April 9, 2018
The official presentation at the Vatican press office, on Monday April 9, of “Gaudete et Exsultate” - the third apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis after "Evangelii Gaudium" and "Amoris Laetitia" - was a completely useless exercise, in terms both of the worthlessness of the things said, which were not even put into the routine bulletin, and of the insignificance of those who said them: the vicar of the diocese of Rome, Angelo De Donatis; the former president of the Italian branch of Catholic Action, Paola Bignardi; and the journalist Gianni Valente, a close friend of Jorge Mario Bergoglio since before he was elected pope. All three with the air of having done no more than to read in advance the document they had to present, without knowing anything else about it.
To make up for this, however, the editor of La [In]Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Antonio Spadaro, SJ, stepped in immediately to fill in the blanks of the official presentation.
Fr. Spadaro, in fact, posted online that same day, on the website of his magazine - which is printed with the pope’s imprimatur - a presentation of his own, in four languages, of Gaud-Ex [the full title is far too pompous and above all, dishonest, for me to repeat withut gagging!],that proclaims it will reveal its “roots, structure, and significance.” And he did so with such abundance and precision of information as to make one think that the initial compilation of the papal document was probably his work.
In Gaud-Ex, there is nothing that Bergoglio has not already said and written, even long ago. And Spadaro furnishes the index of this:
- the first big interview of Pope Francis with La Civiltà Cattolica in August of 2013;
- the idea of the “holiness of the door just down the way,” borrowed from the French writer Joseph Malègue, dear to Bergoglio;
- some passages of Evangelii Gaudium, the agenda-setting text of this pontificate;
- the “Reflexiones sobre la vida apostolica” written by Bergoglio in 1987;
- the presentation made by Bergoglio in 1989 of the book “My ideal of sanctity” by the Argentine Jesuit Ismael Quiles, who was his professor;
- the maxim “simul in actione contemplativus” (contemplative even in action} of the Jesuit Jerónimo Nadal, one of the first companions of Saint Ignatius of Loyola;
- the book “Discernimiento y lucha espiritual” by the Jesuit Miguel Ángel Fiorito, the spiritual father of the young Bergoglio, who wrote the preface to this in 1985;
- the maxim of Saint Ignatius that is so precious to Francis: “Non coerceri a maximo, contineri tamen a minimo divinum est” (Not to be constrained by that which is greatest, (but) to be contained in that which is smallest, this is divine);
- the concluding document of the general conference of the Latin American episcopate in Aparecida in 2007, of which Bergoglio [read Tucho Fernandez] was the main architect;
- and finally, various morning homilies of Francis at Santa Marta.
But into this basic backdrop, with the general theme of the “call of everyone to holiness,” Pope Francis arranged to weave in a bunch of his invectives - these too recurring in many of his previous writings and talks - against his critics and their objections. [Fine way to call for holiness - by indulging in invective! But as many have pointed out, Bergoglio has never heard of the principle of non-contradiction - or thinks he is exempt from it, and from all other rules of logic and coherence.]
On his objectors within the Church, Francis sketches in Gaud-Ex a profile that is prejudicially dismissive.
- They are those with the “funeral faces” [So speaks the archetypal ‘funeral face’!] who have an “obsession with the law, ostentation in the treatment of the liturgy, the doctrine, and the prestige of the Church.”
- They are those who bend religion “to the service of their own psychological and mental lucubrations.”
- They are those who conceive of doctrine as “a closed system, devoid of dynamics capable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives.”
- They are those who close themselves off in a “tranquil and anesthetizing mediocrity,” made up of “individualism, spiritualism, becoming closed off in little worlds, dependence, systematization, repetition of prearranged frameworks, dogmatism, nostalgia, pessimism, taking refuge in the norms.”
- They are those who love “to get teary-eyed in a presumed ecstasy” and assert “a ‘dry cleaner’s’ sanctity, everything beautiful, everything just right,” but in reality “fake.”
