Fr. Hunwicke, one of the original 40 signatories of the Correctio, has called attention to a series of posts on the subject by Fr. Ray Blake, about which he writes: " Fr Ray, by publishing his frank and extensive account of the current atmosphere in Jorge Bergoglio's Church, has probably done more good than he could have achieved by merely wielding his signature. Thank you, Father."
To sign or not to sign
Sept. 28, 2017
I have been asked to sign the Filial Correction, I signed the letter of the 45 academics and pastors last year, and almost immediately found Cardinal Nichols's tanks parked on my lawn to inform me of his displeasure - which was quite mild unlike other lay signatories, who were sacked from their jobs in Catholic institutions for their pains, Dr. Josef Seifert being the most high profile.
I admit it, I am afraid to sign and I know other priests who share my fear. Many of those who might have signed have in the last four years have a certain fear about their place in the Church.
Rome and those surrounding the Pontiff have certainly become more vicious in defending him, never ever engaging in intellectual arguments, merely attacking like ravenous wolves or child bullies those who pose questions. The climate is bad throughout the Church - in Rome it is positively toxic.
Under Francis the Vatican has become a place of fear and arbitrary oppression. There was a public glimpse of that in the sacking of Cdl Mueller by the Pope, and earlier in the dismissal of a couple of priests from the CDF and amongst laymen, of Libero Milone, former Auditor General and many others.
It is not just in theology that 2+2=5, or whatever number the Pope chooses that day, it extends to morality and ordinary human decency. Ultimately it is a serious attack on the rationality of the Catholic faith and intellectual rigour.
The abusive attacks on any one who asks legitimate filial questions or even of people like Cardinal Burke and the other Dubia Cardinals or even Cardinals Sarah or Mueller by the likes of Austen Ivereigh, Rosica or Spadaro merely echo the statements of the notoriously immoderate Cardinal Maradiaga the senior member of the Pope's Council of Nine, or the shocking insults always aimed at faithful Catholics by the Pope himself. Let us not even go to the shenanigans and manipulations surrounding the Synods on the Family.
The men who rule the Church are not even in the worldly sense good. As the former Prefect of the CDF has said
"power has become more important than truth". It would be easy to dwell on the gay chem-sex parties hosted in the Vatican City itself and the advancement of those with a gay agenda, which produces apparently no reaction, not even a dismissal.
In the matter of financial mismanagement and corruption, there appears to be window dressing masking inaction. John Allen seems to think this is the big issue above others. In fact, maybe because Francis centralises and 2+2 = whatever he decides, many in Rome suggest things have never been worse - a 'kingdom of brigands' as one former Nuncio described it.
Dioceses are not Rome but they do reflect Rome: Cardinals and bishops intimidate clergy and others who are faithful. If Francis has done anything it is to highlight a deep rift in the Church, marked by the quite extraordinary rise of an Ultramontane/Liberal faction against those who are faithful.
Therefore, one of the chief reasons for my reticence in signing is my fear and cowardice.
Another reason is that I, like any other Catholic, have a deep reverence for the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, it is not Ultramontane and unquestioning but I have a problem in directly accusing him of heresy or of promoting it, or even of tolerating it. Some might say the evidence is overwhelming, I can't dispute that but there is a bit of me that hopes against hope, because frankly having a Pope who is heretical, promoting or tolerating heresy is so horrific for the Church I would prefer to put off admitting it.
i Feel more comfortable with that idea that the Pope is weak, ill, manipulated by his ministers. Certainly, the days of John Paul inadvertently misspeaking and ordering the destruction of whole editions of L'Osservatore are long gone with the coming of the internet.
I admire those who have signed, a friend who has signed said the question is WWSJFSTMD, What Would St John Fisher and St Thomas More Do?
At the moment I am like the majority of the priests I know, who remain silent and praying that the question is not put to them,
I know it is not worthy of Christ, conscience says one thing; fear and self-serving, what some might call prudence, says something else.
September 30, 2017
I was speaking to a brother priest, another who is deeply concerned about the state of the Church today, the bullying, and turning away from the plain teaching of Jesus Christ and scripture. He said he too was asked to sign the Correctio, he hadn't because he simply didn't have time to read Amoris Laetitia.
He said that although St John Paul had written some long documents, Amoris Laetitia was as long as all the existing Papal documents up to the reign of St John Paul. It is true. It took me over two weeks to read AL whereas Humanae Vitae can be read in less than an hour, Pastor Aeternus in half that time. My friend, deeply aware of the need for intellectual rigour, said that he thought the great problem for him was that
parts of it were incoherent. [I have always favored that adjective to describe the 'thinking' of Jorge Bergoglio as evidenced by both his off-the-cuff as well as prepared texts. He confuses and muddles others because he himself is confused and muddled, to begin with. His unfailing bravado does not at all mask his incoherence.
