Sandro Magister lays bare the basic communications tactics of Jorge Bergoglio, whom his admirers make out to be 'the great communicator'. Probably in the way Hitler was, with
disastrous results for the Church. In my imperfect and most politically incorrect analogy (I know it is taboo to compare anyone to Nazis in any way, shape or form, even when specifying
an aspect of comparison), Bergoglio is also his own Goebbels.
Bergoglio is his own spin doctor
And his spin begins with how he chooses
to launch his messages to the world
April 5, 2018
In theory, all the Vatican media should work in concert to transmit to the world a faithful image of the pope
[whoever he is].
But in practice this is not what has been happening
[in this pontificate]. The Vatican press office has carefully kept its distance from the recently failed attempt to exploit a private letter from Benedict XVI, which 'left in the lurch'
[only in a manner of speaking] Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, erstwhile Prefect of the Secretariat for Communications
[its very first], saved from ruin only thanks to the protection of the pope, who really does not want to be deprived of this disastrous “spin doctor” of his.
Even if this pope really communicates with the world almost entirely on his own, without orchestrating anything with anyone. And he does so in at least three ways:
- by saying in public and in person what he wants, without going through any precautionary check or inspection;
- by having others say in public what he says to them in private conversations;
- by promoting persons who say what he himself does not say either in public or in private, but is happy to have said.
In recent days Francis has employed all three of these modalities -
with variously disruptive effects.
[A point his defenders and followers choose not to see: that this pope's behavior is in blatant violation of his task to be the symbol of unity in the Church. Someone who says - even if only casually, or worse, in jest, but knowingly - that "I know I will be known as someone who split the Church", as if it were a point of pride, never mind how his own supposedly beloved Vatican II defined the role of the pope in the Roman Catholic Church.
Bergoglio is the ultimate cafeteria customer of ideas, whether the 'menu' he chooses from is Jesus's teachings according to the Gospels, the subsequent Magisterium of the Church before his pontificate, or even the teachings of Vatican II, of whose 'spirit' he is supposed to be the embodiment ne plus ultra. He only chooses what he likes and what is to his taste, so Bergoglianism is really a compendium of his personal choices from the variegated religious, ideological, social and political offerings the world today has to offer. In which neither Christ in particular or God in general occupies the center, because it is necessarily he, Bergoglio, who does.
I fail to understand how anyone can still claim that this pope is still Catholic even if perforce he has to be at least nominally Catholic since, after all, he was elected to lead the world's Catholics. If one can even say that his exercise of power and authority as he pleases, with disruptive effects, constitutes leadership.]
He used the first modality in is homily last Easter Sunday. He did not read from any written text, but spoke off the cuff, in Italian. And in exalting the great “surprises” that God prepares, in particular with the Resurrection, he expressed himself like this: “To say it a bit in the language of the young people: the surprise [of God] is a low blow” (in italics in the official transcription of the homily).
Except that the expression “low blow” does not belong to youthful language, but to that of boxing.
It designates a punch struck below the belt: prohibited, reprehensible, and disqualifying. A cheap and sneaky shot. Truly a terrible image for illustrating the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, in the Easter homily in Saint Peter’s Square.
The fact is that Francis’s “low blow” remark was a hit in the media. In Italy, it was even used in the headline of an important evening news program.
The second modality was adopted by Francis when, on Tuesday in Holy week, he invited his friend Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the newspaper
La Repubblica and a leading figure of the Italian secular intelligentsia, for one of their now periodic private chats.
[One has to think 'intelligentsia' is a misnomer for pompous pedants who posture and preen their erudition to us lesser mortals who are supposed to regard them in dumbstruck awe! Who do they think they are? Joseph Ratzinger? Who never had to hide his light under a bushel, and who throughout his public life, never had to hunt for headlines because everything he said was worth quoting and reporting, even by his fiercest critics. Except of course by Scalfari who mostly ignored him, probably having the good sense to realize he was out of his depth to engage Ratzinger directly in a battle of ideas.]