They are, in two words, the modern “Gnostics” and “Pelagians”, contemporary exponents of these two ancient heresies.
There is one passage, in paragraph 26 of Gaud-Ex that seems to wipe out two millennia of contemplative monasticism, male and female:
“It is not healthy to love silence and avoid the encounter with the other, to desire repose and reject activity, to seek prayer and underestimate service. We are called to live contemplation even in the midst of action.”
And this is what Spadaro writes, in making his exegesis of this passage: “This is the Ignatian ideal, in fact, according to the famous formula of one of his first companions, Fr. Jerónimo Nadal: to be ‘simul in actione contemplativus.’ Alternatives like ‘either God or the world’ or ‘either God or nothing’ are erroneous.”
Nota bene! “God or Nothing” and “The Power of Silence” are precisely the titles of the two main books by Cardinal Robert Sarah, the most authoritative representative of a vision of the Catholic Church alternative to the one advocated by Pope Francis. [While Cardinal Ratzinger’s second book-length interview with Peter Seewald was ”God and the World”.]
In addition to the invectives against his opponents, Francis also included in Gaud-Ex some responses to criticisms made against him.
For example, in paragraphs 101 and 102, the criticisms of his way of handling the question of migrants: “Some Catholics affirm that it is a secondary issue with respect to the ‘serious’ issues of bioethics. That such things should be said by a politician preoccupied with his success is understandable, but not by a Christian.”
Another example. In paragraph 115 the pope goes after those “Catholic media” that try “to compensate for their own dissatisfactions” by violating the eighth commandment: “Do not bear false witness,” just to “destroy the image of others without pity.” [Ummm! Once again, there speaks someone who habitually indulges in bearing false witness not just against others, but of Christ himself and what he says in the Gospels.]
Curiously, however, this pope nominally put his signature on Gaud-Ex on March 19, Feast of St. Joseph. But also the final unfolding of the 'Viganò saga', the most colossal piece of “fake news” fabricated so far by the pontificate of Francis, and one moreover done at the expense of his innocent predecessor, Benedict XVI.
Here's Steve Skojec's taken on Gaud-Ex, also based perforce on hearsay as he feels no incentive for reading it....
Extra! Extra! Hot off the press:
Bergoglio's call to holiness!
by Steve Skojec
April 9, 2018
The vast majority of the Catholic commentariat will be discussing the pope’s new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, which was officially released today. The topic of the exhortation is “The Call to Holiness in Today’s World.”
Imagine trying to learn about holiness from the fellow who insists on telling us that hell doesn’t exist, that adultery isn’t really adultery, that the Blessed Virgin Mary wanted to call God a liar, that we can use contraception despite it being a serious sin, that robbing graves is perfectly fine, and so on.
This is the same man who tells us that gossip is “terrorism” but nevertheless mocks faithful priests, scorns the faithful who are concerned with following Church teaching as “rigid” or “Pharisees” or “Neo-Pelagians” or “doctors of the law”, fires three priests working at one of his most important dicasteries without cause, publicly accuses sexual abuse victims of calumny without even meeting with them to hear their concerns, all the while touting his own humility. (He is in fact so frequently engaged in insulting people that he has inspired a compendium of his many unique barbs and epithets.)
I am very far from being a saintly man. So far, in fact, that I wonder if I can ever bridge the wide chasm between who I am and who I need to be. But if there is any man on this planet less capable of helping me to find my way there than, as one priest-friend of mine calls him, “that man in Rome”, I can’t imagine who he’d be. A wolf cannot be trusted to lead the sheep to safe pastures — especially when he is garishly decked out in the garb of a shepherd.
Therefore, to be perfectly blunt, I’m in no hurry to read this latest missive, which, at nearly 20,000 words, is absolutely sparse compared to his previous writings, but over four times longer than my patience will allow. I know I will most likely be forced to discuss it at length over the coming months, but I’m putting it off.