I suspect many of our Pastors, even Cardinals, simply haven't read this document either and yet promote what "they understand" the document to say, or what their Episcopal Conference says it says, or what their favourite 'Catholic' newspaper, or heaven preserve us, of what the noisiest journalist says. It is similar to Benedict's remark about the two Councils - the Council of the media and the true Council.
The Pope encourages this sloppiness by referring people who question its meaning to Cardinal Graf von Schönborn or 'Tucho' or some obscure Conference of Bishops, like Malta. The situation isn't helped when it appears that the Pope himself might actually not comprehend, or even have studied what has been written for him and what the problems are - when questioned on the controversial footnote he actually replied that he couldn't remember it. I would like to quiz a few prelates on the Thomism of the document.
I am sure all the signatories of the Filial Correction have read AL. What concerns me is whether those who have expressed themselves online both for and against it have done so or even possess a copy.
I can understand many without a theological formation who are seriously uneasy about the political, theological, intellectual or even the sartorial (maybe 'style' might be a better term) direction the Pope is taking the Church. This should not be treated lightly, it is part of the
sensus fidelium - the gut instinct of the Church, which is often ignored (churches, convents, seminaries being empty is one sign of it).
What I am trying to say is that just because someone like my friend has not signed the Filial Correction does not mean he is against it. He would certainly support those who have signed, but more is desired for formally and publicly correcting a Pope or another Successor of the Apostles than mere fellowship or even a gut instinct.
The Church of Jesus Christ is not a mob.
The great flaw of Pope Francis is that rather than gathering the flock he is scattering it, sending many to wander in the desert or run away in confusion and fear.
There is another aspect best seen in the Mueller/Burke take on the matter: Burke sees the error as needing corrected by the Church's law NOW, Mueller by the Church's theology LATER (probably the next Pontificate, but both agree there is a problem. What they disagree on is the method by which it is to solved.
Despite not signing the Dubia, I suspect many Cardinals want it answered and feel the Church is suffering until it is. However, that does not mean they are willing to condemn the Pope publicly, though they might be very glad that Cdl Burke and the three have done so, just to show there is a problem. Perhaps they reasonably feel they will act in the next Conclave in the not so distant future rather than today.
Oct. 4, 2017
Reconciling our today with yesterday, seems important. The Fourth Commandment, with its promise is important: Honour your father and mother, and you shall live long in the land, is about much more than being nice to mum and dad - it is about roots and continuation. A society that forgets iat past has no future.
The leitmotif of Benedict XVI's papacy was the 'hermeneutic of continuity', a return to actual texts, whether it was to the scriptures or the documents of the Vatican II. There was an intellectual rigourism which frightened many. He was disarming with his gentleness whilst at the same time terrifying in his intellectual honesty, which often discomforted the intellectually shallow, for example, his words about the Missa Normativa, that it was "created ex nihil" [out of nothing].
He believed in the triumph of truth, the Augustinian in him echoed the saint's words. ‘The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.’
Some, both positively and negatively, have suggested that his greatest work was
Summorum Pontificum, I don't think he intended that every priest or even every parish would be offering what he described as the Gregorian Mass and certainly not that it would replace the
Missa recentior. What he did intend was to create an environment in which, "What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too."
It was a reminder of where we had come from, an attempt to provide something "created ex nihil",essentially 'rootless', 'often without much scholarship - with a counterbalance, and introduce a gravitational pull towards historic Catholicism, not by imposition from above but by creating a grassroots movement.
The greatest abuse of the faith for Benedict was the idea of 'rupture' - that somehow, after Vatican II, a new Church was sung into being, or that the Church somehow encountered a Pol Pot-like 'year zero' with no past and consequently no roots and, in his opinion, therefore incapable of bearing fruit and consequently with no future.
One of the 'semi-official' news agencies Rome Reports (is Mr Greg Burke involved in that?) actually claimed that the signatories of the Correctio 'rejected the Second Vatican'. Whilst I have difficulty interpreting the actual meaning of certain ambiguous passages, I would be inclined to sign the Correction precisely because I accept VII.
I am not sure about the wisdom of Bishop Fellay's name on it, personally I am glad it is, but
even he says he accepts 98% of the Council, which is probably a lot more than your average Prelate both in Rome and in the peripheries.
A few of the names, like Dr Joseph Shaw's, are very much associated with the Traditional Mass, bur more so concerned with the truth itself, "What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too."
It isn't about a prissy archaeologist's attachment to a certain liturgical style but about the immutability of Christ's teaching and divine promises of God's presence within the Church and within history.