In this as in other previous conversations with the pope, Scalfari did not make a recording or take notes. But then he promptly reported what they talked about in his newspaper, here and there retouching Bergoglio's ideas with removals and additions “so that the reader may understand”
[Bergoglio's ideas better], as he himself explained in a press conference after the publication of his first account.
[By which he is also saying that Bergoglio's words and how he expresses himself leave much to be desired in terms of communicating effectively. So Scalfari thinks of himself as some sort of Cyrano de Bergerac dictating the words that he makes his Christian Lafleur-Bergoglio mouth. If Bergoglio did not happen to advocate the secular principles Scalfari and 'the world' stand for, Scalfari would probably be denouncing him as the intellectual poseur that he is! For now, he is only too happy to bask in the gigawatt media spotlights trained relentlessly on the pope.]
And this time he attributed to Francis, among other things, the following statement:
“Evil souls do not go anywhere in punishment. The souls that repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the ranks of the souls that contemplate him, but those that do not repent and therefore cannot be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”
Bombshell news. That same morning, the
Times of London ran the headline: “Pope Francis abolishes hell.” And many publishers around the world did the same. To the point that in the afternoon the Vatican press office had to issue a statement saying that what Scalfari reported “must not be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”
Very bland, as a denial.
Repubblica itself did not publish it
[understandably, even if it is a violation of journalistic ethics] and Scalfari did not comment on it
[also understandably -there certainly as enough time for the Vatican to read Scalfari in on the nondenial denial and ask him to play his part]. He limited himself to confirming to the
New York Times that his meeting with Bergoglio was not an interview, that “I can make mistakes”, but that
in any case, as far as he recalls, the pope truly told him that hell does not exist.
And in effect three times before, after as many conversations, Scalfari had reported that Francis had told him that there is no hell and that wicked souls are not punished but annihilated: on September 21, 2014, on March 15, 2015, and on October 9, 2017. This last time, the pope is alleged to have said more to him, again according to what he has reported: namely, that
not only does hell not exist, but neither do purgatory and heaven. [He did???? Mea culpa. I must admit I have not bothered to read Scalfari's latest 'reconstruction'. It's far worse then than what has been reported so far about it.]
After the first and second of the five conversations between Scalfari and the pope, Fr. Federico Lombardi, at the time the director of the Vatican press office, had warned that caution should be used in regard to the words attributed by the famous journalist to the pope. Subsequently, however, the press office gave up, in a sense, , declining to issue any more statements. If it has intervened again, this is because the affirmation of the nonexistence of hell was for the first time put in direct quotation marks, as if coming from the mouth of the pope.
In any case, it is highly credible
[and probable!] that Francis truly said such things to Scalfari, seeing that the latter had reported the ‘hell statements’ not once but four times in a row, without the pope feeling the need to clarify anything.
[If he really wanted to, how easy it would have been for Bergoglio to, so to speak, have taken the devil by the horn, and in one of his public statements, chosen to say something that would affirm his belief in Jesus’s many warnings about hell. Unless, of course, he would insist that we are not to take Jesus’s statements – and deeds - literally, but symbolically or metaphorically, as Bergoglio tells us that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was not that two loaves and five fishes had literally multiplied to feed 5,000, but that the boy who initially offered the little he had, inspired such a wave of sharing among the multitude who each shared what little they had with their neighbor, which is how a little went a long long way indeed.]
From the United States, the Jesuit Thomas Reese, former editor of
America magazine and a prominent columnist for the
National Catholic Reporter and for the Religion News Service, believed he could refute Scalfari by recalling an affirmative reply from Francis to a girl scout from a Roman parish who on March 8 of 2015 had asked him if hell exists, and why.
But that’s Francis. One time he says that there is a hell, another time he lets it be reported that he said the opposite. It is a tactic of saying and gainsaying that he uses often on the most varied issues. One of his most memorable responses
[in which he covers all the bases] remains that which he gave to the Lutheran woman who asked him if she and her husband, a Catholic, could both receive communion at Mass.