For now, I would much rather spend my time writing about things that have some meaning in our lives beyond the latest papal outrage of the day. It is exhausting to keep up with his constant, clamoring demand for attention, like the incessant clanging of a gong.
It will no doubt contain certain passages of authentic Catholic wisdom, which will be used by papal positivists to bludgeon those critics who will zero in on the “drops of poison” Pope Leo XIII warned us about.
I’m already hearing from friends and colleagues who, in a spirit of mortification (or perhaps morbid curiosity) are already poring over the thing, and they say it’s riddled with all the same kind of cringeworthy word salad, problematic theology, and needless degradations we’ve come to expect from our papal chastisement. As the brilliantly satirical mind behind the Twitter account of the “Vatican Postmaster” informed us last night:
Vatican Post Office
@CaproEspiatori
When it come to the environment, Pope Francis leads by example. He so concerned about recycling, he makes an entire Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate out of recycled homilies and insults. Nothing go to waste.
The one passage I know I can recommend, pointed out to me by a European friend who got hold of an early copy, is this:
161. Hence, we should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable. The devil does not need to possess us. He poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice. When we let down our guard, he takes advantage of it to destroy our lives, our families and our communities. “Like a roaring lion, he prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).
[IMH-BEB-O, that is, in my humble but extremely biased opinion, the devil has already devoured the man on Peter's Chair, or perhaps more correctly, has taken him over totally, now acting and speaking through him and in him and with him.]
Thank you, Holy Father. I appreciate your acknowledgement of our work — although, I do wonder where you think the devil lives, what with hell not being a real place.
Best response I've seen so far to Gaud-Ex, and I love Eccles's 'Goad and Insult' cross-lingual wordplay on the title.
Gaudete et Exsultate:
Goad and insult
April 10, 2018
This is the latest instalment in our "How to be a good Pope" series, and explains how you can issue a Call to Holiness, while at the same time settling a few scores.
Five years into your reign, things may not be going too well. Your great work Appassionata Erotica was not received as enthusiastically as you had hoped, and you have a pile of unanswered dubia, filial corrections, letters, e-mails, etc. to deal with. Why, they've even organized a conference in Rome with the theme: "Is Pope Fred bonkers, or simply thick?" This is supposed to deal with some doctrinal questions in as tactful a way as possible.
Also, some cheeky blighter has written a book called The Megalomaniac Pope. You don't intend to read it, but you have a feeling that those skilled in textual analysis may detect traces of criticism in it.
Pausing only to phone up Booze-lager, your man in the Order of Malta, asking him to put a live scorpion in a certain author's bed [suspended Malta knight Henry Sire, author of The Dictator Pope], you rush off to write your exhortation "Goad and Insult". This contains:
1. Some recycled stuff from previous speeches, homilies, rants, interviews with Scalfari, etc.
2. Some attacks on straw men, which your spin-doctor Fr Spidero will interpret as referring to Burke, Sarah, Pope Benedict XVI, St Paul, Jesus, and various other people who have offended you.
3. A huge dossier contributed by Spidero, which proves that you are holy and nobody else is.
Now, the two heresies you are most found of mentioning - a complete mystery to 99% of Catholics including yourself - are Gnosticism and Pelagianism. So mutter in dark tones that some people are guilty of these ancient heresies. It's far more serious than abortion (and anyway, your friend Emma Banana has asked you to go easy on that one from now on).
Perhaps for a change you could accuse your critics of Triclavianism. This is a medieval heresy that three, rather than four, nails were used to crucify Christ and that a Roman soldier pierced Him with a spear on the left, rather than right side (unless someone on Wikipedia has been having a little joke).
You've disagreed with your predecessors. Next, disagree with your successors. Now, the biggest thorn in your side at present is probably that African chap with the girl's name. Let's call him Cardinal Sally. He's very fond of Silence, and has written a whole book about it. This goes against everything you stand for - why, you can't keep silent for more than 30 seconds at a time - so attack Silence.
