I would celebrate 100 percent the following commentary by George Weigel if he had directed his criticism not just at the hyper-ultra- Bergogliophiles but at the pope himself whose phenomenal popularity (which remains high in the media, but probably not so any more with the faithful) has emboldened him to make statements and actions no pope who is Catholic and in his right mind, and would ever have dared to make, and that, in fact, no pope in history has made... Mr Weigel remains inexplicably ueber-normalist with respect to this pope, yet it is not fair to heap all the opprobrium on the hyper-Bergoglists without faulting the man who inspires them to such depths of crassness!
A (liturgical) new year’s resolution
Those who think it necessary to support Pope Francis
by rewriting recent Church history need to stop it
by George Weigel
November 30, 2016
If the civil new year is an occasion to resolve to Do Better in the future, the liturgical new year, the real new year that begins at First Vespers on the First Sunday of Advent, is an even better moment for such resolutions.
So permit me to suggest a Real New Year’s resolution to those who think it necessary to support Pope Francis by rewriting recent Church history: Stop it.
There was an awful lot of this airbrushing before and during the recent consistory for the creation of new cardinals. And I regret to note that one striking example of it came in a Catholic News Service video-interview with Cardinal Kevin Farrell, recently transferred from Dallas to Rome to lead the new Vatican dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.
In that interview, the cardinal, who in 2014 was eager for me to give the University of Dallas commencement address in order commemorate the recently-canonized St. John Paul II,
seemed to have forgotten that John Paul ever existed.
Thus Farrell, praising “Pope Francis’s great charisma” and “how the people flock to him” and the “amazing” way “he comes down to the people,” finished his tribute to the man who had named him cardinal by saying that all of this was “unthought-of and unheard of twenty years ago.”
Really?
Was John Paul II shot in his apartment by an interloper who had snuck past the Swiss Guard? Or was he shot by a would-be assassin standing in the midst of one of the vast throngs the Polish pope drew to St. Peter’s Square for over twenty-five years?
Has Cardinal Farrell forgotten that, just before Mehmet Ali Agca’s shots rang out, John Paul had handed a small child he had embraced and blessed back to its mother? That was thirty-five years ago this past May 13.
Which means that it’s preposterous to say that it was “unthought-of and unheard of twenty years ago” that a pope should mingle with crowds and embrace the people who were flocking to him. It was happening fifteen years and more before that.
This rewriting of history often goes hand-in-glove with attempts to celebrate Pope Francis's welcome stress on divine mercy [except, of course, that the Bergoglian notion of mercy appears devoid of the justice that goes hand in hand with divine mercy, and of the primary charity that should inform mercy dispensed by humans, namely to help save souls] – by subtly ['SUBTLY?' That word does not exist in the Bergoglian lexicon, unless you consider a relentless jackhammer subtle!] reinforcing the secular world’s stereotypes of Catholicism’s pre-Francis leaders as hidebound, rule-obsessed reactionaries.
Thus Cardinal Farrell worried that “we keep pushing rules and regulations to excess.” Who, one wonders, is the “we” here? And why set “rules and regulations” in contrast to “an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ,” from whom, as the cardinal admitted, “we derive our doctrine”?
Wouldn’t it be better strategy (and better catechetics) to challenge secular stereotypes by reminding the Church and the world that a “yes” stands behind every “no” the Church must say in fidelity to Christ’s teaching?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to remember, with John Paul II, that the Christian moral life is intended to foster happiness, and that the magna carta of Christian morality is the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes? [Yes, but the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes as they are recounted in the Gospels, and as they have been interpreted through more than two millennia of the Church until Bergoglio came along to edit and interpret the entire Sermon on the Mount to suit his purposes.]
By all means, concede that the Church, meaning all of us, sometimes does a lousy job of articulating that “yes” to beatitude so that the “no” can be heard in its proper context: as a warning against acts that lead to unhappiness and sorrow. But please don’t confirm those false and vicious stereotypes of Catholic moral teaching as soul-crushing and freedom-denying, as a manual of nay-saying for killjoys.
Finally,
may I suggest that Cardinal Farrell and others celebrating what they deem a Franciscan revolution in the Church refrain from the harsh biblical analogy the cardinal deployed when he said that defenders of the Church’s classic teaching on marriage, and on worthiness to receive holy communion, are like the cranky older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son? Some of those defenders may fit that description. But the vast majority do not and it is really hitting below the belt to suggest otherwise.
