only to Holy Scripture, but also to wide-ranging authorities in the unfolding tradition.
Interestingly, Article 2266 on capital punishment, is sparsely attested in this way. Nor does the new rescript do much better:
Pope Francis, it appears has no one to cite but himself!
So what are we to make of the recent revision, which the CDF assures us is a ‘development’ – not a novelty – and [supposedly] accords closely with the teaching of St John Paul II?
The argumentation in favour of the change is, I think, very instructive. Here we encounter, once again, our old enemy
the Whig View of History, with its repetitive but false syllogism: ‘that was then…but this is now’.
‘Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.’
‘Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.’
‘Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide’.
Note the catena of unwarranted assumptions.
- That in past ages and in cultures other than the post-Enlightenment West, capital punishment can never have been an assertion of the ‘dignity of the person’. Or indeed that those ages and cultures were denied the awareness of that dignity altogether.
- That systems of detention are now universally not only protective of innocent citizens, but also safe and secure for those lengthily detained.
- That capital punishment, contrary to the Church’s perennial belief in judgement and possible redemption beyond death, deprives those who are so punished of that possibility.
- That ‘the Gospel’ (and if so where?) abrogates the provisions of the Mosaic Law in this matter.
And note also the unclarity of the last clause.
If the death penalty is ‘inadmissible’, what of those, in states which retain it, who are involved in its administration. Are they, like lawyers, medical practitioners and legislators who administer and assist abortion, guilty of mortal sin?
This list of unsupported assumptions, concluding with a statement which, on closer examination, proves less than pellucid, strikes one as typical of the pronouncements of this pontificate.
The CCC was hailed by Pope Benedict as a tool in ecumenical discussions and made the foundation stone of the Ordinariates. It was, in the Spirit of Vatican II, a collegial work of many hands.
If it is now to be revised by one hand and with Papal authority alone its status (and perhaps that of the Papacy) has surely been fundamentally changed.
It does not take much imagination, on the precedent of 2266, to see radical changes to other entries – 2357-9, 1649-51, and 1577-8 for a start.
[These sections have to do with, respectively, homosexuality; the indissolubility of marriage, the sinful character of divorce and civil remarriage and why communion must be withheld, and the Church's 'attentive solicitude' so that persons who find themselves in such a situation will not feel separated from the Church.]
Fr Kirk's extrapolation of one significant consequence of Bergoglio's death penalty dictum is very pertinent indeed. I doubt that the Bergoglio Vatican has any answer to this.
The 'cash value' of
the pope's death penalty rescript
August 6, 2018
Whilst theologians and canon lawyers dispute the meaning of ‘inadmissible’ (‘
non posse admitti’), the rest of us need to ask:
what is the cash value of the recent rescript of para 2277 of the Catholic Catechism?
‘Atque Ipsa devovet se eidemque per omnem orbem abolendae’. ["and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide"). Quite. But what does that mean in practical terms?
For example:
China holds the world’s record for judicial executions – the estimated number was 2,400 in 2013, though the total number remains a state secret.
- How will this affect Vatican diplomacy in the present negotiations about the appointment of bishops?
- Can the Holy See be seen to do business with a regime which ostentatiously admits the ’inadmissible’?
I think we will see that it can*. And that the matter is not raised in the delicate talks which ensue.
The fact is that the rescript of 2277 is mere virtue signalling for the benefit of a Western audience and media.
‘His autem temporibus magis magisque agnoscitur dignitatem personae nullius amitti posse.’["Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes".) Which is to say:
Look at us – at last we are catching up![with the rest of the world].
*
"Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese", said Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
And on Fr Rosica's vertiginously over-the-top valuation of Bergoglio as the 'individual' who rules the Church above and beyond Scripture and Tradition:
Dictator pope indeed
August 15, 2018
Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.
So Fr Thomas Rosica on his website ‘Salt and Light’ (aka ‘Sulphur and Brimstone’).
Critics of the present Pope have not been backward in coming forward [in books like
To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism;
The Political Pope: How Pope Francis Is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives;
Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock; etc.)
But none, not even Henry Sire (
The Dictator Pope), has been so damningly forthright as Fr Rosica.
If anyone wants to understand the temper of this pontificate, here is the clue.
It is a dictatorship careless of due process, for which scripture, tradition (and even the magisterium of recently sainted predecessors) is a mere irrelevance.
There has indeed been a ‘paradigm shift’.
All authority, it is being said, is now vested in one man, who is, in himself, the summation of history and the key to the future. (The very claims, as I recall, that Hermann made about Adolf.)
What Vatican I, with its carefully crafted doctrine of Infallibility, and Vatican II, with its doctrine of episcopal collegiality, sought to establish has been swept away. Papolatry rules OK!
Why little Tommy Rosica should choose to spill the beans in this way, when Francis himself is so tentative, faltering and ambiguous, is anybody’s guess. But to blame it all on Ignatius Loyola is surely a fantasy too far.
And Fr Kirk does a great reductio ad absurdum for an argument advanced by the cardinal who lived for six years with McCarrick as his vicar in Washington yet never heard a word at all about McCarrick's sordid sexploits...
Don’t you see?
July 19, 2018
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, said that ‘priests are not the best people to train others for marriage…they have no credibility; they have never lived the experience.’
Now that Cardinal Farrell has explained it to those of us who are slow on the uptake,
we can see clearly why Jesus’s views on so many things which are currently controverted can be ignored with equanimity. It was lack of relevant experience, don’t you see?
- He cannot be trusted on the sanctity of marriage simply because he was not married.
- We can ignore his (and St Paul’s) attitude to homosexuality because (so far as we know) they were not gay.
- And both their opinions about the World Cup can be discounted for the simple reason they had never played professional football.
Once you see it, it makes absolute sense.
Of course, what Farrell did not seem to realize when he shot from the lip is that his dictum could be applied with devastating effect to most things - secular and religious - that his idol Bergoglio blabbers about all the time.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/08/2018 20:42]