Who are silent? Nuns. Right, let's take a kick at the nuns. You might even start a new order, the Pope Fred Order of Screaming Nuns, who are forbidden ever to remain silent.
You might also want to take a kick at the Vatican librarian, who shushed Spadaro when he started singing Italian drinking songs in the Sex-and-Shopping section. That'll teach her!
Anyway, you get the idea. Offend as many faithful Catholics as you can - call them obsessive, absorbed and punctilious if they try to keep the commandments - while pointing out that you alone are truly holy. As long as James Martin, Massimo Faggioli, and Austen Ivereigh praise you, nobody else matters!
Wish I could deal with every Bergoglian outrage with as much humor and wit!
It is no surprise that the initial takehome message of the secular media - and therefore of the global public opinion they shape - from Gaud-Ex was Bergoglio's unequivocal elevation of his indiscriminate migration credo to the same canonical standing as the Catholic Church's teaching against abortion. LIFESITE rounds up the major initial reactions so far.
World media see new Bergoglio document
as a'rebuke to anti-abortion activists'
by Claire Chretien
April 10, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A number of prominent media outlets noticed how sharply Pope Francis veered from the positions of his predecessors by labeling immigration as important of an issue as abortion in his new exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate.
And leftist clerics and Church observers, like Father James Martin, S.J., celebrated the exhortation for its jabs at pro-life, doctrine-supporting Catholics.
“Caring for migrants and the poor is as holy a pursuit as opposing abortion, Pope Francis declared in a major document issued by the Vatican on Monday morning,” Jason Horowitz at the New York Times began. “Pushing back against conservative critics within the church who argue that the 81-year-old pope’s focus on social issues has led him to lose sight of the true doctrine, Pope Francis again cast himself, and the mission of the Roman Catholic Church, in a more progressive light.”
“To answer God’s call to holiness, Christians must care for the poor, the sick and the immigrant just as they care for preventing abortion, Pope Francis wrote in his latest major guidance to the Catholic Church, published Monday,” the Washington Post summarized.
Both of those liberal outlets pointed to the passages in the exhortation where Pope Francis criticizes the “harmful ideological error” of those who dismiss the importance of the “social engagement of others,” such as in immigration or service of the poor.
They “find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist,” the pontiff wrote. “Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend.”
Migration shouldn’t be seen as a “secondary” or “lesser” issue to “‘grave’ bioethical questions,” Pope Francis continued, suggesting the people who say that are like politicians “looking for votes.”
CNN called this “a pointed rebuke to Catholic anti-abortion activists who focus on the issue to the exclusion of all others” and a rebuke of “narrow-minded Catholics.” Its article mentioned Cardinal Raymond Burke as one of the pope’s “principal critics,” noting Catholics are concerned about Pope Francis “trying to open up Catholic teaching.”
The New York Times used its article to say the pontiff has elevated the “plight” of migrants to “global attention perhaps more than any other issue.” [A militantly pro-active advocacy that totally ignores the havoc already wrought in Europe by Islamic elements intent on establishing Muslim supremacy in Europe in the very near future. But the fact is that media cannot ignore reporting on that havoc everytime it happens, and it happens far more often than Bergoglio has occasion to hype his indiscriminate-immigration line, in which he increasingly sounds like the maddening needle-stuck-in-the-groove endless replays on an old-fashioned phonograph. By sheer force of numbers (in terms of incidents and of victims), the arrogant murderous mania of jihadists will always make more headlines than Bergoglio mumbling his irrational mantras in behalf of Muslims. One might almost say thank God for that, were the crimes not so appalling and the innocent victims piling up relentlessly in what is building up to be a Muslim-caused holocaust of not just non-Muslim victims but their own fellow Muslims who may happen to be in the way of one of their killing rampages.]