Pope Francis’s contributions to Catholic life are obvious enough that they needn’t be promoted by falsifying history, playing to the Church’s secular critics, or defaming brothers and sisters in Christ. Neither the Holy Father nor the New Evangelization is well-served by such tactics. [But what about the sometimes (or often) unholy Holy Father himself falsifying not just history but the Gospel itself? Or forgetting the Church's mission of evangelization itself, since he promotes religious indifferentism so actively and tells everyone, Christians, non-Catholics, atheists and agnostics alike, that they are 'fine as you are' and that he does not want to convert anyone to Catholicism?
Other reactions to recent rhetorical excesses and abominations of the hyper-Bergoglists...
Cardinals in the Church have rights, too
Bp. Frangiskos Papamanolis, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Greece,
gives little indication that he even knows what is really meant
by terms such as 'apostasy', 'sacrilege', 'heresy' and 'schism'
November 29, 2016
The rashest reaction to the “Four Cardinals’ Five Dubia” so far is that from Bp. Frangiskos Papamanolis, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Greece, whose railing against the questions posed by Cdls. Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra, and Meisner in regard to Pope Francis’
Amoris laetitia must be read to be believed.
The Greek prelate hurls epithets such as apostasy, sacrilege, heresy, schism, at four brothers in the episcopate (brothers making text-book use of their rights under Canon 212 §3 to pose doctrinal and disciplinary questions that urgently need addressing in our day) giving little indication that he even knows what those canonical-theological terms mean. I’d like to think that even the staunchest defenders of Amoris cringed when they read Papamanolis. Perhaps I am naïve.
While other contenders for an over-reaction prize can be suggested, here I consider the speculations voiced by the Dean of the Roman Rota, Msgr. Pio Pinto, namely, that Pope Francis might strip the four cardinals of their cardinatial dignity.
Setting aside how inappropriate it is for one of the Church’s highest judicial officers to speculate publicly on
the possible legal liability of and canonical consequences against bishops as yet uncharged with any crime, let’s review a pope’s canonical authority over prelates holding the office of cardinal.
Eleven canons (1983 CIC 349-359) regulate the institution of cardinal in the Roman Church, including one norm, Canon 351 §2, that states in pertinent part that “From the moment of the announcement [that the pope has created some cardinals,] they are bound by the duties and possess the rights defined by law.” And what might those rights be?
Though largely honorific in nature, “cardinal” is, at least for those under age 80, also an “office” in the Church
(1983 CIC 145) authorizing, among other things, one’s voting in a papal conclave
(Universi Dominci Gregis [1996] 33). Appointments to the office of cardinal are made for an “indefinite period”, meaning that one holding such an appointment can be “removed” from said office for “grave causes according to the manner of proceeding defined in law”
(1983 CIC 193 §1) or could be “deprived” of said office as punishment for a canonical crime duly alleged and proven
(1983 CIC 196 §1).
The suggestion that Brandmüller, et al., have committed any canonical “crime” is risible, so that leaves only the possibility of Francis treating a cardinal’s asking questions about his document Amoris as constituting “grave cause” to remove four cardinals from office (and along the way eliminating two electors currently eligible for the next papal conclave). But Francis
(who alone can judge a cardinal, 1983 CIC 1405 §1,2º) has not said word one about stripping the four cardinals of their dignities nor of banning any of them from a conclave; such speculation is, so far, entirely Pinto’s.
But assuming, against all precedent and common sense, that one is publicly asking the pope to clarify important questions raised in the wake of his document amounts to canonical “grave cause” for stripping several prelates of their offices,
it would still remain to honor at every stage of the removal process numerous canonical rights expressly guaranteed all the Christian faithful, including
- the ability to “defend the rights which they possess in the Church in the competent ecclesiastical forum”,
- the right to “be judged according to the prescripts of law applied with equity”, and
- the right “not to be punished with canonical penalties except according to the norms of law.”
(1983 CIC 221)
Note that depriving one of “a power, office, function, right, privilege, faculty, favor, title, or insignia, even merely honorary” is an expiatory penalty for crime under Canon 1336 §1,2º, so the standards of proof should be high indeed
(1983 CIC 18). How anyone can conclude, then, based on the facts at hand, that the four cardinals are at risk for deprivation of their office, escapes me.
No one, least of all the four cardinals in question, questions the special authority that a pope enjoys over the Church
(1983 CIC 331) nor do they harbor any illusions that a pope could be forced to answer the questions they posed.
My hunch is that the Four Cardinals, while they would welcome a papal reply, are probably content with having formally preserved these vital questions for a day when a direct answer might be forthcoming—a lthough they might yet exercise their own episcopal office as teachers of the faith
(1983 CIC 375) and propose answers on their own authority.
For that, these men are, I think, prepared to accept personal ridicule and to suffer misunderstanding and misrepresentation of their actions and motives.
