BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

I still have not seen any Anglophone reports on the new president of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI), Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, Archbishop of Perugia, described in all accounts as 'Francis's choice'. He was, of course, delivered to the pope on a silver platter by the Italian bishops themselves, who voted Bassetti as their choice in a 'pro forma' show election,because it is really the pope, as Primate of Italy, who appoints the president of the CEI (theoretically choosing from a short list of 3 recommended by the bishops).

Well, the new CEI president promptly showed the world that even an old dog (he is 75) quickly learns what pleases his master, at his first news conference as head honcho [nominal, really, because he will be as much under guard by his minder, Mons. Nunzio Galantino, whom the pope named to the CEI early in the Pontificate to 'watch over' and effectively neutralize Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who was CEI president for 10 years and a 'Ratzingerian' who unfortunately could not stand up to Galantino's 'neutralization'].

The Spanish ultra-Bergoglian website, Religion Digital, gushes over Cardinal Bassetti in its report:

The pope is with Cardinal Bassetti,
and cardinal Bassetti is with the pope
The new CEI head says 'Amoris laetitia' is a masterpiece
by Jesus Bastante
RELIGION DIGITAL
May 26, 2017

Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, new president of the Italian bishops' conference, said that "The pope has in his heart the pastoral conversion of the Church. He does not mean to change anything, but merely a change of mentality,a change of heart, and a change of hands! It consists of a time of acuteness for the Church to go to the peripheries and embrace everyone". [AAAAAARGGGGHHHHH! If all that hypocrisy does not make you gag! See Georg Gaenswein's reminder in the post above that as Benedict has always said, the Church has no peripheries because everywhere there is a tabernacle that burns with the eternal light, night and day, is the center of the Church because it houses the Body and Blood of Christ.]

At a news conference after the pope confirmed the majority vote of the Italian bishops for Gualtieri, the cardinal also said "Amoris laetitia is a masterpiece", including the parts that have to do with remarried divorcees.

Indeed, he said, "we should not homogenize all irregular [marital] situations as mortal sin". He claims that the pope "does not speak about admission or not to the sacraments, but merely asks for discernment to start a path that is also penitential, and afterwards, to see how things go." [Never mind that Jesus clearly said: "I say to you,* whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery"(Mt 19,9). But Bergoglio and his acolytes know better than Jesus. and say, "Well, it is not always adultery, and it is up to the priest(bishop) and the couple to discern if it is!"]

He continued: "The text must be presented as is. It is Magisterium like that of Pius XII or Paul VI". [Interesting that he chose not to use the names of John Paul II and Benedict XVI! What, he thinks their teaching was not 'Magisterium'???]

He says "it is imperative not to remain inert in the face of the problems of families and young people". Calling himself 'a man of hope', Bassetti said he was grateful for the trust shown in him by the Italian bishops, and underscored the need "to welcome the signs of the times" [Meaning he sees himself as one of those signs???]

He said what when he saw the first ballotings, "I felt like David against Goliath" [and who, pray, were the Goliaths, in an election where all three candidates were Bergoglians????] but he said he was comforted by "the affection he felt from his colleagues and from the Holy Father".

Asked about the scandal over sex abuses by priests, Bassetti said that "children should not be touched - they are sacred. Pedophilia is a terrible crime, but the Church has done and is doing everything possible to face the problem".

Meanwhile, he reiterated the commitment of the church in Italy to relieve the suffering of the neediest, "especially the immigrants". [And what about the neediest Italians for whom the government has less resources to care for, because the resources must be stretched to help illegal immigrants? Because that is what they are, no matter what euphemisms the bleeding-heart hypocrites led by Pope Francis may use in the name of 'mercy'.]

"We have a commitment to welcome them - the refugee must be welcomed". ['Refugee' being yet another euphemism to get around 'illegal' presence in a foreign country.]

"The Church is committed to welcoming everyone and to the rules of welcome. These foreigners must not be forced to leave - we must create a mentality that will allow them to remain". [How I wish Cardinal Biffi would rise from the grave to take this man in hand! The church of Bergoglio and of Bassetti can talk all they can about welcome, but who is bearing the burden for all this but the Italian government which cannot afford it? Meanwhile, all the Church can offer is sanctimonious words and token assistance.]