The leading liberal newspaper called the document “a distilled expression of Francis’s vision of the church, which is consistent with a view articulated by Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin, the archbishop of Chicago who died in 1996, and who called for a ‘consistent ethic of life’ that wove issues of life and social justice into a ‘seamless garment.’”
It then took Pope Francis's use of the phrase “church militant” – which in Catholic theology simply means the Church on Earth, with the “church suffering” being the souls in purgatory and the “church triumphant” being those in heaven – to call the news website Church Militant a “fringe Catholic website.”
The Times also quoted a Muslim refugee, pushed by the Vatican as available for interviews, as celebrating the pope’s declaration that migration is just as important of an issue as abortion.
“Francis does not use the term, but he clearly favors a ‘seamless garment of life’ approach to these issues,” liberal Villanova Professor Massimo Faggioli wrote at Commonweal magazine. [The sad and reprehensible fact is that Bergoglio and all his bleeding-heart followers have obviously not thought at all of the immense, near-impossible yet completely unwarranted consequences of their cause in terms of costs on the governments of Europe and all European citizens-by-right-and-history. No one could contemplate it and not be appalled - yet Bergoglio and his minions seem to be completely oblivious to the practical aspects attendant to their cause. How dare they choose to feign blissful ignorance of all such consequences?]]
Despite its liberal slant, CNN gave relatively fair treatment to comments Pope Francis allegedly made to a leftist, atheist journalist during Holy Week denying the existence of hell.
“The Vatican issued a vague denial, leaving some to question the true position of the Pope,” CNN continued. It picked up on a subtle distinction that has been a feature of some of the pope’s recent comments: saying that the devil is real but casting doubt on whether anyone is actually in hell with him.
“While Francis does not address the question of hell in his new document, he makes clear that he believes the devil exists and is at work in our world.”
An article from The Independent got the gist of the exhortation right – it puts immigration on par with abortion – but then displayed extreme ignorance about Catholicism by claiming in 2016, Pope Francis “gave Catholic priests the power to forgive abortions.”
Pope Francis extended priests’ ability to forgive abortions without canonical obstacles, something that was already in place in most parts of the world.
The Independent, too, though, highlighted the parts of Gaudete et Exsultate that say the defense of pre-born babies must be on equal footing with defending “the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned.”
It also quoted the quickly-becoming-infamous section decrying the “harmful ideological error” of seeing others’ “social engagement” as “superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist.”
Joanna Rothkopf at the feminist site Jezebel celebrated the parts of the exhortation that mention “harmful ideological error” and migration as on par with “grave” bioethics issues.
“The Pope immediately loses me with his full-throated, iconically Catholic defense of the unborn, sure, but that second part feels good,” Rothkopf wrote, referencing the following sentence:
Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.
She called the exhortation “a righteous subtweet of America’s allegedly Christian (but not Catholic!) Republican party, which will surely be triumphantly mangled, misinterpreted, or outright rejected with a #NotMyPope.” [A subtweet is a subtle, passive aggressive dig at another.]
Two prominent figures on American pro-life scene found the exhortation confusing and nonsensical. [Doesn't that describe much of the blather coming from this energy-bunny yackety-yak-machine of a pope?]
“Pope Francis is not only a religious leader, but is also the ruler of a sovereign state, Vatican City,” mused Rob Dreher at The American Conservative. “If he really believes what he is saying, let him open the gates of Vatican to as many migrants as want to come. Let him offer permanent residency to them, and provide them and their families with financial assistance.” He continued:
If you are a European Christian, you are living in a post-Christian, unbelieving society (the Poles are an exception), a society in which your children will face great hardship in practicing the faith, and their children’s children may have an even more difficult time.
How should you regard flinging to doors open wide to Muslim migrants, who are bearers of an alien religion and culture? The Pope gives no guidance, except to imply that you are a bad Christian for asking that question (“the only proper attitude”).