But an actual assault against their offices and against their possible roles in a future papal election? No, I don’t see that happening.
German theologian and author comes to
the defense of the Four Cardinals
by Maike Hickson
THE WANDERER
November 30, 2016
“This Is an Insult Toward Many Catholics!” is the trenchant title of an article written in defense of the Four Cardinals and published today on the Austrian Catholic news website, kath.net.
The author of this text is Dr. Markus Brüning, a German theologian, lawyer, book author, and father. Several of his books have dealt with the question as to how one is to grow in holiness; one book deals with the aspects of the virtues (with a foreword by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, one of the Four Cardinals); another book discusses the importance of the Sacramentals for our lives as Catholics (with a foreword by the persecuted yet loyal Swiss Bishop Vitus Huonder); yet another book discusses the role of the Sacraments in the life of the Saints (with a foreword by our beloved Bishop Athanasius Schneider).
As the specific list of his endorsers already shows, this author is indebted to, and close to, many of the orthodox prelates who are right now themselves leading a spiritual battle against the forces of confusion and of evil in the Church and in temporal society. And Brüning has had the honor now to defend them. For this, he is to be congratulated and he certainly deserves our own support.
In his article, Brüning himself makes it clear that he has supported and defended Pope Francis in the past. Thus, he cannot be justly counted as an outspoken dissident critic of the pope. However, the way in which the Four Cardinals have now been treated has provoked his own just indignation.
He starts his article with the categorical words:
“The threat from the Dean of the Roman Rota aimed at the Cardinals: Meisner, Brandmüller, Burke, and Caffarra. Is this what the ecclesiastical, the papal culture of dialogue looks like?”
Brüning even calls this ominous event a “badly made tragedy” and a “bitter reality.”
He continues: “What we have to read from the Dean Pinto from Rome is especially shattering for all those Catholics who for years, and locally, have fought in their parishes for the preservation of [Catholic] doctrine and an ordered liturgy.”
So far, the German adds, these Catholics have been confident that there still “was in Rome an authority which has understood their intentions.” But, says the German author, “this seems now to be different.”
In the current Church, there is talk about “museumlike Christians,” “liturgical nostalgics,” “painters of black-and-white images,” as well as “those who throw rocks at sinners
(see AL, no. 305).”
Brüning adds:
“The level of [derisive] labeling – sometimes also coming from the pope’s own mouth – only renders one sad any more. And now this, on top of all: four cardinals – who do nothing else but ask the pope to speak clearly about the content of Amoris Laetitia – are being threatened with the removal of their cardinalate. It is obvious that a climate of fear is intentionally being fostered and established in order to ‘shut everybody up.’ But one cannot intimidate the truth, and certainly not in this way!” [Of course, Brüning writes as if Pinto's 'threat' directly reflects the thinking of the pope and/or those around him who encourage him the most in his anti-Catholic actions, when the 'threat' is more likely Pinto's own manic expression of the outrage he feels against the Four Cardinals in behalf of his lord and master.]
Brüning also shows himself “personally wounded” by these attacks, especially those against Cardinal Meisner, whom he knows personally. He says: “Here I feel challenged to take sides with clarity about our beloved cardinal who has supported my book apostolate with a deeply impressive foreword to my last book on the virtues (“Encouragement to Holiness”), describing in a very personal way his own vocation to become a bishop. This man himself had to grow up under Communism [just as Bishop Athanasius Schneider did] and he still became a priest – in spite of the obstacles. He always bravely witnessed to the Faith.”
Brüning comments:
Here, it is not fitting that a [subordinate] curial member [Archbishop Pinto] should rebuke him. And certainly not in this manner. This clergyman of the Curia can, it seems, only use such [harsh] tones because his own superior – who sets the tone – wants it done, or at least tolerates it.
If this is not the case, the pope should, please, rebuke this [insolent] clergyman – who is now engaged in his fits of anger – and to do it in order to make clear to us Catholics that he himself does not accept such a style in our Church.” Brüning then raises the fundamental question of the conduct [of courtesy and dignity] among Catholics in the Catholic Church...
In any event, we now have not ‘only’ the problem of the unanswered Dubia, no, now we have to deal, in my eyes, also with the question of decency and of the decent treatment ‘of inferiors by their boss.’ Pope Francis, as a matter of fact, has always and repeatedly called for a culture of dialogue [and openness, parrhesia]. This, however, is not what a dialogue looks like, when dialog must begin with respect for those who are of another opinion.
Brüning’s argumentation is especially convincing, because he has heretofore been a public defender of Pope Francis. As he points out in his article, he could not imagine at the time “that a pope would write such an ambiguous document [such as Amoris Laetitia].”
