Not surprisingly, Christopher Ferrara takes a critical look at JMB's two latest high-profile appointments...
Pope places entire Vatican apparatus
on marriage and the family under
two prelates subversive of both
by Christopher A. Ferrara
August 18, 2016
Yesterday the Vatican announced that by motu proprio (his own initiative), Francis has formally erected the new “super-dicastery” of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Family and Life (PCLFL), effective September 1.
The new dicastery will absorb (and thus abolish) the Pontifical Councils for the Family and the Laity and will also overlap the function of the still-existing Pontifical Academy for Life, one of whose members, the German philosopher Josef Siefert, published a devastating critique of the disastrous
Amoris Laetitia, calling upon Francis to correct its errors against the Faith.
Francis has appointed as head of the PCLFL none other than Bishop Kevin Joseph Farrell of Texas, a “pro-gay” prelate widely denounced for installing as pastor of a Texas parish a homosexual priest who participated in an explicitly “gay” website for homosexual clergy and religious. (The priest was removed only after public outcry over the appointment.)
Farrel clearly accepts as a given that there will be homosexual priests in pastoral ministry. Citing remarks by Francis concerning “respect” for “homosexual persons,”
Farrell declared that “The Church still has the expectation that priests must commit to a life of celibate chastity whether they are homosexual or heterosexual.” Still? The expectation? Whether they are homosexual or heterosexual?
So much for the constant teaching and practice of the Church, affirmed by Benedict XVI, that men who consider themselves “gay” cannot be admitted to seminaries as their intrinsically disordered condition renders them unfit for the priesthood, which is configured to the person of Christ, the male par excellence.
As for the still-existing Pontifical Academy for Life, this has been turned over to the “pro-gay” Archbishop Vincenzio Paglia, who replaces Spanish bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula as President. Paglia will also take over the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, replacing the Vicar General of Rome Cardinal Agostino Vallini as grand chancellor.
Vallini had denounced the distribution of condoms in Italian public schools as “an initiative [that] can only be combated by the Church of Rome and the Christian families seriously affected by the education of their children.”
Paglia has infamously praised the “gay” propaganda TV series “Modern Family” and it was he who “was also responsible for inviting homosexual couples to last year’s World Meeting of Families.” In defense of the invitation Paglia huffed: “We are following the synod's
Instrumentum Laboris to the letter. Everyone can come, nobody is excluded.”
Not surprisingly, Paglia also supports Francis’s pet cause of finding a way to admit public adulterers in “second marriages” to Holy Communion, having published between sessions of the laughably misnamed “Synod on the Family” a book promoting the overthrow of the Church’s contrary teaching and discipline in defense of the indissolubility of marriage, affirmed under John Paul II, especially in
Familiaris consortio.
Indeed, as Edward Pentin reported,
members of the John Paul II Institute, known for their defense of his teaching in this regard, were systematically excluded from any participation in the Synod’s two sessions.
With the creation of the new “super-dicastery” and these two appointments, Francis has effectively placed the entire Vatican apparatus concerning marriage and family under the control of two prelates who are manifestly subversive of both.
With each passing day, Francis confirms all the more the dire warning of Sister Lucia at Fatima that
“the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family… Anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue.”
But who would have thought that opposition would be aided and abetted by the very one who occupies the Seat of Peter?
And who would have thought that, in our time, the man on Peter's Chair could say and do so many things that are not just unworthy of the Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ, but even a dereliction of papal duty because it is something akin to a constant gauntlets-down challenge to the Magisterium of the Church as it has been in its first 2013 years?
The blogger at Dallas-Area Catholic gives an objective assessment of Mons. Farrell who has been his bishop, and says that under Benedict XVI, Farrell had taken the conservative line, but flipped his coat as soon as there was a new pope.
https://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/dallas-bishop-kevin-farrell-given-huge-promotion-transferred-to-rome/
From an exclusive interview by ZENIT with Mons Farrell today:
And I think that’s why the Pope chose to have two synods on the question of family and the question of marriage, and the “joy of love” in that document [Amoris Laetitia, the “Joy of Love”]. That document needs to be promoted not just among the laity in a generalized term, but also specifically in the family, which is where most lay people live out their lives, in the family, or in a marriage. So praise God that we’ll be able to do something to promote this Apostolic Exhortation, and we will do what we can to promote it.
And while I'm at it, here is what John Allen wrote about Mons. Paglia's 'marching orders' from the Pope (I provided a link to the full article earlier:
Generally speaking, popes don’t issue explicit marching orders when they name someone to a job. Francis, however, did precisely that on Wednesday, publishing a “chirograph,” usually meaning a papal document whose circulation is restricted to the Roman Curia.
The pontiff opened the letter by saying he wants the activity of Vatican offices dedicated to marriage, family and life issues to be “ever more clearly inscribed within the horizon of mercy.”
After citing his two recent Synods of Bishops on the family and his own document, Amoris Laetitia, drawing conclusions from those gatherings, Francis told Paglia that even “in theological study, a pastoral perspective and attention to the wounds of humanity should never be missing.”
Francis then ticked off several issues he wants Paglia to focus on in his new assignments.
- “Care for the dignity of the human person in different ages of existence.”
- “Reciprocal respect between the sexes and among the generations.”
- “Defense of the dignity of every single human being.”
- “Promotion of the quality of human life that integrates material and spiritual values.”
- An “authentic human ecology,” which can help restore “the original balance of creation between the human person and the entire universe.”
I'd say HO-HUM! but one must never do that about anything that comes out of the church of Bergoglio - there's his agenda writ, however generic and innocuous it may sound, for all his faithful myrmidons to follow in any way they choose to read it. KYRIE ELEISON!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/08/2016 19:22]