When Pope Francis invites migrants to turn St. Peter’s Square into a permanent camp, then he will be true to his principles, and lead by example. If he won’t do that, then he and his supporters should reflect on why he’s not doing so, and what it might say about his own sentimentalism and double standards.
Anyway, I cannot grasp why the claim an economic migrant makes on a nation, asking it to grant him the right to live there, as he desires to do, is on the same moral level as the claim an unborn child makes on the community: to permit him the right to live, period.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said Gaudete et Exsultate “blurs lines and causes confusion” about the moral severity of abortion.
“It is impossible to equate the moral weight of abortion – the direct killing of innocent unborn children occurring on a daily massive scale, here in America and abroad – with any other social justice issue,” said Dannenfelser. “The right to live predates or precludes every other right. It is simple logic. Without the fundamental right to life, no debate can even begin on the rights that follow.”
She continued:
The Catholic Church has long taught that abortion is an intrinsic evil that must always be opposed. [The exhortation] by Pope Francis confirms this when he says “Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.” We all affirm the absolute dignity of the migrants and those suffering from poverty. How we solve these issues are matters of prudential judgment on which Catholics can disagree. Today’s exhortation blurs lines and causes confusion.”
Carl E. Olsen at Catholic World Report presented an incisive analysis of the exhortation, focusing on parts that seemed to insult and “take aim” at Catholics with whom Pope Francis disagrees.
Olsen noted some parts of the document affirm Catholic teaching: “the best parts of the exhortation are those summarizing or revisiting the Church’s core beliefs about holiness, sainthood, and the spiritual life.” [Oh, that's easy enough to do. It's also a necessary cover and diversionary tactic. Just as in AL, Bergoglio and his writers mined what they could agree with in Catholic teaching about marriage and the family to provide the thick and fuzzy frosting masking the anti-Catholic arsenic bomb in Chapter 8 of AL, it's even easier to compile texts about holiness from the Church's history of all the known saints and martyrs. Should we praise Bergoglio and Spadaro for that? And what use is citing all that when in the same breath, one spews invectives at those one disagrees with or who disagree with you?]
Olsen noted that homosexuality-pushing Jesuit Father James Martin seemed “giddy” at the portions of the exhortation that the priest says are “taking aim at Catholics with ‘an obsession with the law, an absorption with social and political advantages [and] a punctilious concern for the Church's liturgy, doctrine and prestige.’”
“Martin’s rather giddy Tweet [on the exhortation] carried a strong whiff of ‘giving them what they had coming,’” Olsen wrote. “Would (or should) a papal text on holiness really ‘take aim’ at certain Catholics? Meanwhile, in an online piece for America magazine about the ‘top five takeaways’ from the papal text, Martin explained that the first key point is ‘Holiness means being yourself.’ And what if I’m someone who has a ‘punctilious concern’ for the Church’s liturgy and doctrine? What then?”
(One also wonders: Does Fr. Martin think pedophile priests should just “be themselves”?) [My immediate reaction was: "So Bergoglio being himself is holiness incarnate???" Hitler, Stalin, Mao, all the most notorious evil geniuses in the history of mankind were' being themselves' - does that mean they were all holy? Something about Beroglianism softens brains and scrambles them up, so that 2+2 can be any sum you want it to be except the right one!]
Veteran Vaticanista Sandro Magister offered readers of his blog a biting critique of the new exhortation.
“On his objectors within the Church, Francis sketches in ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’ a profile that is prejudicially dismissive,” Magister observed.
“Curiously, however, the day on which Francis put his signature to ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’ was March 19,” the feast of St. Joseph, Magister concluded. “But it was also the final day of the ‘Viganò saga,’ the most colossal piece of ‘fake news’ fabricated so far by the pontificate of Francis, and moreover at the expense of his innocent predecessor, Benedict XVI.”
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/04/2018 03:12]