But now, says the German, the pope “has to provide clarity, since this nebulous document has spread [ominous] clouds over the Church.”
To those who claim that the pope himself did not even write Amoris Laetitia, or that he is not himself a theologian, Brüning responds: “No:
the pope is the supreme teacher of his Church! And a teacher has to teach. If he does not do it in all clarity and truth, the Church then has a serious problem of leadership.”
For all of us Catholics who are still trying to understand the nature and range of the current crisis in the Church, Brüning adds a few considerations that might well be worthy for us to further reflect upon. Since the end of his article is so rich, I shall translate the entire paragraph:
Much less helpful are the repeatedly presented calls to obey the pope unconditionally. I beg your pardon? We are, after all, not in a dictatorship here. That goes too far.
For me, kairos [the ripe and fitting moment] has come; and, fully so in the sense of Blessed John Henry Newman, we should now question this papalism that we have all-too often practiced in our own circles. Additionally, we have at times the duty to oppose ecclesial authorities.
Let us hear what St. Thomas Aquinas tells us about this matter: "Where, however, the Faith is in danger, one has to correct the superiors publicly, just as St. Paul did it; and as Augustine wrote on this matter: ‘Peter himself has given to the superiors the model that they – if they ever stray from the right path – shall accept not unwillingly when their own inferiors correct them.” (Summa theol., II-II q. 33, 4c)
If one ever should degrade these [four] cardinals, this would be equal to their anticipated canonization! Then they would be in good company with those bishops who were once banned by the majority of the bishops and by the emperor during the time of the Arian conflict, [for example].
Here is then also applicable the words of the Confessor and Bishop Saint Hilary of Poitiers [310-367, Father and Doctor of the Church] “May I always be in exile, if only the truth begins to be preached again!” (Hil. De Syn, 78). Nothing has to be added to it!
In looking up the accepted English translation of the quotation from St. Hilary (Hickson was translating from Bruening's German, but the translation above is from Mons. Schneider in his open letter defending the DUBIA), I came across a letter he wrote the emperor of his time who had exiled him for his opposition to Arianism, and as in the words of St. Vincent de Lerins which I excerpted in a recent post, St. Hilary's words sound like he was commenting on the situation in the Church today, and especially of the man who nominally (and alas, formally) leads it:
Obstinacy in a design adopted on impulse is often extreme, and the desire to oppose everything that resists us never slackens when the will is not subject to reason and when, instead of investigating, we think only of finding reasons to support what we have gotten into our head and of employing all our knowledge to maintain what we desire to think. Thus the matter, which is disguised, pivots on the name rather than on the essence of the thing, and it is no longer a question of what is true, but of what we want to be true.
In other words, men of bad faith who oppose the truth will not yield to any argument, no matter how obvious, for the man of bad faith does not seek the light in any way. He is only interested in what he has gotten into his head, in what he wants, and he will defend it even with absurdities and lies...
However, in a cause which concerns the salvation of the world and in which silence would be criminal, let me be granted a public discussion where the interests of the faith may not be left without defenders. Does that right not belong to you, to me, to every Catholic? To question men who preach their own concepts and not in the least the words of Divine truth, and who commit the whole world to a circle of ever-recurring errors...
Once someone has indulged in these innovations, he no longer knows what to believe, either the ancient doctrine or the new one, and faith becomes the belief of the moment, no longer that of the Gospel. There are as many creeds as there are opinions, as many diverse doctrines as personal fantasies.
We know all too well how many of these professions of faith have been devised since the Council of Nicea. They have reached the point of contesting even the essence of God Himself by ceaselessly adding one novelty after another, by disputing about authors and writings, by creating problems with things that everyone agreed upon, by condemning and anathematizing one another.
And where are the disciples of Jesus Christ? Virtually nowhere. We are swept here and there by all the winds of these competing doctrines. The ones preach to deceive, the others listen for their ruin. The faith we had yesterday is no longer that of today... Amid such uncertainties there is no more faith, not any more in works than in the heart.
The hyper-Bergoglists should consider the history of Arianism for a historical context to what Bergoglio is doing to the Church. I have said it before and I say it again that Bergoglianism is far worse than Arianism or Lutheranism because this time, the de facto apostate-heretic happens to be the legitimate pope - who can, does and will continue to mobilize the bimillenary institutions and infrastructure of the Church of Christ to establish the church of Bergoglio even if he continues to feign he is doing what he does for the Roman Catholic Church. He is not - the questionable statements and actions by which he has alienated traditional orthodox Catholics are in fact against the Church and fundamentally anti-Catholic.