Massimo Faggioli rather starkly underlines the problem:
The phrase "theologiocal views that are not Catholic anymore", stands in direct opposition to any thought of 'continuity' and direct opposition to all earlier generations considered sacred.
On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” - it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.
Faggioli would would place himself alongside those who would claim, like the Maltese Bishops or recent appointees to the College of Cardinals such as Blaise Cupich, that all the previous teaching of the Church can be dispensed with except the current Pontiff's. The words of the present Jesuit Superior General express the real problem:
At that time, no one had a tape recorder to capture the words. What we know is that the words of Jesus have to be contextualized, they’re expressed in a certain language, in a precise environment, and they’re addressed to someone specific.
Sosa is right about the importance of contextualising Jesus' words, what is said to the Apostles is not necessarily to be applied to other disciples for exampl. But Sosa goes further by suggesting that the actual words and teaching of Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity, are not to be taken at face value or are even reliable.
This is an undermining of the very essence of Catholicism which is about the immanence of God through the Incarnation, through the sacred texts, through the sacraments, through sacred history and through the authoritative teaching of the Church, by the one who promises to be with his Church until the end of time, who won't leave us orphans but will send the Holy Sprit to lead us into all truth.
The patristic scholar Bishop Athanasius Schneider identifies the situation in the Church as being comparable to the Arian Crisis:
Arianism was essentially about distancing Man from God by denying that the True God became Emmanuel that is Incarnate of the Blessed Virgin. This seems precisely where we have got to.
Marco Tosatti weighs in on the subject of fear in the Vatican...
Abbe Faria now fears going to the Vatican – and
Cardinal Mueller describes the Bergoglio-induced
climate of fear in the Church
Translated from
Oct. 6, 2017
‘Abate Faria’, who takes his pseudonym from a character in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, is one of Tosatti’s correspondents who have entrée to the Vatican and ‘sources’ within…
After a strange period of silence, 'Abate Faria' has written me again. I had been a bit concerned about his silence but now I understand. Read what he says:
In these days of fraternal corrections and such, I have not been going around my usual haunts in the Vatican too much to avoid encountering brother priests and listening to their lamentations for and against our august Pontiff. There is chaos in Rome and the Vatican seems like Fort Apache. I am very cautious even with my brother priests and avoid taking selfies with them for fear of finding myself one day in a newspaper photograph next to a priest being investigated for some misconduct, because it seems that not a day goes by that a priest or bishop does not end up in crime news.
I am sorry for the pope. If I could talk to him, I would tell him what so many well-meaning souls whisper to me in confidence: that the reform of the clergy is truly a priority. If he is as clever as he says he is, let him take a look at the working conditions in his Vatican – and he will note that a fraternal atmosphere does not reign there. On the contrary.
Of course, not everywhere, and of course, there are good persons, but there are also those, including priests, with unbridled arrogance. In some Vatican agencies, there are many cauldrons boiling… and boiling…And the pope should not trust in anyone who has interests to protect or has his own lobby cause, whether geographical, political, masonic or sexual. (Can such people really be reined in?)
Quite clear, yes? Bravo for the Abate! Allow me to add a passage from an interview by the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin with Cardinal Gerhard Mueller about the climate one inhales today and since the reign of this pope. I have written about it many times, noting that in so many years of frequenting the Vatican and its surroundings, I have never perceived anything like it. And I am sorry to say that alas, the responsibility can be attributed to the pope’s governing style. I am happy that the cardinal, who is loyal to this pope, says it quite clearly:
Careerists and opportunists should not be promoted, and other persons, who are competent workers and team men, should not be excluded or expelled from the Curia without reason. It is not good. I have heard it said that those who work in the Roman Curia live in great fear – because if they so much as say a small innocuous word of criticism, spies pass this on directly to the Holy Father, and those who are falsely accused have absolutely no chance to defend themselves.
Those who speak ill and tell lies about their co-workers ruin all good faith in relationships as well as the names of those they continue to call ‘brothers’. The Gospel and Jesus’s very words are very strong against those who denounce their brothers falsely and create an ugly atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. Now I feel that no one dares to speak out in any way, that everyone has some fear that they could be objects for ‘espionage’…
Pentin commented: “A veteran prelate, speaking to me on condition of anonymity, has called it ‘a reign of terror’… Mueller replied:
It’s the same situation in some theological faculties. If anyone has any critical observations or ‘problems’ with Amoris Laetitia, he gets expelled, or otherwise disciplined…
Also, a certain interpretation of AL footnote 351 cannot be the criterion for choosing bishops. A bishop must be a witness to the Gospel, he is a successor to the apostles, and not just someone who repeats some words from one papal document without having any mature theological understanding.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/10/2017 22:47]