In replying to her the pope said everything: yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out.
Moreover, it must not be overlooked that the idea that hell does not exist has long been held by some in the Church, even at the highest levels. The Jesuit Carlo Maria Martini, a forerunner of the pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio, wrote in the book that acted as his testament:
“I nourish the hope that sooner or later all may be redeemed… On the other hand, I am unable to imagine how Hitler or a murderer who has abused children could be close to God. It is easier for me to think that such people would simply be annihilated.”
One can also assign to the second modality of communication the radio interview given on April 3 to Crónica Anunciada/Radio Cut by Argentine sister Martha Pelloni, an activist for rural women who was nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2005.
Speaking on how to plan births while avoiding recourse to abortion, the sister said:
“Pope Francis said three words to me in this regard: ‘condom, transitory, and reversible,’” meaning, she immediately explained, the diaphragm as transitory, and by the third word, “tubal ligation (which) we recommend to women in the rural areas”. The sister did not say how and when Francis, who has known and admired her for some time, said these things to her.
In public, the pope has never expressed himself the way the sister related.
But it is also clear that he wants to get over the condemnation of contraceptives formulated by Paul VI in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Indeed, he gave a veiled go-ahead to the use of contraceptives in cases of necessity, during the press conference on the flight back from Mexico, on February 17, 2016.
Finally, the third modality of communication dear to this pope involved, in recent days, a Benedictine monk who is among the most widely read psychologists today, the German Anselm Grün.
Last February 15, in conversing behind closed doors with the priests of Rome, as he does every year at the beginning of Lent, Pope Francis recommended that they read a book by Grün - whose affectionate reader he is - describing it as “modern” and “close to us.”
Grün is the same one who in an interview with the
Augsburger Allgemeine on March 30, Good Friday, said that
allowing women to become priests [and shops and even pope] is a “historical process” that “needs time” , “‘the first step now has to be the ordination of women as deaconesses.”
This is of course one of the short-term objectives of this pope, along with the ordination of married men to the priesthood. Eeven if he has yet to express himself, in public or in private
[as far as one can tell], on the subsequent steps of the “historical process” delineated by Grün, to include women priests, bishops, and pope.* But meanwhile,
he has recommended listening to someone who enunciates them as goals to be reached, no matter if these are in stark contrast with the “non possumus” of all the previous popes.
*
[Magister's qualification: Bergoglio has spoken out at least twice on the ordination of women to the priesthood. During the press conference on the flight back from Brazil, on July 28, 2013, he said: “In reference to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says: ‘No.’ John Paul II said so, but with a definitive formula. That is closed, that door.”
And during the press conference on the flight back from Sweden, on November 1, 2016: “On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the last clear word was given by Saint John Paul II, and this remains.”] [Maybe we should look back to what he has told Scalfari on this subject, because 1] I cannot imagine him admitting to Scalfari that ‘the door is closed’ on anything he could do to the Church, because that would ruin Scalfari’s idea of him as the great revolutionary, of which he said recently he felt ‘honored’ to be called; and 2) he did set out systematically and resolutely to countermand St. JPII’s ‘last word’ on communion for remarried divorcees as being no longer appropriate to the times, so who’s to say he will not decide to open the door he now says is closed when and as he pleases?]
[Magister ends his piece with providing links to Scalfari’s accounts of his interactions with Bergoglio as published in Repubblica. “There have been five of these ‘conversations’ so far, but Scalfari has reported on them more than once. Moreover, the first conversation was preceded by an exchange of letters between Scalfari and the pope” with Scalfari publishing an open letter entitled “Questions from a non-believer to the Jesuit pope named Francis” on August 7, 2013, to which Bergoglio replied with a letter published by Scalfari on Sept. 11, 2013, under the title “Open dialog with non-believers”. Scalfari’s headline to his account of their first conversation, published October 1, 2013, was “Pope Francis to Scalfari: ‘This is how I will change the Church’”.]