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of his Vicar in Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, naming Mons. Angelo de Donatis, one of the auxiliary bishops of Rome, to replace him. De Donatis is another Bergoglian pet - in 2014, he picked him to preach the spiritual exercises for the Lenten retreat of Bergoglio and the Roman Curia. [Can't say I am sorry to see Vallini leave. He was one of the very first cardinals instantly co-opted by the newly elected pope, and indeed, was beside him when he first walked out of the Sistine Chapel. He crowned his sycophancy with his pastoral guidelines on Amoris laetitia which he chose to interpret by favoring Bergoglio's sacramental indiscipline.]

I think the following interview with a clear-headed opponent of AL and its profligacies is a necessary palate-cleaner after Bassetti, if not an antidote to the likes of him...

‘Comfortable’ Catholics are ‘unwilling’
to see the dangers facing the Church


ROME, May 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- Too many Catholics are caught up in a “comfortable” Catholicism that makes them unwilling, and even unable, to see the “grave problems” currently besetting the Church, said a renowned theologian and one of the world’s top Catholic experts on the Church Fathers.

“Most Catholics seem to live their life in a sort of comfort zone, just the way that a lot of bishops live in a sort of safety-first sort of zone,” Australian patristics and classics scholar Anna Silvas said. “It is too disturbing” for those living in such a zone to “pry any more deeply,” because what they might find will challenge them too much, she added.

Silvas was specifically referring to problems arising from Pope Francis’s controversial Amoris Laetitia. The Apostolic Exhortation’s novel concept of “mercy” has been used by some Cardinals and bishops to justify giving Holy Communion to civilly-divorced-and-remarried Catholics, to other Catholics living in adultery and even to people living in a homosexual relationship.

Catholic critics say that such a move amounts to giving tacit approval to adultery and homosexuality, actions that have always been condemned by the Church as gravely immoral sexual sins.

Silvas, a senior research fellow at Australia's University of New England, said that too many in the Church are governed by what she called an “affective papalism,” in which everything a pope says is “an oracle from heaven.”

People are too scared to ask what happens when a pope is “disobedient” to the teachings of a previous pope, she said. That kind of question “doesn’t compute” for most people, she added.

Silvas said that faithful Catholics who notice discrepancies between what a pope says the Church teaches and what the Church actually teaches are called “unfaithful,” when nothing could be further from the truth.

She said that the laity, priest, bishops, cardinals, and the pope are all “obliged” to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to the teachings of the Catholic Church which he founded.

“The Church is a covenant of common obedience...and all are obliged to that obedience to Jesus Christ, right up to the top. The pope needs to be obedient, indeed, preeminently so,” she said.

Silvas said that Pope Benedict was likely right when he spoke of a faithful Church, one that is obedient to Christ, being a smaller Church. A faithful Church will shrink in numbers, she said, but it will acquire a different character than what is currently in vogue.

“[Only] a really intense commitment to Christ will jolt us out of [the current crisis],” she said. “There are no easy answers except for a very serious interior turning to Our Lord who is the one true Lord, Master, and Bridegroom of his Church, yesterday, today, and forever,” she added.

Professor Silvas joins the ranks of Princeton Professor Robert P. George and Catholic writer Msgr. Charles Pope in calling Catholics to rise from a “comfortable Catholicism” and live the truth of the Gospel without compromise.

“The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over, the days of comfortable Catholicism are past,” said Prof. George in a 2014 speech. “It is no longer easy to be a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an authentic witness to the truths of the Gospel. A price is demanded and must be paid,” he said.

Msgr. Charles Pope wrote in a 2016 article that Catholics must put away “comfort” and live their faith as if they were at war.

“It seems there is no awareness that we are at war and that Catholics need to be summoned to sobriety, increasing separation from the wider culture, courageous witness and increasing martyrdom,” he said.

If you can remain a 'comfortable Catholic' after the doctrinal depredations of this pontificate, you do not deserve to be called Catholic.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/05/2017 04:56]