ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI
It's amazing that this pontificate is increasingly brazen in 'dealing with' dissidents from the Bergoglio church and party line...
Repression of Catholic speech
by this pontificate - and
what we can do about it
November 7, 2018
Right now we are told that transparency and dialogue are important. When the 2018
Synod (“walking together”) opened, Francis called for openness, dialogue, even criticism, saying,
“all (should) speak with courage and parrhesia (candour), that is combining freedom, truth and charity…. Only dialogue can help us grow. Honest and transparent criticism is constructive and helps, while useless chatter, rumours, innuendo or prejudice don’t.” He is so pat with all these platitudes he does not mean, so let us judge him by what he said above: While he suffers from irrepressible loquacity and verbosity about anything he chooses to talk about, he clams up and muzzles himself tighter than a chastity belt on a medieval virgin when it comes to things he cannot answer without lying or risking self-incrimination. And as to the content of his 'parrhesia', there is often little courage or genuine candour in it, and often, very little truth and charity, but as much freedom as an absolute monarch has. Moreover, much of his informal off-the-cuff remarks are often 'useless chatter, rumours, innuendo and prejudice. So he fails his own 'standards' miserably!]
A few items to consider:
First, the final document of the 2018
Synod (“walking together”) indicated that it could be necessary to impose a kind of approval standard on Catholic websites. In the present regime, I think we know what that means.
Next, it seems that
Francis has communicated through the Nuncio in the USA that bishops should “blackball” Card. Burke.
Also, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has been told that he shouldn’t be outside the Archdiocese of Astana (Kazakhstan) and/or he must communicate to the Secretariat of State where he might go.
One of the things that just popped into my head is a horrifying episode from history.
In the 1950s, Mao Zedong called for Chinese intellectuals of the time to share their criticisms so that there could be flourishing of the ‘ongoing revolution’. Mao quoted a poem saying, “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend”. What happened was predictable. Intellectuals spoke up and they were, subsequently, crushed.
Historians are divided about Mao’s intentions: Did he set a trap? It seems so.
One is reminded also of Thrasybulus and the Tall Poppies.
[Being near-illiterate on the Greek classics, I had to look this up: Thrasybulus was a 7th century BC Greek tyrant who illustrated his concept of ruling by cutting off the tallest wheat plants in a field he was walking through. The 'Tall Poppy' syndrome means removing or sidelining anyone who might be big enough to challenge the tyrant.]
When the
Synod (“walking together”)
brought forth the final document, they force-marched the multi-lingual voters paragraph by paragraph through texts provided only in Italian.
[And they called that 'transparency!]
We may need – before too long – a Catholic “samizdat” movement.
Here’s an idea. Let’s imagine something for a moment:
Someone (don’t know who) creates a company/foundation which can raise money to provide
- super fast internet for certain figures who are or will be repressed or not allowed to travel
- good camera, microphone and tech assistance to the same
- big screen and necessary tech for two way video conferencing on an ad hoc basis for long distance AV conferences.
I don’t know if I got my point across with that. Here’s the idea: Say that Bp. Schneider is stuck in Astana because the Secretariat of State commands him not to leave to go to the Diocese of Black Duck at the invitation of Bp. Noble and Msgr. Zuhlsdorf to pontificate and to speak. Instead, the benevolent foundation/company provides faster than usual internet to Bp. Schneider, and then to Black Duck, so that Bp. Schneider can deliver a high-quality stream of his talk and even take questions ,etc. It could be made live and then on demand.
Get my idea?
I’m just thinking in print. Of course this sort of thing could also be used for bring great people and their ideas to places which ordinarily wouldn’t be reachable.
Perhaps some of you who are far more tech-savvy than I am will have ideas.
Samizdat.
[The Russian term for the dissident activity across the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. Internet technology has made this a far easier enterprise with immediate global reach in our day.]
A day earlier, Fr Z had noted this:
First, Italian Vaticanista Marco Tosatti says that Francis, through the US Nuncio, is telling bishops not to invite Card. Burke to their dioceses, and if they can’t prevent his presence, not to attend the event.
Another story was that the Holy See had forbidden the great Bishop. Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary in Astana, to travel. It seems, however, that they have only told him not to be outside of his diocese – except for necessary meetings of conferences, etc. – for more than the designated 30 days (can. 395 §2).
The last thing they [the Bergoglio Vatican] want is the circulation of certain ideas.
George Orwell wrote that some pigs are more equal than others.
It would be interesting to start a Bishop Watch effort. I wonder how many days bishops such as Card. Maradiaga or Cupich are outside their dioceses.
The page change occurred inopportunely because the last post on the preceding page illustrated an earlier brazen action by the Bergoglio Vatican to muzzle dissent from the pope... So I am reposting it here:
Vatican pressures publisher to 'restrict'
future editions of Valli's book in the Vigano case
by Juliana Freitag
November 5, 2018
An Italian author has just published a volume detailing the work of whistleblower Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò — but Church officials have pressured the publishing company to restrict future editions so as to protect Pope Francis' image and reputation.
At the end of October, renowned Vatican expert Aldo Maria Valli announced the release of his latest book,
Il caso Viganò — Il dossier che ha svelato il più grande scandalo all’interno della Chiesa ("The Viganò case — the dossier which unveiled the Church’s greatest internal scandal"). The book is a compilation of all of Valli’s articles about the astounding testimonies of former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States and titular archbishop of Ulpiana Abp. Viganò.