'Pope Francis told me…
…and I read it on the Internet
so it must be true!'
April 3, 2018
The latest gossip
[not gossip - it is news, with the nun's words documented on a radio show] is that an Argentinian nun says Pope Francis told her that it was okay for women to use various forms of birth control and sterilization.
Surely not, but then again maybe.
Really? But then who can say for sure?
You can’t believe all this stuff, but then again maybe you can.
In his book
To Change the Church, Ross Douthat observes that
this is actually the way Pope Francis works, and the way Jesuits have worked in the past. They chip away and chip away – never quite saying what they mean but never quite denying it either.
You’ll notice this is how James Martin works, for example. He never supports same sex marriage, but then he never condemns it either. If the document doesn’t forbid something they take it as given that it is not only allowed but preferred.
So the pope says something outside the box and everybody gets nervous.
Then the Vatican communications people go into damage control mode and only make things worse.
So let’s assume that the pope really did tell an Argentinian feminist nun that certain forms of birth control are ok.
Then the Communications Office says something bland like, “These words are not necessarily an accurate report of the Holy Father’s exact wording.”
What they don’t do is issue a stout denial like “The Pope never spoke to that woman.” Nor do they issue an unambiguous clarification. Neither do they issue a statement from the pope affirming without doubt that he upholds Catholic doctrine and morals.
As a result more confusion, more doubt, more questions about the pope’s ability, his intentions and his game plan.
Well, maybe there is another angle as well.
It could be that the pope wishes to foster confusion. In other words, he’s being unclear, ambiguous and open ended on purpose. [Ain't that pretty obvious by now to everyone who harbors any common sense at all?]
Over at CRUX, John Allen highlights the pope’s Holy Week speeches and homilies and paints the pope as “the great iconoclast” and
the idol the pope is pushing over and breaking is what he calls the “idol of truth.” [That's supposed to be a matter of pride??? For anyone? 'Yeah, I'm not only the man who will be known as having split the Church, but also the man who papered over Veritatis splendor as if it had never been written!']
More broadly, what we get is a full-blown, oracular statement of Francis’s underlying aim: He’s determined to smash the “truth-idols” he believes have taken hold of both the Church and the wider world, fueling a judgmental “culture of the adjective” that always leads with someone’s failures rather their underlying “faithful truth.”
This idol-smashing drive accounts not only for Amoris, but so much else about this papacy – from the kinds of bishops Francis is appointing, to why he keeps talking to an Italian journalist with a history of playing fast and loose with his words, to his sidelining of Vatican departments which, over the years, have seen their roles precisely as defending “abstract truths,” such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
[It's appalling anyone could write this with a straight face! Allen has obviously committed himself to being a fullfledged apologist for Bergoglio. It probably is one of the Knights of Columbus's demands in return for bankrolling CRUX and keeping it alive.
Is that what the pope is up to? By going back again and again to be interviewed by Scalfari, but making “private” phone calls advising people in irregular marriages to go to communion anyway, to having private conversations allegedly telling Protestants to receive Catholic communion, nuns that contraception is OK and refusing to clarify confusing and ambiguous statements?
OK, I get it. Let’s not cling simply to discursive statements of faith like the creed or the catechism. Let’s not cling to rules and regulations and be all rigid and legalistic. Let’s move beyond these things to a true, personal encounter with Christ and a relationship with God.
Of course the encounter with Christ and the relationship with God is wonderful and good, but for most people the way they get there is by using the doctrines and moral precepts [that God as God the Father or God the Son has himself laid down!] as the ladder to climb on or the map for the journey.
Some people can get obsessed with the ladder and the map, but then we need cartographers and ladder makers too.
Is this really what the pope is up to? If so, then I’m afraid it strikes me as painfully dated. Isn’t this what the bell bottomed priest said in the 70s? “Hey man, you should only really go to Mass because you love Jesus! If you don’t really want to be here. Don’t be here!”