From Viganò's first statement alleging Pope Francis covered up for ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to Valli's account of his private meetings with the former nuncio, the book is an attempt to document these turbulent events, as described by Viganò, for posterity.
The book's introduction is a revised version of the commentary Valli exclusively offered to Church Militant laying bare his reasons to enter this battle for truth. (The only important text missing is Viganò's third testimony, made public on October 19, also through Valli's blog — one day before the book’s official release.)
Valli is one among several Italian journalists personally contacted by Viganò to help publish his letters, along with Marco Tosatti and print newspaper La Verità. Valli remains in contact with the archbishop and has many times presented Viganò's commentary about his personal struggle to help expose a corrupt power system in the Church hierarchy.
Church Militant reached out to Valli to ask him about the significance of putting down in a book his experience with Viganò and his attempts to blow the whistle on clerical corruption.
Viganò's memorial, however one decides to judge it, constitutes a historical fact in the life of the Catholic Church. For the first time an archbishop of such high rank, a diplomat at the service of the Holy See, has come out with revelations on the moral corruption in the hierarchy.
Church historians will have to study these events that we see today as simple news. Therefore I think that the collection of articles I've dedicated to this affair might become useful.
I hope the reader can pick up on my suffering. As Abp. Viganò himself did, I've also decided to come out in the open after much reflection and prayer. Our faith is in danger, and it's our duty to stand up for doctrine and Catholic thought.
About the Vatican's silence on the affair, Valli said:
I don't think we'll have clear-cut answers during this pontificate. Ambiguity is a distinctive trait of the Church these days. I honestly don't know how this is going to end. I have no elements to predict Viganò's future, either. But it certainly saddens me very much to see that a man like him, a true servant of the Church, is forced to live in hiding. It's truly inadmissible, especially in today's Church, where there's so much preaching about "dialogue."
Another of Valli's observations involved the role of independent Catholic media in reporting facts that destroy the false narratives of a press complicit in covering up sex abuse:
Blogs are acquiring a decisive importance for uncontrolled and unconditioned information. At this point I'd say it's counter-information in respect to a certain type of narrative imposed on the public opinion by the major press. As for myself, it's a very beautiful experience, because through my blog I've tightened relationships that give me new connections and new friendships every day. I think it's significant that when Abp. Viganò decided to make his explosive testimony known, he turned to me and other bloggers. Evidently he saw us as an efficient, reliable and credible means, capable of reaching many people while not subject to any conditioning. Communications-wise, this is a moment of deep, very positive, changes.
Those changes are not being ignored by the Roman Curia. Valli spoke to Church Militant days before the release of the final Youth Synod document, which contains an alarming paragraph hinting at possible censorship of Catholic websites not approved by the Vatican.
Paragraph 146 speaks about the creation of "certification systems for Catholic websites, to counter the spread of fake news regarding the Church."
Last year Church Militant was the target of the Jesuit magazine
La Civiltà Cattolica (an article reportedly approved by Pope Francis himself), the only Catholic publication whose contents are reviewed by the Vatican's Secretariat of State, Cdl. Pietro Parolin.
It's also paramount to note that one of the first accomplishments of the much-criticized Vatican media reform was the "Lettergate" scandal, where the prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, "simple-priest-turned-czar" Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, had to resign for doctoring a letter from Benedict XVI supposedly commending the theology of Pope Francis.
And the quasi-totalitarian measures don't stop there: Recently Church Militant learned that Fede & Cultura, the publishing house for Valli's
Il Caso Viganò, was compelled to restrict further editions of the book. It was the first time Valli had worked with Fede & Cultura, whom he called "courageous" for their publishing choices.
Fede & Cultura confirmed with Church Militant that they were put under
"irresistible pressure from within the Church not to publish anything else that would depict the Pope in a bad light." Perhaps Pope Francis’s next surprise motu proprio will announce the reform of the
Index librorum prohibitorum (the "List of Prohibited Books").
Ah, but it turns out the Bergogliacs have come out with an instant book to 'counter' Valli's - and you can bet its publisher is not being pressured by the Vatican to 'restrict further editions'.
'THE DAY OF JUDGMENT: Conflicts, power wars, abuses and scandals. What is really happening in the Church'. The upper righthand blurb says "With exclusive documents and unpublished testimonies on the
Vigano case, and the request for the impeachment [sic] of Pope Francis".
The authors are La Stampa/Vatican Insider journalists Andrea Tornielli (as much an unofficial spokesman of Bergoglio as Fr Spadaro) and Gianni Valente, the male half of the
Vaticanista couple (the wife is Stefania Falasca who writes for Avvenire) who had been friends of Jorge Bergoglio for several years before he became pope.
But go read the Vatican Insider blurb on the book - I can't stomach its crass hypocrisy and smugness.
https://www.lastampa.it/2018/11/06/vaticaninsider/the-pope-vigan-and-the-dossiers-war-the-background-in-a-book-GbjrTHSJeIwdbQzfVSaGAI/pagina.html
Are we to believe that this book will provide the answers that the Vatican has refused to give? What an elaborate and expensive ploy ! And to dispute what exactly?
If they had any answers worth the name, they could have been given short and sweet and promptly - not wait to be published in a book.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/11/2018 22:34]