Then when Mass numbers began to plummet the same priest scratched his head and said, “I don’t understand. Why are Mass numbers going down?”
Duh. Because you kept telling them they didn’t need to come to Mass so they didn’t.
The biggest problem with Pope Francis's personal but maybe not so personal phone calls, his private but not really private interviews with ancient atheists, and his private comments to just about anybody anywhere about anything is that eventually fewer and fewer people will take him seriously.
By undermining the “idol of truth” he cuts off the branch he is sitting on. Perhaps one of the “truth idols” he is breaking intentionally is the “infallible pope” truth idol. OK, but in doing so,
he should not be surprised to find that people just don’t listen to him. Why should they? They want the pope to speak the truth, not shift around in the shadows of ambiguity and double speak.
We’re now in a pretty dodgy situation, and I’m not so much worried about the defense of Catholic faith and morals. All that is clearly stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and we don’t need the Pope to be hammering away at it every other day.
The big problem is that Pope Francis’s (and therefore the papacy’s) own authority is undermined. An increasing number of the faithful simply don’t pay attention to either him or the headlines about him, and if the faithful aren’t paying attention you can be sure he doesn’t have much credence among the non-Catholics.
Furthermore, while knowledgable Catholics can dismiss headlines like, “Pope Says No Hell”, you can be sure that our separated brethren read this and write off the Catholic Church as being just like any other liberal Protestant denomination.
They’re not right, but I can understand their reasoning.
All the more reason for Catholics at the local level to up their ante and be more radiantly, positively, joyfully Catholic. Now is the time for some truly dynamic, radical Catholicism to appear.
[In other words, just BE CATHOLICS the way we were raised - in the immutable and steadfast faith of our fathers and forefathers - ignoring anything that does not hew to the truth of that Faith, because the Truth of that faith is Christ himself, not any unfaithful vicar acting blasphemously in his name!]
BTW, you may be wondering why I have not posted anything about atheist Odifreddi's rant against Scalfari and Repubblica on his Repubblica-hosted blog (from which he was promptly fired). It is because in all the 'excitement' about his blogpost, everyone seems to have simply accepted his accusation that Scalfari's reports about Bergoglio have been 'fake news'. It's an example of how everyone tends to misuse this term du jour.
Yet Scalfari's reports about Bergoglio have been genuine news - none of what he alleges in his reconstructions have been denied by the Vatican, which limits itself to saying that the reconstructions do not 'faithfully' represent the pope's own words.] In real life, 'reconstructions' of statements attributed to others, when not coming from an actual transcript [as Fr Sosa says even about Jesus's words reported in the Gospels] rarely are literally faithful, i.e, verbatim, especially when the 'reconstructor' has a tendentious angle and agenda to purvey!
The Bergoglio Vatican has merely told the world: "Yes, the pope did talk to Scalfari about Hell and in the sense Scalfari reports it -it's just that he didn't say it the way Scalfari reconstructed his words". As anyone with commonsense noted instantly, the denial was for the form, not the substance, of Scalfari's report.
So how does Odifreddi - mathematical genius though he may be - get away with calling Scalfari's reports 'fake news', when even the Vatican does not question their veracity? To the point of posting the first Scalfari interview for months on the Vatican website under the section entitled DOCUMENTS, that collates the pope's own documents? Such is Bergoglio's faith in Scalfari as his Boswell stooge to tell the world what he dares not admit directly, but the account of which he will then have inserted as one of his papal documents! (Just one example of Bergoglio's cunning deceit!) Later to be included, of course, in the Vatican's first compendium of all the interviews this loquacious self-indulgent narcissist gave in the first full heady flush of being pope!
I really don't understand why none of those who have breathlessly posted Odifreddi's rant ever questioned his false assertion of 'fake news'!
'Bones' had it right in this photo 'cartoon':
][Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/04/2018 17:55]